MEETING WITH DR. LAIDLEY—RETURN TO THE COAST—VOYAGE TO ENGLAND.
ON the 7th of May we departed from Malacotta, and having crossed the _Ba
Lee_ (Honey River), a branch of the Senegal, we arrived in the evening at
a walled town called Bintingala, where we rested two days. From thence,
in one day more, we proceeded to Dindikoo, a small town situated at the
bottom of a high ridge of hills, from which this district is named
_Konkodoo_ (the country of mountains). These hills are very productive
of gold. I was shown a small quantity of this metal which had been
lately collected: the grains were about the usual size, but much flatter
than those of Manding, and were found in white quartz, which had been
broken to pieces by hammers. At this town I met with a negro whose hair
and skin were of a dull white colour. He was of that sort which are
called in the Spanish West Indies _albinos_, or white negroes. The skin
is cadaverous and unsightly, and the natives considered this complexion
(I believe truly) as the effect of disease.
_May_ 11.—At daybreak we departed from Dindikoo, and, after a toilsome
day’s travel, arrived in the evening at Satadoo, the capital of a
district of the same name. This town was formerly of considerable
extent, but many families had left it in consequence of the predatory
incursions of the Foulahs of Foota-Jalla, who made it a practice to come
secretly through the woods and carry off people from the cornfields and
even from the wells near the town. In the afternoon of the 12th we
crossed the Falemé River, the same which I had formerly crossed at Bondou
in my journey eastward. This river, at this season of the year, is
easily forded at this place, the stream being only about two feet deep.
The water is very pure, and flows rapidly over a bed of sand and gravel.
We lodged for the night at a small village called Medina, the sole
property of a Mandingo merchant who, by a long intercourse with
Europeans, has been induced to adopt some of their customs. His victuals
were served up in pewter dishes, and even his houses were built after the
fashion of the English houses on the Gambia.
_May_ 13.—In the morning, as we were preparing to depart, a coffle of
slaves belonging to some Serawoolli traders crossed the river, and agreed
to proceed with us to Baniserile, the capital of Dentila—a very long
day’s journey from this place. We accordingly set out together, and
travelled with great expedition through the woods until noon, when one of
the Serawoolli slaves dropped the load from his head, for which he was
smartly whipped. The load was replaced, but he had not proceeded above a
mile before he let it fall a second time, for which he received the same
punishment. After this he travelled in great pain until about two
o’clock, when we stopped to breathe a little by a pool of water, the day
being remarkably hot. The poor slave was now so completely exhausted
that his master was obliged to release him from the rope, for he lay
motionless on the ground. A Serawoolli, therefore, undertook to remain
with him and endeavour to bring him to the town during the cool of the
night; in the meanwhile we continued our route, and after a very hard
day’s travel, arrived at Baniserile late in the evening.
One of our slatees was a native of this place, from which he had been
absent three years. This man invited me to go with him to his house, at
the gate of which his friends met him with many expressions of joy,
shaking hands with him, embracing him, and singing and dancing before
him. As soon as he had seated himself upon a mat by the threshold of his
door, a young woman (his intended bride) brought a little water in a
calabash, and, kneeling down before him, desired him to wash his hands;
when he had done this the girl, with a tear of joy sparkling in her eyes,
drank the water—this being considered as the greatest proof she could
possibly give him of her fidelity and attachment. About eight o’clock
the same evening the Serawoolli who had been left in the woods to take
care of the fatigued slave returned and told us that he was dead; the
general opinion, however, was that he himself had killed him or left him
to perish on the road, for the Serawoollies are said to be infinitely
more cruel in their treatment of slaves than the Mandingoes. We remained
at Baniserile two days, in order to purchase native iron, shea-butter,
and some other articles for sale on the Gambia; and here the slatee who
had invited me to his house, and who possessed three slaves, part of the
coffle, having obtained information that the price on the coast was very
low, determined to separate from us and remain with his slaves where he
was until an opportunity should offer of disposing of them to
advantage—giving us to understand that he should complete his nuptials
with the young woman before mentioned in the meantime.
