The Ladies Magazine.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2562, 24 July 1909, Page 4 (Supplement)

The Ladies Magazine.

AN AFRICAN MONEY-

MOON.

Some interesting paragraphs are culled by a writer in the ‘ ‘Daily Chronicle,” from “We Two in West Africa.” This charming book of travel is from the pen of the popular actress, Miss Decima Moore, and describe, her honeymoon with Major Guggisberg, C.M.G., It.E. The popular actress had exceptional opportunities when she decided to exchange for a time the .glare of the footlights and the applause of the crowded theatre for the heat, smell, silence and loneliness of the West African bush. Major Guggisberg was from 1905 to 1908 Director of Surveys on the Gold Coast, and it was during this period that the trip took phico. The result is the present interesting book, and the numerous photographs with which it is illustrated.

Miss Moore writes vividly of her landing through the -urf it Sokondi. First she had to be lowered into a surf boat: “The boats were .rising and falling from Bft to 10ft alongside. I found myself sitting in a ‘mammy chair,’ an ordinary basket chair, with ropes slung to the arms and back, and meeting overhead in a ring to which is hooked the wire rope from the steam' winch. . . . In a moment 1 was whisked off the deck, swung over the side at the end of a long derrick, and suspended m the air high over miniature boats in a tumbling so i, . . . Then came a her

rible sinking feeling as they !o vered smartly away, and I plunged ihiv.nj'b seemingly abyssmal depths into the bottom of the surf boat.” Within a few hours of landing a native boy bad been procured as .Miss Moore’s servant. “This atom,” she says, “of humanity .rejoiced in the name of William, stood about three and a half feet in height, and looked about eight years old. When he was first brought to mo I was filled with a mixture of amusement and despair. He looked so small, quaint, and helpless in bis miniature suit of khaki, with his comical sharp little eyes and white teeth, but ho soon developed into a very smart ‘maid.’ ” But English was not one of his accomplishments, and when Miss Moore wanted him to fetch her helmet he had to fetch James (Major Guggisberg’s black servant) to translate. He did so thus: “You go catch Missus hat one time. Missus live -for walk.” This is pidgin-Engiish for “Go and get Missus’s bat at once. She is going for a walk.” To quote again: “William’s introduction to my evening dress was most amusing. Ho insisted on calling the string the ‘rope/ and tied it in weird knots. After struggling with the hooks of my dinner dress for about five minutes I could see bis compressed- lips and worried looks in the glass—he suddenly stopped trying, and burst out with, ‘Fat too much.’ ... It was certainly comic

to see him carrying an eau-de-Cologne bottle on bis head, across the room instead of using his hands.” It \vas when the coast was left behind and Miss Moore plunged into the hush that her “.roughing it” began in real earnest. Major Guggisber.g’s expedition had as its chief object the fixing of S' suitable boundary between Ashanti and the Gold Coast Colony, and his wife, to her mingled pride and astonishment, became assistant astronomer, perhaps the first woman to assist in a Government survey in. savage lands, as she was. certainly the first white woman to cover many parts of the tour: “One morning, a day or two before wo left Coomassie, my husband took my breath away by calmly informing me that I would have to assist him in his astronomical obs ervations ’■* hen we got, further up country, as he would probably have no white man with him.” Finally, all preparations being complete, the expedition set out. “I had attired myself in my ‘bush hit’—high thick-laced boots, short flannel skirt, silk shirt with turned-down collar, and a soft felt hat, so that I could lie hack in the hammock in comfort, my helmet, for use in tho sun, being strapped to the pole.” Carried thus in her hammock by four natives, Miss Moore set out. The way W as not easy. “The path was full of ruts and the half-buried roots of trees, but they never stumbled, never even jolted me, and they picked their way surely and without slackening the pace through the numerous foot-traps. Occasionally we would come to a big tree, from 6ft to Bft in diameter, lying across the path, and over this they would (pass me, hammock and all, with peifcct

ease.” “The weirdest Christmas dinner I have ever had,” is Miss Moore’s verdict on an amusing incident near Accra. They were dressing to dine with some friends at a distance, when a black servant let the .pony bolt with the trap. “Rushing on to the back verandah, I found my husband, with one Wellington boot and one bedroom slipper on, staring with an expression too deep for words at the form of. the head horse- , boy, standing stolidly with a bridle in his hand. I snatched up a coat, and, with only one shoe and stocking on my feet, ran to the end of the verandah,; calling out the pony’s name. . • • All in vain—the darkness hid all trace, of the runaway, and only the distant \ thudding of hoofs broke, the stillness of Mhe night.” NUajor. Guggisberg and all the ser- ;|. \set out to ebase the pony, and ||ff§ his wife (realised that she avas . \e bungalow:*

“I felt what a quaint figure I must have looked —one shoe and stocking on; laco petticoats, an old, shooting jacket, and my hair elaborately, dressed for, a

dinner party The weird beating of the monotonous tom-toms was a constant reminder that I was far away from a White Man’s country. . . -

Presently the different boys began to struggle slowly in, carrying bits of harness and cart which they had picked up. . . .At last came the sound of

wheels, and in trudged the weary Major, lamp in hand, leading July (the pony) with an improvised bridle. . •

Ho must have covered about eighteen miles, having gone all the way in the ‘pitch dark to his old quarters in the Government House stables, and then round Accra. . . . . With fairly

light hearts we sat down at eleven o’clock to a Christmas repast of champagne and sardines, in place of the luxurious dinner of pheasants, ice and fresh meat off the outward-bound steamer' —a great treat after the daily menu of tinned food and native-reared mutton —which was waiting u.s at eight o’clock in Accra.” purely a strange Christinas dinner!