CHAPTER XVIII

AFRICAN PROPERTY

Wherein some attempt is made to set down the divers kinds of

property that exist among the people of the true Negro race in

Western Africa, and the law whereby it is governed.

In speaking on the subject of African property and the laws which guard

it in its native state, I must, in the space at my disposal here,

confine myself to speaking of these things as they are in one division

of the many different races of human beings that inhabit that vast

continent of Africa; and, in order to present the affair more clearly, I

must take them as they exist in their most highly developed state,

namely, among the people of the true Negro stock, for it is among these

people that pure African culture has reached so far its fullest state of

development.

The distribution zone of this true Negro stock cannot yet be fixed with

any approach to accuracy, but we know that the seaboard of the regions

inhabited by the true Negro is that vast stretch of the African West

Coast from a point south of the Gambia River to a point just north of

Cameroon River, in the region of the Rio del Rey. We can safely say,

within this region you will find the true Negro, but we cannot safely

say how far inland, or how far down south of the Rio del Rey we shall

find him. That this stock extends through up to the Nile regions;

that it stretches far away south of the Nile in the interior of the

Upper Congo regions, appearing in the Azenghi; that it stretches south

on the coast line below the Rio del Rey, appearing as the so-called

noble tribes of the Bight of Panavia, the Ajumba, Mpongwe, Igalwa, and

also as Osheba, Befangh, will be demonstrated I believe when we have a

sufficient supply of ethnological observers in Africa. But it must be

remembered that you can only get the true Negro unadulterated in the

coast regions of Western Africa between the Rivers Gambia and Cameroon.

[Illustration: A HOUSA. [_To face page 420._]

In the fringe regions of the West Soudan you have an adulterated form of

him--adulterated in idea with Mohammedanism, and the Berber races; to

the east and to the south with that other great African race division,

the Bantu. I venture to think that Bantu adulteration mainly takes the

form of language. We have in our own continent many instances of races

of greater strength and conquering power adopting the language of the

weaker peoples whom they have conquered, when the language has been one

more adapted to the needs of life and more widely diffused than their

own, and therefore more suited to commercial intercourse.

The Negro languages are poor, and, moreover, they differ among

themselves so gravely that one tribe cannot understand another tribe

that lives even next door to it. I know 147 such languages in the region

of the Niger Delta alone. Now this sort of thing means interpreters, and

is hindersome to commercial intercourse, and therefore you always find

the true Negro, when he is in a district where he has opportunities of

trading with other peoples, adopting their language, and making for use

in public life a corrupt English, Portuguese, or Arabic lingo.

Similarly, it seems to me, he has in the regions he has conquered in

Southern and Central Africa, adopted Bantu, and much the same thing has

happened, and is still happening, there, as happened in Southern and

Central Europe. Just as the powerful barbarian stocks adopted Latin in a

way that must keep Priscian's head still in bandages and to this day

seriously mar his happiness in the Elysian fields, so have the true

Negroes adopted the flexible Bantu languages. But it would be as

unscientific to regard a Spaniard or a Frenchman as a full-blooded

ancient Roman, as to regard many of the Negro tribes now speaking Bantu

language as Bantu men.

The Negro has, moreover, not only adopted Bantu languages in some

regions, such as the Mpongwe, for example, but he has also adopted to a

certain extent Bantu culture. I am sure those of you who have lived

among the true Negroes and true Bantu, will agree with me that these

cultures differ materially. Africa, so far as I know it, namely, from

Sierra Leone to Benguela, smells generally rather strong, but

particularly so in those districts inhabited by the true Negro. This

pre-eminence the true Negroes attain to by leaving the sanitary matters

of villages and towns in the hands of Providence. The Bantu culture

looks after the cleaning and tidying of the village streets to a

remarkable degree, though by no means more clean in the houses, which,

in both cultures, are quite as clean and tidy as you will find in

England. Again, in the Bantu culture you will find the slaves living in

villages apart: inside the true Negro they live with their owners; and

there are other points which mark the domestic cultures of these people

as being different from each other, which I need not detain you with

now. All these points in Bantu domestic culture the true Negro will

adopt, as well as language; but there seem to be two points he does not

readily adopt, or rather two points in his own culture to which he

clings. One is the religious: in Bantu you find a great female god, who,

for practical purposes, is more important than the great male god, in so

far as she rules mundane affairs. In the true Negro the great gods are

male. There are great female gods, but none of them occupy a position

equal to that occupied by Nzambi, as you find the Bantu great female god

called among the people who are undoubtedly true Bantu, the Fjort. The

other, is the form of the State, and one important part of that form is

the institution in the Negro tribes of a regular military organisation,

with a regular War Lord, not one and the same with the Peace Lord.

[Illustration: HOUSE PROPERTY IN KACONGO.]

[Illustration: BUBIES OF FERNANDO PO. [_To face page 423._]

This, I am aware, is not the customary or fashionable view of race

distribution in Africa, but allow me to recall to your remembrance one

of the most fascinating books ever written, _The Adventures of Andrew

Battel, of Leigh in Essex_, who for eighteen years lived among the

districts of the Lower Congo.

I do this in order to show that I am not theorising in this matter.

Andrew Battel left London on a ship sweetly named _The May Morning_, and

having a consort named the _Dolphin_--they were pinnaces of fifty tons

each--on the 20th of April, 1589. With very little delay they fell into

divers disasters, and Andrew became a prisoner in the hands of the

Portuguese at Loanda. He had a very bad time of it, the Portuguese then

regarding all Englishmen as pirates and nothing more, except heretics

and vermin. Andrew, with the enterprise and common sense of our race,

escaped several times from captivity, and, with the stupidity of our

race fell into it again, but his great escape was when he fell in with

the Ghagas. Well, these Ghagas, Andrew Battel and the Portuguese

historians say, were a fearful people, who came from behind Sierra

Leone, and when the Kingdom of Congo was discovered by Diego Cao in

1484, the Ghagas were attacking it so severely that, but for the timely

arrival of the Portuguese and the help they gave Congo, there would in a

very short time have been no Kingdom of Congo left to discover; and to

this day Dr. Blyden, who went there on a Government mission, says that

up by Fallaba, in the Sierra Leone hinterland, you will now and then see

a Ghaga--a man feared, a man of whom the country people do not know

where his home is, nor what he eats or how he lives, but from whom they

shrink as from a superior terrible form of human being--a remnant, or

remainder over, of those people whose very name struck terror throughout

Central Equatorial Africa in the 15th century, when, for some reason we

do not know, they made a warlike migration down among the peaceful

feeble Bantu.

If you will carefully study the account given of the organisation of the

Ghagas and also of the organisation of the Kingdom of Congo, I think you

will see that in the Ghagas you have a true Negro State form, while in

the Congo Kingdom you have something different; something that is

nowadays called Bantu. What became of the Ghagas when foiled by the

Portuguese in destroying the Kingdom of Congo is not exactly known, but

there is a definite ground for thinking that, modified by intermarriage

and a different environment, they split up, and are now represented by

the warlike South African tribes and East African tribes, such as the

Matabele, and the Massai, and so on. The modification of this portion of

the true Negro stem in the south and the east is akin to the

modification the stem has undergone nearer to its true home on the West

Coast of Africa, where to the north of Sierra Leone and behind the coast

regions of the Ivory, Gold, and Slave Coasts it has, by admixture with

the Berber tribes of the Western Soudan, produced the Black Moors,

namely the Mandingo, the Hausa, and Oullaf. These Black Moors of the

Western Soudan have attained to a high pitch of barbaric culture; it

appears to be a further development of the true Negro culture, but it is

so suffused with the Mohammedan idea and law that it is not in this

state that we can best study the native culture of the pure Negro.

Neither can we study it well in those south and east regions where it

has adopted Bantu language and culture to a certain extent.

I will not, however, attempt to enter here upon the question of the

continental distribution of the Negro and Bantu stocks; I will merely

beg observers of African tribes to note carefully whether their tribe is

given to street-cleaning, to keeping slaves in separate villages, or to

venerating a great female god. If it is, it has got a Bantu culture; if,

in addition, it has a regular military organisation, or a keen

commercial spirit, or a certain ability to rule over the tribes round

it, I beg they will suspect Negro blood and do their best to give us

that tribe's migration history; and then we may in future times be able

to settle the question of race distribution on better lines than our

present state of knowledge allows of. Having said that the law and

institutions of the true Negro stock cannot best be studied in those

regions where they are adulterated by alien cultures, it remains to say

where they can best be studied. I think that undoubtedly this region is

that of the Oil Rivers.

The thing you must always bear in mind when observing institutions and

so on from Sierra Leone down to Lagos, is that the fertile belt between

the salt sea of the Bight of Benin and the sand sea of Sahara is but a

narrow band of forest and fertile country, while, when you get below

Lagos--Lagos itself is a tongue of the Western Soudan coming down to the

sea--you are in the true heart of Africa, the Equatorial Forest Belt;

and that it is in this belt that you will get your materials at their

purest. Therefore take the regions inhabited by the true Negro. In the

regions from Sierra Leone to the Gold Coast, you have, it is true, not

much white influence or adulteration, mainly because of the rock-reefed

shore being dangerous to navigators. There is in this region undoubtedly

a great and yearly increasing so-called Arab, but really Mohammedanised

Berber, influence working on the true Negro. The natives themselves have

their State-form in a state of wreckage from the destruction of the old

Empire of Meli, which fell, from reasons we do not know, some time in

the 16th century. We have, however, miserably little information on this

particular region of Sierra Leone, the Pepper and Ivory Coasts, owing to

its never having been worked at by a competent ethnologist; but the

accounts we have of it show that the secret societies have here got the

upper hand to an abnormal extent for the Negro state. Then we come to

the Gold Coast region which has been so excellently worked at by the

late Sir A. B. Ellis. Here you have a heavy amount of adulteration in

idea, and, moreover, the long-continued white influence--1435-1898--has

decidedly tended to a disorganisation of the Negro State-form, and to an

undue development of the individual chief; nevertheless the law-form now

existent on the Gold Coast is, when tested against a knowledge of the

pure Negro law-form as found in the Oil Rivers, almost unaltered, and I

think if you will carefully study that valuable book, Sarbar's _Fanti

Customary Law_, you will also see that the State-form is identical in

essence with that of the Oil Rivers--the House system.

