Togo

“ The curiosity aroused by my advent in the villages along this usually little frequented route was very great; more so, in fact, than anywhere else in Togo. Everywhere crowds of natives lined the roads to see me pass, the women "ul-ul-ulling" a wild welcome, the men capering and singing. While at the more important places, regular demonstrations of welcome were organised, as though for royalty itself. Thus, at Tschopowa, at a distance of fully three miles from the village, there awaited us a great crowd of natives, all dressed in their best. ”

“ The assembly of the combined squadrons in the bay was an imposing spectacle, and Admiral Togo, with his staff-officers, visited the sacred shrines of the Imperial ancestors, at Yamada, which is near Toba harbour. Hundreds of thousands of the people had assembled from far and near. Admiral Togo was the recipient of the greatest honours that his admiring countrymen could pay, both there and afterwards at Tokio, where they gathered absolutely to the number of a quarter of a million to bid him welcome on his safe return to his home. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The telephone bell rang, and he hurried into the entrance hall to answer.
“That you, Togo?” came over the wire.
“Yes, sar"
“I want you to get a taxicab, Togo, and drive as swiftly as possible along the river, road. Get out of the cab at the old summer resort, pay the chauffeur and send him back to the city. You understand that much?”
“Yes, sar.”
“After the chauffeur has driven away, walk along the road toward the north. You will come to an old shed at the left of the road. Old, ramshackle ruin—all that sort of thing. Meet me at the shed. Got it—what?” ”

“ The coast-line is only 22 miles in length, and with an area of about 500 square miles Togo-land is estimated to have a population of 40,000 souls. The great physical feature of the country is the Togo, Hakko, or Avon lagoon, which is cut off from the ocean by the narrow belt of sandy soil on which are situated Bagida, Porto Seguro, and Bay. The town of Togo lies on the east side of the Togo lagoon, where it extends eastward to Little Popo Lake. ”

“ Our object was to film scenes and plays of native51 life amongst absolutely virgin and unspoiled surroundings, and to this end we intended to penetrate to the extremest northern confines of Togo, as far at least as the borders of the French Sudan. As I have already intimated, no white woman had ever travelled so far afield in this part of Africa before, but we anticipated little difficulty or danger on this account, the natives being reported as quite friendly everywhere along our proposed line of route. ”

“ Madame Togo has said that when he went to join the United Squadrons a short time prior to the outbreak of hostilities in 1904, he merely asked her to be kind enough to take care of his dogs.
Even for a Japanese the Admiral is short, and rather stout, of figure, and people marvel when they see him that [309] he can be “the great Togo, the Nelson of Japan.” But the energy of the man is revealed in his quick, piercing glance. He is a strict disciplinarian, and a hater, above all things, of display, or of public homage. ”

“ I feel it is ungracious to abuse my own nation and not to recognise all they have done for the negro—all they have done in the way of colonisation, but after that journey across the little-known part of the Gold Coast into the little-known part of German Togo, I can but see that there is something much to be admired in the thorough German methods. ”

“ We are now bound for Sansane-Mangu, the northernmost Government station in Togo, by way of Kadjamba and Nali, and are in the heart of the Togoland Sudan. The days are intensely hot, and the nights seem to get colder and colder. This morning, for instance, the frost lay thick on the ground, so that we shivered under our thick wraps. ”

“ Togo’s Moving Day
To Editor Good Housekeeper Magazine, who are still there, I hopes,
Dear Sir:—Kindly to please notice my detachment from employ of Hon. Mrs. & Mr. Anna G. Sulkz, Cornstable, N. J. I shall tell you how they carelussly came to remove their home without including me among furniture.
One morning a.m. Hon. Mrs. arrive to kitchen and observe me singing Japanese opera amid dish-pans.
“Togo,” she say it, “date of Maytime will soonly arrive up. May Day are come when nervus prostration are enjoyed by all Homes which must travel for their health.” ”

