were still obliged to wait. We decided to continue our advance without their permission. We arrayed the slaves in such a manner that the numerous gifts appeared to best advantage. Major-General Verveer instructed the brass band to play the national anthem and we made our way through the crowd of armed men with considerable e fort. The guards however did not obstruct us. We proceeded from the outpost and completed the last leg of our journey in one-quarter-hour. To everyone’s dis- pleasure our previous delay turned out to have been unnecessary. Both the king and his grandees had been seated in readiness all morning, and their boredom had reached such proportions that foolish children’s rhymes were being chanted to while away the long hours of waiting.
3
Thirteen pale-faced musicians emerged from the trees. They generated such a pandemonium as Kwame and I had only ever heard from the coppersmiths on a busy workday. Birds flew up in fright. Yet the pounding rhythm sent a ripple through the crowd: all around us muscles were flexed and bodies started swaying to the blasts of noise.
The musicians were followed by a standard-bearer, a party of white servants in hunting gear and one hundred black slaves in pairs. Each pair carried a litter laden with gifts: Chinese fans and vials of scent, Brussels lace and soap from Cologne, champagne, ginger, jams and preserved fruit. There were also costly textiles, gold fringes, gold braid and silver thread. A length of poppy-red serge was draped around a marble statue of Psyche: this creature, half bird and half man, was so white as to seem luminous. Three litters were laden with Dutch gin in stoneware crocks. There was Malaga wine in abundance and liqueur in mahogany casks. A handsome pair of handguns with attributes was presented to my father, as well as a silver-inlaid walnut case containing a hunting rifle with decorative facings, and lastly an open-work cuirass overlaid with silver and gold.
The band struck up again when the gifts were put on display. A lavish palanquin borne by six slaves appeared at the bend in the road. On it sat a man in full regalia, shaded by a dazzling orange awning. An interpreter announced him as His Majesty’s highest servant, Major-General Verveer, Governor-General of the Dutch East-Indian Army, envoy of King Willem I of the Netherlands. Two red, white and blue Dutch flags fluttered behind him, partly screening the next palanquins from view. One of these was occupied by a man who seemed less intent on making an impression of grandeur. He even looked somewhat embarrassed, and in this he was distinct from the others. His name was announced as Deputy Commissioner van Drunen.
Then came a straggling party of several hundred porters and men with chopping knives, which were by now blunted from cutting a path in the forest. Bringing up the rear were a number of slaves bearing what appeared to be large chunks of stone and columns of marble which they carried over their shoulders with incomprehensible ease, as if they possessed the strength of gods.
Until then all the uburuni we had known had been harmless and laughable: white men with ever-sweaty faces which they kept mopping to no avail. The shade of their skin was that of a corpse. Word had it that the smell they gave off was the same. These envoys would set about mastering some ingratiating words of Twi in the hope of gaining a residue of gold dust or—until this was prohibited by their government—a small consignment of superannuated slaves. And once they had paid for their acquisitions with far too many rifles, they would stagger away, blissfully drunk on palm wine. Their constitutions were frail, and in the place behind the palace gardens where men go to relieve themselves they were more likely to be seen vomiting than passing water. But on the whole they were not troublesome.
This time, however, a white man was being carried aloft. Until then this had been my father’s privilege, the only
3
Thirteen pale-faced musicians emerged from the trees. They generated such a pandemonium as Kwame and I had only ever heard from the coppersmiths on a busy workday. Birds flew up in fright. Yet the pounding rhythm sent a ripple through the crowd: all around us muscles were flexed and bodies started swaying to the blasts of noise.
The musicians were followed by a standard-bearer, a party of white servants in hunting gear and one hundred black slaves in pairs. Each pair carried a litter laden with gifts: Chinese fans and vials of scent, Brussels lace and soap from Cologne, champagne, ginger, jams and preserved fruit. There were also costly textiles, gold fringes, gold braid and silver thread. A length of poppy-red serge was draped around a marble statue of Psyche: this creature, half bird and half man, was so white as to seem luminous. Three litters were laden with Dutch gin in stoneware crocks. There was Malaga wine in abundance and liqueur in mahogany casks. A handsome pair of handguns with attributes was presented to my father, as well as a silver-inlaid walnut case containing a hunting rifle with decorative facings, and lastly an open-work cuirass overlaid with silver and gold.
The band struck up again when the gifts were put on display. A lavish palanquin borne by six slaves appeared at the bend in the road. On it sat a man in full regalia, shaded by a dazzling orange awning. An interpreter announced him as His Majesty’s highest servant, Major-General Verveer, Governor-General of the Dutch East-Indian Army, envoy of King Willem I of the Netherlands. Two red, white and blue Dutch flags fluttered behind him, partly screening the next palanquins from view. One of these was occupied by a man who seemed less intent on making an impression of grandeur. He even looked somewhat embarrassed, and in this he was distinct from the others. His name was announced as Deputy Commissioner van Drunen.
Then came a straggling party of several hundred porters and men with chopping knives, which were by now blunted from cutting a path in the forest. Bringing up the rear were a number of slaves bearing what appeared to be large chunks of stone and columns of marble which they carried over their shoulders with incomprehensible ease, as if they possessed the strength of gods.
Until then all the uburuni we had known had been harmless and laughable: white men with ever-sweaty faces which they kept mopping to no avail. The shade of their skin was that of a corpse. Word had it that the smell they gave off was the same. These envoys would set about mastering some ingratiating words of Twi in the hope of gaining a residue of gold dust or—until this was prohibited by their government—a small consignment of superannuated slaves. And once they had paid for their acquisitions with far too many rifles, they would stagger away, blissfully drunk on palm wine. Their constitutions were frail, and in the place behind the palace gardens where men go to relieve themselves they were more likely to be seen vomiting than passing water. But on the whole they were not troublesome.
This time, however, a white man was being carried aloft. Until then this had been my father’s privilege, the only
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