had christened them, very much indeed. However, I am naturally light-hearted, so I quickly banished sadness, consoling myself with the reflection that there are, after all, heaps of nice men in the world.
At length Lome hove in sight, and while I was being lowered, together with three other passengers, into the boat that was to take us ashore, the band struck up a song that was pretty popular amongst the passengers on board, "Do you think that I love you because I have danced with you?" and on deck stood an army lieutenant who was going to join his regiment in Kamerun, and with whom I had often danced. I was convulsed with laughter, because I knew that it was all his work. After this ditty came "The Girl I Left Behind Me," and looking back from the boat I saw my dear old captain, and an elderly civilian gentleman who had paid me a good deal of attention, standing on deck with a huge bath towel between them, on which they were pretending to dry their tears. It was exceedingly comical.
Landing at Lome is not at all a simple matter. First one has to be lowered into the boat from the deck of the steamer in what is called a "mammy chair"—mammy being a coast term for woman. It is a sort of wooden skip, something like one of the old-fashioned swing-boats one sees at village fairs.
The passage from ship to shore is exciting, and in bad weather it is even considered dangerous, and there is considerable surf; but the sea happened fortunately to be calm when we got there. Otherwise our arrival was inopportune. On the day before a member of the tiny European colony there had died of yellow fever, and all the flags were at half-mast.
This rather cast a damper over our spirits, although nothing could exceed the kindness and courtesy shown us by the Togo officials, from the highest to the lowest. The custom-house officers hurried over the necessary formalities as quickly as possible; and although the governor, H.H. the Duke of Mecklenburg, was unable to receive us, being engaged with Sir Hugh Clifford, Governor of the Gold Coast Colony, who had come to pay him an official visit, he had kindly arranged quarters for us, and done everything in his power to welcome us and make us comfortable.
His adjutant, Lieutenant von Rentzel, who was in hospital at the time, put his house and servants at the disposal of our party, and we had a jolly dinner party there that night, at which I played the part of hostess. He also lent me personally a rickshaw, and a boy to draw it, so that I might be able to see what there was to see in and about the town with the minimum of fatigue and inconvenience.
However, I had not much time to devote to sight-seeing, for very early on the morning after our arrival we set out to journey up country to a place called Atakpame, distant about 110 miles from Lome. A railway runs so far; and at the rail-head civilisation may be said to come abruptly to an end.
CHAPTER II
HOW WE FILMED "THE WHITE GODDESS OF THE WANGORA"
Oh that railway journey! Shall I ever forget it? The dust and heat were awful, and owing to some unaccountable oversight, nobody had thought to lay in any provisions for the trip, which lasted from six o'clock in the morning till four in the afternoon. The only food we were able to obtain en route consisted of monkey nuts. Our thirst, however, we quenched quite satisfactorily with luscious, juicy pine-apples, of which the natives brought us unlimited supplies at every stopping-place, offering them clamorously for sale at the uniform rate of one penny each.
Arrived at Atakpame, we were given a right royal welcome by Baron Codelli von Fahnenfeld, who is building for the German Government, at Kamina near by, an immense wireless station, intended to communicate direct with the wireless station at Nauen, just outside Berlin.
The baron first introduced to me my "house," a straw hut, like all the dwellings hereabouts, but, as he proudly pointed out, it was, unlike them, possessed of a cement floor. I duly thanked him, and tried to smile my gratitude. But my heart misgave me, for to my mind it seemed to lack pretty well all the essentials that a dwelling-place should by rights possess.
To begin with, it most certainly was not weather-proof, for I could see, through the interstices of the loosely-thatched roof, the stars twinkling far above. The wind blew in the front and out at the back, and I was conscious, all the time I was dressing for dinner, that I was the cynosure of several hundred pairs of eyes, belonging to as many natives, men and women, who, "clad in the climate," as the saying is out there, crowded in serried ranks all round the wattle walls, anxious for a glimpse through the all too numerous chinks at the wonderful white woman timidly robing and disrobing within.
But dinner made amends for everything. We were the baron's guests for that evening. It was a glorious, gorgeous meal, beautifully prepared and perfectly served under conditions which seemed ideal to me, partly no doubt because they were so altogether novel. The warm African night was absolutely still, save for the continual monotonous humming of myriads of insects. All around was the silent mysterious bush, from which came no sound, either of man, or of beast, or of bird.
And we—we were in a little gastronomic world of our own; a tiny bit of London, or Paris, or Berlin, planted out in the wild. There was the same sheen of damask napery, the same glitter of crystal and silver, the same faint, almost imperceptible perfume of exotics, as one associates mentally with, say, the Ritz or the Savoy. Only the servitors here, instead of wearing black clothes and having white faces, were ebon black in colour, and their liveries were white, all white, from head to foot, save for the silver blazonry of the baron's crest.
Oh, how I enjoyed this my first real meal in the real heart of Africa! The memory of the taste of it lingers on my palate yet, even as I write. Nothing was lacking, nothing was de trop. The caviare was as good as the consommé, and both were perfect. The partridge en casserol was hot, juicy, and tender. The spring lamb with asparagus shoots was a dream. The peach Melba melted in one's mouth. The coffee was as good as any I have tasted in Vienna, which is only another way of saying that it was the very best possible. The wines, like the liqueurs, were just "it." When my host informed me, over our cigarettes, that all the comestibles came out of cans, I simply could not believe it. But it was the truth, of course, nevertheless. Only canned provisions are available in the Togo hinterland, if one excepts chickens and eggs, and an occasional joint of very tough and very insipid beef.
After dinner, however, came my first real African ordeal. Wishful to do honour to our genial host, I had donned one of my prettiest low-necked frocks, and the mosquitoes took a mean and dastardly advantage of my innocent inexperience. The baron and Major Schomburgk swathed me from head to foot in blankets and tablecloths, so that I looked like an Egyptian mummy. Nevertheless, ere bedtime, I grew unbeautifully speckled, and very, very lumpy.
I had almost forgotten to record that the dinner was served in an open thatched house, like my own, but somewhat larger, so that the insects had free access everywhere. The light came from one of Baron Codelli's acetylene motor-bike lamps, placed at some distance from the table. A lamp placed anywhere on, or near the table, attracts insects in such countless myriads as to render eating and drinking almost out of the question.
I slept fairly well through my first night in the African bush, having previously learnt to lie perfectly straight and still on the narrow camp bedsteads that are everywhere in vogue in Togo. If one wriggles about under one's mosquito-net, or throws one's arms about, the bloodthirsty little brutes are sure to get at one, and then woe betide the sleeper. He, or she, becomes the sleeper awakened with a vengeance.
On rising at sunrise, I asked quite innocently for my bath. My native boy grinned; and pointed to a bucket hanging from the top of a tall pole in the open compound fronting my hut. At the same time he explained by gestures that by pulling out, by means of a cord that was attached to it, the bung in the bottom, I could manage to obtain a very good imitation of a genuine shower-bath.
Nobody seemed to think that there was anything amiss in the publicity that must of necessity have attached to the proposed performance, but I was of a different opinion. I shirked my bath for that one morning, and during the afternoon my boy, acting on my instructions, built a wattle screen round the compound.