The dyeing is also women's work, a beautiful dark blue colour being obtained from a preparation of native indigo. Most interesting of all from my point of view was the process of spinning. The hand-worked spindles are merely hard round sticks, which are inserted through a hole drilled in a flat disc—more rarely pear-shaped—of soft stone, or of clay baked hard, the weight of which helps to keep the spindle revolving, and also regulates its speed—performing, in fact, the functions of the governor of a steam-engine. The women, who do all the spinning, are marvellously expert with this exceedingly primitive contrivance. Resting one end of the spindle in the hollow of a calabash placed upon the ground, and sanding their fingers from time to time so as to get a grip, they make it revolve evenly and rapidly, and seemingly with little or no exertion. Sometimes one sees a woman revolving the spindle on her knee. A white woman trying the experiment would probably succeed in drilling a hole in her knee-cap, that is, if she continued the experiment for any length of time, but the skin of a native woman's knee is calloused by continual kneeling to almost the consistency of bone. I have occasionally, too, seen a spinner of more than ordinary dexterity throw the spindle away from her, and draw it back by the thread, keeping it revolving in the air all the while.

Another industry which we filmed, and one which, so far as Schomburgk could discover, is peculiar to the district, I can lay claim to be the discoverer of. I was out one day after butterflies, when I came unexpectedly on a number of girls busily engaged, by the banks of a little stream, in grinding and polishing a number of small objects, the exact nature of which I could not at first determine. Inquiry revealed the fact that they were palm nuts, out of which they were manufacturing artificial pearls to make up into waist-belts. By marshalling a bevy of the girls together, and setting them to work, we were able to secure a number of most interesting photographs of their unique industry, showing the whole process, from the first cutting of the nuts, drilling the holes, stringing the "pearls," and so on, down to the moment when the native belle, broadly smiling her manifest delight, puts the finished girdle round her ample waist.

I quite forgot to mention that while we were at Aledjo, Nebel went out one day and shot a "dog monkey," otherwise a baboon. It was as big as me, and looked so human that I could not bear to gaze upon it. In the evening I inquired casually what had become of the carcase, and was informed that our boys had cooked and eaten it. I shuddered. To me it seemed only one remove from cannibalism. Another queer little animal we shot here was called a rock-rabbit. It was exactly like a rabbit as to the body, but its feet reminded me very much of an elephant's hoofs.

CHAPTER VIII
AMONG THE BAFILO FOLK

Besides the films mentioned in the last chapter, we also took advantage of there being an unusually large market at Bafilo in order to photograph a series of unique moving pictures of this side—a very important one—of the natives' daily life. It was my business, as well as Hodgson's and Schomburgk's, to be constantly on the look-out for fresh scenes and incidents in this connection, and between us we managed to secure a complete representative collection.

To mention but a few of them. In one film boys are seen bargaining for supplies of native sweets, made from flour and wild honey. Payment for these toothsome delicacies, it may be mentioned, is made in cowrie shells, coined money being very rarely used. The value of these shells varies, according to distance from the coast, difficulty of transport, and so on, from about 2500 to the shilling up to as few as 1000. In Bafilo, they were worth about sixpence a thousand. In another film we showed a native barber shaving a baby's head, in accordance with native custom. The baby was held tight in the mother's arms, during the operation, which it did not seem to relish at all, for it kicked and screamed the whole while. After it was over I asked the woman the reason of the custom. "How else would you keep the lice from feeding on its little scalp?" she asked in evident surprise. We also photographed boys engaged in gambling for cowries at a curious kind of native game, the equivalent, I suppose, to our pitch and toss. Only in Bafilo there are no policemen to interfere with the urchins or mar their enjoyment. The kind of dour puritanism that is so prevalent in England—and in parts of Germany, too, for that matter—would find but little encouragement among the Togo people. It was at Bafilo, too, that we filmed a most curious native dance, performed entirely by women and the principal feature of which consisted in violently bumping one another with that portion of their anatomy on which boys are birched at school. It was a most strange and mirth-provoking spectacle, but the women take this particular dance very seriously, and will continue at it for many hours at a stretch, encouraged by the loud yells of approval from the spectators that invariably follow an extra hard bump, and by the terrific tom-tomming of the native band. In yet another film, vultures are seen acting as scavengers; while hard by warriors are engaged in mimic sword-play. The manufacture of leather mats, an industry peculiar to the place, was also filmed—together with basket-making from the stalks of the palm leaf, which we photographed from start to finish. The finished articles are sold for a sum approximating in value to one farthing apiece.

There are many wild animals in the bush round Bafilo, but the hyenas are the most trying. At Paratau we had heard these noisy brutes at a distance, but here they came quite close up. Night after night, one's rest was broken and disturbed by them. I used to get up and throw empty bottles and things out of the window to drive them away, much as one scares off the nocturnal domestic cat at home; but, though they would slink off for a while, they always came back again. Some nights were worse than others. I remember, on one occasion, there seemed to be a regular pack of them prowling round the huts, and their fierce howls sounded quite terrifying. Next morning, Hodgson, who slept in a detached hut some distance away from those occupied by the other members of our party, turned up at breakfast looking unusually pale and hollow-eyed and, on inquiring, we found that he had been sitting up all night with his revolver fearing an attack. Presently Nebel put in an appearance—it was just before he left for Europe that the affair happened—and remarked casually to Hodgson that he had been unable to sleep for the noise, and had at one time been on the point of coming round to his (Hodgson's) hut for a chat. "Good job for you, you didn't," replied Hodgson, wearily. "I should most likely have shot you. My nerves were in such a state that I am quite sure I should have let drive at any living thing [only he didn't say living] that had come to the door of my hut in the dark."

