I FORM AN ABSURD RESOLUTION.
The day following that on which I met with the narrative of Almeida
in the old log-book was one of more than usual activity, for a large
consignment of produce had just been acquired on our behalf by Olympio
from no less a person than Mr. David Annan. The “scholar man” had, in
fact, rather effectually tapped our source of supply by intercepting
the little caravans of “bush people” and clearing them out before they
could reach the coast. In consequence, I spent the greater part of the
day seated upon a pile of gin-cases, tally-sheet in hand, watching
Olympio and his myrmidons weigh out the kernels and rubber, and
measure the palm oil.
It was while I was engaged in this fascinating occupation that Mr.
Annan himself made his appearance. He seated himself with native grace
upon the gin-cases by my side and genially entered into conversation
respecting the merits of the produce he had sold us, which he declared
to be quite exceptional.
“Look dat rubber now,” he exclaimed, as Olympio slapped a parcel of it
on to the scales, “good sound rubber dat is; no grit, no dirt, no
water, rubber all de way trou! Take my word, Mr. Englefield, s’pose
you want good rubber, you buy him from de native merchant, not from
bush people.”
“Why is that?” I asked.
“Because,” he answered, “black man sabby black man fashion. S’pose dem
bush people bring me black rubber all grit and stones, I tell um ‘dis
no good for me. Take um for de white man factory, _he_ fit to buy um.’
Huh! huh!” He guffawed with great enjoyment and continued. “Look dem
monkey skins; where you fit to buy skins like dat from de bush
people?”
There was not a little truth in this, for the skins in the particular
parcel that he had sold us were in excellent condition, whereas the
few purchased from the “bush” natives at Quittáh were riddled with
slug holes and half bald besides.
“Where do you get your monkey skins?” I inquired.
“I buy um mostly from de hunters in de far bush,” he replied; adding,
with great discretion, “de business of de native merchant is to sabby
where to get what he want. No one fit to get good monkey skins widout
he sabby de hunters which catch de monkey, and dem hunters live for
far bush. Dey never come dis country.”
At this moment there appeared round the corner of the shed in which we
were sitting a figure so remarkable that my attention was instantly
diverted alike from Annan’s conversation and the produce on the
scales. The newcomer was evidently a Fulah, for he was dressed in the
picturesque costume worn by the Fulahs and Hausas; and that he was not
of the latter nationality his fair complexion made manifest. His
clothing was sombre in colour--unlike that of the negroes--and
consisted of a blue-grey surplice-like “riga” with wide bell sleeves,
richly embroidered with narrow braid-like stitching; wide drawers or
“wondo” of similar material embroidered with green; slippers of yellow
leather ornamented with a tooled pattern, and a turban of dark indigo
blue, the coils of which were continued downwards to form a face-cloth
or “litham,” which completely concealed the face, leaving only a
narrow space through which a strip of fair skin and a pair of piercing
dark eyes were visible. As a finish to this costume, he carried a
handsome brass-hilted sword slung from his shoulder by a thick
tasselled cord of scarlet worsted. Approaching with the dignified
carriage of his race he bowed gravely to me and Annan, murmuring a
comprehensive “sanu,” and held out his hand to my companion, who shook
it as though it had been a refractory pump-handle.
“’Scuse me, Mr. Englefield,” said Annan, “dis man have some business
to talk wid me.” He motioned to the Fulah to take a seat beside him on
the gin cases, and when his guest had seated himself--drawing up his
legs and squatting tailor-wise--he fished out from his pocket a fresh
kola-nut and presented it to his client as a preliminary to business.
The Fulah accepted the gift with a gracious nod and drew out a small
dagger, with which he cut off a piece of the nut; then pulling his
face-cloth down below his chin, popped the piece of kola into his
mouth and began to chew solemnly.
The preliminary arrangements being thus complete, Annan opened the
negotiations with a voluble address in the Hausa language. I had not
intended to play the part of eavesdropper, but in the first sentence I
caught the words “Fatunan birare” (monkey skins), and surmising that I
had before me one of those native hunters who “live for far bush and
never come for dis country,” I grinned silently and pricked up my
ears.
And as I listened and watched the Fulah merchant solemnly munching his
kola and spitting out the orange-red juice upon the ground before him,
there were one or two things that caused me no little surprise. In the
first place there was the man himself, the very antithesis of one’s
conception of an African; gravely self-possessed, quiet of speech,
taciturn yet courteous and suave, with his long oval face, his thin
aquiline nose, his delicate mouth, his olive skin--several shades
fairer than my own sun-tanned hide--his black eyes, full of passion
and sadness, he might have sat for a portrait of Dante or Savonarola,
so ascetic and lofty did he seem beside the monkey-faced, jabbering
Annan.
