DIPLOMACY; DEPARTURE, AND RETURN TO LAGOS.
‘The Captain’ advanced swimmingly in his diplomatic movements, much to
his own satisfaction. But this is a race equally regardless of the past
and reckless of the future, with whom the present is ever all in all,
and actual life the ‘be-all and end-all of all things:’ their brains are
in matters of novelty marble to receive and wax to retain: nothing, if
to be permanent, can be done in a hurry, or, rather, without a long
delay: they forget all that has not been impressed upon them by many
repetitions, and they regard what Englishmen call a ‘business-like
manner’ with a supreme contempt. ‘He does half who does quickly,’ should
be the Anglo-African’s rule.
Wednesday was a holiday; Thursday had its work. About 10·30 A.M. we
proceeded to the ‘palace,’ where we were to be honoured with a private
interview. This time we came ‘in mufti’ as friendly visitors; the
demands of dignity had been satisfied; it was no longer necessary to
keep us waiting or to send us back. Passing, as before, under the main
entrance into the great patio, we entered the smaller and interior
court, and sat down in the verandah where former audiences had been
held. The hangings and draperies having been removed, we saw certain
daubs like hatchments on the walls, placed to show where the Alake’s
father and mother reposed: they were apparently intended for the human
form divine, but they were too blurred and smoked to be readily
distinguished. After sitting for a short time we were summoned into the
interior. We dived under the verandah, and after a moment of _demi-jour_
we emerged into a room where the Alake was waiting to receive us.
The room was a complete Roman atrium—a style of architecture for which I
can assign no reason in these climates. The hypæthral portion, where the
mid-ceiling might be expected, was garnished with a large inverted cone
of mat and thatch, which would direct the rain into the rude impluvium,
a parallelogram sunk in the clay. Beneath it various doors opened into
other minor rooms, and the walls were painted with the usual mixture of
horse or cow dung and indigo. Above the great man’s place were hung ten
Tower muskets, and a leopard’s skin so pale and pink that it might be
mistaken for an ounce’s.
The Alake lay upon a plain carpet in an alcove at the head of the room,
and four scattered feathers dangling to a bit of twine above him
appeared to be his protecting fetish. There were no hangings, and his
elbow rested upon a common bolster. He was more plainly and comfortably
attired than usual, in a red fez without beads, with blue and red
chequered cloths round his middle, the rest of the body being exposed to
the abebe, or hide-fans of his wives. Besides the interpreters, four
chiefs were present, namely, the two Akpesi, a stout personage called
Okolomo, and a gray senior, the Lemo of the Ikporo township—each dirty
little village has here its own dignitaries, and the number of titles
seems endless. The great men, such as Somoye the Ibashorun, Osho the
Oja’a or General, and Akodu the Balogun, were at the camp: these
dignitaries, when not consulted upon public measures, especially foreign
affairs, can, and probably will, object to everything done without their
leave. The principal ministers—the ‘setters up and pullers down of
kings,’—such as Ogubonna, Shokeno, and Ogushaye the Anaba, are, alas! no
more.
The conference was manifestly intended to be private—for a good reason,
it might afterwards, when necessary, be ignored. It began with much
mystery, and all who entered were dismissed with some indignity.
Presently, however, it was gradually broken into by women, children, and
confidential slaves. It reminded me of the confabulations of the Sindh
Ameers, who on such occasions of _haute politique_ stationed guards
round their council-chamber to keep off eaves-droppers, and soon
becoming excited, bawled so loud that they could be heard a mile off.
The talkee-talkee lasted about two hours. When the palaver flagged a
deal table was brought in, and Abeokuta Williams, the pedagogue,
indited, under dictation, a letter of apology to the acting governor of
Lagos. The new treaty was then copied out in triplicate and signed with
all formality. Commander Bedingfield wrote the names and marks, whilst
the Alake and the two Akpesi, grinning as if on a funny occasion—were I
in their waist-cloths no grin would have come from me—touched the pen’s
end with the finger tip, and thereby legalized an instrument couched as
follows:—
TREATY.
‘In consequence of the representations of Commander Norman B.
Bedingfield, R.N., Senior Officer of the Bights Division of H.M.’s
ships, the Alake and the chiefs of Ake express their regret that there
should have been occasion for the complaint of their want of faith in
keeping the treaty made between them and H.M.’s Government by Capt.
Forbes in 1852.[1]
‘They now solemnly declare that the three articles mentioned below, and
to which they have now affixed their names, shall be strictly enforced
for the future, and be at once made public.
‘1st. With a view of strictly enforcing the 1st Article of the above-
mentioned treaty, the Alake and chiefs hereby promise to stop the roads
leading to Okeadon and other places by which slaves are sent to the
coast for exportation against such export as far as it is in their
power; and they will also punish severely any of their own people
against whom it can be proved that they have broken this law.
‘2nd. The Alake and chiefs also solemnly declare that now and after this
date no human being shall be sacrificed either by them, their people, or
others inside or outside the walls of the town, or anywhere else in
their territory.
‘3rd. It having been fully explained to the Alake and chiefs by
Commander Bedingfield the injury caused to legal commerce by shutting
the road between Lagos and Abeokuta, out of friendship to the Queen of
England they are willing to promise that this road shall never again be
stopped on any pretext whatever, without the consent and approval of
H.M.’s Governor at Lagos: provided always, that when it is deemed
expedient to prevent the Egbas from going to Lagos, the merchants must
provide themselves with canoe men from that place.
‘Signed at the King’s Palace, this seventh day of November, 1861.
his
(Signed) ‘THE + ALAKE.
mark.
his
(Signed) ‘APESI + KEMETA.
mark.
his
(Signed) ‘LEMO + TROCU.
mark.
his
(Signed) ‘APESI + ERUNOON.
mark.
his
(Signed) ‘OKOLOMO +
mark.
(Signed) ‘NORMAN B. BEDINGFIELD,
Commander, R.N., Senior Officer for the Bights
Division of H.M.’s Ships.
(Signed) ‘RICHARD F. BURTON,
Captain, H.B.M.’s Consul, Fernando Po.
(Signed) ‘HENRY EALES,
Surgeon, H.M.’s Ship “Prometheus.”
(Signed) ‘DAVID WILLIAMS,
acting as Secretary to the Alake, witness
to the above signatures.
(Signed) ‘S. WILLIAMS,
Interpreter.’
It would hardly be believed that within the week after our return to
Lagos a letter was received from Abeokuta confessing that a human
sacrifice had taken place in broad daylight, and that some women had
been kidnapped from the house of a Mr. King. The reason of the Alake and
chiefs reporting these breaches of faith was their conviction that the
news would go abroad, and the transaction be discovered, if not
communicated by themselves. The misdeeds were not punished. The fact is,
the subjects are too powerful for the sovereign.
[_Note._—The following is a copy of the original treaty concluded with
the chief of the Egba nation, 5th Jan. 1852, and abridged from
‘Hertslet’s Commercial Treaties,’ vol. ix.:—
Frederick Edwyn Forbes, Esq., Additional Commander of H.M.S. ‘Penelope,’
on the part of Her Majesty the Queen of England, to the chiefs of the
Egba nation and of the neighbourhood, on the part of themselves and of
their country have agreed upon the following Articles and Conditions:—
I. Prohibits export of slaves to foreign countries under severe
punishment.
II. No slave-traders to reside in territory of the king or chiefs of
Lagos, and no buildings to be erected for the purpose of slave-trade;
with permission to British officers to destroy such if the king
consents.
III. Boats engaged in such slave-trade may be seized by British
officers.
IV. Slaves for exportation shall be delivered to British for conveyance
to British colonies, where they shall be liberated.
V. European slave treaty to be respected, and slave factories if not
converted to lawful purposes within three months to be destroyed.
VI. British subjects may buy and sell throughout dominions, and have
favours and privileges of most favoured nation.
VII. _Abolishes human sacrifices for religious purposes_, and prisoners
taken in war not to be murdered.
VIII. Affords complete protection to missionaries; allows houses,
schools, and chapels to be built by missionaries or ministers, and sets
apart places of sepulture.
IX. Power reserved to French Government to become party to the treaty,
agreeably with provisions contained in Art. V. of the convention between
Her Majesty and the King of the French for the suppression of the
traffic in slaves, signed at London, May 29, 1845.
In faith of which we have hereunto set our hands and seals at Abe, 5
Jan. 1852.
(L. S.) F. E. FORBES,
SAGBUA. OBASARON. OGUBONNA. SIKENO.
_Presidents of Abeokuta, or the Egba race._
TAMBALA, _Bulagon of Ikerehu._ AKIONME _for_ ARROBA, _Egba Agorra._
IMEMUNU, _Owu._ LAGEMO, _Owe_.
SUPPLEMENTARY TREATY.
ART. I. That Sierra Leone emigrants, natives of whatsoever country, are
not allowed to be kidnapped.
ART. II. That we will not attempt to hinder the advance of missionaries,
merchants, or others into the interior.
In faith of which we have hereunto set our hands and seals at Abe, 5
Jan. 1852.
Signed and sealed by the same parties.]
We then took formal leave. I can scarcely, however, quote on this
occasion,
‘Such partings break the heart they fondly hope to heal.’
In good sooth we all seemed heartily glad to get rid of one other and of
the whole business. In return for some little presents the Alake
presented ‘the captain’ with a horse, which was supposed to be rather a
superior animal. It was afterwards taken to Lagos, and sold. With due
deference to superior judgment, I cannot but think that this part of the
proceedings was a complete mistake. A present of provisions from an
African chief or king must often be received, as its rejection would be
deemed an insult, and an equivalent is easily sent back. But the rule
which applies to all gifts of horses, arms, and jewellery in India ought
equally to be carried out at the native courts in this part of the
world. And, at all events, the sale of such present would be looked
upon, not as a slight to the donor, but as a mark of bad breeding in the
donee.
We had entered Abeokuta on Friday, the 1st, and Friday, the 8th of
November, 1861, was to witness our departure—bad days both. The captain
had, or fondly supposed that he had, succeeded in the principal objects
of his mission, the three points of the new treaty, viz., the opening to
Lagos of the Ogun River—which presently became tightly closed; the
cessation of human sacrifice—which will not cease till the ‘screw’ is
‘turned on’ much more tightly; and, lastly, the abolition of the export
slave trade—which requires to rest upon a much stronger basis than the
mere marks of a petty barbarian prince and his chiefs.
‘_L’homme sensible en voyage_,’ says M. Boiste, ‘_est tenté de s’arrêter
chez les premières bonnes gens qu’il trouve: chaque départ lui devient
un supplice_.’ This was not quite our case, for Abeokuta was becoming of
an almost intolerable dulness: we took regretful leave, however, of our
hospitable entertainers. At 9 A.M. Commander Bedingfield and I
walked—without cavalcade—to the Aro Gate, accompanied by Mr. Hughes, and
closely followed by Mr. Eales and Messrs. Harrison and Wike. The luggage
had been sent down in the morning, and the first and second gigs had
been drawn up from midstream, where they had anchored, to the landing-
place. A wild beast of a Yoruba pony charged down upon me, and the
umbrella with which the attack was received nearly put my eye out:
considering, however, that it was Friday, I congratulated myself upon a
very pretty escape. A final libation to Bacchus was poured out, and
after another shaking of hands we found ourselves once more upon the
broad bosom of Father Ogun.
The stream is essentially a rain river, filling gradually and uniformly,
without freshets. During the last week, though there had been three
heavy down falls, it had sunk several inches, a sure sign that the
‘dries’ were setting in. The deeper pools were like the beads of a
chaplet connected by a thread of shallows, and the boat, though drawing
barely a foot, touched bottom on each middle ground as we crossed the
sandbanks joining the salient and the re-entering angles. Almost within
sight of Aro we shot a little rapid, a clear way in a ridge of rocks,
which seemed to rise under both bows. At 11·30 A.M. we dropped past
Agbameya, the lower port or landing-place of Abeokuta: the ferry, where
people are sometimes drowned, was in full activity, and the market-wives
left their blies and baskets of maize and manioc, kankie and fufu, to
stare at the departing strangers. Another hour, and we were alongside of
Moroko, where on the up voyage we had halted for a pleasant breakfast.
Another brought us to Takpana, where the naked nigger boys would bathe
with their mammas and sisters, who apparently do not believe that
‘The chariest maid is prodigal enough
If she disclose her beauties to the moon.’
Our Krumen found it necessary to lie upon their oars, and to ‘chop
water’ every half-hour, which rendered progress slow. Down-stream,
however, was very different ‘challing’ from up-stream. We reached Baragu
about 7·30 P.M.; it was black dark, and the number of cross ropes
rendered the navigation of the river peculiarly troublesome after the
short twilight had been extinguished by the gloom.
We spent a right merry evening at Baragu, where the head-man cleared out
for us the verandah of a large fetish-house, which showed through the
bamboo walls the usual number of ugly little dolls, enshrined in a large
bare room. The Baraguans, however, must be a somewhat bigoted race. They
would not allow us to set foot within the sanctuary, an unpleasant
contrast with the Rationalists of Mabban. The male population squatted
round to see ‘the captain’s’ hammock-lines made taut, and the fairer
sex, which still displayed the _vis superba formæ_—in figure, not in
face—formed an outer ring. A drum soon made its appearance, and after we
had passed round a social glass of toast, rum, and gin, the merriment
waxed fast and furious. There was singing, feasting, and dancing; in
fact, quite an African ‘swarry,’ only lacking the mutton and caper
sauce. Our hosts were perfectly civil and obliging, and so were our
hostesses—rather too much so I could prove, if privileged to whisper
into the reader’s ear. But what would Mrs. Grundy say? The night was
soft and balmy; after the reeking sunny day, we enjoyed the refreshing
season of rest, and the verandah floor, though not without knots, was
more satisfactory than a feather bed in the best bedroom of ——. Upon the
whole, our trip was decidedly ‘jolly.’
On Saturday, the 9th, we arose betimes, and left Baragu at 5·30 A.M.,
before any of the revellers were awake: these people have the good sense
to sleep as long as they can. The river-fog was as dense and clammy as
ever; the snags were numerous; so were the ropes, and we were obliged to
row carefully for fear of an upset. About sunrise we halted for a few
minutes at Illugu, where the ill-fated Sancho (pronounced Sanco) had
strayed from his mourning owner. The Krumen went up to the village, and
inquired concerning that amiable but mangy animal—in vain; our pleasant
companion had probably found a living grave in the bread-basket of some
hard-iliac’d Illaguan—the canine _salmi_ is relished by these races—and
we left the fatal spot with spirits sadly depressed.
