t-Isldgf s Fava ts bad fo fafa fata foals Neti si Teinletmeinmtersid 1 to ta @ fo fa to Yous fifi fi fsiatafs tots R f dafafyfafe fatsd sd. 4 ”Julia and, pis ba 13 Ca baba a ' 'a fe er Ac oO Getahld hut-In luau; (Mu iTafafatsfalaisfstats 00 o o a 0 9 a ae 1 o o o o d o a ere ct le fefe “unnunhhhau Is fafofula be Fats tat A,” “hi Ps afefe fs fa fale fate refed Is a fsfa feta fate fo fata dy) sfalefare afa rayara ts fad Fo ba Fe t's bs fo Pada fa Fa 64 Pa Fad rls fs fafofatafelefe fafafafaio Tata ts fade be e's to o Fs Cada dad 1.A:.‘tzt=!.:'1u=u.|Juan“ p14 La 1a to bo bo be 12 Is 1a (4 (a I No rdo ila s zxzulsulscd'huhhh {o fabs fate (s 14 tugudd o td a aTe fs 1a fada balada 1»: 4 (efai dels is “Vishnu: s Ca ha ba be bu be bal to is _1 <> 100 ir ss 500 Hast Long. 8% Te f rom Washington FUNCHAL, FROM THE BAY. CHAPTER 1T. A LOVELY CHARNEL-HOUSE. Discovery of Madeira and Legend of Machim.-The Duties of a Tourist. -Madeira. -Portuguese. -The Convicts of Disease. T'wo gentlemen of the court of Lisbon, sailing in the Sea of Darkness, saw a black cloud. In spite of the prayers and curses of the common seamen, they resolutely steered toward it. It was not a demon, as they had supposed, but the loom of an island completely covered with trees. When they went ashore they found that they were not its dis- Mand cli Eee me? 14 ® gAYAGE AFRICA. | | [CHar. I. coverers. - They saw a large cedar cross, and near it a grave-stone, on which were engraved the names of Robert and Anna, and the following romantic and highly moral history : Robert 4 Machim (this was in the fourteenth century) fell in love with Anna d'Arfet, a young lady of good family. Her fa- ther sent him to prison, and married his daughter to a peer. He took her to his castle, near Bristol, which he was suddenly obliged to leave in order to join the king's army. Machim, who had been released, persuaded Anna to elope with him to France. On their voyage a storm drove them®out to sea, and finally they found an anchorage off Madeira. - Anna, who, like Don Juan, had been torn by the alternate throes of love and sea-sickness, wished to go ashore. The gale returned; the ship broke from her moor- ings; and, with a few companions, they were left upon the isl- and. Anna died "of thought," Machim of despair. The sailors pre- pared the cross, the grave-stone, and the inscription, which Ma- chim had written before his death, and to which he added the re- quest that those who first came to their grave would raise a chapel above their remains. This was done. The chapel was dedicated to Jesus; its choir paved with the bones of the unfortunate lovers. And to this day they will show you a piece of the original cedar cross in the Chapel of Machico or Machim; to this day in Madeira mothers seat their children on their knees, and tell them of the English lady who came there across the seas. This story has been told often enough, and, indeed, Madeira has been scribbled threadbare; reams of raptures have been writ- ten on its scenery, volumes on its very atmosphere. And yet printed words had not prepared me for the delicious sight which greeted me that morning. - Giddy from a week's sickness and confinement in a berth, I almost believed that I was looking at a picture. - Madeira has all the appearance of a work of art. It is a landscape which has symmetry, but no grandeur; which is beautiful, but which is not sublime. As we see it from the harbor, it is a mountain. Its brow is ridged in fantastic forms, and is tinted by the rays of the rising sun. Its green bosom is relieved by white houses, by rosy gar- dens, and by dark ravines; below lies Funchal, bathing its feet in the waters, and reflecting toward us the first smiles of morning. Yes, it is a pretty picture; and its colors are so fresh and vivid Cnar. L] 'A LOVELY CHARNEL-HOUSE. "45 that it seems as if it had just been placed in its dark blue frame of sea and sky. A. boat shot forth from the beach, the Portuguese flag waving in her stern. - Sh$ came alongside; a bundle of blue papers were handed down and examined; and she left us with her flag still unfurled, a signal that we had obtained our pratique. Some gaudily-painted boats, which had been hovering ate a little dis- tance, now swooped down on us like birds of prey; some had cushioned seats for passengers, others were laden with fruit, flow- ers, and ingenious baskets. I went ashore, hired a gray nag, and rode up the pebbled mount- ain road, a ragged guide hanging to my horse's tail with one hand and lashing the flies off him with the other. I stopped at a caba- ret half way up, and drank a tumbler of villainous negrinho. Then I visited the Mount Church, the English éemetery, and the nunnery. At the first I bought a picture of the Virgin, at the second an embroidered collar, at the third some artificial flowers made of feathers-an art imported from the New World. Hay- ing discharged these solemn duties of the tourist, I played at bil- liards till the hour of vespers. The Portuguese gentlemen dress always in black, a fashion which one would think had been invented by the Inquisition. But the ladies wear those handsome black silks which suit all figures and complexions. The peasant women both in costume and appearance resemble our female gipsies, in whom, for my part, I could never see any thing very prepossessing.' But the: men have one peculiarity in their dress. Itis a cloth cap shaped like a small wine-funnel, and is perched on the top of their heads in a most extraordinary manner.. As for the men themselves, they lead a life of sloth and starvation: some of them, basking like lizards on the steps of the Mount Church, whine to Mi-lor Inglese for alms, and swear at him roundly when refused. - Others prowl! about the markets, and pick up a fragmentary existence on fruit and fish. The inland population must be more industrious, for there is considerable cultivation on this little island. - When first discov- ered it was one dense mass of trees, which the early settlers set on fire so completely that they themselves were nearly sacrificed with the vegetation. «The ashes with which the ground was clothed nurtured the sugar-cane which was planted in large quantities, and Madeira became as famous for its sugar as after- 16 SAVAGE AFRICA. [Cuar. I ward for its wine. But it happened that the sugar-canes were ravaged by a peculiar kind of worm; their culture was aban- doned, and John the Second introduced vines from Crete. : That these produced one of the finest wines in the orld every body knows; but some years ago they were killed by a disease, and, though experiments have been made with every kind of vine, 'none have flourished since; and the sugar-cane has returned to the soil where once it was grown as a rare and almost unknown plant. This scourge of the vine resembles the potato disease in its character, giving the leaves a smoke-dried appearance. It seems to have come from the East, and to be conquering turn by turn the vineyards of the West. First it destroyed those of the Cape de Verd Islands, next the Canaries, and afterward Madeira. The orchards of the Azores have suffered from its ravages, and we, a nation of port drinkers, know to our cost that it has touched Oporto. Its sure and gradual progress makes one fear that even port will become a traditionary wine, and, indeed, that some day we shall have no wine at all. The roads of Funchal and its environs are very neatly pebbled. This admits of the bullock-sledge, a carriage without wheels, in which the native aristocracy travel. This was my first day abroad, and I must give you a foreign scene. I am standing at the porch of an ancient church. The bell is tolling for vespers, and mingles with the song of the fruit-girls in the street. The organ begins to play. I hear a strange rattling on the stones. Two bullocks, models of symmetry, with sleek fawn-colored sking, gallop to my side. A little red curtain is drawn, and a graceful lady descends adjusting her mantilla. She gives me one flash of her black eyes, and a little smile, half meditative, half triumphant, in return to the homage which I am paying her with mine. I must own to you that it was this little incident alone which assured me that I was really out of England. Like Boulogne, Funchal has an Anglo-stamp upon it: it is ethnologically mon- grel-a stepping-stone between home and abroad. This English aspect is owing to the presence of those poor con- victs of disease whom the doctors transport here for death. You may see them there in the garb of health, with roses on their cheeks, and the appetites of healthy men. But those roses are the rouge of disease; that appetite is the gnawing of the canker- worm within. CHaPr. I.] A LOVELY CHARNEL-HOUSE. 17 It is but a lovely charnel-house, this island of Madeira. It is a boudoir and it is a hospital-a paradise and a tomb. Here comes Death, with mock laughter and in tinseled robes. A garland of roses hides the cypress on his brow. He leads his victim to the tomb to the music of the spheres, and then all changes suddenly, like a horrible dream, and some weeping family, whose dear one is gone from them, fly from the scene of a bitter woe. For them Madeira is no longer beautiful; for them the sun is darkness, the flowers are ashes, the warm, soft air is heavy with disease. # 3 iP Sa nln a ainsi homens ln rt 90 tin: 18 SAVAGE AFRICA. [Cxar. II. CHAPTER II. A PERISHED PEOPLE. Peak of Teneriffe. -On Horseback to Laguna.-The Silent City.-Cigars and Bru- nettes.-Expired Aborigines. Tur Peak of Teneriffe! I had expected to see a mountain ris- ing in majestic solitude from the sea. But I saw a high, square- built mass of hill, which jutted rather than tapered into an apex, and on which there was sufficient snow to suggest the sublime idea of a cotton night-cap. - In Santa Cruz I found it more difficult to obtain a horse than in Funchal. At last I was conducted down a back lane into a small and very dirty house. Four women were sewing in a par- lor, and did not raise their heads when I went in. The walls were decorated with those old-fashioned colored prints which you still find in cottages in the country; deformed angels, bloated Cupids, and stalwart shepherdesses leading lambs which look like lions. I was taken thence through the chamber (almost filled with a four-poster, which might have rivaled the great bed of Ware) into a stable-yard. I was offered my choice of two very rough ponies, and the object of my preference, having been accou- 'tred with a rusty bit, a bridle patched up with string, and a rag- ged, one-stirruped saddle, was led with a loud clattering through the bedroom into the parlor, and from the parlor into the street. I was presented with a guide who did not understand a word of English, and we started on the road to St. Christoval de la La- guna. The scenery was wild and barren. The road, which bears the marks of an ancient pavement, was bordered with cactus-fields. It was the cochineal harvest, and women were at work collecting the insect in small pots, with an instrument like a putty-knife. The cochineal was first imported from Mexico by an enterpris- ing man. The educated people looked upon him as a fool, and laughed at him; the uneducated, as something worse, and burned his cacti. - But as soon as the pest fell upon the vines* there was * The vines were imported into these islands from the Rhine, as well as from CHar. II.] A PERISHED PEOPLE. 19 a cochineal furore, which is yielding to tobacco since the discov- ery of dianthine. So now, instead of devouring this disease-born insect in our strawberry ices, we take them colored with an agree- able extract from coal-tar. A ride of five miles brought me to Laguna, which deserves to be called the Silent City. "Their houses were like tombs, and you might write their epitaphs above their doors." There were no pretty girls in the balconies, no tinkling of guitars from with- in; the houses were moss-covered, the streets grass-grown ; ani- mal life rare, saving mildew, which was excessive. I went to an inn, as desolate as a mausoleum, and ate voraciously, feeling like a ghoul. The intense stillness alarmed me: I rushed to the kitch- en. There, at all events, I hoped to find something natural and human. - But no, it was empty; the fire which had been lighted for my omelette was almost out, and the cinders were dropping with a dismal sound into the grate below. _ * Laguna is the residence of many political exiles, who feel no desire to see the inhabitants of a world which is forever closed against them. I will not take upon me to assert that fleas fatten: on persons of a melancholy temperament, but it is certain that the fleas of Laguna stand unrivaled in size and activity. They are the heroes of many songs of the peasantry, and Peter Pindar, who once dwelt in this cheerful neighborhood, wrote verses in their honor. T returned to Santa Cruz, which presents a much gayer appear- ance. La Plaza de la Constitution is the fashionable evening promenade. I sat at the door of the French café, smoking the long, flat cigar of Teneriffe, and stared at brunettes to my heart's content. Then I examined the monument of the four Guanche kings which sit sculptured in the market-place, each holding his thigh-bone in his hand. These Guanches were the aborigines of the island. Large numbers perished from the arms of the Span- iards, and by a famine (the familiar of war) which afterward came upon the island. The rest gradually perished away, under that mysterious agency which the mere presence of white men appears to employ against a weaker race. Some ethnologists have supposed that these Guanches were a Crete. **This island produces three sorts of excellent wines," writes Nichols in his description. - "Canary, Malmsey (or rather Malvasia), and Verdona, which may all go under the denomination of Sack." - But now there are, I believe, neither Canary wine nor Canary birds in the Canaries. '~. dae alk A8 20 SAVAGE AFRICA. [Crap. II. detached race of people, unlike any now existing on the earth. We have, however, ample evidence, from the writings of the Span- ish historians and the English merchant-adventurers of the day, to show that the Guanches were of Libyan origin, though it is not possible to identify them with any particular tribe. The Guanches were a tawny-skinned, black-eyed, flat-nosed peo- ple, speaking a dialect analogous with that of the Berbers, and dwelling in caves. They believed in a Supreme Being, an Evil Genius, and a future state; they also worshiped two tutelar dei- ties, one of whom protected men, the other women. - They had an order of white-robed priests and priestesses, who preserved their purity by intermarriage, and the art of embalming; which last, when they became extinct, died with them. They had lords or chieftains, under whose command they fought with wooden jave- lins hardened in the fire. They tilled the ground with bullock's horns, and lived ona food called gosio, which resembles the cous- cous of the Senegambia. They fattened their girls for marriage, believing that fat women were the most fruitful, and on them their lords exercised the droit-de-cuisse. Finally, when they died, the priests dried them in the sun, embalmed them, and buried them in caves sacred to the art of sepulture. III.] A LANDMARK OF HISTORY. 91 CHAPTER. HMI. A LANDMARK OF HISTORY. Sea-torpor.-First Sight of Africa.-The Infanta Henry.-Cape Boiador.-The Rabbits of Porto Santo. -Portuguese Monopoly and English Smuggling. Wr continued our voyage with a fair wind and a warm sea. Sometimes we received visits from flying-fish, which fell upon the deck, and even upon the awning above. - This little creature skims along the surface of the water, with gauzy wings of the same ma- terial as those of the dragon-fly, so like a bird that one might have very good sport taking them on the wing with dust shot. These petty incidents are angel visits at sea, that monotonous and overrated element. Viewed from the shore as it comes dashing upon the black rocks, shivers into a thousand foaming fragments, and runs hissing toward one along the sand, it is certainly a grand sight. But " blue water" itself is, in repose, a flat-faced simple- ton, without beauty or expression, except that which it borrows from the sky above it; and, in commotion, a spoiled child whose ships are toys, and who sometimes breaks them open to see what they are made of. One has so much leisure at sea that one can seldom do any work. - The most intellectual travelers must confess that dinner is the great event of the nautical day. On board ship one lives only when eating or drmkmg, at other periods one exists. At half past eight we used to sit down to a breakfast of edible cinders. Our cook was a confirmed culprit, who overdid every thing, and who was daily wished back with him from whom cooks are proverbially supposed to come. We had tea and coffee; but as the tea was usually made in yester- day's coffee-boiler, and vice versd, choice became a mere matter of form. Our cinders were handed us on plates which represented an angel receiving fruits from a negress, with the motto under- neath, Spero meliora. The angel representing the West African Companv the motto, a humane wish for higher profits. At twelve we spoiled our dinners with cheese and biscuits, and at four o'clock the cook spoiled it again. At ten all the lights 22 SAVAGE AFRICA. [CHar. IIL. were put out, and each man retired to his oven. 'This was the life of a tortoise in the sand, or of a bear in a hollow tree; and I was glad enough when I heard the ery of "Land ho!" from the mast-head. - In a short time I was looking at the continent of Af- rica. - There was not much to see, it was true. A white surf on a barren shore. A cluster of trees. Two round hills, the Paps of the Cape de Verd; and as suggestive of a feminine bust as the Cape itself of a verdant promontory. But it was Africa, that land of adventure and romance; and I stood there for two hours, unable to draw my eyes away. That miserable group of trees is a grand landmark in the his- tory of navigation. In days when Western Africa was believed to be one great desert of sand, it gave promise of a rich and fruit ful continent, and of the still wealthier India beyond. In the fifteenth century, when the Crescent began to grow dim in the West, and Fez and Bagdad no longer remained the capitals of the world, the Portuguese under Alfonso I. drove the Moors from Portugal, pursued them into their own country, and, assist- ed by a band of merchant-adventurers from England, took the town of Ceuta by storm. During this engagement, Henry, the third son of the king, then a youth, displayed remarkable valor and address. - When the war was over, he determined not to rest till he had solved that grand problem of the ancients-the cir- cumnavigation of Africa. Having had long conversations with the Moors who had been taken captive, he took up his residence at the Cape de Sagres, in the southernmost province of Portugal. There the sight of the sea constantly sustained his passion, and he could easily communicate with the traveled Moors, who went trading to the borders of negro-land. He also examined all sail- ors who came from distant seas; and having sent for Jacques from the island of Majorca (a man celebrated for his knowledge of navigation, and his skill in the making of charts and instruments), he placed him at the head of an academy which he founded for the study of these sciences. f One morning, after he had passed the night in study and reflec- tion, he suddenly ordered two vessels to sail for the Libyan coast, and these were followed by others which happened to be ready for sea. - The explorers passed Cape Nun, the ne plus ultra of the Spanish voyagers, but were so alarmed at the appearance of Cape Boiador that they returned. Prince Henry sent two gentlemen of the court-Juan Gonsalez and Tristan Vaz-who discovered III.] A LANDMARK OF HISTORY. 28 Porto Santo, one of the Azores, by being shipwrecked upon it. This small success increased Henry's enthusiasm. An emigrant ship sailed to Porto Santo with cattle and agricultural imple- ments, but also with a doe rabbit in a delicate situation. Her progeny, liberated on shore, increased so rapidly that in two years they had eaten up all that was eatable on the island, and the col- onists returned. In the mean time the same two gentlemen had discovered Madeira, and Henry endeavored to keep up the na- tional enthusiasm with its products. - But these enterprises were not popular. The Portuguese would not believe that it was pos- sible to sail round Africa, and there were several who said that Africa had been allotted to the wild beasts as their proper sphere, and that the impiety of struggling against God's will had already been proved by the rabbits in Porto Santo. Incredulity and false piety are the most vulgar of all errors, and the most difficult to contest. - But Henry persevered, and in 1432, when Gillianez rounded Cape Boiador, they were effectually silenced. The vessels brought back some slaves and gold dust, and these few ounces of precious dirt were more eloquent than the voice of science by induction. The Pope gave to the Portu- guese all countries that they might discover to the south of Cape Boiador, and (as Mohammed promised Paradise to all who died under his banner) he granted full absolution to those who might perish in future voyages. Private ventures were now started, and the first regular trade on the West Coast of Africa was that of sealskins. But now discovery followed discovery, and in an incredibly short space of time the whole coast was laid open to trade. - Mis- sionaries were sent out to Senegal, Elmina, Congo, and Benin. Those who wished to trade on the coast had now to pay for li- censes, and many. Portuguese, whose descendants remain there to this present day, settled in Guinea, and pushed their trade into the far interior. Ivory and gold dust, but principally slaves, be- came the established articles of commerce. The Infanta did not die till he had seen Portuguese discovery extended to Sierra Leone; and, tedious as I have already been upon this subject, I can not refrain from eulogizing this wonder- ful man-of whom you may read with pride, since his mother was an Englishwoman-who, though a prince, was chaste as a templar and studious as a monk; who was the greatest mathema- tician and the best-read scholar of his day. During forty years void als hl ints meme eer" 1 24 SAVAGE AFRICA. HIL he endured the sneers of the Spaniards, who regarded him as a visionary, and the reproaches of his own countrymen, who ac- cused him of wasting ships and men upon chimeras. During forty years he suffered the fate of all men who think in advance of their age; but, more fortunate than most, he reaped present as well as posthumous glory. j A hundred years had passed before the English made a voyage to West Africa. We have, therefore, been reproached with want of enterprise; but the real cause of this apparent apathy was the great power of the Portuguese, and their protection by the Pope. I find that, as early as the reign of Edward the Fourth, the Duke of Medina Sidonia engaged two Englishmen to conduct a trading venture to the West Coast of Africa; and the King of Portugal, hearing of this in time, sent an embassy to England to obtain the prohibition of this enterprise, which accordingly fell to the ground. Many English sailors, however, served in the Portuguese caravels, the fastest vessels of their day, and made voyages to Africa, and afterward to the Indies. In the reign of Elizabeth, vessels were equipped for Africa: another embassy was sent to England. "Our virtuous queen" issued proclamations forbidding, under se- vere penalties, any infringement of the rights of the Portuguese; and at the same time granted letters patent to several of her sub- jects to trade on the forbidden coast, where, in 1595, the Dutch began also to settle. Then commenced a war for the possession of settlements which their victors were forced to abandon soon after they were won. Africa, like a great Ant-eater, threw gold dust in their eyes. They struggled together in blind avarice that they might fall the more surely into her snares. Cnar. IV.] THE PARADISE OF THE BLACKS. bo Or CHAPTER IV. THE PARADISE OF THE BLACKS. Sierra Leone: its Description; its Douaniers. -Black Christianity.-Origin of the White Man. -Nigger Juries.-Ethiopic Character. Havyrng@ touched at Gambia, which I shall describe hereafter, we entered the harbor of Sierra Leone; so named by Piedro de Cintra, its discoverer, not from its lions, for none are found in the neighborhood, but from the roaring of thunder which he then heard among its mountains. - Sierra Leone is our principal colony upon the coast, and is as beautiful as it is malarious-anguts in herba, pulcherrima. Free-town is rudely built, its very rudeness picturesque, and is encircled by mountains embosomed in vegetation. The streets are wide, and are sown with Bermuda grass, for here the climate induces civilization in its babyhood to imitate the effete in its de- eline. On the side of the hill which rises behind the town is a charm- ing scene, which I will attempt to describe. You have seen a rural hamlet where each cottage is half concealed by its own gar- den. Now convert your linden into the graceful palm, your ap- ples into oranges, your gooseberry bushes into bananas, your thrush which sings in its wicker cage into a gray parrot whistling on a rail, your rosy-cheeked peasant lass suckling her child into a black girl combing out her little brother's wool; sprinkle this with strange and powerful perfumes; place in the west a sun flaming among golden clouds in a Prussian-blue sea dotted with white sails; imagine those mysterious and unknown sounds, those breathings of the Earth-soul, with which the warm night of Africa rises into life, and then you will realize one of those moments of poetry which reward poor travelers for long days and nights of naked solitude. If pleasure is one's object in traveling, every purpose is an- swered by reading a volume of adventures, drinking a cup of strong tea, and allowing one's imagination to wander. Thus one ft In 2G SAVAGE AFRICA, [Omar. Iv. can make charming discoveries; and the custom is common enough; but to shackle the ethereal explorer with a vile body which savages can detain, and malaria enfeeble, is one of those vulgar errors which only young or foolish men fall victims to. ghhii'fh I | I | \ M | FREE-TOWN, SIERRA LEONE. Sierra Leone was colonized in 1787 by emigrants from En- gland, consisting of four hundred negroes and sixty women of the CHar. IV.] THE PARADISE OF THE BLACKS. 