Not, It Is True, On That
Part Of It Which I Was Bound For.
Still his advice was pre-
eminently worth attention, because, in spite of his long residence
in the deadliest spot of the region, he was still in fair going
order.
I told him I intended going to West Africa, and he said,
"When you have made up your mind to go to West Africa the very best
thing you can do is to get it unmade again and go to Scotland
instead; but if your intelligence is not strong enough to do so,
abstain from exposing yourself to the direct rays of the sun, take 4
grains of quinine every day for a fortnight before you reach the
Rivers, and get some introductions to the Wesleyans; they are the
only people on the Coast who have got a hearse with feathers."
My attention was next turned to getting ready things to take with
me. Having opened upon myself the sluice gates of advice, I rapidly
became distracted. My friends and their friends alike seemed to
labour under the delusion that I intended to charter a steamer and
was a person of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. This not being
the case, the only thing to do was to gratefully listen and let
things drift.
Not only do the things you have got to take, but the things you have
got to take them in, present a fine series of problems to the young
traveller. Crowds of witnesses testified to the forms of baggage
holders they had found invaluable, and these, it is unnecessary to
say, were all different in form and material.
With all this embarras de choix I was too distracted to buy anything
new in the way of baggage except a long waterproof sack neatly
closed at the top with a bar and handle. Into this I put blankets,
boots, books, in fact anything that would not go into my portmanteau
or black bag. From the first I was haunted by a conviction that its
bottom would come out, but it never did, and in spite of the fact
that it had ideas of its own about the arrangement of its contents,
it served me well throughout my voyage.
It was the beginning of August '93 when I first left England for
"the Coast." Preparations of quinine with postage partially paid
arrived up to the last moment, and a friend hastily sent two
newspaper clippings, one entitled "A Week in a Palm-oil Tub," which
was supposed to describe the sort of accommodation, companions, and
fauna likely to be met with on a steamer going to West Africa, and
on which I was to spend seven to The Graphic contributor's one; the
other from The Daily Telegraph, reviewing a French book of "Phrases
in common use" in Dahomey. The opening sentence in the latter was,
"Help, I am drowning." Then came the inquiry, "If a man is not a
thief?" and then another cry, "The boat is upset." "Get up, you
lazy scamps," is the next exclamation, followed almost immediately
by the question, "Why has not this man been buried?" "It is fetish
that has killed him, and he must lie here exposed with nothing on
him until only the bones remain," is the cheerful answer. This
sounded discouraging to a person whose occupation would necessitate
going about considerably in boats, and whose fixed desire was to
study fetish. So with a feeling of foreboding gloom I left London
for Liverpool - none the more cheerful for the matter-of-fact manner
in which the steamboat agents had informed me that they did not
issue return tickets by the West African lines of steamers. I will
not go into the details of that voyage here, much as I am given to
discursiveness. They are more amusing than instructive, for on my
first voyage out I did not know the Coast, and the Coast did not
know me and we mutually terrified each other. I fully expected to
get killed by the local nobility and gentry; they thought I was
connected with the World's Women's Temperance Association, and
collecting shocking details for subsequent magic-lantern lectures on
the liquor traffic; so fearful misunderstandings arose, but we
gradually educated each other, and I had the best of the affair; for
all I had got to teach them was that I was only a beetle and fetish
hunter, and so forth, while they had to teach me a new world, and a
very fascinating course of study I found it. And whatever the Coast
may have to say against me - for my continual desire for hair-pins,
and other pins, my intolerable habit of getting into water, the
abominations full of ants, that I brought into their houses, or
things emitting at unexpectedly short notice vivid and awful
stenches - they cannot but say that I was a diligent pupil, who
honestly tried to learn the lessons they taught me so kindly, though
some of those lessons were hard to a person who had never previously
been even in a tame bit of tropics, and whose life for many years
had been an entirely domestic one in a University town.
One by one I took my old ideas derived from books and thoughts based
on imperfect knowledge and weighed them against the real life around
me, and found them either worthless or wanting. The greatest
recantation I had to make I made humbly before I had been three
months on the Coast in 1893. It was of my idea of the traders.
What I had expected to find them was a very different thing to what
I did find them; and of their kindness to me I can never
sufficiently speak, for on that voyage I was utterly out of touch
with the governmental circles, and utterly dependent on the traders,
and the most useful lesson of all the lessons I learnt on the West
Coast in 1893 was that I could trust them.
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