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Title: The jungle folk of Africa
Author: Robert H. Milligan
Release date: October 27, 2023 [eBook #71970]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: Fleming H. Revell company, 1908
Credits: Peter Becker and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JUNGLE FOLK OF AFRICA ***
THE JUNGLE FOLK OF AFRICA
BY ROBERT H. MILLIGAN
The Jungle Folk of Africa
_Illustrated, 8vo, cloth, net $1.50_
“As one reads, the mystery and terror of the jungle seem to penetrate
his soul, yet he reads on reluctant to lay down a book so grimly
fascinating.”—_Presbyterian._
Fetish Folk of West Africa
_Illustrated, 8vo, cloth, net $1.50_
“Mr. Milligan has written interestingly and vividly of the people among
whom he labored, telling of their ways and habits, repeating some of
their legends and beliefs and pointing out their failings as well as
their good qualities.”—_N. Y. Sun._
[Illustration: CANOE OF A CHIEF ON THE CAMERON RIVER. (_See page 354_)]
The Jungle Folk of Africa
By
ROBERT H. MILLIGAN
_ILLUSTRATED_
[Illustration]
NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO
Fleming H. Revell Company
LONDON AND EDINBURGH
Copyright, 1908, by
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
_Second Edition_
New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave.
Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W.
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street
PREFACE
“In the realm of the unknown, Africa is the absolute,” said Victor Hugo.
Since the time of Hugo the civilized world has become better acquainted
with African geography; but the Africans themselves are still a people
unknown.
A certain noted missionary, while on furlough in America, after
delivering a masterly and brilliant lecture on Africa to an audience of
coloured people, gave an opportunity for persons in the audience to ask
him questions pertaining to the subject. He was rather abashed when an
elderly negro, who had been deeply interested in the lecture, called out:
“Say, Mistah S., is they any colo’ed folks ovah thah?” Most people know
that there are a goodly number of “colo’ed folks” in Africa; but the
knowledge of the majority extends only to the colour of the skin. And if
in this book I endeavour to make the Africans known as they really are,
it is because I believe that they are worth knowing.
In the generation that has passed since the books of Du Chaillu were the
delight of boys—old boys and young—the African has received but scant
sympathy in literature. Du Chaillu had the mind of a scientist and the
heart of a poet. He never understated the degradation of the African nor
exaggerated his virtues, but he recognized in him the raw material out
of which manhood is made. He realized that the African, like ourselves,
is not a finality, but a possibility—“the tadpole of an archangel,” as
genius has phrased it. But, then, Du Chaillu lived among the Africans
long enough to speak their language, to forget the colour of their skin,
and to know them, mind and heart, as no passing traveller or casual
observer can possibly know them.
In more recent books the African is usually and uniformly presented
as physically ugly, mentally stupid, morally repulsive, and never
interesting. This is by no means my opinion of the African. Kipling’s
characterization, “half child, half devil,” is very apt. But what in the
world is more interesting than children—except devils?
This book is an attempt to exhibit the human nature of the African, to
the end that he may be regarded not merely as a being endowed with an
immortal soul and a candidate for salvation, but as a man whose present
life is calculated to awaken our interest and sympathy; a man with
something like our own capacity for joy and sorrow, and to whom pleasure
and pain are very real; who bleeds when he is pricked and who laughs
when he is amused; a man essentially like ourselves, but whose beliefs
and whose circumstances are so remote from any likeness to our own that
as we enter the realm in which he lives and moves and has his being we
seem to have been transported upon the magic carpet of the Arabian fable,
away from reality into a world of imagination—a wonderland, where things
happen without a cause and nature has no stability, where the stone that
falls downwards to-day may fall upwards to-morrow, where a person may
change himself into a leopard and birds wear foliage for feathers, where
rocks and trees speak with articulate voice and animals moralize as men—a
world running at random and haphazard, where everything operates except
reason and where credulity is only equalled by incredulity. Elsewhere it
is the unexpected that happens: in Africa it is the unexpected that we
expect.
A knowledge of the jungle folk of Africa will include some acquaintance
with their jungle home, their daily life, their work, their amusements,
their social customs, their folk-lore, their religion, and, among the
rest, it will include their response to missionary effort. Of these
several subjects, those which receive scant treatment in this book will
be more fully presented in a second book on Africa, which is now in
course of preparation.
I have avoided generalizations and abstractions, in the belief that the
concrete and the personal would be not only more interesting but also
more informing. This book is, therefore, in the main, a narration of the
particular incidents of my own experience and observation during seven
years in Africa; incidents, many of which, at their occurrence, moved me
either to laughter or to tears, and sometimes both in alternation. For,
nowhere else in the world does tragedy so often end in comedy, and comedy
in tragedy.
I am indebted to Mr. Harry D. Salveter for his kindness in furnishing me
with many photographic illustrations, including the best of my collection.
ROBERT H. MILLIGAN.
_New York._
CONTENTS
I
THE VOYAGE 19
Dreadful alternatives—A pork and cabbage saint—The
outfit—A parting pain—Canary Islands—The change to the
tropics—Sierra Leone—The native yell—Deck passengers—A meal of
potato-peelings—Liberia—Shipboard conversation—A shrewd decision.
II
THE COAST 36
Wet and dry seasons—The climate—The trader—Old Calabar—The
crocodile—The most beautiful place in West Africa—The ugliest place
in the world—Mount Cameroon—A ride on a mule—Landing in the surf.
III
BUSH TRAVEL 55
Where no white man had been—The greatest forest in the
world—The caravan—Outfit—African roads—Bridges—The worst of the
road—Blessings in disguise—The art of walking—The arrival in
camp—The misery of morning—Rubber stomachs.
IV
BUSH PERILS 73
The road at the worst—Tired out—A palaver with the
carriers—Elephants—A caravan astray—A long night—A borrowed
shirt—The sullen forest—Accident the constant factor—A last
journey—Advantage of breakfast before daylight.
V
THE CAMP-FIRE 89
The camp—African mimics—The lemur’s cry—Legend of the snail—The
chimpanzee and the ungrateful man—A fable of the turtle—Why the
leopard walks alone—A “true” story—A magic fight—Discovering
a thief—A spirit who spreads disease—A shadow-slayer—A witch
discovered—Lying awake at night.
VI
A HOME IN THE BUSH 107
Efulen—The “white animal” performs—Africa no solitude—The mail—The
first fever—Yearning for a shirt—A vivid account of my funeral—The
first house—Cooks and cooking—The medical layman—Mrs. Laffin’s
visit.
VII
THE BUSH PEOPLE 131
The Bulu tribe—“Better-looking than white
people”—Dress—Ornamentation—A sociable queen—The white man’s
origin—Our fetishes—A magic letter—Buying and selling—Chief
Abesula.
VIII
AFTER A YEAR 148
Killed by mistake—A woman stolen—A passion for clothes—The
Batanga church—Expectoration a fine art—Romantic career of a
nightshirt—Bekalida—Keli, the incorrigible—Death of Dr. Good.
IX
THE KRUBOYS 170
The Kru tribe—The “real thing”—Kru English—The Kruboy’s
superstition—The ship’s officers—Dressing with much
assistance—Loading mahogany—The Kruboy and the surf—The white man
out of his element.
X
WHITE AND BLACK 195
St. Paul de Loanda—Canine passengers—Portuguese slavery—An American
problem—A health-change—Boma—Belgian atrocities—Matadi—Stanley—What
I heard at Matadi—The apathy of the nations.
XI
THE FANG 217
Gaboon—The village—The house—The door—The kiss unpopular, and no
wonder—Marriage customs—A woman tortured—An elder brother—Immoral
customs—The Gorilla Society—War—A troublesome sister—A blessing
that resembled a curse—A strange war-custom—Music—Dancing—Story of
the elephant and the gorilla—Fable of the sun and moon.
XII
FETISHES 249
The conception of God—Dreams—Ancestor-worship—The conception
of nature—The fetish proper—A wonderful medicine-chest—Various
fetishes—A case of discipline—Witchcraft—A convicted witch—Wives
and witchcraft—The white man and witchcraft.
XIII
A BOAT CREW 273
The Evangeline—Makuba—An un-dress ball—Ndong Koni—A saint
that lied—Capsized and rescued—A dying slave—Dressed in a
table-cloth—Flogging a chief—A story of true love.
XIV
A SCHOOL 302
The language difficulty—Lacked nothing but the essentials—The late
M. de la R.—One of Macbeth’s witches—Death of Nduna—Bojedi—More
candid than kind—The racial weakness—A royal romance—Marriage
ceremonies—A penitent—A fall.
XV
A LITTLE SCHOLAR 329
A health-change—The brightest of his class—Rotten Elephant—Very
sick—An object of wonder—Mount Teneriffe—Adventure with a
stage-coach—Adventure with a donkey—The crisis—The Ashantee war—A
burial at sea.
XVI
A CHURCH 354
Reality versus romance in missions—Arrival of the steamer—Adventure
in a canoe—An Apollo Belvidere in ebony—A sensational call to
worship—A white man’s foot—A prayer that caused a panic—Not
wickedness, but worms—The right hand, or the left?—“Dawn of the
Morning”—M’abune Jésu—Keeping the Sabbath—The harvest—The Jesuits—A
building not made with hands—“O’er crag and torrent.”
ILLUSTRATIONS
_Facing Page_
CANOE OF A CHIEF ON THE CAMEROON RIVER _title_
MOUNT TENERIFFE, CANARY ISLANDS 24
MISSION HOUSE AT BATANGA 52
REV. A. C. GOOD, PH. D. 55
LITTLE FRANCES BORN IN AFRICA 86
A GROUP OF ADMIRING NATIVES 110
AN IMPROVED MISSION HOUSE AT EFULEN 118
THE PASSION FOR CLOTHES 131
THE OLD CHURCH AT BATANGA 154
PASTORS AND ELDERS OF THE BATANGA CHURCH 160
THE DEBARKATION OF A DECK PASSENGER 181
MAN AND WIFE 224
TWO MEN DANCING 224
NDONG KONI 236
MAKUBA, CAPTAIN OF THE BOAT CREW 276
BOJEDI, TEACHER OF FANG SCHOOL 314
THREE FANG BOYS 378
The Jungle Folk of Africa
I
THE VOYAGE
“O ye! who have your eyeballs vexed and tired,
Feast them upon the wideness of the sea.”—_Keats._
When I was about to sail for Africa a friend read to me a thrilling
incident which was supposed to be prophetic of my own fate. A cannibal
maiden proposes marriage to a newly-arrived missionary. The missionary
modestly declines her offer; whereupon, looking down at him with
utmost complacency, she tells him that she will have him anyhow—either
_married_, or _fried_. I have gone to Africa twice, and have lived
there nearly seven years, yet I have escaped both of these dreadful
contingencies. There is no longer any glamour of romance about the
missionary life. It is not a life of hair-raising adventures and narrow
escapes. In those seven years I was never frightened and seldom killed.
Dull monotony is the normal experience and loneliness the besetting trial.
Neither are the sacrifices and privations of missionary life so great
as many of us have supposed. The sacrifices of the missionary are more
tangible, but not therefore greater, than those of the faithful minister
at home; whose sacrifices are often more real because less obvious. A
few days before I sailed the second time for Africa, when I knew from
former experience that the missionary life was no martyrdom, I was one
day seated at a dinner-table where Africa and my going was the subject
of conversation. The company had the most exaggerated ideas of the
privations incident to missionary life. There was no use in a denial on
my part; and to have disclaimed any of the fictitious virtues with which
they loaded me would only have caused them to add the virtue of modesty
to the rest.
A maiden lady across the table, who for some time had sat with abstracted
countenance, at last, with upturned eyes and clasped hands, remarked:
“Well, I think it is an _appalling_ sacrifice.”
To have lived up to my part, my face at that moment should have worn a
saintly expression of all the virtues rolled into one; but it happened
that my mouth was quite full of pork and cabbage, with which my carnal
mind was occupied, and I am sure I looked more like an epicure than an
ascetic. Nothing but the pork and cabbage kept me from laughing outright.
Really, life in Africa is much the same as life anywhere else; and the
“privations” only teach us how many things we can do without which we
once thought were indispensable. This lesson is impressed the more deeply
in such a land as Africa, where a human being may live for threescore
years—comfortable, apparently happy, and at least healthy—with little
else than a pot, a pipe and a tom-tom; the first ministers to his
necessity, the second to comfort and the third to pleasure. If we will
persist in regarding the missionary as a martyr, let us consider that
the martyr does not differ essentially from other Christians. Martyrdom
is potentially contained in the initial decision of each Christian.
The consecration of a life to Christ implies the willingness to lay it
down for Him. In an uncivilized land there is a likelihood of unwonted
hardships, and among savages some possibility of a violent death; but the
latter is vastly improbable.
One can procure an outfit more conveniently and at less cost in Liverpool
than in New York. A week at Liverpool is sufficient for this purpose.
The outfit will depend somewhat upon whether one expects to live on the
coast or in the bush where he will be cut off from the facilities of
transportation by water. All transportation to the interior is by native
porters, who carry sixty or seventy pounds on their backs, in loads as
compact as possible. This excludes most furniture; and such furniture
as can be transported is usually “knocked down.” An ordinary outfit
will include several helmets of cork or pith, several white umbrellas
lined with green, a dozen white drill suits, denim trousers, canvas
shoes, leather shoes, rubber boots, cheese-cloth for mosquito-bars,
rubber blankets, pneumatic pillows, hot-water bags, a supply of
medicines (unless these are already on the field) especially quinine
and castor-oil, a six-mouths’ supply of food—canned meats, vegetables
and fruits—besides bedding and kitchenware, tableware, napery, etc.,
according to need, and guns and ammunition.
There is a romantic interest about this last week spent in the purchase
of strange articles for an untried life, and in taking leave of
civilization,—of such things as cities, society, music, fresh beef and
fine clothes. The last evening in Liverpool I went to hear _Tannhauser_.
Music had always been my pastime, and it was not an easy sacrifice to
make. I therefore looked forward to that evening with peculiar interest,
knowing that not again until my return, however long I might remain in
Africa, would I hear any music worthy of the name. But _Tannhauser_
proved to be not a sweet parting from civilization but an awful
experience, by reason of some one in my neighbourhood beating the time
with his foot, as they so often do in England. I had one of the best
seats in the house, but I exchanged it for another, only to find myself
in a worse neighbourhood; for, in addition to a man on each side of me
beating the time, a woman immediately behind “hummed the tune.” At the
close of the performance I was in a condition of “mortal mind” that would
have scandalized those who are disposed to canonize missionaries. But the
sorrow of parting was thus mitigated as I reflected that civilization has
its pains and savagery some compensations.
I went home and wrote the following to a friend: “Some one alluding to
Macaulay’s knowledge of history and his unerring accuracy once said that
infinite damnation to Macaulay would consist in being surrounded by
fiends engaged in misquoting history while he was rendered speechless and
unable to correct them; and I am thinking that my _inferno_ would consist
in being compelled to listen to some such exquisite melody as _O Thou
Sublime Sweet Evening Star_, surrounded the while by fiends keeping time
with their feet, and Beelzebub humming the tune.”
On my first voyage to Africa (having been appointed to the West Africa
Mission, by the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church)
I was four weeks on the way, from Liverpool, and landed at Batanga, in
Cameroon, two hundred miles north of the equator. On the second voyage
I was five weeks on the way, and landed at Libreville (better known
as _Gaboon_) in the Congo Français, almost exactly at the equator.
Libreville was the capital of the French Congo. _Gaboon_ is properly the
name of the bay or great estuary upon which Libreville is situated, and
is one of the very few good harbours on the west coast. But long before
the existence of Libreville, captains and traders had used the name
_Gaboon_ to designate the adjacent settlement of native villages and
trading-houses, and it is still the name in general use.
We made many calls along the way. Some of the places are very beautiful,
such as the Canary Islands, Sierra Leone, Cape Coast Castle, Victoria,
Fernando Po and Gaboon; and some are quite otherwise, for Africa is a
land of extremes. Bonny is repulsive, and the Rio del Rey is a nightmare.
Meanwhile, we are getting further and further away from all that is known
and natural to our eyes, and nearer to a land of strange birds and beasts
and trees, inhabited by tribes that to the white man are only a name, or
have no name, and to whom he is perhaps an imaginary being, or the ghost
of their dead ancestors.
At the Canary Islands, a week after leaving Liverpool, one may spend a
day of interest and pleasure. On my first voyage we called at Las Palmas,
in Grand Canary Island. On the second voyage we called at Santa Cruz
on Teneriffe Island. The object of chief interest is the great Mount
Teneriffe, seen sometimes a hundred miles at sea; probably the Mount
Atlas of ancient fable, which was supposed to support the firmament.
There are of course many mountain peaks in the world which rise to a
greater height above the sea-level; but they are usually in ranges or on
high table-lands far from the sea, and while the altitude is great, the
individual peak may not be great. Teneriffe rises directly out of the
sea, slowly at first but with increasing inclination, until at last it
sweeps upward to the clouds and far above them, to a height of 12,500
feet. The sandy slopes upon the higher altitudes reflect the light with
unequalled splendour. From the harbour of Las Palmas we saw the sun
rising on Teneriffe. We stood on the deck before the dawn, and while
darkness was all around us, saw the heights already struggling with the
darkness, and the summit bathed in the light of the unrisen day. A heavy
mist rolled down and spread over the valleys, like a sea resplendent
with every interchange of deepening and dissolving colour; while from
below arose the increasing noise and tumult of a half-civilized city
awaking from slumber. In a little while the clouds begin to assemble,
and the peak is hidden throughout the day: so it is always. But in the
evening, the clouds again are parted, like opening curtains, and the
whole mountain is disclosed, majestic and beautiful in the light of the
setting sun.
On the homeward voyage the steamers often take on an enormous deck-cargo
of bananas. They are put in crates the size of barrels and are packed
in straw. In the event of a severe storm before reaching Liverpool they
are more than likely to be washed overboard. It is a pleasure to watch
this loading from the upper deck. The Spanish workmen are neat and clean;
they are skillful and work rapidly, as indeed they must in order to load
the entire cargo in one day, which is usually the limit of time. All day
long Spanish boys without clothes are crowded around the steamer in small
boats, begging the passengers to throw pennies into the water and see
them dive and get them. Many pennies and small silver coins are thrown
over in the course of the day; and the boys seldom miss one.
A number of the passengers debark at the Canary Islands, and the rest
have more room and more comfort. Immediately upon leaving the Islands
double awnings are stretched over the decks; and the passengers and
ship’s officers the next day don their tropical clothing. The sea is
exceedingly calm as compared with the North Atlantic and the air soft and
balmy. It recalled those lines of Keats—
“Often it is in such gentle temper found,
That scarcely will the very smallest shell,
Be moved for days from where it sometime fell,
When last the winds of heaven were unbound.”
[Illustration: MOUNT TENERIFFE, CANARY ISLANDS.
_Probably the Mount Atlas of ancient fable, which was supposed to support
the firmament._]
The change to tropical life takes place in one day and it is like being
suddenly transported into another world. The men nearly all are dressed
in white drill suits, and most of them wear white caps and white canvas
shoes. If they go ashore at various ports along the way they will
exchange the cap for a cork helmet and besides will probably carry a
white umbrella. The white suits if well made and well laundered look
much more comfortable and becoming than any other clothing. They are
usually made in military style with stitched collar, so as we go on
further south the shirt of civilization may at length be dispensed with
and the coat worn directly over an undershirt,—which latter ought to
be of wool and medium weight. Except my first year, I wore no shirt at
any time through all the years that I lived in Africa, not even at the
French Governor’s annual reception at Gaboon. The English at Old Calabar
on formal occasions make themselves ridiculous in black dress suits with
the conventional area of shirt-front and collar. In these they swelter,
vastly uncomfortable, while the starch dissolves and courses towards
their shoes down back and breast. It is not only, nor chiefly, the
high temperature but the extreme humidity that makes the atmosphere so
oppressive. It seems to be seventy-five per cent, warm water.
On shipboard it is usually comfortable and pleasant while we are under
way. The most delightful part of the voyage is the first few days after
leaving the Canary Islands, when the course lies in the track of the
northeast trade-winds. One thinks very differently, however, of this
trade-wind in coursing against it on the homeward voyage after a length
of time on the fever-stricken coast. It seems piercing cold, and, as
Miss Kingsley says, one wishes that the Powers above would send it to
the Powers below to get it warmed. It is in this zone that deaths most
frequently occur on board. On the outward voyage immediately after the
most delightful part of the voyage comes the very worst part of it, as
we pass beyond the trade-wind and close in to the coast near Cape Verde.
For several days one is tempted to wish that he might turn back. There
is a dead calm on board, and the heat is enough to curl one’s hair. It
recalled Sydney Smith’s description of some such place, where “one feels
like taking off his flesh and sitting in his bones.” But it continues
only two or three days. During this time the “punka” is installed, a
large fan suspended from the ceiling, the entire length of the table,
worked by a rope, which a boy pulls with his hand.
A week after leaving the Canary Islands we reached our first African
port, Sierra Leone. It has the finest harbour on the entire west coast.
From the harbour it is very beautiful, with mountains of intense green
standing like sentinels on either side and behind the town. The sound
of the wind raging about these peaks, like the roaring of a lion, gives
the name, _Sierra Leone_. Despite its attractive appearance, it is
called _The Whiteman’s Grave_, and its history justifies the name. But
as we proceed down the coast we find that every place which has any
considerable number of white men is called _The Whiteman’s Grave_. The
name _Sierra Leone_ applies to the entire English colony; that of the
town at this place is _Freetown_. It was originally a colony of freed
slaves, which the English planted there during the suppression of the
slave traffic. The first ship-load of colonists, between four and five
hundred, was landed in 1787. Of these, sixty died on the way or within
a fortnight after landing. Freetown has now a population of thirty
thousand, and is prosperous. Along the wharf are warehouses with roofs
of corrugated iron. The roofs of the traders’ houses also, both here and
all along the coast, are of corrugated iron. Here and there among the
colourless huts of the natives there stands out boldly the frame houses
of successful native traders, made of imported material and usually
painted an impudent blue. Houses with floors are everywhere called
_deck-houses_; for the decks of ships were the first floors ever seen by
the natives.
So soon as we had anchored, the natives, in a score of boats, were
crowding about the gangway, pushing back each other’s boats, fighting,
cursing and yelling, in a general strife for the very lucrative privilege
of rowing passengers ashore. However otherwise engaged in this scramble
they are all yelling; and the resultant noise is the proper introduction
to Africa. For, as noise is the first, so it will be the final and
lasting impression. It is the grand unity in which other associations are
gradually dislimned. We went ashore in the late afternoon. The people
were all in the streets, moving about, but no one moving rapidly; all
active, but no one _very_ active. As there are no vehicles, pedestrians
occupy the whole street, which is covered with grass. There is a great
variety of dress and considerable undress. Many of the women wear a loose
calico wrapper—a Mother Hubbard; and many of the men are dressed in the
Mohammedan costume, which is more becoming, and more suitable for the
climate, than any possible modification of European dress. It consists
of a long white shirt with loose, flowing sleeves, and an outer garment
somewhat like a university gown, of black or of blue. The ordinary man
wears anything he may happen to have, from an eighth of a yard of calico
to a rice-bag in which he cuts holes for his head and arms.
Ever so many were carrying loads on their heads—never any other way—and
without touching them with their hands. Indeed, if their hands were
engaged I am not sure whether they could talk; for when they talk they
gesticulate continually. Some were carrying beer bottles erect on their
heads, some carried books, some of the women carried folded parasols;
others carried fire-wood, or bananas, or large baskets of vegetables.
They exchange the neighbourhood gossip as they pass, but without
turning their heads; and sometimes they throw down their loads and seat
themselves on opposite sides of the street to have “a friendly yell.”
When we returned to the steamer we found on board, on the lower deck,
about twenty native passengers. They have brought all their household
goods, including chickens; and several of the women have babies strapped
to their backs. They pay only for a passage on deck, taking the risk
of the weather, and expect to yell their way to Fernando Po, in about
two weeks. The number of deck passengers increases at each of the next
several ports, until the deck is crowded; but they are never allowed on
the upper deck.
The deck, formerly spacious and shining, is now covered with baggage,
the abundance of which is only exceeded by its outlandish variety. The
first mate is the ship’s general housekeeper. Cleanliness and order
are a mental malady with him. If he could have his way the ship would
carry no cargo, since the opening of the hatches and the discharging of
it deranges the order of the lower deck and litters it with rubbish.
Besides he would like to employ the boat-crews in holystoning one deck
or another all the time instead of only once each morning. The sight of
a dog affects him more seriously than seeing a ghost. Passengers are a
great trial to him who carelessly place their deck chairs for comfort or
for conversation with each other instead of leaving them in unneighbourly
straight lines as he arranged them. He is rarely on speaking terms with
the chief engineer, because the latter must frequently have coal carried
from the forehold; and there is a standing feud between him and the
cook, whose grease-tub sits outside the galley door. The mate’s sole
horror of a storm at sea is that the rolling of the ship spills the
grease. Imagine the life this gentleman lives from the time that the
native passengers begin to come aboard and fill the deck with their piles
of miscellaneous baggage. He ages perceptibly. Disorder is precisely the
weak point in the native character; and much of the mate’s time is spent
in pitched battles with the native women, over the bestowment of their
goods. No sooner has he, with the help of several deck-hands, arranged a
lady’s goods in a neat square pile ten feet high and seated her children
in a straight row than the lady orders all her children to get out of her
way and proceeds to tear down the pile in order to get a cosmetic and a
mirror that happen to be in two different boxes in the bottom. When the
mate is not around the deck passengers seem very happy as they sit at
random on their baggage and yell at each other. Here and there men in
Mohammedan dress sit on the sunny deck in cross-legged tailor-fashion,
reminding one of old Bible pictures. If they quarrel a great deal they
also laugh a great deal, and the quarrels are no sooner ended than they
are forgotten.
At Lagos several native men came out in a boat to meet a deck passenger
and land his baggage. The natives are not allowed to use the gangway,
and if the rope ladder is in use they pass up and down a single rope
suspended over the ship’s side. On this occasion I observed one of the
men from the boat alongside sliding down a rope and carrying a heavy box,
by no means an easy thing to do. He expected that the others of his party
would be waiting to receive him in the boat below. But they had drifted
several yards away and were engaged in eating some potato peelings
which a steward had thrown to them. He called to them but they paid no
attention:—they were eating. He yelled at them and cursed them, at the
same time making with his legs impressive gestures of appeal and threat.
But they sat indifferent until they had finished, while he with his load
remained suspended in the air. Moreover, the sea at Lagos abounds with
sharks. At last, having finished their repast, they came to his rescue.
I was watching eagerly to see how many would be killed in the ensuing
fight. But not a blow was struck, and the palaver did not last a minute.
So forgetful are they of injuries. And though they are capable of great
cruelty towards their enemies, their cruelty is callous rather than
vindictive; not the cruelty that delights in another’s pain, but rather
that of a dull imagination which does not realize it.
A few days after leaving Sierra Leone we anchored off Monrovia, the
capital of Liberia, where we shipped eighty native men, _Krumen_, who
were engaged by the ship as workmen for the discharging and loading of
cargo. They are engaged for the round trip down the coast, three or four
months, and are unshipped again on the homeward voyage. Of these Krumen
I shall speak at some length in another chapter. They are the original
native tribe of this part of the coast and are not to be confounded with
the proper Liberians whose ancestors emigrated from America.
Liberia represents the philanthropic effort of America to restore to
their native land the Africans carried to America by the slave trade.
A large area of country was purchased from the native chiefs, and in
1820 the first settlement of colonists was established. Liberia is a
country of possibilities. There is no richer soil on the entire west
coast. It is especially suitable for coffee and cocoa; but it has
remained undeveloped. The poor and ignorant colonists were not fit
for self-government. America should have done more or else less. The
Liberians might far better have remained in America. During the several
generations of their absence from Africa they seemed to have lost the
power of resisting the malaria. The mortality among them was very great
and they were pitiably helpless. The government of Liberia some one has
said is a fit subject for comic opera. At one time becoming possessed of
a little cash, by some wonderful accident, they provided themselves with
a small gunboat by which they hoped to convince calling ships that theirs
is a real government competent to collect dues, impose fines, and enforce
the rules of quarantine and release that obtain at other ports, for which
purpose it has proved as ineffective as a pop-gun. But they have used
it successfully against the canoes of the Krumen in levying a heavy and
unjustifiable duty upon these men when they return from the south voyage
with their pay.
After two weeks on shipboard the immobility of life becomes agreeable
and we are all content to be lazy. And in the evening when the social
instinct is lively and men sit together at leisure in the balmy breeze,
under the canvas roof, on a well-lighted deck, the sea so calm as to
allay all apprehension, a wall of darkness around us, and the immensity
of the sea beyond, as separate from the rest of the world as would be
some tiny planet that has separated from the solid earth and rotates upon
its own axis, then the charm of travel on the tropical sea is all that
the imagination had preconceived,—a lazy, luxurious dream. When Boswell
remarked to Johnson, “We grow weary when idle,” Johnson replied: “That
is, sir, because others being busy, we want company; but if all were idle
there would be no growing weary; we should entertain one another.” We
were all equally idle and lazy, and wished we could be lazier. There were
whole days when the conversation—until evening—contained nothing more
epigrammatic than “Please pass the butter,” or “Have a pickle?”
The company consists of traders, government officials and missionaries;
and the captain is usually present. As our number diminishes at each
successive port, we become better acquainted and more friendly. Men of
antipodal differences are thus frequently brought into friendly and
sympathetic relations, men who in ordinary life would seldom have been
brought into contact with each other, and who never would have known that
they had anything in common; and the experience is wholesome. I have
learned to think more kindly of the African trader and to refrain from
criticism because of some whom I have known intimately on these long
voyages.
As we sit on deck in the evening the captain tells us that at Lagos,
where we are due in a few days, he has seen the natives fight the sharks
in the sea and kill them. The shark is the monster of the tropical seas,
the incarnation of ferocity and hunger. The native takes a stout stick,
six inches long and sharpened at both ends. With his hand closed tight
around this he dives into the sea, and as the shark comes at him with its
terrible mouth open, he thrusts the stick upright into its mouth as far
as he can. There it remains planted in the upper and lower jaws of the
shark, which, not being able to close its mouth, soon drowns and comes to
the surface. It is a good story, and not incredible as a fact; for the
native is brave enough and fool enough to do this very thing. But this is
the same captain who tells of fearful storms which he has successfully
encountered, when the ship rolled until she took in water through the
funnels. He remarked to me one day, speaking of one of his officers
who was not the brightest: “I always have to verify his reckoning; for
he always mistakes east for west and invariably puts latitude where
longitude ought to be.” He also tells of an invitation he once received
from a cannibal chief near Old Calabar, to come ashore and help him pick
a missionary. He has seen the sea-serpent many a time and knows all about
it. It is not dark green with brown stripes, as is generally supposed,
but is bright yellow with blue spots, and is quite three hundred feet
long. On one occasion it followed the captain’s ship for several days,
at times raising one hundred and fifty feet of its length out of the
water, and being prevented from helping itself to a sailor now and then
only by great quantities of food which they threw over to it. This caused
a famine on board, and they reached the nearest port in a half-starved
condition. An affidavit goes with each of the captain’s stories. Most
captains indulge in this entertaining hyperbole. Some are decidedly
gifted with what has been called a “creative memory.” I have never yet
known a captain who could not turn out as handsome a yarn as Gulliver.
As the company become better acquainted conversation is more intimate and
varied. Now we are discussing some subject of continental magnitude, and
again, with equal interest, some infinitesimal triviality. Detached from
the rest of the world, and with no daily budget of news, our interest
becomes torpid, and things great and small appear without perspective on
a flat surface of equality. We avowed our disbelief in the infallibility
of the pope, and pronounced against his claim to temporal authority. We
anticipated all the conclusions of the Hague Conference, and discussed
the imminence of the “yellow peril.” We resolved that the Crown Colony
system was a failure and had never been a success, and we devised an
elaborate substitute but could not agree upon the details. We agreed that
the English aristocracy had long been effete, and that the Duke of X,
related to the queen, was a “hog.” We reached the amicable conclusion
that the thirteen colonies should never have rebelled, and that the blame
was all on the side of England. We left posterity nothing to say on the
relative merits of the republican and the monarchic forms of government,
and decided that the enfranchisement of the negro was a mistake.
In juxtaposition to these discussions, one man occupied the company
a part of an evening recounting the entire history of his corns; but
I regret that I have forgotten their number and disposition. Another
disclosed the fact that he always wore safety-pins instead of garters,
and descanted upon his preference with such enthusiasm that he made at
least one convert that I know of. I was carefully told how to mix a gin
cocktail (though I may never have any practical use for this valuable
knowledge) and how to toss a champagne cocktail from one glass to another
in a beautiful parabolic curve; also how many cocktails a man might drink
in a day without being chargeable with intemperance: in short, if there
is anything about “booze” that I do not know it must be because I have
forgotten.
One night (but this was another voyage and a different kind of captain)
we put in practice the principle of arbitration of which we were all
adherents; and the result was my discomfiture. An argument had arisen
among us as to which was the more simple of the two currency systems,
_dollars and cents_, and _pounds, shillings and pence_—as if there were
logical room for difference of opinion! At last, the captain arriving, we
decided to refer the matter to him and to surrender our judgment to his
arbitrament. The captain (an Englishman of the very stolid sort), after a
period of reflection replied very slowly, and with all the gravity of a
judge: “Pounds, shillings and pence is the simpler system; for, don’t you
know, that when you are told the price of a thing in dollars and cents
you always, in your mind, convert it into pounds, shillings and pence.”
“Of course, Captain,” said I; “I had not thought of that until you
mentioned it; neither had I recalled the well-known fact that a
Frenchman, while speaking French in the streets of Paris, is really
thinking in English. Your decision is as shrewd as it is impartial.”
II
THE COAST
But the pleasure of the voyage depends largely upon the season. The wet
and the dry seasons are distinctly divided. There is a long wet season
of four months and a short wet season of two months each year, and
corresponding long and short dry seasons. The rains generally follow the
course of the sun as it moves between the northern and southern solstice.
The regularity of the seasons is modified by local influences such as
the proximity of mountains. The seasons at Batanga, for instance, are
not so distinctly divided as at Gaboon. I am most familiar with the
climate of Gaboon, which is practically at the equator. The long wet
season begins in September, when the sun is coursing from the equator
towards the southern solstice, and continues nearly four months. The
long dry season begins in May and continues for four months. Those are
the delightful months of the year. We are accustomed to associate a dry
spell with heat and glaring sunshine. But there the brightest sunshine is
in the wet season between the showers. The dry season is both cool and
shady; so cool that the natives find it uncomfortable, while the sun is
sometimes not seen for a week. It always seems to be just about to rain.
A stranger to the climate would not risk going half a mile without taking
an umbrella. But he is perfectly safe. There is not the least danger of
rain between May and September. Often in the dry season I have travelled
through the midday hours in a canoe, lying full length on a travelling
rug with my face towards the sky; for there is no glare: the mellow
light has the quality of moonlight.
But a strong wind prevails during the dry months, and it is the season
when the surf rages wildly on the open coast; when surf boats with cargo
are often broken on the beach and the native crews lose their limbs
and sometimes their lives. The ground though very dry does not become
parched. The rustling of the palms or of the thatch roof at the close of
the season is like the heavy pattering of rain, so much so that sometimes
one is deceived in spite of himself. The dry season is healthiest for
white men, but not for the native. They are not sufficiently protected
against the wind, and pneumonia is common. However much we prefer the dry
season, yet we weary of it towards the close, and like the natives we
fairly shout for joy at the first shower.
The wet season is very disagreeable. The rain falls in streams, and,
as Miss Kingsley says, “does not go into details with drops.” There
are several torrential downpours each day and night. In the intervals
during the day the sky is swept clear of clouds and the sun shines the
strongest. The atmosphere is extremely humid and sultry. With the least
exertion, or with no exertion, one perspires profusely, and there is no
evaporation. One ought to change his clothing several times a day; but
most of us cannot afford to devote so much time to comfort. Frequent
tornadoes often cool the air in the evening.
The most uncomfortable of all places during the rain is on shipboard. The
rain will at length find its way through any thickness of awning, and the
delightful deck must be deserted for the stifling saloon. Our paradise is
transformed to a purgatory. The rain is accompanied by a heavy mist and
as it dashes upon the surface of the sea it lifts a cloud of spray that
hides the water beneath and we seem to be drifting courseless through
cloudland, with our horizon immediately around us. As it continues day
after day everybody becomes depressed; and as for the captain, it is
scarcely safe to speak to him. One day when I was travelling in the wet
season, the captain lost a whole day prowling up and down the coast
looking for a place which was completely hidden in the rain and mist. He
was angry; and an angry captain is a fearsome object. He is accustomed to
being obeyed, and is master of everything else but the fourth element,
which occasionally thwarts his plans and derides his authority. At a
moment when the rain slackened from a torrent to a heavy shower, a
passenger put his head out on deck and remarked: “It’s not raining,
Captain.”
“Well, if that is not rain,” thundered the disgusted captain, “it is the
best imitation of rain that I have ever seen.”
The subject upon which conversation dwells longest and to which it ever
returns with gruesome interest is the African fever. The news that is
brought on board at each port is like a death bulletin. To the new comer
it is all very trying and very tragical. But he cannot escape from it;
for the Old Coaster (and a man who has been out once before is an Old
Coaster) assumes the grave responsibility of impressing deeply upon
the mind of the tenderfoot the serious conditions which he is about to
confront. It is impressed upon him that the fever is inevitable, and
that the young and healthy die first; that temperate habits instead of
being a defense are a snare, and that not to drink is simply suicide.
Missionaries die like flies. But then of course it comes to the same
thing in the end; there is no escape; and to worry about it, or to expect
it, will bring on a fever in two days. Exposure to the sun is sure to
induce fever; and yet none die so quickly as those who carry umbrellas.
Quinine is useless except to brace the mind of those who believe in
it; but it isn’t any good. And when you get fever, you can’t escape, by
leaving the coast in a hurry, even if there should be a steamer in port,
which is very unlikely; for a man going aboard with fever is sure to die.
Perhaps it is the horror of being buried at sea that kills him.
“How is that new clerk whom I brought out for you last voyage?” asks the
captain, of a trader who has come aboard for breakfast.
“Poor chap!” says the trader, “he didn’t live two weeks. Another came on
the next steamer, and he pegged out in three weeks. They ought to be sent
out two at a time.”
“You remember so-and-so,” says another; “well, poor chap! (and as soon
as he says “poor chap” we know the rest) he was found dead in bed one
morning since you were here. They had used up all the lumber that they
had laid away for coffins, so they took half the partition out of his
house, to make a coffin; and then they didn’t get it long enough.
The next fellow is now living alone in that same house with half the
partition gone, and of course he can’t help reflecting that there is just
enough left to make another coffin; and, indeed, to judge by the way he
was looking when I saw him last they may have used it by this time.”
“Have you heard about the poor chap that so-and-so sent up country? Well,
he died a few weeks ago. He was all alone except for the native workmen,
and as soon as he died they ran away in fear. The agent got word of it
and started up country immediately; but the rats had found him first.”
It is only when one reflects that all these “poor chaps” were somebody’s
sons, and somebody’s brothers, that one realizes the tragedy of the
coast. These little conversations on board seem like the final obsequies
performed for those who are dead.
“Do men ever die of anything except fever?” asks a new comer.
“O yes,” says the Old Coaster. “Let me see: there’s dysentery,—poor
C died of that last week; and there’s enlarged spleen, abscesses,
pneumonia, consumption (one falls into consumption here very quickly, and
often when he least expects it), kraw-kraw and smallpox (smallpox has
just broken out at Fernando Po: that’s our next port), not to speak of
seven or eight varieties of itch, which some men have all the time; but
itch doesn’t kill. By the way, I suppose you know that in this climate it
is necessary that bodies be buried a few hours after death.”
In the speech of the coast there is no such thing as reticence, and soon
enough we all learn to speak with brutal bluntness. The only comfort
held out to the new comer is the hope that he will receive, as a sort of
obituary, the kindly designation, “Poor Chap.”
I have never argued for the salubrity of the African climate; nor am I
disposed to protest the general opinion that it is “the worst climate
in the world.” The white man never becomes acclimatized, and never will
until he develops another kind of blood. One lives face to face with
the constant and proximate possibility of death as long as he is on the
coast. It is an unnatural consciousness, which, when prolonged through
years, tends to become fixed and permanent even when one has removed from
the circumstances that were its occasion. And yet, the conversation of
the Old Coaster is liable to make an exaggerated impression. In the first
place, the impression is natural that the climate being so unhealthful
must also be uncomfortable. But, in reality, while several months of
the year are extremely uncomfortable, the greater part of the year
is tolerably comfortable and there are several months of exceedingly
pleasant weather. Neither is the heat so great as is generally supposed.
With the greatest effort on my part, I never succeeded in disabusing my
friends of the notion that I was slowly roasting to death in Africa.
With every hot spell in America, when the thermometer was standing at
100°, their thoughts turned towards me in profound sympathy. While
I have at times suffered with the heat and there have been times on
the river, between high banks, cut off from the breeze, when I nearly
fainted, and one occasion upon which I was quite overcome, yet as a rule
I lived comfortably by day; and the nights are always cool. The maximum
temperature on the coast is from 86° to 88°, Fahrenheit, and even such a
temperature is rare. One ought to add, however, that owing to the extreme
humidity this temperature in Africa is incomparably hotter than the same
temperature in America. It is the sultriness of the hottest weather that
makes it insufferable. West Africa is heated by steam and without the
medium of radiators. The uniformity of the climate is pleasurable, and is
very strange to us of northern latitudes. One may reckon upon the weather
to a certainty. Within the limits of a given season there is scarcely any
variation from day to day.
The insalubrity is due to the deadly malaria of the reeking,
mosquito-infested swamps. Mr. Henry Savage Landor, after a journey across
Africa, announces to the world that he is a strong disbeliever in the
mosquito theory of malaria. But, that the mosquito is the agent of the
malaria bacillus, medical science no longer regards as theory, but as
fact, a fact established by the most elaborate and painstaking series of
experiments ever conducted in the interest of medical science. Mr. Landor
also tells us that he and his men were frequently attacked by malarial
fever, becoming so weak that they could not raise their hands; but in
every case a dose of castor-oil effected a cure in a few hours. He is
therefore a strong advocate of castor-oil, but disbelieves in quinine.
The use of castor-oil is no new discovery. Every man who has had any
experience in West Africa takes it at the approach of a fever. But there
is no substitute for quinine. And the medical men of the coast will agree
in saying that life depends always upon the judicious use of it.
In recent years there has been such progress in the knowledge of malaria,
and how to meet malarial conditions, that the record of West Africa is
continually improving. Then again, missionary societies, following the
example of the various European governments, have ceased to make war
upon the inevitable and have greatly reduced the term of service. In
American missions the term is generally three years; in English missions
it is a year and a half or two years; and in the government service the
term is usually much shorter than in the missions. My first experience
in Africa was not a fair test of the climate. We were engaged in opening
a new mission station in the bush, and the conditions were the most
unhealthful. Our food was the coarsest,—it was several mouths before
we tasted bread; our accommodations were the poorest,—part of the time
we lived in a tent that did not protect us against the heavy rains;
and besides there were forced journeys to the coast in the wet season
with incidental hardships. After a succession of fevers and sensational
recoveries I fled from the coast with broken health at the end of a year
and a half.
But the second time, when I lived at Gaboon, I stayed five and a half
years,—far too long. During the first three years at Gaboon T had
fever once every two or three months. I became very familiar with its
preceding symptoms—physical exhaustion for several days, such that the
least effort induced painful weariness and a frequent heavy sigh; aching
of head and limbs; chills alternating rapidly with feverish heat, and a
terrible temper. At the end of the third year I had a very severe fever
which, instead of yielding to quinine the third day, became much worse,
and the natives carried me in a hammock to the French hospital. There I
remained for five weeks. But after that I had no more fever, not even
once, though I remained in Africa more than two years longer, which
would have been absolutely impossible if the fevers had continued. The
difference was in my use of quinine. At first I took quinine only with
the attacks of fever, and then I took an enormous quantity. But in the
later period I kept myself immune by taking it daily whether I was ill or
not. I took five grains every night for those several years. People are
usually greatly surprised at this and ask if such an amount of quinine
was not a terrible strain upon the constitution. It was, without doubt;
but not so great a strain as malarious blood, and frequent fevers, and
the shock of very large doses of quinine at such times. If I had not
been in greatly reduced health before I began to take it regularly it
is not likely that I should have required nearly so much. But this is
anticipating; for we are still on the outward voyage.
In general the coast of West Africa is not beautiful; although it has a
weird fascination for those who have once lived on it. It is low-lying,
straight and monotonous: a gleaming line of white surf, a golden strip
of sandy beach, a dark green line of forest—and that is all, for days
and days and days, and for some two thousand miles, only broken at
long intervals by the great estuary that is a peculiar characteristic
of African rivers, and by low hills far away on the horizon. Many of
the traders are living, not in the white settlements, but in single
trading-houses and far apart along this lonely shore. They like it or
they hate it. To some it is an idle dream-life that they enjoy, and to
others it is a nightmare that they abhor. Some of those who came aboard
looked like haunted men. Each day is exactly like all the others, and
the natural surroundings never vary however far they may wander along
the beach—three endless lines of colour stretching away to eternity, the
dull green forest front, the yellow strip of sand, the white surge of
the foaming surf, and beyond it the boundless sea. Even in the darkest
night the forest still shows as a blacker rim against the darkness, and
the surf-line is white with a whiteness that no night can obscure. The
unceasing sound of it is like low thunder, and unless one loves it he
must often think what a relief it would be if it would stop but for one
brief moment, and how the silence would “sink like music on his heart.”
In such places, and in the bush, the traders sometimes wear only pajamas,
by day as well as night. There are natives enough around, and there is
always noise enough; but it is the noise that only emphasizes solitude.
And one were better to live entirely alone than to be subjected to the
influence of African degradation without the moral restraints of home and
the society of equals, unless his religious belief be something more than
a mere acceptance of tradition, and his principles something more than
conventional morality. There is a better class of natives whose society
might relieve loneliness, but the trader, as a rule, does not gather this
class around him.
Some are pleased to say very hard things about the traders. But he who
would judge justly must have a mind well attempered to the claims of
morality on the one hand, and on the other, to the allowance due to the
frailty of human nature when placed in circumstances of unparalleled
temptation. No man ever realizes the moral restraints of good society
until they are all withdrawn; nor how insidious the influence even of the
most repulsive vices when they have become so common to our eyes that
they cease to shock: the moral safety of most men is in being shocked.
Of course there are bad men among the traders, and some _very_ bad; and
the rumshop which, wherever the white man has penetrated, rises like
a death-spectre in the landscape, is an abomination to which it would
be difficult to do injustice. But it is not chiefly the trader who is
responsible for the rum traffic. Many of them would be thankful if the
various governments would entirely prohibit its importation. Moreover,
they sell a thousand things besides rum,—as many useful things, and
necessary to civilization, as the native is willing to buy. The traders
are all men of courage—we can at least admire them for that—and many
are honest and many are kind; and it were far better to refrain from
condemning the dissolute than that in so doing one should soil the
reputation of an honest man.
We called at Cape Coast Castle, Accra, Lagos, Monrovia and several other
places where there are no harbours, and where the surf is so violent that
passengers rarely go ashore unless these places are their destination.
The longest stop on the voyage was at Old Calabar, sixty miles up the
Calabar River, where we stayed five days. Old Calabar when I was there
first was the English capital of the Oil Rivers Protectorate, which
afterwards became a part of Nigeria. The heat was insufferable; for,
while it is possible to keep cool on the hills where the white men live,
it is not possible in the low channel of the river, and especially in the
cabin of a steamer. The name _Old Calabar_ has a fine far-away sound,
like _Cairo_ or _Bagdad_, and suggests a place of romantic and legendary
interest. And indeed the tales of the _Arabian Nights_ scarcely surpass
the real history of the native despots that have ruled at Old Calabar
even down to the death of King Duke in our own times, when, despite
the presence of the English, it is said that five hundred natives were
stealthily put to death to furnish the king a seemly retinue in the other
world.
The run up the Calabar River is a pleasant variety after the long weeks
on the sea. Here we first saw the crocodile, which abounds in all the
largest rivers of Africa. It is the ugliest beast in the world. Lying
on a bank of mud, its head always towards the water, and among old logs
and roots, it looks itself like some gnarled and slimy log, and is
difficult to discern. But at the sound of a gun or the near approach of
the steamer it slides down into the water quick as a flash. Most of the
passengers get their guns and take a few shots at them. In every case the
passenger declares that he has shot the crocodile without a doubt; and
as the creature disappears into the water there is of course no way of
disproving the statement. But when we were coming down the river there
seemed to be as many as ever.
The Spanish Island of Fernando Po is the most beautiful place in West
Africa. Seen from the harbour in the early morning light or in the soft
glow of the evening it is a fairy-land of tropical beauty. The bottom
of the semicircular harbour is the crater of an extinct volcano and is
very deep. The bank is covered down to the water with a lavish growth of
ferns, and trailing vines, and flowers of many colours; while above the
palm tree is abundant—the most graceful of all trees, and the billowy
bamboo tosses in the breeze. In the middle and extending backwards is the
white town of Saint Isabel, and behind the town stands a great solitary
mountain of green, which rises to a height of ten thousand feet. Like
other fairy-lands it requires the illusion of distance. It appears best
from the harbour, and that is true of most tropical beauty. The soil is
the most fertile in West Africa. I have seen plantains there full twice
as large as any that I have seen elsewhere. For some years it has been
producing large quantities of cocoa, most of which is shipped to Spain
and thence over the world in the form of chocolate.
Africa is a land of extremes. From Fernando Po crossing again to the
mainland we went fifteen miles up the Rio del Rey to the ugliest place
in the world. I have also been in the Rio del Rey several times on the
homeward voyage, when the steamers usually spend a day there taking on
palm-oil and rubber,—a coast steamer would go to Hades for palm-oil
and take all the passengers along with it. There is no native village
here. The three trading houses receive the produce which the natives
bring down the river. All around is one vast mangrove swamp, an ideal
mosquito-incubator. The trading-houses are erected upon a foundation made
with the ashes of passing steamers, which were saved and deposited here.
The foliage of the mangrove is thin, and at a distance resembles our
poplar. But the greater part of the mangrove is a solid mass of roots,
almost wholly above ground and more nearly vertical than horizontal. The
trees seem to be standing on stilts, six or eight feet long, as if they
were trying to keep out of the water. There are also aerial roots, long,
leafless and straight, depending from all the branches, even the highest,
which as they reach the water spread into several fingers. At the high
tide the roots are submerged and the ugliness of the swamp concealed
for a while. But as the tide ebbs the roots appear dripping and slimy
until they are completely exposed: and as the water still recedes long
stretches of fœtid mud-bank appear. The smell has been accumulating for
ages. A low-lying mist rises from the oozing banks, and now and then
stretches a stealthy arm out over the river, or creeps from root to root.
Some one standing near exclaimed: “O heavens, what a place!” I could only
wonder at the geographical direction of his thoughts; for my thoughts
were of Gehenna and the river Styx. The mangrove swamp is surely the
worst that nature has ever been known to do. My feeling of disgust was
intensified by many experiences of after years. Sometimes approaching a
town at the ebbing tide, a strong native has carried me on his back from
the boat to the solid bank, across a waste of sludge, and sometimes he
has fallen in the act. Other times, when one could not wade, they have
thrown me a line and have dragged me across in a canoe; and I felt that
if the canoe should capsize I would sink almost forever; or, perhaps
be dug up twenty thousand years hence and exhibited as a pre-historic
specimen. “Every prospect pleases,” reads the hymn, “and only man is
vile.” But the worst débris of humanity is not half so vile as the
prospect of a mangrove swamp at low tide.
The death record of the Rio del Rey is appalling. Every time that I have
been there—seven times—the traders that came on board looked like dying
men; and often their limbs were bandaged for ulcers or kraw-kraw. I was
once on board when an English missionary and his wife debarked at this
place, expecting to go on up the river, beyond the swamps, to the mission
station in the hills of the interior. The lady was becoming more and more
fearful during the voyage, and the effect upon her of this lower river
was such that she was almost hysterical. She remained on board all day
until we were about to weigh the anchor. The first impression counts for
much in the matter of health and resistance to the fever; and the sight
of that shrinking woman going ashore in such a place was pitiable; for we
all felt that she was doomed. After a few months, however, she escaped
with her life; but she was never able to return to Africa. The mangrove
swamp stretches along the greater part of the coast of West Africa, and
along the rivers where the water is salt or brackish because of the flow
of the tide from the sea.
The next experience after the Rio del Rey was a greater contrast than
ever. We proceeded forty miles southward and called at Victoria, in the
German colony of Cameroon. The harbour at Victoria is divided from the
sea by a semicircle of islands, some small and some larger. One of these
islands, a large barren rock, when seen from a certain part of the beach,
bears a singular though grotesque resemblance to Queen Victoria as she
appeared when seated upon the throne. It is presumably from this that the
place was given the name _Victoria_; for the English traders were there
before Germany occupied the territory.
Immediately behind the harbour is the great Mount Cameroon, one of the
greatest mountains in the world, a solitary peak, which rises immediately
from the sea to a height of 13,700 feet; which is twelve hundred feet
higher than Teneriffe. It was evening as we approached, and before we had
entered the harbour it was night; for in the tropics day darkens quickly
into night and there is no twilight. But on the top of the mountain, far
above our night, we still saw the rose-red of the lingering day. The moon
rose behind the mountain and we steered into the shadow of it closer and
closer, for by night it seemed much nearer than it really was. The number
of passengers had diminished to a very few, and they were silent; not a
voice was heard on the deck. It was the strangest silence I have ever
experienced; not the mere negation of sound, but like something positive,
and diffused from the mountain itself; a silence more impressive than
speech; the silence of an infinite comprehension. The engines stopped:
we were ready to cast the anchor, and I found myself wondering how the
captain’s voice would sound when in a moment he would shout: “Let go.”
“How fit a place,” someone at length remarked, “for the sounding of the
last trumpet and the final judgment! before this mountain which has
looked down unchanged upon all the generations that have come and passed
away since the world began.”
It is not always silent, however, for the natives, with some sense of
its majesty, call it the “Throne of Thunder.” Fierce storms wage battle
around its middle height, with terrific peals of thunder such as I
have never heard elsewhere. Sometimes for many days it wraps itself in
clouds and darkness, completely invisible. I was once a whole week at
various ports within a few miles of it, and did not catch a glimpse of
it. The clouds wrapped it about to the very base, and there was nothing
to indicate that it was there except the unusual frequency of storm and
thunder. Then, one day when we were at Victoria, the weather brightened
so much that we expected soon to see the peak. I asked a native
attendant, a young man, to watch for it and tell me if he saw it. At
length, while I was sitting on deck watching for it myself, he exclaimed:
“The peak! Mr. Milligan, the peak!”
“Where?” I said. “I don’t see it.”
“Look higher,” he exclaimed.
“I am looking as high as I can. I am looking as high as the sky.”
“Look higher than the sky,” he cried, with native simplicity; “the sky is
not high.”
I lifted my eyes still higher towards the zenith, and there, through
an expanding rift in the heavy cloud, I saw the peak, calm, bright
and beautiful, just as it had been all the time, even when hidden by
low-hanging clouds. I have often thought of it since. God is higher than
our highest thought, higher than our sky. Our habits of mind and heart,
even our theology may hide Him from our sight, until by some unwonted
experience these are shattered, and through the rent clouds of our former
sky we see the living God.
A short time before I left Africa I spent ten days at a sanitarium of the
Basle Mission, on the side of Cameroon, between three and four thousand
feet high. I had then been in Africa for years and had tropical blood in
my veins, and I suffered much with the cold. There was so much covering
on my bed that I was fairly sore with the weight of it, and yet I was
cold. The storms raged frequently, hiding the heavens from those below
and the earth from us; for we were above the storm-cloud, and dwelt in
light and sunshine. The detonation of thunder beneath us was like the
muttering rumble of an earthquake.
The German government has built a splendid road from the base of the
mountain up to the sanitarium. The road is well graded, and winds upwards
like a continuous S, covering a distance of sixteen miles in the ascent.
I was delighted when I found that the missionaries would provide me
a mule upon which I could ride up to the sanitarium. I am a lover of
horses, and often during those years in Africa I had been homesick for
the sight of one. The mule, when he appeared, was sleek and strong; I
put my arms around his neck and patted him and caressed him as if he
were a long-lost friend. Then I mounted him and started up the road, an
attendant following behind with another mule and carrying my baggage.
The mule which I rode was deeply imbued with Longfellow’s sentiment:
“Home-keeping hearts are happiest; to stay at home is best.” He climbed
slowly and reluctantly, and by some mysterious operation of the law of
gravitation his head had a persistent tendency to turn about and swing
down the grade. I soon realized that I could go faster without him, and
that the strength which I was expending in keeping him in the path of
duty was greater than that which I would require in going my way alone;
and I had no strength to spare. Therefore after three or four miles in
his company, finding his disposition fixed and unaspiring, I dismounted,
and leaving him in the road for the guide, I walked the rest of the
sixteen miles.
But ten days later, when I was returning to Victoria, the same mule
was again put at my disposal, and I gladly accepted him. For I was
much stronger, and I was going in the direction of his own desire; and
besides it was down-hill all the way, and I knew that he was too lazy to
hold back. The grade was not such that there was any danger to him from
running; so I galloped the sixteen miles, and had the ride of my life. I
could have shouted with delight. After a few miles I took a severe pain
in my side. I dismounted and lay down on the ground. In a little while
I was all right again, and taking off a pair of stout suspenders I tied
them as tight as possible around my waist with a large clumsy knot at my
side. I had already discarded my coat, and my only upper garment was a
woolen undershirt with short sleeves. The suspenders around my waist gave
me a new accession of strength and I galloped all the rest of the way,
with the same pleasure, and entered Victoria where I made something of a
sensation. My last association, therefore, with the great mountain, was
not an impression of its solemn majesty, but the memory of a jolly good
ride.
[Illustration: MISSION HOUSE AT BATANGA.]
I was glad when at last we reached Batanga, and the long voyage was
over. Our attention was drawn to the canoes in which men were fishing,
and for which Batanga is famous. The quiet morning sea was dotted with
them within a radius of a mile around us, some of them being two miles
from the shore. The Batanga canoe is the smallest on the entire coast.
It is almost as light as bark; the men come to the beach in the morning
carrying their canoes on their heads. It is quite an entertainment to see
them going out through the surf, and I have seen a canoe capsized half a
dozen times in the attempt. Later in the day, when the surf is heavier,
they cannot get out at all. At sea the man straddles his canoe and lets
his legs hang in the water; and in this fashion he sometimes ventures two
miles from the shore.
We anchored nearly a mile from the beach and were sent ashore in a
surf-boat manned by native Krumen. There is no harbour at Batanga, and
the landing in the surf was the most exciting of my African experiences
until that time. As we entered the surf the boat stood still for a
moment, until caught up on the breast of a breaker, and—“Then, like
a pawing horse let go, she made a sudden bound,” and we were carried
towards the beach with violent speed that looked like destruction for
us all. The crest of the breaker passed under us, however, when we were
close to the beach, and immediately the Krumen leaped into the water, and
with all their might ran the boat up on the beach far enough to escape
the next wave. Then, while most of them placed themselves around the boat
to steady it, the rest of them presented their backs to the passengers
and yelled at them to jump on and ride ashore.
As the pitching boat was poised for a moment, standing on the gunwale,
I seized a Kruman firmly by the hair with both my hands, and leaped
upon him, astride his neck with my legs over his shoulders. I had put
on a fresh white suit for the occasion, notwithstanding that I had been
instructed by the Old Coasters that the Kruman, with his unique sense of
humour, makes it a point to drop the new comer into the surf and present
him to his friends ashore as much bedraggled and beflustered as possible.
I also had on the inevitable cork helmet, so bulky, and drooping over
the eyes. Most men unaccustomed to them feel as awkward as they would in
a Gainsborough hat. The Kruman, I am glad to report, did not drop me;
perhaps because I kept so firm a hold on his hair that he did not know
how much of it he might lose by a sudden or unexpected separation from
me. It was probably my own fault, and not his, that when he stooped to
deposit me, I missed the trick of lighting on my feet, which I afterwards
learned. I reached the ground on all fours, in the wet sand. The white
helmet fell from my head and rolled off towards the sea and I followed
it, running quadrupedal fashion, and snatched it from an approaching wave.
A moment later I was exchanging greetings with a group of missionaries
who had gathered on the beach.
At this landing on the beach I observed that we were standing under a
cocoa-palm. I looked up, and lo, there was no snake hanging from it.
Now, the most vivid impression—in fact the only impression of Africa
that I had carried thus far through life, except that of sunny fountains
rolling down golden strands, was made by a picture in the old-fashioned
geography; in which there were crowded together, with contempt of
perspective, an elephant, a hippopotamus, a rhinoceros, a lion, a
leopard, a gorilla, a chimpanzee, several other monkeys, and a python
hanging from a tree.
“They are all here,” said some one, in explanation; “but they are not so
thick on the ground as you may have supposed.”
[Illustration: REV. A. C. GOOD, Ph.D.
_Dr. Good died at Efulen at the age of thirty-seven. He was a man of the
Livingstone type._]
III
BUSH TRAVEL
Upon our arrival at Batanga we at once commenced the preparations for
a journey into the bush, than which nothing could have been a greater
contrast to the long, idle voyage on the sea; for our physical strength
and powers of endurance were to be taxed more than ever before.
There were two others besides myself, Mr. Kerr, a new arrival, and the
Rev. A. C. Good, an intrepid and consecrated missionary whose name was
already known throughout the United States. Dr. Good had been twelve
years in Africa, working most of the time among the Fang of the Ogowé
River, but had lately come to Batanga for the purpose of opening the Bulu
interior. The language of the Fang was so much like the Bulu that Dr.
Good could converse with the latter from the first. Before the arrival of
Mr. Kerr and myself Dr. Good had already made one journey into the Bulu
country to a distance of seventy-five miles, where he chose the site of
the first station, afterwards named Efulen.
In those days nearly all the distance between Efulen and the beach was
covered with dense unbroken forest. None of the Bulu as far as we knew
had ever been to the coast; and no white man had ever entered that part
of the interior. The Mabeya tribe, living immediately behind the coast
tribe, were already in trade relations with the Bulu; so that there were
roads, that is, foot-paths, through the forest. But they were seldom
used, and were only a little better than none at all. The present good
bush-road from Batanga to Efulen did not exist in those days. We made it
ourselves after we had been there nearly a year, and it has been greatly
improved from time to time. The first road which we followed made a great
detour to the south, and we walked, according to Dr. Good’s calculation,
seventy-five miles from Batanga to Efulen, although the distance by the
present straight road is less than sixty miles.
And, by the way, before we enter the forest, bidding a temporary farewell
to civilization, we do well to take leave of this highly civilized term,
“mile.” It is more than superfluous in such a forest: it is positively
misleading. Such roads are not measured in terms of linear distance, but
only in measures of time. To say that a place is distant half a day’s
journey, or five hours, is to speak intelligibly; but to say that a place
is five miles distant is to give not the slightest information as to the
time it will take to reach it. On the few good roads which in recent
years have been improved by the government one might perhaps walk thirty
miles a day: on the worst roads that I have attempted I could not walk
five miles a day with equal labour.
Men can now walk to Efulen in three days over the present road, and
I with others have done it in that time, although in greatly reduced
health; yet I was not nearly so tired as when I used to walk it in five
days over the road that we first followed. The greater distance was by
no means the only difference; the chief difference was in the quality
of the road. The first road was so obscure that in many places we could
scarcely follow it; and in some places it was so completely overgrown
that we had to cut our way through, making the road as we went, for which
reason we always kept men with cutlasses ahead of the caravan. Much also
depends upon the season. A road might be very good and easy to travel in
the dry season, but almost, or quite, impassable in the wet season, when
the forest is flooded, when the streams have become rivers and the rivers
have far overspread their banks, so that the traveller is wading in water
much of the time. In opening a new station we could not choose our time
for travel, and it so happened that in my year and a half at Efulen I
only made two round trips in the dry season.
The African forest is the greatest in the world, both in the area covered
and in the density of growth. The tribes with whom I am familiar conceive
of the whole world as a vast bush intersected with rivers. The tribes
are moving ever from the interior towards the sea; and some of those who
have long been coast tribes still retain in the idiom of their language
the record of their former ignorance. The word for “river” is used to
designate the sea, and “the whole world” is “the whole bush.” A man will
speak of his country as his “bush,” and the white man’s country he calls
“the white man’s bush.” God, they say, loves “the whole bush.” Heaven, or
the other world, is “the other bush,” and in singing “I have a Father in
the promised land,” they say: “I have a Father in the bush beyond.”