Halting for breakfast at Igaon, we had the satisfaction of finding Mr.
and Mrs. Johnson in the very best of health. The head-man brought us a
fowl, for which he demanded rum or a head of cowries; he then begged for
something to eat, and was told that it was his duty to take in, not to
let in the stranger. He was also warned that sundry complaints against
him had been sent to Lagos, and that he must no longer levy ‘black mail’
upon travellers and canoe-men going up the river. Our stay was short;
the rum was ended, and the claret running very low; we were naturally
anxious to arrive at a place of plenty—Lagos. There is one advantage in
these excursions. Although the _jeunesse dorée_ of Abeokuta looks upon
that sea-port much as the English young woman from the country-house
regards the season and the great matrimonial bazar of London, I had
hitherto held it to be the last and lowest of created places, save and
except only Fernando Po. Twelve days of sweltering at ‘Understone’ had
so modified my views, that it now rose before the mental eye as the home
of comfort and luxury. Thus Saadi’s philosopher cured his slave of
howling with terror in the boat by throwing him for a few minutes into
the sea.
We left Igaon at 8·40 A.M., and after passing sundry settlements, which
were not exactly like
‘Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain,’
we halted off the mouth of the Agboi Creek to await Mr. Eales in the
second gig. Commander Bedingfield and I determined to inspect the longer
route, _viâ_ the main stream, and the ‘doctor’ was equally resolved to
reach head-quarters with the least possible delay.
At 10·30 A.M. we parted, and struck in the first gig down the lower
Ogun. It rapidly narrowed, and in places widened out again. The banks on
both sides were thickly forested, and we judged from the number of the
paths abutting upon the water that many villages must be scattered
through the bush. The river appeared, however, almost deserted; hardly a
canoe was upon its waters, and the windings at times threatened a return
to ‘Understone.’ The fishing-ropes also were many and troublesome; being
thinner than those in the upper stream, they more than once unshipped
our rudder. About half-way we passed on the right a wretched fishing-
village—six huts, mere wattlings, thatched with palm-leaves, raised on
piles above the inundation, redolent of squalor, and surrounded by filth
and fetid mud. We asked its name, and were told ‘Ojogu.’
Advancing, we found that as we neared the mouth the river narrowed. Such
is frequently the case in these regions, where the beds of streams want
slope, and where the soppy ground, half-reclaimed from the waves,
absorbs the greater part of the down-flow. For the reverse reason, the
head or upper waters are, for the most part, mill-torrents. We were
fortunate enough to meet a canoe at a critical point where the Ogun
falls; the left appeared to be the larger branch, but it terminated in a
_cul de sac_. Taking the right, we bade leave to forest trees, in which
the long-tailed monkeys were disporting themselves, ascending the
topmost boughs for the benefit of their health, and cautiously and
curiously walking along the horizontal branches, to enjoy, as we went
by, a better reconnoitre of their ‘big brothers.’ Presently we entered
the mangrove forest, whose aërial roots, a conework of props converging
where the trunk springs, must often have been upwards of fifteen feet
high; it is not improbable that they suggested to the first African the
idea of the first hut. In some places, especially at the bifurcation of
the river, the trees were so high and thick that they suggested the idea
of a raised bank—a frequent formation near the courses of West African
creeks and rivers. It is probably caused by the vegetation being based
upon a firmer soil, not upon the soft mud in which the smaller and more
scrubby mangrove delights.
We came to the conclusion that the line of the main river was
considerably longer than that of the Agboi Creek, and the eastern sweep
of the former, compared with the regular northing of the latter,
justified it. Presently the mangroves lessened in size, and the stream
narrowed to a few yards: it was so thickly banked with tall, light-green
grasses and aquatic plants that the oars could hardly work, and we
anticipated the pleasing task of turning back. A short furlong, however,
exposed the broad and well-known face of the Ikoradu water, which we
greeted as if it had been a firm friend, instead of a fierce enemy, to
the white man. According to all local authorities, Father Ogun, until
quite lately, boasted of a broad and open mouth, such as becomes a
sacred stream; of late years it has apparently been blocked up by its
own growth. This must greatly reduce its value; none but the smallest of
river tugs could plough a way through the tangled entrance; and thus
communication on an extensive scale between Lagos and Abeokuta will be
confined to canoes, roads, tramways, and eventually the rail.
Exactly at noon we found ourselves in the lagoon. The coast here forms a
deep, narrow bight, with a comparatively high and a densely-wooded
point, extending far out on each side. To our left, or westward, lay the
market-place or bazar, where the bushfolk and the citizens of Ikoradu
meet every eight days. There were a few tattered huts, all at that time
deserted. They are about half an hour’s walk from the town. The way is a
deep rut in the red clay, forming during the rains a rivulet
unmanageable to any nag but a Yoruban, and at all times tiresome to
English feet and ankles. The land is a mass of impenetrable vegetation,
where no umbrella is wanted till within a few yards of the habitations.
On a subsequent occasion I visited it with Mr. M‘Coskry, and found it to
be the normal Yoruba settlement, girt with clay wall and dry ditch, and
gates like bungalows for the accommodation of the guards. The interior
was a _rus in urbe_, containing much more jungle than house. The only
semi-civilized being seemed to be a native teacher stationed there for
propagandist purposes. Formerly it was committed to the charge of M.
Flad, a German missionary. The people were by no means startled by the
weird apparition—and none but the smallboys showed emotion—and we were
allowed to saunter into and about the open Ogboni lodge, whose inmates
we inspected with that nonchalant stare peculiar to Britons and to the
higher order of savages. ‘Produce me,’ said Mr. Jollins, ‘a respectable
inhabitant of an English country town, and I will match him in the
matter of solid and silent staring against any man over the whole
surface of the world.’ On another and a subsequent occasion, however,
the burghers of Ikoradu town were not so civil to a party of more
dignified visitors, and if rumour speak truth, their town somewhat
narrowly escaped a summary bombardment.
Return we to the first gig, which was in no pleasant plight, as she
emerged from the embrace of Father Ogun. The sea-breeze blew steadily in
our faces, and the tide ran strong against us. We were still seven miles
from Lagos, and our progress was painfully slow, chiefly owing, said
‘the captain,’ to the size and the obstinacy of my umbrella. As we
progressed, a new appearance was noticed in the water, which was verdant
with a substance apparently floating up with the tide. The material was
disposed in clots, lumps, and balls, varying in size from a pin’s head
to a grape-shot, which when taken in the hand, proved to be slimy and
soft, like agglomerations of decayed vegetable matter. We afterwards
found the beach at Lagos pea-green with several inches of the deposit,
which, after drying in the sun, emitted a most peculiar and offensive
odour.[2] The thermometer showed 6° (Fah.) higher than usual, and the
sea breeze, which usually sets in at 11 A.M., delayed till the
afternoon: there was no change in the barometer. The deposit was first
remarked on November 8th, and the merchants lost no time in removing it
from their ‘beaches.’ The old hands, however, began to presage evil, and
their predictions were accomplished but too well. Out of ninety-eight
English crew, H.M.S. ‘Prometheus’ had lost during twenty-three months
only two men from fever, and during the last third of the year, when she
had been lying off Lagos, exposed to all its evil influences, there was
only one decidedly febrile case on board. But these climates are
treacherous beyond description. Immediately after the appearance above
noticed, the sick began to flock in apace; we heard first of one death,
then a second,—whilst twelve bad cases were reported. Before the end of
December there were one hundred and seven fevers, intermittent,
remittent, and continued: between 14th of November and December 3rd, no
less than forty-eight were on the sick list. Finally, after a few weeks,
except one old quartermaster there was not a ‘Promethean’ who had not
had fever; and it was only by removal to Ascension Island, where fifty-
seven men were sent, that the lives of the crew were saved.
At 1 P.M. we sighted the second gig emerging from the Agboi creek. We
flattered ourselves that her course would be a hypothenuse, and much we
prayed that she might ground or stick; but Jupiter turned a deaf ear—she
beat us by a good half-hour. Doubtless that umbrella! Our Krumen were
urged to exertion by an awful-looking cloud, a purple black pall, with a
broad, white arch, that seemed to open a gateway for the coming blasts,
and the mass rose steadily against the wind, which presently fell to a
calm. At 5 P.M. we landed, after twelve days’ absence, at Lagos,
somewhat wiser if not better men. After passing—
‘Per varios casus, per tot discrimina rerum—’
all on a very small scale, I reinstated myself with a lively sensation
of pleasure in the old quarters at the house of my kind and hospitable
friend, M‘Coskry, where it was easy to forget the minute discomforts and
inconveniences of our Flying Visit to Abeokuta.
L’ENVOI.
Yoruba, as the list of its trade articles proves, may in time become a
valuable possession, and its sole important port, Lagos, is now in our
hands. The seaboard will supply large quantities of palm oil; the
interior is rich in shea butter, ivory, and, if due encouragement be
given, a certain amount of cotton. The gossipium, even wild, is, and I
believe always will be, better than the best crop ever grown in India.
The transit is shorter, and should be less costly. At present, however,
there is a want of population, resulting from three causes—human
sacrifice, slave exporting, and petty wars.
Human sacrifice does not absorb much of the population; but it points to
habits of destruction, and to a moral degradation which cannot but be
prejudicial to the increase of a birth rate. Slave export still thrives
in the Bight of Benin: the Ijaye are said during the last two years to
have lost 20,000 of their number, partly kidnapped for domestic slavery,
partly exported to Cuba. Petty wars are at present the normal condition
of the land, and the causes are so complicated, that nothing but _main
forte_ can put them down. The Moslems of the Sudan, or Upper Nigerian
regions, are pressing heavily upon the peoples of the South. The
Yorubas, or non-maritime races, removed sixty miles from the seaboard,
are fighting for free transit. The Egbas, or tribes lying between Yoruba
and the coast, especially the Abeokutans, under pretence of recovering
their ancestral homes, are contending for the monopoly of the road, and
are aspiring to change honest labour for the lazy life of brokers or
middlemen, like the townsmen at the mouth of the Oil Rivers in the Bight
of Biafra. It is evident that, under such circumstances, regularity,
which is the first requisite of the cotton crop, cannot be expected.
The remedy for these various evils consists in stationing at Lagos a
military force sufficiently strong to impose terms upon obstinate
breakers of the public peace. As bygone details have proved, no
extensive establishment is required; the force need not exceed six
hundred men. At present, the people require a lesson: they own the
superiority of the English by sea, but—the error is excusable—they still
hold themselves to be on land the greatest warriors in the world. To
consult economy rather than efficiency at Lagos, is—quoting an old
saying—‘to throw good money after bad.’ The object of such a colony
should be economy; to diminish the expense of a squadron which,
including head-money for captured slaves, and other minor items, can
hardly amount to less than one million of pounds sterling per annum.[3]
As the West African coast comes more directly under our command, this
disbursement may be reduced to one-tenth.
We have now an excellent opportunity of trying a novel and modern
experiment in colonization, and I sincerely hope that experience will
have enabled us to steer clear of the errors and misconceptions that
have operated so fatally upon our settlements at Bathurst and Sierra
Leone. The latter is, indeed, a warning. If the exact reverse of
everything that was done in the early part of the present century had
been done, we might have seen a thriving and extensive colony of
liberated negroes where now there is a wretched and degraded population
of hucksters and idlers.[4]
There need no longer be any objection to stationing European officials
at Lagos. A future page will show that, within two days’ steam of that
dangerous port, there is a mountain range which, with little labour, may
be made a sanitarium for the whole coast of Western Intertropical
Africa. Camaroons Mountain, where snow falls at times all the year
round, and upon whose glorious summit the mercury sinks at night below
zero at all seasons, is thus more easily and effectually connected with
Lagos than the Mahabuleshwar Hill Station is with Bombay.
I need hardly repeat the phrase _publicâ trita manu_, that if my
exertions tend in any way to develop the resources of the West Coast of
Africa, my expenditure of time and trouble will have been amply repaid.
[Footnote 1: See _Note_ on page 7.]
[Footnote 2: It appears at uncertain intervals about June, lining the
beach and extending for some yards from the water. Mr. Eales found by
the microscope that it was composed of animal and vegetable in different
stages of decomposition, and gas was evolved, most probably sulphuretted
and carburetted hydrogen.]
[Footnote 3: A thoroughly efficient blockading squadron would consist of
at least 13 steam-cruisers, besides a provision-ship, and a frigate for
the Commodore’s flag, viz.:—
For the North Coast 3 | The Bight of Biafra 1
|
The Bight of Benin 4 | The South Coast 5
This is not more than the squadron which the French Government stations
off Goree and St. Louis de Senegal, but I am convinced that the
prevention of slavery would be more easily effected by land than by sea.
The mere capture of slavers exasperates the evil by rendering other
shipments necessary. The encouraging and supporting commerce, induces
the people to turn their attention from illicit to licit traffic.]
[Footnote 4: N.B.—This was written in 1861.]
THE CAMAROONS MOUNTAINS.
AN EXPLORATION.
* * * * *
CHAPTER I.
PRELIMINARIES OF EXPLORATION.
There are few spots on the earth’s surface where more of grace and
grandeur, of beauty and sublimity, are found blended in one noble
panorama than at the equatorial approach on the west coast of Africa.
