the spanish nuns—one of the loneliest settlements in west africa—hospitality and swamp—a capable english woman—a big future in store for addah—the mosquitoes of addah—the glorious skies—difficulties of getting away—a tremendous tornado—the bar steamer—the boiling bar—“we've had enough!”—would rather be drowned in the open—the dismantled ship—everybody stark—the gallant engineer—on the french steamer bound for accra.
at addah, at the mouth of the volta, a place that exists solely for the transport, there is the very worst surf on all this surf-bound coast. there is a big native town a few miles up the river, but here at its entrance live the handful of europeans, either right on the beach or on the banks of the river, over a mile away, with a great swamp between. the river is wide at its mouth, and the miles of swamp lend to the country an air at once weird and austere.
“enter not here,” cries the surf; “enter not here.” but when its dangers have been dared, and the white man has set foot on the dark continent, the swamp takes up the refrain in another key, more sullenly threatening.
“in spite of warning you have crossed the outworks. now, see how you like the swamp and the mosquito, the steaming heat and the blazing sun.” and men come still, as they came three or four hundred years ago.
but i, for one, did not much like the landing. the captain of the bathurst explained that he had had no intention of calling at addah, but hearing that there was a white woman on the beach wanting to go, he of his courtesy had decided to take her, and he wanted to be off as he wished to discharge cargo at pram-pram before it grew dark. and here, for once, on board an african steamer i found the women passengers largely outnumbering the men, for they had on board a number of nuns who had been exiled from san paul de loanda. they were spanish, french, and german sisters in the costume of their order; gentle, kindly women with faces that bore evident marks of an indoor life in the tropics, a mark that cannot be mistaken. they had been very very frightened at first, and they were still very seasick, but the sailormen had made them most kindly welcome, for their sakes were staunch monarchists when portugal was spoken of, and they brought them the captain's cat to play with, and looked with deepest admiration on their wonderful embroidery. never was so much sewing before seen on an african steamer.
i unwittingly added to their woes, for the surf was bad at addah.
“we'll whistle and the bar steamer will come out for you,” said the captain, and the steamer gave vent to the most heartrending wails.
in the distance i could see a most furious white surf, a palm or two cutting the sky line, and a speck or two that were probably bungalows, but it was a typical african shore and i didn't like the look of it at all. it is bad enough to go to a place uninvited, not to know where you are going to be put up, but when to that is added a bad surf, you wish—well, you wish it was well over. the ship rolled sickeningly in the swell; the sisters, first one and then another, disappeared, to come back with faces in all shades of green whiteness, and the ruddy-faced captain paced the deck with an impatience that he in vain tried to control, and i felt an unutterable brute. if i had been seasick it would have crowned things; luckily for myself i am not given that way. at intervals the bathurst let off shrieks, plaintive and angry, and we went to lunch. i felt i might as well have luncheon, a luncheon to which i really had a right.
“you'll have to come on with us to pram-pram,” said the captain; “the beach is evidently too bad.”
but presently, after luncheon, we saw a surf boat making its way towards us, and the captain through the glasses proclaimed, “custom's boat. no white man. the surf is very bad.”
when the boat same alongside, the black custom officer said the captain was right. the surf was bad. they had rather hesitated about coming out, but the bar steamer in the river could not come out till to-morrow.
“will you land,” said the captain, “or shall we take you on?”
