To The Gold Coast for Gold Volume II Part 2

Like most of the coast-races, the Vai seem to be arrant cowards. The headmen salute their visitors Arab-fashion, with flourishes of the sword; but swording ends there. Of late they were attacked by the savages of the interior, Gallinas, Pannis, and Kusus. The latter, meaning the 'wolves' or the 'wild boars,' is the popular nickname of the Mendi or Mindi tribes, occupying the Sherbro-banks. They did excellent service in the last Ashanti war (1873-74) by flogging forward the fugitive Fantis. Winwood Keade, [Footnote: _The Story of the Ashanti Campaign_. Smith & Elder, London, 1874. It is a thousand pities that the volume was pruned, to use the mildest term. My friend's memory seems to brighten with the years, doubtless the effect of his heroic honesty in telling what he held to be the truth. His _Martyrdom of Man_, in which even his publisher did not believe, has reached a fourth edition; it was quoted by Mr. Gladstone, and Mrs. Grundy still buys it, in order to put it behind the fire.] an excellent judge of Africans, declares that they are very courageous, 'keen as mustard' for the fray. On the raid they creep up to and surround the doomed village; they raise the war-cry shortly before sunrise, and, as the villagers fly, they tell them by the touch. If the body feels warm after sleep, unlike their own dew-cooled skins, it soon becomes a corpse. They advance with two long knives, generally matchets, one held between the teeth. They prefer the white arm because 'guns miss fire, but swords are like the chicken's beak, that never fails to hit the grain.' Some 250 of these desperadoes lately drove off 5,000 of the semi-civilised recreants and took about 560 prisoners, including the 'King' of the Vai.

After covering forty-three miles from Cape Mount we anch.o.r.ed (5 P.M.) in the long, monotonous roll under Mount Mesurado. The name was probably Monserrate, given by the early Portuguese. It is ent.i.tled the Cradle of Liberia. The idea of restoring to Africa recaptured natives and manumitted slaves was broached in 1770 by the Rev. Samuel Hopkins, of Newport, R.I.

The scheme for 'civilising and christianising' the natives a.s.sumed organic form at Washington in 1816. In January 1820 the first emigrants embarked from New York for 'Liberia.' The original grant of land was made (April 1822) to the 'American Society for Colonising the Free People of the United States,' by King Peter and sundry chiefs of the Grain Coast, who little knew what they were doing. The place was described in those days as an Inferno, the very head and front of the export trade, the waters swarming with slavers, the sh.o.r.e bearing forty slave-factories, and the whole showing scenes of horror which made the site 'Satan's seat of abominations.' It has now changed its nature with its name, and has become the head-quarters of Dullness, that G.o.ddess who, we are a.s.sured, never dies.

Mesurado Mount, with the inverted cataract rushing white up its black rocks, is a picturesque feature. Halfway clearings for coffee-plantations, with a lime-washed bungalow, the President's country-quarters, lead to the feathered and forested crest which bears the 'pharos.' This protection against wreck is worse than nothing; it is lighted with palm-oil every night, and then left to its own sweet will. Consequently the red glimmer, supposed to show at thirteen miles, is rarely visible beyond three. A dotting of white frame-houses and curls of blue smoke betray the capital.

It lurks behind the narrow sand-bar which banks the shallow and useless Mesurado River, and few men land without an involuntary ablution in the salt water. Usually the stream mouths by an ugly little bar at some distance from the roadstead; after heavy rains it bursts the sand-strip and discharges in straight line.

We had visitors that evening from the Yankee-Doodle-n.i.g.g.e.ry colony, peopled by citizens who are not 'subjects.' Bishop C. C. Pinnock, absent from his home at Cape Mount, dined with us and told me about the death of an old friend, good Bishop Payne. His successor objects to learning and talking native tongues, and he insists upon teaching English to all the mission-scholars. His reasons are shrewd, if not convincing; for instance, 'most languages,' says the Right Reverend, 'have some term which we translate "love." But "love" in English is not equivalent to its representative in Kru or in Vai. Therefore by using their words I am expressing their ideas; I bring them over to mine by the reverse process.'

