But, curiously enough, this didn’t matter. They bore no malice. It was the night of full moon. They had very little to eat, they had nothing to drink, the moon and its deep green light made them happy. They even shared their small meal with the chief and until very late the village was full of song and laughter and running feet They were crazy with pleasure in the small moon-filled clearing. One could only envy them: we, the civilised, had lost touch with the real lunar influence. It meant to us selfconscious emotion, crooners and little sentimental songs of lust and separation; at best a cerebral worked-up excitement. It couldn’t mean this physical outburst, this unthinking tidal urge to joy. Mark said to me on the next day’s march, “Last night we were so happylittle’ Next night to our eyes the moon would be just as full, they had no calendars to tell them that the moon was on the wane, they didn’t need calendars. Night after night they had felt the tightening of the influence that binds us to the cold empty craters; now they felt it loosen. Every month the world turned back into its empty sky.
Steve Dunbar
A young man in a Boy Scout’s hat and native robe came to meet us next day in the wide clean streets f Sakripie, where there were stores and Mandingo traders in turbans and soldiers of the Frontier Force : Paramount Chiefs town.
The Paramount Chief was away, but this was his n who came and led us to a guest-house in the chiefs compound, a huge square with a flag-pole surrounded by whitewashed huts belonging to his ves. He had the ingratiating air of a motor sales-in, but he was harassed all the time because he had authority; he was a joke, no one troubled to obey n. He had a faint hope, I think, as he sat with me the verandah of the guest-house that our coming would give him prestige. He sent for a chicken and some eggs but nobody brought them. He swore at everyone he could see; he was almost in tears with vexation.
“My name,” a voice said softly behind me, “is Steve Dunbar. I am very pleased to meet you. These chairs are yours? They are very nice. I have been looking at your beds.” I looked round. A middle-aged Mandingo in a scarlet fez and a native robe nodded and smiled. He spoke excellent English. He said, “You are travelling through our country. I hope you have met hospitality everywhere. Your chairs are very interesting. I have not seen anything lite them.”
“They fold up,” I said.
“That is very interesting. I will buy one of them.”
He told me again, “My name is Steve Dunbar. I am interested also in your bed. And this table” fit I was a card-table bought for three and elevenpence), I “That too folds up? I will buy that.”
I said, “I’m sorry. You see, we’ve got to get to Monrovia. I can’t possibly sell them before that”
He changed the subject quite suddenly. ‘This chief,” he said “is a good young man. If you warn anything done tell me.” I said I wanted chop for the men; I would pay a good dash for it in the morning. He told the chief.” The chief,” he said, “agrees.”
“I want the chop quite early,” I said. “They didn’t have much food last night.”
The chief fanned himself with the Boy Scout cap He was hot and excited. He sent several men off is different directions. “You are going to Ganta?” Steve Dunbar said.
“No, no,” I said. “To Monrovia. But first to Grand Bassa. And Tapee-Ta. How do we get to Tapee-Ta?”
“You want to see elephants?” Steve Dunbar said. “You will see plenty. Hundreds. You go to Baplai. There is a civilised man at Baplai. He is a friend of mine. Mr. Nelson. You will find him very agreeable. You may say you are my friend. From Baplai you will go to Toweh-Ta. You will see lots of elephants. They will run backwards and forwards all the time over the path.” Across Steve Dunbar’s shoulder I caught sight of Laminah’s startled face. Steve Dunbar said, “I will leave you now, but I will see you again in Monrovia and we will talk about the bed and the chair.” He stepped inside and looked at the bed again and then made off across the compound followed by his boy; he had the air of a well-established firm. The chief and I sat in silence. He had his eye on the bottle which Amedoo had put out on the card-table. Presently I could stand his sad covetousness no longer; I gave him a few fingers of neat whisky and he went away.
Almost immediately Laminah was at my side. He was excited (his woollen cap and bobble were all askew), and when he was excited it was almost impossible to understand him. I gathered he wanted a goat. ‘Tor chop?” No, it wasn’t for chop. He said something about elephants. Amedoo came forward and explained that our path from now on would be through the biggest bush, that there were lots of elephants, and the labourers wanted a goat. I still didn’t understand. He explained that elephants were frightened by the noise a goat made; it need only be a very, very small goat. It seemed a tall story, but if it made them feel safer to have a goat, I didn’t mind paying for one. Goats had only cost two shillings at Ganta. I told the Paramount Chief’s messenger, who still hung about the verandah, that we wanted to buy a goat. About an hour later a piccaninny, not more than three and a half feet high, arrived with a tiny kid slung across his shoulders. The owner wanted six shillings for it; goats were, apparently, at a premium on the edge of elephant country. The carriers were indignant; they wanted a goat, but they would lose face if their employer paid too much; they would rather dare the elephants without protection. So I refused it, even when the price went down to four shillings. The carriers had never been outside the borders of their northern tribes before; they could never understand that prices varied according to supply and demand. When the price of rice, from Sakripie onwards, began to advance, they were shocked and indignant; they felt we were being humbugged.
I learned the origin of the goat idea later at Tapee from Colonel Davis, the Kru coast warrior. Apparently a goat once made a bet with an elephant that he could eat more at a meal. The elephant ate and ate and fell asleep. When he woke the goat was standing on the top of a high rock. He said he had eaten everything around and was now going to start on the elephant. From that day all elephants have feared the voice of a goat. I’m not sure whether Colonel Davis believed the story or not.
When the sun was low a clamour of voices brought me from bed. The population of Sakripie was pouring into the compound behind two huge stilted and masked devils. They must have stood more than eighteen feet high. They wore tall witches’ hats rimmed with little shells; their faces were black, the masks looked as if they had been made out of old cotton stockings, they wore striped pyjama jackets, with the sleeves sewn up to hide the hands, and pyjama shorts, while the stilts were wound with a thinner striped material. Their performance was humorous and sophisticated. They sat down on the roof-tops and idly fanned themselves with their legs crossed, then stretched a leg right across the thatch and pretended to fall asleep. They had a sense of climax which would have earned the applause of the most sophisticated music-hall audience as they leaned back their whole stiff inarticulated length at an angle of about twenty degrees and just recovered as they began to fall. They had the usual interpreter with them. He lay on the ground while they hopped on one stilt towards him, so that it seemed almost inevitable that the wooden hoof would be planted on his face; but always at the last moment they cleared him. When the entertainment was over, they left the compound by the wall; the gateway was too low for them. They sat on the ten-foot wall and lifted over each stiff leg in turn like old men crossing a stile, and for a long while after their witch hats were visible bobbing away above the huts towards their own compound.