a dash of tobacco for his help; he left us to devote the rest of
his evening by his forest fire to unthorning himself, while we
proceeded to wade a swift, deepish river that crossed the path
he told us led into Egaja, and then went across another bit of
forest and down hill again. “ Oh, bless those swamps! ”
thought I, “ here’s another,” but no— not this time. Across
the bottom of the steep ravine, from one side to another, lay
an enormous tree as a bridge, about fifteen feet above a river,
which rushed beneath it, over a boulder-encumbered bed. I
took in the situation at a glance, and then and there I would
have changed that bridge for any swamp I have ever seen,
yea, even for a certain bush-rope bridge in which I once wound
myself up like a buzzing fly in a spider’s web. I was fearfully
tired, and my legs shivered under me after the falls and
emotions of the previous part of the day, and my boots were
slippery with water soaking.
The Fans went into the river, and half swam, half waded
across. All the Ajumba, save Pagan, followed, and Ngouta
got across with their assistance. Pagan thought he would try
the bridge, and I thought I would watch how the thing
worked. He got about three yards along it and then slipped,
but caught the tree with his hands as he fell, and hauled himself
back to my side again ; then he went down the bank and
through the water. This was not calculated to improve one’s
nerve; I knew by now I had got to go by the bridge, for I
saw I was not strong enough in my tired state to fight the
water. I f only the wretched thing had had its bark on it
would have been better, but it was bare, bald, and round, and
a slip meant death on the rocks below. I rushed it, and
reached the other side in safety, whereby poor Pagan got
chaffed about his failure by the others, who said they had gone
through the water just to wash their feet.
The other side, when we got there, did not seem much
worth reaching, being a swampy fringe at the bottom of
a steep hillside, and after a few yards the path turned into a
stream or backwater of the river. It was hedged with thickly
pleached bushes, and covered with liquid water on the top of
semi-liquid mud. Now land again for a change you had a foot
of water on, top of fearfully slippery harder mud, and then
we light-heartedly took-headers into the bush, sideways, or
sat down ; and when it was not proceeding on the evil tenor of
its way, like this, it had holes in i t ; in fact, I fancy the bottom of
the holes was the true level, for it came near being as full of
holes as a fishing-net, and it was very quaint to see. the man in
front, who had been paddling along knee-deep before, now plop
down with the water round his shoulders ; and getting out of
these slippery pockets, which were sometimes a tight fit, was
difficult.
However that is the path you have got to go by, if you’re
not wise enough to stop at home; the little bay of shrub overgrown
swamp fringing the river on one side and on the other
running up to the mountain side.
At last we came to a sandy bank, and on that bank stood
Egaja, the town with an evil name even among the Fan,
but where we had got to stay, fair or foul. We went
into it through its palaver house, and soon had the usual
row.
I had detected signs of trouble among my men during the
whole day ; the Ajumba were tired, and dissatisfied with the
Fans; the Fans were in high feather, openly insolent to
Ngouta, and anxious for me to stay in this delightful locality,
and go hunting with them and divers other choice spirits, whom
they assured me we could easily get to join us at Efoua.
Ngouta kept, away from them, and I was worried about him
on account of his cold and loss of voice. I kept peace as well
as I could, explaining to the Fans I had not enough money
with me now, because I had not, when starting, expected such
magnificent opportunities to be placed at my disposal; and
promising to come back next year— a promise I hope to keep—
and then we would go and have a grand time of it. This state
of a party was a dangerous one in which to enter a strange Fan
town, where our security lay in our being united. When the
first burst of Egaja conversation began to boil down into
something reasonable, I found that a villainous-looking
scoundrel, smeared with soot and draped in a fragment
' of genuine antique cloth, was a head chief in mourning.
He placed a house at my disposal, quite a mansion, for it had
no less than four apartments. The first one was almost