FROM SÁ LEONE TO CAPE PALMAS.
Frowsy old Sá Leone bestowed on us a parting smile. After a roaring
tornado at night and its terminal deluge, the morning of January 19 broke
clear and fine. We could easily trace, amongst the curious series of
volcanic cones, the three several sanitary steps on the Leicester or
Lioness Hill. These are, first the hospice of the French Jesuits, now
officers' quarters; then a long white shed, the soldiers' hospital; and
highest (1,700 feet) the box which lodges their commandant. Even the
seldom-seen 'Sugarloaf' was fairly outlined against the mild blue vault.
Although the withering hand of summer was on the scene, the old
charnel-house looked lovely; even the low lines of the Bullom shore
borrowed a kind of beauty from the air. The hues were those of Heligoland
set in frames of lapis lazuli above and of sapphire below; golden sand,
green strand of silky Bermuda-grass, and red land showing chiefly in banks
and thready paths. Again we admired the dainty and delicate beauties of
the shore about Pirate Bay and other ill-named sites. Then bidding adieu
to the white man's Red Grave and steering south-west, we gave a wide berth
to the redoubted 'Carpenter,' upon which the waves played; to the shoals
of St. Anne, and to a multitude of others which line the coast as far as
that treacherous False Cape and lumpy Cape Shelling or Shilling, whose
prolongation is the Banana group.
Sherbro, fifty miles distant, was passed at night. Then (sixty miles) came
the Gallinas River, a great centre of export, which has not forgotten
Pedro Blanco. This prince of slavers, whose establishment appears on the
charts of 1836-38, imported no goods; he bought cargoes offered to him and
he paid them by bills on England, drawing, says the Coast scandal, upon
two Quaker brothers at Liverpool. Not a little curious that our country
supplied the money both to carry on the _traite_ and to put it down. Three
miles south of the Gallinas the Sulaymá River flows in. Here the scenery
suggests a child's first attempt at colouring in horizontal lines; a
dangerous surf ever foams white upon the yellow shore, bearing an eternal
growth of green. Two holes in the bush and a few thatched roofs, separated
by a few miles, showed the Harris factories, which caused frequent
teapot-storms between 1865 and 1878. The authorities of Liberia, model
claimants with a touch of savage mendicancy, demanded the land and
back-dues from time immemorial. 'Palaver' was at last 'set' by the late
lamented David Hopkins, consul for the Bights, in the presence of a
British cruiser and two American ships of war.
The weather resumed its old mood, a mixture in equal parts of 'Smokes' and
of Harmatan or Scirocco. At noon next day we steamed by Cape Mount, the
northernmost boundary of Liberia, [Footnote: The 'liberateds' of Liberia,
who lose nothing by not asking, claim the shore from the Sam Pedro River
southwards to the Jong, an affluent of the Shebar or Sherbro stream, 90
miles north of Cape Mount. We admit their pretensions as far only as the
Sugary River, four miles above the Máfá (Mafaw), or Cape Mount stream.] a
noble landmark and a place with a future. Approaching it, we first see the
dwarf bar of the Máfá, draining a huge lagoon ('Fisherman's Lake'). On the
banks and streams are sundry little villages, Kru Town and Port Robert,
the American mission-ground. The harbour is held to be the first of five,
the others being Monrovia; Grand Bassá (Bassaw), with Edina; Sinou, and
Cape Palmas.
The Mount is an isolated rocky tongue rising suddenly like an island from
the low levels, and trending north-west to south-east. The site is
perfectly healthy; the ground is gravel, not clay, and the stone is
basalt. The upper heights are forested and full of game; the lower are
cleared and await the colonist. With the pure and keen Atlantic breeze
ever blowing over it, the Mount is a ready-made sanatorium. Its youth has
been disreputable. Here Captain Canot, [Footnote: _Wanderings in West
Africa_, vol. i. chap. v.] the Franco-Italian lieutenant of Pedro Blanco,
sold the coast till compelled by H.M. cruisers to fall back upon honest
trade. His name survives in 'Canot's Tree,' under whose shade he held his
palavers. Let us hope that the respectable middle age of Cape Mount will
be devoted to curing the sick coaster.
