At the end of the line, on the left, is Toko; the tall man at the
other end is Ndutuma; the small boy is Nkogo.
]
At last and before very long, I had the kind of crew I desired. Besides
Ndong Koni and Toko, there were three others in the crew of the
_Dorothy_, Ndutuma, Ndong Bisia and a small boy, Nkogo.
Nkogo was one of the brightest of my schoolboys. He sang remarkably well
and often led the singing in the school. His beautiful voice was a great
help to me in holding services in the towns. He was the most energetic
boy I have ever known in Africa. The rest of us grew tired once in a
while, but Nkogo never. He was steward, and my personal attendant
besides. In the intervals of his own work he was always relieving
somebody else, Ndong Koni at the wheel, or Toko at the engine, or the
cook in the galley.
Often we had to anchor a mile, or even two miles, from a town, because
of shallow water, and go the remaining distance in a canoe, perhaps
against a strong current. Nkogo was always the first to volunteer for
this extra work, except when it was necessary several times in one day,
and then it taxed the strength of the men. Nkogo was opposed to letting
another canoe pass us, even if they had twice our number of paddles. He
thought it was not loyal to the white man. At such times he would still
be racing when all his companions had eased up, or until, as he used to
say, “the canoe began to get hot.” Life always presented its humorous
side to Nkogo. It was one of my few entertaining diversions to hear him
each night recount, to those who had remained on board the _Dorothy_,
the incidents of our visits in the towns and all that we had seen and
heard, while his audience laughed. I myself had usually seen the
sickness, the suffering, the ignorance, the cruelty and all that saddens
the heart. But the real truth of African life required that my account
should be supplemented by Nkogo’s observations.
Ndutuma was the willing horse that was often overworked. The heavy end
always came to him. It was he who cast the anchor and weighed it; which
was exceedingly hard work, until, when the _Dorothy_ had been in Africa
more than a year, we got a small anchor for the river and used the heavy
one only in the bay. He also had charge of the canoe which we towed. If,
upon reaching a town at the ebb of the tide, an acre of black mud of any
or every depth separated us from the town, it was always Ndutuma who
carried me on his shoulders. He was a large, homely, coarse-featured
man, with a good eye and a gentle voice that was the perfect expression
of his kindness and good-nature. And he was a direct product of
missionary effort. For he belonged to one of the most savage clans of
the Fang. His town was burned several times by the French, and some of
the people killed, because of their unprovoked attacks upon their
neighbours. Ndutuma was one of Ndong Koni’s converts and was a Christian
before he ever saw a white missionary. He was at that time about twenty
years old.
About two years after his conversion there occurred an event in his life
which revealed the quality of his faith. Until that time he was the only
Christian in his town and the way was hard for him; but shortly
afterwards there were more Christians in that town than in any other.
Ndutuma’s wife, preferring a more warlike husband, managed to get
herself stolen by a man of another tribe. The chief of Ndutuma’s town,
with some of his allies, made war on the offending tribe; but Ndutuma
himself did not join them in the war. The result was strange enough,
from the American point of view—a whole community enraged over an
elopement and hotly pursuing the offenders, while the forsaken husband
sat quietly at home singing hymns. In Africa the interest of each man
belongs to the whole community, including his interest in his wife.
It was not that Ndutuma was glad to be rid of her. For he certainly did
want a wife, and any other that he would get would probably be as bad.
Moreover he paid a very large dowry for her and had no dowry with which
to procure another. It was Christian principle alone that restrained
him. He said he would use all peaceable means to get her back, and even
if such means failed he would not shed blood. The hard part of it for
him was the brand of cowardice and the bitter reviling from his people
for enduring such an insult, and for resigning the woman and the goods
he had paid for her. It required far more bravery for him to stay at
home than to join in the war. But he was firm; and in their hearts they
knew he was no coward. They also learned the meaning of Christian faith.
They were still more willing to learn the lesson when several of their
young men were killed in this very war, notwithstanding the fetishes
which they wore for their protection.
Ndutuma never recovered his wife nor the dowry he had paid for her; so
he was left a poor man. But most unexpectedly a rich uncle died and left
him four wives. This was wealth indeed, and most young men in such luck
would have strutted intolerably before their fellows. But Ndutuma coolly
announced that he was not a heathen any more; that he would take one of
these women for his wife, whichever of them wanted him, and give the
others to his poor relations. He was not a noisy man, and that was
remarkable in Africa; but he was a man without a price; who was ready at
any time to act upon his faith without regard to consequences. He made
enemies among those who were tenacious of heathen customs. Not long
after I left Africa he died. His death was wrapped in mystery; and in
Africa such mysteries are usually related to poison. I do not know that
Ndutuma was a martyr. But he was made of martyr stuff. And many a
bloodthirsty man and adulterous woman he led into ways of peace and
purity.
