0383
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. He was a fair-bearded man in a white helmet and a long, white-cottonsoutane, which somehow, even in this country of few clothes, gave the appear-ence of extreme poverty and self-denial. He had come up on a bicycle and had a great deal to say about the sleeping sickness. A day or two before he had been travelling two days west of Palime and he was asked by a native if he could speak English, and, when he assented, was taken to see a sick man. The man was a stranger to the people round and could only make himself understood in pigeon English. He told the Father he lived six days away, in British territory, and as he talked he perpetually took snuff. “Why,” asked the Father, “do you take snuff when you talk to me?” Because, the man explained, he had the sickness, and unless he took the strong, pungent snuff into his nostrils he could not talk, his head would fall forward, and he would become drowsy at once. This, he went on to say, was his reason for being here, so far from his home. He had heard there was a doctor here who could cure the sickness, and he was journeying to him as fast as he could. It is sad to think after such faith that he had probably left it too late.
“It is very difficult, indeed,” said the doctor, “to be sure of a cure.” The patient is discharged as cured and bound over to come back every six months for examination, and if each time his blood is examined it is free from parasites, all is well. He is certainly cured. But he has gone back to his home in an infected district, and if after six months or twelve months the parasite is again found, who is to say whether he has been re-infected or whether there has been a recrudescence of the old disorder? Occasionally, says the doctor, it is impossible to find the parasite in the blood, while the patient undoubtedly dies of sleeping sickness; the parasite is in the brain.
Since 1908 there have been four hundred cases through the doctor's hands. Of these 19 per cent, have died of sleeping sickness, 67 per cent, have been sent away as cured, and about 3 per cent, have died of other causes. Only ten of those sent away as cured have failed to present themselves for re-examination, and in this land where every journey must be made on foot, and food probably carried for the journey, it speaks very well, I think, for both doctor and patients that so many have come back to him. He is far kinder, probably, than the natives would be to each other—too kind for his own convenience, for the natives fear his laboratory, and will not come there at night, because when a patient is dying and past all other help he has him brought there to die. “Why?” I asked. “I may be able to help a little,” he said. “But how kind!” He shrugged his shoulders with a little smile. “It is nothing, it is doctor,” and he waved the thought aside as if I were making too much of it.
The disease comes, so says Dr von Raven, from west to east, and was first noticed in the Gambia in 1901. As long ago as 1802 a Dr Winterbottom described the sleeping sickness, and in 1850 a slavetrader noticed the swelling of the glands and refused to take slaves so afflicted. Undoubtedly cases of sleeping sickness must have been imported to the West Indies or America, but owing to the absence of theglossina palpalisto act as host the disease did not spread. That it is a ghastly, horrible, lingering, and insidious disease, that every man who has it where theglossina palpalisabounds is a danger to the community among whom he dwells, no one can doubt. They say that after a certain time the natives of a district may acquire immunity, but as this immunity comes only after severe suffering, it is perhaps better to stop the spread of the disease. The Germans have no hesitation in restricting the movements of the native if he is likely to become a public danger, but the British Government is very loath to interfere with a man's rights, even though it be the right to spread disease and death. Dr von Raven and the English Dr Horne met in conference a few months ago with the object of urging upon their respective Governments the absolute necessity for allowing no man to cross the Volta unless he have a certificate from a medical man that he is free from sleeping sickness. They contend, probably rightly, that a little trouble now would ensure the non-spread of the disease and assist materially in stamping it out. The Volta is a natural barrier; there are only two or three well-known crossing places where the people pass to and fro; and here they think a man might well be called upon to present his certificate. Against this is urged the undoubted fact that large numbers of the people are at no time affected, and, therefore, it would be going to a great deal of trouble and expense to effect a small thing. But is it a small thing?
“You write,” said the doctor as he bid me farewell; “you write?”
I said I did a little.
“Then tell the English people,” said he, “how necessary it is to stamp out this disease while it is yet small.”
And so to the best of my ability I give his message, the message of a man who is denying himself all things that go to make life pleasant, for the sake of curing this disease, and if that sacrifice is worth while, and he says it is well worth while, then I think it should be well worth the while of us people, who are responsible for these dark children we govern, to put upon them, even at cost to themselves and us, such restrictions as may help to save in the future even 2 per cent, of the population from a ghastly and lingering death.
