That night's lodging cost me one shilling and threepence. The headman told me one shilling was enough, so I bestowed the extra threepence as a dash on the shaven old woman who had done all for me that my servants could not do, and she seemed so delighted that I was left wondering what the Wan-garas who had given place to me had paid.
Just as the sun was rising we crossed the Ofin River, and I found there assembled the entire population of the village to look at the strange sight—a perfectly courteous, polite people who never crushed or crowded though they looked their fill. I can only hope I was a success as a show, for certainly I attracted a great deal of attention, but of course I had no means of knowing whether I came up to expectations. It took some time to get my goods and followers across the river in the crank canoe which is only used in the rainy season, for usually the Ofin River can be waded, and while I waited on the farther shore I looked with interest at the other people who were waiting for their loads to be ferried across.
The men were Hausas or Wangaras, some wearing turbans, some with shaven heads, and clad in long, straight, shirt-like garments, while the women excited my deepest compassion. They may have been the men's wives, I know not; but by whatever name they were called they were slaves if ever I saw slaves. They had very little on besides a dirty, earthen-coloured cloth hitched round their loins, their dark faces were brutalised and depressed with that speechless depression that hardly realises its own woes, and their dusty hair that looked as if it had not been washed for years was generally twisted into short, thick, dusty looking plaits that were pressed downwards by the weight of the load they one and all carried. They carried children, too, on their backs, tiny babies that must have been born on the journey, or lusty youngsters that were a load in themselves. But a Hausa will carry an enormous load himself—sometimes up to 240 lbs.—so it is not likely he will have much consideration for his women. It may be, of course, that their looks belied them, but it seemed to me that they cared little whether Fate drowned them there in the swirling brown waters of the river or brought them safely through to the other side to tramp on, footsore, tired, weary, heartsick—if these creatures who looked like dumb beasts had life enough in them to be heartsick—to their destination three months away in the north.
They waited there as I passed, and they looked at me dully and without interest; presently their loads would be brought across and they would be on the march again, and I went on pitying to Potsikrom.
The forest was getting denser and denser. There were fewer towns and clearings on this day—nothing but the great trees and the narrow ribbon of road with the strip of blue sky far, far away. It was very awe-inspiring, the forest. I should have been unspeakably terrified to pass through it alone, but my chattering men took away all sense of loneliness. There was not much to see, but yet the eternal trees had a most wonderful charm. It was like being in some lofty cathedral where the very air was pulsating with the thought of great and unseen things beyond the comprehension of the puny mortals who dared rashly to venture within the precincts. No wonder the Ashanti gave human sacrifices. Sacrifice, we all know, is the basis of all faith, and what lesser thing than a man could be offered in so great a sanctuary?
And that afternoon we came to Potsikrom, a little village deep in the forest.
The rest-house was a mud building with a thatch roof somewhat dilapidated, and built not after the comfortable, suitable Ashanti fashion, but after the European fashion, possibly in deference to some foolish European who probably regarded all the country as “poisonous.” That is to say, it was divided into two rooms with holes in the clay, very small holes for windows, and, saving grace, a door at each side of one of the rooms. In the corner of one of these impossible rooms I saw, to my surprise, a camp-bed put up, and for the moment thought it was mine. Then I saw a suit of striped pyjamas which certainly were not mine, and realised it must belong to the medical officer whom I had left at Kumasi the day before. His boys had stolen a march ahead, and, thinking to do better than the white woman, had put up his bed in what they considered the most desirable place, thinking doubtless that possession was nine points of the law.