We Neither, I Expect, Understood Each Other, And We Had
Trouble With Our Client, Who Would Keep Pleading "Not Guilty," Which
Was Absurd.
Anyhow we produced our effect, my success arising from
my concluding my speech with the announcement that I would give the
creditor a book on Hatton and Cookson for the coat, and I would
deduct it from Kiva's pay.
But, said the Court: "We look your mouth and it be sweet mouth, but
with Hatton and Cookson we can have no trade." This was a blow to
me. Hatton and Cookson was my big Ju Ju, and it was to their sub-
factory on the Rembwe that I was bound. On inquiry I elicited
another cheerful little fact which was they could not deal with
Hatton and Cookson because there was "blood war on the path that
way." The Court said they would take a book on Holty, but with
Holty i.e. Mr. John Holt, I had no deposit of money, and I did not
feel justified in issuing cheques on him, knowing also he could not
feel amiable towards wandering scientists, after what he had
recently gone through with one. Not that I doubt for one minute but
that his representatives would have honoured my book; for the
generosity and helpfulness of West African traders is unbounded and
long-suffering. But I did not like to encroach on it, all the more
so from a feeling that I might never get through to refund the
money. So at last I paid the equivalent value of the coat out of my
own trade-stuff; and the affair was regarded by all parties as
satisfactorily closed by the time the gray dawn was coming up over
the forest wall. I went in again and slept in snatches until I got
my tea about seven, and then turned out to hurry my band out of
Egaja. This I did not succeed in doing until past ten. One row
succeeded another with my men; but I was determined to get them out
of that town as quickly as possible, for I had heard so much from
perfectly reliable and experienced people regarding the
treacherousness of the Fan. I feared too that more cases still
would be brought up against Kiva, from the resume of his criminal
career I had had last night, and I knew it was very doubtful whether
my other three Fans were any better than he. There was his grace's
little murder affair only languishing for want of evidence owing to
the witnesses for the prosecution being out elephant-hunting not
very far away; and Wiki was pleading an alibi, and a twin brother,
in a bad wife palaver in this town. I really hope for the sake of
Fan morals at large, that I did engage the three worst villains in
M'fetta, and that M'fetta is the worst town in all Fan land,
inconvenient as this arrangement was to me personally. Anyhow, I
felt sure my Pappenheimers would take a lot of beating for good
solid crime, among any tribe anywhere. Moreover, the Ajumba wanted
meat, and the Fans, they said, offered them human. I saw no human
meat at Egaja, but the Ajumba seem to think the Fans eat nothing
else, which is a silly prejudice of theirs, because the Fans do. I
think in this case the Ajumba thought a lot of smoked flesh offered
was human. It may have been; it was in neat pieces; and again, as
the Captain of the late s.s. Sparrow would say, "it mayn't." But
the Ajumba have a horror of cannibalism, and I honestly believe
never practise it, even for fetish affairs, which is a rare thing in
a West African tribe where sacrificial and ceremonial cannibalism is
nearly universal. Anyhow the Ajumba loudly declared the Fans were
"bad men too much," which was impolitic under existing
circumstances, and inexcusable, because it by no means arose from a
courageous defiance of them; but the West African! Well! "'E's a
devil an' a ostrich an' a orphan child in one."
The chief was very anxious for me to stay and rest, but as his
mother was doing wonderfully well, and the other women seemed quite
to understand my directions regarding her, I did not feel inclined
to risk it. The old lady's farewell of me was peculiar: she took
my hand in her two, turned it palm upwards, and spat on it. I do
not know whether this is a constant form of greeting among the Fan;
I fancy not. Dr. Nassau, who explained it to me when I saw him
again down at Baraka, said the spitting was merely an accidental by-
product of the performance, which consisted in blowing a blessing;
and as I happened on this custom twice afterwards, I feel sure from
observation he is right.
The two chiefs saw us courteously out of the town as far as where
the river crosses the out-going path again, and the blue-hatted one
gave me some charms "to keep my foot in path," and the mourning
chief lent us his son to see us through the lines of fortification
of the plantation. I gave them an equal dash, and in answer to
their question as to whether I had found Egaja a thief-town, I said
that to call Egaja a thief-town was rank perjury, for I had not lost
a thing while in it; and we parted with mutual expression of esteem
and hopes for another meeting at an early date.
The defences of the fine series of plantations of Egaja on this side
were most intricate, to judge from the zigzag course our guide led
us through them. He explained they had to be because of the
character of the towns towards the Rembwe. After listening to this
young man, I really began to doubt that the Cities of the Plain had
really been destroyed, and wondered whether some future revision
committee will not put transported for destroyed.
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