“Why?” asked the astonished young man.
“So we can write to you when pictures no come.” It was lucky I was pretty sure of my own powers, but it was a little rough to make the Forestry officer responsible for any accident that might happen. It was a great relief to my mind when there came back to me from Messrs Sinclair a perfect picture of the Omahin and his following and his little son. I sent them the picture enlarged, but I never heard from that respectable linguist what they thought of it.
CHAPTER VII—ON THE FRENCH BORDER
Very heavy going—-Half Assinie—The preventive service station—The energetic officer—Dislike of Africa—The Tano River—The enterprising crocodiles—The mahogany logs—Wicked waste—Gentlemen adventurers—A primitive dinner-party—Forced labour—The lost carrier—“Make die and chopped”—A negro Good Samaritan—A matrimonial squabble—The wife who would earn her own living—Dissatisfied carriers.
We were bound to Half Assinie and the French border and the way was all along the shore, which is a narrow strip of land between the roaring surf and a mangrove-fringed lagoon, and on this strip are the palm-built fishing villages and the cocoa-nut groves that are so typical of the Coast. The last day out from Half Assinie the way was very heavy going indeed. We had our midday meal in the street of a village with the eyes of the villagers upon us, and by the afternoon the “sea was too full,” the sun was scorching, and the loose sand was cruel heavy going for the carriers and the hammock-boys. The sun went down, the cool of the evening came, but the bearers were staggering like drunken men before a shout went up. We had reached Half Assinie, the last important town in the Gold Coast Colony.