_May_ 16.—We departed from Baniserile and travelled through thick woods
until noon, when we saw at a distance the town of Julifunda, but did not
approach it, as we proposed to rest for the night at a large town called
Kirwani, which we reached about four o’clock in the afternoon. This town
stands in a valley, and the country for more than a mile round it is
cleared of wood and well cultivated. The inhabitants appear to be very
active and industrious, and seem to have carried the system of
agriculture to some degree of perfection, for they collect the dung of
their cattle into large heaps during the dry season for the purpose of
manuring their land with it at the proper time. I saw nothing like this
in any other part of Africa. Near the town are several smelting
furnaces, from which the natives obtain very good iron. They afterwards
hammer the metal into small bars, about a foot in length and two inches
in breadth, one of which bars is sufficient to make two Mandingo
corn-hoes. On the morning after our arrival we were visited by a slatee
of this place, who informed Karfa that among some slaves he had lately
purchased was a native of Foota-Jalla, and as that country was at no
great distance he could not safely employ him in the labours of the
field, lest he should effect his escape. The slatee was therefore
desirous of exchanging this slave for one of Karfa’s, and offered some
cloth and shea-butter to induce Karfa to comply with the proposal, which
was accepted. The slatee thereupon sent a boy to order the slave in
question to bring him a few ground-nuts. The poor creature soon
afterwards entered the court in which we were sitting, having no
suspicion of what was negotiating, until the master caused the gate to be
shut, and told him to sit down. The slave now saw his danger, and,
perceiving the gate to be shut upon him, threw down the nuts and jumped
over the fence. He was immediately pursued and overtaken by the slatees,
who brought him back and secured him in irons, after which one of Karfa’s
slaves was released and delivered in exchange. The unfortunate captive
was at first very much dejected, but in the course of a few days his
melancholy gradually subsided, and he became at length as cheerful as any
of his companions.
Departing from Kirwani on the morning of the 20th we entered the Tenda
Wilderness, of two days’ journey. The woods were very thick, and the
country shelved towards the south-west. About ten o’clock we met a
coffle of twenty-six people and seven loaded asses returning from the
Gambia. Most of the men were armed with muskets, and had broad belts of
scarlet cloth over their shoulders and European hats upon their heads.
They informed us that there was very little demand for slaves on the
coast, as no vessel had arrived for some months past. On hearing this
the Serawoollies, who had travelled with us from the Falemé River,
separated themselves and their slaves from the coffle. They had not,
they said, the means of maintaining their slaves in Gambia until a vessel
should arrive, and were unwilling to sell them to disadvantage; they
therefore departed to the northward for Kajaaga. We continued our route
through the wilderness, and travelled all day through a rugged country
covered with extensive thickets of bamboo. At sunset, to our great joy,
we arrived at a pool of water near a large tabba-tree, whence the place
is called Tabbagee, and here we rested a few hours. The water at this
season of the year is by no means plentiful in these woods, and as the
days were insufferably hot Karfa proposed to travel in the night.
Accordingly about eleven o’clock the slaves were taken out of their
irons, and the people of the coffle received orders to keep close
together, as well to prevent the slaves from attempting to escape as on
account of the wild beasts. We travelled with great alacrity until
daybreak, when it was discovered that a free woman had parted from the
coffle in the night; her name was called until the woods resounded, but,
no answer being given, we conjectured that she had either mistaken the
road or that a lion had seized her unperceived. At length it was agreed
that four people should go back a few miles to a small rivulet, where
some of the coffle had stopped to drink as we passed it in the night, and
that the coffle should wait for their return. The sun was about an hour
high before the people came back with the woman, whom they found lying
fast asleep by the stream. We now resumed our journey, and about eleven
o’clock reached a walled town called Tambacunda, where we were well
received. Here we remained four days on account of a palaver which was
held on the following occasion:—Modi Lemina, one of the slatees belonging
to the coffle, had formerly married a woman of this town, who had borne
him two children; he afterwards went to Manding, and remained there eight
years without sending any account of himself during all that time to his
deserted wife, who, seeing no prospect of his return, at the end of three
years had married another man, to whom she had likewise borne two
children. Lemina now claimed his wife; but the second husband refused to
deliver her up, insisting that by the laws of Africa when a man has been
three years absent from his wife, without giving her notice of his being
alive, the woman is at liberty to marry again. After all the
circumstances had been fully investigated in an assembly of the chief
men, it was determined that the wife should make her choice, and be at
liberty either to return to the first husband, or continue with the
second, as she alone should think proper. Favourable as this
determination was to the lady, she found it a difficult matter to make up
her mind, and requested time for consideration; but I think I could
perceive that _first love_ would carry the day. Lemina was indeed
somewhat older than his rival, but he was also much richer. What weight
this circumstance had in the scale of his wife’s affections I pretend not
to say.
