Those in favor predominated considerably.
* * * * *
They broke up into small groups for a time, debating it out, and then
most left for various places for lunch.
Homer Crawford, separated from the other members of his team, in the
animated discussions that went on about him, finally left the
fascinating subject of what had happened to the Cuban group in Sudan,
and who had done it, and went looking for his own lunch.
He strolled down the sand-blown street in the general direction of the
smaller market, in the center of Timbuktu, passing the aged, wind
corroded house which had once sheltered Major Alexander Gordon Laing,
first white man to reach the forbidden city in the year 1826. Laing
remained only three days before being murdered by the Tuareg who
controlled the town at that time. There was a plaque on the door
revealing those basic facts. Crawford had read elsewhere that the city
was not captured until 1893 by a Major Joffre, later to become a Marshal
of France and a prominent Allied leader in the First World War.
By chance he met Isobel in front of the large community butcher shop,
still operated in the old tradition by the local Gabibi and Fulbe,
formerly Songhoi serfs. He knew of a Syrian operated restaurant nearby,
and since she hadn't eaten either they made their way there.
The menu was limited largely to local products. Timbuktu was still
remote enough to make transportation of frozen foodstuffs exorbitant.
While they looked at the bill of fare he told her a story about his
first trip to the city some years ago while he was still a student.
He had visited the local American missionary and had dinner with the
family in their home. They had canned plums for desert and Homer had
politely commented upon their quality. The missionary had said that they
should be good, he estimated the quart jar to be worth something like
one hundred dollars. It seems that some kindly old lady in Iowa,
figuring that missionaries in such places as Timbuktu must be in dire
need of her State Fair prize winning canned plums, shipped off a box of
twelve quarts to missionary headquarters in New York. At that time,
France still owned French Sudan, so it was necessary for the plums to be
sent to Paris, and thence, eventually to Dakar. At Dakar they were
shipped through Senegal to Bamako by narrow gauge railroad which ran
periodically. In Bamako they had to wait for an end to the rainy season
so roads would be passable. By this time, a few of the jars had
fermented and blown up, and a few others had been pilfered. When the
roads were dry enough, a desert freight truck took the plums to Mopti,
on the Niger River where they waited again until the river was high
enough that a tug pulling barges could navigate, by slow stages, down to
Kabara. By this time, one or two jars had been broken by inexpert
handling and more pilfered. In Kabara they were packed onto a camel and
taken to Timbuktu and delivered to the missionary. Total time elapsed
since leaving Iowa? Two years. Total number of jars that got through?
One.
Isobel looked at Homer Crawford when he finished the story, and laughed.
"Why in the world didn't that missionary society refuse the old lady's
gift?"
He laughed in return and shrugged. "They couldn't. She might get into a
huff and not mention them in her will. Missionary societies can't afford
to discourage gifts."
She made her selection from the menu, and told the waiter in French, and
then settled back. She resumed the conversation. "The cost of
maintaining a missionary in this sort of country must have been
fantastic."
"Um-m-m," Crawford growled. "I sometimes wonder how many millions upon
millions of dollars, pounds and francs have been plowed into this
continent on such projects. This particular missionary wasn't a medical
man and didn't even run a school and in the six years he was here didn't
make a single convert."
Isobel said, "Which brings us to our own pet projects. Homer--I can call
you Homer, I suppose, being your brand new secretary...."