We shipped for Grand Ba.s.sa two citizens, a lawyer and an attorney. Of course one was an 'Honourable;' [Footnote: Even the Coast English are always confounding the Hon. John A. (son of a peer) with the Hon. Mr. A.

(official rank), and I have seen sundry civilians thus mis-sign themselves.] as Mr. H. M. Stanley says, [Footnote: _Cooma.s.sie and Magdala_. New York, Harpers, 1874.] 'mostly every other man is here so styled.' They talked professionally of the 'Whig ticket' and the 'Re-publican party,' but they neither 'guess'd' nor 'kalklated,' and if they wore they did not show revolvers and bowie-knives. They did not say, 'We air a go-ahead people,' they were not given to 'highfalutin',' nor did they chew their tobacco. They were, however, accompanied by an extremely objectionable 'infant,' aged seven, who lost no time in laying hands upon Miss M.'s trinkets, by way of returning civility. Her father restored them, treating the theft as a matter of course.

The citizens gave me sundry details about the 'rubber'-trade, which began in 1877. Monrovia now exports to England and the Continent some 100,000 lbs., which sell at 1_s_. 4_d_. each. Gum-elastic is gathered chiefly by the Ba.s.sa people, who are, however, too lazy to keep it clean; they store it in gra.s.s-bags and transport it in canoes. Liberian coffee is, or rather would be, famous if produced in sufficient quant.i.ties to satisfy demand.

At present it goes chiefly to the United States, where, like Mocha, it serves to flavour burnt maize. Messieurs Spiers and Pond would buy any quant.i.ty of it, and of late years Brazilian coffee-planters have taken shoots to be grown at home. Here it fetches 1_s_. per lb.; in England the price doubles. This coffee requires keeping for many months, or the infusion is potent enough to cause the 'shakes;' it is the same with Brazilian green tea. The bouquet is excellent, and the flavour pretty good. There is a great difference in the shape of the beans, which range between the broad flat Harar and the small, round, h.o.r.n.y Mocha.

I could obtain few details concerning the 'Black Devil Society,' which suggests the old 'Know-nothings.' It has been, they say, somewhat active in flogging strangers, especially Sa Leone men. Most of the latter, however, have been expelled for refusing to change their style from 'subjects' to 'citizens'--a foreign word in English and Anglo-African ears.

At the time of our visit the republic was in a parlous state. H.E. Mr.

Gardiner, the new President, refused to swear in the Upper House, and the Lower refused to acknowledge the Presidential authority. Consequently business had been at a standstill for six weeks. We were disappointed in our hopes of being accompanied by the Honourable Professor E. W. Blyden, ex-minister to England and afterwards princ.i.p.al of the college. He had travelled with Winwood Reade, and I looked forward to hearing the opinions of an African Arabic scholar touching the progress and future of El-Islam in the Dark Continent. That it advances with giant steps may be proved by these figures. Between 1861 and 1862 I found at most a dozen Moslems at Lagos; in 1865 the number had risen to 1,200, and in 1880, according to my old friend M. Colonna, Agent Consulaire de France, it pa.s.ses 10,000, requiring twenty-seven mosques.

The latest charts of Liberia show no less than twenty-six parallelograms stretching inland, at various angles with the sh.o.r.e, and stated to have been acquired by 'conquest or purchase' between 1822 and 1827; but the natives, especially the Krumen, complain that after allowing the foreigners to dwell, amongst them they have been despoiled of their possessions, and that, once lords of the soil, they have sunk to mere serfs. Hence the frequent wars and chronic bad blood. Every African traveller knows the meaning of land-purchase in these regions. There are two ideas peculiar to the negro brain, but apparently inadmissible into European heads. The first is the non-alienation of land. Niger never parts with his ground in perpetuity; he has always the mental reservation, while selling it to a stranger, that the soil and its improvements return to him by right after the death or the departure of the purchaser. Should the settler's heirs or a.s.signees desire to remain _in loco_, they are expected to pay a fresh gratification; the lessor will raise his terms as high as possible, but public opinion will oblige him to remain content with a 'dash,' or present, equivalent to that paid by the original lessee.