One who is accustomed to the maple, beech, oak and pine, finds the
African forest strangely unfamiliar. There are extremes of soft and hard
woods; and one will soon observe that as a rule the soft woods have large
leaves, while most of the hard woods have small leaves. Teak, mahogany,
lignum vitæ, ebony and camwood are characteristic. The most striking and
beautiful tree of the forest is a species of cotton wood. It grows an
enormous height, with a silver-gray trunk like a column of granite, and
is supported by immense buttresses. In the primeval forest, that which
has not at any time been cut down for man’s habitation, the foliage is
very high and the gray trunks suggest the columns of a cathedral. The
branches above interlace, forming a canopy of foliage and excluding the
sun. Cable vines of various sizes, many of them six or eight inches in
diameter, lash the trees together, ascending the tree trunks in a spiral
coil like an endless python and sometimes strangling them to death, then
swinging from tree to tree in loops and coils, gnarled and twisted. The
foliage and flowers of these spread through the tree tops, making the
dim light below more dim, and from the swinging cables an undisciplined
profusion of other vines and various hanging plants depend in festoons
and draperies, all interwoven in bewildering confusion. The ground is
covered with a thick compost of rotting leaves and branches and insects.
Every few yards a giant tree trunk lies prostrate and is filled with
myriad insects that will soon devour it.
Lightning sometimes strikes the tallest trees, which come crashing down
bringing half a dozen others with them. Then in this open place where
the sunlight reaches the ground there shoots up with amazing rapidity
a tangled undergrowth, from which young trees race upwards to secure
the light and air in such rivalry and struggle that the weak are soon
strangled or crowded to death, and the battle is to the swift.
The poet William Watson in melodious verses prays for—
“The advent of that morn divine
When nations may as forests grow,
Wherein the oak hates not the pine,
Nor beeches wish the cedars woe,
But all in their unlikeness blend
Confederate to one golden end.”
No one will deny that this is beautiful poetry; but it is deplorably
false science. Nothing could be more untrue to the facts. The oak, the
pine and the cedar, considered as living things with conscious aims and
individual interests (for that is how the poet would have us consider
them), do hate each other with a hatred to which there is no parallel in
human society. Men sacrifice for each other, and we even have martyrs.
But in the forest there is no sacrifice, no martyrdom, nor do trees
ever confederate; but each fights for itself in a ceaseless and savage
struggle. And nowhere else in the forest world is the struggle for
existence so remorseless as in the tropic zone of Africa; for nowhere
else is variety so profuse and growth so rapid.
In the primeval forest the undergrowth is not dense and travel is not
so difficult. But as the natives are always moving their towns and
abandoning old sites, a considerable portion of the forest is the growth
of a few years; and here the undergrowth is so dense and matted that
there is no possibility of passing through it except as one tunnels his
way with the cutlass, and the jungle closes on both sides of the path
like a wall. This is the usual character of the bush along the rivers.
There are not many flowers in the forest. The most common is the orchid.
But flowers are numerous in the clearings and more open places. In
particular there is a lovely convolvulus of delicate lavender that climbs
over all the lower growth of the clearing and blooms in such profusion
as to give its colour to the landscape. The impression of the beauty or
the ugliness of the forest depends largely upon whether one sees it in
the wet or the dry season. In the dry season, travelling on a fairly good
road, the idea of the cathedral with its solemn majesty was often present
with me; I was impressed with its beauty and enjoyed the solitude. But in
the wet season I loathed it. Who could enjoy, or even recognize, beauty
while standing knee-deep in mud? Its stillness is not the stillness that
speaks to the mind and heart. It is dull and dead.
We had twenty-eight native carriers (whom we must call _porters_ when
speaking to Englishmen) each with a load of about forty pounds. They
often carry more than twice that weight over the present road to
Efulen; seventy pounds is the standard load. But besides the better
roads there is also this great difference that the natives were at that
time new to the work of carrying heavy loads, to which they have since
become accustomed. The present young men have grown up in the work.
Besides our personal effects and food supplies we carried trade-goods,
with which to buy food and building material from the natives, and to
pay native workmen. There was no currency in that interior tribe. We
paid out principally salt, beads, and brass rods, the latter used for
ornaments for the legs and arms. After a year there was some demand for
cloth—highly coloured prints—and other articles for which there was no
use at first.
We were dressed in suits of denim or other cheap material. I bought my
suit at a trading-house in Batanga for two dollars, and packed away all
my better clothing. Beneath the coat I wore a heavy woollen undershirt,
the only proper kind for the tropics, and proper all the time, no matter
what else one may choose or discard. We were glad to discard the helmet
while travelling in the forest, and to substitute a felt hat. Tastes
differ widely as to the best footwear; but I like best for such a road a
pair of canvas shoes with rubber soles, alternating with stout leather
shoes every second or third day. Each man carries a wooden stick or
staff about five feet in length. When a man has chosen and trimmed for
himself a stick that exactly suits him, he becomes attached to it with a
sentimental regard, according to the distance he has travelled with it
and the journeys he has made. He is sensitive to any criticism passed
upon it; and no experienced bush-traveller will make disparaging remarks
about another man’s staff, but around the camp-fire they will vie with
each other in praising each his own. I remember mine very well and I
would give much to have it now.
Perhaps this attachment is the stronger because, as a rule, we do not
carry watches in that country. Most watches will run only for a short
time. A fine gold watch is the most useless of all; the very cheapest
will run longest. When I began to tell this in America, I found that
I was sacrificing my reputation for accuracy of statement: whereupon
I stated the facts to a jeweller who, after consideration, said there
was a very plain explanation, namely, that the hair-spring of the more
expensive movements is usually finer and more closely coiled than that of
the cheaper watches, so fine that the least rust upon it would interfere
with its motion.
Our outfit for the road was very light. This was Dr. Good’s habit and
with me it was a kind of instinct. We were measuring our strength against
the forces of the forest, testing our ability to endure and to wrest from
the forest itself the means of enduring. Having this feeling, to carry
along the ready-made comforts of civilization seems like taking a mean
advantage of nature. Some few things must be taken. But the opinions of
the wisest differ as to what those few things should be, and each man
ardently believes in, and advocates his own outfit. The explanation is
that nothing of the outfit except food is an absolute necessity. Other
things, however important, are of the nature of comforts; and what is
necessary to one man’s comfort, another can often do without.
One may suggest for such a journey a good water-proof bag containing a
sweater, extra socks and pajamas, and two blankets. A good rubber blanket
is a necessity if one expects to sleep in the open forest. Canned foods,
of course, are used, and for cooking utensils, a frying-pan and a
sauce-pan will suffice for three, and a cup, tin plate, knife, fork and
spoon for each. Several cutlasses are necessary for clearing the road,
preparing beds, cutting fire-wood and other uses. Matches also must be
taken and kept in a dry place. A few towels and toilet articles complete
the necessary outfit. On our first journey we took camp-beds, but only
because we had need of them at Efulen. I never carried one again.
Besides this general and common outfit each man nearly always has some
one article that nobody else carries but himself, and that, in his mind,
is more important than anything else. I do not remember what Mr. Kerr’s
_indispensable_ was, for we never walked together except this once, it
being necessary that either one of us should stay at the station. Mine,
however, was a pair of leather gloves, at which Dr. Good used to laugh;
for we travelled often together. But they saved me much loss of blood and
the pain of torn hands from the brambles and long briers that stretched
across the path, and they also enabled me to protect my face from them
by pushing them aside better than I could have done with bare hands. Dr.
Good’s indispensable was a mosquito-net with canopy and sides which he
also urged upon me as a necessity and which I insisted was a superfluity.
There were no mosquitoes in our camping-places in the forest; but he used
the net to protect against damp and against any slight motion of the air,
for one takes cold very easily and the least cold is liable to induce
fever. We had many a good-natured “scrap” over these hobbies; but neither
of us ever converted the other. There was, however, one article with
which I was always well supplied and for which Dr. Good himself usually
thanked me before the end of a journey, and that was the indispensable
safety-pin. I never foresaw any particular use for it, but many uses
unforeseen invariably emerged as we travelled. Some travellers carry
a piece of oiled baize in a convenient and accessible place. It can be
used to sit down on; for one can never sit on the ground, even if it is
dry, because of insects. But its special use is for an apron, which is
attached with safety-pins and worn in the morning through the dripping
shrubbery. If one is wearing high shoes he can even keep his feet dry by
this means.
The road that threads the forest from Batanga to Efulen was a narrow
foot-path twelve inches wide and poorly beaten. The wet season had begun
and the rains had been falling two or three weeks. The road was not even
as good as we had expected; for Dr. Good, who had fully described it,
had passed over it at the end of the dry season, when the road was at
the best. The typical African road is a contorted line that vacillates
and swerves to right and left, turning and twisting at acute angles
continually, and often for no apparent reason, as if it had been made by
some crazy person. But in such cases there was always an original reason
even when it no longer exists. For instance, the native carrying a load
finds a tree fallen across the path. It is easier for him with his load
to go around it than to climb over it. But a log does not remain long
in an African forest. Between insects and rot it is soon demolished.
Meantime, along its length there has grown up a dense undergrowth; and
rather than cut through this the native keeps to the path, now beaten,
which passed around the log; and the new traveller wonders why the path
should not be straight. It is estimated that an African road is a third
longer in each mile by reason of its crookedness. But this is not the
only peculiarity of a forest path. African trees have enormous roots, and
much of them is above ground. This is the chief obstruction, and there
are many others.
No two successive steps are the same length, nor upon the same level.
If the attention is diverted for a moment, one may stumble and fall. The
road carefully avoids the hills and keeps down in the lowest parts. The
natives, carrying loads, dislike climbing, but they have not the least
aversion to mud; indeed, it has some advantages for their bare feet.
One passes through every variety of it and every depth. The road often
follows the bed of a stream for a distance, a foot or more under water
or in mud, according to the season. Meanwhile, the part of the traveller
that is above ground is kept moist by the dripping shrubbery that meets
across the path. Many of the shrubs are covered with thorns, spines and
hooks. One of the worst of these, armed with sharp spikes and not easy
to see because it bears but little foliage, sprawls across the path just
high enough to catch the average man under the chin, where it leaves
a mark that looks as if it might have been made with a cross-cut saw.
Then, again, there are long stretches of road that are not any worse than
crossing a ploughed field after a rain. Every day, and sometimes several
times a day, we forded streams, often wading to the waist, and we rather
enjoyed it after the mud.
The deeper ravines we crossed on bridges. Bridge-building in Africa is no
great triumph of mechanical engineering. The bridges which crossed the
narrower ravines and gorges consisted simply of several long, slender
poles laid down side by side. They ought to be on a level but are not.
One is six inches or a foot higher than the other, and there is so
much spring in them that the feat of crossing is equal to a tight-rope
performance. Over extensively flooded areas where the water is too deep
to wade, a bridge of single poles is supported in forked uprights at
intervals of the length of the poles, and above the bridge a rope of vine
is stretched to hold with the hand. It happened more than once that by
some mishap we tumbled into the stream below; but the natives were quick
to fish us out.
The worst part of the journey was on the last day, through the new
clearings which the natives had made for their gardens. In these the
whole forest lay prostrate,—trees great and small, the tangled mass of
vines, and all the débris made by its crashing fall. The whole enormous
mass is left lying until the lighter parts of it dry: then it is burned
over. This burning is repeated at long intervals until at length much of
it is burned away. But by this time the natives are perhaps thinking of
deserting it and making a new garden somewhere else, or they may have
moved their town away. Meanwhile, they somehow reach the ground and plant
their cassava which flourishes in the fresh, rich soil. The difficulty in
an African garden is not to get things to grow, but to keep other things
from growing. They never hesitate to fell the forest thus across the
road, obstructing the caravans and bringing curses on their heads.
One might think on approaching a town through one of these clearings that
it had been made as a formidable defense in time of war. To go through it
is a tedious and exhausting trial. One moment the traveller is crawling
on all fours under a log; then he walks up the inclined trunk of a tree
a distance of fifty feet, then turns and follows one of its branches,
from this leaps to a branch of another tree which he follows down to
the trunk, which is perhaps ten feet above the ground, while below him
are upright sticks or broken branches upon which he may be impaled if
he falls, or at least badly bruised. From this he mounts a cross-log
and proceeds downwards to another which he follows until it brings him
five feet from the ground, when he jumps the rest of the way, crawls
under another log, proceeds a few yards on the ground, mounts another
log, follows it until he finds himself again six feet off the ground
and wondering how he will reach it; but the next moment he has already
reached it and wonders how he got there. Then he does this all over
again, and then again. I never passed through such a clearing without
getting bruised or hurt in some way. The natives with their bare feet
climb over these smooth logs better than the white man with his shoes
unless they have rubber soles; in the morning before the dew has dried
it is especially hard. It is much harder from the fact that we are no
longer in the shade of the forest, but exposed to the fierce tropical sun
unrelieved by the least breeze because of the surrounding forest.
A caravan with their heavy loads, walking through such a forest ruin,
presents a picturesque scene to the spectator. Some are crawling under
logs, some are climbing on top of them, half a dozen are walking in
procession up an inclined trunk, some are walking a log ten feet in the
air, others are twisting their way through a maze of branches and some
have fallen to the ground. With such a clearing in mind, and remembering
what has been said about African bridges, the reader will not be likely
to ask the oft-repeated question, why donkeys and horses are not more
used. The use of either would necessitate the carrying of a derrick with
rope and tackle.
This recalls to my mind an occasion some years afterwards that afforded
high amusement to some friends of mine. I had been home in America
for several years and was about to go to Africa a second time when I
received a visit from Mr. Kerr, who was home on furlough. He gave me
an enthusiastic account of the work done by the German government in
improving the Bulu roads,—although it was perhaps the road to Lolodorf
rather than that to Efulen of which he was speaking. He declared that as
compared with the first roads that he and I had travelled, I would never
recognize it as an African road; for it was “grand,”—“simply grand.”
With an outburst of enthusiasm I replied that since I might be appointed
to that station, and since the road was “simply grand,” I would buy a
pair of donkeys at the Canary Islands and take them with me.
“Man alive!” he exclaimed, “one would think you had never been in Africa;
a donkey couldn’t get over it.”
To my friends it was a hopeless paradox that a road could be “simply
grand,” and yet be impassable to a donkey. Nevertheless, about that time
they began using donkeys on the road to Efulen, so much had the roads
been improved in the intervening years, and they have been using them
more and more since that time. There is difficulty, however, in getting
them over the streams and ravines, and I am not sure whether they are
used to advantage in the wet season.
Only experience will teach a man to walk the bush-road with the least
effort; and some never learn. I can remember yet how on that first
morning I shrunk from the water and the mud, trying to keep my feet dry
and my clothes clean. I think Mr. Kerr had more sense from the beginning.
I, however, was in a state of rigidity, both physical and mental, that
would soon have exhausted me. But after a while a kindly Providence
took me in hand, sending upon me a rapid succession of blessings in
disguise. The mud lay deep in the path and I was trying to straddle it as
I walked, when, as I sprang forward to clear a wider space, some demon
was evidently permitted to catch my foot and throw it up, with the result
that I landed full length on my back in the mud. A few minutes later
the same impalpable enemy tripped me and I fell headlong on my stomach.
Still later we reached a broad, black, quiescent pond of water of the
consistency of molasses.
“Can you swim?” said Dr. Good to me; “I forgot to ask you that.”
“Yes,” said I, thinking of the glowing description he had given me of the
road, “there were several things you forgot to ask me, and some things
you forgot to tell. But even if I could not swim in clear water, I could
probably swim in that pond.”
We plunged in and were able to wade through it.
Shortly after this a drenching rain fell, a tropical downpour, that wet
us to the skin. In this rain we stood and ate our first lunch, some fresh
biscuits which one of the ladies at Batanga had baked that morning,
saying as she tied them up for us in heavy oil paper, that it would be
the last food of that sort that we would taste for a long time. But when
the rain came on, the native carrier who had them in charge appropriated
the oil paper to carry his shirt in, leaving the biscuits exposed to
the rain. As we stood eating them while it still rained, it was with
mitigated sorrow we reflected that it would be the last of that sort we
would taste for a long time. I will admit that this was a dreary outset,
but it was not unfortunate. My tenderfoot rigidity had completely relaxed
for the remainder of the day. I cared not what happened afterwards, and
walked without timidity, fearing neither mud nor water, nor height, nor
depth, nor any such thing.
No amount of experience and practice in walking long distances on our
public roads at home will insure success in walking a bush-path. In the
latter there are constant obstructions and frequent annoyances, the
obstructions requiring a peculiar physical aptitude, the annoyances
a peculiar mental aptitude. The native possesses both aptitudes to a
marvellous degree. The average native, carrying on his back a load of
forty pounds, can keep up with the average white man carrying nothing.
Yet, I have no doubt that on a turnpike, neither of them carrying
anything, the average white man would equal the native and perhaps
outwalk him. It must also be remembered that the white man is in a
hostile climate in Africa, and is never normally strong.
We started in the morning as soon as it was light enough to see the
path, that is, about six o’clock, and walked eight or nine hours a day,
stopping an hour at noon. We walked at a very rapid pace, almost on a run
where the path would permit. About four o’clock we stopped for the day,
usually at a camping-ground made by the natives in carrying produce from
the interior. These camps were open glades surrounded by the forest wall
and ceiled by the blue sky.
Two or three nights we camped beside a flowing stream, a hidden brook,
that “all night to the sleeping woods sang a quiet tune.”
After sitting ten minutes I followed along a short distance till I found
an inviting spot where the pellucid stream widened and spread over a sand
bottom, and there, all mud-bespattered, perspiring, weary and sore, I lay
down in the cool, running stream, with my clothes on. Does the reader
know what luxury is? Certainly not, unless after eight or nine hours of
walking and wading over such a road he has lain down in a cool stream
with his clothes on. I turn my face to one side and then the other, and
let the flowing water caress my cheek, and as it washes away the mire
from my clothing, it also soothes the weary limbs and sore joints and
smoothes out the wrinkles of care; and my heart answers back in a song
to the murmur of its music. This is the ancient Lethean stream in which
the weary and the aged bathed and became oblivious of pain and sorrow.
After a bath I get into woollen pajamas and slippers, and sit down a
little later to the best repast of modern times—an absolutely unlimited
quantity of boiled rice and corned beef. “Is this really corned beef?”
said I; “it tastes like angel.” Does the reader know what luxury is?
Not unless after such a journey he has sat down to such a meal. For
luxury is not something objective in the thing that we enjoy, but in the
keenness of our relish; and that depends upon contrast—in this instance
the contrast of rest and food with hard and hungry endurance. A few
days after reaching New York, I attended a banquet at which was served
I know not how many courses, the richest and the best. Objectively, it
was everything that ingenuity could devise; only keen-edged appetite was
wanting. And I was saying within me to my fellow guests: “Ah! I have a
secret that you know not. This is only a taste of luxury; but if you
would enjoy it to the full measure of your capacity, you must follow me
eight hours through the fell roads of the jungle, bathe in running water,
get into woollen pajamas, and then sit down in an arboreal _salle à
manger_ to a banquet of unlimited rice and corned beef.”
We usually slept under booths made from the boughs of trees which we
found in most of the camps. The most primitive bed and that which we
sometimes used, was made by cutting slender, round poles six feet long
and laying them side by side on two cross-sticks at the head and foot.
The native carrier sleeps on this bed of poles with nothing under him and
nothing over him; but when possible he keeps a fire beside him. We white
men were wrapped in a blanket or two. But the use of such a bed is not
wise when it can be avoided, and it is seldom necessary. More than once
some one unable to sleep had to rise in the dark, find one or two bags in
which loads were packed, spill the contents on the ground (making such a
noise that one suddenly waking might suppose that an elephant had charged
the camp) and spread the bags upon the bed in the hope of subduing the
effect of its knots and depressions and its general hardness. I soon
discarded that sort of bed and preferred to bivouac in a hammock of stout
and stiff canvas, suspended between two trees, with a rope stretched taut
above it upon which I threw a large and light rubber blanket which formed
a gable over me. This was, at least for me, the most comfortable and
luxurious bush-bed that I ever slept in.
But in the early morning of the second day both comfort and luxury seemed
remote and unrealizable ideas. There is a miserable chill in the forest
at five o’clock in the morning that always makes one reluctant to leave
his warm blankets; and on that morning it was raining. After coming out
of the stream the night before, I had wrung out of my clothes what water
I could, and they remained without further drying until I put them on in
the morning to the accompaniment of chattering teeth, for they seemed
as cold as ice. The boys’ fires had all gone out and we ate some boiled
rice left over from the night before—ate it standing; for sitting down
one’s clothes will get next to him, but standing up one can shrink away
from them, or, at least, he can try. After some experience I was almost
able to stand up in a suit of clothes without letting them touch me.
Everything was wet and cold and the branches and shrubs shook water on
us. There is a right way and a wrong way to conquer the ill-will of such
a morning. The wrong way is to confess your misery, to shiver and shrink
and try to save yourself. The right way is to plunge into it suddenly,
get wet as quickly as possible, step lively, and make believe that you
like it. The power of this mental attitude is astonishing, and with a
little determination you will soon be master of the situation.
Before the end of the second day we discovered that the native stomach is
made of the finest kind of rubber. Before leaving Batanga we had given to
each carrier a supply of food for seven days, and before the end of the
second day, some of them had eaten it all. That meant hunger and trouble
for all those “foolish virgins” for the rest of the journey. It also
meant trouble for us. The others divided with them, as they nearly always
do when this happens. But still they did not have enough and all were
hungry before the end of the journey. In consequence they were too weak
to carry their loads. They lagged behind and grumbled continually, and
sometimes they seemed on the point of refusing to go on. The difference
between a good carrier and a poor one is often simply this, that the one
stops eating when he is full and the other stops only when the supply of
food is exhausted.
IV
BUSH PERILS
“By what I have read in books, I think few that have held a
pen were ever really wearied, or they would write of it more
strongly.”—_Robert Louis Stevenson._
Several months later Dr. Good and I returned from the interior to
Batanga, passing over the road at its very worst. It was near the end
of the wet season. For many weeks the rains had fallen day and night.
The forest was flooded; the streams were rushing rivers, and the rivers
had far overspread their banks. Beyond these floods were marshes which
were still worse. Where the water was too deep to be waded, temporary
bridges such as I have described had been constructed, consisting of a
single line of poles extending from one support to another, sometimes
two or three feet under the water, with a rope of vine stretched a few
feet above that one might hold with his hand. These bridges were more
simple than ingenious, and more ingenious than safe. A number of times
the vine above broke, upon which we lost our balance and fell into the
water but were rescued by a life-saving crew of the carriers. For in
crossing the worst places we always waited for the carriers. Nor did we
proceed until we saw all the loads over safely. One or two crossed at
a time and the others, having laid down their loads, stood by to be of
service in case of accident. In one place when we were crossing a rushing
stream in which the bridge was buried two feet under the water, the line
of poles beneath our feet suddenly came to an end, having been swept
away by the current, and we crossed the deepest part on the upper vine
alone going hand over hand until our feet came in contact with another
pole. But this let us down into the water almost to our necks. In another
place, crossing a considerable stretch of water, the bridge was such that
Dr. Good preferred to cross by climbing the trees and passing along the
interlacing branches.
We were seven days on the way between Efulen and Batanga, including a
Sunday on which we rested. I was a convalescent, having recently been
sick with a very severe fever that had kept me in bed for more than a
month, and I was still weak. Indeed, the reason for hurrying to the coast
at this time instead of waiting for the dry season was chiefly my need
of a physician. The first day I walked four hours very slowly and could
do no more; but my strength increased greatly on the way and we walked
further each day.
On that journey we had to use the cutlasses very often to clear the road
so as to make it passable; and one day we found the road so flooded that
we were obliged to leave it and for several hours we cut our way through
the matted undergrowth where there was no road; but it was very slow
work. That same day Dr. Good, in jumping over a muddy place, lighted on a
slippery stick that was hidden beneath the surface and fell headlong. I
was following so close behind that I was already in mid-air when he fell;
and, of course, I tripped over him and fell too. For a few seconds at
least we were a sorry sight. There was a stream near by, however, and we
washed away the portion of German territory that clung to us, and made a
presentable toilet.
But Dr. Good had fallen on a projecting root and had hurt his side quite
badly. It was like him to say nothing about it until, as we stood at
the stream, I observed that he was pale. Then he told me that he had
hurt himself and that there was a pain in his side. He thought that a
band tied around his waist would relieve him; so I peeled a strip of
bark four inches wide from a tree and tied it tight around him, over his
coat, making a bow at his back. Considered æsthetically it left much to
be desired, but it served the purpose. He walked with difficulty the
first hour or two; then the pain gradually subsided, and although he was
bruised, it occasioned him no further trouble.
On the last night of our long immurement in the forest, we camped for
the first time in an open glade where the sun had warmed and dried the
ground, and the wood also was dry enough to enable us to have a big
camp-fire. We kept the fire all night, and for the first time on the
way got our clothes well dried. Not only were they dry; they were even
warm when we dressed in the morning. We were in high spirits and greatly
enjoyed our breakfast. But immediately upon starting out, and before our
blood was in vigorous circulation, we came to a long stretch of water
covering acres of ground. We were greatly surprised at this, for Dr. Good
knew this place and had not expected any such thing. The explanation,
as we found two hours later, was that a little town had just been built
near by and the people, being at war with their neighbours, had dammed
a stream so as to surround their town with water and marsh for defense
against the approach of their enemies. This unsightly and disgusting
place they were very proud of as serving admirably their purpose of
safety.
When we came to the water we waded in and walked on and on not knowing
its extent. But at last we were in almost to our shoulders, and Dr. Good
suggested that I should wait while he looked for the road, for he knew
the way better than I. It was long before he found it and I stood for an
hour in the water. I had never felt any ill effects from wading water,
but now I was standing, not wading; and I had not done any walking that
morning to invigorate me. Before we had proceeded far after leaving the
water, my joints were stiff and muscles sore, especially the tendons of
the heel and the knee, and every step cost pain. But we had the longest
day of all before us, and our food supply being exhausted, we must reach
Batanga that night. It was a day I shall never forget. To the pain of
aching joints and sore muscles was soon added that of exhaustion. It
happened that I had been quoting Heine and passing severe moral verdicts
upon him for saying somewhere—“Psychical pain is more easily borne than
physical; and if I had my choice between a bad conscience and a bad
tooth, I should choose the former.” This, no doubt, is pure paganism; but
now when I was suffering something of the weakness and pain that poor
Heine endured, I am afraid that if I had been offered a bad conscience in
exchange for physical suffering, with the sure promise that I could get
my better conscience back again at the beach, I might have succumbed to
the temptation. Thank God that in the crises we seldom have the choice.
At any rate, Heine did not seem so much of a pagan that day as when I
sat by the warm camp-fire the night before descanting on another’s pain,
and Dr. Good did not have to listen to further moral dissertations on my
part. Hours before we reached the beach my legs were fainting under me
but still we walked on with long strides and at the usual rapid pace,
threading the forest while hour was added to hour.
We did not take our usual noonday rest, for we both knew that if I should
stop walking for a little while I would be unable to go on. We usually
chatted together as we walked, but that day from noon until we reached
the beach, I do not recall that a word was spoken. Dr. Good was too wise
to express the sympathy that I knew he felt. We had always taken turns
in setting the pace; but at noon I said to him: “You go ahead; I am not
equal to the extra mental exertion of setting the pace: it will be easier
for me to keep up with you.”
The last hour of that interminable day was through a grass field where we
were exposed to the sun and the heat. The rank grass was much higher than
our heads and intercepted the sea-breeze. It also cut my arms and face
till I was covered with blood; for I was too tired to protect myself.
Each successive step required a new decision, and an effort involving
the utmost conjoint exertion of mind and body. My teeth were set and I
was breathing audibly. At last we entered a native town and as we passed
through the long street, the people and their chief, Bivinia, came
trooping forward with cordial greetings and hands extended towards us;
but I neither extended my hand nor replied to their salutations. Indeed,
my mind was so concentrated on the effort that it required to keep on
walking that I was only half-conscious of the presence and attention of
the natives; they were like forms moving to and fro in an uneasy dream.
But the longest day has an end. We reached Dr. Good’s house and I threw
myself into a chair while he dispatched a messenger to Mr. Gault who
lived two miles further, asking Mr. Gault to send men with a hammock to
carry me on to his house where I was going to stay.
It is doubtful whether one ever recovers from such an unnatural straining
of nerves and muscles. The muscles in a few days may regain their
elasticity and the joints their suppleness; but somewhat of the power of
endurance is lost and especially the quality of resiliency, the power of
quickly recovering from mental or physical prostration, leaving one an
easier victim of virulent disease; and nerves so overwrought may from
time to time wreak the vengeance of untold misery through all the after
years.
During the following dry season we employed a force of men in making a
new road, the present road from Batanga to Efulen. It is practically
straight, and therefore much shorter than the old road, so that a good
walker can make the journey in three days. Moreover, it follows higher
ground and is more dry. We also cut down many trees along the way, which
relieved the gloom, although the road still passes beneath a leafy arcade
sufficient to protect from the sun. We improved the bridges and wherever
possible made a bridge by felling a tree. But the native roads, except
the few that have been improved by white men, are still such as I have
described. It happened also that most of our journeys were at first made
in the wet season. After the first year, however, that was no longer
necessary, and we began to feel that the pioneer period was drawing to a
close. But I presume that those who now live at Efulen and other interior
stations, in journeys to the further interior, especially to towns off
the main road, if they travel in the wet season, find just such roads as
we first travelled.
The last time I walked from Efulen during my first term in Africa, I
enjoyed the journey. The forest was more dry than I had believed it could
be. The ground was strewn with leaves suggestive of our autumn. Nor
was it dark and depressing as before. Upon the forest-canopy of green,
supported by tall columns of sombre gray, the light danced and played
like sunshine on rippling water and shone through in silvery streams and
shifting golden bars. The forest floor was a humus of soft mould and
light, dry leaves. The low green undergrowth, closing the path before
and behind me, now that it was not dripping with water, was attractive,
and gave a pleasant sense of privacy combining with the subtle sense
of companionship with the vast life of the great forest. For it was no
longer the dead, repellent jungle of some months ago, but a real forest
in which one loves to walk alone, a forest full of mystery and spiritual
suggestion, whose stillness speaks to us in a language that we strive to
understand, or gives, as Tennyson says, “A hint of somewhat unexprest:”
“’Tis not alone the warbling woods,
The starred abysses of the sky,
The silent hills, the stormy floods,
The green, that fills the eye.—
These only do not move the breast;
Like some wise Artist, Nature gives
Through all her works, to each that lives,
A hint of somewhat unexprest.”
In setting out from Efulen we always had a “palaver” with the carriers
which in one instance, at least, threatened to become a fight. Dr. Good
on his first journey before my arrival in Africa had paid the carriers
a certain amount for the round trip; for they had to carry their loads
both ways. One can scarcely overestimate the authority of _precedent_
in Africa. The citation of a precedent is sufficient to justify any
subsequent action that may be to the advantage of him who cites it, even
though the action be flagitious and the precedent only remotely relevant.
A single precedent may establish a custom and established custom is a
despot from whom there is no appeal, and whose authority transcends
moral law. A Kruman, if asked why he does this or that, thinks that he
gives the most lucid explanation when he answers: “It be fashion for we
country.” We had expected to pay our carriers from Batanga to Efulen less
than Dr. Good had paid, since they were carrying loads only one way. But
his one trip had established the amount of pay, and at the first mention
of lower prices there was a storm of protest accompanied by scathing
moral observations. It made no difference to them, they averred, whether
or not they carried loads both ways; they would just as soon walk with a
load as without one, and indeed a little rather. We had no alternative,
so we paid the full price of a round trip; but we stipulated that if at
any time we should wish to send loads from the interior to Batanga, we
should require the carriers to take them without any additional pay; and
to this they cordially agreed.
It was seldom that we had anything but mail to send to Batanga, except
when one of ourselves was going, and then we usually had four or five
loads. But there were always several times this number of carriers. Some
few, therefore, must be selected to carry the loads, while the rest
walked light. It was natural, I suppose, that when they knew a white man
was going back with them to Batanga they should all pretend to be sick in
order to escape carrying a load. So sure as they heard me coming towards
their house in the early morning to choose several carriers, immediately
they presented such a spectacle of suffering as was never seen in any
hospital. It was very perplexing for almost invariably some one or two
of them were really sick and quite unfit to carry loads. On one occasion
as I approached, the scene was more heartrending than usual. There were
means and cries and shrieks such as might issue from a railroad wreck
in which a score of broken and mangled human beings were pinioned by
the wreckage. I found them sitting and lying around in every posture of
pain. Some were nursing sore feet and sprained ankles, some had violent
attacks of indigestion, several had fever, and one had a fit. Each one
was occupied with his own suffering and betrayed no consciousness of my
presence.
After looking around I walked out without speaking. I made a bold guess
as to the sick and the well; and returning a few minutes later, followed
by several workmen with the loads, I advanced as if by some occult means
I knew exactly the degree of sincerity or insincerity on the part of
each, and placed the heaviest load in front of a certain man, saying
quietly: “You will carry this load.” Now it happened that this was the
only sick man in the crowd and he was quite unfit to carry anything. The
truth is that the man, being really sick, did not call in the assistance
of dramatic art, and he made less fuss than any of the others. We were
not many hours on the way before I discovered the mistake I had made.
It is very difficult to make any change on the road, and is regarded as
something less than fair. To accomplish it without a mutiny one must
assume a terrifying countenance of the utmost ferocity and cannibalism.
In this I was evidently successful; for late in the afternoon I suddenly
called a halt, waited until all the men came up, and then ordered a man
to take the load off the back of the sick man and put it on the man who
that morning had been seized with a fit at my approach. This I did with
the more relish because I had heard him chuckling about it along the way
and telling the joke on the white man.
We seldom saw an animal in the forest, although we knew they were there.
The only monkey that we saw on our first journey Mr. Kerr shot and gave
to the carriers who ate every part of it, inside and out, including the
skin—after burning off the hair. We sometimes heard the blood-curdling
night-cry of the leopard; but we never saw one. On several occasions
when I was alone I heard elephants plunging along the path before me, or
suddenly discovered their tracks at my feet, so fresh that the water was
still trickling into them. The elephant is not dangerous unless one comes
upon him suddenly and startles or frightens him; but if he “charges,”
he is terrible. A chief near Efulen was one day walking in the forest at
the head of a hunting party. At a point where the path suddenly swerved
around the upturned root of a tree, he found himself face to face with
an elephant. Before he had time to fire the elephant instantly charged.
It put its tusk through his body and then trampled him to death under
its feet. The natives taught me, when I heard elephants ahead, to stop
and shout until there was complete silence; which meant that they had
hidden in the forest and I could pass along the path in perfect safety,
no matter how near they might be. But the first time that this occurred,
and the second time, I made the natives prove their advice by going ahead
themselves, which they never hesitated to do.
In the wet season I always walked in company with the caravan; but in the
dry season I preferred to walk alone, and often left the carriers far
behind me, scattered along the road in different groups. At a fork in
the road I always threw a handful of fresh leaves upon the road that I
followed, as a sign to the carriers that they might be sure to take the
same way. Never but once did they fail to follow me. On that occasion
some of the carriers were boys of a strange tribe, the Galway, more used
to waterways than to bush roads. Until the last evening they had walked
behind others who were familiar with bush travel and whom they could
follow heedlessly. But that evening it happened that the Galway were
ahead and they took the wrong road, not observing my sign of the leaves
on the path, and the whole caravan went astray except two carriers who
were far behind and separated from the others. To follow their misfortune
to the issue, the Galway got separated from the rest of the caravan and
arrived at Batanga two days late, famished with hunger and frightened
half to death.
Meanwhile, I had walked on far ahead until I thought that the carriers
might require all the daylight that was left to catch me, and then I
stopped and waited for them; though I had not yet reached the camp. As
time passed and no carriers appeared I began to feel uneasy. The chill
of the evening was approaching, and I had not even a coat; so I began to
walk back and forth rapidly to keep warm. Finally, two carriers arrived.
One of them had my food, which was fortunate; but the other had nothing
that I wanted on the road. The lost Galway had my bed and extra clothing,
and even the matches. We waited for them anxiously and called loudly,
but there was no answer. Then swiftly, as always in the forest of the
tropics, the day turned into night: “At one stride comes the dark.” A
heavy, palpable darkness, like smoke, enshrouded us and rose higher till
it blotted out the leafy canopy and blackened the very sky. The opacity
of the darkness was such that we could not see each other, nor could I
see my hand when I placed it before my eyes.
For a while I forgot the loss of the other carriers in thankfulness for
the company of these two men. For, however kindly the mood of the forest
by day, or however joyful the camp-fire by night in congenial company,
yet, to one alone through the night, without comfort or means of rest,
and with the possibility of being lost, the forest is truly dreadful. One
in such a plight interprets the forest through the medium of his misery
and his fear. The intolerable vastness of his prison dungeon suggests the
“outer darkness,” and the experience of a soul forsaken. I was miserably
cold and had nothing to protect me; nor had I a bed except a rubber
blanket. I kept walking back and forth on a bit of path a few yards long,
notwithstanding that I had walked all day. There was but little rest.
Occasionally I threw myself down on the rubber blanket but was so cold
that before long I rose again and began walking. Fortunately I was in
unusually good health, for Africa, or the exposure might have resulted
even more seriously than it did. My cook, Eyambe, a Batanga man, who
had worked for us at Efulen for several months, possessed the remnant
of a shirt, so much prized that he had carried it with him to the bush,
lest his numerous relatives, male and female, should wear it out in his
absence. He came to me in the darkness feeling his way, and said, “Mr.
Milligan, my shirt, you must take him and wear him, please. This bush he
no be too bad for we black man; but my heart cry for white man.”
I took it, of course, and wore it. But the cheer that I derived from the
kindness of his heart was greater than the poor comfort of the shirt.
I thanked God when morning dawned at last; but it is unnecessary to say
that I was in poor condition for walking next day, the last day of the
journey. I knew that the exposure would bring on fever and I walked
more rapidly than usual so as to reach Batanga as soon as possible. I
sometimes even ran, as if in precipitate flight from a pursuing beast.
The part of the road over which I passed that day was quite new and
poorly cleared. My clothing may not have been stout enough to withstand
the thorns and briers which I encountered; or else, in my hurry, I was
reckless. At any rate, when I emerged from the forest, behind Mr. Gault’s
house, one leg of my trousers was gone from above the knee, and the
other leg was also exposed through several rents, the remainder of the
trousers being fastened with numerous safety-pins. I was also scratched
and bleeding more than on any previous trip.
As I turned and looked back from the beach towards the gloomy and sullen
forest, in the vivid realization of the exposure of that long night and
the fever which I knew was imminent, I had the feeling which Stanley
describes when he and his long caravan emerged from the dark prison
forest after the immurement of several months, in which scores of their
comrades had died by the way, the whole caravan now enfeebled and wasted
with hunger, the black, glossy skin turned an ashen gray. They ascended
a hill and first looking up yearningly towards the bright blue sky, they
then turned with a sigh and looked back over the sable forest that heaved
away to the infinity of the west. In their sudden exaltation they shook
their clenched fists at it, uttering imprecations, and with gestures of
defiance and hate. They apostrophized it for its cruelty to themselves
and their kinsmen; they compared it to hell, and accused it of the
murder of a hundred of their comrades. But the forest which lay vast as
a continent before them, and drowsy, like a great beast, answered not a
word, but rested in its infinite sullenness, remorseless and implacable.
I was not mistaken in my apprehension of fever. I did not return to
Efulen again. One fever followed another in quick succession, becoming at
length so serious that my fellow missionaries at Batanga united in urging
me not to risk another attack. An English steamer on the outward voyage
called just at that time and I went south to Gaboon, where I sailed on a
French steamer for Marseilles and thence home.
Little did I think when I was leaving Efulen for a few days, as I
supposed, that I was really taking a long leave of Efulen and Africa,
not again to see either for four years, and never again to see Dr. Good.
That last morning, when I was setting out for the beach, he walked with
me down the long Efulen hill to the foot, where we stood perhaps half an
hour, formulating our expectations and making the clearest-cut plans,
none of which were realized, although they pertained to the immediate
future.
The element of accident is a constant factor in Africa, that continually
changes the course of our reckoning and overturns our surest
calculations. Accidents are no more numerous there than elsewhere, but
they are more serious. Climbing a mountainside, a slip of the foot is
fraught with more danger than on a level road. In the hostile climate of
Africa, the smallest accident, a moment’s incaution or forgetfulness on
your own part or on the part of others, may change the entire future.
Elsewhere the best-laid plans of men have about an equal chance with the
best-laid plans of mice, if the observation of Burns is to be trusted.
But in Africa the probability of the future is entirely with the mice.
While I was in Africa a second time and living in Gaboon, two hundred
miles further south on the coast, I visited Efulen once more. The road
was much more improved than when I had seen it last. The sun shone
through the arcade of vines and branches and formed upon the pathway
a filigree of gold and silver light. The mode of travel was different
accordingly. It was the best time of the year and there was a happy party
of eleven, so that the journey was like a continuous picnic. Four of the
party were ladies, three of whom were carried in hammocks and one rode
a donkey. Besides, and chiefly, there was a very sweet little girl, two
years old—a little splash of golden sunshine in the gray forest light, a
dream of home, a fragment of a song⸺ Ah me! how lonely one becomes for
the sight of a white child when he has lived some years in the jungles!
Much of the time the ladies were walking and the hammocks empty. The
hammock is suspended from a long bamboo pole borne upon the shoulders of
two carriers. But the carriers must be relieved frequently, for it is
dreadfully hard work. Six of the strongest native men are required for
one hammock. Little Lois also had her special hammock, with a firm floor
in it, so that she could sit upright, and she was perfectly happy when
riding through the forest.
[Illustration: LITTLE FRANCES, BORN IN AFRICA.
_Ah me, how lonely one becomes for the sight of a white child when he has
lived some years in the jungles!_]
Several towns had been built along the way and in one of them we stopped
each night, where we occupied native houses and slept on native beds of
straight bamboo poles covered with armfuls of grass—as good a bed as
one could desire. The numerous ticks in the grass were converted into
bed-ticks—such was our resourcefulness of expedient. The only dislikable
part of the journey was rising so early in the morning when we could have
slept on for hours, after the walk of the preceding day. But an incident
of that journey impressed it distinctly upon my mind that there is some
advantage in eating breakfast before daylight. One morning we had an
oatmeal breakfast. The day dawned upon two tardy boarders before they
had eaten and they were horrified at discovering that the oatmeal was
full of vermiform animalcules. Of course, they could not eat it and had
the poorer breakfast in consequence, and the other nine thought that it
served them quite right for being so late. A doubt has always lurked in
the recesses of my mind as to whether the joke was really on the two or
on the nine.
We did not, as in former days, keep steadily to a regular pace without
stopping, even for hours at a time, and walking in comparative quiet.
For the hammock carriers go very rapidly, on a dog-trot, continually
shouting, and a white man follows immediately behind each hammock. They
repeat a regular call and response, half song, half shout, as if to
sustain their animation and courage. What wonderful voices they have! The
forest, startled from her deep repose as we pass along, rebounds with
shout and answering echo, while we dash on over height and depth, over
rock and stream and mire, for an hour. Then, out of breath and in copious
perspiration, we sit down for fifteen or twenty minutes, and at the word
of command we are off again with a dash and a shout. It is all very
pleasant and a great improvement on the old way, although one pays very
little attention to the forest and is wholly oblivious to its moods. But
the old way is still the regular way on all roads except those few which
the white man has undertaken to improve.
And this disposition to “improve” everything he puts his hand to is a
radical difference between the native and the white man. The mental
habit of the native is contentment with things as they are; in which
he is far more happy than fortunate. He would let this old world, or
this old “bush” as he calls it, stay as it is to the end of time. The
unhappy restlessness of the white man, his dissatisfaction with what he
has and his longing for what he has not, his eagerness for change and
“improvement,” the native is sometimes disposed to regard as a morbid
mental disease. But the greatest wonder of it is that the white man
includes the native himself in his program of improvement. He finds him a
denizen of the forest, his mental habitudes like her changing moods, now
sullen and cruel, now gentle and cheerful for a little while, partaking
of her darkness mingled here and there with broken beams of light; and as
he clears a way through the deep forest making the darkness light, so he
labours that a gleam of heaven’s light may shine down into the benighted
native soul; that it may lighten the path of his destiny more and more,
and lead him on, in ways of purity and peace, till the gleam become the
“perfect day.”
V
THE CAMP-FIRE
If it is dreadful to be overtaken in the forest by the punctual night of
the tropics, while unprepared, without camp or comfort, yet, to the weary
man, after a good bath and a good supper, and with a good bed awaiting
him, the brief period of the departing day and the increasing camp-fire
glow, the smell of wood smoke and the crackle of the burning log, are a
delightful experience.
The camp is usually an open glade, where the night is not so sudden in
its fall. The shadows grow longer in the evening light, and the gray
twilight deepens till the stars shine through. Then in the red glow
of the camp-fire, phantom shadows and eerie forms flit to and fro,
approaching towards us and receding into the darkness like spirits
impelled by curiosity, and planning either play or mischief according to
the mood of the observer. In the day the man is properly the master of
his mood, but in this hour it is pleasant to relax and let the mood be
master of the man, giving a free rein to fancy.
Immediately after supper it was my custom to hold prayers with the
carriers. Then, if the labour of the day has been easy, or a Sunday rest
has intervened, they become more sociable and communicative than usual,
and often prolong the evening with camp-fire stories. They are born
orators and can tell a story to perfection, whether it be a fable handed
down from others, or a narrative from their own experience. The knowledge
of the native may be ever so limited and his thought meagre, but he
can always give it appropriate and striking form and express himself
in forceful and sometimes beautiful language. He never hesitates nor
becomes incoherent; his words flow like a river and keep well within the
course of his purpose. His gestures are animated and infinitely varied,
sometimes grotesque, more often graceful, and always expressive.
He has also a faculty of imitation beyond all men. For instance, two
schoolboys (if we may leave the camp-fire for a while to digress upon
this native talent for imitation)—two schoolboys sit talking together,
myself paying no attention, when one of them imitates the clicking of my
typewriter so that I immediately recognize it. A new clock has recently
been placed in the school, and I recognize their imitation of its stroke.
Again, I recognize the noise of the gasoline engine of the launch,
_Dorothy_, now at half speed, now full speed, now running smoothly and
now with the peculiar omission followed by a heavier stroke, due to a
weak battery.
A boy in talking to me refers to another boy by a name that I do not
know, one with rather a peculiar countenance.
I say: “I do not know of whom you are speaking.”
He replies: “He looks like this”—slightly twisting his face into an
exaggerated and ludicrous likeness of the other boy, which I instantly
recognize.
One day at Efulen the body of a very large monkey, killed by Mr. Kerr or
Dr. Good, hung suspended from the roof of our back porch. The expression
of the monkey’s face was fearfully human. It did not look dead, but
rather as if it had been very drunk the night before and was sleeping off
the effects. I heard our two house-boys giggling and chuckling on the
porch, and looking out I saw them standing in front of the monkey trying
to look just like him, which they did with such startling success that
I complimented them by telling them that either of them might exchange
places with the monkey without Dr. Good ever knowing the difference.
On one occasion a party of white men and native boys were travelling on
a river launch for several days. Four of the white men occupied their
spare time in playing a certain game with dominoes. One day when they had
left the cabin, four native boys sat down in their places and taking the
dominoes, began to imitate the white men. They were absolutely ignorant
of the game, and did not know the white men’s language, and yet they
presented the semblance of the whole performance, each boy impersonating
an individual white man—his exclamations, manner, and general behaviour
during the progress of the game, from the deal to the last trick and the
noisy conclusion.
This art of imitation is useful to the natives in hunting. For instance,
a deer hunter in the forest will imitate the noise of two fighting
bush-deer, and he will do it so well that any deer within hearing will
come running to the spot. In reciting their numerous fables, in which
animals are made to talk and act so as to teach lessons of prudence and
goodness, the native will imitate the noise or the movements of each
animal, and some of these stories one might almost follow without knowing
the language.
This talent is also useful to the native in preaching the Gospel, which
they all do, great and small, old and young, as soon as they become
Christians, and often long before. I talked one day to a group of
Christian boys, or young men, on the words: “Now the serpent was more
subtile than any beast of the field,” applying the words obviously to
the subtility of the Evil One in tempting us. Shortly afterwards, one
of those young men, Ndong Koni (whose name I am likely to mention very
frequently in the succeeding chapters) preached to a large audience a
sermon on those words, which put mine to shame:
“You know where you may expect to find other animals,” he said, “and you
also know their times.” And then naming first the leopard, he told them
the kind of place that it frequents, and at what hours it seeks its prey,
while the eager audience roared assent. So he did with the elephant, the
gorilla and others. But the serpent, he told them, is found everywhere,
often in the path before them, even in their houses, and always when
least expected. Then he compared its powers with those of other animals,
describing the leopard’s strength to fight, the fleetness of the deer
in escaping, and how the monkey climbs; but how the serpent outfights
the leopard, outruns the deer, outclimbs the monkey. The audience
knowing well all the habits of the animals of the forest, was wildly
appreciative, and several times took the sermon out of the speaker’s
mouth.
On another occasion, a young man, Amvama, preached on the “Lost Sheep”
of the parable, describing its peculiar helplessness. All the animals of
the forest, however far they wander, can find their way back—but not the
sheep; every other animal has some peculiar defense against its enemies
of the forest, but the sheep is defenseless. The sheep lost in the forest
cannot of itself get back to the town, and it is sure to be devoured
by the wild beasts. Amvama did not fail to apply this to our own moral
plight as lost and helpless.
But, we will return to the camp-fire in the forest, and the dim and dusky
company seated around it, and the larger circle of fitful shadows and
furtive forms that come gliding out, and back again into the forest. The
opaque darkness pours forth such a volume of sound as never was heard in
any forest elsewhere;—a thousand mingled noises of the night, weird, and
difficult to associate with any bodily form, but belonging, one might
easily fancy, to the shadow spirits of the forest, some of them perhaps
the spirits of dead men—of those who, labouring under heavy loads, fell
by the wayside, and died of sickness or fatigue, whose skeletons we
sometimes pass; of those who by the spell of an enemy’s fetish lost their
way, and never saw the face of man again; of those who for some crime
have been driven forth into the forest by their own people, to die of
hunger, or by the beasts.
Above all the myriad noises of the night, and separate from them, at
times there falls upon the ear a prolonged cry of distress, that smites
upon the heart, heard always in the African forest and never afterwards
forgotten. It is a succession of ten or twelve long cries, shrill,
tremulous and piercing; rather low at first, and vague, but gradually
rising to a cry of definite terror, and again descending until it is lost
in the volume of the forest noise.
It is a little disappointing to find the real source of this peculiar
cry; and most people never find it, for it is exceedingly difficult to
locate; whether near or far, whether high or low, one cannot be sure. It
does not proceed as imagination suggested, from the spirits of the dead
at variance and afflicting one another, but from a warm-bodied, innocent
creature, the lemur, which lives in the heights of the trees, feeds
upon insects, birds and reptiles, and seldom comes to the ground. In
appearance it is somewhat like a bulky bear’s cub, but not well armed for
offense or defense, and leading a precarious life among the stronger and
fiercer creatures of the forest.
And now it occurs to me that the _Lemures_ in Roman mythology were the
spirits of those who had died in sin and who could not find rest, for
whom expiatory rites were celebrated in the temple. It is generally
supposed that Linnæus gave the name _lemur_ to this family of animals
because of the pale and strangely ghost-like faces of some of them; but
the peculiar cry of this particular kind of lemur is more sepulchral than
the appearance of any of them, and might well be a reason for the name
they bear.
There is one other characteristic sound in the night-forest, though
personally I have not heard this sound when far from the coast. It is a
single monotonous note, a little like a low tone on a flute, about ten
seconds in duration, and without rise or fall, a doleful sigh or sob of
unending remorse. This sound, although it always seems to be distant, is
even more difficult to locate than the other. It is human more than all
other sounds of the forest, and yet sepulchral, and the superstitious
mind is easily persuaded that it issues from the unseen world. The source
of it is rather extraordinary; for according to native testimony it
proceeds from a certain gigantic snail, as it slowly draws itself into
and out of its shell. This theory is difficult either for white man or
black man to verify; for the sound is heard only at night, and it ceases
as one approaches. But the native is by no means likely to be mistaken.
And now at the camp-fire a native is relating to his fellows a strange
legend of the origin of this sound; a legend familiar to all the tribes
of West Africa, and illustrating a rare interpretative faculty of the
native mind. This is the camp-fire story:
“There was once a wayward and wilful son who lived alone with his mother.
One day coming home hungry he ordered her to gather some greens and
cook them for him. The mother, who never resisted his wishes, went out
and gathered plenty of greens and cooked them. But in the cooking they
shrivelled up as greens always do. Then the mother presented the greens
to her son; but the son looking at them accused his mother of having
eaten the greens herself. This she denied; but the son would not believe
her, and in his anger he struck her a blow on the head, and the mother
fell dead at his feet. Then he cried out in anguish and sorrow; long and
bitterly did he cry, but in vain. She was dead! She was dead! He had
killed his own mother. From that day, all the days he mourned, saying
always: ‘I killed my mother; I killed my mother;’ and all the nights he
sobbed and moaned: ‘I killed my mother.’
“Then the spirits seeing his sorrow, that it was very great, and
hearing him cry always day and night, at last were moved with pity, and
turned him into a snail, which cannot suffer like a man. But though the
snail does not weep in the daytime, yet at night it mourns and cries:
‘I—killed—my—mother;’ and so it will keep on crying until the end of the
world.”
The reader will of course understand that the note of the snail is single
and bears no resemblance to these articulate words of the son’s sorrow.
The interpretation is purely spiritual, and poetic genius could scarcely
improve upon it as an expression of the unending remorse which the sound
conveys to sensitive and susceptive minds.
Sitting around the camp-fire they listen to the story as interested as if
they had never heard it before, as children listen to the repetition of
fables and nursery tales. Then remarks are made upon a son’s duty towards
his mother, and some of them tell what good mothers they have; for this
is the deepest reverence and highest sentiment of the African mind.
“Whatever other estimate we may form of the African,” wrote Leighton
Wilson, than whom no one has ever known the African better, “we may not
doubt his love for his mother. Her name, whether she be dead or alive, is
always on his lips and in his heart. She is the first being he thinks of
when awakening from his slumbers and the last he remembers when closing
his eyes in sleep; to her he confides secrets which he would reveal to
no other human being on the face of the earth. He cares for no one else
in time of sickness; she alone must prepare his food, administer his
medicine, perform his ablutions and spread his mat for him. He flies to
her in the hour of his distress, for he well knows if all the rest of the
world turn against him she will be steadfast in her love, whether he be
right or wrong.
“If there be any cause which justifies a man in using violence towards
one of his fellow men it would be to resent an insult offered to his
mother. More fights are occasioned among boys by hearing something said
in disparagement of their mothers than all other causes put together. It
is a common saying among them that if a man’s mother and his wife are
both on the point of being drowned, and he can save only one of them, he
must save his mother, for the avowed reason that if the wife is lost he
may marry another, but he will never find a second mother.”
Following the legend of the snail, several fables are told as we sit
by the camp-fire. There is a fable called, _The Chimpanzee and the
Ungrateful Man_:
“There was once a poor man who had but one wife and one child, and they
lived in a small house in a far-away bush town near which was a stream
with fish. The man was a hunter, and with his spear he hunted game in the
forest, but the woman made fish-traps of basketwork and caught fish in
the stream.
“One day when the man was hunting in the forest the woman took her babe
and went to look at her fish-traps. She put her babe on the bank and
herself went down into the water. Soon the babe began to cry; but the
mother heard not for the noise of the running water. Now there was a
mother chimpanzee in the top of a great tree near by. The chimpanzee had
her home there in a safe place; but when she heard the babe she felt pity
and she came down to the ground and taking the child in her arms, nursed
it to sleep.
“The mother, having removed the fish from the traps, came up the bank
to get her babe, and lo! there sat a great monkey and the babe sleeping
upon its breast. She screamed with fright, and screamed again, so that
the chimpanzee, afraid lest the hunter might come, put the babe down and
ran into the forest. The woman snatched her babe and ran home very much
frightened. She told the story to her husband but he only laughed.
“However, the next time the woman went to work at her fish-traps the man
followed her and hid in the thicket. Again the woman laid down her babe
and waded into the stream and again the babe began to cry and again at
length the kind chimpanzee ventured down the tree and quieted the babe
on her breast. Then the man thinking only of procuring a big feast of
meat drew stealthily near with spear in hand and aiming it right at the
heart of the chimpanzee suddenly hurled it with all his might. But the
chimpanzee, seeing him just in time, held out the babe to receive the
flying spear which pierced through its body. The horrified father had
slain his own child.
“The chimpanzee laid the dead babe on the ground with the spear still
sticking in it, and fled to the forest. But before disappearing it turned
and said: ‘I was doing you a kindness in taking care of your babe.
Therefore the evil that you would have done me has fallen upon yourself.’”
There is a very common fable in which the turtle teaches the wisdom and
prudence of not interfering in other people’s palavers. The leopard and
the python had a quarrel. The leopard visits the turtle and asks his
help against the python. The turtle says to the leopard: “Come again
to-morrow evening.”
Then the python comes to the turtle and asks his help against the
leopard, and the turtle says to the python: “Come again to-morrow
evening.”
The next evening the python comes again to the turtle and asks his help
against the leopard. The turtle says to the python: “Go hide in the
thicket and keep still for a while.”
Then the leopard comes to the turtle and asks his help against the
python. “Go hide in the thicket,” says the turtle.
Then the leopard ran into the thicket and walked on top of the python.
“Now,” says the turtle to the python and the leopard, “you can settle
your own palaver.”
Another man tells why it is that the leopard has no friend among all the
animals, but walks always alone in the forest. Once upon a time a chief
made a great trap to catch animals. First a gazelle fell into the trap.
Then he cried and cried to his companion (the story-teller imitates
the cry of this and the following animals to a critical but delighted
audience) but the gazelle’s companion did not hear and he died there, for
the chief was away on a journey. Then a wild boar came and was caught and
he also cried to his companion. Then an antelope came and was caught.
They all died in the trap. Then came a leopard and was caught, but before
the leopard died a turtle came; and the turtle felt pity for the leopard
and released him. Then the leopard wanted to kill the turtle which had
released him. So the turtle crawled inside of a hollow tree. The leopard
followed the turtle into the tree, but he got fast in the tree and could
not get out.
Now this was a tree that bears fruit upon which monkeys feed. So after a
while there came a blue-nosed monkey to eat the fruit of the tree. Then
there came a white-nosed monkey; then a red-headed monkey; then a black
monkey. When the leopard heard the noise of the monkeys he begged them
to come and release him. Then the monkeys all came and got the leopard
out of the tree. But no sooner did the leopard find himself safe than he
fought with the monkeys, and he killed the white-nosed monkey and the
red-headed monkey and ate them. Then the black-haired monkey, who had
escaped up a tree, said to the leopard: “You leopards are rogues and
treacherous. We helped you and saved your life, and as soon as you were
helped you turned on us and began to kill us.” So the leopard to this day
has no friends, but walks alone in the forest, for he cannot be trusted.
And there are men who cannot be trusted any more than the leopard;
therefore they live without friends.
“Oh,” cried the audience, “men do not know the language of the leopard
and the language of the monkey.” “No,” replies the story-teller, “men
cannot speak the language of either of these animals; but some men have
fetishes by which they can understand the language of all animals when
they hear them talk.”
A man tells “a true story” about a slave who lives in his town, and who
frequently turns himself into a leopard and eats the sheep of the town.
He has also, in the form of a leopard, attacked men and women of the
town, who had offended him. Everybody in the town knows this to be true.
This suggests to another the story of a magic fight. A certain stranger
coming into a town walked rudely against a man, wishing to quarrel with
him that he might get his goods. The man said nothing, but expecting that
the stranger would return and try to provoke a fight he prepared himself
by making medicine; for he had great knowledge of medicine and magic,
though he never used his knowledge except in self-defense. The stranger
returned as he expected and again walked rudely against him. The man said
to the stranger: “Do you want to fight with me?”
“Yes,” replied the stranger, and he cursed the man’s mother, at which the
man struck him.
Now the stranger was a powerful witch, and immediately he turned into
a leopard; but to his great surprise his opponent also turned into a
leopard. Then a terrible fight took place between the two leopards. They
leaped and sprang upon each other and howled so frightfully that the
women of the town fell down with fear; but the men all gathered around
the fighting leopards. Then suddenly the stranger turned himself into
a python and springing upon the leopard threw a deadly coil around its
neck; but the other leopard also turned into a python, and the pythons
fought together, coiling about each other, hissing, and biting. Then
the stranger turned into a gorilla that he might seize the python and
choke it in his terrible hands, but the other python also turned into
a gorilla, and the gorillas fought and tried to squeeze each other to
death. At last the stranger, getting exhausted, turned into an eagle that
he might fly away, but the other also turned into an eagle, and pursuing
him dealt him a fatal blow. The dying eagle changed again into a man and
begged the other man for mercy, which was refused. He would not make
medicine for him, and so the stranger died.
On one of these camp-fire occasions a coast man who had been employed
at Efulen tells how he recovered certain goods that a Bulu workman had
stolen from him. He called together all the workmen, both Bulu and coast
men, and after telling them that his goods had been stolen he proposed
to discover the thief by ordeal. He told them of an ordeal that was well
known in his town, and that never failed. Then he produced a dish of
medicine he had made, which he said he would squirt into the eye of each
man. In the eye of an innocent person it would be harmless as water, but
it would burn the eye of the guilty one. From the first he had suspected
a certain Bulu man, but he wanted formal evidence and the best evidence
would be the man’s confession, which he determined to obtain. He stood
the men in a row, with the suspected Bulu man near the last. Then he
began squirting a copious dose of medicine into an eye of each man in
turn. It did not hurt in the least, for the very good reason that it was
nothing but water—which nobody knew but himself. Then when he came to
the suspected man, he slipped a handful of red pepper into the water,
and squirted it into the man’s eye. A sudden scream, a full confession,
and the goods restored were some of the more important effects of this
wonderful ordeal. And many African ordeals are useful for discovering a
criminal when you happen to know who he is.
One man tells “a true story” of an evil spirit who hates people and
who spreads disease and death. He once appeared in the forest near a
town, in the form of a little child, evidently lost and hungry, and
crying bitterly. Some kind-hearted woman finding him took pity on him
and carried him to the town in her arms. But she was soon smitten
with smallpox, which spread from her to others and the whole town was
destroyed.
However the evening may begin with fable and fiction, it usually ends
with narratives of fact and experience. But their facts are as fabulous
as their fables and there is no distinct line between. One may listen to
a story that is a tissue of impossibilities, and may suppose that the
native is repeating a myth or a legend to which the imagination of at
least several generations has contributed fantastic details, only to find
that the purport of the story is a narrative of fact which the native
solemnly believes. For they know little of nature’s laws and nothing of
their uniformity.
Therefore “miracles” are always happening. The miracles of the New
Testament, as a display of supernatural power, do not at first impress
the native mind; not because he cannot believe them, but because he
believes them too easily, and believes that miracles more wonderful take
place in his own town every day. But the moral quality—the benevolence
and mercy—of the New Testament miracles impresses him deeply, and this
to him is their wonder. For, among his people, men and women who possess
supernatural power wield it to an evil purpose, or at best, in their own
interest.
A man tells of a murderer in his town who was suspected of having killed
a number of persons who had died a mysterious death, after having first
lost their shadows. The suspected man was closely watched, and, sure
enough, one day they caught him in the very act of driving a nail into
another man’s shadow. Everybody knows that a man’s shadow is his spirit,
or at least _one_ of his spirits, and if it be mortally wounded, or in
any way induced to leave him, he will die. No man will long survive the
loss of his shadow. But while witches and other murderers commit their
evil deeds under cover of night, the shadow-slayer chooses the day and
often the noonday. Many a man has lost his shadow at noonday—not so
difficult to understand if it be remembered that we are speaking of
the tropics, where, at certain seasons, the sun at noonday is directly
overhead.
The people were so enraged at this murderer who was caught driving
the nail into a man’s shadow—was caught only after the deed was done,
making death certain—and who must have been the cause of all the recent
unaccountable deaths in the town, that they carried him into the forest
and bound him to the ground in the track of the driver ants, which
immediately covered his whole body and devoured him, leaving nothing but
the bones. But in the night-time his screams were still heard, even after
his death, and the people were sore afraid. His spirit haunted the town,
until at length the people deserted it and built in another place. And
even yet the belated traveller passing that way hears the screams of the
dead man.
But the greatest fear in all Africa is the witch. The witch’s soul is
“loose from her body,” and at night she leaves her body and goes about
the town, an unseen enemy, doing mischief and wickedness. A young man by
the camp fire tells of a witch in his town who for some time had been
“eating” the children of the town. It is not the body, but the spirit,
that she eats, after which the child sickens, and gradually becoming
worse, at length dies.