On the morning of the 26th, as we departed from Tambacunda, Karfa
observed to me that there were no shea-trees farther to the westward than
this town. I had collected and brought with me from Manding the leaves
and flowers of this tree, but they were so greatly bruised on the road
that I thought it best to gather another specimen at this place. The
appearance of the fruit evidently places the shea-tree in the natural
order of _Sapotæ_, and it has some resemblance to the _mudhuca_ tree
described by Lieutenant Charles Hamilton in the “Asiatic Researches,”
vol. i., p. 300.
About one o’clock on the morning of the 26th we reached Sibikillin, a
walled village; but the inhabitants having the character of inhospitality
towards strangers, and of being much addicted to theft, we did not think
proper to enter the gate. We rested a short time under a tree, and then
continued our route until it was dark, when we halted for the night by a
small stream running towards the Gambia. Next day the road led over a
wild and rocky country, everywhere rising into hills and abounding with
monkeys and wild beasts. In the rivulets among the hills we found great
plenty of fish. This was a very hard day’s journey; and it was not until
sunset that we reached the village of Koomboo, near to which are the
ruins of a large town formerly destroyed by war. The inhabitants of
Koomboo, like those of Sibikillin, have so bad a reputation that
strangers seldom lodge in the village; we accordingly rested for the
night in the fields, where we erected temporary huts for our protection,
there being great appearance of rain.
_May_ 28.—We departed from Koomboo, and slept at a Foulah town, about
seven miles to the westward; from which, on the day following, having
crossed a considerable branch of the Gambia, called Neola Koba, we
reached a well-inhabited part of the country. Here are several towns
within sight of each other, collectively called Tenda, but each is
distinguished also by its particular name. We lodged at one of them,
called Koba Tenda, where we remained the day following, in order to
procure provisions for our support in crossing the Simbani woods. On the
30th we reached Jallacotta, a considerable town, but much infested by
Foulah banditti, who come through the woods from Bondou and steal
everything they can lay their hands on. A few days before our arrival
they had stolen twenty head of cattle, and on the day following made a
second attempt, but were beaten off and one of them was taken prisoner.
Here one of the slaves belonging to the coffle, who had travelled with
great difficulty for the last three days, was found unable to proceed any
farther: his master (a singing man) proposed therefore to exchange him
for a young slave girl belonging to one of the townspeople. The poor
girl was ignorant of her fate until the bundles were all tied up in the
morning, and the coffle ready to depart, when, coming with some other
young women to see the coffle set out, her master took her by the hand,
and delivered her to the singing man. Never was a face of serenity more
suddenly changed into one of the deepest distress; the terror she
manifested on having the load put upon her head and the rope fastened
round her neck, and the sorrow with which she bade adieu to her
companions, were truly affecting. About nine o’clock we crossed a large
plain covered with _ciboa_-trees (a species of palm), and came to the
river Nerico, a branch of the Gambia. This was but a small river at this
time, but in the rainy season it is often dangerous to travellers. As
soon as we had crossed this river, the singing men began to vociferate a
particular song, expressive of their joy at having got safe into the west
country, or, as they expressed it, _the land of the setting sun_. The
country was found to be very level, and the soil a mixture of clay and
sand. In the afternoon it rained hard, and we had recourse to the common
negro umbrella, a large ciboa-leaf, which, being placed upon the head,
completely defends the whole body from the rain. We lodged for the night
under the shade of a large tabba-tree, near the ruins of a village. On
the morning following we crossed a stream called Noulico, and about two
o’clock, to my infinite joy, I saw myself once more on the banks of the
Gambia, which at this place, being deep and smooth, is navigable; but the
people told me that a little lower down the stream is so shallow that the
coffles frequently cross it on foot.
