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.