The discovery of witchcraft was made in a peculiar way. A certain man
who was sick and lying awake at night with pain, thought one night that
he heard a sound in the street. He crawled close to the wall and peering
through a crack he beheld in the street the phantom form of a woman
carrying the form of a child. She laid the child down in the street. Then
she drew the form of a knife with the evident intention of cutting the
child to pieces and eating it. But the knife was powerless to cut because
of the bodily eyes of the man who was a spectator. Again and again the
woman tried to dissect the child and still the knife refused to cut. At
length it occurred to her that she was probably being watched. Then,
taking the child up quickly, she returned it to the house whence she had
stolen it, restored it to its body, and fled, without being recognized by
the man who had seen her. In the morning he reported to the town all he
had seen. The wildest excitement ensued. The mothers of the town were in
terror, not knowing who the witch was that was eating their children.
But one of the women was taken suddenly ill and they became suspicious,
though they said nothing. She grew rapidly worse until she was seized
with a convulsion and foam appeared at her mouth, a certain sign of
witchcraft and that her own witch inside had rebelled and was eating her.
Then they all reviled and cursed her, gave her no food, threw cold water
on her, mocked her agony, and exulted in her pain until she died.
A deep, resonant, hungry roar of a leopard arrests the attention of the
company around the camp-fire. It is at a pretty safe distance, however,
and the white man having given orders to keep the fire burning retires to
his hammock a little apart, but takes his rifle with him.
The effect of these last stories is sobering and saddening, especially
to a mind not yet accustomed to such tales. A shadow lies across the
white man’s heart. And that same shadow lies across every charm in Africa
and mars every beauty—the reflection of the cruel ignorance and awful
sufferings of its people. The observer who does not see the shadow must
never have entered into the mind-life and the heart-life of the people.
The vast forest darkness, and the weird night-sounds that befit the
darkness, deepen the impression of the camp-fire stories.
That piercing cry of the lemur, how it suggests the terror of the
wretched man devoured by driver ants! And that other mournful note
is surely the remorse of spirits in the other world for cruel deeds
committed here.
There is now something awful in the darkness. One feels with the _Ancient
Mariner_—
“Like one that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows a fearful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.”
Sleep does not come quickly to a mind depressed. As I lie awake and
listen, the noises of the night reverberating through the forest, with
the rush of the wind in the tree tops, blend together in one vast chorus,
whose music is a funeral march.
The materialistic modern mind calls the universe a machine. But the old
Norsemen of the forest said that it is a tree, the tree _Igdrasil_,
that lured the mind of a great modern mystic. Often in the night-forest
have I recalled the Norse legend of the tree _Igdrasil_, the tree of
_existence_. It is watered by three streams, the past, the present and
the future. The branches are human history, the leaves are the actions
and the words of men; the wind sighing through it is the sobbing of men’s
sorrows.
But the forest is as variable in her moods as the mind of a man. Stern
at times and sometimes awful, yet again she loves to soothe the mind and
impart a gentle cheer. If you would know the charm of the night-forest in
her most intimate and communicative mood you must wait until some time,
as if in response to an inaudible summons, you waken after several hours
of deep, restful sleep that is one of the secrets of the forest. Under a
roof and between close walls a wakeful hour is monotonous and miserable
and the habit of wakefulness is a malady that were fit penance for mortal
sins. But in the open forest, especially when there is a glimmer of stars
shining through the screen of dark foliage, a wakeful hour passes easily.
One is never lonely in such an hour, for a mystic life pervades the
night-forest, and one realizes that it is something more and greater than
the definite forms which the eye sees by day. When these are dissolved in
darkness one is more sensible of the underlying, mysterious life, as of a
spiritual presence. Forms, whether material or creedal, sometimes conceal
the reality which they represent. The noises of the night-forest, the
mingled voices of innumerable crickets, tree-toads, frogs and croaking
night-birds, the chatter of the stream over the stones, the rushing
of the wind above the trees, with many unfamiliar sounds, each almost
indistinguishable in the thrilling volume, seem but the sights of the
silent day transformed into sound, and one feels that the interpretation
of the sound would be also the interpretation of the forms and shapes, of
colours, of shadows and broken light-beams.
This illusion may be promotive of the native belief in animistic nature.
For the eye does not see those animate creatures in the day, and to the
child-mind it might easily seem that the myriad noises of the night issue
from rock and hill and stream and tree.
Lying thus awake but restful, the blended noises of the resounding forest
fall upon the passive ear like the confused echo of some world-orchestra,
or a broken strain from the music of the planets and the stars as they
sweep through vast orbits, on and on forever. For the night-forest,
unlike the day, speaks always musically to the ear that is attuned to
hear it.
The soft sound of the wind among the leaves of the highest branches again
lulls the wakeful listener into sleep; and he enjoys it the more because
of the brief disturbance.
VI
A HOME IN THE BUSH
Efulen, my first African home, I saw for the first time in July 1893.
It is in Cameroon, among the Bulu people, directly behind Batanga, less
than sixty miles from the coast, and about two hundred miles north of the
equator.
Efulen is situated upon a hill two hundred and fifty feet high and
nearly two thousand feet above the sea-level, and is surrounded by
mountains. The scenery is beautiful and magnificent and resembles the
mountainous parts of Pennsylvania; but in that tropical climate there are
atmospheric effects seldom seen in the colder latitudes. Mountain and
valley are covered with a forest of green with here and there a tree of
red or scarlet, and so dense that one might think he could walk on it.
From the top of Efulen hill one looks out on a rolling plain of foliage
that stretches away over valley and hill, until it becomes extinct in
the dim distance of the empurpled hills. Often in the morning, when the
atmosphere of the valleys is clear, an overhanging mist cuts off the tops
of the mountains, which appear as elevated table-lands, all of the same
height, and precisely level. A few minutes later the scene is magically
transformed. The mist has descended and filled the valleys as if all the
clouds of the heavens had fallen down, while the mountain-peaks, radiant
with the sunlight, rise out of the mist like islands out of a deep sea.
I have said that Dr. Good had already made one journey into this
interior. He chose Efulen for the site of the new mission station, and
set natives to work cutting down trees and clearing the top of the hill.
The name _Efulen_, which we afterwards gave it, was first used by the
natives themselves. It is from a Bulu word, _fula_, which means to mix;
for they never had seen such a mingling of people, of different towns and
even hostile tribes, as they saw daily on our hill, where all could come
with safety.
It was but few trees that the several workmen had cut when we arrived.
For the native, especially when working for the white man, requires a
large amount of intellectual stimulus. We found a bare spot of sufficient
size for our tent, and there we pitched it and began felling the trees
around us, letting the sun down upon ground that it had perhaps not
reached for centuries. The wet season was upon us; the rains were heavier
and more frequent each day. Our tent did not turn the heaviest rains,
which sometimes came in on us in the night and saturated our beds; but it
did us no harm. Much more serious were the extreme and rapid alternations
of temperature within the tent. After a thunder-storm it was often cold
enough to make our teeth chatter, while between showers, if the sun
shone upon the wet tent, it was impossible to endure the heat inside. At
such times, however, all we had to do was to stay outside. We slept on
camp-beds, three of which filled the tent, leaving in the middle just
room enough for a table, and we sat on our beds while eating, side-dishes
being placed on the beds. Our table, which Dr. Good and I made with a
cross-cut saw, and which had no legs, was a solid cut out of a log three
feet in diameter. The first time we sawed it through our saw sloped
off in a line at least thirty degrees from the vertical and with an
increasing curve, to Mr. Kerr’s undisguised amusement. But having served
our apprenticeship we got the next quite straight. And since the slope of
the hill was about thirty degrees, the log table, when properly placed,
stood exactly upright, and Mr. Kerr’s ridicule was changed to admiration
of our skill and judgment.
Most of our dishes were of tin, which we called our silver service.
Indeed, there was no want of tin, for most of our food was imported
in tins—meats, milk and butter. Africa, as some one says, is a land
flowing with milk and honey—condensed milk and tinned honey. There are
many varieties of tinned meats, according to the labels, but they all
taste alike when one has become tired of them and dislikes them equally;
sometimes, when one is feverish, the smell of them is as much as an
ordinary stomach can digest in that debilitating climate. During those
first months our meats were chiefly Armour’s sausage and some anomalous
concoction of strong meats and stale onions called _Irish Stew_. We
bought from the natives bananas, plantains and sweet potatoes, and after
some time we were able to buy a chicken on rare occasions. As soon as
possible we began raising our own chickens; but it was only after several
months that we had them frequently. Our cook, a young man from the
coast, who spoke Kru English, would come to me and ask: “Mastah, what
thing you go chop? Must I kill a chicken, or must I kill a tin?” He much
preferred to “kill a tin,” for in that case the cooking was very simple
and consisted in punching a hole in the top of the tin and then placing
it on an outside fire—we had no stove. When we began to have chickens
occasionally the cook informed us that he must have an assistant, because
“one man he no be fit for do all them work.” Thus we lived for two months
and a half, until our house was built. We bore the rudeness of our
circumstances by making them a constant source of mutual amusement. And
often we conquered defeat itself by laughing at it.
The hill was crowded from dawn until dark with a pandemonium of naked
and astonished natives, who had never seen white men before. They think
aloud. Every impression utters itself in a yell. The habit of talking
aloud to themselves is so common that some white men have accounted for
it by supposing that they are talking to the spirits of their ancestors.
I can only say that if this be so they evidently conceive of the other
world as being very far away.
Each separate act or movement of us white strangers produced a shout of
astonishment.
“He walks!” they shout, when he takes a step forward; or: “He sits down!”
as they jostle each other for a front place to see the animal perform.
The animal, meanwhile, rises to his feet, sits down, then rises again,
turns round slowly, lifts one leg, then the other, lifts his arms and
turns round again. If he has a hat on he will take it off several times.
If by any chance he should have a coat on he will take the coat off too.
No matter how much he may take off they will still desire him to take
off more and complete the vaudeville. He turns round once or twice more,
moves each of his several limbs again, turns round again as an encore,
and then sits down, while the crowd yells appreciation and delight.
Then follows a lively discussion as to his appearance and proportions.
Some of them think he would be good-looking if he only had some colour,
but such a complexion would make anybody ugly. Others think that he is
good-looking even as he is. An interesting query, however, is whether his
whole body is white, or only his hands and face, the rest of him being
black like themselves. In order to settle this urgent question they beg
him to take off his trousers.
[Illustration: A GROUP OF ADMIRING NATIVES.
_They admire the white man’s hat as much as himself, and regard a suit of
blue denim as a nobler work than an honest man._]
The white man’s feelings are not seriously affected by the fact that they
evidently consider his hat quite as wonderful as himself, and a suit of
blue denim a nobler work than an honest man. Of course the first novelty
will soon wear off, but a white man, as long as he lives away from the
coast and the older settlements, will always be an object of wonder and
excitement, and will be expected to maintain his position by wonderful
and exciting performances. There is danger that the missionary will never
get used to it, but will lose his whole stock of patience and perhaps his
reason in the effort; and there is danger also that he will become so
well used to this inordinate attention that he will miss it dreadfully
when he comes home, and is relegated to his proper obscurity in American
society.
Africa is not a great solitude in which one of an ascetic temper might
enjoy silence and meditation. There is no quiet except during the night
and no solitude but the solitude of a strange city where one passes
through a multitude unrecognized and unknown. For these Africans will
probably never know us. Nor had we three white men any privacy in our
relations with each other, either in our tent or in the house that
displaced it; and for my own part, this was the most trying of all our
privations. Under the circumstances I think we three men deserved great
credit for not hating each other. But after supper, when it was dark I
used to go out to a little walk about ten yards long in front of the
house and removed a short distance from it, the only smooth walk on the
entire hill, and there I enjoyed a few minutes of delightful respite
from noise and publicity, while my thoughts of home and friends were
unrestrained. The life in the homeland seemed already painfully distant,
and almost vague and unreal. Like Silas Marner, when he removed from his
old home to Raveloe where he was surrounded by people who knew nothing
of his history, so to me sometimes the past seemed like a dream because
related to nothing in my present life, and the present, too, a dream,
because linked with no memories of the past.
Even at night the noise does not cease, but only removes to a distance
where it no longer disturbs. The people stay in their towns at night, but
they usually make more noise than in the day. From a village at the foot
of the hill rises the weird and incessant wail of their mourning for the
dead, an appalling dirge that chills the blood; from another village near
by, a savage noise of war drums and shouting by which they are warning
an expected enemy that they are on the watch; from another, the uncouth
music of their dissolute dance; from another the cries of men who profess
to be transformed into gorillas or leopards:—on all sides the noise
ascending throughout the night like the smoke of their torment.
How eagerly we welcomed the mail! It arrived once a month, and was six
weeks old. Even Dr. Good, indefatigable worker, and the opposite of
emotional, was unable to pursue the usual routine of work when we were
expecting the carriers with mail. They usually came in the evening, and
all that day we were under a noticeable strain of expectancy. We were
also exceedingly talkative and communicative for a day or two after its
arrival. Years afterwards I once visited one of our missionaries, Miss
Christensen, when for some months she had been staying alone at Benito,
one of our old coast stations. I remarked that the arrival of her mail
must be a great relief to the extreme loneliness of her situation. She
replied that, on the contrary, the mail day was the loneliest of all,
for want of some appreciative friend to whom she could tell the news
contained in her letters and talk about it. There were educated natives
around her whose friendship was almost sufficient for other days, but not
for mail day. Her home interests were unintelligible to them.
My first letters from Efulen were written on an immense log that lay
near the tent. I stood and leaned over upon it as I wrote. When I
finished my first letter I found that I had been leaning against a stream
of pitch all the while, with the sleeve of a woollen sweater lying in
it. But the difficulties of letter-writing were not merely physical.
Each correspondent in the homeland naturally expected me to tell him all
about the natives and our life in Africa. To describe adequately any one
phase of our life would require a length of letter that would have made
my correspondence unmanageable, and to refer to our strange surroundings
without adequate description would have left my letters unintelligible. I
thought to meet the difficulty by dividing my friends into groups, asking
friends of a feather to flock together, and writing occasionally a long
and elaborate letter to each flock. I have never succeeded in killing two
birds with one stone, but I killed a number of valued correspondents with
each of those letters. No one replied to them but the person to whom the
envelope was directed.
After one month in Africa, while we were still in the tent, I had my
first and worst experience of the dreaded African fever, although in
this instance it was probably malarial-typhoid. It lasted several weeks.
When we had been at Efulen nearly a month Dr. Good was suddenly called
to the coast by the severe illness of his wife, who was at Batanga
expecting soon to leave for home. Dr. Good was not a physician, but with
years of experience and an aptitude for medicine he had acquired such
skill in the treatment of African fever that he was almost equal to a
physician. As for myself, I summed up my experience in the statement that
once in my life I had had a severe headache. I do not remember whether
Mr. Kerr’s experience had been as extensive as mine. We both had a
vague consciousness when Dr. Good left for the coast that our situation
was precarious and fraught with some danger:—in a country called the
_Whiteman’s Grave_, under conditions that even in America would have
taxed the constitution of the strongest. In the light of later knowledge
we could have greatly improved upon our pioneer methods, and they seemed
to us quite amateurish though supported by the best intentions. In coping
with untried conditions and unknown factors of danger one must always
expect to go through a period of preliminary inexperience and make
preliminary blunders before attaining the mastery. But in Africa the
preliminary inexperience often costs the life of one and the blunders
disable another, while the triumph is reserved for those who come after.
The imperfection of our first policy was inevitable; the present method,
which provides every procurable comfort for men so situated, is not only
more humane but immensely more economical. It is only in the last few
years that missions have become a science—at least in Africa, and that
those who go to dangerous and unknown places may profit by the formulated
experience of those who have gone to such places before. Of course it was
never intended that two new arrivals, Mr. Kerr and myself, should be left
alone at a new station. But the unexpected emergency which called Dr.
Good to the coast is typical of the miscarriage of the surest plans that
men can make in Africa.
Only a few days after Dr. Good left Efulen I was stricken with the fever.
The approach of it is very peculiar, especially the first time. I mistook
it for a spell of homesickness; for one becomes extremely depressed. I
thought I had been brave, but all at once the very pith of my resolution
was gone. I felt that I had overrated my courage. The life which I had
chosen seemed a doom from which there was now no honourable escape. My
feelings recoiled in an agony of revolt that was mentally prostrating. It
was the fever and I did not know. It was night and I was walking near
the house, but I was too tired to continue walking, and I lay down on
the ground in the dim starshine and wept for home,—it was many years ago
and I was very young. I was not surprised that I had a severe headache,
for I thought it was the result of my mental agitation. The next day
I was worse, and the following night I was delirious the whole night,
but morning brought relief. I did not think it could be fever for the
symptoms were not what I had expected. We were pitiably helpless.
At last, a happy thought striking Mr. Kerr, he exclaimed: “I have a
thermometer: that will tell us.”
“It would tell us,” said I, “if we knew what normal temperature is; but
for my part I don’t know, though I think it is 212°”—perhaps I was still
delirious.
Mr. Kerr suggested that it might be marked on the thermometer. And,
if not, I said that he might take his own temperature first, and so
ascertain the normal.
However, it was marked on the thermometer at ninety-eight and two-fifths
degrees, or thereabouts. Mr. Kerr then took my temperature and found that
it was 105°. In the evening it was 106°. Next day it was the same, and
so the fever raged for several days. We dispatched a messenger to Dr.
Good, reporting to him also my temperature for two days. It was the tenth
day of the fever before he reached me, though he started immediately;
for the roads were at the worst. He had no expectation that I would be
alive. Meantime I had begun to take quinine. The wet season was now at
the worst. The tent was not sufficient to turn the heaviest rains, which
sometimes came through and saturated the bed. Between showers the sun
came out so strong that I was compelled to leave bed and rush outside for
fresh air. After several days of this, Mr. Kerr suggested that my bed be
moved into the house of the workmen, which had only an earthen floor
with a considerable slant to it. But it had at least a thatch roof that
would turn rain and would afford a better protection against the sun.
There was a square opening for a window over which we hung a salt-bag.
Then followed a long fight for life, through several weeks, and a slow
victory due chiefly to the kindness and untiring care of my associates.
Dr. Good after his arrival nursed me day and night. What is usually known
as African fever ends fatally or otherwise in a few days. I therefore
concluded long afterwards that it must have been malarial-typhoid.
We each have our foibles and whims which sickness sometimes brings into
strong relief. One of my own I cannot forbear relating. After several
days of sickness, when I knew that it was fever, and recovery seemed
hopeless, my mind turned to the meagre and unique undertaking formalities
in such a place as Efulen. The fact that no boards were procurable did
not trouble me in the least; I felt that I could be comfortable in a
cotton blanket or a rubber sheet. But I had a great longing for a genuine
white shirt laundered in America. Through all the successive changes
of clothing by which I had gradually discarded the total apparel of
civilization I had maintained a serene attitude. But, for that final
ceremony, after which there should be no more changes, I had a childish
desire for something that would separate me from the rude and savage
surroundings of Africa and that would serve to designate the civilization
to which I really belonged; and the most civilized article I could think
of was a white shirt such as those I had packed away in the bottom of a
trunk at Batanga.
A little incident of that period will further illustrate the helplessness
of bachelor white men in such an emergency. One day, when I had been
ill a week, I became hungry for the first time; but not so hungry that
I could eat corned beef, sardines, or Irish stew; and we had not yet
been able to procure a chicken or even an egg from the natives. Mr.
Kerr looking hopelessly over the pile of tins suddenly discovered one
little tin of oysters, which had gotten into our supplies by some happy
mischance. He shouted for joy and came running to show it to me. Nothing
could have been better; and when he asked me how I would like to have
them prepared, I said I would like them stewed in milk. He soon brought
them to me steaming, and even the odour seemed to invigorate me. I took a
spoonful—and with a nauseous exclamation I spewed it into the middle of
the room. Dear reader, _condensed milk is forty per cent. sugar_.
Two other incidents of those days will serve to exhibit certain native
characteristics that I may not have occasion to notice again. A party
of natives were going to the coast and on the way they stopped at
Efulen. Hearing how very ill I was, and consulting with the workmen,
they concluded that I might live one more day, or two days at the most.
Accordingly when they reached the coast, the two days having expired,
they reported to my friends that I was dead. The report was credited for
several days, although in the mind of some there was a doubt. It was
only when these messengers appeared again and they asked them about the
details of the funeral that the story broke down notwithstanding the fine
imagination of the natives; for they had never seen a white man buried,
and their own customs were very different. They evidently made me so
misconduct myself at my own funeral that my friends concluded that I was
alive. But that was the nearest I ever came to an untimely end. I would
not by any means call those natives unmitigated liars. Not every white
man can maintain the distinction between fact and conviction.
Again, one night when the fever was at the worst, a small boy, Lolo, who
was sitting by my bed keeping cold water on my head, told me that there
was no more water. This was the fault of the cook, a man of Batanga. Mr.
Kerr was asleep in the other end of the house, and he needed sleep. I
sent for the cook and told him to go quickly and bring water. There was
a good spring part way down the hill a short distance behind the house.
The man refused to go, though he had never been disobedient before. He
was afraid of the darkness. It was useless to threaten him or quarrel
with him, and worse than useless for a sick man. No power under heaven
could have compelled him to go to that spring alone; nor was there any
one on the premises who would go with him. Not all are so cowardly in the
night; but there are many strong men in Africa who would fight bravely to
death with any visible or natural foe, but are arrant cowards before the
creatures of their own imagination; invisible and supernatural enemies
with which they fill the darkness of the night.
It was a great day for us when our new house was finished. It was made
entirely of native material and was much like a native house except that
it had a floor and was elevated from the ground and had swinging doors
and windows. Like all houses of white men in Africa it was set on posts
about six feet from the ground. The walls were of bark, in pieces six
feet long and from a foot to two feet in width. The bark is held by split
bamboo the size of laths, placed horizontally, six inches apart and tied
with bush-rope made of the abundant vine, which is split and shaved down
with a knife. The roof, which was supported by rafters of bamboo, was of
palm thatch. This roof turns the rain perfectly and is much cooler than
any other kind. There was no ceiling in the house.
[Illustration: AN IMPROVED MISSION HOUSE AT EFULEN.
_The first house was similar but much smaller._]
The changes of temperature at Efulen being very sudden, and immediately
felt within the thin walls of our house, we had need of fire, and we
made a fireplace by a simple device for which we claimed joint credit.
We cut a hole in the floor and built the ground up from below to the
level of the floor. There was no chimney, not even a hole for the smoke
to escape; but it got out easily enough through the opening (the width
of the rafters) between the walls and the roof. Usually we found it very
pleasant to sit around a good fire in such a fireplace, and the smoke
troubled us but very little. Often however by reason of some sudden
change of wind, or passing whirlwind, the smoke was seized with panic
and spread in a black cloud through the room, so enveloping us and
suffocating our senses that the fire itself was wholly inferential, on
the principle that where there was so much smoke there must be some fire.
Many a thought of siderial sublimity, in the moment of its utterance, was
thus strangled in a mouthful of smoke and ashes.
The whole house was twenty-four feet long and sixteen feet wide. There
were five rooms in all. The partitions were of bark and did not reach to
the roof but were eight feet high. We had greatly improved our furniture.
Those who admire _mission_ furniture ought to have seen ours. Instead of
the first table, which was a solid piece of log turned on end, Dr. Good
and I sawed a cut six inches wide out of that same log, and Mr. Kerr put
rustic legs into it. The chairs were made exactly the same way but cut
from smaller logs.
In such a house, seated upon such chairs and around such a table we sat
each evening after supper, indulging in a social hour. And while the
votaries of the _simple life_ in the far-away homeland were absorbed in
the discussion of such questions as How to Avoid Luxuries, the subject of
our discussion was frequently How to Obtain Comforts.
We were not always idle as we talked; for the evening brought its own
duties, often of a strictly domestic nature Sometimes, as we sat around
the table, Dr. Good was engaged in darning his socks, Mr. Kerr was
mending his shoes, while in a state of despair I was trying to put a neat
patch on a pair of trousers.
This magnificent house was regarded by the Bulu, not as a private
house, but as a public place, equivalent to their palaver-houses. They
sometimes showed resentment when we insisted upon the personal view of
it and required them to ask admission before coming in, which they were
disposed to do in crowds and at all times, even when we were eating.
We were always willing to show them through it in groups, though it
took considerable time. Some of them expressed their astonishment in
vociferous yells, but others, deeply impressed, looked around them with
a reverential air, like people in church. They came up the steps of the
porch on their hands and knees, as Africans always do at first. The women
and children seemed afraid of the height of it and it would not have
been possible to get them to stand near the edge and look down from the
dizzy height of nearly six feet. This timidity which at first I could not
understand and which later disappeared, I imagine was not due so much to
the height of the house above the ground but to their doubt regarding the
safety of the floor. They had never walked on any floor but the solid
ground, and they stepped upon ours as if they fully expected that it
would break and let them through.
We had hoped that the climate of Efulen would be more healthful than that
of the coast; but the health record since the station was established in
1893, has not been better than that of some other stations. Personally I
believe that without doubt Efulen is more healthful than the immediate
coast at Batanga; but I do not regard it as more healthful than Gaboon.
It is certainly cooler and owing to its elevation of two thousand feet
the air is not so humid and is more exhilarating. But the changes of
temperature are very sudden and one becomes sensitive even to slight
changes after being in the tropics a few years. In the light of similar
experiments made elsewhere in West Africa it seems likely that less
fever but more dysentery will prevail in those localities that have the
higher altitudes, and less dysentery and more fever at the coast. To some
persons fever is more dangerous; to others, dysentery; one may take his
choice. At Efulen the sand-flies are very bad, morning and evening; but
they cease their activity in the bright sunshine and also in the darkness
of night.
There was a marked improvement in our food after some months, owing to
our obtaining a better cook from the coast. The coast men were at first
in doubt about their safety among the Bulu, and none of those would go
with us who could get a position at the coast. But when a number of their
men had come back alive their fear was removed and we obtained better
help. Our first cook was a common workman who had never cooked before. It
was part of my duty to instruct him. To the objection that I had never
cooked anything in my life there was the compensating consideration that
the best way in the world to learn anything is to be obliged to teach
it to somebody else. The moment that I dreaded most in they course of
the day was that in which the cook appeared coming towards me to get
the order for dinner. For, with Irish stew, salmon and sausage, what
opportunity is there for the exercise of a fine gastronomic imagination?
It was the same thing from day to day; and if I derived no other good
from the experience, I at least learned for all time to sympathize with
housekeepers in the monotonous circularity of the domestic routine. Under
my painstaking instructions the cook learned to wash his hands instead
of simply wiping them on his hair or his legs, to place a tin of meat
on the fire (after punching a hole in the top) and to take it off when
I told him to do so; he learned to put plantains into the fire to roast
and to take them out any time he happened to think about it. But he had
not yet learned the difference between warm water and hot water when he
tired of his work and returned to his beloved home, while I began on
another candidate for kitchen honours. About the time I had taught him
to boil water he also wearied of work and went home. Then I hired a Bulu
boy and began to instruct him even with more assurance, for I was now
an experienced teacher. The Bulu boy learned fast, though he evinced an
incorrigible disposition to carry his dish towel on his head, or tied
round his neck. Finally after an experience of trials and tribulations in
many chapters I appealed to Mrs. Godduhm of Batanga who trained a cook
specially for us; and he proved a saint of the frying-pan. It was this
cook Eyambe, who afterwards, as I have told in writing on bush travel,
when we were overtaken by night in the forest, insisted that I should
take his shirt, and said: “You must take him and wear him please. This
bush he no be too bad for we black man; but my heart cry for white man.”
It was several months before we had flour. Meantime, during my long
fever, I conceived a desire for bread that became a craving like the
hunger of famine as I grew weaker. Dr. Good sent word to Mrs. Good at the
coast to send some bread as the carriers were returning immediately. He
did not tell me that he had sent for it, lest by some mischance it might
not come. But when it arrived and before he opened the package he told
me it had come. Then they opened it; there were two loaves—all blue with
mould and looking like poison; for it was the wet season and the carriers
had been long on the way. The disappointment was too great. I told Dr.
Good to cut off the worst part, on the outside, and burn the rest to a
black crisp, and I ate the burned bread.
Flour arrived some weeks later when I was again on my feet; and then it
occurred to us that none of us knew just what to do with it. For our cook
had not yet arrived. One of us modestly confessed that he knew something
about making biscuits. It was immediately voted that he take half a day
off and exercise his culinary talent. The biscuits were made and appeared
that evening on the table. When I surveyed them I suggested that it would
be fitting that we should keep them as happy memorials of this first
triumph. So saying I took the two that were coming to me and put them in
my box of curios under the bed. I have them after all these years. Time
works no change upon them.
Some months later I had a severe attack of dysentery and for three days
had been allowed no food but the white of an egg. The physician, who
happened to be visiting at Efulen at the time, told me one morning, in
response to my eager inquiry, that he would allow me something a little
heavier than the white of an egg. I immediately applied for a mince pie;
for we had minced meat in tins. The proposition was promptly vetoed by
the doctor. But a week later, when I was again on my feet, the request
was granted. This mince pie was the most pretentious achievement that
we had yet undertaken, and the most stupendous failure. If too many
cooks spoil a pie, as it is said of some other things, I think that the
whole community of Efulen, white and black, must have had a hand in that
ill-fated pie, for a few persons could never have made so many mistakes.
The oven was a pot set on an outside fire, with another pot turned upside
down to cover it. An explosion occurred during the process of cooking. I
do not know what caused it—possibly a stone bursting or the overheated
pot cracking. At any rate it was a good opportunity for Dr. Good’s wit,
who contended that the pie had exploded through the neglect to put
air-holes in the top of it. And that night he presented a resolution that
hereafter cooks should be obliged to punch air-holes in the top of every
pie, lest they should explode, thereby endangering our property and our
lives and entailing the loss of the pie itself. I suggested an amendment,
that in no case should a cook be allowed to make such pies upon tin
plates, lest the plates, not being observed, might be cut up and eaten
with the pie. Efulen has now passed the experimental stage. One can get
as good cooks and better food there than at the coast.
In the work of the station, though formally we were equal, yet as a
matter of fact, we recognized Dr. Good as head, owing to his years
of experience and his competence. Dr. Good spent most of his time
itinerating—preaching in the streets of the villages near and far. He
also made several long tours of two or three weeks for the purpose
of exploring the further interior. While at the station he studied
the language, translated, and did a large amount of medical work. Mr.
Kerr had charge of the work of building, and most of the material work
necessary in establishing the station. I studied the language, did all
the buying from natives and went to the coast when it was necessary that
a white man should conduct the caravan. Later in the year I did what I
could of Dr. Good’s medical work in his absence, the chief result being
invaluable experience on my part, and no fatalities that could be proved
to be the direct result of my treatment.
I am sure that those who have never been among uncivilized people, or
at least those who have not a vivid realization of their ignorance
will not know what a layman with experience may accomplish in healing
the sick and instructing the mind through healing. When I went to
Africa I was as ignorant of medicine as an educated man could be, and
I had neither Dr. Good’s liking nor aptitude for it. But, in the first
place, like other white men in that climate, I was soon compelled to
become my own physician. For even if there is a professional physician
at the same station, he cannot be there always; but self-care must be
constant, and so one accumulates a considerable experience. And what
he does for himself he can do for the natives. For however ignorant he
may be of medicine he is wiser than they. When I saw a woman writhing
in a convulsion I at least suspected poisoning; but they suspected
witchcraft and beat drums around her to drive out the bad spirit. When
I saw a poor boy delirious with fever and instead of administering some
remedy the distracted parents were only trying to discover who had
bewitched him, the difference between my knowledge and their ignorance
seemed immeasurable, and I could advise them and help them, for already
I had learned considerable about malarial fever. When a poor child was
suffering with worms, that frightful scourge of Africa, incredible to us
in the extent of its prevalence, and the parents, though they knew and
could tell me what was the matter, yet knew of no remedy but to change
the child’s fetishes, I knew, even if I had been in Africa only a few
months, that santonine is far more effective than any change of fetishes.
And no man ever lands in Africa before he knows that sulphur is excellent
for itch. Ulcers also are exceedingly common. Cuts, scratches and wounds
are always neglected and may become bad ulcers; and sometimes the blood
is so tainted by the diseases of vice that ulcers will not heal without
internal remedies such as potassium iodide. There is abundant need of
all the skill of the best equipped physician. But the majority of cases
needing medical treatment are simple in the diagnosis and the treatment;
for the weak and the sickly are bound to die young. Fevers, ulcers,
worms, and itch are very common and cause more suffering than everything
else. But any layman can do something for these. And if he is associated
with a physician for a time, he can learn to do much for the relief of
suffering. He can do as much as he has time to do; and knowledge grows
with experience. So it was that even I, despite unusual ignorance of
medicine and original ineptitude, after some years, when I was in charge
of a boys’ boarding-school, treated from fifteen to twenty boys a day;
for the parents were especially willing to send their sick boys; and at
the end of the term there was very little sickness among them.
There is much less sickness among the tribes of the interior than those
at the coast. If we knew all the reasons for this we might also know
why the coast tribes everywhere are dying out, many of them being now
but small remnants of formerly great and powerful tribes. The coast
tribes have all come from the interior, and the interior tribes to-day
are all moving towards the coast. The change of climate may have been
for the worse; for the strong sea-breeze alternating with the stronger
land-breeze is hard on those who are not protected by clothing. The slave
traffic greatly reduced the coast tribes and threatened the extinction of
some of them; but it is not a reason why they should still continue to
decrease. The excessive use of the white man’s rum without doubt reduces
the birth-rate among coast tribes. Besides, certain diseases have been
imported with the white man’s vices. And it is also possible that the
greater amount of sickness and disease among coast tribes may be in part
due to the better care of children among the semi-civilized people of the
coast, with the result that a greater number of weak and sickly children
live to maturity than in the savage life of the interior, where none but
the robust are likely to survive.
Many sick people came to Efulen, most of them with very bad ulcers. They
realized the benefit, and it won their good-will and their desire to
have us stay among them; but I cannot say that it won their gratitude.
Even when they paid nothing for medicines or for bandages, they took for
granted that we were in some way serving our interest by healing them.
Their psychology allowed no place for any altruistic motive. The outer
bandage with which Dr. Good bound their ulcerated limbs, he used several
times, in fact as long as he could, for bandages were not easy to supply
and many were required. But his patients, especially the women, liked to
have new white bandages each day, for they regarded them as ornamental.
So they would take off the bandage before coming to him and would declare
that they had lost it, or that it had been stolen. But frequently when
he would tell a woman that he would not dress the ulcer until she should
find the bandage she would deliberately take it out of her basket before
his eyes and hand it to him half laughing and half scolding. Shortly
after our arrival at Efulen a chief came from a distant town bringing
his sick wife. He left her, however, in the village at the foot of the
hill and first came up alone to talk the palaver with Dr. Good and see
what the white man would give him if he would bring his sick wife to
him to be healed. Very frequently they asked for pay for being treated
and for taking our medicine. The medical work therefore did not serve
our missionary purpose as greatly as I had anticipated. But that is no
argument against it. Duty is duty; and to relieve pain and suffering
as far as we are able is a duty quite apart from any consideration of
gratitude or reward.
No more notable event occurred during the entire year than the visit of
Mrs. Laffin, one of our missionaries at Batanga, who had only been in
Africa a short time, and was destined soon to find a grave there. Dr. and
Mrs. Laffin came in the dry season, when the roads were at the best, and
Mrs. Laffin was carried in a hammock much of the time. Mrs. Laffin was a
saintly woman, an ideal missionary and a very charming lady. She was the
first white woman who ever visited the Bulu country, and it required a
superb courage. She greatly desired to see the Bulu people; and besides,
with the true woman’s sympathy, she wished to know how we were really
living at Efulen and to offer suggestions for our comfort. Our new house,
for the first time, seemed very bare and quite unfit for such a visitor.
As soon as we heard of her coming I sent to the coast for a number of
things that I felt we must have for her reception. Among other things I
asked Mr. Gault to send me some table-cloths, out of one of my boxes;
though we had never felt any need of them before. He sent me bed-sheets
instead; but they served the purpose admirably; and we had towels for
napkins.
One day, when I was apologizing to Mrs. Laffin for our having only the
comforts and none of the luxuries of life, she replied about as follows:
“If I had loved a fine house and housekeeping more than anything else I
would have stayed in America where both are possible. But I have chosen
missionary work in preference, and housekeeping therefore is only a
hindrance. Now, if you had carpets, upholstered furniture, and pictures
on the walls, I, having a woman’s domestic conscience, would feel that,
instead of giving my time to the people, I ought first of all to oversee
your house and order the housekeeping. But, as it is, this house gives me
no more concern than if it were a wood-shed or a stable, and I can go to
the towns without restraint or any conscientious scruple. I believe that
in Africa we ought to have as good food as possible, comfortable beds
and chairs, and plenty of room, and I hope that you will soon have all
these; but for the brief period of my visit here your house just suits
me.” I may say that I made no more apology.
One day while Mrs. Laffin was there she was buying some food from a
native for which she paid him in salt. She gave him the right amount,
but he as usual thought it was not sufficient and told her to go and
bring some more. When she did not do as he said, he ordered her in the
threatening tone that he would use to a Bulu woman. I immediately came
forward and taking up his cassava threw it down the hill and told him to
follow it “quickly, quickly.” He looked at me in surprise and hastened
to explain that it was not I whom he was addressing, but only the woman,
and that he would never address a _man_ in that manner. I told him that
I would far rather he would address me in that way than the white woman.
But he still repeated: “It was not you, white man; it was not you, but
only a woman that I spoke to.”
At length, however, he understood my meaning, but was only more surprised
than ever and calling out to his friends told them, to their great
amusement, that in the white man’s country the men obey the women,—which
was not exactly the idea that I had intended to convey. I then told him
that if he would tell the white woman that he was sorry for his rudeness
she would still buy his cassava.
It was strange how Mrs. Laffin without knowing a word of Bulu, and making
but little use of an interpreter, yet, by the language of a sympathetic
heart expressed in manner and in actions, reached the hearts of those
poor Bulu women, and discovered some womanly quality in them. They all
followed her through the village, and they were almost gentle in her
presence. I heard them telling afterwards how that in passing through a
certain village she saw a child who had cut its finger and was crying. It
was a cut that his mother would not even have noticed, but Mrs. Laffin
instantly drawing a pretty handkerchief from her pocket tore it in two
to bind the bleeding finger. In another matter they showed surprising
modesty, which Mrs. Laffin evidently thought was natural to them; but,
indeed, it was natural to them only in her presence. One cannot describe,
nor even understand, the powerful influence of such a woman upon the
degraded and fallen of her own sex; but even all good women have not
Mrs. Laffin’s influence. When she was leaving Efulen after two weeks, to
return to Batanga, the Bulu women as she passed through their villages
left their work and their palavers to follow her far along the way in
silence, only asking that she might some time come back again.
It was not many months afterwards that she was stricken with the dreaded
fever, that came suddenly and unawares, like some stealthy beast creeping
out of the jungle in the darkness. The third day she died. She had been
in Africa a little more than a year. Such is the price of Africa’s
redemption. But we may not say that her life was wasted. Such a life and
such an influence cannot be in vain.
[Illustration: THE PASSION FOR CLOTHES.
_They soon begin to wear clothes which they regard as mere ornamentation;
nor do they always distinguish the “gender” of the garments sold them by
the white man._]
VII
THE BUSH PEOPLE
The natives of Efulen, the Bulu tribe, are a branch of the great Fang
tribe. They are brown—not black, in colour, and are several shades
lighter than most of the coast tribes. They need not be commiserated for
their colour. It is quite to their liking; and they think they are far
better-looking than white people.
The Bulu go almost entirely naked. The men wear a strip of cloth a few
inches wide, suspended from a string around the hips, one end of the
cloth being fastened in front and the other behind. They wore only
bark-cloth when we first went among them, made from the bark of a tree,
the pulp being hammered out of it and the coarse fiber remaining. The
women wore less than the men, their entire dress consisting of a few
leaves suspended from a similar string around the hips and a square-cut
bobtail of coloured grass. Children wear nothing but the string around
the waist, which is put on immediately after birth and has a fetish
significance. An occasional rub with oil and then with red powder, made
of camwood, completes the toilet of the adults. Before our first year
had passed some of the men in the villages near by were wearing imported
cloth, and in larger pieces. By this time both men and women are wearing
it. Superficial changes follow rapidly in the wake of the white man. But
further back in the interior the conditions are still unchanged.
If they have but little use for clothing, they are excessively fond
of ornamentation, and the women are slaves of fashion. Most of their
ornaments are imported trinkets from the white man’s country, which have
travelled far in advance of the white man himself. Both men and women
have a peculiar and striking way of dressing the hair. Crossing it back
and forth over strips of bamboo, they build it into three or four ridges,
several inches high, running from the front to the back of the head.
Each ridge is mounted with a close row of common white shirt-buttons.
When shirt-buttons cannot be procured, a certain small shell is used.
Sometimes the ridges are circular, one within another like a story cake,
iced with shirt-buttons. In addition to this the women often sew on
above each ear a card containing as many as six dozen buttons. Sometimes
they also build a kind of splash-board behind the head, from ear to ear,
to hold more buttons. The hair thus arranged remains undisturbed for
several months. It forms a convenient place for wiping their hands or
the bread-knife (which is also every other kind of knife) or anything
else that may be particularly dirty. After dressing the hair grease is
smeared over it, from time to time, which in the sun melts into the hair,
giving it a rich gloss; and some of the grease passing through issues in
a very black stream down the back. This enables it to support an amazing
abundance of small animal life. They are very generous in helping one
another to remove these, and in passing through a village one may often
see some one reclining with his or her head in the lap of a friend who is
performing this kindly office. It is especially appropriate that a host
should thus accommodate a guest. It is done in the street, of course,
where everything else is done. For if they should retire to the house any
length of time something might happen and they not be there to see; or,
some bit of particularly spicy scandal might be detailed and they not
hear it, and life even at the best is dull enough.
But we have not completed the decorating of these women; for they would
be ashamed to be seen in this paucity of ornamentation. Across the middle
of the forehead they wear several strings of beads, or sometimes a strip
of monkey-skin, an inch wide, edged with shirt-buttons, and fastened
behind the head. They also have bangles three inches to a foot long,
all around the head, consisting of loose hair strung with beads of all
colours. But there is still room for more, and they wear around the neck
countless strings of a small blue-black bead, piled up sometimes several
inches high on the shoulders. Occasionally they pierce the septum of
the nose and insert a string of beads or a brass ring; and the ears are
treated in the same manner. A black tattooed marking between the eyes,
and two broad artistically designed lines of the same upon the cheeks
running from the direction of the ear towards the mouth, complete the
head-ornamentation of a fashionable Bulu woman.
Upon one arm, or both, she wears an enormous cuff, made of heavy brass
wire, an eighth of an inch in diameter, coiled into a solid gauntlet,
large at the elbow, tapering down to the wrist and spreading again
towards the hand. It is made on the arm and is not supposed to be
removed. Sometimes it is worn on the upper arm, in which case it chafes
the arm, and after a while causes an ulcer. These are also frequently
worn on the lower leg. But for this latter purpose they prefer a large
brass ring, several of which they wear on each leg, and which they keep
brightly polished. A woman if she can afford it, wears as many of these
brass rings as she can walk with.
It is strange that they have no love of flowers, and still more strange
when one considers their instinctive love of music. Passing through a
village and seeing a woman performing her semi-annual duty of combing her
hair, I have suggested the decorative possibilities of flowers rather
than shirt-buttons. I have even gathered them for her and have put them
in her hair, and I am sure they were becoming. But to her they were
ridiculous; nor was she moved when I told her that white women in my
country infinitely preferred flowers to shirt-buttons.
The men are tattooed on their faces and their breasts; but the markings
are light and scarcely disfigure the face. Every man carries at his left
side a long, two-edged, sword-like knife. It is a splendid article, which
they themselves manufacture. It is carried in a sheath of python-skin,
suspended from a shoulder-strap of leopard-skin, though sometimes
monkey-skin or goat-skin is substituted. The flint-lock gun had reached
there long before our time; and every man had a gun which he carried all
the time.
The men are usually tall, athletic and remarkably well-formed, though not
as full in the chest as a perfect physique would require. Most of the
younger men are good-looking. Many of the younger women have decidedly
pretty faces, but they are not as intelligent-looking as the men. Most
of the children are beautiful, with sweet, good-natured faces and
lovely eyes. Indeed, all of those whom one would call good-looking have
beautiful, large and expressive eyes, that can look brimful either of
laughter or affection; and the boys, to the age of fourteen or fifteen,
have the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen.
The Bulu people were unmistakably friendly and fluently sociable. It
did not seem to matter much that during those first days we did not
understand a word they said. The women were more sociable than the men,
but the men were more dignified and self-respecting. Most sociable of
all was the head-wife of the principal chief. In the usual traveller’s
book he would be called a king and she a queen, but these titles are
misleading without explanation. This “queen” often used to come to Efulen
selling potatoes, half a bucketful at a time, for which she bought more
beads. She was getting along in years, but still maintained an air of
superannuated gaiety. Upon her back were several ugly scars where his
lordship, her husband, had struck her with a cutlass—an unpleasant habit
quite characteristic of African husbands. One day, wishing to strengthen
the bond of friendship, she presented us with a coil of snake for our
dinner, which we declined with profuse thanks. On another occasion,
after our house was built, she came with five junior wives of the same
chief, and asked that they be shown through our house. I escorted them
through the house, as one might escort a party through the White-house
in Washington. Shrieks of wonder accompanied their inspection of every
article. Finally this head-wife, in lively gratitude, insisted upon
dancing in the dining-room for our entertainment. The feet are the least
active members in this singular dance. Most of the time she stands
in one place; nor does she pirouette like the dervish of Egypt. The
dance has not the gladsome hop of the Bohemian dances, nor the swift
glide of the tarantella; and of course it is altogether unlike any
of our conventional dances. It is an amazing and rapid succession of
extravagant gestures, grotesque poses and outrageous contortions. The
shoulders and stomach and all the muscles of her seeming boneless body
are set in violent motion. If dancing is “the poetry of motion,” this
is downright doggerel. She accompanies it with a vocal imitation of
their several wooden instruments, as incongruous as the dance itself.
She seems to be imitating half a dozen instruments at once, while deaf
to either applause or remonstrance on our part she dances on heedless
of perspiration and decorum. Finally this lady came to me one day and,
offering to leave her husband, made me a proposal of marriage, to the
delight of Dr. Good and Mr. Kerr. Shortly after this she went crazy.
We came in contact with a belief regarding the white man’s origin which
is widely prevalent, namely, that their dead ancestors have gone over the
sea and have become white men. We, therefore, are their ancestors. Dr.
Good and I once entered a town where the white man had never been seen.
While the people were still standing back, afraid of us, a woman looking
intently in my face uttered a cry of recognition, mistaking me for her
dead grandfather, or grand-uncle, or something of that sort.
“Are you not so-and-so, of my family?” she asked.
Not being eager to claim relationship, I hastily assured her that I was
not.
“Are you a spirit, or are you flesh?” she asked.
I told her I was no spirit, but flesh and bones and as solid as herself;
and I invited her to come and put her hand on me.
“Will my hand not go through?” she asked; and I assured her that it would
not.
Then coming towards me gradually, taking a short step, then a fearful
breath, then another step, she at last put her hand upon my arm and then
not knowing what would happen to her she turned and ran down the street.
But soon recovering herself she cried out: “He is solid just like us. My
hand didn’t go through.” Then they all came, men, women and children, to
investigate for themselves. Some pinched me, some pushed, and some pulled
my hair, to the infinite amusement of Dr. Good. I made no protest against
the more delicate experiments of the women and children; but the sense
of touch on the part of the men was so obtuse that I turned on one of
them and by the vigorous use of my fists undertook to convince him that
my quality was more substantial than spirit, while the town shrieked with
laughter. The rest were willing to take that man’s word that I was solid.
“You’re flesh and bones,” they cried in a chorus.
“Yes,” said I, “I am flesh and bones and fists.”
When we first went among them our safety was in their fetishism and this
we had counted upon. However kindly they may have felt, yet to them our
poor bundles of goods were fabulous wealth; and it was our opinion then
and afterwards that greed would have completely mastered them and they
would have killed us for our goods if they had dared. Dr. Good, as I
have said, had lived for years among the Fang, whose language is so much
like the Bulu that he could understand the Bulu from the first, although
he did not always let them know this. In the first Bulu town where we
stayed over night Dr. Good heard them discussing us. The younger men were
greatly excited and might have proved dangerous but for the counsel of
the older men, who are always held in high respect. These elders argued
that since we three strangers, with a few unarmed followers, had left
our own tribe and had come boldly among them we must surely have very
powerful fetishes—powerful enough to overcome theirs and inflict death on
our enemies. Our very goods which they coveted was evidence of this; for
it is only by fetishes that people acquire riches. Further evidence was
afforded by the fact that we had meat in tins which our boys told them
had been there for two years and it was not rotten. They had seen it, and
it smelled delicious. But the convincing proof was Mr. Kerr’s gun, the
most beautiful thing that ever had been seen, and which, according to the
report of the boys, was never known to miss aim (which indeed was a fact
when Mr. Kerr held it) and everybody knows that this depends entirely
upon a man’s fetishes. These sage counsels prevailed. And before this
belief in our fetishes and the fear of them was dissipated we had gained
their friendship, and were safe on that basis.
A month after our arrival at Efulen, Dr. Good, having occasion to go to
the coast, on the way bought something from a native to whom he gave a
note addressed to me in which he requested me to give the bearer a red
cap—a thing of yarn worth about five cents, much appreciated by the
native, but more becoming to a monkey than a man. Dr. Good explained to
him, as his eyes dilated with astonishment, that he would only need to
go to Efulen and hand the note to me without saying a word, whereupon I
would fetch out a red cap and give it to him. It was almost too great a
strain upon his credulity, but he agreed. His entire town accompanied
him to see this unheard-of miracle. It was a walk of half a day and
they passed through several towns on the way, in which they told what
was going to happen at Efulen. The population of each town, jerking
the dinner off the fire, snatching up the baby and leaving the dead
to bury their dead, joined in the procession. A great crowd presented
themselves before the house. They had agreed not to invalidate the
evidence of the miracle by letting me know what Dr. Good had said. The
note was the fetish that must effect the result. They stood with their
hands over their mouths for fear the secret would fly out. Despite
their extraordinary efforts to keep silence for a minute they were only
moderately successful. The leader handed me the note: I looked at it
and without a word went into the house and immediately returned with
the cap. They vented their astonishment in a great shout. Then each of
them, yelling as loud as possible, began to repeat the entire incident
from the beginning. They must have been telling the story to their dead
ancestors in Europe and America, if one might judge by their evident
distance, and by the fact that no one seemed to expect anybody else to
listen to him. This incident increased our prestige.
In a certain trading-house a similar incident once occurred. A native
presented a note to the trader who gave him a knife. Then all the young
enterprising natives appropriated paper wherever they could find it, and
cutting it into similar pieces presented it to the trader supposing that
he would automatically produce a knife and give it to them; but when
they witnessed his dumb ignorance they concluded that there were serious
limitations to the white man’s magic.
I have said that they regarded our meagre stock of goods as fabulous
wealth. They regarded us as we might regard a multi-millionaire. And,
strange enough, we gradually fell into their way of thinking, and
regarded their attitude as consonant with the facts. And why not? For,
to be rich is to have a little more than your neighbours, and to be poor
is to have less. There is no sense of privation in being compelled to
do without those things which nobody else has; but however much we may
have, we feel the pinch of poverty when there are additional comforts and
enjoyments immediately around us which we cannot procure. Our privations
were many and great, but they were for the most part inevitable. After
the first few months we had the best procurable in our situation, and far
more than those around us. So, every man in such a place will learn that
wealth, after all, is a sentiment more than a condition, a feeling rather
than a fact. But the return to civilization is like a sudden reversal
of fortune, and in dire contrast a man experiences a very painful and
oppressive sense of poverty when confronted with wealth so far beyond his
own.
We gave out various goods in pay to workmen engaged upon our premises. We
bought food for the workmen and some for ourselves. The staple article
of exchange was salt: one might almost call it the currency. There is
so little of it that there is a chronic hunger for it. Children like it
better than sugar. A teaspoonful of salt is the price of an egg. We also
gave in exchange beads, shirt-buttons, brass rods, red-caps, knives,
gun-flints, and later in the year we began to sell a little cloth. We
bought bananas, plantains, cassava (that which Stanley calls “manioc,”
which is their principal food) and building-material. All exchange is
by barter, and it is a very tedious and trying process, a long palaver
being regarded as almost essential to propriety even in the purchase of
the smallest article. In trading among themselves the man who can talk
longest and loudest usually gets the best of the bargain. The maintaining
of a fixed price is new to the African and is hateful to him, even if the
price be good, for it tends to deprive him of the palaver, which is the
joy of his life. He makes the best of the fixed price however and even
discovers that it still has some dramatic and histrionic possibilities.
He lays down his bamboo, or his thatch, before me, telling me in a
neighbourly manner how far he has had to go for it and how exceedingly
scarce it is becoming, how unusually good this particular material is and
what lavish offers he received for it along the way, and how friendship
for the white man prevailed over baser considerations. For, what were he
and his people before the white man came? But now, as for himself, he
has left behind all his vices, and that very morning has decided to be a
Christian.
I interrupt this fine flow of sentiment by asking him what he wants in
exchange for his thatch. He thinks he will take a little salt. I measure
out with a spoon the exact amount—which he knew before he left his town.
The dramatic moment is when I put away the spoon. He glances from the
salt to myself several times with a fine simulation of disappointment and
contempt, calculated to reduce me to pulp. He is no child in his art,
but such an adept that my moral fortitude almost surrenders before that
look. I seek to relieve the strain by saying with affected carelessness:
“That’s all. Take your salt and get out.”
The reply to this delicate suggestion is a prolonged yell of many mingled
emotions: and then he grabs,—not the salt, but his thatch and starts down
the hill cursing the white man. I have not so much affronted his judgment
as I have wounded his feelings, and perhaps have put a stumbling-block
in the way of his salvation. He thinks better of it, however, and comes
back, takes the salt and goes away blessing me.
It was hard to procure eggs. The natives do not eat eggs but always set
them. At first they asked the price of a chicken for an egg, because,
they said, the egg would become a chicken, with proper treatment. The
time element is always eliminated in every consideration. But most of
the eggs that they brought us would never have become chickens under any
circumstances; and this they knew, for they had given them a thorough
trial. When I pronounce an egg to be bad a man always wants it back; for
he or his friend will try to sell it to me again, watching an opportunity
when I am very busy and have not time to examine it closely. I have
probably refused the same egg half a dozen times in one morning, and then
perhaps have bought it, and the successful vender has amused the people
of his town by relating the transaction at my expense.
The women bring their garden produce in heavy loads carried on their
backs in large baskets. I stand on the porch as I buy and they on the
ground, their produce lying on the porch at my feet. They always rise
very early, and they usually reach the hill about daylight. We cannot buy
more than half of the food they bring; so there is a noisy and animated
scramble for first place. They are there before we are up in the morning
and they wait in a shed occupied by our men a little way down the hill
and in front of our house. There they indulge in chatter and laughter,
and one might think they had forgotten their errand. But the moment I
open the door and step outside (for it fell to me to do the buying) every
woman, with a yell, snatches her basket and pitches it on her back, or
perhaps comes dragging it along the ground, thinking in this way to gain
a moment over her sisters, and pushing and pulling each other, some of
them laughing, more of them cursing, and all of them yelling, the whole
fanfare sweeps up to the door. Not having been accustomed to rise so
early, my sense of humour is still dormant at that hour; life is always a
serious matter to me and a doubtful boon until after breakfast. I yawn,
and yawn again, and heave a weary sigh, as I reflect that the clamorous
noise which has thus ushered in the day will continue through the long
hours until its close.
Soon after our arrival at Efulen Dr. Good and I visited the town of an
old chief of some fame, named Abesula. Abesula’s claim to greatness was
based upon the possession of thirty-five wives and any man who could
endure life with thirty-five African wives must be made of uncommon
stuff. He was old and most of them were young and unruly, and each one
seemed disposed to do her full duty in reconciling him to death by
making his present life intolerable. As we entered the town an old woman
who knew Dr. Good and was very glad to see him came forward to salute
him, calling him his usual name, _Ngoot_. She was covered thick with
redwood powder, like red oxide, from head to feet, and he was dressed
in light-coloured clothes and was quite trim, for we had travelled by
a good road. In a salutation of “linked sweetness long drawn out”—“Ay!
Ngoo-t, Ngoo-t, Ngoo-t,” she threw her arms around him and embraced him
affectionately, leaving him covered with redwood powder. Other women,
evidently thinking that this was the proper way to receive a white
man, followed her example. Now, one of Dr. Good’s peculiarities was an
insuperable aversion to effusions of emotion. But he always considered
the effect of his actions upon the mind or the feelings of the natives;
so he submitted to this tender ceremony, but he looked as miserable as
ever Abesula did with his thirty-five wives all calling him names at
once. Then the old woman, not wishing to show partiality, approached me
with an amiable, toothless smile and all the redwood that was not on Dr.
Good’s clothes; but regardless of consequences I took to my heels and
bestowed myself at a safe distance down the street, feeling that I had
made sacrifices enough for the black race to be morally excusable for
declining this unsavoury embrace.
In the evening we sang several hymns to draw the people together. They
all came and Abesula sat in the midst. Then Dr. Good preached to them,
and some paid close attention. But after a while Abesula, interrupting,
said: “Ngoot, won’t you soon be through preaching? For I wish that you
two white men would sing and dance for the people; I don’t care for
singing without dancing, and I don’t like preaching at all.” But we did
not resort to this sensational method of holding a congregation.
That same evening a score of Abesula’s wives engaged in a general quarrel
with each other. An African family has no skeletons in the closet. They
all hang outside the front door. The quarrel began with two of them,
who, earlier in the evening, sat each within the door of her own house,
on opposite sides of the street, reviling each other in language of
loathsome indecency, until at last, when their intellectual resources of
warfare were exhausted, the other women told them to come out into the
street and fight it out. Whereupon the two women came out into the street
and throwing off even their scant apparel of leaves, began to fight.
To our surprise they did not scratch nor pull each other’s hair, as we
had heard that women do when they fight. It was more like wrestling,
although blows were delivered according to opportunity. They were fairly
matched; but at last one was thrown to the ground, the other falling
on top, and then clasping each other and fighting they rolled over and
over in the street. When one of them was beaten the other women began
to take sides and a large number became involved. Then the indiscreet
Abesula interfered and they all joined together against him. To say that
this large and unhappy family washed the dirty linen of their domestic
infelicity in the street is putting it too mildly. The linen was foul and
fit only for the fire. The women sought to shame the old savage out of
countenance by the revelation of filthy secrets—but there are no secrets
in Africa. Abesula replied with a shocking history of their immoralities
which I fear was too true. He raged like an infuriated beast. He asked
for a stick. Some one brought him one about ten feet long. As he talked
he beat the ground with the stick and when it broke in his hands he
called for another. He cursed them and threatened them with the hostility
of supernatural powers by which they would die various sudden deaths
in surprising forms, and suffer frightful penalties in another world.
All this while he was pounding the ground, in which performance it was
supposed that his wives were beaten by proxy. It was a very forcible
way of expressing his opinion of them, and of showing them what their
conduct deserved, while it was safer for himself and more conducive to
good health and a long life, than a personal attack upon them, seeing
that it was one against thirty-five.
But finding at length that this bloodless flogging even when accompanied
with awful language produced no other result than self-exhaustion and
violent perspiration, he resolved to kill himself without actually
dying—a simple paradox to the African mind. He brought out of his house
a long knife and a lighted torch, and carefully arranging a seat in
the middle of the street where all could witness the shedding of his
blood, he sharpened the knife, made his last speech, in which he told
his wives how he would haunt them after death, then raised the knife
above him, threw back his head, and pointed the knife towards his
breast. This tragical performance requires that at this interesting
moment some one, preferably a wife, should rush towards him in terrible
alarm and excitement and wrench the knife from his hand just in time to
save his life. This touching evidence of regard is a first measure of
reconciliation and is usually followed by a truce of hostilities. But
Abesula had made life so bitter for these women that their contempt was
unbounded and they desired no armistice. Not one of them moved to save
his life. He still held the knife above him, as if to say: “Is no one
going to interfere? Is it possible that you would allow a great man like
me to take his own life when you could so easily prevent it? At least
think of the trouble it will entail, the grave-digging, the burial, a
month of mourning, and perhaps charges of witchcraft.” Still no one
moved. Abesula suddenly resolved to sharpen his knife again so as to make
death quite certain. This being done he again raised it and pointed it
towards his heart. A native man said to Dr. Good: “Stop him! white man,
stop him! Take the knife from him!” And it may be that the women had
been expecting a white man to perform this obliging duty. But neither of
us moved. At last the knife descended, and with such terrible force that
it would have been driven into his heart and clean through his back if it
had not been that his arm was trembling with excessive determination, and
the descending knife, missing aim, struck the ground, penetrating nearly
to the hilt. Poor Abesula, inconsolable at finding himself still alive,
and feeling that his dignity, if not his life, was gone forever, rose
from the ground and sneaked away. But he cast a baleful look backward, as
if to say, “For two beads I’d destroy this world and make another where
great men could be appreciated. As for you black creatures, you don’t
know a great man when you see him.”
Later that night when all had retired to sleep, Dr. Good and I were still
discussing polygamy, that some white people assert is right and necessary
for Africa.
Mr. E. D. Morel points to the triumphs of Mohammedanism in Africa as
a proof of its better adaptation to the moral and material welfare of
the people than Christianity, attributing its success to its allowance
of polygamy. But Mr. Morel’s friend, Sir Harry Johnston, than whom
perhaps no man living knows more about Central Africa and its people,
accounts for the rapid spread of Mohammedanism in a very simple and
obvious manner, when he says: “Mohammedanism, as taught to the negro,
demands no sacrifice of his bodily lusts.” Mohammedanism does improve
the African—there is nothing gained by denying it. But, at best, it only
“moves the masses to a cleaner stye,” which, though cleaner, is still a
“stye”; while the aim of Christianity is a _household_, in which the law
is _love_, not lust. It is natural that it should take the negro longer
to learn this lesson and that he should be slow in making the sacrifices
that it demands.
In the morning Abesula seemed to have forgotten all about the palaver,
as if it were a very ordinary occurrence, as I presume it really was. We
rewarded him for the house that we had occupied by a gift of a red-cap
(cost, five cents), the remains of our tallow candle and six lumps of
white sugar.
VIII
AFTER A YEAR
My progress in acquiring the language was greatly retarded by my long
sickness, and by more than one prolonged stay at the coast. But the
language is easy. At the end of a year I was conducting Sabbath services
in Dr. Good’s absence and preaching in a stammering way. Mr. Kerr was
speaking the language much better than I; and Dr. Good had actually
translated the Gospels, though it was a tentative translation that he
knew would soon need revision. We were also penetrating a little beneath
the surface of native life, seeing with other eyes and beginning to
realize its degradation and to feel deeply its misery and sadness.
When we three white men, on our way to Efulen, entered the first Bulu
town, the old chief asked Dr. Good whether we were brothers. When Dr.
Good replied that we were not, the old man, turning slowly towards his
people, with an incredulous laugh exclaimed: “What a lie!” It seemed
impossible that three men who were not brothers could travel together in
the forest and not kill each other.
One day I heard a sudden outcry of great alarm from a village at the
foot of our hill. Several men of that village were at our station at the
time, and with a shout they started for home. I quickly followed them and
saw as I entered the village that a tragedy had occurred. I afterwards
learned that four of their prominent men had been shot. They were hunting
in the forest and not suspecting danger, when another party, who were
really friendly, mistook them for enemies in the dark forest, and shot
all four. This is a kind of mistake that occurs frequently. The native
would rather kill ten friends than let one enemy escape; so they often
kill first and investigate afterwards. The village was very small and
the loss of four stalwart men left them insufficiently protected against
their enemies. This day the four bodies had been found in the forest and
the news had just reached the village. Instantly, all the wives of those
men stripped off their scant clothing of leaves, smeared their bodies
with clay and running into the garden of bananas threw themselves on the
ground tearing their hair and screaming, while the other women of the
village gathered around and tried to comfort them. There was more than
one reason for this demonstration. In part it was probably genuine grief;
but there was also a strong element of fear, the fear of every wife whose
husband dies from any cause whatsoever, that she will be charged with
having bewitched him and suffer the penalty of death, perhaps by being
buried alive with the dead body of her husband. For in this instance of
the four men, it would be said, that they wore upon their necks certain
fetishes that would have made them invisible to any one attempting to
do them harm, and that evidently the spell of witchcraft had broken
the power of the fetish. The fact that a man’s wife, or wives, are the
first to be charged with his death, implying that they would be more
likely than others to desire it, throws a lurid light upon their social
relations and incidentally upon polygamy. The African wife everywhere is
an artist in the use of poison.
