[Illustration]
ABEOKUTA
AND
THE CAMAROONS MOUNTAINS.
An Exploration.
BY
RICHARD F. BURTON,
VICE PRES. ANTHROP. SOC. OF LONDON; GOLD MEDALLIST, GEOG. SOCS., PARIS
AND LONDON;
F.R.G.S. LONDON; M.A.S.; M.A.S. BOMBAY; M. ETHNO. S. LONDON.
“Geography, though an earthly study, is a heavenly subject.”—_Burke._
_IN TWO VOLUMES._
VOL. I.
LONDON:
TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18 CATHERINE STREET, STRAND.
1863.
[_The right of Translation is reserved._]
LONDON: PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING
CROSS.
TO
MY BEST FRIEND,
MY WIFE,
THESE PAGES ARE LOVINGLY INSCRIBED.
Sic ego desertis possim bene vivere sylvis.
Quo nulla humano sit via trita pede.
Tu mihi curarum requies, in nocte vel atrâ
Lumen, et in solis tu mihi turba locis.
PREFACE.
* * * * *
It is an explorer’s duty to record as well as to receive impressions of
what appears novel to him. Amongst the English, Robert Bruce and Mungo
Park; Adanson and the Abbé Rochon amongst the French; and amongst the
Germans, Humboldt, the ‘Prince of Travellers,’ were so mindful of this
obligation, that they spent long years in polishing their journals; and
they owe at least as much—if not more—of their enduring celebrity to
their admirable descriptions as to the extent of their discoveries and
the accuracy of their observations. Let us follow—however humbly—in
their wake without repining. Such, however, is by no means the case with
contemporaries: in these days every little leader of an expedition,
forgetting that ‘_scribere est agere_,’ finds a ready salve for sore
vanity by writing as it were under protest, and by assuming the
superiority of one who boasts that it is his peculiar province to do—not
to write.
But, _quorsum hæc tam putida tendunt?_ Abeokuta—Understone—the present
capital of the Egba or Aku race, and without comparison the most
important position in the broad lands which we know by the name of
Yoruba, is, as might be expected, a ‘_trita via_.’ Four volumes upon the
subject have been alluded to in the following pages. Two of these are by
the weaker sex; and the authoresses, who are not travellers, have
produced neat little drawing-room sketches, all _couleur de rose_; the
African as you see him upon the walls of the Royal Academy, now dressed
up and _musqué_, now subjected to the old stock horrors—slave-driving,
for instance—which he is made to endure with all the gestures of a
Briton: it is, in fact, Ethiopia viewed through European eyes—Africa by
the ‘own artist’ of the ‘Illustrated News.’ The other two are in the
missionary-African line; they, of course, run in a well-known groove.
Without quoting the old saw, ‘_semper aliquid novi ex Africâ_,’ there is
still much to say upon the well-worn subject of Abeokuta. And the tale
of an unenthusiastic traveller, who tells the truth as far as truth lies
in him, cannot fail, even when treating of Yoruba, to convey some novel
facts.
The land which for fifteen years has interested us by its rumoured
progress—the reverend and learned author of ‘Westward Ho!’ speaks of the
blood-stained hosts of Dahome being rolled back by ‘Christian Abeokuta’
at a time when there was about one convert, or ‘professor,’ to one
thousand of the heathenry—and by the equally fanciful reports that it
will supply our idle looms with cotton, has now entered into fresh and
closer relations with the British empire. Lagos, distant about sixty
miles from the head-quarters of the Egbas, has become an English colony,
and will necessarily influence, for weal or for woe, all adjacent
countries. It may extend its moral force throughout Yoruba, and become
valuable, not only as a depôt of, and an outlet for, trade, but also, by
aiding to abolish slave exportation, and by causing human sacrifice and
petty wars to cease, it may save our country a considerable portion of
the million sterling annually expended upon the West African ‘coffin-
squadron.’ As yet, however, our steps have _not_ been in the right
direction. It will presently appear that we have petted our bantling
Abeokuta, and that the spoiled child has waxed fat and kicked—as the
proverb says—against the foreign pricks. We have aroused the ever
wakeful suspicions of the barbarian, and he has not been slow in
entering upon energetic measures: of this, however, more hereafter.
I have attempted to point out in these pages the simple measures—our
West African policy has hitherto erred rather by commission than by
omission—which, in my humble opinion, will secure our influence upon the
sea-board of Yoruba.
The Second Part of this work has been made a pendant to the First, and
the reader will readily perceive the reason. The Camaroons Mountains,
partially familiar to geographers for the last four hundred years, have
remained, as far as exploration is concerned, virgin ground with a
virgin flora, a virgin climate; in fact, virginal all. Captain John
Adams (p. 178, ‘Remarks on the Country extending from Cape Palmas to the
River Congo.’ London: 1823) may be quoted to prove this: ‘A few leagues
to the southward of Del Rey there are some moderately high hills, called
the high land of Camaroons, the altitudes of which have been much
magnified by some travellers, who were probably deceived in consequence
of the surrounding country being a few feet only above the level of the
sea, which gave them, in their eyes, a degree of consequence they would
not have merited had they been placed in an elevated country.’ Of late,
two stout-hearted attempts have been made to scale these glorious
heights, but by force of circumstances neither of them proved
successful. I could not but break a lance with a foe so formidable; and
fate willed the trial not to end in failure.
