cinderella—a troubled commissioner—few people along the coast—no hotels—nursing sister to the rescue—sekondi—a little log-rolling—a harassed hedge—carriers—difficulties of the way—a funeral palaver—no dinner and no ligjit—first night alone—unruly carriers—no breakfast—crossing the prah—a drink from a marmalade pot—“we no be fit, ma”—the evolution of grant—along the coast in the dark—elmina at last—a sympathetic medical officer—“i have kicked your policeman.”

west africa is cinderella among the colonies. no one goes there for pleasure, and of those who gain their livelihood from the country three-fourths regard themselves as martyrs and heroes, counting the days till the steamer shall take them home again for that long leave that makes a position there so desirable. the other quarter perhaps, some i know for certain, find much good in the country, many possibilities, but as yet their voice is not heard by the general public above that chorus that drowns its protest. that any man should come to the gold coast for pleasure would be surprising; that a woman should come when she had no husband there, and that she should want to go overland all along the sea-board, passed belief. “why? why?” asked everyone. “a tourist on the coast,” a surprised ship's captain called me, and i disclaimed it promptly. my publisher had commissioned a book and i was there to write it. and then they could not make up their minds whether i or my publisher were the greater fool, for but very few among that little company saw anything to write about in the country.

in axim the troubled commissioner set his foot down. i had been to half assinie and he felt that ought to satisfy the most exacting woman; but since i was anxious to do more he stretched a point and took me as far as prince's, an abandoned branden-burgher fort that is tumbling into ruins, with a native farm in the courtyard, but no farther could i go. carriers he could not get me, and for the first time i saw a smile on his face, a real relieved smile, when he saw me into the boat that took me to the steamer bound for sekondi.

no one goes along the coast except an occasional public works department man or a school inspector; nobody wants to, and it is not easy of accomplishment.

even in the towns it is difficult for the stranger. i do not know what would happen if that stranger had not friends and letters of introduction, for though there are one or two hotels, as yet no one who is not absolutely driven to it by stern necessity stays in a west-african hotel. in sekondi it is almost impossible, for at this town is the coast terminus of the railway that runs to the mines at tarkwa and kumasi, and the miner both coming and returning seems to require so much liquid refreshment that he is anything but a desirable fellow-housemate, wherefore was i deeply grateful when miss oram, the nursing sister at the sekondi hospital, asked me to stay in her quarters.

sekondi straggles up and down many hills, and by and by if some definite plan of beautifying be followed may be made rather a pretty place. even now at night, from some of the bungalows on the hillsides when the darkness gently veils the ugly scars that man's handiwork leaves behind, with its great sweep of beach, its sloping hillsides dotted with lights, the stars above and the lights in the craft on the water that lie just outside the surf, it has a wonderful charm and beauty that there is no denying. and yet there is no doubt sekondi should not be there. who is responsible for it i do not know, but there must have been some atrocious piece of log-rolling before elmina and cape coast were deprived of the benefit of the railway to the north. at sekondi is no harbour. it is but an open roadstead where in days gone past both the dutch and english held small forts for the benefit of their trade. at sekondi was no town. at the end of the last century the two little fishing villages marked the dutch and english forts. now the english fort is gone, fort orange is used as a prison, and a town has sprung into existence that has taken the trade from cape coast and elmina. it is a town that looks like all the english towns, as if no one cared for it and as if everyone lives there because perforce he must. in the european town the roads are made, and down their sides are huge gutters to carry off the storm waters; the englishman, let it be counted to him for grace, is great on making great cemented gutters that look like young rivers when it rains, and one enterprising commissioner planted an avenue or two of trees which promise well, only here and there someone has seen fit to cut a tree or two down, and the gap has never been replaced. some of the bungalows are fairly comfortable, but though purple bougainvillia, flame-coloured flamboyant trees, and dainty pink corrallitis will grow like weeds, decent gardens are few and far between. instead of giving an impression of tropical verdure as it easily might, sekondi looks somewhat hot and barren. this, it is only fair to say, i did not notice so much till i had visited german territory and seen what really could be done with the most unpromising material in a tropical climate. but german territory is the beloved child, planned and cared for and thought much of; english territory is the foster-child, received into the household because of the profit it will bring, and most of the towns of the gold coast shore bear these marks plain for everyone to read. they suffer, and suffer severely from the iniquitous system that is for ever changing those in authority over them in almost every department.