In that entire year at Efulen I do not remember that there was one
natural death, though we never ceased to hear their mourning for the
dead. In those tribes where no degree of civilization is yet established
it is estimated that nineteen out of twenty Africans die by violence.
And when one comes to know the people individually and by name, instead
of by impersonal figures, one realizes something of the enormity of wrong
and suffering covered by this record.
One of the friendliest of the natives who had been coming to see us
almost every day, a young man of splendid physique, was dragged up the
hill to our door, unconscious, a bullet from an enemy’s gun having
penetrated his forehead, breaking the skull and laying bare the brain.
With their coarse knives they had tried to dig the pieces of broken
bone out of the wound. That war began with the stealing of a woman, or
rather her elopement with a man of another town. The reason she gave
was that her husband was so homely she could not live with him. The man
probably had no wife and had no possible means of procuring the very
large dowry necessary for her purchase. The town from which the woman was
stolen, according to native custom, at the very first opportunity killed
a person belonging to the town to which the woman was taken. Then the
other town killed several of their people. During this war the people of
the more distant town could not reach Efulen, and those of the nearer
town brought their guns when they attended our service on Sunday and sat
with them in their hands, ready for instant action. The war between the
two towns continued until twelve persons had been killed, eight on one
side and four on the other. Then another woman was stolen, and another
war began and this first one was settled in a great palaver, which was
called in a neutral town, the people of the two opposing towns being
gathered together and sitting on opposite sides of the street. After
endless oratory, some of it weak enough and some of it eloquent, it was
agreed that one side, having killed four more than the enemy, should pay
over to them four women, and the town to which the man belonged who had
first stolen the woman should collectively pay a proper dowry. Having
thus agreed they returned to their respective towns and it remained only
to name the four women who should be given over to the other town. Dr.
Good and I were present when the old chief, after taking counsel with
the elders, named the four women. The whole town was assembled. As he
pronounced each name there was a shriek and a woman fled to the bush;
but a number of men knowing the name beforehand, caught her, dragged her
back into the street, while she struggled and threw herself on the ground
as if she were trying to kill herself. But it was useless. They bound
them with bush-rope and they were taken away. Upon reaching the other
town, they would become the wives of the chief, or others upon whom he
might magnanimously bestow them. My impression is that at first they are
usually regarded with ill-will. Sometimes, when a woman seems not to be
reconciled to her lot, her feet are put in stocks until she is brought
into subjection; but in time she submits to the inevitable and makes the
best of it. I have known instances among the Fang where such women were
regarded as slaves.
Yet in all their degradation there was still something childlike about
them. We found them always interesting and even lovable; and though so
far below our own moral level, our sympathy was not repelled by their
degradation. One upon the mountain top may seem far above his fellows;
but, when he looks up, the infinite stars are equally above them all. The
higher our ideals the more lowly our hearts, the more sane and broad our
sympathies.
It ought not to be expected that we would accomplish any individual or
social transformation in a brief year. Only with length of time can
even a divine religion, so long as it leaves men free, transform the
customs of ages, and in minds knowing only animal desires, create new and
noble ideals. Without doubt the new truth that we taught had become more
intelligible and above all, they grasped its practical import. We not
only preached but practiced justice, honesty, truthfulness, and kindness
(to their amazement), and they interpreted our creed by our practice. For
they themselves were preachers of righteousness before they ever heard of
the white man; but it was in _doing_ that they lacked. We felt at the end
of the year that they understood us, and recognized our moral principles
as right: and this was a great advance.
But the actual reforms among them were for the most part merely
superficial and scarcely moral. Some of them developed a passion for
clothes, which they regarded as mere ornamentation. It is sometimes
said that we missionaries preach a “Gospel of cloth” mistaking clothes
for morality. And a superficial observer at Efulen would probably have
supposed that the ludicrous effort of the people to clothe themselves
was the result of our teaching and advice. But it was due only to their
ready habit of imitation; and as a matter of fact we were disposed to
discourage it. For one of the first lessons that the white man learns in
Africa is that clothes and morality are not so nearly related as he had
supposed. It is preferable in this as in everything else that knowledge
should precede practice: otherwise, the results will be at least
grotesque and often injurious to health. One man is dressed in the crown
or the brim of a hat; another wears a pair of cast-off shoes, or perhaps
one shoe, while his friend wears the other; and even when they are new he
is indifferent about shoe-strings. One man will wear as his entire outfit
a ragged coat of inhuman proportions; another wears a pair of trousers
that have outworn all the buttons, while his whole time and attention are
occupied in keeping them on, and with indifferent success. Such rags of
clothing turn these fine and manly-looking fellows into low-down rowdies
or even into the semblance of apes. Nor do they always know the _gender_
of the garments shown them in the trading-houses, and not all the traders
will assist their taste. One may sometimes see a tall chief dressed
in a pink or blue Mother Hubbard. At the coast I once saw a stalwart
bushman, who had just disposed of an ivory, “dressed to kill” in a lady’s
under-garment, fresh from the box, snow-white and trimmed with delicate
embroidery. He was so proud as he strutted along that he could scarcely
speak.
But clothes, until they have learned to take proper care of them, are
often injurious to their health. They will keep these garments on night
and day, wet or dry, and may not take them off till they fall off.
It is worse with shoes. The feet of the native are shod with natural
sole-leather; and if they were not, the bush-paths would be impassable
for him. But he wears his shoes through mud and water, and keeps them on
at night. The result is that they make his feet tender, besides injuring
his health.
Shortly after we went to Efulen, such was the passion for clothes that if
one should throw away an old pair of socks instead of burning them, no
matter where they might be thrown, one might count on it that somebody,
probably a boy, would soon appear in the yard wearing those socks,
sometimes on his hands instead of his feet, thinking that they would
last longer. One day when I decided that a certain pair of shoes were
no longer fit to wear, I took them out into the yard and placing them
on a block, took an axe, and proceeded to chop them into small pieces.
All the natives in the yard, visitors and workmen, came running to me
and loudly begged for the shoes with outstretched hands. But oblivious
to their clamorous entreaties, I kept swinging the axe and compelling
them to stand back. When I had finished I asked them what they wanted,
explaining that I could not swing an axe and listen to them at the same
time, especially when they were all talking at once. They turned away
with looks of disgust.
A certain chief at Efulen succeeded in procuring a suit of bright blue
denim. The following Sunday the family came to our service with the suit
divided between them, the women having divested themselves of the native
attire. The old man wore the coat, his wife followed with the trousers,
and a grown daughter brought up the rear with the vest. Of course they
came late, and walked to a front seat. The missionaries were supposed to
maintain their gravity. I was not there myself and am indebted to Mr.
Kerr for the incident.
My visits to the coast were like coming back to civilization; such was
the contrast of Batanga and Efulen. And, besides, there was a white
child at the coast, little Frances, a dear little girl about a year old,
whom I carried in my arms much of the time that I was there. For I have
already told how one longs for the sight of a white child. During those
visits to the coast I often preached in the Batanga Church and I became
well acquainted with that congregation. By their progress of a few years
and by the Christian character of many individuals known to me, I was
accustomed to measure the possibilities of the Bulu and the prospect of
our work.
[Illustration: THE OLD CHURCH AT BATANGA.
_The walls are of split bamboo and the roof of palm thatch. The
triangular openings serve both for ventilation and expectoration._]
The first Sunday after my arrival in Africa I preached in the church at
Batanga. I had carefully packed away every article of better clothing,
including all starched linen, and all my shirts, and was wearing a suit
which I had purchased at a trading-house for two dollars. I have reason
to remember this from what Dr. Good said afterwards. He told me that when
I landed from the steamer he surveyed me with eager curiosity, and that
I had somehow impressed him with a doubt as to whether I would be able to
adapt myself to our bush-life. But when he entered the Batanga Church the
following Sunday and saw me standing in the pulpit divested of collar,
cuffs and shirt, and dressed in a suit that everybody knew had cost
exactly two dollars, doubt was banished, and to a fellow missionary he
expressed his changed mind in the emphatic words: “He’ll do.” But surely
in Africa and everywhere else our dress should be that which is proper to
our work and our surroundings.
The Batanga Church had a membership of four hundred, and the attendance
was very large. The present edifice is a hideous and expensive structure
of foreign material, altogether inappropriate to native conditions and
a disfigurement in the landscape. But the old church of those days,
while not sufficient in size, was admirable in other respects and
picturesque—elevated on posts and with a board floor, bamboo walls, and
roof of palm thatch. Along the base of the walls, at regular intervals,
were large triangular openings for ventilation. But the people being
accustomed to leave all matters of ventilation and sanitation to
providence, evidently supposed that these openings were intended for
their accommodation in expectorating. For the habit of expectoration is
fixed and constant, and is as characteristic of Africa as noise. One does
not object to it so much among bush people, who usually assemble outside,
and in whose houses there are only ground floors. But when they begin to
be civilized it is more noticeable and becomes offensive. The majority of
the Batanga people, with the native instinct of good manners, were just
sufficiently civilized to know that it is bad form to spit on the floor,
but _not_ sufficiently civilized to break off the habit entirely. During
the service they continually expectorated through the openings in the
walls, and especially the women. It seemed that the more interested they
became in the sermon the more fluently they expectorated. My attention
was arrested and almost diverted by the uncertainty and suspense whenever
I saw an old woman on the inside end of a pew, lean forward, twist her
head to one side, take deliberate aim, and fire past six persons. She
never missed the hole—unless some one of those between her and the wall
should happen to move or lean forward just at the wrong moment, which
of course was not her fault. The appearance which this habit presented
outside the church always recalled what Dickens said of this same habit
in America—that the appearance outside the windows of a railway coach was
as if some one inside were ripping open a feather tick.
The men and women sit on different sides of the church and I believe
that in their stage of civilization it is best that they should thus
be separated, though sometimes it is attended with inconvenience. For
instance, a father may have charge of a baby that wants its mother; and
if so it may be passed from one to another across the entire church, as
I have seen, dangling by one little arm, and with no covering but that
which nature has provided in its black skin. The large majority are
dressed and there is nothing grotesque or foolish in their costumes. Most
of the men wear a white undershirt and a large square robe of cotton,
usually of bright colours, bound around the waist and falling almost to
the feet. This is the most becoming male dress in Africa; and the black
man in his own climate always looks best in bright colours. A few of the
men, in too great haste to be civilized, wear shirts and trousers, the
trousers a manifest misfit and the shirt outside the trousers. This mode
of wearing the shirt, however, I would not criticise; it is charmingly
naive, and rather sensible when one becomes accustomed to it. The women
wear a similar square robe of bright cotton, or better material, bound
around immediately below the arms, leaving the shoulders bare, and
falling to their feet. But among them are many, both men and women, who
wear a smaller cloth, bound around the waist and falling to the knees,
with nothing on the upper body. Individuals have different costumes but
these are the types; and the types are so established that anything
eccentric or much out of style would occasion a smile. People of the
bush sometimes straggle into the service so absurdly dressed that the
gravity of the entire congregation is upset. It was so one Sunday when
the following incident occurred.
While I had fever at Efulen, being obliged to change clothing frequently,
I discarded pajamas for nightshirts. They were long ones that reached to
my feet. These when taken off were usually hung near the fire to dry,
where the smoke stained and discoloured them. When I was well I discarded
them. Mr. Kerr, for some reason, presented one to a Bulu man. Soon
afterwards the man visited the coast and of course took this wonderful
garment with him. What is the use of having fine clothes if one is not to
show them off? The Bulu man, looking very grand in my stained nightshirt,
attended the service in the Batanga Church, came late, of course, and
walked up the long aisle to a front seat, while the large congregation
made an agonizing effort to “remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.”
But there were a number of missionaries present and they had heard me
speak of those garments and their extreme discolouration by the smoke;
and when they saw the Bulu enter they immediately recognized the garment.
Some of the Batanga people had begun to wear shoes, though there is no
need of them and they look better without them. They have a preference
for heavy shoes that will make a noise as they walk up the aisle,
otherwise people might not know that they had them. But above all,
they must have shoes with “squeaking” soles,—or, as the natives say,
shoes that “talk”; and the first question a native asks when he would
buy a pair of shoes is: “Do they talk proper loud?” They wear black
shoe-strings when they cannot get pink or white. Some of them are so
uncomfortable that they remove their shoes during the service.
The collection at the Batanga service was gathered only occasionally and
was unique in quality and quantity—chickens, bananas, cassava, sweet
potatoes, dried fish, pieces of cloth, shirts, hats, knives, boards, etc.
But I had occasion frequently to review the records of the session of
the church, and of realizing the undercurrents of the lives of those
people; and there I found nothing amusing. It was a sad, sad story of
pathos and dire tragedy. There were confessions of weak failure; but
there were other confessions of defeat only after long and brave fighting
against temptations which those in Christian lands cannot conceive
and which I cannot relate. There were stories of domestic sorrow. A
Christian man tells the session that he did not partake of the communion
because his heart was full of bitterness against his heathen wife for
her unfaithfulness and immorality. A Christian woman declares that she
refused to marry a man who had other wives. She was tied hands and feet
and carried to his house. Another woman tells the wrongs she endured
from a heathen husband. A broken-hearted father tells that he had not
lately attended the services because the death of his only son had filled
him with doubt of God’s goodness. A widowed mother also confesses doubt
because God had taken away her only son. These are the _weak_ Christians
who have been called before the session; and these are the men and women
at whose weaknesses travellers and other critics would laugh and point
the finger of scorn, and because of them condemn the entire congregation
of those who profess to be Christians. The majority of white men in
Africa judge the native Christians without mercy, and they judge the
whole native church by its weakest member. At Las Palmas, on Grand Canary
Island, I tasted a fresh fig for the first time in my life and pronounced
it “disgusting,” whereupon a native Spaniard, a judge of figs, looking at
me, said: “O, sir, you are eating a bad one!” He was right. I was eating
a bad fig and judging the whole species by that one. It is thus that many
white men judge the native Christians of Africa.
Prominent in the Batanga Church, and always present at the service, was
a woman, Bekalida, noted in her tribe for her good looks, but in these
latter years smitten with a disease that had horribly disfigured her,
and had eaten away her entire nose. When this calamity befell her she
was so overwhelmed with grief and shame that for a long time she could
not bear to be seen in public. But at last, with her face covered, she
appeared in the little prayer-meeting of women conducted by her great
friend, Miss Nassau, and there, in pathetic and eloquent words, she
poured out her heart while they wept, and told them how that she had
been vain and proud until the Lord in His love had smitten her; how that
during the long weeks of her affliction faith forsook her. Her heart was
hard and rebellious and she felt that she could not bear her shame; but
she yearned for that comfort that only God could give; she came to Jesus
again in penitence and He received her and her heart was filled with the
peace of God; for it was better to be disfigured than to be vain and
proud.
In that same congregation there was one Mbula, who afterwards became a
minister; a young man of simple manners and godly life. Growing up in
the midst of African degradation, he was yet pure, strong and manly. He
developed unusual gifts as a preacher, simplicity and force, fluency of
speech and a charming grace of manner that many white ministers might
envy. There was another young man, Eduma, who also became a minister and
is to-day an influential leader among those who are striving to live
in a higher and better way than they have hitherto known. Already from
that congregation missionaries have gone to the Bulu, whom they formerly
despised. At least one of those missionaries, Ndenga, has lived a life,
and done a work, of faith and devotion that is fitted to surprise and
to convince all those who have seriously doubted whether the African is
capable of a high ideal and of patient performance.
Towards the end of our first year among the Bulu it was very plain that
a change had taken place in our relations to them. They had become
convinced that our persons were not inviolable as they had first thought
and that we had no fetishes to serve us as a potent protection; while, on
the other hand, though we had steadily gained their regard, it might be
doubted whether their friendship was yet sufficient for our security. If
there is ever any danger of violence it is in this period of transition.
One or two incidents will illustrate the change of feeling.
In a certain town which Dr. Good and I once visited, much farther in the
interior and where no white man had ever been before, a young Bulu man
came to us at the close of the service and addressing us in English said:
“I sabey English mouf.” Imagine our surprise! He gave us some account of
himself.
[Illustration: PASTOR AND ELDERS OF THE BATANGA CHURCH.]
His name was Keli. When a child he had been taken by his father on
a visit to a neighbouring tribe. While there he was stolen from his
father and taken to a distant village where he became a slave. Some time
afterwards he was taken to the coast and sold to a chief of the coast
tribe. Finally the chief sold him to a white man, who in turn gave him to
another white man and he was taken to Gaboon. His master was a Frenchman,
and Keli was his personal attendant. The boy made himself so useful that
when the Frenchman went on furlough to France he took him along. After
living in Paris a considerable time the Frenchman concluded not to return
to Africa; whereupon he sent Keli to England and gave him into the charge
of an English trader who was expecting soon to sail for Africa. With this
trader Keli returned to Africa. Not long after this the trader having
occasion to visit Batanga took Keli with him. This was his opportunity.
In the night he fled to the forest. Finally he fell in with a caravan
going to the Bulu country, and at last reached his town, after an absence
of seven years, during which his father and mother had died, and he had
been long-forgotten. Keli had not been trained by his various masters
in wisdom and judgment, and he made the mistake of telling the people
all that he had seen in Paris and London—all about the big buildings
and multitudes of people, all about the clothes they wore and the very
cold season of snow and ice, all about horses and carriages and railway
trains—quite overtaxing their credulity, and earning the reputation of
a notorious liar and incorrigible fool. Missionaries sometimes make the
same mistake and pay the same penalty.
Meantime Keli had become accomplished to the extent of knowing French
and English and five native dialects. But, alas! how destitute of moral
power is civilization alone! Keli did not seem to have any moral ideas.
The restraining fear of his former fetishism had been expelled, and no
moral motive implanted. His morality was much below that of the average
Bulu, except in the shedding of blood. Nothing but long familiarity can
make that an indifferent matter to any man however degraded; and Keli
had a horror of blood. We took him home with us to Efulen and made him
cook and houseboy, for we were in our usual strait at the time. He knew
his work well and was unapproached in service for the short time that he
behaved. But at the first opportunity, one Sunday during the service,
Keli captured and stole a chicken, the mother of a young brood. He
strewed feathers along a bush-path to make believe that a wild animal
had taken it. Of course it will be remembered that among a people who
have so little, a chicken is one of the high values. The theft was not
insignificant in the mind of the Bulu. But for us the really serious
import of the matter was that it raised the question as to whether
they could steal from us with impunity, or with any possibility of not
being detected. They had never attempted it before, being restrained by
the dread of our supposed fetishes, which Keli knew to be a delusion.
I need not say that we had never fostered the delusion, yet it had
served a providential use. It was now likely to be dispelled and we
were not certain as to the consequences. Keli immediately killed the
chicken and gave it to a Bulu man, his accomplice, who wrapped it in
a loin-cloth and took it to his town while Keli himself came running
to me in great distress, as soon as the service was concluded, telling
a most interesting story of a bushcat that he had seen just as it was
disappearing with the chicken, and how he had given chase and had tried
to rescue it. Of course I suspected himself, but I said nothing until, by
a chain of evidence that I have forgotten, I traced it to him. We made
him a prisoner, and Dr. Good soon wrung a confession from him. He said he
would find the chicken—which, however, having lost its head, could never
be the same chicken again. I took him to town still a prisoner, a workman
walking behind him with a rope around his waist. He led me through the
town to the house of his accomplice. Entering the house he proceeded
directly to the bed and from underneath it produced the chicken, wrapped
in the cloth of the other thief.
I took the chicken and the cloth and started back to the station, still
accompanied by Keli, and a long procession of natives. I had gone but
a short distance when the owner of the cloth with a number of men
following, came running from behind, and dashing past me with a shout,
immediately turned about, placed himself in the narrow path before me,
and with his long knife in his raised arm demanded his cloth. It may have
been mere bluff on his part, one cannot tell. The chief danger, if there
was any, was not their natural brutality so much as their excitement.
Of course I could not yield to a demand that was really a threat and
so bring us into contempt. But I was far from comfortable and I would
gladly have made a present of the entire incident to my worst enemy. My
resources were, in the first place, straight bluff, and second, the moral
prestige of the white man. Keeping my eye fixed upon him I ordered him
out of the path, and as he did not obey, I suddenly struck him as heavy a
blow as I could,—so suddenly that he was taken completely off his guard
and was thrown headlong into the thicket, while I passed on. Surprised
more than hurt, it took him some time to recover himself and to take
counsel with his fellows. Meantime, wishing to avoid an ugly palaver,
and still to retain personal authority, I unfolded the cloth, discovered
before the eyes of the people that it was very dirty and full of holes,
laughed at it and got them to laugh, and finally threw it aside, saying:
“Tell him that this cloth is not fit for a white man to take.” As I moved
on I heard the man and his friends coming again, running and yelling; but
as he came up the people shouted that they had his cloth, and the sight
of it appeased his anger.
That night we kept Keli a prisoner in our house. Dr. Good thought that
in our peculiar situation we could not afford to let him go unpunished.
With great reluctance he advised that he ought to be flogged in the
presence of the people. He was always kind and considerate towards the
natives, but he was not a man who would shirk a duty because it was
disagreeable. For myself, my mind was not quite clear that flogging was a
moral necessity. But I knew Dr. Good well and had learned to trust him,
so I consented that he should do as he thought best. The next morning,
therefore, he and I took Keli down to the principal town, and having
called all the people together, Dr. Good told them, in native fashion,
the story of Keli’s wrong. And he added that in view of Keli’s youth and
the hard circumstances of his life he had decided that he would only flog
him and dismiss him. Thereupon, with a rod prepared for the purpose, he
began to administer the flogging.
Now, if I were relating fiction and not reality, I should certainly
proceed to have Keli properly flogged and the mind of the community
deeply impressed in consequence. But as reality never quite attains the
ideal, and as I may not substitute imagination for history in this sober
narrative, I must tell of “the slip twixt the cup and the lip.” Prominent
among Keli’s moral discrepancies was cowardice; and even before the rod
descended for the first time he uttered a scream that evidently startled
Dr. Good, for he let go his hold and Keli bounded from him. Dr. Good
chased him and could easily have caught him but it had been raining and
the clay surface of the street was smooth and slippery, giving Keli’s
bare feet a decided advantage. They both resembled amateur performers on
roller skates. The chase that followed seemed to appeal peculiarly to
the humour of the natives, which was the more excessive because of the
strong reaction from fear and apprehension. They laughed wildly. Keli led
the way around the palaver-house once or twice, then down the street, Dr.
Good following him close and reaching after him, while he administered
what would have been a severe flogging but that the strokes persistently
fell about twelve inches behind Keli’s shoulders, affording him, I
imagine, an acute realization of the old adage, “A miss is as good as a
mile.” Soon they reached a steep slope in the street, and Keli, steadily
gaining, at last made his escape. I, looking on, maintained an exterior
of stern gravity that was the very antithesis of my feeling. But deeper
than outward gravity and inward laughter I was praying that nothing might
happen to impede Keli’s steady progress; for this flogging in pantomime
served to impress a moral lesson, while it left no marks on poor Keli’s
skin, whom seven tribes and nations had helped to degrade. I should not
wonder if Dr. Good himself felt somewhat as I did.
On our way home Dr. Good intimated to me the moral propriety of not
mentioning the incident to Mr. Kerr or any of the missionaries at the
coast, for I was soon going to the coast.
“Indeed,” said I, “you could not possibly bribe me to silence regarding
the episode of this morning. It would be a great wrong, in this weary
land, to deprive my fellow missionaries of such an entertainment, and
I am really thinking of going to the coast a day earlier than I had
expected.”
No man could yield to the inevitable with better grace than Dr. Good.
Before we reached home he was laughing; and he was even disposed to
anticipate me in telling the story, which he did with dramatic effects
and graphic touches inimitable.
It was not long after this that the Bulu conceived the idea of wresting
from us a higher price for all articles of native food. When we refused
their demand they all joined together in a boycott. Our position was
serious enough; for we had a number of workmen from the coast whose
entire food we purchased from the Bulu. We happened to have rice on hand
which for the time we gave the men and which was sufficient to last
several days. Meantime, it happened that there was more sickness than
usual. Some of the principal chief’s wives had bad ulcers and were coming
daily for treatment. But one day when our rice was nearly exhausted,
Dr. Good turned them all away, saying that he would treat them when the
people would bring food. This was a possibility that had never occurred
to them. A few days later they decided to bring food and end the boycott.
But now that they had once attempted it there was need that we should
always be prepared by having on hand a supply of rice.
About this time I went to the coast expecting to remain only a few days
and return with a large caravan; for we were in need of many things. It
was on this journey that the incident occurred which I have related,
when my carriers lost their way with my bed and clothing and I suffered
extreme exposure. The result was a fever immediately upon reaching the
coast, and a second fever before I had sufficiently recovered from the
first to set out for the interior, and then a third fever, the worst
that I had had. If I could have reached Efulen I would probably have
recovered; for the climate of Batanga is dreadful. But the wet season,
which had been coming on gradually was now at its worst, and cut off the
possibility of a retreat to the interior, in my greatly reduced health.
The last fever had been so serious that I could not risk another. There
was only one thing to do. So, with the advice of all the missionaries at
Batanga, I took the first steamer that came, and fled from the coast,
having been in Africa a year and a half. Nor did my health permit of my
return to Africa for four full years. As I put out from the Batanga beach
in a surf-boat and stood looking back at the receding shore while we rose
and fell with the heavy waves of the evening sea, the last one that I saw
was Mrs. Laffin, who again came out and waved her handkerchief. She was
very well then; but only a few weeks later she died.
A month after Mrs. Laffin’s death came the dreadful news that Dr. Good
had died. He was a man of iron constitution and such amazing vitality of
body and mind that it seemed impossible to associate death with him. The
unnaturalness of his death impressed me as might some great convulsion in
nature; as if a mountain had been uprooted and cast into the depths of
the sea.
Mr. Kerr was at Efulen when Dr. Good died and several other missionaries
had arrived.
While I was still there Dr. Good had planned a trip of three weeks into
the interior further than he had yet gone with a view to choosing a site
for another mission station; but circumstances at Efulen led him to
postpone the journey. At that time he received a message from a notorious
and dreaded chief of the interior near the present Elat, warning him not
to dare to come into his country, for that he would surely kill him. Dr.
Good, however, continued his preparations for the journey. In the course
of a long and serious conversation as to what it would be best to do in
case that interior chief or any other should do him violence or should
capture and detain him, he urged and exacted from me a promise that in
any event the German government should not be called to his assistance,
even to save his life. Not that he denied his right to protection but he
knew the severity of the government, having recently witnessed it in a
war upon a neighbouring tribe. And indeed I myself had arrived in Africa
in time to see something of the desolation of that war in the silent
and smoking remains of towns from which the people (all who had escaped
from the sword) had fled into the depths of the forest. For instance,
two little boys who had just been taken into our school at Batanga had
been found alone in the forest, and crying beside the dead body of their
mother. I yielded to Dr. Good a reluctant promise as he desired; for I
could not controvert the moral principle which actuated this strong,
brave-hearted man.
For other reasons he did not go at that time; but not long after I
left Africa, and upon the arrival of others, he set out upon this hard
and uncertain journey. Perhaps he erred on the side of economy and
indifference to comfort, not providing himself with everything procurable
that could conserve his strength and vitality. He made extensive
explorations of the interior, chose the site for a new station, returned
to Efulen exhausted, and the next day was stricken with fever. The third
day afterwards he died, having been delirious most of the time. He was
only thirty-seven years old. His last conscious words were a message to
the church at home, “See that I have not laboured in vain.”
Great man and great missionary! There was something about Dr. Good that
always reminded one of Livingstone. Six years later, standing at his
grave on Efulen hill, where every tree and every foot of ground were
associated with his memory, I recalled the inscription in the crypt of
St. Paul’s Cathedral, over the tomb of Sir Christopher Wren, its great
architect. “If you ask a monument look around you.” The Church of Efulen,
the growth of which has since been marvellous, no costly pile of stone or
marble, but of more precious human souls upon whose darkness the light of
heaven has dawned, the large congregation that gathers there to worship
the true God, and the many changes in the community near and far—these
are the lasting monuments of Dr. Good.
IX
THE KRUBOYS
It was not on the voyage to Batanga, but on subsequent voyages along the
lower coast, to the Congo, to St. Paul de Loanda and Benguela, that I
was fully impressed with the service of the black man to the white and
the disposition to cruelty on the part of the latter. For it is south
of Batanga that the natives employed on the steamer do their hardest
work. What I saw and heard on those several voyages gave ample food
for reflection upon the moral danger of unrestrained authority and the
unfitness of most men to govern their fellows of lower degree. I was
allowed to remain absorbed in my own thoughts as there were but few
passengers on board; on one such journey I was the only passenger for
three weeks out of five.
After leaving Sierra Leone on the outward voyage the course changes
eastward. A few days later we sighted the coast of Liberia and nearly
opposite Monrovia we anchored and waited for eighty black men who were
shipped as workmen for the rest of the voyage. We anchored far out at
sea; for the Liberian coast is very rough and dangerous, and for most of
the entire coast the latest charts are more than fifty years old.
These workmen belong to the Kru tribe. They do all the work of
discharging and taking on cargo for the entire voyage, remaining on
board for the round trip—usually three or four months—and receiving in
payment an average of a shilling a day. We do not call them “Krumen,”
but “Kruboys,” for in Africa they are boys till they die.
The Kruboys are the “real thing,” the Africans that you have pictured in
your imagination and have read about, and at the sight of them coming
off in a fleet of large canoes, accompanied by the whole population,
almost stark naked—the majority wearing a bit of calico the size of a
pocket-handkerchief—black and savage, and each of them yelling like ten
savages, the ladies on board usually hurry down to their cabins and
remain for a while in obscurity. Ropes are thrown over to the Kruboys
and they climb the side of the ship like monkeys. At closer view they
do not appear savage at all. Every face reveals laughing good-nature,
and each man looking after his simple necessities in a businesslike way
makes himself as comfortable as possible, and yells as loud as possible,
while he asks for what he wants and declares to all on board what he
is going to do, though he does not seem to expect anybody to listen to
him or to pay any attention to him. There is considerable disputation,
some quarrelling, and an occasional fight. They have a remarkable way of
passing from laughter to quarrel and from fight to song by the easiest
sort of transition: passion does not linger.
One soon becomes accustomed to their nakedness, and even the ladies
seem to forget it. In this they are helped by the native’s childlike
unconsciousness of any breach of etiquette. Then sometimes one goes
to the other extreme and thinks that there is nothing of the savage
about them at all—barring the yell and a soon-discovered incorrigible
indifference to the categories of “mine” and “thine” with consequent
insecurity of all portable property. In this stage of developing opinion
I have heard ladies pronounce them “perfectly lovely.” And the Old
Coaster blandly informs them that they are “as innocent as lambs.”
The Kruboy is of real negro stock, and is not so graceful, not so
intellectual, not so gentle in manners, as the natives further south of
the Calabar, the Bantu tribes, who are not classified as negroes. But the
Kruboy’s physique is magnificent, in size, development, and strength.
They prefer to sleep in the companionway or some other sheltered place;
but, as there is not room for all, most of them lie in their nakedness
on the open deck, exposed to all kinds of weather. Their food is rice,
salt pork, and sea biscuits. Their degradation is manifest not so much in
the indecency that most people expect, as in their unappeasable hunger
and greedy appetite. All food is “chop” to the Kruboy, and when he eats
he “chops.” You may not like this word—you may hate it; but you will be
obliged to use it continually on the coast; and the Kruboy would not
understand any substitute. One day the Kruboys were landing some salt at
Batanga for our missionary, Mr. Gault, when the boat capsized in the surf
and before they could recover it the salt had all dissolved in the sea.
They came to Mr. Gault carrying the empty, dripping sacks, but absolutely
indifferent to the loss, and said: “Massa, the sea done chop all them
salt.”
The English names of the Kruboys are interesting, and need some
explanation. In the African languages there is no distinct vocabulary of
“proper names.” As it was with the Jews, and some other nations ancient
and modern, so in Africa names are usually descriptive or commemorative
of some incident, notable or otherwise, and any word, phrase, or
sentence, may be so used. For instance on the Gaboon River there is a
very small village, which, as I was entering it for the first time, one
of my boat-boys described as consisting of four men, four women, four
houses, four goats, and four chickens; but the name of it was _Bi Biana
Milam_—_We Despise Big Towns_. I thought it was rather pathetic; for I
know how the big towns vex the little towns. Childlessness is a reproach
and a great sorrow among African women; and a certain woman in Gaboon who
was advanced in years when she bore her first child gave him a name which
means, “It-is-no-disgrace-to-be-childless.” These names sound far better
in their own language.
But the Kruboys of the steamers take English names which, to say the
least, are not dignified, and are more absurd when the ship’s officers
call them out in anger—and the ship’s officers are always angry when they
talk to the Kruboys. Frying-Pan, Black Kettle, Crowbar, Ham and Eggs,
Liver and Bacon, Bottle of Beer, Whisky, Bag of Rice, Weariness, Three
O’clock, Daybreak, Half a Dinner, Castor Oil, Every Day, To-morrow, Never
Tire, Sea Breeze, Jim Crow, Two Pounds Six, Smiles, Silence, My Friend,
Gunpowder, Bayonet, Cartridge, Crocodile, Misery, Get-your-hair-cut, Tom
Tom, Pagan and Shoo Fly are names I have heard.
While we are on this subject we may as well get acquainted with the Kru
English, which is the “Pigeon English” of the coast. All Kruboys “speak
English Mouth” in this peculiar dialect. To people of intelligence
and cultivation it is always very offensive at first. They especially
cannot bear to hear white people use it; nor does it seem to them in
the least degree necessary. Good English is as simple and they think
would be quite as easily understood by the black man. I remember well
how it first affected me. I was disgusted when I was told that I would
soon be speaking it myself. The first change in my feelings took place
when I found that it had its method and its idiom. It is not “any old
English.” There is correct and incorrect Kru English. It may properly
be regarded as a dialect. The African languages, however they may differ
in vocabulary, have a common idiom. Kru English is simply the idiom
of the African languages with an English vocabulary. There are some
irregularities and a small number of importations from other tongues, the
principal foreign word being “sabey” for “know,” from the French “savez.”
One of its principal features is the use of the verb “live” for the verb
“to be.”
I stand in the doorway and call: “Half a Dinner!” and the answer comes
back faintly: “I live for come.”
If I want to ask a boy whether Shoo Fly has arrived, I say: “Shoo Fly
live?” And as Shoo Fly never arrives when he is expected I probably get
the answer: “Shoo Fly no live;” or, “Shoo Fly no lib;” or possibly, “He
lib for chop, massa.”
To “find” a thing is to search for it, though one may not find it at all;
and a man will say: “I find him, find him, long time and never look him.”
There is a great dearth of prepositions in the African languages; and in
Kru language the word “for” serves all prepositional uses. It seldom uses
more than one demonstrative, and the word “them” is forced to do this
reluctant service.
I ask: “What for them man Weariness he no work to-day?” and perhaps get
the answer: “He live for sick. He live close for die.”
There are certain stock phrases that one hears all the time: “You
sabey Englis mouf?” “I hear him small, small.” “Massa, I no sabey them
palaver.” “Them man he make me trouble too much.” “I go one time” (“one
time” is “at once”), or “I go come one time.”
Kruboys are not the only Africans who speak Kru English. It is spoken by
thousands along the coast who have no knowledge of any other European
language. Even Frenchmen, and especially Germans, in their own colonies,
sometimes have to learn Kru English in order to converse with their
boat-boys. White men are often proud of speaking it well, and I have
sometimes seen men standing at the head of the gangway and shouting down
to the boys in a boat below, apparently for no other reason than to
display their linguistic talent, as one might be vain of a knowledge of
French or German. I have not used it as much as some; for, in the Congo
Français where I spent most of my time, very little English, good or bad,
is spoken; and in the interior one does not hear it at all. But I am very
familiar with it. I have preached in it and have even prayed in it. This
would have been impossible if any person had been present who could speak
good English. Humour is peculiarly a social enjoyment. It takes at least
two persons to enjoy a joke. Often in the native towns I have witnessed
the most amusing incongruities without being in the least amused, until
I thought of it afterwards, sometimes long afterwards, when talking with
some one else who would appreciate the humour and see the incongruity
with me. So, I say, I have preached in the Kru English, and, reverently,
I believe—at least without any consciousness of incongruity; but if an
English-speaking person had entered the church I could scarcely have
proceeded to the end of the sentence.
Shortly before leaving Africa I was visiting a coast town in a tribe
whose own language I did not know. But they understood Kru English, and
I preached to them in that dialect, on the parable of the Lost Sheep.
It will not be fully appreciated without the African accent, tone, and
gesture. I related the parable to them about as follows:
S’pose one man he have hunderd sheep and one sheep go loss for bush,
what you think them man he go do? Well he go lef’ all them other sheep
and he go find them sheep he live for bush. He go find him, find him,
and no tire till he look him. S’pose he find him four or three days and
never look him, well, he no tire; and s’pose he find him seven or six
days and never look him he no tire; ten or nine days and never look him,
he no tire; he go find him, find him, find him, all time till he look
him. And s’pose he look him, well, he take them sheep on him shoulder,
so⸺ He carry him for house and give him plenty chop, and he be glad too
much. Then he go call all him friends, plenty man, plenty wife, and
small piccaninny, and he say to them: “Say, you sabey them sheep that
done loss for bush? Well, this day I look him. Then all people they make
palaver and be happy too much. So, s’pose man go lef’ all him sins and
do God-fashion; well, all them people, what live for top, they make fine
palaver, and be happy too much.”
There may be inaccuracies in this, but it is tolerably correct; and I am
sure that my African audience understood it. There is Kru English and
Kru-er English, and Kru-est English. In the latter, “that” and “them”
become “dat” and “dem.” But even if many natives use this form they
perfectly understand the white man when he uses the correct form; and
it is execrably bad taste to exaggerate either the pronunciation or the
idiom, and to outdo the native himself in departing from the correct
form. It also seems to me to be bad taste for white people to use Kru
English when it is not necessary, as some do. And when a white woman
deliberately adopts in her own household the word “chop,” and other such
words, she puts a strain upon my respect.
Once when I was living at Gaboon, a north-coast man from Accra called
on me, with whom I conversed in Kru English. That evening I received a
letter from him which I kept for a long time as one of my souvenirs of
Gaboon. I venture to reproduce it from memory:
_Right Reverend Father in God_:
This day I done look gold toof what live for your mouf. All my
life I never look so fine toof. Berra well. I like toof for my
own mouf all same as them toof. I no like white toof again.
S’pose you go buy me one toof all same as yours; s’pose you buy
him for your country; berra well; I be fit for pay you cash and
I be your fren all time. Please, Mister Milgan, do this for
God’s sake.
Your fren,
(Signed) JOSEPH ACCRA.
For trade and commerce between Africa and the civilized nations the
Kruboy is at present more important than any other African, and is almost
indispensable. For, owing to the heavy surf the open coast is nearly
inaccessible for the landing of cargo and can only be worked by the
most skillful and daring boatmen, and the Kruboy excels all Africans in
these qualities. They received their first training from the slavers of
early days, in whose service they learned both beach work and ship work.
The slavers finding them useful allies and wishing to maintain friendly
relations with them persuaded them to put a distinguishing mark upon
themselves so that none of them might be taken and enslaved by mistake.
This mark is a tattooed band, with an open pattern, running down the
middle of the forehead and to the tip of the nose. The fashion, when once
established, remained, and they are all tattooed in this way. The Kruboy
also until late years hired with traders all along the coast to do beach
work, that is, handle boats and cargo, sample rubber and oil, prepare
copra, and do the variety of work of a trading-house. He is willing to
serve an apprenticeship almost for nothing, during which time, he says,
he “live for learn sense.” He is paid largely in goods.
On his return to his country (and he will not stay away longer than a
year) the Liberian government exacts a portion of his goods. A large
part of the remainder goes to the elders of his tribe who have protected
his wives in his absence. If he refuses this demand, which is usually
exorbitant, or if he stays away too long from his country, the wives
themselves are confiscated. Goods, however, that are made up into
clothing are never demanded; and this accounts for a habit of the Kruboy
which sometimes amazes ship-passengers. On his return as a deck-passenger
after serving a year down the coast he turns tailor and employs all his
time in making clothes, cutting them out and sewing them, on the deck. If
there are many Kruboys thus travelling the lower deck presents an aspect
of fantastic activity. In late years they have not gone far down the
coast except as ship-hands.
The Kru people are peculiarly inaccessible to Christian influence. This
is in part owing to the fact that they are away so much of the time. The
life that they live when thus separated from their people and the nature
of their contact with white men are not conducive to their moral welfare.
But, as a matter of fact, very little missionary work has been done among
them. They are extremely superstitious. The surf, with which the Kruboy
fights desperate battles for his life, is full of malignant spirits; and
so of everything that opposes or hurts him. His soul leaves him when he
sleeps, and often some witch catches it in a trap; whereupon he takes
sick and soon dies. Sometimes the witch inflicts a fatal wound upon the
soul; and sometimes he hangs the trap over the fire and the soul shrinks
and dies, himself failing and dying at the same time. Occasionally,
however, the wandering soul stays away of its own accord. A witch-doctor
may catch it and put it back into him for a consideration. Sometimes when
the soul of the sleeper would return in the morning it finds its place
taken by some malicious spirit which inflicts sickness. The witch-doctor
must first expel this spirit before restoring the man’s soul.
When a person of any importance dies the Kru custom is to kill a number
of others to accompany him to the underworld. The underworld is somewhat
like this, and the inhabitants there pass their time somewhat as we do
here; much of it is therefore spent in talking palavers. Sometimes they
even talk palavers which began in this life and were not settled or were
decided unjustly. For this purpose they often need the testimony of
persons still living, and such persons immediately die in order to go to
the underworld and give testimony. This is a common explanation when a
number of persons die about the same time.
I like the Kruboy so well and I admire his bravery so much that I am
reluctant to admit his glaring deficiency of morals,—that he lies,
steals, commits adultery, and kills his neighbours with a good-natured or
perhaps stupid indifference to right and wrong scarcely paralleled even
in Africa.
The treatment that the natives receive at the hands of the ship’s
officers is often the very opposite of brave. Many of these officers are
pleasant gentlemen. Some of them will later be captains, and as a rule
none but the best ever reach that position. The captains of the coast
steamers are a fine class of men and delightful to travel with. I have
never witnessed cruelty on their part towards the natives; though I have
sometimes wondered that they did not interfere and restrain the angry
passions of their officers. Yet, it must be added that the officers have
not so much need of restraint when the captain is standing by.
Not to touch upon the doubtful propriety of swearing under any
circumstances; no one but a fool will habitually swear at a Kruboy.
For the Kruboy is as indifferent to a curse as to a blessing, and
thus it reacts upon the man himself, exasperating him and putting him
into such a rage as to threaten him with a fit of apoplexy or at least
a _brain-storm_. The cursing of one or another of the officers at the
Kruboys is both loud and continuous, and if it should suddenly cease one
might be justified in supposing that the ship had sprung a leak and was
about to go to the bottom and the officers to certain death.
On the homeward voyage there are always, among the deck-passengers, a
number of Accra or Lagos men who have been working on the south coast and
are returning home with their pay, a large portion of which is in the
shape of various goods. There is no harbour in either of these places and
the steamer anchors far out, in rough water, the passengers going ashore
in boats. Some officers when in charge of native passengers are careful
of their baggage; but occasionally—and not seldom—it is flung down into
the boat below without the slightest care and even with the apparent
intention of causing as much breakage and other damage as possible. The
officer casts an occasional glance towards the upper deck, quite sure
that the white passengers are enjoying the joke. But he is mistaken:
both the missionary and the trader are indignant. For they both know the
native better than he does, and they also know that those goods were
earned by the hard labour of at least a year, and perhaps three years,
during which time he has not seen his home or his friends. And only those
who know them intimately can understand this sacrifice; for the African
can die of homesickness.
[Illustration: THE DEBARKATION OF A DECK PASSENGER.]
It is in accord with native etiquette that these men coming home should
arrive very much dressed, in new clothes, starched linen and infinite
jewelry. This dressing is done on the open deck and occupies sometimes
the entire day before the arrival, to the delight of the white
passengers, who also give much kindly and gratuitous advice, which the
native takes in good part. But in spite of their assistance there is
nearly always something a little “off” in the completed toilet. One
individual, grandly dressed, had his new shoes on the wrong feet. They
had been made on a very crooked last and the effect was more grotesque
than one would suppose. He looked as if he expected to walk with his
legs crossed. Well, we may enjoy all this with very kindly feelings
towards the native. But the fun is all spoiled when the ship’s officer
perpetrates a practical joke apparently for our amusement. These
passengers, men and women, in places where the sea is rough, are lowered
into the boat by a chair, which is fastened to the end of a long rope
suspended from a crane. The chair looks perfectly safe and comfortable
as it sits on the deck. The native gets into it without hesitation. The
rope is then drawn up by the crane till the chair is raised from the
deck and goes swinging out over the bounding main. Its occupant, if it
be a woman with a baby, for instance, screams with fright, and perhaps
as the chair moves off flings her baby back on the deck, trusting to
Providence for its landing; but the African baby leads a charmed life.
Meanwhile the woman shuts her eyes and resigns herself to her fate. The
chair is lowered to the boat below, and if the sea be rough and the boat
heaving and tossing there is a very dangerous moment as the chair first
comes in contact with it. The women are always lowered with care. But
in lowering these much-dressed men—usually several at once—the officer
in charge frequently makes it a point to “capsize” them, by letting the
chair come down on the gunwale of the surf-boat, or on a thwart, so as to
spill the occupants into the boat and into the six inches of very dirty
water in the bottom of it, head first, or on their backs. Not to speak
of the bruised and bleeding condition which sometimes results from this
treatment, the native’s toilet is deranged, his clothes perhaps torn,
and he goes ashore in woeful dishabille. No one enjoys this joke but the
officer himself.
At Lagos, on the homeward voyage, in these late years natives come on
board with large basket-coops of chickens which they take to Sekondi
and sell to the white men connected with the mines. In each of these
baskets there are three or four dozen chickens, which will sell for three
shillings each; and surely this is an industry that ought to receive
every encouragement. It is good for the natives and good for the miners.
Yet, on certain steamers, such is the carelessness in loading them that
sometimes not half the chickens reach Sekondi alive. There is not the
least necessity for this large loss, nor for any loss. One day a trader
of Fernando Po and I standing together watched a native, who had just
come on board with his chickens, while he took out of one basket sixteen
dead ones, exactly a third of the whole number, and he probably lost as
many in landing them. We both thought that if the owner had been a white
man in all probability not a chicken would have been lost.
The Kruboys are divided into deck-boys and boat-boys. The more
intelligent and experienced of the deck-boys run the steam-winches and
cranes, used in raising cargo from the hold, and in loading and stowing.
Above the unceasing and relentless creaking of these three or four
machines is heard the loud voice of one or several natives who stand at
the open hatches and transmit orders from those in the hold below to
those at the machines, the orders being always accompanied by appropriate
gestures, which are also signals, so well understood that words would
not be necessary for the common orders. Those at the hatches repeat
from early morning till late at night the following calls: “Heave a
link—half a link—half a link—lower away. Lower a link—half a link—lower
a link—heave away.” Except between ports this goes on incessantly above
the noise of the several winches. On one occasion when I had been feeling
miserable for several days I said to the captain: “If ever I go mad I
am sure I shall go on saying as long as I live: ‘Half a link—half a
link—heave away.’” The captain replied: “That is precisely the end to
which I myself am looking forward.” But when I am well I never weary of
watching them at work.
A great variety of cargo is discharged, but more salt and gin than
anything else. We take on rubber, ivory, mahogany, ebony, camwood,
palm-oil and kernels. The palm-oil and kernels are used for the
manufacture of soap and candles. The camwood, also called _barwood_,
was more in demand before the use of analine dyes, but is still used in
dyeing bandannas.
But the work of loading mahogany is of greatest interest to the
passengers. At Gaboon many hundreds of these logs are always lying on the
beach (or “in” the beach, as the disgusted captain frequently reports)
awaiting shipment. African mahogany in these days is being shipped even
to America where it is used for furniture. It is not nearly so valuable
as the mahogany of Cuba and South America. But when it is figured with
the “roe” it brings an enormous price. The roe of the mahogany is
formed in the grain by one ring overlapping the other, making mottled
ringlets of light and shade, sometimes very pronounced and exquisitely
beautiful. Only those trees are cut which are close to the river, for
the native has no mechanical means of transporting it and no mechanical
aptitude to invent such means. They cut it into logs about twenty feet
long, the average diameter being three feet. Such a log weighs about a
ton and sometimes much more. They slide the logs down into the river
on improvised rollers. Then in one or several canoes they tow from two
to eight logs at a time to the coast where they are sold to the white
trader for about five dollars each, in goods. This is the average value
at Gaboon. The trader puts the house-mark on them and then leaves them on
the beach until they are shipped. At high tide most of them are afloat
but they cannot drift away, as the waves are stronger than the current
and drive them back on the beach. The German traders usually have their
logs squared before shipping whereby much is saved on the freight to
Europe. But others say that it costs more to have them squared by the
native using an adz than to pay the extra freight and have them squared
in the mills of Europe.
The Kruboys are sent ashore from the ship to raft the logs, having first
rolled them down the beach or dug them out of it. A spike with a ring
attached, called a _dog_, is driven into an end of each log, through
which a rope is passed. Then they are towed, ten or twelve at a time, to
the steamer, usually anchored half a mile, or even a mile from the shore.
The Kruboys with surf-boats and paddles tow them well away from the shore
and then they are taken by the steam launch, if the launch happens to be
in order, which is once in a while. It is only in late years that the
English steamers have carried launches. The first of these were evidently
such as had been discarded by more favoured lines. They had ways past
finding out. One of these, from its characteristic habit, a trader named
the _Sudden Jerk_, following native custom. Another which was _sound_
only in the whistle I named the _Piercing Scream_.
The work of unbeaching the logs and towing them to the steamer is very
hard, but the danger and the excitement is in getting them loaded and
stowed. They are made fast at the ship’s side. Several of the Kruboys
remain in the water. They first knock the “dog” out of the last log;
then they pass a chain around it which is made fast to the steel cable
of the deck-winch. A signal, always accompanied by a shout, is passed
up to one on deck who transmits it to the man at the winch and the log
is lifted out of the water. The Kruboy rises with it a part of the
way, then leaps into the water and prepares the next log. This may not
seem so very difficult to men who are as much at home in the water as
on shore. But these logs weighing a ton each are all the while dashing
against each other or against the ship’s side with a deep boom that
echoes through the ship. They are pitching and tossing and spinning,
while the Kruboy tries to balance himself on top, keeps his eye on every
log that is near, and at the same time does his work. But however it
pitches and plunges he rides it as easily as a cowboy rides a pitching
broncho. At first I looked on not only with interest, as always, but
with a horrible fascination that I had never before experienced. All the
passengers, from the upper deck, are watching the Kruboy lying across a
log that heaves and rolls while he passes the chain beneath it, and at
that moment another log is driven towards it with its full ton weight,
the two colliding broadside. The passengers shout; if there is a lady
aboard she screams. But somehow, when those logs meet, the Kruboy is not
between them. He is underneath, and quite out of sight. At last he comes
up somewhere, and shaking the water from his woolly head, looks up with a
smile full of white teeth and says: “He nebber catch me.” And this goes
on all day long, whenever logs are loaded. Occasionally an arm is broken,
more often a leg, and sometimes a life is lost.
When the log is raised to the height of the lower deck it is passed from
one spar to another which is over the hatch, and sweeps across the deck,
all the Kruboys at the same moment shouting for everybody to get out of
the way; but no time is lost in waiting for them to obey the order. They
dodge skillfully, however; for one is always dodging something in Africa,
and there is seldom any accident. But terrible accidents have sometimes
occurred down in the hold, during the hard work of stowing the logs so
that every cubic foot of space may be occupied. I have also seen the
steel cable break when a log weighing nearly two tons was suspended over
the hatch. One thinks, of course, that all the Kruboys down in that dark
hold are directly under the falling log, which is never the case, and the
volume of vocal noise which ascends immediately afterwards is a great
relief to the blood-curdled feelings of the spectator, for it indicates
that nobody is missing. But the fright extends beyond one’s solicitude
for the Kruboys. For it looks as if that log would plunge right through
the bottom of the ship. One will discover, however, that it fell upon a
bed of several logs carefully placed there against such an accident.
But I have not yet told of the hardest and the bravest work of the
Kruboy, a work for which few men anywhere in the world would have
sufficient daring, namely, his landing of cargo through the surf in the
season of the “calemma,” or great wave of the southwest coast. Twice I
have gone far south of Gaboon when the sea was at the worst. Once I went
as far as Benguela, in Angola, and again I visited the Congo. On the
latter journey I was nearly five weeks on shipboard.
The boat-boys are divided into crews according to the number of
surf-boats in use. In a good sea a crew usually consists of seven men,
six of whom use paddles, while the seventh, the headman, stands erect in
the stern of the boat and steers with an oar attached to the stern. In a
rough sea fewer boats are lowered and the crew is increased to as many
as thirteen men. However long the day’s work or hard the battle with the
sea, they sing to the last stroke, keeping time with their paddles to one
of their strange, wild boat-songs. Sometimes the song has only rhythm
and no melody, being a monotonous repetition of several notes: “So sah,
so sooh, so sah, so sooh, so sah, so sooh, ad—zh! So sah, so sooh,” etc.
The man who sings at his work will do more work in a given time and do it
better. Not that the African is always a great worker. He is seldom that;
but he does more work singing than he would do not singing. And he sings
because, however wronged and oppressed, there is a freedom within him
which the white man can never take away; a lightness of heart, a buoyancy
of spirit intractable to tyranny.
West Africa is notorious in all the world for its paucity of harbours,
and its heavy surf, which at certain seasons rages like a battle, the
roar of it like many voices defying the white man that would approach
its shores. The surf at one place where we called was so bad that we
were seven days discharging one day’s cargo. The sea rolled in with a
tremendous swell—the calemma—like a wall of water that looked three
stories high, which, as it approached the land, burst into a succession
of breakers that raced towards the shore, and striking with the boom
of cannon, tossed the white surf high into the air. One always feels,
in going through it, that he is fighting a personal foe; there is even
something human in the sound of it. The Kruboy says it is full of
spirits. Savage spirits, they must be, and drunken, which leap and tumble
and shout in mad carousal.
At each place the first venture in the surf-boats was watched eagerly
from the ship. Three or four boats set out together with a light cargo.
Near the surf they stop, landing one at a time, and waiting for the right
moment. They wait perhaps as long as half an hour. Then, in the first
boat, at the word of the headman, they throw their weight on the paddles
and pull for their lives, not looking to either side, nor speaking a
word. Now they are in the breakers, borne forward upon the racing waves
with violent speed, a roaring monster before them and another more
ferocious one pursuing. At this moment the safety of all depends upon the
skill of the headman in keeping the boat placed right to the wave. And
in any case, if the boat, upon reaching the beach, strike the ground at
a moment when the water has receded, the breaker following will be upon
it before they can drag it up the beach, and catching it up will perhaps
stand it straight on end, and hurl it backward upon the beach; or, if it
be not straight to the wave, it will be whirled about and flung up the
beach, rolling over and over, with all its freight of boxes and barrels,
the boys escaping I know not how—but not always escaping.
One day when the beach seemed much better than usual, the captain and
the ship’s surgeon ventured ashore. The purpose of the captain was
probably to visit the shippers with the object of drumming up trade, as
captains are obliged to do on the coast. For this purpose he makes a
very friendly call on each trader, listens to his graphaphone, and even
praises it. He was brave to risk the surf, but he took the doctor. The
captain afterwards narrated the adventure of their landing to a small but
enthusiastic audience. He said that after waiting outside the surf half
an hour, the headman suddenly gave the order, and in a moment they were
in the breakers, riding on the top of one of them, and speeding towards
the shore at the rate of “seventy miles an hour,” which calculation was
merely his sensation expressed in terms of linear measure. The captain
was in the bow of the boat well braced and cushioned. But when the boat
struck the beach with the force of a railway collision, the doctor was
thrown violently over two thwarts into the captain’s bosom, whom he
clasped about the neck with a steel-like grip. The next moment another
breaker picked the boat up and hurled it upon the beach, throwing both
captain and doctor to a perfectly safe distance where they sprawled upon
the sand. The doctor, still hugging the captain’s neck, and very much
frightened, exclaimed: “O Captain, dear Captain, is there anybody killed
but you and me?”
But now it is evening, at the close of a bad day. No white man has
ventured ashore these ten days. But the Kruboys have gone, and there on
the beach is a boat making a last attempt to come off. The sea has been
getting worse all day, and it is now like a boiling caldron. They have
been there for hours, and have tried again and again to get off, but have
failed, though they have no cargo, and they are the best crew and have
the best headman of all. Several times they have been thrown back on the
beach, and once the boat was capsized when nearly through the breakers;
now they are making a last effort.
They stand around the boat, their weight against it, alert, and waiting
in eager attention for the word of command. A shout from the headman, and
in a moment they have pushed the big boat out into the water, have leaped
into it, grasped the paddles, and are pulling like mad. The first breaker
strikes the boat a blow that staggers it: the spirits must have been very
angry. They are through it; but the boat is nearly half full of water
and is not straight. The headman throws himself upon the oar, but alas!
with such force that the becket attaching it to the stern is wrenched
off. They are now at the mercy of the next breaker, a fearful one, which
sweeps them ashore with violence, whirling the boat round, and then
rolling it over and over upon the beach. As the water recedes we see them
lying scattered at random upon the sand. They get up slowly as if half
dazed; and one of them lies unconscious as the next wave washes over him,
matting his hair with the wet sand. And there lies the brave headman
badly bruised, the flesh torn from his leg, exposing the bone from the
knee down. But one poor boy has fought his last fight with the wild sea.
Many fights he has won, but the spirits have beaten him this time. “Oh,
boys,” he says, “I’m hurt. I can’t get up. I can’t even move. I’m afraid
my back is broken.”
So it was indeed: his back was broken. Late in the night he died, the
other boys sobbing like children as they stood around him. Next day
they buried him; and that evening they got off to the ship. As they
approached, the wind wafted to us the sound of a native dirge, weird and
plaintive, which they were chanting for their dead brother.
I feel bound to tell the sequel of this incident. The next day the sea
was so bad that it seemed useless and foolish to attempt to land. The
boys presented themselves in a body before a certain one of the officers
and said: “Mastah, them sea he be bad too much. We no be fit for land
cargo. S’pose we try, we go loss all cargo, and plenty man’s life. So
please excuse to-day, Mastah; for we think to-morrow go be fine.”
The answer they received was a volley of profanity and curses. “Just
because one of them was killed they all turn cowards,” said one.
“Always thinking of themselves!” said another. With many such shrewd
observations, and sundry moral exhortations to bravery, the boats were
lowered and they were ordered into them.
But on these same steamers there are brave men and kind-hearted. On this
particular morning the purser boldly protested. “If they are cowards,”
said he, “what are we? For notwithstanding the demands of business, not
one of us has ventured ashore for many days. I’m no coward myself,” he
continued, “but I confess that those boys put my bravery to shame. They
are the bravest boys in the world. Neither do I believe that they are
bound to risk their lives in such a sea as this for a shilling a day.”
While he was speaking some one shouted: “There goes the first boat.”
We ran to the side just in time to see the boat borne down by the first
breaker, whirled around and capsized, the boys struggling for their
lives, not only with a furious sea, but with heavy boxes and casks and
the boat itself, all tossed to and fro in the surging waters. They
escaped without serious injury; but no white man could have escaped.
About the same time, a few miles up the coast, a steamer had one of its
strong surf-boats flung upon the beach with such violence that it was
broken in two across the middle. Another steamer had two boys killed.
One day our boys went ashore early in the morning, leaving the ship
at half-past five. They were expecting to make the first trip before
breakfast, as usual, and therefore had nothing to eat before starting.
They had landed the cargo safely at the trading-house; but the sea was
so bad that they could not get off to the ship all that day. They made
several unsuccessful attempts, and it was almost night when at last they
succeeded. Meanwhile, the swell had become so heavy that we had steamed
far out for safety, and were anchored seven miles from the shore. The
boys reached the ship after dark, and we then learned that the white
trader ashore had given them nothing to eat; although the ship would have
repaid him. Those boys had battled with the sea weak with hunger, not
having had a taste of food all that day. It is only fair to say that on
the steamers they are well fed. There are but very few English traders
who would do as that man did; though there are many such men of other
nationalities.
Only a short time afterwards, one evening at the table, an officer who
had been ashore told us a story that was intended to prove the cruelty
of the native. A white trader, he said, had caught a young elephant. He
went away on a journey to the bush, leaving the care of it to his native
workmen. Upon his return, after several months, he found the elephant
in very poor health; and a few weeks later it died. There was no doubt
that the natives had neglected to feed it in his absence, and this was
the cause of its death. Horrible cruelty of the beastly native! Pungent
remarks, appropriate to the occasion, were contributed all around the
table. For myself—I was thinking of those starved and tired boys battling
with a raging sea. But I said not a word. What would be the use?
We need not be sentimental about the native’s wrongs. Though a victim, he
is not necessarily innocent. He would do unto others as others do unto
him; and his life is perhaps not rendered more miserable by the white man
than it was before. But, then, they are _savages_ and we are supposed to
be civilized; and the most wretched excuse that the white man can give
for his cruelty is that he is only imitating the natives themselves. The
white man is always calling the native a devil, and always expecting him
to act like an angel, while he himself, so far from being angelic, sets
an infernal example.
The truth is that the white man in the tropics is out of his element as
much as the diver who works in the deep sea. The atmosphere in which
he was produced and in which he developed—the mental, moral, social
and physical conditions—are also necessary to his moral and physical
maintenance. The climate weakens and depresses him, while at the same
time he is not sustained by domestic cheer and the society of equals
to which he has been accustomed. He is invariably nervous and as a
consequence impatient, while at the same time the circumstances that
confront him in the discharge of his daily duties are such as would try
the temper of a saint. If he remain long in a climate so unnatural to him
and in a strange and uncivilized society the likelihood is that there
will be an imperceptible and unconscious lowering of moral standards and
accommodation to the standards of the society around him. Cruelty which
at first shocked him gradually ceases to shock and at length he becomes
indifferent, or perhaps himself capable of barbarous deeds from which he
would at first have recoiled with horror.
For the men of whom I have been speaking are not inferior to the average
man at home. Your virtues, and the graces of mind and character upon
which you pride yourself—your strength and composure, your patience and
devotion to duty, your honesty, your justice, your purity—all these
belong not only to yourself but to the society which has produced you
and of which you are a part. The moral standards which it has erected
in the course of its social evolution, the safety with which it has
surrounded you, the comforts which this safety has made procurable,
the disapprobation by which it punishes any infraction of its laws—to
these, not to yourself alone, you owe your moral attainments. None but
the highest and most fixed moral standards will bear transportation to
a tropical climate and tropical society. Until this fact is clearly
recognized the relation of civilization to the uncivilized tropics
is likely to be productive of misery and shame. If I did not hate
sensationalism I could easily fill this chapter with a record of the
misdeeds and barbarities in Africa of men, many of whom belonged to
respectable families and to good society and were well-behaved at home.
Neither does the white man become acclimated in the tropics—no more than
the diver in the deep sea. The longer he remains, his physical and moral
resources become the more exhausted. Let us keep these facts in mind in
judging those of whom we have spoken, and those of whom we have yet to
speak in the next chapter.
X
WHITE AND BLACK
“Our only program, I am anxious to repeat, is the work of moral
and material regeneration.”—_King Leopold II._
“The work of civilization, as you call it, is an enormous and
continual butchery.”—_M. Lorand, in the Belgian Parliament._
St. Paul de Loanda, in the Portuguese colony of Angola, is the only place
on the entire west coast of Africa that looks like a real city. It is
several centuries old, and from the sea the appearance is not unlike the
Mediterranean cities of North Africa. But as soon as one goes ashore this
illusion is dissolved. What makes it unlike any other settlement on the
west coast is chiefly its roofs of red tile instead of corrugated iron,
with its superheated appearance, that is used in all places recently
built. The city is also lighted by oil lamps. The harbour being one of
the best, I went ashore with the captain and after a walk about the town
we played a few games of billiards with the British consul. I had then
been several years on the coast and this seemed like a brief return to
civilization. The night coming on brought with it more civilization.
A native band played, by ear, two or three tunes, and played them
well—considering. It is said that they have played those same tunes since
the band was organized, and no one now living remembers when that was.
A mouldering church, _Our Lady of Salvation_, which stands on the beach,
is two and a half centuries old, and is a work of art, containing
interesting and historical scenes in blue and white tiles. From this
place in the dark age of slavery thousands of slaves were shipped across
the Atlantic; and the Roman Catholic bishop sat on the wharf and baptized
them, not individually, but in shiploads. Surely _Our Lady of Salvation_
might have been called _Our Lady of Sorrows_.
