Hope To Goodness There Will Be
A Turning That I Can Go Down And Get Back By, Without Returning
Through This Ferocious Farmyard.
Intent on picking up such an
outlet, I go thirty yards or so down the road.
Hear shouts coming
from a clump of bananas on my left. Know they are directed at me,
but it does not do to attend to shouts always. Expect it is only
some native with an awful knowledge of English, anxious to get up my
family history - therefore accelerate pace. More shouts, and louder,
of "Madame Gacon! Madame Gacon!" and out of the banana clump comes
a big, plump, pleasant-looking gentleman, clad in a singlet and a
divided skirt. White people must be attended to, so advance
carefully towards him through a plantation of young coffee,
apologising humbly for intruding on his domain. He smiles and bows
beautifully, but - horror! - he knows no English, I no French.
Situation tres inexplicable et tres interessante, as I subsequently
heard him remark; and the worst of it is he is evidently bursting to
know who I am, and what I am doing in the middle of his coffee
plantation, for his it clearly is, as appears from his obsequious
bodyguard of blacks, highly interested in me also. We gaze at each
other, and smile some more, but stiffly, and he stands bareheaded in
the sun in an awful way. It's murder I'm committing, hard all! He,
as is fitting for his superior sex, displays intelligence first and
says, "Interpreter," waving his hand to the south.
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