CAPE LOPEZ AND AN OPEN PRAIRIE ONCE MORE--KING BANGO AND HIS THREE
HUNDRED WIVES--HIS FIVE IDOLS--SLAVE BARRACOONS--THE CORPSE AND THE
VULTURES.
Cape Lopez is a long sandy arm of land reaching out into the sea. As
you approach it from the ocean it has the appearance of overflowed
land. It is so low that the bushes and the trees growing on it seem,
from a distance seaward, to be set in the water.
The bay formed by Cape Lopez is about fourteen miles long. Among
several small streams which empty their water into it is the Nazareth
river, one of whose branches is the Fetich river. The bay has numerous
shallows and small islands, and abounds in all sorts of delicious fish.
On the cape itself many large turtles from the ocean come to lay their
eggs. I will tell you by-and-by what a nice time I had fishing at Cape
Lopez; but I have many other things to talk about before I come to
that.
I arrived at Cape Lopez one evening when it was almost dark. The next
morning I prepared myself for a visit to King Bango, the king of the
country. The royal palace is set up on a tolerably high hill, and
fronts the seashore. Between the foot of this hill and the sea there
is a beautiful prairie, over which are scattered the numerous little
villages called Sangatanga. I never tired of looking at this prairie.
I had lived so long in the gloomy forest that it gave me great delight
to see once more the green and sunlit verdure of an open meadow. I
found the royal palace surrounded by a little village of huts. As I
entered the village I was met by the _mafouga_, or officer of the king,
who conducted me to the palace. It was an ugly-looking house of two
stories, resting on pillars. The lower story consisted of a dark hall,
flanked on each side by rows of small dark rooms, which looked like
little cells. At the end of the hall was a staircase, steep and dirty,
up which the mafouga piloted me. When I had ascended the stairs I found
myself in a large room, at one end of which was seated the great King
Bango, who claims to be the greatest chief of this part of Africa. He
was surrounded by about one hundred of his wives.
King Bango was fat, and seemed not over clean. He wore a shirt and
an old pair of pantaloons. On his head was a crown, which had been
presented to him by some of his friends, the Portuguese slavers. Over
his shoulders he wore a flaming yellow coat, with gilt embroidery, the
cast-off garment of some rich man's lacquey in Portugal or Brazil. When
I speak of a crown you must not think it was a wonderful thing, made
of gold and mounted with diamonds. It was shaped like those commonly
worn by actors on the stage, and was probably worth, when new, about
ten dollars. His majesty had put round it a circlet of pure gold, made
with the doubloons he got in exchange for slaves. He sat on a sofa, for
he was paralyzed; and in his hand he held a cane, which also answered
the purpose of a sceptre.
This King Bango, whom I have described so minutely, was the greatest
slave king of that part of the coast. At that time there were large
slave depôts on his territory. He is a perfect despot, and is much
feared by his people. He is also very superstitious.
Though very proud, he received me kindly, for I had come recommended by
his great friend, Rompochombo, a king of the Mpongwe tribe. He asked
me how I liked his wives. I said, very well. He then said there were a
hundred present, and that he had twice as many more, three hundred in
all. Fancy three hundred wives! He also claimed to have more than six
hundred children. I wonder if all these brothers and sisters could know
and recognise each other!
The next night a great ball was given in my honour by the king. The
room where I had been received was the ball-room. I arrived there
shortly after dark, and I found about one hundred and fifty of the
king's wives, and I was told that the best dancers of the country were
there.
I wish you could have seen the room. It was ugly enough; there were
several torches to light it; but, notwithstanding these, the room was
by no means brilliantly illuminated. The king wanted only his wives
to dance before me. During the whole of the evening not a single man
took part in the performance; but two of his daughters were ordered to
dance, and he wanted me to marry one of them.
