THE WOMEN MINERS OF BANJELI
From Nambiri as far as Kugnau, our next stage, there is no road, nor
practically any trail; only an immense variety of native tracks,
leading anywhere and everywhere. The country is so thickly populated,
that to pick out the right route is very difficult, and well-nigh
impossible without a guide. I went on ahead, with the guide, from
Tschopowa; and Schomburgk, who was to follow on later, instructed him
to "close the road." This means that whenever the guide came to a cross
trail, or a fork in the road, he was to place a piece of stick across
the wrong one, thereby "closing" it to the next traveller who came
along, assuming him to be bound in our direction. This, however, the
guide neglected to do in several instances, and as a result Schomburgk
wandered off the right track and got lost.
We crossed the Oti twice during this stage. The first crossing was
a somewhat difficult one. Not only were the banks covered in dense
jungle, but the path dipped down a very steep angle for about fifty
feet in sheer depth. I had to slide down assisted by my hammock boys,
and we had to exercise considerable care in order to get the horses
down, and safely across. I had a magnificent view of the river, which
is here about three hundred yards wide from bank to bank, but it being
now towards the end of the dry season, the actual stream was greatly
shrunken, revealing the presence of many islands, both up and down.
These islands were covered with thick tropical vegetation, the haunt of
innumerable birds. In the rainy season, all but a few of the higher and
larger islands will have disappeared beneath the risen waters, which
then fill the whole channel from bank to bank, and bank high.
The second crossing of the Oti was even more picturesque than the
first. It is here much broader, the banks are lower, and there are
many villages scattered about, from all of which came detachments of
natives to swell the welcome given to the first white woman. In the
end there must have been fully a thousand of them round my hammock, in
front and behind, shouting, dancing, and singing. The din was terrific,
the heat and dust awful. I felt I would have given almost anything if
they would only go away, and leave me in peace; and yet it was, of
course, impossible to get angry with them, or even be anything but
polite to them, their good intentions were so obvious. Some time after
our arrival Schomburgk turned up, hot, tired, and cross, and rated the
guide soundly for not having closed the road. He had, it appeared, gone
completely astray, and had been wandering about all over the place.
There is no rest-house at Kugnau, so we had to use our tents. But
there was no shade, the trees just about here being merely dwarf
ones, and the daytime heat rendered sleep out of the question.
Then at night came hordes of ferocious mosquitoes, some of which
got under my mosquito-net, and well I knew it. It was the duty of
Asmani, Schomburgk's personal boy, to attend to my bed. He was quite
a youngster, a long lanky slab of a boy, with arms on him like a
chimpanzee's; but he was so willing and good-tempered, that he was a
great favourite with all of us. He could not be made to understand,
however, the importance of tucking my mosquito-curtain in all round
under the mattress, so as to prevent the ingress of the bloodthirsty
little pests. I got so tired of talking to him about it, and so weary
of sleepless nights, that at last I used to send him regularly to
report himself to Schomburgk whenever I was bitten by mosquitoes. It
was very comical to see him go up to make this report in the morning,
his usually jolly, round face, long and woebegone. "Master," he would
say, "two" (or three or four, &c., as the case might be) "mosquitoes in
the 'little mother's' bed last night." "Ah!" Schomburgk would remark,
with becoming gravity. "Then you must be punished." And he would give
him two, three, or four light slaps on the face, one for each mosquito.
They were just such smacks as one gives in play to a child, and of
course did not hurt him physically in the least, but they hurt his
dignity, for Asmani, in virtue of being Schomburgk's personal servant,
was "head boy" of the caravan, and the other boys, whom he regarded as
being more or less under him, used to take a solid delight in crowding
round and sniggering their approval whenever he rolled up for his
"mosquito slaps."
I have said that Asmani was a willing boy. In fact, he was too willing.