Beyond this fine headland, a handsome likeness of Holyhead seen from the
south, stretch the long, low, dull shores of Liberia, canopied by unclean
skies and based on dirty-looking seas. The natives, who, as usual, are new
upon the coast, and who preserve curious traditions about their
predecessors, are the Vái (not Vei), a Mandengan race still pagan. They
call, however, the world 'duniyá,' and the wife 'námúsi,' words which show
whence their ideas are derived. Their colour is lighter than the Kruman's;
there are pretty faces, especially amongst the girlish boys, and the fine
feet and delicate hands are those of 'les Gabons.' And they are
interesting on two other counts. Their language combines the three several
forms of human speech, the isolating (_e.g._ 'love'), the agglutinating
('lovely'), and the polysynthetic ('loving,' 'loved'). Furthermore they
developed an alphabet, or rather a syllabary, which made much noise
amongst missionary 'circles,' and concerning which Lt. Forbes, R.N., Mr.
Norris, and Herr Koelle wrote abundant nonsense. Its origin is still
unknown. Some attribute it to direct inspiration (whatever that may mean),
others to marks traced upon the sand originally by boys stealing
palm-wine. My belief is that the suggestion came from the Moslems. Of late
years it has been waxing obsolete, and few care to write their letters in
it.
The Vái, who extend as far as Little Cape Mount River, are depicted in a
contrast of extremes. Mr. H. C. Creswick, [Footnote: Late manager of the
'Gold Coast Mining Company.' Mr. Creswick treated the subject in 'Life
amongst the Veys' (_Trans. Ethnol. Soc. of London_, 1867). He tells at
full length the curious legend of their immigration, and notes the same
reverence for the crocodile which prevails at Dixcove and prevailed in
Egypt.] who long dwelt amongst them, and dealt with them from Cape Mount,
gives a high character to those who have not been perverted by
civilisation. He found the commonalty civil, kind, and hospitable; active
and industrious, to a certain extent. Their palm-oil is the best on the
coast, and can be drunk like that of the olive or the cod-liver. The
chiefs he describes as gentlemen. The missionaries assert that they are
wholly without morals, never punishing the infringement of marital rights;
petty thieves, and idle and feckless to the last degree. Certain Monrovia
men have laid out farms of coffee and _cacáo_ (chocolate) upon the St.
Paul River, which, heading in Mandenga-land, breaks the chord of the bay;
but nothing can induce these ex-pets or their congeners, the Golás and the
Pesis, to work.
Like most of the coast-races, the Vái seem to be arrant cowards. The
headmen salute their visitors Arab-fashion, with flourishes of the sword;
but swording ends there. Of late they were attacked by the savages of the
interior, Gallinas, Pannis, and Kúsús. The latter, meaning the 'wolves' or
the 'wild boars,' is the popular nickname of the Mendi or Mindi tribes,
occupying the Sherbro-banks. They did excellent service in the last
Ashanti war (1873-74) by flogging forward the fugitive Fantis. Winwood
Keade, [Footnote: _The Story of the Ashanti Campaign_. Smith & Elder,
London, 1874. It is a thousand pities that the volume was pruned, to use
the mildest term. My friend's memory seems to brighten with the years,
doubtless the effect of his heroic honesty in telling what he held to be
the truth. His _Martyrdom of Man_, in which even his publisher did not
believe, has reached a fourth edition; it was quoted by Mr. Gladstone, and
Mrs. Grundy still buys it, in order to put it behind the fire.] an
excellent judge of Africans, declares that they are very courageous, 'keen
as mustard' for the fray. On the raid they creep up to and surround the
doomed village; they raise the war-cry shortly before sunrise, and, as the
villagers fly, they tell them by the touch. If the body feels warm after
sleep, unlike their own dew-cooled skins, it soon becomes a corpse. They
advance with two long knives, generally matchets, one held between the
teeth. They prefer the white arm because 'guns miss fire, but swords are
like the chicken's beak, that never fails to hit the grain.' Some 250 of
these desperadoes lately drove off 5,000 of the semi-civilised recreants
and took about 560 prisoners, including the 'King' of the Vái.
After covering forty-three miles from Cape Mount we anchored (5 P.M.) in
the long, monotonous roll under Mount Mesurado. The name was probably
Monserrate, given by the early Portuguese. It is entitled the Cradle of
Liberia. The idea of restoring to Africa recaptured natives and manumitted
slaves was broached in 1770 by the Rev. Samuel Hopkins, of Newport, R.I.
