WHEN THE GOING 
WAS GOOD 


by 
EVELYN WAUGH 


DUCKWORTH 
3 Henrietta Street, London, W.C.2 
MCMXLVI 



Pnnted zn Great Bntazn by 
Th6 Camelot Press Ltd , London and SoutIuImpttJne 



CONTENTS 


Pre! ace. . 
Chapter One. A PLEASURE CRUISE IN 1929 . 
Chapter Two. A CORONATION IN 1930 
Chapter Three. GLOBE-TROTTING IN 1930-1 . 
Chapter Four. A JOURNEY TO BRAZIL IN 1932 
Chapter Fzve. A WAR IN 1935. . . 
In d ex.. . . 


ILLUSTRA TIONS 


EVELYN WAUGH AGED 26 . 


. 


Page 
9 


. 13 
. 7 8 
· 145 
197 
. 260 
· 3 IS 


. 


. Frontispiece 


MAP OF BRITISH GUIANA AND PART 
OF BRAZIL . faczng page 196 



TO 


BRYAN MOYNE, DIANA MOSLEY, 
DIANA COOPER, PERRY AND KITTY 
BROWNLOW 


these were the friends in whose houses I wrote 
the following pages, and to whom I dedicated the 
books from which they are taken; to them, and 
to the memory of 
HAZEL LAVERY 


I inscribe anew these surviving fragments, with. 
undiminished gratitude. 



PREFACE 


THE following pages comprise all that I wish to preserve of 
the four travel books I wrote between the years 1929 and 
1935: Labels, Remote People, Ninety-two Days and (a title 
not of my own choosing) Waugh in Abyssznza. These books 
have now been out of print for some time and will not be 
reissued. The first three were published by Messrs. Duck- 
worth & Co., the fourth by Longmans, Green & Co. There 
was a fifth book, Robbery under Law, about Mexico, which 
I am content to leave in oblivion, for it dealt little with 
travel and much with political questions. "To have travelled 
a lot," I wrote in the Introduction to that book, "to have 
spent, as I have done, the first twelve years of adult life on 
the move, is to this extent a disadvantage. At the age of 
thirty-five one needs to go to the moon, or some such place, 
to recapture the excitement with which one first landed at 
Calais. For many people Mexico has, in the past, had this 
lunar character. Lunar it still remains, but in no poetic 
sense. It is a waste land, part of a dead or, at any rate, 
a dying planet. Politics, everywhere destructive, have here 
dried up the place, frozen it, cracked it, and powdered it 
to dust. In the sixteenth century human life was disordered 
and talent stultified by the obsession of theology; to-day 
we are plague stricken by politics. This is a political book." 
So let it lie in its own dust. Here I seek the moon landscape. 
From 1928 until 1937 I had no fixed home and no 
possessions which would not conveniently go on a porter's 
barrow. I travelled continuously, in England and abroad. 
These four books, here in fragments reprinted, were the 
record of certain journeys, chosen for no better reason than 
that I needed money at the time of their completion; they 
were pedestrian, day-to-day accounts of things seen and 
people met, interspersed with commonplace information 
and some rather callow comments. In cutting them to their 
present shape, I have sought to leave a purely personal 
narrative in the hope that there still lingers round it some 
trace of vernal scent. 
Each book, I found on re-reading, had a distinct and 



10 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 


slightly grimmer air, as, year by year, the shades of the 
prison-house closed. In Labels I looked only for pleasure. 
Not uncritically I examined the credentials of its varied 
sources and watched the loss and gain of other seekers. 
Baroque, the luxurious and surprising; cookery, wine, 
eccentric individuals, grottoes by day, the haunts of the 
underworld at night; these things I, like a thousand others, 
sought in the Mediterranean. 
How much we left unvisited and untasted in those 
splendid places! "Europe could wait. There would be 
a time for Europe," I thought; "all too soon the days 
would come when I needed a man at my side to put up 
my easel and carry my paints; when I could not venture 
more than an hour's journey from a good hotel; when 
I needed soft breezes and mellow sunshine all day long; 
then I would take myoId eyes to Germany and Italy. Now, 
while I had the strength, I would go to the wild lands 
where man had deserted his post and the jungle was creep- 
ing back to its old strongholds." Thus "Charles Ryder"; 
thus myself. These were the years when Mr. Peter Fleming 
went to the Gobi Desert, Mr. Graham Greene to the 
Liberian hinterland; Robert Byron-vital to-day, as of 
old, in our memories; all his exuberant zest in the oppor- 
tunities of our time now, alas! tragically and untimely 
quenched-to the ruins of Persia. We turned our backs on 
civilisation. Had we known, we might have lingered with 
"Palinurus"; had we known that all that seeming-solid, 
patiently built, gorgeously ornamented structure of Western 
life was to melt overnight like an ice-castle, leaving only 
a puddle of mud; had we known man was even then leaving 
his post. Instead, we set off on our various stern roads; 
I to the Tropics and the Arctic, with the belief that bar- 
barism was a dodo to be stalked with a pinch of salt. The 
route of Remote People was easy going; the Ninety-two Days 
were more arduous. We have most of us marched and 
made camp since then, gone hungry and thirsty, lived 
where pistols are flourished and fired. At that time it 
seemed an ordeal, an initiation to manhood. 
Then in 1935 came the Italian invasion of Abyssinia 
and I returned there, but no longer as a free traveller. As 



PREFACE 


II 


a war correspondent, lightly as I took my duties and the 
pretensions of my colleagues, I was in the livery of the 
new age. The ensuing book betrayed the change. I have 
omitted many pages of historical summary and political 
argument. Rereading them, after the experience of recent 
years, I found little to retract. Hopes proved dupes; it is 
possible that present fears may be liars. This is not the 
place in which to attempt to disentangle the post hoc from 
the propter hoc of disaster. 
My own travelling days are over, and I do not expect to see 
many travel books in the near future. When I was a reviewer, 
they used, I remember, to appear in batches of four or five 
a week, cram-full of charm and wit and enlarged Leica 
snapshots. There is no room for tourists in a world of 
"displaced persons." Never again, I suppose, shall we land 
on foreign soil with letter of credit and passport (itself the 
first faint shadow of the great cloud that envelops us) and 
feel the world wide open before us. That is as remote to- 
day as "Yorrick's" visit to Paris, when he had to be reminded 
by the landlord that their countries were at war. It will be 
more remote to-morrow. Some sort of reciprocal "Strength- 
through-Joy," dopo-lavoro system may arise in selected 
areas; others, not I, gifted with the art of pleasing public 
authorities may get themselves despatched abroad to pro- 
mote "Cultural Relations"; the very young, perhaps, may 
set out like the Wandervogels of the Wiemar period; lean, 
lawless, aimless couples with rucksacks, joining the great 
army of men and women without papers, without official 
existence, the refugees and deserters, who drift everywhere 
to-day between the barbed wire. I shall not, by my own 
wish, be among them. 
Perhaps it is a good thing for English literature. In two 
generations the air will be fresher and we may again breed 
great travellers like Burton and Doughty. I never aspired 
to being a great traveller. I was simply a young man, typical 
of my age; we travelled as a matter of course. I rejoice that 
I went when the going was good. 


STINCHCOMBE. 
I 945. 


EVELYN WAUGH. 



CHAPTER ONE 


A PLEASURE CRUISE IN 1929 
(FROM Labels) 


IN February 1929 London was lifeless and numb, seeming 
to take its temper from Westminster, where the Govern- 
ment was dragging out the weeks of its last session. 
Talking films were just being introduced, and had set 
back by twenty years the one vital art of the century. 
There was not even a good murder case. And besides 
this it was intolerably cold. The best seller of the preced- 
ing months had been Mrs. Woolf's Orlando, and it 
seemed as though Nature were setting out to win some 
celestial Hawthornden Prize by imitation of that celebrated 
description of the Great Frost. People shrank, in those days, 
from the icy contact of a cocktail glass, like the Duchess of 
Malfi from the dead hand, and crept stiff as automata from 
their draughty taxis into the nearest tube-railway station, 
where they stood, pressed together for warmth, coughing 
and sneezing among the evening papers. 
So I packed up all my clothes and two or three solemn 
books, such as Spengler's Decline of the West, and a great 
many drawing materials, for two of the many quite un- 
fulfilled resolutions which I made about this trip were that 
I was going to do some serious reading and drawing. Then 
I got into an aeroplane and went to Paris where I spent the 
night with some kind, generous, and wholly delightful 
Americans. They wanted to show me a place called "Brick- 
Top's," which was then very popular. It was no good going 
to Brickey's, they said, until after twelve, so we went to 
Florence's first. We drank champagne because it is one of 
the peculiar modifications of French liberty that one can 
drink nothing else. 
Then we went to an underground public house called the 
New York Bar. When we came in all the people beat on 
the tables with little wooden hammers, and a young Jew 
who was singing made a joke about the ermine coat which 
one of our party was wearing. We drank some more, much 



14 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
nastier, champagne and went to Brick-Top's, but when we 
got there, we found a notice on the door saying, "Opening 
at four. Bricky," so we started again on our rounds. 
We went to a cafe called Le Phiche, where the waitresses 
wore dinner-jackets and asked the ladies in the party to 
dance. I was interested to see the fine, manly girl in charge 
of the cloakroom very deftly stealing a silk scarf from an 
elderly German. 
We went to the Plantation, and to the Music Box, where 
it was so dark we could hardly see our glasses (which con- 
tained still nastier champagne), and to Sheherazade, where 
they brought us five different organs of lamb spitted to- 
gether between onions and bay leaves, all on fire at the end 
and very nice to eat. 
We went to Kasbek which was just like Sheherazade. 
Finally, at four, we went to Brick-Top's. Brick-Top came 
and sat at our table. She seemed the least bogus person in 
Paris. It was broad daylight when we left; then we drove 
to the Halles and ate fine, pungent onion soup at Le Pere 
Tranquille, while one of the young ladies in our party 
bought a bundle ofleeks and ate them raw. I asked my host 
if all his evenings were like this. He said, no, he made a 
point of staying at home at least one night a week to play 
poker. 
It was during about the third halt in the pilgrimage I 
have just described that I began to recognise the same faces 
crossing and re-crossing our path. There seemed to be 
about a hundred or so people in Montmartre that night, 
all doing the same round as ourselves. 


Only two incidents of this visit to Paris live vividly in 
my memory. 
One of these was the spectacle of a man in the Place Beau- 
veau, who had met with an accident which must, I think, 
be unique. He was a man of middle age and, to judge by 
his bowler hat and frock coat, of the official class, and his 
umbrella had caught alight. I do not know how this can 
have happened. I passed him in a taxi-cab, and saw hifn in 
the centre of a small crowd, grasping it still by the handle 
and holding it at arm's length so that the flames should not 



A PLEASURE CRUISE IN 19 2 9 IS 
scorch him. It was a dry day and the umbrella burnt flam- 
boyantly. I followed the scene as long as I could from the 
little window in the back of the car, and saw him finally 
drop the handle and push it, with his foot, into the gutter. 
It lay there smoking, and the crowd peered at it curiously 
before moving off. A London crowd would have thought 
that the best possible joke, but none of the witnesses 
laughed, and no one to whom I have told this story in 
England has believed a word of it. 
The other incident happened at a night club called Le 
Grand Ecart. To those who relish the flavour of "Period," 
there is a rich opportunity for reflection on the change that 
came over this phrase when the Paris of Toulouse-Lautrec 
gave place to the Paris of M. Cocteau. Originally it means 
the "splits"-that very exacting figure in which the dancer 
slides her feet farther and farther apart until her body rests 
on the floor with her legs straight out on either side of her. 
It was thus that La Goulou and La Melonite-"the Mrenad 
of the Decadence"-were accustomed to complete their 
pas seul, with a roguish revelation of thigh between black 
silk stocking and frilled petticoat. It is not so to-day. It is 
the name of a night club with little coloured electric bulbs, 
decorated with coils of rope and plate glass mirrors; on the 
. tables are little illuminated tanks of water, with floating 
sheets of limp gelatine in imitation of ice. Shady young 
men in Charvet shirts sit round the bar repairing with 
powder-puff and lipstick the ravages of grenadine and 
creme de cacao. I was there one evening in a small party. 
A beautiful and splendidly dressed Englishwoman-who, 
as they say, shall be nameless-came to the next table. She 
was with a very nice-looking, enviable man who turned 
out later to be a Belgian baron. She knew someone in our 
party and there was an indistinct series of introductions. 
She said, "What did you say that boy's name was?" 
They said, "Evelyn Waugh." 
She said, "Who is he?" 
None of my friends knew. One of them suggested that 
she thought I was an English writer. 
She said, "I knew it. He is the one person in the world 
I have been longing to meet." (You must please bear with 



16 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 


this part of the story: it all leads to my humiliation in the 
end.) "Please move up so that I can come and sit next 'to 
h . " 
1m. 
Then she came and talked to me. 
She said, "I should never have known from your photo- 
graphs that you were a blond." 
I should not have known how to answer that, but for- 
tunately there was no need as she went straight on. "Only 
last week I was reading an article by you in the Evening 
Standard. It 'was so beautiful that I cut it out and sent it 
h " 
to my mot er. 
I said, "I got ten guineas for it." 
At this moment the Belgian baron asked her to dance. 
She said, "No, no. I am drinking in the genius of this 
wonderful young man." Then she said to me, "You know, 
I am psychic. The moment I came into this room to-night 
I knew that there was a great personality here, and I knew 
that I should find him before the evening was over." 
I suppose that real novelists get used to this kind of 
thing. It was new to me and very nice. I had only written 
two very dim books and still regarded myself less as a writer 
than an out-of-work private schoolmaster. 
She said, "You know, there is only one other great 
genius in this age. Can you guess his name?" 
I suggested Einstein? No. . . . Charlie Chaplin? No. . . . 
James Joyce? No. . . . Who? 
She said, "Maurice Dekobra. I must give a little party 
at the Ritz for you to meet him. I should feel I had at least 
done something to justify my life if I had introduced you 
two great geniuses of the age. One must do something to 
justify one's life, don't you think, or don't you?" 
Everything went very harmoniously for a time. Then 
she said something that made me a little suspicious, "You 
know, I so love your books that I never travel without 
taking them all with me. I keep them in a row by my bed." 
"I suppose you aren't by any chance confusing me with 
my brother Alec? He has written many more books than 
1." 
"What did you say his name was?" 
"Alec." 



A PLEASURE CRUISE IN 19 2 9 17 
" y f Wh ' h 
" 
es, 0 course. at s your name, t ell.' 
"Evelyn." 
"But. . . but they said you wrote." 
"Yes, I do a little. You see, I couldn't get any other 
sort of job." 
Her disappointment was as frank as her friendliness 
had been. "Well," she said, "how very unfortunate." 
Then she went to dance with her Belgian, and when she 
sat down she went to her former table. When we parted 
she said vaguely, "We're sure to run into one another 
. " 
agam. 
I wonder. And I wonder whether she will add this 
book, and with it this anecdote, to her collection of my 
brother's works by the side of her bed. 


My next move was to Monte Carlo, where I had arranged 
to join a ship called the Stella Polaris. 
I had decided to get out at Monaco because, I was told, 
the hotels were cheaper, and it would be more convenient 
for boarding the ship. 
The station at Monaco 1S very small and unpretending. 
The only porter I could find belonged to an hotel with 
a fairly reputable sounding name. He took my suitcase 
and led me through the falling snow, down the hill to his 
hotel. It was a pension in a side street. There was a small 
lounge full of basket chairs in which elderly English- 
women sat sewing. I asked the porter whether there was 
not a better hotel at Monaco. Why, yes, he said, all the 
hotels in Monaco were better than this one. So he picked 
up my suitcase again and we went out into the snow, 
pursued by a manageress, and soon reached a larger hotel 
facing the harbour. 
After luncheon the snow stopped, and the afternoon 
turned out intensely cold but bright and clear. I took 
a tram up the hill to Monte Carlo. The sound of firing 
came from the bastion below the promenade where "Tir 
(lUX Pigeons" was advertised. Some kind of match was in 
progress; the competitors were for the most part South 
Americans with papal titles. They made very interesting 
gestures with their elbows as they waited for the little 
B 



18 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 


cages to collapse and release the game; they also had 
interesting gestures of vexation and apology when they 
missed. But this was rare. The standard of marksmanship 
was high, and while I was there only three birds, fluttering 
erratically with plucked tail and wings, escaped the guns, 
to fall to the little boys below, who wait for them on the 
beach or in rowing-boats and pull them to pieces with 
their fingers. Often when the cages fell open the birds 
would sit dazed among the debris, until they were disturbed 
with a bowl; then they would rise clumsily and be brought 
down, usually by the first barrel, when they were about 
ten feet from the ground. On the balcony above the ter- 
race sat one of the Casino pigeons, privileged and robust, 
watching the destruction without apparent emotion. The 
only convincing recommendation which I heard of this 
sport came from one of the visitors at the Bristol who 
remarked that it was not cricket. 
There was a heavy fall of snow every night I was at 
Monaco, sometimes continuing nearly until midday, but 
always, within an hour of it stopping, every trace had 
disappeared. The moment that: the last flake had fallen 
there appeared an army of busy little men in blue overalls 
armed with brooms and hoses and barrows; they sluiced 
and scraped the pavements and brushed up the lawns; they 
climbed up the trees with ladders and shook down the snow 
from the branches; the flower beds had been overlaid with 
wire frames, straw, and green baize counterpanes; these 
were whipped off, revealing brightly flowering plants 
which were replaced, the moment they withered in the 
frost, by fresh supplies warm from the hot-houses. More- 
over, there was no nonsense about merely tidying the 
unseemly deposit out of the way; one did not come upon 
those dirty drifts and banks of snow which survive in odd 
corners of other places weeks after the thaw. The snow 
was put into barrows and packed into hampers and taken 
right away, across the frontier perhaps, or into the sea, but 
certainly well beyond the imperium of the Casino. 
The arrival of the Stella Polaris caused excitement. She 
came in late in the evening, having encountered some very 
heavy wea.ther on her way from Barcelona. I saw her lights 



A PLEASURE CRUISE IN 19 2 9 19 
across the harbour and heard her band faintly playing 
dance music, but it was not until next morning that I went 
to look closely at her. She was certainly a very pretty ship, 
standing rather high in the water, with the tall, pointed 
prow of a sailing yacht, white all over except for her single 
yellow funnel. 
Every Englishman abroad, until it is proved to the 
contrary, likes to consider himself a traveller and not a 
tourist. As I watched my luggage being lifted on to the 
Stella I knew that it was no use keeping up the pretence 
any longer. My fellow passengers and I were tourists, 
without any compromise or extenuation. 
The Stella Polaris is a Norwegian owned six-thpusand- 
ton motor yacht, carrying, when full, about two hundred 
passengers. As one would expect from her origin, she 
exhibited a Nordic and almost glacial cleanliness. I have 
never seen anything outside a hospital so much scrubbed 
and polished. She carried an English doctor and nurse; 
otherwise the officers and crew, hairdresser, photographer, 
and other miscellaneous officials were all Norwegian. The 
stewards came of that cosmopolitan and polyglot race, 
Norwegian, Swiss, British, Italian, which supply the 
servants of the world. They maintained a J eeves-like 
standard of courtesy and efficiency which was a particular 
delight to the English passengers, many of whom had 
been driven abroad by the problem of servants in their 
own homes. The passengers, too, were of all nationalities, 
but British strongly predominated, and English was the 
official language of the ship. The officers seemed to speak 
all languages with equal ease; several of them had first 
gone to sea in windjammers; sitting out between dances 
after dinner, while the ship ran on smoothly at fifteen 
knots into the warm darkness, they used to tell hair-raising 
stories of their early days, of typhoons and calms and 
privations; I think that when they were getting a little 
bored by their sheltered lives they found these reminiscences 
consoling. 
. I soon. found my fellow passengers and their behavi?ur 
III the dIfferent places we visited a far more absorblllg 
study than the places themselves. 



20 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
One type which abounds on cruising ships is the middle- 
aged widow of comfortable means; their children are safely 
stored away at trustworthy boarding-schools; their servants 
are troublesome; they find themselves in control of more 
money than they have been used to; their eyes stray to the 
advertisements of shipping companies and find there just 
that assembly of phrases-half poetic, just perceptibly 
aphrodisiac-which can produce at will in the unsophisti- 
cated a state of mild unreality and glamour. "Mystery, 
History, Leisure, Pleasure." There is no directly defined 
sexual appeal. That rosy sequence of association, desert 
moon, pyramids, palms, sphinx, camels, oasis, priest in 
high minaret chanting the evening prayer, Allah, Hichens, 
Mrs. Sheridan, all delicately point the way to sheik, rape, 
and harem-but the happily dilatory mind does not fol1ow 
them to this forbidding conclusion; it sees the direction 
and admires the view from afar. 
I do not think these happier travellers are ever dis- 
appointed in anything they see. They come back to the 
ship from each expedition with their eyes glowing; they 
have been initiated into strange mysteries, and their speech 
is rich with the words of the travel bureau's advertising 
manager; their arms are full of purchases. It is quite extra- 
ordinary to see what they will buy. I suppose it is the 
housekeeping habit run riot after twenty years of buying 
electric-light bulbs and tinned apricots and children's 
winter underwear. They become adept in bargaining and 
may be seen in the lounge over their evening coffee, lying 
prodigiously to each other, like the fishermen of comic 
magazines, comparing prices and passing their acquisitions 
from hand to hand amid a buzz of admiration and com- 
petitive anecdote. I wonder what happens to all this trash. 
When it reaches England and is fina11y unpacked in the 
grey light of some provincial morning, has it lost some of 
its glamour? Does it look at all like the other bric-a-brac 
displayed in the fancy goods emporium down the street? 
Is it distributed among relatives and friends to show that 
they are not forgotten during the voyage?--or is it treasured, 
every bit of it, hung upon walls and displayed on occasional 
tables, a bane to the house-parlourmaid but a continual 



A PLEASURE CRUISE IN 1929 21 
reminder of those magical evenings under a wider sky, of 
dance music and the handsome figures of the officers, of 
temple bells heard across the water, of the inscrutable 
half light in the bazaars, of Allah, Hichens, and Mrs. 
Sheridan? 
But there were many kinds of passenger on board. 
I made friends with a young couple named Geoffrey and 
Juliet. 
There was a series of land excursions organised on 
board the Stella by a patient and very charming Nor- 
wegian ex-sea-captain in a little office on the promenade 
deck, and one of the questions most exhaustively discussed 
among the passengers was whether these were worth 
while. At Naples, where I set out entirely alone with a very 
Jittle knowledge of Italian, I wished very much that I had 
joined one of the parties. 
We ran into the bay early on Sunday morning, and 
moored alongside the quay. There was a German-owned 
tourist ship in the harbour, which we were to see several 
times during the next few weeks, as she was following 
practically the same course as ourselves. She was built on 
much the same lines as the Stella, but the officers spoke 
contemptuously of her seaworthiness. She had capsized, 
they said, on the day she was launched, and was now 
ballasted with concrete. She carried a small black aero- 
plane on her deck, and the passengers paid about five 
guineas a time to fly over the harbour. At night her name 
appeared on the boat deck in illuminated letters. She had 
two bands which played almost incessantly. Her passengers 
were all middle-aged Germans, unbelievably ugly but 
dressed with courage and enterprise. One man wore 
a morning coat, white trousers, and a beret. Everyone in 
the Stella felt great contempt for this vulgar ship. 
By the time that we had finished breakfast, all the 
formalities of passport and quarantine offices were over, 
and we were free to go on shore when we liked. A number 
of English ladies went off in a body, carrying prayer- 
books, in search of the Protestant church. They were 
outrageously cheated by their cab driver, they complained 
later, who drove them circuitously and charged them 



22 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 


85 lire. He had also suggested that instead of going to 
matins they should visit some Pompeian dances. I, too, 
was persecuted in a precisely similar way. As soon as 
I landed a small man in a straw hat ran to greet me, with 
evident cordiality. He had a brown, very cheerful face, 
and an engaging smile. 
"Hullo, yes, you sir. Good morning," he cried. "You 
wanta one nice woman." 
I said, no, not quite as early in the day as that. 
"Well then, you wanta see Pompeian dances. Glass 
house. All-a-girls naked. Vair artistic, vair smutty, vair 
French." 
I still said no, and he went on to suggest other diver- 
sions rarely associated with Sunday morning. In this way 
we walked the length of the quay as far as the cab rank at 
the harbour entrance. Here I took a small carriage. The 
pimp attempted to climb on to the box, but was roughly 
repulsed by the driver. I told him to drive me to the cathe- 
dral, but he took me instead to a house of evil character. 
"In there," said the driver, "Pompeian dances." 
"No," I said, "the cathedral." 
The driver shrugged his shoulders. When we reached 
the cathedral the fare was 8 lire, but the supplement showed 
3 S. I was out of practice in travelling, and after an alterca- 
tion in which I tried to make all the wrong points, I paid 
him and went into the cathedral. It was full of worshippers. 
One of them detached himself from his prayers and came 
over to where I was standing. 
"After the Mass. You wanta come see Pompei an 
dances?" 
I shook my head in Protestant aloofness. 
"Fine girls?" 
I looked away. He shrugged his shoulders, crossed 
himself, and relapsed into devotion. . . . 
At dinner that evening at the Captain's table the lady 
next to me said, "Oh, Mr. Waugh, the custodian at the 
museum was telling me about some very interesting old 
Pompeian dances which are still performed, apparently. I 
couldn't quite follow all he said, but they sounded well worth 
seeing. I was wondering whether you would care to-" 



A PLEASURE CRUISE IN 19 2 9 23 
It was one of the exasperating traits of the Neapolitan 
cab drivers to nod happily at their directions, drive on an 
elaborate and I have no doubt circuitous route until they 
arrived before the fa
ade of the building whose frescoes 
I wished to see, and then, turning round on the box, smile 
genially, make the motion of locking a door, and say, 
"Chiusa, signore." The Church of Sansevero was the only 
one I succeeded in entering that afternoon, and it amply 
repaid the trouble we took to find it. The name was new 
to my driver, but after many enquiries we found a small 
door in a back street. He left the carriage and went off to 
fetch the custodian, returning after a great delay with 
a lovely little bare-footed girl who carried a bunch of large 
keys. We left the slum and stepped into a blaze of extrava- 
gant baroque. The little girl pattered round, enumerating 
the chapels and tombs in a voice of peculiar resonance. The 
sculpture there is astonishing, particularly Antonio Cor- 
radini's "La Pudicizia"-a gross female figure draped 
from head to foot in a veil of transparent muslin. I do not 
see how imitative ingenuity can go further; every line of 
face and body is clearly visible under the clinging marble 
drapery; the hands and feet alone are bare, and the change 
of texture between the marble which represents flesh and 
the marble which represents flesh closely covered with 
muslin is observed with a subtlety which defies analysis. 
While I was going round, my driver took the oppor- 
tunity of saying a few prayers. The action seemed slightly 
out of place in this church, so cold and ill-kept and crowded 
with all but living marble. 
When I had made a fairly thorough tour, the little girl 
lit a candle and beckoned me to a side door, her face, for 
the first time, alight with genuine enthusiasm. We went 
down a few steps and turned a corner. It was completely 
dark except for her candle, and there was a strong smell 
of putrefaction. Then she stepped aside and held up the 
light for me to see the object of our descent. Two figures 
of death stood upright against the wall in rococo coffins, 
their arms folded across their chests. They were quite 
naked and dark brown in colour. They had some teeth and 
some hair. At first I thought they were statues of more 



24 w HEN THE GO IN G WAS GOO D 
than usual virtuosity. Then I realised that they were 
exhumed corpses, partially mummified by the aridity of 
the air, like the corpses at St. Michan's in Dublin. There 
were man and woman. The man's body was slit open, 
revealing a tangle of dry lungs and digestive organs. The 
little girl thrust her face into the aperture and inhaled 
deeply and greedily. She called on me to do the same. 
"Smell good," she said. "Nice." 
We went up into the church. 
I asked her about the corpses. "They are the work of 
the priest," she said. 


Catania looked dirty and uninvltlllg from the sea. A 
motor boat came out to meet us full of harbour officials, 
quarantine officers, passport inspectors, and so on, most 
of them in very fine uniforms with cloaks and swords and 
cocked hats. The companion ladder was let down for 
them, but there was some swell on in the harbour and 
they found difficulty in boarding. As the boat rose towards 
the ladder the officials stretched out their hands to the rail 
and towards the massive Norwegian seaman who was there 
to assist them. Some succeeded in catching hold, but each 
time their courage failed them just when the boat w
s at 
its highest; instead of stepping firmly from the motor 
boat, they gave a little hop and then let go. It was not 
a very exacting feat; all the passengers returning from 
Taormina accomplished it without mishap, including some 
very elderly ladies. The Sicilians, however, soon abandoned 
the attempt, and contented themselves with driving twice 
round the ship as though to show that they had never 
really intended coming on board, and then returned to 
their offices. 
Geoffrey and I went ashore for an hour or two. The 
people seemed urban and miserable, particularly the 
children, who hung about in little joyless groups at the 
street corners as only grown men do in happier places. 
That evening we headed east with two clear days at sea 
before reaching Haifa. During these days Juliet developed 
pneumonia, so I saw little of Geoffrey. Deck games broke 
out all over the ship. 



A PLEASURE CRUISE IN 1929 25 
A committee was formed, of which I found myself 
a very helpless member, to organise these sports into 
a tournament. It was interesting to notice that while the 
English, on the whole, threw themselves zealously into all 
the business of organising, scoring, and refereeing, they 
were disposed to treat the games themselves with discernible 
casualness and frivolity. The other nationalities, however, 
and particularly the Scandinavians, devoted every energy 
wholeheartedly to the cause of victory. 
We reached Haifa during the night after the second day 
of sports. Lately its name has appeared in the newspapers 
as the scene of anti-Jewish rioting. It seemed very peaceful 
on the morning of our arrival; there was no other big ship- 
ping in the harbour and a light fall of rain kept most of the 
inhabitants indoors. 
Warned by my experience in Naples, I had arranged to 
go with the organised expedition to Nazareth, Tiberias, 
and Mount Carmel. Accordingly, I landed immediately 
after breakfast with the rest of the Stella party. The cars 
were waiting for us on the quay-side. I was put into the 
front seat of a Buick next to the driver, who had a sallow, 
intellectual face and European clothes. Most of the other 
drivers wore the taboosh; the dragoman in charge of the 
expedition had huge moustaches that stood out from his 
face, so that the ends were clearly visible from behind him 
like the horns of a bison. Later we passed several families 
in Arab costume and a convoy of camels. They seemed 
out of place in this landscape, for, except for an occasional 
clump of cactus by the side of the road, these misty purple 
hills, this gentle downpour of rain, this plethora of Jews, 
these drab conifers, might surely have been from some 
grouse-laden corner of the Scottish highlands. 
The driver of our motor car was a restless and unhappy 
man. He smoked "Lucky Strike" cigarettes continuously, 
one after the other. When he lit a new one he took both 
hands off the wheel; often he did this at corners; he drove 
very fast and soon outdistanced all the other cars. When 
we most nearly had accidents he gave a savage laugh. He 
spoke almost perfect English with an American accent. 
He said he could never eat or drink when he was out with 



26 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
the car; he smoked instead; last month he had driven 
a German gentleman to Baghdad and back; he had felt ill 
after that. He never smiled except at the corners, or when, 
as we swept through a village, some little child, its mother 
wailing her alarm, darted in front of us. Then he would 
stamp on the accelerator and lean forward eagerly in his 
seat. As the child skipped clear of our wheels, he would 
give a little whistle of disappointment ,through his teeth 
and resume his despondent but polite flow of anecdote. 
This man had no religious beliefs, he told me, no home, 
and no nationality. He was an orphan brought up in New 
York by the Near East Relief Fund; he did not know for 
certain, but he supposed his parents had been massacred 
by the Turks. He liked America; there were a lot of rich 
people there, he said. After the war he had tried to get 
 
American citizenship, but they had turned him out. He 
had some very bitter trouble about some "papers"; I could 
,not quite understand what. They had sent him to colonise 
Palestine. He did not like Palestine because there were so 
few rich people there. He hated the Jews because they were 
the poorest of all, so he had become a Mohammedan. He 
was allowed a dozen wives but remained unmarried. Women 
took up time and money. He wanted to get rich and then 
spend all his time going from one place to another until 
he died. Perhaps if he became very rich they would let 
him become an American citizen. He would not settle in 
America, but he would like, when he travelled about, to 
say he was American; then everyone would respect him. 
He had been to London once; that was a good town, full 
of rich people. And Paris; that was nice, too, plenty of rich 
people there. Did he like his present job? What else was 
there to do in a stinking place like the Holy Land? His 
immediate ambition was to get a job as steward in a ship; 
not a stinking little ship, but one full of rich people like 
the Stella Polaris. 
We went to Cana of Galilee, where a little girl was 
offering wine jars for sale. They were the authentic ones 
used in the miracle. If they were too big she had a smaller 
size indoors; yes, the small ones were authentic, too. Then 
we drove on to Tiberias, a small fishing village of cubic 



A PLEASURE CRUISE IN 1929 27 
houses on the Sea of Galilee. There were the ruins of some 
kind of fort and a white domed public bath of steaming 
mineral water. We were led into this bath. In the court- 
yard a kind of picnic was going on; an Arab family sitting 
on the ground and eating bread and raisins. It was almost 
dark in the bath; the naked bathers lay about in the steam 
undisturbed by our intrusion. We lunched at Nazareth in 
an hotel managed by Germans, and ate omelettes, rissoles, 
and pork, and drank an uncommendable wine called Jaffa 
Gold. During luncheon the rain stopped. We went to visit 
the holy places. We were shown the site of the Annuncia- 
tion and Joseph's Workshop; both these were caves. A 
cheerful Irish monk with a red beard opened the gates for 
us. He was as sceptical as ourselves about the troglodytic 
inclinations of the Holy Family. The attitude of my fellow 
travellers was interesting. This sensible ecclesiastic vexed 
them. They had expected someone very superstitious and 
credulous and medireval, whom they would be able to 
regard with discreet ridicule. As it was, the laugh was all 
on the side of the Church. It was we who had driven twenty- 
four miles, and had popped our tribute into the offertory 
box, and were being gently humoured for our superstition. 
Outside the church a brisk trade was done in olive-wood 
paper-weights. Small boys flung themselves at our feet and 
began cleaning our shoes. A nun sold lace doyleys. An old 
woman wanted to tell our fortunes. We struggled through 
these Nazarenes and got back to the cars. Our driver was 
smoking by himself. The other drivers were ignorant fools, 
he said. He wasn't going to waste his time talking to them. 
He looked with derision at the souvenirs we had bought. 
"They are of no interest," he said, "none whatever. But 
if you really wished to buy them you should have told me. 
I could have got them for you at a tenth of the price." He 
lunged out with a spanner and rapped an old man over 
the knuckles who was trying to sell us a fly-whisk. Then 
we drove on. The hills were covered with asphodel and 
anemones and cyclamen. We stopped him, and I got out 
to pick a bunch for Juliet. 
"They will all die before you get back to the ship," said 
the driver. 



28 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 


Poor Geoffrey had spent the day with the ship's doctor 
securing the services of a nurse. They secured a squat 
young woman of indeterminable nationality, who spoke 
English of a sort and had had hospital training. She spent 
the first half-hour scrubbing Juliet and tumbling her from 
one side of the bed to the other till her temperature rose 
to formidable heights. Then she scraped her tongue with 
a nail file. Then she was very sick and retired to her cabin, 
and poor Geoffrey, who had been up all the night before, 
shared another night's vigil with the stewardess (whom the 
nurse addressed as "sister"). They sent this nurse back by 
train from Port Said. I t was the first time she had been at 
sea. Despite the fact that she had spent the whole of her 
voyage prostrate in her cabin, she expressed the utmost 
delight in her experience and applied to the doctor for 
a permanent position on board. After she had gone Geoffrey 
found an odd document in the cabin. It was a sheet of the 
ship's notepaper. At the very top, above the crest, was 
a line of very unsteady pencil handwriting. "Pneuminia 
(La Grippe) is a very prevalent epidemic Disease in the 
spring it is." 
Many of the passengers left the Stella at Haifa and 
went on to Egypt by way of Damascus and Jerusalem, 
rejoining her eight days later at Port Said. The others 
stayed on board for the night and left next morning by 
train for Cairo and Luxor. Geoffrey, Juliet, and I, and the 
two other invalids, were alone on board after the first day 
at Port Said. Everyone on board values this week of 
inaction in the middle of the cruise. The officers change 
into plain clothes and go shopping at Simon Arzt; the 
sailors and stewards go ashore in jolly batches of six and 
seven. It is about the only opportunity they have for pro- 
longed land excursions; several of them went up to Cairo 
for the day. Those who are on duty are employed in renewed 
prodigies of cleaning, polishing, and painting. We were 
filled up with fuel and water. The band played on shore 
in one of the cafes. The Captain gave luncheon-parties to 
officials and friends. The sun was brilliant and warm with- 
out being too hot, and for the first time we were able to 
sit comfortably on deck without scarves or greatcoats, and 



A PLEASURE CRUISE IN 1929 29 
watch the continual coming and going of the big ships in 
the canal basin. 
The only disturbing element in this happy week was 
Juliet, who was by this time very seriously ill. The doctor 
pronounced her unfit for travel, and she was accordingly 
lowered in a stretcher and taken ash,?re to the British 
hospital. I accompanied the procession, which consisted of 
the ship's doctor, carrying warm brandy and a teaspoon, 
an officer, Geoffrey, half distracted with anxiety, a dense 
mob of interested Egyptians, Copts, Arabs, Lascars, and 
Sudanese, and a squad of ambulance men, two of whom 
fought the onlookers while the others bundled Juliet- 
looking distressingly like a corpse-into a motor van. 
These last men were Greeks, and refused all payment for 
their services. It was sufficient reward that they were 
allowed to wear uniform. They must be the only people in 
the whole of Egypt who have ever done anything for noth- 
ing. I met one of them some weeks later marching with a 
troop of Boy Scouts, and he fell out of the ranks and darted 
across the road to shake my hand and ask me news of Juliet. 
It was a melancholy journey to the hospital, and a still 
more melancholy walk back with Geoffrey. The British 
hospital lies at the far end of the sea front. We passed 
a game of football, played enthusiastically upon an uneven 
waste of sand, by Egyptian youths very completely dressed 
in green and white jerseys, white shorts, striped stockings, 
and shiny black football boots. They cried "'ip-'ip-'ooray" 
each time they kicked the ball, and some of them blew 
whistles; a goat or two wandered amongst them, nosing 
up morsels of lightly buried refuse. 
We stopped on the terrace of the Casino Hotel for 
a drink, and a conjuror came and did tricks for us with 
live chickens. These are called "gully-gully men" because 
of their chatter. They are the worst possible conjurors but 
excellent comedians. They squat on the ground, making 
odd clucking noises in their throats and smiling happily, 
and proceed with the minimum of deception to pop things 
in and out of their voluminous sleeves; their final trick is 
to take a five-piastre piece and drop that up their sleeve, 
but it is a good entertainment the first two or three times. 



30 w HEN THE GO I N G WAS GOO D 
There was a little Arab girl in the town who had taught 
herself to imitate them perfectly, only, with a rare instinct 
for the elimination of inessentials, she used not to bother 
about the conjuring at all, but would scramble from table 
to table in the cafes, saying, "Gully-gully," and taking 
a chicken in and out of a little cloth bag. She was every 
bit as amusing as the grown-ups and made just as much 
money. On this particular afternoon, however, Geoffrey 
was not to be consoled so easily, and the performance 
seemed rather to increase his gloom. We went back to the 
ship, and I helped him pack up his luggage and move it 
to his hotel. 
Two days later I decided to join him. 
The hotel where Geoffrey and I stayed was on the front 
-a brand new concrete building kept by a retired English 
officer and his wife. It was recommended by all the British 
colony in Port Said on the grounds that it was the only 
place where you could be certain of not meeting any 
"gyppies." The people we did meet were certainly very 
British but far from gay. Few people stay in Port Said 
except for some rather dismal reason. There were two 
genial canal pilots who lived at Bodell's permanently, and 
there was an admirable young lawyer just down from 
Cambridge who added immeasurably to our enjoyment; 
he was spending his holiday from the Temple in investi- 
gating the night life of Alexandria, Port Said, and Cairo. 
As some people can instinctively find the lavatories in 
a strange house, this young man, arriving at the railway 
station of any town in any continent, could instantl.Y 
orientate himself towards its disreputable quarter. But apan 
from him and the pilots, the other guests at Bodell's were 
all people on their way through who had been obliged to 
leave their ships by the illness of wives or children. There 
was a planter from Kenya with a small daughter and 
governess; he was returning home for the first time after 
fourteen years; his wife was lying desperately ill in the 
hospital. There was a captain in the Tank corps, on his 
way out to India for the first time, whose wife had developed 
appendicitis and had been rushed to the operating theatre. 
There was a soldier's wife taking her children home for 



A PLEASURE CRUISE IN 19 2 9 31 
the hot season; her youngest son had developed meningitis. 
I grew to dread the evenings at home, when we all sat 
round in wicker arm-chairs dolefully discussing the patients' 
progress, while the gentle Berber servants, with white gowns 
and crimson sashes, stole in and out with whiskies and sodas, 
and Mr. Bodell attempted to cheer us up with an ancient 
gramophone and an unintelligible gambling game played 
with perforated strips of cardboard. 
Geoffrey, the Cambridge solicitor, and I spent two or 
three evenings investigating the night-town, called by the 
residents "red lamp district." It lies at the farthest extremity 
of the town on the shore of Lake Menzaleh, round the 
little wharf and goods yard of the Menzaleh canal, separated 
from the shops and offices and hotels by a mile or so of 
densely populated Arab streets. It is very difficult to find 
by day, but at night, even without our solicitor's peculiar 
gifts, we should have been led there by the taxis full of 
tipsy sailors and stewards, or grave, purposeful Egyptians, 
that swept by us in the narrow thoroughfare. 
We set out after dinner one evening, rather apprehen- 
sively, with a carefully calculated minimum of money, and 
life-preservers of lead, leather, and whale-bone, with which 
our solicitor, surprisingly, was able to furnish us; we left 
watches, rings, and tie-pins on our dressing-tables, and 
carefully refrained from alarming Juliet with the kn6w- 
ledge of our destination. It was an interesting walk. An 
. absurd tram runs up the Quai du Nord, drawn by a mare 
and a donkey. We followed this for some way and then 
struck off to the left through Arab Town. These streets 
presented a scene of astonishing vivacity and animation. 
Little traffic goes down them and there is no differentiation 
of pavement and road in the narrow earthen track; instead, 
it is overrun with hand-barrows selling, mostly, fruit and 

onfectionery, men and women bargaining and gossiping, 

numerable bare-footed children, goats, sheep, ducks, 
-h
ns, and geese. The houses on either side are wooden, 
wIth overhanging balconies and flat roofs. On the roofs 
are ramshackle temporary erections for store-rooms and 
h
-houses. No one molested us in any way, or, indeed, 
paId us the smallest attention. It was Ramadan, the 



32 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
prolonged Mohammedan fast during which believers spend 
the entire day from sunrise to sunset without food or drink 
of any kind. As a result the night is spent in feverish feast- 
ing; nearly everyone carried a little enamelled bowl of 
a food resembling some kind of milk pudding, into which 
he dipped between bites of delicious-looking ring-shaped 
bread. There were men with highly decorated brass urns 
selling some kind of lemonade; there were women carrying 
piles of cakes on their heads. As we progressed the houses 
became more and more tumble-down and the street more 
narrow. We were on the outskirts of the small Sudanese 
quarter where a really primitive life is led. Then suddenly 
we came into a rough, highly lighted square with two or 
three solid stucco-fronted houses and some waiting taxis. 
One side was open to the black, shallow waters of the lake, 
and was fringed with the masts of the little fishing-boats. 
Two or three girls in bedraggled European evening dress 
seized hold of us and dragged us to the most highly lighted 
of the buildings; this had "Maison Doree" painted across 
its front, and the girls cried, "Gol'-'ouse, gol'-'ouse," 
"V air good, vair clean." It did not seem either very good 
or very clean to me. We sat in a little room full of Oriental 
decorations and drank some beer with the young ladies. 
Madame joined us, a handsome Marseillaise in a green 
silk embroidered frock; she cannot have been more than 
forty, and was most friendly and amusing. Four or five 
other young ladies came in, all more or less white; they 
sat very close together on the divan and drank beer, making 
laudably little effort to engage our attention. None of them 
could talk any English, except, "Cheerioh, Mr. Ameri- 
can." I do not know what their nationality was. Jewesses, 
Armenians, or Greeks, I suppose. They cost 50 piastres 
each, Madame said. These were all European ladies. The 
other, neighbouring houses, were full of Arabs-horrible, 
dirty places, she said. Some of the ladies took off their 
frocks and did a little dance, singing a song which sounded 
like ta-ra
ra-boom-ty-ay. There was a jolly-sounding party 
going on upstairs, with a concertina and glass-breaking, 
but Madame would not let us go up. Then we paid for 
our drinks and went out. 



A PLEASURE CRUISE IN 19'29 33 
Then we went next door to a vastly more plebeian house 
called Les Folies Bergeres, kept by a gross old Arab woman 
who talked very little French and no English. She had a 
licence for eight girls, but I do not think hers was a regular 
establishment. On our arrival a boy was sent out into the 
streets, and he brought back half a dozen or so Arab girls, 
all very stout and ugly and carelessly daubed with powder 
and paint. All round were the little alleys where the free- 
lance prostitutes lived. These were one-roomed huts like 
bathing cabins. The women who were not engaged sat at 
their open doors sewing industriously, and between stitches 
looking up and calling for custom; many had their 
prices chalked on the door-posts-2S piastres in some 
cases, but usually less. Inside iron bedsteads were visible, 
and hanging banners worked with the crests of British 
regiments. 
On our way back we came upon another gaily illuminated 
building called Maison Chabanais. We went in, and were 
surprised to encounter Madame and all her young ladies 
from the Maison Doree. It was, in fact, her back door. 
Sometimes, she eXplained, gentlemen went away unsatisfied, 
determined to find another house, then as often as not they 
found the way rou.nd to the other side, and the less observant 
ones never discovered their mistake. 


While we were at Port Said, Ramadan came to an end 
with the feast of Bajiram. All the children were given new 
clothes-those that could not afford a frock wearing a strip 
of tinsel or bright ribbon, and paraded the streets on foot 
or in horse-cabs. The streets of Arab Town were illuminated 
and hung with flags, and everyone devoted himself to 
making as much noise as he could. The soldiers fired 
cannonade after cannonade of artillery; civilians beat 
drums, blew whistles and trumpets, or merely rattled tin 
pans together and shouted. This went on for three days. 
There was a fair and two circuses. Geoffrey and I and 
the head of the hospital went to the circus one evening, 
much to the bewilderment of the club. The hospital nurses 
were very shocked at our going. "Think of the poor 
animals," they said.. "We know the way the gyppies treat 



34 w HEN THE GO IN G WAS GOO D 
their animals." But, unlike European circuses, there were 
no performing animals. 
We were the only Europeans in the tent. The chairs, 
were ranged on rather unstable wooden steps ascending 
from the ring to a considerable height at the back. Behind 
the back row were a few heavily curtained boxes for the 
women; there were very few there; most of the large 
audience consisted of young men. A number of small boys 
were huddled between the front row and the ringside, and 
a policeman was employing his time in whisking these off 
the parapet with a cane. The seats seemed all to be the 
same price; we paid 5 piastres each and chose places near 
the back. Attendants were going about between the rows 
selling nuts, mineral waters, coffee, and hubble-bubbles. 
These were of the simplest pattern, consisting simply of 
a coconut half full of water, a little tin brazier of tobacco, 
and a long bamboo mouthpiece. The doctor warned me 
that if I smoked one of these I was bound to catch some ' 
frightful disease; I did so, however, without ill effect. The 
vendor keeps several alight at a time by sucking at each 
in turn. We all drank coffee, which was very thick and 
sweet and gritty. 
The show had begun before we arrived, and we found 
ourselves in the middle of a hugely popular comic turn; 
two Egyptians in European costume were doing cross- 
talk. It was, of course, wholly unintelligible to us; now 
and then they smacked or kicked each other, so I have no 
doubt it was much the same as an English music-hall turn. 
After what seemed an unconscionable time the comedians 
went away amid thunderous applause, and their place was 
taken by a very pretty little white girl in a ballet dress; she 
cannot have been more than ten or twelve years old; she 
danced a Charleston. Later she came round and sold picture 
postcards of herself. She turned out to be French. To those 
that enjoy moralising about such things there is food for 
reflection in the idea of this African dance, travelling across 
two continents from slave to gigolo, and gradually moving 
south again towards the land of its origin. 
Then there were some Japanese jugglers, and then an 
int.t
'ninable comic turn performed by the whole company. 



A PLEASURE CRUISE IN 19 2 9 35 
They sang a kind of doleful folk song and then, one at 
a time, with enormous elaboration of "business," came 
in and lay down on the ground; after all the grown-ups 
were settled the little girl came in and lay down too; finally 
a tiny child of two or three tottered in and lay down. All 
this took at least a quarter of an hour. Then they aU got 
up again, still singing, one at a time in the same order, and 
went out. After that there was an interval, during which 
everyone left his place and strolled about in the ring as 
people do at Lord's between the innings. After this a negro 
of magnificent physique appeared. First he thrust a dozen 
or so knitting-needles through his cheeks, so that they pro- 
truded on either side of his head; he walked about among 
the audience bristling in this way and thrusting his face 
into ours with a fixed and rather frightful grin. Then he 
took some nails and hammered them into his thighs. Then 
he stripped off everything except a pair of diamante drawers, 
and rolled about without apparent discomfort on a board 
stuck with sharp carving-knives. 
It was while he was doing this that a fight began. It 
raged chiefly round the exit, which was immediately below 
our seats. The heads of the combatants were on a level 
with our feet, so that we were in a wholly advantageous 
position to see everything without serious danger. It was 
difficult to realise quite what was happening; more and 
more of the audience joined in. The negro got up from 
his board of knives, feeling thoroughly neglected and 
slighted, and began addressing the crowd, slapping his 
bare chest and calling their attention to the tortures he 
was suffering for them. The man on my right, a grave 
Egyptian with a knowledge of English, with whom I had 
had some conversation, suddenly stood up, and leaning 
across all three of us struck down with his umbrella a 
resounding blow on the top of one of the fighting heads; 
then he sat down again with unruffled gravity and devoted 
himself to his hubble-bubble. 
"What is the fight about?" I asked him. 
"Fight?" he said. "Who has been fighting? I saw no 
fight." 
"There." I pointed to the seething riot in the doorway 



36 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
which seemed to threaten the collapse of the entire tent. 
"Oh, that'" he said. "Forgive me, I thought you said 
'fight.' That is only the police." 
And sure enough, when the crowd eventually parted 
some minutes later, there emerged from its depths two 
uncontrollably angry police constables whom the onlookers 
had been attempting to separate. They were ejected at last 
to settle their quarrel outside; the crowd began sorting out 
and dusting their fallen fezes; everything became quiet 
again, and the big negro resumed his self-lacerations in an 
appreciative calm. 
Various forms of acrobatics followed in which the little 
French girl displayed great intrepidity and style. It was 
in full swing when we left, and apparently continued for 
hours nightly until the last comer felt he had had his 
money's worth. One day after this we saw the French 
child in the town, seated at a table in the confectioner's 
with her manager, eating a great many chocolate eclairs 
with a wan and emotionless face. 


During Bajiram, the railway sold return tickets to 
Cairo at half price, so the solicitor and I went up for a 
night in a very comfortable pullman carriage. 
We arrived in the late afternoon and went to look for 
an hotel. All the hotels in Egypt are bad, but they excuse 
themselves upon two contrary principles. Some maintain, 
legitimately, that it does not really matter how bad they 
are if they are cheap enough; the others, that it does not 
really matter how bad they are if they are expensive enough. 
Both classes do pretty well. We sought out one of the 
former, a large, old-fashioned establishment under Greek 
management in the Midan el-Khaznedar, called the Hotel 
Bristol et du Nil, where rooms even in the high season are 
only 80 piastres a night. My room had three double beds 
in it under high canopies of dusty mosquito netting, and 
two derelict rocking chairs. The windows opened on a 
tram terminus. None of the servants spoke a word of any 
European language, but this was a negligible defect since 
they never answered the bell. 
Dennis-as it would be more convenient to name my 



A PLEASURE CRUISE IN 19 2 9 37 
companion-had been to Cairo before and was anxious 
to show me the sights, particularly, of course, those of 
the "red light district." 
The whole quarter was brilliantly illuminated in honour 
of the holiday. Awnings of brightly coloured cotton, printed 
to imitate carpets, were hung from window to window 
across the streets. Rows of men and women sat on chairs 
outside the houses watching the dense crowd
 who sauntered 
up and down. Many small cafes were occupied by men 
drinking coffee, smoking, and playing chess. This district, 
in addition to its disreputable trade, is the centre of a vivid 
social life ; men were dancing deliberate and rather ungainly 
folk dances in some of the cafes. There was plenty of music 
on all sides. Except for a picket of military police, we saw 
no Europeans; nobody stared at us or embarrassed us in 
any way, but we felt ourselves out of place in this intimate 
and jolly atmosphere, like gate-crashers intruding on a 
schoolroom birthday party. We were just about to go 
when Dennis met an acquaintance-an Egyptian electrical 
engineer who had been in the ship with him coming out. 
He shook us both warmly by the hand and introduced the 
friend who was with him; they linked their arms with ours 
and all four of us paraded the narrow street in this way, 
chatting amicably. The engineer, who had been trained in 
London for some important post connected with telephones, 
was very anxious that we should form a good impression 
of his town, and was alternately boastful and apologetic. 
Did we find it very dirty? We must not think of them as 
ignorant people; it was a pity it was a holiday; if we had 
come at any other time he could have shown us things 
people never dreamed about in London; did we love a lot 
of girls in London? He did. He showed us a pocket-book 
stuffed with photographs of them; weren't they peaches? 
But we must not think Egyptian girls were ugly. Many 
had skins as fair as our own; if it had not been a holiday, 
he could have shown us some beauties. 
He seemed a popular young man. Friends greeted him 
on all sides and he introduced us to them. They all shook 
hands and offered us cigarettes. As none of them spoke 
any English these encounters were brief. Finally he asked 



38 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
us if we would like some coffee, and took us into one of 
the houses. 
"This is not so dear as the others," he eXplained, 
"some of them are terrible what they charge. Just like 
your London." 
It was called the High Life House, the name being 
painted up in English and Arabic characters on the poor. 
We climbed a great many stairs and came into a small 
room where three very old men were playing on oddly 
shaped stringed mstruments. A number of handsomely 
dressed Arabs sat round the walls munching nuts. They 
were mostly small landed proprietors, our host eXplained, 
up from the country for the festival. He ordered us coffee, 
nuts, and cigarettes and gave half a piastre to the band. 
There were two women in the room, a vastly fat white 
creature of indistinguishable race, and a gorgeous young 
Sudanese. Would we like to see one of the ladies dance, 
he asked. We said we would, and suggested the negress. 
He was puzzled and shocked at our choice. "She has such 
a dark skin," he said. 
"We think she is the prettier," we said. 
Courtesy overcame his scruples. After all, we were 
guests. He ordered the negress to dance. She got up and 
looked for some castanets without glancing in our direc- 
tion, moving very slowly. She cannot have been more than 
seventeen. She wore a very short, backless, red dance dress 
with bare legs and feet, and numerous gold bracelets round 
her ankles and wrists. These were quite genuine, our host 
assured us. They always put all their savings into gold 
ornaments. She found her castanets and began dancing in 
an infinitely bored way but with superb grace. The more 
inflammatory her movements became, the more dreamy 
and detached her expression. There was no suggestion of 
jazz about her art-merely a rhythmic, sinuous lapsmg 
from pose to pose, a leisurely twisting and vibrating of 
limbs and body. She danced for a quarter of an hour or 
twenty minutes, while our host spat nut-shells contemp- 
tuously round her feet; then she took up a tambourine and 
collected money, giving a faintly discernible nod at each 
donation. 



A PLEASURE CRUISE IN 19 2 9 39 
"On no account give her more than half a piastre," said 
our host. 
I had nothing smaller than a s-piastre piece, so I put 
that into her collection, but she received it with unmoved 
indifference. She went out to conceal her winnings and 
then sat down again, and, taking a handful of nuts, began 
munching and spitting, her eyes half dosed and her head 
supported on her fist. 
Our host was clearly finding us something of an encum- 
brance by now, so after prolonged exchanges of courtesy 
and good fellowship we left him for the European quarter. 
Here we picked up a taxi and told him to drive us to a night 
club. He took us to one called Peroquet, which was full of 
young men in white ties throwing paper streamers about. 
This was not quite what we were looking for, so we drove 
on right out of the town and across the river to Ghizeh. 
The place of entertainment here was called Fantasio, and 
there was a finely liveried commissionaire outside. A number 
of slot machines in the vestibule, however, removed any 
apprehensions about its smartness. The tables were divided 
into pens by low wooden partitions; about three-quarters 
of them were empty. On a stage at the end of the hall a 
young Egyptian was singing what sounded like a liturgical 
chant in a doleful tenor. With brief pauses, this performance 
continued as long as we were there. There was a magnificent- 
looking old sheik in one of the boxes, incapably drunk. 
After half an hour of the Fantasio even Dennis's enthu- 
siasm for night life became milder, so we engaged an open 
horse-carriage and drove back under the stars to the Bristol 
and Nile. 


Shortly before Easter the doctors pronounced Juliet fit 
to move, so we packed up and left Port Said for Cairo. 
Before going we made our adieux to the various people 
who had befriended us. This was no modern, informal 
leave-taking, but a very solemn progression from house to 
house with little packs of calling cards marked "p. p.c." in 
t
e corner. I had heard scathing comments from time to 
tIme at Port Said dinner-parties on people who neglected 
these polite observances. 



40 w HEN THE GO J N G WAS GOO D 
The journey was unremarkable except to Juliet, who 
was not used to the ways of Egyptian porters. These throw 
themselves upon one's baggage like Westminster school- 
boys on their Shrove Tuesday pancake, with this differ- 
ence, that their aim is to carry away as small a piece as 
possible; the best fighter struggles out happily with a 
bundle of newspapers, a rug, an air-cushion, or a small 
attache case; the less fortunate share the trunks and suit- 
cases. In this way one's luggage is shared ,between six or 
seven men, all of whom clamorously demand tips when 
they have finally got it into the train or taxi. Juliet was 
shocked to see her husband and myself defending our 
possessions from attack with umbrella and walking-stick; 
when the first onslaught was thus checked and our assailants 
realised that we had not newly disembarked, we were able 
to apportion it between two of them and proceed on our 
way with dignity. 
We had booked rooms at Mena House on the grounds 
that desert air and a certain degree of luxury were essential 
to Juliet's recovery. The road out to it is a great place for 
motor-speeding, and there is usual1y a racing car or so 
piled up at the side of the road any time one goes along, 
for Egyptians, particularly the wealthier ones, are reckless 
with machinery. We passed two on our way out with 
Juliet, one about two hundred yards from the road in 
a field of cucumbers, with two fellahin eyeing it distrust- 
fully. Trams run al1 the way out to the pyramids, crowded 
and slow and very little used by Europeans or Americans. 
At the tram terminus there are a mob of dragomans, a great 
number of camels and mules for hire, a Greek-owned cafe, 
a picture-postcard shop, a photographic shop, a curiosity 
shop specialising in scarabs, and Mena House. This is 
a large building in pseudo-Oriental style, standing in a vast 
and lovely garden. The pyramids were a quarter of a mile 
away, impressive by sheer bulk and reputation; it felt odd 
to be living at such close quarters with anything quite so 
famous-it was like having the Prince of Wales at the next 
table in a restaurant; one kept pretending not to notice, 
while all the time glancing furtively to see if they were still 
there. The gardens were grossly luxuriant, a mass of harsh 



A PLEASURE CRUISE IN 1929 41 
greens and violets. Round the house they were studded 
with beds, packed tight with brilliantly coloured flowers, 
like Victorian paper-weights, while behind and beyond 
were long walks bordered by gutters of running water, 
among orchards and flowering trees heavy with almost 
overpowering scent; there were high cactus hedges and 
a little octagonal aviary, and innumerable white-robed 
gardeners, who stood up from their work and bowed and 
presented buttonholes when a visitor passed them. 
There was plenty of life at Mena, particularly at the 
week-ends. The residents were mostly elderly and tran- 
quil, but for luncheon and tea aU kinds of people appeared. 
Huge personally conducted luxury tours of Americans and 
northern Englishmen, Australians in jodphurs with topees 
and fly-whisks, very smart Egyptian officers with vividly 
painted motor cars and astonishing courtesans-one in 
a bright green picture frock led a pet monkey on a gold 
chain; it wore a jeweUed bracelet round its neck and fleaed 
its rump on the terrace while she had her tea. On Easter 
Monday they had what they caUed a gymkhana, which 
meant that all the prices were raised for that afternoon. 
A part from this it was not really a success. There was a 
gentlemen's camel race which was very easily won by an 
English sergeant who knew how to ride, and a ladies' 
camel race for which there were no competitors, and a 
ladies' donkey race won by a noisy English girl of seven- 
teen, and a gentlemen's donkey race for which there were 
no competitors, and an Arabs' camel race the result of 
which had clearly been arranged beforehand, and an Arabs' 
donkey race which ended in a sharp altercation and the 
exchange of blows. There was an English tourist who 
tried to make a book; he stood on a chair and was very 
facetious, but gave such short odds that there were no 
takers. There was a lady of rank staying in the hotel who 
gave away the prizes-money to the camel- and donkey- 
boys and hideous works of Egyptian art to the Europeans. 
On another evening there was a ball, but that too was ill 
attended, as it happened to coincide with a reception at the 
Residency, and no one was anxious to advertise the fact 
that he had not been invited there. 



42 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
Geoffrey's and my chief recreations were swimming and 
camel-riding. We used to ride most days for two hours, 
making a wide circle through the Arab village and up the 
ancient track past the Sphinx and the smaller pyramids. 
To please their customers, the boys called their beasts by 
American names-"Yankydoodle," "Hitchycoo," "Red- 
Hot Momma," They were most anxious to please in every 
way, even to seizing our hands and foretelling by the lines 
in our palms illimitable wealth, longeviry, and fecundity 
for both of us. 
Geoffrey, Juliet, and I went round the local antiquities 
with a kindly old bedouin called Solomon. 
One Friday, Solomon came to tell us about some religious 
dances that were to be performed in the neighbourhood; 
did we want to see them? Juliet did not feel up to it, so 
Geoffrey stayed at home with her and I went off alone with 
Solomon. We rode to the farther end of the plateau on 
which the pyramids stand, and then down into a sandy 
hollow where there were the entrances to several tombs. 
Here we left our camels in charge of a boy and climbed 
into one of the holes in the hillside. The tomb was already 
half full of Arabs; it was an oblong chamber cut in the 
rock and decorated in places with incised hieroglyphics. 
The audience were standing round the walls and packed 
in the recesses cut for the coffins. The only light came 
through the door-one beam of white daylight. The 
moment we arrived the dance began. It was performed by 
young men, under the direction of a sheik; the audience 
clapped their hands in time and joined in the chant. It was 
a dull dance, like kindergarten Eurhythmics. The youths 
stamped their feet on the sandy floor and clapped their 
hands and swayed slowly about. After a short time I signed 
to Solomon my readiness to leave, and attempted to make 
as unobtrusive a departure as possible so as not to disturb 
these ungainly devotions. No sooner, however, had I 
reached the door than the dance stopped and the whole 
company came trooping out crying for "bakshish." I 
asked Solomon whether it was not rather shocking that 
they should expect to be paid by an infidel for keeping 
their religious observances. He said, rather sheepishly, 



A PLEASURE CRUISE IN 19 2 9 43 
that some tip was usual to the sheik. I asked where the 
sheik was. "Sheik. Me sheik," they cried, all running for- 
ward and beating their chests. Then the old man appeared. 
I gave him the piastres and they promptly transferred their 
attention to him, seizing his robes and clamouring for 
a share. We mounted our camels and rode away. Even 
then two or three urchins pursued us on foot crying, 
"Bakshish! Bakshish! Me sheik!" 
As we went back I asked Solomon, "Was that a genuine 
religious dance?" 
He pretended not to understand. 
"You did not like the dance?" 
"Would they have done that dance if you had not brought 
me?" 
Solomon was again evasive. "English and American 
lords like to see dance. English lords all satisfied." 
"I wasn't satisfied," I said. 
Solomon sighed. "All right," he said, which is the 
Arab's reply to all difficulties with English and American 
lords. "Better dance another day." 
"There won't be another day." 
"All right," said Solomon. 


One day I went alone to Sakkara, the enormous necro- 
polis some way down the Nile from Mena. There are two 
pyramids there, and a number of tombs; one of them, 
named unpronounceably the Mastaba of Ptahhotep, is 
exquisitely decorated in low relief. Another still more 
beautifully sculptured chamber is called more simply the 
Mastaba of Ti. As I emerged from this vault I came upon 
a large party of twenty or thirty indomitable Americans 
dragging their feet, under the leadership of a dragoman, 
across the sand from a charabanc. I fell in behind this 
party and followed them underground again, this time into 
a vast subterranean tunnel called the Serapeum, which, the 
guide explained, was the burial-place of the sacred bulls. 
It was like a completely unilluminated tube railway station. 
We were each given a candle, and our guide marched on 
in front with a magnesium flare. Even so, the remote 
corners were left in impenetrable darkness. On either side 



44 w HEN THE GO I N G WAS GOO D 
of our path were ranged the vast granite sarcophagi; we 
marched very solemnly the full length of the tunnel, our 
guide counting the coffins aloud for us; there were twenty- 
four of them, each so massive that the excavating engineers 
could devise no means of removing them. Most of the 
Americans counted aloud with him. 
One is supposed, I know, to think of the past on these 
occasions; to conjure up the ruined streets of Memphis 
and to see in one's mind's eye the sacred procession as it 
wound up the avenue of sphinxes, mourning the dead 
bull; perhaps even to give licence to one's fancy and invent 
some personal romance about the lives of these garlanded 
hymn-singers, and to generalise sagely about the mutability 
of human achievement. But I think we can leave all that 
to HoHywood. For my own part I found the present 
spectacle infinitely stimulating. What a funny lot we 
looked, trooping along that obscure gallery! First the 
Arab with his blazing white ribbon of magnesium, and 
behind him, clutching their candles, like penitents in pro- 
cession, this whole rag-tag and bobtail of self-improvement 
and uplift. Some had been bitten by mosquitoes and bore 
swollen, asymmetrical faces; many were footsore, and 
limped and stumbled as they went; one felt faint and was 
sniffing "salts"; one coughed with dust; another had her 
eyes inflamed by the sun; another wore his arm in a sling, 
injured in heaven knows what endeavour; everyone of the 
party in some way or another was bruised and upbraided 
by the thundering surf of education. And still they plunged 
on. One, two, three, four. . . twenty-four dead bulls; not 
twenty-three or twenty-five. How could they remember 
twenty-four? Why, to be sure, it was the number of Aunt 
Mabel's bedroom at Luxor. "How did the bul1s die?" one 
of them asks. 
"What did he ask?" chatter the others. 
"What did the guide answer?" they want to know. 
"How did the bulls die?" 
"How much did it cost?" asks another. "You can
t 
build a place like this for nothing." 
"We don't spend money that way nowadays." 
"Fancy spending all that burying bulls. . . ." 



A PLEASURE CRUISE IN 19 2 9 45 
Oh, ladies and gentlemen, I longed to declaim, dear 
ladies and gentlemen, fancy crossing the Atlantic Ocean, 
fancy coming all this way in the heat, fancy enduring all 
these extremities of discomfort and exertion; fancy spend- 
ing all this money, to see a hole in the sand where, three 
thousand years ago, a foreign race whose motives must for 
ever remain inexplicable interred the carcasses of twenty-four 
bulls. Surely the laugh, dear ladies and gentlemen, is on us. 
But I remembered I was a gate-crasher in this party 
and remained silent. 


I drove down to Helwan for a couple of nights. 
We went to Masr el Atika, Old Cairo or Babylon, the 
Coptic settlement built in the days of persecution within 
the walls of the old Roman garrison station. In this con- 
stricted slum there are five medireval Coptic churches, a 
synagogue, and a Greek Orthodox convent. The Christians 
seem to differ in decency very little from their pagan neigh- 
bours; the only marked sign of their emancipation from 
heathen superstition was that the swarm of male and juvenile 
beggars were here reinforced by their womenfolk, who in 
the Mohammedan quarters maintain a modest seclusion. 
The churches, however, were most interesting, particularly 
Abu Sergh, which has Corinthian columns taken from a 
Roman temple, Byzantine eikons, and an Arabic screen. 
It is built over the cave where the Holy Family-always 
troglodytic-are said to have spent their retirement during 
Herod's massacre of the innocents. The deacon, Bestavros, 
showed us over. When he had finished his halting exposi- 
tion and received his tip, he said, "Wait one minute. Get 
priest." . 
He hurried into the vestry and brought out a patriarchal 
old man with a long grey beard and large greasy bun of 
grey hair, obviously newly awakened from his afternoon 
nap. This priest blinked, blessed us, and held out his hand 
for a tip; then, lifting up his skirts, he tucked the two 
piastres away in a pocket and made off. At the vestry door 
he stopped. "Go getting bishop," he said. 
Half a minute later he returned with a still more vener- 
able figure, chewing sunflower seeds. The pontiff blessed 



46 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
us and held out his hand for a tip. I gave him two piastres. 
He shook his head. 
"He is a bishop," explained Bestavros, "three piastres 
for a Bishop." 
I added a piastre and he went away beaming. Bestavros 
then sold me a copy of a history of the church written by 
himself. It is such a very short work that I think it worth 
reproducing here with spelling and punctuation exactly as 
it was printed. 


A BRIEF HISTORY 
of 
ABU SARGA CHURCH 


By 
MESSIHA BESTAVROS 


ABU SARGA CHURCH 


This Church was built in the year A.D. II 7 I by a man whose name 
was Hanna EI Abbah the secretary of Sultan Salah-EI-Din EI-Ayoubi. 
The Church contains I I marble pillars each containing a panting 
of one of the apostles and one granite pillar without capital, panting 
or cross alladvig Judes who betrayed our Lord. 
The alter for the holy comminion contains 7 Maszaic steps (the 
7 degrees of bishops). The screen of the alter is made of carved ivory. 
On the North of wich were are tow nice penals of carved wood: 
one shows the last supper and the other Bethlehm. On there Southern 
sides St. Demetrius, St. Georges and St. Theodore. 
The cript was cut out of a solid rock 30 years B.C. Mearly which 
was used as a shelter for strangers. When the Holy Family moved 
from Jernsalim to Egypt to hide themselves from King Herod they 
found this cript where they remained until the death of King Herod. 
When St. Mark started preaching in Alexandria at 42 A.D. and 
we the Pharos who embraced the religion of Christ used this criot 
as a church for a period of 900 years till this church built on its top. 
On the other side of the cript you can see the fount where Christian 
children are baptised by emersion in water for 3 times. This church 
contains manu Byzantian painitings of the 9th & loth centuries. 
MESIHA BESTAVROS, 
Dtocoll. 


