In the afternoon, after the worst heat of the day was over, we strolled down to the village. There was very little to see, however, and we were on the point of returning to our camp, when there suddenly confronted us from out of one of the huts the tallest and biggest man I have ever seen, either in Africa or out of it. He stood over eight feet high, and was very broad and immensely powerful, the muscles bulging out under his skin like bosses of beaten bronze.

We would have liked to have filmed him, but unfortunately we did not have our camera with us. Later on, however, we unearthed another giant, of scarcely inferior size, and him we did succeed in photographing, Schomburgk meanwhile standing beside him to show the contrast in size and height, and lifting and displaying at intervals the big man's various personal paraphernalia—his bow and arrows, his spear, and the curious iron rattle which all the Togo natives carry, and concerning which I shall have more to say presently.

Our next stage was from Agbandi to Blita, and at this latter place we were met by a fresh lot of carriers, men of the Kabure tribe, who had been sent down from Sokode to meet us. Our other carriers were sent back to Atakpame.

The Kabures inhabit the Trans-Kara country, and are, as a rule, fine strong men, but the lot we got were rather poor by comparison with the Atakpame people. However, they carried our belongings to Sokode all right, which was all we wanted of them.

They were absolutely the wildest-looking lot of natives I had yet come in contact with. There were ninety of them altogether, and they were all quite nude—not even a loin-cloth amongst the lot of them. Their dialect, too, was quite different from anything I had heard up till now. It sounded to my ears more uncouth and uncivilised, a mere succession of grunts and gurgles.

Here, too, I realised for the first time that my personal appearance might possibly inspire fear, or even disgust and aversion, for when I went into the market-place in the afternoon to have a look round as usual, the children fled screaming with terror, and even their mothers looked askance at me. I did not mind the latter so much, for I had already discovered that the women dwelling in these remote bush villages were not always very pleasant companions to have in too close proximity to one. They are apt to be—well, smelly. But I felt really hurt at the attitude of their offspring, for I am very fond of children, and they of me, as a rule, and in Kamina we had been great chums together. But then in Kamina there were always white people about, whereas I was the first white woman, at all events, that these nude little ebony imps had ever set eyes on. Consequently, I suppose, they regarded me as a sort of pale-faced bogey, to be avoided promptly, and at all hazards.

I slept again in my hammock during our march from Blita to our next halting-place at Djabotaure. This sounds a bit lazy, I must admit; but then it has got to be borne in mind that this moist, hot West African climate is exceedingly enervating, especially to a European woman, and to an unacclimatised European woman at that. Spend an hour or so in the Palm House at Kew Gardens, and you will get a faint idea of what it is like. The least exertion during the daytime causes one to break out into a profuse perspiration. Worse still, it seems to sap all one's energy and vitality, so that one feels like a wet rag from morning till night. To fight against it is well-nigh impossible. I used to go to bed tired, and wake up more tired. After a while, however, these symptoms entirely wore off, and I became quite strong and well, despite the heat and the constant travelling. Truly the human machine is marvellously adaptable.

It was at Djabotaure that I had quite a little adventure. I was taking my usual afternoon stroll through the village, the men being out in the bush shooting for the pot, when suddenly, from just outside, and in the opposite direction from where I had entered it, there arose a most terrific noise of tom-tomming, mingled with much shouting, the clattering of rattles, and the trampling of horses.

I stood stock still in the middle of the village, not quite knowing what else to do, and in a few minutes a group of five horsemen, looking very fierce and wild, galloped up and halted before me, and these were followed by others, who took up positions to right and left. Meanwhile, our interpreter, who had put in an appearance for once just when he was really wanted, had mutually introduced us, so to speak, and the foremost horseman dismounted and greeted me with stately courtesy. I was, he remarked, the first white woman he had ever seen; and having seen me, he trusted that he would live to see many more. Not a bad compliment for a nearly naked savage to pay one off-hand in the heart of the African bush!

The newcomers were, the interpreter explained, a chief and his retinue from a neighbouring village, and they had ridden into Djabotaure in order to take part in the festivities that precede the great Mohammedan fast of Ramadan.

This, as most people are aware, corresponds roughly to our Lent. It is supposed to commemorate the first "revelation" received by Mohammed, and during the entire four weeks that the fast lasts a strict Moslem may not eat or drink, smoke or bathe, smell any perfume, or even swallow his own spittle, till after sunset.

All this, however, is pure theory, so far as regards the Togo native Mohammedans. They certainly celebrate the festivities which usher in the fast with a tremendous enthusiasm—they kept us awake all night with their singing and dancing—and they are equally enthusiastic over the bairam festival which marks its close. But as regards the actual fast itself, I could not see that it made any difference to them whatever. They ate, drank, and smoked just as they always do; the real truth, of course, being that these people are Mohammedans in name only.

