How long I remained steeped in that delightful and refreshing sleep I
did not then know; but when at length I awoke with a violent start the
embers of the fire were merely smouldering, while the snorts and snores
that were emitted by the recumbent figures grouped around it seemed to
indicate that the fateful moment had arrived when I might make a bid for
liberty with some prospect of success. It was now very much darker than
it had been when I sank into involuntary slumber, for the moon had swung
so far over toward the west that at least two-thirds of the small
clearing which we occupied were enveloped in deep shadow, but I observed
with some dismay that my path to the canoe lay directly across the patch
that was still bathed in the moon's rays. That, however, could not be
helped; I could not afford to delay until the moon had sunk low enough
to throw the entire clearing into shadow, for with the setting of the
moon would come dawn and sunrise. I therefore determined to start upon
my attempt forthwith, and, as a first step, rolled myself over, away
from the fire, as though stirring in my sleep.
I was now lying with my back to the fire, and could therefore not see my
companions or observe what effect, if any, my movement had had upon
them; but I resolved not to fail for want of caution, so I made no
further attempt to withdraw myself for the next ten minutes, but
confined myself simply to a few restless movements, as though--which was
actually the case--I was being worried by the swarms of minute creeping
and biting things with which the spot abounded. Then, at the end of
about ten minutes from my first movement, I ventured again to roll over
in the same direction as before, which once more brought me with my face
toward the fire. I now opened my eyes cautiously and carefully surveyed
my surroundings. Not one of the black figures about the fire appeared
to have altered his position in the slightest degree, so far as I could
perceive, while the snoring and snorting still proceeded as vigorously
as ever. I lay quite still for two or three minutes, and then, as
everything seemed perfectly safe, and I had not too much time to spare,
I decided that I might venture upon a somewhat more rapid mode of
progression. I accordingly raised myself upon my hands and knees, and
proceeded to crawl very cautiously toward the canoe, looking back from
time to time to see if I were observed.
It was while I was thus engaged in looking back, while still creeping
forward, that, as I put forth my right hand, it fell upon something cold
and clammy that stirred beneath my touch, and the next instant I felt a
sharp pricking sensation in the fleshy base of my right thumb. Like
lightning I snatched my hand away, threw myself backward and sprang to
my feet with an involuntary cry; and as I did so I indistinctly caught
sight of a small wriggling object in the long grass that seemed to
vanish in a flash. It was a snake, and it had bitten me! Yes, there
was no mistake about that, for as I lifted my hand to my eyes there was
light enough for me to see two drops of blood, about a quarter of an
inch apart upon my right hand. Upon the spur of the moment I clapped
the wounded part to my mouth and sucked vigorously, spitting out such
blood as I was able to draw from the wound, and this I continued to do
industriously for the next hour or more. But my chance of escape was
gone for that night at least; for my cry brought the whole of the
savages to their feet as one man, with their weapons grasped and ready
for instant use. Some half-a-dozen of them, seeing me upon my feet,
sprang toward me and surrounded me with angry cries, but I did not of
course make the slightest attempt to run; on the contrary, I showed them
my wounded hand, and, with two fingers of my left hand extended, made a
motion as of a snake striking his fangs into my flesh. The individual
whom I took to be the chief of the little party thereupon led me back to
the fire, and thrusting two or three dry twigs into the smouldering
ashes, fanned the latter into a blaze with his breath, thus causing the
twigs to ignite. Then, using these twigs as a torch, he carefully
examined my wounded hand, shook his head as though to indicate that I
had no chance, cast the blazing twigs to the ground, and saying a few
words to his companions, lay down and again composed himself to sleep,
an example at once followed by his companions. I, however, remained
awake, diligently sucking my wounded hand, which soon began to swell and
grow acutely painful, the throbbing pain extending all the way up my
arm, right to the shoulder. The pain at length became so acute that I
could sit still no longer, I therefore sprang to my feet and began to
pace to and fro; but I had no sooner done so than half-a-dozen of the
savages were beside me, not exactly interfering with me--for I think
they understood pretty clearly what was the matter with me--but making
it perfectly plain that they were watching me, and that only a certain
amount of freedom would be permitted me. Whether they really understood
that I was actually attempting to effect my escape when the snake bit
me, I was never able to determine.