Lome, the capital of Togo—A bad situation but the best laid-out town on the Coast—Avenues of trees—Promising gardens—The simple plan by which the Germans ensure the making of the roads—The prisoner who feared being “leff”—The disappointed lifer—The A.D.C.'s kindness—The very desirable prison garb—The energetic Englishman—How to make a road—Building a reputation.
People who sigh, “I am such a bad traveller,” as if it were something to be proud of, and complain of the hardships of a railway journey, should come upon the railway after they have had several days in a canoe, some hard walking, and some days' hammock journeying, and then they would view it in quite a different light. I felt it was the height of luxury when I stepped into a first-class railway carriage on the little narrow gauge railway, that goes from Palime to Lome, the capital of Togo.
My host had insisted on telegraphing to Swanzy's there.
“They meet you. More comfortable.”
Undoubtedly it would be more comfortable, but I wondered what I had done that I should merit so much consideration for my comfort from men who were not only total strangers, but belonged to a nation that has not the reputation for putting itself out for women. I can only say that no one has been kinder to me than those Germans of Togo, and for their sakes I have a very soft corner in my heart for all their nation, and when we English do not like them I can only think it is because of some misunderstanding that a little better knowledge on both sides would clear away.
You do not see the country well from a railway train even though the stoppages are many. I have a far better idea of the country between the English border and Palime than of the country between Palime and Lome. I was the only first-class passenger; the white men travelled second class, and all the coloured people third, that is in big, empty, covered trucks where they took their food, their babies, their bedding, their baggage, and in fact seemed to make themselves quite as comfortable as if they were at home.
And at Lome a young German from Messrs Swanzy's met me with a cart and carriers for my gear, and carried me off and installed me at their fine house on the sea-front as if I had every right to be there, which I certainly had not.
Lome is the most charming town I have seen in West Africa. It is neat and tidy and clean, it is beautifully laid out, and the buildings are such as would do credit to any nation. Very evident it is that the German does not consider himself an exile, but counts himself lucky to possess so fine a country, and is bent on making the best of it. For Lome has certainly been made the very best of. Only fifteen years ago did the Germans move their capital from Little Pope in the east to Lome in the west of their colony, not a great distance, for the whole sea-board is only thirty-five miles in length, and all that length is, I believe, swamp. Lome is almost surrounded by swamp; its very streets are rescued from it, but with German thoroughness those streets are well-laid-out, the roads well-made and well-kept, and are planted with trees, palms, flamboyant, and the handsomeficus elasticus. Here is a picture of a street in Lome, and the trees are only four years old, but already they stretch across the road and make a pleasant shade. The gardens and the trees of Lome made a great impression on me. Any fences one sees are neat, but as a rule they do not have many fences, only round every bungalow is a well-laid-out, well-kept, tropical garden; if it is only just made you know it will be good in the future because of the promise fulfilled in the garden beside it.
0393
All the Government bungalows look like young palaces, and are built to hold two families, the higher-class man having the choice of the flats, and generally taking the upper. Indeed I could find no words to express my admiration for this German capital which compared so very favourably with the English capital I had left but a short time before.
When I had talked to the Commissioner at Ho about the magnificent roads, I had hinted at the forced labour which is talked of so openly in the English colony as being a sin of the Germans. But he denied it.
“How do you make your roads then?” I asked.
“There is a tax of six shillings a head or else a fortnight's labour a year. It is right. If we have no roads how can we have trade?” and I, thinking of the 25 per cent, of the cocoa harvest left up the Afram river because “we no be fit to tote,” quite agreed.
Every English village has some sort of tax by which the roads are kept in order, why object if that tax is paid in the most useful sort of kind, namely labour.
Very very wisely it seems to me have the Germans laid the foundations of their colony, and though it has not paid in the past, it is paying now and in the future it will pay well.
But a certain set of people were not quite as happy as those in the English towns, and that was the prisoners working in the streets. They had iron collars round their necks and were chained together two and two, and though they were by no means depressed, they were not as cheery as the English prisoners. The English negro prisoner is unique. His punishment has been devised by people at home who do not understand the negro and his limitations, and the difficulty of adequately punishing is one of the difficulties of administration in an English colony.
“How do you keep your villages so neat?” I asked the Germans.
“If they are not neat we fine them.”
“But if they do not pay the fine?”
“Then we beat them.”