The day following this affair we marched as far as Andasi, our next halting-place, I still travelling in my hammock. I had not yet become acclimatised, and was very weak and languid. For some reason, too, my relays of hammock boys on this occasion proved themselves altogether incompetent, a most unusual thing. They swung me from side to side, tipped me this way and that, and only grinned idiotically when I complained. It was like being out in a small boat in a gale, and I really felt quite "sea-sick" during the last few miles.

The next morning we started at 3 A.M., in full moonlight, to cover the last twenty miles to Sokode, which is one of the largest and most important Government stations in this part of Togo. Wonderfully beautiful are the moonlight nights in Africa, whether, as was the case now, one is on a comparatively open road, or following one of the native tracks that disclose, with each fresh twist and turn, some new vista of silvery enchantment. The grey, mysterious bush takes on, under such circumstances, a hitherto undreamt-of beauty. The many clumps of tropical vegetation in the frequent open glades one encounters, stand out clear-cut and still, looking like white metal trees fragilely carved out of frosted aluminium.

At eight o'clock in the morning we reached a spot about four miles from Sokode, where our horses were waiting for us in charge of a young European, Mr. Kay H. Nebel. Up to this point I had travelled, after quitting the rail-head, entirely by bicycle and hammock; now it was to be principally horseback riding.

Mr. Nebel had been attached to Major Schomburgk's former expedition in the capacity of staff artist, and had been left behind at Sokode in charge of spare stores and equipment when Schomburgk had quitted that place on June 1, 1913. I knew him fairly well, having met him in Hamburg, where my home is.

It seemed passing strange to renew the acquaintance out here in the African wilds. The sleek, well-groomed young fellow I remembered had developed into a typical bushman. His face, neck, and arms were burnt and blackened by the sun to a very deep mahogany colour. He wore a huge cowboy hat, beneath which his long hair fell almost to his shoulders, à la Buffalo Bill. His flannel shirt was open at the throat. He looked wonderfully picturesque, and also marvellously disreputable, a sort of cross between a typical grand-opera brigand and a Western American desperado, as depicted on the cinema films in New York and London.

After mutual greetings and explanations we pitched a tent, made a hurried toilet, and changed our clothes, in order to arrive somewhat clean in Sokode, where we found awaiting us a welcome luncheon, the outcome of kindly forethought and hospitality on the part of Mr. Kuepers, the Government schoolmaster at the station.

At Sokode we remained resting during the heat of the day. After which we struck off at right angles into the bush to a village called Paratau, distant about four miles from Sokode.

Here it was our intention to make a rather prolonged stay, in order to film a number of dramatic, and some ethnological scenes.

CHAPTER VI
IN THE CAPITAL OF TSCHAUDJOLAND

Paratau, where our camp was situated, is the residence of Uro Djabo, the paramount chief of the important Tschaudjo tribe. Uro means "king," and it is indeed virtually as King of the Tschaudjo that Djabo is recognised, and subsidised, by the German Government.

In Togo it is customary for white strangers to visit a really big chief like this before proceeding to the Government rest-house, and although I was very, very tired, West African etiquette had to be observed.

I found the Uro a most charming host, and although he was old and fat, and his personal appearance, therefore, was not particularly imposing, he managed somehow to convey the idea of dignity, and the power and ability to command. He received us in great state, surrounded by a big bodyguard of officials and personal attendants, conspicuous amongst the former being his prime minister, Mama-Sugu, an exceedingly tall, well-proportioned, and fine-looking man. In his turban he looked quite young; in fact, I made a mental note of his age as probably about thirty. Afterwards, however, he removed it, and I then saw that he was grey-headed and partially bald. Probably he was about fifty, but this estimate is, of course, only approximate, for natives keep no records of their birthdays, and have only the most hazy notions, consequently, as to how old they really are.

Governments are not remarkable for gratitude, but the German Government has certainly good reason to be grateful to Uro Djabo, since it was to his father and predecessor that it practically owes its possession of Togoland. When the famous Dr. Kersting, the founder and pioneer of northern Togo, first entered the country, he found it inhabited by many distinct and warlike tribes, continually fighting with one another.

Following in a small way the example set by Cortez in Mexico, and by Clive in India, he allied himself with the strongest and most warlike of the lot, the Tschaudjo to wit, and he and the old Uro between them practically subdued the whole country, and placed it under the German flag.

In the course of our somewhat prolonged stay at Paratau I had several chats with Uro Djabo, and he used to hold forth at length, through an interpreter, of course, concerning the former power and greatness of the Tschaudjo people. They were originally it appeared a conquering tribe, like the Masai and the Zulus, and they swept down from the north many years ago, devastating the country as they advanced. They came riding on horses, and as these animals had never before been seen in Togoland, the terror they inspired almost sufficed by itself to ensure the defeat of the aboriginal owners of the soil.