Then there was his speech. I have mentioned that in listening to the
talk of the Hausa soldiers, I found it difficult to follow them, that
their accent and pronunciation were widely different from that given
by Schön and Barth in their vocabularies of the Hausa language; and
I had naturally thought that the traveller and missionary were at
fault. But as I listened to this man with his clear-cut European-like
accent, never confusing the _l_ sounds with the _r_, as the others
did, I realised that what I had heard hitherto was but a debased
_patois_, and that this was the real Hausa language.
But more than this. I was astonished to find how much progress I had
made with the language, for now, when for the first time I heard it
properly spoken, I was able to follow it with hardly a failure,
although I could scarcely make out a word of Annan’s jabber. Indeed, I
felt confident that I could have conversed quite fluently with this
stranger; but I refrained from the experiment, remembering my
resolution to keep my knowledge of the language to myself for the
present.
At length the Fulah, having concluded his business palaver, slid down
from the gin cases, bringing his feet most adroitly into his slippers
as he descended, and with another comprehensive salaam, departed,
leaving his host silent and thoughtful.
The subject of Annan’s cogitations being evidently monkey skins, I led
the suspended conversation back to this absorbing topic.
“How do you manage to communicate with the hunters,” I asked, “if they
live for far bush and never come here?”
Annan gave me a quick glance full of suspicion and cunning, and then
replied suavely--
“Sometimes I send my clerk with some of my boys for far bush to buy de
skins, sometimes I go myself. Perhaps I go dis year when de small
rains finish.”
“Do you have to make a long journey?” I inquired.
“Oh, long, long way. T’rou ’Shanti bush past Kumási to a country
called Tánosu.”
“Tánosu!” I exclaimed, with suddenly increasing interest.
“Yaas, Tánosu,” he replied. “Bad country dat, bad people, but plenty
black monkey live in de bush.”
“Why is it a bad country?” I asked.
Annan spat on the ground in the expressive African fashion and
replied, “Tánosu people no good. Too much f’tish palaver. Dem f’tish
people dey wait in de bush, and when stranger men come along dey catch
um. Den dey make f’tish custom”--here Annan drew his forefinger
quickly across his throat and snapped his finger and thumb in the
air--a pantomime that needed no explanation.
“I have often thought,” I said musingly, “that I should very much like
to see the far bush. It is very different from the coast, isn’t it?”
“De far bush,” replied Annan emphatically, “is not fit place for white
man. De chop bad--bush chop only fit for bush man--de houses bad, de
roads bad, de people bad--too much war palaver. No good for white
man.”
“Of course,” I rejoined, “if one went into the bush, one would expect
to rough it a little and take some risk. Still, I must say, I should
like to see what the interior of Africa is like.”
“P’raps you like to come with me and look for monkey skins, Mr.
Englefield,” suggested Annan grinning.
“Why, that’s not such a bad idea,” said I. “How should you like to
have me with your party?”
“You tink you fit to come for true?” asked Annan, now all on the alert
and evidently reckoning up what he could make out of me if I came.
“’Spose you come, I get you hammock boys, I get you carriers, I speak
country talk for you. I do you proper.”
It was clear that Annan intended to make most of the expenses of the
journey out of me, and was correspondingly keen on my society.
“Well,” I said, “I won’t make up my mind now. Perhaps I shan’t be free
to go this season, but you might let me know what it would cost me to
make the trip, and then if I find I can do it, we can arrange whatever
is necessary.”
Annan was inclined to urge me to an immediate decision, in spite of
his previously unfavourable account of the interior as a pleasure
resort, but as Olympio’s boy at this point made his appearance to
briefly announce that “chop live for table,” I broke up the meeting
and adjourned for lunch.
We had hardly sat down to table, however, when the sound of a gun was
heard from seaward, and presently a small boy ran in to tell us that
“sailing ship come from windward.” Olympio and I together ran out to
the compound gate to examine the stranger, and were just in time to
see the _Lady Jane_ swing round to her anchor, while a crowd of hands
swarmed aloft to stow the sails. Already the solitary surf-boat
belonging to Adena was creeping out across the blue water like some
huge marine beetle, so, as the brig lay out at a good safe distance
from the shore, we returned to finish our meal.
The last banana fritter (a particularly greasy one) had just been
flopped on to my plate by the attentive Kwaku when a heavy step
sounded in the compound, and the massive form of Captain Bithery
appeared in the doorway. He was clothed in white from head to foot,
and in his aspect somewhat suggested a much over-heated polar bear.
“Well, Englefield, my buck,” he exclaimed in his great sea voice,
bringing his huge hand down with a thwack on my shoulder, “here you
are then, all sound and ship-shape, eating as usual--never saw such a
fellow to eat. Had much fever?”
“Haven’t had any,” said I a trifle boastfully.
“Nonsense! No fever? and a dark man like you, too! Well, you’ve been
deuced lucky, that’s all.”
“Why, do dark men get more fever than fair men?” I asked.
