This story of Pereira’s, wildly improbable as it was, made a considerable impression upon me, for not only is it true, as my host had remarked, that Africa is a land of strange and unexpected happenings, but to a newcomer like myself, the novelty of the surroundings, and the total contrast to the conditions of life in prosaic, workaday England, produce an impression of unreality that vitiates the standard of probability. I recalled, too, the mysterious references of Amádu Dandaúra to the “treasure-house” and the “blind men” of Tánosu, and bitterly regretted that I had not taken the opportunity of learning from him more about the weird and dreadful cavern of Aboási, if such a place really existed.
I do not know whether in the preceding pages I have made the reader understand what manner of place Quittáh is. Probably I have not, and a few words of description may be useful before proceeding further.
Quittáh, then, is one of a row of towns or villages dotted along a narrow tongue of sand which stretches from the mouth of the river Volta with a few interruptions to the Niger Delta. On one side of this isthmus is the ocean and on the other a chain of large lagoons, and so narrow is the space separating sea and lagoon that, in many places, travellers proceeding along the latter in canoes can not only hear the boom of the surf upon the beach outside, but can see the white crests of the waves over the low-lying shore.
Thus from the peculiarity of its position Quittáh was very much like a small island. From the sea one was cut off by the dangerous surf; from the adjacent villages of Jella-Koffi and Voja by the loose, shifting sand which it was almost impossible to walk upon, while between us and the mainland the lagoon spread out like an inland sea, right away to the horizon.
This mainland, of which I heard occasional reports from native traders, became to me a source of continually increasing curiosity. From the lagoon-side market, where I often stood watching the fleets of canoes unloading their little freights of produce on to the “hard,” it was, as I have said, invisible, and the lagoon stretched, an unbroken waste of water as far as the eye could see. But from our verandah a few palms could be seen upon the other side, their heads just standing above the horizon, while on very clear days one could discern the dim and shadowy shape of the Adáklu—a solitary mountain some seventy miles distant in the interior.
It happened one evening that as I stood on the verandah, telescope in hand, dividing my attention between the cloudlike mountain and the fleet of canoes returning homewards from the market, Pereira came out, and flinging himself into a squeaking Madeira chair, began to roll a cigarette, regarding me meanwhile with an indulgent smile.
“I often wonder, Englefield,” he said presently, “what it is that you are continually spying at through that telescope. Surely the lagoon and the canoes and the palms and the pelicans are pretty commonplace objects by this time, and I think they comprise the entire landscape.”
“Certainly,” I replied, “the outlook is a little monotonous; but yet somehow it attracts me, and I find myself continually wondering what there is behind the horizon there.”
“Then wonder no longer, my friend,” said Pereira, “but come with me to-morrow and see for yourself. I have to go to Anyáko to visit a branch store that I have there, and as to-morrow is Sunday I propose that we make my business visit into a picnic. But don’t imagine that there is anything to see. Conceive Quittáh with pink clay instead of grey sand, with ant hills in place of sand dunes; add to the cocoa-nut palms a few gum trees and baobabs, and substitute a slightly different stink, and there is Anyáko.”
“Any white people?” I inquired.
“Not now,” answered Pereira. “There was a mission station there once, but the missionaries died off as fast as they were sent out, so the station was abandoned. You’ll see the graves and the remains of the chapel to-morrow.”
On the following morning I met Pereira by the lagoon-side just as the sun was rising, but early as was the hour, all the necessary preparations for the journey were completed. Half a dozen of the long flat-bottomed canoes (each fashioned from a single log of silk-cotton-wood) such as the natives use, were drawn up by the “hard” or landing-place, and of these the largest was evidently set apart for our use, for it contained two Madeira chairs, and even as I approached I observed Aochi, Pereira’s servant, stowing in the bows a green gin case from which protruded the necks of two claret bottles.
The lagoon at this hour was perfectly still, with a dull, unruffled surface like a sheet of polished lead, and was overhung by a shroud of yellowish rosy mist. A quite unusual silence brooded over the scene—for ordinarily Quittáh with the strong sea breeze, the chattering cocoa-nut palms and the boisterous natives, is rather a noisy place—through which the giant pulse of the ocean could be heard booming rhythmically upon the beach.
We had no sooner taken our places than the two canoe men—each provided with a long crooked pole forked at the end—pushed off and began to propel the canoe at quite a rapid rate. In a few minutes the shore had vanished into the mist, and for the next hour we moved smoothly on with nothing to mark our progress but some chance floating stick or an occasional solitary pelican that emerged from the mist, slid across our circumscribed field of view and faded away again before we had time for mutual examination. Presently the sun began to appear through the haze like a disc of burnished copper, and then the sea breeze came down, dimming the surface of the water and driving before it row after row of little hollow ripples that slapped noisily on the flat side of the canoe. As the mist cleared there appeared before us a low-lying shore clothed with fan palms and a few lank and ragged trees, and one or two thatched roofs and a single whitewashed building could be seen half hidden among the foliage. Nearly opposite this building the canoe presently grounded in some six inches of water, and the two stalwart canoe-men, stepping overboard, proceeded to lift Pereira and me bodily out of our chairs and carry us through the shallows, depositing us at length on dry land.
“Well, Englefield,” observed Pereira, stretching himself and stamping on the dry mud, “here we are in your promised land, and here comes Aochi with the chop box. Breakfast, Aochi, one time. We’ll have our food first, and then I’ll see about my business while you take a walk in the garden of Eden.”
We breakfasted in the mouldy-looking “hall” of the decaying mission house, on the inevitable spatchcock and plantain fritters (“pranteen flitters” Aochi called them) from the green box, and then Pereira betook himself to the village, leaving me to roam about in the bush. It was not a lovely spot, I was compelled to admit, but it was new to me and a change from Quittáh. There were bushes and trees and fan palms and actual solid earth of a curious pink colour—a great relief after the eternal loose grey sand. And there were great snails with shells striped like a zebra’s skin, and curious vole-like animals, and large birds that uttered sounds like the whirring of an invalid chime clock, and great ant-hills: in short, there were multitudes of things that I had never seen before, so that I spent a couple of hours very pleasantly poking about among the bushes. Making my way back towards the village I stopped to examine a large and incredibly corpulent baobab tree from whose branches the velvet-covered fruit hung down on long straight stalks. I was about to move on when I perceived among the bushes a low mud wall, and looking over it found that it formed one side of a square enclosure.
“This,” I thought, “must be the old mission garden,” and forthwith I resolved to explore it in case any of the fruit trees should be still bearing.
Scaling the low crumbling wall, I entered and looked about me. The whole place was choked with a riotous profusion of vegetation. The ground was almost hidden by the feathery masses of the little sensitive mimosa, whose leaves shrink away and close up at a touch; low bushes and small trees were scattered about, and here and there clumps of cactus and branching euphorbias rose out of the tangle. But of cultivation there was no trace.
The most singular feature of the place was the large number of ant-hills—sugar-loafed structures of bright red earth from eight to ten feet high—of which a dozen or more were grouped quite near together. From one of these I noticed an angular piece of white stone projecting, and, wondering how a piece of stone could have got into such a situation, I drew out my knife and endeavoured to dig it out, when to my astonishment it turned out to be one arm of a monumental cross around which the ant-hill had been built.
This discovery led me to examine the place more narrowly, with the result that, by dragging aside creepers and bushes and scraping away portions of other ant-hills, I found no less than seven flat gravestones, each with a marble tablet let into it on which was engraved a name and a scripture reference. All the names were German, and mostly those of men.
