CHAPTER V

ATAKPAME TO SOKODE

I forgot to say that shortly after leaving Kamina, at a village called Anâ, we were overtaken by another caravan convoying a European, a certain Dr. Berger, who was travelling up-country as far as Sokode, with a view to vaccinating the natives there.

The meeting came about in this wise. On arriving at Anâ, we discovered that the rest-house there was already occupied by a Mr. Lange, an engineer, who was building a bridge across the Anâ river.

He was away at work when we got there, and Schomburgk sent his (Lange's) boy to tell him of our arrival. Presently Lange turned up, looking rather perplexed, and not a little worried. The statement made to him by his boy, it appeared, had been couched in the following terms: "Master, two white men have arrived, and one of them looks like a woman."

Lange had guessed from this the identity of our party, for he had known Schomburgk during his previous trip, and had heard of his re-arrival in the colony, and of my presence there with him. His worried appearance, we found out, was due to the fact that he had practically run out of provisions just then, and so was unable to show us the hospitality he would have desired; and he was greatly relieved when we asked him to be our guest during our stay at Anâ. I may add that this was Schomburgk's invariable practice, and I have often heard him inveigh against the thoughtlessness sometimes shown by a certain type of globe-trotting European travellers in Africa in planting themselves upon other Europeans, sometimes for days together, and eating up food which is perhaps badly needed, and may be very difficult to replace. Of course hospitality under such circumstances is never refused. It is the unwritten law of the bush that white man shares with white man. But all the same there are times when it works hardly on the individual who does the sharing.

Well, luncheon was served and eaten, and we were enjoying our coffee and cigarettes, when a new lot of carriers hove in sight.

"Hullo!" remarked Lange to Schomburgk, "this looks like a white man's caravan"; and the two fell to discussing the foolishness of the individual, whoever he might be, in travelling thus during the heat of the day.

Presently the owner of the caravan, the Dr. Berger mentioned above, turned up, looking very hot and tired. Of course we made him welcome--it is wonderful how bush life makes one relish the advent of a white stranger--and we spent a very pleasant time together during the rest of the day.

He was the most even-tempered man as regards his dealings with the natives that I have ever come across. Nothing that they did or said seemed to disturb him in the least.

Curiously enough, although he was a Government official, he was travelling unprovided with an interpreter; and he himself, of course, understood no word of any of the native dialects.

When he wanted anything he simply asked his boy for it, addressing him at considerable length and with much circumlocution in German. Now this boy, whose name by the way was Joa, had been specially engaged by the worthy doctor because he had represented himself to be a fluent German scholar.

As a matter of fact, beyond a few phrases that he had learned to repeat parrot-like, he knew nothing whatever of the language, and the result of their joint efforts to make themselves understood was laughable in the extreme, and was not rendered the less amusing owing to the fact that the doctor would not allow our interpreter to intervene to straighten out the verbal tangle. He wanted, he said, to train his boy to understand German sufficiently well to minister to his wants.

As a result we nearly laughed ourselves into fits over scenes like the following, repeated at intervals, and with variations, all through the day.

"Joa," the doctor would say, "my friends would like a whisky and soda, and I myself could do with a drop. A small modicum of alcohol, Joa, after the day's march, certainly does no harm to a white man, and may conceivably do him good. Therefore, Joa, you may bring us a syphon of soda, please, together with a bottle of whisky"; and the doctor would imitate in dumb show the process of drawing a cork out of a bottle.

"Yah!" Joa would say, his face all one broad grin; and off he would go to his master's tent, to return presently with--a telescope.

"Now, Joa," the doctor would remark genially, "a telescope is a very good thing in its way, but one cannot drink telescopes, Joa. What we now want, Joa, is a whisky and soda, especially the soda." And he would start to imitate the pressing down of the lever of a soda-water syphon.

A new light would then break on Joa's face. "Ah! Yah!" he would cry, and trot off again, to reappear a minute or so later carrying with due care and circumspection his master's double-barrelled rifle, loaded, and at full-cock.

And so the pantomime would proceed, master and man both in the best of tempers, until at last, perhaps at the fourth or fifth attempt, perchance at the tenth or twelfth, the native would hit upon the right article, either by accident, or by the slower process of elimination.

Whereupon the doctor would smile gravely yet pleasantly at us, as if in mild reproof of our unseemly mirth, and remark: "There you are; with time and patience one can achieve anything, even in Africa and with African natives."

On the morning after this little episode we rose at three o'clock in order to cover the next stage, as far as a place called Njamassila, before the worst heat of the day began. This, I may say, was our usual practice henceforward; as it is, indeed, that of all old seasoned travellers in this part of the world.

The distance from Anâ to Njamassila is roughly about twenty miles, and the road in places is not particularly smooth. It was too, of course, quite dark when we started, so that altogether I was not particularly sorry when Schomburgk decreed that I was to do the first part of the journey in my hammock.

