The dyeing is also women's work, a beautiful dark blue colour being obtained from a preparation of native indigo. Most interesting of all from my point of view was the process of spinning. The hand-worked spindles are merely hard round sticks, which are inserted through a hole drilled in a flat disc—more rarely pear-shaped—of soft stone, or of clay baked hard, the weight of which helps to keep the spindle revolving, and also regulates its speed—performing, in fact, the functions of the governor of a steam-engine. The women, who do all the spinning, are marvellously expert with this exceedingly primitive contrivance. Resting one end of the spindle in the hollow of a calabash placed upon the ground, and sanding their fingers from time to time so as to get a grip, they make it revolve evenly and rapidly, and seemingly with little or no exertion. Sometimes one sees a woman revolving the spindle on her knee. A white woman trying the experiment would probably succeed in drilling a hole in her knee-cap, that is, if she continued the experiment for any length of time, but the skin of a native woman's knee is calloused by continual kneeling to almost the consistency of bone. I have occasionally, too, seen a spinner of more than ordinary dexterity throw the spindle away from her, and draw it back by the thread, keeping it revolving in the air all the while.
Another industry which we filmed, and one which, so far as Schomburgk could discover, is peculiar to the district, I can lay claim to be the discoverer of. I was out one day after butterflies, when I came unexpectedly on a number of girls busily engaged, by the banks of a little stream, in grinding and polishing a number of small objects, the exact nature of which I could not at first determine. Inquiry revealed the fact that they were palm nuts, out of which they were manufacturing artificial pearls to make up into waist-belts. By marshalling a bevy of the girls together, and setting them to work, we were able to secure a number of most interesting photographs of their unique industry, showing the whole process, from the first cutting of the nuts, drilling the holes, stringing the "pearls," and so on, down to the moment when the native belle, broadly smiling her manifest delight, puts the finished girdle round her ample waist.
I quite forgot to mention that while we were at Aledjo, Nebel went out one day and shot a "dog monkey," otherwise a baboon. It was as big as me, and looked so human that I could not bear to gaze upon it. In the evening I inquired casually what had become of the carcase, and was informed that our boys had cooked and eaten it. I shuddered. To me it seemed only one remove from cannibalism. Another queer little animal we shot here was called a rock-rabbit. It was exactly like a rabbit as to the body, but its feet reminded me very much of an elephant's hoofs.
[CHAPTER VIII]
AMONG THE BAFILO FOLK
Besides the films mentioned in the last chapter, we also took advantage of there being an unusually large market at Bafilo in order to photograph a series of unique moving pictures of this side—a very important one—of the natives' daily life. It was my business, as well as Hodgson's and Schomburgk's, to be constantly on the look-out for fresh scenes and incidents in this connection, and between us we managed to secure a complete representative collection.
To mention but a few of them. In one film boys are seen bargaining for supplies of native sweets, made from flour and wild honey. Payment for these toothsome delicacies, it may be mentioned, is made in cowrie shells, coined money being very rarely used. The value of these shells varies, according to distance from the coast, difficulty of transport, and so on, from about 2500 to the shilling up to as few as 1000. In Bafilo, they were worth about sixpence a thousand. In another film we showed a native barber shaving a baby's head, in accordance with native custom. The baby was held tight in the mother's arms, during the operation, which it did not seem to relish at all, for it kicked and screamed the whole while. After it was over I asked the woman the reason of the custom. "How else would you keep the lice from feeding on its little scalp?" she asked in evident surprise. We also photographed boys engaged in gambling for cowries at a curious kind of native game, the equivalent, I suppose, to our pitch and toss. Only in Bafilo there are no policemen to interfere with the urchins or mar their enjoyment. The kind of dour puritanism that is so prevalent in England—and in parts of Germany, too, for that matter—would find but little encouragement among the Togo people. It was at Bafilo, too, that we filmed a most curious native dance, performed entirely by women and the principal feature of which consisted in violently bumping one another with that portion of their anatomy on which boys are birched at school. It was a most strange and mirth-provoking spectacle, but the women take this particular dance very seriously, and will continue at it for many hours at a stretch, encouraged by the loud yells of approval from the spectators that invariably follow an extra hard bump, and by the terrific tom-tomming of the native band. In yet another film, vultures are seen acting as scavengers; while hard by warriors are engaged in mimic sword-play. The manufacture of leather mats, an industry peculiar to the place, was also filmed—together with basket-making from the stalks of the palm leaf, which we photographed from start to finish. The finished articles are sold for a sum approximating in value to one farthing apiece.
There are many wild animals in the bush round Bafilo, but the hyenas are the most trying. At Paratau we had heard these noisy brutes at a distance, but here they came quite close up. Night after night, one's rest was broken and disturbed by them. I used to get up and throw empty bottles and things out of the window to drive them away, much as one scares off the nocturnal domestic cat at home; but, though they would slink off for a while, they always came back again. Some nights were worse than others. I remember, on one occasion, there seemed to be a regular pack of them prowling round the huts, and their fierce howls sounded quite terrifying. Next morning, Hodgson, who slept in a detached hut some distance away from those occupied by the other members of our party, turned up at breakfast looking unusually pale and hollow-eyed and, on inquiring, we found that he had been sitting up all night with his revolver fearing an attack. Presently Nebel put in an appearance—it was just before he left for Europe that the affair happened—and remarked casually to Hodgson that he had been unable to sleep for the noise, and had at one time been on the point of coming round to his (Hodgson's) hut for a chat. "Good job for you, you didn't," replied Hodgson, wearily. "I should most likely have shot you. My nerves were in such a state that I am quite sure I should have let drive at any living thing [only he didn't say living] that had come to the door of my hut in the dark."
There were also numbers of scorpions about the place, and snakes, although for a long time I did not see any of the latter. In fact, one evening when we were sitting outside our hut on some stones, chatting and enjoying the cool night air, I remarked generally to the men-folk that I did not believe one half of the many snake yarns they were in the habit of telling one another from time to time. "Here I have been at this place for a whole week, and nary a snake," I remarked. "I don't believe that there are any." Hardly were the words out of my mouth, when one of the boys standing near darted forward to where I was seated, and started lashing furiously with a stick at something on the ground at my feet. It proved to be a puff-adder, one of the most poisonous reptiles to be found in the whole of Africa, and its deadly fangs were actually within a foot or so of my lightly covered ankles at the very moment when I was deriding the existence in Bafilo of him or any of his species.