Leeches—Ikorudu—A Blue-blood Negro—Badagry—Flying Foxes—Fetishes—A Smuggler entrapped—Floating Islands—Porto Novo—Thirsty Gods—Cruel Kindness.
Leeches—Ikorudu—A Blue-blood Negro—Badagry—Flying Foxes—Fetishes—A Smuggler entrapped—Floating Islands—Porto Novo—Thirsty Gods—Cruel Kindness.
While at Lagos I heard that there was one of those fortified Mohammedan towns, peculiar to the interior of Western Africa, some eighteen miles to the north-east of the island. I had never seen one of these towns, so I hired a boat and a guide, and started early one morning for this particular one, which was named Ikorudu. We paddled along the lagoon for some distance, until we had passed the mouth of the river Ogu, and then the canoe-men ran the canoe into the mud of a mangrove swamp, and the guide said I was to disembark. I remarked that I did not see any path, and that if I had known that I should have to wade about in liquid mud I would have brought some stilts, but he said the road was better after a little distance, so I got on the shoulders of one of the men and waded ashore.
We walked on along a track three or four inches deep with sticky mud, through an immense swamp. Far away into the gloomy shadows of the bushstretched shallow pools of muddy water, in which the hideous mangrove stretched out its distorted limbs, while the mangrove fish leaped off the roots of the trees and skipped away across the surface of the water at our approach. Suddenly my foot slipped from under me, and I slid along for some distance, only to be brought up violently against a mangrove stump. I rubbed my knee, and anathematised the mudsotto voce. I had hardly moved two paces further when the ground seemed to be cut away from under my feet, and I fell into the arms of my guide. He said—
“You will have to be careful where you tread here.”
I replied:—“So it seems.”
“Yes, there are a lot of them about this morning.”
I asked him what he meant, and he answered by placing a foot on a brown object in the mud and skating along over it. I examined this object, and saw a flattened leech. The swamp was full of these things: thousands of them clustered round the roots of the mangroves, millions lay in the mud covered by the shallow water, and hundreds of them were taking a morning walk over the path. I saw a canoe-man detach one from his ankle and another from the calf of his log, so I took the hint and tucked my trousers into my boots. There were enough leeches here to phlebotomise the whole human race, and I thoughtof returning to England at once, and starting a Company, to be called the Grand International Leech Supply, for furnishing every household with these domestic creatures. As it is I give the idea, gratis, to any one of a speculative turn of mind.
After walking two miles over and through leeches we reached Ikorudu. The town is surrounded by a high and thick swish wall, which is loopholed, and has flanking bastions at irregular intervals; ingress is only obtainable by passing through doorways into swish houses, the floors of the upper rooms of which are loopholed, so that fire can be brought to bear upon the approach below. At one entrance I saw a kind of machicoulis gallery; and considering that the Egbas, against whom these defences were constructed, have no artillery, the place seemed tolerably strong. A broad and deep ditch encircles the whole town.
In 1865 or 1866 an army of twelve thousand Egbas besieged this place, and threw up two entrenched camps in its neighbourhood. The Ikorudans applied to the Government of Lagos for assistance, and the Fifth West India regiment, with the Lagos Police, numbering in all less than five hundred bayonets, were sent to their relief. This handful of men gallantly stormed the entrenchments and completely routed the enemy with heavy loss.To properly estimate this victory it must be remembered that the Fifth West India regiment was not in reality a West India regiment, properly trained and disciplined, but an African regiment, raised entirely from the Yomba and Houssa tribes in and about Lagos, and bearing a very close resemblance to the present Houssa Constabulary. This old habit of entitling African corps West India regiments has led to many unfortunate mistakes, from which the twobonâ fideWest India regiments suffer sometimes even at the present day.
Shortly after this Ikorudu trip I took advantage of the sailing of a small steamer belonging to a mercantile firm at Lagos to proceed to Badagry, which lies to the west, up the Victoria lagoon. It is thirty-three miles from Lagos as the crow flies, but the tortuous nature of the only navigable channel makes the distance very much greater for bipeds not possessed of wings. At 6 a.m. our small craft cast off from the pier, and steamed away in the teeth of the fresh morning breeze, which rippled the surface of the lagoon and fanned our grateful faces. The channel which we followed was generally narrow, though here and there the shores receded and left wide reaches of shallow water, dotted with numerous small wooded islands. In such parts the view was very pretty; and the numerous canoes, bound forLagos with native produce, paddled or poled along by brown-skinned men in loose garbs of brilliant colours, added the requisite life and colour to the scene. Numbers of crocodiles were seen basking on the banks of the islets or the shores of the lagoon, frightening the white cranes and flamingoes as they waddled with a splash into the water on the approach of the steamer. Two would-be sportsmen on board fired several shots at these saurians with those cheap German rifles, which are manufactured by persons who seem to think that back-sights are merely an ornamental appendage. Naturally they wounded nothing more vulnerable than the water or bush.
While we were steaming along a mulatto gentleman came up and entered into conversation with me. He commenced by saying that he supposed I was a stranger, and, after cross-examining me as to my business in Lagos, expatiated upon the scenery, civilisation, and delights of that settlement. After a little he said—
“You may have heard of me; my name is Pilot.”
I replied, “Oh! indeed, you’re the pilot are you? What depth of water have we here?”
“No, no, my dear Sir. You are quite mistaken. I am above menial pursuits of that nature. My name is Pilate. P-i-l-a-t-e.”
“Ah! really. It is a pretty name.”
He smiled a sweetly-satisfied smile, and continued.
“Yes, pretty, but more than pretty—it is historical. You have, of course, heard of my ancestor?”
“N—no. I don’t remember just now.”
“What? Never heard of Pontius Pilate?”
“Pontius Pilate? Oh, yes—died of a skin disease, didn’t he?”
He approached me with a proud and stately stride, and, tapping his manly bosom with a forefinger, said, in a voice thick with emotion, or something stronger—
“That man was my ancestor. I am proud of it. But for him there would have been no sacrifice of the blood of the lamb, and no atonement. He was the greatest benefactor that mankind ever saw, and I—I am his descendant. I am proud of it.”
I said: “This is very interesting—I should like to see your pedigree.”
“Ah! I regret to say that the family records have been sadly neglected—but I have the skin disease of which you spoke. It is hereditary.”
