However That Is The Path You Have Got To Go By, If You're Not Wise
Enough To Stop At Home; The Little Bay Of Shrub Overgrown Swamp
Fringing The River On One Side And On The Other Running Up To The
Mountain Side.
At last we came to a sandy bank, and on that bank stood Egaja, the
town with an evil name even among the Fan, but where we had got to
stay, fair or foul.
We went into it through its palaver house, and
soon had the usual row.
I had detected signs of trouble among my men during the whole day;
the Ajumba were tired, and dissatisfied with the Fans; the Fans were
in high feather, openly insolent to Ngouta, and anxious for me to
stay in this delightful locality, and go hunting with them and
divers other choice spirits, whom they assured me we could easily
get to join us at Efoua. I kept peace as well as I could,
explaining to the Fans I had not enough money with me now, because I
had not, when starting, expected such magnificent opportunities to
be placed at my disposal; and promising to come back next year - a
promise I hope to keep - and then we would go and have a grand time
of it. This state of a party was a dangerous one in which to enter
a strange Fan town, where our security lay in our being united.
When the first burst of Egaja conversation began to boil down into
something reasonable, I found that a villainous-looking scoundrel,
smeared with soot and draped in a fragment of genuine antique cloth,
was a head chief in mourning.
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