sekondi hospital for instance is rather a nice-looking building but it is horribly bare-looking and lacks sadly a garden and greenery. there is, of course, a large reserve all round it where are the houses of the medical officers and nursing sisters, and in this reserve many things are growing, but the general impression is of something just beginning. this i hardly understood, since the place has been in existence for the last ten years, till i found out that in the last eight months there had been four different doctors head of that hospital, and each of those doctors had had different views as to how the grounds should be laid out. so round the medical officer's bungalow the hedge had been three times planted and three times dug up. just as i left, the fourth unfortunate hedge was being put in. that, as i write, is nearly six weeks ago, so in all probability they are now considering some new plan. if only someone with knowledge would take in hand the beautifying of these west-african towns and insist on the plans being adhered to! in one of the principal streets of sekondi is a tamarind tree standing alone, a pleasant green spot in the general glare and heat, a reminder of how well the old dutch did, a reproach that we who are a great people do not do better. it seems to me it would want so little to make these towns beautiful places, the moral effect would be so great if they were.

but i had come to go along the coast, and the question was carriers; i appealed to the transport. my friend, mr migeod, the head of the transport, was on leave, and his second in command shook his head doubtfully. the troops in the north were out on manoeuvres and they had taken almost very carrier he could lay his hands on; but he would see what he could do. how few could i do with? seventeen, i decided, with two servants, was the very fewest i could move with, and he said he would do his best. i wanted to start on the following monday, and i chose the hour of ten; also because this was my first essay entirely alone i decided i would not go farther than chama, nine miles along the coast to the east.

so, on a monday morning early in march, behold me with all my goods and chattels, neatly done up into loads not weighing over 60 lbs., laid out in a row in the sister's compound, and waiting for the carriers. i had begged a policeman for dignity, or protection, i hardly know which, and he came first and ensconced himself under the house, and i sat on the verandah and waited. presently the carriers came and began gingerly turning over the loads and looking at me doubtfully. they were mendis and timinis, not the regular government carriers, but a scratch lot picked up to fill up gaps in the ranks. i didn't like the looks of them much, but there was nothing else to be done so i prepared to accept them. but it always takes two to make a bargain, and apparently those carriers liked me less than i liked them, for presently they one and all departed, and i began a somewhat heated discussion across the telephone with the head of the transport. looking back, i don't see what he could have done more than he did. it is impossible to evolve carriers out of nothing, but then i didn't see it quite in that light. i wanted carriers; i was looking to him to produce them, and i hadn't got them. he gave me to understand he thought i was unreasonable, and we weren't quite as nice to each other as we might have been. the men, he said, were frightened, and i thought that was unreasonable, for there was nothing really terrifying about me.

at three o'clock another gang arrived with a note from the transport officer. they were subsisted for sixteen days, and i might start there and then for accra.

i should have preferred to have subsisted my men myself; that is, given them each threepence daily, as i had on the way to the french border, seeing that they were not regular government men; but as the thing was done there was nothing for it but to make the best of it, and i went down, hunted up my policeman, and saw the loads on to the men's heads. i saw them start out in a long string, and then the thing that always happens in africa happened. both my servants were missing.

zacco, a boy with a scarred face from the north, did not much matter, but grant knew my ways and i could trust him. clearly, out in the wilds by myself with strange carriers and without even a servant, i should be very badly off, and i hesitated. not for long though. if i were going to let little things connected with personal comfort stand in my way i knew i should never get to accra, so i decided to start; my servants might catch me up, and if they did not, i would rely on the ministrations of the hammock-boys. if the worst came to the worst, i supposed i could put my dignity in my pocket and cook myself something, or live on tinned meat and biscuits; and so, leaving directions with my hostess that those boys were to be severely reprimanded when they turned up, i got into my hammock and started.