When one gave him an order, his eagerness to obey led him to rush off
at top speed before he half understood what was required of him. The
results, very often, were ludicrous in the extreme; and occasionally
not a little annoying. Asmani got to be known, very early in the trip,
as the "cockroach," on account of his erratic, rapid movements; and
towards the end of our journey, whenever he was making ready to bolt
eagerly off before he had properly comprehended our meaning, it only
became necessary to cry out to him, while lifting a warning forefinger,
"Whoa, Asmani; don't cockroach!" in order to arrest him. He was one
of that type of servant--now, I am afraid, rare in effete Europe--who
regards his employer's interests as his own. Consequently, he was not a
great favourite with the other boys; who held, for the most part, views
widely divergent from these. To Messa, our cook, more especially, he
was the very reverse of a _persona grata_, for when Messa would come to
tell me, say, that the tea was all gone, or that he required more sugar
from store, Asmani, if he happened to be anywhere near, would be sure
to give vent to an incredulous, long-drawn "Oh-h-h!" Whereupon Messa
would glare at him, and presently there would ensue a rare hullabaloo
from behind the cook-house; Asmani and Messa "having it out."
It was while we were resting here that an incident occurred which
showed how easily an inexperienced European may be led astray in his
dealings with the natives, and so cause trouble without being at all
aware of it. It had reference to the Konkombwa cowrie-shell helmets, of
which mention has already been made. These beautiful and unique objects
always attract the immediate attention and admiration of European
travellers, who naturally try to acquire one or more to take away with
them. But the Konkombwa value them highly, and are usually, and for the
most part, very unwilling to sell them, even though tempted by what is,
for them, a very good price, either in coined money, or in brass or
copper rods, which they greatly prefer.
I have heard it hinted that, in the old days, Europeans were not too
careful of the rights of the natives in regard to their acquisition
of these curios. Now, however, strict orders have been issued by the
Duke of Mecklenburg that the Konkombwa are not to be unduly pressed to
part with their helmets or other trappings. They may be bought. But
the sale must be a genuine one, a fair price must be paid, and above
all, Europeans are warned to make certain, before purchasing, that the
Konkombwa are willing to sell, and that no secret intimidation has
been used to compel them to do so by the interpreters, soldiers, &c.,
attached to the caravan.
[Illustration:
_By permission of_ _Maj. H. Schomburgk, F.R.G.S._
THE "ROMAN FORT" AT IBUBU
This building, spite of its ancient-sounding name, is of quite modern
construction. It was originally erected with a view to overawing
the Konkombwa savages. Its interior is occupied by a multitude of
neatly-built huts belonging to the garrison.]
Now Schomburgk had already secured one of the helmets at Gerin-Kuka,
but he was open to purchase others, and sent one of the soldiers of
our escort into the village to say so. The man was strictly enjoined,
however, to use no compulsion. If the Konkombwa wished to do business,
well and good, but not otherwise. His part, in short, was simply to
act as a go-between, to introduce a willing seller to a willing buyer.
Well, the soldier went off on his errand, to return presently with
several natives marching at his heels, carrying helmets, quivers,
&c., about a dozen in all. "Are these for sale?" asked Schomburgk.
"Yes, all the lot," replied the soldier. Schomburgk thought this
suspicious, knowing how loath the Konkombwa are to part with these
things, so he sent the soldier away, out of sight and hearing, while
he cross-examined the natives. As a result it turned out that only one
man wanted to sell a helmet, and two others bows and quivers, and a
horse-hair switch. The others had been told that they had got to bring
the things up to our camp for sale, and that if they did not do so they
would be punished. Of course the unwilling ones were at once sent back
to their village with their helmets, &c., while the soldier was given a
severe lecture. In this connection Schomburgk told me of the following
amusing incident. During his last trip in the Konkombwa country, he
was travelling with the Duke of Mecklenburg. One man of the party, a
newcomer in the district, bought two helmets, and showed them, with
evident pride, to some members of the party. Said the Duke, using
his usual formula in such circumstances: "I suppose I may take it for
granted that there was no intimidation." "Oh dear no," was the reply,
"I just sent a soldier to the village to tell the Konkombwa I wanted a
couple of their helmets, and he brought 'em to me." A roar of laughter
greeted this naive admission, and even his Highness was unable to
repress a smile.