it seemed a pity to pass addah, now i had come so near, and if the customs could get through i did not see why i should not, so i got into the mammy-chair and was lowered into the surf boat with my servant and my gear. a surf boat is about five feet deep, and this time, as no one had expected a white woman to land, no chair had been provided, so i was obliged to balance myself on one of the narrow planks that ran across the boat and served as seats, and of course my feet dangled uncomfortably. also, as we approached it, the surf looked most threatening. we were going straight into a furiously boiling sea with white, foam-lashed waves that flung themselves high into the air. i did not like the look of it at all, but as we were bound to go through it, i whisked myself round on my seat so that i sat with my back to the thing i was afraid of. then the custom-house officer, a black man, edged his way close beside me, and stretching out his hand put it on my arm. i did not like it. i object to being touched by black men, so i promptly shook it off, and as promptly the boat was apparently flung crash against a stone wall; she had really hit the beach, and over i went backwards and head first into the bottom of the boat. the man's help had been kindly meant; he would have held me in my place. but there is no time for apologies when a surf boat reaches the beach. before i had realised what was happening, two kroo boys had dived to the bottom of the boat, seized me without any ceremony whatever, and raced me up to the shore, where they put me down in all the blazing sun of an african afternoon, without even a helmet or an umbrella to protect my head. grant followed with the helmet, and i endeavoured to smooth my ruffled plumes. at least, i had landed in safety, and the thing was now to find the commissioner and see what he would do for me. we were on a beach where apparently was not even a boat, only the forlorn remains of the wreck of an iron steamer rapidly coming to its last end. the shore, rising to a height of about six or eight feet, was all sand with a little sparse, coarse grass upon it. we climbed up the yielding bank, and then i saw a native town, beachtown, on my right, and on my left three or four bungalows built after the english fashion, on high posts rising out of cement platforms. those bungalows at beachtown, addah, are perhaps the forlornest places on all the west-african coast. the wild surf is in front of them, the coarse grass all around them, and behind is a great swamp. brave, brave, it seemed to me, must be the men and women who lived here and kept their health. the strong sea breeze would be healthgiving, but the deadly monotony of life must be something too terrible. but here the doctor, who was going home by the next steamer, had his wife, and the doctor who had just come out had brought his bride; two women, and i was told there was a third at the transport station. the commissioner came forward, and i looked at him doubtfully. i had thought i should have known him and i didn't.
“you have forgotten me?”
yes; i certainly ought to know him, but—it came on me with a flash, and i spoke my thoughts. “ah, but you have grown a beard since i met you.”
he laughed and blushed.
“i've just come off trek and i've lost my razors.”
it was so like africa. the dishevelled woman from the sea met the unkempt man from the bush, and we foregathered.
they were awfully good to me. packed they were already with two more people than the bungalows were intended to hold, and so they considered what they should do for me, and while they were considering, hearing i had had luncheon, they gave me coffee and other drinks and offered cigarettes, and then they wrote to the transport company and asked them if they would take in a stray woman.
the kindness of these people in africa! can i ever repay it? i know, of course, i never can. the head of swanzy's transport and his pretty wife sent over to say they would be delighted to have me, and i was to come at once and consider myself at home. and, moreover, they had sent a cart for me, drawn by three kroo boys.
i have said many hard things about the english women in west africa. i had begun to think, after my visit to accra, that only the nursing sisters were worthy of the name of capable women; but, when i went to addah, my drooping hopes revived. for i met there, in mrs dyson, the transport officer's wife, a woman, charming, pretty, and young, who yet thought it not beneath her dignity to look after her husband's house, to see that he lived well here in the wilderness, and who enjoyed herself and made the very best of life.
and addah, i must admit, takes a deal of making the best of. it has been settled for long years. in beachtown you may see old guns; in big addah, a native town six miles up the volta, you may see more of them lying about the rough, uncared-for streets, and you may see here a clump of tamarind trees that evidently mark the spot where once the fort has been. not one stone of it remains. the authorities say that these “old shells of forts” are not worth preserving, and the natives have taken them literally at their word, and incorporated the very stones in their own buildings.
i am sorry, for addah at the mouth of the great river must have been a great slaving station once; trade must have come down the river in the past, even as it does now, as it will do, doubled and trebled, in the future.
