THE JUNGLE FOLK OF AFRICA
BY ROBERT H. MILLIGAN
The Jungle Folk of Africa
_Illustrated, 8vo, cloth, net $1.50_
“As one reads, the mystery and terror of the jungle seem to penetrate
his soul, yet he reads on reluctant to lay down a book so grimly
fascinating.”—_Presbyterian._
Fetish Folk of West Africa
_Illustrated, 8vo, cloth, net $1.50_
“Mr. Milligan has written interestingly and vividly of the people among
whom he labored, telling of their ways and habits, repeating some of
their legends and beliefs and pointing out their failings as well as
their good qualities.”—_N. Y. Sun._
[Illustration: CANOE OF A CHIEF ON THE CAMERON RIVER. (_See page 354_)]
The Jungle Folk of Africa
By
ROBERT H. MILLIGAN
_ILLUSTRATED_
[Illustration]
NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO
Fleming H. Revell Company
LONDON AND EDINBURGH
Copyright, 1908, by
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
_Second Edition_
New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave.
Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W.
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street
PREFACE
“In the realm of the unknown, Africa is the absolute,” said Victor Hugo.
Since the time of Hugo the civilized world has become better acquainted
with African geography; but the Africans themselves are still a people
unknown.
A certain noted missionary, while on furlough in America, after
delivering a masterly and brilliant lecture on Africa to an audience of
coloured people, gave an opportunity for persons in the audience to ask
him questions pertaining to the subject. He was rather abashed when an
elderly negro, who had been deeply interested in the lecture, called out:
“Say, Mistah S., is they any colo’ed folks ovah thah?” Most people know
that there are a goodly number of “colo’ed folks” in Africa; but the
knowledge of the majority extends only to the colour of the skin. And if
in this book I endeavour to make the Africans known as they really are,
it is because I believe that they are worth knowing.
In the generation that has passed since the books of Du Chaillu were the
delight of boys—old boys and young—the African has received but scant
sympathy in literature. Du Chaillu had the mind of a scientist and the
heart of a poet. He never understated the degradation of the African nor
exaggerated his virtues, but he recognized in him the raw material out
of which manhood is made. He realized that the African, like ourselves,
is not a finality, but a possibility—“the tadpole of an archangel,” as
genius has phrased it. But, then, Du Chaillu lived among the Africans
long enough to speak their language, to forget the colour of their skin,
and to know them, mind and heart, as no passing traveller or casual
observer can possibly know them.
In more recent books the African is usually and uniformly presented
as physically ugly, mentally stupid, morally repulsive, and never
interesting. This is by no means my opinion of the African. Kipling’s
characterization, “half child, half devil,” is very apt. But what in the
world is more interesting than children—except devils?
This book is an attempt to exhibit the human nature of the African, to
the end that he may be regarded not merely as a being endowed with an
immortal soul and a candidate for salvation, but as a man whose present
life is calculated to awaken our interest and sympathy; a man with
something like our own capacity for joy and sorrow, and to whom pleasure
and pain are very real; who bleeds when he is pricked and who laughs
when he is amused; a man essentially like ourselves, but whose beliefs
and whose circumstances are so remote from any likeness to our own that
as we enter the realm in which he lives and moves and has his being we
seem to have been transported upon the magic carpet of the Arabian fable,
away from reality into a world of imagination—a wonderland, where things
happen without a cause and nature has no stability, where the stone that
falls downwards to-day may fall upwards to-morrow, where a person may
change himself into a leopard and birds wear foliage for feathers, where
rocks and trees speak with articulate voice and animals moralize as men—a
world running at random and haphazard, where everything operates except
reason and where credulity is only equalled by incredulity. Elsewhere it
is the unexpected that happens: in Africa it is the unexpected that we
expect.
A knowledge of the jungle folk of Africa will include some acquaintance
with their jungle home, their daily life, their work, their amusements,
their social customs, their folk-lore, their religion, and, among the
rest, it will include their response to missionary effort. Of these
several subjects, those which receive scant treatment in this book will
be more fully presented in a second book on Africa, which is now in
course of preparation.
I have avoided generalizations and abstractions, in the belief that the
concrete and the personal would be not only more interesting but also
more informing. This book is, therefore, in the main, a narration of the
particular incidents of my own experience and observation during seven
years in Africa; incidents, many of which, at their occurrence, moved me
either to laughter or to tears, and sometimes both in alternation. For,
nowhere else in the world does tragedy so often end in comedy, and comedy
in tragedy.
I am indebted to Mr. Harry D. Salveter for his kindness in furnishing me
with many photographic illustrations, including the best of my collection.
ROBERT H. MILLIGAN.
_New York._
CONTENTS
I
THE VOYAGE 19
Dreadful alternatives—A pork and cabbage saint—The
outfit—A parting pain—Canary Islands—The change to the
tropics—Sierra Leone—The native yell—Deck passengers—A meal of
potato-peelings—Liberia—Shipboard conversation—A shrewd decision.
II
THE COAST 36
Wet and dry seasons—The climate—The trader—Old Calabar—The
crocodile—The most beautiful place in West Africa—The ugliest place
in the world—Mount Cameroon—A ride on a mule—Landing in the surf.