I left Port Said in the P. & O. ship Ranchi for Malta. 
On leaving Egypt, as a final nip of avarice, one is obliged 
to pay a few shillings "quarantine tax." No one seems to 



A PLEASURE CRUISE IN 19 2 9 47 
know anything about this imposition, what statute author- 
ised it and how much of what is collected ever finds its 
way into the treasury, or what bearing it has upon "quaran- 
tine." Many residents maintain that it is purely a bit of 
fun on the part of the harbour officials, who have no legal 
right to it whatever. 
Thanks to the kind offices of the local manager, I was 
able to obtain a second-class berth. The residents in Port 
Said said: "You meet a first-rate lot of people travelling 
second class since the war. A jolly sight better than in the 
first class, particularly on the ships from India-the first 
class is all nOUVeaux riches. You'll find second class on the 
Ranchi as good as first class on a foreign line. My wife 
travels second class when she goes home." 
But my motive really was less the ambition to meet nice 
people than to save money. After my extravagances at 
Mena House I was beginning to get worried about money, 
so I thought of an ingenious device. Before leaving Cairo 
I wrote-on the notepaper of the Union Club, Port Said 
-to the managers of the two leading hotels in Valletta, 
the Great Britain and the Osborne, between whom, I was 
told, there existed a relationship of acute rivalry, and 
enclosed a publisher's slip of Press cuttings about my last 
book; I said to each that I proposed to publish a travel 
diary on my return to England; I had heard that his was 
the best hotel in the island. Would he be willing to give 
me free accommodation during my visit to Malta in return 
for a kind reference to his establishment in my book? They 
had not had time to answer by the time I embarked at Port 
Said, but I went on board hoping that at Valletta I should 
experience some remission of the continual draining of 
money that I had suffered for the last two months. 
The Ranchi was advertised to sail some time on Sunday 
and was expected early in the afternoon. On Sunday morn- 
ing she was announced for nine o'clock that evening. 
Finally she came in well after midnight and stayed only, 
two hours. During those two hours the town, which, as 
usual, was feeling the ill-effects of its Saturday night at the 
Casino, suddenly woke again into life. Simon Arzt's store 
opened; the cafes turned on their lights and dusted the 



48 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
tables; out came the boot-cleaners and post-card sellers; 
the passengers who had stayed on board through the canal 
came ashore and drove round in two-horse carriages; those 
who had left the ship at Aden for a few hours at Cairo, and 
had spent all that afternoon on the quay in a fever of appre- 
hension that they might miss her, scuttled on board to their 
cabins; half the residents of Port Said had business of some 
kind to transact on board. I went down to the harbour in 
a bustle that was like noon in the City of London. The 
sudden brightness of the streets and the animation on all 
sides seemed quite unreal. I went on board, found my 
steward and my cabin, disposed of my luggage, and went 
on deck for a little. The passengers who had done the 
Aden-Cairo-Port Said dash were drinking coffee, eating 
sandwiches, and describing the pyramids and Shepheard's 
Hote1. "Two pounds ten, simply for a single bed and no 
bathroom. Think of that!" they said with obvious pride. 
"And we rode on camels-you should just have seen me. 
How Katie would have laughed, I said. And the camel- 
boy told my fortune, and we had a coffee made actually 
in the temple of the Sphinx. You ought to have come. 
Well, yes, perhaps it was a little exhausting, but then 
we've plenty of time at sea to make up for it. And there 
was the sweetest little boy who cleaned our shoes. And 
we went into a mosque where the Mohammedans were 
all saying their prayers-so quaint. And would you believe 
it-at Shepheard's they charged IS piastres-that's over 
three shillings-for a cup of early morning tea, and not 
very good tea at that. You ought to have come, Katie!" 
Before we sailed, I went down to my cabin and went 
to bed. The man who was sharing it with me, a kindly, 
middle-aged, civil engineer, was already undressing; he 
wore combinations. I woke once when the engines started, 
dozed and woke again as we ran clear of the breakwater 
and began to roll, and then fell soundly asleep, to wake 
next morning on the high seas with a hundred English- 
men all round me, whistling as they shaved. 
We had cold, sunless weather and fairly heavy seas 
during the next two days. I rather wished that I had gone 
first class. It was not that my fellow passengers were not 



A PLEASURE CRUISE IN 19 2 9 49 
every bit as nice as the Port Said residents ha"d told me 
they would be, but that there were so many of them. There 
was simply nowhere to sit down. The lounge and smoking- 
room were comfortable and clean and well ventilated and 
prettily decorated and all that, but they were always com- 
pletely full. On the decks there were no deck-chairs except 
those the passengers provided for themselves; the three or 
four public seats were invariably occupied by mothers 
doing frightful things to their babies with jars of vaseline. 
It was not even possible to walk round with any comfort, 
so confined and crowded was the single promenade deck. 
Children were everywhere. I t was the beginning of the hot 
season in India, and the officers' wives were taking them 
back to England in shoals; the better sort lay and cried in 
perambulators; the worse ones fell all over the deck and 
were sick; these, too, appeared in the dining-room for 
breakfast and luncheon and were encouraged by their 
mothers to eat. There was an awful hour every evening at 
about six o'clock, when the band came down from the 
first-class deck to play Gilbert and Sullivan to us in the 
saloon; this visitation coincided exactly with the bathing of 
the elder children below; the combination of soap and salt 
water is one of the more repugnant features of sea travel, 
and the lusty offspring of sahib and memsahib shrieked 
their protest til1 the steel rafters and match-board parti- 
tions echoed and rang. There was no place above or below 
for a man who values silence. 
The other passengers were mostly soldiers on leave or 
soldiers' wives, leavened with a few servants of first-class 
passengers, some clergymen, and three or four nuns. The 
valets wore neat blue suits throughout the voyage, but the 
soldiers had an interesting snobbism. During the day, 
though cleanly shaved and with carefully brushed hair, 
they cultivated an extreme freedom of dress, wearing khaki 
shorts and open tennis shirts and faded cricket blazers. At 
dinner, however, they all appeared' in dinner jackets and 
stiff shirts. One of them told me that the reason he travelled 
second class was that he need not trouble about clothes, 
but that he had to draw the line somewhere. On the other 
side of the barrier we could see the first-class passengers 



SO WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
dressed very smartly in white flannels and parti-coloured 
brown and white shoes. Among them there was a youth 
who knew me hurrying back to contest a seat in the Con- 
servative interest at the General Election. He kept pop- 
ping over the rail to have cocktails with me and tell me 
about the lovely first-class girls he danced and played 
quoits with. He cost me quite a lot in cocktails. He often 
urged me to come over and see all the lovely girls and 
have cocktails with him. "My dear chap," he used to say, 
"no one will dare to say anything to you while you're with 
me. I'd soon fix it up with the Captain if they did." But 
I kept to my own bar. Later this young man, in his zeal 
to acquit himself splendidly before the first-class girls, 
clambered up one of the davits on the boat deck. He was 
reported to the Captain and seriously reprimanded. P. & 
O. ships are full of public school spirit. He did very badly 
indeed in the election, I believe, reducing an already 
meagre Conservative poll almost to extinction. 
Just before luncheon on the third morning, we came in 
sight of Malta. There was some delay about landing be- 
cause one of the passengers had "developed chicken-pox. 
There was only one other passenger disembarking. We 
had to go and see the medical officer in the first-class 
saloon. He had infinite difficulties about the pronuncia- 
tion of my name. He wanted to know the address I was 
going to in Malta. I would only tell him that I had not 
yet decided between the two hotels. He said, "Please 
decide now. I have to fill in this form." 
I said I could not until I had seen the managers. 
He said, "They are both good hotels, what does it 
matter?" . 
I said, "1 want to get in free." 
He thought I was clearly a very suspicious character, 
and told me that on pain of imprisonment, I must report 
daily at the Ministry of Health during my stay at Valletta. 
If I did not come the police would find me and bring me. 
I said I would come, and he gave me a quarantine form to 
keep. I lost the form that evening and never went near the 
Ministry of Health and heard no more about it. 
We went ashore in a lighter and landed at the Custom 



A PLEASURE CRUISE IN 19 2 9 51 
House. Here I was met by two young men, both short, 
swarthy, and vivacious, and each wearing a peaked cap 
above a shiny English suit. One had "The Osborne Hotel" 
in gold on his cap, the other "The Great Britain Hotel." 
Each held in his hand a duplicate letter from me, asking 
for accommodation. Each took possession of a bit of my 
luggage and handed me a printed card. One card said: 


THE OSBORNE HOTEL 
STRADA MEZZODI 


Every 
od
 iu)provement. Hot water. 
Excellent Cuisine. 
PATRONISED BY H.S.H. PRINCE LOUIS OF BATTEnnc 
AND THE DUKE OF BRONTE. 


t:Jec:nic light. 


,The other said: 
THE GREAT BRITAIN HOTEL 
STRADA MEZZODI 


Every modern improvement. Hot and cold water. E
c light.. 
Unrivalled cuisine. Sanitation. 
THE ONLY HOTEL UNDER ENGLISH MANAGEMENT 


(a fact, one would have thought, more fit to be concealed 
than advertised). 
I had been advised in Cairo that the Great Britain was 
really the better of the two, so I directed its representative 
to take charge of my luggage. The porter of the Osborne 
fluttered my letter petulantly before my eyes. 
"A forgery," I explained, shocked at my own duplicity. 
"I am afraid that you have been deluded by a palpable 
forgery." 
The porter of the Great Britain chartered two little 
horse-carriages, conducted me to one, and sat with the 
luggage in the other. There were low, fringed canopies 
over our heads so that it was impossible to see out very 
much. I was aware of a long and precipitous ascent, with 
many corners to turn. At some of these I got a glimpse of 
a baroque shrine, at others a sudden bird's-eye view of the 
Grand Harbour, full of shipping, with fortifications beyond. 



52 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
We went up and round, along a Droad street of shops and 
more important doorways. We passed groups of supremely 
ugly Maltese women wearing an astonishing black head- 
dress, half veil and half umbrella, which is the last legacy 
to the island of the conventual inclinations of the Knights 
of St. John. Then we turned off down a narrow side street 
and stopped at the little iron and glass porch of the Great 
Britain Hotel. A little dark passage led into a little dark 
lounge, furnished like an English saloon bar, with imita- 
tion leather arm-chairs, bowls of aspidistra on fumed oak 
stands, metal topped tables, and tables with plush cover- 
ings, Benares brass work, framed photographs, and ash- 
trays stamped with the trade-marks of various brands of 
whisky and gin. Do not mistake me; it was not remotely 
like an old-fashioned hotel in an English market town; it 
was a realisation of the picture I have always in my mind 
of the interiors of those hotels facing on to Paddington 
station, which advertise" ss. Bed and Breakfast" over such 
imposing names as Bristol, Clarendon, Empire, etc. My 
heart fell rather as I greeted my host in this dingy hall, 
and continued to fall as I ascended, story by story, to my 
bedroom. The worst of it, however, was in this first impres- 
sion, and I think I am really doing my duty honourably 
to the proprietor in warning people of it and exhorting 
them not to be deterred. For I can quite conscientiously 
say that the Great Britain is the best hotel in the island. 
I went later to look at the Osborne and felt that I had 
done better than H.S.H. Prince Louis of Battenberg and 
the Duke of Bronte. The food at the Great Britain was 
good; the servants particularly willing and engaging. One 
evening, being tired and busy, I decided to dine in my 
room. At Mena House, where there were hosts of servants 
and a lift, the dinner was brought up in one load and left 
outside the door; at the Great Britain every course was 
carried separately up three flights of stairs by the panting 
but smiling valet de chambre. 
Before I left, the proprietor of the hotel asked me, 
rather suspiciously, what I intended to say about him. 
They had had another writer, he told me, who had 
come to stay as his guest; he wrote for a paper called 



A PLEASURE CRUISE IN 19 2 9 53 
Town and Country Life; he had written a very nice piece 
indeed about the Great Britain. They had had the article 
reprinted for distribution. 
The proprietor gave me a copy. 
That, he said, was the kind of article that did a house 
good. He hoped mine would be as much like that as I 
could make it. 
I t began: "The beautiful and prolific foliage, exotic 
skies, and glorious blue waters, a wealth of sunshine that 
spells health and happiness, and the facilities for enjoying 
outdoor sports, all the year round, are a few of the reasons 
that has made Malta so popular. Picturesque scenery, and 
people, complete as fascinating an array of attractions as 
the heart of the most blase, could wish for." It continued 
in this way for a column, with the same excess of punctua- 
tion; then it gave a brief survey of lVlaltese history and 
a description of the principal sights, for another column. 
Then it started on the Great Britain Hotel. "No expense," 
it said, "has been spared to make the Public Rooms as 
comfortable as possible . . . the Management boasts that 
its meals equal in the excellence of its food, cooking and 
serving, those served at London's hostelries and restaurants 
. . . special pains are taken to see that all beds are most 
comfortable and only best material used. . ." and so on 
for a column and a half. It finished: "The luxuries of 
modern civilisation have all been embodied in the building 
and organisation of the Great Britain Hotel, Valletta, 
Malta, where the visitor is able to revel in the joys of a 
healthy happy stay amidst the fascinations of a modern 
palace set in Nature's own setting of sea and foliage, and 
here are to be obtained sunshine and warmth the whole 
year round." 
I will not be outdone in gratitude. If my appreciation 
is more temperately expressed it is none the less genuine. 
Let me state again, the Great Britain may be less suitably 
placed for golfers than Gleneagles; the gambling may be 
better from the Normandie; one can shop more conveni- 
ently from the Crillon, the Russie is set in a prettier square, 
one meets more amusing company at the Cavendish, one. 
can dance better at the Berkeley and sleep better at Mena 



54 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
and eat better at the Ritz, but the Great Britain Hotel, 
Valletta, Malta, is the best on the island; further comparisons 
seem rather to confuse the issue. 
I spent too little time in Malta. Most of my days were 
spent in exploring Valletta, with the aid of a small book 
called Walks in Malta, by F. Weston, which I bought for 
two shillings at Critien's, the big stationer's shop. I found 
it a slightly confusing book at first until I got used to the 
author's method; after that I became attached to it, not 
only for the variety of information it supplied, but for the 
amusing Boy-Scout game it made of sightseeing. "Turning 
sharply to your left you will notice. . ." Mr. Weston 
prefaces his comments, and there follows a minute record 
of detailed observation. On one occasion, when carrying 
his book, I landed at the Senglea quay, taking it for Vit- 
toriosa, and walked on for some time in the wrong town, 
hotly following false clues and identifying "windows with 
fine old mouldings," "partially defaced escutcheons," 
"interesting iron-work balustrades," etc., for nearly a mile, 
until a clearly non-existent cathedral brought me up sharp 
to the realisation of my mistake. 
Presently I began making enquiries at the shipping 
offices for a berth from Malta in any direction, and was 
told that these could rarely be guaranteed. Preference was 
always given to passengers booking a long passage. One 
just had to take one's chance. I was getting a little impatient 
with the proprietor of the Great Britain, who had, in the 
last two days, developed a habit of popping suddenly out 
of his office whenever I sat down to have a drink, and say- 
ing, '''Ullo, 'ullo. And 'ow's that book getting along? You 
don't seem to be seeing much of the island," adding 
encouragingly: "You couldn't see a 'alf of it, not if you 
was to spend a life-time 'ere, you couldn't." I became 
aware of a slight claustrophobic itch, and in this mood one 
day, less than a week after my arrival, I leant over the 
Cavalier of St. James, looking down into the Grand 
Harbour. Then I saw below, among the fishing-boats and 
cargo ships and nondescript official launches and lighters, 
,a very radiant new arrival; a large white motor vessel, built 
like a yacht with broad, clean decks and a single yellow 



A PLEASURE CRUISE IN 19 2 9 55 
funnel. I took the funicular down to the Custom House 
and looked at her from the quay. She was the Stella Polaris, 
on her second cruise from the one I had abandoned at Port 
Said. As I stood there the motor launch left her side and 
ran up to the quay, the Norwegian cross fluttering at her 
stern. Three or four passengers landed, carrying cameras 
and sunshades. With them was the purser. I greeted him. 
Was there a spare berth? He said there was. The Stella 
was not due to sail until next afternoon, but within an hour 
I had made my adieux at the Great Britain, assured the 
proprietor that he should have my warmest commendations 
to the British public, and moved my luggage down to the 
harbour. That afternoon I unpacked, sent a vast pile of 
clothes to the laundry, folded and hung up my suits, set in 
order the mass of papers I had accumulated, notes, photo- 
graphs, letters, guide-books, circulars, sketches, caught 
and killed two fleas I had picked up in the Manderaggio, 
and went above, very contentedly, to renew my acquaint- 
ance with the deck bar steward. 


On our way east we stopped for the day at Crete. The 
little harbour of Candia was too small for the Stella, so we 
anchored outside in the bay, well sheltered by the head- 
land of Cape Paragia and the island of Dia. Inside the 
fortified breakwater, with its finely carved Venetian lion, 
lay a jumble of ramshackle shipping-a small fishing 
fleet, two or three coastal sailing-boats, and some incredibly 
dissolute tramp steamers which ply between Pirreus and 
the islands. A cargo of wine was being loaded into one of 
these, bottled in goat-skins. 
There is one main street in the town and a labyrinth of 
divergent alleys. There is the fa9ade of a ruined Venetian 
palace, and a battered Venetian fountain carved with lions 
and dolphins. There is also a mosque, built up in places 
with capitals and fragments of carved stone work from 
other Venetian buildings. The top has been knocked off the 
minaret and the building has been turned into a cinemato- 
graph, where, by an odd coincidence, a film was being 
exhibited !lamed L'Ombre de Harem. The shops sold, 
mostly, hunks of very yellow and grey meat, old Turkish 



56 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
watches, comic German picture-postcards, and brightly 
patterned lengths of printed cotton. 
I accompanied a party of fellow passengers to the museum 
to admire the barbarities of Minoan culture. 
One cannot well judge the merits of Minoan painting, 
since only a few square inches of the vast area exposed to 
our consideration are earlier than the last twenty years, and 
their painters have tempered their zeal for reconstruction 
with a predilection for covers of Vogue. 
We chartered a Ford car and drove with a guide to 
Cnossos; where Sir Arthur Evans (our guide referred to 
him always as "Your English Lord Evans") is rebuilding 
the palace. At present only a few rooms and galleries are 
complete, the rest being an open hillside scarred with 
excavations, but we were able to form some idea of the 
magnitude and intricacy of the operation from the plans 
which were posted up for our benefit on the chief platform. 
I think that if our English Lord Evans ever finishes even 
a part of his vast undertaking, it will be a place of oppres- 
sive wickedness. I do not think that it can be only imagina- 
tion and the recollection of a bloodthirsty mythology which 
makes something fearful and malignant of the cramped 
galleries and stunted alleys, these colonnades of inverted, 
conical pillars, these rooms that are mere blind passages at 
the end of sunless staircases; this squat little throne, set 
on a landing where the paths of the palace intersect; it is 
not the seat of a lawgiver nor a divan for th
 recreation of 
a soldier; here an ageing despot might crouch and have 
borne to him, along the walls of a whispering gallery, 
barely audible intimations of his own murder. 
There was one pretty incident of my visit which I only 
discovered later. I took a camera with me to Cnossos and 
left it in the car when we went over the excavations. I re- 
member being mildly surprised later in the day, when 
I came to photograph the harbour, to see by the number 
that I had exposed more of the film than I thought. When 
it came back from the ship's photographic shop after being 
developed I was surprised to find a picture I had never 
taken; it was just recognisable as the Ford car in which 
we had driven to Cnossos, with the driver sitting very 



A PLEASURE CRUISE IN 19 2 9 57 
upright at the wheel. He must have induced one of his 
friends to take it while w
 were at the palace, and I thought 
it argued a nice nature in the man. He could not have 
hoped either to receive a print or even to see our surprise 
when the result of his little joke became visible. I like to 
think that he wished to add a more durable bond to our 
relationship than the fleeting obligation of two hours' hire; 
he wanted to emphasise his individual existence as a separate 
thing from the innumerable, impersonal associations of the 
tourist. I am sure he was amused at the thought of the 
little surprise he had stored up for us, when we cursorily 
paid him his fare and went back to our ship. Perhaps he 
experienced something of the satisfaction which those 
eccentric (and regrettably rare) benefactors derive from 
sending bank-notes anonymously to total strangers. If only 
his technical ability had come up to his good nature, I would 
have reproduced his portrait in this book, but I am afraid 
that, in the only form I possess, it would do him no further 
credit. 
We spent the night at anchor and sailed early next 
morning so as to pass the Cyclades in daylight. 
We passed a new island, recently erupted from the sea 
-a heap of smoking volcanic matter, as yet quite devoid 
of life. Then past Naxos, Paras, and Mykonos into the 
lEgean, and so north to the Dardanelles, making fifteen 
knots through a calm sea. "Can't you just see the quin- 
qui-remes?" said an American lady to me, as we leant on 
the rail, near each other. "From distant Ophir," she added, 
"with a cargo of ivory, sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet 
white wine." 
We were in the Hellespont when we awoke next morn- 
ing, and passed Suvla Bay and Gallipoli before noon. The 
sea was pale green and opaque with the ice water that was 
coming down from the Black Sea. The Sea of Marmara 
was choppy; we ran under cold winds and a gr
y sky, 
broken by fitful bursts of sunlight. 
It was getting dark by the time that we came to the 
mouth of the Golden Horn. A low sea mist was hanging 
about the town, drifting and mingling with the smoke 
from the chimneys. The domes and towers stood out 



58 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
indistinctly, but even in their obscurity formed a tremen- 
dous prospect; just as the sun was on the horizon it broke 
through the clouds, and, in the most dramatic way possible, 
threw out a great splash of golden light over the minarets 
of St. Sophia. At least, I think it was St. Sophia. It is one 
of the delights of one's first arrival by sea at Constantinople 
to attempt to identify this great church from the photo- 
graphs among which we have all been nurtured. As one 
approaches, dome after dome comes into view, and receives, 
each in its turn, little gasps of homage. Finally, when the 
whole immense perspective has been laid before us, two 
buildings contend for recognition. The more imposing one 
is the Mosque of Ahmed 1. One can identify it by its 
distinction, unique except for the Kaaba at Mekka, of 
having six minarets. A more convincing way, however, of 
carrying one's point, is to say, "That" -pointing wherever 
you choose-"is Agia Sophia." 
"Agia" will always win the day for one. A more recon- 
dite snobbism is to say "Aya Sophia," but except in a very 
sophisticated circle, who will probably not need guidance 
in the matter at all, this is liable to suspicion as a mere 
mispronunciation. 


Next day, with only about two hours to spare, we went 
to the Serai, the palace of the Sultans, now converted into 
a public museum; the attendants are mostly the survivors 
of the royal eunuchs. One was a dwarf; he had a funny 
little shrivelled up, sexless face and a big black overcoat 
which brushed the ground and came very near to tripping 
him up once or twice. None of them were as big and fat 
as I had imagined. In the bad times before the secure 
establishment of the Kemalist regime, I am told that there 
was a big demonstration meeting held by the agitated 
eunuchs to protest against the abolition of polygamy. 
The most striking thing about the Serai is its astonish- 
ing discomfort. It somewhat resembles Earl's Court 
Exhibition, consisting, not of a single building, but of a 
large enclosed area, laid out roughly with lawns and trees, 
and strewn fortuitously with kiosks and pavilions of varying 
date and design. It is simply a glorified nomad encampment. 



A PLEASURE CRUISE IN 19 2 9 59 
Constantinople is by no means warm. The site was 
chosen for its political and geographical importance rather 
than for the serenity of its climate. It is exposed to cold 
winds from the Steppes, and snow is not uncommon. Yet, 
in the five centuries of Turkish occupation, it seems never 
to have occurred to the sultans, with vast wealth and un- 
limited labour at their disposal, to provide any kind of 
covered corridor between the various rooms of their chief 
residence. Their highest aspirations towards physical luxury 
were confined to sprawling among gaudy silk cushions and 
munching sweetmeats while the icy wind whistled through 
the lattice-work over their heads. No wonder they took to 
drink. The treasures of the royal household, however, are 
staggering. Some idea of the economy of the Serai can be 
gained from the fact that the officials of the Kemalist party, 
when making a tour of the buildings in the first months 
of their occupation, came upon a room stacked from floor 
to ceiling with priceless sixteenth-century porcelain, still 
in the original wrappings in which it had arrived by caravan 
from China. It had been no one's business to unpack it, 
and there it had lain through the centuries. Theft and 
embezzlement must have been continuous and unchecked 
in the household. The astonishing thing is the amount of 
treasure that has survived the years of imperial bankruptcy. 
There are huge uncut emeralds and diamonds, great shape- 
less drops full of flaws, like half-sucked sweets; there is 
a gold throne set with cabuchons of precious stone; a throne 
of inlaid mother-a' -pearl and tortoiseshell; there are cases 
of jewelled pipe mouthpieces, and of dagger-hilts, watches, 
cigar-holders, snuff boxes, hand-mirrors, brushes, combs- 
twenty or thirty of each, all supremely magnificent; there 
is a dressing-table presented by Catherine the Great, 
encrusted all over, every inch of it, with rose-co loured 
paste jewels; there is a dressing-table presented by 
Frederick the Great, covered with alabaster and amber; 
there is an exquisite Japanese garden and temple made of 
filigree gold and enamel; there is a model paddle steamer, 
made of red and white gold with diamond port-holes and 
ruby and emerald pennons; there is the right hand and 
the skull of St. John the Baptist; there are jewels to be 



60 w HEN THE GO I N G WAS GOO D 
worn in turbans and jewels to be worn round the neck 
on chains and jewels to be worn by women and jewels to 
be played with and tumbled listlessly between the fingers 
from hand to hand. The guide made a round estimate of 
each object in turn as being worth "more than a million 
dollars." One cannot help doubting, however, whether, in 
the prolonged period of Turkish insolvency, some depreda- 
tions were not made upon this hoard. It would have been 
so easy to prize out a cabuchon emerald or so with the 
finger-nail and replace it with a jujube, that I feel it must 
have been done from time to time-who knows how often? 
Immediately in front of me in our tour of inspection 
there travelled a very stout, rich lady from America, some 
of whose conversation I was privileged to overhear. What- 
ever the guide showed her, china, gold, ivory, diamond or 
amber, silk or carpet, this fortunate lady was able casually 
to remark that she had one like that at home. "Why," she 
would say, "whoever would have thought that that was of 
any value. I've got three like that, that Cousin Sophy left 
me, bigger, of course, but just the same pattern, put away 
in one of the store-rooms. I must have them out when I get 
back. I never looked on them as being anything much." 
But she had to admit herself beaten by the right hand 
and skull of St. John the Baptist. 
We sailed next afternoon just before sunset. 
The chief subject of conversation on board that evening 
was an accident which had occurred in the harbour. The 
ferry steamer which travels between Galata and Scutari, 
on the other side of the Bosphorus, had run on to the rocks 
in the morning mist; the passengers had been removed 
without loss of life, but only just in time. There was a new- 
comer in the Stella-a very elegant Greek who wore an 
Old Etonian tie and exhibited an extensive acquaintance 
with the more accessible members of the English peerage. 
He had been on board the ferry boat at the time of the 
disaster, and he gave a very interesting account of his 
experience. The ship had been crowded with labourers 
going across to their work. At the first impact the Captain 
and his chief officer leaped into the only boat and made 
off. Later in the day the Captain resigned his command, 



A PLEASURE CRUISE IN 1929 61 
on the grounds that this was the third time it had happened 
in eighteen months and his nerves were not what they had 
been. Left to themselves the passengers, who were a motley 
race of Turks, Jews, and Armenians, fell into a state of 
mad panic. The only helpful course would have been to 
sit absolutely firm and hope for rescue. Instead they trotted 
moaning from side to side, swaying the ship to and fro and 
shaking it off the rocks on which it was impaled. My 
informant sat, frozen with terror, on one of the seats, in 
expectation of almost immediate capsize. He was here met 
by a stout little man, strutting calmly along the deck with 
a pipe in his mouth and his hands plunged into the pockets 
of his ulster. They observed each other with mutual esteem 
as the frenzied workmen jostled and shouted round them. 
"I perceive, sir," said the man with the pipe, "that you, 
too, are an Englishman." 
"No," answered the Greek, "only a damned foreigner." 
"I beg your pardon, sir," said the Englishman, and 
walked to the side of the ship, to drown alone. 
Fortunately, however, there was no drowning. Boats 
came out from the shore and removed all the passengers 
before the ship foundered. 
The Greek was travelling only as far as Athens. I spent 
most of next day in his company. He asked me searching 
questions about "restheticism" at Oxford. He had been 
at the House, but remarked with a shade of regret that he 
had not found any "restheticism" in his day. Was it be- 
cause of "restheticism" that Oxford did so badly at athletics. 
I said, no, the evil was deeper than that. I didn't mind 
telling another Oxford man, but the truth was, that there 
was a terrible outbreak of drug-taking at the University. 
"Cocaine?" 
"Cocaine," I said, "and worse." 
"But do the dons do nothing to stop it?'.' 
"My dear man, the dons are the origin of the whole 
trouble." 
He said that there had been practically no drug-taking 
at the House in his time. 
He renewed the attack later in the day. Would I come 
down to his cabin to have a drink? 



62 w HEN THE GO IN G W kS GOO D 
I said I would have a drink with him by all means, but 
in the deck bar. 
He said, "I can see you are Scottish because of your 
blue eyes. I had a very dear friend who was a Scotchman. 
You remind me a little of him." 
Later, he said, would I come to his cabin to look at a 
silver Turkish inkpot. I said no, but I would love to see 
it on deck. It was very ugly. 
When he disembarked he invited me to luncheon at the 
Grande Bretagne. I said, yes, but next day he did not turn 
up. 
We arrived just before dinner and moored in Phaleron 
Bay. 


I had been to Athens once before, at a time when I had 
never been farther from England than Paris. I shall not 
easily forget the romance of my first arrival. I came from 
Marseilles in the Patris II, a Hellenic national ship of 
fairly recent construction. It was in winter and we had 
rough weather most of the way. I shared a cabin with a 
Greek currant merchant who did not move from his bed 
during the five days' voyage. The only other English- 
speaking first-class passenger was a blustering American 
engineer. I sat on deck most of the time, feeling rather 
ill and reading James's Varieties of Religious Experience. 
At intervals the American and I drank mastika. He said 
if one ever drank mastika one returned to Greece; some- 
times I went and looked over at the "deck passengers," 
huddled under improvised tents, scratching their feet, and 
always eating. Pirreus was our first stop. Sun had set and 
the harbour was all alight when we came in. There was 
a long delay before we could land. The rowing boats came 
out all round us packed so tight that one could have walked 
ashore, all the boatmen shouting for custom. The friends 
I was visiting had come out to meet me, and sat bobbing 
below and shouting up, "Evelyn." They had brought their 
valet with them to deal with the luggage-a man of singular 
ferocity who had been a hired assassin at Constantinople 
under the old regime. He and the boatmen took up the 
cry "EE-lin! EE-lin!" 



A PLEASURE CRUISE IN 19 2 9 63 
Then my luggage got into the hands of the wrong boat- 
man, and he and that valet had a fight which the valet 
won very easily by means of an outrageous but wholly 
conclusive foul blow. Then we went ashore and drove 
very quickly from Pirreus to Athens, along a road cleft and 
scarred as if by bombardment, in a very ramshackle Morris 
car which had no lamps or brakes or hooter, but was freed 
from police molestation by a diplomatic number and a little 
Union Jack between the places where the headlights ought 
to have been. 
It was the Orthodox Christmas Day, and the streets 
were full of people shaking hands and kissing and letting , 
off fireworks in each other's eyes. We went straight to a 
night club kept by a one-legged Maltese, who gave us 
cocktails made out of odd drugs and a spirit of his own 
dis tillin g . 
Later the premiere danseuse of the cabaret came out and 
sat at our table and warned us on no account to touch the 
cocktails. It was too late. 
Later still I drove round the city in a taxi-cab on I for- 
get what errand, and then back to the night club. The 
taxi-driver followed me to our table. I had given him as 
a tip over ten pounds in drachmas, my watch, my gloves, 
and my spectacle-case. It was too much, he protested. 
The rest of my visit was rather overshadowed by this 
introduction to Athenian life. That was in my under- 
graduate days, and it makes me feel unnaturally old to 
recall them. 
But even now, in comparative maturity, my second visit 
to Athens coincided with my introduction to a new sort 
of drink. As soon as I landed 1 took a taxi into the town, 
to visit a friend called Alastair who lived at this time in 
a little house in the eastern quarter, under the slopes of 
Lycabettus, in a side street off the Kolonaki Square. This 
house was full of mechanical singing birds and eikons, one 
of which, oddly enough the most modern, had miraculous 
powers. One of Alastair's servants gave notice, on the 
grounds that it used to stretch an arm out of the picture 
and bang him over the head when he neglected his work. 
Alastair was not yet dressed. I told him that I had had 



64 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
a late night, drinking after the ball with some charming 
Norwegians, and felt a little shaken. He then made me 
this drink, which I commend to anyone in need of a whole- 
some and easily accessible pick-me-up. He took a large 
tablet of beet sugar (an equivalent quantity of ordinary 
lump sugar does equally well) and soaked it in Angostura 
Bitters and then rolled it in Cayenne pepper. This he put 
into a large glass which he filled up with champagne. The 
excellences of this drink defy description. The sugar and 
Angostura enrich the wine and take away that slight acidity 
which renders even the best champagne slightly repugnant 
in the early morning. Each bubble as it rises to the surface 
carries with it a red grain of pepper, so that as one drinks 
one's appetite is at once stimulated and gratified, heat and 
cold, fire and liquid, contending on one's palate and alter- 
nating in the mastery of one's sensations. I sipped this 
almost unendurably desirable drink and played with the 
artificial birds and musical boxes until Alastair was ready 
to come out. I had another friend in Athens called Mark, 
and with these two I spent two delightful days. 
We drove along the Eleusis road, pursued at times by 
savage sheep-dogs, and then turned off by the cart road 
below Mount lEgaleos to an isolated cafe overlooking the 
bay of Salamis. It was Sunday afternoon, and there were 
several other parties sitting under the Hawaian thatched 
arbour. There was a photographer making little tin-type 
photographs which, when developed, usually revealed his 
own thumb print and little else. There were two students, 
male and female, in football shorts and open shirts, with 
rugged staffs and haversacks. There was a very happy 
family of Athenian bourgeoises. They had a baby with 
them. This they first sat on the table, then on the top of 
their car; then they put it upside down on a chair; then it 
was lifted on to the roof of the cafe, then it was put astride 
a clothes line and rocked gently backwards and forwards, 
then it was put into the bucket of the well and let down 
out of sight, then it was given a bottle of gaseous lemonade, 
a more perilous drink in Athens than in any town in the 
world. To all these efforts towards its entertainment it 
responded with chirrups of happy laughter and big, frothy 



A PLEASURE CRUISE IN 19 2 9 6S 
bubbles dribbling down its chin. There was also a limousine 
containing two very mont/aine young ladies, who would not 
come into the open, but sat back hardly visible among cut 
velvet upholsteries and were waited upon by two adolescent 
military officers; now and then the window would be let 
down and jewelled fingers would appear, haughtily discard
 
ing a sheet of silver paper or a banana skin. 
Mark and Alastair and I sat in the shade and drank 
a carafe of resinated white wine and ate Turkish delight, 
while the photographer capered before us with his camera 
and caused us to purchase enough copies of his thumb 
print to convict him of any crime in the Greek statute 
book. 
We went back to the Stella for dinner and then returned 
to see the night life. First we went to an underground cafe 
decorated with pseudo-Russian frescoes. Here we saw most 
of the English colony, engaged in those fervent intrigues, 
part social, part political, part personal, which embellish 
and enrich Athenian life more than that of any capital in 
Europe. But the entertainment was confined to one pianist 
in Georgian peasant dress. We asked if there was to be no 
cabaret. "Alas," said the manageress. "Not to-night. Last 
night there was a German gentleman here, and he bit the 
girls so terribly in the legs that to-night they say they will 
not dance!" 
From there we went to the Folies Bergeres, which was 
very chic and Parisian; the waiter tried to induce us to 
order champagne, and a Hungarian Jewess performed 
Oriental dances in a Chu-Chin-Chow slave market 
costume, modestly supplemented with Rink cotton tights. 
Mark's boredom soon became uncontroltable, so we called 
for our bill, paid them half what they demanded (which 
they accepted with every manifestation of gratitude), and 
left. 
We walked across the gardens to the poorer part of the 
town. Of the many smells of Athens two seem to me the 
most characteristic-that of garlic, bold and deadly like 

cety
ene gas, and that of dust, soft and warm and caress- 

ng hke tweed. It was in this dusty smell that we walked 
In the garden, but garlic met us at the bottom of the steps 



66 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
which led from the street to the door of the MfTAP 
GEAMTOE; it was garlic sweetened, however, by the 
savour of roast lamb. There were two lambs impaled 
horizontally on spits, sizzling over an open charcoal fire. 
The atmosphere was one of Dickensian conviviality. Only 
men were present, most of them peasants come up from 
the country for the night. They all smiled greetings to us, 
and one of them sent three mugs of beer across to our 
table. This began a tremendous round of ceremonious 
health-drinking which was still going on by the time we 
left. It is the commendable practice of the Greeks never 
to serve drink without food, usually a little bit of garlic 
sausage, or bad ham on the end of a match; these appear 
in little saucers, and our table was soon strewn with them. 
Two men in the corner were playing guitars of a kind, 
and others were dancing, with very severe expressions on 
their faces but a complete lack of self-consciousness. They 
were Pyrrhic dances of indefinable antiquity. Four of them 
danced together, going through the various figures with 
great solemnity. If one of them made a false move it was 
as though he had dropped a catch in an English cricket 
match; they accepted his apologies in as sporting a spirit 
as they could assume, but it clearly was a grave wrong, not 
lightly to be dismissed or expiated except by prodigies of 
accuracy in the future. Moreover, as in cricket, the amateur 
status was jealously preserved. So far from taking a hat 
round after the performance, the dancers themselves paid 
a few halfpence to the band. There was keen competition 
to dance, the fours being already made up and eagerly 
waiting for their turn to take the floor. The only fight 
which occurred that evening was occasioned by one rather 
tipsy young man attempting to perform out of his turn. 
They all set on him and pummelled him for his bad manners, 
but later it was made up and they drank his health. 
As the evening went on the conversation became more 
animated. I was unable to follow it, but Alastair said it was 
mostly about politics; an uninstructed discussion but full 
of high feeling. There was an elderly man with a curly 
grey beard who was much moved. He roared and pounded 
on the table with his fist; he pounded on his glass) broke 



A PLEASURE CRUISE IN 1929 67 
it, and cut himself. He stopped arguing and began to cry. 
Immediately everyone else stopped arguing too and came 
over to comfort him. They wrapped a grubby handkerchief 
round his hand, which was not, I think, at all seriously 
injured. They gave him beer and bits of bad ham on 
matches; they patted him on the back and put their arms 
round his neck and kissed him. Soon he was smiling again 
and the discussion was resumed, but as soon as he showed 
signs of excitement, they warned him with smiles, by 
moving his mug farther across the table. 
At last, after a great many adieux, we climbed up the 
steps again into the fresh air, and so home under the orange- 
trees through the warm darkness that smelled like tweed. 
Next morning Alastair had to go to the Chancery to 
decode telegrams, so Mark and I went shopping in Shoe 
Lane-the street in the old Turkish quarter where all 
the second-hand dealers have their stalls. Mark continued 
some negotiations which, he told me, had already been 
protracted for three weeks, concerning the purchase of 
a grotto constructed by Anatolian refugees out of cork 
and looking-glass and pieces of sponge; only the price 
prevented me from buying a marble statuette of an associa- 
tion footballer. 
The Stella was sailing at noon for Venice, and I narrowly 
escaped missing the last launch from the shore, Mark 
delaying me by the gift of three religious postcards, a 
balloon, and a basket of black olives. 
Immediately after luncheon we passed through the 
Corinth canal, which, for some reason I could not under- 
stand, attracted many of the passengers more than any- 
thing they had yet seen on their travels. It took some 
time to go through, but they remained on deck, photo- 
graphing it and talking about it and making water-colour 
sketches of its featureless stone sides, while I went to my 
cabin and dozed; I had a good deal of sleep to make up 
and this seemed an opportunity. 
We reached Corfu early next morning. 


When, after my first visit to Greece, I stopped there for 
a few hours (in a vile ship called the rperoke, where I was 



68 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
travelling second class in barely conceivable discomfort), 
it seemed to me then one of the most beautiful places I had 
ever seen. So much was I impressed, that when, later, 
I found myself writing a novel about someone very rich. 
I gave her a viHa in Corfu, as I thought that, when I was 
rich, that was one of the first things I would buy. 
The chief merchandise of the island seemed to be live 
tortoises and olive-wood animals, made by the convicts in 
the prison. Several passengers in the Stella bought tortoises, 
few of which survived the voyage; tortoise races became 
an added attraction to the deck games. The chief disability 
suffered by tortoises as racing animals is not their slowness 
so much as their defective sense of direction. I had exactly 
the same difficulty when I used to take part in sports at 
my school, and was repeatedly disqualified for fouling the 
other competitors. 
I drove in a horse-carriage along the Vide Imperatore 
Guglielmo, which is bordered by groves of olive, rose, and 
orange-trees, to the little balustraded platform called, in 
the old style, Canone Point, or, in its Hellenised version, 

Ton KANON/. This is the extreme point of the peninsula 
that runs out from the town, enclosing the fiord called Lake 
Kaliki-copulo. There used to be a battery here of one gun. 
Now there is a cafe-restaurant. The bank falls steeply 
down to the water, where there are two tiny islands, the 
one wooded, containing a villa that was once, I think, 
a monastery; the other is very small and is completely 
occupied by a minute chapel, two cypress-trees, and a 
parsonage. It is accessible from the beach by stepping- 
stones. I went down to it. There were two little bells in 
the tower, and, inside, some quite black eikons and a hen 
laying an egg. The priest appeared magically, rowing a 
boat full of vegetables from the opposite bank. His son 
sat in the stern with bare legs crossed under him, nursing 
a tin of Californian peaches. I gave some money to the 
church expenses and climbed up the hill path to the cafe. 
One or two other passengers had arrived from the Stella. 
I joined them, and ate sponge fingers and drank some 
delicious Corfiote wine, that looks like the juice of blood 
oranges and tastes like cider and costs, or should cost 



A PLEASURE CRUISE IN 1929 69 
when one is not obviously a tourist, about twopence. A 
band appeared, of two guitars and a fiddle. The fiddler 
was quite young but blind. They played, "Yes, Sir, That's 
my Baby," in the oddest way conceivable, and laughed 
aloud with pleasure at the money they collected. 
During the days on our way back to Monte Carlo we 
were rarely out of sight of land for long. 
I do not think I shall ever forget the sight of Etna at 
sunset; the mountain almost invisible in a blur of pastel 
grey, glowing on the top and then repeating its shape, as 
though reflected, in a wisp of grey smoke, with the whole 
horizon behind radiant with pink light, fading gently into 
a grey pastel sky. Nothing I have ever seen in Art or 
Nature was quite so revolting. 
Monte Carlo was practically deserted; the Sporting Club 
was closed; the Russian ballet had packed up and left for 
their last season in London; the dress shops had either 
already closed or were advertising their end of the season 
sales; there were shutters up in most of the villas and hotels; 
a few invalids encumbered the promenades in their bath- 
chairs; Mr. Rex Evans had ceased to sing. And I wondered, 
as I pottered about those serene and sunny streets or sat 
drowsily in the shade of the Casino Gardens, at that pro- 
vision of destiny which has made rich people so rigidly 
liturgical in their movements that" they will come to Monte 
Carlo in the snow because that is the time ordained for 
their arrival in rubric and calendar, and will leave as soon 
as it becomes habitable for their grubby great shambling 
cities in the north; and how unlike rich people are to the 
lilies of the field, who do not divide time by any metrical 
system, but will joyfully put out buds at the first intima- 
tion of spring, and lose them, almost immediately," in the 
intervening frost. 


On Norwegian Independence Day, the Stella was dressed 
with hundreds of little flags. That evening there were speeches 
at dinner, and after the dancing a party, given by.the officers 
and the Scandinavian passengers. The first officer made a 
patriotic speech in Norwegian and then in English, and then 



70 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
he made a speech in English in praise of England and then 
translated his speed:. into Norwegian. Then I made a speech 
in English in praise of Norway, and one of the passengers 
translated my speech into Norwegian; then she made a speech 
in English and Norwegian in praise of England and Norway 
and quoted Kipling. It was all delightful. Then we went 
down to the lower deck, where the crew were having a 
tremendous supper of Norwegian delicatessen and sugar 
cakes and champagne; one of them was in a rostrum made 
of flags; he was delivering a patriotic speech. Then we all 
drank each other's health and danced; it was by no means 
a calm sea. Then we went up to the Captain's cabin and 
ate a dish called eggdosis, but I do not know how it was 
spelt. It was made of eggs and sugar and brandy whipped 
up into a firm cream. Then we went to the cabin of the 
lady who had translated my speech and there we made 
more speeches, oddly enough most of them in French. 
I woke up feeling a little ill after Independence Day, 
and found that we had arrived in Algiers, and that the deck 
was already covered with stalls as though for a charity 
bazaar. They were selling filigree gold jewellery, binoculars, 
and carpets. The water in the harbour was dense with 
floating refuse; young men swam about, butting and 
churning back with their arms the scum of empty bottles, 
sodden paper, grape-fruit skins, and kitchen waste, and 
calling for coins to be tnrown to them. 
After luncheon I climbed rather heavily up to the 
Kasbar. There is a fine view from there over the town 
and harbour and the whole Bay of Algiers; the houses are 
very old and the alleys narrow and precipitous; it has that 
vivid street life that one sees in every old town which has 
a slum quarter inaccessible to traffic; there was one street 
and a little terrace given up to houses of ill-fame-all very 
gay with bright paint and tiles, and crowded thick at every 
, door and window with plain, obese young women in gaudy 
clothes. If I had come there fresh from England I should 
have found it amusing enough, but as a spectacle of Oriental 
life it was less exciting than Cairo on Bajiram night, and 
as an example of medireval town-planning less formidable 
than the Manderaggio at Valletta. 



A PL
ASURE CRUISE IN 1929 71 
There was very little begging or street hawking except 
the inevitable swarm of boot-cleaners, and no native drago- 
mans. Except on the harbour front one could walk about 
unmolested; there, however, one had to run the gauntlet 
of a great number of guides-nasty, jaunty young men for 
the most part, dressed in European suits and straw hats, 
bow ties, and Charlie Chaplin moustaches; their particular 
trade was organising parties to see native dances-fetes 
Mauresques-and an intolerable nuisance they were over 
it. Many of the passengers from the Stella went off with 
them and came back with very different reports of the 
entertainment. Some appeared to have seen decorous and 
perfectly genuine performances in the courtyards of one 
or other of the medireval Moorish houses; they described 
a native band with drums and wind instruments and 
a troupe of veiled dancing girls who went through the 
figures of various traditional tribal dances; they said it was 
a little monotonous, but they seemed quite satisfied with 
their evening. Another party, including two English- 
women, were led to the top floor of a house of ill-fame, 
where they were sat round the walls of a tiny room. Here 
they waited for some time in the light of a small oil lamp, 
becoming more and more uneasy, until the curtains of the 
door were suddenly thrust aside and a very large, elderly 
Jewess pranced in among them, quite naked except for 
a little cheap jewellery, and proceeded to perform a danse 
de ventre on the few yards of floor that separated them. 
The verdict of one of the Englishwomen on this experi- 
ence was: "Well, I am quite glad in a way to have seen it, 
but I should certainly never wish to go again." Her com- 
panion refused to discuss the subject at all, from any angle, 
with anyone, and for the rest of the voyage entirely avoided 
the company of the gentlemen who had escorted her that 
evening. 
. But there was one party who had a still sadder time of 
It. They were five Scots people in early middle age, three 
women and two men, inter-related in some way that I never 
had occasion to define. These were caught by a very shady 
guide who took them up to the Kasbar in a taxi-cab. He 
charged them 2.00 francs for this drive, which they politely 



72 w HEN THE GO IN G WAS GOO D 
paid without question. He then took them to a house in 
a blind alley, knocked on the door three times, and excited 
their uneasiness by saying, "This is very dangerous. You 
are safe as long as you are with me, but on no account get 
separated or I cannot answer for the consequences." They 
were admitted one at a time and charged a I 00 francs each. 
The door was shut behind them and they were led down 
to a cellar. The guide eXplained to them that they must 
order coffee, which they did at the cost of 20 francs a head. 
Before they had tasted it a revolver shot sounded just out
 
side the door. 
"Run for your lives," said the guide. 
They scampered out and found their taxi, which, by 
apparent good fortune, was waiting for them. 
"No doubt the ladies are feeling unsettled by their 
experience. Would they like a little cognac?" 
He then directed the car, which cost another 200 francs 
to one of the ordinary cafes of the town and gave them 
each a tot of eau-de-vie. He settled the bill for them and 
explained that it had come to 25 francs a head and 10 francs 
for the tip. 
"That is the advantage of coming with me," he explained. 
"I do the tips for you and you are not put upon. There are 
many cheats in this town who would take advantage of 
your inexperience if you were alone." 
He then saw them back to the ship, reminding them 
discreetly that the fees for his evening's services were 
100 francs or whatever they liked to make it. They were 
still so bewildered and agitated that they gave him 
a hundred and fifty, thanking him very much and con- 
gratulating themselves on the narrow escape they had had. 
It did them credit that they did not conceal this dismal 
story, but told it to everyone on board, half resentfully but 
half humorously. 
"I'd like to go back and have a few words with that 
merchant," remarked the men of the party, but, alas, by 
that time we had left Algiers. 


All over the world there are rock formations in which 
people profess to see the likeness of natural objects- 



A PLEASURE CRUISE IN 19 2 9 73 
heads of crusaders, dogs, cattle, petrified beldams, etc. 
There is an idea, started, I believe, by Thackeray, that 
the Rock of Gibraltar looks like a lion. "It is the very 
image," he said, "of an enormous lion, crouched between 
the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, and set there to guard 
the passage for its British mistress." Everyone else on 
board was instantly struck by the felicity of this image, so 
I suppose that it must be due to some deficiency in my 
powers of observation that to me it appeared like a great 
slab of cheese and like nothing else. 
An English policeman with helmet, whistle, truncheon, 
and rolled mackintosh cape was on duty at the landing- 
stage. I think this man pleased the English passengers 
more than anything they had seen in their travels. "It 
makes one feel so safe inside," said one of the ladies. 
I walked for some time about those very clean streets, 
feeling that there could be no town in the world without 
something of interest somewhere. The shop windows 
displayed little except seedy shaving brushes and tarnished 
cutlery and indefinable objects stitched on to cards; there 
were chemists' shops selling English aperients and patent 
pills; a paper-shop selling threepenny novelettes and two- 
penny weeklies; a few curiosity shops with a stock oddly 
composed of little Victorian and Edwardian knick-knacks 
-descended presumably from officers' villas-and flaring 
modern embroideries and beaten metal from Tangier. 
There was a tobacconist selling Dunhill pipes and tobacco- 
jars ornamented with regimental and naval devices. I passed 
some sailors' wives standing near a milliner's window; they 
shrank as I passed as though I had brought with me some 
of the polluted air of Malaga. Most of them, I learned 
later, keep strictly to their houses when there are "trippers 
about," like Hampstead residents on bank-holidays. 
As I was walking along very disconsolately I found 
a notice which said, "To Brighter 'Bralter. 
" I fol- 
lowed it for some way until I came to another, similar 
announcement, and so, in pursuit of pleasure, I began 
a kind of lugubrious treasure hunt, following these clues 
through the length of that town. At last I came to the 
South Port Gate and a neat little cemetery, where are 



74 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
buried a number of men who fell at Trafalgar. Many of 
the graves were of pretty, Wedgwood pattern, with urns 
and delicate carved plaques. Somewhat farther ahead, in 
a kind of recreation ground, preparations were being made 
with tents and awnings for some kind of gymkhana. I felt, 
however, that the posters had at least led me to the one 
tolerable spot on the Rock. 


At the time of our visit, Seville was illuminated in the 
evenings by flood-lights, in honour of the Spanish-American 
Exposition. 
This exhibition had only just opened, and many of the 
buildings were still unfinished. It must not be supposed, 
however, that the project had been hurriedly or frivolously 
undertaken. The 1913 edition of Baedeker's Spain and 
Portugal mentions that large portions of the park were at 
that time closed for the preparations. We were presented 
on landing with a prettily decorated prospectus written in 
English, which remarked: "Five hundred years from now 
the descendants of those who visit this Exposition will see 
with their own eyes these very same buildings, mellowed 
by the passing ages, but equal to their present grandeur in 
lines and in massive construction." Some of the buildings 
certainly will profit by mellowing, being at present very 
gay indeed in bright patterned brick work and coloured 
tiles; a little too gay, perhaps, for their "massive construc- 
tion" and the academic future ordained for them. Their 
contents, however, were magnificent. I spent a delightful 
afternoon quite alone in the two great art galleries. Sd far 
from suffering the bargain-sale scramble of a loan collec- 
tion in London, one was able to walk round these superb 
galleries absolutely alone. 
But the whole exhibition was like that. Tourists had 
so far not arrived in any appreciable quantities, and the 
Sevillians after sixteen years' preparation were bored with 
the whole business. There were element
 of ill-feeling in 
their neglect. They considered that the price of admis- 
sion was too high and that they had been unrighteously 
defrauded of the use of their favourite park. There was 
no organised boycott, but it just so happened that no 



A PLEASURE CRUISE IN 19 2 9 75 
Sevillians went to their exhibition. There was a model 
railway, with a miniature steam-engine, which took an 
empty train round and round the ground; there was an 
Atraccion Park in which a great wheel revolved, empty; 
there were switch-backs and scenic railways on which 
empty cars swooped and swerved through breath-taking 
descents; there were silent rifle ranges with heaps of 
ammunition lying undischarged and mountains of bottles 
unbroken; in the evening the gardens were brilliantly 
illuminated; the trees were filled with electric-light bulbs 
in the shape of apples, oranges, and clusters of bananas; 
ingeniously concealed flood-lamps made the lawns luminous 
and many coloured; electric lights were hidden under the 
water-lilies on the lake; illuminated fountains sparkled 
high in the air, like soundle'Ss and inexhaustible fireworks. 
It would have been a fascinating scene even in a Wembley 
crowd; on the night of my visit there was not another 
figure stirring anywhere; I felt as if I had achieved the 
Nonconformist ideal of being the only righteous soul 
saved in the universe; quite, quite alone in the whole of 
paradise. I suppose it really is not wholly gracious to 
emphasise this particular feature of the exhibition, as it 
can clearly not have come about by any deliberate inten- 
tion of the organisers. To compliment them on it is some- 
what like the polite painter who I once overheard, while 
being shown round the infinitely nurtured and tended 
garden of an acquaintance, congratulate his host on the 
excellence of his "soft, mossy lawns." Rather a touching 
paragraph in the prospectus said: "In view of the large 
number of visitors expected at Seville throughout the 
Exposition, several new hotels and two garden-cities have 
been constructed. . . suited equally, in their variety, to the 
millionaire and to the most moderate purses. . . . Seville 
will accommodate some 25,000 visitors simultaneously 
throughout the Exposition." It certainly merited the con- 

urrence of 250,000, but I was very thankful that I saw 
It as I did, before anyone else arrived. 
In Sao Roque at Lisbon I reflected: It is only since the dis- 
covery of photography that perspective has ceased to be an art. 



76 w HEN THE GO IN G WAS GOO D 
We sailed late that evening. Next day we were in a 
choppy sea, with a cold wind blowing from the shore, 
and that night we came into the Bay of Biscay; the ship 
developed a slow roll which caused serious discomfort to 
many. A great number of the passengers remained on 
deck during luncheon, nourishing themselves with dry 
biscuits and quarter-bottles of champagne. The roll went 
on undiminished until we rounded Cape Finisterre late in 
the afternoon. 
The sea was quite calm now that we were out of the Bay 
of Biscay, but we ran into recurrent banks of fog which 
held up our progress; there was talk of our not getting in 
until late the next afternoon. 
That evening there was a small party in the Captain's 
cabin, consisting of the officers off duty and two or three 
of the Scandinavian passengers and myself; we drank 
each other's health and exchanged invitations to visit each 
other in our countries. After a time I went out from the 
brightly lighted cabin on to the dark boat-deck. For the 
moment the night was dear and starry. I was carrying 
my champagne glass in my hand, and, for no good reason 
that I can now think of, I threw it out over the side, watched 
it hover for a moment in the air as it lost momentum and 
was caught by the wind, then saw it flutter and tumble 
lllto the swirl of water. This gesture, partly, I suppose, 
because it was of its own moment, spontaneous and made 
quite alone, in the dark, has become oddly important to 
me, and bound up with the turgid, indefinite feelings of 
home-coming. 
For to return to one's own country, even after the 
shortest absence, is, in its way, an emotional business. I 
had left in the depth of winter and was coming back to 
late spring; then, if ever, England is still a lovely country. 
While I sttll stood on the boat-deck we ran into another 
belt of mist. The engines changed to slow and then to 
dead slow, and the fog-horn began dolefully sounding the 
half-minutes. 
In twenty minutes we were clear again, and running 
under the stars at full speed. 
I woke up several times in the night to hear the horn 



A PLEASURE CRUISE IN 19 2 9 77 
again sounding through the wet night air. It was a very 
dismal sound, premonitory, perhaps, of coming trouble, 
for Fortune is the least capricious of deities, and arranges 
things on the just and rigid system that no one shall be 
very happy for very long. 



CHAPTER Two 


A CORONATION IN 1930 
(FROM Remote People) 


THEY were still dancing when, just before dawn on 
October 19th, 1930, the Azay Ie Rideau came into harbour 
at Djibouti. The band-a pitiably hot quartet in alpaca 
dinner-jackets-had long ago packed up their instruments 
and retired to their remote and stifling cabin. An Anna- 
mite boy was swabbing the deck and pushing into the 
scuppers sodden masses of paper streamers. Two or three 
stewards were at work pulling down the flags and festoons 
of coloured lights with which the ship had been decorated. 
One couple remained: a girl of mixed blood, second-class 
passenger to Mauritius; and an officer in the French 
Foreign Legion. Their feet moved slowly over the wet 
boards to the music of a portable gramophone; at intervals 
they stopped, and unclasped each other, to rewind the 
instrument and reverse the single record. 
For two days of gross heat the ship had been en fhe. 
There had been deck games, races for the children, a 
tombol
 with two-franc tickets and such prizes as could 
be procured on board-bottles of vermouth and eau-de- 
Cologne, tins of tobacco, sweets, lumps of coral, and 
ornamental cigarette-holders from Port Said. An auto- 
graphed photograph of Marshal d 'Esperez had been 
put up to auction and sold, amid wild applause, to a Press 
photographer for 900 francs; a cinema film had been 
exhibited by one of the passengers, with a faltering light 
on a screen that flapped restlessly in the hot breeze; there 
had been a horse-race decided by throw of dice, with 
a pari-mutuel and many hotly disputed results; at the 
deck bar there had been frequent orders for champagne, 
shared among families of French officials, six or eight of 
them to a bottle. Finally, on the last evening of the voyage, 
the fete had culminated in a fancy-dress dinner, a concert, 
and a ball. 
It was a diverse company who had been thus indulged. 



A CORONATION IN 193 0 79 
There sat at my table a red-headed American on his way 
to Saigon, where he hoped to sell agricultural machinery; 
his watch-chain was loaded with Masonic insignia, he 
wore a ring of the interlaced initials of some other com- 
mercial secret society, he had Froth Blowers' cuff-links, 
and a Rotarian wheel in his buttonhole; the Italian pro- 
prietor of the third-best hotel in Madras. There was a 
large number of French colonial officials, their wives and 
disorderly children, who make up the bulk of a normal 
Messageries Maritimes passenger list, on this occasion re- 
inforced by a draft of the Foreign Legion on their way 
to preserve discipline in Indo-China. The men travelled 
fourth class, sprawling about the lower deck by day, bat- 
tened down in the hold at night. They were mostly Germans 
and Russians; in the evening they formed into little groups 
and sang songs. They had a band of drums and mouth- 
organs which came up to play in the first-class saloon on 
the evening of the concert. The drum was painted with the 
device "Mon Jazz." Two of them climbed through a port- 
hole one night in the Suez Canal and escaped. Next day 
a third tried to follow their example. We were all on deck 
drinking our morning aperitifs when we heard a splash 
and saw a shaven-headed figure in shirt-sleeves scrambling 
up the bank behind us. He had no hat and the sun was at 
its strongest. He ran through the sand, away from the ship, 
with gradually slackening speed. When he realised that no 
one was pursuing him he stopped and turned round. The 
ship went on. The last we saw of him was a figure stumbling 
after us and waving his arms. No one seemed the least put 
out by the occurrence. My cabin steward usually had some 
story to tell me of daily life on the lower deck. One day 
two of the legionaries began fighting and were put in the 
cells; another day a Chinaman went mad in the night and 
tried to commit suicide; another day there had been a theft 
on board, and so on. I think he used to invent a great deal 
to amuse me. 
Besides this normal traffic of the line, there were about 
twenty of us bound for Djibouti on our way to Abyssinia 
for the Emperor's coronation. Six weeks before, I had 
barely heard Ras Tafari's name. I was in Ireland, staying 



80 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
in a house where chinoiserie and Victorian gothic contend 
for mastery over a Georgian structure. We were in the 
library, discussing over the atlas a journey I propose4 
to make to China and Japan. We began talking of other 
journeys, and so of Abyssinia. One of the party was on 
leav.e from Cairo; he knew something of Abyssinian 
politics and the coming coronation. Further information 
was contributed from less reliable sources; that the Abys- 
sinian Church had canonised Pontius Pilate, and con- 
secrated their bishops by spitting on their heads; that 
the real heir to the throne was hidden in the mountains, 
fettered with chains of solid gold; that the people lived 
on raw meat and mead; we looked up the royal family 
in the Almanack de Gotha and traced their descent from 
Solomon and the Queen of Sheba; we found a history 
which began: "The first certain knowledge which we 
have of Ethiopian history is when Cush ascended the 
throne immediately after the Deluge"; an obsolete encyc1o- 
predia informed us that, "though nominally Christian, the 
Abyssinians are deplorably lax in their morals, polygamy 
and drunkenness being common even among the highest 
classes and in the monasteries." Everything I heard added 
to the glamour of this astonishing country. A fortnight 
later I was back in London and had booked my passage 
to Djibouti. Five days later I was on board the Azay Ie 
Rideau at Marseille, and ten days after that I was standing 
on deck in my pyjamas watching the dawn break over the 
low coast-line of French Somaliland and over the haggard 
couple dancing to the gramophone. 
Sleep had been impossible for some time, as the servants 
of the Egyptian delegation had been at work assembling 
their masters' luggage immediately opposite the door of 
my cabin. Tin trunk after tin trunk was dragged out with 
loud military commands from the sergeant in charge and 
loud unmilitary remonstrances from his subordinates. It 
seemed hardly conceivable that five men could have so 
many clothes. And after the tin trunks came the great 
crates which contained the King of Egypt's present to the 
Emperor. These had appeared on board at Port Said under 
escort of an armed patrol, and throughout the voyage had 



A CORONATION I
 1930 81 
been guarded with some ostentation; their contents had 
been the object of wild speculation among the passengers, 
our imaginations wallowing in a profusion of Biblical 
opulence-frankincense, sardonyx, madre pore, and por- 
phyry. In point of fact, as appeared later, they contained 
a handsome but unexceptional suite of bedroom furniture. 
There were three other delegations on board, from 
France, Holland, and Poland; a fourth, the Japanese, 
was awaiting our arrival at Djibouti. When not exchang- 
ing ceremonious introductions, or pacing the decks at 
great speed, these envoys occupied themselves with finely 
emblazoned despatch-cases, writing, typing and annotat- 
ing their complimentary addresses. 
At first sight there is something a little surprising in 
this sudden convergence on Abyssinia of the envoys of 
the civilised world, and I think that the Abyssinians were 
as surprised as anyone. After the sudden death of the 
Empress Zauditu in the spring of the year, immediately 
subsequent to the defeat of her husband Ras Gougsa, 
Ras Tafari notified the Powers that he proposed, as soon 
as he decently could, to assume the title of Emperor of 
Ethiopia, and included in this announcement, in the case 
of those few nations who maintained diplomatic repre- 
sentatives at his Court, an invitation to attend the cere- 
monies. A few years before, he had been crowned Negus; 
on that occasion his immediate neighbours had taken a few 
days' holiday to visit him, and there had been a mild 
exchange of courtesies by telegram. Something a little 
more conspicuous was expected of the imperial coronation, 
but the response of the world Powers exceeded Ethiopian 
expectation in a manner that was both gratifying and 
embarrassing. Two Governments sent members of their 
royal families; the United States of America sent a gentle- 
man of experience in the electric installation trade; the 
Governors of British Somaliland, the Soudan, Eritrea, the 

esident at Aden, a marshal of France, an admiral, three 
aIrmen, and a marine band all appeared in various uniforms 
and orders. Substantial sums of public money were diverted 
t<;> the purchase of suitable gifts; the Germans brought a 
sIgned photograph of General von Hindenburg and eight 



82 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
hundred bottles of hock; the Greeks a modern bronze 
statuette; the Italians an aeroplane; the British a pair 
of elegant sceptres with an inscription composed, almost 
correctly, in Amharic. 
The simpler Abyssinians interpreted it as a suitable 
tribute to Abyssinian greatness; the kings of the world 
were doing homage. Others, a little more versed in world 
affairs, saw in it some plot against Abyssinian integrity- 
the jerangi had come to spy out the land. 
One need not explore any deep political causes for a 
plausible eXplanation. Addis Ababa is not a palace where 
great diplomatic reputations are easily won, and the poten- 
tates of the Foreign Office do not keep any very keen 
scrutiny to see how their cadets are shaping in that rare 
altitude. Who could blame these officials if occasionally 
there crept into their despatches phrases tending to esti- 
mate with some generosity the importance of the land of 
their exile? Is Abyssinia not the source of the Blue Nile? 
May there not be vast mineral wealth in those unprospected 
hills? And if, in the trivial course of compound life, that 
unvarying round of modest entertainment, there suddenly 
came to the women of the diplomatic corps-poor half- 
sisters of the great ladies of Washington or Rome-the 
possibility of sudden splendour, of royalty and gold braid, 
curtsies and champagne and handsome A.D.C.s, who can 
blame them if they strengthened their menfolk in urging 
the importance of really imposing special representation at 
the festivities? 
And need one wonder if States very remote from Africa 
-sledded Polaks and blond Swedes-decided to join in 
the party? If the glamour of Abyssinia had drawn me 
there from a life of comparative variety and freedom, why 
not them from their grey chanceries? Gun-cases among 
their trunks of uniform showed that they intended to 
make the most of their jaunt, and several of them, I know, 
had paid their own fares. "Nous avons quatre citoyens ici, 
mais deux sont juifs," one attache eXplained to me, and 
proceeded to demonstrate the apparatus with which, during 
his sojourn in Africa, he hoped to add to his already exten- 
sive collection of butterflies. 



A CORONATION IN 1930 83 
Day broadened rapidly and the dancers finally separated 
and went off to bed. Lighters came out from shore and 
coaling began. Planks stretched between the ship and the 
barges. One of them broke, throwing the Somali coolies 
heavily on to the coal-a drop of ten feet or more. One 
lay on his back groaning after the others had got up. The 
foreman threw a lump of coal at him. He groaned and 
turned on to his face; another lump, and he staggered to 
his feet and resumed work. Somali boys came swimming 
round the ship calling for money to be thrown them. 
Passengers appeared on deck. 
Soon it began to rain. 
Great uncertainty prevailed as to how or when we should 
get to Addis Ababa. 
We waited our turn to go ashore with some anxiety. 
The coolies droned dismally up and down the unstable 
planks; the little boys in the water cried for francs, or 
appeared shivering on deck, offering to amuse us by 
jumping back again; guns on shore boomed the salutes 
as the Government launch fetched each delegation in 
turn. The warm rain poured down steadily. 
Eventually we were free to land. There was another 
Englishman travelling to Addis Ababa, an elderly gentle- 
man on his way to the legation as a private visitor. Through- 
out the voyage he had studied a formidable little book about 
tropical hygiene, and passed on to me much disquieting 
information about malaria and black-water, cholera and 
elephantiasis; he used, over his cigar in the evenings, to 
explain how hook-worms ate their way from the soles of 
the feet to the internal organs, how jiggers laid their eggs 
under the toe-nails, and retailed the symptoms of slow 
paralysis with which the spirillum tick might infect us. 
Together we put our luggage in charge of the French- 
speaking native porter of the Hotel des Arcades and went 
to the English vice-consul who told us that there were in 
fact two trains that evening, but both of them were reserved 
for delegations; the next train was three days later; that 
was reserved for the Duke of Gloucester; there was another 
one three days after that-reserved for Prince Udine. He 
could hold out very little hope of our getting up to Addis. 



84 w HEN THE GO I N G WAS GOO D 
In a state of mind born of this information we drove to the 
H6tel des Arcades. Our topees were soft on our heads, our 
white suits clinging about our shoulders. The porter said 
I must go with him to the customs. We arrived there to 
find a damp native soldier on guard with water running 
down his rifle. The customs officer was at the reception 
at Government House, he said. He could not tell what 
time he would return or whether he would return at all 
that day. I pointed out that we must have our luggage to 
change into dry clothes. Nothing could be moved until the 
officer returned, he said. The porter, without more ado, 
picked up the nearest pieces and began piling them into 
the taxi. The guard remonstrated, but the porter continued 
undeterred. Then we drove back to the hotel. 
This was a two-storied building with an arcaded front 
of shabby stucco; at the back a wooden staircase led to 
two broad verandahs on to which the two or three bed- 
rooms opened. There was a lemon-tree in the yard in- 
habited by a misanthropic black monkey. The proprietress, 
a handsome Frenchwoman abounding in commercial good 
nature, made light of our troubles. It was her peculiar for- 
tune to subsist upon the inadequacies of the Fran co- 
Ethiopian railway service, for no one voluntarily spends 
long in Djibouti. 
This fact, sufficiently clear from our earliest impression, 
became clearer when, after luncheon, the rain having 
stopped, we drove for a tour of the town. We bumped 
and rocked along in a one-horse cab through pools of 
steaming mud. The streets, described by the official guide- 
book as "elegant and smiling," were mere stretches of 
waste-land between blocks of houses. These, in the Euro- 
pean quarter, were mostly built on the same plan as the 
hotel, arcaded and decaying. 
"They look as though they might fall down any minute," 
remarked my companion as we drove past one more than 
usually dissolute block of offices, and while we looked they 
actually did begin to fall. Great flakes of stucco crumbled 
from the front; a brick or two, toppling from the coping, 
splashed into the mud below. Some scared Indian clerks 
scampered into the open, a Greek in shirt-sleeves appeared 



A CORONATION IN 1930 85 
from the house opposite, a group of half-naked natives rose 
from their haunches and, still scouring their teeth with 
sticks of wood, gazed apprehensively about them. Our 
driver pointed excitedly with his whip and admonished us 
in Somali. It had been an earthquake which, in the more 
sensible motion of the cab, had escaped our notice. 
We jolted on past a whitewashed mosque to the camel- 
market and native quarter. The Somalis are a race of 
exceptional beauty, very slender and erect, with delicate 
features and fine, wide-set eyes. Most of them wore a strip 
of rag round their waists and a few coils of copper wire 
on wrists and ankles. Their heads were either shaven or 
dyed with ochre. Eight or nine harlots besieged our car- 
riage until whipped away by the driver; innumerable 
naked children splashed through the mud after us, scream- 
ing for bakshish. Some splendid fellows with spears, in 
from the country, spat contemptuously as we passed. We 
came to the outskirts of the town, where the huts, formerly 
grass-thatched, mud-built squares, became little domed 
structures like inverted birds' nests, made out of twigs, 
grass, rags, and flattened tins, with one hole through which 
a man might crawl on his belly. When we returned to the 
hotel we found the vice-consul there with the good news 
that he had obta-ined a carriage for us in the first special 
train that evening. Elated though we felt, the heat was still 
overpowering; we went to sleep. 
At evening, with the knowledge of our imminent depar- 
ture, Djibouti suddenly became more tolerable. We visited 
the shops, bought a French novel with an inflammatory 
wrapper, some Burma cheroots, and changed money, get- 
ting, in return for our tattered and grimy notes of the 
Banque d'Indo-Chine, massive silver dollars of superb 
design. . 
Most recent books about Abyssinia-and I had read 
many between West Meath and Marseille-contain graphic 
descriptions of the train journey between Djibouti and 
Addis Ababa. Normally there is a weekly service which 
does the journey in three days; the two nights are spent 
in hotels at Dirre-Dowa and Hawash. There are several 
good reasons for not travelling at night; one is that the 



86 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
lights in the train are liable to frequent failure; another 
that during the rainy season it is not unusual for parts of 
the line to get washed away; another that the Galla and 
Danakil, through whose country the line passes, are still 
primarily homicidal in their interests, and in the early days 
of the railway formed a habit, not yet wholly eradicated, 
of taking up steel sleepers here and there to forge into 
spear-heads. During coronation week, however, it was 
found necessary, if the rolling-stock was to be adequate to 
the additional traffic, to run through trains. We left Djibouti 
after dinner on Friday and arrived at Addis on Sunday 
morning. It was a fairly comfortable journey. 
We passed in the darkness the intolerable desolation 
of French Somaliland-a country of dust and boulders, 
utterly devoid of any sign of life, and arrived at Dirre- 
Dowa at dawn. This orderly little township sprang up 
during the construction of the railway on the land con- 
ceded to the French company, and has lived on the rail- 
way ever since with slightly diminishing prosperity. It 
contains two hotels, a cafe, and a billiard-saloon, a few 
shops and offices, a bank, a flour-mill, one or two villas, 
and the residence of an Abyssinian governor. Bougain- 
villea and acacia-trees border the streets. Twice a week the 
arrival of a train stirs up a few hours' activity; travellers 
arrive for the hotels; luggage is carried about the street; 
postal officials sort out the mail ; commercial agents put on 
their sun-helmets and saunter down with their invoices to 
the goods office; then, like a small island when the mail- 
boat steams out of harbour, Dirre-Dowa relapses into its 
large siesta. 
This, however, was no ordinary week. Not since 1916 
-the civil war before the last-when Lej Yasu's Moham- 
medan followers were massacred just over the hills at 
Harar, had Dirre-Dowa known so many radically disturb- 
ing events as this succession of special trains bringing the 
Emperor's visitors to the coronation. Flag-staffs painted 
with the Abyssinian colours had been planted down the 
main streets, and lines of yellow, red, and green flags 
strung between them; motor-cars had been brought by 
train from the capital-for there are no roads outside the 



A CORONATION IN 1930 87 
town-to convey the delegates to breakfast; the irregular 
troops of the whole province had been mobilised to line 
the way. 
It was a grand and startling spectacle. My companion 
and I waited behind for some minutes in our carriage 
until the formal greetings were at an end and the dele- 
gates were clear of the station. Then we crossed the plat- 
form into the square. It was quite empty and quite silent. 
On three sides stood the Abyssinian soldiers; in front, 
where the main avenue led up to the governor's house, the 
last of the cars was just disappearing; as far as one could 
see stood the ranks of motionless, white-clothed tribes- 
men, bareheaded, barefooted, with guns on their shoulders; 
some had olive skins and keen, aquiline features; others 
were darker, with thick lips and flat noses showing the 
infection of slave blood; all wore curly black beards. Their 
dress was the invariable costume of the country-a long 
white shirt, white linen breeches loose above the knee and 
tight at the calves like jodhpurs, and the chamma, a white 
shawl worn like the toga over one shoulder, and a bandolier 
of cartridges prominently displayed. In front of each sec- 
tion stood their chief in the gala dress so frequently photo- 
graphed for the European Press. This, varying in grandeur 
with the wearer's wealth, consisted of a head-dress of lion's 
mane and gold ornament, a lion's skin, a brilliantly striped 
shirt, and a long sword curving out behind for some three 
feet or more; in some cases the lion's skin was represented 
by a garment of embroidered satin, like a chasuble, slit in 
front and behind in conventionalised tail and legs. It was 
a memorable experience to emerge, after the Latin holiday- 
making on the Azay Ie Rideau, the scramble at Djibouti,. 
and the unquiet night in the train, into the sweet early 
morning air and the peace cast by these motionless warriors; 
they seemed at once so savage and so docile; great shaggy 
dogs of uncertain temper held for the moment firmly at 
leash. 
We breakfasted at the hotel, and smoked a pipe on the 
terrace, awaiting the return of the delegates. Presently the 
soldiers who had been squatting on their haunches were 
called to attention; the cars came down the hill bearing 



88 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
diplomats handsomely refreshed by a banquet of porridge, 
kippers, eggs, and champagne. We returned to the train 
and resumed our journey. 
From now until Hawash, where we arrived at sundown, 
the line ran through mile upon mile of featureless bush 
country-thorn, scrub, and flat, brownish mimosa-trees, 
and dust, ant-hills, a few vultures, now and then a dry 
watercourse or outcrop of stone, nothing else, hour upon 
hour. At noon we lunched in a tent at Afdem; luncheon 
consisted of four courses of meat variously prepared. We 
waited four hours at Hawash, from six until ten, while 
mechanics experimented with the lighting of the train; an 
armed guard squatted at the door of each coach. There are 
several sheds at Hawash, two or three bungalows of rail- 
way officials, a concrete platform, and an inn. After dinner 
we sat in the yard of the inn on hard little chairs, or paced 
about the platform or stumbled between the steel sleepers 
of the permanent way; there was no village or street; it 
was better to keep in the open as there were fewer mosqui- 
toes; the lights in the carriage windows flashed feverishly 
on and off. Presently a group of ragged Gallas appeared 
and began a dance; two performed in the centre of the 
circle; the others stood round singing, stamping their 
feet and clapping their hands; they acted a lion hunt in 
dumb show. The guards wanted to drive them away, but 
the Egyptian Minister restrained them and gave a handful 
of dollars to the dancers; this set them going more eagerly 
and they spun about in the dust like tops; they were 
extremely fierce men, their long hair matted with butter 
and mud, and their thin, black bodies hung with scraps of 
skin and sacking. 
At last the lighting was put right and we started again. 
Hawash lies at the foot of the highlands; throughout the 
night we climbed steadily. Each time we were jolted into 
consciousness between intermittent periods of sleep, we 
found the air fresher and the temperature lower, and by 
early morning we had wrapped ourselves in rugs and over- 
coats. We breakfasted before dawn at Mojo and resumed 
our journey just as the first light began to break. It revealed 
a profound change in the landscape; the bush and plain 



A CORONATION IN 1930 89 
had disappeared, and in its place there extended crests of 
undulating downland with a horizon of blue mountains. 
Wherever one looked were rich little farms, groups of 
circular thatched huts inside high stockades, herds of fine 
humped cattle browsing in deep pastures, fields of corn 
and maize being worked by families; camel caravans 
swayed along the track by the railway, carrying fodder and 
fuel. The line still mounted, and presently, between nine 
and ten, we came in sight, far ahead of us, of the eucalyptus- 
woods that surround Addis Ababa. Here, at a station 
named Akaki, we stopped again to allow the delegates 
time to shave and put on their uniforms. Tin trunks and 
dressing-cases appeared again, valets ran between the 
luggage-van and the sleeping-cars. The Dutch Minister 
soon appeared at the side of the line in cocked hat and 
gold braid, the Egyptian in taboosh and epaulettes, the 
Japanese in evening coats and white waistcoats and top 
hats; then all got into the train again and proceeded. We 
puffed up the winding track for another half-hour and at 
last arrived at Addis Ababa. 
Red carpet had been put out, and before the carpet were 
drawn up a very different body of troops from those we 
had passed on the way. These were squat, coal-black boys 
from the Soudanese border. They wore brand-new, well- 
cut, khaki uniforms; the lion of Judah shone in polished" 
brass on cap badges and buttons; with bayonets fixed and 
rifles of recent pattern. Beside them a band of bugle and 
drums, with a little black drummer poising crossed sticks 
above the big drum. But for the bare feet below their 
puttees, they might have been the prize platoon of some 
public school O. T .C. In front of them with drawn sword stood 
a European officer. This was a squad of Tafari's own guard. 
As the train stopped, the guard presented arms; the 
head chamberlain advanced in a blue satin cloak to greet 
th
 d
legations, and the band struck up. There was no 
sklmplllg of difficulties, every anthem was played through 

horou

ly ve
se by verse. The Poles came out easy winners 
In proltx.lty. FInally, the Ethiopian anthem was played; we 
heard thIs so often during the next ten days that it became 
vaguely familiar, even to me. 