There were also numbers of scorpions about the place, and snakes, although for a long time I did not see any of the latter. In fact, one evening when we were sitting outside our hut on some stones, chatting and enjoying the cool night air, I remarked generally to the men-folk that I did not believe one half of the many snake yarns they were in the habit of telling one another from time to time. "Here I have been at this place for a whole week, and nary a snake," I remarked. "I don't believe that there are any." Hardly were the words out of my mouth, when one of the boys standing near darted forward to where I was seated, and started lashing furiously with a stick at something on the ground at my feet. It proved to be a puff-adder, one of the most poisonous reptiles to be found in the whole of Africa, and its deadly fangs were actually within a foot or so of my lightly covered ankles at the very moment when I was deriding the existence in Bafilo of him or any of his species.

Curiously enough, too, a somewhat similar incident occurred here in connection with a leopard; and this also took place in the evening. The men had been talking about these animals, and of how plentiful they were, until their stories rather got on my nerves. "Oh, bother your leopards," I cried. "I don't believe there is one within a hundred miles." I spoke in jest of course, and looked towards Schomburgk expecting him to laugh. Instead, he held up a warning hand, as if to enjoin silence, while with the other he pointed to what looked to me like a black shadow slinking slowly past where we were sitting, and not more than five or six yards distant. "A leopard!" he whispered. Hodgson and I both laughed, thinking he was joking, and that what we had seen was probably nothing more dangerous or uncommon than a native dog. We were sitting outside our hut as usual, and without a light, for the night, though dark, was fine and warm. But Schomburgk was quite sure, and he called up the native boys, who lit lamps, and there, sure enough, clearly discernible even to my inexperienced eyes, in the soft sand, was the spoor of a big, full-grown leopard. He must have come our way from the village, climbed up on to the plateau, spotted us, and slunk off between the huts, and so escaped. When we came back from examining the spoor, Hodgson said to me, remembering our former experience with the snake: "Well, you're a prophetess the wrong way about; only say you don't believe in elephants, and I'll go and load my gun."

From the 10th to the 13th of December, I suffered from a relapse of fever, and had to lay up, but during the rest of the time, as I have said before, we were kept pretty busy. There were seven horses to look after, and I usually superintended their early morning toilet myself, taking my coffee by the stables at six o'clock. Every afternoon we went riding, and the mornings were devoted to acting, or filming ethnological subjects. One thing, there was no lack of supers for our dramatic scenes at Bafilo. Once, when we asked for fifty negroes, fully a thousand turned up. Naturally they all wanted to be taken on, and the noise and clamour they made was simply deafening.

One day a "woman palaver" caused considerable trouble. The word "palaver," I may explain, stands for anything and everything in West Africa. Originally it meant a talk, a formal conference or conversation. Nowadays any happening in the least out of the common is referred to as a palaver. If, for example, you go to buy a horse—that is a "horse palaver." Does the cook spoil or steal your rations? There follows a "cook palaver." And so on. Most frequent of all, however, are the woman palavers, for my fair but frail sex was, I found, the cause of fully as much trouble in Togo as it is generally credited with being elsewhere. Cherchez la femme.

This particular case began in this way. During the afternoon, while the men were away shooting, a native came from the village to complain that one of our soldiers—we had two as escort provided by the Government—had decoyed away his daughter, a girl of fourteen or fifteen. She had, he said, been sent to the market that morning to buy provisions, and the "soldier" had met her, and induced her to go away with him. I called the soldiers before me, and questioned them jointly and severally, but they both denied most strenuously having had anything to say to any girl, one of them adding, with a great show of virtuous indignation, that he had a wife of his own in Sokode. This latter assertion, however, though doubtless correct, did not greatly impress me, because I had only the evening before come across him canoodling one of the native women on the outskirts of the camp.

While I was trying to get at the bottom of the matter, Schomburgk returned and, on my explaining to him what it was all about, he called Alfred, our chief interpreter, and ordered him to translate the man's story carefully, and word for word. This, however, Alfred seemed either unwilling or unable to do, so we called in the aid of Mseu, another interpreter, who understood the Bafilo dialect better than Alfred did. Mseu heard what the man had to say, and translated it sentence by sentence, adding voluntarily, after he had finished, that, in his opinion, the man was a liar. I began to think so myself, for it suddenly occurred to me that the two soldiers had been about the camp practically all the morning, and could not, therefore, have been down in Bafilo, philandering with native girls.