It was hardly, however, the mere ambition of leaving my mark, to _faire
époque_ on Western Africa, that impelled me to the task. The desire of
adventure was subsidiary to higher views. I need not now here enlarge
upon the movement lately set on foot in British India; suffice it to
say, there will not be, we progressists fondly believe, a single
European regiment stationed permanently, twenty years hence, on the
plains. If it be found advisable in comparatively salubrious Hindostan
to establish hill sanitaria, it becomes a necessity for the yellow-fever
haunted coast of Western Africa. And I hope to make it evident that the
Camaroons Mountains tract is admirably adapted, not only for a
sanitarium, but for a convict station, where those expecting tickets of
leave can undergo a fair trial, and where the incurables can be employed
in expiating, by useful labour, the outrages which they have committed
upon society. And, finally, a colony, selected from the 45,000 negroes,
who, instead of loafing about Canada—a Canadian once told me that if
anything could reconcile him to slavery it was the presence of these
fugitives—might here do valuable work in lumber cutting, cacao growing,
exporting the fibre and meal of the plaintain, and expressing cocoa-nut
and palm oil.
In the conclusion to Vol. II., I have attempted to suggest the readiest
and most efficient method of attaining a result so truly advisable.
The _personnel_ of our ‘international expedition,’ as we called it,
numbered six members, D. Calvo Atilano Iturburu, of Fernando Po; Messrs.
Saker and Smith, of the ‘Camaroons Mission;’ M. Gustav Mann, Government
botanist in West Africa; my factotum Selim Aga, and myself. We assumed
the right, concessible only in a ‘no man’s land,’ of christening the
several peaks: the loftiest was honoured with the name of our Most
Gracious Sovereign, and, from the highest Lady in the kingdom, we
gradually descended to friends and relatives.
The brief and popular notices of the vegetation upon the Camaroons
Mountains are exclusively the work of M. Mann. To the kindness of Sir
William Hooker I owe the list of specimens collected during our visit to
that interesting region; and Dr. Gray has obliged me with the names of
the small animals that were stuffed by Selim Aga. These important
additions are inserted in the Appendix, and I here record my gratitude
for all favours received.
The daily thermometric observations were registered by M. Mann, and
during his illness by Selim Aga under my inspection. Many of the
bearings taken for the map, which was protracted by Mr. George, of the
Royal Geographical Society, are the work of the Rev. A. Saker, whose
energetic assistance was one of the main causes of our success. Without
the aid of that gentleman, and of Messrs. Johnson and Pinnock, of
Victoria, our progress would indeed have been slow. Unfortunately we
were badly provided with instruments; neither chronometer, anemometer,
sympiesometer, nor mercurial barometer for correcting aneroids were in
the camp: I had applied for them, but they had not arrived. As in the
Hydrographic Office chart the main points visible from the sea have been
laid down by a satisfactory triangulation, we confined ourselves to the
prismatic compass; and I taped the road with a line supplied by Lieut.
Stokes, R.N., H.M.S. ‘Bloodhound.’ A pathway up the mountains is now, we
may say, permanently opened; Victoria Bay is within a few hours’ sail of
Fernando Po; and I may venture to promise that, if any questions of
interest are forwarded to me from Europe, they shall be answered to the
best of my power—life and health enduring—in the course of the next dry
season.
I assume nothing on this occasion beyond the modest character of a
reconnoitrer. A writer in the ‘Times’ has lately given to my last
African explorations in Harar and the Lake Regions the title of
reconnaissances. _C’est bien le mot_. I accept it as the best
description of my scanty contributions towards the extension of
geographical knowledge in the ‘dark continent,’ and accordingly it is
prefixed to the Second Part of this work.
It may be satisfactory to my friends to know that, on this occasion,
favoured by his own good fortune, or rather by the misfortunes of
others, an Englishman was the first who, standing upon Victoria
Mountain, gazed into the gigantic black chasm that yawned at his feet.
And—here I speak for my companions—it is also pleasant to reflect that
the name of Europeans will hereafter be respected in the region through
which we travelled.
The Appendices are—
1st. A description of the Ambozes, or Camaroons Country, by M. J.
Grazilhier, who in 1699 made a voyage to Old Calabar—extracted from
Barbot.
2nd. The journal of the late Mr. Merrick, of the Camaroons Mission,
who, as far as is known, first attempted to ascend the mountain: it is
borrowed from the ‘Baptist Missionary Herald.’
3rd. Sir William Hooker’s list of the botanical specimens collected
upon the Camaroons Mountains by M. Gustav Mann.
4th. Dr. Gray’s descriptions of the animals forwarded to the British
Museum, at the end of the Camaroons explorations.
5th. Letters, official reports, and memorandum, on the high land of
Camaroons, by the late Mr. M‘Gregor Laird and the Rev. A. Saker
(reprinted from the Blue Book of 1857).
6th. Meteorological observations, by M. Gustav Mann and Selim Aga.
7th. Hypsometrical table.
With the firm expectation of seeing, _quam primum_, a sanitarium for the
feverish denizens of Lagos, the Oil Rivers, and Fernando Po, established
in this region of health and future plenty, and hoping that the public
will honour my labours with its approval, I relieve the reader from the
tedium of a longer preface.
RICHARD F. BURTON.
_Fernando Po_, 1863.
CONTENTS.
* * * * *
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
FROM LAGOS TO ABEOKUTA 1