The voyager’s eye, fatigued by the low, flat, melancholy shores of Benin
and Upper Biafra, rests with inexhaustible delight upon a ‘Gate,’
compared with which Bab el-Mandeb and the Pillars of Hercules are indeed
tame. To his right towers Santa Isabel, the Peak of Fernando Po, marked
in the chart as 10,700 feet above sea-level: on his left is a
geographical feature more stupendous still, where the Camaroons
Mountain, whose height is popularly laid down at 13,760 feet, seems to
spring from the wave, and to cast its shadow half-way across the narrow
intervening channel, whose minimum breadth does not exceed nineteen
miles. They are evidently sister formations, these giant pyramids; they
wear a family look; their shoulders, clad in flowing garments of
evergreen vegetation, converge gradually, and almost continuously, at an
angle of about 12°, till they meet at a neck upon which a superimposed
conical head denotes the great central spiracle.[5] In the island,
however, superior humidity prolongs the woody region, whilst the
continental mountain, some 3000 feet more elevated, shows a greater
expanse of grassy surface clear of high trees. Remarkable also is the
variety of the scene, which is rarely beheld under the same aspect. Now,
through the thin grey haze of the fair season which paints all Nature
with its own hues, they rise like spectres from the ‘vapour foot’ below,
the umbras of mountains in the shadowy realm. Then they disappear
mysteriously behind a dense, dark loom, affording at times a glimpse
through the festoons and hangings of mist and cloud that are caught and
held by the rough, tree-clad surface. Then, especially after tornado-
rains, profile and fold stand out with a marvellous distinctness that
brings them within a quarter of their real distance. Their waists, where
the North-east Trade and the South-west Rain-winds meet, are often girt
with a sharply-defined, delicate zone of sea-cloud, cumuloni-rollers,
snow-white when shone upon by the sun, below in strata, which, forming a
new base for the upper half, show an Ossa piled upon many a Pelion: a
lower girdle of land-cloud is also not unfrequent, while fleecy little
cirri dance like aërial sprites over the Peak. And sometimes upon the
further summit of the Camaroons Mountain, a broad sheet, distance-
dwarfed to a mere fleck, of a dead and absolute white, which cannot be
confounded with cloud, lava, or dolomite, tells of snow within four
degrees of the equator. But the time to behold it is when there is a
cloudless sky: in the soft and misty air its hues are so fresh, so
melting, so tender, that it is a sensual enjoyment to gaze upon them.
Then the channel, crisped and freshened by the remnants of the Northern
Trades, winds beautifully blue between them; and the monarchs of West
African mountains throned in sapphire, all gorgeous purple below,
passing into the lightest azure above, raise toward the empyrean their
heads jewelled with the gold of a tropical sunshine. Such a picture can
never fade from the memory of man.
And there are marvels and wonders connected with them, especially with
the unexplored Camaroons.[6] This is the only point of the West African
coast still presenting the same features described in the log-book of
Hanno the Carthaginian—the admiral, general, historian, and first of
lion-tamers.
For long centuries navigators have sailed along its base, but no foot
has ever ventured to tread that little hump, which, as in the Pico of
Tenerife, denotes the apex. Portuguese and Spaniard, Dutch, English, and
French, have all been contented to wonder and to admire from afar this
great landmark of the western shores. The coast-people declare that they
have seen fire bursting out of the ground; and from Clarence Town in
Fernando Po smoke has been observed more than once to issue from the
summit of the ‘Mount of Heaven,’ as they call the Theon Ochema, upon
which, 600 years before our era, the old Carthaginians gazed in fear. In
the pages of a contemporary writer upon the West Coast of Africa, its
uplands narrowly escaped being garnished with a race of Dokos and Kimos,
dwarfs and pigmies, and _hommes à queue_, the mysterious Ding-Dings and
Nyam-Nyams.
Having left pestilential Lagos on the 21st November, 1861, in H.M.S.
‘Bloodhound,’ Lieut.-Commander Dolben, R.N., after visiting the dull and
deadly Brass and Bonny rivers I determined to refresh myself with a
nearer view of the Camaroons Mountain, and to prospect the chances of
carrying out a long-cherished project of exploring it. As we approached
the goal on the dawn of the 10th December, a jealous cloud, like the
vapour which further north invests Madeira and the Canaries, seemed
resolved to hide its majesty from our eyes. Before sunrise, however,
every stain of mist had, as frequently happens, disappeared. For a
distance of ten miles a huge blue silhouette stood before us, the upper
heights gilt by the yet unrisen sun, and the lower expanse still blue-
black with lingering night. The dorsal swell was everywhere so regular
that it gave to the whole the appearance of one vast mountain rising
from a single base. Every quarter of an hour, however, brought a change
in the magnificent spectacle. Presently the south-western profile was
broken by three serrations; the highest is the uppermost of a group, to
which we afterwards gave the name of the Three Sisters; below it was an
extinct Vesuvius, the Little Camaroons of old sailors, surging
apparently impracticable and perpendicular from a rolling sea of
vegetation; lower still was the Botoki cone, a small but independent
feature, clearly seen from Fernando Po; and in the maritime region
hummocky hills and dromedary’s backs here formed headlands, heaving out
in accumulative grandeur from the Atlantic, whose mighty swell, slow and
measured, broke at their feet, there sank blended with the winding,
waving shore, that dipped below the misty horizon. With the increased
clearness of morning, we began to understand that what we had supposed
to be a plain surface of tropical forest in the lower basal half, is a
succession of long striated ridges, with intervening barrancas, valleys,
and ravines; whilst the dots, which had before puzzled us, were wooded
protuberances,—‘parasitic’ cones they are called by those who would
quiet their consciences with a technical word.[7] Higher up we could
distinctly trace the line where the forest region yields to that of
grass and shrubs: there again appeared a multitude of little lumps, an
eruption of warts upon the epidermis of the giant; they looked like
mole-hills from below; above they will become sugar-loaves, bosses, and
‘volcanic blowing cones,’ like the ‘_hornitos_’ or oven-shaped hillocks
speckling the Mal Pais plain of Mexican Jorullo. And the terminal
domelet, evidently bald and bare, wore, when the first delicate rays of
the rosy sun had faded from it, a brown-black, tempered by the
intervening blue, but contrasting strongly with the reddish-yellow which
winter, or rather the dry season, had already strewed upon the grass-
slopes beneath it. As we steamed into the beautiful Ambas, or Victoria
Bay, with its protecting islets on our right hand, all admired, after
the mangrove-haunted river, the sublimity and the passing loveliness of
the scene; above our heads the noble pile capped with its fissured
cupola; before us the dwarf earth-banks and the beetling cliffs that
margined the mirrory sea, and the forest with its infinite tintage, here
ruddy, there almost white, now dark as spinach, then of the lightest
leek-green. Some compared it to Navarino Bay, others to the once young
and charming Sierra Leone, as she appears in pictures, before fire had
wasted the now deadly land. It is fortunate that the devils of this
paradise have not yet learned, like the Timni and their brethren the
‘colonists,’ to disforest the soil; when the operation of bush-clearing
is carried out, care should be taken to leave all the finest trees
standing.
Running with an easterly course, we passed a detached rock which we
called ‘The Hulk’—_prosit!_ Beyond it, at the foot of the Botoki cone,
where Capt. Allen places his Batoki village,[8] appeared the Point
Limboh of our maps, a rugged, forested head, forming the north-west
buttress of Ambas Bay. We then fronted a green and shaggy amphitheatre,
which apparently had no break nor outlet, and soon afterwards we found
it composed of two shallow rocky waves in the coast, the further cove
being our destination. On the port-bow rose, needle-like, from the
waves, sheer and steep-to, the Bubyá Islands, ridiculously enough called
the Pirate Rocks; the distinctly columnar shape of these pinnacled
‘inches,’ the fornos, souffleurs, or blowing-holes, in their bases and
their water-worn arches revealed a basaltic formation. Continuing our
course in ¼ less 10 fathoms, we left on the starboard bow Ndami,
miscalled Ambas, or Amboize Island, a long, narrow chine of black rock,
partially greened over and dotted at the northern and western ends with
about a dozen huts; a violent surf, urged by the south-west winds,
breaks around it during the rainy season. We then passed northward of
‘Mondoleh,’ or rather ‘Mondori,’ Island, which is defended in this
direction by outlying rocks and reefs. It is an egg-shaped rock, woody
and shady, bluff towards the north, and sloping seawards in the south.
It appeared to all of us the best preparatory position for a sanitarium,
and as such I shall revert to it.
Presently, at 11 A.M., we anchored in three fathoms water off the mouth
of Morton Cove, so called from a certain patron of the Baptist Mission.
This north-eastern and innermost recess of Ambas Bay, being completely
land-locked towards the weather, must offer, one would suppose, at all
seasons an excellent station to boats. The southern part is shoal and
sandy, and the bottom is dotted with diabolitos with basaltic points,
sometimes covered by the tide, and making it a dangerous anchorage for
ships. In the Hydrographic Chart the dimensions of the chord of Morton
Cove are unduly reduced. It supplies an abundance of the purest water: a
little perennial stream falls into the centre of the arc; the heights
are covered with noble timber; there is an abundance of building
material, stone being as common as in Madeira and Tenerife; whilst
specimens of coralline brought up by the fishermen show that here, as at
San Thomé, the growth of madrepore would supply the settlement with
lime. And there is a walk round the cove over a soft dark sand, formed,
like that of Fernando Po, by a detritus of basalt about a mile and a
half long and, at low water, fifty yards wide.
The good ship lay about eight hundred yards W.S.W. of the Missionary
station Victoria, and thus commanded a fine view of the site where the
future town will be. The position is a broken uneven ledge, formed by
alluvium from the mountains almost immediately behind it, and extending
from one to two miles towards the sea bounding it on the south. Within
an easy walk of two hours, and bearing 65° E.N.E. from the Mission
House, is a rounded tree-clad cone, called by the Baptists Mount Henry;
this would be the second step towards the upper sanitarium, to
which—suddenness of change often induces a relapse of fever in these
exceedingly tropical lands,—patients should not be conveyed too rapidly.
Immediately behind the settlement is a gorgeous and gigantic growth of
equatorial forest, which would require to be cleared or thinned before
aught else could be done; at present it is almost impassable during the
rains, and at all seasons it breeds swarms of sandflies and mosquitos.
The dwarf enclosure which backs the houses runs about half a mile each
way, and might grow to half a dozen times the size. At present there are
ten habitations, two of iron and the rest of timber. The three of
superior appearance fronting the sea command a fine view of the bay-
islets, the densely wooded promontories, and the rival peak of Fernando
Po, springing gnomon-like from the bosom of the ocean. Opposite the
principal abode, the Mission House, are scattered rocks, forming a
natural breakwater, which could easily be converted into a pier. This
was proposed some twenty years ago, but Africa moves even more slowly
than England—not a stone has been laid. The walls are dry lines of
basaltic blocks and boulders, which everywhere strew the surface; there
is also good clay for bricks. About three-quarters of a mile from, and
appearing to command the settlement, is Mount Helen, a finely wooded
cliff, admirably fitted for the site of a convict prison; it is a
dangerous rocky point in windy weather, and at all times the surf is
bad. On the sandstrip below, and east of the mission establishment, are
long cadjan’d sheds, used as boat-houses and places of barter; in the
Admiralty Chart the place is marked ‘Plantain market on Fridays.’ Here
on every third day the islanders and the savages from the upper slopes
meet to change their fruits and vegetables, chiefly cocoas and yams,
palm-nuts and bananas, for salt, tobacco, small wares, and dried fish of
various kinds, the chief demand of the interior. About two miles to the
eastward is a second hamlet, which can be reached either by footpath or
by canoe; it is also held every third day, and the articles of ‘round
trade’ are the same. A local feud—one is prevailing now—often breaks off
the ‘bazar’ for weeks; faction-fights with stones are not uncommon; and
when the Bimbia people from the east kidnap a woman or two the upper
clans fear to descend. In the best of times only a few pounds of
provisions are procurable at these markets. It is evident that a colony
landing at Victoria should be supplied with frame houses and rations[9]
until with reasonable industry it could support itself. The reader must
not readily credit the various assertions recklessly made touching the
quantity of provisions at Victoria. On the other hand, as freight is
easily brought from the neighbouring rivers Bimbia and Camaroons, it is
not likely that the Victorians, like the tars of the Elizabethan navy,
are always raising, as their rivals declare, the pitiful cry, ‘Vittels!
vittels! vittels!’ As will presently appear, there is great fierceness
between the two rival settlements; though the battle for bread does not
rage fiercely in these bilious lands, yet the only amity lies in
community of interests, and none but a stranger—like myself—would
attempt to speak out the truth.
Lieutenant Dolben and I, embarking in the first gig, despised the fine-
weather passage leading towards the site of the future pier. We crossed
in safety the little angry bar, and landed on a shingly beach, narrow as
usual: on this part of the African coast there are none of the broad
yellow sands that beautify the edges of the Asiatic seas. Then we walked
a few yards to the rock-garnished mouth of a second little river which
bounds the missionary clearing on the west. It is a mountain-burn, the
drainage of the uplands, but a few yards wide, and barely chin-deep; it
is, however, perennial, and extraordinarily sweet; ever cool in the
hottest season, and overarched with shady trees, which require nothing
but clearing. The bottom is neatly spread with pebbles of black basalt,
all more or less porous; red volcanic stones and scoriæ, well rounded
and water-rolled. It is a delightful bath for those who can despise
threats of fever, and it is the model of a trout stream, although we saw
in it only the smallest of fry.
After bathing and giving orders to fill casks, we walked towards the
settlement, which is not more than three hundred yards from the stream,
and were presently met by Messrs. Diboll and Mann, who showed us the
narrow path through the bush. The Rev. Mr. Saker was then at his head-
quarters on the Camaroons River, of which this establishment is an
outpost; we therefore paid a short visit to his amiable family, and then
departed.
I had arrived, however, at an apparently auspicious moment for my long-
cherished project. M. Mann in 1860 had ascended a few hundred feet of
the Camaroons mountains, but having lacked time, and perhaps having
overestimated the difficulties, he had returned unsatisfied to Fernando
Po, and he was now girding his loins for a second attempt to scale a
mountain whose glorious pinnacles had never felt the foot of man.[10] He
is a young man of twenty-five, a native of Brunswick, a gardener from
the Royal Gardens, Kew, to which he was recommended by the Court of
Hanover. Originally attached, in 1859, to Dr. Baikie’s Niger expedition
in place of the lamented Dr. Barter, he has been continued as Government
botanist in West Africa by the Admiralty, with the ostensible motive of
inspecting the timber. The ‘Amabilis scientia’—whose votaries, however,
can at times be as cross as poets—appears still at a discount in public
opinion. Whilst in these days the geologist holds his head high, one
rarely reads of a detached ‘botaniker;’ as a rule the ‘poor herbalist’
is attached as a decent appendage to some Government expedition. Economy
is often made to entrench upon utility. And why should the collector,
after bearing the heat and burden of the day, lose his reward? Why
should not ‘Hooker’s Niger Flora’ be known as ‘Vogel’s Herbarium
described by Hooker’? And yet another point. Why should not the
collector be allowed to reserve a certain percentage of new plants to
study and to name after his friends? We are certainly afflicted in this
century with a terrible thirst for small fame, but it is a pity that
justice should be sacrificed to it; for which reason, and not
invidiously, I venture upon these remarks. If the practical English
public ask the _cui bono_ of a botanist beyond the mere science, it may
be answered that, setting aside the question of timber, the soil of
these regions is capable of being made a mine of wealth when science
shall have decided upon what it is best capable of producing.