At length the dawn arrived, day broke, the sun rose, and a few of the
savages, taking their bows and arrows, went off into the bush to forage,
as I surmised; and a little later they returned, one after the other,
each bringing some contribution to the common larder, while others
busied themselves in collecting fresh wood and rebuilding the fire.
While they were thus engaged, one of the party, who happened to pass
near the spot where I had been bitten, suddenly uttered a most dreadful
yell, grasped his left foot, looked at it a moment, and then began with
furious haste to search about in the long grass, which he pushed apart
with the blade of his spear. A few seconds later he fell to stabbing
the ground, as it seemed, savagely, finally stooping down and picking up
the still writhing halves of a snake that had been cut clean in two by a
blow of his spear. It was not at all a formidable-looking creature,
being not more than eighteen inches long and perhaps three inches girth
about the thickest part of its body. But it was an ugly, repulsive-
looking brute, its head being heart-shaped, and its body almost the same
thickness for the greater part of its length, terminating in a short,
blunt tail. Its ground colour was a dirty grey, upon which occurred
large, irregular blotches or markings of dull black with a few splashes
of brilliant red here and there. The fellow who had fallen upon it with
such ferocity, and who had evidently been bitten by it, brought the two
writhing fragments and flung them into the fire, in the midst of which
they writhed still more horribly. Then seizing a good, stout, brightly-
glowing brand from the fire, he coolly sat down and applied the almost
white-hot end to the wound, which was in his left instep. I do not
think I ever saw anything more heroic than this act of the savage, for
though the flesh hissed and smoked and gave forth a most horrible odour
of burnt flesh, the man never winced, but calmly and deliberately
cauterised the bite with as much care and thoroughness as though he had
been operating upon somebody else. But that he was not insensible to
his self-inflicted torture was very evident from the fact that in a few
seconds he was literally drenched with the perspiration that started
from every pore of his body.
While this was happening, the leader of the party had hurriedly raked
from the fire the scorched and blistered half of the snake to which the
head was attached, and, seizing it by the neck, squeezed it until the
jaws were forced open, revealing two long, slender, needle-like fangs
projecting from the upper jaw. Holding this horrible object between the
finger and thumb of his right hand, he approached me, and, before I had
the least idea of what he intended to do, seized my wounded hand and
approached the head of the still living reptile so closely to it that it
was easily to be seen that the two tiny punctures in my flesh were
exactly the same distance apart as the snake's fangs, the inference
being that this was the identical reptile that had bitten me. Having
satisfied himself of this, the man flung the loathsome object back into
the heart of the fire, where it was soon consumed.
I was by this time suffering the most dreadful agony, my hand and arm
were so terribly swollen that they had almost lost all semblance to any
portion of the human anatomy, while the two punctures made by the poison
fangs were puffed up, almost to bursting, and encircled by two rings of
livid grey colour. The throbbing of the limb, as the blood forced
itself through the congested passages, can only be compared to the
pulsing of a stream of fire, and I am certain that, had I been within
reach of qualified surgical assistance at the moment, I should have
insisted upon having the limb removed, as I was convinced that the pain
of amputation would have been less acute than that from which I was
suffering. Needless to say, I had no appetite for food when it was
offered me a little while afterward; but I felt thirsty enough to drink
the river dry, and quaffed several cocoa-nuts with an ecstasy of delight
that almost caused me to forget my pain--for the moment.
