Riding in a lorry I had plenty of time to consider these matters. My kind Basel Mission Factory _haus-frau_ had provided me with luncheon to eat by the way, and I knew that all my goods and chattels would arrive safely at their destination without my having to worry about them. Grant was the only servant I had left. I had dismissed the cook, and Zacco had quarrelled with Grant and dismissed himself, and so while I sat on the front seat of the lorry alongside the negro driver, Grant and my goods and chattels were packed away in odd corners on top of the merchandise that was going to Dodowah. The road was bad, deeply cut by the passing of these lorries, but I arrived there about midday and was cordially received by a Basel Mission Factory man who told me my carriers had arrived, and suggested I should come to his house and have luncheon.
He was a kindly, fair-haired young German who had been in the Colony about a month and was learning English on Kroo-boy lines. The result was a little startling, but as it was our only means of communication I was obliged to make the best of it.
My carriers had been here waiting for me since Friday; this was Monday, and they wanted “sissy” money. I paid up and declared I should start the moment they had broken their fast. Meanwhile my German friend undertook to show me the sights.
Dodowah is a very pretty little place at the foot of the hills; it is embowered in palm trees and is the centre of the cocoa industry. In the yard of the factory the cocoa was lying drying in the blazing sun, and when I had been duly instructed in its various qualities, my host suggested I should “walk small.”
It was very kind of him, but I was cautious. I do not like walking in the blazing noonday.
“Small, small,” said he, with conviction.
Grant was a very different person now from the boy in a pink pyjama coat, meek and mild and bullied by Kwesi, whom I had engaged in the distant past. He was my body servant; evidently supposed by everyone else who came in contact with me to hold a position of high trust, and thinking no end of himself. So to him I gave strict instructions. All the loads were to start at once, the hammock-boys were to follow me to the factor's house, and he was to go on with the carriers. We had left the protection of the “p'lice” behind, and on the whole I thought I could do just as well without.