When the Going Was Good

by Evelyn Waugh

  I left Kampala on the following Sunday afternoon. The Rusinga, in which I travelled down the lake, was a comfortable little boat staffed with four smart officers who wore white and gold uniforms in the mornings and blue and gold at night. On Wednesday I disembarked at Mwanza, 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 Manchester, 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 returned 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 connexion 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 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 storeys, 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 sahri (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 sisal-farmer arrived at the hotel, full of ridicule of British administration. 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 management the territory would have to be handed back to Germany. ‘Before the war,’ he said, ‘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 traditional fairy-story. A kindly Indian next to me helped me with the plot, explaining, ‘That is a bad man’, ‘That is an 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 everywhere are in French and Flemish; there are the offices of Belgian immigration authorities, vice-consulate, and customs; 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 squatting 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 country, far less civilized 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 deckhouse. 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 inquired 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 passports. Everyone began claiming cabins. He would see to 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 inquired where I could find a doctor. I was directed to a hospital some distance from the town, at the top of the hill. 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 Duc 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 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: ‘I have examined Mr’ – ‘What’s your name?’ – ‘Waugh, and find him free from infectious disease, including omnis t.b. and trypanosomiasis. 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. With 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, overdressed women with yellow and red cotton shawls and 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 collected 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 accommodation. 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 missionary 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 singing 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 a torrential downpour of rain and a tearing 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, 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 colourless, queasy faces. The saloon became intolerably overcrowded. 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 upinstantly 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 support. 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 un
finished concrete pier, where dripping convicts were working, chained together in gangs. Albertville was almost hidden in mist; a blur of white buildings against the obscurer background. Two rival 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 propose 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 immigration 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 Tanganyika; 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 inquiries 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 tomorrow. 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 discomfort, 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 attractive at first; we pitched and rocked through a wooded 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.