German roads—German villages—The lovely valley of Ho—The kindly German welcome—German hospitality—An ideal woman colonist—Pink roses—The way it rains in Togo—An unfortunate cripple—Vain regrets—Sodden pillows—A German rest-house—A meal under difficulties—Travelling by night—The weirdness of it—The sounds of the night—The fireflies—A long long journey—Palime by night—More German hospitality—Rail-head.
There was nothing to mark the border between the Gold Coast Colony and Togo. The country on the one side was as the country on the other, orchard-bush country with high grass and clumps of trees and shrubs; the lowering sky was the same, the fierce sun the same, only there was a road at last.
The Germans make roads as the Romans made them, that their conquering legions might pass, and here, in this remote corner of the earth, where neither Englishman nor German comes, is a road, the like of which I did not find in the Gold Coast Colony. It is hard and smooth as a garden-path, it is broad enough for two carts or two hammocks to pass abreast, it runs straight as a die, on either side the bushes and grass are kept neatly trimmed away, and deep waterways are cut so that the heavy rainfall may not spoil the road.
After a short time we came to a preventive station, neat and pretty as a station on the Volta, higher praise I cannot give it, and beyond that was a village; a village that was a precursor of all the villages that were to come. As a Briton I write it with the deepest regret, but the difference between an English village and a German village is as the difference between the model village of Edensor and the grimy town of Hanley in the Black Country. Here, in this first little village on the Togo side, all the ground between the houses was smoothed and swept, the houses themselves looked trim and neat, great, beautiful, spreading shade-trees of the order ficus elasticus were planted at regular intervals in the main street, and underneath them were ranged logs, so that the people who lounge away the heat of the day in the shade may have seats. Even the goats and the sheep had a neater look, which perhaps is no wonder, for here is no filthy litter or offal among which they may lie.
As I passed on my wonder increased. Here was exactly the same country, exactly the same natives, and all the difference between order and neatness and slatternly untidiness.
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I went on through this charming country till I found myself looking across a lovely valley at a house set high on a hill, the Commissioner\'s house at Ho at last. I went down into the valley, along a road that was bordered with flamboyant trees, all full of flame-coloured blossom, and then suddenly the curtain of my hammock was whisked up, and there stood before me a bearded white man, dressed in a white duck suit with a little red badge in his white helmet—the Commissioner, he told me in his halting English, at Ho.
Now I had come into that country without a letter or a credential of any sort, a foreigner, speaking not one word of the language, and I wondered what sort of reception I should meet with. I tried to explain that I was looking for a rest-house, but he waved my remarks aside with a smile, made me understand that his wife was up in the house on the hill, and that if I would go there she could speak English, and would make me welcome. And so I went on through country, lovely as the country round Anum mountain, only in the British colony there is this great difference—there the land is exactly as Nature made it, bar the little spoiling that man has done, innocent of roads, and exceedingly difficult to traverse, while here in German territory everything is being carried out on some well-thought-out plan. Ho was a station straggling over hill and valley, with high hills clothed with greenery near at hand, high hills fading into the blue distance, and valleys that cried out to the Creator in glad thankfulness that such beauty should be theirs. The road up to the Commissioner\'s bungalow was steep, steep as the Eveto Range, but it had been graded so that it was easy of ascent as a path in Hyde Park. Every tree had been planted or left standing with thought, not only for its own beauty but for the view that lies beyond; flamboyant, mango, palm, frangipanni, that the natives call forget-me-not, all have a reason for their existence, all add to the beauty and charm of the scene. And when I got to the top of the hill I was at the prettiest of brown bungalows, and down the steps of the verandah came a rosy-cheeked, pretty girl, ready to welcome the stranger.
“Of course you stay with us,” she said in the kindness of her hospitable heart, though there was certainly no of course about it.
She took me in and gave me coffee, and as we sat eating cakes, home-made German cakes, I asked her, “You have not been out very long?” because of the bright colour of her cheeks.
“Oh, not long,” she said, “only a year and two months. But it is so nice we are asking the Government to let us stay two years.”
“And you do not find it dull?”
“Oh no, I love it. The time goes so quick, so quick. There is so much to do.”
And then her husband came and added his welcome to hers, and paid off my carriers in approved German official style, and they took me in to “evening bread,” and I found to my intense surprise they had wreathed my place at table with pink roses. Never have I had such a pretty compliment, or such a pretty welcome, and only the night before I had been dining off hard-boiled eggs and biscuits in Swanzy\'s cocoa-house at Tsito.
Bed after dinner, and next morning my hostess took me round, and showed me everything there was to be seen, and told me how she passed her time. She looked after the house, she saw to the food, she went for rides on her bicycle, and she worked in the garden. It was the merry heart that went all the day, and I will venture to say that that pretty girl, with her bright, smiling face and her bright, charming manners, interested in this new country to which she had come, keen on her husband\'s work, was an asset to the nation to which she belonged; worth more to it than a dozen fine ladies who pride themselves on not being haus-frau. And as for the Commissioner, if I may judge, he was not only a strong man, but an artist. He had the advantage over an English Commissioner that his tour extended over eighteen months, instead of a year, and that he always came back to the same place. His bungalow looked a home; round it grew up a tropical garden, and behind he had planted a grove of broad-leaved teak trees, and already they were so tall the pathway through the grove was a leafy tunnel just flecked with golden sunshine, that told of the heat outside.
Those Germans were good to me. I feel I can never be grateful enough for such a warm welcome, and always, for the sake of those two there in the outlands, shall I think kindly of the people of the Fatherland.
They helped me to take photographs; the Commissioner mended my camera for me, and he got me more carriers, and told me that they were engaged to take me on thirty miles to Palime for the sum of two shillings a piece, that it could be done in one day if I chose, indeed it must be done in one day unless I stayed in the rest-house at Neve, and he warned me that I carried about with me a great sum of money, and asked if I were sure of my boy. I did not think it was likely Grant would rob me at this stage of the proceedings, but I suddenly realised with a little uncomfortable feeling what implicit trust I was putting in him; and then they gave fresh instructions for my comfort. It would rain, they said it always rained in Togo at this season in the afternoon; and I evidently did not realise how it rained, so they tied up my camera in American cloth and instructed me to put my Burberry on at the first drop of rain. Then with many good wishes we parted, and I set off on the road to Palime.
The road was most excellent, and anyone who has travelled for miles along a track that is really little better than a hunter\'s trail can understand the delights of smooth and easy going. We passed through villages where the villagers all turned up to see the show, but I fancied, it may have been only fancy, that the people were not as lightheartedly happy as in English territory, and whenever we came to a stream my men stopped and begged in pantomime that they might be allowed to bathe. I should like to have bathed myself, so I assented cheerfully, and the result was that we did not get over the ground very quickly. One of them spoke a little, a very little Twi, the language of the Fantis and Ashantis, and Grant spoke a little, and that was my only means of communication, lost of course when he was not with me, but they were most excellent men and went on and on untiringly.
Presently the clouds began to gather, a great relief, because the sun had bee............