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Title: Abeokuta and the Camaroons Mountains, Vol. 2 (of 2)
Author: Sir Richard Francis Burton
Release date: August 20, 2026 [eBook #79410]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Tinsley Brothers, 1863
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Credits: Galo Flordelis (This file was produced from images generously made available by the Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ABEOKUTA AND THE CAMAROONS MOUNTAINS, VOL. 2 (OF 2) ***
[Illustration: THE CAMAROONS MOUNTAINS.
_Frontispiece_, vol. ii.]
ABEOKUTA
AND
THE CAMAROONS MOUNTAINS.
An Exploration.
BY
RICHARD F. BURTON,
VICE PRES. ANTHROP. SOC. OF LONDON; GOLD MEDALLIST, GEOG. SOCS., PARIS
AND LONDON;
F.R.G.S. LONDON; M.A.S.; M.A.S. BOMBAY; M. ETHNO. S. LONDON.
“Geography, though an earthly study, is a heavenly subject.”—_Burke._
_IN TWO VOLUMES._
VOL. II.
LONDON:
TINSLEY BROTHERS, 18 CATHERINE STREET, STRAND.
1863.
[_The right of Translation is reserved._]
LONDON: PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING
CROSS.
CONTENTS.
* * * * *
CHAPTER IX.
PAGE
DIPLOMACY; DEPARTURE, AND RETURN TO LAGOS 1
THE CAMAROONS MOUNTAINS.
CHAPTER I.
PRELIMINARIES OF EXPLORATION 25
CHAPTER II.
WE ENCAMP AT ‘MANN’S SPRING’ 75
CHAPTER III.
FIRST ASCENT OF PICO GRANDE 133
CHAPTER IV.
SUBSEQUENT ASCENTS BY MESSRS. CALVO, SAKER, AND MANN 162
CHAPTER V.
THE FINAL ASCENT 182
CHAPTER VI.
RETURN TO FERNANDO PO 218
APPENDICES.
I. MR. GRAZILHIER’S DESCRIPTION OF THE AMBOZES COUNTRY 235
II. MR. MERRICK’S TOUR IN WEST AFRICA 238
III. FLORA OF THE CAMAROONS MOUNTAINS, OF CLARENCE PEAK,
FERNANDO PO, AND OF THE PEAK OF SAN THOMÉ 270
IV. NOTES ON THE FAUNA OF THE CAMAROONS MOUNTAINS 278
V. REPORTS AND LETTERS TOUCHING AMBAS BAY 286
VI. METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS 294
VII. HYPSOMETRICAL TABLE 303
[Illustration: THE CAMAROONS MOUNTAINS
_London, Tinsley, Brothers, Catherine Street._]
ABEOKUTA
AND
THE CAMAROONS MOUNTAINS.
* * * * *
CHAPTER IX.
DIPLOMACY; DEPARTURE, AND RETURN TO LAGOS.
‘The Captain’ advanced swimmingly in his diplomatic movements, much to
his own satisfaction. But this is a race equally regardless of the past
and reckless of the future, with whom the present is ever all in all,
and actual life the ‘be-all and end-all of all things:’ their brains are
in matters of novelty marble to receive and wax to retain: nothing, if
to be permanent, can be done in a hurry, or, rather, without a long
delay: they forget all that has not been impressed upon them by many
repetitions, and they regard what Englishmen call a ‘business-like
manner’ with a supreme contempt. ‘He does half who does quickly,’ should
be the Anglo-African’s rule.
Wednesday was a holiday; Thursday had its work. About 10·30 A.M. we
proceeded to the ‘palace,’ where we were to be honoured with a private
interview. This time we came ‘in mufti’ as friendly visitors; the
demands of dignity had been satisfied; it was no longer necessary to
keep us waiting or to send us back. Passing, as before, under the main
entrance into the great patio, we entered the smaller and interior
court, and sat down in the verandah where former audiences had been
held. The hangings and draperies having been removed, we saw certain
daubs like hatchments on the walls, placed to show where the Alake’s
father and mother reposed: they were apparently intended for the human
form divine, but they were too blurred and smoked to be readily
distinguished. After sitting for a short time we were summoned into the
interior. We dived under the verandah, and after a moment of _demi-jour_
we emerged into a room where the Alake was waiting to receive us.
The room was a complete Roman atrium—a style of architecture for which I
can assign no reason in these climates. The hypæthral portion, where the
mid-ceiling might be expected, was garnished with a large inverted cone
of mat and thatch, which would direct the rain into the rude impluvium,
a parallelogram sunk in the clay. Beneath it various doors opened into
other minor rooms, and the walls were painted with the usual mixture of
horse or cow dung and indigo. Above the great man’s place were hung ten
Tower muskets, and a leopard’s skin so pale and pink that it might be
mistaken for an ounce’s.
The Alake lay upon a plain carpet in an alcove at the head of the room,
and four scattered feathers dangling to a bit of twine above him
appeared to be his protecting fetish. There were no hangings, and his
elbow rested upon a common bolster. He was more plainly and comfortably
attired than usual, in a red fez without beads, with blue and red
chequered cloths round his middle, the rest of the body being exposed to
the abebe, or hide-fans of his wives. Besides the interpreters, four
chiefs were present, namely, the two Akpesi, a stout personage called
Okolomo, and a gray senior, the Lemo of the Ikporo township—each dirty
little village has here its own dignitaries, and the number of titles
seems endless. The great men, such as Somoye the Ibashorun, Osho the
Oja’a or General, and Akodu the Balogun, were at the camp: these
dignitaries, when not consulted upon public measures, especially foreign
affairs, can, and probably will, object to everything done without their
leave. The principal ministers—the ‘setters up and pullers down of
kings,’—such as Ogubonna, Shokeno, and Ogushaye the Anaba, are, alas! no
more.
The conference was manifestly intended to be private—for a good reason,
it might afterwards, when necessary, be ignored. It began with much
mystery, and all who entered were dismissed with some indignity.
Presently, however, it was gradually broken into by women, children, and
confidential slaves. It reminded me of the confabulations of the Sindh
Ameers, who on such occasions of _haute politique_ stationed guards
round their council-chamber to keep off eaves-droppers, and soon
becoming excited, bawled so loud that they could be heard a mile off.
The talkee-talkee lasted about two hours. When the palaver flagged a
deal table was brought in, and Abeokuta Williams, the pedagogue,
indited, under dictation, a letter of apology to the acting governor of
Lagos. The new treaty was then copied out in triplicate and signed with
all formality. Commander Bedingfield wrote the names and marks, whilst
the Alake and the two Akpesi, grinning as if on a funny occasion—were I
in their waist-cloths no grin would have come from me—touched the pen’s
end with the finger tip, and thereby legalized an instrument couched as
follows:—
TREATY.
‘In consequence of the representations of Commander Norman B.
Bedingfield, R.N., Senior Officer of the Bights Division of H.M.’s
ships, the Alake and the chiefs of Ake express their regret that there
should have been occasion for the complaint of their want of faith in
keeping the treaty made between them and H.M.’s Government by Capt.
Forbes in 1852.[1]
‘They now solemnly declare that the three articles mentioned below, and
to which they have now affixed their names, shall be strictly enforced
for the future, and be at once made public.
‘1st. With a view of strictly enforcing the 1st Article of the above-
mentioned treaty, the Alake and chiefs hereby promise to stop the roads
leading to Okeadon and other places by which slaves are sent to the
coast for exportation against such export as far as it is in their
power; and they will also punish severely any of their own people
against whom it can be proved that they have broken this law.
‘2nd. The Alake and chiefs also solemnly declare that now and after this
date no human being shall be sacrificed either by them, their people, or
others inside or outside the walls of the town, or anywhere else in
their territory.
‘3rd. It having been fully explained to the Alake and chiefs by
Commander Bedingfield the injury caused to legal commerce by shutting
the road between Lagos and Abeokuta, out of friendship to the Queen of
England they are willing to promise that this road shall never again be
stopped on any pretext whatever, without the consent and approval of
H.M.’s Governor at Lagos: provided always, that when it is deemed
expedient to prevent the Egbas from going to Lagos, the merchants must
provide themselves with canoe men from that place.
‘Signed at the King’s Palace, this seventh day of November, 1861.
his
(Signed) ‘THE + ALAKE.
mark.
his
(Signed) ‘APESI + KEMETA.
mark.
his
(Signed) ‘LEMO + TROCU.
mark.
his
(Signed) ‘APESI + ERUNOON.
mark.
his
(Signed) ‘OKOLOMO +
mark.
(Signed) ‘NORMAN B. BEDINGFIELD,
Commander, R.N., Senior Officer for the Bights
Division of H.M.’s Ships.
(Signed) ‘RICHARD F. BURTON,
Captain, H.B.M.’s Consul, Fernando Po.
(Signed) ‘HENRY EALES,
Surgeon, H.M.’s Ship “Prometheus.”
(Signed) ‘DAVID WILLIAMS,
acting as Secretary to the Alake, witness
to the above signatures.
(Signed) ‘S. WILLIAMS,
Interpreter.’
It would hardly be believed that within the week after our return to
Lagos a letter was received from Abeokuta confessing that a human
sacrifice had taken place in broad daylight, and that some women had
been kidnapped from the house of a Mr. King. The reason of the Alake and
chiefs reporting these breaches of faith was their conviction that the
news would go abroad, and the transaction be discovered, if not
communicated by themselves. The misdeeds were not punished. The fact is,
the subjects are too powerful for the sovereign.
[_Note._—The following is a copy of the original treaty concluded with
the chief of the Egba nation, 5th Jan. 1852, and abridged from
‘Hertslet’s Commercial Treaties,’ vol. ix.:—
Frederick Edwyn Forbes, Esq., Additional Commander of H.M.S. ‘Penelope,’
on the part of Her Majesty the Queen of England, to the chiefs of the
Egba nation and of the neighbourhood, on the part of themselves and of
their country have agreed upon the following Articles and Conditions:—
I. Prohibits export of slaves to foreign countries under severe
punishment.
II. No slave-traders to reside in territory of the king or chiefs of
Lagos, and no buildings to be erected for the purpose of slave-trade;
with permission to British officers to destroy such if the king
consents.
III. Boats engaged in such slave-trade may be seized by British
officers.
IV. Slaves for exportation shall be delivered to British for conveyance
to British colonies, where they shall be liberated.
V. European slave treaty to be respected, and slave factories if not
converted to lawful purposes within three months to be destroyed.
VI. British subjects may buy and sell throughout dominions, and have
favours and privileges of most favoured nation.
VII. _Abolishes human sacrifices for religious purposes_, and prisoners
taken in war not to be murdered.
VIII. Affords complete protection to missionaries; allows houses,
schools, and chapels to be built by missionaries or ministers, and sets
apart places of sepulture.
IX. Power reserved to French Government to become party to the treaty,
agreeably with provisions contained in Art. V. of the convention between
Her Majesty and the King of the French for the suppression of the
traffic in slaves, signed at London, May 29, 1845.
In faith of which we have hereunto set our hands and seals at Abe, 5
Jan. 1852.
(L. S.) F. E. FORBES,
SAGBUA. OBASARON. OGUBONNA. SIKENO.
_Presidents of Abeokuta, or the Egba race._
TAMBALA, _Bulagon of Ikerehu._ AKIONME _for_ ARROBA, _Egba Agorra._
IMEMUNU, _Owu._ LAGEMO, _Owe_.
SUPPLEMENTARY TREATY.
ART. I. That Sierra Leone emigrants, natives of whatsoever country, are
not allowed to be kidnapped.
ART. II. That we will not attempt to hinder the advance of missionaries,
merchants, or others into the interior.
In faith of which we have hereunto set our hands and seals at Abe, 5
Jan. 1852.
Signed and sealed by the same parties.]
We then took formal leave. I can scarcely, however, quote on this
occasion,
‘Such partings break the heart they fondly hope to heal.’
In good sooth we all seemed heartily glad to get rid of one other and of
the whole business. In return for some little presents the Alake
presented ‘the captain’ with a horse, which was supposed to be rather a
superior animal. It was afterwards taken to Lagos, and sold. With due
deference to superior judgment, I cannot but think that this part of the
proceedings was a complete mistake. A present of provisions from an
African chief or king must often be received, as its rejection would be
deemed an insult, and an equivalent is easily sent back. But the rule
which applies to all gifts of horses, arms, and jewellery in India ought
equally to be carried out at the native courts in this part of the
world. And, at all events, the sale of such present would be looked
upon, not as a slight to the donor, but as a mark of bad breeding in the
donee.
We had entered Abeokuta on Friday, the 1st, and Friday, the 8th of
November, 1861, was to witness our departure—bad days both. The captain
had, or fondly supposed that he had, succeeded in the principal objects
of his mission, the three points of the new treaty, viz., the opening to
Lagos of the Ogun River—which presently became tightly closed; the
cessation of human sacrifice—which will not cease till the ‘screw’ is
‘turned on’ much more tightly; and, lastly, the abolition of the export
slave trade—which requires to rest upon a much stronger basis than the
mere marks of a petty barbarian prince and his chiefs.
‘_L’homme sensible en voyage_,’ says M. Boiste, ‘_est tenté de s’arrêter
chez les premières bonnes gens qu’il trouve: chaque départ lui devient
un supplice_.’ This was not quite our case, for Abeokuta was becoming of
an almost intolerable dulness: we took regretful leave, however, of our
hospitable entertainers. At 9 A.M. Commander Bedingfield and I
walked—without cavalcade—to the Aro Gate, accompanied by Mr. Hughes, and
closely followed by Mr. Eales and Messrs. Harrison and Wike. The luggage
had been sent down in the morning, and the first and second gigs had
been drawn up from midstream, where they had anchored, to the landing-
place. A wild beast of a Yoruba pony charged down upon me, and the
umbrella with which the attack was received nearly put my eye out:
considering, however, that it was Friday, I congratulated myself upon a
very pretty escape. A final libation to Bacchus was poured out, and
after another shaking of hands we found ourselves once more upon the
broad bosom of Father Ogun.
The stream is essentially a rain river, filling gradually and uniformly,
without freshets. During the last week, though there had been three
heavy down falls, it had sunk several inches, a sure sign that the
‘dries’ were setting in. The deeper pools were like the beads of a
chaplet connected by a thread of shallows, and the boat, though drawing
barely a foot, touched bottom on each middle ground as we crossed the
sandbanks joining the salient and the re-entering angles. Almost within
sight of Aro we shot a little rapid, a clear way in a ridge of rocks,
which seemed to rise under both bows. At 11·30 A.M. we dropped past
Agbameya, the lower port or landing-place of Abeokuta: the ferry, where
people are sometimes drowned, was in full activity, and the market-wives
left their blies and baskets of maize and manioc, kankie and fufu, to
stare at the departing strangers. Another hour, and we were alongside of
Moroko, where on the up voyage we had halted for a pleasant breakfast.
Another brought us to Takpana, where the naked nigger boys would bathe
with their mammas and sisters, who apparently do not believe that
‘The chariest maid is prodigal enough
If she disclose her beauties to the moon.’
Our Krumen found it necessary to lie upon their oars, and to ‘chop
water’ every half-hour, which rendered progress slow. Down-stream,
however, was very different ‘challing’ from up-stream. We reached Baragu
about 7·30 P.M.; it was black dark, and the number of cross ropes
rendered the navigation of the river peculiarly troublesome after the
short twilight had been extinguished by the gloom.
We spent a right merry evening at Baragu, where the head-man cleared out
for us the verandah of a large fetish-house, which showed through the
bamboo walls the usual number of ugly little dolls, enshrined in a large
bare room. The Baraguans, however, must be a somewhat bigoted race. They
would not allow us to set foot within the sanctuary, an unpleasant
contrast with the Rationalists of Mabban. The male population squatted
round to see ‘the captain’s’ hammock-lines made taut, and the fairer
sex, which still displayed the _vis superba formæ_—in figure, not in
face—formed an outer ring. A drum soon made its appearance, and after we
had passed round a social glass of toast, rum, and gin, the merriment
waxed fast and furious. There was singing, feasting, and dancing; in
fact, quite an African ‘swarry,’ only lacking the mutton and caper
sauce. Our hosts were perfectly civil and obliging, and so were our
hostesses—rather too much so I could prove, if privileged to whisper
into the reader’s ear. But what would Mrs. Grundy say? The night was
soft and balmy; after the reeking sunny day, we enjoyed the refreshing
season of rest, and the verandah floor, though not without knots, was
more satisfactory than a feather bed in the best bedroom of ——. Upon the
whole, our trip was decidedly ‘jolly.’
On Saturday, the 9th, we arose betimes, and left Baragu at 5·30 A.M.,
before any of the revellers were awake: these people have the good sense
to sleep as long as they can. The river-fog was as dense and clammy as
ever; the snags were numerous; so were the ropes, and we were obliged to
row carefully for fear of an upset. About sunrise we halted for a few
minutes at Illugu, where the ill-fated Sancho (pronounced Sanco) had
strayed from his mourning owner. The Krumen went up to the village, and
inquired concerning that amiable but mangy animal—in vain; our pleasant
companion had probably found a living grave in the bread-basket of some
hard-iliac’d Illaguan—the canine _salmi_ is relished by these races—and
we left the fatal spot with spirits sadly depressed.
Halting for breakfast at Igaon, we had the satisfaction of finding Mr.
and Mrs. Johnson in the very best of health. The head-man brought us a
fowl, for which he demanded rum or a head of cowries; he then begged for
something to eat, and was told that it was his duty to take in, not to
let in the stranger. He was also warned that sundry complaints against
him had been sent to Lagos, and that he must no longer levy ‘black mail’
upon travellers and canoe-men going up the river. Our stay was short;
the rum was ended, and the claret running very low; we were naturally
anxious to arrive at a place of plenty—Lagos. There is one advantage in
these excursions. Although the _jeunesse dorée_ of Abeokuta looks upon
that sea-port much as the English young woman from the country-house
regards the season and the great matrimonial bazar of London, I had
hitherto held it to be the last and lowest of created places, save and
except only Fernando Po. Twelve days of sweltering at ‘Understone’ had
so modified my views, that it now rose before the mental eye as the home
of comfort and luxury. Thus Saadi’s philosopher cured his slave of
howling with terror in the boat by throwing him for a few minutes into
the sea.
We left Igaon at 8·40 A.M., and after passing sundry settlements, which
were not exactly like
‘Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain,’
we halted off the mouth of the Agboi Creek to await Mr. Eales in the
second gig. Commander Bedingfield and I determined to inspect the longer
route, _viâ_ the main stream, and the ‘doctor’ was equally resolved to
reach head-quarters with the least possible delay.
At 10·30 A.M. we parted, and struck in the first gig down the lower
Ogun. It rapidly narrowed, and in places widened out again. The banks on
both sides were thickly forested, and we judged from the number of the
paths abutting upon the water that many villages must be scattered
through the bush. The river appeared, however, almost deserted; hardly a
canoe was upon its waters, and the windings at times threatened a return
to ‘Understone.’ The fishing-ropes also were many and troublesome; being
thinner than those in the upper stream, they more than once unshipped
our rudder. About half-way we passed on the right a wretched fishing-
village—six huts, mere wattlings, thatched with palm-leaves, raised on
piles above the inundation, redolent of squalor, and surrounded by filth
and fetid mud. We asked its name, and were told ‘Ojogu.’
Advancing, we found that as we neared the mouth the river narrowed. Such
is frequently the case in these regions, where the beds of streams want
slope, and where the soppy ground, half-reclaimed from the waves,
absorbs the greater part of the down-flow. For the reverse reason, the
head or upper waters are, for the most part, mill-torrents. We were
fortunate enough to meet a canoe at a critical point where the Ogun
falls; the left appeared to be the larger branch, but it terminated in a
_cul de sac_. Taking the right, we bade leave to forest trees, in which
the long-tailed monkeys were disporting themselves, ascending the
topmost boughs for the benefit of their health, and cautiously and
curiously walking along the horizontal branches, to enjoy, as we went
by, a better reconnoitre of their ‘big brothers.’ Presently we entered
the mangrove forest, whose aërial roots, a conework of props converging
where the trunk springs, must often have been upwards of fifteen feet
high; it is not improbable that they suggested to the first African the
idea of the first hut. In some places, especially at the bifurcation of
the river, the trees were so high and thick that they suggested the idea
of a raised bank—a frequent formation near the courses of West African
creeks and rivers. It is probably caused by the vegetation being based
upon a firmer soil, not upon the soft mud in which the smaller and more
scrubby mangrove delights.
We came to the conclusion that the line of the main river was
considerably longer than that of the Agboi Creek, and the eastern sweep
of the former, compared with the regular northing of the latter,
justified it. Presently the mangroves lessened in size, and the stream
narrowed to a few yards: it was so thickly banked with tall, light-green
grasses and aquatic plants that the oars could hardly work, and we
anticipated the pleasing task of turning back. A short furlong, however,
exposed the broad and well-known face of the Ikoradu water, which we
greeted as if it had been a firm friend, instead of a fierce enemy, to
the white man. According to all local authorities, Father Ogun, until
quite lately, boasted of a broad and open mouth, such as becomes a
sacred stream; of late years it has apparently been blocked up by its
own growth. This must greatly reduce its value; none but the smallest of
river tugs could plough a way through the tangled entrance; and thus
communication on an extensive scale between Lagos and Abeokuta will be
confined to canoes, roads, tramways, and eventually the rail.
Exactly at noon we found ourselves in the lagoon. The coast here forms a
deep, narrow bight, with a comparatively high and a densely-wooded
point, extending far out on each side. To our left, or westward, lay the
market-place or bazar, where the bushfolk and the citizens of Ikoradu
meet every eight days. There were a few tattered huts, all at that time
deserted. They are about half an hour’s walk from the town. The way is a
deep rut in the red clay, forming during the rains a rivulet
unmanageable to any nag but a Yoruban, and at all times tiresome to
English feet and ankles. The land is a mass of impenetrable vegetation,
where no umbrella is wanted till within a few yards of the habitations.
On a subsequent occasion I visited it with Mr. M‘Coskry, and found it to
be the normal Yoruba settlement, girt with clay wall and dry ditch, and
gates like bungalows for the accommodation of the guards. The interior
was a _rus in urbe_, containing much more jungle than house. The only
semi-civilized being seemed to be a native teacher stationed there for
propagandist purposes. Formerly it was committed to the charge of M.
Flad, a German missionary. The people were by no means startled by the
weird apparition—and none but the smallboys showed emotion—and we were
allowed to saunter into and about the open Ogboni lodge, whose inmates
we inspected with that nonchalant stare peculiar to Britons and to the
higher order of savages. ‘Produce me,’ said Mr. Jollins, ‘a respectable
inhabitant of an English country town, and I will match him in the
matter of solid and silent staring against any man over the whole
surface of the world.’ On another and a subsequent occasion, however,
the burghers of Ikoradu town were not so civil to a party of more
dignified visitors, and if rumour speak truth, their town somewhat
narrowly escaped a summary bombardment.
Return we to the first gig, which was in no pleasant plight, as she
emerged from the embrace of Father Ogun. The sea-breeze blew steadily in
our faces, and the tide ran strong against us. We were still seven miles
from Lagos, and our progress was painfully slow, chiefly owing, said
‘the captain,’ to the size and the obstinacy of my umbrella. As we
progressed, a new appearance was noticed in the water, which was verdant
with a substance apparently floating up with the tide. The material was
disposed in clots, lumps, and balls, varying in size from a pin’s head
to a grape-shot, which when taken in the hand, proved to be slimy and
soft, like agglomerations of decayed vegetable matter. We afterwards
found the beach at Lagos pea-green with several inches of the deposit,
which, after drying in the sun, emitted a most peculiar and offensive
odour.[2] The thermometer showed 6° (Fah.) higher than usual, and the
sea breeze, which usually sets in at 11 A.M., delayed till the
afternoon: there was no change in the barometer. The deposit was first
remarked on November 8th, and the merchants lost no time in removing it
from their ‘beaches.’ The old hands, however, began to presage evil, and
their predictions were accomplished but too well. Out of ninety-eight
English crew, H.M.S. ‘Prometheus’ had lost during twenty-three months
only two men from fever, and during the last third of the year, when she
had been lying off Lagos, exposed to all its evil influences, there was
only one decidedly febrile case on board. But these climates are
treacherous beyond description. Immediately after the appearance above
noticed, the sick began to flock in apace; we heard first of one death,
then a second,—whilst twelve bad cases were reported. Before the end of
December there were one hundred and seven fevers, intermittent,
remittent, and continued: between 14th of November and December 3rd, no
less than forty-eight were on the sick list. Finally, after a few weeks,
except one old quartermaster there was not a ‘Promethean’ who had not
had fever; and it was only by removal to Ascension Island, where fifty-
seven men were sent, that the lives of the crew were saved.
At 1 P.M. we sighted the second gig emerging from the Agboi creek. We
flattered ourselves that her course would be a hypothenuse, and much we
prayed that she might ground or stick; but Jupiter turned a deaf ear—she
beat us by a good half-hour. Doubtless that umbrella! Our Krumen were
urged to exertion by an awful-looking cloud, a purple black pall, with a
broad, white arch, that seemed to open a gateway for the coming blasts,
and the mass rose steadily against the wind, which presently fell to a
calm. At 5 P.M. we landed, after twelve days’ absence, at Lagos,
somewhat wiser if not better men. After passing—
‘Per varios casus, per tot discrimina rerum—’
all on a very small scale, I reinstated myself with a lively sensation
of pleasure in the old quarters at the house of my kind and hospitable
friend, M‘Coskry, where it was easy to forget the minute discomforts and
inconveniences of our Flying Visit to Abeokuta.
L’ENVOI.
Yoruba, as the list of its trade articles proves, may in time become a
valuable possession, and its sole important port, Lagos, is now in our
hands. The seaboard will supply large quantities of palm oil; the
interior is rich in shea butter, ivory, and, if due encouragement be
given, a certain amount of cotton. The gossipium, even wild, is, and I
believe always will be, better than the best crop ever grown in India.
The transit is shorter, and should be less costly. At present, however,
there is a want of population, resulting from three causes—human
sacrifice, slave exporting, and petty wars.
Human sacrifice does not absorb much of the population; but it points to
habits of destruction, and to a moral degradation which cannot but be
prejudicial to the increase of a birth rate. Slave export still thrives
in the Bight of Benin: the Ijaye are said during the last two years to
have lost 20,000 of their number, partly kidnapped for domestic slavery,
partly exported to Cuba. Petty wars are at present the normal condition
of the land, and the causes are so complicated, that nothing but _main
forte_ can put them down. The Moslems of the Sudan, or Upper Nigerian
regions, are pressing heavily upon the peoples of the South. The
Yorubas, or non-maritime races, removed sixty miles from the seaboard,
are fighting for free transit. The Egbas, or tribes lying between Yoruba
and the coast, especially the Abeokutans, under pretence of recovering
their ancestral homes, are contending for the monopoly of the road, and
are aspiring to change honest labour for the lazy life of brokers or
middlemen, like the townsmen at the mouth of the Oil Rivers in the Bight
of Biafra. It is evident that, under such circumstances, regularity,
which is the first requisite of the cotton crop, cannot be expected.
The remedy for these various evils consists in stationing at Lagos a
military force sufficiently strong to impose terms upon obstinate
breakers of the public peace. As bygone details have proved, no
extensive establishment is required; the force need not exceed six
hundred men. At present, the people require a lesson: they own the
superiority of the English by sea, but—the error is excusable—they still
hold themselves to be on land the greatest warriors in the world. To
consult economy rather than efficiency at Lagos, is—quoting an old
saying—‘to throw good money after bad.’ The object of such a colony
should be economy; to diminish the expense of a squadron which,
including head-money for captured slaves, and other minor items, can
hardly amount to less than one million of pounds sterling per annum.[3]
As the West African coast comes more directly under our command, this
disbursement may be reduced to one-tenth.
We have now an excellent opportunity of trying a novel and modern
experiment in colonization, and I sincerely hope that experience will
have enabled us to steer clear of the errors and misconceptions that
have operated so fatally upon our settlements at Bathurst and Sierra
Leone. The latter is, indeed, a warning. If the exact reverse of
everything that was done in the early part of the present century had
been done, we might have seen a thriving and extensive colony of
liberated negroes where now there is a wretched and degraded population
of hucksters and idlers.[4]
There need no longer be any objection to stationing European officials
at Lagos. A future page will show that, within two days’ steam of that
dangerous port, there is a mountain range which, with little labour, may
be made a sanitarium for the whole coast of Western Intertropical
Africa. Camaroons Mountain, where snow falls at times all the year
round, and upon whose glorious summit the mercury sinks at night below
zero at all seasons, is thus more easily and effectually connected with
Lagos than the Mahabuleshwar Hill Station is with Bombay.
I need hardly repeat the phrase _publicâ trita manu_, that if my
exertions tend in any way to develop the resources of the West Coast of
Africa, my expenditure of time and trouble will have been amply repaid.
[Footnote 1: See _Note_ on page 7.]
[Footnote 2: It appears at uncertain intervals about June, lining the
beach and extending for some yards from the water. Mr. Eales found by
the microscope that it was composed of animal and vegetable in different
stages of decomposition, and gas was evolved, most probably sulphuretted
and carburetted hydrogen.]
[Footnote 3: A thoroughly efficient blockading squadron would consist of
at least 13 steam-cruisers, besides a provision-ship, and a frigate for
the Commodore’s flag, viz.:—
For the North Coast 3 | The Bight of Biafra 1
|
The Bight of Benin 4 | The South Coast 5
This is not more than the squadron which the French Government stations
off Goree and St. Louis de Senegal, but I am convinced that the
prevention of slavery would be more easily effected by land than by sea.
The mere capture of slavers exasperates the evil by rendering other
shipments necessary. The encouraging and supporting commerce, induces
the people to turn their attention from illicit to licit traffic.]
[Footnote 4: N.B.—This was written in 1861.]
THE CAMAROONS MOUNTAINS.
AN EXPLORATION.
* * * * *
CHAPTER I.
PRELIMINARIES OF EXPLORATION.
There are few spots on the earth’s surface where more of grace and
grandeur, of beauty and sublimity, are found blended in one noble
panorama than at the equatorial approach on the west coast of Africa.
The voyager’s eye, fatigued by the low, flat, melancholy shores of Benin
and Upper Biafra, rests with inexhaustible delight upon a ‘Gate,’
compared with which Bab el-Mandeb and the Pillars of Hercules are indeed
tame. To his right towers Santa Isabel, the Peak of Fernando Po, marked
in the chart as 10,700 feet above sea-level: on his left is a
geographical feature more stupendous still, where the Camaroons
Mountain, whose height is popularly laid down at 13,760 feet, seems to
spring from the wave, and to cast its shadow half-way across the narrow
intervening channel, whose minimum breadth does not exceed nineteen
miles. They are evidently sister formations, these giant pyramids; they
wear a family look; their shoulders, clad in flowing garments of
evergreen vegetation, converge gradually, and almost continuously, at an
angle of about 12°, till they meet at a neck upon which a superimposed
conical head denotes the great central spiracle.[5] In the island,
however, superior humidity prolongs the woody region, whilst the
continental mountain, some 3000 feet more elevated, shows a greater
expanse of grassy surface clear of high trees. Remarkable also is the
variety of the scene, which is rarely beheld under the same aspect. Now,
through the thin grey haze of the fair season which paints all Nature
with its own hues, they rise like spectres from the ‘vapour foot’ below,
the umbras of mountains in the shadowy realm. Then they disappear
mysteriously behind a dense, dark loom, affording at times a glimpse
through the festoons and hangings of mist and cloud that are caught and
held by the rough, tree-clad surface. Then, especially after tornado-
rains, profile and fold stand out with a marvellous distinctness that
brings them within a quarter of their real distance. Their waists, where
the North-east Trade and the South-west Rain-winds meet, are often girt
with a sharply-defined, delicate zone of sea-cloud, cumuloni-rollers,
snow-white when shone upon by the sun, below in strata, which, forming a
new base for the upper half, show an Ossa piled upon many a Pelion: a
lower girdle of land-cloud is also not unfrequent, while fleecy little
cirri dance like aërial sprites over the Peak. And sometimes upon the
further summit of the Camaroons Mountain, a broad sheet, distance-
dwarfed to a mere fleck, of a dead and absolute white, which cannot be
confounded with cloud, lava, or dolomite, tells of snow within four
degrees of the equator. But the time to behold it is when there is a
cloudless sky: in the soft and misty air its hues are so fresh, so
melting, so tender, that it is a sensual enjoyment to gaze upon them.
Then the channel, crisped and freshened by the remnants of the Northern
Trades, winds beautifully blue between them; and the monarchs of West
African mountains throned in sapphire, all gorgeous purple below,
passing into the lightest azure above, raise toward the empyrean their
heads jewelled with the gold of a tropical sunshine. Such a picture can
never fade from the memory of man.
And there are marvels and wonders connected with them, especially with
the unexplored Camaroons.[6] This is the only point of the West African
coast still presenting the same features described in the log-book of
Hanno the Carthaginian—the admiral, general, historian, and first of
lion-tamers.
For long centuries navigators have sailed along its base, but no foot
has ever ventured to tread that little hump, which, as in the Pico of
Tenerife, denotes the apex. Portuguese and Spaniard, Dutch, English, and
French, have all been contented to wonder and to admire from afar this
great landmark of the western shores. The coast-people declare that they
have seen fire bursting out of the ground; and from Clarence Town in
Fernando Po smoke has been observed more than once to issue from the
summit of the ‘Mount of Heaven,’ as they call the Theon Ochema, upon
which, 600 years before our era, the old Carthaginians gazed in fear. In
the pages of a contemporary writer upon the West Coast of Africa, its
uplands narrowly escaped being garnished with a race of Dokos and Kimos,
dwarfs and pigmies, and _hommes à queue_, the mysterious Ding-Dings and
Nyam-Nyams.
Having left pestilential Lagos on the 21st November, 1861, in H.M.S.
‘Bloodhound,’ Lieut.-Commander Dolben, R.N., after visiting the dull and
deadly Brass and Bonny rivers I determined to refresh myself with a
nearer view of the Camaroons Mountain, and to prospect the chances of
carrying out a long-cherished project of exploring it. As we approached
the goal on the dawn of the 10th December, a jealous cloud, like the
vapour which further north invests Madeira and the Canaries, seemed
resolved to hide its majesty from our eyes. Before sunrise, however,
every stain of mist had, as frequently happens, disappeared. For a
distance of ten miles a huge blue silhouette stood before us, the upper
heights gilt by the yet unrisen sun, and the lower expanse still blue-
black with lingering night. The dorsal swell was everywhere so regular
that it gave to the whole the appearance of one vast mountain rising
from a single base. Every quarter of an hour, however, brought a change
in the magnificent spectacle. Presently the south-western profile was
broken by three serrations; the highest is the uppermost of a group, to
which we afterwards gave the name of the Three Sisters; below it was an
extinct Vesuvius, the Little Camaroons of old sailors, surging
apparently impracticable and perpendicular from a rolling sea of
vegetation; lower still was the Botoki cone, a small but independent
feature, clearly seen from Fernando Po; and in the maritime region
hummocky hills and dromedary’s backs here formed headlands, heaving out
in accumulative grandeur from the Atlantic, whose mighty swell, slow and
measured, broke at their feet, there sank blended with the winding,
waving shore, that dipped below the misty horizon. With the increased
clearness of morning, we began to understand that what we had supposed
to be a plain surface of tropical forest in the lower basal half, is a
succession of long striated ridges, with intervening barrancas, valleys,
and ravines; whilst the dots, which had before puzzled us, were wooded
protuberances,—‘parasitic’ cones they are called by those who would
quiet their consciences with a technical word.[7] Higher up we could
distinctly trace the line where the forest region yields to that of
grass and shrubs: there again appeared a multitude of little lumps, an
eruption of warts upon the epidermis of the giant; they looked like
mole-hills from below; above they will become sugar-loaves, bosses, and
‘volcanic blowing cones,’ like the ‘_hornitos_’ or oven-shaped hillocks
speckling the Mal Pais plain of Mexican Jorullo. And the terminal
domelet, evidently bald and bare, wore, when the first delicate rays of
the rosy sun had faded from it, a brown-black, tempered by the
intervening blue, but contrasting strongly with the reddish-yellow which
winter, or rather the dry season, had already strewed upon the grass-
slopes beneath it. As we steamed into the beautiful Ambas, or Victoria
Bay, with its protecting islets on our right hand, all admired, after
the mangrove-haunted river, the sublimity and the passing loveliness of
the scene; above our heads the noble pile capped with its fissured
cupola; before us the dwarf earth-banks and the beetling cliffs that
margined the mirrory sea, and the forest with its infinite tintage, here
ruddy, there almost white, now dark as spinach, then of the lightest
leek-green. Some compared it to Navarino Bay, others to the once young
and charming Sierra Leone, as she appears in pictures, before fire had
wasted the now deadly land. It is fortunate that the devils of this
paradise have not yet learned, like the Timni and their brethren the
‘colonists,’ to disforest the soil; when the operation of bush-clearing
is carried out, care should be taken to leave all the finest trees
standing.
Running with an easterly course, we passed a detached rock which we
called ‘The Hulk’—_prosit!_ Beyond it, at the foot of the Botoki cone,
where Capt. Allen places his Batoki village,[8] appeared the Point
Limboh of our maps, a rugged, forested head, forming the north-west
buttress of Ambas Bay. We then fronted a green and shaggy amphitheatre,
which apparently had no break nor outlet, and soon afterwards we found
it composed of two shallow rocky waves in the coast, the further cove
being our destination. On the port-bow rose, needle-like, from the
waves, sheer and steep-to, the Bubyá Islands, ridiculously enough called
the Pirate Rocks; the distinctly columnar shape of these pinnacled
‘inches,’ the fornos, souffleurs, or blowing-holes, in their bases and
their water-worn arches revealed a basaltic formation. Continuing our
course in ¼ less 10 fathoms, we left on the starboard bow Ndami,
miscalled Ambas, or Amboize Island, a long, narrow chine of black rock,
partially greened over and dotted at the northern and western ends with
about a dozen huts; a violent surf, urged by the south-west winds,
breaks around it during the rainy season. We then passed northward of
‘Mondoleh,’ or rather ‘Mondori,’ Island, which is defended in this
direction by outlying rocks and reefs. It is an egg-shaped rock, woody
and shady, bluff towards the north, and sloping seawards in the south.
It appeared to all of us the best preparatory position for a sanitarium,
and as such I shall revert to it.
Presently, at 11 A.M., we anchored in three fathoms water off the mouth
of Morton Cove, so called from a certain patron of the Baptist Mission.
This north-eastern and innermost recess of Ambas Bay, being completely
land-locked towards the weather, must offer, one would suppose, at all
seasons an excellent station to boats. The southern part is shoal and
sandy, and the bottom is dotted with diabolitos with basaltic points,
sometimes covered by the tide, and making it a dangerous anchorage for
ships. In the Hydrographic Chart the dimensions of the chord of Morton
Cove are unduly reduced. It supplies an abundance of the purest water: a
little perennial stream falls into the centre of the arc; the heights
are covered with noble timber; there is an abundance of building
material, stone being as common as in Madeira and Tenerife; whilst
specimens of coralline brought up by the fishermen show that here, as at
San Thomé, the growth of madrepore would supply the settlement with
lime. And there is a walk round the cove over a soft dark sand, formed,
like that of Fernando Po, by a detritus of basalt about a mile and a
half long and, at low water, fifty yards wide.
The good ship lay about eight hundred yards W.S.W. of the Missionary
station Victoria, and thus commanded a fine view of the site where the
future town will be. The position is a broken uneven ledge, formed by
alluvium from the mountains almost immediately behind it, and extending
from one to two miles towards the sea bounding it on the south. Within
an easy walk of two hours, and bearing 65° E.N.E. from the Mission
House, is a rounded tree-clad cone, called by the Baptists Mount Henry;
this would be the second step towards the upper sanitarium, to
which—suddenness of change often induces a relapse of fever in these
exceedingly tropical lands,—patients should not be conveyed too rapidly.
Immediately behind the settlement is a gorgeous and gigantic growth of
equatorial forest, which would require to be cleared or thinned before
aught else could be done; at present it is almost impassable during the
rains, and at all seasons it breeds swarms of sandflies and mosquitos.
The dwarf enclosure which backs the houses runs about half a mile each
way, and might grow to half a dozen times the size. At present there are
ten habitations, two of iron and the rest of timber. The three of
superior appearance fronting the sea command a fine view of the bay-
islets, the densely wooded promontories, and the rival peak of Fernando
Po, springing gnomon-like from the bosom of the ocean. Opposite the
principal abode, the Mission House, are scattered rocks, forming a
natural breakwater, which could easily be converted into a pier. This
was proposed some twenty years ago, but Africa moves even more slowly
than England—not a stone has been laid. The walls are dry lines of
basaltic blocks and boulders, which everywhere strew the surface; there
is also good clay for bricks. About three-quarters of a mile from, and
appearing to command the settlement, is Mount Helen, a finely wooded
cliff, admirably fitted for the site of a convict prison; it is a
dangerous rocky point in windy weather, and at all times the surf is
bad. On the sandstrip below, and east of the mission establishment, are
long cadjan’d sheds, used as boat-houses and places of barter; in the
Admiralty Chart the place is marked ‘Plantain market on Fridays.’ Here
on every third day the islanders and the savages from the upper slopes
meet to change their fruits and vegetables, chiefly cocoas and yams,
palm-nuts and bananas, for salt, tobacco, small wares, and dried fish of
various kinds, the chief demand of the interior. About two miles to the
eastward is a second hamlet, which can be reached either by footpath or
by canoe; it is also held every third day, and the articles of ‘round
trade’ are the same. A local feud—one is prevailing now—often breaks off
the ‘bazar’ for weeks; faction-fights with stones are not uncommon; and
when the Bimbia people from the east kidnap a woman or two the upper
clans fear to descend. In the best of times only a few pounds of
provisions are procurable at these markets. It is evident that a colony
landing at Victoria should be supplied with frame houses and rations[9]
until with reasonable industry it could support itself. The reader must
not readily credit the various assertions recklessly made touching the
quantity of provisions at Victoria. On the other hand, as freight is
easily brought from the neighbouring rivers Bimbia and Camaroons, it is
not likely that the Victorians, like the tars of the Elizabethan navy,
are always raising, as their rivals declare, the pitiful cry, ‘Vittels!
vittels! vittels!’ As will presently appear, there is great fierceness
between the two rival settlements; though the battle for bread does not
rage fiercely in these bilious lands, yet the only amity lies in
community of interests, and none but a stranger—like myself—would
attempt to speak out the truth.
Lieutenant Dolben and I, embarking in the first gig, despised the fine-
weather passage leading towards the site of the future pier. We crossed
in safety the little angry bar, and landed on a shingly beach, narrow as
usual: on this part of the African coast there are none of the broad
yellow sands that beautify the edges of the Asiatic seas. Then we walked
a few yards to the rock-garnished mouth of a second little river which
bounds the missionary clearing on the west. It is a mountain-burn, the
drainage of the uplands, but a few yards wide, and barely chin-deep; it
is, however, perennial, and extraordinarily sweet; ever cool in the
hottest season, and overarched with shady trees, which require nothing
but clearing. The bottom is neatly spread with pebbles of black basalt,
all more or less porous; red volcanic stones and scoriæ, well rounded
and water-rolled. It is a delightful bath for those who can despise
threats of fever, and it is the model of a trout stream, although we saw
in it only the smallest of fry.
After bathing and giving orders to fill casks, we walked towards the
settlement, which is not more than three hundred yards from the stream,
and were presently met by Messrs. Diboll and Mann, who showed us the
narrow path through the bush. The Rev. Mr. Saker was then at his head-
quarters on the Camaroons River, of which this establishment is an
outpost; we therefore paid a short visit to his amiable family, and then
departed.
I had arrived, however, at an apparently auspicious moment for my long-
cherished project. M. Mann in 1860 had ascended a few hundred feet of
the Camaroons mountains, but having lacked time, and perhaps having
overestimated the difficulties, he had returned unsatisfied to Fernando
Po, and he was now girding his loins for a second attempt to scale a
mountain whose glorious pinnacles had never felt the foot of man.[10] He
is a young man of twenty-five, a native of Brunswick, a gardener from
the Royal Gardens, Kew, to which he was recommended by the Court of
Hanover. Originally attached, in 1859, to Dr. Baikie’s Niger expedition
in place of the lamented Dr. Barter, he has been continued as Government
botanist in West Africa by the Admiralty, with the ostensible motive of
inspecting the timber. The ‘Amabilis scientia’—whose votaries, however,
can at times be as cross as poets—appears still at a discount in public
opinion. Whilst in these days the geologist holds his head high, one
rarely reads of a detached ‘botaniker;’ as a rule the ‘poor herbalist’
is attached as a decent appendage to some Government expedition. Economy
is often made to entrench upon utility. And why should the collector,
after bearing the heat and burden of the day, lose his reward? Why
should not ‘Hooker’s Niger Flora’ be known as ‘Vogel’s Herbarium
described by Hooker’? And yet another point. Why should not the
collector be allowed to reserve a certain percentage of new plants to
study and to name after his friends? We are certainly afflicted in this
century with a terrible thirst for small fame, but it is a pity that
justice should be sacrificed to it; for which reason, and not
invidiously, I venture upon these remarks. If the practical English
public ask the _cui bono_ of a botanist beyond the mere science, it may
be answered that, setting aside the question of timber, the soil of
these regions is capable of being made a mine of wealth when science
shall have decided upon what it is best capable of producing.
Meanwhile M. Mann, after visiting the Bagroo river, near Sierra Leone
and Barracoon Point, on the Niger, made, after twice failing, two
ascents (in April and December, 1860) of Fernando Po Peak, where he was
guided by a Spanish official, M. Pellon, the Special Delegate of Public
Works. Their visit was the second ever made to the summit, the late Mr.
Beecroft’s being the first. He subsequently ascended to the summits of
Prince’s Island and San Thomé, and visited the Gaboon and other African
rivers. He has been indefatigable in collecting and in preserving his
collections, and has supplied one of the greatest desiderata in
botanical geography.[11] The results have been to establish: ‘1. An
intimate relationship with Abyssinia, of whose flora that of the
Fernandian Peak is a member, and from which it is separated by 1800
miles of absolutely explored country; 2. A curious relationship with the
East African Islands, which are still further off; 3. An almost total
dissimilarity from the Cape flora.’[12] With the West African Islands
again, contrary to expectation, there is no marked relationship
whatever.
M. Mann had once more left Fernando Po on the 4th December, 1861, and,
landing at Victoria, had begun his preparations without delay. There
were the usual difficulties to be encountered; the bush people would
give no guide, and the chiefs refused passage. Two days after his
arrival he was ready to revisit the terminus of his last year’s march,
which he knew by the name of Mapanya. A ‘Mokwiri,’[13] however, at
Victoria, informed the traveller that the real Mapanya still remained
unvisited, and offered to act as guide, requiring for himself and his
five boys each five ‘big tings,’ here equivalent to five pounds. This
exorbitant demand of thirty pounds for a mere preliminary lasted two
days, when M. Mann definitely refused, and the fellow disappeared. At
the next market Mr. Pinnock, a native missionary of the Baptist
establishment, and his colleague, Mr. Johnson, enabled the botanist by
great exertion to engage a guide. The man was a native of Mapanya, but
living at a lower settlement: he was charged with presents for the chief
of Kombi, a hostile village on the way; these naturally enough he took
to his own ‘boss,’ and kept the stranger waiting three days for the
return-message. Nor was this when it came particularly favourable. Every
hour was precious, yet the traveller was told ‘Sit down for you’ three
more days till ‘palaver’ had ‘set,’ _i.e._ been decided, after which
guides and bearers might perhaps be forthcoming. Affairs, however,
appeared to be opening up; and as my presence was required in the
Camaroons River, M. Mann agreed to break ground as soon as possible, to
botanize on the way, and to await my arrival before attempting the Peak.
I must, however, do him the justice to say that he set out without delay
and did his best of bests to be Number One; he failed, however, and
failed signally, as the sequel will show.
The afternoon was devoted to inspecting the islands, which were
accurately described by Messrs. Allen and Thompson.[14] Ndami,
erroneously called Dameh, or Ambas, the outer or westernmost island,
some two and a half miles distant from the northern mainland, possesses
but one, and that a difficult, landing-place at the inner end. This
rocky, tongue-shaped ridge, with a bold head of 150 feet fronting the
sea, which foams and rages outside, whilst the Cove, or inner harbour,
lies smooth as a mill-pond, is clear of trees, but shows on the lower
slopes a little garden-ground about the huts of the inhabitants. It
breeds goats and pigs in plenty; water, however, must be brought from
the mainland when the people set out on fishing excursions. Separated
from Ndami by a channel one mile and a half broad, stands its eastern
neighbour Mondori, which Captain Allen calls Mondoleh, and others
Mondoli,[15] a much more interesting place. About two miles distant from
the northern shore, it is separated from the bold headland forming the
eastern arm of the bay by a fair broad channel. The Victorians declare
that it is accessible whilst the sauciest sea runs outside, and that,
when the rest of the bay is a sheet of foam, vessels can ride snugly
under the lee of its northern point; they assert that it has an
excellent holding bottom of dark tough clay, and that it is superior in
many points to the celebrated Clarence Cove, Fernando Po. The formation
of the island, according to Mr. Roscher,[16] is amygdaloid basalt in the
lower parts, and in the upper a more solid stone with shiny cleavage,
evidently the result of different epochs of cooling; on the western
side, where the greatest heat was, the older deposits are destroyed.
Mondori rises about 200 feet from the sea, with the profile of a lumpy
dome; it is steep on all sides, except at the south-east, where the
landing is. Magnificent trees, hung with llianas and festooned with
orchids, crown the summit and creep down the flanks. After repeated
attempts, we failed to scale the bluff northern side, foiled by the
impenetrable bush; we heard, however, the voices of the people above us,
and we were told that it contains a few households, who add to the gifts
of their nets the produce of the richest soil formed by decomposed
basalt. Their huts are hidden from the sea and the bay, and a spring, it
is said, supplies them with excellent water. Like Ndami, Mondori is
claimed by one Nako, a Bimbia chief, as an inheritance from his father,
‘old Nako:’ there would be no difficulty in purchasing it. The place
would be useful as a storehouse and a preliminary sanitarium; and should
Government determine to send out convict-hulks or a coal-ship for this
station, there is no better mooring-place than under its lee. A hundred
negro workmen, gardeners, and lumberers, would easily clear and prepare
it during the six months of the dry season.
The other islands alongshore are the Bubya, Bobbi, Abobbi, or Pirate
Rocks, whose formation, like Point William at Fernando Po, reveals to us
the original connection between the two mountains. Urged both by N.E.
and S.W. winds, a violent sea must have beaten upon the low neck of land
which in past times attached the bases of the sister peaks. The land was
gradually dismembered, leaving fragments of islands, which are still
being sliced away by successive inroads. Gradually the water began to
roll deeper between them; the channel, however, is still shallow, and
there is a subaqueous ridge extending from N.E. to S.W.[17] Presently
the same surf, ever perforating and degrading, washed from Ndami the
Bubya Rocks, and these in their turn, after being greatly curtailed in
size, are nodding to their fall. The group numbers ten to fifteen,
according to the state of the tide, which here rises eight[18] feet; the
line, separated from the main by a sea-arm about one fathom deep, sets
off the shore in a general north and south direction. The largest and
the sole inhabited island is the second from the coast; it is a mass of
ejected ashes, with volcanic dykes. There is but one landing-place; a
sandy hole in a confusion of rocks, immediately below the highest
ground. The only path is up the narrow edge of a basaltic vein, leading
to a dwarf level, and here a natural bridge about three yards wide, with
a sheer drop on either side, affords adit to the steepest acclivity,
where the people fly when necessary. Though there is no ground for
cultivation, and the grazing for beasts is scanty, the miserable huts
swarm with children and dogs, pigs and goats. The people live mostly on
fish, and when their rain-pools are exhausted they must seek supplies
from the mainland.
