Alone in West Africa

by Mary Gaunt

No one goes along the Coast except an occasional Public Works Department man or a School Inspector; nobody wants to, and it is not easy of accomplishment.

Even in the towns it is difficult for the stranger. I do not know what would happen if that stranger had not friends and letters of introduction, for though there are one or two hotels, as yet no one who is not absolutely driven to it by stern necessity stays in a West-African hotel. In Sekondi it is almost impossible, for at this town is the Coast terminus of the railway that runs to the mines at Tarkwa and Kumasi, and the miner both coming and returning seems to require so much liquid refreshment that he is anything but a desirable fellow-housemate, wherefore was I deeply grateful when Miss Oram, the nursing Sister at the Sekondi Hospital, asked me to stay in her quarters.

Sekondi straggles up and down many hills, and by and by if some definite plan of beautifying be followed may be made rather a pretty place. Even now at night, from some of the bungalows on the hillsides when the darkness gently veils the ugly scars that man's handiwork leaves behind, with its great sweep of beach, its sloping hillsides dotted with lights, the stars above and the lights in the craft on the water that lie just outside the surf, it has a wonderful charm and beauty that there is no denying. And yet there is no doubt Sekondi should not be there. Who is responsible for it I do not know, but there must have been some atrocious piece of log-rolling before Elmina and Cape Coast were deprived of the benefit of the railway to the north. At Sekondi is no harbour. It is but an open roadstead where in days gone past both the Dutch and English held small forts for the benefit of their trade. At Sekondi was no town. At the end of the last century the two little fishing villages marked the Dutch and English forts. Now the English fort is gone, Fort Orange is used as a prison, and a town has sprung into existence that has taken the trade from Cape Coast and Elmina. It is a town that looks like all the English towns, as if no one cared for it and as if everyone lives there because perforce he must. In the European town the roads are made, and down their sides are huge gutters to carry off the storm waters; the Englishman, let it be counted to him for grace, is great on making great cemented gutters that look like young rivers when it rains, and one enterprising Commissioner planted an avenue or two of trees which promise well, only here and there someone has seen fit to cut a tree or two down, and the gap has never been replaced. Some of the bungalows are fairly comfortable, but though purple bougainvillia, flame-coloured flamboyant trees, and dainty pink corrallitis will grow like weeds, decent gardens are few and far between. Instead of giving an impression of tropical verdure as it easily might, Sekondi looks somewhat hot and barren. This, it is only fair to say, I did not notice so much till I had visited German territory and seen what really could be done with the most unpromising material in a tropical climate. But German territory is the beloved child, planned and cared for and thought much of; English territory is the foster-child, received into the household because of the profit it will bring, and most of the towns of the Gold Coast shore bear these marks plain for everyone to read. They suffer, and suffer severely from the iniquitous system that is for ever changing those in authority over them in almost every department.

Sekondi Hospital for instance is rather a nice-looking building but it is horribly bare-looking and lacks sadly a garden and greenery. There is, of course, a large reserve all round it where are the houses of the medical officers and nursing Sisters, and in this reserve many things are growing, but the general impression is of something just beginning. This I hardly understood, since the place has been in existence for the last ten years, till I found out that in the last eight months there had been four different doctors head of that hospital, and each of those doctors had had different views as to how the grounds should be laid out. So round the medical officer's bungalow the hedge had been three times planted and three times dug up. Just as I left, the fourth unfortunate hedge was being put in. That, as I write, is nearly six weeks ago, so in all probability they are now considering some new plan. If only someone with knowledge would take in hand the beautifying of these West-African towns and insist on the plans being adhered to! In one of the principal streets of Sekondi is a tamarind tree standing alone, a pleasant green spot in the general glare and heat, a reminder of how well the old Dutch did, a reproach that we who are a great people do not do better. It seems to me it would want so little to make these towns beautiful places, the moral effect would be so great if they were.

But I had come to go along the Coast, and the question was carriers; I appealed to the transport. My friend, Mr Migeod, the head of the transport, was on leave, and his second in command shook his head doubtfully. The troops in the north were out on manoeuvres and they had taken almost very carrier he could lay his hands on; but he would see what he could do. How few could I do with? Seventeen, I decided, with two servants, was the very fewest I could move with, and he said he would do his best. I wanted to start on the following Monday, and I chose the hour of ten; also because this was my first essay entirely alone I decided I would not go farther than Chama, nine miles along the Coast to the east.