90 w HEN THE GO I N G WAS GOO D 
Eventually the last delegation disappeared. The 
Minister's daughters had come from the British Legation 
to meet the train. They asked me what arrangements had 
been made for my accommodation, and I replied, to the 
best of my knowledge, none. Consternation. They said the 
town was completely full. It would be impossible to get 
a room now. There might be a tent somewhere at the 
legation; it was conceivable that one of the hotels would 
let me pitch it in their yard. We got into the car and mounted 
the hill into the town. Half-way up we passed the H6tel 
de France. At the entrance stood the Western figure of 
a friend named Irene Ravensdale in riding habit. We 
stopped to greet her. I ran indoors and asked the manager 
whether there was, by any chance, a vacant room. Why, 
yes, certainly. It was not a very good room, it was in an 
outhouse behind the hotel; but, if I cared to take it, it was 
mine for two pounds a day. I accepted eagerly, signed the 
register, and rejoined Irene. The legation car and the 
luggage had disappeared. Instead, the street was full of 
Abyssinians arriving from the country on mules, slaves 
trotting all round them, clearing and obstructing the way. 
The preposterous Alice in Wonder/and fortnight had be g un. 
It is to Alice in Wonderland that my thoughts recur in 
seeking some historical parallel for life in Addis Ababa. 
There are others: Israel in the time of Saul, the Scotland 
of Shakespeare's Macbeth, the Sublime Porte as one sees 
it revealed in the despatches of the late eighteenth century, 
but it is in Alice only that one finds the peculiar flavour of 
galvanised and translated reality, where animals carry 
watches in their waistcoat pockets, royalty paces the croquet 
lawn beside the chief executioner, and litigation ends in 
a flutter of playing-cards. How to recapture, how retail, 
the crazy enchantment' of these Ethiopian days? 
Addis Ababa is a new town; so new, indeed, that not 
a single piece of it appears to be really finished. 
The first, obvious, inescapable impression was that 
nothing was ready or could possibly be made ready in 
time for the official opening of the celebrations six days 
hence. It was not that one here and there observed traces 



A CORONATION IN 1930 91 
of imperfect completion, occasional scaffolding or patches 
of unset concrete; the whole town seemed still in a rudi- 
mentary stage of construction. At every corner were half- 
finished buildings; some had been already abandoned; on 
others, gangs of ragged Guraghi were at work. One after- 
noon I watched a number of them, twenty or thirty in all, 
under the surveillance of an Armenian contractor, at work 
clearing away the heaps of rubble and stone which encum- 
bered the courtyard before the main door of the palace. 
The stuff had to be packed into wooden boxes swung 
between two poles, and emptied on a pile fifty yards away. 
Two men carried each load, which must have weighed 
very little more than an ordinary hod of bricks. A foreman 
circulated among them, carrying a long cane. When he 
was engaged elsewhere the work stopped altogether. The 
men did not sit down, chat, or relax in any way; they simply 
stood stock-still where they were, motionless as cows in 
a field, sometimes arrested with one small stone in their 
hands. When the foreman turned his attention towards 
them they began to move again, very deliberately, like 
figures in a slow-motion film; when he beat them they did 
not look round or remonstrate, but quickened their move- 
ments just perceptibly; when the blows ceased they lapsed 
into their original pace until, the foreman's back being 
turned, they again stopped completely. (1 wondered whether 
the Pyramids were built in this way.) Work of this nature 
was in progress in every street and square of the town. 
Adctls Ababa extends five or six miles in diameter. The 
station is at the southern extremity of the town, and from 
it a broad road leads up to the post office and principal 
commercial buildings. Two deep watercourses traverse the 
town, and round their slopes, and in small groves of euca- 
lyptus scattered between the more permanent buildings, 
lie little clusters of tukals, round native huts, thatched and 
windowless. Down the centre of the main thoroughfares 
run metalled tracks for motor-traffic, bordered on either 
side by dust and loose stones for mules and pedestrians; 

t frequent intervals are sentry-boxes of corrugated iron, 
Inhabited by drowsy, armed policemen. Attempts are even 
made with canes to regulate the foot-traffic, a fad which 



92 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
proves wholly unintelligible to the inhabitants. The usual 
way for an Abyssinian gentleman to travel is straight down 
the middle of the road on mule-back with ten or twenty 
armed retainers trotting all round him; there are continual 
conflicts between the town police and the followers of the 
country gentlemen, from which the police often come out 
the worse. 
Every man in Abyssinia carries arms; that is to say, 
he wears a dagger and bandolier of cartridges round his 
waist and has a slave-boy walking behind with a rifle. 
Cartridges are a symbol of wealth and, in the interior, 
a recognised medium of exchange; their propriety for 
any particular brand of firearm is a matter of secondary 
importance. 
The streets are always a lively scene; the universal white 
costume being here and there relieved by the bri1liant 
blues and violets of mourning or the cloaks of the upper 
classes. The men walk about hand in hand in pairs and 
little groups; quite often they are supporting some in- 
sensible drunkard. Women appear in the markets, but 
take no part in the general street-lounging of their men. 
Occasionally a woman of high degree passes on a mule; 
under a vast felt hat her face is completely bandaged over 
with white silk, so that only the two eyes appear, like those 
of a hooded rider of the Ku Klux Klan. There are numerous 
priests, distinguished by long gowns and high turbans. 
Sometimes the Emperor passes in a great red car surrounded 
by cantering lancers. A page sits behind holding over his 
head an umbrella of crimson sIlk embroidered with sequins 
and gold tassels. A guard sits in front nursing a machine- 
gun under a plush shawl; the chauffeur is a European 
wearing powder-blue livery and the star of Ethiopia. 
As part of the general policy for tidying up the town 
for the arrival of the visitors, high stockades have been 
erected, or are being erected, down all the streets, screen- 
ing from possibly critical eyes the homes of the poorer 
inhabitants. HaJf-way up the hill stands the Hotel de 
France, a place of primitive but cordial hospitality, kept 
by a young Frenchman and his wife who have seen better 
days as traders in hides and coffee at Djibouti. 



A CORONATION IN 193 0 93 
There is another large hotel kept by a Greek, the 
Imperial, most of which has been requisitioned for the 
Egyptian delegation. There are two or three small hotels, 
cafes, and bars, kept either by Greeks or Armenians. 
There is another large hotel under construction. It was 
being made specially for the coronation, but is still hope- 
lessly unready. It is here that the Marine band of H.M.S. 
Effingham are put up. 
The Gebbi is a great jumble of buildings on a hilI to 
the east of the town. At night, during coronation week, 
it was lit up with rows of electric bulbs, but by day it 
presented a slightly dingy appearance. High walls encircle 
the whole, and the only approach, through which came 
alike butchers and ambassadors, is through two heavily 
guarded doors. In spite of this, the precincts seemed to be 
always full of loafers, squatting and squabbling, or gaping 
at the visitors. 
It is now possible to reach the British Legation by car; 
until quite lately guests rode out to dinner on mules, a boy 
running in front with a lantern. Indeed, as further prepara- 
tion for the visitors, the road from the town had been 
strewn with stones, and a motor-roller of the latest pattern 
brought from Europe; this machine was sometimes seen 
heading for the legations, but some untoward event always 
interposed, and the greater part of the way was left to be 
rolled by the tyres of private cars. It was an expensive and 
bumpy journey. 
The legation stands in a small park, and on either side 
of the drive a little garden city has sprung up of pretty 
thatched bungalows which accommodate the officials. 
During the coronation a camp was pitched in the paddock 
for the staffs of the various visitors, and periodic bugling, 
reminiscent of an ocean liner, added a fresh incongruity to 
the bizarre life of the little community. 
Outside the legations was a personnel of supreme 
diversity. There was the Caucasian manager of the Haile 
Selassie Casino; the French editor of the Courier d'Ethiopie, 
an infinitely helpful man, genial, punctilious, sceptical; an 
Englishman in the employ of the Abyssinian Government; 
a French architect married to an Abyssinian; a bankrupt 



94 w HEN THE GO I N G WAS GOO D 
German planter obsessed by grievances; a tipsy old Aus- 
tralian prospector, winking over his whiskey and hinting 
at the mountains full of platinum he could tell you about 
if he cared to. There was Mr. Hall, in whose office I spent 
many frantic hours; he was a trader, of mixed German 
and Abyssinian descent, extremely handsome, well dressed, 
and monocled, a man of imperturbable courtesy, an excep- 
tional linguist. During the coronation he had been put in 
a little tin house next to the Casino and constituted chief, 
and, as far as one could see, sole member, of a bureau 
d' hrangers. It was his week's task to listen to all the troubles 
of all the foreigners, official or unofficial, to distribute news 
to the Press, issue tickets and make out lists for the Abys- 
sinian functions; if the Italian telegraph company took an 
hour's rest, it was Mr. Hall who heard the complaints; if 
an officious police-officer refused someone admittance to 
some grand stand, Mr. Hall must see to it that the officer 
was reprimanded; if His Majesty's Stationery Office for- 
'got to issue the text of the coronation service, Mr. Hall 
promised everyone a copy; if a charabanc had not arrived 
to take the band to the racecourse, if there had not been 
enough coronation medals to go round the church, if, for 
any reason or no reason, anyone in Addis Ababa was in 
a bad temper-and at that altitude the most equable natures 
become unaccountably upset-off he went to Mr. Hall. 
And whatever language he cared to speak, Mr. HaU would 
understand and sympathise; with almost feminine delicacy 
he would calm him and compliment him; with masculine 
decision he would make a bold note of the affair on his 
pad; he would rise, bow, and smile his pacified visitor out 
with every graceful assurance of goodwill-and do abso- 
lutely nothing about it. 
Of the Abyssinians we saw very little except as grave, 
rather stolid figures at the official receptions. There was 
Ras Hailu, owner of the rich province 
f Gojam, reputed 
wealthier than the Emperor himself; a commanding figure, 
dark complexioned, with his little pointed beard dyed 
black, and slightly insolent eyes. Among his many great 
possessions was a night-club two miles out on the Addis 
Alem road. He had planned this himself and, wishing to 



A CORONATION IN 193 0 95 
be up to date, had given it an English name. It was called 
"Robinson." There was the venerable Ras Kassa and 
Moulungetta, the commander-in-chief of the army, a 
mountain of a man with grey beard and bloodshot eyes; 
in full-dress uniform with scarlet-and-gold cloak and lion's 
mane busby, he looked hardly human. 
Apart from the officials and journalists who pullulated at 
every corner, there were surprisingly few visitors. 
There was a slightly class-conscious lady with a French 
title and an American accent, who left the town suddenly 
after a luncheon-party at which she was not accorded her 
proper precedence. There was the American professor, 
who will appear later in this narrative, and two formidable 
ladies in knitted suits and topees; though unrelated by 
blood, long companionship had made them almost indis- 
tinguishable, square-jawed, tight-lipped, with hard, dis- 
contented eyes. For them the whole coronation was a pro- 
found disappointment. What did it matter that they were 
witnesses of a unique stage of the interpenetration of two 
cultures? They were out for Vice. They were collecting 
material, in fact, for a little book on the subject, an African 
Mother India, and every minute devoted to Coptic ritual or 
displays of horsemanship was a minute wasted. Prostitution 
and drug traffic comprised their modest interests, and they 
were too dense to find evidence of either. 
But perhaps the most remarkable visitors were the 
Marine band. They arrived on the same day as the Duke 
of Gloucester, under the command of Major Sinclair, 
strengthened by a diet of champagne at breakfast, luncheon, 
tea, and dinner throughout their journey, and much sage 
advice about the propriety of their behaviour in a foreign 
capital. At Addis they were quartered in a large, unfinished 
hotel; each man had his own bedroom, furnished by his 
thoughtful hosts with hairbrushes, clothes-hangers, and 
brand-new enamelled spittoons. 
Perhaps no one did more to deserve his star of Ethiopia 
than Major Sinclair. Eschewing the glitter and dignity 
?f the legation camp, he loyally remained with his men 
In the town, and spent anxious days arranging appoint- 
ments that were never kept; his diary, which some of us 



96 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
were privileged to see, was a stark chronicle of successive 
disappointments patiently endured. "Appointment 9.30 
emperor's private secretary to arrange for this evening's ban- 
quet; he did not come. I I. Went as arranged to see master of 
the king's music; he was not there. 12. Went to see Mr. Hall 
to obtain score of Ethiopian national anthem-not procurable. 
2.30 Car should have come to take men to aerodrome-did not 
arrive. . ." and so on. But, in spite of every discourage- 
ment, the band was always present on time, irreproachably 
dressed, and provided with the correct music. 
One morning in particular, on which the band played 
a conspicuous part, remains vividly in my memory as 
typical of the whole week. It was the first day of the official 
celebrations, to be inaugurated by the unveiling of the new 
Menelik memorial. The ceremony was announced for ten 
0' clock. Half an hour before the time, Irene Ravensdale 
and I drove to the spot. Here, on the site of the old 
execution-tree, stood the monument, shrouded in brilliant 
green silk. Round it was a little ornamental garden with 
paving, a balustrade, and regular plots, from which, here 
and there, emerged delicate shoots of newly sown grass. 
While some workmen were laying carpets on the terrace 
and spreading yellow sunshades of the kind which cover 
the tables at open-air restaurants, others were still chip- 
ping at the surrounding masonry and planting drooping 
palm-trees in the arid beds. A heap of gilt armchairs lay 
on one side; on the other a mob of photographers and 
movietone men were fighting for places. Opposite the 
carpeted terrace rose a stand of several unstable tiers. A 
detachment of policemen were engaged furiously laying 
about them with canes in the attempt to keep these seats 
clear of natives. Four or five Europeans were already 
established there. Irene and I joined them. Every ten 
minutes or so a police officer would appear and order us 
all off; we produced our laissez-passers; he saluted and went 
away, to be succeeded at a short interval by a colleague, 
when the performance was repeated. 
The square and half a mile of the avenue approaching 
it were lined with royal guards; there was a band formed 
up in front of them; the Belgian colonel curvetted about 



A CORONATION IN 1930 97 
on an uneasy chestnut horse. Presently, punctual to the 
minute, appeared :Major Sinclair and his band. They had 
had to march from their hotel, as the charabanc ordered 
for them had failed to appear. They halted, and Major 
Sinclair approached the Belgian colonel for instructions. 
The colonel knew no English, and the major no French; 
an embarrassing interview followed, complicated by the 
caprices of the horse, which plunged backwards and side- 
ways over the square. In this way the two officers covered 
a large area of ground, conversing inconclusively the while 
with extravagant gestures. Eventually Irene heroically 
stepped out to interpret for them. It appeared that the 
Belgian colonel had had no orders about the English band. 
He had his own band there and did not want another. The 
major explained he had had direct instructions to appear 
in the square at ten. The colonel said the major could not 
possibly stay in the square; there was no room for him, 
and anyway he would have no opportunity of playing, 
since the native band had a programme of music fully 
adequate for the whole proceedings. At last the colonel 
conceded that the English band might take up a position 
at the extreme end of his troops at the bottom of the hill. 
The officers parted, and the band marched away out of 
sight. A long wait followed, while the battle between 
police and populace raged round the stand. At last the 
delegations began to arrive; the soldiers presented arms; 
the native band played the appropriate music; the Belgian 
colonel was borne momentarily backwards through the 
ranks, capered heroically among the crowd, and reappeared 
at another corner of the square. The delegations took up 
their places on the gilt chairs under the umbrellas. A long 
pause preceded the Emperor's arrival; the soldiers still 
stood stiff. Suddenly up that imposing avenue there 
appeared a slave, trotting unconcernedly with a gilt chair 
o
 his head. He put it among the others, looked round 
wIth interest at the glittering uniforms, and then retired. 
At last the Emperor came; first a troop of lancers, then the 
crimson car and silk umbrella. He took up his place in the 
centre. of the Court under a blue canopy; the band played 
the Ethiopian national anthem. A secretary presented him 



98 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
with the text of his speech; the camera-men began snap- 
ping and turning. But there was a fresh delay. Something 
had gone wrong. Messages passed from mouth to mouth; 
a runner disappeared down the hill. 
One photographer, bolder than the rest, advanced out 
of the crowd and planted his camera within a few yards 
of the royal party; he wore a violet suit of plus-fours, a 
green shirt open at the neck, tartan stockings, and parti- 
coloured shoes. After a few happy shots of the Emperor 
he walked slowly along the line, looking the party critic- 
ally up and down. When he found anyone who attracted 
his attention, he took a photograph of him. Then, express- 
ing his satisfaction with a slight inclination of the head, he 
rejoined his colleagues. 
Still a delay. Then up the avenue came Major Sinclair 
and the Marine band. They halted in the middle of the 
square, arranged their music, and played the national 
anthem. Things were then allowed to proceed according 
to plan. The Emperor advanced, read his speech, and pulled 
the cord. There was a rending of silk and a vast equestrian 
figure in gilt bronze was partially revealed. Men appeared 
with poles and poked away the clinging folds. One piece, 
out of reach of their efforts, obstinately fluttered over the 
horse's ears and eyes. The Greek contractor mounted a 
ladder and dislodged the rag. 
The Marine band continued to play; the delegations 
and courtiers made for their cars; the Emperor paused, 
and listened attentively to the music, then smiled his 
approval to the major before driving away. As the last 
of the visitors disappeared, the people broke through the 
soldiers, and the square became a dazzle of white tunics 
and black heads. For many days to come, numbers of 
them might be seen clustering round the memorial and 
gazing with puzzled awe at this new ornament to their 
city. 


Until late on the preceding afternoon, wild uncertainty 
prevailed about the allocation of tickets for the coronation. 
The legations knew nothing. Mr. Hall knew nothing, and 
his office was continuously besieged by anxious journalists 



A CORONATION IN 193 0 99 
whose only hope of getting their reports back in time for 
Monday's papers was to write and despatch them well 
before the event. What could they say when they did not 
even know where the ceremony would take place? 
With little disguised irritation they set to work making 
the best of their meagre material. Gorgis and its precincts 
were impenetrably closed; a huge tent could be discerned 
through the railings, built against one wall of the church. 
Some described the actual coronation as taking place there; 
others used it as the scene of a state reception and drew 
fanciful pictures of the ceremony in the interior of the 
cathedral, "murky, almost suffocating with incense and the 
thick, stifling smoke of tallow candles" (Associated Press); 
authorities on Coptic ritual remarked that as the corona- 
tion proper must take place in the inner sanctuary, which 
no layman might glimpse, much less enter, there was small 
hope of anyone seeing anything at all. The cinema-men, 
whose companies had spent very large sums in importing 
them and their talking apparatus, began to show signs of 
restlessness, and some correspondents became almost 
menacing. Mr. Hall, however, remained his own serene 
self. Everything, he assured us, was being arranged for 
their particular convenience; only, he admitted, the exact 
details were still unsettled. 
Eventually, about fourteen hours before the ceremony 
was due to start, numbered tickets were issued through 
the legations; there was plenty of room for all, except, as 
it happened, for the Abyssinians themselves. The rases 
and Court officials were provided with gilt chairs, but the 
local chiefs seemed to be wholly neglected; most of them 
remained outside, gazing wistfully at the ex-Kaiser's coach 
and the tall hats of the European and American visitors; 
those that succeeded in pushing their way inside were kept 
far at the back, where they squatted together on their 
haunches, or, in all the magnificent trappings of their gala 
dress, dozed simply in distant corners of the great tent. 
For it was there, in the end, that the service took place. 
It was light and lofty, supported by two colonnades of 
draped scaffold-poles; the seat end was hung with silk 
curtains, behind which a sanctuary had been improvised 



100 W HEN THE GO I N G WAS GOO D 


to hold the tabor from the cathedral. A carpeted dais ran 
half the length of the floor. On it stood the silk-covered 
table that bore the regalia and the crown neatly concealed 
in a cardboard hat-box; on either side were double rows 
of gilt chairs for the Court and the diplomatic corps, and 
at the end, with their backs to the body of the hall, two 
canopied thrones. 
Their Majesties had spent the night in vigil, surrounded 
inside the cathedral by clergy, and outside by troops. One 
enterprising journalist headed his report "Meditation Behind 
Machine-Guns," and had the gratifying experience when 
he was at last admitted into the precincts, of finding his 
guess fully justified; a machine section was posted on the 
steps covering each approach. 
It was highly interesting to me, when the papers began 
to arrive from Europe and America, to compare my own 
experiences with those of the correspondents. It seemed 
to me that we had been witnesses of a quite different series 
of events. 
This is what I saw at the coronation: 
The Emperor and Empress were due to appear from 
their vigil at seven in the morning. We were warned to 
arrive at the tent about an hour before that time. Accord- 
ingly, having dressed by candlelight, Irene and I proceeded 
there at about six. For many hours before dawn the roads 
into the town had been filled with tribesmen coming in 
from the surrounding camps. We could see them passing 
the hotel (the street lamps were working that night) in 
dense white crowds, some riding mules, some walking, 
some moving at a slow trot beside their masters. All, as 
always, were armed. Our car moved slowly to Gorgis, 
hooting continuously. There were many other cars; some 
carrying Europeans; others, Abyssinian officials. Eventu- 
ally we reached the church and were admitted after a narrow 
scrutiny of our tickets and ourselves. The square inside 
the gates was comparatively clear; from the top of the 
steps the machine-guns compromised with ecclesiastical 
calm. From inside the cathedral came the voices of the 
priests singing the last phase of the service that had lasted 
all night. Eluding the numerous soldiers, policemen, and 



A CORONATION IN 1930 101 
officials who directed us towards the tent, we slipped into 
the outer ambulatory of the church, where the choir of 
bearded and vested deacons were dancing to the music of 
hand drums and little silver rattles. The drummers squatted 
round them; but they carried the rattles themselves and 
in their other hand waved praying-sticks. Some carried 
nothing, but merely clapped their empty palms. They 
shuffled in and out, singing and swaying; the dance was 
performed with body and arms rather than with the feet. 
Their faces expressed the keenest enjoyment-almost, in 
some cases, ecstasy. The brilliant morning sun streamed 
in on them from the windows, on their silver crosses, silver- 
headed rods, and on the large, illuminated manuscript 
from which one of them, undeterred by the music, was 
reciting the Gospels; the clouds of incense mounted and 
bellied in the shafts of light. 
Presently we went on to the tent. This was already well 
filled. The clothes of the congregation varied considerably. 
Most of the men were wearing morning coats, but some 
had appeared in evening dress and one or two in dinner- 
jackets. One lady had stuck an American flag in the top 
of her sun-helmet. The junior members of the legations 
were there already, in uniform, fussing among the seats 
to see that everything was in order. By seven o'clock the 
delegations arrived. 
It was long after the last delegate had taken his place 
that the Emperor and Empress appeared from the church. 
We could hear the singing going on behind the curtains. 
Photographers, amateur and professional, employed the 
time in taking furtive snapshots. Reporters despatched 
their boys to the telegraph office with supplementary 
accounts of the preliminaries. By some misunderstanding 
of the instructions of the responsible official, the office was 
closed for the day. After the manner of native servants, 
the messengers, instead of reporting the matter to their 
masters, sat, grateful for the rest, on the steps gossiping 
until it should open. It was late in the day that the truth 
became known, and then there was more trouble for Mr. Hall. 
The ceremony was immensely long, even according to 
the original schedule, and the clergy succeeded in prolonging 



10'2 w HEN THE G 0 I N G WAS GOO D 


it by at least an hour and a half beyond the allotted 
time. The six succeeding days of celebration were to be 
predominantly military, but the coronation day itself was 
in the hands of the Church, and they were going to make 
the most of it. Psalms, can ticles, and prayers succeeded 
each other, long passages of Scripture were read, all in the 
extinct ecclesiastical tongue, Ghiz. Candles were lit one by 
one; the coronation oaths were proposed and sworn; the 
diplomats shifted uncomfortably in their gilt chairs, noisy 
squabbles broke out round the entrance between the 
imperial guard and the retainers of the local chiefs. Professor 
W., who was an expert of high transatlantic reputation on 
Coptic ritual, occasionally remarked: "They are beginning 
the Mass now," "That was the offertory," "No, I was 
wrong; it was the consecration," "No, I was wrong; I think 
it is the secret Gospel;' "No, I think it must be the Epistle," 
"How very curious; I don't believe it was a Mass at 
all," "Now they are beginning the Mass. . ." and so on. 
Presently the bishops began to fumble among the band- 
boxes, and investiture began. At long intervals the Emperor 
was presented with robe, orb, spurs, spear, and finally with 
the crown. A salute of guns was fired, and the crowds out- 
side, scattered all over the surrounding waste spaces, began 
to cheer; the imperial horses reared up, plunged on top of 
each other, kicked the gilding off the front of the coach, 
and broke their traces. The coachman sprang from the 
box and whipped them from a safe distance. Inside the 
pavilion there was a general sense of relief; it had all been 
very fine and impressive, now for a cigarette, a drink, and 
a change into less formal costume. Not a bit of it. The 
next thing was to crown the Empress and the heir apparent; 
another salvo of guns followed, during which an Abyssinian 
groom had two ribs broken in an attempt to unharness 
a pair of the imperial horses. Again we felt for our hats 
and gloves. But the Coptic choir still sang; the bishops 
then proceeded to take back the regalia with proper prayers, 
lections, and canticles. 
"I have noticed some very curious variations in the 
Canon of the Mass," remarked the professor, "particu- 
larly with regard to the kiss of peace." 



A CORONATION IN 1930 103 
Then the Mass began. 
For the first time throughout the morning the Emperor 
and Empress left their thrones; they disappeared behind 
the curtains into the improvised sanctuary; most of the 
clergy went too. The stage was empty save for the diplo- 
mats; their faces were set and strained, their attitudes 
inelegant. I have seen just that look in crowded railway 
carriages, at dawn, between Avignon and Marseille. Their 
clothes made them funnier still. Marshal d'Esperez alone 
preserved his dignity, his chest thrown out, his baton poised 
on his knee, rigid as a war memorial, and, as far as one 
could judge, wide awake. 
It was now about eleven o'clock, the time at which the 
emperor was due to leave the pavilion. Punctually to plan, 
three Abyssinian aeroplanes rose to greet him. They circled 
round and round over the tent, eagerly demonstrating their 
newly acquired art by swooping and curvetting within 
a few feet of the canvas roof. The noise was appalling; the 
local chiefs stirred in their sleep and rolled on to their 
faces; only by the opening and closing of their lips and 
the turning of their music could we discern that the Coptic 
deacons were still singing. 
"A most unfortunate interruption. I missed many of the 
verses," said the professor. 
Eventually, at about half-past twelve, the Mass came to 
an end, and the Emperor and Empress, crowned, shuffling 
along under a red and gold canopy and looking, as Irene 
remarked, exactly like the processional statues of Seville, 
crossed to a grand stand, from which the Emperor delivered 
a royal proclamation; an aeroplane scattered copies of the 
text and, through loud speakers, the Court heralds reread 
it to the populace. 
There was a slightly ill-tempered scramble among the 
photographers and cinema-men-I received a heavy blow 
in the middle of the back from a large camera, and a hoarse 
rebuke, "Come along there now-let the eyes of the world 
see. " 
Dancing broke out once more among the clergy, and 
there is no knowing how long things might not have 
gone on, had not the photographers so embarrassed and 



1°4 w HEN THE GO I N G WAS GOO D 
jostled them, and outraged their sense of reverence, 
that they withdrew to finish their devotions alone in the 
cathedral. 
Then at last the Emperor and Empress were conducted 
to their coach and borne off to luncheon by its depleted 
but still demonstratively neurasthenic team of horses. 
My Indian chauffeur had got bored and gone home. 
Luncheon at the hotel was odious. All food supplies had 
been commandeered by the Government, M. Hallot told 
us; it was rather doubtful whether the market would open 
again until the end of the week. Meanwhile there were 
tinned chunks of pineapple and three courses of salt beef, 
one cut in small cubes with chopped onion, one left in a 
slab with tomato ketchup, one in slices with hot water and 
Worcestershire sauce; the waiters had gone out the night 
before to get drunk and had not yet woken up. 
We were all in a bad temper that night. 
Six days followed of intensive celebration. On Monday 
morning the delegations were required to leave wreaths at 
the mausoleum of Menelik and Zauditu. This is a circular, 
domed building of vaguely Byzantine affinities, standing 
in the Gebbi grounds. Its interior is furnished with oil- 
paintings and enlarged photographs of the royal family, 
a fumed oak grandfather clock, and a few occasional tables; 
their splay legs protruded from under embroidered linen 
tablecloths, laid diagonally; on them stood little conical 
silver vases of catkins boldly counterfeited in wire and 
magenta wool. Steps led down to the vault where Jay the 
white marble sarcophagi of the two potentates. It is uncer- 
tain whether either contains the body attributed to it, or 
indeed any body at all. The date and place of Menelik's 
death are a palace secret, but it is generally supposed to 
have taken place about two years before its formal announce- 
ment to people; the Empress probably lies out under the 
hill at Debra Lebanos. At various hours that morning, 
however, the delegations of the Great Powers dutifully 
appeared, and, not to be outdone in reverence, Professor 
W. came tripping gravely in with a little bunch of white 
carnations. 



A CORONATION IN 1930 105 
There was a cheerful, friendly tea-party that afternoon 
at the American Legation and a ball and firework display 
at the Italian, but the party which excited the keenest 
interest was the gebbur given by the Emperor to his tribes- 
men. These banquets are a regular feature of Ethiopian 
life, constituting, in fact, a vital bond between the people 
and their over-lords, whose prestige in time of peace varies 
directly with their frequency and abundance. Until a few 
years ago attendance at a gebbur was part of the entertain- 
ment offered to every visitor in Abyssinia. Copious first- 
hand accounts can be found in almost every book about 
the country, describing the packed, squatting ranks of the 
diners; the slaves carrying the warm quarters of newly 
slaughtered, uncooked beef; the despatch with which each 
guest carves for himself; the upward slice of his dagger 
with which he severs each mouthful from the dripping 
lump; the flat, damp platters of local bread; the great 
draughts of tedj and talla from the horn drinking-pots; the 
butchers outside felling and dividing the oxen; the Emperor 
a.nd notables at the high table, exchanging highly seasoned 
morsels of more elaborate fare. These are the traditional 
features of the gebbur and, no doubt, of this occasion also. 
It was thus that the journalists described their impressions 
in glowing paraphrases of Rhey and Kingsford. vVhen the 
time came, however, we found that particular precautions 
had been taken to exclude all Europeans from the spectacle. 
Mr. Hall loyally undertook to exercise his influence for 
each of us personally, but in the end no one gained admis- 
sion except two resolute ladies and, by what was felt to be 
a very base eXploitation of racial advantage, the coloured 
correspondent of a syndicate of negro newspapers. 
All that I saw was the last relay of guests shambling out 
of the Gebbi gates late that afternoon. They were a very 
enviable company, quite stupefied with food and drink. 
Policemen attempted to herd them on, kicking their in- 
sensible backs and whacking them with canes, but nothing 
disturbed their serene good temper. The chiefs were 
hoisted on to mules by their retainers and remained there 
blinking and smiling; one very old man, mounted back 
to front, felt feebly about the crupper for his reins; some 



106 w HEN THE GO I N G WAS GOO D 
stood clasped together in silent, swaying groups; others, 
lacking support, rolled contentedly in the dust. I remem- 
bered them that evening as I sat in the supper-room at the 
Italian Legation gravely discussing the slight disturbance 
of diplomatic propriety caused by the Emperor's capricious 
distribution of honours. 
There were several parties that week, of more or less 
identical composition. At three there were fireworks, 
resulting in at least one nasty accident; at one, a cinema 
which failed to work; at one, Galla dancers who seemed 
to dislocate their shoulders, and sweated so heartily that 
our host was able to plaster their foreheads with bank- 
notes; at another, Somali dancers shivered with cold on 
a lawn illuminated with coloured flares. There was a race 
meeting; the royal enclosure was packed and the rest of 
 
the course empty of spectators; a totalisator paid out four 
dollars on every winning three-dollar ticket; both bands 
played; Prince Udine presented an enormous cup and the 
Emperor a magnificent kind of urn whose purpose no one 
could discover; it had several silver taps and little silver 
stands, and a great tray covered with silver cups of the 
kind from which grape-fruit is eaten in cinema-films. This 
fine trophy was won by a gentleman, in gilt riding-boots, 
attached to the French Legation, and was used later at 
their party for champagne. There was a certain amount of 
whispering against French sportsmanship, however, as 
they had sent back their books of sweepstake tickets with 
scarcely one sold. This showed a very bad club spirit, the 
other legations maintained. 
There was a procession of all the troops, uniformed and 
irregular, in the middle of which Irene appeared in a taxi- 
cab surprisingly surrounded by a band of mounted musicians 
playing six-foot pipes and banging on saddle drums of ox- 
hide and wood. The people all shrilled their applause, as 
the Emperor passed, in a high, wailing whistle. 
There was the opening of a museum of souvenirs, 
containing examples of native craftsmanship, the crown 
captured by General Napier at Magdala and returned by 
the Victoria and Albert Museum, and a huge, hollow 
stone which an Abyssinian saint had worn as a hat. 



A CORONATION IN 1930 107 
There was a review of the troops on the plain outside 
the railway station. 
But no catalogue of events can convey any real idea of 
these astounding days, of an atmosphere utterly unique, 
elusive, unforgettable. If I have seemed to give emphasis 
to the irregularity of the proceedings, to their unpunctuality, 
and their occasional failure, it is because this was an essential 
part of their character and charm. In Addis Ababa every- 
thing was haphazard and incongruous; one learned always 
to expect the unusual and yet was always surprised. 
, Every morning we awoke to a day of brilliant summer 
sunshine; every evening fell cool, limpid, charged with 
hidden vitality, fragrant with the thin smoke of the tukal 
fires, pulsing, like a live body, with the beat of the tom- 
toms that drummed incessantly somewhere out of sight 
among the eucalyptus-trees. In this rich African setting 
were jumbled together, for a few days, people of every 
race and temper, a company shot through with every degree 
of animosity and suspicion. There were continual rumours 
born of the general uncertainty; rumours about the date 
and place of every ceremony; rumours of dissension in 
high places; rumours that, in the absence at Addis Ababa 
of all the responsible officials, the interior was seething 
with brigandage; that the Ethiopian Minister to Paris had 
been refused admittance to Addis Ababa; that the royal 
coachman had not had his wages for two months and had 
given in his notice; that one of the legations had refused 
to receive the Empress's first lady-in-waiting. 
One morning Irene and I were sitting outside the hotel 
drinking aperitifs and waiting for luncheon; we were 
entertained by the way in which the various visitors treated 
a pedlar who diffidently approached them with a bundle of 
bootlaces in one hand and an enamelled pot de chambre in 
the other. Suddenly a taxi drove up, and a servant wearing 
the palace livery jumped out and emptied a large pile of 
envelopes into Irene's lap. Two were addressed to us. We 
took them and handed back the rest, which the man pre- 
sented, to be sorted in the same way, at the next table. 
The envelopes contained an invitation to lunch with 
the Emperor that day at one o'clock; as it was then after 



108 w HEN THE GO I N G WAS GOO D 
half-past twelve we disregarded the request for an answer 
and hurried off to change. 
Professor Vv
. had spoken to me of this party some days 
before, saying with restrained relish, "On Saturday I am 
lunching with the Emperor. There are several things I shall 
be interested to discuss with him." But, as it turned out, 
he had little opportunity for conversation. There were 
about eighty guests and many empty places, showing that 
the messenger had not been able to finish his round in 
time. At first we stood in the glazed corridor which ran 
down one side of the main building. Then we were ushered 
into the throne-room, bowed and curtsied, and ranged our- 
selves round the walls while byrrh and vermouth and cigars 
were carried round. There was something slightly eccle- 
siastical in the atmosphere. 
The Emperor then led the way into the dining-room. 
We tramped in behind him in no particular order. He 
seated himself at the centre of the top table; three tables 
ran at right angles to him, resplendent with gold plate 
and white-and-gold china. Typewritten name-cards lay on 
each plate. Ten minutes or so followed of some confusion 
as we jostled round and round looking for our places; 
there was no plan of the table, and as most of us were 
complete strangers we were unable to help each other. 
The Emperor sat watching us with a placid little smile. 
We must have looked very amusing. Naturally no one 
cared to Jook at the places next to the Emperor, so that 
when at last we were all seated the two most honoured 
guests were left to sidle forlornly into the nearest empty 
places. Eventually they were fetched. Irene sat on one 
side and the French wife of the Egyptian consul on his 
other. I sat between an English airman and a Belgian 
photographer. A long meal followed, of many courses of 
fair French cooking and good European wines. There was 
also tedj and the national beverage made from fermented 
honey. We had sent out for some, one evening at the hotel, 
and found it an opaque yellowish liquid, mild and rather 
characterless. The Emperor's tedj was a very different 
drink, quite clear, slightly brown, heavy, rich, and dry. 
After luncheon, at Irene's request, we were given some 



A COR 0 N A T ION I N I 930 1°9 
of the liqueur distilled from it-a colourless spirit of fine 
flavour and disconcerting potency. 
Only one odd thing happened at luncheon. Just as we 
were finishing, a stout young woman rose from a seat 
near the back and made her way resolutely between the' 
tables until she planted herself within a few yards of the 
Emperor. I understand that she was a Syrian Jewess 
employed in some educational capacity in the town. She 
carried a sheaf of papers which she held close to her pince- 
"nez with one plump hand while she raised the other above 
her head in a Fascist salute. Conversation faltered and 
ceased. The Emperor looked at her with kindly enquiry. 
Then, in a voice of peculiar strength and stridency, she 
began to recite an ode. It was a very long complimentary 
ode, composed by herself in Arabic, a language wholly 
unintelligible to His Majesty. Between verses she made 
a long pause during which she fluttered her manuscript; 
then she began again. We had just begun to feel that the 
performance would really prove interminable, when, just 
as suddenly as she had begun, she stopped, bobbed, turned 
about, and, with glistening forehead and slightly labouring 
breath, strode back to her place to receive the congratula- 
tions of her immediate neighbours. The Emperor rose and 
led the way back to the throne-room. Here we stood round 
the walls for a quarter of an hour while liqueurs were 
served. Then we bowed in turn and filed out into the 
sunshine. 
One moment of that week is particularly vivid in my 
memory. It was late at night and we had just returned 
from a party. My room, as I have said, was in an outhouse 
at a little distance from the hotel; a grey horse, some goats, 
and the hotel guard, his head wrapped in a blanket, were 
sleeping in the yard as I went across. Behind my room, 
separated from the hotel grounds by wooden palings, lay 
a cluster of native tukals. That evening there was a party 
in one of them. The door faced my way and I could see 
a glimmer of lamplight in the interior. They were singing 
a monotonous song, clapping in time and drumming with 
their hands on petrol-tins. I suppose there were about ten 
or fifteen of them there. I stood for some time listening. 



110 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
I was wearing a tall hat, evening clothes and white gloves. 
Presently the guard woke up and blew a little trumpet; 
the sound was taken up by other guards at neighbouring 
houses (it is in this way that they assure their employers 
of their vigilance); then he wrapped himself once more in 
his blanket and relapsed into sleep. 
The song continued unvarying in the still night. The 
absurdity of the whole week became suddenly typified for 
me in that situation-my preposterous clothes, the sleep- 
ing animals, and the wakeful party on the other side of 
the stockade. 


It was during our third week in Addis Ababa, when 
the official celebrations were over and the delegations 
were being packed off to the coast as fast as the Franco- 
Ethiopian Railway's supply of sleeping cars would allow, 
that Professor W. suggested to me that we should make 
an expedition together to Debra Lebanos. 
This monastery has for four centuries been the centre 
of Abyssinian spiritual life. It is built round a spring where 
the waters of Jordan, conveyed subterraneously down the 
Red Sea, are believed to well up endowed with curative 
properties; pilgrims go there from all parts of the country, 
and it is a popular burial-ground for those who can afford 
it, since all found there at the Last Trump are assured of 
unimpeded entry into Paradise. 
It was the dry season, so that the road could be attempted 
by car. Professor Mercer had recently made the journey 
and had come back with photographs of a hitherto unknown 
version of Ecclesiastes. Ras Kassa had driven from Fiche 
only two weeks before and renewed the bridges for the 
occasion, so that we had little difficulty in finding a driver 
willing to take us. Permission had first to be obtained from 
Kassa to use the road. Professor W. obtained this and also 
a letter of commendation from the Abuna. An escort of 
soldiers was offered us, but refused. The expedition con- 
sisted simply of ourselves, a bullet-headed Armenian 
chauffeur, and a small native boy, who attached himself to 
us without invitation. At first we were a little resentful of 
this, but he firmly refused to understand our attempts at 



A CORONATION IN 1930 III 
dismissal, and later we were grateful for his presence. The 
car, which did things I should have thought no car could 
possibly do, was an American make which is rarely seen 
in Europe. When we had packed it with our overcoats, 
rugs, tins of petrol, and provisions, there was just room 
for ourselves. The hotel supplied beer and sandwiches 
and olives and oranges, and Irene gave us a hamper of 
tinned and truffied foods from Fortnum & Mason. We 
were just starting, rather later than we had hoped, when 
Professor W. remembered something. "Do you mind if 
we go back to my hotel for a minute? There's just one 
thing I've forgotten." We drove round to the Imperial. 
The thing he had forgotten was a dozen empty Vichy- 
bottles. "I thought it would be courteous," he explained, 
"to take some holy water back to Ras Kassa and the Abuna. 
I'm sure they would appreciate it." 
"Yes, but need we take quite so much?" 
"Well, there's the patriarchal legate, I should like 
to give him some, and Belatingeta Herui, and the Coptic 
patriarch at Cairo. . . . I thought it was a nice opportunity 
to repay some of the kindness I have received." 
I suggested that this purpose could be more conveniently 
achieved by giving them tedj, and that from what I had 
seen of Abyssinians they would much prefer it. Professor 
Vl. gave a little nervous laugh and looked anxiously out 
of the window. 
"Well, why not fill my empty beer-bottles?" 
"No, no, I don't think that would be quite suitable. I 
don't really like using Vichy-bottles. I wish I had had 
time to scrape off the labels," he mused. "I don't quite 
like the idea of holy water in Vichy-bottles. Perhaps the 
boy could do it to-morrow-before they are filled, of 
course. " 
A new aspect of the professor's character was thus 
revealed. My acquaintance with him until that day was 
limited to half a dozen more or Jess casual encounters at 
the various parties and shows. I had found him full of 
agreeably ironical criticism of our companions, very 
punctilious, and very enthusiastic about things which 
seemed to me unexceptionable. "Look," he would say 



112 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
with purest Boston intonation, "look at the exqUIsIte 
grace of the basket that woman is carrying. There is the 
whole character of the people in that plaited straw. Ah, 
why do we waste our time looking at crowns and canons? 
I could study that basket all day." And a wistful, far-away 
look would come into his eyes as he spoke. 
Remarks of that kind went down very well with some 
people, and I regarded them as being, perhaps, one of the 
normal manifestations of American scholarship. They were 
compensated for by such sound maxims as "Never carry 
binoculars; you only have to hand them over to some 
wretched woman as soon as there is anything worth see- 
ing." But this worldly good sense was a mere mask over 
the essentially mystical nature of the professor's mind; one 
touch of church furniture, and he became suddenly trans- 
fused with reverence, with an impulsive and demonstrative 
devotion, that added a great deal to the glamour of our 
expedition together. 
Those bottles, however, were an infernal nuisance. 
They clinked about the floor, making all the difference 
between tolerable ease and acute discomfort. There was 
nowhere to rest our feet except on their unstable, rolling 
surface. We drew up our knees and resigned ourselves to 
cramp and pins and needles. 
Debra Lebanos is practically due north of Addis Ababa. 
For the first mile or two there was a clearly marked track 
which led out of the town, right over the summit of Entoto. 
It was extremely steep and narrow, composed of loose 
stones and boulders; on the top of the hill was a little 
church and parsonage, the ground all round them broken 
by deep ravines and outcrops of stone. "Whatever happens," 
we decided, "we must make quite certain of coming over 
here by daylight." 
From Entoto the way led down to a wide plain, watered 
by six or seven shallow streams which flowed between deep 
banks at right angles to our road. Caravans of mules were 
coming into the town laden with skins. Professor W. 
saluted them with bows and blessings; the hillmen answered 
him with blank stares or broad incredulous grins. A few, 
more sophisticated than their companions, bellowed, 



A CORONATION IN 1930 113 
"Bakshishl" Professor W. shook his head sadly and 
remarked that the people were already getting spoiled by 
foreign intrusion. 
It took two or three hours to cross the plain; we drove, 
for the most part, parallel to the track, rather than on it, 
finding the rough ground more comfortable than the 
prepared surface. We crossed numerous dry watercourses 
and several streams. At some of these there had been rough 
attempts at bridge-building, usually a heap of rocks and 
a few pieces of timber; in rare cases a culvert ran under- 
neath. It was in negotiating these that we first realised the 
astonishing powers of our car. It would plunge nose first 
into a precipitous gully, shiver and stagger a little, churn 
up dust and stones, roar, and skid, bump and sway until 
we began to climb out, and then it would suddenly start 
forward and mount very deliberately up the other side as 
though endowed with some peculiar prehensile quality in 
its tyres. Occasionally, in conditions of scarcely conceiv- 
able asperity, the engine would stop. Professor W. would 
sigh, and open the door, allowing two or three of his empty 
bottles to roll out on to the running-board. 
"Ah, s;a n'a pas d'importance," said the driver, prod- 
ding the boy, who jumped out, restored the bottles, and 
then leant his shoulder against the back of the car. This 
infinitesimal contribution of weight seemed to be all the 
car needed; up it would go out of the river-bed, and over 
the crest of the bank, gaining speed as it reached level 
ground; the child would race after us and clamber in as 
we bumped along, a triumphant smile on his little black face. 
At about eleven we stopped for luncheon by the side of 
the last stream. The boy busied himself by filling up the 
radiator by the use of a small cup. I ate sandwiches and 
drank beer rendered volatile by the motion of the car. 1;'he 
professor turned out to be a vegetarian; he unwrapped 
a little segment of cheese from its silver paper and nibbled 
it delicately and made a very neat job of an orange. The 
sun was very powerful, and the professor advanced what 
seemed, and still seems, to me the radically unsound theory 
that you must wear thick woollen underclothes if you wish 
to keep cool in the tropics. 



II4 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
After leaving the plain we drove for three hours or so 
across grassy downland. There was now no track of any 
kind, but occasional boundary-stones hinted at the way 
we should follow. There were herds grazing, usually in 
charge of small naked children. At first the professor 
politely raised his hat and bowed to them, but the effect 
was so disturbing that after he had sent three or four out 
of sight, wailing in terror, he remarked that it was agree- 
able to find people who had a proper sense of the menace 
of motor transport, and relapsed into meditation, ponder- 
ing, perhaps, the advisability of presenting a little holy 
water to the Emperor. The route was uneventful, broken 
only by occasional clusters of tukals, surrounded by high 
hedges of euphorbia. It was very hot, and after a time, in 
spite of the jangle of the bottles and the constriction of 
space, I fell into a light doze. 
I awoke as we stopped on the top of a hill; all round us 
were empty undulations of grass. "Nous sommes perdus?" 
asked the professor. "Qa n'a pas d'importance," replied 
the driver, lighting a cigarette. The boy was despatched, 
like the dove from Noah's ark, to find direction in the 
void. We waited for half an hour before he returned. Mean- 
while three native women appeared from nowhere, peering 
at us from under straw sunshades. The professor took off 
his hat and bowed. The women huddled together and 
giggled. Presently fascination overcame their shyness and 
they approached closer; one touched the radiator and 
burned her fingers. They asked for cigarettes and were 
repelled, with some very forceful language, by the driver. 
At last the child returned and made some eXplanations. 
We turned off at right angles and drove on, and the pro- 
fessor and I fell asleep once more. 
When I next woke, the landscape had changed dramatic- 
ally. About half a mile from us, and obliquely to the line 
of our path, the ground fell away suddenly into a great 
canyon, descending abruptly in tiers of sheer cliff, broken 
by strips and patches of timber. At the bottom a river ran 
between green banks, to swell the Blue Nile; it was practic- 
ally dry at this season except for a few shining channels of 
water which split and reunited on the sandy bed in delicate 



A CORONATION IN 1930 lIS 
threads of light. Poised among trees, two-thirds of the way 
down on a semi-circular shelf of land, we could discern the 
roofs of Debra Lebanos. A cleft path led down the face of 
the cliff and it was for this that we were clearly making. 
It looked hopelessly unsafe, but our Armenian plunged 
down with fine intrepidity. 
Sometimes we lurched along a narrow track with cliffs 
rising on one side and a precipice falling away on the other; 
sometimes we picked our way on broad ledges among great 
boulders; sometimes we grated between narrow rock walls. 
At last we reached a defile which even our driver admitted 
to be impassable. We climbed out along the running-boards 
and finished the descent on foot. Professor W. was clearly 
already enchanted by the sanctity of the place. 
"Look," he said, pointing to some columns of smoke 
that rose from the cliffs above us, "the cells of the solitary 
anchorites." 
"Are you sure there are solitary anchorites here? I never 
heard of any." 
"It would be a good place for them," he said wistfully. 
The Armenian strode on in front of us, a gallant little 
figure with his cropped head and rotund, gaitered legs; 
the boy staggered behind, carrying overcoats, blankets, 
provisions, and a good half-dozen of the empty bottles. 
Suddenly the Armenian stopped and, with his finger on 
his lips, drew our attention to the rocks just below us. 
Twenty or thirty baboons of both sexes and all ages were 
huddled in the shade. 
"Ah," said Professor W., "sacred monkeys. How very 
interesting! " 
"Why do you think they are sacred? They seem perfectly 
wild. " 
"It is a common thing to find sacred monkeys in mon- 
asteries," he eXplained gently. "I have seen them in Ceylon 
and in many parts of India. . . . Oh, why did he do that? 
How very thoughtless!" For our driver had thrown a stone 
into their midst and scattered them barking in all directions, 
to the great delight of the smaIl boy behind us. 
It was hot walking. We passed one or two tukals with 
women and children staring curiously at us, and eventually 



II6 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 


emerged on an open green ledge littered with enormous 
rocks and a variety of unimposing buildings. A mob of 
ragged boys, mostly infected with skin diseases, surrounded 
us and were repelled by the Armenian. (These, we learned 
later, were the deacons.) We sent the boy forward to find 
someone more responsible, and soon a fine-looking, bearded 
monk carrying a yellow sunshade, came out of the shadow 
of a tree and advanced to greet us. We gave him our letter 
of introduction from the Abuna, and after he had scrutinised 
both sides of the envelope with some closeness, he agreed, 
through our Armenian, who from now on acted as inter- 
preter, to fetch the head of the monastery. He was away 
some time and eventually returned with an old priest, who 
wore a brown cloak, a very large white turban, steel-rimmed 
spectacles, and carried in one hand an old black umbrella 
and in the other a horsehair fly-whisk. Professor W. darted 
forward and kissed the cross which swung from the old 
man's neck. This was received rather well, but I felt too 
shy to follow his lead and contented myself with shaking 
hands. The monk then handed his superior our letter, 
which was tucked away in his pocket unopened. They then 
explained that they would be ready to receive us shortly, 
and went off to wake up the other priests and prepare the 
chapter house. 
We waited about half an hour, sitting in the shade near 
the church, and gradually forming round us a circle of 
inquisitive ecclesiastics of all ages. The Armenian went 
off to see about his car. Professor W. replied to the ques- 
tions that were put to us, with bows, shakes of the head, 
and little sympathetic moans. Presently one monk came 
up and, squatting beside us, began to write on the back 
of his hand with a white pencil in a regular, finely-formed 
Amharic script. One of the letters was in the form of a 
cross. Professor W., anxious to inform them all that we 
were good Christians, pointed to this mark, then to me 
and to himself, bowed in the direction of the church, and 
crossed himself. This time he made a less happy impres- 
sion. Everyone looked bewildered and rather scared; the 
scribe spat on his hand and, hastily erasing the text, fell back 
some paces. There was an air of tension and embarrassment, 



A CORONATION IN 1930 117 
which was fortunately disturbed by our Armenian with 
the announcement that the council of the monastery were 
now ready to receive us. 
Apart from the two churches, the most prominent 
building was a tall, square house of stone, with a thatched 
roof and a single row of windows set high up under the 
eaves; it was here that we were led. A small crowd had 
collected round the door, which was covered with a double 
curtain of heavy sackcloth. The windows also were heavily 
screened, so that we stepped from the brilliant sunshine 
into a gloom which was at first completely baffiing. One 
of the priests raised the door-curtain a little to show us our 
way. A single lofty room constituted the entire house; the 
walls were of undisguised stone and rubble, no ceiling 
covered the rafters and thatch. Preparations had clearly 
been made for us; carpets had been spread on the earthen 
floor, and in the centre stood two low stools covered with 
rugs; twelve ?riests stood ranged against the wall, the 
head of the monastery in their centre; between them and 
our seats stood a table covered with a shawl; the only other 
furniture was a cupboard in the far corner, roughly built 
of irregularly-stained white wood, the doors secured with 
a staple and padlock. We sat down and our chauffeur- 
interpreter stood beside us jauntily twirling his cap. When 
we were settled, the head of the monastery, who apparently 
also bore the title of abuna, brought our letter of introduc- 
tion out of his pocket and, for the first time, opened it. He 
read it first to himself and then aloud to the company, who 
scratched their beards, nodded, and grunted. Then he 
addressed us, asking us what we wanted. Professor W. 
explained that we had heard from afar of the sanctity of 
the place and the wisdom and piety of the monks, and that 
we had come to do reverence at their shrine, pay our duty 
and respects to them, and take away some account of the 
glories of the monastery of which all the world stood in 
awe. This pretty speech was condensed by our chauffeur 
'into three or four harsh vocables, and greeted with further 
nods and grunts from the assembly. 
One of them then asked whether we were Moham- 
medans. It seemed sad that this question was necessary 



II8 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
after all Professor W.'s protestations. We assured him 
that we were not. Another asked where we had come 
from. Addis Ababa? They asked about the coronation, 
and Professor W. began a graphic outline of the liturgical 
significance of the ceremony. I do not think, however, 
that our chauffeur was at very great pains to translate this 
faithfully. The response, anyway, was a general outburst 
of chuckling, and from then onwards, for about ten minutes, 
he took the burden of conversation from our shoulders and 
speedily established relations of the utmost geniality. 
Presently he began shaking hands with them all and 
eXplained that they would like us to do the same, a social 
duty which Professor W. decorated with many graceful 
genuflections and reverences. 
The professor then asked whether we might visit the 
library of which the world stood in awe. Why, certainly; 
there it was in the corner. The abuna produced a small 
key from his pocket and directed one of the priests to open 
the cupboard. They brought out five or six bundles wrapped 
in silk shawls, and, placing them with great care on the 
table, drew back the door-curtain to admit a shaft of white 
light. The abuna lifted the corners of the shawl on the 
topmost bundle and revealed two pieces of board clumsily 
hinged together in the form of a diptych. Professor W. 
kissed them eagerly; they were then opened, revealing 
two coloured lithographs, apparently cut from a religious 
almanac printed in Germany some time towards the end 
of the last century, representing the Crucifixion and the 
Assumption, pasted on to the inner surfaces of the wood. 
The professor was clearly a little taken aback. "Dear, 
dear, how remarkably ugly they are," he remarked as he 
ben t down to kiss them. 
The other bundles contained manuscripts of the Gospels, 
lives of the saints, and missals, written in Ghiz and brightly 
illuminated. The painting was of the same kind as the 
frescoes, reduced to miniature. Sometimes faces and figures 
had been cut out of prints and stuck into the page with 
a discomposing effect on their highly stylised surroundings. 
They told us with great pride that the artist had been 
employed at Addis Ababa on some work for the late 



A CORONATION IN 1930 119 
Empress. Professor W. asked whether there were not 
some older manuscripts we might see, but they affected 
not to understand. No doubt there were still reserves 
hidden from us. 
It was then suggested that we should visit the sacred 
spring. Professor W. and I set out with a guide up the hill- 
side. It was a stiff climb; the sun was still strong and the 
stones all radiated a fierce heat. "1 think, perhaps, we 
ought to take off our hats," said the professor; "we are on 
very holy ground." 
I removed my topee and exposed myself to sunstroke, 
trusting in divine protection; but, just as he spoke, it so 
happened that our guide stopped on the path and accom- 
modated himself in a way which made me think that his 
reverence for the spot w;as far from fanatical. 
On our way we passed a place where overhanging cliffs 
formed a shallow cave. Water oozed and dripped all round, 
and the path was soft and slippery. It is here that the bodies 
of the faithful are brought; they lay all about, some in 
packing-cases, others in hollow tree-trunks, battened down 
with planks, piled and tumbled on top of each other with- 
out order; many were partly submerged in falls of damp 
earth, a few of these rough coffins had broken apart, reveal- 
ing their contents. There were similar heaps, we were told, 
on other parts of the hillside. 
We had a fine view of the valley; our guide pointed out 
a group of buildings on the far side. "That is the convent 
for the women," he explained. "You see it is quite untrue 
that we live together. The houses are entirely separate. We 
do not cross the valley to them, and they do not cross to 
us. Never. It is all a lie." He wanted to make this point 
quite clear. 
At last we reached the spring, which fell in a pretty 
cascade to join the river far below at the bottom of the 
valley. Most of the water, however, had been tapped, and 
was conveyed in two iron pipes to bathing-places near the 
monastery. We climbed down again to see them. One, 
built especially for Menelik, was a little brick house with 
a corrugated iron roof. The old Empress had frequently 
COme here, and since her death it had not been used. We 



120 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
peered through the window and saw a plain kitchen-chair. 
There was a rusty spout in the ceiling from which a trickle 
of water fell on the brick floor and drained away through 
the waste-pipe in one corner. The other bath was for public 
use. The pipe was fitted with a double spout, directing two 
streams of water on to either side of a brick wall. One side 
was for men and the other for women, and a three-sided 
screen was built round each. The floor was made of cement. 
A boy was in there at the time of our visit, swilling himself 
down with as much puffing and spluttering as if he were 
under any purely secular shower-bath. 
As we turned back, our Armenian and a monk met us 
with a message from the abuna-should they kill a goat, 
a sheep, or a calf for our dinner? We explained that we 
had full provision for our food. All we required was shelter 
for the night and water to wash in. The Armenian eXplained 
that it was usual to accept something. We suggested some 
eggs, but were told that they had none. They urged a goat 
very strongly. Meat is a rare luxury in the monastery, and 
they were, no doubt, eager to take the opportunity of our 
visit for a feast. The professor's vegetarian scruples, how- 
ever, were unconquerable. At last they suggested honey, 
which he accepted readily. The question of our accommoda- 
tion was then discussed. There was a hut or a tent. The 
Armenian warned us that if we slept in the hut we should 
certainly contract some repulsive disease, and if in the tent, 
we might be killed by hyrenas. He had already made up 
his own min d, he said, to sleep in the car . We returned to 
the monastery, and the abuna led us in person to see the 
hut. It was some time before the key could be found; when 
the door was at last wrenched open, an emaciated she-goat 
ran out. The interior was windowless and fretid. It appeared 
to have been used as a kind of lumber-room; heaps of old 
rags and broken furniture encumbered the floor. A swarm 
of bees buzzed in the roof. It was not quite ready, the 
abuna eXplained; he had not expected guests. It could, of 
course, be prepared, or would we think it inhospitable if 
he offered us the tent? We declared that the tent would be 
wholly satisfactory, and so, with evident relief, the abuna 
gave instructions for its erection. It was now nearly sunset. 



A CORONATION IN 1930 121 
A spot of ground was chosen near the house where we had 
been received, and a very decent bell-tent pitched. (It was 
the property of the old Empress, we learned. She had often 
slept there on her visits to the spring.) The floor was covered 
with hay and the hay with rugs. A little boat-shaped oil- 
lamp was hung from the tent-pole; our rugs, provisions, 
and bottles were brought in and laid on one side. We were 
then invited to enter. We sat down cross-legged and the 
abuna sat beside us. He looked enormous in the tiny light; 
the shadow from his great turban seemed to fill the whole 
tent. The chauffeur squatted opposite us. The abuna smiled 
with the greatest geniality and expressed his best wishes 
for our comfort; we thanked him heartily. Conversation 
lapsed and we all three sat smiling rather vacantly. Presently 
the flap was lifted and a monk came in wearing a heavy 
brown burnous and carrying an antiquated rifle. He bowed 
to us and retired. He was a guard, the abuna explained, 
who would sleep outside across our door. Another smiling 
pause. At last supper arrived; first a basket containing haIf- 
a-dozen great rounds of native bread, a tough, clammy sub- 
stance closely resembling crepe rubber in appearance; then 
two earthenware jugs, one of water, the other of talla- 
a kind of thin, bitter beer; then two horns of honey, but 
not of honey as it is understood at Thame; this was the 
product of wild bees, scraped straight from the tree; it was 
a greyish colour, full of bits of stick and mud, bird dung, 
dead bees, and grubs. Everything was first carried to the 
abuna for his approval, then to us. We expressed our delight 
with nods and more extravagant smiles. The food was laid 
before us and the bearers retired. At this moment the 
Armenian shamelessly deserted us, saying that he must go 
and see after his boy. 
The three of us were left alone, smiling over our food 
in the half darkness. 
In the corner lay our hamper packed with Irene's Euro- 
pean delicacies. We clearly could not approach them until 
our host left us. Gradually the frightful truth became 
evident that he was proposing to dine with us. I tore off 
a little rag of bread and attempted to eat it. "This is a very 
difficult situation," said the professor; "I think, perhaps, 



122 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
it would be well to simulate ill-health," and, holding his 
hands to his forehead, he began to rock gently from side 
to side, emitting painfully subdued moans. It was admir- 
ably done; the abuna watched him with the greatest con- 
cern; presently the professor held his stomach and retched 
a little; then he lay on his back, breathing heavily with 
closed eyes; then he sat up on his elbow and explained in 
eloquent dumb show that he wished to rest. The abuna 
understood perfectly, and, with every gesture of sympathy, 
rose to his feet and left us. 
In five minutes, when I had opened a tinned grouse and 
a bottle of lager and the professor was happily mumbling 
a handful of ripe olives, the Armenian returned. vVith 
a comprehensive wink, he picked up the jug of native beer, 
threw back his head, and, without pausing to breathe, 
drank a quart or two. He then spread out two rounds of 
bread, emptied a large quantity of honey into each of them, 
wrapped them together, and put them in his pocket. "Moi, 
je puis manger comme abyssin," he remarked cheerfully, 
winked at the grouse, wished us good night, and left us. 
"Now at last," said the Professor, producing a tin of 
Keating's powder, "I feel in the heart of Ethiopia." He 
sprinkled the rugs and blankets, wrapped his head in a 
pale grey scarf, and prepared to settle down for the night. 
We had had a tiring day, and after smoking a pipe I decided 
to follow his example. The lamp was flickering and smoking 
badly and threatened at any moment to burn through its 
own string and set us on fire. I blew it out, and was just 
becoming drowsy when the abuna returned, carrying, a 
lantern, to see whether the professor felt any better. We 
all smiled inarticulately for some time, and the professor 
pointed to the half-empty beer-jug and the horns of honey 
as proof of his recovery. The abuna noted them with evident 
satisfaction, and then his eye, travelling round the tent, 
was attracted by the Keating's powder which lay like thick 
dust over the floor and bedding. He called in the guard 
and rather crossly pointed out this evidence of neglect. 
The man hastily produced a broom and brushed out the 
tent. Then, when everything was again in order, and after 
many bows, smiles, and blessings, he left us to sleep. 



