THE ALEXANDRA NILE.--FRED'S DESCRIPTION OF THE WEST COAST OF AFRICA.
From Dumo they continued their course to the southward, passing a
crescent-shaped bay, bordered by a dense forest and backed by a
semicircle of hills. Beyond this bay they turned a headland, and a few
minutes afterward Fred observed that the water was of a darker color
than they had hitherto found it.
"According to the map," said the Doctor, "this is the Bay of Usongora;
the Alexandra Nile empties into it, and its waters, rolling through an
alluvial country, are charged with earthy matter, which gives it the
color you perceive."
Frank wished to ascend the river; but the Doctor said they could not do
so, as it would not be in accordance with their agreement with M'tesa to
attempt any explorations. They passed near enough to the mouth of the
river to see that it was about one hundred and fifty yards wide, and by
the way the water flowed into the lake there was evidently a
considerable volume of it. Stanley ascended the river about three miles,
and said he found the current so strong that his boats made very slow
progress, and he was obliged to give up the attempt.
The plain on each side of the river in the portion near the lake is from
five to ten miles wide, and in the season of high water it is completely
overflowed. The Alexandra Nile is the largest of the affluents of the
Victoria N'yanza; the second largest river flowing into it is the
Shimeeyu, and the two streams together are estimated to be nearly equal
to the volume of water that passes Ripon Falls. Most of the natives call
the Alexandra Nile "the mother of the river at Jinja," or the Ripon
Falls.
[Illustration: VIEW OF THE UPLANDS IN KARAGUÉ.]
The kingdom of Ugunda terminates at the Alexandra Nile, which is its
southern boundary; but the kingdoms of Karagué and Usongora, which lie
beyond it, are subject to M'tesa, having been conquered by him during
the early part of his reign. The manners and customs of the people of
the two provinces are much like those of Ugunda; they live principally
by cultivating the banana and other edible things of the tropics, and in
the chase of the lion and elephant they display a good deal of courage.
They are usually hospitable to strangers; but their chiefs are apt to
exact a heavy tribute, in one way and another, from all who pass through
their territory.
Speke found the King of Karagué very obliging, and was plundered much
less than he had expected to be. Other travellers have spoken well of
the country, which they describe as an upland region, diversified with
dense forests and open plains, the latter covered with tall grass, and
giving promise of great fertility. The natives have large herds of
cattle, sheep, and goats; the cattle are said to be of a superior breed,
and their horns grow to an unusual size. A cow's horn was given to Speke
that proved to be three feet five inches long, and nearly nineteen
inches in circumference at the base.
Stanley describes Rumanika, King of Karagué, as a finely-formed man, at
least six feet six inches in height, as the top of the explorer's head
when they walked side by side only reached to the king's shoulders. His
face was long, with a nose of Roman shape, and his profile was decidedly
of a refined type. He was a gentle savage, fond of receiving strangers,
and desirous of supplying all the information they desired. What he
lacked in knowledge he made up in imagination, as he told Stanley of a
race of dwarfs only two feet in height dwelling in the region west of
Karagué, while in Uriambwa there was a race of small people with tails.
He closed his story with the statement that some of his subjects had
seen in those far-off lands a strange people, who had long ears
descending to their feet: one ear formed a mat for the owner to sleep
on, and the other served to cover him from the cold, like a dressed
hide. "They tried to coax one of them to come and see me," said the
king, "but the journey was long, and he died on the way."
From the mouth of the Alexandra Nile our friends continued their voyage
along the coast, halting at islands, or at villages on the main-land,
whenever it was necessary to rest the men or purchase provisions. Frank
wanted to visit Alice Island, which Stanley made famous, but Doctor
Bronson said it was too far out of their track. Alice Island is about
thirty miles from the coast, and directly opposite the large village of
Makongo, and its inhabitants are a timid and inoffensive race of
fishermen.
Fred asked why it was called "Alice" Island.