So this was all that was left of the Anyáko mission! It was a solemn sight to look upon, and fraught with a suggestiveness that was by no means pleasant; one of those disagreeable reminders with which West Africa is apt to salute the intrusive white man.
I sat down upon a flat slab that I had just cleared, lost in gloomy meditation, insensibly contrasting the bright face of nature with the sad and pathetic relics around; glancing at the blue, sunny sky, the gay vegetation, the gem-like sun birds that hovered round the cactus, and the great blue-bodied lizard that nodded his scarlet head at me from the top of an ant-hill, and thinking of the “pestilence that walketh in the noon-day” amidst all this exuberant life and light.
My reflections were interrupted by the sound of footsteps on the path outside, and looking up, I perceived a figure approaching which, by its tall black hat, long black coat and black umbrella could be that of none other than Pereira.
“Aha!” he exclaimed as he came up. “Meditating among the tombs? And a very fitting occupation for a coaster.” He furled his umbrella, and leaning his arms on the wall, looked round.
“Yes,” he continued, “here is West Africa in a nutshell; a most concise epitome. I knew all these men, Englefield, and the first of them came here less than a dozen years ago. And here they are; and so the world wags in Africa. The white man comes out full of life and energy and purpose. The jungle laughs and covers him up and he is straightway forgotten. Then more come, and the act is repeated da capo, and so on. But what have we here?”
I stood up and looked over the wall. Two natives were coming towards us along the path, one an aged woman, white-haired, lean and shrivelled, and the other a middle-aged man who held the woman’s hand with one of his and with the other grasped a long staff with which he tapped upon the ground before him as he walked.
There was nothing remarkable in the appearance of the old woman, excepting the fan-like group of radiating scars on her temples which showed that she belonged to the Krepi tribe. But the aspect of the man was most horrible. His body was to the last degree emaciated; his face was so seamed and disfigured with scars as to be hardly human; his neck was covered with a pattern of warty button-like scars; his ears had been carved out into scallops like a cock’s comb, and his empty eye-sockets were so sunken that his face was like that of a dry skull.
As the pair came up to where we were standing, Pereira addressed them in the Efé language, and I gathered that he was inquiring after the man’s health; but although his manner was kind and sympathetic enough, his questions were received with sullen reserve, and after a very brief conversation, the old woman put an end to the interview by abruptly seizing the man’s arm and hurrying him away.
Pereira looked after them with a puzzled expression on his face, as the old woman strode along and the man, with chin stuck forward and his stick groping before him, stumbled by her side.
“There goes another African mystery,” my friend remarked turning to me.
“How so?” I asked. “What did the old lady say?”
“Oh, she said,” replied Pereira, “that she had brought her son all the way from Peki to see the white doctor at Quittáh.”
“Well, he does certainly look a trifle off colour,” I remarked. “Did the old woman say how he lost his eyes?”
“Ah! that was the question that gave so much offence. Her explanation was that he had some kind of sickness as a child, but she was not inclined to be confidential, as you saw.”
“No, indeed. But I suppose there is a good deal of eye disease here as in other tropical countries?”
“Oh, certainly there is; but I suspect that the disease that cost him his sight was somehow connected with a flat iron rod with a hook at the end.”
“Good God!” I exclaimed, “you don’t mean to say that you think his eyes have been put out?”
“That is my belief,” answered Pereira. “Didn’t you notice his eye-sockets with never a vestige of eyeball left? And did you see his ears and his neck? Those were no tribal marks. That man has been an Ashanti ‘donkor’ or alien slave. I remember once before meeting a blind man—also a Krepi—with just the same appearance and marked in the same manner, and he was just as reticent as this one; and he, I learned for certain, had been one of the King’s slaves in Ashanti, but I never could find out anything more about him.”
“And he had had his eyes put out?”
“Evidently, although he told the same story of illness in childhood as this one.”
“What an extraordinary and horrible thing!” I exclaimed. “Why, it recalls that ghastly yarn of yours about the Aboási cavern.”
“I was just thinking the same myself. But come, that villain Aochi will have our coffee ready by now, and we ought to be starting for home presently. It doesn’t do to be overtaken by darkness on the lagoon.”
During the return passage across the lagoon the usually loquacious and discursive Pereira preserved an unwonted silence, and I surmised that he was thinking of the old Krepi woman and her son. That this was actually the case appeared later, for after he had wished me “good-night” and was retiring to his room he paused in the doorway and looked back at me.
“I can’t help thinking of that poor blind devil, Englefield,” he said. “What fearful sufferings he must have gone through, and what constant terror he must be in lest he should be discovered and dragged back to his slavery. But miserable wretch as he is, he has the advantage of you and me in one thing, if it can be considered an advantage: he holds the key to some of the darkest secrets of this mysterious land.”
A couple of days after our excursion to Anyáko I received a letter by the land post from Captain Bithery. It was dated from Axím on the Gold Coast, and in it, after giving me sundry items of news concerning the brig and her crew, the Captain went on to say that he proposed to drop down to the leeward coast in about a fortnight to ship some produce that he hoped to obtain. This produce, consisting chiefly of palm oil, kernels and copra, was to be collected for him by a certain Cæsar Olympio—a Portuguese mulatto who lived at the village of Adena or Elmina Chica, a beach village some twelve miles to leeward—i.e. to the east—of Quittáh; and he proposed that I should proceed to Adena to conduct the purchase and superintend the storage of the produce, leaving my store in Vanderpuye’s charge.
On receiving these instructions I made the necessary arrangements with Pereira, and the same afternoon set out for Adena in a spare hammock which he lent me and which was carried on the heads of four of our labourers.
This was my first experience of this mode of travelling, and very pleasant and even luxurious I found it to recline at full length in the springy, swaying hammock as the barefooted carriers trudged over the soft sand. A canopy of painted canvas protected me from the sun during the daylight and from the dew when the night closed in, and by peering underneath it I could look out at the groves of pattering cocoa-nut palms on the one side, and on the other at the ocean which surged up almost at our feet.
It was about eight o’clock and bright moonlight when the hammock drew up outside the compound of Olympio’s house, and as I scrambled out on to my feet I was saluted by a little yellow-faced man with bright, beady, black eyes and a most persuasive and conciliatory smile.
“You are Mr. Olympio?” I said as I shook his hand.
“Quite right,” he replied in a singularly soft and musical voice, adding, “I bid you welcome to Adena. Will you please to come in?”
I followed him into the house, a mud-built thatched cottage of three rooms, and immediately became aware of an aromatic and savoury odour, and perceived with great content that preparations—of a somewhat primitive nature indeed—had been made for a meal.
I was not the only guest, it appeared, for, as I entered, a native in European dress—what is locally known as a “scholar man”—rose to greet me. He was the very antithesis of Olympio—big, burly, black as the ace of spades, and full of the boisterous humour and high spirits of the typical African; and as he gripped me by the hand and bid me welcome to Adena his joy overflowed in little gurgles of laughter.
“Glad to see you, Mr. Englefield,” he said in a deep buzzing bass. “I hear your name plenty time but never see you. Now I see you very fine gentleman. Ha! ha! ha!” Here he leered at Olympio, who keckled softly and rubbed his hands.
“Mr. Englefield smell de palaver sauce, hey! Olympio?” continued my new friend, whose name, by the way, was David Annan. “You like dis country chop, sah?”
