German roads—German villages—The lovely valley of Ho—The kindly German welcome—German hospitality—An ideal woman colonist—Pink roses—The way it rains in Togo—An unfortunate cripple—Vain regrets—Sodden pillows—A German rest-house—A meal under difficulties—Travelling by night—The weirdness of it—The sounds of the night—The fireflies—A long long journey—Palime by night—More German hospitality—Rail-head.
There was nothing to mark the border between the Gold Coast Colony and Togo. The country on the one side was as the country on the other, orchard-bush country with high grass and clumps of trees and shrubs; the lowering sky was the same, the fierce sun the same, only there was a road at last.
The Germans make roads as the Romans made them, that their conquering legions might pass, and here, in this remote corner of the earth, where neither Englishman nor German comes, is a road, the like of which I did not find in the Gold Coast Colony. It is hard and smooth as a garden-path, it is broad enough for two carts or two hammocks to pass abreast, it runs straight as a die, on either side the bushes and grass are kept neatly trimmed away, and deep waterways are cut so that the heavy rainfall may not spoil the road.
After a short time we came to a preventive station, neat and pretty as a station on the Volta, higher praise I cannot give it, and beyond that was a village; a village that was a precursor of all the villages that were to come. As a Briton I write it with the deepest regret, but the difference between an English village and a German village is as the difference between the model village of Edensor and the grimy town of Hanley in the Black Country. Here, in this first little village on the Togo side, all the ground between the houses was smoothed and swept, the houses themselves looked trim and neat, great, beautiful, spreading shade-trees of the order ficus elasticus were planted at regular intervals in the main street, and underneath them were ranged logs, so that the people who lounge away the heat of the day in the shade may have seats. Even the goats and the sheep had a neater look, which perhaps is no wonder, for here is no filthy litter or offal among which they may lie.
As I passed on my wonder increased. Here was exactly the same country, exactly the same natives, and all the difference between order and neatness and slatternly untidiness.
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I went on through this charming country till I found myself looking across a lovely valley at a house set high on a hill, the Commissioner's house at Ho at last. I went down into the valley, along a road that was bordered with flamboyant trees, all full of flame-coloured blossom, and then suddenly the curtain of my hammock was whisked up, and there stood before me a bearded white man, dressed in a white duck suit with a little red badge in his white helmet—the Commissioner, he told me in his halting English, at Ho.
Now I had come into that country without a letter or a credential of any sort, a foreigner, speaking not one word of the language, and I wondered what sort of reception I should meet with. I tried to explain that I was looking for a rest-house, but he waved my remarks aside with a smile, made me understand that his wife was up in the house on the hill, and that if I would go there she could speak English, and would make me welcome. And so I went on through country, lovely as the country round Anum mountain, only in the British colony there is this great difference—there the land is exactly as Nature made it, bar the little spoiling that man has done, innocent of roads, and exceedingly difficult to traverse, while here in German territory everything is being carried out on some well-thought-out plan. Ho was a station straggling over hill and valley, with high hills clothed with greenery near at hand, high hills fading into the blue distance, and valleys that cried out to the Creator in glad thankfulness that such beauty should be theirs. The road up to the Commissioner's bungalow was steep, steep as the Eveto Range, but it had been graded so that it was easy of ascent as a path in Hyde Park. Every tree had been planted or left standing with thought, not only for its own beauty but for the view that lies beyond; flamboyant, mango, palm, frangipanni, that the natives call forget-me-not, all have a reason for their existence, all add to the beauty and charm of the scene. And when I got to the top of the hill I was at the prettiest of brown bungalows, and down the steps of the verandah came a rosy-cheeked, pretty girl, ready to welcome the stranger.
“Of course you stay with us,” she said in the kindness of her hospitable heart, though there was certainly no of course about it.
She took me in and gave me coffee, and as we sat eating cakes, home-made German cakes, I asked her, “You have not been out very long?” because of the bright colour of her cheeks.
“Oh, not long,” she said, “only a year and two months. But it is so nice we are asking the Government to let us stay two years.”
“And you do not find it dull?”
“Oh no, I love it. The time goes so quick, so quick. There is so much to do.”
And then her husband came and added his welcome to hers, and paid off my carriers in approved German official style, and they took me in to “evening bread,” and I found to my intense surprise they had wreathed my place at table with pink roses. Never have I had such a pretty compliment, or such a pretty welcome, and only the night before I had been dining off hard-boiled eggs and biscuits in Swanzy's cocoa-house at Tsito.