“ He look somewhat quaint. Paper bags is like spinach; they seem most beautiful when raw. It was alarmed for to see how Hon. Bag had shrunk away. He seemed insufficient for healthful family of four persons. Next time I must cook two. Howeverly, it was necessary to make most of what was, so I rolled Hon. Bag out longwise like a omelet. Then I surround him with meat and vegetables in diagram of beautiful art.
“Togo!” holla Mrs. S. W. Swingle exploding into kitchen suddenly like a gun, “Togo, what you been cooking to make my home smell like a fire-insurance?” She cough in soprano. ”

“ The bead necklace supports a whistle by means of which the natives can signal messages from village to village, and even call one another by name, using a sort of Morse telegraphic code invented by themselves.
The Konkombwa villages round about here are the prettiest and neatest I have seen in Togo. They are quite small, consisting mostly of from five to ten huts, and each little community seems to be more or less self-contained. The social system under which they live, in fact, may be best described as a blend of the communal and the patriarchal. ”

“ Like most savages, these Togo natives have an inherent rooted aversion to being photographed. Luckily, however, Major Schomburgk had taken moving pictures of some of their villages during a previous expedition he had led into these parts, and some of the very natives we had engaged figured in them. ”

“ Next year the Germans took possession of the Togo district immediately east of the British territory on the Gold Coast, so that at present this seaboard is shared by four Powers, including Portugal, which administers the part of the coast still claimed by the King of Dahomey; but towards the interior the limits of the respective territories are nowhere accurately determined. Few travellers have ever penetrated far into this region, except towards the east in the direction of the Niger, where the routes of explorers intersect each other at several points. ”

“ His head was beneath the wagon seat, but he could get a glimpse of the bright moonlight, could see that the wagon was being driven along a road bordered with woods.
That told Togo nothing except that it still was night and that he had not been driven back into the city. He supposed he was being taken up the river. Along the bank were many small farms, abandoned factories, shacks formerly used by fishermen—scores of places where a man could be kept prisoner, or where something more sinister could happen to him without being discovered for some time to come. ”

“ Togo is one of the least developed countries in the world with a per capita GDP of about $400. The economy is heavily dependent on subsistence agriculture, which accounts for about 35% of GDP and provides employment for 80% of the labor force. Primary agricultural exports are cocoa, coffee, and cotton, which together account for about 30% of total export earnings. Togo is self-sufficient in basic foodstuffs when harvests are normal. ”

“ She revere her furniture and all her other ancestors. Each day she require me to stroke her mahogany lovingly with furniture polish.
This Hon. Lady are very superstitious about dirt. She think it are not clean to have around. She imagine dust, soot & mildew enter her house like a burgler and [Pg 136] Togo must be a policeman to arrest it when it gets inside.
“Togo,” she say, while I am enslaving myself amidst dishwater in kitchen, “I just heard a mouse making footprints in attic. ”

“ Most of us think that Eastern Equatorial Africa, considered as a field for colonization, is as much virgin soil as Togo, Kamerun and German South-West Africa, or the greater part of our possessions in the South Seas. ”

“ None of our boys were left stranded; they all got jobs. Alfred, our interpreter, and Asmani, Schomburgk's personal servant, took service with Baron Codelli at Kamina. Messa, the cook, got employment in the Duke of Mecklenburg's kitchen. Indeed, no boy who has been for any length of time with Europeans, and has a good character, need be long out of employment in Togo. A character, however, is an essential thing ”

“ At present Togo is the most populous island in the archipelago, next to Sara-Thiago and Santo-Antam, and the white element, mostly from Madeira, is relatively very numerous. Sam-Felippe^ the capital, lies on an open roadstead on the west coast, over against Brava. Brava, or the " Wild," has long ceased to deserve this appellation. Being the healthiest, best-cultivated, and pleasantest member of the whole group, it is often now spoken of as the " paradise of the Cape Yerd archipelago," in contrast to the four "hells" of Saint Vincent, Sal, Bda-Yista and Maio. ”