I replied that I had very little acquaintance with African cookery.
“Aha! no! You no get fine country wife like Olympio to make you palaver sauce. Dis yer Olympio he sabby what be good. He sabby fine chop, fine liquor, fine girl. He very bad man, sah, ha! ha!”
He laughed uproariously, and certainly the picture of the little wizened mulatto in the character of a bon vivant and lady-killer was not without its comic side. But these flights of wit were cut short by the appearance of a handsome, light-coloured Fanti woman who carried a deep, black clay dish, and was followed by a procession of small girls and boys each bearing some adjunct to the feast, and soon the little table, with its red and yellow-striped cloth, groaned under a burden of delicacies. The black dish was filled with a gorgeous orange-coloured palm oil stew, while smaller but similar receptacles exhibited such dainties as kiki, or okro stew, rolls of fufu, looking like gelatinous suet puddings, stuffed egg-fruit, large red capsicums and piles of green and red chillis.
That dinner was a series of surprises, of which I experienced the first when I unguardedly swallowed a spoonful of the orange-red “palaver sauce” and was instantly reduced to tears and suffocation. But the most surprising thing of all was the behaviour of Mr. David Annan. He commenced the meal by popping into his mouth and calmly masticating a large scarlet capsicum. He next pinched off a lump of fufu and, indenting it with his thumb, fashioned it into a kind of cup which he filled with the peppery stew and solemnly bolted with closed eyes like a toad swallowing a caterpillar. Finally, he poured out half a tumblerful of Angostura bitters and drained it at a draught. After this my capacity for astonishment was exhausted, and if he had proceeded to quench his thirst with the contents of the paraffin lamp and to swallow the forks it would have seemed quite in character. But he did neither of these things, and the meal dragged on to the end with no further diversion from my sufferings.
Shortly after dinner Mr. Annan took his leave, earnestly beseeching me to keep an eye on Olympio and endeavour to restrain him from the wild excesses into which it was his habit to plunge, and the little mulatto and I then settled down to pass the evening together.
The proceedings were not as boisterous as Annan’s warning might have led one to expect, for Olympio was a shy and silent man, and, moreover, unaccustomed to the society of Europeans; so we sat at opposite ends of the table, with a calabash full of chopped tobacco-leaf between us, and engaged in conversation which was so spasmodic and one-sided that it gradually “dwindled away into silence.” Then we sat speechless for some time, during which Olympio observed me continuously, and whenever he caught my eye chuckled softly and rubbed his hands, until I became possessed with an insane desire to empty the tobacco-leaf over him and bonnet him with the calabash.
But he saved me from this outrage by retiring to dive into a cupboard, whence he returned carrying a biscuit tin and a weather-beaten musical-box.
“You are perhaps fond of music, Mr. Englefield?”
“Very,” I replied, with an apprehensive glance at the musical-box.
“So am I,” said Olympio, and he proceeded to wind up the instrument; and having balanced it upside down and cornerwise in the biscuit tin—the only position in which it would consent to go—he “gave it its head.”
It had but one tune, but of that it made the most, repeating it in every variety of time; commencing with obscene hilarity, retarding to funereal slowness and stopping in the most unexpected places.
I felt the old insane impulse reviving, and as I had no wish to see my host fly from the room with his head through his own calabash, I brought the entertainment to a close.
“I think, if you will excuse me, Mr. Olympio, I should like to turn in. The hammock journey has rather tired me.”
“I shall be most delighted, sir,” replied Olympio, with less politeness and more truth than he supposed. “I will show you your room in a moment. Hi! Kwaku! why you no bring Mr. Englefield his candle?”
The latter question was bawled through the open door into the darkness of the back compound, from which presently emerged a small boy bearing a paraffin lamp, which he shaded skilfully from the strong sea breeze. Olympio took the lamp and led the way into my bedroom, which opened out of the room in which we had been sitting. He held the lamp above his head as we entered, and looked round the room with evident pride in the resources of civilisation that it exhibited. It was indeed far beyond my expectations, and I hastened to say so, for Adena was but a remote native hamlet and little could be expected there but the ordinary accommodation of a native house. Yet there was a good iron bedstead with clean white sheets and a serviceable mosquito curtain, a washstand with a veritable china basin, and a dressing-table fitted with a looking-glass fully nine inches square. But the most surprising and unexpected object in the room was a small but massive oak chest of drawers with a secretary top, which I at once perceived, both from its quaint and antique design and the dark colour of the wood, must be of considerable age.
“That is a fine piece of furniture, Mr. Olympio,” I remarked. “There are not many like it in Africa, I expect.”
“No,” he replied, setting the lamp on it and passing his hand affectionately over its polished surface. “I have never seen one like it even in the castle at Elmina. It is very old. My grandfather had it in his house at Adáffia when my father was a child, I have heard him say.”
“Did he bring it out from Portugal with him?”
“Oh, no. It came from a ship that broke up on the beach at Adáffia many, many years ago. I have heard that she was English.”
“You don’t know her name, then?”
“No. It was long, long time ago—before my grandfather’s time, I think. I have told Kwaku to put your things in the drawers. I thought you would like it because the chest is an English chest. I don’t give it to the Germans who come here.”
He smiled shyly and backed towards the door, and when I had thanked him—which I did warmly—for this graceful little act of courtesy, he wished me “good-night” and went away much gratified.
Left to myself I made leisurely preparations for bed, ruminating, as I undressed and washed, upon the strange fortunes of the old ship’s chest, speculating upon its history, upon the men who had fashioned it, on the old-time skipper who had sat before it to write his old-world letters, and on the bills of lading, charter-parties, and other sea documents that had once reposed in its pigeon-holes and drawers.
When I had got into my pyjamas I lit a pipe—not of Olympio’s tobacco—and taking down the lamp made a more thorough examination of the chest. Its nautical character was now evident, for on each side, near the bottom, was a perforated chock through which a lanyard had been passed to secure it to a ring-bolt in the deck of the cabin. The ornamentation, too, savoured of the sea, for the drawers were enriched by rude shallow carvings of ropes in festoons, coils and hitches, and each corner terminated above in a kind of diminutive figure-head representing a buxom, blowsy sea-maiden with a very full bust and a dolphin’s tail. The handles of the drawers were of hippo ivory, carved with a knife and now cracked and yellow with age, and the flap that let down to form the writing-table had once been decorated with a painted design, but this was now obliterated.
I drew out the sliding supports and let down the flap, intending to stow away my stationery in the upper part conveniently for writing. Here I found a row of drawers, and one of pigeon-holes above them, while the centre was occupied by a little tabernacle-like cupboard, the door of which was decorated with a roughly executed painting, very yellow and faded, of a sea-maiden, similar to those carved on the corners. When I opened this door there was revealed a set of four very small drawers, all of which were empty; and I noticed, when I pulled out one, that it was only half the length of the drawers below the pigeon-holes. Evidently this little nest of drawers masked some secret repository—if that could be described as “secret” which was so artlessly concealed. Now, there is something highly stimulating to curiosity in the idea of a secret drawer or cupboard, no matter how transparent the secrecy may be, and I had no sooner ascertained the existence of this hiding-place than I was all agog to lay bare its secret.