the house i stayed in was close on the river, and my bedroom opened out on to a verandah that overlooked it. in the shipbuilding yard below perpetually rings the clang of iron on the anvil, for always there are ships to be built or repaired; and there, grown into a great cotton tree in that yard, may be seen the heavy chains that the slavers of oldtime used to hold their ships to the shore. the slavers have gone, the past is dead; but, knowing that wonderful river, i do not mind prophesying that, in spite of that dangerous surf, in spite of those threatening swamps, there is a big future in store for that lonely outpost of the empire. that sixty-five miles of unimpeded waterway that lies between it and akuse is not to be lightly disregarded, and the rich country goes far beyond that.
but, at present, there is not much to see at addah. there is the swamp, apparently miles of it, there is a great, wide, mangrove-fringed river, and there are the never-to-be-forgotten mosquitoes. the mosquitoes of addah are the sort that make you feel you should go about armed, and that made me feel for once that a mosquito-proof house was an actual necessity. one thing, there is always a strong breeze blowing at addah, and my hostess was always very particular to have her wire-netting swept down carefully every day so that every scrap of air that could come in did so, and i conclude it was owing to this that i did not feel the air so vitiated and oppressive as i have in other houses. i hope one of the next public works of the gold coast will be to fill in that swamp, and so rid the place of those terrible mosquitoes. one solace the white people have, if there are mosquitoes, there is no undergrowth, and so there are no tsetse flies, and they can keep horses. my hostess's two solitary amusements—because she was a smiling, happy-faced girl she made the best of them—were to ride along the beach and to play tennis after it had grown cool in the evening, as it always does in africa before the sun goes down. and those sunsets across the swamp, too, were something to wonder at. purple and red and gold were they. every night the sun died in a glory over swamp and heath; every morning he rose golden and red across the wide river, as if he would say that if addah had naught else to recommend it there was always the eternal beauty of the skies.
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but having got there it was rather difficult to get away.
the sapele, they said, should come and take me back to sekondi or, at least, to accra, but the sapele did not come, and if my hosts had not been the kindest in the world i should have begun to feel uncomfortable. i would gladly have gone overland, but carriers were not, even though some of my precious pots had been broken in the surf, and so my loads were reduced.
but every day there was no steamer, till at last a german steamer was signalled, and the bar steamer, a steamer of 350 tons, which usually lay at the little wharf just outside my bedroom window alongside the shipbuilding yard, prepared to go out. all my gear was carried down and put on board, and then suddenly the captain appeared on the verandah and pointed out to us two waiting women a threatening dark cloud that was gathering all across the eastern sky.
he shook his head, “i dare not go out till that is over.” and so we stood and waited and watched the storm gather.
it was a magnificent sight. the inky sky was reflected in an inky river, an ominous hush was over everything, one felt afraid to breathe, and the halfnaked workmen in the yard dropped their tools and fled to shelter. the household parrot gave one loud shriek, and the harsh sound of his call cut into the stillness like a knife.
from the distance we could hear the roaring of the surf, as if it were gathering strength, and then the grasses in the swamp to the west bent before a puff of air that broke on the stillness. there was another puff, another, and then the storm was upon us in all its spendour. never have i seen such a storm. though it was only four o'clock in the afternoon, it was dark as night, and the lightning cut across like jagged flame, there came immediately the crash of thunder, and then a mighty roaring wind, a wind that swept everything before it, that bent the few trees almost to the ground, that stripped them of their leaves as if they had been feathers shaken out of a bag, that beat the placid river into foam, and tore great sheets of corrugated iron from the roofs of the buildings and tossed them about the yard as if they had been so many strips of muslin.
the bar steamer's captain had gone at the first sign to see that his moorings were safe, and we two women stood on the verandah and watched the fury of the elements, while my hostess wondered where her husband was, and hoped and prayed he was not out in it. the inky blackness was all over the sky now, the wind was shrieking so as to deaden all other sounds, and the only thing we could hear above it was the crash of the thunder. and then i looked at the horizon away to the south-west. there, about a mile away as the crow flies, was the shore, and there against the inky darkness of the sky i could see tossed high into the air great sheets of foam. the surf on that shore must have been terrific. i would have given a good deal to go and see it, but, before i could make up my mind to start, down came the rain in torrents, the horizon was blotted out, the road through the swamp was running like a mill race, and it looked as if it would be no light task to beat my way through wind and rain to the shore.
and when the storm was subsiding back came the bar steamer's captain.