The House is a collection of individuals; I should hesitate to call it a

developed family. I cannot say it is a collection of human beings,

because the very dogs and canoes and so on that belong to it are part of

it in the eye of the law, and capable therefore alike of embroiling it

and advancing its interests. These Houses are bound together into groups

by the Long ju-ju proper to the so-called secret society, common to the

groups of houses. The House itself is presided over by what is called,

in white parlance, a king, and beneath him there are four classes of

human beings in regular rank, that is to say, influence in council:

firstly, the free relations of the king, if he be a free man himself,

which is frequently not the case; if he be a slave, the free people of

the family he is trustee for; secondly, the free small people who have

placed themselves under the protection of the House, rendering it in

return for the assistance and protection it affords them service on

demand; the third and fourth classes are true slave classes, the higher

one in rank being that called the Winnaboes or Trade boys, the lower the

pull-away boys and the plantation hands.[79] The best point in it, as a

system, is that it gives to the poorest boy who paddles an oil canoe a

chance of becoming a king.

Property itself in West Africa, and as I have reason to believe from

reports in other parts of tropical Africa that I am acquainted with, is

firmly governed and is divisible into three kinds. Firstly, ancestral

property connected with the office of headmanship, the Stool, as this

office is called in the true Negro state, the Cap, as it is called down

in Bas Congo; secondly, family property, in which every member of the

family has a certain share, and on which he, she, or it has a claim;

thirdly, private property, that which is acquired or made by a man or

woman by their personal exertions, over and above that which is earned

by them in co-operation with other members of their family which becomes

family property, and that which is gained by gifts or made in trade by

the exercise of a superior trading ability.

Every one of these forms of property is equally sacred in the eye of the

African law. The property of the Stool must be worked for the Stool;

working it well, increasing it, adds to the importance of the Stool, and

makes the king who does so popular; but he is trustee, not owner, of the

Stool property, and his family don't come in for that property on his

death, for every profit made by the working of Stool property is like

this itself the property of the Stool, and during the king's life he

cannot legally alienate it for his own personal advantage, but can only

administer it for the benefit of the Stool.

The king's power over the property of the family and the private

property of the people under his rule, consists in the right of Ban, but

not arriere Ban. Family property is much the same as regards the laws

concerning it as Stool property. The head of the family is the trustee

of it. If he is a spendthrift, or unlucky in its management, he is

removed from his position. Any profit he may make with the assistance of

a member of his own family becomes family property; but of course any

profit he may make with the assistance of his free wives or wife, a

person who does not belong to his family, or with the assistance of an

outsider, may become his own. Private property acquired in the ways I

have mentioned is equally sacred in the eyes of the law. I do not

suppose you could find a single human being, slave or free, who had not

some private property of his or her very own. Amongst that very

interesting and valuable tribe, the Kru, where the family organisation

is at its strictest, you can see the anxiety of the individual Kruman to

secure for himself a little portion of his hard-earned wages and save it

from the hands of his family elders. The Kruman's wages are paid to him,

or changed by him, into cloths and sundry merchandise, and he is not

paid off until the end of his term of work. So he has to hurry up in

order to appropriate to himself as much as he can on the boat that takes

him back to his beloved "We" country, and industriously make for himself

garments out of as much of his cotton goods as he can; for even a man's

family, even in Kru country, will not take away his shirt and trousers,

but I am afraid there is precious little else that the Kruman can save

from their rapacity. What he can save in addition to these, he informs

me, he gives to his mother, or failing his mother, to a favourite

sister, who looks after it and keeps it for him, she being, woman-like,

more fit to quarrel if need be with the family elders than he is

himself. But all private property once secured is sacred, very sacred,

in the African State-form. I do not know from my own investigations, nor

have I been able to find evidence in the investigations of other

observers, of any king, priesthood, or man, who would openly dare

interfere with the private property of the veriest slave in his

district, diocese, or household. I know this seems a risky thing to

say, and I do not like to say it because I feel that if I were a betting

man I could make a good thing over betting on it, for experience has

taught me that every time an African's property is taken by a fellow

African under native law, and in times of peace, it is taken after it is

confiscated by its original owner, either in bankruptcy or crime. You

will hear dozens of accounts of how everything an African possessed was

seized on, etc., but if you look into them you will find in every case

that the individual so cleaned out owed it all, and frequently far more,

before he or she fell into the hands of the Official Receiver, the local

chief.

One of the most common causes of an individual's entire estate being

seized upon is a conviction for witchcraft. Every form of property in

Africa is liable to be called on to meet its owner's debts, and the

witch's is too heavy a debt for any individual's private estate to meet

and leave a surplus. For not only does the witch owe to the family of

the person, of whose murder he or she is convicted, the price of that

life, but it is felt by the Community that the witch has not been found

out in the first offence, and so every miscellaneous affliction that has

recently happened is put down to the convicted witch's account. Mind

you, I do not say _all_ these claims are _satisfied_ out of the estate

of the witch deceased, (witches are always deceased by the authorities

with the utmost despatch after conviction) because the said property has

during the course of the trial got into the hands of Officialdom and has

a natural tendency to stop there. But one thing is certain, there is no

residuary estate for the witch's own relations. Not that for the matter

of that they would dare claim it in any case, lest they should be

involved with the witch and accused as accomplices.

Still, legally, the witch's relations have the consolation of knowing

that, if things go smoothly and they evade being accused of a share in

the crime, they cannot be called on to meet the debts incurred by the

witch. From a family point of view better a dead witch than a live

speculative trader.

The reason of this delicate little point of law I confess gave me more

trouble to discover than it ought to have done, for the explanation was

quite simple, namely, the witch's body had been taken over by the

creditors.

Now, according to African law, if you take a man's life, or, for the

matter of that, his body, dead or alive, in settlement of a debt, your

claim is satisfied. You have got legal tender for it. I remember coming

across an amusing demonstration of this law in the colony of Cameroon.

There was, and still is, a windy-headed native trader there who for

years has hung by the hair of loans over the abyss of bankruptcy. All

the local native traders knew that man, but there arrived a new trader

across from Calabar district who did not. Like the needle to the pole,

our friend turned to him for a loan in goods and got it, with the usual

result namely, excuses, delays, promises--in fact anything but payment;

enraged at this, and determined to show the Cameroon traders at large

how to carry on business on modern lines, the young Calabar trader

called in the Government and the debtor was gently but firmly confined

to the Government grounds. Of course he was not put in the chain-gang,

not being a serious criminal, but provided with a palm-mat broom he

proceeded to do as little as possible with it, and lead a contented,

cheerful existence.

It rather worried the Calabar man to see this, and also that his drastic

measure caused no wild rush to him of remonstrating relations of the

imprisoned debtor; indeed they did not even turn up to supply the said

debtor with food, let alone attempt to buy him off by discharging his

debt. In place of them, however, one by one the Cameroon traders came to

call on the Calabar merchant, all in an exceedingly amiable state of

mind and very civil. They said it gave them pleasure to observe his

brisk method of dealing with that man, and it was a great relief to

their minds to see a reliable man of wealth like himself taking charge

of that debtor's affairs, for now they saw the chance of seeing the

money they had years ago advanced, and of which they had not, so far,

seen a fraction back, neither capital nor interest. The Calabar man grew

pale and anxious as the accounts of the debts he had made himself

responsible for came in, and he knew that if the debtor died on his

hands, that is to say in the imprisonment he had consigned him to, he

would be obliged to pay back all those debts of the Cameroon man, for

the German Government have an intelligent knowledge of native law and

carry it out in Cameroon. Still the Calabar man did not like climbing

down and letting the man go, so he supplied him with food and worried

about his state of health severely. This that villainous Cameroon fellow

found out, and was therefore forthwith smitten with an obscure abdominal

complaint, a fairly safe thing to have as my esteemed friend Dr. Plehn

was absent from that station, and therefore not able to descend on the

malingerer with nauseous drugs. It is needless to say that at this

juncture the Calabar man gave in, and let the prisoner out, freeing

himself thereby from responsibility beyond his own loss, but returning a

poorer and a wiser man to his own markets, and more assured than ever of

the villainy of the whole Dualla tribe.

In any case legally the relatives of a debtor seized or pawned can

redeem, if they choose, the person or the body by paying off the debt

with the interest, 33-1/2 per cent. per annum, to the common rate. Great

sacrifices and exertions are made by his family to redeem almost every

debtor, and the family property is strained to its utmost on his or her

behalf; but in the case of a witch it is different, no set of relatives

wish to redeem a convicted witch, who, reduced by the authorities to a

body, and that mostly in bits and badly damaged, is not a thing

desirable. No! they say Society has got him and we are morally certain

he must have been illegitimate, for such a thing as a witch never

happened in our family before, and if we show the least interest in the

remains we shall get accused ourselves. Of course if a man or woman's

life is taken on any other kind of accusation save witchcraft, the

affair is on a different footing. The family then forms a higher

estimate of the deceased's value than they showed signs of to him or her

when living, and they try to screw that value to the uttermost farthing

out of the person who has killed their kinsman. Society at large only

regards you for doing this as a fool man to think so highly of the

departed, whose true value it knows to be far below that set on him. In

the case of a living man taken for debt, he is a slave to his creditor,

a pawn slave, but not on the same footing as a boughten slave; he has

not the advantages of a true slave in the matter of succeeding to the

wealth or position of the house, but against that he can be a free man

the moment his debts are paid. This may be a theoretical possibility

only, just as it would be theoretical for me to expect my family to bail

me out if the bail were a question of a million sterling, but in legal

principle the redemption is practicable.

