Gray Shirt Places His House At My Disposal, And Both He And His
Exceedingly Pretty Wife Do Their Utmost To Make Me Comfortable.
The
house lies at the west end of the town.
It is one room inside, but
has, I believe, a separate cooking shed. In the verandah in front
is placed a table, an ivory bundle chair and a gourd of water, and I
am also treated to a calico tablecloth, and most thoughtfully
screened off from the public gaze with more calico so that I can
have my tea in privacy. After this meal, to my surprise Ndaka turns
up. Certainly he is one of the very ugliest men - black or white - I
have ever seen, and I fancy one of the best. He is now on a holiday
from Kangwe, seeing to the settlement of his dead brother's affairs.
The dead brother was a great man in Arevooma and a pagan, but Ndaka,
the Christian Bible-reader, seems to get on perfectly with the
family and is holding tonight a meeting outside his brother's house
and comes with a lantern to fetch me to attend it. Of course I have
to go, headache or no headache.
Most of the town was there, mainly as spectators. Ndaka and my two
Christian boatmen manage the service between them, and what with the
hymns and the mosquitoes the experience is slightly awful. We sit
in a line in front of the house, which is brilliantly lit up - our
own lantern on the ground before us acting as a rival entertainment
to the house lamps inside for some of the best insect society in
Africa, who after the manner of the insect world, insist on
regarding us as responsible for their own idiocy in getting singed;
and sting us in revenge, while we slap hard, as we howl hymns in the
fearful Igalwa and M'pongwe way. Next to an English picnic, the
most uncomfortable thing I know is an open-air service in this part
of Africa. Service being over, Ndaka takes me over the house to
show its splendours. The great brilliancy of its illumination
arises from its being lit by two hanging lamps burning paraffin oil.
The most remarkable point about the house is the floor, which is
made of split, plaited bamboo. It gives under your feet in an
alarming way, being raised some three or four feet above the ground,
and I am haunted by the fear that I shall go through it and give
pain to myself, and great trouble to others before I could be got
out. It is a beautiful piece of workmanship, and Arevooma has every
reason to be proud of it. Having admired these things, I go, dead
tired and still headachy, down the road with my host who carries the
lantern, through an atmosphere that has 45 per cent. of solid matter
in the shape of mosquitoes; then wishing him good-night, I shut
myself in, and illuminate, humbly, with a candle. The furniture of
the house consists mainly of boxes, containing the wealth of Gray
Shirt, in clothes, mirrors, etc. One corner of the room is taken up
by great calabashes full of some sort of liquor, and there is an
ivory bundle chair, a hanging mirror, several rusty guns, and a
considerable collection of china basins and jugs. Evidently Gray
Shirt is rich. The most interesting article to me, however, just
now is the bed hung over with a clean, substantial, chintz mosquito
bar, and spread with clean calico and adorned with patchwork-covered
pillows. So I take off my boots and put on my slippers; for it
never does in this country to leave off boots altogether at anytime
and risk getting bitten by mosquitoes on the feet, when you are on
the march; because the rub of your boot on the bite always produces
a sore, and a sore when it comes in the Gorilla country, comes to
stay.
No sooner have I carefully swished all the mosquitoes from under the
bar and turned in, than a cat scratches and mews at the door - turn
out and let her in. She is evidently a pet, so I take her on to the
bed with me. She is a very nice cat - sandy and fat - and if I held
the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild fowl, I should have no
hesitation in saying she had in her the soul of Dame Juliana
Berners, such a whole-souled devotion to sport does she display,
dashing out through the flaps of the mosquito bar after rats which,
amid squeals from the rats and curses from her, she kills amongst
the china collection. Then she comes to me, triumphant, expecting
congratulations, and accompanied by mosquitoes, and purrs and kneads
upon my chest until she hears another rat.
Tuesday, July 23rd. - Am aroused by violent knocking at the door in
the early gray dawn - so violent that two large centipedes and a
scorpion drop on to the bed. They have evidently been tucked away
among the folds of the bar all night. Well "when ignorance is bliss
'tis folly to be wise," particularly along here. I get up without
delay, and find myself quite well. The cat has thrown a basin of
water neatly over into my bag during her nocturnal hunts; and when
my tea comes I am informed a man "done die" in the night, which
explains the firing of guns I heard. I inquire what he has died of,
and am told "He just truck luck, and then he die." His widows are
having their faces painted white by sympathetic lady friends, and
are attired in their oldest, dirtiest clothes, and but very few of
them; still, they seem to be taking things in a resigned spirit.
These Ajumba seem pleasant folk. They play with their pretty brown
children in a taking way. Last night I noticed some men and women
playing a game new to me, which consisted in throwing a hoop at each
other.
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