The most precious and sacred possession of the Bussa people is a couple of drums said to have been brought by Kishra from Mecca and treasured ever since. These drums are kept in a small house built for the purpose, and watched over day and night by their own keepers, rigorously and jealously guarded; and, but for a lucky accident, we might have left Bussa without obtaining a glimpse of them. Most fortunately a festival occurred, when the drums were exhibited in the open, and we seized the opportunity of inspecting them. Their antiquity was undoubted, and we decided that they had a distinctly Egyptian appearance, being, in reality, I think, great water basins; they were made of solid brass, and were about the size of large wash-tubs, covered roughly with ox-hide, to convert them into drums. We hunted eagerly for inscriptions or hieroglyphics, of which there were none whatever, and one of us ventured to photograph them, but owing to the crowd and the dust, and the universal reluctance to have their ‘Ju-ju’ submitted to the higher Ju-ju of the camera, we felt obliged to respect the people’s feelings and make no insistence on obtaining a successful photograph.
On the morning of October 4, while we sat at breakfast in the verandah, appeared a ragged, scantily-clothed native, with a sheepish smile, holding in his hand a tiny bunch of long, soft, pale fawn-coloured fluff—a ‘bush’ kitten of some kind evidently, scarcely a week old, blind and helpless, chiefly remarkable for his large round ears, conspicuously barred with black and cream-colour. Delightedly, I seized him, and overwhelmed the bringer with streams of eager questions, which he, good man, was quite unable to answer, and, having rewarded him with the sum of eighteenpence (which produced transports of gratitude) we applied ourselves to the task of ‘bringing up’ our new acquisition. His sole desire, poor mite, was to crawl to warm darkness, so we arranged for him a small wooden box filled with cotton wool, and here he slept away the first week or two of his existence, while we anxiously improvised for him a feeding-bottle out of an empty eau-de-Cologne bottle, fitted with a piece of rubber tubing! This device proved brilliantly successful, and ‘Balu,’ as we called him on account of his woolly, bear-like appearance, throve and grew, gaining strength and spirits daily. His education was confided to an orange-coloured domestic cat, who had been presented to the household, and though the latter laboured under the disadvantage of being a kitten himself—and a male kitten, too, and presumably unacquainted with nursery customs—he devoted himself absolutely to the new-comer, and would spend hours licking the long pale fur, which puzzled and concerned him sorely. But he stuck manfully to his task, and we usually had to rescue Balu, a miserable little object like a drowned rat, with wet hair clogged all over his shivering body. We discovered him to be the Serval or Tiger cat (Felis Serval), and he speedily proved himself the most fascinating and playful of pets. He showed the most furious antipathy to natives—in his earlier days fleeing at the sight of one, and later, standing his ground, spitting and growling, his ears flat on his head, and a relentless little paw ready to strike at the intruder. But of white people he had no fear, and would walk up to any stranger to inspect and sniff him, and usually began inconsequently to play with him or sharpen his claws in his putties!
He showed high intelligence when quite tiny, and when hungry he would trot off and try to fish his ‘bottle’ out of the water-cooler, where it was kept, which effort usually ended in over-balancing and an impromptu bath!
To assure ourselves of his whereabouts and safety, we had a couple of shillings beaten out into tiny silver bells, which were tied round his neck, and greatly assisted us to find him when he was leading us wild dances, hiding under bushes, tearing up and down the borders and in and out of the sunflowers.
His first essays towards solid food were somewhat disastrous, taking the form of catching and eating large locusts, with an accompaniment of furious growls. Doubtless he found some which were not wholesome, for we rescued him twice when almost dead—the result of nocturnal expeditions, followed by violent sickness and exhaustion. This decided us to ‘wean the infant,’ which we accomplished by means of tiny spoonfuls of porridge, gradually progressing to scraps of lightly cooked chicken. Once he commenced to lap milk and eagerly eat cooked meat and eggs we heaved a gigantic sigh of relief, for our rearing troubles were ended, and Balu fattened and grew—almost visibly—his kitten fluff gradually disappeared, and he emerged a most beautiful little animal, bearing a magnificent coat of tawny colour, striped and marked with black, the chest and stomach being pure white with black spots and stripes.
I have thought it worth while to describe our pet at this length as his kind is, I believe, extremely rarely seen, and is considered absolutely untameable. Our success in this direction we owe, no doubt, to the fact that, by a most lucky accident, we obtained him so extraordinarily young, and, with unremitting care, were fortunate enough to bring him safely through his babyhood.
As he grew older his play naturally became rather fierce, as his teeth and claws developed; but his temper was always perfectly sweet, and the manifold scratches with which we were both adorned were all the results of the glorious games he would play by the hour, and regularly, each night, little paws would scratch at my mosquito net, and urgent demands for admission would be made, when a tired happy kitten would creep in, curl himself on the blanket at my feet, and sleep blissfully, till ‘early tea’ brought milk and more play-times!
At this time we were greatly cheered and enlivened by the arrival of the British Commissioners of the Anglo-French Boundary Commission, on their way up river. They spent two days with us—on their part, I think, rather glad to ‘spread’ themselves after their cramped journey up the river, and for us it was a ‘whole holiday’ and one we thoroughly enjoyed, so that it was with real regret that we speeded them on the next stage of their travels.
But we had no chance of further stagnation, as, to our great delight, orders had even then arrived transferring my husband to the Nupe Province, and the prospect of making a home for ourselves at Bida was as pleasant an undertaking as we could possibly have desired. In December Mr. Fremantle arrived, and, after handing the Province over to him, we left Bussa on the 21st, and, as we dropped down the swift stream, we forgot, as one always does, all the disappointments and drawbacks of Borgu, and remembered most distinctly all its charms and the kindly friendships we had formed there.