Shall we go round the village now? Well come away and we’ll have a walk through it. But as we are strangers and white, I must warn you that many pairs of curious eyes will be watching us when we know not, and all we do and say will be the talk of the village for a long time to come. It is not every day that the villagers get such a good look at a white person, and they will take advantage of their chance to-day. Babies on backs will cry if we come near them, and little mites that can run will disappear behind their mothers and peep out at us, feeling safe but very much afraid. In fact, many of the women frighten their naughty children by telling them that if they do not behave better they will send them to the white people, who will eat them. Consequently when a white man comes along the children often scatter in terror as from a wild beast. And would not white children do just the same from a black man if they were told that he might eat them.

In a certain African Mission not long after school had been started for the first time, it was found necessary to build a kiln for the burning of bricks. But the eyes of the children had been watching the building, and whatever could it be but a large oven in which to cook them. So the whole school fled pell-mell to their homes. Of course you must remember that in several different parts of Africa some of the tribes were cannibals, and even in our day there are still tribes among which the eating of human flesh is not unknown.

Here we come to a house not unlike the one we have already described to you, but smaller and not so neatly finished. The owner will not be so well-off as the owner of that we occupied. Let us go near along this path. Here comes an old lady to receive us, and there go the children round the corner, and off goes baby yonder into tears, and even the dogs begin to bark. Banana trees grow all round the house, and yonder is a small grove of them on the other side of the courtyard. They are waving a welcome to us with their large ragged leaves. The fruit is hanging in bunches here and there on the old trees, and is evidently not yet ripe.But before we are introduced to the old lady, who is coming to meet us, let us take a hasty glance round about. First we see that the children are getting braver, and are, beginning to show themselves now. Ragged looking little things they are, who do not look overclean. The skin of their bodies is too white to have been washed recently. Isn’t it strange that a black boy when he is dirty looks white; just the opposite from a white boy, who, when he is dirty, looks black. The mother of the crying child has turned round so as to shut us off from baby’s frightened gaze. In one corner of the courtyard is a pot on a fire, the contents of which are boiling briskly. This we are informed is to be part of the evening meal which is in preparation. It seems to us but a mass of green vegetable. Really it consists of juicy green leaves of a certain kind plucked in the bush. Over there in the shade of the bananas stand one or two mortars in which the women pound their grain, and without which no village, however small, is complete. On the verandah of the house stands the mill—a very primitive one. A large flat stone slightly hollowed out holds the grain which is ground down by another stone, a round one, being rubbed backwards and forwards over the hollow one. Snuff too is ground from tobacco in this way, for many of the men enjoy a pinch of snuff and not a few of the women like to smoke a pipe. A fierce-looking little cat is blinking up at us, watching us narrowly through the dark slits in its large yellow-green eyes, seeming in doubt whether to run off or to put up its back at us. A sleeping mat, made of split reeds, and spread out on the ground near the mortars, is covered with maize ready to be pounded. Two or three baskets are lying about, some shallow, some deep, some large, and some small. That stump of a tree there serves as a seat when the shade of the bananas is thrown on it. And down on the whole is pouring a flood of tropical sunshine, so hot that we are glad to retire into the shade of a friendly tree.

But the old lady is come and offers us her left hand. Her arms from the wrist almost to the elbow are covered with heavy bracelets, and her legs, from the ankles half way to her knees, are laden with great heavy anklets of the same metal. Clank! clank! clank! like a chained prisoner goes the poor old soul when she walks. Long ago she would carry these huge ornaments with no difficulty, and not a little joy. But now, although proud of them still, no doubt, they must be a trouble to her slipping up and down on her withered arms and legs, for she has tried to protect her old ankles by wrapping round them a rag of calico to keep the brass from hurting. She is dressed in a single calico, none too new, but, we are pleased to see, very clean. Other calicoes doubtless she will possess, carefully stored away and hidden in a basket in the darkest corner of her house.

Her old face is a mass of wrinkles and she has lost nearly all her teeth. But her upper lip! What a sight! Poor old creature, what a huge ring there is in it. Why, we can see right into her mouth when she speaks, and to us it is not a pleasant sight. This ring, seen in many old women, is called here a “pelele.” Men do not wear it. When a girl is young her upper lip is bored in the middle and a small piece of bone is put into the hole to keep it open. Gradually larger and larger pieces are put in until the full sized “pelele” is reached. Sometimes these rings are as much as two inches in size, and the upper lip is fearfully stretched by wearing them. It hangs away down over the lower lip, and the tongue and inside of the mouth are seen when the old “pelele” wearer speaks.

The old dame is very polite but you can see that she is afraid of us and will be quite glad when we go elsewhere. She says her cat is not a bit fierce but is a first-rate ratter, so much so that there isn’t a single rat in her house.

Now to the next house through the bananas. It is like the last and very much the same kind of things are lying about. But instead of a cat we are met by the usual African yellow-haired dog. He, too, is suspicious of us, but retires growling. A hen is busy scraping among the rubbish at the side of the house to provide food for her numerous offspring that chirping follow her motherly cluck! cluck!

Between this house and the last stand the grain stores, round giant basket-like things with thatched roofs. The largest ones are for holding the maize, and the small ones for storing away the beans. That low building there built of very strong poles is the goat house. It needs to be strong as the hyÆna and leopard, and even the lion sometimes pay the village a visit at night. And woe betide the poor goats if a fierce leopard should get in among them. Not satisfied with killing and eating one he will tear open as many as he can, simply for the pure love of killing.

The houses in the village are all much the same as that you have already read about and number about twenty. They are built here, there, and everywhere with no regard to plan or regularity. The corner of the verandah of this one projects out over the footpath, and we have actually to cross the verandah to get down to the well. The owner only laughs when we ask him why he built his house so near to, and partly upon the path. Some day he says he will hoe a new path to go round about his house. That is African all over. He will do things some day. He thinks the European mad to be such a slave to time.

The owner of each house greets us with a smile, and we are well received by all except some of the old people who are really afraid of white people, and who, while glad to see them when they come to visit their village, are still more glad when they go away. We have gathered quite a crowd of little people about us, and they follow us round very respectfully, watching all we do, and looking at all we have on. Many of them you see suffer from ulcers.

Here and there are patches of tobacco and sweet potatoes, but most of the gardens are outside the village proper. Their chief crops are maize, millet, sweet potatoes and cassava root. Paths twist about and cross one another in a marvellous manner. This one leads down to the stream, that to the next village; this to the graveyard in yonder thicket, a place shunned by the children, that to the hill. A white stranger promptly gets lost in African paths and has to give himself up to the guidance of the native. The whole country is a vast net-work of such snake-like paths, and I verily believe you could pass from one coast to the other along them.