Ndong Bisia was one of the most interesting boys that I met in Africa.
He was not with me very long, but he was one of those occasional
Africans that appeal directly to the affectional side of one’s nature. I
have said that the Mpongwe tribe have an instinct for good manners, and
are the most courteous people in West Africa. But this Fang boy
surpassed them all. He first came to me as a schoolboy. When the school
closed at the end of the year I took the boys home with the _Dorothy_,
and I was obliged to stay two days at Fula where Ndong and several of
the boys lived. I had asked the Fula boys to do my cooking on the
journey. When we arrived at this town, early in the morning, the boys
hastened ashore pell-mell to see their friends—all but Ndong. He
remembered that I would need breakfast and he stayed to prepare it.
When he had set everything in order, he said: “Mr. Milligan, I am going
to town to see my people but I shall come back and have your dinner
ready for you when you return from the town.”
He did this for two days. Some few of the other boys would have done the
same thing if I had asked them, but Ndong did it without being asked:
and it was always so. He was also my best assistant in medical work.
Afterwards he worked on the launch and was with me all the time, often
in trying circumstances, but he always presented the same contrast to
the ingratitude and selfishness of the heathenism around him.
The two boys, Ndong Bisia and Ndong Koni, are associated with an
incident in which they displayed a heroism of devotion that may perhaps
enable the reader to understand how it is that a white man can love the
people of the jungles.
One day we started on a journey with the _Dorothy_ and had gone
twenty-five miles, across the bay, when an accident occurred which
stopped the engine. The remainder of that day, and a considerable part
of the night and all the next day, I tried in vain to make the repair. I
then decided to leave the launch and go home in a canoe, returning
immediately with the _Lafayette_ and crew to tow the _Dorothy_ back to
Libreville. An approaching fever also warned me not to work any longer
at the engine. It chanced that I had only a very small canoe in tow. I
was therefore dependent upon being able to procure a larger one from
some native who might pass that way; and we were in an out-of-the-way
place.
At last a canoe came in sight, in which was one solitary woman. I called
loudly to her across the water, but she was afraid and would not come
near. Among the heterogeneous and somewhat outlandish variety of goods
which I always carried there happened to be a dress which had once
belonged to a white woman and which had been discarded years before,
when the woman returned to America. It was a gorgeous purple affair,
much the worse for wear. The native woman (to whom I offered it),
yelling at the very top of her voice, answered: “What do I want with a
dress? I’m all right as I am; I never had any such thing on in my life.”
I told her that this was a very fine dress which had once been worn by a
white woman.
She hesitated, but again answered: “It would only cover my ornaments so
that people would not know that I have them; and besides it would not
fit me.”
Her “ornaments” were half a dozen large brass leg-rings which she wore
between her ankles and her knees.
But necessity in this instance was not only loud, but eloquent. I
pleaded that she could rattle her ornaments as she walked—which they
know well how to do—and the people would think that she had ever so
many; and, besides, when they were covered she would not need to keep
them polished. As to its fitting, I yelled to her that I had scissors,
needle and thread, and that I would make it fit perfectly. Being at
various times engineer, carpenter and blacksmith, it was easy enough to
be a dressmaker.
There was some persuasion in my arguments, for again she hesitated. But,
after further reflection, she moved on, replying: “I’m all right as I
am;” in which mind I presume she continues to this day.
Two hours after nightfall another canoe approached, in which were
several men whom on a former occasion I had towed across the bay, and
they were now eager to do anything possible to help me. I borrowed their
canoe and engaged one of their men. The canoe was a lamentable and
ancient affair. One side was badly split, and in the other side there
was a part so rotten that I thought I could have thrust my foot through
it. The sail was a mosaic of old shirts and other cast-off garments. The
sheet was a bit of rotten rope pieced out with vine. After a thorough
inspection I was unable to pronounce the craft seaworthy, but I decided
to risk it; and, in case of emergency, I provided myself with a saucepan
and a ball of twine: the former to bail out water, and the latter for a
variety of uses.