I moved a little further off.
He continued: “Yes, I have the skin disease. It is a proof of what I tell you. Would you like to see it?”
“N—no thanks; I’m afraid I haven’t time just now.”
“It is a sad infliction, but I bear it. Yes, I bearit because it is the Lord’s will. The only thing that gives me any relief is brandy—Have you any about you?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“Rum, perhaps?”
“No, nothing of that kind.”
“Dear, dear—Pardon this spasm, it will be over in a minute. Perhaps the sailors have some. Will you lend me a shilling, and I will go and inquire?”
His spasms must have come on very badly after he left, for in about half-an-hour’s time I saw him ardently hugging a stanchion, and apparently trying to tie a true lover’s knot with his legs. I inquired who he was, and learned that he was a gentleman at large. I was much surprised; I should certainly have taken him to be a native missionary from his manner.
We arrived at Badagry about 10 a.m. The lagoon here is 600 yards wide and 24 feet deep, and the sand-ridge which separates it from the sea measures one-third of a mile in breadth. I should imagine that Badagry is not a healthy place of residence; it is low-lying and swampy, and sanitary considerations have evidently never been taken into account. In fact sanitary law is a dead letter on the whole of the West Coast of Africa, with the exception of Sierra Leone, and the most ordinary and necessary precautions are neglected, while the natives are allowed to indulge inthe filthiest habits unchecked. Imagine an English town with its drainage system cut off, and the inhabitants permitted to accumulate offal and refuse of every indescribable kind around their dwellings; then add a supply of dysenteric water, and a tropical sun to make all the rubbish-heaps fester and grow corrupt; throw in a climate that is unequalled for deadliness, and you will have a very fair idea of a British settlement on the Gold Coast. Dozens of lives are yearly sacrificed on that coast to the apathy of the Government, which will not compel the natives to adopt more cleanly habits of life.
The first thing that struck me on going ashore at Badagry was a stone, which descended with some force from a tall tree; and I was looking round for a safe object on which to vent my wrath, when one of the sportsmen from the steamer came and made profuse apologies for the accident. I asked him what he was throwing at, and he, being a German, replied:
“I drow at de grickeds.”
This seemed so incomprehensible that I was going to give up attempting the solution when he exclaimed:—
“No, no—Not grickeds—badts. I know he vas something that you plays in de game. Dey are dere,” and he pointed up to the tree.
I looked up and saw what at first sight appearedlike a cluster of rabbit-skins hung up to dry: they were flying foxes. I looked round, and found almost every tree similarly adorned. But for an occasional movement of the head, or the winking of an eye, one might have imagined they were dead, they remained so still. The sportsman was very eager to fire into the group, being only deterred from so doing by the fear of their being fetish, and while he was endeavouring to satisfy himself on this point I went away.
The inhabitants of Badagry are apparently a very religious people, for I do not remember ever to have seen so many fetishes of different sorts in so small a town. Scattered generally about the streets and courtyards are hundreds of small sheds, open in front, with thatched roofs and bamboo walls. Each of these contains a graceful figure, fashioned of clay into a semblance of the human form; and the faces of these gods are fearfully and wonderfully made. The eyes are represented by large cowries, the hair by feathers, and the gash which takes the place of the mouth is garnished with the teeth of dogs, sharks, goats, leopards, and men. A nose was too great a flight of genius for the native sculptors, and they had satisfied themselves by boring two little holes for nostrils and leaving the rest of the organ to be understood. I noticed one deity whose head was covered with the red tail-feathersof parrots, and the captain of the steamer said that the people had put this up after having seen a red-haired trader who had once paid them a visit.
While wandering about I discovered a thick growth of trees and bushes inclosed with a bamboo fence; this was the great fetish-ground of Badagry, and I proceeded to pull down a piece of the fence, and look in. I saw inside the usual heap of rubbish, broken pots, broken knives, broken stools, and human skulls, and, in addition, spear-heads, arrows, and bamboo shields. I thought I would like to take a few of these things away as curios, and had begun pulling down more of the fence, so that I might pass through, when I was disturbed by hearing somebody shout:
“Heigh, you there! You bess stop that.”
I looked round and observed a negro, attired in European apparel, rapidly coming towards me. He seemed very much alarmed, and said:
“These people here are very partic’lar ’bout their fetish. If they was to see you now they would kill you p’raps.”
I said—“Bosh: this town belongs to the English.”
“I tell you for true, Sir. Myself I’m Christian like you: I follow the Lord; I don’t care for fetish. But these people here are very bad people, very partic’lar. If they see you, you will catch plenty trouble.”
I suffered myself to be persuaded and went away to have lunch with the Commandant. During the meal I said what a pity it was I could not get some of those arrows and spear-heads out of the inclosure. He seemed surprised and asked:
“What is there to prevent you?”
“Why, the natives would make a row.”
“They? Why they wouldn’t care if you carted the whole lot out.”
I thought I had been hearing rather contradictory evidence, so I told him about my interview with the Christian negro who had hindered me from committing sacrilege. He listened with great attention, and finally asked:
“Was this man tall?”
“Yes.”
“Was he fat?”
“Yes.”
“Was he very ugly?”
“Yes.”
“Had he got a strawberry ...? No, I don’t mean that. Had he lost some of his front teeth?”
“Yes.”
Then the Commandant heaved a sigh of relief, and sent for a sergeant of police. When that myrmidon arrived he told him that he thought that Mr. W—— was caught at last; and directed himto take three or four men, and go and see if he could find anything in the fetish ground. While we were waiting to see the upshot of this search the Commandant informed me that my Christian friend, Mr. W——, was a notorious smuggler, who was famed for the facility with which he robbed Her Majesty’s Customs.
In about a quarter of an hour a procession, bearing some forty or fifty demijohns of rum, marched into the yard; and the sergeant informed us that he had left a man in charge of as much more. All this spirit had been smuggled from Porto Novo, and then hidden in the fetish-ground, where no native wandering in the outer darkness of unbelief would dare to venture; but which my Christian friend, who like all such negroes had repudiated the fetish moral, or immoral, code without adopting any other in its place, had no scruple about making use of. No wonder he was anxious that I should not outrage the religious prejudices of the Badagrans. I met him afterwards, and he called me names, and was good enough to say that my idle curiosity had caused him to lose more money than I had ever possessed or could dream of possessing. Such are the usual conversational pleasantries of negro traders.
