CHAPTER XXIII—IN THE HEART OF THE RUBBER COUNTRY
Bound for Sunyani—The awe-inspiring-forest—The road through the forest—The people upon that road—Ofinsu and an Ashanti house—Rather a public bedroom—Potsikrom—A night of fear—Sandflies—Attractive black babies—A great show at Bechem—A most important person—The Hausa who went in fear of his life—Coronation night at Tanosu—A teetotal party—The medical officer's views on trees—Beyond the road—Sunyani.
I talked to the Commissioner, and those talks with him made me want to go somewhere out into the wilds. Kumasi was beginning to look strangely civilised to me. It was a great trading-centre, and presently it would be as well known, it seemed to me, as Alexandria or Cairo, or at the other end of the Continent, Buluwayo. I should like to have gone into the Northern Territories, but the rainy season was upon us, and if that did not daunt me—and it would not have done so—I had to consider the time. I ought to be back in London. I had intended to be away for six months, and now it was close on eight since I had come out of the mouth of the Mersey.
“Go to Sunyani,” said the Chief Commissioner, “and go on to Odumase, where the rising began at the beginning of the century. You will be the first white woman to go there, and I think you will find it worth your while.”
So I interviewed the head of the transport service, and by his kindness was supplied with seventeen carriers, and one hot day in June started north.
They had doubts, these kind friends of mine, about my capabilities as a traveller, at least they feared that something might happen to me while I was in their country, and they told me that a medical officer was starting north for Sunyam that day and would go with me.
I looked up the medical officer and found him in the midst of packages that he was taking with him beyond civilisation to last for a year. He was most courteous, but it seemed to me that he felt the presence of a woman a responsibility, and I was so sure of myself, hated to be counted a nuisance, that when he said he had intended to go only as far as Sansu that night, I expressed my intention of going on to Ofinsu, and hinted that he might catch me up next morning if he could.