In this way I was carried about two-thirds of the stage. Then, when it got light, I climbed out, mounted my bicycle, and rode the remainder of the distance. It was rough going, and very cold at first, but I persevered, rather reproaching myself for my earlier laziness. When, however, I discovered on arriving at Njamassila that our doctor friend had elected to be carried the whole of the way, I went to the other extreme, shook hands with myself, metaphorically speaking, and plumed myself mightily on my "wonderful" exhibition of hardihood and endurance. "I intend to cycle the whole of the next stage," I told Schomburgk.

Alas, my pride in this respect, and on this occasion, was of the kind that goes before a fall. Whether or no it was due to my unwonted exertions of the previous day--I had done a lot of running about on foot besides the cycling--I cannot say, but the fact remains that when we struck camp at 2.30 next morning I felt so weak and dizzy, as well as stiff and sore, that I could hardly stand.

Under the circumstances there was nothing to do but to seek refuge in my hammock once more, where, snuggled beneath many rugs and wraps designed to keep out the cold night air, and lulled by the rhythmic swaying of the conveyance, I promptly fell sound asleep.

It seemed to me that I had hardly closed my eyes more than a very few minutes, when I was awakened by hearing Schomburgk angrily inquiring of the hammock boys why they were standing idle, and whereabouts was I. "Master," they replied, "she is inside asleep, and we feared you would be angry did we wake her."

All this I heard dimly as in a dream between sleeping and waking. Lazily I lay back, too comfortable even to raise myself on my elbow and peer out; but I was beginning to wonder what was the reason for the long delay, and how soon we were going to resume our journey, when the sound of Schomburgk's voice, once more raised in protest, roused me into instant and complete wakefulness.

It was me he addressed this time, and his words were as follows:

"Come, little lady; are you not going to get up?"

"But why should I get up?" I replied. "What time is it? Where are we?"

"It's eight o'clock," he answered, "and we are at Agbandi."

"What!" I screamed; and, pulling the curtains aside, I bounced out on to the ground.

What I saw made me rub my eyes with amazement. Before me was a new rest-house, and a village that I had never seen before, and preparations for breakfast were, I could see, well under way. Only then did I realise that I had slept right through the entire twenty-mile stage from Njamassila to Agbandi.

In the afternoon, after the worst heat of the day was over, we strolled down to the village. There was very little to see, however, and we were on the point of returning to our camp, when there suddenly confronted us from out of one of the huts the tallest and biggest man I have ever seen, either in Africa or out of it. He stood over eight feet high, and was very broad and immensely powerful, the muscles bulging out under his skin like bosses of beaten bronze.

We would have liked to have filmed him, but unfortunately we did not have our camera with us. Later on, however, we unearthed another giant, of scarcely inferior size, and him we did succeed in photographing, Schomburgk meanwhile standing beside him to show the contrast in size and height, and lifting and displaying at intervals the big man's various personal paraphernalia--his bow and arrows, his spear, and the curious iron rattle which all the Togo natives carry, and concerning which I shall have more to say presently.

Our next stage was from Agbandi to Blita, and at this latter place we were met by a fresh lot of carriers, men of the Kabure tribe, who had been sent down from Sokode to meet us. Our other carriers were sent back to Atakpame.

The Kabures inhabit the Trans-Kara country, and are, as a rule, fine strong men, but the lot we got were rather poor by comparison with the Atakpame people. However, they carried our belongings to Sokode all right, which was all we wanted of them.

They were absolutely the wildest-looking lot of natives I had yet come in contact with. There were ninety of them altogether, and they were all quite nude--not even a loin-cloth amongst the lot of them. Their dialect, too, was quite different from anything I had heard up till now. It sounded to my ears more uncouth and uncivilised, a mere succession of grunts and gurgles.

Here, too, I realised for the first time that my personal appearance might possibly inspire fear, or even disgust and aversion, for when I went into the market-place in the afternoon to have a look round as usual, the children fled screaming with terror, and even their mothers looked askance at me. I did not mind the latter so much, for I had already discovered that the women dwelling in these remote bush villages were not always very pleasant companions to have in too close proximity to one. They are apt to be--well, smelly. But I felt really hurt at the attitude of their offspring, for I am very fond of children, and they of me, as a rule, and in Kamina we had been great chums together. But then in Kamina there were always white people about, whereas I was the first white woman, at all events, that these nude little ebony imps had ever set eyes on. Consequently, I suppose, they regarded me as a sort of pale-faced bogey, to be avoided promptly, and at all hazards.

