THE VOYAGE TO WEST AFRICA
The _Mayumba_--Fearful Weather--An Escape--Hanno’s Voyage--
Atlantis--A Land of Death--Blackwater Fever--Missionaries--Strange
Fish--Danger of Luxury--A Foolish Swim--The Ship on Fire--England once
more.
It had always been my intention to take a voyage as ship’s surgeon
when I had taken my degree, as I could in this way see something of
the world, and at the same time earn a little of the money which I so
badly needed if I were ever to start in practice for myself. When a
man is in the very early twenties he will not be taken seriously as a
practitioner, and though I looked old for my age, it was clear that I
had to fill in my time in some other way. My plans were all exceedingly
fluid, and I was ready to join the Army, Navy, Indian Service or
anything which offered an opening. I had no reason to think that I
would find a billet upon a passenger ship and had nearly forgotten that
I had my name down, when I suddenly received a telegram telling me
to come to Liverpool and to take medical charge of the African Steam
Navigation Company’s _Mayumba_, bound for the West Coast. In a week I
was there, and on October 22, 1881, we started on our voyage.
The _Mayumba_ was a trim little steamer of about 4,000 tons--a giant
after my experience in the 200-ton whaler. She was built for commerce,
carrying mixed cargoes to the coast and coming back with palm oil in
puncheons, palm nuts in bulk, ivory and other tropical products. What
with whale oil and palm oil there certainly seemed to be something
greasy about my horoscope. There was room for twenty or thirty
passengers, and it was for their behoof that I was paid some £12 a
month.
It was well that we were seaworthy, for we put out in a violent gale,
which became so bad as we emerged from the Mersey that we were forced
into Holyhead for the night. Next day, in vile and thick weather,
with a strong sea running, we made our way down the Irish Sea. I shall
always believe that I may have saved the ship from disaster, for as I
was standing near the officer of the watch I suddenly caught sight of a
lighthouse standing out in a rift in the fog. It was on the port side
and I could not imagine how any lighthouse could be on the port side
of a ship which was, as I knew, well down on the Irish coast. I hate
to be an alarmist, so I simply touched the mate’s sleeve, pointed to
the dim outline of the lighthouse, and said: “Is that all right?” He
fairly jumped as his eye lit upon it and he gave a yell to the men at
the wheel and rang a violent signal to the engine-room. The lighthouse,
if I remember right, was the Tuskar, and we were heading right into a
rocky promontory which was concealed by the rain and fog.
I have been lucky in my captains, for Captain Gordon Wallace was one
of the best, and we have kept in touch during the later years. Our
passengers were mostly for Madeira, but there were some pleasant
ladies bound for the Coast, and some unpleasant negro traders whose
manners and bearing were objectionable, but who were patrons of the
line and must, therefore, be tolerated. Some of these palm oil chiefs
and traders have incomes of many thousands a year, but as they have no
cultivated tastes they can only spend their money on drink, debauchery
and senseless extravagance. One of them, I remember, had a choice
selection of the demi-monde of Liverpool to see him off.
The storms followed us all the way down the Channel and across the
Bay, which is normal, I suppose, at such a time of year. Everyone
was seasick, so as doctor I had some work to do. However, before we
reached Madeira we ran into fine weather and all our troubles were soon
forgotten. One never realizes the comfort of a dry deck until one has
been ankle-deep for a week. I missed the sea-boots and rough-and-ready
dress of the whaler, for when one is in blue serge and gilt buttons one
does not care to take a ducking. Just as we thought, however, that we
were all right a worse gale than ever broke over us, the wind luckily
being behind us, so that it helped us on our way. With jib, trysail
and main staysail, which was as much as we could stand, we lurched
and staggered, swept every now and then by the big Atlantic combers,
which were phosphorescent at night, so that flames of liquid fire came
coursing down the decks. Very glad we were when after a week of storm
we saw the rugged peaks of Porto Sancto, an outlier of Madeira, and
finally came to anchor in Funchal Bay. It was dark when we reached our
moorings and it was good to see the lights of the town, and the great
dark loom of the hills behind it. A lunar rainbow spanned the whole
scene, a rare phenomenon which I have never seen before or since.
Teneriffe was our next stopping-place, Santa Cruz being the port of
call. In those days it did a great trade in cochineal, which was
derived from an insect cultivated on the cacti. When dried they
furnished the dye, and a packet of the creatures averaged £350 at
that time, but now I suppose that the German aniline dyes have killed
the trade as completely as whaling has been killed by the mineral.