First I drew the drawers right out and felt at the back, thinking there might be a cavity there; but the back of the drawer-case was quite unyielding. Then I noticed that the nest which held the drawers was a separate and independent structure let into the row of pigeon-holes, and not continuous with them; so I took hold of one of the partitions between the drawer spaces and gave a gentle pull, when, sure enough, the whole nest came sliding forward, and I lifted it bodily out of the cavity in which it fitted.
The back of the nest was formed by a panel, which I could see slid in grooves, and I was about to slide it up when I suddenly bethought me that I was perhaps invading the holy of holies of my too-confiding host, who might quite conceivably make the secret drawers behind the panel the repository of his most treasured possessions. However, I considered that, even if it were so, I had no intention of abstracting anything, while most likely the drawers were empty, so banishing my scruples I boldly slid up the panel.
There were no drawers inside, but in place of them a flat copper box which stood upright in the cavity and fitted it exactly. The green, encrusted condition of this box seemed to indicate that it was not often taken out, and when I drew it forth and tried to open it, the close-fitting lid was jammed to so tightly that I had to prise it open with my knife, when I found that it had an air-tight flange like the lid of a snuff box. Inside the box, and exactly fitting it, was a small folio volume bound in parchment. This I supposed to be Olympio’s book of accounts, but I nevertheless shook it out of its case and turned back the cover, when I perceived a pale and faded inscription on the fly leaf in an odd, crabbed handwriting, but yet adorned with several expert flourishes.
This was the inscription: “The Journall of Barnabas Hogg, Master of the ship Mermaid, of Bristol City. 1641-16—” The second date was not filled in, and I surmised that the journal and its writer had together come to an untimely end in the roaring surf of Adáffia beach. This was rendered more probable by the fact that the book had remained in its hiding-place, for, had the Captain survived he would presumably have taken his journal with him: a view which received confirmation when I turned up the last entry, which was near the end of the volume, and read:
“16 June (1643). We are still at anchor off Adáffia, but shall not remain here since there seemeth to be little trade with this wild and turbulent people who have brought us but a few elephant’s teeth (and those very small and poor) and some teeth of river horses. Moreover the sudden storms of this season of the year do make this roadstead most perilous for ships to anchor in.”
That was the end of the journal. Doubtless on the day following, the very danger that the Captain had foreseen overtook the ship, and as for poor Master Barnabas himself and his hearts of oak, they all probably perished in the surf or fell victims to the “wild and turbulent” people of the coast villages.
There was something very solemn in this unexpected meeting with the quaint and musty little volume. On that June evening, more than two centuries ago, the final entry had been written and the book put away by the methodical Master of the good ship Mermaid. And there it had in all probability remained, unseen by human eye, its very existence forgotten, while generation after generation was born and passed away, while dynasties rose, flourished and decayed. As I turned over its yellow leaves covered with faded writing I felt like one holding converse with the dead (as indeed I was), and so fell into a train of meditation from which I was at length aroused by the little American clock in the sitting-room banging out with blatant modernity the hour of midnight. So I rose, knocked out my pipe, replaced and closed up the secret cupboard, and, having deposited the journal in my dispatch box, turned into bed.
My stay at Adena was somewhat of a holiday until the brig arrived, for, although the amount of produce to be examined was greater than I should have obtained at Quittáh in the same time, the actual purchase of it was effected by Olympio, so that I could deal with it in bulk; and then there was no store to look after and no selling of goods to the natives. Hence, I had a good deal of time on my hands, a part of which I utilised for outdoor pursuits, and the remainder I spent lounging about with a book in the shady cocoa-nut grove near the beach by day, and in my room at night. I had brought one or two books with me to Adena, but these paled in interest before the manuscript journal, over which I pored, at first secretly, and then, as I found that no one noticed what I read, constantly, until I read the antique handwriting of Captain Hogg with as much ease as Olympio’s ungrammatical copperplate.
Fascinating, however, as I found the journal, I shall not inflict upon the reader any of the entries but those that have reference to this narrative. I had read through the whole of the diary for the year 1641; had examined the quaint, rough sketches and charts of the coast line with which it was embellished and amplified, and had made extensive notes of the descriptions and comments of the shrewd and observant old ship master, when on a certain afternoon some four days before the brig was due at Adena, I took the old volume out with me on to the beach, and spreading a mat on the dry sand under the cocoa-nuts lay down to read at my ease. Commencing with the date “New Year’s Day, 1642,” I read through the first dozen entries. They contained nothing of interest but plentiful details of the trading transactions on the Ivory Coast, off which the ship was then cruising, details that were now familiar and a little monotonous. This lack of interest in the narrative, combined with the heat and the rather somnolent surroundings, the patter of the palms overhead, the endless murmur of the sea-breeze, and the surging of the surf hard by, produced a feeling of drowsiness, and I was just letting the book fall when, recovering myself with a start, I observed on the opposite page an entry of considerable length. As this promised more entertainment than the briefer notes of trade and navigation with which I had been engaged, I plunged into it; and I had not read far before my drowsiness completely vanished and gave place to the keenest excitement.
I extract the entry at length:
“Sunday, 14th Jan.—Dropped down from Bassam during the nighte, keeping a good offing and sounding every five minutes. Passed Cape Tres Puntas in the nighte, and cast anchor soon after daybreak in Axim Bay in seven fathoms. Soon after we had anchored we perceaved a fishing canoe to be approaching from the shoare; it was paddled by three negroes, and two more were sitting near by the stern. When it hadde come alongside we could see that, besides the blacks, there was in the canoe a white man who lay at the bottom and seemed to bee sicke. The negroes climbed up the side on to the deck, but the white man was too feeble to follow them, wherefore we dropped into the canoe a rope, in the end whereof was a bowline or loop; and when the sick man had passed this round his middle we drew him up on to the quarter deck.
“The aspect of this man was most wretched and pitifull. He was quite naked excepting for a loin cloth such as the black people use to wear in these parts. His wrists and ankles—one of which bore an iron ring—were all raw and festered; his backe and shoulders were seamed with scars not yet fully healed; his ears were torn and cut with greate notches, and, most horrid of all, the balls of his eyes were gone from their socketts so that his face was as that of a dead skull. Moreover, his whole person was as meagre and cadaverous as though he had been long sicke of some wasting distemper or calenture. At first he was so feeble that he could not stand alone, but after we had fed him with fresh meate and made him drink a cuppe of Canary wine, he revived somewhat, and being sett to rest in a bed in the cabin, he fell into a deep sleep and so continueth.
“Monday, 15th Jan.—The strange man remaineth still very sick and feeble, but he hath related an account of the circumstances that broughte him to so wretched a condition. This narrative I received from his owne lippes, and so set it down, knowing not whether it bee a true relation or made up from a disordered imagination.
“The man deposeth that his name is José d’Almeida, and that he is a Portugal by birth. For many years past he hath lived at the Castle of St. George at Mina on the Gold Coast, being engaged in trade with the blacks.