The man, however, insisted that what he said was correct, and that his daughter was even now concealed in our camp, so we told him to go with Mseu and see if he could find her. This he appeared unwilling to do, and Mseu also, but Schomburgk insisted, and eventually they went off together, to return presently with the girl. This, of course, was a serious matter, as these sort of "women palavers" may easily lead to grave bother with the natives. So we held a sort of informal Court of Inquiry, and went thoroughly into the matter. In the end we found that it was Mseu himself who had taken the girl away. Schomburgk fined the delinquent ten shillings—a big sum to him—to be handed over as compensation to the girl's father, and gave him the option of taking a letter to the Government Commissioner at Sokode, or of suffering personal chastisement at his hands there and then. He promptly chose the latter alternative, and Schomburgk gave it to him soundly. He yelled like a hyena, and screamed for mercy, to the huge delight of our boys, for Mseu was always greatly interested and pleased when anybody else got a hiding. Afterwards I took the girl aside, and gave her a good talking to, but I am sorry to say it seemed to make very little impression on her. To all my questions as to how she came to act in such a wicked manner—for it transpired that she had gone away with Mseu quite willingly—she would only reply in snappy monosyllables, or by that forward and upward thrust of the chin which is everywhere associated with sulky indifference. Once only did she show any sign of interest or animation, and that was when I asked her if she had gone with the man because she loved him. "Love him!" she cried indignantly. "Indeed no. He is old and ugly. But—he gave me this." And she pointed to a string of common white beads, value perhaps three-halfpence, which she was wearing round her throat. Poor child! To her they were a rope of rarest pearls, and for ropes of pearls, I reflected, European women, dainty and well-educated and well-bred, have ere now been not unwilling to barter their honour.

It was at Bafilo that there also occurred another palaver, in which I was more directly concerned. I was out riding one day, when a native lad of about sixteen or seventeen started dancing and shouting in the path in front of my horse. The more I expostulated with him, the worse he went on, and I was afraid that he would frighten the horse, and perhaps cause it to bolt. Luckily, Schomburgk rode up at the crucial moment, and secured the offender, who proved to be drunk. We handed him over to his chief, who was furious, and promptly ordered him to be flogged. I waited till he was triced up, then interceded for him, but I had the greatest difficulty in inducing the chief to forego the punishment. I do not know whether the culprit was grateful to me or no—gratitude being, to put it mildly, not a strong point in the character of the African native—but he at all events ought to have been, for a chief's flogging is no joke.

An endless source of interest to me during our stay in Bafilo were the long strings of natives belonging to different tribes, Losso, Lamantiné, etc., from the Kabre Mountains—semi-wild people, who were travelling back to their far-off homes after going down to do their tax-work at Sokode, or to labour for wages on the railway at Atakpame and beyond. All these people were accompanied by their women to cook their food, and both sexes were absolutely nude; not even a loin-cloth amongst hundreds of them. Yet, somehow, after the first impression wore off, one saw nothing to cavil at in it. Their black skins seemed quite to do away with the impression of nudity, and their extremely graceful movements, and modest carriage, made their nakedness seem not only natural, but admirable. The women were especially modest in their demeanour, and the younger girls were even painfully shy. If one spoke to them in passing, one might get a swift shy smile in return, accompanied by a sudden uplifting of the head for a fraction of a second. But if one approached one of them in order to try to converse, they seemed to be absolutely paralysed with fright. Like a startled fawn, they would stand stock-still, and trembling all over, until one was within a yard or so of them, then fly away like an arrow from a bow. Numbers of them carried on their heads big bags filled with salt, the ordinary currency of the Kabre country, and representing probably the wages of the bread-winner for many months. On one occasion a young girl thus loaded stumbled and fell right opposite my hut, the bag burst, and some of the precious salt was spilled and wasted. I felt sorry for her, and went in and got some of our own salt to give to her. But directly I approached her with it, she fled like the wind, after giving one startled scream. However, I went after her, and by the aid of the interpreter I eventually succeeded in calming her fears, and inducing her to accept my salt.

Another thing that amused me greatly, although I was chaffed about it considerably by Schomburgk and the others! The son of the richest native in Bafilo took it into his head to fall violently in love with me. There was nothing offensive about his attentions. It was merely a dumb, dog-like sort of devotion. He would sit for hours silently watching me, would run to anticipate my wants, and was constantly bringing me presents, and expecting nothing in return, a thing absolutely foreign to native methods. Poor chap! I have a pretty little table-cover of native workmanship spread upon the table at which I write these words—his parting gift! I can see him now, the tears streaming down his squat ebony face, as I turned in my saddle to wave him a last farewell—a ludicrous sight, and yet somehow pathetic.

By the way, some of the native cloth-work at Bafilo is exceedingly beautiful. I bought a number of specimens of it, among the best being a handsome toga-like garment of hand-woven blue stuff, elaborately embroidered, and which I am now wearing as an opera cloak in London, where it has been greatly admired. It is woven in narrow strips about two inches wide, and these are then sewn together by stitches so small, even, and regular, that they are practically invisible. It cost me £3, 10s., a big sum out there, and to a native, but then it must be borne in mind that one of these cloaks takes about a year to make.

