Читать книгу A Camera Actress in the Wilds of Togoland - Meg Gehrts - Страница 11

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I forgot to say that shortly after leaving Kamina, at a village called Anâ, we were overtaken by another caravan convoying a European, a certain Dr. Berger, who was travelling up-country as far as Sokode, with a view to vaccinating the natives there.

The meeting came about in this wise. On arriving at Anâ, we discovered that the rest-house there was already occupied by a Mr. Lange, an engineer, who was building a bridge across the Anâ river.

He was away at work when we got there, and Schomburgk sent his (Lange's) boy to tell him of our arrival. Presently Lange turned up, looking rather perplexed, and not a little worried. The statement made to him by his boy, it appeared, had been couched in the following terms: "Master, two white men have arrived, and one of them looks like a woman."

Lange had guessed from this the identity of our party, for he had known Schomburgk during his previous trip, and had heard of his re-arrival in the colony, and of my presence there with him. His worried appearance, we found out, was due to the fact that he had practically run out of provisions just then, and so was unable to show us the hospitality he would have desired; and he was greatly relieved when we asked him to be our guest during our stay at Anâ. I may add that this was Schomburgk's invariable practice, and I have often heard him inveigh against the thoughtlessness sometimes shown by a certain type of globe-trotting European travellers in Africa in planting themselves upon other Europeans, sometimes for days together, and eating up food which is perhaps badly needed, and may be very difficult to replace. Of course hospitality under such circumstances is never refused. It is the unwritten law of the bush that white man shares with white man. But all the same there are times when it works hardly on the individual who does the sharing.

Well, luncheon was served and eaten, and we were enjoying our coffee and cigarettes, when a new lot of carriers hove in sight.

"Hullo!" remarked Lange to Schomburgk, "this looks like a white man's caravan"; and the two fell to discussing the foolishness of the individual, whoever he might be, in travelling thus during the heat of the day.

Presently the owner of the caravan, the Dr. Berger mentioned above, turned up, looking very hot and tired. Of course we made him welcome—it is wonderful how bush life makes one relish the advent of a white stranger—and we spent a very pleasant time together during the rest of the day.

He was the most even-tempered man as regards his dealings with the natives that I have ever come across. Nothing that they did or said seemed to disturb him in the least.

Curiously enough, although he was a Government official, he was travelling unprovided with an interpreter; and he himself, of course, understood no word of any of the native dialects.

When he wanted anything he simply asked his boy for it, addressing him at considerable length and with much circumlocution in German. Now this boy, whose name by the way was Joa, had been specially engaged by the worthy doctor because he had represented himself to be a fluent German scholar.

As a matter of fact, beyond a few phrases that he had learned to repeat parrot-like, he knew nothing whatever of the language, and the result of their joint efforts to make themselves understood was laughable in the extreme, and was not rendered the less amusing owing to the fact that the doctor would not allow our interpreter to intervene to straighten out the verbal tangle. He wanted, he said, to train his boy to understand German sufficiently well to minister to his wants.

As a result we nearly laughed ourselves into fits over scenes like the following, repeated at intervals, and with variations, all through the day.

"Joa," the doctor would say, "my friends would like a whisky and soda, and I myself could do with a drop. A small modicum of alcohol, Joa, after the day's march, certainly does no harm to a white man, and may conceivably do him good. Therefore, Joa, you may bring us a syphon of soda, please, together with a bottle of whisky"; and the doctor would imitate in dumb show the process of drawing a cork out of a bottle.

"Yah!" Joa would say, his face all one broad grin; and off he would go to his master's tent, to return presently with—a telescope.

"Now, Joa," the doctor would remark genially, "a telescope is a very good thing in its way, but one cannot drink telescopes, Joa. What we now want, Joa, is a whisky and soda, especially the soda." And he would start to imitate the pressing down of the lever of a soda-water syphon.

A new light would then break on Joa's face. "Ah! Yah!" he would cry, and trot off again, to reappear a minute or so later carrying with due care and circumspection his master's double-barrelled rifle, loaded, and at full-cock.

And so the pantomime would proceed, master and man both in the best of tempers, until at last, perhaps at the fourth or fifth attempt, perchance at the tenth or twelfth, the native would hit upon the right article, either by accident, or by the slower process of elimination.

Whereupon the doctor would smile gravely yet pleasantly at us, as if in mild reproof of our unseemly mirth, and remark: "There you are; with time and patience one can achieve anything, even in Africa and with African natives."

On the morning after this little episode we rose at three o'clock in order to cover the next stage, as far as a place called Njamassila, before the worst heat of the day began. This, I may say, was our usual practice henceforward; as it is, indeed, that of all old seasoned travellers in this part of the world.

The distance from Anâ to Njamassila is roughly about twenty miles, and the road in places is not particularly smooth. It was too, of course, quite dark when we started, so that altogether I was not particularly sorry when Schomburgk decreed that I was to do the first part of the journey in my hammock.

In this way I was carried about two-thirds of the stage. Then, when it got light, I climbed out, mounted my bicycle, and rode the remainder of the distance. It was rough going, and very cold at first, but I persevered, rather reproaching myself for my earlier laziness. When, however, I discovered on arriving at Njamassila that our doctor friend had elected to be carried the whole of the way, I went to the other extreme, shook hands with myself, metaphorically speaking, and plumed myself mightily on my "wonderful" exhibition of hardihood and endurance. "I intend to cycle the whole of the next stage," I told Schomburgk.

Alas, my pride in this respect, and on this occasion, was of the kind that goes before a fall. Whether or no it was due to my unwonted exertions of the previous day—I had done a lot of running about on foot besides the cycling—I cannot say, but the fact remains that when we struck camp at 2.30 next morning I felt so weak and dizzy, as well as stiff and sore, that I could hardly stand.

Under the circumstances there was nothing to do but to seek refuge in my hammock once more, where, snuggled beneath many rugs and wraps designed to keep out the cold night air, and lulled by the rhythmic swaying of the conveyance, I promptly fell sound asleep.

It seemed to me that I had hardly closed my eyes more than a very few minutes, when I was awakened by hearing Schomburgk angrily inquiring of the hammock boys why they were standing idle, and whereabouts was I. "Master," they replied, "she is inside asleep, and we feared you would be angry did we wake her."

All this I heard dimly as in a dream between sleeping and waking. Lazily I lay back, too comfortable even to raise myself on my elbow and peer out; but I was beginning to wonder what was the reason for the long delay, and how soon we were going to resume our journey, when the sound of Schomburgk's voice, once more raised in protest, roused me into instant and complete wakefulness.

It was me he addressed this time, and his words were as follows:

"Come, little lady; are you not going to get up?"

"But why should I get up?" I replied. "What time is it? Where are we?"

"It's eight o'clock," he answered, "and we are at Agbandi."

"What!" I screamed; and, pulling the curtains aside, I bounced out on to the ground.

What I saw made me rub my eyes with amazement. Before me was a new rest-house, and a village that I had never seen before, and preparations for breakfast were, I could see, well under way. Only then did I realise that I had slept right through the entire twenty-mile stage from Njamassila to Agbandi.