On the opposite side of the river we found a broad, well-worn track, along which we took our way at a brisk pace, in a very different frame of mind from that which we had experienced before we met Isaaku and his people. Indeed, it amused me to note what a difference was made in our condition by a few poor rags of clothing. No longer did we sneak stealthily along the path, hiding ourselves from casual wayfarers, but strode forward boldly, entering the villages with confidence, and exchanging cheerful salutations with all whom we met on the road. And it was well that our affairs were in this improved condition, for we were now on the main road from Bori to Bontúku; and not only were the travellers numerous, but villages and hamlets occurred at pretty frequent intervals.
We trudged on steadily for a couple of hours, meeting small parties of travellers—mostly travelling Wongáras—and passing through two or three villages, until we came to a small stream with the usual fringe of shady woodland; and here Aminé proposed that we should halt and breakfast.
"I know not why we should push on so fast," said she, "seeing that one place is as good for us as another," and she sat down on a moss-covered bank and began to rummage in the provision bag.
"Is it true that thou lookest for friends in Bontúku?" she asked presently, as she pulled a leg off a spare and ascetic-looking fowl.
"I look for friends everywhere," I replied with a grin. "Perhaps we may meet thy father there"—for she had told me that she had been kidnapped while accompanying her father on a journey to Kong.
"There is little fear of that," she rejoined. "He will have gone back to his country long since."
"Little fear!" I exclaimed. "Dost thou not wish to meet thy father then?"
"Not I," she answered, "for if we should meet him he would take me back, and since thou hast not the wherewith to pay my dowry, he would perhaps give me to some other man."
As the conversation appeared to be drifting into an undesirable channel I changed the subject.
"What hast thou in that little bag that is hanging round thy neck?" I asked.
"This?" exclaimed Aminé, taking it in her fingers. "Surely it is the little clay tablet that thou didst write the holy words upon. Thou didst not write me a laiya upon the bark as thou didst for the others," she added, a little reproachfully.
This was a sad oversight. The fact was that I had not reckoned on her taking my performance seriously, seeing that she was more or less of a confederate, and I had forgotten how little she really knew about me. However, I hastened to retrieve the situation.
"I have kept three," I said, taking the bundle from my pocket, and spreading out the documents before her. "Take the one that thou likest best."
She fingered the squares of bark with childish pleasure, comparing their merits, and then handed them back to me, saying:
"Do thou choose for me, Yúsufu; thou knowest better than I which is the best."
I selected one and held it out to her.
"Keep it for me in thy pocket," said she, "until I can get a leather case to carry it in;" so I replaced it and resumed my assault upon the provisions.
"I wish I was able to write words as thou art, Yúsufu," said Aminé presently, when, having finished our meal, we sat dreamily watching the little stream as it pursued its noiseless course.
"Why dost thou wish that, Aminé?" I asked.
She crept closer to me and laid her cheek against my shoulder, regarding me with an expression that filled me with vague uneasiness.
"Thou didst tell the people," said she, "that the written words speak ever without ceasing. If I could write, I would make thee a laiya, and I would write on it, 'Aminé loveth thee,' and thou shouldst wear it always round thy neck."
"It needeth no laiya to tell me of thy faithfulness," said I. "Thy deeds speak more clearly than words written on paper or clay. Ever since I met thee thou hast been to me even as a dear sister."
Aminé sat up with a jerk.
"God hath given me as many brothers as I want," she said shortly. "As for thee, thou art not my brother, nor am I thy sister, of which I am truly glad, for if I were, then could I not be thy wife."
"That is true," said I helplessly; for this frank avowal, with its implied proposal, left me fairly dazed with astonishment, and I had barely presence of mind enough to again turn the conversation into a new channel.
"Thou art a good girl, Aminé," I said, rather irrelevantly, "and thou art very patient with our poverty and hardship. Perhaps we shall meet with some better fortune at Bontúku. At any rate, we have enough kurdi to keep us for a day or two."
"Thou must keep thy kurdi as long as thou canst," said she, coming back reluctantly to the prosaic realities of our life. "For my part, I shall gather these yellow caterpillars that swarm upon the trees. If I cannot sell them in one of the villages, we can eat them ourselves."