There were very few passengers on board, but there were a number of
dogs. The captain had a weakness for dogs. The breed of the dog made
no difference. Whether they were useful or useless, whether sound and
healthy or dreadfully diseased and scarcely able to walk, he loved them
all without partiality or discrimination. Men further up the coast who
had European dogs that were particularly mangy or threatened with rabies
would give them into the captain’s care and he would take them for a
health-change down the coast. At one time there were nine dogs living on
board. He never seemed to realize that in this, as in all other things,
tastes differ; and that a certain dog, an English mastiff, as ugly as the
rest of its kind, might not be entirely welcome to share my soup at the
table just because it was welcome to his.
There were two fox-terriers tied together with five or six feet of small
rope between them. As their health improved these two terriers became
animated beyond all control. They amused themselves by pulling down
cages full of parrots for the delight of hearing them remonstrate in
a prolonged concert of harsh squawking. But their chief exercise was
straight running at breakneck speed from one end of the promenade deck
to the other, with six feet of rope stretched taut between them, to
the terror of the passengers, who were so few in number that they were
regarded as a negligible quantity. There was a lady on board with whom
I occasionally walked until the terriers made it impossible to do so
without sacrificing either comfort or gallantry. At the sight of them
coming towards her, like a whirlwind sweeping down the deck and the
rope threatening to trip her up, the lady’s energy all went to her hands
instead of her feet; for she invariably lost her presence of mind and
stood still wringing her hands instead of hastily retreating into some
safe corner. But I could not understand why she should think that I also
ought to lose my presence of mind and stand still and be tripped when I
had youth and fleetness of limb to accomplish an escape.
We were three days at Benguela during which we witnessed the Mardi Gras
celebration. Men, women, and children filled the streets with merrymaking
and presented a spectacle of fantastic colours, grotesque costumes, and
uncouth masks, such as I had never before seen. Our errand to Benguela
was the delivery of a large consignment of supplies for the newly
projected railway which, it is expected, shall ultimately extend far
inland to the region of Lake Tanganyika, thus connecting with the traffic
of the east coast. The bit of this railway already built represents what
Portugal has done towards the development of Africa in the course of
several centuries.
The trading-houses of Benguela are surrounded by walled enclosures, or
compounds, in former days used for the confinement of slaves awaiting
shipment. This is not like the bush country further north, but is more
open and its main slave-trail extends a thousand miles into the interior.
This is the end of the trail that Livingstone followed in his first
tragic journey across Africa.
But that which ought to be fully known to the civilized world is that
slavery still exists in the whole territory of Angola and in the
adjoining Portuguese islands, and with all its attendant horrors. Most of
the house-servants and factory-servants of Benguela are slaves purchased
with money and frequently resold. Young women are sold and resold by
white men to white men as mistresses. Any white man in Benguela will
tell one that the average price is twenty pounds. She may be resold from
time to time at a decreasing price. The work on the large plantations is
done by slaves who serve under the lash, and it is estimated that half
the population of Angola are in slavery; some would say more than this.
This includes domestic as well as foreign slavery. But the traffic by
the Portuguese has made domestic slavery more severe. They were also
being shipped from Benguela at that time, to the islands of San Thomé
and Principe, at the rate of three or four thousand a year, and in all
probability the number has since increased. I have visited Principe, and
I know something of the actual conditions in that island.
The ways of Portugal have not changed in these four centuries of her
African history. In the year 1509 a Portuguese officer landing in South
Africa became embroiled with the Hottentots and he and twenty of his men
were killed. Three years afterwards a Portuguese captain landed a cannon
loaded with grapeshot as a pretended present to the Hottentots. Men,
women and children gathered around in wonder. While they were admiring
it the Portuguese captain fired it off and looked on with delight as the
wretched people fell in heaps. And Portugal has not changed. The ally
of England from time immemorial, and possessing a remarkable collection
of souvenirs in the form of anti-slavery treaties, some of them recent
and one of them as late as 1885, she still prosecutes her slave-trade
with vigour, albeit with circumspection to her reputation as well as her
profit.
The Bailundu rebellion, in the interior of Angola, in 1902, was still
an occasional topic of conversation. The Portuguese claimed that it was
caused by the few American missionaries of that interior district—as if
their own rapacity and lust were not sufficient explanation. If that be
true, and if it be true that the missionaries are responsible for all
similar wars from Angola to China, as their detractors allege, it is
surely evident that the missionary influence is not to be derided after
all, but is a tremendous force to be reckoned with in national economy.
The Bailundu rebellion was a complete failure. The unorganized native
forces were unable to stand before an army disciplined by white officers,
and it soon developed into a wholesale massacre of natives.
Shortly afterwards a missionary from that part spent a day with me at
Gaboon and recounted many incidents of the war. Portuguese planters
exacted enormous indemnity which reduced many to slavery. Such incidents
as the following occurred: A certain man, in order to pay his portion
of the indemnity exacted by a certain planter, at last was compelled to
sell his two children as slaves. He returned to his village with desolate
heart and tearless eyes, went into his house, came out again, and walked
around it, went into it again and came out with his sword, uttered one
heart-broken cry, and plunging the sword into his breast, killed himself.
As a consequence of the war, however, the Angola secret became known
and there was considerable feeling aroused among the better class in
Portugal. To their righteous remonstrance the government responded by
abolishing the name of slavery and prosecuting the traffic as vigorously
as ever under an ingenious and particularly diabolical form of law called
“labour contract.” The only difference to the native is that while
formerly his servitude was a direct violation of law it is now perfectly
legal; but he is still seized and transported and labours under the lash
until he dies.
In 1905, Mr. Henry W. Nevinson went to Angola for the express purpose
of investigating the reported slavery. Mr. Nevinson upon a careful and
intelligent investigation found the conditions such as I have stated,
and he gave an accurate report in a series of articles in _Harper’s
Magazine_.
The slave-merchant, or “labour-merchant,” as we must now call him,
procures his labourers in the interior, sometimes six hundred or eight
hundred miles from the coast. He pays for them in rifles and other goods.
The price that he offers, while very small, considering the value of a
slave to a planter, is yet sufficient to excite the cupidity of a class
of natives beyond the possibility of control. They first sell their
domestic slaves to the white men, then they sell anybody whom they can
get into their power. In the old slave days it was not safe for three
men to go together to the slave-market lest two of them should combine
to sell the third, and such is always the brutalizing effect of the
slave-trade on many of the natives. Those slaves that are not used on the
plantations of Angola are marched in caravans to the coast. They march in
shackles, or chained together, and under an armed guard. Many die on the
way, sometimes half the caravan.
Arriving at the coast, they are sold, or contracted, to an employer,
usually a planter of San Thomé or Principe, at a large advance on the
interior price. They are then brought by the employer before a magistrate
who draws up a contract in proper legal form. It makes not the slightest
difference what the native answers to the questions asked him or whether
he answers at all, a contract is drawn up in which he declares that he
has come of his own free will to contract for his services at so much
labour for so much pay, and that the contract holds good for five years.
The contractor on his part agrees to pay a certain monthly wage and to
provide food and clothing. The native is given a copy of the contract and
a little tin cylinder in which to keep it, the sign and declaration of
his freedom and protection by law. But hypocrisy can go even further;
for these Portuguese, merchants and government officials, actually pose
as _Philanthropists_. “See,” they say, “what we have done for these men
and women. They were all slaves to black men, and we have redeemed them.”
Philanthropy is usually unlucrative, but the genius of the Portuguese has
made it pay.
Despite the expiration of the contract at the end of five years and the
promise of a free passage home, the native thus transported is never
known to return. Henceforth he is one of a long line of men and women
that labour on the cocoa fields all the day long, some of the women
carrying babies on their backs—that labour in stolid silence under the
lash or the prod of a sharpened stick from early morning till the sound
of the evening bell. That they become debased and immoral is only what
we should expect; and therefore the traffic in men’s bodies is also a
traffic in men’s souls. So they live and toil, each day like all the
others until the last short journey, when, as Mr. Nevinson describes,
“their dead bodies are lashed to poles to be carried out and flung away
in the forest.”
But is there no relief to the dark picture? No compensation? Yes, there
is some compensation. We get cheaper cocoa and plenty of chocolate.
The people of the United States have a deep and practical interest in the
question of the principles that ought to regulate the relations of the
governing and the governed in those tropical countries that are under the
dominion of the various civilized powers. Having come into possession
of the Philippine Islands, with their vast and undeveloped resources,
the problem is their own and waits for solution. Upon the people of
the United States, because of the serious and responsible situation
with which they are confronted, may devolve the task of devising and
administering a form of government in accord with the higher modern
standard of English-speaking people in regard to the national duty
involved in the relation of a civilized power to a subject and savage
people. No graver problem is likely to arise in the course of the entire
century of which we are still on the threshold. And the United States is
the better prepared for her task by the fact that she is uncontrolled by
precedent and unbiased by tradition.
The Portuguese theory of tropical control is evident enough. The acquired
possession is an estate to be worked for the benefit of those in control,
whose right is simply “might.” Its native inhabitants, who have the moral
right to its possession, are counted among the various resources of
the acquired property, and may be exploited accordingly. The practical
sequences of this theory are slavery and plunder.
The theory that surrounds the colony with high tariffs for the exclusive
benefit of the governing power and which concedes foreign monopolies to
the disregard of native interests, is not essentially different from that
of Portugal. This latter is the theory that is being worked out in the
Congo Français as a result of the example and influence of the Belgian
trusts, and the intrigues of King Leopold’s agents in France. We believe
that it cannot be permanent as a form of French colonial government
because of the humane and generous instincts of the French people. And
it is certain that such a policy could not long endure in any territory
under the control of the United States. For a policy in order to be
permanent must have the support of the moral sentiment of the nation, and
such a policy traverses our basal doctrine of the native equality of men.
But there is in the United States a tendency to the other extreme,
namely, to insist upon the native right of self-government, holding
that the sum of our duty is to set up a civilized form of government
and then withdraw from control, leaving the native nation to maintain
it. The advocates of such a policy are guilty of a serious oversight in
forgetting that “democracy is not simply a form of government, but a
state of human evolution.” The native form of government cannot advance
far beyond the social life of the people, for they are sustained by
the same moral forces. As a matter of fact there is not in the world a
single example of a successful native government of a tropical country.
Failures are conspicuous on both sides of the Atlantic; for instance,
Hayti in the West Indies and Liberia in Africa. The tropical governments
of Central and South America are not in any sense native governments, but
are administered by a permanently resident foreign community, in their
own interest, whose moral standards tend to lower more and more as they
mingle with the native populations. A form of native government that
would compare with those of civilized nations is by no means possible
until the moral forces that have contributed to the highest civilization
are operative in their social life.
It is evident that the tropical nations if left to themselves will not
develop the resources of their country. But it is equally evident that
the civilized world will not, and ought not, to leave these resources
undeveloped. For civilization depends upon the tropics for many trade
products, including india-rubber, and the dependence increases at such a
rate that it is predicted that the main lines of commerce in the future
will run north and south instead of east and west, and the prediction is
not fanciful.
It would seem therefore that the development of the resources of the
tropics will be by the native under the supervision of the white man.
The ideal government will be based upon the clear recognition of mutual
need and mutual benefit; and the principle that will mould the form of
government and be constantly operative in its administration will be
the duty of the civilized nation to bring to the uncivilized its best
benefits, to their mutual advantage. The interest of the native himself
will be always the first consideration; for he has the first right to
the resources of his country and to the reward of his labour; and the
interest of the foreign nation second, in the greater sources of supply
and the enlarged market for her merchandise.
To give actuality and force to such a government three things will be
required in its administration, as suggested by Mr. Benjamin Kidd in his
book, “The Control of the Tropics”: first, its officers must be only
those who represent the highest moral ideals of civilization; second,
the most intimate contact must be maintained with the home government;
third, the policy and its administration must be constantly subject to
the severe scrutiny of public opinion. Public apathy, inconsiderate
confidence in our agents in the tropics—the conceit that they cannot go
far wrong because they are Americans, will lead to shame and degradation.
Such a moral motive and the conscientious discharge of the duty involved
constitute the white man’s right, and his _only_ right, to occupy the
black man’s country.
It was with Captain Button of the _Volta_ that I went up the Congo
to Boma and Matadi. I owe to several of the captains, and to Captain
Harrison in particular, a debt of gratitude for many kindnesses; but I
travelled most with Captain Button and from no other did I receive so
many kind, and often costly favours. More than once, upon finding me in
very bad health when his ship called at Gaboon, he fairly forced me to
go for a health-change; and on the occasion of my visit to the Congo I
was in such a miserable condition of health that a single attack of fever
would probably have been my last, when Captain Button swooped down upon
me and carried me off.
I had been troubled with abscesses, common enough on the coast, and when
I went aboard I had a very severe one on my left forearm. One night, near
the Congo, when I was suffering with the pain and had been awake several
nights, the captain had a stretcher placed on deck for me and advised
that I lay my arm in a basin of warm water which was placed beside me. He
then told the ship’s surgeon to examine my arm and see whether it ought
not to be lanced. But he told him not to mention the matter of lancing it
to me. I was weak and nervous with loss of sleep and he wished to save me
the additional pain of thinking about the lancing of it and consenting
to it. The doctor examined the arm and then having consulted with the
captain went below and got his lance. When he returned the captain was
sitting beside me ready to assist. The doctor a second time bent over the
arm as it was extended over the basin. Then I saw the gleam of a knife
which was instantly plunged into my arm. Ten minutes of agony during
which the captain poured on warm water,—and then _rest_; the first I had
had for many days, and a few minutes later I was asleep. That was the
last of the abscesses and from that time I gained perceptibly each day.
At Boma, the capital of the Congo Free State, sixty miles from the
mouth of the river, we lay in against the bank and moored the ship to
the shore. Close beside us was a sight upon which I gazed with gruesome
interest, the wreck of the steamship _Matadi_. My first voyage to Africa
was on the _Matadi_. I think it was on her next voyage that she was
wrecked. Like all the ships of her class she was called a palm-oil tub.
The steamers of the present service are incomparably better. The _Matadi_
was blown up by a fearful explosion of gunpowder that had been carelessly
stored. All the crew except one were drowned. There were also on board
two American missionaries, Mr. and Mrs. Harvey, who went down with the
ship. They were in their cabin when the explosion occurred. The door
jammed and could never afterwards be opened, so that the bodies remain
there to this day. A smoke-stack protruding out of the water, a part of
a poop-deck, overgrown with grass, and an enormous side-piece flung upon
the shore—such were the innuendo of the scene.
Boma is built on the side of a long, sloping hill. Its buildings, many
of them made of sheets of corrugated iron, are scattered in disorder.
Behind them on higher ground is the attractive, pale-coloured residence
of the governor. There is a good road and several avenues of palms and
a number of flower-gardens surrounding the residences. A well-ordered
hospital, a state school, a palace of justice, a prison for white men, a
fort and barracks are the more conspicuous buildings. Three street-lamps
and a native band that plays twice a week, probably by ear, make life
delightful and bring the city up to date. Boma looks well from the
river—as looks go in Africa. But when one remembers that for more than
twenty years it has been the capital of the Congo Free State, a territory
four times the size of Germany, from which also vast wealth has been
drawn and that Belgium’s civilizing agencies have been concentrated here,
one is not greatly impressed. At least it does not compare with the other
capitals of West Africa, the French Libreville, the German Dualla or the
English Calabar.
In the hospital at Boma one may see cases of the strange “sleeping
sickness,” that awful scourge that has in late years passed across Africa
from the east to the west decimating the population and often in the
farther east destroying entire towns. Until very recently there has been
no recovery. The patient sleeps without waking, except for food—sleeps
and wastes away for eight or ten months until he dies. The germ is now
supposed to be carried by the tsetse fly.
I of course witnessed no Belgian atrocities at Boma, and it would surely
have been a matter of amazement if I had. But still more amazing is
the report of certain casual travellers, who had no more opportunity
than myself for direct observation, to the effect that there are no
atrocities, because they did not witness them. If I had gone to King
Leopold’s representative, the governor at Boma, and had told him, in the
course of a neighbourly conversation, that I had heard about the Belgian
atrocities and had come to witness them that I might exploit them to the
horrified nations, and then had asked him to accommodate my purpose by
having at least a few atrocities performed in the front yard, including
the different varieties of murder, mutilation and torture, it would have
been parallel to the methods pursued by certain persons, who actually
heralded their arrival and their purpose all along the way, notified
Leopold’s agents in particular, perfected their investigations by asking
questions of these same agents, and then proclaimed that these cruel
reports of atrocities and atrocities represent an unparalleled conspiracy
on the part of several hundred men from half a score of nations, who
having lived many long years in the Congo have become prejudiced and have
accumulated a number of personal grievances against the Belgian officials
and are now seeking by the invention of innumerable charges of unheard-of
crimes to ruin the reputation of Good King Leopold and deprive him of his
rights. The administration of the Congo government is not a melodrama;
it is anything but that. Leopold’s atrocities are not placed on free
exhibition at Boma for the entertainment of travellers, some of whom are
immorally unconcerned in regard to the real suffering of the natives.
They are performed only for money and plenty of it. The motive is money
and the argument is that they pay. Though I was only a traveller, and not
a resident, in the Congo Free State, yet I can speak with some authority
on the question of the Belgian régime; for I lived several years in
the adjoining territory, the Congo Français, a large part of which was
farmed out in concessions to Belgian companies, whose policy and methods
were precisely those of the Congo Free State. Such a system, however, is
contrary to the spirit of the French, and one cannot think that it will
long endure.
Consider for a moment the various sources of the evidence against Leopold
and his agents. There are about two hundred Protestant missionaries in
the Congo Free State, representing the United States, Canada, Great
Britain, Germany, Norway, Sweden and Denmark. These missionaries, men
and women, have lived for years in the Congo, many of them twenty, and
even twenty-five years, and are scattered over the entire territory. They
speak the language of the people and therefore have the most intimate
knowledge of conditions. Their motive is only the good of the native, and
every influence that makes for the betterment of the native’s condition
contributes to their success. That they should not know the truth in
regard to the alleged atrocities of the Belgians is impossible; that they
should unite to falsify the truth is unthinkable. But their testimony is
all of one kind, and against Belgium, and constitutes probably the most
terrible indictment of a civilized government in the last two thousand
years, if not in the history of the world.
But there are other witnesses besides missionaries. In 1903 the British
government, in response to the entreaty and remonstrance of missionaries
and traders and English Chambers of Commerce, appointed Mr. Roger
Casement, British Consul to the Congo, to make a thorough investigation
of conditions in the Congo Free State. Mr. Casement, whom I had the
pleasure of meeting at Matadi, was peculiarly fitted for the task
assigned to him. He had spent twelve years in the consular service in
Africa. He had the unqualified confidence of the British government and
was held in the highest esteem and admiration by all classes of men in
the Congo. Mr. Poultney Bigelow says of him: “Roger Casement is the sort
of man depicted in Jules Verne’s novels, the man who is everlastingly
exploring and extricating himself from every imaginable difficulty by
superhuman tact, wit and strength.”
Mr. Casement’s report of the results of his investigation is a revealing
document. It confirms the worst charges that had been made. It abounds in
such incidents as the following: “This man himself, when I visited him
in Boma gaol, in March, 1901, said that more than a hundred women and
children had died of starvation at his hands, but that the responsibility
was due to his superior’s orders and neglect.”
But even Belgians have been, and are to-day, among those who denounce the
Belgian king. For instance, a Belgian agent, named Lecroix, confessed
that he had been instructed by his chief to massacre all the natives of a
certain village, including women and children, for not bringing in enough
rubber. He also told how that on one occasion his chief had put sixty
women in chains, all but five of whom died of starvation.
At last the feeling became so strong in Europe that in September, 1904,
King Leopold appointed a Commission of Inquiry consisting of three
persons, two of whom were his own subjects; the third was an eminent
Swiss jurist. This was somewhat like King Leopold investigating himself.
But the Commission seems to have listened impartially to the testimony.
With the eyes of Europe upon them they proceeded to the Congo and spent
four and a half months in taking the sworn testimony of “hundreds of
witnesses.” The contrast between what the Commission _expected_ to find,
and what they actually found, may be best expressed in the words that
M. Janssens, president of the Commission, is reported to have spoken
publicly before leaving Boma: “I came here with a feeling of confidence,
expecting to find everything in order. I did not think I was about to
come into contact with such putridity as I have found.”
In general the report of King Leopold’s Commission confirms all the
charges, including the very worst, that had ever been made against the
Congo government.
To such an extent is this true that those who are working against the
continuance of King Leopold’s rule in the Congo would be willing to base
their appeal on the report of the Commission alone. It is a lengthy and
exhaustive document, but a few brief extracts will convey a fair idea of
the whole; for instance the following:
“In the majority of cases the native must go one or two days’ march
every fortnight, until he arrives at that part of the forest where the
rubber vines can be met with in a certain degree of abundance. There the
collector passes a number of days in a miserable existence. He has to
build himself an improvised shelter which obviously cannot replace his
hut. He has not the food to which he is accustomed. He is deprived of his
wife, exposed to the inclemencies of the weather and the attacks of wild
beasts. When once he has collected the rubber he must bring it to the
State station, or to that of the Company, and only then can he return to
his village, where he can sojourn for barely more than two or three days,
because the next demand is upon him.
“They brought before the Commission a multitude of native witnesses,
who revealed a great number of crimes and excesses alleged to have been
committed by the sentries.... The truth of the charges is borne out by
a mass of evidence and official reports.... The agents examined by the
Commission did not even attempt to refute them.
“According to the witnesses, these auxiliaries convert themselves into
despots, demanding women and food, not only for themselves, but for a
retinue of parasites which a love of rapine causes to become associated
with them. They kill without pity all those who attempt to resist.
“If we accept Stanley’s figures it is incontestable that a large part of
the population must have disappeared; for, from Stanley Pool to Nouvelle
Anvers, the banks of the river are almost deserted.”
Thus much from the report of King Leopold’s Commission. What is called
the “sentry system” is the most atrocious factor in this policy. As a
matter of course coercion must be used in the enforcement of a continuous
labour-tax. An army of thirty thousand native soldiers is maintained
for the suppression and exploitation of the people, who are unarmed and
defenseless. Thus can a king do when he becomes a trader. This army
is raised by conscription, and is practically an army of slaves. The
conscripts are removed from their own people and are made to serve among
strangers. Despair is never a sanctifying grace; and these desperate
men are armed and compelled to a life of continual cruelty and shocking
crime, whereby they are in course of time transformed into foulest
fiends. To them is committed the oversight of those who collect rubber
and the punishment of those who come short. This is the “sentry system.”
When I visited Boma and Matadi the commonest subject of conversation,
both by traders and missionaries, was the Belgian atrocities.
Matadi is one hundred and ten miles from the sea. Between Boma and
Matadi, at a bend in the river, there is a fearful whirlpool called the
Devil’s Caldron, at least it is “fearful” in the wet season when the
river is highest and the current swiftest. This vortex is the shape of a
funnel. As we left it on our right and passed across the outer rim, the
big ocean steamer listed to starboard. A short time before, a lighter
loaded with cargo and manned by Kruboys had been drawn into it. Several
persons watched it as it swept around in a narrowing circle until at last
near the centre it suddenly took a header and plunged into the abyss with
its human freight.
Matadi is built on the side of a perpendicular rock, which Richard
Harding Davis says is “not so large as Gibraltar, nor so high as the
Flatiron Building, but it is a little more steep than either. Three
narrow streets lead to its top. They are of flat stones, with cement
gutters. The stones radiate the heat of stove-lids. They are worn to a
mirror-like smoothness, and from their surface the sun strikes between
your eyes, at the pit of your stomach, and blisters the soles of your
mosquito boots.”
Matadi is not much more than a railroad terminus. Between the Lower
and Upper Congo, that is, between Matadi and Leopoldville, on Stanley
Pool, the river is not navigable, owing to the rapids. A railroad two
hundred and fifty miles long unites these two places. It was built at a
tremendous cost both of money and of life. Out of four hundred Chinese
imported at one time, for work on the railroad, two hundred and fifty
died within three years. Kruboys and others were brought from the north
and engaged to work according to a certain definite contract; but in most
cases the contract was disregarded and they were practically enslaved,
working until they died. The railroad, the _Chemin de Fer du Congo_, is
exceedingly useful and has also proved a paying investment. The fare from
Matadi to Leopoldville, two hundred and fifty miles, was fifty dollars,
when I was at Matadi, that is, twenty cents a mile. But I imagine that
those who had made the journey on foot over that rough country, did not
begrudge the exorbitant fare.
Henry M. Stanley, starting from Matadi, blasted the rocks in order to
make a road by which the sections of his boat could be dragged along _en
route_ to the Upper Congo. Until I visited Matadi I did not know the
meaning of the name which the natives gave to Stanley, _Bula Matadi_.
It means _Breaker of Rocks_—a name to be proud of, surely; and one
which Stanley deserved. His authority was superseded by that of the
government of the Congo, which to this day is called by the natives
_Bula Matadi—Breaker of Rocks_ and incidentally of _men_. It happened
that Consul Casement was at Matadi; and the captain and I were invited
to a picnic which was given in his honour. It was a novel experience for
Africa. We rowed down the river and landed for our lunch in a peculiar
and pleasant place on piles of rock, of historic and even legendary
interest.
During those days there was a representative missionary gathering
at Matadi and I had the opportunity of meeting and conversing with
missionaries from all over the Congo Free State. Some of them I had
known before. All whom I met had but one story to tell in regard to the
“Belgian atrocities,” a story that might have been a chapter from the
history of Hell.
They told of seeing more than fifty severed hands at a time, including
hands of children, which the soldiers were taking to the white men to
prove that they had killed people according to their orders. The black
soldiers had also eaten the flesh of their victims. Sometimes the agents
demanded an amount of food from the natives for themselves and the
entire post which the natives could only continue to furnish by buying
from other natives; and they were expecting that when they could buy
no more they would be killed. In some villages when the impost of food
was delivered the people had nothing left for themselves, and fed on
leaves. When the rubber in certain districts was becoming exhausted
and the tax was not reduced the people mixed the latex (juice of the
rubber vine) with an inferior latex, and when they did so the agent,
if it was discovered, made them eat it. The work about the posts was
done by slaves, mostly women, and at night these women were obliged to
be at the disposal of the native soldiers. Missionaries themselves had
met soldiers driving to the post women tied together with ropes, to be
held as hostages until their husbands could bring a certain amount of
rubber. This was the usual means of compelling men to bring rubber. They
often tortured the women in order to intimidate the men. But many of
the hostages could not be redeemed and were starved to death. They told
of the mutilations of the living, of hands and feet chopped off, and of
men unsexed. They told of four or five men placed in a row one behind
another and shot with one bullet, and of women and children crucified.
They told of the population of certain districts reduced from thousands
to hundreds, and in other districts wiped out entirely. It is estimated
by some that since the ascendency of King Leopold in the Congo the total
population has decreased from twenty-five millions to fifteen millions,
there being ten million murders set down to the account of the king.
Returning from Matadi to the steamer in the sultry tropical night, it
seemed as if the very atmosphere were drenched with blood, that we
breathed its vapours, and that the great swift-rolling tide beneath us
was the blood of the slain millions, hurrying out to incarnadine the sea
that boats against the shores of all the civilized world.
The greed of Leopold and the apathy of the nations are together
responsible for the existence of present conditions in the Congo. It is
irrelevant to answer that there are also atrocities in Portuguese and
other possessions of Africa. There is more oppression and cruelty in the
Congo Free State than in all the rest of Africa. Moreover, we have no
authority over Portugal and can exercise only the right of appeal and its
moral influence. But the Powers signatory to the Brussels Act, with the
United States in the lead, created the Congo Free State, and are still
the formal guardians of its people. A conference of those Powers would
without doubt deal with other evils in Africa besides those of the Congo
Free State. To the average man, unversed in the forms of international
usage, it would seem within the competence of any one of the Powers
which committed to King Leopold a sacred trust upon certain definite
conditions, to urge upon the other responsible powers the duty of meeting
again to inquire whether those conditions have been fulfilled and to
adjudicate the issues relating to their non-fulfillment.
Meanwhile, the Congo State lies bleeding at every pore, and those who are
hoping and praying in all the world for a people who have ceased to hope
and have never learned to pray, have their eyes turned towards the United
States.
A missionary writing from Baringa in the Congo said: “An old chief came
up to where we were standing. ‘Oh, white man,’ he pleaded, ‘do have our
work changed. We do not want to shirk it, but there is no longer any
rubber in our district and my people are being killed for nothing. What
am I to do?’ I suggested that the inspector appointed by the king would
no doubt come to Baringa and he could appeal to him. He asked how long it
would be before the inspector would come. I said perhaps two months; upon
which he cried out, ‘Two months! It will be too late then. We shall all
be killed before that time.’ And after we had left him we could hear him
crying after us, ‘We shall all be killed! We shall all be killed!’”
Four years have passed, and in all likelihood the chief with his family
has been killed long ago, leaving not even a name behind him, but only
this haunting cry, that keeps ringing in one’s heart.
So they all are crying to us with outstretched hands; a people who call
the white man, _Father_, and trust him with pathetic confidence until he
betrays their trust and smites them with the rod of tyranny. I think I
can hear their piteous cry wafted on the winds that wander over the great
forest: “We shall all be killed! We shall all be killed!”
XI
THE FANG
During my second and much longer term in Africa I lived at Baraka, a
mission station two miles south of Libreville, in the Congo Français, on
the great estuary of the Gaboon River, or, the _bay_, as I always called
it. The coast tribe of the Gaboon is called the _Mpongwe_. But my work
was almost entirely with the interior tribe—the _Fang_.
The Fang is probably the largest of all the tribes of West Africa.
The Bulu of the Cameroon interior are a branch of the Fang, and there
are several other branches. They occupy the interior of Cameroon and
the Congo Français, extending north and south behind at least twelve
coast tribes occupying three hundred miles of coast. M. de Brazza after
extended travel among the Fang estimated that there were more than ten
millions, and perhaps fifteen millions of them; but I think it unlikely
that further knowledge will confirm this calculation. M. de Brazza is
usually a most reliable authority; but he probably travelled through the
more densely populated parts of the Fang territory.
Since most of my work was done among the Fang, along the Gaboon River,
they are the tribe that I know best. I am very partial to them, and
therefore, before going further I must say a word in regard to the
pronunciation of this word, “Fang,” and beg the reader not to speak of
them as if they were a generation of vipers. The name is not pronounced
in the least like our word “fang,” and indeed the vowel sound in the
latter word is unknown in the African dialects; the sound of the letter
“a” is like that in the word “father.”
The whole Fang tribe has been moving towards the coast for many years,
and they have already emerged at several points, notably Gaboon. Dr.
Leighton Wilson, writing about 1860, speaks of them as having just
appeared west of the Sierra del Crystal Mountains, one hundred miles
east of the Gaboon Coast. Dr. Wilson, who had a more extended knowledge
of the coast than any man of his time, speaks of the Fang as the most
remarkable and most forceful people he had met in West Africa. They now
have villages among the Mpongwe, and along the entire length of the
Gaboon River and the tributaries of the river and estuary. This for
years was my mission field, a territory one hundred and twenty miles
east and west, and fifty miles north and south. The entire area is a
network of waterways, which are also the highways; for there are very few
bush-roads, and they are of the worst kind. I know of no more attractive
field in West Africa. It combines the far more comfortable home of the
coast, and the more hopeful work of the interior. By the use of a launch,
or even a sailboat, the towns on the watercourses are easily and quickly
accessible.
Thus, also, it allows for expansion and concentration of influence in
their proper relation. Instead of the influence of the missionary being
concentrated in an immediate community where he becomes practically a
pastor, in such a field as that of the Gaboon watercourses he is rather
as a bishop among native pastors, and influential in many communities.
For the native, however meagre his education, if he be otherwise worthy,
is always a better pastor than the foreigner, and needs only counsel. The
church also is likely to be more independent in spirit, and resourceful.
In a single community where the white missionary is ever present,
Christianity shares his prestige, and a few leaders being converted, the
movement becomes popular, and many follow without deep convictions or
earnest purpose. But in a community with which no white man is identified
Christianity cannot acquire an artificial popularity; converts are
earnest,—are leaders, not followers, and each group becomes the centre
of a strong influence, exerted in service from the beginning, and the
nucleus of a native church.
At the same time there may be a proper concentration of influence in
boarding-schools and classes for religious training, and especially in
a seminary for the training of catechists and ministers. This withal
approaches most nearly to the method of our Master, who preached to
multitudes in various places widely separated, the while He concentrated
His influence in the training of the twelve. He who of all men might have
dispensed with methods, was really a master of methods.
Before my time the only work of our mission among the Fang was at Angom
Station, on the upper river, seventy miles above Baraka; but the work
though faithfully done had been restricted to one town, which was a small
factor in the great field that I have described, which larger field
had never been opened to missionary work. When our missionary at Angom
died, and his successor after a short period withdrew, the station was
abandoned; and the little church not yet established in the faith, unable
to stand alone, soon collapsed. A few years later, in 1902, when little
remained but the name, the Angom church was formally dissolved by the
Corisco Presbytery.
I have written at some length of the Bulu of the interior. The Fang of
the interior, at the head waters of the Gaboon, are like the Bulu, while
some of those at the coast are quite civilized.
The Fang village in this territory is built close to the river or stream.
The population of a village varies from fifty to three hundred; the
average population is probably not more than a hundred persons. Those of
the same village are closely related, usually brothers or first cousins,
and their wives and children, with the elders, or grandfathers. They
regard themselves as one family, and all the children of the village as
brothers and sisters. Under no circumstances would they intermarry. The
child addresses ever so many men as “Father,” and ever so many women as
“Mother.” Parental authority is not exclusive; the whole town has more
or less to say in the control and discipline of each child. The result
is that while a score of parents are adding zest to existence in a fine
squabble as to whether the child shall sit here, or there, shall do this,
or that, the child, heedless of conflicting orders, does as he likes and
goes where he pleases. Yet, one finds, as he knows them better, that the
real parents are always distinguished and exercise the final authority.
The village consists of a single street running away from the river,
though sometimes there is a second street, at right angles with the
first, and occasionally even a third. On either side of the street the
houses are built in straight rows, close together, and almost exactly
the same. Among the Bulu the houses are detached; but among the Fang
they are under one continuous roof. This arrangement is convenient for
an enemy in time of war. For, to set fire to the first house is to burn
the whole town; and nothing could burn more rapidly than dry thatch.
Nearer the coast the enemy will often saturate the end of the first roof
with kerosene—it is the only use they make of kerosene. Across each end
of the street is a “palaver-house,” which is the public place, where the
men spend most of the day in talking, eating, sleeping and quarrelling.
This is the _club-house_ of the men, and the women enter it only on
privilege. A missionary entering a town will nearly always be sure of an
audience in the palaver-house.
The houses have bark walls held by horizontal strips of bamboo tied
with rope of vine, and supported by upright poles two feet apart, which
are sharpened at the lower end and stuck in the ground. The roof is of
palm thatch, and there is no floor. Not a nail is used in the entire
construction of the house. Nearer the coast, bark is not used for walls.
They are made of split bamboo, attached horizontally to upright poles.
The interior is a single room with beds around the walls. The bed
consists of straight round poles laid lengthwise upon two cross-poles,
the head being supported by a wooden pillow. Upon these beds the natives
sleep with nothing under them and nothing over them. But they usually
keep a fire at night, which is made on the earth floor. There is no
outlet for the smoke, but it escapes through a narrow open space between
the walls and the roof. The door is tight closed at night, and often a
family will enjoy themselves around a smouldering fire in smoke so dense
that a white man could scarcely enter.
Their houses are kept as clean inside as their construction allows.
But they are always in a state of disorder. The native mind has no
categories. The native’s knowledge consists of isolated facts which
he feels no mental compulsion to classify; neither do the women take
pleasure in household order; and the notion of each article having a
regular and proper place is foreign to their minds. However civilized
they may become in the future, I can hardly think that the teapot under
the bed or the pig in the parlour would ever offend their sense of
propriety.
In the middle of the front wall is a rectangular hole, that looks like a
window, but it is both door and window. At night it is closed by propping
a piece of bark against it. The successful entrance of this door is a
gymnastic feat requiring long practice for its performance, and we can
afford to watch the white man’s first attempt. He has seen the black
man pass through it so easily that he does not suspect any difficulty.
Approaching with assurance he lifts one leg quite high and passes it
over the sill, only to find that he cannot get his head in; for not only
is the door very low but the ragged thatch eaves of the roof project
immediately in front of it. In the attempt his helmet, striking the
eaves, rolls into the street. He goes after the helmet, brushes off some
of the dirt, and approaching a second time, though with less assurance,
he puts the other leg through the door, which is no improvement whatever
upon the first effort, and he loses his helmet again. A third time he
essays to enter, but with a step that indicates a rise of temperature.
He thrusts his head and shoulders through the door, then tries to bring
a foot in after him; but, invariably failing to get his foot nearly high
enough to pass the sill he trips, falls forward, and goes plunging into
the house sprawling on all fours, and only by extraordinary exertion
escapes the fire in the middle of the room. The children, if they are
not accustomed to the white man, scream with fright, and the grown
people laugh without restraint. Those in the street laugh still louder
and afford every evidence that the rear view of the performance—the
unintelligible exertions, the sudden disappearance and the feet lingering
on the door-sill—was an entertainment which they would greatly enjoy a
second time. The white man gets up out of the dust and the ashes, glares
fiercely around and asks if anybody knows where his helmet is. Some time
in the future, after an extended and distressing experience he may chance
to observe exactly how the black man enters his small door. He neither
halts nor hesitates; but throwing up one leg, he throws his head down at
the same time, probably extending an arm in front of him, and thrusting
both head and leg through together, he bolts into the house. Near the
coast the houses are better. There are often several rooms in a house.
They have doors that swing on hinges, and windows the same, but unglazed.
They have grass mats upon the beds. But all this is the result of the
imported civilization.
The idle life of the Fang, especially in the interior, and his freedom
from responsibility, seem to the impatient white man to have obliterated
from his mind the idea of time. The more prosperous people near the
coast have a passion for clocks, but it is because they like to hear
them tick and strike. A Fang cannot conceive that he has wronged you if
he comes several days late to keep an engagement. This unreliableness in
everything where time is a factor is one of the chief trials of the white
man in Africa. But he ought to regard the native’s viewpoint and consider
how very irritating and really discouraging to the native must be the
white man’s incessant hurry. “We are not in a hurry,” says the black man.
“Why should you come to Africa to set us all hurrying? Has it made your
own people so very happy that you want to share with us the blessing of
haste?”
The African is the most sociable man in the world. He could not easily
be killed with work even the hardest: he is not much afraid of it. But
isolate him, take him away from his people, and he could easily die of
homesickness. He is strongly emotional and warmly affectionate by nature.
He loves his children, and sometimes embraces them tenderly, but he never
kisses them. The kiss is meaningless to the African. They have never
seen any such thing except between white people. I am almost ashamed to
tell their interpretation of it as some of them have seen it executed
and have reported to their people; but I presume it will do no harm.
They think that white people, in kissing, expectorate into each other’s
mouths. The word by which they designate the kiss is a compound which
means “to exchange saliva.”—No wonder it is not popular! When those at
the coast begin the practice of this fine art, it is usually accompanied
by a sound loud enough to start a team of horses.
All their spare time they sit in the palaver-house and talk, stopping
for an occasional nap. The old men as they sit scratching themselves
with the itch relate wonderful tales and tell infinite lies about their
achievements when young, how many women eloped with them, how many
enemies they had killed in war, and how they had fought wild animals with
unheard-of bravery. But they turn out interesting tales and are always
listened to respectfully because of their years.
The chief factor in the social life is the marriage customs and the
relations of husband and wife. The woman is regarded as inferior in every
way to the man. It would be disgraceful to a man to be caught eating with
his wife. Her duty is to work for him and to provide for him. She is
bought with a price and is a part of his wealth; indeed, a man’s wealth
and influence are measured by the number of his wives. The son inherits
the father’s wives, all but his own mother. Frequently in the forest one
may see a woman staggering along the rough bush-path under a load of
forty or fifty pounds, and perhaps carrying her poor babe in a strap hung
at her side, while her lordly husband walks before her with only his gun
or a knife. In some tribes a wife must keep a certain distance behind
her husband as they walk. If he should fall she must also fall, lest she
laugh at him.
[Illustration: MAN AND WIFE.
_The woman always carries the load._]
[Illustration: TWO MEN DANCING.
_The music, supplied by various drums, may have charms to soothe the
savage breasts; it certainly would soothe no other kind._]
A man and his wife once came to me from a distant town, the woman
carrying a load of food which they wished to sell, the man carrying
nothing. I told them that I had no use for the food and could not buy it;
whereupon the man appealed to my pity and urged that the poor woman, who
was exhausted, and who was suffering with an ulcer on her foot, was not
able to carry the load back home. I replied that I knew how to relieve
her, and I asked them both to turn their backs and close their eyes. They
did as I asked, probably expecting that I would perform some miracle that
would make the burden light. But, taking the burden from the woman’s
back, I suddenly put it upon the man, and threw the strap over his
shoulder. He flung it upon the ground with an angry protest at the great
indignity I had put upon him in the presence of his wife.
Inconsistent with this is his love of his mother, of which I have spoken
before; but it may be mentioned again, for it is the strongest sentiment
and the deepest emotion in the mind and heart of the African. He always
loves his mother more than his wife. The wife is also expected to love
the members of her own family more than her husband; but the love of
mother is strongest in the men. She is the one who will defend him
against the machinations of his wives and be true to him when all others
combine to denounce or to injure him. One day on an English steamer a
traveller who was standing on deck and teasing some Kruboys in a boat
below remarked to an Old Coaster how very good-natured they were. The
Old Coaster told him something to say to one of them that involved a
reflection on his mother. The traveller made the remark and was startled
and somewhat frightened when the “good-natured” Kruboy turned upon him in
a rage, cursed him and threatened to kill him. If he had been ashore he
might have paid the penalty with his life. The African, old and young,
thinks he has fully justified any violent assault upon another when he
says: “He cursed my mother.” Any reflection whether it be more or less
serious is called a “curse.”
A man also loves his children more than his wife. Often the head-wife is
the one who bears the most children. Children are not weaned until the
age of three years or thereabouts. During all this period of lactation
the husband and wife observe absolute continence in regard to each other,
though not necessarily in regard to others.
A man has as many wives as he can afford to buy. The idea of marrying
“just for love” is laughable. Such an act is sometimes cited as
indicating weakness of character. Marriages of “strong-minded” men
are controlled by expediency and convenience. In the territory of the
Gaboon I know of no man that has more than ten wives; but in the farther
interior some chiefs have half a hundred. Yet, though the possession of
many wives is the ambition of every man, most of them never possess more
than one. The dowry which a man pays for a wife is enormous; and none but
the most successful traders are able to earn the amount. A dowry is often
kept intact and passed from father to son, doing repeated service. A man
may also procure a dowry by the sale of a sister. I have heard Fang boys
boasting that they were rich because they had several sisters.
For those who are not so fortunate as to inherit a dowry or to have a
sister, there are two alternatives; first they may remain unmarried, with
the result that they will be regarded as contemptibly poor, and will be
engaged in endless palavers with all the husbands of the town; or, they
may boldly steal a woman of some other town, which will cause war between
the two towns, and in the end, after several or many persons have been
killed, the whole town will have to pay the dowry. Sometimes a man may
have an incomplete dowry and may by working earn sufficient to complete
it. The following would be an ordinary dowry among the Fang living
near the coast: Ten goats, five sheep, five guns, twenty trade-boxes
(plain wooden chests), one hundred heads of tobacco, ten hats, ten
looking-glasses, five blankets, five pairs of trousers, two dozen plates,
fifty dollars’ worth of calico, fifty dollars’ worth of rum, one chair
and one cat. In addition to the above he must make frequent presents to
his wife’s relations, who may be expected to arrive at any time and in
any number for an indefinite visit. If there is any hatred in the heart
of the African man it is usually directed towards his wife’s relations. A
man is all his lifetime subject to bondage by reason of his wife.
A certain fellow missionary was married to another missionary. Some of
the African boys, knowing that the white man had paid no dowry, expressed
envious regrets at the ease with which a white man marries a wife. “All
you white men have to do,” they said, “is simply to ask a woman; and
the whole palaver is finished.” This also made my celibacy the more
incomprehensible.
When a wife dies without having borne children the husband has the right
to insist that the dowry be returned. A part of it and sometimes all of
it will have been spent, and the people are reluctant to make up the
loss; so the request that the dowry be returned after the death of a
wife nearly always leads to war, though they do not question the right
of the custom. If the wife runs away either to her own or another town,
the dowry paid for her must be returned, if the woman is not sent back.
In nearly every case her people will find it more convenient to send
her back than to restore the dowry; so their bad passions of greed and
immorality are balanced the one against the other, and the large dowry
serves the purpose of keeping husband and wife together. But if the woman
runs away not to her own town, but to some other town, eloping with
another man, her people will often prevent war between the two towns by
inducing her to return. Otherwise they themselves will become involved in
the war. Nearly all the wars between different communities of the same
tribe begin with a “woman-palaver.”
A woman after an attempt to run away, or upon being brought back, is
usually put in stocks until she becomes submissive. Her foot is passed
through a hole in a heavy block of wood about four feet long, the
hole then being closed by a bolt. She is kept thus night and day. The
irritation of the rough wood often produces a very bad ulcer. A woman
in stocks is a common sight in the Fang towns. One day while I was in a
Fang town on the river, I heard a woman crying in the next town as if in
great pain. I asked an explanation and said I must go and see what was
the matter. Some men of her town being present tried to persuade me not
to go by telling a variety of conflicting lies that made me suspicious.
I went to the town, and found in the palaver-house a withered old savage
punishing his young wife by putting her hand in a large and heavy block,
with the help of his younger brothers. He had made a small hole in the
block and was dragging her hand through it. The hole was so small that
he thought she would not be able to get her hand out, and it would not
require the usual bolt. The hand was about one-third of the way through
the hole and was already badly bruised. I knew the Fang towns, and just
how far I could safely venture to use force in each, for they differ
widely. The individual counts for nothing; everything depends upon the
feeling or attitude of the whole town towards the white man. The sight
of the woman and her crying were unbearable; I ordered the old chief to
withdraw her hand immediately. He knew just how to do it and I did not.
He began to argue, but I said: “Argument afterwards: remove her hand
instantly.” Still he talked, and the woman cried. But a moment later
my hand clutched his throat and he found himself pinioned against the
opposite wall. Thereupon he indicated his readiness to comply with my
request. He dragged her hand out of the block; the women of the town,
all assembled, led her away as they moaned pathetically in sympathy, the
woman herself still crying. A little later I followed them into the house
and found them pouring warm water over the bruised hand to soothe the
pain; but the woman still cried.
Meantime, the old man told me the story. It was typical of the extreme
injustice often committed against the African woman: A young woman
married against her will to a very old man, with the inevitable
consequence that she despised him and cared too much for somebody else. I
made the incident the text of my sermon and preached an up-to-date sermon
on _Woman’s Rights_.
The old man’s cupidity, always alert, suggested a happy expedient. In
a suave manner he deliberately proposed that since I knew so well how
to treat a woman, he would as a favour accept a proper dowry from me,
renounce his claim upon her and let me marry her. But I exclaimed, at
least to myself: “This is so sudden!”
But would not the old man immediately carry out his purpose when I had
left the town? No, he would not. An unexpected interruption in the
performance of such an act he would regard as a sign that the act would
be attended by misfortune to himself, and he would not repeat it. And
that particular act, if he had repeated it, would certainly have been
attended by misfortune; inflicted not by any invisible power, but by
a white man. For, having undertaken to prevent the wrong, if I should
afterwards allow it, I would lose influence and be despised in that town.
But lest the reader should think of me as a very warlike individual, with
a Bible in one hand and a big stick in the other, I hasten to say that,
except in self-defense, I have only three times, in more than twice so
many years, laid violent hands upon a native; and all three times the
outrageous treatment of a woman was the occasion.
Less dowry is paid for a child than for “a whole woman,” as the Fang
would say. A man frequently pays the dowry for a very young girl, who
is then taken to his town and given in charge to his mother to raise,
and the mother will probably “raise” her very early in the morning. She
trains the girl for her son, and at a proper age delivers his wife to
him. Children are often betrothed to each other, the boy’s father paying
the dowry to the girl’s father, the children of course having nothing
to say in the matter. I am inclined to think that these latter are the
happiest marriages in Africa. A man once came to Efulen in great distress
saying that his little daughter, a mere baby, was very ill and that if
we did not help her she would surely die and, he added, the worst of it
was that she was betrothed and he had received a portion of the dowry
which he would be obliged to return if she should die. His grief was
truly pitiable. I have known instances where a child was betrothed before
it was born, the dowry to be kept intact and returned in case the child
should not be a girl.
One Sunday I walked to an inland town two hours behind Baraka, where I
found the people engaged in talking a dowry-palaver. I had to wait until
this was finished before I could get a hearing. The occasion of the
palaver was briefly this: Some years ago, in another town, there were two
brothers whose father died leaving them their sister as an inheritance.
A husband was found for this sister who paid a handsome dowry. The elder
brother appropriated the dowry and took to himself a wife. Several years
passed; the younger brother was grown to manhood, and he too desired a
wife but had no dowry with which to procure her. He demanded from his
brother his rightful share of his sister’s dowry. The dowry of course was
gone; but the elder brother now had a daughter five years old, and it was
proposed that he should find a husband for this child, thus procuring a
dowry with which to settle with his younger brother. The trouble between
the brothers became serious; and the people, wishing to avoid war,
induced them to ask a certain neighbouring chief, who had a reputation
for wisdom and diplomacy, to arbitrate between them and decide the matter.
This was the palaver that was in progress when I entered the town on
Sunday, and I heard the closing speeches and the decision of the judge,
which was as follows: “I will cut the palaver thus: The elder brother
must dispose of his daughter as speedily as possible, and pay to his
younger brother the sum of the dowry. Meanwhile, to procure obedience to
this, the elder brother’s wife will remain in this town as my wife until
the dowry is paid.”
This amicable arrangement was agreed to by all the parties concerned.
This chief deserved his reputation for cleverness. A few weeks later I
was passing through his town when he called after me and asked if I were
going to pass by without making him a little present of some tobacco in
recognition of our intimate friendship.
In reply I asked: “Why do you not rather complain that I pass your town
without stopping to tell you God’s Word? Is tobacco more important?”
His sprightly answer, delivered with perfect simplicity, was, “No doubt
God’s Word is more important; but tobacco also is God’s gift, and I am
very grateful to Him for it.”
Some of their immoral customs one can only mention with reserve even in
writing. It is always regarded as amiable, and is sometimes required,
that a host should give his wife to a guest. The wife is not consulted.
Yet, if the guest, being a Christian, should refuse to comply with this
custom, the woman, regarding herself as repulsed, will become enraged and
vow vengeance upon the visitor; it will be positively dangerous for him
to eat food in that town lest she poison him. It is common also for a
man afflicted with a long illness to ask a friend to assume his marital
relations until his recovery.
In one instance this request was made of a Christian man by an intimate
friend, and at the woman’s suggestion. The man in his distress appealed
to me to talk the palaver with the sick man. If a man has many wives, it
is regarded as magnanimous for him to take but little notice of social
wrong-doing; and the result is boundless immorality.
Charges of adultery are often made for the purpose of extortion. For this
same purpose husbands and wives together often conspire against another
person.
Polygamy is the greatest obstacle to the introduction of Christianity. It
is not identical with the question of African sensuality; but involves
a man’s wealth, influence and reputation, all of which depend upon the
number of his wives. It is the very foundation of the whole structure of
African society and is as firmly rooted as their Cameroon Mountain in the
African soil. Critics of missions say that the obstacle is insuperable.
But we believe in a Power that can say to the mountain: “Be thou removed;
and be thou cast into the sea.” And that same Power is actually removing
polygamy to-day. Moreover, the critics do not seem to see or do not
understand that if polygamy be an insuperable obstacle to Christianity it
is also an insuperable obstacle to civilization, which they advocate.
The renouncing of polygamy and putting away his wives with all the loss
that it involves serves as a final test of the African’s sincerity in
professing the Christian faith. The man of the parable said: “I have
married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.” When at the close of a
service in a native town I gave a similar invitation a man replied with
a sorrowful shake of his head: “I have married _five_ wives, and cannot
come.”
In the later chapters of this book I shall tell of men who,
notwithstanding the jeers and contempt of the people, have put away many
wives and have come.
Among the real negro tribes of the Soudan (for the tribes of Central
and Southern Africa are not pure negroes) there is a central government
and a general organization. But there is no tribal organization among
the Fang or any other tribe south of the Calabar River. The village,
or a group of villages close together and immediately related, is the
unit and the entirety of organization; although a common language is a
bond of sympathy and they might freely unite against a common foe. Their
government is nearly patriarchal in form. There is a headman in each
village who is usually advanced in years. But unless he has many more
wives than any other man he takes counsel in all matters with the elders
of the town; and there are many public discussions in which all the men
have a right to advise. There is no despotism, except the despotism of
custom which no chief would challenge.
The right hand of the government is a secret society of the men, usually
called _The Gorilla Society_, or sometimes _The Leopard Society_. This
or some corresponding society is found in all the tribes of West Africa,
though there are details of difference even between the communities of
the same tribe. The head of the society is not supposed to be a man, but
a gorilla. They all know that this is not true but they have agreed to
impose this lie upon each other and no one would dare say that the head
of the society is a man. This man, or gorilla, is a witch-doctor and has
great knowledge of witchcraft and all the occult arts. When a person dies
the gorilla can tell whether he has been a victim of witchcraft, and he
has means of discovering the witch. In order to realize the power of this
man and the society one need only remember that nearly every death in
Africa is imputed to witchcraft. His knowledge, however, is not regarded
as absolute. He designates certain persons whom he professes to see in a
vision, and they are then tried by ordeal.
It would be impossible to exaggerate the African terror of witchcraft.
When it is announced that a certain deceased person has died of
witchcraft, a panic ensues. They run back and forth in the street with
wild, staring eyes, uttering imprecations and demanding blood.
The common ordeal is to drink some poisonous concoction and if it does
not produce vertigo the accused is adjudged innocent; but if he staggers
or falls he is guilty, and the people, all standing around and looking on
with spears and swords in their hands, immediately rush upon him and kill
him, usually cutting the body to pieces. Far more women than men die this
death.
Among the Fang this society represents the worship of ancestors. The
motive of the worship is not devotion to their ancestors but rather
that they may procure their help in every undertaking, good and bad.
Each man as directed by the head of the society secures the skull of a
father or uncle recently deceased and after various ceremonies, of which
I shall speak when I describe the native religion, he puts the skull in
a box made for the purpose. No woman may see the contents of the box,
nor is she supposed to know what it contains. If she should see the
skull she will die. And she really does die, if it be known that she
has seen it. She is doubtless poisoned by the society. The spirit of
the ancestor, if the skull is well treated, will punish with sickness
or death a disobedient or false wife, or any other enemy. This it is
supposed will in some degree restrain disobedience on the part of wives
and secure justice and honesty between men. Thus it serves the purpose
of government. Where the power of the ancestor is the efficient agent
rather than the supernatural power of the head of the society, the latter
has less prominence and often does not profess to be more than a man.
But where he is regarded as a gorilla, or spirit, no woman or child or
uninitiated man may see him and live. Therefore as he approaches a town
he gives warning by roaring like a gorilla. The women and children flee
for their lives. Or, if unable to escape, they fall upon the ground and
shut their eyes, mothers also putting their hands over their babies’
eyes, until the gorilla passes out of the town, after having helped
himself to chickens, bananas or anything that he desires.
The African, it is said, loves idleness, amusement and war; of these
three he probably loves war most.
Except in the vicinity of the foreign governments or the missions, war is
the usual condition; not only between tribe and tribe but between village
and village. Beyond the range of civilization there is no salutation
between persons casually meeting and no need of it; a man hearing another
approaching in the forest would hide.
_Nsama_, which means a crowd, is also the word for chance, or
opportunity; because a man does not go anywhere alone and a crowd is his
opportunity. Of course villages are often on friendly terms and some may
manage to remain so; but in such cases there are usually strong reasons
of expediency.
The usual beginning of a war is the stealing of a woman, as I have said;
but this does not always lead to war and the shedding of blood. Nearer
the coast milder measures of retaliation are often preferred, and when
a woman is stolen the offended town will capture one of the other side
and keep him prisoner until the woman is returned. The solidarity of the
village in the native mind is impressed upon one continually. They also
capture persons of a village in which some one owes them a dowry which
he is reluctant to pay. In all such matters the whole village is held
responsible for each one of its inhabitants. Many a time, travelling on
the river, I have been about to call at a town when one of my crew in
alarm has told me that there was a palaver between that town and his town
and he dare not enter there. At the next town another one of the crew may
raise the same objection; and another at the next. After a thorough trial
I had to depend almost entirely on men of the coast rather than the Fang,
for at least the first two years. It was not a cowardly imagination on
the part of my Fang crew; they were in real danger.
On one occasion one of my Fang boys, Ndong Koni, my best helper and most
devoted friend, accompanied me to a certain Fang town with which his
people had a palaver. He had not a vestige of fear in him and he told me
nothing about it, but depended upon my presence for his safety. When I
was about to hold a service in the street I observed that the people were
muttering in anger, and at last there was an outburst of wrath which, as
I saw in a moment, was directed against Ndong Koni. A “sister” of Ndong
Koni, who as a matter of fact was not nearer than a second cousin, having
married a man in this town, had recently run away from a brutal husband,
and her people had not yet made her return, or, unwilling to send her
back, had not yet returned the dowry. The proposition was to seize Ndong
Koni and put him in stocks until the palaver should be settled. Once
they should lay hands upon him nothing could be done to restrain them;
for when degraded and ignorant people have committed one hostile act
they become excited and violent; they are then a mob. I hurried to Ndong
Koni’s side and with him I stepped back from the crowd while I addressed
them and presented various arguments.
[Illustration: NDONG KONI.
_The first, the most faithful and the bravest of all my African
friends._]
I said first: “Ndong Koni while in my service does not belong to his
town, but to me; he is my son, and you have no palaver with me. Now
suppose that one of your own young men should work for me—and I see
several fine-looking young men here with strong arms to pull an oar.
Suppose that a young man of your town should go with me to Alum, where
you have a palaver, and that the people of Alum should attempt to seize
him, what would you like to have me do? Shall I say: ‘He is only a black
boy and I am a white man; I don’t care what you do with him.’ Or shall I
say: ‘The colour of the skin makes no difference, so long as the blood
is red. This boy while he works for me is my son; and if you should harm
a white man’s son you will have a palaver with me and with the white
governor at Libreville who owns the gunboat.’ Now what would you like me
to say if one of these young men should go with me to Alum and the people
should want to put him in stocks?”
They shouted in reply: “We would want you to say he was your son. Those
are good words. You are the father of us all.”
“Yes,” said I, “I have many, many children; but my life is full of
trouble, for they do not obey me.”
The chief and a few others were as hostile as ever, but there was a
marked change in the attitude of the people; and in order to force an
assertion of their friendliness I attempted a grand bluff, while I was
inwardly quaking.
Approaching the threatening chief I laid my hand upon his arm and said:
“Come and seize this boy if you dare. Come with me and before my face put
your hand upon my son.”
“No,” cried the people; and they crowded between the chief and Ndong
Koni. The palaver was finished; but I thought it well to pass on to the
next town and not wait to hold a service. Before I got away however they
crowded around me, saying: “Since you are the father of the Fang surely
you ought to give us some tobacco. A father gives tobacco to his sons.”
It is thus frequently in Africa; the serious ends in burlesque; and,
perhaps as frequently, comedy ends in tragedy.
The chief himself, coming forward just before my departure, assured
me of his good will by solemnly taking my hand in his and spitting in
it. I know the theory of some regarding this touching demonstration
of affection,—that the native means only to blow with his breath,
symbolic of imparting a blessing, and that the spitting is incidental,
a “by-product”—so to speak—of the blessing. But as I looked at my hand
I realized that it was not a theory, but a condition, that confronted
me, a condition that called loudly for soap and water—_warm_ water and
plenty of soap. I have before this acknowledged the receipt of blessings
in disguise; but I would cheerfully renounce any possible benefits that
might accrue from a blessing coming in such a disguise as this. And
if the old chief had approached me a second time with the offer of a
blessing on the other hand, I would have said: “Please give me a curse
instead, by way of variety.”
The form of “socialism,” by which any one of a village may be seized and
killed by the enemy for the wrong of any other of that same village, is
even carried further, and to the extent that one person may be given over
to the enemy for the wrong done by another person. I have already said,
in reference to the Bulu, that at the end of a war the ordinary way of
settling the palaver is that the side that has done the most killing will
pay over to the other side a corresponding number of women, who become
wives or sometimes slaves in the enemy’s town.
In war they are not careful to kill only the enemy, but often shoot
recklessly at any one in sight who might possibly belong to the other
side, not waiting to be sure about it. In the dark forest they often
mistake a friend for a foe, with dreadful consequences. On the river it
is not so frequent.
One evening one of my boys, Amvama, who afterwards became a catechist,
an honest and lovable boy, was in a canoe on the river, fishing with a
net. It was evening and he was in the shade of overhanging trees. Several
canoes approached and the people mistaking Amvama fired upon him. He
hastened to the bank and leaving the canoe and net fled into the forest,
while they seized all that he had left. They afterwards learned who it
was that they had so nearly killed. Amvama’s people demanded his canoe
and net, which were surrendered. But the civilized Amvama cared less for
the loss of these things than for the personal outrage done him in their
attempt to kill him. He indignantly put the question: “Why did you fire
upon me?”
They only replied: “How did we know it was you?”
“How did you know it was _not_ I?” responded Amvama. But it is not likely
that the discussion contributed greatly to the science of ethics among
the Fang.
There is a strange war-custom in all the tribes of West Africa unlike
anything that I have known or heard of elsewhere. Often when a woman is
stolen from a small and poorly defended town, the people, desiring to
make a desperate protest, or being unusually resentful and fierce, will
kill some person of a third town that has nothing whatever to do with
the palaver, by way of drawing attention to the fact that a crime has
been committed and of impressing the community with its enormity. But it
seems hard that a man should be punished for a crime without having the
pleasure of committing it. Sometimes, however, this is done to enlist
the help of the third town. For, this third town according to custom is
not supposed to retaliate directly but will unite with the town which
has killed one of their people in wreaking vengeance upon the first
town, which was the original offender and therefore the cause of all the
trouble.
Imagine A, B and C to be three schoolboys; the principle of the custom
then is this (if the colloquial language may be pardoned): A licks B; B,
not being able to lick A, lies in wait for C and licks him; then C joins
with B and they together lick A. The moral beauty of this principle is
evident: A, B and C each get licked.
On one occasion when holding a service in a town we heard two shots fired
in rapid succession in another town close by. Each shot killed a man;
one of them was a chief. They were unarmed and suspecting no harm; for
neither they nor their people had anything to do with the palaver which
was the occasion of the killing; nor had they even heard of it. A man of
the town that I was visiting and who was then sitting in the audience had
just stolen a woman from another town, which latter town was small and
poorly defended. Being desperate, and in order that they might not be a
prey to stronger towns, they resorted to this peculiar mode of justice
that they might form a strong coalition against the enemy. In this they
succeeded and fourteen persons were killed before that palaver was ended.
Among the Mpongwe, in the old days before the foreign power was
established, and among the closely related tribes south of them, this
custom prevailed in an extreme form. A woman being stolen, the people of
the offended town would hurry to another town near by before the news had
reached them and would kill somebody. This town would then hurry to the
next and kill somebody there, each town doing likewise until perhaps five
or six persons of as many different towns would be killed in one night.
The last town would then, with the help of the others, demand justice
from the first. It may be that the object of this frightful custom was to
restrain men from committing the initial crime, that might be attended
with such widespread death, bringing upon themselves the curses of many
people. For above all things the African cannot bear to be disliked and
cannot endure execration.
The chief amusements of the Fang and other tribes of West Africa are
music, dancing and story-telling. In these, and at all times, they
exhibit a strong sense of humour, truly surprising in an uncivilized
people. In this faculty they are next to our own race and quite
unequalled by others. In their survival of suffering and oppression, in
their easy forgetfulness of injury, and their constant buoyancy of mind,
who can tell how much they owe to their keen sense of humour? The pain
of suffering and the weight of heavy burdens are mitigated by frequent
laughter. They are fond of incongruous comparisons. On one occasion when
we were travelling on the river there was on board a white man who was
very bald, and who attracted considerable attention from the crew because
they had never seen a bald white man before. One of their number cheered
up a lot of tired boys by remarking that the head of that white man was
like a fresh-laid egg.