“no going out to-day,” said he; “i wouldn't dare risk the bar. look at the surf!” and he pointed across the swamp to where we could again see the great white clouds of foam rising against the horizon. “to-morrow,” he said, “very early”; and he went away, and my host, soaked through and through, came back and told us what the storm had looked like from beachtown.
the next morning was simply glorious. the world was fresh and clean and newly washed, and the river, from my window, looked like a brightly polished mirror.
“it'll be a bad bar, though,” said my host, shaking his head. “better stay.”
it was very kind of him, but i felt i had trespassed on their kindness long enough; besides, there were other parts of the coast i wished to see, and i felt i must take this opportunity of getting out of addah. what was a bad bar? i had faced the surf before. so i bid them farewell, with many grateful thanks, and went on board, and in all the glory of the morning we set off down the river.
i was the only white passenger on board, and was allowed to stand on the bridge beside the wheel. behind me was a little house wherein i might have taken shelter, but i thought i might as well see all there was to be seen; besides, i held my camera in my hand and proposed to take photographs of this “bad bar.”
the mouth of the volta is utterly lonely looking. a long sandpit ran out on the right hand, whereon grew a solitary bush, blighted, for there was not a sign of a leaf upon it, and to the left was also sand, with a few scattered palms. i fancy there must have been a native hut or two, though i do not remember them, for i remember the captain saying, “we have to make our own marks. when you get a hut in line with a certain tree you know you are in the channel.” i was glad to hear there was a channel, for to my uninitiated eyes we seemed heading for a wild waste of boiling water, worse than anything i had ever conceived of, and yet i was not unaccustomed to surf, and had faced it before now in a surf boat. never again shall i face surf with equanimity. i tried to carry out my programme, but i fear i must have been too upset to withdraw the slides, for i got no photographs. presently we appeared to be right in the middle of the swirl. the waves rose up like mountains on either side, and towards us would come a great smooth green hill of water which towered far above our heads and then, breaking, swept right over us with a tremendous crash. i can see now the sunlight on that hill; it made it look like green glass, and then, when the foam came, there were all the colours of the rainbow. again and again the two men at the wheel were flung off, their cloths seemed to be ripped from them as if they had been their shells, and the ship trembled from stem to stern and stood still. i thought, “is this a bad bar? i'm afraid, i'm afraid,” but as the captain came scrambling to the wheel to take the place of the men who had been thrown off i did not quite like to say anything. it is extraordinary how hard it is to make one believe there really is anything to fear, and i should hate to be a nuisance at a critical moment, so i said to the captain—he and i and the german engineer were the only white people on board: “it's magnificent.”
he was holding on to the wheel by my side and a naked black man, stripped by the ruthless water, was holding on to it on the other, and i could see the moisture on his strained face. was it sweat or sea water?
“magnificent!” said he. “don't you see we can't stand it? we've had enough!”
so that was it. we were going down. at least, not exactly going down, but the water was battering us to pieces. i learned then that what i was afraid of was fear, for now i was not afraid. it had come, then, i thought. this was the end of the life where sometimes i had been so intensely happy and sometimes i had been so intensely miserable that i had wanted to die. not so very long ago, and now i was going to die. presently those waters that were soaking me through and through would wash over me once for all and i was not even afraid. i thought nothing for those few moments, except how strange that it was all over. i wondered if i had better go into the little house behind me, but no, i saw i was not in the way of the men at the wheel. i could hear the crashing of broken wood all round me, and i thought if i were to be drowned i would rather be drowned in the open. why i held on to my camera i do not know. that, i think, was purely mechanical. the waves beat on the ship from all quarters, and so apparently held her steady, and i might just as well hold on to the camera as to anything else. i certainly never expected to use it again. crash, crash, crash came the tons of water, there was a ripping of broken wood, and a human wail that told me that crew and black passengers had realised their danger. crash, crash, crash. it seemed to me the time was going very slowly, and then suddenly the ship seemed to give a leap forward, and instead of the waves crashing on to us we were riding over them, and the captain seized me by the arm.
