I said “Yes” with a little gasp, because his immaculate spruceness made me feel I was too much in keeping with the buildings and the people around us.
“Did you get my note? I am sorry I only got yours a couple of hours ago.”
Oh, I understood by now that in Africa it is impossible for a note to reach its destination quickly, and I said so, and he went on to arrange for my accommodation.
“If you will stay at the Consulate I will be delighted, but it is a mile and a half from the town, and I have no wife; or there is a boarding-house in the town, not too uncomfortable I am told.”
There could be but one answer to that. Of course I accepted his invitation; there are but few conventions and no Mrs Grundy in out-of-the-way spots, thank heaven, and in the growing darkness we set off for the Consulate. It was broken to me regretfully that I would have to walk; there is no other means of progression in the negro republic.
Such a walk as it was. Never have I met such a road. It was steep, and it was rough, and it was stony as a mountain torrent; now after the rain it was wet and slippery and the branches of the overhanging trees showered us with water as we passed. It was lonely as a forest path in Ashanti, and the jungle was thick on either hand, the night birds cried, the birds that loved the sun made sleepy noises, the ceaseless insects roused to activity by the rain made the darkness shrill with their clamour, and there were mysterious rustlings as small animals forced their way through the bush or fled before us. My host offered me his stick to pull me over the steepest rocks, and also supplied the interesting information that round the Consulate the deer came down to lick the salt from the rocks, and the panthers, tigers they called them there, came down and killed the deer. I made a mental note not to walk in that path by night; indeed I made a note not to walk in it ever again, as drenched and dripping with perspiration we emerged into a clearing and saw looming up before us a tropical bungalow and beyond the sea. It is an exquisite situation but is desperately lonely.
My gear came on men's heads and the Consul's note was delivered to me in the bush. Neither he nor I understood why it had come by such a roundabout path. One of his servants also met us half-way with a lantern, and since I had heard by then about the “tigers” I confess to thinking it was a wise precaution.