They are passionately fond of music; but their sense of rhythm is far
more keen than their sense of melody. Accordingly the drum in various
forms is the favourite instrument. There are two principal kinds of
drum, both made from the trunk of a tree hollowed out, and about four
feet long. One of these stands upright and the open end is covered with
deerskin. It is beaten with the palms of the hand. They play remarkably
well upon this drum. With great variety in the beat they maintain a
constant and perfect rhythm.
The other drum, which is larger, lies on its side, has closed ends, and
a long narrow opening in the side. It is beaten with two heavy sticks.
The wood of the drum is very resonant and it can be heard at a distance
of many miles. It is used as a kind of telegraph between towns, and
messages are sent upon it. This is done by means of a secret language
of inarticulate sounds which they are able to imitate upon the drum,
according to the part of it which they strike and the regularity of
the stroke. The women do not understand it, except a few common calls.
Neither would any one be allowed to teach it to a white man. This
telegraphic use of the drum is extraordinary; messages of startling
definiteness are sometimes sent ahead of a caravan over a great distance
being repeated in town after town. This drum, therefore, bulky and
unlikely as it appears, is very skillfully made, being precise in form
and with varying shades of thickness in different parts. As to its
musical qualities, it may have charms to soothe the savage breast; I am
very sure that it could soothe no others; and among white people it would
make more savages than it would soothe.
Besides the drums there are several other instruments, but of less
importance. The most common of these is a wooden harp with strings made
of a vegetable fibre, which respond to the fingers with tinkling notes.
There is also a xylophone consisting of a row of parallel wooden bars,
graduated in length, and placed upon a base of two parallel banana
stocks, which lie upon the ground. Banana stocks are used because
they are non-conducting. The wooden bars are hammered with sticks. The
notes are pleasant; but the Fang do not make much of it, as it is not
sufficiently noisy to impress them. There is still another in common use;
a harp with a single string, the sound of which is like the magnified
music of a Jew’s-harp.
Their singing, like their instrumental music, has not much “tune” to
it, but there is always a stirring rhythm and a certain weird and
touching quality, which impressed me the more because I could never quite
understand it,—the same elusive charm that characterizes the singing of
the negroes of the Southern States. I do not refer to the negro songs
composed by white men, which are entirely different, but the melodies
that the negro sings at his work. The native songs are of the nature of
chants, and turn upon several notes of a minor scale. But it is not quite
our minor scale. There is one prominent and characteristic note, which I
confess defied me, though it may have been a minor third slightly flat. I
found it very difficult to reduce their songs to musical notation.
The words of most of the songs are improvised by the leading voice, and
have a regular refrain in which all join. But if they wish to sing in
chorus, as in their dance-songs, any words will serve the purpose and the
same sentence may be repeated for an hour. “Our old cow she crossed the
road” were luminous with propriety and sentiment in comparison with the
words that they will sometimes sing in endless repetition. “The leopard
caught the monkey’s tail,” “The roots grow underneath the ground,” are
samples of their songs. Their canoe-songs I like best of all. The rhythm
is appropriate and one almost hears the sound of the paddles. They sing
nearly all the time as they use the paddle or the oar, and on a long
journey they say it makes the hard work easier. If they should take a
white man on a journey and, not being his regular workmen, should expect
a “dash”—a fee, or present, in African vernacular—the leading voice will
sing the white man’s praises on the journey, alluding in particular to
his benevolence, while the others all respond, seeking thus by barefaced
flattery and good-natured importunity to shame the meanness out of him.
Dancing, both with old and young, takes the place in general of our games
and sports, except that the men also hunt. The music used is that of
the two drums already described, especially the upright one, and they
usually sing as they dance. They can scarcely listen to the music without
indulging the movements of the dance.
Men and women never dance together; and they have nothing like our
conventional dances. There is something of the freedom and unrestrained
movements of the Italian and Hungarian peasant-dances; yet in comparison
with these latter the African dance is a very uncouth performance,
though frequently difficult, and extremely grotesque. Its peculiar
characteristic is that the feet are no more active than any other part of
the body; arms, shoulders, abdomen, head—all the parts and every muscle
are set in motion, sometimes including even the eyes and the tongue.
Their champions we would call contortionists rather than dancers.
Sometimes famous dancers from different towns, in fantastic and absurd
decorations and dress, will contend for the championship in a contest of
several days. They dance in the middle of the street before an audience
of almost the entire population of the different towns seated on the
ground on either side of the street. The music is not adapted to the
dance, but the dance to the changing music. The musicians have hard work,
and they make it harder. Streaming with perspiration they beat the drums
with changing time and increasing rapidity until they are almost as
nearly exhausted as the dancers, and one might think that the music had
gone mad. Without doubt the native dance is a fine bodily exercise; and
they dance so much that the exercise is perhaps the chief factor in the
development of the strength and athletic form of the native.
The women dance on the moonlight nights, and often through the entire
night. They all sing as they dance, most of them standing in a circle
while individuals one after another step into the middle of the circle
and lead the performance. The men are standing around looking on and when
a leader finishes her part one or several of her gentlemen friends will
step into the circle and embrace her. These dances have always appeared
innocent enough to me. But the native Christians, who know better than I,
and who also know the side-scenes that invariably attend the dance though
not a part of it, uniformly condemn the dance, and say that no Christian
ought to take part in it.
They dance on all festive occasions—a betrothal, a marriage, a victory
in war, the end of a war, or the end of a term of mourning for the dead.
The men decorate themselves with paint and feathers, and often they wear
around their ankles strings of native bells, consisting of the dried hull
of a certain nut, into which while still green they insert small stones,
which make a peculiarly metallic and pleasant noise.
They usually form in two long lines in the street, with the drums
across one end. Some great dancer will perform in the middle, down
the lines and back, sometimes in graceful movements, and sometimes in
contortions almost fiendish until his body seems to have no shape at all
“distinguishable in member, joint or limb.” Sometimes they all move
with him down the street and back. They sing and shout as they dance,
shaking the bells on their ankles, and occasionally all together suddenly
stamping upon the ground. They mark the time to perfection, and the
effect of so many men keeping the time perfectly while their movements
differ, together with the volume of wild song and shouting is quite
fascinating.
The chief dance of the men is that of their Secret Society, which is
performed only on very dark nights, the women being compelled to retire
to their houses and close the door lest they see it and die. In this
dance they deliberately try to be unhuman and hideous in their movements.
I once witnessed this dance when I had been but a short time in Africa
and did not know the serious nature of my intrusion; and I suppose I came
much nearer suffering violence at their hands than I knew at the time.
It is the height of indiscretion to show unnecessary contempt for native
customs, or to disregard their feelings for the sake of satisfying mere
curiosity. But I was not aware of their feelings until it was too late to
retreat.
Hearing the drumming and the roar of the gorilla-man I knew they were
having a characteristic dance and with a lantern in my hand I started
along the bush-path to see it and entered the town before they were aware
of my approach. The offense was double. I had turned the light upon the
performance, possibly allowing women to see the gorilla-man through the
chinks of the houses; and I myself had defied him by looking upon him
with uninitiated eyes, for which according to custom I ought to die. He
approached me whirling about and contorting his body, roaring the while
like a gorilla, and brandished his sword very close to my face, to one
side and then the other. But I was not intimidated for the sufficient
reason that I did not believe he would touch me. Then, as I stood my
ground, he thought to terrorize me by his supernatural powers, which the
native would fear far more than a sword. He brought out a number of human
bones and laying them on the ground before me he performed a ceremony
which was supposed to bring down upon me the wrath of his ancestors.
But of the two dangers I was rather more afraid of the sword than the
ancestors. They all saw my indifference and concluded that I had with me
some fetish stronger than theirs and powerful for my protection; and they
resumed the dance while I looked on, having first accommodated them by
turning down the light. It was a strange sight, these black phantom-forms
darting to and fro in the dark, like flitting shadows often with a
wriggling, reptile motion, and shrieking the while like hobgoblins.
I have already spoken at length of the African’s love of story-telling,
and have given many examples. The following two stories are types of a
large class.
The elephant and the gorilla hate each other, for each thinks himself
king of the forest. Meeting one day in the bush-path, each refused to
step aside to let the other pass.
“Let me pass,” said the elephant; “for these woods belong to me.”
The gorilla beat his breast and made a noise like the sound of a drum.
Then he replied: “Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh! These woods do not belong to you. I am
master here.”
The elephant would not move aside; so the gorilla broke down a tree and
beat the elephant to death. And the proof of it is that the prostrate
tree was found beside the body of the dead elephant.
The sun and moon are great enemies. They are the same age but each
claims to be older than the other. The sun is the friend of the people
and brings daylight and gladness. The moon hates people and devours them
like insects; she brings darkness, witchcraft and death. One day the sun
and the moon had a palaver and got very angry at each other. The palaver,
as usual, began by each one claiming to be older than the other.
The moon said: “Who are you? You are nobody, for you are alone and have
no family. My equal? Indeed! Look at these countless stars. They are all
my people; but you are alone.”
The sun replied: “Oh, Moon, mother of darkness and of witchcraft! I would
have as many people as you if you had not killed them all. But now I have
taken the people of the world, men, women and children, to be my family;
and I love them all.”
XII
FETISHES
The Fang, like other tribes of West Africa, have a name for God and they
conceive that He is a personal being, who made the heavens and the earth,
and created man. The one thing that they will say of God and the only
fixed idea regarding Him is that He made everything. The world, even in
the mind of the African, is an effect which demands a cause; and that
cause is God. But since they have no conception of God’s eternity, by the
same principle of causality they must account for God Himself. So God has
a father and a grandfather. This notion of a divine ancestry is evidently
an effort of the mind to grope its way back to a First Cause.
They do not fear God, and they certainly do not love or reverence Him.
Nor do I know that they ever worship Him. The transient observer among
them sees wooden images, evidently objects of worship, and supposes that
they are images of God; but in most cases, if not in all, these are
images of ancestors or imaginary personages. He figures in some of their
fables; but His deeds are usually wanton, wicked, or immoral. Most of
these fables would not bear repetition. God is simply a magnified African
chief with a great number of wives, most of whom have been stolen in the
first instance. God takes no interest in the world that He has made. He
looks down with indifference upon all its cruelty, its sorrow, and its
sin. If He interferes in human affairs it is perhaps to make mischief,
or to confuse and distress men and women for His amusement. The most that
the natives desire of God is that He will let them alone, and to this end
they let Him alone.
Our teaching at this point is radical. They are surprised to learn that
God always does right; that He loves right and hates wrong; that He loves
them as a father loves his children; that their sins grieve Him and that
He will punish their cruelties. We divest the character of God of all
that is filthy and wicked, and teach them that God is such a one as Jesus
was while on earth, even as He said to Philip: “He that hath seen Me hath
seen the Father.” To them it is an entirely new conception.
Their belief in a future life is very clear, although there are
individuals who will deny it. Their belief finds strong support in
dreams. The African believes in dreams as actual occurrences, and they
relate them one to another with great earnestness, which perhaps tends to
make them more vivid and possibly more frequent. But no dreams are more
common and none more vivid than those in which friends and loved ones
appear who have recently died. Those who hold to the evolution of all our
ideas from natural antecedents have in the dream as regarded by primitive
people a plausible origin for the belief in a future life.
There were two Mpongwe women of Gaboon, Tito and Lucy, whom I used to
invite regularly every Saturday to come to my Bible-class on Sunday
morning. They were as regular in not coming as I was in inviting them,
although they invariably promised to come and their parting salutation
was usually: “Well, good-bye, till to-morrow morning.” The truth is that
Tito and Lucy were not Bible-class women. They had been taught in our
mission school in the early days before the French government forbade
the use of English; so they both spoke English fairly well. Lucy was
sometimes called the Mpongwe queen, for she was head of the family that
had ruled the entire tribe in former days. She became a victim of rum,
which sent her to an untimely grave. Her family told me that during the
last two years of her life it was doubtful whether she was ever sober.
Tito had been the mistress of several white men in succession, who had
either died or had gone home never to return, and as a result of her
career had acquired heaps of clothes, a miscellaneous assortment of
jewelry from glass to gold, and an awful temper.
At length one Sunday morning who should come to my Bible-class but Tito
and Lucy!—half an hour before the time. I felt something must have
happened, and probably something wrong. For I knew that my invitation had
not brought them; still less their promise. That same afternoon I was
passing through their town and I stopped to ask them why in the world
they had come to Bible-class. Then Tito explained that she had not had
any intention of coming and that she had promised me just because “it be
proper fashion to say Yes, more than No,” but on Saturday night she had a
dream in which an angel had appeared to her or at least had spoken to her
from the next room and had told her that she and Lucy “must go to-morrow
to Mr. Milligan’s Bible-class.” In the morning she told Lucy the dream
and they both decided at once that they would come to the class. Without
scruple they could disobey from week to week the mandate of normal
conscience, and the moral law of truth, but they rendered absolute
obedience to the invalid experience of a dream. Afterwards, however, Tito
became a regular attendant and finally she was received into the Gaboon
Church and became a faithful Christian. She was by nature generous and
she was especially skillful and kind in caring for the sick.
Another woman, Ayenwa, lived in Tito’s town, who had been educated in
the mission school but was now living as the mistress of a white man.
Ayenwa was a good-looking woman and she had the soft, pleasant voice that
is characteristic of the cultivated Mpongwe woman and distinguishes her
from other African women. I had talked to Ayenwa more than once and had
remonstrated with her in regard to the life she was living. But although
she was troubled about it, she had made no change. At length a brother of
hers died, and she was greatly afflicted by his death. He was a devout
Christian, and before he died he had pleaded with Ayenwa to abandon her
present way of living. Much as she loved him she did not yield to his
desire and counsel. But not long after his death she came to me and said
that she had left the white man and had renounced forever that kind of
life; although she was friendless since her brother’s death and did not
know how she would get a living. It was owing to a dream.
She told me very earnestly and in beautiful language how that she had
seen her brother in a dream. She had seen him in a forest, but the forest
was very beautiful and it was like a great church. He smiled when he saw
her and he called her by her name. She cried when she saw him and she
told him how she missed him. He told her not to weep for he was very
happy and was never sick any more. But he told her to remember his dying
words to her, and so to live that when she died she would come to him and
then they would never be separated any more. For several days the dream
was always in her mind. Then she resolved that at any cost she would
forsake evil and do right. And surely God would take care of her.
Ancestor-worship is the highest form of African fetishism, and it is only
called fetishism because the ancestor’s skull or other part of the body
is the medium of communication. In general it indicates reverence towards
age; and this is a striking characteristic of the African. Yet I have
known of an instance where an old woman was afraid that her son would
kill her in order to procure the help and favour which she could render
him after death. It is quite likely that such things really happen. At
any rate love is not the apparent motive in ancestor-worship; it is
simply the hope of gain by obtaining their favour.
The usual fetish of ancestor-worship is the skull of the father, which
the son keeps in a box. The father occasionally speaks to the son in
dreams and frequently communicates with him by omens. He helps him in
all his enterprises, good and evil, and secures his success in love, in
hunting and in war. All those who have these skulls are a secret society,
which, as I have said, is powerful to rule and to tyrannize over others.
Young boys are initiated into this society by rites and ceremonies that
are revolting. The initiation varies widely in different tribes and even
in the same town there is no uniform ceremony. No white man could ever
witness the ceremony, and there are very few natives that would tell
him all about it. But a general idea he may get from some; and single
details from others at different times. In the mild ceremony of the more
civilized Fang towns, the boy who is to be initiated is made very drunk
and taken blindfolded to the bush, to a place set apart for the use of
the society. The ceremony continues several days. In one part of it the
bandage is removed from his eyes at midnight, a low fire is burning which
gives a feeble light, and he finds himself surrounded by the members
of the society with faces and bodies frightfully distorted and all the
skulls of their ancestors exposed to view, together with the heads of
persons who have recently died. Some one asks him what he sees. He
replies that he sees only spirits and solemnly declares that these are
not men.
Boys are often initiated against their will. One of my schoolboys, a
handsome lad of about fifteen, during a vacation was initiated and died
before it was over. It is his initiation that I have just described—at
least the very small part of it that I was able to find out. His death
made them more unwilling to tell me. His initiation lasted several
days during which he was compelled to remain in the bush. Further up
the river a boy, during the initiation, is usually placed for several
days in a house alone, after being made to look at the sun so long that
sometimes he faints, and when he is taken into the house he cannot at
first see anything. Meantime the door is closed and they all go away.
Gradually he sees things around him and at length discovers opposite him
a corpse, in an early stage of decomposition. He is kept there day and
night during the ceremony. The men visit him and subject him to all sorts
of indignities in order to impress him with the necessity of absolute
obedience to the society. They defile him with filth, and that the vilest
of filth. But I presume that the reader will gladly excuse me from any
further description of this disgusting practice. One cannot omit all
reference to such things if he would describe the African as he really is.
They believe that the skull of the father or other ancestor when it
has been properly prepared becomes the residence of the ancestor, who,
however, is not confined to it, but wanders about returning to it as to
his home. The son, in order to avoid the wrath of the departed father,
and to obtain his help, will keep the skull comfortably warm and dry,
occasionally rubbing it with oil and redwood powder, and will feed it
bountifully. The process of feeding it is interesting. The son before
going on a hunting expedition will open the box, and addressing his
father in audible words will ask his favour and will promise that in
return for success he will give him a goodly portion of the game. If
he should neglect this duty for a length of time he may find when he
meets an animal in the forest that his gun will not fire, and he may
even find himself helpless before his enemies. The white man knowing the
kind of guns they use, does not think it necessary to go so far for an
explanation of the fact that they often fail in a critical moment. When
the son returns with game he will again open the box and place the meat
before the skull. Then he will close the house against all possibility
of intrusion and he himself will go away while the father eats. After a
while he comes back, and although he finds the meat exactly as he left
it, he supposes that in some mysterious way his father has eaten it
and yet left it, that is, has eaten the spirit of it. He then eats it
himself, sharing it also with the men of the society. But since it has
been offered to the dead father it is now sacred, and he cannot allow his
wife or children to taste it under any circumstances. The men, being of a
religious turn of mind, offer to the father, all, or nearly all, the game
they procure, and if women and children are left hungry they can at least
admire the fervent piety of husbands and fathers.
It is only the skulls of men, not of women, that are used by the Secret
Society. But the spirits of women return after death, like those of men,
and frequently become very troublesome. On Corisco Island there lives a
man who has been in contact with civilization all his lifetime and is
fairly educated though he is not a Christian. His wife died; and shortly
afterwards she began playing pranks in his town and even in his house.
She broke nearly all his dishes. Then, one night, she struck him in the
neck, and he instantly recognized her. His neck was stiff in the morning.
That proved it! Not being able to strike back in this unequal warfare and
preferring an enemy whom he could kick (for this individual wore shoes
and scarcely anything else) he lost spirit and finally pulled down the
entire town and built in another place. Women and children never possess
the skulls of ancestors. The power of the ancestor is more often used
against women than others. Among the Mpongwe and some other tribes a
woman may worship her ancestors; for which purpose she uses not skulls
but wooden images, which she never exhibits.
The African conception of nature may be inferred from what we have said
of their view of God and their worship of ancestors. God having made the
world seems to take no more interest in it. Other spirits innumerable
control it and continually interfere with its normal operations.
Since there is no single intelligence ever present and presiding it
follows that there is no uniformity in nature and no reign of law.
Those phenomena which attract the African’s attention he ascribes
immediately to a supernatural cause. He does not look for a natural
cause. If a tree falls across his path, somebody threw it. The activity
of spirits accounts for everything. There is no line between nature and
the supernatural; miracles are always happening. The causes of natural
phenomena being supernatural are also inscrutable. The study of nature
and the investigation of her laws is precluded by this conception.
If then we would understand the African, if we would distinguish between
his mentality and a state of imbecility, we must bear in mind that,
since according to his conception innumerable spirits at variance with
each other preside over nature, uniformity, constancy and dependability
are not to be expected. The rainbow, he says, is a serpent, which has
the power of making itself visible or invisible at will. If a mountain
disappear behind the clouds he has no difficulty in believing that a
spirit who inhabits the mountain has removed it, and that he brings
it back when the sun shines. The white man who does not accept this
explanation and demands a natural and knowable cause does not thereby
manifest a knowledge of nature but an ignorance of spirits. The canoe
which carries him safely to-day may lose its buoyancy and sink beneath
the waves to-morrow. In some of their fables, at the utterance of a magic
word a ship may sink, a house may fall, a man be reduced to physical and
mental impotence; and such fables are scarcely distinguishable from fact
in his conception. At their first contact with the white man they suppose
that the beads, cloth and other goods which he displays are made by
himself, by some magic process, as easy when known as the utterance of a
word; and they suppose that we could without effort make them as rich as
ourselves. If a house or a town should burn down there is little use in
looking for the cause, as it may have been set on fire by some ancestor
who is angry at being neglected.
When Du Chaillu visited a certain town in which the people had never
before seen a white man, regarding him as a spirit, they all declared
that a great rock near the town had been moved by him and was not in the
same place it had been before. This inspired them with dread. But when
the smallpox broke out among them and the scourge followed him with the
persistency of fate, there was no doubt in their minds but that he had
caused it; and meanwhile they made not the slightest effort to protect
themselves against the contagion. They regarded him with increasing fear
and hostility until at last his journey came to a disastrous end. He
and his party turned and fled while the natives pursued with poisoned
arrows. But they soon desisted from the pursuit; for, they declared,
their arrows rebounded harmless from his body, and sometimes even passed
through him and did him no injury. In all this let it not be supposed
for a moment that the native is a fool. He is true to his philosophy of
nature: but his philosophy is wrong. He knows nothing of the doctrine of
God,—of one Intelligence presiding over all nature, and that natural laws
are therefore persistent and uniform.
But to the native chaotic conception of nature we must add another idea
of fearful import. To the mind of the African nature presents a frowning
aspect, from which he naturally infers that the spirits which rule or
reside within it are mostly hostile to him. It is only to the reflecting
mind that nature seems beneficent. Her greatest forces, her constant
ministry, are not obvious. That which is normal and regular does not
attract attention. A man thinks more of the one month of sickness than
the eleven months of health; he is more observant of the storm than
of sunshine, more conscious of adversity than prosperity. The laws of
growth, seed-time and harvest, rain and sunshine—all the kindly ministry
of nature is quiet and unobtrusive, while her cruelty thrusts itself upon
the attention because it is her unaccustomed mood. The conception of
nature in the African mind is derived from the devastating tornado and
the storm upon the sea that threatens to engulf him, from the hard work
necessary to procure his food and the scarcity of meat, from sickness
that disables him and death that bereaves him of his friends. It is
therefore a part of his philosophy that the spirits are at enmity with
him. His own ancestors are among them and they may be placated and even
rendered favourable, but a far greater number are hostile; and the motive
of his worship is not devotion but fear. He worships the spirits of his
ancestors that he may obtain their help against all other spirits.
Contrary to all this Jesus teaches him to call God, Father; and God’s
Fatherhood includes His care, which at once relates God to nature, for
it is largely through nature that God’s care is exercised. To believe in
God’s care over us is to believe that nature’s laws are the operation of
His will. The mind awakens to the beneficence of nature, and we learn
that even storm, disease and death are under the control of a sympathetic
Power. The fear of the native is changed to confidence and trust.
Next to the ancestral relic is a lower form of fetishism in which the
external object is the vessel or residence of a spirit, which is under
the control of the possessor of the object. A still lower form of
fetishism is pure animism, in which the various objects of nature have
each a life analogous to that of man to which their phenomena are due.
Witchcraft is a supernatural power obtained by a person through a compact
with an evil spirit. In Africa witchcraft is also fetishism inasmuch as
it is usually, and perhaps always, supposed that there is within the
witch’s body a physical object which is the residence of the evil spirit.
The skull or other relic of the ancestor differs from the common fetish
in that the possessor of the former cannot compel the ancestor to do
his will; he can only persuade him, or induce his help and favour by
offerings and kind treatment. But the possessor of the common fetish
does not make offerings to it; the fetish is under his control and he
can compel the spirit within it to serve him. If it should disobey him
he will punish it. The usual punishment is to hang it in smoke. Fetishes
have a horror of smoke. I do not know that the native ever punishes his
ancestor for refusing a favour. If he should leave the skull in a cold or
wet place, or should neglect offerings of food, the ancestor will suffer
discomfort, but the discomfort is slight compared with the evil that he
will send upon his undutiful son as a punishment for such neglect.
In the proper fetish (if the word fetish be restricted in its meaning)
the spirit resides within the object but is not a part of it, and may
leave it, the fetish being then of no more use. A still lower form of
fetish, implying animism, is that in which the spirit of the fetish is
its own life, and is related to it as the soul to the body. This latter
fetish however is different from a mere amulet or charm; for the charm
operates not by any intelligence within itself but by some sympathetic
influence without. Such, for instance, is the horseshoe which the negro
in our South hangs over his door for luck. The charm, the fetish, and the
relic represent ascending grades of belief. But they are all confused
in the mind of the African, just as we confuse them under the one term
_fetishism_.
As long as we live in Africa, however, we do not often speak of fetishes,
but of _medicines_: for this is in strict accord with native usage.
The native calls his fetishes medicines, and his medicines fetishes,
and in his mind there is no difference. The remedial power of medicine
is supernatural, due either to magic or to a spirit residing within
it. Upon swallowing the medicine, the spirit of the medicine, like a
policeman, chases through the body after the spirit of the disease until
it strangles it or drives it out. Of course the white man’s medicines are
fetishes also.
The following story (although I do not vouch for its truth) illustrates
very well the magical operation of medicine. A certain chief, it is said,
induced a German trader to order for him a chest of medicines prepared
in Germany. The bottles of medicine are all numbered and the chest is
accompanied by a book of directions, competent for the diagnosis of any
particular case. Every liable symptom and combination of symptoms is
recorded together with the prescription for each. The prescription refers
to the bottles by their numbers. One day the chief fell sick. He found
his symptoms accurately described in the book, followed by the direction
to take one spoonful of No. 15. The bottle of that particular number
was missing; so he took one spoonful of No. 7 and one of No. 8. But the
result was so alarming that as soon as he was sufficiently recovered from
the shock he consigned the chest to the spirit of the deep sea with the
hope that it might do Neptune more good than it had done him; and to this
end he was careful to send the book of directions with it.
There is a large class of fetishes in which the ancestor is the agent.
If a man is expecting to ask a favour of another he will be sure of a
generous compliance if he scrape the skull of his ancestor and succeed in
putting a little of the powder into the other man’s food. Du Chaillu was
highly incensed when he found that this was the explanation of a certain
chief’s generosity who had been feeding him lavishly for several days.
A man walking in the forest usually carries suspended from his neck a
medicine, contained in a goat’s horn, the effect of which is to make
him invisible to an enemy if he should meet him in the path. He often
carries another, somewhat similar, which will turn the bullets of an
enemy’s gun into water if the enemy should see him and shoot at him; or
sometimes the bullets will pass through his body and do him no harm. He
wears a band, a “kaga,” about his neck, which tightens at the approach
of danger. The explanation of the latter may be a physical fact, namely,
that fear distends the cords of the neck so that the band would really be
tighter. He carries another medicine in a horn which, if danger overtake
him in the forest, or he should be in need of help, will whistle in his
town, however far away, and summon the people. It is obvious that several
of these fetishes are quite superfluous if the others are to be relied
upon. The native therefore does not fully trust his fetishes; and there
is always the fear that some enemy may have a stronger fetish than his
own. There are fetishes to protect a man against theft. One of these will
cause a person who steals from its owner to “swell up and burst.” Indeed
there are a great many fetishes used for various purposes which have this
same effect of causing persons to swell up and burst. Another fetish is
kept in the box containing the owner’s cloth, tobacco and other goods.
If a thief should open the box this fetish will spring out and go right
through him.
Before entering upon a war several days are sometimes spent in the
preparation of war-medicine. The best fetish-doctors unite their skill
in the preparation. It is medicine that makes the gun shoot straight;
it is medicine that makes the bullets kill; it is medicine that makes a
man fearless; it is medicine that makes cowards of the enemy. The French
government brought into the Congo Français native soldiers of Senegal,
armed with first-rate guns and skilled in the use of them. The Fang were
of course eager to know the secret of their powerful gun-medicine. Two of
the soldiers who were in personal contact with the Fang sold them little
tin boxes filled with mud, which they said was their gun-medicine. The
two enterprising soldiers were “getting rich quick” when the government
required their prompt attendance at the capital.
Some of the war-medicines are repulsive. On extreme occasions they will
sprinkle upon the forth-going warriors an admixture of the decomposing
brains of men recently deceased and the blood of fowls or of animals,
with other disgusting ingredients. With this medicine besides others
which are suspended about his neck, the smell of such a hero would
detract somewhat from the glamour of his exploits; and one can imagine,
upon his return from the war, the people holding their noses and singing,
“Lo, the Conquering Hero Comes.”
There are other fetishes which are used more commonly to avenge private
wrongs.
When a man cuts his hair or trims his beard, he carefully guards it and
then burns it, lest a single hair should fall into the hands of an enemy.
So he does with the cuttings of his nails. The possession of these would
give an enemy power over him; for they are the common ingredients of a
fetish-medicine. A piece of his clothing may also be used in this way.
Such medicine, if buried before his doorway or placed beside the path
where he will pass, even without coming in contact with him, will inflict
sickness or disease, misfortune or death. Most of the evils that befall
the native he attributes to the power of these hostile fetishes. Only
the most devout and consecrated Christians are entirely freed from this
superstition. Even in the Mpongwe Church of Gaboon, the oldest in the
Mission, there are many cases of discipline for such beliefs.
There was one particular case that came up in some form at nearly every
meeting of the session of the church for more than a year. A young
woman, named Anuriguli, was married and a short time afterwards was
received into the church. It was said by certain of the heathen that an
envious woman of a town near by, who was also a member of the church,
had made medicine to prevent Anuriguli from having children. For this
is a great affliction and reproach to an African woman. Some half dozen
families, men and women, became entangled in this quarrel, most of them
however being heathen. The Christians among them were several times
summoned before the session of the church. Each told his story in his
own way; the native way is to begin as far back towards the creation of
the world as their knowledge of history extends, and leave to the very
last all reference to the matter in hand. There is a notable absence of
embarrassment in such a discussion, even on the part of the women; nor
are they in the least forward; in fact they are not self-conscious at
all; for no native ever hesitates for a word or experiences the slightest
difficulty in expressing himself in appropriate language. Anuriguli
declared she had never accused the other woman of making medicine against
her. She had heard it from others, but she did not fear such medicines
since she had become a Christian; although if the woman had done so
it would indicate a feeling of extreme hostility towards her however
powerless her efforts might be, and this enmity was making her heart
sore. The other woman declared her innocence, and that for years she
had not believed in this superstition; nor had she any hostile feelings
that would prompt her to such a wicked action; but she had heard that
Anuriguli accused her, and the accusation was hurting both her feelings
and her reputation; and her heart was very sore, for the heathen had cast
bitter reproaches upon her.
Having given much advice, but too little sympathy, I fear, I exacted a
promise from each and all of them that they would stop talking about the
matter, and I dismissed them; for the session had endless work ahead of
them, some of it more serious than this. The result was that it broke
out afresh, and three months later they were all before the session
again, when the matter was more complicated than at first. Three months
later it again came before the session for the third time. Anuriguli’s
position had somewhat altered. She had heard that the other woman said
that she said that the other woman said that she said ... that the
other woman had made medicine to injure her! And still there are those
who assert that the African is not intellectually competent! I did then
what I wished I had done in the first place—gave them all the time they
wanted and took time myself to realize that fetishism is a terrible
reality in Africa, that public opinion recognizes it and can inflict as
heavy penalties as anywhere else upon those who fall into disrepute; for
the African, because his social instincts are strong, is very sensitive
regarding his reputation. A patient and sympathetic hearing ended the
whole matter.
The ingredients of a fetish are usually objects associated with that
which is desirable or that which is fearful—the strong, the swift, the
gruesome, the repulsive, the mysterious and objects associated with
death. The eagle’s talon is commonly used, the wing feathers of any bird,
the claw of the leopard, the teeth of all animals and their blood, dried
bits of their flesh and their offal. When Shakespeare describes the
contents of the witches’ caldron and their invocation of trouble, one
might think that he had been a missionary to the Fang.
“Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.”
“Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and caldron bubble.”
When the fetish is not merely for protection, but is intended to injure
a particular person, it must include such personal ingredients as the
cuttings of the hair or nails of that person, or a shred of his clothing.
Fetishism and witchcraft inevitably go together. A witch is in league
with an evil spirit by which she can leave the body, and return to it,
for her spirit is “loose from her body.” She “eats” the spirit, or life,
of her enemies, and all people are her enemies, innocent or guilty alike.
She is sold to evil. The African does not regard the spirit or soul of a
person as immaterial. It is a thin vaporous material which resembles the
body in form and appearance. This is perhaps everywhere the conception
that underlies the belief in ghosts. Primitive people generally associate
this spirit with the shadow, and sometimes with the breath. The African
believes that a man may lose his shadow. Soon afterwards he will die.
An enemy may also injure it. Many an African has sought to kill another
by driving a nail into his shadow. A man’s shadow is big in the morning
because it is fresh and strong. It shrivels up with the heat of the sun.
It is evident that the sun afflicts it for it always keeps on the cooler
side, away from the sun.
Many tribes—whether all tribes I cannot say—believe that a person has
several spirits. It is always the spirit that gets sick, and any one of
a man’s spirits may get sick, or may leave him. In the latter case a
skillful doctor will be able to catch the spirit and put it back in the
man. Madness is always imputed to a malignant spirit inhabiting a man’s
body; such a spirit may be born with the man.
Their chief fetishes, however, are for protection against witches. In
many houses, immediately inside the door there hangs a fetish which at
night builds a fire around the sleeping inmate, a fire invisible to all
others but witches, and through which no witch can pass. Another has
the power to change the bamboo cabin into a house of stone, through
which witches cannot pass. It retains the appearance of bamboo in every
respect, and one can see the light between the pieces, but in reality
it is solid stone, with no openings at all, not even for the door. We
are reminded of another miracle whereby bread is changed into something
which is not bread, the change being non-apparent since it takes place
not in the accidents but in the essence of the material. So, the bamboo
is transubstantiated into stone.
One is sometimes mentally staggered and feels that he is losing his hold
on reality by the stories of Africans recounting their own experiences
and what their eyes have seen, stories told soberly and with every
evidence of sincerity. A man tells how that while his wife’s body was in
her bed he looked out into the street and saw her spirit form, with that
of others whom he recognized, armed with knives and cutting up the form
of a person and eating it. The victim whose life they have eaten sickens
soon afterwards and dies a lingering death.
One day walking along the Batanga beach with a fellow missionary, we
passed a large, flat rock almost submerged beneath the rising tide, which
recalled to my companion the following story. Some years ago at Batanga
there lived a man who had long suspected his wife of witchcraft. One
night he had occasion to speak to her, but she did not answer. He tried
to rouse her from sleep, but could not. He concluded that she was away on
some witch errand leaving her body behind her, as witches do. He himself
had some knowledge of witchcraft though he employed this knowledge only
in self-defense. He anointed her body with red pepper. Witches abhor red
pepper; and they cannot reënter a body thus anointed. Towards morning the
woman returned to her body only to find that she was undone; groans and
sighs told her distress to the ear of the husband who lay quiet as if
asleep. She lingered until the day began to dawn. Now, witches are afraid
of light even more than of pepper. She retired and hid herself near the
house to await the next night. Meantime, the husband related the whole
story to the assembled people, and they accepted it nothing doubting.
They resolved to burn the body immediately. They dragged it through the
street to the beach in the sight of her own family and her children,
amidst execrations and insults, and burned it on the rock while the tide
was low, and soon afterwards the rising waves swept the ashes into the
sea.
The Africans do not say of a woman that she _is_ a witch, but that
she _has_ a witch. She commits witchcraft by means of the witch which
she possesses. And since everything has a material body of some kind,
the witch can be found within the woman. Often a witch rebels against
its possessor and “eats” her. This is the frequent explanation of
convulsions, and a convulsion is enough to bring suspicion and a charge
of witchcraft against a woman. A sure way to find out the truth of the
matter and relieve the strain of suspense is to kill the woman, open
the body and make a conscientious and impartial investigation. In this
manner, executing the sentence first and afterwards finding a verdict of
“guilty” or “not guilty,” the verdict is more likely to be just, while
they also avoid a prolonged and scandalous trial, and evince a delicate
regard for the woman’s reputation. Any old thing that they may find in
the body not consistent with their ideas of anatomical propriety is
identified as the witch.
Sometimes a hen is set on eggs and the accused person is pronounced
guilty, or not guilty, according as the greater number of chickens
hatched are male or female. But this kind of ordeal is more common in
deciding cases of adultery. More commonly in the case of witchcraft a
certain mild poison is administered to the accused in a drink. Sometimes
she vomits it, or it passes without any serious effect. But if she
becomes dizzy and staggers, they instantly leap upon her with knives and
kill her. There seems to be no such thing in the African opinion as a
natural death. All deaths that we call natural are imputed to witchcraft.
As soon as the cry of witchcraft is raised, the people, panic stricken
with fear, are transformed to ferocious demons. With wild eyes they
rush up and down the street in a body crying out for blood. This is the
opportunity of the witch-doctor, either to levy blackmail, or to rid
himself of his enemies. When a woman is accused by him, no matter in what
esteem she may have been held hitherto, and regardless of her family
connections, the people turn upon her in cruel rage and can scarce wait
for the ordeal. Such scenes, and the violent death following are very
common among them; yet the white man rarely witnesses anything of the
kind. They are altogether different when he is present.
One of our missionaries has told me how that, in the early days, on
Corisco Island, he once saw a condemned woman, one whom he knew, taken
out to sea in a boat. A short distance from the shore they cut her throat
and flung her into the sea. Meanwhile, behind a rock which hid them from
his view, they burned at the stake the condemned woman’s son, a young
boy, lest growing up he should avenge his mother’s death. Their motive
in inflicting such a horrible death upon an innocent boy was probably to
disable his spirit and prevent it from returning to trouble them.
A man’s wives are the first to be suspected of having caused his death,
as they are usually supposed to have a latent desire for it. As a matter
of fact they are very skillful in the use of the deadly poisons which
abound in Africa, and which they often administer in food. Much of the
witchcraft in Africa is straight poison. A native offering you drink
or food always tastes it first himself in your presence to show that it
is not poisoned. It is an unsavoury custom, but it is wise to observe
it strictly. The use of poison is a peculiarly unpleasant habit on the
part of a wife since she has a constant opportunity. Slaves also, and
sometimes white men’s servants, contract this same habit. Truly, life
in Africa, in its every aspect, is a fight with death. It is possible,
as some say, that the practice of killing wives at the death of their
husbands has this origin; in any case it serves to restrict the use of
poison and to induce wives to try to keep their husbands alive.
Wives accused of having caused the death of a husband by witchcraft, are
often buried alive with his dead body. A Bulu chief near Efulen died
leaving seven wives. They were charged with having bewitched him and were
about to be buried alive with him when Dr. Good reached the town and
saved their lives. A very large grave was already dug in the street and
the body was laid in the middle. The women lay naked and trembling upon
the ground. But the people would not perform the atrocious deed in the
presence of the white man. Dr. Good stayed in the town even against their
protest, and would not leave it until they had filled the grave, and
he knew that the women were safe. In one of the Bulu towns, ten women,
wives of one husband, were buried alive with the body of the husband. In
another town twenty women were buried thus with the body of the husband.
A large grave was dug and the body placed in the middle; the women’s legs
were broken with clubs and then they were flung into the grave.
The belief in witchcraft has been more prolific of cruelty than any
other in the history of the world. It dehumanizes men with fear. The
story of the power which a remnant belief in witchcraft has exercised
in civilized and even Christian communities is the darkest page in
their history, and we will need to remember that in Africa there is no
restraint of civilization and no light of Christianity. I am always
afraid that the depiction of the diabolical cruelty incident to the
belief in witchcraft may cause the civilized to recoil from the African
as if he were less than human, and hopelessly brutal. It is therefore
well that we should insistently remember the facts of history and the
slow emancipation of civilization from this same belief with its horror
of cruelty. Between the promulgation of the bull of Pope Innocent VIII
against sorcery, in 1484, and the last judicial execution for witchcraft,
in 1782, it is estimated that 300,000 women perished in Europe on this
charge. The last execution in England was that of Mrs. Hickes and her
nine-year-old daughter, in 1716.
Since a particular incident makes a more adequate impression than a
general statement, I quote entire a brief story told by Froude in one of
his historical essays, _The Influence of the Reformation on the Scottish
Character_, which he takes from the official report of the proceedings in
the case:
“Towards the end of 1593 there was trouble in the family of the Earl
of Orkney. His brother laid a plot to murder him, and was said to have
sought the help of a ‘notorious witch,’ Alison Balfour. When Alison
Balfour’s life was looked into, no evidence could be found connecting her
either with the particular offense or with witchcraft in general; but it
was enough in these matters to be accused. She swore she was innocent;
but her guilt was only held to be aggravated by perjury. She was tortured
again and again. Her legs were put in caschilaws—an iron frame which was
gradually heated till it burned into the flesh—but no confession could
be wrung from her. The caschilaws failed utterly, and something else
had to be tried. She had a husband, a son, and a daughter, a child seven
years old. As her own sufferings did not work upon her, she might be
touched, perhaps, by the sufferings of those who were dear to her. They
were brought into court and placed at her side; and the husband first
was placed in the ‘lang irons’—some accursed, I know not what. Still the
devil did not yield. She bore this; and her son was next operated on. The
boy’s legs were set in ‘the boot’—the iron boot you may have heard of.
The wedges were driven in, which, when forced home, crushed the very bone
and marrow. Fifty-seven mallet strokes were delivered upon the wedges.
Yet this, too, failed. There was no confession yet. So, last of all, the
little daughter was taken. There was a machine called the piniwinkies,—a
kind of thumb-screw, which brought blood from under the finger-nails,
with a pain successfully terrible. These things were applied to the
poor child’s hands, and the mother’s constancy broke down, and she said
she would admit anything they wished. She confessed her witchcraft—so
tried, she would have confessed to the seven deadly sins—and then she was
burned, recalling her confession, and with her last breath protesting her
innocence.”
We civilized folk have a way of forgetting our own history, and the pit
from which we have been digged.
XIII
A BOAT CREW
The following is the beginning of a letter written to a circle of friends
in America while I was in Africa.
“Seated within the open door of my study I look down the hillside,
through a vista of gorgeous oleander and orange trees, of graceful,
waving palms and the soft cascade foliage of the bamboo tossing and
tumbling in the breeze, to the blue expanse where the Gaboon rolls out
to the boundless ocean. The early afternoon is quiet, and the hazy
atmosphere, peculiar to Africa, blends together in gentle harmony things
most diverse in form and colour. But there is one object to which the
mind and eye turn back yet again, and which by associations variously
tender, pathetic, or amusing, lead memory off for a while to wander
in the dreamy mazes of the past. It is the mission boat _Evangeline_,
which lies at anchor on the bay, rising and falling with the successive
waves. The _Evangeline_ came to Africa many years ago. Some of those
who commanded her are now infirm with age, and the voices of some
are heard on earth no more. Her special work has always been that of
itinerating,—carrying the Gospel of light and peace to those who sit in
darkness and sorrow, by many waters. Like her namesake, the lonely maiden
of Acadia, she has followed the rivers of a strange land and streams
unknown that wind and wander through ‘forests primeval.’
“The _Evangeline_ is a gig, twenty-two feet long, having four oars and
requiring four oarsmen. Her lines are perfect, and for her size she is
a remarkably fine sailing-boat, riding a rough sea with a steadiness
and lightness that have drawn praise from old seamen. Before the strong
sea-breeze she seems fairly animate and impelled by motive and purpose
as she spreads her wings to the wind and speeds forward on her errand
of mercy. I can think also of sultry days when her sails hung loose and
heavy through the whole day while tired men pulled wearily at the oars,
whistling vainly for the wind, which ever ‘bloweth where it listeth.’ I
can think of toils long and hard when we wound wearily through mangrove
swamps, by fetid banks, under the relentless heat of a tropical sun. But
these experiences belong to the past and I can forget them now. For it is
one of the touching frailties of human nature that as the past recedes
into the obscure distance we magnify its fond and pleasant memories and
forget the evils that we no longer feel.
“My long journeys in the _Evangeline_ are probably past; for a naphtha
launch, the _Dorothy_, has arrived, dispensing with the toil of oars and
the aid of the fickle wind, perfectly protected from sun and rain and
fitted with every comfort for day and night. But the _Evangeline_, though
her name designates her as feminine, belongs to the ordained clergy of
the Presbyterian Church and has not yet passed the dead-line. We will
find for her some field in which a few years longer she may exercise her
talents.
“This afternoon as I look at her I seem to see the faces of faithful
boat-boys who journeyed with me by day and by night, and my mind is
filled with recollections of experiences and incidents by the way. There
are none in Africa whom I know better than those boat-boys; and through
them I probably know all Africans better and love them more. For when
sails are set before a good wind and the bow tosses the waves aside,
the music of the plashing water, the mutual dependence and isolation
from others,—the delight of it all makes social freedom and comradeship
peculiar to such life; and again, when they toil at the oars hour after
hour without complaint, sympathy breaks down all barriers. If you should
laugh at these boys let your laughter be sympathetic; they are worthy
of sympathy. Life is so hard for the African, so bare and comfortless!
And when he would fain seek the road to the Better Land so many forces
conspire against him that, apart for our faith in God and the love of
God, one might think that the world around him was contrived for his
defeat. In this dark land one catches only an occasional glimpse of the
all-ruling and kindly Providence in which we believe. It would seem
rather that the fabled goddess of fortune, blind and turning her wheel in
the darkness, dispenses at random the destinies of men.”
The captain of the _Evangeline_ was Makuba, a man of Benito, one hundred
miles north, one of the Kombi tribe, the remnant of a proud and capable
people who for many years have been in contact with the civilization of
the coast. The Kombi know the sea and are excellent boatmen, strong and
daring. In travelling in their own canoes even on the sea, they commonly
stand up in the canoe, using long paddles. When there are five or six
men in the canoe, or the sea is rough, it is interesting to watch them.
Makuba was a man of splendid physique and very strong, and as bold as a
lion. Shortly after I went to Africa, when for a while I lived entirely
alone, at Angom Station, seventy miles up the Gaboon River, a serious
palaver occurred in which Makuba took a prominent part.
The Fang of the adjacent village stole some goods from him. He and
several other workmen, being coast men, were regarded by the interior
Fang as natural enemies. I was morally responsible for the safety of
these coast men and I regarded myself as responsible also for the stolen
goods. Moreover there was a mission store at that station and the sight
of our goods was a continual challenge to the passionate greed of the
Fang, who therefore must not be allowed to think that they could steal
anything from the premises with impunity. Indeed, our very reputation and
evangelistic success were involved; for it was plain that the Fang had
been mistaking forbearance for cowardice, and in their esteem there is
nothing so contemptible as a coward.
On this occasion I followed strictly the native mode of obtaining
justice, and that which the native, with his idea of the solidarity of a
community, recognizes as fair. A few minutes after the theft a man from
the same town to which the thief belonged passed through the mission
premises. I gave the order to the workmen to capture him and take his
gun. Makuba, without assistance, executed the order. The man fought him
violently, but being overcome was at length reduced to cursing him and
predicting the various horrible deaths by which he would die, not to
speak of everlasting torment that would be sure to follow. The indignant
Makuba in reply tore open the front of his shirt and exposed an ugly scar
upon his breast.
“Am I afraid of the Fang?” he cried. “Do you see that scar? A Fang knife
did that in an attack upon my tribe, and I alone killed the man who
carried it and two of his friends.”
I then took charge of the gun and told the man that I would return it as
soon as his people would bring me the stolen goods, and then I released
him.
[Illustration: MAKUBA, CAPTAIN OF THE BOAT-CREW.
_In a tornado his chief anxiety was always for the white man, that
he might not get wet, and it was a part of politeness not to protect
himself._]
An hour later some thirty or forty very angry men, armed with knives and
guns, and shouting their war-cry, rushed into the yard. They did not yet
realize that I was going to take up the palaver, but thought they had
only to deal with the workmen, who were unarmed. Their intention was to
kill Makuba and take the gun, which they supposed was in his possession.
They ran past the end of my house towards the workmen’s house shouting
the name of Makuba. But it chanced that he was at the other end of my
house, so they missed him. Immediately returning they saw him but before
they reached him I pushed him into the house and closing the door myself
confronted them and addressed them from the porch, explaining that since
Makuba was in my employ I was bound to protect him; that the palaver
was therefore mine, and they would have to fight me first. They first
demanded that Makuba be delivered to them, but at length proposed to
accept the gun as a compromise. I of course declined the compromise and
demanded the stolen goods for the gun.
Finally one of them raised the cry: “Let us kill the white man and take
the store.”
This may have been a mere bluff. I am disposed to think that it was;
but I did not think so that day, and one cannot be sure. It was in a
Fang town much nearer to the coast and to the French government that Mr.
Marling was once robbed of his very clothing and left naked in the street
of the village.
The idea of killing the white man for the goods in the store became
uncomfortably popular. They recounted all the grievous wrongs they had
suffered at the hands of white men, and missionaries in particular, from
the discovery of Africa down to the present moment. They had at various
times respectfully advised that the church be closed and the store kept
open all the time, and had been told in reply that the church was more
important than the store, and that preaching the Gospel was our chief
work. They had come to buy goods and had found the store closed and the
missionaries holding prayers with the people. They had advised that we
must sell goods only to them and not to their enemies and had been told
that we loved their enemies. They had advised that we lower our prices on
all articles except those that they did not want and we had seen fit to
fix our own prices regardless of their feelings. They had frequently come
to the station to beg a little present and the missionaries had affronted
them by offering them work. They had requested tobacco of this present
white man and in reply he had invited them to Sunday-school.
The situation had become intolerable and they proposed to recompense
full vengeance upon the aforesaid white man. The older men, however,
advised that if they should attack the white man and the mission it ought
not to be done by one town, but that all the adjacent towns ought to be
engaged in it so as to spread the responsibility. This advice prevailed
and they decided upon an attack that night, and sent messengers to two
large towns some distance in the forest, telling them to come armed for
an attack on the mission. I did not suppose at the time that we had a
single weapon of defense except the old gun that we had captured. It was
already loaded, but as far as I knew we had no ammunition. I immediately
set out to search the premises, and to my great joy found a rifle, which
had accidentally been left there. We found plenty of ammunition both for
the rifle and the gun which we had seized. I also ordered the men to
catch any native that might come near the premises and to take his gun.
They were greatly surprised when they heard the report of the rifle and
immediately recognized it as “a white man’s gun,” of which they have a
wholesome dread, believing also that the white man has medicine which
will make his gun shoot straight and absolutely sure. I was very careful
to conceal the fact that I had only one rifle, and they were quite
deceived, supposing that I had a sufficient number for all of us. They
dispatched messengers a second time to the forest towns to tell them of
our preparations. They all came together that night armed for war, and
shots were fired continually during the night, but no attack was made.
When I afterwards learned how prone they are to experimentation with a
new comer, I realized that it might have been a mere bluff. No one can
tell; but I had no such thought at the time. Neither did Makuba nor any
of the workmen regard it as a bluff.
All the workmen excepting Makuba besought me to give back the captured
gun and stop the palaver. I brought them into my house that night; but
Makuba with the rifle in his hand insisted upon keeping watch, and walked
before my door the whole night. The matter of his stolen goods and his
personal danger were quite forgotten in absorbing anxiety for the white
man’s safety. I may add that I cut off all communication with the people,
refusing to buy their supplies of food, or to open the store, until after
several days they returned the stolen goods, and the palaver was finished.
A short time after this I made Makuba the captain of the boat crew. He
knew the sea, and everything about boats and was perfectly trustworthy.
But these qualifications are more common in Africa than the faculty
of discipline and command which is by no means common. Makuba was not
altogether wanting in talent for discipline, but when this proved
insufficient he procured obedience to his orders by diplomacy and
argument; and for that matter, the greatest sea-captain dispenses with
argument only because he is given authority to punish and to put in
irons, which requires no talent at all.
But all Makuba’s resources of discipline and diplomacy were taxed when I
hired Obianga, a young man of the Fang, whose home was near Angom. Poor
Obianga is dead; and I would not make cheap jokes at his expense. He was
like a wild unbroken colt, full of life, willing to work, and not lazy,
but resentful of the bit and reins of authority. For any man, especially
one of another tribe, to give him an order was equivalent to calling him
a slave; and, representative of his tribe, he seemed ever to be saying:
“We were never in bondage to any man.”
When Makuba would shout an order to him, however urgent, even if a
tempest were approaching, Obianga would perhaps tell him to “shut up.”
Then we usually improvised a little tempest on our own account, Makuba’s
indignation being the turbulent factor. But in milder weather he would
try persuasion and various expedients, old and new, always prevailing in
the end.
I never interfered in these altercations, though I sometimes reckoned
with the offender when the journey was over. More than once Makuba asked
me to dismiss Obianga, but I would not; for I liked him and felt that
there was in him the raw material for an excellent man. Then, too, I
remembered that I once dismissed another man upon Makuba’s urgent and
repeated request, and no sooner did Makuba hear of it than he came to
me begging me to take the man on again, saying that he himself had been
too impatient, reminding me also that the man had a wife and child, and
promising that if I would take him back he would not complain of him
again. Of course I took him back; and Makuba kept his word.
The worst disputes between Obianga and Makuba took place when they
supposed that I was asleep. The native when he lies down anywhere sleeps
immediately. Whenever I was lying in the bottom of the boat they always
supposed that I was asleep and that no conceivable noise could waken me.
During one of their quarrels Makuba, with a voice like a thunderbolt,
roars: “If you don’t do what I say I will tell Mr. Milligan that you
have two wives.”
“Sh—sh! Makuba,” says Obianga. “What did you tell me to do?”
Such altercations as the following were not uncommon: Captain Makuba
orders Obianga to “haul away on the peak halliards”; to which Obianga
promptly replies:
“Do it yourself.”
“I won’t do it: you will do it,” says Makuba in a threatening tone.
“Are you my father?” says Obianga.
“No,” answers Makuba with infinite scorn. “How could a Kombi man be the
father of an animal like you?”
“Then stop giving me orders,” says Obianga with rising wrath. “It is not
the first time you have tried it, and one of these days you will find out
that it won’t do.”
“One of these days you will find out that I am the captain of this boat
and that you will have to obey me,” says Makuba.
“Not as long as I can carry a gun,” answers Obianga.
By this time they are standing up and looking hard at each other. But
Makuba would not think of striking a man in a mission boat. He therefore
becomes diplomatic. Suddenly in a tone altogether different he says:
“Obianga, the trouble with you is that you are just a bush man; you don’t
know anything about civilization. On every big ocean-steamer there is
a captain, and every man on board, no matter what tribe he belongs to,
obeys the captain.”
Obianga becomes instantly curious and asks: “Is he rich!”
“Yes,” says Makuba, “he gets big pay, and so do I get big pay.”
“How much do you get, Makuba?”
“How much do you think?”
Obianga thinks, as well as he knows how, his countenance distorted with
the effort, and at length answers reflectively: “Two dollars a mouth.”—He
himself gets a dollar and a half.
A broad smile engages Makuba’s features as he slowly answers: “Five
dollars a month.”
Obianga gives expression to his surprise in a long, low whistle. It is
quite evident to him that no ordinary person could command such wages;
and in a tone of utmost compliance he says: “What was it you told me to
do, Makuba? I forget.”
“I forget too,” says Makuba. “O, yes,” he adds, “I told you to haul on
the peak halliards.”
Again, it is night, dark and stormy: a tornado seems to be approaching.
Captain Makuba shouts the order to Obianga, to “make fast the jib-sheet.”
Obianga, who is no more afraid of a tornado than anything else, and whose
head is nodding with sleep, tells him to mind his own business.
Makuba, losing his patience, of which he has not a large stock, calls him
a cannibal—the worst insult he could offer him, and adds: “You especially
like to eat us Kombi people: you say our flesh is the best.”
“You lie,” says Obianga (the current form of polite contradiction), “we
like the Bekeli people better than the Kombi; there is more salt in the
Bekeli.”
Do not conclude from this that Obianga himself is a cannibal. He probably
never tasted human flesh; but it is not so long since his fathers emerged
from cannibalism but that tradition still distinguishes between the flesh
of the surrounding tribes; nor was Obianga at this moment disposed to
admit that Makuba would make a more savoury dish than any of the rest of
us.
In spite of Makuba’s anger it strikes him as very funny that his
intended insult should fall so wide of the mark, and he laughs “in linked
thunder long drawn out.” There is nothing more contagious in Africa than
laughter, and Obianga joins in it; and then of course he obeys the order.
Soon after this, the storm having passed, they are singing together “I
have a Father in the Promised Land,” singing it well, too; and while they
sing I fall asleep.
But if a tornado should swoop down upon us, as it happens so often, or
a drenching rain should catch us, the half child nature in Makuba would
disappear immediately and reveal a whole man, strong, fearless and
resourceful. In a tornado no man knew better than he just what to do for
safety; and in a rain-storm his only anxiety seemed to be for the health
of the white man—lest he should get wet, while at such times it was
almost a matter of politeness with him not to protect himself.
Once on a journey of three days on the open sea, from Benito to Gaboon,
I was miserably sick the second day and could not eat. Neither would
Makuba eat, because I did not. The wind was contrary, and he sat at the
stroke oar pulling hard until two o’clock in the afternoon without food.
At last almost in tears (speaking in Kru English in which he and I always
conversed) he said: “Mr. Milligan, hunger no catch you? All this day I
look you and you never chop. Suppose you no chop you go die.”
Observing for the first time that his own food had not been touched, I
said in surprise: “What for all them chop live same as morning-time?
Yourself you never chop all this day?”
He replied: “Suppose you no be fit for chop then I no chop; I wait you,
Mr. Milligan.”
“But Makuba,” I said, “suppose me and you, all two, be sick, then what
man go take care of me? I no want other man; I want you.”
“Ah, Mr. Milligan,” he replied with a smile, “white man have plenty sense
all same as God; black man be same as piccaninny.” Thereupon he took food
and ate heartily, for he was very hungry.
I received Makuba into the church and baptized him. He was an honest man
and a faithful Christian. He had a mind of his own too, and was quite
original in some of his opinions. He detested every form of affectation
and was fond of saying that the black man must adhere to his own habits,
customs, and fashions, in so far as they were not sinful, instead of
imitating the white man. Nor had he any respect for the white man,
whether missionary or trader, who would fall into the ways of the black
man, in speech, or dress, or manners. I quite agree with him as to the
principle, but I sometimes was at variance with him in the practice. For
instance, when Makuba used the boys’ bread-knife to trim his toe-nails,
and they objected, he invoked this favourite principle of loyalty to his
race and their customs, and wanted to know why they affected white man’s
ways so long as they could not change their skins. Without violating the
delicate sentiment attaching to this custom I tried to convince Makuba
that there were many black people in the world who would not think of
trimming their toe-nails with the bread-knife. If I might judge by his
polite but incredulous smile, he probably thought that I was mistaken on
this point. But if Makuba were preparing my dinner he would do it with
scrupulous cleanliness, not forgetting that I am a white man.
One day we went in the _Evangeline_ to a town some thirty miles distant,
where there was a Christian, Mba Obam (usually contracted to Mb’Obam)
who was the uncle of one of my boat-boys, Ndong Koni. Shortly after our
arrival Ndong Koni advised that we should hold our service before night,
as the town was preparing for a great celebration (that is to say, a
great dance) that night, to which they had invited the people of an
adjacent town. The occasion of all the revelry was the end of the term of
mourning for a prominent man of the town, who having been dead a whole
month had been sufficiently lamented. It remained only to give him a good
“send-off,” and to release his friends from any further obligations.
During the month of mourning the women wail every night, and there is no
dancing.
Towards evening the men of Ndong Koni’s town began to adorn and decorate
themselves for the fancy un-dress ball, using paint and powder, and
wearing round their ankles strings of native bells. The women take no
part in these celebrations except to look on and to add to the noise.
When they were all ready the men formed themselves into two long lines
in the street, with the drums and other wooden instruments across one
end. A certain famous dancer performed in the middle, down the lines and
back, to the beating of the drums. He seemed to be all joints, and he
passed from shape to shape so rapidly that at times he seemed to have
no shape at all. At intervals all the men danced, keeping their places
in the line, but at certain changes in the music whirling to the other
end of the street, and back, adding also a wild song to the beating of
the drums, and furiously shaking the bells on their ankles, by which
means together with a sudden stamp upon the ground they managed to mark
time, which they did to perfection, and to add rhythm, which was quite
fascinating in such a volume of noise.
Among the tribes which have been longer at the coast such celebrations
are attended with rum-drinking; they are also continued all night, and
before morning the scene is a hideous debauch. But the Fang have not yet
become victims of the white man’s rum, and I know of no wrong attaching
to these dances of the men except that they sometimes get excited almost
to frenzy; when this occurs they are not unlikely to draw their knives on
each other upon the slightest provocation, thus closing the celebration
in a free-for-all fight and the spilling of blood.
“Where is the man who hath not tried
How mirth doth into folly glide,
And folly into sin?”
Ndong Koni had joined in the frolic. In one particular dance they used
firebrands which they waved before them. Next to Ndong Koni stood a man
of giant size who thought he had a grudge against one of the family. When
the excitement was at its height he suddenly threw fire in Ndong Koni’s
face. Ndong Koni was only a boy of about nineteen years and not large;
but quick as a flash he struck the fellow a blow in the face. The man,
instantly drawing his sword, sprang at him; but Ndong Koni had already
drawn his sword and was on his guard. In a minute, as it seemed, the men
of the two towns separated and stood facing each other, a sword in every
man’s hand. Then, thrusting and parrying, they circled around and drifted
down the street towards the place where I was sitting. Before any serious
wounds were inflicted, the chief, Mb’Obam, hearing the clash of swords,
came from his house, and running between them at considerable risk to
himself begged them not to fight, especially, he added, when the white
man was visiting their town. He soon succeeded in quieting them.
Meantime I had been occupying a seat of honour, a real chair, or the
venerable remains of one (probably the only chair in the town), infirm
and unstable, and with one leg missing. Here I was maintaining a feeble
existence against a fearful onslaught of mosquitoes. Another of my
boat-boys, an old man of Liberia, named Benjamin, was near me when the
quarrel occurred at the other end of the street. Benjamin did not
understand the Fang language very well. He heard their angry voices
and saw the flash of their swords as they were moving towards us.
Hearing them also call out the name of the white man, Benjamin reached
the extraordinary conclusion that they were going to kill me. Quite
terrified, the old man rushed towards me with the cry, “O my master,
my master!” and flung his arms around me, probably with the benevolent
intention of dragging me off into the thicket, or hiding me in some hole;
but the chair on which I was sitting, being a delicate piece of furniture
and lacking a leg, as I have said, was overturned, and I went sprawling
on the ground all mixed up with Benjamin, and wondering whether the man
had gone mad. By the time I gathered myself up and got my parts together
the quarrel in the street was quieted and Benjamin saw his mistake. No
further misadventures occurred during the remainder of this pleasant
evening.
Poor Benjamin! We shall not hear of him again, and we may dismiss him
with a word. That was the last journey he made in the _Evangeline_. He
was a capable, hard-working and kind-hearted old man, and we were all
attached to him. But rum was his besetting sin and finally his ruin.
After a long hard struggle against it he at last gave up the fight and
became a helpless and hopeless victim. I had to dismiss him. When I left
Africa he was in a native town near by, drinking himself to death; nor
could he live long. But so great is the multitude hurrying down this same
broad road to destruction that one more old man would never be noticed in
the crowd.
Ndong Koni who figured in the fire-dance, was the one I have known most
intimately of all Africans, and the one who made the strongest appeal to
my affections. He was a handsome boy, as light in colour as a mulatto,
of gentle manners and affectionate disposition. He came to me and engaged
as a boat-boy shortly after I began work among the Fang. I taught him
constantly. He served in many capacities varying from boat-boy to
catechist.
Soon after Ndong Koni began to work for me, I visited a group of towns in
the interior accompanied by him and several other natives. We walked nine
miles by a good forest path and then travelled twelve hours by canoe.
I recall that on that journey I was preaching in a certain town to a
good-sized audience who were gathered in the palaver-house, when an old
man, seated directly in front of me and beside an anvil upon which he had
been hammering, became tired of my sermon and deliberately took up his
heavy hammer and resumed his work, pounding the anvil with a deafening
noise against which I could not proceed. The joke was plainly on me.
Addressing a young man, I asked him if he would help me to carry the
anvil outside, which we proceeded to do, before the old fellow realized
what we were about, taking it to a safe distance, and leaving him
sitting there with his work all around him. Thereupon I proceeded with
“secondly,” and “thirdly.”
