CHRISTMAS, 1915
Christmas again in the forest, but again a war Christmas! The candle
ends which we saved from last year have been used up on our this year's
Christmas (palm) tree.
It was a year of difficulties, with a great deal of extra work during
the early months. Heavy rainstorms had undermined the spot on which
the largest hospital ward stood, so that I had to decide to build a
wall round it, and also to lay stone gutters throughout the hospital to
carry off the water which streamed from the hill just above it. This
needed a number of stones, some of them big ones, and these were either
fetched by canoe or rolled down from the hill; but I had always to be
on the spot, and often to lend a hand. Our next object was the wall,
for which we got help from a native who knew something about building,
and we fortunately had on the station a cask of half-spoilt cement. In
four months the work was finished.
[Sidenote: Termites. Traveller ants]
I was hoping now to have a little rest, when I discovered that, in
spite of all our precautions, the termites had got into the chests
where we kept our store of drugs and bandages. This necessitated the
opening and unpacking of the cases, a work which occupied all our spare
time for weeks. Fortunately, I had noticed them in good time, or the
damage done {143} would have been much greater; but the peculiar
delicate smell, like that of burning, which the termites produce, had
attracted my attention. Externally there was no sign of them; the
invasion had been made from the floor through a tiny hole, and from the
first case they had eaten their way into the others which stood by and
upon it. They had apparently been attracted by a bottle of medicinal
syrup, the cork of which had got loose.
Oh, the fight that has to be carried on in Africa with creeping
insects! What time one loses over the thorough precautions that have
to be taken! And with what helpless rage one has to confess again and
again that one has been outwitted! My wife learnt how to solder, in
order to be able to close up the flour and maize in tins, but it
sometimes happens that you find swarms of the terrible little weevils
(French _charanons_) even in the soldered tins. The maize for the
fowls they soon reduce to dust.
Very much dreaded here, too, are small scorpions and other poisonous
insects. One learns to be so careful that one never puts one's hand
straight into a drawer or a box as in Europe. The eyes must precede
the hand.
Another serious enemy is the traveller ant, which belongs to the genus
_Dorylus_, and from it we suffer a great deal. On their great
migrations they march five or six abreast in perfect order, and I once
watched a column near my house which took thirty-six hours to march
past. If their course is over open ground and they have to cross a
path, the warriors form up in several rows on either side and with
their large jaws form a kind of palisade to protect the procession, in
{144} which the ordinary traveller ants are carrying the young ones
with them. In forming the palisade the warriors turn their backs to
the procession--like the Cossacks when protecting the Czar--and in that
position they remain for hours at a time.
As a rule there are three or four columns marching abreast of each
other, but independently, from five to fifty yards apart. All at once
they break up the column and disperse, though how the word of command
is given we do not yet know. Anyhow, in the twinkling of an eye a huge
area is covered with a quivering, black mass, and every living thing
upon it is doomed. Even the great spiders in the trees cannot escape,
for these terrible ravagers creep after them in crowds up to the very
highest twigs; and if the spiders, in despair, jump from the trees,
they fall victims to the ants on the ground. It is a horrible sight.
The militarism of the forest will very nearly bear comparison with that
of Europe!
Our house lies on one of the main routes of the traveller ants, which
swarm mostly during the night. A peculiar scratching and clucking of
the fowls gives us warning of the danger, and then there is no time to
be lost. I jump out of bed, run to the fowl house, and open the door,
through which the birds rush out. Shut in, they would inevitably be
the prey of the ants, which creep into their mouths and nostrils until
they are suffocated, and then devour them, so that in a short time
nothing is left but their white bones. The chickens usually fall
victims to the robbers; the fowls can defend themselves till help comes.
Meanwhile my wife has taken the bugle from the wall and blown it three
times, which is the signal for {145} N'Kendju and some men from the
hospital to bring bucketfuls of water from the river. When they
arrive, the water is mixed with lysol, and the ground all round the
house and under it is sprinkled. While we are doing this we get very
badly treated by the warriors, for they creep over us and bite us
vigorously; I once counted nearly fifty on me. They bite themselves so
firmly in with their jaws that one cannot pull them off. If one tries
to do so the body comes away, but the jaws remain in the flesh and have
to be taken out separately afterwards. At last the ants move on,
leaving thousands of corpses in the puddles, for they cannot stand the
smell of the lysol; and so ends the little drama which we have been
playing in the darkness, with no light but that of the lantern which my
wife has been holding. Once we were attacked by them three times in
one week, and Mr. Coillard, the missionary, records in his memoirs,
which I am just now reading, that he, too, suffered severely from them
in the Zambesi district.
