Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/673

 gigantic German gentlemen over acre after acre of plants in various stages of growth, from those just showing leaf above the ground, to those whose beautiful golden fruit were being gathered by gangs of labourers imported from the Batanga region, the Kru Coast, Sierra Leone and other places. If it had not been for driver ants, I feel sure I should have acquired enough information that afternoon to enable me to go and set up a plantation on my own account and make that plantation pay; but as it was, I just made a mental note that it was well to cut down your forest to start a clearing with in the middle of the dry season; then let the trees and bush-wood dry a little; and then set them on fire. Then, just before the rains, I was to plant three cacao beans in a hole, and I learnt with pleasure that I need not bother to remove the gigantic charred tree-trunks that lay about in a glorious confusion—in fact, it was advisable to leave them, as they afforded shelter for the young plants from an excess of sun; and also I need not bother about planting my series of three beans in one hole in tidy lines, but might just stick them in, in a general sort of way, wherever I felt disposed. This was a comfort, for how any one was to do otherwise with the ground overlaid with a confused sort of network of trees, from sixty to one hundred feet long and from three to thirty feet in circumference, I don't know. Then when these seedlings had attained a sufficient growth, they were to be carefully transplanted into a cleared piece of ground—a nursery, where they were to be planted in proper rows. Just as we reached the nursery, and my education was flowing on in a peaceful, pleasant stream, forty-eight burning hot pinchers were inserted into me and I knew "joy’s short life was overpast" for that afternoon, in other words that I had got into a train of drivers. Resolving to suffer and be strong, I said nothing, and seeing that there were no more of the enemy on the ground immediately round me, I lived my tormentors down, and did my best to keep up an appearance of interest in cacao, but really the only thing that did interest me just then was whether either of my companions had got drivers on them.

They never mentioned drivers. They had a little difference of opinion over coffee disease, and a lengthy discussion on