IN THE CAPITAL OF TSCHAUDJOLAND
Paratau, where our camp was situated, is the residence of Uro Djabo,
the paramount chief of the important Tschaudjo tribe. Uro means "king,"
and it is indeed virtually as King of the Tschaudjo that Djabo is
recognised, and subsidised, by the German Government.
In Togo it is customary for white strangers to visit a really big chief
like this before proceeding to the Government rest-house, and although
I was very, very tired, West African etiquette had to be observed.
I found the Uro a most charming host, and although he was old and fat,
and his personal appearance, therefore, was not particularly imposing,
he managed somehow to convey the idea of dignity, and the power and
ability to command. He received us in great state, surrounded by a big
bodyguard of officials and personal attendants, conspicuous amongst
the former being his prime minister, Mama-Sugu, an exceedingly tall,
well-proportioned, and fine-looking man. In his turban he looked quite
young; in fact, I made a mental note of his age as probably about
thirty. Afterwards, however, he removed it, and I then saw that he was
grey-headed and partially bald. Probably he was about fifty, but this
estimate is, of course, only approximate, for natives keep no records
of their birthdays, and have only the most hazy notions, consequently,
as to how old they really are.
Governments are not remarkable for gratitude, but the German Government
has certainly good reason to be grateful to Uro Djabo, since it was
to his father and predecessor that it practically owes its possession
of Togoland. When the famous Dr. Kersting, the founder and pioneer of
northern Togo, first entered the country, he found it inhabited by many
distinct and warlike tribes, continually fighting with one another.
Following in a small way the example set by Cortez in Mexico, and by
Clive in India, he allied himself with the strongest and most warlike
of the lot, the Tschaudjo to wit, and he and the old Uro between them
practically subdued the whole country, and placed it under the German
flag.
In the course of our somewhat prolonged stay at Paratau I had several
chats with Uro Djabo, and he used to hold forth at length, through an
interpreter, of course, concerning the former power and greatness of
the Tschaudjo people. They were originally it appeared a conquering
tribe, like the Masai and the Zulus, and they swept down from the north
many years ago, devastating the country as they advanced. They came
riding on horses, and as these animals had never before been seen in
Togoland, the terror they inspired almost sufficed by itself to ensure
the defeat of the aboriginal owners of the soil.
Djabo also showed me over his "palace," a collection of circular huts
of various sizes, arranged in irregular zigzag fashion, and connected
by a wall. The principal hut, which was very much bigger and higher
than any of the others, contained the entrance-hall and stables, and
was surmounted by an ostrich egg, the emblem of royalty.
At the other extremity of the space enclosed by the huts and connecting
wall a crested crane was kept. Uro Djabo attached very great importance
to this bird. It was, I was informed, sacred; and anyone killing it,
or otherwise interfering with it, would be very severely punished. The
crane knew quite well that it was privileged, and it used to strut up
to the cooking-pots when the natives were at dinner, and help itself
to any choice morsel that took its fancy. Any ordinary bird acting
after this fashion would have promptly had its neck wrung, for hardly
anything upsets a West African native more than a liberty taken with
his food. But directly the crane appeared, they would all draw away
from their cooking-pot, and patiently wait until he had finished
helping himself before resuming their meal. I tried hard to get Uro
Djabo to tell me all about this bird, but he always avoided the
subject, and when I pressed him, he refused point-blank. Nor did anyone
else seem inclined to say anything about it, beyond telling me, in
awe-struck whispers, that it was the Uro's ju-ju.
Djabo, as I have already intimated, kept up considerable state for a
native. He was always accompanied by his band, mostly drum, with one
or two reed-like instruments; and by his prime minister, sword-bearer,
personal servants, and the like, all elaborately attired in Arab dress.
Thus, when one day we asked the old fellow to our house for afternoon
tea, he came with a retinue of about twenty followers, completely
filling the small compound. He was, however, a most democratic sort of
a king. When, for instance, he helped himself to a biscuit, he first
took a bite, then handed it round for everybody else to have a nibble
at it. When Schomburgk gave him a cigar, all his attendants smoked it
after him in turn, each taking two or three big whiffs before passing
it along to the next in waiting. I never saw a cigar smoked by so many
people, or last so short a while, for each native tried to draw into
his lungs as big a modicum of smoke as he possibly could, so that it
was burned away and done with in no time. Djabo meanwhile chatted and
joked with all and sundry. In fact, the only difference discernible
between the king and his subjects was that he sat in a chair, while the
others squatted on the ground.