the road to accra from sekondi is along the seashore, and so, to be very irish, there is no road. of a truth, very few people there are who choose to go by land, as it is so much easier to go by steamer, and the way, generally speaking, is along the sand. just outside sekondi the beach is broken by huge rocks that run out into the sea, apparently barring the way effectually, and those rocks had to be negotiated. my hammock-boys stopped, and i got out and watched my men with the loads scrambling over the rocks, and one thing i was sure of, on my own feet i could not go that way. i mentioned that to my demurring men, and insisted that over those rocks they had to get me somehow, if it took the eight hammock-boys to do it. and over those rocks i was got without setting foot out of my hammock, and i fairly purred with pride, most unjustly setting it down to my own prowess and feeling it marked a distinct stage on my journey eastwards. we were, all of us, pleased as we went on again in all the glare of a tropical afternoon, and i mentally sniffed at the men who had hinted i was not able to manage carriers. there was not a more uplifted woman in all africa than i was for about the space of half an hour. it is trite to say pride goes before a fall. we have all heard it from our cradles and i ought to have remembered it, but i didn't. presently we came to a village, or rather two villages, with a stream dividing them, and there was a tremendous tom-toming going on, and the monotonous sound of natives chanting. the place was surrounded by thick greenery, only there was a broad way between the houses, a brown road with great waterways and holes in it, and the occasional shade-tree, under which the village rests in the heat of the day, and holds its little markets and its little councils and even does a stray job of cooking. the tom-toming went on, and men appeared blowing horns. they were evidently very excited, and i remember still, with a shudder, the staring, bloodshot eyes of two who passed my hammock braying on horns. most of my men could speak a little english, so i asked not without some little anxiety, “what is the matter?”

“it be funeral palaver, ma.”

oh, well, a funeral palaver was no great matter, surely. i had never heard of these coast natives doing anything more than drink palm wine to celebrate the occasion. some of those we passed had evidently drunk copiously already, and i was thankful we were passing. we came to the little river, we crossed the ford, and then we stopped.

“we go drink water, ma,” said my men.

i ought to have said “no,” but it was a very hot afternoon, and the request was not unreasonable. they had had to work hard carrying me over those rocks so i got out and let them go. and then, as i might have known, i waited. i grew cross, but it is no good losing your temper when there is no one to be made uneasy by it, and then i grew frightened; but, if it is foolish to lose one's temper, it is the height of folly to be afraid when there is no help possible. i was standing on the bank of the little river that we had just forded, my hammock was at my feet, all around was greenery, tropical greenery of palm and creeper, not very dense compared to other bush i have seen, but dense enough to prevent one's stepping off the road; before me was the village, with its mud walls and its thatched roofs, and behind me were the groves of trees on the other side of the water that hid the village, from which came the sound of savage revelry. never have i felt more alone, and yet sekondi was a bare five miles away. i comforted myself with the reflection that nothing would be likely to happen, but the thought of those half-naked men with the bloodshot, staring eyes was most unpleasantly prominent in my mind. some little naked boys came and bathed and stared at me; i didn't know whether to welcome them as companions or not. they understood no english, and when asked where were my men only stared the harder. i tried to take a photograph, but the policeman, who carried my stand, was also absent at the funeral, and i fear my hand shook, for i have never seen that picture. then, at last, when i was absolutely despairing, a hammock-boy turned up. he was a most ragged ruffian, with a printed cloth by way of trousers, a very openwork singlet, all torn away at one arm, a billycock hat in the last stages of dilapidation, and a large red woollen comforter with a border of black, blue, and yellow. that comforter fascinated me, and i looked at it as i talked to him, and wondered where it had been made. it had been knitted, and many of the stitches had been dropped, and i pictured to myself the sewing-party sitting round the fire doing useful work, while someone read aloud one of father benson's books. my hammock-boy looked at me as if he wondered how i was taking it, and wiped his mouth with the tail of the comforter, where they had used up the odd bits of wool. he flung it across his shoulder and a long, dropped red stitch caught over his ear.

“where be the men?” i was very angry indeed, which was very rough on the only one of the crowd who had turned up. he was very humble, and i suggested he should go and look for them, and tell them that if “they no come quick, they get no pay.” he departed on his errand, and i waited with a sinking heart. even if there was no danger, and i was by no means sure of that, with that tom-toming and that chant in my ears, i could not afford to go back and announce that i had failed. all my outlay had been for nothing. another long wait, and more little boys to look at me. the evening was coming; here in the hollow, down among the trees, the gloom was already gathering, and i began to think that neither chama nor sekondi would see me that night. i wondered what it would be like to spend the night under the trees, and whether there were any beasts that might molest me.