Djabo also showed me over his "palace," a collection of circular huts of various sizes, arranged in irregular zigzag fashion, and connected by a wall. The principal hut, which was very much bigger and higher than any of the others, contained the entrance-hall and stables, and was surmounted by an ostrich egg, the emblem of royalty.

At the other extremity of the space enclosed by the huts and connecting wall a crested crane was kept. Uro Djabo attached very great importance to this bird. It was, I was informed, sacred; and anyone killing it, or otherwise interfering with it, would be very severely punished. The crane knew quite well that it was privileged, and it used to strut up to the cooking-pots when the natives were at dinner, and help itself to any choice morsel that took its fancy. Any ordinary bird acting after this fashion would have promptly had its neck wrung, for hardly anything upsets a West African native more than a liberty taken with his food. But directly the crane appeared, they would all draw away from their cooking-pot, and patiently wait until he had finished helping himself before resuming their meal. I tried hard to get Uro Djabo to tell me all about this bird, but he always avoided the subject, and when I pressed him, he refused point-blank. Nor did anyone else seem inclined to say anything about it, beyond telling me, in awe-struck whispers, that it was the Uro's ju-ju.

Djabo, as I have already intimated, kept up considerable state for a native. He was always accompanied by his band, mostly drum, with one or two reed-like instruments; and by his prime minister, sword-bearer, personal servants, and the like, all elaborately attired in Arab dress. Thus, when one day we asked the old fellow to our house for afternoon tea, he came with a retinue of about twenty followers, completely filling the small compound. He was, however, a most democratic sort of a king. When, for instance, he helped himself to a biscuit, he first took a bite, then handed it round for everybody else to have a nibble at it. When Schomburgk gave him a cigar, all his attendants smoked it after him in turn, each taking two or three big whiffs before passing it along to the next in waiting. I never saw a cigar smoked by so many people, or last so short a while, for each native tried to draw into his lungs as big a modicum of smoke as he possibly could, so that it was burned away and done with in no time. Djabo meanwhile chatted and joked with all and sundry. In fact, the only difference discernible between the king and his subjects was that he sat in a chair, while the others squatted on the ground.

Subsequent to this visit, Djabo received me alone in his palace, and introduced me to his wives. I saw about twenty of them. Two or three were young girls, and fairly presentable; but mostly they were old, fat, and ugly. After the reception was over I complimented him, not upon the beauty or intelligence of his wives, but on the fact of his being able to afford so many of them, for this is West African etiquette. "Oh," he replied lightly, "this is nothing. I have hundreds more scattered up and down the country."

Among other presents that Djabo had received from the Government at one time and another was a large and very substantial garden chair. It was of extremely ordinary appearance, and quite out of keeping with the surroundings of the African bush; but old Djabo was inordinately proud of it, and even went to the length of keeping a chair-bearer, whose sole duty it was to look after this one piece of furniture, and to carry it about to wherever his master went. This was a source of difficulty to us when we came to film his Majesty, for he would insist on being photographed seated in it, a proceeding which, of course, would have rendered the picture worthless from our point of view. Eventually, however, after many palavers, and the present of a piece of silk stuff, he consented to dispense with it for that one occasion.

There is a big native market at Paratau, and food is very cheap. Eggs, for instance, can be bought at the rate of eight a penny. Lemons are a farthing a dozen. A fine plump pigeon costs threepence. These sums represent, of course, very much more to a native than they do to a European; but even allowing for the difference in the value of money, I came to the conclusion that the average Tschaudjo man or woman could, if they choose, live far better at a much cheaper rate than can the average labouring man of, say, England or Germany. Certainly the majority of those I met appeared to be well fed and contented.

I have alluded elsewhere to the skilful riding of the Tschaudjo horsemen, and one of the objects of our stay at Paratau was to film them. In this we succeeded perfectly. In fact, I was myself immensely pleased, and even surprised, at the faithful realism of the scene when I came to see it afterwards in London on the screen. Everybody was very much taken by the clever equestrian feats performed by the Arabs at the International Horse Show at Olympia last year. But there were only a few picked men. We were able to film a much greater number of the genuine wild horsemen of the Sudan, and to film them, too, at home among their native surroundings.

By the way I am frequently reminded here, as elsewhere, that I am the first white woman to intrude her presence among these primitive people. The women shrink from me, or look askance, and the children run screaming in terror away from me. Once I got the interpreter to inquire of one sweet little lassie of about nine or ten why she had run from me. He brought the child before me, but for a long time she would not say a word. She just stood still, with eyes downcast, and trembling in every limb.

At length she looked quickly up, and shot a hard, swift question at the interpreter.

"No! No! No!" was his reply. "Of course not. Stupid little one! Why do you think such things?"

I asked him what the child had said. He answered that she had asked whether, if she spoke the truth, I was going to flog her.

"Tell her," I said, "that, on the contrary, I will make her a present."