In the case of taking a dead body another factor is introduced. By

taking charge of and interring a body, you become the executor to the

deceased man's estate. I have known three sets of relatives arrive with

three coffins for one body, and a consequential row, for a good deal can

be made by an executor; but if you make yourself liable for the body's

liabilities care is needed, and there is no reckless buying of bodies

with whose private affairs you are not conversant, in West Africa. It is

far too wild a speculation for such quiet commercial men as my African

friends are. Hence it comes that a Negro merchant on a trading tour away

from his home, overtaken by death in a town where he is not known, is

not buried, but dried and carefully put outside the town, or on the road

to the market, the road he came by, so that any one of his friends or

relations, who may perchance come some time that way, can recognise the

remains. If they do they can take the remains home and bury them if they

like, or bury them there, free and welcome, but the local County Council

will do nothing of the kind. A nice thing a set of respectable elders,

or as their Fanti, name goes Paynim, would let themselves in for by

burying the body of a gentleman who happened to have four murders, ten

adultery cases, a crushing mass of debt, and no earthly assets save a

few dilapidated women, bad ones at that, and a whole pack of children

with the Kraw Kraw, or the Guinea worm, or both together and including

the Yaws.

This brings us to another way besides witchcraft whereby a gentleman in

West Africa can throw away a fine fortune by paying his debts, namely,

the so-called adultery. Adultery out there, I hastily beg to remark, may

be only brushing against a woman in a crowded market place or bush path,

or raising a hand in defence against a virago. It's the wrong word, but

the customary one to use for touching women, and it is exceedingly

expensive and a constant source of danger to the most respectable of

men, the demands made on its account being exorbitant: sometimes so

exorbitant that I have known of several men who, in order to save their

family from ruin--for if their own private property were insufficient to

meet it the family property would be liable for the balance--have given

themselves up as pawn-slaves to their accusers.

There is but one check on this evil of frivolous and false accusation,

and that is that when there have been many cases of it in a district,

the cult of the Law God of that region gets a high moral fit on and

comes down on that district and eats the adultery. I need not say that

this is to the private benefit of no layman in the district, for

notoriously it is an expensive thing to have the Law God down, and a

thing every district tries to avoid. There is undoubtedly great evil in

this law, which presses harder on private and family property than

anything else, harder even than accusations of witchcraft; but it

safeguards the women, enabling them to go to and fro about the forest

paths, and in the villages and market places at home, and far from home,

without fear of molestation or insult, bar that which they get up

amongst themselves.

The methods employed in enforcing the payment of a debt are appeal to

the village headman or village elders; or, after giving warning, the

seizure of property belonging to the debtor if possible, or if not, that

of any other person belonging to his village will do. This procedure

usually leads to palaver, and the elders decide whether the amount

seized is equal to the debt or whether it is excessive; if excessive the

excess has to be returned, and there is also the appeal to the Law

Society. In the regions of the Benin Bight we have also, as in India,

the custom of collecting debts by Dharna. In West Africa the creditor

who sits at the debtor's door is bound to bring with him food for one

day, this is equivalent to giving notice; after the first day the debtor

has to supply him with food, for were he to die he would be answerable

for his life and the worth thereof in addition to the original debt. If

I mention that there is no community of goods between a man and his wife

(women owning and holding property under identical conditions to men in

the eye of the law), I think I shall have detained you more than long

enough on the subject of the laws of property in West Africa. You will

see that the thing that underlies them is the conception that every

person is the member of some family, and all the other members of the

family are responsible for him and to him and he to them; and every

family is a member of some house, and all the other members of the house

are responsible for and to the families of which it is composed.

The natural tendency of this is for property to become joint property,

family property, or to be absorbed into family property. A man by his

superior ability acquires, it may be, a considerable amount of private

property, but at his death it passes into the hands of the family. There

are Wills, but they are not the rule, and they more often refer to an

appointment of a successor in position than to a disposal of effects.

The common practice of gifts there supplies the place of Wills with us;

a rich man gives his friend or his favourite wife, child, or slave,

things during his life, while he can see that they get it, and does not

leave the matter till after his death. The good point about the African

system is that it leaves no person uncared for; there are no unemployed

starving poor, every individual is responsible for and to his fellow

men and women who belong to the same community, and the naturally strong

instinct of hospitality, joined with the knowledge that the stranger

within the gates belongs to a whole set of people who will make palaver

if anything happens to him, looks well after the safety of wanderers in

Negro land. The bad point is, of course that the system is cumbersome,

and, moreover, it tends, with the operation of the general African law

of _mutterrecht_, the tracing of descent through females, to prevent the

building up of great families. For example, you have a great man, wise,

learned, just, and so on; he is esteemed in his generation, but at his

death his property does not go to the sons born to him by one of his

wives, who is a great woman of a princely line, but to the eldest son of

his sister by the same mother as his own. This sister's mother and his

own mother was a slave wife of his father's; this, you see, keeps good

blood in a continual state of dilution with slave blood. The son he has

by his aristocratic wife may come in for the property of her brother,

but her brother belongs to a different family, so he does not take up

his father's greatness and carry it on with the help his father's wealth

could give him in the father's family. I do not say the system is unjust

or anything like that, mind; I merely say that it does not tend to the

production of a series of great men in one family.

Nevertheless, when once you have mastered the simple fundamental rules

that underlie the native African idea of property they must strike you

as just, elaborately just; and there is another element of simplicity in

the thing, and that is that all forms of property are subject to the

same law, land, women, china basons, canoes, slaves, it matters not

what, there is the law.

You will ofter hear of the vast stretches of country in Africa unowned,

and open to all who choose to cultivate them or possess them. Well,

those stretches of unowned land are not in West Africa. I do not pretend

to know other parts of the continent. In West Africa there is not one

acre of land that does not belong to some one, who is trustee of it, for

a set of people who are themselves only life tenants, the real owner

being the tribe in its past, present, and future state, away into

eternity at both ends. But as West African land is a thing I should not

feel, even if I had the money, anxious to acquire as freehold, and as

you can get under native law a safe possession of mining and cultivation

rights from the representatives living of the tribe they belong to, I do

not think that any interference is urgently needed with a system

fundamentally just.

After having said so much on African native property, it may be as well

to say what African property consists of. It is not necessary for me to

go into the affair very fully, but you will remember, I am sure, the old

statement of "women and slaves constitute the wealth of an African." The

African himself would tell you nine times in ten that women and slaves

caused him the lack of it. Still they are undoubtedly a factor in the

true Negro's wealth, but to consider them property it is necessary to

consider them as property in different classes. Here and now I need only

divide them into two classes--wives properly so-called, and male and

female slaves. The duty of the slave is to increase directly the wealth

of his or her owner--that of the wife to increase it also, but in a

different manner, namely, by bringing her influence to bear for his

advantage among her own family and among the people of the district she

lives in. A big chief will have three or more of these wives, each of

them living in her own house, or in the culture state of Calabar, in her

own yard in his house, having her own farm away in the country, where

she goes at planting and harvest times. She possesses her own slaves and

miscellaneous property, which includes her children, and the main part

of this property is really the property of her family, just as most

people's property is in West Africa. The husband will reside with each

of these wives in turn, yet he has a home of his own, with his slave

wives, and his children properly so called, similarly having his own

farm and miscellaneous property, which similarly belongs mainly to his

family, and this house is usually presided over by his mother, or

failing her a favourite sister.

The immediate rule of a husband over his wife may be likened to that of

a constitutional monarch, that of a man or woman over a slave to that of

an absolute monarch, though true absolutism is in the Negro State-form

not to be found in any individual man. The nearest approach to it is,

very properly, in the hands of the cult of the Law God, the tribal

secret society, but even from that society the individual can appeal, if

he dare, to Long Ju Ju.

The other forms of wealth possessed by an African, his true wealth, are

market rights, utensils, canoes, arms, furniture, land, and trade goods.

It is in his capacity to command these things in large quantities that

his wealth lies, it is his wives and slaves who enable and assist him to

do this thing. So take the whole together and you will see how you can

have a very rich African, rich in the only way it is worth while being

rich in, power, yet a man who possibly could not pay you down L20, but a

real millionaire for all that.

FOOTNOTES:

[79] See "Lecture on African Religion and Law," published by leave of

the Hibbert Trustees in the _National Review_. September, 1897.

APPENDICES

[Illustration: JA JA, KING OF OPOBO. [_To face page 443._]

APPENDIX I

A SHORT DESCRIPTION OF THE NATIVES OF THE NIGER COAST PROTECTORATE,

WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THEIR CUSTOMS, RELIGION, TRADE, &c. BY M. LE

COMTE C. N. DE CARDI.

It is with some diffidence I attempt this task, because many more able

men have written about this country, with whom occasionally I shall most

likely be found not quite in accord; but if a long residence in and

connection with a country entitles one to be heard, then I am fully

qualified, for I first went to Western Africa in 1862, and my last

voyage was in 1896.

Previous to 1891, the date at which this Coast (Benin to Old Calabar)

was formed into a British Protectorate under the name of the Oil Rivers

Protectorate, now the Niger Coast Protectorate, each of the rivers

frequented by Europeans for the purpose of trade was ruled over more or

less intelligently by one, and in some cases by two, sable potentates,

who were responsible to Her Britannic Majesty's Consul for the safety

and well-being of the white traders; also for the fostering of trade in

the hinterlands of their district, for which good offices they were paid

by the white traders a duty called "comey," which amounted to about 2s.

6d. per ton on the palm oil exported. When the palm kernel trade

commenced it was generally arranged that two tons of palm kernels should

be counted to equal one ton of palm oil so far as regards fiscal

arrangements. The day this duty was paid was looked upon by the king, or

kings if there were two of them, as a festival; in earlier years a

certain amount of ceremony was also observed.

The king would arrive on board the trader's hulk or sailing ship (some

firms doing their trade without the assistance of a hulk) to an

accompaniment of war horns, drums, and other savage music. With the king

would generally come one or two of his chiefs and his Ju-Ju man, but

before mounting the gangway ladder a bottle of spirit or palm wine would

be produced from some hidden receptacle, one of the small boys, who

always follow the kings or chiefs to carry their handkerchiefs and

snuff-boxes, would then draw the cork and hand a wine-glass and the

bottle to the Ju-Ju man, who would pour himself out a glass, saying a

few words to the Ju-Ju of the river, at the same time spilling a little

of the liquor into the water; he would then drink up what remained in

the glass, hand glass and bottle to the king, who would then proceed as

the Ju-Ju man had done, being followed on the same lines by the chiefs

who were with him.