97 town. The original stock was dying out, when the slave-trade was abolished, and the colony was fed with liberated slaves-a practice which is continued to this day. - When a slaver is taken, the prize is sent to Sierra Leone (or, in certain-latitudes, to St. Helena), and the rubbish is shot into a place called "'The Queen's Yard." Here the ci-devant slaves, who firmly, believe that they are going to be eaten, are offered their choice of temporary bondage in two forms-apprenticeship or enlistment. The latter is often pre- ferred, it being considered more honorable to be called "Queen- man" than " Free-man." By this means a very mongrel population is introduced, and not a very virtuous one; for a large proportion of all slaves are sold out of their own country for their crimes. - But then the first inhabitants of Rome were a mob of thieves, fugitive slaves, and miserable exiles, all of different countries and of different tongues. It is encouraging to find in Sierra Leone the same elements of fu- ture glory. f The inhabitants of the colony may be divided into four classes: Ist. The street-vendors, who ery cassada cakes, palm-oil, pep- per, pieces of beef under such names as agedee, aballa, akalaray, and which are therefore as unintelligible as the street cries of London. This is the costermonger type. 2dly. The small market-people, who live in frame houses, sell nails, fish-hooks, tape, thread, ribbons, etc., and who work at handi- crafts in a small way. Sdly. The shop-keepers who inhabit frame houses on stone foundations, and within which one may see a sprinkling of ma- hogany, a small library of religious books, and an almost English atmosphere of comfort. Lastly, the liberated Africans of the highest grade, who occupy two-story stone houses inclosed all round by spacious piazzas, the rooms furnished with gaudy richness, and the whole their own property, being built from the proceeds of their theft or thrift. As a commercial race the liberated Africans will always pros- per. . But it remains to be seen if they are yet civilized. On our arrival the " Armenian" was soon surrounded by boat. fuls of negroes who called themselves Englishmen, but who re- sembled baboons. The mail-boat was returning from the land, and a man standing in the bows was clearing a passage to the lad- der with a boat-hook,. In one shore-boat a boy grasping the rope 28 SAVAGE AFRICA. [CHar. IV. refused to "move on." The sailor offered to strike him, taking c‘ not to do so, that being a matter of law. God damn you!" cried a negro in the same boat; "you hit that boy, that all 1" A little violent in his language, thought I; but this proves what I have often heard (was it in Exeter Hall? I think it must have been), that the negro is full of love and sympathy for his brethren. But it so happened that the boy's defender, growing angry with him for some reason, ordered him out of his boat. He tried to get into another, where he was no better received. - Having a foot on each gunwale, and the boats gradually receding from one an- other, as boats always do in such cases, he fell into the water. There his struggles were viewed with supreme indifference, al- though the bay is full of sharks; and one of these must soon have had an oily repast, had not the same sailor hauled him out with his boat-hook, which this time was not found so offensive. But I would not judge of the liberated Africans by the mob, which in all countries is tolerably brutal. ~I preferred to follow the maxim of Voltaire, " Qu'il faut plutot juger d'une putssante na- tion par ceux qut sont & la téte que par la populace." - Accordingly, I went ashore with two French traders, one of whom carried a very heavy and suspicious-looking carpet bag, the other an open box of cigars. On the quay we were confronted by two custom- house officers (colored). f One of these made a movement toward the carpet bag, which was intercepted by the gentleman with the cigars. "I assure you," he said, politely, "that I have brought them ashore simply for my own smoking." A negro's attention, like a child's, is riveted by the least thing which is held " up before it." The two officials immediately closed upon the cigars; the carpet bag progressed rapidly toward the town. " You see," continued the Frenchman, speaking with great de- liberation, " that there is only one pound here. They are a hund- red and ten to the pound. Would you like to count them, gen- tlemen ?" The carpet bag turned a corner. "I buy them," continued the French trader, keeping his eyes fixed upon the huge orbits of the negro's, "from a gentleman with whom I am personally acquainted, and-" CBHaPr. IV.] THE PARADISE OF THE BLACKS. 29 " But where is de oder gentleman wid de-" _ " And I can assure you that they are really excellent." . " But wher'm oder-" " As I told you before, gentlemen, I am not at liberty to sell them, but I shall be most happy to present you each with one. Will you give yourself the trouble to take one, sir ?" He crammed one into each of their hands, and having favored them 'with a few more urbane speeches and with a quantity of bows, left them to the enjoyment of their small gratuity, and me to the suspicion that they were little better than Continental dou- antiéers. The next day was Sunday, and in the morning I had a valise carried up to the house to which I had been invited. When I offered the man sixpence, the ordinary fee, he demanded an extra sixpence "for breaking the Sabbath." I gave it readily, and was , pleased to find that the labors of our missionaries had not been in vain. But, unhappily, as I was on my way to church, I met a negress accompanied by a very beautiful child. I asked the woman if that was her daughter. "Yes, sar, that my proper daughter." Wondering what sort of person her improper daughter might be, I remarked that she was very pretty. "Ah! you think him fine?" "*¥es," said I. "Fine too much-eh ?" Presuming that the adverb was here used merely in a superla- tive sense, I nodded my head. The old woman came up to me mysteriously, and put her paw on my wrist. "~You like to buy him?": "What /' eried I. «" You like buy him, pay me plenty dash ;* then you take him what place you like; s'pose you no sit down here, take him other coast; s'pose you want leff (leave) him, leff him, he come back here; s'pose you no want leff'm, no leff'm." Ah! thought I, here is a poor benighted creature who has nev- er heard the voice of instruction, who has never received- "Hei-gh !" she cried, "you no hear bell stop? Me go now. * Dash, from the Portuguese das-me, give me: in the same manner, palaver comes from palabra; picaninny from picania; custom from costume, etc. I 80 SAVAGE AFRICA. [Cuarp. IV. Afr church we palaver. Gib me plenty dash; den we drink rum; f ou take him-palaver said !" ent down rather disgusted to my friend the French merchant at the hotel. He was in the act of buying a remarkably ugly young woman, whom he told me was to be housemaid in his Rio Grande factory. He signed the bill of sale as I entered; and having given the father a glass of rum, and promised him his cloth and muskets on the morrow, they exchanged the Palaver said ! without which no bargain can be ratified, and then the vir- tuous parent left the room. The Frenchman, observing my surprise, informed me that this was the regular mode of procuring servants at Sierra Leone. When he had explained the system, I saw that it was virtually the same as that of English "hiring fairs," where shepherds, cart- ers, grooms, and milkmaids pledge themselves to farmers for a year or so, and can be sent to prison if they run away. But he also added that fathers and mothers were equally willing to let out their daughters to residents for the vilest purposes, and con- cluded with some remarks upon Sierra Leone and the negro, which my respect for the philanthropists of Exeter Hall prevent me from repeating. Three or four residents having afterward dropped in, we estab- lished a conversazione, refreshing ourselves with pale brandy and the limonade gazeuse of Marseilles. I soon discovered that Sierra Leone is a true paradise of the blacks. - Here the negro is triumphant, and the white man holds him in awe -the reason being that liberated Africans are admit- ted to all the privileges of English citizens, and numbers have outmastered intellect-a product, moreover, which is not copious in the Anglo-African formation. The negro imitates the white man as the ape imitates the negro. The result in both cases is a caricature. - The rich negro of Sierra Leone is dressed as if he had taken a bath in a rainbow ; and his manners are so strained and pompous that a close imitation of them, even in the broadest farce, would be looked upon as a rough overacting of character. - But most comical of all is the manner in which negroes identify themselves with the parent country. To hear them talk, you would think that their ancestors had come over with William the Conqueror; and that they even take to themselves all the glories of our history, the following anecdote will prove. The French consular agent having some time ago ass Char. IV.] THE PARADISE OF THE BLACKS. 81 against him. Holding the sable powers in great contempt armed himself with a pair of pistols, and defied them with the of a brigand at the Victoria. "Ah!" cried the two constables, rapidly retreating, " we no care for you, one dam Frenchman. I tink you forget we win Waterloo-eh ?" It is one of the chief peculiarities of the Sierra Leone negro that he hates, with an intense and bitter hatred, this white man to whom he owes every thing. This Christian feeling is propagated even by the native preachers, for one is said to have explained our origin from the pulpit in the following manner: "My breddren, you see white man bad too much, ugly too much, no good. You want sabby how man like dat come to lib in the world? Well, I tell you. Adam and Eve dey colored peo- ple, very hansum ; lib in one beautiful garden. Dere dey hab all things dat be good. Plantains, yams, sweet potatoes, foo-foo palm wine-he-igh, too much! Den dey hab two childrum, Cain and Abel. Cain no like Abel's palaver; one day he kill'm. Den God angry, and he say, Cain / Cain go hide himself; he tink him ber- ry claber. Heigh-heigh! God say again, Cain, you tink I no see you, you bush-nigger-ceh? Den Cain come out, and he say, 'Yes, massa, I lib here-what de matter, massa ?' Den God say in one big voice like de tunder in de sky, ' W here'm broder Abel ?' Den Cain turn white all ober with fear-dat de first white man, breddren." This is very profane; but profanity is only dangerous in the pulpit, and when it is spoken in earnest. This absurd anecdote will make you laugh, and that is all; but you must remember that the effect upon that man's congregation would be very differ- ent, and would certainly not tend to promote an amiable feeling toward the white population. This hatred of the white man becomes really dangerous in a court of justice, when cases of black v. white come before black juries. These men do not want for intelligence; but they form-W no idea of the sacredness of their calling, and give verdicts at will where their private feelings are concerned. This explains how it is that trial by jury has only been adopted by refined nations. In a savage or semi-civilized state, the heads of the people alone are qualified to judge. It is a common story here that if you call a black man a nigger you are liable to a fine of five pounds for defamation of charac- ter. I do not know if this is really the case, but any thing broad- overstepped the limits of the land, a warrant was taken 6 $2 SAVAGE AFRICA. [Crar. IV. han mere insult is perilous in the extreme. A gentleman who discharged his servant was annoyed by the man entering his ate yard. He ordered him out; the negro was insolent, and refused to go. The white man then did what most Englishmen would have done: he took him by the seruff of the neck and kicked him out. The case was brought before a black jury, who fined him £50. I had anecdotes of negro jury injustice from so many respectable informants that I could do no less than believe it to be common. I was a little staggered, certainly, when I read in the Rev. J. Leigh- ton Wilson's work on West Africa the following paragraph : "But perhaps the most interesting point of view in which the liberated Africans fare to be seen, and which will render their moral condition most intelligible to those at a distance, is when they sit at the Quarter Sessions as petty, grand, and special ju- rors." But the following evidence from Serre Leone, a work written by Mr. Shreeve, who had resided many years in that colony, will prove, I think, that Mr. Wilson's remark must be intended for irony. - Nothing can render their "moral condition more intelli- gible" than these extracts; though whether it is an "interesting point of view" to those white men whose liberties or fortunes may be at stake, I will leave the reader to judge. After observing that the negro's system of physiognomy tends to represent all men bad who happen to be white, and that the white man can not obtain justice in Sierra Leone; after quoting an instance in which a man who had killed another (probably a white victim) was found Not Guilty in spite of all evidence, "a decision at which even the culprit himself appeared astonished, and a virtuous indignation from many ran through the hall," Mr. Shreeve observes : " Another reprehensible practice, or rather vice, in which many jurors indulge, is ardent spirits, from which may be traced their frequent, hasty, vociferous, and unjust decisions: this baneful in- dulgence is evident to all in court; and upon a late trial, at which I was present, a juror was so disorderly that the judge was obliged to impose a fine of £5, and lock the Bacchanalian up till it was paid. Another matter of serious importance, and often fatal to the course of justice, is the common practice of private communi- cation of interested parties with jurors upon their retiring to find a verdict; and again, that of parties being permitted, through the Cnar. IV.] THE PARADISE OF THE BLACKS. - 88 absence or favoritism of the bailiffs, to eavesdrop at the doo the jury-room, and not only to overhear their deliberation actually communicate in the native language with those whose impartiality at the moment perhaps a life depends." Finally he adds, " Here Justice should be painted like Le Brun's Revenge, with a bowl and dagger, not with the balance and the sword." You will perhaps suppose that this dislike for us has proceeded from acts of cruelty and oppression.. But no, they have less to complain of in that way than our laboring classes at home. We are their liberators, their shelterers, their protectors-but we are really their masters. - They acknowledge our supremacy, but they detest us for it; they do not love the hand which showers gold upon them from above: they prefer the baser metals, which they can grub up from beneath their feet. Paramount in their own paradise, they find themselves pigmies when they stir abroad; the politest words which they receive are tinged with a condescension which goes through them like a sword. Sensitive and vain, they hanker for dominion; possessed of neither patience nor persist- ence, they can never obtain it save in their own small spheres. I do not wish to detract an item of true worth from Sierra Leone. The town itself is a useful mart to which native mer- chants of all kinds find their way. It is a good school for the wretched savage disembarked from the slaver. There are ne- groes in the colony who are skilled in the usual handicrafts, and more still (for trade is always preferred to work) have settled as sub-colonists in various parts of the coast. This diffuses English language and English habits in a mutilated state, if it does no more. A certain skill in mechanics, without the genius of invention; a great fluency of language, without energy in ideas; a correct ear for music, without a capacity for composition-in a word, a display of imitative faculties, with an utter barrenness of creative power-there is your negro at the very best. Even these are rare, almost exceptional cases; and to show such trained animals as fair samples of the negro is to make an exhibition of black lies. One might almost as well assert, after the sights which one sees at a country fair, that all pigs are learn- ed; that the hare plays on a drum in its native state; and that it is the nature of piebald horses to rotate in a circle to the sound of a brass band. % 34 SAVAGE AFRICA. ([CHar. V. CHAXPIER V. THE REPUBLIC OF COLORED GENTLEMEN. Liberia: its Description; its Future and its Resources. * Wr are now passing along the coast of Liberia, and a word or two on this country will make so good an appendix to my last, that I shall pass over Cape Palmas for the present. I have shown you a colony in which a white bishop and a white governor possess the nominal dominion over soul and body, but where the real power belongs to the black. : Now what think you of a state in which no white man is allowed to have land at all ? Liberia is a republic of American negroes. They have a black president, black senators, black merchants, and a black populace. Every thing is done in small mimicry of their step-mother. Their metropolis (and only town) is called Monrovia. It is built on the peninsula of Cape Mesurada, is three quarters of a mile long, and half that distance in breadth. The houses are framed dwellings of a story and a half high, raised on a stone or brick foundation of six feet. There are four churches; below the high bluff on which the town stands are six or seven substantial - warehouses. - There is also a tavern (there are only four in West Africa altogether), which is kept by a preacher and a temperance man, and where ale, porter, wine, and cherry brandy may be ob- tained. The landlord probably compounds with his outer con- science-by which I mean that which speaks with the brazen trumpet of scandal, and not with the still, small voice, which one can more easily shut one's ears to-as a Mr. Cooper did who kept a hotel before him. - This worthy man set forth that nothing was more repugnant to his feelings than to sell ardent spirits; but that, if gentlemen would have them, the following was his price- which he made very high, probably for the purpose of deterring them from sin. The trade of this country is palm-oil, camwood, and ivory. The settlers grow the usual African products, including a fine kind of Cxar. V.] - THE REPUBLIC OF COLORED GENTLEMEN. 85 coffee, and have established sugar-mills The merchants h also trading craft built by themselves, and ranging from ten“ fifty tons. tnt? Jo TvaIIvO au 'viAOXUxoR® The negroes are sent out by a society, which supports each in- dividual during the first six months. This fresh-blood supply is indispensable to the welfare of Liberia, which consequently suffers 36 ' SAVAGE AFRICA. [Cuar. V. the troubles of the Disunited States. But, in spite of all wbacks, the indolence of many emigrants, and the itch for preaching, which seems to torment Ethiopic humanity as it does most low orders of men, one must allow that the progressive ef- fort is a creditable one. We must not expect wonders, and we must reject the poetical balderdash sometimes served up in this Land of the Free, where so many are only free to starve. But the fact is, that any country, even fever-stricken Liberia, is better for the free man of color than America. -It was said of Sparta in old days that none were so free there as those that were free, nor so enslaved as those who were slaves. In America, the model land of liberty, the black man is happier as a cotton slave in the South than as a social slave in the North. In the first instance, he is not more wretched than an English farm-laborer or a Man- chester operative. - In the latter case he is a Paria, a man without caste, a reptile which every hand avoids, and upon whom every white foot tramples. But if Liberia is to be great, it must become a kingdom. In West Africa there are but two powerful states (Ashantee and Dahomey), and despots rule them both. There is now but one great republic in the two worlds, and that is divided by a civil war. The Jews, the Romans, the Italians, the Dutch, the French tried republics, and have returned to monarchy. The earth should be a reflection of heaven, and heaven is an empire. VLJ] THE TITANS OF THE COAST. 37 CHAPTER YI. THE TITANS OF THE COAST. Cape Palmas.-The KruLmanr-Engage a Crew.-Book.-Kru Character, WE anchored off Cape Palmas, a bold headland upon which are built the houses of an American mission, and at a little dis- tance a Christian village. One can see a forest interior, with small hills jungle-crowned ; a narrow river, which is guarded by a furi- ous surf, and said to flow from the head-waters of the Nun. The steamer came here for the exclusive purpose of taking Kru-men. These men are the Titans of the coast, and are indis pensable to active commerce in Africa. A vessel has seldom been long in harbor before half her crew have been so weakened by sickness as to be unable to man the yards. After lying the usual term of months in an oil river, so many of the hands have died that it is frequently impossible to sail her home without assistance. The Kru-men are natives of the Grain Coast, and appear to have taken but lately to maritime pursuits, for I meet with no mention of them in the old writers. They are men of a Herculean type, a contrast to most savage tribes, who are slim, muscleless, and soft-handed. Strength is the result of regime. Savages are less muscular, as it has been proved, than we are. But that is owing rather to their indolent life than to an inferior physical organization. We have no grounds for supposing that these Kru-men were originally a finer race of men than the other tribes of the coast. They are now the most ath- letic race in the world. They are Goliaths of strength, as well as of stature. Regular work and a regulated diet can work marvels upon the framework of the savage, and can modify not only an individual, but a race. Every trader takes a number of these for the term of his voy- age, which usually lasts two years; and they are also employed in the factories. They are paid from three to five dollars a month, the first month paid in advance, and-an agreement made to send them back to their own country free of expense as soon as their i erence vite Wek clear ew n oo eee amma 88 j SAVAGE AFRICA. f {GHap. VL time is out. Their rations are usually a pint and a half of rice diem, with meat or fish on Sundays. Sometimes they have a daily allowance of trade-rum as well. KRU TOWN, NEAR CAPE PALMAS, The men-of- war are supplied from a Kru colony at Sierra Leone with these men, who receive the pay and rations of com- mon seamen. South of the Congo their place is taken by the erv . THE TITANS OF THE COAST. 39 Cabinda tribe, who are neither so able nor so willing as the Kru. lk. They are such rank pilferers that they will upset your boat in a surf, save your life with one hand, and pick your pocket with the other; for they are as much at home in water as on land, and may be classed among the amphibious animals. They are gluttons and drunkards, but also faithful, hard- work ing, and well-behaved when not too kindly treated. Then. the low nature displays itself, and insolence ensues. The old maxim, slightly altered- A Kru-man, a dog, and a walnut-tree, The more you beat them, the better they be- applies well enough when the punishment is really deserved. It has always been an understood thing among slavers that Kru-men and Cabindas are not to be carried away. In some cases faith has been broken, and in every case the Kru-men have pined away and died, or, as the slavers express it, " sulked them- KRU HOUSES. selves to death." They have a tender affection for their mothers, and an amor patric, which is rarely found among negroes. In- 40 SAVAGE AFRICA. 10. yI. deed, it is not strange that they should love their beautiful coun- try, with its groves, its flowers, and its sea, which has no sharks. They are likewise subject to a yearning for dog's flesh, which, perhaps, they prefer to scenery, and which they find difficult to obtain abroad. When the Kru-man becomes rich he buys a few wives, retires from business, and lives like a private gentleman on his own es- tate, which is cultivated by his spouses. But, even when the term of his labors is over, he has many dangers to undergo. If he is set on shore at any distance from his native place, he is sure to be plundered by the intermediate tribes. And when he has regained his own home, he finds his relatives but little more mer- ciful. He is treated to his face as if he were a rich man sudden- ly become defunct. Guns are fired; women dance joyously and sing his praises; a council of the next of kin is held for the di- vision of his property, over which they quarrel bitterly ; and full display is made of those emotions, which in England are felt, but concealed, at the reading of a will. The amount of property which the man is allowed to retain depends entirely on the num- ber of his cousins. Yet such is the vanity and sensitiveness of the negro that he would rather give up all than run the risk of being called a stingy fellow. As soon as the anchor was dropped a crowd of canoes skimmed through the surf, and were soon at the ship's side. 