After a couple of miles of this I emerged into an open plain, as thoroughly wet through as if I had been towed behind a boat for a quarter of an hour; but the view compensated for any little discomfort. The country was of a dead level, covered with waving grass of a most brilliant green, and dotted with clumps of palm and monkey-bread trees; plantations of corn and ground-nuts appeared here and there; the deserted barracks of Cape St. Mary glistened white in the sun from a sand-ridge in the front; while to the left was the dense vegetation and rich colouring of a tropical forest. In the foreground were several of those peculiar trees which bear no leaves when in blossom, covered with their scarlet tulip-like flowers, while herds of cattle in the distance gave the scene almost a pastoral aspect. There may not seem very much in this to cause ecstasy, but nobody who has not sojourned for some months on the Gold Coast, surrounded by its interminable and depressing bush, can understand the delight with which a little open country may be greeted. The monkey-bread is not a handsome tree, and might be compared to a distorted semaphore or a corpulent sign-post. The trunks of these trees are sometimes immense, measuring from twenty to twenty-five feet in circumference, but they only throw out two or three stunted limbs, which can boast of but few twigs, and produce no leaves to speak of.
I had reined in my horse near a conical ant-heap to look at a flock of green parrots that were screaming round a crimson flowering shrub when I observed two gorgeously-appareled Mandingos approaching me. One wore a most elaborate turban, and his robe and sandals were highly embroidered. He was apparently a chief, as the other, who was not much behind-hand in the matter of brilliancy, was carrying, in addition to his own spear, the curved sword and leather purse-bag of the former. Both, it is needless to say, wore strings of leather-covered grisgris, or amulets. I was anxious to air the little Arabic I knew, so as they drew nigh I said,
“Salaam Aleykoum.”
They replied as one man, “Haira bi, haira bi,” and then stopped, evidently waiting for more, while the spearman stirred up the sand with the shaft of his weapon.
I was non-plussed, and thought that they were taking an unfair advantage of me; but, as they both remained gazing upon me in an attitude of earnest expectancy, I let off at them again my solitary phrase, “Salaam Aleykoum.”
“Jam-diddi toh-chow haira-slocum-doodledum,” said the chief, or something that sounded like it.
“Quite so,” I replied.
“Kara noona chi dodgemaroo,” he continued, excitedly.
“C’est vrai,” I responded, breaking out into another language in my agony.
“Hanu sah daday,” he shouted, advancing towards me.