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Two Trips to
Gorilla Land
and
the Cataracts of the Congo.
By
Richard F. Burton.
In Two Volumes
Vol. I.
London: 1876
"Quisquis amat Congi fines peragrare nigrantes,
Africæ et Æthiopum cernere regna, domus,
* * * * * * *
Perlegat hunc librum."
Fra Angelus de Map. Piccardus.
"Timbuctoo travels, voyages to the poles,
Are ways to benefit mankind as true
Perhaps as shooting them at Waterloo."--Don Juan.
Trieste, Jan. 31, 1875. My Dear Sir George,
Our paths in life have been separated by a long interval. Whilst
inclination led you to explore and to'survey the wild wastes of
the North, the Arctic shores and the Polar seas, with all their
hardships and horrors; my lot was cast in the torrid regions of
Sind and Arabia; in the luxuriant deserts of Africa, and in the
gorgeous tropical forests of the Brazil. But the true traveller
can always appreciate the record of another's experience, and
perhaps the force of contrast makes him most enjoy the adventures
differing the most from his own. To whom, then, more
appropriately than to yourself, a discoverer of no ordinary note,
a recorder of explorations, and, finally, an earnest labourer in
the cause of geography, can I inscribe this plain, unvarnished
tale of a soldier-traveller? Kindly accept the trifle as a token
of the warmest esteem, an earnest of my thankfulness for the
interest ever shown by you in forwarding my plans and projects of
adventure; and, in the heartfelt hope that Allah may prolong your
days, permit me to subscribe myself,
Your sincere admirer and grateful friend, RICHARD F. BURTON.
Admiral Sir George Back, D.C.L., F.R.S.,
Vice-Pres. R.G.S., &c.
Preface.
The notes which form the ground-work of these volumes have long
been kept in the obscurity of manuscript: my studies of South
America, of Syria and Palestine, of Iceland, and of Istria, left
me scant time for the labour of preparation. Leisure and
opportunity have now offered themselves, and I avail myself of
them in the hope that the publication will be found useful to
more than one class of readers. The many who take an interest in
the life of barbarous peoples may not be displeased to hear more
about the Fán; and the few who would try a fall with Mister
Gorilla can learn from me how to equip themselves, whence to set
out and whither to go for the best chance. Travelling with M.
Paul B. du Chaillu's "First Expedition" in my hand, I jealously
looked into every statement, and his numerous friends will be
pleased to see how many of his assertions are confirmed by my
experience.
The second part is devoted to the Nzadi or lower Congo River,
from the mouth to the Yellala or main rapids, the gate by which
the mighty stream, emerging from the plateau of Inner Africa,
goes to its long home, the Atlantic. Some time must elapse before
the second expedition, which left Ambriz early in 1873, under
Lieutenant Grandy, R. N., can submit its labours to the public:
meanwhile these pages will, I trust, form a suitable introduction
to the gallant explorer's travel in the interior. It would be
preposterous to publish descriptions of any European country from
information gathered ten years ago. But Africa moves slowly, and
thus we see that the results of an Abyssinian journey (M. Antoine
d'Abbadie's "Géodésic d'Ethiopie," which took place about 1845,
are not considered obsolete in 1873.
After a languid conviction during the last half century of owning
some ground upon the West Coast of Africa, England has been
rudely aroused by a little war which will have large
consequences. The causes that led to the "Ashantee Campaign," a
negro copy of the negroid Abyssinian, may be broadly laid down as
general incuriousness, local mismanagement, and the operation of
unprincipled journalism.
It is not a little amusing to hear the complaints of the public
that plain truth about the African has not been told. I could
cite more than one name that has done so. But what was the
result? We were all soundly abused by the negrophile; the
multitude cared little about reading "unpopular opinions;" and
then, when the fulness of time came, it turned upon us, and rent
us, and asked why we had not spoken freely concerning Ashanti and
Fanti, and all the herd. My "Wanderings in West Africa" is a case
in point: so little has it been read, that a President of the
Royal Geographical Society (African section of the Society of
Arts Journal, Feb. 6, 1874) could state, "If Fantees are cowardly
and lazy, Krumen are brave;" the latter being the most notorious
poltroons on the West African seaboard.
