Gray Shirt Places His House At My Disposal, And Both He And His
Exceedingly Pretty Wife Do Their Utmost To Make Me Comfortable.
The
house lies at the west end of the town.
It is one room inside, but
has, I believe, a separate cooking shed. In the verandah in front
is placed a table, an ivory bundle chair and a gourd of water, and I
am also treated to a calico tablecloth, and most thoughtfully
screened off from the public gaze with more calico so that I can
have my tea in privacy. After this meal, to my surprise Ndaka turns
up. Certainly he is one of the very ugliest men - black or white - I
have ever seen, and I fancy one of the best. He is now on a holiday
from Kangwe, seeing to the settlement of his dead brother's affairs.
The dead brother was a great man in Arevooma and a pagan, but Ndaka,
the Christian Bible-reader, seems to get on perfectly with the
family and is holding tonight a meeting outside his brother's house
and comes with a lantern to fetch me to attend it. Of course I have
to go, headache or no headache.
Most of the town was there, mainly as spectators. Ndaka and my two
Christian boatmen manage the service between them, and what with the
hymns and the mosquitoes the experience is slightly awful. We sit
in a line in front of the house, which is brilliantly lit up - our
own lantern on the ground before us acting as a rival entertainment
to the house lamps inside for some of the best insect society in
Africa, who after the manner of the insect world, insist on
regarding us as responsible for their own idiocy in getting singed;
and sting us in revenge, while we slap hard, as we howl hymns in the
fearful Igalwa and M'pongwe way.
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