At 5.30 A.M. the following morning (February 8th) we resumed our
journey, and soon afterwards we crossed the Oti once more, and for the
last time. Schomburgk seized the opportunity to go off with Hodgson
and the camera to try and get some hippo pictures, but only two of the
creatures were visible, so he did not trouble. Afterwards he caught up
to me, just as my hammock broke down, letting me to the ground with a
bump. While it was being repaired, we consumed an alfresco breakfast by
the side of the road; very enjoyable. An hour or so later we arrived at
Ibubu; the end of the stage.
There is a spacious old rest-house here, but to our surprise we found
it very much dilapidated; almost in ruins, in fact. This is a very
unusual thing as regards the Togo rest-houses, the only explanation I
can think of being that this particular route is very infrequently used
by white people. Ibubu is the site of an old fort, called by Europeans
in Togo the "Roman Fort." I had heard it mentioned so often, that I
expected to see a quite imposing-looking building, and was greatly
disappointed at beholding nothing more startling or romantic than a
big mud wall, surrounding a huge conglomeration of native huts, set
closer together than any I had ever observed previously. No doubt,
however, it was once a place of considerable strength. It was built,
I was told, by Dr. Kersting, to overawe the Konkombwa in the old
days, when these savages, not having then sufficiently measured their
strength with that of the white men, were inclined to be aggressive
and troublesome. It is noticeable that the Konkombwa on this side of
the Oti are much wilder and more truculent than are those on the other
side, and still give the Government trouble from time to time, although
there has been no actual fighting for the last few years.
We are now in the Sokode district, and the supplies of food are
ridiculously small by comparison with what they were in the Mangu
district. We put up the flap of our tent under a big tree, the upper
branches of which were full of what I at first took to be some kind of
fruit, but which turned out afterwards to be a large species of bat,
a kind of flying-fox. We bought another ostrich here. He was a most
comical sight, having been plucked before being offered to us for sale.
I laughed till I cried, at the sight of him. He looked exactly like a
gigantic replica of one of those wooden egg-shaped toy birds that are
sold in the shops, with two sticks for legs. However, he turned out to
be a very fine, and unusually big, bird. So, too, did the other one,
that we bought in Mangu. Both ostriches are now in the Hamburg "Zoo,"
to which they were presented by Major Schomburgk, and the director
wrote, after our arrival in London, that everybody was amazed at their
enormous size, and that it was quite conceivable--although this is
not yet scientifically proved--that they are a new species of giant
ostrich. "In any case," he wrote, "they are quite out of the common."
The Ibubu people are very sullen; not a bit like those on the other
side of the Oti. The women, as well as the men, eyed us askance; and
the children edged away from us, and remained silent, when spoken to.
This I took to be a bad sign, for these people are not "savages," in
the sense that the far northern tribes are, and that they declined to
make friends was, therefore, clearly due to the influence of their
elders. Both Schomburgk and I--I flatter myself that I am getting quite
experienced in the ways of natives by now--had a sort of feeling, a
presentiment if you like, that all was not well; and so it turned out.
In the morning only twelve carriers turned up, whereas we wanted
at least fifty, and the interpreter reported that the chief either
could not, or would not, supply any more. Here was a pretty go. It
is difficult for an outsider to realise how completely a caravan in
the African hinterland is dependent on man transport. If we could not
secure a sufficiency of carriers, it meant either one of two things,
abandoning the bulk of our belongings--an unthinkable alternative--or
doing "relay work" backwards and forwards between Ibubu and Banjeli,
the next stage, the latter as heartbreaking and tedious an operation
as can well be conceived. Then, too, there was this further cause for
anxiety; an official who was acting for the Commissioner at Sokode--who
happened to be on leave at the time--had had bother with the natives at
this very village, and serious trouble was only narrowly averted.
Schomburgk acted at once, and in a manner which--I hope he will pardon
me for saying so--struck me at the time as being somewhat high-handed,
although I have no doubt now, from what subsequently transpired,
that it was the only way. He sent a peremptory demand for the chief
to attend before him at once. Soon he appeared, escorted by our two
soldiers. He was very cheeky, not to say overbearing. In effect he said
that the twelve carriers he had sent were all that were at present
available, and he "couldn't make carriers out of mealie cobs, could
he?" However, after talking to him for five minutes or so in terms the
reverse of polite, Schomburgk got a promise from him to let us have ten
more.