Breakfast over, the word was given to re-embark, and we all wended our
way back to the canoe. I do not know whether it was deliberate
intention, or merely the result of accident, but I could not help
noticing that during the short journey from our camping-place to the
spot where the canoe had been left, there were always three or four
savages quite close to me, who appeared to be keeping a very careful
watch upon my movements, as though they more than half suspected me of a
desire to give them the slip; but I was by this time suffering such
excruciating agony that, for the time being at least, all thoughts of
escape were completely banished from my mind. I had become quite
convinced that the bite was going to prove fatal, and my only subject of
speculation was how many more hours of torture I was doomed to endure
before merciful death would come to my relief. But after we had been
afloat for about half an hour, and were once more speeding up the river
as fast as the sturdy arms of the paddlers could urge us, I suddenly
became violently sick, the paroxysm lasting for nearly ten minutes; and
when I had in some degree recovered from the exhaustion attendant upon
this attack, I was equally surprised and delighted to find that the pain
and throbbing in my arm were distinctly less acute; and from that
moment, as much to the astonishment of the savages as of myself, my
symptoms rapidly improved, until by evening I was so far free from pain
as to be able to sleep for several hours, although the swelling did not
entirely subside until nearly forty-eight hours later. But meanwhile my
fellow-sufferer, the savage who had also been bitten, and who had
resorted to the heroic method of cauterising his wound, had been all day
steadily developing symptoms similar to my own before the curative
attack of sickness, his foot and leg, right up to the hip, had swollen
to an enormous size and become so stiff that when the moment arrived for
us to disembark for the night he was unable to move, and begged most
piteously--as I interpreted the tones of his voice and his actions--to
be left in the canoe all night, to fight out the battle between life and
death alone and undisturbed.
The next morning, when we went down to the canoe, the poor fellow was
not only dead, but his whole body was swollen almost out of human
semblance, presenting in that and other respects a most shocking and
revolting spectacle. We took the corpse with us until we had reached
the main channel of the river, and there flung it overboard. We had
scarcely left it fifty fathoms astern when there arose a sudden violent
commotion in the water about it, and a second or two later it
disappeared from view, dragged down by the voracious crocodiles with
which the river swarmed.
I was by this time quite free from pain, and apart from a feeling of
extreme debility, which I had endured for some hours on the previous
day, I was not much the worse for the alarming experience that I had
undergone. The death of the savage who had been bitten after me, and
undoubtedly by the same reptile, conclusively proved how very narrow had
been my escape from a similar fate; and I naturally fell to wondering
how it was that he had succumbed to his injury while I had recovered
from mine. For it seemed to me at the moment that the remedial measure
which he had adopted ought, from its very severe and drastic character,
to have proved much more efficacious than my own; whereas the opposite
was the case. But upon further reflection I came to the conclusion that
while I had proceeded to suck the poison from the wound _at once_, or
within a second or two of its infliction, the savage had wasted at least
a minute in pursuing and slaying his enemy before cauterising his wound,
and that this minute of delay, accompanied as it was by somewhat violent
action on the part of the injured man, had sufficed for the poison to
obtain a strong enough hold upon his system to produce fatal results.
Whether or not this is the correct explanation I must leave to those who
are better qualified than myself to judge.
Day after day we steadily pursued our course up the river, which, for
the most part, retained the same dreary, monotonous aspect of low, bush-
clad, mangrove-lined banks, and practically the same width, save where,
at occasional intervals, it widened out and became dotted with islands,
some of considerable size. At length we arrived at a point where the
land on the western bank rose into a range of hills some eight or nine
hundred feet high, densely clothed with vegetation to their summits.
This range of hills extended northward for a distance of about thirty
miles before it once more sank into the plain; but before it sank
completely out of sight astern more high land was sighted ahead, and two
days later we found ourselves navigating among some very picturesque
scenery, with high land on both sides of us, some of the peaks being
twelve to fourteen hundred feet high. Late in the evening of the second
day after entering upon this picturesque stretch of the river we arrived
at a point where the stream forked into two of apparently equal width
and depth, one branch striking away to the eastward, while the other
continued its northerly course. Here my savage companions proceeded
with the utmost caution, frequently landing and sending one or two of
the party away to reconnoitre, and otherwise behaving as though they
feared attack; but after a slow and anxious progress of some twenty
hours' duration they seemed to consider the danger as past, and once
more pressed boldly forward.
