{189} It Was A Long Time Ago, Kiva
Said, But These Folks Have No Definite Way Of Expressing Duration Of
Time Nor, Do I Believe, Any Great Mental Idea Of It; Although Their
Ideas Are, As Usual With West Africans, Far Ahead Of Their Language.
All the goods were brought up to my hut, and while Ngouta gets my
tea we started talking the carrier palaver again.
The Fans received
my offer, starting at two dollars ahead of what M. Jacot said would
be enough, with utter scorn, and every dramatic gesture of dissent;
one man, pretending to catch Gray Shirt's words in his hands, flings
them to the ground and stamps them under his feet. I affected an
easy take-it-or-leave-it-manner, and looked on. A woman came out of
the crowd to me, and held out a mass of slimy gray abomination on a
bit of plantain leaf - smashed snail. I accepted it and gave her
fish hooks. She was delighted and her companions excited, so she
put the hooks into her mouth for safe keeping. I hurriedly
explained in my best Fan that I do not require any more snail; so
another lady tried the effect of a pine-apple. There might be no
end to this, so I retired into trade and asked what she would sell
it for. She did not want to sell it - she wanted to give it me; so I
gave her fish hooks. Silence and Singlet interposed, saying the
price for pine-apples is one leaf of tobacco, but I explained I was
not buying. Ngouta turned up with my tea, so I went inside, and had
it on the bed. The door-hole was entirely filled with a mosaic of
faces, but no one attempted to come in. All the time the carrier
palaver went on without cessation, and I went out and offered to
take Gray Shirt's and Pagan's place, knowing they must want their
chop, but they refused relief, and also said I must not raise the
price; I was offering too big a price now, and if I once rise the
Fan will only think I will keep on rising, and so make the palaver
longer to talk. "How long does a palaver usually take to talk round
here?" I ask. "The last one I talked," says Pagan, "took three
weeks, and that was only a small price palaver." "Well," say I, "my
price is for a start to-morrow - after then I have no price - after
that I go away." Another hour however sees the jam made, and to my
surprise I find the three richest men in this town of M'fetta have
personally taken up the contract - Kiva my host, Fika a fine young
fellow, and Wiki, another noted elephant hunter. These three Fans,
the four Ajumba and the Igalwa, Ngouta, I think will be enough.
Moreover I fancy it safer not to have an overpowering percentage of
Fans in the party, as I know we shall have considerable stretches of
uninhabited forest to traverse; and the Ajumba say that the Fans
will kill people, i.e. the black traders who venture into their
country, and cut them up into neat pieces, eat what they want at the
time, and smoke the rest of the bodies for future use.
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