A CORONATION IN 1930 123 
But I, at any rate, slept very little. It was a deadly cold 
night and a bitter wind sprang up, sweeping the valley and 
driving under the tent and through our thin blankets, 
while outside the door the guard coughed and grunted. 
I was out before dawn and watched the monastery waking 
into life. There seemed very little order. The monks 
emerged from the huts in ones and twos and pottered off 
to work in the fields and woods. A certain number of them 
went down to the church, where the professor and I followed 
them. They sat about outside until a priest appeared with 
the keys; then a service began, apparently quite at hap- 
hazard. Two or three would start intoning some kind of 
psalm or litany, and others seemed to join in as they thought 
fit; two or three were reading aloud from large manuscripts 
supported on folding rests; others leant on their praying- 
sticks or squatted in corners muttering. Now and then one 
would stop on his way to work, kiss the door on the inner 
wall, and pass on. The frescoes of the inner sanctuary were 
hung with green curtains; one of the priests pointed to 
them and eXplained in dumb show that they would be 
drawn for our inspection later in the day. 
We returned to our tent for breakfast. Beer and anchovies 
seemed rather discouraging after our chilly night, but there 
was no alternative except tinned loganberries and foie gras. 
The guard came in, finished the beer, and ate some bread 
and honey. He showed great interest in our belongings, 
fingering everything in turn-the tin-opener, electric torch, 
a pocket-knife, a pair of hairbrushes. I let him play with 
the sword-stick I happened to have brought with me; he 
in exchange showed me his rifle and bandolier. About half 
the cartridges were empty shells; the weapon was in very 
poor condition. It could not possibly have been used with 
any accuracy, and probably not with safety. I asked whether 
he had ever killed anything with it; he shook his head, and 
produced a large, rather blunt dagger, which he stabbed 
into the earth. 
Presently the chauffeur came to assure uS that he had 
spent a very comfortable night and felt fairly confident 
that he would be able to extricate the car from its position 
on the path, where it blocked all approach to the monastery 



124 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
and was causing a good deal of trouble to the herdsmen in 
charge of the community's cattle. We told him to remain 
at hand to act as interpreter, and soon a priest came to 
conduct us to the churches. There were two of these; the 
main building, where we had already been, and a small 
shrine, containing a cross which had fallen from heaven. 
The professor thought this might be a piece of the true 
cross brought there from Alexandria after the Arab inva- 
sion, and displayed great veneration; we were not allowed 
to see it, but as a special concession we were shown the 
shawl in which it was wrapped. 
In the main church we paid a fee of seven dollars to 
have the frescoes unveiled. They had lately been repainted 
in brilliant colours and the priest was justly proud of the 
renovation. On one wall were portraits of Ras Kassa, 
Menelik, and the late Empress. It was clear that these 
heads had been copied from photographs, with the curious 
result that they stood out solidly, in carefully articulated 
light and shade and great fidelity of detail, against a com- 
position of purely conventional pre-Renaissance design. 
Another wall was filled with rider saints. '1 he professor 
made a plan of it and took down their names. We were 
then shown some brass processional crosses and some 
illuminated missals, none of any great antiquity. It was, in 
fact, a curious feature of Debra Lebanos that, although the 
community had been the centre of Abyssinian spiritual 
life since the conversion of the country, and had been 
settled on this spot for several centuries, they seem to have 
preserved no single object from the past. It may be that 
their treasures have all been pillaged in the continual inva- 
sions and disorders of Abyssinian history, or that they 
have been sold from time to time in moments of financial 
need, or perhaps simply that they did not choose to show 
them to strangers. 
One thing, however, we did see of the greatest interest. 
That was the sanctuary. We might not, of course, enter 
it, but the priest drew back the curtain for us and allowed 
a short glimpse of the dark interior. In the centre stood 
the tabor, which is both altar-stone and tabernacle, a 
wooden cupboard built like a miniature church in three 



A CORONATION IN 1930 125 
tiers, square at the base, from which rose an octagonal 
story surmounted by a circular dome. Round the tabor, 
in deep dust-for the sanctuary is rarely, if ever, swept 
out-lay an astonishing confusion of litter. There was 
not time to take in everything, but, in the brief inspection, 
I noticed a wicker chair, some heaps of clothes, two or 
three umbrellas, a suitcase of imitation leather, some 
newspapers, and a teapot and slop-pail of enamelled tin. 
It was about ten o'clock when we left the church; there 
was a Mass at one o'clock, which we were both anxious 
to attend, which would not be over until half-past two or 
three. We were thus undecided about our movements. We 
might spend another night there and start back early next 
day for Addis Ababa; we might go and see Fiche, Kassa's 
capital fifteen miles away, and spend a night in the car 
there, or we might start immediately after Mass and try 
to get to Addis that night. The chauffeur favoured the last 
plan and was hopeful of his ability, now that he knew the 
way, of doing the journey in five or six hours. We had not 
provisions to last us in any comfort for two days, and I was 
reluctant to fall back on Abyssinian food. Together we 
persuaded the professor to attempt the journey; if the worst 
came to the worst we could spend the night on the plain; 
a prospect to which the chauffeur added romance with 
gloomy stories of wild beasts and brigands. As the sun 
mounted, it became intensely hot. We lay in the tent 
smoking and dozing until the abuna came to conduct us 
to Mass. 
I will not attempt any description of the ritual; the 
liturgy was quite unintelligible to me, and, oddly enough, 
to the professor also. No doubt the canon of the Mass 
would have been in part familiar, but this was said in the 
sanctuary behind closed doors. We stood in the outer 
ambulatory. A carpet was placed for us to stand on and 
we were given praying-sticks, with the aid of which we 
stood throughout the two hours of service. There were 
twenty or thirty monks round us and some women and 
babies from the tukals. Communion was administered to 
the babies, but to no one else. Many of the monks were 
crippled or deformed in some way; presumably they were 



126 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 


pilgrims who had originally come to the spring in the hope 
of a cure, and had become absorbed into the life of the 
place. There seemed to be very little system of testing 
vocations in the community. The priests and deacons wore 
long, white-and-gold cloaks and turbans, and had bare 
feet. Now and then they emerged from the sanctuary, and 
once they walked round in procession. The singing was 
monotonous and more or less continuous, accompanied 
by a drum and sistrums. For anyone accustomed to the 
Western rite it was difficult to think of this as a Christian 
service, for it bore that secret and confused character 
associated with the non-Christian sects of the East. 
I had sometimes thought it an odd thing that Western 
Christianity, alone of all the religions of the world, exposes 
its mysteries to every observer, but I was so accustomed 
to this openness that I had never before questioned whether 
it was an essential and natural feature of the Christian 
system. Indeed, so saturated are we in this spirit that many 
people regard the growth of the Church as a process of 
elaboration-even of obfuscation; they visualise the Church 
of the first century as a little cluster of pious people read- 
ing the Gospels together, praying and admonishing each 
other with a simplicity to which the high ceremonies and 
subtle theology of later years would have been bewildering 
and unrecognisable. At Debra Lebanos I suddenly saw the 
classic basilica and open altar as a great positive achieve- 
ment, a triumph of light over darkness consciously accom- 
plished, and I saw theology as the science of simplification 
by which nebulous and elusive ideas are formalised and 
made intelligible and exact. I saw the Church of the first 
century as a dark and hidden thing, as dark and hidden 
as the seed germinating in the womb; legionaries off duty 
slipping furtively out of barracks, greeting each other by 
signs and passwords in a locked upper room in the side 
street of some Mediterranean seaport; slaves at dawn 
creeping from the grey twilight into the candle-lit, smoky 
chapels of the catacombs. The priests hid their office, 
practising trades; their identity was known only to initiates; 
they were criminals against the law of their country. And 
the pure nucleus of the truth lay in the minds of the people, 



A CORONATION IN 1930 127 
encumbered with superstitions, gross survivals of the 
paganism in which they had been brought up; hazy and 
obscene nonsense seeping through from the other esoteric 
cults of the Near East, magical infections from the con- 
quered barbarian. And I began to see how these obscure 
sanctuaries had grown, with the clarity of the Western 
reason, into the great open altars of Catholic Europe, 
where Mass is said in a flood of light, high in the sight of 
all, while tourists can clatter round with their Baedekers
 
incurious of the mystery. 
By the time Mass was over, our chauffeur had succeeded 
in the remarkable and hazardous feat of backing the car 
up the path. We said good-bye to the abuna and climbed 
the ravine, attended by a troop of small deacons. When 
we at last reached the top the professor took from his 
pocket a handful of half-piastre pieces with which he had 
secretly provided himself. He ordered the children to line 
up, and our boy cuffed and jostled them into some kind 
of order. Then he presented them with a coin apiece. They 
had clearly not expected any such donation, but they 
quickly got the hang of the business, and, as soon as they 
were paid, queued up again at the back. Our boy detected 
this simple deception and drove away the second-comers. 
Vlhen each had received his half-piastre, and some had 
grabbed two, there were still a number of coins left over. 
"Do you think," asked the professor rather timidly, "that 
it would be very vulgar and tripperish to make them 
scramble for them?" 
"Yes," I said. 
"Of course it would," said the professor decidedly. 
"Quite out of the question." 
The deacons, however, continued to caper round us, 
crying for more and clinging to the car, so that it became 
impossible to start without endangering several lives. 
"Qa n'a pas d'importance," said the chauffeur inevitably, 
cranking up the engine. The professor, however, preferred 
a more humane release. "Perhaps, after all . . ." he said, 
and threw his handful of money among the children. The 
last we saw of Debra Lebanos was a scrambling heap of 
naked black limbs and a cloud of dust. It was interesting 



128 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
to be in at the birth of a tradition. Whoever in future goes 
to Debra Lebanos will, without doubt, find himself beset 
by these rapacious children; Professor W. had taught them 
the first easy lesson of civilisation. 
Our journey back for the first three hours was unevent- 
ful. We made good time on the downs, and darkness 
found us at the beginning of the plain. From then onwards 
progress was slow and uncertain. Four or five times we 
lost the track and continued out of our way until a patch 
of bush or marsh brought us up short. Twice we got stuck 
and had to push our way out; two or three times we were 
nearly overturned by sudden subsidences into the water- 
courses. It was these channels that enabled us to find our 
way, for they all ran at right angles to our route. When 
we reached one the Armenian and the boy would take 
opposite sides and follow the bank down until one of them 
reached the crossing; there would then be whistles and 
signals and we resumed the right road. 
At each check, the professor made up his mind to stop. 
"It is quite impossible. We shall never find the road until 
daylight. We may be going miles out of our way. It is 
dangerous and futile. We had far better spend the night 
here and go back at dawn." 
Then the driver would return with news of success. 
"J' ai decide; nous arr
tons ici," the professor would say. 
" Ah " th .. bl " V 
, came e lllvana e response, ous savez, 
monsieur, 
a n'a pas d'importance." 
Throughout the journey the boy sat on the mudguard 
in front, picking out the rare stones and hoof-marks which 
directed us. Once, however, the Armenian despaired. We 
had all walked round and round for half an hour in widen- 
ing circles, searching the completely blank earth with 
electric torches. We came bacJc defeated. It was now about 
ten o'clock and bitterly cold. We were just discussing how 
we could possibly keep ourselves warm during the coming 
eight hours, when the boy saw lights ahead. We drove on 
and ran straight into a caravan bivouacked round a camp- 
fire. Our arrival caused great consternation in the camp. 
Men and women ran out of the tents or sprang out of the 
ground from huddled heaps of blankets; the animals sprang 



A CORONATION IN 1930 129 
up and strained at their tethers or tumbled about with 
hobbled legs. Rifles were levelled at us. The Armenian 
strode into their midst, however, and, after distributing 
minute sums of money as a sign of goodwill, elicited 
directions. 
Our worst check was within sight of Addis, on the top 
of Entoto. This part of the journey had seemed perilous 
enough by daylight, but by now we were so stiff and cold 
as to be indifferent to any other consideration. Twice we 
pulled up within a few feet of the precipice, the boy having 
fallen asleep on the mudguard where he sat. We got stuck 
again with two wheels in the air and two in a deep gully, 
but eventually we found the road and at that moment ran 
out of petrol. Two minutes earlier this disaster would have 
been insuperable. From now on, however, it was all down- 
hill and we ran in to the town without the engine. When 
at last we reached the professor's hotel we were too tired 
to say good night. He silently picked up his bottles of holy 
water and, with a little nod, went up to his room, and I had 
fallen asleep before he was out of sight. A sulky night- 
porter found us a can of petrol and we drove on to the 
Hotel de France. The manager was sitting up for me 
with a boiling kettle and a bottle of rum. I slept well 
that night. 


In London, full of ingenuous eagerness to get aboard, 
I had booked my ticket through to Zanzibar, between 
which island and Djibouti the Messageries Maritimes 
maintain a fortnightly service. Now, with everyone else 
going home, I began rather to regret the arrangement 
and think wistful1y of an Irish Christmas. The next ship, 
the General f7oyson was not due for ten days, and the prospect 
of spending the time either at Addis Ababa or Djibouti 
was unattractive. I was on the point of forfeiting my ticket 
and joining the Italian ship by which Irene was sailing 
north, when Mr. Plowman, the British consul at Harar, 

ho with his family was visiting the capital for the corona- 
tIon, very kindly suggested that I should return with him 
and break my journey at his home for a few days. No 
suggestion could have been more delightful. There was 



130 w HEN THE GO IN G WAS GOO D 
glamour in all the associations of Harar, the Arab city- 
state which stood first among the fruits of Ethiopian 
imperialism, the scene of Sir Richard Burton's First Steps 
in Africa, the market where the caravans met between 
coast and highlands; where Galla, Somali, and Arab inter- 
bred to produce women whose beauty was renowned 
throughout East Africa. There is talk of a motor-road that 
is to connect it with the railway, but at present it must 
still be approached by the tortuous hill-pass and small 
track along which Arthur Rim baud had sent rifles to 
Menelik. 
On the morning of November 15th we left by the last 
of the special trains. The departures took place with far 
less formality than the arrivals. There was no band, but 
the platform was crowded with the whole European popula- 
tion. Even our Armenian chauffeur came to see us off; the 
carriage in which I travelled was filled with little bunches 
of flowers hung there by the servants of one of the British 
officials who was going home on leave. Mr. Hall was there 
with eye-glass and top hat. 
Next day at dawn we arrived at Dirre-Dowa, and the 
Plowmans and I too
 leave of our fellow passengers. We 
had all spent a practically sleepless night, and for the 
greater part of that hot Sunday we remained in our rooms 
at Bollolakos' hotel. I went to Mass at a church full of 
odious French children, washed in a sandy bath, slept. 
We dined that evening in a pleasant little party consist- 
ing of the Plowmans and their governess, the Cypriote 
manager of the local bank, Mr. Hall's brother, who was 
in business at Dirre-Dowa, and his wife, an English lady 
who wore a large enamelled brooch made in commemora- 
tion of the opening of Epping Forest to the public and 
presented to her father who was, at the time, an alderman 
of the City of London. We sat in the open under an orange- 
tree and drank chianti and gossiped about the coronation, 
while many hundreds of small red ants overran the table 
and fell on to our heads from above. 
The Plowmans' horses had not arrived that day, so 
that their start would have to be delayed until Tuesday 
morning and their arrival at Harar until Thursday. The 



A CORONATION IN I930 131 
director of the railway had wired to the station-master at 
Dirre-Dowa to reserve mules and servants for me, and I 
decided to avail myself of them next day and reach Harar 
a day ahead of my hosts. I felt that it was, in a way, more 
suitable to enter the town alone and unofficially. 
Accordingly, I set out early next morning, riding a 
lethargic grey mule, accompanied by a mounted Abys- 
sinian guide who spoke French, an aged groom who 
attached himself to me against my express orders, and 
a Galla porter, of singularly villainous expression, to carry 
my luggage. We had not been going long before this man, 
easily out-distancing our beasts, disappeared into the hills 
with great lurching strides, the bag containing my pass- 
port, letter of credit, and all of my essential clothes balanced 
negligently on his head. I became apprehensive, and the 
guide was anything but reassuring. All Gallas were dis- 
honest, he explained, and this one was a particularly dirty 
type. He disclaimed all responsibility for engaging him; 
that had been done by the station-master; he himself would 
never have chosen a man of such obvious criminal charac- 
teristics. It was not unusual for porters to desert with the 
luggage; there was no catching them once they got over 
the hills among their own people; they had murdered an 
Indian not long ago in circumstances of peculiar atrocity. 
But it was possible, he added, that the man had merely 
hurried on to take his khat. 
This was, in fact, what had happened. We came upon 
him again some hours later, squatting by the roadside with 
his lap full of the leaves and his teeth and mouth green 
with chewing; his expression had softened considerably 
under the influence of the drug, and for the rest of the 
journey he was docile enough, trailing along behind us in 
a slightly bemused condition. 
For the first few miles we followed the river-bed, a 
broad stretch of sand which for a few hours in the year is 
flooded from bank to bank with a turgid mountain torrent, 
which sweeps down timber and boulders and carries away 
the accumulated refuse of the town. It was now nearing 

he end of the dry season and the way was soft and powdery; 
It was heavy going until we reached the foot of the caravan 



132 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
route. There is a short cut over the hills which is used by 
foot passengers and riders who are much pressed for time; 
on the guide's advice we chose the longer and more leisurely 
road which winds in a detour round the spur and joins the 
rock path at the summit. It is about four hours from the 
hotel to the uplands by this road. The mules took things 
easily; it was necessary to beat them more or less continu- 
ally to keep them moving at all. At the top we paused for 
a rest. 
Behind us, as far as we could see, the country was utterly 
desolate; the hillside up which we had climbed was covered 
with colourless sand and rock, and beyond, on the other 
side of the valley, rose other hills equally bare of dwelling 
or cultivation. The only sign of life was a caravan of camels, 
roped nose to tail, following us a mile or so below. In front 
of us everything was changed. This was Galla country, full 
of little villages and roughly demarcated arable plots. The 
road in places was bordered with cactus and flowering 
euphorbia-trees; the air was fresh and vital. 
Another three hours brought us to a native inn, where 
the boys hoped to get some food. The landlord, however, 
told us that the local governor had recently cancelled his 
licence, an injustice which he attributed to the rivalry of 
the Greek who kept the rest house at Haramaya. He 
provided them with a tin can full of tal/a, which the two 
Christians drank; the Mohammedan religiously content. 
ing himself with another handful of khat. Then we went 
on. In another hour we were in sight of the lake of Hara- 
maya, a welcoming sheet of light between two green hills. 
It was here that we proposed to break the journey for 
a night, for the gates of the city are shut at sundown and 
it is difficult to obtain admission after that time. I was 
tired out, and at the sight of water the mules for the first 
time showed some sign of interest. Indeed, it became 
impossible to keep them to the path, so I left the boys to 
water them and walked the last mile round the lake to the 
rest house. 
The accommodation was very simple; there was, of 
course, no bath or sanitation and no glass in the windows. 
There was, however, a most delightfully amiable young 



A CORONATION IN 1930 133 
Greek in charge of it, who got me a meal and talked inces- 
santly in very obscure English. It was now about three 
o'clock. Seeing that I was tired, he said he would make 
me a cocktail. He took a large glass and poured into it 
whiskey, creme de men the, and Fernet Branca, and filled 
up with soda-water. He made himself a glass of the same 
mixture, clinked glasses, and said, "Cheerioh) damned 
sorry no ice." After luncheon I went to my room and slept 
un til late in the evening. 
We dined together on tinned spaghetti and exceedingly 
tough fried chicken. He prattled on about his home in 
Alexandria and his sister who was taking a secretarial 
course and his rich uncle who lived at Dirre-Dowa and 
had set him up in the inn. I asked what the uncle did, 
and he said he had a "monopole"; this seemed to be a 
perfectly adequate description of almost all commercial 
ventures in Abyssinia. I could not gather what he mono- 
polised; whatev
r it was seemed extremely profitable and 
involved frequent excursions to Aden. The nephew hoped 
to succeed to the business on his uncle's retirement. 
While we were dining, two heavily armed soldiers 
appeared with a message for my host. He seemed mildly 
put out by their arrival, eXplaining with great simplicity 
that he was involved in a love-affair with an elderly Abys- 
sinian lady of high birth; she was not very attractive, but 
what choice had he in a remote place like this? She was 
generous, but very exacting. Only that afternoon he had 
been with her and here were her retainers come to fetch 
him again. He gave them each a cigarette and told them 
to wait. When they had finished smoking, they returned; 
he offered them more cigarettes, but they refused; ap- 
parently their mistress was im r atient; the young man 
shrugged and, excusing himsel with the phrase "You 
won't allow me, won't you?" went away with them into 
the darkness. I returned to my bed and slept. 
Next morning we rode into Harar. The way was full 
of traffic, caravans of camels, mules and asses, horsemen, 
and teams of women bent double under prodigious loads 
of wood. There were no carts of any kind; indeed, I think 
that they are quite unknown in Abyssinia, and that the 



134 w HEN THE GO I N G WAS GOO D 
railway engine was the first wheeled vehicle to appear 
there. After three hours' gentle ride we came in sight of 
the town. Approached from Haramaya it presents a quite 
different aspect from the drawing in Burton's First Steps 
in Africa; there it appears as he saw it coming from the 
Somali coast, perched on a commanding hill; we found it 
lying below us, an irregular brown patch at the foot of the 
hills. In the distance rose the flat-topped mountain which 
the Abyssinians have chosen for their refuge in the event 
of the country rising against them; there is a lake of fresh 
water at the summit, and a naturally fortified camp which 
they hope to hold against the Galla until relief arrives from 
their own highlands. No one may visit the place without 
a permit from the local dedejmatch. 
A few buildings-the British consulate, Lej Yasu's 
deserted palace, a Capucin leper settlement, a church, and 
the villas of one or two Indian merchants-have spread 
beyond the walls; outside the main gate a few women 
squatting beside little heaps of grain and peppers con- 
stituted a market; there was a temporary and rather un- 
stable arch of triumph presented to the town by the firm 
of Mohammedali in honour of the coronation. A guard 
was posted at the gate; there was also an octroi, where we 
had to leave the luggage until the officer should return 
from his luncheon some hours later. 
As in most medireval towns, there was no direct street 
in Harar leading from the gates to the central square. A 
very narrow lane ran under the walls round numerous 
corners before it turned inwards and broadened into the 
main street. On either side of this passage stood ruined 
houses, desolate heaps of stone and rubble, some of them 
empty, others patched up with tin to accommodate goats 
or poultry. The town, like the numerous lepers who inhabit 
it, seemed to be dying at its extremities; the interior, how- 
ever, was full of vitality and animation. 
There are two inns in Harar, boasting the names of 
Leon d'Or and Bellevue; both universally condemned 
as unsuitable for European habitation. Any doubt I might 
have had about which to patronise was resolved, as soon 
as we turned into the main street, by a stout little man in 



A CORONATION IN 1930 135 
a black skull-cap, who threw himself at my bridle and 
led me to the Leon d'Or. During my brief visit I became 
attached to this man. He was an Armenian of rare charac- 
ter, named Bergebedgian; he spoke a queer kind of French 
with remarkable volubility, and I found great delight in 
all his opinions; I do not think I have ever met a more 
tolerant man; he had no prejudice or scruples of race, 
creed, or morals of any kind whatever; there were in his 
mind none of those opaque patches of principle; it was 
a single translucent pool of placid doubt; whatever splashes 
of precept had disturbed its surface from time to time 
had left no ripple; reflections flitted to and fro and left it 
unchanged. 
Unfortunately his hotel was less admirable. Most of 
his business was done in the bar, where he sold great 
quantities of a colourless and highly inflammatory spirit 
distilled by a fellow countryman of his and labelled, 
capriciously, "Very Olde Scotts Whiskey," "Fine 
Champayne," or "Hollands Gin" as the taste of his clients 
dictated. Next to the bar was a little dining-room where 
two or three regular customers (also fellow countrymen) 
took their greasy and pungent meals. The bedrooms were 
built round a little courtyard, where some pathetic survivals 
of a garden were discernible amid the heaps of kitchen 
refuse with which it was littered. This building had formerly 
been the town house of an Abyssinian official. It was rarely 
that anyone came to stay; usually not more than one in 
any three weeks, he said; but, as it happened, there was 
a second guest at that moment, a French clerk on business 
from the Banque d'Indo-Chine at Djibouti. I lunched with 
this young man, who was a punctilious, mannerly person; 
the hot wind had chapped his lips so that he was unable 
to smile-an affliction which made him seem a little menac- 
ing in light conversation. It was he who first put into my 
head the deplorable notion of returning to Europe across 
the Congo by the west coast. The proprietor waited on 
us in person, and made it hard to escape the forbidding 
dishes; we both felt moderately ill after every meal. 
That afternoon I went for a walk round the town and 
saw that a large part of it was in decay. The most prominent 



136 w HEN THE GO IN G WAS GOO D 
buildings were the modern Government House, the French 
hospital, Mohammedali's offices, a Capucin mission cathe- 
dral, and an ancient mosque with two whitewashed minarets; 
the rest of the place was made up of a bunch of small shops, 
a few Armenian) Greek) and Indian stores, single-roomed 
dwelling-houses, mostly standing back behind grubby little 
yards, and numerous tedj houses, combined brothels and 
public houses which advertise themselves with a red cross 
over the door-a traditional sign which caused some mis- 
understanding when the Swedish medical mission first 
established itself in the country. 
The appearance of the buildings and the people was 
wholly foreign to Abyssinia; a difference which was 
emphasised on this particular afternoon by the fact that 
all the Abyssinians were indoors at a party at Government 
House, so that the streets were peopled almost exclusively 
by turbaned Harari. The beauty of the women was dazzling 
-far exceeding anything I had expected. The native 
women at Addis Ababa had been far from attractive; their 
faces had been plump and smug, their hair unbecomingly 
heaped up in a black, fuzzy mass, glittering with melted 
butter) their figures swollen grotesquely with a surfeit of 
petticoats. The women of Harar are slender and very 
upright; they carry themselves with all the grace of the 
Somalis, but, instead of their monkey-like faces and sooty 
complexions, they had golden brown skins and features of 
the utmost fineness. Moreover, there was a delicacy about 
their clothes and ornaments which the Somalis entirely 
lacked; their hair was plaited into innumerable tight little 
ropes and covered with bright silk shawls; they wore long 
trousers and silk shawls wound under their arms, leaving 
their shoulders bare. Most of them had bright gold orna- 
ments. Burton admits their beauty) but condemns their 
voices as harsh and outstandingly displeasing. I cannot 
conceive what prompted this statement; indeed, compared 
with those of Arab women, they seemed soft and sweet. 
(No sound made by mankind is quite so painful as the 
voices of two Arab women at variance.) An alliance might 
be formed with any of these exquisite people, the Armenian 
informed me later, for four thalers a month and board. 



A CORONATION IN 1930 137 
That it was possible that the parents might expect more 
in the case of a foreigner. This sum, however, covered the 
girl's services in the house, so that it was a perfectly sound 
investment if I intended making a stay of any length in 
the town. I eXplained that I was only there for three days. 
In that case, he said, it was obviously more convenient to 
confine myself to married women. There were certain 
preliminary formalities to be gone through with an un- 
married girl which cost time and money. 
I visited the leper settlement; a little collection of tukals 
outside the walls, in the charge of a French priest. Four 
or five sleep in each hut, an arrangement which the old 
priest eXplained in what seems to me a very terrible phrase, 
"Y ou understand, monsieur, that it takes several lepers to 
make one man." 
I went to the cathedral and there met the Bishop of 
Harar, the famous Monsignor Jerome, of whom I had 
heard many reports in Addis Ababa. He has been in the 
country for forty-eight years, suffering) at first, every kind 
of discouragement and persecution, and attaining, towards 
the middle of his career, a position of great influence at 
Court. He acted as Tafari's tutor, and many people at- 
tributed to him, often in harsh terms, the Emperor's out- 
standing skill as a political tactician. Lately, as his pupil's 
ambitions have become realised, the bishop's advice has 
been less devotedly canvassed. Indeed, it is doubtful 
whether it would still be of great value, for he is a very 
old man now and his mmd is losing something of its former 
grasp of public affairs. 
It is his practice to greet all visitors to his church, but 
I . did not know this at the time and was greatly startled 
when he suddenly swooped in upon me. He was tall and 
emaciated, like, an El Greco saint, with very long white 
hair and beard, great roving eyes, and a nervous, almost 
ecstatic smile; he advanced at a kind of shuffling jog- 
trot, fluttering his hands and uttering little moans. After 
we had been round the church, which was shabby and 
unremarkable enough, he invited me into his divan to 
talk. I steered the conversation as delicately as I could 
from church expenses to Arthur Rimbaud. At first we 



138 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
were at cross purposes, because the bishop, being a little 
deaf, mistook my "pohe" for "pretre," and inflexibly 
maintained that no Father Rimbaud had ever, to his 
knowledge, ministered in Abyssinia. Later this difficulty 
was cleared up, and the bishop, turning the name over in 
his mind, remembered that he had) in fact, known Rim- 
baud quite well; a young man with a beard, who was in 
some trouble with his leg; a very serious man who did not 
go out much; he was always worried about business; not 
a good Catholic, though he had died at peace with the 
Church, the bishop understood, at Marseille. He used to 
live with a native woman in a little house, now demolished, 
in the square; he had no children; probably the woman 
was still alive; she was not a native of Harar, and after 
Rimbaud's death she had gone back to her own people 
in Tigre. . . a very, very serious young man, the bishop 
repeated. He seemed to find this epithet the most satis- 
factory-very serious and sad. 
It was rather a disappointing interview. All the way 
to Harar I had nurtured the hope of finding something 
new about Rimbaud, perhaps even to encounter a half- 
caste son keeping a shop in some back street. The only 
significant thing I learned from the bishop was that, living 
in Harar, surrounded by so many radiant women, he 
should have chosen a mate from the stolid people of Tigre 
-a gross and perverse preference. 
That evening, at about six o'clock, Mr. Bergebedgian 
suggested that we might go to the Abyssinian party which 
had now finished luncheon and was settling down to an 
evening's music at Government House. He himself was 
an indispensable guest, as he had promised the loan of an 
Aladdin lamp, without which they would be left in com- 
plete darkness. Accordingly, we set out and were received 
with great warmth by the acting governor. A considerable 
sum had been granted to the municipality to be spent on 
rejoicings for the coronation, an object which was rightly 
interpreted as meaning a series of parties. They had been 
going on for a fortnight and would continue until the 
dedejmatch returned from the capital. As a symbol of the 
origin of the feast, a kind of altar had been built, at one 



A CORONATION IN 193 0 139 
end of the room, on which stood a large photograph of 
Tafari surrounded by flowers. About fifty Abyssinians in 
white chammas sat round on the floor, already fairly drunk. 
Green chairs of the kind one finds in public parks were set 
for us at a velvet-covered round table. The acting governor 
sat with us and poured out extravagant glasses of whiskey. 
Slaves trotted about among the other guests, distributing 
bottles of German beer. With the appearance of our lamp 
the entertainment began. An orchestra emerged, furnished 
with three single-stringed fiddles. The singer was an 
Abyssinian woman of startling girth. She sang in a harsh 
voice, panting for breath between each line, an immensely 
long ballad of patriotic sentiment. The name Haile Selassie 
recurred with great regularity. No one paid any more 
attention than they would have at a musical party in Europe, 
but she sang on cheerfully, through the buzz of conversa- 
tion, with an expression of settled amiability. When a gate- 
crasher was .detected and expelled with some disorder, she 
merely turned round and watched the proceedings, still 
singing lustily. At the end of her song she was given some 
beer and many friendly smacks on the behind. The whiskey 
was reserved for us and for a few favoured guests; the host 
singled these out, called for their glasses, and poured it 
into their beer from the bottle on the table. 
The second song was a great deal longer than the first; 
it was of the kind, popular in European cabarets, which 
introduces references to members of the audience. Each 
name was greeted with cheers and a good deal of boisterous 
back-smacking. The host asked our names and repeated 
them in her ear, but they came out so distorted, if they 
came out at all, as to be wholly unrecognisable. After 
about two hours) Mr. Bergebedgian said he must return 
to the inn and see to the dinner. This was the signal for 
a general movement; three or four notables were invited 
to the table, wine-glasses were produced) a dish of sponge- 
fingers, and finally a bottle of champagne. We drank each 
other's health, making graceful unintelligible little speeches 
in our own languages. Then, after much handshaking, we 
returned to the inn, leaving our Aladdin lamp at the party. 
After a profoundly indigestible dinner, Mr. Bergebedgian 



140 w HEN THE GO I N G WAS GOO D 
joined us-the unsmiling clerk and myself-in a glass 
of a disturbing liqueur labelled "Koniak." Presently he 
said, would we like to go to another party? There was 
a wedding in the town. This time our expedition was 
attended with grave precautions. First, Mr. Bergebedgian 
buckled on bandolier and revolver-holster; then he went 
to the cash-desk and produced a heavy automatic pistol, 
charged the magazine, and tucked it into place; then he 
reached under the bar and drew out four or five wooden 
clubs, which he dealt out to his servants; the bank-clerk 
showed a revolver, I my sword stick; he nodded approval. 
It was all very much like Rat's preparation for the attack 
on Toad Hall. Then. he barred up the house, a process 
involving innumerable bolts and padlocks. At last, attended 
by three servants with staves and a storm lantern, we set 
out. Things were safer at Harar than they used to be, he 
explained, but it was wiser to take no risks. As we emerged 
into the street, a hyrena flashed red eyes at us and scuttled 
off. I do not know how hyrenas have got their reputation 
for laughing. Abyssinia is full of them; they come into 
the towns at night scavenging and performing the less 
valuable service of nosing up corpses in the cemeteries; 
they used to bay all round the hotel at Addis Ababa, and 
the next night, which I spent in a tent in the Plowmans' 
garden, was disturbed by a small pack of them crunching 
bones within a few yards of my bed, but not once did I 
hear anything approaching a laugh. 
The streets were pitch black-not a lighted window 
showed anywhere-and, except for hyrenas, dogs, and 
cats fighting over the refuse, totally deserted. Our way 
led down a narrow passage, between high, crumbling 
walls, which was sometimes graded in steps and some- 
times sloped steeply inwards to a dry gutter. Our first 
stop was at the house of a Greek grocer. We beat on the 
shutters, behind which a crack of light was immediately 
extinguished. Mr. Bergebedgian called his name, and 
presently a little peep opened and a pair of eyes appeared. 
Some civilities were exchanged, and then, after much 
drawing of bolts, we were admitted. The grocer offered 
us "koniak" and cigarettes. Mr. Bergebedgian eXplained 



A CORONATION IN 1930 141 
that we -wanted him to accompany us to the party. He 
refused, explaining that he had to make up his books. 
Mr. Bergebedgian, accordingly, borrowed some small 
silver (a loan which, I observed, was duly noted in the 
accounts) and we took our leave. More black, empty 
alleys. Suddenly a policeman rocketed up from the gutter 
where he had been taking a rest, and challenged us with 
some ferocity. Mr. Bergebedgian replied with a mock 
flourish of his revolver; some light exchange of chaff and 
back-chat followed, in the course of which the policeman 
decided to join the party. After a few minutes we found 
another policeman, huddled in his blanket on the counter 
of a deserted greengrocer's stall; they shook him awake 
and brought him along with us. At last we reached a small 
courtyard, beyond which, from a lighted door, came the 
sound of singing. 
No doubt we looked rather a formidable gang as we 
stalked in bristling with weapons, but it was probably 
the sight of the two policemen which caused most alarm. 
Anyway, whatever the reason, wild panic followed our 
entry. There was only one door, through which we had 
come, and a stream of Harari girls dashed past us, jostling, 
stumbling, and squealing; others cowered away under 
their shawls or attempted to climb the steps which led to 
a little loft. Mr. Bergebedgian repeatedly explained our 
pacific intentions, but it was some time before confidence 
was restored. Then a young man appeared with chairs for 
us and the dance was resumed. 
The house consisted of a single room with a gallery full 
of coffee sacks at one end. A large stove, built of clay and 
rubble, stood under the ladder, and two or three earthen- 
ware jars and pots lay on and around it. Opposite the door 
the floor was raised in a carpeted dais. The few men of the 
party lounged round the door; the girls squatted together 
on the dais; the dance took place in the well of the floor 
to the music of the girls' singing, and the beating of hand 
drums. It was a pretty scene, lit by a single oil-lamp; the 
walls were decorated with coloured wickerwork plates; 
a brazier of charcoal and incense stood in one corner; 
a wicker dish of sweets was passed from one delicate 



142 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
henna-stained hand to another among the girls on the 
dais. 
The dance was of the simplest kind. One girl and two 
men stood opposite each other; the girl wore a shawl on 
her head and the men held their chammas over the lower 
part of their fa<;es. They shuffled up to each other and 
shuffled back; after several repetitions of this movement 
they crossed over, revolving as they passed each other, and 
repeated the figure from opposite sides. As the girl came 
to our end, Mr. Bergebedgian pulled her shawl off. "Look," 
he said, "hasn't she got nice hair?" She recovered it crossly 
and Mr. Bergebedgian began teasing her, twitching it 
back every time she passed. But he was a soft-hearted 
fellow and he desisted as soon as he realised that he was 
causing genuine distress. 
This was the bride's house that we were in; a second 
party was in progress in another part of the town at the 
home of the bridegroom. We went to visit it and found 
it precisely similar in character, but very much larger and 
more splendid. Clearly the girl had made a good match. 
These parties are kept up every night for a week before 
the wedding; the bride's friends and relations in her home, 
the bridegroom's in his. They do not mix until the actual 
wedding-day. For some reason which I could not fathom 
they had lately come under ban of the law; hence the con- 
sternation at our arrival. We stayed for about an hour and 
then returned to the hotel. The policemen came in with 
us and hung about until they were given a tumblerful each 
of neat spirit. Sleep was difficult that night, for the pillows 
were hard as boards, and through the windows, devoid of 
glass and shutters, came the incessant barking of dogs and 
hyrenas and the occasional wailing horns of the town guard. 
Next morning the bank-clerk rode away and Mr. Berge- 
bedgian took me for a walk in the town. He was a remark- 
able guide. We went into the shops of all his friends and 
drank delicious coffee and smoked cigarettes; he seemed 
to have small financial transactions with all of them, paying 
out a thaler here, receiving another there. We went into 
the law-courts, where we saw a magistrate trying a case 
about real property; both litigants and all the witnesses 



A CORONATION IN 1930 143 
were in chains; the plaintiff was a Galla who pleaded his 
own cause through an interpreter. He became so eager 
about his wrongs that the interpreter was unable to keep 
up with him, and after repeated admonishments left him 
to finish his case in his own tongue. Behind the court was 
a lion in a wooden cage so small that he could barely move 
in it, so foul that the air of the whole yard was insupport- 
able. We saw the great hall used for the raw-beef banquets. 
A group of slave-boys were being instructed in squad drill 
by an older boy with a stick. The commands were recognis- 
ably of English origin-presumably imported by some 
old soldier from the K.A.R. We went into the prison, 
a place of frightful filth, only comparable to the lion's 
cage. Mr. Bergebedgian, in whose character there was 
a marked strain of timidity, was very reluctant to enter, 
saying that three or four deaths occurred there every week 
from typhus; a flea from anyone of the prisoners would 
kill us both. That evening in my bath I found myself 
covered with flea-bites, and remembered this information 
with some apprehension. The cells stood round a small 
yard; three or four men were tethered to the wall of each 
cell, with chains just long enough to allow of their crawl- 
ing into the open. Those who were fed by their families 
never left the buildings; the others were allowed to earn 
their keep by working in gangs on the roads. The lot of 
the more neglected seemed by far preferable. Most of the 
prisoners were there for debt, often for quite trifling sums; 
they remained there until they paid or, more probably, 
died. There were no less than three prisons in Harar. My 
servant got locked up one day for a breach of the sanitary 
regulations and I had to pay five dollars to get him out. 
He remarked, with some justice, how could one tell that 
there were any sanitary regulations in Harar? In his opinion, 
it was a put-up job because he was a stranger. 
We went into the two or three tedj houses. At this 
stage of the morning they were fairly empty, some had 
no customers at all, in others a few dissipated men, who 
had slept the night there, squatted holding their heads, 
quarrelling with the women about the reckoning; at only 
one did we find any gaiety, where a party just arrived from 



144 w HEN THE G 0 I N G WAS GOO D 
the country were starting to get drunk; each sat beside 
a decanter of cloudy tedj; one of them was playing a kind 
of banjo. The women were, without exception, grossly 
ugly. Mr. Bergebedgian drew back a sleeve and exhibited 
a sore on the shoulder of one of them. "A dirty lot," he 
said, giving her an affectionate pat and a half-piastre bit. 
We went through the bazaar, Mr. Bergebedgian dis- 
paraging all the goods in the friendliest way possible, 
and I bought some silver bangles which he obtained for 
me at a negligible fraction of their original price. We 
went into several private houses, Where Mr. Bergebedgian 
examined and exhibited everything, pulling clothes out of 
the chests, bringing down bags of spice from the shelves, 
opening the oven and tasting the food, pinching the girls, 
and giving half-piastre pieces to the children. We went 
into a workshop where three or four girls of dazzling 
beauty were at work making tables and trays of fine, 
brilliantly-patterned basketwork. Everywhere he went he 
seemed to be welcome; everywhere he not only adapted, 
but completely transformed, his manners to the environ- 
ment. When I came to consider the question I was surprised 
to realise that the two most accomplished men I met during 
this six months I was abroad, the chauffeur who took us to 
Debra Lebanos and Mr. Bergebedgian, should both have 
been Armenians. A race of rare competence and the most 
delicate sensibility. They seem to me the only genuine 
"men of the world." I suppose everyone at times likes to 
picture himself as such a person. Sometimes, when I find 
that elusive ideal looming too attractively, when I envy 
among my friends this one's adaptability to diverse com- 
pany, this one's cosmopolitan experience, this one's 
impenetrable armour against sentimentality and humbug, 
that one's freedom from conventional prejudices, this 
one's astute ordering of his finances and nicely calculated 
hospitality, and realise that, whatever happens to me and 
however I deplore it, I shall never in actual fact become 
a "man of the world" of the kind I read about in novels 
-then I comfort myself a little by thinking that, perhaps, 
if I were an Armenian I should find things easier. 



CHAPTER THREE 


GLOBE-TROTTING IN 1930-1 
(FROM Remote People) 


PURE mischance had brought me to Aden, and I expected 
to dislike it, contrasting it angrily with the glamour and 
rich beauty I expected to find at Zanzibar. How wrong 
I was. 
Zanzibar and the Congo, names pregnant with romantic 
suggestion, gave me nothing; Aden was full of interest. 
On first acquaintance, however, there was much about 
the Settlement to justify my forebodings. It is, as every 
passenger down the Red Sea knows, an extinct volcano 
joined to the mainland by a flat and almost invisible neck 
of sand; not a tree or flower or blade of grass grows on 
it, the only vegetation is a meagre crop of colourless scrub 
which has broken out in patches among the cinders; there 
is no earth and no water, except what is dragged there in 
a ceaseless succession of camel-carts through the tunnelled 
road; the sanitation everywhere-in the hotels, the club, 
the mess, the private bungalows-is still that of a temporary 
camp. Architecture, except for a series of water-tanks of 
unknown age, does not exist. A haphazard jumble of 
bungalows has been spilt over the hillside, like the litter 
of picnic-parties after Bank Holiday. The hotel is as expen- 
sive as Torr's at Nairobi; the food has only two flavours- 
tomato ketchup and W orcestershire sauce; the bathroom 
eonsists of a cubicle in which a tin can is suspended on a 
rope; there is a nozzle at the bottom of the can encrusted 
with stalactites of green slime; the bather stands on the 
slippery cement floor and pulls a string releasing a jet of 
water over his head and back; for a heavy extra charge it 
is possible, with due notice, to have the water warmed; 
the hall-porter has marked criminal tendencies; the terrace 
is infested by money-changers. The only compensating 
luxury, a seedy, stuffed sea-animal, unmistakably male, 
which is kept in a chest and solemnly exhibited--on pay- 
ment-as a mermaid. You would have to search a long 



146 w HEN THE GO IN G WAS GOO D 
time before finding many such hotels in the whole of 
England. 
There are other superficial disadvantages about Aden, 
notably the division of the Settlement into two towns. So 
far I have been speaking of the district known as Steamer 
Point; about three miles away lies Crater Town, the centre 
of such commerce as has survived. This was the original 
nucleus of the Settlement. It is surrounded on three sides 
by cliffs, and on the fourth by what was once a harbour, 
now silted up and for a long time closed to all traffic. The 
original Residency stands there, now a guest-house for 
visiting Arab chiefs; there is also a large derelict barracks, 
partially demolished, and an Anglican church, built in 
Victorian Gothic, which was once the garrison chapel, and 
is still provided with its own chaplain, who reads services 
there Sunday after Sunday in absolute void. This man, 
earnest and infinitely kind, had lately arrived from Bom- 
bay; he rescued me from the hotel, and took me to stay 
with him for a few days in his large, ramshackle house on 
the Crater beach, known to taxi-drivers as "Padre sahib's 
bungalow." A few of the political officers still have quarters 
round the Crater, and there are a half-dozen or so British 
commercial agents and clerks; the rest of the population 
are mixed Asiatics inhabiting a compact series of streets 
between the water and the hills. 
The town affords a remarkable variety of race and 
costume. Arabs are represented in every grade of civilisa- 
tion, from courteous old gentlemen in Government service 
who wear gold-rimmed spectacles, silk turbans, and light 
frock coats and carry shabby umbrellas with highly deco- 
rated handles, to clusters of somewhat bemused Bedouin 
straight from the desert; these are, in appearance, very 
different from the noble savages of romance; their clothes 
consist of a strip of blanket round the waist, held up by 
.a sash from which protrudes the hilt of a large dagger; 
their hair is straight, black, and greasy, lying on the back 
of the head in a loose bun and bound round the forehead 
with a piece of rag; they are of small stature and meagre 
muscular development; their faces are hairless or covered 
with a slight down, their expressions degenerate and 



GLOBE-TROTTING IN 1930-I 147 
slightly dotty, an impression which is accentuated by their 
loping, irregular gait. 
The British political officer introduced me to a delight- 
ful Arab who acted as my interpreter and conducted me 
round Crater Town. He took me to his club, a large upper 
story, where at the busy time of the commercial day we 
found the principal Arab citizens reclining on divans and 
chewing khat; later he took me to an Arab cafe where the 
lower class congregate; here, too, was the same decent 
respect for leisure; the patrons reclined round the walls in 
a gentle stupor, chewing khat. "These simple people, too, 
have their little pleasures," my companion remarked. 
Later I received an invitation to tea from the president 
and committee of the club. This time the bundles of khat 
had been removed, and plates of sweet biscuits and dates 
and tins of cigarettes had taken their place. My friend and 
interpreter was there, but the president spoke enough 
English to make conversation very difficult. 
I was introduced to about a dozen Arabs. We sat down 
in two rows opposite each other. A servant brought in 
a tray of tea and bottled lemonade. We talked about the 
distressing conditions of local trade. 
Everything would be all right and everyone would be 
happy, said the Arabs, if only the bank would give longer 
and larger overdrafts. I remarked that in England we 
are embarrassed in exactly that way too. They laughed 
politely. Europeans, they said, could always get all the 
money they wanted. Even Indians, a race renowned for 
dishonour and instability, could get larger advances than 
the Arabs; how was one to live unless one borrowed the 
money? They had heard it said I was writing a book. 
Would I, in my book, persuade the bank to lend them 
more money? I promised that I would try. (Will any 
official of the Bank of India who reads this book please 
let the Aden Arabs have more money?) 
We talked about London. They told me that the Sultan 
of Lahej had been there and had met the King-Emperor. 
W
 talked about the King-Emperor and pretty Princess 

ltzabeth. I confess I am pretty bad at carrying on this 
kInd of conversation. There were several long pauses. One 



148 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
of them was broken by the president suddenly saying, 
"We all take great sorrow at the loss of your RIO!." 
I agreed that it had been a terrible disaster, and remarked 
that I knew one of the victims fairly well. 
"We think it very sad," said the president, "that so 
many of your well-educated men should have been killed." 
That seemed to me a new aspect of the tragedy. 
Conversation again languished, until one of the com- 
pany, who had hitherto taken no part in the conversation, 
rose to his feet and, tucking up his shirt, exhibited the 
scars in his side caused by a recent Qperation for gall stone. 
This man was local correspondent to a London newspaper. 
He had lately, he told me, sent the foreign-news editor 
a complete genealogy of the Imam of Sana, compiled by 
himself with great labour. Did I know whether it had yet 
been printed, and, if not, could I put in a word for him in 
Fleet Street when I returned? 
One evening there was a fair in Crater. There were 
stalls selling sweets and sherbet under naphtha flares, 
and tables with simple gambling-games. One of these 
was the simplest gambling-game I ever saw. The banker 
dealt five cards face downwards and the players placed 
a stake of an anna on one or other of them. When each 
card had found a backer-two players were not allowed 
to bet on the same card-they were turned up. The win- 
ning card was then paid even money and the banker 
pocketed three annas a time. Groups of men danced in 
circles between the stalls. 
One unifying influence among the diverse cultures of 
the Crater was the Aden troop of Boy Scouts. It is true 
that Arabs cannot be induced to serve in the same patrol 
with Jews, but it is a remarkable enough spectacle to see 
the two races sitting amicably on opposite sides of a camp- 
fire, singing their songs in turn and occasionally joining 
each other in chorus. The scoutmaster, an English com- 
mercial agent, invited me to attend one of these meetings. 
The quarters were a disused sergeants' mess and the 
former barrack square. My friend was chiefly responsible 
for the Arab patrol, the Jews having an independent 
organisation. As I approached, rather late, I saw the latter 



GLOBE-TROTTING IN 193 0 - 1 149 
drilling in their own quarter of the parade ground- 
a squad of lengthy, sallow boys in very smart uniforms 
furnished with every possible accessory by the benefac- 
tion of a still-wealthy local merchant. The Arabs-with 
the exception of one resplendent little Persian, for "Arab" 
in this connection was held to include all Gentiles, Somali, 
Arab, and Mohammedan Indians-were less luxuriously 
equipped. There were also far fewer of them. This was 
eXplained by the fact that two of the second-class scouts 
were just at that time celebrating their marriages. 
Tests were in progtess for the tenderfoot and other 
badges. The acquiring of various badges is a matter of 
primary concern in the Aden troop. Some of the children 
had their arms well covered with decorations. "We generally 
let them pass after the third or fourth attempt," the scout- 
master eXplained. "It discourages them to fail too often." 
Two or three figures crouching against corners of 
masonry were engaged on lighting fires. This had to be 
done with two matches; they had been provided by their 
mothers with horrible messes of food in tin cans, which 
they intended to warm up and consume. I believe this 
qualified them for a cookery medal. "Of course, it isn't 
like dealing with English boys," said the scoutmaster; "if 
one isn't pretty sharp they put paraffin on the sticks." 
The scoutmaster kept the matchbox, which was very 
quickly depleted. Breathless little creatures kept running 
up. "Please, sahib, no burn. Please more matches." Then 
we would walk across, scatter the assembled sticks and 
tinder, and watch them built up again. It was not a long 
process. A match was then struck, plunged into the centre 
of the little pile, and instantly extinguished. The second 
match followed. "Please, sahib, no burn." Then the busi- 
n
ss began again. Occasionally crows of delight would 
anse and we were hastily summoned to see a real con- 
flagration. Now and then a sheet of flame would go up 
very suddenly, accompanied by a column of black smoke. 
"Oil," said the scoutmaster, and that fire would be 
disqualified. 
. Later a Somali boy presented himself for examination 
III scout law. He knew it all by heart perfectly. "First 



J SO W HEN THE GO I N G WAS GOO D 
scoot law :j. scoot's honour iss to be trust second scoot 
law . . ." et cetera, in one breath. 
"Very good, Abdul. Now tell me what does 'thrifty' 
mean?" 
"Trifty min?" 
"Yes, what do you mean, when you say a scout IS 
thrifty?" 
"I min a scoot hass no money." 
"Well, that's more or less right. What does 'clean' 
mean?" 
"Clin min?" 
"You said just now a scout is clean in thought, word, 
and deed." 
"Yis, scoot iss clin." 
"Well, what do you mean by that?" 
"I min tought, worden deed." 
"Yes, well, what do you mean by clean?" . 
Both parties in this dialogue seemed to be losing con.- 
fidence in the other's intelligence. 
"I min the tenth scoot law." 
A pause during which the boy stood first on one black 
'leg, then on the other, gazing patiently into the sun. 
"All right, Abdul. That'll do." 
"Pass, sahib?" 
" y " 
es, yes. 
An enormous smile broke across his small face, and 
away he went capering across the parade ground, kicking 
up dust over the fire-makers and laughing with pleasure. 
"Of course, it isn't quite like dealing with English 
boys," said the scoutmaster again. 
Presently the two bridegrooms arrived, identically 
dressed in gala clothes, brilliantly striped silk skirts, 
sashes, and turbans, little coats and ornamental daggers. 
They were cousins, about fourteen years of age. They 
had been married a week ago. To-night they were going 
to see their brides for the first time. They were highly 
excited by their clothes, and anxious to show them to their 
fellow scouts and scoutmaster. 
Meanwhile the Jews had made a huge bonfire on the 
beach. Both patrols assembled round it and a short concert 



GLOBE-TROTTING IN 1930-1 151 
was held. They sang local songs in their own languages. 
I asked what they meant, but the scoutmaster was not 
sure. From what I know of most Arabic songs, I expect 
that they were wholly incompatible with the tenth scout 
law. 


I think that perhaps it was the predominance of bachelors 
at Steamer Point that made the English community there 
so unusually agreeable. At Aden the centres of social inter- 
cours y were in the club and the messes, not at bungalow 
"sundowner"-parties. At Zanzibar the club was practically 
empty from eight o'clock onwards-everyone was at home 
with his wife; at Aden the bar and the card-room were full 
till midnight. 
There was plenty of entertainment going on. During 
my brief visit-ten days only in Aden itself-there was 
a dance at the club, a ball at the Residency, and a very 
convivial party given by the Sappers. There was also a 
cinematograph performance. 
This is a singular feature of Aden life which occur:s 
every Thursday on the roof of the Seamen's Institute. I 
went with the flight-commander, who had been in charge 
of the Air Mission at Addis. We dined first at the club 
with two of his officers. There were parties at other tables, 
also bound for the cinema; there were also dinner-parties 
at many of the bungalows. People entertain for the cinema 
on Thursday nights as they do for dances in London. It 
is not a hundred yards from the club to the Seamen's 
Institute, but we drove there in two cars. Other parties 
were arriving; a few Somalis loitered round the entrance, 
watching the procession; the Residency car, flag flying on 
the bonnet, was already there. Upstairs the roof was 
covered with deep wicker chairs. The front row was 
reserved for the Resident's party. The other seats were 
already two-thirds full. Everyone, of course, was in even- 
ing dress. It was a warm night, brilliant with stars. 
The first film was a Pathe Gazette, "showing the King 
leaving London for Bognor Regis twenty months pre- 
viously, and an undated Grand National, presumably of 
about the same antiquity. A fine old slapstick comedy 



152 W HEN THE GO IN G WAS GOO D 
followed. I turned to remark to my host how much 
superior the early comedies were to those of the present 
day, but discovered, to my surprise, that he was fast 
asleep. I turned to my neighbour on the other side; his 
head had fallen back, his eyes were shut, his mouth wide 
open. His cigarette was gradually burning toward his 
fingers. I took it from him and put it out. The move- 
ment disturbed him. He shut his mouth, and without 
opening his eyes, said, "Jolly good, isn't it?" Then his 
mouth fell open again. I looked about me and saw in the 
half-light reflected from the screen that the entire audience 
were asleep. An abysmal British drama followed, called 
The Woman Who Did. It was about a feminist and an 
illegitimate child and a rich grandfather. The roof remained 
wrapped in sleep. It is one of the odd characteristics of the 
Aden climate that it is practically impossible to remain 
both immobile and conscious. 
Later, "God Save the King" was played on the piano. 
Everyone sprang alertly to attention and, completely 
vivacious once more, adjourned to the club for beer, 
oysters, and bridge. 
Everyone was hospitable, and between meals I made 
a serious attempt to grasp some of the intricacies of Arabian 
politics; an attempt which took the form of my spreading 
a table with maps, reports, and notebooks, and then falling 
into a gentle and prolonged stupor. I spent on1y one really 
strenuous afternoon. That was in taking "a little walk over 
the rocks," with Mr. Leblanc and his "young men." 
Nothing in my earlier acquaintance with .Mr. Leblanc 
had given me any reason to suspect what I was letting 
myself in for when I accepted his invitation to join him in 
his little walk over the rocks. He was a general merchant, 
commercial agent, and shipowner of importance, the only 
European magnate in the Settlement; they said of him 
that he thrived on risk and had made and lost more than 
one considerable fortune in his time. I met him dining 
at the Residency, on my first evening in Aden. He talked 
of Abyssinia, where he had heavy business undertakings, 
with keen sarcasm; he expressed his contempt for the 
poetry of Rimbaud j he told me a great deal of very recent 



GLOBE-TROTTING IN 193 0 - 1 153 
gossip about people in Europe; after dinner he played some 
very new gramophone records he had brought with him. 
To me, rubbed raw by those deadly four days at Dirre- 
Dowa and Djibouti, it was all particularly emollient and 
healing. 
A day or two afterwards he invited me to dinner at his 
house in Crater. A smart car with a liveried Indian chauffeur 
came to fetch me. We dined on the roof; a delicious dinner; 
iced vin-rose-"It is not a luxurious wine, but I am fond 
of it; it grows on a little estate of my own in the South of 
France"-and the finest Yemen coffee. With his very thin 
gold watch in his hand, Mr. Leblanc predicted the rising 
of a star-I forget which. Punctual to the second, it 
appeared, green and malevolent, on the rim of the hills; 
cigars glowing under the night sky; from below the faint 
murmur of the native streets; all infinitely smooth and 
civilised. 
At this party a new facet was revealed to me in the 
character of my host. Mr. Leblanc the man of fashion 
I had seen. Here was Mr. Leblanc the patriarch. The 
house where we sat was the top story of his place of busi- 
ness; at the table sat his daughter, his secretary, and three 
of his "young men." The young men were his clerks, 
learning the business. One was French, the other two 
English lately down from Cambridge. They worked 
immensely hard-often, he told me, ten hours a day; 
often half way through the night, when a ship was in. 
They were not encouraged to go to the club or to mix in 
the society of Steamer Point. They lived together in a 
house near Mr. Leblanc's; they lived very well and were 
on terms of patriarchal intimacy with Mr. Leblanc's 
family. "If they go up to Steamer Point, they start drink- 
ing, playing cards, and spending money. Here, they work 
so hard that they cannot help saving. When they want a 
holiday they go round the coast visiting my agencies. They 
learn to know the country and the people; they travel in 
my ships; at the end of a year or two they have saved nearly 
all their money and they have learned business. For exercise 
we take little walks over the rocks together. Tennis and 
polo would cost them money. To walk in the hills is free. 



154 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
They get up out of the town into the cool air, the views 
are magnificent, the gentle exercise keeps them in condi- 
tion for their work. It takes their minds, for a little, off 
business. You must come with us one day on one of our 
walks. " 
I agreed readily. After the torpid atmosphere of Aden 
it would be delightful to take some gentle exercise in the 
cool air. And so it was arranged for the following Saturday 
afternoon. When I left, Mr. Leblanc lent me a copy of 
Gide's Voyage au Congo. 
Mr. Leblanc the man of fashion I knew, and Mr. 
Leblanc the patriarch. On Saturday I met Mr. Leblanc 
the man of action, Mr. Leblanc the gambler. 
I was to lunch first with the young men at their "mess" 
-as all communal menages appear to be called in the East. 
I presented myself dressed as I had seen photographs of 
"hikers," with shorts, open shirt, stout shoes, woollen 
stockings, and large walking-stick. We had an excellent 
luncheon, during which they told me how, one evening, 
they had climbed into the Parsees' death-house, and what 
a row there had been about it. Presently one of them said, 
"Well, it's about time to change. We promised to be round 
at the old man's at half-past." 
"Change?" 
"Well, it's just as you like, but I think you'll find those 
things rather hot. We usually wear nothing except shoes 
and shorts. We leave our shirts in the cars. They meet 
us on the bathing-beach. And if you've got any rubber- 
soled shoes I should wear them. Some of the rocks are 
pretty slippery." Luckily I happened to have some rubber 
shoes. I went back to the chaplain's house, where I was 
then living, and changed. I was beginning to be slightly 
apprehensive. 
Mr. Leblanc looked magnificent. He wore newly creased 
white shorts, a silk openwork vest, and white espadrilles 
laced like a ballet dancer's round his ankles. He held 
a tuberose, sniffing it delicately. "They call it an Aden 
lily sometimes," he said. "I can't think why." 
There was with him another stranger, a guest of Mr. 
Leblanc's on a commercial embassy from an oil firm. "I 



GLOBE-TROTTING IN 1930-1 155 
say, you know," he confided in me, "I think this is going 
to be a bit stiff. I'm scarcely in training for anything very 
energetic." 
We set out in the cars and drove to a dead end at the 
face of the cliffs near the ancient reservoirs. I thought we 
must have taken the wrong road, but everyone got out 
and began stripping off his shirt. The Leblanc party went 
hatless; the stranger and I retained our topees. 
"I should leave those sticks in the car," said Mr. 
Leblanc. 
"But shan't we find them useful?" (I still nursed 
memories of happy scrambles in the Wicklow hills.) 
"You will find them a great nuisance," said Mr. 
Leblanc. 
We did as we were advised. 
Then the little walk started. Mr. Leblanc led the way 
with light, springing steps. He went right up to the face 
of the cliff, gaily but purposefully as Moses may have 
approached the rocks from which he was about to strike 
water. There was a little crack running like fork-lightning 
down the blank wall of stone. Mr. Leblanc stood below 
it, gave one little skip, and suddenly, with great rapidity 
and no apparent effort, proceeded to ascend the precipice. 
He did not climb; he rose. It was as if someone were hoist- 
ing him up from above and he had merely to prevent him- 
self from swinging out of .the perpendicular, by keeping 
contact with rocks in a few light touches of foot and hand. 
In just the same way, one after another, the Leblanc 
party were whisked away out of sight. The stranger and 
I looked at each other. "Are you all right?" came rever- 
berating down from very far ahead. We began to climb. 
We climbed for about half an hour up the cleft in the 

ock. Not once during that time did we find a place where 
it was possible to rest or even to stand still in any normal 
attitude. TAle just went on from foothold to foothold; our 
topees made it impossible to see more than a foot or two 
above our heads. Suddenly we came on the Leblanc party 
sitting on a ledge. 
"You look hot," said Mr. Leblanc. "I see you are not 
in training. You will find this most beneficial." 



156 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
As soon as we stopped climbing, our knees began to 
tremble. We sat down. When the time came to start again, 
it was quite difficult to stand up. Our knees seemed to be 
behaving as they sometimes do in dreams, when they 
suddenly refuse support in moments of pursuit by bearded 
women broadcasters. 
"We thought it best to wait for you," continued Mr. 
Leblanc, "because there is rather a tricky bit here. It is 
easy enough when you know the way, but you need some- 
one to show you. I discovered it myself. I often go out 
alone in the evenings finding tricky bits. Once I was out 
all night, quite stuck. I thought I should be able to find 
a way when the moon rose. Then I remembered there was 
no moon that night. It was a very cramped position." 
The tricky bit was a huge overhanging rock with a 
crumbling, flaky surface. 
. "It is really quite simple. Watch me and then follow. 
You put your right foot here . . ."-a perfectly blank, 
highly polished surface of stone-H. . . then rather slowly 
you reach up with your left hand until you find a hold. 
You have to stretch rather far . . . so. Then you cross your 
right leg under your left-this is the difficult part-and 
feel for a footing on the other side. . . . With your right 
hand you just steady yourself. . . so." Mr. Leblanc hung 
over the abyss partly out of sight. His whole body seemed 
prehensile. He stood there like a fly on the ceiling. "That 
is the position. It is best to trust more to the feet than the 
hands-push up rather than pull down . . . you see the 
stone here is not always secure." By way of demonstration 
he splintered off a handful of apparently solid rock from 
above his head and sent it tinkling down to the road below. 
"Now all you do is to shift the weight from your left foot 
to your right, and swing yourself round . . . so." And 
Mr. Leblanc disappeared from view. 
Every detail of that expedition is kept fresh in my mind 
by recurrent nightmares. Eventually after about an hour's 
fearful climb we reached the rim of the crater. The next 
stage was a tramp across the great pit of loose cinders; 
then the ascent of the other rim, to the highest point of 
the peninsula. Here we paused to admire the view, which 



GLOBE-TROTTING IN 1930-1 157 
was indeed most remarkable; then we climbed down to the 
sea. Variety was added to this last phase by the fact that 
we were now in the full glare of the sun, which had been 
beating on the cliffs from noon until they were blistering hot. 
. "It will hurt the hands if you hang on too long," said 
Mr. Leblanc. "One must jump on the foot from rock to 
rock like the little goats." 
At last, after about three hours of it, we reached the 
beach. Cars and servants were waiting. Tea was already 
spread; bathing-dresses and towels laid out. 
"We always bathe here, not at the club," said Mr. 
Leblanc. "They have a screen there to keep out the sharks 
-while in this bay, only last month, two boys were 
devoured.' , 
We swam out into the warm sea. An Arab fisherman, 
hopeful of a tip, ran to the edge of the sea and began shout- 
ing to us that it was dangerous. Mr. Leblanc laughed 
happily and, with easy, powerful strokes, made for the 
deep waters. We returned to shore and dressed. My shoes 
were completely worn through, and there was a large tear 
in my shorts where I had slipped among the cinders and 
slid some yards. Mr. Leblanc had laid out for him in the 
car a clean white suit, a shirt of green cr
pe-de-Chine, 
a bow tie, silk socks, buckskin shoes, ivory hairbrushes, 
scent spray, and hair lotion. We ate banana sandwiches 
and drank very rich China tea. 
For a little additional thrill on the way back, Mr. 
Leblanc took the wheel of his car. I am not sure that that 
was not the most hair-raising experience of all. 
Next day-Sunday, December 14th-intolerably stiff 
in every muscle, bruised, scratched, blistered by the sun, 
I set out for Lahej, to spend two nights as the Sultan's 
guest and see the assembly of the tributary chiefs on 
Tuesday. 
We-Colonel Lake, the chief political officer, the driver, 
and I-bounced along in the sand, in a six-wheel army 
lorry, beside the remains of the track, which still clearly 
showed the corrugations where the sleepers had lain. It 
took us about two hours to reach the camp. The Aden 
Levy had arrived the day before. Great trouble had been 



158 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
taken with the alignment of the camp; an avenue of 
signalling-flags led up to its centre; the sites for the tents 
were symmetrically disposed round it. The tents them- 
selves were causing some trouble, particularly a great 
cubic pavilion that was to be used for the Resident's durbar; 
there was a high, hot wind blowing; grass and reeds had 
been scattered about to lay the driving sand, but with little 
success. Clouds of grit eddied everywhere. 
Just as we arrived they got the big tent fixed at last; 
they stood back to admire it. The subaltern in charge 
came to greet us. "Thank heavens we've got that done. 
We've been at it since five this morning. Now we can 
have a drink." 
While he was still speaking, the tent bellied, sagged, 
and fell; the patient little Arabs began their work again, 
laying foundations of stones, three feet deep, to hold the 
pegs in the loose sand. 
We lunched in the mess-tent, dozed, and then, mounted 
on camels, Colonel Lake and I rode the remaining two 
miles into the town. It was a typical Arab town of dun- 
coloured, flat-roofed houses and intricate alleyways. The 
palace was European in conception, smaller than the 
Gebbi at Addis, but better planned and better kept; there 
were pretty formal gardens in front, and all round the town 
lay bright green meadows and groves of coconut and date- 
palm. 
A power station has lately been built and most of the 
principal houses installed with electricity. This is naturally 
a matter for great pride and, to draw his visitors' attention 
more closely to the innovation, the sultan has conceived 
the rather unhappy plan of building the new guest-house 
immediately over the electric plant. Fortunately this was 
not yet finished, so that we were directed to the old guest- 
house, a pleasant, rather dilapidated villa of pseudo- 
European style, standing at the extremity of the town on 
the edge of the fields. Here Colonel Lake left me in the 
charge of the Arab butler, having elicited the fact that 
there were two other occupants of the house-German 
engineers in the sultan's employ. Except for these there 
were no Europeans of any kind in the town. 



GLOBE-TROTTING IN 1930-1 159 
After about an hour they arrived. They were very young 
men-both twenty-two, I learned later...-..:.and they had 
come in overalls straight from. work; they spoke English, 
one rather better than the other, but both very fluently, 
loudly, and unintelligibly. Their first c;oncern was to 
apologise for their appearance. They would be ashamed 
to speak to me, they said, until they had washed and 
changed. They had fitted up a kind of shower-bath behind 
a curtain of sacking at the top of the stairs. Here they hid 
themselves and spluttered happily for some minutes, 
emerging later, naked, dripping, and better composed. 
They dried themselves, combed their hair, put on smart 
tropical suits, and called for dinner. They produced some 
bottled amstel f
m beneath their beds and put it under 
the shower-bath to cool, and opened a tin of greengages in 
my honour. They were a most friendly, generous pair. 
Dinner consisted of a highly pungent meat stew and 
salad. The cooking was not good, they eXplained, and 
they suspected the butler of cheating the sultan and them- 
selves by confiscating their rations and substituting inferior 
purchases of his own; however, it did not do to complain; 
they were well paid and could afford to supplement their 
meals with biscuits and beer and tinned fruit; they would 
probably be the ultimate losers in any conflict with the 
butler. I should find, they said, that their food would make 
me rather ill. At first they suffered continuously from 
dysentery and nettle-rash; also the mosquito-curtains were 
too short and were full of holes. I should probably get 
a touch of malaria. The salad, they said, helping them- 
selves profusely, was full of typhus. 
I retail this information simply and concisely as though 
it had come to me in so many words. As a matter of fact, 
it took the whole of dinner in telling, and half an hour or 
so afterwards. Both spoke simultaneously all the time, 
and, when the issues became confused, louder and louder. 
"We know English so well because we always speak it 
with our Dutch friends at Aden," they eXplained (but 
again at far greater length and with many misunderstand- 
ings and cross purposes). "It was largely from them that 
we learned it." 



160 w HEN THE GO I N G WAS GOO D 
There were interruptions. Fairly frequently the light 
turned orange, flickered, and went out, on one occasion 
for so long that we all set out to the power station to see 
what had happened. Just as we left the house, however, 
we saw the lights go up again, and returned to our con- 
versation. "Engineer," I realised, was a title covering 
a variety of functions. Three times messages came from 
the palace; once, to say that the water-closet had broken 
and that they were to come and mend it first thing in the 
morning; again, to say that one of Sultan Achmed's (the 
Sultan of Lahej's brother) new tractors was stuck in a 
watercourse; a third, to remark that the lights kept going 
out. All these things were duly noted down for their 
attention. 
Next morning I had an audience with the sultan. His 
Highness was an impassive, middle-aged man, wearing 
semi-European clothes-turban, black frock coat, white 
linen trousers. As head of the Fadl family, the hereditary 
rulers of the Abdali tribe and, for a brief period, the former 
possessors of Aden, he holds by far the most influential 
position in the protectorate. 
His is, in fact, the only really secure house in Southern 
Arabia. There is no resident adviser at Lahej and no 
attempt at domestic control. Within his own territory the 
sultan's power is only limited by the traditional law of his 
own people. 
We drank delicious coffee on the balcony overlooking 
the palace gardens and, with the aid of an interpreter, 
asked politely after each other's health and the health of 
our relations. I commented on the striking modernity of 
his city-the electric light, the water-supply, the motor- 
buses; he remarked how much more modern these things 
were in London. He said that the Resident told him I 
wrote books; that he had not himself written a book, but 
that his brother had written a very good one, which I must 
see before I left Lahej. He asked after my comfort at the 
guest-house; I replied that it was luxury itself; he said not 
so luxurious as London. I was at the moment, just as the 
Germans had predicted, tortured with nettle-rash. I said 
that the tranquillity was greater than in London. He said 



GLOBE-TROTTING IN 1930-1 161 
that soon he would have more motor-buses. Then we took 
leave of each other and I was conducted to Sultan Achmed 
Fadl. 
His Highness's brother lived in a small, balconied 
house on the further side of the main square. He was 
already receiving company. A British political officer 
was there, the subaltern who had supervised the collapse 
of the Resident's durbar tent, and the Haushabi Sultan; 
a secretary was in attendance and numerous servants and 
guards sat about on the narrow staircase. 
The Haushabi Sultan was an important young man 
finely dressed and very far from sane. He sat in a corner 
giggling with embarrassment, and furtively popping little 
twigs of khat into his mouth. It was not often that his 
womenfolk allowed him to leave his own district. Sultan 
Achmed was a good-looking man of forty, with high, 
intellectual forehead and exquisite manners; he spoke 
English well. His habit of life was pious and scholarly. 
He had private estates, almost as large as his brother's, 
whose cultivation he supervised himself, experimenting 
eagerly with new methods of irrigation, new tractors and 
fertilisers, new kinds of crops-a complete counterpart of 
the enlightened landed gentleman of eighteenth-century 
England. 
He showed me his book: a history of the Fadl family 
from the remotest times until the death of his father 
(unfortunately shot by a British sentry during the evacua- 
tion of Lahej in 19 I 5)' It was written in exquisite script, 
illuminated with numerous genealogies in red and black. 
He hoped to have a few copies printed for distribution 
among his friends and relatives, but he did not think it 
was likely to command a wide sale. 
He suggested a drive. When he gave orders, his servants 
ki
sed his knees, and, whenever we stopped during the 
dr
ve, passers-by hurried to salute him in the same way. 
HIs car was not new-I think it must have been one of 
those devised by the German mechanics from the debris 
of former accidents-but it carried a crest of ostrich plumes 
on the bonnet and an armed guard beside the chauffeur. 
We drove to his country house a mile or two away and 



162 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
walked for some time in his gardens-shrubs flowering in 
the shade of coconut-palms by the bank of a stream. He 
ordered a bunch of flowers to be prepared for me, and the 
gardeners brought a vast bundle of small, sweet-smelling 
roses and some great spear-shaped white flowers, sheathed 
in barbed leaves, which gave out a scent of almost stifling 
richness, reputed throughout Arabia, so the Germans told 
me later, to act upon women as an aphrodisiac. He also 
gave me twelve gourds of Dhala honey, eight of which 
were subsequently stolen by the butler at the guest-house, 
who thus, with unconscious kindness, relieved me of a 
particularly unmanageable addition to my luggage, with- 
out my incurring any possible self-reproach on grounds of 
ingratitude. 
That evening I sat with the Germans, gradually dis- 
entangling from their flow of sound an outline of their 
really remarkable careers. They had left school at Munich 
when they were eighteen and, together with a large number 
of boys of their year, had determined to seek their fortunes. 
Accordingly they had split up into pairs, made a solemn 
leavetaking, and scattered all over the globe. They had no 
money, their only assets being a sketchy knowledge of 
practical mechanics and, they said, a natural gift for 
languages. They had worked their way doing odd jobs at 
garages, through Spain and North Africa to Abyssinia, 
with the vague intention of some time reaching India. Two 
years before at Berbera they had heard that the Sultan of 
Lahej had just expelled his French engineer for dishonest 
practices; they had crossed the gulf on the chance of get- 
ting the job, had got it, and remained there ever since. 
They undertook every kind of work, from the mending 
of punctures in His Highness's tyres to the construction 
of a ferro-concrete dam on the wadi and the irrigation of 
his entire estates. They had charge of the electric plant 
and the water-supply of the town; they mended the fire- 
arms of the palace guard; they drew up the plans and 
supervised the construction of aU new buildings; they 
advised on the choice of agricultural machinery; with their 
own hands they installed the palace water-closet-the 
only thing of its kind in the whole of Southern Arabia. 