_June_ 2.—We departed from Seesukunda and passed a number of villages, at
none of which was the coffle permitted to stop, although we were all very
much fatigued. It was four o’clock in the afternoon before we reached
Baraconda, where we rested one day. Departing from Baraconda on the
morning of the 4th, we reached in a few hours Medina, the capital of the
king of Woolli’s dominions, from whom the reader may recollect I received
an hospitable reception in the beginning of December, 1795, in my journey
eastward. I immediately inquired concerning the health of my good old
benefactor, and learned with great concern that he was dangerously ill.
As Karfa would not allow the coffle to stop, I could not present my
respects to the king in person, but I sent him word by the officer to
whom we paid customs that his prayers for my safety had not been
unavailing. We continued our route until sunset, when we lodged at a
small village a little to the westward of Kootacunda, and on the day
following arrived at Jindey, where, eighteen months before, I had parted
from my friend Dr. Laidley—an interval during which I had not beheld the
face of a Christian, nor once heard the delightful sound of my native
language.
Being now arrived within a short distance of Pisania, from whence my
journey originally commenced, and learning that my friend Karfa was not
likely to meet with an immediate opportunity of selling his slaves on the
Gambia, it occurred to me to suggest to him that he would find it for his
interest to leave them at Jindey until a market should offer. Karfa
agreed with me in this opinion, and hired from the chief man of the town
huts for their accommodation, and a piece of land on which to employ them
in raising corn and other provisions for their maintenance. With regard
to himself, he declared that he would not quit me until my departure from
Africa. We set out accordingly—Karfa, myself, and one of the Foulahs
belonging to the coffle—early on the morning of the 9th; but although I
was now approaching the end of my tedious and toilsome journey, and
expected in another day to meet with countrymen and friends, I could not
part for the last time with my unfortunate fellow-travellers—doomed, as I
knew most of them to be, to a life of captivity and slavery in a foreign
land—without great emotion. During a wearisome peregrination of more
than five hundred British miles, exposed to the burning rays of a
tropical sun, these poor slaves, amidst their own infinitely greater
sufferings, would commiserate mine, and, frequently of their own accord,
bring water to quench my thirst, and at night collect branches and leaves
to prepare me a bed in the wilderness. We parted with reciprocal
expressions of regret and benediction. My good wishes and prayers were
all I could bestow upon them, and it afforded me some consolation to be
told that they were sensible I had no more to give.
My anxiety to get forward admitting of no delay on the road, we reached
Tendacunda in the evening, and were hospitably received at the house of
an aged black female called Seniora Camilla, a person who resided many
years at the English factory and spoke our language. I was known to her
before I had left the Gambia at the outset of my journey, but my dress
and figure were now so different from the usual appearance of a European
that she was very excusable in mistaking me for a Moor. When I told her
my name and country she surveyed me with great astonishment, and seemed
unwilling to give credit to the testimony of her senses. She assured me
that none of the traders on the Gambia ever expected to see me again,
having been informed long ago that the Moors of Ludamar had murdered me,
as they had murdered Major Houghton. I inquired for my two attendants,
Johnson and Demba, and learnt with great sorrow that neither of them was
returned. Karfa, who had never before heard people converse in English,
listened to us with great attention. Everything he saw seemed wonderful.
The furniture of the house, the chairs, &c., and particularly beds with
curtains, were objects of his great admiration, and he asked me a
thousand questions concerning the utility and necessity of different
articles, to some of which I found it difficult to give satisfactory
answers.
On the morning of the 10th Mr. Robert Ainsley, having learned that I was
at Tendacunda, came to meet me, and politely offered me the use of his
horse. He informed me that Dr. Laidley had removed all his property to a
place called Kayee, a little farther down the river, and that he was then
gone to Doomasansa with his vessel to purchase rice, but would return in
a day or two. He therefore invited me to stay with him at Pisania until
the doctor’s return. I accepted the invitation, and being accompanied by
my friend Karfa, reached Pisania about ten o’clock. Mr. Ainsley’s
schooner was lying at anchor before the place. This was the most
surprising object which Karfa had yet seen. He could not easily
comprehend the use of the masts, sails, and rigging; nor did he conceive
that it was possible, by any sort of contrivance, to make so large a body
move forwards by the common force of the wind. The manner of fastening
together the different planks which composed the vessel, and filling up
the seams so as to exclude the water, was perfectly new to him; and I
found that the schooner, with her cable and anchor, kept Karfa in deep
meditation the greater part of the day.