'These canoes are more diminutive than you can well conceive. The Kru-man squats in it on his knees, and bales the water out with one of his feet. Sometimes he paddles with his hands; sometimes, thrusting a leg in the water, he spins the canoe round when at full speed like a skater on the outér edge. If it should capsize, as the laws of equilibrium sometimes demand, he turns it over, bales it out with a calabash, swimming all the while, and glides in again, his skin shining like a seal's. When the Kru-men were admitted on the main deck, the palm- oil traders examined them as a Yorkshireman would a horse, or a Georgian planter a slave at an auction. - The very big men were put aside as being of a lagy temperament. - Those who had a raw were carefully rejected. Clean-limbed men at five foot nine, or so, were at a premium. - Having gained a wrinkle or two from the ship's surgeon, who had spent his lifetime on the Coast, I picked out five to serve me as a boat's crew. -All of them wore Char. VI.] THE TITANS OF THE COAST. 41 bracelets of ivory, a sign that they had been to the Cameroons or the Gaboon. They demanded first where I was going to take them: on hear- ing their destination, they replied that plenty shark lib at Lagos; plenty sick at Bonny; but that Gaboon was a fine place. I then told them that they would be paid five dollars a month. They desired to be given the usual advance and a "book." This thirst for literature astounded me; but the doctor, coming to my aid, informed me that " book" was a generic term for all things written, and that they wanted an agreement. An old man now presented himself. His forehead was smeared with white earth, which he told me was great fetich. It was great fetich indeed. - These chiefs keep their fathers' skull when half decomposed in a dark room, placing the earth below. A. liquid matter oozing from the skull falls upon the earth, which on great occasions is used as I have described. He told me that his name was King George, and that he had come to make palaver for these boys. This meant, it seems, that he was to receive their agreement, and first month's wages. Every one has heard the story of the actor, who, having pledged every thing else of value, finally pawned himself, and sent the duplicate to the manager. In the same way my boys had bor- rowed money from King George, pawning their bodies as security. I was the manager who paid book and part of their debts in or- der to obtain their services. As native names, however melodious, are difficult to remember, traders christen these converts to commerce with the most absurd appellations. - The names of my five men were Smoke-Jack, Dry- Toast, Cockroach, Pot o' Beer, and Florence Nightingale. I made the usual arrangements with the purser for their board and pas- sage. They were to receive a pint and a half of rice daily; which, as they starve, like most savages, in their own country, they regarded in the light of high living. I gave each of them a red cap like a bargee's, and a blue flannel shirt. They used to come to me every day, ask me what my name was, inquire after the health of my, near relatives-as negroes always do-and beg a little tobacco.. They elected a head man to rule over them; his duties, as they told me, consisted in receiving their rations, and in portioning them out to each ; in being the bearer of my orders or their complaints; and in thrashing any one of the "gang" who misbehaved himself. 42 SAVAGE AFRICA. [Cxar. VIL CHAPTER VIL THE CITY OF GOLD. The Grave of L. E. L.-Her Death. -Her Husband. Scandal.-Route to Coomassi.-Court Reception.-Ashantee Empire : its Constitution.-Decoy Wives. -Savage Nuptials. * THERE is only one thing to be seen at Cape Coast Castle. I was loitering in the court-yard of the fort when I asked a com- panion where it was. He answered by pointing to my feet, and I found that I was standing on the grave of L. E. L. Once, as I was crossing the cold and desolate moors of Shet- land, I found a golden-crested wren lying dead upon the ground. Such matters do not often touch tis when we are very young. But I remember that I looked at the corpse of this, the smallest and most delicate bird of Europe, with emotion. It seemed so strange and so sad to find it in a land where no trees grow, where no skylarks sing, and where it had been killed by the cold winds and the bitter sea-spray which blast the flowers before they have time to.bloom. .|. . And sadder and stranger it seemed to find the grave of a poet- ess in this jail and pest-house of nature-this plague-spot of the universe. Her sepulchre a stone-yard, with grim cannon and piled pyramids of balls. Her requiem, the dull tread of the sen- tinel; the gay song from the mess-room; the ceaseless washing of the waves against the rocks below. This was her tomb before she died. - She was alone from morn- ing till night. Her husband's ill health increased her anxieties, redoubled her ennui. The climate began to rob her of her only occupation. Her ideas did not flow so readily; she could no longer concentrate her thoughts; her brain, which had once flash- ed fire, grew cold and dull. A ship was about to sail to England. She wrote letters to all her friends, and a few hours afterward she was found a corpse. The World, if it sometimes kills its victims, will always embalm them with its tears. None had been attacked so ferociously as Byron and Miss Landon-none more bitterly lamented. In the VII.] THE @ITY OF: GOLD. 48 latter instance its grief took the selfish form of revenge. A dis- graceful and groundless charge was made against Governor Mac- lean. 'WILGVO LSYOD The death of Mrs. Maclean is one of those mysteries of Africa which must forever remain unrevealed. I will not revive those calumnies against her husband, of whom all in Africa speak with 44 SAVAGE AFRICA. -[Cnar. VIL affection, and who now lies buried by her side. Their enemics are silent now. Her glory and her sorrows are passing away with the genera- tion among whom she shone. Her poetry is now but little read ; the letters on her grave are being trodden out by careless feet like mine. And yet the story of L. E. L. will ever remain the sweet: est and most touching tradition of the Poets. Near Cape Coast Castle lies the kingdom of Ashantee, whose monarch slew Sir Charles Macarthy at the head of his troops and conquered the English on the brink of the sea. In the centre of his kingdom is Coomassi, the City of Gold. If you were going to that city you would obtain a hammock and a number of bearers. - Having had a row with them all about the distribution of your luggage, you would start in a very bad temper, and proceed about two miles through a shrubby country ; forest-trees would gradually spring up around you, and you would enter a valley profusely covered with pines, aloes, and lilies; you would walk on a soil of red clay, with a coating of sand, and quartz fragments on the path. You would find few inhabitants, and poor cultivation in the country, and your heart would be re- joiced by the cries of parrots, toucans, and crown birds. You would sleep at krooms or villages, to which the caboceer, or chef de village, would welcome you; and would be offered a very bad bed in a hovel made of hurdles attached to a framework of long poles, and the interstices filled up with red clay. A second stage of your journey would be through the dark for- est, your attendants yelling horribly to drive away the evil spir- its. You would have the pleasure of seeing around you silk-cot- ton, wild orange, tamarind, ganian, and wild cedar-trees, with pine- apples peeping forth at the edges of the path. Sometimes you would pass over pieces of swampy ground covered with rank grass and flags. Sometimes the tinkling of an iron castanet would be heard, and a party of men would pass you armed with mus- kets and knives, bearing loads of ivory, and followed respectfully by their wives or daughters. Having crossed the River Praa, you would pass through a country of a forest character, and on ap- proaching Coomassi you would send on a messenger with a pres- ent; you would probably receive an escort in return, with an as- . surance from the king that he is having the streets cleaned in your honor. Cnar. VII.] THE CITY. OF GOLD: 45 Finally you would reach Coomassi, and would enter the city by a broad and pleasant street choked with people, who would give you a tumultuous welcome with their cries and the clapping of "IHSVNOOD NI their hands. You would be saluted, according to the African fashion, with constant discharges of musketry ; while horns, drums, 46 SAVAGE AFRICA. [Cxar. VII. flutes, and rattles would modestly contribute toward deafening you completely. Passing from the vulgar, you would enter an avenue of cabo- ceers, seated on stools, with gaudy-hued umbrellas raised above their heads; these men would be surrounded by their household suites, like the feudal lords of ancient days; their garments of costly foreign silks unraveled and weaved anew into elaborate patterns, and thrown over the shoulder like the Roman toga, leav- ing the right arm bare; a silk fillet encircling the temples; Moor ish charms, inclosed in small cases of gold and silver, suspended on their breasts, with necklaces made of aggry beads, a peculiar stone found in the country, and resembling the glein-ndyr of the Ancient Britons; lumps of rock-gold hanging from their wrists, which would be so heavily laden as to be supported on the heads of their favorite boys; while handsome girls would stand behind, holding silver basins in their hands. You would then pass into the Moslem quarter, and you would see these traveling merchants dressed in robes of Turkish-cut silk, with trowsers and turbans of native cotton, and small body-vests braided with silk twist. You might also see an inferior class wearing the Arabic Zus-sab?, the common dress of the Atlas mount- aineers-a simple tunic without sleeves, and falling to the knee. And finally you would pass into the royal presence. The sun glistening upon the gold ornaments of the royal guards might per- haps remind you of the diamonds which blaze at drawing-rooms. You would see a throne of rude but ingenious workmanship, its arms and legs carved into grotesque forms, and embossed with or- naments of gold. The king would not give you his hand to kiss, but he would give you the usual salutation-*" He thanks the gods that he sees you and all your people," which, as you have not come without a present, is probably sincere. Having told him a few agreeable falschoods, and his boys having brandished their swords over your head in a threatening manner, singing all the while his praises and "strong names," you would be shown into a house, and would receive in the course of the evening a little palm wine, and a kind inquiry after your health. Tt is the general tradition of Moslem and Pagan that the tribes of Ashantee, Gaman, Dinkira, and Akim were driven by the be- lievers in the early age of Islam from their original inheritances in Ghobagho, Ghofan, and Tonouma to the forests of W angara, as mdi ai e ole a maces eae wontons conan erage rate Cnar. VII.] THE CEFY OF GOLD. #7 where, finding themselves in a land of gold, they defended them- selves, and purchased their independence with their blood. Of these petty kingdoms Ashantee and Dinkira were the most prom- inent, and a long rivalry existed between them. The King of Dinkira having seduced one of the King of Ashantee's wives, sent to his court as an embassadress, war was proclaimed, and Dinkita was destroyed. This was in the year 1182 (A.D. 17919), as preserved in the Moslem records. From that moment Ashan- tee from a monarchy became an empire, which extended to the very border of the sea, the coast-tribe (Fanti) being his vassals. Thus, unlike other inland nations, the Ashantees have free com- munication with the white men, and that ruinous system of mid- dle-men which prevails almost every where else is here unknown. The King of Ashantee is apparently an utter despot. There are, however, certain restraints upon his power, in the shape of a House of Lords, consisting of four nobles, and a House of Com- mons, called the Assembly of the Captains. In state affairs the king receives their opinions privately, that his infallibility may not be doubted by the vulgar. The most remarkable of the customs of Ashantee, though . not peculiar to that kingdom, being almost universal in Africa, is the hereditary succession, which does not descend from father to son, but from the king to his brother, to his nephew, and so on. This is a legal illustration of the proverb, "It is a wise child that knows its own father." When a daughter of the royal house bears a son, it is certain that he has the blood royal; but they reason that even queens may be frail, and that the offspring of the king's wife may be possibly the begotten of a slave. The sisters of the king may negotiate with whom and with as many as they please, for the contribution of royal heirs, provided always that the man is strong, good-looking, and of a decent po- sition in life: conditions which these ladies can not, I am sure, find very harsh. , The king is forbidden by law to have more than three thousand three hundred and thirty-three wives. It is not known whether he is compelled to maintain that moderate number; but the fact is that almost all of these are plantation slaves: the connubial in- stitution is very different here from in England, and a wife is chosen rather for the strength of her limbs than for the softness of her features. And when one's wife is found to possess the art of pleasing, and 48 SAVAGE AFRICA. (CHar. VIL is skilled in the science of seductionfihow do you think she is em- ployed in this virtuous land ? - The punishment in crim. con. cases is death or slavery, redeemable by a heavy fine; it is even forbid- den, as it was by Lycurgus, to praise the beauty of another man's wife, that being adultery by implication,. - Well, these charming women are taken from the plow-tail, or rather from their spade- handles, and are elevated to the rank of Delilahs. They insnare foolish youths with their smiles, intoxicate them with their caress- es, and are surprised by the husband at an appropriate moment. This is a perfect trade over many parts of Africa, and the King of Ashantee is not ashamed, they say, to set his subjects the ex- ample. Go and read La Sirene, by Count Xavier de Montépin, and tell me whether truth is not stranger, ay, and sadder than fic- tion. - There the siren has one moment of compunction ere she yields her victim to the assassins: as for these women-but it is not the women, it is the men whom we must blame, A woman rarely commits a wicked action to which she has not been invei- gled or driven by a man. I will describe to you a lady's social progress in this country. As a little girl she goes decently naked, a custom which Colum- bus observed to be common to most primitive races. When Na- ture announces her womanhood, she is clothed : often before this period she has been purchased and betrothed; and no very long time is allowed to elapse before she is claimed by her husband. The young bride is painted with chalk, giving her the appear- ance of wearing a lace jacket on a black velvet body ; a silk robe descends from the waist to the ankle, fitting over a bustle; on her arms and ankles are massive bracelets, and her head is covered with ornaments of gold. A crowd of young companions parade her in the streets, sing- ing a song in honor of her virginity. Then the spouses retire; the crowd remain without; for the spirit of jealous curiosity, so' powerful in the negro, demands a proof of the lady's purity. - If the husband is satisfied, he " gives her chalk," as their saying is, and she comes out sprinkled with chalk-powder. If not, the dow ry is returned to the husband, though sometimes it becomes a matter of litigation, the law being the same as that prescribed in Deuteronomy. When conception becomes apparent, the girl goes through a ceremony of abuse, and is pelted down to the sea, where she is cleansed. She is then set aside; charms are bound on her wrists, CHar. VIL] THE CITY OF GOLD. 49 spells are muttered over her, and, by a wise sanitary regulation, her husband is not allowed to cohabit with her from that time until she has finished nursing her child. A. woman in labor is placed on a stool, as in most of the coun- tries of the East, and it is considered disgraceful in her to utter a ery. The mother is convalescent a few hours afterward, and hides from mankind, being held impure for seven days. On the eighth day the child is baptized by the father, who squirts a mouthful of tum into its face, and calls it. by the name of some relative or intimate friend. The mother carries it on her bustle, exposed to all weathers, in consequence of which a very large proportion die: she suckles it for two years or more; and as long as the child is under her care she is exempt from labor, and is treated with great respect. " And what becomes of her when she is an old woman?" you will ask. Now with us old age feminine has its pains and its regrets, but it also has little pleasures and privileges of its own : the old wom- an in the alms-house, with her composed features and her placid cup of tea, or the ancient duchess who receives the homage of young lords with an appalling dignity, are happy enough in their own way, though the one must sometimes think of Jem the Carter, with whom she romped in hay-fields and kept company on Sun- day "arternoons," and though the other must sometimes remem- ber the proud days of her beauty, and must now and then look ft her shriveled skin with something like a sigh. ‘ But it is difficult and it is distressing to conceive that this young girl, with her merry black eyes, and her gleaming smiles, and all her sweet and enticing ways, will some day become a hag, with pendent breasts, and bleared eyes, and hideous yellow teeth, and features falling to the ape's-a wretch who works like a slave, and who is beaten by the man whose savage passions have drained her of her youth and her beauty before her time. D 50 | SAVAGE AFRICA. [Crap. VIL CHAPTER VIM LAND OF THE AMAZONS. Dahomey : its Revenues and Laws.-The Amazons.-Human Sacrifices. I avr said nothing of the religious and political economy of Ashantee, because it differs in no important respects from that of its rival power. Two hundred and fifty years ago, Tacudona, chief of the Foys, laid siege to the city of Abomey. Meeting with a vigorous re- sistance, he made a vow that, should he conquer, he would sacri- fice its prince Da to the gods. When he had taken the town he began to build a large palace to celebrate his victory. He killed Da on its foundations by ripping open his belly, and called the building Da-omi, which signifieth Da's belly, from which time he took the title of King of Dahomey. The neighboring tribes, anxious to preserve the balance of pow- er, attacked the growing state, which proved triumphant over all, extending its dominion to the very foot of the Atlas, and obtain- ing a port for foreign trade by the subjugation of Whydah. It is supposed that taxes are the scourge of civilization, but in this barbarous land there is a fixed system of taxation, which falls heavily upon all classes. Tax-gatherers are stationed at all the markets, and receive cowries on all the articles exposed for sale, in proportion to their quantity. - Palm-oil, for instance, pays one gallon in eighteen. The income-tax is paid under a polite disguise. At the annual Customs, a grand religious festival, cach man brings a present to the king in proportion to his rank. A tax is levied on slaves; there are duties on foreign trade; if a cock crows it is forfeited, and as it is the nature of cocks to crow, they are ingeniously muz- zled ; there are even turnpikes in this unfortunate land ; and, to crown all, the King of Dahomey, like the King of Ashantee, is heir-at-law to every body in his kingdom. Thus the real wealth of the realm is vested in the hands of roy- alty, which keeps a large standing army, keeps up the public Car. VIII.] LAND OF THE AMAZON. _ 51 roads, receives strangers- Christian, Moslem, or Pagan - with much grandeur, and regales the populace with a spectacle of hu- man sacrifices, as Nero fed the Romans with contests of wild beasts and gladiators. The criminal law is brief and severe. Treason, cowardice, adul- tery, and murder are punished with death.. The caboceer of a village or district can proclaim a court by prostrating and kissing the ground; the culprit can be tried by an assembly of caboo- ceers: if condemned to death, he is handed over to the Milgan, or chief executioner, who is the highest person in the state; if to slavery, to the Mayo, or grand vizier, who has the second power; but in all cases the verdict must receive confirmation from the throne, and the sentence must be executed at the capital, and no- tice given of it by the public crier in the market. Civil suits in both these kingdoms are almost as complicated as in Westminster Hall, and are as often artificially prolonged. There is no need of lawyers here. Every negro appears to be as subtle as an attor- ney in sharp practice, and as éloquent as a Q. C. What do you think of this, for example? A man has a fowl killed by another man's dog. After three years have elapsed he enters his indict- ment, suing not only for the fowl itself, but for the eggs which it would have laid, and for the chickens which it would have hatch- ed in those three years. Fetich is a generic term for the physical machinery of religion: the relies of the Catholic Church, the surplices of the Anglican, and the spiritual ebullitions of camp-meetings, would come under that denomination. The religion of Dahomey is essentially of a fetich character. They have their rites of cireumecision and bap- tism ; they venerate snakes, to whom they erect temples, where a harmless species is maintained; they have their priests and priest- esses, but they have also the unknown, unseen God, whose name they seldom dare to mention, and of whose great attributes they speak not without fear. and trembling. The worship of God in the absurd symbol of the lower animals I do not wish to defend, but it is all that these poor savages can do; and is not that less impious than to speak of the Deity with blasphemous familiarity as our illiterate preachers often do ? Dahomey is a despot, but, as with Ashantee, there are wheels within wheels, which direct his power, and chains, unseen but strong, which restrain. The people lick dirt before the nobles, and the nobles at a court levée, having cast off all their finery, 52 SAVAGE AFRICA. [CHaP. VHL. enter the king's presence on all-fours. There they wallow in palatial dust, and only speak when they are spoken to. . This, done at public audiences, imposes upon visitors, and is devised with a salutary purpose. The mob, seeing the men whom they honor thus submissive before the sovereign, feel it little disgrace to be slaves, and do not think of sedition. -They have no demo- cratic organs or pot-house Ciceros there to make them discon- tented without bettering their condition. _ In private, the nobility, from slaves, become councilors; and it is in private that the real business of the state is done. Drunkenness is bad taste in England, but in Dahomey it is a sin; and the late king kept a drunkard on rum, after the Spartan principle, that his beastly appearance might deter the people from this vice. In republican Africa and in polished Europe adultery is a venial offense, a simple matter of bullocks and sheep, or pounds, shillings, and pence. Under this barbarous despot itis a:crime, which can only be expiated by life-long slavery or by sudden death. In Ashantee the law is milder, and the vicious results I have described. f Those whom we call "social evils" are here recognized as social necessities. - To counteract the only evil of polygamy (as far as Africa is concerned), viz., the inability of the poorer people to purchase wives, the government organizes a body of women, who "ply their nefarious trade" on fixed days at a regulated price, and who add to the royal revenue by paying a tax. | This consti- tution is certainly indelicate; but indecorum, of all vices the most censured in England, is among these miserable people no vice at all, since it happens to be conducive to connubial virtue. The River Volta alone separates the two great empires of Africa, and which is the greater of the two? That has always been a matter of argument. I accede to Ashantee superior wealth and population, but I think it stands to reason that Dahomey must prove victorious in pitched battles. Both derive their power from the European trade. - The wealth of Ashantee lies in her gold mines, of Daho- mey in her slaves. The Ashantees dig for their luxuries, the Dahomans fight for them. The latter nation is in fact a miscel- laneous banditti, for there are few pure Dahomans. Agriculture and the arts are discouraged : the nation is an army, war is their trade, men are their spoil. The constitution of Amazons does S 1 VIII.] LAND OF THE AMAZON. 