There are difficulties connected with lodging in a cocoa-store, especially when you are surrounded by a population who have never seen a white woman before. I needed a bath, but how to get it I hardly knew, with eyes all over the place, so at last I put out the lights and had it in the dark, and I went to bed in the dark, and as I was going to sleep I heard the audience dispersing, discussing the show at the top of their voices. As I did not understand what they said I did not know whether they had found it satisfactory. At least it was cheap, unless Swanzy's agent charged them.
I was not afraid now, curiously enough, right away from civilisation, entirely at these peoples' mercy. I felt quite safe, and after my hard day I slept like the dead. It is mentally very soothing, I notice, to say to oneself, “Well done!” and our mental attitude has a great effect upon our physical health. At least I found one thing—I had pitied myself most unnecessarily. My exertions had done me no harm, and I never felt in better health than when I waked up next morning in Swanzy's cocoa-room and proceeded to get dressed in the dark. That was necessary, because I knew the sound of my stirring would bring an interested audience to see how the white woman did things. I really don't think the White City rivalled me as a provider of amusement for the people in the eastern district of the Volta and the western district of Togo in the end of April and beginning of May last.
I had picked up a discarded map on the floor of the rest-house at Anum, and here I saw that many of the villages were marked with crosses to show that there was a church, but I saw no church here in Tsito, though I doubt not there was one. What I did see, not only in Tsito but at the entrance to every village I passed through, was a low, thatched shed, under which were the fetish images of the village. These were generally the rough-cut outline in clay or wood of a human figure seated. Sometimes the figure had a dirty rag round it, sometimes a small offering in front of it, and dearly should I have liked to have had a picture, but the people, even Swanzy's agent, objected, and I did not like to run counter to local prejudice. And yet Swanzy's agent is by way of being a Christian, but I dare say Christianity in these parts of Africa, like Christianity in old-time Britain or Gaul, conforms a good deal to pagan modes of thought.
I met a picturesque gentleman starting out for his farm, and him I photographed after he had been assured that no harm could possibly happen to him, though he begged very anxiously that he might be allowed to go home and put on his best cloth. I think he is a very nice specimen of the African peasant as he is, but I am sure he would be much troubled could he know he was going into a book in his farm clothes.
It was just beginning to get hot as I got back to the store after wandering round the village, and I found Grant and the carriers with all my gear had already started and were nowhere to be seen. It was, perhaps, just as well that it never occurred to Grant that I might be afraid to be left alone with strange black men. But to-day my strange black men were not forthcoming. I had expected them to come gaily because, to celebrate the crossing of the Eveto Range, while I had paid the carriers double, I had given the hammock-boys, who had had a very easy time, a couple of shillings to buy either gin or rum or palm wine, whichever they could get. It stamped me as a fool woman, and now, after a long delay, they came and stood round the hammock without offering to lift it from the ground.
“There is trouble,” said the black agent sententiously.
I had come out into the roadway, prepared to get into the hammock.