“Two years since, when he was journeying from Mina to Shamah, a party of blacke warriors came forth from the bush and made captives of both himself and his followers. By these men he was carried away far into the country, and after journeying for nine days through a greate wildernesse wherein the trees were so many and of so great a bignesse as to almost shut out the light of the sun, he arrived at a great town which the blacks called Coomassy, which seemed to be the capital citie of the nation who call themselves the Asantays. Here he lay in close captivity for severall weeks in much discomfort of body, and very sad and fearfull, for he was fettered both hande and foote, and his food was both scanty and poore. Moreover, he witnessed many dreadfull spectacles which made him to fear that he shoulde shortly be made away with; for these Asantays have many fearfull rites and horrible forms of worship, and are used to offer up to their Gods sacrifices of men and women. At length there came on a certain day to the hovell wherein he was confined certain men strangely cloathed, and having their hair twisted into a number of rolls or ringletts which hung down round their heads like a fringe, and made them to have a very terrible aspecte. By these men he was carried away into the wildernesse, and so for four days they journeyed through the woods untill they came to a large river by which standeth a town called Tanosoo. In this river, as the negroes beleeve, there abideth one of their Gods, a strong and fierce devil who keepeth a pack of greate fishes to devour any who shall defile the sacred waters by bathing therein; and Almeida doth say that he saw many of these fishes with his own eyes, and that each of them was of the bigness of a man, and that the wizards or priests do call them together from the bankes, and when the said fishes have assembled (as he affirmeth they constantly do) the wizards cast to them offerings of egges of guinea-fowles boiled hard and shelled, which they instantly devour.
“When the strange men were about to carry Almeida across the river (which they presently did by way of a bridge formed from a single great tree), the chief wizard came and took from each of them his staffe and cast it on to a great pile of staves that is hard by the river, for it seemeth that the River God will not suffer any person to carry a rod or staff across the water. Then they passed over the bridge, and each of the men shook out into the streame a small bag of gold dust for a toll or due to the River God. From Tanosoo they journeyed yet two daies more in the wildernesse, keeping near to the river, whiche they crossed once each day, and on the second evening they came to a place where was a large poole or lake, at one end whereof was a great rock of red stone having two points like the horns of a bull or the teeth of an elephant. From the face of this rock a streame or fountain of muddy, red-coloured water poured into the poole, and so, Almeida thinketh, formed the headwater of the river. At this place, which is called Aboassy, that is, ‘the place by the rock,’ strange and terrible things befell him; for he was but just come to the shoare of the poole when there came forth from the bushes four men of the most frightfull appearance and advanced to him. Each of these men—if men they were and not devils—was cloathed in a long robe of grass, and his face hidden by a painted maske with bull’s horns most horrible to look upon. When the magicians—or devils—had spoken awhile with Almeida’s captors, a drum was beaten, and forthwith a great shouting arose, and there came forth from the bushes men, women, and children to the number of three or four score, all dressed fantastically in petticoates of unwoven grasse, and bearing some kind of rattles upon their wristes and ankles. These people formed a ring around Almeida and commenced to chant a stave of musick like a psalm, repeating it again and again and keeping time thereto by clapping their hands and shaking their rattles. All the time they continued slowly pacing or shuffling round like children playing in our country; and the magicians having knelt on the ground before Almeida, nodded their great maskes in time with the musick.
“On a sudden, the four wizards arose and uttered a most dismall howle, and then withoute any warning Almeida felt himself seized from behind, and instantly a leathern bag was drawn over his head so that he could neither see nor cry out, and, indeed, scarcely breathe; his armes and legges were pinioned afresh with rope, and he felt himself lifted from the ground and borne away.
“After he had been carried some distance he perceaved the air of a sudden grow cooler as if he had entered some large building, and it seemed that he was borne along some passage or corridor, for once his head struck what seemed to be a stone ceiling. Presently, his bearers halted and some of them seemed to descende a ladder, when the others handed him downe, and so descending perhaps a dozen feet they came to the level and started off again. Anon they came to another ladder and again descended a couple of fathoms or so and off again along the level. Presently the air became exceeding hot and stifling, and wondrous foul-smelling, and in the midst of this heat and stench his bearers halted and laid him on the grounde close by a wall. Then the leathern bag was plucked from his head so that he could breathe somewhat more freely, but he could see little as his bonds restrained him from turning his head; but it seemed he was in some sorte of vault or cavern and that of some size, and that there were others in the place beside himselfe, for he could hear the murmur of voices around and the sound of bellows blowing, and could perceave the glow of fire on the roof and walls. Moreover, there was a noise as of the beating of hammers, and sometimes the splash of water.
“In this place he remained lying without food or water for many houres—a full day and nighte he surmiseth—and all that time no person came nigh him save once, when two men came and examined him narrowly, talking very earnestly the while, and then wente away. And though he besought them most pitifully to give him water, he being consumed with thirst, they answered him not, affecting not to understand his speech, which was that of the Dena negroes. At length the men came to him againe after many hours, and now they brought an earthen jar, full of olde and soure palm wine, and a gourd shell to drink from, and they gave him of the wine as much as he would drinke, which was near upon two quarts. Whereupon the wine being, as I have said, old and heady, he became quite drunk and straightway fell into a deepe sleepe, from which he was violently awakened by feeling some weapons thrust into his eyes, causing him great anguish. But being still besotted with the wine he had drunk, he presently fell asleep again. When he awoke he could feel that a clout had been tied over his eyes (in which he had still much pain) and that his shackles had been lightened. And now his keepers gave him both meate and drink in plenty, although he had but little stomacke for food.
“At length, after many weary days of anguish and sickness, there came certain persons who took off the clout from his eyes and cast off the shackles from his limbs. Then, perceaving that he was blind, he put up his hand to his eyes, and behold! the socketts were empty.
“And now he was told he was to be henceforth one of the slaves of the River God, of which slaves there were in the cavern quite a goodly company, and all, like himself, as blind as so many mouldwarps; and that he should labour constantly to get gold for the River God’s treasure.
“And so it befell; for in that noisome cavern he abode for nigh upon two yeares, labouring always to get treasure for his master the Demon of the River.
“Some days he would sit on the ground working a small bellows beside a furnace, and constantly driven with a whip whenever he flagged. Some days he laboured with a greate pestle, crushing the ore in a mortar, and other days he was led with divers of his fellow captives up the ladders out into the sweet air and into a canoe or raft on the pool.
“Here he would drive the craft forward with a long pole, or dredge along the bottom with a small metal buckett on a rope and empty into a large brass pan, which they carried in the canoe, the mudde that came up in the said buckett; which mudde, Almeida declareth, was nearly pure gold dust, especially that from near the fountain in the great rock.
“When the pan was filled with the mudde Almeida and the other slaves would bear it along on a pole, back to the cavern and lower it into the vault or under-cavern. Then the slaves would wash the mudd in gourd shells, while their taskmasters gathered out the gold, which Almeida believeth was afterwards melted in the furnaces and cast into shapes for the God’s treasury.
“And so Almeida abode in the cavern, as he sayeth, for nigh two yeares. Then on a certaine day he was brought forth, but instead of being taken to the pool he was bound by a rope and an iron collar to some other of the slaves, and led away on a journey. And as he journeyed he learned that the King of Asantay was at war with the King of a nation called the Denkeras and that he was making many offerings to his Gods. So Almeida and the other slaves conceived that they were to be sacrificed to these Gods, whereat they rejoiced in that their miseries should be soone put an ende to. But on the third day of their journey a great tumult arose, and it presently appeared that the keepers of the slaves had been attacked and overwhelmed by a bande of these same Denkeras, who, when they had slain the Asantays, carried the blind slaves away with them to their country. Here the King of the Denkeras, having compassion upon Almeida for that he was a white man and had suffered such grievous wrongs at the handes of the Asantays, caused him to be sent to the coaste and delivered into the handes of the Commandant of the Castle of St. Anthony at Axim. And there he abode until some shipp should take him away from the accursed land of the negroes, and so he was brought to oure shipp as hath been related.
