On Landing I Was Taken In Charge By An Assistant Inspector Of
Police, And After A Scrimmage For My Chief's Baggage And My Own,
Which Reminded Me Of A Long Ago Landing On The Distant Island Of
Guernsey, The Inspector And I Got Into A 'rickshaw, Locally Called A
Go-Cart.
It was pulled in front by two government negroes and
pushed behind by another pair, all neatly attired in white jackets
and knee breeches, and crimson cummerbunds yards long, bound round
their middles.
Now it is an ingrained characteristic of the
uneducated negro, that he cannot keep on a neat and complete garment
of any kind. It does not matter what that garment may be; so long
as it is whole, off it comes. But as soon as that garment becomes a
series of holes, held together by filaments of rag, he keeps it upon
him in a manner that is marvellous, and you need have no further
anxiety on its behalf. Therefore it was but natural that the
governmental cummerbunds, being new, should come off their wearers
several times in the course of our two mile trip, and as they wound
riskily round the legs of their running wearers, we had to make
halts while one end of the cummerbund was affixed to a tree-trunk
and the other end to the man, who rapidly wound himself up in it
again with a skill that spoke of constant practice.
The road to Christiansborg from Accra, which runs parallel to the
sea and is broad and well-kept, is in places pleasantly shaded with
pepper trees, eucalyptus, and palms.
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