Observations Upon the Windward Coast of Africa Part 10

MY LORDS,

That consideration which has uniformly distinguished your Lordships for the safe-guardianship of our commerce, and the property engaged in it, stimulates me to approach your Lordships with some few observations on the present state of the African trade, and its dependencies.

My object is, to submit to your Lordships a statement of the British capital involved in that commerce, as exemplified by the present amount of export, diligently ascertained from the most authentic sources of intelligence, and to offer some brief remarks on its importance to the United Kingdom, and the necessity of a more adequate naval protection.

In the first place, permit me to solicit your Lordships' attention to the estimate of annual export from the Windward Coast of Africa. (Vide page 54.)

Your Lordships will perceive, that the amount of export _only_ is here under review; and I submit to your consideration the capital vested in the necessary shipping, also the property of British factors, resident on the Coast, and factories belonging to merchants at home, which forms another article of great importance.

During the present war, from the Rio Noonez to the river Sierra Leone, 660 slaves, and more than the value of 100 slaves in craft, have fallen into the hands of the enemy; which were forcibly seized upon the premises of factories, the property of British subjects, to the amount of 35,000_l_. at the computation of 50 each, valuing them upon an equitable average: moreover, about one hundred resident free people have been involved in this violence, of incalculable importance, and ground of indefinite claims from the natives.

When your Lordships contemplate these facts, and the annual emolument derived from this commerce by the government, and a numerous body of merchants, it may be presumed that its magnitude is of sufficient consequence to justify the expense of _adequate naval protection_.

British subjects connected with, and resident on, the Coast, are consequently become deeply interested, and are earnestly solicitous for an extension of your Lordships' paternal care towards their possessions. The princ.i.p.al amount, as before shewn, necessarily in the progress of business, pa.s.ses into currency through their hands, which, with the surplus property they have in their stores, their buildings, and people, creates a momentous risque, which is exposed to the predatory ravages of piccaroon privateers, and to the hostile squadrons and depredations of the enemy.

With all due retrospective reference to your Lordships' vigilance and watchful guardianship over our commerce, I take the liberty to remind your Lordships, that only one sloop of war, the Arab, (the Favourite being taken) has been charged with the important office of defending an extent of coast of upwards of 1000 miles, against the sweeping hand of the enemy; an example of which has fatally occurred in the late destruction effected by Commodore L'Hermitte's squadron, to the very serious injury of many British merchants, and perhaps the ruin of many underwriters upon African risques.

From the apparent approaches the legislature appears to make towards an abolition of the slave trade, the object of consideration for the defence of the coast of Africa may have become of less comparative magnitude; but when upwards of one million in export from thence, and its enumerated appendages, are entangled, and at imminent hazard, an animated and impressive appeal is made your Lordships for every practicable security, while it remains in existence; and to the legislative wisdom, for a remuneration commensurate thereto, in the event of its annihilation.

Trusting that your Lordships will deign to recognize the importance of this subject, and will vouchsafe to pardon my temerity in a.s.suming to suggest to your Lordships' wisdom the expediency of establishing a more adequate and permanent naval force for the protection of the trade and coast of Africa, I am,

My Lord, Your Lordship's most obedient devoted humble servant,

JOSEPH CORRY.

No. III.

When the foregoing narrative and observations were prepared for the press, the original minutes from whence the following Appendix is compiled, had not come to hand, as they remained with a part of my papers, which I have since received from the coast of Africa.

The substance of these miscellaneous fragments I shall divide into sections, descriptive of the different subjects to which they allude, and it may be found that they ill.u.s.trate more fully many of the foregoing remarks upon the Windward Coast of Africa.

SECTION I.

_Of the Purrah_.

Among the singular customs of the inhabitants of Africa, there exists in the vicinity of the Sierra Leone, and more particularly among the mixed tribes of the Foolahs, Soosees, Boolams, &c. an inst.i.tution of a religious and political nature. It is a confederation by a solemn oath, and binds its members to inviolable secrecy not to discover its mysteries, and to yield an implicit obedience to superiors, called by the natives the _Purrah_.