GLOBE-TROTTING TN 1930-1 163 
When not otherwise engaged, they put in their time patch- 
ing up abandoned army lorries and converting them into 
motor-buses. Their only fear was that the sultan might 
take it into his head to procure an aeroplane; that, they 
felt, would almost certainly lead to trouble. Meanwhile 
they were as happy as the day was long; they would have 
to move on soon, however; it would not do to risk Stagna- 
tion of the Spirit. 
Sultan Achmed combined his gentler pursuits with the 
office of commander-in-chief of the army, and early next 
morning he was busy inspecting the guard of honour and 
inducing a high degree of uniformity in their equipment. 
Long before the Resident was due to arrive they were 
drawn up in the palace courtyard, arranged like straw- 
berries on a coster's barrow, with the most presentable to 
the fore. The chiefs had been arriving on horses and camels 
throughout the preceding afternoon, and had been quartered 
according to their rank in various houses about the town. 
They formed a very remarkable spectacle as they assembled 
among the fumed-oak furniture and plush upholstery of 
the sultan's state drawing-room. No one except the Fadl 
family and their Ministers had attempted European dress. 
The chiefs from up-country wore their best and most 
brilliant robes, and in most cases jewelled swords of con- 
siderable antiquity. They talked very little to each other, 
but stood about awkwardly, waiting for the Resident's 
entry, mutually suspicious, like small boys during the first 
half-hour of a children's party. Most of them, in spite of 
interminable genealogies, lived, in their own homes, a life 
of almost squalid simplicity, and they were clearly over- 
awed by the magnificence of Lahej; some from the remoter 
districts were barefooted and they trod the Brussels carpets 
with very uncertain steps; embarrassment gave them a 
pop-eyed look, quite unlike the keen, hawk faces of cinema 

heiks. While we were waiting, I was introduced to each 
In turn, and through my interpreter had a few words with 
them, asking whether they had had a long journey and 
what the prospects were for the crops and grazing-land. 
As soon as the Aden party arrived we took our places 



164 w HEN THE GO IN G WAS GOO D 
in the council-room, and the chiefs were formally an- 
nounced one after another in order of precedence; each 
in turn shook hands with the Resident and then sat down 
in the chair assigned to him. Some were at first too shy 
to go the whole length of the room, and tried to get away 
with little bows from the door; their companions, how- 
ever, prodded them on, and they came lolloping up with 
downcast eyes to give very hurried greeting and then 
shoot for a chair. It was all very much like the prize-giving 
after village sports, with Sir Stewart as the squire's wife 
and the Sultan of Lahej as the vicar, benevolently but 
firmly putting the tenants' children through their paces. 
I t was hard to believe that each of them could lead a troop 
of fighting men into the field and administer an ancient 
and intricate law to a people of perhaps fifteen hundred, 
perhaps twenty thousand souls. 
Speeches were made, a banquet was eaten; then, though 
the Durbar was only beginning, I drove back to Aden. 
I wish I could have stayed longer, but my time at Aden 
was up. The Explorateur Grandtdier was due next day, 
sailing for Zanzibar. It was six weeks since I had had any 
mail; I had arranged for everything to be sent to Zanzibar. 
My plans for the future were still vague, but that tight- 
lipped young man at Harar had set me considering the 
idea of crossing Africa to the west coast. And so, what 
with one thing and another, I decided to move on. 
Everyone admitted that it was an unfortunate time to 
visit Zanzibar. Usually in the tropics, if one remarks on 
the temperature, the inhabitants assume an air of amused 
tolerance and say, "You find this hot? You ought to see 
what it's like in such and such a month." But December 
in Zanzibar is recognised as a bad season. 
Throughout my stay I am obsessed by heat; I see every- 
thing through a mist, vilely distorted like those gross 
figures that loom at one through the steam of a Turkish 
bath. 
I live at the English Club. Every day, soon after dawn, 
I am awakened by the heat; I lie there under my mosquito- 
net, streaming with sweat, utterly exhausted; I take time 



GLOBE-TROTTING IN 1930-1 165 
summoning enough resolution to turn the pillow dry side 
up; a boy comes in with tea and a mango; I lie there un- 
covered for a little while, dreading the day. Everything 
has to be done very slowly. Presently I sit limply in a hip- 
bath of cold water; I know that before I am dry of the 
water I shall again be damp with sweat. I dress gradually. 
One wears long trousers, coat, shirt, socks, suspenders, 
bow tie, buckskin shoes, everything, in this town. Half- 
way through dressing I cover my head with eau-de-quinine 
and sit under the electric fan. I do this several times during 
the day. They are the tolerable moments. I go up to break- 
fast. A Goan steward offers me bacon and eggs, fish, 
marmalade. I eat only papai. I go up to the library and 
read local history. I try to smoke. The fan blows fragments 
of burning tobacco over my clothes; the bowl of the pipe 
is too hot to hold. Through the window a very slight 
breeze carries up from the streets a reek of cloves, copra, 
and rotten fruit. A ship has been in the night before. I 
send a boy to the bank to enquire after my mail; there is 
still nothing. I make notes about the history of Zanzibar; 
the 'ink runs in little puddles of sweat that fall on to the 
page; I leave hot thumb-prints on the history-book. The 
plates have all come loose and the fan scatters them about 
the library. Luncheon is early. I usually sit with a young 
official who is living at the club during his wife's absence 
at home. I tease him by putting on an earnest manner and 
asking him for information which I know he will be unable 
to give me-"Are there any reciprocal rights at law between 
French subjects in Zanzibar and British subjects in Mada- 
gascar? Where, in the protectorate Budget, do the rents 
appear, paid for the sultan's possessions on the mainland? 
What arrangement was made between the Italian Govern- 
ment and the sultan about the cession of the Somaliland 
1i
toral below the River Juba?"--or questions which I know 
wIll embarrass him-"Were the commercial members of 
Council in favour of the loan from the Zanzibar Treasury 
to the Government of Kenya? Is it a fact that the sultan 
pays for his own postage account and the Resident does 
not.; is it a fact that the sultan has money invested abroad 
whIch the administration want to trace?" He is very patient 



166 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 


and promises to ring up the solicitor-general that after- 
noon and get the facts I want. After luncheon I go to bed. 
At two-forty exactly, every afternoon, the warm little wind 
that has been blowing from the sea, drops. The sudden 
augmentation of heat wakes me up. I have another bath. 
I cover my head with eau-de-quinine and sit under the 
fan. Tea. Sometimes I go to Benediction in the cathedral, 
where it is cool. Sometimes my official takes me for a drive 
into the country, through acres of copra-palm and clove- 
trees and tidy little villages, each with police station and 
clinic. Sometimes I receive a call from a Turk whom I met 
on the ship coming here; he talks of the pleasures of Nice 
and the glories of Constantinople before the war; he wears 
close-cropped hair and a fez; he cannot wear his fez in 
Nice, he tells me, because they take him for an Egyptian 
and charge him excessively for everything . We drink 
lemon squash together and plan a journey in the Hejaz. 
"We will ride and ride," he says, "until our knees are cut 
and bleeding." The warmth of my admiration for Armenians 
clearly shocks him, but he is too polite to say so. Instead, 
he tells me of splendid tortures inflicted on them by his 
relations. 
Dinner on the club terrace; it is a little cooler now; 
one can eat almost with pleasure. Often, in the evening, 
we go out for a drive or visit a ngoma. Once I went to the 
cinema, where, quite unlike Aden, the audience was wide 
awake-mainly composed of natives, shrieking hysteric- 
ally at the eccentricities of two drunken Americans. The 
ngomas are interesting. They are Swahili dances, origin- 
ally, no doubt, of ritual significance, but nowadays per- 
formed purely for recreation. Like most activities, native 
or immigrant, in Zanzibar, they are legalised, controlled, 
and licensed. A list is kept in the police station of their 
place and date; anyone may attend. Once or twice, teams 
of fine negroes from the mainland made their appearance, 
and gave a performance more varied and theatrical. One 
dance we attended took place in absolute darkness; we 
were even asked to put out our cigars. It was, as far as we 
could see, a kind of blind-man's-bu£F; a man stood in the 
centre enveloped in an enormous conical extinguisher 



GLOBE-TRO'I'TING I
 1930-1 167 
made of thatched grass, while the rest of the' company 
capered round him, making derisive cries, beating tins 
and challenging him to catch them. The tufted top of his 
hood could just be seen pitching and swaying across the 
sky. On another occasion a particularly good mainland 
party-from somewhere below Tanga I was told-brought 
a band of four or five tom-tom players. It was odd to see 
these men throwing back their heads and rolling their eyes 
and shoulders like trick drummers in a Paris orchestra. 
The only thing which does not appear to be under the 
benevolent eye of the administrator in Zanzibar is witch- 
craft, which is still practised surreptitiously on a very large 
scale. At one time, Zanzibar and Pemba-particularly the 
latter island-were the chief centres of black art in the 
whole coast, and novices would come from as far as the 
great lakes to graduate there. Even from Haiti, it is said, 
witch doctors will occasionally come to probe the deepest 
mysteries of voodoo. Nowadays everything is kept hidden 
from the Europeans, and even those who have spent most 
of their lives in the country have only now and then dis- 
covered hints of the wide, infinitely ramified cult which 
still flourishes below the surface. No one doubts, however, 
that it does flourish, and it seems appropriate that it should 
have its base here in this smug community. 


There are no problems at all in Zanzibar; such diffi- 
culties as there are, are mere matters of the suitable adjust- 
ment of routine. The sultan is the model of all that a figure- 
head should be; a man of dignified bearing and reputable 
private life. He has no exclusively valid claim to his office; 
the British Government put him there, and they pay him 
a sufficient proportion of his revenue to enable him to live 

n a n:odest degree of personal comfort. The two main 
industrIes of the islands, cloves and copra, are thoroughly 
prosperous compared with any other form of agriculture 
on the East African coast. Law and order are better pre- 
served than in many towns in the British Isles. The medical 
and hygienic services are admirable; miles of excellent roads 
have been made. The administration is self-supporting. 
The British Government takes nothingIout of the island. 



168 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
Instead, we import large numbers of well-informed, wholly 
honest members of our unemployment middle-class to 
work fairly hard in the islanders' interest for quite small 
wages. Gay, easily intelligible charts teach the Swahili 
peasants how best to avoid hook-worm and elephantiasis. 
Instead of the cultured, rather decadent aristocracy of the 
Oman Arabs, we have given them a caste of just, soap- 
loving young men with public-school blazers. And these 
young men have made the place safe for the Indians. 
We came to establish a Christian civilisation and we 
have come very near to establishing a Hindu one. 
The town is, I suppose, as good an example of Arabic 
eighteenth-century architecture as survives intact any- 
where. 
In the time of Burton it must have been a city of great 
beauty and completeness. Now there is not a single Arab 
in any of the great Arab houses; there are, instead, count- 
ing houses full of Indian .clerks or flats inhabited by cosy 
British families. 
I went to Pemba for two nights. It is all cloves, coco- 
nuts, and tarmac, very much like the interior of Zanzibar. 
On the night of my departure I witnessed a highly acri- 
monious dispute about the allotment of Christmas presents. 
My hosts were two elderly bachelors. They were giving 
a joint Christmas-party to the European children of the 
island, and a fine heap of toys had arrived for them in the 
Halifa for distribution to their guests. They rehearsed the 
business with chairs for children. "This will do for So- 
and-So's little boy," and "This for So-and-So's girl," and 
"Have the So-and-So's got two children or three?" At first 
it was all very harmonious and Dickensian. Then suspicion 
of favouritism arose over the allocation of a particularly 
large, brightly painted indiarubber ball. "Mary - 
ought to have it; she's a sweet little thing." "Peter -'s 
brother has just gone to school in England. He's terribly 
lonely, poor kiddy." The ball was put first on one dump, 
then on the other; sometimes it rolled off and bounced 
between them. "Sweet little thing" and "Lonely kiddy" 
became battle-cries as the big ball was snatched backwards 
and forwards. It was an odd sight to see these two hot men 



GLOBE-TROTTING IN 1930-1 169 
struggling over the toy. Presently came the inevitable "All 
right. Do as you like. I wash my hands of the whole thing. 
I won't come to the party." Renunciation was immediately 
mutual. There was a sudden reversal of the situation; each 
party tried to force the ball upon the other one's candidate. 
I cautiously eschewed any attempts at arbitration. Finally 
peace was made. I forget on what terms, but, as far as 
I remember, the ball was given to a third child and all the 
other heaps were despoiled to compensate Mary and 
Peter. They certainly came very well out of the business. 
Later that evening I went back to the Halifa. Some of my 
new friends came to see me off. We woke up the Goan 
steward and persuaded him to make lemon squash for us. 
Then we wished one another a happy Christmas, for it was 
past midnight, and parted. Early next morning we sailed 
for Zanzibar, arriving at tea-time. My mail had not yet 
come. 
Christmas seemed very unreal, divorced from its usual 
Teutonic associations of yule logs, reindeer, and rum 
punch. A few of the Indian storekeepers in the main street 
had decked their windows with tinsel, crackers, and iri- 
descent artificial snow; there was a homely creche in the 
cathedral; beggars appeared with the commendation "Me 
velly Clistian boy"; there was a complete cessation of the 
little club life that had flourished before. 
Eventually the mail arrived, and I was able to leave for 
Kenya. I took an almost empty Italian liner. Her few 
passengers were nearly all restful people taking a few days' 
holiday on the water. The best thing about this ship was 
a nice old cinematograph; the worst was a plague of small 
blackbeetles which overran the cabins and died in vast 
numbers in the baths. An English lady declared that she 
had been severely stung by one in the back of the neck. 
She and her husband were from Nairobi. It was the first 
time they had seen the sea since their arrival in the country 
eleven years before. The husband was a manufacturer of 
b
icks. The trouble about his bricks, he said, was that they 
dId not last very long; sometimes they crumbled away 
before they had been laid; but he was hopeful of intro- 
ducing a new method before long. 



170 w HEN THE GO IN G WAS GOO D 
We stopped at Dar-es-Salaam. I visited the agent of the 
Belgian Congo and eXplained that I had an idea of return- 
ing to Europe by way of the west coast. He was sym- 
pathetic to the idea and told me of an air service run- 
ning weekly between Albertville and Boma; the fare was 
negligible, the convenience extreme. He showed me a 
time-table of the flight. It was two years old. He had not 
yet received the new one, but, he assured me, I could be 
confident that any changes that might have been made 
would be changes for the better. I believed him. 
On the last day of the year we arrived at Mombasa, 
where my whole time was occupied with the immigration 
officers. 


But my ill temper gradually cooled as the train, with 
periodic derailments (three, to be exact, between Mom- 
basa and Nairobi) climbed up from the coast into the 
highlands. In the restaurant car that evening I sat oppo- 
site a young lady who was on her way to be married. She 
told me that she had worked for two years in Scotland 
Yard and that that had coarsened her mind; but since 
then she had refined it again in a bank at Dar-es-Salaam. 
She was glad to be getting married as it was impossible 
to obtain fresh butter in Dar-es-Salaam. 
I awoke during the night to draw up my blanket. It was 
a novel sensation, after so many weeks, not to be sweating. 
Next morning I changed from white drill to grey flannel. 
We arrived in Nairobi a little before lunch time. I took 
a taxi out to Muthaiga Club. There was no room for me 
there, but the secretary had been told of my coming and 
I found I was already a temporary member. In the bar 
were several people I had met in the Explorateur Grandidier, 
and some I knew in London. They were drinking pink gin 
in impressive quantities. Someone said, "You mustn't 
think Kenya is always like this." I found myself involved 
in a luncheon party. We went on together to the Races. 
Someone gave me a cardboard disc to wear in my button- 
hole; someone else, called Raymond, introduced me to 
a bookie and told me what horses to back. None of them 
won. When I offered the bookie some money he said in 



GLOBE-TROTTING IN 1930-1 171 
rather a sinister way, "Any friend of Mr. de Trafford's is 
a friend of mine. We'll settle up at the end of the meeting." 
Someone took me to a marquee where we drank cham- 
pagne. "\Vhen I wanted to pay for my round the barman 
gave me a little piece of paper to sign and a cigar. 
We went back to Muthaiga and drank champagne out 
of a silver cup which someone had just won. 
Someone said, "You mustn't think Kenya is always like 
this. " 
There was a young man in a sombrero hat, trimmed 
with snake skin. He stopped playing dice, at which he 
had just dropped twenty-five pounds, and asked me to 
come to a dinner party at Torrs. Raymond and I went 
back there to change. 
On the way up we stopped in the bar to have a cocktail. 
A man in an orange shirt asked if we either of us wanted 
a fight. We both said we did. He said, "Have a drink 
instead. " 
That evening it was a very large dinner-party, taking 
up all one side of the ballroom at Torrs. The young lady 
next to me said, "You mustn't think that Kenya is always 
like this." 
After some time we went on to M uthaiga. 
There was a lovely American called Kiki, whom I had 
met before. She had just got up. She said, "You'll like 
Kenya. It's always like this." 
Next morning I woke up in a very comfortable bed- 
room; the native boy who brought my orange juice said 
I was at Torrs. 
I had forgotten all about Mombasa and the immigration 
officers. 


At the end of Race Week, Raymond and I left Nairobi 
and drove through the Rift Valley to Lake Naivasha. A 
bad road; red earth cut into deep ruts; one of the best 
roads in the country. On the way we pass other settlers 
returning to their farms; they wear bright shirts and wide 
felt hats; they drive box-body cars, in most cases heaped 
with miscellaneous hardware they have been buying at 
the capital; groups of Kikuyu, the women with heavy 



172 WH EN TH E GOI NG WAS GOO D 
luggage on their backs supported by a strap round their 
foreheads; their ears are slit and ornamented; their clothes 
of copper-coloured skins; the men have mostly made some 
effort at European dress in the form of discarded khaki 
shorts or an old hat. They attempt a clumsy kind of salute 
as we pass, smiling and saying "Jambo bwana," rather as 
children in England still wave their pocket handkerchiefs 
to trains. 
The scenery is tremendous, finer than anything I saw 
in Abyssinia; all round for immense distances successive 
crests of highland. In England we call it a good view if 
we can see a church spire across six fields; the phrase, 
made comic by the Frankaus of magazine fiction, "Wide 
Open Spaces," really does mean something here. Brilliant 
sunshine quite unobscured, uninterrupted in its incidence; 
sunlight clearer than daylight; there is something of the 
moon about it, the coolness seems so unsuitable. Amber 
sunlight in Europe; diamond sunlight in Africa. The air 
fresh as an advertisement for toothpaste. 
We are going to stay with Kiki. She lives in a single- 
storied, very luxurious house on the edge of the Lake. 
She came to Kenya for a short Christmas visit. Someone 
asked her why she did not stay longer. She explained that 
she had nowhere particular to go. So he gave her two or 
three miles of lake front for a Christmas present. She has 
lived there off and on ever since. She has a husband who 
shoots most sorts of animals, and a billiard-room to accom- 
modate their heads. She also has two children and a monkey, 
which sleeps on her pillow. 
. It was lovely at Naivasha; the grass ran down from the 
house to the water, where there was a bathing-place with 
a little jetty to take one clear of the rushes. We used to 
swim in the morning, eat huge luncheons and sleep in the 
afternoon. Kiki appeared soon after tea. There were small, 
hot sausages at cocktail time. Once Kiki and I went for 
a walk as far as some ants, fifty yards up the garden. She 
said, "You must just feel how they can sting," and lifted 
a very large one on to the back of my hand with a leaf. It 
stung frightfully. More than that, several others ran up 
the leg of my trouser and began stinging there. 



GLOBE-TROTTING IN 193 0 - 1 173 
In Kenya it is easy to forget that one is in Africa; then 
one is reminded of it suddenly, and the awakening is 
agreeable. One day before luncheon we were sitting on 
the terrace with cocktails. Kiki's husband and a General 
were discussing someone they had blackballed for White's; 
Raymond was teaching chemin-de-fer to Kiki's little boy; 
there was a striped awning over our heads and a gramo- 
phone-all very much like the South of France. Suddenly 
a Kikuyu woman came lolloping over the lawn, leading 
a little boy by the hand. She said she wanted a pill for her 
son. She explained the sort of pain he had. Kiki's husband 
called his valet and translated the explanation of the pain. 
The valet advised soda mint. When he brought it, the 
woman held out her hand but they-to the woman's 
obvious displeasure-insisted on giving it directly to the 
child. "Otherwise she would eat it herself the moment she 
was round the corner." The Kikuyu have a passion for 
pills only equalled in English Bohemia; they come at all 
hours to beg for them. 
After a time Kiki made a sudden appearance before 
breakfast, wearing jodhpurs and carrying two heavy-bore 
guns. She had decided to go and kill some lions. 
So Raymond and I went to his house at Njoro. 
One does not-or at any rate I did not-look upon 
farming as the occupation of a bachelor. The large number 
of bachelor farmers was, to me, one of the surpri
ing things 
about Kenya. Raymond is one, though perhaps he is more 
typically bachelbr than farmer. I spent about a fortnight 
with him off and on at Njoro; sometimes he was away for 
a day or two, sometimes I was. A delightful if rather 
irregular visit. His cook was away all the time. There 
was a head boy called Dunston who spent most of the day 
squatting outside cooking bath water on a wood fire. I 
learned some words of Swahili. When I woke up I said, 
"Woppe chickule, Dunston?" which meant, "Where is 
food, Dunston?" Dunston replied, "Hapana chickule, 
bwana," which meant, "No food, my lord." Sometimes 
I had no breakfast; sometimes I found Raymond, if he was 
at home, sitting up in bed with a tin of grouse paste and 
a bottlel.0f soda water, and forced him to share these things 



174 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
with me; sometimes, if the telephone was working, I rang 
up Mrs. Grant, the nearest neighbour, and had breakfast 
with her. We used to lunch and dine at the Njoro golf club 
or with the neighbours: very friendly dinner parties, Irish 
in character, to which we bounced over miles of cart track 
in a motor van which Raymond had just acquired in 
exchange for his car; it was full of gadgets designed to 
help him capture gorillas in the Eturi forest-a new idea 
of Raymond's, prompted by the information that they 
fetched two thousand pounds a head at the Berlin Zoo- 
but was less comfortable than the car for ordinary social 
use. 
The houses of Kenya are mainly in that style of archi- 
tecture which derives from intermittent prosperity. In 
many of them the living-rooms are in separate buildings 
from the bedrooms; their plan is usually complicated by 
a system of additions and annexes which have sprung up 
in past years as the result of a good crop, a sudden burst 
of optimism, the influx of guests from England, the birth 
of children, the arrival of pupil-farmers, or any of the 
chances of domestic life. In many houses there is sadder 
evidence of building begun and abandoned when the bad 
times came on. Inside they are, as a rule, surprisingly 
comtortable. Up an unfenced cart-track, one approaches 
a shed made of concrete, match boarding, and corrugated 
iron, and, on entering, finds oneself among old furniture, 
books, and framed miniatures. 
There are very few gardens; we went to one a few miles 
outside Njoro where an exquisite hostess in golden slippers 
led us down grass paths bordered with clipped box, over 
Japanese bridges, pools of water-lilies, and towering tropical 
plants. But few settlers have time for these luxuries. 
"Boy" and Genessie, with whom I spent a week-end, 
have one of the stately homes of Kenya; three massive 
stone buildings on the crest of a hill at Elmentaita over- 
looking Lake Nakuru, in the centre of an estate which 
includes almost every topographical feature-grass, bush 
forest, rock, river, waterfall, and a volcanic cleft down 
which we scrambled on the end of a rope. 
On the borders a bush fire is raging, a low-lying cloud 



GLOBE-TROTTING IN 193 0 - 1 175 
by day, at night a red glow along the horizon. The fire 
dominates the week-end. We watch anxiously for any 
change in the wind; cars are continually going out to 
report progress; extra labour is mustered and despatched 
to "burn a brake"; will the flames "jump" the railroad? 
The pasture of hundreds of head of cattle is threatened. 
In the evening we go down to the lakeside to shoot 
duck; thousands of flamingo lie on the water; at the first 
shot they rise in a cloud, like dust from a beaten carpet; 
they are the colour of pink alabaster; they wheel round 
and settle further out. The head of a hippopotamus emerges 
a hundred yards from shore and yawns at us. When it is 
dark the hippo comes out for his evening walk. We sit 
very still, huddled along the running-boards of the cars. 
We can hear heavy footsteps and the water dripping off 
him; then he scratches himself noisily . We turn the spot- 
light of the car on him and reveal a great mud-caked body 
and a pair of resentful little pink eyes; then he trots back 
into the water. 
Again the enchanting contradictions of Kenya life; 
a baronial hall straight from Queen Victoria's Scottish 
Highlands-an open fire of logs and peat with carved- 
stone chimney-piece, heads of game, the portraits of prize 
cattle, guns, golf-clubs, fishing-tackle, and folded news- 
papers-sherry is brought in, but, instead of a waistcoated 
British footman, a bare-footed Kikuyu boy in white gown 
and red jacket. A typical English meadow of deep grass; 
model cowsheds in the background; a pedigree A yrshire 
bull scratching his back on the gatepost; but, instead of 
rabbits, a company of monkeys scutter away at our 
approach; and, instead of a smocked yokel, a Masai herds- 
man draped in a blanket, his hair plaited into a dozen dyed 
pigtails. 
. I returned to Njoro to find Raymond deeply involved 
In preparations for his gorilla hunt;' guns, cameras, tele- 
scopes, revolvers, tinned food, and medicine chests littered 
tables and floors. There was also a case of champagne. 
"Y ou have to have that to give to Belgian officials-and, 
anyway, it's always useful." 
That evening I dined with the Grants. They had an 



176 w HEN THE GO IN G WAS GOO D 
Englishwoman staying with them whose daughter had 
been in the party at Genessie's. It had been arranged that 
we should all climb Mount Kilimanjaro together; this 
plan, however, was modified, and, instead, we decided to 
go to Uganda. I wanted to visit Kisumu, so it was decided 
that they should pick me up there on the following Sun- 
day. Next day I watched Raymond loading his van, and 
that evening we had a heavy evening at the Njoro club. 
Early the day after, I took the train for Kisumu. 
I was going second class. My companion in the carriage 
was a ginger-haired young man a few years dlder than 
myself; he had an acquaintance with whom he discussed 
technicalities of local legislation; later this man got out 
and we were left alone. For some time we did not speak 
to each other. It was a tedious journey. I tried to read 
a copy of Burton's Anatomy oj Melancholy which I had 
stolen from Raymond's shelves. Presently he said, "Going 
far?" 
"Kisumu." 
"What on earth for?" 
"No particular reason. I thought I might like it." 
P " Y ' . h ' j)" 
ause. ou re new m t e country, aren t you. 
"Yes. " 
"I thought you must be. Kisumu's bloody." 
Presently he said again: "What have you seen so f
r?" 
I told him briefly. 
"Yes, that's all most visitors see. They're delightful 
people, mind you, but they aren't typical of Kenya." 
Two or three stations went by without any further 
conversation. Then he began getting together his luggage 
-a kit bag, some baskets, a small packing-case, and an 
iron stove-pipe. "Look here. You won't like Kisumu. 
You'd far better stay with me the night." 
"All right." 
"Good." 
We got out at a station near the Nandi escarpment and 
transferred his luggage to a Ford van that was waiting 
some distance away in charge of an Indian shopkeeper. 
"I hope you don't mind; I've got to see my brother- 
in-law first. It isn't more than thirty miles out of the way." 



GLOBE-TROTTING IN 193 0 - 1 177 
We drove a great distance along a rough track through 
country of supreme beauty. At cross roads the signposts 
simply bore the names of the settlers. Eventually we 
arrived at the house. There were several people there, 
among them a man I had been at school with. Until then 
my host and I did not know each other's names. There 
was an Italian garden, with trimmed yew hedges and 
grass, balustraded terrace, and a vista of cypresses; in the 
distance the noble horizon of the Nandi hills; after sun
 
down these came alight with little points of fire from the 
native villages; the household was playing poker under 
a thatched shelter. My host transacted his business; we 
drank a glass of Bristol Cream and continued the journey. 
It was now quite dark. Another very long drive. At last 
we reached our destination. A boy came out to greet us 
with a lantern, followed by. an elderly lady-my host's 
mother-in-law. "I thought you were dead," she said. "And 
who is this?" 
"He's come to stay. I've forgotten his name." 
"You'll be very uncomfortable; there's nothing in the 
home to eat and there are three swarms of bees in the 
dining-room." Then, turning to her son-in-law: "Belinda's 
hind-quarters are totally paralysed." 
This referred, not, as I assumed, to her daughter, but, 
I learned later, to a wolfhound bitch. 
We went up to the house-a spacious, single-storied 
building typical of the colony. I made some polite com- 
ment on it. 
"Glad you like it. I built most of it myself." 
"I t is the third we have had in this spot," remarked the 
old lady. "The other two were destroyed. The first caught 
fire; the second was struck by lightning. All the furniture 
I brought out from England was demolished. I have had 
dinner prepared three nights running. Now there is 
nothing." 
There was, however, an excellent dinner waiting for 
us after we had had baths and changed into pyjamas. We 
spent the evening dealing with the bees, who, at night- 
fall, had disposed themselves for sleep in various drawers 
and cupboards about the living-room. They lay in glutinous, 



178 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
fermenting masses, crawling over each other, like rotten 
cheese under the microscope; a fair number flew about the 
room stinging us as we dined, while a few abandoned out- 
posts lurked among the embroidered linen sheets in the 
bedrooms. A subdued humming filled the entire house. 
Baths of boiling water were brought in, and the torpid 
insects were shovelled into them by a terrified native boy. 
Some of the furniture was carried out on to the lawn to 
await our attention in the morning. 
Next day we walked round the farm-a coffee planta- 
tion. Later, a surveyor of roads arrived and we drove all 
over the countryside pointing out defective culverts. During 
the rains, the old lady told me, the farm was sometimes 
isolated from its neighbours for weeks at a time. We saw 
a bridge being built under the supervision, apparently, of 
a single small boy in gum-boots. Poor Belinda lay in a 
basket on the verandah, while over her head a grey and 
crimson parrot heartlessly imitated her groans. 
The surveyor took me to the station for the afternoon 
train to Kisumu-a town which proved as dreary as my 
host had predicted-numerous brand-new, nondescript 
houses, a small landing-stage and railway junction, a 
population entirely Indian or official. The hotel was full; 
I shared a bedroom with an Irish airman who was prospect
 
ing for the Imperial Airways route to the Cape. Next day) 
Sunday, I went to church and heard a rousing denuncia- 
tion of birth-control by a young Mill Hill Father. The 
manager of the hotel took me for a drive in his car to a 
Kavirondo village where the people still wore no clothes 
except discarded Homburg hats. Then Mrs. Grant arrived 
with her party. 
We drove to Eldoret and stayed at one more house, the 
most English I had yet seen-old silver, family portraits, 
chintz-frilled dressing-tables-and next day crossed the 
frontier into Uganda. 


There was nothing, however, to mark the frontiers of 
the two territories. We crossed some time during the 
morning and arrived at Jinja in the late afternoon. 
At Jinja there is both hotel and golf links. The latter 



GLOBE-TROTTING IN 193 0 - 1 179 
is, I believe, the only course in the world which posts a 
special rule that the player may remove his ball by hand 
from hippopotamus footprints. For there is a very old 
hippopotamus who inhabits this corner of the lake. Long 
before the dedication of the Ripon Falls it was his practice 
to take an evening stroll over that part of the bank which 
now constitutes the town of Jinja. He has remained set 
in his habit, despite railway lines and bungalows. At first, 
attempts were made to shoot him, but lately he has come 
to be regarded as a local mascot, and people returning late 
from bridge parties not infrequently see him lurching 
home down the main street. Now and then he varies his 
walk by a detour across the golf links and it is then that 
the local rule is brought into force. 
There were several big-game hunters staying in the 
hotel, so that there was not room for all of us. Accordingly 
I went off to the Government rest-house. These vary in 
range from small hotels to unfurnished shelters. At Jinja 
there was a bedstead and mattress, but no sheets or blankets. 
I had just made a collection of the overcoats of the party 
when we saw a black face grinning at us from below the 
hotel steps. It was Dunston, hat in hand, come to report 
the loss of Raymond. He and the neighbour who was 
joining his gorilla hunt had gone on in a car, leaving 
Dunston and the native driver to follow in the van. Some- 
where they had missed the road. Anyway, here was the 
van with the rifles and provisions and "Hapana bwana de 
Trafford." Dunston wanted orders. We told him to take 
bwana de Trafford's blankets to the rest-house, make up 
the bed, and then wait for further instructions. Meanwhile 
we wired to Eldoret, Njoro, and Nairobi, reporting the 
position of Raymond's lorry. I do not know whether he 
ever found it, for we left next morning for Kampala. 
Here I said good-bye to my companions and established 

yself at the hotel. I was becoming conscious of an inclina- 
tl?n to return to Europe and wanted to get down to Albert- 
Ville and the Belgian air service as soon as I could. 
I left Kampala on the following Sunday afternoon. The 
Rusinga, in which I travelled down the lake, was a comfort- 
able little boat staffed with four smart officers who wore 



180 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
white and gold uniforms in the mornings and blue and 
gold at night. On Wednesday I disembarked at M wanza, 
a deadly little town populated chiefly by Indians. I had to 
share a room at the inn with a C.M.S. chaplain. At meals 
I sat with him and an elderly "tough-egg" from Man- 
chester, engaged in the cotton trade. At least he was so 
engaged until Thursday morning. He had come down 
from the south to meet his local manager. When he re- 
turned from the interview I asked, with what I hoped 
would be acceptable jocularity, "Well, did you get the 
sack?" 
"Yes," he answered, "as a matter of fact, I did. How 
the devil did you know?" 
An unfortunate episode. 
Later at luncheon he got rather drunk and told some 
very unsuitable anecdotes about a baboon. The missionary 
went off immediately to write letters in the bedroom. That 
evening we took the train to Tabora and arrived at noon 
next day. I travelled with the missionary, a courteous man. 
We also discussed the rite of female circumcision, which 
is one of the battlegrounds between missionaries and 
anthropologists. The missionary told me of an interesting 
experiment that was being made in his district. "We found 
it impossible to eradicate the practice," he said, "but we 
have cleansed it of most of its objectionable features. The 
operation is now performed by my wife, in the wholesome 
atmosphere of the church hut." 
Perhaps it is by arrangement with the hotel proprietors 
that every change of train involves the delay of a night or 
two. It was not until late on Sunday evening that I could 
get my connection to Kigoma. Even in Africa the hotel at 
Tabora is outstandingly desolate. It is very large and old. 
In the optimistic days of German imperialism it was built 
to provide the amusement of an important garrison. It is 
now rapidly falling to pieces under the management of 
a dispirited Greek. 
The town is not without interest. It reflects the various 
stages of its history. Fine groves of mango remain to record 
the days of Arab occupation, when it was the principal 
clearing station for slaves and ivory on the caravan route 



GLOBE-TROTTING I
 1930-1 181 
to the coast. Acacia trees, a fort, and that sad hotel remain 
from the days of German East Africa. England's chief 
contribution is a large public school for the education of 
the sons of chiefs. It is a huge concrete building of two 
stories, planted prominently on one of the most unsuitable 
sites in the territory for the agricultural demonstrations 
that are the principal feature of its training. At first it was 
intended exclusively for future chiefs, but now it has been 
opened to other promising natives. They wear crested 
blazers and little rugger caps; they have prefects and 
"colours"; they have a brass band; they learn farming, 
typewriting, English, physical drill, and public-school 
esprit de corps. They have honour boards, on which the 
name of one boy is inscribed every year. Since there were 
no particular honours for which they could compete- 
Makerere was far above their wildest ambitions-it was 
originally the practice of the boys to elect their champion. 
Elections, however, proved so unaccountably capricious 
that nomination soon took their place. I was invited to 
attend a shari (the local word for any kind of discussion). 
This was a meeting of the whole school, at which the 
prefects dealt with any misdemeanours. They sat in chairs 
on a dais; the school squatted on the floor of the great hall. 
Three boys were called up: two had smoked; one had 
refused to plough. They were sentenced to be caned. 
Resisting strongly, they were pinioned to the ground by 
their friends while the drill-sergeant, an old soldier from 
the K.A.R., delivered two or three strokes with a cane. 
It was a far lighter punishment than any at an English 
public school, but it had the effect of inducing yells of 
agony and the most extravagant writhings. Apparently 
this part of the public-school system had not been fully 
assimilated. 
That evening an opinionated little Austrian sizal-farmer 
arrived at the hotel, full of ridicule of British administra- 
tion. He had just returned to the farm he had worked 
before the war, as Germans and Austrians are now doing 
in large numbers. He was confident that after a few more 
years of British mismanagement the territory would have 
to be handed back to Germany. "Before the war," he said, 



182 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
"every native had to salute every European or he knew the 
reason why. Now, with all this education. . ." 
On Saturday evening I went to an Indian cinema and 
saw an Indian film-a costume piece derived from a tradi- 
tional fairy-story. A kindly Indian next to me helped me 
with the plot, eXplaining, "That is a bad man," "That is 
a elephant," etc. When he wished to tell me that the hero 
had fallen in love with the heroine-a situation sufficiently 
apparent from their extravagant gestures of passion-he 
said, "He wants to take her into the bushes." 
Late in the evening I caught the train. 


Kigoma is a haphazard spatter of bungalows differing 
very little from the other lakeside stations I had passed 
through, except in the size and apparent disorder of its 
wharfs and goods yard. The lake steamers belong to the 
Belgian Chemin de Fer des Grands Lacs; notices every- 
where are in French and Flemish; there are the offices of 
Belgian immigration authorities, vice-consulate, and cus- 
toms; a huge unfinished building of the Congo trading 
company. But the impression that I had already left British 
soil was dissipated almost at once by the spectacle of a pair 
of Tanganyika policemen, who stood with the ticket 
collector at the station door and forcibly vaccinated the 
native passengers as they passed through. 
It was now about noon and the heat was overpowering. 
I was anxious to get my luggage on board, but it had to be 
left at the customs sheds for examination when the official 
had finished his luncheon. A group of natives were squat- 
ting in the road, savages with filed teeth and long hair, 
very black, with broad shoulders and spindly legs, dressed 
in bits of skin and rag. A White Father of immense stature 
drove up in a box-body lorry containing crates, sacks, and 
nuns for transhipment; a red and wiry beard spread itself 
over his massive chest; clouds of dense, acrid smoke rose 
from his cheroot. 
There was a little Greek restaurant in the main street, 
where I lunched and, after luncheon, sat on the verandah 
waiting for the customs office to open. A continual traffic 
of natives passed to and fro-most of them, in from the 



GLOBE-TROTTING IN 1930-1 183 
country, far less civilised than any I had seen since the 
Somalis; a few, in shirts, trousers, and hats, were obviously 
in European employment; one of them rode a bicycle and 
fell off it just in front of the restaurant; he looked very 
rueful when he got up, but when the passers-by laughed at 
him he began to laugh too and went off thoroughly pleased 
with himself as though he had made a good joke. 
By about three I got my luggage clear, then after another 
long wait bought my ticket, and finally had my passport 
examined by British and Belgian officials. I was then able 
to go on board the Duc de Brabant. She was a shabby, 
wood-burning steamer, with passenger accommodation in 
the poop consisting of a stuffy little deck-saloon, with two 
or three cabins below and a padlocked lavatory. The short 
deck was largely taken up by the captain's quarters-an 
erection like a two-roomed bungalow, containing a brass 
double bedstead with mosquito-curtains, numerous tables 
and chairs, cushions, photograph frames, mirrors, clocks, 
china and metal ornaments, greasy cretonnes and torn 
muslin, seedy little satin bows and ribbons, pots of dried 
grasses, pin-cushions, every conceivable sort of cheap and 
unseamanlike knick-knack. Clearly there was a woman on 
board. I found her knitting on the shady side of the deck- 
house. I asked her about cabins. She said her husband was 
asleep and was not to be disturbed until five. Gross snoring 
and grunting from the mosquito-curtains gave substance 
to her statement. There were three people asleep in the 
saloon. I went on shore again and visited the Congo agency, 
where I enquired about my aeroplane to Leopoldville. 
They were polite, but quite unhelpful. I must ask at 
Albertville. 
Soon after five the captain appeared. No one, looking 
at him, would have connected him in any way with a ship; 
a very fat, very dirty man, a stained tunic open at his throat, 
unshaven, with a straggling moustache, crimson-faced, 
gummy-eyed, flat-footed. He would have seemed more at 
home as proprietor of an estaminet. A dozen or so passengers 
had now assembled-we were due to sail at six-and the 
captain lumbered round examining our tickets and pass- 
ports. Everyone began claiming cabins. He would see to 



184 w HEN THE GO IN G WAS GOO D 
all that when we sailed, he said. When he came to me he 
said, "Where is your medical certificate?" 
I said I had not got one. 
"It is forbidden to sail without a medical certificate." 
I eXplained that I had been given a visa, had bought 
a ticket, had had my passport examined twice by British 
and Belgian officials, but that no one had said anything 
to me about a medical certificate. 
"I regret it is forbidden to travel. You must get one." 
"But a certificate of what? What do you want certified?" 
"It is no matter to me what is certified. You must 
find a doctor and get him to sign. Otherwise you cannot 
, sail." 
This was three-quarters of an hour before the advertised 
time of departure. I hurried on shore and enquired where 
I could find a doctor. I was directed to a hospital some 
distance from the town, at the top of the hilI. I set out 
walking feverishly. Every now and then the steamer gave 
a whistle which set me going at a jog trot for a few paces. 
At last, streaming with sweat, I reached the hospital. It 
turned out to be a club house; the hospital was about two 
miles away on the other side of the town. Another whistle 
from the Due de Brabant. I pictured her sailing away across 
the lake with all my baggage, money, and credentials. I 
eXplained my difficulty to a native servant; he did not at 
all understand what I wanted, but he caught the word 
doctor. I suppose he thought I was ill. Anyway, he lent 
me a boy to take me to a doctor's house. I set off again at 
high speed, to the disgust of my guide, and finally reached 
a bungalow where an Englishwoman was sitting in the 
garden with needlework and a book. No, her husband was 
not at home. Was it anything urgent? 
I explained my predicament. She thought I might be 
able to find him on the shore; he might be there at work 
on his speed-boat, or else he might be playing tennis, or 
perhaps he had taken the car out to Ujiji. I had better try 
the shore first. 
Down the hill again, this time across country over a golf 
course and expanses of scrub. Sure enough, at one of the 
landing stages about quarter of a mile from the Duc de 



GLOBE-TROTTING IN 1930-1 185 
Brabant, I found two Englishmen fiddling with a motor- 
boat. One of them was the doctor. I shouted down to him 
what I wanted. It took him some time to find any paper. 
In the end his friend gave him an old envelope. He sat 
down in the stern and wrote: "1 have examined Mr."- 
"What's your name?"-" Waugh, and find him free from 
infecttous disease, including omnis t.b. and trypansiniasis. He 
has been vaccinated."-"Five shillings, please." 
I handed down the money; he handed up the certificate. 
That was that. 
It was ten-past six when I reached the Duc de Brabant, 
but she was still there. \Vith a grateful heart I panted up 
the gangway and presented my certificate. When I had got 
my breath a little I eXplained to a sympathetic Greek the 
narrow escape I had had of being left behind. But I need 
not have hurried. It was a little after midnight before we 
sailed. 
The boat was now very full. On our deck there were 
four or five Belgian officials and their wives, two mining 
engineers, and several Greek traders. There was also a 
plump young man with a pallid face and soft American 
voice. Unlike anyone I had seen for the past month, he 
wore a neat, dark suit, white collar and bow tie. He had 
a great deal of very neat luggage, including a typewriter 
and a bicycle. I offered him a drink and he said, "Oh, 
no, thank you," in a tone which in four monosyllables 
contrived to express first surprise, then pain, then reproof, 
and finally forgiveness. Later I found that he was a member 
of the Seventh Day Adventist mission, on his way to audit 
accounts at Bulawayo. 
The waist and forecastle were heaped with mail-bags 
and freight over which sprawled and scurried a medley of 
animals and native passengers. There were goats and 
calves and chickens, naked negro children, native soldiers, 
women suckling babies or carrying them slung between 
their shoulders, young girls with their hair plaited into 
pigtails, which divided their scalps into symmetrical 
patches, girls with shaven pates and with hair caked in 
red mud, old negresses with bundles of bananas, over- 
dressed women with yellow and red cotton shawls and 



186 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
brass bangles, negro workmen in shorts, vests, and 
crumpled topees. There were several little stoves and 
innumerable pots of boiling banana. Bursts of singing 
and laughing. 
They laid the tables in our saloon for dinner. We sat 
tightly packed at benches. There were three or four small 
children who were fed at the table. Two ragged servants 
cooked and served a very bad dinner. The captain col- 
lected the money. Presently he passed round a list of those 
to whom he had given cabins. I was not among them, nor 
was the American missionary nor any of the Greeks. We 
should have slipped him a tip with our tickets, I learned 
later. About a dozen of us were left without accommoda- 
tion. Six wise men laid themselves out full length on the 
saloon benches immediately after dinner and established 
their claim for the night. The rest of us sat on our luggage 
on the deck. There were no seats or deck-chairs. Luckily 
it was a fine night, warm, unclouded, and windless. I spread 
an overcoat on the deck, placed a canvas grip under my 
head as a pillow and composed myself for sleep. The mis- 
sionary found two little wooden chairs and sat stiff backed, 
wrapped in a rug, with his feet up supporting a book of 
Bible-stories on his knees. As we got up steam, brilliant 
showers of wood sparks rose from the funnel; soon after 
midnight we sailed into the lake; a gentle murmur of sing- 
ing came from the bows. In a few minutes I was asleep. 
I woke up suddenly an hour later and found myself 
shivering with cold. I stood up to put on my overcoat 
and immediately found myself thrown against the rail. 
At the same moment I saw the missionary's two chairs tip 
over sideways and him sprawl on the deck. A large pile of 
hand luggage upset and slid towards the side. There was 
a tinkle of broken china from the captain's quarters. All 
this coincided with torrential downpour of rain and a tear- 
ing wind. It was followed in a second or two by a blaze of 
lightning and shattering detonation. A chatter of alarm 
went up from the lower deck, and the various protests of 
disturbed livestock. In the half-minute which it took us to 
collect our luggage and get into the saloon we were soaked 
with rain. And here we were in scarcely better conditions, 



GLOBE-TROTTING IN 1930-1 187 
for the windows, when raised, proved not to be of glass, 
but of wire gauze. The wind tore through them, water 
poured in and slopped from side to side. Women passengers 
came up squealing from their cabins below, with colour- 
less, queasy faces. The saloon became intolerably over- 
crowded. We sat as we had at dinner, packed in rows 
round the two tables. The wind was so strong that it was 
impossible, single-handed, to open the door. Those who 
were ill-the American missionary was the first to go, 
under-were obliged to remain in their places. The shriek 
of the wind was so loud that conversation was impossible; 
we just clung there, pitched and thrown, now out of our 
seats, now on top of one another; occasionally someone 
would fall asleep and wake up instantly with his head 
thumped hard against table or wall. It needed constant 
muscular effort to avoid injury. Vile retchings occurred on 
every side. Women whimpered at their husbands for sup- 
port. The children yelled. We were all of us dripping and 
shivering. At last everyone grew quieter as alarm subsided 
and desperation took its place. They sat there, rigid and 
glum, gazing straight before them or supporting their 
heads in their hands until, a little before dawn, the wind 
dropped and rain ceased beating in; then some of them 
fell asleep, and others slunk back to their cabins. I went 
out on deck. It was still extremely cold, and the little boat 
bobbed and wallowed hopelessly in a heavy sea, but the 
storm was clearly over. Soon a green and silver dawn broke 
over the lake; it was misty all round us, and the orange 
sparks from the funnel were just visible against the whiter 
sky. The two stewards emerged with chattering teeth and 
attempted to set things to order in the saloon, dragging 
out rolls of sodden matting and swabbing up the water- 
logged floor. Huddled groups on the lower deck began to 
disintegrate and a few cocks crowed; there was a clatter of 
breakfast cups and a welcome smell of coffee. 
It was raining again before we reached harbour and 
moored against an unfinished concrete pier, where drip- 
ping convicts were working, chained together in gangs. 
Albertville was almost hidden in mist; a blur of white 
buildings against the obscurer background. 1 VfO rival 



188 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
hotel proprietors stood under umbrellas shouting for 
custom; one was Belgian, the other Greek. Officials came 
on board. We queued up and presented our papers one at 
a time. The inevitable questions: Why was I coming into 
the Congo? How much money had I? How long did I pro- 
pose to stay there? Where was my medical certificate? The 
inevitable form to fill in-this time in duplicate: Date and 
place of father's birth? Mother's maiden name? Maiden 
name of divorced wife? Habitual domicile? By this time 
I had learned not to reveal the uncertainty of my plans. 
I told them I was going direct to Matadi and was given 
a certificate of entry which I was to present to the immigra- 
tion officer at the frontier. It took two hours before we 
were allowed to land. 
Quite suddenly the rain stopped and the sun came out. 
Everything began to steam. 
I spent two nights at Albertville. It consists of a single 
street of offices, shops, and bungalows. There are two 
hotels catering for visitors in transit to and from Tangan- 
yika; no cinemas or places of amusement. There are white 
people serving in the shops, and white clerks at the railway 
station; no natives live in the town except a handful of 
dockers and domestic servants. I spend my time making 
enquiries about the air service. No one knows anything 
about it. One thing is certain, that there has never been an 
air service at Albertville. They think there was one once 
at Kabalo; that there still may be. Anyway, there is a train 
to Kabalo the day after to-morrow. There is no alternative; 
one can either take the train to Kabalo or the boat back 
to Kigoma; there are no other means of communication in 
any direction. With some apprehension of coming discom- 
fort, I purchase a ticket to Kabalo. 
The train left at seven in the morning and made the 
journey in a little under eleven hours, counting a halt for 
luncheon at the wayside. It is an uneven line; so uneven 
that at times I was hardly able to read. I travelled first class 
to avoid the American missionary, and had the carriage to 
myself. For half the day it rained. The scenery was at- 
tractive at first; we pitched and rocked through a wooded 



GLOBE-TROTTING IN 1930-r 189 
valley with a background of distant hills, and later along 
the edge of a river broken by islands of vivid swamp. 
Towards midday, however, we came into bush country, 
featureless and dismal; there was no game to be seen, only 
occasional clouds of white butterflies; in the afternoon we 
jolted over mile upon mile of track cut through high grass, 
which grew right up on either side of the single line to the 
height of the carriages, completely shutting out all view, 
but mercifully shading us from the afternoon sun. 
It was just before sundown when we reached Kabalo, 
a place of forbidding aspect. There was no platform; a 
heap of wood-fuel and the abrupt termination of the line 
marked the station; there were other bits of line sprawl- 
ing out to right and left; a few shabby trucks had been 
shunted on one of these, and apparently abandoned; there 
were two or three goods sheds of corrugated iron and 
a dirty little canteen; apart from these, no evidence of 
habitation. In front of us lay the Upper Congo-at this 
stage of its course undistinguished among the great rivers 
of the world for any beauty or interest; a broad .flow of 
water, bounded by swamps; since we were in the rainy 
season, it was swollen and brown. A barge or two lay in 
to the bank, and a paddle steamer, rusted all over, which 
was like a flooded Thames bungalow more than a ship. 
A bit of the bank opposite the' railway line had been but- 
tressed up with concrete; on all sides lay rank swamp. 
Mercifully, night soon came on and hid this beastly place. 
I hired a boy to sit on my luggage, and went into the 
canteen. There, through a haze of mosquitoes, I discerned 
a prominent advertisement of the Kabalo-Matadi air' 
service; two or three railway officials were squatting about 
on stiff little chairs swilling tepid beer. There was a surly 
and dishevelled woman slopping round in bedroom slippers, 
with a tray of dirty glasses. In answer to my enquiry, she 
pointed out the patron, a torpid lump fanning himself in 
the only easy chair. I asked him when the next aeroplane 
left for the coast; everyone stopped talking and stared at me 
when I put this question. The patron giggled. He did not 
know when the next would leave; the last went about ten 
months ago. There were only two ways of leaving Kabalo
 



190 w HEN THE GO IN G WAS GOO D 
either by train back to Albertville or by river. The Prince 
Leopold was due that evening for Bukama. 
At this stage one of the railway officials interposed help- 
fully. There were trains from Bukama to a place called 
Port Francqui. If I wired, and if the wire ever reached its 
destination, I could arrange for the Elizabethville-Matadi 
air service to pick me up there. Failing that, I could get 
from Bukama on to the newly opened Benguela railway 
and come out on the coast at Lobita Bay in Portuguese 
West Africa. In any case, I had better go to Bukama. 
Kabalo, he remarked, was a dull place to stay in. 
Two hours passed and there was no sign of the Prince 
Leopold. We ate a frightful (and very expensive) meal in 
the canteen. The Seventh Day Adventist came in from 
the railway line, where he had been sitting in the dark in 
order to avoid the sight and smell of beer-drinking. He 
was travelling by the Prince Leopold, too. Another two 
hours and she arrived. We went on board that night and 
,sailed at dawn. 
The journey took four days. 
The Prince Leopold was a large paddle-steamer, twice 
the size of the Rusinga, with half the staff. The captain 
and a Greek steward seemed to do all the work; the former 
young and neurotic, the latter middle-aged and imperturb- 
able, both very grubby. It was a great contrast to all those 
dapper bachelors on Lake Victoria, with their white collars 
and changes of uniform. We stopped two or three times 
a day at desolate little stations. We delivered mail, took up 
cargo, and occasionally effected some change of passengers. 
These were all Greek or Belgian; either traders or officials; 
except for the inevitable round of handshaking each morn- 
ing there was very little intercourse. The Seventh Day 
Adventist became slightly ill; he attributed his discomfort 
to the weakness of the tea. The scenery was utterly dreary, 
flat papyrus-swamps on either side broken by rare belts of 
palm. The captain employed his time in inflicting slight 
wounds on passing antelope with a miniature rifle. Occa- 
sionally he would be convinced that he had killed some- 
thing; the boat would stop and all the native passengers 
disembark and scramble up the side with loud whoops and 



GLOBE-TROTTING IN 1930-1 191 
yodels. There was difficulty in getting them back. The 
captain would watch them, through binoculars, plunging 
and gambolling about in the high grass; at first he would 
take an interest in the quest, shouting directions to them; 
then he would grow impatient and summon them back; 
they would disappear further and further, thoroughly 
enjoying their romp. He would have the siren sounded 
for them-blast after blast. Eventually they would come 
back, jolly, chattering, and invariably empty-handed. 
We were due to arrive at Bukama on Sunday (February 
8th). The train for Port Francqui did not leave until the 
following Tuesday night. It was customary for passengers 
to wait on board, an arrangement that was profitable to the 
company and comparatively comfortable for them. I was 
prevented from doing this by a violent and inglorious 
altercation with the captain, which occurred quite un- 
expectedly on the last afternoon of the journey. 
I was sitting in my cabin, engrossed in the affairs of 
Abyssinia, when the captain popped in and, with wild 
eye and confused speech, demanded to be shown the 
ticket for my motor-bicycle. I replied that I had no motor- 
bicycle. "What, no motor-bicycle?" "No, no motor-bicycle." 
He shook his head, clicked his tongue and popped out 
again. I went on writing. 
In half an hour he was back again; this time with a 
fellow passenger who spoke English. 
"The captain wishes me to tell you that he must see the 
ticket for your motor-bicycle." 
"But I have already told the captain that I have no 
motor-bicycle.' , 
"You do not understand. It is necessary to have a ticket 
for a motor-bicycle." 
"I have no motor-bicycle." 
They left me again. 
. Ten minutes later the captain was back. "Will you 
kIndly show me your motor-bicycle." 
" I h b " 1 " 
ave no motor- lCYC e. 
"It is on my list that you have a motor-bicycle. Will 
you kindly show it to me." 
"I have no motor-bicycle." 



192 WHE
 'tHE GOING WAS GOOD 
"But it is on my list." 
"I am sorry. I have no motor-bicycle." 
Again he Went away; again he returned; now, beyond 
question, stark crazy. "The motor-bicycle-the motor... 
bicycle! I must see the motor-bicycle." 
"I have no motor-bicycle." 
It is idle to pretend that I maintained a dignified calm.' 
I was in a tearing rage, too. After all we were in the heart 
of the tropics where tempers are notoriously volatile. 
"Very well, I will search your luggage. Show it to me." 
"It is in this cabin. Two suitcases under the bunk; one 
bag on the rack." 
"Show it to me." 
"Look for it yourself." As I say, an inglorious, school.. 



. I 
"I am the captain of this ship. Do you expect me tG 
1 " 
move uggage. 
"I am a passenger. Do you expect me to?" 
He went to the door and roared for a boy. No one came. 
With a trembling hand I attempted to write. He roared 
again. Again. At last a sleepy boy ambled up. "Take those 
suitcases from under the bunk.' 
I pretended to be writing. I could hear the captain 
puffing just behind me (it was a very small cabin). 
"Well," I said, "have you found a motor-bicycle?" 
"Sir, that is my affair," said the captain. 
He went away. I thought I had heard the last of the 
incident. In half an hour he was back. "Pack your bag. 

ack your bag instantly." 
"But I am staying on board until Tuesday." 
"Y ou are leaving at once. I am the captain. I will not 
allow people of your kind to stay here another hour." 
In this way I found myself stranded on the wharf at 
Bukama with two days to wait for my train. A humiliating 
situation, embittered by the Seventh Day Adventist, who 
came to offer his sympathy. "It doesn't do to argue," he 
said, "unless you understand the language." 


I thought I had touched bottom at Kabalo, but Bukama 
has it heavily beaten. An iron bridge spans the river leading 



GLOBE-TROTTING IN 1930-1 193 
from the European quarter to the desolated huts of the 
native navvies who built it. Two ruined bungalows stand 
by the waterside and the overgrown Government rest-house, 
whose use has been superseded by the Prince Leopold; it 
is still nominally open, and it was here that I should have 
to stay if I decided to wait for the Port Francqui train. It 
is unfurnished and infested with spir,illum tick. Some 
distance from the landing-point lies the jumble of huts 
that serve as ticket and goods office of the Katanga rail- 
way. A road leads up the hill, where are two abandoned 
offices and a Greek bar and general store. At the top of 
the hill is the administrative post-a flag staff, the bungalow 
of the resident official, and a small hospital round which 
squatted a group of dejected patients enveloped in bandages. 
A platoon of native soldiers shuffled past. The heat and 
damp were appalling, far worse than anything I had met 
in Zanzibar. At sundown, swarms of soundless, malarial 
mosquitoes appeared. I sat in the Greek bar, with sweat 
splashing down like rain-water from my face to the floor; 
the proprietor knew only a few words of French. In these 
few words he advised me to leave Bukama as soon as I could, 
before I went down with fever. He himself was ashen and 
shivering from a recent bout. Th
re was a train some time 
that evening for Elizabethville. I decided to take it. 
We had a long wait, for no one knew the time when 
the train was expected. The station was completely dark 
except for one window at which a vastly bearded old man 
sold the tickets. Little groups of natives sat about on the 
ground. Some of them carried lanterns, some had lighted 
little wood fires and were cooking food. There was a cease- 
less drumming in the crowd-as difficult to locate as the 
song of a grasshopper-and now and again a burst of low 
singing. At ten o'clock the train came in. The carriage was 
full of mosquitoes; there was no netting; the windows 
were jammed; the seats hard and extremely narrow. Two 
Greeks ate oranges all through the night. In this way 
I went to Elizabethville. 


There the air service proved definitely and finally to be 
useless to me. The "newly opened" railway to Lobita Bay 



194 w HEN THE GO I N G WAS GOO D 
was closed again. It had only been possible in the dry 
season when motor-transport could bridge the unfinished 
gap at the Belgian end of the line. Paradoxically enough, 
the quickest way to Europe was hundreds of miles out of 
the way through the Rhodesias and the Union of South 
Africa. There I could get a fast mail-boat from Cape Town 
to Southampton. 
I had some difficulty in eXplaining, to the satisfaction 
of the immigration officer whose permission was necessary 
before I could leave the Congo, why I diverged so much 
from the itinerary outlined in my certificate of entry. In 
the end, however, he understood my difficulties and gave 
me leave to depart. In the meantime I worked, rested, and 
enjoyed the comfort and tranquillity of Elizabethville. 


Six days in the train. At Bulawayo I bought a novel 
called A Muster of Vultures, in which the villain burned 
away his victims' faces with "the juice of a tropical cactus"; 
at Mafeking I bought peaches; once our windows were 
bedewed with spray from the Victoria Falls; once every- 
thing was powdered deep in dust from the great Karoo 
Desert; once we took in a crowd of bad men dismissed 
from the Rhodesian copper-mines; two were known to be 
without passports and there was a frantic search for them 
by bare-kneed police officers, up and down the corridors 
and under the seats; one of them stole nine shillings from 
the half-caste boy who made up the beds. When we changed 
on to a new train at Bulawayo there were white stewards 
in the dining-car; after so many months it seemed odd and 
slightly indecent to see white men waiting on each other. 
At last we arrived in Cape Town. 
I had about forty pounds left in my pocket. A boat was 
sailing that afternoon. For £20 I bought a third-class berth 
in a large and clean cabin. The stewards treated us with 
superiority, but good nature; the food was like that of an 
exceptionally good private school-large luncheons, sub- 
stantial meat teas, biscuit suppers. There was a very fat 
Welsh clergyman travelling in the third class with us. His 
congregation came to see him off. They sang hymns on 
the quayside, which he conducted with extravagant waving 



GLOBE-TROTTING IN 1930-1 195 
of his arms until we were out of earshot. Chiefly they sang 
one whose refrain was "I'm sailing home," but they had 
been a little deluded by the felicity of these words, for the 
general theme of the composition was less appropriate. It 
referred, in fact, not to the journey from Cape Town to 
England, but to death and the return of the soul to its 
Creator. However, no one seemed depressed by this pre- 
diction, and the clergyman's wife sang it with great feeling 
long after her husband had stopped beating the time. 
It was a pleasant voyage. In the evenings we played 
"pontoon." In the mornings we boxed or played "pon- 
toon." There were frequent sing-songs, led by a troop of 
disgruntled dirt-track racers whose season in South Africa 
had been a failure. 
A sports committee was organised, and proved the 
occasion for much bad blood; the Welsh clergyman in 
particular came in for criticism, on the ground that a man 
with a child of his own had no business to organise the 
children's fancy-dress party. "He'll give his own little boy 
the best prize," they said. "Who wouldn't?" He replied 
by saying that he would have them know that, when he 
came out, a special presentation had been made to him by 
his fellow passengers in thanks for his public-spirited 
management of the deck-games. They said, "That's as 
may be." He said he would sooner give up the whole thing 
than have his honour questioned. It was all most enjoyable. 
Eventually, on March loth, we berthed at Southampton. 


On the night of my return I dined in London. After 
dinner we were in some doubt where to go. The names 
I suggested had long ceased to be popular. Eventually we 
decided, and drove to a recently opened supper-restaurant 
which, they said, was rather amusing at the moment. 
It was underground. We stepped down into the blare 
of noise as into a hot swimming-pool, and immersed our- 
selves; the atmosphere caught our breath like the emana- 
tion in a brewery over the tanks where fermentation begins. 
Cigarette-smoke stung the eyes. 
A waiter beckoned us to a small table, tight-packed 
among other tables, so that our chairs rubbed backs with 



196 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
their neighbours. Waiters elbowed their way in and out. 
muttering abuse in each others' ears. Some familiar faces 
leered through the haze: familiar voices shrilled above the 
din. 
We chose some wine. 
"Y ou'll have to take something to eat with it.'" 
We ordered seven-and-sixpenny sandwiches. 
Nothing came. 
A negro in fine evening-clothes was at the piano, sing- 
ing. Afterwards, when he went away, people fluttered their 
hands at him and tried to catch his eye. He bestowed a few 
patronising nods. Someone yelled, "He's losing his figure." 
A waiter came and said, "Any more orders for drinks 
before closing time?" We said we had had nothing yet. He 
made a face and pinched another waiter viciously in the 
arm, pointing at our table and whispering in Italian. That 
waiter pinched another. Eventually the last-pinched waiter 
brought a bottle and slopped out some wine into glasses. 
It frothed up and spilt on the tablecloth. 
Someone shrilled in my ear: "Why, Evelyn, where have 
you been? I haven't seen you about anywhere for days." 
The wine tasted like salt and soda water. Mercifully 
a waiter whisked it away before we had time to drink it. 
"Time, if you please." 
I was back in the centre of the Empire, and in the spot 
where, at the moment, "everyone" was going. Next day 
the gossip-writers would chronicle who were assembled in 
that rowdy cellar, hotter than Zanzibar, noisier than the 
market at Harar, more reckless of the decencies of 
hospitality than the taverns of Kabalo or Tabora. And 
a month later the wives of English officials would read 
about it, and stare out across the bush or jungle or desert 
or forest or golf links, and envy their sisters at home, and 
wish they had the money to marry rich men. 
I paid the bill in yellow African gold. It seemed just 
tribute from the weaker races to their mentors. 



CHAPTER FOUR 


A JOURNEY TO BRAZIL IN 1932 
(FROM Ninety-two Days) 


ONE does not travel, any more than one falls in love, to 
collect material. It is simply part of one's life. For myself 
and many better than me, there is a fascination in distant 
and barbarous places, and particularly in the borderlands 
of conflicting cultures and states of development, where 
ideas, uprooted from their traditions, become oddly changed 
in transplantation. It is there that I find the experiences 
vivid enough to demand translation into literary form. 
Just as a carpenter, I suppose, seeing a piece of rough 
timber feels an inclination to plane it and square it and put 
it into shape, so a writer is not really content to leave any 
experience in the amorphous, haphazard condition in which 
life presents it; and putting an experience into shape means, 
for a writer, putting it into communicable form. 
So for the next month or two I shall be reliving my 
journey in Guiana and Brazil. Not that it has ever been 
out of my memory. It has been there, ill digested, through- 
out a crowded and fretful summer, obtruding itself in a 
fragmentary way at incongruous moments. Now, in this 
seaside nursery, it will be all laid out, like the maps and 
photographs and drawings on the writing table, while fall- 
ing leaves in the autumnal sunshine remind me that it will 
soon be time to start out again somewhere else. 


December, 1932 
Warm sun, calm water, a slight following wind; after 
a week of heavy seas it was at last possible to write. Pas- 
sengers, hitherto invisible, appeared from below. The ship 
was small, old and slow, a cargo boat carrying a few pas- 
sengers and not caring much about them. It was not until 
the sea became smooth that one saw how slow she was. 
The company was, presumably, typical of the route; 
three or four planters returning to the islands, men of 



198 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
old-fashioned appearance, thin brown faces and bulky watch- 
chains; two parsons, one white, one black, both affable; 
two English soaks doing the "round trip" for the good of 
their health, both surly when sober; some nondescript 
women of various colours rejoining husbands or visiting 
brothers; a genteel young negress with purple lips; a some- 
what cranky young man from the Philippines who had an 
attachment for islands. Very few were going as far as 
Georgetown. 
Those who were, were not encouraging. They were 
mildly excited at first when they learned that anyone who 
wrote books was coming to their country, and with that 
pathetic belief in the might of the pen which one continu- 
ally meets in out of the way places, hoped that I should 
persuade the Imperial Government to "do something" 
about local trade conditions. The country was stiff with 
gold and diamonds, they said, which only needed "develop- 
ment." When I told them that I wanted to go up country, 
they lost interest. Of course there was always Kaieteur, 
they said, quite a lot of tourists went there; three or four 
a year; they believed it was very pretty when you got there 
but it cost a great deal and you might be drowned or get 
fever; or there was the Rupununi savannah; several white 
people):, lived there and even a, white woman, but it cost 
a great deal to get there and you might be drowned on the 
way or
get fever; besides it was only at certain seasons you 
could get there at all. I had far better winter in Trinidad, 
they said, where there was an excellent new country club, 
horse races and a lot of money about or at Barbadoes where 
the bathing was unrivalled. 
And to be honest I did gaze rather wistfully as each of 
the islands in turn disappeared behind us. The first was 
Antigua and, coming on it as we did after twelve days of 
unbroken horizons, it remains the most vivid-steep little 
hills covered in bush, a fringe of palm along the beach, 
brilliant blue water revealing, fathoms down, the silver 
sand of its bed; an old fort covering the bay; a shabby 
little town of wooden, balconied houses, its only prominent 
building a large plain Cathedral rebuilt after an earth- 
quake, with shining towers and a good pitch-pine interior; 



A JOURNEY TO BRAZIL IN 193 2 199 
inquisitive black urchins in the street; women in absurd 
sun hats, the brims drooping and flapping over their black 
faces, waddling along on flat feet; ragged negroes lounging 
aimlessly at corners; baskets of highly coloured fish for 
sale-purple and scarlet like markings of a mandril; ram- 
shackle motor cars; and in the churchyard the memorials 
of a lost culture-the rococo marble tombs of forgotten 
sugar planters, carved in England and imported by sailing 
ship in the golden days of West Indian prosperity. 
It is significant that marble, that most grand and delicate 
of all building material, the substance of almost all sculpture, 
has to-day become the symbol of the vulgar and garish- 
the profiteers of Punch circa 1920, Lyons' Corner House 
and the Victor Emanuel Memorial; it is part of the flight 
from magnificence to which both the "ye-olde" -pewter- 
and-sampler resthetic and its more recent counterpart, the 
"modern"-concrete-and-steel-tube have given impetus. A 
broken column in the Syrian desert, an incised slab over- 
whelmed in the gross vegetation of the South American 
bush remain as spoors of something gracious that passed 
that way centuries before. 


We stopped only a day at Antigua to put down pas- 
sengers and cargo; one of the things we brought to the 
islands was holly for their Christmas decorations. It looked 
odd being tossed down into the lighters under a blazing 
sky, so completely dissociated from its traditional con- 
comitants of Yule logs and whiskey punch and Santa Claus 
stamping off the snow. But it was not my first Christmas 
in the tropics; I knew it all-the cablegram forms specially 
decorated with berries and robins, the puzzled native 
children before the crib in the Church, "Auld Lang Syne" 
on the gramophone, the beggars trotting hopefully behind 
one in the street saying "Happy Clistmas-me' velly 
Clistian boy"; the prospect of hot plum pudding on a 
windless, steaming evening. 
Blue water ends at Trinidad; there and from there 
onwards the sea is murky; opaque, dingy stuff the colour 
of shabby stucco, thick with mud sweeping down from 
the great continental rivers-the Orinoco, the Essequibo, 



200 w HEN THE GO I N G WAS GOO D 


the Demerara, the Berbice, the Courantyne; all along the 
coast their huge mouths gape amidst dune and mangrove, 
pouring out into the blue Caribbean the waters of the 
remote highlands. Later I was to tramp across part of 
the great continental divide, where the tributaries of the 
Amazon and Essequibo dovetail into one another, tiny 
cascading brooks, confusing in an unmapped country 
because they seemed always to be flowing in the direction 
one did not expect; I was to wade through them or scramble 
over them on slippery tree-trunks in the forest where they 
were ruby-clear, wine-coloured from the crimson timber; 
I was to paddle tedious days down them when they had 
become deep and black; leaving them months later, as I 
saw the water become blue and clear again I was to feel 
touched with regret, for they had become for a time part 
of my life. But now as we approached the mainland I 
only felt mildly depressed that bathing had ceased to be 

ttractive. 
Depression deepened as rain set in; a monotonous 
tropical downpour, always dreary, most monotonous and 
most depressing when one is on the water. We were already 
a day late and now we missed the tide by an hour and had 
to lie at anchor in the rain and a slight fog, waiting to cross 
the bar into Demerara. There was a lightship faintly visible 
a mile or so away. They told me without pride that it was 
a new one. 
Next day, before noon, we arrived. The town lies 
t the 
mouth of the Demerara on the right bank; opposite are 
low, green mangrove swamps. Half a dozen small ships 
lay alongside the quay. We steamed up and then drifted 
down to our berth with the current. Low wooden sheds 
and low roofs beyond them; everything quite flat; rain 
streamed down ceaselessly; only the heavy reek of sugar 
occupied the senses. 
Landing was simple. There was none of the jaunty 
cross-examination which usually greets a British subject 
when he arrives on British territory; an elderly negro in 
a straw hat glanced at our passports; the Customs officers 
opened nothing; we p3ssed through the sheds, which were 
full of bees attracted to the sugar bags, and out into the 



A J 0 URN E Y TO BRA Z I L I N I 9 3 2 20 I 
water-logged street; a taxi splashed and skidded to the 
hotel; the windows were obscured by rain. 
A bare bedroom with white wooden walls, a large bed 
with mosquito netting, a rocking chair, a faint smell of 
"Flit." There I was. 
Two coloured reporters arrived from local newspapers 
to interview me. They had followed me on bicycles from 
the other hotel. (This, let me hasten to say, is no indica- 
tion of fame. All first-class passengers are given column 
interviews on arrival at Georgetown.) They looked rather 
damp and had none of the breezy technique of their trade. 
They took down all I said laboriously as though I were 
a witness at an Archbishop's Court. 
Was it true that I was a writer? Yes. 
A writer who had published books or just a writer? 
Was I going to write about Guiana? One of them had 
a cutting from a London paper in which I had facetiously 
said that I understood the beetles in Guiana were as big 
as pigeons and that one killed them with shot-guns. Had 
I really come to shoot beetles, they asked. They were 
afraid I should be disappointed. The beetles were certainly 
remarkably large, but not as large as that. 
Had I any views about the mineral resources of the 
country? V{hen I confessed that I had not, they were 
clearly nonplussed; this was their stock, foolproof ques- 
tion, because most visitors to Georgetown came there 
with some idea of prospecting for diamonds or gold. They 
gazed at me with reproach. I volunteered the information 
that I was going up country. 
"Ah, to Kaieteur?" 
I then inwardly took the vow which I very nearly kept, 
that I would in no circumstances visit that very famous 
waterfall. 


It was December 22nd when I landed, and January 3rd 
when I left for the interior. Most of this time was spent 
in trying to make some sort of plans for the future. Christmas 
was both a good and a bad time for this purpose; good 
because most of the people from up country had come down 
to town for the celebrations; bad because they took the 



202 w HEN THE GO I N G WAS GOO D 
holidays seriously in Georgetown. Most of my information 
came casually from conversation in the hotel bar. 
Few of the people I talked to had even the most cursory 
acquaintance with the bush, though most of them could 
name someone who at one time or another had been up to 
Kaieteur; they were mostly discouraging, half regarding 
the expedition as a mild and rather tedious picnic and half 
as a precipitate and painful suicide. In order to dispel the 
suspicion that I was after diamonds, I gave it out, as was 
indeed the truth, that I wanted to take photographs of the 
primitive Indians. Here again they were discouraging. 
"Y ou'll find them all playing gramophones and working 
sewing-machines. They're all civilised now. We know what 
you want," they said with winks, "you want to take the 
girls naked. Well, your best plan is to go up to Bartika 
and get a few of the tarts there to pose tor you. You can 
get the proper feather ornaments from the Self Help shop. 
That's what the American scientific expeditions do." 
Across the Brazilian border I might find something to 
interest me, but not in Guiana, they said. 
I had a note of introduction to a Jesuit missionary on 
the Takutu River. There were three Takutu Rivers marked 
on my map, but two were merely guesses, sketched in 
tentatively with dotted lines, while one was marked firmly 
as a place of known importance, so I assumed, correctly 
as it turned out, that this was the one I wanted. It ran 
through the furthest extremity of the Rupununi savannah 
forming the boundary between British Guiana and Brazil. 
Accordingly I made this my objective. 
I was advised to go and see Bain, the Commissioner for 
the district, who by good chance was in Georgetown for 
Christmas. So with the Governor's introduction I sought 
him out in the boarding-house where he was staying. He 
was a middle-aged, emaciated man, creole with some 
Indian blood. Like everyone else in the colony he had at 
one time worked gold and diamonds; like most other 
people he had also been a surveyor, a soldier, a policeman 
and a magistrate; he had lately returned to the last avoca- 
tion which included most of the other functions. He 
received me with great kindness and vivacity, telling me 



A JOURNEY TO BRAZIL IN 1932 203 
that the Rupununi was the most beautiful place in the 
world and that anyone with a gift for expression should 
be able to make a book about it. He was himself returning 
in a day or two by the cattle trail as far as Kurupukari 
which was well on my way. He had a boat of stores leaving 
almost at once from Bartika which he expected to find 
awaiting him. He offered me a place in that. 
"It ought to get there before me," he said. "I do not 
know about the rains. Perhaps it will take four days, 
perhaps eight. But it must get there because it is full of 
barbed wire I need. Unless of course it's wrecked," he 
added. "Mr. Winter's boat was totally destroyed in the 
rapids the day before yesterday." 
I had no idea where Kurupukari was, but it sounded 
as good as anywhere else. When I got back I looked for 
it on the map. Mr. Bain had spoken very quickly so that 
when I found Y upukarri right up on the savannah I was 
highly delighted. It was not for two days that 1 found 
Kurupukari about a hundred miles away from it. Then 
I realised that I was in for a longer journey than I had 
anticipated, and trebled my order for stores. 
I had no idea what I should need. Opinion was contra- 
dictory, some people saying, "Just take a gun and live by 
that," and others, "Don't count on getting anything up 
country. The ranchers live on farine." 
I had no idea what farine was but I felt I should need 
something else. Mr. Bain simply said, "You should be 
like me. I can go for days without eating-like a camel. 
That is the way to live in the bush." 
From that moment onwards I did not have an hour's 
certainty of plan. It was arranged that I should take Tuesday's 
steamer to Bartika and start in the boat on Wednesday; then 
I discovered by chance that there was no steamer on Tues- 
days; wires were sent and the boat delayed until Thursday. 
Then Mr. Bain rang up to say he was sending a black 
policeman with me who was to act as my servant; that 
sounded all right until the agents rang up to say that now 
the policeman was coming there would only be room for 
100 lbs. of my stores. There was nothing to do except 
countermand three-quarters of them. 



