Up the Gaboon River.
Detestable weather detained me long at the hospitable factory.
Tornadoes were of almost daily occurrence --not pleasant with 200
barrels of gunpowder under a thatched roof; they were useful
chiefly to the Mpongwe servants of the establishment. These model
thieves broke open, under cover of the storms, a strong iron safe
in an inner room which had been carefully closed; they stole my
Mboko skin, and bottles were not safe from them even in our
bedrooms.
My next step was to ascend the "Olo' Mpongwe," or Gaboon River,
which Bowdich ("Sketch of Gaboon") calls Oroöngo, and its main
point Ohlombopolo. The object was to visit the Fán, of whose
cannibalism such curious tales had been told. It was not easy to
find a conveyance. The factory greatly wanted a flat-bottom iron
steamer, a stern-wheeler, with sliding keel, and furnaces fit for
burning half-dried wood--a craft of fourteen tons, costing
perhaps £14 per ton, would be ample in point of size, and would
save not a little money to the trader. I was at last fortunate in
securing the "Eliza," belonging to Messrs. Hatton and Cookson.
She was a fore-and-aft schooner of twenty tons, measuring 42 feet
6 inches over all and put up at Bonny Town by Captain Birkett.
She had two masts, and oars in case of calms; her crew was of six
hands, including one Fernando, a Congoese, who could actually box
the compass. No outfit was this time necessary, beyond a letter
to Mr. Tippet, who had charge of the highest establishments up
stream. His business consisted chiefly of importing arms,
ammunition, and beads of different sorts, especially the red
porcelain, locally called Loangos.
On April 10, a little before noon, I set out, despite thunder and
lightning, rain, sun, torrential showers, and the vehemently
expressed distaste of my crew. The view of the right bank was no
longer from afar; it differs in shape and material from the
southern, but the distinction appears to me superficial, not
extending to the interiors. Off Konig Island we found nine
fathoms of water, and wanted them during a bad storm from the
south-east; it prevented my landing and inspecting the old Dutch
guns, which Bowdich says are remains of the Portuguese. Both this
and Parrot Island, lying some five miles south by west, are
masses of cocoas, fringed with mangroves; a great contrast with
the prairillon of the neighbouring Point Ovindo. At last, worn
out by a four-knot current and a squall in our teeth, we anchored
in four fathoms, about five miles south-east of Konig.
From this point we could easily see the wide gape of the Rembwe,
the south-eastern influent, or rather fork, of the Gaboon, which
rises in the south-western versant of some meridional chain, and
which I was assured can be ascended in three tides. The people
told me when too late of a great cavity or sink, which they
called Wonga-Wonga; Bowdich represents it to be an "uninhabited
savannah of three days' extent, between Empoöngwa and Adjoomba
(Mayumba). I saw nothing of the glittering diamond mountains,
lying eastward of Wonga-Wonga, concerning which the old traveller
was compelled to admit that, "when there was no moon, a pale but
distinct light was invariably reflected from a mountain in that
quarter, and from no other." It has now died out--this
superstition, which corresponds with the carbuncle of Hoy and
others of our Scoto-Scandinavian islands.
Resuming our cruize on the next day, we passed on the right a
village of "bad Bákele," which had been blown down by the French
during the last year; in this little business the "king" and two
lieges had been killed. The tribe is large and important,
scattered over several degrees north and south of the equator, as
is proved by their slaves being collected from distances of
several weeks and even months. In 1854 Mr. Wilson numbered them
at 100,000. According to local experts they began to press down
stream about 1830, driven à tergo by their neighbours, the
Mpángwe (Fán), even as they themselves are driving the Mpongwes.
But they are evidently the Kaylee or Kalay of Bowdich (p. 427),
whose capital, "Samashialee," was "the residence of the king,
Ohmbay." He places them in their present habitat, and makes them
the worst of cannibals. Whilst the "Sheekans" (Shekyani) buried
their dead under the bed within the house, these detestable
Kaylees ate not only their prisoners, but their defunct friends,
whose bodies were "bid for directly the breath was out of them;"
indeed, fathers were frequently seen to devour their own
children. Bowdich evidently speaks from hearsay; but the Brazil
has preserved the old traditions of cannibalism amongst the
Gabões.
The Bákele appeared to me very like the coast tribes, only
somewhat lighter-coloured and wilder in look, whilst they again
are darker-skinned than their eastern neighbours from the inner
highlands. Their women are not so well dressed as the "ladies" of
the Mpongwe, the chignon is smaller, and there are fewer brass
rings. The men, who still cling to the old habit of hunting,
cultivate the soil, practise the ruder mechanical arts, and trade
with the usual readiness and greed; they asked us a leaf of
tobacco for an egg, and four leaves for a bunch of bananas.
Missionaries, who, like Messrs. Preston and Best, resided amongst
them for years, have observed that, though a mild and timid
people, they are ever involved in quarrels with their neighbours.
I can hardly understand how they "bear some resemblance to the
dwarfish Dokos of the eastern coast," seeing that the latter do
not exist.
The Dikele grammar proves the language, which is most closely
allied to the Benga dialect, to be one of the great South African
family, variously called Kafir, because first studied amongst
these people; Ethiopic (very vague), and Nilotic because its
great fluvial basin is the Zambezi, not the Nile. As might be
expected amongst isolated races, the tongue, though clearly
related to that of the Mpongwe and the Mpangwe, has many salient
points of difference; for instance, the liquid "r" is wholly
wanting. According to Mr. T. Leighton Wilson, perhaps one word in
two is the same, or obviously from the same root; consequently
verbal resemblances are by no means striking. The orthography of
the two differs materially, and in this respect Dikele more
resembles the languages of the eastern coast than its western
neighbour, at the same time less than the Fiote or the Congoese.