III
BUSH TRAVEL 55
Where no white man had been—The greatest forest in the
world—The caravan—Outfit—African roads—Bridges—The worst of the
road—Blessings in disguise—The art of walking—The arrival in
camp—The misery of morning—Rubber stomachs.
IV
BUSH PERILS 73
The road at the worst—Tired out—A palaver with the
carriers—Elephants—A caravan astray—A long night—A borrowed
shirt—The sullen forest—Accident the constant factor—A last
journey—Advantage of breakfast before daylight.
V
THE CAMP-FIRE 89
The camp—African mimics—The lemur’s cry—Legend of the snail—The
chimpanzee and the ungrateful man—A fable of the turtle—Why the
leopard walks alone—A “true” story—A magic fight—Discovering
a thief—A spirit who spreads disease—A shadow-slayer—A witch
discovered—Lying awake at night.
VI
A HOME IN THE BUSH 107
Efulen—The “white animal” performs—Africa no solitude—The mail—The
first fever—Yearning for a shirt—A vivid account of my funeral—The
first house—Cooks and cooking—The medical layman—Mrs. Laffin’s
visit.
VII
THE BUSH PEOPLE 131
The Bulu tribe—“Better-looking than white
people”—Dress—Ornamentation—A sociable queen—The white man’s
origin—Our fetishes—A magic letter—Buying and selling—Chief
Abesula.
VIII
AFTER A YEAR 148
Killed by mistake—A woman stolen—A passion for clothes—The
Batanga church—Expectoration a fine art—Romantic career of a
nightshirt—Bekalida—Keli, the incorrigible—Death of Dr. Good.
IX
THE KRUBOYS 170
The Kru tribe—The “real thing”—Kru English—The Kruboy’s
superstition—The ship’s officers—Dressing with much
assistance—Loading mahogany—The Kruboy and the surf—The white man
out of his element.
X
WHITE AND BLACK 195
St. Paul de Loanda—Canine passengers—Portuguese slavery—An American
problem—A health-change—Boma—Belgian atrocities—Matadi—Stanley—What
I heard at Matadi—The apathy of the nations.
XI
THE FANG 217
Gaboon—The village—The house—The door—The kiss unpopular, and no
wonder—Marriage customs—A woman tortured—An elder brother—Immoral
customs—The Gorilla Society—War—A troublesome sister—A blessing
that resembled a curse—A strange war-custom—Music—Dancing—Story of
the elephant and the gorilla—Fable of the sun and moon.
XII
FETISHES 249
The conception of God—Dreams—Ancestor-worship—The conception
of nature—The fetish proper—A wonderful medicine-chest—Various
fetishes—A case of discipline—Witchcraft—A convicted witch—Wives
and witchcraft—The white man and witchcraft.
XIII
A BOAT CREW 273
The Evangeline—Makuba—An un-dress ball—Ndong Koni—A saint
that lied—Capsized and rescued—A dying slave—Dressed in a
table-cloth—Flogging a chief—A story of true love.
XIV
A SCHOOL 302
The language difficulty—Lacked nothing but the essentials—The late
M. de la R.—One of Macbeth’s witches—Death of Nduna—Bojedi—More
candid than kind—The racial weakness—A royal romance—Marriage
ceremonies—A penitent—A fall.
XV
A LITTLE SCHOLAR 329
A health-change—The brightest of his class—Rotten Elephant—Very
sick—An object of wonder—Mount Teneriffe—Adventure with a
stage-coach—Adventure with a donkey—The crisis—The Ashantee war—A
burial at sea.
XVI
A CHURCH 354
Reality versus romance in missions—Arrival of the steamer—Adventure
in a canoe—An Apollo Belvidere in ebony—A sensational call to
worship—A white man’s foot—A prayer that caused a panic—Not
wickedness, but worms—The right hand, or the left?—“Dawn of the
Morning”—M’abune Jésu—Keeping the Sabbath—The harvest—The Jesuits—A
building not made with hands—“O’er crag and torrent.”
ILLUSTRATIONS
_Facing Page_
CANOE OF A CHIEF ON THE CAMEROON RIVER _title_
MOUNT TENERIFFE, CANARY ISLANDS 24
MISSION HOUSE AT BATANGA 52
REV. A. C. GOOD, PH. D. 55
LITTLE FRANCES BORN IN AFRICA 86
A GROUP OF ADMIRING NATIVES 110
AN IMPROVED MISSION HOUSE AT EFULEN 118
THE PASSION FOR CLOTHES 131
THE OLD CHURCH AT BATANGA 154
PASTORS AND ELDERS OF THE BATANGA CHURCH 160
THE DEBARKATION OF A DECK PASSENGER 181
MAN AND WIFE 224
TWO MEN DANCING 224
NDONG KONI 236
MAKUBA, CAPTAIN OF THE BOAT CREW 276
BOJEDI, TEACHER OF FANG SCHOOL 314
THREE FANG BOYS 378
The Jungle Folk of Africa
I
THE VOYAGE
“O ye! who have your eyeballs vexed and tired,
Feast them upon the wideness of the sea.”—_Keats._
When I was about to sail for Africa a friend read to me a thrilling
incident which was supposed to be prophetic of my own fate. A cannibal
maiden proposes marriage to a newly-arrived missionary. The missionary
modestly declines her offer; whereupon, looking down at him with
utmost complacency, she tells him that she will have him anyhow—either
_married_, or _fried_. I have gone to Africa twice, and have lived
there nearly seven years, yet I have escaped both of these dreadful
contingencies. There is no longer any glamour of romance about the
missionary life. It is not a life of hair-raising adventures and narrow
escapes. In those seven years I was never frightened and seldom killed.
