Alone in West Africa by Mary Gaunt

Author:Mary Gaunt [Gaunt, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anboco
Published: 2017-03-20T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XIII—THE FEAR THAT SKULKED BENEATH THE MANGO TREE

Up the Volta—Svvanzy’s trusting agent at Akuse—Amedika, the port of Akuse on the Volta—The trials of a trolley ride—My canoe—Paddling up-river—Rapids that raise the river thirty-four feet—Dangers of the river—Entrancingly lovely scenery—A wealthy land—The curious preventive service—Fears—Leaving the river—Labolabo—A notable black man—The British Cotton-growing Experimental Farm—The lonely white man—The fear that was catching—The lonely man’s walk.

At Akuse I changed my plans. I had intended to come here, drop down the Volta in the little river steamers that run twice a week to Addah, and then pursue my way along the coast to Keta where there was an old Danish castle, and possibly get across the German border and see Lome, their capital. But there is this charm or drawback—which ever way you like to look at it—about Africa: no one knows anything about the country beyond his immediate district. The Provincial Commissioner had gone to Addah, and I discussed my further progress with the D.C. and his wife as we sat on the verandah that night and looked over the country bathed in the most gorgeous moonlight. The D.C.‘s wife, a pretty little woman who had only been out a couple of months, was of opinion that the vile country was killing her and her husband, that it was simply a waste of life to live here, and she could not get over her surprise that I should find anything of interest in it. The D.C. thought it wouldn’t be half bad if only the Government brought you back to the same place, so that you might see some result for your labours, and he strongly advised me to go a day or two up the river in a canoe just to see the country.

“It is quite worth seeing,” said he, and his wife smiled. She had seen all she intended to see of the country at Akuse, and did not want to go farther in.

The next day I went into the town, the official quarters are some distance away, and called on a couple of the principal merchants.

The factor at Miller Bros, put a new idea into my head.

“Oh yes, go up the Volta,” said he; “you can get up as far as Labolabo, then cut across-country and come out at Ho in German territory. You can get to Palime from there, and that is rail-head, so you can easily make your way down to Lome.”

It sounded rather an attractive programme.

“You go and see Rowe about it,” he suggested.

So I went and called upon Swanzy’s agent, a nice young fellow, who first laughed, then looked me up and down doubtfully, and finally said it could be done. Mr Grey, one of their principals, had come across that way the other day, but it was very rough going indeed. No one else that he knew of had ever ventured it.

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