By this time I had completely recovered, not only from the effects of
the snake-bite--at which my companions seemed greatly astonished--but
also from the hardship and privation which I had experienced during the
latter part of my voyage aboard _La Mouette_, and had begun to think
very seriously of how I was to effect my escape from those who held me
captive. Not that I was ill-treated by them, far from it; I enjoyed the
same fare as themselves, and was never asked to share their labours, and
that, I take it, was as much good treatment as I could reasonably expect
under the circumstances. But I knew that they were not hampering
themselves by taking me and their other prisoners this long journey up
the river--much of the paddling being done against the stream--merely
for the pleasure of enjoying our society. My intuition assured me that
their action had a more sinister motive than this, and in any case I had
no desire to penetrate the interior of equatorial Africa; therefore so
soon as I felt that my health and strength were sufficiently restored to
allow of my attempting the long and perilous journey back to the sea
alone, I began to consider the question of escape. But the longer I
thought of it the less became my hope of success; for I very soon
discovered that under no circumstances whatever were my custodians
disposed to allow me to stray a yard out of their sight. Without
imposing any actual restraint upon me, they invariably so contrived
that, if I made the slightest attempt to withdraw myself from them,
three or four of the most active of the party, always well armed, had
occasion to go in precisely the same direction as myself. That,
however, was not my only difficulty; for, assuming for a moment the
possibility of my being able to give the savages the slip, how was I, a
white man, alone, unarmed, and with no means of obtaining food, to make
my way down more than two hundred miles of river, flowing through a
country every inhabitant of which would undoubtedly be an enemy, whose
delight it would be to hunt me to death? I told myself that if I could
obtain a small, light, handy canoe and weapons, even though they should
but consist of a bow and arrows, the situation would not be altogether
hopeless--for I possessed a very fair share of pluck and resource; but I
felt that before I could effect my escape from my watchful custodians,
and obtain these necessities, I might find myself in so dire a strait as
to render them and all else valueless to me. Yet I would not suffer
myself to feel discouraged, for I recognised that to abandon hope was to
virtually surrender myself tamely to the worst that fate might have in
store for me, and this was by no means my disposition; I therefore
continued to keep my eyes wide open for an opportunity.
But, watch as I might, the opportunity never presented itself, nor,
thanks to the watchfulness of my companions, could I make one; so the
time dragged on until, after a river voyage of more than three weeks, we
one evening, about two hours before sunset, entered a creek important
enough to suggest the idea that it might possibly be a small tributary
of the main river. After paddling up it for a distance of about two
miles we suddenly hove in sight of a native town of considerable size
built upon the north bank of the creek, upon an area of ground that had
been completely cleared of all undergrowth, but was well shaded by the
larger trees which had been allowed to stand. That the town was of some
importance, as well as of considerable size, I surmised from the fact
that, with a few exceptions, the habitations, instead of being of the
usual circular, bee-hive shape common to most native African towns, were
of comparatively spacious dimensions and substantial construction, being
for the most part quadrangular in plan, with thick walls built of
substantial wattles, interwoven about stout poles sunk well into the
ground and solidly plastered with clay which, having dried and hardened
in the sun, had become quite weather-tight, protected as they were from
the tropical rains by a thick thatch of palm leaves, with which also
their steep sloping roofs were covered. The average size of these huts
was about twenty feet long by twelve feet wide and eight feet high to
the eaves; but there were others--about fifty of them altogether--
surrounded by and cut off from the rest by a high and stout palisade--
the points of the palisades being sharpened, in order, as I took it, to
render the fence unclimbable--which were not only considerably larger
and more substantial in point of construction, but which, as I afterward
had opportunity to observe, evidenced some rude attempt at decoration in
the form of grotesquely carved finials affixed to the roofs. This part
of the town, situated in its centre, and covering, perhaps, a space of
forty acres, was, I afterwards learned, the habitation of King Banda,
his Court, the principal officers of his army and household, and the
priests, whose temple, or fetish-house, stood on the opposite side of
the square to that occupied by the "palace" of the king.
