IXTHE KRUBOYS
It was not on the voyage to Batanga, but on subsequent voyages along the lower coast, to the Congo, to St. Paul de Loanda and Benguela, that I was fully impressed with the service of the black man to the white and the disposition to cruelty on the part of the latter. For it is south of Batanga that the natives employed on the steamer do their hardest work. What I saw and heard on those several voyages gave ample food for reflection upon the moral danger of unrestrained authority and the unfitness of most men to govern their fellows of lower degree. I was allowed to remain absorbed in my own thoughts as there were but few passengers on board; on one such journey I was the only passenger for three weeks out of five.
After leaving Sierra Leone on the outward voyage the course changes eastward. A few days later we sighted the coast of Liberia and nearly opposite Monrovia we anchored and waited for eighty black men who were shipped as workmen for the rest of the voyage. We anchored far out at sea; for the Liberian coast is very rough and dangerous, and for most of the entire coast the latest charts are more than fifty years old.
These workmen belong to the Kru tribe. They do all the work of discharging and taking on cargo for the entire voyage, remaining on board for the round trip—usually three or four months—and receiving in paymentan average of a shilling a day. We do not call them “Krumen,” but “Kruboys,” for in Africa they are boys till they die.
The Kruboys are the “real thing,” the Africans that you have pictured in your imagination and have read about, and at the sight of them coming off in a fleet of large canoes, accompanied by the whole population, almost stark naked—the majority wearing a bit of calico the size of a pocket-handkerchief—black and savage, and each of them yelling like ten savages, the ladies on board usually hurry down to their cabins and remain for a while in obscurity. Ropes are thrown over to the Kruboys and they climb the side of the ship like monkeys. At closer view they do not appear savage at all. Every face reveals laughing good-nature, and each man looking after his simple necessities in a businesslike way makes himself as comfortable as possible, and yells as loud as possible, while he asks for what he wants and declares to all on board what he is going to do, though he does not seem to expect anybody to listen to him or to pay any attention to him. There is considerable disputation, some quarrelling, and an occasional fight. They have a remarkable way of passing from laughter to quarrel and from fight to song by the easiest sort of transition: passion does not linger.
One soon becomes accustomed to their nakedness, and even the ladies seem to forget it. In this they are helped by the native’s childlike unconsciousness of any breach of etiquette. Then sometimes one goes to the other extreme and thinks that there is nothing of the savage about them at all—barring the yell and a soon-discovered incorrigible indifference to the categories of “mine” and “thine” with consequent insecurity of all portable property. In this stage of developing opinion I have heard ladies pronounce them “perfectly lovely.” And theOld Coaster blandly informs them that they are “as innocent as lambs.”
The Kruboy is of real negro stock, and is not so graceful, not so intellectual, not so gentle in manners, as the natives further south of the Calabar, the Bantu tribes, who are not classified as negroes. But the Kruboy’s physique is magnificent, in size, development, and strength. They prefer to sleep in the companionway or some other sheltered place; but, as there is not room for all, most of them lie in their nakedness on the open deck, exposed to all kinds of weather. Their food is rice, salt pork, and sea biscuits. Their degradation is manifest not so much in the indecency that most people expect, as in their unappeasable hunger and greedy appetite. All food is “chop” to the Kruboy, and when he eats he “chops.” You may not like this word—you may hate it; but you will be obliged to use it continually on the coast; and the Kruboy would not understand any substitute. One day the Kruboys were landing some salt at Batanga for our missionary, Mr. Gault, when the boat capsized in the surf and before they could recover it the salt had all dissolved in the sea. They came to Mr. Gault carrying the empty, dripping sacks, but absolutely indifferent to the loss, and said: “Massa, the sea done chop all them salt.”
The English names of the Kruboys are interesting, and need some explanation. In the African languages there is no distinct vocabulary of “proper names.” As it was with the Jews, and some other nations ancient and modern, so in Africa names are usually descriptive or commemorative of some incident, notable or otherwise, and any word, phrase, or sentence, may be so used. For instance on the Gaboon River there is a very small village, which, as I was entering it for the first time, one of my boat-boys described as consisting of four men, four women,four houses, four goats, and four chickens; but the name of it wasBi Biana Milam—We Despise Big Towns. I thought it was rather pathetic; for I know how the big towns vex the little towns. Childlessness is a reproach and a great sorrow among African women; and a certain woman in Gaboon who was advanced in years when she bore her first child gave him a name which means, “It-is-no-disgrace-to-be-childless.” These names sound far better in their own language.
