With so satisfactory an account of the possibilities of the country, the only question that remains is this—Can the African native really be taught to work?
This question I answer unhesitatingly in the affirmative. I have described Africa as a nation of the unemployed. But the sole reason for the current impression that the African is an incorrigible idler is that at present there is really nothing for him to do. But that he can work and will work when the opportunity and inducement offer has been proved by experiment. The coast native, as all must testify who have seen him in the harbor of Zanzibar, Mozambique, Delagoa Bay, Natal, or the other eastern ports, is, with all allowances, a splendid worker; and though the experiment has seldom been tried in the interior, it is well known that the capacity is there, and wherever encouraged yields results beyond all expectation. Probably the severest test to which the native of Central Africa has ever been put is the construction of the Stevenson road, between Lakes Nyassa and Tanganyika. Forty-six miles of that road—probably the only thing of the kind in Central Africa—have already been made entirely by native labor, and the work could not have been better done had it been executed by English navvies. I have watched by the day a party of seventy natives working at a cutting upon that road. Till three or four years ago none of them had ever looked upon a white man; nor, till a few months previously, had one of them seen a spade, a pickaxe, or a crowbar. Yet these savages handled their tools to such purpose that, with only a single European superintendent, they have made a road, full of difficult cuttings and gradients, which would not disgrace a railway contractor at home. The workmen keep regular hours—six in the morning till five at night, with a rest at mid-day—work steadily, continuously, willingly, and above all, merrily. This goes on, observe, in the heart of the tropics, almost under the equator itself, where the white man's energy evaporates, and leaves him so limp that he cannot even be an example to his men. This goes on too without any compulsion; the natives flock from far and near, sometimes from long distances, to try this new sensation of work. These men are not slaves, but volunteers; and though they are paid by the fortnight, many will remain at their post the whole season through. The only bribe for all this work is a yard or two of calico per week per man; so that it seems to me one of the greatest problems of the future of Africa is here solved. In capacity the African is fit to work, in inclination he is willing to work, and in actual experiment he has done it; so that with capital enlisted and wise heads to direct these energies, with considerate employers who will remember that these men are but children, this vast nation of the unemployed may yet be added to the slowly growing list of the world's producers.
Africa at this moment has an impossible access, a perilous climate, a penniless people, an undeveloped soil. So once had England. It may never be done; other laws may operate, unforeseen factors may interfere; but there is nothing in the soil, the products, the climate, or the people of Africa, to forbid its joining even at this late day in the great march of civilization.
ITS PATHOLOGY AND CURE.
The life of the native African is not all idyll. It is darkened by a tragedy whose terrors are unknown to any other people under heaven. Of its mild domestic slavery I do not speak, nor of its revolting witchcraft, nor of its endless quarrels and frequent tribal wars. These minor evils are lost in the shadow of a great and national wrong. Among these simple and unprotected tribes, Arabs—uninvited strangers of another race and nature—pour in from the North and East, with the deliberate purpose of making this paradise a hell. It seems the awful destiny of this homeless people to spend their lives in breaking up the homes of others. Wherever they go in Africa the followers of Islam are the destroyers of peace, the breakers up of the patriarchal life, the dissolvers of the family tie. Already they hold the whole Continent under one reign of terror. They have effected this in virtue of one thing—they possess firearms; and they do it for one object—ivory and slaves, for these two are one. The slaves are needed to buy ivory with; then more slaves have to be stolen to carry it. So living man himself has become the commercial currency of Africa. He is locomotive, he is easily acquired, he is immediately negotiable.
Arab encampments for carrying on a wholesale trade in this terrible commodity are now established all over the heart of Africa. They are usually connected with wealthy Arab traders at Zanzibar and other places on the coast, and communication is kept up by caravans which pass, at long intervals, from one to the other. Being always large and well supplied with the material of war, these caravans have at their mercy the feeble and divided native tribes through which they pass, and their trail across the Continent is darkened with every aggravation of tyranny and crime. They come upon the scene suddenly; they stay only long enough to secure their end, and disappear only to return when a new crop has arisen which is worth the reaping.
Sometimes these Arab traders will actually settle for a year or two in the heart of some quiet community in the remote interior. They pretend perfect friendship; they molest no one; they barter honestly. They plant the seeds of their favorite vegetables and fruits—the Arab always carries seeds with him—as if they meant to stay for ever. Meantime they buy ivory, tusk after tusk, until great piles of it are buried beneath their huts and all their barter-goods are gone. Then one day, suddenly, the inevitable quarrel is picked. And then follows a wholesale massacre. Enough only are spared from the slaughter to carry the ivory to the coast; the grass-huts of the villages are set on fire; the Arabs strike camp; and the slave-march, worse than death, begins.
This last act in the drama, the slave-march, is the aspect of slavery which, in the past, has chiefly aroused the passions and the sympathy of the outside world, but the greater evil is the demoralization and disintegration of communities by which it is necessarily preceded. It is essential to the traffic that the region drained by the slaver should be kept in perpetual political ferment; that, in order to prevent combination, chief should be pitted against chief; and that the moment any tribe threatened to assume a dominating strength it should either be broken up by the instigation of rebellion among its dependencies, or made a tool of at their expense. The inter-relation of tribe with tribe is so intricate that it is impossible to exaggerate the effect of disturbing the equilibrium at even a single centre. But, like a river, a slave-caravan has to be fed by innumerable tributaries all along its course—at first in order to gather a sufficient volume of human bodies for the start, and afterwards to replace the frightful loss by desertion, disablement, and death.
Many at home imagine that the death-knell of slavery was struck with the events which followed the death of Livingstone. In the great explorer's time we heard much of slavery; we were often appealed to; the Government busied itself; something was really done. But the wail is already forgotten, and England hears little now of the open sore of the world. But the tragedy I have alluded to is repeated every year and every month—witness such recent atrocities as those of the Upper Congo, the Kassai and Sankaru region described by Wissmann, of the Welle-Inakua district referred to by Van Gele. It was but yesterday that an explorer, crossing from Lake Nyassa to Lake Tanganyika, saw the whole southern end of Tanganyika peopled with large and prosperous villages. The next to follow him found not a solitary human being—nothing but burned homes and bleaching skeletons. It was but yesterday—the close of 1887—that the Arabs at the north end of Lake Nyassa, after destroying fourteen villages with many of their inhabitants, pursued the population of one village into a patch of tall dry grass, set it on fire, surrounded it, and slew with the bullet and the spear those who crawled out from the more merciful flames. The Wa-Nkonde tribe, to which these people belonged, were, until this event, one of the most prosperous tribes in East Central Africa. They occupied a country of exceptional fertility and beauty. Three rivers, which never failed in the severest drought, run through their territory, and their crops were the richest and most varied in the country. They possessed herds of cattle and goats; they fished in the lake with nets; they wrought iron into many-patterned spearheads with exceptional ingenuity and skill; and that even artistic taste had begun to develop among them was evident from the ornamental work upon their huts, which were themselves unique in Africa for clever construction and beauty of design. This people, in short, by their own inherent ability and the natural resources of their country, were on the high road to civilization. Now, mark the swift stages in their decline and fall. Years ago an almost unnoticed rill from that great Arab stream, which with noiseless current and ever-changing bed has never ceased to flow through Africa, trickled into the country. At first the Arab was there on sufferance; he paid his way. Land was bought from the Wa-Nkonde chiefs, and their sovereignty acknowledged. The Arab force grew. In time it developed into a powerful incursion, and the Arabs began openly to assert themselves. One of their own number was elevated to the rulership, with the title of "Sultan of Nkonde." The tension became great, and finally too severe to last. After innumerable petty fights the final catastrophe was hurried on, and after an atrocious carnage the remnant of the Wa-Nkonde were driven from their fatherland. Such is the very last chapter in the history of Arab rule in Africa.
