Chapter XII: Among the Sumbu Savages

At Sumbu--Wild savages--Our boys afraid--Tschokossi
refuse to sell us provisions--I enter a village and buy a
chicken--Astonishment of the people at their first sight
of coined money--I make friends with the children--Lumps
of sugar--A new delicacy--The "white honey rock"--I
become "chummy" with the chief--He invites me to go over
his village with him--I accept the invitation--A unique
village--Elaborate precautions against attack--Where did
the Tschokossi learn to build these remarkable villages?--
"Every village a fortress and every house a fort"--Messa
gets scared--And Alfred follows suit--Cleanliness and
the "classes"--I try my hand at cheese-making--Our too
energetic "washerwoman"--A novel theory of wages--The
ugliest chief in Togo--Marriage among the wild Tschokossi
--Men's view--A primitive form of eugenics--"Can white
women laugh?"--Our boys are boycotted--Native women
refuse to cook for them--Salt the only currency--Sleeping
"rough"--My boys' anxiety for the safety of their "little
white mother"--Messa makes himself putties--His anxiety
about his wife--A case of filaria--Dangerous symptoms 159-182

CHAPTER XIII

BACK TO MANGU

An adventure with a puff-adder--Welcome news--"Chief's
mail"--Out after hippo--Inexperienced hammock boys--
My first sight of hippopotami--I am not impressed--
Crocodile island--An extraordinary sight--Birds that
pick crocodiles' teeth--Panscheli--Hodgson shoots two
hippos--Our boys fetch them from the pool--Cutting up the
carcases--A loathsome sight--We break camp--Homeward
bound--Huge oyster "middens"--Stalked by savages--A
_nuit blanche_--A leopard--and other things--Bad news
--Back in Mangu 183-197

CHAPTER XIV

THROUGH THE KONKOMBWA COUNTRY

At Mangu--The harmattan--A meteorological mystery--Filming
ethnological pictures--Building the new Mangu station--
Drilling native soldiers--Marriage in the native army--
Buying wives--Their market value--Polygamy _v._ monogamy
--Filming Togo history--We reconstruct a big battle--
Celebrating the Kaiser's Birthday--We buy a wild ostrich--
It escapes--An ostrich hunt on the veldt--Packing up for
the downward journey--Horrible discovery--No cigarettes
--"Battle-axe" brand _v._ best Egyptians--Quitting
Mangu--On the march to Unyogo--No water--Hodgson has
an extraordinary "adventure"--A woman palaver--On to
Djereponi--Chameleons--Nambiri--Nothing to eat--A
glorious feed--An egg-laying story--In the heart of the
Konkombwa country 198-212

CHAPTER XV

NAMBIRI TO TSCHOPOWA

The chief of Nambiri--One of Nature's gentlemen--Killing the
fatted calf--Pretty Konkombwa villages--The Konkombwa
and the Dagomba--Elaborate head-dresses of the Konkombwa
men--Konkombwa women--A domestic row--Wonderful
recuperative powers of savages--Konkombwa dances--A
wonderful performance--Studies in facial expression--
Distributing kola-nuts to the dancers--A native delicacy--
On to Tschopowa--Voluntary carriers--A "royal" progress
--Marabou feathers--A welcome surprise--I secure a
wonderful bargain--The rest-house at Tschopowa--A huge
baobab tree--Bow and arrow competitions--We secure
pictures of hippo--Remarkable corn bins--Roast bats as
native luxuries--I decline a share in the "banquet"--A
live alarum clock 213-226