Their devotions having thus been duly attended to, the king, Ju-Ju man

and his attendant chiefs would mount the ladder to the deck of the

vessel. The European trader would, as a rule, be there to receive him

and escort him on to the poop, where the king would be asked to sit down

to a sumptuous repast of pickled pork, salt beef, tinned salmon, pickles

and cabin biscuits. There would be also roast fowls and goat for the

trader and his assistants, and for vegetables yams and potatoes, the

latter a great treat for the white men, but not thought much of by the

natives.

The king with his friends making terrific onslaughts on the pork, beef

and tinned salmon, after having eaten all they could would ask for more,

and pile up a plate of beef, pork and salmon, if there was any left, to

pass out to their attendants on the main deck, at the same time begging

some biscuits for their pull-away boys in the canoe, a request always

acceded to.

Drinkables, you will observe, so far have had no part in the feed; it is

because these untutored natives follow Nature's laws much closer than

Europeans, and never drink until they have finished eating. The king,

having done justice to the victuals, now politely intimates to the

European trader that "he be time for wash mouth." Being asked what his

sable majesty would like to do it in, he generally elects "port win," as

the natives call port wine. His chiefs, not being such connoisseurs as

his majesty, are, as a rule, satisfied with a bottle or two of beer or

gin, carefully sticking to the empty bottles.

In the meantime, had you looked over the side of the ship, you would

have wondered what his majesty's forty or fifty canoe boys were doing,

so carefully divesting themselves of every rag of cloth and hiding it by

folding it up as small as possible and sitting on it. This was so as to

point out to the trader, when he came to the gangway to see the king

away, that "he no be proper for king's boys no have cloth."

The king, having duly washed his mouth, is now ready to proceed with the

business of his visit. The payment of the comey is very soon arranged,

it being a settled sum and the different goods having their recognised

value in pawns, bars, coppers or crues according to the currency of the

particular river.

But the "shake hand"[80] is now to be got through, and the "dashing"[81]

to the king; his friends who are with him want their part, and it would

surprise a stranger the number of wants that seem to keep cropping up in

a West African king's mind as he wobbles about your ship, until, finding

he has begged every mortal thing that he can, he suddenly makes up his

mind that further importunity will be useless; he decides to order his

people into his canoe, which in most cases they obey with surprising

alacrity, brought about, I have no doubt, by the thought that now comes

their turn.

Arrived at the gangway, his majesty, in the most natural way imaginable,

notices for the first time (?) that his boys are all naked, and turning

with an appealing look to the trader, he points out the bareness of the

royal pull-away boys, and intimates that no white trader who respects

himself could think of allowing such a state of things to continue a

moment longer. This meant at least a further dash of four dozen

fishermen's striped caps and about twelve pieces of Manchester cloth.

One would suppose that this was the last straw, but before his majesty

gets into his canoe several more little wants crop up, amongst others a

tot of rum each for his canoe boys, and perchance a few fathoms of rope

to make a new painter for his canoe, until sometimes the white trader

almost loses his temper. I have heard of one (?) who did on one

occasion, and being an Irishman, he thus apostrophised one of these

sable kings, "Be jabers, king, I am thinking if I dashed you my ship you

would be after wanting me to dash you the boats belonging to her, and

after that to supply you with paint to paint them with for the next ten

years." There was a glare in that Irishman's eye, and that king noticed

it, and decided the time had come for him to scoot, and history says he

scooted. In the early days of the palm oil trade, the custom inaugurated

by the slave traders of receiving the king on his visit to the ship was

by a salute of six or seven guns, and another of equal number on his

departure, the latter being an intimation to all whom it might concern

that his majesty had duly received his comey, and that trade was open

with the said ship. This was continued for some years, but as the

security of the seas became greater in those parts the trading ships

gave up the custom of carrying guns, and the intimation that the king

"done broke trade" with the last arrival was effected by his majesty

sending off a canoe of oil to the ship, and the sending round of a

verbal message by one of the king's men.

Since the year 1891 the kings of the Oil Rivers have been relieved of

the duty of collecting comey, as a regular government of these rivers

has been inaugurated by H.B.M. Government, comey being replaced by

import duties.

NATIVE SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT IN BENIN, AND RELIGION

Though there is a great similarity in the native form of government in

these parts, it would be impossible to convey a true description of the

manners and customs of the various places if I did not treat of each

river and its people separately; I shall therefore commence by

describing the people of Benin.

The Benin kingdom, so far as this account of it will go, was said to

extend from the boundaries of the Mahin country (a district between the

British Colony of Lagos and the Benin River) and the river Ramos; thus

on the coast line embracing the rivers Benin, Escravos, and Forcados,

also the hinterland, taking in Warri up to the Yoruba States.

For the purpose of the work I have set myself, I shall treat of that

part of the kingdom that may be embraced by a line drawn from the mouth

of the river Ramos up to the town of Warri, thence to Benin City, and

brought down to the coast a little to the north of the Benin River. This

tract of country is inhabited by four tribes, viz., the Jakri tribe, the

dominant people on the coast line; the Sobo tribe, a very timid but most

industrious people, great producers of palm oil, as well as being great

agriculturists; an unfortunate people placed as they were between the

extortions of the Jakris and the slave raiding of the Benin City king

for his various sacrificial purposes; the third tribe are the Ijos,

inhabiting the lower parts of the Escravos, Forcados, and Ramos rivers;

this latter tribe are great canoe builders and agriculturists in a small

way, produce a little palm oil, and by some people are accused of being

cannibals; this latter accusation I don't think they deserve, in the

full acceptation of the word, for thirty-three years ago I passed more

than a week in one of their towns, when I was quite at their mercy,

being accompanied by no armed men and carrying only a small revolver

myself, which never came out of my pocket. Since when I have visited

some of their towns on the Bassa Creek outside the boundary I have drawn

for the purpose of this narrative, and never was I treated with the

least disrespect.

The fourth tribe is the Benin people proper, whose territory is supposed

to extend as far back as the boundaries of the Yoruba nation, starting

from the right bank of the Benin River. In this territory is the once

far-famed city of Benin, where lived the king, to whom the Jakri, the

Sobo, and the Ijo tribes paid tribute.

These people have at all times since their first intercourse with

Europeans, now some four hundred years, been renowned for their barbaric

customs.

The earlier travellers who visited Benin City do not mention human

sacrifices among these customs, but I have no doubt they took place; as

these travellers were generally traders and wanted to return to Benin

for trade purposes, they most likely thought the less said on the

subject the best. I find, however, that in the last century more than

one traveller mentions the sacrifice of human beings by the king of

Benin, but do not lead one to imagine that it was carried to the

frightful extent it has been carried on in later years.

I think myself that the custom of sacrificing human beings has been

steadily increasing of late years, as the city of Benin became more and

more a kind of holy city amongst the pagan tribes.

Their religion, like that of all the neighbouring pagans, admits of a

Supreme Being, maker of all things, but as he is supposed to be always

doing good, there is no necessity to sacrifice to him.

They, however, implicitly believe in a malignant spirit, to whom they

sacrifice men and animals to satiate its thirst for blood and prevent it

from doing them any harm.

Some of the pagan customs are of a sanitary character. Take, for

instance, the yam custom. This custom is more or less observed all along

the West Coast of Africa, and where it is unattended by any sacrificing

of human or animal life, except the latter be to make a feast, it should

be encouraged as a kind of harvest festival. When I say this was a

sanitary law, I must explain that the new yams are a most dangerous

article of food if eaten before the yam custom has been made, which

takes place a certain time after the yams are found to be fit for taking

out of the ground.

The new yams are often offered for sale to the Europeans at the earliest

moment that they can be dug up, some weeks in many cases before the

custom is made; the consequence is that many Europeans contract severe

attacks of dysentery and fever about this time.

The well-to-do native never touches them before the proper time, but the

poorer classes find it difficult to keep from eating them, as they are

not only very sweet, but generally very cheap when they first come on

the market.

The king of Benin was assisted in the government of his country and his

tributaries by four principal officers; three of these were civil

officers; these officers and the Ju-Ju men were the real governors of

the country, the king being little more than a puppet in their hands.

It was these three officers who decided who should be appointed governor

of the lower river, generally called New Benin.

Their choice as a rule fell upon the most influential chief of the

district, their last choice being Nana, the son of the late chief

Alumah, the most powerful and richest chief that had ever been known

amongst the Jakri men. I shall have more to say about Nana when I am

dealing with the Jakri tribe.

Amongst the principal annual customs held by the king of Old Benin, were

the customs to his predecessors, generally called "making father" by the

English-speaking native of the coast.

The coral custom was another great festival; besides these there were

many occasional minor customs held to propitiate the spirit of the sun,

the moon, the sky, and the earth. At most of these, if not all, human

sacrifices were made.

Kings of Benin did not inherit by right of birth; the reigning king

feeling that his time to leave this earth was approaching, would select

his successor from amongst his sons, and calling his chief civil officer

would confide to him the name of the one he had selected to follow him.

Upon the king's death this officer would take into his own charge the

property of the late king, and receive the homage of all the expectant

heirs; after enjoying the position of regent for some few days he would

confide his secret to the chief war minister, and the chosen prince

would be sent for and made to kneel, while they declared to him the will

of his father. The prince thereupon would thank these two officers for

their faithful services, and then he was immediately proclaimed king of

Benin.

Now commences trouble for the non-successful claimants; the king's

throne must be secure, so they and their sons must be suppressed. As it

was not allowed to shed royal blood, they were quietly suffocated by

having their noses, mouths and ears stuffed with cloth. To somewhat take

the sting out of this cruel proceeding they were given a most pompous

funeral.