But the Kruboys of the steamers take English names which, to say the least, are not dignified, and are more absurd when the ship’s officers call them out in anger—and the ship’s officers are always angry when they talk to the Kruboys. Frying-Pan, Black Kettle, Crowbar, Ham and Eggs, Liver and Bacon, Bottle of Beer, Whisky, Bag of Rice, Weariness, Three O’clock, Daybreak, Half a Dinner, Castor Oil, Every Day, To-morrow, Never Tire, Sea Breeze, Jim Crow, Two Pounds Six, Smiles, Silence, My Friend, Gunpowder, Bayonet, Cartridge, Crocodile, Misery, Get-your-hair-cut, Tom Tom, Pagan and Shoo Fly are names I have heard.
While we are on this subject we may as well get acquainted with the Kru English, which is the “Pigeon English” of the coast. All Kruboys “speak English Mouth” in this peculiar dialect. To people of intelligence and cultivation it is always very offensive at first. They especially cannot bear to hear white people use it; nor does it seem to them in the least degree necessary. Good English is as simple and they think would be quite as easily understood by the black man. I remember well how it first affected me. I was disgusted when I was told that I would soon be speaking it myself. The first change in my feelings took place when I found that it had its method and its idiom. It is not “any old English.” There is correct and incorrect Kru English. It mayproperly be regarded as a dialect. The African languages, however they may differ in vocabulary, have a common idiom. Kru English is simply the idiom of the African languages with an English vocabulary. There are some irregularities and a small number of importations from other tongues, the principal foreign word being “sabey” for “know,” from the French “savez.” One of its principal features is the use of the verb “live” for the verb “to be.”
I stand in the doorway and call: “Half a Dinner!” and the answer comes back faintly: “I live for come.”
If I want to ask a boy whether Shoo Fly has arrived, I say: “Shoo Fly live?” And as Shoo Fly never arrives when he is expected I probably get the answer: “Shoo Fly no live;” or, “Shoo Fly no lib;” or possibly, “He lib for chop, massa.”
To “find” a thing is to search for it, though one may not find it at all; and a man will say: “I find him, find him, long time and never look him.”
There is a great dearth of prepositions in the African languages; and in Kru language the word “for” serves all prepositional uses. It seldom uses more than one demonstrative, and the word “them” is forced to do this reluctant service.
I ask: “What for them man Weariness he no work to-day?” and perhaps get the answer: “He live for sick. He live close for die.”
There are certain stock phrases that one hears all the time: “You sabey Englis mouf?” “I hear him small, small.” “Massa, I no sabey them palaver.” “Them man he make me trouble too much.” “I go one time” (“one time” is “at once”), or “I go come one time.”
Kruboys are not the only Africans who speak Kru English. It is spoken by thousands along the coast who have no knowledge of any other European language.Even Frenchmen, and especially Germans, in their own colonies, sometimes have to learn Kru English in order to converse with their boat-boys. White men are often proud of speaking it well, and I have sometimes seen men standing at the head of the gangway and shouting down to the boys in a boat below, apparently for no other reason than to display their linguistic talent, as one might be vain of a knowledge of French or German. I have not used it as much as some; for, in the Congo Français where I spent most of my time, very little English, good or bad, is spoken; and in the interior one does not hear it at all. But I am very familiar with it. I have preached in it and have even prayed in it. This would have been impossible if any person had been present who could speak good English. Humour is peculiarly a social enjoyment. It takes at least two persons to enjoy a joke. Often in the native towns I have witnessed the most amusing incongruities without being in the least amused, until I thought of it afterwards, sometimes long afterwards, when talking with some one else who would appreciate the humour and see the incongruity with me. So, I say, I have preached in the Kru English, and, reverently, I believe—at least without any consciousness of incongruity; but if an English-speaking person had entered the church I could scarcely have proceeded to the end of the sentence.
Shortly before leaving Africa I was visiting a coast town in a tribe whose own language I did not know. But they understood Kru English, and I preached to them in that dialect, on the parable of the Lost Sheep. It will not be fully appreciated without the African accent, tone, and gesture. I related the parable to them about as follows:
S’pose one man he have hunderd sheep and one sheep go loss for bush, what you think them man he go do? Well he go lef’ all them other sheep and he go find themsheep he live for bush. He go find him, find him, and no tire till he look him. S’pose he find him four or three days and never look him, well, he no tire; and s’pose he find him seven or six days and never look him he no tire; ten or nine days and never look him, he no tire; he go find him, find him, find him, all time till he look him. And s’pose he look him, well, he take them sheep on him shoulder, so⸺ He carry him for house and give him plenty chop, and he be glad too much. Then he go call all him friends, plenty man, plenty wife, and small piccaninny, and he say to them: “Say, you sabey them sheep that done loss for bush? Well, this day I look him. Then all people they make palaver and be happy too much. So, s’pose man go lef’ all him sins and do God-fashion; well, all them people, what live for top, they make fine palaver, and be happy too much.”