The hostilities on the Gold Coast might have been averted with
honour to ourselves at any time between 1863 and 1870, by a
Colonial Office mission and a couple of thousand pounds. I need
hardly say what has been the case now. The first steps were taken
with needless disasters, and the effect has been far different
from what we intended or what was advisable. For a score of years
we (travellers) have been advising the English statesman not to
despise the cunning of barbarous tribes, never to attempt
finessing with Asiatic or African; to treat these races with
perfect sincerity and truthfulness. I have insisted, and it is
now seen with what reason, that every attempt at deception, at
asserting the "thing which is not," will presently meet with the
reward it deserves. I can only regret that my counsels have not
made themselves heard.
Yet this ignoble war between barbarous tribes whom it has long
been the fashion to pet, this poor scuffle between the
breechloader and the Birmingham trade musket, may yet in one
sense do good. It must perforce draw public attention to the West
Coast of Africa, and raise the question, "What shall we do with
it?" My humble opinion, expressed early in 1865 to the Right
Honourable Mr. Adderley, has ever been this. If we are determined
not to follow the example of the French, the Dutch, the
Portuguese, and the Spaniards, and not to use the country as a
convict station, resolving to consume, as it were, our crime at
home, we should also resolve to retain only a few ports and
forts, without territory, at points commanding commerce, after
the fashion of the Lusitanians in the old heroic days. The export
slave-trade is now dead and buried; the want of demand must
prevent its revival; and free emigration has yet to be created.
As Mr. Bright rightly teaches, strong places and garrisons are
not necessary to foster trade and to promote the success of
missions. The best proof on the West African Coast is to be found
in the so-called Oil Rivers, where we have never held a mile of
ground, and where our commerce prospers most. The great "Tribune"
will forgive my agreeing in opinion with him when he finds that
we differ upon one most important point. It is the merchant, not
the garrison, that causes African wars. If the home authorities
would avoid a campaign, let them commit their difficulty to a
soldier, not to a civilian.
The chronic discontent of the so-called "civilized" African, the
contempt of the rulers if not of the rule, and the bitter hatred
between the three races, white, black, and black-white, fomented
by many an unprincipled print, which fills its pocket with coin
of cant and Christian charity, will end in even greater scandals
than the last disreputable war. If the damnosa licentia be not
suppressed--and where are the strong hands to suppress it?--we
may expect to see the scenes of Jamaica revived with improvements
at Sierra Leone. However unwilling I am to cut off any part of
our great and extended empire, to renew anywhere, even in Africa,
the process of dismemberment--the policy which cast off Corfu--it
is evident to me that English occupation of the West African
Coast has but slightly forwarded the cause of humanity, and that
upon the whole it has proved a remarkable failure.
We can be wise in time.
Richard F. Burton.
P.S.--Since these pages were written, a name which frequently
occurs in them has become a memory to his friends--I allude to W.
Winwood Reade, and I deplore his loss. The highest type of
Englishman, brave and fearless as he was gentle and loving, his
short life of thirty-seven years shows how much may be done by
the honest, thorough worker. He had emphatically the courage of
his opinions, and he towered a cubit above the crowd by telling
not only the truth, as most of us do, but the whole truth, which
so few can afford to do. His personal courage in battle during
the Ashanti campaign, where the author of "Savage Africa" became
correspondent of the "Times," is a matter of history. His noble
candour in publishing the "Martyrdom of Man" is an example and a
model to us who survive him. And he died calmly and courageously
as he lived, died in harness, died as he had resolved to die,
like the good and gallant gentleman of ancient lineage that he
was.
Contents of Vol. I.
Chapter I. Landing at the Rio Gabão (Gaboon River).--le
Plateau, the French Colony
Chapter II. The Departure.--the Tornado.--arrival at "The
Bush"
Chapter III. Geography of the Gaboon
Chapter IV. The Minor Tribes and the Mpongwe
Chapter V. To Sánga-Tánga and Back
Chapter VI. Village Life in Pongo-Land
Chapter VII. Return to the River
Chapter VIII. Up the Gaboon River
Chapter IX. A Specimen Day with the Fán Cannibals
Chapter X. To the Mbíka (Hill); the Sources of the Gaboon.--
Return to the Plateau
Chapter. XI. Mr., Mrs., and Master Gorilla
Chapter XII. Corisco.--"Home" to Fernando Po
PART I.
