FIRST SIGHT OF A VILLAGE OF THE DWARFS.--A STRANGE AND INTERESTING
SPECTACLE.--AN ABANDONED TOWN.--A REVERIE BESIDE A STREAM.--THE LEAF,
THE BUTTERFLY, AND THE BIRD.--THE BLESSING OF WATER.
EARLY the next morning we started again on our journey through the
great forest, passing many hills and several rivulets with queer names.
Suddenly we came upon twelve strange little houses scattered at random,
and I stopped and asked Kombila for what use those shelters were built.
He answered, "Spirit, those are the houses of a small people called
Obongos."
"What!" said I, thinking that I had not understood him.
"Yes," repeated Kombila, "the people who live in such a shelter can
talk, and they build fires."
"Kombila," I replied, "why do you tell me a story? How can people live
in such little places? These little houses have been built for idols.
Look," said I, "at those little doors. Even a child must crawl on the
ground to get into them."
"No," said Kombila, "the Dwarfs have built them."
"How can that be?" I asked; "for where are the Dwarfs now? There are
no plantain-trees around; there are no fires, no cooking-pots, no
water-jugs."
"Oh," said Kombila, "those Obongos are strange people. They never
stay long in the same place. They cook on charcoal. They drink with
their hands, or with large leaves."
[Illustration: HUTS OF THE DWARFS.]
"Then," I answered, "do you mean to say that we are in the country of
the Dwarfs?"
"Yes," said Kombila, "we are in the country of the Dwarfs. They are
scattered in the forest. Their little villages, like the one you see
before you, are far apart. They are as wild as the antelope, and roam
in the forest from place to place. They are like the beasts of the
fields. They feed on the serpents, rats and mice, and on the berries
and nuts of the forest."
"That can not be," I said.
"Yes, Oguizi, this is so," replied the porters. "Look for yourself;"
and they pointed to the huts.
"Is it possible," I asked myself, "that there are people so small that
they can live in such small buildings as those before me?"
How strange the houses of the Dwarfs seemed! The length of each house
was about that of a man, and the height was just enough to keep the
head of a man from touching the roof when he was seated. The materials
used in building were the branches of trees bent in the form of a
bow, the ends put into the ground, and the middle branches being the
highest. The shape of each house was very much like that of an orange
cut in two. The frame-work was covered with large leaves, and there
were little doors which did not seem to be more than eighteen inches
high, and about twelve or fifteen inches broad. Even the Dwarfs must
have lain almost flat on the ground in order to pass through. When I
say door I mean simply an opening, a hole to go through. It was only
a tiny doorway. But I managed to get inside one of these strange
little houses, and I found there two beds, which were as curious as
every thing else about the premises. Three or four sticks on each side
of the hut were the beds. Each bed was about eight inches, or, at the
most, ten inches in width. One was for the wife and the other for the
husband. A little piece of wood on each bed made the pillows. It was
almost pitch dark inside, the only light coming from the opening or
door. Between the two beds were the remains of a fire, judging by the
ashes and the pieces of burnt wood.
These huts did really look like the habitations of men--the homes of
a race of Dwarfs. But had Kombila told me a falsehood? Were not these
huts built for the fetichs and idols? It was true the great historian
Herodotus had described a nation of Dwarfs as living on the head waters
of the Nile; Homer had spoken of the cranes and of the land of the
Pigmies; and Strabo thought that certain little men of Ethiopia were
the original Dwarfs, while Pomponius Mela placed them far south, and,
like Homer, spoke of their fighting with cranes; but then nobody had
believed these stories. Could it be possible that I had discovered
these people, spoken of thousands of years before, just as I had come
face to face with the gorilla, which Hanno had described many centuries
before?
How excited I became as I thought this strange matter over and over!
Finally, however, my mind became settled, and I said to myself, "No,
these mean shelters could never have been built by man, for the
nshiego-mbouvé builds as good a house. Kombila tells me a story. These
houses are built for a certain purpose, and he does not want to tell me
the reason."
So we left the so-called abandoned village of the Dwarfs, and onward we
traveled toward the east, and soon came to a river called Ogoulou, on
the bank of which was situated an Ishogo village of the name of Yengué.