CHAPTER IX
ON THE MARCH ONCE MORE

On December the 16th, at five o'clock in the morning, we left Bafilo, where we had been since the first day of the month, and started on trek again, bound for Dako and the north. On the road an incident occurred that upset me greatly. A certain Dr. Engelhardt had died in Togo about three weeks previously of some malignant malady of the fever type. They—Schomburgk and the rest—had given me to understand that he died at Sokode. Now it transpired that he had really died at Bafilo, and in the very hut and on the identical spot where my bed had stood. They had kept this from me, not wishing to alarm me. Now they thought it a good joke to tell me, and were quite taken aback when I got exceedingly angry. They pointed out that the hut had been thoroughly disinfected. But I was not at all appeased. I said they were cold and callous, and many other things, but they only laughed.

The distance from Bafilo to Dako is only a little over twelve miles, yet it took us four hours or thereabouts to cover it, the reason being that the road was so bad. It was all up hill and down dale, and covered with big rocks and loose round stones. As a result, I was quite shaken up and tired on arrival, and the sight of the clean and pretty little rest-house was a welcome one. There was, however, I found, no accommodation for our horses, and we had to tether them all together under a big tree. We took our meals under another tree, and were very comfortable and "picknicky."

Next day, on to Kabu. The going was even worse than on the previous day. Indeed, I have never experienced anything like it, either before or since. The road, a mere native track, crossed at right angles a continual succession of mountain ridges, with narrow wooded valleys in between, along which in the rainy season rapid streams flowed. To ride down the steep sides of many of these valleys was a sheer physical impossibility. We had to dismount again and again, and scramble down as best we could. Even without their riders the poor horses had hard work to keep their footing at times, and one of them nearly met with a bad accident when crossing one river bed that was not yet wholly dry. He had negotiated successfully the exceedingly steep slope down to the river, and was in the act of crossing, when he somehow got his near hindleg between the root of a big tree and the bank, and nearly broke it. He was our best horse too, and my own for riding purposes, and I was fearfully anxious about him until Schomburgk assured me, after a careful and prolonged examination, that beyond a straining of the tendons, there was no harm done.

As the day advanced it grew fearfully hot. I kept on asking how much farther it was, and the answer from the interpreter hardly ever varied between "Not far," and "Only half an hour." It turned out to be three full hours from the last "only half an hour," the whole journey occupying from 4 A.M. till 1.30 P.M., so that we were nine and a half hours in the saddle without a break, barring the time that we were climbing and slithering on foot up and down the sides of the valleys. Even the horses felt the strain, and although I had two mounts, and changed them frequently, they were both pretty well knocked up by the time we reached our journey's end. Schomburgk, who knew beforehand that the stage was likely to be a hard one—although even he did not realise how hard—had strongly advised me, before setting out, to wear my pith helmet. But I, with true feminine perversity, had insisted on donning a big slouch hat of the cowboy type to which I was partial. I realised my mistake when the sun was well up, but my pride would not let me admit it. The last few miles were the worst. Only my thick hair, I am convinced, saved me from sunstroke. Once or twice I reeled in the saddle, almost overcome with weariness and the terrible heat. I got, however, but scant sympathy from the men. Schomburgk especially was most rough and unkind, and this was so unlike him, as a general rule, that at length, after one or two half-hearted appeals for sympathy, I got very angry, gritted my teeth, straightened myself in the saddle, and made up my mind to go through with it come what would. Afterwards, when we had camped and rested, he told me that he had acted of set purpose. He had realised that I must be on the very verge of collapse, and knew that if he could succeed in making me angry, I should probably succeed in pulling myself together; while if he started to condole with me, he feared that I might break down altogether. No doubt he was right. Wholesome anger is a good tonic.

Anyhow, I managed somehow to hold out until our arrival at Kabu. Here the chief's hut was placed at my disposal, there being no rest-house, and throwing myself full length on the horse blanket and with my saddle for a pillow, I slept soundly for a full hour. I woke greatly refreshed, and ravenously hungry. Unfortunately there was no food available, the carriers with the chop boxes not having yet arrived. However, the negroes brought us some big calabashes full of native beer. It was the first time I had ever tasted it, and I am bound to say that I found it both refreshing and sustaining. This was lucky, as we had nothing to eat until six o'clock that night. It is a fermented drink made from guinea corn, and is, I was told, highly intoxicating if one drinks enough of it. It has a peculiar sweetish sour taste, not at all unpleasant. After my sleep, a wash, and supper, I felt none the worse for our long march, notwithstanding that it was the worst and longest one we ever did. Here for the first time I saw antelope spoor all along the road, but no antelope were visible. We expect, however, to meet plenty before long, as well as other game, for we are now in the heart of wild Africa—no proper roads, only native tracks, and all round us the shadeless, waterless bush.

