Village Life in Pongo-land.
The next day was perforce a halt. Forteune and his wives did not
appear till 9 A.M., when it was dead low water. I had lent Nimrod
a double-barrelled gun during the march, and he was evidently
anxious to found a claim upon the protracted usufruct. "Dashes"
also had to be settled, and loads made up. The two women to whose
unvarying kindness all my comfort had been owing, were made happy
with satin-stripe, cassis, and the inevitable nicotiana. In an
unguarded moment my soft heart was betrayed into giving a bottle
of absinthe to the large old person who claimed to be Forteune's
mamma. Expecting nothing, had nothing been offered she would not
have complained; the present acted upon her violently and
deleteriously; she was like the cabman who makes mauvais sang
because he has asked and received only twice his fare; briefly,
next morning she was too surly to bid us adieu.
When giving Forteune his "dash," I was curious to hear how he
could explain the report about the dead gorilla shot the night
before last: the truth of the old saying, "a black man is never
fast for an excuse," was at once illustrated; the beast had been
badly wounded, but it had dragged itself off to die. And where
was the blood? The rain had washed the blood away!
Nimrod seemed chagrined at the poor end of so much trouble, but
there was something in his look and voice suggesting a suppressed
thought--these people, like the English and the Somal, show their
innermost secrets in their faces. At last, I asked him if he was
now willing to try the Shekyani country. He answered flatly,
"No!" And why?
Some bushmen had bewitched him; he knew the fellow, and would
quickly make "bob come up his side:" already two whites had
visited him with a view of shooting gorillas; both had failed; it
was "shame palaver!"
This might have been true, but it certainly was not the whole
truth. I can hardly accept M. du Chaillu's explanation, that the
Mpongwe, who attack the beasts with trade muskets and pebbles,
will not venture into the anthropoid's haunts unless certain of
their white employer's staunchness. What could that matter, when
our Nimrod had an excellent weapon in his hand and a strong party
to back him? Very likely Forteune was tired with walking, and
five dollars per shot made the game not worth the candle. Again,
perhaps the black diplomatist feared to overstock the market with
Njinas, or to offend some regular customer for the sake of an
"interloper." In these African lands they waste over a monkey's
skin or a bottle of rum as much intrigue as is devoted to a
contested election in England.
I then asked the guide if my staying longer would be of any use?
He answered with a simple negative. Whilst the Utángáni remained
the Mbunji (spell) would still work, but it would at once be
broken by our departure, and he would prove it by sending down
the first-fruits. This appeared to me to be mere Mpongwe
"blague," but, curious to say, the sequel completely justified
both assertions. He threw out a hint, however, about certain
enemies and my "medicine," the arsenical soap; I need hardly say
that it was refused.
When the palaver ended and the tide served, a fierce tornado
broke upon us, and the sky looked grisly in the critical
direction, north-east. Having no wish to recross the Gaboon River
during a storm blowing a head wind, I resolved to delay my
departure till the morrow, and amused myself with drawing from
the nude a picture of the village and village-life in Pongo-land.
The Mpongwe settlements on the Gaboon River are neatly built, but
without any attempt at fortification; for the most part each
contains one family, or rather a chief and his dependants. In the
larger plantation "towns," the abodes form a single street,
ranging from 100 to 1,000 yards in length; sometimes, but rarely,
there are cross streets; the direction is made to front the sea-
breeze, and, if possible, to present a corner to storm-bearing
Eurus. An invariable feature, like the arcaded loggie of old
Venetian towns, is the Námpolo, or palaver-house, which may be
described as the club-room of the village. An open hangar, like
the Ikongolo or "cask-house" of the trading places, it is known
by a fire always kept burning. The houses are cubes, or oblong
squares, varying from 10 to 100 feet in length, according to the
wealth and dignity of the owner; all are one-storied, and a few
are raised on switch foundations. Most of them have a verandah
facing the street, and a "compound" or cleared space in the rear
for cooking and other domestic purposes. The walls are built by
planting double and parallel rows of posts, the material being
either bamboo or the mid-rib of a wine-giving palm (Raphia
vinifera); to these uprights horizontal slats of cane are neatly
lashed by means of the never-failing "tie-tie," bast-slips,
runners, or llianas. For the more solid buildings thin "Mpávo,"
or bark slabs, are fitted in between the double posts; when
coolness is required, their place is taken by mats woven with the
pinnated leaves of sundry palms. This is a favourite industry
with the women, who make two kinds, one coarse, the other a neat
and close article, of rattan-tint until it becomes smoke-stained:
the material is so cheap and comfortable, that many of the
missionaries prefer it for walls to brick or boarding. The
windows are mere holes in the mats to admit light, and the doors
are cut with a Mpáno (adze) from a single tree trunk, which would
be wilful waste if timber were ever wanting. The floor is
sometimes sandy, but generally of hard and level tamped clay, to
which the European would prefer boarding, and, as a rule, it is
clean--no fear of pythogenie from here! The pent-shaped roof of
rafters and thatch is water-tight except when the host of rats
disturb it by their nocturnal gambols.
