Chatterbox, 1906

by Various

STORIES FROM AFRICA.

VII.—THE BEAUTY OF WOW-WOW.

We have mentioned the two companions who accompanied Major Denham to Kouka, and were left there while he made his campaign with the Sultan's army. But Lieutenant, afterwards Captain, Hugh Clapperton is far too delightful and interesting a person to be dismissed with so little notice. Before he joined Major Denham he had managed to get into his thirty-four years adventures enough to fill a volume, and after returning with the Major to England and contributing his part to the story of the expedition, we find him starting again, six months later, with Captain Pearce and Dr. Morrison as his companions, from Badagry, on the Bight of Benin, on the West Coast of Africa. But the deadly climate soon diminished the little party. It was only three weeks before Clapperton had to read the burial service over the graves of his two comrades, and found himself left to carry on their work, with his young servant, Richard Lauder, as his only companion.

But Clapperton was not the man to turn back from any task to which he had set his hand, and in Lauder he had a colleague ready to follow him through thick and thin. The two were as unlike in appearance as they could well be: Clapperton was six feet high and broad in proportion, a strong, genial, simple-hearted sailor, with a love of fun which must have helped him through many a dark day; and Lauder was small and slim, less robust, and probably less light-hearted than his master, but with a passion for change and adventure which had drawn him from his Cornish home, against the advice of friends and kindred, to volunteer for the expedition. And in Captain Clapperton he found a hero to match with any of those whose stories had delighted his boyhood. It is from him that we have the history of their journey together, and every page is full of loving admiration for the master whose courage no danger or suffering could daunt, and who was yet full of thought and consideration for his companion, carrying him on his back across the rivers when he was too weak to ford them on foot, and writing continually to cheer him when obliged to leave him behind to rest and recover. There are records of hair-breadth escapes, of suffering and homesickness and parting, as in most stories of African travel, but this tale has to do with laughter instead of tears.

The travellers halted for some time at a place called Wow-Wow, where the King, Mohammed, was friendly to them. There lived there a certain widow named Lyuma, or 'Honey,' very rich, and, according to Wow-Wow taste very handsome, though her portly figure, her hair dyed blue, and hands stained red and yellow, and the crimson teeth which gave the finishing touch, might not have been admired in England.

This great lady soon made friendly overtures to the two Englishmen, calling every day at the hut they occupied, arrayed in gorgeous garments of striped silk, and glistening with beads and ornaments. Great was the amusement of the jovial Captain when he discovered that the African beauty was greatly taken with Lauder, and most unmercifully did he chaff them both as he sat, puffing at his pipe, at the hut door, much to the confusion of the shy young Cornishman and the delight of the lady, Lyuma, who took all his remarks seriously. Poor Lauder at last got so alarmed that he called upon her, and solemnly informed her that he could not make up his mind to an African wife.

The beautiful Lyuma, however, was not at all disconcerted, but at once turned her attentions from Richard to his master, whom she tried to dazzle by the magnificence of her jewels and the number of her slaves. The Captain, fairly punished for his teasing, decided to pay a short visit to the neighbouring King of Boussa, whom he wished to conciliate, and left Lauder at Wow-Wow in charge of his luggage. But no sooner did Lyuma hear of his departure than she set off in pursuit, splendidly arrayed in red, with scarlet morocco leather boots, and attended by a body of slaves, who cheered the way by discordant music. She looked in before starting to bid good-bye to Lauder, who may well have laughed at this turning of the tables upon his master.

But the affair soon took a more serious turn, for King Mohammed, summoning Lauder to his presence, sternly informed him that his master and the lady Lyuma were plotting rebellion, and that he himself and the Captain's luggage would be detained at the King's pleasure. Richard found remonstrances and explanations of no avail; and, feeling that Clapperton must be warned of the King's suspicions, he managed to escape from his guards and hastened with all speed to Boussa. Here he was met by the news that the Captain had already started on his return journey by another route, still followed by the admiring Lyuma. The King and Queen of Boussa received Lauder with the greatest kindness; indeed, the Queen was so much touched by his pleasant manners and weak look (for he had but just recovered from fever), that she asked anxiously whether his mother were living, and sighed when he answered 'No,' because he had no one to watch and wait for him in far-away England. And when the weary young Englishman, in spite of desperate efforts to be polite, dropped asleep in the royal presence, the sovereigns, with courtesy which would have done honour to a more civilised Court, quietly withdrew, sending him a message that he must stay long with them and rest well.

But Lauder was anxious to rejoin his master, and, hurrying back to Wow-Wow, reached it just as Clapperton, who had outdistanced his fair pursuer, arrived there himself. The gallant Captain, hearing of his loss of favour, took the bull by the horns and went at once to the King. He quite disarmed that angry monarch by his frank greeting and assurances that he had not seen such a handsome face since his departure as that of the sovereign of Wow-Wow; but Mohammed, to make all sure, refused to allow the Captain to proceed on his travels until Lyuma was safely under supervision. So that the lady, when she arrived, found herself obliged to submit to the royal authority and stay quietly at home, while the Captain and Lauder, by no means sorry to escape, bade farewell to Mohammed, and left the poor beauty to find a husband among the gentlemen of Wow-Wow.