204 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
Then the agents rang up to say, did I realise that it 
was an open boat and that since the rains were on it was 
imperative to take a tarpaulin. Desperate and unsuccessful 
attempts to secure a tarpaulin with every shop in George- 
town closed. 
Then Mr. Bain rang up to say that the agents said it 
was an open boat and that the rains were on. I should be 
soaked to the skin every day and undoubtedly get fever 
and he could not take the responsibility of sending me 
in it. 
Then I went to see Mr. Bain and he said I had better 
come to Takama with him and perhaps there would be 
a horse to get me to Kurupukari. 
Then I rang up the agents and said that since the boat 
was relieved of my weight they were to put all my stores 
on board. 
Then Mr. Bain rang up to say that he had come to 
the conclusion that I could have the horse which he had 
meant to pack with his personal stores; instead he would 
send them by boat. 
Then I rang up the agents and said they were to take 
from my stores the weight equivalent to the personal 
stores Mr. Bain was sending by boat. 
All these, and other less remarkable alarms, occurred 
at intervals of two or three hours. Taken all in all it was 
a disturbed departure. 
There was plenty going on in Georgetown that week. 
An unknown Dutchman shot himself on Christmas 
morning in his room at the rival hotel, on account of 
feeling lonely. 
A negro known to his friends as "the Blood of Corrup- 
tion" was arrested on numerous charges. He was the 
leader of a criminal organisation called "the Beasts of 
Berlin." They had taken the name from a cinema film; 
none of them had the remotest idea what Berlin was; they 
just liked the name. But they were perfectly serious criminals 
for all that. 
There was a race-meeting in heavy rain and, on New 
Year's Eve, a large number of dances. At my hotel there 
was a Caledonian Ball, characterised by a marked male 



A JOURNEY TO BRAZIL IN 1932 205' 
predominance, pipers, and quite elderly men sitting giggling 
on the ballroom floor; there was also a more decorous func- 
tion at the club where I ate the poisoned "crab-back." 
Through all this the preparations for the journey up 
country, the buying of chlorodyne and bandages, gun caps 
and cartridge cases, flour and kerosene, seemed fantastic 
and unsubstantial, and the empty forest, a few miles away, 
infinitely remote, as unrelated to the crowded life of the 
coast as it was to London. Most journeys, I think, begin 
and all end with a sense of unreality. Even when eventually 
I found myself in the train for New Amsterdam, sitting 
opposite Mr. Bain, with our improbable baggage piled up 
round us, it still required an effort to convince me that we 
were on our way. 


It is said that the railway along the Guiana coast is the 
oldest in the Empire. It runs in pretty, flat country over 
creeks and canals and through gay, ramshackle villages. 
The stations still bear the names of the old sugar estates 
but these are mostly split up now into small holdings 
growing coconut and rice. The further one goes from 
Georgetown towards New Amsterdam, the blacker be- 
come the inhabitants, of purer negro type and more cheer- 
ful manners. Berbice men look OJ1 Demerarans as wasters; 
the Demerarans look on them as bumpkins. 
It was just dark by the time Mr. Bain and I reached 
New Amsterdam. We had the carriage to ourselves and 
our baggage. Most of the way Mr. Bain talked. 
I do not know how the legend originated that the men 
who administer distant territories are "strong and silent." 
Some may start strong and even retain a certain wiriness 
into middle life, but most of them, by the time they have 
attained any eminence in the King Emperor's service, are 
subject to one or more severe complaints. As for their 
silence, it seems to vary in exact inverse ratio to their 
distance from civilisation. For silence one must go to the 
young diners-out of London; men in the wide open spaces 
are, in my experience, wildly garrulous; they will talk on 
al.l subjects-highly personal reminiscences, their dreams, 
diet and digestion, science, history, morals and theology. 



206 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
But pre-eminently of theology. It seems to be the obses- 
sion waiting round the corner for all lonely men. You start 
talking bawdy with some breezy, rum-drinking tramp 
skipper and in ten minutes he is proving or disproving the 
doctrine of original sin. 
Mr. Bain, though indefatigable in his duty, was not 
strong; frequent attacks of fever had left him bloodless 
and fleshless, and besides this he suffered from constant, 
appalling bouts of asthma which kept him awake for all 
but an hour or two every night. Nor was he silent. During 
the stimulating fortnight I was to spend in his company 
he talked at large on every conceivable topic, eagerly, 
confidently, enthusiastically, not always credibly, some- 
times scarcely coherently, inexhaustibly; with inspired 
imagination, with dizzy changes of thought and rather 
alarming theatrical effects, in a vocabulary oddly com- 
pounded of the jargon he was accustomed to use among 
his subordinates and the longer, less habitual words he had 
noticed in print. As I have said he talked of everything at 
one time or another, but mostly either in metaphysical 
speculation or in anecdote. He himself always figured 
prominently in the latter and it was in these that his gestures 
became most dramatic. The dialogue was all in oratio recta; 
never "I ordered him to go at once," but "I say to him 
'Go! plenty quick, quick. Go!'" and at the words Mr. 
Bain's finger would shoot out accusingly, his body would 
stiffen and quiver, his eyes would blaze until I began to 
fear he would induce some kind of seizure. 
One engaging and lamentably uncommon trait in Mr. 
Bain's reminiscences was this, that besides, like half the 
world, remembering and retailing all the injustices he had 
encountered, he also remembered and retained every word 
of approbation; the affection he had received from his 
parents as a boy; the prize given him at school for his 
geometry; the high commendation he had had at the 
technical college for his draughtsmanship; numberless 
spontaneous expressions of esteem from various acquaint- 
ances throughout his life; the devotion of subordinates and 
the confidence of superiors; the pleasure the Governor 
took in his official reports; testimonies from delinquents to 



A JOURNEY TO BRAZIL IN 1932 207 
the impartiality, mercy, and wisdom of his judicial sentences 
-all these were fresh and glowing in his memory and all, 
or nearly all, I was privileged to hear. 
Many of his stories I found to strain the normal limits 
of credulity-such as that he had a horse which swam 
under water and a guide who employed a parrot to bring 
him information; the bird would fly on ahead, said Mr. 
Bain, and coming back to its perch on the Indian's shoulder 
whisper in his ear what he had seen, who was on the road 
and where they could find water. 
At sundown it became cold and clammy in the carriage; 
clouds of mosquitoes came in from windows and corridor, 
biting us to frenzy. Mr. Bain remarked gloomily that they 
were probably all infected with malaria. Everyone has 
different theories about quinine; Mr. Bain recommended 
constant, large doses, observing parenthetically that they 
caused deafness, insomnia and impotence. 
We transferred from the train to a ferry steamer and 
drifted rather disconsolately across to the town. There was 
a boarding-house kept by a white gentleman in reduced 
circumstances; here we dined in a swarm of mosquitoes; 
the house had run out of drink during the New Year 
celebrations. After dinner to avoid the mosquitoes we 
walked about the streets for an hour. They were empty 
and ill-lit. New Amsterdam, eighty years ago, was a pros- 
perous, if sleepy, town with a club and its own society; 
now there is barely a handful of whites quartered there, 
the rest having been driven out by mosquitoes and the decay 
of the sugar trade. At a street corner we met a J ordanite 
haranguing a few apathetic loafers and a single suspicious 
policeman. He wore a long white robe and a white turban 
and he waved a wand of metal tubing; a drowsy little boy 
sat beside him holding a large Bible. The J ordanites are 
one of the many queer sects that flourish among negroes. 
They derive their name not as might be supposed from 
the river, but from a recently deceased Mr. Jordan from 
Jamaica; their object seemed partially pious, partially 
political; they are said to favour polygamy. The present 
speaker ran round in little circles as he spoke, "What for 
you black men afraid ob de white man? Why you ascared 



208 W HEN THE GO IN G WAS GOO D 


ob his pale face and blue eye? Why do you fear his yellow 
hair? Because you are all fornicators-dat is de reason. 
If you were pure of heart you need not fear de white 
" 
man. 
Then he saw us and seemed rather embarrassed. "'Nother 
text, boy." But the boywas asleep over the Bible. He cracked 
him sharply on the head with his wand and the child hastily 
read a verse of Ezekiel and the preacher took up on another 
subject. 
"The black man got a very inferior complex," remarked 
Mr. Bain as we resumed our walk. 
Next day we started at dawn. There was a great rain- 
bow over the town. On the way to the quay I noticed 
a charming old Lutheran Church, relic of the Dutch 
occupation, that had been invisible the night before. 
A lazy, uneventful day in the paddle steamer up the 
Berbice River. Monotonous vegetable walls on either 
bank, occasionally broken by bovianders' cabins'! Now 
and then an unstable, dug-out canoe would shoot out from 
the green shadows and an unkempt, bearded figure would 
deliver or receive a parcel of mail. We slung our hammocks 
on deck. There was a steward who made gin-swizzles of 
a kind and served revolting meals at intervals of two hours. 
On the whole a tolerable day's journey. 
Our only companions on the top deck were a Belgian 
rancher, his Indian wife, some of their children, and his 
wife's sister. They were the first Indians I had seen. Since 
they had taken up with a European they wore hats and 
stocKings and high-heeled shoes, but they were very shy, 
guarding their eyes like nuns, and giggling foolishly when 
spoken to; they had squat little figures and blank, mongol 
faces. They had bought a gramophone and a few records 
in town which kept them happy for the twelve hours we 
were together. Conversation was all between Mr. Bain and 
the rancher, and mostly about horses. Quite different 


1 Boviander is the name given to the people of unknown descent-mostly 
Dutch, Indian and negro mixtures-who live in isolated huts all along the 
lower waters of the big rivers; they generally have a minute clearing where 
they grow manioc or maize; they fish, and spend most of their time, like the 
water rat in Wind in the Willows, "messing about in boats." 



A J 0 URN E Y T 0 BRA Z I L I N I 9 3 2 2°9 
standards of quality seemed to be observed here from 
those I used to learn from Captain Hance. 
"I tell you, Mr. Bain, that buckskin of mine was the 
finest mare bred in this district. You didn't have to use no 
spur or whip to her. Why before you was on her back, 
almost, she was off like the wind and nothing would stop 
her. And if she didn't want to go any particular way nothing 
would make her. Why I've been carried six miles out of 
my course many a time, pulling at her with all my strength. 
And how she could rear." 
"Yes, she could rear," said Mr. Bain in wistful admira- 
tion, "it was lovely to see her." 
"And if she got you down she'd roll on you. She wouldn't 
get up till she'd broken every bone in your body. She killed 
one of my boys that way." 
"But what about my Tiger." 
"Ah, he was a good horse. You could see by the way he 
rolled his eyes." 
"Did you ever see him buck? Why he'd buck all over 
the corral. And he was wicked too. He struck out at you 
if he got a chance." 
"That was a good horse, Tiger. What became of him?" 
"Broke his back. He bolted over some rocks into a creek 
with one of the boys riding him." 
"Still you know I think that for bucking my Shark. . ." 
An
 so it went on. Presently I asked in some apprehen- 
sion, "And the horse I am to ride to-morrow. Is he a good 
horse too?" 
"One of the strongest in the country," said Mr. Bain. 
"It will be just like the English Grand National for you." 


So the day wore on. The steward trotted about with 
frightful helpings of curried fish; later with greyish tea 
and seed cake; later with more fish and lumps of hard, 
dark beef. The Indian ladies played their gramophone. 
The rancher had a nap. Mr. Bain told me more. At last, 
about seven, we arrived at our destination, and descended 
in the dark into a dug-out canoe. 
. "Be careful, be careful, if you're not used to them you 
will certainly be drowned," Mr. Bain admonished me, 



210 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 


thus giving the first evidence of what, for the next few 
days, was going to prove a somewhat tiresome solicitude 
for my safety. The trouble was this. The Governor had 
requested Mr. Bain to look after me and, in his kindness, 
had stressed the fact that the conditions of the country 
were new to me and that he took a personal interest in my 
welfare. Mr. Bain, in his kindness, interpreted this to 
mean that something very precious and very fragile had 
been put into his charge; if any accident were to befall me 
the Governor would never forgive it; danger, for one of 
delicate constitution, lurked in every activity of the day. 
If I helped to saddle the placid pack ox he would cry out, 
"Stand back, be careful, or he will kick out your brains." 
If I picked up my own gun he would say, "Be careful, it 
will go off and shoot you." 
Fortunately this scrupulous concern began to wear thin 
after three days' travel, but during those three days it came 
as near as anything could to straining my affection and 
gratitude towards him. 


The dug-out paddled by an indiscernible figure in the 
stern, swept away from the ship across the dark water; the 
opposite bank was lightless. We scrambled up the slippery 
bank (Mr. Bain urging me anxiously not to fall down) and 
could just make out a rise in the ground surmounted by 
some kind of building; the boatman brought up a lantern 
and we climbed further. Mr. Bain in the meantime asking 
fretfully, "Yetta? Where's Yetto? I told him to be here 
with my hammock." 
"Yetto come with de horses this morning. Now him 
go bottom-side to a party. Him no say nothing about de 
hammock.' , 
"Yetto proper bad man," said Mr. Bain lapsing into 
vernacular. "Him proper Congo." 
Thus in circumstances of discredit and terms of oppro- 
brium I first heard the name of someone to whom I was 
later to become warmly attached. 
We climbed the little hill and reached a thatched shelter, 
open at the sides, where two figures lay asleep in hammocks. 
They woke up, sat up and stared at us. A black man and 



A JOURNEY TO BRAZIL IN 1932 2II 
his wife. :Mr. Bain asked them if they knew what"¥ etto 
had done with his hammock. 
"Him gone to de party." 
"Where dis party?" 
"Down to de river. Indian house. All de boys at de party." 
So we went down to look for Yetto. We paddled almost 
noiselessly down stream, keeping into the bank. It was an 
effort to balance in the narrow, shallow craft. Eventually 
we heard music and hauled in under the bushes. 
The party was in a large Indian hut. It was cosmopolitan 
in character, being made up of Brazilian vaqueiros, bovi- 
anders, blacks and a number of c10thed and semi-civilised 
Indians. Two Brazilians were playing guitars. The hostess 
came out to greet us. 
"Good night," she said, shaking hands and leading us 
in. It was not etiquette to ask for Yetto at once so we sat 
on a bench and waited. A girl was walking from guest to 
guest with a bowl of dark home-brewed liquor; she handed 
a mug to each in turn, waiting while they drank and then 
refilling it for the next. Two or three negroes were dancing. 
The Indians sat in stolid rows, silently, soft hats pulled 
down over their eyes, staring gloomily at the floor. Now 
and then one would get up, stroll apathetically across to 
a girl and invite her to dance. The couple would then 
shuffle round in a somewhat European manner, separate 
without a word or a glance and resume their seats. The 
Indians, I learned later, are a solitary people and it takes 
many hours' heavy drinking to arouse any social interests 
in them. In fact the more I saw of Indians the greater I was 
struck by their similarity to the English. They like living 
with their own families at great distances from their neigh- 
bours; they regard strangers with suspicion and despair; 
they are un progressive and unambitious, fond of pets, 
hunting and fishing; they are undemonstrative in love, 
unwarlike, morbidly modest; their chief aim seems to be 
on all occasions to render themselves inconspicuous; in all 
points, except their love of strong drink and perhaps their 
improvidence, the direct opposite of the negro. On this 
particular evening, however, their only outstanding charac- 
teristic was inability to make a party go. 



212 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 


After a time Yetto was detected drinking guiltily in a 
corner. He was a large middle-aged black of unusual ugli- 
ness. He was comic; huge feet and hands, huge mouth, 
and an absurd little Hitler moustache. Mr. Bain and he 
talked at some length about the hammock; a conversation 
in which "you proper Congo" occurred frequently. Then 
he left the party and came away with us to find it. At last 
at about ten o'clock Mr. Bain and I were established in 
the rest-house. 
Next morning Yetto and some other boys appeared with 
the horses and my misgivings of the previous day rapidly 
subsided. They were very small ponies and stood placidly 
in the corner 0f the corral cropping the tops off the arid 
tufts of grass; they were too lethargic even to switch away 
the horse flies that clustered on their quarters; mine had 
been attacked by a vampire bat during the night and bore 
a slaver of blood on his withers. 
The packing of the ox took some care, and it was noon 
before we were ready. The black man, who had shared the 
rest-house the night before, was coming with us. He was 
manager of the ran
h ten or twelve miles away, which was 
to be our first stop. We mounted and made to start off. 
My pony would not move. 
"Loosen de reins," they said. 
I loosened the reins and kicked him and hit. He took 
a few steps backwards. 
"Loosen de reins," they said. 
Then I saw how they were riding, with the reins hang- 
ing quite loose, their hands folded on the front of the 
saddle. That is the style all over this part of the world; 
the reins are never tightened except in an occasional savage 
jerk; the aids are given on the neck instead of on the bit. 
Drama in movement is the object aimed at; the vaqueiros 
like a horse that as soon as they mount will give two or 
three leaps in the air and then start off at a gallop; it does 
not matter how short a time the gallop lasts provided he 
takes them out of sight of the spectator; then after many 
hours' monotonous jogging they will spur him into life 
when they approach either ranch or village, arrive at the 
gallop, the horse's mouth lathered with foam, rein him 



A JOURNEY TO BRAZIL IN 1932 213 
back on to his hocks and dismount in a small dust storm. 
I had seen this often enough in the old days of the cinema, 
but had not realised that it occurred in real life. 
We set off across the plain cantering a little but mostly 
jogging' at what for many weeks was to be my normal 
travelling gait. The country was dead flat and featureless 
except for ant-hills and occasional clumps of palm; the 
ground was hard earth and sand tufted with dun-coloured 
grass; thousands of lizards scattered and darted under the 
horses' feet; otherwise there was no sign of life except the 
black crows who rose at our approach from the carcasses 
strewn along the track, and resettled to their feast behind 
us. Here and in the forest we passed a carcass every half- 
mile. Many were recently dead, for the last drive had lost 
forty per cent., and these we cantered past holding our 
breath; others were mere heaps of bone picked white by 
the ants, the mound of half-digested feed always prominent 
among the ribs. 
During the ride Mr. Bain discoursed to the black rancher 
about history; I listened fitfully for my horse was continu- 
ally dropping behind, but I was never out of earshot of the 
voice, voluble, rhapsodic, now rising to some sharp catas- 
trophe, now running on evenly, urgently, irresistibly in the 
shimmering noon heat. 
I caught bits: ". . . once you see there was nothing but 
water. It says so in the Bible. Water covered the face of 
the earth. Then He divided the land from the waters. 
How did He do that, Mr. Y erwood? Why, by killing de 
crabs, and all de shells of de crabs became ground down 
by the tides and became sand. . . ." 
". . . then there was Napoleon. He was only a little 
corporal but he divorced his wife and married the daughter 
of an Emperor. Mark my words, Mr. Yerwood, all dose 
Bolshevists will be doing that soon. . . ." 
". . . and why did the English take so long to subdue 
de little Boers. Because dey were so sporting. When dey 
take prisoners dey let dem go again for to give dem another 
chance. . . ." 
We reached our destination in about two hours and 
found three sheds and a wired corral. It was less than 



214 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
I had expected. Through the influence of the cinema, 
"ranch" had taken on a rather glorious connotation in 
my mind; of solid, whitewashed buildings; a courtyard 
with a great tree casting its shadow in the centre and 
a balustraded wall, wrought iron gates, a shady interior 
with old Spanish furniture and a lamp burning before 
a baroque Madonna, and lovely girls with stock-whips 
and guitars. I do not say that I had expected to find this 
at Waranana; but I did feel that the word "ranch" had 
taken a fall. 
Various dependants of Mr. Bain's were awaiting him 
here-policemen returning to duty, woodmen in charge 
of keeping the trail open; he also had stores and saddlery 
and some horses, left behind on his previous journey. All 
these he attended to so that by next morning everything 
was ready for us to start out. A moody young policeman 
named Price was handed over to me (or me to him), to act 
as my personal servant. Yetta was never far away, grin- 
ning sheepishly and constantly reprimanded. He held an 
uncertain position, partly government runner, partly groom, 
partly cook, partly porter. 
Mr. Yerwood killed a chicken for us and, after we had 
dined, joined us and drank some of our rum. He and 
Mr. Bain talked about animals, their stories growing less 
probable as the evening progressed. Finally Mr. Yerwood 
described a "water-monkey" he had once seen; it was 
enormous and jet black; it had a grinning mouth full of 
sharp teeth; it swam at a great speed; its habit was to 
submerge itself and wait for bathers whom it would draw 
down and pound to pieces on the rocks at the bottom. Just 
such an occurrence had happened to a friend of Mr. Yer- 
wood's; every bone in his body was broken when it floated 
to the surface, Mr. Yerwood said. 
Not to be outdone, Mr. Bain related how once, when 
lWalking in the late afternoon in the neighbourhood of 
Mount Roraima, he had encountered two Missing Links, 
a man and his wife slightly over normal size but bowed 
and simian in their movements; they were naked except 
for a light covering of soft reddish down; they had star
d 
at Mr. Bain a full half-minute, then said something he did 



A JOURNEY TO BRAZIL IN 1932 215 
not understand, and strolled off into the bush. After that 
there was little to be said on the subject of animals. It was 
ten o'clock-late for the district-so we took to our ham- 
mocks, leaving the lamp burning as a protection against 
vampire bats. 


It would be tedious to record the daily details of the 
journey to Kurupukari. Mr. Bain managed everything; 
I merely trotted beside him; we took six days from the 
ranch, averaging about fifteen miles a day. Mr. Bain often 
explained how, in normal conditions, he did the whole 
journey in two stages at full gallop all the way. All the 
time we only passed one human being-a Portuguese- 
speaking Indian, padding along on foot, going down to 
the river on some inscrutable errand. For two days we 
travelled over grass land and then entered the bush; it was 
cool and quite sunless. The green, submarine darkness of 
the jungle has been described frequently enough but it can 
never, I think, be realised until one has been there. The 
trail was as broad as an English lane with vast, impenetrable 
walls of forest rising to a hundred and fifty feet on either 
side; the first twenty feet from the ground were dense 
undergrowth, then the trunks of the trees emerged, quite 
bare, like architectural columns rising vertical and feature- 
less until they broke into the solid roof of leaves, through 
which appeared only rare star points of direct sunlight. 
There were always men working to keep the trail clear of 
fallen timber and there were always trees lying across it at 
frequent intervals. Usually some kind of line had been 
chopped round these through the bush and we would 
dismount and lead our horses. There were also creeks 
, 
every few miles, low at this time of year, so that we could 
ride through them. In the wet season, Mr. Bain said, you 
had to crawl across a tacuba leading a swimming horse, 
carry your baggage across and load and re-load your pack 
animals four or five times a day. Sometimes the trail had 
been completely cleared with a "corduroy" of logs through 
the marshy places; elsewhere only the undergrowth had 
been chopped away and the trees stood up in the middle 
of the path; once we came to a place where the virgin 



216 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
forest had been burned and a second growth of low bush 
had taken its place; there was loose white sand here, blind- 
ing to the eyes after the gloom of the forest) and heavy 
going for the horses. 
Everyone who has ever been there has remarked on the 
apparent emptiness of the bush. The real life takes place 
a hundred feet up in the tree-tops; it is there that you 
would find all the flowers and parrots and monkeys, high 
overhead in the sunlight, never coming down except when 
there is a storm. Occasionally we would find the floor of 
the trail strewn with petals from flowers out of sight above 
us. 
We met the first snake on our first day in the bush. 
Mr. Bain and I were riding abreast a mile or so ahead of 
the baggage. He was telling me his views on marriage 
(". . . whom God has joined together let no man put 
asunder. Yes. But tell me this. Who is God? God is love. 
So when a couple have ceased to love one another . . .") 
when he suddenly reined up and said in a melodramatic 
whisper: "Stop. Look ahead. Dere is a terrible great 
snake." It was in the days when he still regarded my 
safety as peculiarly precarious. "Don't come near-it may 
t k " 
at ac you. 
Sure enough about twenty yards ahead was a very large 
snake, curled up in the middle of the trail. 
"What kind is it?" 
"I never saw anything like him before. Look at his 
terrible great head," hissed Mr. Bain. 
It certainly was a very odd-looking head from where we 
sat, swollen and brown and quite different in appearance 
from the mottled coils. Mr. Bain dismounted and I followed. 
Very stealthily, step by step he approached the creature. 
It did not move and so, emboldened, he began to throw 
pieces of dead wood at it. None of them fell within six feet 
of their mark. He approached closer, motioning me back 
apprehensively. Then the snake suddenly raised his neck, 
retched and for a moment it appeared as though his head 
had fallen off. Then it became clear what had happened. 
We had surprised a python in the act of slowly swallowing 
a large toad. It had got down the back legs and was slowly 



A J OUR N E Y T 0 ,B R A Z I L I N I 9 3 2 2 17 
sucking in the body when it had been disturbed; the 
"terrible great head" was the toad's body half in and half 
out of the jaws. The python averted its own delicately 
pointed face and slipped away into the bush; the toad 
showed little gratitude or surprise at his escape, but 
dragged himself rather laboriously under a log and sat 
down to consider his experience. 
Always, but particularly from sunset until dawn, the 
bush was alive with sounds. We used to turn in early, 
usually between seven and eight, because there was noth- 
ing to do after dark; there were no chairs to sit in or table 
to sit at; the lantern light was too dim for reading. As soon 
as we finished supper we rolled up in our hammocks and 
there was nothing to do but lie and listen for ten or eleven 
hours. There were the immediate sounds of poor Mr. Bain's 
asthma; of the boys squatting round their fire, sometimes 
singing, more often arguing, always quite unintelligible 
when they were among themselves; there were our own 
beasts grazing in the corral and limping about at hobble; 
often we would hear the crash of dead timber falling in the 
forest near us, but around and above and through all these 
were the sounds of the bush. I am no naturalist; Mr. Bain's 
experienced ear was able to pick out innumerable voices 
that to me were merged in the general chatter, but even 
to me there were some sounds that were unmistakable; 
there were the "howler" monkeys; I never saw one except 
stuffed in a museum-he was a small ginger creature- 
but we heard them roaring like lions most days; in the far 
distance it was like the noise of the dredgers that once used 
to attend me lying sleepless night after night at Port Said. 
There were the frogs, some shrill like those in the South 
of France, others deep and hoarse. There was a bird which 
mooed like a cow, named, appositely enough, the "cow- 
bird," and another which struck two sharp metallic notes 
as though with a hammer on a copper cistern; this was 
called the "bell-bird"; there was a bird that made a noise 
like a motor-bicycle starting up; a kind of woodpecker 
drilling very rapidly with his beak; there were others of 
various kinds who wflistled like errand boys. There was 
one which repeated "Qu'est ce qu'il dit?" endlessly in a 



218 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
challenging tone. There was one insect which buzzed in 
a particular manner. "Listen," said Mr. Bain one day, 
"that is most interesting. It is what we call the 'six o'clock 
beetle,' because he always makes that noise at exactly six 
o'clock." 
"But it is now quarter past four." 
"Yes, that is what is so interesting." 
4t one time and another in the country I heard the 
"six o'clock beetle" at every hour of the day-and night. 
But experienced "bush men" say that they can ten the 
time as accurately by the sounds of the bush, as a mariner 
can by the sun. 
Kurupukari, which we reached on the seventh day, was 
marked large on the map and had figured constantly in 
our conversation for the past week. There was a flagstaff, 
certainly, lying flat in the grass, still under construction; 
it was completed and erected during my stay; later Mr. 
Bain hopes to obtain a flag for it. But there was no landing, 
no habitations, only a single wooden house standing in a 
clearing on a slight hill. 
The Essequibo bends there, so that the place had the 
look of a peninsula; the river even at this season was 
immense, and the wooded islands round which it divided 
and converged made it seem larger still; a broad creek 
flowed into it immediately opposite the station; there were 
sand dunes and rocks, submerged at full flood, but now 
high and dry, confusing one's sense of direction; there 
were cascades and patches of sti1l lake so that one seemed 
to be surrounded by a system of ornamental waters, and 
across its vast and varied expanse one could see the green 
precipices of forest and appreciate, as one could not when 
directly beneath them, the freakish height of the trees and 
the gay dapple of blossom at their summit. 
The house, like most in the country, was of one storey, 
raised on piles ten or twelve feet from the ground. The 
verandah was the living-room with a table and two arm- 
chairs, it was also the government office; some tattered, 
printed regulations, a calendar and an obsolete map hung 
on the walls; there was a desk with pigeon-holes for licences, 
forms, stamps; here were transacted the multifarious functions 



A JOURNEY'TO BRAZIL IN 1932 219 
of local government; a tax was levied on passing cattle, 
grants of land were registered, pilots' certificates were 
endorsed, letters were accepted for the irregular river 
service to the coast. A resident black sergeant of police 
took charge of them. Under us, between the supporting 
piles, there lived, under the minimum of restraint, a dozen 
or so convicts. 
Mr. Bain's cubicle had a cupboard, without lock, in 
which he kept or attempted to keep, a few personal pos- 
sessions. This busy place was the nearest thing Mr. Bain 
had to a home, a curious contrast to the trim little official 
residences of British Africa. In all his huge district there 
was not ol1,e place which Mr. Bain could lock up; his life 
was spent eternally jogging up and down the cattle trail 
and across the plain to the ultimate frontier station at Bon 
Success, hanging his hammock in the vaqueiros' shelters or 
putting up the night at the scattered little ranch houses of 
the savannah, living from year's end to year's end in camp 
conditions except for rare official visits to a Georgetown 
boarding-house. It was not everybody's job. 
Unsatisfactory news awaited us at Kurupukari; our boat 
from Bartika had not arrived and Mr. Bain who had hitherto 
been unreasonably confident about it, suddenly became 
correspondingly depressing. That was the way in the bush, 
he said, one had to be used to things like that; there was 
not much water in the river, no doubt they were having 
a difficult time at the rapids; it might be weeks before they 
arrived; they might never arrive at all; that was probably 
it-the boat had been wrecked and the men all drowned; 
the barbed wire and the stores anyway would be lost beyond 
hope. How right he had been to bring me up the trail . . . 
and so on. 
Meanwhile we were reduced to the milder discomforts 
of a state of siege. We had a box and a half of biscuits and 
a tin of milk; and there were great sacks of farine for the 
convicts' rations and some tasso. 
Parine is a vegetable product made from cassava root. 
It .is like coarse sawdust in appearance; a granulated, 
taplOca-coloured substance of intense hardness and a faint 
taste of brown paper. It is eaten quite alone, or with hot 



220 W HEN THE G a I N G WAS G a a D 
water to soften it or more luxuriously with milk or the 
water in which the tasso has been boiled. 
Tasso is prepared in this way. The killing of a beast is 
an event of some importance in the immediate neighbour- 
hood. Indians get news of it and appear mysteriously like 
gulls round a trawler when the catch is cleaned. A few 
choice morsels are cut away and cooked and eaten fresh. 
The Indians carry off the head and the entrails. The rest 
is sliced into thin slabs, rolled in salt and hung up to dry. 
A few days of sun and hot savannah wind reduce it to a 
black, leathery condition in which it will remain un corrupt 
indefinitely. Even the normally omnivorous ants will not 
touch it. It is carried under the saddle above the blanket 
to keep it tender and protect the horse from galling. When 
the time comes to eat it, it is scrubbed fairly clean of dust 
and salt and boiled in water. It emerges softened but fibrous 
and tasteless. I can conceive it might be possible for a new- 
comer to stomach a little farine with a rich and aromatic 
stew; or a little tasso with plenty of fresh vegetables and 
bread. The food of the savannah is farine and tasso and 
nothing else. 
For four days there was no sign of the boat. Then, late 
in the afternoon, one of the convicts reported the sound 
of a motor. Mr. Bain and I hurried down to the river bank. 
He too could hear it plainly, though it was half an hour 
before a sound reached my duller ears. Pessimistic to the 
last, Mr. Bain said it was probably some other boat, but 
in the end, just at sundown it came into sight, a grey blob 
very slowly approaching. Their sharper eyes-Mr. Bain's 
and the little cluster of convicts and police-instantly 
recognised it as ours. In another half-hour it was there. An 
open boat low in the water, with an outboard engine. There 
was a crew of four or five, each with a story to tell. They 
camped near the boat and long into the night we could 
hear them arguing and boasting over their fire. We went 
to bed suffused as though by wine with renewed geniality. 
The unloading took all the morning and as I saw my 
stores packed bit by bit against the wall of my cubicle 
I began to despair of ever moving them. But Yetta was 
confident that he and the horse and the policeman could 



A JOURNEY TO BRAZIL IN 1932 221 
manage them with ease. We swam the horses across the 
river that afternoon and hobbled them in the corral on 
the opposite bank so that they would be ready to start the 
next day. The pack horse took unkindly to the water and 
swallowed a good deal on the way across. 
Everything seemed set for my departure. I had even 
some kind of plan evolved for my ultimate route. It was 
possible, said Mr. Bain, to take a canoe from Bon Success 
down the Takutu to Boa Vista. That meant nothing to me 
but Mr. Bain eXplained that it was an important Brazilian 
town-next to Manaos the most important town in 
Amazonas. He had never been there himself but he knew 
those who had and in his description he made it a place of 
peculiar glamour-dissipated and violent; a place where 
revolutions were plotted and political assassinations com- 
mitted; from there regular paddle steamers plied to Manaos 
-a city of inexpressible grandeur, of palaces and opera 
houses, boulevards and fountains, swaggering military in 
spurs and white gloves, cardinals and millionaires; and 
from there great liners went direct to Lisbon. Mr. Bain 
made a very splendid picture of it all-so graphic and full 
of passages so personal and penetrating that it was difficult 
to accept his assurance that he knew it only by repute. His 
eyes flashed as he told me of it and his arms swept in circles. 
I felt that it was a singularly fortunate man who went to 
Boa Vista and Manaos. 
On the eve of my departure Mr. Bain and I had an 
intimate and convivial dinner. Next morning I sent the 
stores across with Yetto and the policeman; they were to 
arrange the pack horse's load and their own and start ahead 
of me. Soon after midday I went across myself. Mr. Bain 
came to see me off. We found and saddled the horse; I 
mounted and after many expressions of mutual goodwill, 
I rode off alone up the trail. ' 
As soon as I set out on my own, things began to go 
slightly against me. 
I was jogging happily up the trail, feeling for the first 
time a little like an explorer when I met the neighbouring 
bov
ander squatting moodily on a tree stump beside a pile 
of tIllS that were obviously 
 part of my stores. The man 



222 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 


grinned amiably and took off his hat. "Yetto and Price say 
to take dese back," he explained. "Horse no can carry. 
Him lie down all de time." 
"Lies down?" 
"All de time. Dey beat him with a stick and him goes 
little little way and den him lie down again. Him no get 
top side. De boys make pack lighter." 
I looked at the pile and saw that with a minimum of 
discrimination, they had abandoned my entire meat ration. 
There seemed nothing to be done. I picked out half a dozen 
tins, rolled them up in the hammock at the back of my 
saddle and told the man to present the rest to Mr. Bain 
with my compliments. Then I rode on less contentedly. 
About six miles farther on I came upon the pack horse 
unsaddled and hobbled, his pack lying on the ground near 
him. I shouted for Yetto who eventually appeared from 
the bush where he and Price had been having a nap. 
"Him weary," said Yetto. "Him no carry pack top- 
side. " We undid the loads and rearranged them, sifting 
out everything unessential from the heap. An Indian boy 
had appeared mysteriously and I entrusted to him the 
stores we could not take, to carry back to Kurupukari. 
Then I rode on ahead to the shelter where we should spend 
the night. I waited two hours and there was no trace of the 
baggage. Then I resaddled my horse and rode back. About 
a mile from where I had left them, Yetta and Price were 
sitting on a fallen tree eating farine. The horse was grazing 
near them, the packs were on the ground. 
"Dat horse am sick. Him no go at all." 
It was now late afternoon. There was nothing for it but 
to return to Kurupukari, so I left Price to guard the stores, 
told Yetta to follow with the pack horse and rode back to 
the river. 
That ride remains one of the most vivid memories of 
the cattle trail. Checked and annoyed as I was, the splen- 
dour of the evening com pensated for everything. Out on 
the savannah there is no twilight; the sun goes down blaz- 
ing on the horizon, affording five or ten minutes of gold 
and crimson glory; then darkness. In the forest night 
opens slowly like a yawn. The colours gradually deepened, 



A JOURNEY TO BRAZIL IN 193 2 223 
the greens pure and intense to the point of saturation, the 
tree trunks and the bare earth glowing brown; the half 
shades, the broken and refracted fragments of light all dis- 
appeared and left only fathomless depths of pure colour. 
Then dusk spread; distances became incalculable and 
obstacles detached themselves unexpectedly and came 
suddenly near; and while it was almost night in the trail 
the tops of the trees were still ablaze with sunlight, till 
eventually they too darkened and their flowers were lost. 
And all the pattering and whistling and chattering of the 
bush at night broke out loudly on all sides, and the tired 
little horse-who was doing a double journey and, being 
always on the move, had no instinct for home-suddenly 
pricked his ears and raised his head and stepped out fresh 
as though his day were only just beginning. 
It was black night when I reached the corral. I hobbled 
him, took off his bridle and saddle and carried them down 
to the water's edge. The other bank showed no light. After 
prolonged shouting I heard an answering call and twenty 
minutes later a canoe appeared suddenly at my feef. Mr. 
Bain received me without surprise. He never thought I 
would get far alone. 
Next day there was more reorganisation. The sergeant 
hired me a donkey named Maria and a vain young negro 
named Sinclair, who had been hanging about without 
apparent purpose in and out of the house for some days. 
Next day we set out again and reassembled at the place 
where I had left the stores, Yetta, Price, Sinclair, the 
horse, Maria, and myself, and began dividing up the 
loads and the duties. For his half-dollar a day a boy is 
assumed to be able to carry about fifty pounds for about 
twenty miles. It was Yetta's boast, of which the others 
were quick to take advantage, that he could carry a hundred 
pounds for fifty miles. I used to see them piling things on 
to Yetta's back and him taking them with pride and good 
humour. Sinclair was an odious youth but he knew a little 
about cooking. The other two hated him and on the last 
d
ys went without food altogether rather than take it from 
hIm. He asked if he might drive the ass and I said yes. He 
then made the point that it was impossible both to carry 



224 w HEN 'I HE G a I N G WAS G a a D 
a pack and drive the ass who strayed all over the path and 
needed constant goading along. In point of fact Maria did 
nothing of the sort. She quickly got wise to the fact that 
if she stayed behind with the boys, they unslung their loads 
as soon as I was out of sight, and put them on her back. 
Accordingly she used to break away and trot along happily 
beside the horse. This was maddening for me, because 
every few miles her pack would work loose and she would 
start scattering bits of luggage along the trail and I would 
have to stop and rearrange things. 
Every evening Yetto had complaints against Sinclair. 
"Chief, dat boy no good at all. Him too young; him not 
know discipline." Every day I used to decide to pay him 
off and send him back; then I used to think of Yetta's 
detestable cooking and hesitate. And on these occasions 
Sinclair always succeeded in putting me in a good temper. 
He would appear with my towel just when I wanted it; he 
would find a lime tree and unasked prepare me rum and 
lime when I returned from my bath in the creek; he knew 
exactly the things I should want, map, journal, fountain 
pen, glasses, and laid them out just where I needed them 
beside the hammock. So in spite of the fact that I knew 
him to be lazy, untruthful, disloyal, sulky and conceited, 
he remained in my service to the end as far as the frontier. 
To this rather absurd little band there attached himself 
a spectral figure named Jagger. I had seen him, too, mop- 
ing on the steps at Kurupukari and heard Mr. Bain up- 
braiding him on more than one occasion on some obscure 
subject connected with the post office. He was a coloured 
youth in the technical Georgetown sense of the word and 
in that sense only; for I never saw a face so devoid of a 
nameable hue. It was a ghastly grisaille except for his eyes 
which were of a yellowish tinge, the colour of trodden 
snow, and circled with pink. He loped along with us carry- 
ing his own food and belongings; never asking for any- 
thing except company, always eager to help with advice. 
He spoke accurate and elaborate English, in a toneless, 
lisping voice that would have sounded supercilious had it 
not been accompanied by his expression of inflexible misery 
and self-disgust. 



A JOURNEY TO BRAZIL IN 1932 225 
I never fully mastered the history of his downfall which 
was connected in some way with litigation, wills and money- 
lenders. Yetto explained it quite simply, "Him was robbed 
by his brudders." 
He had fever badly, and on the second day arrived at 
the midday halt well behind the others, dragging himself 
along unsteadily. He hung up his hammock, rolled into it 
and lay with averted face, unwilling to eat or talk. As I rode 
on that afternoon I began to worry about Jagger. It really 
looked as though he might be going to die on our hands; 
in his present state he would never reach the savannah on 
foot. Here I felt was the time for a Christian gentleman to 
show his principles; to emulate Sir Philip Sidney. 
"Yetto," I said that evening, "I think that to-morrow 
Jagger had better ride my horse. I can easily walk the 
next few stages." 
"Dat's all right, chie
" said Y etto. "Him not come on." 
"Not come on?" 
"Him plenty sick. Him stay in his hammock, back 
where us had breakfast." 
"But will he be all right?" 
"Oh yes, chief, him'll be all right. Him sick, dat's all." 
Later that evening half a dozen vaqueiros arrived with 
a drove of fifty cattle. I gave them quinine for Jagger and 
instructions to look after him, but I never heard whether 
or no he reached the savannah. 


During the first week's ride, when I had been with 
Mr. Bain, continually entertained by the fresh spate of 
his reminiscences, I had had practically no conversation 
with the boys. Now in the evenings, and particularly after 
wet days when I issued a ration of rum, I found them very 
sound company, particularly Yetta. 
Like most people in the colony Yetto had done a variety 
of jobs in his time. He had formed one of the police guard 
of honour when the Prince of Wales visited Georgetown 
and the Prince had shaken hands with him. He had once 
set out on an ill-
ated expedition to Cuba-a story which 
was introduced by: "Chief, did you ever know a black man 
from Grenada named Adams?" 



226 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
"No, I'm afraid not." 
"Him stole twenty dollars off of me." 
Adams had taken charge of the joint funds and absconded 
in Trinidad. 
Yetto had been married but had not liked it. He had seen 
the Georgetown riots. But the high summit of his experience 
had been a lucky strike as a "pork knocker." He had come 
back to Georgetown with $800 and had spent it in six weeks. 
"Why, Chief, me took an automobile and drove round 
and round de town with three girls and me give them gold 
bangles and went to all de best rum shops and hotels. But 
me didn't drink no rum, no chief, nor beer either. It was 
gin and whiskey all de time. Me didn't get no sleep for 
days, driving round all night with the girls." 
"But tell me, Yetta, did you get any better girls for all 
this money you were spending." 
"No, Chief, just de same girls but me like to see dem 
happy. Dey was fine girls but you could get dem for a 
dollar a night. But me give dem gold bangles and gin and 
whiskey and a drive round and round in an automobile. All 
de girls plenty fond of Yetta when he had de money. . . . 
But me was young den. Now me learned wisdom." 
"What would you do if you had the money now?" 
There was a pause and I expected Yetto to tell me that 
he would buy a farm or a shop and settle down from the 
arduous and unsettled life he was now living. "Well, Chief, 
me tell you dis. Me would spend all de money on myself. 
Me would buy fine clothes and rings. Den de girls would 
go wid me for de hope of what me was going to give demo 
And in de end me would give dem nothing." And he 
opened his vast mouth and roared with laughter, his gold 
. teeth flashing in the firelight. 
But his pleasures had not been wholly philistine. During 
that rapturous six weeks an Italian opera singer had given 
a concert in Georgetown C. . . shadow and spangle of cheap 
tragedy . . . the ageing prima donna, Grand Dukes and 
English Milords behind her, pitifully touring, in the 
company of her seedy and devoted manager, yearly to 
more remote and less lucrative audiences to the final, 
tartarean abyss of a Georgetown concert hall. . . .) 



A JOURNEY TO BRAZIL IN 1932 227 
"De cheapest ticket was two dollars but me went with 
my girl. Dere was all white people dere and de way her 
sung was wonderful, wid a different coloured dress for 
each song and dey was in all de languages, French and 
English and Italian and German and Spanish. Dat lady 
knew everything. Her made us cry." 
The last time that Yetta had come up the trail had 
been in the company of a government vet. and his wife 
and the presence of the lady gave the occasion a peculiar 
lustre in Yetta's eyes. It had been altogether a very mag- 
nificent expedition with collapsible camp tables, picnic 
baskets and a cocktail shaker. They had travelled ten miles 
a day on foot with a troop of porters. Every place where 
they had halted was sanctified in Yetto's eyes. "Dis is where 
Mrs. McDougal shot an accouri." . . . "Dis is where Mrs. 
McDougal was so weary dat Mr. McDougal had to take 
off her boots." . . . "Dis is where Mrs. McDougal had 
a bath." . . . Yetta had not missed a detail of her habits or 
idiosyncrasies. "Mrs. McDougal had a great fancy for me. 
Her took my snapshot. Her said, 'Now I must take Yetta,' 
and her did. Doctor McDougal promised to send me a 
print. To-morrow me show you de very tree where Mrs. 
McDougal took my snapshot. When we get to Takama 
her say, 'I don't know what we should have done with- 
out Yetta.' Dere's nothing me wouldn't do for Mrs. 
McDougal." 
On the third day from Kurupukari we crossed a dry 
creek and came into a little savannah named after the 
creek, Surana, where there was an Indian village. These 
were sophisticated Macushis who were in constant contact 
with the ranches and the traffic of the trail. 
About a dozen or fifteen huts could be seen at Surana. 
A polite English-speaking young man came out to meet 
me and showed me an empty mud and thatched hut where 
I could spend the night, and the water hole, half a mile 
distant where I could wash. Later some of the women 
brought me a present of bananas. It was a hospitable place. 
Many of them assembled to stare and talk to the boys. 
"Dey all love Y etto," said Y etto. 
Next day we reached Anai on the edge of the savannah. 



228 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 


It was exhilarating to see open country again after the 
cramped weeks in the forest. 
"Dat house is so healthy," said Y etto, "dat yo shiver 
all night." 
There were other occupants on the evening of my 
arrival; a surly Syrian, with a flabby white face, grotesque' 
in riding clothes. 
"Dat a very cruel man. Him tie up de Indians all night 
and beat dem until Mr. Bain stop him." 
Yetta's predictions about the healthiness of the place 
proved quite accurate. It was deadly cold after the soft, 
close nights of the forest. 
Next day a painful ride, the first of many that were to 
follow. The heat was intense, glaring up off the earth so 
that my face was skinned under the shade of a broad- _ 
brimmed hat. Exhaustion was infectious; I felt it seeping 
up from the stumbling horse, seeping down into him from 
me. Constant urging was necessary to keep him at a trot. 
When he fell into a walk the dead hardness of the saddle 
was intolerable. Above all there was thirst. Later I had 
many longer and hotter days without water, but this was 
the first of them and I was fresh from the deep shade and 
purling creeks of the forest. The trail, clear enough in 
places, would sometimes dwindle and peter out among 
patches of dried sedge; then it was necessary to cast round 
in widening circles until I picked it up again after a loss of 
time and strength. Often it would split and divide into two 
equally prominent branches. In this way I must have 
covered nearly double the real distance, when at about five 
in the afternoon, I arrived at my destination. 
This was the ranch of a man named Christie. I knew 
nothing about him except what I had been told the pre- 
vious evening; that he was very old and "very religious." 
His religion, I was warned, took the form that he did not 
participate in the open hospitality of the savannah. He 
allowed-he could scarcely have prevented it-passers-by 
to hobble their horses in his corral and sleep under his 
shelter, but that was the full extent of his goodwill. 
Visibility is poor on the savannah by reason of the 



A JOURNEY TO BRAZIL IN 1932 229 
"sand-paper" trees. These low shrubs, six or ten feet in 
height, are scattered loosely all over the country at intervals 
of twenty yards or so; sometimes they are thicker and 
from a distance give the impression of a copse, but when 
approached always resolve into isolated units; they throw 
almost no shade; their leaves are very rough on one side 
and it is from this peculiarity that they get their name; 
their wood is brittle and useless for any practical purpose. 
Their only good quality, that I was able to discover, was 
the element of surprise that they gave to travelling. In 
some countries one sees the day's objective from the start; 
it is there in front of one, hour after hour, mile after mile, 
just as remote, apparently, at noon as it had been at dawn; 
one's eyes dazzle with constant staring. The "sand-paper" 
trees often hid a house from view-particularly the low, 
dun houses of the district-until one was practically inside 
it. Then there would be a sudden, exultant, a scarcely 
credulous, inward leap of delight as one realised, at the 
worst and almost desperate hour of the day, that one's 
distress was over. Horse and I were both unsteady with 
fatigue when an Indian home came into view quite near 
us. Then another, with some women squatting in front. 
They ran in and hid at my approach but I rode up to the 
door and shouted into the darkness, making the motions 
of drinking. After some giggling and nudging one of 
them brought me out a calabash of cold water. Then I 
said "Christie" and they repeated "Christie" and giggled 
more. Finally one of them came out and pointed. Another 
twenty minutes brought me to the ranch. It was a handful 
of huts, thrown out haphazard on the ground like the 
waste stuff of a picnic party. There was no one about. I 
dismounted and walked round. The central and largest 
house was only half built but there was another near it 
with dilapidated thatch, open at all sides, which was dis- 
tinguishable from the others by a plank floor, raised a 
couple of feet from the earth. Here, reclining in a ham- 
mock and sipping cold water from the spout of a white 
enamelled teapot, was Mr. Christie. 
He had a long white moustache and a white woolly 
head; his face was of the same sun-baked, fever-blanched 



230 w HEN THE GO I N G WAS GOO D 
colour as were most faces in the colony but of unmistak- 
able negro structure. It is illegal for blacks-or for that 
matter, whites, unless they' get permission-to settle in 
Indian country and I learned that for the first ten years 
or so of his residence there had been repeated attempts 
by the government to evict him; after that they had let 
him be. I greeted him and asked where I could water my 
horse. He smiled in a dreamy, absent-minded manner and 
said, "I was expecting you. I was warned in a vision of 
your approach." 
He climbed out of the hammock, looked about for 
shoes, found only one, and hobbled across to shake hands 
with me. 
"I always know the character of any visitors by the 
visions I have of them. Sometimes I see a pig or a jackal; 
often a ravaging tiger." 
I could not resist asking, "And how did you see me?" 
"As a sweetly toned harmonium," said Mr. Christie 
politely. 
He pointed out the tenuous straggle of footpath that 
led to the water hole. I took off saddle and bridle and led 
the horse down by his rope halter. He whinnied at the 
smell of water and we both drank immoderately; he was 
trembling in the legs and lathered in sweat but, I was glad 
to find, not galled. I sluiced him down, turned him into 
the corral, and left him happily rolling in the dust. Then 
I slung my hammock under a shelter near Mr. Christie's 
house and fell asleep until, two hours later, the rest of my 
party arrived. They had my change of clothes with them. 
As soon as they arrived I got out of boots and breeches, 
had a bath and a mug of rum. I drank a lot of rum that 
evening; how much I did not realise until next morning 
when I discovered the empty bottle. Sinclair, knowing that 
there was a row in the air, had picked a handful of limes 
on his way. He filled up the mug assiduously with rum and 
limes and brown sugar and cold, rather muddy water. I 
did not investigate the boys' quarrel and Sinclair did not 
get the sack. The sweet and splendid spirit, the exhaustion 
of the day, its heat, thirst, hunger and the effects of the 
fall, the fantastic conversations of Mr. Christie, translated 



A JOURNEY TO BRAZIL IN 1932 231 
that evening and raised it a finger's breadth above reality. 
The lamp stood on the floor in the middle of the shelter 
so that aJl the faces were illumined as faces are not meant 
to be seen; from below with cheek bones casting shadows 
across their eyes and strong light under the brows and chin 
and nostrils. Everyone in the vicinity came round to watch 
me eat supper. Mr. Christie stalked round and round the 
lamp telling me about God. 
He asked me whether I were a "believer" and I said 
yes, a Catholic. . 
"There are some good Catholics," conceded Mr. Christie, 
"they are far from the truth but they are in the right direc- 
tion. Only the other evening I was looking at the choir of 
the blessed singing before the throne of God and to my 
great surprise, I recognised the late Bishop of Guiana . . . 
but they take too much on themselves. Their ministers like 
to be called 'father.' There is only one 'Father'-the one 
above." 
"Have you the same objection to children addressing 
their male parent in that way?" 
"It is a terrible thing to be a male parent"-Mr. Christie 
had a large family by an Indian mistress-"Verily it is 
written"-and he quoted some text I cannot remember to 
the effect that children are a curse. "Why only the other 
day my eldest son begat a child by a woman of no cultiva- 
tion. He even speaks of marrying her." 
"But living as you do out here in the savannah, is lack 
of cultivation a very serious matter?" 
"It is very serious when she will not sing," said Mr. 
Christie severely. 
We spoke of the uncle of some friends of mine who 
had worked in this district as a missionary and retired to 
England as the result of a complete breakdown. 
"That man had the devil in him," said Mr. Christie. 
"Do you know what he did? He boiled a chicken in the 
place 'Yhere I used to say my prayers. I have never been 
there Slllce. It was defiled." 
I told him that the priest had since recovered his health 
and was working on the South Coast. 
"No, no, I assure you that the contrary is the case. He 



232 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
appeared to me the other night and all the time he spoke 
to me his head rolled about the floor in a most horrible 
manner. So I knew he was still mad." 
Every Sunday he preached for four or five hours to the 
neighbouring Indians. I asked him whether his work 
among them was successful. "No, not successful, you 
could not call it successful. I have been here for thirty 
years and so far have made no converts at all. Even my 
own family have the devil in them." 
. He told me that he was at work on a translation of the 
scriptures into Macushi, "but I have to change and omit 
a great deal. There is so much I do not agree with. . . but 
I am not worried. I expect the end of the world shortly." 
Some years back he had seen a number flashed in the sky 
and that was the number of days remaining. I asked him 
how he knew that that was the meaning of the number. 
"What else could it be?" he asked. 
As I sat soaking rum he told of numerous visions. How 
when his mistress died he had heard a voice from heaven 
say, "The old horse is dead." 
"It did not mean that she was like a horse. In some 
ways she was very pretty. It meant no more riding for 
" 
me. 
Lately he had been privileged' to see the total assembly 
of the elect in heaven. 
"\Vere there many of them?" 
"It was hard to count because you see they had no 
bodies but my impression is that there were very few." 
I asked if he believed in the Trinity. "Believe in it? 
I could not live without it. But the mistake the Catholics 
make is to call it a mystery. It is all quite simple to me." 
He told me how the Pope had had a French admiral 
murdered and his heart sent to Rome in a gold box; also 
that Freemasons stole bodies out of the cemetery and kept 
them in a cellar below every Lodge. You could always tell 
a Freemason, he said, because they had VOL branded on 
their buttocks. "It means volunteer, I suppose," he said. 
"I can't think why." 
Presently some of the onlookers in the outer circle came 
into the hut and squatted down round the lamp. I had 



A JOURNEY TO BRAZIL IN 193 2 233 
some cocoa made and handed round. One of Mr. Christie's 
daughters had married an East Indian. The man put a 
naked child on my knee and attempted to interest me in 
a row he was having with the policeman at Anai about 
illicit tobacco selling. It was all a trumped-up charge, he 
said, the result of spite. But I was not in the mood to follow 
his difficulties. 
Affer a little I fell asleep and woke up to find the party 
still going on and Mr. Christie still talking of visions and 
mystic numbers. When I next awoke they had all gone 
away, but I could hear Mr. Christie prowling round in the 
darkness outside and muttering to himself. 
Next day was easy going. 
The ranch I was making for was the property of a 
Georgetown Chinaman named Mr. Wong, who was one 
of Yetto's heroes on account of his reputation for high 
play at cards. The manager was a swarthy, genial man, 
with a well trained Indian mistress. He was clever with his 
fingers and the eaves of the huts were hung with bridles 
and whips of plaited hide and ornamented saddles of his 
own making. There was a certain swagger in his clothes; 
he had a big brimmed, leather bound Brazilian hat, large 
silver buckles down the sides of his leggings and a silver- 
hilted knife stuck into one of them; large spurs were 
strapped on to his bare, horny heels. 
I asked the way to wash and was shown a path through 
the vegetable garden into a belt of bush. I went down and, 
pushing through, suddenly found a sharp precipice at 
my feet and a dark, swift river of some breadth. It was 
unexpected and dramatic after the great stretch of arid 
savannah all round. On the opposite side there was the 
same clay cliff and a fringe of bush; that was Brazil. I had 
not taken in-for the ranch was not marked on the map 
-that I was already at the frontier and that this was the 
Ireng. I was to see plenty of this river later on and grow 
to hate it. 
The river bank was infested by cabouri fly, odious 
insects so small that they easily penetrate any ordinary 
mosquito curtain; they breed in running water and attack 
in great numbers. You cannot feel their bite until they 



234 w HEN THE GO I N G WAS GOO D 
have finished sucking; then they leave a little black spot 
behind them and a circle of burning flesh. 
Insects played a prominent part in my experience 
throughout all this period. For the preceding week I had 
been discomforted by bCtes rouges, a minute red creature 
which brushes off the leaves of the bush on to one's 
clothes and finds its way below one's skin where it causes 
unendurable itching. My arms and legs were covered with 
these in spite of crab oil and antiseptic soap and I scratched 
until I was raw. It is quite accurate to say that in the weeks 
from leaving Kurupukari until some time after my final 
return to Georgetown, there was not a two-inch square on 
my body that was not itching at some time of the day or 
night. 
A Portuguese family came to call that afternoon with 
a guitar. They all came in and solemnly shook hands with 
me-about eight of them-on arrival and on departure. 
Two wild-eyed, shaggy Patamona Indians also arrived 
in a canoe from upstream, trying to trade a monkey for 
some gunpowder, for Wong's ranch is at one extreme 
angle of the savannah, the nearest civilised spot to the 
Pakaraima district. 
Two days later we reached St. Ignatius, where I was to 
spend ten days as the guest of Father Mather, the kindest 
and most generous of all the hosts of the colony. 
He was at work in his carpenter's shop when we arrived 
and came out to greet us, dusting the shavings off his 
khaki shirt and trousers, and presenting a complete anti- 
thesis of the "wily Jesuit" of popular tradition. Most of 
the simple furniture of the living-room was his work- 
firm, finely jointed and fitted, delicately finished, a marked 
contrast to the botched, makeshift stuff that prevailed even 
in Georgetown. He loves and studies all natural things, in 
particular woods and birds about which he has huge stores 
of first-hand knowledge. It is very rarely that he goes down 
to the coast; when he does the river-side scenery-to me 
unendurably monotonous-provides a luxurious orgy of 
observation; occasionally some call will take him into the 
hills, but for the most part his work keeps him in the deso- 
late surroundings of St. Ignatius, and his researches are 



A JOURNEY TO BRAZIL IN 193 2 235 
confined to the insects that collect round his reading-lamp 
in the evenings. 
I paid off Yetto, Sinclair and Price, for blacks are not 
encouraged to stay long among the Indians. Before they 
left they each asked to be photographed and in turn wore 
Yetto's old cloth cap and Price's spotted handkerchief for 
their portraits. 


St. Ignatius was very unlike the missions of Africa-the 
crowded compounds, big school houses with their rows of 
woolly black heads patiently absorbing "education"; the 
solid presbyteries and packed, devout congregations; the 
native priests and nuns, methodical in white linen and 
topees; the troops of black children veiled for their first 
Communion; the plain chant and the examination papers. 
It was as lonely an outpost of religion as you could find 
anywhere. If it had not been for the Calvary on the river- 
bank, it might have been one of the smaller ranches. 
N ear the house was a small church built of tin and thatch 
and furnished with a few benches six inches high from the 
mud floor; it was open at the west end for light and ventila- 
tion, and in spite of every discouragement and a barrier of 
wire netting, a hen used regularly to lay her eggs behind 
the altar. 
Here Father Mather lived quite alone for the greater 
part of the year. Another priest, Father Keary, used the 
home as his headquarters but except in the wet weather 
he was continually on circuit among the villages. Father 
Mather kept the home going and managed the ranch and 
stores. 
I have often observed that the servants of the religious 
are, as a class, of abnormally low mentality. I do not know 
why this should be-whether it is that good people in their 
charity give jobs to those whom no one else will employ, 
or whether, being poor, they get them cheap, or whether 
they weicome inefficient service as a mortification, or 
,,:hether unremitting association with people of superior 
vIrtue eventually drives sane servants off their heads. What- 
ever the explanation, that is usually the state of affairs. 
Father Mather's establishment, however, was an exception. 



236 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
It is true that there was an idiot Macushi boy who 
constantly obtruded a moon face round the door at meal- 
times, asking for tobacco, but he was employed only on 
casual labour outside the house. .The two Indian widows 
who cooked, wove hammocks, drove the guinea fowl out 
of the bedrooms and generally "did for us" were exemplary 
people. So was David Max y Hung, the head vaqueiro. 
This pious and efficient young man spoke two Indian 
languages, English and Portuguese, perfectly. He was half 
Chinese, half Arawak Indian and his wife was Brazilian. 
He was away at a round-up at the time of my arrival (every 
ranch sends a representative to every round-up to identify 
his own cattle and see that there is no tampering with the 
brands) and it was his absence that prolonged my stay so 
pleasantly, for on the first evening Father Mather explained 
to me that it was quite hopeless to think of reaching Boa 
Vista by canoe at that season. It was easy, however, to ride 
there, and on David's return I could have horses and David 
himself tor a guide. So I stayed on, glad of the rest and 
learning hourly from Father Mather more about the 
country. 


The life of the Brazilian frontier must, I should think, 
be unique in the British Empire. In its whole length from 
Mount Roraima to the Courantyne-a distance of about 
five hundred miles-Bon Success is the only British govern- 
ment station, and that is under the admirable management 
of Mr. Melville, who is half Indian by birth and married 
to a Brazilian. On the other side there is no representative 
of law nearer than Boa Vista. There are no flags, no military, 
no customs, no passport examinations, no immigration 
forms. The Indians have probably very little idea of whether 
they are on British or Brazilian territory; they wander to 
and fro across the border exactly as they did before the 
days of Raleigh. 
Throughout the whole district, too, there is only one 
shop and that is in two parts, half in Brazil and half in 
British Guiana. The proprietor is a Portuguese named 
Mr. Figuiredo. On his own side of the river he sells things 
of Brazilian origin, hardware, ammunition, alcohol in 



A JOURNEY TO BRAZIL IN 193 2 237 
various unpalatable forms, sugar and farine, a few decayed- 
looking tins of fruit and sweets, tobacco, horses, saddlery 
and second-hand odds and ends extorted from bankrupt 
ranchers; on the British side he sells things brought up 
from Georgetown, mostly male and female clothing, soaps 
and hair oils, for which the more sophisticated Indians 
have a quite unsophisticated relish, and brands of patent 
medicines with engraved, pictorial labels and unfamiliar 
names-"Radways Rapid Relief," "Canadian Healing 
Oil," "Lydia Pynkham's Vegetable Product." If a Brazilian 
wants anything from the British side he and Mr. Figuiredo 
paddle across the river and he buys it there; and vice versa. 
Any guilt of smuggling attaches to the customer. 
Father Mather and I went to breakfast with Mr. 
Figuiredo one day. He gave us course after course of 
food-stewed tasso with rice, minced tasso with fari1te, 
'fresh beef with sweet potatoes, fresh pork, fried eggs, 
bananas, tinned peaches and creme de Cacao of local 
distillation. His women folk were made to stand outside 
while we ate, with the exception of one handsome daughter 
who waited. After breakfast we went into the shop and 
Mr. Figuiredo made an effortless and unembarrassing 
transition from host to shopkeeper, climbing behind the 
counter and arguing genially about the price of coffee. He 
has no competition within two hundred miles and his prices 
are enormous; but he lives in a very simple fashion, dress- 
ing always in an old suit of pyjamas and employing his 
family to do the work of the house. 
After a week David returned from the round-up- 
suave, spectacled, faultlessly efficient-and took over the 
arrangements for my journey to Boa Vista. 
David's Brazilian brother-in-law Francisco joined us; 
the luggage was divided-unequally, for I took only 
hammock, blanket and change of clothes-between our 
three horses. Then after breakfast on February I st, we 
set off for the border. The sun was obscured and a light 
drizzle of rain was falling. 
The ford was about three miles upstream from St. 
Ignatius. Our horses waded through the shallow water, 
stretching forward to drink; half way over we were in 



238 "'HEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
Brazil. A lurch and scramble up the opposite bank; we 
forced our way through the fringe of bush, leaning low in 
the saddle to guard our faces from the thorn branches; 

hen we were out into open country again, flat and desolate 
as the savannah we had left; more desolate, for here there 
was no vestige of life; no cattle track, no stray animals; 
simply the empty plain; sparse, colourless grass; ant-hills; 
sand-paper trees; an occasional clump of ragged palm; 
grey sky, gusts of wind, and a dull sweep of rain. 
On the fourth day we reached the bank of the Rio 
Branco at an empty hut immediately opposite Boa Vista. 


Since the evening at Kurupukari when Mr. Bain had 
first mentioned its name, Boa Vista had come to assume 
greater and greater importance to me. Father Mather had 
only been there once, and then in the worst stage of malig- 
nant malaria, so that he had been able to tell me little about 
it except that some German nuns had proved deft and 
devoted nurses. Everybody else, however, and particularly 
David, had spoken of it as a town of dazzling attraction. 
Whatever I had looked for in vain at Figuiredo's store was, 
he told me, procurable at "Boa Vist' "; Mr. Daguar had 
extolled its modernity and luxury-electric light, cafes, 
fine buildings, women, politics, murders. Mr. Bain had 
told of the fast motor launches, plying constantly between 
there and Manaos. In the discomfort of the journey there, 
I had looked forward to the soft living of Boa Vista, feeling 
that these asperities were, in fact, a suitable contrast, pre- 
paring my sense for a fuller appreciation of the good things 
in store. So confident was I that when we first came in sight 
of the ramshackle huddle of buildings on the further bank, 
I was quite uncritical and conscious of no emotion except 
delight and expectation. 
The river was enormously broad and very low; so low 
that as we gazed at the town across sand dunes and channels 
and a fair sized island it seemed to be perched on a citadel, 
instead of being, as was actually the case, at the same dead 
level as the rest of the plain. Two vaqueiros were lying in 
hammocks by the bank, and from these David elicited the 
information that a boat was expected some time in the next 



A JOURNEY TO BRAZIL IN 193 2 239 
few hours to ferry them across. The vaqueiros studied us 
with an air that I came to recognise as characteristic of Boa 
Vista; it was utterly unlike the open geniality of the ranches; 
conveying, as it did, in equal degrees, contempt, suspicion 
and the suggestion that only listlessness kept them from 
active insult. 
With David's assistance, I began some enquiries about 
accommodation. There was none, they said. 
"But I understood there were two excellent hotels." 
"Ah, that was in the days of the Company. There was 
all kinds of foolishness in the days of the Company. There 
is nowhere now. There has not been an hotel for two 
" 
years. 
"Then where do strangers stay?" 
"Strangers do not come to Boa Vist'. If they come on 
business, the people they have business with put them up." 
I eXplained that I was on the way to Manaos and had 
to wait for a boat. They showed complete indifference, 
only remarking that they did not know of any boat to 
Manaos. Then one of them added that possibly the foreign 
priests would do something for me-unless they had left; 
last time he was in Boa Vist' the foreign priests were all 
sick; most people were sick in Boa Vist'. Then the two 
men started talking to each other. 
My enthusiasm had already cooled considerably by the 
time we saw a boat put out from the opposite shore and 
make slowly towards us. We all got in, David, Francisco, 
I, the two surly vaqueiros, the saddles and the baggage, so 
that the gunwales were only an inch clear of the water. 
Then partly paddling, partly wading and pushing, we 
made our way across. There were women squatting on the 
further shore, pounding dirty linen on the rocks at the 
water's edge. We hauled our possessions up the steep bank 
and found ourselves in the main street of the town. It was 
very broad, composed of hard, uneven mud, cracked into 
wide fissures in all directions and scored by several dry 
gulleys. On either side was a row of single-storied, white- 
washed mud houses with tiled roofs; at each doorstep sat 
one or more of the citizens staring at us with eyes that 
were insolent, hostile and apathetic; a few naked children 



240 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
rolled about at their feet. The remains of an overhead 
electric cable hung loose from a row of crazy posts, or lay 
in coils and loops about the gutter. 
The street rose to a slight hill and half-way up we came 
to the Benedictine Mission. This at any rate presented 
a more imposing aspect than anything I had seen since 
leaving Georgetown. It was built of concrete with a modestly 
ornamented fac;:ade, a row of unbroken glass windows, a 
carved front, door with an electric bell, a balustraded 
verandah with concrete urns at either end; in front of it 
lay a strip of garden marked out into symmetrical beds 
with brick borders. 
We approached rather .diffidently for we were shabby 
and stained with travelling and lately unaccustomed to 
carved front doors and electric bells. But the bell need 
have caused us no misgiving for it was out of order. We 
pressed and waited and pressed again. Then a head appeared 
from a window and told us, in Portuguese, to knock. We 
knocked several times until the head reappeared; it was 
Teutonic in character, blond and slightly bald, wrinkled, 
with a prominent jaw and innocent eyes. 
l'The gentleman is a stranger too. He speaks Portuguese 
in a way I do not understand," said David. "He says there 
is a priest but that he is probably out r " 
I was used to waiting by now, so we sat on the door- 
step among our luggage until presently an emaciated 
YOllllg monk in white habit appeared up the garden path. 
He seemed to accept our arrival with resignation, opened 
the door and led us into one of those rooms only found in 
religious houses, shuttered, stuffy and geometrically regular 
in arrangement; four stiff chairs ranged round four walls; 
devotional oleographs symmetrically balanced; a table in 
the exact centre with an embroidered cloth and a pot of 
artificial flowers; everything showing by its high polish of 
cleanliness that nuns had been at work there. 
The monk was a German-Swiss. We spoke in halting 
French and I eXplained my situation. He nodded gloomily 
and said that it was impossible to predict when another 
boat would leave for Manaos; on the other hand a new 
Prior was expected some time soon and that boat must 



A J 0 URN E Y TO BRA Z I L I N I 9 32 24- I 
presumably return one day. Meanwhile I was at liberty to 
stay in the house if I chose. 
"Will it be a question of days or weeks?" 
"A question of weeks or months." 
David thought the Boundary Commission had a boat 
going down in a few days; he would go into the town and 
enquire. With rather lugubrious courtesy the monk, who 
was named Father Alcuin, showed me a room and a shower 
bath; explained that he and the other guest had already 
breakfasted; sent across to the convent for food for me. 
I ate the first palatable meal since I had left St. Ignatius, 
changed and slept. Presently David returned with reassur- 
ing information. The Commission boat was passing through 
in four or five days; a week after that there would be a trade 
launch. He smiled proudly both at bringing good news 
and because he had bought a startling new belt out of his 
wages. Then he and Francisco bade me good-bye and 
went to rest with the horses on the other bank of the river. 