The chief was a tall, big man, and Schomburgk is of quite medium size;
consequently he had to bend his neck backwards at an angle, and look
up at the huge Konkombwa towering above him like a rock, in order to
address him. This, I think, made him even angrier than he otherwise
would have been. A short man carrying on an altercation with a tall man
is always at a disadvantage, be the taller black or white. Schomburgk
called him everything but a gentleman, "long slab of misery,"
being among the mildest term of abuse he applied to him, and when
the interpreter interpreted the chief at first looked puzzled, then
bowed and seemed quite pleased. Schomburgk couldn't make this out. He
thought the chief was, speaking vulgarly, "trying to take a rise out
of him," and it made him wilder than ever. Not until long afterwards
did it transpire that the interpreter, fearing for his own skin, had
interpreted all his abusive terms into eulogistic ones, "long slab of
misery" becoming "tall and strong chief," and so on.
Well, the promised ten carriers turned up, making twenty-two in all,
and Schomburgk sent me on with these, and one of the soldiers, he
remaining behind with the interpreter and another soldier. After
leaving Kugnau, the scenery changes. We are now quitting the Togoland
Sudan, and going back to the more thickly-wooded part of the country.
The scenery is magnificent. In the blue haze of the early morning one
can see the purple mountains outstanding round Banjeli, whither we are
now bound, and beyond, as far as Bassari, ridge upon ridge. Presently
Hodgson passed me on his bicycle, and I was surprised at seeing him,
as I supposed him to be staying behind helping Schomburgk. The latter
told me afterwards that Hodgson had gone off, leaving him to deal with
the bother alone, and he was very angry with him about it. In fact, he
hardly spoke to him again all that day.
Presently we begin to go uphill by a tortuous rocky path, and after a
while we came in sight of the village of Banjeli, beautifully situated
on the crest of a long rise, and backed by an imposing array of lofty,
wooded mountains. I had heard a lot about this place, partly because it
was the farthest point north that Schomburgk had got on his previous
trip, and also on account of its being the principal seat of the famous
iron industry, which affords occupation to large numbers of natives
throughout this district. Already, on our way up, we had passed several
of the curiously shaped furnaces, concerning which I shall have more
to say later on. The rest-house here is in the form of a square of
pretty round huts, from the windows of which one has at this season of
the year a lovely view of the mountains, their slopes lightly shrouded
in the haze of the harmattan, which, however, lies thick as a woollen
blanket in the valleys between.
Hardly had I got settled in the rest-house, when Schomburgk turned up
with a few carriers and some more loads, but not all. He told me that
he had had a lot of bother with the Kugnau people. First he had gone to
the village and collected a few women, telling the chief that as his
men would not carry, the women must. They did not seem to mind greatly,
and he promised them good pay, and put each woman by a load, arranging
everything beautifully, as he thought. Then he turned for a moment
to speak to the interpreter, and when he looked again, about half of
them had vanished. "I could not believe my eyes," he said, "and had
to rub them to make sure I was not dreaming. I never saw any manoeuvre
executed so swiftly and silently in my life. One moment they were
there, the next they were not. Talk about the disappearing trick! Why
those women could give points to Maskelyne and Devant."
At last, it transpired, he succeeded in collecting a few more carriers,
but still not enough for the loads. He had come on with these, leaving
the interpreter and the soldier behind to get other carriers as best
they could, and bring along the rest of the baggage. He also placed the
chief under arrest, and told the soldier to bring him along with him,
intending to hand him over to the authorities at Bassari, which station
has jurisdiction over all this part of the Konkombwa country.