Our next day's stage, to Bapure, was a short one. I felt unusually fit and well, and the road being good rode nearly the whole way in a canter. I forgot to say that after Sokode we got a different lot of carriers at each stage; what are called out here "exchange carriers." These are furnished by the chief of each village, on payment of course, and each day a soldier of our escort was sent on ahead to arrange for the proper number being forthcoming. There is practically no difficulty about this so far as Togo is concerned, although in some other parts of Africa, I was informed, things are very different. On the whole trip we only once had any bother about carriers, but I shall come to that later on. I may add that there are two sides to the exchange of carriers. It has its advantages and its disadvantages. One of the principal advantages is that with fresh people each day, one naturally travels faster than with "stale" men. On the other hand, a nucleus of old carriers is to be preferred, because they know the loads, and can consequently pack up very much quicker. Coming up from Atakpame to Sokode it usually took us no more than about half an hour to pack up in the morning and get away, whereas now our exchange carriers take fully three times as long.

At Bapure, we first came into contact with the Konkombwa, admitted by everybody to be the finest race of savages in Togo. As, however, Bapure is only a border village, the ones we saw here were not, for the most part, pure bred; and nothing like such fine specimens, consequently, as those we saw farther up country. For this reason I will defer my description of them until later.

We camped here under a big tree, the roosting place of innumerable tame guinea-fowl, who greatly annoyed us by their incessant cackling. The heat in the middle of the day was very excessive, and in order to get the maximum of fresh air and the minimum of sunshine, we adopted the expedient of detaching the outer canvas roofs over our tents, and using them as awnings. It was surprising what a difference it made. Beneath this awning, and still further sheltered from the sun's glare by the thick branches of a big tree, I enjoyed my siesta in perfect comfort and comparative coolness, whereas when I remained cooped up in the tent, I found it usually impossible to obtain any sleep whatever during the daytime. The fact of the matter is that a tent in the tropics is not at all a desirable kind of dwelling-place. It looks cool, and it sounds cool, but it isn't anything of the kind. On the contrary, its interior is almost always stiflingly hot.

Whilst we were waiting here for our carriers to come up, I was greatly amused by the antics of two travelling coast natives who unexpectedly put in an appearance. They were "beautifully" dressed in what they, no doubt, considered the latest European styles; broad-brimmed straw hats, short tight trousers, and cut-away coats. As soon as they saw us they came swaggering over to where we were seated. Said Schomburgk: "Where do you come from?" "From the coast," they replied. Said Schomburgk: "You look it." That was all. But it was enough. The two "culled gentlemen" beat a quick retreat, and for the rest of their stay they left us severely alone; which was precisely what we wanted. They had two carriers for their belongings, and later on we saw them seated back to back on their boxes in the middle of the village street, each reading a book, while a crowd of gaping bush negroes stood round, evidently greatly impressed, and very much amazed at so marvellous a display of erudition on the part of men of their own race and colour. Of course it was all done for effect.

Although the days in this part of the Togoland Sudan are frequently fearfully sultry, the heat radiates quickly in the thin dry air at this season of the year, and the nights, consequently, are apt to be chilly. On the morning when we left Bapure, for instance, at 5 A.M., it was quite cold, so that my teeth chattered as I dressed myself. A quick short canter, however, soon put the blood into circulation. The first part of our journey was along a picturesque native path, just wide enough to allow two people to ride abreast, and bordered on either side by open bush country. About half-way between Bapure and our next halting-place at Gerin-Kuka, however, we crossed a river, the Dakpe, which forms the boundary between the Sokode and the Mangu districts, and immediately found ourselves on a broad, well-kept Government road. I didn't like it at all. The tortuous native tracks, winding in and out, may not be so good for quick or easy travelling, but they possess the charm of the unknown. When riding along them, one is always wondering what new scenery the next turn will disclose. But this wide straight highway where one could see miles ahead. Bah! There was no more romance or element of uncertainty about it, than there is about Rotten Row.

However, I was soon to be reminded that, road or no road, I was not anywhere in Europe, but in the heart of savage Africa. We had arrived within a mile or two of Gerin-Kuka, when there suddenly sounded ahead of us a most terrific din, and presently there came in sight an immense crowd of Konkombwa people, who advanced towards us leaping and yelling, and brandishing in the air long bows and barbed arrows—the latter, I was informed, poisoned. It was a most imposing, barbaric sight. The savages, all nude, or nearly so, kept up a chorus of yells, a series of long-drawn and sonorous "ha-ha-has," threw their bows into the air, and dexterously caught them again. And all the while they were dancing and capering, and making swift, short darts forward, as if bent on attacking us.

I confess to having been a wee bit frightened at first, until Schomburgk assured me that this was merely their way of saluting an honoured guest, and that the honoured guest on this occasion was myself, the first white woman who had ever adventured herself within the confines of their country. I can quite understand, however, what a welcome of this description might easily be misunderstood, and possibly lead to complications, as it has, in point of fact, upon occasions, and this not only amongst the Konkombwa, but amongst other more or less kindred people, whose customs in this respect are practically identical. In this connection Schomburgk mentioned an incident that came within his own personal knowledge. It happened some years ago, in what is now the north-western corner of Rhodesia, in the bend of the Kafue River. Here a traveller, who shall be nameless, first came into contact with the Mashukulumbwe. This traveller had heard a lot about the fighting prowess of the Mashukulumbwe, in just the same way as I had heard a lot about the fighting prowess of the Konkombwa, and when they came out to greet him, as the Konkombwa came out to greet us, he, like me, grew frightened, and fired and killed one of them. The poor savages, utterly at a loss to understand in what way they had offended, went in a body to the District Commissioner to complain of the outrage, and to ask for redress and compensation. They got what they asked, the money payment they received being afterwards recovered from the traveller, who was severely called over the coals for his share in the matter.