The Germans, the Belgians, the English, and the Portuguese, are crying out at present for territory in Central Africa. Meantime humanity is crying out for some one to administer the country; for some one to claim it, not by delimiting a frontier-line upon a map with colored crayons, but by seeing justice done upon the spot; for some one with a strong arm and a pitiful heart to break the Arab yoke and keep these unprotected children free. It has been reserved for a small company of English gentlemen to arrest the hand of the raider in the episode I have just described. While Germany covets Nyassa-land, while Portugal claims it, while England has sent a consul there, without protection, to safeguard British missionary and trading interests, two agents of the African Lakes Company, two missionaries, the British Consul at Mozambique, with two companions who happened to be in Nyassa-land on scientific work, have, at the risk of their lives, averted further war, and with their own rifles avenged the crime.
But this fortuitous concourse of English rifles cannot be reckoned upon every day; nor is it the part of the missionary and the trader to play the game of war. The one thing needed for Africa at present is some system of organized protection to the native, and the decisive breaking of the Arab influence throughout the whole interior. These events at Lake Nyassa have brought this subject once more before the civilized world, and I may briefly state the situation as it at present stands.
Five years ago the British cruisers which had been for years engaged in suppressing the slave-trade were tempted to relax their efforts. They had done splendid service. The very sight of the great hull of theLondon, as she rocked in the harbor of Zanzibar, had a pacific influence; and as the caravans from the interior came and went at intervals of years and found the cruiser's cannon still pointing to their sultan's palace, they carried the fear of England over the length and breadth of Africa. The slave-trade was seriously discouraged, and, so far as the coast traffic was concerned, it was all but completely arrested. What work, up to this point, was done, was well done; but, after all, only half the task had ever been attempted. It was not enough to stop the sewer at its mouth; its sources in the heart of Africa should have been sought out and purified. But now that even the menace at Zanzibar no longer threatened the slavers, their work was resumed with redoubled energy. The withdrawal of theLondonwas interpreted to mean either that England conceived her work to be done or that she had grown apathetic and would interfere no more.
The consequences were almost immediately disastrous. A new license to devastate, to murder, and to enslave, was telegraphed all over Africa, and speedily found expression, in widely separated parts of the country, in horrors the details of which can never be known to the civilized world. The disturbances on Lake Nyassa undoubtedly belong, though indirectly, to this new category of crime. Already the Arabs have learned that there is no one now to take them to task. In one district after another they have played their game and won; and with ample power, with absolute immunity from retribution, and with the sudden creation of a new demand for slaves in a quarter of which I dare not speak further here, their offenses can only increase in number and audacity. It is remarkable in the Wa-Nkonde episode that, for the first time probably in Central Africa, the Mohammedan defiance to the Christian power was open and undisguised. Hitherto the Arab worked in secret. The mere presence of a white man in the country was sufficient to stay his hand. On this occasion the Arab not only did not conceal his doings from the Europeans, nor flee when he was remonstrated with, but turned and attacked his monitors. The political significance of this is plain. It is part of a policy. It is a challenge to Europe from the whole Mohammedan power. Europe in Africa is divided; Mohammedanism is one. No isolated band of Arabs would have ventured upon such a line of action unless they were perfectly sure of their ground. Nor is there any reason why they should not be sure of their ground. Europe is talking much about Africa; it is doing nothing. This the Arab has discerned. It is one of the most astounding facts in morals that England should have kept the Arab at bay so long. But the time of probation is over. And the plain issue is now before the world—Is the Arab or the European henceforth to reign in Africa?
How the European could reign in Africa is a simple problem. The real difficulty is as to who in Europe will do it. Africa is claimed by everybody, and it belongs to nobody. So far as the Nyassa region is concerned, while the Portuguese assert their right to the south and west, scarcely one of them has ever set foot in it: and while the Germans claim the north and east, their pretension is based neither upon right of discovery, right of treaty, right of purchase, right of conquest, nor right of possession, but on the cool audacity of some chartographer in Berlin, who, in delineating a tract of country recognized as German by the London Convention of 1886, allowed his paint-brush to color some tens of thousands of square miles beyond the latitude assigned. To England it is a small matter politically who gets Africa. But it is of moment that those who secure the glory of annexation should not evade the duty of administration. The present condition of Africa is too critical to permit so wholesale a system of absentee landlordism; and it is the duty of England, so far at least as the Nyassa region is concerned, to insist on the various claimants either being true to their assumed responsibilities or abandoning a nominal sovereignty.
It is well known,—it is certain,—that neither Portugal nor Germany will ever administer this region. If they would, the problem would be solved, and England would gladly welcome the release; the release, for, although England has never aided this country with a force of arms, she has for some time known that in some way, direct or indirect, she ought to do it. This country is, in a special sense, theprotégéof England. Since Livingstone's death the burden of it has never really left her conscience. The past relation of England to Nyassa-land, and her duty now, will be apparent from the following simple facts:—
Lake Nyassa was discovered by David Livingstone. At that time he was acting as Her Majesty's Consul, and was sent to Africa with a Government Expedition, which was equipped not to perform an exceptional and romantic piece of work, but in accordance with a settled policy on the part of England. "The main object of the Zambesi Expedition," says Livingstone, "as our instructions from Her Majesty's Government explicitly stated, was to extend the knowledge already attained of the geography, and mineral and agricultural resources, of Eastern and Central Africa; to improve our acquaintance with the inhabitants, and to endeavor to engage them to apply themselves to industrial pursuits, and to the cultivation of their lands, with a view to the production of raw material to be exported to England in return for British manufactures; and it was hoped that, by encouraging the natives to occupy themselves in the development of the resources of the country, a considerable advance might be made towards the extinction of the slave-trade, as they would not be long in discovering that the former would eventually be a more certain source of profit than the latter. The Expedition was sentin accordance with the settled policy of the English Government; and the Earl of Clarendon being then at the head of the Foreign Office, the Mission was organized under his immediate care. When a change of Government ensued we experienced the same generous countenance and sympathy from the Earl of Malmesbury as we had previously received from Lord Clarendon; and on the accession of Earl Russell to the high office he has so long filled we were always favored with equally ready attention and the same prompt assistance. Thusthe conviction was produced that our work embodied the principles not of any one party, but of the hearts of the statesmen and of the people of England generally."
Encouraged by this national interest in Africa, the churches of England and Scotland attempted to follow up the work of Livingstone in one at least of its aspects, by sending missionaries into the country. These have already succeeded in establishing themselves in one district after another, and are daily extending in numbers and influence.