As it is dangerous to enquire from the natives, and consequently difficult to procure information on this subject, conjecture must supply the want of oral and ocular testimony; but what I have here advanced I had from an intelligent chief, who was a member of the society, who, I am nevertheless convinced, preserved his integrity, in communicating the following particulars, as I never could induce him to touch upon any part of the mysteries, which he acknowledged to exist, but spoke of them with the utmost reserve.

The members of this secret tribunal are under the supreme control of a sovereign, whose superior, or _head man_, commands by his council, absolute submission and authority from the subordinate councils and members.

To be admitted into the confederacy it is necessary to be thirty years of age; and to be a member of the grand _purrah_, fifty years; and the oldest member of the subordinate _purrahs_ form those of the sovereign _purrahs_.

No candidate is admitted but at the recommendation and responsibility of members, who imprecate his death, if he betrays fear during his initiation into the ceremonies, or the sacred mysteries of the a.s.sociation; from which females are entirely excluded.

Some months elapse, in the preparation for admission, and the candidate pa.s.ses through the severest trials, in which every dreadful expedient is employed to ascertain his firmness of mind, and courage.

The candidate is conducted to a sacred wood, where a place is appointed for his habitation, from which he dares not absent himself; if he does, he is immediately surrounded and struck dead. His food is supplied by men masked, and he must observe an uniform silence.

Fires, during the night, surround these woods, to preserve them inviolate from the unhallowed steps of curiosity, into which if indiscretion tempts any one to enter, a miserable exit is the result.

When the trials are all gone through, _initiation_ follows; the candidate is first sworn to secrecy, to execute implicitly the decrees of the _purrah_ of his order, and to be devoted to the commands of the _sovereign purrah_.

During the process of initiation, the hallowed woods resound with dreadful howlings, shrieks, and other horrid noises, accompanied by conflagrations and flames.

This secret and inquisitorial tribunal takes cognizance of crimes and delinquencies, more especially witchcraft and murder; and also operates as a mediator in wars, and dissentions among powerful tribes and chiefs. Its interference is generally attended with effect, more particularly if accompanied by a threat of vengeance from the _purrah_; and a suspension of hostilities is scrupulously observed, until it is determined who is the aggressor; while this investigation takes place by the sovereign _purrah_, as many of the warriors are convoked, as they conceive necessary to enforce their judgment, which usually consigns the guilty to a pillage of some days. To execute the decree, they avail themselves of the night to depart from the place where the sovereign _purrah_ is a.s.sembled, previously disguising their persons with hideous objects, and dividing themselves into detachments, armed with torches and warlike weapons; they arrive at the village of the condemned, and proclaim with tremendous yells the decree of the sovereign _purrah_. The affrighted victims of superst.i.tion and injustice are either murdered or made captives, and no longer form a people among the tribes.

The produce arising from this horrid and indiscriminate execution of the decrees of this tribunal is divided equally between the injured tribe, and the sovereign _purrah_; the latter share is again subdivided among the warriors employed in the execution of its diabolical decree, as a recompense for their zeal, obedience, and prompt.i.tude.

The families of the tribes under the dominion of this infernal confederacy, when they become objects of suspicion or rivalry, are subjected to immediate pillage, and if they resist, are dragged into their secret recesses, where they are condemned, and consigned to oblivion.

Its supreme authority is more immediately confined to the Sherbro; and the natives of the Bay of Sierra Leone speak of it with reserve and dread: they consider the brotherhood as having intercourse with the _bad spirit_, or devil, and that they are sorcerers, and invulnerable to human power. Of course the _purrah_ encourages these superst.i.tious prejudices, which establish their authority and respect, as the members are numerous, and are known to each other by certain signs and expressions. The Mandingos have also their sacred woods and mysteries, where, by their delusions and exorcisms, they prepare their children for circ.u.mcision.

The Soosees, inhabiting the borders of the Rio Pongo, have a species of _purrah_, which gives its members great consequence among them; but their ceremonies are kept also with inviolable secrecy, and they are bound by horrid oaths and incantations. These people seem to delight in disseminating improbable tales of their inst.i.tution, and their invention appears to be exhausted in superst.i.tious legends of its mysteries.