Dull monotony is the normal experience and loneliness the besetting trial.
Neither are the sacrifices and privations of missionary life so great
as many of us have supposed. The sacrifices of the missionary are more
tangible, but not therefore greater, than those of the faithful minister
at home; whose sacrifices are often more real because less obvious. A
few days before I sailed the second time for Africa, when I knew from
former experience that the missionary life was no martyrdom, I was one
day seated at a dinner-table where Africa and my going was the subject
of conversation. The company had the most exaggerated ideas of the
privations incident to missionary life. There was no use in a denial on
my part; and to have disclaimed any of the fictitious virtues with which
they loaded me would only have caused them to add the virtue of modesty
to the rest.
A maiden lady across the table, who for some time had sat with abstracted
countenance, at last, with upturned eyes and clasped hands, remarked:
“Well, I think it is an _appalling_ sacrifice.”
To have lived up to my part, my face at that moment should have worn a
saintly expression of all the virtues rolled into one; but it happened
that my mouth was quite full of pork and cabbage, with which my carnal
mind was occupied, and I am sure I looked more like an epicure than an
ascetic. Nothing but the pork and cabbage kept me from laughing outright.
Really, life in Africa is much the same as life anywhere else; and the
“privations” only teach us how many things we can do without which we
once thought were indispensable. This lesson is impressed the more deeply
in such a land as Africa, where a human being may live for threescore
years—comfortable, apparently happy, and at least healthy—with little
else than a pot, a pipe and a tom-tom; the first ministers to his
necessity, the second to comfort and the third to pleasure. If we will
persist in regarding the missionary as a martyr, let us consider that
the martyr does not differ essentially from other Christians. Martyrdom
is potentially contained in the initial decision of each Christian.
The consecration of a life to Christ implies the willingness to lay it
down for Him. In an uncivilized land there is a likelihood of unwonted
hardships, and among savages some possibility of a violent death; but the
latter is vastly improbable.
One can procure an outfit more conveniently and at less cost in Liverpool
than in New York. A week at Liverpool is sufficient for this purpose.
The outfit will depend somewhat upon whether one expects to live on the
coast or in the bush where he will be cut off from the facilities of
transportation by water. All transportation to the interior is by native
porters, who carry sixty or seventy pounds on their backs, in loads as
compact as possible. This excludes most furniture; and such furniture
as can be transported is usually “knocked down.” An ordinary outfit
will include several helmets of cork or pith, several white umbrellas
lined with green, a dozen white drill suits, denim trousers, canvas
shoes, leather shoes, rubber boots, cheese-cloth for mosquito-bars,
rubber blankets, pneumatic pillows, hot-water bags, a supply of
medicines (unless these are already on the field) especially quinine
and castor-oil, a six-mouths’ supply of food—canned meats, vegetables
and fruits—besides bedding and kitchenware, tableware, napery, etc.,
according to need, and guns and ammunition.
There is a romantic interest about this last week spent in the purchase
of strange articles for an untried life, and in taking leave of
civilization,—of such things as cities, society, music, fresh beef and
fine clothes. The last evening in Liverpool I went to hear _Tannhauser_.
Music had always been my pastime, and it was not an easy sacrifice to
make. I therefore looked forward to that evening with peculiar interest,
knowing that not again until my return, however long I might remain in
Africa, would I hear any music worthy of the name. But _Tannhauser_
proved to be not a sweet parting from civilization but an awful
experience, by reason of some one in my neighbourhood beating the time
with his foot, as they so often do in England. I had one of the best
seats in the house, but I exchanged it for another, only to find myself
in a worse neighbourhood; for, in addition to a man on each side of me
beating the time, a woman immediately behind “hummed the tune.” At the
close of the performance I was in a condition of “mortal mind” that would
have scandalized those who are disposed to canonize missionaries. But the
sorrow of parting was thus mitigated as I reflected that civilization has
its pains and savagery some compensations.
I went home and wrote the following to a friend: “Some one alluding to
Macaulay’s knowledge of history and his unerring accuracy once said that
infinite damnation to Macaulay would consist in being surrounded by
fiends engaged in misquoting history while he was rendered speechless and
unable to correct them; and I am thinking that my _inferno_ would consist
in being compelled to listen to some such exquisite melody as _O Thou
Sublime Sweet Evening Star_, surrounded the while by fiends keeping time
with their feet, and Beelzebub humming the tune.”
On my first voyage to Africa (having been appointed to the West Africa
Mission, by the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church)
I was four weeks on the way, from Liverpool, and landed at Batanga, in
Cameroon, two hundred miles north of the equator. On the second voyage
I was five weeks on the way, and landed at Libreville (better known
as _Gaboon_) in the Congo Français, almost exactly at the equator.
