Miss Cheyne of Essilmont, Volume 3

The whole expedition was now returning from the Gold Coast, save those who had found their graves in the wilderness on the advance to Coomassie, and in the fighting incident thereto. Among those returning were the two hundred and sixty-eight wounded officers and men. The number of deaths in proportion was small as compared with those in recent European conflicts -- a fact explainable by the arms and ammunition used by the Ashantees; first, their old-fashioned firelocks and use -- not of bullets, but slugs, projectiles which soon lost their velocity after discharge, and were easily stopped after penetrating the body, the stronger bones of which they were incapable of breaking; and lastly, by the total absence of artillery.

The telegraphic wire made people at home aware that many of the Rifle Brigade had died on the voyage homeward between the Gold Coast and Madeira; that the Welsh Fusiliers had only twenty men on their sick-list; and the hardy Highlanders very few, though they had to regret the death by wounds of their major, William Baird, who had served with them for twenty years, and been at the siege and fall of Sebastopol.