The Timmanees have an inquisitorial inst.i.tution called _bunda_, noticed in page 72, to which women only are subjected. The season of penitence is superintended by an elderly woman, called _bunda_ woman; and fathers even consign their wives and daughters to her investigation when they become objects of suspicion. Here is extracted from them an unreserved confession of every crime committed by themselves, or to which they are privy in others. Upon their admission they are besmeared with white clay, which obliterates every trace of human appearance, and they are solemnly abjured to make an unequivocal confession; which if not complied with, they are threatened with death as the inevitable consequence. The general result is a discovery of fact and falsehood, in proportion as their fears of punishment are aroused, which the _bunda_ woman makes known to the people who a.s.semble in the village or town where the _bunda_ is inst.i.tuted. If she is satisfied with the confession, the individual is dismissed from the _bunda_, and, as is noticed in Chapter VII. an act of oblivion is pa.s.sed relative to her former conduct; but where the crime of witchcraft is included, slavery is uniformly the consequence: those accused as partners of her guilt are obliged to undergo the ordeal by _red water_, redeem themselves by slaves, or go into slavery themselves.

When the _bunda_ woman is dissatisfied with the confessions, she makes the object sit down, and after rubbing poisonous leaves, procured for the purpose, between her hands, and infusing them in water, she makes her drink in proportion to its strength. It naturally occasions pain in the bowels, which is considered as an infallible evidence of guilt. Incantations and charms are then resorted to by the _bunda_ woman, to ascertain what the concealed crime is, and after a _decent_ period employed in this buffoonery, the charges are brought in conformity with the imagination or malignity of this priestess of mystery and iniquity.

During the continuance of this engine of avarice, oppression, and fraud in any town, the chiefs cause their great drum and other instruments of music to be continually in action, and every appearance of festive hilarity pervades among the inhabitants, accompanied by the song and the dance.

Contumacy, or a refusal to confess, is invariably followed by death.

In short, the bewildered natives feel the effects, and dread the power of these extraordinary inst.i.tutions; they know they exist, but their deliberations and mysteries are impenetrably concealed from them; and the objects of their vengeance are in total ignorance, until the annihilating stroke of death terminates their mortal career.

It is impossible to contemplate the religious inst.i.tutions, and superst.i.tious customs of the western nations of Africa, north of the equator, without closely a.s.similating them with those of Ethiopia and Egypt; and from hence to infer that a correspondence has existed between the eastern and western inhabitants of this great continent.

SECTION II.

_Of the_ Termite, Termes, _or_ Bug a Bug, _as it is called by the Natives upon the Windward Coast of Africa._

Among the insects mentioned in page 36, the _termite, termes_, or _bug a bug_, attracts peculiar notice. The following observations are derived from the investigations I occasionally made upon the Island of Ta.s.so, attached to Bance Island, where they abound, and indeed in nearly all the western countries of Africa.

The oeconomy of nature, and the wisdom of Providence, are wonderfully displayed in these little animals; for although they occasion the utmost devastation to buildings, utensils, and all kinds of household furniture and merchandize, and indeed every thing except metal and stone, yet they answer highly important purposes in demolishing the immense quant.i.ty of putrid substances, which load the earth in tropical climates.

Their astonishing peculiarities cannot fail to excite the notice of an attentive observer; the sagacity and ingenuity they display in their buildings, their industry, and the plunder and devastation they commit, is incredible to those who have not witnessed their communities and empires.

They are divided into innumerable societies, and acknowledge a king and queen, the former of which I brought to Europe, but the latter was by accident mislaid at sea. Linnaeus denominates the African _bug a bug, Termes_, and describes it as the plague of the Indies. Every community, as I have observed, has a king and queen, and the monarchy, if I may be allowed the expression, forms three distinct orders of insects, in three states of existence; of every species there are likewise three orders, which differ very essentially in the functions they have to perform, and are in appearance very different.

In their primitive state, they are perfectly white; they have six little feet, three on each side, and a small head, in which I could perceive no eyes, after a minute investigation with a microscope. In this state they supply the community with provisions from subterraneous cavities, fabricate their pyramidical buildings, and may with great propriety be called labourers.