“toom, toom, toom,” went the village drum, as if to remind me there might be worse things than spending the night under the trees, and then my friend with the comforter appeared, leading two of the other hammock-boys; one wore a crocheted, red tam-o'-shanter that fell over his face—probably made at the same sewing-party. it was the same wool.

i talked to those three men. considering they were the best behaved of the lot, it comes back to me now that i was rather hard on them. i pointed out the dire pains and penalties that befell hammock-boys who did not pay proper attention to their duties, and i trusted that the fact that i was utterly incapable of inflicting those penalties was not as patent to them as it was to me, and then i decreed that my friend with the comforter should go back and try and retrieve a fourth man while the other two stayed with me. after another long wait he got that fourth man and we started off, i dignifiedly wrathful—at least i hope i was dignified; there was no doubt about the wrath—and they bearing evident marks of having consumed a certain quantity of the funeral palm wine.

it was dark when we reached chama, at least as dark as it ever is on a bright, starlight night in the tropics, and we came out of the gloom of the trees to find a dark bungalow raised high on stilts on a cement platform, looming up against the star-spangled sky, and then another surprise, a comforting surprise, awaited me: on that cement platform were two white spots, and those white spots rose up to greet me, shamefaced, humble, contrite, my servants. they had evidently slunk past me without being seen, and i was immensely relieved. but naturally i did not say so. i mentioned that i was very angry with them, and that it would take a long course of faithful service to make up for so serious a lapse, and they received my reproof very humbly, and apparently never realised that i was just about as lonely a woman as there was in the world at that moment, and would gladly have bartered all my wild aspirations after fame and fortune for the comfortable certainty that i was going to spend a safe night. it certainly does not jump with my firm faith in thought transference that none of those men apparently ever discovered i was afraid. i should have thought it was written all over me, but also, afraid as i was, it never occurred to me to turn back; so, if the one thought impressed them, perhaps the other did too.

then i waited on that dark verandah. there was some scanty government furniture in the rest-house, and my repentant servant fetched me out a chair, and i sat and waited. i looked out; there was the clearing round the house, the gloom of the dense greenery that grew up between the house and the seashore, while east ran the road to the town of chama, about a ten minutes' walk distant, and on the west a narrow track hardly discernible in the gloom came out of the greenery. up that i had come and up that i expected my men. and it seemed i might expect them. no one was going to deny me that privilege. still, i began to feel distinctly better. at least i had arrived at chama, and four hammock-boys and two servants were very humbly at my service. i wasn't going to spend the night in the open at the mercy of the trees and the unknown beasts, and i laughed at the idea of being afraid of the trees, though to my mind african trees have a distinct personality of their own. well, there was nothing to be done but wait, and i waited in the dark, for as no carriers had come in there was no possibility of a light, or of dinner either for that matter. grant was extremely sympathetic and most properly shocked at the behaviour of the carriers. no punishment could be too great for men who could treat his missus in such an outrageous manner. in the excitement and bustle of getting off i had eaten very little that day, so i was very hungry now; it added to my woes and decreased my fear. nothing surely could be going to happen to a woman who was so very commonplacely hungry. at last, about ten o'clock, i saw my loads come straggling out of the gloom of the trees on to the little path up to the platform, and then, before i quite realised what was happening, the verandah was full of carriers, drunk and hilarious, and not at all inclined to recognise the enormity of their crime. something had to be done, i knew. it would be the very worst of policies to allow my verandah to be turned into pandemonium. the headman had lighted a lantern, that i made grant take, and by its flickering light i singled out my policeman, cheerfully happy, but still, thank goodness, holding on to the sticks of my camera. him i tackled angrily. how dared he allow drunken carriers on my verandah, or anywhere near me? everyone, on putting down his load, was to go downstairs immediately. how we cleared that verandah i'm sure i don't know. the four virtuous haminock-boys and grant and zacco, i suppose, all took a hand, backed by their stern missus, and presently i and my servants had it to ourselves with a humble and repentant policeman sitting on the top of the steps, and grant set about getting my dinner. it was too late, i decided, to cook anything beyond a little coffee, so i had tinned tongues and tinned apricots this my first night alone in africa. then came the question of going to bed. there were several rooms in the rest-house, but the verandah seemed to me a pleasanter place where to sleep on a hot night. of course, i was alone, and would it be safer inside? the doors and windows were frail enough, besides it would be impossible to sleep with them shut, so i, to my boy's intense astonishment, decided for the verandah, and there i set up my bed, just an ordinary camp-bed, with mosquito curtains over it, and i went to bed and wondered if i could sleep.