I made an involuntary grimace at the suggestion, which did not escape her notice, for she exclaimed somewhat severely:
"Thou art a very dainty man, Yúsufu. Thou wilt not eat snails nor crabs nor the little black plums, and now thou makest a wry face at the good, fat caterpillars, although we have but a handful of kurdi to buy us food. Thou canst teach wisdom to others, but thine own actions are full of folly."
"He who giveth much alms leaveth his pockets empty," said I, laughing, whereupon she slapped me smartly on the shoulder, and emptying the provision bag into my pocket, went off to collect caterpillars.
We walked on at a more easy pace for the rest of the day, for we learned from some travellers, whom we met, that the large village or town of Táari lay at no great distance ahead; and as we journeyed, Aminé's bag became gradually filled with a writhing, squirming mass of the large, yellow caterpillars, which she persisted in thrusting under my nose at frequent intervals, by way, I supposed, of awakening in me a less fastidious appetite.
The afternoon was well advanced when we entered the village of Táari, and sat down for a brief rest under the enormous shade-tree that graced the middle of the principal street. This tree was the most wonderful specimen of vegetation that I saw in all my wanderings—more wonderful even than the colossal silk-cottons of the forest, for whereas the latter towered aloft to an immense altitude, this great banyan-like shade tree spread abroad over an area that was almost incredible. In shape it was like a giant mushroom, the flat under surface supporting multitudes of dangling bunches of arial roots, and the shade that it cast was as profound as that of a yew tree. We sat in the deep twilight on a pile of fantastically twisted roots, and looked out into the dazzling street on to a scene of life and bustle that was new and strange to me. Hausas, Fulahs, and Wongáras in their gay rigas strode to and fro; strangely-dressed natives of unknown regions came and went, and now and again some wealthy merchant rode by upon his horse; and as we watched, a caravan, which must have followed us along the Bori road, entered the town, led by three men mounted on white, humped oxen.
"Let us go and look for the market," said Aminé. "There are many people here; perhaps I shall be able to sell my caterpillars."
We rose and walked down the street, which at the farther end opened out into a wide space in which the market was being held, and which was filled by a dense and motley crowd in which all the nations of Africa seemed to be represented, from the grave and dignified Fulah, richly clothed and looking out secretly through the narrow opening of his face-cloth, to the half naked natives of some neighbouring villages.
We pushed our way into the throng, and sauntered past the rows of open booths, in which well-to-do merchants from Hausa, Bornu, Kong, and even Jenne and Timbuktu, sat presiding over a rich display of clothing, leather work, arms, and jewellery.
"Look, Yúsufu!" exclaimed Aminé, halting opposite a booth where a venerable Hausa sat on a handsome rug in the midst of his wares, "what a beautiful riga saki this old man has. I wish we could buy it for thee, so that thou mightest throw aside thy old ragged riga." She pointed to a splendidly embroidered gown that hung on the partition of the booth.
"But a day or two ago I had no riga at all," said I, and I led her away from the tantalising spectacle.
We passed between the double rows of booths and entered the produce market, where rows of countrywomen sat on the ground behind their little stalls, with their goods spread out on mats or in baskets or calabashes. It was late in the afternoon, and many of them, having sold out their stocks, were rolling up their mats preparatory to going home. One old woman who was thus preparing for her departure, had left upon the ground one circular basket tray, on which there yet remained a couple of heaps of the identical caterpillars that formed Aminé's stock in trade, and as we stopped before the stall, a Hausa woman came up, and, after some haggling, laid down a dozen kurdi, and gathered up the two piles of insects.
As the old woman picked up the empty tray, Aminé stepped into the now-vacant space and spread out her mat, on which she began to arrange little heaps of the caterpillars, the corpses of which she disinterred from the "black hole" of her bag. When she had set out the stall to her satisfaction she seated herself at the end of the mat to wait for customers, and I strolled off to see the "fun of the fair." There was plenty to see, and as I looked at the strange and novel spectacle I almost forgot my forlorn and destitute condition.
