to light in foreign climes, but who by choice have cast their lot with
America, by becoming citizens of the United States, there are few whose
explorations and discoveries have excited more popular interest and
discussion than have those of Du Chaillu, the discoverer, in modern
times, of the dwarfs and the capturer of the gorilla.
[Illustration: Paul Belloni Du Chaillu.]
Born in Paris, July 31, 1835, the early environments of Paul Belloni Du
Chaillu fostered and forecast his taste for African exploration, for his
father was one of the adventurous Frenchmen whose consular appointment
and commercial enterprises led him to settle at the mouth of the Gaboon,
on the west coast of Africa, where his distinguished son passed his
boyhood. While young Du Chaillu was, doubtless, well grounded in
ordinary sciences by his instructors, the learned Jesuit fathers, of
Gaboon, yet apart from regular educational institutions he imbibed other
wealth of learning by observation of the rich tropical world around him,
and also through familiar intercourse with neighboring tribes
acquired a knowledge of native tongues and craft, of savage habits and
character, which insured his after-success in African exploration.
Commercial pursuits brought Du Chaillu to the United States, in 1852,
when he was so strongly impressed by American institutions that he
became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
Du Chaillu was brought prominently before the American public by a
series of striking and interesting articles on the Gaboon country, which
from their favorable reception strengthened his belief in the importance
of thoroughly exploring certain portions of the west coast of Africa.
The region selected for his investigations was under the burning sun of
the equator, somewhat to the north of the Congo country, in the basins
drained by the Muni, Ogowe, and Rembo Rivers, which, owing to difficulty
of access, extreme heat, prevailing fevers, and deadly climate, were
practically unknown. Between 1856 and 1859 Du Chaillu journeyed upward
of eight thousand miles through this country, travelling on foot, with
no white companion, and, with the aid of natives, cursorily explored
nearly one hundred thousand square miles of virgin territory. Working
with the ardent zeal of a naturalist, his enormous ornithological
collection aggregated thousands of specimens, and in this collection
alone he added some sixty new species of birds to the domain of science.
Among the quadrupeds, he discovered no less than twenty new species, and
among the most important animals brought to light were the very
remarkable nest-building ape, with its unknown and its almost equally
extraordinary brother the koo-loo-lamba, and his observations of the
almost unknown gorilla were most interesting and valuable.
In ethnology he accumulated a number of invaluable native arms and
implements, which now adorn the British Museum. Space fails in which to
recite his intense sufferings, during these explorations, from
semi-starvation, the wild beasts of the dense forests, the venomous
reptiles of the river valleys, the attacks of ferocious ants, and other
intolerable poisonous insects which infest the interior.
There are many interesting accounts of curious quadrupeds in Du
Chaillu's book, "Adventures in Equatorial Africa," but none appeals more
strongly to most readers than that of the gorilla. Traditions from
antiquity, the relation of Hanno, the Carthaginian navigator of 350
B.C., set forth the existence of such an animal, but no white man had
ever seen a gorilla, except Andrew Battell, early in the seventeenth
century. Nearly ten years before the explorations of Du Chaillu the
gorilla had been, however, brought to the notice of naturalists by Dr.
Savage, of Boston, who had received a skull from the Rev. J. L. Wilson,
an American missionary on the Gaboon.
From boyhood up Du Chaillu had heard from the natives of Gaboon fearful
stories of the cunning, strength, and ferocity of this ape, which is
the most dreaded animal on the west coast of Africa. For years he had
longed for an opportunity to hunt the gorilla, and when he first saw its
tracks, which threw his native hunters into alarm, he relates that his
sensations were indescribable, his feelings so intense as to be painful,
and his heart-throbs so violent that he actually feared the animal would
be alarmed by them.
