He, I Am Told, Is The Chief
Or Sapa Whom Herr Von Lucke Has Called To Talk Some Palaver With
Down In Victoria.
At last I leave Herr Liebert, because everything I say to him causes
him to hop, flying somewhere to show me something, and I am sure it
is bad for his foot.
I go and see that my men are safely quartered.
Kefalla is laying down the law in a most didactic way to the
soldiers. Herr Liebert has christened him "the Professor," and I
adopt the name for him, but I fear "Windbag" would fit him better.
At 7.30 a heavy tornado comes rolling down upon us. Masses of
indigo cloud with livid lightning flashing in the van, roll out from
over the wall of the great crater above; then with that malevolence
peculiar to the tornado it sees all the soldiers and their wives and
children sitting happily in the barrack yard, howling in a minor key
and beating their beloved tom-toms, so it comes and sits flump down
on them with deluges of water, and sends its lightning running over
the ground in livid streams of living death. Oh, they are nice
things are tornadoes! I wonder what they will be like when we are
up in their home; up atop of that precious wall? I had no idea
Mungo was so steep. If I had - well, I am in for it now!
CHAPTER XVIII. ASCENT OF THE GREAT PEAK OF CAMEROONS - (continued).
Wherein is recounted how the Voyager sets out from Buea, and goes up
through the forest belt to the top of the S.E. crater of Mungo Mah
Lobeh, with many dilemmas and disasters that befell on the way.
September 22nd. - Wake at 5. Fine morning. Fine view towards
Cameroon River. The broad stretch of forest below, and the water-
eaten mangrove swamps below that, are all a glorious indigo flushed
with rose colour from "the death of the night," as Kiva used to call
the dawn. No one stirring till six, when people come out of the
huts, and stretch themselves and proceed to begin the day, in the
African's usual perfunctory, listless way.
My crew are worse than the rest. I go and hunt cook out. He props
open one eye, with difficulty, and yawns a yawn that nearly cuts his
head in two. I wake him up with a shock, by saying I mean to go on
up to-day, and want my chop, and to start one time. He goes off and
announces my horrible intention to the others. Kefalla soon arrives
upon the scene full of argument, "You no sabe this be Sunday, Ma?"
says he in a tone that tells he considers this settles the matter.
I "sabe" unconcernedly; Kefalla scratches his head for other
argument, but he has opened with his heavy artillery; which being
repulsed throws his rear lines into confusion. Bum, the head man,
then turns up, sound asleep inside, but quite ready to come. Bum, I
find, is always ready to do what he is told, but has no more
original ideas in his head than there are in a chair leg. Kefalla,
however, by scratching other parts of his anatomy diligently, has
now another argument ready, the two Bakwiris are sick with abdominal
trouble, that requires rum and rest, and one of the other boys has
hot foot.
Herr Liebert now appears upon the scene, and says I can have some of
his labourers, who are now more or less idle, because he cannot get
about much with his bad foot to direct them, so I give the Bakwiris
and the two hot foot cases "books" to take down to Herr von Lucke
who will pay them off for me, and seeing that they have each a good
day's rations of rice, beef, etc., eliminate them from the party.
In addition to the labourers, I am to have as a guide Sasu, a black
sergeant, who went up the Peak with the officers of the Hyaena, and
I get my breakfast, and then hang about watching my men getting
ready very slowly to start. Off we get about 8, and start with all
good wishes, and grim prophecies, from Herr Liebert.
Led by Sasu, and accompanied by "To-morrow," a man who has come to
Buea from some interior unknown district, and who speaks no known
language, and whose business it is to help to cut a way through the
bush, we go down the path we came and cross the river again. This
river seems to separate the final mass of the mountain from the
foot-hills on this side. Immediately after crossing it we turn up
into the forest on the right hand side, and "To-morrow" cuts through
an over-grown track for about half-an-hour, and then leaves us.
Everything is reeking wet, and we swish through thick undergrowth
and then enter a darker forest where the earth is rocky and richly
decorated with ferns and moss. For the first time in my life I see
tree-ferns growing wild in luxuriant profusion. What glorious
creations they are! Then we get out into the middle of a koko
plantation. Next to sweet-potatoes, the premier abomination to walk
through, give me kokos for good all-round tryingness, particularly
when they are wet, as is very much the case now. Getting through
these we meet the war hedge again, and after a conscientious
struggle with various forms of vegetation in a muddled, tangled
state, Sasu says, "No good, path done got stopped up," so we turn
and retrace our steps all the way, cross the river, and horrify Herr
Liebert by invading his house again. We explain the situation.
Grave headshaking between him and Sasu about the practicability of
any other route, because there is no other path. I do not like to
say "so much the better," because it would have sounded ungrateful,
but I knew from my Ogowe experiences that a forest that looks from
afar a dense black mat is all right underneath, and there is a short
path recently cut by Herr Liebert that goes straight up towards the
forest above us.
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