In returning, two days later, we started in the canoe at five o’clock
in the morning and the boys paddled until seven at night, when we again
took the forest path. We had expected upon leaving the canoe to stay all
night in a native town at that place; but sure symptoms of approaching
fever warned me that I had best get home as soon as possible, which
necessitated a walk of nine miles by night through the forest. The road
was somewhat open, however, and the path well cleared, so that the
journey was quite possible. The men were worn out after their long day’s
work. When I told them that I wished to go home that night their first
exclamations of surprise were followed by profound silence. I said: “I
know you are tired and it is not necessary that you should go on with me;
but I ought to have one boy, for I am not sure of the road.”
Before I had finished, Ndong Koni, although the youngest of the party,
had my food-chest on his head, and starting off said: “Mr. Milligan, I
too, I go with you.”
In all my journeying in the _Evangeline_ Ndong Koni was with me. He was
my best helper in the religious services in the towns. He was boat-boy
and preacher and often cooked my meals besides, for he was always willing
to be called upon for extra service. Upon reaching a town he would take
the organ on his head and carry it into the town, where he would find the
best place to hold a service, and he and I would go through the town and
call the people. After singing a few hymns, in which all the boat-boys
joined, I would speak to the people a while and then ask Ndong Koni to
speak. I have learned my best lessons from him. Not only was he fluent in
speech, but with lively intelligence and unfailing sympathy he adapted
his subjects and his words perfectly to his hearers. A more kind-hearted
boy I have seldom known in any land, although cruelty was the most
prominent characteristic of the heathen around him, of whom were his own
people. The only reason I can give for this contrast is simply that Ndong
Koni was a Christian.
He had faults, I well know. But I am not the one to mention them, so much
do I still feel my indebtedness to him for innumerable kindnesses through
all those years, in which he journeyed with me sharing exposure and
hardship, sharing also the joy of preaching the Gospel.
On one occasion Ndong Koni went into a French trading-house and asked for
something which he wanted to buy. The white man behind the counter told
him that he did not have the article. Ndong Koni turned to go out, but
the white man called to him and said: “Why don’t you buy rum instead?”
“Because I am a Christian,” answered Ndong Koni.
The white man railed at his belief and told him his own anti-Christian
beliefs.
“Well,” said Ndong Koni, “if I believed as you do I would drink rum and
do a great many other things that I do not do. But as long as I am a
Christian I shall not do those things.”
Once at the close of a school term when I was taking the schoolboys home,
I had seventeen boys in the _Evangeline_, which I was towing behind
the _Dorothy_. We had gone about twenty miles when the engine of the
_Dorothy_ suddenly stopped and refused to go in spite of all my efforts.
I found afterwards that the benzine which had been sent me from Germany
was not the quality which the engine required. I had this same experience
frequently during the next several months, and after starting out with
the _Dorothy_ towing the _Evangeline_ we would return to port a few days
later with the little _Evangeline_ towing the _Dorothy_. But this time
I had first to take the boys to their homes leaving the _Dorothy_ at
anchor. The _Evangeline_ with seventeen boys in it was already crowded,
but myself and the crew of five men squeezed into it, and room was also
made for the men to use the oars. There was a good wind but we had no
sails. The tide had just turned and was against us, the current was
strong, and we sat in that cramped position for ten hours, while those
faithful boys pulled hard at the oars without relief. At midnight we
reached the first town, twenty miles beyond where the _Dorothy_ had
stopped. Here we remained until morning. Three of the schoolboys lived
in this town. The other fourteen lived in several different towns on
other rivers. Morning found me with fever, due to the long exposure to
the sun, for which I was not prepared, not having expected it. It was
necessary that I should start for home immediately in the _Evangeline_.
But what was I to do with the schoolboys?
In the emergency I called Ndong Koni, who looked tired enough from the
long pull at the oar; but he said that he would take them through the
bush to their homes. Of all the boys who have worked for me in Africa
there was none excepting Ndong Koni and perhaps Makuba to whom I would
have committed the care of so many boys in such a situation. The roads
which are but poorly beaten paths lay through swamp and jungle all the
way, and at the close of the wet season they were at the worst. The
Fang of this region seldom use the bush-path, their towns being all on
the watercourses. But the chief difficulty was the danger of meeting
enemies on the way, and the fact that certain boys must avoid certain
towns. Ndong Koni got them all safely to their homes. But immediately
after starting he found that the smallest boy had a sore foot and walked
with difficulty. I too recalled this after they had gone and I was very
anxious about the boy. Ndong Koni, however, instead of letting him walk,
or of sending him back to me, carried him on his shoulders all the way to
his town, more than ten miles distant.
The sequel may be of interest to my readers. Before Ndong Koni left me
I had engaged a man to take his place at the oar. Knowing from dire
experience the unreliability of the native and the ease with which he
absolves himself from the solemnest engagements, I told this man that
he might change his mind and cancel the engagement if he chose to do so
before Ndong Koni should leave me, but that after Ndong Koni had gone
he would not be at liberty to change his mind, but would be obliged to
accompany me even if it should require a flogging to persuade him. He
protested that his feelings were badly hurt at the suggestion that he
would be capable of breaking his promise and of leaving the white man in
such a distressing predicament, especially this particular white man, to
whom he owed every virtue that he possessed, and any of his neighbours
would be glad to testify to his stainless reputation and the purity of
his life.
Nevertheless, half an hour after Ndong Koni had gone, when I was ready to
start, this saint among savages was missing. I called him and hunted for
him in vain; nor could I get a man to take his place. The people told me
that he had gone ahead of me in a canoe and was waiting for me at their
fishing-camp a short distance down the river—which I knew to be false for
the simple reason that they said it was true. I asked them to show me the
man’s house, but no one seemed to know in which house he lived. His own
brothers could not tell me. A bribe of a dose of salts was sufficient to
induce the chief to lead the way to the man’s house. The door was a large
piece of bark propped from the inside. It yielded to a vigorous push so
easily that I was precipitated into the house headlong, my feet catching
as I passed through the door and my helmet as usual rolling into the
ashes. The man, I believe, was hidden within, but I did not search for
him. I seized a large earthen jug, used by the women for carrying water
and counted a valuable possession, and started off for the river, the
whole town at my heels, making a deafening uproar. Many were in violent
remonstrance and others were laughing. I took the jug aboard the boat and
ordered the boys to push off.
We were getting under weigh when the missing man appeared upon the bank.
But the saint had reverted to the savage, and was nothing but an ordinary
cannibal threatening to cut me into small pieces and eat me. While the
boat moved slowly towards the middle of the river I talked with him and
told him that if he wanted the jug he would have to keep his agreement.
He at length offered to go on condition that I would send the jug ashore
as soon as he came aboard and not take it to Gaboon, for it belonged
to his wife. I agreed to this proposition. He probably intended, when
the jug was at a safe distance, to leap overboard and swim ashore. But
once I had him in my grip I decided to take no chances lest his noble
character might suffer another relapse. I made him lie down on his back
in the bottom of the boat beneath the thwarts, and I seated myself on his
stomach. The whole population of the town was on the bank, and rending
the air with laughter, in which even the man’s wives joined. So we put
off down the river.
After a while he respectfully advised that it was no longer necessary for
me to sit on him; that he could not possibly swim back to his town, nor
walk through the mangrove swamp on either side of the river, and besides
he was needed at the oar for he knew that the white man was in a hurry to
reach Gaboon. As to the proposal that I change my seat I told him that
what was at first a matter of necessity was now a matter of choice and
that I could not be as comfortable sitting on a thwart. But one oar was
idle; and besides I was deeply moved by his anxiety to get me to Gaboon
as quickly as possible. So I relented and changed my seat, while he
crawled out and took the oar. I had a few choice bananas, which I asked
him to eat with me, and before he had finished eating we were the best of
friends; and so we were ever afterwards.
The launch _Dorothy_ (which succeeded the _Evangeline_) I usually kept
anchored well out on the bay, giving her plenty of cable. It was always
hard to get out to her in the evening and I preferred to start up the
river in the quiet of the morning but that was not always possible. One
evening we were going out to her in a canoe, preparatory to a journey,
when the sea was rougher than usual, and we had a misadventure that was
no joke at the time. In the canoe were eight natives and several trunks
and other baggage. Ndong Koni was in the stern. We soon saw that we were
overloaded but we went on, the canoe taking water more and more rapidly.
“We can’t make it,” said some one; “let us turn back.”
But to attempt to turn in such a sea would surely have swamped us;
besides, we were more than half-way to the launch.
I gave the order to go on, and every man to pull for his life. I stood up
and urged the men to their best. But it was in vain. The canoe settled
deeper in the water, which soon came almost to my knees. At last it went
under, in eighteen feet of water, and a rough sea that no white man
could swim in. Dear reader, if you should ever find yourself in such a
situation, a hopeless distance from the shore and the craft sinking into
the depths beneath your feet, let me advise you above all things to be
perfectly calm. Don’t worry. Worry will not help in the least.
I turned to Ndong Koni and said: “Ndong, if my life is to be saved I
guess it is up to you to do it.”
There was no need to speak to him. He sprang over the heads of several
boys and into the water after me, and catching me by the shoulder, fought
the sea with the other arm. The canoe came to the surface bottom upwards.
The natives old and young swim marvellously, and are at home in the
roughest water. We tried to get to the canoe but a wave swept it away;
then another dashed it towards us and against us. We clung to it as best
we could but again and again we were separated from it, and again dashed
against it. There was a canoe with several natives in the distance; but
they either did not see us, or they were disposed to let nature take its
course. We might have been devoured by sharks but for the fact that there
were a number of us, and we were making plenty of noise. But some men on
the shore saw us, and calling loudly for help they at last pushed off a
large canoe and came towards us, the captain yelling at the men to pull
and pull harder. When they reached us we had been twenty minutes in the
water, and were taken out not so much the worse except Ndong Koni, who
was exhausted and bruised by the canoe striking him, from which he had
each time saved me.
When we reached the beach I am sure no one will wonder that I said to
him: “Ndong Koni, if I had a son of my own I could only wish that he were
as brave and unselfish as you are.”
I asked him what he would have as salvage for saving my life.
He replied: “A tin of corned beef for supper.” He seemed to think that
was enough.
While we were struggling in the sea fifty schoolboys had reached the
beach in a state of panic. The crying of the smaller boys was hysterical
and they could not stop even when I was safe on land. They continued to
cry, saying the while, “O Mr. Milligan, what would we have done? For you
are our father.”
At last I dried their tears by saying: “Look here, boys, I know what you
are crying for: you are sorry that I was not drowned.” Every face was for
a moment transfixed with amazement, as they stared at one another. Then
they all laughed.
Next day they dragged for my trunk which contained most of the useful
things that I had in Africa. At last when the tide was at the ebb they
found it. Among other things which lay in the sea over night was a
French Testament that I used to carry with me. I still have this relic.
The kindness of such a boy as Ndong Koni is only appreciated when
contrasted with the awful cruelty which is the outstanding feature of
all heathenism. And the cruelty of anger or fear is not so revolting
as that of their deliberate practice and ordinary customs, dissociated
from passion. In a certain town at which we anchored the _Evangeline_
one day while we waited for the turn of the tide, we found a woman sick
and evidently dying, whose wasted form suggested long suffering. Ndong
Koni knew her history and repeated it to me. She did not belong to the
town, but had been a prisoner there for five years. A petty war had taken
place between this town and the one to which she had belonged. A woman,
I believe, had been stolen, and then some killing followed. At the close
of the war the people of her town had to pay a dowry and they agreed to
send a woman as hostage until it should be paid. This poor woman who had
nothing whatever to do with the palaver, was taken from her family and
given as a prisoner to the other town, while the guilty man and woman
enjoyed themselves and paid no penalty. Her husband had probably married
other wives and had ceased to care for her, and he was willing that she
should be sent. They never ransomed her, but left her there, a prisoner
and slave in the town, with no protection and no rights, until at the end
of five years she died. To many such have I tried to tell the story of
the Son of Man, who came to give His life “a ransom for many.”
One day we visited a certain town which was not far away. Expecting that
we would return that evening I took no extra clothing. On the way we
were caught in a storm and my clothes were drenched with rain. I could
hot spend the afternoon in these wet clothes, and the town possessed no
clothes that I could wear. But the chief had a table and a table-cloth.
He kindly loaned me the latter and a pair of shoes that had perhaps been
discarded by some white man. I did not preach in a table-cloth and a pair
of shoes, but I sat and visited with the people.
Mb’Obam, Ndong Koni’s uncle, died not long after the visit to his town,
the incidents of which I have recounted. He and his wife, Sara, had for
a long time lived a pure and exemplary life in the midst of the darkest
heathenism. When he died the people accused Sara of having made medicine
to kill him. This medicine is a fetish and acts supernaturally: it is
not necessary that it should come in physical contact with the victim.
Mb’Obam had died of a lingering disease well known to them. But such is
the mental degradation incident to the belief in magic and witchcraft
that effects are referred to a supernatural cause even when the natural
and physical cause is before their eyes. Every death is attributed to
magic or witchcraft, and if they are not forward in avenging it the
spirit of the dead one will inflict misfortune and even death upon them.
Mb’Obam had completely broken with fetishism and had discarded all these
beliefs and had bravely defended the victims of native cruelty. At his
approaching death he charged the people not to touch Sara nor to charge
her with witchcraft, reminding them what a faithful wife she had been and
how differently they both had lived since they became Christians. But
though they had regarded him with respect and reverence during his life,
yet at his death old customs and beliefs asserted tyrannous authority,
and they charged Sara with having killed him. It fell to Esona, the
succeeding chief, to decree the punishment of Sara. In the vicinity of
the French government he would not dare to kill her. So he led her into
the middle of the street before all the people, placed her on her hands
and knees, and bound upon her back a heavy load of plantain-stocks. Then
two men sat upon the load, on her back, and all the men of the town
drove her thus up and down the street on her hands and knees until they
nearly killed her. As soon as she had sufficiently recovered from the
effect of the awful ordeal they repeated the performance, and repeated it
again, until Sara managed through a Christian boy to get a message to me.
Leaving the school I made ready the _Evangeline_ and went with all haste
to the town, thirty miles distant, where I arrived just in time to stop
another repetition of the outrage. The sight was too much for me. Mb’Obam
and Sara had been the very first of my Fang friends. Whether the impulse
was noble indignation or a very mortal temper, the reader may decide.
With a stick which I carried I flogged Esona the chief before all the
people, and there was blood on the stick when I got through.
One may wonder how a white man could do this in a town of savages without
sacrificing his own life. I may say that there was perhaps not another
town on the river in which I could have done any such thing and have
escaped with my life. Safety in such a situation depends upon the extent
of a man’s influence and personal authority in the particular town. It is
the part of wisdom for him to know the extent of his influence in each
town and the part of discretion never to overreach it. In this instance
Esona, breaking away from me like an animal frantic with rage, shouted
for his gun and ran towards his house to get it. But a cry of alarm was
raised, as I expected, and half a dozen men rushing upon him, held him
fast. He broke loose from them and others joined him. For a moment it
looked as if my own life and that of the crew (except Ndong Koni, who was
related in the town) were forfeited, and the fate of the _Evangeline_
were like that of the famous ship which was left—
“With one man of her crew alive,
What put to sea with seventy-five.”
But they caught Esona again and threw him to ground, shouting at me
the while to leave the town as quickly as possible. To their mingled
entreaties and curses I yielded a tardy compliance, which however was not
nearly as reluctant as it seemed.
There is a sequel to this story also, which I shall relate. This chief
Esona, whom I flogged, announced a few days later that he was going
to marry Sara. He already had seven wives, and the thought of such a
marriage was repugnant to Sara. But she had no choice in the matter and
was compelled to marry him. Polygamy is not always a happy institution,
even in Africa. The seven wives were angry and jealous. Being powerless
to injure Esona they avenged themselves upon Sara. One day shortly after
the marriage, as she was walking along the street, they suddenly came
running from their houses with knives and attacked her. They wounded her
and would have killed her but she was rescued by some men who happened to
be near. A woman costs money and her life may not be sacrificed wantonly.
Then these wives tried another expedient. Four women in succession,
coming from different towns, visited Esona and solemnly told him that
they had had a dream concerning him—all four of them in succession
relating the same dream. They had seen Mb’Obam, Sara’s dead husband, who
was very angry that Esona had married Sara, and threatened all kinds of
plagues and finally death, if he would not put her away. A few days later
their word was confirmed when five houses belonging to Esona were burned
to the ground. They were perfectly aware that a certain young man of the
town had accidentally let some live coals fall upon some dried thatch
and the fire had started forthwith. Nevertheless, with one voice the
people attributed the fire to Mb’Obam, and Esona in great fear, believing
that his life might be the next forfeit, let Sara go. After a period of
various trials and sorrows dire fortune at last relented and I was glad
to learn that Sara was comfortably married to a Christian man.
One quiet day, as we were pulling up the river in the _Evangeline_,
seventy miles from the coast, a man suddenly emerged from the forest and
came rapidly towards us in a canoe. When he came near I recognized a Fang
friend, a young man about twenty years old, named Ingwa, who had been one
of my first boat-boys in the _Evangeline_, and who was a Christian. After
a hearty greeting I said: “I am surprised to see you, Ingwa; I sent word
to you long ago that I would like to have you again in the _Evangeline_,
and I have not heard a word from you.” But, observing that he looked worn
and sick, I asked him what was the matter; and he told me the following
story: “A year ago I was married to a woman whom I had loved for a long
time and who loved me. I paid the dowry and took my wife home. We both
were very happy, for I loved only her and she loved only me. After six
mouths her father and brothers agreed with another man to take her from
me and give her to him, wishing to make friendship with his town. Her
father invited her and me to visit him. During the night they suddenly
rushed in upon us and made us prisoners. They tied my wife’s hands and
led her away. Then they bound me, hands and feet, and put me into a
canoe and pushed the canoe out into the current of the river. Far down
the river towards the sea I was picked up by some people who knew me and
were friendly. They set me free and I borrowed a paddle and reached my
own town. But I could not stay there, it was so lonely; for my wife was
gone and my heart was sick. They sent her to the other man’s town, but I
knew that she loved only me. I hid in the forest near that town, but I
could never see her. Six months I have been hiding in the forest, night
and day, and I have been hungry, and sometimes sick. They know I am there
and are trying to kill me. Her father sent word to me that he would pay
me back the dowry; but I want only my wife. And surely God will help me;
I will meet her again, and she will go with me. For I love only her, and
she loves only me.” The story ended in a sob.
With a hasty good-bye he turned and sped towards the shore, while I sat,
silently and with aching heart, watching, till the dark form was merged
into the darkness of the forest and we saw him no more. But how changed
was nature’s aspect! How different the impression of the hazy, languid
atmosphere, the torpid life of bird and beast, the deep mystic forest
with dark forms moving like phantoms to and fro, screened from the river
by a heavy veil of vine and flower that hung from the tops of the trees
and lay upon the water below; and behind the veil a real and tragic world
of human suffering and breaking hearts!
Not long after this Ingwa, still watching and waiting in the forest, met
his wife. They fled together, days and nights through the forest, until
they reached a town far away, which Ingwa had once visited in trading for
rubber and ivory and where he had made friends. There they were still
living when I left Africa. A native trader afterwards visited that far
distant town of the forest, and returning, brought me a message from
Ingwa. The trader informed me also that he found the people of the town
singing Christian hymns and praying, and that through the influence of
Ingwa many had thrown away their fetishes and were followers of Christ.
XIV
A SCHOOL
The schools of the Congo Français are under the inspection of the
government, and there is a law that the French language shall be the
language of the school. It has been very difficult for an American
mission to comply with this law, and when it was first enforced some of
our schools had to be closed. It was mainly because of this difficulty
that several stations on the Ogowé River were transferred to a French
Protestant missionary society. Our missionaries then enlarged their work
at Batanga, which is in German territory, and opened the several stations
among the Bulu of the interior, a work that has greatly prospered. It was
only a few years, however, until they were required to teach the German
language in the schools; and the German law was as rigidly enforced as
the French. There was also a similar law in the English colonies. This
requirement had been regarded as unjust and as a great hindrance to the
success of missionary work. Personally I have no quarrel with it in
either respect, and I think that the mind of the whole mission in late
years has undergone a change on that subject. Even if there were no such
law, I believe that the ultimate success of the work would necessitate a
European language; and that language must be and ought to be that of the
governing power.
Of course the people of the various tribes must hear the Gospel preached
in their own native tongue; as it was on the day of Pentecost, when every
man heard the word in the language in which he was born. The itinerating
missionary must use the native dialects. But when the native becomes a
student, seeking more extensive and more accurate knowledge, the native
dialect is beggarly and wholly inadequate. If ideas require words for
their conception, then the paucity of words and the poverty of expression
make it impossible for the student using the native language to think as
it would be required of him in the class-room. The acquisition of French
is a cultural factor to the African in a sense that it is not to the
American. For most of the French words have no exact equivalent in his
own language, and such words present new thoughts. Moreover, education
introduces him to the world of books, and without the foreign language he
is confined to the very few and meagre translations that missionaries may
make into an obscure dialect of a small tribe.
The future of the boys also, their material welfare, depends largely
upon the knowledge of a European language. It is not to be expected, and
is no way desirable, that the boys of the schools should return home
only to “sit for town” all their lives according to native fashion.
Idleness is the devil’s opportunity; and those who have been in the
schools invariably desire to work. For most of those in the French Congo
work means employment with white men—the government officials or the
traders—and in either case the knowledge of French is necessary. But
others of these boys become catechists and ministers in after years and,
as I have said, if these are to be educated they must know French. It
is fortunate for the missionary teacher that the Africans are very apt
linguists. They have but small talent for some studies; in mathematics
they are usually stupid, but in the acquisition of languages they are
scarcely surpassed.
During my second year in the French Congo I opened a school at Baraka
with a small class of boys, and gradually enlarged it until in my
last year there were seventy-five boys. The whole plan as projected
in my mind, which it took several years to establish, was to have one
central boarding-school at Baraka, with primary day-schools in many of
the towns. In these latter the people, old and young, boys and girls,
as many as wished, were taught to read in their own language. Boys
were required to be able to read in their own language before being
admitted to the boarding-school. Religious teaching was an important
part of the curriculum. Some of the most advanced Christian boys of the
boarding-school became catechists and were sent to those towns where
there were groups of professing Christians (catechumens) awaiting a
course of instruction before being received into the church. For no
converts were baptized inside of two years, during which time they
received a careful course of instruction as nearly continuous as
possible. Ultimately some of these catechists, I hoped, would become
ministers.
The government inspection of the mission schools and the strictness of
the law’s enforcement in regard to the language, depended, as I found,
not much upon the amount of French taught in the school, but upon the
good or ill will of the inspector. Shortly after I went to the French
Congo the missionaries withdrew from the interior station, Angom, but
a day-school in charge of a native teacher was kept open for some time
afterwards, which was quite outside the theory of the plan I have
outlined for the town schools. It was a regular primary school in hours
and curriculum and was not taught by a catechist as a mere adjunct to
his religious work. This school therefore came under the government
inspection. It had been exceedingly difficult to keep a competent teacher
in charge of it, as the government required. Those who knew sufficient
French to teach were few and in great demand for the government service,
in which they received higher wages than we could afford to pay.
A certain Mpongwe man, Remondo, was left in charge of the school when
the missionaries withdrew, but only as a temporary expedient, that
the pupils might be kept together until a competent teacher could be
procured. Remondo was a Roman Catholic, but he was quite willing to lay
aside his scapulary, and his conscience for that matter, for the slight
remuneration incident to the position. Remondo nearly always had a rag
on his toe. Some of his pupils had not even that much clothing. He wrote
his name without a capital letter, and in a line as nearly vertical as
horizontal; and the obliquity of his writing was equalled by the iniquity
of his French; while there was such an uncertainty about his addition
that I used to say that mathematics was not an exact science in Remondo’s
hands. Finally, not being able to procure a competent teacher, I decided
to close the school. Remondo was amazed and he firmly protested. The fact
that he was not doing the work made the position all the more congenial
to his temperament, and made it also, in his opinion, the more ungenerous
to disturb him. Why close the school? Was not the attendance good? Was
not the discipline perfect? I admitted that he had all the accessories of
a good teacher and lacked nothing but the essentials. Nevertheless, my
mind being set upon it, I closed the school.
During this interval while Remondo was in charge, I was in constant dread
of an official visit from the _chef de poste_ of the district, who would
naturally be the government inspector for that school. This dread had
become chronic when one day I was amazed at the receipt of a very kind
letter from the governor himself, informing me that the _chef de poste_,
whom he had directed to visit the school at Angom, had reported that he
had examined the pupils and conversed with the teacher and that the
school was highly satisfactory in every way and a credit to the mission.
The governor hoped that we might open other schools of the same kind!
Goodness gracious! I lost no time in making inquiry of a certain official
as to who was the _chef de poste_ of that district—for I knew there had
been a change lately. He replied: “M. de la R⸺.” Then I understood it all.
The late M. de la R⸺ had already been in the service of the Congo
Français for thirteen years when I first met him. He endured the climate
remarkably well and only at long intervals returned to France on
furlough. He belonged to a good family. He also had a wife and children
in France. His wife once went to Africa with him but she soon returned
home; I was told that she was a fine woman; he himself when I met him was
the pitiful remains of a gentleman who had been ruined by the two vices
which have made West Africa in many minds a synonym for perdition. During
his first years he was faithful in his official duties and he rose in
the service. He was at one time administrator at Bata, not far from our
mission station, Benito. It was under the administration of this very man
that our long-established schools at Benito were closed by the government
on the ground that the law in regard to the French language was not being
strictly observed. But our missionaries of that station believed that the
action of M. de la R⸺ was due to the influence of the French priests.
After many years of increasing dissipation he was dismissed from the
service for various discrepancies. His health was not good, and he was
prematurely old. He had not been in France for many years, and he said
that he would never go there again. Thus he was an outcast and without
means of support in a foreign and hostile climate. At length a certain
trader of Libreville took pity on him. Eight miles back in the bush,
the trader had a coffee-farm that had about petered out; and there he
sent the ex-administrator, and gave him employment for which he paid him
enough to keep him alive. He lived alone there for more than a year,
separate from all white men, a black mistress his only companion.
One day visiting some interior towns, I followed a road that passed
through the farm. I was greatly surprised at seeing a white man there,
but not at all surprised that in such a place he was dressed only in
pajamas. Leaving the road I went to the house to salute him. He told me
who he was and urged me not to hurry on but to stay with him awhile; it
was so good to see a white man. I felt so sorry for him that I thought
I could do no better missionary work for that day than to visit with
him; so I changed my plans accordingly, remained with him all morning
and ate dinner with him, the table being served by his black mistress. I
thought he would probably live but a short time and I felt as if I were
performing his obsequies. It is strange how a man whose dignity resides
not within himself, but wholly in outward circumstances, in social
position, in pecuniary abundance, or the tawdry pomp of authority,—it is
strange how such a man, when these all fail, sinks in his self-respect
to the level of abject prostration. M. de la R⸺ had been fastidiously
regardful of his dress and his personal appearance; but now he spent his
days in shabby pajamas and even shunned the acquaintance of soap and
water.
He spent the whole time of my visit in telling me of the wrongs done
him by fellow officials, that had culminated in his dismissal from the
government service. He shed some tears and I fancied that they made clean
streaks down his face. He told me what a respectable life he had lived;
and I declare that I should never have suspected it. But when he also
claimed sobriety as one of his chief virtues, nothing but the odour of
his breath kept me from becoming an anti-temperance fanatic on the spot.
Several of the men who had informed against him had since died, and
in this he saw the finger of God; for of course they would never have
died if they had not been his enemies. He, the animated remains of M.
de la R⸺, was still the centre and explanation of the government of the
universe, and God was simply a convenient instrument of vengeance. To
that extent he was quite religious. And I ought to add that he believed
in forgiving his enemies—but only after they were dead. But I pitied him
greatly, and stayed with him most of the day. When I left him I had not
the least expectation that I would ever see him again.
A year after this, by a strange turn of the wheel of fortune, this man
was reinstated, and was appointed a _chef de poste_. He easily resumed
his former dignity of manner and care of dress. But he lived only a few
months to enjoy his recovered prestige. During those months, however, he
was appointed to inspect the school at Angom and his enthusiastic report
(for which I hope he may have been forgiven) was the expression of his
gratitude for the visit I had made him when he was without position,
without money and without friends. Thus the bread of a little kindness
cast upon the waters returned after many days multiplied into loaves.
And he was the man who, years before, had closed our splendid school at
Benito, because, forsooth, the missionaries were not diligent enough in
teaching the French language. I also learned from Remondo that at the
close of his inspection of the school at Angom he gave each of the little
boys and girls a present of some tobacco.
When I opened the school at Baraka I found it very difficult to procure
boys. There were many boys who desired to come, but their parents would
not consent. At the beginning of the term I gathered the boys with the
launch, _Dorothy_. The red-hot contentions between me and the fathers
and mothers made this work of opening the school the most exhausting
and trying of the whole year. Often I was constrained to regard the
parental institution as an intolerable nuisance and the orphan estate as
a consummation that the African child might devoutly wish for.
In one town a handsome boy was determined to come with me, and by
prolonged talking I had subdued his father and was hurrying away when
suddenly the mother appeared upon the scene, cursing me, and threatening
to take the boy’s life. Another contention followed, which I won by many
words and a small piece of laundry soap. The victory seemed complete;
the father and mother were sending the boy away with their blessing, and
speaking kind words to me; we were about to get into the canoe to go to
the launch, which was in the middle of the river, when an old and very
ugly woman, grand-aunt or something of that sort, came rushing towards
us, shrieking and flinging her arms about her, cursing me, and altogether
presenting such a spectacle as might suggest that one of Macbeth’s
witches had escaped from the underworld. Quickly, and in great alarm, we
sprang into the canoe and pushed off; for I would rather fight with ten
men than one woman. But there were many of us, we were standing up in
the canoe, and before we had sufficient way on she had waded after us up
to her neck in water, and laying hold of the canoe with both hands, she
tried to capsize it—which would be easily done. The state of my health
made it advisable that I should try to avoid being thrown into the river.
Besides, the whole town was now gathered on the bank, rending the air
with laughter, and if I failed they would continue to laugh for a year or
two. I caught her hands and tried to wrench them from the side of the
canoe; but I did not wish to use all my strength against an old woman,
and moreover she had the advantage of standing on the ground, while I had
to balance the canoe; so I failed in the effort. A second more and we
would have been in the river, when I caught her by the back of the neck,
and, ducking her head under the water, I held her there as solemnly as I
could until she so far weakened as to let go her hold on the canoe, and
we moved on, while the audience on the bank cheered. But I had a most
unheroic feeling all the rest of that day.
In another town, a father who refused to let his boy go, said: “I don’t
want my boy coming back here knowing more than his father, his skin all
clean, while his old father sits around with the itch scratching himself.
Why, the boy would despise me! I won’t let him go.”
For more than a year I taught the school daily without any assistance
except that one or two of the advanced boys sometimes taught the junior
classes. Then I engaged, as an assistant, a Mpongwe, named Nduna, a boy
of seventeen years, whose father, Rekwangi, was quite civilized and
an old friend of our mission. Poor Nduna’s life ended very tragically
less than two years later. He was a handsome boy, of quiet disposition
and kind-hearted. He was with me so much in the schoolroom and was so
faithful in his work that I came to know him well and to like him. At
the end of the year he told me that he had the offer of a better-paying
position in one of the bureaus of the government at Libreville and I
advised him to accept it. I understood that he gave good satisfaction to
his employer. After several months a sum of money was stolen from a safe
that had accidentally been left open. There were French clerks in the
same office, but Nduna was the only native. He was immediately arrested.
There was not a shred of evidence against him except that the money had
been stolen from that particular office and that he was the only native
there. It was hard for me to believe that he was guilty even before I had
heard the evidence, and when I supposed that it must be strongly against
him. But when upon inquiry I learned all that was known, I concluded with
a great many others that he was innocent. And the others did not know him
personally as I did.
A native may be capable of committing a very clever theft, but I never
knew a native who could cleverly conceal it. A certain workman, Ndinga,
stole a coat from me, and a few days later walked into the yard with it
on. Ndinga was not intelligent like Nduna. But I knew another boy who
about the same time stole a considerable amount of cash from a white man.
He was a very clever rascal, and proved himself so in the procuring of
the money. Yet he carried it in his pocket as long as it lasted (which
was only a few days) and treated all his friends with lavish generosity.
Among themselves the detective faculty is dull. And this is probably
because they so readily resort to supernatural means of discovering a
criminal, instead of following a natural clue, or weighing the evidence
of circumstances against a suspected person. While the white man racks
his brains with mere probabilities, the native goes to the witch-doctor,
who promises him certainty. The witch-doctor names several persons, often
personal enemies to himself, and they are forced to undergo some ordeal,
such as dipping their hands in boiling oil, which will burn only the
guilty. It is an easy and expeditious method, and especially remunerative
for the witch-doctor. But it involves none of those mental operations
whereby facts are weighed, comparisons made and conclusions reached. The
judgmatical faculty lies dormant. It would not therefore be expected that
the thief would be as careful of his tracks as if he lived in the land
of Sherlock Holmes.
In the case of Nduna no money was found either with him or his relations.
Neither had he spent an extra centime. The natives themselves never
believed Nduna guilty, and there were others also who thought him a
victim of foul play. The natives of Libreville and the immediate vicinity
are treated with humanity and justice, as a rule; but there have been
exceptions to the rule. Nduna was tried and sentenced to imprisonment.
I have forgotten the term of his sentence. He was not strong; his lungs
were weak, and after several months in the noisome prison he developed
tuberculosis. He failed rapidly, and when several more months had passed
it was very plain that he had not long to live. His father, Rekwangi, and
his mother, Aruwi, pleaded piteously for his release, but the request was
sternly refused. I shall never forget the grief of those unhappy parents,
grief mingled inevitably with bitterness against the white man; for they
had no doubt that their boy was innocent. The weeks passed and still the
same message came: “A little worse to-day.”
At length one night some one brought word to Rekwangi that Nduna was
dying. The father hurried to the prison, two miles away. But the guard
told him that the white man would not admit him. If I had only known it
in time I could probably have procured his admission. Or if not, I at
least might have afforded the parents some relief by going in myself and
staying with Nduna. For many of the officials who are bold in dealing
with defenseless black people are abjectly compliant when they confront
a white man. For hours that night the father walked outside the prison
wall crying aloud: “O Nduna, Nduna, my only son, how can I give you up!
It is not God, but the white man who has taken you from me. Is he still
living? Tell him that his poor old father is close to him, standing just
outside the prison wall. O Nduna, my son, my son!”
At last, towards morning, the guard cried out: “Your son is dead.”
Then the wretched man, overwhelmed with grief and frenzied with
bitterness, gave way to doubt of the Christian’s God, and running to the
house of a friend near by asked for rum. “Give me rum,” he cried, “lest I
kill myself.” The rum was given him and he drank till he was drunk.
That morning Nduna’s body was carried home. All the family and many
friends were gathered together. They laid him on a pile of mats on the
floor of the room, with his feet towards the door, and covered him
completely with a coloured robe. As soon as I heard that the body had
come I went to the house. While I was yet a great way from the town I
heard the wail of their mourning dirge; that weird, unceasing cry of
hopeless grief, which I had heard so often, but never before under such
harrowing circumstances, and it smote upon my heart. As many as could
enter the house were sitting on the floor and many on the ground outside.
All the women who were in civilized dress had turned their clothes inside
out as a sign of grief. Aruwi sat on the floor at Nduna’s head, piteously
sobbing. As I entered the door they all stopped mourning and there was
a deep silence. For once, in Africa, I felt that I could not speak. No
words could do justice to that heartrending scene. I stood a long time
before the covered body, as silent as themselves. At last I said: “Aruwi,
I want to see Nduna’s face.”
She turned down the covering and when I had looked at him a while I said:
“It is a good face, Aruwi,—a beautiful face. Nduna was a good boy. You
will not forget, Aruwi, that there was one white man who knew him and
who loved him.”
They remained silent as I withdrew, until I reached the end of the
village street, and then again, they all began to chant the mourning
dirge.
When the members of the Gaboon Church die they are buried in the mission
graveyard on Baraka hill. The reason of this concession on the part of
the mission was probably to enable them to control the burial service
of Christians that it might be a Christian and not a heathen ceremony.
They regard it as a sacred privilege. Nduna was not a member in the
church, and none but members had ever been buried at Baraka. But I broke
the rule, and told Aruwi that, if she wished, Nduna would be buried at
Baraka. And there we buried him that evening. The civilized Mpongwe have
a funeral custom that I like. When the casket is lowered and immediately
after the benediction, coming forward, they drop a handful of earth into
the grave. It is a simple and affecting ceremony and has no superstitious
significance. But during all my years at Gaboon there was no other
funeral at which so many came forward in silence and dropped a handful
of earth into the grave as they seemed to say: “Good-bye, Nduna; you
suffered greatly; may you rest in peace.”
[Illustration: BOJEDI, TEACHER OF FANG SCHOOL.
_He frankly admits the superiority of the white man, but thinks that the
black man is far better-looking._]
But by far the best teacher I ever had in the school, and without doubt
the best native teacher in the entire mission, was Bojedi, a Kombi of
Benito, to which tribe Makuba also belonged. Bojedi was twenty years old
when I engaged him as a teacher and he stayed with me two years, until I
left Africa. He was so well qualified by education and so competent in
mind and disposition that I gradually put the whole work of the school
upon him, except the religious teaching, which left me more time for
itinerating and the oversight and care of the Christians scattered in
many towns. Bojedi had faults that I do not mean to pass by, but without
him the greatly enlarged work of those last two years could never have
been done; and there was probably not in West Africa a native who could
have taken his place. Of all the natives who taught or assisted in the
school he was the only one whom the schoolboys respected and obeyed as
they would a white man. His interest and his efforts far exceeded his
prescribed duties. He had charge of the seventy-five boys, both in the
schoolroom and out of it, twenty-four hours a day. He was there when they
rose and when they went to bed. He insisted upon cleanliness as to their
persons, their beds, their food and the manner of eating it. He oversaw
their work in the yard, chiefly that of cutting grass, and would not
allow any boy to shirk his work. Their most serious disputes he referred
to me, but most of them he settled himself, to my immense relief, and
they all recognized him as fair. Under his constant supervision these
boys, fresh from the worst heathenism, were compelled to live a civilized
life. And this he accomplished without force. I never knew him to strike
a boy, nor ever did I know him to lose his temper. If he kept a boy in
school after hours for not knowing his lesson he stayed with him himself
and helped him with his study. Without my asking it he gathered them into
the school in the evening for an hour’s study, himself helping the duller
boys. He had faults, as I have said, but there were none in his teaching
or his discipline of the boys.
Bojedi was educated in our mission school at Benito. Among the
missionaries of that station there was a French teacher, Mr. Presset,
from whom Bojedi received much of his education. Unlike most Africans he
was a student by nature, and afterwards while he was so busy teaching in
my school he was also pursuing his studies in mathematics and astronomy.
The most that he got from me was music, which was always his pastime.
He had received some instruction in music from Mr. Presset, who gave
him access to his organ. When he came to Gaboon I placed in his house a
baby-organ of my own, and finding that he had unusual musical talent I
began to give him occasional lessons. He made much progress and played
so well that when I was leaving Africa I left the organ and most of my
organ music with him. He played for the singing in school and also in the
Mpongwe Sunday-school.
While Bojedi was still in the school at Benito he was brought into undue
prominence with the French government in a way that reflected credit
upon his scholarship and incidentally landed him in jail with hard
labour. France, it is said, rules for revenue, and this would seem to
be her policy in the Congo Français. A heavy duty is levied on imports
and exports for the purpose of revenue, resulting soon in commercial
stagnation—and no revenue. The Congo Français is a large and increasing
expense to France. The natives pay taxes upon their houses according to
the size and improvements. Each door and each window is taxed. A certain
native of Gaboon, an enterprising young man, who wished to live in
civilized fashion, put a floor in his house. But he was taxed so much for
it that he took it out and went back to the earth floor.
The taxes at Benito were heavy enough, but the local _chef de poste_ had
been collecting far more than was required. The man was probably full
of malaria and had become very irritable; like many of the government
officials he was in need of a long furlough home. Burning native towns
was a favourite pastime. If the people did not pay their taxes promptly
he burned their towns, leaving men, women and children without shelter.
If they paid promptly he required more and when it was not immediately
forthcoming he burned their towns. If he called them to him, and they
were afraid to come, he burned their towns. If for any reason, or no
reason, he doubted that they loved him dearly, he burned their towns. The
illumination was a superb entertainment for his friends. He burned towns
not in the execution of law, but of his own degenerate will, governed
only by a malarious temper.
At last a number of local chiefs addressed a complaint to the
administrator at Bata, who was superior to the _chef de poste_. Bojedi,
at the request of the chiefs, composed and wrote the letter, which I
believe they signed. The administrator sent the letter to the _chef de
poste_ who upon reading it did not think for a moment that any native
could have written it. There was only one white man in the region of
Benito to whom it could possibly be attributed; and that was Mr. Presset
of our mission at Benito. To make sure of the matter he compared the
writing with that of Mr. Presset, from whom he had received letters, and
found that it was the same. The result was that our mission at Benito
suffered considerable ill-treatment at his hands. At length, one day, he
referred to the letter in speaking to Mr. Presset, and was surprised and
almost affronted when the latter denied all knowledge of it. Mr. Presset
asked to see it, and upon looking at it immediately recognized Bojedi’s
writing. Bojedi was arrested and sent to jail, although he was only a boy
who had done what the chiefs had required of him; the letter was theirs,
not his. For months (or perhaps only one—I have forgotten the length of
time) he remained in jail and worked at hard labour carrying stone. When
at last one morning he was released he had scarcely a stitch of clothing
on him and he hid in a bush all day, and walked home to Benito, twenty
miles, during the night.
This latter story also has a sequel. While Bojedi was teaching school in
Gaboon, this same _chef de poste_ who had put him in jail, was there in
Gaboon a few days before sailing for France. Bojedi went to see him, and
did him several kindly services. The day he sailed (it happened to be
Saturday); Bojedi took charge of all his baggage and saw it safely placed
on the steamer, which took the whole afternoon. Thus easily does the
native forgive and forget.
Bojedi was very simple in manners and direct in speech. It never occurred
to him that the purpose of language was “to conceal thought.” One day
shortly before I left Gaboon he remarked that the schoolboys would miss
me greatly. I expressed a doubt on that subject. “O yes, Mr. Milligan,”
said he, “they will feel badly; for I remember that when I was a
schoolboy and Mr. X. left us, we all felt sorry and some of us cried,
although we had called him a beast every day.”
I have said that to commiserate the African for his colour is a waste of
sympathy. One day when I was talking to Bojedi something in the course
of the conversation prompted me to ask him whether he would like to be a
white man. He replied respectfully but emphatically in the negative. I
wished to know his reason; for he acknowledged and fully appreciated the
white man’s superiority. He hesitated to tell me; but I was insistent,
and at length he replied: “Well, we think that we are better-looking.”
I gasped when I thought of some of the vastly ill-looking faces I had
seen in the jungles, and in apology for myself (and for my race, by
implication) I said: “But you have not seen us in our own country, where
there is no malaria, and where we are not yellow and green.”
He quietly asked what colour we were in our own country; to which I
promptly replied: “Pink and white.”
Looking at me steadily for a moment he remarked: “Mr. Milligan, if I
should see you in your own country I am doubtful whether I should know
you.”
The moral weaknesses of the black race are salient and uniform and Bojedi
was far from being an exception to the rule. An imperious sexual impulse
is the racial characteristic; and their surroundings are such that they
cannot escape the temptation. One might think that African society, with
all its tyranny of social law and custom, were contrived with the sole
purpose of immoral indulgence. Many wives is much wealth. Courage, which
is held in highest esteem, is displayed chiefly in stealing other men’s
wives. And under certain circumstances this immorality is even a part of
hospitality. The women are more licentious than the men. A woman boasts
of her elopements. To become the mistress of a white man is a matter of
honour and gives social prestige. The wife of an elder in the Gaboon
Church, speaking of a certain young woman, the daughter of a friend,
said: “Iga is so ‘stuck up’ that she scarcely speaks to me now because
she is living with a white man.” The more glory therefore to missions,
that it is able to establish purity and honour in all the social and
domestic relations of native converts! Even in half-Christian communities
those heathen standards do not entirely prevail.
The Mpongwe women of Gaboon who have long been in contact with the
French are without comparison the most cultivated, best-looking, most
artful, and most dissolute women of the entire coast. The story of their
licentiousness, as Tertullian once said of the women of the ancient
stage, had best remain hid in its own darkness lest it pollute the day.
Most young men of other tribes coming among them as Bojedi did are
like country boys arriving in the city, and are easy quarry. He was
especially an object of pursuit because, having a good position, he had
money; and their need of money is equal to their love of it.
It was during Bojedi’s second year as teacher that I found that he was
living in illicit relations with a certain woman. It was a grief to
me. He was a lovable boy; excepting Ndong Koni and Amvama, none were
nearer to me than Bojedi. I had come to expect almost as much of him
as a white man. Moreover the matter was fraught not only with possible
ruin to himself but also with evil influence for the school. For
although it was only lately that he had made any profession of being a
Christian, he stood before the boys as a Christian in a marked way; had
offered a prayer each morning in opening the school; had talked with
them personally; and had exercised an influence for good that was the
more profound because of their love of him. I wailed until night, after
hearing this report, and then called him into the schoolhouse, where we
would not be disturbed, and there we talked for hours.
I said: “Bojedi, is it true that you are living with Antyandi?”
He replied: “It is true that I am _married_ to Antyandi.”—So he had tried
to make himself believe.
Antyandi would be regarded by any native as a very attractive woman.
Although she looked younger than Bojedi she was really several years
older and was artful according to her years. She had some education and
spoke and wrote French. She could boast of having lived with several
white men, one of them at least of high rank in the government, and from
these associations she had acquired a manner that was decidedly smart
and foreign, not to speak of trunks filled with fine clothes. She was
girlish in form and light in motion and had the reputation of being a
great dancer. It happened once that she danced before King Adandi; not
however for the head of a missionary on a charger, although afterwards
she would doubtless have been glad to have had my head thus presented
to her. A bottle of champagne was all she asked. Adandi was head of the
whole Mpongwe tribe. He was dressed when I saw him last in white shoes,
white flannel trousers and shirt, black velvet coat with a heavy gold
chain suspended from his neck, and a white hat. He had received part
of his education in France. He claimed the dignified distinction of
martyrdom, having been twice imprisoned by the French and once exiled. He
was a convert of the Jesuits and was profoundly religious—barring such
discrepancies as drunkenness, gambling and adultery. King Adandi saw
Antyandi dance and he declared that he would die if he could not add her
to the number of his wives. She refused him however on the ground that
Adandi being a king the relation would involve a degree of constancy on
her part to which she was not accustomed. Then he organized a band of
young men to seize the lady and carry her off, as they do in books. This
had a fine flavour of romance about it. But the chocolate heroine had two
invisible leopards, according to her claim, which attended her day and
night, and with these she dispersed the brigands.
But Bojedi is still in the schoolhouse making a passionate but sorry
defense. He really loved the woman with a fatuous regard, and I believe
she was in love with him. He had first asked her uncle if he could marry
her, and the uncle, the head of her family, although he was supposed to
have absolute authority over her, replied that he had nothing to say in
the matter, for Antyandi would do as she pleased anyway. Others of her
relations had said that no Mpongwe woman would ever be allowed to marry
a Kombi (to which tribe Bojedi belonged) and that the whole Mpongwe tribe
would rise to prevent it. An open marriage was therefore impossible. And,
on the other hand, mere publicity is the only marriage ceremony there is
among Christians of Gaboon, and to forego publicity was to dispense with
all ceremony. But how could a public announcement be called a ceremony?
And how could mere publicity constitute a marriage bond?
This latter is in need of some explanation. Everybody knows that in
France only those marriages are legal which are made by the state. The
Roman Catholic Church insists upon a church marriage also, but it must
follow that of the state, and cannot precede it, the one being a legal
and the other a religious ceremony. In the colonies this same law is
enforced, and the church is not allowed to perform a marriage ceremony
until after the legal ceremony of the state. It happens also that there
are serious impediments to the legal ceremony and sometimes deplorable
consequences. The contracting parties must know their ages—which the
African never knows; must know where they were born—which they have never
thought of asking and everybody has forgotten; must know their parents,
both father and mother. The African knows his mother; but as for his
father, he may never have asked his mother that personal question. They
could easily have recourse to lies and invent a father, but unfortunately
they are required to produce the parents that their verbal consent to the
marriage may be obtained. If the parents are not in the country a written
consent is required; and if they are dead the proofs of their death must
be produced in the form of a burial certificate.
These and other requirements may be good for France, but in Africa they
are puerile nonsense. Moreover, these legal bonds are very hard to break;
and that were well enough if only the moral bonds were strengthened
thereby, but they are not, and in the case of marital infidelity the
law binds only the innocent. For instance two of the very best women in
Gaboon, or in West Africa for that matter, were thus bound to husbands
who deserted them. One of those men took six other wives in utter
disregard of the legal marriage, but that outraged woman could not get a
divorce from him without a difficult and expensive process of law; nor,
being a Christian, was she willing to marry without a divorce. We could
not therefore advise, still less insist, that the Christians be married
by the state, though of course we did not advise to the contrary. And
without the legal marriage we were not allowed to perform the religious
ceremony.
I performed a few such ceremonies for those who had already been married
by the state official. On one occasion the young couple had decided to
be married with a ring. But I knew nothing of their intention, and I was
surprised when the groom, after the ceremony was entirely ended, produced
the ring and asked me what he was supposed to do with it. The bride on
that occasion was dressed in a Mother Hubbard of bright blue calico
decorated with white lobsters. But I officiated at another marriage in
which the bride was beautifully attired, and in good taste that would
have done credit to any white woman.
As the natives objected to the legal form of marriage, and we could
not conscientiously urge it upon them, there was no recognized or
satisfactory form. Of course there are heathen ceremonies, but some of
them are drunken orgies which the Christian conscience cannot allow;
and others are so silly that the civilized natives would regard with
abhorrence any suggestion of their observance. It is said that in some of
the tribes far east of us the bride and groom are required to climb two
young saplings, which are then swayed back and forth until their heads
knock together, whereby the marriage is constituted. One wonders what the
form for divorce would be like!
The want of a fixed form is very unfortunate. For it is only in such a
chaotic period of social transition that we learn the moral value of the
so much derided forms and ceremonies, and that without them the marriage
tie becomes so loose that it is practically abandoned by many. Gradually
it came to be recognized that the payment of the dowry constituted the
marriage. For there must be something to differentiate marriage from
unlawful relations. This served, though poorly, until the enlightened
Christian conscience pronounced against the dowry, and the best people
voluntarily refused to accept it and abandoned the custom. Since that
time there is no distinct ceremony among the Christian natives at Gaboon,
which is deplorable.
In lieu of a ceremony a useful custom has been introduced into the
church, namely, that shortly after marriage the man and woman shall
rise in their places in the weekly prayer-meeting, voluntarily, and
without the minister saying a word shall announce their marriage, the
man saying that he has taken this woman to be his wife and promising to
be faithful to her; likewise the woman. Well do I remember one night in
the Mpongwe Church when Barro and Anuroguli came to the prayer-meeting
which I was conducting, expecting to announce their recent marriage.
Barro rose at the end of the service and without the least embarrassment
announced his marriage and made his vows in most appropriate words. But
Anuroguli, sitting on the other side of the house, was seized with panic
and sat motionless with her finger in her mouth. Barro stood waiting
for her response while the women near her motioned to her, pulled her
dress, punched her in the ribs, until gradually the whole congregation
was remonstrating in loud whispers, which only increased the poor
little woman’s embarrassment, until, seeing that it would be a physical
impossibility for her to make her announcement, I took the risk of
the law, and rose and said: “Anuroguli wishes to announce,” etc.; and
having made her announcement for her, I closed the meeting. But, while
all recognize the propriety of this custom, it does not constitute the
marriage; for it takes place after marriage, sometimes long afterwards,
and it is not possible unless both parties are Christians.
Bojedi’s argument therefore was not without plausibility, and all these
facts that I have related he marshalled to his defense very ably and
with intense feeling, as we sat there in the dark schoolhouse. It was
plain that he had thought of all this before, and that before entering
on this relationship he had argued long with his conscience as he now
argued with me. But it was also plain that he argued in his defense and
not his justification, and that he had allowed his reason to coerce his
conscience. I replied that where there was nothing outward except a
public announcement to distinguish marriage from an illicit relation,
then the announcement became a duty binding on the conscience quite as
much as a ceremony; and that if marriage be not so distinguished we have
a society of “free love.” And again, as to the inwardness of the marriage
relation, upon which he dwelt, that it implied always, whether with or
without a ceremony, a sincere intention of _permanency_. I added: “From
the regard that you have expressed for Antyandi you would probably desire
that your present relation be permanent. But desire is not sufficient
without expectation also; and you know as well as I do that when you
leave Gaboon to return to your own people Antyandi will never go with
you, and even if she should remain here she would not be true to you.
You have therefore, with full knowledge, entered into a temporary
relationship; which is no marriage in any sense that a Christian can
admit.”
As repentance is the chief act of man, so it is also the hardest. To make
the admission of wrong to me was not so hard as to admit it to himself,
with all its consequences. But at last the admission came: a moment later
he was on his knees, in tears and sobs. He said: “It is not that I cannot
give up Antyandi; it will be hard enough, but I’ll do it. But it is the
wrong I have already done and the loss to myself that I feel. These two
years while I have been teaching your school I have lived differently
from all the other years of my life. Many things that I used to do I had
stopped doing. I was happy because my heart was clean, and because the
schoolboys all loved me and believed in me. And now all that I have built
up in these two years is pulled down. And what will the boys think of me?”
It would be cruel to repeat all that was said in that conversation. He
wept until I felt that tears could do no more, and then I tried to quiet
and comfort him. It was midnight when I left him.
Next day he sent a brief letter to Antyandi telling her that he had done
wrong, that he was very much ashamed, and that she must not expect him
ever to enter her house again. He fully realized that there was a hard
fight ahead of him and he thought best not to see her at all. She made
many attempts and plied her arts to get him again in her power. She wrote
him letters in which she professed to be dying for love of him. I went
to her and ordered her not to set her foot on the mission premises. She
regarded the order by day, but she came at night. She came to his window
waking him suddenly out of his sleep. She tried his door. She came at all
hours of the night. One night he found that he could not lock his door.
She had probably tampered with it; but he did not think of that, for
she had not been there for several nights. That night at midnight she
came. He broke loose from her and ran straight for my room, where I was
in bed asleep. He knocked and entered; then told me what had happened and
begged me to protect him. I told him he must stay in my room the rest of
that night; which he did, and slept on the floor. I kept him there every
night for a week; for more than once he had wavered though he had not
fallen. Thus she continued to do for two months; but the subject is not
a pleasant one, and we need not follow the course of events during that
period.
After two months we heard that she was in Libreville, the mistress of a
dignitary of the government, and Bojedi supposed that that would be the
last of her; but it was not. A month later the white man suddenly left
Libreville or died—I have forgotten which—and Antyandi returned home. A
few days afterwards, returning from the beach one morning, I observed
that in my absence some one had closed the door of my study which I had
left open; the windows also were closed and the blinds down. I hurried
in with a vague apprehension of something wrong. There sat Bojedi in the
darkened room, his face buried in his hands and sobbing as if his heart
would break. I knew instantly what had happened.
“How can I tell you!”
“There is no need to tell me,” I replied; “go to your own house, Bojedi,
and I shall follow you in a little while.”
I went to his house and he told me the whole story of his temptation and
fall, a story that I cannot repeat here. He told it with a broken voice
and crying all the time. The school had been closed two weeks before, the
boys were all gone and nobody around. Bojedi was waiting for the English
steamer, on which he was going home. This complete idleness after his
responsible and constant work was perhaps the devil’s opportunity. Still
crying he rose at length and opening a box took out all sorts of native
riches, presents from Antyandi, native robes which must have been paid
for by white men, a fancy bed-quilt and embroidered pillow-covers.
Without saying a word, but still sobbing, he made a pile of these things
just outside his door, while I looked on not knowing what he was going
to do, until he struck a match and set fire to them. Then he remarked:
“I should have done that long ago;” which I fully admitted; or else he
should have returned them, which would have been better. The next day he
left for home.
I felt that this moral fall was peculiarly serious, much more so than
some sin of sudden impulse. It was no doubt the very crisis of his life,
a long deliberate battle in which all his moral resources were called
out and all his moral energy engaged. Victory in such a fight transforms
temptation into a purifying alembic; but to fall in such a fight means
usually to be maimed for life.
Very soon after this I left Africa. Bojedi remained at home the following
year. He was married during the year. The last letter that I received
from him was dated at Brazzaville, in the very heart of Africa, on the
Upper Congo, where he had a good position with the _Commissaire Général_.
He says: “Your letter dated at Lebanon, Indiana, August 21, 1906, was
received March 20, 1907,” after which he tells me that just before he
left his home in Benito a son was born to him, whom he has named Robert
Milligan! May his tribe increase!
XV
A LITTLE SCHOLAR
The following letter, with some slight omissions and alterations, was
written on board the English steamer _Volta_ to a little circle of
friends in America:
_S. S. “Volta,” Aug. 7, 1900._
It is three months since I left Gaboon for a health-change on the sea,
and I am just now returning. I had supposed that I would be away only a
few weeks; but the time was prolonged by the sickness and death of an
African boy whom I called my little scholar, of whom it is the purpose of
this letter to give you some account.
Since the regretted resignation of Mr. Boppell on account of ill-health,
I have had charge of the Gaboon Church at Baraka, with the work among
the Mpongwe, besides my work among the Fang. You will remember that the
Mpongwe is a coast tribe, among whom our church has had a mission-work
for many years, while the Fang is the interior tribe (now, however,
extending to the coast), among whom the work is quite new. The strain of
so much additional work in such a climate greatly overtaxed me, and after
four months it became necessary either to take a furlough home, or a
health-change on the sea. The furlough was out of the question, for there
was no one to take my place. Accordingly on the 16th of May I left Gaboon
on this steamer expecting to go north as far as Fernando Po and return on
the next south-bound steamer, which would give me a vacation of a month.
Being in miserable health, I took along with me one of my Fang
schoolboys, Ndong Mba, the smallest and brightest of his class. I thought
I needed him to wait on me. And besides I intended to improve the idle
hours in talking Fang with him. But a week after we had left Gaboon Ndong
Mba was the patient and I was the nurse. The weeks and months that have
intervened, instead of being a period of rest and pleasure, have been the
most trying in all my African experience.
Ndong Mba was born in a town not far from Angom. While he was yet a
mere baby his father and mother died leaving him to the care of their
relations. However willing such relations may be to assume parental
authority over a child, they are not so willing to assume responsibility
for his care, for the parental love is absent. Moreover, Ndong was
very frail; and such a child is not attractive to the African woman,
except his own mother. He was therefore heartlessly neglected, until
my predecessor, Rev. Arthur W. Marling, finding him hungry and crying,
and knowing his miserable plight, took pity on him and carried him in
his arms to the mission. Ndong often told me about the kindness of the
missionaries. But there was a long interval when Mr. Marling was away
on furlough; and then he was dependent upon distant relations who made
him thoroughly acquainted with hunger and hard work. He continued frail
and was very small, appearing, when I afterwards knew him, several years
younger than he was really was.
He attended the school at Angom which was well kept and well taught
under Mr. Marling’s administration; and at an age when most children do
not know their letters he could read. I, who did not know him until the
beginning of this present year, have regarded him as an intellectual
prodigy. His knowledge of the Scripture and his understanding of it was
astonishing in one so young. The whole Gospel of Matthew, the only one
which has been translated into the Fang, he knew almost by heart, besides
a considerable acquaintance with the other Scriptures through the Mpongwe
translations; for he knew Mpongwe almost as well as Fang. He was baptized
and received into the church at a younger age perhaps than any other
child has ever been received in our mission; and through the years that
have since passed, amidst degrading surroundings of which you in the
homeland can scarcely conceive, this little boy kept the faith which he
then professed, and grew up pure, truthful, unselfish and affectionate.
Mr. Marling died in the fall of 1896, Ndong Mba being then, probably,
seven or eight years old. Long before this, however, the people of his
town had moved far away, leaving him behind, and were quite lost sight
of. He was now without friends, white or black, at the age of eight. In
a distant bush-town there was a woman who had formerly lived in Ndong’s
town: he made his way to her and begged her to take him in. There, in a
town remote from missionary influence, in which there was not one person
related to him, the poor little stranger lived for three years, during
which no missionary either saw him or heard of him. His position in the
town was not much better than that of everybody’s slave. His frailty,
instead of insuring greater kindness, only made him contemptible.
Whenever he spoke of those three years it was always of his sufferings
there, and his back was injured by the heavy loads that had been put upon
him. He was the only Christian in the town; but there is no doubt that
through those hard and lonely years the little Christian was constant and
faithful in profession and practice;—as strange, upon its human side, as
that a lighted candle should withstand a winter’s storm.
At the end of this time a long-wished-for opportunity came; he joined
a company of travellers and again reached Angom, hoping to find a
missionary there. There was no missionary there at the time and he found
the station closed; but, in a town close by, a woman was visiting who
years before had lived in Ndong’s town. She was probably a Christian
woman, for she was compassionate. Her heart was touched and she took him
with her to her home near the coast. It was only a few weeks after this
that I met him, at the beginning of this year.
I was gathering a class of Fang boys who had already received a primary
education in the school at Angom, hoping that with time and training they
might become teachers, and later on, in the providence of God, perhaps
preachers. I heard of this boy, and immediately I visited the town where
he was staying. The name of the town was typical, _Ebol Nzok_: _Rotten
Elephant_. It seems that when the people of this town still lived in
the interior bush they sent a delegation down the river to choose a
site for a new town near the coast. The delegation selected a beautiful
site, where the river broadens out into the great estuary. They returned
and reported their success, and the whole large town at once prepared
to move. As they approached the chosen site, and while they were still
at a distance, they found the atmosphere of the new country pervaded
with a most disagreeable smell which grew worse and worse,—a horrible
stench which made them hold their noses, a breath from Gehenna, almost
palpable. They forced a passage through it and went on until they reached
the middle of the chosen site, where they found the huge carcass of an
elephant in an acute stage of decomposition. They thought it proper to
commemorate this historical incident in the name of their town, which
they called _Rotten Elephant_: _Ebol Nzok_.
When I visited Ebol Nzok and asked for Ndong Mba they told me he was
away in the distant gardens at work; so I left word that I would like to
see him at Baraka as soon as he could come. One morning, not long after,
a tiny little boy came into my study and stood before me, his body thin
and frail, but unusually clean, and with extraordinary eyes, dark and
sparkling beneath long black lashes. Looking up eagerly into my face and
very much excited, he said: “I’m Ndong Mba; I’ve come; and I’m so glad
you sent for me. I have not seen a missionary since Mr. Marling died; and
I’ve not been to church, and I’ve not been to school, and I thought the
missionaries had thrown me away. And there were no Christians where I
live. I was alone; and I prayed and prayed all the time to come back to
the mission; and now I’m here; and I’m so glad; and I will do anything
you ask if you let me stay here; for I can work, and you won’t be sorry
if you let me be your boy.” Thus he went on with his pathetic appeal. And
this was really Ndong Mba, of whom I had so often heard!
The unusual intelligence of the eyes that looked into mine, eyes in which
the tears were now quivering, the faded rag—but very clean—which was the
sum of his clothing, and other marks of neglect and suffering, moved me
deeply. Drawing the poor little waif close to me I said: “I am glad to
see you, Ndong Mba,” which he accepted as a sufficient answer.
I took him into my class and also assigned him certain work for which I
said I would pay him, so that he could buy the little clothing and other
things that he needed. He replied: “Little boys don’t need money; I only
want a father to take care of me, and I’ll work for him all the time.” I
thought best, however, to insist upon paying him, but at the same time I
told him that I would take care of him as long as we were together. All
that day, throughout its duties and its noise, those wonderful appealing
eyes seemed still to be looking up into mine. I felt that God had given
into my charge one of His little ones, that I might help to fit him for a
great service to his people in years to come. Through all the weeks and
months that followed, during which he was continually with me, he fully
justified my first impression of him.
This is the little boy that I took with me from Gaboon in May. The second
day he had what seemed to be a light attack of malarial fever. The ship’s
doctor said that he had only caught cold, and assured me that he would
be better next day. But the next day he was worse, and the next still
worse. One of our missionary physicians came on board at Batanga, going
home on furlough. He found Ndong Mba very sick indeed. He had pneumonia—a
very severe attack—and pleurisy with it, causing him great pain; this,
together with a hard fever. The situation was distressing. I was sick
myself and scarcely able to be out of bed, and had brought Ndong along to
wait on me. But now he was worse than myself and I was waiting on him.
