the incidents of which I have recounted. He and his wife, Sara, had for
a long time lived a pure and exemplary life in the midst of the darkest
heathenism. When he died the people accused Sara of having made medicine
to kill him. This medicine is a fetish and acts supernaturally: it is
not necessary that it should come in physical contact with the victim.
Mb’Obam had died of a lingering disease well known to them. But such is
the mental degradation incident to the belief in magic and witchcraft
that effects are referred to a supernatural cause even when the natural
and physical cause is before their eyes. Every death is attributed to
magic or witchcraft, and if they are not forward in avenging it the
spirit of the dead one will inflict misfortune and even death upon them.
Mb’Obam had completely broken with fetishism and had discarded all these
beliefs and had bravely defended the victims of native cruelty. At his
approaching death he charged the people not to touch Sara nor to charge
her with witchcraft, reminding them what a faithful wife she had been and
how differently they both had lived since they became Christians. But
though they had regarded him with respect and reverence during his life,
yet at his death old customs and beliefs asserted tyrannous authority,
and they charged Sara with having killed him. It fell to Esona, the
succeeding chief, to decree the punishment of Sara. In the vicinity of
the French government he would not dare to kill her. So he led her into
the middle of the street before all the people, placed her on her hands
and knees, and bound upon her back a heavy load of plantain-stocks. Then
two men sat upon the load, on her back, and all the men of the town
drove her thus up and down the street on her hands and knees until they
nearly killed her. As soon as she had sufficiently recovered from the
effect of the awful ordeal they repeated the performance, and repeated it
again, until Sara managed through a Christian boy to get a message to me.
Leaving the school I made ready the _Evangeline_ and went with all haste
to the town, thirty miles distant, where I arrived just in time to stop
another repetition of the outrage. The sight was too much for me. Mb’Obam
and Sara had been the very first of my Fang friends. Whether the impulse
was noble indignation or a very mortal temper, the reader may decide.
With a stick which I carried I flogged Esona the chief before all the
people, and there was blood on the stick when I got through.
One may wonder how a white man could do this in a town of savages without
sacrificing his own life. I may say that there was perhaps not another
town on the river in which I could have done any such thing and have
escaped with my life. Safety in such a situation depends upon the extent
of a man’s influence and personal authority in the particular town. It is
the part of wisdom for him to know the extent of his influence in each
town and the part of discretion never to overreach it. In this instance
Esona, breaking away from me like an animal frantic with rage, shouted
for his gun and ran towards his house to get it. But a cry of alarm was
raised, as I expected, and half a dozen men rushing upon him, held him
fast. He broke loose from them and others joined him. For a moment it
looked as if my own life and that of the crew (except Ndong Koni, who was
related in the town) were forfeited, and the fate of the _Evangeline_
were like that of the famous ship which was left—
“With one man of her crew alive,
What put to sea with seventy-five.”
But they caught Esona again and threw him to ground, shouting at me
the while to leave the town as quickly as possible. To their mingled
entreaties and curses I yielded a tardy compliance, which however was not
nearly as reluctant as it seemed.
There is a sequel to this story also, which I shall relate. This chief
Esona, whom I flogged, announced a few days later that he was going
to marry Sara. He already had seven wives, and the thought of such a
marriage was repugnant to Sara. But she had no choice in the matter and
was compelled to marry him. Polygamy is not always a happy institution,
even in Africa. The seven wives were angry and jealous. Being powerless
to injure Esona they avenged themselves upon Sara. One day shortly after
the marriage, as she was walking along the street, they suddenly came
running from their houses with knives and attacked her. They wounded her
and would have killed her but she was rescued by some men who happened to
be near. A woman costs money and her life may not be sacrificed wantonly.
Then these wives tried another expedient. Four women in succession,
coming from different towns, visited Esona and solemnly told him that
they had had a dream concerning him—all four of them in succession
relating the same dream. They had seen Mb’Obam, Sara’s dead husband, who
was very angry that Esona had married Sara, and threatened all kinds of
plagues and finally death, if he would not put her away. A few days later
their word was confirmed when five houses belonging to Esona were burned
to the ground. They were perfectly aware that a certain young man of the
town had accidentally let some live coals fall upon some dried thatch
and the fire had started forthwith. Nevertheless, with one voice the
people attributed the fire to Mb’Obam, and Esona in great fear, believing
that his life might be the next forfeit, let Sara go. After a period of
various trials and sorrows dire fortune at last relented and I was glad
to learn that Sara was comfortably married to a Christian man.
