Anum Mountain—The Basel Mission—A beautiful spot—An old Ashanti raid—A desolate rest-house—Alone and afraid; also hungry—A long night—Jakai—Pekki Blengo—The unspeakable Eveto Range—Underpaid carriers—A beautiful, a wealthy, and a neglected land—Tsito—The churches and the fetish—Difficulties of lodging in a cocoa-store—The lonely country between Tsito and the Border—Doubts of the hammock-boys—The awful road—Butterflies—The Border.
Frankly, my sympathies are not as a rule with the missionaries, certainly not with African missionaries. I have not learned to understand spiritual misery, and of material misery there is none in Africa to be compared with the unutterable woe one meets at every turn in an English city. But one thing I admire in these Swiss and German teachers is the way they have improved the land they have taken possession of. Their women, too, make here their homes and bear their children. “A home,” I said as I stepped on to the wide verandah of the Mission Station at Anum; “a home,” as I went into the rooms decorated with texts in German and Twi; “a home,” as I sat down to the very excellent luncheon provided by the good lady whom most English women would have designated a little scornfully as a haus-frau. Most emphatically “a home” when I looked out over the beautiful gardens that were nicely planted with mangoes, bananas, palms, and all manner of pretty shrubs and bright-foliaged trees. It seems to me almost a pity to teach the little negro since he is so much nicer in his untutored state, but since they feel it must be done these Basel Mission people are going the very best way about it by beautifying their own surroundings.
From their verandah over the scented frangipanni and fragrant orange trees you may see far far away the winding Volta like a silver thread at the bottom of the valley, and the great hills that control his course standing up on either side. It is an old station, for in the late sixties the Ashantis raided it, captured the missionary, Mr Ramseyer, his wife and child, and held them in captivity for several years. But times are changed now. The native, even the fierce Ashanti warrior, has learned that it is well for him that the white man should be here, and up in the rest-house on the other side of the mountain a white woman may stay alone in safety.
Why do the powers that be overlook Anum mountain? The rest-house to which my kind friend from Labolabo escorted me after we had lunched at the Basel Mission was shabby and desolate with that desolation that comes where a white man has been and is no longer. No one has ever tried to make a garden, though the larger trees and shrubs have been cleared from about the house and in their stead weeds have sprung up, and the vigour of their growth shows the possibilities, while the beauty of the situation is not to be denied. Away to the north, where not even a native dwells, spreads out the wide extent of the Afram plain, a very paradise for the sportsman, for there are to be found numberless hartebeests, leopards, lions, and even the elephant himself. It lies hundreds, possibly thousands of feet below, and across it winds the narrow streak of the Volta, while to the north the hills stretch out as if they would keep the mighty river for England, barring its passage to the east and to German territory.
And here my friend from Labolabo left me—left me, I think, with some misgivings.
“Come back,” he said; “you know I\'ll be glad to see you. Mind you come back. I know you can\'t get through.”
But I had my own opinion about that.
“What about the carriers Mr Olympia is going to send me to-morrow morning?”
And he laughed. “Those carriers! don\'t you wish you may get them? I know those carriers black men promise. Why, the missionary said you needn\'t expect them.”
The Basel missionary had said I might get through if I was prepared to wait, and as I said good-bye I was prepared to wait.
The rest-house was on top of a mountain in the clouds, far away from any sign of habitation. The rooms were large, empty, and desolate with a desolation there is no describing. There was a man in charge living in a little house some way off, the dispenser at the empty hospital which was close to the rest-house, and the Basel missionary spoke of him with scorn.
“He was one of my boys,” he said; “such a fool I sent him away, and why the Government have him for dispenser here I do not know.”
Neither do I, but I suspect he was in a place where he could do the very minimum of harm, for very few people come to Anum mountain. There is a Ju-ju upon it, and my first experience was that I could get no food.
No sooner were we alone than Grant appeared before me mightily aggrieved.
“This bush country no good, Ma. I no can get chop.”
I hope I would have felt sorry for him in any case, but it was brought home to me by the fact that he could get no chop for me either.
I had come to the end of my stores and there was not a chicken nor an egg nor bread nor fruit to be bought in the village down the hill. The villagers said they had none, or declined to sell, which came to the same thing. I dined frugally off tea and biscuits, and I presume Grant helped himself to the biscuits—I told him to—tea he hated—and then as the evening drew on I prepared to go to bed.
Oh! but it was lonely, and fear fell upon me. A white mist came softly up, so that I could not see beyond the broad, empty verandahs. I knew the moon was shining by the white light, but I could not see her and I felt shut in and terrified. Where Grant went to I don\'t know, but he disappeared after providing my frugal evening meal, and I could hear weird sounds that came out of the mist, and none of the familiar chatter and laughter of the carriers to which I had grown accustomed. It was against all my principles to shut myself in, so I left doors and windows wide open and listened for the various awful things that might come out of the bush and up those verandah steps. What I feared I know not, but I feared, feared greatly; the fear that had come upon me at Labolabo worked his wicked will now that I was alone on Anum mountain, and the white mist aided and abetted. I could hear the drip, drip, as of water falling somewhere in the silence; I could hear the cry of a bird out in the bush, but it was the silence that made every rustle so fraught with meaning. It was no good telling myself there was nothing to fear, that the kindly missionaries would never have left me alone if there had been.