Upon all the islands of Ambas Bay there may be 300 souls, who, perfect
African Bedouins, are on bad terms with one other, and generally at war
with their continental neighbours. They have, with but a solitary
exception, received Englishmen well, and we have requited their kindness
by attaching to them the odium of piracy. The ‘Lords of the Isles’ are,
as their language proves, allied with the Bakwiri, the principal tribe
upon the opposite coast; thus probably Fernando Po was also peopled, but
at a much earlier epoch, from the mainland, by a tribe doubtless long
extinct. The Camaroons tribes named in the chart are the Batongo to the
south-west, the Bakwileh (for Bakwiri) south of the mountain, and the
Bamboko to the south-east; all terms, except one, unknown to the people.
Proceeding from the east, we find the Dualla, by English called the
Camaroons people, the Isubu or Bimbia—the latter a name given by the
older travellers—the Bakwiri or Bojesmans, and the Rumbi. The latter is
also a European word. I could not discover what the tribe calls itself;
possibly, like the Bube of Fernando Po, it has no (general) name. The
people of Bubya are stout, independent fellows, with abrupt manners, the
result of secluded and seafaring life; every visitor has remarked their
robust and healthy aspect, which can be accounted for only by the
superior salubrity of, and the freedom from malaria in, their island
home.[19]
The history of European connection with this part of the coast is
briefly told,—but first of foreign nomenclature. According to Mr. J.
Grazilhier, who, as related by Barbot,[20] made a voyage to Old Calabar
in A.D. 1699, the land was called by the Portuguese Alta Tierra de
Ambozes—the highlands of Ambozes. The latter word, not being Lusitanian,
may probably be the name of some extinct tribe: here and elsewhere the
maritime African races rapidly disappear. It has been corrupted to
Amboizes, Amboize, and Ambas, which latter appears in the Hydrographic
Chart. The trivial English names of the mountains and the river to their
east—Camaroons, further debased to Cameroons, and by the Jonesian
writers to the yet more meaningless Kameruns—comes from the Portuguese
Camaráõ, or the Spanish Camaron, a shrimp or prawn, of which there is a
great variety from Lagos southwards.[21] I have retained the name,
although to call this stupendous pile and the broad estuary beyond it
‘Shrimp Mountains,’ or ‘Prawn River,’ sounds somewhat absurd. Captain
Allen, instructed by some Bimbia man, in his map gave to the highest
peak the name of Mongo má Lobá, which means in Isubu ‘Mountain of
Heaven,’ _i.e._ the starry expanse. The natives acknowledge this word:
they usually, however, call the whole upper region Mongo mo Ndemi,
literally the Mountain of Greatness, which is also Dr. Krapf’s
translation of the words Kilima-njáro, applied to the Ethiopic Olympus
in Eastern Africa. But to the lower eminence—the smaller hump of the
camel’s back, which was formerly called ‘Camarones Pequeños,’ or ‘Little
Camaroons,’ and ‘Gibraltar Rock,’ and which the Baptist missionaries
have lately baptized ‘Mount Trestrail,’—Captain Allen has assigned the
name of Mongo ma Etindeh, the ‘Mountain of Separation,’ that is to say,
‘the separate mountain,’ which the natives do not recognize. I should
prefer to call the highland region and bay Ambozes, the two peaks Larger
and Lesser Mongo, and the settlement Victoria: it would only, however,
confuse those who have learned Camaroons and Ambas to unlearn the terms.
The adjoining country was formally discovered towards the close of the
fifteenth century, by the noble Portuguese Fernaõ de Poo, who voyaged
during the reign of D. Affonso V.; his name still survives in the Island
of Fernando Po. About A.D. 1700 an active trade appears to have been
carried on here and in the adjoining river. In the early part of the
present century, to judge from Captain Adams, it seems to have fallen
out of notice. In 1826 Captain W. F. Owen, R.N., the laborious surveyor
of the two African coasts, explored the shore when homeward bound, and
accurately laid down its geography. In 1833 ‘Kokliko,’ _i.e._ Colonel,
now General, Sir Edward Nicolls, R.M.,[22] visited it in the ‘Quorra’
steamer, and the people of the islands, who had never been visited
before except by kidnappers and buccaneers, fled. In 1837, Billeh, Chief
of Bimbia, who also claimed Ambas Bay and its islands, conceded the best
part of the country to Colonel Nicolls, on condition that he should be
recognized as King William of Bimbia.[23] In 1842 the harbour was
surveyed by Captain W. Allen and Commander Ellis, H.M.S. ‘Soudan.’ Two
years afterwards, Lieut.-Commander Earle, H.M.’s brig ‘Rapid,’ made a
treaty with King William and the Bimbian chiefs, abolishing slavery for
a consideration of 1200 dollars in goods. In 1847, Mr. Merrick, a member
of the Baptist Mission then settled at Bimbia and in the Camaroons
River, made the first recorded trial to ascend the mountain:[24]
according to the people he succeeded in emerging from the forest
country, but presently water failed him; his escort suffered from cold,
hunger, and thirst, and he was compelled to return. He died two years
afterwards of a confirmed teetotalism: in these lands the habitual
water-drinker is even more shortlived than the habitual drunkard.[25] In
1848 King William and his chiefs agreed with Mr. Beecroft to abolish the
custom of human sacrifices at the funerals of great men; and in 1850
they bound themselves by a more stringent commercial treaty, settling
their ‘comey,’ and affixing penalties to those who injure or stop trade.
In 1855 H.M.’s Acting-Consul, Fernando Po, visited Ambas Bay in H.M.S.
‘Antelope,’ Lieut.-Commander Young, to settle an old ‘bob’ which had
lasted a score of years. The people of the ‘Boobee Islands’ had defied
King William and other Bimbian traders, they had openly seized his
slaves, canoes, and goods, and they had refused to come on board the
steamer. Fire was opened upon the wretched heap of huts; and when they
were destroyed, the proprietors signed a paper ‘acknowledging King
William of Bimbia rightful king and ruler of all the mainland and
islands extending from Bimbia to Rumby;’ while the king and chiefs of
Bimbia promised in their turn not to molest the ‘Boobees.’ In 1856 the
late Mr. M. Laird strongly advocated in opposition to Fernando Po a
British settlement at Ambas Bay, which had been greatly neglected on
account of a supposed want of safe landing: he showed its superiority as
a convict station to Ascension, and he also maintained, what had
apparently been forgotten, viz., that a great part of the actual
seaboard had been ceded to H.M.’s Government.[26]
Victoria was first settled in 1858. In May of that year the Spanish
Government, formerly so incurious touching its West African possessions,
suddenly bethought itself of making Fernando Po not only a strategic
position, but a source of wealth. Hoping by means of _emancipados_ from
Cuba to raise the Ilha Formosa to the rank of Madeira and Tenerife,
Prince’s and San Thomé, they formally resumed possession after it had
been virtually in English hands for nearly half a century. D. Carlos
Chacon, Commander of H.C. Majesty’s squadron in the island and its
dependencies, at once issued a proclamation forbidding any but Roman
Catholic schools; and ordering ‘those who prefer any religion which is
not the Catholic, to confine their worship within their own private
houses or families, and limit it to the members thereof.’ This
announcement fell like a shell amongst the black people of Clarence
Town, alias Santa Isabel, who numbered some 800 souls, many of them
creoles born in the colony. Having settled here in 1827, when Captain
Owen was king, they considered themselves under British protection, and
had since 1840 sat at the feet of Baptist ministers. On the 1st January,
1841, the ‘Golden Spring’ landed Mr. J. Clarke and Dr. G. K. Prince at
Fernando Po. They returned home in the autumn of the next year;
meanwhile, Mr. and Mrs. Sturgeon had arrived, and were followed in
September, 1843, by Dr. and Mrs. Prince, Mr. and Mrs. Merrick, and
Alexander Fuller. In December of the same year Mr. Clarke left Jamaica
with a total of forty-one whites and negroes, amongst whom was Mr.
Saker, the present head of the mission. In 1844 the Baptists attempted
to settle at the mouth of the Bimbia River: they found the land
beautiful, but deadly; and in 1850 they left it for Camaroons River,
which has proved but little better. They then preferred Fernando Po. The
Baptist converts, seeing the danger that threatened their pastors,
memorialized H.M. of Spain, but obtained no redress.[27]
In August, 1858, Mr. Saker and his family left Fernando Po, where he had
been allowed to reside only on sufferance, and emigrated to Ambas, which
he called Victoria. He was accompanied and followed by sundry negro
communicants, who have since, I believe, repented the step. Having
obtained 1500_l._ damages—an exorbitant sum—from the Spanish Government,
and apparently ignoring the antecedents of the country, he bought for
2000_l._—in kind, however, and in local valuation, which greatly reduced
the sum—the most valuable part of the location from King William of
Bimbia, Dick Merchant of Dikolo, and Prince Nako of Dualla. The grant of
‘prime cuts’ was bounded southward by the sea; north, by a line of
compass-bearings somewhat indefinite; eastward, by a stream of water
flowing into Man-of-War Bay—an adjoining inlet; and westward, a point
nearly opposite Bubya Islands: a total coast length of twelve miles,
which Mr. Consul Hutchinson makes eighty. It includes, as will be
observed, Ambas Bay and Victoria Harbour. The first habitation, not to
speak of the tents erected on landing, was a small iron-framed cottage,
put up in September 1858, and still used by Mr. Saker and his family; it
has wood, not metal, outside, and is habitable and tolerably healthy, no
small contrast to the iron coffins, called Consular Residences, at Lagos
and Fernando Po.
Then began a dispute which has lasted to the present day, and which
could easily have been settled in six months. The jealous Fernandians
naturally hated and feared the settlement on the mainland. The Spaniards
held aloof, but the English shopkeepers and others locally interested
were loud in their abuse. They declared the natives dangerous, and the
prospect of the settlers to be starvation. Unable to deny the salubrity
of a place to which many of them had often repaired for health, they
represented that it possesses no safe anchorage, and cannot be entered
without imminent risk during the rains. Commodore Wise, of H.M.S.
‘Vesuvius,’ was directed to visit Ambas Bay in 1859. Unhappily he was
accompanied by an official who, according to the missionaries, had
desired, but had failed, to become a partner in the land speculation.
Captain Wise, who remained there only a few hours, is believed to have
reported against the position; and Mr. Hutchinson (‘Ten Years’
Wanderings among the Ethiopians,’ chap. xviii.) gravely informed the
public that ‘at one important part of the bay, described in the Rev. Mr.
Saker’s chart as having four to six fathoms of water, it was found by
Mr. Bowen, Master R.N., who had charge of the soundings, to have only
from six to nine feet.’ The chart was copied from Captain Allen’s, and
the statement caused considerable indignation; yet in 1862, Commodore
Edmonstone, who had never even approached within sight of Ambas Bay,
objected upon the mere theoretical grounds of its being a lee shore—as
if all West Africa were not a ‘lee shore’—to its capabilities as a naval
station.
On the other hand, Mr. Saker, and those who were with him, contended
that the native tribes were few, scattered, and not dangerous; that the
country can be made highly productive, and support fine cattle, which
the island cannot; that building material everywhere abounds; that the
north-east tornadoes, which do so much damage at Fernando Po, are here
warded off by the mountain background; that mosquitoes and mangrove
swamps are unknown; that the sea-breeze is pure and healthy in the lower
levels, and that by ascending the high lands any temperature can be
obtained; that the islands are fit for lighthouses and coal depôts, and
the level strand for sheds and slips; that the eastern sea-arm is open
even to the largest ships at all seasons, and that, however rough may be
the sea outside, it is ever smooth under the lee of Mondori; that the
position lies in the very track of the mail steamers, which must now
diverge to Fernando Po; that the tenure of land would not be arbitrary,
as must ever be the case in a military station; that Victoria offers
complete religious toleration, and, finally, that the Camaroons
generally would be the key of the valuable Oil Rivers, whose export
trade to England is calculated at not less than a million and a half of
pounds sterling per annum.
Virtually all this, and perhaps more, had been expressed by previous
authorities. Captain Allen, R.N., after ample experience on the coast,
found at Ambas Bay ‘palpable evidence of the superiority of the
climate;’ where he enjoyed ‘a pure and prolonged sea-breeze or a cool
land wind every night, ensuring a calm and refreshing sleep.’ He ends by
declaring (vol. ii. chaps. viii. ix.) that ‘there are few places on the
coast of Africa more suitable for a settlement’ than the lands at the
base of Camaroons. Captain Close, R.N., does not hesitate to prefer
Ambas Bay to Clarence Cove—a cruel dig—where the wind setting in
prevents sailing vessels emerging from the gap without the aid of steam,
and where at times the tornadoes are so violent that ships risk being
stranded. Mr. Milbourne, master of the missionary schooner ‘Wanderer,’
has asserted that, ‘after giving a good deal of attention to this spot’
(the anchoring-ground under Mondori Island) ‘during the different
seasons of the year, he found the water always smooth;’ moreover he was
never detained in the bay, even when the mouth of the Camaroons River
was inaccessible to small craft.
Here then we have Captains Allen and Close—of whom the former has
repeatedly visited and surveyed the place—versus Commodores Wise and
Edmonstone, who either saw it for a few hours, or who did not see it at
all. A ‘plain man’ would hold that this decides the point _pro_ against
_con_. I confess, however, that, all things considered, it would be
necessary to run in and out of it some dozen times during the worst
seasons, between September and November, before one could be certain of
its capabilities as a naval station. Its fitness for a convict or
settler establishment I hold proven: even were the surf at times heavy,
it would be no greater objection than the bar to Lagos or the rollers to
Ascension. Of the superior salubrity of the climate there is also ample
practical evidence. Mr. Saker has for four years used his house on the
seaboard as a sanitarium, when prostrated by the malaria-poison of the
Camaroons River; and when the young negresses at Fernando Po wish to
‘make nyángá,’ as they call a peculiarly junketing picnic, they repair
to Victoria.
I now proceed to consider the geography of this interesting region. The
Camaroons Mountain is strictly in the African terra incognita, whose
limits are now 5° N. lat. to 5° S. lat., with a depth into the heart of
the Continent,[28] rising about the centre of the Bight of Biafra in the
Gulf of Guinea, where the western coast—after that long easterly sweep
which, hollowed out by wind and water, caused geographers, until some
five centuries ago, to shear off the vast triangle whose base is the
Equator, and whose apex is the Cape of Good Hope—bends almost at right
angles towards the Austral Pole. It is not an insulated pinnacle, an
isolated feature, as some have supposed: its prolongation to the N.E.
and S.W. (from 33° N.E. to 33° S.W.) cannot be estimated at less than
50°.[29] In the former direction it seems to be connected by the Rumbi
and the Kwa Mountains[30] with that long Fumbina line placed by Dr.
Barth between the coast and Lake Chad.[31] Its position, with respect to
the main ranges of Africa, has not been determined, and will require a
special expedition. It may anastomoze with the meridional Sierra del
Crystal, those West African ghauts which approach within a hundred miles
of the Gaboon River’s mouth, and which from that point run parallel with
the Ethiopic Ocean. On the other hand, it may connect with the
latitudinal range known, for want of better name, as the ‘Kong
Mountains,’ which, beginning N.E. of Sierra Leone, pass along the south
of the Kwara (Quorra), and form Mount Patta to the west and the Bassa
Hills to the east of the great stream, where, after collecting the
waters of the Binue, it turns to the south. So far as is known, it does
_not_ run parallel with the main axis of the interior mountain chains,
‘as though the convulsions which have elevated the inactive mountain
ranges corresponded in direction with those which have produced the
fissures in the earth’s crust, along which we find the active instances
of volcanic action.’
The south-westerly prolongation of the Camaroons Mountains is even more
remarkable. If the edge of a parallel ruler be placed on a Mercator’s
map, nearly in the usual direction of the wind, viz. from about 33° N.E.
to 33° S.W., it will align, besides Mount Alantika and the mountains of
Fumbina, the Kwa, the Camaroons, Fernando Po, Prince’s Island, San
Thomé, Annobom, and St. Helena, with an offset of 90° to Ascension. This
observation, made by Captains Owen and Midgley, shows the strike of the
elevating volcanic action. It may also be remarked that, omitting the
Fumbina and other ranges, concerning which little is known, that the
centre of disturbance was upon the coast, as is proved by the diminution
of the more distant altitudes. Thus in charts the apex of the Camaroons
is 13,760 feet, Fernando Po 10,190, Prince’s Island 3000, San Thomé
7500-8000, Annobom 2000, St. Helena (Diana’s Peak) 2693, and Ascension
(Green Mountain) 2870.
In 1826 Captain Owen laid down the diameter of the true Camaroons
buttress at nearly 20 miles from east to west, and the height at 13,000
feet. Captain Boteler, an officer under his command, gave more than 20
miles to the base, 13,250 feet to the greater, and 6000 feet to the
lesser peak. The Hydrographic chart allows 13 geographical miles direct
from Ambas Bay to the summit, to which it assigns an altitude of 13,760
feet. We reduced the 13 to a little less than 10 habitable miles, and
the altitude to 13,130 feet. Allowing 6 miles for the more abrupt
counterslope, and 10 miles of breadth from the eastern foot (not
including the Bimbia Hills) to the summit, and a similar extent for the
western side, which is rather understated, we obtain an area of 380
square miles—about one-third larger than Madeira and the Isle of Man. It
is bounded on the north by the Rumbi Mountains, on the south by the
Atlantic. The eastern limit is a creek flowing from N.E. to S.W. into
the Bimbia River, or Camaraõ Pequeno, a stream probably discharged by
the mountain;[32] and the western boundary is a branch of the Rio del
Re, known to us as the Rumbi, and heading, it is believed, still further
east than the Bimbia. Thus the Camaroons Mountain forms a parallelogram
contained within 4° 20′[33] and 3° 57′ of N. lat., and 9° 1′ to 9° 25′
of E. long. We may roughly assume it to be within 4° of the Equator.
A sanitarium is sorely wanted for this portion of Africa. During the
present year (1861) Lagos has become a British colony, with the usual
amount of civil and military establishments. The only escape from the
deadly malaria is to Tenerife or Ascension: the former distant, under
the most favourable circumstances, three weeks; the latter ten days of
steam by the aid of an accidental cruizer. On the other hand, the
Camaroons are distant barely fifty-five hours. Its area is little less
than the inhabited portion of the Neilgherry Hills in Western India. It
has every range of climate—a tierra _caliente, temprada, fria_. The
negro can flourish in the lower, the white man can sojourn in the upper
part, where within 4° of the Line nightly frosts prevail throughout the
year, and stores of ice and snow can be collected. The country is
scantily inhabited, and only in parts, by a timid and feeble, though a
wild and treacherous people. Land may be bought for a nominal sum; and
the soil, as this narrative will show, is everywhere fitted for
cultivation. With less than the Spaniards have expended upon Fernando
Po, or than that which we have lavished on the splendid but useless
Zambezi River, these mountains might in a few years be made a solid
benefit to the coast of Western Intertropical Africa. I have seen the
marvellous effects of removing naval invalids from their ships to a few
hundred feet above sea-level at Fernando Po; here, by judicious
management, even greater benefits might be expected. And for the future
we must provide against another and even a greater evil of climate: the
vomito, or yellow fever, which, of late years confined to the lands
about the Gambia and Sierra Leone, is, whilst I write, advancing with
giant steps towards the Equator. Its extreme elevation is known to be
2500 feet.
The age is agitating a movement in the right direction—one most
important to a nation which, like Great Britain, requires expansion, and
of which may be said, ‘_non progredi est regredi_.’ The mixed Anglo-
Saxon race wants those cosmopolitan powers of acclimatization which
scatter pure races, like the Chinese and Turanians, the Jews and the
Gipsies, unscathed over the habitable world. The ‘people living between
the Four Seas’ cannot, it is true, rear families in the tropics: the
superior race may not descend into an inferior ethnic centre, though the
reverse operation has many instances. Our melancholy task appears to be
that of smoothing the way for a future and higher type of the initial
genus and species—man. Emerson’s dictum may be extended to ourselves
when he declares, ‘The German and Irish millions, like the negro, have a
great deal of guano in their destiny. They are ferried over the
Atlantic, and carted over America to ditch and to drudge, to make corn
cheap, and then to lie down prematurely to make a spot of green grass on
the prairie.’ We must abandon the Utopian idea that we are destined to
people the earth.[34]
But all the world over there are scattered isolated positions; hills
rising like islands from the plains, mountain-masses, and rocky ridges,
where Anglo-Saxon life and labour can—if incapable of propagation and
perpetuation—at any rate be greatly prolonged. During the last half-
century by deaths of British soldiers in India—not including casualties
or the average loss of healthy stations—the nation, it is calculated by
economists, has lost some ten millions of pounds sterling. Sir Ranald
Martin, a strong advocate for the change, asserts that the third
generation of unmixed Europeans is nowhere to be found in Bengal,[35]
that the English soldier cannot be maintained in health and vigour upon
the lowlands, and that the selection of suitable hill-stations has now
become a state necessity. Health is strength, and strength is moral
power, especially in the East. Sir Charles Metcalfe removed the garrison
from the seaboard to the hills of Jamaica, and since its establishment
at Newcastle and Maroon Town the mortality—excluding cases of disease
contracted in the plains—was reduced to about one-third. In the
Himalayas, 6000 feet above sea-level, on an average of five years
(1850-1854) the mortality is hardly more than 3 per cent.—which is
little higher than that of the civil population in France—against at
least 10 per cent. in the low lands. At Poonah the English regiments
have been healthier than those stationed in London barracks. When
railroads shall have been established in India, no Minister will think
of exhausting the soldier’s health and energies by confining him to the
febrile zone; but keep him fresh and vigorous to throw upon the enemy
wherever and whenever required. And our sons will marvel at the folly of
their sires, who for the flimsiest of reasons, for a mere _vis
inertiæ_—insist upon destroying Governors-General by binding them to the
deadly Lower Bengal.
On the 11th December I set out in H.M.S. ‘Bloodhound’ to visit the
Camaroons River, where the traders were calling lustily, as is their
wont, upon Hercules. It is one of the ‘trust rivers,’ meaning thoroughly
untrustworthy: the white seller, expecting a return of 100 to 150 per
cent., gives on credit goods which the black purchaser takes, firmly
resolving to delay payment as long as possible, and, if he can, not to
pay at all. The Camaroons has at least three head-men, called ‘kings’ in
the African sense of the word—monarchs much like all the kings, thirty
and one, whom Joshua bin Nun smote with the edge of the sword—two hulks,
three or four ships, and perhaps a dozen European agents, who, to
collect some poor 1700 puncheons of palm-oil and to settle their endless
grievances, require the presence of at least one ambassador and one
commodore. The natives are not without unpleasant practices and habits.
If a chief, for instance, ‘boys’ another, the ‘boy’ at once sets out in
his war-canoe to show ‘he be man,’ slaughters some unoffending wretch
belonging to the insulter’s tribe—an African succedaneum for the
duello’s: the victim’s clansmen retaliate upon the ‘man’s,’ and so on
_ad infinitum_. Like all Africans, having no confidence in, and
expecting nothing like justice from, one another, they flock to the
nearest European official, and beg him to act as arbitrator. If he
consents, a regular ‘palaver’ must ‘come up,’ and words cannot express
its weariness, its damnable iteration. Each speaker not only ventilates
his eloquence even unto nausea, he also begins as near the days of Adam
as he can, lest aught be wanting to proper comprehension; and for fear
of the strong points being forgotten, he dins them a dozen times into
the hearer’s ears. I persuaded, not without a little gentle violence,
Bonny Bell, Priso Bell, and King Kwa or Acqua, the three
kings—individuals clad in a total of red-yellow bandanas and tall black
or sky-blue tiles—to abolish, under pain of removal from the river, such
‘facinorous practices,’ and, convinced that they would return to them at
the first opportunity, I bade temporary adieu to the haunt of fever and
iniquity, mentally exclaiming
Heu terra felici haud adeunda viro!
An advantage, however, had been secured by this visit to the Camaroons.
Mr. Saker, long anxious to explore ‘the mountain,’ volunteered to
accompany us, and his intimate knowledge of the Dualla dialect, and his
long experience in the Bimbia country side, rendered him a valuable
acquisition.
Of the ‘Bloodhound’ 13 out of 55 whites, besides the commander and the
chief engineer, were prostrated by fever—such is too often the effect of
a ‘Tour round the Rivers;’ and the medical officer protested against an
intended visit to Old Calabar, the Kom Toro, and the Rio del Re, the
last two of which I was anxious to open. The night of the 13th December
saw us off the coal-shed Fernando Po, and four days sufficed to collect
the outfit necessary for a month in the jungle.[36]
The usual croaking followed the announcement of an intention to explore
the mountain. The four or five fierce wild tribes holding the lower
regions were represented as being able to turn out 5000 muskets—perhaps
they may have 50. The forest swarmed with ‘tigers,’ hyænas, and other
bugbears, the fevers were mortal in the lower regions, the cold would be
intense, snow having just been seen in the upper heights,[37] and the
Krumen—the only servants in these regions—would certainly die or desert,
perhaps do both.
I cannot, however, but plead guilty to a modified fatalism. Purely
retrospective, it has many advantages. ‘We could not have helped it,’
obviates all regret for the past however regretful, and bygones become
doubly bygones; whilst the present so soon becoming the past is hardly
more valuable, and the future, which must inevitably merge with present
and past, is even less important:—
Il passato non è, ma se lo finge,
La viva rimembranza;
Il futuro non è, ma se lo pinge,
La credula speranza;
Il presento non è, ma in un baleno,
Passa del nube in seno;
Dunque la vita è appunto,
Una memoria, una speranza, un punto.
Prospective fatalism in practice appears absurd. When the Turk sits in
an embrasure under a volley of musketry, and refuses to move—by-the-by,
I emphatically never saw this often-heard-of incident—because Allah
knows when he is to die, it ought to strike that benighted personage
that Allah may also know he is to escape death by a little more
activity. Fatalism, however, like all modifications of faith, is mainly
the effect of climate. In the cold, bustling, and energetic north,
amongst the elbowing Anglo-Saxons, where,—contrary to what the Italian
says,—
Life is real, life is earnest,
fatalism is at best a sickly exotic. As you approach the Mediterranean
it grows into a kind of creed: every one has known Southrons,—Italians
and Spaniards,—who, fatalists by nature, yet broken by habit to the
orthodox theological Catholic doctrine of Freewill, have subsided into a
mixture of both, which they cannot define nor explain to themselves nor
to others.
But although I had heard the cry of wolf too often to give it ready ear,
solid difficulties presented themselves. A fortnight’s march up a
pathless, densely wooded, and possibly waterless mountain, with bad
tribes in rear and a desert in front, where all supplies must be carried
by Krumen—poltroons who at the appearance of a fancied danger fling
themselves into the bush, mutinous dogs whose one invariable tactic
under difficulties is to make progress so hard and so dangerous, by
bumping the master’s hammock against stub and stone, by inducing sore
feet, or by diminishing the provisions, that the march must perforce be
given up in disgust—may appear at home as feasible as a run through the
Himalayas or the Andes: it wears, however, quite another aspect at
Clarence Town.
During my brief delay on the island another volunteer presented himself
for the exploration, which assumed the air of a little international
expedition. M. Atilano Calvo Iturburu, assessor or assistant judge, was
as weary as myself of ‘palavers’ and Fernando Po: he obtained a month’s
leave of absence, and zealously prepared to outfit himself. The reader
must not confound him with certain venerable beings in wigs and gowns,
owning to that style and title in England, but rather think of him as a
fast young pig-sticking Anglo-Indian magistrate. Although we had looked
into the craters on the summit of Ilha Formosa, I almost feared—not
knowing him to be a Vascongado on the mother’s side—lest, after many
fevers, he might break down upon the frozen heights of the Camaroons,
and explained to him the conditions of exploration, namely go ahead at
all risks, even if one or more be left behind, and to send on the
stores, ‘the tools to him who can handle them.’ He responded cheerfully,
and, so far from ‘caving in,’ he devanced me on one occasion, and when
the party was laid up he preserved his health. I found him throughout an
amiable and not unphilosophic man, whose society round the camp-fire
added greatly to the pleasures of an evening in the wild.
Betimes on Wednesday the 18th December, Judge Calvo and myself found
ourselves off Ambas Bay in H.M.S. ‘Bloodhound,’ Lieut. Stokes
commanding. As Morning, habited in her well-known russet mantle, walked
over the beautiful Camaroons, we could distinguish the features of the
scenery, which, viewed from the south-eastern entrance, are even more
enchanting than when seen from the western approach. The immense height
of the wooded curtain behind dwarfed the several islands that sentinel
the bay to mere patches of a darker hue; presently they stood out with a
beautiful distinctness, and relieved the sea of any appearance of
monotony. Already the hand of Autumn—I should rather say the dry
season—had besprinkled the many-hued foliage with red and yellow, whilst
others, beautiful in their new coats, were decked with large masses of
flowers, some white, others resembling the peony. Rising from the ruddy
cliffs that wall in the harbour, the land sloped upwards to 5000 feet
within about three miles; thin curls of blue smoke rose here and there,
evidencing settlements, and the little canoes of the fishermen flitted
over the milky blue waters. We steamed through the eastern channel, a
clear entrance 880 yards wide with 5 to 6 fathoms of water, under
Mananga Point, the high terminal bluff separating Ambas from Man-of-
War’s Bay, and defending Victoria Harbour from the violence of the
south-western winds.
Landing at the Missionary establishment, we found Mr. Saker up and
ready: M. Mann had set out in advance, and we agreed to follow him next
morning. On the same evening the ‘Bloodhound’ left us for Lagos, where
she was to convey her ex-commander Lieutenant Dolben, and whence she was
to proceed under Lieutenant Stokes to the much-desired South-Coast
station. With regret I saw her leave. The Russian saying touching houses
may be applied to ships in these regions: ‘Build the soundest
imaginable, and the cockroaches will be in them before the owners.’ She
was certainly very ‘roachy.’ But her comfortable dimensions made her a
great contrast to the fast and narrow ‘screws’ which are now fashionable
upon the West African Coast; she had been my home for well-nigh a month;
and to one whose usual tenement is his hat, a good lodging and pleasant
society are not to be lost sight of _sans serrement de cœur_.
[Footnote 5: Smaller volcanoes like Vesuvius ‘change almost
imperceptibly from the steepest incline at which the outermost ashes and
rocks will hang together, to a curve which ultimately sweeps away into a
horizontal direction.’ But in those the cone bears a far greater
proportion to the whole than in such features as the Camaroons and
Fernando Po, consequently the angle of the culminating line appears
excessive.]
[Footnote 6: Fernando Po Peak was ascended as early as 1843.]
[Footnote 7: As far as volcanic action is known, the different crater-
vents communicate by ducts with the same central cause—very distinct
from all idea of parasitism.]
[Footnote 8: ‘The river Camaroon with the Ambas Islands,’ by Capt. W.
Allen, H.M.S. ‘Wilberforce,’ 1842, with additions by Mr. V. F. Johnson,
H.M.S. ‘Philomel.’ The soundings and positions of the Hydrographical
Chart are of course tolerably correct; the names of tribes and places
are all more or less wrong.]
[Footnote 9: The Spanish colony that landed at Fernando Po in 1858
attributed the greater part of its losses to the inhumanity of the black
people, who made a combination not to lodge them, and agreed to ‘cut
their chop’—_anglicè_, to starve them.]
[Footnote 10: Writing from Fernando Po, May 31st, 1860, to Sir Wm.
Hooker, M. Mann says:—‘I heard that you had inquired if it were possible
to ascend the mountain of Bimbia or Camaroon. You will hear shortly that
it is quite impossible, and only killing men to send them up there;
this, however, was also told me before I went up Clarence Peak. It is,
no doubt, _very_ difficult, but it is possible; only too much must not
be expected from the first trip.’ (From the ‘Journal of the Proceedings
of the Linnæan Society,’ vol. vi.)]
[Footnote 11: ‘A knowledge of the temperate flora of any spot on the
West Coast of tropical Africa has long been one of the greatest
desiderata in botanical geography, not only on account of the intrinsic
interest that must attach to the plants of the extremely few isolated
points so elevated as to possess a temperate climate in that vast humid
and torrid area, but also from the light such lights might be exacted to
throw on the floras of St. Helena, the Cape de Verd, and the Canaries,
all of which (and especially the former) contain peculiar endemic
genera, whose nearest allies might be expected to exist in the mountains
of the neighbouring continent.’—‘Journal of the Proceedings of the
Linnæan Society,’ vol. vi.]
[Footnote 12: Loc. sup. cit.]
[Footnote 13: Meaning a man of the Bakwiri tribe or bushmen, from kwiri,
a bush. The word is Isubu. This small _échantillon_ will suffice to show
that the dialects of East and West Africa are as closely connected as
their flora. Here also there is a slight European importation; I
particularly remarked ‘bwámo,’—good!—and suspected the Spanish bueno.
Despite the dicta of Dr. Beke (‘On the Mountains forming the Eastern
Side of the Basin of the Nile’—a paper full of good and borrowed but
unacknowledged information), who on this point follows Mr. E. Norris’s
edition of ‘Prichard’s History of Man,’ I still deem it advisable to
retain these ‘terse and concise African prefixes,’ which, if abandoned,
would necessitate a weary redundancy of words. They can hardly, as Mr.
Norris says, ‘occasion puzzlement to the readers of African
intelligence,’ unless intelligence be sadly wanting in the readers. Mr.
Norris and Dr. Beke omit the Kafir prefix ‘when it has not become part
and parcel of the English appellation,’ deeming it ‘not only awkward,
but positively incorrect.’ With due modesty I venture to opine that they
have substituted for a fancied awkwardness a real blunder. To call
‘Unyamwezi’ and ‘Usumbara’ ‘Nyamwezi’ and ‘Sumbara,’ is about as correct
as to term ‘Britain’ and ‘Britons’ ‘Brit’ or ‘Brits.’]
[Footnote 14: ‘Narrative of the Niger Expedition in 1841,’ by Capt. W.
Allen, R.N., and T. R. N. Thompson, Esq., M.D., London, Bentley, 1848.
It was written some time after the return of the authors from that
disastrous attempt, and is a valuable work.]
[Footnote 15: The Bakwiri, who are erroneously called Bakwileh in the
chart, use R for L, opposed to the tribes about Batanga, who use L for
R; here, moreover, there are neither sibilants nor aspirates. Their
speech, like the Kisawahili, abounds in K, a letter avoided in the
Dualla or Camaroons dialect.]
[Footnote 16: MS. Geological Journal, Niger Expedition.]
[Footnote 17: Captain Allen (vol. ii. chap. vii.) distinctly asserts
that this submarine ridge exists; on the other hand, there are
shipmasters at Fernando Po who declare that the water rapidly deepens
from the shore to 80 fathoms.]
[Footnote 18: Others say nine: the chart gives six feet of rise at full
and change.]
[Footnote 19: ‘In the latter half of the day I was much refreshed by the
constant sea-breeze, which in Fernando Po we seldom enjoy, and which
renders Victoria such a pleasant and agreeable residence for
Europeans.’—M. Mann, ‘Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnæan Society
of London,’ Botany, vol. vii.]
[Footnote 20: From this old author I extract (Appendix I.) an accurate
and truthful description of the region, which is not noticed by his
contemporary Bosman, who yet alludes to the De El Rei and the Camaroons
rivers. The reader will not fail to remark how greatly the islanders
have changed since those days.]
[Footnote 21: ‘Camaroon’ in the Mauritius means crawfish.]
[Footnote 22: This gallant officer succeeded in 1830 to the government
of the settlement formed at Fernando Po by Capt. Owen in 1827; he also
has left his mark in Nicolls Island at the mouth of the Bimbia river.]
[Footnote 23: This assertion rests upon the direct authority of Capt.
Allen (vol. ii. chap. vii.).]
[Footnote 24: In Appendix II. I have republished Mr. Merrick’s narrative
from the Baptist Magazine of 1845.]
[Footnote 25: The faculty begins quietly and gingerly to confess this
belief. ‘The evidence that intemperance in drinking exerts a particular
influence in the production of hepatitis is by no means conclusive;’ and
‘the occurrence of hepatitis, on the other hand, in its severest form,
is not an unusual event in persons of temperate habits—a statement which
practitioners in India generally will, I am sure, amply confirm,’ says
Dr. Morehead (‘Diseases of India’). He might have instanced the case of
M. Jacquemont, who, deriding the English consumption of beef and beer,
scientifically Hinduized himself with rice and water, and died at the
end of the year of an invincible dysentery.]
[Footnote 26: I have reprinted Mr. Laird’s letter in Appendix V.]
[Footnote 27: It must, however, be owned that, beyond the expulsion
order, the Spanish authorities have shown great toleration; in fact, if
their rule has a fault, it is over lenity. A French commandant would
certainly have billeted his men upon the negro townspeople when they
refused to let lodgings and they ‘cut chop.’ The negro Baptists tried
hard to enjoy a little persecution: during their private prayer
meetings, or when ‘sitting under’ an occasional missionary from the
mainland—churches are not permitted—they pretended great fear, closing
doors and shutters whenever they inflicted injury upon the sweet songs
of Zion. The Spanish wisely ignored all these little fooleries. The
people are of some 30 to 40 nations, originally from Sierra Leone, with
a few _emancipados_ from the Oil Rivers. They are justly described by
Capt. Allen as ‘a lazy population of liberated Africans,’ who neglect
the advantages of one of the richest soils in the world. They are now
perfectly contented; many boast of being Spaniards, and they will
probably all come over to the old Church, where, however, they will be
no acquisition. There is probably not a soul amongst them that can
distinguish a Protestant from a Catholic sermon. The a’mighty dollar is
slowly but surely working its way. The salaries being defrayed by Cuba
are liberal at Fernando Po, and considerable sums are spent in the
island. The governor, who reports directly home to the President of
Council (Minister of War and of Colonies), besides pay and allowances of
8000 dollars per annum, may dispose yearly of 25,000 dollars for local
improvements. If we had sanctioned even this much in the Gold Coast and
other outlying provinces, they would not now be in ruins. One million of
reals was assigned for the immigration of colonists during the first
year, and the Jesuit Mission has been allowed 6000 dollars per annum.
Whilst the British consulship is worth 500_l._, the Spanish Secretary to
the Civil Judge receives 3000 dollars, and the interpreter 2000 dollars.
Besides which there is the expenditure of the naval and military
establishments; two hulks, one steam gun-vessel, and a picked company of
150 infantry, each paid 10 dollars per mens., with two captains and a
similar number of lieutenants, sub-lieutenants, and surgeons.
Prices of course became exorbitant; three shillings were paid for a lean
chicken smaller than an English pigeon; the negroes, however, made merry
and lived in a congenial idleness, which has more than compensated for
the loss of their ‘morning (and evening) privilege.’]
[Footnote 28: A glance at Mr. Keith Johnstone’s latest map of Africa
will show that the only purely white paper is bounded by the limits
above assigned.]
[Footnote 29: As a rule, the lines of volcanic disturbance run in a
diagonal to the direction of the earth’s rotation—suggesting some tidal
action in the gas or fluid underlying the earth’s crust—from N.W. to
S.E. along the western side of the great terrestrial areas of Europe,
Asia, and America; they may be traced again along the eastern side
almost as continuously, trending in transverse lines from S.W. to N.E.,
as from Mexico to Greenland, and from Sumatra to Behring’s Straits;
hence a general parallelism of coast, inland mountain, and axis of
volcanic action is inferred.]
[Footnote 30: Capt. Owen saw the Rumbi Mountains from a distance of 60
miles, and made them 44 miles N.E. of Camaroons Peak. The Kwa (Qua)
Mountains, which are visible from the Cross or Old Calabar River, are
placed both by Captains Owen and Boteler (chap. xiv. vol. ii. ‘Narrative
of a Journey of Discovery,’ Bentley, 1835) 64 miles N., 16° 15′ W. of
the Camaroons, and were seen from nearly 80 miles.]
[Footnote 31: In this range is Mount Alantika, to which the Hamburg
traveller assigns an altitude of eight to ten thousand feet.]
[Footnote 32: Mr. Beecroft ascended the Bimbia, but I am unable to find
an account of his trip.]
[Footnote 33: The northern limit is at present doubtful.]
[Footnote 34: The reader will consult upon this subject the able paper
on Ethno-Climatology, or the Acclimatization of Man, by Dr. Jas. Hunt
(‘Trans. Ethnological Soc.,’ vol. ii., New Series). I differ with the
author only in suspecting that he has attached too much importance to
the danger of dysentery, hill-diarrhœa, and other bowel complaints in
the altitudes above the malarious tropical regions. Altitude must not be
our sole guide in sanitaria and hill stations; they can be judged only
by actual experience, and a height which here is healthy is there found
to be distinctly the reverse.]
[Footnote 35: Somewhat similar was the opinion of the late Duke of
Wellington, not to mention a cloud of competent observers and writers.
Mr. Crawfurd (‘Trans. Ethnological Soc.,’ vol. i., New Series, p. 89)
considers this ‘an hypothesis unsupported by facts,’ although every fact
tends to prove it.]
[Footnote 36: I had determined upon that period by an inspection of the
chart. From Ambas Bay the direct distance is 13 miles, which must be
multiplied by two for détours, and in such places an average of a mile
per diem is fair progress. The following is a list of necessaries for a
party of seven men:—
£ _s._ _d._
7 blue shirts 2 5 6
7 serge trousers 3 10 0
7 pr. boots 3 10 0
12 red woollen caps 0 6 0
2 dozen matchets 1 0 0
2 hatchets 0 2 10
2 (water) breakers 0 8 8
452 lbs. rice 7 10 8
200 lbs. pork 7 10 0
14½ gallons rum 3 2 10
5 pieces blue baft 3 5 0
2 ditto satin stripe 0 17 4
------------------
£33 8 10
For private stores the best guide is any Alpine book, and even ‘Zouave
leggings’ are not to be despised. Explorers in these regions must not
forget that they are their own doctors, nor neglect caustic and
diachylum; the reader will presently see how dear this little experience
cost me.
All the belongings should be carefully watched. Krumen will steal
anything and everything they can. If the water-breakers be provided with
lock and key they will, unless stopped by the stick, try the trick of
breaking them, and all cutlery will rapidly disappear, knives being most
useful as offerings of gallantry to the native belles.
The prime difficulty here, as in other parts of Africa, is the
_chaussure_. It is almost impossible to keep boots in order. The natural
precautions are to procure the best and strongest articles that London
makes—especially avoiding elastics—to use a little neats-foot oil
instead of any vegetable unguents, and to keep them out of the reach of
air and damp as much as possible. Even then two or three new pair will
yield to the lava and other influences within the month.]
[Footnote 37: The usual snowy season is the tornado period, in our
spring and autumn, with occasional falls during the rains. From May to
July, and from September to October, the appearance is common, at other
times rare. Yet in February, 1860, Messrs. Saker and Mann, after a heavy
storm, saw from Victoria the topmost cone sheeted with white; on the
next day a few stripes remained, and on the 3rd all had disappeared. On
the 14th February, 1862, Capt. Perry, H.M.S. ‘Griffon,’ and all on
board, when steaming up Camaroons River, saw the whole main peak covered
with snow.]
CHAPTER II.
WE ENCAMP AT ‘MANN’S SPRING.’
Precisely at 6 A.M. on the next day we arose, despite the ravages of
mosquitos and sand-flies—pernicious little wretches, midge-sized, but
capable of raising lumps as large as billiard-balls upon man’s exposed
epidermis—bade adieu to Mrs. and Miss Saker, and fifty minutes
afterwards found ourselves _en route_, with a hurrah. The party
consisted of four heads and eighteen tails. Mr. Saker was attended by
two men, who carried his bedding, water-breaker, and a locked box of
necessaries, such as rice, tea, cocoa, sugar, boiled ham, salt pork,
sweet cake, soft bread, salt, chilis, and a pocket-pistol of cognac,
which _we_ emptied, and the veteran voyager never took his eye off the
commissariat. He was temporarily accompanied by Mr. Johnson, a native of
the Susu country, near Sierra Leone, above thirty years a resident in
these parts: he had begun life as factotum to Mr. Beecroft, and had
settled down in his old age as a teacher in the Camaroons Mission. By
his inducement, ‘Money,’ alias Muni, a Dimbia runaway from King William,
who had previously deserted M. Mann, on pretext of his mother’s illness,
but who in reality feared capture for debt by the villagers, accompanied
us as guide.
Judge Calvo travelled with four Krumen, all hopeless convicts from the
_cuartel_ of Fernando Po, and his body servant, a youth named Eyo, who
had succeeded in escaping the customs which followed the death of his
patron, young Eyo Honesty, King of New Calabar. My party consisted of
six men, under Black Will, a consummate ruffian,—these, brought to a
sense of their duty, often make the best travellers. Despite, however, a
sound preliminary dressing on board the ‘Bloodhound,’ and the vigorous
applications of my excellent steward, Selim Aga, Black Will soon managed
to sprain his ankle, and to return to Victoria. The tail was completed
by four Krumen, who had been sent down from the mountains by M. Mann, to
convoy a fresh supply of provisions. Not having ‘beef’ enough, we
carried with us arms, surveying instruments, bedding, and rations for a
week, leaving the remainder at Victoria till we could find hands.
The young sun glinting through that ‘cathedral of immensities,’ the
bush—Americans call our rivers creeks, and such is the magnificent
Anglo-African term for a forest of trees some 100 to 150 feet high—saw
us threading the little clearing behind the settlement. In this lower
part, under the outlying hills, the vegetation consists of palms—the
cocoa, confined to the immediate seaboard,[38] the _Raphia vinifera_,
called, from its uses, the bamboo and the wine palm,[39] the _Elæis
Guineensis_, or oil palm—and a variety of other trees, known only by
scientific names to Europe. A forest at home is often composed of one
genus, some of two or three, oak, elm, and beech; in the tropics they
must be numbered by dozens. The monarch of all trees is the mighty
_Bombax_. Of little inferior size are the scrubby oak of Sierra Leone
(_Lophira alata Banksii_, the light-red wings of whose fruit ‘the lady-
natives wear in their hair and ears’[40]), the African ‘oak’
(_Oldfieldia Africana_, also called teak and mahogany, but neither this,
that, nor the other), the sulphur-tree (_Morinda lucida Benthami_), also
called brimstone-tree,—the latter three affording superior timber for
house and ship-building. Of inferior size are the African cork (_Musanga
Smithii_), the Kolu tree (_Sterculia acuminata_), and a variety of
acacias and fici. The moss-streamers, so common in the Southern States
of the late Union, and which gave a name to ‘Barbadoes,’ here appear
upon the extremities only: at 7000 feet they will clothe the trees from
boll to branch, and, by killing the smaller branches, render the forest
somewhat unsafe during tornadoes. Where clearings have been made the
Cardamom (an unknown Amomum—Danielli?), and large grasses, principally
the broad-leaved panicum and the narrow saccharum,—which do not,
however, cut like the sugar-cane,—extend from the shore to 4000 feet
above sea-level, where smaller species take their place.
However beautiful the forest may be, it is ever a melancholy sight in
these lands, this riotous nature, against which man’s force has hitherto
been unable to prevail. One’s principal thought is how best to fell it,
and as there is little underwood the land cannot be difficult to clear.
The natives usually hew down the trees about November, after the rains,
lop off the branches, which are fired for manure at the end of the dry
season, or about the last of February, leave the trunks to decay, and
plant their crops, yams and koko (_C. esculenta_), ground-nuts and
cassava, maize and batatas, before the wet season begins.[41]
In these lower lands it would be necessary to corduroy a road. During
the rains the traveller must slip from the stones to sink waist-deep in
mire, and often when crossing over the mud his feet must hook in the
tree-roots. The whole of this land, extending from the shore to 1500
feet above sea-level, is a rich yellow loam, admirably fitted for sugar-
cane, tobacco, and cacao. The latter is far better for these idle races
than coffee, which requires slave labour.[42] The seed should be
procured, unboiled,[43] from Prince’s Island or San Thomé, set in
prepared patches, and weeded round when young. After twelve months it
keeps its own ground clear, and bears fruit after the third year. The
only labour is that of gathering the produce, breaking the husk,
removing the seed, sun-drying for two or three days, and carrying to
market: the sole objection to ‘theobroma’ is that it will not keep. The
plaintain, which grows luxuriantly, might be made a source of
wealth.[44]
After a thirty minutes’ walk we found the tall grasses beginning. A
little further we passed the path leading through the Batongo to the
Bimbia country, here distant about ten miles, and from that point twenty
miles of creek passage places the traveller in the Camaroons River.
Beyond it the line became steeper, and we saw, through a thin screen of
trees, the conical head of Mount Henry rising high to eastward of us. We
twice forded the black bed of a pure and purling little stream, which
seemed admirably adapted for water power. It varied in breadth from
twenty-five to eighty feet, and in depth from two feet to six inches,
and the dark stones both in the stream and on the banks were covered
with the snowy flowers of a small aroid. The general course was to the
S.S.W., and it was either the main stream, or a feeder of the rivulet
which flows into the sea close to Victoria. The dense wet scrub now
completely excluded the sun, and beyond the second fording began a steep
and rocky ascent of degraded basalt.
Here we met villagers seemingly on their way to market. The dress of the
many was a cotton _pagne_ or wrapper; the poorer were clad in the simple
attire of the Fernandian Bube,[45] and of the Eastern Wagogo. A grass
string was fastened round the waist, and a strip of cloth was made to
act as T-bandage, an isosceles triangle, sometimes tight, and two inches
broad at the base, at other times with ends depending in front. The
original costume was, I believe, a kilt of plaintain-leaves. The stuffs
were the common English cloths of barter, satin stripe, blue baft,
turkey-red cheques, and a few silk bandanas. The ornaments were the
small red and yellow, blue and white porcelain beads general in the
Camaroons River; the incisors of the porcupine tied by a thread round
the neck, and a multitude of ‘Lobo’-armlets[46] of brass, copper, and
iron, especially the ‘manilla,’ a form now well-nigh obsolete. The head
was mostly bare, and the shaving, as usual, highly fanciful. A few had
calottes of blackened bamboo-splints inside and goatskin outside, and
one young person wore a cap of some animal’s intestines. They walked
with alpenstocks, between five and six feet long, in shape not unlike
the Galician fungueiro. The extreme slipperiness of the clayey soil
after rain—I have seen many an old mountaineer on his back both here and
at Fernando Po—renders this third leg a necessity. It is sometimes
neatly carved, and provided with a round bulge for a snuff-box at the
handle. The men carried weapons, old muskets with greasy rags wrapped
round the rusty locks, or long broad blades in skin sheaths, ending in a
leathern disk, like the daggers of the Somal. Those who could not afford
such costly sorts had common ‘matchets,’ thin choppers of base metal
fitted with wooden handles. The women were evidently the bees of the
social hive; almost all of them were laden with large black panniers of
bamboo cane shaped and strapped to the back, except when the place was
already occupied by the baby, clinging racoon-like to the parental
person, and supported by a foot square of grass-cloth, with shoulder
braces. There was little of beauty among the fair and faithless Bakwiri;
some of them, however, had firmly-made lower limbs, like the _mollets_
of the constitutional-loving Englishwoman. The elders were ‘bales of
cadaverous goods,’ the juniors had the grotesque prettiness of the baby
gorilla, and some wore their faces blackened in sign of mourning, a
practical illustration of sending coals to Newcastle, lily-painting, or
gold-gilding. They were wonderfully tattooed with a blue, produced, it
is said, by the soot of some root and a resinous gum picked up on the
shore. The patterns were fanciful _sévignés_, perpendicular lines down
the forehead, artificial eyebrows,—the natural being shaven,—wedges
between the optics and temples, circles and wheels upon the cheeks and
chin, and similar efforts of high art. The eyelashes were plucked, with
the usual unpleasant effect, making the organ look bleared, fixed, and
beast-like. The operation is an infallible preventive to
‘Ce trait de feu qui des yeux passe à l’âme,
De l’âme aux sens.’
