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.
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