When we reached Fernando Po, where I had expected to land and to wait for
the south-bound steamer, there was scarcely a hope that he would live;
and whatever small hope there was would have been cut off by moving him
and taking him away from the doctor’s care. I had therefore no choice
but to remain on board; and I went on to Teneriffe, where I waited three
weeks, until the return of this same steamer from England. Indeed, on my
own account it would not have been advisible to land at Fernando Po. For
I had been attending Ndong almost day and night, and my health-change
had thus far been only a change for the worse. Others on board, fellow
missionaries, had been kind in trying to relieve me; but as Ndong
suffered more, and the fever raged, they could not control him; and after
a few minutes they would be obliged to call me. But they remarked that
when I came I had only to speak his name, and he was quiet; and the brave
little man even tried not to let me see how sick he was.
I greatly regretted the necessity of going on to Teneriffe; for I had
expected to be away from my work only one month and had arranged it
accordingly, and this extension of my trip would keep me away three
months and the consequences to the work distressed me. I no more enjoyed
the trip than if I had been a prisoner in irons. Besides, there was
difficulty in regard to my accommodations on board, a difficulty that
was increasing at each port as we took on more passengers. I had engaged
only a deck-passage for Ndong; but Captain Button whose kindness I
can never forget, had told me to take him into my cabin. Thus far I
had occupied the cabin alone, but I could not expect that favour to
continue longer, as other passengers were coming onboard, and already
there were two persons in each of the other cabins. The full price of
the cabin for myself and Ndong to Teneriffe and return would have been
about five hundred dollars. It was therefore a considerable favour that
I was accepting from the captain, and it was now at the cost of possible
discomfort to others. But this difficulty, I thought, would not last
long, for it did not seem that Ndong would live more than a few days.
The captain told me not to think of the matter of accommodations at all;
that he would leave me that cabin as long as he possibly could, and if it
should become impossible, he actually said that I should bring Ndong up
to his own cabin and occupy it. One would need to have been on the coast
to have any just appreciation of such extraordinary kindness towards a
little black boy. Moreover, almost every morning the captain came to my
cabin door and asked for the boy.
Again the unexpected happened. Ndong, one might almost say, neither died
nor lived. He simply lingered, and lingered on, through weary weeks.
After a while the worst of his suffering was past, but in his extreme
weakness he required almost as much attention as ever. He was quite
unable to walk and could only leave his bed as some one carried him, but
it was no difficult matter to carry him for he had rapidly wasted away
until he was no heavier than a baby. I need not relate the history of
those weeks; there were few incidents to recount; but I wish that you
might have witnessed the patience of the poor little sufferer.
He had his moments of doubt too. One day when he was talking to me, as I
lay in the adjoining berth, I told him that we must try to sleep because
that we both were sick. “You sick?” he asked. “You sick, too?”
He partly rose in his bed, and leaning his head on his hand, looked long
and wistfully at me. After a while I asked him what he was thinking of.
“I am wondering,” he replied slowly, “why we two should be sick. We are
both Christians and you are a minister, and there are so many on board
who do not try to do right. I hear them cursing God all the time as they
pass up and down the gangway. And they are all well. I have often thought
of it; but I do not understand.” A little boy from the depths of the
African jungle struggles with the same question which sorely tried an
ancient sufferer, and to which his friends gave but vain answers.
There was among the deck-passengers a woman whose language Ndong knew,
although it was not his own. Before his sickness reached the worst I
sometimes asked this woman to sit with him while I sat on deck. One day
he said to me: “Mr. Milligan, we must pray for that woman. She is in
great darkness. She talked about things she ought not to mention; and I
told her about Jesus.”
We called at many ports along the way; but I did not leave the ship. On
the fourth Sunday we reached Sierra Leone, usually the last African port
for these ships of the southwest coast. In this splendid and beautiful
harbour with its amphitheatre of hills, there were more vessels together
than I had seen in years. But the most interesting of all was a British
man-of-war. I heard the singing at the “divine service” which is held
every Sunday morning on all British war-ships. All the passengers
excepting myself had gone ashore, and I was alone on the deck, and not
only alone, but lonely and tired. Ndong was sleeping in a chair beside
me. It was then that the first hymn from the war-ship rang clear across
the still water, sung in perfect time by that large chorus of strong
men’s voices, the harbour forming a perfect acoustic chamber. The tune
was the old classic, “St. Anne.” The words were those usually sung to
this tune in our own churches, “Our God, our help in the ages past!”
I have never heard anything more beautiful and impressive; and after
my long exile in the jungle my mind was susceptive to the influence of
its power and beauty. The hymn, both words and music, had always been a
favourite, answering, as it seemed to me, to something fundamental in
our nature; but from this time it became _the_ favourite. And since that
time, whenever I ask choirs and congregations to sing it I am always
hearing within and beyond their voices, the music of that chorus of men
in the far off African harbour. I cannot forbear to quote the words.
“Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come;
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home!
“Under the shadow of Thy throne,
Thy saints have dwelt secure;
Sufficient is Thine arm alone,
And our defense is sure.
“Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received her frame,
From everlasting Thou art God,
To endless years the same.
“Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly, forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.
“Our God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be Thou our Guard while troubles last,
And our eternal home.”
At the end of five weeks we reached Teneriffe Island, where I waited
three weeks for the return of the _Volta_ from Liverpool. As we
approached the harbour of Santa Cruz the captain called me to the bridge
to see an American flag which waved from a mast among the flags of all
nations. “Come,” said he, “and feast your eyes on your American gridiron.”
It did not take me long to get to the bridge. “Don’t point it out,” said
I, “let me find it myself.”
Those who have wandered much in foreign lands are more deeply imbued with
the sentiment of the flag. But to feel it to the full one must have lived
for years in an uncivilized land, where liberty is not yet born. The
sight of the flag to me that day was like hearing Madam Patti sing _Home
Sweet Home_.
I landed at Santa Cruz and remained there four days—days of unpleasant
recollection. It was thought best to keep Ndong as much as possible
in the open air. Though very weak he could walk, and I led him by the
hand. One would think that these Spaniards of Santa Cruz had never seen
a black skin before; the poor emaciated form added greatly to their
curiosity; and above all, the novelty of a white man caring for one who
to them was only a “little black nigger.” I no sooner appeared with the
child than a crowd gathered around me, and I found myself the centre of
a dirty procession of all ages and genders, that followed me round and
round the block in increasing numbers; large girls walking backwards in
front of me; women with baskets of clothes on their heads going out of
their way to walk by my side and staring with open mouth,—all of them
staring. The slightest betrayal of irritation on my part would have
served only to increase the crowd, and I tried to look perfectly composed
and good-natured. But now and then there was an inward rise of unsaintly
feeling that resembled that of the two she-bears of Holy Scripture that
rudely scattered a crowd of young Spaniards following hard upon the heels
of an ancient prophet.
Ndong was at first exasperated by this unwelcome publicity; but
later his feelings were relieved by an inadvertent remark. Before
reaching Teneriffe, two missionary ladies, to whom I am grateful for
many kindnesses, had made a little suit for him out of some of their
own clothes. This suit was far beyond anything he had ever hoped to
possess. And in addition to this I bought him a pair of shoes at Santa
Cruz—little canvas shoes with hemp soles, for which I paid a peseta. When
he protested against the rude staring of the Spaniards, and was about
to cry, I remarked that perhaps these poor Spanish children were only
admiring his fine clothes. He took me more literally than I had expected,
and from that time made no more complaint.
After four days I left Santa Cruz by a stage-coach, travelling directly
across the middle of the island to Orotava, a small port on the other
side. Orotava is situated at the base of the great Teneriffe Peak, one of
the greatest in the world, which rises to a height of 12,500 feet above
the sea and is supposed to be the Mt. Atlas of ancient fable. Above the
town the broad landscape, on which the quaint hut of the toiling peasant
contrasts with stately English homes, rises at first slowly and then more
rapidly, until at last it sweeps upward far above the clouds. On a hill
three miles from the town towards the Peak stands the magnificent English
hotel, where I stayed, surrounded with many acres of the loveliest
flowers in terraced gardens. It is a perfect fairy-land. The hotel is
immense in size, and in winter it is filled with English guests; but I
was there in summer and I was the only guest.
The hotel commands the finest view of the Peak. It is usually hidden
behind the clouds by day, and is visible in the evening. As one sees
it first, in the late afternoon, a white cloud is stretched across its
middle height, concealing the mountain all but the very summit which
appears like a celestial island floating upon radiant clouds in the high
heavens. It is fifteen miles to the summit. There is a good road and one
can make the ascent on a donkey, all but the last three miles, which most
people prefer to walk. Near the summit the ground is hot a few inches
below the surface, which is usually the only evidence that it is still
an active volcano. But two years ago there issued from the crater for
several mouths a volume of smoke which at the distance of the hotel,
fifteen miles, appeared as large as the funnel of an ocean steamer.
The distance from Santa Cruz to Orotava is twenty-six miles; and the
road of course passes up and down the mountain grades, in some places
very steep. We were nine hours on the way. The old coach, a relic of
bygone ages, was so “romantic” that I doubted whether it would ever
reach its destination. It was drawn by three scraggy horses, a little
older than the coach, at whom the driver never ceased shouting, as he
cracked his long-lashed whip about their heads. The harness was of sundry
materials, leather straps, ropes and chains, tied and knotted any place
and everywhere. And they were continually parting, especially in critical
ascents of the road, at which the driver would spring from his seat in a
panic, as if such a casualty had never happened before, notwithstanding
the evidence of many previous knots. Then seeing the excitement of the
passengers, who were trying to scramble out, but in such disorder that
they jammed together and each one prevented the others, he would block
the coach and proceed to repair the harness, in which art he ought to
have been an expert, if practice makes perfect. No sooner did we reach
the next ascent, however, than as if by the spell of some malignant
sprite all the knots untied at the same moment, and again the passengers
were thrown into a state of panic.—But one gets used to being killed. We
had two relays of horses on the way.
The coach was apparently intended for four persons, but for a
considerable part of the distance was occupied by seven, four of whom
smoked cheap cigars, although the windows were closed much of the time.
For we ascended the mountain to a great height, and night coming on at
the same time, it was very cold, much more so than I had prepared for,
and being fresh from the equator, I suffered as if I had been thrust
into the Arctic zone. Ndong had a high fever, and I had to wrap my
travelling-rug around him. The result was that for the next ten days I
had one of the severest colds I have ever had in my life. The coach was
so crowded that I could only save Ndong from being crushed or sat upon by
holding him on my knee, but he was very much exhausted by the journey.
Before reaching Orotava I left the coach which did not pass the Grand
Hotel, to which I was bound. I took a carriage, which carried some of the
mails from that point, and which passed the hotel. The driver was told
to leave me at the hotel. But he forgot and took me on down the steep
grade, a mile further towards the town. Then, recalling the order he had
received he suddenly stopped, and pointing to the lights of the hotel
up the steep height behind us invited me to get out. I kept my seat and
requested him to drive me back to the hotel. A “palaver” ensued in which
neither of us understood in particular what the other was saying. For he
spoke only Spanish, of which I did not know a sentence. I had no money
accessible before reaching the hotel. I tried to tell him that I would
pay him; but he probably did not understand. Then I thought that the
matter might as well be cut short; so pointing to the hotel I gave him a
peremptory order in the English language, but the accent was universal.
In reply he whipped his horses and drove straight on to the town.
Reaching his destination, on the main street, he jumped down and with
violent gesticulation proceeded to throw all my baggage into the street,
which was a sufficient inducement for me to follow; and I found myself,
at eleven o’clock at night, miserably cold, with a sick child in my arms,
and with all my baggage, in the street of a foreign town where there was
no person with whom I could speak a word.
Several loafers who were still abroad gathered around, and recalling by
mere chance the name of a Spanish hotel in the town, I directed them to
carry my baggage and the child, and show me the way to it. Fortunately
it was quite near. I remained there that night, and next day went to the
Grand.
In the community there was a physician, whose services I requested, Dr.
Ingram, a Scotchman, who was residing there for his health. He found
that one of Ndong’s lungs was completely congested, and he advised that
I should send him to a hospital three miles further up the mountainside
and close to his home. Accordingly I took Ndong to the hospital where he
remained for a week.
I went every day to see him, riding the six miles, to the hospital and
back, on a donkey, which added another chapter of novel experience. The
Canary Island donkey is a very diminutive quadruped, the colour of a
mouse and as innocent looking as a lamb. Its ears are about as long as
its legs. The price of the donkey’s hire includes the owner, who runs
behind and shouts, and prods him with a stick. After two days’ experience
I concluded that shouting and prodding were of no use whatever, and
realizing that the moral man in me was rapidly degenerating, I decided
on the third day to leave the driver at home and even pay a higher price
if necessary for the donkey without a driver, intending myself to assume
the management of this soft-eyed creature, who perhaps only needed a
little petting, for those eyes bespoke a peaceful temper. The owner
readily assented to the proposition and very wisely requested me to pay
in advance.
In a few minutes I had experienced to the full the pain of misplaced
confidence. My donkey was a facsimile of the immortal _Modestine_. Having
patted the donkey kindly and exchanged with her a long look of mutual
regard, I mounted. She started off on an easy trot until the owner was
out of sight. Then she stopped and stood still and declined to go on in
spite of coaxing, kicking and whipping, until I seriously thought of
building a fire under her to get her to move. While I was reflecting
upon the adaptation of means to ends and for the time had ceased from
all measures of coercion, she started as suddenly as she had stopped
and with as little reason. She seemed to be clear outside the principle
of causality that inheres in the universe. And having started, she ran
anywhere and in every direction, evincing neither purpose nor method in
her going except a marked predilection for hedges and brambles.
In less than two minutes, however, she reverted to her natural gait,
which, like that of _Modestine_, was something as much slower than a walk
as a walk is slower than a run. Under cruel and continuous beating I
forced her to maintain a gait that I hoped would carry me to the hospital
and back before night, six miles in an entire afternoon. Occasionally
my spirit revolted from the ignoble occupation of so maltreating a poor
dumb animal. But the moment I relaxed she turned aside from the road and
began to browse. Each peasant that passed me threw back his head and
laughed. An inward consciousness that I would have laughed myself if I
had been in their place only added to my misery. “But O, what a cruel
thing is a farce to those engaged in it!” Under the influence of their
laughter and the perversity of _Modestine_ humanity died in my heart and
I belaboured her with all the strength and vivacity that my health would
allow, stopping only to get my breath and to mop the perspiration from my
superheated brow. Of course, I might better have walked the rocky ascent;
but in one thing I was as obstinate as the donkey—I would not give up my
undertaking to ride her to the hospital and back. Besides, I kept hoping
that, as she could not do worse, she might possibly do better; otherwise
my arm should have failed me for despair. And to think that I was paying
for all this disservice! By some strange fortuity of circumstances we
actually reached the hospital, and afterwards the hotel, where I took
final leave of her, a weary but a wiser man. At parting she again turned
to me with an affectionate look of lamb-like innocence; but a deep sense
of injury together with aching limbs rendered me insensible to her
magnanimity.
The people of Teneriffe are so far behind modern times that the barbers
are still the surgeons. Dr. Ingram blistered Ndong’s congested lung and
the barber was afterwards called in daily to dress the wound. After six
days I took Ndong back to the hotel. He seemed on the way to recovery,
and was much stronger on his feet.
Under Mr. Marling’s teaching he had acquired a habit of prayer morning
and evening to which he had ever been faithful. Nothing could surpass the
pathos of the prayers that he offered thanking God for every kindness
that he had received from anybody and pleading for his complete recovery.
He knew that he was a great care to me and it troubled him. On one
occasion he entreated: “O Father in heaven, please make me well; for I’ve
been sick so long; and I’m so little; and I have no father nor mother.”
The day after he returned from the hospital I observed that he was
inclined to be impatient; the next day he was more impatient, and was
positively disobedient. I was surprised and pained; and I wondered
whether it could be possible that my constant care had in any way spoiled
a disposition which years of neglect and adversity had only sweetened.
But it was soon explained. That evening while he was eating his dinner,
in a little room next the dining-room where I was eating mine, I heard
him talking excitedly to the waiter. I immediately went to him and
carried him to my room. He sat down and covering his face with both his
hands held them there without moving. I spoke to him but he did not
answer. Then removing his hands from his face, I called him by name. He
turned his eyes towards mine in an agony of fear: it was his last sane
moment. He uttered a loud shriek, and another, and another. I caught
him in my arms as he went into a convulsion and laid him on my bed. But
I knew that upon this poor little boy, from his birth marked out for
misfortune, and who had now suffered so long, had at last fallen the
most terrible of human calamities—insanity; and that, too, just when his
recovery seemed hopeful.
All night he continued talking wildly, and shrieking at intervals. In
the morning he was more quiet, though not more sane. Nor was there any
marked change during the ten long weary days that we still remained in
the hotel. He gradually became weaker and more insane. I did not let him
out of my sight except when I went to my meals, and then I locked him in
my room.
Once when I returned from dinner I found him dressed in a suit of white
pajamas of mine. He said to me: “That woman who comes in to attend to the
room while you are at dinner is a very foolish person. She came in this
evening and looked at me and laughed, and laughed. But all Spaniards seem
to be foolish.”
On the 10th of July I returned to Santa Cruz. The next day the _Volta_
arrived and I immediately went on board. I looked forward with dread
to the long journey on the steamer with an insane child. I engaged a
second-class cabin (although I was a first-class passenger) that I might
be removed from the white passengers; for on these steamers there are
seldom any white men travelling second-class. Again, by the kindness of
the captain, Ndong occupied the cabin with me. He was determined to go
all over the ship, but it was more than ever necessary that I should
restrain him. He became impatient of the restraint, and regarded me as
his prison-keeper. It made a great difference when this child, who had
loved me with the utmost devotion, now turned against me. But his own
suffering was increased by this feeling; nor was there anything I could
do to relieve it. I simply waited for the end and prayed to Him who
tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.
There were on board sixteen officers of the English army who were
expecting to debark at Cape Coast Castle and were bound for the Ashantee
territory of the interior, which, as you probably know, has been for
several mouths the scene of another great uprising of the natives almost
as formidable as that of thirty years ago. When we reached Sierra
Leone, we also took on board more than two hundred native soldiers, as
deck-passengers. I am glad to testify that among these sixteen officers
there were several real gentlemen, in the American sense; others were
tolerable; and there were still others. They were not pleasant fellow
passengers. We were looking forward with some dread to their last
night on board; and they also were looking forward to it, but with
feelings entirely different from ours. We were expecting to reach Cape
Coast Castle on Thursday. But for the last sixty hours the captain,
without telling anybody, used the reserve power of two knots an hour,
increasing our full speed from ten to twelve knots. Accordingly, it was
with astonishment and unmixed joy that on Wednesday morning, coming on
deck, we read on the bulletin: “Cape Coast Castle this morning at eight
o’clock!” They had not time to get drunk.
But, in any case, the heartrending scene which we witnessed soon after
we had anchored would probably have sobered them. Five missionaries of
the Swiss _Basle Mission_ were brought on board in a most pitiful and
awful condition. Among them was that great and widely-known veteran, Mr.
Ramseyer, whom I had long wished to meet. Mrs. Ramseyer was also in the
party, besides two other younger women and another man.
At the outbreak of the war these missionaries had fled to Kummassi,
the seat of the English government, and were there when that city was
besieged by the natives. The English governor was also in the city.
For several months they had lived on half-rations, until they were
so reduced in flesh that their friends would not have recognized
them. All this time they were waiting and watching for the arrival of
reinforcements from the English army. At last, having waited for the
expected relief until their supplies were nearly exhausted, they broke
through the lines of the enemy and made a desperate effort to reach
the coast. The governor escaped at the same time and with his retinue
started for the coast by a different road. Along the main road the enemy
was strongest so that it was impassable; therefore the missionary party
of six persons, three men and their wives, together with their fifty
carriers, took a most circuitous road, and indescribably bad. They all
walked but Mrs. Ramseyer who was carried in a hammock. Many of their
carriers were shot down by the enemy and others died by the way, being
exhausted by famine. I think it was only fifteen carriers that reached
the coast. One man of the missionary party died when they had been a
week on the way. They walked for twenty-five successive days before they
reached the coast. One woman, the wife of the man who died on the way,
walked all the last day without shoes.
“That day, as well as others,” said Mr. Ramseyer, “we waded in water to
our waists, and sometimes almost to the women’s shoulders.”
The collapse came when they reached the coast; at least for all but Mr.
Ramseyer, a man of iron constitution. The next day the _Volta_ called and
they were brought on board and were laid upon the deck like corpses; all
but Mr. Ramseyer.
The captain, whose humour and inexhaustible anecdote were usually an
antidote for the tedium and weariness of so long a journey, was overcome
by the scene on deck to the extent that I saw him brush a tear away.
And then, finding it absolutely necessary to do something, as a vent to
his feeling of sympathy, and supposing that the very best thing for the
missionary party all round would be a strong stimulant, he stepped to the
skylight and shouted: “Whisky! Whisky!” Then, evidently reflecting that
if a little whisky were good, more would be better, he circulated about
the deck shouting, “Whisky!” at every steward who put his head out of a
port-hole.
It sounded like an invocation to some favourite fetish; and for that
matter whisky is the fetish of many white men in West Africa. They invoke
its aid in all their troubles. If there had been many more stewards
around, I am afraid there would have been a serious shortage of whisky
for the rest of the voyage, and such an event would have created greater
consternation on the coast than the Ashantee war itself.
“Great Scott!” exclaimed a man in the saloon who had been occupied with
writing and did not know what was occurring on deck, “where is all that
whisky going at this hour of the morning? What’s come on board? the
English army?”
“No,” replied the steward, “it’s a party of missionaries.” The man
went up the companionway two steps at a time to see the party of
missionaries who could drink so much whisky. I do not remember whether
the missionaries drank any of the whisky; but it may be taken for granted
that it was not wasted.
While they still lay on the deck, Mr. Ramseyer, standing up, told the
story of their sufferings to the shocked and eager passengers assembled
about him. Until this morning the war had been a kind of a jest to these
officers of the army; but now it became a stern reality, and the change
in their behaviour was noticeable. One of them, by the way, was shot by a
native and instantly killed a few days after landing.
That same evening Mr. Ramseyer told me of the experience of himself and
Mrs. Ramseyer in the former Ashantee war, thirty years ago. In that war
they were captured by the natives and held for ransom. Five long years,
from 1869 to 1874, they were prisoners, carried about from place to place
to escape the pursuit of the English. They were told that they would
be killed rather than given up. During the first year their feet were
put in stocks at night to prevent their escape. But they made friends
of their captors, who finally gave them up without ransom. They went to
Switzerland for a long rest, and then returned again to their work.
Mr. Ramseyer closed his story of this latest war by declaring
triumphantly that the Christian natives had not taken part in the
rebellion; though their loyalty had cost many of them their lives.
I have digressed at length from my subject and am several days ahead
of my story; but I am glad to have this opportunity of recording the
heroism of this grand old man, great alike in counsel and in action;
whose advice successive governors of Ashantee for many years have sought;
and the equal heroism of his noble wife, and the devotion of the other
missionaries of the party, who might have escaped safely at the outbreak
of this war, but that they chose rather to suffer with their people.
I said that from the time we came on board at Santa Cruz Ndong was
disposed to wander over the ship, and I had to watch him closely. Several
times he escaped from me. On one occasion I had been up with him until
about three o’clock in the morning. He was then asleep and I also lay
down and slept soundly for a little while. But during this time he had
wakened and was gone. The door was fastened at the first hook and I did
not suppose that he could pass through. He went on a tour of inspection
around the ship; but in a few minutes he was tired and wished to return.
He became confused and wandered into the saloon, at the other end of
the deck, and from the saloon into the cabin which he had occupied with
me when we went north. One of the army officers, a captain, an entire
stranger to me at the time, occupied the cabin. Imagine his surprise when
he was awakened in the dark by a strange hand upon his face. Supposing
it to be the hand of a robber, he seized it; but finding how very, very
small it was, he concluded that his life was not in immediate danger. He
remembered the little boy whom he had seen with me, and calling a steward
he sent him to me. I apologized to the gentleman next morning as best I
could. His generosity relieved my humiliation.
All the way to Teneriffe Ndong had been getting weaker each day. One
morning I took him on deck as usual, but in a little while he asked to be
carried back to bed. All that day and the next he lay quietly repeating
stories from the Gospel, one after another. He was again patient and
loving as before, and his mind was clearer. On Thursday morning, July
19th, about three o’clock he wakened, and I rose and sat beside him. He
was very weak and spoke with effort. But after a while he talked more,
and without difficulty. I had partly raised him in the bed and he lay on
the pillows with his arm around my neck. At last, with eyes dilated and
aglow with the beauty of another world, he said: “I see Mr. Marling; he
comes towards the door; and beyond him I see the City of God; and Jesus
is there. Do you not see, Mr. Milligan?”
“No, Ndong,” I said.
After a while he fell asleep; and some hours later he passed into the
deeper sleep in which there is “no more pain”; for he had gone to be with
Jesus, “which is far better.”
That same day at noon we buried him at sea, two hundred miles west of
Sierra Leone. Only those who have witnessed a burial at sea know how it
affects the mind with a nameless depression and spreads a gloom over
all on board. It is perhaps the awful vastness of the ocean grave that
imparts this sense of desolation. The sailors have many superstitions
regarding death on shipboard. For instance, they say that sharks
invariably follow the ship for twenty-four hours before a death takes
place.
I have several times conducted burial services at sea;—once, on a French
steamer, the burial of a deputy-governor of Senegal. The body wrapped in
canvas, and with heavy weights at the feet, is placed upon a plank at
the open gangway, with the feet towards the sea, ropes being attached to
the inner end of the gangplank. After the service, at the signal of the
captain, the engines are stopped, whose ceaseless beating, night and day,
the ear had not seemed to hear until it stopped. The ensuing stillness
is like the sudden suspension of nature. At this moment the sailors
standing by lift the ropes and draw the gangplank over the ship’s side
until it tilts and the body slides into the sea. A momentary circling of
the water, and nothing more remains to mark the place. Another signal,
the engines again commence the ceaseless beating, and the effect is even
more depressing; it is like the sudden knocking at the gate after the
murder in _Macbeth_. Death is only realized in contrast to the world’s
activity. On these African steamers which so often have the sick on
board, especially on the homeward voyage, deaths are often kept secret
and the burials performed at night, for the sake of the passengers; and
it is a kindly custom.
The bodies of natives dying on board are often flung overboard without
even being wrapped, and there is never any formal service. But the
captain of the _Volta_ to all the rest of his kindness added this also,
that he gave little Ndong a white man’s burial. The boatswain wrapped the
body in its canvas shroud and laid it upon the gangplank with the British
flag thrown over it. As I took my place at the side, the captain stepped
forward and stood beside me. A missionary brother read some verses of
Scripture; another missionary, of Ndong’s own colour, offered a prayer.
The captain gave the signal and the body, wrapped in its “heavy-shotted
hammock-shroud, dropped in its vast and wandering grave.”
I have said little of his passionate love for me; but it will ever be one
of the sweetest memories of my life in Africa. And when my own time comes
and I shall see with unholden eyes the land that is fairer than day, I am
thinking that among those who first shall greet me will be Ndong Mba, the
little scholar.
XVI
A CHURCH
“Ethiopia shall haste to stretch out her hands unto
God.”—_Psalm_ 68:31.
There are many who seem to think that the heathen, the world over, are
reiterating the ancient cry of Macedonia, “Come over and help us,” and
that multitudes are converted to Christianity at the first hearing of
the Gospel; notwithstanding that in our own land those who know its
transcendent import and ample evidence, and those who have even been
trained in Christian households, are not so easily won. Degradation and
ignorance are a poor preparation for Christian faith.
To the cultured heathen of old the Gospel was foolishness, and it is
not less foolish to the uncultured heathen. The inspiring vision of a
nation in a day is more poetic than factual. Neither the nation nor the
individual is won in a day. Evangelism would be a simple process if it
were only to say, as Philip said to Nathanael: “Come and see.” Nathanael,
however, was not a bloodthirsty savage, but a pious Jew. It is certain
that our duty does not end in merely announcing the Gospel to the
heathen, and giving them the opportunity to hear, while we pass the word
on to others; for this does not evangelize, nor accomplish anything else
worth while. The watchword, lifted with battle-cry fervour, that appeals
for the evangelization of the world in this generation, has inspired
the zeal of many and has thereby done good service; but it is liable
to look for geographical rather than moral results, and the policy of
missions, if it respond to this exigent desire, becomes spectacular, the
aim being to cover the utmost territory. New work is begun before the old
is half done, with a consequent waste of the labour already expended. New
stations are opened before the old are half manned for thorough work; and
since only a thorough work can ever become self-sustaining and be left to
take care of itself, it follows that this principle of forced extension
defeats every other principle, and in the end defeats itself.
I know eleven missionary societies working in West Africa, and in most
of those societies there is need of a policy based upon reality versus
romance. In most of them the missionaries agree that the stations are
seriously undermanned. I know one mission station at least which has
been opened for more than sixty-five continuous years, and missionaries
are still there without the least likelihood of their moving on; for the
simple reason that the station has been so undermanned in all these years
that they have not yet trained a native ministry; whereas, if instead
of making haste to open new stations they had concentrated their forces
there in sufficient numbers to do a thorough work, they might have left
it long ago to the care of the natives themselves, and the missionaries
might have opened new fields, with the likelihood that those also would
in a reasonable length of time be sufficiently evangelized to be left to
themselves.
Nothing retards progress like too much haste. The cause of the
undermanned stations and the resultant crippled work is not, as many will
say, that there are not enough missionaries, but that there are too many
stations. The policy cannot make missionaries, but it does make stations,
and a wise policy will adapt the number of stations to the number of
missionaries, instead of so scattering the missionaries that not one
of them can do a work that will remain. In the arithmetic of missions
two men can do not only twice as much but ten times as much as one. The
French Protestant Society, whose work on the Ogowé River in the Congo
Français is without doubt the most successful work in all West Africa,
have only two stations, but have ten missionaries at each station.
Neither can it be said that the crippled force at work in most of the
missions is due to the hostile climate, inasmuch as every year, and
almost every month, the unexpected happens, and missionaries are obliged
to lay down their work suddenly and go home. I reply that _elsewhere_
(as I have said before) it is the unexpected that happens, but in Africa
it is the unexpected that we _expect_. We know the climate. It is one of
the exigencies of the situation, and since the policy cannot change the
climate, the climate ought to change the policy.
A policy of true evangelism must aim to establish a self-sustaining
church, that is, a church which is independent of foreign money, and
which is manned with its own ministry; and this is a slow process. It
involves a threefold work, that of preaching (not on Sunday only, but
daily, probably itinerating) that of teaching (at least in Africa, where
there are no native schools) and the higher training for the ministry.
If any one of these departments is wanting, the work is not progressing
towards a self-sustaining church, and the policy is so far defective. But
here is work for several men, at least, at one mission station. To place
them at several stations means that no thorough or progressive work can
be done at any station. And as such scattering of forces is poor policy
it is also poor economy. For a station is usually an extensive property,
expensive to build and expensive to maintain. The unnecessary multiplying
of stations is extravagance. In our Presbyterian mission these
considerations are being fully realized, and the present policy evinces
a determination to do thorough work in the field already occupied rather
than to enlarge our territory at the expense of crippling the established
work. We have learned by our failures as well as by our successes.
The result of an inadequate force of missionaries at a station is not so
much that the missionary is overworked—most missionaries are not making
any such complaint—but that the work is not adequately done. And this
wears on mind and heart; for the work is one, and if a part of it be
neglected the whole must suffer. It is not the work that the missionary
actually does that wears him out, but that which he does not do and
cannot do, although perhaps his success depends upon it.
The Fang work included itinerating over a field more than a hundred miles
by fifty miles, and the charge of a school in which I had no adequate
assistant for two years. To this was added the Mpongwe work when Mr.
Boppell’s health compelled him to leave the field. The Mpongwe work
included the charge of the church at Baraka with its regular Sunday and
mid-week services, and the pastoral work, a class in the Sunday-school, a
teachers’ meeting, and the instruction of a candidate for the ministry.
At such a station there is also a great deal of secular work; the care
of the premises and the buildings, which are in constant need of repair,
the care of several boats, the buying of building material, the charge of
a store, ordering and receiving our own supplies, the treasurership—the
latter a large work, because all purchases of goods and food were made in
Europe and America. I suffered some under the strain, and the work, of
course, suffered more than I did. My day and evening were laid out by the
hour in a routine that was fixed as far as circumstances would allow.
The arrival of an English steamer, once a month, deranged all plans;
but it was a welcome interruption, chiefly because it brought the mail.
It is a pathetic instance of the white man’s interest that the natives
everywhere, even if they know no other word of English, have learned to
call the steamer, “the mail,” because this is what they hear the white
man say when he sees it. The steamer nearly always came in the morning.
While it was still fifteen miles away we could see the smoke on the
horizon. There was always a strife among the boys and the men for which
of them would be the first to announce it. At the sight of it they all
came running and shouting, “Mail! Mail!” If Toko made the announcement he
would say: “Mr. Milligan, mail live for come; I look him.”
Immediately I call Ndong Koni and tell him to call the crew, get out the
_Evangeline_, and see that they all have their uniforms.
Meanwhile I put on a suit of white drill, such as I have described, a
white helmet, and white shoes. Thus attired in the regulation best I go
aboard and take breakfast with the captain, who gives me all the news of
the coast. If he has cargo for the mission I wait until it is discharged
on the beach, and then go ashore and have it carried up to the mission
storeroom. When this is done I read my letters. But I sometimes carried
the bundle of them around with me full half a day before reading them;
and I always waited until I could close the door of my study and give the
order that I was not to be disturbed.
But an urgent duty awaits me. A technical and minute declaration in
French must be made of any and all the goods that have arrived. In
declaring provisions, for instance, the different provisions in a given
box must be declared separately, with the weight of each. The boxes, of
course, could not be opened under any circumstances until everything
was declared and a permit received. But if the bills of lading should be
delayed, or if they were not made out with all the particular weights,
there was endless trouble. I could not open the boxes until I made the
declaration, and I could not make the declaration until I opened the
boxes. In such a case, after much waiting and annoyance, an officer
would come and I would open the boxes in his presence. Sometimes these
declarations were very troublesome. In one instance there was malted milk
in one of the boxes. I did not know how to declare it; for I could not
imagine under what class it would come. That I might make no mistake,
and run the risk of a fine, I sent some malted milk that I had already
on hand to the _chef_ of the _douanes_ telling him what it was and how
it was made, and asking him how I should declare it. After a day’s
consideration he wrote advising me that malted milk should be declared as
_pain d’épice_—_spiced bread_. But if the rules and regulations bothered
me, I must say that the French custom-officers are, I believe, the most
courteous and obliging in the world, and a striking contrast to American
custom-officers.
But besides the arrival of the steamer there are other interruptions less
welcome. While I am busy preparing my sermon for Sunday, in time stolen
from other duties, a man appears at the door, and without waiting for
recognition asks me to go with him to the mission store and get him a
package of rat-poison—price about five cents. Shall I, or shall I not, go
to the store? We are owing him this amount for produce he has sold us,
and he holds a “bon” for it, which he can negotiate only at our store. He
lives far away, and his friends are waiting for him. Besides, rat-poison
itself is a kind of Gospel in this rat-ridden land. It ranks about next
to soap. I get him his rat-poison. But I do not believe in mission
stores. At some stations, of course, they are a necessity: at some, I
know they are a serious hindrance to the real work of the missionary. It
is vain to answer that some money (a small amount at the most) is thus
turned into the mission treasury. I reply that missionaries are not sent
out to make money; let those who stay at home do that: they are sent to
spend it. I am glad to say that if I accomplished nothing else in Africa
I finally sold out that mission store, and gave our trade to one of the
trading-houses. And I am glad also to add that instead of a financial
loss, we actually gained by dealing with the traders, not to speak of the
great saving of time for the serious work of the missionary.
The work of itinerating I regarded as my chief work, however much
detained from it. For most men it is also the most interesting work,
inasmuch as it brings one into contact with the people in their native
condition. With all their savagery there is really very little danger of
violence at their hands. But a drunken savage is to be feared. Not that
he is much more bloodthirsty; but his greed overmasters him, and he might
easily be tempted to kill for plunder. For if the white man had nothing
but the suit of clothes which he had on him he would still be rich enough
to inspire native cupidity.
One Sunday at Nenge Nenge, a town sixty miles up the river, I left the
launch at anchor and went on up the river several miles in a canoe
borrowed from a trading-house located at Nenge Nenge. It was a very large
canoe; and since the workmen were all idle, the trader gave me a crew of
fifteen men. The West African trader is supremely generous in granting
all such favours. It happened that a short time before this a white
trader of Gaboon, a young man whom I knew very well, who had been in
Africa less than a year, returning one night by boat from Elobey Island
to the mainland, was drowned. The body was never recovered, and indeed,
it is not unlikely that he was immediately seized and devoured by the
sharks. Not one of the crew was lost, and although we could not formulate
a charge against them, we more than suspected foul play on their part. No
one will ever know the tragedy of that young man’s last hour.
The recency of this occurrence made me, perhaps, more suspicious than
usual, or qualified my courage, on the occasion of the canoe ride at
Nenge Nenge. The men had all been drinking, which I did not observe until
we had started, and they were all of one tribe, a distinct disadvantage
to me if they should mean mischief. And what was worse, they were just
fresh from a distant bush town, and never had been in contact with white
men. The river is broad at this place, and the current is very swift.
They first started to sing one of their wild and fascinating boat-songs,
keeping time with the paddles. Then the leader began improvising,
according to their custom, on the theme of the white man and the white
man’s riches, the others responding with a refrain. They were gradually
getting excited, and were swaying their bodies from side to side, so that
I feared continually that the canoe would be capsized. Then the song
became a yelling-match, and they were getting still more excited. I had
never at any time had a more distinct feeling that I was in a dangerous
company of real savages, fifteen to one, and if I had been in their
musical mood I should have been singing Robert Louis Stevenson’s immortal
buccaneer song:
“Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest—
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”
Before we reached the most secluded part of the river, and while there
was still a small town to be passed, I ordered the headman to go close
into the bank away from the current until we should pass a turn in the
river. When I came close to the bank I said I would land here. They knew,
of course, that this was not my destination, and they supposed that I
would continue the journey in a few minutes. But as soon as I had landed
I ordered them back to Nenge Nenge, and I proceeded in a small canoe
which I hired at the town near by. Thus I avoided the possibility of
being cut off in the flower of my youth. Or, it may be that I missed an
adventure that I should have been proud to tell afterwards.
I often found the whole town engaged in dancing, of which they are
passionately fond. It is not only their chief amusement, but also serves
for physical culture, and accounts for their well-developed forms and
graceful carriage. A great dancer among them becomes widely known, and
is as highly esteemed as a virtuoso among us. I was one day teaching the
people in a town where there were four Christians, when my attention
was arrested by a good-looking and singularly well-developed man coming
towards us down the street. I had not seen in Africa nearly so fine
a form. He was graceful as he walked, and much more so when he threw
himself down on the ground. He seemed to me a very Apollo Belvidere in
ebony. They told me that he was a famous dancer. He had applied himself
with diligence and extraordinary perseverance to the practice of all the
difficult movements of the native dance until he was the envy of the
men of his tribe. It was probably his persistent application to this
practice, and his constancy of purpose, that gave to his face an unusual
expression of gravity and strength.
I was reminded of the story told by Addison of a shepherd who used
to divert himself by tossing up eggs and catching them again without
breaking them; in which he became so skillful that he could keep up four
at a time for several minutes together; and who, by his perseverance
and application had contracted the utmost severity and gravity of
countenance. “That same attention and perseverance,” says Addison, “had
they been rightly applied, might have made him a greater mathematician
than Archimedes.”
My native friend, for such he became, remained after the service to talk
with me. He had come from his town five miles through the bush on purpose
to meet me. He said he had been in this town frequently, and had heard
those four Christians telling the people about God and the salvation of
Christ, and he desired to be a Christian. He afterwards put away an extra
wife, and he also renounced his dancing, for their dances are associated
with certain immoralities. We never know in what unlikely place the
Shepherd will find His sheep. Our duty is to declare His Word in every
place, and His sheep will hear His voice and follow Him.
But if I frequently found the people engaged in the noisy dance, I
sometimes found the whole town steeped in sleep. One day I entered a
town that was like a city of the dead; absolutely quiet, and no one to
be seen. I walked the length of the town, thrusting my head in at every
door, and asking the people to come out and hear God’s message; but
only one man came. At last I asked this man if he would go and call the
people. He started down the street, calling men and women by name as he
passed, telling individuals in aloud voice their particular need of this
preaching service, because of their personal sins, which he forthwith
enumerated and charged upon them, exposing the private wickedness of men
and women in brief biographical sketches, which it might be interesting
but not edifying to repeat. I need not say that they responded to this
urgent invitation. In a few minutes the whole population was in the
street, eloquent with resentment. One might think that they had the
tenderest reputations to sustain. I would not commend to my fellow
ministers in America this novel method of securing a congregation.
But how would one preach to such an audience? or what would one say? I am
often asked. Well, that day I asked the people what kind of a king they
would choose, if God should give them their choice. After some discussion
they settled upon the idea of power. They would like a king who would be
stronger than all their enemies, and especially stronger than the Mpongwe
people. Then I taught them that Jesus whom God had sent is such a one;
and I told them how He stilled the storm. Next, I asked them whether
power alone would be sufficient. They first thought it would. “But,” I
said, “suppose your king had no sense. Do you put a gun into the hands of
a child? And would you like to see a foolish person armed with power that
none of you could resist?”
“Oh,” they said, looking at one another, “we never thought of that,” and
it was soon agreed that the king of their choice must be wise as well as
powerful. Then I said that Jesus was wise with the wisdom of God, knowing
all our needs and how to supply them. Again I asked if this was all they
would desire in their king, that he be powerful and wise. They were quite
sure.
“But,” I said, “suppose he were bad? that he loved only himself and
robbed and killed you?”
Just at this moment a little child began to cry, and all the child’s
numerous parents, a considerable part of the audience, turned upon it
with such a howl of remonstrance that the frightened child ran for the
bush.
“Suppose,” I continued, when they were again quiet, and looking as if
they had done a good work,—“suppose your king were like yourselves (for
you are cruel as beasts) and that he should howl at you and frighten you
just as you did that child?”
That would be a calamity indeed. They soon agreed that their king ought
also to be good; and that this was the principal thing, although they
had not thought of it before. And again, I told them of the love and
sacrifice of Christ.
But do I really think that they heeded this Gospel? I think that as I
left them talking together some probably laughed at the message,—in
fact I heard them,—some doubted, and some perhaps pondered these things
in their hearts, to whom they may afterwards have become the words of
eternal life.
One often must turn aside during the service to answer irrelevant
remarks. I was once preaching in a town where the white man had only been
seen a few times, and was still an object of as much curiosity as would
be an inhabitant of Mars, if he should make his advent among us, when a
woman in the audience tried to attract my attention by repeating, “I say,
white man! I say! I say!”
At last I asked her what she wanted. She said: “I want to ask you a
question.” I told her to wait until I had finished talking. But she could
not wait, and she kept on interrupting me, until at length I said: “What
is your question?” She said: “I want to know if your feet are as white as
your hands and face?”
O shade of Saint Paul, who commanded that women keep silence in the
churches, and if they wanted to know anything to ask their husbands at
home, how well I now understand that injunction!
I answered: “Yes, my feet are as white as my hands and face,” and I tried
to proceed with the sermon. I had on black socks, and it seems that some
of the women, observing them, declared that the white man was not all
white; that only his hands and face were white, and that the rest of him
was as black as themselves. My answer, therefore, did not satisfy them
all. Some said, “You lie, white man. We have eyes; you lie.” I was well
used to this inartistic form of contradiction, and I did not object.
They kept on disputing about the socks. But again the same woman said:
“Well, white man, we want to see for ourselves.”
I could not lose the opportunity of a service merely for the sake of my
dignity; so I slipped off a shoe and a sock and showed the audience a
white man’s foot, and they all agreed that it was beautiful.
Was I speaking of dignity? Ah me! Dignity fades away to a vague
impalpability, and finally becomes a cherished memory.
I have already said that the Gospel at first hearing is scarcely
intelligible, and time alone brings moral results. I distinctly recall
the first religious service that I attended among the Bulu. To them also
it was the first service. It was conducted by Dr. Good. Before he got to
the sermon he asked me to offer a prayer. After a word of explanation,
through an interpreter, about the nature of prayer, I requested the
people to close their eyes, and I proceeded to pray in English. Now, this
closing of the eyes had very uncanny associations in their minds. I have
already told of the Ngi (gorilla) Society, the head of which assumes the
form and disposition of a gorilla. He approaches the town roaring like
a gorilla, and women and children shut their eyes until he passes; for
if they see him they will die. When I asked the people to close their
eyes it at once suggested to them some demon spell like that of Ngi,
but probably more terrible. All of them, men and women, snapped their
eyes shut, and kept them closed tight. And the terrified women, grabbing
the babies from their backs (every Bulu woman has a baby on her back),
held their hands over the babies’ eyes, and with such pressure that the
poor babies simultaneously raised a howl of remonstrance, which in turn
frightened the dogs (who made a considerable part of the audience) and
they began to bark. A panic ensued, in which the people, keeping their
eyes tight closed, tumbled pell-mell out of all sides of the house. I was
struggling with a horrid and profane impulse to laugh; but I was a little
afraid of Dr. Good; for I had not known him long, and he was my senior.
When I turned, however, I saw him fairly doubled with laughter, and I
experienced a delightful sense of freedom, and let nature take its course.
On one occasion I preached to a large audience a sermon that seemed to
me quite practical, telling them that their chief troubles were within,
or “inside,” as I said it in Fang. “Your chief trouble,” I said, “is not
the French government, against which you are always complaining; nor is
it these other tribes with whom you are always at war; but your chief
trouble is inside of you, in your own hearts.”
When I had finished, a leading man arose, and with a grand air took up
the theme. “The white man is right,” he said; “our worst suffering is
inside of us. It is not war—nor witchcraft—nor itch—nor flies—but worms
inside.” He thought I had preached a very helpful sermon, and invited me
to come back again.
At this distance of time I can smile; but such a response is a great
trial of faith to a new missionary, especially if he has been led to
expect startling results and many conversions attending the very first
preaching of the Gospel. At first I was disheartened at the carnality and
ignorance depicted in the faces of such audiences. Yet, after a few years
of persistent work and patient waiting, I saw scores and scores of just
such people spiritually and morally transformed; and more marvellous was
the result from such a beginning.
A certain old chief responded to a sermon on future punishment by saying
that he would send one of his wives to hell in his place, and when
I suggested that such an arrangement might be attended with serious
difficulties he said he would send two of them. Then, when I told him
that judging by the history he gave of his wives they would probably be
going there on their own account, he said he supposed he would have to
give God a couple of ivories for his ransom.
One day I went to a new Fang town, Yengal, about two miles along the
beach from Baraka. The tide was rising, and I had to wade through water
for some distance; at one place it was to my waist. I preached in those
dripping clothes. On the way to the town I overtook the chief and his
head wife. He was very much pleased when he found I was going to his
town, and he walked ahead of me, wading into the deeper streams to see
whether or not they were too deep for me to wade; for they were rising
fast with the tide. If I had not been already wet, he would have carried
me over the streams, and all the deeper places. By the time we reached
the town we were good friends. He called the people together, and they
all came and gave me their attention during the service. I told them of a
way that leads to eternal life, and a way that leads to destruction.
When I had finished speaking, this chief said to me in a most earnest
manner: “Now tell me plainly, white man, which road to take when I die?
If you will tell me whether to take the road on the right, or the one on
the left, I shall remember.”
That he had been kind and courteous to me on the way, made me feel but
the greater compassion that his mind was an abyss of darkness.
I have sometimes found a town in a state of preparation and eager
inquiry through their casual meeting with native Christians. One day I
sailed with the _Evangeline_ to a town fifteen miles away, called _Elen
Akidia_—_Dawn of the Morning_; for it is built upon a hill that rises
above the surrounding bush so that they can see the first light of
day. I stayed in the town over night. In the evening a large audience
gathered in the palaver-house, which was lighted by a tiny lamp. It
had no chimney, to be sure, but still it was the boast of the town.
They had been learning for several years of the Christian religion from
ill-instructed natives, but I do not know that any Protestant missionary
had ever preached there. They listened so attentively and earnestly that
I talked to them for more than an hour. Then, being tired, I went out
and sat near by in the dark, but they remained, gravely discussing what
they had heard. The chief in closing said: “We have done all these things
that God hates. We have beaten our wives and made them work like slaves.
We have been cruel to children, and we have neglected the sick. But I
think God will forgive us when we tell Him we did not know. We have lived
in great darkness; but now the light has come; we must change our ways.
And you women, you need not be puffed up because the white man took your
part; for you are the cause of most of our troubles. We must all change
our ways. I hope the white man will come back soon and help us; for we
need help.”
The grave tone and serious manner of the speaker, with the dark and
silent night surrounding, all deepened the impression of his words, which
seemed the most pathetic I had heard from heathen lips; and often again I
went to Elen Akidia—Dawn of the Morning.
I once visited a town where there was a sick woman, close to death and in
great agony. She had become ill suddenly, and the people, not knowing
the cause, concluded she was a witch, or rather that she had a witch.
The witch in her had turned on her, and was eating her. For the woman
had convulsions, and that was a sign that the witch was eating her. They
were now able to account for the death of several children in the town;
this woman had, without doubt, bewitched them. Her spirit, being “loose
from her body,” had gone out in the night, and while the children were
sleeping, had eaten them. Next morning the children appeared to be well,
but they immediately began to fail, and after a while they sickened and
died.
I found the woman lying on a bed, consisting of nothing but poles laid
upon the ground, although the town was near the coast, and they were
long accustomed to better beds. The town was built in a mangrove swamp,
and the mosquitoes were so thick that to be exposed to them was torture
that one could not long endure. But this woman’s bed had no mosquito
net, although all the other beds in town were thus furnished. Every
little while her body was convulsed, and her features distorted with
pain. I gave her some medicine, although I had no idea what was the
matter with her; for I had only been in Africa a short time. I was sure
that the medicine did her no harm, however, and that is the principal
consideration. But it served to teach a moral lesson. I told my boys
to make a fire in her house, and I tried to make her comfortable. Her
friends refused to help me.
“The woman is a witch,” they said, “and the sooner she dies, the better.”
When I had made her more comfortable I began to talk to her about God
and her need of pardon. At first she seemed destitute of any spiritual
instinct. The chief regret that she had about dying was that she did not
want to leave her goods. Her goods! a brass bracelet and leg ring; a
few yards of calico, perhaps; a little oil for the body, and what else
but mosquitoes? But there are crises in which the mind is not subject to
the ordinary limitations of time, but in a few hours lives through the
experience of years. The woman gradually grasped the idea of God’s love
and the possibilities of the future. A great and mysterious change came
over her, and she said: “I have been a wicked woman. What shall I do?” I
told her of the cross of Christ. And, like the penitent thief, in agony
and pain, she too ceased cursing and began to pray. That night, as I lay
in a house near by, I heard her repeating in broken sentences: “Me ne ye
mam abé. Me ne ye mam abé. Atat, kwege me ngongol, Atat. M’abune Jésu.
M’abune Jésu.”—I am sinful. I am sinful. Father, have mercy on me. I
believe in Jesus. I believe in Jesus.
I left the town before morning, and two days later she died, still
saying: “Atat, kwege me ngongol. M’abune Jésu.”
Even the sincerest converts have need of the most patient instruction in
the morals of Christianity. Many white men seem to make a business of
scoffing at the moral attempts of the native, when God, who looks upon
the heart, probably approves. The first earnest inquirer among the Bulu
at Efulen was a man named Zanga, whom Dr. Good was daily instructing.
One Sunday, when Dr. Good was in Zanga’s town, he found him working, and
he told him the law of the Sabbath day. Zanga had already learned of it,
but he did not think that the work he was doing was forbidden, because
Dr. Good had not mentioned that particular work. He at once stopped, and
promised that henceforth he would keep the Sabbath in all reverence. The
next Sunday Dr. Good found him again at work, putting a thatch roof on a
house, and he again corrected him.
Zanga replied: “Why, you don’t call this work, do you?” But he stopped
it, as before.
The next Sunday Dr. Good again entered Zanga’s town. Zanga saluted him,
exclaiming enthusiastically: “Ah, Ngoot, I am keeping the Sabbath fine
to-day. I have hired two men to make the roof, and I am just sitting here
giving them orders.” He was doing as well as he knew; and most of us know
far more than we do. God knows our thoughts and intentions.
At the beginning of my third year among the Fang, I began to feel
that the time of harvest was drawing near. People from towns far and
near began to bring their fetishes to me, laying them at my feet, and
renouncing them; and the surrender of their fetishes was a better
confession than could have been made in words. I especially required
the surrender of the father’s skull, the most sacred fetish of the men.
I soon had so many of these uncanny things that the question what I
should do with them became urgent. When I was leaving Africa, a Christian
native, who had heard that I was taking some of these skulls with me,
came to me in great anxiety and asked me whether I had considered the
confusion that might take place at the resurrection if those skulls were
on the other side of the sea. Sure enough, I had never thought of that.
I scarcely realized the degradation of their beliefs until men and women
brought their fetishes to me, and explained them fully as they renounced
them.
One day I visited a town in which twenty-two persons, five men and
seventeen women, stood up in a line in the street, and delivering up
all their fetishes, renounced them, and said that they would follow
Christ and worship only the true God. This was the first large group of
Christians in one town, and when a church was afterwards organized I gave
it the name of that town, _Ayol_, which is still the name of the Fang
church. The Ayol Church belongs to Corisco Presbytery, and to the Synod
of New Jersey. In a few months there were a hundred Christians, and at
the end of a year, two hundred, scattered over the large Fang field in
groups of six, eight, or ten persons in a town. They had all discarded
their fetishes, and they were meeting together every evening to sing and
pray in the hearing of all the people.
The fact that those Christians were not in a single community, but
scattered over extensive territory and in widely separated towns,
greatly enlarged the outlook for the future. In a single community, it
sometimes happens that when a few persons of influence and decision
become Christians they make Christianity popular, and the thoughtless
crowd follow their lead, but never exhibit a strong type of Christian
character. And this suggests another objection to the small, undermanned
station. Its work is usually restricted to the vicinity of its location,
where the tremendous prestige of the white man makes Christianity
dangerously popular, and where the Christians are near enough to the
missionary to lean upon him for spiritual support, and perhaps for
worldly support also if they are very poor. But these small groups
of Fang Christians, scattered in towns far apart, were leaders, not
followers, of others. They became Christians when Christianity was not
popular, and had no artificial prestige. They were far enough away
from the mission for wholesome independence, and near enough for the
help which they really needed. They also had a field of opportunity
immediately around them, and the whole number brought into contact with
the Gospel was very great.
These Christians in saluting each other invariably use the term,
“Brother,” though they may belong to hostile and warring clans, and
before they became Christians might not have been able to pass each
other without fighting. And, strange enough, I did not teach them this
salutation; for I never used it myself until they established it. Flesh
and blood did not reveal it to them, but the Spirit of God; for where
Christ is, there is the instinct of brotherhood.
The number of Christians gives no idea whatever of the whole effect of
Christian influence. Between African heathenism and Christian faith
there is an immense interval; and multitudes, while not professing
to be Christians, were yet far removed from their former heathenism.
Old beliefs were all unfixed, with a corresponding change in morals.
Cannibalism almost ceases at the first sound of the Gospel, and wars
become less frequent.
One day two men called upon me, who were not to be suspected of any
inclination to Christianity. They told me that the sea had been
dreadfully rough during the whole night in which they were on their way
to Gaboon. They thought they would all be lost. One of these two men
said to the others: “We have been sinning against God, for we have been
travelling to the market all this Sabbath day, and we know that it is
wrong.” Then they all prayed to God, as the Christians pray, asking that
He would forgive them and save them. I asked him why he did not trust his
fetishes in the hour of need; for he had enough of them on him.
“Fetishes are nothing,” he replied; “it was only an angry God that we
feared.” There was a great deal of ignorance in all this; but it showed
that they were far removed from their former faith in fetishes; for in
the crisis they forsook the fetishes, and turned to God.
The care of all these new converts, or catechumens, added an entirely
new department to my work, and already the departments were numerous. A
convert is baptized and received into the church only after he has been
two years on probation; and during those two years he is supposed to
receive a regular course of instruction. These Christians were now asking
for such instruction that they might be received into the church. My
purpose had been to form a class in each of the towns where Christians
resided, and to place a catechist in charge of several adjacent towns,
who would live among the people, and teach them daily. But my catechists
were not yet ready, though for some time I had been preparing for the
emergency. In connection with the school I had a class of young men,
to whom I had been giving special attention, in the hope that they
might be fitted for the work of catechists. Yielding to the exigency of
circumstances, I placed three of these, Amvama, Obiang, and Eyena, in
three principal towns to teach the people. It was a mistake, however, and
I soon recalled them.
During the next year I concentrated my efforts upon this class of
catechists, and meanwhile, I visited these groups of Christians as often
as possible, just to keep up their courage. My catechists accompanied me
in my itinerating, and much of their training was in the actual work of
preaching and teaching, and in discussions and criticisms as we travelled
between the towns. But occasional and desultory teaching did not answer
the needs of these new converts. It was hard to keep them waiting; for
they had delivered up their fetishes, and were helplessly asking, “What
shall we do next?” I kept them waiting a whole year before I sent out the
catechists. Those were strainful as well as joyful times, and it was then
that I received the name by which all the Fang came to know me, “_Mote Ke
Ye_,”—_Man who doesn’t sleep_.
In one of my towns six persons who had professed their faith in Christ
became weary of waiting, and went over to the Roman Catholics. For a
Jesuit priest of the French mission had visited them, and offered to
teach them at once. I need not say that it hurt to have the Jesuits
gather the harvest for which I had waited so long. I should have welcomed
their help if I believed that they had a real Gospel for the people.
There were so many towns in which no missionary work whatever had been
done that I had always been sufficiently courteous to pass by those
towns where they were working, and go on to those which were utterly
heathen. But the Jesuits did not reciprocate this courtesy. Usually, as
soon as they heard that I had placed a catechist in a certain town, they
immediately sent one of their catechists to that same town. A priest
visited Ayol, where, as I have said, there were twenty-two Christians. He
knew that they had been waiting long for instruction. He first tried to
impress upon them that baptism was necessary to salvation; and he told
them that the reason “Mr. Milligan” did not baptize them was that he was
their enemy, and was trying to keep them out of heaven. Then he said that
he himself was willing to baptize them then and there, and receive them
into the church. There were several shrewd men among the Christians who
kept them all loyal. They said: “We are not ready to be baptized. We have
not been taught.” Then the priest offered to stay there a week and teach
them every day. But they refused outright, and said they would not be
baptized by anybody but myself.
There were many strings to this man’s fiddle. When he went into a town
where he perceived that there was a strong tie between the people and me,
he would assume a most friendly and even affectionate attitude towards
me. In one such town he found one of my catechists, Eyena, who had a
large class of thirty-one persons, some of whom were only inquirers and
not converts. The priest told the people that he and I were the best of
friends, and that they ought to treat us both alike; that this large
class ought to divide into two parts, and he would place a catechist
there who would teach half of them. They did not waver. But finding
that there were several men in the class who were not yet converts, but
inquirers, and who were living in polygamy, he at last told those men
that if they would enter his class they could be Christians without
putting away their wives. This inducement enticed four men out of the
class. He could the better take advantage of me because I made it a point
never to refer to him among the people.
When I was once away for a health-change, he visited one of my towns
where there were sixteen newly converted Christians. With great
enthusiasm he made the bold announcement that Mr. Milligan had been
converted to the Roman Catholic faith and that he had come to baptize
them and receive them into the only true Church. They were staggered. I
do not know what might have happened had it not been for a certain man,
Angona. Angona stepping forward, said: “If Mr. Milligan is a Catholic we
will all become Catholics. But we will only be baptized by him. So we
will wait until he comes.” Despite this opposition this Jesuit and myself
always seemed to be good friends when we met.
One day I walked to an island town six miles away. It was a new town;
the people had recently come from the bush. The road, being also new,
was very bad: we sometimes waded in mud to our knees. Ndong Koni called
it _ebol nzen_—_a rotten road_. While I was speaking to the people of
the town, on the subject of a future life, endeavouring to awaken their
interest by asking questions as to what they knew and believed regarding
it, I observed in the audience two persons, a man and a woman, wearing a
Roman crucifix, and I addressed my question to them. I found them quite
as ignorant as any of the others. “Most of us,” they said, “have some
belief in a future life; but we really do not know.” “For my part,” said
the man, “I believe that death finishes everything.”
Pointing to the crucifix which he wore, I asked him what it meant. He
replied: “This is a Catholic fetish. A priest came into this town when I
was very sick and put this thing on me. I suppose it is a health-fetish,
for I soon got well and I have not been sick since.”
The woman was as ignorant as the man, and they represent a large class
who have been baptized and are wearing the crucifix without any idea of
its meaning. Thus is the cross of Christ degraded to the level of an
African fetish. I would not say, however, that this is the rule. I am
sure it is not.
The Jesuits instil a certain idea of morality; but it leaves much to be
desired. One day a girl who had just come from confession was quarrelling
with a male cousin, or more likely he was quarrelling with her, when in
reply to some scurrilous observation, she said to him: “I would half kill
you if I were not in a state of grace. But you just wait!”
Time passed, and I had five catechists in the field. At last some of the
catechumens were ready to be baptized. Then the church was organized at
Ayol, with fourteen members. They were not likely to confound the church
of Christ with any mere building made with hands; for as yet there was no
building. We organized the church and held the first communion service in
the street. The second communion service was held in another town called
Makwena, Ndong Koni’s town, where his uncle was chief. The Christians of
Makwena had built a beautiful chapel of bamboo, with doors and windows on
hinges. Ndong Koni had worked in the yard at Baraka in order to buy those
doors and windows for the church.
[Illustration: THREE FANG BOYS.
_After several years in the school; also among the first Christians._]
On the occasion of this second communion service I spent the preceding
Saturday in going to Ayol and several other widely separated towns
with the _Dorothy_, gathering the people for the service. Early Sunday
morning I pulled into Makwena with sixty people in the launch, on top
of it, and in a big canoe behind. They were singing hymns, and singing
them beautifully, for there were enough of my schoolboys there to take
the parts. Between the hymns they occupied the time with the praises
of _Dorothy_, the like of which, for comfort and for speed, they had
never dreamed of. Upon our arrival a large number of people came down to
welcome their fellow Christians. They wore more clothing than the whole
town had formerly possessed. These Christians were of various tribes who
in former times had been continually at war with each other. And I could
imagine such a company coming together and making the little river run
red like crimson with each other’s blood. But now they were all saluting
each other as, “Brother” and “Sister”; and there was such hand-shaking
and social palaver that it scarcely seemed possible there could be so
much happiness in that land of cruelty and tears. And as I reflected that
these were but the first-fruits of a great harvest, all the labour, the
trials, the perils, the sickness of the years that had passed seemed as
nothing.
Among those who were baptized that day I distinctly recall a certain old
woman who had probably lived long enough to have experienced all the
evils and the suffering of heathenism. Her face was almost beautiful
with the light of joy that shone in her eyes. Her paltry garment was so
scrappy and so scanty that I wondered whether there was enough of it to
meet the requirements of propriety. But when she came into the service
she was dressed in a pure white robe that came up to her shoulders and
reached to her feet, and was held with a black sash.
I baptized thirty-seven persons and received several whom I had already
baptized at Baraka, making in all fifty-five members in the Ayol church
at the end of that year; and besides there were nearly two hundred
catechumens. All those whom I baptized had been on probation and under
instruction for two years or more. It was a long service, but the time
passed quickly for us all, and more so because we sang many hymns. At
length we closed the service by repeating all together the Lord’s Prayer:
“Tate wa a n’ eyô, e jui die e boñ éki. Ayoñ die nzak. Mam w’ a nyege,
be boñe mo e si ene, ane b’ a be eyô. Vage bie biji bi a kôge bie emu.
Zamege bie mam abé bi a bo, ane bi a zam abé bôt b’ a bo bie. Ke lète bie
nzèn mekoñ. Kamege ne bie môt a n’ a bé. Togo na, ô ne y’ ayoñ, ye ki, y’
éwôge, mbè mbè, Amen.”
A few mouths later I held a communion service in one of the up-river
towns, in which were gathered all the Christians from the upper towns.
There I baptized sixty-five persons, making in all one hundred and twenty
members in the Ayol Church. And, besides, there were nearly three hundred
catechumens.
When I reflect on the kind of men and women that these Christians are,
and consider the savages they might have been; when I realize the
surroundings of darkest ignorance, revolting degradation and horrible
cruelty in the midst of which they walk in ways of righteousness and
truth; when I think how rough that way is and how very dark the night of
Africa, my heart goes out to them all in eager sympathy and solicitude.
May the “kindly light” of God’s love, seen in the face of His Son, shine
more and more upon their path, and lead them on “o’er crag and torrent
till the night be gone.”
THE END
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