All, even children three or four years old, were clamorous for a
_prise_. In these countries both sexes sensibly use tobacco, which in
Europe has mostly been monopolized by the wrong sex. It is placed
between the lip and teeth,[47] and even the common powder made by Krumen
is preferred to the best smoking leaf. They appeared healthy. A few
cases of ulcers and hydrocele were seen, but on the whole they were
freer from disease than our party of Krumen.
As we advanced a single woodman’s hut appeared upon the roadside, the
scattered plantations showing a tolerable population; and loud musket
reports were heard rumbling and echoing through the hills. Mr. Johnson
accounted for them by some recent death. The wood was vocal with the
hoo-hoo-hoo of the touraco, which a stranger might mistake for a dog’s
bark. The palm-birds fluttered round their nested tree; and the widow-
bird perched upon the spray. At times a brown kite (_F. chilla_) lay on
the wing, the sole sign, except the sand-fly, of animal life. After an
ugly pull up rocks and roots, dotted with grass, and bewildered by a
labyrinth of paths—our carriers were compelled to rest every half-
hour—we entered the district of Bosumbo, and found three scattered tents
tenanted by Bakwiri. These people do not, like the Fernandian Bubes,
congregate in towns: the scarcity of water and petty feuds keep them
separate. They do not inhabit the immediate seaboard for fear of
kidnappers; nor do they extend up the mountains higher than the banana
and the oil palm. Their habitat is therefore, as is the case with the
Bubes, between 1000 and 3000 feet above sea-level. Mr. Johnson insisted
upon leading us to the tenement of the chief, Myombi, who lives,
probably for safety, like most of his fellows, in the centre of his
district. At 10·30 A.M. we reached the place, two blocks, each of two
huts, surrounded by plantains, and separated by a hundred yards or so.
It lies between N.N.E. and N. of Victoria, distant about 4½ miles;[48]
and the altitude is 1055 feet. Presently Myombi himself made his
appearance in the glazed hat of a British tar—these people must make
themselves ridiculous in some way—and showed us a little civility, which
time proved to be not wholly disinterested. We halted at his place for
breakfast: water threatening not to last, we experimented upon the
banana-stalk, and found its porous and cellular tissue to contain a
refreshing supply of wholesome drink, with a faint flavour of cucumber.
Some of the natives have not, it is said, any other potable; and it
forms excellent fodder for cattle, keeping fresh for three weeks. Mr.
Johnson mentioned succulent herbs and water-bulbs, like those of the
South African karroos; none, however, were met with.
Noon saw as again on the footpath way. A short distance out of Bosumbo
took us to a quadrivium, of which the north-east branch led down the
hill-slopes, through a country of scattered settlements, to the populous
town of Abo;[49] the south and east to the sea; and the west, our
direction, up the mountain. Myombi had been persuaded, by the gift of a
pair of matchets, to lend us a guide. The sun’s heat was overpowering in
the lanes of grass that here opened out, and there strangled the road.
It was a fine place for snakes. They are rare, however, in these dank
regions; the only specimen seen was a fine asp (Cerastes), hanging
outside one of the cottages. The bearing of our path somewhat perplexed
me; we struck nearly due west; and instead of ascending from, we seemed
descending to, the sea. Presently the cause appeared in a few scattered
huts, called Turu,[50] whose chief came forth and forbade passage till
presented with a cloth and a matchet. We then resumed the road, which
dwindled to a hardly perceptible by-path, crossing from east to west,
with other ramifications leading, it was said, to Bimbia. Here the face
of the country was wrinkled with prisms of jagged trachytic rock,
separated by chasms, cloughs, and ravines, which must roll torrents
during the rains, and by pick and spade might easily be made to supply
water throughout the year. We passed many old clearings, or rather
fallows, denoted by high grass and plantains run wild, and a few fresh
cuttings, a hundred feet each way, in the dense bush. The rocky, rooty
ground rendered walking difficult, and condemned us to look more often
at our feet than at the features of the country. On the dank, miry
surface, unseen by the midday sun, the ants were unusually troublesome;
and we found a few millepedes and land-shells, which were secured for
transmission home. Llianas, which here extend from 2000 to 7000 feet
high, ‘romped upon the trees.’ There were asclepiadæ, gardeniaceæ,
convolvulaceæ, and cucurbitous plants, whose fruit, like the cocoa,
forms a convenient water-dipper. The dry season is in these regions the
flowery period. The ipomæa, a bright blue convolvulus, and momordica
with red-yellow flower and little prickly gourd, invested the bush where
it was more than usually open. The clematis was beautiful with its
spangles of white bloom; and we especially remarked a geranium; a
papilionaceous bean-like blossom of vivid scarlet; a perfumed flower,
not unlike a honeysuckle; and the large yellow malvacea, popularly
called hibiscus. There were orchids in numbers; but these epiphytes in
Africa lack the beauty of the American. The conspicuous tree of the
forest was the enormous eriodendron; the anthocleista and monodora were
remarkable for their foliage; whilst the sterculia, though leafless,
glowed with carmine-coloured fruit.
After three miles of hard labour, which made us tremble for our loaded
Krumen’s feet, and halt frequently to recruit exhausted nature with
_anizado_ and water, the guide suddenly exclaimed, ‘Mboka Botani!’
(Botani’s town). It had an ominous sound; and we were afterwards
justified in terming it Botany Bay. The district is called Mapanya. Here
every place appears to have two names, its own and that of its head-man.
Presently tall shredded plantains appeared rustling in the now cooler
breeze, which was odorous with a salvia bearing a fair blue flower. An
African stile, three transverse rungs for steps—sometimes there is a
notched palm-trunk—in the dwarf but solid palisade, introduced us to a
settlement of two huts, from which the unarmed tenants sallied forth
with horrid din, to gaze upon us with absorbed stare. During our few
minutes’ _séance_ the judge descried a horn, probably ivory, and
proposed adding it to his collection: the owner, however, modestly
demanded only a hat, a coat, and a shirt; in fact, he wanted to become a
‘gentleman.’ The warning of the guide, who pointed to a sinking sun,
brought us to our feet again; and after sundry rises and sinkings of
ground we saw upon the summit of a grassy and flowery hill a figure in
wide-awake and blanket-suit, which proved to be M. Mann. He had spent
the day—as his first words informed us—in rest, having returned but
yesterday evening from the summit. The announcement caused us to ‘tie a
face,’ as the Africans say. Soon, however, I reflected that, considering
the distance and the height, it was some mistake on his part; and this
it proved to be. The enterprising botanist, so far from having scaled
the summit, had never even seen it. Meanwhile he led us into a hut which
he had cleared out and occupied, supplied us with some bad green water,
which he had purchased at the rate of three tobacco-leaves per
breaker,[51] and an excellent pepper-pot of yam and fowl.
We had hardly seated ourselves, and removed from our continuations the
hamated burrs of the hedysarum,[52] before Botani, a buxom chief, made
his appearance, and M. Mann introduced him as ‘an unusually polite
person, quite different from those he had previously seen.’ He was a
short thickset individual, aged about thirty-five, with a well-turned,
hillman’s leg. His complexion, like that of his wives—many of whom had
‘taken venues under their girdles’—and his children, who were numerous,
was a sallow yellow, a tint rare about the Camaroons River: the contrast
with the dark brown of his followers would suggest in Eastern Africa a
difference of descent. His brown eyes were bare of lash and brow; his
long fat upper lip was clean shaven; his beard was the Yankee goatee;
and he had a regulation whisker, tattooed in bright blue. Not less
laughable than his _personale_ was this Soulouque’s costume: a lofty
black beaver, a scanty breech-cloth of chequed cotton, and a full-dress
coatee, all red and yellow—‘devil’s livery’—of the old Royal Marines.
Thus attired _en roi_, he progressed towards the hut-door; and whilst
the vulgar squatted upon the ground, shouting a song and beating time,
he performed a solemn pavane, ending in a lavolt, a turn-about, a wheel-
about, and a jump Jim Crow, in right royal African style. A frantic
pushing of palms, as if he would prostrate each new-comer friend, and an
accolade, right breast to right breast, were the signs of absolute
welcome which our Polichinelle vouchsafed to us. The judge roared with
delight; but I felt grave. When the negro king dances he expects the
white man to pay the piper somewhat heavily.
The edifying exercise concluded, M. Mann told us the tale of his
troubles. On the 13th December, after a ‘dash’ of ten
‘little’—pronounced lill—‘tings,’ each worth a shilling,[53] to Myombi
and Nangasika, the first and second head-men of Bosumbo, he had left
Victoria with Mr. Pinnock, Money his interpreter, six Krumen, and a
Mokwiri guide, with seven followers, who had received, as fee for safe
conduct to Mapanya, four pieces, _i.e._ goods worth 4_l._ Arrived in the
evening at the Bosumbo, which he called ‘Bassumba,’ village, he gave the
chief his present—an assortment of ‘lill’ tings’ worth about thirty
shillings. The next day was a compulsory halt; the natives, pleading
fatigue, refused to proceed, and Mr. Money, having drawn payments to the
amount of 2_l._ in kind, naturally ran away. Thus the traveller was
reduced to employ as interpreter a boy seven or eight years old, a
Bimbia orphan in the service of Mr. Pinnock, and rejoicing in the name
of ‘Poor Fellow.’ This was the first mishap. Everywhere in Africa the
interpreter should be a man of weight and wealth. On the 15th, Myombi
again refused passage till dashed to the extent of 2_l._ in a coat, a
keg of powder, and minor articles. Here was a decided mistake, which
patience would have prevented. The only return gift was a small black
porker, a wretched fowl, and two yams. M. Mann, however, starting at 8
A.M., reached in four hours his _Meta Incognita_, Mapanya. On the 16th,
Botani, who had left home ordering a hut to be cleared for his visitor,
returned without pomp or dancing, and received his ‘dash’—one musket,
one keg of powder, matchets and knives, snuff-box, mirror, rum, tobacco,
and silk and cotton kerchiefs, worth in toto about 2_l._ 10_s._, for
which he agreed to supply an escort. On the 17th the chief brought
eleven men, and demanded for them each one head of tobacco and one
fathom of cloth, besides extra blackmail for himself, a musket, sundry
kerchiefs, rum, and tobacco, in value, perhaps, thirty shillings. M.
Mann set out at 7 A.M., reached the water, which he afterwards
christened by his name, at 5 P.M., and nighted a little beyond it. On
the next day, the natives having disappeared, he was accompanied by two
Krumen only to a Cone, where he left his maximum and minimum
thermometers, and whence he returned—persuaded that he had reached _the_
Peak, which was under a cloud—arriving at Mapanya on the 18th December.
It is evident that ten guineas will not pay the expenses of a vacation
tour to the Camaroons Highlands, as it has been made to do in
Switzerland.
After the ‘stagnant air and leaden sky, the livid clouds and rain-
torrents, heavy, prone, and broad,’ in the oil rivers, the ‘dissolution
and thaw’ of Fernando Po, and the ‘simmering upon a damp mattress’ in
the regions below, we enjoyed a pleasant soirée in the soft, light, hazy
air. At 6 P.M. the thermometer showed 69° Fahr., in the Camaroons River
it rarely sinks below 73°, and ranges from that to 82°. The Krumen,
being sadly tired, asked, after their fashion, leave to play, and sang
and danced through half the night. Mr. Saker and I slept in M. Mann’s
tent, composed of three blankets, two for the pent-roof, and one for the
boot and entrance. The judge and the botanist preferred the hard-knobbed
floor of the tent.
My heart fell at the prospect before us. We had four sets of Krumen, the
most disorderly of their unruly herd. All were apparently to be masters;
it was the old query—
‘I Señor—thou Señor—he Señor,
Tell me who’ll pull the boat ashore?’
They entered the tent and impudently took whatever they inclined to, rum
and tobacco, pork and white rice. We had set apart a breaker of pure
water; they pushed in and helped themselves _ad libitum_. The savage
instinct readily returns upon this race. I have heard old man-of-war’s
Krumen tell their Captain that in the bush all men are equal. They
contributed not a little to the failure of the Niger expedition in 1857.
The members, supersaturated with Exeter Hall influences, treated their
forty-seven negroes like rational beings. A little ‘prigging’ began;
first a few leaves of tobacco, then a mirror, a knife, a matchet: after
a few weeks the supercargo found that he had lost goods to the extent of
240_l._
My resolution was taken during that cool pleasant night, which was
succeeded by a delightful morning, the mercury showing 64° Fah. at 5
A.M., and the small birds singing with all their throats. At the break
of day we arose, banished the thoughts of the sand-flies with strong
green tea, and saw our breath—What a pleasure to the Englishman in the
tropics! My companions were persuaded to place the Kruman party under my
charge, and I made them over to Selim Aga with an order that no man
should enter the tent or touch the rations without leave. The fellows
listened with a smile, and instantly disobeyed, a proceeding as readily
noticed by the soundest external application. ‘He be debbil man,’ was
the remark with which my ears were gratified. This, however, was the
beginning of amendment; the fustigations were afterwards more
ceremoniously conducted, and at the end of a fortnight my rascals were
in fair working order, sighing for ‘Nanny Po,’ which at other places
they regard with horror.
The 20th December was a Friday, and a halt. Mr. Johnson and Money, whose
services were no longer required, returned to Victoria, and seven Krumen
under Selim Aga accompanied them, with orders to bring a fresh relay of
provisions. We had ample time to cast a look around Mapanya and at its
population.
The clearing lies W.N.W. of Victoria, and N.N.W. of Bosumbo. It is
distant from the sea about 7½ miles,[54] and the altitude was laid down
at 2650 feet. The site is a dwarf platform, and the enclosure is 1100
feet across. Curious to say, in this land of chronic skirmish there are
no stockades, the use of which is so well known to Africans. As early as
1562 Sir John Hawkins had 6 men killed and 40 wounded, out of a total of
150 men, before one of these ‘Pahs’ near Elmina. It is surrounded by a
dense bush, in which the saccharum grows ten to eleven feet high, and
the plantain, the cork-tree, and that locally called gamboge
(_Psorospermum alternifolium_), forming a background. A little below the
entrance is the last Elæis, that typical tropical type, here stunted to
about thirty feet. The natives, I have said, cannot live without this
tree: they tap it for their drink every morning, leaving an empty
calabash for the next day’s draughts, and during the operation they make
the peculiar laughing, crowing cry, which, echoed by the hills, sounds
weird and strange in the wild. They prepare a modicum of oil for
household use, and carry to market the fresh nuts removed from the
spike. Where the wood opens there is a lovely view. Thousands of feet
above us, bearing N. ¼ W., and emerging from the shaggy folds of the
mountain, are three ‘nicks,’ as they are called in the North Country,
one wooded, the two upper bare. M. Mann informed us that we should find
water behind the highest and boldest Cone, which can be seen from
Fernando Po, and we named them the ‘Three Sisters.’ The background,
dense with eternal forest, which shuts in the higher cones, is clear and
sharp between 8 and 9·30 A.M., and again an hour before sunset: during
day, however, it is hid at this season by a veil of muslin-like vapour.
Below us we sight, as though through the small end of a telescope, the
blue and misty ocean, with its edge, not rising in the lowlands like a
wall on the horizon, but ill defined and melting into sky; and by
walking a few paces we see a bird’s-eye view of Mondori Island, the
Bimbia Hills, hung in middle space between firmament and ocean, and the
Camaroons River, winding, like a dull white thread, through an abyss of
brownish blue.
The settlement consists of two parallel lines of huts, four on one side
facing three on the other, as near the Camaroons and Gaboon Rivers,
forming the nucleus of a single street, which runs into a steep grass-
lined by-path, leading up the mountain. There are also little tracks and
passages through the bush to the adjoining villages. The only objects of
remark are a few large grindstones, the dwarf trellises for gourds
growing at the entrance, and in the centre, propped by other stones, a
small basaltic block, hollowed out like a shallow mortar. Before our
arrival M. Mann had seen the principal men busy in ‘making Fetish’ to
ward off bad luck and to keep the peace. They poured water from a dipper
over a small broom placed upon this embryo altar, and offered similar
libations on all the roads leading out of the villages. It is a race
‘Whose primitive religion reaches
As far as Adam’s first green breeches;’
but this time their Fetish was not ‘strong.’
The huts are oblongs, with pent-roofs of palm-thatch, and the walls are
wattled posts of the strong and fibrous tree-fern, covered with sheets
of bark to keep out the wind. Near the outside lie stones and logs, used
as chairs, and the experienced eye notices the ominous drum. It is
shaped like a large keg, with two parallel slits in one of the long
ends, leaving between them a solid bar for handle;[55] the reverse side,
upon which it stands, is flattened, and the sticks are a pair of little
cudgels. The huts have a single door, but neither window nor chimney.
The interior is divided into three: at one end is a dark chamber,
serving, I presume, for the father and mother that make the family; the
centre is the hall, &c.; and the other extremity may be called the
kitchen, containing a rough hearth and an upper platform, below which
meat is smoked in a hanging tray, and above which fuel is stored.
Furniture there is none; the beds are coarse hatchet hewed planks four
feet long, and placed upon cross-blocks. Cleanliness is the last thing
thought of; the ceiling looks as if painted with coal-tar, the air reeks
with smoke, and the floors show that sheep, goats, and poultry pass the
night with their owners.
Under such circumstances life is necessarily simple. These gymnosophists
have no want but food and drink, fuel and tobacco. Of course they will
not labour, and, if they did, they would be fools. A few hours’ work in
the year enables them to burn some square yards in the bush and to plant
their banana-stems, after which climate does the rest. The Bakwiri rise
with the dawn, and shiver till the fire is lit. The men then hasten to
their palm-trees, and to assist them in their ascent, carry a hoop made
of many kinds of creepers. It is an oval, of three feet conjugate; the
part intended for behind the back is broad, that which touches the tree
is twisted, and the ends are hooked and knotted together.[56] In the
rainy season it is necessary to cut little steps in the trunk. The
women, shouldering their panniers, go forth for food and water. About
the latter article there is a mystery. When we ask where they find it,
the reply is, ‘too far off;’ they refuse to show it. We observe that the
people grease themselves with palm-oil instead of washing—imagine the
consequences!—and that the animals are not allowed to drink. They return
after some time from various directions, bearing calabashes corked with
leaves, and the contents are turbid or green. We conclude, therefore,
that their wells are probably stagnant pools, soon exhausted, and that
they are then reduced to squeezing ferns, grasses, and dewy plants for
their beverage. Presently the little flocks, which have kept up a
concert of cries, are driven out by the boys to graze. The goats, like
the Camaroons ‘Egbo,’ are superior to those of the coast; the sheep are
of the lanky, hairy, thin-tailed kind, resembling dogs rather than
Southdowns. These animals are greatly valued by the people, who will not
sell them except for exorbitant sums; they are better treated than the
children, and are used chiefly to pay ransoms, to settle palavers, or to
serve as stock when ‘trust’ fails. They are never milked, and when we
applied for a little of the article the answer was, ‘King he no will!’
The poultry is plentiful and good, but hardly to be bought. I saw
amongst them the short-shanked African variety, black and yellow game-
birds like those of Tenerife, and a breed of hens with spurs like cocks.
Each village contains half a dozen long-legged pigs, somewhat like the
black hogs of China, which are as familiar to the hut and as foul to the
street as the Irishman’s best friend. A few prick-eared curs are also
bred for the table and for hunting purposes. The children are numerous,
and the high birth-rate amongst savages is the best test of prosperity,
as increased infant mortality is the surest sign of civilization.
At 8 A.M. the villagers break their fast. The food is ‘fufu’ of
plantain, pounded and made into paste with water; it is eaten with a
kind of ‘palaver sauce,’ palm-oil, yam, hibiscus (_Corchorus olitorius_,
the Egyptian mulukhiyah), and, when they can get it, ‘bush-meat.’ The
women work through the day; the men pass their time chatting, smoking,
and taking snuff, sleeping, brawling, and drinking—when rum is not to be
had—palm-wine, which is boiled for greater strength. At 3 P.M. the
flocks are folded, and at 4 there is a dinner like the breakfast. Wood
and water are again brought in, and at 8 P.M. the village is as silent
as the grave. Thus—
‘Les jours qui viennent et vont
Se refont.’
‘What a wretched existence!’ the European reader will exclaim.
I vehemently doubt this. The so-called reflecting part of Creation will
measure every other individual’s happiness or misery by its own;
consequently it is hoodwinked in its judgment. Considering the wisdom
displayed in the distribution and adaptation of mankind, I venture to
opine that all are equally blessed and cursed: both sexes and every age,
the great and lowly, the rich and poor, the robust and the confirmed
invalid. Some temperaments enjoy more acutely, and suffer in proportion;
others are less sensitive; both, however, it appears to me, have the
same sum total of felicity. The Lawgiver of the Hebrews must have so
believed when he made this world the sole scene of human existence,
requiring no future life to restore the fancied unevenness of the
balance. ‘If it were not for the assistance of artificial madness, false
lights, refracted angles, varnish, and tinsel, there would be a mighty
level in the enjoyments of mortal man,’ said one of the wisest of our
modern humourists. The Anatomist of Melancholy somewhere remarks that
the two greatest enjoyments are meeting the ‘object of one’s affections’
and the intermission of severe sickness: thus explaining why those hug
life who live in what the healthy deem tortures. I am convinced that my
dull and half-fossilized Bakwiri are not a whit less happy or less
miserable than any prince, millionaire, or philosopher in Europe.
The chief Botani had shown himself most eager for his ‘hansel,’ and we
persuaded him with difficulty to wait till 11 A.M. He then appeared in
great hurry, armed with what the Chinese call the ‘divine utensil,’ his
symbol of chieftainship, his throne—a stool. We presented him in due
form with his ‘dash,’—one mirror, two knives, two cutlasses, two heads
of tobacco, one cotton kerchief, one silk bandanna, and a 10-lb. keg of
powder, the latter here worth as many shillings. Though accompanied by
his confidant, whose eyes expressed infinite greed, he appeared
satisfied, emitted sundry ‘meditative grunts of much content,’ and in
sovereign self-satisfaction retired with his easily-won, ill-gotten
gains to speechify about his grandeur as protector of all the whites,
and to get tipsy.
The consequence was a lively scene. Botani had been ‘fresh’ in the
morning, and unpleasantly civil. In the _bonhomie_ of his early drink,
not having the fear of Allah before his eyes, but being moved thereto
and seduced by the instigation of the Shaytan, he had offered me—not _en
tout bien et tout honneur_—his daughter, a small yellow child, about
twelve years old, and seemed thunderstruck by my refusal. Continence,
everywhere a rare and difficult virtue, is regarded by
barbarians—despite what Dr. Livingstone asserts—rather with contempt
than with respect. He had been treated like a great Mogul, and with a
few glasses of rum he became a Great Mogul. About 2 P.M. he rushed out
of his hut, with drawn dagger, and began the war-dance. After a long
brawl he laid forcible hands upon the small interpreter ‘Poor Fellow,’
and swore that he would seize him for Money’s debts. When in this state,
and only then, these negroes, losing their sense of fear, become
dangerous; at other times they are not more formidable than hyænas. M.
Mann, though unarmed, pluckily enough pulled away the boy and drew him
into a hut. Botani then rushed to the war-drum, and commenced a frantic
_pas de charge_; the women—ominous sign!—slunk into the bush, and the
men provided themselves with knives and muskets. Mr. Saker and I had
taken up quarters for the day in a hut opposite that occupied by our
companions. He began to harangue the people in Isubu, a language which
the Bakwiri, who intermarry with the Bimbias, understand, and the rest
of us had recourse to our revolvers. Presently a diversion in our favour
arose. An old hunter, who had led the botanist up the mountain—we called
him ‘Balmat’—came forth, armed like the rest, and addressed furious
reproaches to his chief, who was running to and fro like a vicious
madman, hoping that we might bolt, but fearing to begin the fray. After
much of this display, Botani’s brother, _i.e._ confidant, addressed us
civilly, and, after a long speech, split a plantain-leaf into three
pieces, which he severally deposited in ‘Poor Fellow’s’ hand,—a kind of
memorandum of how much ‘trust’ was owing to the village. Botani then
pressed palms with all around, once, twice, and thrice, as men about to
be hanged are wont to do; the strangers, who had flocked from the
neighbouring settlements at the sound of the war-drum, departed, and the
women reappeared. Our doughty chief then retired to sleep off his rum.
When all was over, we pulled out our revolvers from our breeches-
pockets, and made signs that next time their use should be made
manifest.
Liquor was the primal cause of this trouble; there were, however,
others. The Judge, wild with delight at escaping Fernando Po, had been a
little overintimate with the people, dancing with them, and making them
laugh, under the erroneous impression that it would win their good
graces. Familiarity breeds contempt in Africa as well as in Europe, and
the fun ended in horseplay, chiefly beard-pulling. It was a misfortune,
but inevitable, that we had a child for our interpreter. But it was a
great mistake to encamp in a central village; we should have followed
the East African plan, and either have bivouacked outside, or at any
rate at the further end of the enclosure.
A profound calm succeeded this tempest. We passed a pleasant night
listening to the bush-dog calling for ‘fire ’tick,’[57] the murmurs of
the wind, the growling of thunder down south, and the rustling of the
tattered plantain-leaves, which sounded like raindrops. ‘Poor Fellow’
spent the time in fear and trembling, whilst the Krumen armed themselves
with matchets, and begged for candles, which we refused; they retired
doggedly, and probably spent hours in calculating whether in case of
desertion they could steal a boat and make some ship, where they would
have been thankfully received.
At 10·15 A.M., on the morning of the 21st December, Selim Aga returned
with his small command from Victoria. Unhappily he was accompanied by
the chief Myombi, who had behaved badly to M. Mann, and that chief was
moreover ‘sprung.’ He began by demanding a glass of bilám—rum—and when
refused he retired in dudgeon to some hut, where he apparently found it.
The beery Botani was this morning as tame as one when liquor is dying
within him; he was sitting upon the stool of repentance with a very
hangdog look. Shortly after our breakfast a gathering of the clan took
place upon the logs and stones outside the tent, at whose door he was
squatting. Something evidently was in the wind. Presently ‘Poor Fellow’
was sent for, and ordered to ask us our intentions on the morrow.
Our reply was brief, but explicit. On the morrow we were to ascend the
mountain with nine or ten guides, whom we offered to fee, and we
expected in return for our ‘dashes’—which had not provoked any
retaliation—kindness and civility.
Botani, the dipsomaniac, was then put forward by Myombi, who sat
ostentatiously in the background. After a long consultation, ‘Poor
Fellow’ was directed to inform us that the price of ascending the
mountain was 500 ‘big tings,’ _i.e._ 500_l._, otherwise that we might
return whence we came. Yesterday Botani had shown the normal African
dread of our leaving his village whilst we had cloth and food, and now
he was urged to desperation by the villain Myombi. The demand provoked a
shout of laughter, and we asked them if they could not take something
less. In another half-hour they brought it down to 300_l._ But we had
now seventeen Krumen besides our five selves—a force too strong for the
Bakwiri: ‘ultimate sovereignty resides in the right arm of man;’ the
_mollia tempora fundi_ had passed by; ‘defiance not defence’ became our
motto. Despite the excited remonstrances of M. Mann, who, desiring to
make a depôt at Mapanya, urged the _suaviter in modo_, which infallibly
would have led to other and greater troubles, I resolved by Mr. Saker’s
advice to try the _fortiter in re_. ‘Poor Fellow’ was told to say that
we were tired of this ‘fool talk,’ that we would not pay another
farthing, but advance by foul, if not by fair means. The reply was, that
we should not have carriers nor guides. We rejoined that ‘it was nothing
to Bacchus,’ that we would go alone; and pointing to Myombi, who
frequents the market at Victoria, we made him understand that he should
answer for this ‘palaver.’
Whilst Mr. Saker spoke to the people, I was pleased to find how much
could be done by one wholly ignorant of the language, with the
assistance of signs learned amongst the North American aborigines.
Gestures have been well defined as the hieroglyphics of speech. If fate
ever lead me back to Europe, and lend me leisure, I hope to make a
further study of the subject in surdo-mute establishments, and to
produce a system which may prove generally useful, especially to those
beginning a foreign tongue. A hundred words easily learned in a week,
200 signs, and a little facility in sketching, would enable, I believe,
a traveller to make his way through any country, even China, a few days
after arrival.
But as neither eloquence nor gestures appeared to produce the least
effect upon the mule-like Bakwiri, we suited the deed to the word,
arose, and prepared for departure. It was now a treat to see the avidity
of the savages as they peered over our shoulders into bag and box.[58]
Botani and Myombi had many confabs.; many too were the confabs. of their
followers. The great men at last retired under a plantain clump at the
side of the village, and, eyeing our proceedings with the superiority of
sarcasm, declared that we should never find the way, and that if we did
our valuables must be abandoned. Our loads were for twenty-five men, of
whom we had only fourteen. Presently all departed, leaving only the
women, children, and four-footed animals in the village. Their conduct
was eminently childish—African. They knew, poor worshippers of St.
Belly, that they gained, and greatly gained, by being in our good
graces; but they wanted more—in fact all—and not being able to get all,
they would take nothing. We debated upon the propriety of recovering our
‘dashes;’ presently we resolved to leave them no ground for complaint.
But before Europeans can travel about this country, the people must be
taught to expect pay for service only, and be severely punished if they
attempt their avanies.
A little after midday we sent forward up the Hill of Difficulty our
first detachment under Messrs. Calvo and Saker, ordering the Krumen to
return after finding a camping-place in the bush. The rest of us waited
below with the remnant, doing watch and ward, and straining our eyes for
the reappearance of the carriers. The distance was little more than a
mile.[59] Yet 2 P.M. passed—then three—then four—we were beginning to
fear some accident, and to dread the delay of a day; Dante himself could
not walk in the Cimmerian night of an African _selva oscura_—when at 5
P.M. our truants heralded their approach with the Swiss-like Kru-cry
‘Ohyo! Ohyo! Hyo! Hyo-o-o!’ and presently appeared with flourishing
matchets, skipping down the hill-path. They had lost the road when
ascending, and had had a weary time.
Twenty minutes were consumed during the second loading; it reminded me
of bygone hair-whitenings in East Africa. Only nine Krumen had returned,
five having shirked duty. The strongest insisted upon loading most
heavily the weakest: we reduced all the weight we could, still two loads
lay hopelessly upon the ground. At that time, however, some of the
humbler sort of villagers began to show, and amongst them ‘Balmat.’ The
Grison professed inability to carry; he found for us, however, two
youths, who, after the usual futilities—retiring to consult friends,
demanding ‘ready-money’—and ‘cabbaging’ a finger’s length in the
measurement—consented to accompany us, _moyennant_ two fathoms of satin
stripe. One did his work manfully, and was rewarded with rum and extra
pay; the other, who had prudently left his hire in his tent, resolutely
refused after a few hundred yards to advance, nor did the muzzle of a
gun thrust against his breast induce him to ‘budge an inch.’
‘Man,’ says the Arab proverb, ‘eats you; the desert does not.’ With a
light heart, although the sun was casting shadows of portentous length,
we stepped out of Botany Bay; ascended the grassy slope; passed sundry
outlying huts, the highest human habitations on this part of the
mountain; and crossing a tall stile found ourselves once more in the
bush. The road was a copy of that leading to Mapanya; steep pitches,
ladders of root and rock, ridges, hollows, and scrambling places, girt
by tall grasses, and with a slippery moss-grown surface, where biting
ants attacked us, and held on even after decapitation. The plantain-
clearings presently ceased, and we saw the succulent tree no more. The
nettles, so troublesome on Fernando Po Mountain, began in real earnest.
There was one vegetable wonder, a giant of the forest, raised high above
the earth upon aërial roots, like the conical spindles of the red
mangrove. Several trees, the African cork for instance, affect a similar
formation; but this surpasses them all in stature and exaggeration. The
road was like Jordan, ‘a hard one to travel.’ As darkness was imminent,
we saw a real light after having often been mocked by the fire-flies; we
heard shouts above us, and presently the rested came down to assist the
weary. I arrived at 6 P.M. Selim Aga and M. Mann put in an appearance
shortly afterwards. Only one bag of rice had been left behind, and old
‘Balmat’ had promised to forward it on the morrow.
The camp was pitched with a refreshing ignorance of encamping. Its site
was a steep, narrow ridge, with a slope of 15° and a chasm on both
sides. Some twenty-four human beings were huddled together on a few
square feet. The fire was built to leeward, and, as the cool night set
in, fuel became scarce. It was too late to re-form. My attention was
confined to the water-breaker; we had but one; the inhospitable
villagers had refused to fill our others; and the nearest, indeed the
only known spring, could not be reached before the evening of the
morrow, if then. During the evening I made a chair of the precious
breaker, and at night a pillow, determined that on such a vital occasion
as this there should be no pilfering. Krumen, inhabitants of a maritime
country where water abounds, are uncommonly impatient of thirst; some of
them actually preferred a drink of the element to a dram, but these had
probably been making free with our rum. They did not, however, neglect
to ‘play’ in their usual style. An individual dances and addresses, in
black man’s English, French, and Spanish, the circle of squatters, who
reply in roaring chorus ‘Bateo’—‘Give way!’—and ‘O-e! O-e!’ These people
suffer much from nostalgia; a drum and a horn should always accompany
them on expeditions. Often when they are unable to perform a heavy task,
one of their number dancing before them and singing a home ditty has
surprised them into renewed exertion. The snorting and snoring of the
Krumen, a ripping and rag-tearing noise, which awoke with awful echoes
the stillness of the night, combined with a cup of strong green tea,
whose pleasant intoxication is as exciting as that of ague and fever,
caused me a sleepless night that told heavily upon the next day’s hard
march.
Before dawn on the 22nd December we arose and addressed ourselves to our
tasks. The Krumen received a ration of pork and biscuit and a mouthful
of water each; they were unable to boil their rice, without which they
rarely do a good day’s work. Hands being short, we determined to place
some loads in deposit. The first detachment set out at 7·15 A.M., and
soon returned to fetch the packs still lying in camp. After a quarter of
an hour’s walk we deposited them in a hollow, marked by two dwarf
parallel palisades of sticks with a heap of stones between, showing that
large game had been killed there, a practice also common amongst the
Fernandian Bube. We left behind two breakers, four heavy bags of rice, a
case of liquor and coffee, and sundry tin specimen-boxes containing
sundries. Such a _câche_ would not have baffled a Sioux for five
minutes; here, however, we found it answer, and when safely encamped on
the mountain we recovered all by sending down detachments of Krumen.
The march began at 8 A.M., up a rugged rise, wooded, with forest rather
than with bush, and presently we debouched upon the fern region. It was
fern, fern, everywhere. The valleys were filled with cyatheas, tree-
ferns like palms, from ten to thirty feet high, surpassingly graceful
and beautiful, especially when their delicate tracery was viewed from
above, picked out by the golden rays of the sun. Others were little
epiphytes (Trichomanes and _Dicksonia Selinifolia_) springing like moss
upon the stems—miniature things hardly a foot long. There were beds of
ferns resembling the common English variety, and others running creeper-
like up the trunks, contrasting with the broad-leaved orchids based upon
the boughs. Never has ‘rambler in search of ferns’ seen a more beautiful
fernery, set off as it was by the grand tropical growth around. My
companions were less struck; they had familiarized themselves with the
spectacle at Fernando Po; moreover, on Camaroons Mountain the best sites
are occupied by clearings and plantations, which is not the case with
the Sister Peak. At this season, however, the asparagus of the Himalayas
was too old for eating. The view was charming—
‘Summer winds about us blowing
Made a murmur in the land’—
but the path was vile, wet and muddy. After a good hour’s march we
passed under an archway formed by cross trees, supported by others still
standing. It was at once called Fern Gate. And beyond it we fell into a
new country.
The bush and forest suddenly disappeared, as though by the work of
woodmen, and, O joy! we emerged from the region of the clammy, dewy
grasses that imprisoned us. The eye revelled over a broad field of
lovely green, a dense mass of small moss and thick fern of a single
species, _T. nephrolapis_, so called from its fructification. The base
was a bed of old and degraded lava, much more modern, however, than any
in Madeira, or even in the valley of Orotava. We were destined to trace
this stream to its source, and it was palpably the oldest formation of
the kind. We called it Lava Bed No. 1. The direction is from north to
south, gradually bending at the end towards the E.S.E.; in fact, nearly
fronting the north-east wind, which appears to be that prevalent upon
the mountain. I conjectured that by following this bearing we could
hardly fail to make the main source by the nearest line, and was not
disappointed by my rude analogy. The breadth where we struck the outflow
might be half a mile; below that point, however, the discharge, finding
scantier slope, thinned out, spread, and possibly ceased to flow; at
least we guessed so, from its ending in a forest which conceals from
sight the sea, to which it extends. It is girt on both sides by a dense
belt of trees, springing from a stiff yellow clay, the portions of the
slope which the lava did not overflow. A B. P. observation gave us an
altitude of 4535 feet, about 1000 feet above Snowdon and the Reeks of
Kerry, and 800 feet higher than Vesuvius.
A hunter’s path was easily found; but careful stepping was required. Off
the ‘spoor’ it was easy to sink up to the thighs. At 8·45 A.M. we had
crossed the bed from S.S.E. to N.N.W., and we sat down under the farther
skirting of wood. There we saw for the first time a blackberry, common
at Fernando Po. This _Rubus apetalus_ is enumerated among the plants
common to Abyssinia, the Mauritius, Bourbon, and Madagascar. Its fruit
remarkably resembled the common English hedge growth.[60] Salvia scented
the air; and the green surface was thinly spangled with blossoms; two
species of fair white gnaphalium, and a shrub with scarlet brackets,
unknown to our ‘botaniker.’ There was also heath, but rather of Madeiran
than of Scottish dimensions; an ericanella, 15 feet high, thin and
rugged as the tamarisk of Sindh. The lava, where very old, was thinly
clad with a cryptogam, which we afterwards found extending to the very
base of the grand peak.
The bees already began to make themselves felt. They are as abundant as
in the upper regions of Fernando Po. Already, at Mapanya, we had seen in
the hands of the villagers a dark and dirty comb: the savages ignore
hives, even to the extent of the East African log. In the upper regions,
where clover abounds, like the Retama (_C. nubigenes_) of Tenerife, to
which the hives are yearly removed, the honey is excellent. The animals
build in hollow trees, producing, after four days’ labour it is said, a
delicious white honey, which is easily taken from them, even in the
daytime. Our camp was infested by them: they seek moisture, and
disappear in swarms before cold or wind, mist or night. The busy insect
appears here, as at Fernando Po, unusually amiable, sociable, and
stupid; and its rare stings were little more painful than those of the
horse-fly. It is different in the plains of Africa. Mungo Park, in his
last expedition, twice saw his caravan dispersed by swarms, and seven
beasts killed. In the Eastern Regions I lost in one day three asses, and
witnessed the capture of a village, by bees.
After a little food, of biscuit and ‘Europe mutton,’ the Band of Hope
resumed its march at 9·50 A.M., under a sun becoming painfully hot. The
fern presently waxed rare, and the surface became a mass of detached
boulders, between whose treacherous sides leg and ankle easily came to
grief, and lava-blocks thinly sprinkled with lichens, and dry grass. The
path zigzagged across the old fire-stream, which was disposed in
prismatic striated dykes, some a quarter of a mile, others a few yards,
long, running parallel to the course; bluff towards the north, and
tailing off southward. Many of these long, narrow axial ridges were
sharp tipped, hardly a foot broad; and the highest might be 15 feet
above the general level of the matrix. The appearance of these
longitudinal markings suggested unequal cooling of the molten matter.
The outer coating, exposed to the air, would naturally lose caloric,
whilst the melted matter gravitates down the pipe or tunnel below. The
roughness and angularity must also be the work of water and wearing
down, the smoothing and rounding off of ice action being wholly wanting.
Expecting to find at the edge of the stream a smoother path, made by the
washings of the clay banks, I was disappointed: in that direction it was
almost impassable. As we advanced we exchanged the miry boulders for
bare and naked rock, which hardly showed the hunter’s trail; and the
labour was greatly increased by repeatedly ascending and descending the
ridges. The direction began towards the N.W., gradually winding to N.E.
The wind was easterly; and as the great puffy clouds, half nimbus, half
fog, and apparently pregnant with rain, sailed up from the S.W., where
the horizon was obscured by inky cumulus, only the ragged ends passed
over our heads, diffusing brief coolness, and shedding the priceless
fluid in stingy drops, which one might have counted. Mr. Saker, who had
taken charge of the water-breaker, prudently refused all applications.
The Krumen, whose feet were scorched by the midday sun, began to lag
behind: they had been provided with ammunition-boots, but, not having
become by habit solidungulate, they could not use them without risking
broken legs. Selim Aga remained to bring up the rear; and the party in
advance now consisted of four Europeans and two bearers. There was no
evidence of animals at this time, save man. A loud clamour in the nearer
woods, followed by what seemed to be the tramping of men, caused me to
draw my revolver and to make ready. After yesterday’s scene we certainly
should have had an attack in East Africa. My companion’s posed look told
me that it was a false alarm. It proved to be the chattering of monkeys,
and their retreat among the tree-branches. I presently mistook some gaps
in the vegetation for snow; and Mr. Saker once complained of a complete
deafness. The fiery reflected heat was robbing us of our senses. Perhaps
it was aided by the rarefied air. We were not, however, astonished
throughout the exploration that we suffered so little from the
inconvenience of which most travellers complain on Mont Blanc and the
Rocky Mountains. Some would explain our immunity from mountain-sickness,
or ‘puna,’ upon the Great Peak, only by the constant blowing of the
violent east wind, which supplied our lungs with the requisite quantity
of oxygen as fast as they could consume it.[61] I believe, however, the
disease to be, like sea-sickness, merely the effect of disordered liver
or stomach, often aggravated by stimulants, and by sudden and violent
exertion.
Gradually we had edged towards the eastern side of the lava river, where
in the high thick vegetation of the banks large black mossy stones
appeared. Persuaded by the presence of a small bird—like the monkeys,
they require drink—that the element must be near, I sent two Krumen to
scrape the ground. It was wet immediately below the surface; and during
the rains there must be a full gutter on each side of the lava-bed. The
slope, however, is steep, and the drainage rapid. ‘No find water?’ we
cried: the answer was, ‘Yes, sa!’—‘Yes,’ in Kruman’s English, being an
affirmative confirming your negative, when the Englishman would say
‘No.’ Although our botanist had despaired of finding aught potable in
the absence of succulent plants, Selim Aga, wiser by experience,
squeezed from the moss half a gallon of dew, sufficient to boil water
for the boys during the night.
After midday the march became, in the glaring, scorching, solar rays, a
mere stumbling; we halted at least as much as we walked, and the
alpenstock had a heavy burden to bear. In vain we shouted to the Krumen
behind; not a sound was heard. The party was ‘hopelessly disintegrated.’
The seething heat seemed to wax more and more terrible; shoes showed
signs of giving in,[62] and so did the wearers. At 2 P.M. we halted for
a little refreshment—a crust of bread and a cup of water—what
quintessence of nectar it was! We then resumed our way, which became
even more rugged and precipitous as we neared the crater: it almost irks
me to write about it. A mural precipice seemed ever to stand before us,
and the figures in the van regularly disappeared as they topped the
heights. The last third is rather a field than a bed; it was probably
the latest gush, that had not power to flow on, but remained to cool and
be weathered and degraded in jagged blocks, all realism and ugliness.
The sleepless night had told upon me. I found it impossible to keep my
eyes open; something feverish and fiery ran through my veins. A sound
sleep upon a lava-block till 4 P.M. relieved this sensation. On awaking,
the prospect was not pleasant; not a soul was in sight. I had lost the
trail, and nothing appeared around me but a tumbled sea of lava rising
in front like a mountain wave. A bivouac seemed imminent. There were
green spots under natural dry walls, where the gathering of water had
produced a scanty growth of herbage. But without fire such a night would
have ended in a very disagreeable morrow, which might have been called
by the ‘cold name of accident.’
Fortunately, the surgeon of H.M.S. ‘Bloodhound’ had given me a ‘snake
mixture,’ labelled ‘forty drops to be taken in water.’ Even without the
element they enabled me to pass over the tangled surface of the stone-
billows forming the ominous frontal wave of the stream, and to surmount
the final overfall—a high abrupt transverse sea surging in massive
rollers, and shutting out the view beyond. Looking from above, not
usually a good _point de vue_ in hill countries, I could see the torrent
of once fiery stone meandering down the hill between its banks of green,
with here and there a step or ridge, transverse features in the
longitudinal arrangement, as if the viscid mass had gathered at, before
overflowing, some obstacle of ground. Of such places we counted in the
ascent six. Beyond the seventh and last consecutive wrinkling of the
lava deluge, distant about half a mile, and at the foot of a dwarf bowl,
which, from its peculiar colour, we presently named Black Crater, stood
my friends. They called to me—the voice travels far in these
regions—that water was still distant an hour’s march, and they were
requested to _passer en avant_. Presently M. Mann, accompanied by a
Kruman bearing a breaker, disappeared behind the hills, and Mr. Saker
disposed himself upon the ground. Their desire to advance under such
circumstances appeared simple madness. They might have reached the
water, but they would have left behind them Krumen and rations, tent and
bedding, and slept in a wood more than 7000 feet above sea-level. M.
Mann, acclimatized, and now accustomed to ascending West African
mountains, had outwalked the whole party. He subsequently suffered
severely for this evidence of superior vigour.
Beyond the last horrid lava-ridge of broken blocks, bristling up in all
directions, the aspect of the land suddenly changes. Boulders and striæ
disappear; the surface is a bed of scoriæ comminuted by the fierce
action of the elements, and overgrown with moss and tussocks of dwarf
grass, which showed signs of a late firing. After the continuous ascent
since 8 A.M. a stretch over the smooth hollow was refreshing. I sketched
on the way the Black Crater, whose outfall had caused us so much
trouble. It is a truncated cone of considerable antiquity, not unlike
the Montañeta do Frayle, near the town of Orotava, opening towards the
south where the wall was broken. The altitude of the western or highest
lip is 200 feet, or 356 along the slope. The circumference of the base
is 600 yards, and the diametér of the bowl about 100. The outer surface
is fine cinder, here bare, there dotted with tufts of grass and wilted
shrubs; from a distance it looks exceptionally dark, from which
circumstance it obtained a name. The interior contains a sparse green
growth, and the internal northern wall shows scaurs of reddish rock. In
places the lava appeared magnetic. Mr. Saker, who carried his ship’s
compass in hand, remarked that on one occasion, when placed between the
rocks, the north pole of the needle pointed to the south, and I noticed,
besides a decided dip to the north, curious deflections in my own
pocket-instrument. Our ascent of the lava had lasted from 10 A.M. to
4·30 P.M., 6 h. 30 m., of which half were spent in rest, and the
distance little exceeded two miles,[63] which, however, we set down as,
at the lowest estimate, five. The road was infamous, and worse for
descent than for ascent; yet nothing could be easier than to make a
highway as practicable as any street in Madeira. All the material is
there, and a little zigzagging would render the slope easy. The height
of our camp was found to be some 7000 feet, about that of Ootacamund, in
the Neilgherry Hills.
We had pitched, however, again in a vile place, a dwarf plateau, brown
and mossy, a few yards broad, and S.W. of Black Crater. Between the
latter and a grassy neighbour on our north was a narrow gorge, that
acted as conductor to the fierce north-east wind. The place was open to
the west, where lightning flashed, and was exposed to all ‘skyey
influences.’ By slow degrees the wearied Krumen began to drop in,
bringing tent, bedding, and cooking-gear. Selim Aga, however, remained
in charge of five lag-behinds, who had been too heavily loaded.[64]
During twilight—it is longer here than in the plains, and the sun seems
to set (a common mountain phenomenon) at a point 20° higher than one
expects—M. Mann returned with a full breaker, which restored jollity to
the camp. We ate the traveller’s supper, but we did not sleep the
traveller’s sleep. At 5·45 P.M. the thermometer fell to 60° (Fah.),
ruddying nose and hand. At 6·15 P.M. it showed 50°, and during the night
it sank to 40°,—a severe trial to the constitution after 76° to 78° in
the lowlands. It was a hard, dry, piercing cold, that seemed to mock at
clothing. The bitter north-east gusts coursing restlessly down the
‘wind-loved’ gully caused cramps and shivering; the stony ground, sharp
and sloping, made hip-bones ache. The fires were of course allowed to
die out during the smaller hours, and the dew filtered into the
waterproofs. There were points, however, in favour of the place; the air
was pure, the water was deliciously cool, and the sand-flies, no longer
measling our hands and faces, had remained below.
A lovely morning, the ‘Smile of God,’ when the wondrous disc of light
‘Retinged the dark and livid air with bloom,’
made ample amends for the deficiencies of the night. Before us, bearing
S.W. ½ W., beyond a grassy hollow, about one mile broad, sinking with
graceful slope into the lower forest, and then rising nearly to our
level, the awful form of Little Camaroons rose to a point, without rival
or neighbour. From this distance we could distinguish the platform which
divides its height. The atmosphere around us was sweet and pure; we felt
that we were breathing a purer æther, a diviner air. As the upper limb
of the red light of day, apparently so large, flashed leaping up over
the cinder-coloured head of Black Crater, it painted with every variety
of its own hue, pink and red, orange and yellow, the pure fleecy clouds,
whose huge volumes, at first white as cotton, and infinitely subdivided,
soared up from the west. Most comfortable was their warmth as the rays
bathed us. At 6 A.M. the thermometer had shown 48°, which is felt
severely in these elevated tropical regions. Presently the globular
balls of ‘woolpack’ began to surge up from the base of the blue giant in
front of us, and twist like the smoke of a conflagration puffed up from
the south-west, till all became broad plains of barren cloud. Around,
everything was calm, serene, heavenly, except where three white men were
sitting, journal in hand, and the shuddering Kruboys were bringing fuel
from the lately charred trees. Again we sent forward the empty breaker
to the spring, and received it full at 7·20 A.M.
[Illustration: LITTLE CAMAROONS, FROM BLACK CRATER.
Page 128.]
Whilst awaiting the estrays, we walked over the grassy hollow, and
mentally surveyed the future Sanitarium. This would be the best locality
for the highest part of the establishment. As has been seen, the road
could easily be made practicable for mules and asses. The place itself
is well sheltered from the wind, water is not distant, and timber begins
a few yards below it. Comfortable quarters would of course be necessary
during the raw and cold wet season that lasts from 1st May to the
beginning of November: as will be presently seen the rains cannot be
heavy, and I doubt not, indeed, that they are lighter than those of the
Himalayas and Neilgherry Hills. From this height to nearly the base of
the summit-cone all is clear and grassy, without gashes or ravines,
except in the lava-beds, and a few hill-paths, as in the Neilgherry
Hills, would make riding easy. The Camaroons Mountain has thus a grand
advantage over the Fernando Po Peak, whose thick and tangled vegetation
extends almost to the topmost crater. Clover also growing wild here, as
at Fernando Po, where there are two species, cattle might be bred in
abundance; and I have no doubt that most European vegetables, cereals,
and fruits—apples, for instance, which grow 3000 feet above sea-level in
San Thomé—could be made to flourish. The land is rich with its annual
dressing of fallen leaves or decayed grass, and where the soil is a foot
deep it is of the most fertile description.
As Selim Aga did not appear at 2 P.M., we left water and a Kruman guide,
and proceeded towards our proposed camp. The path was a mere rut; the
walk was pretty round the grassy shoulders and folds of various hills:
above all was grass and rocks, below us a dense dark wood. We passed on
our right a high broken crater, whose double effusion of lava from the
N.N.E. to the S.S.W. converging at the base, enclosed a clump of emerald
trees. In many places patches of a livelier green showed where water
sinks during the rains. A few birds were seen, a kite sailing high in
the air, and two butterflies, one white, the other yellow—it is
astonishing the power of flight, in height as well as distance, which
these frail creatures seem to possess. There was unmistakeable ‘sign’ of
hyænas, which must be numerous. And here we saw for the first time the
earths and hills of a rat (_Euryotis irrorata_, sp. nov.[65]), which
cover the upper heights almost to the summit of the Great Cone. These
animals dig long galleries, which appear to have two entrances. They
were afterwards easily caught with the usual ingenious trap of the
Krumen—like the Fernandians they show judgment in choosing the best
positions—a flexible branch, bent to the ground by a cord with a
terminal noose, well covered by leaves, and a trigger which is started
by the tread when the animal steps inside to eat the grass or grain
within the noose. The bodies are sometimes found suspended in the air
and clenched so tightly round the middle that extravasated blood appears
beneath the skin when stripped.