He translated my promise, whereupon the girl, after one quick half-inquiring, half-doubting glance at me, rapped out something that sounded short, solid, and authoritative, like the rat-a-tat-tat of a door-knocker.

Then it was the interpreter's turn to take refuge in silence. He absolutely declined to translate what she had said, saying that it was too dreadful, was quite unfit for me to hear, &c. &c.

"Very well," I said at last, "I will go and tell Major Schomburgk that you refuse to perform your duties."

Whereupon the poor man, driven into a corner, blurted out the message, running his words altogether in his confusion and excitement. "The impudent little wench says," he rapped out, "that shefearstolookuponyoubecauseyouaresougly."

I had to laugh. I simply could not help it. But my mirth had a slight—a very slight—tinge of bitterness in it. To be told to my face that I was ugly! And by this naked little ebony imp.

Well, men, I reflected, had not found me uncomely. And even from my own sex—supremest test of all—I had listened to words of appreciation, and even of admiration upon occasion. So I playfully pinched the cheek of my little critic, and sent her away happy in the possession of a gaudy-coloured silk handkerchief.

This incident broke the ice, so to speak, and soon I was on the best of terms with practically the entire juvenile population of Paratau. They discovered that I was not really an ogre, as they had imagined at first. But I could not prevail upon them to admit that I possessed any claim upon their admiration, whatever I might have upon their gratitude. "Am I really and truly ugly?" I one day asked a little boy, a dear little chum of mine. "Really and truly you are, dear Puss," he replied, with childish frankness. "But," he added in extenuation, and as a balm perhaps for my wounded feelings, "you cannot help that. The good God made you so, did he not? We cannot all be black and beautiful."

Projecting my mind into theirs, and trying to think as they thought, I have come to the conclusion that they regarded me much as a white child regards a black golliwog—a something to be frightened of at first, and yet cherished because of its strangeness and uncouthness. Only in their case the golliwog was alive, and so all the more fearsome until experience had shown them its harmlessness.

After spending about ten days in Paratau, I began to feel my health breaking down. Our camp was pitched close to the old Government station, and the site was by no means an ideal one. My hut, like the others, was close, very stuffy, and almost unventilated. It had no windows, and it was built of the usual wattle and daub, which is all right when fairly fresh, but when old, as this was, it is apt to give off a sickly, mouldy odour. Then, too, there were the smells from the native village—anything but pleasant. While to crown all, the entire place was surrounded by dense fields—you might almost call them plantations—of guinea corn, fifteen to twenty feet high, which effectually shut out any breath of air. Not, however, that this mattered so very much; for the harmattan season had now set in, and the hot, palpitating air was filled with an impalpable yellow dust, like fog, so thick that one could look straight into the sun at mid-day without hurting one's eyes.

One result was that I suffered from almost incessant headaches. Yet I did not like to complain, for we were now in the middle of a new drama, and I knew that Schomburgk had set his heart on completing it at as early a date as possible. But sometimes, after rehearsing from seven till eleven in the broiling heat, in cowboy dress, and with crowds of perspiring niggers for supers, I felt that I must drop in my tracks from sheer physical exhaustion.

The climax came one day when I had to enact the heroine in a scene where Nebel, who was supposed to be a fugitive from justice, was galloping away across the mountains, and I after him, followed by twenty or thirty Tschaudjo horsemen. Nebel kept turning round in his saddle and firing at me. The horsemen behind were emitting a series of the most blood-curdling yells. And between them they frightened my horse, so that it bolted, and headed straight for the brink of a fairly high cliff, with a lot of rocks and broken ground at the bottom.

Greatly alarmed, I threw away my revolver, and using both hands, and all my strength, I tried my hardest to pull up my frightened steed. He was a grand horse, the best in Sokode, and he and I were great friends. Ordinarily, I could do anything with him, but now he was simply mad with terror, and I was entirely powerless to even check appreciably his wild race towards what appeared to be certain death for both of us.

Nebel tried his best to stop him by grabbing at his bridle as we flew past him, but the runaway swerved violently, nearly unseating me then and there. The next instant he leapt wildly into the air over rocks and boulders, and I gave myself up for lost.

As luck would have it, however, he alighted on almost the only patch of moderately soft ground that there was anywhere in the vicinity. A yard to the left, a yard to the right, were masses of jagged rocks, and had he come down on these I should almost inevitably have been killed. As it was he stumbled, recovered himself, stumbled again, and again recovered, and then stood stock still, streaming with perspiration and trembling in every limb.

I was, of course, riding astride; luckily for me. Had I been in a side-saddle, I do not see how I could by any possibility have retained my seat. As it was I was badly bruised and shaken, and this, coupled with the shock to my nerves, so aggravated my previous indisposition that I collapsed.

"I must go away, and at once," I told Schomburgk that evening, "or I feel that I cannot recover."