Our appearance did not at first attract very much attention, or create
any very great amount of excitement; but when we arrived within hail of
the beach in front of the town--upon which were hauled up some three to
four hundred canoes of various sizes--our skipper suddenly sprang to his
feet and, placing his hands trumpet-wise to his mouth, began, in a
curious, high-pitched voice, to shout a somewhat lengthy communication.
Before it was half finished there was a very distinct commotion upon the
beach; half the naked children, who had been playing in the water, were
racing up to the town as fast as their legs would carry them, shouting
as they went, while from every hut the inhabitants came pouring out,
like ants from a disturbed nest, and began to hurry down to the beach.
By the time that we arrived there must have been at least two thousand
people assembled to meet us, and others were hurrying down in crowds.
I soon found that I was the cause of all the commotion, for no sooner
did I step out of the canoe than, although my travelling companions
formed themselves into a cordon round me, and the headman or chief who
had me in charge strove by virtue of his authority to prevent such a
happening, there occurred a wild rush on the part of the crowd to get at
least a sight of me, while those who could get near enough to me
insisted upon touching my skin, apparently with the object of satisfying
themselves as to the genuineness of its colour; and from their eagerness
and their exclamations of astonishment I came to the conclusion that
although they might have heard of, they had never actually seen a white
man before, a conclusion which I afterwards found to be correct.
Using the butts, and occasionally the points, of their spears freely in
order to force a passage through the steadily growing crowd, my escort
slowly made their way toward that part of the town which was enclosed by
the palisade; and, as they did so, I studied the faces of those who
thronged about me, with the object of forming some idea, if I could, of
the fate that I might expect at their hands.
I must confess that the results of my inspection were by no means
reassuring. The first fact to impress itself upon me was that these
people among whom I now found myself were of an entirely different race
from the negro, properly so-called--the woolly-pated, high cheek-boned,
ebony-skinned individual with snub nose and thick lips usually met with
aboard a slaver. To start with, their colour was much lighter, being a
clear brown of varying degrees of depth, from that of the mulatto to a
tint not many shades deeper than that of the average Spaniard. But this
difference, marked though it was, was not so great as that between their
cast of features and that of the negro; the features of these people
were, for the most part, clean cut, shapely, and in many cases actually
handsome, their noses especially being exceedingly well formed. Then
their head covering was hair, not wool, that of the men being worn
close-cropped, while the women allowed theirs to grow at will and wore
it flowing freely over the back and shoulders, the locks in many cases
reaching considerably below the waist. It was invariably curly, that of
the men growing in close, tiny ringlets clustering thickly all over the
head, while that of the women, because it was worn longer, I suppose,
took the form of long graceful curls. In colour it was a rich glossy
black. They were certainly an exceptionally fine race of people, the
men being lithe, clean-limbed, muscular fellows, every one of them
apparently in the pink of condition, while the faces and figures of the
women, especially the younger ones, would have excited the envy of many
an English belle. But there was a something, very difficult to define,
in the expression of these people that I did not at all like, a hardness
about the mouth, and a cruel glint in the eyes--especially of the men--
which looked at me in a manner that suggested all sorts of unpleasant
possibilities, and excited within me a distinct longing to be almost
anywhere rather than where I was.
The party who had brought me to this remote spot were of an entirely
different race from those among whom I now found myself, and the fact
that we were making our way toward what was obviously the aristocratic
part of the town, coupled with the expressive conversation carried on by
the leader of my custodians with three or four individuals who had
joined us, led me to surmise--although of course I did not understand a
word of what was said--that I had been brought up the river as a peace-
offering or something of that sort, which conclusion was again the
reverse of reassuring.