Ndong Koni and Ndong Bisia, besides the stranger, returned with me. Both
boys made humorous comments upon the canoe and begged me not to attempt
to cross the bay in it. But I did not see that I had any alternative. So
we set out upon the deep with no other material resources than a
saucepan and a ball of twine. At first we were in quiet water; but after
a few minutes, having turned a point of land, we were suddenly out on
the bay. As we got further out the wind increased and blew hard, and the
sea, though not really bad, was far too rough for such a canoe. Nothing
but sheer exhaustion saved me from a state of fright. But, what was more
significant, the two Ndongs were also alarmed for our safety.
I was in the bottom of the canoe, reclining against a thwart, on the
verge of sleep, but conscious of all that was going on. With the
increasing wind and the straining of the whole canoe I felt that
something must soon happen by way of climax. The only question was
whether the collapse, when it came, would be particular or general.
Suddenly a gust of wind was followed by a crash. The boom was gone, the
sheet broken, the sail torn. A passing wave drenched us and almost
swamped the canoe. Then I plied the saucepan diligently, while Ndong
Koni dexterously managed the canoe—for we were in the trough of the
sea—and Ndong Bisia and the other man, using the ball of twine, made a
new sheet and tied the torn sail. Before long we were again speeding
ahead, though not so fast, for we had no boom. We had other startling
experiences during the night; but at length we reached the land shortly
before daylight.
I have told more than enough for my purpose and have admitted irrelevant
details. We were in extreme danger that night, and more than once we
doubted whether we would reach land. But through all the long night,
with its mischances and dangers, nothing else so impressed me even at
the time, and nothing else still remains with me so vividly, as the
devotion of those two boys, Ndong Koni and Ndong Bisia; their anxiety
for my safety and their utter disregard of their own danger. And if
occasion had come, I know that they would have sacrificed their lives to
save mine. Such boys are worth labouring for and worth living for.
[Illustration:
THE PRIMARY CLASS IN MELVIN FRASER’S BULU SCHOOL.
]
XI
SCHOOLBOYS
Upon my first arrival in Africa—at Batanga—Dr. Good, Mr. Kerr and myself
immediately prepared for an overland journey to the Bulu interior.
Early one morning, the caravan being ready and in form, we were about to
move, when, at the last moment, a small boy, frightfully dirty, came
bounding out of the dark forest, all out of breath as if chased by
cannibals, and throwing himself at my feet, entreated me to take him to
the interior as my personal attendant. Every white man is supposed to
have a “boy.” I had expected to engage a Bulu boy upon reaching the
interior. But the African has a remarkable talent for importunity. This
boy said his name was _Lolo_, and I half relented at the sound of it.
Lolo might have been ten or eleven years old; although, as Dr. Good
remarked at the time, it was not easy to understand how he could get so
much dirt on him in only ten years.
“Go and wash yourself in the Atlantic Ocean,” I said; “and when I see
what colour you are I shall consider the matter of engaging you.”
As a matter of feet, the African is surprisingly clean—for a savage; and
this boy had probably accumulated most of his dirt in his desperate
plunge through the jungle-paths that he might reach Batanga before the
caravan should set out. He proved to be a very handsome boy, of delicate
features and intelligent expression, and with irresistibly beautiful
eyes. He was lighter in colour than the average. And I take this
opportunity of saying that there are as many shades of complexion among
Africans as among other people. There are differences between tribes and
between individuals of the same tribe. As one goes towards the interior
the tribal colour is decidedly lighter. The Mpongwe people are
black—sometimes almost coal-black—beside the light-brown Fang. There are
individual Fang who are yellow. Ndong Koni is as fair as an average
mulatto. And when the skin is smooth and soft this colour is the
favourite complexion. But the albino (and they are not uncommon) is an
abhorrence.
Lolo’s eyes danced with joy when I engaged him. African eyes as compared
with others, besides being remarkable organs of sight, serve a great
variety of secondary uses. They can laugh, or sing, or plead, or weep;
they can love, or they can break all the commandments. But the most
beautiful and expressive eyes in Africa are those of the boys. Lolo at
once regarded this new relationship as a kind of fatherhood on my part;
and he amply repaid me, not only in faithful service, but also in
personal devotion which was quite pathetic, and which in the course of
events was put to an extreme test. He was both brave and affectionate—a
typical African boy.
On my part, it was my knowledge of Lolo that first inspired me with a
strong desire for a school, and enabled me to realize what a moral
factor a school of such boys might become in transforming the life of
the people. The African baby is a beautiful, solemn-eyed little
creature, who looks out at the world as if he were undecided whether to
stay. About half of them decide not to stay. The African baby is cunning
and bright, but it seldom cries, and it is not given to play nearly as
much as the white child. As the child grows older he cheers up. It has
been said that only when he reaches years of indiscretion does the
African become joyful. From that time on he is joyful to the end. But
the African boy, before he becomes stupidly happy, bears the strongest
stamp of humanity and is more interesting than at any other stage in his
career.
