Meg Gehrts

“ We were sitting outside our hut in the cool of the evening, chatting together of home and future prospects; Hodgson, who plays the mandoline rather nicely, was strumming some old-time melody; the moon was shining as it only can shine in the tropics; and all nature seemed at peace; when there rose from the village near by a most terrific din. Women were screaming, men shouting, and children crying. ”

“ It is the force of contrast. If a European could be transported straight from such a climate to that which prevails in the dry season at Aledjo, he would probably laugh to scorn its claim to be entitled the Switzerland of Togo. But to poor, jaded me, it was as the very elixir of life itself.
And it is not the climate only. Aledjo itself is a beautiful place, and beautifully situated on a lofty plateau nearly 3000 feet above the level of the sea. Here Dr. Kersting has built for himself an everlasting monument. ”

“ Schomburgk, who knew beforehand that the stage was likely to be a hard one—although even he did not realise how hard—had strongly advised me, before setting out, to wear my pith helmet. But I, with true feminine perversity, had insisted on donning a big slouch hat of the cowboy type to which I was partial. I realised my mistake when the sun was well up, but my pride would not let me admit it. The last few miles were the worst. Only my thick hair, I am convinced, saved me from sunstroke. Once or twice I reeled in the saddle, almost overcome with weariness and the terrible heat. ”

“ Proper hammock boys, like those who carried me from Atakpame to Sokode, are exceedingly swift, smooth, and easy in all their movements. They "break step," like stretcher-bearers are trained to do, and sing a curious sort of chanting melody as they trot along, which is very apt to lull one to sleep.
Altogether, what with the crossing, and one or two enforced halts on the way, the journey to Panscheli occupied about two and a half hours, and a little way beyond the village, in a big and very deep pool, we came up with the hippos—one big bull, one big cow, and three smaller ones. ”

“ It is wonderful, when one comes to think of it, how always and everywhere it is love, love, love, that makes the world go round. To it we owe the beauty of the colouring of the sun-birds, the tail feathers of the bird of paradise, the song of the nightingale, and these in their turn, no doubt, in the dim, distant past, gave birth to painting and to music. No doubt the first Tschokossi belle who tore down a green branch to deck herself withal, was moved in the first instance by sex attraction, and the same holds good to-day of a frock by Worth. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The wind blew in the front and out at the back, and I was conscious, all the time I was dressing for dinner, that I was the cynosure of several hundred pairs of eyes, belonging to as many natives, men and women, who, "clad in the climate," as the saying is out there, crowded in serried ranks all round the wattle walls, anxious for a glimpse through the all too numerous chinks at the wonderful white woman timidly robing and disrobing within. ”

“ We are now marching back across the Oti flats. The season is advancing, and each day that passes, the heat increases in intensity. The very air seems to palpitate with it, and even by eight o'clock in the morning the sun's rays are so powerful that to sit in one's saddle exposed to them is to endure a mild sort of torture. We camped that night in the bush, far from any human habitation, under a big tree. ”

“ But Schomburgk was quite sure, and he called up the native boys, who lit lamps, and there, sure enough, clearly discernible even to my inexperienced eyes, in the soft sand, was the spoor of a big, full-grown leopard. He must have come our way from the village, climbed up on to the plateau, spotted us, and slunk off between the huts, and so escaped. When we came back from examining the spoor, Hodgson said to me, remembering our former experience with the snake: "Well, you're a prophetess the wrong way about; only say you don't believe in elephants, and I'll go and load my gun." ”

“ At night, too, when the moon is shining as only it does in the tropics, the landscape takes on a new, mysterious beauty, on which I was never tired of gazing. Other nights, when there was no moon, the grass fires lit up the country for miles around, so that I thought I had never seen anything so awe-inspiring and magnificent. These grass fires are started by the natives at regular intervals during the dry season, as otherwise the country would be covered with an altogether too luxuriant vegetation. It is simply marvellous how quickly nature repairs the ravages of the flames. ”

“ I could not sleep, and the story of the white man so nearly slain in his tent by the poisoned arrows of these treacherous savages kept recurring to my mind again and again. At first a camp in a typical African bush is strangely silent, but after an hour or so there invariably begins a regular succession of noises, continuing till just before dawn. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Beneath this awning, and still further sheltered from the sun's glare by the thick branches of a big tree, I enjoyed my siesta in perfect comfort and comparative coolness, whereas when I remained cooped up in the tent, I found it usually impossible to obtain any sleep whatever during the daytime. The fact of the matter is that a tent in the tropics is not at all a desirable kind of dwelling-place. ”

“ The Fulani, however, still continue to bring us milk, and butter for cooking. As their village lies at a much lower elevation than our camp, I am able to see them coming a long way off, and their first advent upon the scene is the signal to begin to get breakfast ready. We use the milk for our porridge and our coffee, but it is always very dirty. Tolstoy was right when he wrote that cleanliness is the hallmark of the classes the world over. The lower down, the dirtier! Most of these people, for instance, are simply filthy, possessing not even the most rudimentary notions of cleanliness. ”

“ Very early in our trip Schomburgk had told me that the best way to punish a lazy carrier was not by personal chastisement—for which they care little unless it be carried to such an extent as to be inhuman, which, of course, is not to be thought of—nor by fining them; but that if a carrier was really lazy, coming in a long while after the others, the best thing to do was to give him a load, and stand him with it on his head in the middle of the camp, making him stay there for as long a time as he had been behind his fellow-carriers. ”

“ As the day advanced, a hot wind swept across the Oti plains in fierce eddying gusts, bringing with it more clouds of black dust from the burnt veldt; and at night the mosquitoes were so bad that we couldn't sleep, exactly as he had foretold. I never encountered anything quite so bad in the way of insect pests as were these mosquitoes on the banks of the Oti. The boys had to light fires of green boughs to drive them away, and while they were crouching over them, half-suffocated by the smoke, Schomburgk started to tell me about some mosquitoes he once encountered in the Congo forest region. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Schomburgk took over command of the caravan from me, and set a course due north, towards a fairly large village called Sumbu. Soon afterwards we quitted the plain, and climbed up on to a plateau. Everybody was very tired, including myself, and I quite understood now why natives preferred to go nude, or with only a loin-cloth. One never realises how utterly ridiculous and superfluous civilised clothing can become, until one travels in the African bush during the heat of the day. We passed many dirty little Tschokossi villages, mostly deserted or in ruins, but saw no inhabitants. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Uro Djabo attached very great importance to this bird. It was, I was informed, sacred; and anyone killing it, or otherwise interfering with it, would be very severely punished. The crane knew quite well that it was privileged, and it used to strut up to the cooking-pots when the natives were at dinner, and help itself to any choice morsel that took its fancy. Any ordinary bird acting after this fashion would have promptly had its neck wrung, for hardly anything upsets a West African native more than a liberty taken with his food. ”

“ Not only is the heat terrific in the day-time—one cannot, I was assured, walk across the square without dripping with perspiration—but it is hardly any cooler at night, while to keep things lively there is an almost continual succession of thunderstorms of appalling intensity, the rain descending with tropical violence at an angle of forty-five degrees or thereabouts, and beating right into the houses, so that at times the people prefer to go out into it at once and have done with it, rather than try to take shelter inside, when it is practically unobtainable. ”