Subsequent to this visit, Djabo received me alone in his palace, and
introduced me to his wives. I saw about twenty of them. Two or three
were young girls, and fairly presentable; but mostly they were old,
fat, and ugly. After the reception was over I complimented him, not
upon the beauty or intelligence of his wives, but on the fact of
his being able to afford so many of them, for this is West African
etiquette. "Oh," he replied lightly, "this is nothing. I have hundreds
more scattered up and down the country."
[Illustration: MARKET SCENE IN PARATAU
This is a typical small market, no permanent stone seats being used,
such as are seen, for example, in the big market at Bafilo.]
Among other presents that Djabo had received from the Government at
one time and another was a large and very substantial garden chair. It
was of extremely ordinary appearance, and quite out of keeping with
the surroundings of the African bush; but old Djabo was inordinately
proud of it, and even went to the length of keeping a chair-bearer,
whose sole duty it was to look after this one piece of furniture, and
to carry it about to wherever his master went. This was a source of
difficulty to us when we came to film his Majesty, for he would insist
on being photographed seated in it, a proceeding which, of course,
would have rendered the picture worthless from our point of view.
Eventually, however, after many palavers, and the present of a piece of
silk stuff, he consented to dispense with it for that one occasion.
There is a big native market at Paratau, and food is very cheap. Eggs,
for instance, can be bought at the rate of eight a penny. Lemons are
a farthing a dozen. A fine plump pigeon costs threepence. These sums
represent, of course, very much more to a native than they do to a
European; but even allowing for the difference in the value of money,
I came to the conclusion that the average Tschaudjo man or woman
could, if they choose, live far better at a much cheaper rate than can
the average labouring man of, say, England or Germany. Certainly the
majority of those I met appeared to be well fed and contented.
I have alluded elsewhere to the skilful riding of the Tschaudjo
horsemen, and one of the objects of our stay at Paratau was to film
them. In this we succeeded perfectly. In fact, I was myself immensely
pleased, and even surprised, at the faithful realism of the scene when
I came to see it afterwards in London on the screen. Everybody was
very much taken by the clever equestrian feats performed by the Arabs
at the International Horse Show at Olympia last year. But there were
only a few picked men. We were able to film a much greater number of
the genuine wild horsemen of the Sudan, and to film them, too, at home
among their native surroundings.
By the way I am frequently reminded here, as elsewhere, that I am
the first white woman to intrude her presence among these primitive
people. The women shrink from me, or look askance, and the children run
screaming in terror away from me. Once I got the interpreter to inquire
of one sweet little lassie of about nine or ten why she had run from
me. He brought the child before me, but for a long time she would not
say a word. She just stood still, with eyes downcast, and trembling in
every limb.
At length she looked quickly up, and shot a hard, swift question at the
interpreter.
"No! No! No!" was his reply. "Of course not. Stupid little one! Why do
you think such things?"
I asked him what the child had said. He answered that she had asked
whether, if she spoke the truth, I was going to flog her.
"Tell her," I said, "that, on the contrary, I will make her a present."
He translated my promise, whereupon the girl, after one quick
half-inquiring, half-doubting glance at me, rapped out something that
sounded short, solid, and authoritative, like the rat-a-tat-tat of a
door-knocker.
[Illustration: NATIVE BOYS AT PARATAU
They were rather shy at having their photographs taken, one even going
to the length of covering his face with his arm.]
Then it was the interpreter's turn to take refuge in silence. He
absolutely declined to translate what she had said, saying that it was
too dreadful, was quite unfit for me to hear, &c. &c.
"Very well," I said at last, "I will go and tell Major Schomburgk that
you refuse to perform your duties."
Whereupon the poor man, driven into a corner, blurted out the
message, running his words altogether in his confusion and
excitement. "The impudent little wench says," he rapped out, "that
shefearstolookuponyoubecauseyouaresougly."
I had to laugh. I simply could not help it. But my mirth had a
slight--a very slight--tinge of bitterness in it. To be told to my face
that I was ugly! And by this naked little ebony imp.
Well, men, I reflected, had not found me uncomely. And even from my own
sex--supremest test of all--I had listened to words of appreciation,
and even of admiration upon occasion. So I playfully pinched the cheek
of my little critic, and sent her away happy in the possession of a
gaudy-coloured silk handkerchief.
This incident broke the ice, so to speak, and soon I was on the best
of terms with practically the entire juvenile population of Paratau.