The scheme for 'civilising and christianising' the natives assumed organic
form at Washington in 1816. In January 1820 the first emigrants embarked
from New York for 'Liberia.' The original grant of land was made (April
1822) to the 'American Society for Colonising the Free People of the
United States,' by King Peter and sundry chiefs of the Grain Coast, who
little knew what they were doing. The place was described in those days as
an Inferno, the very head and front of the export trade, the waters
swarming with slavers, the shore bearing forty slave-factories, and the
whole showing scenes of horror which made the site 'Satan's seat of
abominations.' It has now changed its nature with its name, and has become
the head-quarters of Dullness, that goddess who, we are assured, never
dies.
Mesurado Mount, with the inverted cataract rushing white up its black
rocks, is a picturesque feature. Halfway clearings for coffee-plantations,
with a lime-washed bungalow, the President's country-quarters, lead to the
feathered and forested crest which bears the 'pharos.' This protection
against wreck is worse than nothing; it is lighted with palm-oil every
night, and then left to its own sweet will. Consequently the red glimmer,
supposed to show at thirteen miles, is rarely visible beyond three. A
dotting of white frame-houses and curls of blue smoke betray the capital.
It lurks behind the narrow sand-bar which banks the shallow and useless
Mesurado River, and few men land without an involuntary ablution in the
salt water. Usually the stream mouths by an ugly little bar at some
distance from the roadstead; after heavy rains it bursts the sand-strip
and discharges in straight line.
We had visitors that evening from the Yankee-Doodle-niggery colony,
peopled by citizens who are not 'subjects.' Bishop C. C. Pinnock, absent
from his home at Cape Mount, dined with us and told me about the death of
an old friend, good Bishop Payne. His successor objects to learning and
talking native tongues, and he insists upon teaching English to all the
mission-scholars. His reasons are shrewd, if not convincing; for instance,
'most languages,' says the Right Reverend, 'have some term which we
translate "love." But "love" in English is not equivalent to its
representative in Kru or in Vái. Therefore by using their words I am
expressing their ideas; I bring them over to mine by the reverse process.'
We shipped for Grand Bassá two citizens, a lawyer and an attorney. Of
course one was an 'Honourable;' [Footnote: Even the Coast English are
always confounding the Hon. John A. (son of a peer) with the Hon. Mr. A.
(official rank), and I have seen sundry civilians thus mis-sign
themselves.] as Mr. H. M. Stanley says, [Footnote: _Coomassie and
Magdala_. New York, Harpers, 1874.] 'mostly every other man is here so
styled.' They talked professionally of the 'Whig ticket' and the
'Re-publican party,' but they neither 'guess'd' nor 'kalklated,' and if
they wore they did not show revolvers and bowie-knives. They did not say,
'We air a go-ahead people,' they were not given to 'highfalutin',' nor did
they chew their tobacco. They were, however, accompanied by an extremely
objectionable 'infant,' aged seven, who lost no time in laying hands upon
Miss M.'s trinkets, by way of returning civility. Her father restored
them, treating the theft as a matter of course.
The citizens gave me sundry details about the 'rubber'-trade, which began
in 1877. Monrovia now exports to England and the Continent some 100,000
lbs., which sell at 1_s_. 4_d_. each. Gum-elastic is gathered chiefly by
the Bassá people, who are, however, too lazy to keep it clean; they store
it in grass-bags and transport it in canoes. Liberian coffee is, or rather
would be, famous if produced in sufficient quantities to satisfy demand.
At present it goes chiefly to the United States, where, like Mocha, it
serves to flavour burnt maize. Messieurs Spiers and Pond would buy any
quantity of it, and of late years Brazilian coffee-planters have taken
shoots to be grown at home. Here it fetches 1_s_. per lb.; in England the
price doubles. This coffee requires keeping for many months, or the
infusion is potent enough to cause the 'shakes;' it is the same with
Brazilian green tea. The bouquet is excellent, and the flavour pretty
good. There is a great difference in the shape of the beans, which range
between the broad flat Harar and the small, round, horny Mocha.
I could obtain few details concerning the 'Black Devil Society,' which
suggests the old 'Know-nothings.' It has been, they say, somewhat active
in flogging strangers, especially Sá Leone men. Most of the latter,
however, have been expelled for refusing to change their style from
'subjects' to 'citizens'--a foreign word in English and Anglo-African
ears.
At the time of our visit the republic was in a parlous state. H.E. Mr.
