We were joined on the 20th July by a small troop of Akkas, who had
taken advantage of Munza's presence on their frontier to come and pay
to him at one and the same time their homage and their annual
tribute. As soon as the audience was at an end, the Akkas, as curious
to see the white people as we were eager to set eyes on the pygmies,
came to where we were.
After having got over their first feelings of timidity and alarm,
they became by degrees more familiar with us, and de Morin turned
their amiability to account by taking likenesses of several of them,
whilst I jotted down in my memorandum-book the following particulars.
Head, large and round, set on a thin, weak neck; height from 4 feet 5
inches to 4 feet 9 inches; arms long; upper part of the chest
contracted, but widening out downwards to the huge stomach—paunch
would be a better word; knees round and plump; hands small and
elegant enough to excite the envy of Europeans even; a waddling-gait,
owing to the centre of gravity being shifted by the size of the
stomach; skull wide, and with a deep indentation at the base of the
nose; chin receding; jaw pointed; hair short, and no beard whatever,
notwithstanding the fable which endues the Akkas with flowing white
beards, descending to their knees. After having pencilled down this
portrait, I added these words—in spite of all their imperfections,
these tiny beings do not resemble in any way the dwarfs exhibited
amongst us at so much per head. Their deformity is, if I may so
speak, natural, neither the result of any accident, nor phenomenal.
I closed my note-book, and did the honours of the tent, to the best
of my ability, to our little visitors, so as to leave them a pleasing
recollection of the celebrated white men, whose renown had penetrated
even to them. Madame de Guéran gave them a few presents, Delange set
himself seriously to work to study them from a phrenological point of
view, and Miss Poles even, terribly severe on her own sex, but ever
indulgent towards ours, treated these diminutive personages with all
respect, declared that they were not at all bad in their way, and was
especially eloquent on the intelligence of their expression.
As the Akkas, taking advantage of their diminutive stature and our
kindness to them, very soon were guilty of certain indiscretions, we
left them to themselves and our servants. Then it was that Joseph,
emerging, theatrically speaking, from the wings, appeared on the
stage. Full as ever of importance and presumption, inflated with his
own personal advantages, proud of his physical superiority, and
deeming himself, as a white man, to be far above all the Africans put
together, he took it into his head to hold an inspection of the
Akkas.
He walked to and fro amongst them, did the very heavy swell, stroked
his whiskers, and looked down with lofty contempt upon all these
funny beings, the tallest of whom was about the height of a child of
ten years old. From time to time he stopped in his perambulation to
cast a contemptuous glance on those around him, grinning, as he did
so, in an idiotic, imbecile manner, and here and there bestowing a
back-handed slap, intended to be encouraging.
Several of the Akkas, serious old gentlemen, very grand personages,
perhaps, in their own little way, speedily came to the conclusion
that the white man was making fun of them, and they began to betray
signs of impatience. Joseph was utterly blind to all this; not
content with his promenading and grinning, he showed an inclination
to play with his little companions, like a fat schoolmaster with the
small urchins of his village. The game he invented to take the place
of a ball or a hoop was not a very happy idea, for he took it into
his head, after the manner of Gulliver, to convert himself into a
triumphal arch and make the newly-discovered Liliputians pass
underneath it.
Some of them, good-tempered and entering into the spirit of the
thing, joined in the game, but, all of a sudden, a man of about
thirty, who had previously shown symptoms of annoyance at being
treated like a child, and was now rendered positively furious by this
final indignity, instead of passing beneath the triumphal arch,
jumped on Joseph's back, clasped him round the neck with his arms,
and bit his shoulder until it bled.
The pain was excessive, but it was nothing to the fear experienced by
Joseph. The unexpected attack, and savage bite, conjured up all the
ghosts of cannibalism which had haunted his troubled spirit for some
time past. The Akka dwarfs, whom he had looked upon as harmless,
disappeared; he saw before him only gigantic cannibals; they were not
biting him, they were not eating him up bit by bit; he was being
swallowed wholesale.
He uttered the most piercing shrieks, and begged for mercy, but the
Pygmy was quite comfortable pick-a-back, relished the flavour of his
steed's shoulder, and gave himself up to it with all his heart, or,
rather, with all his teeth, whilst the whole of his companions, with
their little hands holding their fat stomachs, laughed all over their
tiny faces, as they had seen Joseph do.
The more our servant struggled, the more he curvetted about in order
to throw the Akka, the tighter the latter held on to his neck with
his arms, and to his shoulder with his teeth. He used Joseph as a
steed, spurred him with his heels, and made him run or stop as he
pleased, clasping him round the neck more and more firmly, and
digging his teeth into him with increasing ferocity. Joseph wanted a
game, so that he had no right to complain. He was playing at horses,
only he was the steed, and the Akka the rider.
And what a rider! It was impossible to unhorse him. His steed,
recalling the way a donkey has of rolling on his back, with his four
legs in the air, lay down at full length and attempted to crush his
jockey under his weight. But the skilful cavalier was quite up to
that move; he slid round in front, and when Joseph got up the Akka
was face to face with him, with his little eyes glistening, and every
pointed tooth showing.