The most extensive migrations of these ants take place at the beginning
and end of the rainy season, and between these two periods there is
much less reason to expect an attack. As to size, these ants are not
much bigger than our European red ones, but their jaws are much more
strongly developed, and they march at a much greater speed, a
difference which I have noticed as being common to all species of
African ants.
* * * * *
Joseph has left me. Being cut off from Strasbourg, the source of my
funds, and obliged to contract debts, I found myself compelled to
reduce his wages from {146} 70 francs to 35 francs, telling him I had
decided on this only from extreme necessity. Nevertheless, he gave me
notice, adding that "his dignity would not allow him to serve me for so
small a sum." He lives with his parents on the opposite bank of the
river, and had been keeping a money-box with a view to the purchase of
a wife. This had now to be opened, and it contained nearly £8 (200
francs), but in a few weeks it had all been frittered away.
[Sidenote: Hospital happenings]
Now I have to depend only on N'Kendju's help. He is quite handy and
useful, except on the days when he is out of temper, when nothing can
be done with him; but in any case I have to do a good many things that
Joseph used to do.
In the treatment of ulcers and suppurating wounds I have found pure
methylen-violet most useful. This is a drug which is known to the
trade as Merk's Pyoktanin. The credit of having made the decisive
experiments regarding the disinfecting power of concentrated dyestuffs
belongs to Professor Stilling, of Strasbourg, a specialist in diseases
of the eye. He placed at my disposal a quantity of Pyoktanin which had
been prepared under his superintendence--so that I might test it
here--and it reached me not long before the outbreak of war. I began
its use with some prejudice against it, but the results are such that I
gladly put up with the unpleasant colour. Methylen-violet has the
peculiarity of killing the bacteria without affecting or injuring the
tissues or being in the least degree poisonous; in this respect it is
much superior to corrosive sublimate, carbolic acid, or tincture of
iodine. For the doctor in the forest it is indispensable. Besides
this, Pyoktanin does, so far as my observation {147} goes, promote in a
striking way the growth of new skin when ulcers are healing.
Before the war I had begun to make a small charge for the medicine to
those patients who seemed not to be absolutely poor, and this brought
in something like 200 francs (£8) a month. Even though it was only a
fraction of the real value of the medicines dispensed, it was
something. Now there is no money in the country, and I have to treat
the natives almost entirely for nothing.
Of the whites, many who have been prevented by the war from going home
have now been four or five years under the equator and are thoroughly
exhausted, so that they have to resort to the doctor "for repairs," as
we say on the Ogowe. Such patients are sometimes with us for weeks,
coming often two and three together. Then I let them use my bedroom
and sleep myself in a part of the verandah which has been protected
from mosquitoes by wire-netting. That is, however, no great
self-denial, for there is more air there than inside. The recovery of
the patients is often due much less to my medicines than to the
excellent invalid diet provided by the doctor's wife--fortunately we
still have a good supply of tins of condensed milk for our
patients--and I have for some time had to take care that sick people do
not come up here from Cape Lopez for the sake of the diet instead of
letting themselves be treated by the doctor there--when there is one.
With many of my patients I have become quite intimate, and from
conversation with those who stay here a long time I am always learning
something fresh about the country and the problem of its colonisation.
* * * * *
{148}
[Sidenote: Toothache. Necessity of mental work]
Our own health is not first-class, though it is not really bad;
tropical anæmia has, indeed, already set in. It shows itself in the
way the slightest exertion tires one; I am quite exhausted, for
example, after coming up the hill to my house, a matter of four
minutes' walk. We also perceive in ourselves a symptom that
accompanies it, an excessive nervousness, and besides these two things
we find that our teeth are in a bad condition. My wife and I put
temporary fillings into each other's teeth, and in this way I give her
some relief, but no one can do for me what is really necessary, for
that means the removal of two carious teeth which are too far gone to
be saved. What stories could be told of toothache in the forest! One
white man whom I know was in such pain, a few years ago, that he could
hold out no longer. "Wife," he cried, "get me the small pincers from
the tool-chest." Then he lay down, his wife knelt on his chest and got
hold of the tooth as well as she could. The man put his hands on hers
and together they got out the tooth, which was kind enough to let this
treatment be successful.
My mental freshness I have, strange to say, preserved almost completely
in spite of anæmia and fatigue. If the day has not been too exhausting
I can give a couple of hours after supper to my studies in ethics and
civilisation as part of the history of human thought, any books I need
for it and have not with me being sent me by Professor Strohl, of
Zurich University. Strange, indeed, are the surroundings amid which I
study; my table stands inside the lattice-door which leads on to the
verandah, so that I may snatch as much as possible of the light evening
breeze. The palms rustle an _obbligato_ to the loud music of the
crickets and {149} the toads, and from the forest come harsh and
terrifying cries of all sorts. Caramba, my faithful dog, growls gently
on the verandah, to let me know that he is there, and at my feet, under
the table, lies a small dwarf antelope. In this solitude I try to set
in order thoughts which have been stirring in me since 1900, in the
hope of giving some little help to the restoration of civilisation.