After forty-five minutes the path plunged into a wooded dell, a glade
2000 feet long, not unlike those about the Buenos Ayres ridge at
Fernando Po, where we enjoyed cool shade, and an air perfumed by a
garden of blue labiates and clematites hanging from lofty trees at the
extreme end of large vegetation. Another quarter of an hour brought us,
after a total march of 1⅔ miles,[66] to ‘Mann’s Spring,’ and we felt
grateful for the happy discovery: without this supply all our water must
have been carried from below. Doubtless there are many similar
formations, but the difficulty would be to find them. It is a pure cool
runnel issuing from peaty earth at the foot of a small rock, and sinking
into the dark brown humus beyond. It is embowered in flowering shrubs
and nettles, with foliage narrower than the English species, that will
supply us with a Scottish spinach.
A few yards of ascent beyond the water led to our camp, where the Krumen
had cleared a slope for us, and had built for themselves leafy
tabernacles. Shortly after our arrival we heard shouts and shots, and
had the satisfaction of receiving Selim and his five ‘slow coaches’ safe
and sound. The evening sped pleasantly at this altitude, about 7300 feet
above the sea, and the night was comfortable. I had expected a heavy
dew, and to my surprise a newspaper left out in the air showed in the
morning no traces of damp. The atmosphere was cold, clear, and still,
except after midnight, when furious gusts from the N., the N.E., and the
N.W. swept round the cone (we called it Earthwork Crater), at whose base
we were encamped, and after a turmoil of five minutes overhead,
departed, leaving all as still as the grave.
[Footnote 38: It produces two crops per annum, each of twelve bunches,
and every bunch fifteen nuts—a total of three hundred and sixty: so in
India it is said the cocoa produces one nut a day. To show the value of
the tree, each nut being worth five cents, it produces 18 dolls. = 3_l._
6_s._ per annum.]
[Footnote 39: It extends about 700 feet above sea-level, and has many
uses, being employed especially in building.]
[Footnote 40: Letter from M. Mann, in ‘Journal of the Proceedings of the
Linnæan Society,’ above alluded to.
The brief notices of the flora of this interesting region are, I repeat,
either borrowed from the paper above cited or collected in conversation
with M. Mann. The extremely interesting nature of the subject must be my
excuse for introducing so many ‘crackjaw names.’]
[Footnote 41: It is to be hoped, however, that future colonists will
not, after a usual fashion, alter the place by wanton felling and
burning from a forest dense to the other extreme—a bare and barren
waste.]
[Footnote 42: So San Thomé, where servitude will expire after twelve
years, expects nothing but ruination.]
[Footnote 43: It is a local habit to plunge the seed into boiling water.
I bought a sack when ignorant of the practice, and was astonished to
find it rotting in the ground. Curious to say, it is not to be had from
the seedsmen in London.]
[Footnote 44: At present the plantain is almost as bad as the potato,
formerly of so many uses; it supplies the people with food and drink,
wine and water, cloth, thatch, rope, fuel, fodder, and perfume; and it
can supply them with writing materials. I republish from the ‘Cavalla
Messenger,’ the Missionary paper printed at Cape Palmas, an excellent
description of plantain-planting:—
‘MR. EDITOR,—I take the liberty, in the following communication, to call
the attention of your readers to the growth of the plantain for its
fibre.
‘In the first place I would remark that it is easily cultivated. In
preparing the ground for a crop in this country, we meet with one grand
difficulty—the want of the plough and team. Yet this is less felt than
in many parts of the world. The constant fall of rain in the growing
seasons softens the ground, and conveys to the roots of plants the
soluble parts of the decaying vegetable and mineral matter composing the
soil as perfectly and thoroughly as if ploughed and otherwise cultivated
by a team. But in the growth of the plantain we are less dependent on
plough and oxen for success than in the management of most other crops.
This is a fact very strongly recommending it to the attention of the
farmer.
‘To put out a field of plantains the ground should be prepared much as
it is for cassada-roots. The ground then should be laid out in rows
about twelve or eighteen feet apart each way.
‘At the point crossed by these rows the soil should be thoroughly dug
up, and a healthy root set in the centre. The plant usually does best
when laid down so as to sprout from the side. This will give from three
to four hundred plants to the acre.
‘For the first year or two, cassada, cotton, pepper, ginger, corn,
arrowroot, sugar-cane, or some other crop, should be grown with it.
‘The third year will give seven suckers to each plant, which will make
2400 to 2800 stalks, with as many bunches of delicious, healthy,
nutritious fruit. This gathered when fully ripe may be easily preserved
for food or export. In England it takes the place of dried apple, and
commands a price that will richly pay the farmer all the labour of
cultivation and curing for market.
‘The process of drying is simple. The ripe fruit is laid in the hot sun
on mats elevated from the ground. After it becomes wilted it is taken
from the skin and replaced upon the mats till dry, when it is coated
with sugar, like figs. This process might be shortened by kiln-drying.
‘The fruit when full grown, before the process of ripening commences, is
very rich in starch, and when dried and ground makes an excellent meal.
To make plantain-meal the plantain must be gathered when full grown. The
skins must be removed with a bamboo-knife, so as not to discolour the
fruit. Then cut in thin slices and dry in the sun, or on a kiln, which
is better. When brittle grind into meal.
‘The fact that the fruit for home consumption or the foreign market will
richly pay for cultivation is an item of importance. For this purpose is
the plantain chiefly raised. The stalk is by many regarded valueless.
Yet it is by the addition of a little labour worth 3_d._ a stalk.
‘An acre of well-matured thrifty plants will produce 6000 lbs. of fibre,
at a cost in labour of 3_l._ per ton; and with an additional cost of
7_l._ per ton may be placed in an English market.
‘Plantain-fibre, after patient, varied, and repeated experiment, has
been proved to be equal to hemp for all the purposes of cordage, and now
commands the same price as good hemp, say from 30_l._ to 35_l._ per ton,
giving a clear profit to the grower of more than 20_l._ the ton.
‘To convert the stalk into fibre, it is cut into lengths of three feet
long and quartered. This should be done as quick as may be, so as not to
black the fibre with the iron instrument used in cutting.
‘Furnished with a mill like a horizontal sugar-mill, having wood rollers
four feet long and one foot in diameter, turned by horse-power, the
quartered stalks are passed between the rollers longitudinally so as not
to stain the fibre. Then the crushed stalks are washed thoroughly (which
process separates the fibre from the pulpy matter of the stalks), and
the fibre is hung on poles under a shade to dry. The sun discolours it.
‘When dry, it is combed or hackled, as flax or hemp, when it is fit for
the market.
‘The tow or waste from the combing is beaten and prepared as half-stuff
for paper at a cost of about 8_l._ per ton, and is worth as much as
linen rags for paper, say from 16_l._ to 20_l._ per ton.’]
[Footnote 45: In Fernandian ‘Bube’ means a man, and ‘E Bube!’ is an
address as favourite as the Spanish Hombre. Hence strangers undeservedly
called the race ‘Booby.’]
[Footnote 46: The Dictionary of the Isubu language informs us that these
charms, of which there are many with distinct names, are worn ‘to keep
off evil spirits.’ As I have repeatedly explained, they are worn to keep
them in, and they hinder them from wandering about doing harm, as the
seal of Suleyman prevented the Jinn from leaving his prison-pit.]
[Footnote 47: So Garcie du Jardin says that certain American Indians
placed snuff and pills of lime ‘_entre la lèvre de dessous et les
dents_;’ in fact, where it most excites the salivary glands. Like the
coffee-balls eaten by the Gallas of South Abyssinia, it prevents thirst
and fatigue. These people have none of the succedanea for tobacco used
by different wild races—potato-leaves, datura, solanum, hyoscyamus,
belladonna, &c.]
[Footnote 48: More correctly 23,420 feet: the distances were taped on my
return. In Appendix VI. I have given the elements of our observations
for each altitude, which were calculated by Mr. George, of the Royal
Geographical Society.]
[Footnote 49: This must not be confounded with Abo at the head of the
Nigerian Delta. It is described as a congeries of townlets, like
Abeokuta, under a powerful king, containing some 25,000 inhabitants, and
having a radius of 4 miles: its direct distance from this point might be
45 miles. It is most easily reached by the ‘Yabiang’ water, a western
influent of the Madiba ma Dualla or Camaroons Creek, and from the
highest factory in the river it is distant 29 miles, including 4 of
walking. In 1841 Captain Allen attempted to visit it, but failed. In
1849 Messrs. Saker and Pinnock succeeded; they were robbed, however, by
the Yabiangs, at the instance of the Camaroons people, and escaped only
with their lives.]
[Footnote 50: There is another settlement of the same name behind Mount
Henry. I was unable to discover the exact meanings of this and other
terms, but conjectured from analogy with other wild parts of Africa that
they are the names of districts, not of chiefs, tribes, or villages.]
[Footnote 51: The head of tobacco, here worth about 6_d._, contains from
ten to twelve leaves.]
[Footnote 52: The Galium aparine, a small rubiaceous plant, will vex us
in high altitudes.]
[Footnote 53: ‘Little things’ here means matchets and mirrors, kerchiefs
and blue baft, rum and tobacco. The fathom of cloth is also equal to
1_s._ At Fernando Po the musket costs 15_s._]
[Footnote 54: 40,720 feet along the very winding path.]
[Footnote 55: The shape was unknown to me; I found it, however, figured
and described in the Muata Cazmbe of Captain Gamitto.]
[Footnote 56: This hoop shows the connection of the Fernandian ‘Bube’
with the coast tribes opposite. Other races, like the Krumen, ignore
such means of ascent, and fell the tree.]
[Footnote 57: The bush-dog is I believe a small hyæna. The Krumen have a
tradition that he and the house-dog are brothers. The latter preferred
to the forest the society of man and the comforts of the hut, whilst the
former, ever wandering over the hills, calls plaintively upon his
relation to supply him with fire.]
[Footnote 58: Boxes are always bad, but botanists cannot do without
them. M. Mann had seven tin cases, 20 inches long by 17 broad and 15
deep—about one-third less would have been better—and they were very
heavy, containing wire-frames for India, packing-paper, and stout brown
paper for drying specimens.]
[Footnote 59: Measured by tape along the road 6200 feet.]
[Footnote 60: When returning I observed that all the fruit had
disappeared.]
[Footnote 61: According to Dr. James Hunt (‘Acclimatization of Man’) the
European cannot live at a great elevation for any length of time in the
Northern hemisphere; the natives of the Southern can. The highest
inhabited spot in Europe is the Théodule Pass, between Wallis and
Piedmont: it is temporary, and only 10,000 feet high; whereas Peruvians
thrive permanently at 7000 to 12,000 feet of altitude. ‘This difference
between the North and South hemispheres is caused perhaps by the
difference in attraction at the North pole. In the Northern hemisphere
the ascent of a high mountain causes a rush of blood to the head, and in
the Southern there is an attraction of blood to the feet: hence the
cause of the sickness felt on ascending a mountain in that hemisphere.’]
[Footnote 62: For this lava-walking the boots should have wooden soles.
Mr. Mann completely destroyed two pair in as many days. For grass-
walking on the upper heights, the Pyrenean spartelle, or the Spanish
soldiers’ alpargetas, would be best.]
[Footnote 63: Measured it proved 11,570 feet. The total distance from
Mapanya to the Black Crater was 20,080 feet, under 4 miles, and from
Black Crater to Victoria 60,800 feet, under 10 miles.]
[Footnote 64: In such places 30 lbs. should be the maximum for fast
walking, whereas many of the men carried 40 lbs.]
[Footnote 65: A specimen of it was sent to the British Museum, and
described by Dr. Gray, Appendix IV.]
[Footnote 66: 9594 feet.]
CHAPTER III.
FIRST ASCENT OF PICO GRANDE.
Before dawn on the next day, which was ‘Noche Buena,’ we were up and
anxious to be doing; we had agreed to visit the cone, which had the
temporary honour of being held the highest of Camaroons. Setting out at
6 A.M., after a scanty breakfast—what execrable stuff that essence of
coffee is!—we retraced our steps through the wooded gorge, and passed
out of the sweet forest into the open, where grass occupied the surface
between bits of degraded lava. The ascent began eastward, up a black
slope garnished with thin tussocks and rat-holes; here we first saw the
beautifully green leaves of the Hypericum, whose colour would be a
fortune to a dyer, and its rich blossoms, which at a distance resemble
yellow dog-roses.[67] The appearance of the hills and craters all
changed so much that M. Mann, who already showed signs of indisposition,
asked his Kruboys ‘where dem glass ting (_i.e._ the thermometers) lib?’
and a ‘no sabby’ was the only reply. We saw kites, a few violets, and
large footprints, apparently of kudu, dating from the last rains: during
the ‘dries’ the beasts are driven by thirst into the lower forests. But
one deer was seen in this region; huntsmen are common; there are remains
of huts near our camp, and about three quarters of a mile to the north-
west are caverns where freshly plucked leaves show the presence of man.
We crossed sundry Devil’s Backbones, and a path spanning the mountains
from north-east to west. From the depth to which the path was worn, it
was probably a regular line of communication for the people.
At 8 A.M. we reached the foot of a tall sugarloaf, conspicuous in this
direction—not from the north—by the symmetry of its conformation,
perfect amongst the tossed and truncated forms around. After halting for
a few minutes in a tree-grown cavity at the base, where water sinks, and
where we found a souvenir in the ‘forget-me-not’—the myosotis, which the
French prettily call _plus je te vois, plus je t’aime_,—and a fine
leucothoë, we began the ascent with long elbows to the north-east and
the north-west. On the occidental slope, defended from the wind, were a
few wilted inclined trees, so aligned that they presented a sharp edge
to the gales. The surface was the usual dark vegetable mould, which
varies from a few inches to a foot in thickness, bearing grass already
withered to a reddish yellow. Two spots showed curious charrings,
apparently natural, and overgrown with slippery lichens, amongst which
were found some deserted birds’ nests. The whole aspect was rather that
of St. Isabel Peak on Fernando Po than anything on the Camaroons.
M. Mann, despite his sufferings, preceded us. Mr. Saker, the Judge, and
I formed line and ascended together. Thick mists began to veil the
mighty form of Little Camaroons. We stood now about mid-way between it
and the summit,[68] and we hurried on, breathing quickly in the morning
air, lest even at this early hour the Mongo might begin to ‘smoke his
pipe.’ The furious north-easter almost took away our breath, and gave
our hands a wintry look. After an hour, frequent halts included, we
passed rapidly along a narrow chine winding with gentle ascent over
ground flattening out to the summit; looked northwards, and stood
enchanted with the grandeur and the novelty of the view.
A wondrous confusion reigned around; a volcanic perspective of _Pays
brûlé_ which forced back thought through myriads of years, to the time
when all was a desolating flood and a sheet of ‘whirling, roaring,
bursting, blasting, thundering flames.’ One glance at the immediate van-
ground, a long grassy shelf, ribbed with black, and further still where
an immense circle of volumed white cloud, iridized by the sun, formed a
setting of opal for the tumbled mass of ‘parasitic’ cones; and on the
left hand, vast spillings of black lava, a burned ridge, streaked and
bordered by the liveliest green. Then every eye turned northwards, where
clear and distinct,—too near Heaven it appeared for any fleck of
mist,—calm in the hurlyburly around, and dwarfing with its giant
proportions all the subject mountains, rose in dark blue profile the
grand Presence of the Peak.
When our nerves had recovered their tranquil tone, we proceeded to use
glasses. Even the naked eye could see that the vertex of the cone had,
like Etna, two distinct summits, which at this distance presented a
considerable angle. That to the right was named by acclamation Victoria;
that to the left, Albert Mountain. At the time we were ignorant of the
melancholy event which but two days before had plunged a whole nation
into mourning. The deep metallic blue that invested Pico Grande,
compared with the green-brown hue of the nearer mountain parallels,
suggested the idea that a chasm separated fore from background. Happily
for us, it was not so.
[Illustration: VIEW FROM THE TOP OF MOUNT HELEN.
Page 136.]
After the first naming we proceeded to distinguish the others by
Christian appellations; even strict geographers cannot blame the act in
a place which has absolutely no terminology; besides which, by precising
our several points, the bearings and altitudes may be subsequently
corrected, and future travellers will more easily trace out our route.
The cone upon which we were standing—it proved subsequently most useful
as a landmark—was named by Mr. Saker, after his wife, ‘Mount Helen.’ I
contented myself with a glorious mass, looming high in the limpid air to
the N.N.W. (magnetic), and with similar marital dutifulness called it
Mount Isabel.[69] The ceremony was concluded with a seemly libation; we
could not dine here as Britons ought, but we compounded with the
assistance of the B. P. apparatus a bowl of punch. M. Casella’s
policeman’s lantern and new zeometer proved useful in the strong wind,
when the old shaving-pot occupied a long time in collecting wood and
charring it, to get rid of the smoke.[70] The extreme difference between
the two results, after five readings, was only 0·6, and the mean 0·5.
The summit of Mount Helen was found to be 9223 to 9383 feet, and the
base of the cone was 7932 feet above sea-level.
Thus exhilarated by our morning’s work we prepared at 10 A.M. to descend
the cone, which we effected after the fashion of visitors to
Vesuvius,—not on our feet. An observation from Mount Helen had given the
bearing of Earthwork Crater, near our camp, W.S.W.; we resolved to
follow the chord instead of the arc which we had taken during the
ascent. At the foot of Mount Helen we fell into a weathered lava-bed,
which we named No. 2. The breadth varies from 100 yards to a mile. It
issues from a neighbouring crater in a S.E. direction, bending to the
S., where, like No. 1, it terminates abruptly; and it is manifestly a
much newer formation than the field up which we had travelled in the
earlier morning. It is observable that, though the craters open in all
directions, the course of the lava-rivers is invariably southerly. I
leave the consideration to more expert volcanists than myself; but may
not the violent N. and N.E. gales—the constant land-breeze from the cold
peaks to the warm sea—that twists the trees upon these mountains, have
determined the direction of their liquid outflow?
Our road lay along a crater breached on the S.E. side, to which we gave
the name of our friend Judge Calvo; it lay nearly due north of Earthwork
Crater, and was another landmark. As we flattered ourselves that
breakfast was near, an ocean of white mist-cloud, dense but not dark,
overwhelmed us, and we wandered from east to west till after a long
delay we hit upon a hunter’s trail. This led us over deep black gashes
in the subsoil lava, and along the steep flank of Earthwork Crater into
camp. We arrived at 11·45 A.M., after a walk of nearly six hours.
Christmas-day was somewhat sad to those who could not prevent
‘The busy goste, aye flick’ring to and fro,’
winging her way to far-off regions which the heavy clay cannot reach. In
such wild scenes, with wilder work before them, men are too apt to think
regretfully of merry gatherings round the Yule log, the _leche de
almandras_, and the Christmas-tree, forgetting the inevitable worries of
‘home,’ and the pains and penalties of civilization, so terrible to
endure after the life of liberty in the desert; besides, if we lose the
revelry at night, do we not also escape the headache next morning?
By way of occupation on Christmas-day, in the morning I accompanied Mr.
Saker to the summit of Earthwork Crater. It lies about thirteen
miles[71] from Victoria, and five from the summit of the Peak. It is
here a typical formation, so it may be described at some length. From a
distance it resembles nothing so much as half an egg-shell with a broken
top; we named it from the regularity of its smooth grassy slopes,
already reddened by the change of season. No glacis, no work of
‘navvies,’ could appear more artificial. It is impossible not to see in
this shape the hand of Neptune; and we conjectured that from Mount Helen
to the shore all must have been formed in quick rise from a quiet
sea—submarine opposed to the subaërial above. This, however, must be
settled by the presence or absence of fossils, such as those which have
been discovered on Monte Somma. The southern base is clothed with the
forest of tall trees in which we have pitched our camp. Measured from
the bottom of the slope, the total height and length are 640 feet,
including 340 feet for the upper or grassy portion. The aneroid showed
162 feet of direct height.[72] The circumference of the upper rim is 522
feet, and the periphery of the bowl is complete except at the W.S.W.,
where, broken by a lava-stream trending southwards, it assumes from
above the shape of a horseshoe. The internal depth is one hundred
perpendicular feet; it has long burned out, and during the rains water
sinks in its cup, attracting small birds. Three distinct ridges of lava
may be traced in the inner wall. The highest part of the basin-rim is
the N.W., where another liquid stream from the N.E., butting up to the
crater wall, has sliced away the slope into a perpendicular cliff, and
has circled round a portion of the S.W. base. As in many similar
formations, the gradual slipping of the side soil under the influence of
sun and rain has formed a small clean flat margin at the base, like a
shallow saucer supporting an inverted cup.[73] The Phlegethon once
issuing from Earthwork Crater is nearly embedded in earth, and partly
overgrown with shrubs; there are little pitholes and rocks with
diminutive ledges, which at times must supply the beasts of the wild
with drink.
Nothing could be more beautiful than the slanting rays of the sun,
sharply bisecting the inner crater with yellow light, that refused to
blend with the purple shades below. We stood upon the topmost crest and
waved our caps, to see if the action would be reflected as in the Hartz
Mountains—without result as at Tenerife. The summit fully explained the
ant-hill-like appearance which the highlands wear when viewed from
Fernando Po and Ambas Bay. Besides the eruptive ‘lapilli’ craters,
hidden to the eastward by mist and lava-bed, we counted eleven distinct
forms in the north, to the south nine, and eleven to the south-west—a
total of thirty-one, within a radius of perhaps two miles, literally
undermining the whole land. They are of two distinct formations. Those
under 6000 to 7000 feet are montecules, covered with dense forest, but
still betraying their origin by their conformation: those above that
altitude are smooth, grassy, regular, and uniform. From this point we
could distinctly see the half-way platform of Little Camaroons.
After breakfast Mr. Saker left us for Camaroons River, promising to
return early the next month. We made up for him a party of six armed
men, who were directed to bring stores from our depôt at Victoria. The
child ‘Poor Fellow’ also accompanied him. Five days afterwards we heard
with pleasure that this first descent, through a region which might be
called hostile, had been effected without accident, except to boots. Mr.
Saker descended, at some pain to his crural muscles, Lava Bed No. 1 in
two hours twenty minutes, not including halts, and reached Victoria on
the next day. It was not the fault of his escort, however, that the
return did not end tragically. Krumen have no relish for the ‘bitter
sweets of war.’ Passing the outlying houses of Mapanya at early dawn,
the party was heard by an old man, who challenged them, and, receiving
no answer, shouted for help. Off at the sound like startled deer went my
acting head-man, a great burly fellow called Tom Bushman, followed by
Messrs. Seabreeze, Nyanyi, and others—they were subsequently punished by
half rations—nor did they stop till they had reached the Mission
Station, and had reported that, after a deadly fight, the white man had
been slain, and the rest of his escort made prisoners. Mrs. Saker,
knowing the men, was incredulous. Mr. Johnson at once sent a message to
King William of Bimbia, after which he and Mr. Pinnock started up the
hill. After a ten minutes’ walk they met Mr. Saker coming towards them.
He had suffered no damage beyond losing his way for a couple of miles,
and paying a head of tobacco for guidance to a Bushman. The letter
containing these details further informed us that our late companion had
found a direct path from Mapanya to Bosumbo, and that the down-journey
from our camp to Victoria could be made in twelve hours, allowing two
hours for the Lava Bed No. 1.
We did our best to honour Christmas Day. Kind Mrs. Saker had given us a
plum-pudding, which fared badly in the encounter, and we had beef, but a
trifle salt. A forest of Yule logs lay around us—I wished it had been my
property within easy carriage of Paris—and a giant fire lighted up the
camp. We spent a merry evening, telling old tales around our hearth,
and, cognac being deficient, we roughed it on a bowl of anizado. During
my wanderings I had found an as yet undetermined species of wild mint,
whose flavour when bruised is tolerable,[74] and we pronounced the julep
to be far from unpalatable. At this venerable season, when good works as
well as good living are expected from us, I contribute my quotum by
offering to my English fellow-countrymen the following recipe for a mint
beverage à la Virginie:—
_Recipe._
Take of mint quant. suff.; soak in brandy or other spirit for fifteen
minutes; sweeten according to taste. Cool the minted liquor with smashed
ice. Shake till the mixture is homogeneous. Add a sprig for ‘the
garden,’—and imbibe.
Before undertaking other expeditions we resolved to re-form the camp,
and thus employed the whole 26th of December. The Krumen were banished
to a certain distance, where their brawling voices and horseplay could
not offend, and were ordered to bring in daily a certain amount of
firewood, under penalty of ‘no chop.’ The Judge and I sallied out pick
and axe in hand. We improved our Acis, Mann’s Spring, by clearing away
the turf, deepening the basin, and embanking the precious lymph: after
half an hour the Naiad of the rill would not have known her own home.
Then the encampment was provided with a variety of comforts. Herbaceous
stalks and young branches compacted with ‘tie-tie,’ or the tender
withies of the clematis and various barks—rope is never wanted in an
African forest—formed chairs and fauteuils, couches, bedsteads, tables,
and benches, a platform for drying botanical specimens, a canopy to
shelter us from the sun, sleeping boothies, and a store hut. All was
rural in the extreme, but the general appearance was decidedly cosy. We
looked like anything but ‘castaways on a lee-shore.’ That our _coin du
feu_ might be the more comfortable at night, the Judge constructed a
Turkish lantern, a cylinder of red cloth round a framework of splinters,
and the effect was a pleasant glowing light. We cut away the boughs
which might be brought down upon our heads by violent winds, the wild
squalls, and fierce puffs, here as common as on the Peak of Tenerife,
and had no reason afterwards to regret this precaution. A Pelourinho, or
whipping-post, was erected _in terrorem_. Finally, we cleared decent
entrances, and we laid down tasks for lazy men to be done each day.
M. Mann was still suffering; he feared an attack of dysentery, ever
risky at these altitudes. The internal cold had disappeared before the
usual adhibitions—a little cognac internally, and externally plenty of
flannel. He was not, however, well enough to walk: the Judge and I
therefore resolved to make a reconnaissance of Pico Grande, and to place
a store of water-breakers on the way in readiness for a general
expedition to the summit.
After a fine night, when grave-like silence was interrupted only by the
wind thundering at times over our heads, and bringing down dry twigs
upon our dormitories, causing the trees to creek and groan—a sad sound
in the forest during storms—we arose at 5·30 A.M. on Friday, the 27th
December, and prepared for the undertaking. The party consisted of Judge
Calvo and myself: three Krumen—Messrs. Two-Glass, Kharabu, and Jack
Brass—carried water-breakers and provaunt; whilst ‘King Eyo,’ who
claimed all the right royal to do wrong, or to do nothing, brought up
the rear. The dawn was cloudless, windless, and clear, as the last
night’s Venus—we used to watch her as one would a barometer—had
promised; the morning haze was cool and pleasant; and we enjoyed the sun
as we wound along the clover-grown sides of Earthwork and Calvo Craters,
and up the rugged Lava Bed No. 2. The distance was about a mile and a
quarter, yet it was two hours before we threw ourselves down to rest
under the trees at the sheltered western foot of Mount Helen—we found it
necessary to treat the Krumen as the Chinamen do their ducks—beat the
last that enters the boat-house—and at 8·45 A.M. the thermometer in the
grass at the halting-place showed 57° Fah.
Resuming our way after fifteen minutes’ stretch, we entered upon the
grassy and rocky mountain-slope separating us from Mount Isabel. Having
crossed by a natural bridge a small deep and narrow crevasse, whose
sides were overgrown with vegetation, we turned northwards, wound over
three distinct folds of hill, where a few dry herbaceous plants
lingered, and where the bright hypericum already showed a stunted
growth. Sign of deer was numerous: not a quadruped, however, large or
small, met our eyes. We thought that we had detected a village at a
distance, but it proved a heap of rocks. Traces of natives, however,
showed here and there in a Robinson Crusoe-like footstep and in sundry
fireplaces. Leaving on the right a jagged broken cone, crowning an
earthwork-like eminence which I called Mount Selim, and on the left four
montecules of the usual broken-egg shape, we ascended a steep outlying
cone. At the summit, about half-way up Mount Isabel, we found a
sheltered terrepleine, which we judged fitted for a water depôt, and we
sat down to breakfast and to a draught of the carminative anizado. The
distance was about a mile and a half, and the hour 10 A.M.
From the apex of the sub-range, looking back, we could have enjoyed a
grand panorama of craters, sweeping in vast semicircle. Northwards,
however was a spectacle that absorbed all our attention. Straight before
us rose in ineffable majesty those glorious peaks, tangible, as it were,
in the morning æther, high towering over all the subject land and
dwarfing the craters and cones below. No chasm separated us from them.
Beyond the base of Mount Isabel the ground swelled gently upwards to the
feet of the King of all the Cones. I marked at once our path,—a broad
meandering lava-bed, which had been confined to certain limits by dwarf
spiracles dotted on both sides. The colour of Pico Grande’s radial lines
was peculiar. A faint, dull green seemed to streak the coal-coloured
eastern slopes, which were far less abrupt than the western; a long
perpendicular sweep of blue parted most sensibly Victoria from Albert
Mountain; and whilst the latter showed a distinct but small crater, the
former was beautified with descending stripes of red and yellow—remnants
of once-glowing heat—falling from a cliff or scaur a few yards below its
apex, and the foreground wore its usual coating of red-yellow grasses.
Nothing more vivid and pure than the lights, nothing darker and more
transparent than the shadows.
I seized the Judge’s arm, and pointed to the colossus, and swore that we
would play Jack the Giant-Killer that day. He meekly shook his head,
opined that we would do our best, and referred me to my breakfast, which
stuck in my throat.
Our Kruboys had shown even more than usual laziness, and King Eyo, who
carried only a gun, usually loitered half a mile behind. The party was
weeded by leaving the latter and Two-Glass, a noted shirker, to
supervise the remainder of our day’s provision. The breakers intended
for the future expedition were deposited in a safe place, and at 10·30
A.M. we set out with uncommon elation of spirits, ‘Excelsior!’ being now
the word. Mountain-climbing was now over, and with it the exhilaration
which the succession of distant obstacles to be overcome excites; but
was not Pico Grande before us?
The path ran along the steep side of a kind of gate, formed by two cones
with a little hollow between, and we were forced to tread on the edges
of our feet. After a quarter of an hour we had passed the right-hand
staple, and descended by a gentle slope, not destitute of pit-holes,
into a shallow gorge that screened us from the strong north-easter.
Hence we debouched upon the bed of lava which we had sighted from Mount
Isabel, and named it No. 3. From this position we could better
distinguish its source,—a crater on the left or westward of the great
cone. It flows from north-east to south-west, bending to due south.
Striking the end of the stream, which here has been suddenly arrested by
a rise of ground, we followed the smoothly bevelled rim of a hill—an
edging like the ‘ice-foot’ of the Polar regions—on the proper right, and
then struck across the bed towards another buttress on the left of the
old _coulée_. We afterwards regretted having preferred this course,
thinking that we might have saved ourselves distance and toil by taking
the other bank. Subsequent experience, however, proved the contrary. The
passage occupied half an hour. We spent the first twenty minutes walking
800 feet over an erupted matter overgrown with dry green moss, and
crumbling like pumice[75] beneath the tread. The last 400 feet lay over
a ridgy bed of ruddy black clinker, hairy with burnt cryptogams; its
detached stones, without intermediate débris, sharp-angled and sun-
polished, made progress slow and painful. The contrast of this hard,
dark, unweatherworn vein with the spongy green coating was curious; and
I noticed in the different gashes, sections, and chasms formed by
unequal cooling and floods, that the former everywhere underlies the
latter after a depth of three or four feet. Judging from the position,
both have been produced by the same outflow, which, however, could not
have been the work of a very remote epoch.
At 11·30 A.M., after walking about a mile and three-quarters, we reached
the cone on the proper left of the stream, wound along its edge, which
was clean cut as if smoothed by art, and encumbered by strong, thick
tussocks, which it would be a misnomer to call grass. The Great Peak was
sensibly neared,—a circumstance which not a little increased our _élan_.
After a ten minutes’ walk we found ourselves again condemned to cross,
at right angles too, the frontal ridges of the same lava-bed to the
north-east, where, being higher up, it was more broken but narrower. The
features were the same,—old and green, new and black.
This passage led us to what appeared two grassy cones outlying the base
of the Pico Grande. In a little hollow at the foot of the nearest we
found a clump of shrubby trees, which was marked out as the resting-
place of the future expedition. They rose in front of us with a central
depression, and, not knowing that they were separated from the Peak with
which they seemed to be connected, we judged it advisable to ascend the
hollow between them. The incline was unusually steep, and the surface
disconnected tussocks of the _Deschampia cæspitosa_, a graminea, which
forms masses of three feet diameter and two feet high, and which sinks a
cubit beneath the tread; its hard blades sound in the wind like the flow
of water, and its stiff points pierce the clothes like thorns. In little
patches there were finely-ground coal-black scoriæ, scorching in the
sunbeams, and raising the heat to Black Hole temperature. The ground
sounded hollow under the tread, but I listened vainly for ‘Bramidos.’
Having reached the summit, we found that the supposed two cones were but
the double head concealing the rim of a beautifully formed crater, an
inverted cone, circular, and with narrow edge-like lip, about 300 feet
in circumference. The regular internal slope shelving down from the
aperture was clothed like the external, with grass, to the very floor,
which has a jetty pavement of fragmentary lava. I called it Mount
Milnes, after a very good friend.
After that waste of labour in the merciless rays of the flaming sun—we
could easily have rounded this abutment of the Peak—we allowed ourselves
a quarter of an hour’s rest, and abandoned ourselves to the charm of the
situation. We were the first Europeans certainly, perhaps the first men,
who have ever stood within gunshot of that tall solitary pile. We made
eternal silence vocal with a cheer,—there was no one to deride our
demonstrativeness.
A nearer scrutiny explained some points which we had misunderstood from
afar. The main Peak was entirely isolated, with a long sloping chine on
our right (eastward), and a more abrupt descent in front and on the
left. The faint green hue of the former was produced by a scanty
crusting of lichen. The long sweep of blue was a slide—a herbless
rift—of fine black comminuted cinder; and the red and yellow scaurs were
fire-tinged scoriæ. The long eastern shoulder would have been the
easiest, the difficult loose slide of lava-dust the shortest. I
preferred a _mezzo termine_, and chose a ridgelet running up Victoria
Mountain.
At 1 P.M. we addressed ourselves to the task of walking round the crater
of Mount Milnes. Here, however, the Judge stopped; having slightly
sprained his right ankle, he decided, looking at the task before him,
that it was beyond his powers; and advised me to reserve it for another
day. Subsequences almost made me regret that I had not followed his
counsel. But on second thoughts—No! To be first in such matters is
everything; to be second, nothing. Besides, the announcement made to us
at Mapanya had rendered the affair a kind of steeple-chase; there was
perhaps a little ‘_malice_’ in my wish to win.
Descending the tufted cone, between which and the great Peak there was
no débris, I began to breast the ascent. Jack Brass, who carried my warm
clothing, had sat down in some secluded spot where he was doubtless
dozing in the warm midday sun, and Kharabu only remained to accompany
me. The good Judge lent me his flask of spirits and water: having
detected my companion neatly ‘tiefing’ the contents, I took the bottle
under my especial charge; and twice when Kharabu’s glazed eyes and
cracked lips showed symptoms of defaillance, it served to keep him
alive. These Krumen are not hill-men. Their iron bones and leathery
muscles are not to be tired with rowing and paddling, but on the
mountain they soon weary.
I first made a long elbow towards an isolated clump of basaltic _arêtes_
springing from the lava and pumice slope on the left. We will call them
‘Half-way Rocks.’ The walking was easy enough, and the angle gentle; but
no lava-stream here existing, and the small cinders slipping down with
the foot, it was somewhat fatiguing. From these little ‘Grands Mulets’ I
turned to the right, and, keeping the topmost red and yellow scaur in
sight, followed the ragged edge of a small ridge, whose mossy lava-lumps
afforded hold to the tread. The only remarkable feature of the ascent
was a sprinkling of coarse quartzose stone, which we had not seen
elsewhere. At times the all-fours position became preferable to the
usual and more dignified; but in presence of such a sun as then glowed
upon us, with far fiercer radiation than below, I had no shame in
prostrating myself.[76] As we neared the summit the steepness and
looseness of the material was increasing; Kharabu sank down nearly
fainting from the sun’s arrowy beams, and was allowed to remain behind.
At 1·30 I stood upon the summit of the Peak, where new and unexpected
objects met my sight.
Victoria Mountain now proved to be the shell of a huge ‘double crater,’
opening to the south-eastward, where a tremendous torrent of fire had
broken down the weaker wall. The whole interior and its accessible
breach now lay before me, plunging sheer in vertical cliff. The depth of
the bowl may be 250 feet; the total diameter of the two, which are
separated by a rough partition of lava, 1000 feet. The interior slope is
a highly irregular cliff, which drops horizontally, streaked and
ribboned with igneous matter, red and yellow, whose bands of colour
indicate horizontal stratification, and comminuted scoriæ standing at an
angle of 45°. Not a blade of grass, not a thread of moss breaks the
gloom of the Plutonic pit, which is as black as Erebus, except where the
fire has painted it red and yellow. To the north-west appeared a ridge
overtopping the rest of the two-headed cone which we had called Albert
Mountain, and a bluff wall or dyke, which I had not time to visit.
To record my claim I heaped up a small cairn of stones, and in it placed
a fragment from the facetious pages of Mr. Punch, perhaps the greatest
traveller on record, and certainly one of the traveller’s best friends.
When Kharabu rejoined me with the B. P. apparatus, an attempt was made
to boil. But Jack Brass had prudently kept with him the blanket intended
to shelter the match; the furious nor’-easter[77]—it left its mark upon
me for a fortnight afterwards—charging and eddying round the cone at the
rate of thirty miles an hour, threatened to sweep us away from the lip
of the crater’s gap like flies; and after a few attempts I desisted,
promising myself success at another and more favourable time.
In such doings, 2 P.M. had sped. There was a reverse to the medal,
Success—the prospect of a night to be spent in the open; and the
doctrine of inevitable Compensation taught me to expect some evil, which
came, however, in another form. The ascent had occupied seven hours, and
there remained barely four till sunset, for five miles to camp. I tried
again the Vesuvian style of descent, and narrowly escaped, so loose is
the surface, gaining a momentum which would have dashed me against the
boulders that studded the base. Under the black cinders lies a stratum
of grey ‘_ceneri_,’ which looks white by contrast; at the base of the
cone our line of descent appeared a thin glistening thread. When half-
way down, the Judge waved a signal from Mount Milnes for me to take the
western side of the lava-bed, which we had twice crossed on the up-
march. I preferred, however, encountering known rather than unknown
troubles. The descent of the Great Peak occupied thirty minutes.
A few words will describe the hurry homewards over the dry and weary
land. Skulking Jack Brass was found snugly curled up in a sunny form on
a hillside, and received a present which he will not forget. He appeared
to be terribly lame, but when time pressed he forgot all his ailments,
and devanced the rest of the party. Arrived at Mount Isabel, we awoke
King Eyo, who apparently had been hybernating ever since; loaded Two-
Glass, and rested ten minutes; a wind was blowing that shrank the
mercury to 40°, and made our extremities feel deadly cold. A cloud-bank
like a dust haze, 20° deep, was all we could see in the west, and, as we
passed our beacon and guide, Mount Helen,
‘The sun’s rim dipp’d, the stars rush’d out,
At one stride came the dark,’
and utter darkness, too, before 7 P.M. It is bad enough to be benighted
on a rutty English road. What was it here with a surface of grass
tussocks and lava-blocks, deep falls and jagged crevasses? We lighted
the wax-ends used for the B. P. They soon burned out, and what was worse
they melted the solder of the water-cup. After a heavy fall or two, and
shocks enough to break a Town man’s tendon Achilles, or to rupture his
diaphragm, we were compelled to halt. The Kru-cry, however, brought a
response, and presently we saw firesticks—the excellent Selim being as
usual to the fore—dancing in the darkness like Will-o’-the-wisps. The
cold night-wind threatening pleurisy kept us moving till we were able to
reach camp. We entered at 8·30 P.M., after full twelve hours occupied in
getting over ten miles. The Krumen and Eyo all arrived safely, and
Kharabu, besides a promise from his master, received a present of cloth
in consideration of his good conduct. The day of hard work was followed
by a wakeful night, caused by cramp and spasmodic contractions of the
lower limbs;[78]—already retribution had begun.
I was astonished by the extreme regularity of the mountain, and by the
almost complete absence of those accidents of ground which distinguish
Vesuvius, Etna, Stromboli, Pico de Teyde, Popocatapetl, and other
volcanoes. Considering the magnitude of the pyramid, its surface is
nearly as smooth as it can be up to the crowning vent. Nor is it, as
will afterwards appear, an ‘epitome of globe vegetation,’ Alpine types
being very rare; whilst the absence of snow deprives it of glaciers,
couloirs, debâcles, and moraines, Rigi Kulms, and Monte Rosas. I
remarked, however, with pleasure that there were no large watercourses
in the upper regions, showing the rains to be scanty; if heavy, meteoric
denudation would have stripped the cones of their thin coating of soil.
In many places, also, water, confined by higher ground, sinks; these
might be converted into tanks, as in Persia and Sindh.
The specimens forwarded to the Geological Museum proved to be all of
volcanic origin; scoriæ, lavas, bombs, trachytic traps, sands apparently
with an admixture of magnetic iron, and a few crystals of augite and
olivine.
In the morning the travellers were distinguished by the looped and
windowed raggedness of their dress, and by hobbling about like cheap
‘screws’ after a long hunting-day. Beyond sun and wind-burned hands and
face, my companion suffered nothing, and speedily recovered from his
sprain. But in an evil hour I had set out in a pair of loose waterproof
boots, which began by softening and ended by half-flaying the feet. It
was a spectacle next morning when they were removed. This is the fourth
recurrence of a similar annoyance, the three others having happened at
Meccah, at Harar, and on the hills of Usumbara. Caustic and diachylum
were both wanting for some time, till at last a little of the latter was
brought up from the lowlands. Presently supervened another African
consequence of cold, wet, and over-exertion—swollen feet. To this also I
had been a martyr in the Eastern region. In the lowlands the disease is
dangerous; it may last three months, and end in the worst consequences
of inflammation—ulcerations that cripple the limb. It has little acute
suffering. This absence of pain is typical of African disease, as
anæsthetic death is of India—in both places the exhaustion of nervous
energy may be the cause—and when feeling comes on recovery approaches.
The natives, who are equally ignorant of Dr. Allopath’s powder and Dr.
Homœopath’s pill, treat it with hydropathic bandages. I first tried
arnica plaster, in the absence of diachylum, and then dressings of rum
and water, in the want of spirits of wine.[79] My case concluded with a
little ague and fever, and I was unable to walk for a week, a fortnight,
a month, thus losing thirty days out of forty-six. Thus the exultation
of the day was succeeded by the depression of the morrow, and unusual
pleasure brought its own penalty.
[Footnote 67: This Hypericum (angustifolium) is described as one of the
links between Fernando Po, Camaroons, Abyssinia, and Bourbon: it is
common on the Peak of Tenerife, above 2000 feet high, and it ranges on
these hills between 7000 and 10,000 feet above sea-level, where,
however, it dwindles to a shrub. The smaller stems are as good as rose
or cherry sticks for pipes.]
[Footnote 68: In the chart the direct distance between the two peaks is
nine miles.]
[Footnote 69: Others were named Mount Emily, bearing N.N.E. ¼ E., and
Mount Eliza (one of the three sisters), bearing S. by E.; but they were
not in the line of road.]
[Footnote 70: M. Casella’s instrument, which I believe is now greatly
improved, was a policeman’s lantern, with the thermometer protruding
from the side of the water-cup. It had two great disadvantages, the
fragility of the tube and the effect of the wind upon the mercury. The
cup, moreover, was soldered instead of being made of block tin.]
[Footnote 71: Measured 70,394 feet.]
[Footnote 72: Little importance can be attached to an aneroid
observation at this altitude.]
[Footnote 73: This is on a small scale the Cañada of the Tenerife Peak,
a flat strip of ground, more or less broad, silted up with fine pumice.]
[Footnote 74: The same species flourishes in the upper heights of
Fernando Po, and there is another which grows in the lowlands.]
[Footnote 75: Neither here, however, nor elsewhere, did we find pumice
properly so called.]
[Footnote 76: Solar exposure or radiation is the opposite of
temperature. On clear days, when the latter is lowest in the shade the
former is highest, and _vice versâ_. Every traveller has felt this, and
yet the presence of snow, which merely proves its non-conducting powers
upon the highest mountains, has given rise to the popular idea that the
nearer we approach the sun the less heat we feel.]
[Footnote 77: The wind, despite the greater rarity of the air, blows
with much greater violence at 13,000 than at 5000 feet high. This
increase of velocity with height is probably due to our approaching the
centre of the aërial current.]
[Footnote 78: This African plague is accounted for by the faculty in
various ways. Dr. Clarke of Sierra Leone attributes it to the presence
of acrid substances internally, whereas it is most frequent ‘upon an
empty stomach.’ Others derive it from inequality of evaporation or
radiation from the body, from derangement of the liver, from bad
circulation, and from cold producing undue contraction of the muscles.
As usual with the obscure nervous disorders, where the scientific can do
little, every one has a remedy of his or her own. I have been
recommended to sleep with a tub of cold water under the bed, to hold a
mutton-bone in the right hand, to stand and stamp when unable to move,
and to kick out with the heel when the limb is as rigid as wood. A tight
ligature above the afflicted part, like the Arab Hibas, sometimes
removes extreme pain. The only remedy, however, is thoroughly to heat
the offending member by spirit frictions, hot foot-baths, and swathes of
flannel.]
[Footnote 79: The maximum proportions are one part of spirits to five of
cold water. Mr. Saker, whose prescription it is, obtained the former by
two distillations from trade rum, of which a gallon produced about one
quart of rectified alcohol, the rest being water, and a residuum too
offensive and poisonous to be endured. A pleasant offering of Europe to
her sister Africa!]
CHAPTER IV.
SUBSEQUENT ASCENTS BY MESSRS. CALVO, SAKER, AND MANN.
For a week we led a tranquil life, free from the care of cities, and
beyond reach of the barbarous Bakwiri, in this Paradise of wildernesses.
‘O Corte, O Cortejo,’ says the Spanish proverb; it speaks the truth,
like Sancho Panza. There are no azure fiends here. Even the Judge felt
no disposition to ‘caer la paletilla.’[80] Not a soul approached us; the
natives feared a rough reception by day from white men, who were
doubtless collecting the vast stores of cloth with which the mountains
are supposed to be covered;[81] and at night the jungle is not a
favourite walk with them. We rose with the sun, whose beams, passing
through a thicker atmosphere than that of the plains, were but faintly
warm, comforted ourselves chatting round the bright wood-fire, wrote our
journals, and, after breakfast at 8 A.M., proceeded to the business of
the day. The Judge made sundry excursions, with a view to short cuts. M.
Mann set out with his wire frames, and returned only to dry his
specimens, a process which must be repeated every day in these damp
regions, and which cannot be committed to natives. The Krumen, not
having been allowed to ‘wax fat and kick,’ and tamed by the discipline
of the pelourinho, laughed and sang whilst they worked at the camp and
felled trees. I was experimenting upon the time it would take one man to
make cultivable ground of an acre of bush—an operation at which, as it
involves destruction, they appear proficients. Selim sallied forth with
Black Beggar, the cook,—who is also my instructor in the Kru tongue, and
a first-rate shot with an old rattletrap musket,—in search of specimens
of small beasts and birds. As the dried nests showed, the season of
nidification was passed, and the juveniles were already on the wing.
Unhappily, our shot was too large; the arsenical soap would not come up
from Victoria before Mr. Saker, and many of the birds were too young for
good preservation. The little barbarians were so wholly unacquainted
with rice that when placed upon the ground as bait they paid no
attention to it. Insects are remarkably scarce at these altitudes,
whereas in the lowlands every dead tree’s bark contains a swarm. Only
two land shells were found, and none appeared in the grassy region above
the woods. Besides the field-rat before alluded to, no fewer than three
animals new to science were secured, and duly forwarded to the British
Museum—a mus, a crocidura, an anomalurus, and, the most interesting of
the series, a ‘beautiful new species’ of Sciurus, which Dr. Gray was
kind enough to name Sciurus Isabella.[82] Some of these were shot,
others were caught in the Kruman trap. A fine hawk or eagle haunted us
for days, but never trusted himself within reach of Black Beggar’s
unerring ‘scattering-iron.’ We also rigged up a musket in the usual way,
baited with a bit of meat attached to the trigger. After salt pork had
been tried in vain, we supplied its place with fresh meat, but met no
success. The larger animals appear very wary on the mountains. More than
once, especially at early dawn, antelope were sighted from afar, grazing
in the open, but never allowed a shot. Selim also saw two hawks
attacking a deer which was apparently maimed. It made the bush, however,
before he could reach the spot. The Krumen were often frightened at
night by the loud breathing and the laughing of the hyæna close to our
huts—once they met it during the day, when both parties fled
precipitately in opposite directions—and lay close under their blankets,
the only way to invite attack from the cowardly beast. After sitting up
for several nights, we abandoned the hope of securing a skin of this
animal, which did not fail, however, to strip our springes of their
‘small deer,’ rats and mice.
The forest wore a European look, but with dyes so limpid and tender that
the eye never wearied in contemplating it. This is here the ‘sweet of
the year,’ and the deadliest season at Fernando Po and upon the coast.
The days are those of the Tuscan Apennine in spring and autumn; the
morning is still, and ‘clear as the eyes of Christabel,’ and we hear the
distant murmurs of the restless waves upon the sounding Æthiopic shore.
During the day a mist-cloud, which the wind cannot rout, sweeps round
Earthwork Crater, bringing a refreshing change, and the evenings are
mild and serene. At times it threatens rain, but the downfall is never
more than a few drops. The daily wind is the north-easter, not a Trade,
the tyrant of the sub-tropical seas, but a land breeze, increased I
believe, by induction through the mountain-tops, and drawn with steady
and ceaseless force, as if from an endless reservoir, towards the
regions of damp heat below. The return current, or south-wester, was
rare; perhaps we had not attained its height. The clouds are torn to
pieces by it, and we sometimes see them travelling, as at Madeira, in
three several directions; when they meet, fierce and furious are the
battles. We meet once more at 3 P.M. for food, and after that we keep
our minds from starving with a book, or we ‘imp feathers to the broken
wings of Time’ with sketching. Thus the day walks on _lanei pedes_, and
after 6 P.M., when the sun is about to set through the lowland mists, we
collect round the blazing hearth of basalt blocks—there is no better
company to the wanderer than a fire[83]—and while away the last hours
with chat and drink. The deep, dark forest is as silent as the grave,
except when the screech-owl, most melancholy if not most musical, throws
her note into the shades, or the hyæna whimpers in the distance, ghostly
as the shade of some ancient denizen of the wild, or a mighty rushing
wind from the north sweeps high over the tree tops, hardly causing the
flame below to flicker. An avenue cut along the side of Earthwork Crater
shows the Evening Star smiling upon us with her soft and lovely light,—I
watch her as a lover when she sinks to rest behind the curtain of
moonlit cloud. We separate at 8 P.M., and enjoy sparingly the pleasures
of memory, which, methinks, the careful mental husbandman should reserve
like cards, in case of such accident as old age, when all the passions,
except that of eating, shall have been extinguished. During night the
grumbling of thunder far beneath our feet is our rude lullaby. Once, and
only once, I heard a cracking in the underwood, which my ears, now
familiar with the sounds of the backwoods, at once recognized as the
effect of a human visitor, perhaps of two. Selim brought my revolvers,
and we debated upon the propriety of firing a shot over the spot, as a
caution to spies. It is well we did not; we should only have disturbed
some harmless hunter visiting the spring. After a cool and comfortable
night—the mercury stands at 50°—unblemished by a single mosquito, or
without an atom of perspiration on the proboscis, we are awakened at
earliest dawn by the small brown birds, some tapping like woodpeckers
the hollow tree-trunks, others singing with might and main tutu-pigi-
tutu-pigi-tutu-pi. Who was it that said birds have no song in the
tropics? Any ear can hear that they are singing, and a good ear, when
familiarized with the novel music, can detect as much melody in it as in
that of any others. I presume, however, that association has more to do
with the pleasure derived from the singing of birds than with most other
human enjoyments.