This was the first time I had ever met any real full-blooded Konkombwa, and I was greatly struck with their appearance. Tall, splendidly proportioned, and of fierce and warlike aspect, they carried themselves with a grace and dignity one could not help admiring. They were great dandies, too, for although they wore no clothes to speak of, many of them had little copper plates woven into their woolly hair, or had their heads surmounted with curious helmet-like head-dresses of cowrie shells, topped by antelope horns. The quivers in which they carried their sheaves of poisoned arrows, too, were beautifully designed and ornamented; and round their arms, from wrist to shoulder in some cases, they wore bracelets of brass and copper alternating. These were kept brightly polished, and glistened in the sun as they moved, making an extremely effective picture. So I rode into Gerin-Kuka in state, surrounded by my savage escort, dancing, shouting, and leaping. The noise made my horse exceedingly restive, and I began to fear that I might be unable to control him, so that I was very glad when, after we reached the confines of the village, they suddenly with one accord stopped shouting, and began to sing, a low, melodious, yet barbaric chant, altogether different from any native singing I had ever heard before. The interpreter explained that it was a song specially composed in my honour, and in which I was told that I was more fair than the moon, brighter than the sun, and more graceful and beautiful than a roan antelope.

The rest-house at Gerin-Kuka is very large and comfortable, and beautifully clean. It is square, not round, as is usual with the Togo rest-houses, and this in itself was a change. We were its first occupants, which accounted perhaps for its being so altogether spick-and-span; although as a matter of fact the rest-houses all over Togoland are invariably kept in first-rate order. Only white people are allowed to occupy them, and it is the duty of the chiefs of the different villages where they are situated, to keep them clean. It must not be imagined, however, that it is only the white travellers whose convenience is studied by the Government in this respect. In the neighbourhood of each of the rest-houses for Europeans, there has also been built a compound for natives. Many of these compounds are quite imposing-looking places, being, in fact, self-contained villages, comprising often as many as fifty or sixty round huts, each of which affords accommodation for a native family. The entire compound is called a "songu," and is in charge of a native official called the "sery-chi-songu" (I won't vouch for the spelling), whose duty it is to keep it clean and tidy, and to see that the occupants of the huts sweep them out before they leave in the morning for the next stage of their journey. This sweeping out process, I may mention, is by no means perfunctory, for the Government insists on cleanliness in regard to the native rest-houses, as well as in regard to those used by the whites. But it is not by any means an ordeal. There are no brooms provided, but the natives soon improvise one from the branches of the nearest tree, the work—as usual—falling upon the women, when there are any in the party. One penny a day is charged for the use of a hut, the money being collected by the man in charge of the compound. No party is allowed to remain beyond a certain time—usually three days—at any one rest-house, except in case of sickness. One result of the provision of these compounds, and of the roads the Government have caused to be built, is that there has grown up quite a regular system of travel to and fro between the rail-head at Atakpame, and other parts of Togo, and not only are the roads and rest-houses used by the Togoland natives, but those from the northern parts of the British possessions on the one side, and the French possessions on the other, also come down through Togo to the coast, when they wish to make the journey, in order to avail themselves of the facilities provided.

It was outside the Gerin-Kuka rest-house, by the way, that I first paid our carriers in salt, the currency in general vogue throughout the Mangu district, where we now are. Each carrier received two cupfuls of salt for his day's work. Schomburgk saw nothing extraordinary in this, and rather pooh-poohed the idea when I suggested cinemaing the incident. He consented, however; and afterwards, when we came to show the films in London, this one created quite a lot of interest. People seemed to find it strange that natives could be found willing to carry heavy loads all day in the broiling sun for what was, from their point of view, so altogether inadequate a remuneration.

In the afternoon, the Konkombwa, not content with their magnificent reception in the morning, gave a grand dance in my honour. Afterwards, Schomburgk went out into the bush to look for antelope. He had previously told me that he would not be gone more than about an hour or so, and when darkness came on, and he had not returned, I grew alarmed for his safety, remembering how easy a matter it is to lose one's way in the African bush. Hodgson kept trying to reassure me, saying that it was quite certain that so old and experienced an African traveller as Schomburgk was would not get bushed. As, however, he had not returned by eight o'clock, I ordered out the soldiers to look for him, and fired several revolver shots to guide him in our direction in case he was anywhere within hearing. I also sent natives out with lanterns, and soon the bush all round Gerin-Kuka was alive with twinkling points of fire. At nine o'clock the truant turned up. He had, he explained, struck some fairly fresh antelope spoor, and, urged on by the ardour of the chase, had gone further afield than he had at first intended. As is the way with men the world over, he was not a bit grateful to me for my thoughtful solicitude. On the contrary, he growled and grumbled, saying that the lights of the lanterns had dazzled and confused him, and so caused him to be even longer on the way than he otherwise would have been; also that all the unnecessary hubbub and excitement had made him look foolish in the eyes of the natives. "I am quite capable of looking after my own safety, thank you," he snapped in conclusion; to which I icily retorted that if he thought it was his safety I was anxious about he was mightily mistaken, my only reason for acting as I had done being that I had no ambition to be left stranded alone with a leaderless caravan in the heart of the African wilds. It is perhaps unnecessary to add that after this little passage of arms we parted on not the best of terms that night.

