But on landing, Accra gives the impression of fierce heat. Shade-giving trees are almost entirely absent, the sun blazes down on hot, yellow sands, on hot, red streets lined with bare, white houses, and the very glare makes one pant. In the roadways, here and there, are channels worn by the heavy rainfall, the streets are not very regular, and many of the houses are ill-kept, shabby, and sadly in need of a coat of paint; when they belong to white men one sees written all over them that they are the dwellings of men who have no permanent abiding place here, but are “just making it do,” and as for the native houses, every native under English rule has yet to learn the lesson that cleanliness and neatness make for beauty. When in the course of my morning's drive I looked at the gardens of Accra, for there are a good many ill-kept gardens, I fancied myself stepping with Alice into Wonderland. The picket fences are made of the curved staves that are imported for the making of barrels, and therefore they are all curved like an “S,” and I do not think there is one whole fence in all the town; sometimes even the posts and rails are gone, but invariably some of the pickets are missing.
“All the good cooks in Accra,” said a man to me with a sigh, “are in prison for stealing fences.”
“Not all,” said his chum; “ours went for stealing the post office, you remember. He'd burnt most of it before they discovered what was becoming of it.” They say they are importing iron railings for Accra to circumvent the negro; for the negro, be it understood, does not mind going to prison. He is well-fed, well-sheltered, and the only deprivation he suffers is being deprived of his women; and when he comes out he feels it no disgrace, his friends greet him and make much of him, much as we should one who had suffered an illness through no fault of his own, therefore the cook who has pocketed the money his master has given him to buy wood, and stolen his neighbour's fence, begins again immediately he comes out of prison, and hopes he will not be so unlucky as to be found out this time.
This is the capital of a rich colony, so in business hours I found the streets thronged, and even early in the morning they were by no means empty, for the negro very wisely goes about his business while yet it is cool. Here, away from the forest, is no tsetse fly, so horses may be seen in buggies or drawing produce, but since man's labour can be bought for a shilling a day, it is cheaper, and so many people, like I was, are drawn by men. I, so as to feel less like a slave-driver, bought peace of mind in one way and much aggravation in another by having three, but many men I saw with only two, and many negroes, who are much harder on those beneath them than the white men, had only one. Produce too is very often taken from the factory to the harbour in carts drawn by eight or a dozen men, and goods are brought up from the sea by the same sweating, toiling, shouting Kroo boys.
They are broad-shouldered, sinewy men, clad generally in the most elderly of European garments cast off by some richer man, but always they are to be known from the surrounding Ga people by the broad vertical band of blue tattooing on their foreheads, the freedom mark that shows they have never been slaves. In Accra the white people are something under two hundred, the Governor and his staff, officials, teachers, merchants, clerks, missionaries, and artisans, and there are less than thirty white women, so that in comparison the white faces are very few in the streets. They are thronged with the dark people who call this place home. Clad in their own costumes they are very picturesque, the men in toga-like cloths fastened on one shoulder, the women with their cloths fastened under the arms, sometimes to show the breasts, sometimes to cover them, and on their head is usually a bright kerchief which hides an elaborate coiffure.
When I was strolling about Christiansborg one day I saw a coiffure which it was certainly quite beyond the power of the wearer to hide under a handkerchief. She was engaged in washing operations under a tree, and so I asked and obtained permission to photograph her. It will be seen by the result that, in spite of her peculiar notions on the subject of hair-dressing, she is not at all ungraceful. Indeed, in their own clothes, the Africans always show good taste. However gaudy the colours chosen, never it seems do natives make a mistake—they blend into the picture, they suit the garish sunshine, the bright-blue sky, the yellow beach, the cobalt sea, or the white foam of the surf breaking ceaselessly on the shore; only when the man and woman put on European clothes do they look grotesque. There is something in the tight-fitting clothes of civilisation that is utterly unsuited to these sons and daughters of the Tropics, and the man who is a splendid specimen of manhood when he is stark but for a loin cloth, who is dignified in his flowing robe, sinks into commonplaceness when he puts on a shirt and trousers, becomes a caricature when he parts his wool and comes out in a coat and high white collar.
Money is spent in Accra as it is spent nowhere else in the Colony. Of course I do not know much about these matters, therefore I suppose I should not judge, but I may say that after I had seen German results, I came to the conclusion that money was not always exactly wisely spent. Most certainly the people who had the beautifying of the town were not very artistic, and sometimes I cannot but feel they have lacked the saving grace of a sense of humour.