The last batch of carriers, with the rest of the loads, shepherded by
the interpreter, turned up sooner than we had ventured to expect. With
them was the soldier, in charge of the chief. The latter looked very
crestfallen. All his cheeky, overbearing manner had gone, and he seemed
to wish he had behaved himself properly in the beginning. Amongst the
last arrived lot of carriers we found, to our surprise, ten women. This
seemed to show that the chief really could not prevail upon the men of
the village to carry, and made Schomburgk even more determined than
ever to take him on to Bassari and have the whole matter threshed out
there, since a chief who cannot impose his authority on his people,
when called upon to do so, is worse than useless from the Government's
point of view. Schomburgk also announced that only those carriers who
had come voluntarily in the morning would be paid for their work,
the others would get nothing. He expected them to be disappointed
and crestfallen on hearing this decision, but greatly to his disgust
they did not seem to care in the least, laughing and joking amongst
themselves about it, women as well as men, as though being docked of
their wages was the greatest fun imaginable. Whether they really did
not care, or whether they acted as they did in order to show their
independence, I am unable to say. It is practically impossible to
fathom the workings of the native mind in regard to a case like this.
[Illustration:
_By permission of_ _Maj. H. Schomburgk, F.R.G.S._
BANJELI, THE CENTRE OF THE NATIVE IRON INDUSTRY
The smelting of iron by these primitive peoples is entirely of native
origin, and is, therefore, of considerable interest. The work is done
under conditions approximating fairly closely to those prevalent in
civilized countries, but the furnaces, etc., are, of course, of much
ruder construction.]
After we had been here a short while, a little native boy came into
our camp bringing me as a present a very pretty little green and gold
beetle. We gave him a pfenning (eight pfennings go to the penny)
for it, and seeing I was pleased with it, Schomburgk said he would
purchase at the same rate as many other similar beetles as he or the
other children cared to bring in. It proved to be a rash promise. The
wonderful news must have spread like wildfire amongst the village
urchins, who must, moreover, have immediately set to work with feverish
energy to secure a goodly store of beetles, for soon the camp was alive
with grubby little boys and girls, some carrying no more than a single
beetle, or two or three, others with both dirty little paws filled with
the pretty delicate insects. It was one of the most comical sights
I ever saw. There was Schomburgk dishing out pfennings in exchange for
beetles, and the more pfennings he distributed the more children came
rolling up with their beetles. They pressed and clamoured round him
like English children round a street hawker of toy paper windmills, so
that eventually he had to take refuge on a chair in order to escape
being mobbed by them, while I set to work to marshal them into a queue,
which, as regards both its extent and the happy eagerness of its
component parts, reminded me of that which assembles outside the Gaiety
on the first night of the production of a new musical comedy.
Whilst we were resting that afternoon, our mail arrived from Bassari.
It had come by post-runner to Bassari, whence it had been forwarded
by special messenger to Banjeli. At once everybody was on the alert
to secure his or her letters, and once secured we retired to a quiet
corner to read them. We got two mails together--a month's letters and
papers--on this occasion, so that we had plenty of reading matter to
occupy ourselves with. Afterwards we came together again to compare
notes, and tell each other tit-bits of personal news, talking and
chatting until dinner-time, and afterwards far into the night. Amongst
a bundle of papers sent out by my sister was a copy of the _Elegante
Welt_, Germany's leading fashion paper, and, womanlike, I was immensely
interested in seeing, out here in the wilds, what was being worn at
home by the "smart set" in Berlin, London, and the other European
capitals.
So utterly sick and tired of fowls had a lengthy sojourn in the African
wilds made me, that at Banjeli I decided to have for once a dinner of
roast pork, and sent Messa into the village with strict injunctions
to bring back a pig, no matter what the cost. He succeeded almost too
well, returning in about half an hour at the head of a procession of
natives, leading, driving, and carrying pigs of all sorts and sizes.