"Don't you remember," said Frank, "that it was so named by Stanley in
honor of his boat, the _Lady Alice_?"
"Certainly I do," was the reply, "but for the moment I had forgotten it.
Wouldn't it be nice if we had a boat like the _Lady Alice_ for
navigating the lake?"
"Of course it would," responded Frank; "but we haven't anything of the
kind, and are getting along very well with the boats of King M'tesa."
[Illustration: THE "LADY ALICE," IN SECTIONS.]
"The _Lady Alice_," he continued, "was an invention of Stanley, and
served his purpose admirably. She was forty feet long, six feet beam,
and thirty inches deep, built of Spanish cedar, three-eighths of an inch
in thickness. When finished she was separated into five sections, each
of them eight feet long, so that she could be carried by porters from
the coast to the Victoria N'yanza, and from one lake to another. Stanley
launched the _Lady Alice_ on the Victoria N'yanza, which he
circumnavigated. Afterward he made a similar voyage around Lake
Tanganyika; and in the same boat he descended a portion of the Congo, or
Livingstone, till he was compelled to abandon her on reaching the great
falls of that river."
"I remember now," said Fred, "that he went from Alice Island to
Bumbireh, where he had a fight with the natives, and came near losing
his life. That must be Bumbireh right ahead of us, I suppose?"
"Yes," answered the Doctor, to whom the remark was partially addressed,
"that is Bumbireh; but we will not land there, and run the risk of a
reception similar to that of Stanley. We will pass along the channel
between the large island and the main-land, and what we see of Bumbireh
will be from our places in the boat."
They moved steadily down the channel, and the boys made note of the fact
that the island was fifteen or twenty miles long, and that the greater
part of it was densely wooded. Near the water there was a strip of
beach, sometimes broken by shelving rocks. Where the beach was sandy
canoes were frequently visible, the most of them drawn up quite high and
dry out of the water. Groups of natives came down to gaze upon the
passing flotilla, and at one point there was a movement which indicated
a possibility of hostilities. Several natives ran wildly up and down the
sands, gesticulating violently, and evidently calling others to come out
from the huts in the forest and make ready for a fight. Two or three
canoes were pushed into the water, but nobody ventured to attack the
flotilla. The islanders were doubtless restrained by motives of
prudence, as they could easily see the white men in the boats, and they
were well aware that the white men's weapons are not to be despised.
After passing Bumbireh the expedition halted on a small island which was
without inhabitants; but our friends were able to purchase all the fish
they wanted from some boats which they encountered in the vicinity. They
were now at the southern end of the N'yanza, and another day's run
carried them to M'salala, which was at the end of a narrow gulf
extending inland several miles, and was the limit of their boat journey.
We will leave our friends to get on shore, discharge the boats, and
start them on their return to M'tesa, while we repeat some of their
conversation during the voyage.
While they were returning from Ripon Falls to Rubaga, Doctor Bronson
told Fred he would like to have him read up the description of the West
Coast of Africa on the first opportunity, and be able to give a brief
account of it during their southward voyage. The halt at Usavara gave
him the needed time, which he improved to advantage. They were not
provided with a large number of books on that part of the country, but,
fortunately, there were enough for his purpose.
"The West Coast of Africa," said he, "is properly comprised between the
Desert of Sahara and Cape Negro, the latter being about latitude 19°
south. There are three divisions of this region, known as Senegambia,
Upper Guinea, and Lower Guinea, and each of them comprises several
native states, and nearly as many European possessions."
"You can read all that in an encyclopædia or any good geography," said
Frank, with a slight laugh.
"Of course you can," retorted Fred; "but if you don't happen to have
read it, and no one has told you, it is pretty certain to be news to
you."
Frank admitted the correctness of Fred's statement and the story was
continued.