The expedition, Krumen and all, save myself, being now in a high state
of preservation, it was judged advisable to make a second
reconnaissance. Mr. Saker had written to us on the 26th, telling us not
to wait for him. The letter, by-the-by, did not reach us till the
evening of the 29th, showing that our lazybones who had escorted the
returner had spent four days upon a two days’ march. Knowing that the
‘book’ which they brought up would probably mention their desertion,
they prudently left it with one of their number in the rear, and the
rest pressed on to receive a glass of rum. At 10·25 A.M., on the 2nd
January, 1862, Messrs. Calvo and Mann set out, accompanied by six Krumen
and King Eyo, with provisions for four days. I despatched about the same
time six other ‘boys’ to Victoria, in case Mr. Saker might wish to
return, and remained on the hill-side with Selim Aga and the four
fellows that completed the party.
Messrs. Calvo and Mann suddenly returned before sunset two days after
they had started. The latter had brought on a relapse, and looked weak
and weary; besides which they had allowed the Krumen to finish their
water and their stores. Moreover, they had forgotten to furnish
themselves with liquor; and the coldness of the mountain water had begun
to tell upon them. They had marched, after leaving camp, in an hour and
three quarters, to Mount Helen; and after resting thirty-five minutes
had reached in another hour and a half Mount Isabel, where they found
the water-breakers safe but rather leaky. Whilst their Krumen prepared a
roosting-place in an old crater, a grassy hollow, promising defence from
the alpine violence of the night winds, they ascended to the summit, and
with great difficulty. The azimuth compass had no stand, and their
‘tropical hands’ were dead with cold. They took bearings of the
principal points in the glorious sub-range of southern mountains over
which they had passed; and they found the dormitory anything but
unpleasant.
At six A.M., on the 3rd January, the reconnoitrers arose, breakfasted,
fed their men, and were _en route_ before the hour was ended. They
followed the west—not, as we did, the east—of Lava Bed No. 3, and found
it, contrary to what had been expected, by far the longer and rougher of
the two. After about an hour and a half of marching they reached the
grass-grown hills at the foot of the Pico Grande, and M. Mann named the
tallest, on the left hand or westward, ‘Mount Hooker.’ Passing round its
western flank, they found in the northern base a tolerably sheltered
nighting-place, where they deposited their luggage, under the charge of
three Krumen. Accompanied by Messrs. John, George, Clipper, and Tom
Pepper, whose activity was stimulated by hopes of cloth, after an hour’s
rest they reached the base of the great cone at 11 A.M. As had been
agreed upon in camp, they turned towards the left, or Albert Crater,
instead of ascending the front, and, rounding the western side, they
wound up the slope, which, overlaid with fine black scoriæ and ashes,
often caused them to ‘sink two steps backwards for one forwards.’ They
also found the wind so strong that it nearly blew them down. When near
the summit, they caught sight of a huge depression, distant about four
miles, and separated from the mountain by a long slope of cinder. They
described it as an ‘_effondrement_,’ a vast chasm in the earth, oval or
horse-shoe shaped, with a longer diameter of not less than three miles;
the sides, sparsely clad with shrubs and plants, fell sheer down. The
depth they placed at the enormous figure of 3000 feet; and the cavity
appeared large enough for the Peak to fit into it.
At 1·45 P.M., after nearly four hours’ climb, the explorers stood upon
the high back wall of Albert Crater, which commands a view of the whole
summit. They stayed there for half an hour; hung up the self-registering
thermometers, and left the top, too much benumbed by cold—the mercury
sank to 45° 50′—for further observations. The violent north-easter
seemed to pierce through them, and they descended the south-western
slope, between Albert and Victoria Craters, where they found what M.
Mann called ‘a wall of granite in huge blocks.’ At 2·30 P.M. they
descended as rapidly as possible; and at 3·10 P.M., after forty-five
minutes of slipping and sliding, they reached the rendezvous. King Eyo,
Black Beggar, and the handsome Ire—so called because he was probably the
ugliest nigger ever invented—having finished the whole breaker of water,
Sio, _alias_ Tom Pepper, was sent to fetch another from Mount Isabel.
Not relishing a solitary walk, he persuaded Clipper and King Eyo to
accompany him. The precious two started, and were seen no more that
night. The travellers did not raise the tent; they spent the hours of
darkness under _la belle étoile_, at the foot of the grassy cone, and
found the air exceedingly cold.
On the 4th January the reconnoitrers were delayed till 7·30 A.M. for
water, of which two breakers came instead of one. The idle Krumen had
suffered as they deserved: one half with thirst, the other with cold.
King Eyo, the sablest of youths, looked almost white, and threw himself
about as one with a colic. M. Mann’s relapse necessitating immediate
return, the party moved at 9·30 A.M.: reaching Mount Isabel, they saw a
strange apparition. On the opposite side of the crater stood a native
hunter, with his two small prick-eared curs, adorned with bell
necklaces. The man was habited in a rug round the loins, and held
nothing in his hand but a staff or spear. These tribes ignore the bow
and arrow. The poor wretch halted, spell-bound, which is not to be
wondered at, by the sight. Evil spirits in Africa are white and ugly, by
the same rule that they are black and ugly in Europe; and he must have
thought himself in dire proximity to what we should term the Devil.
Perhaps he saw before him the Great Pale Face, who haunts the big water,
guarding the treasures of the mountain.[84] M. Mann, wishing a sketch,
motioned him to approach: he waved an emphatic negative, tossed his
arms, and simultaneously shouted, with a peculiar wild cry, to his dogs,
who were drawing near the strangers, making them turn to the right-
about, like a file of soldiers. After this he fled wildly down the hill-
side, and was seen no more. The Bwea people, on the east of the
mountain, and the mountaineers generally, travel high up. Perhaps this
phenomenon accounts for the crashing of the wood which I had heard on
the previous night.[85] It is lucky that the country people are not less
cowardly than the Krumen. Of these, four out of the five, all armed with
matchets, ‘bolted’ from one naked hunter; John being the only brave that
stood his ground. They were not found till near the camp, when,
_mendaces in excelsis_, they declared that they had run away to warn
their masters, who had remained behind making collections, of the danger
that threatened the party.
I had been suffering from ague on that afternoon, and it much resembled
the pleasant inebriating attack at Lagos. It is, I have said, a highly
intellectual complaint; it heightens all the faculties; the memory
becomes most acute; visions of past things flit before the mental eye
with startling vivacity; flattering hopes of the future bubble from the
brain. You sing, sketch novels, compose _ariettes_, and spin verse like
an Italian improvisatore. In this state of wide-awakeness to all around,
I fancied, about 5 P.M., that a Kru cry was sounding in the distance,
and ordered those in camp to answer it. They obeyed, but manifestly
thought me _exalté_. However, at 5·30 P.M. we saw a line of bearers
winding along Earthwork Crater, a few yards above our heads, and I had
the pleasure of finding that there had been no accident. M. Mann had
been somewhat disappointed. He brought home some fine specimens of
ranunculus, monica, senecio, and leucathoë,[86] besides gramineæ,
helichrysum, veronica, cytisus, and others, inhabiting the lava-fields
which surround the highest mountain. But he had found only six species
not growing in the temperate region; the rest were the lower forms,
stunted and wilted by wind and cold. He discovered no Alpine types. The
conifer which he had met at San Thomé, 5000 feet above sea-level, is
absent from these mountains even at double that altitude. The evening
passed pleasantly in recounting past adventures. The four fugitive
Krumen were duly punished; the ringleader received three dozen; the
others were at once sent back with full breakers to Mount Isabel, and
all forgot for a week the taste of pork and grog.
On the next day our party upon the hill-side received another accession.
At 8 A.M. the usual shouts and answers in the Victoria road announced
the return of Mr. Saker, who was accompanied by Mr. R. Smith, a
coadjutor of the Camaroons Mission, six Krumen, and three Camaroons men,
who deserted _en masse_ on the third day. Their ascent presented few
novelties. Myombi and Botani had been harangued by Mr. Johnson upon the
folly of ill-treating white men who could close the market to them: and
this threat of what is to an African the worst of penalties, made both
chiefs and people exceptionally civil. They had persuaded two Bosumbo
men to carry part of the loads to Mapanya, and a few leaves of tobacco
had induced old ‘Balmat’ to accompany them to ‘Ridge Camp.’ They had
also found a short cut between Bosumbo and Mapanya, enabling them to
avoid the long eastern _détour_ over bad ground which we had made during
our ascent. They had performed the journey in fifteen hours and fifteen
minutes of actual marching, and Mr. Saker estimated the distance at
twenty-three miles.[87]
We now became a thoroughly dilapidated party, ‘a pitiful company for
mountain research.’ Mr. Saker took sights all day, and had fever every
night; Mr. Smith worked out a two months’ tertian which he had caught in
the Camaroons River; my foot was still painful; and M. Mann suffered so
much from an old dysentery that it was thought better for him to try
change of air. It is frequently the effect of the hill climates in
India, and even of a return from the tropics to England, to draw forth a
disease whose seeds are latent in the system, after which crisis the
sufferer may expect a complete return of health.
Active steps were also rendered necessary by the state of our
provisions. The twenty-five hungry Krumen had got through 1000 lbs. of
rice in a fortnight, no stores had arrived in the adjoining river from
England, and Victoria market supplied nothing but yams and kokos, the
latter of which were sold at eight per leaf of tobacco. ‘Balmat’ made
his appearance in camp, accompanied by two youths equipped with sword
and musket, and hung round with little gourds containing their
ammunition. They brought a present of provisions, and, by way of
securing a larger return gift, they declared, in their loud and barking
voices, that a neighbouring ‘king,’ hearing of white men being upon the
mountain, had declared war against them for allowing us to pass,—a
campaign that may terminate in the loss of a goat. They promised to hunt
the neighbourhood for ‘bush-beef’[88] and to supply us with meat, but we
could not place faith in their words.
The Krumen were sent under Black Will to bring up the remainder of our
stores from Victoria on the 6th of January, and four days later M. Mann,
with ten others, took with him sixteen dollars, cloth, and matchets, to
tempt the people to sell stock. He was accompanied by the Judge, who had
reasons for wishing to reach Fernando Po before the next mail departure,
and who, though the only sound man amongst four sick, found his position
the reverse of pleasant. He took with him King Eyo, whose departure was
a relief; the little rascal’s extreme idleness was really painful to
contemplate. A manchila was rigged up for the invalid, but the shaking
and jolting of the inexperienced bearers soon rendered it unendurable.
The travellers left at 10 A.M., and with great difficulty reached
Victoria that night. Their men shirked as usual, lagged behind, and,
when urged on with the stick, threatened to desert.
On the 13th of January, Mr. Smith still remaining unwell, Mr. Saker set
out with four Krumen to effect his ascent. Starting at 7·30 A.M., he
made for Mount Isabel, and boiled thermometers. After halting there two
hours, he entered upon Lava Bed No. 3, and, warned by Judge Calvo’s and
M. Mann’s experience, followed its eastern side. Another two hours
placed him at the foot of a small grassy cone, which he named Mount
Arthur, and he camped in the rim or hollow; round the base were blocks
of lava, rising eight or ten feet from a bed in front and forming a kind
of shelter. The night was most enjoyable, the mercury at dawn showing
33° Fah.
On the next day Mr. Saker left his camp at 6 A.M. and ascended the long
south-eastern ridge, where lava-lumps and stunted tufts of grass
afforded a superior footing. After three hours and ten minutes of hard
climbing, the party stood on Mount Victoria, about 150 feet below the
highest summit. The day was favourable and windless. A single B. P.
observation was made, 188° (Fah.), temperature 59°. As will presently
appear, much importance cannot be attached to this, the first of
observations. Water cannot be overboiled, but it is fair to suspect the
lower estimate of underboiling. The descent of the cone occupied him one
hour and a half. He left his camp at 2·10 P.M. on the same day, and
reached us a little before dark. Mr. Smith had already commenced the
descent; on the next day he was followed by Mr. Saker. After ten hours
of actual walking they arrived without accident at their home.
The following is the only account of this third ascent which has yet
appeared; it was first printed in some missionary paper, and bore date
10th February, 1862:—
‘In company with M. Mann and Mr. Consul Burton we reached an elevation
of pure air, and stayed there some days. After a careful survey of the
high region where we were encamped, I left to explore the peak, and
ascended from the south side. During my absence M. Mann had ascended the
north side, and Consul Burton had attempted the west face.[89] After a
day’s weary toil over beds of lava, we reached the foot of a small mount
somewhat sheltering to weary travellers. There I spread my blanket and
passed the night. It was a glorious evening, but somewhat cold; at early
dawn I found the glass at 31° Fah. But the sun rose: a cloudless
morning, and it soon grew warm. At 6 A.M. I began the ascent, and at 10
reached the southern summit or ridge. By this time it was very warm, and
the wind that sweeps so fearfully in these regions seemed hushed, and
light, fleecy clouds ever and anon shut in the surrounding scenery.
Towards the east I saw a range of mountains that I had never before
observed, and took their bearings, but the attempt to secure the angles
of summit towards the west was not so successful; as, ere I could bring
two points together, one would be obscured. At this point I found the
water boil at 188°, thermometer 58°. This gives an elevation nearly the
same as our charts give it from trigonometrical survey below. My attempt
to explore the crater was a failure; the whole was enshrouded in cloud.
The crater must be of enormous extent; the two most prominent peaks we
named Victoria and Albert (little did we think then, in December, that
the nation and our beloved Sovereign were then being plunged into
irreparable grief); and those peaks present a large angle at seven
miles’ distance. I regret I did not previously take it, and my failure
to take angles leaves me in much ignorance of what I wished to
ascertain. After a long delay I began the descent, and at _two_ reached
my nightly place, and after rest and refreshment set out on return to
our camp. Here I found the Consul a little better, but still unable to
walk much. As I had stayed on this second run up the mountains ten days,
I was compelled to leave for this place and for Cameroons.
‘It is only needful to mention here that in those visits to the highest
regions we have ascertained that there are now native towns at about
3500 feet elevation, that cultivation extends but little further, and
that beyond these heights there is every inducement to seek a temporary
home for invalids and wearied missionaries.’
[Footnote 80: A popular Spanish phrase for home-sickness, from which the
soldiers at Fernando Po suffer severely. The idea is that the shoulder-
blade falls and the arm loses strength. The remedy is very Oriental; I
have seen it at El Medinah. The patient lies upon the ground, a friend
walks over and tramples upon him, and he recovers.]
[Footnote 81: In the East hidden treasures consist of gold and jewels,
and the magical methods by which they are brought to light are applied
to milk by the pastoral Somal and the Irish, and to cotton cloth and
copper-rods by the trading West Africans. The only explanation to the
natives of our ascending the mountain was the existence of these
treasures.]
[Footnote 82: See Appendix IV.]
[Footnote 83: Even at Fernando Po I find a stove absolutely necessary in
mornings and evenings for health and comfort; but it is only the old
African who thinks of so apparently unnatural a procedure.]
[Footnote 84: The reader will find this explained in Appendix II.]
[Footnote 85: On the 1st February M. Mann, when collecting plants
sheltered in a hollow from the strong wind, had a similar rencontre. ‘I
suddenly,’ he says, ‘observed a native close by, who, without seeing me,
had unwittingly dropped upon me. When I addressed him he stretched out
his hand, and after a few minutes pronounced the word “tobacco.” I
called to him to come nearer, which he was unwilling to do, and when I
went towards him I saw that he trembled with fright. He was a head
taller than I, and nearly twice as stout, without any clothes except a
small piece of thin cloth about his loins: he had arms and a cutlass. I
made him understand that he should bring me a hyæna and a gazelle, which
he promised, and slowly went away, looking back as though afraid that I
should lay hands upon him.’]
[Footnote 86: In this region the temperate zone, botanically speaking,
would extend from 5000 feet to the summit. In more northerly mountains,
Etna for instance, the zones are usually reckoned to be five, viz.
lowland or cultivated, wooded, shrubby, grassy, and of cryptogams. For
sanitarial purposes the torrid would extend from the shore to 1500 feet
above sea-level, the temperate from 1500 to 7000 feet, and the frigid to
the top.]
[Footnote 87: This is about double the true figure, 13 geographical
miles. I made a practice of asking each member of the expedition his
estimate of every march, registered the lowest, and found on comparing
it with actual measurement by the cord that it was usually twice too
long. When instruments are not used this must ever be expected. But it
is no objection to the general credibility of a book if its 300 miles of
distance are reduced to 120. This sounds like a truism: apparently,
however, it is not generally acknowledged to be true.]
[Footnote 88: Formerly there were wild cattle upon the Peak of Fernando
Po; but they were probably let loose there by Spaniards in the last
century. We heard of none on Camaroons Mountain.]
[Footnote 89: Mr. Saker knew perfectly the facts of the case, which he
here ‘pretty considerably’ misstates.]
CHAPTER V.
THE FINAL ASCENT.
In the lower regions the ‘smokes,’ or hazy season, last from early
December to the end of January, and they seem gradually extending up the
mountain. On the 12th January the clouds rose for the first time
overhead. On the 19th, after a still, clear morning, the mist settled
upon us, and a few heavy drops, heralded by the smell of rain mixing
with the nutty odour of the forest, fell at 4·30 P.M., and between 5 and
6 P.M. Then a double bank of clouds, lightning cumuli, with flesh-tint
lights and steely-blue shades upon a grey ground, forging up
portentously from the S.E. to the zenith, showed us for the first time a
mountain storm.
On beginning, the thunder growled as usual far below our feet;
frequently it seemed to ascend, and the low continuous rumbling of the
distance was broken by rattling peals, seemingly around us. The
lightning flashed bright from N. to S., veering to the S.W., and lastly
to the N.W.; it was mostly globular, shooting like Roman-candles through
the lower air, whilst in places a web-work of vivid zigzag flame played,
darting into groups, over the mountain and the dwarf crater near us. The
wind, at this time usually northerly, blew heavily from the west, and
the storm once more worked round to the S.E., with occasional
coruscations from the N.W. and due N. Little Camaroons appeared to be
the centre of attraction; the head was covered with a thick cap of
cumuli, dense and grandiose, that moved gradually eastward. As the loud
thunder died away in the several gradations of distance—sheet-lightning
still appeared in the north—a cold wind set in from the east, and,
freshening to a gale, brought with it an hour’s heavy rain from the
tumultuous rollers around. After two hours of atmospheric commotion all
was again quiet, and a clear moonlit night induced sound sleep.
The savage appearance of the lightning upon these Acroceraunian Hills
made me guard against possible accidents, by planting upon the southern
lip of Earthwork Crater directly above our camp a young tree with a
matchet lashed to the top. It was ‘strong medicine’ to the dejected
Krumen, who disliked the appearance of fire-globes shooting across the
path at least as much as their master did. Our rude _paratonnère_,
however, was not struck, although it had the best of opportunities.
The 22nd January was to me a _dies mirabilis_. At 8·30 A.M. there was
another bad storm, lightning volleying, and thunder cracking and pealing
in unpleasant proximity. The phenomenon wore the usual aspect of
Tornado,—the Turner: beginning in the N.W., it veered round through the
S.E., and returned to its original direction, often dying away and
presently resuscitating. At 10 A.M. a high north-easterly gale brought
with it large scattered gouts, which presently thickened to a close
shower. I was afterwards informed that those below saw the north-eastern
flank of Pico Grande sheeted with snow.
At noon the weather had improved, and the tonic of oxygen developed by
the storm enabled me to leave my leafy bower, after nearly four weeks of
not unpleasant prison. Selim reported that Fernando Po was in sight for
the first time. I crept a few yards along the south-western slope of
Earthwork Crater, and, armed with sketching materials, sighted a
peculiar view. The mists, at first thickly rising from the south-west,
thinned out and floated northwards. They met and tussled, wearying
themselves in the fray, now rendering everything invisible beyond ten
yards, then opening out a prospect of twenty miles. At length the sickly
sun became victorious. The horizon seemed raised high above its proper
place, and in the dark grey abyss below purple-grey masses of cloud
floated over a sea undistinguishable from the misty sky, whilst on the
extreme line of sight rose Fernando Po, a ghastly form, like one of
Ossian’s favourite mountains. The Peak, which was apparently double,
bore 229° 15′ (M.), and Clarence, or Sta. Isabel, a darker dot at the
base, was 225°.
The change of air and scene worked miracles for me: the next day and the
next saw me on foot in picnicking guise, attended by my factotum and two
Kruboys, laying down a base to check the distance of Mount Helen, and
sketching the several craters that lay upon our line of ascent.
At 1·30 P.M. on the 25th of January, M. Mann returned with three Krumen;
he had made a gallant march, having left Victoria but yesterday morning.
His health had been restored by a diet of iron-rust burned in brandy or
rum, and cold arrowroot tempered with chalk,[90] the prescription of the
good Mr. Johnson. The traveller had procured little in the way of
provision, only forty kokos were forthcoming: for his scarlet blanket he
had been offered, in ascending series, a pig, a fat goat, a small boy,
and a large girl; but he could not afford to part with it.
The next day was one of rest. M. Mann botanized in the woody region, and
I visited some caves which the Judge had reported to be three miles off;
actual measurement placed them at 3400 feet. It was a beautiful morning
after a stormy night and a misty dawn; clouds like a congeries of white
balloons lay against the blue empyrean, and caught the radiance of the
golden shower from the east. The path lay to the west, along Earthwork
Crater; and presently it plunged into a perfumed wood spangled with the
yellow marigolds of the senecio, the pretty heath _Blæria spicata_, one
of the seventeen plants already found to be absolutely peculiar to
Abyssinia and Fernando Po, a red and yellow seed-casting impatiens,[91]
somewhat like a ‘lady’s slipper,’ and a honeysuckle-like plant unknown
to the herbalist. A clearing in the forest showed us a hunter’s old hut,
with evidence of modern tenure; and a little beyond it we found, in a
hollow tree, a deserted bee-hive. Presently we saw the caves: two holes
under a heap of lava, in a little barranca, a segment of one of those
arched tunnels or galleries found under lava currents in Iceland,
Bourbon, and elsewhere. The direction of the larger is from N. to S.,
and the dimensions are 24 feet long by 7 broad, and 2½ high. Water
deeply deposited in the soil trickles into it from above; the drops fall
with a ceaseless tinkle upon a slimy floor, into which the water
apparently sinks, and thus—perhaps a Cueva de Yelo may eventually be
found—it may become useful to settlers.
Monday, the 27th January—exactly a month from the day of my accident—was
appointed for our final ascent, and for the ceremony of taking
possession. The party consisted of M. Mann and myself, Selim and half a
dozen Krumen carrying water, provisions, and sleeping tackle. We started
at seven o’clock on a fine clear morning, soon emerged from the weald,
and sighted, beyond the ascending foreground of dry white clover,
spangled with gentian, dwarf heaths, little white bells (a
Wahlenbergia?), and a sechorium not unlike the wild aster of the Western
Prairies, Mount Helen, our Carmel. From that point we pursued a more
direct course than we had yet made, passed to the left of Mount Selim,
and after a short tough pull we reached the first nighting place, a deep
grassy hollow in the northern counterslope of Mount Isabel. The Krumen
straggled in long afterwards, pretending that they had missed the way:
as they had not turned a hair, it is more probable that they had sat
down and anathematized us in some quiet corner.
On the topmost lip of Mount Isabel we now lingered long to enjoy the
view behind us, which, though not so grand, was fully as peculiar as
that before us. Use, which lessens marvel, now enabled us to keep our
eyes off the Pico Grande. The southern horizon was a broken line of
numerous cones, each grisly with its own crater, some acute hills,
others truncated hillocks—the smallest thing of the lot was named Mount
‘Wood’—all gashed and broken in every direction, mostly grassy, but in
some places showing tufts and scatters of trees in their hollows on
their lee side: and they rose from a manner of plain, whose crevasses
showed it to be an old bed of degraded lava. After sketching this
subrange of the main line, we ascended Mount Isabel, and found another
‘vacuity obscure,’ whose north-western rim formed an excellent position
for a surveying pole: here we took a round of angles. On the north the
main spiracle of the great central fire rose splendid, steely blue and
sun-gilt; the strong east wind, sweeping the right side, kept clear the
deep azure against which its form stood sharply out. On the west of the
cone, the mist clouds,[92] gathering thick and heavy, melting away, but,
immediately renewed, as if spread by the hands of genii, formed by their
lightness and mobility a charming contrast with the fixed gigantesque
forms below.
Long before sunset we were forced to vacate our eyrie, which was nearly
the height of Fernando Po Peak. The thermometer showed only 45°, but the
cold dry gusts cut our hands. We retired before dark to our more genial
resting-place, where food and fire, and waterproofs, and hanging rocks
of basalt and conglomerate helped us through the evening and the dreary
night. From Mount Helen to Mount Isabel the tape showed 8648 feet, and
the total distance from camp was 16,462 feet. The crater in which we
slept was 10,187 feet, and the summit 10,590 feet above sea-level.
The next morning broke red, dull, and raw, with a high and gusty east
wind, which was an inducement to activity. At 7·30 A.M., after passing
the Gateway, we crossed Lava Bed No. 3 to a grassy crater, which Mr.
Saker had named Mount Leopold. We walked along its side, and then
resumed the passage of the stream of extinguished fire till we reached
the eastern base of a similar formation, Arthur Crater. As experience on
Mount Etna, at Madeira, and at other places proves, decomposed lava
makes a fruitful soil; it is, however, of slow growth, rarely attaining
any depth before 2000 years.[93] Altitude and latitude would greatly
modify calculations; excessive humidity and fierce sunshine would, of
course, accelerate the operation. In the dry atmosphere of Tenerife,
above the lower clouds there is little decay. The black cascades of
stones on the more northern Peak, though probably outpoured before the
age of man, appear to be the exudations of yesterday: the contrary must
be the case here. This bed, then, must be very modern; in the artery,
green with small mosses, and in the sheltered nooks and clefts were
found stunted ferns, thyme, a lovely red mint, large yellow immortelles,
and the delicate blue _Veronica Mannii_.
Not feeling disposed to tempt the cold hollow under Mount Hooker, where
Messrs. Calvo and Mann had passed the night, we left this lava-bed and
turned to the right, rounding the eastern selvage of Mount Arthur, which
in this direction is greatly elongated. We then crossed another lava-
stream, which encircles the cone, and anastomozes with No. 3: it is
composed of a soft green artery, rather more rugged than the former, and
a hard black vein. The unlovely surface was lit up with the red bloom of
the viscid _Blæria spicata_, and a chrysanthemum (?) with large golden
flowers and long glaucous leaves doubled with silvery white. The chief
arborescent plants were the leucothoë and monica, which attained a
height of twenty feet, but grew only in sheltered bottoms. There was a
beautiful gorse-like cytisus,[94] covered with yellow bloom, or short
black pods: it brought to mind the old lines:
Non me pascente capellæ,
Florentem cytisum et salices carpetis amaras.
Here it is a stiff, round-topped tree, not more than six feet high; the
last shrub found in the midst of the main cone had been dwarfed to six
inches. The hypericum also occurred only as a shrub, not taller than
eight feet.
After a two hours’ march, during which we had accomplished 6937 feet,
‘Black Beggar,’ who had accompanied Mr. Saker, pointed out to us a kind
of form in which the reverend gentleman had passed the night: we called
it Saker’s Camp. The position is a natural fosse between the slope of
Mount Arthur, which defends it from the angry north-easter, and the last
traversed lava-bed, which can supply a modicum of fuel. By B. P.
thermometer the height proved to be 10,595 above sea-level, about the
altitude of Mount Isabel’s summit, and five hundred feet more elevated
than Mount Etna.
The main cone rose temptingly near; we breakfasted hurriedly, and,
sending back three Krumen for water and other stores, we set out at 11
A.M. towards the south-eastern ridge of Victoria Mountain. Forty-five
minutes of stumbling over the rough lava placed us at the base of the
mighty spiracle, and in the depression forming a grassy rim round the
foundation we boiled the thermometer, and found that it showed 10,530
feet. We then impatiently resumed the path, thinking that, as the Pico
of Tenerife is not three geographical miles in circumference, we might
easily encompass the head of Camaroons, and obtain a view of a new
country towards the north. M. Mann pressed forwards from S.E. to E., and
through a gap in the clouds now fast rolling up the side he caught sight
of the lower platform, which he described as a ridge trending to the
N.E., and looking like a plain patched with white and dark green. I
espied a way northwards towards a dark chasm which afterwards proved to
be the mouth of Victoria Crater. Selim and Seabreeze had remained in
rear packing up the B. P. We were now scattered, and hallooing was of no
avail.
After making another tack, and walking over a true Mal Passo of lava
ridge and loose scoriæ, I reached Victoria Crater at 2 P.M., and sat
down to await the gathering of the party, which would inevitably be
attracted by the aspect of the spot. The position upon the highest crest
reminded me of the Chinese poet who celebrated the cataract of Leu
Shan:—
I am like a white bird among the clouds;
I insult the winds and invade the profound abyss.
Northwards was the dividing ridge separating Victoria from Albert
Crater. Southwards the former was burst by an eruption of once fiery
matter, whose greenish course ‘like a river manifold’ swept down the
cone’s side towards the wooded region below. The site was broken and
uneven, cumbered with huge _débris_, and at the point of efflux stood a
‘Lot’s Wife,’ a solitary pillar of honeycombed black basalt conspicuous
from the camp below. At 3 P.M. we met in the crater, and after remaining
for some time in the mist—unhappily I had no hygrometer—we hastened down
the south-western slope, reached the foot of Mount Milnes at 4 P.M., and
after another hour found ourselves in camp.
Over-eagerness had spoilt this day’s work. M. Mann had found the eastern
side more interesting than the western; it was more or less covered with
vegetation up to the crater, though completely exposed to the north-east
wind. He brought a few shrubs, ericanella, cytisus, the helichrysum, a
senecio which he was kind enough to name _S. Burtoni_, an anthospermum,
and a ‘petty rerect lycopodium,’ whose flowers, red in the lower
regions, here became a light pink. I added to my collection only some
specimens of the coarse quartzose stone before seen in Victoria
Mountains. We had both seen traces of deer, which seem to visit the
highest regions; but our guns had not once occasion to break the
silence.
The night was raw, the clouds threatening; and although the hill-
shoulder defended us from the cutting squalls, the hoar-frost bit our
hands and faces. At 2 P.M. the thermometer showed 37° (Fah.), and the
aspect was that of a thunderstorm, which, combined with snow, would not
have been pleasant to hutless men. Towards morning a gradual improvement
took place, and we enjoyed a wonderful dawn. The tall black Piton,
partially white, and powdered with congealed dew, rose sharply in the
dull morning air with a peculiarly ghostly effect. The atmosphere
kindled with a beautiful glow, soon quenching the stars and widening the
horizon, which half an hour before seemed to be closing upon us. Then a
flood of ruddy light poured over the eastern side of the Mount of
Heaven, leaving the other still cold and grey, and lastly the large red
sun arose, bringing in his train a bevy of rushing white clouds. The
appearance was that of a dry day, for which we had reason to be
grateful.
We started early. M. Mann had agreed to ascend Victoria Mountain by the
long south-eastern ridge, which forms a natural road. I undertook the
steely-blue slope of burnt scoriæ between Victoria and Albert Mountains:
all had deemed the passage not feasible, but ‘_è impossibile,
signorino_’ had in early youth sent me over the crumbling natural arch
at Sorrento. After an hour’s slow walking we—factotum Selim and three
Kruboys—had crossed at 8 A.M. the 4000 feet of broken lava and rugged
ground separating us from Mount Milnes. Here we halted for breakfast,
lit our fire, and leisurely prepared for work. A measurement from the
base to the apex of Victoria Mountain gave 3300 feet along the slope,
not quite the dimensions of Stromboli; the perpendicular height by B. P.
was 2166 feet.[95]
After forty-five minutes we resumed our march, working towards the
‘Half-way Rocks’ that rose from the slope of Victoria Mountain. Here,
after measuring a base, I halted to impress upon my mind the features of
the wild scene. Looking southwards no great extent of country was
visible from this point, and the breadth of the plateau shut out the sea
from sight: the atmosphere, however, was so clear that all the minutiæ
of scenery rose vivid and distinct. There was a perfect view of the
first or loftiest range—a Puy de Dôme highly magnified, and the vast
torrent of black lava surging and re-surging, winding, dividing, and
joining again between and around a ‘_plaine bombée_’ of cinder cones and
vent-hills, tall and short, naked and grass-clothed, perfect and
truncated, buttressing ridges, pit-craters, high flues, chimney-pots and
mamelons, Monteneros, Maladettas, Campi Phlegræi and clinker-fields—in
fact a compilation of volcanoes the slow growth of countless ages, that
fell off in long perspective towards the horizon, appeared for the first
time to flow from, not towards, my feet. The shape of the ‘Katakaumen’
before us seemed to be an immense Plutonic triangle whose apex was the
majestic Mount Isabel—in this direction it appeared pierced with many a
crater—which here completely shut out the view of the sub-ranges. On the
right, or westward, was a ledge, with a clean cut, as if made by the
hand of man, and beyond it nothing showed but clouds surging up from the
void below, giving it the appearance of resting on air. On the left
Mount Eliza and the Three Sisters proved themselves by blurred outline
and green tinge a connecting link between the Mal Pais and the Regione
Culta of the lesser altitudes. The further distance exposed undulations
of the fire torrent, rivers of black and green lava, and plains, here
black and bare, there untouched by oxidating influence, there tawny with
shrubs, mosses, and lichens, which flourish in 70° N. lat. in Europe.
The immediate foreground was worthy of the rest,—a rapid slope of black
scoriæ, loose, finely powdered, reeking in the fiery sun, exposing under
every footstep an under-crust of greyish ashes, and in rare places held
together by a block of lava or a bunch of lichens.
Viewed from this point the whole platform ground between Mount Isabel
and the Pico Grande resembles the vast and far older ‘Crater of
Elevation’—according to the _soulèvement_ theory of the great
‘upheavalists’ Baron von Buch and M. Elie de Beaumont, or submarine
according to Mr. Jukes—eight miles in diameter, with walls like giant
mountain ranges, and 7000 feet above sea-level, which characterizes the
Pico do Teyde. If such be the case, the central cone or crater of
eruption does not stand in the midst of the ‘cirque,’ but has last
broken out at the northern edge of the plateau. Thus the present Peak
would be the Vesuvian as opposed to the ancient Monte Somma cone.
After Half-Way Rocks it was necessary to cross the blue slide of
comminuted scoriæ stretching between Victoria and Albert mountains; and
this was done by treading on the edges of our feet, at times
condescending to crawl when the mass under us appeared, from its
extremity of steepness, likely to slide down to the base. This occupied
but a few minutes, and we all reached in safety the slope of Albert
Mountain, where a tolerably regular ridge-line of blocks and boulders
formed stepping-stones, and pointed out a stable path to the summit of
the Ash cone. Having measured a second base, we began the ascent
seriously. Again I noticed the utter absence of all suffering from the
subtilty of the air. The height is considerable, though not sufficient
of course to cause the effusion of blood which according to Humboldt
burst from his ears and lips on the Andes, or the sufferings of M. Gay-
Lussac in his balloon. The effects of sudden change from an equatorial
climate to an altitude which showed many of the features of Hecla, were
however mitigated probably by the high east wind. In half an hour after
leaving Half-Way Rocks I sat down upon the terrepleine to await the
arrival of the Krumen.
The Regione Deserta had a wild and weird aspect. Due north of the
boulder upon which I reposed rose a V-shaped dyke of close-textured grey
stone, apparently a jaspidified or altered schist, piled in cyclopean
blocks, as large as the Titanic stones in the unfinished quarries of
Baalbak, to the height of about twenty-five feet above ground. It
separated like a wall Victoria from Albert Crater; the longer or western
arm descended from the high rim of the latter, and the shorter bordered
the margin of the former. When the party reassembled our first visit was
to a smaller ‘_caldera_,’ which when seen from below looked like a chink
or gash in the neck of the cone, whose apex is the wall behind Albert
Crater. This escape-valve by which the ‘topping process’ was effected,
was found to be a deep and precipitous cavity opening southwards, and
separated from its E.N.E. neighbour, Albert Crater, by a thin rugged
wall of black trachyte. The next visit was to Albert Crater, a bowl
about 1000 feet in circumference, and whose greatest depth, viewed from
the S.E., is fifty yards: it also discharged to the south, and on the
N.E. and E. it is bounded by the V-shaped dyke before alluded to. The
form is a regular inverted cone, with a slope varying from 45° to
perpendicularity: the colours are red, white, and yellow where stone
occupies the surface, a deep metallic blue shows the slides of scoriæ,
and the sole is a floor of lamp-black. The north-western wall rises high
above the lower rim of the bowl, and when the eye is acquainted with the
details of the scene, it easily distinguishes from below this hog-shaped
back which is the loftiest portion of the Camaroons Mountain. Albert
Crater is at first view recognized as a more modern formation than
Victoria: whilst the latter, though exposed to the furious N.E. wind,
which everywhere renders vegetation poorer and scantier, has an abundant
growth of cryptogams, the former is almost bare. As in Stromboli, the
main axis of the cone’s ellipse appears to have been shifted, here,
however, the mountain has grown by subsequent eruptions, not by
accumulated ejections upon the north-eastern flank.
Meanwhile M. Mann had ascended this ‘Furnster Punkte,’ and found to his
regret one of the self-registering thermometers hanging only on one
hook, with the bulb uppermost. The wind had broken down the frail stand,
and thus the result of a month was lost. The spirit also had changed
from the usual red to a pale straw-yellow. Having re-arranged it and
enjoyed a good view of the unvisited mountain-chain to the N.E., he met
us below. We turned to the E.S.E. and ascended the tufty slope leading
to the head of Victoria Mountain. The distance was short, and we
presently gazed into the depths where brooded
Nox omnibus nigrior densiorque.
Having thus reached our goal, Selim hoisted on the ‘very lip of the
volcanic lion’ the Union Jack, and our last bottle of champagne was
emptied in honour of the day. As a token of our visit we left a slip of
sheet-lead upon which our names were roughly cut, and two sixpences in
an empty bottle—rather a bright idea, not emanating from my pericranium.
Mongo ma Loba, Theon Ochema is now ours. The B. P. showed Victoria
Mountain to be 12,700 feet above sea-level.[96]
After the ceremony we separated. M. Mann determined to return to camp,
collecting specimens on the way. I was by no means satisfied with what
had been done, and still felt that restlessness with which the good
Genius should inspire his _protégé_. So, leaving one Kruman to rest, and
taking with me Selim and Seabreeze, I climbed without difficulty the
V-shaped dyke which runs up the background of Albert Mountain, narrowing
and diminishing in height as it ascends. Then striking due north, we
fell into a kind of depression between the outer walls of the two
craters, a short, smooth valley of scoriæ, scantily dotted with stunted
herbage, and with dun-coloured butterflies, whose ill-fated bodies the
violent oblique wind had urged up from below. I have read of such things
in ascents of Mont Blanc; Richard Lander found these lepidopters
exceptionally numerous in the Nigerian regions; and in the ‘Elevation
Crater,’ Tenerife, Mr. Piazzi Smyth found drowned butterflies
(_Polyommatus Webbianus_) like floating spots of purple in a little
pool. A walk of about a quarter of a mile placed us at the further end
of the gorge; the cold mist-clouds had cleared away, and the unknown
land lay before me like a mappamondo. I felt as joyful as if my eyes had
gazed upon ‘all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them.’ An
inverted arch of volcanic substance formed our foreground; on the right
it was striated with lines of green; on the left the slope showed barren
strata, hardly tinged with verdure. Over the key of the arch, and at the
base of the Peak upon which we stood, rose a small hillock, a parasite
showing verdant spots in the dreary waste of brown. Beyond it, on the
further side of a deep but gradual fall, began the background,
stretching far to the N.E., from 50° to 75°, bounded by a quoin-shaped
range of hill bluff to the eastward, and falling, with serrated back, to
the west. The lowlands at its base were white-yellow with dark streaks,
like the formation which we had seen looking southwards from Mount
Isabel, and the extreme distance of the hilly background might have been
five miles—in these misty regions the near appears far. Such was my
first glance at the ‘Rumbi Hills;’ they did not, as has been shown,
appear at all ‘towering in rude and rugged masses, like the tombstones
of a past earthquake.’[97] The counter-slope northwards was a perfect
copy of that over which we had passed to ascend the Peak. But Capt. Owen
saw them from a distance of many miles at sea, and the same phenomenon
appears to the voyager as he coasts along the Gaboon shores, whilst the
traveller in the interior finds the mountains assume entirely different
forms.
Finding an offset to this gorge from the north-west, we resumed our way,
winding through the hills, and were encouraged to persevere by the sight
of deep cracks and longitudinal fissures, with corresponding
indentations in the rock. These evidences, on a small scale, of modern
volcanic action, which are usually considered the preliminaries to the
formation of a crater,[98] were from one to two feet broad and from four
to five feet deep, with a clean cut hardly weathered; they proved,
however, to be extinct, nor could I detect in them any empyreumatic
odour. At this place, too, appeared extensive deposits of a fresh lava,
and curiously ropy filamentous basalt—Mr. Scrope compares it to barley-
sugar—which appeared at first sight, from its long vesicular grain, to
be the remains of a fossilized or imperfectly petrified forest. The
colour was sometimes ochreish by oxidation, more often a dull black with
the slightest admixture of green. In this form of lava exudation
Professor Smyth discovered obsidian on the Peak of Tenerife. Somewhat
disappointed by finding no vapour in the fissures, I crossed them, and,
bending round to the S.S.E., ascended the slope upon whose crest M. Mann
had placed his thermometers. It was about half a mile due north of the
Victoria Mountain, and the B. P. thermometers showed 180°·2 (Fah.),
temp. 62° = 13,129 feet, or 435 feet higher than Victoria Mountain.[99]
The summit of Camaroons is thus eighteen statute miles of indirect, and
thirteen geographical miles of direct, distance from Victoria.[100]
Assuming its altitude in round numbers at 13,000 feet, it is 3000 feet
higher than Etna, the highest volcano in Europe, and 3300 feet below
Mont Blanc, the highest European mountain. Situated in 4° N. lat., it is
3000 feet below the line of perpetual congelation, which, between the
equator and 10° of N. or S. lat., is usually laid down at 16,000 feet.
It must be observed that African mountains, like those of North America,
are stunted in comparison with the gigantic size of the continent, and
of its other geographical features—rivers, cataracts, lakes, and
prairies. The peaks of Abyssinia, once so grossly exaggerated, have been
reduced to 13,000 feet; and Miltsin, the loftiest of the Atlas, is now
assumed at 11,400. According to those who distribute mountains into ten
classes according to their heights—25,000 to 30,000 feet being No. 1,
and 1000 to 3000 being No. 10—Camaroons Mountain occupies the sixth
place, viz. those ranging from 12,000 to 14,000, as the Peak of Tenerife
(12,180), the Jungfrau (13,730), and Ophir in Sumatra (13,840). Finally
its phase is paroxysmal, neither permanently eruptive nor in a condition
of moderate activity.
Meanwhile Selim continued his course to the N.E., attracted by the
glaring colours of the neighbourhood, a tricolor of white, red, and
yellow, disposed in streaks along the perpendicular faces of dwarf
cliffs, and conspicuous in the brown and russet hues of its entourage.
As my B. P. observation was ended, he appeared in hot haste, as he had
seen something which justified even our risking a night, without any to
assist in ‘a finding,’ in the open. Hurriedly I descended the chasm,
climbed up the gay-tinted cliffs, and, turning a little eastward,
emerged upon a Solfatara in full action.
The site is on the northern counterslope of the high wall above Albert
Crater—unfortunately the B. P. apparatus struck work for want of
candle—a few feet below the summit, and in sight of the lower regions to
the N.E. The surface of the _soufrière_ is a convexity striated with
alternate bands of bright green moss, white lime, and sulphurous marl,
red and yellow. It was soft and yielding to the tread, and regular lines
of smoke-jets and puffs rose in rings and curls from the stripes,
somewhat like the Steamboat Springs in the Californian Sierra Nevada, or
the vapour from the ‘narix’ of the Pico de Teyde. The flues smelled
strongly of sulphur, and, though the wind blew cold and hard from the
north-east, the thermometer, raised four feet above the ground, showed
52°, and many small birds, attracted by the genial heat, were hopping
upon the green ground.[101] When there is much moisture in the
atmosphere the vapour must raise its fitful breaths in considerable
volumes, and perhaps exhibit at night flashes of lambent flame.
Here, then, was a discovery. Camaroons Mountain is so far _banale_ that
it follows the rule of other volcanoes in action, and rises in immediate
proximity to the sea. On the other hand, it has the high distinction of
being the only mountain on the body of the great continent whose fires
have not wholly been extinguished, which still
Spirat inexhaustum flagranti pectore sulphur.
Nor is there any cause to doubt that it will in some future time break
out again. Though it lacks its pristine vigour of destructiveness, the
vital principle is not extinct. It knows as yet none of those varieties
of form and character which denote permanently-burnt out, or even of
temporarily-quiescent volcanoes.[102]
This Burning Field, with its escapes of volcanic breath, explains many a
doubtful point. ‘From the present condition of the mountain’s surface,’
says Capt. W. Allen,[103] writing in 1842, ‘it must have been for ages
in a condition of repose, though there is reason to think it sometimes
betrays its latent fires. Mr. Lilley, a trader who resides near the
Camaroons River, says that he has seen flames near the summit. This
might have been accounted for by the practice of the natives, who set
fire to the grass in the dry season for the purpose of catching wild
animals; but several of the principal natives of Bimbia declare that,
about the year 1838, “fire came out of the ground.” They said “God made
it,” in contradistinction from that caused by the burning of the
grass.[104] They all saw it, and at Mongo they felt the earth shake like
a steamboat. The people feared that it would kill them all.’
Africa suffers sadly from want of all classic associations; like
America, she is yet sadly prosaic. No poet has sung the glories of this
‘pillared prop of heaven;’ no Proserpine has wandered over the Ennian
fields below; Vulcan has no temple here, where he and his associates—
Brontesque Steropesque et nudus arma Pyracmon,—
are revered by man; no Ennosigæus shakes earth with infernal force; no
Enceladus confined by Jupiter
Interdum scopulos avulsaque viscera montis,
Erigit eructans, liquefactaque saxa sub auras,
Cum gemitu glomerat fundoque exæstuat imo.
Neither Plato nor Pliny ever visited our grand volcano, and the ‘fears
and reverence of ages’ have yet to be expressed. It is not, however,
wholly barbarous, having an antiquity of its own; and it is something
for us to boast that we have carried out a discovery, initiated, I
believe, by Hanno the Carthaginian in B.C. 600, and neglected until the
present day.
The following are the words of the Periplus (chap. xvi.):—Τέτταρας
δ’ἡμέρας φερόμενοι, νυκτὸς τὴν γῆν ἀφεωρῶμεν φλογὸς μεστήν. Ἐν μέσῳ δ’ἦν
ἠλιβατόν τι πῦρ τῶν ἄλλων μεῖζον ἁπτόμενον, ὡς ἐδόκει, τῶν ἄστρων. Τοῦτο
δ’ἡμέρας ὅρος ἐφαίνετο μέγιστον θεῶν ὄχημα καλούμενον. ‘After a run of
four days, by night we saw the land full of flame. And in the midst of
it was a kind of lofty fire, bigger than the rest, touching, it
appeared, the stars. This by day showed itself a very high mountain,
called Theon Ochema’—_i.e._ the Vahana, or Vehicle of the Gods. There is
absolutely no other mountain on the West Coast of Africa between Capes
Spartel and Good Hope that suits this description, and, despite the
discrepancy of the distance and the number of days which it occupied,
the proximity of the Gorilla country determines the spot.
And may not Dante—who, it will be remembered, distinctly described the
Southern Cross—have borrowed from the Periplus of Hanno? Ulysses when
tired, as might be expected, of the highly respectable but elderly
Penelope, set out once more on his travels to become wiser in the wisdom
of the world, of man’s vices and his virtues. He _passed through the
Pillars of Hercules_, leaving the morning sun right astern; and made
wings of his oars for the idle flight, always gaining upon the left:
_i.e._ he started westward and turned to the south-west. _He beheld all
the stars of the other pole, while their own was so low that it arose
not out of the sea-floor_: _i.e._ he was somewhere near the Equator.
‘Five times,’ he says, ‘the night had arisen underneath the moon, and
five times fallen, since we put forth upon the great deep, _when we
descried a dim mountain in the distance which appeared higher to me than
any I had seen before_.’ We rejoiced, and as soon mourned, for there
sprung a whirlwind from the new land (our N.E. wind?) and struck the
foremost frame of our vessel, and
Tre volte il fè girare con tutte l’acque,
E la quarta levar la poppa in suso,
E la prora ire in giù come altrui piacque,
Infin che ’l mar fra sopra noi richiuso.
Thus the adventurous explorer found himself in the Place paved with Good
Intentions, where doubtless he met many of the confraternity of Master
Shoe-tie.
Before taking final leave of the Solfatara, I sketched the scene
outstretched in wild magnificence, all desert as the burnt-up moon,
before us. Below my feet the counterslope fell rapidly, the angle being
much more abrupt than the slope—hence the difficulty with which Messrs.
Calvo and Mann had ascended it. On the right, looking to the E.N.E., the
horizon was a vast conglomeration of peaks, and waves of ground already
purpling in the obliquer rays of the sun. Beyond, the western end or
left shoulder of this range, showed a long perspective of mountains
rising in the distance; but their intervening depths and distances were
concealed by volumes of fleecy cumulus. At the western foot of the main
range, and far below the summit, rose a remarkable pyramidal formation,
with well-defined faces, which M. Mann afterwards called Mount Dorothy.
The hollow between Pico Grande and this south-western face of the Rumbi
Mountains justifies Captain Owen’s description: ‘a plain, with several
conical hills rising abruptly from the surface, and giving to the scene
a novel and extraordinary appearance.’ And on the extreme left, looking
to the N.W., and distant about half a mile, yawned a tremendous
crevasse, or voragine, not unlike that immense ‘_caldera_’ which in fine
weather appears upon the north-eastern side of Fernando Po Peak, a
little below the clear ground capping the region of forest. Suboval in
shape, it seemed to shelve down rapidly, and in places precipitously,
from the plain in which it was sunk; and clouds issued from the ground
seething and springing from its dark bosom like the smoke of a
conflagration. Having now seen three sides of the Pico Grande, I was
able to make a conjecture touching the local periphery of the
compilation forming the main cone, which may be assumed to be about
equal to that of Pico de Teyde, Tenerife.