Libreville was the capital of the French Congo. _Gaboon_ is properly the
name of the bay or great estuary upon which Libreville is situated, and
is one of the very few good harbours on the west coast. But long before
the existence of Libreville, captains and traders had used the name
_Gaboon_ to designate the adjacent settlement of native villages and
trading-houses, and it is still the name in general use.
We made many calls along the way. Some of the places are very beautiful,
such as the Canary Islands, Sierra Leone, Cape Coast Castle, Victoria,
Fernando Po and Gaboon; and some are quite otherwise, for Africa is a
land of extremes. Bonny is repulsive, and the Rio del Rey is a nightmare.
Meanwhile, we are getting further and further away from all that is known
and natural to our eyes, and nearer to a land of strange birds and beasts
and trees, inhabited by tribes that to the white man are only a name, or
have no name, and to whom he is perhaps an imaginary being, or the ghost
of their dead ancestors.
At the Canary Islands, a week after leaving Liverpool, one may spend a
day of interest and pleasure. On my first voyage we called at Las Palmas,
in Grand Canary Island. On the second voyage we called at Santa Cruz
on Teneriffe Island. The object of chief interest is the great Mount
Teneriffe, seen sometimes a hundred miles at sea; probably the Mount
Atlas of ancient fable, which was supposed to support the firmament.
There are of course many mountain peaks in the world which rise to a
greater height above the sea-level; but they are usually in ranges or on
high table-lands far from the sea, and while the altitude is great, the
individual peak may not be great. Teneriffe rises directly out of the
sea, slowly at first but with increasing inclination, until at last it
sweeps upward to the clouds and far above them, to a height of 12,500
feet. The sandy slopes upon the higher altitudes reflect the light with
unequalled splendour. From the harbour of Las Palmas we saw the sun
rising on Teneriffe. We stood on the deck before the dawn, and while
darkness was all around us, saw the heights already struggling with the
darkness, and the summit bathed in the light of the unrisen day. A heavy
mist rolled down and spread over the valleys, like a sea resplendent
with every interchange of deepening and dissolving colour; while from
below arose the increasing noise and tumult of a half-civilized city
awaking from slumber. In a little while the clouds begin to assemble,
and the peak is hidden throughout the day: so it is always. But in the
evening, the clouds again are parted, like opening curtains, and the
whole mountain is disclosed, majestic and beautiful in the light of the
setting sun.
On the homeward voyage the steamers often take on an enormous deck-cargo
of bananas. They are put in crates the size of barrels and are packed
in straw. In the event of a severe storm before reaching Liverpool they
are more than likely to be washed overboard. It is a pleasure to watch
this loading from the upper deck. The Spanish workmen are neat and clean;
they are skillful and work rapidly, as indeed they must in order to load
the entire cargo in one day, which is usually the limit of time. All day
long Spanish boys without clothes are crowded around the steamer in small
boats, begging the passengers to throw pennies into the water and see
them dive and get them. Many pennies and small silver coins are thrown
over in the course of the day; and the boys seldom miss one.
A number of the passengers debark at the Canary Islands, and the rest
have more room and more comfort. Immediately upon leaving the Islands
double awnings are stretched over the decks; and the passengers and
ship’s officers the next day don their tropical clothing. The sea is
exceedingly calm as compared with the North Atlantic and the air soft and
balmy. It recalled those lines of Keats—
“Often it is in such gentle temper found,
That scarcely will the very smallest shell,
Be moved for days from where it sometime fell,
When last the winds of heaven were unbound.”
[Illustration: MOUNT TENERIFFE, CANARY ISLANDS.
_Probably the Mount Atlas of ancient fable, which was supposed to support
the firmament._]
The change to tropical life takes place in one day and it is like being
suddenly transported into another world. The men nearly all are dressed
in white drill suits, and most of them wear white caps and white canvas
shoes. If they go ashore at various ports along the way they will
exchange the cap for a cork helmet and besides will probably carry a
white umbrella. The white suits if well made and well laundered look
much more comfortable and becoming than any other clothing. They are
usually made in military style with stitched collar, so as we go on
further south the shirt of civilization may at length be dispensed with
and the coat worn directly over an undershirt,—which latter ought to
be of wool and medium weight. Except my first year, I wore no shirt at
any time through all the years that I lived in Africa, not even at the
French Governor’s annual reception at Gaboon. The English at Old Calabar
on formal occasions make themselves ridiculous in black dress suits with
the conventional area of shirt-front and collar. In these they swelter,
vastly uncomfortable, while the starch dissolves and courses towards
their shoes down back and breast. It is not only, nor chiefly, the
high temperature but the extreme humidity that makes the atmosphere so
oppressive. It seems to be seventy-five per cent, warm water.
On shipboard it is usually comfortable and pleasant while we are under
way. The most delightful part of the voyage is the first few days after
leaving the Canary Islands, when the course lies in the track of the
northeast trade-winds. One thinks very differently, however, of this
trade-wind in coursing against it on the homeward voyage after a length
of time on the fever-stricken coast. It seems piercing cold, and, as
Miss Kingsley says, one wishes that the Powers above would send it to
the Powers below to get it warmed. It is in this zone that deaths most
frequently occur on board. On the outward voyage immediately after the
most delightful part of the voyage comes the very worst part of it, as
we pass beyond the trade-wind and close in to the coast near Cape Verde.