And though it may sound rather brutal, I am inclined to think that is the form of teaching the negro thoroughly understands. He is not yet educated up to understanding the disgrace of going to prison, and regards it somewhat in the light of a pleasant change from the ordinary routine.
The German prisoner is clad in his own rags, the garb an ordinary working-man usually wears. The English prisoner is at the expense of the Government clad in a neat white suit ornamented with a broad arrow. He can hardly bring himself to believe that this is meant for a disgrace, and rather admires himself I fancy in his new costume. Many many are the tales told of the prisoner and his non-realisation of the punishment meted out to him. Once a party of three or four were coming along a street in Freetown, under the charge of a warder, and they stopped to talk to someone. Then they went on again, but one of the party lingered behind to finish his gossip.
The warder looked back. They were still in earnest conversation.
“No. 14,” he called, warningly.
No. 14 paid no attention.
“No. 14,” a little more peremptorily.
Still No. 14 was interested in his friend.
“No. 14,” called the warder sternly, as one who was threatening the worst penalties of the law, “if you no come at once, I leff you, No. 14.”
And No. 14 with the dire prospect of being “leff” to his own devices, shut out of paradise in fact, ran to join the others.
There is another story current in Accra about an unfortunate prisoner who got eight months extra. He had been “leff,” and, finding himself shut out, promptly broke into prison; what was a poor man to do? At any rate, the authorities gave him an extra eight months, so I suspect all parties were entirely satisfied.
Then there was the man who was in for life, and was so thoroughly well-behaved that after sixteen years the Government commuted his sentence and released him. Do you think that prisoner was pleased? He was in a most terrible state of mind, and the mournful petition went up—What had he done to be so treated? He had served the Government faithfully for sixteen years, and now they were turning him away for absolutely no fault whatever.
He prayed them to reconsider their decision and restore him to the place he had so ably filled!
The fact of the matter is, the negro is very much better for a strong hand over him. He is a child, and like a child should have his hours of labour and his hours of play apportioned to him. The firm hand is what he requires and appreciates. What he may develop into in the future I do not know, with his mighty strength, his fine development, and his superb health; if he had but a mind to match it he must overrun the earth. Luckily for us he has not as yet a mind to match it, he is a child, with a child's wild and unrestrained desires, and like a child it is well for him that some stronger mind should guide his ways. So he thoroughly appreciates prison discipline, but it never occurs to him that it is any disgrace. Even when he has reached a higher standing than that of the peasant, it is hard to make him understand that there is anything disgraceful in going to prison.
Not so very long ago there was a black barrister in one of the West-African capitals who had been home to England. He was naturally a man of some education and standing. Now the Governor's A.D.C. had been for some little time inspector of prisoners. There was a dinner-party at Government House, and what was this young man's astonishment to have his hand seized and shaken very warmly by the black barrister who was a guest.
“I have to thank you,” said he, “for your great kindness to my mother while she was in prison, when I was in England last year.”
Clearly, then, it seems that the Germans are on the right track when they do not dress their prisoners in any special garb. If you come to think of it, a white suit marked with a broad arrow is quite as smart and a good deal cheaper than a red cloth marked with a blue broom, and the black man naturally feels some pride in swaggering round in it.
A good sound beating is of course the correct thing, and though a good sound beating is not legal in English territory, luckily, say I very luckily—for the negro does not understand leniency, he regards it as a sign of weakness—it is many a time administeredsub rosa, and the inferior respects the kindly man who is his master, who if he do wrong will have no hesitation in having him laid out and a round dozen administered. If English administration was not hampered by the well-meaning foolishness of folks at home, I venture to think that native towns would be cleaner and West-African health would be better. Because much as I admire the Germans and the wonderful fixed plan on which they have built up their colony, I have known Englishmen who could get just as good results if their hands had not been tied. And occasionally one meets or hears of a man who will not allow his hands to be tied.
In a certain district by the Volta there are excellent roads much appreciated by the natives. Now these roads were extra vile and likely to remain so before Government could be prevailed upon to stir up the local chiefs to a sense of their duty. But there was an officer in that district who thoroughly understood how to deal with the black man, and he was far enough away from headquarters to make sure of a free hand. He found the making of those roads simple enough. He bought a few dozen native hoes and set a sentry on the road to be made with a rifle over his shoulder and a watch upon his wrist. His orders were to stop every man who passed, put a hoe into his hand, and force him to work upon that road for half an hour by the watch. History sayeth not what happened if he rebelled, but of course he did not rebel. Once, so says rumour, this mighty coloniser came to a place where the roads were worse than usual, which from my experience is saying they were very bad indeed, and he sent for the Chief. The Chief said he could not make his people come to work—the English had destroyed his power.