Du Chaillu chronicles the end of his first successful hunt as follows:
"Before us stood an immense male gorilla. He had gone through the jungle
on his all-fours; but when he saw our party he erected himself and
looked us boldly in the face. He stood about a dozen yards from us, and
was a sight, I think, never to forget. Nearly six feet high (he proved
two inches shorter), with immense body, huge chest, and great muscular
arms; with fiercely glaring, large, deep-gray eyes, and a hellish
expression of face, which seemed to me like some nightmare vision, thus
stood before us this king of the African forests. He was not afraid of
us. He stood there and beat his breast with his huge fists till it
resounded like an immense bass-drum--which is their mode of offering
defiance--meantime giving vent to roar after roar. The roar of the
gorilla is the most singular and awful noise heard in these African
woods. It begins with a sharp bark, like an angry dog, then glides into
a deep bass roll, which literally and closely resembles the roll of
distant thunder along the sky, for which I have sometimes been tempted
to take it where I did not see the animal. So deep is it that it seems
to proceed less from the mouth and throat than from the deep chest and
vast paunch. He again sent forth a thunderous roar, and now truly he
reminded me of nothing but some hellish dream-creature--a being of that
hideous order, half-man half-beast, which we find pictured by old
artists in some representations of the infernal regions."
[Illustration: The Gorilla. (_Troglodytes Gorilla._)]
The explorer relates that flying gorillas so resembled men running for
their lives, and their discordant cries seemed so human, that he felt
almost like a murderer as he shot them.
Having obtained a number of specimens, he now used his utmost endeavors
to obtain an ape alive, and speaks of his success as "one of the
greatest pleasures of my life;" to his great grief, however, the
intractable and savage brute soon died. Regarding it, Du Chaillu writes:
"Some hunters who had been out on my account brought in a young gorilla
alive. I cannot describe the emotions with which I saw the struggling
little brute dragged into the village. All the hardships I had endured
in Africa were rewarded in that moment. It was a little fellow of
between two and three years old, two feet six inches in height, and as
fierce and stubborn as a grown animal could have been."
Several were captured from time to time, but all died after short
confinement. Every effort to subdue their ferocity, whether by force or
by persistent kindness, utterly failed; they were never other than
morose, bellicose, and treacherous.
Another very interesting animal is the nest-building ape, a before
unknown species, which was discovered by our explorer almost by
accident. Du Chaillu says:
"As I was trudging along, rather tired of the sport, I happened to look
up at a high tree which we were passing, and saw a most singular-looking
shelter built in its branches. I asked Aboko whether the hunters here
had this way to sleep in the woods, but was told, to my surprise, that
this very ingenious nest was built by the _nshiego mbouve_, an ape. The
material is leafy branches with which to make the roof, and vines to tie
these branches to the tree. The tying is done so neatly, and the roof is
so well constructed that, until I saw the nshiego actually occupying his
habitation I could scarce persuade myself that human hands had not built
all. It sheds rain perfectly, being neatly rounded on top for this
purpose. The material being collected, the male goes up and builds the
nest, while the female brings him the branches and vines."
Yet another member of the ape family, discovered by our explorer,
deserves passing notice in his own words:
"The koo-loo-lamba has for distinctive marks a very round head; whiskers
running quite around the face and below the chin; the face is round; the
cheek-bones prominent; the cheeks sunken; the jaws are not very
prominent--less so than in any of the apes; the hair is black, long on
the arm, which was, however, partly bare. This ape, whose singular cry
distinguishes it at once from all its congeners in these wilds, is
remarkable as bearing a closer general resemblance to man than any other
ape yet known. It was very rare, and I was able to obtain but one
specimen of it. This is smaller than the adult male gorilla, and stouter
than the female gorilla. The head is its most remarkable point. This
struck me at once as having an expression curiously like an Esquimau or
Chinaman."
Among the worst pests of Africa are ants, especially the bashikouay,
which travel in a line about two inches wide and often miles in length.
Du Chaillu says: "They devour and attack all with irresistible fury. The
elephant and gorilla fly, the black men run for their lives. In an
incredibly short time a leopard or deer is overwhelmed, killed, and
eaten. They seem to travel day and night. Often have I been awakened out
of sleep and obliged to rush from my hut and into the water to save my
life. A bashikouay army makes a clean sweep, even ascending to the tops
of the highest trees in pursuit of their prey."