On the first long march into the forest, Lolo easily kept up with the
caravan and when we arrived in camp busied himself in waiting upon “his
white man”—opening my box of clothing and getting everything that I
wanted, taking off my shoes, bringing water, making my bed, helping the
cook, waiting at supper and a score of other duties. On the first day of
this journey we passed through Lolo’s town, about two or three hours
from the coast. The chief was Lolo’s own father and there was some
likelihood of trouble; for the boy had slipped away without his father’s
knowledge. Lolo hid in the bush while I sat down in the palaver-house
and called for the chief, thinking it best to tell him that I had
employed his boy and in some way to win his consent. He kept me waiting
an unusually long time. But when he appeared no explanation was
necessary; it was evident that he had been making his toilet. He was
dressed in a pink calico Mother Hubbard, which came about to his knees
and was longer in front than behind. I thought he had it on wrong side
to the front, but I was not sure. It was the more incongruous because he
was very tall and strongly built. He was so preoccupied with this new
robe of state that it was the easiest thing in the world for him to part
with a son; and there was no need of a present, nor even of diplomacy.
During my first term in Africa, a year and a half, Lolo was with me all
the time.
He had been with me a whole month, and I had about concluded that I had
ensnared an angel, when one day I discovered in him a large inheritance
of latent savagery. There was another boy at Efulen about the same age
as Lolo. They used the same bucket to fetch water. A dispute arose as to
who should have the bucket first. The dispute developed by rapid stages
into a quarrel, and then a fight. An extreme unwillingness to part with
the bucket was followed by excessive willingness; and when I came in
sight, they were passing it back and forth to each other with deplorable
vivacity, which threatened to put the bucket out of service for all
time. But their savage yells and distortions of countenance were so
amazing and impressive that the flying bucket was reduced to an
insignificant detail. As I approached they closed in upon each other,
then fell to the ground each with his arms tight around the other’s neck
and intent upon nothing short of murder. Having rolled over several
times, they came to the edge of a very steep hill that had been cleared
for a road. Down this hill they rolled together at such a rate that they
continued to cling to each other for safety and because there was
nothing else to cling to. They received so many jolts and bruises on the
way that about the time they reached the bottom, or soon after, a bond
of sympathy united them and they were friends.
Shortly afterwards I fell sick with a fever and lay in bed several
weeks, first in a tent and then in a native hut. It was through those
long, weary weeks that I fully tested the patience and the devotion of
Lolo, and the little servant of the jungles became a friend whom I shall
never forget. As I grew worse the people when approaching had to be
warned not to make a noise, and warned again after their arrival, and
warned once a minute while they remained. When Lolo was not doing this
or engaged in some other urgent service he was sitting beside my bed,
sometimes keeping cold water on my head, or fanning me, and if no
immediate service was necessary he still sat there so as to be on hand
when I required him. There was nothing to look at but bark walls and an
earthen floor and he could not even see those very well, for empty
salt-bags had been hung over the windows to darken the room. I marvelled
at his devotion, which I had done nothing in the world to earn, except
that I was fond of him. It was no sense of duty that impelled him, nor
any moral obligation—the African is not strong on morals—but it was
purely a service of love, and it would have done credit to any white
friend. Often when he thought I was asleep I felt his hand laid on my
forehead to see if the fever was high. Often, indeed, the little African
boy in the service of the white man regards him with an abandoned
devotion peculiar to his race, and with a love which his own father has
never awakened, although there is bound up with it all the moral
possibilities of the boy.
After leaving Kamerun I still kept track of Lolo. Others followed me who
were at least as good to him as I was; and it is a great satisfaction to
know that he did not grow up into a savage. And yet of such stuff are
savages made. Hamlet, in the churchyard, reflecting sadly upon the base
uses to which our bodies may return, observes that imagination may trace
the noble dust of Alexander till one finds it stopping a bung-hole; and
that “Imperius Cæsar, dead and turned to clay, May stop a hole to keep
the wind away.” It is a matter for at least as grave reflection that out
of the same living boy may be made the bloodthirsty savage, or the kind
of man which is called “the noblest work of God.” Which of the two a boy
is destined to become depends somewhat on whether his name happens to be
_Lolo_, or _John_.