Rich men affect five or six rooms, of which the principal
occupies the centre. The very poor must be contented with one;
the majority have two. The "but" combines the functions of hall,
dining-room, saloon and bachelor's sleeping quarters. The "ben"
contains a broad bed for the married, a standing frame of split
bamboo with mats for mattresses; it is usually mounted on props
to defend it from the Nchu'u or white ants, and each has its
mosquito bar, an oblong square, large enough to cover the whole
couch and to reach the ground; the material is either fine grass-
cloth, from the Ashira country, a light stuff called "Mbongo," or
calico and blue baft from which the stiffening has been washed
out. It is far superior to the flimsy muslin affairs supplied in
an Anglo-Indian outfit, or to the coarse matting used in Yoruba.
Provided with this solid defence, which may be bought in any
shop, one can indulge one's self by sleeping in the verandah
without risk of ague or rheumatism. The "ben" always displays a
pile of chests and boxes, which, though possibly empty, testify
to the "respectability" of the household. In Hotaloya's I
remarked a leather hat-case; he owned to me that he had already
invested in a silk tile, the sign of chieftainship, but that
being a "boy" he must grow older before he could wear it. The
inner room can be closed with a strong door and a padlock; as
even the window-hole is not admitted, the burglar would at once
be detected. Except where goods are concerned, the Mpongwe have
little respect for privacy; the women, in the presence of their
husbands, never failed to preside at my simple toilette, and the
girls of the villages would sit upon the bedside where lay an
Utangání in almost the last stage of déshabillé.
The furniture of course varies; a rich man near the river will
have tables and chairs, sofas, looking-glasses, and as many
clocks, especially "Sam Slicks," as love or money can procure.
Even the poorest affect a standing bedstead in the "ben," plank
benches acting as couches in the "but," a sufficiency of mats,
and pots for water and cooking. A free man never condescends to
sit upon the ground; the low stool, cut out of a single block,
and fancifully carved, is exactly that of the old Egyptians
preserved by the modern East Africans; it dates from ages
immemorial. The look of comparative civilization about these
domiciles, doubtless the effect of the Portuguese and the slave
trade, distinguishes them from the barbarous circular huts of the
Kru-men, the rude clay walls of the Gold Coast, and the tattered,
comfortless sheds of the Fernandian "Bube." They have not,
however, that bandbox-like neatness which surprises the African
traveller on the Camerones River.
The only domestic animals about these villages are dogs, poultry,
and pigeons (fine blue rocks): I never saw in Pongo-land the
goats mentioned by M. du Chaillu. The bush, however, supplies an
abundance of "beef," and, as most South Africans, they have a
word, Isángú (amongst the Mpongwes), or Ingwámbá (of the Cape
Lopez people), to express that inordinate longing and yearning
for the stimulus of meat diet, caused by the damp and depressing
equatorial climate, of which Dr. Livingstone so pathetically
complains. The settlements are sometimes provided with little
plots of vegetables; usually, however, the plantations are
distant, to preserve them from the depredations of bipeds and
quadrupeds. They are guarded by bushmen, who live on the spot
and, shortly before the rains all the owners flock to their
farms, where, for a fortnight or so, they and their women do
something like work. New grounds are preferred, because it is
easier to clear them than to remove the tangled after-growth of
ferns and guinea grass; moreover, they yield, of course, better
crops. The plough has not yet reached Pongo-land; the only tools
are the erem (little axe for felling), the matchet (a rude
cutlass for clearing), the hoe, and a succedaneum for the dibble.
After the bush has been burned as manure, and the seed has been
sown, no one will take the trouble of weeding, and half the
surface is wild growth.