We entered, but the villagers received us in profound silence. Kombila
all the time said to them, "Do not be afraid. We have come here as
friends." At last we reached the ouandja, and there I seated myself. I
could not find out who the chief was, but the people evidently knew the
Mokaba tribe. The old men, after a while, gave me a house for myself
and my Commi, while my Aponos went to lodge with their friends. I heard
that the chief had fled.
Nothing important took place that day. In the evening, while in my hut,
in the midst of a profound silence, I heard a voice exclaiming "Beware!
We have an oguizi among us! Beware! There is no _monda_ (fetich) to
prevent us from seeing him during the day, but let no one try to see
him in his house at night, for whoever does so is sure to die." So no
one dared to come. After hearing this speech, in order to give the
savages an idea of my great power, I fired a gun. Its report filled the
people with awe.
After resting in Yengué we made preparations to cross the beautiful
Ogoulou River, and when I stood upon its bank I said, "Ogoulou--such is
thy Ishogo name; but, as I am the first white man who sees thy waters,
I call thee Eckmühl, in remembrance of a dear friend!"
We crossed the river in canoes, and then continued our way, and after
about six miles' journeying came to an Ishogo village called Mokenga.
It was the last Ishogo village to which the Apono were to take me.
They had fulfilled their mission, and had led me toward the east as far
as they could go.
Mokenga was a beautiful village, with a wide and clean street; but
as we walked through it we saw that the doors of the houses were all
shut, and there was not one Ishogo to be seen. Nevertheless, we marched
through the village until we came to the ouandja. A few men were then
seen peeping at us from afar with frightened looks. Kombila called to
them, saying, "How is it that when strangers come to your village you
do not hasten to salute them?" Then they recognized some of my porters,
and shouted back, "You are right! you are right!" Some of the elders
came to us, and saluted us in the Ishogo fashion--that is, by clapping
the hands together, and then stretching them out again, showing the
palms.
Kombila made a speech, and other Aponos also spoke. Kombila cried out,
in his stentorian voice, "If you are not pleased, tell us, and we will
take the Spirit to another village where the people will be glad to
welcome us." Then the elders of the village withdrew together, and
presently came back, saying, "We are pleased, and gladly welcome the
Oguizi;" and then huts were given to us.
The Ishogos have really good large huts, many of which were adorned
with roomy piazzas. The forest round the village of Mokenga was filled
with leopards, so that the people could not sleep outside their huts in
very warm weather, and every goat was carefully guarded in order not to
become the prey of those beasts. In the centre of the village were two
goat-houses, built so strongly that the leopards could not get in, and
every evening the goats were shut up. The Ishogos not only have goats,
but also a small species of poultry, and almost every house has a
parrot of the gray variety with red tail. Bee-hives were also plentiful.
Not far from the goat-house were found two large trees that were
planted when the village was built, and upon them were thousands of
birds' nests, with myriads of birds, which made a fearful noise.
These birds lived all the year round in Mokenga. I have given you a
description of their colony in "Wild Life under the Equator."
One morning, before the people were up, I took the road leading to
the spring from which the villagers got their water, for I wanted to
see it. The path led down the hill, and soon a charming sight met my
eye. The landscape was lovely. A rill of water, clear, cold, and pure,
leaped from the lower part of a precipitous hill, and, with a fall
of about nine feet, fell into a crystal basin filled with beautiful
pebbles. From the basin a rivulet crawled along a bed of small pebbles
down to the lower level, winding through a most beautiful forest. The
scene was very beautiful.
One day, when I had seated myself below the fall, the rays of the sun,
peeping through an opening, happened to shine upon the water, and made
it look like running crystal. Below the cascade, the bed of the little
stream, filled with pebbles of quartz, sparkled as if the pebbles had
been diamonds; they might have been taken for gems while the sun was
shining upon them. Water-lilies, white as snow, grew here and there,
and moved to and fro, tossed by the water flowing toward the great
river Rembo. The water looked like the water of life, and so it was.
I said to myself, "When God is good to man, he is good to all; for all
kinds of living creatures come to this stream, and drink of the water
which is life to them."