About noon on the 12th Dr. Laidley returned from Doomasansa and received
me with great joy and satisfaction, as one risen from the dead. Finding
that the wearing apparel which I had left under his care was not sold or
sent to England, I lost no time in resuming the English dress and
disrobing my chin of its venerable encumbrance. Karfa surveyed me in my
British apparel with great delight, but regretted exceedingly that I had
taken off my beard, the loss of which, he said, had converted me from a
man into a boy. Dr. Laidley readily undertook to discharge all the
pecuniary engagements which I had entered into since my departure from
the Gambia, and took my draft upon the association for the amount. My
agreement with Karfa (as I have already related) was to pay him the value
of one prime slave, for which I had given him my bill upon Dr. Laidley
before we departed from Kamalia; for in case of my death on the road I
was unwilling that my benefactor should be a loser. But this good
creature had continued to manifest towards me so much kindness that I
thought I made him but an inadequate recompense when I told him that he
was now to receive double the sum I had originally promised; and Dr.
Laidley assured him that he was ready to deliver the goods to that amount
whenever he thought proper to send for them. Karfa was overpowered by
this unexpected token of my gratitude, and still more so when he heard
that I intended to send a handsome present to the good old schoolmaster,
Fankooma, at Malacotta. He promised to carry up the goods along with his
own; and Dr. Laidley assured him that he would exert himself in assisting
him to dispose of his slaves to the best advantage the moment a slave
vessel should arrive. These and other instances of attention and
kindness shown him by Dr. Laidley were not lost upon Karfa. He would
often say to me, “My journey has indeed been prosperous!” But observing
the improved state of our manufactures and our manifest superiority in
the arts of civilised life, he would sometimes appear pensive, and
exclaim, with an involuntary sigh, _Fato fing inta feng_ (“Black men are
nothing”)! At other times he would ask me, with great seriousness, what
could possibly have induced me, who was no trader, to think of exploring
so miserable a country as Africa. He meant by this to signify that,
after what I must have witnessed in my own country, nothing in Africa
could in his opinion deserve a moment’s attention. I have preserved
these little traits of character in this worthy negro, not only from
regard to the man, but also because they appear to me to demonstrate that
he possessed a mind _above his condition_. And to such of my readers as
love to contemplate human nature in all its varieties, and to trace its
progress from rudeness to refinement, I hope the account I have given of
this poor African will not be unacceptable.
No European vessel had arrived at Gambia for many months previous to my
return from the interior, and as the rainy season was now setting in I
persuaded Karfa to return to his people at Jindey. He parted with me on
the 14th with great tenderness; but as I had little hopes of being able
to quit Africa for the remainder of the year, I told him, as the fact
was, that I expected to see him again before my departure. In this,
however, I was luckily disappointed, and my narrative now hastens to its
conclusion; for on the 15th, the ship _Charlestown_, an American vessel,
commanded by Mr. Charles Harris, entered the river. She came for slaves,
intending to touch at Goree to fill up, and to proceed from thence to
South Carolina. As the European merchants on the Gambia had at this time
a great many slaves on hand, they agreed with the captain to purchase the
whole of his cargo, consisting chiefly of rum and tobacco, and deliver
him slaves to the amount in the course of two days. This afforded me
such an opportunity of returning, though by a circuitous route, to my
native country as I thought was not to be neglected. I therefore
immediately engaged my passage in this vessel for America; and having
taken leave of Dr. Laidley, to whose kindness I was so largely indebted,
and my other friends on the river, I embarked at Kayee on the 17th day of
June.
Our passage down the river was tedious and fatiguing; and the weather was
so hot, moist, and unhealthy, that before our arrival at Goree four of
the seamen, the surgeon, and three of the slaves had died of fevers. At
Goree we were detained, for want of provisions, until the beginning of
October.