The second idea is even more repugnant to European feelings. In Africa a born chattel is a chattel for ever: the native phrase is, ''Pose man once come up slave, he be slave all time.' There is no such thing as absolute manumission: the unsophisticated _libertus_ himself would not dream of claiming it. We have on board a white-headed negro in an old and threadbare Dutch uniform, returning from Java on a yearly pension of fifteen dollars. According to treaty he had been given by the King of Ashanti to the Hollanders, and he had served them so long that he spoke only Low German and Malay. He will be compelled to end his career somewhere within the range of our fort-guns, or his owner's family will claim and carry off their property.

At 8 A.M. we steamed against a fine fresh wind past mount Mesurado _en route_ for Grand Ba.s.sa (Ba.s.saw), distant fifty-five miles. To port lies Montserrado County, where the sh.o.r.e-strip looks comparatively high and healthy. The Ba.s.sas begin some thirty miles below the Jong River, and now we enter the regions of Grand, Middle, and Little Piccaninny (_pequenino_), Whole and Half, _i.e._ half-way. Thus we pa.s.s, going south-wards, Ba.s.sa, Middle Ba.s.sa, Grand Ba.s.sa, and Ba.s.sa Cove, followed by Cestos and Cess, Settra and Sesters, Whole and Half. The coast is well known, while the interior is almost unexplored. Probably there is no inducement to attract strangers.

We are grateful for small mercies, and note a picturesque view from the open roadstead of Grand Ba.s.sa. The flats are k.n.o.bbed with lumpy mounds; North Saddle Hill, with its central seat; Tall Hill; the blue ridges of the Ba.s.sa Hills, and St. John's Hill upon the line of its river. Nothing can be healthier than these sites, which are well populated; and the slopes are admirably fitted for that 'Arabian berry' whose proper home is Africa. But, while hill-coffee has superior flavour lowland-coffee is preferred in commerce, because the grain is larger and heavier.

Grand Ba.s.sa is the only tract in Liberia where the Sa Leonite is still admitted. The foresh.o.r.e of yellow sand, pointed and dotted by lines and falls of black rock, fronts a shallow bay as foul and stony as the coast.

Here are three settlements, parted by narrow walls of 'bush.' Edina, the northernmost, is said to do more business than any other port in the republic; she also builds fine, strong surf-boats of German and American type, carrying from one to five tons. The keels are bow-shaped, never straight-lined from stem to stern; and the breakers are well under the craft before their mighty crests toss it aloft and fling it into the deep trough. They are far superior to the boats with weather-boards in the fore which formerly bore us to land. The crew scoop up the water as if digging with the paddle; they vary the exercise by highly eccentric movements, and they sing savage barcarolles the better to keep time.

The middle settlement is Upper Buchanan, whose river, the St. John's, owns a bar infamous as that of Lagos for surf and sharks. The southernmost, Lower Buchanan, is defended by a long and broken wall of black reef, but the village is far from smooth water. All these 'towns' occupy holes in a curtain of the densest and tallest greenery. They are composed of groups and scatters of whitewashed houses, half of them looking like chapels and the other like toys. Each has its adjunct of brown huts, the native quarter. These Ba.s.sa tribes must not be confounded with their neighbours the Krumen; the languages are quite different, and the latter is of much harsher sound. There is no doubt of this being a good place for engaging labour, and it is hoped that in due time Ba.s.sa-hands, who work well, will be engaged for the Gold Coast mines. At present, however, they avoid English ships, call themselves 'Americans,' and willingly serve on board the Yankee craft which load with coffee, cam-wood, and palm-oil.

We steamed along the Cape, River, and Town of Sinou, the very home of the Krao, or Krumen, strictly speaking a small tribe. Returning homeward-bound, we here landed a host of men from the Oil-rivers, greatly to my delight, as they had c.u.mbered the deck with their leaky powder-kegs, amid which wandered the sailors, smoking unconcernedly. In the 'good old times' this would not have been allowed. At least one poor fellow was drowned, so careful were the relatives to embark the kit, so careless of the owner's person. Next day we sighted the 'Garraway-trees,' silk cottons some 200 feet high, fine marks for clearing the Cape shoals. Then came Fishtown and Rocktown, once celebrated for the exploits of Ashmun and his a.s.sociates; and at 2.15 P.M. we anch.o.r.ed in the heavy Harmatan roll off

The Cape of Palmas, called from palmy shade.