The Gaboon River and Gorilla Land.
"It was my hint to speak, such was my process;
And of the cannibals that each other eat,
The anthropophagi, and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their Shoulders."Othello.
Part I.
Trip to Gorilla Land.
Chapter I.
Landing at the Rio Gabão (Gaboon River).--le Plateau, the French
Colony.
I remember with lively pleasure my first glance at the classic
stream of the "Portingal Captains" and the "Zeeland interlopers."
The ten-mile breadth of the noble Gaboon estuary somewhat dwarfed
the features of either shore as we rattled past Cape Santa Clara,
a venerable name, "'verted" to Joinville. The bold northern head,
though not "very high land," makes some display, because we see
it in a better light; and its environs are set off by a line of
scattered villages. The vis-a-vis of Louis Philippe Peninsula on
the starboard bow (Zuidhoeck), "Sandy Point" or Sandhoeck, by the
natives called Pongára, and by the French Péninsule de Marie-
Amélie, shows a mere fringe of dark bristle, which is tree, based
upon a broad red-yellow streak, which is land. As we pass through
the slightly overhung mouth, we can hardly complain with a late
traveller of the Gaboon's "sluggish waters;" during the ebb they
run like a mild mill-race, and when the current, setting to the
north-west, meets a strong sea-breeze from the west, there is a
criss-cross, a tide-rip, contemptible enough to a cruizer, but
quite capable of filling cock-boats. And, nearing the end of our
voyage, we rejoice to see that the dull down-pourings and the
sharp storms of Fernando Po have apparently not yet migrated so
far south. Dancing blue wavelets, under the soft azure sky, plash
and cream upon the pure clean sand that projects here and there
black lines of porous ironstone waiting to become piers; and the
water-line is backed by swelling ridges, here open and green-
grassed, there spotted with islets of close and shady trees.
Mangrove, that horror of the African voyager, shines by its
absence; and the soil is not mud, but humus based on gravels or
on ruddy clays, stiff and retentive. The formation, in fact, is
everywhere that of Eyo or Yoruba, the goodly region lying west of
the lower Niger, and its fertility must result from the abundant
water supply of the equatorial belt.
The charts are fearful to look upon. The embouchure, well known
to old traders, has been scientifically surveyed in our day by
Lieutenant Alph. Fleuriot de Langle, of La Malouine (1845), and
the chart was corrected from a survey ordered by Capitaine Bouët-
Willaumez (1849); in the latter year it was again revised by M.
Charles Floix, of the French navy, and, with additions by the
officers of Her Britannic Majesty's service, it becomes our No.
1877. The surface is a labyrinth of banks, rocks, and shoals,
"Ely," "Nisus," "Alligator," and "Caraibe." In such surroundings
as these, when the water shallows apace, the pilot must not be
despised.
Her Majesty's steam-ship "Griffon," Commander Perry, found
herself, at 2 P.M. on Monday, March, 17, 1862, in a snug berth
opposite Le Plateau, as the capital of the French colony is
called, and amongst the shipping of its chief port, Aumale Road.
The river at this neck is about five miles broad, and the scene
was characteristically French. Hardly a merchant vessel lay
there. We had no less than four naval consorts "La Caravane,"
guard-ship, store-ship, and hospital-hulk; a fine transport, "La
Riège," bound for Goree; "La Recherche," a wretched old sailing
corvette which plies to Assini and Grand Basam on the Gold Coast;
and, lastly, "La Junon," chef de division Baron Didelot, then one
of the finest frigates in the French navy, armed with fifty
rifled sixty-eight pounders. It is curious that, whilst our
neighbours build such splendid craft, and look so neat and natty
in naval uniform, they pay so little regard to the order and
cleanliness of their floating homes.
After visiting every English colony on the West Coast of Africa,
I resolved curiously to examine my first specimen of our rivals,
the "principal centre of trade in western equatorial Africa." The
earliest visit--in uniform, of course--was to Baron Didelot,
whose official title is "Commandant Supérieur des Établissements
de la Côte d'Or et du Gabon;" the following was to M. H. S.
