"Oui, Oui, Certainement," Said He, And Translated.
My friend the
planter seemed charmed; it was the first sign of anything
approaching reason he had seen in me.
He wanted me to have eau
sucree more kindly than ever, and when I rose, intending to bow
myself off and go, geese or no geese, back to the Eclaireur, he
would not let me go. I must see the plantation, toute la
plantation. So presently all three of us go out and thoroughly do
the plantation, the most well-ordered, well-cultivated plantation I
have ever seen, and a very noble monument to the knowledge and
industry of the planter. For two hot hours these two perfect
gentlemen showed me over it. I also behaved well, for petticoats,
great as they are, do not prevent insects and catawumpuses of sorts
walking up one's ankles and feeding on one as one stands on the long
grass which has been most wisely cut and laid round the young trees
for mulching. This plantation is of great extent on the hill-sides
and in the valley bottom, portions of it are just coming into
bearing. The whole is kept as perfectly as a garden, amazing as the
work of one white man with only a staff of unskilled native
labourers - at present only eighty of them. The coffee planted is of
three kinds, the Elephant berry, the Arabian, and the San Thome.
During our inspection, we only had one serious misunderstanding,
which arose from my seeing for the first time in my life tree-ferns
growing in the Ogowe. There were three of them, evidently carefully
taken care of, among some coffee plants. It was highly exciting,
and I tried to find out about them. It seemed, even in this centre
of enterprise, unlikely that they had been brought just "for dandy"
from the Australasian region, and I had never yet come across them
in my wanderings save on Fernando Po. Unfortunately, my friends
thought I wanted them to keep, and shouted for men to bring things
and dig them up; so I had a brisk little engagement with the men,
driving them from their prey with the point of my umbrella,
ejaculating Kor Kor, like an agitated crow. When at last they
understood that my interest in the ferns was scientific, not
piratical, they called the men off and explained that the ferns had
been found among the bush, when it was being cleared for the
plantation.
Ultimately, with many bows and most sincere thanks from me, we
parted, providentially beyond the geese, and I returned down the
road to Njole, where I find Mr. Cockshut waiting outside his
factory. He insists on taking me to the Post to see the
Administrator, and from there he says I can go on to the Eclaireur
from the Post beach, as she will be up there from Dumas'. Off we go
up the road which skirts the river bank, a dwarf clay cliff,
overgrown with vegetation, save where it is cleared for beaches.
The road is short, but exceedingly pretty; on the other side from
the river is a steep bank on which is growing a plantation of cacao.
Lying out in the centre of the river you see Njole Island, a low,
sandy one, timbered not only with bush, but with orange and other
fruit trees; for formerly the Post and factories used to be situated
on the island - now only their trees remain for various reasons, one
being that in the wet season it is a good deal under water.
Everything is now situated on the mainland north bank, in a
straggling but picturesque line; first comes Woermann's factory,
then Hatton and Cookson's, and John Holt's, close together with a
beach in common in a sweetly amicable style for factories, who as a
rule firmly stockade themselves off from their next door neighbours.
Then Dumas' beach, a little native village, the cacao patch and the
Post at the up river end of things European, an end of things
European, I am told, for a matter of 500 miles. Immediately beyond
the Post is a little river falling into the Ogowe, and on its
further bank a small village belonging to a chief, who, hearing of
the glories of the Government, came down like the Queen of Sheba - in
intention, I mean, not personal appearance - to see it, and so
charmed has he been that here he stays to gaze on it.
Although Mr. Cockshut hunted the Administrator of the Ogowe out of
his bath, that gentleman is exceedingly amiable and charming, all
the more so to me for speaking good English. Personally, he is big,
handsome, exuberant, and energetic. He shows me round with a
gracious enthusiasm, all manner of things - big gorilla teeth and
heads, native spears and brass-nail-ornamented guns; and explains,
while we are in his study, that the little model canoe full of Kola
nuts is the supply of Kola to enable him to sit up all night and
work. Then he takes us outside to see the new hospital which he, in
his capacity as Administrator, during the absence of the
professional Administrator on leave in France, has granted to
himself in his capacity as Doctor; and he shows us the captive chief
and headmen from Samba busily quarrying a clay cliff behind it so as
to enlarge the governmental plateau, and the ex-ministers of the ex-
King of Dahomey, who are deported to Njole, and apparently
comfortable and employed in various non-menial occupations. Then we
go down the little avenue of cacao trees in full bearing, and away
to the left to where there is now an encampment of Adoomas, who have
come down as a convoy from Franceville, and are going back with
another under the command of our vivacious fellow passenger, who, I
grieve to see, will have a rough time of it in the way of
accommodation in those narrow, shallow canoes which are lying with
their noses tied to the bank, and no other white man to talk to.
What a blessing he will be conversationally to Franceville when he
gets in.
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