It has a larger number of declensions, and its adjectives and
pronouns are more flexible and complicated. On the other hand, it
possesses few of the conjugations which form so conspicuous a
feature in the tongues of the Lower River, and, reversing the
usage of the Mpongwe, it makes very little use of the passive.
Running the gauntlet of cheer and chaff from the noisy inmates of
the many Bákele villages, and worried by mangrove-flies, we held
our way up the muddy and rapidly narrowing stream, whose avenues
of rhizophoras and palms acted as wind-sails; when the breeze
failed the sensation was stifling. Lyámbá (Cannabis sativa) grew
in patches upon the banks, now apparently wild, like that about
Lagos and Badagry. Not till evening did the tide serve, enabling
us to send our papers for visa on board the guard-ship "L'Oise,"
where a party of young Frenchmen were preparing for la chasse. A
little higher up stream are two islets, Nenge Mbwendi, so called
from its owner, and Nenge Sika, or the Isle of Gold. The Mpongwe
all know this name for the precious metal, and the Bakele appear
to ignore it: curious to say, it is the Fante and Mandenga word,
probably derived from the Arabic Sikkah, which gave rise to the
Italian Zecca (mint) and Zecchino. It may have been introduced by
the Laptots or Lascar sailors of the Senegal. M. du Chaillu
("Second Expedition," chap. iii.) mentions "the island Nengué
Shika" on the Lower Fernão Vaz River; and Bowdich turns the two
into Ompoongu and Soombea. The third is Anenga-nenga, not Ninga-
ninga, about one mile long from north to south, and well wooded
with bush and palms; here the Gaboon Mission has a neat building
on piles. The senior native employé was at Glass Town, and his
junior, a youth about nineteen, stood à la Napoléon in the
doorway, evidently monarch of all he surveyed. I found there one
of the Ndiva, the old tribe of Pongo-land, which by this time has
probably died out. We anchored off Wosuku, a village of some
fifty houses, forming one main street, disposed north-east--
south-west, or nearly at right angles with the river. The
entrance was guarded by a sentinel and gun, and the "king,"
Imondo, lay right royally on his belly. A fine plantation of
bananas divides the settlement, and the background is dense bush,
in which they say "Nyáre" and deer abound. The Bákele supply
sheep and fowls to the Plateau, and their main industry consists
in dressing plantain-fibre for thread and nets.
We now reach the confluence of the Nkonio or north-eastern, with
the Mbokwe, or eastern branch, which anastomose to form the
Gaboon; the latter, being apparently the larger of the two,
preserves the title Mpolo. Both still require exploration; my
friend M. Braouezzec, Lieutenant de Vaisseau, who made charts of
the lower bed, utterly failed to make the sources; and the Rev.
Mr. Preston, who lived seven months in the interior, could not
ascend far. Mr. W. Winwood Reade reached in May, 1862, the rapids
of the Nkomo River, but sore feet prevented his climbing the
mountain, which he estimates at 2,000 feet, or of tracing the
stream to its fountain. Mr. R.B.N. Walker also ascended the Nkomo
for some thirty miles, and found it still a large bed with two
fathoms of water in the Cacimbo or "Middle dries." In M. du
Chaillu's map the Upper Nkomo is a dotted line; according to all
authorities, upon the higher and the lower river his direction is
too far to the north-east. The good Tippet declares that he once
canoed three miles up the Mbokwe, and then marched eastward for
five days, covering a hundred miles--which is impossible. He
found a line of detached hills, and an elevation where the dews
were exceedingly cold; looking towards the utterly unknown
Orient, he could see nothing but a thick forest unbroken by
streams. He heard from the country people traditions of a Great
Lake, which may be that placed by Tuckey in north latitude 2°-3°.
The best seasons for travel are said to be March and November,
before and after the rains, which swell the water twelve feet.
About Anenge-nenge we could easily see the sub-ranges of the
great Eastern Ghats, some twenty miles to the north-east. Here
the shallows and the banks projecting from different points made
the channel dangerous. Entering the Mbokwe branch we were
compelled to use sweeps, or the schooner would have been dashed
against the sides; as we learned by the trees, the tides raise
the surface two to three feet high. After the third hour we
passed the "Fán Komba Vina," or village of King Vina. It stood in
a pretty little bay, and the river, some 400 feet broad, was
fronted, as is often the case, by the "palaver tree," a glorious
Ceiba or bombax. All the people flocked out to enjoy the sight,
and my unpractised eye could not distinguish them from Bákele.
Above it, also on the right bank, is the now-deserted site where
Messrs. Adams and Preston nearly came to grief for bewitching the
population with "bad book."
Five slow hours from Anenge-nenge finally placed us, about
sunset, at Mayyán, or Tippet Town. The depôt lies a little above
the confluence of the Mbokwe and the Londo, or south-eastern fork
of the latter. A drunken pilot and a dark and moonless night,
with the tide still running in, delayed us till I could hardly
distinguish the sable human masses which gathered upon the Styx-
like stream to welcome their new Matyem--merchant or white man.
Before landing, all the guns on board the steamer were double-
loaded and discharged, at the instance of our host, who very
properly insisted upon this act of African courtesy--"it would be
shame not to fire salute." We were answered by the loudest howls,
and by the town muskets, which must have carried the charges of
old chambers. Mr. Tippet, an intelligent coloured man from the
States, who has been living thirteen years on the Gaboon, since
the age of fourteen, and who acts as native trader to Mr. R.B.N.
Walker, for ivory, ebony, rubber, and other produce, escorted me
to his extensive establishment. At length I am amongst the man-
eaters.