The results of his four years of research in the interests of
ethnography, geography, and natural history, were placed before the
public in a valuable work entitled "Explorations and Adventures in
Equatorial Africa." The book gave rise to bitter, harsh, unjust
criticisms, and engendered endless discussions. Du Chaillu's journey to
the interior was entirely discredited, and his accounts of the animals
and natives were characterized as mere fabrications. Discoveries
necessarily develop discrepancies between the realities brought to light
and existing beliefs produced through inference or imagination; then, as
has many another discover in science or geography, Du Chaillu learned
how slow is the willingness of a jealous mind to relinquish its favorite
error for a conflicting truth.
Justification came speedily, for the explorations of Serval and Bellay,
of the very next year, proved the accuracy of Du Chaillu's account of
the great Ogowe River, and indicated the general correctness of his map
of the Ashira country. Burton confirmed his reports regarding the
cannibalistic habits of the Fans, and other statements were speedily
corroborated.
Stung to the quick by the adverse criticisms, Du Chaillu, although
suffering from the effects of fevers contracted in his long residence in
Western Africa, determined to repeat the journey with such precautions
regarding his observations as would be absolutely convincing as to their
truthfulness; especially he determined to capture and bring to Europe a
living gorilla. To ensure accuracy he went through a course of
instruction in the use of instruments, learning to make, test, and
reduce astronomical and hypsometrical observations, and acquired
proficiency in the then difficult art of photography. As regards
geographical explorations he had a vague hope that he might reach from
the west coast of Africa some unknown tributary of the Nile, down which
he might be able to reach the main river and the Mediterranean Sea.
Leaving England in August, 1863, Du Chaillu's first destination was the
mouth of Fernand Vaz River, about one hundred and ten miles south of the
Gaboon, this point being selected both because he knew the natives and
also because that river valley being unknown afforded him virgin ground
from the beginning of his journey.
In landing through the terrible surf that makes entrance into the
Fernand Vaz so dangerous, Du Chaillu was nearly drowned and all his
astronomical instruments and medicines were lost or damaged. This
necessitated his delay in that region until other instruments could be
had from England; but the time was not lost, for he had ample
opportunity of further studying the habits of the gorillas, which abound
there; fortunately he captured four, an adult and three young, one of
which he shipped alive to London, but it died during the voyage.
[Illustration: A Village of Dwarfs.]
Du Chaillu started on his journey with ten Commi negroes, previous
servitors, as his body-guard, and fifty porters in place of the hundred
needed, thus making double trips necessary for a while. Following up
the Fernand Vaz River to its tributary, the Rembo, he left this latter
stream at Obindshi and travelled southeasterly to Olenda. Here a council
was held by the local chief, who forbade him to enter the Apingi
country, but allowed him to proceed to the Ashira region, where he was
long delayed and robbed by the natives. In crossing the Ngunie River, on
his way eastward to the Ishogo country, he was surprised to obtain
ferriage in a large, flat-bottomed canoe, which carried baggage and
party across in seven journeys.
Near the end of June, while traversing a tract of wild forest near
Yangue, Du Chaillu came suddenly upon a cluster of most extraordinary
and diminutive huts, which he was told were occupied by a tribe of dwarf
negroes. In his previous journey in the Apingi country he had given no
credence to exaggerated descriptions and reports that had often come to
his ears concerning dwarf tribes, assuming the stories to be fables.
Now, however, with these curious huts before him he pressed on eager to
obtain personal information concerning these little folks, whose
existence had been vouched for centuries before by Pomponius Mela,
Herodotus, and Strabo, and who were described in a fairly accurate way,
by Andrew Battell, in 1625. In answer to Du Chaillu's inquiries the
natives said that there were many such villages in the adjacent forests,
and that the tiny men were called the Obongos.
