Now I Do Not
Want To Arrive At The Rembwe In A Smoked Condition, Even Should My
Fragments Be Neat,
And I am going in a different direction to what I
said I was when leaving Kangwe, and there are
So many ways of
accounting for death about here - leopard, canoe capsize, elephants,
etc. - that even if I were traced - well, nothing could be done then,
anyhow - so will only take three Fans. One must diminish dead
certainties to the level of sporting chances along here, or one can
never get on.
No one, either Ajumba or Fan, knew the exact course we were to take.
The Ajumba had never been this way before - the way for black traders
across being via Lake Ayzingo, the way Mr. Goode of the American
Mission once went, and the Fans said they only knew the way to a big
Fan town called Efoua, where no white man or black trader had yet
been. There is a path from there to the Rembwe they knew, because
the Efoua people take their trade all to the Rembwe. They would,
they said, come with me all the way if I would guarantee them safety
if they "found war" on the road. This I agreed to do, and arranged
to pay off at Hatton and Cookson's subfactory on the Rembwe, and
they have "Look my mouth and it be sweet, so palaver done set."
Every load then, by the light of the bush lights held by the women,
we arranged.
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