One quiet day, as we were pulling up the river in the _Evangeline_,
seventy miles from the coast, a man suddenly emerged from the forest and
came rapidly towards us in a canoe. When he came near I recognized a Fang
friend, a young man about twenty years old, named Ingwa, who had been one
of my first boat-boys in the _Evangeline_, and who was a Christian. After
a hearty greeting I said: “I am surprised to see you, Ingwa; I sent word
to you long ago that I would like to have you again in the _Evangeline_,
and I have not heard a word from you.” But, observing that he looked worn
and sick, I asked him what was the matter; and he told me the following
story: “A year ago I was married to a woman whom I had loved for a long
time and who loved me. I paid the dowry and took my wife home. We both
were very happy, for I loved only her and she loved only me. After six
mouths her father and brothers agreed with another man to take her from
me and give her to him, wishing to make friendship with his town. Her
father invited her and me to visit him. During the night they suddenly
rushed in upon us and made us prisoners. They tied my wife’s hands and
led her away. Then they bound me, hands and feet, and put me into a
canoe and pushed the canoe out into the current of the river. Far down
the river towards the sea I was picked up by some people who knew me and
were friendly. They set me free and I borrowed a paddle and reached my
own town. But I could not stay there, it was so lonely; for my wife was
gone and my heart was sick. They sent her to the other man’s town, but I
knew that she loved only me. I hid in the forest near that town, but I
could never see her. Six months I have been hiding in the forest, night
and day, and I have been hungry, and sometimes sick. They know I am there
and are trying to kill me. Her father sent word to me that he would pay
me back the dowry; but I want only my wife. And surely God will help me;
I will meet her again, and she will go with me. For I love only her, and
she loves only me.” The story ended in a sob.
With a hasty good-bye he turned and sped towards the shore, while I sat,
silently and with aching heart, watching, till the dark form was merged
into the darkness of the forest and we saw him no more. But how changed
was nature’s aspect! How different the impression of the hazy, languid
atmosphere, the torpid life of bird and beast, the deep mystic forest
with dark forms moving like phantoms to and fro, screened from the river
by a heavy veil of vine and flower that hung from the tops of the trees
and lay upon the water below; and behind the veil a real and tragic world
of human suffering and breaking hearts!
Not long after this Ingwa, still watching and waiting in the forest, met
his wife. They fled together, days and nights through the forest, until
they reached a town far away, which Ingwa had once visited in trading for
rubber and ivory and where he had made friends. There they were still
living when I left Africa. A native trader afterwards visited that far
distant town of the forest, and returning, brought me a message from
Ingwa. The trader informed me also that he found the people of the town
singing Christian hymns and praying, and that through the influence of
Ingwa many had thrown away their fetishes and were followers of Christ.
XIV
A SCHOOL
The schools of the Congo Français are under the inspection of the
government, and there is a law that the French language shall be the
language of the school. It has been very difficult for an American
mission to comply with this law, and when it was first enforced some of
our schools had to be closed. It was mainly because of this difficulty
that several stations on the Ogowé River were transferred to a French
Protestant missionary society. Our missionaries then enlarged their work
at Batanga, which is in German territory, and opened the several stations
among the Bulu of the interior, a work that has greatly prospered. It was
only a few years, however, until they were required to teach the German
language in the schools; and the German law was as rigidly enforced as
the French. There was also a similar law in the English colonies. This
requirement had been regarded as unjust and as a great hindrance to the
success of missionary work. Personally I have no quarrel with it in
either respect, and I think that the mind of the whole mission in late
years has undergone a change on that subject. Even if there were no such
law, I believe that the ultimate success of the work would necessitate a
European language; and that language must be and ought to be that of the
governing power.
Of course the people of the various tribes must hear the Gospel preached
in their own native tongue; as it was on the day of Pentecost, when every
man heard the word in the language in which he was born. The itinerating
missionary must use the native dialects. But when the native becomes a
student, seeking more extensive and more accurate knowledge, the native
dialect is beggarly and wholly inadequate. If ideas require words for
their conception, then the paucity of words and the poverty of expression
make it impossible for the student using the native language to think as
it would be required of him in the class-room. The acquisition of French
is a cultural factor to the African in a sense that it is not to the
American. For most of the French words have no exact equivalent in his
own language, and such words present new thoughts. Moreover, education
introduces him to the world of books, and without the foreign language he
is confined to the very few and meagre translations that missionaries may
make into an obscure dialect of a small tribe.
The future of the boys also, their material welfare, depends largely
upon the knowledge of a European language. It is not to be expected, and
is no way desirable, that the boys of the schools should return home
only to “sit for town” all their lives according to native fashion.
Idleness is the devil’s opportunity; and those who have been in the
schools invariably desire to work. For most of those in the French Congo
work means employment with white men—the government officials or the
traders—and in either case the knowledge of French is necessary. But
others of these boys become catechists and ministers in after years and,
as I have said, if these are to be educated they must know French. It
is fortunate for the missionary teacher that the Africans are very apt
linguists. They have but small talent for some studies; in mathematics
they are usually stupid, but in the acquisition of languages they are
scarcely surpassed.