To his credit be it said, Schomburgk was most sympathetic. He saw that matters were serious, and although the hour was late, he sent a special messenger to Sokode to tell the authorities there how things stood, and to ask for their assistance. With a promptitude and kindness that I can never forget, the German Government officials set to work at once, collected a hundred carriers from their own working staff, and sent them over to us the first thing in the morning, in order that we might be able to start straight away for Aledjo-Kadara, the sanatorium of Togo.

An hour later we had left our pretty but unhealthy camp at Paratau, and were on the march for the highlands on which Aledjo stands—the Switzerland of Togo as grateful invalids from the sweltering lowlands have enthusiastically christened it.

CHAPTER VII
ALEDJO-KADARA—THE SWITZERLAND OF TOGO

The march from Paratau to Aledjo-Kadara, or Aledjo, as it is generally called for short, was a very tedious one, and took us two days. One reason for this was that the men so kindly provided for us by the officials at Sokode were ordinary station labourers and not used to carrying; consequently they made but slow progress.

I was carried all the way to our camp at Amaude by hammock, reaching there at two o'clock, accompanied by Schomburgk as escort, but it was getting dark before the rest of the caravan turned up, shepherded by Nebel and Hodgson. They had had a terrible time with the men, and at one period during the worst heat of the day they had almost given up hope of accomplishing the stage at all. The poor fellows staggered in under their loads in a terrible condition, some of them so utterly collapsed that I could not bear to look at them. The baggage was only got up at all, Nebel informed us, by requisitioning the help of the natives—other than carriers—who accompanied the caravan in a permanent capacity. Even the interpreters, and our personal boys, had to take turns in carrying loads, greatly to their disgust, for these people consider themselves to be on a higher plane altogether than the porters. It was as if one should ask the office staff at, say, a big contractor's place of business, to doff their black coats and white shirts, and start in to shovel clay or carry bricks.

As for me, I felt more dead than alive on arrival. My head ached terribly; not the ordinary headache of civilised climes, which if painful is at least endurable, but a burning, throbbing, rending torture, that seemed at times as if it would drive me to the verge of insanity. The heat, the dust, and the added anxiety as to the whereabouts of the caravan, made matters worse. There was no proper rest-house; only a tumble-down hut, dirty and evil-smelling, into which, however, I was glad to crawl and seek refuge from the blinding glare outside. After a while I fell asleep, and awoke feeling much better, but ravenously hungry. As, however, the carriers had not yet arrived, there was no food available, and by the time they did turn up I was nearly dead with hunger. This was not surprising, as I had had nothing to eat for twelve solid hours, from six o'clock in the morning until six o'clock at night. When the kitchen boxes did at last put in an appearance, we lost no time. The cook was put upon his mettle, and in rather less than a quarter of an hour we were doing full justice to a glorious meal of delicious little Frankfort sausages, tinned vegetables, and potatoes, washed down—this was an extra special treat—by a bumper of champagne, which had been kept cool in bottle by being wrapped in wet blankets. Afterwards I crawled into my hut, wrapped myself in a horse-rug, and with a saddle for a pillow, I cried myself to sleep. My last thoughts were, I remember, of a most doleful character. I wished most fervently that I had never come to Africa; I was quite sure that I was going to die out there in the wilds, and I even contemplated seriously cancelling my contract and insisting on returning to Europe.

Next morning, however, I awoke feeling very much better, and all the dark misgivings of the night before were completely dispelled as soon as I stepped out into the glorious air of the early African dawn. The men, I discovered, had slept out in the open all night, it having been too dark to see to pitch the tents when the last of the carriers with the heavy baggage had straggled in, and the boys too utterly exhausted into the bargain. They, however, like me, were feeling much better, and we made a good start; I on horseback, as I felt that the exercise in the open air was preferable to the stuffy hammock, and might help towards my recovery.

Nor was I mistaken. We were now leaving the lowlands, and mounting upwards, and ever upwards, by a winding serpentine mountain road, and after the first few miles I could feel my health and strength coming back almost with every yard we progressed. I was not destined to reach Aledjo, however, without further mishap. Misfortunes, they say, seldom come singly, and it was most certainly so on this occasion as regards myself. Schomburgk and I had cantered on ahead of the caravan, and on reaching a little native village we called a short halt, in order to rest awhile and allow the carriers to come up. Our two horses were tethered close together, and out of sheer devilment Schomburgk's horse edged back behind mine and bit him on the tail. He lashed out with his hind feet at his offending mate, and, fearing further trouble, I went up to stroke him, and try to pacify him. Usually I could do anything with him. He would follow me about the camp like a dog, whinnying for sugar, and poking his soft nose about my shoulders and bosom. But on this occasion no doubt he was angry and terrified, and the moment I laid my hand on his flank he lashed out with both hind feet, kicking me in the calf of the leg, and sending me flying head over heels clean off the path and into the middle of a small corn patch. Half-stunned and dazed, I tried to pick myself up, but found that I could not stand. The pain in my injured leg was awful. I never experienced anything like it in my life. Schomburgk and the others thought that it was broken, and were naturally very much concerned, since it would have taken at least a week to get a doctor up. They tried to get my riding-breeches off, but I could not stand the agony, and had to beg of them to desist. Meanwhile our boys stood round in a circle, muttering "Poor Pussy! Poor little Pussy!" and showing in their black countenances the concern they felt at my sufferings. I was greatly touched.