From Badagry I went on to Porto Novo, which lies seventeen miles further to the west, or fiftymiles in all from Lagos. A curious feature of the lagoon between Badagry and Porto Novo is the large number of floating grass islands which one passes. Some of them have sufficient stability to admit of persons walking about on them, and, were they but cultivated, would be not unlike thechinampasof the Aztecs on the lake of Mexico. They impede the navigation a good deal, as no steamer could force its way through them, anddétourshave to be made to avoid them, which frequently result in the repose of a sand-bank being rudely disturbed by the stem of an erring vessel. When disembarking from the steamer at Porto Novo I landed on one of these islands, about two acres in extent, and walked across it, sending the boat round to the opposite side. It seemed quite firm underfoot, except at the edges, and was covered with soil four or five inches deep, bearing a luxuriant crop of grass. It was kept afloat by an underlying mass of matted rushes, canes, and succulent grass, from three to four feet thick, but how the earth got on the top of this I do not know. This island was larger and more substantial than most, but all break up very rapidly in the mimic storms which occasionally vex the placid waters of the lagoon.
The town of Porto Novo is built on the eastern portion of the Porto Novan lagoon, which is here two miles and a-half in breadth; and some high ground,not elsewhere to be found for scores of miles along the Slave Coast, lies a little to the north of it, and forms a pleasing change in the dull level of the surrounding country. The town itself is as dirty and irregular as most native ones, and there is nothing to be seen worth mentioning but thepalaceof the king, who is, on a smaller scale, an irresponsible and bloodthirsty despot like his friend and ally the King of Dahomey. The royal residence is surrounded by a swish wall, loopholed for musketry and protected by a ditch: it includes, too, buildings for the accommodation of the four or five hundred wives, slaves, dependents, and retainers of his majesty. It is entered by means of a gateway through a house built of sun-dried bricks, with windows on the upper story only, looking outwards; a massive and iron-studded door, with three or four loopholes cut in it, seems to show that the king scarcely considers himself safe from attack even at home.
Opposite to the palace-gate stands a row of fetish-sheds containing specimens of the sculptor’s high art similar to those at Badagry; but here the natives are more attentive to the wants of their deities, and, though they do not give them anything to eat, because food costs money, or rather cowries, they are careful to place before each a brass pan full of water, which is popularly believed to be a more wholesomebeverage for gods than rum, and costs nothing more than the trouble of drawing it. Standing in the full glare of the sun, these pans naturally become empty in the course of time through evaporation, which fact the natives explain by saying that the fetishes drink it, and it is to them ocular proof of the existence and material being of their deities.
Next to the fetish huts is the shed for human sacrifices, to which West African pastime the King of Porto Novo is as partial as the comparatively limited number of his subjects will allow. It reeks with blotches of black and clotted blood, covered with thousands of hungry flies, and is furnished with headsman’s blocks made of a hard and dark wood. A communicative Porto Novan, who was a shopman in one of the French factories in the town, and had been showing me all these sights, pointed to these blocks, and said in French:
“We are always spoken of by you English at Lagos as a cruel people, but these are a proof to the contrary.”
I said, “I should have arrived at an exactly opposite opinion.”
“Ah! then you have not observed closely, Monsieur. Do you not see that each block is hollowed out, so that the man to be beheaded may rest his chin and breast on it in comfort?”
“Yes, I see that.”
“Well that proves that we are considerate and kind.”
“You are pleased to be facetious.”
“Far from it, Monsieur, I am serious. I have to repeat that it proves that we are considerate and kind.”
“Does it?”
“Yes. How do you English sacrifice?”
“We don’t sacrifice at all,” I replied.
“Pardon, Monsieur, you hang. And how do you hang? With the absence of gentleness the most great. You bind hand and foot; you do not study the comfort of the man to be put to death.”
“No, not much.”
“Ah! you acknowledge it. Yes, yes; only when you have provided chairs for your people to be sacrificed will you have arrived to our high perception of kindness.”
The Niger Delta—Gloomy Region—Cannibals—King Pepple—Bonny-town—Rival Chiefs—Dignitaries of the Church—Missions—Curlews—A Night Adventure—A BonnyBonne Bouche.
The Niger Delta—Gloomy Region—Cannibals—King Pepple—Bonny-town—Rival Chiefs—Dignitaries of the Church—Missions—Curlews—A Night Adventure—A BonnyBonne Bouche.
From Lagos I went on to the Oil Rivers, as the numerous outlets in the Niger delta are termed. The Nun mouth is now the recognised entrance of the Niger; its ten western openings are Benin, Escardos, Forcardos, Ramos, Dodo, Pennington, and Middleton rivers, Blind Creek, and Winstanley and Sengana outfalls, and its nine eastern are Brass River or Rio Bento, San Nicolas, Santa Barbara, Sombreiro, San Bartolomeo, New Calabar, Bonny, Antonio, and Opobo rivers. The New Calabar and the Bonny or Obané Rivers discharge into one estuary; and some authorities consider that the latter is not an outfall of the Niger at all.
The trade in these rivers is almost entirely in British hands, and regular trading stations are found at Bonny, New Calabar, Brass, Opobo, and Benin. The natives are independent of British rule, but from time to time treaties have been made for theregulation of trade, and for the protection of traders. In each river or outfall the traders form a Court of Arbitration, which settles all trade disputes arising between themselves and the natives; and cases of moment are submitted to the consul of the Bights of Benin and Biafra, who resides in the island of Fernando Po. The principal exports are palm-oil, kernels, camwood, and ivory, and it is from the immense quantities of the first commodity annually shipped to England, and there used in the manufacture of tin, butter, soap, and pomade, that the title of Oil Rivers is derived.
It would be difficult to imagine a more depressing and gloomy region than that of the delta of the Niger. On all sides, as far as the eye can reach, one sees nothing but swamp after swamp of countless mangroves, intersected in every direction by foul creeks of reeking and muddy water; while, when the tide is out, vast expanses of black, slimy mud, on which hideous crocodiles bask, are exposed to the sun. It is indeed a horrible and loathsome tract, and it is a matter for wonder that Europeans can be found willing to pass the best years of their lives in such a place. Yet such is the case, and though a large percentage of the white residents annually succumb to the pestilential climate, and all suffer more or less from its effects, the survivors jog along uncomplainingly, and someeven seem in a measure to enjoy their existence—one can hardly call it life.