As we drew near to the exceedingly narrow gate in the palisade, which
had been thrown open to admit us--and which, I presently saw, was
strongly guarded by a number of warriors armed with heavy, broad-bladed
spears, murderous-looking swords, and small round shields, or targets,
of wood covered with what looked like crocodile hide--I became sensible
of a horrible charnel-house smell; but it was not until we had passed
through the gate, and were inside the palisaded enclosure, that I
discovered from whence it emanated. Then, observing the direction of
the wind which wafted this dreadful odour to my nostrils, I looked that
way and presently noticed a large dead tree standing in the middle of
the square that formed the centre of this part of the town. It was the
immense number of birds that wheeled and screamed about this tree that
first caused me to regard it with particular attention, but even then I
could not, for the moment, see anything to account for either the birds
or the odour. But a minute or two later, as we drew nearer the tree,
the stench meanwhile becoming almost overpoweringly strong, I detected
fastened to the trunk of the tree, in a manner that was not at first
apparent, nine human corpses, some of them so far advanced in
decomposition that even the birds would not approach them! Then I
understood that I saw before me that detestable thing of which I had
often heard as the most prominent object in the typical African native
town or village, the "crucifixion tree," upon which the petty despot who
rules over that particular community is wont summarily to put to a cruel
and lingering death such of his subjects as may be unfortunate enough to
offend him! In some cases, I believe, the monarch is content to cause
his victims to be securely lashed to the crucifixion tree by stout
lianas, there to perish slowly of hunger and thirst; but King Banda, the
potentate whose will was law in this particular town, had carried his
cruelty to its utmost limit by adopting the time-honoured method of
nailing his victims to the tree with spike nails driven through the
hands and feet into the tough timber.
The enormous crowd who had followed us up from the beach were not
permitted to enter the palisaded enclosure, which was strictly taboo to
the common herd; our party therefore now consisted solely of those who
had brought me up the river, four individuals who had joined us outside
the gate--and whom I took to be officials of some sort--and my unworthy
self; and, for my own part, I would very willingly have waived the
distinction of forming one of the party. Marching up to what I
conjectured to be the king's house--from the fact that it was not only
by far the largest dwelling in the enclosure, but was also distinguished
by an exclusive embellishment in the form of a row of a dozen poles,
each surmounted by a human skull, planted upright in the ground before
it--we halted at a distance of some twenty paces from the entrance, with
our backs turned toward the crucifixion tree, the leafless branches of
which overshadowed us, and waited.
Ten minutes, twenty minutes, passed, and the sun was within a hand's-
breadth of the horizon when a man emerged from the "palace," bearing a
massive chair of ebony, quaintly-carved, and draped with a magnificent
leopard's skin, which he placed immediately before the open door, midway
between the house and ourselves, and departed. A moment later another
man appeared--this time from the fetish-house on the opposite side of
the square--also with a chair, decorated with most gruesome--looking
carvings, which he placed beside the first. Then a tall and enormously
stout man, clad in a leopard-skin _moucha_, and with a handsome leopard-
skin cloak on his shoulders, came forth from the palace, leaning upon
the shoulders of two other men, and advanced toward the chair which had
first been placed in position, into which he subsided heavily, casting a
strongly disapproving glance at the second chair as he did so. Then
there arose a sudden tramping of bare feet upon the dry earth, and from
somewhere in the rear of the palace there swung into view a hundred
picked warriors, armed like those who had mounted guard at the palisade
gate, who formed up behind and on each side of the chairs with very
commendable military precision. Simultaneously with the appearance of
the guards--for such they were--there emerged from the fetish-house a
man who appeared to be incredibly old, for his hair and beard were as
white as snow, and his once stalwart form was now bowed and wizened with
the passage of, as it seemed to me, hundreds of years. Yet, although in
appearance a very Methuselah in age, this individual had a pair of
piercing black eyes that glowed and sparkled with all the fire and
passion of early manhood, and, bowed as he was, and decrepit as he
appeared to be, he tottered across the intervening space with
extraordinary agility, and seated himself in the second chair. Thus I
found myself in the presence of the two most powerful men in the
district, namely, King Banda and Mafuta, the chief witch-doctor.
The contrast between these two men was most remarkable, for whereas
Mafuta appeared to be the living embodiment of extreme age, King Banda
could scarcely have been forty; and while Mafuta was an image of
decrepitude, Banda, despite his excessive corpulence, appeared to be--
what in fact he was--a man of immense physical strength. Yet,
notwithstanding this marked dissimilarity in their appearance, there was
one point of strong resemblance between them: the expression of their
faces, and particularly of their eyes, was ineffably cruel.