“Such is the story of José d’Almeida as he hath declared it to me, Barnabas Hogg, and by me faithfully writ down from his very wordes.”
When I had finished reading this extraordinary narrative, which, strange as it was and teeming with marvellous and incredible incidents, yet seemed to me to bear the evident impress of truth, I was singularly affected.
Up to the present I had seen but the outside fringe of Africa, which, with its gin cases, its bales of cotton goods, its bags of kernels and puncheons of oil, seemed prosaic and sordid enough. But yet, even in my brief and shallow experience of the country, there had repeatedly reached me faint echoes of a more romantic and mysterious life enacting in those little known regions on whose blue and shadowy distances I had so often turned a longing eye from the verandah of Pereira’s house. And now, like a personal message to me from the dim, forgotten past, came this story of the old-time Portuguese trader, stirring up all that was romantic and adventurous in my nature, and awakening in me an irresistible desire to see the wonders of Africa for myself.
When I had paced the beach for awhile I returned to the journal to see if it contained any further account of Almeida, but no reference was made to the Portuguese until I came to the 30th January, when I read:—
“The man José d’Almeida, who hath been very sickly of late, was founde dead in his bedde this morning. We buried him in the sea about nine of the clock and fired a salute with our small cannon after his corpse had been cast into the water. He seemed a godly man, although, like moste of his nation, a rank papist.”
It was late that night before I turned in to rest, for the travel fever that had infected Mungo Park, Denham, Clapperton, Lander and the host of other intrepid wanderers whose exploits I recalled and whose remains rested in this ill-omened but fascinating land, had fairly taken hold of me; and when I at last tucked in my mosquito curtain and blew out my candle it was only to fall asleep and dream that I sat, a destitute wanderer, under the shade-tree of some far-away village in the heart of the continent.
The day following that on which I met with the narrative of Almeida in the old log-book was one of more than usual activity, for a large consignment of produce had just been acquired on our behalf by Olympio from no less a person than Mr. David Annan. The “scholar man” had, in fact, rather effectually tapped our source of supply by intercepting the little caravans of “bush people” and clearing them out before they could reach the coast. In consequence, I spent the greater part of the day seated upon a pile of gin-cases, tally-sheet in hand, watching Olympio and his myrmidons weigh out the kernels and rubber, and measure the palm oil.
It was while I was engaged in this fascinating occupation that Mr. Annan himself made his appearance. He seated himself with native grace upon the gin-cases by my side and genially entered into conversation respecting the merits of the produce he had sold us, which he declared to be quite exceptional.
“Look dat rubber now,” he exclaimed, as Olympio slapped a parcel of it on to the scales, “good sound rubber dat is; no grit, no dirt, no water, rubber all de way trou! Take my word, Mr. Englefield, s’pose you want good rubber, you buy him from de native merchant, not from bush people.”
“Why is that?” I asked.
“Because,” he answered, “black man sabby black man fashion. S’pose dem bush people bring me black rubber all grit and stones, I tell um ‘dis no good for me. Take um for de white man factory, he fit to buy um.’ Huh! huh!” He guffawed with great enjoyment and continued. “Look dem monkey skins; where you fit to buy skins like dat from de bush people?”
There was not a little truth in this, for the skins in the particular parcel that he had sold us were in excellent condition, whereas the few purchased from the “bush” natives at Quittáh were riddled with slug holes and half bald besides.
“Where do you get your monkey skins?” I inquired.
“I buy um mostly from de hunters in de far bush,” he replied; adding, with great discretion, “de business of de native merchant is to sabby where to get what he want. No one fit to get good monkey skins widout he sabby de hunters which catch de monkey, and dem hunters live for far bush. Dey never come dis country.”
At this moment there appeared round the corner of the shed in which we were sitting a figure so remarkable that my attention was instantly diverted alike from Annan’s conversation and the produce on the scales. The newcomer was evidently a Fulah, for he was dressed in the picturesque costume worn by the Fulahs and Hausas; and that he was not of the latter nationality his fair complexion made manifest. His clothing was sombre in colour—unlike that of the negroes—and consisted of a blue-grey surplice-like “riga” with wide bell sleeves, richly embroidered with narrow braid-like stitching; wide drawers or “wondo” of similar material embroidered with green; slippers of yellow leather ornamented with a tooled pattern, and a turban of dark indigo blue, the coils of which were continued downwards to form a face-cloth or “litham,” which completely concealed the face, leaving only a narrow space through which a strip of fair skin and a pair of piercing dark eyes were visible. As a finish to this costume, he carried a handsome brass-hilted sword slung from his shoulder by a thick tasselled cord of scarlet worsted. Approaching with the dignified carriage of his race he bowed gravely to me and Annan, murmuring a comprehensive “sanu,” and held out his hand to my companion, who shook it as though it had been a refractory pump-handle.
“ ’Scuse me, Mr. Englefield,” said Annan, “dis man have some business to talk wid me.” He motioned to the Fulah to take a seat beside him on the gin cases, and when his guest had seated himself—drawing up his legs and squatting tailor-wise—he fished out from his pocket a fresh kola-nut and presented it to his client as a preliminary to business.
The Fulah accepted the gift with a gracious nod and drew out a small dagger, with which he cut off a piece of the nut; then pulling his face-cloth down below his chin, popped the piece of kola into his mouth and began to chew solemnly.
The preliminary arrangements being thus complete, Annan opened the negotiations with a voluble address in the Hausa language. I had not intended to play the part of eavesdropper, but in the first sentence I caught the words “Fatunan birare” (monkey skins), and surmising that I had before me one of those native hunters who “live for far bush and never come for dis country,” I grinned silently and pricked up my ears.
And as I listened and watched the Fulah merchant solemnly munching his kola and spitting out the orange-red juice upon the ground before him, there were one or two things that caused me no little surprise. In the first place there was the man himself, the very antithesis of one’s conception of an African; gravely self-possessed, quiet of speech, taciturn yet courteous and suave, with his long oval face, his thin aquiline nose, his delicate mouth, his olive skin—several shades fairer than my own sun-tanned hide—his black eyes, full of passion and sadness, he might have sat for a portrait of Dante or Savonarola, so ascetic and lofty did he seem beside the monkey-faced, jabbering Annan.
Then there was his speech. I have mentioned that in listening to the talk of the Hausa soldiers, I found it difficult to follow them, that their accent and pronunciation were widely different from that given by Schön and Barth in their vocabularies of the Hausa language; and I had naturally thought that the traveller and missionary were at fault. But as I listened to this man with his clear-cut European-like accent, never confusing the l sounds with the r, as the others did, I realised that what I had heard hitherto was but a debased patois, and that this was the real Hausa language.
But more than this. I was astonished to find how much progress I had made with the language, for now, when for the first time I heard it properly spoken, I was able to follow it with hardly a failure, although I could scarcely make out a word of Annan’s jabber. Indeed, I felt confident that I could have conversed quite fluently with this stranger; but I refrained from the experiment, remembering my resolution to keep my knowledge of the language to myself for the present.
At length the Fulah, having concluded his business palaver, slid down from the gin cases, bringing his feet most adroitly into his slippers as he descended, and with another comprehensive salaam, departed, leaving his host silent and thoughtful.
The subject of Annan’s cogitations being evidently monkey skins, I led the suspended conversation back to this absorbing topic.
“How do you manage to communicate with the hunters,” I asked, “if they live for far bush and never come here?”