But the shadows deepening in the livid air warned us away. We hurried
back to camp: in half an hour we found shelter under the lee of Mount
Milnes, and at 6 P.M. we were seated before a blazing bivouac-fire,
where the immediate adhibition of hot porridge and grog effectually
expelled the cold. M. Mann regretted that his precipitancy had prevented
his seeing the Solfatara; he promised himself, however, a visit to it on
the next day, when ascending the mountain to remove his thermometers. He
probably missed the place, as he says, ‘I visited the chinks[105] to
ascertain the temperature in them, which I found to be _lower_ than
outside; no smoke issuing from them.’ It is hardly necessary to say that
I had collected some of the burning sand and sulphur, of which a
canister full was forwarded to the Geological Museum in Jermyn Street.
The night was cross and noisy. A furious N.E. wind swept round ‘Arthur’s
Seat,’ and in its teeth, quaintly-shaped, ever-varying clouds—England,
flying elephants, sitting children, spectres, saurians, and other
monsters, vomiting many a flash of lightning—rose from the S.W. invading
the sky. I had expected to find unusual whiteness and brilliancy in the
heavenly bodies, to see each star shining like a planet, each planet
like a little moon; on the contrary, they were exceedingly dim, though
earth looked painted with Indian ink, and the peak shot up like a
shadowy silhouette. Presently the umbral mass passed away from above our
heads, and left exposed a canopy of open indigo-blue and black sky, the
fittest for the formation of heavy dew. Our night was excited and
disturbed, despite the soothing influence of ginger and rum. When we
awoke the thermometer showed 32° 50′ (Fah.), and when we arose 37°. The
white blankets were stiff, and our darker travelling rugs showed in
places a thick icy deposit. When it is remembered that our lair was 2500
feet below the summit, it is clear that rain must on the peak often
become snow, and that frost must prevail there all the year round.
On the morning of the 30th January we parted. M. Mann returned in light
marching order to recover his thermometers; I resumed the road to camp,
and took charge of the Krumen, promising to station some of them in
readiness for my companion, with requisite necessaries, at our old
nighting place on Mount Isabel. Setting out at 9 A.M., I occupied two
hours in crossing little more than a mile;[106] so cutting was the lava-
bed, and tedious the operation of taping. After breakfasting on Mount
Isabel we resumed our weary way—the advance on such occasions has its
pleasures, the return is irksome. I had resolved to make a bend
eastwards from Mount Helen, and to ascend the various peaks which range
between that cone and the Three Sisters. But the weather pronounced an
emphatic—No! Hardly had we passed Mount Selim than the storm from the
S.W. was upon us: it broke with heavy thunder, drops the size of my
thumb-nail, a sheet of water when the wind ceased; and lastly, as it
veered round to the north, with hail the size of buckshot, which made us
happy to take refuge under a natural grot of basalt.
It was the worst day we had experienced upon the mountains. The surface
became muddy and soppy, and in the myriad little pits formed between the
grass tussocks, water stood in ankle-deep puddles. After a truly
_mauvais pas_ arriving at Mount Helen, and sorely longing for a ‘sketch’
of ‘something,’ I sought the Kruboys, but did not find them. The
villains had taken leave from the clerk of the weather, and, privileged
by the storm, had bolted for camp. Two-Glass was sent to recall them:
meanwhile, wet—soppy wet,—cold and hungry, I waited vainly for two
hours, and gave up all hopes of further exploration that day. Hardly,
however, had we descended half a mile than the sky cleared, the sun
shone fiery till we perspired, and the face of the country opened with
beautiful distinctness. But it was now too late. Presently my three
recreants were found about half way down the hill, stretched luxuriously
before the hearth of heaven, and probably contrasting their wisdom with
their master’s stupidity. But ah!—let them laugh who win. After an
energetic scene, their lighter loads were placed on those who had not
deserted me, and they were sent back to M. Mann for the night. They
suffered more severely than I had intended. Not meeting M. Mann, and
prevented by darkness from returning, they had passed the night without
fire, and returned in the morning blue as nitrate of silver could have
made them. They shook the head of contrition when asked—What cheer? and
promised not to do it again, which promise they will keep until the very
first opportunity of breaking it.
A hot walk led us to camp: there is nothing more _triste_ than a return
home in Africa. All was foul with a smell of decayed vegetation, which
promised no good. Tom Bushman, the fellow in charge, pleaded sore
feet—he had improved a little hurt till it became serious—for not
sweeping; and the grass huts unexpectedly leaking, all our belongings
were as wet as the forest. As more rain rose from the N.E., Selim and I
lighted a fire. The Krumen sat perseveringly on their ‘hunkers:’ they
were told—‘no work, no food;’ they were hungry, those inexplicable
beings! yet all, except Black Beggar, the cook, went to bed supperless
rather than bring in a few logs of wood.
I was beginning to think that
Satis est requiescere lecto
Si licet et solito membra levare toro
Quam juvat immites ventos audire cubantem
Et——!
and to feel for M. Mann, when his voice was heard in camp, which he had
prudently preferred to the bivouac in the wilderness. He had removed his
thermometers from Albert Mountain, fixing the maximum temperature 55°,
the minimum 27°; and at the time of his return 35°. He had also boiled
his thermometers at the base and on the summit of Mount Hooker, which he
found to be 10,875 and 11,725—a good check to our altitude-observations
of the Cone. On the exposed N.E. of that mountain he found only a
graminea; the sheltered S.W. side, however, was entirely clothed with
hypericum, ericinella, cytisus, and other shrubs. He had also passed a
place where water stands for nine months in the year—a rare thing in
these anhydrous formations where there is an utter absence of
argillaceous substrata; and he had seen a beautiful white antelope
pacing leisurely away from him at the distance of sixty or seventy
yards.
[Footnote 90: In the Old Calabar and Camaroons Rivers the boys are fond
of eating a greyish clay brought up from under the water; I know not
whether it contains organic remains.]
[Footnote 91: Four species of this herbaceous plant have been found at
Fernando Po. The Proceedings of the Linnæan Society inform us that it is
common in the hill regions of tropical Africa, and that only one species
is known from Abyssinia and one from South Africa.]
[Footnote 92: They must have been upwards of 14,000 feet high.]
[Footnote 93: Observations made on the well-known lava-beds of Mount
Etna give about 1 inch of soil per century, 8 inches in 450 years, and 1
foot in 600.]
[Footnote 94: According to the Proceedings of the Linnæan Society, this
and two other leguminous plants (_Trifolium subrotundum_ and _sinense_)
found by M. Mann on Fernando Po Peak, are all essentially temperate
forms growing upon the Canary Islands, but ‘hitherto unknown in tropical
Africa, and known by one species only in Abyssinia.’]
[Footnote 95: The observation at the base, however, was taken on the
previous day at the very bottom of the cone, a much lower position than
the place from which we taped. Stromboli, the type of a permanently
active volcano, is an elliptical cone of nearly 3000 feet, rising from
deep water with a crater at the summit, breached upon its weakest side;
from this vent a plain steeper than the other sides of the mountain runs
to the sea.]
[Footnote 96: Capt. Owen’s altitude of Camaroons Mountain is 13,760
feet; Mr. Saker’s (46 feet more), 13,806; mine (641 less) 13,119. Mr.
Saker’s boiling point at a place 150 feet below the summit was 188°
(Fah.), temp. 59°. On the summit of Albert Mountain mine showed at
189°·2, temp. 62°. I prefer my own for this reason: M. Mann made the
foot of Mount Hooker 10,875 feet, I the base of the Great Peak 10,530
feet, and taping up the slope found the cone to be 3300 feet long, thus
rendering 13,800 feet too great an altitude. All, however, are mere
approximations.]
[Footnote 97: Capt. Owen, vol. ii. chap. xxviii.]
[Footnote 98: Mr. Scrope (‘Volcanoes,’ Longman and Co., 1862) clearly
explains how these fissures, injected by gas, steam, and lava from
beneath, burst open at the weak points and thus form the circular or
elliptical volcanic vent. The expansion and explosion of the pent-up
steam, when coming in contact with the external air, is like the
ignition of powder in a gun-barrel. The rocks, which are the walls of
the fissure, are broken up and yield by the equal pressure on every
side, and the character of the surface thus becomes approximately
circular and elliptical where the sides of the fissure offer more
resistance than its length.]
[Footnote 99: The regular gradation of the altitude observations speaks
favourably for the correctness of my B. P.]
[Footnote 100: The stages are:—
1. From Victoria to Bosumbo 23,420 feet.
2. „ Bosumbo to Mapanya 17,300 „
3. „ Mapanya to Ridge Camp 6,000 „
4. „ Ridge Camp to Black Crater 14,080 „
5. „ Black Crater to Spring Camp (Earthwork Crater) 9,594 „
6. „ Spring Camp to Mount Helen 7,814 „
7. „ Mount Helen to Mount Isabel 8,648 „
8. „ Mount Isabel to foot of Main Cone 10,232 „
9. „ Foot to summit of Main Cone 3,300 „
-------
Total 100,392 „
This would be a little upwards of 19 statute miles, but it involves a
détour to Saker’s Camp.]
[Footnote 101: Similarly on Tenerife the expiration of steam tempers the
sharpness of the air and attracts a population of swallows, linnets
(_Fringilla Teydensis_), bees, flies, and spiders: ‘a remarkable little
colony,’ says Mr. Piazzi Smyth, ‘an oasis of life and activity in the
midst of an elevated desert of lava.’]
[Footnote 102: Thus Vesuvius in the dormant period between 1139 A.D. and
1306 A.D. showed chestnut groves and standing pools on the sides and at
the bottom of the crater. These hanging woods are also to be seen in the
largest crater of Fernando Po.]
[Footnote 103: Vol. ii. chap. ix.]
[Footnote 104: This accident also often takes place. On the 2nd February
M. Mann saw the north side of the mountain on fire, and the
conflagration became extensive.]
[Footnote 105: As has been seen, there were no chinks in the Solfatara.
M. Mann probably alludes to the deep cracks in the lava-bed, where I had
vainly sought for vapour.]
[Footnote 106: More exactly, 6937 feet.]
CHAPTER VI.
RETURN TO FERNANDO PO.
My Christmas holidays were now done, and time was flying fast; the visit
had been for a fortnight; it had lasted six weeks. After collecting some
bouquets and pipe-sticks I apportioned the loads to the Krumen, who had
been limping about camp like dogs on three legs, and looking as wretched
as Lascars in the snows of London. By way of experiment Selim remarked
audibly that the lame might stay till well with M. Mann, whilst the
others returned to ‘Nanny Po.’ The effect was magical. Every back
straightened; _jarrets tendus_ were the rule; there was a forgotten
elasticity of gait and movement; one would have said they had been
‘gingered’ for the occasion. We laughed at them and _with_ them about
their rascality. The African, whose paralysis of the moral sense seems
to exceed that of the American, will always enjoy, if you do, the
detection of a trick.
At 11·50 A.M., on Friday the last of January, 1862, after thirty-nine
days from the 23rd December comfortably enough spent there, I left
Spring Camp, and struck due north through the dense wood that flanked
our late home. Taping delayed us till 3 P.M., and when we reached our
nighting-place the Krumen had again been busy with the water: they were
sent back to refill. In the evening I scaled Black Crater, ascertained
that it was 7328 feet high, and was nearly swept from the summit by the
furious wind. It afforded, however, a good view of the irregular group,
the isolated masses above and around, especially Mount Eliza, one of the
Three Sisters, which at the conjunction of the lava-field from above,
and the forest clothing the mountain-flanks to the sea, was half above
and half in the wood, the southern part and the crater being overgrown
with dense trees. This comparatively open ground to the north would be
highly advantageous for a settlement. Selim and I then revisited the
little plain immediately below the volcanic platform, which had
recommended itself to us as a sanitarium. The sharp wiry tussocks that
covered the colder regions had here disappeared, and the continuous
grass carpet promised a more genial temperature. Having visited the
southern edge of the small plateau, where it bends towards the base of
Little Camaroons, we retraced our steps with a profounder conviction of
the capabilities of the spot. On return we found that the Krumen had
built their fire and had pitched my waterproof tent on the ledge below
Black Crater, where our first hard night in high latitudes had been
passed. The wild easterly gale, dashing itself in little whirlwinds
against the dark cone, and eddying round it in furious gusts, soon saved
them the trouble of striking; and presently we found below a sheltered
spot with a few trees, more proper for a bivouac. The bees swarmed,
probably attracted by the moisture under the cinders and scoriæ. In
these milder regions they are fiercer than at Spring Camp. ‘Where there
are bees there is honey,’ says the Asiatic proverb. We sought, however,
but we did not find.
Shortly after we had turned in the wind fell almost to a calm. Exactly
at 7·29 P.M. a flash passed through the crystal sky, and we saw a fiery
ball crossing the heavens from south to north, leaving behind it a brush
of light like the tail of a comet. Remaining distinctly visible for half
an hour, after which its luminosity faded before the young moon, it
enabled me to measure its angle with a sextant, which gave 30° 20′. It
was the only example of the meteors which attracted Dr. Brydone’s
attention on Mount Etna.
We arose betimes on the next day; there was hard work before us. The dew
was heavy in the ‘nest,’ and in the cool clear dawn the thermometer
showed 46° (Fah.). Setting out at 6·30 A.M., we walked painfully over
2800 feet of the most rugged formation, broken and tossed about in
chaotic masses, immediately at the vent of Black Crater. After passing
the head of the fire current an easier descent began. We recounted six
distinct ridges, breaks in the stream, with ‘drops’ sharper than
elsewhere; but there may be sixty, if viewed from different points. In
some places the torrent, strangled by its banks, was not more than 100
feet; then, with all the accidents of a river, it would widen to 100
yards. The heat overhead became painful, and the black charred wood and
ashes under foot (the Krumen during their various journeys had burnt the
bush) formed an excellent reflecting instrument. Lower down there were
signs of rain in the soppiness of the soil; and the thick warm mists
surging up from the caldron below rendered taking bearings anything but
satisfactory. We crossed the stream, and rested at our old breakfasting
place about 11 A.M. After boiling thermometers at Fern Gate, we bade
adieu to the open fernery and plunged into the dense forest, bending to
the S.S.E. The descent here was detestable: slides of clay, drops and
falls, a cordage of llianas, and a network of tree-roots, made it longer
than the ascent. It was 9·30 before we entered Mapanya.
Old Balmat and the valiant Botani—we called him Sángo á Lobángo, ‘Lord
of Lies’—met us in the grass lane outside the settlement, and seemed not
to know what countenance to assume. I had made up my mind to night
there, but, singer-like, required no end of friendly pressing, which was
duly administered. My consent was given coyly, and only on condition
that provisions, fuel, and water should be supplied reasonably. There
was an attempt to extract cloth by means of firewood from the
Mokárá:[107] this, however, failed, and soon we saw at our feet a fowl,
together with kokos and a large plantain-branch for the Krumen. The hut
formerly occupied supplied us with ‘a refuge and a Bethel’ for the
night. The air was cold, the hens would force their way to the wonted
roosting-place, the hungry sandflies were unendurable to any but a
pachyderm, and the bossy dirty floor caused hours of _insomnie_, which
were devoted to eliminating the idea of a portable bed, chair, and
table, all in one. It is offered gratis to travellers.[108]
On Sunday the 2nd February I left Mapanya early, escorted _honoris
causâ_ by the chief Botani. Our pace was sharp, and after the sun had
risen a spear’s length the air was something between the atmosphere of a
Turkish bath and a London ballroom. The inhabitants of the several
settlements on our way behaved very differently. Tátá, the chief of a
little hamlet below Mapanya, actually ‘dashed’ me a fowl, which was
carried off in triumph for Mrs. Saker at Victoria. At ‘Logo,’ a large
clearing with nine huts near the Turu district, I found the Krumen, who
had preceded us, standing with their loads at the edge of the bush. A
fellow, armed with a musket and a sword, had levelled at them and caused
the halt. His object was of course to make them cast their packs and
fling themselves into the bush, under which circumstances the whole
village would have turned out, and the matter would have become serious.
By this time the Bakwiri had found out the Krumen to be perhaps greater
cowards than themselves. They were, however, disappointed. My gang knew
that the danger of being shot was problematical, but the punishment of
desertion was certain. Selim and I travelled from that place to nearly
the foot of the mountain with cocked revolvers; and whenever a naked
gentleman began to execute a war-dance, or to raise any more than
justifiable clamour, he was easily persuaded to ‘make himself scarce.’
There were greedy looks as the line of bundles defiled past the
settlements, and I thought it necessary to make special arrangements for
M. Mann’s safe descent.[109]
Near Logo we passed on the right a little hut neatly built of new
bamboos, and the doors were adorned with inverted T’s of white chalk. It
was probably a meeting-house or lodge for the Dyengo, an initiation like
the Jengo of the Camaroons River, which admits the Konja, or free-born,
of both sexes.
At 9·45 A.M. we made Bosumbo, where the drunken chief Myombi received us
with a civility bordering upon servility. The water of the rivulet near
this settlement was delicious after the moss-juice of Mapanya, which
tainted even green tea. Resuming our march, we met in the lower
slopes—it was market-day—long lines of women carrying on their backs and
heads panniers and baskets of the produce of the bay, which had a very
ancient and fish-like smell. The atmosphere of the forest became close
and fœtid after the pure æther of the highlands; and the dense
vegetation excluded even the searching ‘doctor,’ as the sea-breeze is
called in these latitudes. The road was strewed with tonto, a red fruit
eaten by monkeys, but not by Krumen. Thence we forded the little river,
and at 2·30 P.M. we passed through the double palisade of tree-trunks
which defends the new colony of Victoria Junior. My first steps were
directed towards the Ethiopic Ocean, where, without the ceremony of
disrobing, I walked straight in, compelling the Krumen to do the same.
Mrs. Saker, who would not leave the place till she had seen us all
return ‘safe and sound,’ received me with her usual kindness, and
provided us with a boat for the Camaroons River. I left Victoria on the
4th February, 1862, with a sigh.
Farewell, Camaroons! Farewell, beautiful heights! where so many calm and
quiet days have sped without sandflies, or mosquitoes, or prickly heat.
Adieu! happy rustic wilds! where I have spent so many pleasant weeks,
even in West Africa. Adieu! and may adieu in this case bear all the
significance of au revoir!
And now Victoria is shut in by the high hill-shoulders, the sentinel
islands fade in the distance, the peaks wax more aërial, less earth-
like,—
Majoresque cadunt altis de montibus umbræ;
whilst a huge purple mist, belted with a fantastic zone of fleecy white
cloud, drops its mysterious curtain upon the scene of my latest
adventure.
[Footnote 107: Mokara, plur. Bákárá, in the languages of this mountain
and river means white man. May it not be the origin of the American
negro’s Buckra man?]
[Footnote 108: Its form is this: two pieces of usual deal plank 4 feet ×
2—the sleeper’s legs need no care—connected by hinges of canvas, which
are better than leather in these humid lands, with a batten crosswise
under each end to raise it from the ground, and a hollow wooden pillow
at one extremity. Thus placed upon the floor it is chair and bed. When
acting as table it stands upon a strong St. Andrew’s cross, turning on
central pivots and capable of being lashed to the plank when on the
road. Those who object to its hardness as a couch have only to try the
salient points of an African hut floor.]
[Footnote 109: The botanist left Spring Camp for Ridge Camp on the 13th
of February, and at the latter place spent four days, of which two from
heavy rain were lost for collecting. On the 14th thunder lasted from 5
A.M. to 5 P.M., and ‘in the middle of the day it was so dark that the
screech-owls and large bats left their hiding-places and announced their
presence by their unpleasant cries.’ On the afternoon of the 17th, when
descending, he met Messrs. Smith and Johnson, who had kindly ascertained
that Botani had no unfriendly intentions. The next day he found Mapanya
without trouble, reached Victoria at noon, left it on the 24th for
Camaroons River, and returned to Fernando Po safely by the next
steamer.]
CONCLUSION.
The preceding pages will, I believe, have convinced the reader that the
Camaroons Mountain is, unlike Fernando Po, highly adapted for a colony
of liberated Africans, and for the Sanitarium now urgently required by
Lagos and the Bights.[110]
The means of preparing the country for human habitation are ready to our
hands. From the 45,000 refugee negroes in Canada, an ever-increasing
pauperdom, it would be easy and economical to raise 300 or 400 men with
a suitable proportion of families. Instead of sending such persons by
subscriptions to Yoruba, where, the ground being everywhere private
property, they will meet with all disfavour, and where the climate is
deadly, the emigrants can be settled, with equal benefit to themselves
and to the white race, at Camaroons, whose native chiefs, few and far
between, are ever ready to sell ground for reasonable sums.[111]
After long thinking upon the subject and consulting with others, I
venture to lay down—not dogmatically it is hoped—the conditions of
success in such an undertaking.
The classes preferred should be mechanics and artificers, lumberers and
labourers; and even if a small sum per annum were given to each male by
way of salary for the first year or two, the expenditure would not be
wasted. But the best inducement would be a grant of land on the
conditions that fair labour should be expended upon it, and that after
the fifth year of residence and free tenure it should be liable to a
small quit-rent for municipal purposes. The lots should not be
extravagant, as they were in the old days of that Father of Failures,
Sierra Leone. Three acres would suffice for a single man, five for
husband and wife, and seven to ten for a family.
The healthiest season for landing in this part of Western Africa is
about May, at the beginning of the rains. As this would entail enforced
idleness for six months, the colonists might be brought to Victoria
between June and September, and placed in hulks in Ambas Bay, with light
preparatory work during favourable weather till early November, when the
dries are set in, and the labours of bush-clearing and road-making might
begin. Thus it would be possible to avoid the terrible sickness that
destroyed the pioneers at Sierra Leone and Bulama, and which gave to
those places a permanent bad name.
The colonists would require medical comforts and rations—rice and
biscuit, beans and peas, salt pork and beef—for at least nine months:
they would find fish in abundance and sometimes a few vegetables in the
market. The superintendent should be furnished with a stock of cloth and
knives, matchets and tobacco, to pay the natives of the country for
service and supplies. Salt[112] should here, as throughout the Bights of
Benin and Biafra, be made one of the great staples of trade. The sale of
arms and ammunition and the purchase of slaves even for the purpose of
manumission should be forbidden under pain of deportation. And there
should be some limit to the introduction and the consumption of ardent
spirits.
The first work to be done would be to secure shelter ashore. The
mainland contains, as has been shown, stone and wood only too
plentifully, whilst the sea offers coralline and madrepore for lime. But
framehouses should be brought out from Europe or America, or there will
be the same amount of sickness as that caused at Fernando Po by the
refusal of the negroes to lodge the Spanish new-comers.
The best position, I have shown, for the first settlement would be
Mondori Island, at the mouth of Ambas Bay. The second would be Mount
Henry, about two hours’ walk N.N.E. of Victoria Mission
Establishment,[113] and about 1000 feet high. The third and last would
be the clear and grassy country about Black Crater, 5000 to 7000 feet
above sea-level, and distant not more than ten miles. The great
requisite at present is a corduroy road, practicable at all times of the
year—the path is now a mass of swampy mud during the rainy season.
After erecting the first habitations, the bush would be cleared after
the fashion of the aborigines, by cutting down the underwood and
thinning the trees,[114] leaving the largest standing for shade and to
break the force of the winds. Before the rains the clearings would be
burned, and 400 acres roughly prepared for yam and koko, cassava and
sweet potatoes, ground-nuts and Indian corn, bread-fruit and plantains,
which produce after the first year. The palm-oil tree and the cocoa-nut
are found growing wild in the lower altitudes; the only difficulty would
be to protect them. European vegetables will thrive.[115] After a time
cacao might be made a source of wealth to the colony, and prepare the
way for tobacco, coffee, and sugar. Live stock could be purchased in
small quantities for herding purposes from the people, or it might be
sent from England. Bullocks are fine animals upon these mountains, goats
are excellent, sheep are tolerable, and ‘the impure’ abound. Poultry and
pigeons are easily reared. The highlands, above 7000 feet, are capable,
as the footprints of large deer show, of becoming cattle-runs, and above
that altitude they are admirable warrens, awaiting only rabbits. Asses
and mules, when required for the sanitarium, could be procured at a
moderate price from Tenerife.
Thus the colonists, leaving the bleak and barren north, would soon be
enabled to dwell under their own roof-trees in their own land. It is
methinks erroneously said that Africa, who sends forth streams of
population, vetoes by the deadliness of her climate the reflux of the
West upon the East. The experiment is, however, worth trying, under
favourable circumstances, and the success of the native establishment
would be followed by a sanitarium equal to that of the Mahabaleshwar or
the Neilgherry Hills in Western India. The colonists would enjoy full
religious liberty and the means of normal education: the head-quarters
of the Camaroons Mission are within an easy day’s boating, and there are
already two native teachers at Victoria. By degrees the mail-steamers
would visit once a month the new settlement—it is directly in their way
between the Calabar and Camaroons Rivers, whereas they must make a
détour to the island of Fernando Po. And, finally, the coal-depôt and
the consulate would be removed from the starving Cove of malarious
Clarence to a place of health and plenty. With which I conclude.
A fin corona la obra.
[Footnote 110: During the winter of 1863 I was permitted by the ‘Times’
to show the advantages of Camaroons Mountain as a convict station, a
Batavia, or a Loanda for English criminals. Here the place will be
considered mainly with a view to a sanitarium.]
[Footnote 111: Above a certain altitude, certainly not exceeding 3500
out of 13,000 feet, the land is uninhabited and uncultivated; though
claimed by King William of Bimbia, it can be bought for a nominal sum.]
[Footnote 112: It is the most licit article of African commerce, its use
causes an additional and increasing demand, and it benefits the people
instead of demoralizing them, as the gunpowder, the muskets, and the
pestilent rum of the trade have ever done.]
[Footnote 113: This settlement should be surrounded by a deep ditch and
a strong palisade like Capt. Phil. Beaver’s at Bulama. The best form of
house is lumber upon stone pillars, which admit a free current of air
under the inhabited rooms.]
[Footnote 114: The present expense of felling a large trunk is 18 pence.
A small and moveable saw-mill worked by steam-engine or water-power
would make plankage worth only the price of labour.]
[Footnote 115: The reader will conceive some idea of the Fernandian
colonists when informed that there is not a kitchen garden—to say
nothing of a flower garden—in the place. Selim, my factotum, found no
difficulty in growing endive, onions, beans, cress, mustard, and a
variety of European vegetables.]
* * * * *
APPENDIX.
* * * * *
APPENDIX I
* * * * *
MR. GRAZILHIER’S DESCRIPTION OF THE AMBOZES COUNTRY.
[Extracted from Barbot, A.D. 1678-1706.]
The territory of Ambozes, which I said before is situated between Rio
del Rey and Rio Camarones, is very remarkable for the immense height of
the mountains it has near the seashore, which the Spaniards call Alta-
Tierra de Ambozi, and reckon them as high as the Peak of Teneriffe. The
coast runs from Rio del Rey to south-east; the little river Camarones
Pequeno[116] lies about five leagues from Rio del Rey; from it to Cape
Camarones, the northern point of Rio Camarones Grande, the coast is low
and woody—much more than it is from Little Camarones to Rio del Rey.
This Little Camarones River is properly a branch of Great Camarones
River,[117] and divides itself coming out from the latter into three
branches, all three running through the lands of the Ambozes, into the
Great Æthiopick Ocean; the principal of which, being the third river
south-east of Rio del Rey, is called Old Camarones by the English. This
third branch divides itself again into two other branches at a distance
from each other, running to S.E. and S.S.E. into the Great Camaroon
River; and thus with the ocean form three islands in the territory of
the Ambozes, wherein are the highest mountains, which extend near to the
north point or head of Great Camarones; and at west and south-west of
Old Camarones River are three round islands off at sea, two or three
leagues[118] from the main, as lofty and high land as the opposite
Ambozes hills. These islands are called by the Portuguese Ilhas Ambozes;
the channel betwixt them and the main is seven fathoms deep, though from
some distance off at sea they seem to touch the opposite continent,
which is properly the effect of the immense altitude of the hills on
either side of the channel; so that the biggest first-rate may sail
through it with safety, the tide there running as the wind sets. The
most northern island of the three lies four leagues from the Pescaria or
fishery of Rio del Rey, and the most southern of them five leagues to
the north of Cape Camarones, being the highest land of them all, and the
largest; the other, which is the smallest, lies betwixt the two former.
Though these little islands look but like large lofty rocks at a
distance, yet they swarm with people,[119] and are so fertile—especially
in palm-wine and oil—that the soil produces enough to subsist the
inhabitants. It is surprising to find there such abundance of palm-
trees, when there is not one to be seen on the opposite continent.[120]
The sea about the islands abounds in many sorts of good fish, which is
of great advantage to the islanders. The road for trading-ships is east
of the most southern island. The inhabitants, for the most part,
understand Portuguese pretty well, but are the worst Blacks of all
Guinea.[121] They form a sort of commonwealth of the three islands,
making continual descents with their canoes on the territory of Ambozes
on the main, and get from thence in their incursions a vast quantity of
provisions, and have no other commerce with those people. The territory
of Ambozes comprehends several villages on the west of Cape Camarones,
amongst which are those of Cesgis, Bodi, and Bodiwa, where there is a
little trade for slaves and for accory.[122] The Hollanders trade there
most of all Europeans, and export slaves for the same sorts of goods
they use to import at Rio del Rey. The Blacks there have the same names
for numbers as those of Camarones—one is ‘mo;’ two, ‘ba;’ three,
‘melella;’ four, ‘meley;’ and five, ‘matau,’ &c.[123]
The country of Ambozes is very fertile in all the sorts of plants and
fruits of Guinea, except palm-trees, of which not one is to be seen, as
I have already hinted; and to supply the defect of palm-wine they make a
liquor for their usual drink of a certain root called Gajanlas, boiled
in water, which is not disagreeable, and is, besides, a remedy for the
cholic. They have great stores of poultry and other eatable animals, for
which reason many European ships take provisions and refreshments
there.[124]
[Footnote 116: Now called the Bimbia River.—R. B.]
[Footnote 117: I doubt this, and believe them to have an independent
origin.—R. B.s]
[Footnote 118: Read miles.—R. B.]
[Footnote 119: Now reduced to some 3000 souls.—R. B.]
[Footnote 120: All this is changed. There are more palm-trees on the
continent than on the islands.—R. B.]
[Footnote 121: The same was said by Bosman of the poor timid Bubes of
Fernando Po, and with equal justice.—R. B.]
[Footnote 122: Aggri or Popo beads?—R. B.]
[Footnote 123: In the Isubu or Camarones dialect one is eoko or yoko;
five, bitanu, subject to an alliterative concord.—R. B.]
[Footnote 124: All this is also changed.—R. B.]
APPENDIX II.
MR. MERRICK’S TOUR IN WEST AFRICA.
[Extracted from the ‘Baptist Magazine’ for 1845.]
Mr. Merrick has lately visited the Camaroons Mountains, exploring a
district of which very little was known, in order to ascertain facts
respecting the state of the country and the condition of the inhabitants
which might be of service in directing future operations. Believing that
his account of his tour will be interesting to many of our readers, we
abridge it but slightly:—
‘Early on Tuesday morning, the 23rd April, Smith and I left our abode
for John King’s Town, from whence we started with our travelling-party
at half-past six for the Bwengga market.[125] Our band consisted of
eleven men and boys as attendants and carriers: Copper, my interpreter;
John King, my principal guide; Smith, and myself.[126] We were to have
walked all the way, but, at the request of John King, I agreed to go as
far as the Bwengga market by sea, with the understanding that, if
spared, we should return by land. The passage to the market lies through
a creek a short distance from King William’s Town, in a north-westerly
direction; and the market is called Bwengga, after the district in which
the people reside whose goods are sold at the market. We arrived at nine
o’clock, and met a number of people from Bimbia and its vicinity. Not
many of the people had yet come down from the interior, but several of
those who had, resorted to the canoe in which I sat, and gazed on me
with wonder and amazement. At twenty minutes to eleven I heard a rush,
and, looking round, saw the people coming down to the market in a body.
They approached with a trot, and hastened down the cliff to the canoes
for the purpose of bartering their goods. The chief article was
plantains, which were brought down in conical baskets fastened to the
back by means of strings round the arms and forehead. I need hardly say
that women were the principal carriers. About 200 came to market, among
whom there were not more than about 20 men who carried loads; and those
who did, had a much smaller proportion than the women. The plantains
were bartered for a few dried shrimps and fishes. Having disposed of
their goods, the people came up the cliff about twenty minutes after
eleven, and, resorting to the spot where I was sitting, viewed me with
perfect amazement. The simplicity of their manner formed a striking
contrast to the proud bearing and mien of the Camaroons and many of the
Bimbia gentlemen. It was with great difficulty that I obtained silence,
which being done, I made known in a few words the object of my intended
visit to the interior. I had spoken only a few sentences when one of the
gentlemen remarked that the majority of the people who had come to
market were very ignorant, that it was useless for me to speak to them,
and that I had better wait till I reached the Bwengga district, and then
speak to the gentlemen, who would listen attentively to all I had to
say. I replied that, if they were ignorant, the good word which I
intended to speak would make them wise. As soon as the poor women heard
this, they manifested their approbation by loud applause, and shortly
after proceeded homeward, while I accompanied John King to his farm,
which is in the vicinity of the Bwengga market. At a quarter after three
our party left John King’s farm for the Bwengga district, and, after
walking a short time along a track, reached the main road. This
path—though walked over every five days by hundreds of people—is very
narrow, and in many parts is a mere track. It runs for the most part
through a thicket by which the clouds are frequently obscured, and as a
walk is entirely devoid of interest. At five minutes before four we
ascended a very steep hill, from which time the country became rather
hilly. Five minutes after four we took a short rest, and proceeding on
our journey ascended another steep hill at half-past four, from which we
had a view of the sea, and, had it hot been for the mist, should, I
understand, have seen Cape Camaroon.[127] At five o’clock we came in
sight of a river, which John King informed me empties itself in the sea
near his town. Here our whole party refreshed themselves with a good
draught of water, which was very cool and pleasant. During our journey
we passed two or three farms near the road, on which plantains are
chiefly cultivated. I was informed by John King that a few people are
living in the bush near the farms.
‘At six o’clock we arrived at a group of houses, called by John King a
town, when I discovered that Bwengga was not a large town or city, as I
had all along imagined, but a district or a sort of county, in which are
many towns.[128] Our party sat down at this town to rest. Soon many of
the children were around me, while some, afraid of a white face,
remained at a distance with their eyes riveted on me.
‘After being regaled with a draught of palm-wine, our party proceeded
onward, and, passing another town which consisted of four or five
houses, arrived at our resting-place for the night at a quarter past
six. The chief or master of this town is called Ebore, and, according to
John King’s account, is his brother; but, during our journey, John
claimed brotherhood to so many that it is difficult to say who are
really related to him.[129] I, however, think that, if not his father’s
or mother’s child, Ebore is a near kinsman. We met Ebore sitting on a
stone near the door of his house, in conversation with one of his wives,
who appears very fond of him, and for whom, I think, Ebore entertains
much affection. Such reciprocal affection between husband and wife was
to me very gratifying, as in my few short tours in Africa I have seldom
seen it exhibited. The women are, for the most part, regarded and
treated as the slaves of their husbands, who possess unlimited power
over them, and do with them just what they please. When I was informed,
on my arrival at Ebore’s town, that he was king of the place, I at first
thought he was the ruler of the whole Bwengga district; but I soon
discovered my mistake, and found that he was only king and ruler over
his own wives and children. The mode of government in this part of
Africa is strictly patriarchal. I was kindly received by Ebore, and,
having seated myself near him, he began to expatiate on the great joy
and pleasure which he experienced in being visited by a white man—an
honour which he never expected, and which his father, though much more
wealthy than he, never enjoyed. He admired also my fearlessness, and
said that my heart must be very big, or I would never have come where a
single white man had never before set foot. Shortly after my arrival I
was saluted by the firing of muskets, not only at Ebore’s place, but at
some distant town whose inhabitants must have concluded that I had
arrived from the report of guns which they heard from Ebore’s town.
‘After dinner—which consisted of palm-oil and fish and plantains, of
which I ate heartily after my unusually long walk—I addressed the
people, and endeavoured to point out as plainly as I could the way of
salvation by Christ. My auditors listened patiently for a long time, and
while I spoke Ebore frequently exclaimed, “Toto—mene! toto—mene!”—“True!
true!” When I alluded to the folly of trusting to charms for deliverance
in times of danger, he remarked that what I said was quite correct, for
several men who had received charms to preserve them from danger and
death had, to his knowledge, been shot, and that God alone could protect
and save. At the close of my address, I sang, “Jesus shall reign,” &c.,
and concluded with prayer. When I was ready to go to bed, I was
conducted to a room about 10 feet long, 5½ feet wide, and 7 feet high to
the top of the roof. As my bed was placed across the room, my head lay
against one side of the wall, while my feet reached the other side; yet
I slept comfortably, and hope I felt grateful to God for having provided
for me a shelter among the heathen.[130] Ebore accompanied me to the
room, and remained while I read a portion of Scripture and prayed, and
during prayer knelt down. On rising from my knees, I told him my reasons
for reading the Word of God and praying to Him before retiring to rest.
As I found Ebore disinclined to leave the room, I undressed myself
before him. He was quite surprised at the number of garments I wore, and
viewed me from head to foot till I got into bed.[131]
‘Wednesday, April 24.
‘As soon as the door of my room was opened this morning, Ebore came to
pay his respects, and addressed me “Sanggwosu”—the term used by servants
when speaking to their masters. Before breakfast I read and explained to
Copper and John King, both of whom speak and understand English, the
second chapter of Matthew. Ebore came in while I was reading, and heard
from John King and Copper what I communicated to them. After explaining
the Scriptures, I showed Ebore the views of our Jamaica chapels, and
told him of the affection which the people of God in Jamaica entertained
for the African race. He listened with much attention and astonishment
when I told him of the vast sums of money subscribed by the Christian
world for the benefit of Africa, and said that if the people of God did
not love them they would never act in that manner.
‘After breakfast John King and Copper, Smith, and I, proceeded to the
town of a man called Futa, and sometimes Madiba—a short distance to the
south-east of Ebore’s place. On our arrival we learnt that he was not at
home, but would soon return. I afterwards discovered that he was at the
back part of his house, and directed John King to tell me he was out,
intending while we walked a little way to dress himself. After a short
walk to another town, where Mundere, the brother of Madiba, resides, we
returned to Madiba’s house, when he made his appearance in a cloth
round-jacket, a pretty wrapper, and a blue gossamer-hat. He was rather
reserved and formal, but listened with attention to the truths which I
declared. From the appearance and mien of Futa, I concluded that he was
a man of influence and generally respected, and have since discovered
that my conclusion was quite correct. Madiba’s town is situated on a
beautiful plain on the top of a hill. One of his houses is a large one
compared with the houses of the other chiefs, and is very well
constructed. He is evidently an ingenious man, and with a little
instruction would make an excellent carpenter.
‘While at Madiba’s house I tendered my hand to a man who refused to
shake it, and, on inquiring the reason, learnt that the man had recently
lost one of his relations, and that the people in the interior never
shake hands with their dearest friends for a certain time after the
death of a near relative. John King asked a question to-day which shows
the necessity of explaining figurative language when employed in
instructing the people. He inquired whether by giving the heart to God I
meant a man was to cut out his heart. He next inquired whether God had a
wife, and while I was speaking of the blessedness of Heaven, he asked
how it could be a “good good” country when the people who lived there
did not eat?[132] I explained to him that the spirit was not supported
by food—that the body alone required food for its sustentation, and that
after death the spirits of those who believed in Christ would live in
the enjoyment of the knowledge and love of God. In returning to Ebore’s
town we walked another way, and passed the town of an old man named
Dume, who appeared very glad to see me. My soul was distressed when I
thought that he would probably die before the Gospel could be fully and
properly explained to him.
‘I saw several women at Ebore’s town engaged in making palm-oil to-day.
The palm-nut, or fruit, is first boiled, after which the part which
contains the oil is separated from the kernel, and rolled up in small
balls, from which the oil is extracted by twisting it with the fingers.
A great deal of oil is left in the husk, which, with suitable machinery,
might be entirely extracted. We were to have proceeded on our journey
to-day, but Ebore would not allow us to do so. In the evening I
conversed again with the people about Christ and his salvation, when
Ebore remarked that he believed God had sent me among them to teach them
good things, and that he would willingly sit up all night to hear me.
Before retiring to rest I made Ebore a present of cloth and other
things, for which he expressed himself very grateful. Ebore is about
forty years of age, of the middle stature, but appears short, in
consequence of a bend in the back. His appearance is not calculated to
command respect, but there is in him a great deal of real kindness,
connected with humility, which cannot fail to excite the affections of
those that may become acquainted with him. There is, I fear, but little
firmness in his character, which would render him an unfit person to
depend upon in times of trouble or danger.
‘Unlike Ebore, Futa seems a man of great firmness and decision of
character. His manner and bearing, though the reverse of pride, are much
calculated to call forth respect, and, with his property (for he is
considered wealthy), will render him influential wherever he goes. Futa
is about the same age as Ebore, perhaps a little older; of the middle
stature, and rather slender, but well made.
‘Thursday, April 25.
‘We were to have proceeded this morning to the Sofo district, but
yesterday evening we heard that an influential and wealthy old man in
the Moriko district, named Manja, had made grand preparations for my
reception, and sent to say he hoped I would not fail to call on him. As
John King thought it prudent for us to visit Manja, we left for his
place at twenty-five minutes after six this morning.
‘Shortly after leaving Ebore’s we passed three small towns, and crossed
a small stream called Waugge, running from the west. Indeed, all the
rivers which we saw and crossed in our journey flowed from the north-
west. At a quarter after seven we crossed a beautiful stream about
thirty yards wide, called Ben-yua, in which a large artificial basin was
formed of stones, for the purpose of securing fishes. Our road at this
point lay through a thick bush, and is evidently an unfrequented path.
At fifteen minutes to eight we entered the Bore-pamba district, and
passed Mbumbo’s town. Three minutes after eight we passed another
stream, called the Ndunggu, and shortly after saw a small farm, on which
maize, cocoa,[133] and peas were growing; passed the towns of Korame,
Mukwure, Malape, and Monyunggo, and entered the Bakuku district; passed
the town of Masu, and at five minutes after nine arrived at Manja’s
town, in the Moriko district,[134] and seated myself under a tree, where
old Manja in a short time came to see me. He was dressed in a large
great-coat, which would have sat much better on a man twice his size.
His hand was quite hidden by his large garment, so that when he
presented it to me I had to shake his sleeve. I had not been seated long
before I was informed that two gentlemen from Bwea,[135] one of the last
districts on the way to the Camaroons Mountains, had come down to see
me, having understood that I had come for the purpose of visiting the
mountain. I exceedingly regretted that, whenever the people asked John
King the object of my visit, he always informed them that I was going to
the mountain, which led them to think I was in quest of treasures.
Indeed John King himself did not believe that the sole object of my
visit was to make known the Gospel of Salvation and find out the most
eligible districts for establishing missionary stations.[136] After a
few minutes’ conversation with Manja he left, but soon returned with a
goat as a present. I directed John King to have it killed for our party,
and began to declare the Gospel to the people who surrounded me; but
they seemed more desirous to gaze upon me and make a noise than to
listen to the solemn truths I was declaring. At breakfast I endeavoured
again to engage the people’s attention, but could not get them to listen
for any length of time. They were, however, quite delighted with an
Isubu lesson, which I took with me for the purpose of teaching the
children as I passed along, and were exceedingly astonished when I
exhibited my watch.
‘Many people from other districts resorted to Manja’s place to see me;
some, I learn, from a distance, to whom I explained the object of my
visit. In the afternoon Copper and I walked to the town of Junge, a
short distance west of Manja’s place, where I conversed for some time
about the Great Salvation, and instructed the people from my Isubu
lesson. They called my watch the moon, and said I was indeed a God-man,
for I had gone up to God, and brought down the moon with me. On my
return from Junge’s place Smith and I took a long walk, and spent a
sweet season in conversation about the universal dominion of Christ.
Since my arrival in Africa, nothing administers more joy to my soul than
reflection or conversation respecting the entire subjugation of the
nations of the earth to our Divine Redeemer. Indeed, if missionaries
would be strengthened for their work, they must at all times keep the
cheering truth before their minds. John King informed me this afternoon
that the men who came from the Bwea district said they would not conduct
me to the town without being well paid; but on finding that I evinced no
anxiety for going thither they left, with promise of meeting me at
Manja’s town early in the morning. African travellers must pay little
attention to the talk and noise of the people, but act with kindness,
firmness, prudence, and justice. Before going to bed I made old Manja a
present of cloth, &c., with which he was quite pleased. I also
distributed some needles among the women and girls, and clothed three of
Manja’s children, who were not a little delighted with their new garb.
‘Both at Ebore’s and Manja’s place I distributed some English peas,
which were kindly sent me by the St. Albans friends. When at Camaroons I
also distributed some of the same peas, and have no doubt that by this
time many of the Diwalla people have reaped a crop.[137]
‘Friday, April 26.
‘We were to have left Manja’s town early this morning, but were detained
by heavy rains till twelve o’clock, when we proceeded on our journey. At
twenty-five minutes after twelve we entered the Bokwei district, and at
the same time passed the town of Mamunde. Shortly after we passed
Morio’s town. At one o’clock the country became very hilly. We arrived
at Dickenye’s town at half-past one, which is situated in the Bwea
district. I was kindly received by Dickenye, who appeared very happy to
see me, and, like Ebore, dwelt for a long time on the great honour
bestowed on him by the visit of a white man. I, however, soon discovered
that great suspicions were entertained respecting my intended visit to
the mountain; and John King, in order to learn the real object of my
visit, took Smith aside, and questioned him closely on the subject.
Shortly after my arrival Dickenye told John King that there were immense
treasures on the mountain; that on the death of any influential person
in the Bwea district they had frequently seen cloths of every
description spread out on the mountain; that there was a great deal of
gunpowder, salt, and dollars on the mountain;[138] and they thanked John
King for bringing me to show them how to obtain the treasures. There was
also a “large water” on the mountain, where a white man was often seen,
and which no black man could pass; that they sometimes heard the report
of guns fired by the white man; that that white was my brother, and I
had come to see him and fetch him down from the mountain.
‘In vain I endeavoured to persuade them that the sole object of my visit
was to impart the knowledge of the true God, and to learn whether they
were willing to receive religious teachers. During the day I embraced
every opportunity of declaring the Gospel, but, like those of Manja’s
town, the Bwea people were more desirous to sing and dance and make a
noise than attend to what I had to say. In the afternoon several chiefs
came to see me. After they had listened to the truth a short time,
Dickenye, who is an incessant talker, began to address the people, after
which he danced about, and endeavoured to appear very great. He was
followed by another man, who wore a sort of tippet made by himself. He
also delivered an address, and, like Dickenye, danced and sung, and
capered about amidst the applause of the surrounding multitude. As
evening approached, John King informed me that all the gentlemen of the
district were to assemble after dark, in order to come to some decision
respecting the charge they were to make for allowing me to visit the
mountain. Accordingly we had a meeting in one of Dickenye’s houses in
the evening, when all the gentlemen strenuously maintained that there
were incalculable treasures on the mountain, and that John King had
brought me to obtain them. I replied that many of them would on the
morrow accompany me to the mountain, and would have an opportunity of
seeing all it contained, and that whatever I might bring down they were
at perfect liberty to retain. During my short life I have met many great
talkers, but never before heard so garrulous a man as Dickenye. He seems
never tired of chatting, and will scarcely allow any one else to speak a
word. None but those who have been engaged in an African palaver[139]
can form a correct idea of its tediousness. When you imagine that the
subject in debate has been brought to a close and about to be settled,
all on a sudden you find yourself at the point from whence you started,
and the objections which you had before answered, again brought forward
as if they were entirely new. This was the ordeal through which I had to
pass at Dickenye’s place; and what rendered it more trying was my
ignorance of the language, and consequent dependence on John King and
Copper for an interpretation of all that was said. The palaver being
closed, I returned to rest, after commending myself and our party to the
Divine protection, and as usual slept well.
‘Saturday, April 27.
‘We were to have started before daylight, but could not manage to get
away before fifteen minutes before seven. It is very difficult to get an
uncivilized African band to travel early. On my arrival at Dickenye’s I
was informed that his town was the nearest to the mountain in the Bwea
district, and I discovered this morning that my information was not
correct. Shortly after leaving Dickenye’s we passed three towns, all
near each other, and arrived at the last town on the way to the mountain
at a quarter after seven. At this time we saw a road to the south, which
I was informed leads to Rumby. At fifteen minutes to eight we arrived at
a river flowing from the north-west, in a south-westerly direction. At
this point there was a sensible change in the atmosphere. I drank of the
water of the river, whose bed was very rocky, and found it delightfully
cool. Near the river is a small abandoned farm, which was formerly
cultivated by some of the Bwea people. Before visiting the interior I
thought the people spent a great deal of their time in agricultural
pursuits, but was surprised during my journey to see so few farms, and
those so much neglected. All the plantain-farms I saw were covered with
grass and bush. Like those on the coast, the people in the country live
a life of almost absolute idleness. They do not set the smallest value
on time, and prefer spending days and weeks in hunting (though they not
unfrequently return home as empty as they went out) to cultivating the
soil. May they soon come under the influence of that Gospel which so
strongly condemns idleness, and inculcates the necessity of industrious
habits! But to resume our narrative. At eight o’clock the Bwea men who
had accompanied me stopped to perform a ceremony called Mosere.[140]
Dickenye’s brother Bunggome, with a mug of water in his hand, delivered
an address to the following effect:—“That the Moriko and Bwengga men
were unwilling that the Bwea people should engage in trade with Bimbia,
but that John King had kindly brought a white man to see them, who he
hoped would open a communication between the coast and the Bwea
district.” After the address a libation was poured out on the ground,
and the remainder of the water in the mug drank by all who had engaged
in the ceremony. I requested John King to say to them that the good word
which I had spoken to them was calculated to unite all people in one
common bond; and if they and the Moriko and Bwengga people attended to
it, instead of opposing each other in trade, they would live as
brethren, and do all in their power to promote the welfare of one
another. They appeared quite pleased with my remarks, and proceeded on
the journey with smiling countenances.
‘A few minutes before the Mosere ceremony was performed we crossed a
fine stream, whose water was very cold. At twenty minutes before ten we
arrived at another river-course, destitute of water, except a small
portion (rain-water, I suppose) in hollows of rocks, and which reminded
me of the pools of rain-water from which the Israelites were wont to
refresh themselves in their journeys to the Holy City. Our whole party
took a long draught of water here, as we were given to understand that
we should meet with no more during the remainder of our journey. Ten
minutes before ten we had an excellent view of the sea. Perhaps it is
necessary to observe that the whole district through which we passed is
very well furnished with hard wood. The wood is so hard that the Bwea
men, not possessing proper axes, are unable to fell the trees for the
purpose of making farms. Eight minutes after ten we passed the last farm
of the Bwea people on the way to the Camaroons Mountains. On this farm
is growing the finest piece of cocoa I have seen since my arrival in
Africa. I was rather surprised that the Bwea people should cultivate
farms so far from their towns, and thought they must have good reason
for doing so; and on inquiry found that they were in the habit of
spending whole weeks in the woods hunting the ngika, or buffalo, and
during that time cultivated the soil in the vicinity of the chase.
Twenty-five minutes before eleven the brother of Dickenye, perceiving
that we were drawing near the mountain, broke a small bush, and, holding
it in his hand, prayed aloud to his dead father and mother to protect
him from danger in approaching the mountain. I directed John King to
tell him that Obassa Luba[141] (the name by which the Deity is called)
alone could afford him help, and that his petitions should have been
presented to him. On hearing this he began to cry to Obassa Luba for
help. The evident fear of the people as they drew near the mountain led
me to conclude that they had never before travelled so far, though they
wished to make me believe that many of them had before ascended the
mountain. At twenty minutes before eleven, we arrived at a beautiful
plain extending along the base of the mountain a considerable way. This
plain is covered with a fine wing-grass, some of which I brought down as
a memorial of my visit. A quarter before eleven we had an extensive and
splendid view of the sea, rivers, and lowlands from the plain at the
base of the mountain. We saw very distinctly Balimba point and river,
and a little eastward the Bakuku, Munggo, and Bunji rivers and
country.[142] At ten minutes after eleven our band sat down on the
grassy plain to hold a consultation as to whether they should ascend the
mountain, at whose height and majestic aspect they were manifestly
alarmed. While with wonder and awe they gazed upon the grand and lofty
fabric, Smith observed that, if they were so alarmed at beholding the
works of the Almighty, what would be the state of their mind when they
beheld the Almighty himself on the Judgment-day? John King, who had all
along spoken of his determination to go to the very apex of the
mountain, declared that he could not proceed further; while the Bwea men
said it was useless to accompany me if no treasures were to be obtained.