“All right,” said the energetic Englishman, “the fine is £5. If they are not in in half an hour it'll be £10, and I'll bring 'em in in handcuffs.” He began to collect them—with the handcuffs—but the second fine was not necessary. They were both illegal, but, as I have said, he was far away from headquarters, and he made those roads. The native bore no malice. It was exactly the treatment he understood. There was a rude justice in it. It was patent to every eye that the road was bad. It was common sense that the man who used it should mend it, and as long as that official was in the country there were in his district roads and bridges as good as any in German Togo; and bridges as a rule are conspicuous by their absence in English territory. Also, as the Government never sends a man back to the same place, this man's good work is all falling back into disrepair, for it is hardly to be expected that Government will be lucky enough to get another man who will dare set its methods at defiance.
Lome, like Accra, has made an effort to get the better of the fierce surf that makes landing so difficult all along the African coast, and they, instead of a useless breakwater, have built a great bridge out into deep water, and at the end of this bridge a large wharf pier or quay, high above the waves, where passengers and goods can be lifted by cranes, and the men can walk the half-mile to the shore dry-shod, or the goods can be taken by train right to the very doors of the warehouses for which they are intended. This cost the much less sum of £100,000. It was highly successful, and a great source of pride to all Togo till a tremendous hurricane a week or so after I had left, swept away the bridge part and left Lome cut off from communication with the rest of the coast, for so successful had this great bridge been they had no surf boats. Still, in spite of that disaster, I think the Germans have managed better than the English, for the bridge even after the necessary repairs have been done will have cost scarcely £150,000, much less than Accra's breakwater, and of course there is no necessity for the sand-pump.
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. Particularly would I commend the manner in which they conserve the trees and preserve the natural beauties of the country. A beauty-spot to them is a beauty-spot, whether it be in the Fatherland or in remote West Africa, while England seems indifferent if the beautiful place be not within the narrow seas. Possibly she has no eyes; possibly she is only calm in her self-conceit, certain of her position, while Germany is building—building herself a reputation.
The safety of the seashore—Why they do not plant trees in English territory—The D.C.'s prayer—Quittah or Keta—The Bremen Sisters—The value of fresh air as a preventive of fever—A polygamous household—The Awuna people—The backsliding clerk of the Bremen Mission—Incongruity of antimacassars and polygamy—Naming the child—“Laughing at last” and “Not love made you”—Forms of marriage—The cost of a wife—How to poison an enemy—Loving and dutiful children—The staple industry of the place—Trading women—The heat of Keta.
Having got into Lome the question was how to get out of it. I wanted to go to Keta, twenty-seven miles away in British territory, and my idea was to go by sea as I could do it in three hours at the very most, and Elder Dempster, having very kindly franked me on their steamers, it would cost me nothing save the tips to the surf boats that landed me; but there was one great thing against that—my hosts told me that very often the surf was so bad it was impossible to land at Keta. The head of Swanzy's had a man under him at Keta, and when he went to inspect he invariably went overland. That decided me. I too must go overland.
But carriers were by no means cheap. I had got hammock-boys to carry me the thirty miles from Ho to Palime for two shillings, and here for twenty-seven miles along the shore I paid my hammock-boys six shillings and sixpence and my carriers five shillings and sixpence, so that my pots were adding to their original price considerably.
So on a fine, hot morning in May I was, with my train of carriers, on the road once more. First the going was down between groves of palms by the Governor's palace, which is a palace indeed, and must have cost a small fortune. A very brief walk brought us to the Border, and then the contrast was once more marked. The English villages were untidy and filthy, with a filth that was emphasised now that I had seen what could be done by a little method and orderliness; those Coast villages remain in my mind as a mixture of pigs, and children, and stagnant water, and all manner of litter and untidiness. One saving grace they had was that they were set among the nice clean sand of the seashore that absorbed as much as possible all the dirt and moisture, and we passed along through groves of cocoa-nut palms that lent a certain charm and picturesqueness to the scene. I am never lonely beside the sea; the murmur of its waves is company, and I cannot explain it, but I am never afraid. I do not know why, but I could not walk in a forest by myself, yet I could walk for miles along the seashore and never fear, though I suppose many deeds of violence have been done along these shores; but they have been done on the sand, and the waters have swept over them, and washed all memory of them away.