After about an hour the pain began to abate, and I was able to endure the removal of my riding-breeches. Then, to my great relief, I discovered that the limb was not fractured, but terribly bruised and swollen. Luckily the horse was not shod, or one or more bones would almost inevitably have been broken. The poor beast was not to blame, and as showing how sorry he was for what he had done, I may mention that for fully a week afterwards he would shrink away and hang his head whenever I approached him. He seemed to know that he had unwittingly caused me pain, and no doubt if he could have spoken he would have told me how he had let fly on the spur of the moment, without looking round, not knowing that it was me, but imagining it to be the other horse, intent on inflicting further annoyance.

When we at length reached Aledjo, the boys, owing to our being delayed by the above incident, had got there before us, and had begun preparations for camping. Now we had heard on the way up that there was a very nice, large dining-table in the Aledjo rest-house, and as dining-tables in the African bush are rare luxuries, affording a welcome change from the usual ricketty folding things carried in a caravan, we naturally looked for it the first thing on our arrival. To our surprise it was nowhere to be seen, and on inquiring we discovered that it had been calmly annexed by Messa, our cook, who had carted it over to his kitchen, and arranged all his pots and pans on it in beautiful apple-pie order. He was greatly chagrined and annoyed at having to submit to their being all dumped unceremoniously on the ground, and the table returned to its proper place. We dined off it later in state, and enjoyed an extra good meal owing to the thoughtful kindness of the good fathers of the Aledjo Roman Catholic Mission, who sent us over a supply of fresh vegetables, a treat which only a prolonged course of tinned stuff enables one to appreciate fully.

The next day I felt as fit as a fiddle as regards my bodily health, although my leg still pained me somewhat. It is simply marvellous the difference a few thousand feet of elevation seem to make in equatorial Africa. From out of the depths of a steaming cauldron, so to speak, one is transported in the course of a few hours to a region where the air seems as pure and bracing as that of, say, the Austrian Tyrol. Of course it isn't. It is the force of contrast. If a European could be transported straight from such a climate to that which prevails in the dry season at Aledjo, he would probably laugh to scorn its claim to be entitled the Switzerland of Togo. But to poor, jaded me, it was as the very elixir of life itself.

And it is not the climate only. Aledjo itself is a beautiful place, and beautifully situated on a lofty plateau nearly 3000 feet above the level of the sea. Here Dr. Kersting has built for himself an everlasting monument. Foreseeing how in time it would be needed, he laid out the place as a health resort for Europeans, and built beautiful roomy and airy rest-houses overlooking a wide expanse of plain and mountain, the plain in front, the mountains behind.

These Aledjo rest-houses consist of a series of enormous round huts, connected by covered corridors. All the rooms are very large, and have big windows and doors, so that the fresh air can come in everywhere. The dining-room especially is big enough for a circus to perform in. And what delighted me perhaps more than all was that there were the very finest set of stables for our horses that I had seen anywhere in Africa.

In time Aledjo is bound to become a place of considerable importance. Already there is in course of erection there a fine Catholic Mission Station. I am not a Catholic myself, nor is Schomburgk, but nevertheless we became great friends with the good fathers who were there superintending the work. We dined together nearly every night, and organised jointly some sports—target shooting and so forth—which were very well attended.