Not far from the royal palace were three curious and very small houses,
wherein were deposited five idols, which were reputed to have far
greater power and knowledge than the idols or gods of the surrounding
countries. They were thought to be the great protectors of the Oroungou
tribe, and particularly of Sangatanga and of the king. So I got a peep
inside the first house. There I saw the idol called Pangeo; he was made
of wood, and looked very ugly; by his side was his wife Aleka, another
wooden idol. Pangeo takes care of the king, and of his people, and
watches over them at night.
I peeped also into the second little house. There I saw a large idol,
called Makambi, shaped like a man, and by his side stood a female
figure, Abiala his wife. Poor Makambi is a powerless god, his wife
having usurped the power. She holds a pistol in her hand, with which,
it is supposed, she can kill anyone she pleases; hence the natives are
much afraid of her; and she receives from them a constant supply of
food, and many presents (I wonder who takes the presents away). When
they fall sick, they dance around her, and implore her to make them
well; for these poor heathen never pray to the true God. They put their
trust in wooden images, the work of their own hands.
I looked into the third house, and there I saw an idol called Numba.
He had no wife with him, being a bachelor deity. He is the Oroungou
Neptune and Mercury in one--Neptune in ruling the waves, and Mercury in
keeping off the evils which threaten from beyond the sea.
As I came away after seeing the king, I shot at a bird sitting upon a
tree, but missed it, for I had been taking quinine and was nervous. But
the negroes standing around at once proclaimed that this was a "fetich
bird,"--a sacred bird--and therefore I could not shoot it, even if I
fired at it a hundred times.
I fired again, but with no better success. Hereupon they grew
triumphant in their declarations; while I, loth to let the devil have
so good a witness, loaded again, took careful aim, and, to my own
satisfaction and their utter dismay, brought my bird down.
During my stay in the village, as I was one day out shooting birds in a
grove, not far from my house, I saw a procession of slaves coming from
one of the barracoons toward the farther end of my grove. As they came
nearer, I saw that two gangs of six slaves each, all chained about the
neck, were carrying a burden between them, which I knew presently to
be the corpse of another slave. They bore it to the edge of the grove,
about three hundred yards from my house; and, throwing it down there
on the bare ground, they returned to their prison, accompanied by the
overseer, who, with his whip, had marched behind them.
"Here, then, is the burying-ground of the barracoons," I said to myself
sadly, thinking, I confess, of the poor fellow who had been dragged
away from his home and friends; who, perhaps, had been sold by his
father or relatives to die here and be thrown out as food for the
vultures. Even as I stood wrapped in thought, these carrion birds were
assembling, and began to darken the air above my head; ere long they
were heard fighting over the corpse.
The grove, which was, in fact, but an African Aceldama, was beautiful
to view from my house; and I had often resolved to explore it, or to
rest in the shade of its dark-leaved trees. It seemed a ghastly place
enough now as I approached it more closely. The vultures fled when they
saw me, but flew only a little way, and then perched upon the lower
branches of the surrounding trees, and watched me with eyes askance,
as though fearful I should rob them of their prey. As I walked towards
the corpse, I felt something crack under my feet. Looking down, I saw
that I was already in the midst of a field of skulls and bones. I had
inadvertently stepped upon the skeleton of some poor creature who had
been lying here long enough for the birds and ants to pick his bones
clean, and for the rains to bleach them. I think there must have been
the relics of a thousand skeletons within sight. The place had been
used for many years; and the mortality in the barracoons is sometimes
frightful, in spite of the care they seem to take of their slaves.
Here their bodies were thrown, and here the vultures found their daily
carrion. The grass had just been burnt, and the white bones scattered
everywhere, gave the ground a singular, and, when the cause was known,
a frightful appearance. Penetrating farther into the bush, I found
several great piles of bones. This was the place, years ago--when
Cape Lopez was one of the great slave markets on the West Coast, and
barracoons were more numerous than they are now--where the poor dead
were thrown, one upon another, till even the mouldering bones remained
in high piles, as monuments of the nefarious traffic. Such was the
burial-ground of the poor slaves from the interior of Africa.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: EMBARKING SLAVES.]