Soon it was evident that we were travelling along almost as narrow a way as that which led along the shore to Half Assinie. There was a lagoon on the right hand, and the sea on the left, and the numerous villages drew their sustenance from the sea and from the cocoa-nut palms in which they were embowered.
All the hot long day we travelled, and at last, towards evening, on either side of the road, we came upon fine shade-trees of an order officus, planted, it is hardly needful to say, by the Danes who owned this place over thirty years ago. It makes such a wonderful difference, this tree-planting, that I have preached it wherever I went. I met one young D.C. who agreed with me heartily, but explained to me the difficulties of the job in English territory.
I had suggested they might get trees from the agricultural stations that Government is beginning to dot over the country, and he said it was quite possible. In fact they had planted three hundred the year before. The place I was in was rather barren-looking, so I asked where they were. He shrugged his shoulders and pointed to the native sheep and goats; they are only to be distinguished by their tails, and a certain perkiness about the goats.
“But,” said I, surprised, “if you plant trees, you should certainly protect them.”
“How?” said he.
“Barbed wire,” was my idea.
“And where are we to get the money for barbed wire? We put cactus all round those three hundred trees we planted, and then the medical officer got on to us because the cactus held water and became a breeding place for mosquitoes, and so we had to take it away, and I don't believe six of those trees are alive now. You see it is too disheartening.”
Another thing that is very disheartening is the fact that tours, as they call a term of service among the English, last twelve months, and that a man at the end of a tour goes away for five months, and very often never again returns to the same place, so that he has no permanent interest in its welfare.
“Give peace in my time, oh Lord,” they declare is the prayer of the West-African D.C., and can we wonder? A man is not likely to stir up strife in a place if he is not going to remain long enough to show that he has stirred it up in a good cause. Fancy a German D.C. explaining his failure to have proper shade-trees by the fact that the native sheep and goats had eaten them!
The English have decided that Keta shall be called Quittah, which means nothing at all, but the native name is, and I imagine will be for a long time to come, Keta, which means “On the sand,” and on the sand the town literally is. It is simply built on a narrow sand-bank between the ocean and a great lagoon which stretches some days' journey into the interior, and at Keta, at its widest, is never more than a quarter of a mile in extent.
I appealed to the D.C. for quarters, and he very kindly placed me with the Bremen Mission Sisters, and asked me to dinner every night. I feel I must have been an awful nuisance to that D.C., and I am most grateful for his kindness, and still more grateful for his introduction to those kindly mission Sisters.
“Deaconesses” they called themselves; and they had apparently vowed themselves to the service of the heathen as absolutely as any nun, and wore simple little cotton dresses with white net caps. Sister Minna, who had been out for ten long years, going home I think in that time twice, spoke the vernacular like a native, and Sister Connie was learning it. They kept a girls' school where some three hundred girls, ranging from three to thirteen, learned to read, and write, and sew, and sum, and I was introduced to quite a new phase of African life, for never before had I been able to come so closely in touch with the native.
Again I have to put it on record that I have absolutely no sympathy with missionaries. I cannot see the necessity for missions to the heathen; as yet there should be no crumbs to fall from the children's table while the children of Europe are in such a shameful state as many of them are, far worse than any heathen I have ever seen in Africa. But that did not prevent me admiring very much these Sisters, especially Sister Minna. It was a pity her services were lost to Germany, and given to these heathen, who, I am bound to say, loved and respected her deeply.
But Keta was hot. Never in my life have I lived in such a hot place, and the first night they put me to sleep in their best bedroom, in which was erected a magnificent mosquito-proof room, also the window that looked on the back verandah was covered carefully with coloured cretonne to ensure privacy. In spite of all their kindness I spent a terrible night; the want of air nearly killed me, and I arose in the morning weary to death, and begging that I might be allowed to sleep in the garden. There there was a little more air, but the ants, tiny ones that could get through the meshes of my mosquito curtains, walked over me and made life unbearable. Then I put up a prayer that I might be allowed to sleep on the verandah. The good Sisters demurred. It was, in their opinion, rather public; but what was I to do? Sleep I felt I must get, and so every night Grant came over and put up my camp-bed on the verandah, or rather balcony, and every night I slept the comfortable, refreshing sleep of the fresh-air lover, and if a storm of rain came up, as it did not infrequently, this being the beginning of the rainy season, I simply arose and dragged my bed inside, and waited till it was over. I admit this had its drawbacks, but it was better than sleeping inside. The Sisters were perpetually making remarks on my healthy colour, and contrasting it with their own pale faces, and their not infrequent attacks of fever with my apparent immunity, and they came to the same conclusion that I did, that it was insured by my love of fresh air. Why they did not do likewise I do not know, but I suspect they thought it was not quite proper; not the first time in this world that women have suffered from their notions of propriety.