Meanwhile M. Mann, after visiting the Bagroo river, near Sierra Leone
and Barracoon Point, on the Niger, made, after twice failing, two
ascents (in April and December, 1860) of Fernando Po Peak, where he was
guided by a Spanish official, M. Pellon, the Special Delegate of Public
Works. Their visit was the second ever made to the summit, the late Mr.
Beecroft’s being the first. He subsequently ascended to the summits of
Prince’s Island and San Thomé, and visited the Gaboon and other African
rivers. He has been indefatigable in collecting and in preserving his
collections, and has supplied one of the greatest desiderata in
botanical geography.[11] The results have been to establish: ‘1. An
intimate relationship with Abyssinia, of whose flora that of the
Fernandian Peak is a member, and from which it is separated by 1800
miles of absolutely explored country; 2. A curious relationship with the
East African Islands, which are still further off; 3. An almost total
dissimilarity from the Cape flora.’[12] With the West African Islands
again, contrary to expectation, there is no marked relationship
whatever.
M. Mann had once more left Fernando Po on the 4th December, 1861, and,
landing at Victoria, had begun his preparations without delay. There
were the usual difficulties to be encountered; the bush people would
give no guide, and the chiefs refused passage. Two days after his
arrival he was ready to revisit the terminus of his last year’s march,
which he knew by the name of Mapanya. A ‘Mokwiri,’[13] however, at
Victoria, informed the traveller that the real Mapanya still remained
unvisited, and offered to act as guide, requiring for himself and his
five boys each five ‘big tings,’ here equivalent to five pounds. This
exorbitant demand of thirty pounds for a mere preliminary lasted two
days, when M. Mann definitely refused, and the fellow disappeared. At
the next market Mr. Pinnock, a native missionary of the Baptist
establishment, and his colleague, Mr. Johnson, enabled the botanist by
great exertion to engage a guide. The man was a native of Mapanya, but
living at a lower settlement: he was charged with presents for the chief
of Kombi, a hostile village on the way; these naturally enough he took
to his own ‘boss,’ and kept the stranger waiting three days for the
return-message. Nor was this when it came particularly favourable. Every
hour was precious, yet the traveller was told ‘Sit down for you’ three
more days till ‘palaver’ had ‘set,’ _i.e._ been decided, after which
guides and bearers might perhaps be forthcoming. Affairs, however,
appeared to be opening up; and as my presence was required in the
Camaroons River, M. Mann agreed to break ground as soon as possible, to
botanize on the way, and to await my arrival before attempting the Peak.
I must, however, do him the justice to say that he set out without delay
and did his best of bests to be Number One; he failed, however, and
failed signally, as the sequel will show.
The afternoon was devoted to inspecting the islands, which were
accurately described by Messrs. Allen and Thompson.[14] Ndami,
erroneously called Dameh, or Ambas, the outer or westernmost island,
some two and a half miles distant from the northern mainland, possesses
but one, and that a difficult, landing-place at the inner end. This
rocky, tongue-shaped ridge, with a bold head of 150 feet fronting the
sea, which foams and rages outside, whilst the Cove, or inner harbour,
lies smooth as a mill-pond, is clear of trees, but shows on the lower
slopes a little garden-ground about the huts of the inhabitants. It
breeds goats and pigs in plenty; water, however, must be brought from
the mainland when the people set out on fishing excursions. Separated
from Ndami by a channel one mile and a half broad, stands its eastern
neighbour Mondori, which Captain Allen calls Mondoleh, and others
Mondoli,[15] a much more interesting place. About two miles distant from
the northern shore, it is separated from the bold headland forming the
eastern arm of the bay by a fair broad channel. The Victorians declare
that it is accessible whilst the sauciest sea runs outside, and that,
when the rest of the bay is a sheet of foam, vessels can ride snugly
under the lee of its northern point; they assert that it has an
excellent holding bottom of dark tough clay, and that it is superior in
many points to the celebrated Clarence Cove, Fernando Po. The formation
of the island, according to Mr. Roscher,[16] is amygdaloid basalt in the
lower parts, and in the upper a more solid stone with shiny cleavage,
evidently the result of different epochs of cooling; on the western
side, where the greatest heat was, the older deposits are destroyed.
Mondori rises about 200 feet from the sea, with the profile of a lumpy
dome; it is steep on all sides, except at the south-east, where the
landing is. Magnificent trees, hung with llianas and festooned with
orchids, crown the summit and creep down the flanks. After repeated
attempts, we failed to scale the bluff northern side, foiled by the
impenetrable bush; we heard, however, the voices of the people above us,
and we were told that it contains a few households, who add to the gifts
of their nets the produce of the richest soil formed by decomposed
basalt. Their huts are hidden from the sea and the bay, and a spring, it
is said, supplies them with excellent water. Like Ndami, Mondori is
claimed by one Nako, a Bimbia chief, as an inheritance from his father,
‘old Nako:’ there would be no difficulty in purchasing it. The place
would be useful as a storehouse and a preliminary sanitarium; and should
Government determine to send out convict-hulks or a coal-ship for this
station, there is no better mooring-place than under its lee. A hundred
negro workmen, gardeners, and lumberers, would easily clear and prepare
it during the six months of the dry season.
The other islands alongshore are the Bubya, Bobbi, Abobbi, or Pirate
Rocks, whose formation, like Point William at Fernando Po, reveals to us
the original connection between the two mountains. Urged both by N.E.
and S.W. winds, a violent sea must have beaten upon the low neck of land
which in past times attached the bases of the sister peaks. The land was
gradually dismembered, leaving fragments of islands, which are still
being sliced away by successive inroads. Gradually the water began to
roll deeper between them; the channel, however, is still shallow, and
there is a subaqueous ridge extending from N.E. to S.W.[17] Presently
the same surf, ever perforating and degrading, washed from Ndami the
Bubya Rocks, and these in their turn, after being greatly curtailed in
size, are nodding to their fall. The group numbers ten to fifteen,
according to the state of the tide, which here rises eight[18] feet; the
line, separated from the main by a sea-arm about one fathom deep, sets
off the shore in a general north and south direction. The largest and
the sole inhabited island is the second from the coast; it is a mass of
ejected ashes, with volcanic dykes. There is but one landing-place; a
sandy hole in a confusion of rocks, immediately below the highest
ground. The only path is up the narrow edge of a basaltic vein, leading
to a dwarf level, and here a natural bridge about three yards wide, with
a sheer drop on either side, affords adit to the steepest acclivity,
where the people fly when necessary. Though there is no ground for
cultivation, and the grazing for beasts is scanty, the miserable huts
swarm with children and dogs, pigs and goats. The people live mostly on
fish, and when their rain-pools are exhausted they must seek supplies
from the mainland.
Upon all the islands of Ambas Bay there may be 300 souls, who, perfect
African Bedouins, are on bad terms with one other, and generally at war
with their continental neighbours. They have, with but a solitary
exception, received Englishmen well, and we have requited their kindness
by attaching to them the odium of piracy. The ‘Lords of the Isles’ are,
as their language proves, allied with the Bakwiri, the principal tribe
upon the opposite coast; thus probably Fernando Po was also peopled, but
at a much earlier epoch, from the mainland, by a tribe doubtless long
extinct. The Camaroons tribes named in the chart are the Batongo to the
south-west, the Bakwileh (for Bakwiri) south of the mountain, and the
Bamboko to the south-east; all terms, except one, unknown to the people.
Proceeding from the east, we find the Dualla, by English called the
Camaroons people, the Isubu or Bimbia—the latter a name given by the
older travellers—the Bakwiri or Bojesmans, and the Rumbi. The latter is
also a European word. I could not discover what the tribe calls itself;
possibly, like the Bube of Fernando Po, it has no (general) name. The
people of Bubya are stout, independent fellows, with abrupt manners, the
result of secluded and seafaring life; every visitor has remarked their
robust and healthy aspect, which can be accounted for only by the
superior salubrity of, and the freedom from malaria in, their island
home.[19]
The history of European connection with this part of the coast is
briefly told,—but first of foreign nomenclature. According to Mr. J.
Grazilhier, who, as related by Barbot,[20] made a voyage to Old Calabar
in A.D. 1699, the land was called by the Portuguese Alta Tierra de
Ambozes—the highlands of Ambozes. The latter word, not being Lusitanian,
may probably be the name of some extinct tribe: here and elsewhere the
maritime African races rapidly disappear. It has been corrupted to
Amboizes, Amboize, and Ambas, which latter appears in the Hydrographic
Chart. The trivial English names of the mountains and the river to their
east—Camaroons, further debased to Cameroons, and by the Jonesian
writers to the yet more meaningless Kameruns—comes from the Portuguese
Camaráõ, or the Spanish Camaron, a shrimp or prawn, of which there is a
great variety from Lagos southwards.[21] I have retained the name,
although to call this stupendous pile and the broad estuary beyond it
‘Shrimp Mountains,’ or ‘Prawn River,’ sounds somewhat absurd. Captain
Allen, instructed by some Bimbia man, in his map gave to the highest
peak the name of Mongo má Lobá, which means in Isubu ‘Mountain of
Heaven,’ _i.e._ the starry expanse. The natives acknowledge this word:
they usually, however, call the whole upper region Mongo mo Ndemi,
literally the Mountain of Greatness, which is also Dr. Krapf’s
translation of the words Kilima-njáro, applied to the Ethiopic Olympus
in Eastern Africa. But to the lower eminence—the smaller hump of the
camel’s back, which was formerly called ‘Camarones Pequeños,’ or ‘Little
Camaroons,’ and ‘Gibraltar Rock,’ and which the Baptist missionaries
have lately baptized ‘Mount Trestrail,’—Captain Allen has assigned the
name of Mongo ma Etindeh, the ‘Mountain of Separation,’ that is to say,
‘the separate mountain,’ which the natives do not recognize. I should
prefer to call the highland region and bay Ambozes, the two peaks Larger
and Lesser Mongo, and the settlement Victoria: it would only, however,
confuse those who have learned Camaroons and Ambas to unlearn the terms.
The adjoining country was formally discovered towards the close of the
fifteenth century, by the noble Portuguese Fernaõ de Poo, who voyaged
during the reign of D. Affonso V.; his name still survives in the Island
of Fernando Po. About A.D. 1700 an active trade appears to have been
carried on here and in the adjoining river. In the early part of the
present century, to judge from Captain Adams, it seems to have fallen
out of notice. In 1826 Captain W. F. Owen, R.N., the laborious surveyor
of the two African coasts, explored the shore when homeward bound, and
accurately laid down its geography. In 1833 ‘Kokliko,’ _i.e._ Colonel,
now General, Sir Edward Nicolls, R.M.,[22] visited it in the ‘Quorra’
steamer, and the people of the islands, who had never been visited
before except by kidnappers and buccaneers, fled. In 1837, Billeh, Chief
of Bimbia, who also claimed Ambas Bay and its islands, conceded the best
part of the country to Colonel Nicolls, on condition that he should be
recognized as King William of Bimbia.[23] In 1842 the harbour was
surveyed by Captain W. Allen and Commander Ellis, H.M.S. ‘Soudan.’ Two
years afterwards, Lieut.-Commander Earle, H.M.’s brig ‘Rapid,’ made a
treaty with King William and the Bimbian chiefs, abolishing slavery for
a consideration of 1200 dollars in goods. In 1847, Mr. Merrick, a member
of the Baptist Mission then settled at Bimbia and in the Camaroons
River, made the first recorded trial to ascend the mountain:[24]
according to the people he succeeded in emerging from the forest
country, but presently water failed him; his escort suffered from cold,
hunger, and thirst, and he was compelled to return. He died two years
afterwards of a confirmed teetotalism: in these lands the habitual
water-drinker is even more shortlived than the habitual drunkard.[25] In
1848 King William and his chiefs agreed with Mr. Beecroft to abolish the
custom of human sacrifices at the funerals of great men; and in 1850
they bound themselves by a more stringent commercial treaty, settling
their ‘comey,’ and affixing penalties to those who injure or stop trade.
In 1855 H.M.’s Acting-Consul, Fernando Po, visited Ambas Bay in H.M.S.
‘Antelope,’ Lieut.-Commander Young, to settle an old ‘bob’ which had
lasted a score of years. The people of the ‘Boobee Islands’ had defied
King William and other Bimbian traders, they had openly seized his
slaves, canoes, and goods, and they had refused to come on board the
steamer. Fire was opened upon the wretched heap of huts; and when they
were destroyed, the proprietors signed a paper ‘acknowledging King
William of Bimbia rightful king and ruler of all the mainland and
islands extending from Bimbia to Rumby;’ while the king and chiefs of
Bimbia promised in their turn not to molest the ‘Boobees.’ In 1856 the
late Mr. M. Laird strongly advocated in opposition to Fernando Po a
British settlement at Ambas Bay, which had been greatly neglected on
account of a supposed want of safe landing: he showed its superiority as
a convict station to Ascension, and he also maintained, what had
apparently been forgotten, viz., that a great part of the actual
seaboard had been ceded to H.M.’s Government.[26]
Victoria was first settled in 1858. In May of that year the Spanish
Government, formerly so incurious touching its West African possessions,
suddenly bethought itself of making Fernando Po not only a strategic
position, but a source of wealth. Hoping by means of _emancipados_ from
Cuba to raise the Ilha Formosa to the rank of Madeira and Tenerife,
Prince’s and San Thomé, they formally resumed possession after it had
been virtually in English hands for nearly half a century. D. Carlos
Chacon, Commander of H.C. Majesty’s squadron in the island and its
dependencies, at once issued a proclamation forbidding any but Roman
Catholic schools; and ordering ‘those who prefer any religion which is
not the Catholic, to confine their worship within their own private
houses or families, and limit it to the members thereof.’ This
announcement fell like a shell amongst the black people of Clarence
Town, alias Santa Isabel, who numbered some 800 souls, many of them
creoles born in the colony. Having settled here in 1827, when Captain
Owen was king, they considered themselves under British protection, and
had since 1840 sat at the feet of Baptist ministers. On the 1st January,
1841, the ‘Golden Spring’ landed Mr. J. Clarke and Dr. G. K. Prince at
Fernando Po. They returned home in the autumn of the next year;
meanwhile, Mr. and Mrs. Sturgeon had arrived, and were followed in
September, 1843, by Dr. and Mrs. Prince, Mr. and Mrs. Merrick, and
Alexander Fuller. In December of the same year Mr. Clarke left Jamaica
with a total of forty-one whites and negroes, amongst whom was Mr.
