But To Return To Our State Journey Along The Christiansborg Road.
We Soon Reached The Castle, An Exceedingly Roomy And Solid Edifice
Built By The Danes, And Far Better Fitted For The Climate Than Our
Modern Dwellings, In Spite Of Our Supposed Advance In Tropical
Hygiene.
We entered by the sentry-guarded great gate into the
courtyard; on the right hand were the rest of the guard; most of
them asleep on their mats, but a few busy saying Dhikr, etc.,
towards Mecca, like the good Mohammedans these Haussas are, others
winding themselves into their cummerbunds.
On the left hand was Sir
Brandford Griffiths' hobby - a choice and select little garden, of
lovely eucharis lilies mostly in tubs, and rare and beautiful
flowers brought by him from his Barbadian home; while shading it and
the courtyard was a fine specimen of that superb thing of beauty - a
flamboyant tree - glorious with its delicate-green acacia-like leaves
and vermilion and yellow flowers, and astonishing with its vast
beans. A flight of stone stairs leads from the courtyard to the
upper part of the castle where the living rooms are, over the
extensive series of cool tunnel-like slave barracoons, now used as
store chambers. The upper rooms are high and large, and full of a
soft pleasant light and the thunder of the everlasting surf breaking
on the rocky spit on which the castle is built.
From the day the castle was built, now more than a hundred years
ago, the surf spray has been swept by the on-shore evening breeze
into every chink and cranny of the whole building, and hence the
place is mouldy - mouldy to an extent I, with all my experience in
that paradise for mould, West Africa, have never elsewhere seen.
The matting on the floors took an impression of your foot as a light
snowfall would.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 40 of 705
Words from 10969 to 11281
of 194943