Under the guidance of Sister Minna I began a series of calls, visiting first one of the head chiefs, who had about sixty wives. Some dwelt in little houses off his compound, some were scattered over the town, and some were away in the country. It was the first time I had really been introduced into a polygamous household with understanding eyes, and I went with interest. It is approaching the vital points of life from an entirely different angle.
The Chief received us most graciously. He was a big man, old, with a bald head on which was a horrid red scar, got, he explained, in a big fight. He said he was very pleased to see me, spoke for a moment to one of his attendants, and then presented me with a couple of florins, and wished me well. After all, that was certainly a most substantial sign of goodwill. Then I called upon his wives, young, old, and middle-aged, and I don't even now understand how he managed to have so many without interfering seriously with the natural distribution of men and women. Of course his descendants are many, and many are the complications, for I have seen a married woman, the grand-daughter of the Chief, nursing on her knee her little great-aunt, his daughter, and well spanking her too if she did not come to school quick enough.
One of his old wives had broken her leg, and we visited her; she had a room in his house, and was lying on her bed on the floor, while beside her sat another wife who had come to see how she was getting on.
“If I were a wife,” said I, from the outlook of a monogamous country, “I should not call upon another wife a man chose to take, even if she were sick.”
“I don't know,” said kind-hearted Sister Minna. “I have lived so long in a country like this that I think I should. It is only kind.”
And we went from one household to another, and were received most graciously, and generally Sister Minna was given some small sum of money to entertain me. Sometimes it was sixpence, sometimes it was a shilling, sometimes it even rose as high as two shillings, and she was instructed to buy chickens and bananas that I might be well fed. Also they can never tell a white person's age, and many a time she was asked, because I was short, whether I was not a child.
Altogether I was most agreeably struck with these Awuna people, and found there was even something to be said for the polygamous system. I have always, from my youth upwards, admired the woman who worked and made a place for herself in the world, and here were certainly some of my ideals carried out, for every woman in this community was selfsupporting for the greater part of her life, and not only did she support herself, but her children as well. It was in fact not much of a catch to marry a chief; of course, being a rich man, he probably gave her a little more capital to work upon in the beginning, but she had to pay him back, and work all the same.
We visited another household, the home of a clerk in the Bremen Mission Factory, a gentleman who wore a tweed suit and a high collar, and who once had been a pillar of the mission church. He had four wives, and he lived inside a compound with small houses round it, and his house, the big house, on one side. Each wife had her own little home, consisting of two rooms and a kitchen place; the wife without children was the farthest away from him, and the last wife, just married, had a room next his. His sitting-room was quite gorgeous, furnished European fashion with cane chairs, and settee, coloured cushions, an ordinary lamp with a green shade, and a rack, such as one sees on old-fashioned ships, hung with red and green wineglasses. I don't know why I should have felt that antimacassars and tablecloths were out of place with polygamy, but I did, especially as the wives' houses were bare, native houses, where the women squatted on the floor, their bedrooms were dark and dismal hot places, with any amount of girdle beads hanging against the walls. For clothes are but a new fashion in Keta, and the time is not far off when a woman went clothed solely in girdle beads, and so still it is the fashion to have many different girdle beads, though now that they wear cloths over them they are not to be seen except upon the little girls who still very wisely are allowed to go stark. Each woman's children, not only in this house, but in the Chief's house, ran in and out of the other wives' houses in very friendly fashion, and they most of them bore English names—Grace, Rosina, and Elizabeth. And the names, when they are not English, are very curious and well worth remembering. A couple had been married for many years, and at last the longed-for child came. “Laughing at last,” they called it. “Come only” is another name. “A cry in my house”—where so long there had been silence. “Every man and his,” meaning with pride, “this is mine, I want nothing more.” But they are not always pleased. “God gives bad things”—a girl has been born and they have been waiting for a boy. “A word is near my heart,” sounds rather tender, but “I forgive you” must have another meaning, and the child would surely not be as well loved as the one its mother called “Sweet thing.” Then again girls do not always marry the man they love or would choose, and they will perhaps call their child “Not love made you,” but on the whole I think pleasant names predominate, and many a child is called “So is God,” “God gives good things,” or merely “Thanks.” Often too a child is called after the day of the week upon which it is born.
