Cafι Bar
Suddenly in the inconsequent manner of Africa Ganta came close and we left French Guinea behind us. On the last day the colony proved more than ever French. Djiecke took us by surprise after only two hours’ march, a neat native school behind a gateway, Ecole de Djiecke, in a tidied park-like plain.
A small fussy black in a topee and European clothes and pince-nez came to meet our train from the school compound. He was very conceited, very inquisitive and we couldn’t understand each other’s French, When he learned that we were English he became deeply suspicious. He wanted to know where we had come from and when I said Sierra Leone he was convinced that I was lying. I think his geography was vague, for he couldn’t understand that we could have come from Sierra Leone by land. He wanted to know what canton we had just left, but I didn’t even know what a canton was. I thought it had something to do with Switzerland.
With every question he became more official, excited and conceited. I don’t know what impression of a foreign spy he gained from my vague manner. He said we must see the French District Commissioner, a day’s march away. He seemed to me dangerous; if he had authority in the town he might hold us up indefinitely. So I was polite, probably too polite, telling him that it was impossible, I must go straight on; for if this was Djiecke, Ganta was at last very close. I could see his little thin black body swelling under the drill, for he personified the power of France. He asked to see my passports and after a search in the baggage I found them and showed him the word ‘France’ in the list of countries for which the passport was available. I don’t think it quite satisfied him, he had more brains than I bargained for, but at that moment there was an interruption. We were standing close to the chiefs compound and a message came from him that we were to enter and rest, while chop was prepared for our men. If we had had a taste of French officialdom, now we were to taste French hospitality.
The chief had shed his oddly-assorted European clothes. He was dour and handsome in his native robe and his side-burns, squatting on the floor of his hut with his daughters and wives around him. The daughters were the prettiest women I had seen in Africa. They lay round and over him like kittens. The schoolmaster left us disapprovingly; there was a distinct atmosphere of sex and relaxation about the scene and it didn’t suit his pedagogic mind; but soon after a boy brought in a letter from him in French which one of the girls translated to her father.
I think he may have asked the chief to detain us, for it became more and more difficult to get away. Not that I really in my heart wanted to go from the moment that the chief produced a bottle of French white wine, an enamel cup, and a tin of French cigarettes. It was like a dream: ever since we had entered French Guinea our minds had continually reverted to Dakar, to the cafιs and the flowers and what seemed to us now the delicious freshness of the place where plague is endemic and the natives die of the want of will to live. I had sometimes tormented myself, washing out my mouth on the march with the warm filtered water-fruit had long since given out, without the thought of a bottle of wine.
And here it was. The chief sat grimly on the floor among his girls, with only the faintest suspicion of enjoyment about his mouth, and poured the warm sweet delicious wine into the enamel cup. He drank and passed it to me; I drank and passed it to my cousin. Back it went to the chief and was refilled. It didn’t take long for the three of us to empty the bottle. We were all a little drunk in no time; die heat of the hut, the confused tumble of half-clothed girls helped. As there was no sign of the promised chop for my men, I sent a boy out to fetch a bottle of whisky from my case. The chief had never tasted whisky before, but he had innate taste; he didn’t gulp down the neat spirit like the chief in Duogobmai. He sent a daughter for a pail of water and when the water was brought, he smelt it. It didn’t pass his inspection, he emptied it on the ground and sent her for more. Then he settled down to drink, became grimly merry without moving from the floor and forced the whisky on his favourite daughter, until she was drunk too. We grinned at each other and made friendly gestures.
The favourite daughter could speak a few words of English; her thigh under the tight cloth about her waist was like the soft furry rump of a kitten; she had lovely breasts: she was quite clean, much cleaner than we were. The chief wanted us to stay the night, and I began to wonder how far his hospitality might go. The girl was feeling a little sick with the whisky, but she never stopped smiling. I felt that she would be as unobtrusively and neatly sick as a cat and would afterwards be quite ready for more fun. A boy of about sixteen came in and knelt in front of his father. He pushed the whisky away; he wouldn’t drink it; and now he tried to stop his father drinking. He fetched a bottle and persuaded his father to put away every other drink for future use.
It became more and more like a blind in Paris; the wine, the bitter Gallic smoke, the increasing friendliness with someone you can’t speak to because you don’t know the language well enough. You’ve run across him in the Montparnasse bar and gone on exchanging drinks ever since: you speak English and he speaks French, and you don’t understand each other. There are a lot of girls about whom he seems to know and you’d vaguely like to sleep with, but you can’t be bothered because the wine’s good and you are beginning to feel a deep emotional friendship for the man on the other stool. He seems to know everyone: you don’t understand a thing, but you are happy.
We were there two hours, right into the full heat of the day; the men had their chop in the end, and the chief began to get sleepy and forgot that he was supposed to detain us. I don’t really know why we ever went; the schoolmaster was the only blot on the place; I think we might have been very happy there all night. Perhaps if I hadn’t been a bit drunk I’d have stayed, but the idea I thought I had lost, that one ought to stick to time-tables, came up again in the Parisian air, and I was a little uneasy, too, lest the schoolmaster should have sent a quick messenger to the French Commissioner and that we might find ourselves under arrest-the French colonies are very carefully preserved. So I refused to stay. Before we went I photographed the girl, but she wouldn’t be taken as she was, insisted on putting on her best dress for the picture : the chief would not be photographed. By that time two men had to support him. He followed us a little way out of the village, sleepily imploring us to stay, until we were out of ear-shot.
It was another four hours’ march to Ganta. Soon after Djiecke we left the forest behind and took a path through elephant grass towards the River Mani or St. John, which forms the boundary line between French Guinea and Liberia and rims south-west into the sea at Grand Bassa, a hundred and sixty miles away. That was where we were to end our march, though I didn’t know it then. We were now at last off the route followed by other English travellers, for Sir Alfred Sharpe in 1919 went up northwards into French Guinea, another ninety miles or so, and then retraced his steps and went down to Monrovia between the Loffa River and the St. Paul.
The Mani here was about forty yards wide with steep banks. We crossed by dug-out canoe, and the spirit of all the carriers lifted on the other side. They hadn’t really liked France, and Mark’s enthusiasm as he stepped on shore, the monkey clinging to his skull, infected them. “Now we are in our own land again.” It was an unexpected example of national feeling, for they were certainly not among their own tribe; they were in the land of the Manos, where ritual cannibalism practised on strangers has never been entirely stamped out. Amah ran up and down the line of carriers with a load on his head encouraging them to a longer stride because this was Liberia.