Whilst on the subject of funerals I think I had better tell you

something about the funeral customs of the Benineese.

When a king dies, it is said, his domestics solicit the honour of being

buried with him, but this is only accorded to a few of his greatest

favourites (I quite believe this to have been true, for I have seen

myself slaves of defunct chiefs appealing to be allowed to join their

late master); these slaves are let down into the grave alive, after the

corpse has been placed therein. Graves of kings and chiefs in Western

Africa being nice roomy apartments, generally about 12 feet by 8 by 14,

but in Benin, I am told, the graves have a floor about 16 feet by 12,

with sides tapering to an aperture that can be closed by a single

flag-stone. On the morning following the interment, this flag-stone was

removed, and the people down below asked if they had found the King.

This question was put to them every successive morning, until no answer

being returned it was concluded that the slaves had found their master.

Meat was then roasted on the grave-stone and distributed amongst the

people with a plentiful supply of drink, after which frightful orgies

took place and great licence allowed to the populace--murders taking

place and the bodies of the murdered people being brought as offerings

to the departed, though at any other time murder was severely punished.

Chiefs and women of distinction are also entitled to pompous funerals,

with the usual accompaniment of massacred slaves. If a native of Benin

City died in a distant part of the kingdom, the corpse used to be dried

over a gentle fire and conveyed to this city for interment. Cases have

been known where a body having been buried with all due honours and

ceremonies, it has been afterwards taken up and the same ceremonies as

before gone through a second time.

The usual funeral ceremonies for a person of distinction last about

seven or eight days, and consist, besides the human sacrifices, of

lamentations, dancing, singing and considerable drinking.

The near relatives mourn during several months--some with half their

heads shaved, others completely shaven.

The law of inheritance for people of distinction differs from that of

the kings in the fact that the eldest son inherits by right of

primogeniture, and succeeds to all his father's property, wives and

slaves. He generally allows his mother a separate establishment and

maintenance and finds employment and maintenance for his father's other

wives in the family residence. He is expected to act liberally with his

younger brothers, but there is no law on this question. Before entering

into full possession of his father's property he must petition the king

to allow him to do so, accompanying the said petition with a present to

the king of a slave, as also one to each of the three great officers of

the king. This petition is invariably granted. A widow cannot marry

again without the permission of her son, if she have a son; or if he be

too young, the man who marries her must supply a female slave to wait

upon him instead of his mother.

Theft was punished by fine only, if the stolen property was restored,

but by flogging if the thief was unable to make restitution.

Murder was of rare occurrence. When detected it was punished with death

by decapitation, and the body of the culprit was quartered and exposed

to the beasts and birds of prey.

If the murderer be a man of some considerable position he was not

executed, but escorted out of the country and never allowed to return.

In case of a murder committed in the heat of passion, the culprit could

arrange matters by giving the dead person a suitable funeral, paying a

heavy fine to the three chief officers of the king and supplying a slave

to suffer in his place. In this case he was bound to kneel and keep his

forehead touching the slave during his execution.

In all cases where an accusation was not clearly proved, the accused

would have to undergo an ordeal to prove his guilt or innocence. To

fully describe the whole of these would fill several hundred pages, and

as most of them could be managed by the Ju-Ju men in such a way, that

they could prove a man guilty or innocent according to the amount of

present they had received from the accused's friends, I will pass on to

other subjects.

Adultery was very severely punished in whatever class it took place; in

the lower classes all the property of the guilty man passed at once to

the injured husband, the woman being severely flogged and expelled from

her husband's house.

Amongst the middle class this crime could be atoned for by the friends

of the guilty woman making a money present to the injured husband; and

the lady would be restored to her outraged lord's favour.

The upper classes revenged themselves by having the two culprits

instantly put to death, except when the male culprit belonged to the

upper classes; then the punishment was generally reduced to banishment

from the kingdom of Benin for life.

Amongst these people one finds some peculiar customs concerning

children. Amongst others, a child is supposed to be under great danger

from evil spirits until it has passed its seventh day. On this day a

small feast is provided by the parents; still it is thought well to

propitiate the evil spirits by strewing a portion of the feast round the

house where the child is.

Twin children, according to some accounts, were not looked upon with the

same horror in Benin as they are in other parts of the Niger Delta; as a

fact, they were looked upon with favour, except in one town of the

kingdom, the name of which I have never been able to get, nor have I

been able to locate the spot; but wherever it is, I am informed both

mother and children were sacrificed to a demon, who resided in a wood in

the neighbourhood of this town.

This law of killing twin children, like most Ju-Ju laws, could be got

over if the father was himself not too deeply steeped in Ju-Juism, and

was sufficiently wealthy to bribe the Ju-Ju priests. The law was always

mercilessly carried out in the case of the poorer class of natives--the

above refers solely to the part of Benin kingdom directly under the king

of Old Benin, and does not hold good with regard to the Sobos, Jakris,

or Ijos.

ORIGIN OF THE BENIN CITY PEOPLE

According to Clapperton the Benin people are descendants of the Yoruba

tribes, the Yoruba tribes being descended from six brothers, all the

sons of one mother. Their names were Ikelu, Egba, Ijebu, Ife, Ibini

(Benin), and Yoruba.

According to the late Sultan Bello (the Foulah chief of Sokoto at the

time of Captain Clapperton's visit to that city), the Yoruba tribes are

descended from the children of Canaan, who were of the tribe of Nimrod.

In my opinion there is room for much speculation on this statement of

the Sultan Bello.

It is a very curious fact that the people of Benin City have been, from

the earliest accounts we have of them, great workers in brass. Might not

the ancestors of this people have brought the art of working in brass

with them from the far distant land of Canaan? Moses, when speaking of

the land of Canaan, says, "out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass"

(Deut. viii. 9). Here we must understand copper to be meant; because

brass is not dug out of the earth, but copper is, and found in abundance

in that part of the world.

Yet another curious subject for reflection, from the first information

that European travellers give us (_circa_ 1485) in their descriptions of

the city of Benin, mention has invariably made of towers, from the

summits of which monster brass serpents were suspended. Upon the entry

of the punitive expedition into Benin City in the month of February,

1897, Benin City still possessed one of these serpents in brass, not

hanging from a tower, but laid upon the roof of one of the king's

houses.

Might not these brazen serpents be a remnant of some tradition handed

down from the time of Moses? for do we not read in the Scriptures, that

the people of Israel had sinned; and God to punish them sent fiery

serpents, which bit the people, and many died. Then Moses cried to God,

and God told him to make a serpent of brass, and set it on a pole.

(Numbers xxi. 9.)

While on the subject of serpents, I may mention that in the

neighbourhood of Benin, there is a Ju-Ju ordeal pond or river, said to

be infested with dangerous and poisonous snakes and alligators, through

which a man accused of any crime passing unscathed proves his innocence.

There are some other customs connected with the position of the king of

Benin, as the head of the Ju-Juism of his country, which seem to have

some trace of a Biblical origin, but which I will not discuss here, but

leave to the ethnologists to unravel, if they can.

That they were a superior people to the surrounding tribes is amply

demonstrated by their being workers in brass and iron; displaying

considerable art in some of their castings in brass, iron, copper and

bronze, their carving in ivory, and their manufacture of cotton

cloth--no other people in the Delta showing any such ability.

The Jakri tribe, who inhabit that part of the country lying between the

Sobo country and the Ijo country, were the dominant tribe in the lower

or New Benin country. Being themselves tributary to the Benin king, they

dare not make the Sobo or Ijo men pay a direct tribute to them for the

right to live, but they indirectly took a much larger tribute from them

than ever they paid the king of Benin.

The Jakris were the brokers, and would not allow either of the

above-named tribes to trade direct with the white men.

The principal towns of the Jakri men were:--Brohemie[82] (destroyed by

the English in 1894): this town was generally called Nana's town of late

years. Nana was Governor of the whole of the country lying between a

line drawn from the Gwato Creek to Wari and the sea-coast; his

governorship extending a little beyond the Benin River, and running down

the coast to the Ramos River. This appointment he held from the king of

Benin, and was officially recognised by the British Consul as the

head-man of the Jakri tribe, and for any official business in connection

with the country over which he was Governor. Jeboo or Chief Peggy's

town, situated on the waterway to Lagos; Jaquah town or Chief Ogrie's

town. The above towns are all on the right bank of the river.

On the left bank of the river are found the following towns:--Bateri, or

Chief Numa's town, lying about half an hour's pull in a boat from Deli

Creek. Chief Numa, was the son of the late Chief Chinome, a rival in his

day to Allumah, the father of Nana, the late Governor; Chinome was the

son of Queen Doto of Wari, who years ago was most anxious to see the

white man at her town, and repeatedly advised the white men to use the

Forcados for their principal trading station; but the old Chief Allumah

was against any such exodus, and as he was a very big trader in

palm-oil, he of course carried the day, and the white men stuck to their

swamp at the mouth of the river Benin.

Close to Numa's town his brother Fragoni has established a small town.

At some little distance from Bateri is Booboo, or the late Chief

Bregbi's town. Galey, the eldest son of the late Chinome, has a small

town in the Deli Creek. This man, though the eldest son of the late

Chief Chinome, is not a chief, though his younger brother Numa is. Here

is a knotty point in Jakri law of inheritance, which differs from the

Benin City law on the subject.

Wari, the capital of Jakri, though almost if not actually as old a town

as Benin City, has never had the bad reputation that the latter city has

always had. I attribute this to the fact that the ladies of Warri have

always been a power in the land.

Sapele is a place that has come very much into notice since the country

has been under the jurisdiction of the Niger Coast Protectorate, and is

without doubt one of the best stations on the Benin territory. I am glad

to say that the Europeans have at last deserted to a great extent their

factories at the mouth of the Benin River, and are now principally

located at Sapele and Wari.

The Jakri tribe claim to be of the same race as the people of Benin City

and kingdom. This I am inclined to dispute; I think they were a coast

tribe like the Ijos. Tradition says that Wari was founded by people from

Benin kingdom and for many years was tributary to the king of Benin, but

in 1778 Wari was reported to be quite independent. They may have become

almost the same race by intermarriage with the Benin people that went

to Wari; but that they were originally the same race I say no.