For several days one is tempted to wish that he might turn back. There
is a dead calm on board, and the heat is enough to curl one’s hair. It
recalled Sydney Smith’s description of some such place, where “one feels
like taking off his flesh and sitting in his bones.” But it continues
only two or three days. During this time the “punka” is installed, a
large fan suspended from the ceiling, the entire length of the table,
worked by a rope, which a boy pulls with his hand.
A week after leaving the Canary Islands we reached our first African
port, Sierra Leone. It has the finest harbour on the entire west coast.
From the harbour it is very beautiful, with mountains of intense green
standing like sentinels on either side and behind the town. The sound
of the wind raging about these peaks, like the roaring of a lion, gives
the name, _Sierra Leone_. Despite its attractive appearance, it is
called _The Whiteman’s Grave_, and its history justifies the name. But
as we proceed down the coast we find that every place which has any
considerable number of white men is called _The Whiteman’s Grave_. The
name _Sierra Leone_ applies to the entire English colony; that of the
town at this place is _Freetown_. It was originally a colony of freed
slaves, which the English planted there during the suppression of the
slave traffic. The first ship-load of colonists, between four and five
hundred, was landed in 1787. Of these, sixty died on the way or within
a fortnight after landing. Freetown has now a population of thirty
thousand, and is prosperous. Along the wharf are warehouses with roofs
of corrugated iron. The roofs of the traders’ houses also, both here and
all along the coast, are of corrugated iron. Here and there among the
colourless huts of the natives there stands out boldly the frame houses
of successful native traders, made of imported material and usually
painted an impudent blue. Houses with floors are everywhere called
_deck-houses_; for the decks of ships were the first floors ever seen by
the natives.
So soon as we had anchored, the natives, in a score of boats, were
crowding about the gangway, pushing back each other’s boats, fighting,
cursing and yelling, in a general strife for the very lucrative privilege
of rowing passengers ashore. However otherwise engaged in this scramble
they are all yelling; and the resultant noise is the proper introduction
to Africa. For, as noise is the first, so it will be the final and
lasting impression. It is the grand unity in which other associations are
gradually dislimned. We went ashore in the late afternoon. The people
were all in the streets, moving about, but no one moving rapidly; all
active, but no one _very_ active. As there are no vehicles, pedestrians
occupy the whole street, which is covered with grass. There is a great
variety of dress and considerable undress. Many of the women wear a loose
calico wrapper—a Mother Hubbard; and many of the men are dressed in the
Mohammedan costume, which is more becoming, and more suitable for the
climate, than any possible modification of European dress. It consists
of a long white shirt with loose, flowing sleeves, and an outer garment
somewhat like a university gown, of black or of blue. The ordinary man
wears anything he may happen to have, from an eighth of a yard of calico
to a rice-bag in which he cuts holes for his head and arms.
Ever so many were carrying loads on their heads—never any other way—and
without touching them with their hands. Indeed, if their hands were
engaged I am not sure whether they could talk; for when they talk they
gesticulate continually. Some were carrying beer bottles erect on their
heads, some carried books, some of the women carried folded parasols;
others carried fire-wood, or bananas, or large baskets of vegetables.
They exchange the neighbourhood gossip as they pass, but without
turning their heads; and sometimes they throw down their loads and seat
themselves on opposite sides of the street to have “a friendly yell.”
When we returned to the steamer we found on board, on the lower deck,
about twenty native passengers. They have brought all their household
goods, including chickens; and several of the women have babies strapped
to their backs. They pay only for a passage on deck, taking the risk
of the weather, and expect to yell their way to Fernando Po, in about
two weeks. The number of deck passengers increases at each of the next
several ports, until the deck is crowded; but they are never allowed on
the upper deck.
The deck, formerly spacious and shining, is now covered with baggage,
the abundance of which is only exceeded by its outlandish variety. The
first mate is the ship’s general housekeeper. Cleanliness and order
are a mental malady with him. If he could have his way the ship would
carry no cargo, since the opening of the hatches and the discharging of
it deranges the order of the lower deck and litters it with rubbish.
Besides he would like to employ the boat-crews in holystoning one deck
or another all the time instead of only once each morning. The sight of
a dog affects him more seriously than seeing a ghost. Passengers are a
great trial to him who carelessly place their deck chairs for comfort or
for conversation with each other instead of leaving them in unneighbourly
straight lines as he arranged them. He is rarely on speaking terms with
the chief engineer, because the latter must frequently have coal carried
from the forehold; and there is a standing feud between him and the
cook, whose grease-tub sits outside the galley door. The mate’s sole
horror of a storm at sea is that the rolling of the ship spills the
grease. Imagine the life this gentleman lives from the time that the
native passengers begin to come aboard and fill the deck with their piles
of miscellaneous baggage. He ages perceptibly. Disorder is precisely the
weak point in the native character; and much of the mate’s time is spent
in pitched battles with the native women, over the bestowment of their
goods. No sooner has he, with the help of several deck-hands, arranged a
lady’s goods in a neat square pile ten feet high and seated her children
in a straight row than the lady orders all her children to get out of her
way and proceeds to tear down the pile in order to get a cosmetic and a
mirror that happen to be in two different boxes in the bottom. When the
mate is not around the deck passengers seem very happy as they sit at
random on their baggage and yell at each other. Here and there men in
Mohammedan dress sit on the sunny deck in cross-legged tailor-fashion,
reminding one of old Bible pictures. If they quarrel a great deal they
also laugh a great deal, and the quarrels are no sooner ended than they
are forgotten.
