Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/462

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chorus Mboloani. They did not do so before because it is not etiquette to distract people when they are engaged in the crucial occupation of landing a boat or canoe. I am taken possession of by a very comely-looking brown young lady, gracefully attired in my favourite coloured cloth, bright pink with a cardinal twill hem round it, and we go up the hill together. I note that she wears a tight rope of large green and white beads round her beautiful throat; she tells me her name is Agnes and that she is a subtrader for Messrs. Holt's factory at Eloby, and I find, thanks be! she talks fluent trade English, and further that on account of its European planks the ostentatious house is regarded by these kindly people as ipso facto my fit and proper dwelling for the time I may think good to stay at Cape Esterias. Its enterprising builder and owner apologises for its unfinished state; indeed, when at close quarters with it, I see it has merely got its walls up and its roof on. It is perched some four feet above the ground, on poles, and the owner has not yet decided what flight of stairs he will erect to the verandah. He has purchased an old ready-made flight, and has himself constructed a bamboo ladder, its cross pieces tied on to the uprights, I need hardly say, with tie-tie. This being done he has got both ladders lying on the ground beside each other, while he thinks the matter well out as to their respective advantages. Of course the additional fluster of my unexpected arrival renders him more than ever incapable of coming to a decision on their rival merits. I relieve his mind by ignoring them and swing up on to the verandah and enter the house. The furniture consists of shavings, tools, the skeleton of a native bedstead, and a bag of something which evidently serves as a bed. The owner proudly displays the charms of the establishment; he intends, he remarks, to paint the inside of the walls white, with the door and window frames a bright blue. . . . I recognise the good old cobalt in a pot. I applaud the idea, not that it is new on this Coast, but it is better than all white, or dunduckety mud-colour paint, the only other colour schemes in vogue for domestic decoration, and worlds an' away ahead of varnish, which acts as a "catch 'em alive oh" for all manner of insects, and your clothes when you hang