Alone in West Africa

by Mary Gaunt

They helped me to take photographs; the Commissioner mended my camera for me, and he got me more carriers, and told me that they were engaged to take me on thirty miles to Palime for the sum of two shillings a piece, that it could be done in one day if I chose, indeed it must be done in one day unless I stayed in the rest-house at Neve, and he warned me that I carried about with me a great sum of money, and asked if I were sure of my boy. I did not think it was likely Grant would rob me at this stage of the proceedings, but I suddenly realised with a little uncomfortable feeling what implicit trust I was putting in him; and then they gave fresh instructions for my comfort. It would rain, they said it always rained in Togo at this season in the afternoon; and I evidently did not realise how it rained, so they tied up my camera in American cloth and instructed me to put my Burberry on at the first drop of rain. Then with many good wishes we parted, and I set off on the road to Palime.

The road was most excellent, and anyone who has travelled for miles along a track that is really little better than a hunter's trail can understand the delights of smooth and easy going. We passed through villages where the villagers all turned up to see the show, but I fancied, it may have been only fancy, that the people were not as lightheartedly happy as in English territory, and whenever we came to a stream my men stopped and begged in pantomime that they might be allowed to bathe. I should like to have bathed myself, so I assented cheerfully, and the result was that we did not get over the ground very quickly. One of them spoke a little, a very little Twi, the language of the Fantis and Ashantis, and Grant spoke a little, and that was my only means of communication, lost of course when he was not with me, but they were most excellent men and went on and on untiringly.

Presently the clouds began to gather, a great relief, because the sun had been very hot, a few drops of rain fell, and I, remembering instructions, flew out of my hammock and put on my Burberry. By the time it was on the few drops were many drops, and by the time I was in my hammock again, the water was coming down as if it had been poured out of a bucket. Such sheets of rain fairly made me gasp. Now, my hammock was old. I had forgotten the need of a hammock when I started up the Volta, and finding this elderly one at Anum, marked “P.W.D.” Public Works Department, and there being nobody to say me nay, I commandeered it. Now, far be it from me to revile a friend who carried me over many a weary mile of road, but there is no disguising the fact, the poor old hammock was not in the first bloom of youth, and the canopy was about as much use against a rainstorm as so much mosquito-netting. The water simply poured through it. Now the canvas of which the hammock was made, of course, held water, so did the Burberry, the water trickled down my neck, and, worse still, carried as I was, with my feet slightly raised, trickled down my skirts, and the gallant Burberry held it like a bucket. When the water rose up to my waist, icy-cold water, I got out and walked.

The sky was heavily overcast, and it was raining as if it had never had a chance to rain before, and never expected to have a chance to rain again, so I walked on, hatless, because I did not mind about my hair getting wet. I thought to myself, “when the sun comes out, it will dry me,” and I looked at the string of dejected-looking carriers tailing out behind with all their loads covered with banana leaves. And I walked, and I walked, and I walked, and there seemed no prospect of the rain stopping; apparently it proposed to go on to doomsday, or at least the end of the rainy season. An hour passed, two hours, three, my pillows were simply sodden masses, my hammock was a wisp of wet canvas, and I was weary to death; then a village came into view, a little neat German village, and the people came out to look at me with interest, though they had certainly seen a white woman before. I always think of that village with regret. A man passed along through the mud, working his way in a sitting posture, and having on his hands a sort of wooden clog. So very very seldom have I seen misery in Africa that I was struck as I used to be struck when first I came to England, and I put my hand in my pocket for my purse, but all my money with the exception of threepence was in my box, and that threepence I bestowed upon him. Now there remains with me the regret that I did not give him more, for never have I seen such delight on any man's face. He held it out, he called all his friends to look, he bowed obeisance before me again and again. I was truly ashamed of so much gratitude for so small a gift, and while I was debating how I could get at my box to make it a little more, he clattered away, as happy apparently as if someone had left him a fortune. But I always think of it sadly. Why didn't I manage to give him two shillings. It would have meant nothing to me, and so much to him.

But now I was very tired, and when the rest-house was pointed out to me, I hailed it with delight. I have seen many weird rest-houses on my travels, but that was the most primitive of them all. A mud floor was raised a little above the surrounding ground, and over it was a deep thatch, a couple of tiny windowless rooms were made with mud walls, and just outside them was a table, made by the simple process of sticking upright stakes into the ground and laying rough boards across them; two chairs alongside the table were also fixtures, but I sat down wearily, and Grant promptly produced a pack of cards, and went away to make tea.

Bridge was not a success; I was so wet and cold, but the tea came quickly along with a boiled egg and biscuits and mangoes, for the Germans it appears, after their thorough fashion, always insist that wood and water shall be ready in their rest-houses. I was sorry for the carriers, wet and shivering, and I was sorrier for my own servant, for the rain was still coming down pitilessly. I suggested he should have some tea to warm him, but he did not like tea, and the other egg he also rejected, quite rightly I decided when I tried to partake of the specimen he brought for me. But the tea was most refreshing, and I was prepared to try and understand what the carriers wanted. Briefly, they wanted to stop here. Though I could not understand their tongue, I could understand that.

“They say Palime be far, Ma,” said Grant.

Yes, I reckoned Palime must be about fifteen miles, but I looked at the dismal house and decided it was an impossible place to stay. I would rather walk that fifteen miles. I looked at my bedding roll, and decided it must be wet through and through, and then I got into that dripping and uninviting hammock, among the sodden pillows, and gave the order to go on. I was wet through, and I thought I could hold out if we got to Palime as quickly as possible, but I knew we could not possibly do it under five hours, probably longer. However, it was not as hard on me as on the men who had to walk with loads on their heads. Of course I was foolish. I ought either to have changed in one of those dismal-looking little mud rooms, or to have filled my hot-water bottle—I always carried one to be ready for the chill I never got—with hot water and wrapped myself up in a rug; but I foolishly forgot all these precautions, and my remembrance of that tramp to Palime is of a struggle against bitter cold and wet and weariness. It was weird, too, passing along the bush in the dark. Grant and the carriers dropped behind, the rain stopped, and the hammock-boys lighted a smoky lantern which gleamed on the wet road ahead, and was reflected in the pools of water that lay there, and made my two front boys throw gigantic shadows on the bush as they passed along. Strange sounds, too, came out of the bush; sometimes a leopard cried, sometimes one of the great fruitarian bats bewailed itself like a woman in pain, there was the splash, splash of the men's feet in the roadway, the deep croak of the African bull-frog, there was the running of water, a drip, drip from the trees and bushes by the roadside, and always other sounds, unexplained, perhaps unexplainable, that one hears in the night. Sometimes tom-toms were beating, sometimes we passed through a village and a few lights appeared, and my men shouted greetings I suppose, but they might have been maledictions. It is an experience I shall never forget, that of being carried along, practically helpless, and hearing my men, whom I could not understand, exchange shouts that I could not understand with people that I could not see. It was hot I dare say, but I was wet to the skin and bitter cold, and I know the night after the rain was beautiful, but I was too tired and too uncomfortable to appreciate it. Then the fireflies came out, like glowing sparks, and again and again I thought we were approaching the lights of a town only to look again and see they were fireflies.

Such a long journey it was. It seemed years since I had left Ho that morning, æons since I had unhappily struggled across the Eveto Range, but I remembered with satisfaction I had crossed the Eveto Range, and so I concluded in time I should reach Palime, but it seemed a long night, and I was very cold.

At last, though it was wrapped in darkness, I saw we had entered a town; we passed up a wide roadway, and finally got into a yard, and my men began banging on a doorway, and saying over and over again, “Swanzy's.”