Next morning he was all smiles and kindly courtesy, and as I showed by my manner that I had forgiven his boorishness of the previous night, we made a first-rate start. We are now bound for Sansane-Mangu, the northernmost Government station in Togo, by way of Kadjamba and Nali, and are in the heart of the Togoland Sudan. The days are intensely hot, and the nights seem to get colder and colder. This morning, for instance, the frost lay thick on the ground, so that we shivered under our thick wraps. These extremes of temperature are very trying. For at least nine out of the twelve hours of sunshine that one gets in these latitudes, the sun pours down scorching rays from a cloudless sky upon sandy plain and mountain rock, and the whole landscape shimmers and glows like the mouth of the furnace; but with the coming of night a sudden chill seems to fall from the stars, the heat radiates rapidly into space, and the mercury in the thermometer drops often as many as forty or fifty degrees in hardly more than as many minutes. Of course the above applies to the dry season only.

On leaving Gerin-Kuka we did not take the main road, but branched off into a side-path which it is only possible to use in the dry season. After riding a few miles, Schomburgk stopped his horse, and, stooping down, called my attention to a small round depression, or hole, in the hard clay soil. It looked for all the world as if some one had jabbed the bottom of a bucket deep down into the clay when it was soft, and that the indentation so made there had then been left to harden. I looked at it, as he bade me; but I did not see anything very remarkable about it, and I said so. "Perhaps not," replied Schomburgk. "Nevertheless, it happens to be an elephant's spoor, the first you have ever set eyes on." Of course my interest was aroused at once, and I dismounted in order to examine it more closely. Schomburgk explained that it was an old spoor from the last rainy season. I thought the footprint an enormous one, but Schomburgk said that it was made by quite a small elephant. We followed up the spoor for some little distance, and I received my first lesson in wood-craft, Schomburgk pointing out to me where the beast had stopped to feed, breaking off the branches and uprooting a number of small trees, and where he had stopped to rest for a while. In the rainy season all this part of the country is under water and impassable, and the elephants then come here to feed from the mountain country of the north-east, and from the Kara River region, where, in the "gallery forests," as they are called, there are elephants all the year round. Later on, during the next day's march, we struck this same Kara River, and I saw spoor of hippopotami and buffalo. We also encountered immense flocks of guinea-fowl. The flesh of these birds is eatable, but tough.

Kadjamba we found to be quite a small village. We could not even get carriers to take us on to Nali, the next stage, but had to keep those we had brought from Gerin-Kuka. There was only a small rest-house, and I slept under my tent, being badly bitten by mosquitoes, which swarmed about the place in countless myriads. Amongst them were numbers of anophele, the carriers of the malarial fever microbe. Only the female anophele stings, and she has got to be herself previously infected by the fever germ before she can convey infection to the person bitten. Consequently, anopheles inhabiting densely populated regions are far more dangerous than those found in comparatively deserted ones, such as we were now in. In and around the big villages practically every anophele is a germ carrier, and capable of breeding infection, while those breeding out in the bush are comparatively innocuous.

Next day we started at 6 A.M. as usual, and after an hour and a half's ride we reached and crossed the great river Kara, our horses going in up to their saddle-flaps. This river drains the Kabre Mountains, and is one of the main tributaries of the Oti, the big river of Northern Togo, and which is itself in its turn a tributary of another and yet bigger river called the Volta, which forms the boundary between the British and German territory. In the dry season, which is of course now, the Kara is only about 100 yards wide and comparatively shallow, with a slow, sluggish stream; but in the wet season it is, I was informed, fully 500 yards wide, and so deep and swift as to be quite unfordable.

The Konkombwa country, in which we now are, differs from the Tschaudjo country in many respects, and especially as regards the number and extent of the villages. The Konkombwa live in little homesteads of two or three huts, distributed thickly but unevenly all over the country, the reason being that these people are in the main agriculturists, getting their living from the soil. The Tschaudjo, on the contrary, are traders and warriors, caring little for agriculture, and so in the course of ages they have come to concentrate together more and more. Paratau, which may be described as the capital of Tschaudjoland, has a population of several thousand souls, and Bafilo is even bigger.

Two hours after crossing the Kara we rode into Nali, where the chief had laid out all his "presents" under a big tree. The collection made a goodly show; quite a lot of flour, some unground corn, many chickens, and a big pile of eggs. In return we gave him brass, tobacco, and salt, and he retired highly pleased. Later in the day Schomburgk and Hodgson went out shooting, and the latter returned greatly excited. He had seen a school of hippos for the first time. His jubilation, however, over the incident, was greatly marred by the fact of his rifle having jammed in a most extraordinary manner when he was making ready to let drive at them. He had it already loaded at the time with a cartridge carrying a soft-nose bullet for shooting antelope, and pulled the lever in order to extract it, with a view to reload with one carrying a solid bullet. But the case came away, leaving the bullet in the barrel, and as he had no ramrod his rifle was put altogether out of action for the time being. There were five or six hippos in the school, and for days afterwards, Hodgson did not cease to lament having been unable to bag at least one of them.