I elbowed my way through the crowd, and joined the other idlers and sight-seers around the more entertaining stalls. Here was an old Hausa busily writing laiyas or amulets, and I watched him with a special interest, noting his methods and materials and the prices his trumpery fetched. Then I came to a man roasting kabobs over a pot of charcoal, and the aroma they diffused around made my mouth water, so that I hurried on. There were drinking stalls, where a kind of crude sherbet was dispensed in little calabashes from a great jar, and a stall where a man was frying masa; and the little cakes looked so tempting that I invested twenty kurdi in half a dozen for supper. From a specially dense part of the crowd came a Babel of talk and shouts of laughter, and, on pushing my way to the front, I beheld a barber plying his trade, and as he mowed the stubble from the head of a kneeling client, he kept the bystanders in a roar of merriment by an unceasing flow of jests and anecdotes.
I was absorbed in one of the barber's not very proper stories when my ear caught the strains of what sounded like an aged and infirm piano or a spinet, and turning with the rest of the crowd, perceived a party of musicians advancing up the market. The leader of the band was hammering a rude dulcimer; one of his two assistants sawed away at a preposterous little fiddle, while the other kept time with a drum, and all three bellowed out their song as though they were fresh from the Borough market with a cargo of broccoli.
As they came opposite the barber's stall the musicians halted, and the drummer advanced, holding out a small calabash for contributions. The pitch was well chosen, for the crowd was in high good humour, and the kurdi rattled into the calabash merrily, the barber contributing half his recently earned fee. When the drummer came to me I shook my head, for my means did not admit of my making presents, but the man was persistent, and stood before me with the calabash thrust under my nose.
"Wilt thou not give the poor musicians a few kurdi?" asked the barber, confronting me with a saucy leer. "They who swagger about in rich apparel should be generous to the needy."
This delicate satire on my ragged appearance was greeted by a shout of laughter.
"I am but a poor man, and must needs feed myself before I give to others," said I gruffly, rather nettled at the barber's impudence.
"Feed thyself!" ejaculated the barber. "What need to feed thyself when thou art bursting with fatness already? Give alms to the poor, and let thy belly have a rest."
Fresh shouts of laughter greeted these exhortations, for my late experiences had left me as emaciated as a Cape Coast chicken, and I felt strongly disposed to pull my tormentor's nose; but, apart from the unsuitability of the organ—which was as flat as a monkey's—I saw that it would be the height of folly to lose my temper, for the crowd was growing every moment.
"Let the Moor sing us a song if he will not pay," suggested a broad-faced Bornu.
"Good!" exclaimed the barber. "I have never heard a Moor sing. Sing us a good song, and I will shave thee for nothing—and not before thou needest it either."
The suggestion was received with acclamation by the crowd, including the musicians, so I determined to fall in with their humour.
"Very well," said I. "Give me thy instrument and I will sing."
I took the dulcimer from its owner, and slung it over my shoulder, and with one of the rubber-tipped hammers banged out the scale to try the range of the instrument and find the sequence of the notes. It had twenty notes, and was tuned sufficiently well to produce an intelligible air upon, and as I had been used to strum a little upon the piano in old days, this simple instrument presented no difficulties.
I struck out boldly the opening phrase of "Tom Bowling" as a prelude, and then burst into song with a roar like the hail of a Channel pilot.
I had expected to be stopped in the first bar, but, to my astonishment, as I proceeded, the grins of derision on the faces of my audience gave place to an expression of wondering admiration, and when I had let off the final yell and thumped out a brief postlude, I was overwhelmed with congratulations. The sherbet merchant ran off to fetch me a bowl of his muddy, sour beverage, and the barber dragged me on to his mat and commanded me to kneel.
"Art thou going to shave me then?" I asked.
"Shave thee!" he exclaimed. "I would shave a porcupine to hear a song like that thou hast sung."
He whisked off my cap, and set to work on my scalp with a clumsy little razor, but very skilfully and easily, while the crowd pressed round the mat until I was nearly suffocated.
"Thou singest sweetly," said the barber, as he mowed away, "and thy song was most tuneful, but I could not understand thy words. Was it a Moorish song?"
"No," said I, "it is a song that I heard a Christian sing when I was at Ogúa (Cape Coast)."
"It is true," broke in the Bornu. "I have been to Ogúa, and there I heard the masu-bíndiga (soldiers) of the Christians play much fine music, and this song I heard also."