Bed after dinner, and next morning my hostess took me round, and showed me everything there was to be seen, and told me how she passed her time. She looked after the house, she saw to the food, she went for rides on her bicycle, and she worked in the garden. It was the merry heart that went all the day, and I will venture to say that that pretty girl, with her bright, smiling face and her bright, charming manners, interested in this new country to which she had come, keen on her husband's work, was an asset to the nation to which she belonged; worth more to it than a dozen fine ladies who pride themselves on not being haus-frau. And as for the Commissioner, if I may judge, he was not only a strong man, but an artist. He had the advantage over an English Commissioner that his tour extended over eighteen months, instead of a year, and that he always came back to the same place. His bungalow looked a home; round it grew up a tropical garden, and behind he had planted a grove of broad-leaved teak trees, and already they were so tall the pathway through the grove was a leafy tunnel just flecked with golden sunshine, that told of the heat outside.
Those Germans were good to me. I feel I can never be grateful enough for such a warm welcome, and always, for the sake of those two there in the outlands, shall I think kindly of the people of the Fatherland.
They helped me to take photographs; the Commissioner mended my camera for me, and he got me more carriers, and told me that they were engaged to take me on thirty miles to Palime for the sum of two shillings a piece, that it could be done in one day if I chose, indeed it must be done in one day unless I stayed in the rest-house at Neve, and he warned me that I carried about with me a great sum of money, and asked if I were sure of my boy. I did not think it was likely Grant would rob me at this stage of the proceedings, but I suddenly realised with a little uncomfortable feeling what implicit trust I was putting in him; and then they gave fresh instructions for my comfort. It would rain, they said it always rained in Togo at this season in the afternoon; and I evidently did not realise how it rained, so they tied up my camera in American cloth and instructed me to put my Burberry on at the first drop of rain. Then with many good wishes we parted, and I set off on the road to Palime.
The road was most excellent, and anyone who has travelled for miles along a track that is really little better than a hunter's trail can understand the delights of smooth and easy going. We passed through villages where the villagers all turned up to see the show, but I fancied, it may have been only fancy, that the people were not as lightheartedly happy as in English territory, and whenever we came to a stream my men stopped and begged in pantomime that they might be allowed to bathe. I should like to have bathed myself, so I assented cheerfully, and the result was that we did not get over the ground very quickly. One of them spoke a little, a very little Twi, the language of the Fantis and Ashantis, and Grant spoke a little, and that was my only means of communication, lost of course when he was not with me, but they were most excellent men and went on and on untiringly.
Presently the clouds began to gather, a great relief, because the sun had been very hot, a few drops of rain fell, and I, remembering instructions, flew out of my hammock and put on my Burberry. By the time it was on the few drops were many drops, and by the time I was in my hammock again, the water was coming down as if it had been poured out of a bucket. Such sheets of rain fairly made me gasp. Now, my hammock was old. I had forgotten the need of a hammock when I started up the Volta, and finding this elderly one at Anum, marked “P.W.D.” Public Works Department, and there being nobody to say me nay, I commandeered it. Now, far be it from me to revile a friend who carried me over many a weary mile of road, but there is no disguising the fact, the poor old hammock was not in the first bloom of youth, and the canopy was about as much use against a rainstorm as so much mosquito-netting. The water simply poured through it. Now the canvas of which the hammock was made, of course, held water, so did the Burberry, the water trickled down my neck, and, worse still, carried as I was, with my feet slightly raised, trickled down my skirts, and the gallant Burberry held it like a bucket. When the water rose up to my waist, icy-cold water, I got out and walked.
The sky was heavily overcast, and it was raining as if it had never had a chance to rain before, and never expected to have a chance to rain again, so I walked on, hatless, because I did not mind about my hair getting wet. I thought to myself, “when the sun comes out, it will dry me,” and I looked at the string of dejected-looking carriers tailing out behind with all their loads covered with banana leaves. And I walked, and I walked, and I walked, and there seemed no prospect of the rain stopping; apparently it proposed to go on to doomsday, or at least the end of the rainy season. An hour passed, two hours, three, my pillows were simply sodden masses, my hammock was a wisp of wet canvas, and I was weary to death; then a village came into view, a little neat German village, and the people came out to look at me with interest, though they had certainly seen a white woman before. I always think of that village with regret. A man passed along through the mud, working his way in a sitting posture, and having on his hands a sort of wooden clog. So very very seldom have I seen misery in Africa that I was struck as I used to be struck when first I came to England, and I put my hand in my pocket for my purse, but all my money with the exception of threepence was in my box, and that threepence I bestowed upon him. Now there remains with me the regret that I did not give him more, for never have I seen such delight on any man's face. He held it out, he called all his friends to look, he bowed obeisance before me again and again. I was truly ashamed of so much gratitude for so small a gift, and while I was debating how I could get at my box to make it a little more, he clattered away, as happy apparently as if someone had left him a fortune. But I always think of it sadly. Why didn't I manage to give him two shillings. It would have meant nothing to me, and so much to him.
