Alone in West Africa

by Mary Gaunt

We were mistaken if we thought we were going to be allowed to have it in peace. We had not sat down a moment, the Forestry officer, the German trader, and I, when the ragged travesty of a Gold Coast policeman, who was the Omahin's messenger, came dawdling upstairs to announce that the Omahin was coming to return our call; and he and his councillors and linguists followed close on his heels. The linguist explained that it was the custom to return a ceremonial call at once, and custom rules the roost in West Africa. That might be, but our conversational powers had been exhausted a quarter of an hour before, and not the most energetic ransacking of our brains could find anything to say to this negro potentate, who sat stolidly in a chair surrounded by an ever increasing group of attendants. I asked him if he would have tea. No. Cake, suggested the Forestry officer frantically. No. Toast and butter we both offered in a breath. No; he had no use for toast and butter, or for biscuits or oranges, which exhausted our tea-table. And then the Forestry officer had a brilliant idea: “You offer him a whisky-and-soda.” I did, and the dusky monarch weighed the matter a moment. Then he agreed, and a glass of whisky-and-soda was given him. We did not offer any refreshment to his followers. It would have left us bankrupt, and then not supplied them all. For a moment the Omahin looked at his whisky-and-sparklet, then he held out the glass, and aman stepped forward, and, bending low, took a sip; again he held out the glass, choosing his man apparently quite promiscuously from among the crowd, and again the man bent low and sipped. It was done over and over again. I did not realise that a glass could have held so much liquid as one after another, the chosen of the company, among whom was my most troublesome hammock-boy, sipped. At last there was but a teaspoonful left, and the Omahin put it to his own lips and drank with gusto, handed it to one of his attendants, took it back, and, tipping it up, drained the very last dregs; then, solemnly holding out a very hard and horny hand, shook hands with us and departed.

The next day we visited Lake Nuba. Beyin stands upon a narrow neck of land between the sea and a swamp that in the rainy season is only passable in canoes, but when I was there in the middle of the dry season a winding path took us through the dense swamp grasses to the place that is neither land nor water, and it is difficult to say whether a hammock or a canoe is the least dangerous mode of progression. Be it understood that this is a trade route. Rotting canoes lay among the grasses; and there passed to and fro quite an array of people laden with all manner of goods, plantains, and cassava, stink-fish (which certainly does not belie its name), piles of cotton goods for the interior, and great enamelled-ware basins piled with loam to make swish houses in Beyin. Most often these heavily laden folks are women who stalk along with a child up on their backs, or suckling it under their arms. They stared with wonder at the white woman in the hammock and moved into the swamp to let her pass, but I should think they no more envied me than I envy the Queen of England driving in the Park. Presently the way was ankle-deep in water, knee-deep in mud. Raffia palm, creepers, and all manner of swamp grasses grew so close that the hammock could barely be forced through, and only two men could carry it. We went up perhaps twenty feet in squelching, slippery mud. We came down again, and the greenery opened out into an expanse of water, where starry-white water-lilies opened cups to the sky above, and the great leaves looked like green rafts on the surface of the water. There were holes hidden by that water, but it is the trade route north all the same; and has been the trade route for hundreds of years since the Omahins of Beyin raided that way, and brought down their strings of slaves, carrying the tiny children lest they should be drowned, to the Dutch and Portuguese and English traders on the Coast. Presently we came to a more marked waterway, and here were canoes waiting for us. I draw a veil over the disembarking out of a hammock into an extremely crank and wet canoe. I was up to my knees in water, but the Forestry officer expressed himself as delighted. I held up a dripping skirt, and he made his men paddle over, and inspected. It was, of course, as we might have expected; the natives had seen that the most important person in their eyes, the man, got the only fairly dry canoe, and my kindly guardian was shocked, and insisted on an immediate change being made. And if it is necessary to draw a veil over the disembarking from a hammock to a canoe it is certainly necessary to draw one over the changing from one crank canoe to another. I can assure you it cannot be done gracefully. Even a mermaid who had no fear of being drowned could hardly accomplish that with elegance. But it was done at last, and we set off up the long and picturesque waterway fringed with lilies and palms and swamp grasses that led to Lake Nuba. And sometimes the waterway was deep, sometimes shallow. The canoe was aground, and every man had to jump overboard to help push it over the obstruction, but more than one man went over his head in slime and water. At each accident the lucky ones who had escaped roared and yelled with laughter as if it were the best of jokes. Perhaps it was. It was so hot that it could have been no hardship to have a bath, and they had nothing on to spoil. But at last we got out on the lake. It looked a huge sheet of water from the little canoe, and it took a good hour's paddling till we came to the lake village.