They discovered that I was not really an ogre, as they had imagined
at first. But I could not prevail upon them to admit that I possessed
any claim upon their admiration, whatever I might have upon their
gratitude. "Am I really and truly ugly?" I one day asked a little boy,
a dear little chum of mine. "Really and truly you are, dear Puss,"
he replied, with childish frankness. "But," he added in extenuation,
and as a balm perhaps for my wounded feelings, "you cannot help that.
The good God made you so, did he not? We cannot all be black and
beautiful."
Projecting my mind into theirs, and trying to think as they thought, I
have come to the conclusion that they regarded me much as a white child
regards a black golliwog--a something to be frightened of at first,
and yet cherished because of its strangeness and uncouthness. Only in
their case the golliwog was alive, and so all the more fearsome until
experience had shown them its harmlessness.
After spending about ten days in Paratau, I began to feel my health
breaking down. Our camp was pitched close to the old Government
station, and the site was by no means an ideal one. My hut, like
the others, was close, very stuffy, and almost unventilated. It had
no windows, and it was built of the usual wattle and daub, which is
all right when fairly fresh, but when old, as this was, it is apt to
give off a sickly, mouldy odour. Then, too, there were the smells
from the native village--anything but pleasant. While to crown all,
the entire place was surrounded by dense fields--you might almost
call them plantations--of guinea corn, fifteen to twenty feet high,
which effectually shut out any breath of air. Not, however, that this
mattered so very much; for the harmattan season had now set in, and
the hot, palpitating air was filled with an impalpable yellow dust,
like fog, so thick that one could look straight into the sun at mid-day
without hurting one's eyes.
One result was that I suffered from almost incessant headaches. Yet I
did not like to complain, for we were now in the middle of a new drama,
and I knew that Schomburgk had set his heart on completing it at as
early a date as possible. But sometimes, after rehearsing from seven
till eleven in the broiling heat, in cowboy dress, and with crowds of
perspiring niggers for supers, I felt that I must drop in my tracks
from sheer physical exhaustion.
The climax came one day when I had to enact the heroine in a scene
where Nebel, who was supposed to be a fugitive from justice, was
galloping away across the mountains, and I after him, followed by
twenty or thirty Tschaudjo horsemen. Nebel kept turning round in his
saddle and firing at me. The horsemen behind were emitting a series
of the most blood-curdling yells. And between them they frightened my
horse, so that it bolted, and headed straight for the brink of a fairly
high cliff, with a lot of rocks and broken ground at the bottom.
Greatly alarmed, I threw away my revolver, and using both hands, and
all my strength, I tried my hardest to pull up my frightened steed. He
was a grand horse, the best in Sokode, and he and I were great friends.
Ordinarily, I could do anything with him, but now he was simply mad
with terror, and I was entirely powerless to even check appreciably his
wild race towards what appeared to be certain death for both of us.
Nebel tried his best to stop him by grabbing at his bridle as we flew
past him, but the runaway swerved violently, nearly unseating me then
and there. The next instant he leapt wildly into the air over rocks and
boulders, and I gave myself up for lost.
As luck would have it, however, he alighted on almost the only patch
of moderately soft ground that there was anywhere in the vicinity. A
yard to the left, a yard to the right, were masses of jagged rocks, and
had he come down on these I should almost inevitably have been killed.
As it was he stumbled, recovered himself, stumbled again, and again
recovered, and then stood stock still, streaming with perspiration and
trembling in every limb.
I was, of course, riding astride; luckily for me. Had I been in a
side-saddle, I do not see how I could by any possibility have retained
my seat. As it was I was badly bruised and shaken, and this, coupled
with the shock to my nerves, so aggravated my previous indisposition
that I collapsed.
"I must go away, and at once," I told Schomburgk that evening, "or I
feel that I cannot recover."
To his credit be it said, Schomburgk was most sympathetic. He saw that
matters were serious, and although the hour was late, he sent a special
messenger to Sokode to tell the authorities there how things stood, and
to ask for their assistance. With a promptitude and kindness that I
can never forget, the German Government officials set to work at once,
collected a hundred carriers from their own working staff, and sent
them over to us the first thing in the morning, in order that we might
be able to start straight away for Aledjo-Kadara, the sanatorium of
Togo.
An hour later we had left our pretty but unhealthy camp at Paratau,
and were on the march for the highlands on which Aledjo stands--the
Switzerland of Togo as grateful invalids from the sweltering lowlands
have enthusiastically christened it.