Wherever any dry land is found on the banks of these rivers, there are established native towns; and opposite these are moored the hulks in which the traders live. Some of these hulks have been fine vessels in their day, and all are very comfortably fitted up and roofed over: the finest is that of the African Steamship Company, the “Adriatic,” which formerly belonged to the White Star Company, and is now moored in Bonny river. Morning after morning the Europeans doomed to a wretched existence in these floating prisons wake up with a feeling of weariness and depression, and look out daily on the same muddy river with its banks of reeking ooze and interminable mangrove swamps. At night time the miasma creeps up from every creek and gradually enfolds all objects in a damp white shroud; while the croaking of the bull-frogs, the cry of a night-bird, and the lapping of the restless tide against the sides of the hulk, are the only sounds that break the oppressive silence. If ever a man were justified in seeking consolation from the flowing bowl it would be in these rivers, which used to be the habitat of the Palm Oil Ruffian, a creature that would not have been tolerated even in Alsatia; but thegenusis now rapidly dying out, and soon bids fair to be classedwith the Plesiosaurus and other extinct reptiles. Death seems ever at hand, and here he does not appear, as in some parts of West Africa, clothed with sunlight and the beauties of tropical vegetation, but accompanied by all the imperfections of a sewer-like and miasmatic swamp.
The natives of the Niger delta are, with the exception of the Boobies of Fernando Po, the most degraded and barbarous people found on the West Coast of Africa. They are nearly all cannibals, and devour the prisoners whom they capture in their internecine wars. The horrible climate influences even the aborigines, nearly every second man or woman one sees being covered with sores, or suffering from yaws, elephantiasis, or some equally loathsome disease; and their religious belief and fetish customs are tinged with the gloom which seems to settle over the whole delta.
Very little is known of this part of Africa beyond the actual coast line and the Niger river, up which steamers ascend for some hundreds of miles. Between Benin and the Nun mouth the numerous western outlets have not even been surveyed, and we find on the Admiralty Charts “natives hostile and cannibals.” In that portion of the delta the inhabitants will hold no friendly intercourse with white men. Even in those rivers in which the trading hulks aremoored, Europeans are prevented by the chiefs from ascending the streams; and in the different treaties there is generally a stipulation that the traders shall not attempt to go beyond a certain distance. The reason of this is that the tribes that reside near the mouths of the rivers act as middle-men to the native oil-traders higher up, and they are afraid that if we penetrate beyond a short distance we shall be able to purchase the produce at first hand, and that they will thus lose their percentage or commission.
The chief town in the delta of the Niger is that of Bonny, of which George Pepple is the nominal king; he has, however, no power or influence of any kind, and the real king is old Oko Jumbo, a veteran chief, who has a large trading establishment by the riverside and is very rich and prosperous.
George Pepple is like the average of Christianized negroes in West Africa. A few years ago he was expelled from his kingdom by his subjects, on account of the trouble he was bringing on the community by his habit of obtaining goods from the traders and then repudiating the debt, and went to England to spend the money with which his peculiar method of doing business had provided him. In England he was baptized by the Bishop of London, and made much of by undiscriminating persons. One of his wives had accompanied him, and in London sheacquired a liking for cordial Old Tom, under the influence of which she neglected to treat her liege lord with that deference which he considered his due. Under these circumstances George Pepple determined to execute her, and applied to the Lord Mayor for permission, merely as a matter of form and to show that he knew what was due to the prejudices of foreigners. He was much astonished and annoyed when he learned that such an execution would be deemed a murder, and that the law of England presumed to interfere in purely domestic episodes of this nature. Shortly after this Pepple returned to Bonny; but before leaving England he induced several credulous Englishmen to accompany him, promising them high and lucrative positions about his court and person, such as Master of the Horse, Chief Equerry, Groom in Waiting, and so on. After having made elaborate preparations and being put to the expense of the journey to Bonny, one can imagine the feelings of these men on finding that the palace consisted of a mud hut and the kingdom of a few acres of swamp, even in which limited monarchy his authority wasnil. In 1876 Pepple returned to England to try his old plan of obtaining goods on credit, and was again treated as a great African potentate, being entertained by the Lord Mayor, and his daily doings being duly chronicled by the press.He has lately been released from the durance vile in which his subjects had been keeping him on account of some misdemeanour, but is still under a cloud, as his peculiarities are so well known, and he is treated with but scant ceremony by the natives and traders of Bonny river. As an instance of how little African royalty is in consonance with European, I may mention that Pepple’s eldest son was, until very recently, post-master at Accra with a salary of some 50l.a year.
Bonny-town is the worst and dirtiest to be found on the West Coast of Africa; the houses are small “wattle and daub” structures, and there are no streets even of the poor description that are found in towns on the Gold Coast. The huts are scattered about in indescribable confusion amongst pools of mud, heaps of refuse, and cess-pits; and one cannot walk more than a few hundred yards in any given direction without finding a bar to further progress in the shape of a muddy creek. The Bonny traders do not often honour the town with their presence, nor is there any inducement for them to do so. The Ju-ju house is the only “sight” in Bonny. It is a mud hut in a ruinous condition, in which, piled up in wattle racks, are innumerable human skulls, the remains of persons who have been sacrificed to the Ju-ju, or fetish. A glimpse of these, and of a numberof rudely-carved wooden idols, can be obtained by peeping through an aperture in the broken-down wall of the house; and even this must be done by stealth, as the natives do not care to have white men prying into the mysteries of their religion; and, being quite an independent people, they could inflict any fine or punishment they might think proper on an inquisitive stranger.
The few acres on which Bonny-town is built, a sandy strip at Rough Corner at the eastern entrance of the river, and about two acres on Peterside, opposite Bonny-town, is all the dry land to be found within miles; all else is interminable mangrove swamp, intersected with creeks, to which the sharks from the river-bar come to breed. Should a man fall overboard in Bonny river he is never seen again after the first plunge, and it is supposed that there is a powerful under-current which tows the body under, though others ascribe its disappearance to the ubiquitous sharks.