I reminded them that I had agreed to pay them to go with me, and, if
they broke their engagement, they could not expect payment. At length
ten of the Bwea men made up their minds to accompany me, and with Smith,
Copper, and myself, started for the much-dreaded Munggo,[143] as the
mountain is called in the Isubu tongue. With much difficulty we ascended
about a third of the mountain at six minutes after one, where it was so
cold that I judged it unwise to proceed higher with men who had only a
piece of cloth around their loins. This, with other reasons, induced me
to descend the mountain before reaching its apex, though I must confess
I did so very reluctantly. At the elevation on which I stood I
experienced all the sensations produced by an English winter. My
nostrils ran copiously, my eyes were much affected, and my fingers
stiff. The faces of my attendants were covered with a sort of white
incrustation, such as may be seen on the skins of black men in England
during winter. Their eyes were also much affected, and Dickenye’s
brother had a fit of ague, and trembled like an aspen-leaf. The mountain
after a certain height (perhaps from about the sixth of its altitude
from the base) is entirely covered with a fine and beautifully green
grass, with here and there a few shrubs. The soil is composed of small
pieces of soft stone, which have evidently been subject to the action of
fire, and which frequently crumbled or resigned their places as the
weight of our bodies rested upon them in ascending. From the point on
which we stood we had an excellent view of the lowlands and the
different rivers in the Bight of Biafra. We began to descend the
mountain about a quarter after one, and arrived at the grassy plain at
ten minutes before three, from whence, though much fatigued, we
immediately proceeded homeward. When we had nearly reached our resting-
place the Bwea men assembled, and agreed to tell the people on their
arrival that there were immense treasures on the mountain, but that I
had resolved on not taking them till my return, when I would bring
another white man with me. On hearing this I requested John King to
undeceive the people, and let them know the truth. At fifteen minutes
after five we arrived at the last town on the way to the mountain, and
eight minutes after six reached Dickenye’s town, our resting-place. In
returning the Bwea men sang the greater part of the way, and seemed very
glad that no harm had befallen them on their way to the mountain. One of
their songs was to the following effect:—“The white man cut down the
grass,[144] and told it to stand up. The grass replied, How can I stand?
you have cut me down.” My feet ached so much at my long and difficult
journey that I could hardly stir, but a good night’s rest refreshed my
wearied frame, and rendered me strong again for duty.
‘Lord’s day, April 28.
‘I spent a pleasant time this morning in instructing several children
and young people from my Isubu lesson. They exhibited considerable
pleasure in spelling the words of their language, and, though they spent
more than a quarter of an hour at their lesson, did not appear tired.
Finding that the adult people were more inclined to drum and dance than
listen to the Gospel, I left Dickenye’s town after breakfast and,
accompanied by John King, went to see a very old man named Ibungge, who
had been sick for a long time, and intelligence of whose death arrived
at Bimbia a few days ago. I endeavoured to preach salvation by Christ to
him and his people, but fear the old man did not comprehend what was
said to him. I saw a woman this morning with her face besmeared with
dirt, and a band of the fibre of the plantain-tree round her forehead,
which I learn is the usual badge of mourning of the people of the
district. The Bimbia women do not wear the band round their foreheads,
but besmear their faces for several months with a mixture of dirt,
lampblack, and palm-oil.
‘About two o’clock to-day a man from the Boba[145] district came to see
me, and listened very attentively to the truths which I declared to him.
Dickenye introduced him to me, and sat for a short time. I had not,
however, spoken long before he began to interrupt me; but finding that I
would not attend to him, and was determined to go on conversing with the
Boba man, he left the hut, and called away his friend, but he would not
go. As the Boba man defended the practice of polygamy, I dwelt much on
the evils of it, and assured him it was very offensive to God. After the
departure of the poor man I learnt that he had recently shot a man for
seducing one of his wives, and had in consequence to desert his house,
and hide himself in the woods. According to a rule or law, called
Dibumbe, every man from Bimbia to the Camaroons Mountains, and also on
the Mungo and Bunge rivers, and I believe at other places, who commits
murder, is given up by his townspeople to be hanged.[146] While speaking
to the Boba man, little did I think I was pointing out the evils of the
very sin which had compelled him to leave the few comforts of his home
to wander in the woods.
‘As in South Africa, there are men in the Bwea district and in other
parts of the country who profess to be able to produce rain. John King
firmly believes in the pretended power of the rain-makers, and
strenuously maintained that they did possess the power, notwithstanding
all I could say to convince him to the contrary.
‘I understood this afternoon that the chief men of Bwea, and especially
Dickenye, are entertaining large expectations respecting the presents
they are to receive before my departure. They told John King that he,
King William, Dick Merchant, and the other traders of Bimbia, had
received large presents to allow me to visit the interior, and now I had
seen their mountain, John King did not wish me to give them anything.
The covetousness of the people is exceedingly trying and distressing,
and, with vainglory, exhibits itself in almost every word and action. Oh
that the time may speedily come when their selfishness will be subdued,
and their hearts renovated by the Divine Spirit!
‘About three o’clock Smith and I sang a hymn, read a portion of
Scripture, and engaged in prayer, in which we specially implored the
Lord to visit the dark places of the earth with the light of His
glorious Gospel. Smith and I conversed much with Copper to-day about the
necessity of a change of heart. It is very gratifying to me to be able
to state that light seems gradually shining upon this man’s mind. He has
already abandoned a few of his country practices, and will, I hope, be
given to us as the first-fruit of our labours. When I resolved on
visiting the Camaroons Mountains, I fully expected difficulties in the
way. True, I did not entertain the slightest apprehensions of personal
danger, yet I by no means imagined that my path would be a smooth one.
Indeed from the day of my arrival at Bwea, I plainly foresaw that we
should meet with opposition before our departure. It was not to be
expected that Satan would sit quietly and see one of his strongholds
attacked without retaliation. But greater is He that is for us than they
who are against us. The prey of the enemy will yet be plucked from his
teeth, and the kingdom of Christ established where Satan’s empire now
raises its proud and lofty head.
‘Monday, April 29.
‘I arose unusually early on Monday morning, and spent a sweet season in
prayer. My soul was much drawn out in behalf of the heathens in general,
but more particularly for Africa. I felt, while supplicating the Mercy-
seat, that the Lord was preparing my mind and strengthening my spirit
for some trial. When our baggage had been packed up, and we were ready
to leave, I presented Dickenye and three of the chief men at Bwea with
cloth, garments, and other things; but they were quite dissatisfied, and
said they would not allow our boxes to be taken away unless I gave them
more cloth. I knew well that, if I yielded to their unjust exaction,
instead of being satisfied, they would be encouraged to make other
demands, and consequently declined giving anything else. On hearing this
they made a great noise, and seemed determined to detain us. Several of
the men were armed with cutlasses, and during the palaver flourished
them about (not however in a threatening manner), but the Lord
graciously preserved me from fear, and kept my mind in perfect peace. Oh
what a blessedness to be able to rest on the arms of Him who is powerful
to save! Not one of our party had a weapon of any description. On
leaving Bimbia, I strictly enjoined John King not to carry guns, swords,
or cutlasses, assuring him that God, whom I loved and served, and whose
truth I was going to declare, would protect and preserve us; and I have
no doubt that our defenceless state tended more to disarm the Bwea
people than anything else.[147] I do hope that all our missionaries who
may come to Africa will be members of the Peace Society. After a long
and noisy discussion, in which John King, Copper, and a few others of
the men who conducted me, nearly talked themselves out of breath, the
Bwea men withdrew and held a private consultation. At this juncture
Smith became alarmed for our safety, and on my return from the mountain
told Mr. Ducket that he was just waiting to know the result of the
conference of the Bwea men, and, if they had resolved on killing us, he
intended to request them to destroy him first, that he might not endure
the pain of seeing me put to death. Smith’s fears were, however, quite
groundless. I do not think that the people had the remotest intention of
hurting a hair of our heads. All they wanted was the contents of our
boxes, and, not being able to frighten me into submission, they withdrew
to come to some decision respecting the mode of bringing the palaver to
a close. They soon returned, and said that, as I was unwilling to give
them more cloth, they would be satisfied with a book (certificate)
stating that I had visited the mountain from their district, in order
that they might show it to any white man that might come after me. I
very soon furnished the ‘book,’ when our carriers were permitted to
leave, but we had only walked a short distance when one of our people
was stopped by Dickenye’s brothers, because he said he had not received
a shirt. The fact is, this man took a fancy to Smith’s flannel shirt,
and requested me to give him one like it. On leaving I borrowed Smith’s
flannel, and gave it to him, but after receiving it he was quite
dissatisfied, and said he wanted a shirt similar to those the other
chiefs had received, but, as all of that description were distributed, I
could not comply with his request. He was, however, determined to get a
shirt, and therefore followed us after we left his brother’s town, and
stopped one of the boxes; Copper directly drew off his shirt and gave it
to Bunggome, but took good care to secure for himself the flannel shirt,
which is of more value than the one with which he parted.[148] We left
Dickenye’s town at twenty-five minutes before eight, and after passing a
town in the Bwea district entered the Bokwei district at half-past
eight; and after leaving the towns of Morio and Namunde, entered the
Bakuku district at five minutes before nine, and arrived at Junge’s town
at two minutes before nine. We again reached Manja’s place at seven
minutes after nine. The old man appeared happy to see me, and pressed me
to remain over the night, expecting no doubt another present in the
event of my doing so; but I told him I could not by any means stop, as I
was anxious to get down as early as possible.
‘After breakfast our party prepared to leave Manja’s town, but one of
his men, who had accompanied us to Bwea, stopped our boxes, because he
had not in his opinion been sufficiently remunerated for his services.
This man was not at all engaged by us, but, contrary to my desire, was
sent by Manja to accompany us to Bwea. On my return to his town I made
him a suitable present, but he would not allow us to proceed till he had
received some cloth. During my journey I had to protest against people
following me from different towns, who desired to do so, without at all
being required, for the purpose of getting something. Unless the African
traveller is watchful, he will at the end of his different journeys find
many more servants in his employ than he set out with. Manja did all in
his power to prevent Singga from stopping us, but such is the small
influence and power of the old chief that he could not succeed.
‘At twenty minutes before two we left Manja’s town, and, travelling
through the Bakuku district, passed Mokeba’s town at five minutes before
two, and at two crossed a small stream. It is perhaps necessary to note
here that all the streams which we crossed to-day were small. Crossed a
stream at twenty-eight minutes after two. At half-past two left Pende-
Dikoba’s town. Crossed a stream twenty-five minutes before three, and
another at twenty minutes before three, called Wangge, and entered the
Bunjoku district.
‘At five minutes after three passed Ekanye’s town, and shortly after
that of Ebisa. There is a small house a few yards from the latter town.
The road in this district is much better than any I have travelled over
since I left Bimbia.
‘At ten minutes before four entered the Bunjumba district, and passed
the town of Ipike. At three minutes before four passed in sight of
Dibesse’s town, near which is that of Matande.[149] Crossed a stream
called Wende at five minutes after four. At ten minutes after four
passed in sight of Ngake’s town, and entered the Minyarri-Munggo
district. Eighteen minutes after four we passed three towns together.
The names of the chiefs are Dikri and Ngande. A short distance from
these towns we passed in sight of the house of Ekuba-Kuba, and a few
minutes after passed the town of Musio.
‘At half-past four arrived at a town whose chief, Dibutu Lanja, had died
three days ago. The usual funeral ceremonies were being performed when
we arrived, which were exceedingly ill adapted to the occasion. From
five to six hundred people were assembled on an oblong piece of ground,
and, amidst the noise of drums and the greatest confusion, danced up and
down in the most ludicrous manner. A group of ten met together, and
raising up their right hand struck it against the hand of each other
till the ceremony of striking hands had been performed throughout the
whole group.
‘On my arrival I was conducted to the house of a man called Foke, a
short distance from the scene of the funeral ceremonies, lest, as I was
told, my presence should attract the attention of the people, and thus
put an end to their mirth. Many followed me, to whom I showed the
letters of the alphabet, and my Isubu lesson. My watch as usual was
quite an object of wonder and amazement. Unable to obtain a sight of me,
some of the boys, Zaccheus like, climbed on trees to gratify their
curiosity. Being anxious to see the whole of the funeral ceremony, I got
up to walk to the place where the people were dancing, but Foke would
not allow me to go. However, shortly after, Madiba, whose town I visited
before going to the Camaroons Mountains, and to whom I have already
alluded, came up, and, taking me by the hand, conducted me to the scene
of action, and thus afforded me an opportunity of seeing all that was
going on. I had not sat long before the man who was to succeed the
deceased chief made his appearance in a soldier’s coat. A man held an
umbrella over his head, and followed wherever he went. In a stooping
posture the new chief ran among the crowd amidst the caressing of
several young women, striking hands with all who presented theirs to
him.
‘After a great deal of noise and dancing, silence was commanded, when
Madiba, being master of the ceremonies, arose to speak, but before he
commenced his address he picked up a pebble, and spitting upon it,
placed it under his foot, and then walked up and down the avenue,
speaking as he walked along. He said that Dibutu Lanja had died three
days ago, and had left so many pieces of cloth (I do not recollect the
number), pigs, sheep, and goats, and that during his illness two of his
goats had been killed for him. Madiba having finished his address,
several of the people exclaimed, “He, he,” yes, yes; shortly after which
the party began to disperse.
‘I understand that on the death of a chief or master of a town, all his
property, which generally consists of cloth, pigs, goats, and sheep, is
distributed among his relatives and friends, and nothing is thought so
honourable to a man as to be able on his death to leave a great deal of
property for distribution. All the cloth which Dibutu Lanja possessed
was on his death exhibited to the public for inspection, but was taken
in before my arrival. I, however, saw his pigs, sheep, and goats, all of
which were tied to stakes placed in the ground for the purpose.
‘At the close of the ceremonies, Copper, Smith, and I left for Ebore’s
town, where we intended to sleep. Madiba on his way home walked with us
a part of the road, and was very attentive and affectionate. On leaving
us he inquired whether I did not intend to come and see him on the
morrow. I promised to do so, and told him, in Isubu, as I best could,
that I hoped he would love God, and give Him his heart. As I walked
along, I began to think that the kindness and affection manifested by
Madiba that evening (so contrary to his reserve and apparent sullenness
when I visited his town a few days ago), proceeded from God, who I
thought was moving his heart to favour us. I there resolved, if I saw it
my duty, to ask him for some land on which to establish our first
missionary station at Bwengga, which is a well-populated district, and
where the inhabitants are not so widely scattered as in other parts of
the country. The attention of our missionaries, as soon as they settle
in the interior, must be directed to the concentrating of the
population, or their work will be considerably increased. It will of
course be a work of time, but with perseverance will I hope be effected.
‘We left the town of the deceased man at fifteen minutes before six,
and, after crossing a stream and passing three towns, arrived safely at
Ebore’s place at about half-past six. Our dinner consisted of ripe
plantains, palm-oil, and palm-nuts, after which we retired to rest
thoroughly wearied.
‘Tuesday, April 30th.
‘The selection of a place in the Bwengga district for the establishment
of a station pressed much on my mind all the morning. Ebore is very
willing to give land, and would be glad to see a missionary settled at
his place; but his town is situated on an unfrequented spot, and is
therefore ill adapted for a missionary. On the contrary, Madiba’s town
is near the highway which leads to the Bwengga market, and consequently
is the resort of many people.
‘After making Ebore another present, our party left his town at fifteen
minutes before one, and proceeded to Madiba’s. On our way we crossed the
stream which we passed last evening on our return to Ebore’s place. This
stream supplies Madiba’s town and the adjacent ones with water; it is
very small, and I was fearful that during the dry season it ceased to
flow, but Copper informed me that it never dries.
‘I met a very warm reception from Madiba on my arrival, and, after a
short conversation respecting the object of my visit, I gave him an
excellent wrapper and a child’s garment. I then stated that I was
desirous, if agreeable to him, to establish a missionary station near
his town for the purpose of imparting to him and all the people of the
district the knowledge of the true God, for I well knew that unless they
became acquainted with God, and served Him with their hearts, they could
neither be happy in this life nor after death. I then inquired whether
he would give me land on which to build, &c. He most readily assented to
my proposition, and, requesting me to follow him, showed me the land
which he would give when we were ready to settle. I suppose he walked
over ground about the sixth of a mile in length, and, pointing to the
right and left, said, “This is yours—this is yours.” On our return to
Madiba’s house I requested Copper to tell him plainly that he and his
people were not to expect presents from the God-men who might come to
reside at his town—that we did not intend to trade, but that our sole
object was to impart religious instruction. Madiba replied that he heard
what I had said, and would communicate the intelligence to all the
people. Shortly after, he asked John King whether, like some of the
white men who came to Bimbia to trade, I was in the habit of beating
black men; and on being told I was entirely different from such men, he
said he believed so, or I would not have brought them such good news
respecting a future state.
‘With earnest longings for the enlightenment and conversion of Madiba,
we left his town at three minutes before five, and eleven minutes after
five entered the Bunjo district, and passed the towns of Bepingge and
Bomani, which are very near each other. Seventeen minutes after five we
arrived at Mekwalle’s town. This man is the father of Bepingge and
Bomani, and is the most healthy individual in that part of the country.
He is advanced in age, and according to the course of nature cannot be
far from the gates of death. I explained to him the objects of my visit,
and requested him to assemble his people, which he readily promised to
do after dinner. At the appointed time about eighty people assembled,
and listened very patiently to the solemn truths of the Gospel, but
would not at all believe that Christian teachers would in time settle
among them. I am not at all surprised at their incredulity, for,
unacquainted as they are with the benevolence which the Gospel
inculcates, it cannot but appear an anomalous thing that people should
leave their country and come to reside among them, not for the purpose
of gain, but only to do them good.
‘Wednesday, May 1.
‘Early this morning Madiba came to see me, and evinced much affection.
May the Lord move his heart to favour the missionaries who may settle in
his district, and not only so, but renew his mind, and adopt him into
His family!
‘At seven o’clock our party left Mekwalle’s town. Five minutes after
eight we passed a large farm in the Bunjo district. Indeed, from this
time till half-past nine, we passed a number of farms, some of them
rather extensive. The country in this district is well wooded.
‘Ten minutes before nine we entered the Mobeta district. Seeing one of
our carriers with a few plantains, and knowing that he had taken them
from the farm through which we were passing, I mentioned the
circumstance to John King, in order that he might speak to the man about
the impropriety of taking what was not his; but learnt that any person
in passing a farm may, if hungry, take a few plantains, or canes, or any
other edible, without being regarded as a thief.
‘At fifteen minutes before ten we came in sight of a large stream
running in a south-easterly direction, called Kumbe. The river and
country in its vicinity reminded me much of the Bog Walk River in
Jamaica, and induced a few thoughts respecting my dear native country.
Twenty-five minutes before eleven we crossed the stream just alluded to,
which is about forty yards at the fording. A splendid settlement might
be formed on the banks of this river. The country is well wooded, the
soil excellent, and there is abundance of water.
‘Ten minutes after twelve we crossed a stream. Near the fording was a
beautiful waterfall. The fall is about twenty feet, and at the landing
of the water there is a basin about sixty yards in circumference.
‘Twenty-five minutes before one we entered the Gijanga district, and
crossed a small stream called Musunggu. Ten minutes before one we came
in sight of another creek, and crossed a small stream which flows into
the creek. We arrived at Bupe’s town in the Gyangu[150] district at
eight minutes after one. There are three towns near each other in this
district, whose chiefs are called Bupe, Ngeke, and Ekeme. Shortly after
entering the Mobeta district I discovered that John King, in order to
arrive home to-day, had passed through a wood; so that from the time we
left Mokwelle’s town in the morning, we did not see a single person till
we arrived at the Gyangu district, which is situated on the coast, a
short distance north of King William’s town. The sea being too high to
enable us to walk along the beach to Dick Merchant’s town, from whence
there is a road or tract to King William’s place, our party got into a
canoe, and returned home by sea.
‘We arrived safely at King John’s town about half-past four, where I met
Mr. Ducket on his way to Macko’s town to instruct the people, and was
thankful and happy to find him in good health and spirits. On reaching
King William’s town the children ran from all directions to greet me,
and seemed very glad that I had returned in safety. I assembled them in
the house, sung one of their school-songs, and dismissed them with
prayer.
‘Thus, my dear sir, I have endeavoured to furnish a brief, and I fear an
uninteresting, account of my tour. The grand object of my visit has,
however, been attained, and with that I am satisfied. I have discovered
that the way is opened for the introduction of the Gospel from Bimbia to
the Camaroons Mountains, and, I have no doubt, much further in the
interior. Land has been received for the establishment of our first
station, where I hope myself to settle in a short time, and from whence
the glorious Gospel will yet diffuse itself far and wide, not only among
the Isubu tribes, but among other nations of Africa. May the great Head
of the Church qualify us for our work by imparting every necessary grace
and gift! I need hardly tell you that much devolves on our dear friends
in England, Jamaica, and other parts of the world, where they know and
experience the blessedness of the Gospel. Oh, that the Church may always
be found at her post, and daily become more diligent and zealous in this
best of all works! I cannot too strongly press upon the Christian public
the necessity of furnishing garments for distribution in Africa. Our
female friends in England and Scotland have already exerted themselves
nobly in this benevolent work, but I hope they will continue to send
other supplies from time to time.
‘I must not forget to mention that one of the most pleasing facts which
I learnt in my journey was, that there were very few slaves in that part
of the country. When the people were at one time very noisy at Manja’s
place, I requested John King, if possible, to command silence. His reply
was, “Oh, what a pity all the people in the bush are free!—we cannot get
them to be quiet when we like.” The information made my heart leap for
joy, and rendered the noise far less disagreeable than I at first
considered it.
‘The districts I have visited are to the north-west of Bimbia. I
expected before now to have seen several others to the south-west, but
the arrival of dear brother Clarke on the 1st instant, with the house
which was given him by the Jericho people, and which is being erected
here, has hindered me from carrying my intention into effect, my time
being now occupied in looking after the building.’
[Footnote 125: Up the Bimbia or Little Camaroons River, turning to the
left (ascending) on the mountain-side.—R. B.]
[Footnote 126: Every soul dead—after twenty years or so!—R. B.]
[Footnote 127: It is on the left or west of Victoria Bay.—R. B.]
[Footnote 128: The same is the case with Bosumbo, Mapanya, &c.—R. B.]
[Footnote 129: In Africa, as in India, any fellow-tribeman is a
brother.—R. B.]
[Footnote 130: Polite to his hospitable hosts!—R. B.]
[Footnote 131: So the Morocco women say of their European sisters that
they dress in rags.—R. B.]
[Footnote 132: These two questions are most characteristically African.
They can hardly believe in a non-eating or non-marrying being, which to
them becomes a nonentity.—R. B.]
[Footnote 133: I presume the Colocasia esculenta.—R. B.]
[Footnote 134: ‘The Moriko and Bakuku district is the same, but is
called by two names.’ [I much doubt this.—R. B.]]
[Footnote 135: It is high up and to the east of the mountain, which the
Bwea people, who are now on bad terms with those of Mapanya, cross to
the west. M. Mann’s cowardly Krumen ran away probably from a Bwea
man.—R. B.]
[Footnote 136: During our ascent the report was that we were finding
silks, cloth, wire, beads, &c.—gold and silver are unknown here—on the
Camaroons. Thus only could the people explain our visiting it.—R. B.]
[Footnote 137: They probably never took the trouble to sow them.—R. B.]
[Footnote 138: Note by Mr. Merrick.—‘Whenever an Isubu (Bimbia) man
dies, all the cloth he possesses is spread out on the housetop and
exposed to public view. In accordance with this custom the Bwea men
think that the genii of the mountains entertain so much respect for
their chiefs as on their death to exhibit a variety of cloths.’]
[Footnote 139: Conference.]
[Footnote 140: It is a wild custom not known to the Duallas of the
Camaroons River.—R. B.]
[Footnote 141: Obásí, God—plur. Báobásí—á, of; and Lobá, heaven.—R. B.]
[Footnote 142: There are also towns of this name on the east of the
mountain.—R. B.]
[Footnote 143: Prop. Moonggo, plur. Mionggoo.—R. B.]
[Footnote 144: ‘Alluding to the plants which I brought down with
me.’—M.]
[Footnote 145: ‘This district is some distance to the north of
Bwea.’—M.]
[Footnote 146: Dibombe is an Isubu statute, which originated a few years
ago in a dream. One Mfá má Ile, a man of the Ekombi district inland and
north of Bimbia, saw a vision in which many dead men warned him of the
evil of murdering or maiming, and that the bush people were to hang or
wound the criminal only, not his innocent relations. The wholesome law
is now, I fear, in abeyance.—R. B.]
[Footnote 147: Our party found it very different.—R. B.]
[Footnote 148: The shirt is still a favourite present: it makes a
gentleman.—R. B.]
[Footnote 149: This shows the size of the ‘towns.’—R. B.]
[Footnote 150: Generally called Jángí.—R. B.]
APPENDIX III.
* * * * *
ENUMERATION of the MOUNTAIN FLOWERING PLANTS and FERNS collected by M.
GUSTAV MANN, Government Botanist, during his various ascents of the
Camaroons Mountains, of Clarence Peak, Fernando Po, and of the Peak of
San Thomé. By J. D. HOOKER, M.D., F.R.S. and L.S., &c.
The figures denote the elevations at which the species were found.
F. signifies Fernando Po.
C. „ Camaroons Mountains.
S. T. „ Peak of San Thomé.
Clematis simensis, Fres. F. C. 4-8,000
Thalictrum rhyncocarpum, A. R. F. C. 7-10,000
Ranunculus pinnatus, Poir. var. F. 8,000
Stephania hernandifolia, Wall. F. C. 3-7,000
Cardamine hirsuta, L. F. C. 7-10,000
„ Africana, var. F. 7,500
Viola Abyssinica, Steud. F. C. 7-1,000
Pittosporum Mannii, n. sp. F. C. 8,500
Polygala tenuicaulis, n. sp. C. 7,000
10 Silene Biafræ, n. sp. C. 8-10,000
Cerastium vulgatum, L. C. 8,000
Stellaria drynarioides, n. sp. C. 7,000
Arenaria Africana, n. sp. C. 7-10,000
Sagina Abyssinica, Hochst. F. C. 8-11,000
Drynaria condata, Willd. C. 7,000
Hypericum angustifolium, Lamk. F. C. 4-10,000
Radiola millegrana, L. C. 7,000
Geranium Emirnense, Hils. and Boj. F. 8,500
Geranium Simense, Hochst. C. 7,000
20 „ favosum, Hochst. C. 7,000
Oxalis corniculata, L. F. C. 7-8,500
Impatiens Sakeriana, n. sp. C. 7,000
„ filicornu, n. sp. F. 4-5,000
Clausena inæqualis, Benth. C. 7-7,500
Brucea antidysenterica, Mill. C. 7-7,500
Gomphia micrantha, n. sp. F. 5,000
Ilex Capensis, S. and H. C. 4-7,500
Vitis cyphopetala, Fres. C. 7,000
Schmidelia Abyssinica, Hochst. C. 7-7,500
30 Adenocarpus Mannii, n. sp. F. C. 7-12,000
Trifolium subrotundum, St. and Hoch. F. 9,000
„ Simense, Fres. F. C. 7-8,500
Indigofera atriceps, n. sp. C. 7,000
Desmodium strangulatum, W. and A. C. 2-7,000
Shuteria Africana, n. sp. C. 7,000
Dalbergia, n. sp. C. 5,000
Rubus apetalus, Poir. F. C. 4-9,000
Alchemilla tenuicaulis, n. sp. F. C. 7-7,500
Pygeum Africanum, n. sp. C. 7-7,500
40 Tillæa alsinoides, n. sp. F. 7,500
„ pharnaceoides, Hochst. C. 7,000
„ pentandra, Royle C. 8,000
Umbilicus pendulinus, D. C. C. 7-10,000
Crassula Mannii, n. sp. C. 6-10,000
Kalanchœ Ægyptiaca, D. C. C. 3-7,000
Mukia, n. sp. F. C. 7,000
Bryonia, n. sp. C. ?
Hydrocotyle, n. sp. F. 7,000
„ Americana, L.? F. 8,500
50 Sanicula Europæa, L. F. C. 4-7,500
Agrocharis melanantha, Hochst. F. C. 7-8,000
Pimpinella oreophila, n. sp. F. C. 10,000
Peucedanum Petitianum, A. R. F. 9-9,500
Anthriscus Africanus, n. sp. C. 4-7,000
Paratropia Mannii, n. sp. F. C. 5-7,000
„ elata, n. sp. C. 7,500
Loranthus oreophilus, Oliv. C. 6-8,000
Baconia montana, n. sp. C. 7,000
Ixora C. 5,000
60 Vignaldia occidentals, n. sp. F. C. 7-9,000
Anthospermum asperuloides, n. sp. F. C. 10-12,000
Galium rotundifolium, L. F. C. 7-12,000
„ aparine, L. F. C. 7-10,000
Scabiosa succisa, L. C. 10,500
Vernonia myriantha, n. sp. F. C. 3-7,000
„ blumeoides, n. sp. C. 4-7,000
„ Mannii, n. sp. C. 7,000
„ Clarenceana, n. sp. F. 7,500-8,500
Stengelia nobilis, n. sp. C. 2-5,000-7,000
„ insignis, n. sp. C. 3-7,000
Adenostemma viscosum, Forst. F. C. 2-8,000
70 Mikania chenopodifolia, Willd. C. 4-7,000
Microglossa densiflora, n. sp. C. 7,000
Dichrocephala latifolia, D. C. C. 7,000
„ chrysanthemifolia, D. C. C. 7,000
„ oblonga, n. sp. F. 10,700
Blumea alata, D. C. C. 7-8,000
Verbesina monticola, n. sp. C. 5-7,000
Telekia Africana, n. sp. C. 7,000
Helichrysum Mannii, n. sp. F. C. 8-13,000
„ fœtidum, Cass. F. C. 4-10,000
80 „ Hochstetteri, Sch. F. C. 7-8,500
„ chrysocoma, Sch. F. C. 7-11,000
„ globosum, Sch. F. C. 7-10,000
„ Biafranum, n. sp. C. 7,000
Gynura vitellina, Bth. F. C. 2-8,500
Senecio Clarenceana, n. sp. F. C. 7-11,000
„ Mannii, n. sp. F. C. 25-7,500
„ Bojeri, D. C. C. 7,000
„ Burtoni, n. sp. C. 8-12,000
Lactuca Capensis, Th. C. 5-7,500
90 „ glandulifera, n. sp. C. 7-8,000
Sonchus angustissimus, n. sp. C. 7-8,000
Anisoramphus hypochæroides, D. C. C. 7-13,500
Wahlenbergia polyclada, n. sp. F. C. 7-8,000
„ arguta, n. sp. F. C. 7-9,000
Cephalostigma Perottetii, A. D. C. C. 7,000
Lobelia columnaris, n. sp. F. C. 7,000
„ acutidens, n. sp. F. 9,000
Leucothoe angustifolia, D. C. F. C. 4-9,000
Blæria spicata, Hochst. F. C. 10-10,700
100 Ericinella Mannii, n. sp. F. C. 4-11,000
Ardisiandra Sibthorpioides, n. sp. F. C. 7-7,500
Mæsa Indica, A. D. C. F. C. 5-7,000
Myrsine melanophlœos, Br. C. 4-7,500
Anthocleista scandens, n. sp. F. 5,000
Nuxia congesta, Br. C. 7-7,500
Sebæa brachyphylla, Griseb. F. C. 7-10,000
Swertia pumila, Hochst. C. 8-10,000
„ Mannii, n. sp. C. 7-8,000
„ Clarenceana, n. sp. F. C. 6-10,700
110 Cynoglossum micranthum, Desf. C. 7-8,000
„ lancifolium, n. sp. C. 7-8,000
Myosotis stricta, Link. F. C. 8-10,000
Limosella aquatica, L. F. 9-10,000
Veronica Mannii, n. sp. F. C. 7-10,700
„ Africana, n. sp. C. 7,000
Sibthorpia Europæa, L. F. C. 7-7,500
Celsia densifolia, n. sp. F. 8,500
Alectra Senegalensis, Roth. C. 7,000
Bartsia Abyssinica, Hochst. C. 7-9,000
120 Sopubia Madagascariensis, Roth. C. 6-7,000
Plectranthus glandulosus, n. sp. F. C. 7,000
„ insignis, n. sp. C. 7,000
„ ramosissimus, n. sp. F. C. 5-7,000
„ decumbens, n. sp. C. 7,000
Coleus glandulosus, n. sp. C. 2,500-7,000
„ tenuicaulis, n. sp. C. 7,000
„ Mannii, n. sp. C. 5-6,000
Pycnostachys Abyssinica, Fres. F. C. 6-7,000
Micromeria punctata, Br. C. 7-10,000
130 Calamintha Simensis, Br. F. C. 7-10,500
Nepeta robusta, n. sp. C. 6-8,000
Stachys aculeolata, n. sp. F. 9,000
Leucas deflexa, n. sp. C. 7,000
„ oligocephala, n. sp. C. 7-8,000
Solanum nigrum, L. C. 7-10,000
„ Indicum, L. F. C. 6-7,000
Discopodium penninervium, Hochst. F. C. 4-7,000
Utricularia orbiculata, Wall. C. 5,000
„ „ n. sp. C. 4-6,000
Plantago palmata, n. sp. F. C. 7-8,000
140 Rumex Abyssinicus, Jacq. C. 4-7,000
„ obtusifolius, L. var. C. 7,000
Polygonum Nepalense, Meism. F. 7,500
Achyranthes argentea, L. C. 7,000
Cyathula cylindrica, Moq. F. C. 7-10,000
Lasiosiphon glaucus, Fres. C. 7-7,500
Peddiea parviflora, n. sp. F. 5,000
Thesium tenuissimum, n. sp. F. C. 8-9,000
Euphorbia ampla, n. sp. F. C. 7-8,500
Phyllanthus, n. sp. C. 7,000
150 Claoxylon Mannii, n. sp. F. 5,000
Parietaria Mauritanica, L. C. F. 7-8,000
„ debilis, Forst. C. ?
Laportea alatipes, n. sp. C. 7,000
Elatostemma monticola, n. sp. C. 7,000
Pilea quadrifolia, A. Rich. C. 7,000
Myrica salicifolia, Hochst. C. 7-8,000
Lecanthus Wightii, Wedd. F. 7,500
Urera „ n. sp. C. 5,000
Peperomia Mannii, n. sp. C. 7-8,000
160 „ monticola, n. sp. C. 8,000
Coccobryon Capense, Kl. C. 7,000
Podocarpus Mannii, n. sp. S. T. ?
Liparis Capensis, Lindl. C. 6-7,000
Bolbophyllum tenuicaule, n. sp. F. 5,000
„ Mannii, n. sp. F. 4-5,000
„ monticolum, n. sp. C. 5,000
„ aurantiacum, n. sp. C. 5-6,000
„ bifarium, n. sp. C. 5,000
„ „ n. sp. C. 5,000
170 Angræcum arcuatum, Lindl. C. 4-6,000
„ „ n. sp. C. 5,000
Polystachys Alpina, Lindl. F. 6,000
„ „ C. 5,000
„ „ C. 5,000
„ „ C. 5,000
„ „ C. 5,000
„ „ C. 5,000
Calanthe corymbosa, n. sp. F. 5,000
Disa alpina, n. sp. C. 7,000
180 Peristylus 3-dentatus, n. sp. C. 7,000
Habenaria debilis, n. sp. C. 7,000
„ attenuata, n. sp. C. 7,000
„ microceras, n. sp. C. 7,000
„ præalta, Lindb. F. 10,000
„ Mannii, n. sp. C. 7,000
Trichonema bubocodium. C. 7-9,000
Geissorhiza alpina, n. sp. C. 9-10,000
Hypoxis villosa, L. C. 7-7,500
Melanthium tenue, n. sp. F. 9,000
190 Commelyna, n. sp.?. C. 7,000
Cyanotis Abyssinica, A. Rich. F. C. 7-9,000
Juncus capitatus, Wieg. C. 7,000
Lugula campestris, L. F. C. 8-10,000
Cyperus elegantulus, Steud. F. 8,500
„ ingratus, Kth. F. C. 6-7,000
„ adœnsis, Hoch. F. 8,500
Kyllingia macrocephala F. C. 7,000
Isolepis capillaris, R. and S. F. C. 8-10,500
„ schœnoides, Kth. F. C. 7-9,000
200 Carex cruciata, var? St. T. ?
„ Wahlenbergiana, Boott. F. 8,000
„ Boryana, Schk. F. 7,500-8,500
„ Æthiopica, Schk. C. 7-10,000
„ Echinochlœ, Kunth. C. 7,000
Panicum Hochstetteri, Steud. C. 7,000
„ acrotrichum, n. sp. C. 7,000
„ monticolum, n. sp. C. 7,000
„ pusillum, n. sp. C. 7-8,000
Isachne refracta, n. sp. C. 7,000
210 Pennisetum riparioides, Hoch.? C. 7-8,000
Vilfa montana, n. sp. C. 7-9,000
Deyeuxia Mannii, n. sp. F. C. 8-13,500
Microchloa setacea, Br. C. 7,000
Deschampsia cæspitosa, P. B. F. C. 9-12,000
Aira caryophyllea, L. C. 7-8,000
„ pictigluma, Steud. C. 9-13,500
Avena lachnantha, Hoch. C. F. 7-9,000
„ Neesii, Steud. C. 7-8,000
Loudetia elegans, Hoch. C. 7,000
220 Danthonia streblochæte, H. C. 8,000
Poa nemoralis, L. F. C. 7-10,000
Kœleria cristata, Pers. C. 8-12,000
Vulpia bromoides, Pal. C. 7-10,000
Festuca Simensis, Hoch. F. C. 7-8,500
„ gigantea, Vill. F. 8,500
„ Schimperiana, A. R. F. C. 8-13,500
Tripogon major, n. sp. C. 7-8,000
Bromus scabridus, n. sp. C. 7-8,000
Brachypodium sylvaticum, Pal. F. 7,000
230 Andropogon distachyus, L. C. 7,000
„ brachyatherus, Hoch.? C. 8,000
„ Mannii, n. sp. F. 8,500-9,000
„ Smithianus, n. sp. C. 7,000
„ pusillus, n. sp. C. 7,000
235 Arundinella elegantula, n. sp. C. 6-7,000
FILICES.
Gleichenia dichotoma S. T. from 7,000
Cyathea, n. sp. St. T. F. C.?
Adiantum Æthiopicum C. 7,000
Lonchitis glabra S. T. C. F. 7,000
Hypolepis pteridioides C. 7,000
Cheilanthes farinosa C. 7-10,000
Pellæa hirsuta C. 7,000
Pteris quadri-aurita C. 7,000
„ flabellata F. 7,000
„ aquilina C. 7,000
Asplenium anisophyllum C. 3-7,000
„ erectum F. C. 3-7,000
„ monanthum F. 8,000
„ protensum F. C. 7,000
„ Serra F. C. 3-7,000
„ furcatum, var. C. 8,000
„ Adiantum-nigrum C. 10,000
„ Abyssinicum F. C. 3-7,000
„ brachypterum C. 3-7,000
„ Filix-fœmina C. 7,000
„ aspidioides F. C. 5-7,000
Aspidium aculeatum F. C. 7-10,000
Nephrodium crini-bulbon S. T. C. 4-7,000
„ filix-mas S. T. 6,000
„ inæquale F. C. 7-10,000
Nephrolepis tuberosa S. T. C. 4-5,000
Polypodium villosissimum St. T. 6,000
„ rugulosum F. 7,000
„ „ n. sp. C. 7,000
„ oppositifolium S. T. 5,000
Pleopeltis lanceolata C. 7,000
„ nuda S. T. F. 3-5,000
Gymnogramme Javanica S. T. F. C. 3-7,000
„ Totta F. C. 1-7,000
„ lanceolata F. C. 3-7,000
Elaphoglossum hybridum F. C. 4-8,000
„ splendens F. C. 5-7,000
Acrostichum sorbifolium F. 5-7,000
Ophioglossum reticulatum F. 10,500
Lycopodium crassum C. 1-5,000
Selaginella, sp.? F. 8,000
„ sp.? S. T. 5,000
APPENDIX IV.
* * * * *
NOTES on certain MAMMALIA, BIRDS, SNAKES, and LANDSHELLS collected on
CAMAROONS MOUNTAINS, by Captain BURTON, H.M. Consul, Fernando Po. By Dr.
G. R. GRAY, and Dr. WM. BAIRD.
(Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 1862, p. 180.)
_Crocidura Morio_, sp. nov.
Uniform rather brownish black, rather paler and browner beneath. Teeth
white. Feet very slender, weak. Tail nearly as long as the body and
head, very slender, annulated, covered with very short closely
adpressed hair.
Length of body and head, dry, 2¾ inches; tail, dry, 2 inches.
‘_Mole_ from Camaroons Mountains, 7000 feet above the level of the
sea, January 1862.’
_Sciurus Isabella_, sp. nov.
Yellowish brown, minutely grizzled, with four broad dorsal streaks—the
two central from the crown of the head to the base of the tail, the
side ones from the shoulder only; the underside whitish grey. Tail
slightly annulated.
Length of body and head 7 inches; tail 5 inches.
‘_Squirrel_ from the Camaroons Mountains, 7000 feet above the level of
the sea, January 1862.’
I have great pleasure in naming this beautiful new species after Mrs.
Isabel Burton,—her husband, the discoverer of it, having requested
that any novelty that might be in the list should be so named.
_Anomalurus Beecroftii_, Fraser.
‘A _Flying Squirrel_, shot in the Camaroons Mountains, 7000 feet above
the level of the sea. Colour of the eyes dark grey. January 18, 1862.’
_Mus Maura_, sp. nov.
Fur very soft and silky; above black, slightly marked with brown from
the minute brown tips of the hairs; beneath whitish—the hair of the
underside black, white-tipped. Teeth very narrow, orange. Ears
rounded, moderate. Sides of the nose and edge of the orbits black.
Eyes covered with very short close-pressed hairs. Tail very long,
slender, closely annulated with very slender, very short adpressed
hair.
Length of body and head 4½ inches; tail 5 inches; hind foot very
nearly 1 inch.
‘Camaroons Mountains, 7000 feet above the level of the sea.’
_Euryotis Irrorata_, sp. nov.
‘Rat from the Camaroons Mountains, 7000 feet above the level of the
sea. January 1862.’
I am not certain about this species until I can compare the skull with
those of the other species of the genus from Africa, as they are all
very similar externally.
With these animals was sent the skin of a Chimpanzee without its skull,
but with the bones of the hand and feet enclosed in the skin. This skin
differs from all the other specimens of this species which I have seen,
in being covered with much more abundant and softer fur, and in the fur
of the back being of a brown colour from the large brown tips to the
blackish hair. It would seem to indicate a distinct variety or species,
which may be designated, until we receive better specimens and more
particulars, _Troglodytes vellerosus_.
DESCRIPTIONS OF A FEW WEST-AFRICAN BIRDS.
BY DR. G. R. GRAY.
(From the ‘Annals and Magazine of Natural History’ for Dec. 1862.)
* * * * *
_To the Editors of the ‘Annals of Natural History.’_
GENTLEMEN,
The following descriptions of a few birds, which appear new to the fauna
of West Africa, may interest some of your readers. They were collected
on the Camaroons Mountains, at an elevation of 7000 feet above the level
of the sea. They were sent to Mrs. Isabel Burton, the estimable lady of
the distinguished traveller and Consul, Capt. Burton, and kindly
presented by her to the British Museum.
_Pratincola Salax_.
_Pratincola salax_, Verr., Rev. et Mag. de Zool. 1851, p. 307.
_Cossypha Isabellæ_.
Head black, with a shining white mark between the nostril and the
middle above the eye; back olivaceous-black; wings black, each feather
margined with olivaceous; beneath the body rufous-buff, deeper on the
breast; rump and outer tail-feathers deep rufous, with the tips of the
second, third, and fourth feathers, and tip and outer margin of the
first feather, black; the four middle feathers black, with the outer
margin of the fifth near the base deep rufous.
Total length, 6″; wings 2″ 11‴; tarsi, 13‴; bill from gape, 9‴.
This bird is named in compliment to Mrs. Isabel Burton.
_Zosterops (Speirops) melanocephalus_.
Mouse-colour, washed with olivaceous; head sooty black, with a spot on
each side between the nostril and eye; mentum and under wing-coverts
white; beneath the body pale obscure grey, tinged with olivaceous;
quills and tail fuscous-black, the former margined outwardly with
grey. Bill and feet whitish horn-colour.
Total length, 4″ 9‴; wings, 2″ 5‴; tarsi, 9‴; bill from gape, 7‴.
_Trichophorus tephrolæmus_.
Yellowish-olive; head and throat slate-colour, darker on the head;
abdomen yellow; breast, sides, and under tail-coverts olivaceous-
yellow; quills fuscous-black, with outer webs olivaceous, the inner
web margined near the base with buff; tail dull olivaceous, the end of
the outer feather slightly tipped with yellow; bill black; feet
plumbeous.
Total length, 7″ 6‴; wings, 3″ 3‴; tarsi, 10‴; bill from gape, 10‴.
Closely allied to _Trichophorus canicapillus_, Hartl.; but the throat
is pale ash-colour.
_Euplectes phœnicomerus_.
Black; rump and wing-coverts pale clear yellow; under wing-coverts
pale rufous-white; thighs pale brown.
Like _E. xanthomelas_; but the yellow on the rump and wings is paler,
and the thighs are pale brown instead of black.
Total length, 5″ 3‴; wings, 2″ 10‴; tarsi, 11‴; bill from gape, 7½‴.
_Ligurnus[151] olivaceus_, Hartl.
_Coccothraustes olivaceus_, Fras., Proc. Z. S. 1842, p. 144.
Adult male yellowish-olivaceous; head and throat deep black; sides and
a narrow band round the neck, rump, and beneath the body bright
orange-yellow; quills black, with the tertials and larger wing-coverts
margined outwardly with bright yellow, and the quills inwardly with
white; tail olivaceous-green, with each feather margined on the sides
and tip with bright yellow; bill orange; feet pale.
The _female_ agrees with Mr. Fraser’s typical specimen, said to have
been obtained at Fernando Po, and which is now deposited in the
British Museum. It is figured in the ‘Zoologica Typica,’ pl. 47, by
Mr. Fraser.
_Young._—Dull olivaceous-green; beneath the body dull olivaceous-
yellow; bill and feet blackish lead-colour.
_Strobilophaga Burtoni_.
Fuscous, varied with pale olivaceous on the sides of the plumes; wing-
coverts fuscous-black, tipped with white; quills and tail fuscous-
black, margined narrowly with yellow; abdomen obscure white, spotted
with fuscous-black down the shaft of some of the feathers; upper
mandible horn-colour, lower mandible white; feet plumbeous.
Total length, 7″; wings, 3″ 6‴; tarsi, 9‴; bill from gape, 8‴.
The formation of this bird agrees in every respect with the genus
_Pinicola_ or _Strobilophaga_. A species of this genus has not
hitherto been recorded as found in Africa.
To these may be added the
_Cosmetornis Burtoni_.
It is very similar to the _Cosmetornis vexillarius_ (Gould), G. R.
Gr., but differs in the white spot at the base of each quill being
narrower, while the white at the tip of the second, third, fourth, and
fifth quills is more prominent and slightly mottled with rufous on the
outer web; the first quill longer than the second, fuscous-black, and
partly margined with rufous on the outer webs; the sixth feather is
rather longer than the fifth, the seventh rather longer than the
latter; both are fuscous-black, slightly mottled with pale rufous,
having the bases of the inner webs white; the eighth is much longer
than the first quill, and fuscous-black, slightly mottled with pale
rufous, the base of the inner web white or pale rufous; the ninth
feather (or, as it has been termed, ‘standard feather’) is the longest
of all, measuring more than 17 in.; it is white at the base of both
inner and outer webs, but passing into pale rufous, or rufous-white
mottled with black, on the outer web, while the inner is only rufous-
white for its entire length from the basal white.
The specimen is in an imperfect state, and only sufficient to afford
the above description so as to distinguish it from the previously
known species. The British Museum is indebted to the liberality of
Capt. Burton, H.M. Consul, who has just sent it with other zoological
specimens, all marked as from Fernando Po, and after whom I have the
pleasure of naming this interesting bird.
Major Burton has also sent to the British Museum a new kind of viper
(_viperidæ_). It is probably scarce, as only a single specimen was sent
in the collection.
Dr. Gunther has thus described it in the _An. and Mag. N. Hist._ 1863,
25, and intends to give a figure of it in the Proceedings of the
Zoological Society.
_Pœcilostolus_.
Head thick, broad, covered with strongly keeled scales; body
compressed; tail prehensile, subcaudal shields. Entire.
This genus differs from _Echis_ in its compressed body, prehensile
tail, and bright colours. While _Echis_ is confined to dry sandy
plains, _Pœcilostolus_ inhabits trees and bushes. _Vipera chlorœchis
Schegel_ probably belongs to the same genus.
_Pœcilostolus Burtoni_.
Scales strongly keeled, in nineteen rows; upper row nine, none of
which enter the orbit; rostral shield very low, linear, with other
scale-like shields above. Entirely bright yellow, single scales green.
_Inhab._ Camaroons country.
* * * * *
DESCRIPTIONS OF TWO SPECIES OF SHELLS FROM CAMAROONS MOUNTAINS. BY WM.
BAIRD.
1. _Achatina Isabel_, Baird, sp. nov.
Testa cylindracea, fulva, minute undulato-striata et parum decussata,
anfractibus octo, ultima tumida, dimidiam totæ testæ æquante, suturis
impressis, apertura semilunari, parva.
Longitudo, 1⅓ unc.—Latitudo maxima, ½ unc.
Habitat, Montes Camaroons dictæ, in Africa Occidentali.
This shell is covered with an epidermis of a dark fulvous colour, and
its surface is marked by numerous fine longitudinal striæ, which are
most distinct near the suture, are waved and impressed, while at the
same time several indistinct transverse lines run across them, giving
a somewhat decussated appearance. The whirls are eight in number, the
apical ones blunt, the last tumid and about half the length of the
whole shell. The outer lip is thin, and the interior of the semilunar
aperture somewhat purplish. The sutures are distinct, and rather
deeply impressed.
2. _Achatina montana_, Baird, sp. nov.
Testa parva, cylindracea, gracili, olivacea, nitida, prope suturas
undulato-striata, anfractibus octo, ultimo tertiam partem testæ
æquante, suturis impressis, apertura semilunari, parva.
Longitudo, lin. 13.—Lat. max. lin. 3½.
Habitat, Montes Camaroons dictæ, in Africa Occidentali.
This species of Achatina is much more slender and smoother than the
preceding, and is of a darker colour. The apex is blunt, and the last
whirl is much less tumid than the corresponding whirl of _A. Isabel_,
and is shorter, being only about one-third the length of the shell.
The surface is striated, but the striæ are scarcely perceptible except
near the sutures, which are well marked and impressed.
[Footnote 151: _Ligurnus rufobrunneus_.—Rufous-brown, slightly darker
along the shaft of each feather; wings and tail dull brown, margined
with rufous-brown; beneath the body much paler, varied in some places
with darker; bill and feet horn-colour.