Gardiner, the new President, refused to swear in the Upper House, and the
Lower refused to acknowledge the Presidential authority. Consequently
business had been at a standstill for six weeks. We were disappointed in
our hopes of being accompanied by the Honourable Professor E. W. Blyden,
ex-minister to England and afterwards principal of the college. He had
travelled with Winwood Reade, and I looked forward to hearing the opinions
of an African Arabic scholar touching the progress and future of El-Islam
in the Dark Continent. That it advances with giant steps may be proved by
these figures. Between 1861 and 1862 I found at most a dozen Moslems at
Lagos; in 1865 the number had risen to 1,200, and in 1880, according to my
old friend M. Colonna, Agent Consulaire de France, it passes 10,000,
requiring twenty-seven mosques.
The latest charts of Liberia show no less than twenty-six parallelograms
stretching inland, at various angles with the shore, and stated to have
been acquired by 'conquest or purchase' between 1822 and 1827; but the
natives, especially the Krumen, complain that after allowing the
foreigners to dwell, amongst them they have been despoiled of their
possessions, and that, once lords of the soil, they have sunk to mere
serfs. Hence the frequent wars and chronic bad blood. Every African
traveller knows the meaning of land-purchase in these regions. There are
two ideas peculiar to the negro brain, but apparently inadmissible into
European heads. The first is the non-alienation of land. Niger never parts
with his ground in perpetuity; he has always the mental reservation, while
selling it to a stranger, that the soil and its improvements return to him
by right after the death or the departure of the purchaser. Should the
settler's heirs or assignees desire to remain _in loco_, they are expected
to pay a fresh gratification; the lessor will raise his terms as high as
possible, but public opinion will oblige him to remain content with a
'dash,' or present, equivalent to that paid by the original lessee.
The second idea is even more repugnant to European feelings. In Africa a
born chattel is a chattel for ever: the native phrase is, ''Pose man once
come up slave, he be slave all time.' There is no such thing as absolute
manumission: the unsophisticated _libertus_ himself would not dream of
claiming it. We have on board a white-headed negro in an old and
threadbare Dutch uniform, returning from Java on a yearly pension of
fifteen dollars. According to treaty he had been given by the King of
Ashanti to the Hollanders, and he had served them so long that he spoke
only Low German and Malay. He will be compelled to end his career
somewhere within the range of our fort-guns, or his owner's family will
claim and carry off their property.
At 8 A.M. we steamed against a fine fresh wind past mount Mesurado _en
route_ for Grand Bassá (Bassaw), distant fifty-five miles. To port lies
Montserrado County, where the shore-strip looks comparatively high and
healthy. The Bassás begin some thirty miles below the Jong River, and now
we enter the regions of Grand, Middle, and Little Piccaninny
(_pequenino_), Whole and Half, _i.e._ half-way. Thus we pass, going
south-wards, Bassá, Middle Bassá, Grand Bassá, and Bassá Cove, followed by
Cestos and Cess, Settra and Sesters, Whole and Half. The coast is well
known, while the interior is almost unexplored. Probably there is no
inducement to attract strangers.
We are grateful for small mercies, and note a picturesque view from the
open roadstead of Grand Bassá. The flats are knobbed with lumpy mounds;
North Saddle Hill, with its central seat; Tall Hill; the blue ridges of
the Bassá Hills, and St. John's Hill upon the line of its river. Nothing
can be healthier than these sites, which are well populated; and the
slopes are admirably fitted for that 'Arabian berry' whose proper home is
Africa. But, while hill-coffee has superior flavour lowland-coffee is
preferred in commerce, because the grain is larger and heavier.
Grand Bassá is the only tract in Liberia where the Sá Leonite is still
admitted. The foreshore of yellow sand, pointed and dotted by lines and
falls of black rock, fronts a shallow bay as foul and stony as the coast.
Here are three settlements, parted by narrow walls of 'bush.' Edina, the
northernmost, is said to do more business than any other port in the
republic; she also builds fine, strong surf-boats of German and American
type, carrying from one to five tons. The keels are bow-shaped, never
straight-lined from stem to stern; and the breakers are well under the
craft before their mighty crests toss it aloft and fling it into the deep
trough. They are far superior to the boats with weather-boards in the fore
which formerly bore us to land. The crew scoop up the water as if digging
with the paddle; they vary the exercise by highly eccentric movements, and
they sing savage barcarolles the better to keep time.
