I Notice Upon The
Walls Sets Of Pictures Of Terrific Incidents In Algerian Campaigns,
And A Copy Of That Superb
Head of M. de Brazza in Arab headgear.
Soon the black minions who have been sent to find one of
The
plantation hands who is supposed to know French and English, return
with the "interpreter." That young man is a fraud. He does not
know English - not even coast English - and all he has got under his
precious wool is an abysmal ignorance darkened by terror; and so,
after one or two futile attempts and some frantic scratching at both
those regions which an African seems to regard as the seats of
intellectual inspiration, he bolts out of the door. Situation
terrible! My host and I smile wildly at each other, and both wonder
in our respective languages what, in the words of Mr. Squeers as
mentioned in the classics - we "shall do in this 'ere most awful go."
We are both going mad with the strain of the situation, when in
walks the engineer's brother from the Eclaireur. He seems intensely
surprised to find me sitting in his friend the planter's parlour
after my grim and retiring conduct on the Eclaireur on my voyage up.
But the planter tells him all, sousing him in torrents of words,
full of the violence of an outbreak of pent-up emotion. I do not
understand what he says, but I catch "tres inexplicable" and things
like that. The calm brother of the engineer sits down at the table,
and I am sure tells the planter something like this: "Calm
yourself, my friend, we picked up this curiosity at Lembarene. It
seems quite harmless." And then the planter calmed, and mopped a
perspiring brow, and so did I, and we smiled more freely, feeling
the mental atmosphere had become less tense and cooler. We both
simply beamed on our deliverer, and the planter gave him lots of
things to drink. I had nothing about me except a head of tobacco in
my pocket, which I did not feel was a suitable offering. Now the
engineer's brother, although he would not own to it, knew English,
so I told him how the beauty of the road had lured me on, and how I
was interested in coffee-planting, and how much I admired the
magnificence of this plantation, and all the enterprise and energy
it represented.
"Oui, oui, certainement," said he, and translated. My friend the
planter seemed charmed; it was the first sign of anything
approaching reason he had seen in me. He wanted me to have eau
sucree more kindly than ever, and when I rose, intending to bow
myself off and go, geese or no geese, back to the Eclaireur, he
would not let me go. I must see the plantation, toute la
plantation. So presently all three of us go out and thoroughly do
the plantation, the most well-ordered, well-cultivated plantation I
have ever seen, and a very noble monument to the knowledge and
industry of the planter.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 70 of 371
Words from 36335 to 36844
of 194943