There may be inaccuracies in this, but it is tolerably correct; and I am sure that my African audience understood it. There is Kru English and Kru-er English, and Kru-est English. In the latter, “that” and “them” become “dat” and “dem.” But even if many natives use this form they perfectly understand the white man when he uses the correct form; and it is execrably bad taste to exaggerate either the pronunciation or the idiom, and to outdo the native himself in departing from the correct form. It also seems to me to be bad taste for white people to use Kru English when it is not necessary, as some do. And when a white woman deliberately adopts in her own household the word “chop,” and other such words, she puts a strain upon my respect.
Once when I was living at Gaboon, a north-coast man from Accra called on me, with whom I conversed in Kru English. That evening I received a letter from him which I kept for a long time as one of my souvenirs of Gaboon. I venture to reproduce it from memory:
Right Reverend Father in God:This day I done look gold toof what live for your mouf. All my life I never look so fine toof. Berra well. I like toof for my own mouf all same as them toof. I no like white toof again. S’pose you go buy me one toof all same as yours; s’pose you buy him for your country; berra well; I be fit for pay you cash and I be your fren all time. Please, Mister Milgan, do this for God’s sake.Your fren,(Signed)Joseph Accra.
Right Reverend Father in God:
This day I done look gold toof what live for your mouf. All my life I never look so fine toof. Berra well. I like toof for my own mouf all same as them toof. I no like white toof again. S’pose you go buy me one toof all same as yours; s’pose you buy him for your country; berra well; I be fit for pay you cash and I be your fren all time. Please, Mister Milgan, do this for God’s sake.
Your fren,
(Signed)Joseph Accra.
For trade and commerce between Africa and the civilized nations the Kruboy is at present more important than any other African, and is almost indispensable. For, owing to the heavy surf the open coast is nearly inaccessible for the landing of cargo and can only be worked by the most skillful and daring boatmen, and the Kruboy excels all Africans in these qualities. They received their first training from the slavers of early days, in whose service they learned both beach work and ship work. The slavers finding them useful allies and wishing to maintain friendly relations with them persuaded them to put a distinguishing mark upon themselves so that none of them might be taken and enslaved by mistake. This mark is a tattooed band, with an open pattern, running down the middle of the forehead and to the tip of the nose. The fashion, when once established, remained, and they are all tattooed in this way. The Kruboy also until late years hired with traders all along the coast to do beach work, that is, handle boats and cargo, sample rubber and oil, prepare copra, and do the variety of work of a trading-house. He is willing to serve an apprenticeship almost for nothing, during which time, he says, he “live for learn sense.” He is paid largely in goods.
On his return to his country (and he will not stayaway longer than a year) the Liberian government exacts a portion of his goods. A large part of the remainder goes to the elders of his tribe who have protected his wives in his absence. If he refuses this demand, which is usually exorbitant, or if he stays away too long from his country, the wives themselves are confiscated. Goods, however, that are made up into clothing are never demanded; and this accounts for a habit of the Kruboy which sometimes amazes ship-passengers. On his return as a deck-passenger after serving a year down the coast he turns tailor and employs all his time in making clothes, cutting them out and sewing them, on the deck. If there are many Kruboys thus travelling the lower deck presents an aspect of fantastic activity. In late years they have not gone far down the coast except as ship-hands.
The Kru people are peculiarly inaccessible to Christian influence. This is in part owing to the fact that they are away so much of the time. The life that they live when thus separated from their people and the nature of their contact with white men are not conducive to their moral welfare. But, as a matter of fact, very little missionary work has been done among them. They are extremely superstitious. The surf, with which the Kruboy fights desperate battles for his life, is full of malignant spirits; and so of everything that opposes or hurts him. His soul leaves him when he sleeps, and often some witch catches it in a trap; whereupon he takes sick and soon dies. Sometimes the witch inflicts a fatal wound upon the soul; and sometimes he hangs the trap over the fire and the soul shrinks and dies, himself failing and dying at the same time. Occasionally, however, the wandering soul stays away of its own accord. A witch-doctor may catch it and put it back into him for a consideration. Sometimes when the soul of the sleeper would return in themorning it finds its place taken by some malicious spirit which inflicts sickness. The witch-doctor must first expel this spirit before restoring the man’s soul.