The middle settlement is Upper Buchanan, whose river, the St. John's, owns
a bar infamous as that of Lagos for surf and sharks. The southernmost,
Lower Buchanan, is defended by a long and broken wall of black reef, but
the village is far from smooth water. All these 'towns' occupy holes in a
curtain of the densest and tallest greenery. They are composed of groups
and scatters of whitewashed houses, half of them looking like chapels and
the other like toys. Each has its adjunct of brown huts, the native
quarter. These Bassá tribes must not be confounded with their neighbours
the Krumen; the languages are quite different, and the latter is of much
harsher sound. There is no doubt of this being a good place for engaging
labour, and it is hoped that in due time Bassá-hands, who work well, will
be engaged for the Gold Coast mines. At present, however, they avoid
English ships, call themselves 'Americans,' and willingly serve on board
the Yankee craft which load with coffee, cam-wood, and palm-oil.
We steamed along the Cape, River, and Town of Sinou, the very home of the
Kráo, or Krumen, strictly speaking a small tribe. Returning
homeward-bound, we here landed a host of men from the Oil-rivers, greatly
to my delight, as they had cumbered the deck with their leaky powder-kegs,
amid which wandered the sailors, smoking unconcernedly. In the 'good old
times' this would not have been allowed. At least one poor fellow was
drowned, so careful were the relatives to embark the kit, so careless of
the owner's person. Next day we sighted the 'Garraway-trees,' silk cottons
some 200 feet high, fine marks for clearing the Cape shoals. Then came
Fishtown and Rocktown, once celebrated for the exploits of Ashmun and his
associates; and at 2.15 P.M. we anchored in the heavy Harmatan roll off
The Cape of Palmas, called from palmy shade.
A score of years ago the A.S.S. steamers lay within half a mile of shore;
and, 'barrin'' the ducking, it was easy to land. But the bay is bossed with
rocks and skirted with shoals; they lurk treacherously under water, and
have brought many a tall ship to grief. As for the obsolete hydrographic
charts, they only add to the danger. Two wrecks give us ample warning. One
is a German barque lying close to the bar of the fussy little river; the
other, a huge mass of rust, is the hapless _Yoruba_. Years ago, after the
fashion of the _Nigritia_ and the _Monrovia_, she was carelessly lost.
Though anchored in a safe place, when swinging round she hit upon a rock
and was incontinently ripped up; the injured compartment filled, and the
skipper ran her on the beach, wrecking her according to Act of Parliament.
They once managed to get her off, but she had not power to stem the seas,
and there she still lies high and dry.
Cape Palmas, or Bamnepo, with its outlying islet-reef of black rock, on
which breaks an eternal surf, is the theoretical turning-point from the
Windward coast, which begins with the Senegal, to the Leeward, and which
ends in the Benin Bight. We are entering the region
_Unde nigerrimus Auster_
Nascitur.
Practically and commercially the former is worked by the Bristol barques
and the latter commences at Cape Threepoints. The bold headland, a hundred
feet tall and half a mile broad by a quarter long, bounded north by its
river, has a base of black micaceous granite supporting red argillaceous
loam. Everywhere beyond the burning of the billows the land-surface is
tapestried with verdure and tufted with cocoas; they still show the
traditional clump which gave the name recorded by Camoens. The neck
attaching the head to the continent-body is a long, low sand-spit; and the
background sweeps northward in the clear grassy stretches which African
travellers agree to call 'parks.' These are fronted by screens of tall
trees, and backed by the blue tops of little hills, a combination which
strongly reminded me of the Gaboon.
The prominent building is still the large white-washed mission-house with
its ample windows and shady piazzas: the sons of St. Benedict could not
have placed it better. In rear lies the square tower yclept a lighthouse,
and manipulated like that of Monrovia; its range is said to be thirteen
miles, but it rarely shows beyond five. An adjacent flagstaff bears above
the steamer-signal the Liberian arms, stripes and a lone star not unknown
to the ages between Assyria and Texas. The body of the settlement lying
upon the river is called Harper, after a 'remarkable negro,' and its
suburbs lodge the natives. When I last visited it the people were rising
to the third stage of their architecture. The first, or nomad, is the hide
or mat thrown over a bush or a few standing sticks; then comes the
cylinder, the round hovel of the northern and southern regions, with the
extinguisher or the oven-shaped thatch-roof; and, lastly, the square or
oblong form which marks growing civilisation. The American missionaries
laboured strenuously to build St. Mark's Hospital and Church, the latter a
very creditable piece of lumber-work, with 500 seats in nave and aisles.
But now everything hereabouts is 'down in its luck.' This puerile copy, or
rather caricature, of the United States can console itself only by saying,
'Spero meliora.'