The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1913-01-31
IS LAST OF CANNIBAL KINGS
RULER OF AsHANTEE NOW PRIs-
ONER ON ISLAND OF MAIZE.
Joins Three Other Ebony Royalties
There as Political Prisoners. Are
Interesting Personalities.


The Seychelle Isles, off Africa S
Indian seaboard, have of recent
years been turned into a political
prison for those deposed cannibal
| kings whose Kingdoms have, on one
excuse and another, been added TO
the dominions of the British crown.
At present there are three political
prisoners of note on the Island of
Mahe-King Kobanga of Uganda,
King Assibi of the Gold Coast, and
King Primpeh of Ashantee, says the
Last Frontier.
Though all of these ebony royalties
were enthusiastic patrons of the cooJA
ing pot King Prempeh is by far the
most notorious and the most inter
esting personality of the three, for Ii
was his palace at Kumasi that was
built of the skulls and surrounded
by a neat picket fence made from
the leg and arm bones of the people
he and his tribesmen had eaten.
Owing to an error of Judgment in
selecting a British commissioner as
the piece de resistance for one of
his feasts an expedition was sent 70
Ashantee, the country annexed to the
British empire and its ruler forced
to exchange his skull walled palace
in Kumasi for a four-roomed tin
rooted cottage in the outskirts OF
Victoria, the capital of the Sey-
chelles. Here surrounded by the
huts of the chieftains who aa9ompa-
MED him into exile he lives on the
meager pension granted him by the
British government.
Clad in the flaming yellow robe of
red and yellow, which is the West
African equivalent of royal ermine,
worn over pair of very soiled paja-
mas, his majesty received me on the
veranda of his little dwelling in the
presence of the constable who guards
him and who acts as interpreter
when the kings very store of Eng
fish gives out.
Now, l am not an entire stranger
TO the ways of the Lords anointed,
but this audience with Prempeh of
Ashantee was one of the most re-
markable experiences that l can re-
call. In the first place the mercury
had crept up and up until it how
cred in the neighborhood of 1876 de-
grees in the shade Of the house; in
he second place, the sons of the king
Che told me he had AZ in alb had
into the tiny room until the
place fairly reeked with the smell
If perspiration; in the third place,
was at loss what to talk to his
majesty about.
After an awkward pause during
which the king shuffiel his feet un-
EASILY and I wiped away riVulets OF
persplration he said something in
Ashantee to one of his attendants,
who shortly returned with tiny
ray holding a bottle Of whiskey, a
syphon of lukewarm settler and
couple of very dirty glasses. After
another long and uncomfortable
pause the king asked me if l would
not have something to drink. TAX
ing it for granted that Prempeh's ca
pacity for drink would be as outre as
his choice for food l poured his beer
glass full to the brim with whiskey
giving to myself the drink sanctioned
by civilizf ton,
''In my ccuntry," said the king.
leaning forward and speaking in the
broken English which he had ac-
quired from the government chap
lain, dad men sometimes try to pois~
on king, so king turns drink other
way round,' and suiting the action to
the words he turned the tray so as to
place before me the beer glass full
of whiskey l have never been quite
certain whether or not there was q
twinkle in the eye of that simple
hearted cannibal when he literally
turned the table on me.
MENINGITIS IN MONTGOMERY