If I had longed to beat my hammock-boys, my feelings towards them were mild when compared with those I had towards my cart-boys. They were terriblelooking ruffians, clad in the forlornest rags, and they dragged me about at a snail's pace. What they wanted of course was a master who would beat them, and as they did not get it, they took advantage of me. It is surprising how one's opinions are moulded by circumstances. Once I would have said that the man who hit an unoffending black man was a brute, and I suppose in my calmer moments I would say so still, but I distinctly remember seeing one of my cart-boys who had been on an errand to get himself a drink, or satisfy some of his manifold wants, strolling towards me in that leisurely fashion which invariably set me longing for the slave-driver's whip to hasten his steps. In his path was a white man who for some reason bore a grudge against the negro, and, without saying a word, caught him by the shoulder and kicked him on one side, twisted him round, and kicked him on the other side, and I, somewhat to my own horror, found myself applauding in my heart. Here was one of my cart-boys getting his deserts at last. The majority of white men were much of my way of thinking, but of course I came across the other sort. I met a missionary and his wife who were travelling down to inquire into the conditions of the workers in the cocoa plantations in Ferdinando Po. I confess I thought them meddlesome. What should we think if Portugal sent a couple of missionaries to inquire into the conditions of the tailoring trade in the East End of London, or the people in the knife trade in Sheffield? I have seen both these peoples and seen just as a passer-by far more open misery than ever I saw on the coast of West Africa. The misery may be there, but I have not seen it, as I may see it advertising itself between Hyde Park Corner and South Kensington any day of the week. Since I was a tiny child I have heard the poor heathen talked of glibly enough, but I have never in savage lands come across him.
After nearly a month at Accra I decided I must go on, and then I found it was impossible to get carriers to go along the beach eastward; the best I could do was to go up by the Basel Mission motor lorry to a place called Dodowah, and here the Acting Governor had kindly arranged with the Provincial Commissioner at Akuse to send across carriers to meet me and take me to the Volta.
So one still, hot morning in April I packed up bag and baggage in my nice little bungalow, had one final wrangle with my cart-boys, a parting breakfast with the Basel Mission Factory people whose women-kind are ideal for a place like West Africa and make a home wherever you find them, and started in the lorry north for Dodowah in the heart of the cocoa district.
CHAPTER XII—BLOOD FETISH OF KROBO HILL
To Dodowah by motor lorry—Orchard-bush country—Negro tortures—The Basel Mission factor—A personally conducted tour—Great hospitality—A dinner by moonlight—Plan a night journey—The roadway by moonlight—Barbarous hymns—Carriers who “no be fit” once more—Honesty of the African carrier—Extraordinary obedience—The leopard that cried at Akway Pool—A hard-hearted slave-driver—Krobo Hill—Blood fetishes—Terror of the carriers—Story of the hill—The dawning of a new day—Unexplained disappearances—Akuse at last—The arrival of a whirlwind—The fire on Krobo Hill.