Presently My Excellent Little Cook Brings In My Food, And In With It
Come Two Mission Teachers - Our First Acquaintance, The One With A
White Jacket, And Another With A Blue.
They lounge about and spit
in all directions, and then chiefs commence to arrive with their
families complete, and they sidle into the apartment and
ostentatiously ogle the demijohn of rum.
They are, as usual, a nuisance, sitting about on everything. No
sooner have I taken an unclean-looking chief off the wood sofa, than
I observe another one has silently seated himself in the middle of
my open portmanteau. Removing him and shutting it up, I see another
one has settled on the men's beef and rice sack.
It is now about three o'clock and I am still chilled to the bone in
spite of tea. The weather is as bad as ever. The men say that the
rest of the road to Buea is far worse than that which we have so far
come along, and that we should never get there before dark, and "for
sure" should not get there afterwards, because by the time the dark
came down we should be in "bad place too much." Therefore, to their
great relief, I say I will stay at this place - Buana - for the night,
and go on in the morning time up to Buea; and just for the present I
think I will wrap myself up in a blanket and try and get the chill
out of me, so I give the chiefs a glass of rum each, plenty of head
tobacco, and my best thanks for their kind call, and then turn them
all out. I have not been lying down five minutes on the plank that
serves for a sofa by day and a bed by night, when Charles comes
knocking at the door. He wants tobacco. "Missionary man no fit to
let we have firewood unless we buy em." Give Charles a head and
shut him out again, and drop off to sleep again for a quarter of an
hour, then am aroused by some enterprising sightseers pushing open
the window-shutters; when I look round there are a mass of black
heads sticking through the window-hole. I tell them respectfully
that the circus is closed for repairs, and fasten up the shutters,
but sleep is impossible, so I turn out and go and see what those men
of mine are after. They are comfortable enough round their fire,
with their clothes suspended on strings in the smoke above them, and
I envy them that fire. I then stroll round to see if there is
anything to be seen, but the scenery is much like that you would
enjoy if you were inside a blanc-mange. So as it is now growing
dark I return to my room and light candles, and read Dr. Gunther on
Fishes. Room becomes full of blacks. Unless you watch the door,
you do not see how it is done. You look at a corner one minute and
it is empty, and the next time you look that way it is full of rows
of white teeth and watching eyes. The two mission teachers come in
and make a show of teaching a child to read the Bible. After again
clearing out the rank and fashion of Buana, I prepare to try and get
a sleep; not an elaborate affair, I assure you, for I only want to
wrap myself round in a blanket and lie on that plank, but the rain
has got into the blankets and horror! there is no pillow. The
mission men have cleared their bed paraphernalia right out. Now you
can do without a good many things, but not without a pillow, so hunt
round to find something to make one with; find the Bible in English,
the Bible in German, and two hymn-books, and a candle-stick. These
seem all the small articles in the room - no, there is a parcel
behind the books - mission teachers' Sunday trousers - make delightful
arrangement of books bound round with trousers and the whole affair
wrapped in one of my towels. Never saw till now advantage of
Africans having trousers. Civilisation has its points after all.
But it is no use trying to get any sleep until those men are
quieter. The partition which separates my apartment from theirs is
a bamboo and mat affair, straight at the top so leaving under the
roof a triangular space above common to both rooms. Also common to
both rooms are the smoke of the fire and the conversation. Kefalla
is holding forth in a dogmatic way, and some of the others are
snoring. There is a new idea in decoration along the separating
wall. Mr. Morris might have made something out of it for a dado.
It is composed of an arrangement in line of stretched out singlets.
Vaseline the revolver. Wish those men would leave off chattering.
Kefalla seems to know the worst about most of the people, black and
white, down in Ambas Bay, but I do not believe those last two
stories. Evidently great jokes in next room now; Kefalla has thrown
himself, still talking, in the dark, on to the top of one of the
mission teachers. The women of the village outside have been
keeping up, this hour and more, a most melancholy coo-ooing. Those
foolish creatures are evidently worrying about their husbands who
have gone down to market in Ambas Bay, and who, they think, are lost
in the bush. I have not a shadow of a doubt that those husbands who
are not home by now are safely drunk in town, or reposing on the
grand new road the kindly Government have provided for them, either
in one of the side drains, or tucked in among the lava rock.
September 21st. - Coo-ooing went on all night. I was aroused about
9.30 P.M., by uproar in adjacent hut:
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