He found the huts entirely deserted, but from scattered traces of recent
household effects, it was quite evident that the Obongos, alarmed at the
approach of strangers, had fled for safety to the dense jungle of the
neighboring forest. He thus describes their habitations: "The huts were
of a low, oval shape, like a gypsy tent; the highest part, that near the
entrance, was about four feet from the ground; the greatest breadth was
about four feet also. On each side were three or four sticks for the man
and woman to sleep on. The huts were made of flexible branches of trees,
arched over and fixed into the ground at each end, the longest branches
being in the middle, and the others successively shorter, the whole
being covered with heavy leaves."
On June 26, 1864, Du Chaillu entered Niembouai, a large village in
Ashango Land, in the vicinity of which, he learned with great joy, was
situated an inhabited encampment of the Obongos, or hairy dwarfs, as he
terms them. The Ashango natives offered to accompany him, at the same
time intimating that it was likely the village would be found deserted;
for, said they, the Obongos (the dwarfs) are shy and timid as the
gazelle, and as wild as the antelope. To see them, you must take them by
surprise. They are like to the beasts of the field. They feed on the
serpents, rats, and mice, and on the berries and nuts of the forest.
[Illustration: A Pigmy Warrior.]
Du Chaillu made his first visit to an Obongo encampment with three
Ashango guides, and with great precaution they silently entered a
village of twelve huts to find it long since deserted. Fortune was more
favorable at the second village, where, however, no one was to be seen
on entrance. The curling smoke, calabashes of fresh water, and a
half-cooked snake on living coals indicated that the alarmed inhabitants
had fled on their approach. A search of the huts resulted in disclosing
the presence of three old women, a young man, and several children, who
were almost paralyzed with fear at the sight of an unknown monster--a
white man. By judicious distribution of bananas, and especially of
beads, Du Chaillu succeeded in allaying their fears, and later made
several visits, but confidence was never firmly established, and it was
impossible to see the men except as they fled at his approach, or at a
distance when they visited the Ashango village for purposes of barter.
During his several visits he carefully measured six dwarf women, whose
average height proved to be four feet six and one-eighth inches; the
shortest was four feet four and one-half inches, and the tallest five
feet and one-quarter of an inch; the young man, possibly not full grown,
measured four feet six inches in height.
Du Chaillu says: "The color of these people was a dirty yellow, and
their eyes had an untamable wildness that struck me as very remarkable.
In appearance, physique, and color they are totally unlike the Ashangos,
who are very anxious to disown kinship with them. They declare that the
Obongos intermarry among themselves, sisters with brothers. The
smallness and isolation of their communities must necessitate close
interbreeding; and I think it very possible this may cause the physical
deterioration of their race."
Their foreheads were very low and narrow, cheek-bones prominent, legs
proportionately short, palms of hands quite white, and their hair short,
curly tufts, resembling little balls of wool, which, according to the
young man seen by Du Chaillu, grew also, in plentiful, short, curly
tufts on his legs and breast, a peculiarity which the Ashangos declared
was common to the Obongo men.
These dwarfs feed partly on roots, berries, and nuts gathered in the
forest, and partly on flesh and fish. They are very expert in capturing
wild animals by traps and pitfalls, and in obtaining fish from the
streams; and the surplus of flesh is exchanged for plantains and such
simple manufactured articles as they stand in need of.
Concerning their settlements and range of migration Du Chaillu adds:
"The Obongos never remain long in one place. They are eminently a
migratory people, moving whenever game becomes scarce, but they do not
wander very far. These Obongos are called the Obongos of the Ashangos;
those who live among the Njavi are called Obongo-Njavi, and the same
with other tribes. Obongos are said to exist very far to the east, as
far as the Ashangos have any knowledge."
In his "Journey to Ashango Land" Du Chaillu gives quite a number of
words of the Obongo language; he considers their dialect to be a mixture
of their original language with that of the tribe among whom they
reside. It appeared that none of the dwarf women could count more than
ten, probably the limit of their numerals. Their weapons of offence and
defence were usually small bows and arrows, the latter at times
poisoned.
[Illustration: A Dwarf Prisoner.]