L'Aulnois, "Lieutenant de Vaisseau et Commandant Particulier du
Comptoir de Gabon." These gentlemen have neat bungalows and
gardens; they may spend their days ashore, but they are very
careful to sleep on board. All the official whites appear to have
a morbid horror of the climate; when attacked by fever, they
"cave in" at once, and recovery can hardly be expected. This year
also, owing to scanty rains, sickness has been rife, and many
cases which began with normal mildness have ended suddenly and
fatally. Besides fear of fever, they are victims to ennui and
nostalgia; and, expecting the Comptoir to pay large profits, they
are greatly disappointed by the reverse being the case.
But how can they look for it to be otherwise? The modern French
appear fit to manage only garrisons and military posts. They will
make everything official, and they will not remember the protest
against governing too much, offered by the burgesses of Paris to
Louis le Grand. They are always on duty; they are never out of
uniform, mentally and metaphorically, as well as bodily and
literally. Nothing is done without delay, even in the matter of
signing a ship's papers. A long procès-verbal takes the place of
our summary punishment, and the gros canon is dragged into use on
every occasion, even to enforce the payment of native debts.
In the Gaboon, also, there is a complication of national
jealousy, suggesting the mastiff and the poodle. A perpetual war
rages about flags. English craft may carry their colours as far
up stream as Coniquet Island; beyond this point they must either
hoist a French ensign, or sail without bunting--should the
commodore permit. Otherwise they will be detained by the
commander of the hulk "l'Oise," stationed at Anenge-nenge, some
thirty-eight to forty miles above Le Plateau. Lately a Captain
Gordon, employed by Mr. Francis Wookey of Taunton, was ordered to
pull down his flag: those who know the "mariner of England" will
appreciate his feelings on the occasion. Small vessels belonging
to foreigners, and employed in cabotage, must not sail with their
own papers, and even a change of name is effected under
difficulties. About a week before my arrival a certain pan-
Teutonic Hamburgher, Herr B--, amused himself, after a copious
breakfast, with hoisting and saluting the Union Jack, in honour
of a distinguished guest, Major L--. report was at once spread
that the tricolor had been hauled down "with extreme indignity;"
and the Commodore took the trouble to reprimand the white, and to
imprison "Tom Case," the black in whose town the outrage had been
allowed.
This by way of parenthesis. My next step was to request the
pleasure of a visit from Messrs. Hogg and Kirkwood, who were in
charge of the English factories at Glass Town and Olomi; they
came down stream at once, and kindly acted as ciceroni around Le
Plateau. The landing is good; a reef has been converted into a
jetty and little breakwater; behind this segment of a circle we
disembarked without any danger of being washed out of the boat,
as at S'a Leone, Cape Coast Castle, and Accra. Unfortunately just
above this pier there is a Dutch-like jardin d'été--beds of dirty
weeds bordering a foul and stagnant swamp, while below the
settlement appears a huge coal-shed: the expensive mineral is
always dangerous when exposed in the tropics, and some thirty per
cent. would be saved by sending out a hulk. The next point is the
Hotel and Restaurant Fischer--pronounced Fi-cherre, belonging to
an energetic German-Swiss widow, who during six years' exile had
amassed some 65,000 francs. In an evil hour she sent a thieving
servant before the "commissaire de police;" the negress escaped
punishment, but the verandah with its appurtenances caught fire,
and everything, even the unpacked billiard-table, was burnt to
ashes. Still, Madame the Brave never lost heart. She applied
herself valiantly as a white ant to repairing her broken home,
and, wonderful to relate in this land of no labour, ruled by the
maxim "festina lente," all had been restored within six months.
We shall dine at her table d'hôte.
Our guide led up and along the river bank, where there is almost
a kilometre of road facing six or seven kilometres of nature's
highway--the stream. The swampy jungle is not cleared off from
about the Comptoir, and presently the perfume of the fat, rank
weeds; and the wretched bridges, a few planks spanning black and
fetid mud, drove us northwards or inland, towards the neat house
and grounds of the "Commandant Particulier." The outside walls,
built in grades with the porous, dark-red, laterite-like stone
dredged from the river, are whitewashed with burnt coralline and
look clean; whilst the house, one of the best in the place, is
French, that is to say, pretty. Near it is a cluster of native
huts, mostly with walls of corded bamboo, some dabbed with clay
and lime, and all roofed with the ever shabby-looking palm-leaf;
none are as neat as those of the "bushmen" in the interior, where
they are regularly and carefully made like baskets or panniers.