"The English have a settlement at Bathurst, on the Gambia River, and
there are other small settlements near it. There is another settlement,
called Sierra Leone, on a peninsula eighteen miles long by twelve in
width. The Danes and Dutch formerly had settlements along the coast, but
they ceded them to England, the former in 1850, and the latter in 1872.
The Spaniards once held quite an extent of coast, but at present their
only possession is the island of Fernando Po, which they use as a
convict station.
"The Portuguese still have control of a large extent of country--at
least, nominally--and they have several small ports where they do quite
a trade in palm-oil, india-rubber, ivory, gold, and other products of
Africa. They formerly dealt in slaves, but have followed the fashion of
England and abolished the slave-trade--at least, in name. But a great
deal of the traffic is kept up at the present time, the slaves being
taken south from interior stations in the Portuguese possessions and
sold to the Kaffirs, instead of being brought to the coast.
[Illustration: NATIVE VILLAGE ON THE GOLD COAST.]
"The English and French are now the only great nations with settlements
of any consequence in Western Africa. The principal stations of the
French are at Assinee, on the Gold Coast, and at Gaboon, on the river of
the same name. In the north-west they have settlements on the Senegal
River, where they have spent a great deal of money and wasted the lives
of many Frenchmen without much advantage. Quite recently they have made
an effort to establish a colony on the Livingstone, by supporting an
Italian adventurer named De Brazza, who claims to have secured a grant
of territory from a native chief.
[Illustration: CAPE COAST CASTLE.]
"The foreign settlements are chiefly for purposes of trade; and as they
have been placed there in most instances against the will of the
natives, and are liable at any time to be assaulted, they are generally
protected by fortifications. One of the strongest of these is Cape Coast
Castle. The English settled there more than two hundred years ago, and
established themselves on a rocky point, where they were quite safe from
the natives, and could make good resistance to a European foe. The Dutch
had a fortress called Elmina only a short distance from Cape Coast
Castle, and sometimes the garrisons were not on friendly terms, owing to
the different policies pursued by the English and Dutch."
"But you haven't said anything about Liberia," said Frank. "You know
that in the United States we have heard a great deal about Liberia,
which was settled by negroes liberated from slavery in our country and
other parts of America."
"I'm coming to that," replied Fred. "The first settlement of the kind
was Sierra Leone, which was founded in 1787, with a colony of five
hundred destitute negroes sent from London by some charitable people who
wanted to help them along. A few years later one thousand liberated
slaves from Nova Scotia were sent there, and in succeeding years there
was an immigration of several thousand negroes from the West Indies.
When the British cruisers began to capture slave-ships they took all the
captives to Sierra Leone and set them free. That's the way the colony
was peopled, and it now has about forty thousand inhabitants, of whom
only a little more than a hundred are Europeans. It has schools,
churches, a theological college, and other educational institutions, and
the people are as intelligent as those of any European city."
Frank asked what was the religion of the people of Sierra Leone.
"There is a bishop of the Church of England," replied Fred, "and there
are nearly a hundred ordained ministers, but they have not been very
successful in converting the negroes. The most of the inhabitants are
Moslems, and it has been found much easier to convert them to
Mohammedanism than to Christianity.
"Now for Liberia," he continued. "The first settlement in the republic
was made in 1820 by the American Colonization Society, which sent some
emancipated negroes there. A 'declaration of independence' was made in
1847, and the Republic of Liberia was organized much after the form of
the United States. The President holds office four years, the same as
with us; there is a regular staff of cabinet officers, and a Senate and
House of Representatives. The country extends about six hundred miles
along the coast, and has a population of seven hundred and twenty
thousand. Seven hundred thousand of them are aborigines, and the rest
are negroes from the United States, and their descendants.
[Illustration: MONROVIA, LIBERIA.]
"Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, contains about thirteen thousand
inhabitants, and has schools, colleges, churches, and the like, similar
to Sierra Leone. The colony has been fairly prosperous, and the republic
has made treaties of commerce with the principal nations of Europe and
America. If you want to know more about it there are several books which
give its history in detail."