Annan gave me a quick glance full of suspicion and cunning, and then replied suavely—
“Sometimes I send my clerk with some of my boys for far bush to buy de skins, sometimes I go myself. Perhaps I go dis year when de small rains finish.”
“Do you have to make a long journey?” I inquired.
“Oh, long, long way. T’rou ’Shanti bush past Kumási to a country called Tánosu.”
“Tánosu!” I exclaimed, with suddenly increasing interest.
“Yaas, Tánosu,” he replied. “Bad country dat, bad people, but plenty black monkey live in de bush.”
“Why is it a bad country?” I asked.
Annan spat on the ground in the expressive African fashion and replied, “Tánosu people no good. Too much f’tish palaver. Dem f’tish people dey wait in de bush, and when stranger men come along dey catch um. Den dey make f’tish custom”—here Annan drew his forefinger quickly across his throat and snapped his finger and thumb in the air—a pantomime that needed no explanation.
“I have often thought,” I said musingly, “that I should very much like to see the far bush. It is very different from the coast, isn’t it?”
“De far bush,” replied Annan emphatically, “is not fit place for white man. De chop bad—bush chop only fit for bush man—de houses bad, de roads bad, de people bad—too much war palaver. No good for white man.”
“Of course,” I rejoined, “if one went into the bush, one would expect to rough it a little and take some risk. Still, I must say, I should like to see what the interior of Africa is like.”
“P’raps you like to come with me and look for monkey skins, Mr. Englefield,” suggested Annan grinning.
“Why, that’s not such a bad idea,” said I. “How should you like to have me with your party?”
“You tink you fit to come for true?” asked Annan, now all on the alert and evidently reckoning up what he could make out of me if I came. “ ’Spose you come, I get you hammock boys, I get you carriers, I speak country talk for you. I do you proper.”
It was clear that Annan intended to make most of the expenses of the journey out of me, and was correspondingly keen on my society.
“Well,” I said, “I won’t make up my mind now. Perhaps I shan’t be free to go this season, but you might let me know what it would cost me to make the trip, and then if I find I can do it, we can arrange whatever is necessary.”
Annan was inclined to urge me to an immediate decision, in spite of his previously unfavourable account of the interior as a pleasure resort, but as Olympio’s boy at this point made his appearance to briefly announce that “chop live for table,” I broke up the meeting and adjourned for lunch.
We had hardly sat down to table, however, when the sound of a gun was heard from seaward, and presently a small boy ran in to tell us that “sailing ship come from windward.” Olympio and I together ran out to the compound gate to examine the stranger, and were just in time to see the Lady Jane swing round to her anchor, while a crowd of hands swarmed aloft to stow the sails. Already the solitary surf-boat belonging to Adena was creeping out across the blue water like some huge marine beetle, so, as the brig lay out at a good safe distance from the shore, we returned to finish our meal.
The last banana fritter (a particularly greasy one) had just been flopped on to my plate by the attentive Kwaku when a heavy step sounded in the compound, and the massive form of Captain Bithery appeared in the doorway. He was clothed in white from head to foot, and in his aspect somewhat suggested a much over-heated polar bear.
“Well, Englefield, my buck,” he exclaimed in his great sea voice, bringing his huge hand down with a thwack on my shoulder, “here you are then, all sound and ship-shape, eating as usual—never saw such a fellow to eat. Had much fever?”
“Haven’t had any,” said I a trifle boastfully.
“Nonsense! No fever? and a dark man like you, too! Well, you’ve been deuced lucky, that’s all.”
“Why, do dark men get more fever than fair men?” I asked.
“They seem to. It’s odd, but I think it’s a fact. The chap who gets let off most easily by this infernal climate is your good old sandy-headed, purple-nosed Scotchman—that is, if he doesn’t get his little finger too curly. Yes, Olympio,” he continued, turning to the little mulatto, “the great thing in this climate is temperance, hey?”
“Oh, certainly, certainly, Captain,” replied Olympio a little shyly, setting down on the table the tumbler of gin and water from which he was about to take a sip; “no doubt of it, sir.”
“Of course,” continued the Captain. “Now, look at me. Did you ever see me drink a cocktail, Olympio?”
“I don’t know that I ever did, sir,” replied Olympio.
“Would you like to?” asked the Captain, grinning.
“Not particularly, sir,” answered the little mulatto.
“Oh,” said the Captain, rather taken aback at the failure of his joke, “because if you would, I see there is a swizzle-stick hanging on the wall, and I’m not bigoted, you know.” Here he stared stonily at the perplexed Olympio until the latter, suddenly grasping the situation, made a dive at the sideboard cupboard and handed out a black bottle with a quill stuck through the cork and a high-shouldered stone jar.
“Providence,” remarked Captain Bithery, as he drew the cork out of the stone jar and sniffed inquisitively at its muzzle, “Providence must have intended the cocktail to be the special beverage of the coaster, for otherwise why should the swizzle-stick tree grow in such numbers in these parts?”
This position being beyond dispute a silence ensued, which was presently broken by the musical “guggle” of the swizzle-stick as it whirled round in the pink froth.
“Englefield,” said the Captain, as he set down the empty tumbler, “I’ve got a little surprise for you. We’re off in a fortnight.”
“Off!” I exclaimed.
“Yes, off. I did a deal with a trader up at Bassam and cleared off the entire remainder of my stuff. So now there is only the homeward cargo to stow on board—we are half full already—and then it’s, ‘Ho for Bristol City!’ and ‘good-bye’ to the jolly old coast.”
This was news indeed. I had not anticipated leaving Africa for several months, and had, in fact, almost abandoned my scheme of penetrating to the interior on account of my engagement with Bithery to look after the store. Now it would be necessary for me to decide at once on my future movements and make known my intentions to the Captain.
“There is a little more of Annan’s stuff to be weighed yet,” I said. “Shall we go out and look at it? A little rubber, and about three tons of copra.”
“Oh, Olympio will see to that, won’t you? You come out by the beach, Englefield; it’s cooler under the cocoa-nuts than in this oven.”
We strolled out into the breezy palm grove by the beach, and lighting our pipes sat down in the shade on a mound of blown sand.
“I needn’t ask if you are coming back with us?” said the Captain.
“Well, the fact is, I don’t think I am.”
“Nonsense. You’re not going to take a billet out here. I wouldn’t. You’ll never see England again if you do.”
“No, I’m not thinking of any billet here. I have an idea of making a journey into the interior.”
“Great Moses!” exclaimed the Captain. “What for?”
“No special object, but curiosity. I want to see what the interior of Africa is really like.”
“Don’t be such an infernal ass, Englefield. ‘Really like’! Pah! I’ll tell you what it’s like. It’s like the inside of a saucepan of hot boiled cabbage. Where had you thought of going to?”
“I thought of travelling up through Ashanti, and, perhaps, making for the Hausa country.”
“Ho! ho!” laughed the Captain grimly, with a wry twist of his face, “you needn’t prick out your course so far ahead. You’d be made into monkey soup before you were fairly out of soundings.”
“Well, I mean to have a shot at it, anyhow,” said I, by way of closing a useless discussion.
“Then you’re a damned fool, that’s all!” and the Captain angrily knocked out his half-smoked pipe on the toe of his boot.
“When will you want to be paid off?” he inquired presently. “There will be a fair little sum to come to you, you know, what with your pay and the commission on the trade.”