The gentle ripple of the stream, as it glided down, sounded like music,
and made me think. I could not help it. My thoughts wandered far
over the mountains, and the lands I had crossed and discovered, and
far beyond the sea, to the land where the great Mississippi flows. I
looked intently at the water. Now and then I could see a little pebble
rolling along; then it would stand still for a while, and again roll
on, and every roll wore it away and rounded it. As it kept rolling down
the stream day after day, year after year, it would become daily less
and less in size. I said to myself, "What does keep still? Since the
beginning of the world, nothing has stood still; every thing goes on
and on, and will continue to do so till the end."
Just as I was beginning to think deeply on the subject, a leaf fell
from a tree into the water, and was carried away down the stream. Now
it would strand on the shore, or on some little island which seemed to
have been made for a resting-place, and then it would be carried away
again by the swift current. I wondered what would be the journey of
that little leaf. Would it be carried all the way to the sea? Surely
it could not tell, neither could I tell how long a time it would take
to get to the sea, nor what would happen to it during the passage. Our
life, I thought, is very much like the journey of that little leaf: it
knew not what was before it, nor do we know what will happen to us.
Such is life. From the day we are born we know not how we shall be
carried on by the stream of life. We may strand on the shore, or we
may glide gently down the current; but, like this little leaf, on our
journey we must meet with whirlpools and rocky shores, rapids and
precipices, and many obstacles. Storms may overtake us and strand us,
but the end of the journey is sure to come, and then the great and the
learned, the rich and the poor, the Christian and the heathen, the
Moslem and the Jew, are sure to meet.
I followed the little leaf till it disappeared from my sight forever.
Another came and followed it, and another, and another, and they all
vanished after a while, never to come back to the same spot. So it is
with man, I thought. One disappears from sight--Death has taken him.
Another comes and takes his place; another and another follow each
other, as these leaves did, and all go to the same goal--Death.
I said to myself, "I have drifted away like one of these leaves;
sometimes tossed by the sea, sometimes by the wind, going to and fro,
carried down the journey of life, meeting storms and breakers. I can
not tell where I shall drift, for no man can tell what the future has
in store for him. God alone knows whither the little leaf and I are
drifting."
As I continued my reverie, thinking of life and its mysteries, and of
the future, a beautiful butterfly made its appearance. Its colors were
brilliant--red and white, blue and gold. It went from lily to lily,
caring apparently for nothing but the sweets of life. I could not help
saying to myself, "How many are like this little butterfly! but how
little we know, for I am sure this butterfly has its troubles, and so
have those who have made the world and its pleasures the flowers upon
which they live."
The butterfly had hardly disappeared from sight when a bird came--what
a sweet little bird! I see it still by that little stream of Mokenga,
though years have passed away. Down the tree he came fluttering from
branch to branch, looking at the water, calling for his mate, as if
to say, "I have found water; come and let us drink together;" but the
absent one did not come. Soon afterward the bird was on the shore,
its little feet leaving prints upon the sand. It came to one spot and
stopped, gave a warble of joy, then drank, and between each sip sang,
as if to tell how happy he was, and to thank God for that beautiful
water. After drinking, it spread its wings and bathed its little body
in the spring of Mokenga, then flew away, hid in the thick leaves out
of my sight, and for a while I heard it singing.
"How grateful you seemed to be, little birdie, to that God who gave you
this nice water to drink!" I said; "but, though you are happy just now,
I know that you have your sorrows and troubles,[3] like every creature
which God has made, from man down to the smallest insect."
[3] See chapter on "The Sorrows of Birds," in "Wild Life under
the Equator."
After the little bird had gone I went to the spot where it had drank.
Nothing could be seen but its footprints, and even these would remain
but a short time, and after a while no one would ever know where its
feet had been. So it is with the footprints of man--who can tell where
they come upon the highways?
Not far from where I stood the stream was deeper. The little pebbles
looked so pretty, the water so clear, so pure, and so cool, that I
could not withstand the temptation, and, like the little bird, I
drank, and thought there was not a beverage that ever was so good, for
God had made it for man and for his creatures. Many times, in these
grand and beautiful regions of Equatorial Africa, I have exclaimed, on
beholding the beautiful water which abounds every where, and after I
had quenched my thirst, "There is nothing so good and so harmless as
the water that God created!"
[Illustration]
[Illustration]