In order to perpetuate a scarcely less important branch of the movement initiated by Livingstone,—a department specially sanctioned, as the above extract shows, by the English Government—the African Lakes Company was formed in 1878. Its object was to open up and develop the regions of East Central Africa from the Zambesi to Tanganyika; to make employments for the native peoples, to trade with them honestly, to keep out rum, and, so far as possible, gunpowder and firearms, and to co-operate and strengthen the hands of the missionary. It has already established twelve trading stations, manned by a staff of twenty-five Europeans and many native agents. TheIlalaon Lake Nyassa belongs to it; and it has just placed a new steamer to supersede theLady Nyassaon the river Shiré. It has succeeded in starting a flourishing coffee plantation in the interior, and new sources of wealth are being gradually introduced. For the first time, on the large scale, it has taught the natives the meaning and the blessings of work. It has acted, to some extent, as a check upon the slave-trade; it has prevented inter-tribal strife, and helped to protect the missionaries in time of war. The African Lakes Company, in short, modest as is the scale on which it works, and, necessarily limited as are its opportunities, has been for years the sole administering hand in this part of Africa. This Company does not exist for gain;—or exists for gain only in the sense that commercial soundness is the only solid basis on which to build up an institution which can permanently benefit others. A large amount of private capital has been expended by this Company; yet, during all the years it has carried on its noble enterprise, it has re-invested in Africa all that it has taken from it.
All this British capital, all the capital of the Missions, all these various and not inconsiderable agencies, have been tempted into Africa largely in the hope that the old policy of England would not only be continued but extended. England has never in theory departed from the position she assumed in the days of the Zambesi Expedition. On the contrary, she has distinctly recognized the relation between her Government and Africa. She has continued to send out British Consuls to be the successors of Livingstone in the Nyassa region. When the first of these, Captain Foote, R.N., died in the Shiré Highlands in 1884, the English Government immediately sent another to take his place. But this is the last thing that has been done. The Consul is there as a protest that England has still her eye on Africa. But Africa needs more than an eye. And when, as happened the other day, one of Her Majesty's representatives was under Arab fire for five days and nights on the shores of Lake Nyassa, this was brought home to us in such practical fashion as to lead to the hope that some practical measures will now be taken.
I do not presume to bring forward a formal proposal; but two things occur to one as feasible, and I shall simply name them. The first is for England, or Germany, or France, or some one with power and earnestness, to take a firm and uncompromising stand at Zanzibar. Zanzibar, as the Arab capital, is one of the keys of the situation, and any lesson taught here would be learned presently by the whole Mohammedan following in the country.
The other key to the situation is the vast and splendid water-way in the heart of Africa—the Upper Shiré, Lake Nyassa, Lake Tanganyika, and the Great Lakes generally. As a base for military or patrol operations nothing better could be desired than these great inland seas. A small steamer upon each of them—or, to begin with, upon Nyassa and Tanganyika—with an associated depôt or two of armed men on the higher and healthier plateaux which surround them, would keep the whole country quiet. Only a trifling force of well-drilled men would be needed for this purpose. They might be whites, or blacks and whites; they might be Sikhs or Pathans from India; and the expense is not to be named considering the magnitude of the results—the pacification of the entire equatorial region—that would be achieved. That expense could be borne by the Missions, but it is not their province to employ the use of force; it could be borne by the Lakes Company, only they deserve protection from others rather than that this should be added to the large debt civilization already owes them; it could be done by the Free Congo State,—and if no one else is shamed into doing it, this further labor of love may fall into its hands. But whether alone, or in co-operation with the few and overburdened capitalists of the country, or in conjunction with foreign powers, England will be looked to to take the initiative with this or a similar scheme.
The barriers in the way of Government action are only two, and neither is insurmountable. The one is Portugal, which owns the approaches to the country; the other is Germany, which has inland interests of her own. Whether England could proceed in the face of these two powers would simply depend on how it was done. As a mere political move such an occupation of the interior might at once excite alarm and jealousy. But wearing the aspect of a serious mission for the good of Africa, instigated not by the Foreign Office but by the people of England, it is impossible to believe that the step could either be misunderstood or opposed. It is time the nations looked upon Africa as something more than a chess-board. And even if it were but a chess-board, the players on every hand are wise enough to know that whatever is honestly done to relieve this suffering continent will react in a hundred ways upon the interests of all who hold territorial rights within it.
A beginning once made, one might not be unduly sanguine in anticipating that the meshes of a pacific and civilizing influence would rapidly spread throughout the country. Already the missionaries are pioneering everywhere, prepared to slay and do their part; and asking no more from the rest of the world than a reasonable guarantee that they should be allowed to live. Already the trading companies are there, from every nationality, and in every direction ready to open up the country, but unable to go on with any confidence or enthusiasm till their isolated interests are linked together and secured in the presence of a common foe. The territories of the various colonies are slowly converging upon the heart of Africa, and to unite them in an informal defensive alliance would not be impossible. With Emin Pasha occupying the field in the north; with the African Lakes Company, the British East African Association, and the German Association, in the east; with the Congo Free State in the west, and British Bechuanaland in the south, a cordon is already thrown around the Great Lakes region, which requires only to have its several parts connected with one another and with central forces on the Lakes, to secure the peace of Africa.
A TRAVELLER'S DIARY.
With a glade in the forest for a study, a bale of calico for a table, and the sun vertical and something under a billion centigrade, diary-writing in the tropics is more picturesque than inspiring. To keep a journal, however, next to keeping his scalp, is the one thing for which the consistent traveller will go through fire and water; and the dusky native who carries the faded note-books on the march is taught to regard the sacredness of his office more than if he drove the car of Juggernaut. The contents of these mysterious note-books, nevertheless, however precious to those who write them, are, like the photographs of one's relations, of pallid interest to others, and I have therefore conscientiously denied myself the joy of exhibiting such offspring of the wilderness as I possess to my confiding reader.
But as the diary form has advantages of its own, I make no apology at this stage for transcribing and editing a few rough pages. Better, perhaps, than by a more ordered narrative, they may help others to enter into the traveller's life, and to illustrate what the African traveller sees and hears and does. I shall disregard names, and consecutive dates, and routes. My object is simply to convey some impression of how the world wags in a land unstirred by civilization, and all but untouched by time.
29th September.—Left Karongas, at the north end of Lake Nyassa, at 10.30, with a mongrel retinue of seven Mandalla natives, twelve Bandawé Atongas, six Chingus, and my three faithfuls—Jingo, Moolu, and Seyid. Total twenty-eight. Not one of my men could speak a word of English. They belonged to three different tribes and spoke as many languages; the majority, however, knew something of Chinanja, the lake language, of which I had also learned a little, so we soon understood one another. It is always a wise arrangement to have different tribes in a caravan, for in the event of a strike, and there are always strikes, there is less chance of concerted action. Each man carried on his head a portion of my purse—which in this region consists solely of cloth and beads; while one or two of the more dependable were honored with the transportation of the tent, collecting-boxes, provisions, and guns.
The road struck into a banana grove, then through a flat country fairly well wooded with a variety of trees, including many palms and a few baobabs. The native huts dotted over this rich flat are the best I have seen in Africa. The roofs are trimly thatched, and a rude carving adorns door-post and lintel. After seven miles the Rukuru is crossed—a fine stream rippling over the sand, with large flakes of mica tumbling about in the current, and sampling the rocks of the distant hills. The men laid down their loads, and sprawled about like crocodiles in the water as I waded across. A few yards off is a village, where a fire was quickly lit, and the entire population turned out to watch the white man nibble his lunch. The consumption at this meal being somewhat slight, and the menu strange to my audience, I saw that they regarded the white man's effort at nutrition with feelings of contempt. "The M'sungu eats nothing," whispered one, "he must die." The head man presently came asking beads; but, as I had none unpacked, two stray trinkets and a spoonful of salt more than satisfied him. On getting the salt he deftly twisted a leaf into a little bag, and after pouring all the salt into it, graciously held out his hand to a troop of small boys who crowded round, and received one lick each of his empty palm. Salt is perhaps the greatest luxury and the greatest rarity the north-end African can have, and the avidity with which these young rascals received their homœopathic allowance proved the instinctiveness of the want. I have often offered native boys the choice between a pinch of salt and a knot of sugar, and they never failed to choose the first. For return-present the chief made over to me two large gourds filled with curds, of which, of course, I pretended to drink deeply before passing it on to the men.
