Now I really could not agree with him. To launch yourself on totally unknown people at halfpast one in the morning and ask them to take you in is not, I think, calculated to place you in a favourable light, and I demurred. But what was I to do? I did not want to inflict myself any longer on this hospitable young man, and already I had paid my carriers for four days while they did nothing. It was a full moon. Last night had been gorgeous; this night promised to be as fine. I asked the question, why could I not travel all night?
“Oh yes, moon be fine too much”; and then he went on to tell me a long story about his Kroo boys being frightened to travel that road by themselves. “But it all be foolishness.” It took me so long to discover the meaning of the words that I really paid no attention to the gist of what he was saying, besides I could not see that a Kroo boy being afraid was any reason why I should be. Finally we figured it out that I should start at nine o'clock, which would bring me to Akuse at a little after six in the morning. This did not seem so bad, and I agreed and cordially thanked the kindness which made him plan a nice little dinner in the moonlight on the verandah. It comes back to me as one of the most unique dinners I ever had; we had no other light but that of the moon, the gorgeous moonlight of the Tropics. It shone silver on the fronds of the palms, the mountains loomed dimly mysterious like mountains in a dream, and the road that ran past the house lay clear and still and warm in the white light.
My host asked leave to dine in a cap; he said the moon gave him a headache, and strongly advised me to do likewise, but though I have heard other people say the moon affects them in that manner, it never troubles me and I declined. And he translated his German grace into English for my benefit, and I could not even smile so kindly was the intention; and we ate fruit on the verandah, and nine o'clock came and I had the top taken off my hammock and started.
“Yi, yi, yi, ho, ho, ho,” cried the hammock-boys, clapping their hands as they went at a fast trot, far faster than the ordinary man could walk without any burden on his head, and we were off to Akuse and the Volta. The night was as light as day, and it never occurred to me that there was any danger in the path. We went through the town, and here and there a gleam of fire showed, and here and there was a yellow light in one of the window places, and the people were in groups in the streets, dancing, singing, or merely looking on. Generally they sang, and no one knows how truly barbaric a hymn can sound sung by a line of lightly clad people keeping time with hands and feet to the music. It might have been a war song, it might have been a wail for those about to die; it was, I realised with a start, “Jesu, lover of my soul,” in the vernacular. I suppose the missionaries know best, but it always seems to me that the latest music-hall favourite would do better for negro purposes than these hymns that have been endeared to most of us by old association. These new men were splendid hammock-men; they stopped for no man, and the groups melted before them.
A happy peasant people were these, apparently with just that touch of mysterious sadness about them that is with all peasant peoples. Their own sorrows they must have, of course, but they are not forced upon the passer-by as are the sordid sorrows of the great cities of the civilised world. At the outside ring of these dancers hung no mean and hungry wretches having neither part nor parcel with the singers.
Through the town and out into the open country we went, and the trees made shadows clear-cut on the road like splashes of ink, or, where the foliage was less dense, the leaves barely moving in the still night air made a tracery as of lace work on the road beneath, and there was the soft, sleepy murmur of the birds, and the ceaseless skirl of the insects. Occasionally came another sound, penetrating, weird, rather awe-inspiring, the cry of the leopard, but the hammock-boys took no heed—it was moonlight and there were eight of them.
“Yi, yi, yi, ho, ho, ho.” They clapped their hands and sang choruses, and by the time we arrived at the big village of Angomeda, a couple of hours out, I was fairly purring with satisfaction. I have noticed that when things were going well with me I was always somewhat inclined to give all the credit to my perfect management; when they went wrong I laid the blame on Providence, my headman, or any other responsible person within reach. Now my self-satisfaction received a nasty shock.
The village of Angomeda was lying asleep in the moonlight. The brown thatch glistened with moisture, the gates of the compounds and the doors of the houses were fast shut; only from under the dark shadow of a great shade-tree in the centre of the village came something white which resolved itself into Grant apologetic and aggrieved.
“Carriers go sleep here, Ma. They say they no fit go by night.”
My fine new carriers “no fit.” How are the mighty fallen! And I had imagined them pretty nearly at Akuse by now! Clearly, they could not be allowed to stay here. I have done a good many unpleasant things, but I really did not feel I could arrive at Akuse at six o'clock in the morning without a change of clothing.