Saker, the present head of the mission. In 1844 the Baptists attempted
to settle at the mouth of the Bimbia River: they found the land
beautiful, but deadly; and in 1850 they left it for Camaroons River,
which has proved but little better. They then preferred Fernando Po. The
Baptist converts, seeing the danger that threatened their pastors,
memorialized H.M. of Spain, but obtained no redress.[27]
In August, 1858, Mr. Saker and his family left Fernando Po, where he had
been allowed to reside only on sufferance, and emigrated to Ambas, which
he called Victoria. He was accompanied and followed by sundry negro
communicants, who have since, I believe, repented the step. Having
obtained 1500_l._ damages—an exorbitant sum—from the Spanish Government,
and apparently ignoring the antecedents of the country, he bought for
2000_l._—in kind, however, and in local valuation, which greatly reduced
the sum—the most valuable part of the location from King William of
Bimbia, Dick Merchant of Dikolo, and Prince Nako of Dualla. The grant of
‘prime cuts’ was bounded southward by the sea; north, by a line of
compass-bearings somewhat indefinite; eastward, by a stream of water
flowing into Man-of-War Bay—an adjoining inlet; and westward, a point
nearly opposite Bubya Islands: a total coast length of twelve miles,
which Mr. Consul Hutchinson makes eighty. It includes, as will be
observed, Ambas Bay and Victoria Harbour. The first habitation, not to
speak of the tents erected on landing, was a small iron-framed cottage,
put up in September 1858, and still used by Mr. Saker and his family; it
has wood, not metal, outside, and is habitable and tolerably healthy, no
small contrast to the iron coffins, called Consular Residences, at Lagos
and Fernando Po.
Then began a dispute which has lasted to the present day, and which
could easily have been settled in six months. The jealous Fernandians
naturally hated and feared the settlement on the mainland. The Spaniards
held aloof, but the English shopkeepers and others locally interested
were loud in their abuse. They declared the natives dangerous, and the
prospect of the settlers to be starvation. Unable to deny the salubrity
of a place to which many of them had often repaired for health, they
represented that it possesses no safe anchorage, and cannot be entered
without imminent risk during the rains. Commodore Wise, of H.M.S.
‘Vesuvius,’ was directed to visit Ambas Bay in 1859. Unhappily he was
accompanied by an official who, according to the missionaries, had
desired, but had failed, to become a partner in the land speculation.
Captain Wise, who remained there only a few hours, is believed to have
reported against the position; and Mr. Hutchinson (‘Ten Years’
Wanderings among the Ethiopians,’ chap. xviii.) gravely informed the
public that ‘at one important part of the bay, described in the Rev. Mr.
Saker’s chart as having four to six fathoms of water, it was found by
Mr. Bowen, Master R.N., who had charge of the soundings, to have only
from six to nine feet.’ The chart was copied from Captain Allen’s, and
the statement caused considerable indignation; yet in 1862, Commodore
Edmonstone, who had never even approached within sight of Ambas Bay,
objected upon the mere theoretical grounds of its being a lee shore—as
if all West Africa were not a ‘lee shore’—to its capabilities as a naval
station.
On the other hand, Mr. Saker, and those who were with him, contended
that the native tribes were few, scattered, and not dangerous; that the
country can be made highly productive, and support fine cattle, which
the island cannot; that building material everywhere abounds; that the
north-east tornadoes, which do so much damage at Fernando Po, are here
warded off by the mountain background; that mosquitoes and mangrove
swamps are unknown; that the sea-breeze is pure and healthy in the lower
levels, and that by ascending the high lands any temperature can be
obtained; that the islands are fit for lighthouses and coal depôts, and
the level strand for sheds and slips; that the eastern sea-arm is open
even to the largest ships at all seasons, and that, however rough may be
the sea outside, it is ever smooth under the lee of Mondori; that the
position lies in the very track of the mail steamers, which must now
diverge to Fernando Po; that the tenure of land would not be arbitrary,
as must ever be the case in a military station; that Victoria offers
complete religious toleration, and, finally, that the Camaroons
generally would be the key of the valuable Oil Rivers, whose export
trade to England is calculated at not less than a million and a half of
pounds sterling per annum.
Virtually all this, and perhaps more, had been expressed by previous
authorities. Captain Allen, R.N., after ample experience on the coast,
found at Ambas Bay ‘palpable evidence of the superiority of the
climate;’ where he enjoyed ‘a pure and prolonged sea-breeze or a cool
land wind every night, ensuring a calm and refreshing sleep.’ He ends by
declaring (vol. ii. chaps. viii. ix.) that ‘there are few places on the
coast of Africa more suitable for a settlement’ than the lands at the
base of Camaroons. Captain Close, R.N., does not hesitate to prefer
Ambas Bay to Clarence Cove—a cruel dig—where the wind setting in
prevents sailing vessels emerging from the gap without the aid of steam,
and where at times the tornadoes are so violent that ships risk being
stranded. Mr. Milbourne, master of the missionary schooner ‘Wanderer,’
has asserted that, ‘after giving a good deal of attention to this spot’
(the anchoring-ground under Mondori Island) ‘during the different
seasons of the year, he found the water always smooth;’ moreover he was
never detained in the bay, even when the mouth of the Camaroons River
was inaccessible to small craft.
Here then we have Captains Allen and Close—of whom the former has
repeatedly visited and surveyed the place—versus Commodores Wise and
Edmonstone, who either saw it for a few hours, or who did not see it at
all. A ‘plain man’ would hold that this decides the point _pro_ against
_con_. I confess, however, that, all things considered, it would be
necessary to run in and out of it some dozen times during the worst
seasons, between September and November, before one could be certain of
its capabilities as a naval station. Its fitness for a convict or
settler establishment I hold proven: even were the surf at times heavy,
it would be no greater objection than the bar to Lagos or the rollers to
Ascension. Of the superior salubrity of the climate there is also ample
practical evidence. Mr. Saker has for four years used his house on the
seaboard as a sanitarium, when prostrated by the malaria-poison of the
Camaroons River; and when the young negresses at Fernando Po wish to
‘make nyángá,’ as they call a peculiarly junketing picnic, they repair
to Victoria.
I now proceed to consider the geography of this interesting region. The
Camaroons Mountain is strictly in the African terra incognita, whose
limits are now 5° N. lat. to 5° S. lat., with a depth into the heart of
the Continent,[28] rising about the centre of the Bight of Biafra in the
Gulf of Guinea, where the western coast—after that long easterly sweep
which, hollowed out by wind and water, caused geographers, until some
five centuries ago, to shear off the vast triangle whose base is the
Equator, and whose apex is the Cape of Good Hope—bends almost at right
angles towards the Austral Pole. It is not an insulated pinnacle, an
isolated feature, as some have supposed: its prolongation to the N.E.
and S.W. (from 33° N.E. to 33° S.W.) cannot be estimated at less than
50°.[29] In the former direction it seems to be connected by the Rumbi
and the Kwa Mountains[30] with that long Fumbina line placed by Dr.
Barth between the coast and Lake Chad.[31] Its position, with respect to
the main ranges of Africa, has not been determined, and will require a
special expedition. It may anastomoze with the meridional Sierra del
Crystal, those West African ghauts which approach within a hundred miles
of the Gaboon River’s mouth, and which from that point run parallel with
the Ethiopic Ocean. On the other hand, it may connect with the
latitudinal range known, for want of better name, as the ‘Kong
Mountains,’ which, beginning N.E. of Sierra Leone, pass along the south
of the Kwara (Quorra), and form Mount Patta to the west and the Bassa
Hills to the east of the great stream, where, after collecting the
waters of the Binue, it turns to the south. So far as is known, it does
_not_ run parallel with the main axis of the interior mountain chains,
‘as though the convulsions which have elevated the inactive mountain
ranges corresponded in direction with those which have produced the
fissures in the earth’s crust, along which we find the active instances
of volcanic action.’
The south-westerly prolongation of the Camaroons Mountains is even more
remarkable. If the edge of a parallel ruler be placed on a Mercator’s
map, nearly in the usual direction of the wind, viz. from about 33° N.E.
to 33° S.W., it will align, besides Mount Alantika and the mountains of
Fumbina, the Kwa, the Camaroons, Fernando Po, Prince’s Island, San
Thomé, Annobom, and St. Helena, with an offset of 90° to Ascension. This
observation, made by Captains Owen and Midgley, shows the strike of the
elevating volcanic action. It may also be remarked that, omitting the
Fumbina and other ranges, concerning which little is known, that the
centre of disturbance was upon the coast, as is proved by the diminution
of the more distant altitudes. Thus in charts the apex of the Camaroons
is 13,760 feet, Fernando Po 10,190, Prince’s Island 3000, San Thomé
7500-8000, Annobom 2000, St. Helena (Diana’s Peak) 2693, and Ascension
(Green Mountain) 2870.
In 1826 Captain Owen laid down the diameter of the true Camaroons
buttress at nearly 20 miles from east to west, and the height at 13,000
feet. Captain Boteler, an officer under his command, gave more than 20
miles to the base, 13,250 feet to the greater, and 6000 feet to the
lesser peak. The Hydrographic chart allows 13 geographical miles direct
from Ambas Bay to the summit, to which it assigns an altitude of 13,760
feet. We reduced the 13 to a little less than 10 habitable miles, and
the altitude to 13,130 feet. Allowing 6 miles for the more abrupt
counterslope, and 10 miles of breadth from the eastern foot (not
including the Bimbia Hills) to the summit, and a similar extent for the
western side, which is rather understated, we obtain an area of 380
square miles—about one-third larger than Madeira and the Isle of Man. It
is bounded on the north by the Rumbi Mountains, on the south by the
Atlantic. The eastern limit is a creek flowing from N.E. to S.W. into
the Bimbia River, or Camaraõ Pequeno, a stream probably discharged by
the mountain;[32] and the western boundary is a branch of the Rio del
Re, known to us as the Rumbi, and heading, it is believed, still further
east than the Bimbia. Thus the Camaroons Mountain forms a parallelogram
contained within 4° 20′[33] and 3° 57′ of N. lat., and 9° 1′ to 9° 25′
of E. long. We may roughly assume it to be within 4° of the Equator.
A sanitarium is sorely wanted for this portion of Africa. During the
present year (1861) Lagos has become a British colony, with the usual
amount of civil and military establishments. The only escape from the
deadly malaria is to Tenerife or Ascension: the former distant, under
the most favourable circumstances, three weeks; the latter ten days of
steam by the aid of an accidental cruizer. On the other hand, the
Camaroons are distant barely fifty-five hours. Its area is little less
than the inhabited portion of the Neilgherry Hills in Western India. It
has every range of climate—a tierra _caliente, temprada, fria_. The
negro can flourish in the lower, the white man can sojourn in the upper
part, where within 4° of the Line nightly frosts prevail throughout the
year, and stores of ice and snow can be collected. The country is
scantily inhabited, and only in parts, by a timid and feeble, though a
wild and treacherous people. Land may be bought for a nominal sum; and
the soil, as this narrative will show, is everywhere fitted for
cultivation. With less than the Spaniards have expended upon Fernando
Po, or than that which we have lavished on the splendid but useless
Zambezi River, these mountains might in a few years be made a solid
benefit to the coast of Western Intertropical Africa. I have seen the
marvellous effects of removing naval invalids from their ships to a few
hundred feet above sea-level at Fernando Po; here, by judicious
management, even greater benefits might be expected. And for the future
we must provide against another and even a greater evil of climate: the
vomito, or yellow fever, which, of late years confined to the lands
about the Gambia and Sierra Leone, is, whilst I write, advancing with
giant steps towards the Equator. Its extreme elevation is known to be
2500 feet.
The age is agitating a movement in the right direction—one most
important to a nation which, like Great Britain, requires expansion, and
of which may be said, ‘_non progredi est regredi_.’ The mixed Anglo-
Saxon race wants those cosmopolitan powers of acclimatization which
scatter pure races, like the Chinese and Turanians, the Jews and the
Gipsies, unscathed over the habitable world. The ‘people living between
the Four Seas’ cannot, it is true, rear families in the tropics: the
superior race may not descend into an inferior ethnic centre, though the
reverse operation has many instances. Our melancholy task appears to be
that of smoothing the way for a future and higher type of the initial
genus and species—man. Emerson’s dictum may be extended to ourselves
when he declares, ‘The German and Irish millions, like the negro, have a
great deal of guano in their destiny. They are ferried over the
Atlantic, and carted over America to ditch and to drudge, to make corn
cheap, and then to lie down prematurely to make a spot of green grass on
the prairie.’ We must abandon the Utopian idea that we are destined to
people the earth.[34]
But all the world over there are scattered isolated positions; hills
rising like islands from the plains, mountain-masses, and rocky ridges,
where Anglo-Saxon life and labour can—if incapable of propagation and
perpetuation—at any rate be greatly prolonged. During the last half-
century by deaths of British soldiers in India—not including casualties
or the average loss of healthy stations—the nation, it is calculated by
economists, has lost some ten millions of pounds sterling. Sir Ranald
Martin, a strong advocate for the change, asserts that the third
generation of unmixed Europeans is nowhere to be found in Bengal,[35]
that the English soldier cannot be maintained in health and vigour upon
the lowlands, and that the selection of suitable hill-stations has now
become a state necessity. Health is strength, and strength is moral
power, especially in the East. Sir Charles Metcalfe removed the garrison
from the seaboard to the hills of Jamaica, and since its establishment
at Newcastle and Maroon Town the mortality—excluding cases of disease
contracted in the plains—was reduced to about one-third. In the
Himalayas, 6000 feet above sea-level, on an average of five years
(1850-1854) the mortality is hardly more than 3 per cent.—which is
little higher than that of the civil population in France—against at
least 10 per cent. in the low lands. At Poonah the English regiments
have been healthier than those stationed in London barracks. When
railroads shall have been established in India, no Minister will think
of exhausting the soldier’s health and energies by confining him to the
febrile zone; but keep him fresh and vigorous to throw upon the enemy
wherever and whenever required. And our sons will marvel at the folly of
their sires, who for the flimsiest of reasons, for a mere _vis
inertiæ_—insist upon destroying Governors-General by binding them to the
deadly Lower Bengal.