A visitor to Bonny cannot fail to notice the number of old cannon and carronades lying about uncared-for in the town. These are simply neglected because they are out of date, for the natives of the Niger delta, though so behindhand in civilisation, keep up their armament to the style of the day. There is a battery of four Armstrong guns at Peterside, wherethe river is one mile and a-half wide, and there are several of these guns in Bonny-town. When making war upon another tribe, the natives dismount these guns and lash them upon a sort of deck built in the bows of one of their large canoes, which can carry from thirty to forty persons. The gun then is of course immovable, so in action the canoe is manœuvred till the piece points in the right direction, when it is discharged. As they aim point-blank whether the object aimed at be distant a mile or only a few yards, they do not do much execution, except by accident. Besides these Armstrongs there are thousands of breech-loading rifles, Sniders, Martini-Henrys, and Winchester repeaters, in the hands of the natives, almost every man possessing one. These are all imported by British merchants, and are manufactured so cheaply in Birmingham that a trader in the oil rivers can afford to sell a Snider rifle for 2l.and then make a slight profit. Directly these natives obtain such rifles they want to go and try their effect on something, and as they are useless for purposes of sport, except against large game, which is not found in the delta, they go and rake up some old quarrel with an insignificant tribe, and try the efficacy of their weapons upon its members. To this cause may be attributed most of their wars.
Oko Jumbo and Ja-Ja are the rival chiefs of theeastern outfalls of the Niger; they are both natives of Bonny. Some years back a Government of four regents, of which Oko Jumbo and Ja-Ja were members, was established in Bonny. The two rival chiefs each wished to monopolise the power, quarrels ensued, and finally Ja-Ja seceded and set up a kingdom for himself. Since then each has been endeavouring to outvie the other in the completeness of his war material. No sooner did Ja-Ja hear that his rival at Bonny had Armstrong guns, than he also sent to England for some. Recently a Gatling gun arrived for him, and the Bonny natives are now devoured with rage and envy because they have not one. Oko Jumbo has under his command some 7,000 or 8,000 men, all armed with breech-loading rifles and well supplied with ammunition; and Ja-Ja can put about the same number, similarly armed, into the field. The wars between these chieftains are notorious; one has but lately come to an end, in which several of Ja-Ja’s wives were captured and eaten by the enemy, and judging from the past we may expect another war soon. The bodies of the slain, and some of the prisoners taken, are always eaten by the combatants, and the remainder of the prisoners are sold into slavery. I asked Oko Jumbo why they did not eat all the captives, since they seemed to like that kind of food, and he replied that a good dinner was all verywell in its way, but that it only satisfied one for a day at the most, whereas the rum, tobacco, and cloth purchased with the money obtained for the slaves would be a source of gratification for some weeks. The traders always endeavour to settle disputes between the natives, as during a war the river is closed, no produce is brought down, and their trade is almost at a standstill; they do not, however, seem inclined effectually to put an end to all these petty wars by combining together to refuse to supply the natives with arms and gunpowder.
Bonny-town rejoices in a bishop and an archdeacon of the Church of England, both pure negroes. Notwithstanding the presence of these high dignitaries of the Church, however, Christianity does not flourish in Bonny. The only members of the Mission are the semi-Christianised and semi-civilised negroes from Sierra Leone and Lagos, who by themselves form a small colony. The men of this community are carpenters, coopers, &c., who are employed by the traders; and the women—well, the less that is said about them the better. Among the natives of Bonny itself the missionaries make no converts; some will attend the services for a few weeks, from curiosity or from the hope of obtaining something, and then return to their old habits. The zeal of the missionary is wasted, for the fetish priests, who possess enormousinfluence, exercise all their power to prevent any of their followers joining the Mission. This is probably the only reason of the failure, because Christianity amongst negroes only consists in the outward observance of the Sunday ceremonies, and proselytes would have to give up none of their present pleasing practices. Morality is a word which conveys no meaning whatever to the ordinary negro mind. Fetishism is everywhere rampant; before almost every house may be seen a wooden or clay idol, to which offerings of food and drink are daily made, and human sacrifices are not by any means rare. A very common sacrifice to Ju-ju is that of a young girl, who is at low water fastened to a stake firmly imbedded in the river mud, and then left to perish in the rising tide, or to be devoured by sharks or crocodiles.
All English Missions on the West Coast of Africa, of whatever denomination, are an utter failure. Their custom is to get children to attend their schools, and then administer doses of religion to them, with the rudiments of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Now, in the first place, the advantage of these acquirements does not very much strike the average negro parent, and, in the second place, the schools turn out annually scores of youths who are only fitted, educationally, to become shopmen and subordinate clerks and bookkeepers. There being only a limited demand for suchpersons, it follows that the majority of the Mission ex-pupils can obtain no employment of that kind; they consider themselves, on account of what they call their superior education, above work, and so, having nothing else to do, they devote their minds and acquirements to the swindling of their more ignorant fellow-countrymen; and some of them, establishing themselves as clerks and advisers to the bush chiefs, do incalculable mischief.
The German Missions follow a much better plan. To each Mission is attached a European carpenter, blacksmith, cooper, tailor, or shoemaker, as a sort of lay-brother, and the pupils are taught these trades. The immense advantage of having his children taught a trade gratuitously is patent to the most careless negro parent, and he sends his children to the school accordingly; while in after-life they have the means of earning an honest livelihood, and becoming useful members of the community. Accra now supplies almost the whole of the Gold Coast and the Niger delta with artisans, because a German Mission has been established at Christiansborg for years, where the system of inculcating the great fact that honest and useful labour is much more praiseworthy than idle psalm-singing has been steadfastly pursued. I should advise those quasi-philanthrophists, who prefer squandering their money on the utopian negro to relievingthe necessities of the poor of their own country, to withdraw their support from the English societies and transfer it to the Basle and Bremen Missions.
The only recreation which Bonny affords is curlew-shooting, which I enjoyed several times with my host of the “Adriatic.” Towards sun-set, when the curlew began to fly down towards their feeding-ground at Breaker Island at the mouth of the river, we used to take a boat up one of the numerous creeks, run her on to the mud at one side, and proceed to make a screen of mangrove branches. From behind this leafy cover we bagged many a bird on its flight down the creek. The number of guanas found in these channels is enormous; when keeping perfectly quiet under our cover we could see dozens upon dozens of them, some four or five feet in length, crawling about on the opposite bank, or leaping out of the water in pursuit of fish. This reptile is sacred, or fetish, at Bonny, as is the python in Dahomey and the crocodile at Accra.
