One row
succeeded another with my men; but I was determined to get them out
of that town as quickly as possible, for I had heard so much from
perfectly reliable and experienced people regarding the
treacherousness of the Fan.
I feared too that more cases still
would be brought up against Kiva, from the resume of his criminal
career I had had last night, and I knew it was very doubtful whether
my other three Fans were any better than he. There was his grace's
little murder affair only languishing for want of evidence owing to
the witnesses for the prosecution being out elephant-hunting not
very far away; and Wiki was pleading an alibi, and a twin brother,
in a bad wife palaver in this town. I really hope for the sake of
Fan morals at large, that I did engage the three worst villains in
M'fetta, and that M'fetta is the worst town in all Fan land,
inconvenient as this arrangement was to me personally. Anyhow, I
felt sure my Pappenheimers would take a lot of beating for good
solid crime, among any tribe anywhere. Moreover, the Ajumba wanted
meat, and the Fans, they said, offered them human. I saw no human
meat at Egaja, but the Ajumba seem to think the Fans eat nothing
else, which is a silly prejudice of theirs, because the Fans do. I
think in this case the Ajumba thought a lot of smoked flesh offered
was human. It may have been; it was in neat pieces; and again, as
the Captain of the late s.s. Sparrow would say, "it mayn't." But
the Ajumba have a horror of cannibalism, and I honestly believe
never practise it, even for fetish affairs, which is a rare thing in
a West African tribe where sacrificial and ceremonial cannibalism is
nearly universal. Anyhow the Ajumba loudly declared the Fans were
"bad men too much," which was impolitic under existing
circumstances, and inexcusable, because it by no means arose from a
courageous defiance of them; but the West African! Well! "'E's a
devil an' a ostrich an' a orphan child in one."
The chief was very anxious for me to stay and rest, but as his
mother was doing wonderfully well, and the other women seemed quite
to understand my directions regarding her, I did not feel inclined
to risk it. The old lady's farewell of me was peculiar: she took
my hand in her two, turned it palm upwards, and spat on it. I do
not know whether this is a constant form of greeting among the Fan;
I fancy not. Dr. Nassau, who explained it to me when I saw him
again down at Baraka, said the spitting was merely an accidental by-
product of the performance, which consisted in blowing a blessing;
and as I happened on this custom twice afterwards, I feel sure from
observation he is right.
The two chiefs saw us courteously out of the town as far as where
the river crosses the out-going path again, and the blue-hatted one
gave me some charms "to keep my foot in path," and the mourning
chief lent us his son to see us through the lines of fortification
of the plantation.
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