We Sit
In A Line In Front Of The House, Which Is Brilliantly Lit Up - Our
Own Lantern On The
Ground before us acting as a rival entertainment
to the house lamps inside for some of the best insect society
In
Africa, who after the manner of the insect world, insist on
regarding us as responsible for their own idiocy in getting singed;
and sting us in revenge, while we slap hard, as we howl hymns in the
fearful Igalwa and M'pongwe way. Next to an English picnic, the
most uncomfortable thing I know is an open-air service in this part
of Africa. Service being over, Ndaka takes me over the house to
show its splendours. The great brilliancy of its illumination
arises from its being lit by two hanging lamps burning paraffin oil.
The most remarkable point about the house is the floor, which is
made of split, plaited bamboo. It gives under your feet in an
alarming way, being raised some three or four feet above the ground,
and I am haunted by the fear that I shall go through it and give
pain to myself, and great trouble to others before I could be got
out. It is a beautiful piece of workmanship, and Arevooma has every
reason to be proud of it. Having admired these things, I go, dead
tired and still headachy, down the road with my host who carries the
lantern, through an atmosphere that has 45 per cent. of solid matter
in the shape of mosquitoes; then wishing him good-night, I shut
myself in, and illuminate, humbly, with a candle. The furniture of
the house consists mainly of boxes, containing the wealth of Gray
Shirt, in clothes, mirrors, etc. One corner of the room is taken up
by great calabashes full of some sort of liquor, and there is an
ivory bundle chair, a hanging mirror, several rusty guns, and a
considerable collection of china basins and jugs. Evidently Gray
Shirt is rich. The most interesting article to me, however, just
now is the bed hung over with a clean, substantial, chintz mosquito
bar, and spread with clean calico and adorned with patchwork-covered
pillows. So I take off my boots and put on my slippers; for it
never does in this country to leave off boots altogether at anytime
and risk getting bitten by mosquitoes on the feet, when you are on
the march; because the rub of your boot on the bite always produces
a sore, and a sore when it comes in the Gorilla country, comes to
stay.
No sooner have I carefully swished all the mosquitoes from under the
bar and turned in, than a cat scratches and mews at the door - turn
out and let her in. She is evidently a pet, so I take her on to the
bed with me. She is a very nice cat - sandy and fat - and if I held
the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild fowl, I should have no
hesitation in saying she had in her the soul of Dame Juliana
Berners, such a whole-souled devotion to sport does she display,
dashing out through the flaps of the mosquito bar after rats which,
amid squeals from the rats and curses from her, she kills amongst
the china collection.
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