Three miles of the same country, with tall bean-plants about, castor oil, and maize, but no villages in sight. Bananas unusually fine, and Borassus everywhere. At the tenth or eleventh mile we reached the fringe of hills bordering the higher lands, and, taking advantage of a passage about half a mile wide which has been cut by the river, penetrated the first barrier—a low rounded hill of conglomerate, fine in texture, and of a dark-red-color. Flanking this for two miles, we entered a broad oval expansion among the hills, the site apparently of a former lake. Winding along with the river for a mile or two more, and passing through a narrow and romantic glen, we emerged in a second valley, and camped for the night on the banks of the stream. On the opposite side stood a few native huts, and the occupants, after much reconnoitring, were induced to exchange someufaand sweet potatoes for a little cloth.
1st October.—Moolu peered into my tent with the streak of dawn to announce a catastrophe. Four of the men had run away during the night. All was going so well yesterday that I flattered myself I was to be spared this traditional experience—the most exasperating of all the traveller's woes, for the whole march must be delayed until fresh recruits are enlisted to carry the deserters' loads. The delinquents were all Bandawé men. They had no complaint. They stole nothing. It was a simple case of want of pluck. They were going into a strange land. The rainy season was coming on. Their loads were full-weight. So they got homesick and ran. I had three more Bandawé men in the caravan, and, knowing well that the moment they heard the news they would go and do likewise, I ordered them to be told what had happened and then sent to my tent. In a few moments they appeared; but what to say to them? Their dialect was quite strange to me, and yet I felt I must impress them somehow. Like the judge putting on the black cap, I drew my revolver from under my pillow, and, laying it before me, proceeded to address them. Beginning with a few general remarks on the weather, I first briefly sketched the geology of Africa, and then broke into an impassioned defence of the British Constitution. The three miserable sinners—they had done nothing in the world—quaked like aspens. I then followed up my advantage by intoning in a voice of awful solemnity, the enunciation of the Forty-Seventh Proposition of Euclid, and then threw my all into a blood-curdlingQuod erat demonstrandum. Scene two followed when I was alone; I turned on my pillow and wept for shame. It was a prodigious piece of rascality, but I cannot imagine anything else that would have done, and it succeeded perfectly. These men were to the end the most faithful I had. They felt thenceforth they owed me their lives; for, according to African custom, the sins of their fellow-tribesmen should have been visited upon them with the penalty of death.
Seyid and Moolu scoured the country at once for more carriers, but met with blank refusals on every side. Many natives passed the camp, but they seemed in unusual haste, and something of local importance was evidently going on. We were not long in doubt as to its nature. It was war. The Angoni were in force behind a neighboring hill, and had already killed one man. This might have been startling, but I treated it as a piece of gossip, until suddenly a long string of armed and painted men appeared in sight and rushed past me at the double. They kept perfect step, running in single file, their feet adorned with anklets of rude bells which jingled in time and formed quite a martial accompaniment. The center man held aloft a small red and white flag, and each warrior carried a large shield and several light barbed spears. The regiment was led by a fantastic looking creature, who played a hideous slogan on a short pan-pipe. This main body was followed at intervals by groups of twos and threes who had been hastily summoned from their work, and I must say the whole turnout looked very like business. The last of the warriors had scarcely disappeared before another procession of a different sort set in from the opposite direction. It consisted of the women and children from the threatened villages farther up the valley. It was a melting sight. The poor creatures were of all ages and sizes, from the tottering grandmother to the week old infant. On their heads they carried a miscellaneous collection of household gods, and even the little children were burdened with a calabash, a grass-mat, a couple of fowls, or a handful of sweet-potatoes. Probably the entire effects of the villages were represented in these loads. Amongst the fugitives were a few goats and one or two calves, and a troop of boys brought up the rear driving before them a herd of cows. The poor creatures quickened their pace as they passed my tent, and eyed me as furtively as if I and my men had been a detachment from the Angoni executing a flank movement. The hamlet opposite our camp, across the river, which had gladdened us the night before with its twinkling fires, its inhabitants sitting peacefully at their doors or fishing in the stream, was already deserted—the men to fight, the woman to flee for their lives they knew not whither. This is a common chapter in African history. Except among the very largest tribes no man can call his home his own for a month.
I was amazed at the way my men treated the affair. They lounged about camp with the most perfect indifference. This was accounted for by my presence. The mere presence of a white man is considered an absolute guarantee of safety in remoter Africa. It is not his gun or his imposing retinue; it is simply himself. He is not mortal, he is a spirit. Had I not been there, or had I shown the white feather, my men would have stampeded for Nyassa in a body. I had learned to understand the feeling so thoroughly that the events of the morning gave me no concern whatever, and I spent the day collecting in the usual way.
It was impossible to go on and leave the loads; it was equally impossible to get carriers at hand. So I despatched Seyid with a letter to the station on the Lake requesting six or eight natives to be sent from there. This meant a delay of two or three days at least, which, with the rains so near, was serious for me.
Made a "fly" for the tent, collected, and read. One only feels the heat when doing nothing. As the sun climbed to its zenith my men put up for themselves the most enticing bowers. They were ingeniously made with interlacing grasses and canes, and densely thatched with banana leaves.
Tried twice to bake bread, with Jingo and Moolu as assistant cooks. Both attempts dismal failures, so I had to draw on the biscuit-tins. I have plenty of fowls, bought yesterday for beads. Maraya down with fever. One of the carriers, Siamuka, who had been left behind sick, straggled into camp, looking very ill indeed. Physicked him and gave him four yards of cloth to wrap himself in. Towards sunset I began to get anxious for news of battle. The arrival of the armed band which had passed in the morning soon gratified me. There had been no battle. There had been no Angoni. It was simply a scare—one of those false alarms which people in these unsettled circumstances are constantly liable to. All evening the women and children were trooping back to their homes; and next morning our friends opposite were smoking their pipes at the doors again, as if nothing had happened.
Tuesday, 2d October—After morning cocoa had a walk with my hammer to examine the sections in the valley. Back to a good breakfast, cooked with all the art of Jingo, the real cook being at Karongas with the flag of distress. Moolu ill. This is the third man down with fever since we left the Lake. Bought some ufa and beans. Dispensed needles, and bent pins for fish-hooks, among the men. Held a great washing with Jingo. Towards the afternoon the reinforcements arrived from Karongas. The chief was drunk, it appeared, when my messenger reached him; but Mr. Munro at the Lake kindly sent me a number of his own men.
Another of my carriers begged leave to dissolve our partnership, and produced two youths whom he had beguiled into taking his load. His plea was that he was in bad odor at Mweni-wanda, and was afraid to go on. My own impression is that he found the load which he carried—on his head, like all Africans—was spoiling the cut of his hair. Even Africa has its exquisites, and this man was the swell all over. By "all over," I mean, of course, all over his head, for as his hair is his only clothing, except the bark loin cloth of which the cut cannot well be varied, he had poured out the whole of his great soul upon his coiffure. At the best the African's hair is about the length of a toy-shop poodle's; but vanity can make even a fool creative, and out of this scanty material and with extraordinary labor he had compiled a masterpiece. First, heavily greased with ground-nut oil, it was made up into small-sized balls like black-currants, and then divided into symmetrical patterns, diamonds, circles, and parterres, designed with the skill of a landscape-gardener. To protect this work of art from nightly destruction, this gentleman always carried with him a pillow of special make. It was constructed of wood, and dangled conspicuously from his spear-head on the march. He sold it to me ultimately for a yard of calico—and he certainly would not sleep after the transaction till he had laid the foundations of another.