It was years after that I opened, at Baraka, in the French Congo, a
boarding-school for Fang boys. At the beginning of the term I gathered
the boys and brought them to Baraka with the _Dorothy_. The mountain
does not come to Mahomet, so Mahomet goes and fetches it. As they were
scattered over the entire area of the great Fang field, the opening of
the school was a formidable labour of two weeks; and it was also the
most exhausting and trying experience of the whole year. For these two
weeks were spent not in actual travel, but nearly all of it in the towns
in red-hot contentions with the parents of the boys, who at the first
were always unwilling to let them come to the school. In the more remote
towns many of them suspected that I wanted to sell the boys into
slavery, or even to kill them for some unknown purpose. There were days,
before the school was well known, when I was utterly disheartened by
their continual refusal, in town after town, to let me have their boys,
though there were many bright lads in most of the towns.
The boys themselves would have come; the trouble was with their parents.
Sometimes I was constrained to say that the parental institution was an
intolerable nuisance; or, at least, that the African child might well
envy the blessed Melchizedek who was without father or mother. But
orphans are not to be found. Each child has a score of parents; for a
child’s parents include all his uncles and aunts even several degrees
removed. The child of course knows his own parents and makes a
difference between them and the rest; but he addresses them all as
“Father” or “Mother,” and they divide parental authority among them, all
taking a hand in the child’s bringing-up: and it must be admitted that
no better way could be devised for bringing up a first-class savage.
I usually held a service in the town. Then I asked the people for boys
for my school, explaining the purpose of the school. The first reply was
always a loud general consent—which did not deceive me; for I knew that
it was only general and did not apply to any particular boy. As soon as
a boy jumps up and says, “I want to go,” immediately several fathers and
a score of mothers order him to sit down; another boy expresses his
desire to come, and another score of parents protest. Then the war is
on; and during its progress I usually receive a goodly share of cursing
and abuse. With some I argue, with some I plead; sometimes I flatter,
sometimes I scold—anything to get the boy. Besides diplomacy, a present
of a piece of laundry soap was a necessity. I carried the yellowest kind
of it, in long bars which I cut off by the inch.
I would not take any boy, whom I had not had before, without his
parents’ consent. And if I failed to obtain their consent, however
unreasonable they might be, I declined to take the boy, though I often
left him crying on the bank, or sometimes fighting a whole mob of his
numerous relations single-handed. But if the boy had been in my school
before and I had expended months of labour upon him the question was
quite different. I then felt that I had a claim upon him, and I would
take him if I possibly could, even in spite of his parents.
In one town I met a fine boy, Ndong Nzenye, a tiny and handsome child,
who had already been in my school. Of course he wished to return, and I
was delighted that there seemed to be no parental objections. But at the
last moment the inevitable mother appeared, and on general principles
vetoed his coming. When she saw that she was unable to prevail she flew
at him to give him a parting blow. He ran the length of the street—the
woman following at his heels—and back again, and towards me for
protection. I also ran towards him; but she was gaining on him, and just
before we met she struck him, on the back, a blow with her fist that
hurt him badly, and with a cry he fell into my arms. She said: “Now you
can go with your white father;” and she went into the house looking as
if she thought she had done a good deed.
He was leaving home for six months and that was his farewell. One
naturally wonders whether there are any moral possibilities for a boy
who comes of such stock and from such a home. Yet that boy, as I knew
him for two years, in the school and out of it, was gentle, obedient and
lovable; though if he had remained in that town he would have grown up a
savage like his people.
Although such mothers are not uncommon, yet as a rule when it was
settled that the boy was coming to school his mother would prepare him
some little delicacy to eat on the way; and occasionally, though seldom,
I have been touched by evidences of real tenderness. In a certain
far-away bush-town, more than one hundred miles in the interior, I
approached an old woman to plead her consent for her boy who was eager
to come with me. The Fang word for _no_ is _koko_ (kaw-kaw). As soon as
I had spoken she began shaking her head, in regular time with her words,
and repeating in a continuous monotone: “Ko-ko-ko-ko-ko-ko-ko-ko,” on
and on, like an agitated crow, all the time I was talking, and seeming
not to stop for breath. I talked loud however, and she heard. I told her
how much the other boys who belong to that town would in future surpass
her boy, until at length I saw that her judgment was convinced and was
gaining a slow victory over her feelings. She was still shaking her
head, and she continued the ceaseless “Ko-ko-ko-ko”; but big tears were
rolling down her cheeks, for she knew that she was going to yield. She
was gradually lowering her voice, while I went on to say that I would
take good care of her boy and that I could teach him many things that
she did not know. By this time, though she was still shaking her head
very slowly, her voice had died out. I gave the woman a big piece of
laundry soap—four inches perhaps.
[Illustration: