An African Adventure Part 19

Now began a journey that did not lack adventure. It was the end of the dry season and the Kasai was lower than ever before. The channel was almost a continuous sand-bank. We rested on one of them for a whole day.

I was now well into the domain of the hippopotamus. I am not exaggerating when I say that the Kasai in places is alive with them. You can shoot one of these monsters from the bridge of the river boats almost as easily as you could pick off a sparrow from the limb of a park tree. I got tired of watching them. The flesh of the hippopotamus is unfit for white consumption, but the natives regard it as a luxury. The white man who kills a hippo is immediately acclaimed a hero. One reason is that with spears the black finds it difficult to get the better of one of these animals.

Our first step was at a Lutheran Mission set in the middle of a populous village. As we approached I saw the American flag hanging over the door of the most pretentious mud and gra.s.s house. When I went ash.o.r.e I found that the missionaries--a man and his wife--were both American citizens.

The husband was a Swede who had gone out to Kansas in his boyhood to work on a farm. There he married a Kansas girl, who now speaks English with a Swedish accent. After spreading the gospel in China and elsewhere, they settled down in this lonely spot on the Kasai River.

I was immediately impressed with the difference between the Congo River and the Kasai. The Congo is serene, brooding, majestic, and fringed with an endless verdure. The Kasai, although 1,500 miles in length, is narrower and more pugnacious. Its brown banks and grim flanking mountains offer a welcome change from the eternal green of the great river that gives the Colony its name. The Kasai was discovered by Livingstone in 1854.

I also got another change. Two days after I left Dima we were blanketed with heavy fog every morning and the air was raw and chill. On the Kasai you can have every experience of trans-Atlantic travel with the sole exception of seasickness.

As I proceeded up the Kasai I found continued evidence of the advance in price of every food commodity. The omnipresent chicken that fetched a franc in 1914 now brings from five to ten. My old friend the goat has risen from ten to thirty francs and he was as tough as ever, despite the rise. But foodstuffs are only a small part of these Congo economic troubles.

We have suffered for some time under the burden of our inseparable companion, the High Cost of Living. It is slight compared with the High Cost of Loving in the Congo. Here you touch a real hardship. Before the war a first-cla.s.s wife--all wives are bought--sold for fifty francs.

Today the market price for a choice spouse is two hundred francs and it takes hard digging for the black man to sc.r.a.pe up this almost prohibitive fee. Thus the High Cost of Matrimony enters the list of universal distractions.

On the "Madeleine" was a fascinating black child named Nanda. He was about five years old and strolled about the boat absolutely naked. Most Congo parents are fond of their offspring but this particular youngster, who was bright and alert, was adored by his father, the head fireman on the vessel. One day I gave him a cake and it was the first piece of sweet bread he had ever eaten. Evidently he liked it for afterwards he approached me every hour with his little hands outstretched. I was anxious to get a photograph of him in his natural state and took him ash.o.r.e ostensibly for a walk. One of my fellow pa.s.sengers had a camera and I asked him to come along. When the boy saw that he was about to be snapped he rushed back to the boat yelling and howling. I did not know what was the matter until he returned in about ten minutes, wearing an abbreviated pair of pants and a short coat. He was willing to walk about nude but when it came to being pictured he suddenly became modest. This state of mind, however, is not general in the Colony.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FISHERMEN ON THE SANKURU]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FALLS OF THE SANKURU]

The African child is fond of playthings which shows that one touch of amus.e.m.e.nt makes all childhood kin. He will swim half a mile through a crocodile-infested river to get an empty tin can or a bottle. One of the favorite sports on the river boats is to throw boxes or bottles into the water and then watch the children race for them. On the Congo the fathers sometimes manufacture rude reproductions of steamboats for their children and some of them are astonishingly well made.

Exactly twelve days after we left Dima the captain told me that we were nearing Djoko Punda. The country was mountainous and the river had become swifter and deeper for we were approaching Wissmann Falls, the end of navigation for some distance. These falls are named for Herman Wissmann, a lieutenant in the Prussian Army who in the opinion of such authorities as Sir Harry Johnston, ranks third in the hierarchy of early Congo explorers. Stanley, of course, comes first and Grenfell second.

On account of the lack of certain communication save by runner in this part of Africa--the traveller can always beat a wireless message--I was unable to send any word of my coming and I wondered whom and what I would find there. I had the strongest possible letters to all the Forminiere officials but these pieces of paper could not get me on to Tshikapa. I needed something that moved on wheels. I was greatly relieved, therefore, when we came in sight of the post to see two unmistakable American figures standing on the bank. What cheered me further were two American motor cars nearby.