In only one respect were they alike. They were the ugliest-looking
lot of porkers I ever set eyes on; all black as to colour, and with
long bristly hair, not at all like the rosy-snouted little piglets
one sees in the German villages. However, I reflected that I was not
buying a pig to look at, but to eat, so I picked out one I considered
to be the best and fattest of the lot, paying for him what seemed to me
the ridiculously small sum of four shillings. Then, spurred on by my
success in the pig-killing line at Mangu, I superintended the similar
necessary operations here, only to find, however, when my porcine
purchase came to be cut up and dressed, that he was about as scraggy,
scrawny, lean, and generally unprofitable a specimen of his species as
one could possibly conceive of. What he had been fed on, Heaven only
knows. Sawdust and wood shavings, I should imagine, from the taste of
him. And this, I hasten to add, was not the fault of the cooking, for
from almost the beginning of the trip I have made the kitchen and its
conduct my own special care.
Taught in the first instance by that old Togoland campaigner, Captain
von Hirschfeld, I have, too, succeeded in perfecting a very excellent
system of keeping our drinks cool, and our cheese and butter from
running to oil. It is worked this way. In Togoland we have what is
called a "Hausa load." This is not a "load," as might be imagined,
but a long, narrow basket made of split bamboos laid closely together
lengthways, and bound together crossways with strips of bark. Into this
long wicker trough I used to put the things I wanted kept cool, wrapped
up and covered with sacks kept constantly wet. It was marvellous how
beautifully they were preserved by this simple expedient. Even on the
march, by detailing a boy to constantly sprinkle the sacks, I was able
to keep the butter quite solid, the bottles of liquid comfortably
cooled, and even perishable provisions, such as cooked meat for
instance, fresh and sweet.
It was Anton, our pet monkey, by the way, who was the alleged cause--as
a matter of fact he was quite innocent in the matter--of a grave
dereliction of duty on the part of seven of our boys. The affair
happened on the road to Ibubu, where the whole lot of them turned
up very late; a long way, in fact, in rear of the carriers, who, of
course, made ordinarily considerably slower progress with their heavy
loads than did our personal servants, who carry no loads. They had, it
transpired, met some friends on the road, who treated them to palm
wine and native beer; but their excuse was that Anton had scampered off
into the bush, and refused to be caught for some time, thereby delaying
them. Now this was an excuse that might easily have held water, for
we knew, and our boys knew that we knew, that Anton was addicted to
such tricks. But on this occasion their somewhat unsteady gait and the
strong smell of alcohol that hung about them convicted them, and one
by one they broke down under cross-examination, and confessed to the
truth. Then came the question of their punishment.
Very early in our trip Schomburgk had told me that the best way to
punish a lazy carrier was not by personal chastisement--for which they
care little unless it be carried to such an extent as to be inhuman,
which, of course, is not to be thought of--nor by fining them; but that
if a carrier was really lazy, coming in a long while after the others,
the best thing to do was to give him a load, and stand him with it
on his head in the middle of the camp, making him stay there for as
long a time as he had been behind his fellow-carriers. "Then," said
Schomburgk, "the others will all make game of him, and he will have
learnt a lesson he is not likely to forget."
[Illustration:
_By permission of_ _Maj. H. Schomburgk, F.R.G.S._
SECTION OF OLD NATIVE IRON FURNACE
The portrait is that of the Chief of Banjeli, the seat of the native
iron industry of Togo. In these furnaces the iron ore, after being
laboriously dug out of the mountain side by native slave women, is
smelted, and afterwards made into axes, knives, spear and arrow-heads,
hoes, and so forth.]
Well, this plan had been carried out on several occasions with our
carriers, and we found that it worked excellently. So Schomburgk
decided to try its effect upon our boys, and that afternoon the
seven "beauties" were lined up in the middle of the camp, each with
a 60lb. load on his head. Also, as they had laid the blame on the
poor innocent monkey, he was fastened by a chain to the right leg of
our "washerwoman"--he of the ginger-beer-bottle fists--who had been
the last one to hold out in the lie about him. At first the culprits
treated the whole affair as a huge joke, laughing and chattering
amongst themselves. But little by little, as the afternoon wore away,
their faces grew longer and longer; the laughter and chatter grew
less, and finally died away altogether; they started shifting their
loads from the head, first to one shoulder, then to the other, until,
eventually, after Schomburgk had gone out with the camera, a benighted
appeal for mercy reached my ears. I was seated inside my tent at the
time, and for a little while I pretended to take no notice. But the
cries of "Little mother! Little mother! Have pity on your poor tired
children!" redoubled in intensity, so as Schomburgk had told me, before
quitting camp, to let them go when I thought fit, I gave them their
"ticket of leave."