Leaving Mobano, 1° 53´ S. latitude, and about 12° 27´ E. longitude, by
dead reckoning, Du Chaillu passed due east to the village of Mouaou
Kombo, where, by accident, while firing a salute, one of his body-guard
unfortunately killed a villager. An effort to atone for the accident by
presents would doubtless have been successful, but, most unfortunately,
and despite Du Chaillu's strict orders, his body-guards and porters had
already irritated the Ashangos by offensive conduct. Overtures for
"blood-money" were interrupted by an offended chief denouncing the
exploring party. Almost instantly the natives commenced beating their
war-drums, and Du Chaillu, realizing the danger and loading his men with
his most valuable articles, retreated westward toward the coast. Before
they reached the forest he and one of his men were wounded by poisoned
arrows. Pursued by the infuriated savages Du Chaillu restrained his men
from shooting, when, demoralized by the situation, many of his porters
threw away their loads, which consisted of note-books, maps,
instruments, photographs, and natural history collections. Curiously
enough the instruments and goods thus abandoned by Du Chaillu in 1864,
were found in 1891, by an African trader, in the jungle where they had
been thrown down by the retreating carriers, having remained all these
years untouched by the Ashangos, who believed they were fetich and so
regarded them with superstitious dread.
After retreating a few miles and finding that inactivity and
self-restraint meant self-destruction, Du Chaillu took the offensive,
and drawing up his men in a favorable position, repelled his pursuers
with considerable loss. The wounds from poisoned arrows being external,
if subjected to immediate treatment, healed in a few weeks.
Further explorations under these circumstances were impossible, for Du
Chaillu depended entirely for his success on friendly relations with
the natives; in consequence he returned to the sea-coast, and on
September 27, 1865, quitted the shores of Western Equatorial Africa.
Although the second voyage of Du Chaillu into the unknown regions of
Western Equatorial Africa rehabilitated his reputation as a reliable
observer, as far as related to geography and natural history, yet his
description of the Obongo dwarfs gave rise to further discussion and
aspersions. It is needless to say that the discoveries of Stanley in his
last African expedition have definitely settled this question in Du
Chaillu's favor, and that the studies of Lenz, Marche, and Bastian, in
and near the region visited by Du Chaillu, confirm the accuracy of his
descriptions. Indeed the Obongos of Ashango Land rise in proportion to
undersized negroes when compared with the dwarf queen found by Stanley
on the eastern edge of the great equatorial forest, who measures only
two feet nine inches in height.
Thus in time has come complete vindication of all of Du Chaillu's
statements as to the wonders of the Ashira and Ashango Lands, which
portions of Western Equatorial Africa he was the first to explore. If
the geographical extent of his explorations give way to that of other
African travellers, yet it must be admitted that he stands scarcely
second to any in the number, importance, and interest of his
contributions and collections in connection with ethnography and natural
history of Equatorial Africa.
In later years Du Chaillu has devoted his attention to the northern
parts of Sweden, Norway, Lapland, and Finland, and although his travels
in these regions had no important geographical outcome, yet they
resulted in lately placing the general public in possession of many
interesting details of these countries, as given in his book called "The
Land of the Midnight Sun." His important work, "The Viking Age," is an
elaborate presentation of his theory that the ancestors of the
English-speaking races were Vikings and not Anglo-Saxons, and has
awakened much comment in the scientific world. "Ivar the Viking," his
latest book, is a popular account of Viking life and manners in the
third and fourth centuries.
[Illustration: Arrows of the African Pigmies.]
XIV.
STANLEY AFRICANUS AND THE CONGO FREE STATE.
[Illustration: Henry M. Stanley.]
The largest, the richest, and the least known of the great continents is
Africa. Despite its vast area, numerous tribes, and complicated
interests it may be said that its potential influences as regards the
rest of the world have been alternately retarded and advanced through
the efforts of four individuals. The jealousy of Rome, excited to its
highest pitch by the eloquence of the elder Cato, resulted, 146 B.C., in
the annihilation of Carthage, an industrial centre whence for five
centuries had radiated toward the interior of Africa peaceful and
commercial influences. Eight centuries later the hordes of the Arabian
Caliph Omar in turn overwhelmed the Roman colony at Alexandria,
destroying forever its literary influence by the burning of its great
library.