The number of slaves received on board this vessel, both on the Gambia
and at Goree, was one hundred and thirty, of whom about twenty-five had
been, I suppose, of free condition in Africa, as most of those, being
bushreens, could write a little Arabic. Nine of them had become captives
in the religious war between Abdulkader and Damel, mentioned in the
latter part of the preceding chapter. Two of the others had seen me as I
passed through Bondou, and many of them had heard of me in the interior
countries. My conversation with them, in their native language, gave
them great comfort; and as the surgeon was dead I consented to act in a
medical capacity in his room for the remainder of the voyage. They had
in truth need of every consolation in my power to bestow; not that I
observed any wanton acts of cruelty practised either by the master or the
seamen towards them, but the mode of confining and securing negroes in
the American slave-ships (owing chiefly to the weakness of their crews)
being abundantly more rigid and severe than in British vessels employed
in the same traffic, made these poor creatures to suffer greatly, and a
general sickness prevailed amongst them. Besides the three who died on
the Gambia, and six or eight while we remained at Goree, eleven perished
at sea, and many of the survivors were reduced to a very weak and
emaciated condition.
In the midst of these distresses the vessel, after having been three
weeks at sea, became so extremely leaky as to require constant exertion
at the pumps. It was found necessary therefore to take some of the
ablest of the negro men out of irons and employ them in this labour, in
which they were often worked beyond their strength. This produced a
complication of miseries not easily to be described. We were, however,
relieved much sooner than I expected, for, the leak continuing to gain
upon us, notwithstanding our utmost exertions to clear the vessel, the
seamen insisted on bearing away for the West Indies, as affording the
only chance of saving our lives. Accordingly, after some objections on
the part of the master, we directed our course for Antigua, and
fortunately made that island in about thirty-five days after our
departure from Goree. Yet even at this juncture we narrowly escaped
destruction, for on approaching the north-west side of the island we
struck on the Diamond Rock and got into St. John’s Harbour with great
difficulty. The vessel was afterwards condemned as unfit for sea, and
the slaves, as I have heard, were ordered to be sold for the benefit of
the owners.
At this island I remained ten days, when the _Chesterfield_ packet,
homeward bound from the Leeward Islands, touching at St. John’s for the
Antigua mail, I took my passage in that vessel. We sailed on the 24th of
November, and after a short but tempestuous voyage arrived at Falmouth on
the 22nd of December, from whence I immediately set out for London;
having been absent from England two years and seven months.
NOTE.
THE following passage from James Montgomery’s poem, “The West Indies,”
published in 1810, was inspired by “Mungo Park’s Travels in the Interior
of Africa.” It enshrines in English verse the beautiful incident of the
negro woman’s song of “Charity” (on page 190 of the first of these two
volumes), and closes with the poet’s blessing upon Mungo Park himself,
who had sailed five years before upon the second journey, from which he
had not returned, and whose fate did not become known until five years
later.
Man, through all ages of revolving time,
Unchanging man, in every varying clime,
Deems his own land of every land the pride,
Beloved by Heaven o’er all the world beside;
His home the spot of earth supremely blest,
A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest.
And is the Negro outlawed from his birth?
Is he alone a stranger on the earth?
Is there no shed whose peeping roof appears
So lovely that it fills his eyes with tears?
No land, whose name, in exile heard, will dart
Ice through his veins and lightning through his heart?
Ah! yes; beneath the beams of brighter skies
His home amidst his father’s country lies;
There with the partner of his soul he shares
Love-mingled pleasures, love-divided cares;
There, as with nature’s warmest filial fire,
He soothes his blind and feeds his helpless sire;
His children, sporting round his hut, behold
How they shall cherish him when he is old,
Trained by example from their tenderest youth
To deeds of charity and words of truth.
Is _he_ not blest? Behold, at closing day,
The Negro village swarms abroad to play;
He treads the dance, through all its rapturous rounds,
To the wild music of barbarian sounds;
Or, stretched at ease where broad palmettos shower
Delicious coolness in his shadowy bower,
He feasts on tales of witchcraft, that give birth
To breathless wonder or ecstatic mirth:
Yet most delighted when, in rudest rhymes,
The minstrel wakes the song of elder times,
When men were heroes, slaves to Beauty’s charms,
And all the joys of life were love and arms.
