During my first visit to Digby, I promised my trading friends--perhaps
rather rashly--that I would either return to their settlement, or, at
least, send merchandise and a clerk to establish a factory. This was
joyous news for the traffickers, and, accordingly, I embraced an early
occasion to despatch, in charge of a clever young sailor, such stuffs
as would be likely to tickle the negro taste.
There were two towns at Digby, governed by cousins who had always
lived in harmony. My mercantile venture, however, was unhappily
destined to be the apple of discord between these relatives. The
establishment of so important an institution as a slave-factory within
the jurisdiction of the younger savage, gave umbrage to the elder. His
town could boast neither of "merchandise" nor a "white man;" there was
no profitable tax to be levied from foreign traffic; and, in a very
short time, this unlucky partiality ripened the noble kinsmen into
bitter enemies.
It is not the habit in Africa for negroes to expend their wrath in
harmless words, so that preparations were soon made in each settlement
for defence as well as hostility. Both towns were stockaded and
carefully watched by sentinels, day and night. At times, forays were
made into each other's suburbs, but as the chiefs were equally
vigilant and alert, the extent of harm was the occasional capture of
women or children, as they wandered to the forest and stream for wood
and water.
This dalliance, however, did not suit the ardor of my angry favorite.
After wasting a couple of months, he purchased the aid of certain
_bushmen_, headed by a notorious scoundrel named Jen-ken, who had
acquired renown for his barbarous ferocity throughout the
neighborhood. Jen-ken and his chiefs were _cannibals_, and never trod
the war-path without a pledge to return laden with human flesh to
gorge their households.
Several assaults were made by this savage and his _bushmen_ on the
dissatisfied cousin, but as they produced no significant results, the
barbarians withdrew to the interior. A truce ensued. Friendly
proposals were made by the younger to the elder, and again, a couple
of months glided by in seeming peace.
Just at this time business called me to Gallinas. On my way thither I
looked in at Digby, intending to supply the displeased chieftain with
goods and an agent if I found the establishment profitable.
It was sunset when I reached the beach; too late, of course, to land
my merchandise, so that I postponed furnishing both places until the
morning. As might fairly be expected, there was abundant joy at my
advent. The neglected rival was wild with satisfaction at the report
that he, too, at length was favored with a "white-man." His "town"
immediately became a scene of unbounded merriment. Powder was burnt
without stint. Gallons of rum were distributed to both sexes; and
dancing, smoking and carousing continued till long after midnight,
when all stole off to maudlin sleep.
About three in the morning, the sudden screams of women and children
aroused me from profound torpor! Shrieks were followed by volleys of
musketry. Then came a loud tattoo of knocks at my door, and appeals
from the negro chief to rise and fly. "The town was besieged:--the
head-men were on the point of escaping:--resistance was vain:--they
had been betrayed--there were no fighters to defend the stockade!"
I was opening the door to comply with this advice, when my Kroomen,
who knew the country's ways even better than I, dissuaded me from
departing, with the confident assurance that our assailants were
unquestionably composed of the rival townsfolk, who had only
temporarily discharged the bushmen to deceive my entertainer. The Kroo
insisted that I had nothing to fear. We might, they said, be seized
and even imprisoned; but after a brief detention, the captors would be
glad enough to accept our ransom. If we fled, we might be slaughtered
by mistake.
I had so much confidence in the sense and fidelity of the band that
always accompanied me,--partly as boatmen and partly as
body-guard,--that I experienced very little personal alarm when I
heard the shouts as the savages rushed through the town murdering
every one they encountered. In a few moments our own door was battered
down by the barbarians, and Jen-ken, torch in hand, made his
appearance, claiming us as prisoners.
Of course, we submitted without resistance, for although fully armed,
the odds were so great in those ante-revolver days, that we would have
been overwhelmed by a single wave of the infuriated crowd. The
barbarian chief instantly selected our house for his headquarters, and
despatched his followers to complete their task. Prisoner after
prisoner was thrust in. At times the heavy mash of a war club and the
cry of strangling women, gave notice that the work of death was not
yet ended. But the night of horror wore away. The gray dawn crept
through our hovel's bars, and all was still save the groans of wounded
captives, and the wailing of women and children.
By degrees, the warriors dropped in around their chieftain. A
_palaver-house_, immediately in front of my quarters, was the general
rendezvous; and scarcely a _bushman_ appeared without the body of
some maimed and bleeding victim. The mangled but living captives were
tumbled on a heap in the centre, and soon, every avenue to the square
was crowded with exulting savages. Rum was brought forth in abundance
for the chiefs. Presently, slowly approaching from a distance, I
heard the drums, horns, and war-bells; and, in less than fifteen
minutes, a procession of women, whose naked limbs were smeared with
chalk and ochre, poured into the palaver-house to join the beastly
rites. Each of these devils was armed with a knife, and bore in her
hand some cannibal trophy. Jen-ken's wife, a corpulent wench of
forty-five,--dragged along the ground, by a single limb, the slimy
corpse of an infant ripped alive from its mother's womb. As her eyes
met those of her husband the two fiends yelled forth a shout of
mutual joy, while the lifeless babe was tossed in the air and caught
as it descended on the point of a spear. Then came the _refreshment_,
in the shape of rum, powder, and blood, which was quaffed by the
brutes till they reeled off, with linked hands, in a wild dance
around the pile of victims. As the women leaped and sang, the men
applauded and encouraged. Soon, the ring was broken, and, with a
yell, each female leaped on the body of a wounded prisoner and
commenced the final sacrifice with the mockery of lascivious
embraces!
In my wanderings in African forests I have often seen the tiger pounce
upon its prey, and, with instinctive thirst, satiate its appetite for
blood and abandon the drained corpse; but these African negresses were
neither as decent nor as merciful as the beast of the wilderness.
Their malignant pleasure seemed to consist in the invention of
tortures, that would agonize but not slay. There was a devilish spell
in the tragic scene that fascinated my eyes to the spot. A slow,
lingering, tormenting mutilation was practised on the living, as well
as on the dead; and, in every instance, the brutality of the women
exceeded that of the men. I cannot picture the hellish joy with which
they passed from body to body, digging out eyes, wrenching off lips,
tearing the ears, and slicing the flesh from the quivering bones;
while the queen of the harpies crept amid the butchery gathering the
brains from each severed skull as a _bonne-bouche_ for the approaching
feast!
After the last victim yielded his life, it did not require long to
kindle a fire, produce the requisite utensils, and fill the air with
the odor of _human flesh_. Yet, before the various messes were half
broiled, every mouth was tearing the dainty morsels with shouts of
joy, denoting the combined satisfaction of revenge and appetite! In
the midst of this appalling scene, I heard a fresh cry of exultation,
as a pole was borne into the apartment, on which was impaled the
living body of the conquered chieftain's wife. A hole was quickly dug,
the stave planted and fagots supplied; but before a fire could be
kindled the wretched woman was dead, so that the barbarians were
defeated in their hellish scheme of burning her alive.
* * * * *
I do not know how long these brutalities lasted, for I remember very
little after this last attempt, except that the bush men packed in
plantain leaves whatever flesh was left from the orgie, to be conveyed
to their friends in the forest. This was the first time it had been my
lot _to behold the most savage development of African nature under the
stimulus of war_. The butchery made me sick, dizzy, paralyzed. I sank
on the earth benumbed with stupor; nor was I aroused till nightfall,
when my Kroomen bore me to the conqueror's town, and negotiated our
redemption for the value of twenty slaves.