When a person of any importance dies the Kru custom is to kill a number of others to accompany him to the underworld. The underworld is somewhat like this, and the inhabitants there pass their time somewhat as we do here; much of it is therefore spent in talking palavers. Sometimes they even talk palavers which began in this life and were not settled or were decided unjustly. For this purpose they often need the testimony of persons still living, and such persons immediately die in order to go to the underworld and give testimony. This is a common explanation when a number of persons die about the same time.
I like the Kruboy so well and I admire his bravery so much that I am reluctant to admit his glaring deficiency of morals,—that he lies, steals, commits adultery, and kills his neighbours with a good-natured or perhaps stupid indifference to right and wrong scarcely paralleled even in Africa.
The treatment that the natives receive at the hands of the ship’s officers is often the very opposite of brave. Many of these officers are pleasant gentlemen. Some of them will later be captains, and as a rule none but the best ever reach that position. The captains of the coast steamers are a fine class of men and delightful to travel with. I have never witnessed cruelty on their part towards the natives; though I have sometimes wondered that they did not interfere and restrain the angry passions of their officers. Yet, it must be added that the officers have not so much need of restraint when the captain is standing by.
Not to touch upon the doubtful propriety of swearing under any circumstances; no one but a fool will habitually swear at a Kruboy. For the Kruboy is as indifferentto a curse as to a blessing, and thus it reacts upon the man himself, exasperating him and putting him into such a rage as to threaten him with a fit of apoplexy or at least abrain-storm. The cursing of one or another of the officers at the Kruboys is both loud and continuous, and if it should suddenly cease one might be justified in supposing that the ship had sprung a leak and was about to go to the bottom and the officers to certain death.
On the homeward voyage there are always, among the deck-passengers, a number of Accra or Lagos men who have been working on the south coast and are returning home with their pay, a large portion of which is in the shape of various goods. There is no harbour in either of these places and the steamer anchors far out, in rough water, the passengers going ashore in boats. Some officers when in charge of native passengers are careful of their baggage; but occasionally—and not seldom—it is flung down into the boat below without the slightest care and even with the apparent intention of causing as much breakage and other damage as possible. The officer casts an occasional glance towards the upper deck, quite sure that the white passengers are enjoying the joke. But he is mistaken: both the missionary and the trader are indignant. For they both know the native better than he does, and they also know that those goods were earned by the hard labour of at least a year, and perhaps three years, during which time he has not seen his home or his friends. And only those who know them intimately can understand this sacrifice; for the African can die of homesickness.
THE DEBARKATION OF A DECK PASSENGER.
THE DEBARKATION OF A DECK PASSENGER.
THE DEBARKATION OF A DECK PASSENGER.
It is in accord with native etiquette that these men coming home should arrive very much dressed, in new clothes, starched linen and infinite jewelry. This dressing is done on the open deck and occupies sometimes the entire day before the arrival, to the delight of the whitepassengers, who also give much kindly and gratuitous advice, which the native takes in good part. But in spite of their assistance there is nearly always something a little “off” in the completed toilet. One individual, grandly dressed, had his new shoes on the wrong feet. They had been made on a very crooked last and the effect was more grotesque than one would suppose. He looked as if he expected to walk with his legs crossed. Well, we may enjoy all this with very kindly feelings towards the native. But the fun is all spoiled when the ship’s officer perpetrates a practical joke apparently for our amusement. These passengers, men and women, in places where the sea is rough, are lowered into the boat by a chair, which is fastened to the end of a long rope suspended from a crane. The chair looks perfectly safe and comfortable as it sits on the deck. The native gets into it without hesitation. The rope is then drawn up by the crane till the chair is raised from the deck and goes swinging out over the bounding main. Its occupant, if it be a woman with a baby, for instance, screams with fright, and perhaps as the chair moves off flings her baby back on the deck, trusting to Providence for its landing; but the African baby leads a charmed life. Meanwhile the woman shuts her eyes and resigns herself to her fate. The chair is lowered to the boat below, and if the sea be rough and the boat heaving and tossing there is a very dangerous moment as the chair first comes in contact with it. The women are always lowered with care. But in lowering these much-dressed men—usually several at once—the officer in charge frequently makes it a point to “capsize” them, by letting the chair come down on the gunwale of the surf-boat, or on a thwart, so as to spill the occupants into the boat and into the six inches of very dirty water in the bottom of it, head first, or on their backs. Not to speak of the bruised and bleeding conditionwhich sometimes results from this treatment, the native’s toilet is deranged, his clothes perhaps torn, and he goes ashore in woeful dishabille. No one enjoys this joke but the officer himself.