58 not appear to me an extraordinary one. In Africa the sphere of woman is slavery. - Among the agricultural tribes she is made to till the ground; among the pastoral, to tend the herds; in golden Ashantee, to work at the mines; in fighting Dahomey, to join the army. \ She is also employed in diplomatic missions and in commer- cial enterprise. She is shepherd, agriculturist, warrior, trader, embassadress, and sometimes queen. In this practical country one meets with admirable illustrations of the axiom of Plato, in the fifth book of his Republic, that, " So far as her nature is con- cerned, the woman is admissible to all pursuits as well as the man." Dahomey has become celebrated not only by its army of Amazons, but by its Siquiaht, the watering-of-the-graves-of-the- ancestors: the translation is Hibernian; for the graves are wa- tered with blood, which is not water, although on such occasions it flows as if it were. A huge platform is erected in the centre of the market-place, and is encireled by a parapet breast-high. On this platform are tents, gorgeous umbrellas, banners, cloths, and all the insignia of native wealth and power. There are heaps of cowries, and to- bacco, and kegs of rum to distribute to the mob; the king's wives, present at the ceremony, are as composed as Spanish ladies at a bull-fight, as also are the victims themselves, with whose blood the graves of the king's ancestors are to be watered. Below there is a savage and naked mob. When the presents with which the king indirectly pays his warriors have been flung down and scrambled for, the victims, with white caps on their heads and lashed down in small canoes, are borne to the edge of the parapet, and the mob ery, "Feed us, king! feed us, king, for we are hungry." They are then thrown over, and are dispatched by the men beneath. Descriptions of this revolting custom, as it is popularly called, have from time to time reached England, and have excited a strong feeling upon the subject. Missions have been dispatched to this monarch in the hope of inducing him to abolish these bar- barities. They have failed, and must always and inevitably fail, as those who understand African constitutions will admit. Human sacrifices are perpetrated by all the pagan nations of Africa; the more powerful the nation, the grander the sacrifice. T+ enters into the African religion as it entered into all the relig- 54 SAVAGE AFRICA. [CHar. VIII. ions of antiquity. The Druids, the Egyptian priests, our great masters of the ancient world, tolerated human. sacrifices. Even in the days of Themistocles three Grecian youths were sacrificed. The Africans have sometimes their enlightened kings, as the old barbarians had their sages and their priests. - But it is seldom in the power of the heads of a people to alter those customs which have been held sacred from, time immemorial. The despots of Africa are ruled by laws more stern and ruthless than themselves. They are not allowed to eat or to drink in public; in some cases they may not even be seen, and therefore consent to the petitions of their subjects by protruding one of their feet from beneath a curtain. Were they to rebel they would be dethroned. Vox populi, vox diaboli. The mob of Dahomey are man-eaters : they have cannibal minds; they have been accustomed to feed on mur- der; were the king, whom we supplicate, to attempt compliance with our requests, the graves of his ancestors would be watered with his own blood. Cnar. IX.] THE KING OF OILS. 55 CHAPTER 1X: THE KING OF OILS. The Mouths of the Niger.-Discovered in the fifteenth Century.-Bonny River.- Interview with Peppel.-Fernando Po: its Inhabitants.-A Gaboon Legend. WuEN we left Lagos harbor we left behind us all signs and symptoms of civilization. -I found that my fellow-passengers con- sisted entirely of men of a seafaring appearance, with bronzed faces, large freckled hands, a lust for Cognac, and large powers of conversation-on oil. Day after day the same flat, unwholesome-looking shore; river after river opening before us as we passed-the many mouths by which the fatal Niger pours its dark waters into the sea. Brown waves rolled round us, and with the land-breeze a fetid stench was blown toward us-the miasma of this Great Dismal Swamp. The tainted air, the gloomy view, the brutal company; disposed my mind to those reflections which the sight of those rivers alone might have awakened. Africa has its martyrology. Here, indeed, our flags do but seem to wave over sepulchres. Here the history of the white man is an elegy. The mouth of the Niger is now no longer a mystery of Africa; but it was one in which scores of brave men had been entombed before it was unriddled. - Their graveless epitaphs are moss-grown now. - Lander was buried in Fernando Po, but no one could show me where. - Great travelers are creatures of the day, and can reap but little posthumous renown. Their light, though dazzling, is not creative. It is the reflection of a curiosity which must pass away. They bring new toys from Nature to us, the children of civilization. We worship them, play with them, yawn over them, break them, and forget them always. It is a singular, and to me a very melancholy truth, that many lives were thrown away in this search for the Niger's mouth, from a lack of careful theoretical inquiry, or from that spirit of igno- rant skepticism which is so stubbornly developed among the the- orists of science. b6 SAVAGE AFRICA. [CHar. IX. It is well known that the Jesuits discovered and described the sources of the Blue Nile before Bruce was born ; but most of my readers will, I think, be surprised to learn that the Portuguese set- tlers navigated the Niger in the sixteenth century by its mouth, I happened to meet with this passage in Villault de Bellefond : "We went up the Niger as far as Benin;" and found additional particulars in Des Marchais, which proved that the Bight of Be- nin, according to the testimony of the natives, received this eccen- tric river. Yet so little regard can have been paid to their testi- mony, that, when Reichard first broached that theory, it was unan- imously ridiculed, till eloser inquiries had proved its probability, and actual enterprise its truth. v On the 26th of January we entered Bonny, the wealthiest of these rivers of corruption. Here the traders do not dare to live ashore, but inhabit the large hulks of ancient merchantmen. A thatched roof above, with the lower deck arranged into chambers _ and store-rooms, convert them into floating houses, which often from houses become hospitals. West Africa is essentially a land of oils; this is its real wealth ; and the exports of ivory and gold are small in comparison. The commissions are large, in order to tempt these factors to brave a climate whose dangers they assist with their intemperance, and still more with their inanity. The trade is active enough, but from its nature is attended with much delay.. The Bonny natives go to market in the interior. The oil is brought to them little by little in calabashes. This they pour off into barrels. It is then brought on board one of the hulks, and is purchased with goods of European manufacture. These black traders are now almost too much for the white ones in those matters of low cunning which enter so largely into commerce of a petty nature. - The days have gone by when char- coaled powder and coraline could be passed off upon the simple natives with impunity. A little can still be done with false weights and measures, but the good old days are gone forever, and the natives have learned to turn the dirty tables upon those who could once cheat them as they chose. On the Gold Coast gold is adulterated with copper; on the Ivory Coast teeth are plugged with lead and heavy clay; here 911 is so ingeniously mixed with sand that every drop must be boiled down before the factors dare send it home to their employers. - None are so bitter as sharpers when they happen to be taken in, and none complain Char. IX.] THE KING OF OILS. 37 so loudly of these "thieves and swindlers" as those who make their living by them. i The owners, who are of course men of a very different stamp, have formed an association for the mutual preservation of all their interests, but the factors lose no opportunity of evading these laws and cheating one another when they can. Among the whites there is no real unity: nobody trusts his neighbor. This gives the blacks a great advantage. . Savages as they may be, rivals as they are, they can at least combine with that honesty which is always the best policy. If a negro, for in- stance, cheats a white man, the latter puts up with it. - His broth- er members of the association would freely promise to refuse to deal with the negro, but he knows very well that a canoe loaded with palm-oil could not be resisted by one of them. - On the oth- er hand, if a white man flagrantly offends, the native traders unite and "shut the trade" to him. A case of this kind happen- ed not long ago in the Benin. They found that a certain trader used a smaller cowrie-tub than the others: they also found that while other salt-tubs had one stave across it, to make the salt fall light and take up more space, his had two. A council was held: the trade was shut; not a canoe came near him; and he was forced to leave the river. 4 I went ashore with the doctor on a visit to Peppel, the famous King of Bonny. The town itself is built on black mud, and the broadest street was far more filthy than the filthiest slum in West- minster. - The palace is composed of two or three hovels encircled by a mud wall. - In one of these was seated the monarch, and the scene was well adapted to the muse of his poet-laureate. - The Africans have a taste for crockery-ware much resembling that of: the last generation for old china, and a predilection for dog-flesh, which is bred expressly for the table, and exposed for sale in the public markets. - And there sat Peppel, who had lived so long in England ; behind him a pile of willow-pattern crockery, before him a calabash of dog stew and palaver sauce. - It is always thus with these savages. The instincts inherited from their forefathers will ever triumph over a sprinkling of foreign reason. - Their in- tellects have a rete mucosum as well as their skins. As soon as they return to their own country they take off all their civiliza- tion and their clothes, and let body and mind go naked. Like most negroes of rank, Peppel has a yellow complexion as light as that of a mulatto. His features express intelligence, but 58 SAVAGE AFRICA. [Crar. IX. - of a low and cunning kind. In every word and look he exhib- ited that habit of suspicion which one finds in half-civilized na- tures. The doctor, who was apparently an old friend, told him that I had just come out to Africa. Peppel asked eagerly if I was go- ing to settle in Bonny. On my answering in the negative, he showed plainly enough that he was disappointed in not getting his shake-hand dash, as the propitiatory present of a new trader is called. I then asked him whether he liked England or Bonny best. He gave me the Irishman's answer by asking which of the two I pre- ferred. I replied enthusiastically, Bonny. But he only laughed incredulously, and remarked, wisely enough, that every man liked his own country best. Here the doctor, who was a Glasgow man, and had not been bred a courtier, exclaimed, " Why, Peppel, ye're grown just as fat as an old sow !" The king pleaded deafness. f " Fh, mon !" repeated the doctor, earnestly, " ye're no deef; but ye're just as fat as a pig." As Peppel still assured him that he could not hear a word, he did not*repeat the compliment, but said that I had come out to shoot beasts. - This was a little too strong for the polite Peppel. Nothing is more difficult for a negro to understand than the ma- nia for slaying quadrupeds, which, from being periodical, becomes chronic in some European constitutions; and he became so taci- turn and sulky that we found ourselves obliged to go. Owing to some skillful representations which Peppel made while in England, and to the ignorance which prevails upon mat- ters African, a farmer and a lady's maid, and some other misguid- ed individuals, came out with the king in his yacht. - The farmer soon found that it was not easy to cultivate black mud, upon which one could not walk without sinking up to the waist; the lady's maid made a plant upon Peppel, which provoked the jeal- ousy of the queen, who is, moreover, so nearly related to him that she might ery like Juno, " Incedo regina, Jovisque et soror et conjux." As for the people who were to receive royal salaries and apart- ments in the palace, they were presented each with a couple of yams, Peppel declaring that the state of his exchequer would ad- mit of no larger disbursements. Cnar. IX.] THE KING OF OILS. 59 Some people say that his income is more than £15,000 a year : it is at least certain that more wealth is possessed and less dis- played by Bonny than by any other African power. At present Peppel is a merely nominal king; the real majesty lies in the hands of four regents. Under this temporary truce between king and nobles a fire is smouldering, say the traders, and that some day there will be fierce massacres in Bonny town. Peppel had formerly been dethroned because he had shot with his own hand one of his wives who had displeased him; he had murdered a chief named Manilla Peppel; and Diappa, the king, had died so suddenly that it was thought he had been poisoned: there was then a civil war ; three hundred of Peppel's men had blown them- selves up with gunpowder, and these were the Curtii who had closed the gulf. The “Armcnmn” lay in the river to load with the red palm-oil. A little steamer called the " Retriever" carried us on to Fernando Po. The Peak of Fernando Po is 10,000 feet high, and is a more perfect cone than that of Teneriffe. It is wooded to the summit with fine timber, and renders Clarence Bay the most beautiful spot on the West Coast of Africa. This island is one of the state prisons of Spain; and a large guard is at once the residence of the governor, who fears land, and of the prisoners, who covet it. Fernando Po is inhabited by a verw peculiar tribe, named prop- erly the Adiya, but who are called by the English Bibis, from their mode of address-B#@b? in their language meaning friend. These people are gentle, but have a marvelous hatred of civiliza- tion. The town of Clarence is composed entlrely of Sierra Leone colonists, Kru-men, ete. The aborigines live in little huts in the forest. I went to see one of their towns, called Bannebar, about three miles distant. There was a mission house there of Spanish Jesu- its, who had apparently succeeded in making the natives wear something in the shape of clothing, for in the remoter parts of the island they leave nothing whatever to the imagination. With that exception they could scarcely have seemed more barbarous than they were. It was the first time that I had seen savages, and the spectacle was not encouraging. I did not see a woman who was not laboring under some disgusting disease of the skin. I- am told that there is an ulcer here, of a phagednic nature, which appears almost incurable, and which the bite of an insect 60 t SAVAGE AFRICA. [Char. IX. or the abrasion of a cuticle is sufficient to cause. One gentleman on the island, who was bit by a musquito on the leg, had to suffer amputation! and yet there are medical men who have spoken of U “QM u“; (w'. a CLARENCE, FERNANDO PO. , ip ] r > b 1 Fernando Po as a sanatorium, which it can only be w hen the mountain has been cleared and colonized. Chap. IX.] THE KING OF OILS. 61 The natives sometimes wear on the head a covering which is made like an osier basket, and is secured to their hair by skewers made of the small bone of the monkey's leg.. The hair itself is adorned with ochre, which they form into small lumps, giving their heads the appearance of being covered with yellow pills. Round the left upper arm is bound a piece of string, in which the men carry a knife and the women a pipe. . These women are hideous and chaste. When an infidelity is committed the male offender has his left hand cut off, and the stump plunged in burn- ing oil; for the second offense he loses his right hand ; for the thlrd he suffers death. . It is not known if the women are pumsh ed; but among savages generally (they know no better) it is the seducer who suffus, not the victim, as with us. These Aniya present the same type as the mountaineers of the neighboring parts of the continent. I afterward heard a legend at the Gaboon which pretends to explain their migration and their nakedness. The first man called all people to one place. His name was Raychow. "Hear this, my people," said he. "I am king in this river. I am going to give a name to every place." One day he came with his people to the Hole of Wonga-Wonga, which is a deep pit in the ground from which fire comes out at night. Men spoke to them from the Hole, but they could not see their forms. Raychow made his son descend into the Hole. The son of the King of the Hole appeared to him, and defied him to a contest of skill in throwing the spear. If he lost he would be killed. If he gained he would be restored in safety. ' He won. Then the son of the King of the Hole said, " You are fortunate in having con- quered me, for I am a spirit. Ask for whatever you wish." The king's son demanded a remedy for every disease that he should name. - The spirit gave him the medicines, and said when he had finished, " There is one sickness which you have forgotten. It is kra-kra. Of that you will die." A tribe called Ndiva, which was then strong and numerous, but of whom four men alone remain, gave him a canoe and forty men to take him back to his father's town. When he saw his fa- ther he did not say a word. His father said, " My son, if you are hungry, eat." He did not answer. His father said, "Do you wish me to kill you a goat?" There was no reply. At last he said, "Do you want me to build you a fetich-house?" Then he answered " Yes." When the house was built, he stored up his 62 SAVAGE AFRICA. [Cnar. IX. medicines there. - Then he said, "I go to make the Moondah en- ter the Orongo (Gaboon). So he went and dug a canal, and by the time that it was finished all his men had died. Then he said he would go and kill river-horses in the Benito. He had killed four, and as he was killing the fourth the people descended from the mountains against him. So he made his fetich on his great war-spear, and he sang, My spear, go kill these people, Or these people me will kill. The spear slew the army, and the remainder of the tribe migra- ted in terror to Fernando Po. Then said their king, "None of my people may wear cloth till we have conquered the Mpongwe." And to this day the Bubis go stark naked, and entertain a savage hatred against the natives of the Gaboon. Char. X.] f COAST SOCIETY. 63 CHAPTER X. Coast Unanimous Incbriety.-The Cognac Disease.-Sierra Leone Scandal. SucH are the scenes of the colonial coast through which I rap- idly passed, and have as rapidly described. But, ere I introduce you to the savages of Equatorial Africa, I must give you some idea of Anglo- Afrlcan existence. In Encrland inebriety no longer remains a fashion. The inter- val between the disappearance of the ladies and the announce- ment of coffee is becoming more and more brief as the age pro- gresses. - It is not impossible that we may see this barbarous cus- tom pass away with rectors of the old school, and w1th port wines of '24. Debauch was already diluted in England when in India it reigned triumphant. Our officers used to spend their leisure hours in smoking Manillas, sipping brandy-pawnee, and scratch- ing their musquito-bites. But Bass and Allsopp, those benefac- tors of the human race, created a revolution in the history of drink. The vicious maddening brandy gave way to the genial bitter beer. Field-sports took the place of the saltatory exhibi- tions of the nautch girls. Healthy vigor succeeded drunken in- anition. There is still one corner of the globe where the " good old fash- ions" prevail, and where it is considered in bad taste to be tem- perate. During the first day which I spent in Africa I saw some- thing in the way of deglutition which made me open my English eyes. I was introduced into a great many different houses, and in each a black servant, apparently without orders, but as a sim- ple matter of course, brought us something to drink. In one house it would be Champagne, in another it would be Hollands out of a stone bottle, in a third it would be old Jamaica rum. - A day divided into sips would be wound up with an evening which made me agree with a late Governor of the Gambia, "That Africa must be the healthiest place in the world, for that men could no- where else drink in such a manner." rnt mnry . 64 SAVAGE AFRICA. - [CHar. X. The first sight which had attracted my attention when I landed at Bathurst was the number of black policemen who strutted about, their staves in their hands, with airs of inexpressible pom posity. As they never told any one to move on, and as cooks in Africa are masculine, I was at a loss to understand for what pur- pose they had been organized. But it was explained to me. When officers are drunk they ride home on the backs of con- stables. - How touching are these provisions of Nature! In win- ter a moss grows on the rocks of Lapland for the sustenance of the reindeer. In the dreary depths of the Sahara the traveler finds green oases and sparkling springs. So in this barbarous land, where there are neither cabs nor wheelbarrows, Providence has furnished policemen. Drink is an institution of Anglo-Western Africa, cold brandy and water the national beverage. A man is estimated by the proportion of water which he mingles with his spirit. Moderate men are milk-sops; abstinent ones are pariahs ; for here, without drink there can be no union. When one sits down to table with Anglo- Africans, one observes now and then their faces twitch spasmodically as if they had re- ceived an electric shock. These facial contortions are the relies of intermittent fever. _ At the same time you become aware that a grosser disease is present among your companions. One :of them will attempt to catch a spectral fly which day and night is flitting before him; another directs your attention to a swarm of bees in a corner of the ceiling; and a third whistles to a black dog which no one can see except himself. That which would be very amusing were it not so sad, is the assurance with which some cadaverous ensign informs fresh-com- ers that it is impossible to live in that climate without brandy and water. - His bloodshot eyes, his trembling hand, his deadened ap- petite, bely his words; but still he drinks on. He must follow the general example. Here all prostrate themselves before the shrine of Bacchus; not the young laughing god, with garlands on his rosy brow and smiling nymphs upon his knee, but a naked, solitary, wasted wretch, without beauty and without disguise; with filmy eyes, and hollow cheeks, and fetid breath; a ghost of health, intellect, refinement, departed never to return. Brandy and water is certainly the most prevalent and fatal cause of disease on the West Coast of Africa. "Died of brandy and water" is a common phrase. - It is the inevitable consequence X.] COAST SCENERY. 65 of a life deprived of the influence of ladies, of books, and of ath- letic sports. - Drunkenness is the ulcer of inanition. That which astonished me very much at first was the absence of all mental culture in these colonies. Nobody speaks of new books, or of any thing higher than local gossip or routine. Some- times one meets with vestiges of intellect worn and wasted away in this atmosphere of the vitiated and the gross. - Happily I know exceptions to this rule as to all others; but there are few residents who can resist the influences of climate and company, which not only enervate the body, but degrade the mind. _ At Sierra Leone there once existed, it is true, some semblance of society, as we understand the word in Europe. There were occa- sionally balls, to which women went to talk scandal and men to drink Champagne. There were also tea-parties, at which the ladies assembled to play at loo, and where large sums of money were lost and never paid, from which many enmities resulted. - There were also pray- er-meetings, where they criticised each other's consciences. In fact, scandal, gambling, and false devotion-the three cardinal pas- sions of ladies of a certain age-were carried to such extremes, that the whole coterie dissolved ; and, as far as I could learn when I was there, no visits at all were interchanged. E 66 SAVAGE AFRICA. __ [@Har. XL CHAPTER XI. THE TRIBE OF COMMERCIAL TRAVELERS. I enter the Gaboon.-Take a House.-Tornado v. Fever. -Baraka Mission. -My Steward Mongilomba. -Gaboon Commerce. -The Gorilla Palaver. -Tropical Rain. I was disappointed of an interview with Richard Burton, who was up the Cameroons, a volcanic mountain as high as the Peak of Teneriffe. However, during the few days which I spent at Fernando Po, I was located at his house, and had at my disposal a library of which the profound and varied nature was an index to that great mind. I obtained a passage on board the "Minerva," a vessel bound for the Gaboon. -On the morning of my departure I felt a slight pain in my forehead; I had no appetite for breakfast; I was gid. dy and languid. These were the incipient symptoms of malari- ous fever, which I had contracted somewhere on the coast, and which had been incubating in my system. I got on board the Minerva," and laid myself under many blankets. But perspira- tion would not come, though my hands felt as if I were holding them before a furnace. Then I took some warm drink, and im- mediately dissolved. I was very weak after this, and could not touch meat for some days; but a mild cathartic, followed by grad- ual doses of quinine, restored me to perfect health, and I saw that the ordinary fever-fit is little worse than an English cold-a stu- pefying nuisance, that is all. The "Minerva" touched at the Malimba River, a little to the south of the Cameroons, and at Botanga. The latter is the lar- gest ivory mart of Equatorial Africa. Its little river falls into the sea, a large and noisy cataract, and the Elephant Mountain, which Burton has since ascended and described, rears its huge back at no great distance from the sea. On the fourteenth day of our voyage the sea-breeze bore us up a tiver which, with its strong salt tides and sluggish stream, re- sembled an arm of the sea. This was the Gaboon. On the right-hand bank I soon discovered the fort and comp- THE TRIBE OH 'COMMERCIAL TRAVELERS. 