We also utilised our stay here to film what afterwards proved to be one of our very best dramas. We called it The Outlaw of the Sudu Mountains, and in the beginning we merely intended to use the play as a sort of setting for the beautiful scenery around Aledjo, much of which is, as I have already intimated, grand beyond description. When, for example, the harmattan is not in evidence, and the atmosphere is consequently clear, one can see right away to the Bassari Mountains, and the lofty outstanding peak of Mafakasa, meaning "Long Gun." At night, too, when the moon is shining as only it does in the tropics, the landscape takes on a new, mysterious beauty, on which I was never tired of gazing. Other nights, when there was no moon, the grass fires lit up the country for miles around, so that I thought I had never seen anything so awe-inspiring and magnificent. These grass fires are started by the natives at regular intervals during the dry season, as otherwise the country would be covered with an altogether too luxuriant vegetation. It is simply marvellous how quickly nature repairs the ravages of the flames. After two or three days, new green grass shoots up through the ash-covered soil, and clothes the whole of the burnt areas with a beautiful carpet of verdure three or four inches high, on which the antelope, and other small four-footed game, feed greedily. The natives call this "the sweating of the country," a most expressive phrase. The flames did not as a rule sweep onward with a wide front, but ate broad streets and roads, as it were, through the bush; and we used to amuse ourselves after dinner of an evening by making imaginary comparisons between these fiery thoroughfares and places we knew. "There is the Strand," we would say, "and over there the Unter den Linden. Yonder are the long-drawn-out lights of the Thames Embankment, and that is the Boulevarde des Italiens. This is the White City, that is Earl's Court, and so on." It was all very amusing, and served to recall memories of home and friends, and of happy hours spent in far different surroundings. Later on, I may add, when our caravan had to make long detours to avoid these same grass fires, I was not so greatly in love with them. Our horses, however, were not in the least frightened of them, which was one comfort. They would even gallop through some of the lesser ones, and seemed to have a perfectly marvellous knack of finding openings in the advancing line of dancing flames, through which they trotted unconcernedly. The reason for this is, of course, that these African horses have been used to grass fires all their lives. An animal fresh from Europe would probably go wild with terror, if confronted with one for the first time.

We evolved the plot of the Outlaw film practically on the spot, and I have very good reason to remember it, for while playing in it I met with yet another of those mishaps which seem to be inseparable from the profession of cinema acting. Briefly the story of the play is as follows. A white man is outlawed from amongst his fellows, and takes to the bush, living as a native amongst the natives. Prowling about one day in the vicinity of a settlement, he approaches a farmer's homestead, and is ordered off by the farmer's wife—myself. Cursing and threatening, he goes away to his lair in the hills, where he has collected together a lot of black scalliwags, of whom he is the self-elected chief. He sits apart on a knoll, brooding over the slight that has been put upon him, and vowing revenge.

His chance comes sooner than he had anticipated. From his eerie in the hills he sees me walking along a lonely path, decides to kidnap me, and does so, carrying me, struggling wildly, to his lair, over steep and dangerous mountain tracks. Part of the way led along the brink of a precipice, where the foothold was extra precarious, but of course I had to keep on struggling and squirming, as obviously a robust young woman of two-and-twenty is not going to submit to be abducted in this rough-and-ready fashion without making a fight for it.

It was this that was the cause of the accident. The camera man was grinding away at his machine, and calling out "Capital! Capital! Keep it up! Keep it up!" while Schomburgk sat a little way off on a rock out of range and beamed approval. Everything, in short, was going on first-rate, when suddenly Nebel, who was playing the part of the outlaw, stumbled over a boulder that lay in his way. At the same moment I, over-anxious perhaps to do perfect justice to the situation by making it as realistic as possible, gave a more than usually energetic wriggle. The result was that he lost his balance completely, and we tumbled head over heels on the very brink of the precipice. As the scene had been originally mapped out, he ought to have been carrying me in his arms. But he had insisted that this was not the way an outlaw would carry off a woman, and had hoisted me across his shoulder. As a result, when he fell, I flew clear of him, and landed within less than a foot of the edge of the cliff. Had I gone over, it goes without saying that I should most certainly never have played in a cinema drama again. As it was, I was cut and bleeding, and pretty badly bruised, but my professional instinct caused me to ask almost automatically as they picked me up, "What sort of a picture did it make?" As a matter of fact, except that it did not show the depth of the precipice, it made a very good one, for the operator had never ceased all the while turning the handle of his machine. Nothing short of an earthquake, and a pretty big earthquake at that, would, I am convinced, upset the equanimity of a cinema photographer to the extent of making him stop grinding away at his beloved camera.

Whether it was the effect of this little upset or not, I am unable to say, but the fact remains that soon afterwards Nebel got homesick, and gave out that he must return to Europe then and there. So, as we still had to film one or two scenes in our Odd Man Out drama, in which we wanted him to act, we went to a place called Bafilo, only about eight or nine miles from Aledjo, where we had previously decided to act them. I might mention here that all the dramas we played in Togo were entirely the work of Major Schomburgk, who wrote the scenarios, produced them, and also acted in all of them. The germ idea of The White Goddess of the Wangora, however, was given him by Mr. L. Dalton, a young London journalist.

We had a tremendous reception at Bafilo, the Uro and all his people turning out to do us honour. It was very flattering, no doubt, but all the same I could not help wishing that they would not be quite so demonstrative. The din was simply terrific, and the heat and the clouds of dust together were well-nigh overpowering.

The station at Bafilo is perched on a plateau, with a sheer drop down to the native town, which is a very large one; and here one night, soon after our arrival, I was witness to a scene that at the time made a deep impression on me. It was pitch dark, no moon, but millions on millions of stars twinkling like points of fire out of a coal-black sky. We were sitting on a sort of platform, which Dr. Kersting had had built on the extreme edge of the plateau, jutting out over the valley. The native village, or rather the cluster of native villages that constitute Bafilo, lay beneath us, but for all that we could see or hear of them they might have had no existence. Neither sight nor sound came from the depths to indicate that hereabouts were the homes of many thousands of people.