12th October.—Got under weigh at early dawn. Much shirking and dodging among the men for light loads. Formerly sudden and suspicious fevers used to develop at this critical juncture—by a not unaccountable coincidence among the men with the heaviest loads; but my now well-known mixture, compounded of pepper, mustard, cold tea, citrate of magnesia, Epsom salts, anything else that might be handy, and a flavoring pinch of cinchona, has miraculously stayed the epidemic. But I forgive these merry fellows everything for wasting none of the morning coolness over toilet or breakfast. I need not say the African never washes in the morning; but, what is of more importance, he never eats, he rises suddenly from the ground where he has lain like a log all night, gives himself a shake, shoulders his load, and is off. Even at the mid-day halt he eats little; but, if he can get it, will regale himself with a draught of water and a smoke. This last is a perfunctory performance, and one pipe usually serves for a dozen men. Each takes a whiff or two from the great wooden bowl, then passes it to his neighbor, and the pipe seldom makes a second round.
I often wondered how the natives produced a light when camping by themselves, and at last resolved to test it. So when the usual appeal was made to me for "motu," I handed them my vesta-box with a single match in it. I generally struck the match for them, this being considered a very daring experiment, and I felt pretty sure they would make a mess of their one chance. It turned out as I anticipated, and when they handed back the empty box, I looked as abstracted and unapproachable as possible. After a little suspense, one of them slowly drew from the sewn-up monkey skin, which served for his courier-bag, a small piece of wood about three inches long. With a spear-head he cut in it a round hole the size of a threepenny-piece. Placing his spear-blade flat on the ground to serve as a base, he stretched over it a scrap of bark-cloth torn from his girdle, and then pinned both down with the perforated piece of wood, which a second native held firmly in position. Next he selected from among his arrows a slender stick of very hard wood, inserted it vertically in the hole, and proceeded to twirl it round with great velocity between his open palms. In less than half a minute the tinder was smoking sulkily, and after a few more twirls it was ready for further treatment by vigorous blowing, when it broke into active flame. The fire originates, of course, in the small soft piece of wood, from which sparks fall upon the more inflammable bark-cloth at the bottom of the hole.
Our daily programme, on the march, was something like this. At the first streak of dawn my tent was struck. There is no time for a meal, for the cool early hour is too precious in the tropics to waste over eating; but a hasty coffee while the loads were packing kept up the tradition of breakfast. In twenty minutes the men were marshalled, quarrels about an extra pound weight adjusted, and the procession started. At the head of the column I usually walked myself, partly to see the country better, partly to look out for game, and partly, I suppose, because there was no one else to do it. Close behind me came my own special valet—a Makololo—carrying my geological hammer, water-bottle, and loaded rifle. The white man, as a rule, carries nothing except himself and a revolver, and possibly a double-awned umbrella, which, with a thick pith helmet, makes sunstrokes impossible. Next Jingo marched the cook, a plausible Mananja, who could cook little, except the version of where the missing victuals went to. After the cook came another gentleman's gentleman carrying a gun and the medicine chest, and after him the rank and file, with another gun-bearer looking out for deserters at the rear. From half-past five I usually trudged on till the sun made moving torture, about ten or eleven. When I was fortunate enough to find shade and water there was a long rest till three in the afternoon, and an anomalous meal, followed by a second march till sunset. The dreadful part of the day was the interval. Then observations were made, and specimens collected and arranged, each man having to fill a collecting-box before sunset. When this was over there was nothing else to do that it was not too hot to do. It was too hot to sleep, there was nothing to read, and no one to speak to; the nearest post-office was a thousand miles off, and the only amusement was to entertain the native chiefs, who used occasionally to come with their followers to stare at the white man. These interviews at first entertained one vastly, but the humbling performances I had to go through became most intolerable. Think of having to stand up before a gaping crowd of savages and gravely button your coat—they had never seen a coat; or, wonder of wonders, strike a match, or snap a revolver, or set fire to somebody's bark clothes with a burning-glass. Three or four times a day often I had to go through these miserable performances, and I have come home with a new sympathy for sword-swallowers, fire-eaters, the man with the iron jaw, and all that ilk.
The interview commenced usually with the approach of two or three terror-stricken slaves, sent by the chief as a preliminary to test whether or not the white man would eat them. Their presents, native grains of some kind, being accepted, they concluded I was at least partly vegetarian, and the great man with his courtiers, armed with long spears, would advance and kneel down in a circle. A little speechifying followed, and then my return presents were produced—two or three yards of twopence-halfpenny calico; and if he was a very great chief an empty Liebig pot or an old jam tin was also presented with great ceremony. None of my instruments, I found, at all interested these people—they were quite beyond them; and I soon found that in my whole outfit there were not half a dozen things which conveyed any meaning to them whatever. They did not know enough even to be amazed. The greatest wonder of all perhaps was the burning-glass. They had never seen glass before, and thought it wasmazior water, but why themazidid not run over when I put it in my pocket passed all understanding. When the light focused on the dry grass and set it ablaze their terror knew no bounds. "He is a mighty spirit!" they cried, "and brings down fire from the sun." This single remark contains the key to the whole secret of a white man's influence and power over all uncivilized tribes. Why a white man, alone and unprotected, can wander among these savage people without any risk from murder or robbery is a mystery at home. But it is his moral power, his education, his civilization. To the African the white man is a supreme being. His commonest acts are miracles; his clothes, his guns, his cooking utensils are supernatural. Everywhere his word is law. He can prevent death and war if he but speak the word. And let a single European settle, with fifty square miles of heathen round him, and in a short time he will be their king, their lawgiver, and their judge. I asked my men one day the question point blank—"Why do you not kill me and take my guns and clothes and beads?" "Oh," they replied, "we would never kill a spirit." Their veneration for the white man indeed is sometimes most affecting. When war is brewing, or pestilence, they kneel before him and pray to him to avert it; and so much do they believe in his omnipotence that an unprincipled man by trading on it, by simply offering pins, or buttons or tacks, or pieces of paper, or anything English, as charms against death, could almost drain a country of its ivory—the only native wealth.
The real dangers to a traveller are of a simpler kind. Central Africa is the finest hunting country in the world. Here are the elephant, the buffalo, the lion, the leopard, the rhinoceros, the hippopotamus, the giraffe, the hyæna, the eland, the zebra, and endless species of small deer and antelope. Then the whole country is covered with traps to catch these animals—deep pits with a jagged stake rising up in the middle, the whole roofed over with turf and grass, so exactly like the forest bed that only the trained eye can detect their presence. I have found myself walking unconsciously on a narrow neck between two of these pits, when a couple of steps to either side would almost certainly have meant death. Snakes too, and especially the hideous and deadly puff adder, may turn up at any moment; and in bathing, which one eagerly does at every pool, the sharpest lookout is scarcely a match for the diabolical craft of the crocodile.
