Harold Bindloss

“ Whitehouse gave him an indulgent look. "Not at all. Chopping of any kind is rather out of date, but it's unthinkable that a bushman should lay hands on a white man's goods."
Then he turned to Shotille, who half defiantly began his explanation. He had gone to trade with an agent across the neighbouring frontier, taking very good monkey skins, a little ivory, and oil; but the agent told him there was war palaver, and chopped the lot. Saidu maintained that he had used the English word. ”

“ The climate's not the worst thing we have against us."
Jackson was frankly puzzled by his chief. Of recent years there have been ameliorating changes in the African colonies, but Whitehouse had arrived in days when, although sickness was more common, a white man's death was not always due to natural causes. Stories of his firm-handed dealing with commercial opponents were told in the bush, and it was said that he was poison-proof, but he had few of the outward characteristics of the vanishing palm-oil ruffian. Yet Jackson knew that the black headmen traders rarely broke their word to him. ”

“ Whitehouse remarked. "Nobody would have interfered with him if he'd kept quiet, and in my opinion the war palaver should never have been raised in this country. Here we are, a few hundred Europeans scattered among the swamps, depending for our safety on the white man's prestige, and we're now teaching the bushmen our weakness and how to master us. However, since Bohme began the game——"
"But the kernels!" Cross interrupted. "They're gone, and I'm left with a claim I can't enforce on Shotille." ”

“ By and by they entered a lagoon, where most of the party landed, and followed a foot-wide trail through grass that grew to their shoulders, until they spread out when tall, black cottonwoods cut against the sky. ”

“ When the chance came to better his fortune by going to West Africa, he seized it eagerly, and, on arriving, found Martin, the agent, ill, and the other assistant crazed with drink and fever. The assistant died, and the outbreak of war prevented his being replaced. Martin alternately recovered and relapsed, and Cross did the work of the factory as best he could, until the agent also succumbed. ”

“ It's an old custom that the Government thought they'd stamped out, but the War seems to have encouraged the bushmen to begin the game again. Suppose A owes a debt to B, and won't pay. B, if he is strong enough, seizes value to cover from C, who collects, in turn, from the weaker D. The logic's typically African."
"But who robbed Saidu?"
"I don't know, but I have my suspicions, and mean to find out. It must have been a powerful man, because Saidu's an impudent thief himself," Whitehouse answered dryly. Then he turned to Jackson. "Tell them to get up steam on the launch." ”