of Adansi was under consideration at this time, and was only postponed on account of the Colonial mission to Gaman.
While all this was going on, in April 1879 a mixed embassy of Gamans and Sefwhees arrived at Cape Coast. These envoys had been sent by the kings of their respective states to ascertain what truth lay in the statements which had been made by Mr. Huydekuper. As soon as they learned that that individual was an impostor, the Gaman ambassadors stated that their king had made him a prisoner; while the representatives of both tribes asserted that their countrymen were unanimous in desiring to maintain their independence, and that both peoples alike bore a deadly hatred to everything appertaining to Ashanti. They asked that an officer might return to Gaman with them, as otherwise they might not be believed in what they had to say about Mr. Huydekuper; and the Government, following up its more recent and more enlightened policy, acquiesced.
Mr. John Smith was the officer selected by the Colonial Government to proceed to Gaman. Of that country nothing was then known beyond the fact that it had been engaged in several wars with Ashanti in the last decade of the eighteenth century.