Is not the Negro blest? His generous soil
With harvest plenty crowns his simple toil;
More than his wants his flocks and fields afford:
He loves to greet a stranger at his board:
“The winds were roaring and the White Man fled;
The rains of night descended on his head;
The poor White Man sat down beneath our tree:
Weary and faint and far from home was he:
For him no mother fills with milk the bowl,
No wife prepares the bread to cheer his soul.
Pity the poor White Man, who sought our tree;
No wife, no mother, and no home has he.”
Thus sung the Negro’s daughters;—once again,
O that the poor White Man might hear that strain!
Whether the victim of the treacherous Moor,
Or from the Negro’s hospitable door
Spurned as a spy from Europe’s hateful clime,
And left to perish for thy country’s crime,
Or destined still, when all thy wanderings cease,
On Albion’s lovely lap to rest in peace,
Pilgrim! in heaven or earth, where’er thou be,
Angels of mercy guide and comfort thee!
A note to the same poem gives the following record of facts,
substantiated in a court of justice, in which there can be only one
answer to the question, “Which were the savages?”
“In this year (1783) certain underwriters desired to be heard against
Gregson and others of Liverpool, in the case of the ship _Zong_,
Captain Collingwood, alleging that the captain and officers of the
said vessel threw overboard one hundred and thirty-two slaves alive
into the sea, in order to defraud them by claiming the value of the
said slaves, as if they had been lost in a natural way. In the
course of the trial which afterwards came on, it appeared that the
slaves on board the _Zong_ were very sickly; that sixty of them had
already died, and several were ill and likely to die, when the
captain proposed to James Kelsal, the mate, and others to throw
several of them overboard, stating that ‘if they died a natural
death, the loss would fall upon the owners of the ship, but that if
they were thrown into the sea, it would fall upon the underwriters.’
He selected accordingly one hundred and thirty-two of the most sickly
of the slaves. Fifty-four of these were immediately thrown
overboard, and forty-two were made to be partakers of their fate on
the succeeding day. In the course of three days afterwards the
remaining twenty-six were brought upon deck to complete the number of
victims. The first sixteen submitted to be thrown into the sea, but
the rest, with a noble resolution, would not suffer the offices to
touch them, but leaped after their companions and shared their fate.
“The plea which was set up in behalf of this atrocious and
unparalleled act of wickedness was that the captain discovered, when
he made the proposal, that he had only two hundred gallons of water
on board, and that he had missed his port. It was proved, however,
in answer to this, that no one had been put upon short allowance; and
that, as if Providence had determined to afford an unequivocal proof
of the guilt, a shower of rain fell, and continued for three days,
immediately after the second lot of slaves had been destroyed, by
means of which they might have filled many of their vessels with
water, and thus have prevented all necessity for the destruction of
the third.
“Mr. Granville Sharp (who after many years of struggle first obtained
the decision of a court of justice that there _are_ no slaves in
England) was present at this trial, and procured the attendance of a
shorthand writer to take down the facts which should come out in the
course of it. These he gave to the public afterwards. He
communicated them also, with a copy of the trial, to the Lords of the
Admiralty, as the guardians of justice upon the seas, and to the Duke
of Portland, as principal Minister of state. No notice, however, was
taken by any of these of the information which had been thus sent
them.”
Another incident of the Middle Passage suggested to James Montgomery a
poem called “The Voyage of the Blind.”
“It was that fatal and perfidious bark,
Built in the eclipse, and rigged with curses dark.”
MILTON’S _Lycidas_.
The ship _Le Rodeur_, Captain B., of 200 tons burthen, left Havre on the
24th of January, 1819, for the coast of Africa, and reached her
destination on the 14th of March following, anchoring at Bonny, on the
river Calabar. The crew, consisting of twenty-two men, enjoyed good
health during the outward voyage and during their stay at Bonny, where
they continued till the 6th of April. They had observed no trace of
ophthalmia among the natives; and it was not until fifteen days after
they had set sail on the return voyage, and the vessel was near the
equator, that they perceived the first symptoms of this frightful malady.
It was then remarked that the negroes, who to the number of 160 were
crowded together in the hold and between the decks, had contracted a
considerable redness of the eyes, which spread with singular rapidity.
