And at Lome a young German from Messrs Swanzy's met me with a cart and carriers for my gear, and carried me off and installed me at their fine house on the sea-front as if I had every right to be there, which I certainly had not.
Lome is the most charming town I have seen in West Africa. It is neat and tidy and clean, it is beautifully laid out, and the buildings are such as would do credit to any nation. Very evident it is that the German does not consider himself an exile, but counts himself lucky to possess so fine a country, and is bent on making the best of it. For Lome has certainly been made the very best of. Only fifteen years ago did the Germans move their capital from Little Pope in the east to Lome in the west of their colony, not a great distance, for the whole sea-board is only thirty-five miles in length, and all that length is, I believe, swamp. Lome is almost surrounded by swamp; its very streets are rescued from it, but with German thoroughness those streets are well-laid-out, the roads well-made and well-kept, and are planted with trees, palms, flamboyant, and the handsome ficus elasticus. Here is a picture of a street in Lome, and the trees are only four years old, but already they stretch across the road and make a pleasant shade. The gardens and the trees of Lome made a great impression on me. Any fences one sees are neat, but as a rule they do not have many fences, only round every bungalow is a well-laid-out, well-kept, tropical garden; if it is only just made you know it will be good in the future because of the promise fulfilled in the garden beside it.
All the Government bungalows look like young palaces, and are built to hold two families, the higher-class man having the choice of the flats, and generally taking the upper. Indeed I could find no words to express my admiration for this German capital which compared so very favourably with the English capital I had left but a short time before.
When I had talked to the Commissioner at Ho about the magnificent roads, I had hinted at the forced labour which is talked of so openly in the English colony as being a sin of the Germans. But he denied it.
“How do you make your roads then?” I asked.
“There is a tax of six shillings a head or else a fortnight's labour a year. It is right. If we have no roads how can we have trade?” and I, thinking of the 25 per cent, of the cocoa harvest left up the Afram river because “we no be fit to tote,” quite agreed.
Every English village has some sort of tax by which the roads are kept in order, why object if that tax is paid in the most useful sort of kind, namely labour.