WE GO UP THE RIVER TO N'CALAI BOUMBA--A SEVERE ATTACK OF FEVER--THE
TENDER CARE OF THE NATIVES FOR ME--ANGUILAI ACCUSES HIS PEOPLE OF
BEWITCHING ME--I GO OUT AND QUIET HIM--A BOY CUT TO PIECES FOR
WITCHCRAFT--A USEFUL IDOL--THE EBONY TREES.
With Quengueza I resumed the ascent of the river Ovenga. We were bound
to the town of a chief named Anguilai. The place was called N'calai
Boumba.
We left Obindji early in the morning. On the way we passed several
Bakalai villages, the largest of which, Npopo, I afterwards visited.
The river banks, all the way up, were densely wooded, but very sparsely
inhabited by beasts. We saw no animals the whole day, except one monkey
and a few birds.
Anguilai, who was one of the vassals of Quengueza, and a powerful
Bakalai chief, and whom I had met at Obindji's, received us well.
Anguilai's town is the hottest place I ever saw in Africa. N'calai
Boumba was set in a hollow, and the houses were so small and close as
to be quite unendurable to me. The village was only a little more than
a year old. The people had come lately from the interior. Plantations
of plantain trees were very abundant.
Towards the end of April I was brought down to my bed with fever. This
was the severest attack I had yet experienced in Africa. It entirely
prostrated me. I looked like a corpse. Not a single particle of colour
could be seen on my face. I had no strength. I could not eat. I could
not walk.
For three days I had violent returns of the fever. The blood rushed
to my head, and my mind wandered at times; so the natives told me. Of
course I cannot remember what I said. I only know that my head burned
like fire, and that I was almost mad with pain. Between the attacks of
fever I really thought I should die and I commended my soul to God.
While I lay sick, people came and entreated me not to hunt so much and
so constantly. They said, "Look at us; we hunt one day; we rest two.
When we hunt three days, we rest for many days after it. But you go out
every day."
I thought to myself, they are right, and I shall follow their rule
hereafter. But it was hard to do so; for I felt that no one else was
in the field; that in such an unhealthy climate no one can live very
long, and I wanted to do as much work as I could. I wanted to bring all
the wonders of that part of the world to light; and I felt that I was
getting older and older, and there was yet very much work to be done.
So I prayed God to give me strength for the work that was entrusted to
my hands.
I shall never forget the kindness of those native women to me while
I was sick. Poor souls! they are sadly abused by their task-masters.
They are the merest slaves. They have to do all the drudgery. They
receive blows and ill-usage. And yet, at the sight of suffering, their
hearts soften, just as women's hearts soften in our own more civilized
lands. No sooner did sickness attack me than these kind souls came to
nurse and take care of me. They sat by me to fan me; they brought more
mats for my bed; they bathed my burning head with cold water; they got
me refreshing fruit from the woods. At night, when I woke up from a
feverish dream, I used to hear their voices, as they sat around in the
darkness, pitying me and contriving ways to cure me.
When I think of these things I cannot help thanking God for them; that,
wherever I have gone, He has made human hearts tender and kind to me;
that, even under the black skin of the benighted and savage African, He
has implanted something of His own compassionate love.
Anguilai and Quengueza were sadly alarmed at my illness. Anguilai
accused his people of wickedly bewitching me. One still night he walked
up and down the village, threatening, in a loud voice, to kill the
sorcerers if he could only find them. I had to get up and tell Anguilai
that I was sure his people and the Bakalai loved me too much to wish me
to be sick. Whereupon they all shouted at once, "It is so; it is so."
After a few days I was able to walk again a little; and I went and
lived in the forest, where I suffered less from the heat than in our
little houses.
How sorry I often felt that these kind-hearted negroes were given to
superstitions which led them to commit the most horrid cruelties. A
little boy, about ten years old, had been accused of sorcery. On being
examined, he confessed that he had made a witch. Thereupon the whole
town seemed to be seized with the ferocity of devils. They took spears
and knives, and actually cut the poor little fellow to pieces. I had
been walking out, and returned just as the dreadful scene was over.
I could not even make the wretched people feel shame at their bloody
act. They were still frantic with rage at the thought that this little
fellow had made a witch to kill some of them; and they were not quiet
for some hours after.
I felt so badly that I went into the woods and took the path that
led to the village of Npopo, which was not far distant from N'calai
Boumba. I wanted to see if the men had returned; I wanted to see
Aguailai, the chief. He was the doctor who had come to Goumbi to drive
off the aniemba. When I went down to Npopo the first time I found
the people all gone into the bush. Everything was open and exposed
to thieves; chickens and goats were walking about; and I wondered to
see such carelessness in the village. But in the centre, looking down
on everything, stood the _mbuiti_, or god of Npopo, a copper-eyed
divinity, who, I was informed, safely guarded everything. It seemed
absurd; but I was assured that no one dared steal, and no one did
steal, with the eyes of this mbuiti upon him.
This uncommonly useful idol was a rudely-shaped piece of ebony, about
two feet high, with a man's face, the nose and eyes of copper, and the
body covered with grass.
At last we started for the ebony woods. Our new location was about nine
miles from the river, on the side of a long hill, and close by where a
cool sparkling rivulet leaped from rock to rock down into the plain,
making the pleasantest of music for me as I lay, weak and sick, in the
camp. Five huge ebony trees lifted their crowned heads together in a
little knot just above us. All around were pleasant and shady woods. It
was a very pleasant camp, but proved to have one drawback--we nearly
starved to death. I sent out the hunters immediately on our arrival.
They were gone two days, but brought back nothing. Game was very scarce
there; and, without an _ashinga_, or net, such as many Bakalai villages
have, not much was to be got.
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