Maize (Zea mays) has become common, and the people enjoy "bútás,"
or roasted ears. Barbot says that the soil is unfit for corn and
Indian wheat; it is so for the former, certainly not for the
latter. Rice has extended little beyond the model farms on the
north bank of the river; as everywhere upon the West African
Coast, it is coarser, more nutritious, and fuller flavoured than
the Indian. The cereals, however, are supplanted by plantains and
manioc (cassava). The plantains are cooked in various ways, roast
and boiled, mashed and broiled, in paste and in balls; when
unripe they are held medicinal against dysentery. The manioc is
of the white variety (Fatropha Aypim seu utilissima), and, as at
Lagos, the root may be called the country bread: I never saw the
poisonous or black manioc (Fatropha manihot), either in East or
in West Africa, and I heard of it only once in Unyamwezi, Central
Africa. Yet it is mentioned by all old travellers, and the sweet
harmless variety gives very poor "farinha," Anglicè "wood meal."
The vegetables are "Mbongwe" (yams), koko or Colocasia esculenta,
Occras (Hibiscus esculentus), squashes (pumpkins), cucumbers,
beans of several sorts, and the sweet potato, an esculent
disliked by Englishmen, but far more nutritious than the
miserable "Irish" tuber. The ground-nut or peanut (Arachis
hypogaea), the "pindar" of the United States, a word derived from
Loango, is eaten roasted, and, as a rule, the people have not
learned to express its oil. Proyart (Pinkerton, xvi. 551) gives,
probably by misprint, "Pinda, which we call Pistachio." "Bird-
peppers," as the small red species is called, grow wild in every
bush; they are wholesome, and the people use them extensively.
Tomatoes flourish almost spontaneously, and there is a bulbless
native onion whose tops make excellent seasoning. Sugar-cane will
thrive in the swamps, coffee on the hill-slopes: I heard of, but
never saw ginger.
The common fruits are limes and oranges, mangoes, papaws, and
pineapples, the gift of the New World, now run wild, and
appreciated chiefly by apes. The forest, however, supplies a
multitude of wild growths, which seem to distinguish this section
of the coast, and which are eaten with relish by the people.
Amongst them are the Sángo and Nefu, with pleasant acid berries;
the Ntábá, described as a red grape, which will presently make
wine; the olive-like Azyigo (Ozigo?); the filbert-like Kula, the
"koola-nut" of M. du Chaillu ("Second Expedition," chap, viii.),
a hard-shelled nux, not to be confounded with the soft-shelled
kola (Sterculia); and the Aba, or wild mango (Mango Gabonensis),
a pale yellow pome, small, and tasting painfully of turpentine.
It is chiefly prized for its kernels. In February and March all
repair to the bush for their mango-vendange, eat the fruit, and
collect the stones: the insides, after being sun-dried, are
roasted like coffee in a neptune, or in an earthern pot. When
burnt chocolate colour, they are pounded to the consistency of
thick honey, poured into a mould, a basket lined with banana
leaves, and set for three days to dry in the sun: after this the
cake, which in appearance resembles guava cheese, will keep
through the year.
For use the loaf is scraped, and a sufficiency is added to the
half-boiled or stewed flesh, the two being then cooked together:
it is equally prized in meat broths, or with fish, dry and fresh;
and it is the favoured kitchen for rice and the insipid banana.
"Odika," the "Ndika" of the Bákele tribes, is universally used,
like our "Worcester," and it may be called the one sauce of
Gorilla-land, the local equivalent for curry, pepper-pot, or
palm-oil chop; it can be eaten thick or thin, according to taste,
but it must always be as hot as possible. The mould sells for
half a dollar at the factories, and many are exported to
adulterate chocolate and cocoa, which it resembles in smell and
oily flavour. I regret to say that travellers have treated this
national relish disrespectfully, as continentals do our "plomb-
boudin:" Mr. W. Winwood Reade has chaffed it, and another Briton
has compared it with "greaves."
At "Cockerapeak," or, to speak less unpoetically, when Alectryon
sings his hymn to the dawn, the working bees of the little hive
must be up and stirring, whilst the master and mistress enjoy the
beauty-sleep. "Early to bed, and early to rise," is held only fit
to make a man surly, and give him red eyes, by all wild peoples,
who have little work, and who justly hold labour an evil less
only than death. Amongst the Bedawin it is a sign of Shaykh-dom
not to retire before dawn, and I have often heard the Somal
"palavering" after midnight. As a rule the barbarian enjoys his
night chat and smoke round the fire all the more because he
drinks or dozes through the better part of the day. There is a
physical reason for the preference. The absence of light
stimulus, and the changes which follow sunset seem to develope in
him a kind of night-fever as in the nervous temperament of
Europe. Hence so many students choose the lamp in preference to
the sun, and children mostly clamour when told at 8 o'clock to go
to bed.
Shortly after sunrise the young ones are bathed in the verandah.