But now I was very tired, and when the rest-house was pointed out to me, I hailed it with delight. I have seen many weird rest-houses on my travels, but that was the most primitive of them all. A mud floor was raised a little above the surrounding ground, and over it was a deep thatch, a couple of tiny windowless rooms were made with mud walls, and just outside them was a table, made by the simple process of sticking upright stakes into the ground and laying rough boards across them; two chairs alongside the table were also fixtures, but I sat down wearily, and Grant promptly produced a pack of cards, and went away to make tea.
Bridge was not a success; I was so wet and cold, but the tea came quickly along with a boiled egg and biscuits and mangoes, for the Germans it appears, after their thorough fashion, always insist that wood and water shall be ready in their rest-houses. I was sorry for the carriers, wet and shivering, and I was sorrier for my own servant, for the rain was still coming down pitilessly. I suggested he should have some tea to warm him, but he did not like tea, and the other egg he also rejected, quite rightly I decided when I tried to partake of the specimen he brought for me. But the tea was most refreshing, and I was prepared to try and understand what the carriers wanted. Briefly, they wanted to stop here. Though I could not understand their tongue, I could understand that.
“They say Palime be far, Ma,” said Grant.
Yes, I reckoned Palime must be about fifteen miles, but I looked at the dismal house and decided it was an impossible place to stay. I would rather walk that fifteen miles. I looked at my bedding roll, and decided it must be wet through and through, and then I got into that dripping and uninviting hammock, among the sodden pillows, and gave the order to go on. I was wet through, and I thought I could hold out if we got to Palime as quickly as possible, but I knew we could not possibly do it under five hours, probably longer. However, it was not as hard on me as on the men who had to walk with loads on their heads. Of course I was foolish. I ought either to have changed in one of those dismal-looking little mud rooms, or to have filled my hot-water bottle—I always carried one to be ready for the chill I never got—with hot water and wrapped myself up in a rug; but I foolishly forgot all these precautions, and my remembrance of that tramp to Palime is of a struggle against bitter cold and wet and weariness. It was weird, too, passing along the bush in the dark. Grant and the carriers dropped behind, the rain stopped, and the hammock-boys lighted a smoky lantern which gleamed on the wet road ahead, and was reflected in the pools of water that lay there, and made my two front boys throw gigantic shadows on the bush as they passed along. Strange sounds, too, came out of the bush; sometimes a leopard cried, sometimes one of the great fruitarian bats bewailed itself like a woman in pain, there was the splash, splash of the men's feet in the roadway, the deep croak of the African bull-frog, there was the running of water, a drip, drip from the trees and bushes by the roadside, and always other sounds, unexplained, perhaps unexplainable, that one hears in the night. Sometimes tom-toms were beating, sometimes we passed through a village and a few lights appeared, and my men shouted greetings I suppose, but they might have been maledictions. It is an experience I shall never forget, that of being carried along, practically helpless, and hearing my men, whom I could not understand, exchange shouts that I could not understand with people that I could not see. It was hot I dare say, but I was wet to the skin and bitter cold, and I know the night after the rain was beautiful, but I was too tired and too uncomfortable to appreciate it. Then the fireflies came out, like glowing sparks, and again and again I thought we were approaching the lights of a town only to look again and see they were fireflies.
Such a long journey it was. It seemed years since I had left Ho that morning, Æons since I had unhappily struggled across the Eveto Range, but I remembered with satisfaction I had crossed the Eveto Range, and so I concluded in time I should reach Palime, but it seemed a long night, and I was very cold.
At last, though it was wrapped in darkness, I saw we had entered a town; we passed up a wide roadway, and finally got into a yard, and my men began banging on a doorway, and saying over and over again, “Swanzy's.”
The German Commissioner had suggested I should go to Swanzy's; and was it possible we had really arrived? It seemed we had.
I can never get over the feeling of shyness when I go up to a total stranger's house and practically demand hospitality. True, I had in my pocket a telegram from Mr Percy Shaw, one of Swanzy's directors, asking his agents to give me that hospitality, but still I felt dreadfully shy as I waited there in the yard for some sign of life from out of the dark building. It came at last, and in English too.
“Who is dere?” said a voice, and my heart sank. I thought it must be a negro, since I knew the agent was a German, and thought he would be sure to hail in his own tongue. Somehow I felt I could not have stood a negro that night. Prejudices are very strong when one is tired.
But I was wrong. The agent was a German, and down long flights of stairs he came in his dressing-gown, welcoming me, and presently was doing all he could for my comfort. He roused out an unwilling cook, he got cocoa and wine, South-Australian wine to my surprise, and hot cakes, and bread, and fruit, and then when I was refreshed, my baggage not yet having come in, he solemnly conducted me to my bedroom, and presented me with a couple of blankets and a very Brodbignag pair of slippers. I was far more tired than when I had'crossed the Eveto Range, and I undressed, got into bed, wrapped myself up in those warm blankets, and slept the sleep of the woman who knows she has arrived at rail-head, and that her difficult travelling is over.