It is advisable on such shooting excursions to be accompanied by somebody who knows the river. On my return to Bonny later on, after visiting Old Calabar, the doctor of the steamer and I nearly came to grief through going by ourselves. We left the ship shortly before sunset, and steered towards a long and narrow mud-bank down the river, where we hadnoticed that thousands of birds went to feed at nightfall. We reached the bank just as the light was beginning to fail; the cries of innumerable waterfowl rose from the mud, and we congratulated ourselves on being about to make a good bag. To our great annoyance we found, after following the sinuosities of the bank for some time, that we could not get within range from the boat; but, as we did not intend to be disappointed in that way, we got out and waded through the slime, dragging the boat a short way with us, till we reached what we considered a safe spot to leave it on. It was now nearly dark, but we could see the white plumage of hundreds of pelicans and other waterfowl a short distance off, so we both fired. An indescribable clamour of screams and cries followed the reports, as myriads of birds rose from the mud and wheeled and circled overhead. We reloaded, picked up our birds, and waited. Gradually the cries became fewer and fewer, and at last the whole flock settled down upon the furthest end of the bank. We were not satisfied with what we had got (what sportsman ever is?), so we gained the crest of the bank, where the footing was firmer, and proceeded to walk towards our prey, about three-quarters of a mile distant. We there repeated the former process with equal success, and turned to retrace our steps to our boat.
When we had accomplished about half the distance a horrible shiver, or tremor, seemed to stir the whole surface of the mud, and we both sank to our knees in slime. I never felt such fear before: I did not need any one to tell me what that ghastly tremor prognosticated; I knew we were on a quick-sand, or rather quick-mud, and that the tide must be coming in, and the prospect of being sucked down and smothered in reeking ooze was not a pleasant one. We drew our legs from the quivering mass, and tried to run in the direction in which we had left our boat. Worse and worse: we sank deeper and deeper at every step, the darkness, too, grew ever denser; we feared that our boat had been carried away by the rising tide, and we knew not which way to turn to extricate ourselves—assistance, we well knew, there was none. As the mud appeared a little firmer to our left we moved on to it, and waited in silence, panting and breathless from our late exertions. The birds, who had been the cause of our getting into this fix, came wheeling round overhead, and their cries echoed weirdly in the deathly stillness of the night. I said to the doctor—
“Let us fire off our guns together—somebody may hear us—It’s our only chance.”
“I don’t think it’s any use.”
“Well, let us try anyhow.”
We fired three or four times, but heard nothing except the lap lap of the tide as it gradually drew nearer to us, and the screams of the frightened birds. Presently a ripple of water came along and washed our ancles, for our feet were buried, and almost simultaneously the doctor sank to the armpits. I thought it was all over then, but I loaded mechanically and fired once more. The report had scarcely died away before my companion shouted excitedly:—
“I saw something white behind you, by the flash of your gun—perhaps it’s hard sand.”
I helped him up on to the firmer mud where I was standing, and we tried to make our way towards what he had seen. After about two paces we both sank to our waists, and, in trying to get out, floundered on to our faces; but when our heads were thus raised but little above the level of the slime we could see, dimly through the darkness, a white crest about twenty yards off. It was a ridge of sand. How we got through the intervening distance I do not know; but, partly swimming, partly crawling and floundering along, we at last felt the dry sand under our hands, and, drawing ourselves up to the top of the little bank, fell down utterly done up.
We neither of us said anything for some time, and then we began complaining about the loss of our guns and hats, and wishing for something with which totake the taste of the mud out of our mouths. We could not see each other, it was too dark, but we must have looked pretty objects, clothed from head to foot in a coating of black mud which smelt—unpleasantly. Soon we began to shiver with cold, and there was no room for exercise; the minutes dragged on their flight as if they were leaden, and we thought the night would never come to an end. At last, after about two hours, we heard a faint halloo in the distance. We shouted in reply until we were quite hoarse and our throats sore; then the cry was repeated, and we knew we were all right. Soon we heard the creaking of rowlocks, and a boat glided up to us. We were not sorry to see it.
In 1879 a Member of Parliament, an extremelyrara avison the West Coast of Africa, visited Bonny in his yacht, and the traders still narrate the following harrowing tale about him. They say that one morning, being on shore, he strolled into old Oko Jumbo’s house about 11 a.m., and found that veteran warrior at breakfast. He was asked to partake of the meal, and, being anxious to try the native cookery, acquiesced. A black clay dish full of some oleaginous stew was set before him, which he eyed askance, and finally tasted with doubt. A little fiery perhaps, owing to the native liking for red peppers, but otherwise not bad: so he plunged his spoon in and fell tolike a man. After a few mouthfuls he unearthed from the bottom of the dish a curious-looking object. A cold shudder convulsed his frame, and he looked closely. He could distinguish what seemed like five fingers and the palm of a hand, and, seized with a violent nervous contraction of the diaphragm, he leaped from the table and leaned out of a window. After a little he looked back into the room with brimming eyes, a haggard brow, and a mind full of the tales of the cannibal propensities of the natives of Bonny. He approached the old chief with tottering limbs, and one hand pressed upon the abdominal region, and inquired:—
“What’s in that dish?”
“Me nosabe—no eat him dish yet.”
“You old scoundrel, it’s ’long pig’:” and again he rushed with exceeding swiftness to look at the prospect out of the window.
When he had recovered, he took his hat and stick sorrowfully, and staggered down the steps. Just as he was stepping into the boat, one of Oko Jumbo’s slaves came running up with the identical black dish that had been the cause of all this woe. The enraged legislator brandished his stick and said:—
“What do you want? What do you mean by bringing that here?”
“Master said he thought you wanted it.”
“No, I don’t—take it out of my sight.”
Just as the boy was going he thought he might as well add a little to his stock of information, and added:—
“I suppose that’s one of Ja Ja’s babies, eh?”
“Which, Master?”
“Why that in the stew, you fool.”
A serene smile broke out over the interesting countenance of the youth as he replied:—
“Piccin? This no piccin chop. No war palaver live now. Him Guana.”