The two Americans proved to be G. D. Moody and J. E. Robison. The former is a.s.sistant Chief Engineer of the Forminiere in the field and the latter is in charge of the motor transport. They gave me a genuine American welcome and that night I dined in Robison's gra.s.s house off American food that had travelled nearly fifteen thousand miles. I heard the first unadulterated Yankee conversation that had fallen on my ears since I left Elizabethville two months before. When I said that I wanted to push on to Tshikapa at once, Moody said, "We will leave at five in the morning in one of the jitneys and be in Tshikapa tomorrow night."

Moody was an incorrigible optimist as I was soon to discover.

IV

At dawn the next morning and after a breakfast of hot cakes we set out.

Nelson was in a great state of excitement because he had never ridden in an automobile before. He was destined not to enjoy that rare privilege very long. The rough highway hewed by American engineers through the thick woods was a foot deep in sand and before we had proceeded a hundred yards the car got stuck and all hands save Moody got out to push it on. Moody was the chauffeur and had to remain at the wheel. Draped in fog, the jungle about me had an almost eerie look. But aesthetic and emotional observations had to give way to practicality. Laboriously the jitney snorted through the sand and b.u.mped over tree stumps. After a strenuous hour and when we had reached the open country, the machine gave a groan and died on the spot. We were on a broad plain on the outskirts of a village and the broiling sun beat down on us.

The African picaninny has just as much curiosity as his American brother and in ten minutes the whole juvenile population was a.s.sembled around us. Soon the grown-ups joined the crowd. Naked women examined the tires as if they were articles of food and black warriors stalked about with the same sort of "I told you so" expression that you find in the face of the average American watching a motor car breakdown. Human nature is the same the world over. The automobile is a novelty in these parts and when the Forminiere employed the first ones the natives actually thought it was an animal that would finally get tired and quit. Mine stopped without getting tired!

For six hours Moody laboured under the car while I sat in the glaring sun alongside the road and cursed fate. Nelson spent his time eating all the available food in sight. Finally, at three o'clock Moody gave up and said, "We'll have to make the rest of this trip in a teapoy."

A teapoy is usually a hammock slung on a pole carried on the shoulders of natives. We sent a runner in to Robison, who came back with two teapoys and a squad of forty blacks to transport us. The "teapoy boy,"

as he is called, is as much a part of the African scheme of life as a driver or a chauffeur is in America. He must be big, strong, and sound of wind, because he is required to go at a run all the time. For any considerable journey each teapoy has a squad of eight men who alternate on the run without losing a step. They always sing as they go.

I had never ridden in a teapoy before and now I began a continuous trip in one which lasted eight hours. Night fell almost before we got started and it was a strange sensation to go sailing through the silent black woods and the excited villages where thousands of naked persons of all sizes turned out to see the show. After two hours I began to feel as if I had been tossed up for a week in an army blanket. The wrist watch that I had worn throughout the war and which had withstood the fiercest sh.e.l.l shocks and bombardments, was jolted to a standstill. After the fourth hour I became accustomed to the movement and even went to sleep for a while. Midnight brought us to Kabambaie and the banks of the Kasai, where I found food and sanctuary at a Forminiere post. Here the thousands of tons of freight that come up the river from Dima by steamer and which are carried by motor trucks, ox teams, and on the heads of natives to this point, are placed on whale-boats and sent up the river to Tshikapa.

Before going to bed I sent a runner to Tshikapa to notify Donald Doyle, Managing Engineer of the Forminiere in the field, that I was coming and to send a motor car out to meet me. I promised this runner much _matabeesh_, which is the African word for a tip, if he would run the whole way. The distance through the jungle was exactly seventy-two miles and he covered it, as I discovered when I reached Tshikapa, in exactly twenty-six hours, a remarkable feat. The _matabeesh_ I bestowed, by the way, was three francs (about eighteen cents) and the native regarded it as a princely gift because it amounted to nearly half a month's wages.

By this time my confidence in the African jitney was somewhat shaken. A new motor-boat had just been received at Kabambaie and I thought I would take a chance with it and start up the Kasai the next day. Moody, a.s.sisted by several other engineers, set to work to get it in shape. At noon of the second day, when we were about to start, the engine went on a sympathetic strike with the jitney, and once more I was halted. I said to Moody, "I am going to Tshikapa without any further delay if I have to walk the whole way." This was not necessary for, thanks to the Forminiere organization, which always has hundreds of native porters at Kabambaie, I was able to organize a caravan in a few hours.