Frank said he had heard quite as much as he was likely to remember, and
with this remark the lesson on the history of the colonies of Sierra
Leone and Liberia came to an end.
The Doctor asked Fred what he had learned relative to the healthiness of
the African coast, or rather of that part of it which was under
discussion.
[Illustration: FREE TOWN, SIERRA LEONE.]
"As to that," replied Fred, "there is no healthiness at all for the
white man, but, 'on the contrary, quite the reverse.' From February to
December, 1871, of the ninety-eight European residents at Free-town, in
Sierra Leone, twenty-four died, and in other years the mortality has
been in nearly the same proportion. Other points along the coast are
pretty nearly as fatal to the white visitor, and also to the negro born
and reared in temperate climates. Strangers soon after their arrival are
attacked with a fever which seems to be caused by the malarious
exhalations from the earth. The fever shows itself by loss of appetite,
pains in the back, severe and long-continued headache, together with
gastric troubles that develop into bilious remittent fever. Sometimes it
yields to medical treatment, but more frequently it develops into the
dreaded African fever, which is marked by intense headache and delirium.
In this stage it is frequently fatal. The negro who escapes can consider
himself acclimated; but the white man is liable to a return of the
disease, as the first attack does not secure him against subsequent
ones."
"A very good lecture on the African fever," said the Doctor. "I don't
think you are likely to encourage emigration in the direction of the
Gold Coast."
Fred bowed his acknowledgment of the Doctor's compliment, and said the
more he read and heard of the West Coast of Africa, the less was his
desire to go there, even for a very brief visit.
[Illustration: A STREET IN COOMASSIE.]
"Now I'll tell you about Ashantee," he continued. "I've been reading
about it in Stanley's 'Coomassie and Magdala,' and other books, and am
ready to set up as an authority on the subject."
Frank nodded his readiness to hear about the land of King Coffee, the
warlike ruler who gave the British government a great deal of trouble in
1874, and who held out till his capital was burned, after the defeat of
his army and his narrow escape from capture.
[Illustration: A VILLAGE IN ASHANTEE.]
"Ashantee," said Fred, "is a kingdom whose boundaries are not very well
defined; it has a population estimated at not less than three millions,
and its government is a despotism of the most arbitrary character.
"The king has the power of life and death over all his subjects; he is
the owner of a great part of the country, and is regarded as the natural
heir of everybody. When a subject dies the king takes everything he
wants, and leaves the rest to the dead man's relatives. He usually shows
his generosity by taking whatever unwrought gold there may happen to be
on the estate, and relinquishes his claims to ornaments, furniture, and
other effects. He collects a tax of twenty per cent. on all gold
manufactured in the country, and in addition to this he has a large
revenue from the mines where the precious metal is obtained."
"The king evidently has a nice time of it," said Frank; "and if ever the
choice of a throne is offered to me I'll keep Ashantee in mind."
"Perhaps you won't care for it so much," Fred answered, "when I tell you
that the king is in constant fear of his life, as he never knows what
plots may be formed for his assassination. Existing only by tyranny, he
is subject to the same rule as other tyrants, and is liable to be
overthrown at any moment.
[Illustration: "YOUNG GUINEA."]
"The two great institutions of Ashantee are slavery and polygamy. Some
rich men own a thousand slaves each, and the king has many thousands of
them at his command. In the matter of marriage he is under restrictions,
as he is only permitted to have three thousand three hundred and
thirty-three wives. No doubt he would like to have more, but the custom
of the country forbids him to do so."
Frank wanted to know if the king went out to walk often, and took his
family along.
"Probably not," replied Fred, "as the wives of the king are really
laborers on his plantations, or at least the most of them are. During
the working season they are scattered where their work is needed, but at
other times they occupy two streets in the capital city, where they are
secluded from the gaze of all except the king and his female slaves. Any
man who looks upon one of them even by accident must suffer death.