Old Calabar—Duke Town—Capital Punishments—Moistening the Ancestral Clay—A Surgeon’s Liabilities—Man-eaters—A Mongrel Consul—Curious Judgments.
Old Calabar—Duke Town—Capital Punishments—Moistening the Ancestral Clay—A Surgeon’s Liabilities—Man-eaters—A Mongrel Consul—Curious Judgments.
From Bonny I went on to the Old Calabar river, called by the natives Kalaba and Oróne, which, though always included with the outfalls of the Niger under the general title of Oil Rivers, is an entirely distinct stream. After twenty hours’ steaming from Bonny we entered the estuary of the river, and, crossing the bar, ascended the stream, which, in comparison with the wide reach of Bonny river, seemed small and contracted, though it is of fair size, and very deep. About ten miles from the bar we passed Parrot Island, an isle in the centre of the river, covered with a dense growth of mangrove trees, and entered upon a narrower channel to the right of the island. The banks were thickly wooded, and it was a strange sight to see a large steamer pursuing its way in the midst of a dense forest, and within a stone’s throw of the bank. The far-spreading branches brushed the yards of the ship, and the alligators, disturbed by the stroke of the propeller, lazily crawled out of the blackmud in which they had been wallowing. As at this part of the stream the navigable channel follows very closely the eastern bank, it is no uncommon occurrence for sailing-ships ascending and descending to get their rigging fouled with the overhanging branches.
Thirty miles from the entrance of the river we anchored off Duke-town, where lie the hulks of the traders: the stream here is half-a-mile in breadth, and there is sufficient draught of water for vessels of 2,000 tons.
Duke-town is more pleasantly situated, better built, and larger, than Bonny-town, and the natives are of a less barbarous type. The town stands on a hill which slopes gently towards the river, and behind it the ground rises into a kind of plateau, a good deal of which is under cultivation, and where there is a thriving American Mission station. For the European traders, however, who live in hulks and very rarely go ashore, Old Calabar is perhaps a more unpleasant place of residence than Bonny. Opposite and below Duke-town are the same mangrove swamps, at low water the same reeking mud, at night the same malarial fog; while the water of the river is of a more filthy description than that of Bonny (to bathe in it is said to cause a loathsome skin disease); the stream is only one-third of the width of the former, and Duke-town, being so far inland, is deprived ofthe sea-breeze, which at Bonny helps one to drag out a miserable existence; the heat, therefore, is most oppressive.
The name of Duke-town is derived from a native family of high rank which has adopted the European patronymic of Duke, and two principal members of which, Prince Duke and Henshaw Duke, are among the leading chiefs of the place. As the possession of Armstrong guns and munitions of war is considered a sign of wealth and authority in Bonny, so here a man’s status is fixed by the style of house he inhabits. This hobby is carried to such a length that the chiefs have wooden houses sent out to them from England and Germany, and keep European carpenters in their pay to erect them and keep them in repair. Some of these houses bristle with turrets, porticoes, verandahs, and bow-windows, and the chief whose residence has the largest number of these appendages is the one who makes the greatest show of wealth and influence.
Although in this respect the natives of Old Calabar seem more amenable to civilising influences than those of Bonny, there is not equal superiority displayed in their customs, except in the absence of the practice of cannibalism. Their treatment of criminals, for instance, is marked by great cruelty. When a native is detected in the commission of any serious offence, such as murder or theft, he is gagged, laidacross an upturned canoe, his back broken by blows from heavy clubs, and his body thrown into the river. Sometimes they vary theirmodus operandi, and, after gagging the culprit, they truss him like a fowl, and fastening him to stakes driven into the mud at low water leave him to be drowned or devoured by alligators.
A curious local custom is that called “Feeding the Dead.” When they bury their dead, the relatives, before the earth is filled into the grave, place a tube, formed of bamboo, or pithy wood with the pith extracted, and sufficiently long to protrude from the earth heaped up over the body, into the mouth of the deceased; and down this they pour, from time to time, palm wine, water, palm oil, &c. They appear to imagine that dead men do not require solid food at all, and, as they only pour the liquids down two or three times a month, are not very thirsty souls. They believe that after death the deceased suffers from the same bodily ailments as he did in life, and sometimes very filial natives will go to the doctor of a steamer, and simulate the complaint from which the paternal or maternal ancestor suffered, in order that they may obtain the requisite medicine to pour down the grave. One day a lad, son of a late chief, came to the resident doctor of the river and said:—
“Doctor, my foot sick. Gimme some med’cine.”
“What’s the matter with it?” inquired the doctor.
“Him swell up—fit to burst—can’t walk no more.”
The Galen of the river examined the foot, and, finding it perfectly sound and healthy, and not swollen in the least, assumed an enraged aspect, and demanded fiercely—
“What d’you mean by telling me these lies?”
“Please, master, not my foot sick, my fader foot sick.”
“Then tell him to come here himself.”
“He can’t come—they put him ground already.”
“D’you mean he’s dead?”
“Yes, master—him dead now ’bout three month.”
“Then what d’you mean by coming here? Get out of this.”
“Master, I want the med’cine for sick foot same as I tell you. I want to give him my fader, he no get med’cine since he put in ground. I know him foot plenty sick now.”
“Well, I’ll give you some if you pay for it.”
“I no get money, master.”
“Then you won’t get any medicine.”
The filial affection of these people is not such that they will expend coin of the realm in the purchase of medicine or drink for their dead parents. They do not give them rum for instance. The ancestral clayonly gets moistened with palm wine or water, while the more exhilarating beverage goes down their own throats. Perhaps they think that ghosts have weak heads and cannot stand mundane spirits.