first i found myself listening, listening intently, and i heard a thousand noises, the night birds calling, the skirl of the untiring insects, a faint tom-toming and sounds of revelry from the village, which gave things an unpleasant air of savagery, the crash of the ceaseless surf on the beach. i decided i was too frightened to sleep and i heartily wished myself back in england, writing mystery stories for a livelihood, and then i began to think that i was most desperately tired, that the mosquito curtains were a great protection, and before i realised i was sleepy was sound asleep and remembered no more till i awakened wondering where i was, and saw the first streaks of light in the east. before the first faint streaks of light and sunrise is but a short time in the tropics, and now i knew that everything depended upon me, so i flew out of bed and dressed with great promptitude, and there was grant with early-morning tea and then breakfast. but no carriers; and i had given orders we were to start at half-past five. it was long past that; six o'clock, no carriers, half-past. i sent zacco for the headman and he like the raven from the ark was no more seen. i sent grant and he returned, not with an olive branch but with the policeman.

“where are the carriers?” i demanded.

“they chop,” said he nonchalantly, as if it were no affair of his.

“chop! at this hour in the morning?” it was close on seven.

he signified that they did.

“bring the headman.” and i was a very angry white missus indeed. since i had got through the night all right i felt i was bound to do somthing today and i was not nearly so afraid as i had been.

the headman wept palm-wine tears. “they chop,” he said and he sobbed and gulped and wiped his face with the back of his hand like a discomfited somersetshire laburer. his condition immensely improved my courage. i was the white woman all over dealing with the inferior race, and i had not a doubt as to what should be done.

“policeman, you follow me.”

he did not like it much, my little fanti policeman, because he feared these mendis and timinis who could have eaten him alive, but he followed me however reluctantly. i wanted him as representing law and order. the thinking i intended to do myself.

we walked down to the village and there in the middle of the road were my carriers in two parties, each seated round a large enamelled-iron basin full of fish and rice. they did chop. they looked up at me with a grin, but i had quite made up my mind.

“policeman,” i said, “no man chops so late. throw away the chop.”

he hesitated. he could not make up his mind which he was most afraid of, me or the men. finally he decided that i was the most terrifying person and he gingerly picked up one of those basins and carefully put it down under a shrub.

“policeman,” i said, and i was emphatic, “that's not the way to throw away chop. scatter it round,” and with one glance at me to see if i meant what i said, he scattered it on the ground. what surprised me was that the men let him. certainly those round the second dish seized it and fled up towards the rest-house, and we came after them. when we arrived the men were still eating, but there was still some rice in the dish, and i made the policeman seize it and fling it away, and then every one of those men came back meekly to work, picked up their loads or waited round the hammock for me.

i saw the loads off with the headman, and told him to get across the prah river if he could and on to kommenda, where i proposed to have my luncheon, and then i stayed behind to take some photographs of the old fort. it took me some time to take my pictures. the heat was intense, and beyond the fort, which is quaintly old-world, there is not much to see. the town is the usual coast village built of clay, which they call swish, with thatched roofs; the streets between the houses are hot and dry and bare, and little naked children disport themselves there with the goats, sheep, pigs, and chickens. there are the holes from which the earth has been taken to make the swish—man-traps in the night, mosquitobreeding places at all times—and there are men and women standing gossiping in the street, wondering at the unusual sight of a white woman, just for all the world as they might do in a remote cornish village if a particularly smart motor passed by. they are fishing villages, these villages along the coast, living by the fishing, and growing just a little maize and plantains and yams for their own immediate needs; and it is a curious thing to say, but they give one the same sleepy, out-of-the-world feeling that a small village in cornwall does. there is not in them the go and the promise there is in an ashanti village, the dormant wealth waiting to be awakened one feels there is along the volta. no, these places were exploited hundreds of years ago by the men who built the fort that frowns over them still, and they are content to live on from day to day with just enough to keep them going, with the certain knowledge that no man can die of starvation, and when a young man wants distraction i suppose he goes to the bigger towns. so i found nothing of particular interest in chama, and i went on till i reached the prah river, just where it breaks out across the sands and rushes to meet the ocean.

i wondered in that journey to accra many times whether my face was set hard, whether my lips were not one firm, stern line that could never unbend and look kindly again. my small camp mirror that i consulted was exceedingly unflattering, but if i had not before been certain that no half-measures were of any use i should have been certain of it when i reached the river. there lay my loads, and sitting down solemnly watching them like so many crows, rather dissipated crows, were my men. they rose up as my hammock came into view.