A score of years ago the A.S.S. steamers lay within half a mile of sh.o.r.e; and, 'barrin'' the ducking, it was easy to land. But the bay is bossed with rocks and skirted with shoals; they lurk treacherously under water, and have brought many a tall ship to grief. As for the obsolete hydrographic charts, they only add to the danger. Two wrecks give us ample warning. One is a German barque lying close to the bar of the fussy little river; the other, a huge ma.s.s of rust, is the hapless _Yoruba_. Years ago, after the fashion of the _Nigritia_ and the _Monrovia_, she was carelessly lost.

Though anch.o.r.ed in a safe place, when swinging round she hit upon a rock and was incontinently ripped up; the injured compartment filled, and the skipper ran her on the beach, wrecking her according to Act of Parliament.

They once managed to get her off, but she had not power to stem the seas, and there she still lies high and dry.

Cape Palmas, or Bamnepo, with its outlying islet-reef of black rock, on which breaks an eternal surf, is the theoretical turning-point from the Windward coast, which begins with the Senegal, to the Leeward, and which ends in the Benin Bight. We are entering the region

_Unde nigerrimus Auster_ Nascitur.

Practically and commercially the former is worked by the Bristol barques and the latter commences at Cape Threepoints. The bold headland, a hundred feet tall and half a mile broad by a quarter long, bounded north by its river, has a base of black micaceous granite supporting red argillaceous loam. Everywhere beyond the burning of the billows the land-surface is tapestried with verdure and tufted with cocoas; they still show the traditional clump which gave the name recorded by Camoens. The neck attaching the head to the continent-body is a long, low sand-spit; and the background sweeps northward in the clear gra.s.sy stretches which African travellers agree to call 'parks.' These are fronted by screens of tall trees, and backed by the blue tops of little hills, a combination which strongly reminded me of the Gaboon.

The prominent building is still the large white-washed mission-house with its ample windows and shady piazzas: the sons of St. Benedict could not have placed it better. In rear lies the square tower yclept a lighthouse, and manipulated like that of Monrovia; its range is said to be thirteen miles, but it rarely shows beyond five. An adjacent flagstaff bears above the steamer-signal the Liberian arms, stripes and a lone star not unknown to the ages between a.s.syria and Texas. The body of the settlement lying upon the river is called Harper, after a 'remarkable negro,' and its suburbs lodge the natives. When I last visited it the people were rising to the third stage of their architecture. The first, or nomad, is the hide or mat thrown over a bush or a few standing sticks; then comes the cylinder, the round hovel of the northern and southern regions, with the extinguisher or the oven-shaped thatch-roof; and, lastly, the square or oblong form which marks growing civilisation. The American missionaries laboured strenuously to build St. Mark's Hospital and Church, the latter a very creditable piece of lumber-work, with 500 seats in nave and aisles.

But now everything hereabouts is 'down in its luck.' This puerile copy, or rather caricature, of the United States can console itself only by saying, 'Spero meliora.'

CHAPTER XIV.

FROM CAPE PALMAS TO AXIM.

I had no call to land at Cape Palmas. All my friends had pa.s.sed away; the Rev. C. E. Hoffman and Bishop Payne, both in America. Mr. Potter, of the stores, still lives to eat rice and palm-oil in retirement; but with the energetic Macgill departed the trade and prosperity of the place. Senator John Marshall, of Marshall's Hotel, has also gone to the many, and the stranger's only place of refuge is a mean boarding-house.

Much injury was done to the settlement by the so-called 'Grebo war.' These wild owners of Cape Palmas are confounded by Europeans with the true Krumen, their distant cousins. The tribal name is popularly derived from _gre_, or _gri_, the jumping monkey, and it alludes to a late immigration.

A host of some 20,000 savages closely besieged the settlement and ravaged all the lands belonging to the intruders, especially the fine 'French farm.' Fighting ended with a 'treaty of peace and renewal of allegiance'

(_sic!_) at Harper on March 1, 1876, following the 'battle of Harper'

(October 10, 1875). The latter, resulting from an attack on Grebo Big Town, proved a regular 'Bull's Run,' wherein the citizens lost all their guns and ammunition, and where the Grebes slaughtered my true and trusty steward, Selim Agha.