During my second year in the French Congo I opened a school at Baraka
with a small class of boys, and gradually enlarged it until in my
last year there were seventy-five boys. The whole plan as projected
in my mind, which it took several years to establish, was to have one
central boarding-school at Baraka, with primary day-schools in many of
the towns. In these latter the people, old and young, boys and girls,
as many as wished, were taught to read in their own language. Boys
were required to be able to read in their own language before being
admitted to the boarding-school. Religious teaching was an important
part of the curriculum. Some of the most advanced Christian boys of the
boarding-school became catechists and were sent to those towns where
there were groups of professing Christians (catechumens) awaiting a
course of instruction before being received into the church. For no
converts were baptized inside of two years, during which time they
received a careful course of instruction as nearly continuous as
possible. Ultimately some of these catechists, I hoped, would become
ministers.
The government inspection of the mission schools and the strictness of
the law’s enforcement in regard to the language, depended, as I found,
not much upon the amount of French taught in the school, but upon the
good or ill will of the inspector. Shortly after I went to the French
Congo the missionaries withdrew from the interior station, Angom, but
a day-school in charge of a native teacher was kept open for some time
afterwards, which was quite outside the theory of the plan I have
outlined for the town schools. It was a regular primary school in hours
and curriculum and was not taught by a catechist as a mere adjunct to
his religious work. This school therefore came under the government
inspection. It had been exceedingly difficult to keep a competent teacher
in charge of it, as the government required. Those who knew sufficient
French to teach were few and in great demand for the government service,
in which they received higher wages than we could afford to pay.
A certain Mpongwe man, Remondo, was left in charge of the school when
the missionaries withdrew, but only as a temporary expedient, that
the pupils might be kept together until a competent teacher could be
procured. Remondo was a Roman Catholic, but he was quite willing to lay
aside his scapulary, and his conscience for that matter, for the slight
remuneration incident to the position. Remondo nearly always had a rag
on his toe. Some of his pupils had not even that much clothing. He wrote
his name without a capital letter, and in a line as nearly vertical as
horizontal; and the obliquity of his writing was equalled by the iniquity
of his French; while there was such an uncertainty about his addition
that I used to say that mathematics was not an exact science in Remondo’s
hands. Finally, not being able to procure a competent teacher, I decided
to close the school. Remondo was amazed and he firmly protested. The fact
that he was not doing the work made the position all the more congenial
to his temperament, and made it also, in his opinion, the more ungenerous
to disturb him. Why close the school? Was not the attendance good? Was
not the discipline perfect? I admitted that he had all the accessories of
a good teacher and lacked nothing but the essentials. Nevertheless, my
mind being set upon it, I closed the school.
During this interval while Remondo was in charge, I was in constant dread
of an official visit from the _chef de poste_ of the district, who would
naturally be the government inspector for that school. This dread had
become chronic when one day I was amazed at the receipt of a very kind
letter from the governor himself, informing me that the _chef de poste_,
whom he had directed to visit the school at Angom, had reported that he
had examined the pupils and conversed with the teacher and that the
school was highly satisfactory in every way and a credit to the mission.
The governor hoped that we might open other schools of the same kind!
Goodness gracious! I lost no time in making inquiry of a certain official
as to who was the _chef de poste_ of that district—for I knew there had
been a change lately. He replied: “M. de la R⸺.” Then I understood it all.
The late M. de la R⸺ had already been in the service of the Congo
Français for thirteen years when I first met him. He endured the climate
remarkably well and only at long intervals returned to France on
furlough. He belonged to a good family. He also had a wife and children
in France. His wife once went to Africa with him but she soon returned
home; I was told that she was a fine woman; he himself when I met him was
the pitiful remains of a gentleman who had been ruined by the two vices
which have made West Africa in many minds a synonym for perdition. During
his first years he was faithful in his official duties and he rose in
the service. He was at one time administrator at Bata, not far from our
mission station, Benito. It was under the administration of this very man
that our long-established schools at Benito were closed by the government
on the ground that the law in regard to the French language was not being
strictly observed. But our missionaries of that station believed that the
action of M. de la R⸺ was due to the influence of the French priests.
After many years of increasing dissipation he was dismissed from the
service for various discrepancies. His health was not good, and he was
prematurely old. He had not been in France for many years, and he said
that he would never go there again. Thus he was an outcast and without
means of support in a foreign and hostile climate. At length a certain
trader of Libreville took pity on him. Eight miles back in the bush,
the trader had a coffee-farm that had about petered out; and there he
sent the ex-administrator, and gave him employment for which he paid him
enough to keep him alive. He lived alone there for more than a year,
separate from all white men, a black mistress his only companion.