An earnest discussion on the white men and their customs followed, and was still going on when I arose with smooth and tingling head and chin, and, thanking the whimsical barber, made my escape. I was hurrying away when I felt someone pluck me by the sleeve, and, turning, found the dulcimer player at my elbow.
"That was a good song of thine," said he, "and right well sung. Dost thou know any more of the songs of the white people?"
"Yes. I know a few," I replied cautiously.
"Then perhaps thou understandest their language?" said he.
"I speak it a little," I answered. "Why dost thou ask?"
"Because," he replied, "I and my brothers think of journeying to Ogúa. I have heard that the white people are rich and generous, and we think we might earn enough there to buy some of the Christians' merchandise, and bring it back to our country. Now, if thou canst sing their songs and speak their language, we would be glad to have thee with us, and would share our earnings with thee if thou wouldst come."
This was an offer not to be lightly rejected, for it promised immediate subsistence and an escort and guides to the Coast, whither I desired to journey as quickly as I could.
"It is a long journey," said I. "I should like to think about it."
"Where dost thou stay?" asked the musician.
"I have but just arrived," I replied, "and have yet to find a place to sleep in."
"I stay with a countryman of mine, a man of Kong, and I doubt not he will let thee sleep in his house. Come, and I will take thee to him."
"I must first go to my wife, whom I left in the market," said I.
"Shall I come with thee?" he asked.
"No," I replied. "I will come back to thee anon."
"Very well," said he, "I will wait for thee at the corner here by the mosque."
I found Aminé sitting patiently on her mat with a row of little heaps of caterpillars spread before her, and I feared that her speculation had failed. She brightened up when she saw me, and beckoned me to her side.
"Thou hast been a long time, my Yúsufu," said she, laying her hand fondly on my arm. "My caterpillars are nearly all gone. See! we are quite rich," and she proudly displayed a pile of kurdi that was hidden beneath her bag.
"I shall not sell any more now, I think," she continued, "for it is getting dark, and the people are going home. Hast thou found us a place to sleep in, where we can get some food?"
I told her of my appointment with the musician and the proposal he had made, on which she pursed up her lips rather doubtfully.
"We can hear what the fellow says," she said; "and thou knowest what is best to do better than I. But these minstrels are a worthless set of vagabonds as a rule."
However, she put the caterpillars back into her bag, and, bidding me take up the heap of kurdi, rolled up her mat and followed me. We found the minstrel waiting by the door of the mosque, looking out for us with some eagerness, and when we came up he regarded Aminé with undisguised admiration.
"Thou art a lucky fellow to have such a handsome wife," said he. "Not but that thou art a proper fellow thyself. But come and let us see if we can find thee a place to sleep in."
I noticed that Aminé appeared to relish the man's compliments as little as I did, but we walked after him, as there seemed nothing else to do.
Our conductor, who seemed to know the place well, led us through a maze of foul-smelling alleys until we came to a high mud wall, in which was a doorway closed by a gate of palm leaf. Entering through this, we found ourselves in a spacious but dirty compound, in the middle of which a Wongára woman was attending to some cooking pots, assisted by her two daughters. The women rose from the fire and stared at us inquisitively, and when our acquaintance had explained who we were, the elder woman shouted gruffly to her husband, who at that moment emerged from the house.
"This is my countryman, Osumánu Wongára," said our friend, introducing us, "a most excellent man and my trusted friend."
"Spare thy compliments, and tell me who these people are," growled Osumánu, looking at us sourly enough.
"They are friends of mine who would lodge in thy house, most worthy and respectable people, my brother," replied the minstrel suavely.
"Then they are not like most of thy friends," retorted the other; "but they can have a room if they are able to pay for it."
"I should not come to the house of a stranger if I could not pay," said I stiffly.
"Thou wouldst not remain long if thou didst," he replied pleasantly. "How much wilt thou give for a room?"
"Show me the room," I said.
He fetched a shea butter lamp and led me into a filthy little cell with black mud walls and smoke-blackened rafters, the rustlings and cracklings from which hinted broadly of mice and cockroaches. There was no window nor any opening but the unguarded doorway.
"Pooh!" exclaimed Aminé, turning up her nose in disgust, "it is better to sleep in the wilderness than in this stinking little hole."
"No doubt thou art more used to the wilderness," replied Osumánu drily.