At Lagos several native men came out in a boat to meet a deck passenger
and land his baggage. The natives are not allowed to use the gangway,
and if the rope ladder is in use they pass up and down a single rope
suspended over the ship’s side. On this occasion I observed one of the
men from the boat alongside sliding down a rope and carrying a heavy box,
by no means an easy thing to do. He expected that the others of his party
would be waiting to receive him in the boat below. But they had drifted
several yards away and were engaged in eating some potato peelings
which a steward had thrown to them. He called to them but they paid no
attention:—they were eating. He yelled at them and cursed them, at the
same time making with his legs impressive gestures of appeal and threat.
But they sat indifferent until they had finished, while he with his load
remained suspended in the air. Moreover, the sea at Lagos abounds with
sharks. At last, having finished their repast, they came to his rescue.
I was watching eagerly to see how many would be killed in the ensuing
fight. But not a blow was struck, and the palaver did not last a minute.
So forgetful are they of injuries. And though they are capable of great
cruelty towards their enemies, their cruelty is callous rather than
vindictive; not the cruelty that delights in another’s pain, but rather
that of a dull imagination which does not realize it.
A few days after leaving Sierra Leone we anchored off Monrovia, the
capital of Liberia, where we shipped eighty native men, _Krumen_, who
were engaged by the ship as workmen for the discharging and loading of
cargo. They are engaged for the round trip down the coast, three or four
months, and are unshipped again on the homeward voyage. Of these Krumen
I shall speak at some length in another chapter. They are the original
native tribe of this part of the coast and are not to be confounded with
the proper Liberians whose ancestors emigrated from America.
Liberia represents the philanthropic effort of America to restore to
their native land the Africans carried to America by the slave trade.
A large area of country was purchased from the native chiefs, and in
1820 the first settlement of colonists was established. Liberia is a
country of possibilities. There is no richer soil on the entire west
coast. It is especially suitable for coffee and cocoa; but it has
remained undeveloped. The poor and ignorant colonists were not fit
for self-government. America should have done more or else less. The
Liberians might far better have remained in America. During the several
generations of their absence from Africa they seemed to have lost the
power of resisting the malaria. The mortality among them was very great
and they were pitiably helpless. The government of Liberia some one has
said is a fit subject for comic opera. At one time becoming possessed of
a little cash, by some wonderful accident, they provided themselves with
a small gunboat by which they hoped to convince calling ships that theirs
is a real government competent to collect dues, impose fines, and enforce
the rules of quarantine and release that obtain at other ports, for which
purpose it has proved as ineffective as a pop-gun. But they have used
it successfully against the canoes of the Krumen in levying a heavy and
unjustifiable duty upon these men when they return from the south voyage
with their pay.
After two weeks on shipboard the immobility of life becomes agreeable
and we are all content to be lazy. And in the evening when the social
instinct is lively and men sit together at leisure in the balmy breeze,
under the canvas roof, on a well-lighted deck, the sea so calm as to
allay all apprehension, a wall of darkness around us, and the immensity
of the sea beyond, as separate from the rest of the world as would be
some tiny planet that has separated from the solid earth and rotates upon
its own axis, then the charm of travel on the tropical sea is all that
the imagination had preconceived,—a lazy, luxurious dream. When Boswell
remarked to Johnson, “We grow weary when idle,” Johnson replied: “That
is, sir, because others being busy, we want company; but if all were idle
there would be no growing weary; we should entertain one another.” We
were all equally idle and lazy, and wished we could be lazier. There were
whole days when the conversation—until evening—contained nothing more
epigrammatic than “Please pass the butter,” or “Have a pickle?”
The company consists of traders, government officials and missionaries;
and the captain is usually present. As our number diminishes at each
successive port, we become better acquainted and more friendly. Men of
antipodal differences are thus frequently brought into friendly and
sympathetic relations, men who in ordinary life would seldom have been
brought into contact with each other, and who never would have known that
they had anything in common; and the experience is wholesome. I have
learned to think more kindly of the African trader and to refrain from
criticism because of some whom I have known intimately on these long
voyages.