One day visiting some interior towns, I followed a road that passed
through the farm. I was greatly surprised at seeing a white man there,
but not at all surprised that in such a place he was dressed only in
pajamas. Leaving the road I went to the house to salute him. He told me
who he was and urged me not to hurry on but to stay with him awhile; it
was so good to see a white man. I felt so sorry for him that I thought
I could do no better missionary work for that day than to visit with
him; so I changed my plans accordingly, remained with him all morning
and ate dinner with him, the table being served by his black mistress. I
thought he would probably live but a short time and I felt as if I were
performing his obsequies. It is strange how a man whose dignity resides
not within himself, but wholly in outward circumstances, in social
position, in pecuniary abundance, or the tawdry pomp of authority,—it is
strange how such a man, when these all fail, sinks in his self-respect
to the level of abject prostration. M. de la R⸺ had been fastidiously
regardful of his dress and his personal appearance; but now he spent his
days in shabby pajamas and even shunned the acquaintance of soap and
water.
He spent the whole time of my visit in telling me of the wrongs done
him by fellow officials, that had culminated in his dismissal from the
government service. He shed some tears and I fancied that they made clean
streaks down his face. He told me what a respectable life he had lived;
and I declare that I should never have suspected it. But when he also
claimed sobriety as one of his chief virtues, nothing but the odour of
his breath kept me from becoming an anti-temperance fanatic on the spot.
Several of the men who had informed against him had since died, and
in this he saw the finger of God; for of course they would never have
died if they had not been his enemies. He, the animated remains of M.
de la R⸺, was still the centre and explanation of the government of the
universe, and God was simply a convenient instrument of vengeance. To
that extent he was quite religious. And I ought to add that he believed
in forgiving his enemies—but only after they were dead. But I pitied him
greatly, and stayed with him most of the day. When I left him I had not
the least expectation that I would ever see him again.
A year after this, by a strange turn of the wheel of fortune, this man
was reinstated, and was appointed a _chef de poste_. He easily resumed
his former dignity of manner and care of dress. But he lived only a few
months to enjoy his recovered prestige. During those months, however, he
was appointed to inspect the school at Angom and his enthusiastic report
(for which I hope he may have been forgiven) was the expression of his
gratitude for the visit I had made him when he was without position,
without money and without friends. Thus the bread of a little kindness
cast upon the waters returned after many days multiplied into loaves.
And he was the man who, years before, had closed our splendid school at
Benito, because, forsooth, the missionaries were not diligent enough in
teaching the French language. I also learned from Remondo that at the
close of his inspection of the school at Angom he gave each of the little
boys and girls a present of some tobacco.
When I opened the school at Baraka I found it very difficult to procure
boys. There were many boys who desired to come, but their parents would
not consent. At the beginning of the term I gathered the boys with the
launch, _Dorothy_. The red-hot contentions between me and the fathers
and mothers made this work of opening the school the most exhausting
and trying of the whole year. Often I was constrained to regard the
parental institution as an intolerable nuisance and the orphan estate as
a consummation that the African child might devoutly wish for.
In one town a handsome boy was determined to come with me, and by
prolonged talking I had subdued his father and was hurrying away when
suddenly the mother appeared upon the scene, cursing me, and threatening
to take the boy’s life. Another contention followed, which I won by many
words and a small piece of laundry soap. The victory seemed complete;
the father and mother were sending the boy away with their blessing, and
speaking kind words to me; we were about to get into the canoe to go to
the launch, which was in the middle of the river, when an old and very
ugly woman, grand-aunt or something of that sort, came rushing towards
us, shrieking and flinging her arms about her, cursing me, and altogether
presenting such a spectacle as might suggest that one of Macbeth’s
witches had escaped from the underworld. Quickly, and in great alarm, we
sprang into the canoe and pushed off; for I would rather fight with ten
men than one woman. But there were many of us, we were standing up in
the canoe, and before we had sufficient way on she had waded after us up
to her neck in water, and laying hold of the canoe with both hands, she
tried to capsize it—which would be easily done. The state of my health
made it advisable that I should try to avoid being thrown into the river.
Besides, the whole town was now gathered on the bank, rending the air
with laughter, and if I failed they would continue to laugh for a year or
two. I caught her hands and tried to wrench them from the side of the
canoe; but I did not wish to use all my strength against an old woman,
and moreover she had the advantage of standing on the ground, while I had
to balance the canoe; so I failed in the effort. A second more and we
would have been in the river, when I caught her by the back of the neck,
and, ducking her head under the water, I held her there as solemnly as I
could until she so far weakened as to let go her hold on the canoe, and
we moved on, while the audience on the bank cheered. But I had a most
unheroic feeling all the rest of that day.
In another town, a father who refused to let his boy go, said: “I don’t
want my boy coming back here knowing more than his father, his skin all
clean, while his old father sits around with the itch scratching himself.
Why, the boy would despise me! I won’t let him go.”