At Lagos, on the homeward voyage, in these late years natives come on board with large basket-coops of chickens which they take to Sekondi and sell to the white men connected with the mines. In each of these baskets there are three or four dozen chickens, which will sell for three shillings each; and surely this is an industry that ought to receive every encouragement. It is good for the natives and good for the miners. Yet, on certain steamers, such is the carelessness in loading them that sometimes not half the chickens reach Sekondi alive. There is not the least necessity for this large loss, nor for any loss. One day a trader of Fernando Po and I standing together watched a native, who had just come on board with his chickens, while he took out of one basket sixteen dead ones, exactly a third of the whole number, and he probably lost as many in landing them. We both thought that if the owner had been a white man in all probability not a chicken would have been lost.
The Kruboys are divided into deck-boys and boat-boys. The more intelligent and experienced of the deck-boys run the steam-winches and cranes, used in raising cargo from the hold, and in loading and stowing. Above the unceasing and relentless creaking of these three or four machines is heard the loud voice of one or several natives who stand at the open hatches and transmit orders from those in the hold below to those at the machines, the orders being always accompanied by appropriate gestures, which are also signals, so well understood that words would not be necessary for the common orders. Those at the hatches repeat from early morning till late at nightthe following calls: “Heave a link—half a link—half a link—lower away. Lower a link—half a link—lower a link—heave away.” Except between ports this goes on incessantly above the noise of the several winches. On one occasion when I had been feeling miserable for several days I said to the captain: “If ever I go mad I am sure I shall go on saying as long as I live: ‘Half a link—half a link—heave away.’” The captain replied: “That is precisely the end to which I myself am looking forward.” But when I am well I never weary of watching them at work.
A great variety of cargo is discharged, but more salt and gin than anything else. We take on rubber, ivory, mahogany, ebony, camwood, palm-oil and kernels. The palm-oil and kernels are used for the manufacture of soap and candles. The camwood, also calledbarwood, was more in demand before the use of analine dyes, but is still used in dyeing bandannas.
But the work of loading mahogany is of greatest interest to the passengers. At Gaboon many hundreds of these logs are always lying on the beach (or “in” the beach, as the disgusted captain frequently reports) awaiting shipment. African mahogany in these days is being shipped even to America where it is used for furniture. It is not nearly so valuable as the mahogany of Cuba and South America. But when it is figured with the “roe” it brings an enormous price. The roe of the mahogany is formed in the grain by one ring overlapping the other, making mottled ringlets of light and shade, sometimes very pronounced and exquisitely beautiful. Only those trees are cut which are close to the river, for the native has no mechanical means of transporting it and no mechanical aptitude to invent such means. They cut it into logs about twenty feet long, the average diameter being three feet. Such a log weighs about a ton andsometimes much more. They slide the logs down into the river on improvised rollers. Then in one or several canoes they tow from two to eight logs at a time to the coast where they are sold to the white trader for about five dollars each, in goods. This is the average value at Gaboon. The trader puts the house-mark on them and then leaves them on the beach until they are shipped. At high tide most of them are afloat but they cannot drift away, as the waves are stronger than the current and drive them back on the beach. The German traders usually have their logs squared before shipping whereby much is saved on the freight to Europe. But others say that it costs more to have them squared by the native using an adz than to pay the extra freight and have them squared in the mills of Europe.
The Kruboys are sent ashore from the ship to raft the logs, having first rolled them down the beach or dug them out of it. A spike with a ring attached, called adog, is driven into an end of each log, through which a rope is passed. Then they are towed, ten or twelve at a time, to the steamer, usually anchored half a mile, or even a mile from the shore. The Kruboys with surf-boats and paddles tow them well away from the shore and then they are taken by the steam launch, if the launch happens to be in order, which is once in a while. It is only in late years that the English steamers have carried launches. The first of these were evidently such as had been discarded by more favoured lines. They had ways past finding out. One of these, from its characteristic habit, a trader named theSudden Jerk, following native custom. Another which wassoundonly in the whistle I named thePiercing Scream.