As we sit on deck in the evening the captain tells us that at Lagos,
where we are due in a few days, he has seen the natives fight the sharks
in the sea and kill them. The shark is the monster of the tropical seas,
the incarnation of ferocity and hunger. The native takes a stout stick,
six inches long and sharpened at both ends. With his hand closed tight
around this he dives into the sea, and as the shark comes at him with its
terrible mouth open, he thrusts the stick upright into its mouth as far
as he can. There it remains planted in the upper and lower jaws of the
shark, which, not being able to close its mouth, soon drowns and comes to
the surface. It is a good story, and not incredible as a fact; for the
native is brave enough and fool enough to do this very thing. But this is
the same captain who tells of fearful storms which he has successfully
encountered, when the ship rolled until she took in water through the
funnels. He remarked to me one day, speaking of one of his officers
who was not the brightest: “I always have to verify his reckoning; for
he always mistakes east for west and invariably puts latitude where
longitude ought to be.” He also tells of an invitation he once received
from a cannibal chief near Old Calabar, to come ashore and help him pick
a missionary. He has seen the sea-serpent many a time and knows all about
it. It is not dark green with brown stripes, as is generally supposed,
but is bright yellow with blue spots, and is quite three hundred feet
long. On one occasion it followed the captain’s ship for several days,
at times raising one hundred and fifty feet of its length out of the
water, and being prevented from helping itself to a sailor now and then
only by great quantities of food which they threw over to it. This caused
a famine on board, and they reached the nearest port in a half-starved
condition. An affidavit goes with each of the captain’s stories. Most
captains indulge in this entertaining hyperbole. Some are decidedly
gifted with what has been called a “creative memory.” I have never yet
known a captain who could not turn out as handsome a yarn as Gulliver.
As the company become better acquainted conversation is more intimate and
varied. Now we are discussing some subject of continental magnitude, and
again, with equal interest, some infinitesimal triviality. Detached from
the rest of the world, and with no daily budget of news, our interest
becomes torpid, and things great and small appear without perspective on
a flat surface of equality. We avowed our disbelief in the infallibility
of the pope, and pronounced against his claim to temporal authority. We
anticipated all the conclusions of the Hague Conference, and discussed
the imminence of the “yellow peril.” We resolved that the Crown Colony
system was a failure and had never been a success, and we devised an
elaborate substitute but could not agree upon the details. We agreed that
the English aristocracy had long been effete, and that the Duke of X,
related to the queen, was a “hog.” We reached the amicable conclusion
that the thirteen colonies should never have rebelled, and that the blame
was all on the side of England. We left posterity nothing to say on the
relative merits of the republican and the monarchic forms of government,
and decided that the enfranchisement of the negro was a mistake.
In juxtaposition to these discussions, one man occupied the company
a part of an evening recounting the entire history of his corns; but
I regret that I have forgotten their number and disposition. Another
disclosed the fact that he always wore safety-pins instead of garters,
and descanted upon his preference with such enthusiasm that he made at
least one convert that I know of. I was carefully told how to mix a gin
cocktail (though I may never have any practical use for this valuable
knowledge) and how to toss a champagne cocktail from one glass to another
in a beautiful parabolic curve; also how many cocktails a man might drink
in a day without being chargeable with intemperance: in short, if there
is anything about “booze” that I do not know it must be because I have
forgotten.
One night (but this was another voyage and a different kind of captain)
we put in practice the principle of arbitration of which we were all
adherents; and the result was my discomfiture. An argument had arisen
among us as to which was the more simple of the two currency systems,
_dollars and cents_, and _pounds, shillings and pence_—as if there were
logical room for difference of opinion! At last, the captain arriving, we
decided to refer the matter to him and to surrender our judgment to his
arbitrament. The captain (an Englishman of the very stolid sort), after a
period of reflection replied very slowly, and with all the gravity of a
judge: “Pounds, shillings and pence is the simpler system; for, don’t you
know, that when you are told the price of a thing in dollars and cents
you always, in your mind, convert it into pounds, shillings and pence.”
“Of course, Captain,” said I; “I had not thought of that until you
mentioned it; neither had I recalled the well-known fact that a
Frenchman, while speaking French in the streets of Paris, is really
thinking in English. Your decision is as shrewd as it is impartial.”
II
THE COAST
But the pleasure of the voyage depends largely upon the season. The wet
and the dry seasons are distinctly divided. There is a long wet season
of four months and a short wet season of two months each year, and
corresponding long and short dry seasons. The rains generally follow the
course of the sun as it moves between the northern and southern solstice.
The regularity of the seasons is modified by local influences such as
the proximity of mountains. The seasons at Batanga, for instance, are
not so distinctly divided as at Gaboon. I am most familiar with the
climate of Gaboon, which is practically at the equator. The long wet
season begins in September, when the sun is coursing from the equator
towards the southern solstice, and continues nearly four months. The
long dry season begins in May and continues for four months. Those are
the delightful months of the year. We are accustomed to associate a dry
spell with heat and glaring sunshine. But there the brightest sunshine is
in the wet season between the showers. The dry season is both cool and
shady; so cool that the natives find it uncomfortable, while the sun is
sometimes not seen for a week. It always seems to be just about to rain.
A stranger to the climate would not risk going half a mile without taking
an umbrella. But he is perfectly safe. There is not the least danger of
rain between May and September. Often in the dry season I have travelled
through the midday hours in a canoe, lying full length on a travelling
rug with my face towards the sky; for there is no glare: the mellow
light has the quality of moonlight.