The people appeared friendly; the men touched their hats, and the
women dropped unmistakably significant curtsies.
After admiring the picturesque bush and the natural avenues
behind Le Plateau, we diverged towards the local Père-la-Chaise.
The new cemetery, surrounded by a tall stone wall and approached
by a large locked gate, contains only four tombs; the old burial
ground opposite is unwalled, open, and painfully crowded; the
trees have run wild, the crosses cumber the ground, the
gravestones are tilted up and down; in fact the foul Golgotha of
Santos, São Paulo, the Brazil, is not more ragged, shabby, and
neglected. We were shown the last resting-place of M. du Chaillu
pere, agent to Messrs. Oppenheim, the old Parisian house: he died
here in 1856.
Resuming our way parallel with, but distant from the river, we
passed a bran-new military storehouse, bright with whitewash.
Outside the compound lay the lines of the "Zouaves," some forty
negroes whom Goree has supplied to the Gaboon; they were
accompanied by a number of intelligent mechanics, who loudly
complained of having been kidnapped, coolie-fashion. We then
debouched upon Fort Aumale; from the anchorage it appears a
whitewashed square, whose feet are dipped in bright green
vegetation, and its head wears a dingy brown roof-thatch. A
nearer view shows a pair of semi-detached houses, built upon
arches, and separated by a thoroughfare; the cleaner of the two
is a hospital; the dingier, which is decorated with the brown-
green stains, the normal complexion of tropical masonry, lodges
the station Commandant and the medical officers. Fronting the
former and by the side of an avenue that runs towards the sea is
an unfinished magazine of stone, and to the right, as you front
the sun, lies the garden of the "Commandant du Comptoir," choked
with tropical weeds. Altogether there is a scattered look about
the metropolis of the "Gabon," which numbers one foot of house to
a thousand of "compound."
Suddenly a bonnet like a pair of white gulls wings and a blue
serge gown fled from us, despite the weight of years, like a
young gazelle; the wearer was a sister of charity, one of five
bonnes surs. Their bungalow is roomy and comfortable, near a
little chapel and a largish school, whence issue towards sunset
the well-known sounds of the Angelus. At some distance down
stream and on the right or northern bank lies a convent, and a
house superintended by the original establisher of the mission in
1844, the bishop, Mgr. Bessieux, who died in 1872, aged 70. There
are extensive plantations, but the people are too lazy to take
example from them.
Before we hear the loud cry à table, we may shortly describe the
civilized career of the Gaboon. In 1842, when French and English
rivalry, burning hot on both sides of the Channel, extended deep
into the tropics and spurned the equator, and when every naval
officer, high and low, went mad about concluding treaties and
conquering territory on paper, France was persuaded to set up a
naval station in Gorilla-land. The northern and the southern
shore each had a king, whose consent, after a careless fashion,
was considered decorous. His Majesty of the North was old King
Glass[FN#1] and his chief "tradesman," that is, his premier, was
the late Toko, a shrewd and far-seeing statesman. His Majesty of
the South was Rapwensembo, known to the English as King William,
to the French as Roi Denis.
Matters being in this state, M. le Comte Bouët-Willaumez, then
Capitaine de Vaisseau and Governor of Senegal, resolved, coûte
que coûte, to have his fortified Comptoir. Evidently the northern
shore was preferable; it was more populous and more healthy,
facing the fresh southerly winds. During the preliminary
negotiations Toko, partial to the English, whose language he
spoke fluently, and with whom the Glass family had ever been
friendly, thwarted the design with all his might, and, despite
threats and bribes, honestly kept up his opposition to the last.
Roi Denis, on the other hand, who had been decorated with the
Légion d'Honneur for saving certain shipwrecked sailors, who knew
French well, and who hoped to be made king of the whole country,
favoured to the utmost Gallic views, taking especial care,
however, to place the broad river between himself and his white
friends. M. de Moleon, Capitaine de Frégate, and commanding the
brig "Le Zèbre," occupied the place, Mr. Wilson[FN#2]("Western
Africa," p. 254) says by force of arms, but that is probably an
exaggeration. To bring our history to an end, the sons of Japheth
overcame the children of Ham, and, as the natives said, "Toko he
muss love Frenchman, all but out of (anglicè 'in') his heart."