A day later we were at Las Palmas, capital of Grand Canary, whence,
looking back, we had a fine view of the famous Teneriffe Peak some 60
miles away. Leaving Las Palmas we were in the delightful region of the
northeast trade-winds, the most glorious part of the ocean, seldom
rough, yet always lively, with foam-capped seas and a clear sky. Day by
day it grew hotter, however, and when we lost the Trades, and sighted
the Isle de Los off the Sierra Leone coast, I began to realize what the
Tropics meant. When you feel your napkin at meals to be an intolerable
thing, and when you find that it leaves a wet weal across your white
duck trousers, then you know that you really have arrived.
On November 9 we reached Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, our
first port of call upon the African Main--a lovely spot but a place of
death. Here our ladies left us, and indeed it was sad to see them go,
for female lives are even shorter than male upon the coast. I speak of
the days of malaria and blackwater fever, before Ronald Ross and others
had done their great work of healing and prevention. It was a truly
dreadful place in the early eighties, and the despair which reigned in
the hearts of the white people made them take liberties with alcohol
which they would not have dared to take in a healthier place. A year’s
residence seemed to be about the limit of human endurance. I remember
meeting one healthy-looking resident who told me that he had been there
three years. When I congratulated him he shook his head. “I am a doomed
man. I have advanced Bright’s disease,” said he. One wondered whether
the colonies were really worth the price we had to pay.
From Sierra Leone we steamed to Monrovia, which is the capital of the
negro republic of Liberia, which, as the name implies, was founded
mainly by escaped slaves. So far as I could see it was orderly enough,
though all small communities which take themselves seriously have a
comic aspect. Thus at the time of the Franco-German War, Liberia is
said to have sent out its single Customs boat, which represented its
official Navy, and stopped the British mail-ship in order to send word
to Europe that it did not intend to interfere in the matter.
It is a very monotonous view, for whether it is the Ivory Coast or
the Gold Coast, or the Liberian shore, it always presents the same
features--burning sunshine, a long swell breaking into a white line
of surf, a margin of golden sand, and then the low green bush, with
an occasional palm tree rising above it. If you have seen a mile, you
have seen a thousand. As I write now, these ports at which we stopped,
Grand Bassam, Cape Palmas, Accra, Cape Coast Castle, all form the
same picture in my mind. One incident only I can remember. At some
small village, the name of which I have forgotten, there came off a
tall young Welshman in a state of furious excitement; his niggers had
mutinied and he was in fear of his life. “There they are waiting for
me!” he cried, and pointed to a dusky group upon the distant beach. We
offered to take him on, but he could not leave his property, so all we
could do was to promise to send a gunboat up from Cape Coast Castle.
I have often wondered how such people got on after the German menace
compelled us to draw in all our outlying fleets.
This coast is dotted at night with native fires, some of them of great
extent, arising no doubt from their habit of burning the grass. It is
interesting that in Hanno’s account of his journey down the coast--the
only piece of Carthaginian literature which has reached us--he talks
also of the fires which he saw at night. As he speaks of gorillas it is
probable that he got as far as the Gaboon, or south of the Line. He
saw great volcanic activity, and the remains of it is still visible at
Fernando Po, which is almost all volcanic. In Hanno’s time, however,
the hills were actually spouting fire and the country was a sea of
flame, so that he dare not set foot on shore. I have wondered sometimes
whether the last cataclysm at Atlantis may not have been much later
than we think. The account of Plato puts it at about 9000 B.C., but it
may well have been a gradual thing and the last spasm have been that
of which Hanno saw the traces. All this activity which he described is
exactly opposite the spot where the old continent was supposed to have
been.
Our ships have rough-and-ready ways as they jog down the coast. Once we
moved on while a hundred native visitors were still on board. It was
funny to see them dive off and make for their canoes. One of them had a
tall hat, an umbrella, and a large coloured picture of the Saviour--all
of which he had bought at the trading booths which the men rig up in
the forecastle. These impedimenta did not prevent him from swimming
to his boat. At another minor port, since we were pressed for time,
we simply threw our consignment of barrel staves overboard, knowing
that soon or late they would wash up on the beach, though how the real
owner could make good his claim to them I do not know. Occasionally the
native scores in this game. Some years ago, before Dahomey was annexed
by the French, the captain took the oil casks on board at Whydah by
means of a long rope and a donkey engine, an ingenious way of avoiding
the surf, which came to a sudden stop when a company of the famous
Amazons appeared and threatened to fire upon the ship if they did not
pay their dues to the surf boats in the ordinary fashion.