This is the lair of the hunted, though it does lie on the trade route. Behind it lies the swamp which is neither land nor water in the dry season, and it looks just a tangle of raffia palm and swamp grass, and all manner of tropical greenery. The huts, like the huts of Beyin are, are built of raffia palm, but they go one better than Beyin and the fishing villages, even the flooring is of the stems; and the whole village is raised on stakes, so that it hangs over the water, and the houses can only be reached by a framework of poles.

“If you will go exploring,” said the Forestry officer, as I gathered up my skirts and essayed the frail ladder.

I here put it on record that I think savage life can by no manner of means be recommended, save and except for its airiness. There is plenty of air. It is easy enough to see through those lightly built walls of raffia palm, and the doings of the occupants must be fairly open to the public. Also, except in one room, where a hearth had been laid down about six feet by three in extent, the flooring is so frail that in trying to walk on it I slipped through, and was nipped tightly by the ankles. I couldn't rescue myself. I was held as in a vice till the grinning King's messenger and a Kroo-boy carrier got me out, wherefore I conclude the inhabitants of those villages must spend the most of their time on their backs. In the dry season there is a little bit of hard earth underneath the huts. In the wet season there is nothing but water and the raffia palm flooring or a crank canoe for a resting-place. No wonder even the tiny children seem as much at home in a canoe as I am in an easy chair. And yet the village is growing, so there must be a charm about it as a dwelling-place. We had “chop” on the verandah of the Chiefs house. The Chief had apparently quite recently buried one of his household, for at the end of the platform close against the dwelling-chambers was erected one of the miniature sloping roofs with offerings of cock's feathers, shells, and pots to placate the ghost. It was quite a new erection, too, for the palm-leaf thatch was still green; but where the dead body was I do not know, probably sunk in the swamp underneath, and why so close I do not know either, since the people evidently feared his ghost. However, even if we were lunching over a grave, it did not trouble us half so much as the fate of the toast which was being brought across from another hut in a particularly crank canoe, and was naturally an object of much curiosity.

The people were very courteous. It seems to me that the farther you get from civilisation the more courteous the population. Village children eager to see the lions in a circus could not have been more keen than the people of this lake village to see the white woman, but they did not even come and look till our linguist went forth and announced that the white people had had their chop, and were ready to receive the headman. He came, bringing his little daughter—a rough-looking, bearded old man, who squatted down in front of me and rammed the tail of his cloth into his mouth; and immediately there followed in his train, I should think, the entire village, men, women, and children, and ranged themselves in rows on the bamboo flooring, and looked their fill. Rows of eyes staring at one are embarrassing; I don't care whether they be those of a cultured people or of savages clad in scanty garments. If you stand up before an audience in a civilised land you know what you are there for, and you either succeed or fail, so the thing marches and comes to an end. But sitting before a subdued crowd clad in Manchester cotton or simply a smile, with all eyes centred on you, I at least feel that my rôle is somewhat more difficult. What on earth am I to do? If I move they chatter; if I single one out to be touched, he moves away, and substitutes a neighbour, who is equally anxious to substitute someone else, and the production of a camera causes a stampede. Looking back, I cannot consider that my behaviour at the lake village reflected any particular credit upon me. I felt I ought really to have produced more impression upon a people who had, many of them, never in their lives set eyes on a white woman before. They tell me, those who know, that for these people, whose lives move on in the same groove from the cradle to the grave, the coming of the Forestry officer and the white woman was a great event, and that all things will bear date from the day when the white missus and the white master had chop on the Chief's verandah.

Before we left Beyin, I promised to take the Omahin's photograph. Early in the morning, when we had sent on our carriers, we wended our way to his house, where an eager crowd awaited us. They kept us waiting, of course; I do not suppose it would be consistent with an African chief's dignity to show himself in any hurry. When I grew tired of waiting and was turning away, the linguist came out to know if I would promise a picture when it was taken. I agreed. Certainly. More waiting, and then out came the linguist with a dirty scrap of paper and a lead pencil in his hand, and demanded of the Forestry officer his name and address.