Here also the mistress smooths her locks, rumpled by the night,
"tittivates" her macaw-crest with the bodkin, and anoints her
hair and skin with a tantinet of grease and palm oil. Some, but
by no means all, proceed for ablution to the stream-side, and the
girls fetch water in heavy earthen jars, containing perhaps two
gallons; they are strung, after the Kru fashion, behind the back
by a band passing across the forehead. When we meet them they
gently say "Mbolo!" (good morning), or "Oresa" (are you well)? At
this hour, however, all are not so civil, the seniors are often
uncommonly cross and surly, and the mollia tempora fandi may not
set in till after the first meal--I have seen something of the
kind in England. The sex, impolitely said to have one fibre more
in the heart and one cell less in the brain, often engages in a
violent wordy war; the tornado of wrath will presently pass over,
and leave clear weather for the day. In the evening, when the
electric fluid again gathers heavily, there will be another
storm. Meanwhile, superintended by the mistress, all are occupied
with the important duty of preparing the morning meal. It is
surprising how skilful are these heaven-born cooks; the excellent
dishes they make out of "half-nothing." I preferred the cuisine
of Forteune's wives to that of the Plateau, and, after finding
that money was current in the village, I never failed to secure
their good offices.
The Mpongwe breakfast is eaten by the women in their respective
verandahs, with their children and friends; the men also gather
together, and prefer the open air. This feed would not only
astonish those who talk about a "free breakfast-table," with its
silly slops and bread-stuffs; it would satisfy a sharp-set
Highlander. In addition to yams and sweet potatoes, plantains,
and perhaps rice, there will be cooked mangrove-oysters fresh
from the tree, a fry, or an excellent bouillabaisse of fish;
succulent palaver sauce, or palm-oil chop; poultry and meat. The
domestic fowl is a favourite; but, curious to say, neither here
nor in any part of tropical Africa known to me have the people
tamed the only gallinaceous bird which the Black Continent has
contributed to civilization. The Guinea fowl, like the African
elephant, remains wild. We know it to be an old importation in
Europe, although there are traditions about its appearing in the
fourteenth century, when Moslems sold it to Christians as the
"Jerusalem cock," and Christians to Moslems as the "bird of
Meccah." It must be the Greek meleagris, so called, says Ælian,
from the sisters who wept a brother untimely slain; hence the
tears upon its plume, suggesting the German Perl-huhn, and its
frequent cries, which the Brazilians, who are great in the
language of birds, translate Sto fraca, sto fraca, sto fraca (I'm
weak). The Hausa Moslems make the Guinea fowl cry, "Kilkal!
kilkal!" (Grammar by the Rev. F. J. Schön, London, Salisbury
Square, 1862). It is curious to compare the difference of ear
with which nations hear the cries of animals, and form their
onomatopoetic, or "bow-wow" imitations. For instance, the North
Americans express by "whip-poor-will" what the Brazilians call
"João-corta-páo." The Guinea fowl may have been the "Afraa
avis;"but that was a dear luxury amongst the Romans, though the
Greek meleagris was cheap. The last crotchet about it is that of
an African traveller, who holds it to be the peacock of Solomon's
navies, completely ignoring the absolute certainty which the
South-Indian word "Tukkiim" carries with it.
The Mpongwe will not eat ape, on account of its likeness to
themselves. But they greatly enjoy game; the porcupine, the
ground-hog (an Echymys), the white flesh of the bush pig
(Cricetomys), and the beef of the Nyáre (Bos brachyceros); this
is the "buffalo" or "bush-cow" of the regions south of Sierra
Leone, and the empacassa of the Congo-Portuguese, whose
"empacasseirs" or native archers, rural police and auxiliaries
"of the second line," have as "guerra preta" (black militia) won
many a victory. Their numbers in Angola have amounted to 30,000,
and they aided in conquest like the Indian Sipahi (sepoy) and the
Tupi of the older Brazil. Now they wear the Tánga or Pagne, a
waist cloth falling to the knee, and they are armed with trade
muskets and cartridge-boxes fastened to broad belts. Barbot calls
the Nyare a buffalo, and tells us that it was commonly shot at
Sandy Point, where in his day elephants also abounded. Captain
Boteler (ii. 379) well describes a specimen, which was killed by
Dr. Guland, R.N., as exactly resembling the common cow of
England, excepting that its proportions are far more "elegant."
This hearty breakfast is washed down with long drinks of palm
wine, and followed by sundry pipes of tobacco; after which, happy
souls! all enjoy a siesta, long and deep as that of Andine
Mendoza; and they "kill time" as well as they can till evening.
