You Rarely, Indeed I Believe Never, Find An African With A Gift For
Picturesque Descriptions Of Scenery.
The nearest approach to it I
ever got was from my cook when we were on Mungo mah Lobeh.
He
proudly boasted he had been on a mountain, up Cameroon River, with a
German officer, and on that mountain, "If you fall down one side you
die, if you fall down other side you die."
Graphic and vivid descriptions of incidents you often get, but it is
not Art. The effect is produced entirely by a bald brutality of
statement, the African having no artistic reticence whatsoever. One
fine touch, however, which does not come in under this class was
told me by my lamented friend Mr. Harris of Calabar. Some years ago
he had out a consignment of Dutch clocks with hanging weights, as is
natural to the Dutch clock. They were immensely popular among the
chiefs, and were soon disposed of save one, which had seen trouble
on the voyage out and lost one of its weights. Mr. Harris, who was
a man of great energy and resource, melted up some metal spoons and
made a new weight and hung it on the clock. The day he finished
this a chief came in, anxious for a Dutch clock, and Mr. Harris
forthwith sold him the repaired one. About a week elapsed, and then
the chief turned up at the factory again with a rueful countenance,
followed by a boy carrying something swathed in a cloth.
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