“come inside. you're wet to the skin.”
“but———”
“we're all right. but, my god, you'll never be nearer to it.”
and then i looked around me to see the havoc that the bar had wrought. the bulwarks were swept away, the boats were smashed, the great crane for working cargo was smashed and useless, the galley was swept overboard, the top of the engine-house was broken in, and, transformation scene, every solitary creature on board that little ship, with the exception of the captain and me, was stark. custom-house officers had stripped off their uniforms, clerks who had come to tally cargo in all the glory of immaculate shirts and high-starched collars were nude, and the black men who worked the ship had got rid of their few rags as superfluous. everyone had made ready to face the surf.
“much good would it have done 'em,” opined the captain; “no living thing could have got ashore in that sea.”
then up came the chief engineer, a german; his face was scalded and his eyes were bloodshot, and it was to him we all owed our lives.
the waves had beaten in the top of the engine-room, and the water had poured in till it was flush with the fires; a gauge blew out—i am not sure if i express myself quite rightly, but the place was full of scalding steam, and all those educated negro engineers fled, but the white man stuck to his job.
“i tink it finish,” said he, “when i see the water come close close to the fires, but i say, 'well, as well dis vay as any oder,' so i stick to do my job, an' i not see, i do it by feel.”
and we all three shook hands, and the captain and engineer had a glass of whisky, and though it was so early in the morning, never did i think it was more needed. i had been but an onlooker. on them had fallen the burden and heat of the day.
and then came boats, bringing on board the captains of the french and german steamers that lay in the roadstead, far out, because the surf was so bad.
they had been watching us. they thought we were gone, but though they had out their boats they confessed they would have been powerless to aid. no boat could have lived in such a sea, and the captain declared that though he was swept bare of all food nothing would induce him to go back. it would be certain death.
we looked a rather forlorn wreck, but the german captain came to the rescue with a seaman-like goodwill, lending men to work the cargo in place of the broken-down crane, and giving food to the hungry ones. he had come from lome, and he brought news that the hurricane of the night before had swept away the bridge that had been the pride and delight of the people of togo, and that never for many a long year had there been such a storm along the guinea coast. he had been unable to get his papers and had come away without them. he would take me if i liked, but he must go back to lome.
but i was rather feeling i had had enough of the sea, and so i turned to the frenchman. he was just as kind and courteous. his ship was small, he said, and he was not going to sekondi, but i might tranship at accra if i liked. the captain of the bar steamer advised my going on board at once, for his ship was in a state of confusion, and also he was going to tranship cargo.
then grant took a hand in the proceedings. whether he had stripped i don't know, for i did not see him, but he presented himself before me in a very wet and damp condition.
“medicine chest gone, ma.”
now, the medicine chest was my soldier brother's, the pride of my heart. i had proposed to bring it back to him and show him that the only time it had been used in this unhealthy climate was when the carrier had inadvertantly got cascara for his pneumonia. well, it was gone, and there was nothing more to be said. its pristine beauty had been lost in the rains in togo. grant departed, but presently he was on the bridge again.
“pots be all bruck, ma.”