On the 11th December I set out in H.M.S. ‘Bloodhound’ to visit the
Camaroons River, where the traders were calling lustily, as is their
wont, upon Hercules. It is one of the ‘trust rivers,’ meaning thoroughly
untrustworthy: the white seller, expecting a return of 100 to 150 per
cent., gives on credit goods which the black purchaser takes, firmly
resolving to delay payment as long as possible, and, if he can, not to
pay at all. The Camaroons has at least three head-men, called ‘kings’ in
the African sense of the word—monarchs much like all the kings, thirty
and one, whom Joshua bin Nun smote with the edge of the sword—two hulks,
three or four ships, and perhaps a dozen European agents, who, to
collect some poor 1700 puncheons of palm-oil and to settle their endless
grievances, require the presence of at least one ambassador and one
commodore. The natives are not without unpleasant practices and habits.
If a chief, for instance, ‘boys’ another, the ‘boy’ at once sets out in
his war-canoe to show ‘he be man,’ slaughters some unoffending wretch
belonging to the insulter’s tribe—an African succedaneum for the
duello’s: the victim’s clansmen retaliate upon the ‘man’s,’ and so on
_ad infinitum_. Like all Africans, having no confidence in, and
expecting nothing like justice from, one another, they flock to the
nearest European official, and beg him to act as arbitrator. If he
consents, a regular ‘palaver’ must ‘come up,’ and words cannot express
its weariness, its damnable iteration. Each speaker not only ventilates
his eloquence even unto nausea, he also begins as near the days of Adam
as he can, lest aught be wanting to proper comprehension; and for fear
of the strong points being forgotten, he dins them a dozen times into
the hearer’s ears. I persuaded, not without a little gentle violence,
Bonny Bell, Priso Bell, and King Kwa or Acqua, the three
kings—individuals clad in a total of red-yellow bandanas and tall black
or sky-blue tiles—to abolish, under pain of removal from the river, such
‘facinorous practices,’ and, convinced that they would return to them at
the first opportunity, I bade temporary adieu to the haunt of fever and
iniquity, mentally exclaiming
Heu terra felici haud adeunda viro!
An advantage, however, had been secured by this visit to the Camaroons.
Mr. Saker, long anxious to explore ‘the mountain,’ volunteered to
accompany us, and his intimate knowledge of the Dualla dialect, and his
long experience in the Bimbia country side, rendered him a valuable
acquisition.
Of the ‘Bloodhound’ 13 out of 55 whites, besides the commander and the
chief engineer, were prostrated by fever—such is too often the effect of
a ‘Tour round the Rivers;’ and the medical officer protested against an
intended visit to Old Calabar, the Kom Toro, and the Rio del Re, the
last two of which I was anxious to open. The night of the 13th December
saw us off the coal-shed Fernando Po, and four days sufficed to collect
the outfit necessary for a month in the jungle.[36]
The usual croaking followed the announcement of an intention to explore
the mountain. The four or five fierce wild tribes holding the lower
regions were represented as being able to turn out 5000 muskets—perhaps
they may have 50. The forest swarmed with ‘tigers,’ hyænas, and other
bugbears, the fevers were mortal in the lower regions, the cold would be
intense, snow having just been seen in the upper heights,[37] and the
Krumen—the only servants in these regions—would certainly die or desert,
perhaps do both.
I cannot, however, but plead guilty to a modified fatalism. Purely
retrospective, it has many advantages. ‘We could not have helped it,’
obviates all regret for the past however regretful, and bygones become
doubly bygones; whilst the present so soon becoming the past is hardly
more valuable, and the future, which must inevitably merge with present
and past, is even less important:—
Il passato non è, ma se lo finge,
La viva rimembranza;
Il futuro non è, ma se lo pinge,
La credula speranza;
Il presento non è, ma in un baleno,
Passa del nube in seno;
Dunque la vita è appunto,
Una memoria, una speranza, un punto.
Prospective fatalism in practice appears absurd. When the Turk sits in
an embrasure under a volley of musketry, and refuses to move—by-the-by,
I emphatically never saw this often-heard-of incident—because Allah
knows when he is to die, it ought to strike that benighted personage
that Allah may also know he is to escape death by a little more
activity. Fatalism, however, like all modifications of faith, is mainly
the effect of climate. In the cold, bustling, and energetic north,
amongst the elbowing Anglo-Saxons, where,—contrary to what the Italian
says,—
Life is real, life is earnest,
fatalism is at best a sickly exotic. As you approach the Mediterranean
it grows into a kind of creed: every one has known Southrons,—Italians
and Spaniards,—who, fatalists by nature, yet broken by habit to the
orthodox theological Catholic doctrine of Freewill, have subsided into a
mixture of both, which they cannot define nor explain to themselves nor
to others.
But although I had heard the cry of wolf too often to give it ready ear,
solid difficulties presented themselves. A fortnight’s march up a
pathless, densely wooded, and possibly waterless mountain, with bad
tribes in rear and a desert in front, where all supplies must be carried
by Krumen—poltroons who at the appearance of a fancied danger fling
themselves into the bush, mutinous dogs whose one invariable tactic
under difficulties is to make progress so hard and so dangerous, by
bumping the master’s hammock against stub and stone, by inducing sore
feet, or by diminishing the provisions, that the march must perforce be
given up in disgust—may appear at home as feasible as a run through the
Himalayas or the Andes: it wears, however, quite another aspect at
Clarence Town.
During my brief delay on the island another volunteer presented himself
for the exploration, which assumed the air of a little international
expedition. M. Atilano Calvo Iturburu, assessor or assistant judge, was
as weary as myself of ‘palavers’ and Fernando Po: he obtained a month’s
leave of absence, and zealously prepared to outfit himself. The reader
must not confound him with certain venerable beings in wigs and gowns,
owning to that style and title in England, but rather think of him as a
fast young pig-sticking Anglo-Indian magistrate. Although we had looked
into the craters on the summit of Ilha Formosa, I almost feared—not
knowing him to be a Vascongado on the mother’s side—lest, after many
fevers, he might break down upon the frozen heights of the Camaroons,
and explained to him the conditions of exploration, namely go ahead at
all risks, even if one or more be left behind, and to send on the
stores, ‘the tools to him who can handle them.’ He responded cheerfully,
and, so far from ‘caving in,’ he devanced me on one occasion, and when
the party was laid up he preserved his health. I found him throughout an
amiable and not unphilosophic man, whose society round the camp-fire
added greatly to the pleasures of an evening in the wild.
Betimes on Wednesday the 18th December, Judge Calvo and myself found
ourselves off Ambas Bay in H.M.S. ‘Bloodhound,’ Lieut. Stokes
commanding. As Morning, habited in her well-known russet mantle, walked
over the beautiful Camaroons, we could distinguish the features of the
scenery, which, viewed from the south-eastern entrance, are even more
enchanting than when seen from the western approach. The immense height
of the wooded curtain behind dwarfed the several islands that sentinel
the bay to mere patches of a darker hue; presently they stood out with a
beautiful distinctness, and relieved the sea of any appearance of
monotony. Already the hand of Autumn—I should rather say the dry
season—had besprinkled the many-hued foliage with red and yellow, whilst
others, beautiful in their new coats, were decked with large masses of
flowers, some white, others resembling the peony. Rising from the ruddy
cliffs that wall in the harbour, the land sloped upwards to 5000 feet
within about three miles; thin curls of blue smoke rose here and there,
evidencing settlements, and the little canoes of the fishermen flitted
over the milky blue waters. We steamed through the eastern channel, a
clear entrance 880 yards wide with 5 to 6 fathoms of water, under
Mananga Point, the high terminal bluff separating Ambas from Man-of-
War’s Bay, and defending Victoria Harbour from the violence of the
south-western winds.
Landing at the Missionary establishment, we found Mr. Saker up and
ready: M. Mann had set out in advance, and we agreed to follow him next
morning. On the same evening the ‘Bloodhound’ left us for Lagos, where
she was to convey her ex-commander Lieutenant Dolben, and whence she was
to proceed under Lieutenant Stokes to the much-desired South-Coast
station. With regret I saw her leave. The Russian saying touching houses
may be applied to ships in these regions: ‘Build the soundest
imaginable, and the cockroaches will be in them before the owners.’ She
was certainly very ‘roachy.’ But her comfortable dimensions made her a
great contrast to the fast and narrow ‘screws’ which are now fashionable
upon the West African Coast; she had been my home for well-nigh a month;
and to one whose usual tenement is his hat, a good lodging and pleasant
society are not to be lost sight of _sans serrement de cœur_.
[Footnote 5: Smaller volcanoes like Vesuvius ‘change almost
imperceptibly from the steepest incline at which the outermost ashes and
rocks will hang together, to a curve which ultimately sweeps away into a
horizontal direction.’ But in those the cone bears a far greater
proportion to the whole than in such features as the Camaroons and
Fernando Po, consequently the angle of the culminating line appears
excessive.]
[Footnote 6: Fernando Po Peak was ascended as early as 1843.]
[Footnote 7: As far as volcanic action is known, the different crater-
vents communicate by ducts with the same central cause—very distinct
from all idea of parasitism.]
[Footnote 8: ‘The river Camaroon with the Ambas Islands,’ by Capt. W.
Allen, H.M.S. ‘Wilberforce,’ 1842, with additions by Mr. V. F. Johnson,
H.M.S. ‘Philomel.’ The soundings and positions of the Hydrographical
Chart are of course tolerably correct; the names of tribes and places
are all more or less wrong.]
[Footnote 9: The Spanish colony that landed at Fernando Po in 1858
attributed the greater part of its losses to the inhumanity of the black
people, who made a combination not to lodge them, and agreed to ‘cut
their chop’—_anglicè_, to starve them.]
[Footnote 10: Writing from Fernando Po, May 31st, 1860, to Sir Wm.
Hooker, M. Mann says:—‘I heard that you had inquired if it were possible
to ascend the mountain of Bimbia or Camaroon. You will hear shortly that
it is quite impossible, and only killing men to send them up there;
this, however, was also told me before I went up Clarence Peak. It is,
no doubt, _very_ difficult, but it is possible; only too much must not
be expected from the first trip.’ (From the ‘Journal of the Proceedings
of the Linnæan Society,’ vol. vi.)]
[Footnote 11: ‘A knowledge of the temperate flora of any spot on the
West Coast of tropical Africa has long been one of the greatest
desiderata in botanical geography, not only on account of the intrinsic
interest that must attach to the plants of the extremely few isolated
points so elevated as to possess a temperate climate in that vast humid
and torrid area, but also from the light such lights might be exacted to
throw on the floras of St. Helena, the Cape de Verd, and the Canaries,
all of which (and especially the former) contain peculiar endemic
genera, whose nearest allies might be expected to exist in the mountains
of the neighbouring continent.’—‘Journal of the Proceedings of the
Linnæan Society,’ vol. vi.]
[Footnote 12: Loc. sup. cit.]
[Footnote 13: Meaning a man of the Bakwiri tribe or bushmen, from kwiri,
a bush. The word is Isubu. This small _échantillon_ will suffice to show
that the dialects of East and West Africa are as closely connected as
their flora. Here also there is a slight European importation; I
particularly remarked ‘bwámo,’—good!—and suspected the Spanish bueno.
Despite the dicta of Dr. Beke (‘On the Mountains forming the Eastern
Side of the Basin of the Nile’—a paper full of good and borrowed but
unacknowledged information), who on this point follows Mr. E. Norris’s
edition of ‘Prichard’s History of Man,’ I still deem it advisable to
retain these ‘terse and concise African prefixes,’ which, if abandoned,
would necessitate a weary redundancy of words. They can hardly, as Mr.
Norris says, ‘occasion puzzlement to the readers of African
intelligence,’ unless intelligence be sadly wanting in the readers. Mr.
Norris and Dr. Beke omit the Kafir prefix ‘when it has not become part
and parcel of the English appellation,’ deeming it ‘not only awkward,
but positively incorrect.’ With due modesty I venture to opine that they
have substituted for a fancied awkwardness a real blunder. To call
‘Unyamwezi’ and ‘Usumbara’ ‘Nyamwezi’ and ‘Sumbara,’ is about as correct
as to term ‘Britain’ and ‘Britons’ ‘Brit’ or ‘Brits.’]
[Footnote 14: ‘Narrative of the Niger Expedition in 1841,’ by Capt. W.
Allen, R.N., and T. R. N. Thompson, Esq., M.D., London, Bentley, 1848.
It was written some time after the return of the authors from that
disastrous attempt, and is a valuable work.]
[Footnote 15: The Bakwiri, who are erroneously called Bakwileh in the
chart, use R for L, opposed to the tribes about Batanga, who use L for
R; here, moreover, there are neither sibilants nor aspirates. Their
speech, like the Kisawahili, abounds in K, a letter avoided in the
Dualla or Camaroons dialect.]
[Footnote 16: MS. Geological Journal, Niger Expedition.]
[Footnote 17: Captain Allen (vol. ii. chap. vii.) distinctly asserts
that this submarine ridge exists; on the other hand, there are
shipmasters at Fernando Po who declare that the water rapidly deepens
from the shore to 80 fathoms.]
[Footnote 18: Others say nine: the chart gives six feet of rise at full
and change.]
[Footnote 19: ‘In the latter half of the day I was much refreshed by the
constant sea-breeze, which in Fernando Po we seldom enjoy, and which
renders Victoria such a pleasant and agreeable residence for
Europeans.’—M. Mann, ‘Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnæan Society
of London,’ Botany, vol. vii.]
[Footnote 20: From this old author I extract (Appendix I.) an accurate
and truthful description of the region, which is not noticed by his
contemporary Bosman, who yet alludes to the De El Rei and the Camaroons
rivers. The reader will not fail to remark how greatly the islanders
have changed since those days.]