From Nali we rode on in the morning for about ten miles, then camped on the open veldt. There was no rest-house available, of course, and we put up our tents. The next day, December 23rd, we struck camp at six as usual, and after an hour and a half's ride we reached the Oti River. Here we halted, had breakfast, and tidied ourselves as best we could for our entry into Sansane-Mangu, which lay only about another hour and a half' ride in front of us.

CHAPTER X
CHRISTMAS AT SANSANE-MANGU

Mangu, the northernmost Government station in Togo, is in charge of a District Commissioner, Captain von Hirschfeld, who is assisted in his duties, which are arduous and important, by two other white men, one of whom is a non-commissioned officer, the other a civilian. Between them, these three representatives of a dominant race, carry on from year's end to year's end administrative and executive duties over a tract of country as big as half a dozen English counties, and larger by far than many of the smaller semi-independent German States. It is a country, too, difficult of access at all times, and in the rainy season impossible altogether to traverse in many parts. It is, moreover, inhabited by a people diverse and strange, speaking different dialects, possessing different tribal customs, manners, and beliefs; and in some instances—and in all instances at times—truculent, intractable, and treacherous.

That this vast, far-flung region, in parts even now largely uncharted and unknown, should have been brought, within comparatively recent times, under a settled and stable government, and tribal and internecine warfare practically abolished, speaks volumes, I venture to think, for the character and abilities of the men who have accomplished the task. Earliest among these pioneers was Dr. Gruner, who took the German flag right up to the Niger bend, but who had to withdraw owing to the shortsightedness of the German Parliament. The British Government, by the way, made no such mistakes, I notice. I have read in our history books how, some twenty years ago, Lord Rosebery's Government was on the eve of adopting a similar policy of scuttle in regard to Uganda. But the Rosebery Government went down in response to a popular outcry, and as a result your Union Jack waves over all that portion of East Africa. Our Parliament was subject to no such popular pressure—at all events at that time, and in regard to this matter. But here I had better stop. I am trenching upon high imperial, not to say international, politics, and such things are not for a girl like me.

Let me get back to the Mangu of the present day, which we are now, if you please, dear reader—I like that old-fashioned phrase—approaching on horseback from the lowlands about the Oti River. A big broad road leads up to the station from the Oti, and the station buildings can be seen a long way off, gleaming white in the sunshine, and giving one, even at a distance, the impression of extreme neatness and cleanliness. As our caravan, with its long string of porters, winds slowly upwards, I observe through my field-glasses that flags are flying from every point of vantage, and I guess, even before Schomburgk tells me so, that the decorations are in honour of the advent of myself, the first white woman in Mangu. Presently, Captain von Hirschfeld, accompanied by a mounted bodyguard, canters out to meet us, and I, intent on making as imposing an entry as possible, ride forward to greet him. But alas, for the plans of mice and men, to say nothing of women! A patch of soft sand—a quicksand, no doubt, in the rainy season—lay directly in my path. When my horse reached it, he first sank in it over his fetlocks, then floundered, then fell, pitching me over his head. And in this unceremonious, not to say undignified, fashion, the first white woman made her first entry into the far northern station of Mangu. Captain von Hirschfeld and myself often laughed over the incident later on, but to me at the time it was no laughing matter. Not that I was hurt in the least. The sand, fortunately, was soft, and the floundering kind of stumble my horse made resulted, so far as I was concerned, in a subsidence rather than a fall. But I was deeply mortified. I had looked forward to making quite an impression, and the only kind of impression I accomplished was the one made by my face in the sand when I fell.

The full name of the station—I fancy I have mentioned this before somewhere—is Sansane-Mangu, meaning "the place where warriors meet." Once upon a time it was the gathering-place of the natives when their young men met together to set out on one of those wild forays so dear to savages the world over. The exact place of meeting was a big baobab tree, still standing, and about this tree the new station of Mangu has been built, with a view to breaking the fetish spell which in the estimation of the natives stills hangs round it. The old station at Mangu, founded by a Lieutenant Tiery, was in a different spot, overlooking the Oti River. It was a small station, but very strongly fortified; a fort, in fact. Of this station, only the walls remain. The interior of the site is used as a European cemetery. Three white men lie there. Two died, the third was killed in warfare with the Tschokossi, a tribe inhabiting the country to the north and west. The unhealthiness of the site, more than anything else, caused the old station to be abandoned. The new station was founded by a Captain Mellin, who died a few years back. A little while ago the Tschokossi rose in rebellion, and tried to capture this station, and they very nearly succeeded. There was some sharp fighting, one white man and a good many native soldiers being killed. As an act of expiation, after the rebellion had been crushed, they were forced to build, near their principal village, an immense stone pyramid, with a cross on top.