Although the chief, and in a lesser degree his people, were fairly friendly with me, they continued up to the end to show themselves suspicious and distrustful of our boys, and this distrust showed itself in many curious, not to say inconvenient ways. For example, it was our custom while on trek to allow our personal staff, numbering about fifteen, three-halfpence a day extra subsistence money. With this they used, on arriving at a village, to club together, and engage a woman to buy their provisions and to cook for them; in fact, to board them during their stay there. But in Sumbu no woman could be got to undertake the job, nor would they even sell them provisions until they had exchanged their coined money for salt, the usual currency of the country. With this they were at length able to buy provisions, millet-meal, yams, &c. Then, however, a new difficulty presented itself. They had no one to cook for them, nor had they any cooking utensils of their own. So they came to me, and asked me to lend them one of our pots. Naturally, I declined; I am not over squeamish, but to eat after natives! Faugh! On the other hand, I could not stand by and see the poor fellows go hungry. So off I went to the village, and begged the chief to let me have the loan of a pot. After a lot of palaver he consented, and Schomburgk, at my request, allowed his gun-bearer to be struck off duty in the afternoons in order to cook for them. This arrangement worked fairly well, for natives eat only once a day, of an evening. Then they consume an enormous meal. One can actually see their stomach "swell wisibly," like the Fat Boy in Pickwick.
No sooner had this difficulty been settled, however, than another one arose. Owing to the boycott of the villagers, the boys could not even get the use of a hut to sleep in at night, and had to camp out in the open. They complained to me, and I told Schomburgk about it, but found him unsympathetic. "If the Sumbu people won't lend them a hut, they won't, and there's an end of it. I have no right to force them to. Besides, it is good to sleep out in Africa. I've slept out hundreds of nights when hunting elephants, and it never did me any harm, nor will it them. Tell them I said so." I did as I was told, and the boys had to sleep out for the rest of the time we remained in the neighbourhood. But they didn't like it one bit.
In fact, towards the end of our stay here, some of them began to get somewhat surly and discontented, not like their usual selves. One reason for this probably was that, on quitting Mangu, their women had all been left behind there. This had been done at their own wish, as they said they were afraid to take them up-country to where we were going. Nevertheless, they no doubt felt the separation keenly, for natives temporarily divorced from their womenkind are like ships without their rudders. They had all taken it for granted, by the way, that I too was to be left behind in Mangu, and seemed greatly surprised and anxious when they heard that I was going to accompany the caravan. Indeed, just as we were about to start, all our personal boys came to me in a body, and implored me not to go, saying that the Tschokossi of the north were dangerous, and that they feared for the safety of their "little white mother." I was greatly touched by their solicitude, but of course I was unable to accede to their request, even had I a mind to, which I had not. Later on I overheard Asmani, Schomburgk's personal servant, while discussing the journey with another boy, exclaim: "Well, I shall be glad when our little white mother is safe again on board the steamer."
Another source of dissatisfaction, was that there was a shortage of caravan food. For one thing, our European flour began to give out, and we ourselves were obliged to eat bread made half of millet-meal and half of flour. I didn't like it a bit. But for the Fulani, in fact, we should have been, if not exactly on short rations, at all events on restricted ones. These used to bring us, when they came with our daily allowance of milk, huge calabashes of buttermilk, which the boys used to purchase, and mix with their millet-meal, thereby obtaining a welcome addition to their diet.
Meanwhile their clothing, what they had of it, was going from bad to worse. Messa had to cut off the legs of his trousers above the knees, in order to patch the portion covering that part of his anatomy on which boys are birched at school. Alfred, the interpreter, was in an even worse fix, because he had no trouser-legs left to utilise after this fashion. He complained to me, saying that his appearance was not decent. I was bound to agree with him as to this, but pointed out to him that I could do nothing in the matter just then, as we had no spare clothing with the caravan. When we got back to Mangu, I told him, Schomburgk was going to rig out all our personal staff with new clothes; in the meantime I suggested to him that he should wear a "lavelap," which is a West African term for a whole piece of cloth wrapped round the body. "Oh dear no, little mother," he replied, in deeply shocked tones. "An interpreter cannot wear a 'lavelap,' he must at least have a pair of trousers."
Next day I noticed that Messa, who was always a bit of a dandy, had covered his bare legs, from the ankles to above the knees, with strips of white cloth dipped in washing-blue, and arranged like putties. I rallied him on his "improved" appearance, but he only smiled feebly and somewhat sadly, so I asked him what was the matter. Thereupon he confided to me that he was worried about his wife, who was lying ill at Mangu. This was the same young lady whom, it will be remembered, he had gone back to Kamina to fetch while we were on the road up from there to Sokode, and her illness, or at all events the undue prolongation of it, was largely his own fault.
She was always bright and bonny until we got to Paratau. Then, when we resumed our march, she seemed to have changed altogether. She was always tired, and appeared as if trying to elude our observation. Messa, too, got sad and sulky, so one day, after we had camped, I went over to their quarters to try and find out what was the matter. I found the girl sitting disconsolate outside their hut, crying, and nursing a frightfully swollen and ulcerated leg. I went and told Schomburgk, who examined it, and at once diagnosed it as a very bad and greatly neglected case of filaria, otherwise guinea-worm. These dangerous parasites burrow under the human skin, generally in the feet or legs, and the female lays eggs, giving rise to abscesses, and also causing grave functional disturbances. They are removed by very slowly twining them round a stick, and the natives assert, and apparently with some measure of truth, that if the worm is broken in the process, the death of the person affected will ensue. Messa had known all along, it appeared, what his wife was suffering from, but fearing to have her sent back, had tried to conceal it from us. Schomburgk gave the poor girl some mercurial ointment, and afterwards several of the parasites were removed in the manner described above, many of the natives being exceedingly skilful in this matter. Now, it appeared, he was anxious, fearing a relapse. As a matter of fact, on our return to Mangu, we found the patient practically convalescent.