13th October.—Walking through the forest to-day some distance ahead of my men, I suddenly came upon a rhinoceros. The creature—the rhino is solitary in his habits—was poking about the bush with its head down and did not see me, though not ten yards separated us. My only arms were a geological hammer and a revolver, so I had simply to lie down and watch him. Presently my gun-bearer crawled up, but unfortunately by this time the pachyderm had vanished, and was nowhere to be found. I broke my heart over it at the moment, though why in the world I should have killed him I do not in the least know now. In cold blood one resents Mr. Punch's typical Englishman—"What a heavenly morning! let's go and kill something!" but in the presence of temptation one feels the veritable savage.
We are now at an elevation of about four thousand feet, and steadily nearing the equator, although the climate gives little sign of it. It is a popular mistake that the nearer one goes to the equator the temperature must necessarily increase. Were this so, Africa, which is the most tropical continent in the world, would also be the hottest; while the torrid zone, which occupies so large a portion of it, would be almost insupportable to the European. On the contrary, the nearer one goes to the equator in Africa it becomes the cooler. The reasons for this are twofold—the gradual elevation of the continent towards the interior, and the increased amount of aqueous vapor in the air. Central Africa is from three to five thousand feet above the level of the sea. Now for every three hundred feet of ascent the thermometer falls one degree. It is immensely cooler, therefore, in the interior than at the coast; and the equatorial zone all over the world possesses a climate in every way superior to that of the borders of the temperate region. At night, in Equatorial Africa, it is really cold, and one seldom lies down in his tent with less than a couple of blankets and a warm quilt. The heat of New York is often greater than that of Central Africa; for while in America a summer rarely passes without the thermometer reaching three figures, in the hottest month in Africa my thermometer never registered more than two on a single occasion—the highest actual point reached being 96°. Nowhere, indeed, in Africa have I experienced anything like the heat of a summer in Malta, or even of a stifling August in Southern Germany or Italy. On the other hand, the direct rays of the sun are necessarily more powerful in Africa; but so long as one keeps in the shade—and even a good umbrella suffices for this—there is nothing in the climate to disturb one's peace of mind or body. When one really feels the high temperature is when down with fever; or when fever, unknown to one, is coming on. Then, indeed, the heat becomes maddening and insupportable; nor has the victim words to express his feelings towards the glittering ball, whose daily march across the burnished and veilless zenith brings him untold agony.
15th to 22d October.—This camp is so well situated that I have spent the week in it. The programme is the same every day. At dawn Jingo came to my tent with early coffee. Went out with my gun for a morning stroll, and returned in an hour for breakfast. Thereafter I sorted the specimens captured the day before, and hung up the fatter insects to dry in the sun. Routing the ants from the boxes and provision stores was also an important and vexatious item. Some ants are so clever that they can break into every thing, and others so small that they will crawl into anything; and between the clever ones, and the small ones, and the jam-loving ones, and the flour-eating ones and the specimen-devouring ones, subsistence, not to say science, is a serious problem. The only things that have hitherto baffled them are the geological specimens; but I overhaul these regularly every morning along with the rest, in terror of one day finding some precocious creature browsing off my granites. After these labors I repaired to a natural bower in the dry bed of a shaded streamlet, where I spent the entire day. Here, even at high noon, was perfect coolness, and rest, and solitude unutterable. I lay among birds and beasts and flowers and insects, watching their ways, and trying to enter into their unknown lives. To watch uninterruptedly the same few yards of universe unfold its complex history; to behold the hourly resurrection of new living things, and miss no change or circumstance, even of its minuter parts; to look at all, especially the things you have seen before, a hundred times, to do all with patience and reverence—this is the only way to study nature.
Towards the afternoon the men began to drop in with their boxes of insects, each man having to collect a certain number every camp-day. If sufficient were not brought in the delinquent had to go back to the bush for more. At five or six I went back to my tent for dinner, and after an hour over the camp-fire turned in for the night. The chattering of the men all round the tent usually kept me awake for an hour or two. Their merriest time is just after sunset, when the great ufa-feast of the day takes place. The banter between the fires is kept up till the small hours, and the chief theme of conversation is always the white man himself—what the whit man did, and what the white man said, and how the white man held his gun, and everything else the white man thought, looked, willed, wore, ate, or drank. My object in being there was an insoluble riddle to them, and for what witchcraft I collected all the stones and insects was an unending source of speculation.
That they entered to some extent into one at least of these interests was proved that very night. I was roused rather late by a deputation, who informed me that they had just discovered a very uncommon object crawling on a stick among the firewood. Going out to the fire and stirring the embers into a blaze, I was shown one of the most extraordinary insects it has been my lot to look upon. Rather over two inches in length, the creature lay prone upon a branch, adroitly shamming death, after the manner of theMantidæ, to which it obviously belonged. The striking feature was a glittering coal-black spiral, with a large central spot of the same color, painted on the middle of the back; the whole resembling a gigantic eye, staring out from the body, and presenting the most vivid contrast to the lemon yellows and greens of the rest of the insect. One naturally sought a mimetic explanation of the singular marking, and I at once recalled a large fringed lichen which covered many of the surrounding trees, and of which this whole insect was a most apt copy. That it was as rare as it was eccentric was evident from the astonishment of the natives, who declared that they had never seen it before.
22d October.—Water has been scarce for some days, and this morning our one pool was quite dried up, so I struck camp. Marching northwest, over an undulating forest country, we came to a small village, near which was a running stream. The chief, an amiable old gentleman, after an hour spent in suspicious prospecting, came to see the show, and propitiated its leading actor with a present of flour. In return I gave him some cloth and an empty magnesia bottle to hold his snuff. The native snuff-mull is a cylinder of wood profusely carved, and, in the absence of a pocket, hangs tied round the neck with a thong. Snuffing is universal hereabouts.
This is a hotter camp than the last, though the elevation (4500 feet) is nearly the same. Paid the men their fortnight's wage in cloth, and as I threw in an extra fathom they held high revelry till far on in the night.
24th October.—Buffalo fever still on. Sallied forth early with Moolu, a large herd being reported at hand. We struck the trail after a few miles, but the buffaloes had moved away, passing up a steep valley to the north and clearing a hill. I followed, but saw no sign, and after one or two unsuccessful starts gave it up, as the heat had become terrific. Breakfasted off wild honey, which one of the natives managed to lay hands on, and sent for the camp to come up. Moolu went on with one native, T'Shaula—he of the great spear and the black feathers. They returned about two o'clock announcing that they had dropped two bull buffaloes, but not being mortally wounded the quarry had made off. Late in the afternoon two of my men rushed in saying that one of the wounded buffaloes had attacked two of their number, one severely, and that assistance was wanted to carry them back. It seems that five of the men, on hearing Moolu's report about the wounded buffaloes, and tempted by the thought of fresh meat, set off without permission to try to secure them. It was a foolhardy freak, as they had only a spear with them, and a wounded buffalo bull is the most dangerous animal in Africa. It charges blindly at anything, and even after receiving its mortal wound has been known to kill its assailant. The would-be hunters soon overtook one of the creatures, a huge bull, lying in a hollow, and apparentlyin articulo mortis. They calmly walked up to it—the maddest thing in the world—when the brute suddenly roused itself and charged headlong. They ran for their lives; one was overtaken and trampled down in a moment; the second was caught up a few yards farther on and literally impaled on the animal's horns. The first hobbled into camp little the worse, but the latter was brought in half dead. He had two frightful wounds, the less serious on the back behind the shoulder-blade, the other a yawning gash just under the ribs. I fortunately had a little lint and dressed his wounds as well as I could, but I thought he would die in my hands. He was quite delirious, and I ordered a watch all night in case the bleeding should break out afresh. His nurses unhappily could not take in the philosophy of this, and I had to turn out every hour to see that they were not asleep. The native's conception of pain is that it is the work of an evil spirit, and the approved treatment consists in blowing upon the wound and suspending a wooden charm from the patient's neck to exorcise it. All this was duly done now, and the blowing was repeated at frequent intervals through the night.