The work of unbeaching the logs and towing them to the steamer is very hard, but the danger and the excitement is in getting them loaded and stowed. They aremade fast at the ship’s side. Several of the Kruboys remain in the water. They first knock the “dog” out of the last log; then they pass a chain around it which is made fast to the steel cable of the deck-winch. A signal, always accompanied by a shout, is passed up to one on deck who transmits it to the man at the winch and the log is lifted out of the water. The Kruboy rises with it a part of the way, then leaps into the water and prepares the next log. This may not seem so very difficult to men who are as much at home in the water as on shore. But these logs weighing a ton each are all the while dashing against each other or against the ship’s side with a deep boom that echoes through the ship. They are pitching and tossing and spinning, while the Kruboy tries to balance himself on top, keeps his eye on every log that is near, and at the same time does his work. But however it pitches and plunges he rides it as easily as a cowboy rides a pitching broncho. At first I looked on not only with interest, as always, but with a horrible fascination that I had never before experienced. All the passengers, from the upper deck, are watching the Kruboy lying across a log that heaves and rolls while he passes the chain beneath it, and at that moment another log is driven towards it with its full ton weight, the two colliding broadside. The passengers shout; if there is a lady aboard she screams. But somehow, when those logs meet, the Kruboy is not between them. He is underneath, and quite out of sight. At last he comes up somewhere, and shaking the water from his woolly head, looks up with a smile full of white teeth and says: “He nebber catch me.” And this goes on all day long, whenever logs are loaded. Occasionally an arm is broken, more often a leg, and sometimes a life is lost.
When the log is raised to the height of the lower deck it is passed from one spar to another which is over thehatch, and sweeps across the deck, all the Kruboys at the same moment shouting for everybody to get out of the way; but no time is lost in waiting for them to obey the order. They dodge skillfully, however; for one is always dodging something in Africa, and there is seldom any accident. But terrible accidents have sometimes occurred down in the hold, during the hard work of stowing the logs so that every cubic foot of space may be occupied. I have also seen the steel cable break when a log weighing nearly two tons was suspended over the hatch. One thinks, of course, that all the Kruboys down in that dark hold are directly under the falling log, which is never the case, and the volume of vocal noise which ascends immediately afterwards is a great relief to the blood-curdled feelings of the spectator, for it indicates that nobody is missing. But the fright extends beyond one’s solicitude for the Kruboys. For it looks as if that log would plunge right through the bottom of the ship. One will discover, however, that it fell upon a bed of several logs carefully placed there against such an accident.
But I have not yet told of the hardest and the bravest work of the Kruboy, a work for which few men anywhere in the world would have sufficient daring, namely, his landing of cargo through the surf in the season of the “calemma,” or great wave of the southwest coast. Twice I have gone far south of Gaboon when the sea was at the worst. Once I went as far as Benguela, in Angola, and again I visited the Congo. On the latter journey I was nearly five weeks on shipboard.
The boat-boys are divided into crews according to the number of surf-boats in use. In a good sea a crew usually consists of seven men, six of whom use paddles, while the seventh, the headman, stands erect in the stern of the boat and steers with an oar attached to the stern. In a rough sea fewer boats are lowered and the crew isincreased to as many as thirteen men. However long the day’s work or hard the battle with the sea, they sing to the last stroke, keeping time with their paddles to one of their strange, wild boat-songs. Sometimes the song has only rhythm and no melody, being a monotonous repetition of several notes: “So sah, so sooh, so sah, so sooh, so sah, so sooh, ad—zh! So sah, so sooh,” etc. The man who sings at his work will do more work in a given time and do it better. Not that the African is always a great worker. He is seldom that; but he does more work singing than he would do not singing. And he sings because, however wronged and oppressed, there is a freedom within him which the white man can never take away; a lightness of heart, a buoyancy of spirit intractable to tyranny.
West Africa is notorious in all the world for its paucity of harbours, and its heavy surf, which at certain seasons rages like a battle, the roar of it like many voices defying the white man that would approach its shores. The surf at one place where we called was so bad that we were seven days discharging one day’s cargo. The sea rolled in with a tremendous swell—the calemma—like a wall of water that looked three stories high, which, as it approached the land, burst into a succession of breakers that raced towards the shore, and striking with the boom of cannon, tossed the white surf high into the air. One always feels, in going through it, that he is fighting a personal foe; there is even something human in the sound of it. The Kruboy says it is full of spirits. Savage spirits, they must be, and drunken, which leap and tumble and shout in mad carousal.