Length, 6″; wings, 3″ 5‴; tarsi, 9‴; bill, from gape, 7‴.
This bird has been many years in the collection of the British Museum.
It was brought to this country from Western Africa by Capt. (now Major-
General) Sabine, R.A., and was presented by him to that institution.]
APPENDIX V.
* * * * *
REPORTS AND LETTERS TOUCHING AMBAS BAY.
No. 1.
59 Fenchurch Street, August 15, 1856.
MY LORD,
I take the liberty of enclosing a memorandum on the High Land of
Camaroons, the only position on the West Coast of Africa where immunity
from tropical fever can be attained.
The great change that the suppression of the slave trade will make in
our commercial relations with the Coast of Africa, adds greatly to the
value of this position, as we have no port from Sierra Leone to the
Cape, where, in case of war, a British vessel could find protection.
At present several British merchants have formed establishments at
Fernando Po, as depôts for their trade with the mainland; but they are
merely on sufferance, as the Spanish Government might at any time, by
enforcing their tariff, render it impossible for them to continue.
I have no doubt that, if the British flag were hoisted at Amboises, it
would, in a few years, be the Singapore of Western Africa from its
position and climate.
I have, &c.
(Signed) M. LAIRD.
The Right Hon. the Earl Grey.
No. 2.
_Memorandum on the High Land of Camaroons, in the Bight of Biafra, as a
site for a European Settlement, above the level of Tropical Fever._
1. The physical characteristic of the West Coast of Africa, and the
principal cause of its unhealthiness to Europeans, is its slight
elevation above the level of the sea. From the range of the Atlas to the
Cape of Good Hope, a distance of nearly 6000 miles, with the exception
of the high land of Camaroons, there is no land of sufficient elevation
to secure immunity from the fatal African fever.
2. The high land of the Camaroons is situated at the extreme eastern
point of the Gulf of Guinea, in longitude 8° 50′ E. and latitude 4° N.,
bounded on the W. by the Rio del Rey, and on the E. by the Camaroons
River. The highest peak has an elevation of 13,700 feet; the Rumli and
Qua mountains of great height are visible to the N., but no measurement
of their elevation has yet been made: they all form apparently part of
one great mountain-range stretching into the interior.
3. At the foot of the mountain of Camaroons, which abuts abruptly upon
the sea, is the well-sheltered harbour of Amboises, capable of receiving
the largest vessels, open to the sea-breeze, sheltered on the land side
by nearly perpendicular cliffs of considerable height, and capable of
being made a most complete naval station. The harbour was discovered in
1833, and surveyed by Captain Wm. Allen, R.N., of H.M.’s S.S.
‘Wilberforce,’ in 1842. A full description of it, with views of the
surrounding scenery, is given in Captain Allen’s published narrative of
the Niger Expedition of 1841. The land rises from the cliffs which form
the landward side of the harbour, and attains an elevation of upwards of
5000 feet within five miles of it.
4. This is the only point upon the West Coast of Africa, N. of the Cape
Colony, where a European settlement could be formed above the fever-
level, which is presumed to be 4000 feet above the sea.
Its advantages are:—A good open harbour, accessible at all times to
ships of the largest class, and easily descended.
A rapid ascent to a temperate climate, where tropical fever could not
propagate itself.
A small and peaceable native population, confined to the low grounds.
A central position for all the trading ports from Whydah to Camaroons,
being within 100 miles of the Niger, Bonny, and Calabar Rivers, where
the bulk of the palm-oil trade is carried on.
In case of war, a settlement at this point would command the embouchures
of all the rivers in the Bight of Biafra, and be a key to the only
entrance into the continent that seems practicable by land.
5. From the twentieth parallel of south latitude to ten north, and for
an average breadth of 25° of longitude, covering a space of nearly
3,000,000 square miles, lies the _terra incognita_ of Africa: to the
modern as well as to the ancient world, the sources of the Nile, the
Sharry, and the Congo, and the countries which for centuries have given
out their people as slaves, are unknown; the deadly climate of the low
ground has proved the impassable barrier to discovery.
It is possible that, from Camaroons, an expedition might reach in safety
the elevated plateaus of Central Africa, and fill up the void that now
appears in maps.
6. From the fifth parallel of north latitude to the Sahara and the
plateau of Abyssinia in the east, the depression of the African
continent is very remarkable. The Niger, with its course of 3500 miles,
is only 1600 feet at its source above the level of the sea, and no
travellers have recorded any mountains or even hills of considerable
elevation; the highest seen on the Niger did not exceed 1500 feet.
South of the fifth parallel a very different state of things exists, and
there is strong presumptive evidence that a continuous tract of elevated
land runs from Camaroons to the Indian Ocean, extending S. to the limits
of Cape Colony. The late discoveries made by travellers from the Cape
prove that, as far as the twentieth parallel, Europeans are perfectly
safe in the centre of the continent, while descending on the same
parallel to the coast is eminently dangerous. The discovery of a snowy
range, if correct, on the East Coast, close to the Equator, a latitude
at which the limit of perpetual snow exceeds 18,000 feet, and the high
land which abuts upon the Atlantic at Camaroons, all tend to show that
the southern division of the continent will, when explored, offer a
marked contrast in its physical development to the northern, and
probably contains vast stores of mineral wealth. Copper ore finds its
way in small quantities now to the coast.
7. It is not to be expected that Europeans would settle at Camaroons to
grow tropical produce—they will naturally prefer a healthy tropical
country for that purpose; nor will Africans. The climate of the low
ground does not injure them. Its advantages will be appreciated by the
merchant, who could transact his business at the port during the day,
and sleep in pure air at night. This, with its safe harbour, will make
it the centre of a great trade, and, by the naval service, who could
always command a temperate climate for their invalids, without leaving
the station. A hospital above the fever-level would be the means of
saving many valuable lives annually.
The great value of this position to this country is undoubtedly its
extraordinary adaptation for a penal settlement. Supposing, by that
labour, a good road made to the superior land from the port, European
prisoners might be kept there in perfect security; any attempt to escape
would be defeated by the climate. They would displace no native
population, for that is confined to the low ground. They would be
completely isolated, and governed with greater ease than convict
stations surrounded by white settlers. Employment could be found to any
extent in cutting timber, making roads, and raising their own
provisions.
As long as they remained in the high land they would be safe; the
penalty for leaving it would be levied by nature herself. Ground could
be allotted to the well behaved, and the great source of depravity would
be removed by allowing intermarriage with the native women. A mixed race
would be the result, which experience has found to be the most efficient
way of improving mankind. As long as transportation continues, and the
difficulty of finding a practical substitute for it is generally
acknowledged, there is no part of the world where a convict can be
placed with less injury to his fellow-creatures, and with greater chance
of reformation for himself.
* * * * *
No. 3.
_Rev. Mr. Saker to Mr. Consul Hutchison._
Clarence, Fernando Po, June 30, 1858.
SIR,
The bay of Amboises we entered at 11 A.M., at its N.E. angle; we
found an interior bay hidden from a great part of the principal
anchorage, and its entrance not distinguished without a very near
approach. The heavy headland that defends the great bay from S.W.
storms, continues of the same elevation, and runs into the bay, forming
its S.E. side, and terminates in a precipitous hill, shutting in the
inner bay. Rocks run out from this point in the line of high land, and
extend many yards towards the mainland, thereby narrowing the entrance
to the bay.
On these rocks the surf beats heavily at times. On the mainland, too, a
line of rocks extends in a direction to meet those spoken of above,
thereby narrowing the entrance still more. These last rocks form a
natural pier, on which may be built at small cost a platform for landing
goods, &c. On the inner side of the pier, coal-ships and steam-vessels
may be brought, and discharge or receive coal without delay or damage.
Coals may be conveyed from the pier in carriages on an iron tramway into
the sheds on the beach. The clear entrance to this inner bay is about
half a mile wide, with five and six fathoms water. The shores of this
bay are one continued line of sand, varying at low water from 50 to 100
yards in width, covered entirely with a tide which rises 9 feet on full
and change. The water lies placid on the beach, and boats and small
vessels can be brought to it at all seasons for examination and repair.
This beach is covered by a level bank of two miles’ extent, on which may
be built stores for coal and merchandize, sheds for artificers of all
sorts, and slips for boatbuilding, &c.
The rocky pier forms the N.W. end of this bay, and from that point
begins the N.E. shore of the greater bay, rocky and elevated. Beginning
at the pier-end, a low table-land extends along the beach. Here can be
built a town of large extent, open to the pure sea-breeze by day, and
the mountain-air at night. This table-land is broken, at 330 yards from
the pier, by a stream of pure water from the mountains, here finding its
outlet into the sea. Two other streams of fresh water empty themselves
in the inner bay, but the one first named might be conveyed by pipe to
the pier-head.
A harbour equal to Amboises Bay, a locality so healthy, and a position
for opening a trade with the interior tribes on this mountain-range of
Central Africa, does not exist. The supposed want of a safe landing has
alone prevented it being brought into notice.
In this place we seek to establish a home for our friends, who are, in
effect, expelled from Clarence. There are great difficulties in the way,
but with the aid of our friends in England, especially with the
countenance and support of our Government, we shall overcome them all.
The work before us, besides forming a home for our friends, is the
following:—To establish at the foot of the mountain of Camaroons an
English colony, to be the foundation of an English city. To make that
colony the centre of religious enlightenment, civilization, and
commerce, to be a barrier to slavery, oppression, and cruelty. To
succeed we need first the lawful possession of a tract of land. This I
have limited to our immediate wants; but we need more for expansion and
security. We need that the whole mountain seaboard be the lawful
possession of the British crown.
Her Majesty is now the acknowledged sovereign, but an honourable
purchase from the present chief, who has been raised to authority by
English officers, would prevent all future disputes.
This would be readily effected, and the purchase of an uninhabited
wilderness, as the greater portion is, would be but a trifle. We need
that H.M.’s Government sanction and sustain the effort by making this
English colony and bay their local depôt. And the naval officers would
be but too glad to make this exchange; as a sanitarium, and as a point
of supply of provisions, Clarence cannot be compared to it.
The countenance and support of H.M.’s Government is so essential that,
without it, I fear we shall fail; and I do trust that the objects we
seek to accomplish will commend this effort to the favourable notice of
H.M.’s Government and the Admiralty.
I have, &c.,
(Signed) ALFRED SAKER.
APPENDIX VI.
* * * * *
OBSERVATIONS OF TEMPERATURE BELOW AND UPON THE CAMAROONS MOUNTAINS, KEPT
BY M. GUSTAV MANN, GOVERNMENT BOTANIST, WEST AFRICA, AND SELIM AGA,
BETWEEN THE 6TH DECEMBER, 1861, AND THE 24TH FEBRUARY, 1862.
The instruments used were two Bath Thermometers, Negretti and Zambra,
London (patent, Nos. 1064 and 1063, graduated to 110° and 180° Fah.),
suspended near camp with a south-westerly aspect: one,—the first of the
double observation—in the sun; the other, the second, in the shade; both
3½ feet above the ground. The maximum and minimum were Nos. 2697 and
1764 of Messrs. Negretti and Zambra. In the minimum the alcohol was at
first red; it presently paled to a dull straw yellow. In the remarks I
have used a small pocket thermometer (Fah.) by Messrs. Cary, London.
The correction for No. 1064 (sun therm.) is at 32° − 0·1
„ „ at 42° − 0·1
„ „ at 52° − 0·1
„ „ at 62° + 0·1
„ „ at 72° + 0·1
„ „ at 82° correct.
„ „ at 92° − 0·2
The correction for No. 1063 (shade therm.) is at 32° − 0·1
„ „ at 42° − 0·4
„ „ at 52° − 0·5
„ „ at 62° correct.
„ „ at 72° − 0·4
„ „ at 82° − 0·4
„ „ at 92° − 0·4
The maximum and minimum are correct.
[D.: DATE
MAX.R: MAX. SELF REGIST.
MIN.R: MIN. SELF REGIST.]
+--+----------+---------+----------+--------+-----+-----+--------------+
|D.| 6 A.M. | NOON. | 6 P.M. | WIND. |MAX.R|MIN.R| REMARKS. |
+--+----------+---------+----------+--------+-----+-----+--------------+
| | ° ′| ° ′| ° ′ | | ° ′| ° ′| |
|Dec. 61. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ | 84 50| 75 50}| | | |M. Mann |
| |{ | | }| | | |landed at |
| |{ | | }| | | |Victoria. |
| 6|{ | | }| |84 50| |Base of the |
| |{ | | }| | | |mountain. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Cloudy day, |
| |{ | | }| | | |strong |
| |{ | 96 | 77 }| | | |sea-breeze. |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 70 50| 85 50| 80 }| | | | |
| |{ | | }| | | | |
| 7|{ | | }| |86 |71 50|Do. |
| |{ | | }| | | | |
| |{ 72 50| 104 | 80 50}| | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 74 | 85 | 80 }| | | | |
| |{ | | }| | | | |
| 8|{ | | }| |86 |73 |Do. |
| |{ | | }| | | | |
| |{ 74 50| 105 | 81 }| | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 71 50| 84 | 74 }| | | | |
| |{ | | }| | | |Warm and |
| 9|{ | | }| |85 25|72 |sunny. |
| |{ | | }| | | | |
| |{ 73 | 85 50| 75 50}| | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 67 50| 84 | 82 }| | | | |
| |{ | | }| | | | |
|10|{ | | }| |85 75|67 50|Do. |
| |{ | | }| | | | |
| |{ 69 | 95 | 82 }| | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 70 50| 83 75| 82 }| | | |Do. Heavy |
| |{ | | }| | | |thunderstorm, |
|11|{ | | }| |86 50|70 50|without wind, |
| |{ | | }| | | |at night |
| |{ 71 50| 94 | 82 }| | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 71 | 85 50| 80 50}| | | | |
| |{ | | }| | | |First half of |
|12|{ | | }| |85 25|70 50|day cloudy, |
| |{ | | }| | | |then clear. |
| |{ 71 50| 98 | 81 }| | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 72 75| | 72 }| | | | |
| |{ | | }| | | |At Bosumbo. |
|13|{ | | }| | |72 |Warm, clear |
| |{ | | }| | | |day. |
| |{ 73 | | 73 75}| | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 67 50| 78 25| 72 }| | | | |
| |{ | | }| | | | |
|14|{ | | }| |79 50|66 50|At ditto. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Rain. |
| |{ 69 | 85 25| 73 25}| | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 65 50| | 65 50}| | | | |
| |{ | | }| | | | |
|15|{ | | }| | |65 |At Mapanya. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Sunny day. |
| |{ 66 50| | 69 }| | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 59 50| 76 75| 65 50}| | | | |
| |{ | | }| | | | |
|16|{ | | }| |72 50|59 50|At do. Clear |
| |{ | | }| | | |and sunny. |
| |{ 60 50| 78 50| 69 }| | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 60 50| | }| | | | |
| |{ | | }| | | |On mountain. |
|17|{ | | }| | |61 |Hazy, smoky, |
| |{ | | }| | | |and misty. |
| |{ 62 | | }| | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
|18| Dies non.| | | | | |On ditto. |
| | | | | | | |Cloudy as |
| | | | | | | |usual. At |
| | | | | | | |Victoria |
| | | | | | | |fine, clear, |
| | | | | | | |and warm. |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ | 77 50| 64 75}| | | |Began by |
| |{ | | }| | | |march up the |
|19|{ | | }| Sea- | | |mountain to |
| |{ | | }|breeze. | | |Mapanya. |
| |{ | 75 | 68 75}| | | |Clear and hot.|
| | | | | | | | |
| | | | | [152] | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 60 | 75 | 69 }| | | | |
| |{ | | }| | | |At Mapanya. |
|20|{ | | }| | | |Fine clear |
| |{ | | }| | | |day. |
| |{ 63 | 75 | 71 }| | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 62 25| 78 | }| | | |Left Mapanya; |
| |{ | | }| | | |reached Ridge |
|21|{ | | }| | | |Camp. Hot |
| |{ | | }| | | |day; cold |
| |{ 62 | 76 25| }| | | |night. |
| | | | | | | | |
|22| 68 | | 50 | E. | |40 |Ascended |
| | | | | | | |hill. At 8·30 |
| | | | | | | |Therm. 80°. |
| | | | | | | |Wet day. Cold |
| | | | | | | |wind from E. |
| | | | | | | |At 4·45 P.M. |
| | | | | | | |Therm. 60°. |
| | | | | | | | |
|23| 48 | | | S.W. | | |At 8 A.M. |
| | | | | | | |mist from |
| | | | | | | |S.W., Ther. |
| | | | | | | |68°. At 10 |
| | | | | | | |A.M., in |
| | | | | | | |sun, 92°; |
| | | | | | | |shade, 85°. |
| | | | | | | |At 11 A.M., |
| | | | | | | |cloud and |
| | | | | | | |wind, 72°. At |
| | | | | | | |noon, sun and |
| | | | | | | |cloud, 84°. |
| | | | | | | |At 1 P.M., |
| | | | | | | |misty, in sun |
| | | | | | | |91°. At 4 |
| | | | | | | |P.M., in the |
| | | | | | | |forest, 66°. |
| | | | | | | |Night very |
| | | | | | | |pleasant. |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 53 | 63 50| 55 66}| | | |Cloud at 8 |
| |{ | | }| | | |A.M. On Mount |
| |{ | | }| | | |Helen, Therm. |
| |{ | | }| N. & | | |at 8·30 A.M., |
|24|{ | | }| N.E. | | |57° 5′-58° |
| |{ | | }|Strong. | | |5′, a few |
| |{ | | }| | | |feet below. |
| |{ | | }| | | |At 11 A.M., |
| |{ | | }| | | |in camp, |
| |{ 53 25| 60 75| 55 66}| | | |Therm. 66°. |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 50 50| 61 | 53 50}| | | | |
| |{ | | }| | | | |
|25|{ | | }| | | |Very fine day.|
| |{ | | }| | | | |
| |{ 51 50| 60 25| 55 50}| | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 50 | | 54 }| | | |At 2 P.M. |
| |{ | | }| | | |very thick |
|26|{ | | }| N.E. & | | |mist from W. |
| |{ | | }| | | |like rain. |
| |{ 52 | | 55 }| | | |Carried off |
| |{ | | }| | | |by N.E. wind. |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 48 | 66 50| 54 }| | | |At 5·30 A.M. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Therm. 48°, |
|27|{ | | }| N.E. | | |very little |
| |{ | | }| | | |dew. On Mount |
| |{ 48 50| 66 75| 54 75}| | | |Isabel at 5 |
| |{ | | }| | | |P.M., 40°. |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 49 50| 61 50| 52 }| | | |At 3 P.M. |
| |{ | | }| | | |few drops of |
| |{ | | }| | | |rain. Wet and |
|28|{ | | }| N.E. & | | |misty day. At |
| |{ | | }| | | |night Venus |
| |{ | | }| | | |veiled. Cold |
| |{ 49 50| 60 50| 53 50}| | | |night. |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 50 50| 60 | 53 }| | | |Misty morn |
| |{ | | }| | | |and day. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Threatened |
| |{ | | }| | | |rain, none |
| |{ | | }| | | |came. Loud |
|29|{ | | }| Do. |64 |49 |thunder at |
| |{ | | }| | | |night from W. |
| |{ | | }| | | |and S., but |
| |{ | | }| | | |below gusts |
| |{ | | }| | | |of wind. Cold |
| |{ 50 50| 60 | 54 }| | | |at times. |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 50 75| | 56 50}| | | |Cold, raw |
| |{ | | }| | | |morning, 54° |
| |{ | | }| | | |at 8 A.M. Raw |
| |{ | | }| | | |and misty |
| |{ | | }| | | |till noon, |
|30|{ | | }| N., W. |63 50|49 75|then hot sun. |
| |{ | | }| & E. | | |Heavy cloud |
| |{ | | }| | | |in W.; kind |
| |{ | | }| | | |of Harmattan |
| |{ | | }| | | |day. Wind |
| |{ | | }| | | |from all |
| |{ | | }| | | |quarters. |
| |{ 51 | | 56 50}| | | |Clouds torn |
| | | | | | | |to pieces. |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 49 | 60 | 57 50}| | | | |
| |{ | | }| | | |Very cold |
|31|{ | | }| E.S. & |61 |49 75|wind all |
| |{ | | }| S.W. | | |night. |
| |{ 49 75| 60 | 58 50}| | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
|Jan. 62. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 49 50| | 58 25}| | | | |
| |{ | | }| | | |Cold morning. |
| 1|{ | | }| N.E. & |66 50|49 75|Normal day. |
| |{ | | }| S.W. | | |Misty day. |
| |{ 50 50| | 58 75}| | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 52 | 60 75| 56 25}| | | |Thunder in |
| |{ | | }| | | |morn. Day |
| |{ | | }| | | |cool, misty |
| 2|{ | | }| S.W. & | |52 |and still. |
| |{ | | }| N.E. | | |Even. fine, |
| |{ | | }| | | |warm, and |
| |{ 52 75| 60 75| 56 25}| | | |windless.[153]|
| | | | | | | | |
| 3| 49 | 61 | 54 | Do. | | |Hazy morn. |
| | | | | | | |Dry hazy |
| | | | | | | |noon. At 2 |
| | | | | | | |P.M. misty, |
| | | | | | | |and a few |
| | | | | | | |drops of |
| | | | | | | |rain. Warm |
| | | | | | | |and clear at |
| | | | | | | |3 P.M. Misty |
| | | | | | | |even. This |
| | | | | | | |and the next |
| | | | | | | |day’s obs. |
| | | | | | | |are with 1064 |
| | | | | | | |Therm. placed |
| | | | | | | |in sun. |
| | | | | | | | |
| | | 1 P.M. | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| 4| 48 50| 66 | 55 25 | Do. | | |Misty morn. |
| | | | | | | |and even. |
| | | | | | | |Clear noon. |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 47 | | 57 }| Do. | | |Cool, clear |
| |{ | | }| | | |morn. Day |
| |{ | | }| | | |misty. Fine |
| 5|{ | | }| | | |and windless |
| |{ | | }| | | |evening. At |
| |{ | | }| | | |3·40 P.M. |
| |{ | | }| | | |little rain |
| |{ 47 | | 57 }| | | |from W. |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 49 | 64 | 55 50}| | | | |
| |{ | | }| | | | |
| 6|{ | | }| Do. |72 5|45 |Fine, clear |
| |{ | | }| | | |day. |
| |{ 49 | 63 | 55 }| | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 48 | 70 | 54 }| | | |Day changing. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Sun and mist |
| |{ | | }| | | |alternately. |
| 7|{ | | }| Do. | | |Clouds heavy |
| |{ | | }| | | |in W. From |
| |{ | | }| | | |3 P.M. till |
| |{ | | }| | | |night clear |
| |{ 51 75| 64 75| 53 50}| | | |and light. |
| | | | | | | |Night cold. |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 50 | 83 | 58 }| | | |Fine clear |
| |{ | | }| | | |morn. Raw |
| 8|{ | | }| Do. | | |cloudy day. |
| |{ | | }| | | |In afternoon |
| |{ 51 | 68 25| 56 50}| | | |hot sun. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Beautiful |
| |{ | | }| | | |even. |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 50 50| 59 25| 55 }| | | |Clear morn. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Heavy mist. |
| |{ | | }| | | |At 11 A.M. |
| 9|{ | | }| Do. | | |few drops of |
| |{ | | }| | | |rain (2nd |
| |{ | | }| | | |time). Raw |
| |{ 50 | 58 75| 55 50}| | | |and cold. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Weather seems |
| |{ | | }| | | |breaking. |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 49 74| | 55 25}| | | |At 5·30 A.M. |
| |{ | | }| | | |47°. Heavy |
| |{ | | }| | | |thunder and |
| |{ | | }| | | |lightning at |
| |{ | | }| | | |night almost |
|10|{ | | }| Do. | |41 |overhead. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Morn. clear. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Mist at 10. |
| |{ | | }| | | |All night |
| |{ | | }| | | |thunder and |
| |{ 50 68| | 55 50}| | | |clouds from |
| |{ | | }| | | |S.W. came |
| |{ | | }| | | |overhead. |
| | | | | | | | |
| | 5·30 A.M.| |6·30 P.M. | | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
|11| 47 | 58 | 52 |No wind.| | |Morn. cool |
| | | | | | | |and clear. |
| | | | | | | |Mist at 10 |
| | | | | | | |A.M. Thunder |
| | | | | | | |and lightning |
| | | | | | | |in S.W. At |
| | | | | | | |4 P.M. mild |
| | | | | | | |and pleasant. |
| | | | | | | |Cold night. |
| | | | | | | |Therm. 1064. |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 47 | 68 | 55 }| | | |Very fine |
| |{ | | }| | | |still morn. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Thunder |
| |{ | | }| Land- | | |below. Cold |
|12|{ | | }| breeze | | |mists at 10 |
| |{ | | }| N.E. | | |A.M. till 3 |
| |{ | | }| | | |P.M.; warmer |
| |{ | | }| | | |after noon. |
| |{ 47 50| 61 | 55 50}| | | |Cold, clear |
| |{ | | }| | | |night. |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 49 | 57 75| 54 }| | | |Splendid |
| |{ | | }| | | |morning. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Cool, clear, |
|13|{ | | }| N.E. & | | |and still. |
| |{ | | }| S.W. | | |Raw mist 11 |
| |{ | | }| | | |A.M. to 2 |
| |{ 47 | 57 25| 54 50}| | | |P.M. Still |
| |{ | | }| | | |warm even. |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 49 | 68 | 54 25}| | | |Morn hazy and |
| |{ | | }| | | |still. Mist |
| |{ | | }| | | |10 A.M. to 4 |
|14|{ | | }| Do. | | |P.M. At noon |
| |{ | | }| | | |few drops of |
| |{ | | }| | | |rain. Fine |
| |{ 51 50| 65 50| 54 75}| | | |clear even. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Bright stars. |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 48 | 64 | 56 50}| | | |N. wind about |
| |{ | | }| | | |dawn; W. till |
| |{ | | }| | | |10 A.M., |
| |{ | | }| | | |then S.E. |
| |{ | | }| | | |sea-breeze. |
|15|{ | | }| N.W. & | | |Meridian obs. |
| |{ | | }| S.W. | | |taken at 1 |
| |{ | | }| | | |P.M. Mist |
| |{ | | }| | | |condensed by |
| |{ | | }| | | |cold. Dull, |
| |{ | | }| | | |but still |
| |{ 50 | 61 50| 57 }| | | |even. Cold |
| |{ | | }| | | |night; gusty |
| |{ | | }| | | |near morn. |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 51 50| 62 | 56 }| | | |Misty day. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Very calm in |
|16|{ | | }| N.E. & | | |even. Fine |
| |{ | | }| S.W. | | |night. Clear |
| |{ | | }| | | |moon. Heavy |
| |{ 53 | 61 | 56 }| | | |dew. |
| | | | | | | | |
| | 5 A.M. |1·30 P.M.| | | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 49 | 59? 50| 52 75}| | | |Thunder in |
| |{ | | }| | | |morn. Dull, |
| |{ | | }| | | |misty day. |
|17|{ | | }| Do. | | |In even. |
| |{ | | }| | | |clouds. Stars |
| |{ | | }| | | |obscured. |
| |{ 50 | 58 50| 53 75}| | | |Meridian obs. |
| |{ | | }| | | |at 1·30 P.M. |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 49 25| 70 50| 55 }| | | |Morn. Thun., |
| |{ | | }| | | |dry and fine. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Wind S.W. at |
| |{ | | }| | | |8 A.M. Fine |
|18|{ | | }| Do. | | |clear view of |
| |{ | | }| | | |sea at 5·45 |
| |{ | | }| | | |P.M. Leaves |
| |{ | | }| | | |falling. |
| |{ 50 | 65 75| 55 50}| | | |Swarms of |
| |{ | | }| | | |swifts. Hawks |
| |{ | | }| | | |cry at night. |
| | | | | | | | |
| | 5 A.M. |1·30 P.M.| | | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 51 50| 75 | 55 50}| | | |First heavy |
| |{ | | }| all | | |storm. See |
|19|{ | | }| round | | |diary. |
| |{ | | }|compass.| | |Meridional |
| |{ | | }| | | |observation |
| |{ 52 75| 66 50| 55 50}| | | |at 1·30 P.M. |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 50 | 67 50| 59 50}| | | |Fine clear |
| |{ | | }| | | |morn. Ditto |
| |{ | | }| | | |day. Sharp |
| |{ | | }| | | |cold S.E. |
|20|{ | | }| S.E. | | |wind till |
| |{ | | }| | | |night. At 4 |
| |{ | | }| | | |P.M. hot sun. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Little mist. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Clear moon. |
| |{ 51 | 70 75| 58 50}| | | |Bees swarming |
| |{ | | }| | | |from east to |
| |{ | | }| | | |west. |
| | | | | | | | |
| | 7 A.M. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 51 | 66 50| 53 }| | | |Morn. obs. at |
| |{ | | }| | | |7 A.M. Fine, |
| |{ | | }| | | |clear. Wind |
| |{ | | }| | | |less. Italian |
| |{ | | }| | | |weather. At 7 |
| |{ | | }| | | |A.M. thunder |
|21|{ | | }| N.E. & | | |from N.W. At |
| |{ | | }| S.W. | | |10 A.M. very |
| |{ | | }| | | |heavy mist. 2 |
| |{ | | }| | | |P.M. distant |
| |{ | | }| | | |thunder clap |
| |{ | | }| | | |from N.W. |
| |{ 52 | 65 50| 53 50}| | | |At 3 P.M. |
| |{ | | }| | | |few drops |
| |{ | | }| | | |of rain. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Clearer in |
| |{ | | }| | | |even. Night |
| |{ | | }| | | |thunder from |
| |{ | | }| | | |W. by N.W. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Bees still |
| |{ | | }| | | |swarming. |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 50 50| 52 50| 54 }| | | |Bad thunder |
| |{ | | }| | | |storm. See |
|22|{ | | }| N.E. | | |diary. |
| |{ | | }| etc. | | |Snow seen |
| |{ 52 | 52 50| 54 }| | | |from below |
| |{ | | }| | | |mountains. |
| | | | | | | | |
| | 5 A.M. |45m. P.M.| | | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 50 50| 59 53| 50 }| | | |Morn. obs. |
| |{ | | }| | | |at 5 A.M. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Fine, clear, |
| |{ | | }| | | |and cold |
| |{ | | }| | | |till 10 A.M. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Then mist |
|23|{ | | }| N.E. & | | |from every |
| |{ | | }| S.W. | | |direction. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Thunder |
| |{ | | }| | | |westward, 3 |
| |{ | | }| | | |P.M. Therm. |
| |{ | | }| | | |on ground |
| |{ 51 50| 58 54| }| | | |near Calvo |
| |{ | | }| | | |Crater, in |
| |{ | | }| | | |sun, 82°, |
| |{ | | }| | | |when mist |
| |{ | | }| | | |came over, |
| |{ | | }| | | |74°. |
| | | | | | | | |
| | 4 A.M.| 2 P.M.| | | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 50 | 65 | 55 }| | | |Morn. obs. 4 |
| |{ | | }| | | |A.M. Noon, |
| |{ | | }| | | |2 P.M. Dull |
| |{ | | }| | | |morn. Little |
| |{ | | }| | | |Camaroons |
| |{ | | }| | | |clearly seen. |
|24|{ | | }| E. | | |Heavy mist |
| |{ | | }|strong. | | |from below. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Cold, and |
| |{ | | }| | | |hot sun. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Threatened |
| |{ 50 50| 62 25| 54 75}| | | |rain, but |
| |{ | | }| | | |none fell. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Calm even. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Heavy thunder |
| |{ | | }| | | |at night. |
| | | | | | | | |
| | | 30 P.M.| | | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 48 | 72 | 53 75}| | | |Clear morn. |
| | | | | | | |Misty day and |
|25|{ | | }| N.E. & | | |even. Thunder |
| | | | | S.W. | | |and lightning |
| | | | | | | |below. Fine |
| |{ 49 | 69 50| 54 }| | | |cool night. |
| | | | | | | | |
| | 5·30 A.M.| | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 49 | 65 | 53 50}| | | |Thunder all |
| |{ | | }| | | |morn. Day |
| |{ | | }| | | |misty and |
|26|{ | | }| W. & | | |fine by |
| |{ | | }| S.E. | | |turns. Clear |
| |{ | | }| | | |even. Thunder |
| |{ 49 | 62 50| 54 }| | | |and lightning |
| |{ | | }| | | |at night. |
| | | | | | | | |
| | |2·30 P.M.| | | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 48 50| 80 50| 43 }| | | |Slept on |
| |{ | | }| | | |Mount Isabel. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Morn. cold, |
| |{ | | }| | | |dear. Mists |
| |{ | | }| | | |at 10 A.M. |
|27|{ | | }| Do. | | |Heavy clouds |
| |{ | | }| | | |from E. |
| |{ | | }| | | |At 4 P.M. |
| |{ | | }| | | |therm. 45°. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Rain-drops at |
| |{ 49 50| 78 | 43 }| | | |2 P.M. Heavy |
| |{ | | }| | | |dew. At 5·50 |
| |{ | | }| | | |P.M. 45° and |
| |{ | | }| | | |44°. |
| | | | | | | | |
| | | 11 A.M.| | | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 39 75| 51 50| 41 50}| | | |Morn. and |
| |{ | | }| | | |even. obs. |
| |{ | | }| | | |in Isabel |
| |{ | | }| | | |and Saker’s |
| |{ | | }| | | |Camp. Noon |
|28|{ | | }| Do. | | |on mountain. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Dull red |
| |{ | | }| | | |morn. Cold, |
| |{ | | }| | | |and few |
| |{ 40 | 51 50| 41 50}| | | |clouds at |
| |{ | | }| | | |sunrise. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Slept at |
| |{ | | }| | | |Saker’s Camp. |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 39 | 80 | 42 }| | | |Hoar frost |
| |{ | | }| | | |in morn. At |
| |{ | | }| | | |2 A.M. 37°. |
|29|{ | | }| Do. | | |Grey and |
| |{ | | }| | | |cold. Sun |
| |{ | | }| | | |not visible |
| |{ 39 | 60 | 42 }| | | |till high |
| |{ | | }| | | |up. Slept at |
| |{ | | }| | | |Saker’s Camp. |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 36 | | }| | | |Hoar frost on |
| |{ | | }| | | |clothes. At 2 |
| |{ | | }| | | |A.M. 32° 50′. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Bad thunder |
| |{ | | }| | | |from S.W. A |
| |{ | | }| | | |vile day, |
| |{ | | }| | | |with rain |
| |{ | | }| | | |and hail. |
|30|{ | | }| Do. | | |Descended |
| |{ | | }| | | |to Mann’s |
| |{ | | }| | | |Spring. |
| |{ | | }| | | |See diary. |
| |{ | | }| | | |New moon, |
| |{ | | }| | | |bad omen. |
| |{ | | }| | | |M. Mann’s |
| |{ 36 | | }| | | |maximum |
| |{ | | }| | | |on summit |
| |{ | | }| | | |of Albert |
| |{ | | }| | | |Crater, 55°., |
| |{ | | }| | | |minimum 27°. |
| |{ | | }| | | |At time of |
| |{ | | }| | | |inspection |
| | | | | | | |35°. |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 52 | 75 | 57 }| | | |Left Mann’s |
| |{ | | }| | | |Spring, and |
| |{ | | }| | | |began the |
|31|{ | | }| Do. | | |descent. At |
| |{ | | }| | | |sunrise next |
| |{ | | }| | | |morning, |
| |{ 53 | 67 | 58 }| | | |therm. 46°. |
| |
| I then left the mountain, and soon found myself in an atmosphere |
| of 80° F. |
| |
|M. MANN. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
|Feb. 62. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 49 | | 56 50}| | | |Clear in |
| |{ | | }| | | |morn. and |
| 1|{ | | }| N.E. | | |noon. Even. |
| |{ | | }| | | |very strong |
| |{ 50 5| | 57 50}| | | |wind. Max. |
| | | | | | | |71°. Min. 50°.|
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 48 | | 56 }| | | |Morn. clear |
| |{ | | }| | | |and still. |
| |{ | | }| | | |8 A.M. |
| |{ | | }| | | |wind rose. |
| 2|{ | | }| Do. | | |Thunder. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Clear |
| |{ | | }| | | |afternoon. |
| |{ 49 75| | 57 }| | | |Max. 71°. |
| |{ | | | | | |Min. 48°. |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 51 50| | 55 }| | | | |
| |{ | | }| | | |Cloudy and |
| 3|{ | | }| Do. | | |warm. Max. |
| |{ | | }| | | |71°. Min. 50°.|
| |{ 53 | | 56 25}| | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 50 | | 52 }| | | |Wind light. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Sunny and |
| 4|{ | | }| Do. | | |cloudy by |
| |{ | | }| | | |turns. Max. |
| |{ 52 | | 54 }| | | |69°. Min. 49°.|
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 51 | | 53 }| | | |Calm. Morn. |
| |{ | | }| | | |and even. |
| 5|{ | | }| Do. | | |clear. Cloudy |
| |{ | | }| | | |at midday. |
| |{ 52 | | 54 }| | | |Max. 66°. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Min. 48°. |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 52 | 68 | 54 }| |68 50|48 |Wind light. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Distant |
| 6|{ | | }| Do. | | |thunder from |
| |{ | | }| | | |sea. Cloudy |
| |{ 53 | 65 | 54 50}| | | |and sunny day |
| |{ | | }| | | |by turns. |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 49 | 84 | 52 50}| |63 50|49 | |
| |{ | | }| | | |Wind light. |
| 7|{ | | }| Do. | | |Sunny and |
| |{ | | }| | | |cloudy by |
| |{ 50 | 72 75| 54 25}| | | |turns. |
| | | | | | | | |
| | | 1 P.M. | | | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 50 50| 61 50| 51 50}| | | |Morn. clear |
| |{ | | }| | | |and calm. Day |
| 8|{ | | }| Do. |63 50|49 |and even. |
| |{ | | }| | | |cloudy. |
| |{ 52 50| 60 | 53 }| | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 52 | 69 | 58 25}| | | | |
| |{ | | }| | | | |
| 9|{ | | }| Do. |68 |48 |Strong wind. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Cloudy. |
| |{ 52 50| 68 50| 59 25}| | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 50 50| 73 50| 59 }| | | |Sunny and |
| |{ | | }| | | |warm. Very |
| |{ | | }| | | |pleasant. |
|10|{ | | }| Do. |72 50|51 |Even. clear. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Thunderstorm |
| |{ | | }| | | |and rain at |
| |{ 52 50| 85 | 58 50}| | | |night. |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 51 | 59 50| 54 50}| | | |Foggy till |
| |{ | | }| | | |3·0 P.M. Then |
|11|{ | | }| N.E. |67 75|49 |two hours |
| |{ | | }| | | |sun. After |
| |{ 52 25| 60 | 55 50}| | | |5 P.M. sky |
| |{ | | }| | | |covered. |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 52 | 62 | 52 50}| | | |Rain and calm |
| |{ | | }| | | |in morn. |
|12|{ | | }| Do. |64 |90 |Clear and |
| |{ | | }| | | |calm day. |
| |{ 52 50| 62 | 53 50}| | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 51 | | }| | | |Clear morn. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Calm and |
|13|{ | | }| Do. | |48 50|covered sky |
| |{ | | }| | | |in day. |
| |{ 52 50| | }| | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ | 64 | 60 }| | | |M. Mann |
| |{ | | }| | | |travelled to |
| |{ | | }| | | |Ridge Camp |
|14|{ | | }| all |69 | |this day. At |
| |{ | | }| round. | | |5 A.M. heavy |
| |{ | | }| | | |tornado. |
| |{ | 64 50| 60 50}| | | |Cloudy and |
| |{ | | }| | | |rainy day. |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 63 25| 67 | 65 50}| | | | |
| |{ | | }| | | |Cloudy day. |
|15|{ | | }| Do. |69 |60 |Dry at Ridge |
| |{ | | }| | | |Camp. |
| |{ 64 | 67 50| 66 50}| | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 64 | 66 | 62 50}| | | | |
| |{ | | }| | | | |
|16|{ | | }| Do. |67 50|63 50|Ridge Camp. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Rain all day. |
| |{ 64 50| 66 75| 63 }| | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 63 | 67 | 67 }| | | | |
| |{ | | }| | | | |
|17|{ | | }| Do. |71 50|61 |Day warm and |
| |{ | | }| | | |sunny. |
| |{ 63 | 69 50| 67 50}| | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 64 | | 80 }| | |63 |Descended to |
| |{ | | }| | | |Victoria, |
|18|{ | | }| Sea- | | |where even. |
| |{ | | }|breeze. | | |obs. taken. |
| |{ 64 | | 81 50}| | |R.C. |Day sunny and |
| | | | | | | |warm. |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 73 50| 75 | 73 }| | | | |
| |{ | | }| Sea- | | | |
|19|{ | | }| breeze |78 50|70 50|Rainy day. |
| |{ | | }|(strong)| | | |
| |{ 74 25| 75 50| 74 50}| | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 66 | 88 50| 78 50}| | | | |
| |{ | | }| | | |Day sunny and |
|20|{ | | }| Do. |87 |67 |cloudy. Warm |
| |{ | | }| | | |and dry. |
| |{ 67 50| 87 | 80 }| | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| | |30m. P.M.| | | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 69 | 100 | 81 }| | | 50| |
| |{ | | }| Sea- | | | |
|21|{ | | }| breeze |90 |69 |Sunny and |
| |{ | | }|strong. | | |warm. |
| |{ 70 | 90 | 82 }| | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 73 | 95 | 79 }| | | | |
| |{ | | }| | | |Morn. sunny. |
|22|{ | | }| Do. |88 50|72 |Afternoon |
| |{ | | }| | | |cloudy. |
| |{ 73 | 85 25| 79 50}| | | | |
| | | | | | | | |
| |{ 70 75| 100 | 80 }| | | |Day warm |
| |{ | | }| | | |and sunny. |
|23|{ | | }| Do. |90 |71 |Thunder in |
| |{ | | }| | | |the mountains |
| |{ 71 75| 86 50| 81 }| | | |at noon. |
| |{ | | }| | | |Cloudy for |
| |{ | | }| | | |1h. 30m. |
| | | | | | | | |
|24| 74 50| | | | |73 |M. Mann left |
| | | | | | | |Victoria on |
| | | | | | | |his way to |
| | | | | | | |Camaroons. |
+--+----------+---------+----------+--------+-----+-----+--------------+
[Footnote 152: Our camp below Earthwork Crater was in a thorough
draught, the top of the forest conducting the wind. The prevalent were
the N.E., which is almost constant in the upper regions, and is in fact
the land-breeze rushing from the cold hills to the sea. During the day
we had S.W. or sea-breezes, which brought up clouds.]
[Footnote 153: M. Mann left on Jan. 2nd for the crater, taking his
maximum and minimum thermometers. He returned the 4th Jan., and on the
10th Jan. he left for Victoria, returning on the 25th Jan.]
APPENDIX VII.
* * * * *
HYPSOMETRICAL TABLE OF STATIONS BETWEEN VICTORIA BAY AND CAMAROONS
MOUNTAINS.
M. MANN’S instrument is a B. P. (Fah.) by Negretti and Zambra (no
number). At sea-level, before starting, his readings were:—
212° ·4 }
}
„ ·5 }
}
„ ·4 } Temperature 77° (Fah.).
}
„ ·3 }
}
„ ·3 }
The mean was assumed at 212°·4.
In the evening a series of five readings gave a mean of 212°·3. Temp.
88°·50 (Fah.).
On return to Victoria Bay (Feb. 23rd) five readings gave a mean of
212°·1. Temp. 82°·50 (Fah.).
The medium of M. Mann’s instrument was therefore assumed at 212° + ·3.
The observations were corrected accordingly, and have been marked (M).
Mr. Saker had a French aneroid. I, one by Messrs. Cary, Strand, London,
an expensive and most carelessly made article, whose hand could not even
be screwed round for correction.
My B. P. was the zeometer, a new hypsometric apparatus made by Messrs.
Casella, of 23 Hatton Garden, London. It answered tolerably, but, as has
appeared, the cup was injured during the descent of the mountain on the
27th Dec. 1861, after which the glass tube was used in the ordinary way.
Its observations are marked (B).
The average temperature has been assumed at 78°·5, and the calculations
have been made by Mr. George, of the Royal Geographical Society.
OBSERVATIONS.
-------+---------------------------+---------------------+------------
Date. | Station. | Observation. | Altitude.
-------+---------------------------+---------------------+------------
1861 | | |
| | |
Dec. 14|Bosumbo | 210°·1 (M). Temp. |1055 feet.
| |71°. Mean of two Obs.|
| | |
Dec. 19|Bosumbo |29°·6 Aneroid. Temp. |
| | 78°. |
| | |
Dec. 15|Mapanya |28°·2 Aneroid. Temp. |
| | 79°. |
| | |
Dec. 15|Mapanya | 207°·3 (M). Temp. |2610 „
| | 66°. Morn. |
| | |
Dec. 15|Mapanya | 207°·2 (M). Temp. |2683 „
| | 73°. Even. |
| | |
Dec. 21|Ridge Camp |27°·2 Aneroid. Temp. |
| | 68°. |
| | |
1862 | | |
| | |
Feb. 1 |Fern Gate |204° (B). Temp. 80°. |4535 „
| | |
1861 | | |
| | |
Dec. 23|Black Crater |199° (M). Temp. 63°. |7328 „
| | |
Dec. 24|Mann’s Spring | 198°·7 (M). Temp. |7466 „
| | 58°. |
| | |
Dec. 24|Mann’s Spring | 199°·2 (M). Temp. |7221 „
| | 63°. |
| | |
Dec. 25|Mann’s Spring |200° (B). Temp. 65°. |6762 „
| | |
1862 | | |
| | |
Jan. 27|Foot of Mount Helen |198° (B). Temp. 66°. |7932 „
| | |
1861 | | |
| | |
Dec. 24|Top of Mount Helen | 195°·7 (M). Mean |9223 „
| | of five Obs. Temp. |
| | 58°·50. |
| | |
Dec. 24|Top of Mount Helen | 195°·4 (B). Temp. |9383 „
| | 57°. |
| | |
Dec. 27|Below Earthwork Crater | 24°·15 Aneroid. |Not worth
| | |calculating.
| | |
Dec. 27|Above Earthwork Crater . | 23°·850 Aneroid. |Ditto.
| | |
1862 | | |
| | |
Jan. 28|Crater of Mount Isabel | 193°·9 (M). Mean of |10,187 „
| |five Read. Temp. 50°.|
| | |
Jan. 28|Summit of Mount Isabel | 193°·4 (B). Temp. |10,590 „
| | 60°. |
| | |
Jan. 28|Camp Saker |193° (B). Temp. 48°. |10,595 „
| | |
Jan. 28|Foot of Victoria Mountain | 193°·5 (B). Temp. |10,530 „
| | 60°. |
| | |
Jan. 30|Foot of Mount Hooker | 192°·7 (M). Temp. |10,875 „
| | 48°. |
| | |
Jan. 30|Summit of Mount Hooker | 191°·2 (M). Temp. |11,725 „
| | 45°. |
| | |
Jan. 14|Victoria Crater |188°. Temp. 58° Obs. |13,806 „
| | by Mr. Saker. |
| | |
Jan. 30|Summit of Victoria Mountain| 189°·7 (B). Temp. |12,696 „
| | 51°. |
| | |
Jan. 29|Summit of Albert Crater | 189°·5 (B). Temp. |12,948 „
| | 62°. |
| | |
Jan. 29|Highest Point of Albert | 189°·2 (B). Temp. |13,129 „
|Mountain | 62°. |
-------+---------------------------+---------------------+------------
In assuming 78°·50 (Fah.) as the mean temperature at sea-level, I have
been obliged, for want of other comparison, to adopt the mean of M.
Mann’s observations.
Before leaving Victoria Bay, he made, between the 6th and 12th of
December, 1861, a series of thirteen maximum and minimum observations,
whose mean is 79°.
After returning to Victoria Bay, he made five maximum and six minimum
observations between the 19th and the 24th February, and their mean is
78°.
My friend Major Noeli, of the Spanish artillery, supplied me at Fernando
Po with the following table. It will be seen that the mean of December,
January, and February, 1859-60, are also 78°·50 (Fah.).
OBSERVATIONS OF TEMPERATURE BY MAJOR NOELI, H.C.M.’S ARMY, AT FERNANDO
PO, 1859-1860.
Observations taken at 6 a.m., 8 a.m., 10 a.m., noon when possible, 3
p.m., 10 p.m.
Place:—Room facing N.E., and about 100 feet above sea-level.
----------+-----------------+----------+------------------------------
| Thermometer. |Barometer.|
Date. +----+-----+------+----------+ Remarks.
|Max.|Min. |Mean. | Mean. |
----------+----+-----+------+----------+------------------------------
Sep. 1859.|81·0|69·0 |75·44 | 29·66 |Only taken during last half
| | | | |month. Twelve days’ heavy
| | | | |rain. Frequent fresh breezes
| | | | |when there was no rain.
| | | | |
Oct. „ |83·5|70·0 |76·40 | 29·65 |Nine days’ rain. Sea-breezes
| | | | |when no rain.
| | | | |
Nov. „ |85·0|70·0 |78·05 | 29·61 |Sixteen days’ rain (less
| | | | |copious and shorter), chiefly
| | | | |in early morn. Five mild
| | | | |tornados. Frequent breezes.
| | | | |
Dec. „ |86·0|69·0 |78·90 | 29·59 |9 A.M. 26th. Tornado and
| | | | |rain. Another rainy day, fine
| | | | |drops. Frequent breezes.
| | | | |
Jan. 1860.|86·5|67·5 |77·87 | 29·59 |One rainy day. Frequent
| | | | |breezes. Harmattan. Great
| | | | |heat on calm days.
| | | | |
Feb. „ |88·0|69·0 |78·73 | 29·54 |One day’s rain. Various
| | | | |tornados. Sometimes no
| | | | |sea-breeze till 3 P.M. Great
| | | | |heat. Therm. 88° only one day.
----------+----+-----+------+----------+
Mean of 6 |85° |69°·1|77°·56| 29·612 |
months. | | | | |
----------+----+-----+------+----------+------------------------------
At Fernando Po the barometric wave is at its highest at 9·10 a.m. and
9·10 p.m., and at its lowest at 3·4 a.m. and 3·4 p.m.
THE END.
LONDON. PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET
AND CHARING CROSS.
Transcriber's note:
Page v, in Contents changed: "[Appendix] V." to: "IV.", and inserted
"V. REPORTS AND LETTERS TOUCHING AMBAS BAY — 286"
Page 38, Changed: "to Dr. Baikei’s Niger expedition" to: "Baikie’s"
Page 46, Changed: "supplies from the mainand" to: "mainland"
Page 77, Changed: "_Mormida lucida Benthami_" to: "_Morinda_"
Page 82, Changed: "attire of the Fernadian Bube" to: "Fernandian"
Page 83, Changed: "a form now well-nigh obselete" to: "obsolete"
Page 89, Changed: "were ascepiadæ, gardeniaceæ" to: "asclepiadæ"
Page 139, Changed: "along a crater brenched on the S.E. side" to:
"breached"
Page 239, Changed: "it was usless for me to speak" to: "useless"
Page 257, Changed: "a rule or law, called Diburnbe" to: "Dibumbe"
Page 270, Changed: "Sagnia Abyssinica, Hochst." to: "Sagina"
Page 271, Changed: "Senicula Europæa, L." to: "Sanicula"
Page 272, Changed: "[Lactuca] glanduligera, n. sp." to: "glandulifera"
Page 272, Changed: "Anisoraniphus hyperhæroides" to: "Anisoramphus
hypochæroides"
Page 275, Changed: "[Carex] Echnochlœ, Kunth." to: "Echinochlœ"
Page 277, Changed: "Selagenella" to: "Selaginella"
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