The roads ran in every direction, and along them everywhere were figures of black women shuffling with burdens on their heads, or groups of girls, audaciously merry, most of them bonny, here and there almost a beauty.  There were churches, and dance-halls, and saloons—­all radiating, so to say, a prosperous blackness.  It was from these dance-halls that there came at night that droning and braying of barbaric music, as from some mysterious “heart of darkness,” as one turned to sleep in one’s civilised Nassau beds—­a music that kept on and on into the inner blackness of the night.

At first the effect of the whole scene was a little sinister, even a little frightening.  The strangeness of Africa, the African jungle, was here, and one was a white man in it all alone among grinning savage faces.  But for the figures about one being clothed, the illusion had been complete; but for that and the kind-hearted salutations from comely white-turbaned mammies which soon sprang up about me, and the groups of elfish children that laughingly blocked one’s progress with requests—­not in any weird African dialect but in excellent national-school English—­for “a copper please.”

This request was not above the maidenly dignity of quite big and buxom lasses.  One of these, a really superb young creature, not too liberally clothed to rob one’s eyes of her noble contours, caught my attention by the singularity of something she carried.  It was an enormous axe, the shining blade balanced easily on her head, and the handle jutting out horizontally like some savage head-dress.  She looked like a beautiful young headswoman.  Even she asked for “a copper, please,” but with a saucy coquetry befitting her adolescence.

“A big girl like you too!” I ventured.  She gave a fine savage laugh, without in the least jeopardising the balance of the axe.

“I’ll give you one if you’ll tell me where the ‘King’ lives,” said I.

“Ole King Coffee?” she asked, and then fell into a very agony of negro laughter.  The poor old king was evidently the best of all possible jokes to this irreverent young beauty.  Then, recovering, she put her finger to her lips, suggesting silence, and said: 

“Come along, I’ll show you!”

And, walking by my side, lithe as a young animal, evidently without giving a thought to her gleaming headdress, she had soon brought me to a cabin much like the rest, though perhaps a little poorer looking.  Stopping a little short of it, she once more put her finger to her lips.

“Shh!  There he is!” and she shook all over again with suppressed giggles.

I gave her a sixpence and told her to be a good girl.  Then I advanced up a little strip of garden to where I had caught a glimpse of a venerable white-haired negro seated at the window, as if for exhibition, with a great open book in his hands.  This he appeared to be reading with great solemnity, through enormous goggles, though I thought I caught a side-glint of his eye, as though he had taken a swift reconnoitring glance in my direction—­a glance which apparently had but deepened his attention and increased the dignity of his demeanour.  That dignity indeed was magnificent, and was evidently meant to convey to the passers-by and the world at large that they were in the presence of royalty.