I slept again in my hammock during our march from Blita to our next halting-place at Djabotaure. This sounds a bit lazy, I must admit; but then it has got to be borne in mind that this moist, hot West African climate is exceedingly enervating, especially to a European woman, and to an unacclimatised European woman at that. Spend an hour or so in the Palm House at Kew Gardens, and you will get a faint idea of what it is like. The least exertion during the daytime causes one to break out into a profuse perspiration. Worse still, it seems to sap all one's energy and vitality, so that one feels like a wet rag from morning till night. To fight against it is well-nigh impossible. I used to go to bed tired, and wake up more tired. After a while, however, these symptoms entirely wore off, and I became quite strong and well, despite the heat and the constant travelling. Truly the human machine is marvellously adaptable.

It was at Djabotaure that I had quite a little adventure. I was taking my usual afternoon stroll through the village, the men being out in the bush shooting for the pot, when suddenly, from just outside, and in the opposite direction from where I had entered it, there arose a most terrific noise of tom-tomming, mingled with much shouting, the clattering of rattles, and the trampling of horses.

I stood stock still in the middle of the village, not quite knowing what else to do, and in a few minutes a group of five horsemen, looking very fierce and wild, galloped up and halted before me, and these were followed by others, who took up positions to right and left. Meanwhile, our interpreter, who had put in an appearance for once just when he was really wanted, had mutually introduced us, so to speak, and the foremost horseman dismounted and greeted me with stately courtesy. I was, he remarked, the first white woman he had ever seen; and having seen me, he trusted that he would live to see many more. Not a bad compliment for a nearly naked savage to pay one off-hand in the heart of the African bush!

The newcomers were, the interpreter explained, a chief and his retinue from a neighbouring village, and they had ridden into Djabotaure in order to take part in the festivities that precede the great Mohammedan fast of Ramadan.

This, as most people are aware, corresponds roughly to our Lent. It is supposed to commemorate the first "revelation" received by Mohammed, and during the entire four weeks that the fast lasts a strict Moslem may not eat or drink, smoke or bathe, smell any perfume, or even swallow his own spittle, till after sunset.

All this, however, is pure theory, so far as regards the Togo native Mohammedans. They certainly celebrate the festivities which usher in the fast with a tremendous enthusiasm--they kept us awake all night with their singing and dancing--and they are equally enthusiastic over the bairam festival which marks its close. But as regards the actual fast itself, I could not see that it made any difference to them whatever. They ate, drank, and smoked just as they always do; the real truth, of course, being that these people are Mohammedans in name only.

The day following this affair we marched as far as Andasi, our next halting-place, I still travelling in my hammock. I had not yet become acclimatised, and was very weak and languid. For some reason, too, my relays of hammock boys on this occasion proved themselves altogether incompetent, a most unusual thing. They swung me from side to side, tipped me this way and that, and only grinned idiotically when I complained. It was like being out in a small boat in a gale, and I really felt quite "sea-sick" during the last few miles.

The next morning we started at 3 A.M., in full moonlight, to cover the last twenty miles to Sokode, which is one of the largest and most important Government stations in this part of Togo. Wonderfully beautiful are the moonlight nights in Africa, whether, as was the case now, one is on a comparatively open road, or following one of the native tracks that disclose, with each fresh twist and turn, some new vista of silvery enchantment. The grey, mysterious bush takes on, under such circumstances, a hitherto undreamt-of beauty. The many clumps of tropical vegetation in the frequent open glades one encounters, stand out clear-cut and still, looking like white metal trees fragilely carved out of frosted aluminium.

At eight o'clock in the morning we reached a spot about four miles from Sokode, where our horses were waiting for us in charge of a young European, Mr. Kay H. Nebel. Up to this point I had travelled, after quitting the rail-head, entirely by bicycle and hammock; now it was to be principally horseback riding.

Mr. Nebel had been attached to Major Schomburgk's former expedition in the capacity of staff artist, and had been left behind at Sokode in charge of spare stores and equipment when Schomburgk had quitted that place on June 1, 1913. I knew him fairly well, having met him in Hamburg, where my home is.

It seemed passing strange to renew the acquaintance out here in the African wilds. The sleek, well-groomed young fellow I remembered had developed into a typical bushman. His face, neck, and arms were burnt and blackened by the sun to a very deep mahogany colour. He wore a huge cowboy hat, beneath which his long hair fell almost to his shoulders, _à la_ Buffalo Bill. His flannel shirt was open at the throat. He looked wonderfully picturesque, and also marvellously disreputable, a sort of cross between a typical grand-opera brigand and a Western American desperado, as depicted on the cinema films in New York and London.

After mutual greetings and explanations we pitched a tent, made a hurried toilet, and changed our clothes, in order to arrive somewhat clean in Sokode, where we found awaiting us a welcome luncheon, the outcome of kindly forethought and hospitality on the part of Mr. Kuepers, the Government schoolmaster at the station.

At Sokode we remained resting during the heat of the day. After which we struck off at right angles into the bush to a village called Paratau, distant about four miles from Sokode.

Here it was our intention to make a rather prolonged stay, in order to film a number of dramatic, and some ethnological scenes.