I must allow myself a few lines in memory of a typical man. Selim was a Nubian of lamp-black skin; but his features were Semitic down to the nose-bridge, and below it, like the hair, distinctly African: this mixture characterises the negroid as opposed to the negro. In the first fourth of the present century he was bought by Mr. Thurburn--_venerabile nomen_--of Alexandria, and sent for education to North Britain. There he learned to speak Scotch, to make turtle-soup, to stuff birds, to keep accounts, and to be useful and valuable in a series of ways. Then his thoughts, full of philanthropy, turned towards the 'old mother.' The murder of Dr. Barth's companion, Vogel, in 1856, originated seven fruitless expeditions to murderous Waday, and he made sundry journeys into the interior. I believe that he took service for some time with Lieutenant (now Sir John H.) Glover before he became my factotum between 1860 and 1865. When I left the Coast he transferred himself to Liberia, where, he wrote, they proposed to 'run him for the presidency.' Selim joined the Monrovians during the Grebo war as an a.s.sistant-surgeon, his object being to mitigate the horrors of the campaign; and he met his death on October 9, 1875, during the mismanaged attack on Grebo Big Town. Captain A. B. Ellis, in his amusing and outspoken 'West African Sketches,' quotes from the 'Liberian Independent' the following statement: 'Mr. Selim Agha was also overtaken by the barbarous Greboes, and one of them, "Bye Weah" by name, after allowing him to read his Bible, which he had by him in his pocket, and which he made a present of to the barbarian, chopped his body all about, chopped off his head, which he took to his town with eighteen others, and threw the body with the gift into the swamp.' The account sounds trustworthy, especially that about the Bible: it is exactly what the poor fellow would have done. But many have a.s.sured me that he was slaughtered by mistake during the rout of his party. R.I.P.

Another reminiscence.

Although it has melancholy a.s.sociations, I can hardly remember without a smile my last visit to good Bishop Payne. He led me to the mission-school, a shed that sheltered settles and desks, tattered books, slates and boards, two native pedagogues, and two lines of pupils sized from the right, the biggest being nearest the 'boss.' We took our places upon the bench, and the catechiser, when bade to begin, opened, after a little hesitation, as follows:--

_Q_. Who he be de fuss man?--_A_. Adam.

_Q_. Who he be de fuss woman?--_A_. Ebe.

_Q_. Whar de Lord put 'em?--_A_. In de garden.

_Q_. What he be de garden?--_A_. Eden.

_Q_. What else he be dere?--_A_. De sarpint.

_Q_. What he be de sarpint?--_A_. De snake.

_Q_. Heigh! What, de snake he 'peak?--_A_. No, him be debbil.

And so forth. The reading was much in the same style. The whole scene reminded me of a nave narrative [Footnote: _The Gospel to the Africans: Narrative of the Life and Labours of the Rev. William Jameson._ London: Hamilton, Adams, & Co., 1861.] which gives the 'following account of the fall of our First Parents from the lips of an aged negro at the examination of candidates:'--

'Ma.s.sa (G.o.d) said Adam must nyamee (eat) all de fruit ob de garden, but (be out, except) de tree of knowledge. And he said to Adam, "Adam! you no muss nyamee dis fruit, else you dead." De serpent come to say to Mammy Eve, "Dis fruit berry good; he make you too wise." Mammy she take lillee (little) bit, and bring de oder harf gib Daddy Adam. Daddee no will taste it fuss time, but Mammy tell him it be berry good. Den him nyamee de oder harf. Den Daddy and Mammy been know dat dem be naked. Dey go hide for bush. Ma.s.sa come from heaven, but Him no fin' Adam all about. Den Ma.s.sa strike Him foot on de ground and say, "I wage Adam been nyamee de fruit."

Ma.s.sa go seek Adam and fin' him hidin' in de bush, and put him out ob de garden. Then Daddy and Mammy dey take leaves and sew 'em for clothes.'

The Bishop looked on approvingly. We then spoke of the mysterious Mount Geddia, the Lybian Thala Oros of Ptolemy. [Footnote: Lib. iv. 6, ---- 12, 14, 16, the home of the Thala tribe.]