Already, in the few hours of my sojourn there, the Boa 
Vista of my imagination had come to grief. Gone; engulfed 
in an earthquake, uprooted by a tornado and tossed sky- 
high like chaff in the wind, scorched up with brimstone 
like Gomorrah, toppled over with trumpets like Jericho, 
ploughed like Carthage, bought, demolished and trans- 
ported brick by brick to another continent as though it 
had taken the fancy of Mr. Hearst; tall Troy was down. 
When I set out on a stroll of exploration, I no longer 
expected the city I had had in mind during the thirsty 
days of approach; the shady boulevards; kiosks for flowers 
and cigars and illustrated papers; the hotel terrace and the 
cafes; the baroque church built by seventeenth-century 
missionaries; the bastions of the old fort; the bandstand in 
the square, standing amidst fountains and flowering shrubs; 
the soft, slightly swaggering citizens, some uniformed and 
spurred, others with Southern elegance twirling little canes, 
bowing from the waist and raising boater hats, flicking with 
'Yhite gloves indiscernible particles of dust from their white 
llllen spats; dark beauties languorous on balconies, or 
gl
ncing over, fans at the cafe tables. All that extravagant 



242 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
and highly improbable expectation had been obliterated 
like a sand castle beneath the encroaching tide. 
Closer investigation did nothing to restore it. There 
was the broad main street up which we had come; two 
parallel, less important streets, and four or five more laid 
at right angles to them. At a quarter of a mile in every 
direction they petered out into straggling footpaths. They 
were all called Avenidas and labelled with names of 
politicians of local significance. The town had been planned 
on an ambitious scale, spacious, rectangular, but most of 
the building lots were still unoccupied. There was one 
fair-sized store, a little larger and a little better stocked 
than Figuiredo's, half a dozen seedy little shops; an open 
booth advertising the services of a barber-surgeon who 
claimed to wave women's hair, extract teeth and cure 
venereal disease; a tumbledown house inhabited by the 
nuns, an open schoolhouse where a fever-stricken teacher 
could be observed monotonously haranguing a huge class 
of listless little boys; a wireless office, and a cottage where 
they accepted letters for the post; there were two cafes; 
one on the main street was a little shed, selling farine, 
bananas and fish, there were three tables in front of it, 
under a tree, where a few people collected in the evening 
to drink coffee in the light of a single lantern; the second, 
in a side street, was more attractive. It had a concrete floor 
and a counter where one could buy cigarettes and nuts, 
there were dominoes for the use of habitues and besides 
coffee, one could drink warm and expensive beer. 
The only place, besides the Benedictine Priory, which 
had any pretensions to magnificence was the church, a 
modern building painted in yellow and orange horizontal 
stripes, with ornate concrete mouldings; there were old 
bells outside, and inside three sumptuous altars, with 
embroidered frontals and veils, carved reredoses, large, 
highly coloured statues, artificial flowers and polished 
candlesticks, decorated wooden pews, a marble font bear- 
ing in enormous letters the name of the chief merchant of 
the town, a harmonium; everything very new, and clean 
as a hospital-not a hen or a pig in the building. I was 
curious to know by what benefaction this expensive church 



A JOURNEY TO BRAZIL IN 193 2 243 
had come into being and was told that, like most things, 
it had started "in the days of the Company." 
I discovered one English-speaking person in the town; 
a singularly charmless youth, the illegitimate son of a 
prominent Georgetown citizen whom I had met there at 
Christmas time. This served as a fragile link between us, 
for the young man told me that he hated his father and 
had thought of shooting him on more than one occasion. 
"Now I have been married and have written five times for 
money and had no answer." 
He was completely fleshless like all the inhabitants of 
Boa Vista, with dank, black hair hanging over his eyes, 
which were of slightly lighter yellow than the rest of his 
face. He spoke in a melancholy drawl. He was almost the 
only person I saw doing any work in the whole town. He 
owned a small blacksmith's shop where he made branding 
irons and mended guns. Most of the other inhabitants 
seemed to have no occupation of any kind, being caught 
up in the vicious circle of semi-starvation. Perhaps they 
picked up a few casual wages during the flood season when 
boats ran from Manaos fairly frequently and the ranchers 
came in for stores and needed labour for shipping their 
cattle. All the time that I was there I scarcely saw anyone 
except the school teacher earn anything-or spend any- 
thing. Even in the cafe the majority of customers came to 
gossip and play dominoes and went away without ordering 
a cup of coffee. At some miles distant was a settlement of 
soldiers who brought a few shillings into the town; they 
were reservists bedded out with wives on small allotments. 
An aged town clerk presumably received some sort of 
wages; so no doubt did the itinerant government vet. who 
appeared from time to time; so did the wireless operator 
and an official of villainous aspect called the "Collector." 
But the other thousand odd inhabitants spent the day lying 
indoors in their hammocks and the evenings squatting on 
their doorsteps gossiping. Land was free, and, as the nuns 
proved, could produce excellent vegetables, but the diet of 
the town was farine, tasso and a little fish, all of which were 
?f negligible cost. But it was far from being a care-free, 
Idyllic improvidence. Everyone looked ill and discontented. 



244 w HEN THE GO I N G WAS GOO D 
There was not a fat man or woman anywhere. The women, 
in fact, led an even drearier life than the men. They had 
no household possessions to care for, no cooking to do, 
they left their children to sprawl about the streets naked 
or in rags. They were pretty-very small and thin, small 
boned and with delicate features; a few of them took trouble 
with their appearance and put in an appearance at Mass 
on Sundays in light dresses, stockings and shoes, and 
cheap, gay combs in their hair. 
From fragmentary and not altogether reliable sources 
I picked up a little of the history of Boa Vista. It was a 
melancholy record. The most patriotic Brazilian can find 
little to say in favour of the inhabitants of Amazonas; they 
are mostly descended from convicts, loosed there after their 
term of imprisonment as the French loose their criminals 
in Cayenne, to make whatever sort of living they can in an 
inhospitable country. Practically all of them are of mixed 
Indian and Portuguese blood. There is no accurate census 
but a recent medical survey in the Geographical Magazine 
reports that they are dying out, families usually becoming 
sterile in three generations; alien immigrants, mostly 
German and Japanese are gradually pushing what is left 
of them up country; Boa Vista is their final halting place 
before extinction. The best of them go out into the ranches; 
the worst remain in the town. 
They are naturally homicidal by inclination, and every 
man, however poor, carries arms; only the universal apathy 
keeps them from frequent bloodshed. There were no shoot- 
ings while I was there; in fact there had not been one for 
several months, but I lived all the time in an atmosphere 
that was novel to me, where murder was always in the air. 
The German at the Priory constantly slept with a loaded 
gun at his bedside and expressed surprise at seeing me 
going shopping without a revolver; the blacksmith, partly 
no doubt owing to his avocation, spoke of little else; one 
of his main preoccupations was altering trigger springs so 
that they could be fired quick on the draw. 
There was rarely a conviction for murder. The two most 
sensational trials of late years had both resulted in acquittals. 
One was the case of a young Britisher who had come across 



A J 0 URN E Y TO BRA Z I L I N I 9 3 2 245 
from Guiana, panning gold. He had no right there and one 
evening in the cafe tipsily expressed his willingness to shoot 
anyone who interfered with him. The boast was accepted 
as constituting provocation when, a few nights later, he was 
shot in the back and robbed, while entering his house. 
The other case was more remarkable. Two respected 
citizens, a Dr. Zany and a Mr. Homero Cruz were sitting 
on a verandah talking, when a political opponent rode up 
and shot Dr. Zany. His plea of innocence, when brought 
to trial, was that the whole thing had been a mistake; he 
had meant to kill Mr. Cruz. The judges accepted the defence 
and brought in a verdict of death from misadventure. 
From time to time attempts have been made to raise 
the condition of the town. A little before the War a Ger- 
man appeared with ample capital and began buying cattle. 
He offered and paid a bigger price than the ranchers had 
ever before received; he fitted out a fleet of large motor 
launches to take the beasts down to market at Manaos. 
The project was perfectly sound financially and would 
have brought considerable advantage to the district, but 
it was destined to failure. Before the first convoy had 
reached the market, he had been shot and killed by an 
official whom he had neglected to bribe. The defence was 
that he had been shot while evading arrest on a charge of 
collecting turtles' eggs out of season. The murderer was 
exonerated and the boats never reappeared at Boa Vista. 
A more recent enterprise had been that of "the Com- 
pany," so frequently referred to. I never learned the full 
story of this fiasco, for the Benedictines were deeply involved 
in it and I did not like to press the question at the Priory. 
The blacksmith gravely assured me that the scandal had 
been so great that the Archbishop had been taken to Rome 
and im prisoned by the Pope. There certainly seemed to 
have been more than ordinary mismanagement of the 
affair. Father Alcuin never mentioned it except to say that 
things had not gone as well as they had hoped. So far as 
I could gather the facts are these: 
A year or two ago, inflamed by charitable zeal, the 
wealthy Benedictines at Rio conceived the old plan 
of bringing prosperity and self-respect to Boa Vista. 



246 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
Geographically and politically the town held the key position 
to the whole, immense territory of the Northern Amazon 
tributaries. The monks saw that instead of its present posi- 
tion as a squalid camp of ramshackle cut-throats, it might 
be a thriving city, a beacon of culture illuminating the dark 
lands about it, a centre from which they could educate and 
evangelise the Indians. They imagined it, even, as a minia- 
ture ecclesiastical state where industry, commerce and 
government should be in the benevolent hands of the 
Church; a happy dream, glowing with possibilities of 
success to those imperfectly acquainted with the real 
character of Boa Vista. 
Accordingly "the Company" was launched, under the 
highest ecclesiastical patronage, financed by Benedictine 
money and managed by the brother of one of the hierarchy. 
The method by which the town was to be raised to pros- 
perity was, again, sensible enough to anyone who expected 
normal working conditions. Instead of the cattle being 
transported to the slaughter-houses at JVIanaos, they were 
to be butchered on the spot and tinned. Cheap corned beef, 
it was assumed, would rapidly take the place of the un- 
nourishing tasso and would provide a more valuable and 
more manageable export than live cattle. The factory would 
provide regular and remunerative employment to all in the 
district and, following the best tradition of big business, 
"the Company" would also provide the necessaries and 
amusements on which their wages should be spent; th
 
profits, rapidly circulating, would be used in public services. 
No one had any ulterior motive; the whole scheme was for 
the glory of God and the comfort of the people of the place. 
In Rio, on paper, it all seemed faultless. Operations were 
begun on a large scale. 
The canning factory was built and installed with the 
best modern machinery, an electric plant was set up, pro- 
viding the streets and the houses with light; a fine Church, 
a hospital and a small school were built; there was soon to 
be a larger school, a Priory and a convent; liberal wages 
were paid out, two hotels and a cinema opened; a refrigerator 
provided Boa Vista with the first ice it had ever seen. Every- 
thing seemed to be going admirably. 



A JOURNEY TO BRAZIL IN 193 2 247 
But the monks at Rio had reckoned without the deep- 
rooted, local antagonism to anything godly or decent; 
a prejudice which at the moment was particularly inflamed 
by the unforeseen arrival of an irresponsible American 
with a rival scheme for improvement. His more ambitious 
proposal was to run a motor road and railway through the 
impassable bush that separated the town from Manaos, 
a project more or less equivalent in magnitude to the making 
of the Panama Canal. Finding that concessions had already 
been granted to the Benedictines which made his already 
impracticable railway legally impossible, he fell back on , 
eXplaining to the inhabitants the great advantages of which 
they had been deprived, the higher wages he would have 
paid, the greater prosperity which he would have initiated. 
The citizens, naturally disposed to see a sinister purpose in 
any activity, however small, had already become suspicious 
of the great changes that were taking place. The American 
emphasised the foreign birth of most of the Order and the 
relationship between the manager of the company and the 
high ecclesiastic in Rio with the result that by the time the 
monks and nuns reached their new home, they found every- 
one fairly convinced that a swindle was being perpetrated 
at their expense. It was only with difficulty and some danger 
that they succeeded in landing, being attacked with hostile 
demonstrations and showers of stones. 
From then onwards everything went against the Bene- 
dictines who were insulted and boycotted. The canning 
factory proved a failure; no one would use the ice-an 
unnatural, impermanent substance, typical of everything 
foreign; dishonest stuff that had lost half its weight even 
before you got it home-they didn't want the hospital, 
much preferring to sicken and die in their hammocks in 
the decent manner traditional to the place; no one paid his 
electric light bill and the plant had to be stopped. The 
priests went down with fever and, one by one, had to be 
sent back to Manaos. "The Company" became bankrupt 
and all further work was stopped. No Priory was built, no 
big school, no convent. At the time of my arrival things 
were at their lowest ebb. Father Alcuin was the last priest 
left and he was so ill that only supernatural heroism kept 



248 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
him at his work. Often he was only able to totter to the 
Church to say his Mass and then retire to bed in high fever 
for the remainder of the- day. The palatial house in which 
he was living was the building originally intended for the 
hospital. Its two big wards were now occupied by a car- 
penter engaged in making benches for the Church, and 
a government vet. who fitted up a laboratory there, which 
he used from time to time between his rounds of the ranches; 
he was investigating a prevalent form of paralysis in horses 
which he attributed to worms. Whatever minute flicker of 
good still survived in the town was preserved by the nuns, 
silent, devoted, indefatigable, who lived in appalling quar- 
ters near the river-bank, kept a school for the handful of 
bourgeois daughters, and nursed a negro and an aged 
diamond prospector who had arrived separately in a dying 
condition from up country and were in no mood to respect 
the prejudices of the town. It was, as I have said, the lowest 
point; a new Prior was expected daily to reorganise things 
and set them to rights. 


The Priory-as the hospital was now called-was no 
exception to the rule formulated a few pages above, that 
the religious are served by idiots. A single Indian boy of 
impenetrable stupidity looked after us. He had a round, 
brown face and a constant, mirthless grin which revealed 
rows of sharply filed teeth. He giggled when observed and 
would, in occasional bursts of confidence, produce for 
inspection a grubby sheet of lined paper on which he had 
tried to copy an alphabet written for him by Father Alcuin. 
He was absolutely honest, and dazed with delight when, 
on leaving, I gave him a small tip. His chief duty was to 
fetch the meals from the convent kitchen, quarter of a mile 
away. They arrived cold and dusty, but with surprising 
regularity. He also rang the angelus and could always be 
found by the bell rope half an hour before the time, wait- 
ing for the clock hands to reach the appointed place. The 
rest of his day was spent in talking to a captive monkey 
that was tethered to a tree in the garden, or in gaping; 
hour after hour, at the jars of worms which filled the vet.'s 
laboratory . 



A J 0 URN E Y TO BRA Z I L I N I 9 3 2 249 
The only other occupant of the house was the German 
who had first greeted our arrival; a man typical, except 
in his eccentricities, of the men of his race which one 
encounters in remote places all over the globe; part of 
the great exodus of disillusioned soldiers and students 
that followed the defeat of 1918, from Germany and the 
German colonies. 
Mr. Steingler was not a particularly attractive man. 
I never discovered what he was doing in Boa Vista. He 
had a minute and unprofitable plantation up the River 
Uraricuera where he lived in complete solitude and, 
I gathered from his conversation, great privation. He 
spoke vaguely of business he had to do in the town and 
would often go shuffling off to gossip at the stores; he 
spoke of some mail he was expecting but when eventually 
the boat arrived from Manaos, there was nothing for him; 
he would sometimes announce his imminent departure, 
but always stayed on. He said he did not like to leave while 
Father Alcuin was so ill. The truth was, I think, that he 
could not bear to leave a place where there were people to 
talk to him in German; and he liked the food. He was a 
demonstratively greedy man and used to give great boyish 
whoops and guffaws of delight as he helped himself to the 
dishes, for at his farm, as he often explained, he had only 
farine and tasso. 
It is possible that he was staying on at the Priory because 
absolute destitution awaited him at his farm. 
He was a firm atheist and did not disguise his contempt 
for the activities of his hosts. I tried to point out to him 
once that it was particularly fortunate for him that some 
people still had such curious notions-the nuns had nursed 
him through a grave illness the year before-but he said, 
"No, it is nonsense. It is only for children," and of the 
new Prior who was coming, "No doubt it is a step in his 
career. " 
His appearance was extremely odd, for he carried him- 
self with the stiff back of an infantryman while his loose 
sandals made him drag his feet in an incongruous manner, 
when he walked. He wore a shiny and threadbare suit of 
blue serge, a "boater" straw hat, a crumpled white collar 



2 SO W HEN THE GO I N G WAS GOO D 
and a narrow black tie. His ankles were bare and his sandals 
of his own manufacture. He invariably carried an absurd 
little ebony cane with a dented silver crook. We went to 
the cafe together most nights but he would seldom accept 
a drink, saying at first that he could not drink beer when 
it was not iced; later I realised it was because he could not 
afford it himself and in this one form would not take 
hospitality he could not return, so to cover his pride I used 
to invent reasons-that a boat was expected, that Father 
Alcuin was better, that it was my birthday-and then he 
would drink the warm beer with relish and laugh loudly 
at whatever was said. 
We talked in a laborious mixture of French and English, 
over neither of which languages Mr. Steingler had much 
command; indeed he seemed to be barely intelligible in 
any language; his fluent Portuguese seemed to cause end- 
less misunderstandings at the cafe and even his German 
seemed to puzzle Father Alcuin. The difficulty lay chiefly 
in discovering which of his many languages Mr. Steingler 
was trying to speak. Conversation at meals was always 
uneasy, for Father Alcuin knew no English and only the 
most formal French; most of the time he and Mr. Steingler 
would stumble along in German, occasionally eXplaining 
some obscure point in Portuguese; then, feeling that I was 
being left out of things, they would attempt to draw 
me in. Mr. Steingler would suddenly bow towards me, 
beam, and make curious animal sounds in the roof of his 
mouth. 
As a rule Father Alcuin was too ill to eat; when he was 
in fever he kept to his room but in the days of intermission 
he usually sat at table with us, drinking a little soup. I do 
not think he ever liked me much or understood what I was 
doing in his house, but he accepted my presence without 
complaint as he accepted all the other hardships of Boa 
Vista. Only on the subject of Freemasons did he show any 
violent emotion. It is possible that they had taken some 
sinister hand in the fiasco of "the Company." 
Was it really true that the King of England was a 
Mason? 
I replied that I thought he was. 



A JOURNEY TO BRAZIL IN 1932 251 
"Is that how he became King? Did the Masons put him 
on the throne?" 
"No, he is king by legal hereditary right." 
"Then how did the poor man fall into their power?" 
It was useless to explain that English Masons were for 
the most part Headmasters and Generals with, as far as 
I knew, no criminal activities. 
"That is what they say until they have you in their 
power. And the Prince of Wales, is he a Mason too? Is 
that why he does not marry? Do the Masons forbid it?" 
I think he began to suspect me of secret Masonry after 
a time, in spite of my conscientious assistance at Sunday 
Mass. 
The Church was, considering the villainy of the place, 
surprisingly well attended; largely, I suppose, because the 
nasal singing of the girls' school provided the only kind 
of entertainment of the week. These children, shepherded 
to their places by the nuns, were dressed up in clean muslin 
veils and, the wealthier of them, long white cotton gloves; 
they wore innumerable medals and coloured ribbons and 
sashes, proclaiming their different degrees of piety. They 
sang sugary little vernacular hymns in tremulous, whining 
voices. They occupied the greater part of the Church. 
Beside them were the elderly women in best dresses and 
clean stockings. What with this weekly blossoming of 
femininity, and the concrete architectural ornaments of the 
building, the candles and the artificial flowers, Sunday 
Mass was the nearest thing to a pretty spectacle that Boa 
Vista provided, and the men assembled in fair numbers to 
enjoy it. They did not come into the Church for that is 
contrary to Brazilian etiquette, but they clustered in the 
porch, sauntering out occasionally to smoke a cigarette. 
The normal male costume of the town was a suit of artificial 
silk pyjamas, which many of the more elegant had washed 
weekly, so that on Sundays they carried themselves with 
an air of great refinement and caution. Some minutes before 
the Elevation they might be seen unfolding their hand- 
kerchiefs and spreading them on the bare boards of the 
floor; then, when the bell rang, they would delicately kneel 
On one knee, rise, shake out the handkerchief, refold it and 



252 W HEN THE GO I N G WAS GOO D 
tuck it away in the breast pocket. This, however, was the 
practice- only of the most pious; the majority remained 
throughout propped against the walls, staring at the napes 
of the girls' necks. A priest told me that when he was new 
to the country he had remonstrated with the men, telling 
them that this was no fashion in which to hear Mass. 
"We haven't come to hear Mass," they had replied, 
fingering t-he revolver butts in their holsters. "We're here 
to see you don't interfere with our women." 
I found very little to occupy my time. There was an 
edition of Bossuet's sermons and a few lives of the Saints 
in French for me to read; I could walk to the wireless 
office and learn that no news had been heard of the Boundary 
Commissioner's boat; I could visit the English-speaking 
blacksmith and watch him tinkering with an tiquated auto- 
matic pistols. This young man would not come with me to 
the cafe on account of his having recently beaten the pro- 
prietor-an act of which he was inordinately proud, though 
it can have required no great courage since he was a very 
old man and slightly crippled. I could give bananas to the 
captive monkey and I could study the bottled worms in 
the laboratory; I could watch the carpenter in his rare 
moments of industry, sawing up lengths of plank. There 
was really quite a number of things for me to do, but, in 
spite of them all, the days seemed to pass slowly. 
The blacksmith, who knew all that was going on in the 
town, promised to tell me as soon as the Commissioner's 
boat was sighted, but it so happened that he forgot to do 
so, and I only learned from Mr. Steingler, one morning 
after I had been six days in the Priory, that it had arrived 
t4e previous evening and was due to leave in an hour; the 
Commissioner was at that moment at the wireless station. 
I hurried off to interview him. Things might have been 
less difficult if Father Alcuin had been able to accompany 
me but it was one of the days when he was down with fever. 
Alone I was able to make no impression. The Commissioner 
was an amicable little man, in high good humour at the 
prespect of a few days' leave in Manaos, but he flatly 
refused to have me in his boat. I cannot hold it against 
him. Everyone in that district is a potential fugitive from 



A JOURNEY TO BRAZIL IN 193 2 253 
justice and he knew nothing of me except my dishevelled 
appearance and my suspicious anxiety to get away from 
Boa Vista. I showed my passport and letters of credit, but 
he was not impressed. I besought him to cable to George- 
town for my credentials, but he pointed out that it might 
take a week to get an answer. I offered him large wads of 
greasy notes. But he was not having any. He knew too 
much about foreigners who appeared alone and unexplained 
in the middle of Amazc
as; the fact of my having money 
made me the more sinister. He smiled, patted my shoulder, 
gave me a cigarette, and sharp on time left without me. 
I cannot hold it against him. I do not think that the 
British Commissioners would have done any more for 
a stray Brazilian. But it was in a despondent and rather 
desperate mood that I heard his boat chugging away out 
of sight down the Rio Branco. 


From then onwards my only concern was to find some 
other means of getting away from Boa Vista. The trade 
boat of which David had spoken became increasingly 
elusive as I tried to pin its proprietor down to any definite 
statement of its date of departure. He was the manager of 
the chief store, a low-spirited young man named Martinez. 
I went to see him every day to talk about it; he seemed 
glad of a chat but could hold out only the vaguest hopes 
for me. The boat had to arrive first. It should be on its way 
with the new Prior; when it came, there would be time 
enough to discuss its departure. All sorts of things had to 
be considered-cargo, mail, other passengers. Day after 
day went by until all faith I had ever cherished in the trade 
boat slowly seeped away. Ordinary vexation at the delay 
began to give place to anxiety, for everyone in the town' 
seemed to spend at least three days a week in fever. It 
seemed to me a poor gamble to risk becoming semi-invalid 
for life for the dubious interest of a voyage down the Rio 
Branco. So I abandoned the idea of Manaos and decided 
to return to Guiana. 
This journey, so simple from British territory, where 
one was supported by the goodwill of the mission and the 
ranchers, presented endless difficulties from the other side. 



254 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
Mr. Martinez said he could arrange it but days passed and 
no horses appeared. He found me a guide, however, in the 
person of a good-natured boy named Marco; he was fifteen 
or sixteen, in from the country, and had been hanging round 
the store for some weeks in search of employment; this 
youth, after a house to house enquiry lasting several days, 
eventually secured the hire of a horse for himself, belong- 
ing, as it turned out, to Mr. Martinez and quartered at the 
ranch on the other side of the riv;r. I still needed another 
horse-if possible two-and provisions. Mr. Martinez 
had some tins of sweet biscuits and sardines, another shop 
had two tins of sausage; the nuns made bread and cheese. 
These would comfortably take us the three days' ride to 
Dadanawa. Horses were still an unsolved difficulty when 
help came from an unexpected quarter. 
Mr. Steingler had hitherto listened apathetically to my 
complaints, merely remarking from time to time, "Les 
peuples ici sont tous Mtes, tous sauvages; il faut toujours 
de patience," until one day the thought came to him that 
there might be something in it for him. He opened the 
subject cautiously, saying one evening that even if I secured 
a horse, it would be impossible to get a saddle; both were 
equally important. I agreed. He then went on to say that 
it so happened that he had a very good saddle himself, one 
that he would not readily part with to anyone, a particularly 
fine, new saddle of European workmanship, a rare and 
invaluable possession in a country like this. However, see- 
ing my difficulty, and feeling the kinship that one European 
feels for another in a savage country, he was willing to part 
with it to me. 
He took me to his room and dragged it out from under 
his bed. It was made on the English pattern but clearly 
of the most slipshod local workmanship; moreover, it was 
of great age and in deplorable condition, half un sewn, with 
padding as hard as metal, every leather frayed and half 
worn through, several buckles missing. I asked him what 
he wanted for it. 
Between European gentlemen, he said, it was impossible 
to bargain over money. He would call in a friend to make 
an assessment. The friend was the carpenter from the next 



A JOURNEY TO BRAZIL IN 193 2 255 
room who was transparently in the racket up to his eyes.. 
He turned over the saddle, praised it (embarrassing him- 
self and Mr. Steingler by inadvertently detaching another 
buckle while he spoke) and said that, all things considered, 
20,000 Reis (£5) would be a moderate price. I accepted 
the assessment and then began in my turn, to point out 
that n<:cessary as a saddle was, and much as I admired this 
particular one of Mr. Steingler's, it was of very little use 
to me without a horse. I would buy it at his price, if he 
would find me a mount to put under it. 
From that moment onwards Mr. Steingler worked for 
me indefatigably. He set out there and then in his boater 
hat, twirling his ridiculous cane, and by evening was able 
to report that the Collector had the very horse for me; a 
beast of some age, he admitted, but immensely strong, big 
boned, well-conditioned; just what was needed for savannah 
travelling. We went to see him. He was of much the same 
quality as the saddle and, cu
iously enough, commanded 
exactly the same price. Presumably 20,000 Reis was a unit 
in their minds, the highest figure to which avarice could 
aspire. I bought him on the spot. I do not know what rake- 
off Mr. Steingler got on the transaction, or whether he 
merely wished to keep in with the Collector. I preferred to 
be thought a mug and get away, rather than to achieve a 
reputation for astuteness and risk spending an unnecessary 
hour in Boa Vista. 
That evening Mr. Steingler did a further bit of business, 
by producing the town clerk, a venerable old man with a 
long white beard, who was willing to hire me a pack horse 
he owned in the corral on the further bank-4,o00 Reis 
for the journey to Dadanawa. I paid him and went to bed 
well contented with the prospect of immediate escape. 
Next morning I bade farewell to Father Alcuin. The 
plans for my departure had been freely discussed at table 

or over a week, but had not penetrated the feverish trance 
In which the poor monk lived. He was greatly surprised, 
and when I handed him a donation to the house to cover 
my board and lodging, he woke suddenly to the fact that 
he had exerted ,himself very little on my behalf; it was then 
that he revealed, what before he had kept carefully hidden, 



256 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
t,hat he had a wooden pack saddle which he could put at 
my disposal. Thus equipped and blessed I felt that I was 
at last on my way. 
But it was not to be as easy as that; the forces of chaos 
were still able to harass my retreat and inflict some damag- 
ing attacks. The next two days, in fact, were slapstick farce, 
raised at moments to the heights of fantasy by the . long- 
awaited appearance of the Prior. 
News of his approach and imminent arrival came on 
the morning of the day that I had fixed for my departure. 
Instantly the Priory was overrun by nuns. They worked 
in the way nuns have, which is at the same time sub-human 
and superhuman; poultry and angels curiously compounded 
in a fluttering, clucking, purposeful scurry of devoted 
industry; they beat up the Prior's mattresses and dusted 
every crevice of his quarters, they trotted to and fro with 
wicker rocking-chairs and clean sheets, they lined the 
corridor to his room with potted shrubs, put palm leaves 
behind all the pictures, arranged em broidered tablecloths 
on every available shelf and ledge, decorated the Bookcase 
with artificial flowers, built a triumphal arch over the front 
door and engrossed programmes for a hastily organised 
concert. I regretted very much that I should not be there 
to see his reception. 
My plans were that I should cross the river in the after- 
noon with the grey cob I had bought from the Collector; 
see to the rounding in of the other two horses, sleep by the 
corral on the further side and start for Dadanawa first thing 
the next morning. 
Mr. Martinez had organised the crossing, for which he 
had hired me a canoe and another boy, whom I was to 
meet with Marco at three o'clock. At half-past tour they 
arrived; the other boy turned out to be a child of eight or 
nine. Mr. Martinez explained that he was taking the place 
of his elder brother who had fever that day. 
We carried the saddles and baggage down the bank, 
found the canoe, which when loaded was dangerously low 
in the water. The descent at the usual landing place was 
too steep for a horse, so it was arranged that the small boy 
and I should paddle to a point up stream where the bank 



A JOURNEY TO BRAZIL IN 1932 257 
shelved down more gently, where Marco would meet us 
with the horse. It was half-past five when we reached the 
place and found no sign of Marco. The sun sets at six. For 
half an hour the small boy and I sat hunched in the canoe 
-I cramped and fretful, he idly playful with my belong- 
ings-then we paddled back in the darkness to the landing 
place. Sundry whistlings and catcalls ensued until presently 
Marco loomed up through the shadows riding the grey. 
We neither spoke a word of the other's language but by 
repetitions and gestures, and that telepathy which seems 
to function between two people who have something of 
urgency to communicate, we got to understand that the 
horse had taken some catching, that Marco was quite 
ready to try swimming him across in the dark, that I thought 
this lunacy, that the baggage was to be left where it was, 
that Marco was to sling his hammock by the bank and 
guard it all night, that I would come at dawn and we would 
cross over then. I cannot explain how we discussed all this, 
but in the end the situation was well understood. Then 
I hurried back to the Priory which I had left a few hours 
before with so many formal thanks and good wishes. 
In my vexation I had entirely forgotten about the Prior. 
I now came to the refectory, ten minutes late for dinner, 
out of breath and wet to the knees, to find him sitting at 
table. He was, as it happens, in the middle of the story of 
his own sufferings on the way up. It was a problem of good 
manners of the kind that are solved so astutely on the 
women's pages of the Sunday papers. What should I do? 
It was clearly impossible to escape unobserved, for the 
Prior had already fixed me with a look of marked aversion. 
I could not slip into a chair with a murmured apology for 
my lateness, because some explanation of my reappearance 
was due to Father Alcuin, and of my existence to my new 
host, the Prior. There was nothing for it but to interrupt 
the Prior's story with one of my own. He did not take it 
!oo kindly. Father Alcuin attempted to help me out, expl
in- 
mg rather lamely that I was an Englishman who had waIted 
here on the way to Manaos. 
Then what was I doing attempting to cross the Rio 
Branco in the dark? the Prior demanded sternly. 



258 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
I said I was on my way to Dadanawa. 
"But Dadanawa is nowhere near Manaos." 
Clearly the whole thing seemed to him highly unsatis- 
factory and suspicious. However, with the charity of his 
Order he bade me sit down. The idiot boy removed the 
soup plates and the Prior resumed his story. In honour of 
his arrival a fish course had been added to the dinner; 
nothing could have been less fortunate for he had lived on 
fish for the last ten days and on that particular sort of coarse 
and tasteless fish that was now offered him. He glared at it 
resentfully over his spectacles and ordered it to be removed. 
Mr. Steingler watched it go with evident distress. 
The Prior was no doubt a very good man, but he did 
not add to the ease of the refectory. He was thoroughly 
exhausted by his journey and in no mood to bustle off to 
the nuns' concert. He had already formed a low opinion 
of Mr. Steingler and my arrival confirmed him in his 
general disapproval. He was there on a mission of re- 
organisation and Mr. Steingler and myself were obviously 
the kind of thing that had to be investigated and cleaned 
up. He finished his narration of delays and discomforts, 
took a dislike against the pudding, and before Mr. Steingler 
had nearly finished his first helping, rose to recite an 
immensely long grace. Then with hostile adieux, stumped 
away grumbling to the celebrations at the school. 
Next day at dawn I saw him on his way to Mass and he 
was more amicable. I bade him good-bye with renewed 
thanks and went down to the river. The small boy and 
Marco were there; the baggage was intact; after an hour's 
perilous and exhausting work we got the canoe and the 
horse across to the other side; the child paddled back and 
I settled down to wait until Marco had collected the other 
horses. The pack horse was easily identified by some 
vaqueiros who were waiting there. He was a wretched 
creature, down in the pasterns, but our baggage was very 
light and it seemed probable that he would get it to Dada- 
nawa. Mr. Martinez's horse could not be found. After two 
hours Marco returned, smiling and shrugging and shaking 
. his head. . 
Back to Boa Vista once more. We had to wait until noon 



A JOURNEY TO BRAZIL IN 193 2 259 
for a canoe. I arrived at the Priory once more, a good 
quarter of an hour late for luncheon. The Prior's doubts 
of my honesty became doubts of my sanity. Once more 
I made my adieux, repeating the same thanks with increased 
apologies. Mr. Martinez, at last roused to activity, decided 
to accompany me himself to the other side and find the 
horse. He issued a number of peremptory orders which 
were lethargically obeyed. His motor launch was brought 
up, four or five men recruited, and a formidable expedition 
set out. After some hours, the horse was discovered stray- 
ing some miles distant, lassoed and led in. Then a further 
disaster occurred. A large sow which had been nosing 
round the baggage for some time discovered a way into 
the kit bag and ate the whole of the bread and cheese on 
which I had been counting as my main sustenance in the 
next few:days. 
Back to Boa Vista; back to the Priory, just as they were 
finishing dinner. The Prior now regarded me with undis- 
guised despair. I was able, however, to buy another loaf 
and more cheese from the convent. Next morning, with- 
out further contact,
with my hosts, I slipped out of the 
Priory and left Boa Vista for the last time. 



CHAPTER FIVE 


Addis Ababa 
IN the summer of 1935 the Evening Standard published 
a cartoon representing the Throne of Justice occupied by 
three apes who squatted in the traditional attitude, each 
with his hands covering his eyes, ears or mouth; beneath 
was the legend, "See no Abyssinia; hear no Abyssinia; speak 
no Abyssinia." 
This may have expressed the atmosphere of Geneva; 
it was wildly unlike London. There the editorial and 
managerial chairs of newspaper and publishing offices 
seemed to be peopled exclusively by a race of anthropoids 
who saw, heard and spoke no other subject. 
Abyssinia was News. Everyone with any claims to African 
experience was cashing in. Travel books whose first editions 
had long since been remaindered were being reissued in 
startling wrappers. Literary agents were busy peddling the 
second serial rights of long-forgotten articles. Files were 
being searched for photographs of any inhospitable-looking 
people-Patagonian Indians, Borneo head-hunters, Austra- 
lian aborigines-which could be reproduced to illustrate 
Abyssinian culture. In the circumstances anyone who had 
actually spent a few weeks in Abyssinia itself, and had 
read the dozen or so books which constituted the entire 
English bibliography of the subject, might claim to be an 
expert, and in this unfamiliar but not uncongenial disguise 
I secured employment with the only London newspaper 
which seemed to be taking a sane view of the situation, as 
" d " 
a war correspon ent. 
There followed ten inebriating days of preparation, lived 
in an attitude of subdued heroism before friends, of know- 
ledgeable discrimination at the tropical outfitters. There 
was a heat wave at the time. I trod miasmic pavements 
between cartographers and consulates. In the hall of my 
club a growing pile of packing cases, branded for Djibouti, 
began to constitute a serious inconvenience to the other 


A WAR IN 1935 
(FROM Waugh in Abyssinia) 



A WAR IN t 935 26 t 
members. There are few pleasures more complete, or to 
me more rare, than that of shopping extravagantly at some- 
one else's expense. I thought I had treated myself with 
reasonable generosity until I saw the luggage of my profes- 
sional competitors-their rifles and telescopes and ant- 
proof trunks, medicine chests, gas-masks, pack saddles, 
and vast wardrobes of costume suitable for every conceiv- 
able social or climatic emergency. Then I had an inkling 
of what later became abundantly clear to all, that I did not 
know the first thing about being a war correspondent. 


After the bustle, ten tranquil days on the familiar route. 
On August 19th, Djibouti; the familiar stifling boulevards; 
spindly, raffish Somalis; the low-spirited young man at the 
Vice-consulate; the tireless, hopeless street pedlars; the 
familiar rotund Frenchmen, their great arcs of waistline 
accentuated with cummerbunds; the seedy cafe clientele, 
swollen at this moment by refugees-Dodecanean mostly 
-from up the line and by despondent middle-aged adven- 
turers negotiating for Ethiopian visas; the familiar after- 
dinner drive to the cafe in the palm grove; the fuss about 
train and luggage. A torrid, almost sleepless night. On the 
20th, shortly before midday, we crossed the Ethiopian 
frontier. 
The occupants of the railway carriage were typical of 
the rising tide of foreigners which was then flowing from 
all parts of the world to the threatened capital. 
There were six of us, sipping iced Vichy water from our 
thermos flasks and gazing out bleakly upon a landscape of 
unrelieved desolation. 
One of them had been my companion from London, 
a reporter from a Radical newspaper. I saw him constantly 
throughout the succeeding months and found his zeal and 
industry a standing reproach. I did not know it was pos- 
sible for a human being to identify himself so precisely 
with the interests of his employers. The situation, obscure 
to most of us, was crystal clear to him-the Emperor was 
an oppressed anti-fascist. 
My other colleague was a vastly different character. 
From time to time he gave us visiting cards, but we never 



262 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
remembered his name, and for the next few weeks he 
became a prominent and richly comic figure in Addis life, 
known to everyone as "the Spaniard." He was vivacious 
and swarthy and stout, immensely talkative and far from 
intelligible in English, French and German. His equip- 
ment, as he proudly admitted, was largely acquired at a 
sixpenny store. He changed his clothes in the train, put- 
ting on breeches, a pair of chocolate-coloured riding boots, 
and a Boy Scout's belt and revolver holster. He then placed 
a tin aneroid on the seat beside him and proclaimed the 
changes of altitude with boyish excitement, peeling and 
devouring one by one throughout the journey an enormous 
basket of slightly rotten bananas. 
It was clear to us that Spanish journalism was run on 
quite different lines from English. From the moment we 
left Marseilles he had been composing articles for his paper 
--one about Haifa, two about de Lesseps, one about 
Disraeli. "I have a very good history of Africa in German," 
he explained. "When I have nothing to report I translate 
passages from that. Mine is the most important paper in 
Spain, but it is a great thing for them to send a correspon- 
dent as far as this. They must have news all the time." 
While the rest of us were leading a life agreeably unem- 
barrassed by the financial cares that occupy so much atten- 
tion in normal travel, the Spaniard was in a chronic high 
fever of anxiety about his expenditure; for many days after 
his arrival at Addis Ababa he was to be found with a stub 
of pencil and sheet of paper working out how many thalers 
he should have got for his francs at Djibouti and brooding 
sceptically over the results; he was apparently an easy prey 
for the dishonest; his cabin, he complained, was rifled on 
board ship and a wad of money stolen; at Djibouti he had 
a still odder misfortune; he gave me his pocket-book to 
guard while he went for a swim and on his return main- 
tained that a thousand francs had disappeared from it. He 
bewailed the loss at length and in piteous terms, saying 
that he was saving it for a present to his little daughter. 
But I made no offer to reimburse him and he soon recovered 
his jollity. It was a great surprise to him to discover that 
three of the English journalists beside myself were new 



A WAR IN 1935 263 
and probably temporary members of our staffs and that 
all except one were entirely new to the work of foreign 
correspondent. "I am the most important and expensive 
man on my paper," he said. 
"English editors would not send anyone whose life they 
valued on a job of this kind," we told him. 
"I have my revolver. And the boots are snake-proof. 
How much do you think they cost?" 
Someone suggested ten shillings. 
"Very much less," he said proudly. 
He was one of the few people who, I really believe, 
thought that the coloured races were dark skinned be- 
cause they did not wash. He did not intend to stay long in 
Ethiopia, because, he explained, he was his paper's Paris 
correspondent and it was impossible to do both jobs' satis- 
factorily at the same time. "I shall merely make a rapid 
tour of the front on a motor bicycle," he said. 
In the absence of any more probable alternative, it was 
later put about in Addis Ababa, where everyone was 
credited with some sinister activity, that the Spaniard was 
a papal spy. 
The fourth member of the party was a sturdy American 
doctor who had come to offer his services to the Ethiopian 
Red Cross. With him was Mr. Prospero, whom he had 
rescued from an indefinite sojourn in the Djibouti hotel. 
Mr. Prospero was photographer for an American news 
reel. A few weeks before he had been a contented resident 
in Japan, where he owned a house, a dog; had lately paid 
the last instalment on a saloon car, and employed his time 
making pictures of cherry blossom and court ceremonial. 
At a few hours' notice he had been whisked away from this 
life of lotus eating and deposited, penniless-his funds 
having been cabled in advance to Addis-at Djibouti, than 
which there can be no town in the world less sympathetic 
to strangers desirous of borrowing a railway fare. His 
life thereafter was a protracted martyrdom gallantly but 
gloomily endured, which seemed to typify the discourage- 
ment which in less degrees we all suffered. At Addis he 
was accommodated at the Imperial Hotel in a ground-floor 
room immediately next to the only entrance; as more 



264 w HEN T a EGO I N G WAS GOO D 
camera men arrived, they joined him there with camp beds 
and mountains of technical apparatus until the little room, 
heaped with cameras and crumpled underclothes, packing- 
cases of film and half-empty tins of baked beans, presented 
a scene hideously compounded of workshop, warehouse and 
slum dormitory. I saw Mr. Prospero constantly, and always 
in distress; now soaked to the skin patheticaily grinding 
the handle of his camera in an impenetrable pall of rain; 
now prostrate under the bare feet of a stampeding mob, 
like a football in a rugger scrum; now lamed; now groan- 
ing with indigestion; now shuddering in high fever. He 
became a figure from classic tragedy, inexorably hunted by 
hostile fates. After we had been in Addis Ababa some time 
a copy of a poster arrived from America advertising his 
news reel. It represented a young man of military appear- 
ance and more than military intrepidity, standing calmly 
behind his camera while bombs burst overhead and naked 
warriors rolled interlocked about his knees. In vast letters 
across this scene of carnage was printed: 
"O.K., BOYS, YOU CAN START THE WAR NOW. 
PROSPERO IS THERE." 


The sixth and by far the gayest of us was an English- 
man who was soon, suddenly, to become world famous: 
Mr. F. 'VIr T . Rickett. He had 10ined our ship at Port Said 
and throughout the succeeding week had proved a light- 
hearted companion. From the first he was invested with 
a certain mystery. Anyone travelling to Addis Ababa at 
that moment attracted some speculation. Mr. Rickett spoke 
openly of a "mission," and when tackled by the Radical 
on the subject hinted vaguely that he was bringing Coptic 
funds to the Abuna. He spoke more freely about a pack 
of hounds which he had in the Midlands, and when, as 
often happened,. he received lengthy cables in code, he 
would pocket them nonchalantly, remarking, "From my, 
huntsman. He says the prospects for cubbin' are excellent. ' 
The Radical and I put him down as an arms salesman of 
whom large numbers were said to be frequenting Addis 
Ababa. In the gaudy reports of his concession which flooded 
the papers of the world a fortnight later great emphasis 



A WAR IN 1935 265 
was laid upon Mr. Rickett's "unobtrusive entrance" into 
the cDuntry and his residence at "an obscure boarding- 
house." Nothing could have been further from his inten- 
tions or expectations. He had ordered the' one luxury 
carriage of the Ethiopian railway and treasured the most 
extravagant hopes about its character-even to the belief 
that it contained a kitchen and cook. He had, in fact, very 
kindly offered me a place in it. But when we got to the 
station we found that we had to take our places in the 
ordinary coach. In the same way he had ordered a suite at 
the Imperial Hotel. It was only when we found there was 
no other accommodation, that we went to Mrs. Heft's 
excellent pension. 


The day wore on, more oppressive after luncheon at 
a wayside buffet; the little train jerked and twisted through 
an unendurable country of stone and anthills. There were 
no signs of rain here, the sand was bare, the few tufts of 
scrub colourless as the surrounding stone; the watercourses 
were dry. At sunset we stopped for the night atDirre-Dowa. 
I remembered how gratefully I had left it five years before. 
Now in the cool of the evening, with the lights of the hotel 
terrace revealing sombre masses of flowering bougainvillea 
it seemed agreeable enough. The head of the railway police 
came up from the station with us for a drink. He was one 
of the new school of Ethiopian official-dean-shaven, 
khaki-clad, French-speaking. He told us the latest news 
from Europe. Mr. Eden had walked out of the Paris 
discussions. That meant that England was going to fight 
against Italy, he said. "That depends on the League of 
Nations," we said. 
"No, no. It is because you do not want Italy to be strong. 
It is good. You know that Ethiopia cannot threaten you. 
We are friends. Together we will defeat the Italians." 
We did not disabuse him; instead we accepted our 
temporary popularity as easily as we could, clinked glasses 
and drank to peace. 
Next morning at dawn we resumed our places in the 
train and reached Addis that evening. 
I little suspected what a large part in our lives that 



266 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
stretch of line was going to play in the coming months. 
I covered it six times before Christmas and learned every 
feature-the transition from desert to down land, the view 
of the lakes, the cinder fields, the Hawash gorge, the candle- 
lit hotel at Hawash where on every journey but this the train 
deposited us for the night, the station where there was an 
ostrich, a beggar who recited prayers, a little girl who 
mimed; the painted arch of the lake hotel at Bishoftou 
which told that the climb was nearly over and that we were 
in measurable distance of Addis, the silly coon-face of the 
ticket collector outside the window as he climbed along 
the running-boards to enquire who wanted to lunch at the 
buffet. But at this time we all assumed that, when war was 
declared, we should at once be isolated. On the first day 
Hawash bridge would be bombed and the line cut in a 
hundred places. We had all planned routes of escape to 
Kenya or the Sudan. Of the various fates which from time to 
time we predicted for Haile Selassie-rescue by British 
aeroplanes, death in battle, murder, suicide-no one, I 
think, ever seriously suggested what was actually to hap- 
pen; that in the final catastrophe, desperate and disillu- 
sioned, betrayed by the League, deserted by his army, 
hunted by insurgent tribesmen, with his enemies a day's 
march from the Palace and their aircraft regularly recon- 
noitring over his head, he would quietly proceed to the 
station, board the train and trip down to Djibouti by rail. 
The least romantic of us never suggested that. 


Addis Ababa on the eve of war seemed little changed in 
character and appearance from the city I had known five 
years before. The triumphal arches that had been erected 
for the coronation had grown shabbier but they were still 
standing. The ambitious buildings in the European style 
with which Haile Selassie had intended to embellish his 
capital were still in the same rudimentary stage of construc- 
tion; tufted now with vegetation like ruins in a drawing by 
Piranesi, they stood at every corner, reminders of an abortive 
modernism, a happy subject for the Press photographers 
who hoped later to present them as the ravages of J.talian 
bombardment. 



A WAR IN 1935 267 
There were several hotels in Addis Ababa, all, at the time 
of our arrival, outrageously prosperous. "Kakophilos's," 
at which we all assumed we should stay, was completely 
full with journalists and photographers living in hideous 
proximity, two or three to a room even in the outbuild- 
ings. It was a massive, shabby building of sepulchral gloom, 
presided over by the eponymous, sturdy, middle-aged, misan- 
thropic Greek, who had taken it over as a failing concern just 
before the troubles. There was something admirable about the 
undisguised and unaffected distaste with which he regarded 
his guests and his ruthless disregard of their comfort and 
dignity. Some attempted to be patronising to him, some 
dictatorial, some ingratiating; all were treated with uniform 
contempt. He was well aware that for a very few months 
nothing that he did or left undone could affect his roaring 
prosperity; after that anything might happen. The less his 
guests ate the greater his profits, and from his untidy little 
desk in the corner he watched with sardonic amusement 
the crowds of dyspeptic journalists-many of them elderly 
men, of note in their own countries-furtively carrying 
into his dining-room paper bags of fresh bread, tins of tuck 
and pocketfuls of oranges and bananas, like little boys 
trooping into tea at their private schools. Mr. Kakophilos 
never apologised and very rarely 
omplained. Nothing of 
the smallest value was endangered in the scenes of violence 
which became increasingly frequent as the journalists made 
themselves at home. When his guests threw their bedroom 
furniture out of the window, he noted it in the weekly bill. 
If they fired their revolvers at the night watchman he 
merely advised the man to take careful cover. Menageries 
of unclean pets were introduced into the bedrooms; Mr. 
Kakophilos waited unconcerned until even their owners 
could bear their presence no longer. His was the chief 
hotel of the town and nothing could shake its status. Here, 
intermittently, the government posted its communiques; 
here the Foreign Press Association held its acrimonious 
meetings; here every evening, when the wireless station 
was shut, we all assembled, in seedy wicker chairs in the 
large, bare, flea-ridden hall, to drink and grumble. 
The Deutsches Haus, where Mr. Rickett and I were 



268 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
taken, was humbler and very much more hospitable. It 
stood near the Splendide in a side street, but its immediate 
surroundings were not imposing. Opposite was a tannery 
run by a Russian Prince, from which, when the wind was 
in the wrong quarter, there came smells so appalling that 
we were obliged to shut our windows and scatter in different 
parts of the town; sometimes a lorry of reeking pelts would 
be left all day at our gates; once, for some purpose con- 
nected with his hideous trade, His Highness acquired a 
load of decomposing cows' feet. He was a debonair figure, 
given to exotic tastes in dress. When he first arrived at 
Addis he was asked to luncheon at the British Legation 
and the guard turned out for him. A few days later he 
opened a house of ill fame. Now he was mainly, but not 
exclusively, interested in the fur trade. He often spoke 
wistfully of a convoy of girls who had been on order from 
Cairo since the battle of Walwal but were held up some- 
where, mysteriously and unjustly, in the customs. 
But though the surroundings were forbidding, the 
hospitality inside the gates (which were kept by a grizzled 
warrior armed with a seven-foot spear) was delightful. 
Mrs. Heft was one of the Germans who had drifted to 
Abyssinia from Tanganyika when it was confiscated by 
the British government after the war. There were a large 
number of her compatriots in the town, mostly in very 
poor circumstances, employed as mechanics or in petty 
trade. The Deutsches Haus was their rendezvous where 
they played cards and occasionally dined. The Hefts could 
never quite get used to the disregard of small economies 
or the modest appetites of her new boarders. Many of our 
demands seemed to her painfully complex. "The journalists 
pay well," she confided. "But they are very difficult. Some 
want coffee in the morning and some want tea, and they 
expect i
 always to be hot." But she worked untiringly in 
our serVice. 
She was a housewife of formidable efficiency. Daily from 
dawn until noon a miniature market was held on the steps 
of the dining-room. Half a dozen native hawkers squatted 
patiently, displaying meat, eggs and vegetables. Every 
half-hour she or Mr. Heft would emerge, disparage the 



A WAR I N 1935 269 
goods, ask the price, and, in simulated rage, tell the sales- 
men to be off. Eventually, when it was time to start cooking 
luncheon, she made her purchases. 
Mr. Heft had a deafening little car, which at any moment 
of the day or night he would take out for our use. There 
was also a hotel taxi, which the bearded chauffeur used as 
a creche for his baby. When his services were required he 
would whisk the infant out of the back seat and nurse it 
as he drove. 
There were two geese loose in the yard who attacked 
all comers. Mr. Heft was always promising to kill them, 
but they were still alive when I left the country. There was 
also a pig, which he did kill, from which Mrs. Heft made 
a magnificent abundance of sausages and pates. The food, 
for Addis, was excellent. Mr. Heft hovered over the tables 
at meal times watching all we ate. "No like?" he would 
say, in genuine distress, if anyone refused a course. "Make 
you eggies, yes?" 
The Hefts' bedroom opened from the dining-room, and 
it was there that everything of value in the house was kept. 
If one wanted change for a hundred thaler note, an aspirin, . 
a clean towel, a slice of sausage, a bottle of Chianti, the 
wireless bulletin, a spare part for a car, a pack of cards, 
one's washing or one's weekly bill, ¥rs. Heft dived under 
her bed and produced it. 
The Deutsches Haus soon became the headquarters of 
most of the English journalists and photographers. We 
employed our own servants, decorated our rooms with 
monkey-skin rugs from the Russian Prince and native 
paintings from the itinerant artists, and were, on the whole, 
tolerably comfortable. The Americans, more Baedeker- 
minded, stayed resolutely with Mr. Kakophilos. 
There were two places of entertainment in the town, 
Le Select and the Perroquet, usually known by the names 
of their proprietors, Moriatis and Idot. Both had a bar and 
a talking cinema. Mme. Idot had also a kitchen and put 
it about that her cooking was good. From time to time she 
would placard the town with news of some special delicacy 
-:-Grand Souper. Tripes a la mode de Caen-and nostalgic 
Journalists would assemble in large numbers, to be bitterly 



270 W HEN THE GO I N G WAS G a a D 
disillusioned. She came from Marseilles, Mme. Moriatis 
from Bordeaux. They were bitter rivals, but while Mme. 
Moriatis affected ignorance of the other's existence, Mme. 
Idot indulged in free criticism. "Poor woman!" she would 
say. "What does she think she is doing here? She should 
go back to Bordeaux. She has a face like Lent." M. Moriatis 
was a very handsome cad-Greek; M. Idot a hideous cad- 
Frenchman. Both, by repute, whipped their wives, but 
Mme. Idot professed to enjoy it. Mme. Idot shed an atmo- 
sphere of false gaiety, Mme. Moriatis of very genuine 
gloom. One talked gravely to Mme. Moriatis about the 
beauties of France and the wickedness of Abyssinian 
character; she was always apologising for the inadequacy 
of her entertainment and one tried to encourage her. "It 
is not chic," she would say very truly. "It is not as I should 
like it. If the Italians were here we should have dancing 
at the aperitif time and upstairs fln hotel with bathrooms- 
completely European." Everyone pinched Mme. Idot and 
slapped her behind, told her that her films were unendur- 
able and her wines poisonous. Le Select had pretensions to 
respectability and occasionally held charity matinees at- 
tended by members of the diplomatic corps. There was no 
nonsense of that kind about the Perroquet. Both prospered 
on the contrast, because, after an hour in either place, one 
longed for the other. 
Most visitors to Addis Ababa arrive feeling ill. I had 
mild dysentery and a heavy cold, and lay in my room for 
two days, dizzy, torpid and acutely miserable, until a series 
of peremptory cables from Fleet Street roused me to a sense 
of my responsibilities: Require comprehensive cable good 
colourful stuff also all news, shortly followed by Please 
indicate when can expect comprehensive cable, followed by 
Presume you are making arrangements getting stuff away and 
What alternative means communication in event breakdown? 
The method by which telegrams were distributed gave 
limitless opportunity for loss and delay. They were handed 
out to the messengers in bundles of about a dozen. The 
men were unable to read and their system of delivery was 
to walk round the town to the various hotels and places 



A WAR IN 1935 271 
where foreigners might be expected to congregate and 
present their pile of envelopes to the first white man they 
saw, who would look through them, open any that might 
seem of interest, and hand back those that were not for 
him. Often it took more than a day for a message to reach 
us and, as the commands of Fleet Street became more and 
more fantastically inappropriate to the situation and the 
enquiries more and more frivolous, we most of us became 
grateful for a respite, which sometimes obviated the need 
of reply. 
However, on the third day one of these messengers 
found his way to my room with the first, very reasonable 
request, so I left my bed and set out rather shakily into the 
pouring rain to look for "colour." 


First steps as a war correspondent were humdrum- 
a round of the Legations with calling cards, a sitting at the 
photographers' to obtain the pictures needed for a journa- 
list's pass, registration at the Press Bureau. 
This last was a little tin shed at the further extremity of 
the main road. It might well have been classed among the 
places of entertainment in the town. Here morning and 
afternoon for the first six weeks, until everyone, even its 
organisers, despaired of it ever performing any helpful 
function, might be found a dozen or so exasperated journa- 
lists of both sexes and almost all nationalities, waiting for 
interviews. It was an office especially constituted for the 
occasion. At the head of it was a suave, beady-eyed little 
Tigrean named Dr. Lorenzo Taesas. He was a man of great 
tact and many accomplishments, but since he was also Judge 
of Special Court, head of secret police, and personal adviser 
to the Emperor, it was very rarely that he attended in per- 
son. His place was taken by another Tigrean, named David, 
equally charming, a better linguist, an ardent patriot, who 
was unable on his own authority to make the most trivial 
decision or give the simplest information. "I must ask 
Dr. Lorenzo," was his invariable answer to every demand. 
In this way a perfect system of postponement and prevarica- 
tion was established. If one approached any government 
department direct, one was referred to the Press Bureau. 



272 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
At the Press Bureau one was asked to put one's enquiry in 
writing, when it would be conveyed to the invisible Dr. 
Lorenw. At this early stage the Abyssinians had no reason 
to be hostile to the Press. Most of them in fact-and 
particularly the Emperor-were eager to placate it. But 
this was the manner in which Europeans had always been 
treated in the country. Just as many white men see a negro 
as someone to whom orders must be shouted, so the Abys- 
sinians saw us as a people to be suspected, delayed, frus- 
trated in our most innocent intentions, lied to, whenever 
truth was avoidable, and set against one another by hints 
of preferential treatment. There was no ill-will. The attitude 
was instinctive to them; they could not alter it, and closer 
acquaintance with us gave them good reason to stiffen 
rather than relax. 
Almost all those impatient figures on Dr. Lorenzo's 
doorstep were after one thing. We wanted to get up 
country. Travelling in Ethiopia, even in its rare periods 
of tranquillity, was a matter of the utmost difficulty. Many 
writers have left accounts of the intricate system of tolls 
and hospitality by which the traveller was passed on from 
one chief to another and of the indifference with which the 
Emperor's laissez-passer was treated within a few miles of 
the capital. Now, with torrential rains all over the high- 
lands flooding the streams and washing away the mule 
tracks, with troops secretly assembling and migrating 
towards the frontiers, with the subject peoples, relieved of 
their garrisons, turning rebel and highwayman, the pos- 
sibilities of movement in any direction were extremely 
slight. But, at any rate for the first weeks after our arrival, 
we most of us cherished a hope, and the Press Bureau 
constantly fostered it, that we should get to the fighting. 
No one ever got there. My last sight of Lorenw, more 
than three months later at Dessye, was of a little figure, 
clad in khaki then in place of his dapper morning coat, 
surrounded by a group of importunate journalists in the 
Adventist Mission compound, promising that very soon, 
in a few days perhaps, permission would be granted to go 
north. Actually it was only when the front came to them, 
and the retreat of the government headquarters could not 



A WAR IN 1935 273 
keep pace with the Italian advance, that any of them saw 
a shot fired. 
But meanwhile there still lingered in our minds the 
picture we had presented of ourselves to our womenfolk 
at home, of stricken fields and ourselves crouching in shell 
holes, typing gallantly amid bursting shrapnel; of runners 
charging through clouds of gas, bearing our despatches on 
cleft sticks. We applied, formally, for permission to travel, 
absolving the government of all responsibility for our 
safety, and awaited an immediate reply. 
The Radical, who knew his job, had no illusions of the 
kind. The court, the government offices and the Legations 
were the "news centres." His place was near the wireless 
office. Not so my immediate neighbour in the Deutsches 
Haus, an American who proclaimed his imminent departure 
for the Tigre. A squad of carpenters was noisily at work 
under our windows boxing his provisions, his caravan of 
the sturdiest mules was stabled nearby. He had already 
discarded the dress of a capital city and strode the water- 
logged streets as though he were, even at that moment, 
pushing his way through unmapped jungle. Poor chap, he 
was one of the group surrounding Lorenzo at Dessye. 


In Addis everything seemed to be at a standstill. 
Mr. Rickett, it is true, held out hopes of a story. On 
the second day of our visit he had promised me an important 
piece of news on Saturday evening. Saturday came and he 
admitted, rather ruefully, that he had not been able to 
arrange anything; it would probably be next Wednesday, 
he said. It seemed clear that he was involved in the endless 
postponements of Abyssinian official life, and that in ten 
days' time I should find him at the Deutsches Haus, still 
negotiating. Accordingly, with Patrick Balfour, an old 
friend who had preceded me as correspondent for the 
Evening Standard, I decided to leave for the South by the 
Monday train. 
I t was full of refugees. The Greeks from Rhodes and 
the Dodecanese formed a more sombre body. Many of 
these had been born in Abyssinia; almost all had come 
to the country as Greek or Turkish nationals. It was 



274 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
the only home they had known; they were artisans earn- 
ing a better living than they could have got among 
their own people. Then, by changes in the map that were 
incomprehensible to them, they found that they had sud- 
denly become Italians, and now they were being hustled 
down to the coast with the prospect of being recruited into 
labour gangs or soldiers to fight against the country of their 
adoption. There were several of them in our train, wistfully 
sucking oranges in the second-class coach. 
Until three years before, the journey from Dirre-Dowa 
to Harar took two days. Now there was a motor road. 
We left Dirre-Dowa shortly before midday. Patrick and 
I and his servant had now been joined by another English- 
man, an old acquaintance named Charles G., who had 
come out primarily in search of amusement. There was 
also a youthful and very timid Abyssinian nobleman, who 
wanted a lift and raised entirely vain hopes of his being 
useful to us. 
We left in two cars and, twisting and groaning up the 
countless hairpin bends and narrow embankments of the 
new road, were very soon at the top of the pass, which 
formerly had taken four hours of arduous riding. Here 
was a military post, a barricade and new corrugated-iron 
gates, which were later described by many poetic corre- 
spondents as "the ancient 'Gates of Paradise.' " 
They certainly emphasised the contrast between the 
Harar province and the surrounding wilderness. Behind 
lay the colourless, empty country which one saw from the 
train; mile after mile of rock and dust, anthill and scrub, 
and, on the far horizon, the torrid plain of the Danakil 
desert, where the Hawash river petered out in a haze of 
heat. In front, beyond the surly Abyssinian guard, the 
uplands were patterned with standing crops, terraces of 
coffee, neat little farms in flowering stockades of euphorbia, 
the pinnacles of their thatched roofs decorated with' bright 
glass bottles and enamelled chamber-pots. In less than 
four hours after our departure from Dirre-Dowa we were 
in sight of the walls and minarets of Harar. 
Perhaps I haC! been unduly eloquent in describing to 
my companions the beauties that awaited us. 



A WAR IN 1935 275 
After all I had remembered, and all I had said, the 
reality was a little disappointing. There had been changes. 
The first sight to greet us, as we came into view, was a vast, 
hideous palace, still under construction; a white, bow- 
fronted, castelated European thing like a south-coast hotel. 
It stood outside the walls, dominating the low, dun-coloured 
masonry behind it. The walls had been breached and, 
instead of the circuitous approach of medireval defence, the 
narrow, windowless lane which had led from the main gates, 
under the walls, bending and doubling until it reached the 
centre of the town, a new, straight track had been driven 
through. There was an hotel, too, built in two stories, with 
a balcony, a shower-bath and a chamber of ineffable horror, 
marked on the door, w.e. It was kept by a vivacious and 
avaricious Greek named Carassellos, who, everyone said, 
for no reason at all, was really an Italian. This building, 
where we took rooms, had been erected immediately in 
front of the Law Courts, and the space between was a babel 
of outraged litigants denouncing to passers-by the venality 
of the judges, the barefaced perjury of the witnesses, and 
the perversions of, the legal system, by which they had failed 
in their suits. About twice every hour they would come to 
blows and be dragged inside again by the soldiers to sum- 
mary punishment. 
But the main change seemed to be in the proportions of 
Abyssinians to Hararis. It was at the moment, by all appear- 
ance, an Abyssinian town. Great numbers of troops were 
being drafted there. A Belgian training school was estab- 
lished. Abyssinian officials had been multiplied for the 
crisis, and with their women and children filled the town. 
The Hararis were rapidly melting away; those that could 
afford it, fled across the frontiers into French and British 
territory, the majority to the hills. They were a pacific 
people who did not want to get involved on either side in 
the coming struggle; particularly, they did not want their 
women to get into the hands of the Abyssinian soldiers. 
In place of the lovely girls I had described, we found the 
bare, buttered, sponge-like heads, the dingy white robes, 
the stolid, sulky faces and silver crosses of the Abyssinian 
camp followers. 



276 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
Later the chief of the police dropped in for some whiskey. 
He was an officer of the old school, greatly given to the 
bottle. He was suffering at the time from a severe cold and 
had stuffed his nostrils with leaves. It gave him a somewhat 
menacing aspect, but his intentions were genial. Very few 
journalists had, as yet, visited Harar, and the little yellow 
cards of identity from the Press Bureau, which were an 
object of scorn In Addis, were here accepted as being 
evidence, possibly, of importance. Patrick's servant, whose 
French was fluent but rarely intelligible, acted as inter- 
preter. That is to say, he carried on a lively and endless 
conversation, into which we would occasionally intrude. 
"What is he saying, Gabri?" 
"He says he has a cold. He hopes you are well." 
Then they would carryon their exchange of confidences. 
The end of this interview, however, was a promise that we 
should have a pass to take us as far as Jijiga. 
During our day of waiting for permission to go to Jijiga, 
Patrick and I each engaged a spy. They were both British 
"protected persons," who had for a long time made them- 
selves a nuisance at the Consulate. That was their only 
point in common. 
Mine, Wazir Ali Beg, was an Afghan, an imposing old 
rascal with the figure of a metropolitan policeman and the 
manner of a butler. He wrote and spoke nearly perfect 
English. At some stage of his life he had been in British 
government service, though in what precise capacity was 
never clear. Lately he had set up in Harar as a professional 
petition writer. He put it about among the British Indians, 
Arabs and Somalis who thronged the bazaar that he was 
a man of personal influence in the Consular Court, and 
thus induced them to part with their savings and brief him 
to conduct their cases for them. To me he represented him- 
self as the head of a vast organisation covering the Ogaden 
and Aussa countries. He never asked for money for him- 
self but to "reimburse" his "agents." On the occasion of 
our first meeting he gave me an important piece of news: 
that a party of Danakil tribesmen had arrived at Dirre-Dowa 
to complain to the Governor of Italian movements in their 



A WAR IN 1935 277 
territory; a force of native and white troops had penetrated 
the desert south-west of Assab and were making a base 
near Mount Moussa Ali. It was the verification of this 
report, a month later, which provoked the order for general 
mobilisation and precipitated the war. Wazir Ali Beg had 
a natural flair for sensational journalism and was so en- 
couraged by my reception of this report that he continued 
to recount to me by every mail more and more improbable 
happenings, until, noticing letters in his scholarly hand 
addressed to nearly every journalist in Addis Ababa, I took 
him off my pay roll. He then used my letter of dismissal 
to put up his prices with his other clients, as evidence of 
the sacrifices he was making to give them exclusive service. 
Patrick's spy was named Halifa, but he was soon known 
to the European community as Mata Hari. He was an 
Aden Arab whose dissolute appearance suggested only 
a small part of the truth. He approached us that evening 
without introduction on the balcony of the hotel, squatted 
down on his haunches very close to us, glanced furtively 
about him, and with extraordinary winks and gestures of 
his hands expressed the intention of coming with us to 
Jijiga as interpreter. 
His frequent appearances at the Consular Court were 
invariably in the capacity of prisoner, charged with drunken- 
ness, violence and debts of quite enormous amounts. He 
made no disguise of the fact that most of his recent life had 
been spent in gaol. When he found that this amused us, 
he giggled about it in a most forbidding way. He wore 
a huge, loose turban which was constantly coming uncoiled 
like the hair of a drunken old woman, a blue blazer, a white 
skirt and a number of daggers. Gabri, Patrick's Abyssinian 
servant, took an instant dislike to him. "11 est mechant, ce 
type arabe," he said, but Gabri, once outside the boundaries 
of his own country, was proving a peevish traveller. He did 
not at all like being among Mohammedans and foreigners. 
Harar he could just bear on account of the abundance of 
fellow countrymen, but the prospect of going to Jijiga 
filled him with disgust. 
The chief of police had given us two effeminate little 
soldiers, who trotted at our heels wherever we went, 



278 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
weighted down by antiquated rifles, looking as though 
they would burst into tears at every moment of crisis. 


After protracted negotiations we had taken seats in a 
coffee lorry, bound for Hargeisa. There were the usual 
delays as the Somali driver made a last-minute tour of the 
town in the endeavour to collect additional passengers, and 
it was soon clear that we should not reach Jijiga by night- 
fall. Our two soldiers began nervously to complain of 
danger from brigands, but the journey was uneventful. 
Rain came on at sunset and for four hours we made slow 
progress. The headlights pierced only a few feet of dark- 
ness; we skidded and splashed through pools of mud. Our 
driver wanted to stop and wait for dawn, saying that, even 
if we reached Jijiga, we should find ourselves locked out. 
We induced him to go on and at last came to the military 
post at the outskirts of the town. Here we found another 
lorry, full of refugees, which had passed us on the road 
earlier in the day. They had been refused admission and 
were now huddled together in complete darkness under 
sodden rugs, twenty or thirty of them, comatose and 
dejected. Our soldiers climbed down and parleyed; the 
driver exhibited the consular mailbag which he was carry- 
ing; Patrick and I produced our cards of identity. To 
everyone's surprise the barrier was pulled back and we 
drove on to the town. It was to all appearances dead asleep. 
We could just discern through the blackness that we were 
in a large square, converted at the moment to a single lake, 
ankle-deep. We hooted, and presently some Abyssinian 
soldiers collected round us, some of them drunk, one 
carrying a storm lantern. They directed us into a kind of 
pound; the gates were shut behind us and the soldiers 
prepared to return to bed. 
There was no inn of any kind in Jijiga, but the firm of 
Mohamedally kept an upper room of their warehouse for 
the accommodation of the Harar consul on his periodic 
visits. We had permission to use this and had wired the 
local manager to expect us. His representative now appeared 
in pyjamas, carrying an umbrella in one hand and a lantern 
in the other. 



A WAR IN 1935 279 
Fresh trouble started, which Mati Hari tried to inflame 
into a fight, because the soldiers in command refused to 
let us remove our bags. They had to be seen by the customs 
officer, who would not come on duty until next morning. 
As they contained our food, and we had had nothing to 
eat since midday, the prospect seemed discouraging. The 
Indian from Mohamedally's told us it was hopeless and 
that we had better come to our room. Mata Hari, Charles 
and I set out with one of our own soldiers to find the 
customs officer. We knocked up his house, where they 
refused to open the door but shouted through the keyhole 
that the customs office was at the French House. A handful 
of Abyssinians had now collected in the darkness. Mata 
Hari did all he could to provoke them to violence, but our 
Harari guard was more conciliatory and eventually we were 
led, through what appeared to be miles of mud, to another 
house, which showed a light and a posse of sentries. The 
nature of the "French House" was not at the moment 
clear. Sounds of many loud voices came from the interior. 
After Mata Hari had nearly got himself shot by one of the 
sentries, the door opened and a small Abyssinian emerged, 
clean shaven, dressed in European clothes, horn-spectacled; 
one of the younger generation. We later learned that he 
was new to his position, having spent the previous year in 
prison on a charge of peculation. He came with us to the 
lorry, apologising in fluent French for the inconvenience 
we had suffered. Our bags were surrendered and the Indian 
led us to our room, where, after supper, we slept on the 
floor until daybreak. 