“I shan’t want much, I fancy,” said I. “Perhaps you’ll pay me what I want to start with and take care of the rest until I claim it.”
“I’ll do no such thing,” he replied. “You’d better pay in what you don’t want to take with you to Swanzy’s agent, at whatever place you start from on this lunatic jaunt, and get a receipt for it. Then if by any chance you should come back, there’ll be enough cash to take what’s left of you to Europe. I suppose it’s no use for me to try and persuade you to give up this tomfool’s idea.”
“I’m afraid not,” I replied. “I’ve gone into the matter and made my decision.”
“Well,” said the skipper gruffly, “you know your own mind, at any rate; and you ought to, for there ain’t many like it outside Bedlam. But I’m sorry—damned sorry,” and he relapsed into silence, from which he refused to be roused during the rest of our interview.
A couple of days more saw me back at Quittáh with all my plans practically complete, for in the interval I had seen Annan and had settled to meet him at Cape Coast in a month, by which time (the end of September) the rainy season would be fairly over. I had also laid down a general plan of action, but this was of so audacious and extraordinary a character that I did not dare to finally adopt it until I had discussed it with my level-headed friend Pereira.
My reception by that gentleman, on my return, was somewhat of a surprise to me. We had been very friendly together during my stay at his house, and had got on with one another as comfortably as two people well could, but this was all, as far as I knew; so when the old gentleman met me at the compound gate and, seizing both my hands, almost wept over me, I was not a little affected, and for the first time realised how lonely was the life that he led. For Pereira, though only a trader, was in all essentials a gentleman, not only by training and education, but in manners and feeling, and was, moreover, a man of very superior intelligence; and it was easy to understand that he found the society of Quittáh—a handful of German traders and missionaries and a couple of English officials at the fort—neither sufficient nor congenial.
Still, I was a little surprised at the affectionate effusiveness of his manner, and at a certain exhilaration and excitement that he displayed as he fidgetted round while I superintended the unloading of my little caravan.
“Englefield,” said he suddenly, as I was rummaging amongst the raffle in my hammock, “I’ve got something to show you upstairs.”
“Curio?” I asked, still groping.
“No, not a curio,” he laughed, “certainly not a curio. Something very pretty; it came out from England by the last steamer.”
“Indeed? What is it?” I inquired.
“Come up with me and you shall see,” said the old man, rubbing his hands and smiling mysteriously.
“I am coming in a moment,” I said, “but I can’t find my flask. Here you, headman, you look dem small rum bottle?”
“Dis ting he live for hammock,” replied the headman, coming forward with the flask in one hand and wiping his mouth with the back of the other. “His lid no good; no fit proper; all de rum fall out.”
I snatched the empty flask, and shaking my fist at the grinning barbarian, turned to follow Pereira who had already vanished up the stairs. As I reached the top I saw my host standing, holding the door open, his face wreathed in smiles; and I strode forward with no little curiosity as to the treasure that he had to show me. But at the threshold I fell back in utter amazement, for there advanced to meet me the very handsomest and most stately lady that I had ever seen.
“This is my daughter Isabel,” said the beaming Pereira. “Isabel, this is Mr. Englefield.”
I am afraid that Miss Pereira’s first impression of me could hardly have been a favourable one, for between my astonishment and admiration I could do nothing but stand in the doorway gaping and mumbling like a fool, until I was recalled to consciousness by becoming aware that she had shaken my hand and was speaking to me.
“It seems quite like meeting an old friend,” she was saying. “For although I have only been here a week or so, my father has talked so much about you that I seem to have known you for years. I assure you that your manners and customs are as an open book to me.”
“I am glad to know that,” I replied, “for your worthy father has been pleased to present me at a great disadvantage. On the stage an astonished man may be picturesque and even dignified; in real life he is apt to rather resemble an imbecile.”
“There, now,” said Miss Pereira, smiling mischievously, “see, my father, to what frightful danger you have exposed Mr. Englefield through your babyish desire to spring a surprise on him. He might have looked like an imbecile. But it wouldn’t have mattered,” she added thoughtfully. “I should have known it was an optical illusion.”
“I am everlastingly obliged to your father,” said I, “for having explained my merits so clearly beforehand. Perhaps with the artful aid of a little soap and water I may endeavour to live up to my reputation.”
“Yes, a hammock journey does certainly create a necessity for grooming, as I discovered a day or two ago, when I travelled to Amutinu and back. My hair has hardly recovered yet. When I got out of the hammock, it was like a mass of cocoa-nut fibre, and you will hardly believe me, I am sure, when I tell you on my pointing this out to my father, he actually forgot himself so far as to make an unseemly and most obvious joke on the subject. You will find your room as you left it, only, perhaps, a little more tidy. Au revoir,” and she curtseyed majestically as I departed, followed by Pereira.
“Well, what do you think of my girl, Englefield?” the old man asked, as he made a pretence of helping me to unpack my portmanteau.
“I think she is an extraordinarily handsome girl,” I replied, “and much too good for Quittáh. She is not going to stay here, I suppose?”
“It’s not my doing,” said Pereira quickly. “I wished her to stay in England, but she had always said she was coming to me and she came. She is a young lady with a will of her own, but she is a really good girl and a most loving and dutiful daughter. You see, she was born out here—I was living at Elmina then—and she stayed with me, after my poor wife died, until she was quite a big girl, getting what education she could from the nuns at Elmina. Then I sent her to a school in England, where she has been ever since, at first as a pupil and then as a governess; but she has always said that she would come and keep house for me when she was grown up and—here she is and here she says she means to stay, so what can I do? After all, I am the only relative she has in the world. But I mustn’t stay here chattering to you or we shall both get into trouble.”
Left to myself I will not deny that I bestowed an unusual amount of attention upon my toilet, and tested the resources of my very limited outfit to the utmost, even to the extent of putting on a white collar and necktie; and after three separate and fruitless attempts to produce a parting in hair which averaged one-eighth of an inch in length, I made my way back to the sitting-room, where the table was already laid for supper.
My projected discussion with Pereira concerning my journey into the interior was for the time forgotten as I sat at the table facing his daughter, for the beauty of this girl was so remarkable as to entirely absorb my attention. I have said that she was the handsomest woman I had ever seen. My experience of women, beautiful or otherwise, had indeed not been great, but there is a certain degree of beauty which is independent of comparison and which secures instant recognition by all but the most æsthetically obtuse.
Of this kind was the beauty of Isabel Pereira. Totally free from the paltry prettiness of the fashion-plate model, entirely without those conventional graces so esteemed by the modiste, she was quite in the “grand style”—a rather large woman, and in spite of the supple grace of youth, showing evidence of muscular strength and physique. In keeping with her splendid proportions was her small and shapely head and her symmetrical face with its firm straight eyebrows, clear cut nose, short full mouth, and bold well-rounded chin. As I scanned her features—which I am afraid I did with rather more enthusiasm than good manners, and somewhat to our mutual embarrassment when I was detected—I could not perceive one detail that would not, in a more common-place setting, have been an object of admiration. In the matter of mere line and form she recalled those masterpieces that, in the Golden Age of art, came forth from the workshops of the sculptors of Hellas to delight and amaze mankind for all time. But in the living face there was that which even the genius of Pheidias could not give; the sparkle of the eye, the silken softness of hair that rippled back from the rounded forehead, and above all, the gorgeous colouring of the south, the warm glow like the blush of a ripe pomegranate.