[Footnote 21: ‘Camaroon’ in the Mauritius means crawfish.]
[Footnote 22: This gallant officer succeeded in 1830 to the government
of the settlement formed at Fernando Po by Capt. Owen in 1827; he also
has left his mark in Nicolls Island at the mouth of the Bimbia river.]
[Footnote 23: This assertion rests upon the direct authority of Capt.
Allen (vol. ii. chap. vii.).]
[Footnote 24: In Appendix II. I have republished Mr. Merrick’s narrative
from the Baptist Magazine of 1845.]
[Footnote 25: The faculty begins quietly and gingerly to confess this
belief. ‘The evidence that intemperance in drinking exerts a particular
influence in the production of hepatitis is by no means conclusive;’ and
‘the occurrence of hepatitis, on the other hand, in its severest form,
is not an unusual event in persons of temperate habits—a statement which
practitioners in India generally will, I am sure, amply confirm,’ says
Dr. Morehead (‘Diseases of India’). He might have instanced the case of
M. Jacquemont, who, deriding the English consumption of beef and beer,
scientifically Hinduized himself with rice and water, and died at the
end of the year of an invincible dysentery.]
[Footnote 26: I have reprinted Mr. Laird’s letter in Appendix V.]
[Footnote 27: It must, however, be owned that, beyond the expulsion
order, the Spanish authorities have shown great toleration; in fact, if
their rule has a fault, it is over lenity. A French commandant would
certainly have billeted his men upon the negro townspeople when they
refused to let lodgings and they ‘cut chop.’ The negro Baptists tried
hard to enjoy a little persecution: during their private prayer
meetings, or when ‘sitting under’ an occasional missionary from the
mainland—churches are not permitted—they pretended great fear, closing
doors and shutters whenever they inflicted injury upon the sweet songs
of Zion. The Spanish wisely ignored all these little fooleries. The
people are of some 30 to 40 nations, originally from Sierra Leone, with
a few _emancipados_ from the Oil Rivers. They are justly described by
Capt. Allen as ‘a lazy population of liberated Africans,’ who neglect
the advantages of one of the richest soils in the world. They are now
perfectly contented; many boast of being Spaniards, and they will
probably all come over to the old Church, where, however, they will be
no acquisition. There is probably not a soul amongst them that can
distinguish a Protestant from a Catholic sermon. The a’mighty dollar is
slowly but surely working its way. The salaries being defrayed by Cuba
are liberal at Fernando Po, and considerable sums are spent in the
island. The governor, who reports directly home to the President of
Council (Minister of War and of Colonies), besides pay and allowances of
8000 dollars per annum, may dispose yearly of 25,000 dollars for local
improvements. If we had sanctioned even this much in the Gold Coast and
other outlying provinces, they would not now be in ruins. One million of
reals was assigned for the immigration of colonists during the first
year, and the Jesuit Mission has been allowed 6000 dollars per annum.
Whilst the British consulship is worth 500_l._, the Spanish Secretary to
the Civil Judge receives 3000 dollars, and the interpreter 2000 dollars.
Besides which there is the expenditure of the naval and military
establishments; two hulks, one steam gun-vessel, and a picked company of
150 infantry, each paid 10 dollars per mens., with two captains and a
similar number of lieutenants, sub-lieutenants, and surgeons.
Prices of course became exorbitant; three shillings were paid for a lean
chicken smaller than an English pigeon; the negroes, however, made merry
and lived in a congenial idleness, which has more than compensated for
the loss of their ‘morning (and evening) privilege.’]
[Footnote 28: A glance at Mr. Keith Johnstone’s latest map of Africa
will show that the only purely white paper is bounded by the limits
above assigned.]
[Footnote 29: As a rule, the lines of volcanic disturbance run in a
diagonal to the direction of the earth’s rotation—suggesting some tidal
action in the gas or fluid underlying the earth’s crust—from N.W. to
S.E. along the western side of the great terrestrial areas of Europe,
Asia, and America; they may be traced again along the eastern side
almost as continuously, trending in transverse lines from S.W. to N.E.,
as from Mexico to Greenland, and from Sumatra to Behring’s Straits;
hence a general parallelism of coast, inland mountain, and axis of
volcanic action is inferred.]
[Footnote 30: Capt. Owen saw the Rumbi Mountains from a distance of 60
miles, and made them 44 miles N.E. of Camaroons Peak. The Kwa (Qua)
Mountains, which are visible from the Cross or Old Calabar River, are
placed both by Captains Owen and Boteler (chap. xiv. vol. ii. ‘Narrative
of a Journey of Discovery,’ Bentley, 1835) 64 miles N., 16° 15′ W. of
the Camaroons, and were seen from nearly 80 miles.]
[Footnote 31: In this range is Mount Alantika, to which the Hamburg
traveller assigns an altitude of eight to ten thousand feet.]
[Footnote 32: Mr. Beecroft ascended the Bimbia, but I am unable to find
an account of his trip.]
[Footnote 33: The northern limit is at present doubtful.]
[Footnote 34: The reader will consult upon this subject the able paper
on Ethno-Climatology, or the Acclimatization of Man, by Dr. Jas. Hunt
(‘Trans. Ethnological Soc.,’ vol. ii., New Series). I differ with the
author only in suspecting that he has attached too much importance to
the danger of dysentery, hill-diarrhœa, and other bowel complaints in
the altitudes above the malarious tropical regions. Altitude must not be
our sole guide in sanitaria and hill stations; they can be judged only
by actual experience, and a height which here is healthy is there found
to be distinctly the reverse.]
[Footnote 35: Somewhat similar was the opinion of the late Duke of
Wellington, not to mention a cloud of competent observers and writers.
Mr. Crawfurd (‘Trans. Ethnological Soc.,’ vol. i., New Series, p. 89)
considers this ‘an hypothesis unsupported by facts,’ although every fact
tends to prove it.]
[Footnote 36: I had determined upon that period by an inspection of the
chart. From Ambas Bay the direct distance is 13 miles, which must be
multiplied by two for détours, and in such places an average of a mile
per diem is fair progress. The following is a list of necessaries for a
party of seven men:—
£ _s._ _d._
7 blue shirts 2 5 6
7 serge trousers 3 10 0
7 pr. boots 3 10 0
12 red woollen caps 0 6 0
2 dozen matchets 1 0 0
2 hatchets 0 2 10
2 (water) breakers 0 8 8
452 lbs. rice 7 10 8
200 lbs. pork 7 10 0
14½ gallons rum 3 2 10
5 pieces blue baft 3 5 0
2 ditto satin stripe 0 17 4
------------------
£33 8 10
For private stores the best guide is any Alpine book, and even ‘Zouave
leggings’ are not to be despised. Explorers in these regions must not
forget that they are their own doctors, nor neglect caustic and
diachylum; the reader will presently see how dear this little experience
cost me.
All the belongings should be carefully watched. Krumen will steal
anything and everything they can. If the water-breakers be provided with
lock and key they will, unless stopped by the stick, try the trick of
breaking them, and all cutlery will rapidly disappear, knives being most
useful as offerings of gallantry to the native belles.
The prime difficulty here, as in other parts of Africa, is the
_chaussure_. It is almost impossible to keep boots in order. The natural
precautions are to procure the best and strongest articles that London
makes—especially avoiding elastics—to use a little neats-foot oil
instead of any vegetable unguents, and to keep them out of the reach of
air and damp as much as possible. Even then two or three new pair will
yield to the lava and other influences within the month.]
[Footnote 37: The usual snowy season is the tornado period, in our
spring and autumn, with occasional falls during the rains. From May to
July, and from September to October, the appearance is common, at other
times rare. Yet in February, 1860, Messrs. Saker and Mann, after a heavy
storm, saw from Victoria the topmost cone sheeted with white; on the
next day a few stripes remained, and on the 3rd all had disappeared. On
the 14th February, 1862, Capt. Perry, H.M.S. ‘Griffon,’ and all on
board, when steaming up Camaroons River, saw the whole main peak covered
with snow.]
CHAPTER II.
WE ENCAMP AT ‘MANN’S SPRING.’
Precisely at 6 A.M. on the next day we arose, despite the ravages of
mosquitos and sand-flies—pernicious little wretches, midge-sized, but
capable of raising lumps as large as billiard-balls upon man’s exposed
epidermis—bade adieu to Mrs. and Miss Saker, and fifty minutes
afterwards found ourselves _en route_, with a hurrah. The party
consisted of four heads and eighteen tails. Mr. Saker was attended by
two men, who carried his bedding, water-breaker, and a locked box of
necessaries, such as rice, tea, cocoa, sugar, boiled ham, salt pork,
sweet cake, soft bread, salt, chilis, and a pocket-pistol of cognac,
which _we_ emptied, and the veteran voyager never took his eye off the
commissariat. He was temporarily accompanied by Mr. Johnson, a native of
the Susu country, near Sierra Leone, above thirty years a resident in
these parts: he had begun life as factotum to Mr. Beecroft, and had
settled down in his old age as a teacher in the Camaroons Mission. By
his inducement, ‘Money,’ alias Muni, a Dimbia runaway from King William,
who had previously deserted M. Mann, on pretext of his mother’s illness,
but who in reality feared capture for debt by the villagers, accompanied
us as guide.
Judge Calvo travelled with four Krumen, all hopeless convicts from the
_cuartel_ of Fernando Po, and his body servant, a youth named Eyo, who
had succeeded in escaping the customs which followed the death of his
patron, young Eyo Honesty, King of New Calabar. My party consisted of
six men, under Black Will, a consummate ruffian,—these, brought to a
sense of their duty, often make the best travellers. Despite, however, a
sound preliminary dressing on board the ‘Bloodhound,’ and the vigorous
applications of my excellent steward, Selim Aga, Black Will soon managed
to sprain his ankle, and to return to Victoria. The tail was completed
by four Krumen, who had been sent down from the mountains by M. Mann, to
convoy a fresh supply of provisions. Not having ‘beef’ enough, we
carried with us arms, surveying instruments, bedding, and rations for a
week, leaving the remainder at Victoria till we could find hands.
The young sun glinting through that ‘cathedral of immensities,’ the
bush—Americans call our rivers creeks, and such is the magnificent
Anglo-African term for a forest of trees some 100 to 150 feet high—saw
us threading the little clearing behind the settlement. In this lower
part, under the outlying hills, the vegetation consists of palms—the
cocoa, confined to the immediate seaboard,[38] the _Raphia vinifera_,
called, from its uses, the bamboo and the wine palm,[39] the _Elæis
Guineensis_, or oil palm—and a variety of other trees, known only by
scientific names to Europe. A forest at home is often composed of one
genus, some of two or three, oak, elm, and beech; in the tropics they
must be numbered by dozens. The monarch of all trees is the mighty
_Bombax_. Of little inferior size are the scrubby oak of Sierra Leone
(_Lophira alata Banksii_, the light-red wings of whose fruit ‘the lady-
natives wear in their hair and ears’[40]), the African ‘oak’
(_Oldfieldia Africana_, also called teak and mahogany, but neither this,
that, nor the other), the sulphur-tree (_Morinda lucida Benthami_), also
called brimstone-tree,—the latter three affording superior timber for
house and ship-building. Of inferior size are the African cork (_Musanga
Smithii_), the Kolu tree (_Sterculia acuminata_), and a variety of
acacias and fici. The moss-streamers, so common in the Southern States
of the late Union, and which gave a name to ‘Barbadoes,’ here appear
upon the extremities only: at 7000 feet they will clothe the trees from
boll to branch, and, by killing the smaller branches, render the forest
somewhat unsafe during tornadoes. Where clearings have been made the
Cardamom (an unknown Amomum—Danielli?), and large grasses, principally
the broad-leaved panicum and the narrow saccharum,—which do not,
however, cut like the sugar-cane,—extend from the shore to 4000 feet
above sea-level, where smaller species take their place.
However beautiful the forest may be, it is ever a melancholy sight in
these lands, this riotous nature, against which man’s force has hitherto
been unable to prevail. One’s principal thought is how best to fell it,
and as there is little underwood the land cannot be difficult to clear.
The natives usually hew down the trees about November, after the rains,
lop off the branches, which are fired for manure at the end of the dry
season, or about the last of February, leave the trunks to decay, and
plant their crops, yams and koko (_C. esculenta_), ground-nuts and
cassava, maize and batatas, before the wet season begins.[41]
In these lower lands it would be necessary to corduroy a road. During
the rains the traveller must slip from the stones to sink waist-deep in
mire, and often when crossing over the mud his feet must hook in the
tree-roots. The whole of this land, extending from the shore to 1500
feet above sea-level, is a rich yellow loam, admirably fitted for sugar-
cane, tobacco, and cacao. The latter is far better for these idle races
than coffee, which requires slave labour.[42] The seed should be
procured, unboiled,[43] from Prince’s Island or San Thomé, set in
prepared patches, and weeded round when young. After twelve months it
keeps its own ground clear, and bears fruit after the third year. The
only labour is that of gathering the produce, breaking the husk,
removing the seed, sun-drying for two or three days, and carrying to
market: the sole objection to ‘theobroma’ is that it will not keep. The
plaintain, which grows luxuriantly, might be made a source of
wealth.[44]
After a thirty minutes’ walk we found the tall grasses beginning. A
little further we passed the path leading through the Batongo to the
Bimbia country, here distant about ten miles, and from that point twenty
miles of creek passage places the traveller in the Camaroons River.
Beyond it the line became steeper, and we saw, through a thin screen of
trees, the conical head of Mount Henry rising high to eastward of us. We
twice forded the black bed of a pure and purling little stream, which
seemed admirably adapted for water power. It varied in breadth from
twenty-five to eighty feet, and in depth from two feet to six inches,
and the dark stones both in the stream and on the banks were covered
with the snowy flowers of a small aroid. The general course was to the
S.S.W., and it was either the main stream, or a feeder of the rivulet
which flows into the sea close to Victoria. The dense wet scrub now
completely excluded the sun, and beyond the second fording began a steep
and rocky ascent of degraded basalt.