67 toirs of the French ; a little farther up a village of English facto- ries; and behind these, perched on a green hill, the houses, school, and church of an American mission. *XUYNOTSSIN NVYOMENY TLL JO LY On the left bank, concealed within a creek, lies the town of King William, or Roi Denis, the bamboo metropolis of Gaboon. As soon as I had landed I made inquiries about a house, and 68 SAVAGE AFRICA. [CsaPr. XL the next day I was shown one. It was built upon piles-a con- sideration of some importance where the soil exhales disease. - It possessed three rooms, all of which had a " deck" or planked floor, and throughout which a sofa, a chest of drawers, a table, and two chairs were tastefully distributed. In the smallest room of the three I found the black proprietor, shivering under fever, and surrounded by his wives. He offered me a hot hand, and his house at a price which was hotter still. He wanted for that barbarous dwelling forty dollars a month. I tendered six, and quitted him, to all appearance an insulted man. I was receiving temporary board and lodging in one of the En- glish factories. Two or three days after the gentleman appeared and made me an elaborate apology. When I had called on him he had fever; he had talked foolishness; he did not know what he had said. I was a great white man; he was only a poor ne- gro; I wanted his house; that was enough; he must give it me --at twelve dollars the month. This proposal was not disinterested, but it was reasonable; his first had been absurd. - Zn febre veritas. It would seem that fever, like drunkenness, exposes a man's vices, caricatures his foibles, and extinguishes his virtues. The next morning, as I-was writing before breakfast, the lines began suddenly to intermingle, and the opposite wall made me a profound salutation. At the same time my head felt as if it were a clock being violently wound up. This was a return of the fe- ver whick had attacked me at Fernando Po. I conquered a great inclination to lie down, and moved my baggage into the house, which occupied me till the afternoon. - During the whole time I had been compelled to watch my property like an Argus. Be- sides Smoke-jack, Dry Toast, Cockroach, Pot o' Beer, and Florence Nightingale, all of whom were tolerably accomplished thieves, I received visits from several villagers, who broke the tenth com- mandment every time that they looked at their neighbor's goods. Against these the manners of the country forbade me to shut my doors; but at that moment I looked back on "The Swan," in Swan Street, Shoreditch, and other tavern haunts of thievery, as temples of honesty in comparison. When all was brought into one room and piled round me, I laid down on the sofa. Some graceful young men entered playing on musical instruments. My landlord's head wife, when she saw that I had fever, brought me a cup of tea. CHar. XL] THE TRIBE OF COMMERCIAL TRAVELERS. 69 Night came at last; my cork bed was spread on the floor; upon it a rug and the sofa pillow ; a lantern and a cup of water by the side. My Kru-man bade me good-night and left me. I was dropping off to sleep, when I heard a low, sighing sound, which gradually swelled into a roar, mingled with the shouts of the villagers as they ran to their houses. - It was a tornado. The sea dashed fiercely against the rocks under my window. Pres- ently I felt rain upon my face, and, looking up, saw that some of the thatch had been blown away. In a short time I became an islet in a small lake of rain-water. I took up my bed and ran, looking for a dry plank, which I at length discovered in one of the other rooms. When I awoke in the morning I found that the fever had made its exit, as often happens when the system receives a shock. The Lincolnshire fenners, when seized with ague, jump immedi- ately into the water. - Here it was the water which had descended upon me. While I was at breakfast I was informed that Captain Walker, of Barrack, wished to see me. I wondered who this military visitor could be, and found that it was the Rev. Mr. Walker, of Baraka. - Captain, it seems, is a title which Kru-men bestow upon all white men of position. Mr. Walker came to renew an invitation, which I had already declined, that I should take up my abode with him. "You are not very comfortable here," he said, smiling. I was about to assure him that I was extremely comfortable there, when I happened to look round me, and saw myself en- throned in a chaos of saddles, gun-cases, carpenter's tools, cooking utensils, tents, and the fragments of a cast-iron stove. I under- stood, for the first time, the blessings of those who have nothing. Anxiety is one's property-tax in the wilderness. I said I was afraid that I should inconvenience him-one always does say these things. "On the contrary," he answered; "as you have not been in a hot country before, you will be sure to have a bad fever, and it will be more convenient for me to attend you in my own house than here." Who could refuse a favor offered in so simple and delicate a manner? - From that day my house was doomed to hold lumber, and I was shown by Mr. Walker into a chamber from which I could see twenty miles of blue river, and trees shadowy in the dis- 7O SAVAGE AFRICA. [CxarP. XL. tance. There was a little table covered with a white cover for my books, a chest of drawers for my clothes, and a bed draped with musquito curtains of snowy gauze. Here I led a pure and frugal life, of which the memory remains, though the reality is not likely to return. To those at Baraka and Corisco who gave me their experiences and their examples, I owe my health, and not improbably my life; for if one wishes to preserve these in Africa, one must give Epicurus the cold shoulder and enter the school of the Stoies. I was in search of an interpreter, when one day a very plain negro accosted me. His name was Mongilomba. A short con- versation proved to me that he was intelligent, and I engaged him as my steward, or head man. In the afternoon he came to me, and said that his " brother" wished me to write him out an agreement. I did so. The next morning he returned, and said that his "brother" wished me to insert the date. At the same time this individual presented himself. He was a young man of stern appearance, and who scanned the paper, when dated, with a legal eye. In fact, as I afterward found out, he was no relative of Mongilomba, but, having had documentary experiences, had acted as family solicitor in the affair. Mongilomba was fat and youthful. - His skin was bronze-color, pleasantly mottled with black spots; for the coloring matter is - sometimes laid on by Nature with eccentricity. Like many men of talent, he was indolent, but a good story-teller, an able orni- thologist, and a superb politician. It was said of Pericles that even when thrown in the arena he would yet argue so cunningly as to persuade his conqueror that he himself had been victorious. So, when Mongilomba lost my best scalpel, he proved to me that it had slipped from his hand in such a manner that no one in his place could possibly have observed the loss. Again, when once I had directed him to dry a pair .of stockings by the fire, and he had brought me them back in a state of ashes, he demonstrated that fire is a fickle and devouring element, whose ravages the wisest men are unable at all times to anticipate. When, enraged by some negligence of this Ethiopian philoso- pher, I assailed him with words, his face would remain imperturb- able, and he would return me those soft answers which do not turn away wrath. If, on the other hand, he saw that I was not quite sure of my ground, he would indulge in majestic soliloquies in Mpongwe, and treat my insinuations with supreme contempt. CHxap. XL] - THE TRIBE OF COMMERCIAL TRAVELERS. 7I For that matter, he was always a little haughty, and only shook lands with me in the morning when he woke in a good hu- mor. Under Mongilomba's patronage, I mingled with the Mpongwes of Gaboon, observing their manners, and sometimes making them tell me their traditions. } They are the most refined tribe of Equatorial Africa, their lan- guages possessing the softness and melody of Tuscan. Their women are graceful and good-looking. These are perfect co- quettes in the arrangement of their hair and person. They paint themselves with a rouge obtained from the root of the camwood- tree, and with white chalk, which contrasts with their black skin to advantage. They go almost naked; but the color removes all idea of indecency, except, perhaps, in prudish and unchaste minds. Their skin, soft and glossy as rich black velvet, is their chief beauty, as it is that of a thorough-bred horse or hound. It is true that the bust, with other women the chief charm, is in them the sole disfigurement, except in very young girls. Even these strive to emulate the pendent beauties of their seniors; for in savage, as well as in civilized countries, the deformities of age or vice can be rendered fashionable. Their head-dress is their glory; and in shaving their hair, as they do -when mourning, they make a greater sacrifice than our English widows, who in such cases merely change their costume from Madame Elise to Mrs. Jay. With regard to the dressing of the hair, there is not much to distinguish between the two; for the belles of the Gaboon ridge their hair over frisettes to make it appear abundant, and, forming it into fantastic shapes-usually that of a Roman casque-plaster it down with palm-oil, the basis of many Bond Street pomades. They also wear artificial hair in rosettes over the ears, and use for hair-powder the scrapings of a fragrant bark. The tout ensemble is completed with a prettily- carved hair-pin of ivory or ebony. - Round their necks are strings of different colored beads "tastefully arranged" by themselves; but on their calves and ankles are huge brass rings, made out of those rods which are used for staircases. It is a practice which I can not defend, for it gives them an ungainly gait; and I have heard that if they happen to fall into the water, these encum- brances prevent them from coming up again. The practice, I fancy, must have been invented by a married man who did not wish his wife to go abroad; the origin, they say, of that fashion T2 SAVAGE AFRICA. [CraPr. XL which obliged the women of ancient Egypt to walk with bare feet, and the Chinese with crippled ones. MPONGWE GIRL. The Mpongwe masculine are a little touched with dandyism ; they love to walk with an old umbrella-stick, and to hear their cloth trailing behind them on the ground. But they are men of business, and all speak English more or less. Excepting a few country dignitaries, their aristocracy is composed of white men's stewards, agents, and interpreters; for wealth is their touchstone of nobility. They are polite, shrewd, close observers of character, indolent of body, keen of brain, dishonest on a large scale; they disdain to pilfer, preferring to swindle in a business-like manner; they pos- sess the art of skillful evasion, and "fides quam Punica," a perfidy more than legal. I will give the best instance that occurs to me. Krinji was the salaried pilot and interpreter of the local government. He could speak Dikel&, Shekani, and Panwe or Fanh, the three dialects of the interior, as well as French, English, Spanish, and Portuguese. But when a negro is talented, white men suffer. A new com- mandant having arrived in the Gaboon, he made the usual com- CHar. XL] THE TRIBE OF COMMERCIAL TRAVELERS. 73 plimentary visit to King George, a powerful chieftain across the water, one of whose subjects had run away with Krinji's wife. Preparations having been made for a big palaver, the following conversation ensued in full native council. Commandant. King George, the king of my country has sent me to take care of this river. I have come to bid you good-day. I hope that we shall be friends. Krinjt (interpreting). King George, the commandant says he has heard that one of your people has taken away my wife. He says that you must send her back directly. King George. Your wife is nothing to me. Tell the command- ant I can not trouble myself about a little palaver like that. Krinji. King says he is very much pleased to see a great white man like you. He would like very much to be your friend. Commandant. Tell the king I am very much pleased to hear eens 74 SAVAGE AFRICA. XL. those words. If he takes care of the French so that they have good trade, I will take care that he does not remain unrewarded. It is only by promoting peace and concord that our mutual inter- ests will be benefited. King George. W hat does he say ? Krinji. He says strong words. He says, Are you blind, that you do not see the men he has brought here with guns and swords? If you do not bring my wife very quickly here, he will make all your people dust, and your town ashes. King George (to his men). Go out and get your guns. If there is trouble, kill Krinji first, but do not hurt the great white man. Commandant. What are they all running out for ? Krinji. The king has told them to kill a sheep for your dinner. They run quickly because they love you. Commandant. Oh, tell the king if I stop to dinner I shall lose the tide. I must go now. Krinji. Well, King George, I ask the white man not to be an- gry about my palaver. You are my friend, and I do not wish to see you dead. So he says that he will go now, but if you do not send my wife in three days, he will bring a ship with big guns to burn your town. , --The commandant, on hearing afterward how he had been trick- ed, was too much amused to be angry; but matters became more serious when Krinji, piloting a man-of-war, ran her aground, that he might have opportunities of plunder. A warrant was issued against him; he disappeared, and probably victimized the human race in some other quarter of the coast. The trade of this part of Africa is conducted on very primitive principles. A factory in the Gaboon is not a mammoth building, which vomits endless smoke and resounds with perpetual ma- chinery. - It is a ground-floor house built of a kind of palm, vul- garly called bamboo. There is a spacious piazza floored with deal, where the factor and his subordinates take their meals. On the left hand a door leads to the kitchen; on the right hand, to the parlor and a bedroom or two; in the centre is the store. Here you may see bales of Manchester cloth, American tobacco in leaf, barrels of coarse powder, casks of Coast o' Guinea rum, and Birmingham trade-guns, long as the ancient matchlocks, their stocks painted in a bright red. At six o'clock the storekeeper opens the establishment, and na- XI.] - THE TRIBE OF COMMERCIAL TRAVELERS. To tives throng in to make small purchases in beads, brass rods, crock- ery-ware, and rum. The clerk sits down to his accounts; the fac- tor examines the books, or writes letters to his employers, or su- perintends the stalwart Kru-men as they roll casks up the beach through the surf. Then canoes come sailing down the river with the land-breeze, bringing their petty cargoes of country produce. Others are be- ing filled with European goods, and await the changes of wind to carry trade into the interior. This is done in' Gaboon, and in most parts of the coast, upon the celebrated Trust system. The negroes of the sea-board re- serve the monopoly of trade between the Bushmen and the whites. It would be almost as difficult for a native of the interior to sell an article to a European as it would be for an author to bring out a book without the aid of a publisher. Now, as the Mpongwe are seldom rich enough to buy the goods, and as the terms of the Bushmen are for cash payments only;, the traders are compelled to trust the Mpongwe with a quantity of cloth, tobacco, rum, and muskets, and to send them into the inte- rior. The Mpongwe will then take up his residence in a bush- village, the chief of which will provide him with a house, with food, and with a wife. The Bushmen go into the forest, cut up ebony and redwood into billets, collect bees'-wax, and, bleeding a vine of the ficus order, dry the. milk into cakes of an inferior caoutchoue. The natives of other villages are sometimes allowed to bring their contributions; while elephants' tusks, which have descended from the interior, bought and rebought from hand to hand, come at length into the possession of the Mpongwe. When he has bartered away all his goods, he loads his canoe, returns to his factory, and receives a large commission, which is also paid in goods; for specie is not current in Africa-on-the-Line. Careful and pinching traders as these Mpongwe are, they soon squander away the treasures they have earned. Every man is be- sieged on his return by a crowd of hostile friends, who only leave him when his wealth has been dissolved in rum. There are many excellent business men, who in private life are weak, vain, extravagant, and who seem to leave their brains behind them in their offices. Such are the Mpongwe, or tribe of commercial trav- elers-men who prey upon ignorance in the bush, and are de- voured by flattery in the town. Sometimes these rum-revels precede the trade, and all the trust ns 76 SAVAGE AFRICA. [CHaP. XL is spent before a stick of ebony is bought. Then the white man | loses. Bad debts, Mr. Snip, extend beyond the limits of great cittes. As the interior of Africa becomes better colonized, a direct trade will be established, and this middle-man, broker-system de- stroyed. -It is not without art that it has been so long preserved. The Mpongwe used to carry fabulous accounts of the white man among the Bush tribes. He was said to be a creature of un- tamable ferocity, from whom their lives were always in danger ; and who was, moreover, an eater of men, buying slaves to cook them beyond the seas. The Bush tribes of the Gaboon have by this time seen enough of white men to know such tales to be false; and occasionally an enterprising man attempts to defraud the customs. I will give an instance. One day Mongilomba came and told me that there was a fresh- killed gorilla for sale. I went down to the beach, and saw it ly- ing in a small canoe which it almost filled. It was a male, and a very large one. The preserved specimen can give you no idea of what this animal really is, with its skin yet unshriveled and the blood scarce dry upon its wounds. The hideousness of its face, the grand breadth of its breast, its massive arms, and, above all, its hands, like those of a human giant, impressed me with emo- tions which I had not expected to feel. But nothing is perfect. Yyouxa goRrILLa (after Du Chaillu). The huge trunk dwindled into a pair of legs, thin, bent, shriveled, ° and decrepit as those of an old man. Cnar. XI.] THE TRIBE OF COMMERCIAL TRAVELERS. Ti My admiration was so transparent that the proprietor demand- ed ten dollars-a small price for the Zroglodytes prodigiosus accord- ing to English views; a large one according to those of the She- kani. Having paid him in cloth, tobacco, and powder according to his liking, I took possession of the ape, which I intrusted to the custody of Mongilomba. A few hours afterward I saw three old men leaving the mission house; as soon as I saw Mr. Walker, he informed me that there was a palaver about my »jena, and advised me to go down and see about it. A negro argument is vocally equal to an Irish fair. When, on approaching the spot, I heard a hubbub which nothing short of fair fighting would have raised in Tipperary, I ran there as quickly as I could. The gorilla was hanging from the branch of a tree, half skin- ned. Mongilomba was being pulled by one party away from the tree, and being pushed by another party toward it. Public opin- ion is never unanimous. At last, one man pulling him or push- ing him a little too hard, he hit out in a style which was really creditable in a negro-above all, the gentle Mongilomba. I re- covered from my surprise sufficiently to knock up a bit of a ring. My man was already "peeled." Not even his hair was in his way. Having just lost a brother, he had shaved his head (a pro- ceeding very unjust toward an innocent population), and had re- tired into dark mourning-costume de paradis. They went at it, and Mongilomba had planted one facer with great success, when less chivalrous by-standers interfered. Two slaves who had no concern in the matter drew knives upon each other; and I, walking up to the three old men, clearly the insti- gators of the row, requested to know what it was all about. They replied that the man from whom I had bought the rjina was a Shekani, and that he had no right to sell it to me, the same being an infringement of laws and customs immemorial. I explained to them in return that, though their laws forbade the Shekani to sell, the laws of the white man allowed me to buy, and that if in a very few minutes the crowd was not dispersed, I should have to walk them, the three patriarchs, up to the French commandant's. This had the desired effect, and peace was restored; but I am fearful that the Shekani was not allowed to take all his goods back to his own village. After I had spent a few days in Glass Town, I resolved to make a trial-trip into the interior, to learn if gorillas were plentifal in 78 SAVAGE AFRICA. [Cgar. XL. the region of the Gaboon ; to obtain information respecting their habits from the true ape-hunters, who inhabit the bush villages only ; and to find out what preparations I should require to make for a longer incursion. I returned in six days, having spent that period among the Shekanis, about fifty miles S.E. from Baraka, by river and creek navigation. I had slept among savages; I had felt the silence of the virgin forest; I had seen the tracks of gorillas; and I had culled good material. On the other hand, all my dreams of shoot- ing were dispelled; I had discovered that it was not a game country.* I now made preparations for a visit to Corisco, and announced this project to my Kru-men. - During my little trip they had been models of obedience, for in the bush I was their only friend; they were completely in my power, and, so far from wishing to desert me, they were in constant fear lest I should be offended and leave them among the natives, who would promptly have made them slaves. But they detested this life, for them so monotonous, and in which they were obliged to suffer privations. Kru-men will work like oxen and under a burning sun; but they must have their regular meals, plenty of companions, and, after their day's work is done, their own dirty hovel, where they can sing the songs of their country in a strange land. Now they were on civilized terra-firma, so the rfext morning Smoke-jack, Dry Toast, Cockroach, Pot-o'-Beer, and Florence Nightingale presented themselves before me in grave procession. " What is the matter, Smoke-jack ?" said I; for Smoke-jack was the representative of his people. Smoke-jack picked up a piece of wood with his toes, looked at it with a perplexed air, and threw it away. I repeated the ques- tion. "Mass'r! we go for bush with you. Paddle plenty. Musquito bite we too much. We no catch good chops (get good living) there. S'pose Kru-man no chop fine, he no fit work fine." "Well?" * I had forgotten to say that a Mr. Leveson, known in the sporting world as the Old Shekarry, offered me his company shortly before I left England, and came with me as far as the Gaboon. On my arrival I preferred to travel alone (as a man should always do when he means hard work), and he having at this same time made an incursion of eight days without seeing gorillas, returned to North Guinea, and afterward to England, CHxar. XI.] - THE TRIBE OF COMMERCIAL TRAVELERS. TQ Smoke-jack (gathering courage). "Now you won't catch Coris- co! (With scorn), Corisco no place at all! No factory lib there. No Kru-boy lib there. Bush nigger lib, that all. Gaboon fine place. I like to sit down here long time, for true; but Corisco no place at all." _ I went to Corisco without them, and paid them wages for do- ing nothing. This was a fatal error. They became idle and dis- contented ; insinuated that I had no more worldly substance than a missionary man; and demanded that I should send them back to "we country" forthwith. This I naturally felt disinclined to do; so paid them their dues, and procured them a better master. Argal, ye who take Kru-men, treat them with severe kindness; see that they be well fed; if ye have no work for them, set them to rub the rust off your cables; and, above all, be careful to pre- serve that distance which Providence has been pleased to place between you. The middle-dry, as is called that changeable season between the heavy rains of November and March, had passed; and I remem- ber well my first genuine equatorial shower-for tornadoes are exceptional phenomena. There was a monstrous spider in my room the night before. At 10 A.M. every thing became dark, and the wind whistled cold- ly through the trees. First it pattered, then it poured straight as a line, and with the violence of a Malvern douche. The native girls shrugged their bare shoulders as they put out their buckets and tubs. As for me, looking at the dingy clouds, the drenched landscape, and the rain-drops dancing in their own puddles, a hol- low tooth beginning to ache, and a chill running down my back like an iced snake, I almost believed that I was once more in dear old England. 30 SAVAGE AFRICA. [CuaP. XII CHAPTER XII. THE LAND OF HUNGER. Corisco.-The Bapuku Bush, -River Life. -Net-hunting.-Captain taken Prisoner. -The Muni Country.-Starvation Body and Mind.-Episode of Civilization. - Turtle-spearing by Moonlight. EvyEN in this luxuriant land Corisco is distinguished by its beauty. It is a little world in miniature, with its miniature for- ests, miniature prairies, miniature mountains, miniature rivers, miniature lakes, and miniature precipices on the sea-shore. Its sandy beach would afford the conchologist a good harvest of sea-shells; and a dredge, having never yet been used, might bring up treasures from the sea for science. 