I Hear Strange Stories and Vague Rumours

Of the details of my life during the time that I remained in charge of the store it is not my intention to speak, for, although every day brought with it some new incident which interested me then as it does now to recall, yet few of the events of my busy and laborious life had any relation to those subsequent adventures and strange occurrences which it is the purpose of this narrative to describe.

I shall therefore content myself by giving a brief account of my manner of life at Quittáh, and of the one or two events that determined my subsequent destiny.

When I first took charge of the store, being ignorant alike of all the native languages and of the value of both the trade goods that I sold and the produce that I was to buy, the Captain secured for me the assistance of Vanderpuye, who, although a Fanti by birth, had been settled many years in Quittáh. But in a week I was able to manage the business alone, or, at least, with the aid of one native assistant only.

It was a curious life, less distasteful than I had expected, but very hard work, for I had to be in the store soon after daybreak and remained until near sunset, with only a short interval at midday.

I would earnestly recommend any explorer who wishes to attain to an intimate knowledge of the people amongst whom he is dwelling, to open a store and trade with them, for by so doing he will obtain an acquaintance with their language, appearance, dress, habits, tastes, disposition, and the natural productions of their country, which it is practically impossible to reach under any other circumstances. To the trader, as to one engaged in a rational and intelligible pursuit, the native exhibits himself as he is, without any more reserve or deception than the particular transaction seems to require, while to the professed explorer he shows himself full of suspicion and perversity. The mere pursuit of knowledge he neither understands nor believes in, but attributes to the investigator some hidden and sinister motive for his inquiries; whereas the actions and objects of the trader, differing in nowise from those of native merchants, are perfectly comprehensible to him. Hence the trader is treated by the native with a frank familiarity in great contrast to the cautious reserve that is exhibited towards the traveller, the official or the missionary.

It thus happened that, before I had been ashore a month, I had begun to get some insight into the manners and customs of the negro as applied to commerce. My natural facility in picking up languages, too, to which I have already referred, stood me in good stead, for I soon acquired a quite useful collection of phrases in the local dialects, particularly in the barbarous and unmusical Efé language which was spoken around Quittáh, and the hardly more euphonious Adángme of the people who came from beyond the Volta River.

I also began to learn, but in a more systematic manner, the simpler and really melodious language of Hausa, of which Pereira had on his shelves a dictionary and some selections by Dr. Schön. This was indeed less useful than the local tongues, but I was not without the means of exercising it, for it was spoken by the native troops, or Hausa constabulary, who were constantly making small purchases at the store, and by the itinerant merchants from the interior, whose visits were somewhat rare, but who, when they did come, were rather extensive buyers.