Towards the end of the month of April these two companies, under Captains Bravo and Hopewell Smith, started amidst continuous torrents of rain on their march of seventy-four miles to the Prah. They had, since their arrival, been encamped with E Company on the open space to the west of the town known as the parade ground, there being no accommodation for them in the Castle; and owing to the unsanitary condition of the site and the want of proper shelter, had already begun to suffer from the effects of the climate.
On arriving at the Prah they encamped at the ford of Prahsu, at a point where the river, making a sudden bend, enclosed the encampment on three sides. Here in the midst of a primeval forest, on the banks of a pestilential stream, without proper shelter or proper food, they remained for nearly three months. The sickness that ensued was almost unparalleled. Before they had been a month encamped, four officers and 102 men were sick out of seven officers and 214 men who had marched out of Cape Coast; and the hospital accommodation was so bad that the men had to lie on the wet ground with pools of water under them. The rains were unusually severe, the camp speedily became a swamp, the troops had worse food than usual, and, above all, were compelled to remain inactive. The small force had no means of communication with the coast, and no expectation of a reinforcement; and, had the enemy made an appearance, the troops were hardly in a fit state to defend themselves. Day after day torrents of rain fell; it was impossible to light fires for cooking purposes except under flimsy sheds of palm branches; and night after night officers and men turned into their wretched and dripping tents hungry and drenched to the skin. Neither was there any occupation for the mind or body, and universal gloom and despondency set in. It was no unusual thing for two funerals to take place in one day, and the unfortunate soldiers saw their small force diminishing day by day, apparently forgotten and neglected by the rest of the world.
By a general order published at Cape Coast Castle, on the 30th of May, 1864, the garrison at Prahsu was, on account of the sickness there prevailing, reduced to 100 men; and on the 6th of June, G Company, under Captain Hopewell Smith, marched from the Prah and proceeded to Anamaboe, a village on the sea-coast some thirteen miles to the east of Cape Coast Castle. B Company still continued to suffer severely, and on the 18th of June, 57 men were in hospital out of a total strength of 100.
At last the Imperial Government resolved to put a stop to the waste of life that was taking place, and sent out instructions to the Colonial Government that all operations against the Ashantis were to cease, and the troops to be withdrawn. The welcome intelligence reached Prahsu on the 26th of June, but the work of burying the guns and destroying the stores and ammunition, which had been collected there at such great labour and expense that the Government did not care to incur it again in their removal, occupied several days, and it was not until the 12th of July that the detachment marched out of the deadly camp on the Prah.
On the 27th of July, the hired transport Wambojeez arrived at Cape Coast Castle, to remove the detachments of the 1st and 2nd West India Regiments to the West Indies, and on the 30th they embarked. The day before their embarkation the following general order was issued:
"(General Order, No. 285.)
"Brigade Office, Cape Coast Castle,
"28th July, 1864.
"Paragraph 3.—The Lieutenant-Colonel commanding feels great pleasure in publishing, for the information of the officers and soldiers of the 1st and 2nd West India Regiments about to embark for the West Indies, the following handsome testimony of their soldierlike conduct while employed on the late expedition, by His Excellency Governor Pine, in which feelings and kind sentiments the Lieutenant-Colonel fully concurs, adding his own thanks to Major Anton and Captain Reece for the ready and cheerful manner in which they co-operated with him in carrying out the duties of the command, and to the officers and men under their respective orders.
"It is a pleasing duty to the Lieutenant-Colonel to have to announce to these corps that, from the day they took the field until this hour, not a complaint has been brought by an inhabitant against any of the men, so excellent has the conduct of all been.
"It is also gratifying to Lieutenant-Colonel Conran to see so few men on the sick list when about to embark, considering the large numbers that were reported sick on their return from the front."