-am to be shot for a crime, for goodness sake let me commit
the crime first.
September 2%>th.— Down to Victoria in one day, having no
desire to renew and amplify my acquaintance with the mission
station at Buana. It poured torrentially all the day through.
I wonder what it is like here in the wet season; something
rather like the climate of the bed of the Atlantic, I presume.
My boots are a dreadful nuisance to-day. I got them dried
last night for the first time since I left Victoria, and they are
like boards. Xenia brought them to me this morning and I
congratulated him on being able to do without boots, but he
proudly pointed to his distorted toe-joints, and informed me
that once he always wore boots, better boots than mine, and
boots that were “ all shiny.” I am sure Xenia has had a
chequered past, he is from the Republic of Liberia. I wonder
whether he is a fugitive president or a defaulting bank manager
? They have copies of all the high points of American
culture there, 1 am told.
The old chief at Buana was very nice to-day when we were
coming through his territory. He came out to meet us with
some of his wives. Both men and women among these
Bakwiri are tattooed, or rather painted, on the body, face and
arms, but as far as I have seen not on the legs. The patterns
are handsome, and more elaborate than any such that I
have seen. One man who came with the party had two
figures of men tattooed on the region where his waistcoat
should have been. I gave the chief some tobacco though he
never begged for anything. He accepted it thankfully, and
handing it to his wives preceded us on our path for about a
mile and a half and then having reached the end of his
district, we shook hands and parted.
After all the rain we have had, the road was of course worse
than ever, and as we were going through the forest towards the
war hedge, I noticed a strange sound, a dull roar which made
the light friable earth quiver under our feet, and I remembered
with alarm the accounts Herr Liebert has given me of the
strange ways of rivers on this mountain ; how by Buea, about
200 metres below where you cross it, the river goes bodily
down a hole. How there is a waterfall on the south face of
the mountain that falls right into another hole, and is never seen
again, any more than the Buea River is. How there are in
certain places underground rivers, which though never seen can
be heard roaring, and felt in the quivering earth under foot in
the wet season, and so on. So I judged our present roar arose
from some such phenomenon, and with feminine nervousness
began to fear that the rotten water-logged earth we were on
might give way, and engulf the whole of us, and we should
never be seen again. But when we got down into our next
ravine, the one where I got the fish and water-spiders on our
way up, things explained themselves. The bed of this ravine
was occupied by a raging torrent of great beauty, but alarming
appearance to a person desirous of getting across to the other
side of it. On our right hand was a waterfall of tons of water
thirty feet high or so. The brown water wreathed with
foam dashed down into the swirling pool we faced, and at the
other edge of the pool, striking a ridge of higher rock, it flew
up in a lovely flange some twelve feet or so high, before
making another and a deeper spring to form a second waterfall.
My men shouted to me above the roar that it was “ a
bad place.” They never give me half the credit I deserve for
seeing danger, and they said, “ Water all go for hole down
there, we fit to go too suppose we fall.” “ Don’t fall,” I yelled
which was the only good advice I could think of to give them
just then.
Each small load had to be carried across by two men along
a submerged ridge in the pool, where the water was only
breast high. I had all I could do to get through it,
though assisted by my invaluable Bakwiri staff. But no
harm befell. Indeed we were all the better for it, or at all events
cleaner. We met five torrents that had to be waded during the
day ; none so bad as the first, but all superbly beautiful.
When we turned our faces westwards just above the wood
we had to pass through before getting into the great road, the
view of Victoria, among its hills, and fronted by its bay, was
divinely lovely and glorious with colour. I left the boys here,
as they wanted to rest, and to hunt up water, &c., among the
little cluster of huts that are here on the right-hand side of
the path, and I went on alone down through the wood, and