I DO NOT BECOME “FAST FRIENDS” WITH LAGOS.
On Nov. 29, 1863, I embarked on board H.M.S.S. Antelope,
Lieut.-Commander Allingham. A red ensign at the fore, manned yards, and
a salute of 17 guns, banished from my brain all traces of Buena Vista
and the Bubé. Our cruise was eventless. We of course fell in with a
tornado off Cape Formoso, the gentle projection in the hypothenuse of
the Nigerian Delta. The good old iron paddle-wheeler, however, though no
“skimmer of the seas,” advanced at ease through the impotent blast. On
Dec. 2, we found ourselves rolling in the roads of pestilential Lagos,
our lullaby the sullen distant roar, whilst a dusky white gleam smoking
over the deadly bar in the darkening horizon threatened us with a
disagreeable landing at the last, the youngest, and the most rachitic of
Great Britain’s large but now exceedingly neglected family of colonies.
H.M.S.S. Investigator was signalled for on the next day; the Handy being
as usual “unhandy”—broken down. The acting commander of the former, Mr.
Adlam, kindly gave me an in-passage to ship the presents sent by the
Foreign Office for the King of Dahome.
The town, however, and the townspeople as well, wore a new and greatly
improved appearance, the work of the great benefactor of West African
cities, “General Conflagration.” Three fires had followed one another in
regular succession through November, December, and January, 1863; and
the fire god will continue to “rule the roast” till men adopt some more
sensible style of roofing than thatch and “Calabar mats.” There was also
a distinct improvement in local morals since the days when the charming
English spinster landed here, and was obliged by the excited and _non-
culottées_ natives to be escorted back to her papa’s ship by two
gentlemen with drawn swords.
Nudity has been made penal. Where impaled corpses of men and dogs
scandalized eye and nose, and where a foul mass of hovel crowded down to
the beach, now runs a broad road, a Marine Parade, the work of the first
governor, Mr. Coskry, during his short but useful reign. Finally, Sydney
Smith’s highest idea of civil government, a street constable, everywhere
gladdens the Britisher’s sight. In France we should have seen the _piou-
piou_; in England they prefer the “peeler;” and the peeler-governed
scoff and wag the head at the piou-piou-ruled, and _vice versâ_. I
confess to holding that British Prætorian, the policeman, to be like the
beefsteak, and like Professor Holloway’s pill—a bore, a world-wide
nuisance: the “meteor flag of England” never seems to set upon him.
Camoëns might have addressed him as another Sebastian:—
Thou being dread! upon whose glorious sway
The orient sun first pours his quick’ning beam,
And views thee from the heaven’s middle way,
And lights thee smiling with his latest gleam.
et cætera.
On the other hand, nothing could be worse than the animus between white
and black and white-black; it was systematically aggravated by the bad
prints of the coast, and by the extra-philanthropic portion of the
fourth estate at home. The place is also, I have said, pestilential; out
of a grand total of seventy Europeans, not fewer than nine have lately
died in thirteen days; others are expected to follow, and no man is safe
at Lagos for a week. Breathing such an air, with such an earth below
them, with such a sun above them, and with such waters within them, it
is hardly to be wondered at that the Lagoonist’s temper is the reverse
of mild.
Thus we arrived at an evil hour; all stood in armed peace, alert for
war; and the hapless Investigator put the last strain on the back of
Patience. Startled by the display of fight, I hastily collected the
presents, whilst Mr. John Cruikshank, the Assistant-Surgeon, R.N.,
detailed on duty to Dahome, obliged me by laying in a few stores. On
December 4th we hurried from the City of Wrath. The bar showed blinders
only; we would have crossed it had the breakers risen mountains high.
On Saturday, December 5th, we anchored off notorious Whydah, a few hours
too late to catch the last glimpse of the Rattlesnake’s top-gear. This
was unlucky. Commodore Wilmot, commanding the West Coast of Africa, who,
taking the warmest interest in the mission, had adopted every possible
measure to forward its success, after vainly awaiting my coming for
nearly a fortnight, was compelled by circumstances to steam Northward.
Thus it was my fate to miss the only officer on the coast who knew
anything about Dahome, and thus collation of opinion became impossible.