The religion of the Jakri tribe and the native laws and system of

ordeals were, as far as I have been able to ascertain, identical with

those of the Benin kingdom; with the exception of the human sacrifices

and their law of inheritance which does not admit the right of

primogeniture--following in this respect, the laws of the Bonny men and

their neighbours. Twin children are usually killed by the Jakris, and

the mother driven into the bush to die.

The Jakri tribe are, without doubt, one of the finest in the Niger Coast

Protectorate; many of their present chiefs are very honest and

intelligent men, also excellent traders. Their women are noted as being

the finest and best looking for miles round.

The Jakri women have already made great strides towards their complete

emancipation from the low state in which the women of neighbouring

tribes still find themselves, many of them being very rich and great

traders.

The Sobo tribe have been kept so much in the background by the Jakris

that little is known about them. What little is known of them is to

their credit.

We now come to the Ijo tribe, or at least, that portion of them that

live within the Niger Coast Protectorate; these men are reported by some

travellers to be cannibals, and a very turbulent people; this character

has been given them by interested parties. Their looks are very much

against them as they disfigure their faces by heavy cuts as tribal

marks, and some pick up the flesh between their eyes making a kind of

ridge, that gives them a savage expression. Though I have put the limit

of these people at the river Ramos, they really extend along the coast

as far as the western bank of the Akassa river. They have never had a

chance and, with the exception of large timber for making canoes, their

country does not produce much. Though I have seen considerable numbers

of rubber-producing trees in their country, I never was able to induce

them to work it. No doubt they asked the advice of their Ju-Ju as to

taking my advice, and he followed the usual rule laid down by the

priesthood of Ju-Ju-ism, no innovations.

Whilst I was in the Ijo country I carefully studied their Ju-Ju, as I

had been told they were great believers in, and practisers of Ju-Ju-ism.

I found little in their system differing from that practised in most of

the rivers of the Delta.

In all these practices human agency plays a very large part, and this

seems to be known even to the lower orders of the people; as an

instance, I must here relate an experience I once had amongst the Ijos.

I had arranged with a chief living on the Bassa Creek to lend me his

fastest canoe and twenty-five of his people, to take me to the Brass

river; the bargain was that his canoe should be ready at Cock-Crow Peak

the following morning. I was ready at the water-side by the time

appointed, but only about six of the smallest boys had put in an

appearance; the old chief was there in a most furious rage, sending off

messengers in all directions to find the canoe boys. After about two

hours' work and the expenditure of much bad language on the part of the

old chief, also some hard knocks administered to the canoe boys by the

men who had been sent after them, as evidenced by the wales I saw on

their backs, the canoe was at last manned, and I took my seat in it

under a very good mat awning which nearly covered the canoe from end to

end, and thanking my stars that now my troubles had come to an end I

hoped at least for a time. I was, however, a very big bit too premature,

for before the old chief would let the canoe start, he informed me he

must make Ju-Ju for the safety of his canoe and the safe return of it

and all his boys, to say nothing of my individual safety.

One of the first requirements of that particular Ju-Ju cost me further

delay, for a bottle of gin had to be procured, and as the daily market

in that town had not yet opened, and no public house had yet been

established by any enterprising Ijo, it took some time to procure.

On the arrival of the article, however, my friend the old chief

proceeded in a most impressive manner to repeat a short prayer, the

principal portion I was able to understand and which was as follows: "I

beg you, I beg you, don't capsize my canoe. If you do, don't drown any

of my boys and don't do any harm to my friend the white man." This was

addressed to the spirit of the water; having finished this little

prayer, he next sprinkled a little gin about the bows of the canoe and

in the river, afterwards taking a drink himself. He then produced a leaf

with about an ounce of broken-up cooked yam mixed with a little palm

oil, which he carefully fixed in the extreme foremost point of the

canoe.

At last this ceremony was at an end and we started off, but alas! my

troubles were only just beginning. We had been started about half an

hour, and I had quietly dozed off into a pleasant sleep, when I was

awakened by feeling the canoe rolling from side to side as if we were

in rough water; just then the boys all stopped pulling, and on my

remonstrance they informed me Ju-Ju "no will," _id est_, that the Ju-ju

had told them they must go back. I used gentle persuasion in the form of

offers of extra pay at first, then I stormed and used strong language,

or at least, what little Ijo strong language I knew, but all to no

avail. I then began to inquire what Ju-Ju had spoken, and they pointed

out a small bird that just then flew away into the bush; it looked to me

something like a kingfisher. The head boy of the canoe then explained to

me that this Ju-ju bird having spoken, _id est_, chirped on the

right-hand side of the canoe, and the goat's skull hanging up to the

foremost awning stanchion having fallen the same way (this ornament I

had not previously noticed), signified that we must turn back. So turn

back we did, though I thought at the time the boys did not want to go

the journey, owing to the almost continual state of quarrelling that had

been going on for years between the Ijos and the Brassmen. I was not far

wrong, for when we eventually did arrive at Brass, I had to hide these

Ijo people in the hold of my ship, as the very sight of a Brassman made

them shiver.

The following morning the same performance was gone through; we started,

and at about the same point Ju-Ju spoke again; again we returned. My old

friend the chief was very sorry he said, but he could not blame his boys

for acting as they had done, Ju-Ju having told them to return. He would

not listen when I told him I felt confident his boys had assisted the

Ju-Ju by making the canoe roll about from side to side.

However, I thought the matter over to myself during that second day, and

decided I would make sure one part of that Ju-ju should not speak

against me the next morning, and that was the goat's skull, so during

that night after every Ijo was fast asleep, I visited that skull and

carefully secured it to its post by a few turns of very fine fishing

line in such a manner that no one could notice what I had done, if they

did not specially examine it. I dare not fix it to the left, that being

the favourable side, for fear of it being noticed, but I fixed it

straight up and down, so that it could not demonstrate against my

journey.

I retired to my sleeping quarters and slept the sleep of the just, and

next morning started in the best of spirits, though continually haunted

by the fear that my little stratagem might be discovered. We had got

about the same distance from the town that we had on the two previous

mornings when the canoe began to oscillate as usual, caused by a

combined movement of all the boys in the canoe, I was perfectly

convinced, for the creek we were in was as smooth as a mill pond. Many

anxious glances were cast at the skull, and the canoe was made to roll

more and more until the water slopped over into her, but the skull did

not budge, and, strange to relate, the bird of ill omen did not show

itself or chirp this morning, so the boys gave up making the canoe

oscillate and commenced to paddle for all they were worth, and the

following evening we arrived at my ship in Brass. We could have arrived

much earlier, but the Ijos did not wish to meet with any Brassmen, so we

waited until the shades of night came on, and thus passed unobserved

several Brass canoes, arriving safely at my ship in time for dinner.

I carefully questioned the head boy of the Ijo boys all about this bird

that had given me so much trouble. He explained to me that once having

passed a certain point in the creek, the bird not having spoken and the

skull not having demonstrated either, it was quite safe to continue on

our journey, conveying to me the idea that this bird was a regular

inhabitant of a certain portion of the bush, which was also their sacred

bush wherein the Ju-Ju priests practised their most private devotions.

The same species of bird showed itself several times both on the right

of us and on the left of us as we passed through other creeks on our way

to Brass, but the canoe boys took no notice of it.

In dealing with the Benin Kingdom I have allowed myself somewhat to

encroach upon the Royal Niger Company's territory, which commences on

the left bank of the river Forcados and takes in all the rivers down to

the Nun (Akassa), and the sea-shore to leeward of this river as far as a

point midway between the latter river and the mouth of the Brass river,

thence a straight line is drawn to a place called Idu, on the Niger

River, forming the eastern boundary between the Royal Niger Company's

territory and the Niger Coast Protectorate. I have not defined the

western boundary between the Royal Niger Company's territory and the

other portion of the Niger Coast Protectorate otherwise than stating

that it commences on the seashore at the eastern point of the Forcados.

Benin Kingdom, as a kingdom, may now be numbered with the past. For

years the cruelties known to be enacted in the city of Benin have been

such that it was only a question of ways and means that deterred the

Protectorate officials from smashing up the place several years ago.

It is a very curious trait in the character of these savage kinglets of

Western Africa how little they seem to have been impressed by the

downfall of their brethren in neighbouring districts. Though they were

well acquainted with all that was passing around them. Thus the fall of

Ashantee in 1873 was well known to the King of Dahomey, yet he continued

on his way and could not believe the French could ever upset him. Nana,

the governor of the lower Benin or Jakri, could not see in the downfall

of Ja Ja that the British Government were not to be trifled with by any

petty king or governor of these rivers; though Nana was a most

intelligent native, he had the temerity to show fight against the

Protectorate officials, and of course he quickly found out his mistake,

but alas! too late for his peace of mind and happiness; he is now a

prisoner at large far away from his own country, stripped of all his

riches and position. Here was an object lesson for Abu Bini, the King of

Benin, right at his own door, every detail of which he must have heard

of, or at least his Ju-Ju priests must have heard of the disaster that

had happened to Nana, his satrap.

Nothing daunted Abu Bini and his Ju-Ju priests continued their evil

practices; then came the frightful Benin massacre of Protectorate

officials and European traders, besides a number of Jakris and Kruboys

in the employment of the Protectorate.

The first shot that was fired that January morning, 1897, by the

emissaries of King Abu Bini, sounded the downfall of the City of Benin

and the end of all its atrocious and disgusting sacrificial rites, for

scarcely three months after the punitive expedition camped in the King's

Palace at old Benin.

The two expeditions that have had to be sent to Benin River within the

last few years have been two unique specimens of what British sailors

and soldiers have to cope with whilst protecting British subjects and

their interests, no matter where situated.