[Illustration: FANTEE GENTLEMAN AND SOLDIER.]
"Until the slave-trade was suppressed on the coast of Western Africa,
Ashantee had a thriving business in selling prisoners of war or
disposing of its surplus population, but of late years this commerce has
been cut off, and the country has been restricted to dealings in gold
and other products of the land. It is separated from the coast by the
country of the Fantees, who are hostile to the Ashantees, and frequently
at war with them. On two occasions, when the English have supported the
Fantees in hostilities against the Ashantees, the latter have marched
large armies to the coast and threatened the safety of Cape Coast Castle
and Elmina. Once they actually compelled the British governor to make
terms of peace, and in 1824 they defeated a British army, and killed the
commander and nearly all his officers.
[Illustration: THE BURNING OF COOMASSIE.]
"Things went on in a very unsatisfactory way till 1873, when the Dutch
fort of Elmina and the surrounding possessions were ceded to the
English. The Dutch had paid the King of Ashantee a tribute of £500 a
year, which the English discontinued. Thereupon the king sent an army to
collect it, but he was defeated, though not driven back. In 1874 Sir
Garnet Wolseley was sent there with two thousand English troops. To
these he added a large force of Fantees, with which he invaded Ashantee
and burned Coomassie, its capital city. Two severe battles were fought,
and in the second of them the king commanded in person, and only
retreated after a fight of six hours.
"This is the famous 'Ashantee war' of which we read a few years ago. The
treaty of peace which followed the burning of Coomassie required the
king to pay an indemnity of fifty thousand ounces of gold, keep a road
open to the coast, and abolish human sacrifices."
"I have read about these sacrifices," said Frank. "It is stated
somewhere that at least a thousand slaves were sacrificed every year, in
a certain grove near the king's palace at Coomassie."
"That is the case," replied Doctor Bronson, "and the worst of the story
is not told. It was the custom, on occasions of festivity or
mourning--in fact, on every affair of publicity--to kill a certain
number of victims. If slaves were convenient they were selected to be
offered up; but it often happened that the immediate attendants of the
king were taken at an instant's notice. A traveller tells that one day
two messengers came to inform the king of the discovery of a new
gold-mine, and brought samples of the gold produced by it.
"The king looked at the gold with evident pleasure, and then ordered a
sacrifice in honor of the discovery. The most convenient victims were
the two messengers. They were immediately seized and taken to the
sacrificial grove, where they were given to the Ashantee divinities,
with the customary ceremonies."
[Illustration: A BELLE OF THE GUINEA COAST.]
"What a horrid custom!" exclaimed Frank. "The English did a good thing
for humanity in putting an end to it. Have they ever sent missionaries
among the people?"
"They have done so," was the reply, "but with very poor success. Some
Ashantees have become Christians, but only a very few, and the
missionaries have become discouraged. Quite lately there have been
reports that Moslem missionaries have come from Central Africa and
attempted to convert the Ashantees to their faith. They are said to be
meeting with good success, and possibly before many years the whole
nation will become Mohammedans. Anything is better than the horrid
paganism that formerly prevailed. However much Mohammedanism is behind
Christianity, as Stanley explained to King M'tesa, it is vastly better
than the old religions of Africa, with their wanton disregard of human
life."
"I suppose," said Frank, "that the gold from this part of Africa is the
'Guinea gold' which we often read about?"
"Quite right," was the reply. "Guinea gold was known in Europe long
before gold from America, and the golden guineas of England were made
from it. No guineas are coined now, and the piece of twenty-one
shillings is not in circulation. London tradesmen, especially when
dealing with foreigners, like to reckon prices in guineas, as they can
thereby add five per cent. to their figures, since the stranger does not
always mark the difference between guineas and sovereigns."
The arrival of the boat at the point where the camp was to be made for
the night brought the conversation to an end.
[Illustration: VIEW OF ELMINA, ON THE GOLD COAST.]