25th October.—Kacquia conscious, and suffering much. It is impossible to go on, so the men have rigged up a bower for me on the banks of a stream near the camp. Read, wrote, physicked right and left, and received the Chief of Something-or-other. Bribed some of his retinue to search the district for indiarubber, and bring specimens of the trees. After many hours' absence they brought me back two freshly-made balls, but neglected to bring a branch, which was what I promised to pay them for. From their description I gather the tree is the Landolphia vine. The method of securing the rubber is to make incisions in the stem and smear the exuding milky juice over their arms and necks. After it has dried a little they scrape it off and roll it up into balls.
An instance of what the native will do for a scrap of meat. Near camp this morning Moolu pointed out to me a gray lump on the top of a very high tree, which he assured me was an animal. It was a kind of lemur, and very good to eat. I had only my Winchester with me, and the ball ripped up the animal, which fell at once, but leaving an ounce or two of viscera on the branch. One of the men, Makata, coming up at the sound of the shot, perceived that the animal was not all there—it had been literally "cleaned"—immediately started to climb the tree for the remainder. It was a naked stem for a considerable height and thicker than himself, but he attacked it at once native fashion,i.e., by walking up the trunk, his clasped hands grasping the trunk on the opposite side from his doubled-up body, and literally walking upward on his soles. He soon came down with the precious mess, and in a few minutes it was cooked and eaten.
To-night I thought my hour was come. Our camp was right in the forest; it was pitch dark; and I was sitting late over the smouldering fire with the wounded man. Suddenly a terrific yell rang out from the forest, and a native rushed straight at me brandishing his spear and whooping at the pitch of his voice. Sure that it was an attack, I darted towards the tent for my rifle, and in a second every man in the camp was huddling in it likewise. Some dashed in headlong by the door, others under the canvas, until there was not room to crawl among their bodies. Then followed—nothing. First an awful silence, then a whispering, then a mighty laughter, and then the whole party sneaked out of the fort and yelled with merriment. One of my own men had crept out a few yards for firewood; he had seen a leopard, and lost control of himself—that was all. It was hard to say who was most chaffed about it; but I confess I did not realize before how simple a business it would have been for any one who did not approve of the white man to exterminate him and his caravan.
Sunday, 28th October.—My patient holding on; will now probably pull through. As he has to be fed on liquids, my own fowls have all gone in chicken soup. Fowls are now very scarce, and my men, taking advantage of the high premium and urgent demand, have gone long distances to get them. They will not supply them to the invalid, but sell them to me to give him. Wishing to teach them a lesson in philanthropy, I declined to buy any more on these terms; and after seeing me go three days dinnerless to give Kacquia his chance of life they became ashamed of themselves, and handed me all the fowls they had in a present. This was a prodigious effort for a native, and proves him capable of better things. The whole camp had been watching this byplay for a day or two, and the finish did good all round—more especially as I gave a return present, after a judicious interval, worth five times what had been given me.
Held the usual service in the evening—a piece of very primitive Christianity. Moolu, who had learned much from Dr. Laws, undertook the sermon, and discoursed with great eloquence on the Tower of Babel. The preceding Sunday he had waxed equally warm over the Rich Man and Lazarus; and his description of the Rich Man in terms of native ideas of wealth—"plenty of calico and plenty of beads"—was a thing to remember. "Mission-blacks," in Natal and at the Cape, are a byword among the unsympathetic; but I never saw Moolu do an inconsistent thing. He could neither read nor write; he knew only some dozen words of English; until seven years ago he had never seen a white man; but I could trust him with everything I had. He was not "pious"; he was neither bright nor clever; he was a commonplace black; but he did his duty and never told a lie. The first night of our camp, after all had gone to rest, I remember being roused by a low talking. I looked out of my tent; a flood of moonlight lit up the forest; and there, kneeling upon the ground, was a little group of natives, and Moolu in the centre conducting evening prayers. Every night afterwards this service was repeated, no matter how long the march was nor how tired the men. I make no comment. But this I will say—Moolu's life gave him the right to do it. Mission reports are often said to be valueless; they are less so than anti-mission reports. I believe in missions, for one thing, because I believe in Moolu.
But I need not go on with this itinerary. It is very much the same thing over again. For some time yet you must imagine the curious procession I have described wandering hither and thither among the wooded mountains and valleys of the table-land, and going through the same general programme. You might have seen its chief getting browner and browner in the tropical sun, his clothes getting raggeder and raggeder, his collecting-boxes becoming fuller and fuller, and his desire to get home again growing stronger and stronger. Then you might have seen the summer end and the tropical rains begin, and the whole country suddenly clothe itself with living green. And then, as the season advanced, you might have seen him plodding back to the Lake, between the attacks of fever working his way down the Shiré and Zambesi, and so, after many days, greeting the new spring in England.
A THEORY.
A few years ago, under the distinguished patronage of Mr. Darwin, the animal in vogue with scientific society was the worm. At present the fashionable animal is the ant. I am sorry, therefore, to have to begin by confessing that the insect whose praises I propose to sing, although bearing the honored name, is not entitled to consideration on account of its fashionable connections, since the white ant, as an ant, is an impostor. It is, in fact, not an ant at all, but belongs to a much humbler family—that of theTermitidæ—and so far from ever having been the vogue, this clever but artful creature is hated and despised by all civilized peoples. Nevertheless, if I mistake not, there is neither among the true ants, nor among the worms, an insect which plays a more wonderful or important part in nature.
NEST OF THE WHITE ANT. 1, Male. 2, 4, 5, Neuters. 3, Gravid Female.NEST OF THE WHITE ANT. 1, Male. 2, 4, 5, Neuters. 3, Gravid Female.
Fully to appreciate the beauty of this function, a glance at an apparently distant aspect of nature will be necessary as a preliminary.
When we watch the farmer at work, and think how he has to plough, harrow, manure, and humor the soil before even one good crop can be coaxed out of it, we are apt to wonder how nature manages to secure her crops and yet dispense with all these accessories. The world is one vast garden, bringing forth crops of the most luxuriant and varied kind century after century, and millennium after millennium. Yet the face of nature is nowhere furrowed by the plough, no harrow disintegrates the clods, no lime and phosphates are strewn upon its fields, no visible tillage of the soil improves the work on the great world's farm.
Now, in reality, there cannot be crops, or successions of crops, without the most thorough agriculture; and when we look more closely into nature we discover a system of husbandry of the most surprising kind. Nature does all things unobtrusively; and it is only now that we are beginning to see the magnitude of these secret agricultural operations by which she does already all that man would wish to imitate, and to which his most scientific methods are but clumsy approximations.
In this great system of natural husbandry nature uses agencies, implements, and tools of many kinds. There is the disintegrating frost, that great natural harrow, which bursts asunder the clods by the expansion during freezing of the moisture imprisoned in their pores. There is the communistic wind which scatters broadcast over the fields the finer soil in clouds of summer dust. There is the rain which washes the humus into the hollows, and scrapes bare the rocks for further denudation. There is the air which, with its carbonic acid and oxygen, dissolves and decomposes the stubborn hills, and manufactures out of them the softest soils of the valley. And there are the humic acids, generated through decay, which filter through the ground and manure and enrich the new-made soils.