Solitude of the primeval forest, how can I ever thank you enough for
what you have been to me? ...
[Illustration: A MISSIONARY'S BUNGALOW AT LAMBARENE.]
The hour between lunch and the resumption of work in the hospital is
given to music, as is also Sunday afternoon, and here, too, I feel the
blessing of working "far from the madding crowd," for there are many of
J. S. Bach's organ pieces into the meaning of which I can now enter
with greater ease and deeper appreciation than ever before.
Mental work one must have, if one is to keep one's self in moral health
in Africa; hence the man of culture, though it may seem a strange thing
to say, can stand life in the forest better than the uneducated man,
because he has a means of recreation of which the other knows nothing.
When one reads a good book on a serious subject one is no longer the
creature that has been exhausting itself the whole day in the contest
with the unreliability of the natives and the tiresome worry of the
insects; one becomes once more a man! Woe to him who does not in some
such way pull himself together and gather new strength; the terrible
prose of African life will bring him to ruin! Not long ago I had a
visit from a white timber merchant, and when I accompanied him to the
canoe on his departure I asked him whether I could not provide him with
something to read on the two days' journey in front of him. "Many
{150} thanks," he replied, "but I am already supplied," and he showed
me, lying on the thwart of the boat, a book, which was Jacob Boehme's
"Aurora." The work of the great German shoemaker and mystic, written
at the beginning of the seventeenth century, accompanies him on all his
journeys. We know how nearly all great African travellers have taken
with them solid matter for reading.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Newspapers. War news]
Newspapers one can hardly bear to look at. The printed string of
words, written with a view to the single, quickly-passing day, seems
here, where time is, so to say, standing still, positively grotesque.
Whether we will or no, all of us here live under the influence of the
daily repeated experience that nature is everything and man is nothing.
This brings into our general view of life--and this even in the case of
the less educated--something which makes us conscious of the
feverishness and vanity of the life of Europe; it seems almost
something abnormal that over a portion of the earth's surface nature
should be nothing and man everything!
News of the war comes here fairly regularly. Either from N'Djôle,
through which passes the main telegraph line from Libreville to the
interior, or from Cape Lopez, telegraphic news comes to us every
fortnight, a selection from the various daily items. It is sent by the
District Commandant to the stores and the two mission stations by means
of a native soldier, who waits till we have read it and give it back to
him. Then for another fortnight we think of the war only in the most
{151} general way. What the frame of mind must be of those who have to
go through the excitement of reading war news every day we can hardly
imagine. Certainly we do not envy them!
About this time it became known that of the whites who had gone home to
fulfil their military duties ten had already been killed, and it made a
great impression on the natives. "Ten men killed already in this war!"
said an old Pahouin. "Why, then, don't the tribes meet for a palaver?
How can they pay for all these dead men?" For, with the natives, it is
a rule that all who fall in a war, whether on the victorious or on the
defeated side, must be paid for by the other side.
Directly the post has come in, Aloys, my cook, stops me to ask:
"Doctor, is it still war?" "Yes, Aloys, still war." Then he shakes
his head sadly and says to himself several times: "Oh, lala! Oh,
lala!" He is one of the negroes whose soul is really saddened by the
thought of the war.
Now we have to be very economical with our European foodstuffs, and
potatoes have become a delicacy. A short time ago a white neighbour
sent me by his boy a present of several dozen, from which I inferred
that he was not well and would soon be needing my services, and so it
turned out! Since the war we have trained ourselves to eat monkey
flesh. One of the missionaries on the station keeps a black huntsman,
and sends us regularly some of his booty; it is monkeys that he shoots
most frequently, since they are the game he finds easiest to bring
down. Their flesh tastes something like goat's flesh, but has a kind
of sweetish taste that the latter has not. People may think what they
like about Darwinism and the descent of man, but the {152} prejudice
against monkey flesh is not so easily got rid of. "Doctor," said a
white man to me a few days ago, "eating monkeys is the first step in
cannibalism"!
At the end of the summer (1916) we were able to join our missionary
neighbours, Mr. and Mrs. Morel, of Samkita, in a visit of some weeks to
Cape Lopez, where a trading company, several of whose employees had
benefited by our treatment and hospitality during illness, placed three
rooms in one of their stores at our disposal. The sea air worked
wonders for our health.
{153}