To most Europeans there would have been much to notice--the cooking vessels, the calabashes, the food, the ju-ju charms that one met at unexpected corners, the scavenging dogs, and the all-pervading smells. But Swizzle-Stick Smith's curiosity was worn by twenty years attrition, and these savage circumstances had grown native to him. He did not even comment on the fact that Slade was living entirely in local fashion, the thing was so obvious a course for his friend to follow that he took it for granted. He himself was a man of like tastes. Down at Malla-Nulla the menu had mostly smacked of Africa; but once he had left the Coast, Mr. Smith had travelled as an Okky headman travels, living mainly on kanki and couscousoo, and for beverage partaking of sour palm wine, muddy bush-water, and an allowance of trade gin sternly cut down to one square-faced bottle per diem. His only comment on the place was that Slade's mosquito bar was made of a material that they had long ago decided was faulty, and that a certain mark of cheesecloth gave better passage to the air, and was more impervious to insects. To which Slade made reply that he knew it, but couldn't be bothered to change, after which the cookboy brought in a calabash of odorous, highly-peppered stew, colored bright orange with palm oil and condiments, and set it on the floor of one of the rooms. Mr. Smith pocketed his pipe, dropped his eyeglass to the end of its black ribbon, and wiped his hands on his shabby pyjamas, after which simple preparations the pair of them sat down on the earth beside the calabash and proceeded to eat skilfully from their fingers. Around them were the cases and bales of Slade's outfit, each done up into a "load" ready for a carrier's head. In the other room of the house and in the courtyard were the carriers, some of them eating, some of them cleaning their teeth with the rubbing stick, which all Coast natives use incessantly in moments of leisure, some of them chatting. Most of them sat bareheaded in the staring sunlight; a few nestled in the purple shadows. One was picking a jigger out of his toe with a splinter of bamboo. In a spare corner another played tom-tom on the bottom of an empty kerosene-tin bucket, and three stalwarts stood up before him monotonously dancing. Mr. Smith finished his meal and took out his pipe. "Does it run to a peg?" he asked. "It does. Don't spoil my fine vintage port with tobacco. You can smoke afterwards. Here, boy, we fit for gin." "Gin lib," said the Accra in attendance, and handed a square-faced bottle and a bowl. "Good. Now, when you see dem Smith fit for smoke, you bring fire, one-time. Savvy?" "I fit." Swizzle-Stick Smith moved back until his shoulders rested against a bale, and hitched up the knees of his shrunk pyjamas and stretched his arms pleasurably. "You travel in comfort, Slade."