“oh, grant!” i had got them so far only to lose them in the end. grant was like one of job's comforters. he seemed to take a huge delight in announcing to me fresh disasters. my things were all done up small for carrying on men's heads, and the sea had played havoc with them. the bucket was gone; the kettle, an old and tried servant, was gone; the water-bottle was gone, so was the lantern; the chop box had been burst open, and the plates and cups smashed; while the knives and forks had been washed overboard, and the majority of my boots, for some reason or other, had followed. after grant had made about his tenth journey, announcing fresh disasters, i said:
“oh, never mind, grant. we must make the best of it; i'm rather surprised we are not gone ourselves,” and with a grin he saw to the handing of the remains of my goods into the boat, and getting them on board the steamer.
that steamer was tiny. i looked at the cabin assigned me, and determined if i had to sit up all night i would not occupy it, and then i had my precious black box brought on deck, and proceeded to count the damage. it was locked and it was supposed to be air-tight and water-tight. i can't say about the air-tight, but water-tight it certainly was not, for every single thing in that box was soaked through and through. i took them out one by one; then, as no one said me nay, i tied them on to the taffrail, and let my garments flutter out in the breeze and the sunshine. there were four french women on board, bound from the french congo to konakri, and they took great interest and helped me with suggestions and advice, but i must say i was glad that i was bound for sekondi, where my kind friend the nursing sister was keeping fresh garments for me. as for my poor little typewriter, it was so drenched with water that, though i stood it out in the sun, i foresaw its career in west africa was over.
as the sun was setting, came on board the captain of the bar steamer to bid me god-speed. we had never met till the day before, but that morning we had faced death together, and it made a bond.
“go back to-night?” said he; “not if i know it. not for a week, if that surf doesn't go down. i couldn't face it.”
i wanted him to stay and dine, because i knew he had nothing, but he told me how good the german had been, and said he did not like leaving his own ship after dark; so we said “good-bye” with, i hope, mutual respect, and, after dinner, i began to consider how i should spend the night. i knew my own bedding must be rather wet, but i knew, also, the camp-bed would be all right, and i told grant to bring it up on deck and make it up with bedding from the frenchman's bunk.
“they no give you cabin, ma,” said he, surprised.
nothing would induce a child of nature to sleep in the open as long as he can find any sort of a cuddy-hole to stew in. i was a little afraid of what the french captain might say, but he took my eccentricity calmly enough.
“ah, zat your bed? ah, zat is good idea”; and left me to a night rolling beneath the stars, when i tossed and dreamed and woke with a start, thinking that the great green hills of water were about to overwhelm me; and as about twenty times more terrified of the dream than i had been of the reality.
next morning found us outside accra, a long way outside, because the surf was bad, and i found to my dismay there was no mail in yet, and i must land, for there was no cargo for the gergovia, and she wanted to go on her way.
i found the landing terrible. i can frankly say i have never been so frightened, and i had no nerve left to stand up against the fear. but it was done. i saw my friend in accra, and again recounted with delight my travels. for the first time i began to feel i had done something, and i felt it still more when the people in schenk & barber's, a great trading firm, held up their hands and declared that i had done a wonderful thing to cross by krobo hill at night. i had done well, then, i kept saying to myself, i had accomplished something; but i must admit i was most utterly done. when the mail steamer arrived, the port officer made it his business to see me off to the ship himself; we were drenched to the skin as we rounded the breakwater, and i was so nervous when the mammy-chair came dangling overhead from the ship's deck, that i hear he reported i was the worst traveller he had ever been on board with. then, in addition to my woes, instead of being able to sit and chat and tell my adventures comfortably to the friends i met, i was, for the first time for many a long year, most violently seasick.
but, when i went to bed, i slept dreamlessly, and when i awakened we were rising to the swell outside sekondi, and i felt that even if i had to face the surf again i should be among friends presently, and there was a feeling of satisfaction in the thought that i had at least seen something of the most beautiful river in the world, and some unknown country in the east of the colony.
always there is that in life, for, good or evil, nothing can take away what we have done. we have it with us, good or bad, for ever. not omnipotence can alter the past.