The natives of Old Calabar extend the liabilities of a surgeon to an extent that would be most appalling to practitioners of surgery if it were generally adopted in Europe. A doctor on this river was once called to a case in which a boy had had his leg crushed and fearfully lacerated by an alligator, and, to save the boy’s life, amputated the leg above the knee. It was a very complicated case, as there were other injuries besides; but after much trouble and hard work his efforts were crowned with success, and the patient was declared out of danger. Not many days after he had ceased visiting the wounded boy he descried, while sitting on the deck of the hulk in which he resided, a canoe being paddled towards him; which, as it drew nearer, he could see contained the parents, brothers, and sisters of his late patient and the patient himself. He thought they were coming to express their gratitude and thankfulness to him for saving the life of their beloved relative, and with the pleased self-consciousness of having performed a virtuous action prepared to receive them. When the family had climbed up the ladder on to the deck they solemnly and sadly, and in dead silence, supportingthe crippled boy in their midst, approached the doctor; and then, depositing their burden at his feet, retired hurriedly to the ladder as if to go away again. The astonished benefactor, wondering what this could mean, called them back and asked for an explanation of their behaviour. Then broke forth a torrent of woe; they lifted up their voices in lamentation, and said that he had cut off the leg of their poor son and brother; he had crippled him for life, so that now he could not work or be of any use to them; he had taken all the joy out of their beloved relative’s life, and maimed him so that he had become a bye-word and a jest, and that consequently he must support him. They added thoughtfully that if he liked to pay a daily sum for the boy’s subsistence they would take care of him and not make any charge for lodging. The doctor was at first overwhelmed by this unexpected assault, but soon recovering himself, he, in an injured tone, taxed them with ingratitude, pointed out to them that he had only taken off the leg to save the boy’s life, and that if he had not done so the child would have died, and have been lost to them altogether. Upon this the family with renewed tribulation declared that it would have been better if the boy had died, as then they would only have incurred the comparatively trifling expense of the funeral custom; whereas now they would have to keep him all his life if his mutilatordid not do his duty and support him; and all this time the boy himself lay silent on the deck, looking at his saviour with mournful and reproachful eyes, that seemed to say “look at the condition to which you have reduced me.” The argument was carried on until at last, finding that the family was not amenable to reason, the doctor had the whole of them turned out of the ship. After that he thought that the matter was settled and that he would hear no more of it, but these poor injured people were not going to let him off so easily. A few days later, when he went ashore, they met him in the street, laid the cripple at his feet, and again filled the air with cries of woe and abuse of the doctor. He tried to escape them, but when he moved on they followed wailing with their maimed boy; if he walked fast, so did they; when he stopped they stopped too, and formed a lamenting circle round him; when he went into a house they congregated on the doorstep and made conversation impossible with their complaints; and at last he had to fly for refuge to his hulk. Every time he went on shore this was repeated; until at last he had to give up going out, and was confined to the ship altogether. When the importunate parents discovered this they came out in a canoe, and day after day paddled round the vessel, yelling out their grievances in discordant and dismal tones. It was too much for theunfortunate doctor, his life became a misery to him, and at last he flung up his lucrative practice, exchanged with another doctor, and went off to one of the Niger outfalls. Surgical operations are not now in high favour with doctors on the Old Calabar river.
I have said that the original cause of all this trouble was an alligator who had been seized with an uncontrollable desire to dine off the leg of a boy, and man-eaters of this description are not by any means uncommon in this part of the world. Women washing clothes, men fishing, and children dabbling about by the edge of the water, are frequently seized and dragged into the river by alligators. Sometimes these monsters will even attack men on shore, and, a few days before my arrival, a watchman, who was on duty over a corrugated iron store on the river bank, was seized in the night, some thirty yards from the brink of the water, by an alligator, and dragged into the stream. The cries of the man alarmed the neighbourhood, but those who hastened to his assistance found nothing to show what had become of him but pools of blood and the trail of the alligator in the mud. A short distance above Duke-town are the remains of two or three old hulks, lying rotting in the mud, which are a favourite resort of these alligators; and any one dropping down with the tide in a boat can see scores of these disgusting creatures, fromfifteen to twenty feet long, basking on them. They are very wary, because they are so often shot at, and at the slightest creak of an oar in a rowlock all will stand up to their full height, moving their heads up and down in exactly the same manner as do lizards when alarmed; and directly they catch sight of a boat they plunge into the water.
I went up the river one day to get a shot at these, or any others I might see, but it was under circumstances that made success as probable as it would be if one went out alligator-shooting accompanied by a brass band in full blast. I went with a youth, who, from having been a clerk to one of the traders in the river, had, by the death of Consul Hopkins, a man universally admired and respected in West Africa, been suddenly thrust into the position of Acting Consul for the Bights of Benin and Biafra. I never saw a better illustration of the old saying about being clothed in a little brief authority. In the eyes of this hybrid official the paraphernalia of office were of paramount importance, and, as he had no consular uniform of his own, he had donned, despite the unsuitableness in point of size, the garments of the late consul. The new man was very tall, whereas his predecessor had been short; the consequence of which difference was that there was a woeful hiatus between the termination of the short jacket with brass buttonsand the band of the continuations, which gap exposed to view a vast region of not very clean shirt. The gold-laced cap of office was too small, and on the head of the gallant youth presented very much the same appearance as would a thimble upon the top of an orange. He wore it in and out of season; and I shall never forget the consternation and horror which was depicted on his countenance, when, through yawning in a moment of forgetfulness, it slipped from its perch and fell into the river; nor how he strove to console himself, and make the best of his loss, by rushing to the purser of the homeward-bound steamer, and asking him to bring out three new ones for him next trip. It was in the boat of this magnificent official that I went up the river. It was a gorgeous gig, with an awning astern and brass fittings; he would abate none of his glory, and took his six oarsmen, in consequence of which the splashing of the oars and the creaking of the rowlocks awoke the echoes of the forest, and frightened every bird, beast, and reptile within half-a-mile. Of course we saw nothing, and did not fire a shot.
While I was at Old Calabar this “Jack in Office” had an opportunity of displaying his judicial authority and legal acumen. Two Kroomen on board the mail steamer were charged by the Captain with having broken open a bale out of the cargo, and appropriatedthe contents. The accused protested their innocence, and the only evidence against them was that of another Krooman, who said that he had found the covering of the missing bale, which was easily known by its marks, in a part of the hold near which he had seen the two prisoners, but to which any one in the ship had access. This was quite enough for the Acting Consul: he sentenced the men to three dozen lashes each, which he waited to see administered, and then he handed them over, though they were natives of Sierra Leone and consequently British subjects, to an independent native chief to be kept in slavery. This was tantamount to giving an official approval to the practice of slavery; and had it occurred in any other part of the world more would have been heard of it, but no one troubles himself about such things in West Africa.