I could only remember that on this mountain had raided those fierce Ashanti warriors, that terrible things had been done here, that terrible things might be done again, that if anything happened to me there was no possibility of help, that I was quite powerless. I wondered if a Savage, on these occasions one spells Savage with a very large “S,” did come on to the verandah, did come into my bedroom, what should I do. I felt that even a bush-cat would be terrifying, and having got so far I realised that a rabbit would probably send me into hysterics. At the thought of the rabbit my drooping spirits recovered themselves a little, but I spent a very unpleasant night, dozing and listening, till my own heart-beats drowned all other sounds. But I never thought of going back. I don\'t suppose I should have given up in any case, it is against family tradition, but if I had, there was the Volta behind me, and those preventive service men made it imperative to go on.
But when morning dawned I felt a little better. True, I did not like the thought of tea and biscuits for breakfast, but I thought hopefully of the Basel Mission gardens. I was sure, if I had to stay here, those hospitable people would give me plenty of fruit, and probably a good deal more than that, so I was not quite as depressed as Grant when I dressed and stood on the verandah, looking across the mysterious mist that still shrouded the valley of the Volta.
And before that mist had cleared away, up the steps of the rest-house came the Basel missionary, and at their foot crowded a gang of lightly clad, chattering men and women. My carriers! Mr Olympia had been as good as his word, the missionary kindly came to interpret, and I set out for Pekki Blengo, away in the hills to the east.
It was all hill-country through which we passed; range after range of hills, rich in cocoa and palm oil, while along the track, that we English called a road, might be seen rubber trees scored with knives, so that the milky rubber can be collected. Very little of this rich country is under cultivation, the vegetation is dense and close, and the vivid green is brightened here and there by scarlet poinsettas and flamboyant trees, then at the beginning of the rains one mass of flame-coloured blossom. It was a tangle of greenery, like some great, gorgeous greenhouse, and the native, when he wants a clearing, burns off a small portion and plants cocoa or cassada, yams, bananas, or maize, with enough cotton here and there, between the lines of food-stuffs, to give him yarn for his immediate needs. When the farmer has used up this land, he abandons it to the umbrella trees and other tropical weeds, and with the wastefulness of the native takes up another piece of land, burning and destroying, quite careless of the value of the trees that go to feed the fire. Such reckless destruction is not allowed by the Germans, but a few miles to the east. There a native is encouraged to take up a farm, but he must improve it year by year. Our thrifty neighbours will have no such waste within their borders.
In the course of the morning I arrived at Jakai, and the whole of the village turned out to interview me, and I in my turn took a photograph of as few as I could manage of the inhabitants under the principal tree. That was always the difficulty. When they grasped I was going to take a picture, and there was generally some much-travelled man ready to instruct the others, they all crowded together in one mass in front of the camera—if they did not object altogether, when they ran away—and I always had to wait, and perjure myself, and say the picture was taken long before it was done. But always they were kindly. If I grew afraid at night I always reminded myself of the uniform goodwill of the villages through which I passed; their evident desire that I should be pleased with my surroundings. And at Jakai Grant, with triumph, bought so many eggs that I trembled for my future meals. I foresaw a course of “fly” egg, hard-boiled egg, and egg and breadcrumbs, but after all that was better than tea and biscuits, and when I saw a pine-apple and a bunch of bananas I felt life was going to be endurable again.
At Pekki Blengo, an untidy, disorderly village, where the streets are full of holes and hillocks, strewn with litter and scarred with waterways, Mr Olympia met me, and conducted me to an empty chiefs house, where I might put up for the night. It was a twostoried house of mud, with plenty of air, for there were great holes where the doors and windows would have been, and I slept peacefully once more with the hum of human life all around me again. But I can hardly admire Pekki Blengo. It is like all these villages of the English Eastern Province. The houses are of mud, the roofs of thatch, and fowls, ducks, pigs, goats, and little happy, naked children alike swarm. That is one comfort so different from travelling in the older lands—these villagers are apparently happy enough. They are kindly and courteous, too, for though a white woman was evidently an extraordinary sight equal in interest to a circus clown, or even an elephant, and they rushed from all quarters to see her, they never pushed or crowded, and they cuffed the children if they seemed likely to worry her.
And beyond Pekki Blengo the road reached its worst. Mr Olympia warned me I should have to walk across the Eveto Range as no hammock-boys could possibly carry me, and I decided therefore that the walking had better be done very early in the morning, and arranged to start at half-past five, as soon as it was light.
The traveller is always allowed the privilege of arranging in Africa. If he does not he will certainly not progress at all, but at the same time it is surprising how seldom his well-arranged plans come off. True to promise my hammock-boys and carriers turned up some time a little before six in the morning, and the carriers, swarming up the verandah, turned over the loads, made a great many remarks that I was incapable of understanding, and one and all departed. Then the hammock-boys apparently urged me to get into the hammock and start, as they were in a hurry to be off and earn the four shillings they were to have for taking me to Ho in German territory. I pointed out, whether they understood I did not know, that I could not stir without my gear, and I went off to interview Mr Olympia, who was sweetly slumbering in his house about a mile away. He, when he was aroused, said they thought I was not giving them enough; that they said they would not carry loads to Ho for one shilling and sixpence and two shillings a load. I said that that was the sum he had fixed. I was perfectly willing to give more; and he set out to interview the Chief, and see if he could get fresh carriers, but he was not very hopeful about getting any that day. I retired to my chiefs house, grew tired of making mental notes of the people and the surrounding country, and got out a pack of cards and solaced myself with one-handed bridge, which may be educational, but is not very exciting. My hammock-boys again pleaded to ............