I had myself to pay my dues to the climate, for on November 18 I find
an eloquent gap in my diary. We had reached Lagos, and there, rolling
in a greasy swell off that huge lagoon, the germ or the mosquito or
whatever it was reached me and I was down with a very sharp fever. I
remember staggering to my bunk and then all was blotted out. As I was
myself doctor there was no one to look after me and I lay for several
days fighting it out with Death in a very small ring and without a
second. It speaks well for my constitution that I came out a victor.
I remember no psychic experience, no vision, no fears, nothing save a
nightmare fog from which I emerged as weak as a child. It must have
been a close call, and I had scarcely sat up before I heard that
another victim who got it at the same time was dead.
A week later found me, convalescent and full of energy once more, up
the Bonny River, which certainly never got its name from the Scotch
adjective, for it is in all ways hateful with its brown smelling stream
and its mango swamps. The natives were all absolute savages, offering
up human sacrifices to sharks and crocodiles. The captain had heard the
screams of the victims and seen them dragged down to the water’s edge,
while on another occasion he had seen the protruding skull of a man who
had been buried in an ant-heap. It is all very well to make game of the
missionaries, but how could such people ever be improved if it were not
for the labours of devoted men?
We called at Fernando Po, and later at Victoria, a lovely little
settlement upon the Main, with the huge peak of the Cameroons rising
behind it. A dear homely Scotch lassie was playing the part of
missionary there, and if she did not evangelize she at least civilized,
which is more important. It lies in a beautiful bay studded with
islands and well wooded all round. For some reason the whole style of
the scenery changes completely here, and it is the more welcome after
the thousand miles of monotony to the north. All this land went, for
some reason, to Germany later, and has now reverted to the French,
who are not, as a rule, good Colonial neighbours. I went ashore at
Victoria, and I cannot forget my thrill when what I thought was a
good-sized blue bird passed me and I found that it was a butterfly.
To reach Old Calabar we had to steam for 60 miles up the Old Calabar
River, the channel lying so near the shore that we brushed the trees
on one side. I lay in wait with my rifle, but though I saw the swirl
of several alligators none emerged. Old Calabar seemed the largest
and most prosperous place we had visited, but here also the hand of
death was over all, and it was “eat, drink, and be merry” for the old
and unsatisfactory reason. Here again we met one of these young lady
pioneers of civilization. Civilization is the better, but it is a stern
and dreadful call which summons a woman to such a work.
Getting a canoe, I ascended the river for several miles to a place
called Creektown. Dark and terrible mangrove swamps lay on either side
with gloomy shades where nothing that is not horrible could exist.
It is indeed a foul place. Once in an isolated tree, standing in a
flood, I saw an evil-looking snake, worm-coloured and about 3 feet
long. I shot him and saw him drift down stream. I learned later in life
to give up killing animals, but I confess that I have no particular
compunctions about that one. Creektown is in native territory, and the
King sent down a peremptory order that we should report ourselves to
him, but as it sounded ominous and might mean a long delay we got our
paddles out and were soon back in British waters.
I had a curious experience one morning. A large ribbon-shaped fish,
about 3 or 4 feet long, came up and swam upon the surface near the
ship. Having my gun handy, I shot it. I don’t think five seconds could
have elapsed before another larger and thicker fish--a big catfish, I
should say--darted up from the depths, seized the wounded fish by the
middle, and dragged it down. So murderous is the food-search, and so
keen the watch in Nature! I saw something similar in the mixed tank of
an aquarium once, where a fish stunned himself by swimming against the
glass front, and was instantly seized and devoured by his neighbour. A
strange fish to which I was introduced at Calabar was the electrical
torpedo fish. It is handed to you in an earthenware saucer--a quiet
little drab creature about 5 inches long--and you are asked to tickle
its back. Then you learn exactly how high you can jump.
The death-like impression of Africa grew upon me. One felt that the
white man with his present diet and habits was an intruder who was
never meant to be there, and that the great sullen brown continent
killed him as one crushes nits. I find in my diary:
“Oh Africa, where are the charms
That sages have seen in thy face?
Better dwell in Old England on alms
Than be rich in that terrible place.”