'There are seven spe- cies of land-shells on this island, which is not volcanic, and which bears evidence of having been immersed beneath the sea. Its formation is sandstone; and of islands which have springs of fresh water, it is said to be the nearest to a continent-a distance of ten miles. From its soil spring no less than fifteen varieties of the banana. Its flora is varied and abundant; and the lats Guine- ensis is plentiful enough to supply the natives with all the palm- oil they require for their food and their toilette. This little island abounds with birds, many of which migrate at certain seasons to the main land. The parrots, for example, are found there only in the dry season-there are other birds which frequent it only in the rains. In the string of ponds or small lakes in the centre of the island is a species of alligator which bur- rows in the dry season, and may then be dug out of the ground in a torpid state. Tortoises and snails hibernate in a similar man- ner. - The snail during this period covers the mouth of his shell with a kind of filament, as may be proved by keeping one in a drawer for any length of time. _ It has also the power of mending its own shell when broken; for I have seen a shell which had been cracked, and by some means glued together, probably by that se- cretion from the loose skin or "mantle" which forms the shell itself. f Corisco Bay possesses a hundred species of fish which the na- Crar. XIL] THE LAND OF HUNGER. 81 tives are in the habit of taking, and to which they have given names. In the ponds, too, is a small black fish; which is, I be- lieve, unknown to ichthyologists: - It is caught in the dry season (June, July, and August), and the natives take care that it is not rendered extinct by " preserving" half the water. I passed a week in this beautiful place, where I met not only with pleasing scenes, but with very kind friends. Had I come to Africa for pleasure I should have staid there longer. But the continent looked me every day in the face, and a self-imposed duty drove the Heautontirumenos away. An English barque was lying off Bapuku, a little river about thirty miles north of the Muni. Her carpenter had been sent to Corisco for provisions, and offered me a passage, which I was very glad to accept. It was the object of my voyage to remain a month or so among the Bapuku tribe, who were savages of a low order; that I might study man in a debased state, and also to find whether the gorilla was found so far north. We started on the 18th of March at midday, when the wind beging, or ought to begin to blow. - On this occasion it was behind its time, and we laid, as I have laid many a time, in that terrible bay, a white-hot unclouded sun above, a calm, implacable sea be- low. Sometimes there is no sea-breeze, and this day had all the ap- pearance of a dead calm. The Kru-men were ordered to the oars, and languidly dipped them into the sullen deep. Others stood up, shading their eyes, and trying to see the first ripple on the brink of the horizon. Presently one of them turned the wetted palm of his hand seaward. Wind come/ he cried. In a moment the oars were shipped and the sail set, which, at first flapping dubiously against the mast, then coyly expanding, re- ceived the breeze in its white swelling bosom, and bore us along to the music of the waters bubbling from the bow. The Kru-men began to make straw hats and to mend their shirts, which they held between their toes, while they worked away with plantain-fibre and perforated fish-bone for needle and thread. A Butterflies were flying about in the middle of the bay-alight- ing on the water, they would spread out their wings, and lie there for a moment kissing the sea. Sometimes their fragile corpses floating by showed that this E 82 _- SAVAGE AFRICA. [Caar. XII. was not always done with impunity; and one of these, insects perching exhausted upon the shoulder of a Benga, he shook it off it a great fright, declaring that it was bad fetich. Many of our butterflies are to be seen in West Africa, espe- Clally the common cabbage, the saffron, and the blue heath species. But their ways are not as the ways of butterflies in England.: I have seen swarms of butterflies flying over the tops of the highest trees, and the flight, which must have been a migration, lasting a considerable time. . I have seen them perched upon snake-dung by half-dozens, possibly engaged in extracting those medicinal virtues which Dr. John Hastings asserts to be contained in the excrements of serpents. - But most remarkable of all is the fact, that in the heart of the virgin forest, where flowers are never found, where the song of a bird is seldom heard, where a single sun-ray can scarcely penetrate, I have repeatedly observed a large blue butterfly, the most beautiful which I have seen in Africa, and which I never met with in a purer atmosphere. The breeze was continuous, but not fresh enough for the ship's long-boat, which had been built for heavy seas. At sunset no ship was visible, and the carpenter became alarmed. - The barque, he told me, was lying close under the shore in a small bay, so that the trees shut out the light from her. There was no moon, and he feared that we should miss her. "The second mate had passed her one black night a matter of five miles, and was never the same man a'terward. Dead? yes, he was dead, and most on 'em there as wasn't dead was dying." The sun set red and angrily. - The clouds began to rise heavily overland. . One of them took the shape of a hand, black, sinister, and gigantic as that of a demon, the thunib and fingers perfectly formed, and pointing upward. The men showed it to one an- other, but did not speak. With the shades of descending night the carpenter grew gloom- ier still. When the last red beam vanished, and the western sky changed rapidly to lurid yellow, and from yellow to the dull ashy gray of early night, he looked upon himself as a doomed man. The second mate, he told me, in utter oblivion of his first version, had gone one stormy night ten miles beyond the ship, and had died the next morning as soon as he came on board. As the spring rains were now at their height, and as a propor- tion of $ falls by night, I was disgusted, but not surprised, to see a flash of lightning over the trees. The carpenter put on an old- Crar. XIL] THE LAND OF HUNGER. 33 fashioned oil-skin and I a pocket mackintosh, weight 12 oz. - The former, however, best resisted the onslaught of the skies, which can be no more compared with an Enghbh shower than the falls of Niagara with a Scotch cascade. The rain was as thick as a mist, and, as it turned out, the cap- tain had hoisted no mast-head light. Without the lightning we certainly should not have found the ship that night, especially as the carpenter was so afraid of our passing her that at first he would not let us approach her at all. But when a happy gleam showed us the naked masts in the distance, the men gave a ery of delight, and pulled together with a will.: .Soon we glided under the dark sides; the. ladder. fell clattering; and a lantern, held by a sailor, poured its yellow light upon us. The carpenter took me down into the cabin, and introduced me to a man who was lying in his shirt and trowsers on the after- lockers, which probably he found cooler than his cot. A Malay steward, with a villainous expression of countenance, placed be- fore me a piece of salt junk, some ship's bread, and a bottle of beer. Having made a good supper, I was shown into a comfort- able bunk. The next morning I examined the barque with curiosity, for a Coast trader has her singularities. The decks fore and aft were covered with awnings, from which were hung pumpkins, bunches of plantains, specimens of a bladder-fish, and other curiosities. Cages ingeniously made of rope, or of old soap-boxes, with rusty bars of hoop-iron, were filled with gray parrots, which, screaming incessantly, reminded me of the Pantheon bazar. A small dove- cote was nailed against the main-mast, from which the pigeons made short and timorous flights. A tame rabbit was running about on the poop, licking the planks, and sometimes visiting the steward's pantry below in quest of more substantial nourishment. In the hold there was a poor show of ebony billets, and the ship was high out of water-a sign that she had taken in but little cargo. On the forecastle head were four sickly wretches, two of them playing at draughts with men made out of a shark's back-bone; one of them fondling a green monkey ; the last sitting with head on his yellow hand, and his eyes fixed on that sea which after- ward became his grave. I rented that day a house in the village, and having staid there "-- 84 SAVAGE AFRICA. XII. two days, hired a canoe, and, attended by Mongilomba and two Bapuku guides, ascended the river. During the whole of the first day the banks were screened by the mangroves which sprang from beds of soft black mud-res- ervoirs of disecase-exhaling by day a fetid stench, by night a fa- tal vapor. But the mangrove fohage has a benuty even in its sameness, and possesses more‘hfe than the forest, always desolate and dark. Kingfishers of a fabulous brilliance, which dies with the bird, may be seen perched among the maze of branches, from whose green recesses comes many a sweet sound. And beneath us, from the water-depths, arose the insect-like hum of the musical fish. f The quantity of tannin which mangrove bark contains, and its stubborn resistance of decay, when cut, will yet give it commer- cial importance; and some day it may supersede palm-oil, as palm- oil in Upper Guinea has superseded slaves. When we had passed the salt tides, the mangroves gradually dis- appeared; the banks became high and steep, with a red clay soil; the caoutchoue vine, virgin from the knife, arched itself across the river; and huge trees protruded their roots through the banks, like the bones of an extinct mammoth. I had now entered the dominions of the Balengi, a bush tribe of the Muni and Bapuku countries. It was long after dark when we arrived before the village, our destined lodging for the night. The guides bawled to the inhab- itants to bring out lights. But this happened to be a common strategy in native warfare. The citizens, feeling no desire to ex- hibit themselves as illuminated targets, replied with shouts of an interrogative and distrustful nature. My guides answered, "Our names are Toko and Okota. We bring white man." These words, We bring white man, had the magical effect of an "open sesame." It was to say, " We bring you a strange mon- ster of the sea, who seldom wanders so far inland ; and never without cloth, tobacco, or other marine productions which black men love." Two women came down to the bank holding torches, and two men stood by them leaning on their guns. - Having landed, I was escorted through a cluster of houses, the Leith of this mighty Ed- inburgh. The path was rough and tortuous. Trunks of trees were here Cnrar. XII.] THE LAND OF HUNGER. 85 and there stretched across it, and upon them were placed lumps of blazing country light, in honor of their first white visitor. This "country light," as it is called in the Coast patois, is a gum which exudes from the large tree of which they build their ca- noes; it is bound round with leaves into the shape of a torch; and yields, when burning, a faint but pungent perfume. When I arrived in the town the king came to greet me, dressed in his regal robes, an old pea-jacket and a pair of duck trowsers. After we had exchanged a few polite falsehoods, after the manner of well-bred people, he ushered me into the palace, which was a ~> bamboo hut, containing very little besides dirt and smoke:~/ : I had shot a monkey that day, and having had no dinner, I re- solved to take it under the name of supper. ' I summoned my courage and Mongilomba, who assured mé that the simie were re- markably fine eating. We then debated upon the subject; for the art of roasting on crossed stiéks, which seems the first princi- ple of rudimentary cooking, is utterly unknown in Equatorial Af- rica, where every thing is boiled in clay pots: At last I left it entirely in the hands of Mongilomba, who said that he would cook it with odika. This odika is a'rich, dark vegetable gravy, obtained from the kernel of a wild mango, which, when pounded, moulded into the shape of a pyramid, and smoked, is not unlike in appearance to the cakes of greaves with which dogs are fed, and will keep as long. The king having expressed a desire to join my repast, and hav- ing contributed a bunch of plantains thereto, we dined in great state. 'The table was covered with a red cloth. There was a dingy salt-cellar, from which we helped ourselves to dingier salt. The dish which contained the monkey & Fodika, having been frac- tured, had to be supported by a leaf doubled underneath, and os- cillated upon it like the tortured Sybarite. The plantains were served in a wash-hand basin, and Mongilomba, opening my chest, in which he allowed me to keep a few of my own clothes, put on a clean shirt (publicly) with a dignity becoming the occasion. My tongue received the first morsel of monkey with a doubt, which leaped into gusto. In that superb borne-bouche, the deli- cacy of a pullet and the rich savor of a hen pheasant palpitated on my palate turn by turn. When the meal was ended, and sweet digestion crept within my frame, I sank into a voluptuous reve- rie, which intensified itself into sleep. The triumph of mind min- 86 .'. BAVAGE AFRICA. . CHar. XT. gled with the languor of matter and made me dream. - The dis- covery of a new dish, says Brillat-Savarin, does more for mankind than the discovery of a new star. I had not only discovered a vegetable gravy, I had discovered that monkey had a game fla- vor. I saw monkey & Podika in all the cartes of the London res- taurants. I saw myself invested with the freedom of the city by a grateful corporation. _ Awaking, I saw before me a man who was eating voraciously. The stomach is a region of sympathy (V an Helmont). . I watched him at first with good-natured sympathy ; secondly, with curios- ity; thirdly, with envy. - What was it he was eating? . A grayish- colored mess piled in a calabash. . Into this he dipped his wooden spoon with movements so rapid that they would have excited my admiration had not they aroused my fear. In a few moments it would all be gone. I had seen nothing like that before. Perhaps it was the won- drous haschisch which Monte Christo gave to his guest in the pal- ace cave. - It would at least be something far better than monkey or odika, this dish which the man continued to eat with yawning mouth and glaring eyes. I demanded a little, and took a huge glutinous mouthful. . Sue- cess in experiment had made me rash. Scarcely had it entered my mouth than it flew out, accompanied with oaths. " Bring me some water, Mongilomba," I spluttered. _" It's soap and red pep- per!" "He no soap, sir; he grow for bush. What time you see soap grow for bush ?" Mongilomba was right. . It was a kind of fruit which tastes ex- actly like yellow soap, and which the natives eat boiled and sea- soned with pepper-a fact which may be interesting to botanists, but which destroyed my digestion. As has always been my habit when traveling in the interior, £ had the village hunters called in, and conversed with them, vid Mongilomba, upon the habits of wild beasts. Among others, 1 was shown the great elephant hunter of the river, He had killed four during his lifetime, which was thought extraordinary. - It is indeed extraordinary that they should be able to kill a single ele- phant with such guns and powder as they obtain from traders. They load these seven-and-sixpenny guns in a most absurd man- ner: some powder is poured in from a calabash, and some dry grass is rammed on top of that; then some bullets or bits of old CHar. XIL ] THE LAND OF HUNGER. 87 iron, and more grass for wadding; then more powder and grass: and iron and grass again to finish with. When the gun does go off (it often flashes in the pan), it makes a noise like a small field-piece, and they never hold it to their shoul- ders for fear of the recoil, which they avoid by springing on one side. The guns burst frequently enough, and this very man had lost three in that manner-with the last one his left hand as well. An elephant hunt is an important affair, which is undertaken only after ceremonies of fetich.. The charm of the first class is an aerolite covered with the ashes of a certain plant, the hand and gun-barrel smeared therewith. - The hunter's apparel on these oc- casions is confined to a few stripes of paint. It was arranged that the next morning we should go net-hunt- ing, and, having spent the night as usual between my cork bed and rug, I awoke at daybreak, and crept out into brief twilight. The first thing that met my eyes was Mongilomba with a look- ing-glass and a calabash of hot water, engaged in some mysterious operation. I approached him closely enough to see that he had been boring his ears. Through the holes he was passing two lit- tle wooden pegs smeared with palm oil. The wood distended the apertures; the oil alleviated the pain. Having accomplished this with many grimaces, which served to illustrate the proverb, " Il faut souffrir pour étre beau," he took a piece of stick, one end of which was chewed into a pulp, dabbed it into a powder which was made from the cuttle-fish, and rubbed his teeth fiercely. He then took up a small looking-glass, and looked at his extremely ugly face with a simple earnestness com- ical to behold. A gradual grin stole over his features, and he laid the mirror down with a guffaw of perfect self-complacency. I thought that this would be the right moment to remind him that he had a master, who took his breakfast early. / He seemed displeased at this ill-bred interruption, and imperiously ordered the king's women to clean a pot and get a fire ready. A white cock was offered for sale, and bought, after much haggling, for a head of tobacco. As these fowls can only be caught by hand at roosting-time, I had to put a rifle-ball through him, upon which they cried, " Heigh! this be devil-man!. He use no flint; and he kill with one ball in him gun." I now went to superintend the cooking of the fowl; for Mon- gilomba, who was subject to fits of abstraction, had once forgot: ten to remove that which we relish only in woodcock and snipe. - ene eee cen 88 SAVAGE AFRICA. [Cxap. XII. The women, in a shed which was roofed but left open at the sides, began to prepare their fire. . Four half-burnt logs were placed with their charred extremities radiating toward a common point; at this point the hollow space was filled with live ashes, dry leaves, and sticks. A woman's lips served as bellows, and soon. kindled a brisk flame. A clay pot was then produced, the bottom lined with plantain leaves, which saved the trouble of cleansing it. It was filled with water, and a fowl was plucked, drawn, quartered, and thrown in. Meantime another royal lady was pounding the kernels of a nut into a paste, using as her mortar a thick slab of hard wood, and for her pestle a round hard fruit about twice the size of an or- ange. . The paste was thrown in and stirred, and half a dozen red peppers added. When the fowl was ready, I placed two sea-bis- cuits in the wash-hand basin, poured the hot mess upon them, and so manufactured the best compound that can be made with such poor materials. A cup of tea having concluded my repast, I inquired if my companions were ready. - But they had been so intently watch- ing my breakfast that they had forgotten their own. It was nat- ural that they should be astonished when they saw me boiling water in a canteen kettle; throwing in a handful of black leaves -this, by-the-by, is the best way of making tea, as the leaves dis- charge more virtue than when water is poured upon them-let- ting it stand, as they thought, to get cool; adding what they sup- posed to be lumps of white salt; and, finally, pouring forth into an enameled iron cup a mixture resembling the stagnant water which they saw every day in the swamps, drink it with apparent relish.. When they had eaten some boiled plantains and cassada, their staple diet, they made a start with seven nets, made of vegetable fibres, and two dogs. In a quarter of an hour we had left behind us all signs of man, and, walking upon the ancient tracks, we plunged into the depths of the dark and silent forest. On arriving at a suitable place, the nets were set. This was done much upon the same principle as in rabbit-warrens; they were raised to the height of three feet, and formed a line extend- ing for about a quarter of a mile. The hunters filed off quietly to some distance behind these nets, and then approached in a semi- circle, making all the noise they could. - The two dogs had wood- en rattles round their necks, and worked very well, but I often Cuar. XII.] THE LAND OF HUNGER. 89 wished that the beaters had an English gamekeeper behind them ; for they avoided the thick places, where game was most likely to be found. The whole job was done in a slovenly manner, and game. was scarce. In fact, this method of hunting was well calcu- lated to expose the nakedness of the land. There were a few deer, which laid about in. the wood singly. like hares, and, like hares, preferred to steal back when you wished to drive them forward. After several blanks, a. bush - deer (Cephalolophus sylvicultrix) was. caught. As I had given orders that no. animal should be killed till I had seen it, I was called to the spot, and found a red- dish-colored doe strugghncr in the net, sometimes giving a sharp bark, and snapping with her teeth like a dog.: Feeling no inclina- tion to have the taming of such a shrew, I gave the death-signal, and a clumsy coup-de-grace was given with an axe. Her head was tucked through her hind legs, and these tied to her fore legs. Thus made a bundle of, she was crammed into a basket, and strapped on to the back of a young woman who was emblematic- ally covered with red paint, and who had accompanied us in case of such a contingency ; for it is astonishing how these black lords of creation detest that kind of work. - Once at Bapuku a man re- fused to guide me through the forest to a plantation, a distance of two or three miles, for fear that I should kill some game on the road and compel him to carry it-indolence refined to foresight. Tt was to one of these plantations that I determined to go imme- diately on my return, which took place next day, as the hunters refused to go out while there was meat in the town. I had been told that the elephants came every night to eat the plantains and to root out the cassada, and that thereby the villages were reduced almost to starvation. An African plantatlon is formed on the pr1nc1ple of a back- wood "clearing," but in a very incomplete manner; and this is perhaps the only part of the world where a man goes up a tree to cut it down.. Passing a vine-hoop round the tree and his waist (as the natives of Senegambia do when they ascend the palm-tree for its wine), the woodman mounts about twelve feet, where the trunk has, of course, a much smaller cireumference, hacks it into two with his rude axe, and jumps down nimbly at the right mo- ment. The trees are suffered to lie where they happen to fall. All that is done is to burn the branches off. - The women then scrape holes in the ground, plant plantain and cassada, and Nature does the rest. Batatas are sometimes grown, but not often, as that freee 00 SAVAGE AFRICA. [Cnar. XIL involves the labor of ridging the soil, from which, on the follow- ing year, a thick shrubby vegetation invariably springs. There are usually two or three huts on a plantation where the women sleep in the hole-seraping season. - Having arrived at the Bapuku plantation with Abauhi, a Corisco man and a Bapuk na- tive, we took possession of a small hovel, much to the disgust of two venerable hags therein dwelling. However, I gave them to- bacco, and Abauhi polite words. - The ogresses, appeased, went off to another hut. Night approached, and I took my dinner-a handful of parched ground-nuts and a cup of fragrant tea. I had previously walked round the plantation, and had found 'but one elephant's track-that a week old. -I was clearly a vic- tim of African exaggeration ; but this had already happened so often that I was now inured to it. I could also console myself with the reflection that I should enjoy a better night's rest where I was than in the town ; even at that distance I could faintly hear the sound of the eternal drum. : Whether negroes sleep at all (except on rainy days) is a matter which requires serious investigation. They certainly at night do not, and it would be easier to get to sleep at 1 A.M. in a bed- room looking out on the Haymarket in London than it is in an African village-so noisy are these children of Ham. . At first, owing to the strength of my tea, or the extreme light- ness of my repast, I felt no inclination for my cork couch, and, seating myself on the trunk of a fallen tree, I listened to the tiger- cat's melancholy ery, and to those birds of the forest, which, day or night, seem never to be silent. Presently these sounds were hushed ; the sea-breeze, which had rustled the leaves of the forest, died away: all nature held her breath. $3 'Above the trees, which stood black against the sky, rose a red and sullen moon. The atmosphere seemed in flames; I breathed with difficulty ; and a sense of loneliness began to creep upon me. At such moments as these it is a terrible thing to be far away from all civilized beings. . There are some who say that there is no solitude so sad as the solitude of the city. : It is because they have never been in the desert. _ In the city there are vaned sights and sounds which prevent one from looking inward too long. In monotonous Africa the eye can seldom relieve the mind; self- communion becomes eternal. Reflection from a blessing broods Cras & & a A AN AFRICAN TORNADO. Cnar. XII.] THE LAND OF HUNGER. 