I had just commented upon this strange and altogether unusual stillness, when there was borne upwards on the night air a curious, almost uncanny, sort of rustling sound, like the sudden soughing among trees of a newly-awakened wind, and which yet had something human about it, as of a vast multitude bestirring itself uneasily. Then, all at once, in every village for miles around, thousands of lighted torches twinkled into being, and a chorus of delighted shouts burst from as many savage throats.

It was the beginning of the festival of Bairam, the great Mohammedan period of rejoicing which marks the end of the fast of Ramadam, mentioned in a previous chapter. From what I heard and saw, I am quite sure that the Bafilo people paid little or no attention to the fast, but they certainly let themselves go on the festival. Many of them threw the torches that they carried high in the air, so that they resembled very much a flight of rockets. And they seemed to vie with one another in running swiftly about with them all over the place. Eventually they all converged at a level spot just outside the principal village, where the half-burnt torches were thrown together in a huge heap, making a very presentable bonfire. One has only to remember that the Moslem festival of Bairam commemorates the offering of Isaac by Abraham on Mount Moriah to appreciate the significance of this bonfire. But of that these savages knew naught. It was to them just an occasion for merry-making. Had they known of the word they would doubtless have called it a "beano." All that night, at intervals when I awoke, I heard the weird negro music, and the singing of men and women. It sounded not unmusical—heard afar off.

We were kept very busy filming at Bafilo. First we played the scenes in Odd Man Out that I wrote about, so that Nebel could leave for home. These occupied us off and on, and counting the preliminary rehearsals, for about a week, from December 1st to 8th, on which latter date Nebel left us, with many expressions of regret and best wishes on both sides, to start on his journey down to the coast.

One incident of this drama caused us a good deal of amusement. Nebel, acting the part of the brutal husband, had to throw a plate at my native boy; and in order to get exactly the right expression we decided not to tell him anything about it beforehand. The result was eminently satisfactory from our point of view. Hodgson having been previously warned to have his camera in readiness, Nebel pretended at breakfast-time one morning to find fault with his porridge—served purposely cold for the occasion—and seizing hold of the plate and contents he hurled them at the boy, who was standing behind my chair. I never saw a native so completely flabbergasted in my life. His whole face, attitude, and manner expressed unbounded amazement, not unmixed with fear. I take it that he imagined that Nebel had suddenly gone mad. For perhaps half a minute he remained rooted to the spot. Then he turned and ran as fast as his legs could carry him to the shelter of the cook-house. Of course the nature of the incident was explained to him later on, whereat he laughed heartily, quite entering into the spirit of the joke.

After disposing of the Odd Man Out drama, we started on some industrial films, and these I found extremely interesting. Among others we took, was a series showing the various processes in the native cotton industry from start to finish. A great deal of cotton is grown round about Bafilo, and the people are exceedingly clever in cultivating it, preparing it, and making it up into garments.

First we filmed the cotton growing in little plots, or fields, which the natives clear from time to time, in the midst of the virgin bush, and where it was being tended and picked by the native girls. Then we photographed one by one the various processes, such as ginning, spinning by means of hand-worked spindles manipulated by the women, dyeing, and so on, down to the final process of weaving the cloth on the queer, old-fashioned native hand-looms, the pattern of which has been handed down unchanged probably for thousands of years. These looms are most curious, and likewise extremely primitive. The cloth can only be woven on them in strips about four to five inches wide, and these have afterwards to be laboriously sewn together by hand in order to make of them whatever garment is required. The native tailors are, however, marvellously expert with their needles, the stitches they put in being so tiny, and so close together, and the thin strips of cloth so evenly matched, that at a little distance the finished garment appears as if it had been woven in one piece.

The ginning is done by hand, and mostly by the women and girls, who tease it out very finely and quickly. In other parts of Togo, however, I have seen the natives accomplish this same process even more expeditiously by rolling it on a stone. The skeining is done by boys. Men everywhere undertake the important work of weaving, with the one exception that there exists at Bafilo a sort of class, or guild, of women weavers. These, however, work on quite different principles, and with altogether different looms, to those used by the men; and the cloth, instead of being woven in narrow strips, is made all in one piece, and of practically any width. It is a sort of primitive home industry, occupying women in their spare time, and is carried on inside their huts. When we wanted to film one of these women weavers at work, we had to get her to bring her loom out from her hut, and set it up in the open. I may add that these workers' guilds are common in Togo, not only amongst women, but to an even greater degree amongst men. They are very strict and conservative as regards the qualification for admission to membership; and as regards their aims and objects, they correspond in some respects to our European trade unions, while in other directions they approximate very closely indeed to the caste system of India.