The life aboard ship, however, was an easy and, in some ways, a
luxurious one--too luxurious for a young man who had his way to make
in the world. Premature comfort is a deadly enervating thing. I
remember considering my own future--I stood upon the poop with a raging
thunderstorm around me--and seeing very clearly that one or two more
such voyages would sap my simple habits and make me unfit for the hard
struggle which any sort of success would need. The idea of success in
literature had never crossed my mind. It was still of medicine only
that I thought, but I knew by my Birmingham experience how long and
rough a path it was for those who had no influence and could not afford
to buy. Then and there I vowed that I would wander no more, and that
was surely one of the turning-points of my life. A “Wander-Jahr” is
good, but two “Wander-Jahre” may mean damnation--and it is hard to
stop. I find that on the same day of fruitful meditation I swore off
alcohol for the rest of the voyage. I drank quite freely at this period
of my life, having a head and a constitution which made me fairly
immune, but my reason told me that the unbounded cocktails of West
Africa were a danger, and with an effort I cut them out. There is a
certain subtle pleasure in abstinence, and it is only socially that it
is difficult. If we were all abstainers as a matter of course, like the
real Mahomedans, none of us would ever miss it.
I did a mad thing at Cape Coast Castle, for, in a spirit either of
bravado or pure folly, I swam round the ship--or at least for some
length along her and back again. I suppose it was the consideration
that black folk go freely into the water which induced me to do it. For
some reason white folk do not share the same immunity. As I was drying
myself on deck I saw the triangular back fin of a shark rise to the
surface. Several times in my life I have done utterly reckless things
with so little motive that I have found it difficult to explain them to
myself afterwards. This was one of them.
The most intelligent and well-read man whom I met on the Coast was
a negro, the American Consul at Monrovia. He came on with us as a
passenger. My starved literary side was eager for good talk, and it
was wonderful to sit on deck discussing Bancroft and Motley, and then
suddenly realize that you were talking to one who had possibly been a
slave himself, and was certainly the son of slaves. He had thought a
good deal about African travel. “The only way to explore Africa is to
go without arms and with few servants. You would not like it in England
if a body of men came armed to the teeth and marched through your land.
The Africans are quite as sensitive.” It was the method of Livingstone
as against the method of Stanley. The former takes the braver and
better man.
This negro gentleman did me good, for a man’s brain is an organ for
the formation of his own thoughts and also for the digestion of other
people’s, and it needs fresh fodder. We had, of course, books aboard
the ship, but neither many nor good. I cannot trace that I made any
mental or spiritual advancement during the voyage, but I added one more
experience to my chaplet, and I suppose it all goes to some ultimate
result in character or personality. I was a strong full-blooded young
man, full of the joy of life, with nothing of what Oliver Wendell
Holmes calls “pathological piety and tuberculous virtues.” I was a man
among men. I walked ever among pitfalls and I thank all ministering
angels that I came through, while I have a softened heart for those who
did not.
Our voyage home--oil-gathering from port to port on the same but
reversed route--was uneventful until the very last stride, when just as
we were past Madeira the ship took fire. Whether it was the combustion
of coal dust has never been determined, but certainly the fire broke
out in the bunkers, and as there was only a wooden partition between
these bunkers and a cargo of oil, we were in deadly danger. For the
first day we took it lightly, as a mere smoulder, and for a second and
third day we were content to seal the gratings as far as possible, to
play down on it with the hose, and to shift the coal away from the
oil. On the fourth morning, however, things took a sudden turn for the
worse. I copy from my log book:
“January 9. I was awakened early in the morning by the purser, Tom
King, poking his head in at my door and informing me that the ship was
in a blaze, and that all hands had been called and were working down
below. I got my clothes on, but when I came on deck nothing was to be
seen of it save thick volumes of smoke from the bunker ventilators,
and a lurid glow down below. I offered to go down, but there seemed
to be as many working as could be fitted in. I was then asked to call
the passengers. I waked each in turn, and they all faced the situation
very bravely and coolly. One, a Swiss, sat up in his bunk, rubbed his
eyes, and in answer to my remark: ‘The ship is on fire!’ said: ‘I have
often been on ships that were on fire.’ ‘Splendide mendax’--but a good
spirit! All day we fought the flames, and the iron side of the ship
was red-hot at one point. Boats were prepared and provisioned and no
doubt at the worst we could row or sail them to Lisbon, where my dear
sisters would be considerably surprised if their big brother walked in.
However, we are getting the better of it, and by evening those ominous
pillars of smoke were down to mere wisps. So ends an ugly business!”
On January 14 we were in Liverpool once more, and West Africa was but
one more of the cinema reels of memory. It is, I am told, very much
improved now in all things. My old friend and cricket companion, Sir
Fred. Guggisberg, is Governor at Accra and has asked me to see the old
ground under very different auspices. I wish I could, but the sands
still run and there is much to be done.