“missus, men want drink water. it be hot.”

it was hot, very hot, and the river it seemed was salt; moreover, the only house in sight, and that was a good way off, was the hut apparently belonging to the ferryman. i looked at them, and my spirits rose; it was borne in on me that i had them well in hand, for there was no reason why they should not have gone off in a body to get that much-needed water.

but i gave the order, “one man go fetch water.”

why they obeyed me i don't know now, and why they didn't take the bucket i don't know now. i ought to have sent one man with a bucket; but experience always has to be bought, and i only realised that i was master of the situation, and must not spoil it by undue haste. so i solemnly stood there under my sun umbrella and watched those men have a drink one by one out of an empty marmalade pot. whenever, in the future, i see one of those golden tins, it will call up to my memory a blazing hot day, a waste of sand and coarse grass, a wide river flowing through it, and a row of loads with a ragged company of black men sitting solemnly beside them waiting while one of their number brought them a drink. that drink was a tremendous piece of business, but we were through with it at last, and though i was rather weary and very hot i was inclined to be triumphant. i felt i had the men fairly well in hand.

still, they weren't all that i could have desired. the road was very, very bad indeed, sometimes it was down on the heavy sand, sometimes the rocks were too rough—the hammock had to be engineered up and down the bank by devious and uncomfortable ways, sometimes we stopped to buy fruit in a village, and sometimes the men stopped and declared: “missus, oder hammock-boy, he no come.”

then i was hard. i knew it was no good being anything else.

“if hammock-boy no come you go on. i no stop.”

and they went, very slowly and reluctantly, but they went. it seemed cruel, but i soon grasped the fact that if i once allowed them to wait for the relief men who lingered there always would be lingerers, and we should crawl to accra at the rate of five miles a day.

they sang songs as they went, and this my first day out the song took a most personal turn.

“if man no get chop,” they intoned in monotonous recitative, “he go die. missus frow away our chop——-”

the deduction was obvious and i answered it at once. “all right, you go die. i no care. if men no come to work they may die.”

but they went very badly indeed, and it was after two o'clock in the afternoon before we arrived at kommenda on the seashore, where there is a village and a couple of old forts falling into decay. here, inside the courtyard of one of them, which is ju-ju, i had my table and chair put out and my luncheon served. the feeling of triumph was still upon me. already i was nearer elmina than sekondi and i felt in all probability, bad as they were, the men would go on. but, before i had finished my luncheon, my serenity received another shock. of course no one dared disturb so terrible a person at her chop, but, after i had finished, while i was endeavouring to instruct zacco in the way in which a kettle might be induced to boil without letting all the smoke go down the spout—i wanted some coffee—grant came up with a perturbed countenance and said the headman wanted to speak to me. i sent for him.

“missus,” he began propitiatingly, “man be tired too much. you stop here to-night; we take you cape coast to-morrow.”

0200

for the moment i was very properly wrathful. then i reflected—the white men did not understand, the majority of them, my desire to see elmina, the most important castle on the coast, how then should these black men understand. there was a tiny rest-house built on the bastion of the fort here, and looking at it i decided it was just the last place i should like to spend the night in. i did not expect to meet a white man at elmina, but at least it must be far nearer civilisation than this.

i looked at my headman more in sorrow than in anger. he was a much-troubled person, and evidently looked upon me as a specimen of the genus “massa.” i said:

“that is a very beautiful idea, headman, and does you credit. the only drawback i see to it is that i do not want to go to cape coast to-morrow, and i do want to go to elmina to-night.”

he scratched his head in a bewildered fashion, transferring a very elderly tourist cap from one hand to the other in order that he might give both sides a proper chance.

“man no be fit,” he got out at last.