"How much?" I asked.
"Fifty kurdi," answered Osumánu.
"I will give thee twenty," said I.
"Albérika!" replied mine host, using the courteous stereotyped form of refusal.
"Give him twenty-five," suggested the minstrel.
"That is five for the smell," said Aminé, sniffing disdainfully. "Thou wilt get plenty for thy money, Yúsufu."
"Thou saucy jade!" exclaimed Osumánu. "If thou wert my wife thou shouldst know the feel of a hippo hide whip."
"If I were thy wife," retorted Aminé, "I would put something into thy soup that would make me a widow, and go and look for a man."
The Wongára raised his fist as though to strike Aminé, but I caught him by the wrist.
"If thou layest a finger on my wife I will stick my knife into thy belly," said I.
"These are pleasant friends that thou hast brought, Ali," grumbled the Wongára, licking his wrist where I had gripped it.
"Give him a price and have done with it," said Ali, as the minstrel appeared to be named, grinning with secret enjoyment.
"Very well. Thirty-five, and I will not take one less."
I pulled out my bag and counted out thirty-five shells into Osumánu's hands, whereon he departed.
"If thou wilt sup with us we can share our provisions," suggested Ali.
"We will sup by ourselves," Aminé put in quickly, evidently suspecting that we should not be the gainers by this arrangement. "We have just enough for ourselves, and no more."
Accepting the hint, Ali took himself off, and Aminé immediately set about preparing our supper. With some trouble she obtained the loan of a flat cooking pot from the uncivil Wongára woman, purchased a little shea butter and other materials, and took temporary possession of the fireplace, while I spread the mat on the ground and sat looking on.
"What hast thou in thy pocket?" she asked, as she rose from the frizzling pot.
"I have the remainder of what Fatima gave us and some masa that I bought in the market."
"Then we shall do well for to-night," said she gleefully, "and to-morrow we can think of when it comes."
And, in fact, we supped royally. A substantial remnant of Fatima's gift was yet unconsumed, and I had brought quite a little pile of masa from the market. But the crowning glory of the feast was the product of Aminé's cookery, which she turned out of the pot with a flourish on to a flat basket tray, and laid before me all crisp and smoking. I knew that the brown, whitebait-like objects were caterpillars, and tasted a few with shuddering trepidation, but I ended by greedily devouring more than half of the pile, to Aminé's joy and pride.
During our repast Ali came to our quarters, and we thought he had brought us some additions to our meal; but he had only come to beg a couple of masa, and when I had given them to him, we saw him go and devour them in a corner before going back to his comrades.
We sat for a long time after supper discussing our future movements.
"I like not these new friends of thine, the Wongáras," said Aminé; "nor does it seem good that a wise man as thou art should be seen abroad with a pack of ragamuffin minstrels. Still, thou knowest best."
"I like them not myself," said I, "but they go to the settlements of the Christians, where I have many good friends, and I see no other means of getting a livelihood."
Our talk was interrupted by Ali, who came over to us with his clumsy-looking instrument, which he set down upon the mat before me.
"I have brought thee the balafu that I may show thee how to play on it, since I know not thy songs," said he. "Although thou didst very well to-day, and hast, no doubt, played on one before."
I made no reply, but taking up the instrument, examined it curiously. It consisted of a light framework of sticks fastened together with lashings of fibre, which supported twenty rods of hard wood, suspended above the frame on two tightly stretched strings; these diminished progressively in length from two feet at one end to six inches at the other, and under each rod was hung a flask-shaped calabash of a corresponding size, to act as a sound box. The whole contrivance was about a yard long, and the ingenuity with which it was constructed, and the musical knowledge that its design displayed, filled me with surprise and admiration. I took the two hammers—carved sticks with knobs of native rubber at the ends—and struck the rods in succession, eliciting the clear, wiry, dulcimer-like tone that I have described, and I now found the range of the instrument to be two octaves and five notes, the order of succession being similar to that of European keyed instruments, and the tuning remarkably correct.
Having thus made my acquaintance with the balafu, I placed myself under Ali's tuition, and, as the vagabond minstrel was a really skilful player and a musician of some taste, I made such progress that, when the lesson was finished, I could accompany one of my simple English airs in quite a proficient manner.
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