The people say that it may be seen at times from Settra Kru, that the distance by round road is some 200 miles, and that none have ascended it on account of the intense cold. If this be fact, there is a Kilima-njaro 18,000 feet high in Western Africa. The glitter of the white cap has been visible from great distances, and some would explain it by a bare vein of quartz--again, Kilima-njaro. The best time to travel would be in October or November, after the rains; and the Grebo rascals might be paid and persuaded to supply an escort.

At Cape Palmas we engaged thirty so-called Krumen: only seven were ready to accompany us, and the rest came nearly two months behind time. This is the farming season, and the people do not like to leave their field-lands.

Jack Davis, headman, chief, crimp and 'promising' party, had been warned to be ready by Mr. R. B. N. Walker, whose name and certificate he wore upon a big silver crescent; but as _Senegal_ appeared on Sunday instead of Sat.u.r.day, he gravely declared that his batch had retired to their plantations--in black-man's English, 'small countries.' We were compelled to make an advance, a measure unknown of old, and to pay more than double hire for working on the Gold Coast. These races, Kruboys, Grebos, and their cognates, have not improved during the last score of years. Their headmen were old hands approaching the fifties: now they are youths of twenty-five. The younger sort willingly engaged for three years; now they begin to notch their tallies for every new moon, and they wax home-sick after the tenth month. Once they were content to carry home a seaman's chest well filled with 'chow-chow' and stolen goods; in these days they must have ready money to deal with the Bristol barques.

Having before described the 'Krao' and the Kru republic, with its four recognised castes, I need not repeat myself. [Footnote: _Wanderings_, &c., vol. ii. chap. vi., which ends with a short specimen of the language.] We again admired the magnificent development of muscle, which stood out in bunches as on the Farnese Hercules, set off by the most appropriate dress, a coloured oblong of loin-cloth, tucked in at the waist. We marvelled too at the contrast of Grecian figure and cynocephalous features, whose frizzly thatch, often cut into garden-plots, is unnecessarily protected by a gaudy greasy cap.

In morals too these men are as peculiar as they are contradictory. They work, and work well: many old Coasters prefer them to all other tribes.

They are at their best in boats or on board ship, especially ships of war, where they are disciplined. For carrying burdens, or working in the bush, they are by no means so valuable and yet, as will be seen, they are highly thought of by some miners in the Gold Mines. In the house they are at their worst; and they are a nuisance to camp, noisy and unclean. Their chief faults are lying and thieving; they are also apt to desert, to grow discontented, to presume, and ever to ask for more. These qualities are admirably developed in our headman, Toby Johnson, and his gang. I should not travel again with Krumen on the Gold Coast.

Another of their remarkable characteristics is the fine union of the quarrelsome with the cowardly. Like the Wanyamwezi of East-Central Africa, they will fight amongst themselves, and fight furiously; but they feel no shame in telling their employers that they sell their labour, not their lives; that man can die but once; that heads never grow again, and that to battling they prefer going back to 'we country.' If a ship take fire all plunge overboard like seals, and the sound of a gun in the bush makes them run like hares. Yet an English officer actually proposed to recruit a force of these recreants for field-service in Ashanti. He probably confounded them with the Wasawahili, the 'Seedy-boys' of the east coast, a race which some day will prove useful when the Sepoy mutiny shall repeat itself, or if the difficulties in Egypt be prolonged. A few thousands of these st.u.r.dy fellows would put to flight an army of hen-hearted Hindus or Hindis.

We left Cape Palmas at 5 P.M., and duly respected the five-fathom deep 'Athole Rock,' so called from the frigate which first made its acquaintance. The third victim was the B. and A. s.s. _Gambia_ (Captain Hamilton). [Footnote: Curiously enough a steamer carrying another fine of palm-oil has come to grief, owing, as usual, to imperfect charts.] She was carrying home part of the 400 puncheons exacted, after the blockade of 1876, by way of fine, from Gelele, King of Dahome, by the senior naval officer, Captain Sullivan, the Dhow-chaser. The Juju-men naturally declared that their magic brought her to such notable grief.