Here we met villagers seemingly on their way to market. The dress of the
many was a cotton _pagne_ or wrapper; the poorer were clad in the simple
attire of the Fernandian Bube,[45] and of the Eastern Wagogo. A grass
string was fastened round the waist, and a strip of cloth was made to
act as T-bandage, an isosceles triangle, sometimes tight, and two inches
broad at the base, at other times with ends depending in front. The
original costume was, I believe, a kilt of plaintain-leaves. The stuffs
were the common English cloths of barter, satin stripe, blue baft,
turkey-red cheques, and a few silk bandanas. The ornaments were the
small red and yellow, blue and white porcelain beads general in the
Camaroons River; the incisors of the porcupine tied by a thread round
the neck, and a multitude of ‘Lobo’-armlets[46] of brass, copper, and
iron, especially the ‘manilla,’ a form now well-nigh obsolete. The head
was mostly bare, and the shaving, as usual, highly fanciful. A few had
calottes of blackened bamboo-splints inside and goatskin outside, and
one young person wore a cap of some animal’s intestines. They walked
with alpenstocks, between five and six feet long, in shape not unlike
the Galician fungueiro. The extreme slipperiness of the clayey soil
after rain—I have seen many an old mountaineer on his back both here and
at Fernando Po—renders this third leg a necessity. It is sometimes
neatly carved, and provided with a round bulge for a snuff-box at the
handle. The men carried weapons, old muskets with greasy rags wrapped
round the rusty locks, or long broad blades in skin sheaths, ending in a
leathern disk, like the daggers of the Somal. Those who could not afford
such costly sorts had common ‘matchets,’ thin choppers of base metal
fitted with wooden handles. The women were evidently the bees of the
social hive; almost all of them were laden with large black panniers of
bamboo cane shaped and strapped to the back, except when the place was
already occupied by the baby, clinging racoon-like to the parental
person, and supported by a foot square of grass-cloth, with shoulder
braces. There was little of beauty among the fair and faithless Bakwiri;
some of them, however, had firmly-made lower limbs, like the _mollets_
of the constitutional-loving Englishwoman. The elders were ‘bales of
cadaverous goods,’ the juniors had the grotesque prettiness of the baby
gorilla, and some wore their faces blackened in sign of mourning, a
practical illustration of sending coals to Newcastle, lily-painting, or
gold-gilding. They were wonderfully tattooed with a blue, produced, it
is said, by the soot of some root and a resinous gum picked up on the
shore. The patterns were fanciful _sévignés_, perpendicular lines down
the forehead, artificial eyebrows,—the natural being shaven,—wedges
between the optics and temples, circles and wheels upon the cheeks and
chin, and similar efforts of high art. The eyelashes were plucked, with
the usual unpleasant effect, making the organ look bleared, fixed, and
beast-like. The operation is an infallible preventive to
‘Ce trait de feu qui des yeux passe à l’âme,
De l’âme aux sens.’
All, even children three or four years old, were clamorous for a
_prise_. In these countries both sexes sensibly use tobacco, which in
Europe has mostly been monopolized by the wrong sex. It is placed
between the lip and teeth,[47] and even the common powder made by Krumen
is preferred to the best smoking leaf. They appeared healthy. A few
cases of ulcers and hydrocele were seen, but on the whole they were
freer from disease than our party of Krumen.
As we advanced a single woodman’s hut appeared upon the roadside, the
scattered plantations showing a tolerable population; and loud musket
reports were heard rumbling and echoing through the hills. Mr. Johnson
accounted for them by some recent death. The wood was vocal with the
hoo-hoo-hoo of the touraco, which a stranger might mistake for a dog’s
bark. The palm-birds fluttered round their nested tree; and the widow-
bird perched upon the spray. At times a brown kite (_F. chilla_) lay on
the wing, the sole sign, except the sand-fly, of animal life. After an
ugly pull up rocks and roots, dotted with grass, and bewildered by a
labyrinth of paths—our carriers were compelled to rest every half-
hour—we entered the district of Bosumbo, and found three scattered tents
tenanted by Bakwiri. These people do not, like the Fernandian Bubes,
congregate in towns: the scarcity of water and petty feuds keep them
separate. They do not inhabit the immediate seaboard for fear of
kidnappers; nor do they extend up the mountains higher than the banana
and the oil palm. Their habitat is therefore, as is the case with the
Bubes, between 1000 and 3000 feet above sea-level. Mr. Johnson insisted
upon leading us to the tenement of the chief, Myombi, who lives,
probably for safety, like most of his fellows, in the centre of his
district. At 10·30 A.M. we reached the place, two blocks, each of two
huts, surrounded by plantains, and separated by a hundred yards or so.
It lies between N.N.E. and N. of Victoria, distant about 4½ miles;[48]
and the altitude is 1055 feet. Presently Myombi himself made his
appearance in the glazed hat of a British tar—these people must make
themselves ridiculous in some way—and showed us a little civility, which
time proved to be not wholly disinterested. We halted at his place for
breakfast: water threatening not to last, we experimented upon the
banana-stalk, and found its porous and cellular tissue to contain a
refreshing supply of wholesome drink, with a faint flavour of cucumber.
Some of the natives have not, it is said, any other potable; and it
forms excellent fodder for cattle, keeping fresh for three weeks. Mr.
Johnson mentioned succulent herbs and water-bulbs, like those of the
South African karroos; none, however, were met with.
Noon saw as again on the footpath way. A short distance out of Bosumbo
took us to a quadrivium, of which the north-east branch led down the
hill-slopes, through a country of scattered settlements, to the populous
town of Abo;[49] the south and east to the sea; and the west, our
direction, up the mountain. Myombi had been persuaded, by the gift of a
pair of matchets, to lend us a guide. The sun’s heat was overpowering in
the lanes of grass that here opened out, and there strangled the road.
It was a fine place for snakes. They are rare, however, in these dank
regions; the only specimen seen was a fine asp (Cerastes), hanging
outside one of the cottages. The bearing of our path somewhat perplexed
me; we struck nearly due west; and instead of ascending from, we seemed
descending to, the sea. Presently the cause appeared in a few scattered
huts, called Turu,[50] whose chief came forth and forbade passage till
presented with a cloth and a matchet. We then resumed the road, which
dwindled to a hardly perceptible by-path, crossing from east to west,
with other ramifications leading, it was said, to Bimbia. Here the face
of the country was wrinkled with prisms of jagged trachytic rock,
separated by chasms, cloughs, and ravines, which must roll torrents
during the rains, and by pick and spade might easily be made to supply
water throughout the year. We passed many old clearings, or rather
fallows, denoted by high grass and plantains run wild, and a few fresh
cuttings, a hundred feet each way, in the dense bush. The rocky, rooty
ground rendered walking difficult, and condemned us to look more often
at our feet than at the features of the country. On the dank, miry
surface, unseen by the midday sun, the ants were unusually troublesome;
and we found a few millepedes and land-shells, which were secured for
transmission home. Llianas, which here extend from 2000 to 7000 feet
high, ‘romped upon the trees.’ There were asclepiadæ, gardeniaceæ,
convolvulaceæ, and cucurbitous plants, whose fruit, like the cocoa,
forms a convenient water-dipper. The dry season is in these regions the
flowery period. The ipomæa, a bright blue convolvulus, and momordica
with red-yellow flower and little prickly gourd, invested the bush where
it was more than usually open. The clematis was beautiful with its
spangles of white bloom; and we especially remarked a geranium; a
papilionaceous bean-like blossom of vivid scarlet; a perfumed flower,
not unlike a honeysuckle; and the large yellow malvacea, popularly
called hibiscus. There were orchids in numbers; but these epiphytes in
Africa lack the beauty of the American. The conspicuous tree of the
forest was the enormous eriodendron; the anthocleista and monodora were
remarkable for their foliage; whilst the sterculia, though leafless,
glowed with carmine-coloured fruit.
After three miles of hard labour, which made us tremble for our loaded
Krumen’s feet, and halt frequently to recruit exhausted nature with
_anizado_ and water, the guide suddenly exclaimed, ‘Mboka Botani!’
(Botani’s town). It had an ominous sound; and we were afterwards
justified in terming it Botany Bay. The district is called Mapanya. Here
every place appears to have two names, its own and that of its head-man.
Presently tall shredded plantains appeared rustling in the now cooler
breeze, which was odorous with a salvia bearing a fair blue flower. An
African stile, three transverse rungs for steps—sometimes there is a
notched palm-trunk—in the dwarf but solid palisade, introduced us to a
settlement of two huts, from which the unarmed tenants sallied forth
with horrid din, to gaze upon us with absorbed stare. During our few
minutes’ _séance_ the judge descried a horn, probably ivory, and
proposed adding it to his collection: the owner, however, modestly
demanded only a hat, a coat, and a shirt; in fact, he wanted to become a
‘gentleman.’ The warning of the guide, who pointed to a sinking sun,
brought us to our feet again; and after sundry rises and sinkings of
ground we saw upon the summit of a grassy and flowery hill a figure in
wide-awake and blanket-suit, which proved to be M. Mann. He had spent
the day—as his first words informed us—in rest, having returned but
yesterday evening from the summit. The announcement caused us to ‘tie a
face,’ as the Africans say. Soon, however, I reflected that, considering
the distance and the height, it was some mistake on his part; and this
it proved to be. The enterprising botanist, so far from having scaled
the summit, had never even seen it. Meanwhile he led us into a hut which
he had cleared out and occupied, supplied us with some bad green water,
which he had purchased at the rate of three tobacco-leaves per
breaker,[51] and an excellent pepper-pot of yam and fowl.
We had hardly seated ourselves, and removed from our continuations the
hamated burrs of the hedysarum,[52] before Botani, a buxom chief, made
his appearance, and M. Mann introduced him as ‘an unusually polite
person, quite different from those he had previously seen.’ He was a
short thickset individual, aged about thirty-five, with a well-turned,
hillman’s leg. His complexion, like that of his wives—many of whom had
‘taken venues under their girdles’—and his children, who were numerous,
was a sallow yellow, a tint rare about the Camaroons River: the contrast
with the dark brown of his followers would suggest in Eastern Africa a
difference of descent. His brown eyes were bare of lash and brow; his
long fat upper lip was clean shaven; his beard was the Yankee goatee;
and he had a regulation whisker, tattooed in bright blue. Not less
laughable than his _personale_ was this Soulouque’s costume: a lofty
black beaver, a scanty breech-cloth of chequed cotton, and a full-dress
coatee, all red and yellow—‘devil’s livery’—of the old Royal Marines.
Thus attired _en roi_, he progressed towards the hut-door; and whilst
the vulgar squatted upon the ground, shouting a song and beating time,
he performed a solemn pavane, ending in a lavolt, a turn-about, a wheel-
about, and a jump Jim Crow, in right royal African style. A frantic
pushing of palms, as if he would prostrate each new-comer friend, and an
accolade, right breast to right breast, were the signs of absolute
welcome which our Polichinelle vouchsafed to us. The judge roared with
delight; but I felt grave. When the negro king dances he expects the
white man to pay the piper somewhat heavily.
The edifying exercise concluded, M. Mann told us the tale of his
troubles. On the 13th December, after a ‘dash’ of ten
‘little’—pronounced lill—‘tings,’ each worth a shilling,[53] to Myombi
and Nangasika, the first and second head-men of Bosumbo, he had left
Victoria with Mr. Pinnock, Money his interpreter, six Krumen, and a
Mokwiri guide, with seven followers, who had received, as fee for safe
conduct to Mapanya, four pieces, _i.e._ goods worth 4_l._ Arrived in the
evening at the Bosumbo, which he called ‘Bassumba,’ village, he gave the
chief his present—an assortment of ‘lill’ tings’ worth about thirty
shillings. The next day was a compulsory halt; the natives, pleading
fatigue, refused to proceed, and Mr. Money, having drawn payments to the
amount of 2_l._ in kind, naturally ran away. Thus the traveller was
reduced to employ as interpreter a boy seven or eight years old, a
Bimbia orphan in the service of Mr. Pinnock, and rejoicing in the name
of ‘Poor Fellow.’ This was the first mishap. Everywhere in Africa the
interpreter should be a man of weight and wealth. On the 15th, Myombi
again refused passage till dashed to the extent of 2_l._ in a coat, a
keg of powder, and minor articles. Here was a decided mistake, which
patience would have prevented. The only return gift was a small black
porker, a wretched fowl, and two yams. M. Mann, however, starting at 8
A.M., reached in four hours his _Meta Incognita_, Mapanya. On the 16th,
Botani, who had left home ordering a hut to be cleared for his visitor,
returned without pomp or dancing, and received his ‘dash’—one musket,
one keg of powder, matchets and knives, snuff-box, mirror, rum, tobacco,
and silk and cotton kerchiefs, worth in toto about 2_l._ 10_s._, for
which he agreed to supply an escort. On the 17th the chief brought
eleven men, and demanded for them each one head of tobacco and one
fathom of cloth, besides extra blackmail for himself, a musket, sundry
kerchiefs, rum, and tobacco, in value, perhaps, thirty shillings. M.
Mann set out at 7 A.M., reached the water, which he afterwards
christened by his name, at 5 P.M., and nighted a little beyond it. On
the next day, the natives having disappeared, he was accompanied by two
Krumen only to a Cone, where he left his maximum and minimum
thermometers, and whence he returned—persuaded that he had reached _the_
Peak, which was under a cloud—arriving at Mapanya on the 18th December.
It is evident that ten guineas will not pay the expenses of a vacation
tour to the Camaroons Highlands, as it has been made to do in
Switzerland.
After the ‘stagnant air and leaden sky, the livid clouds and rain-
torrents, heavy, prone, and broad,’ in the oil rivers, the ‘dissolution
and thaw’ of Fernando Po, and the ‘simmering upon a damp mattress’ in
the regions below, we enjoyed a pleasant soirée in the soft, light, hazy
air. At 6 P.M. the thermometer showed 69° Fahr., in the Camaroons River
it rarely sinks below 73°, and ranges from that to 82°. The Krumen,
being sadly tired, asked, after their fashion, leave to play, and sang
and danced through half the night. Mr. Saker and I slept in M. Mann’s
tent, composed of three blankets, two for the pent-roof, and one for the
boot and entrance. The judge and the botanist preferred the hard-knobbed
floor of the tent.
My heart fell at the prospect before us. We had four sets of Krumen, the
most disorderly of their unruly herd. All were apparently to be masters;
it was the old query—
‘I Señor—thou Señor—he Señor,
Tell me who’ll pull the boat ashore?’