So, on a Monday morning early in March, behold me with all my goods and chattels, neatly done up into loads not weighing over 60 lbs., laid out in a row in the Sister's compound, and waiting for the carriers. I had begged a policeman for dignity, or protection, I hardly know which, and he came first and ensconced himself under the house, and I sat on the verandah and waited. Presently the carriers came and began gingerly turning over the loads and looking at me doubtfully. They were Mendis and Timinis, not the regular Government carriers, but a scratch lot picked up to fill up gaps in the ranks. I didn't like the looks of them much, but there was nothing else to be done so I prepared to accept them. But it always takes two to make a bargain, and apparently those carriers liked me less than I liked them, for presently they one and all departed, and I began a somewhat heated discussion across the telephone with the head of the transport. Looking back, I don't see what he could have done more than he did. It is impossible to evolve carriers out of nothing, but then I didn't see it quite in that light. I wanted carriers; I was looking to him to produce them, and I hadn't got them. He gave me to understand he thought I was unreasonable, and we weren't quite as nice to each other as we might have been. The men, he said, were frightened, and I thought that was unreasonable, for there was nothing really terrifying about me.

At three o'clock another gang arrived with a note from the transport officer. They were subsisted for sixteen days, and I might start there and then for Accra.

I should have preferred to have subsisted my men myself; that is, given them each threepence daily, as I had on the way to the French border, seeing that they were not regular Government men; but as the thing was done there was nothing for it but to make the best of it, and I went down, hunted up my policeman, and saw the loads on to the men's heads. I saw them start out in a long string, and then the thing that always happens in Africa happened. Both my servants were missing.

Zacco, a boy with a scarred face from the north, did not much matter, but Grant knew my ways and I could trust him. Clearly, out in the wilds by myself with strange carriers and without even a servant, I should be very badly off, and I hesitated. Not for long though. If I were going to let little things connected with personal comfort stand in my way I knew I should never get to Accra, so I decided to start; my servants might catch me up, and if they did not, I would rely on the ministrations of the hammock-boys. If the worst came to the worst, I supposed I could put my dignity in my pocket and cook myself something, or live on tinned meat and biscuits; and so, leaving directions with my hostess that those boys were to be severely reprimanded when they turned up, I got into my hammock and started.

The road to Accra from Sekondi is along the seashore, and so, to be very Irish, there is no road. Of a truth, very few people there are who choose to go by land, as it is so much easier to go by steamer, and the way, generally speaking, is along the sand. Just outside Sekondi the beach is broken by huge rocks that run out into the sea, apparently barring the way effectually, and those rocks had to be negotiated. My hammock-boys stopped, and I got out and watched my men with the loads scrambling over the rocks, and one thing I was sure of, on my own feet I could not go that way. I mentioned that to my demurring men, and insisted that over those rocks they had to get me somehow, if it took the eight hammock-boys to do it. And over those rocks I was got without setting foot out of my hammock, and I fairly purred with pride, most unjustly setting it down to my own prowess and feeling it marked a distinct stage on my journey eastwards. We were, all of us, pleased as we went on again in all the glare of a tropical afternoon, and I mentally sniffed at the men who had hinted I was not able to manage carriers. There was not a more uplifted woman in all Africa than I was for about the space of half an hour. It is trite to say pride goes before a fall. We have all heard it from our cradles and I ought to have remembered it, but I didn't. Presently we came to a village, or rather two villages, with a stream dividing them, and there was a tremendous tom-toming going on, and the monotonous sound of natives chanting. The place was surrounded by thick greenery, only there was a broad way between the houses, a brown road with great waterways and holes in it, and the occasional shade-tree, under which the village rests in the heat of the day, and holds its little markets and its little councils and even does a stray job of cooking. The tom-toming went on, and men appeared blowing horns. They were evidently very excited, and I remember still, with a shudder, the staring, bloodshot eyes of two who passed my hammock braying on horns. Most of my men could speak a little English, so I asked not without some little anxiety, “What is the matter?”