Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/610

 bedstead and a mattress for it. But the Fatherland is not spoiling or cosseting this man to an extent that will enervate him in the least.

I get the loads brought into my room, where they steam and distil rills of water on to the bare floor, and then, barricading the door-blankets and the window-shutters, I dispossess myself of the German territory I have acquired during the last twenty-four hours, and my portmanteau having kept fairly watertight, I appear as a reasonable being before society—i.e., Herr Liebert, the German officer—and hunt up my boys to get me tea. This being done, I go out on the verandah and discourse.

Society has got a dreadfully bad foot; weeks ago he injured it on the road, and then in cleaning out a bad sore on one of the men some of the purulent matter got into the wound, and consequently he has nearly lost his leg, or more properly speaking his life, for he lay thirteen days in bed, and there was no doctor even down in Victoria to take the leg off, if it had turned to gangrene, as it seemed likely to do. He makes nothing of it, and hops about in a most energetic way, looking after seventy black soldiers and their wives and children, giving them out their rations, drilling them, doctoring them, and everything else, and hankering to do more. Many of the soldiers are down with bad feet, in consequence of the badness of the roads hereabouts. These soldiers are an assortment of Wei-Weis and Su-Su from Sierra Leone, and some Yorubas. They are smart men and well cared for, and their uniforms far more reasonable and military than the absurd uniforms we put our Haussas into in Calabar, only the Fatherland ordains that they shall wear braces, and these unnecessary articles for an African are worn flowing free, except by those men actually on duty.

The mist clears off in the evening about five, and the surrounding scenery is at last visible. Fronting the house there is the cleared quadrangle, facing which on the other three sides are the lines of very dilapidated huts, and behind these the ground rises steeply, the great S.E. face of Mungo Mah Lobeh. It looks awfully steep when you know you have got to go up it. This station at Buea is 3,000 feet above sea-level, which explains the hills we have had to come up. The moun-