Alone in West Africa

by Mary Gaunt

Curious it is when one thinks of its history to see the white painted sign-posts on which are recorded the names of the streets. There is “Kingsway” for one, and “Stewart-avenue,” after the man who deeply loved the country, for another, and there are at least two great roads that lead away to the fruitful country in the north, roads that push their way through the dense forest and must even compel the admiration of our friends the Germans, those champion road-makers. And down those roads comes all the wonderful trade of Kumasi, not as the trade of London, of course, but as the trade of London was, perhaps, when Augustus ruled at Rome. The trade of the world comes to London nowadays, the trade of the back-country came to London then, and so does the trade of all the country round come to the Ashanti capital. Its streets are thronged with all manner of peoples, dark, of course, for the ruling whites are but an inconsiderable handful, and only the Chief Commissioner and one missionary have been daring enough to bring their wives.

Ashanti is a conquered country, and it seems to me it has got just the right sort of Government, a Government most exactly suited to the requirements of the negro in his present state of advancement. What a negro community requires is a benevolent despotism, but as a rule the British Government, with its feeling for the rights of the individual, does not see its way to give it such a Government. But Ashanti was conquered at great cost, wherefore as yet England has still to think of the rights of the white men who dwell there as against the rights of the black man, and the result to me, an onlooker, appears to be most satisfactory for both white and black. Of course, such a Government requires to administrate not only excellent men, not only honest and trustworthy men, but men who have the interests of the country at heart, and who devote themselves to it, and such men she has got in the Chief Commissioner, Mr Fuller, and the subordinates chosen by him. Only an onlooker am I, a woman, a passer-by, but as a passer-by I could not but be struck by the difference between the feeling in the Gold Coast Colony and the feeling in Ashanti. The whole tone of thought was different. Everywhere on the Gold Coast men met me with the question, “What did I think of this poisonous country? Wasn't it a rotten place?” and they seemed bitterly disappointed if I did not confirm their worst blame.

But in Ashanti it was different. The very clerks in the mercantile houses had some good word to say for the country, and were anxious that I should appreciate it and speak well of it, and this I can but set down to the example and guidance of such men as the Chief Commissioner and the men he chooses to serve under him. Had the rest of West Africa always had such broad-minded, clever, interested men at the head of affairs, I think we should have heard a great deal less about its unhealthiness and a great deal more about the productiveness of the country. Since I have seen German methods I am more than thankful that I have been to Ashanti and learned that my own country is quite equal to doing as well, if not beating them at their own methods. The Ashanti himself, the truculent warrior of ten years ago, has under the paternal and sympathetic Government of this Chief Commissioner become a man of peace. If he has not beaten his long Dane gun into a ploughshare he has at least taken very kindly to trade and is pleased, nay eager that the white man should dwell in his country. He stalks about Kumasi in his brightly coloured, toga-like cloth still, very sure that he is a man of great importance among the tribes, and his chiefs march through the streets in chairs on men's heads, with tom-toms beating, immense gaily coloured umbrellas twirling, their silken' cloths a brilliant spot in the brilliant sunshine, their rich gold ornaments marking them off from the common herd, and all their people who are not Christian still give them unquestioned devotion. But Kumasi, as I said, is the centre of a great trade, and the native town, which is alongside but quite apart from the European town, is packed with shops, shops that are really very much in the nature of stalls, for there are no fronts to them, and the goods are exposed to the street, where all manner of things that are attractive to the native are set out.

And here one gathers what is attractive to the native. First and foremost, perhaps, are the necessities of life, the things that the white man has made absolute necessaries. First among them, I think, would be kerosene and bread, so everywhere, in market-place and shop, or even just outside a house, you may see ordinary wine and whisky bottles full of kerosene, and rows and rows of loaves of bread. Then there comes men's clothing—hideous shirts and uglier trousers, tourist caps that are the last cry in hooliganism, and boots, buttoned and shiny, that would make an angel weep. Alas! and alas! The Ashanti in his native state, very sure of himself, has a certain dignity about him even as must have had the old Roman. You might not have liked the old Roman, probably you would not unless he chose to make himself pleasant, but you could not but recognise the fact that he was no nonentity, and so it is with the Ashanti till he puts on European garments. Then how are the mighty fallen! for like all negroes, in the garb of civilisation, he is commonplace when he is not grotesque. What they are to wear I cannot say, but the better-class among them seem to realise this, for I have often heard it said, not only in Ashanti but in other parts of the Coast: “The Chief may not wear European clothes.”