After lunch we departed with a complete outfit of tents, bedding, and servants. The black personnel was thirty porters and a picked squad of thirty-five teapoy boys to carry Moody and myself. Usually these caravans have a flag. I had none so the teapoy capita fished out a big red bandanna handkerchief, which he tied to a stick. With the crimson banner flying and the teapoy carriers singing and playing rude native instruments, we started off at a trot. I felt like an explorer going into the unknown places. It was the real thing in jungle experience.

From two o'clock until sunset we trotted through the wilds, which were almost thrillingly beautiful. In Africa there is no twilight, and darkness swoops down like a hawk. All afternoon the teapoy men, after their fashion, carried on what was literally a running crossfire of questions among themselves. They usually boast of their strength and their families and always discuss the white man they are carrying and his characteristics. I heard much muttering of _Mafutta Mingi_ and I knew long before we stopped that my weight was not a pleasant topic.

I will try to reproduce some of the conversation that went on that afternoon between my carriers. I will not give the native words but will translate into English the questions and answers as they were hurled back and forth. By way of explanation let me say beforehand that there is no word in any of the Congo dialects for "yes." Affirmation is always expressed by a grunt. Here is the conversation:

"Men of the white men."

"Ugh."

"Does he lie?"

"He lies not."

"Does he shirk?"

"No."

"Does he steal?"

"No."

"Am I strong?"

"Ugh."

"Have I a good liver?"

"Ugh."

[Ill.u.s.tration: A CONGO DIAMOND MINE]

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOW THE MINES ARE WORKED]

So it goes. One reason why these men talk so much is that all their work must be accompanied by some sound. Up in the diamond fields I watched a native chopping wood. Every time the steel blade buried itself in the log the man said: "Good axe. Cut deep." He talked to the weapon just as he would speak to a human being. It all goes to show that the Congo native is simply a child grown to man's stature.

The fact that I had to resort to the teapoy ill.u.s.trates the unreliability of mechanical transport in the wilds. I had tried in vain to make progress with an automobile and a motor boat, and was forced as a last resort to get back to the human being as carrier. He remains the unfailing beast of burden despite all scientific progress.

I slept that night in a native house on the outskirts of a village. It was what is called a _chitenda_, which is a gra.s.s structure open at all the sides. The last white man to occupy this domicile was Louis Franck, the Belgian Minister of the Colonies, who had gone up to the Forminiere diamond fields a few weeks before. He used the same jitney that I had started in, and it also broke down with him. Moody was his chauffeur.

They made their way on foot to this village. Moody told the chief that he had the real _Bula Matadi_ with him. The chief solemnly looked at Franck and said, "He is no _Bula Matadi_ because he does not wear any medals." Most high Belgian officials wear orders and the native dotes on shiny ornaments. The old savage refused to sell the travellers any food and the Minister had to share the beans of the negro boys who accompanied him.

Daybreak saw us on the move. For hours we swung through dense forest which made one think of the beginnings of the world when the big trees were king. The vastness and silence were only comparable to the brooding mystery of the jungle nights. You have no feel of fear but oddly enough, a strange sense of security.

I realized as never before, the truth that lay behind one of Stanley's convictions. He once said, "No luxury of civilization can be equal to the relief from the tyranny of custom. The wilds of a great city are greater than the excruciating tyranny of a small village. The heart of Africa is infinitely preferable to the heart of the world's largest city. If the way were easier, millions would fly to it."

Despite this enthralling environment I kept wondering if that runner had reached Doyle and if a car had been sent out. At noon we emerged from the forest into a clearing. Suddenly Moody said, "I hear an automobile engine." A moment later I saw a small car burst through the trees far ahead and I knew that relief was at hand. Dr. John Dunn, the physician at Tshikapa, had started at dawn to meet me, and my teapoy adventures, for the moment, were ended. Dr. Livingstone at Ujiji had no keener feeling of relief at the sight of Stanley that I felt when I shook the hand of this bronzed, Middle Western medico.

We lunched by the roadside and afterwards I got into Dunn's car and resumed the journey. I sent the porters and teapoy men back to Kabambaie. Late in the afternoon we reached the bluffs overlooking the Upper Kasai. Across the broad, foaming river was Tshikapa. If I had not known that it was an American settlement, I would have sensed its sponsorship. It radiated order and neatness. The only parallels in the Congo are the various areas of the Huileries du Congo Belge.