The men assemble in the club round the Námpolo-fire, where they
chat and smoke, drink and doze; those who are Agriophagi or
Xylobian Æthiopians, briefly called hunters, spend their days
much like the race which Byron declared
"Merely born
To hunt and vote, and raise the price of corn."
The Pongo venator is up with the sun, and, if not on horseback,
at least he is on the traces of game; sometimes he returns home
during the hours of heat, when he knows that the beasts seek the
shady shelter of the deepest forests; and, after again enjoying
the "pleasures of the chase," he disposes of a heavy dinner and
ends the day, sleep weighing down his eyelids and his brains
singing with liquor. What he did yesterday that he does to-day,
and what he does to-day that he shall do to-morrow; his
intellectual life is varied only by a visit to town, where he
sells his choice skins, drinks a great deal too much rum, and
makes the purchases, ammunition and so forth, which are necessary
for the full enjoyment of home and country life. At times also he
joins a party of friends and seeks some happier hunting ground
farther from his campagne.
Meanwhile the women dawdle through the day, superintending their
domestic work, look after their children's and their own
toilette, tend the fire, attend to the cooking, and smoke
consumedly. The idle sit with the men at the doors of their huts;
those industriously disposed weave mats, and, whether lazy or
not, they never allow their tongues and lungs a moment's rest.
The slaves, male and female, draw water, cut fuel, or go to the
distant plantations for yams and bananas; whilst the youngsters
romp, play and tease the village idiot--there is one in almost
every settlement. Briefly, the day is spent in idleness, except,
as has been said, for a short time preceding the rains.
When the sun nears the western horizon, the hunter and the slaves
return home, and the housewife, who has been enjoying the
"coolth" squatting on her dwarf stool at her hut-door, and
puffing the preparatory pipe,--girds her loins for the evening
meal, and makes every one "look alive." When the last rays are
shedding their rich red glow over the tall black trees which hem
in the village, all torpidity disappears from it. The fires are
trimmed, and the singing and harping, which were languid during
the hot hours, begin with renewed vigour. The following is a
specimen of a boating-song:
(Solo.) "Come, my sweetheart!"
( Chorus.) "Haste, haste!"
(Solo) 'How many things gives the white man?'
(Chorus chants all that it wants.)
(Solo) 'What must be done for the white man?"
(Chorus improvises all his requirements)
(Solo) "How many dangers for the black girl?"
(Chorus) "Dangers from the black and the white man!"
The evening meal is eaten at 6 P.M. with the setting of the sun,
whose regular hours contrast pleasantly with his vagaries in the
northern temperates. And Hesperus brings wine as he did of old.
Drinking sets in seriously after dark, and is known by the
violent merriment of the men, and the no less violent quarrelling
and "flyting" of the sex which delights in the "harmony of
tongues." All then retire to their huts, and with chat and song,
and peals of uproarious laughter and abundant horseplay, such as
throwing minor articles at one another's heads, smoke and drink
till 11 P.M. The scene is "Dovercourt, all speakers and no
hearers." The night is still as the grave. and the mewing of a
cat, if there were one, would sound like a tiger's scream.
The mornings and evenings in these plantation-villages would be
delightful were it not for what the Brazilians call immundicies.
Sandflies always swarm in places where underwood and tall grasses
exclude the draughts, and the only remedy is clearing the land.
Thus at St. Isabel or Clarence, Fernando Po, where the land-wind
or the sea-breeze ever blows, the vicious little wretches are
hardly known; on the forested background of mountain they are
troublesome as at Nigerian Nufe. The bite burns severely, and
presently the skin rises in bosses, lasting for days with a
severe itching, which, if unduly resented, may end in
inflammatory ulcerations--I can easily understand a man being
laid up by their attacks. The animalcules act differently upon
different constitutions. While mosquitoes hardly take effect,
sand flies have often blinded me for hours by biting the
circumorbital parts. The numbers and minuteness of this insect
make it formidable. The people flap their naked shoulders with
cloths or bushy twigs; Nigerian travellers have tried palm oil
but with scant success, and spirits of wine applied to the skin
somewhat alleviate the itching but has no prophylactic effect.
Sandflies do not venture into the dark huts, and a "smudge" keeps
them aloof, but the disease is more tolerable than the remedy of
inflaming the eyes with acrid smoke and of sitting in a close
box, by courtesy termed a room, when the fine pure air makes one
pine to be beyond walls. After long endurance in hopes of
becoming inoculated with the virus, I was compelled to defend
myself with thick gloves, stockings and a muslin veil made fast
to the hat and tucked in under the shirt. After sunset the
sandflies retire, and the mosquito sounds her hideous trump; as
has been said, however, Pongo-land knows how to receive her.