“oh, they no be fit. send for the chief,” and i turned away and went on with zacco's instructions in the art of making coffee. still, in my own mind, i was very troubled. that rest-house on the bastion was a horrid-looking hole, and i had heard it whispered that the men of kommenda were very truculent. if i had been far from a white man at chama, i was certainly farther still now at kommenda. still, my common sense told me i must not allow i was dismayed.

presently i was told the chief had arrived, and i went outside and interviewed him. he wasn't a very big chief, and his stick of office only had a silver top to it with the name of the village written on it in large letters. he could speak no english, but with my headman and his linguist he soon grasped the fact that i wanted more carriers, and agreed to supply them. then i went back inside the fort and he joined the group outside who had come to look at the white woman, and who, i am glad to say, all kept respectfully outside. i seated myself again and sent for the headman.

“headman, you bring in man who no be fit.”

the headman went outside and presently returned with the downcast, ragged scarecrow who had been carrying my bed.

“you no be fit?”

“no, ma.”

i pointed out a place against the wall.

“you go sit there. you go back to sekondi. i get 'nother man. headman, fetch in other man who no be fit.”

the culprit sat himself down most reluctantly, afraid, whether of me or the ju-ju that was supposed to reign over the place, i know not, and the headman brought in another man.

“you no be fit?”

“no, ma”; but it was a very reluctant no.

“sit down over there. another man, headman,” but somehow i did not think there would be many more. and for once my intuitions were right. the headman came back reporting the rest were fit. i felt triumphant. then the unfortunate scare-crows against the wall rose up humbly and protested eagerly: “we be fit.”

but i was brutally stern. it cost me dear in the end, but it might have cost me dearer if i had taken them on. however, i had no intention of doing any such thing. they had declared themselves of their own free will “no fit.” i was determined they should remain “no fit” whatever it cost me to fill their places. i must rule this caravan, and i must decide where we should halt. i engaged two kommenda men to carry the loads, and when i had taken photographs of the fort—how thankful i was that they turned out well, for kommenda is one of the most unget-at-able places i know, and before a decent photographer gets there again i don't suppose there will be one stone left on another—i started after my men to elmina.

the carriers who were “no fit” came with us. why, i hardly know, but they were very, very repentant.

it was four o'clock before we left kommenda, and since we had twelve miles to go i hardly expected to arrive before dark, but i did think we might arrive about seven. i reckoned without my host, or rather without my carriers. there was more than a modicum of truth in the statement that they were no fit. the dissipation of the day before, and the lack of chop to-day—carriers always make a big meal early in the morning—were beginning to tell; besides they were very bad specimens of their class, and they lingered and halted and crawled till i began to think we should be very lucky indeed if we got into elmina before midnight. the darkness fell, and in the little villages the lights began to appear—these coast villagers use a cheap, a very cheap sort of kerosene lamp—and more than once my headman appealed to me. “we stop here, ma.”

i was very tired myself, now, very tired, indeed, and gladly would i have stopped, but those negro houses seen by the light of a flickering, evil-smelling lamp were impossible; besides i realised it would be very bad to give in to my men. finally we left the last little village behind, and before us lay a long, crescent-shaped bay, with a twinkling point of light at the farther horn—elmina, i guessed. it was quite dark now, sea and sky mingled, a line of white marked the breakers where the water met the sands, and on my left was the low shore hardly rising twenty feet above the sea-level, and covered with short, wiry sea-grasses, small shrubs, and the creeping bean. the men who were carrying me staggered along, stumbling over every inequality of the ground, and i remembered my youthful reading in “uncle tom's cabin,” and felt i very much resembled legree. there was, too, a modicum of sympathy growing up in my mind for legree and all slave-drivers. perhaps there was something to be said for them; they certainly must have had a good deal to put up with. presently my men dropped the hammock, and i scrambled out and looked at them angrily. the carriers were behind, the policeman—my protection and my dignity—was nowhere to be seen, my two servants were just behind, where they ought to have been, and my four hammock-boys looked at me in sullen misery.

“we no be fit.”

the case was beyond all words at my command, and i set my face to the east, and began to walk in the direction of the feeble little light i could see twinkling in the far distance, and which i concluded rightly, as it turned out, must be elmina.

my servants overtook me, and grant, who had been a most humble person when first i engaged him, who had been crushed with a sense of his own unworthiness the night before, now felt it incumbent upon himself to protest.

“you no walk, ma. it no be fit.”

how sick i was of that “no be fit.”