“What day were you born?” asked the Chief of me.
“Wednesday,” I said.
“Then your name is Aquwo,” said he.
Marriage in a country like this has a somewhat different status from what it does, say in England. What a woman wants most of all is children; motherhood is the ideal, and the unmarried woman with a child is a far more enviable person than the married woman without, and even in this land, where motherhood is everything, there was in every household that I visited an unhappy woman without children, because vice has been rampant along the Coast for hundreds of years. You may know her at once by her sad face, for not only is she deeply grieved, but everyone despises her, as they do not despise the woman who has had a child without being married. Of course parents prefer their daughters to be chaste, and if a man marries what the Sister described as a “good” girl, he will probably give her a pair of handsome bracelets to mark his appreciation of the fact, but if on the other hand a daughter, without being married, suddenly presents the household with an addition, they are not more vexed than if the daughter in civilised lands failed to pass her examination, outran her allowance, or perhaps got herself too much talked about with the best-looking ineligible in the neighbourhood. It is a natural thing for a girl to do, and at any rate a child is always an asset.
0409
There is one binding form of marriage that is absolutely indissoluble. If the man and woman, in the presence of witnesses, drink a drop or two of each other's blood, nothing can part them; they are bound for ever, a binding which tells more heavily upon the woman than the man, because he is always free to marry as many wives as he likes, while she is bound only to him, and whatever he does, no one, after such a ceremony, would give her shelter should she wish to leave him. All other marriages are quite easily dissolved, and very often the partings occasion but little heart-burnings on either side. The great desire of everyone is children, and once that is attained, the object of the union is accomplished, wherefore I fancy it is very seldom couples, or rather women, take the trouble to bind themselves so indissolubly. The most respectable form of marriage is for a man to take a girl and seclude her with an old woman to look after her for from five to nine months after marriage. She does no work, but gives herself up to the luxury and enjoyment of the petted, spoiled wife. Her brothers and sisters and her friends come and see her, but she does not pass outside the threshold, and being thus kept from the strong sunlight, she becomes appreciably lighter in colour, and is of course so much the more beautiful. He may take several women after this fashion, and all the marriages are equally binding, but of course this means that he must have a little money. Another kind of marriage is when the man simply gives the woman presents of cloths, and provides her with a house. It is equally binding but is not considered so respectful; there is something of the difference we see between the hasty arrangement in a registry office and the solemn ceremony at St George's, Hanover Square.
One thing is certain, that when an Awuna man asks a girl to marry him, she will most certainly say “No.” Formerly the parents were always asked, and they invariably said “No,” and then the man had to ask again and again, and to reason away their objections to him as a suitor. Now, as women are getting freer under English rule, the girl herself is asked, and she makes a practice of saying “No” at least two or three times, in order to be able to tell him afterwards she did not want him. Even after they are Christians, says Sister Minna, the women find it very hard to give up this fiction that they do not want to marry, and the girl finds it very difficult to say “Yes” in church.
She likes to pretend that she does not want the man. As a rule this is, I believe, true enough. There is no trust or love between the sexes; you never see men and women together. A woman only wants a man in order that she may have children, and one would do quite as well as another.
After marriage the woman has a free time for a little. She does not have to begin cooking her husband's meals at once, and this also holds good after the first baby is born. A man is considered by public opinion a great churl if he does not get somebody to wait on his wife and fetch her water from the well at this time. After the second baby they are not so particular, and a woman must just make her own arrangements and manage as best she may. It is a woman's pride to bear children, and to the man they are a source of wealth, for the boys must work for the father for a time at least, and the girls are always sold in marriage, for a wife costs at least five or six pounds.