I do not suppose that there are in England to-day one hundred people who

know, and can therefore appreciate at its true value, the risk that each

man in those two expeditions ran. In the attack on Nana's town the

British sailors had to walk through a dirty, disgusting, slimy mangrove

swamp, often sinking in the mud half way up their thighs, and this in

the face of a sharp musketry fire coming from unseen enemies carefully

hidden away, in some cases not five yards off, in dense bush, with

occasional discharges of grape and canister. But nothing stopped them,

and Nana's town was soon numbered with the things that had been.

It was the same to a great extent in the attack on Benin, only varied by

the swamps not being quite so bad as at Nana's town, but the distance

from the water side was much farther; in the former case one might say

it was only a matter of minutes once in touch with the enemy; in the

attack on Benin city it was a matter of several days marching through

dense bush, where an enemy could get within five yards of you without

being seen, and in some places nearer. Almost constantly under fire,

besides a sun beating down on you so hot that where the soil was sandy

you felt the heat almost unbearable through the soles of your boots, to

say nothing of the minor troubles of being very short of drinking water,

and at night not being able to sleep owing to the myriads of sand-flies

and mosquitoes; getting now and again a perfume wafted under your

nostrils, in comparison with which a London sewer would be eau de

Cologne.

I was once under fire for twelve hours against European trained troops,

so know something about a soldier's work, and for choice I would prefer

a week's similar work in Europe to two hours' West African bush and

swamp fighting, with its aids, fever and dysentery.

Before I quit Benin I want to mention one thing more about Ju-Ju. When

the attack was made on Benin city, the first day's march had scarcely

begun when two white men were killed and buried. After the column passed

on, the natives came and dug the bodies up, cut their heads and hands

off, and carried them up to Benin city to the Ju-Ju priests, who showed

them to the king to prove to him that his Ju-Ju, managed by them, was

greater than the white man's; in fact, the king, I am told, was being

shown these heads and hands at the moment when the first rockets fell in

Benin city. Those rockets proved to him the contrary, and he left the

city quicker than he had ever done in his life before.

To point out to my readers how all the natives of the Delta believed in

the power of the Benin Ju-Ju, I must tell you none of them believed the

English had really captured the King until he was taken round and shown

to them, the belief being that, on the approach of danger, he would be

able to change himself into a bird and thus fly away and escape.

BRASS RIVER

Brass River is then the first river we have to deal with on the Niger

Coast Protectorate, to the eastward of the Royal Niger Company's

boundary.

The inhabitants of Brass call their country Nimbe and themselves Nimbe

nungos, the latter word meaning people. Their principal towns were

Obulambri and Basambri, divided only by a narrow creek dry at low water.

In each of these towns resided a king, each having jurisdiction over

separate districts of the Nimbe territory; thus the King of Obulambri

was supposed to look after the district on the left hand of the River

Brass, his jurisdiction extending as far as the River St. Barbara. The

King of Basambri's district extended from the right bank of the Brass

River, westward as far as the Middleton outfalls; included in this

district was the Nun mouth of the River Niger. These two kinglets had a

very prosperous time during the closing days of the slave trade, as most

of the contraband was carried on through the Brass and the Nun River

both by Bonnymen and New Calabar men after they had signed treaties with

Her Majesty's Government to discontinue the slave trade in their

dominions. When eventually the trade in slaves was finally put down

their prosperity was not at an end, for they went largely into the palm

oil trade, and did a most prosperous trade along the banks of the Niger

as far as Onitsa.

Though these two kings always objected to the white men opening up the

Niger, and did their utmost to retard the first expeditions, they were

not slow in demanding comey from the early traders who established

factories in the Nun mouth of the Niger; this part of the Niger is also

called the Akassa.

These people are a very mixed race, and to describe them as any

particular tribe would be an error. I believe the original inhabitants

of the mouths of these rivers were the Ijos, and that the towns of

Obulambri and Bassambri were founded by some of the more adventurous

spirits amongst the men from the neighbourhood of Sabogrega, a town on

the Niger; being afterwards joined by some similar adventurers from

Bonny River. The three people are closely connected by family ties at

this day.

As a rule these people have always had the character of being a well

behaved set of men; it is a notable fact in their favour that they were

the only people that, once having signed the treaty with Her Majesty's

Government to put down slavery, honestly stuck to the terms of the

treaty; unlike their neighbours, they did so, though they were the only

people who did not receive any indemnity.

They, however, have occasionally lost their heads and gone to excesses

unworthy of a people with such a good reputation as they have generally

enjoyed.

Their last escapade was the attack on the factory of the Royal Niger

Company at Akassa some few years ago, and for which they were duly

punished; their dual mud and thatch capital was blown down, and one

small town called Fishtown destroyed.

Impartial observers must have pitied these poor people driven to despair

by being cut off from their trading markets by the fiscal arrangements

of the Royal Niger Company. The latter I don't blame very much, they are

traders; but the line drawn from Idu to a point midway between the Brass

River and the Nun entrance to the Niger River, as being the boundary

line for fiscal purposes between the Royal Niger Company and the Niger

Coast Protectorate, was drawn by some one at Downing Street who

evidently looked upon this part of the world as a cheesemonger would a

cheese.

In 1830 it was at Abo on the Niger where Lander the traveller met with

the Brassmen, who took him down to Obulambri, but no ship being in Brass

River, they took him and his people over to Akassa, at the Nun mouth of

the Niger, to an English ship lying there. History says he was anything

but well received by the captain of this vessel, and that the Brassmen

did not treat him as well as they might; however, they did not eat him,

as they no doubt would have done could they have looked into the future.

Whatever their treatment of Lander was, it could not have been very bad,

as they received some reward for what assistance they had given him some

time after.

It was amongst these people that I was enabled to study more closely the

inner working of the domestic slavery of this part of Western Africa,

and where it was carried on with less hardship to the slaves themselves

than any place else in the Delta, until the Niger Company's boundary

line threw most of the labouring population on the rates, at least they

would have gone on the rates if there had been any to go on, but

unfortunately the municipal arrangements of these African kingdomlets

had not arrived at such a pitch of civilisation; the consequence was

many died from starvation, others hired themselves out as labourers, but

the demand for their services was limited, as they compared badly with

the fine, athletic Krumen, who monopolise all the labour in these parts.

Then came the punitive expedition for the attack on Akassa that wiped

off a few more of the population, so that to-day the Brassmen may be

described as a vanishing people.

The various grades of the people in Brass were the kings, next came

the chiefs and their sons who had by their own industry, and assisted

in their first endeavours by their parents, worked themselves into

a position of wealth, then came the Winna-boes, a grade mostly

supplied by the favourite slave of a chief, who had been his constant

attendant for years, commencing his career by carrying his master's

pocket-handkerchief and snuff-box, pockets not having yet been

introduced into the native costume; after some years of this duty he

would be promoted to going down to the European traders to superintend

the delivery of a canoe of oil, seeing to its being tried, gauged, &c.

This first duty, if properly performed, would lead to his being often

sent on the same errand. This duty required a certain amount of _savez_,

as the natives call intelligence, for he had to so look after his

master's interests that the pull-away boys that were with him in the

canoe did not secrete any few gallons of oil that there might be left

over after filling up all the casks he had been sent to deliver; nor

must he allow the white trader to under-gauge his master's casks by

carelessness or otherwise. If he was able to do the latter part of his

errand in such a diplomatic manner that he did not raise the bile of the

trader, that day marked the commencement of his upward career, if he was

possessed of the bump of saving. All having gone off to the satisfaction

of both parties, the trader would make this boy some small present

according to the number of puncheons of oil he had brought down, seldom

less than a piece of cloth worth about 2s. 6d., and, in the case of

canoes containing ten to fifteen puncheons, the trader would often dash

him two pieces of cloth and a bunch or two of beads. This present he

would, on his return to his master's house, hand over to his mother (_id

est_, the woman who had taken care of him from the time when he was

first bought by his Brass master). She would carefully hoard this and

all subsequent bits of miscellaneous property until he had in his

foster-mother's hands sufficient goods to buy an angbar of oil--a

measure containing thirty gallons. Then he would approach his master

(always called "father" by his slaves) and beg permission to send his

few goods to the Niger markets the next time his master had a canoe

starting--which permission was always accorded. He had next to arrange

terms with the head man or trader of his master's canoe as to what

commission he had to get for trading off the goods in the far market. In

this discussion, which may occupy many days before it is finally

arranged, the foster-mother figures largely; and it depends a great deal

upon her standing in the household of the chief as to the amount of

commission the trade boy will demand for his services. If the

foster-mother should happen to be a favourite wife of the chief, well,

then things are settled very easily, the trade boy most likely saying he

was quite willing to leff-em to be settled any way she liked; if, on the

contrary, it was one of the poorer women of the chiefs house, Mr.

Trade-boy would demand at least the quarter of the trade to commence

with, and end up by accepting about an eighth. As the winnabo could

easily double his property twice a year--and he was always adding to his

store in his foster-mother's hands from presents received each time he

went down to the white trader with his father's oil--it did not take

many years for him to become a man of means, and own canoes and slaves

himself. Many times have I known cases where the winnabo has repeatedly

paid up the debts of his master to the white man.

According to the law of the country, the master has the right to sell

the very man who is paying his debts off for him; but I must say I never

heard a case of such rank ingratitude, though cases have occurred where

the master has got into such low water and such desperate difficulties

that his creditors under country law have seized everything he was

possessed of, including any wealthy winnaboes he might have.

Some writers have said this class could purchase their freedom; with

this I don't agree. The only chance a winnabo had of getting his freedom

was, supposing his master died and left no sons behind him old enough or

capable enough to take the place of their father, then the winnabo might

be elected to take the place of his defunct master: he would then become

_ipso facto_ a chief, and be reckoned a free man. If he was a man of

strong character, he would hold until his death all the property of the

house; but if one of the sons of his late master should grow up an

intelligent man, and amass sufficient riches to gather round him some of

the other chief men in the town, then the question was liable to be

re-opened, and the winnabo might have to part out some of the property

and the people he had received upon his appointment to the headship of

the house, together with a certain sum in goods or oil, which the elders

of the town would decide should represent the increment on the portion

handed over. I have never known of a case where the whole of the

property and people have been taken away from a winnabo in Brass; but I

have known it occur in other rivers, but only for absolute misuse,

misrule, and misconduct of the party.