But this is not all, nor is this enough; to prepare a surface film, however rich, and to manure the soil beneath, will secure one crop, but not a succession of crops. There must be a mixture and transference of these layers, and a continued mixture and transference, kept up from age to age. The lower layer of soil, exhausted with bringing forth, must be transferred to the top for change of air, and there it must lie for a long time, increasing its substance, and recruiting its strength among the invigorating elements. The upper film, restored, disintegrated, saturated with fertility and strength, must next be slowly lowered down again to where the rootlets are lying in wait for it, deep in the under soil.
Now how is this last change brought about? Man turns up the crust with the plough, throwing up the exhausted earth, down the refreshed soil, with infinite toil and patience. And nature does it by natural ploughmen who, with equal industry, are busy all over the world reversing the earth's crust, turning it over and over from year to year, only much more slowly and much more thoroughly, spadeful by spadeful, foot by foot, and even grain by grain. Before Adam delved the Garden of Eden these natural agriculturists were at work, millions and millions of them in every part of the globe, at different seasons and in different ways, tilling the world's fields.
According to Mr. Darwin, the animal which performs this most important function in nature is the earthworm. The marvellous series of observations by which the great naturalist substantiated his conclusion are too well known for repetition. Mr. Darwin calculates that on every acre of land in England more than ten tons of dry earth are passed through the bodies of worms and brought to the surface every year; and he assures us that the whole soil of the country must pass and repass through their bodies every few years. Some of this earth is brought up from a considerable depth beneath the soil, for, in order to make its subterranean burrow, the animal is compelled to swallow a certain quantity of earth. It eats its way, in fact, to the surface, and there voids the material in a little heap. Although the proper diet of worms is decaying vegetable matter, dragged down from the surface in the form of leaves and tissues of plants, there are many occasions on which this source of aliment fails, and the animal has then to nourish itself by swallowing quantities of earth, for the sake of the organic substances it contains. In this way the worm has a twofold inducement to throw up earth. First, to dispose of the material excavated from its burrow; and, second, to obtain adequate nourishment in times of famine. "When we behold a wide, turf-covered expanse," says Mr. Darwin, "we should remember that its smoothness, on which so much of its beauty depends, is mainly due to all the inequalities having been slowly levelled by worms. It is a marvellous reflection that the whole of the superficial mould over any such expanse has passed, and will again pass, every few years, through the bodies of worms. The plough is one of the most ancient and most valuable of man's inventions; but long before he existed the land was, in fact, regularly ploughed by earthworms. It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world as have these lowly organized creatures."*
*Vegetable Mould and Earth Worms, p. 313.
Now, without denying the very important contribution of the earthworm in this respect, a truth sufficiently endorsed by the fact that the most circumstantial of naturalists has devoted a whole book to this one animal, I would humbly bring forward another claimant to the honor of being, along with the worm, the agriculturist of nature. While admitting to the fullest extent the influence of worms in countries which enjoy a temperate and humid climate, it can scarcely be allowed that the same influence is exerted, or can possibly be exerted, in tropical lands. No man was less in danger of taking a provincial view of nature than Mr. Darwin, and in discussing the earthworm he has certainly collected evidence from different parts of the globe. He refers, although sparingly, and with less than his usual wealth of authorities, to worms being found in Iceland, in Madagascar, in the United States, Brazil, New South Wales, India, and Ceylon. But his facts, with regard especially to the influence, on the large scale, of the worm in warm countries, are few or wholly wanting. Africa, for instance, the most tropical country in the world, is not referred to at all; and where the activities of worms in the tropics are described, the force of the fact is modified by the statement that these are only exerted during the limited number of weeks of the rainy season.
A, Male. B, Worker. C, Soldier. D, Fecundated Female of Termes bellicosus, natural size, surrounded by "Workers."A, Male. B, Worker. C, Soldier. D, Fecundated Female of Termes bellicosus,natural size, surrounded by "Workers."
The fact is, for the greater portion of the year in the tropics the worm cannot operate at all. The soil, baked into a brick by the burning sun, absolutely refuses a passage to this soft and delicate animal. All the members of the earthworm tribe, it is true, are natural skewers, and though boring is their supreme function, the substance of these skewers is not hardened iron, and the pavement of a tropical forest is quite as intractable for nine months in the year as are the frost-bound fields to the farmer's ploughshare. During the brief period of the rainy season worms undoubtedly carry on their function in some of the moister tropical districts; and in the sub-tropical regions of South America and India, worms, small and large, appear with the rains in endless numbers. But on the whole the tropics proper seem to be poorly supplied with worms. In Central Africa, though I looked for them often, I never saw a single worm. Even when the rainy season set in, the closest search failed to reveal any trace either of them or of their casts. Nevertheless, so wide is the distribution of this animal, that in the moister regions even of the equatorial belt one should certainly expect to find it. But the general fact remains. Whether we consider the comparative poorness of their development, or the limited period during which they can operate, the sustained performance of the agricultural function by worms, over large areas in tropical countries, is impossible.
Now as this agricultural function can never be dispensed with, it is more than probable that nature will have there commissioned some other animal to undertake the task. And there are several other animals to whom this difficult and laborious duty might be entrusted. There is the mole, for instance, with its wonderful spade-like feet, that natural navvy, who shovels the soil about so vigorously, at home; but against the burnt crust of the tropics even this most determined of burrowers would surely turn the edge of his nails. The same remark applies to those curious little geologists the marmots and skipmunks, which one sees throwing up their tiny heaps of sand and gravel on the American prairies. And though the torrid zone boasts of a strong-limbed and almost steel-shod creature, the ant-bear, his ravages are limited to the destruction of the nests of ants; and however much this somewhat scarce animal contributes to the result, we must look in another direction for the true tropical analogue of the worm.
The animal we are in search of, and which I venture to think equal to all the necessities of the case, is the termite or white ant. It is a small insect, with a bloated, yellowish-white body, and a somewhat large thorax, oblong-shaped, and colored a disagreeable oily brown. The flabby, tallow-like body makes this insect sufficiently repulsive, but it is for quite another reason that the white ant is the worst abused of all living vermin in warm countries. The termite lives almost exclusively upon wood; and the moment a tree is cut or a log sawn for any economical purpose, this insect is upon its track. One may never see the insect, possibly, in the flesh, for it lives underground; but its ravages confront one at every turn. You build your house, perhaps, and for a few months fancy you have pitched upon the one solitary site in the country where there are no white ants. But one day suddenly the door-post totters, and lintel and rafters come down together with a crash. You look at a section of the wrecked limbers, and discover that the whole inside is eaten clean away. The apparently solid logs of which the rest of the house is built are now mere cylinders of bark, and through the thickest of them you could push your little finger. Furniture, tables, chairs, chests of drawers, everything made of wood, is inevitably attacked, and in a single night a strong trunk is often riddled through and through, and turned into matchwood. There is no limit, in fact, to the depredation by these insects, and they will eat books, or leather, or cloth, or anything; and in many parts of Africa I believe if a man lay down to sleep with a wooden leg it would be a heap of sawdust in the morning. So much feared is this insect now, that no one in certain parts of India and Africa ever attempts to travel with such a thing as a wooden trunk. On the Tanganyika plateau I have camped on ground which was as hard as adamant, and as innocent of white ants apparently as the pavement of St. Paul's, and wakened next morning to find a stout wooden box almost gnawed to pieces. Leather portmanteaus share the same fate, and the only substances which seem to defy the marauders are iron and tin.