With all due deference to these kindly missionaries, I cannot think that Christianity has made much progress, for these Awuna people have the reputation of being great poisoners. One of the Chief's wives offered me beer, stuff that looked and tasted like thin treacle, and she tasted it first to show me, said the Sister, that it was quite safe; but also she explained they insert a potent poison under the thumb nail, drink first to show that the draft is innocuous, and then offer the gourd to the intended victim, having just allowed the tip of the thumb nail to dip beneath the liquid.
The early morning is the correct time to do the most important things. Thus if a man wants a girl in marriage he appears at her parents' house at the uncomfortable hour of four o'clock in the morning, and asks her hand. The morning after the Chief had given me a dash, I sent Grant round early, not at four o'clock I fear, when in the Tropics it is quite dark, with a box of biscuits and two boxes of chocolates and the next morning early he sent me his ring as a sign that he had received my dash and was pleased. If by any chance they cannot come and thank you in the morning, they say, “To-morrow morning, when the cock crows, I shall thank you again.” They use rather an amusing proverb for thanking; where we should say, “I have not words to thank you,” they say, “The hen does not thank the dunghill,” because here in these villages, where they do not provide food for the fowls, the dunghill provides everything. Sister Minna once received a very large present of ducks and yams from a man, so she used this proverb in thanking him, as one he would thoroughly understand. Quick came the response, “Oh please do not say so. I am the hen, and you are the dunghill,” which does not sound very complimentary translated into English.
It was delightful staying here at the Mission House, and seeing quite a new side of African life, seeing it as it were from the inside. Every day at seven o'clock in the morning the little girls came to school, and I could hear the monotonous chant of their learning, as I sat working on the verandah. Somewhere about nine school was out and it was time for the second breakfast. The second breakfast was provided by the little markets that were held in the school grounds, where about a dozen women or young girls came with food-stuffs to sell at a farthing, or a copper, for they use either English or German money, a portion. They were rather appetising I thought, and quite a decent little breakfast could be bought for a penny. There were maize-meal balls fried in palm oil, a sort of pancake also made of maize meal and eaten with a piece of cocoa-nut, bananas, split sections of pine-apple, mangoes, little balls of boiled rice served on a plantain leaf, and pieces of the eternal stink-fish. Every woman appears to be a born trader, and I have seen a little girl coming to school with a platter on her head, on which were arranged neatly cut sections of pine-apple, She had managed to acquire a copper or two, and began her career as a trader by selling to the children for their school breakfast. She will continue that career into her married life, and till she is an old old woman past all work, when her children will look after her, for they are most dutiful children, and Christian or heathen never neglect their parents, especially their mother.
Old maids of course you never see, and it is considered much more natural, as I suppose it is, that a woman should have a child by a man whom she has met just casually, than that she should live an old maid. There was a good missionary woman who took a little girl into her household and guarded her most carefully. The only time that girl was out of her sight was once or twice a week for half an hour when she went to fetch water from the well. Presently that girl was the mother to a fine, lusty boy, and the missionary's wife was told and believed that she did not know the father. He was a man she had met casually going to the well.
When they asked me, as they often did, how my husband was, I always explained that he was very well, and had gone on a journey; it saved a lot of trouble, but it amused me to find that Sister Minna, when she was among strangers, always did the same. She explained that once on her way to Lome she stopped her hammock and spoke to a woman. This woman brought up a man, who asked her how her husband was, and in her innocence she explained she had none. The man promptly asked her to marry him, and as she demurred, the ten or twelve standing round asked her to choose among them which man she would have for a husband. The situation was difficult. Finally she got out of it by explaining that she was here to care for their children, and if she had to cook her husband's dinner it would take up too much of her time. Of course in Keta they now know her, and appreciate her, and respect her eccentricities if they do not understand them, but if she goes to a strange place she is careful to hide the fact that she has not a husband somewhere in the background. It is embarrassing to be single.
She is a firm believer in the good that the missions are doing; I am only a firm believer in the good that a woman like Sister Minna could not help doing in any land.
Keta is the place whence come all the cloths of the Guinea Coast, and again and again in a compound, in a little, sheltered dark corner, you may come across a man working his little loom, always a man, it is not women's work, and often by his side another winding the yarn he will use, and the product of their looms goes away, away to far Palime and Kpando, and all along the Coast, and up the railway line to Kumasi, and into the heart of the rubber country beyond.
But here, being an enterprising people, they are beginning to do their own weaving, and have imported, I am told, men from Keta to show them the best way.