At each place the first venture in the surf-boats was watched eagerly from the ship. Three or four boats set out together with a light cargo. Near the surf they stop, landing one at a time, and waiting for the right moment.They wait perhaps as long as half an hour. Then, in the first boat, at the word of the headman, they throw their weight on the paddles and pull for their lives, not looking to either side, nor speaking a word. Now they are in the breakers, borne forward upon the racing waves with violent speed, a roaring monster before them and another more ferocious one pursuing. At this moment the safety of all depends upon the skill of the headman in keeping the boat placed right to the wave. And in any case, if the boat, upon reaching the beach, strike the ground at a moment when the water has receded, the breaker following will be upon it before they can drag it up the beach, and catching it up will perhaps stand it straight on end, and hurl it backward upon the beach; or, if it be not straight to the wave, it will be whirled about and flung up the beach, rolling over and over, with all its freight of boxes and barrels, the boys escaping I know not how—but not always escaping.
One day when the beach seemed much better than usual, the captain and the ship’s surgeon ventured ashore. The purpose of the captain was probably to visit the shippers with the object of drumming up trade, as captains are obliged to do on the coast. For this purpose he makes a very friendly call on each trader, listens to his graphaphone, and even praises it. He was brave to risk the surf, but he took the doctor. The captain afterwards narrated the adventure of their landing to a small but enthusiastic audience. He said that after waiting outside the surf half an hour, the headman suddenly gave the order, and in a moment they were in the breakers, riding on the top of one of them, and speeding towards the shore at the rate of “seventy miles an hour,” which calculation was merely his sensation expressed in terms of linear measure. The captain was in the bow of the boat well braced and cushioned. But when the boat struckthe beach with the force of a railway collision, the doctor was thrown violently over two thwarts into the captain’s bosom, whom he clasped about the neck with a steel-like grip. The next moment another breaker picked the boat up and hurled it upon the beach, throwing both captain and doctor to a perfectly safe distance where they sprawled upon the sand. The doctor, still hugging the captain’s neck, and very much frightened, exclaimed: “O Captain, dear Captain, is there anybody killed but you and me?”
But now it is evening, at the close of a bad day. No white man has ventured ashore these ten days. But the Kruboys have gone, and there on the beach is a boat making a last attempt to come off. The sea has been getting worse all day, and it is now like a boiling caldron. They have been there for hours, and have tried again and again to get off, but have failed, though they have no cargo, and they are the best crew and have the best headman of all. Several times they have been thrown back on the beach, and once the boat was capsized when nearly through the breakers; now they are making a last effort.
They stand around the boat, their weight against it, alert, and waiting in eager attention for the word of command. A shout from the headman, and in a moment they have pushed the big boat out into the water, have leaped into it, grasped the paddles, and are pulling like mad. The first breaker strikes the boat a blow that staggers it: the spirits must have been very angry. They are through it; but the boat is nearly half full of water and is not straight. The headman throws himself upon the oar, but alas! with such force that the becket attaching it to the stern is wrenched off. They are now at the mercy of the next breaker, a fearful one, which sweeps them ashore with violence, whirling the boatround, and then rolling it over and over upon the beach. As the water recedes we see them lying scattered at random upon the sand. They get up slowly as if half dazed; and one of them lies unconscious as the next wave washes over him, matting his hair with the wet sand. And there lies the brave headman badly bruised, the flesh torn from his leg, exposing the bone from the knee down. But one poor boy has fought his last fight with the wild sea. Many fights he has won, but the spirits have beaten him this time. “Oh, boys,” he says, “I’m hurt. I can’t get up. I can’t even move. I’m afraid my back is broken.”
So it was indeed: his back was broken. Late in the night he died, the other boys sobbing like children as they stood around him. Next day they buried him; and that evening they got off to the ship. As they approached, the wind wafted to us the sound of a native dirge, weird and plaintive, which they were chanting for their dead brother.
I feel bound to tell the sequel of this incident. The next day the sea was so bad that it seemed useless and foolish to attempt to land. The boys presented themselves in a body before a certain one of the officers and said: “Mastah, them sea he be bad too much. We no be fit for land cargo. S’pose we try, we go loss all cargo, and plenty man’s life. So please excuse to-day, Mastah; for we think to-morrow go be fine.”
The answer they received was a volley of profanity and curses. “Just because one of them was killed they all turn cowards,” said one. “Always thinking of themselves!” said another. With many such shrewd observations, and sundry moral exhortations to bravery, the boats were lowered and they were ordered into them.