One of the wonders of travel is where native servants 
sleep. They arrive at any hour in a strange place and seem 
immediately to be surrounded by hospitable cousins-in- 
law, who embrace them, lead them home and for the rest 
of the stay batten upon one's stores. Our party broke up 
and disappeared cheerfully into the night; all except Gabri, 
who did not like Jijiga. He was intensely xenophobic 
where Somalis were concerned; he would not eat any- 
thing himself, saying that the food was not suitable for 
an Abyssinian; he nearly starved us by refusing to buy 



280 w HEN THE G a IN G WAS GOO D 
provisions on the grounds that the prices were excessive. 
Mati Hari seemed to have slept in the mud, to judge 
by his appearance next morning, but perhaps he had merely 
found his fight. He came to our room in a kind of ecstasy, 
almost speechless with secrecy. He had news of the highest 
importance. He could not say it aloud, but must whisper 
it to each of us in turn. Count Drogafoi, the French Consul, 
had been thrown into prison. We asked him to repeat the 
name. He shook his head, winked and produced a stub of 
pencil and a piece of paper. Then, glancing over his shoulder 
to make sure he was not observed, he wrote the word, 
laboriously, in block capitals, DROGAFOI. It was to 
Drogafoi's house, he said, that we had been the night 
before. They were going to shoot Drogafoi. that day. They 
had also arrested twelve Roman Catholics; these would be 
sewn up in skins and burned alive. There were four Maltese 
popes in the town. They would probably be shot too. He 
would return shortly, he said, with further information, 
and with that and another meaning wink he tip-toed 
downstairs. 
In a somewhat puzzled state of mind we sat down to 
a breakfast of tinned partridge and Chianti. While we 
were still discussing what, if any, truth could be concealed 
in this story, the customs officer, our friend of the night 
before, came to introduce himself by name-Kebreth 
Astatkie-and to enquire about our welfare. Dedjasmach 
Nasebu, the Governor of Harar, was in Jijiga that day, he 
told us, on his way south, and would be pleased to see us. 
Accordingly we set out on foot for the Gebbi. 
Rain had stopped and the town presented a more cheerful 
appearance. It consisted of a single main square and two 
side streets. The single EurQpean in the town, besides the 
mysterious Drogafoi and the Maltese popes, was a Greek, 
whom Mata Hari pointed out to us, riding a bicycle. 
"That is the Alcohol," he eXplained; a title which, we 
found later, meant that he owned the local liquor monopoly. 
The Gebbi, like most Abyssinian official buildings, was 
a nondescript assembly of tin-roofed sheds, the largest of 
which had some upper rooms, reached by an outside stair- 
case. Two half-grown lions were tethered outside the main 



A WAR IN 1935 281 
door; the slave in charge wrestled with one of them for 
our benefit, and was rewarded with a thaler and a deep 
scratch on the thigh. There was the inevitable small army 
of ragged retainers, squatting on their heels, nursing their 
old rifles. 
We were first shown into the presence of the governor 
of Jijiga, Fitaurari Shafarah, an officer of the old school, 
who sat, surrounded by local notables, in a very small 
room, hung with carpets; the shutters were closed and the 
atmosphere stupefying. He was a grizzled, gloomy little 
man who had been present at the battle of Walwal and had 
gained some discredit there, through being discovered, at 
the height of the action, squatting in his tent selling cart- 
ridges to his own troops. His own interpreter introduced 
us, and after the exchange of a few civilities we sat in un- 
broken silence for rather more than half an hour. Eventu- 
ally we were led into the open and upstairs to Nasebu's 
quarters. The Dedjasmach wore European uniform and 
spoke French. Like everyone else in Abyssinia who spoke 
French-with the single exception of the Emperor-he 
was clean shaven. He was well up in European affairs. We 
drank coffee together and discussed the constitution of the 
Committee of Five, the Committee of Thirteen, the Council 
of the League, and such topics as, in those days, seemed 
important. 
Patrick then asked him what truth there was in the 
story that a Frenchman had been arrested in Jijiga. 
"A Frenchman arrested?" he enquired with innocent 
incredulity. "I will ask about it." 
He clapped his hands and sent a servant for Kebreth. 
They talked together for a few seconds in Amharic; then 
he said, "Yes, it appears that something of the sort has 
occurred," and proceeded to tell us the whole story, while 
Kebreth produced from various pockets about his person 
a collection of all the relevant documents. 
Drogafoi was a Count Maurice de Roquefeuil du Bous- 
quet, who had come to Ethidpia nine years before in search 
of a livelihood. For some time the police had been keeping 
a watch on his house. He was said to live in guilty splendour, 
but when Patrick and I visited his home later we found 



282 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
two simple and clearly impoverished little rooms. On the 
day before our arrival, an elderly Somali woman had been 
arrested leaving his house and, when she was searched, 
a film tube was found in her armpit, which, she confessed, 
she was taking to the Italian Consulate at Harar. Kebreth 
showed us the contents: a snapshot of some motor lorries 
and five pages of inaccurate information (of the kind which 
Wazir Ali Beg used regularly to write to me) describing 
the defences of Jijiga. 
The Count and Countess had been arrested and their 
house searched. Kebreth said it was full of correspondence 
with Italian officers across the frontier, and of the names 
of native agents who were now being rounded up. He 
showed us the Count's passport and finally the Count him- 
self, who, with his wife, was now under guard in an out- 
building of the Gebbi. As a large proportion of the Count's 
agents were boys who had been educated at the mission 
school, unfounded suspicion had also fallen upon the 
Franciscan friars. We took photographs of the Gebbi and 
the Count's house, of the lion cubs and the place of his 
imprisonment, of the slave in charge of the lions and the 
captain of the guard. A dramatic moment came when we 
expressed a wish to photograph the detective responsible 
for the arrest. 
"Y ou wish to photograph the detective?" said Kebreth. 
"He stands before you. It was 1." 
So we photographed Kebreth too, beaming through his 
horn-rimmed spectacles, and returned to Mohamedally's 
with the feeling that we were on to a good thing. It seemed 
to have all the ingredients of a newspaper story-even an 
imprisoned "bride." Moreover, there was no possibility of 
any other journalist having got it. We happily imagined 
cables arriving for our colleagues in Addis. "Badly left 
Roquefeuil story" and "Investigate imprisoned countess ']ijiga." 
It was now Friday morning. If we were to reach the Satur- 
day papers it must be cabled by seven o'clock. Patrick and 
I feverishly typed out our reports while Charles engaged 
a car to take them to the nearest wireless station at Hargeisa, 
in British Somaliland, and Kebreth obligingly made out 
a pass for his journey. 



A WAR IN 1935 283 
When our cables were safely on their way, Patrick and 
I walked out into the town and there had another stroke 
of good luck. It was midday and the people were trooping 
into the little mosque to their prayers. A car drove up and 
there emerged a stocky figure in a black cossack hat. It 
was Wehib Pasha, a Turkish veteran of the Callipoli 
campaign, one of the major mystery men of the country. 
He had left Addis in the greatest secrecy. There had been 
rumours that he was bound for the Ogaden. Some said he 
was on a religious mission, to preach a Moslem crusade 
against the Italians; others that he was to be the new 
Moslem Ras, whose appointment was hinted at. Patrick 
had interviewed him in Addis and found him profoundly 
uncommunicative. 
His disgust at seeing us was highly gratifying. He shot 
into the mosque and sent his secretary-companion-an 
elegant Greek youth with a poetic black beard and immense, 
sorrowful eyes-to inform us that we were not to follow 
him about, and that if we took any photographs he would 
have our cameras destroyed. We sent Mata Hari into the 
mosque after him and told him to make enquiries in the 
market about what the Pasha was doing. The reply, which 
we got some hours later, disentangled from Mata Hari's 
more obvious inventions, was that the Pasha had recruited 
a large labour gang and was leaving next day for the south 
in a train of lorries, to dig lion pits for the Italian tanks. 
Feeling that our trip to Jijiga had been a triumphant 
success, Patrick and I made our arrangements with a half- 
caste lorry driver to return next day to Harar. There 
remained the delicate question of whether or no we should 
tip Kebreth. Gabri and Mata Hari, when consulted, said 
of course all officials must be tipped on all occasions; Gabri 
alone showed some anxiety that we would give too much. 
Accordingly when Kebreth came in that evening for a drink 
with us, Patrick produced a note and with great tact sug- 
gested that we should be glad if he would distribute a small 
sum to the poor of the town in acknowledgment of our 
enjoyable visit. 
Kebreth had no respect for these euphemisms; he 
thanked us, but said with great composure that times had 



284 w HEN THE Gar N G WAS GOO D 
changed and Ethiopian officials now received their wages 
regularly. 


Five hours' delay next morning in getting on the road. 
Our half-caste driver made one excuse and then another- 
he had to take some mail for the government, he was await- 
ing another passenger, the municipal officer had not yet 
signed his pass. At last Mata Hari explained the difficulty; 
there was shooting on the road; a handful of soldiers in 
the manner of the country had taken to the bush and were 
at war with the garrison. "This driver is a very fearful 
man," said Mata Hari. 
Presently, when the half-caste had at last been t
unted 
into activity by our staff, the danger passed. Less than a 
mile outside the town we met soldiers coming back, drag- 
ging some very battered prisoners. "Perhaps they will be 
whipped to death. Perhaps they will only be hanged," said 
Mata Hari. 


We were still in a mood of self-approval. We wondered 
whether any of our messages had yet arrived in London 
and whether Patrick had got in first with the Saturday 
evening edition, or I on Monday morning. We expected 
c
bles of congratulation. There was a cable for me. It said, 
"What do you know Anglo American oil concession?" Evidently 
our messages had been delayed; but as there was no possible 
competitor, we were not alarmed. I replied, "Apply local 
agent for commercial intelligence Addis," and, still in good 
humour, went up to dine at the Consulate. 
Next morning there was another cable, a day old: "Must 
have fullest details oil concession." I replied: "Absolutely 
impossible obtain Addis news Harar." Before luncheon there 
was a third: "Badly left oil concession suggest your return Addis 
immediately. " 
It was now clear that something important had happened 
in our absence, which eclipsed our stories of Roquefeuil 
and Wehib Pasha. A two-day train left Dirre-Dowa for 
Addis on Tuesday morning. In low spirits Patrick and I 
arranged for our departure. 
Harar had suddenly lost its charm. News of the events 



A WAR IN 1935 285 
at Jijiga had filtered through in wildly exaggerated forms; 
the town was inflamed with spy-mania. Mata Hari was 
promptly gaoled on the evening of his return. We bought 
him out, but he seemed to expect hourly re-arrest. The 
chief of police may have had some reprimand for allowing 
us to go to Jijiga or perhaps it was only that his cold was 
worse; whatever the reason, his manner had entirely 
changed towards us and he was now haughty and suspicious. 
Mr, Carassellos was in a condition of infectious agitation. 
Half his friends had just been arrested and cross-examined 
under suspicion of complicity with Roquefeuil. He was 
expecting the soldiers to come for him any minute. 
Roquefeuil and the native prisoners arrived on Sunday 
night. Throughout the day on Monday, Mata Hari popped 
in on us with fragments of unlikely news about his trial; 
that he was in the common prison, that the Emperor was 
coming in person to supervise his execution; that he had 
boasted, "In seven days' time this town will be in the hands 
of Italy and I shall be avenged." But the story had lost its 
interest for us. 


No one in Harar knew anything about an oil concession. 
The first information we received was at Dirre-Dowa, where 
a young official explained that the Emperor had leased 
most of the country to America. At Awash we learned that 
Mr. Rickett was associated with the business. At Addis, 
on Wednesday night, we found that the story was already 
stale. It was a sensational story which, for a few days, 
threatened to influence international politics. 
Mr. Rickett, as the agent of a group of American 
financiers, had secured from the Emperor a concession 
for mineral rights of unprecedented dimensions. The 
territory affected was that bordering on the I talian posses- 
sions over which the Italian troops would presumably seek 
to advance, and which, presumably, they hoped to annex. 
Had the concession been made in 1934, it is difficult 
to see how the United States government could have 
permitted Italian occupation. As it was, in September 
1935, with war already inevitable, the States Department 
at Washington intervened against the Emperor and forbade 



286 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
the ratification of the concession. By doing so they VIr- 
tually recognised Italy's right to conquer, for, while he 
was still a sovereign ruler, they refused to recognise the 
Emperor's right to grant concessions within his own 
dominions. The Emperor had reverted to the traditional 
policy of balancing the self-aggrandisement of the white 
peoples one against another, and it failed. After that he 
was left with no cards to play except international justice, 
collective security and the overweening confidence of his 
fighting forces. He played the first two astutely enough; 
the third turned out to be valueless. 


On our return to Addis Ababa we found the temporary 
white population still further increased. Before the out- 
break of war the number of accredited journalists and 
photographers was rather more than a hundred. They 
showed almost every diversity which the human species 
produces. There was a simian Soudanese, who travelled 
under a Brazilian passport and worked for an Egyptian 
paper; there was a monocled Latvian colonel, who was 
said at an earlier stage of his life to have worked as ring- 
master in a German circus; there was a German who 
travelled under the name of Haroun al Raschid, a title, he 
said, which had been conferred on him during the Darda- 
nelles campaign by the late Sultan of Turkey; his head 
was completely hairless; his wife shaved it for him, empha- 
sising the frequent slips of her razor with tufts of cotton- 
wool. There was a venerable American, clothed always in 
dingy black, who seemed to have strayed from the pulpit 
of a religious conventicle; he wrote imaginative despatches 
of great length and flamboyancy. There was an Austrian, 
in Alpine costume, with crimped flaxen hair, the group 
leader, one would have thought, of some Central-European 
Youth Movement; a pair of rubicund young colonials, 
who came out on chance and were doing brisk business 
with numberless competing organisations; two indistin- 
guishable Japanese, who beamed at the world through 
horn-rimmed spectacles and played interminable, highly 
dexterous games of ping-pong in Mme. Idot's bar. These 
formed an exotic background that was very welcome, for 



A WAR IN 1935 287 
the maJonty of the regular pressmen were an anxious, 
restless, mutually suspicious crowd, all weighed down with 
the consciousness that they were not getting the news. 
It was a disheartening quest. The situation throughout 
the whole of September was perfectly clear. Everyone 
was waiting for Italy at her own convenience to begin the 
war. 
There were reports from all over the country of extensive 
troop movements. The order for general mobilisation had 
not been made. The news of its promulgation was cabled 
back almost daily by one or other of the special corre- 
spondents: " War drums beating in the. North-the Emperor 
raises the Standard oj Solomon." Almost daily enquiries 
came from Fleet Street, "What truth general mobilisation?" 
Like almost every important event in the war it was so 
often anticipated and so often denied that, when it actually 
happened, it had lost all its interest. 
No answer was given to our applications for leave to 
travel. We were obliged to rely tor information about 
what was happening in the interior upon the army of Greek 
and Levantine spies who frequented Mme. Moriatis's bar. 
Most of these men were pluralists, being in the pay not 
only of several competing journalists at once but also 
of the Italian Legation, the Abyssinian secret police, or 
both. 
The railway station was a centre of minor information. 
Half the white population and practically all the Press were 
on the platform for each departure. There was seldom any 
very sensational occurrence; sometimes an Indian would 
be arrested smuggling dollars; there were always tears; 
once or twice an Abyssinian dignitary left on an official 
mission, attended by a great entourage, bowing, embracing 
his knees, and kissing him firmly on his bearded cheeks. 
At any time there was a fair amount of rough and tumble 
at the Addis terminus between Arab porters and station 
police. This served to give colour to the descriptions of 
panic and extravagant lamentation which were dutifully 
cabled to Fleet Street. 
The arrivals in the evening were more interesting, for 
anyone visiting Addis at this season was a potential public 



288 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
character, perhaps another Rickett. Two humane English 
colonels excited feverish speculation for a few days until it 
was discovered that they were merely emissaries of a World 
League for the Abolition of Fascism. There was a negro 
from South Africa who claimed to be a Tigrean, and repre- 
sented another World League for the abolition, I think, of 
the white races, and a Greek who claimed to be a Bourbon 
prince and represented some unspecified and unrealised 
ambitions of his own. There was an American who claimed 
to be a French viscount and represented a league, founded 
in Monte Carlo, for the provision of an Ethiopian Disperata 
squadron, for the bombardment of Assab. There was a 
completely unambiguous British adventurer, who claimed 
to have been one of Al Capone's bodyguard and wanted 
a job; and an ex-officer of the R.A.F. who started to live 
in some style with a pair of horses, a bull terrier and a 
cavalry moustache-he wanted a job too. All these unusual 
characters were good for a paragraph. 
There was also a mysterious and, I am now inclined to 
believe, non-existent force of Yemen Arabs which made 
a fitful appearance in our despatches. By some accounts 
they were still in the Yemen and were waiting orders for 
the attack from the Imam of Sana. They were to cross the 
Red Sea in a fleet of dhows, fall upon Assab and massacre 
the garrison. Another version had it that they were already 
in Addis, organised as a fighting corps. They were con- 
stantly reported as parading at the palace and offering their 
arms and fortune in the Emperor's service. There was in 
fact a number of venerable old traders from the Yemen, 
dotted about the bazaar quarter. If two of them sat down 
together for a cup of coffee it was described as a military 
consultation. 
By every post, until I told him to stop, Wazir Ali Beg 
sent me a budget of news. 
He had no difficulty in finding other correspondents 
and, as the situation became darker and reporting more 
speculative, Wazir Ali Beg's news service formed an ever- 
increasing part of the morning reading of the French, 
English and American newspaper publics. 
Whenever Mata Hari was out of prison, he too wrote: 



A WAR IN 1935 


28 9 


"THE ETHUPIAN NEWS OF THE 11TH SEPTEMBER 
"Troubles at 3 p.m. 
"Soldiers. Fieghts near Bazara doors some of the Soldiers 
entered Bazara house as some brack heads bloods come out. . . 
"Dagash Mazh said the Ethupian troops will assault the 
Italian troops before the time of the rain . . . 
"Dagash Mazh regarding to the lecture of the 8th advise 
the soldiers, regret to say, at 3 p.m. the soldiers to their mis- 
fortune and endignity on the peoples, robing the vegetables, etc. 
"Truck passed on to leg of one Somalee. 
"News from the Arabic news papers, the warfare will be 
between six Governments shortly. 
"Somali Merchant Mahmood W arofaih made trench in 
his garden and put his money, few day repeat to see his money 
and not found, at once come mad." 


This last trouble was by no means peculiar to Mahmood 
Warofaih. During the crisis it seemed to be happening all 
over the country. The gardener at the Deutsches Haus 
suffered in exactly that way and showed every sign of 
losing his reason until, to the disappointment of the other 
servants, who were enjoying the spectacle immoderately, 
Haroun al Raschid charitably reimbursed him. 
The Foreign Press Association held occasional meetings, 
which were highly enjoyable, having a character of com- 
bined mock-trial and drinking bout. The Americans and 
French did most of the talking; the English endeavoured 
to collect the subscriptions and maintain some semblance 
of constitutional order. The Spaniard was elected a member 
of committee, with acclamation. The Radical made a con- 
scientious and rather puzzled treasurer. The Americans 
were facetious or ponderously solemn, according as their 
drink affected them. There was one of them who was 
constantly on his feet crying: "Mr. Chairman, I protest 
that the whole question is being treated with undesirable 
levity." Every now and then the French walked out in 
a body and formed an independent organisation. 
Our chief function was to protest. We "protested 
unanimously and in the most emphatic manner" or we 



290 WHEN THE GO I NG WAS GOO D 
"respectfully represented to the Imperial Government" 
that the cabling rates were too high, that the Press Bureau 
was inconveniently situated and inadequately staffed, that 
a negro aviator had insulted a French reporter, that prefer- 
ential treatment was given to certain individuals in the 
despatch of late messages, that the official bulletins were 
too meagre and too irregular; we petitioned to be allowed 
to go to the fronts, to be told definitely whether we should 
ever be allowed to go there. No one paid the smallest atten- 
tion to us. After a time the protesting habit became auto- 
matic. The Association split up into small groups and pairs 
protesting to one another, cabling their protests to London 
and Geneva, scampering round to the palace and protesting 
to the private secretaries of the Emperor at every turn of 
events. But that was later; in these early days the Foreign 
Press Association showed some of the lightheartedness of 
a school debating society. 
Week succeeded week, full of whispered rumours; more 
journalists and cinema men arrived. I bought a petulant 
and humourless baboon which lived in my room at the 
Deutsches Haus, and added very little to the interest of 
these dull days. There were rowdy evenings at Le Select 
and the Perroquet. The Spaniard went back to resume his 
duties in Paris. Patrick and I gave a dinner-party in his 
honour, which was overclouded for him by the loss of his 
sixpenny fountain-pen. "Who of you has taken my feather?" 
he kept asking with great earnestness. "J cannot work with- 
out my feather." 
At last, on October 2nd, came the announcement which 
had been so often predicted, that general mobilisation would 
be proclaimed on the morrow. It was preceded by the formal 
complaint that Ethiopian territory had been violated at 
Mount Moussa Ali. Notices were posted inviting the Press 
to attend "a ceremony of great importance" which was to 
be held next day at the old Gebbi. Everybody knew what 
that meant. 
It was particularly gay that evening in the bars. Next 
morning we all assembled at the Palace at half-past ten. 
We were shown straight into an airIess gallery and kept there. 
No one knew quite what to expect, and even the most 



A WAR IN 1935 291 
daring of the journalists had decided to wait and see what 
happened before composing their reports. Various almost 
liturgical ceremonies were expected; we were told in some 
quarters that the Emperor would set up his standard in 
person; that his crimson tent would be pitched as a rallying 
point for the armies; that the great drum of Menelik would 
be beaten, which had not sounded since I 895. 
The drum was there; we could hear it clearly from our 
place of confinement, beating a series of single thuds, slow 
as a tolling bell. When eventually the doors were thrown 
open and we emerged on to the terrace, we saw the drum, 
a large ox-hide stretched over a wooden bowl. It mayor 
may not have belonged to Menelik; all the whites said that 
it had and Mr. David politely agreed. 
A flight of stone steps led from the terrace to the parade 
ground, where a large, but not very large, crowd had 
assembled. They were all men. Over his shoulder I watched 
a journalist typing out a description of the women under 
their mushroom-like umbrellas. There were no women and 
no umbrellas; merely a lot of black fuzzy heads and white 
cotton clothes. The Palace police were trying to keep the 
crowd back, but they pushed forward until only a small 
clearing remained, immediately below the steps. Here 
Mr. Prospero and half a dozen of his colleagues were 
grinding away behind tripods. 
The drum stopped and the people were completely 
silent as the Grand Chamberlain read the decree. It took 
some time. He read it very loudly and clearly. At the end 
there were three concerted bursts of clapping. Then the 
men made a rush for the Palace; it was unexpected and 
spontaneous. They wanted to see the Emperor. Most of 
them had swords or rifles. They flourished these wildly 
and bore down upon the little group of photographers, 
who, half fearing a massacre, scuttled for safety, dragging 
along their cumbrous apparatus as best they could. The 
crowd caught poor Mr. Prospero. knocked him down and 
kicked him about, not in any vindictive spirit, but simply 
because he was in the way. One of them eventually put 
him on his feet, laughing, but not before he had sustained 
some sharp injuries. 



292 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
Upstairs the decree was being read to the journalists in 
French by Dr. Lorenzo. He could not make himself heard 
above the shouting. He stood on a chair, a diminutive, 
neat, black figure, crying for attention. A great deal of 
noise came from the journalists themselves. I had seldom 
seen them to worse advantage. Dr. Lorenzo had in his 
hand a sheaf of copies of the decree. The journalists did 
not want to hear him read it. They wanted to secure their 
copies and race with them for the wireless bureau. Lorenzo 
kept crying in French, "Gentlemen, gentlemen, I have 
something of great importance to communicate to you." 
He held the papers above his head and the journalists 
jumped for them, trying to snatch, like badly brought up 
children at a Christmas party. 
The soldiers had now worked themselves into high 
excitement and were streaming past, roaring at the top of 
their voices. 
Lorenzo led a dozen of us into the Palace, where in 
comparatively good order he was able to make his second 
announcement. He was clearly in a state of deep emotion 
himself; the little black hands below the starched white 
cuffs trembled. "His Majesty has this morning received 
a telegram from Ras Seyoum in the Tigre," he said. "At 
dawn this morning four Italian war planes flew over Adowa 
and Adigrat. They dropped seventy-eight bombs, causing 
great loss of life among the civilian population. The first 
bomb destroyed the hospital at Adowa, where many women 
and children had taken refuge. At the same time Italian 
troops invaded the Province of Agame, where a battle is 
. " 
now ragmg. 


The excitement barely survived the transmission of our 
cables. By afternoon the cheering crowd had melted away 
and was dozing silently in their tukals. Shutters were put 
up on the Greek-Italian grocery store and a guard posted 
before it, while at the back door journalists competed with 
the French Legation to buy the last tins of caviare. 
That afternoon and evening we drove round the town 
in search of "incidents," but everything was profoundly 
quiet. News of the bombardment of Adowa was now all 



A WAR IN 1935 293 
over the bazaars, but it seemed to cause little stir. Adowa 
was a very long way off. Practically no one in Addis had 
ever been there. It was known to them by name, as the 
place where the white men had been so gloriously cut to 
pieces forty years before. It was inhabited by Tigreans, 
a people for whom they had little liking. 
The Europeans, Levantines and Americans, on the 
other hand, fell into a cold sweat of terror. The Emperor's 
white adviser had at this time organised a daily tea 
party of speciaJly sympathetic correspondents. This group 
became a centre from which Ethiopian propaganda radiated. 
On the afternoon of October 3rd, "the Leaker," as he was 
familiarly known, gave it out that an air raid was expected 
on Addis that evening. The effect was galvanic. One 
group of journalists hastily concluded a deal for the 
lease of a mansion immediately next door to the Italian 
Legation. They packed up their stores and luggage and 
their accumulations of trashy souvenirs and set off in 
secrecy to their new home. Unfortunately they were con- 
travening a municipal bye-law which forbade a change of 
address without previous permission. I cannot help suspect- 
ing that Mr. Kakophilos must have tipped off the police; 
there was a touch of saturnine triumph in the air with 
which he welcomed their return, an hour later, under 
guard, to his hotel. A similar fate befell a neurotic young 
Canadian who set out to hide on the top of Mount Entoto. 
Other journalists took refuge in outlying missions and 
hospitals, or shared their bedrooms with their chauffeurs 
for fear that, when the alarm came, they might find their 
cars usurped by black women and children. Others are 
said to have sat up all night playing stud poker in gas 
masks. Timidity was infectious. A passing motor bicycle 
would have us all at the window staring skywards. A few 
hardened topers remained sober that evening for fear of 
sleeping too heavily. But the night passed undisturbed by 
any except the normal sounds-the contending loud- 
speakers of the two cinemas, the hyrenas howling in the 
cemetery. Few of us slept well. The first two hours after 
dawn were the most likely time for a raid, but the sun- 
at last it was full summer-brought reassurance. After a 



294 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
slightly strained week-end we settled down to our former 
routine. On Monday night there was a bacchanalian scene 
at Mme. Idot's, where, among other songs of international 
popularity, "Giovanezza" was sung in a litter of upturned 
tables and broken crockery. 


The communique, read in dramatic circumstances by 
Dr. Lorenzo, asserted that the first bomb of the attack had 
fallen on "the hospital," destroying it and killing many 
women and children. When we began to look for details, 
our doubts were aroused whether there had ever been a 
hospital there at all. No such thing existed as a native 
hospital; no Red Cross units had yet appeared in the field; 
the medical work of the country was entirely in mission 
hands. The headquarters of these organisations knew 
nothing about a hospital at Adowa, nor did the Consulates 
know of any of their nationals engaged there. The publica- 
tion of the news was already having the desired effect in 
Europe; a letter, which caused great amusement when it 
reached us, appeared in The Times expressing the hope 
that "the noble nurses had not died in vain," but at Addis 
Ababa suspicions were aroused that our legs were being 
pulled. Mr. David and Dr. Lorenzo, when pressed, had 
to admit that they knew no more than was disclosed in 
the first bulletin; there had been a hospital-it was now 
destroyed, they maintained stoutly, and added that it was 
clearly marked with the red cross; apart from that they 
had no information. 
But suddenly, from other sources, a flood of detail began 
to reach us. There was an Abyssinian servant who had been 
treated there two years ago for a pain in his leg by a great 
number of American doctors and nurses; the hospital was 
a fine building in the centre of the town. 
There was a Greek who knew the place well. It was 
managed by Swedes and lay at a short distance along the 
Adigrat road. 
There was a Swiss architect and government contractor 
-a jolly fellow, married to a half-caste; he was responsible 
for most of the ugliest of the recent public buildings-who 
was able to give Patrick confidential but absolutely authentic 



A WAR IN 1935 '295 
information about the nurse who had been killed; she was 
of Swedish birth but American nationality; she had been 
blown to bits. He had heard all about it on the telephone 
from a friend on the spot. 
The most circumstantial story came from an American 
negro who was employed as aviator by the Ethiopian 
government. I met him at his tailor's on the Saturday 
morning, ordering a fine new uniform. He had been at 
Adowa, he claimed, at the time of the bombardment. More 
than this, he had been in the hospital. More than this, he 
had been drinking cocoa with the nurse five minutes before 
her death. She was a handsome lady, thirty-two years old, 
five foot five in height. They had been sitting in the hospital 
-clearly marked by the red cross-when the first bomb 
had fallen. The airman's first thought, he said, was for the 
safety of his machine, which was lying a mile outside the 
town. Except for himself and the doctor there were no 
other men in the town. It was populated solely by women 
and children. He had lain near his aeroplane for some 
hours while the bombs fell. The Italians had flown very 
badly, he said, and bombed most erratically ("Mr. Waugh, 
do you realise, 1 might have been killed myself?"). Eventu- 
ally he had returned to see the place demolished and the 
nurse dead. He had then flown back to Addis, where the 
Em peror had been deeply moved by his story. 
Cables were soon arriving from London and New York: 
"Require earliest name life story photograph American nurse 
upblown Adowa." We replied "Nurse unupblown," and 
after a few days she disappeared from the news. 
We still believed that the railway was doomed. On 
Tuesday the 8th "positively the last" train left for Djibouti. 
There was something very like a riot at the station as frantic 
refugees attempted to board it, and the station police locked 
out legitimate passengers who had reserved their places. 
For the first time the scene approximated to the descrip- 
tions which, as early as August, had been filling the world's 
Press. It was now too late to be of interest-another example 
of the inverted time lag between the event and its publica- 
tion which marked all our professional efforts in the country. 



296 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
The camera men were even more unhappily placed than 
the correspondents. Their apparatus rendered them con- 
spicuous and most of the native soldiers had an exaggerated 
idea of the value which their portraits might be to the 
enemy. The cinema companies in particular had invested 
huge sums in their expeditions and were getting very little 
in return for it. 
One group of cinema men purchased the goodwill of 
a chief who was encamped with his men in the hills behind 
Addis and were able to stage some fairly effective charades 
of active service. Later at Dessye the "Ethiopian Red 
Cross" lent itself to a vivid imposture, staging a scene of 
their own heroic services under fire, with iodine to counter- 
feit blood and fireworks and flares for a bombardment. One 
prominent photographer had brought out with him a set 
of small bombs which he was able to discharge from his 
position at the camera by means of an electric cable. He 
had some difficulty eXplaining them at the French customs 
and I do not know if they were ever used. Those who had 
worked during the Chinese wars-where, it seemed, whole 
army corps could be hired cheaply by the day and even, 
at a special price, decimated with real gunfire-complained 
bitterly of the standard of Abyssinian venality. 
The white population of the town pursued their normal 
routine. Mme. Moriatis showed signs of despair, spoke 
daily of a massacre, and tried to persuade her husband to 
pack up. One evening when she was showing a French 
version of Peg 0' My Heart, her cinema was visited by the 
picturesque retinue of one of the provincial magnates, who 
came with women, bodyguard and two half-grown lions 
who were left on the steps in charge of his slaves. The 
brief run on the bank came to an end. The thaler went up 
in value; the engine drivers of the railway did a brisk trade 
in smuggling silver. Various statesmen and warriors re- 
turned from exile and were reconciled to the Emperor. 
The French population organised itself in a defence corps. 
Issa tribesmen shot down an Italian aeroplane and hid for 
days, not knowing if they had done well or ill. An Egyptian 
prince arrived to establish a Red Crescent hospital. The 



A WAR 1 N I 935 '297 
Yemen Arabs were reported to be active. We eked out our 
despatches with such small items of news. Already some 
correspondents began to talk of leaving, and the most 
distinguished veteran actually left. The rest of us centred 
all our hopes on the long-deferred trip to Dessye. Various 
dates-the anniversary of his accession, St. George's Day 
-were suggested as the time of the Emperor's departure. 


At the beginning of November the long-awaited per- 
mission to go to Dessye was at last granted. Enthusiasm 
for the trip simultaneously began to wane. It was said 
that the Emperor would not in fact go there; that it was 
a ruse to get the pressmen under close observation and out 
of harm's way; that there would be no wireless facilities; 
that the big southern campaign would begin in our absence. 
In the end only a small number of those who had been 
clamouring for permission decided to avail themselves of 
it. The Radical was among them, and he and I agreed to 
travel together. 
As soon as this was known we became a centre of interest. 
All the boys at the Deutsches Haus, and the girl of no fixed 
occupation who pottered about the outbuildings, giggling, 
and occasionally appeared in the bedrooms with a broom, 
applied to accompany us. A saturnine Syrian, named Mr. 
Karam, who had lately formed the habit of waylaying me 
on Sunday mornings after Mass and asking me to drink 
coffee with him, offered to sell us a motor lorry. The trouble 
about this lorry was that it did not in fact belong to Mr. 
Karam. He had secured an option on it from a fellow Syrian 
and hoped to resell it at a profit. This was not clear until 
later, when he suffered great embarrassment about the 
spare parts. We said we would not take the lorry until it 
was fully equipped; he promised to equip it as soon as the 
agreement was signed. It was only when we went with him 
to the store that we discovered that he could not get the 
spare parts on credit, and could not pay for them until we 
had paid him an instalment of the price. There was a f\;lrther 
embarrassment. We demanded a trial run up Entoto to 
test the engine. He could not get the petrol for the trip. 
In the end we filled up the tanks. James, my interpreter, 



298 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
who was not getting the rake-off he expected and had 
consequently taken up a suspicious attitude to Mr. Karam, 
reported in triumph next morning that Mr. Karam had 
hired out the lorry to a building contractor and was con- 
suming our petrol. Poor Mr. Karam was merely trying to 
raise the money for a new tyre. In the end we hired the 
machine for a month, at what I suspect was very near its 
full purchase price. From that moment Mr. Karam was 
obsessed by anxiety that we would make off with his lorry. 
He hung about the garage, where a gang was at work 
enhancing its value with a covered top and built-in boxes 
for petrol cans, pathetically canvassing our signatures to 
bits of paper on which we guaranteed not to drive beyond 
Dessye. It happened that the various agreements were 
made out in my name. When, a month later, the Radical 
and I separated and I returned to Addis Ababa in another 
car, poor Mr. Karam's suspicions became feverish. He was 
convinced that there had been a plot against him and that 
the Radical had deserted with his lorry to the Italians. 
With James's help we got together a suitable staff for 
the journey. He and my own boy, an Abyssinian, had long 
been at enmity. In the hiring of the servants they frequently 
came to tears. The most important man was the cook. We 
secured one who looked, and as it turned out was, all that 
a cook should be. A fat, flabby Abyssinian with reproachful 
eyes. His chief claim to interest was that his former master, 
a German, had been murdered and dismembered in the 
Issa country. I asked him why he had done nothing to 
, protect him. "Moi,}e ne suis pas soldat, suis cuisinier, vous 
savez." That seemed a praiseworthy attitude, so I engaged 
him. He suffered a great deal from the privations of the 
journey and cried with cold most evenings, the tears splash- 
ing and sizzling among the embers of his fire, but he cooked 
excellently, with an aptitude for producing four or five 
courses from a single blackened pan over a handful of 
smoking twigs. 
The chauffeur seemed to be suitable until we gave him 
a fortnight's wages in advance to buy a blanket. Instead he 
bought cartridges and fed}, shot up the bazaar quarter and 
was put in chains. So we engaged a Harari instead who 



A WAR IN 1935 299 
formed a Moslem alliance with James against the other 
servants. The Radical and I found ourselves in almost 
continuous session as a court of arbitration. A cook's boy 
and chauffeur's boy completed the party. We had brought 
camping equipment and a fair quantity of stores from 
England; we supplemented these with flour, potatoes, 
sugar and rice from the local market; our Press cards were 
officially endorsed for the journey; our servants had been 
photographed and provided with special passes; and by 
November 13th, the day announced by the Press Bureau 
for our departure, everything was ready. 
Rumours came back that there were disturbances on the 
Dessye road. Part of it ran through the fringe of the Danakil 
country and these unamiable people had been resorting to 
their traditional sport of murdering runners and stragglers 
from the Abyssinian forces; there had also been sharp 
fighting between the Imperial Guard and the irregular 
troops, causing a number of casualties which reached us 
in a highly exaggerated form. A Canadian journalist who 
had arranged to start a week earlier with a caravan of mules 
had his permission cancelled abruptly and without explana- 
tion. David and Lorenzo refused to commit themselves; 
both were unapproachable for the two days preceding the 
13th, but on the night of the 12th no official announce- 
ment had been made of postponement, our passes were in 
order, and the Radical and I decided to see how far we 
could get. At the best we might arrive before the road had 
been cleared of traces of the recent troubles; at the worst 
it would be an interesting experiment with Ethiopian 
government methods. The correspondent of the Morning 
Post decided to join us. 
Most of the loading was done on the day before. That 
night we kept the lorry in the road outside the Deutsches 
Haus and put two boys to sleep in it. We meant to start 
at dawn, but, just as we were ready, James accused the cook 
of peculation, the Abyssinians refused to be driven by a 
Harari, and my personal boy burst into tears. I think they 
had spent the evening saying goodbye to their friends and 
were suffering from hangovers. The only two who kept 
their composure were those who had guarded the lorry. 



300 w HEN THE GO IN G WAS GOO D 
It was nearly nine before everyone's honour was satisfied. 
The streets were then crowded and our lorry, painted with 
the names of our papers and flying the Union Jack, made 
a conspicuous object. We drove past the Press Bureau, 
glancing to see that there was no notice on the door. We 
let down the side curtains, and the three whites lay low 
among the cases of stores hoping that we should pass as 
a government transport. 
For nearly an hour we sprawled under cover in extreme 
discomfort as the heavily laden lorry jolted and lurched 
along the rough track. Then James told us that all was 
clear. We sat up, tied back the curtains, and found we were 
in open country. Addis was out of sight; a few eucalyptus 
trees on the horizon behind us marked the extreme of urban 
expansion, before us lay a smooth grassy plain and the road, 
sometimes worn bare, scarred by ruts and hoof marks, 
sometimes discernible only by the boulders that had been 
distributed along it at intervals to trace its course. There 
was brilliant sunshine and a cool breeze. The boys at the 
back began to unwrap their bundles of luggage and con- 
sume large quantities of an aromatic spiced paste. An air 
of general good humour had succeeded the irritation of 
early morning. 
We drove on for five or six hours without a stop. The 
way was easy. Galla girls came out to wave to us, tossing 
their bundles of plaited hair. The men bowed low, three 
times; no one had travelled by car on that road for many 
months except Abyssinian officials or officers, and they 
had learned to associate motor traffic with authority. 
After the first twenty miles we found soldiers every- 
where. Some at noon, still encamped; others wandering 
along in companies of a dozen; some with mules to carry 
their loads, some with women. These were stragglers from 
Ras Getatchu's army which had gone through Addis a 
week before. 
The road turned and wandered, following the lie of the 
ground; every now and then we ran across the line of the 
telephone, a double overhead wire running straight across 
country. This, we knew, constituted our danger. 
The first telephone station was named Koromach. We 



A WAR I N I 9 3 5 30 I 
reached it at three o'clock. A uniformed Abyssinian stood 
across the road signalling us to stop. James and the Harari 
were all for running him down; we restrained their enthu- 
siasm and climbed out of our places. The office was a small, 
lightless tukal a hundred yards or so off the road. There 
were twenty or thirty irregular soldiers there, squatting on 
their heels with rifles across their knees, and a chief in a 
new khaki uniform. By means of James the telephone officer 
eXplained that he had received an order from Addis to stop 
two car loads of white men travelling without permits. This 
constituted the strong point of our argument, for we were 
clearly only one car load and we had our permits; we showed 
them to him. He took them away into a corner and studied 
them at length; yes, he admitted, we had our permits. He 
showed them to the chief and the two sat for some time in 
colloquy. "The chief is a good man," said James. "The 
telephone man very bad man. He is saying we are not to 
go on. The chief says we have permission and he will not 
" 
stop us. 
Since the man in charge of the guns was on our side, 
we took a more arrogant line. What proof had the clerk 
that he had received a message at all? How did he know 
who was speaking? How did he know the message, if 
message there was, referred to us? Here were we being 
held up in our lawful business by the hearsay statement of 
the telephone. It was evident that the chief really distrusted 
the telephone. A piece of writing on a printed card had 
more weight with him than a noise coming out of a hole 
in the wall. At this stage of the discussion James left us 
and disappeared into the lorry. He returned a moment 
later with a bottle of whiskey and a mug. We gave the chief 
a good half-pint of neat spirit. He tossed it off, blinked 
a little, and apologised for the delay we had been caused; 
then he conducted us, with his men, to the lorry and, the 
telephone man still protesting, waved us a cordial farewell. 
We had been held up for half an hour. It got dark soon 
after six, so, since we had as yet had no practice in making 
camp, after an hour and a half's further drive, we turned 
otf the track and stopped for the night under the lee of 
a small hill. 



302 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
It was deadly cold. None of us slept much that night. 
I could hear the boys shivering and chattering round the 
fire whenever I woke. An hour before dawn we rose, break- 
fasted and struck camp under a blaze of stars. With the 
first sign of the sun we were on the road. Our hope was to 
get through Debra Birhan before the Gebbi officials at 
Addis were awake to warn them of our approach. Debra 
Birhan was about three hours' drive away. It was the last 
telephone station on the road. Once past that the way lay 
clear to Dessye. 
We were out of Galla country now and among true 
Abyssinians, but this part was sparsely populated and 
many of the farms had been left empty by their owners 
who were marching to the front. There were fields of 
maize here and there, standing high on either side of the 
road, many of them showing where they had been trampled 
down by passing soldiers; the track was tolerably level and 
we made good time. When we were a couple of miles from 
Debra Birhan, James warned us that it was time to hide. 
We drew the curtains, lay down as before and covered 
ourselves as well as we could with sacks and baggage. 
It seemed a very long two miles and we had begun to 
believe that we were safely past the station when the lorry 
came to a halt and we heard a loud altercation going on 
all round us. We still lay low, hoping that James would 
bluff our way through, but after about five minutes his 
head appeared through the curtain. It was no good; rather 
shamefacedly we crept out of hiding. We found ourselves 
on the green of a large village. On one side stood the church 
of considerable size from which the place took its name. 
Next to it was the Governor's compound and courthouse; 
on all sides irregular clusters of huts; some sizeable trees; 
a pretty place. A less agreeable prospect was the collection 
of soldiers who surrounded us. They were the crocks left 
behind when the young men went to the war. They were 
ragged and dilapidated, some armed with spears but most 
of them with antiquated guns. "I am sorry to disturb you," 
said James politely, "but these people wished to shoot us." 
In the centre stood the mayor-a typical Abyssinian 
squireen, tall, very fat, one-eyed. It was not clear at first 



A WAR I N I 9 3 5 303 
whether he was disposed to be friendly; we tried him with 
whiskey, but he said he was fasting-a bad sign. 
He said he had received a message to stop us. We told 
him we had heard that story before at Koromach; we had 
cleared the whole matter up there. It was a mistake. We 
showed him our permits. Yes, he admitted, they were quite 
in order. He must just make a note of our names and write 
a letter of commendation for us to the other chiefs on the 
road; would we come with him to Government House. 
It sounded hopeful, but James added to his interpreta- 
tion, "I think, sir, that this is a liar-man." 
A leper woman had now joined the party; together we 
all sauntered across the green to the mayor's compound. 
The main building was a rectangular, murky hut. We 
went inside. The telephone operator was not well that 
day; he lay on his bed in the darkest corner. The chief of 
police sat by his side: a toothless little old man with an 
absurd military cap on the side of his head. These three 
talked at some length about us. "They do not want to let 
us go, but they are a little afraid," said J ames. "You must 
pretend to be angry." We pretended to be angry. "They 
are very afraid," said James. 
The argument followed much the same course as yester- 
day's, but the one-eyed mayor was much less impressed by 
our written permits. First he affected not to be able to read 
them; then he complained that the signature looked fishy; 
then he said that although we had indeed permission to go 
to Dessye we had neglected to get permission to leave 
Addis Ababa. It was a mere formality, he said; we had 
better go back and do it. 
Then we made a false step. We proposed that he should 
do this for us by telephone. He jumped at the suggestion. 
It was exactly what he would do. Only it would take some 
time. It was unsuitable that people of our eminence should 
stand about in the sun. Why did we not pitch a tent and 
rest? His men would help us. 
If we had gone on being angry we might still have got 
through; instead we weakly assented, pitched a tent and 
sat down to smoke. After an hour I sent James to enquire 
how things were getting on. He came back to say that no 



304 w HEN THE GO I N G WAS GOO D 
attempt was being made to telephone to Addis. We must 
come back and be angry again. 
We found the chief holding a court, his single, beady 
eye fixed upon a group of litigants who at a few inches' 
distance from him were pleading their case with all the 
frantic energy common in Abyssinian suits. He was not at 
all p1eased at being disturbed. He was a great man, he 
said. We said we were great men too. He said that the 
telephone operator was far from well, that the line was 
engaged, that the Gebbi was empty, that it was a fast day, 
that it was dinner-time, that it was late, that it was early, 
that he was in the middle of important public business, 
that James was offensive and untruthful and was not trat.s- 
lating what he said and what we said, but instead, was try- 
ing to make a quarrel of a simple matter which admitted 
of only one solution, that we should wait until the after- 
noon and then come and see him again. 
I do not know what James said, but the result was an 
adjournment of the court and a visit to the telephone hut, 
where the chief of po1ice demonstrated, by twirling the 
handle, that the machine was out of order. We wrote out 
a telegram to Lorenzo protesting in the customary terms 
of the Foreign Press Association that we were being un- 
justly held prisoner in defiance of his own explicit permis- 
sion to proceed. We had little hope of moving Lorenzo; 
we thought it might impress the mayor. "They are 'Very 
frightened," said James. But they proceeded to their 
luncheon with the utmost composure and our message 
remained in the hands of the bedriddeh and now, ap- 
parently, moribund telephonist. "They are too frightened 
to send it," said James, trying to put an honourable com- 
plexion on the affair. 
When we returned to our tent we found that, in our 
absence, the entire male and female labour of the village 
had been recruited and a barricade built of stones and tree 
trunks across the front of the lorry. Walking a little way 
back along the road we had come, we found another barri- 
cade. Any hopes which we might have entertained of the 
mayor's goodwill were now dispelled. 
The afternoon passed in a series of fruitless negotiations. 



A WAR I N 1935 305 
The chief would not send our message to Lorenzo, nor 
subsequent messages which we wrote to other officials. We 
tried to get him to endorse them with a note that they had 
been presented and refused. That was no good. We made 
up our minds to spending the night at Debra Birhan and 
pitched the other tents. 
Our sudden docility disconcerted the chief and for the 
first time he showed some sign of the fears which James 
had attributed to him. He clearly feared that we intended 
to make a sortie by night. To prevent this he tried to 
separate us from the lorry; he and the chief of police came 
waddling down at the head of their guard-now reinforced 
by the village idiot, a stark-naked fellow who loped and 
gibbered among them until they drove him away with 
stones, when he squatted out of range and spent the rest 
of the day gesticulating at them obscenely. They said that 
we had chosen a very cold and dangerous camping ground. 
We might be attacked by robbers or lions; the tents might 
be blown down; would we not prefer to move to a more 
sheltered place? We replied that if they had been solicitous 
of our comfort earlier, we could no doubt have found a 
better camping ground on the road to Dessye. 
Later they tried a stupendous lie. The Emperor was on 
the telephone, they said; he had rung up to say that ten 
lorry loads of journalists were on the way to join us; would 
we mind waiting for them until to-morrow morning, when 
we could all travel together? 
Finally, to make things certain, they set a guard round 
us; not a mere posse of sentries but the whole village, leper, 
idiot, police chief and the mayor himself. The latter pitched 
a tent a few paces from us; a ramshackle square thing which 
to the loud derision of our boys, who were enjoying the 
situation to the full, blew down twice. The others squatted 
with spears and rifles in a circle all round us. It was a bitterly 
cold night. By dawn they looked frozen. We breakfasted, 
struck camp, loaded the lorry and waited. At eight the chief 
came to say that we must go back. The barrier behind us 
was removed. We climbed into the lorry. Even now the 
chief feared a sudden dash for Dessye; he drew up his men 
across the road with their rifles ready. The chief of police 



306 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
spoiled the gravity of the defence by trotting forward and 
asking us to take his photograph. Then, in a cheerful mood, 
we drove back to Addis Ababa, which with some rather 
ruthless driving we made before nightfall. 
Our little trip had caused a mild scandal. As soon as it 
became known we had gone, officials from the Press Bureau 
had trotted round all the hotels with typewritten notices, 
dated the day before, saying that leave for Dessye was 
indefinitely postponed. A stout barricade and a military 
post were set up on the road out of Addis. The French 
journalists had lodged a formal protest that preferential 
treatment was being given us; Belattingetta Herui an- 
nounced that we were enjoying a little holiday in camp five 
miles outside the capital; an American journalist cabled 
home that we were in chains. Mr. Karam hung round us 
rather tentatively offering a bill for ten pounds; the return 
trip to Debra Birhan, he claimed, had not been specified 
in our original contract. We had missed no news of import- 
ance and had picked up through James, who had earned 
the esteem of one of our guards with the present of six 
matches, some interesting details of the Danakil raids and 
inter-regimental fighting near Dessye. On the whole it 
had been an enjoyable excursion. 


Two days after our return general permission for Dessye 
was again issued, this time in earnest. In the end it was 
a scratch caravan which set out for Dessye. The Radical, 
the Daily Express correspondent and I were the only regular 
English journalists; an American preacher, a free-lance 
communist, and an unemployed German Jew deputised 
for more august principals. Only the cinema companies 
travelled impressively. 
There was no possible advantage to be gained by priority, 
but habitual competition had by now unbalanced many, 
so that some lorries made a race of it. The adolescent 
Canadian far outdistanced the rest of the field and arrived 
in Dessye a day ahead; I believe that on his return he was 
accorded a civic reception in his home-town for this feat. 
Others preferred a more leisurely journey; stopped to fish 
and shoot on the way and compose descriptions of the 



A WAR I N I 9 3 5 307 
scenery, which, a few hours after Debra Birhan, became 
varied and magnificent. 
Early in the afternoon of the second day we came sud- 
denly and without warning-for the road was recent and 
not yet marked on any published map-upon an enormous 
escarpment, a rocky precipice open before our wheels; far 
below lay a broad valley, richly cultivated and studded with 
small hemispherical hills, each crowned with a church or 
a cluster of huts. Down this awful cliff the track fell in 
a multitude of hairpin bends; surveyed from above the 
gradient seemed, in places, almost perpendicular; there 
was barely clearance for the wheels; on the off-side the edge 
crumbled away into space; at the corners the road was 
sharply inclined in the wrong direction. Our Harari driver 
gave a sigh of despair. Straight down the face of the cliff 
transecting the road at each turn led a precipitous foot- 
path. Ostensibly to lighten the truck, actually because we 
were thoroughly scared, the Radical and I decided to go 
down on foot. It was a stiff descent; with every step the 
air became warmer as though we were scrambling across 
the seasons. When we reached more tolerable ground we 
waited for the lorry, which presently arrived, the driver 
speechless but triumphant. All that night, James reported, 
he was talking in his sleep about braking and reversing. 
We found a warm and sheltered camping place a few 
miles from the foot of the escarpment, and here, shortly 
before sundown, we were visited by heralds from the local 
governor, Dedjasmach Matafara, who was living near by 
in temporary quarters, to ask us our business. I'sent James 
to eXplain. He returned rather drunk to say that the Ded- 
jasmach was "very gentleman." He was accompanied by 
slaves bearing a present of tedj, native bread and a young 
sheep; also an invitation to breakfast the next morning. 
The Dedjasmach was a very old man, a veteran of the 
first battle of Adowa, corpulent, ponderous in his move- 
ments, with unusually dark skin and a fine white beard. 
He occupied a series of huts behind a well-made stockade. 
There was a circular tukal where he slept and where, on 
our arrival, he was completing his toilet; there was a larger, 
square building for eating and the transaction of business, 



308 w HEN THE GO I N G WAS GOO D 
a cook-house, women's and soldiers' quarters, and in the 
centre an open space, part farmyard and part barrack 
square. Soldiers, slaves and priests thronged the place, 
disputing it with cattle and poultry. 
The Dedjasmach greeted us with great politeness and 
dignity, slipped on a pair of elastic-sided boots and led us 
across to the dining-room. The preparations were simple. 
One of the sheets was taken from the Dedjasmach's bed 
and stretched across the centre of the hut to shield us from 
public view; behind it, in almost complete darkness, a low 
wicker table was laid with piles of native bread. The Radical 
and I, the Dedjasmach and two priests, sat down at little 
stools. James stood beside us. Two women slaves stood 
with horsehair whisks, fanning away the flies. Abyssinian 
bread is made in thin, spongy discs. It is used very con- 
veniently as both plate a:nd spoon. The curry-a fiery but 
rather delicious dish which forms the staple food of those 
who can afford it-is ladled out into the centre of the bread; 
morsels are then wrapped up in pieces torn from the edge 
and put into the mouth. The Dedjasmach courteously 
helped us to tit-bits from his own pile. Other slaves brought 
us horn mugs of tedj-a heavy drink at eight in the morn- 
ing. Conversation was intermittent and rather laborious; 
it consisted chiefly of questions addressed to us by our host 
and the priests. They asked us our ages, whether we were 
married, how many children. One of the priests recorded 
this information in a little exercise book. The Dedjasmach 
said he loved the English because he knew that they too 
hated the Italians. The Italians were a poor sort of people, 
he said; one of his friends had killed forty of them, one 
after the other, with his sword. He asked us if we knew 
General Harrington; he had been a good man; was he still 
alive? Then he returned to the question of the Italians. 
They did not like the smell of blood, he said; when they 
smelled blood they were afraid; when an Abyssinian smelled 
blood he became doubly brave; that was why the sword 
was better than the gun. 
Besides, he said, the Italians disliked fighting so much 
they had to be given food free before they would do it; he 
knew this for a fact; he had seen it himself forty years ago; 



A WAR I N I 9 3 5 309 
they had great carts loaded with food and wine to persuade 
the men to fight; Abyssinians scorned that; each man 
brought his own rations and, if he had one, his own mule. 
Water was brought for us to bathe our hands; then little 
cups of bitter coffee. Finally we made our adieux. He asked 
us to take two soldiers with us to Dessye. Slightly drunk, 
we stepped out into the brilliant morning sunshine. One 
of the soldiers who was accompanying us had to sell his 
mule before he could start. At last the transaction was 
complete. He bundled in at the back with the boys; we 
were saved the embarrassment of the second by the arrival, 
just as we were starting, of a French journalist. We told 
him that the Dedjasmach had sent the soldier for him and 
he accepted the man gratefully. 
Then we resumed the journey. 
It had been more than a pleasant interlude; it had been 
a glimpse of the age-old, traditional order that still survived, 
gracious and sturdy, out of sight beyond the brass bands 
and bunting, the topees and humane humbug of Tafari's 
regime; of an order doomed to destruction. Whatever the 
outcome of the war: mandate or conquest or inter- 
nationally promoted native reform-whatever resulted at 
Geneva or Rome or Addis Ababa, Dedjasmach Matafara 
and all he stood for was bound to disappear. But we were 
pleased to have seen it and touched hands across the 
centuries with the court of Prester John. 


On a later day we passed an army-Dedjasmach 
Bayana's, which had left Addis fourteen days before; 
they had found a sugar plantation, and every man was 
sucking a cane as he shambled along; Bayana himself 
maintained the same pomp as when he had paraded before 
the Emperor; he rode under a black umbrella, surrounded 
by his domestic slaves and led-mules still adorned with 
their ceremonial trappings; a team of women followed 
him carrying jars of tedj under crimson cotton veils. We 
passed through belts of forest, full of birds and game and 
monkeys and brilliant flowers. On the fourth day Dessye 
lying high up in a cup in the mountains t surrounded on all 
sides by hills. 



310 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
It is a place of recent creation; an Abyssinian military 
outpost in the Mohammedan Wollo country. In appear- 
ance it was very much like a miniature of Addis Ababa- 
the same eucalyptus trees, the same single shopping street, 
the same tin roofs, a Gebbi built on an eminence dominating 
the town. The inhabitants were Abyssinian squatters; the 
Wollo Gallas came in for the weekly market but lived in 
the villages. 
The place was full of soldiers; a detachment of the 
Imperial Guard was quartered in the grounds of the Italian 
consulate; the irregulars slept in a ring of encampments 
along the surrounding hillside. They came into town at 
dawn and remained until sunset, drinking, quarrelling and 
sauntering about the streets; more were arriving daily and 
the congestion was becoming perilous. The chiefs were 
under orders to leave for the front, but they hung on, 
saying that they would not move until the Emperor led 
them in person. 
We reported to the mayor, a stocky, bearded figure who 
had disgraced himself in London and now happily com- 
promised in his costume between the new and old regimes 
by wearing beard and cloak of 'a traditional cut and, below 
them, shorts and red and white ringed football stockings. 
He passed us on to the chief of police, who, that afternoon, 
was tipsy. Eventually we found a camping ground for 
ourselves. 


For so many weeks now Dessye had been our goal- 
a promised land sometimes glimpsed from afar, sometimes 
impenetrably obscured, sometimes seen in a mirage a stone's 
throwaway in crystal detail, always elusive, provocative, 
desirable-that its pursuit had become an end in itself. 
Now that, at length, we found ourselves actually there, 
when the tents were pitched and the stores unpacked and 
all round us a village of tents had sprung up, we began to 
wonder what precisely we had gained by the journey. We 
were two hundred or so miles nearer the Italians, but for 
any contact we had with the battle-field or information 
about what was happening, we were worse off than at 
Addis Ababa. A field wireless had been established on the 



A WAR IN 1935 311 
hillside a mile out of the town. Here we all hurried to 
enquire about facilities and were told, to our surprise, that 
messages of any length might be sent. At Addis there had 
been a limit of two hundred words. All messages from 
Dessye had to be retransmitted from Addis. It seemed 
odd, but we were used to unaccountable happenings. That 
evening all over the camp typewriters were tapping as the 
journalists spread themselves over five hundred, eight 
hundred, a thousand words messages describing the perils 
of the journey. Two days later we were cheerfully informed 
that none of the messages had been sent, that no more could 
be accepted until further notIce, that when the station 
reopened there would be a limit of fifty words and a rigid 
censorship. So there, for the time being, our professional 
activities ended. 
A week passed in complete idleness. The Emperor's 
arrival was daily predicted and daily postponed. Lij Yasu 
died, and James, who had been dining with Mohammedan 
friends in the town, and drinking in Christian fashion, 
returned in a high state of excitement to say that the 
Emperor would be murdered if he attempted to show 
himself among the W 0110 Gallas. 
The native members of the "Ethiopian Red Cross" had 
a beano, stripped to the skin and danced round the tent of 
their American officer, who had only that evening moved 
his quarters to avoid contamination from his more worldly 
Irish colleagues. 
The governing Dedjasmach made a strenuous and partly 
successful attempt to get some of the soldiers to the front. 
He organised a parade, and himself at their head, drums 
beating and bugles playing, led them Pied-Piper fashion 
up the Makale road, returning by himself after dark to the 
more agreeable accommodation of his own bedroom. 
Relieved of the itch to cable, the journalists displayed 
amiable characteristics which they had hitherto concealed. 
We became house proud; the Radical and I set a popular 
vogue by erecting the first latrine. Mr. Prospero contrived 
an arc-light. We began to entertain and competed mildly 
in kitchen and service. Except for a Finnish misanthrope 
who maintained a front of unbroken hostility-and later 



312 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
on his return to Addis indulged in litigation at the American 
consular court against a colleague who punched him-the 
grimmest characters seemed to grow soft in idleness. On 
November 28th there was a Thanksgiving Dinner, attended 
by all except the Finn, and after it a drinking competition 
won-dishonestly we discovered later-by one of the 
Irishmen. 
Next day it was announced officially that the Emperor 
was on the road, and on the 30th he arrived. The soldiers 
waited for him all day, squatting along the route, reeling 
and jostling about the streets. They had been surly and 
hostile for some days; now, exhilarated at the prospect of 
the Emperor's arrival, they became menacing, held up the 
cars of the cinema men, scowled and jeered through the 
heat of the day; then, towards evening, as it became cold, 
crowded shivering and morose. The royal mules in brilliant 
saddle cloths waited to take the Emperor on the last stage 
of his journey, up the hill to the Crown Prince's Gebbi, 
but the sun went down, the crowds began to melt away 
and the photographers were again deprived of a picturesque 
shot. At length he arrived, unobtrusively, in the darkness. 
From now on Dessye became his headquarters; in the new 
year he moved north; he was not to see Addis again until 
he arrived in the spring, in flight to the coast. 
There was no mistaking the sincerity of the Court's 
optimism; three weeks before they had professed the same 
confidence but in a strained and anxious fashion; now, 
reverting to the simpler habits of their upbringing, they 
were openly jubilant. 
The Emperor came to visit the American hospital. The 
wards were fairly full, but not with war wounded; there 
were several venereal cases and some of influenza contracted 
on the journey up (the Imperial Guard seemed to be of 
lower stamina than the irregular troops); there were a few 
soldiers who had deserted from Eritrea and got badly cut 
up by a company of Abyssinian troops deserting in the 
opposite direction; but there were no heroes upon whom 
the Emperor could suitably manifest his sympathy. In 
order to show the equipment of the hospital at its best 
advantage the doctors staged an operation-the amputation 



A WAR IN 1935 313 
of a gangrened stump of arm. Emperor, Court and journa- 
lists crowded into the theatre; the photographers and 
cinema men took their shots. The Emperor asked, "And 
where did this gallant man lose his hand?" 
"Here in Dessye. The Dedjasmach had it cut off for 
stealing two besas worth of corn." 


Meanwhile in Europe and America the editors and film 
magnates had begun to lose patience. They had spent large 
sums _ of money on the Abyssinian war and were getting 
very little in return; several journalists had already been 
recalled; the largest cinema company was beginning to 
pack up; now a general retreat began. I received my dis- 
missal by cable on the day after the Emperor's arrival. For 
a few hours I considered staying on independently. That 
had been my original intention, but now the prospect 
seemed un endurably dismal. I had long wanted to spend 
Christmas at Bethlehem. This was the opportunity. 
There was a car travelling to Addis Ababa on Red Cross 
busine
s in which I was able, illegally, to purchase a seat. 
We had to start before dawn in order to avoid notice from 
the Red Cross authorities. James cried. It was an unevent- 
ful journey. The German driver-an adventurous young 
airman who had come to look for good fortune after serving 
in the Paraguayan war-kept a rifle across the wheel and 
inflicted slight wounds on the passing fauna at point-blank 
range. 
Addis was dead. With the Emperor's departure the 
public services had settled into the accustomed coma. The 
bars were open but empty. A handful of journalists from 
the south were packing up to return to England. The 
mystery men had faded away. 
After a few days I got down to Djibouti. At Dirre-Dowa 
the French garrison were firmly entrenched; half the town 
was a French fort. Djibouti was still crowded, still panicky. 
There were a number of journalists there reporting the war 
at leisure from their imaginations. Soon after I left, some 
bombs had been dropped on Dessye and the chief excite- 
ment of Djibouti centred on a race to get the films of them 
back to Europe. Weeks later in Devon I saw them on the 



314 WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD 
news reel. It was difficult to recapture the excitement, 
secrecy and competition that had attended their despatch. 
News of the Hoare-Laval proposals reached us in the 
Red Sea; at Port Said we heard of their reception. Next 
day I was in Jerusalem and visited the Abyssinian monks, 
perched in their little African village on the roof of the 
Holy Sepulchre; Christmas morning in Bethlehem; desert 
and ruined castles in Transjordan; like the rest of the world 
I began to forget about Abyssinia. 



ABU SERGH, Church of, 45, 46 
Abyssinia (see Ethiopia), 9, 10, 
79-144, 122, 133, 138, 152, 
162, 172, 191,260, 263-314 
Addis Ababa, 82, 83, 85, 86, 89- 
110, 112, 118, 125, 129, 136, 
137, 140, 15I, 158, 262-3° 0 , 
302-4, 306, 3°9-14 
Aden, 48, 81, 133, 145-57, 159, 
160, 163, 164, 166 
Adigrat, 292, 294 
Adowa, 292, 294, 295, 307 
h:gean Sea, 57 
Afdem, 88 
Africa, 82, 130, 134, 162, 164, 
172, 173, 180, 21 9,262 
Agame, Province of, 292 
Akaki, 89 
Albertville, 170, 179, 183, 18 7, 
19° 
Alexandria, 30, 46, 12 4, 13 3 
Algiers, 70-2 
Amazonas, 22 I 
Amazon, River, 200, 246 
America, 81, 264, 28 5, 313 
Anai, 227 
Antigua, 19 8 , 199 
Arabia, 160, 162 
Arctic, 10 
Assab, 277, 288 
Athens, 61-7 
Atlantic Ocean, 45, 73 
Aussa, 276 
Avignon, 103 


BAGHDAD, 26 
Barbados, 198 
Barcelona, I 8 
Bartika, 203, 219 
Berbera, 162 
Berbice, River, 200, 208 
Berlin Zoo, 174 
Bethlehem, 4 6 , 31 3, 3 14 


INDEX 


Biscay, Bay of, 76 
Black Sea, 57 
Blue Nile, River, 82, 114 
Boa Vista, 221, 236-9, 241-59 
Bognor Regis, 151 
Boma, 170 
Bombay, 146 
Bon Success, 221, 236 
Bordeaux, 270 
Bosphorus Sea, 60 
Brazil, 197, 202, 236, 238 
British Guiana, 202, 236 
British Isles, 167 
British Somaliland, 81, 282 
Bukama, 190-3 
Bulawayo, 185, 194- 


CAIRO, 28, 30, 36-9, 47, 4 8 , 51, 
70,80, II I, 268 
Calais, 9 
Cambridge, 153 
Cana of Galilee, 26 
Candia, 55 
Cape Finisterre, 76 
Cape of Good Hope, 178 
Cape Paragia, 55 
Cape Town, 194, 195 
Caribbean Sea, 200 
Carthage, 241 
Catania, 24 
Cayenne 244 
Ceylon, I I 5 
China, 80 
Chossus, 56 
Congo, 135, 144, 154, 170, 182, 
188, 194 
Constantinople, 58, 59, 62, 166 
Corfu, 67, 68 
Corin th Canal, 67 
Courantyne, River, 200, 236 
Crater Town, 146-8 
Crete, 5 5 
Cuba, 225 
Cyclades, 57 



3 16 


DADANAWA,254- 6 ,25 8 
Damascus, 28 
Danakil, 274-, 27 6 , 299, 306 
Dar-es-Salaam, 170 
Dardanelles, 57 
Debra Birhan, 302, 305....7 
Debra Lebanos, 1°4, II 0, 112, 
I I 5-28, 144- 
Demerara, 200 
Demerara, RIver, 200 
Dessye, 272, 273, 296-9, 302, 
3°3,3°5,3°6,3°9-13 
Devon, 3 I 3 
Dhala, 162 
Dia, Island of, 5, 
Dirre-Dowa, 85, 86,13°, 13 I, 153, 
26 5,274,27 6 , 28 4, 28 5,313 
Djibouci, 78-81, 84-7, 92, 129, 
135,153,260-3,266,295,313 
Dodecanese, 273 
Dublin, 24- 


EARL'S COURT EXHIBITION, 58 
Egypt, 28, 29, 36, 46 
Eldoret, 178, 179 
Eleusis, 64 
Ehzabethville, 190, 193, 194- 
Elmentaita, 174 
England, 9, 20, 4-9, 62, 70, 11&, 
199, 26 5 
Epping Forest, 130 
Eritrea, 81, 312 
EsseqUlbo, River, 199, 200, 218 
Etna, Mount, 69 
Eturi Forest, 174 
Europe, 139, 153, 17 2 , 194, 3r
 


FICHE, IIO, 125 
Fleet Street, 270, 271, 287 
France, 8 I 
France, South of, 173, 217 
French Somaliland, 80, 86 


GALATEA, 60 
Galilee, Sea of, 27 
Galla, 300, 302 
GaThpoli, 57, 28 3 


INDEX 
Gebbi Palace, Addis Ababa, 93, 
104-, 10" 158, 280, 282, 290, 
302, 3°4-, 310, 312 
Geneva, 260, 309 
Georgetown, 198, 201-5, 219, 
224- 6 ,233,234,237,24°,253 
German East Africa, 181 
Germany, 10, 181 
Ghizeh, 39 
Gibraltar, 73 
Gobi Desert, 10 
Golden Horn, 57 
Gomorrah, 241 
GorgIs, 100 
Greece, 62, 67 
Grenada, 22 5 
Guiana, 197, 201, 202, 2°5.245, 
253 


HAIFA, 24, 2" 28, 262 
Haiti, Island of, 167 
Ha'IIl pstead, 73 
Haramaya, 132, 134- 
Harar, 86, 129-3 I, 133-4-4, 164, 
196, 274--8, 280, 282-4 
Hargeisa, 278, 282 
Hawash, 85, 88, 266, 274- 
Hellespont, 57 
Helwan,45 
Holland, 81 
Hollywood, 44- 


INDIA, 30, 49, I I 5, 162 
Indo-China, 79 
Ireland, 79 , 
Ireng, River, 233 
Issa, 296, 298 
Italian Somahland, 165 
Italy, 10, 265, 286 


JAPAN, 80, 263 
Jericho, 241 
Jerusalem, 28, 46, 314- 
JIjiga, 276-83, 285 
Jinja, 17 8 , 179 
Jordan, River, 110 
Juba, River, 165 



KABALO, 188-90, 192, r96 
Kaieteur, 201, 202 
Kaliki-copulo, Lake, 68 
Kampala, 179 
Karoo, Desert of, 194- 
Kasbar, 70, 7 I 
Katanga, 193 
Kenya, 30, 165, 169-78, 266 
Kigoma, 18o, 182, 188 
Kisumu, 176, 178 
Koromach, 300 
Kurupukari, 203, 204-, 2I5, 218, 
219, 222, 224-, 227, 234-, 238 


LAHEJ, 157, 164- 
Lake Meuzaleh, 3 I 
Lake Naivasha, 171, 172 
Lake Nakuru, 174- 
Lake Victoria, 190 
Lebita Bay, 190, 193 
Leopold ville, I 83 
Liberia, 10 
Lisbon, 75, 221 
London, 13,I5,26,37,4-8,69,74-, 
80, 129, 130, 14-7, 14-8, 15 1 , 
160, 170, 195, 205, 260, 261, 
284-,295,3 10 
Lord's Cricket Ground, 35 
Luxor, 28, 4-4- 
Lycabettus, 63 


MADAGASCAR, 165 
Madras, 79 
Mafeking, 194- 
Magdala, 106 
Makale, 3 I I 
Malaga, 73 
Malta, 4-0, 4-7, 50-5 
Manaos, 221, 238, 24-0, 243,246, 
24-7,25 2 ,253,25 8 
Manchester, 18o 
Marmora, Sea of, 57 
Marseilles, 62, 80, 85, 103, 13 8 , 
262, 270 
Masr el Atika, 4-5 
Mastaba of Ptahhotep, 4-3 


3 1 7 


INDEX 
Mastaba ofTi, 4-3 
Matadi, 188-9° 
Mauritius, 78 
Mausoleum of Menelik and 
Zauditu, 104- 
Mediterranean Sea, 10,73, 126 
Mekka, 58 
Memphis, 44- 
Mena House, 4-0, 4- I , 4-3, 4-7, 52 
Mexico, 9 
Mojo, 88 
Mombasa, 170, 171 
Monaco, 17, 18 
Monte Carlo, 17, 69, 288 
Montmartre, 14- 
Mount h:galos, 64- 
Mount Carmel, 25 
Mount Entoto, II2, 129,293 
Mount Kilimangaro, 176 
Mount Moussa Ali, 277, 290 
Mount Roraima, 214-, 236 
Mwanza, 180 
Mykonos, 57 


NAIROBI, 14-5, 169, 17 0 , 17 1 , 179 
Nandi, 176, 177 
Naples, 21, 25 
Naxos, 57 
Nazareth, 25, 27 
New Amsterdam, 205, 207 
New York, 26, 295 
Nice, 166 
Nile, River, 4-3 
Njoro, 173- 6 , 179 
Norway, 70 


OGADEN, 276, 283 
Ophir, 57 
Orinoco, River, 199 
Oxford, 6 I 


P AKARAIMA CANAL, 24-7 
Palestine, 26 
Panama Canal, 26 
Paris, II, 13-15, 26, 62, 107, 167, 
26 3, 265, 29° 



3 18 


Paros, 57 
Pemba, 168 
Persia, 10 
Phaleron Bay, 62 
Philippine Islands, 198 
Pira:us, 62, 63 
Poland, 81 
Port Franqui, 190, 19 1 , 193 
Port Said, 28-3 6 , 39, 46-9, 7 8 , 
80, 21 7, 26 4,314 
Portuguese West Africa, r90 
Pyramids, the, 9 I 


RED SEA, 110, 144,288, 3r4 
Rhodes, 273 
Rhodesia, 194 
Rift Valley, r7r 
Rio Branco, 23 8 , 253, 257 
Rio de Janiero, 245-7 
Ripon Falls, 179 
Rome, 82, 23 2 , 309 
Rupunavi, 23 2 , 309 


SAIGON, 79 
St. Ignatius, 234, 235, 237, 24 1 . 
St. Sophia, Church of (see Agla 
Sophia), 58 
Sakkara, 43 
Salamis, Bay of, 64 
Sana, 148, 288 
Sanseveu, Church of, Naples, 23 
Scutari, 60 
Serai Palace, 5 8-60 
Seville, 74, 75, 103 
Shepheard's Hotel, 48 
Soudan, 8 I, 266 
South Africa, 194,288 
Southampton, 194, 195 
Spain, 162 
SphInx, the, 4 2 , 48 
Steamer Point, 146, 151-3 
Steppes, the, 59 
Stinchcombe, I I 


INDEX 
Suez Canal, 79 
Surana, 227 
Suvla Bay, 57 


T ABORA, 18o, 196 
Takama,204 
Takutu, River, 202, 22 I 
Tanga, 167 
Tanganika, 182, 188, 268 
Taormma, 24 
Tiberias, 25, 26 
Tigre, River, 292 
Toad Hall, 140 
Trafalgar, 74 
Transjordan, 314 
Trinidad, 198, 199, :u6 
Tropics, the, 10 
Troy, 241 


UGANDA, 176, 178 
Ujiji; 184 
Upper Congo River, 189 
Uraricuera, River, 249 


VALLETTA, 47, 50-5,7° 
Venice, 67 
Victoria and Albert Museum, 106 
Victoria Falls, 194 


WALWAL, 268, 281 
Waranana, 2 14 
Washington, 82, 285 
WembleY,75 
West Meath, 85 
Westminster, 14,40 - 
Wicklow Hills, I 55 
Wollo, 310, 3 II 


YEMEN, 288, 297 


ZANZIBAR, 129, 145, rgr, 16+-9, 
193, 19 6 



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