The tribe encored me, and I played again. To my surprise they got hold of the wild chorus of the Scotch reels and whirled around, shrieking it! They had musical voices and, I believe, good ears. The melodies they sang resembled wild laughter in song; the tom-toms banged and the flutes screamed between. This is the mirth music as I memorised it:
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Next day we were taken round the village and entered many of the native homes. They were snug enough, with sleeping-mats and bamboo furniture, and many boxes with little mats on them. In the corners were maize, yams, kolanuts and gin bottles; the chief ornaments were the skulls of dead relatives. Comfortable kraals they were, though the furniture seemed scanty and reminded me of the homes of struggling authors, poets and musicians in the large cities of the world. But these were happier homes; for the heads of the families were unambitious, save that they prayed for copious rains to fall on their yams and mealie patches. The richer natives wore ornamental garments and had honours conferred on them, such as foot-washer or mosquito-squasher to the King. Real poverty seemed unknown, and decrepitude and the complainings of old age ceased with the blow of a war-club.
Artists engraved pottery, and musicians were much appreciated. Poets were applauded, and in all the villages I came across were looked upon as exiled gods. When they spoke their wisdom and native lore were listened to with rapt attention, as though the great god Abassi had spoken: a strong contrast to the neglected poets of civilised lands, where poetic voices cry in the wilderness to deaf ears. William Watson, Robert Bridges, Chesterton, Blakemore, and all the other voices of modern music would have found a large measure of appreciation in that land, had they been born there; for it was an El Dorado for poets. As for John Masefield and Kipling, they would have stood on stumps and sung till all the coast villagers, through sheer poetic delirium, put out to sea for other lands and wild, poetic adventure.
Lovers of Wagner would have rejoiced to hear the strange primeval music, music that expressed the true barbarian note of joyous or wailing humanity; and after hearing that which I heard they would more easily have understood the deeper meaning of the celebrated maestro’s compositions.
I played several solos to the King next day as he sat in his hut-room, and he touched me with a dead king’s thigh-bone on the neck, and so gave me the equivalent to a British knighthood. We were taken before the favourite harem queens; they blushed and smiled, showing their white teeth, as T—— and I bowed and gesticulated our appreciation of their dusky beauty.