But on these same steamers there are brave men and kind-hearted. On this particular morning the purserboldly protested. “If they are cowards,” said he, “what are we? For notwithstanding the demands of business, not one of us has ventured ashore for many days. I’m no coward myself,” he continued, “but I confess that those boys put my bravery to shame. They are the bravest boys in the world. Neither do I believe that they are bound to risk their lives in such a sea as this for a shilling a day.”
While he was speaking some one shouted: “There goes the first boat.”
We ran to the side just in time to see the boat borne down by the first breaker, whirled around and capsized, the boys struggling for their lives, not only with a furious sea, but with heavy boxes and casks and the boat itself, all tossed to and fro in the surging waters. They escaped without serious injury; but no white man could have escaped. About the same time, a few miles up the coast, a steamer had one of its strong surf-boats flung upon the beach with such violence that it was broken in two across the middle. Another steamer had two boys killed.
One day our boys went ashore early in the morning, leaving the ship at half-past five. They were expecting to make the first trip before breakfast, as usual, and therefore had nothing to eat before starting. They had landed the cargo safely at the trading-house; but the sea was so bad that they could not get off to the ship all that day. They made several unsuccessful attempts, and it was almost night when at last they succeeded. Meanwhile, the swell had become so heavy that we had steamed far out for safety, and were anchored seven miles from the shore. The boys reached the ship after dark, and we then learned that the white trader ashore had given them nothing to eat; although the ship would have repaid him. Those boys had battled with the sea weak with hunger, not having had a taste of food all that day. It is only fair tosay that on the steamers they are well fed. There are but very few English traders who would do as that man did; though there are many such men of other nationalities.
Only a short time afterwards, one evening at the table, an officer who had been ashore told us a story that was intended to prove the cruelty of the native. A white trader, he said, had caught a young elephant. He went away on a journey to the bush, leaving the care of it to his native workmen. Upon his return, after several months, he found the elephant in very poor health; and a few weeks later it died. There was no doubt that the natives had neglected to feed it in his absence, and this was the cause of its death. Horrible cruelty of the beastly native! Pungent remarks, appropriate to the occasion, were contributed all around the table. For myself—I was thinking of those starved and tired boys battling with a raging sea. But I said not a word. What would be the use?
We need not be sentimental about the native’s wrongs. Though a victim, he is not necessarily innocent. He would do unto others as others do unto him; and his life is perhaps not rendered more miserable by the white man than it was before. But, then, they aresavagesand we are supposed to be civilized; and the most wretched excuse that the white man can give for his cruelty is that he is only imitating the natives themselves. The white man is always calling the native a devil, and always expecting him to act like an angel, while he himself, so far from being angelic, sets an infernal example.
The truth is that the white man in the tropics is out of his element as much as the diver who works in the deep sea. The atmosphere in which he was produced and in which he developed—the mental, moral, social and physical conditions—are also necessary to his moral andphysical maintenance. The climate weakens and depresses him, while at the same time he is not sustained by domestic cheer and the society of equals to which he has been accustomed. He is invariably nervous and as a consequence impatient, while at the same time the circumstances that confront him in the discharge of his daily duties are such as would try the temper of a saint. If he remain long in a climate so unnatural to him and in a strange and uncivilized society the likelihood is that there will be an imperceptible and unconscious lowering of moral standards and accommodation to the standards of the society around him. Cruelty which at first shocked him gradually ceases to shock and at length he becomes indifferent, or perhaps himself capable of barbarous deeds from which he would at first have recoiled with horror.
For the men of whom I have been speaking are not inferior to the average man at home. Your virtues, and the graces of mind and character upon which you pride yourself—your strength and composure, your patience and devotion to duty, your honesty, your justice, your purity—all these belong not only to yourself but to the society which has produced you and of which you are a part. The moral standards which it has erected in the course of its social evolution, the safety with which it has surrounded you, the comforts which this safety has made procurable, the disapprobation by which it punishes any infraction of its laws—to these, not to yourself alone, you owe your moral attainments. None but the highest and most fixed moral standards will bear transportation to a tropical climate and tropical society. Until this fact is clearly recognized the relation of civilization to the uncivilized tropics is likely to be productive of misery and shame. If I did not hate sensationalism I could easily fill this chapter with a record of the misdeeds and barbarities in Africa of men, many of whom belonged torespectable families and to good society and were well-behaved at home.
Neither does the white man become acclimated in the tropics—no more than the diver in the deep sea. The longer he remains, his physical and moral resources become the more exhausted. Let us keep these facts in mind in judging those of whom we have spoken, and those of whom we have yet to speak in the next chapter.