“ When I fetch forth raw steak and apple pie all require, “What the matter with Togo?”
With considerable talent resembling dry-goods draping windows, I derange decorations for that parlor-room. I pile beer-bottles to piano and fill jardenair with cigars. A rude house motto reporting “CAMELS ONLY DRINK ONCE61 IN 78 DAYS BUT ENJOY IT LONG TIME” I sat on mantelpiece where portrait of Hon. Ralph Woodrow Emerson once were. Hon. ”

“ Beyond Mangu, Togo has not yet been opened up, nor is the country considered altogether safe for Europeans. We only went there by special permission of the Government, obtained through H.H. the Duke of Mecklenburg, and he only granted it because Schomburgk was personally known to him as an old and experienced African traveller, who could be trusted to treat the natives well, to neither do nor say anything to provoke them, and who yet was capable of holding his own in an emergency if he were attacked. ”

“ Gather them in your apron and burn them thoroughly in kitchen stove, taking care that no ashes escape.”
I do so.
“Togo,” she hypothecate, “I can observe two fly-tracks running over portrait of my ancestor, Gov. Beelzebub Biggs. Kindly to wash his face carefully with cast-steel soap and don’t offend his dignitary.”
This also I accomplish compressing the insurgent feeling that arise continuously in my elbows.
“The early bird obtains worms,” she say cheerly when I arise at 4.32 a. m. for scrubb with sudds. ”

“ The German suzerain is represented in Togo and Little Popo only by the Hamburg and Bremen traders settled in the seaports. The village chiefs and fetish priests are still the true masters of the land. ”

“ They feared, as they have always feared, all German thoroughgoing methods. But gradually, as is only natural, a good thing makes its own reputation, and the natives who were before so fearful come long distances to seek help where they know only help can be found.
After we had walked all round the camp and got well soaked with the ordinary Togo afternoon shower, of which none of us took any notice, we went back to the kiosk for more refreshment, and here we found waiting us one of the Roman Catholic Fathers from Palime. ”

“ The population was suddenly increased by the disaster of Togo in 1680, and as the land was then distributed in small independent holdings, Brava became the garden of the archipelago. The natives are a cross-breed, distinguished from those of Fogo by their taller stature, fairer complexion, and features that have been compared to those of a goat. They are industrious tillers of the soil, good fishers and daring mariners. The Americans, whose chief fishing station is in Brava, employ many on board their whalers. ”

“ One of these was of very special interest to everybody there, natives as well as whites, because it was an attempt to reproduce for the cinema what will presently become Togo history. The incident chosen was the attack on the old station at Mangu by the Tschokossi, mentioned in a previous chapter, and amongst the hundreds of supers, soldiers as well as natives, who took part in the film production, were many men who had been in the actual fighting. ”

“ I exhibit.
“Togo,” cry Nogi, “New Year is for getting rid of sin. You have some expensive sin which you keep around—shampane, high-food, silk derby—New Year fine time to make swear-off of this.”
“I am ridiculous to laugh,” I commit, “what expensive sin I swear-off, please? I am enjoying too much poverty to be able not to get along without nothing which I haven’t not got, have I?”
“One expensive sin you have got which you might resolution to get away from,” magnify this Nogi, “you are educated to cigarette-smoking. ”

“ It is connected by a channel running eastward parallel with the sea, with the Wo and Little Popo lagoons, and with the Mono river. Behind the lagoons an undulating plain stretches some 50 m. The Sio and Haho, the two largest rivers of the coast region, both flow into the Togo lagoon. These rivers rise on the eastern versant of a chain of mountains which traverse the country in a south-westerly to north-easterly direction. Beginning in the south-east corner of the Gold Coast colony this range, composed of quartzite's and schists, extends beyond the borders of Togoland into upper Dahomey. ”