The two men wanted us to stay. They said it was more comfortable, and when I compared the luncheon the doctor gave us to the meals we had when I provided the eatables and the nursing Sister gave her attention to the cuisine, I must say I agreed with them, and resolved once again to proclaim the absolute necessity for having women in West Africa. But she had to go back to her work, and I had to go on my travels, and so, like the general who marched his army up the hill and marched it down again, presently I was on my way back. And not a moment too soon. It was raining when we started, and our host and the doctor pressed us to stay, but I had not been on the Coast all this time without knowing very well what that rain would mean. The rivers that had been trickles when we set out would be roaring torrents now, and I knew in a little time they would be impassable; then the only thing would be to go back to Sekondi by surf boat, and I had had enough of the surf to last me for many a long day. Besides, our provisions were getting low. We started early; we had less to carry, for we had eaten most of the provisions, and we had more men, for we brought back most of the doctor's following, but still it took us all we knew to get across those rivers, and the Whin River was nearly too much for us. It had been bad when we came, now the sea was racing across the sands, the flooded, muddy water of the river was rushing to meet it, and the two black men who were working a surf boat as a ferry came and asked an exorbitant sum to take us across. My headman demurred and said we wouldn't go. I left it to him, and the bargaining was conducted in the usual slatternly Coast English at the top of their voices. I must confess, as my companion and I sat on the sand and watched the wild waters, I wondered what we would do if we did not cross, for Dixcove was fully fourteen miles behind us. Down came the price by slow degrees, in approved fashion, till at last it appeared I, my companion, our goods, chattels, hammocks, and our followers, numbering fully twenty men, were to be taken across for the sum of two shillings and sixpence. I sent the gear first, and then some of the men, and finally the nursing Sister and I went. Unfortunately there was not room in the boat for the two last men, and I could not help being amused when the ferryman came to be paid, and the men all clustered round vehemently demanding that I should do no such thing till their two companions were also brought over. Not a scrap of faith had they in the ferryman keeping his word, so I had to sit down on the sand among the short, coarse grass and the long stalks of the wandering bean, and wait till those two men were fetched, when I paid up, and we went on to Sekondi.
The journey was short; it is hardly worth recording, hardly worth remembering, but for those wonderful fireflies, and for another thing that bears strongly on my theory regarding health in West Africa.
The nursing Sister I took with me was a tall, goodlooking girl, considerably younger than I am, and she looked as if she ought to have been very much stronger. She had barely been on the Coast a short three months, but she had already had one or two goes of fever, a thing I have never had, and she did not like it. She was very careful of herself, and she abominated the climate. At night I noticed she shut herself away from all chance of draughts, drawing curtains and shutting doors so as to insure herself against chill. When we started on our journey she was not well, “the climate was not agreeing with her,” and they were beginning to think she “could not stand it.” We spent a day in the open and we got somewhat wet. When night came we shared a room and she wanted to close, at least, a shutter. Partly that was to have privacy and partly to keep away draughts. Then I brutally put down my foot.
I considered it dangerous to be shut in in Africa, and as I was engineering that expedition I thought I ought to have my way. One thing I did not insist upon, I did not have the windows open all round, but I had them wide on two sides, so that a thorough draught might blow through the room. My bed I put right in it, but I allowed her to put hers in the most sheltered part of the room she could find, and, of course, I could not prevent her wrapping her head in a blanket.
She put in those two nights in fear and trembling, I know, but she went back to Sekondi in far better health than she had left it. That she acknowledged herself, but she does not like Africa; the charm of it had passed her by, and I wonder very much if she will complete her term of service.