Egbo-boes are the niggers or absolute lower rank of slaves, who are

employed as pull-away boys in the oil canoes and gigs of the chiefs, and

do all the menial work or hard labour of the towns that is not done by

the lower ranks of the women slaves.

The lot of these egbo-boes is a very hard one at times, especially when

their masters have no use for them in their oil canoes. At the best of

times their masters don't provide them with more food then is about

sufficient for one good square meal a day; but, when trade is dull and

they have no use for them in any way, their lot is deplorable indeed.

This class has suffered terribly during the last ten years owing to the

complete stoppage of the Brassmen's trade in the Niger markets.

This class had few chances of rising in the social scale, but it was

from this class that sprang some of the best trade boys who took their

masters' goods away up to Abo and occasionally as far as Onitsa, on the

Niger.

Cases have occurred of boys from this class rising to as good a position

as the more favoured winnaboes; but for this they have had to thank some

white trader, who has taken a fancy to here and there one of them, and

getting his master to lend him to him as a cabin boy--a position

generally sought after by the sons of chiefs, so as to learn "white

man's mouth," otherwise English.

The succession laws are similar to those of the other Coast tribes one

meets with in the Delta, but to understand them it requires some little

explanation. A tribe is composed of a king and a number of chiefs. Each

chief has a number of petty chiefs under him. Perhaps a better

definition for the latter would be, a number of men who own a few slaves

and a few canoes of their own, and do an independent trade with the

white men, but who pay to their chiefs a tribute of from 20 to 25 per

cent, on their trade with the white man. In many cases the white man

stops this tribute from the petty chiefs and holds it on behalf of the

chief. This collection of petty chiefs with their chief forms what in

Coast parlance is denominated a House.

The House may own a portion of the principal town, say Obulambri, and

also a portion in any of the small towns in the neighbouring creeks,

and it may own here and there isolated pieces of ground where some petty

chief has squatted and made a clearance either as a farm or to place a

few of his family there as fishermen; in the same way the chief of the

house may have squatted on various plots of ground in any part of the

district admitted by the neighbouring tribes to belong to his tribe. All

these parcels and portions of land belong in common to the House--that

is, supposing a petty chief having a farm in any part of the district

was to die leaving no male heirs and no one fit to take his place, the

chief as head of the house would take possession, but would most likely

leave the slaves of the dead man undisturbed in charge of the farm they

had been working on, only expecting them to deliver him a portion of the

produce equivalent to what they had been in the habit of delivering to

their late master, who was a petty chief of the house.

The head of the house would have the right of disposal of all the dead

man's wives, generally speaking the younger ones would be taken by the

chief, the others he would dispose of amongst his petty chiefs; if, as

generally happens, there were a few aged ones amongst them for whom

there was no demand he would take them into his own establishment and

see they were provided for.

As a matter of fact, all the people belonging to a defunct petty chief

become the property of the head of the house under any circumstances;

but if the defunct had left any man capable of succeeding him, the head

chief would allow this man to succeed without interfering with him in

any way, provided he never had had the misfortune to raise the chief's

bile; in the latter case, if the chief was a very powerful chief, whose

actions no one dare question, the chances are that he would either be

suppressed or have to go to Long Ju-Ju to prosecute his claim, the

expenses of which journey would most likely eat up the whole of the

inheritance, or at least cripple him for life as far as his commercial

transactions were concerned. It is of course to the interest of the head

of a house to surround himself with as many petty chiefs as he possibly

can, as their success in trade, and in amassing riches whether in slaves

or goods, always benefits him; even in those rivers where no heavy

"topside" is paid to the head of the house by the white traders, the

small men or petty chiefs are called upon from time to time to help to

uphold the dignity of the head chief, either by voluntary offerings or

forced payments. Public opinion has a good deal to say on the subject of

succession; and though a chief may be so powerful during his lifetime

that he may ride roughshod over custom or public opinion, after his

death his successor may find so many cases of malversation brought

against the late chief by people who would not have dared to open their

mouths during the late chief's lifetime, that by the time they are all

settled he finds that a chief's life is not a happy one at all times.

Claims of various kinds may be brought up during the lifetime of a

chief, and three or four of his successors may have the same claim

brought against them, each party may think he has settled the matter for

ever; but unless he has taken worst, the descendants of the original

claimants will keep attacking each successor until they strike one who

is not strong enough to hold his own against them, and they succeed in

getting their claim settled. This settlement does not interfere with the

losing side turning round and becoming the claimants in their turn. Some

of these family disputes are very curious; take for instance a case of

a claim for five female slaves that may have been wrongfully taken

possession of by some former chief of a house, this case perhaps is kept

warm, waiting the right moment to put it forward, for thirty years, the

claim then becomes not only for the original five women, but for their

children's children and so on.

RELIGION

The Brass natives to-day are divided into two camps as far as religion

is concerned: the missionary would no doubt say the greater number of

them are Christians, the ordinary observer would make exactly the

opposite observation, and judging from what we know has taken place in

their towns within the last few years, I am afraid the latter would be

right.

The Church Missionary Society started a mission here in 1868; it is

still working under another name, and is under the superintendence of

the Rev. Archdeacon Crowther, a son of the late Bishop Crowther.

Their success, as far as numbers of attendants at church, has been very

considerable; and I have known cases amongst the women who were

thoroughly imbued with the Christian religion, and acted up to its

teaching as conscientiously as their white sisters; these however are

few.

With regard to the men converts I have not met with one of whom I could

speak in the same terms as I have done of the women.

Whilst fully recognising the efforts that the missionaries have put

forth in this part of the world, I regret I can't bear witness to any

great good they have done.

This mission has been worked on the usual lines that English missions

have been worked in the past, so I must attribute any want of success

here as much to the system as anything.

One of the great obstacles to the spread of Christianity in these parts

is in my opinion the custom of polygamy, together with which are mixed

up certain domestic customs that are much more difficult to eradicate

than the teachings of Ju-Ju, and require a special mission for them

alone.

Almost equal to the above as an obstacle in the way of Christianity is

what is called domestic slavery; Europeans who have visited Western

Africa speak of this as a kind of slavery wherein there is no hardship

for the slave; they point to cases where slaves have risen to be kings

and chiefs, and many others who have been able to arrive at the position

of petty chief in some big man's house. I grant all this, but all these

people forget to mention that until these slaves are chiefs they are not

safe; that any grade less than that of a chief that a slave may arrive

to does not secure him from being sold if his master so wished.

Further, domestic slavery gives a chief power of life and death over his

slave; and how often have I known cases where promising young slaves

have done something to vex their chief their heads have paid the

penalty, though these young men had already amassed some wealth, having

also several wives and children.

People who condone domestic slavery, and I have heard many

kindly-hearted people do so, forget that however mild the slavery of the

domestic slave is on the coast, even under the mildest native it is

still slavery; further, these slaves are not made out of wood, they are

flesh and blood, they in their own country have had fathers and mothers.

During my lengthened stay on the coast of Africa I never questioned a

slave about his or her own country that I did not find they much

preferred their own country far away in the interior to their new home.

Some have told me that they had been travelling upwards of two months

and had been handed from one slave dealer to another, in some cases

changing their owner three or four times before reaching the coast. On

questioning them how they became slaves, I have only been told by one

that her father sold her because he was in debt; several times I have

been told that their elder brothers have sold them, but these cases

would not represent one per cent. of the slaves I have questioned; the

almost general reply I have received has been that they had been stolen

when they had gone to fetch water from the river or the spring, as the

case might be, or while they have been straying a little in the bush

paths between their village and another. Sometimes they would describe

how the slave-catchers had enticed them into the bush by showing them

some gaudy piece of cloth or offered them a few beads or negro bells,

others had been captured in some raid by one town or village on another.

Therefore domestic slavery in its effect on the interior tribes is doing

very near the same amount of harm now that it did in days gone by. It

keeps up a constant fear of strangers, and causes terrible feuds between

the villages in the interior.

What is the use of all the missionaries' teaching to the young girl

slaves so long as they are only chattels, and are forced to do the

bidding of their masters or mistresses, however degrading or filthy that

bidding may be?

The Ju-Juism of Brass is a sturdy plant, that takes a great deal of

uprooting. A few years ago a casual observer would have been inclined

to say the missionaries are making giant strides amongst these people. I

remember, as evidence of how keenly these people seemed to take to

Christianity up to a certain point, a little anecdote that the late

Bishop Crowther once told me about the Brass men. I think it must have

been a very few years before his death. I saw the worthy bishop

staggering along my wharf with an old rice bag full of some heavy

articles. On arriving on my verandah he threw the bag down, and after

passing the usual compliments, he said, "You can't guess what I have got

in that bag." I replied I was only good at guessing the contents of a

bag when the bag was opened; but judging from the weight and the

peculiar lumpy look of the outside of the bag, I should be inclined to

guess yams. "Had he brought me a present of yams?" I continued. "No," he

replied; "the contents of that bag are my new church seats in the town

of Nimbe; the church was only finished during the week, and I decided to

hold a service in it on Sunday last; and, do you believe me, those logs

of wood are a sample of all we had for seats for most part of the

congregation! I have therefore brought them down to show you white

gentlemen our poverty, and to beg some planks to make forms for the

church." I promised to assist him, and he left, carefully walking off

with his bag of fire-wood, for that was all it was, cut in lengths of

about fifteen inches, and about four inches in diameter. Here ends my

anecdote, so far as the bishop was concerned, for he never came back to

claim the fulfilment of my promise; but later on one of my clerks

reported to me that there had been a great run on inch planks during the

week, and that the purchasers were mostly women, and the poorest natives

in the place. This fact, coupled with the fact that the bishop never

came back for the planks he had begged of me, caused me to make some

inquiries, and I found that the church had been plentifully supplied

with benches by the poorer portion of the congregation.