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Updated: June 1, 2025
It all goes to show that the Congo native is simply a child grown to man's stature. The fact that I had to resort to the teapoy illustrates the unreliability of mechanical transport in the wilds. I had tried in vain to make progress with an automobile and a motor boat, and was forced as a last resort to get back to the human being as carrier.
We lunched by the roadside and afterwards I got into Dunn's car and resumed the journey. I sent the porters and teapoy men back to Kabambaie. Late in the afternoon we reached the bluffs overlooking the Upper Kasai. Across the broad, foaming river was Tshikapa. If I had not known that it was an American settlement, I would have sensed its sponsorship. It radiated order and neatness.
But there as well were placed carved screens, covered with dragons, and a short low-footed couch, with a full assortment of back-cushions, reclining-cushions and skin-rugs. On the couch stood a small teapoy, light and handy, of foreign lacquer, inlaid with gold. On the teapoy were arrayed cups, bowls, foreign cloth napkins and such things. But on it spectacle case was also conspicuous.
The "teapoy boy," as he is called, is as much a part of the African scheme of life as a driver or a chauffeur is in America. He must be big, strong, and sound of wind, because he is required to go at a run all the time. For any considerable journey each teapoy has a squad of eight men who alternate on the run without losing a step. They always sing as they go.
The blue sky looks out, the sun shimmers white for five minutes. Minnie walks rapidly, runs up the steps, rings, and takes into the house with her a full, fresh life, that vibrates from cellar to attic in harmonious energy. The afternoon wanes. Fred has dined. He takes his meerschaum from the teapoy by his side and examines it critically. How for the color? Is it just the right shade to stop? No.
The white dimity curtains one pair of them were up at the wide west window; the other pair was cut up and made over into three or four things, drapery for a little old pine table that had come to light among attic lumber, upon which she had tacked it in neat plaitings around the sides, and overlapped it at the top with a plain hemmed cover of the same; a great discarded toilet-cushion freshly encased with more of it, and edged with magic ruffling; the stained top and tied-up leg of a little disabled teapoy, kindly disguised in uniform, varied only with a narrow stripe of chintz trimming in crimson arabesque, made pretty with piles of books, and the Scripture scroll hung above it with its crimson cord and tassels; and in the window what she called afterward her "considering-chair," and in which she sat this morning; another antique, clothed purely from head to foot and made comfortable beneath with stout bagging nailed across, over the deficient cane-work.
The two divans and four teapoys, in the place of honour, were used by dowager lady Chia and Mrs. Hsueeh. The chair and two teapoys in the next best place, by Madame Wang. The rest of the inmates had, all alike, a chair and a teapoy. On the east side sat old goody Liu. Below old goody Liu came Madame Wang. On the west was seated Shih Hsiang-yuen.
Motioning the woman to place it on the teapoy, near her pillow, she was about to give her further instructions, when she noticed that she was a stranger, not from her features, for they were concealed beneath the folds of her sarree, which had been thrown completely over her head, revealing only a small portion of the lower part of her face, but from her general appearance.
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