At last Joseph's piercing shrieks attracted the attention of some
Monbuttoo soldiers. Seeing what was taking place, and having
themselves, possibly, marked Joseph down as a toothsome morsel in
case provisions should run short, they rescued him from the grinders
of the dwarf, so that at all events a little bit of him might be
left.
On the day after this occurrence, Joseph, whose head had been
troubling him, was seized with a raging fever, accompanied by
contractions of the muscles, and severe cramp. In the height of this
fever, he imagined that he had been bitten by some mad animal, and
that he had himself gone mad in consequence. "Get away," he shouted,
"get away, I shall bite you!" Dr. Delange, though he did not fear
rabies, which is nearly unknown in Africa, was at first alarmed by
the violence of the delirium, but Nassar informed us that it was
almost an invariable feature in the disease from which Joseph was
suffering, peculiar to this climate, and called _kichyoma_.
The sorcerers and fetish-mongers of every description who followed
the army, hastened to offer their services on behalf of the sufferer,
but we sent them away, after overwhelming them with thanks and
presents, for in Africa it is indispensably necessary to keep these
quacks, often more powerful than even the chiefs, in a good humour.
Delange is quite equal to the task of restoring his patient to
health, but if he is so restored, he will not be cured. He is sure to
meet with some fresh disaster; indeed, he appears to be making a
collection of them.
August 2nd.—We are in a hostile country, amongst the Domondoos. The
inhabitants took to flight at our approach, abandoning all their
possessions to the rapacity and, above all, the voracity of the
Monbuttoos, who laid violent hands on fowls, goats, glass beads,
ivory, skins, and tobacco. We are on a regular thieving expedition.
Munza is nearly always close to us, grave, thoughtful, often
taciturn. He takes no part in the lawless proceedings of his army;
but, though he appears to repudiate them, he does nothing to stop
them.
"If I were to forbid them to rob and eat," said he one day to Madame
de Guéran, "they would think I was mad, and would refuse to follow
me. For your sakes I must not choose this time to reform the manners
of my people."
He was wise in his generation, and he might have added that to bring
about any reformation in African manners would be a task of
considerable difficulty. The further we go the more disheartened we
become on the subject. When we reflect that this people, old as the
hills, has stood still for centuries—nay, that, on the contrary, it
has gone backward to the utmost extreme of barbarism! For one man
possessed of intelligence, and displaying more civilization than the
remainder, such as Munza, for instance, we see every moment of our
lives scores of brutes, neither more nor less. From a tribe like that
of the Monbuttoos, considerably ahead of their neighbours, we pass
suddenly to the Domondoos, who differ from animals simply in their
power of speech.
If they had only an idea of fighting, by which they live, or, more
truly die, but they have not even that. For countless years past the
Monbuttoos have been in the habit of making a descent upon their
territory at certain fixed periods, when they rob them, plunder,
kill, and eat them, and not even yet have they been able to see that
nothing would be easier than to exterminate and get rid, once and for
all, of their dreaded invaders. Five or six hundred men hidden in the
high grass, which in this country would afford cover for a whole
army, screened by the gigantic trees, sheltered by the rocks on the
Keebaly, or posted on the rising ground, which the enemy must skirt,
would be ample to protect a country such as this, admirably adapted
for defensive operations, and almost impregnable. But no—no sooner do
they catch sight of the enemy than away they run, abandoning
everything they possess, without even thinking of carrying off their
most valuable treasures and hiding them in the mountains. Then all
the fugitives collect together, and in a compact body engage the army
of the Monbuttoos on open ground, where their bodies are just so many
targets. The fight begins, it lasts for a few hours at most, and all
is over; the Monbuttoos march off with their plunder and a thousand
prisoners, to return in the following year at exactly the same
period, and once more leave their cards on their neighbours.
This description was verified to the letter, and we came upon them in
number about five or six thousand, in close order like ears of corn
in a field, gesticulating, shouting, and beating their drums. We had
only to open fire upon them with our sixty rifles, every bullet from
which would find a billet in the ruck, and we should have laid the
whole army low in ten minutes.
But they need not be uneasy; we are not going to take part in the
massacre. It is a matter entirely between the Monbuttoos and the
Domondoos, and we Europeans have nothing whatever to do with it.
Nevertheless, the Nubians and Dinkas of our escort were eager to
fight. Neither our society, which they had enjoyed for six months,
the examples of moderation and humanity we had given them, nor their
own semi-civilized state could subdue their warlike nature; the old
original African blood rushed to their heads, and they felt impelled
to put themselves in motion, to shout, strike, and kill.
They came round us and begged permission to fight. "What will the
Monbuttoos think of us," said they, "if we do not help them?"
"Fight away, my friends, fight away!" replied de Morin, and he served
out to each man ten rounds of blank cartridge, which he had prepared
on the previous evening expressly for this purpose. They could thus
make plenty of noise and not hurt anybody.
We ourselves, armed with telescopes, followed from a distance the
varying fortunes of the battle. If it went against our allies, then,
and then alone, would we interfere. We did not consider that we could
well do otherwise.
The arrows began to whiz through the air; the battle had begun.
Attention!