Alone in West Africa

by Mary Gaunt

I went on through this charming country till I found myself looking across a lovely valley at a house set high on a hill, the Commissioner's house at Ho at last. I went down into the valley, along a road that was bordered with flamboyant trees, all full of flame-coloured blossom, and then suddenly the curtain of my hammock was whisked up, and there stood before me a bearded white man, dressed in a white duck suit with a little red badge in his white helmet—the Commissioner, he told me in his halting English, at Ho.

Now I had come into that country without a letter or a credential of any sort, a foreigner, speaking not one word of the language, and I wondered what sort of reception I should meet with. I tried to explain that I was looking for a rest-house, but he waved my remarks aside with a smile, made me understand that his wife was up in the house on the hill, and that if I would go there she could speak English, and would make me welcome. And so I went on through country, lovely as the country round Anum mountain, only in the British colony there is this great difference—there the land is exactly as Nature made it, bar the little spoiling that man has done, innocent of roads, and exceedingly difficult to traverse, while here in German territory everything is being carried out on some well-thought-out plan. Ho was a station straggling over hill and valley, with high hills clothed with greenery near at hand, high hills fading into the blue distance, and valleys that cried out to the Creator in glad thankfulness that such beauty should be theirs. The road up to the Commissioner's bungalow was steep, steep as the Eveto Range, but it had been graded so that it was easy of ascent as a path in Hyde Park. Every tree had been planted or left standing with thought, not only for its own beauty but for the view that lies beyond; flamboyant, mango, palm, frangipanni, that the natives call forget-me-not, all have a reason for their existence, all add to the beauty and charm of the scene. And when I got to the top of the hill I was at the prettiest of brown bungalows, and down the steps of the verandah came a rosy-cheeked, pretty girl, ready to welcome the stranger.

“Of course you stay with us,” she said in the kindness of her hospitable heart, though there was certainly no of course about it.

She took me in and gave me coffee, and as we sat eating cakes, home-made German cakes, I asked her, “You have not been out very long?” because of the bright colour of her cheeks.

“Oh, not long,” she said, “only a year and two months. But it is so nice we are asking the Government to let us stay two years.”

“And you do not find it dull?”

“Oh no, I love it. The time goes so quick, so quick. There is so much to do.”

And then her husband came and added his welcome to hers, and paid off my carriers in approved German official style, and they took me in to “evening bread,” and I found to my intense surprise they had wreathed my place at table with pink roses. Never have I had such a pretty compliment, or such a pretty welcome, and only the night before I had been dining off hard-boiled eggs and biscuits in Swanzy's cocoa-house at Tsito.

Bed after dinner, and next morning my hostess took me round, and showed me everything there was to be seen, and told me how she passed her time. She looked after the house, she saw to the food, she went for rides on her bicycle, and she worked in the garden. It was the merry heart that went all the day, and I will venture to say that that pretty girl, with her bright, smiling face and her bright, charming manners, interested in this new country to which she had come, keen on her husband's work, was an asset to the nation to which she belonged; worth more to it than a dozen fine ladies who pride themselves on not being haus-frau. And as for the Commissioner, if I may judge, he was not only a strong man, but an artist. He had the advantage over an English Commissioner that his tour extended over eighteen months, instead of a year, and that he always came back to the same place. His bungalow looked a home; round it grew up a tropical garden, and behind he had planted a grove of broad-leaved teak trees, and already they were so tall the pathway through the grove was a leafy tunnel just flecked with golden sunshine, that told of the heat outside.

Those Germans were good to me. I feel I can never be grateful enough for such a warm welcome, and always, for the sake of those two there in the outlands, shall I think kindly of the people of the Fatherland.