98 itself into a woe. It leaves the intellect to rankle in the heart. In this detestable land, as the body grows enfeebled, the mind, joined to it by subtle links, becomes diseased as well. Our sweet- est memories are hideously distorted and deformed. - In the love, the friendship, the fidelity which we have enjoyed, we detect , deep-laid deceit, a sordid scheme. Deriving no consolation from the past, we can have no hope for the future. We perceive no possibility of success in our enterprise; we are ridiculed and ruined; we think of what we might have done, and that is the saddest of all human thoughts. Crushed in a vice of horror and despair, we put the revolver to our ear-and why ? because a thun- der-storm happens to be coming on, and the air is rather close. I went to bed, and was awoke by the rumbling of thunder, and by the wind howling in the distance. The men opened their sleepy eyes, rubbed them, and hastily made up the fire. We could see the lightning through the chinks, and the tornado ap- proached us with a dreadful sound. As it burst on us, there was a report like a musket-shot close to us. " Who that?" cried Abauhi, starting up. He was answered by a loud struggling crash at the very door. The two men gave a yell, and literally tore their way out through the fragile hovel wall. No passion is so infectious as fright, and I made what is called in turf parlance a " good third." The first moment out of doors nearly deprived me of my breath, so fiercely fell -the rain: the large and violent drops made my hands and face smart, as if the rain had been hailstones. - In two minutes I was drenched to the skin ; in five minutes, to the bone. Meantime I continued to follow my men through bush and bram- ble at a tearing pace, till I became anxious to learn the purpose of our Hegira. When I stopped, Abauhi cried, "Do you love me? Do you love me? Do not stay there!" "Why not?" said I, sulkily, for I had just fallen among thorns. "Look!" he said, with a superb gesture; "you no see that free?" I looked and saw a tree torn in half by the wind; the upper part falling to the ground, while the lower trunk remamed stand ing, gaunt and bare as a sepulchral stone. The tree must have been cut half way through by a native, and the work completed by the wind. - This natural explanation did not occur to me at the time, and the effect, which seemed at defi- ance with all the natural laws, was startling enough. 94 A AFRICA. | . (Car, XIL And the thunder was terrific. Sometimes it encircled the whole horizon with a long continuous booming sound, as if Jupiter was driving his chariot round the firmament; sometimes it burst into sharp stunning reports, with a sound like the whizzing of shot and shell a few yards above our heads, or as if ten thousand cart-loads of stones had been thrown down in mid air. These awful crashes of the clouds, unlike any thing one hears in England, made me tremble in spite of myself; and the natives, flinging their clench- ed hands toward the sky, cried, " Njambi! Njambil let us live!" Abauhi was not the less sedulous of the two in these pagan prayers. In fine weather a good Christian, he returned to hea- thenism when it blew tornadoes. Corisco obtained its name from the coruscations (coruscio) of lightning, which at this season are here so frequent and so vivid. Having escaped from the dangerous neighborhood of the trees (for the plantation had not been properly cleared), we could now watch these celestial fireworks without fear. - Sheet lightning in a broad lurid blaze; chain lightning in its most fantastic and beautiful forms; the forked lightning, as it carried living death from sky to earth-all these we saw sometimes in several parts of the heavy- ens at once. . Abauhi, who feared thunder, looked at the forked lightning with indifference; but his terror on finding blue sparks in his friend's wool defies description. Tornadoes, like a woman's wrath, are furious, but brief; and we soon returned to our hut. -There the men took off their waist- cloths, wrung them out, rubbed themselves, and were as well as ever, while I could only shiver in my wet clothes. We waited for the dawn. At times a sturdy branch would fall to the ground, yielding only when the foe had passed. Then we heard shouts and reports of guns. This was being done at a neighboring plantation to frighten away the elephants-the plan- tation, by-the-by, which I should have been taken to, had not my guide, preferring a short walk, remained at the nearer one. I was surprised when I heard that elephants feed on stormy nights by preference, but such I have since found to be undoubt- edly the case, and beasts of prey have the same habit. One might suppose that the latter choose bad weather like other poach- ers, who then anticipate less interruption; the former, as do horses, cows, hares, rabbits, and other vegetarians, like to take their green meat in a shower. ~ As soon as day broke I went out. An enormous branch had CHar. XII.] THE LAND OF HUNGER. 95° fallen within three yards of our hut, so that we had had a narrow escape.. While I was looking at the tree bereft of its better half, an animal, which I supposed to be a bat, flew from it, and perched upon another tree at twenty yards' distance, giving a peculiar curve on alighting, as the flying-fish does when it enters the sea. To my amazement, it then changed into a creature like a squirrel, which ran up and down the tree with inconceivable rapidity, and disappeared on the other side. I ran there, rifle in hand, but could see no more of it. I was so perplexed thereby that I thought it must have been an optical illusion; for the day was yet dim, and my head was sadly dizzy and confused. But some days after I asked Mongilomba if such an intermediate type ex- isted, and he described this flying lemur, or squirrel, with great preciseness. When we came near the town, some women washing in a spring, on catching a glimpse of us, rushed off with hideous yells. An English holloa brought them to, and they explained to us, laughing, that they were at war with a clan of the Balengi, and they had taken us for light skirmishers. -I must explain to you that the "noble savage" makes war exclusively by ambuscade, and shoots women and children by preference-a practlce attend- ed with less risk and equal glory. We found the very plantains of the village gardens torn up by the roots, and half of the houses flat on the ground. No one would have supposed that those prostrate masses of wood, mis- shapen and blackened by rain, had once been human dwellings. Nor would one have supposed that those were the owners who were chattering, laughing, and evidently appreciating what was ridiculous in their own misfortunes as keenly as their dearest friends could have done. That which an old writer said of the negro is perfectly true, "in weal and in woe they are always the same, and it is only by their clothing one can tell whether they are mourning or rejoicing." . Extremes do really meet, it seems, and these poor wretches possess that indifference to misfortune which is the highest triumph of philosophy. My house had not been blown down, but the rain had entered through the roof, and caused internal inundation. In Africa the sun is a tyrant; but, like all tyrants, he gives us some blessings. I longed for his warmth and light, but the clouds remained inex- orable. I cowered over a few spluttering sticks, and presently fell into a restless slumber. - It was more than restless; I went to 06 SAVAGE AFRICA. [CHar. XH. sleep a man, and I awoke a child. In two hours I had become powerless. . The captain of the barque came in as I awoke, and, seeing my white face, invited me aboard. I opened my mouth to answer, but could think of no appropriate words. I had just com- menced a sentence, which, as they told me afterward, related ex- clusively to other matters, when I fainted. One cup of 'water dashed into my face, and another down my throat, brought me to. I was carried down to the beach in a chair by the four Kru-men. As I was getting into the boat, Mongilomba crept up to me mys- teriously. " Sir, Mr. Reade, if that captain give you medicine, you ask him to drink a little himself first." ' These words fell on dull ears at the time, and afterward, when I became capable of thought, they made me laugh, the advice was so purely African. On all parts of the Coast a negro does not offer you a drink without tasting it first, a custom which hints at evil antecedents. What would become of all our doctors, thought I, if they had to take their own prescriptions? But there was more in Mongilomba's warning than I then supposed. When one takes fever from a sudden cause, as from sol-lunar influence, from a fit of sudden joy or fear, a violent debauch, an imprudent indulgence, or, as in my case, from exposure to bad weather, the disease soon passes, if it does not prove immediately fatal. - In a week I was as well as I had ever been. This week was very monotonous, as you may well suppose. In the morning before breakfast the captain would go ashore, and return with a few billets of ebony in his boat. At eight o'clock a breakfast of salt junk or coffee, after which I would divide time between some books, which I had borrowed from the excellent mission library at Corisco, and a promenade on deck. At one o'clock invariable pea-soup was followed by inevitable fowl, and at six o'clock tea, which had exchanged its own flavor for that of stale hay, owing to long residence on the Coast. The owners of the barque had not been fortunate in their ven- ture. Victualed for a seven months' voyage, she had already been out of Liverpool a twelvemonth, and had taken in no cargo to speak of. On the other hand, all the cloth and almost all the other goods had been given out on terms extremely advantageous to the captain, had they been fulfilled. But the middle-men, find- ing that he drove hard and unfair bargains, persuaded their elas- tic consciences that they were justified in cheating him, which CBrar. XII.] THE LAND OF HUNGER. § 97 they accomplished easily enough by drinking his rum, smoking his tobacco, and distributing his cloth among their friends. So the captain found himself in the position of a large creditor -a position which has its pleasures, its privileges, and, above all, its respectability. - Unhappily, in the grammar of commerce will owe is frequently the future of the verb to dun. Redwood was due to him in Corisco, rubber in the Muni, and ebony at Bapuku. The black traders held him in awe, and also (as is natural) a little in abhorrence. They shunned him when they could, and when they could not they became obsequious. This afforded him smiles for his vanity, but tears for his purse. Now, as he knew very well that these men had run through his trust, and could not now buy the native produce if they wished ; as he did not take enough in a week to pay the ship's expenses for a day; as three out of a small crew had already died, and the others were too weak to do a stroke of work, I felt inclined to inquire why he remained any longer on the Coast.. When I ask ed this question of the mate, he looked at the carpenter, the car- penter looked at him, and I received no answer. The captain was in the habit of speaking against the mate with a pertinacity which I could not understand. He would call me aside at every available moment, and tell me how much trouble he had with him, and what a curse it was to have a drunkard aboard. "You would not think, Mr. Reade, that Mr. Jones had been a master, but he has. Yes, sir, that man's had a ship of his own-a ship of his own. Oh, what a curse is drunkenness! Well might John the Baptist turn all the wine into water at Gal- ilee in Cana-that is a lesson to us all, sir. - It was only the other day that I told him if he went on so, I couldn't give him a charac- ter to the owners. Then he'd have to go before the mast, as many and many a drunken master has done before him. And I asked him what his wife and his poor children would do then? And he burst out a'crying, and said he would give it up-yes, he would give it up-what is the matter, steward ?" Here the Malay showed his master a key, and said that he had found it in Mr. Jones's berth while he was cleaning it out: he thought that it was the key of the locker. "That can't be, for I have the key of the locker in my pocket. Why, it's a duplicate key! Ah! sir, he's a bad man-a bad man. Steward, see whether there is any beer gone." The steward opened the locker with the duplicate key, and said G 08 SAVAGE AFRICA. [Cuar. XIL that all the beer was gone. The captain turned up the whites of his eyes at a large pumpkin which was hanging just over his head. "May the Lord forgive him! three dozen of beer, Mr. Reade, that man must have drunk. It's a wonder he's alive. But if his liver ain't jaundiced here, it's because it must frizzle in hell forever and ever and amen! Oh, sir, is it not indeed awful, the revenge of the Almighty !" The mate was a red-faced, bottle-nosed chien-de-mer, with a rough and ready way about him which might have been assumed (nothing is oftener assumed by artful knaves), but which certain- ly prepossessed me in his favor. His grog-blossoms had sprung from a moist soil, no doubt; but I had always seen him sober. And this was the answer which I invariably made when harassed with the captain's confidences; to which the latter would reply that Mr. Jones had now brought his health to such a state that he could not drink any spirituous liquors. The skipper himself was a short, pale-faced man, with dull eye, and his mouth always a little open, like a fish. I knew that he was Scotch or North Country by his drawling tone and his man- ner of relieving dorsal irritation. - He drank nothing but water, and had a shaking hand, probably the result of repeated fevers. He was very frequently ill, and after I had seen his method of treatment I could only wonder that he remained alive. It was the most ludicrous and painful sight which I have ever witnessed. He had given himself a colic with some medicinal poison, and was lying on the after-lockers with The Seaman's Medical Guide or Companion to the Medicine-chest before him. At first he could not find colic, which happened in that book to be spelt with an A. But he was not to be balked; he turned to diarrhcea, and treated himself for that. - Soon afterward, while turning over the leaves, in case any thing might strike his fancy, he fell upon cholic, and immediately had the prescription mixed. Finding no relief with- in the space of an hour, he adopted the second treatment. - This went on during two days. At short intervals we would hear a sepulchral voice from below, "Steward, bring me the medicine- book and my eye-glass." Then it would be, "Steward, I think T'll take a little so and so;" or, "Steward, I'll try a glass of such and such a medicine to-day." - Sometimes it was castor-oil, some- times it was quinine, sometimes laudanum, or sether, or tincture of mytrh, or anti-bilious pills (eight to a dose), and once it was croton-oil-an experiment which he did not deem requisite to re- peat. _ Cir: THE LAND OF HUNGER. 99 I was surprised to see him come on deck again; the mate, how- ever, assured me that the treatment had this time been mild, in a comparative point of view. Unhappily, his patients had not such strong " physical" constitutions. One evening when we were at sea, a sailor came to him and said that he was teased with a spitting of blood. "I never heard of such a thing," growled the captain, and looked upon the man as a lusus naturce. "Have you got pains any where?" The man replied that he had pains in the head. " Well, if you have pains in the head, that shows it comes from the head; and, turning to me, he explained that the bleeding came down from the head into the mouth by channels. "Ah!" thought I to myself, " there is only one Channel you know much about." - What it was he gave the sailor I can not pretend to say, but I know that the poor fel- low soon afterward went over the side in company with a white sheet and a cannon ball. I do not think that such cases can be called exceptional in the smaller class of trading vessels. Place powerful drugs in ignorant hands, and what can you expect? A sailor kills more people even than a surgeon. I have héard of a half-drowned man being rolled along the deck on a barrel till all signs of life had departed ; and of another, in a fit of apoplexy, being carried below head -fore- most, in obedience to the strict injunctions of the officer in com- mand. I have known captains who believed that quinine would cure every thing, from bronchitis to Guinea-worm, as long as it was used on the West Coast of Africa. I have known others who denounced it as "a damned piece of quackery," and who gave calomel (always a poison in cases of malarious fever) to their pa- tients at the period when strong broths and tonics were required to restore their strength. It does appear a great evil that, in such an age as this, hund- reds of vessels should every year leave England for distant and often unhealthy coasts, having on board no better physician than the master with his medicine-chest, and no better surgeon than the carpenter with his axe. But if it is unjust to the sailor to send him on the seas without medical attendance, it would be more unjust to send young surgeons on long voyages in which they would gain little experience save in ennui and in vice. Things, I fear, must stand as they are ; there are limits to human charity. Having seen as much of the Bapuku country as I wished, I felt anxious to return to Corisco, in order to ascend the Muni. But 100 SAVAGE AFRICA. (CHar. XIL still the captain remained. The natives, having no " oaks to sport," carefully hid themselves in the suburbs (thick forest) when they saw their dun in the distance. Eventually they tried to starve him off by refusing to sell him provisions. Indeed, they were almost famished themselves. The harvests of these people suffice merely for their necessities. W hen cloth and beads tempt them to part with their plantains and cassada, they are obliged to pay for their vanity with hunger. During one or two trips which I had made by land along the coast to neighboring villages, I had found the greatest difficulty in purchasing vegetables for my men. I could make a dinner off a toucan, a monkey, or a squirrel, be- cause I had come from a carnivorous land; but these natives would rather "go with hunger" than eat flesh or fish alone, such diet producing dysentery. From what I heard afterward, I don't doubt that our skipper would have loitered on much longer had it not been for a little incident which effectually disgusted him with Bapuku. One morning I was coming into the town after a night's lying out after elephants, when I was told that the white captain was a prisoner. I took my rifle out of Abauhi's hands, but, on my ap- pearance, the natives, as if anxious to show that they had no quar- rel with me, crowded round me more than usual, shaking my hand, and giving me their salutation. On that morning, too, a man lent me his canoe to go off to the ship in-for nothing! the only gen- uine gift which I ever had made me by a negro, except a finely- woven mat which Mongilomba gave to me and stole from me aft- erward. I sent Mongilomba one way and Abauhi the other to collect in- formation. - The result was as follows. The captain had invited one of his debtors on board, and had presented an obstacle to his return in the shape of a padlock and chain. This was all well enough, and perfectly in accordance with Coast customs. But when captains seize such hostages for debt, they take care to put neither themselves nor their men in the power of the enemy. This was our hero's first voyage in the trade. He had no small ideas of his own importance, and of the influence which he exer- cised over aborigines. So he was in the habit of going ashore as usual. After three days the prisoner said that he did not find solitary confinement very amusing, and that he was now willing to pay his debts. "But," said he, "the Bushmen to whom I gave trust Cnar. XIL] THE LAND OF HUNGER. 101 have my wood. They will give it up to none but me. If you keep me, how can I pay you? Let me go, and take my son in my place. In three days all shall be right between us.." This proposal seemed fair enough. The man sent for a slave with orders to personate his son, and was then set at liberty. This morning, the captain, coming ashore, was met by his debt- or on the beach. "Well, have you got any wood for me?" "Yes," answered the man, "I have got ten pieces. Would you like to come and see them ?" - The captain thought he should like to go and see them. They let him look at the wood ; two or three others sauntered up, a rope was thrown over his head, and his hands were tied behind him. At the intercession of his interpreter, a Benga of Corisco, the injured chieftain agreed to take a Kru-man in the captain's stead. "Black man," moralized Mongilomba, "always listen to other man's palaver; if palaver be good, he take him; but white man have hot head, hot hand, hot tongue, and ears be cold." I was taken to the king's house, which on such occasions is the state-prison ; the king himself happened to be absent, but Nettle- rash, the head Kru-man, was there, his feet in the stocks and scowls on his brow. S No lawyer can be more stubborn on the question of precedent than a negro. They are Tories of an old school, happily become extinct, who love customs because they are customs, and hate in- novations because they are innovations. Had it been customary in the Kru country to smoke palaver-prisoners with damp leaves and red peppers, as they do in Cameroons and Congo, Jack would not have grumbled; it was not his fate that he repined against, but the stocks. "I no sabee this thing," he said; " this no fash- ion in we country." When I had come on board the captain tried to bely his pale face with a valiant tongue. "When the king comes down the river he will soon bring these fellows to reason." Royalty, however, is not always so complaisant as people may wish, nor here so powerful as they suppose. The term king, which I use because it is the term universally used by traders, will perhaps give you an erroneous idea of these constitutions, which, as I will explain hereafter, are less monarchical than re- publican. 'After three days' palaver the two prisoners (slave and Kru- man) were exchanged. During this interval the carpenter was 102 SAVAGE AFRICA. [Cnar. XII. down with an attack of fever, and declined the captain's offer of physic with a polite firmness which first amused and then aston- ished me; for when I offered him some quinine, much in the same manner as one offers a cigar to a friend who one knows does not smoke, he accepted it with an empressement as marked as that with which he had refused the captain's. And now I remembered that though the mate and carpenter had never spoken to me against the captain, they never addressed him except when duty required. And every evening they would stand by the main shrouds talk- ing together in a low voice, always stopping when I approached them in my walk to and fro upon the poop. There was some mystery in all this, from which that Malay, with his sinister eyes and his soft, catlike steps, I felt sure could not be absent. But soon these thoughts were driven from my mind. - The blue-Peter was hoisted to the fore, and a gentle wind bore us to Corisco. There, the captain having taken in provi- sions, he crossed the bay and anchored at the mouth of the Muni; while I, entering the bamboo mission house, was welcomed by bright faces, and, eating blackberry jam from the mountains of Pennsylvania, related the small adventures which now, dear read- er, I narrate to you. A Cape Lopez built canoe had drifted up with the strong north current, which sometimes throws cocoanuts and uprooted palm- trees upon the Corisco beach. It had been found upon an islet near Corisco, and became the property of those who found it: a law which applies to all godsends of that nature, including stran- gers. Abauhi, who was one of the owners, showed me this canoe. It could hold more than a dozen people, had a round bottom, but a square stern, which distinguished it from the canoe proper in Mpongwe. f ; Twenty dollars made Abauhi and Co. happy men. Five dol- lars more rigged her out complete, with mast, sail, and sheet, rud- der, paddles, and two long poles to punt her with in shallow wa- ter. We had a trial trip, and Mr. Mackey pronounced her an ad- mirable bargain. - He was a great authority in nautical matters; for when one lives in small islands, a sail becomes one's horse and a boat one's carriage. As I was busy one morning writing out my pocket-book memo- randa preparatory to a start, Mongilomba told me that " a Gaboon CBar. XIL] THE LAND OF HUNGER. 