“grant,” i said with dignity, at least i hope it was with dignity, abandoning pigeon english, “there is no other way. tell those boys if i walk to elmina they get no pay,” and i stalked on, wishing at the bottom of my heart i knew something of the manners and customs of the african snake. in my own country i should have objected strongly to walking in such grass, when i could not see my way, and it just shows the natural selfishness of humanity that this thought had never occurred to me while my hammock-boys were carrying me. i don't suppose i had gone half a mile when grant and the boys overtook me.

“ma,” said grant with importance, the way he achieved importance that day was amazing, “you get in. they carry you now.”

“they no be fit.”

“they carry you,” declared he emphatically.

“we try, ma,” came a humble murmur from the boys, and i got in once more and we staggered along.

how i hated it all, and what a brute i felt. i thought to offer a little encouragement, so i said after a little time, when i thought the light was getting appreciably larger: “grant, which of these men carry me best?” and thought i would offer a suitable reward.

“they all carry you very badly, ma,” came back grant's stern reply; “that one,” and he pointed to the unfortunate who bore the lefthand front end of the hammock, “carry you worst.”

now, here was a dilemma. the light wasn't very far away now, and i could see against the sky the loom of a great building.

“very well,” i said, “each of the other three shall have threepence extra,” and the lefthand front man dropped his end of the hammock with something very like a sob, and left the other three to struggle on as best they might. we were close to elmina now. there was a row of palms on our right between us and the surf, and i could see houses with tiny lights in them, and so could the men.

“i will walk,” i said.

but the three remaining were very eager. “no, ma; no, ma, we carry you.”

then there appeared a man in european clothes, and him i stopped and interviewed.

“is that the castle of elmina?”

“yes,” said he, evidently mightily surprised at being interviewed by a white woman.

“who is in charge?” and i expected to hear some negro post office or custom official.

“dr dove,” said the stranger in the slurring tones of the negro.

“a white man?”

“yes, a white man.”

for all my weariness, i could have shouted for joy. such an unexpected piece of good luck! i had not expected to meet a white man this side of cape coast. i had thought the great castle here was abandoned to the tender mercies of the negro official.

“you can get in,” went on my new friend; “the drawbridge is not down yet.”

a drawbridge! how mediaeval it sounded, quite in keeping with the day i had spent, the day that had begun in chama fifty years ago.

we staggered along the causeway, the causeway made so many hundreds of years ago by the old portuguese adventurers; the sentry rose up in astonishment, and we staggered across it into the old courtyard; i got out of my hammock at the foot of a flight of broad stone steps, built when men built generously, and a policeman, not mine, raced up before me. all was in darkness in the great hall, and then i heard an unmistakable white man's voice in tones of surprise and unbelief.

“a missus, a———”

i stepped forward in the pitchy darkness, wondering what pitfalls there might be by the way.

“i am a white woman,” i said uncertainly, for i was very weary, and i had an uneasy feeling that this white man, like so many others i had met, might think i had no business to be there, and i didn't feel quite equal to asserting my rights just at that moment, and then i met an outstretched hand. it needed no more. i knew at once. it was a kindly, friendly, helpful hand. young or old, pretty or plain, ragged, smart, or disreputable, whatever i was, i felt the owner of that hand would be good to me. dr duff, for the negro had pronounced his name after his kind, led me upstairs through the darkness, with many apologies for the want of light, into a big room, dimly lighted by a kerosene lamp, and then we looked at each other.

“god bless my soul! where on earth did you come from?” said he.

“no one told me there was a white man in elmina,” said i; “and the relief of finding one was immense.”

but not till i was washed and bathed, dressed, fed, and in my right mind did we compare notes, and then we sat up till midnight discussing things.

it seemed to me i had sounded the depths, i had mastered the difficulties of african travel. my new friend listened sympathetically as he drank his whisky-and-soda, and then he flattered my little vanities as they had never been flattered since i had set out on my journeyings.

“not one woman in ten thousand would have got through.”

i liked it, but i think he was wrong. any woman who had once started would have got through simply and solely because there was absolutely nothing else to be done. it is a great thing in life to find there is only one way.

then dr duff descended to commonplace matters.

“i hope you don't mind,” said he; “i've kicked your policeman.”

“that,” said i, “is a thing he has been asking someone to do ever since we left sekondi a thousand years ago.”