Alone in West Africa

by Mary Gaunt

The rest-house was a two-storied house, built of swish and white-washed, and was inside a native compound, where both in the evening and in the morning the women were most industriously engaged in crushing the corn, rolling it on a hard stone with a heavy wooden roller.

And the rest-house, though very loyal, there were four coloured oleographs of Queen Alexandra round the walls of the sitting-room and two at the top of the stairs, all exactly alike, was abominably dirty. It had a little furniture—two mirrors, well calculated to keep one in a subdued and humble frame of mind, a decrepid bed that I was a little afraid to be in the same room with lest its occupants would require no invitation to get up and walk towards me, a table, and some broken-down chairs. Also on the wall was a notice that two shillings must be paid by anyone occupying this rest-house. Someone had crossed this out and substituted two shillings and sixpence, and that in its turn had been erased, so, as the sum went on increasing at each erasure, at last eighteen shillings and sixpence had been fixed as the price of a night's lodging in this charming abode. I decided in my own mind that two shillings would be ample, and that if the people were civil I should give them an extra threepence by way of a dash.

I photographed Tantum with the interested assistance of a gentleman clad in a blue cloth and a tourist cap. He seemed to consider he belonged to me, so at last I asked him who he was.

“P'lice,” said he with a grin, and then I recognised my policeman in unofficial dress.

I didn't like that village. The people may have been all right, but I didn't like their looks and I made my “p'lice” sleep outside my door. My bedroom had the saving grace of two large windows, and I put my bed underneath one of them in the gorgeous moonlight; but a negro town is very noisy on a moonlight night and the tom-toms kept waking me. I always had to be the first astir else my following would have cheerfully slumbered most of the day, but on this occasion so bright was the moonlight, so noisy the town, that I proceeded to get up at two o'clock, and it was only when I looked at my travelling clock, with a view to reproaching Grant with being so long with my tea, that I discovered my error and went back to bed and a troubled rest again.

Two shillings was accepted with a smile by the good lady of the house, who was a stout, middle-aged woman with only one eye, a dark cloth about her middle, and a bright handkerchief over her head. She gave me the impression that she had never seen so much money in her life before. Possibly she had only recently gone into the rest-house business, say a year or two back, and I was her first traveller with any money to spend. We parted with mutual compliments, and I bestowed on her little grand-daughter the munificent dash of threepence.

There is a story told of a man who went out to India, and as he liked sunshine used to rise up each morning and say to his wife with emphasis, “Another fine day, my dear.”

Now, she, good woman, had been torn from her happy home in England, and loved the cool grey skies, so at last much aggravated she lost her temper, and asked: “What on earth else do you expect in this beastly country?”

So, along the Guinea Coast in the month of March, the hottest season, there is really nothing else to expect but still, hot weather: divine mornings, glorious evenings, but in between fierce hot sunshine. And of course it was not always possible to travel in the coolest part of the day. To sit still by the roadside in the glare of the sunshine, or even under a tree, with a large crowd looking on, was more than I could have managed. So I started as early as I could possibly induce my men to start—one determined woman can do a good deal—and then went straight on if possible without a stop to my next point. I would always, when I am by myself, rather be an hour or two late for luncheon than bother to stop to have it on the way, and if a breakfast at half-past five or six and a morning in the open air induces hunger by eleven, it is easily stayed by carrying a little fruit or biscuits or chocolate to eat by the way.

It was fiercest noonday when I came to a town called Appam, where once upon a time was an old Dutch lodge worth keeping, if only to show what a tiny place men held garrisoned in the old days. It is hardly necessary to say that the Gold Coast Government do not think so, and have handed this old-time relic over to negro Custom and post office officials; and, judging by the condition of the rest of the town, much has not been required of them, for Appam is the very filthiest town I have ever seen. The old lodge is on the top of a hill overlooking the sea, splendidly situated, but you arrive at it by a steep and narrow path winding between a mass of thatched houses, and it stands out white among the dark roofs. As a passer-by, I should say the only thing for Appam is to put a fire-stick in the place; nothing else but fire could cleanse it. Many of the young people and children were covered with an outbreak of sores that looked as if nasty-looking earth had been scattered over them and had bred and festered, and they told me the children here were reported to be suffering and dying from some disease that baffled the doctors, what doctors I do not know, for there is no white man in Appam. It seems to me it is hardly necessary to give a name to the disease. I should think it was bred of filth pure and simple, and my remedy of the fire-stick would go far towards curing it. But there is a graver side to it than merely the dying of these negro children. Appam is not very far from Accra; communication by surf boat must go on weekly, if not daily, and Appam must be an ideal breeding ground for the yellow-fever mosquito. I know nothing about matters medical, but I must say, when I heard Accra was quarantined for yellow fever, I was not surprised. I had come all along the Coast, and filthier villages it would be difficult to find anywhere, and of these filthy villages Appam, a large town, takes the palm. I left it without regret, and though I should like to see that little Dutch lodge again, I doubt if I ever shall.