“They seem to. It’s odd, but I think it’s a fact. The chap who gets
let off most easily by this infernal climate is your good old
sandy-headed, purple-nosed Scotchman--that is, if he doesn’t get his
little finger too curly. Yes, Olympio,” he continued, turning to the
little mulatto, “the great thing in this climate is temperance, hey?”
“Oh, certainly, certainly, Captain,” replied Olympio a little shyly,
setting down on the table the tumbler of gin and water from which he
was about to take a sip; “no doubt of it, sir.”
“Of course,” continued the Captain. “Now, look at me. Did you ever see
me drink a cocktail, Olympio?”
“I don’t know that I ever did, sir,” replied Olympio.
“Would you like to?” asked the Captain, grinning.
“Not particularly, sir,” answered the little mulatto.
“Oh,” said the Captain, rather taken aback at the failure of his joke,
“because if you would, I see there is a swizzle-stick hanging on the
wall, and I’m not bigoted, you know.” Here he stared stonily at the
perplexed Olympio until the latter, suddenly grasping the situation,
made a dive at the sideboard cupboard and handed out a black bottle
with a quill stuck through the cork and a high-shouldered stone jar.
“Providence,” remarked Captain Bithery, as he drew the cork out of the
stone jar and sniffed inquisitively at its muzzle, “Providence must
have intended the cocktail to be the special beverage of the coaster,
for otherwise why should the swizzle-stick tree grow in such numbers
in these parts?”
This position being beyond dispute a silence ensued, which was
presently broken by the musical “guggle” of the swizzle-stick as it
whirled round in the pink froth.
“Englefield,” said the Captain, as he set down the empty tumbler,
“I’ve got a little surprise for you. We’re off in a fortnight.”
“Off!” I exclaimed.
“Yes, off. I did a deal with a trader up at Bassam and cleared off the
entire remainder of my stuff. So now there is only the homeward cargo
to stow on board--we are half full already--and then it’s, ‘Ho for
Bristol City!’ and ‘good-bye’ to the jolly old coast.”
This was news indeed. I had not anticipated leaving Africa for several
months, and had, in fact, almost abandoned my scheme of penetrating to
the interior on account of my engagement with Bithery to look after
the store. Now it would be necessary for me to decide at once on my
future movements and make known my intentions to the Captain.
“There is a little more of Annan’s stuff to be weighed yet,” I said.
“Shall we go out and look at it? A little rubber, and about three tons
of copra.”
“Oh, Olympio will see to that, won’t you? You come out by the beach,
Englefield; it’s cooler under the cocoa-nuts than in this oven.”
We strolled out into the breezy palm grove by the beach, and lighting
our pipes sat down in the shade on a mound of blown sand.
“I needn’t ask if you are coming back with us?” said the Captain.
“Well, the fact is, I don’t think I am.”
“Nonsense. You’re not going to take a billet out here. I wouldn’t.
You’ll never see England again if you do.”
“No, I’m not thinking of any billet here. I have an idea of making a
journey into the interior.”
“Great Moses!” exclaimed the Captain. “What for?”
“No special object, but curiosity. I want to see what the interior of
Africa is really like.”
“Don’t be such an infernal ass, Englefield. ‘Really like’! Pah! I’ll
tell you what it’s like. It’s like the inside of a saucepan of hot
boiled cabbage. Where had you thought of going to?”
“I thought of travelling up through Ashanti, and, perhaps, making for
the Hausa country.”
“Ho! ho!” laughed the Captain grimly, with a wry twist of his face,
“you needn’t prick out your course so far ahead. You’d be made into
monkey soup before you were fairly out of soundings.”
“Well, I mean to have a shot at it, anyhow,” said I, by way of closing
a useless discussion.
“Then you’re a damned fool, that’s all!” and the Captain angrily
knocked out his half-smoked pipe on the toe of his boot.
“When will you want to be paid off?” he inquired presently. “There
will be a fair little sum to come to you, you know, what with your pay
and the commission on the trade.”
“I shan’t want much, I fancy,” said I. “Perhaps you’ll pay me what I
want to start with and take care of the rest until I claim it.”
“I’ll do no such thing,” he replied. “You’d better pay in what you
don’t want to take with you to Swanzy’s agent, at whatever place you
start from on this lunatic jaunt, and get a receipt for it. Then if by
any chance you should come back, there’ll be enough cash to take
what’s left of you to Europe. I suppose it’s no use for me to try and
persuade you to give up this tomfool’s idea.”
“I’m afraid not,” I replied. “I’ve gone into the matter and made my
decision.”
“Well,” said the skipper gruffly, “you know your own mind, at any
rate; and you ought to, for there ain’t many like it outside Bedlam.
But I’m sorry--damned sorry,” and he relapsed into silence, from which
he refused to be roused during the rest of our interview.