As in the streets of Paris, so in every French city at home and
abroad,
"Verborum vetus interit ætas,"
and an old colonial chart often reads like a lesson in modern
history. Here we still find under the Empire the Constitutional
Monarchy of 1842-3. Mount Bouët leads to Fort "Aumale:" Point
Joinville, at the north jaw of the river, faces Cap Montagnies:
Parrot has become "Adelaide," and Coniquet "Orleans" Island.
Indeed the love of Louis-Philippe's family has lingered in many a
corner where one would least expect to meet it, and in 1869 I
found "Port Saeed" a hot-bed of Orleanism.
The hotel verandah was crowded with the minor officials, the
surgeons, and the clerks of the comptoir, drinking absinthe and
colicky vermouth, smoking veritable "weeds," playing at dominoes,
and contending who could talk longest and loudest. At 7 P.M. the
word was given to "fall to." The room was small and exceedingly
close; the social board was big and very rickety. The clientèle
rushed in like backwoodsmen on board a Mississippi floating-
palace, stripped off their coats, tucked up their sleeves, and,
knife in one hand and bread in the other, advanced gallantly to
the fray. They began by quarrelling about carving; one made a
sporting offer to découper la soupe, but he would go no farther;
and Madame, as the head of the table, ended by asking my
factotum, Selim Agha, to "have the kindness." The din, the heat,
the flare of composition candles which gave 45 per cent. less of
light than they ought, the blunders of the slaves, the
objurgations of the hostess, and the spectacled face opposite me,
were as much as I could bear, and a trifle more. No wonder that
the resident English merchants avoid the table-d'hôte.
Provisions are dear and scarce at the Gaboon, where, as in other
parts of West Africa, the negro will not part with his animals,
unless paid at the rate of some twenty-two or twenty-three
shillings for a lean goat or sheep. Yet the dinner is copious;
the employés contribute, their rations; and thus the table shows
beef twice a week. Black cattle are imported from various parts
of the coast, north and south; perhaps those of the Kru country
stand the climate best; the Government yard is well stocked, and
the polite Commodore readily allows our cruizers to buy bullocks.
Madame also is not a "bird with a long bill;" the dinner,
including piquette, alias vin ordinaire, coffee, and the petit
verre, costs five francs to the stranger, and one franc less pays
the déjeuner a la fourchette--most men here eat two dinners. The
soi-disant Médoc (forty francs per dozen) is tolerable, and the
cassis (thirty francs) is drinkable. I am talking in the present
of things twelve years past. What a shadowy, ghostly table d'hôte
it has now become to me!
After dinner appeared cigar and pipe, which were enjoyed in the
verandah: I sat up late, admiring the intense brilliancy of the
white and blue lightning, but auguring badly for the future,--
natives will not hunt during the rains. A strong wind was blowing
from the north-east, which, with the north-north-east, is here,
as at Fernando Po and Camaronen, the stormy quarter. A "dry
tornado," however, was the only result that night.
My trip to Gorilla-land was limited by the cruise upon which
H.M.S.S. "Griffon" had been ordered, namely, to and from the
South Coast with mail-bags. Many of those whom I had wished to
see were absent; but Mr. Hogg set to work in the most business-
like style. He borrowed a boat from the Rev. William Walker, of
the Gaboon Mission, who kindly wrote that I should have something
less cranky if I could wait awhile; he manned it with three of
his own Krumen, and he collected the necessary stores and
supplies of cloth, pipes and tobacco, rum, white wine, and
absinthe for the natives.
My private stores cost some 200 francs. They consisted of
candles, sugar, bread, cocoa, desiccated milk, and potatoes;
Cognac and Médoc; ham, sausages, soups, and preserved meats, the
latter French and, as usual, very good and very dear. The total
expenditure for twelve days was 300 francs.
My indispensables were reduced to three loads, and I had four
"pull-a-boys," one a Mpongwe, Mwáká alias Captain Merrick, a
model sluggard; and Messrs. Smoke, Joe Williams, and Tom Whistle-
-Kru-men, called Kru-boys. This is not upon the principle, as
some suppose, of the grey-headed post-boy and drummer-boy: all
the Kraoh tribes end their names in bo, e.g. Worebo, from "wore,"
to capsize a canoe; Grebo, from the monkey "gre" or "gle;" and
many others. Bo became "boy," even as Sipahi (Sepoy) became Sea-
pie, and Sukhani (steersman) Sea-Coney.