108 boy" wished to see me. - Without farther warning he introduced. the family solicitor. . His face was now more suppliant than stern ; he was the type of an attorney who waits on a wealthy client for the first time; a portrait of avarice veiled by humility ; a loaded gun with the hammer down on the nipple to hide the cap. He wished to enter my service as cook, a vacancy in my retinue of which Mongilomba, the temporary substitute, had frequently reminded me.. His name was Cabinda, anglice Robert-for all civilized negroes have a European cognomen. He had been ship's cook during a voyage to Liverpool and during another to New York. He had seen air-balloons, railways, and snow. He gar- nished his language with round oaths smelling of the sea, and pro- fessed a love of adventure, a contempt of danger, and a great par- tiality toward myself. Such a man was irresistible. I engaged him at three dollars a month, on the agreement that I would double his pay if he ac- companied me among the cannibals of the Ncomo (which Mon- gilomba had declined to do), and that he should forfeit the whole of his previous pay if he refused. On the 29th of April I left Corisco without a wind, and after a long and severe day we reached at sunset the Alobi or Musquito Islands. These must have been originally floating beds of sand, sown with seeds by the land-breeze and the birds. Lying in the mouth of the Muni, they form a good site for a factory. Little Alobi has been the scene of a tragedy. Not many years ago a Captain Stewart was factor upon that island. He was a vi- olent man, who never treated the natives well, and who, when he was drunk, baited them with bull-terriers. All this was borne without resistance, but not without resentment. It happened that he had a debtor who had openly said that Stewart should never get a cake of rubber out of him. This was a wound to his pride as well as to his pocket, and since the man took care not to venture within his power, he seized two of his relatives, who were fishing out at sea, chained them hand and foot, and placed them on board one of his owner's vessels landing off Alobi. Somebody foolishly untied their hands, and they, being proba- bly in fear of their lives, jumped overboard, and tried to swim ashore. Both were drowned; their bodies were washed up on the beach, and marks were found on the back of one of them, which might have been caused by the rocks, but which resembled gunshot wounds. ae nll o nemen ie oC 104 SAVAGE AFRICA. [Car. XIL That day Captain Stewart was tried by a council of Makigas, which was held in presence of all the people. The prisoner was not present, but was as much in their power as if jailers had him under lock and key. - The cause was argued as fairly as if he had been arraigned before an English court of justice. There were some, I was told, who pleaded for him, attempting to prove that no willful murder had been committed, and pointing out the risk they ran of losing the white man's trade by an act of violence. But the two corpses lying in their midst, the death-wail of the women ringing in their ears, the bitter memories of past brutality, accused with a voice too stern to be silenced by motives of mere prudence. The verdict was given; the sentence was passed; the execution was prepared. The moody looks of the people, their whisperings, their grand council, and the consciousness of his own cruelty, made Stewart feel that he was in danger. - Before he went to sleep he set a guard of Kru-men at his door. It was a large room with a glass window. In one corner was the bed : here Mrs. Stewart slept. - Her husband, who was a bulky man, used to sleep on a mat in the middle of the floor. A cotton wick, floating in a small bow! of palm-oil, lighted the room suffi- ciently for that which followed. Imagine, in the dead of the night, the sound of footsteps stealth- ily approaching; a whispered threat, and the Kru-men flying from their post; something dark behind the window; a blaze of fite ; a crash of shivered glass; a loud report; the room filled with smoke; and a poor woman awaking to see the blood streaming from her husband's breast. When she found that he still lived, she called the Kru-men, and sent them over to Corisco for Mr. Mackey, who has some knowl- edge of surgery. She was kneeling by the wounded man, trying to stanch his wound, when the door was burst violently open. A band of naked men poured into the room, their foreheads black- ened with the war-paint, and brandishing weapons in their hands. Mrs. Stewart had flung herself upon her husband's body ; two powerful arms tore her from him, and held her struggling as she saw a gun-muzzle placed to his breast. When the deed was done they went away, without mutilating the corpse, without insulting its widow. - It was a judicial assassination. The English consul came over to the island, arrested two of the murderers without resistance, and handed them over to the Span- CHar. XIL] \_ THE LAND OF HUNGER 105 ish authorities at Fernando Po. - They were acquitted, and, I think, justly. _ If white men act like savages, let them be judged by sav- age laws. The successor of Captain Stewart lives in the hulk of a large merchantman which had been wrecked off Corisco and vended for a song. Now she was fitted up with a thatched roof, like the hulks of Bonny, and from wreck became dwelling-house. Here this young man led the life of an industrious hermit, com- municating with the outer world once a month, when a schooner belonging to the firm brought him letters with European goods, and took away his letters with native produce. - In itself this ex- istence could not have been agreeable; but, remember, he was the Csesar of Alobi, while, had he been in England, he would have been a slave on a high stool, or a fetch-and-carry machine behind the counter. I slept there that night, breakfasted on board the barque the next morning, and sailed up the Muni with the sea-breeze at mid- day. The Muni possesses the same character as the other rivers of Equatorial Africa. - Its banks are of all the most densely wooded, the only gaps in that high green wall being made by the native villages. - There are many shallows and sunken rocks; but, as far as I could learn, vessels of fair tonnage could be navigated to the falls, which are seventy miles from the mouth of the river, and which, after the heaviest rains, are said to be worth seeing. I passed the night at the town of a powerful chief named Mtevo. As it was one of my objects in this trip to hunt the gorilla, which is not found in the Bapuku country, I asked him if they existed in the neighborhood of his town. - He said that his natives could show them to me in one minute, which probably would have been a long one had I remained in the Muni till I had succeeded. I started the next morning at daylight in a small canoe, with Robert and two Balengi guides, leaving Mongilomba and the oth- ers behind me. - After two hours' paddling we branched off into a tributary stream, which took us by a northeasterly course to the foot of one of the spurs of the Sierra del Crystal, a distance of fifty miles perhaps from the coast. The Spaniards of the Middle Ages would sometimes dedicate a city to "Our Lady of Mercy" after butchering the inhabitants. Equally appropriate is the name " Crystal Mountains" applied to these forest-covered hills, which are so dark and gloomy, and ' 106 f SAVAGE AFRICA. [Car. XIT. where a Scotch mist appears the nearest approach to fine weather. But pure streams flow from its black and impure breast, like mor- al lessons from a libertine author; and one can seldom, in Africa, drink water so cool and sweet as that which bubbled past my ca- noe that afternoon. In the evening I arrived at my destination. - There I found low filthy huts, abject savages, many of the women wearing fresh- plucked leaves round their loins-a mode of apparel which ex- cited the disgust of the refined Robert. None of them had seen a white man before; but here even curiosity, that arch-passion of lower humanity, had become extinct. Their looks and actions betrayed the indifference of brutes. I spent some days hunting among them, and always without success. - In the recesses of the virgin forest, as in the dark depths of the sea, animal life is rare. - All living creatures love light and fresh air, those grand stimulants of existence. - The gorilla, it is true, shuns the gay prairies, and seems to love the sombre twilight of the wood; but in this part, where he was to be found more fre- quently than in any other part of the Muni country, I found his tracks less frequently than I had found them on the southern side of the Gaboon. - In none of the villages which I entered could I find a skull or bone of the animal; and I also heard on good au- thority, that a man who hunted daily in the Muni would see a gorilla only perhaps once or twice in a year. Tt rained almost incessantly, and the hardships of hunting were doubled by the eternal moisture and monotony. When "my lodgings were on the cold ground," I would wake up so dizzy that I could scarcely stand. A strong cup of tea would revive my drooping spirits; but the struggle day after day through for- est undergrowth, and the utter lifelessness of all around, began to disgust me. Added to this, my boots were turning to black pulp, and my feet, being frequently soaked in putrid water, fell into a state which rendered walking at all a matter of intense difficulty. When I returned to the village I found little to recompense me for the fatigues and disappointments which body and mind had undergone. - There were no songs, nor merry dances to the sound of the drum and the clapping of female hands. I would lie down soon after dark, with a round log of wood for my pillow, and try to sleep away those long, long African nights which never change. As for subsistence, though it is a fine country for a vegetarian, my meat-trained system could extract small nutriment from plant- XII.] THE LAND OF HUNGER. 107 ain, and cassada. Even these were not too abundant; and I re- member Robert's face as he came to me one banyan day with a plantain mashed up into a doughy state, not unlike the descrip- tion I have heard of the sttckyjaw puddings which are served in Yorkshire schools. "Hat this, sir," said he; "he no good for mouth, but he fill 'm belly." My life was really supported on tea-which, as is now gener- ally allowed, is capable of forming tissue-and by the wild sugar- cane (imphi). - This last is a true food, containing not only sugar, but a considerable portion of gluten, and of those animal sub- stances which are present in all our forms of vegetable food. And here I used to eat it in the primitive manner described by Lucan (1,257): «Quique bibunt tener& dulces ab arundine succos." One would not suppose, now, that in a place like this, where it rains nine months in the year (on the mountains I believe that it rains twelve), there would be fetich for rain-making. Yet there is. It is a kind of centipede, which is bound to a herb and plunged into a calabash of water. This is done in time of war, when the villagers dread an attack from the enemy ; for when it rains, negroes do not fight, but hibernate in their huts. This centipede, moreover, is said to have the power of ejecting a liquid, which is not precisely aromatic, into a man's eye, when taken up by hand. I contented myself by pressing one with my foot, and there was certainly a considerable discharge of some se- cretion. I spoke to these villagers, who were also Balengi, about the mountain region to the northeast, but obtained almost all my in- formation from one of the guides whom I had brought with me from Afiteros. He told me that there were some very high mount- ains three days' journey in that direction, and that the country was inhabited by his own people. I asked him if there was a mountain there " which smoked." He replied that there was, and also described some mountains which were not covered with trees like the Sierra del Crystal, but with rocks which looked like white salt. He said that he knew the country very well, and that the gorilla was found there. He had never heard of a gorilla killing a man. - He also told me that the Balengi of those parts frequent- ly made use of a leaf which, on being rubbed between the hands till the man perspired very much, would smoke and burst into a flame. 108 SAVAGE AFRICA. [Crar. XIL The statement respecting the white-topped mountains (whether snow or stone) may, I think, be believed, as negroes can only tell lies by exaggeration, or by turning truth inside out; they can not create falsehood. But the volcano statement was in answer to a leading question; and I have repeatedly remarked that they will almost always give those answers which they imagine will be most pleasing-an amiable trait in their character, but one which leads to error. I returned to Mtevo's town, and after paying the men, and making the king a present, we started at 4 A.M. with the land- breeze, which usually begins to blow at that hour. Both Robert and I had slight fever. - He was sick, and after each outpouring drank a pannikin of salt water to supply the vacuum. I had gen- eral languor, pains in the head, callousness about personal proper- ty, and indifference to all things mundane. I stopped at the barque where I had left some of my things. The captain was away aboard the hulk on a visit; so, handing over my weather-beaten canister to the steward, I requested him to make me some tea. When he brought it he told me that there had been "an awful row," and spun a long yarn, which, as he spoke in a low voice for fear of being overheard, and as I, not caring for servant's scandal, did not listen, was thrown away upon me. The mate came down and said to me, "Have you any trade powder with you, Mr. Reade?" "I have one cask," said I. "Then look after it, sir, whatever you do; for that man has said that he will blow up the ship." I turned round and looked at the Malay. His thin lips were pinched together. "There is my report of the matter, carpenter," said the mate to that dignitary, who had just come below. "If you think it'll do, why, I'll copy it into the log-book, now I'm about it." The carpenter took the slate out of the chief officer's hand, and read it out in an under tone. It was, as nearly as I can remem- ber, as follows : " April 28. The mate having given the steward an order in the absence of the captain, the steward answered that he would see him damned first. When the mate repeated the order and called him a saucy fellow, he ran into his bunk, where he had two guns ready loaded, and aimed one of them at me, but providentially it flashed in the pan. I had him put into irons. At two o'clock Cuar. XII.] THE LAND OF HUNGER. * 109 P.M. the master came on board in a state of beastly intoxication, and ordered the steward to be taken out of irons, although he had threatened to shoot me and blow up the ship as soon as he was loose. 'As they were taking the irons off him, the master, seeing he was mad-drunk, asked where he had got the liquor from, and when he found the steward had stole some rum which he kept for his private use, he snatched up an axe and would have killed the man on the spot had not the ship's carpenter canted off the blow with his arm." Having heard all this, I expressed my surprise that the captain should be in a state of " beastly intoxication." He had never drunk any thing stronger than water in my presence, and had re- peatedly told me that he could not take a glass of beer, even in England, without its completely upsetting him. This innocent remark was followed by " startling disclosures." "It appeared" that the captain had been a warrant-officer in the navy, and had commanded several merchantmen; but his vice had always proved his ruin, and he had been long out of employ when this vessel was fitting out for sea. His specious tongue then won him a berth which first-class men do not care to accept; and he was drunk before the vessel was clear of the Mersey. "The only time as he has been sober, Mr. Reade," continued the mate, " was at Bapuk when you was there, and then he'd got himself into such a horful diseased state as he couldn't drink. Ah! what a time we've had! Here's been the crew as sick as sheep, and we lying in that rotten hole (that's what Z call it leastways), not taking enough in a week to pay a day's expenses. I've talked to him times on times, sir; I've asked him what he'll do when they turn him out of it, as they surely will; I've even wrote it down on the slate and showed it to him. Well, he blub- bered like a cow; but what good's that? What goes out of him blubbering, goes in again from the bottle, hot and strong. "That ain't the wust, or near the wust, Mr. Reade. The second mate as is gone was a plain, free-spoken kind of man, and he made no secret of it that he'd tell the owners a tale or two as soon as he got home-how the captain drunk up a locker of beer and wine as had been shipped in case of sickness-how he sarved out the crew, flogging on 'em; let alone his adulterations with them oily black girls, when he's got a wife of his own at Liverpool and all. Well, sir, the second mate fell ill at Brass-for that's where we went to fust; and a rare, nasty, fever-stricken, God-forgotten 110 SAVAGE AFRICA. [Cxar. XII. place is Brass-the wust river in all that stinking Bight. Well, sir, the second mate was lying on these here lockers ' down' with fever, very bad, and the captain he was below, drunk (or prefend- ing to be drunk, as some on 'em says), and he says to him, ' Cheer up, old fellow,' says he, 'cheer up, and have a drop o' something, and you'll be all right to-morrow. Wait a moment, he says, 'and I'll give you a composing draught." ' "It was a composing draught, for it was a tumbler of brandy and raw laudanum mixed. And the mate he drank it up, and never spoke again." ~ Mongilomba's warning and the carpenter's persistent refusal of the captain's medicines flashed upon me. " We're afraid to go to sea with that man," said the mate. "He dursent go to Liverpool." I advised them to write to the Consul of Fernando Po as soon as they arrived at Gaboon, where the captain intended to victual the barque for her voyage home. I then paddled over to the hulk, where the last doubts I might have had regarding the real drunkard were dispelled. He was lying on a sofa with an empty brandy-bottle by his side and a very red face. He explained to me that he was prevented by some mysterious impediment from rising as politeness sug- gested, and that there were sensations in his head which he was at a loss to understand. Muttering something about his poor steward, who had been put in irons by his drunken mate, and having asked me if I had shot any gurril-1-las, he dropped off into a swinish sleep. To finish this character. - When the barque arrived at the Ga- boon, which was not till a month afterward, the mate and the car- penter went to the Rev. W. Walker, of whom they had heard me speak in high terms, and whose fellow-laborers at Corisco had ren- dered them many kindnesses, and they told him the story which I have just related. Mr. Walker visited the captain, informed him that his officers and crew demanded a consular investigation, and advised him to avoid that investigation by making over his command to the chief officer, and leaving the ship. The captain was guilty and alarmed. Against him were charges of cruel treatment, embezzlement, and willful murder, Only the Malay remained on his side, even supposing that the affair of the axe had not altered that youth's affections. Cfar. XII.] THE LAND OF HUNGER. . A1 And so he took a step which is perhaps without parallel: he accepted the advice of one who was a foreigner, who had no kind of authority over him, and whom he detested, as villains detest good men. He gave up the command of a fine vessel, and land- ed his chest and carcass at a place where he possessed nothing but a bad name. The last time that I saw him was on board the English vessel which left me at Prince's Island. He told me with his unaltered assurance that he had sent his barque home, and had staid behind to collect his debts, and was now on his way to Fernando Po to obtain the assistance of the consul. I could see that he had hopes of utilizing me, for I had left the Gaboon with the intention of re- turning to Fernando Po. y He was lodged in the mate's cabin, and, after dinner, that offi- cer came in and said to the skipper, "He won't take any thing, sir; says he's determined to turn over a new leaf." " But he must take something," said the captain, " if it's only a drop." "Don't think he will, sir-seems very owdacious over it." This reminded me of the got-up scene with the steward and the key of the locker. I peeped into the mate's cabin an hour aft- erward. - The mate had turned in. The man was drinking alone. I walked on deck an hour longer. Then I looked down through the sky-light. He was raising a bottle to his mouth. His watery eyes flut- tered from side to side, till suddenly they became charged with blood. His face from purple became livid ; he tried with red and swollen hands to grasp unseen objects, and fell to the floor-dead drunk. Corisco Bay abounds in white mullet and green turtle. The former are taken in casting-nets ingeniously made of the pinc-ap- ple fibre, which has a gloss like silk. When one sees the mullet splashing in the shallows, he runs for his net, steals through the water as silently as he can, raising his feet high, casts his net, and (if not a water-haul) draws it in full of shining struggling things, which drown on shore, and are interred in negro stomachs. The turtle are caught in seines or speared by moonlight; and as soon as I heard that Abauhi was a skillful turtler, I told him that I wished to see him take one. He said that it was now full moon, and that if it did not rain I might witness the performance that very night. 112 SAVAGE AFRICA. [CHaiar. XII At sunset I watched the dark mountains across the bay. Not a cloud rose over them. At eight o'clock I went to Abauhi's house. - He said that when the moon rose above the plantations we could go. It was one of those nights during which, say the natives, it is impossible to catch fish, because the sky has too many eyes. When the moon had risen above the broad green-leaved trees, Abauhi, taking two long spears and followed by two subordinates, led the way down to the beach. He then asked me if I could swim, as sometimes canoes would upset in the struggle between man and reptile. I was obliged to confess that I could not. He appeared surprised at my venturing on the water at all in such a case, and wished me to go home again. Finding that I was not inclined to do this, he placed me in the bottom of the canoe, hold- ing the sides with my hands, and told me not to move after we had once started. This injunction was quite unnecessary. During the first five minutes my body remained rigid as a pointer's, and my hair was erect in terror. _ As we wobbled along, it seemed to me that only a succession of miracles kept us from capsizing. - But, after a lit- tle time, I saw and admired how nicely these men preserved the equilibrium of the canoe with light touches of the paddle and in- clinations of their bodies. Now Abauhi stood up in the prow, a foot on each gunwale, the moon shining on his swelling arms as he bent the stout spear-staff and threw his limbs into attitudes vigorous and graceful as those of an Apollo. Two mortal hours, and nothing had been seen. Clouds encir- cled and threatened to obscure the moon. My joints became hor- ribly cramped, and when I looked at the dark water as we passed, I could not believe that it was possible to see a turtle where I could see only the reflections of the stars. The two men continued to paddle on without saying a word, and Abauhi remained attentive as ever, his eyes lowered and his spear upraised. Suddenly that spear was hurled into the water. The mem ut- tered a yell. Something: large and black dashed through the air. Abauhi seized a paddle, and the canoe seemed to fly. Before us was a cloud of white foam. I holloaed till I was hoarse, and danced about, forgetting that I might upset the canoe, and that 1 could not swim. - Fox-hunting, sir, was a mere shadow of it. Im- Char. Xft] THE LAND OF HUNGER. 113 agine the first whimper, the view-holloa, and the who-hoop! com- pressed into one sensation ! The foam ahead I believed to be the turtle itself; but it was the staff of the spear. - This requires explanation. 'The point of the spear, which is small and with an almost imperceptible barb, is tied by a string to the butt. When the turtle is struck the barb remains in its flesh, and the staff, separated from it, but re- tained by the strings, floats on the surface, prevents the turtle from _- diving, and marks its course. As soon as he had caught the staff, Abauhi drew the turtle to- ward the surface, playing him like a salmon. The second spear was thrown; again the turtle sprang; we had another " burst," but a very short one.> The reptile was " distressed," and with a yo hee yo! (borrowed from English sailors) was hauled into the canoe, where Abauhi welcomed him by patting him on the head and spitting down his mouth. This, he told me, was " play," and showed me a sear on his arm which some turtle had inflicted in a sportive retribution. We drew cover for an hour longer without a find, and returned to Corisco. The turtle, lying at the bottom of the boat, uttered the most extraordinary sounds, all of which caricatured humanity. Sometimes it was that kind of wheezing sound peculiar to old women and sheep; sometimes a harsh, dry, consumptive cough ; sometimes that deep-drawn, gasping, eructative sigh, with which boozy bachelors relate the romances of their youth. I really began to pity the poor animal, with its chronic influ- enza and its symptoms of " decline." It made delicious soup, however, and very different from that of Guildhall. All its meat is superb, and especially the liver, fried. Of this I ate the next evening to repletion, and dreamt that I was alderman-soup in the infernal regions, being lapped up by plethoric green turtles in sear- let robes. H Fom e nt 114 4 SAVAGE AFRICA. (Cuar. XHL CHAPTER XIIL THE FALLS OF THE NCOMO. My Steward Oshupu. -Nengé-Nengé. -Negro Hospitality. - Description of the Fans. the Falls of the Ncomo. Ox Monday, the 5th of May, I left forever this beautiful island, and the friendly hearts which it contained. After two days in my canoe I arrived in the Gaboon ; and, after three more spent in copying out a vocabulary of the I‘an dlalect lent to me by Mr. Preston, one of the missionaries, I was ready to yisit the Canni- bals of the Crystal Mountains, and to search for the rapids of the Ncomo. But, first, I had to get men. Mongilomba had given up a good place rather than go among the Fans, with whom he had previ- ously formed a slight acquaintance as a trader. Almost all the Mpongwe had the same fear of them. But Robert, my new stew ard, remained faithful to his promise and his interests. Robert had his enemies, like all men suddenly raised to distinc- tion. As steward to a white man, he was envied by a score of small-souled negroes, who soon contrived that I should learn his antecedents. " Robert," I said, one day, "I thought that your 'country name' was Cabinda ?" "Yes, sir; my 'country name' Cablnda "How is lt that every body calls you Oshupu here? I never hear any one call you Cabinda." (With a puzzled face), " Oshupu, sir!" (brightening), "Oh! yes -Oshupu-that one name of play my friends like to call me. I not know why they no call me Cabinda, because Cabinda my proper name for true." "Were you ever cook at a white man's factory, Robert?" "No, sit," said Robert, coldly. "When a man takes another man's wife for bad things, what do you think of that man, Robert?" "I think him bad man, sir." ome