Prior to our arrival at Banjeli, Schomburgk had made arrangements with
the chief there to film the iron industry, of which I wrote earlier
in this chapter. He was a nice old man, and, having met Schomburgk on
his previous visit, he had now promised in advance to have everything
ready for us. This promise he faithfully kept, and to the letter, an
attribute very rare in a native. Next morning we took the pictures.
First of all we started off at 6 A.M. to the mountain where the iron
ore is mined. We rode the first stage of the journey, accompanied by
our two ostriches, who seemed to imagine that we were going on trek
again, and intended giving them the slip. It was very comical to watch
them, especially after we dismounted, and started to climb the last
part of the journey to the top of the hill where the mine is situated,
about 1600 feet up. Eventually, however, we had to send them back, for
fear they might injure themselves.
The ore is mined by women, strong, but dirty-looking, with more of the
masculine element about them than the feminine. It was pitiful to see
some of them, with babes at their breasts, digging out the ore with
a curious kind of hoe-shaped tool. Besides being a hard occupation,
it is also a dangerous one. Only a day or so before our visit one of
the miners had been killed, owing to a shaft falling in. On inquiry,
I learnt that the women were slaves. I was assured that it was only a
mild form of slavery, a system of indentured labour, and that even if
liberated they would not go away. Still, I didn't like the idea, and
the sight impressed me the least favourably of anything that I had seen
in Togoland.
The other operations that centred round the iron industry, however,
interested me greatly. Here is a handicraft that is usually associated
with a more or less advanced degree of civilisation--the bronze age
everywhere preceded the iron age amongst primitive man--being carried
on by nude, or nearly nude, savages, in a fashion which, although it
has many points in common with our own methods of mining, smelting,
and so on, bears, nevertheless, unmistakable signs of being of purely
indigenous origin.
Taking it altogether, I am inclined to think that this film, which
was one of the last we took, was also one of the best, if not the
very best, of the lot, and when I came to see it screened later on in
London, I was amazed at its fidelity to life. First the women miners
are seen getting the ore out of the mines, as narrated above. The next
scene we filmed shows a long string of them carrying it in baskets on
their heads down the mountain-side to the primitive native furnace,
which the men load with wood, charcoal, and ore. We showed, too, the
method of regulating the ventilation of the furnaces by means of
holes round the bottoms, these being stopped by clay stoppers, very
ingeniously constructed, and which can be inserted and withdrawn at
pleasure by means of a wooden stick, embedded in the centre of the clay
stopper when it is first made. These furnaces, after being lighted,
burn for three days, when the pig-iron is taken out and carried to
the market at Bassari, where it is bought by the native blacksmiths.
These craftsmen, working with a round boulder for a sledge-hammer,
and curious hand-worked bellows, somewhat resembling bag-pipes in
appearance, forge the iron into axes, knives, spear and arrow heads,
hoes, and so forth, not forgetting the curious iron rattles mentioned
in a previous chapter, and which form a valued part and parcel of every
Konkombwa warrior's equipment. Speaking in regard to these industrial
films in general, a certain eminent scientist who presided at a recent
meeting of the Royal Geographical Society, remarked that he did not
think that at the present time any very great good was accomplished by
getting to the north or south pole, because both these very interesting
spots would be there five thousand years hence; but the men who went
out into the wild places of the earth in order to try and obtain
records of the out-dying customs of native tribes in these remote
regions, deserved the greatest praise. Even an ordinary written record
(he continued) is of acknowledged value. What, then, must be the value
of living pictures, such as these, showing every stage in processes of
primitive native industries which, from the nature of things, must,
in the not far distant future, become superseded, and so lost to us
forever. Similar views, I may add, were expressed in letters written to
Major Schomburgk after having viewed the films, by Mr. Atho Joyce, of
the British Museum, and by Sir Harry Johnston, the famous explorer.