Bosambo of the River

It was many days before he discovered amongst his cash ten separate and distinct dollar pieces that were unmistakably bad and of the type which unscrupulous Coast houses sell at a dollar a dozen to the traders who deal with the unsophisticated heathen.

Wooling got back to the Coast with a profit which was fairly elusive unless it was possible to include experience on the credit side of the ledger. Six months later, he made another trip into the interior, carrying a special line of talking-machines, which were chiefly remarkable for the fact that the sample machine which he exhibited was a more effective instrument than the one he sold. Here again he found himself in Ochori city. He had, in his big trading canoe, one phonograph and twenty-four things that looked like phonographs, and were in point of fact phonographs with this difference, that they had no workable interiors, and phonographs without mechanism are a drug upon the African market.

Nevertheless, Bosambo purchased one at the ridiculously low price offered, and the chief viewed with a pained and reproachful mien the exhaustive tests which Mr. Wooling applied to the purchase money.

"Lord," said Bosambo, gently, "this money is good money, for it was sent to me by my half-brother Sandi."

"Blow your half-brother Sandi," said Wooling, in energetic English, and to his amazement the chief replied in the same language:

"You make um swear – you lib for hell one time – you say damn words you not fit for make angel."

Wooling, arriving at the next city – which was N'gombi – was certainly no angel, for he had discovered that in some mysterious fashion he had sold Bosambo the genuine phonograph, and had none wherewith to beguile his new client.

He made a forced journey back to Ochori city and discovered Bosambo entertaining a large audience with a throaty presentment of the "Holy City."

As the enraged trader stamped his way through the long, straggling street, there floated to him on the evening breeze the voice of the far-away tenor:

Jer-u-salem! Jer-u-salem!
Sing for the night is o'er!

"Chief!" said Mr. Wooling hotly, "this is a bad palaver, for you have taken my best devil box, which I did not sell you."

Last night I lay a sleeping,
There came a dream so fair.

sang the phonograph soulfully.

"Lord," said Bosambo, "this devil box I bought – paying you with dollars which your lordship ate fearing they were evil dollars."

"By your head, you thief!" swore Wooling. "I sold you this." And he produced from under his arm the excellent substitute.

"Lord," said Bosambo, humbly enough, "I am sorry."

He switched off the phonograph. He dismounted the tin horn with reluctant fingers; with his own hands he wrapped it in a piece of the native matting and handed it to the trader, and Wooling, who had expected trouble, "dashed" his courteous host a whole dollar.

"Thus I reward those who are honest," he said magnificently.

"Master," said Bosambo, "that we may remember one another kindly, you shall keep one half of this and I the other."

And with no effort he broke the coin in half, for it was made of metal considerably inferior to silver.

Wooling was a man not easily abashed, yet it is on record that in his agitation he handed over a genuine dollar and was half way back to Akasava city before he realised his folly. Then he laughed to himself, for the phonograph was worth all the trouble, and the money.

That night he assembled the Akasava to hear the "Holy City" – only to discover that he had again brought away from Ochori city the unsatisfactory instrument he had taken.

In the city of the Ochori all the night a wheezy voice acclaimed Jerusalem to the admiration and awe of the Ochori people.

"It is partly your own fault," said Sanders, when the trader complained. "Bosambo was educated in a civilised community, and naturally has a way with his fingers which less gifted people do not possess."

"Mr. Sanders," said the woolgatherer earnestly, "I've traded this coast, man and boy, for sixteen years, and there never was and there never will be," he spoke with painful emphasis, "an eternally condemned native nigger in this inevitably-doomed-by-Providence world who can get the better of Bill Wooling."

All this he said, employing in his pardonable exasperation, certain lurid similes which need not be reproduced.

"I don't like your language," said Sanders, "but I admire your determination."

Such was the determination of Mr. Wooling, in fact, that a month later he returned with a third cargo, this time a particularly fascinating one, for it consisted in the main of golden chains of surprising thickness which were studded at intervals with very rare and precious pieces of coloured glass.

"And this time," he said to the unmoved Commissioner, who for want of something better to do, had come down to the landing-stage to see the trader depart, "this time this Bosambo is going to get it abaft the collar."

"Keep away from the N'gombi people," said Sanders, "they are fidgety – that territory is barred to you."

Mr. Wooling made a resentful noise, for he had laid down an itinerary through the N'gombi country, which is very rich in gum and rubber.

He made a pleasant way through the territories, for he was a glib man and had a ready explanation for those who complained bitterly about the failing properties of their previous purchases.

He went straight to the Ochori district. There lay the challenge to his astuteness and especial gifts. He so far forgot the decencies of his calling as to come straight to the point.

"Bosambo," he said, "I have brought you very rare and wonderful things. Now I swear to you by," he produced a bunch of variegated deities and holy things with characteristic glibness, "that these chains," he spread one of particular beauty for the other's admiration, "are more to me than my very life. Yet for one tusk of ivory this chain shall be yours."

"Lord," said Bosambo, handling the jewel reverently, "what virtue has this chain?"

"It is a great killer of enemies," said Wooling enthusiastically; "it protects from danger and gives courage to the wearer; it is worth two teeth, but because I love you and because Sandi loves you I will give you this for one."

Bosambo pondered.

"I cannot give you teeth," he said, "yet I will give you a stool of ivory which is very wonderful."

And he produced the marvel from a secret place in his hut.

It was indeed a lovely thing and worth many chains.

"This," said Bosambo, with much friendliness, "you will sell to the N'gombi, who are lovers of such things, and they will pay you well."

Wooling came to the N'gombi territory with the happy sense of having purchased fifty pounds for fourpence, and entered it, for he regarded official warnings as the expression of a poor form of humour.

He found the N'gombi (as he expected) in a mild and benevolent mood. They purchased by public subscription one of his beautiful chains to adorn the neck of their chief, and they fêted him, and brought dancing women from the villages about, to do him honour.

They expressed their love and admiration for Sandi volubly, until, discovering that their enthusiasm awoke no responsive thrill in the heart or the voice of their hearer, they tactfully volunteered the opinion that Sandi was a cruel and oppressive master.

Whereupon Wooling cursed them fluently, calling them eaters of fish and friends of dogs; for it is against the severe and inborn creed of the Coast to allow a nigger to speak disrespectfully of a white man – even though he is a Government officer.

"Now listen all people," said Wooling; "I have a great and beautiful object to sell you – "

* * * * *

Over the tree-tops there rolled a thick yellow cloud which twisted and twirled into fantastic shapes.

Sanders walked to the bow of the Zaire to examine the steel hawser. His light-hearted crew had a trick of "tying-up" to the first dead and rotten stump which presented itself to their eyes.