Gaboon is French, with a purely English trade. Gambia is English,
with a purely French trade; the latter is the result of many
causes, but especially of the large neighbouring establishments
at Goree, Saint Louis de Sénégal, and Saint Joseph de Galam.
Exchanging the two was long held the soundest of policy. The
French hoped by it to secure their darling object,--exclusive
possession of the maritime regions, as well as the interior,
leading to the gold mines of the Mandengas (Mandingas), and
allowing overland connection with their Algerine colony. The
English also seemed willing enough to "swop" an effete and
dilapidated settlement, surrounded by more powerful rivals--a
hot-bed of dysentery and yellow fever, a blot upon the fair face
of earth, even African earth--for a new and fresh country, with a
comparatively good climate, in which the thermometer ranges
between 65° (Fahr.) and 90°, with a barometer as high as the heat
allows; and where, being at home and unwatched, they could
subject a lingering slave-trade to a regular British putting-
down. But, when matters came to the point in 1870-71, the
proposed bargain excited a storm of sentimental wrath which was
as queer as unexpected. The French object to part with the
Gaboon, as the Germans appear inclined to settle upon the Ogobe
River. In England, cotton, civilization, and even Christianity
were thrust forward by half-a-dozen merchants, and by a few venal
colonial prints. The question assumed the angriest aspect; and,
lastly, the Prussian-French war underwrote the negotiations with
a finis pro temp. I hope to see them renewed; and I hope still
more ardently to see the day when we shall either put our so-
called "colonies" on the West Coast of Africa to their only
proper use, convict stations, or when, if we are determined upon
consuming our own crime at home, we shall make up our minds to
restore them to the negro and the hyaena, their "old
inhabitants."
At the time of my visit, the Gaboon River had four English
traders; viz.
1. Messrs. Laughland and Co., provision-merchants, Fernando Po
and Glasgow. Their resident agent was Mr. Kirkwood.
2. Messrs. Hatton and Cookson, general merchants, Liverpool.
Their chief agent, Mr. R.B.N. Walker, who had known the river for
eleven years (1865), had left a few days before my arrival; his
successor, Mr. R.B. Knight, had also sailed for Cape Palmas, to
engage Kru-men, and Mr. Hogg had been left in charge.
3. Messrs. Wookey and Dyer, general merchants, Liverpool. Agents,
Messrs. Gordon and Bryant.
4. Messrs. Bruford and Townsend, of Bristol. Agent, Captain
Townsend.
The resident agents for the Hamburg houses were Messrs. Henert
and Bremer.
The English traders in the Gaboon are nominally protected by the
Consulate of Sao Paulo de Loanda, but the distance appears too
great for consul or cruizer. They are naturally anxious for some
support, and they agitate for an unpaid Consular Agent: at
present they have, in African parlance, no "back." A Kruman,
offended by a ration of plantains, when he prefers rice, runs to
the Plateau, and lays some fictitious complaint before the
Commandant. Monsieur summons the merchant, condemns him to pay a
fine, and dismisses the affair without even permitting a protest.
Hence, impudent robbery occurs every day. The discontent of the
white reacts upon his clients the black men; of late, les Gabons,
as the French call the natives, have gone so far as to declare
that foreigners have no right to the upper river, which is all
private property. The line drawn by them is at Fetish Rock, off
Pointe Française, near the native village of Mpíra, about half a
mile above the Plateau; and they would hail with pleasure a
transfer to masters who are not so uncommonly ready with their
gros canons.
The Gaboon trade is chronicled by John Barbot, Agent-General of
the French West African Company, "Description of the Coast of
South Guinea," Churchill, vol. v. book iv. chap. 9; and the chief
items were, and still are, ivory and beeswax. Of the former,
90,000 lbs. may be exported when the home prices are good, and
sometimes the total has reached 100 tons. Hippopotamus tusks are
dying out, being now worth only 2s. per lb. Other exports are
caoutchouc, ebony (of which the best comes from the Congo), and
camwood or barwood (a Tephrosia). M. du Chaillu calls it the
"Ego-tree;" the natives (Mpongwe) name the tree Igo, and the
billet Ezígo.