But a strong wind prevails during the dry months, and it is the season
when the surf rages wildly on the open coast; when surf boats with cargo
are often broken on the beach and the native crews lose their limbs
and sometimes their lives. The ground though very dry does not become
parched. The rustling of the palms or of the thatch roof at the close of
the season is like the heavy pattering of rain, so much so that sometimes
one is deceived in spite of himself. The dry season is healthiest for
white men, but not for the native. They are not sufficiently protected
against the wind, and pneumonia is common. However much we prefer the dry
season, yet we weary of it towards the close, and like the natives we
fairly shout for joy at the first shower.
The wet season is very disagreeable. The rain falls in streams, and,
as Miss Kingsley says, “does not go into details with drops.” There
are several torrential downpours each day and night. In the intervals
during the day the sky is swept clear of clouds and the sun shines the
strongest. The atmosphere is extremely humid and sultry. With the least
exertion, or with no exertion, one perspires profusely, and there is no
evaporation. One ought to change his clothing several times a day; but
most of us cannot afford to devote so much time to comfort. Frequent
tornadoes often cool the air in the evening.
The most uncomfortable of all places during the rain is on shipboard. The
rain will at length find its way through any thickness of awning, and the
delightful deck must be deserted for the stifling saloon. Our paradise is
transformed to a purgatory. The rain is accompanied by a heavy mist and
as it dashes upon the surface of the sea it lifts a cloud of spray that
hides the water beneath and we seem to be drifting courseless through
cloudland, with our horizon immediately around us. As it continues day
after day everybody becomes depressed; and as for the captain, it is
scarcely safe to speak to him. One day when I was travelling in the wet
season, the captain lost a whole day prowling up and down the coast
looking for a place which was completely hidden in the rain and mist. He
was angry; and an angry captain is a fearsome object. He is accustomed to
being obeyed, and is master of everything else but the fourth element,
which occasionally thwarts his plans and derides his authority. At a
moment when the rain slackened from a torrent to a heavy shower, a
passenger put his head out on deck and remarked: “It’s not raining,
Captain.”
“Well, if that is not rain,” thundered the disgusted captain, “it is the
best imitation of rain that I have ever seen.”
The subject upon which conversation dwells longest and to which it ever
returns with gruesome interest is the African fever. The news that is
brought on board at each port is like a death bulletin. To the new comer
it is all very trying and very tragical. But he cannot escape from it;
for the Old Coaster (and a man who has been out once before is an Old
Coaster) assumes the grave responsibility of impressing deeply upon
the mind of the tenderfoot the serious conditions which he is about to
confront. It is impressed upon him that the fever is inevitable, and
that the young and healthy die first; that temperate habits instead of
being a defense are a snare, and that not to drink is simply suicide.
Missionaries die like flies. But then of course it comes to the same
thing in the end; there is no escape; and to worry about it, or to expect
it, will bring on a fever in two days. Exposure to the sun is sure to
induce fever; and yet none die so quickly as those who carry umbrellas.
Quinine is useless except to brace the mind of those who believe in
it; but it isn’t any good. And when you get fever, you can’t escape, by
leaving the coast in a hurry, even if there should be a steamer in port,
which is very unlikely; for a man going aboard with fever is sure to die.
Perhaps it is the horror of being buried at sea that kills him.
“How is that new clerk whom I brought out for you last voyage?” asks the
captain, of a trader who has come aboard for breakfast.
“Poor chap!” says the trader, “he didn’t live two weeks. Another came on
the next steamer, and he pegged out in three weeks. They ought to be sent
out two at a time.”
“You remember so-and-so,” says another; “well, poor chap! (and as soon
as he says “poor chap” we know the rest) he was found dead in bed one
morning since you were here. They had used up all the lumber that they
had laid away for coffins, so they took half the partition out of his
house, to make a coffin; and then they didn’t get it long enough.
The next fellow is now living alone in that same house with half the
partition gone, and of course he can’t help reflecting that there is just
enough left to make another coffin; and, indeed, to judge by the way he
was looking when I saw him last they may have used it by this time.”
“Have you heard about the poor chap that so-and-so sent up country? Well,
he died a few weeks ago. He was all alone except for the native workmen,
and as soon as he died they ran away in fear. The agent got word of it
and started up country immediately; but the rats had found him first.”
It is only when one reflects that all these “poor chaps” were somebody’s
sons, and somebody’s brothers, that one realizes the tragedy of the
coast. These little conversations on board seem like the final obsequies
performed for those who are dead.
“Do men ever die of anything except fever?” asks a new comer.
“O yes,” says the Old Coaster. “Let me see: there’s dysentery,—poor
C died of that last week; and there’s enlarged spleen, abscesses,
pneumonia, consumption (one falls into consumption here very quickly, and
often when he least expects it), kraw-kraw and smallpox (smallpox has
just broken out at Fernando Po: that’s our next port), not to speak of
seven or eight varieties of itch, which some men have all the time; but
itch doesn’t kill. By the way, I suppose you know that in this climate it
is necessary that bodies be buried a few hours after death.”
In the speech of the coast there is no such thing as reticence, and soon
enough we all learn to speak with brutal bluntness. The only comfort
held out to the new comer is the hope that he will receive, as a sort of
obituary, the kindly designation, “Poor Chap.”