This State Of A Party Was A Dangerous One In Which To Enter
A Strange Fan Town, Where Our Security
Lay in our being united.
When the first burst of Egaja conversation began to boil down into
something reasonable, I
Found that a villainous-looking scoundrel,
smeared with soot and draped in a fragment of genuine antique cloth,
was a head chief in mourning. He placed a house at my disposal,
quite a mansion, for it had no less than four apartments. The first
one was almost entirely occupied by a bedstead frame that was being
made up inside on account of the small size of the door.
This had to be removed before we could get in with the baggage at
all. While this removal was being effected with as much damage to
the house and the article as if it were a quarter-day affair in
England, the other chief arrived. He had been sent for, being away
down the river fishing when we arrived. I saw at once he was a very
superior man to any of the chiefs I had yet met with. It was not
his attire, remarkable though that was for the district, for it
consisted of a gentleman's black frock-coat such as is given in the
ivory bundle, a bright blue felt sombrero hat, an ample cloth of
Boma check; but his face and general bearing was distinctive, and
very powerful and intelligent; and I knew that Egaja, for good or
bad, owed its name to this man, and not to the mere sensual, brutal-
looking one. He was exceedingly courteous, ordering his people to
bring me a stool and one for himself, and then a fly-whisk to battle
with the evening cloud of sand-flies. I got Pagan to come and act
as interpreter while the rest were stowing the baggage, etc. After
compliments, "Tell the chief," I said, "that I hear this town of his
is thief town."
"Better not, sir," says Pagan.
"Go on," said I, "or I'll tell him myself."
So Pagan did. It was a sad blow to the chief.
"Thief town, this highly respectable town of Egaja! a town whose
moral conduct in all matters (Shedule) was an example to all towns,
called a thief town! Oh, what a wicked world!"
I said it was; but I would reserve my opinion as to whether Egaja
was a part of the wicked world or a star-like exception, until I had
experienced it myself. We then discoursed on many matters, and I
got a great deal of interesting fetish information out of the chief,
which was valuable to me, because the whole of this district had not
been in contact with white culture; and altogether I and the chief
became great friends.
Just when I was going in to have my much-desired tea, he brought me
his mother - an old lady, evidently very bright and able, but, poor
woman, with the most disgusting hand and arm I have ever seen. I am
ashamed to say I came very near being sympathetically sick in the
African manner on the spot. I felt I could not attend to it, and
have my tea afterwards, so I directed one of the canoe-shaped little
tubs, used for beating up the manioc in, to be brought and filled
with hot water, and then putting into it a heavy dose of Condy's
fluid, I made her sit down and lay the whole arm in it, and went and
had my tea. As soon as I had done I went outside, and getting some
of the many surrounding ladies to hold bush-lights, I examined the
case. The whole hand was a mass of yellow pus, streaked with
sanies, large ulcers were burrowing into the fore-arm, while in the
arm-pit was a big abscess. I opened the abscess at once, and then
the old lady frightened me nearly out of my wits by gently
subsiding, I thought dying, but I soon found out merely going to
sleep. I then washed the abscess well out, and having got a lot of
baked plantains, I made a big poultice of them, mixed with boiling
water and more Condy in the tub, and laid her arm right in this; and
propping her up all round and covering her over with cloths I
requisitioned from her son, I left her to have her nap while I went
into the history of the case, which was that some forty-eight hours
ago she had been wading along the bank, catching crawfish, and had
been stung by "a fish like a snake"; so I presume the ulcers were an
old-standing palaver. The hand had been a good deal torn by the
creature, and the pain and swelling had been so great she had not
had a minute's sleep since. As soon as the poultice got chilled I
took her arm out and cleaned it again, and wound it round with
dressing, and had her ladyship carried bodily, still asleep, into
her hut, and after rousing her up, giving her a dose of that fine
preparation, pil. crotonis cum hydrargi, saw her tucked up on her
own plank bedstead for the night, sound asleep again. The chief was
very anxious to have some pills too; so I gave him some, with firm
injunctions only to take one at the first time. I knew that that
one would teach him not to take more than one forever after, better
than I could do if I talked from June to January. Then all the
afflicted of Egaja turned up, and wanted medical advice. There was
evidently a good stiff epidemic of the yaws about; lots of cases of
dum with the various symptoms; ulcers of course galore; a man with a
bit of a broken spear head in an abscess in the thigh; one which I
believe a professional enthusiast would call a "lovely case" of
filaria, the entire white of one eye being full of the active little
worms and a ridge of surplus population migrating across the bridge
of the nose into the other eye, under the skin, looking like the
bridge of a pair of spectacles.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 79 of 190
Words from 79765 to 80806
of 194943
