A JOLLY EXCURSION PARTY--A RACE FOR THE FISHING BANKS--THE OROUNGOU
BURIAL-GROUND.
Not long after we returned from our hunting expedition, I prepared to
go to Fetich Point on a fishing excursion. For this purpose it was
necessary to have canoes. I had called on King Bango since I returned,
but, remembering the rats, I had respectfully declined the hospitality
of his palace. Nevertheless, he remained my friend and gave me all the
men I wanted.
I not only wanted to fish, but I also wished to see the burial-ground
of the Oroungous, which is not far from Fetich Point. There were also
some enormous turtles on Fetich Point, I was told, and I wished to
catch some of them.
My old hunting friend, Fasiko, had got together a party of forty men.
Besides Fetich Point, I was to visit the Fetich river, and the end
of Cape Lopez. There being no houses whatever there, the women had
prepared for us a great quantity of powdered manioc, baskets of ground
nuts, sweet potatoes, and bunches of plantain. We had a very large
outfit. Fasiko got together a lot of mats to sleep upon, and kettles to
cook in, and a great quantity of salt, with which to salt the fish we
hoped to catch. We had several fish-nets made, of the fibre of a vine.
We also had fish-hooks; and I took an enormous hook to catch sharks.
I always had a hatred of sharks, they are such savage and voracious
monsters.
We had a great number of baskets. The women carried these to put the
fish in. We did not forget guns; for leopards lurk in the jungle,
on the south side of the cape, and the boa hangs from the trees,
waiting for his prey. If you got up early there, as everybody at a
watering-place should, you can see huge elephants trotting down along
the beach, and cooling their tender toes in the surf.
It was a very jolly party, for Cape Lopez is the Cape May, or Nahant of
Sangatanga. The dry season there answers to our July, when "everybody
that is anybody" is supposed to be "out of town and down by the
seaside."
Niamkala and Aboko were of the party; for we were great friends; and
wherever I went they wanted to go with me. They were slaves of King
Bango; but we had shared the same dangers, we had shared the same
pleasures.
At last everything was ready. I embarked in the biggest canoe, which
was manned by sixteen oarsmen. As usual, there was a good deal of
shouting and bustle before we got off. The sails, made with matting,
were unfurled, and we set out across the bay. We had an exciting race
to see which canoe was the fastest. There was a stiff _breeze_; but
unfortunately the wind was nearly in our faces, so that our sails were
of little use. The men worked lustily at their paddles, and as they
paddled they sang their wild canoe songs. The morning was clear and
bright, but in the afternoon the sky became clouded. We reached Fetich
Point a little before sunset; and the men, who seemed as lively and
jolly as could be, at once cast their net, in a way not materially
different from our mode of using the hand-net, and made a great haul
of fish, the principal part of which were mullets. How beautiful they
looked! They seemed like silver fish.
The men went immediately in search of firewood. We lighted our fires;
and, having cooked and eaten our fish, which were delicious, we
prepared for a night's rest by spreading mats upon the sand. It was
terribly cold; for we were not sheltered from the wind, which went
right through my blanket.
Not far from Fetich Point is the river Tetica, one of the tributaries
of the Nazareth river. The Nazareth falls into the bay, through a
tangled, dreary, and poisonous track of back country, consisting of
mangrove swamps, like those I have described on the Monda river, and
where, I daresay, no animals, except serpents, are to be found. There
are no human habitations there.
In the morning, I wished to see the Oroungou burial-ground, before
starting for Cape Lopez itself. It lay about a mile from our camp,
towards Sangatanga, from which it is distant about half a day's pull in
a canoe.
It was only by the promise of a large reward that I persuaded Niamkala
to accompany me. The negroes visit the place only on funeral errands,
and hold it in the greatest awe, conceiving that here the spirits of
their ancestors wander about, and that they are not lightly to be
disturbed.
Niamkala and I left the camp, and, following the seashore, we soon
reached the place. It is in a grove of noble trees, many of them of
magnificent size and shape. As I have said, the natives hold the place
in great reverence.
The grove is by the sea. It is entirely cleared of underbrush; and, as
the wind sighs through the dense foliage of the trees, and whispers
in their darkened, somewhat gloomy recesses, there is something awful
about the place. I thought how many lives had been sacrificed on these
graves.
Niamkala stood in silence by the strand, while I entered the domain of
the Oroungou dead.
The corpses are not put below the surface. They lie about beneath the
trees, in huge wooden coffins, many of which are made of trees. By far
the greater number were crumbling away. Some new ones betokened recent
arrivals. The corpses of some had only been surrounded by a mat. Here
was a coffin falling to pieces, and disclosing a grinning skeleton
within. On the other side were skeletons, already without their covers,
which lay in the dirt beside them. Everywhere were bleached bones,
and mouldering remains. It was curious to see the brass anklets and
bracelets, in which some Oroungou maiden or wife had been buried, still
surrounding her whitened bones, and to note the remains of articles
which had been laid in the coffin or put by the side of some wealthy
fellow now crumbling to dust. What do you think these articles were?
Umbrellas, guns, spears, knives, bracelets, bottles, cooking-pots,
swords, plates, jugs, glasses, etc.
In some places there remained only little heaps of shapeless dust, from
which some copper, or iron, or ivory ornaments, or broken pieces of the
articles I have just mentioned, gleamed out, to prove that here, too,
once lay a corpse, and exemplifying the saying of the Bible, "Dust, to
dust thou shalt return." I could not help saying to myself. "Man, what
art thou?"
Suddenly I came to a corpse that must have been put there only the day
before. The man looked asleep, for death does not show its pallor in
the face of the negro as it does in that of the white man. This corpse
had been dressed in a coat, and wore a necklace of beads. By his side
stood a jar, a cooking-pot, and a few other articles, which his friend,
or his heir, had put by his side.
Passing on into a yet more sombre gloom, I came at last to the grave
of old King Pass-all, the brother of the present king. Niamkala had
pointed out to me the place where I should find it. The huge coffin
lay on the ground, and was surrounded on every side with great chests,
which contained some of the property of his deceased majesty. Many
of them were tumbling down, and the property destroyed. The wood, as
well as the goods, had been eaten up by the white ants. Among some of
these chests, and on the top of them, were piled huge earthenware jugs,
glasses, mugs, plates, iron pots, and brass kettles. Iron and copper
rings, and beads were scattered around, with other precious things
which Pass-all had determined to carry to the grave with him. There
lay also the ghastly skeletons of the poor slaves, who, to the number
of one hundred, were killed when the king died, that he might not pass
into the other world without due attendance.
It was a grim sight, and one which filled me with a sadder feeling than
even the disgusting slave barracoons had given me.
The land breeze was blowing when I returned, and we started for the
sandy point of the cape. It is a curious beach, very low, and covered
with a short scrub, which hides a part of the view, while the sand
ahead is undistinguishable at a distance from the water, above which it
barely rises. I was repeatedly disappointed, thinking we had come to
the end, when in fact we had before us a long narrow sand-spit. Finally
we reached the extreme end, and landed in smooth water on the inside of
the spit.
The point gains continually upon the sea. Every year a little more sand
appears above the water, while the line of short shrubs, which acts as
a kind of dam or breakwater, is also extended, and holds the new land
firm against the encroachments of old Neptune.
Among these shrubs we built our camp, and here for some days we had a
very pleasant and lively time.
The weather was delightful; we had no rain, it being the dry season,
and we were not afraid of the awful tornadoes.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: TURNING TURTLES JUST BEFORE SUNRISE.]