No great attention was at first paid to these symptoms, which were
thought to be caused only by the want of air in the hold, and by the
scarcity of water, which had already begun to be felt. At this time they
were limited to eight ounces of water a day for each person, which
quantity was afterwards reduced to the half of a wine-glass. By the
advice of M. Maugnan, the surgeon of the ship, the negroes, who had
hitherto remained shut up in the hold, were brought upon deck in
succession, in order that they might breathe a purer air. But it became
necessary to abandon this expedient, salutary as it was, because many of
the negroes, affected with _nostalgia_ (a passionate longing to return to
their native land), threw themselves into the sea, locked in each other’s
arms.
The disease, which had spread itself so rapidly and frightfully among the
Africans, soon began to infect all on board. The danger also was greatly
increased by a malignant dysentery which prevailed at the time. The
first of the crew who caught it was a sailor who slept under the deck
near the grated hatch which communicated with the hold. The next day a
landsman was seized with ophthalmia; and in three days more the captain
and the whole ship’s company, except one sailor, who remained at the
helm, were blinded by the disorder.
All means of cure which the surgeon employed, while he was able to act,
proved ineffectual. The sufferings of the crew, which were otherwise
intense, were aggravated by apprehension of revolt among the negroes, and
the dread of not being able to reach the West Indies, if the only sailor
who had hitherto escaped the contagion, and on whom their whole hope
rested, should lose his sight, like the rest. This calamity had actually
befallen the _Leon_, a Spanish vessel which the _Rodeur_ met on her
passage, and the whole of whose crew, having become blind, were under the
necessity of altogether abandoning the direction of their ship. These
unhappy creatures, as they passed, earnestly entreated the charitable
interference of the seamen of the _Rodeur_; but these, under their own
affliction, could neither quit their vessel to go on board the _Leon_,
nor receive the crew of the latter into the _Rodeur_, where, on account
of the cargo of negroes, there was scarcely room for themselves. The
vessels therefore soon parted company, and the _Leon_ was never seen nor
heard of again, so far as could be traced at the publication of this
narrative. In all probability, then, it was lost. On the fate of _this_
vessel the poem is founded.
The _Rodeur_ reached Guadaloupe on the 21st of June, 1819, her crew being
in a most deplorable condition. Of the negroes, thirty-seven had become
perfectly blind, twelve had lost each an eye, and fourteen remained
otherwise blemished by the disease. Of the crew, twelve, including the
surgeon, had entirely lost their sight; five escaped with an eye each,
and four were partially injured.
FOOTNOTES.
{7} I should have before observed that I found the language of Bambarra
a sort of corrupted Mandingo. After a little practice, I understood and
spoke it without difficulty.
{35} There is another town of this name hereafter to be mentioned.
{58} From a plant called _kabba_, that climbs like a vine upon the
trees.
{80} Soon after baptism the children are marked in different parts of
the skin, in a manner resembling what is called _tattooing_ in the South
Sea Islands.
{82} Chap. xxxi. vv. 26–28.
{92} Poisoned arrows are used chiefly in war. The poison, which is
said to be very deadly, is prepared from a shrub called _koono_ (a
species of _echites_), which is very common in the woods. The leaves of
this shrub, when boiled with a small quantity of water, yield a thick
black juice, into which the negroes dip a cotton thread: this thread they
fasten round the iron of the arrow in such a manner that it is almost
impossible to extract the arrow, when it has sunk beyond the barbs,
without leaving the iron point and the poisoned thread in the wound.
{93} A minkalli is a quantity of gold nearly equal in value to ten
shillings sterling.
{104} This is a large, spreading tree (a species of _sterculia_) under
which the bentang is commonly placed.
{109} When a negro takes up goods on credit from any of the Europeans on
the coast, and does not make payment at the time appointed, the European
is authorised by the laws of the country to seize upon the debtor
himself, if he can find him, or, if he cannot be found, on any person of
his family; or, in the last resort, on _any native of the same kingdom_.
The person thus seized on is detained, while his friends are sent in
quest of the debtor. When he is found, a meeting is called of the chief
people of the place, and the debtor is compelled to ransom his friend by
fulfilling his engagements. If he is unable to do this, his person is
immediately secured and sent down to the coast, and the other released.
If the debtor cannot be found, the person seized on is obliged to pay
double the amount of the debt, or is himself sold into slavery. I was
given to understand, however, that this part of the law is seldom
enforced.