To The Gold Coast for Gold Volume I Part 11

The bird that warned Peter of his fall

has then, if victorious, a pleasant, easy twelve months of life before him. He has won many a gold ounce for his owner: I have heard of a man pouching 400_l_. in a contest between Orotava and La Laguna, which has a well-merited celebrity for these exhibitions. The Canarians ignore all such refinements as rounds or Welsh mains; the birds are fairly matched in pairs. _Navajas_, or spurs, either of silver or steel, are unused, if not unknown. The natural weapon is sharpened to a needle-like point, and then blood and condition win. The c.o.c.k-pit, somewhat larger than the training-pit, is in the Casa de la Galera; there is a ring for betters, and the spectators are ranged on upper seats.

Lastly of the wine Canary, now unknown to the English market, where it had a local habitation and a name as early as madeira and sherry, all claiming 'Shakespearean recognition.' The Elizabethans constantly allude to cups of cool Canary, and Mr. Vizetelly quotes Howell's 'Familiar Letters,' wherein he applies to this far-famed sack the dictum 'Good wine sendeth a man to heaven.' But I cannot agree with the learned oenologist, or with the 'tradition of Tenerife,' when told that 'the original canary was a sweet and not a dry wine, as those who derive "sack" from the French word "sec" would have us believe.' 'Sherris sack'

(_jerez seco_) was a harsh, dry wine, which was sugared as we sweeten tea. Hence Poins addresses Falstaff as 'Sir John Sack and Sugar;' and the latter remarks, 'If sack and sugar be a fault, G.o.d help the wicked!' And the island probably had two growths--the saccharine _Malvasia_, [Footnote: As we find in Leake (p. 197 _Researches in Greece_) and Henderson (_History of Wines_) 'Malvasia' is an Italian corruption of 'Monemvasia' ([Greek: _monae embasia_]--a single entrance), the neo-Greek name for the Minoa promontory or island connected by a bridge with the Laconian Coast. Hence the French Malvoisie and our Malmsey. Prof. Azevedo (_loc. cit._) opines that the date of the wine's introduction disproves the legend of that 'maudlin Clarence in his Malmsey b.u.t.t.'] whose black grape was almost a raisin, and a harsh produce like that of the modern _Gual_, with great volume and alcoholic strength, but requiring time to make it palatable.

The Canaries mostly grew white wines; that is, the liquors were fermented without skins and stalks. Thus they did not contain all the const.i.tuents of the fruit, and they were inferior in remedial and restorative virtues to red wines. Indeed, a modern authority tells us that none but the latter deserve the name, and that white wines are rather grape-ciders than real wines.

The best Tenerife brands were produced on the northern slopes from Sauzal and La Victoria to Garachico and Ycod de los Vinos. The latter, famed for its malmsey, has lost its vines and kept its name. The cultivation extended some 1,500 feet above the sea, and the plant was treated after the fas.h.i.+on of Madeira and Carniola (S. Austria). The _latadas_, or trellises, varied in height, some being so low that the peasant had to creep under them. All, however, had the same defect: the fruit got the shade and the leaves the sun, unless trimmed away by the cultivator, who was unwilling to remove these lungs in too great quant.i.ties. The French style, the pruned plant supported by a stake, was used only for the old and worn-out, and none dreamt of the galvanised wires along which Mr. Leac.o.c.k, of Funchal, trains his vines. In Grand Canary I have seen the grape-plant thrown over swathes of black stone, like those which, bare of fruit, stretch for miles across the fertile wastes of the Syrian Hauran. By heat and evaporation the grapes become raisins; and, as in Dalmatia, one pipe required as much fruit as sufficed for three or four of ordinary.

The favourite of the Canaries is, or was, the _vidonia_, a juicy berry, mostly white, seldom black: the same is the case with the muscadels. The _Malvasia_ is rarely cultivated, as it suffered inordinately from the vine-disease. The valuable _Verdelho_, preferred at Madeira, is, or was, a favourite; and there are, or were, half a dozen others. The _vendange_ usually began in the lowlands about the end of August, and in the uplands a fortnight or three weeks later. The grape was carried in large baskets by men, women, and children, to the _lagar_, or wooden press, and was there trodden down, as in Madeira, Austria, and Italy. The Canarians, like other neo-Latins an unmechanical race, care little for economising labour. The vinification resembled that of the Isle of Wood, with one important exception--the stove. This artificial heating to hasten maturity seems to have been soon abandoned.

Mr. Vizetelly is of opinion that the pure juice was apt to grow harsh, or become ropy, with age. They remedied the former defect by adding a little _gloria_, a thin, sweet wine kept in store from the preceding _vendange_; this was done in April or in May, when the vintage was received at headquarters. Ropiness was cured by repeated rackings and by brandying, eight gallons per pipe being the normal ratio. That distinguished connoisseur found in an old malmsey of 1859 all the aroma and lusciousness of a good liqueur; the 'London particular' of 1865 tasted remarkably soft, with a superior nose; an 1871-72, made for the Russian market, had an oily richness with a considerable aroma; an 1872 was mellow and aromatic, and an 1875 had a good vinous flavour.

'Canary' possessed its own especial charac-ter, as Jonathan says. If it developed none of the highest qualities of its successful rivals, it became, after eight to twelve years' keeping, a tolerable wine, which many in England have drunk, paying for good madeira. The shorter period sufficed to mature it, and it was usually s.h.i.+pped when three to four years old. It kept to advantage in wood for a quarter of a century, and in bottle it improved faster. My belief is that the properest use of Tenerife was to 'lengthen out' the finer growths. I found Canary bearing the same relation to madeira as marsala bears to sherry: the best specimens almost equalled the second- or third-rate madeiras. Moreover, these wines are even more heady and spirituous than those of the northern island; and there will be greater difficulty in converting them to the category _vino de pasto_, a light dinner-wine.

Before 1810 Tenerife exported her wines not from Santa Cruz, but from Orotava, the centre of commerce. Here, since the days of Charles II., there was an English Factory with thirty to forty British subjects, Protestants, under the protection of the Captain-General; and their cemetery lay at the west end of El Puerto, whose palmy days were in 1812-15. The trade was then transferred to the modern capital, where there are, and have been for years, only two English wine-s.h.i.+pping firms, Messieurs Hamilton and Messieurs Davidson. The seniors of both families have all pa.s.sed away; but their sons and grandsons still inhabit the picturesque old houses on the 'Marina.' In 1812-15 the annual export of wine was 8,000 to 11,000 pipes. The Peace of 1815 was a severe blow to the trade. Between 1830 and 1840, however, the vintage of the seven chief islands averaged upwards of 46,000; of these Tenerife supplied between 4,000 and 5,000, equivalent to the total produce since the days of the odium. In 1852 Admiral Robinson reduced the number of pipes to 20,000, worth 200,000_l_. In 1860-65 I saw the grape in a piteous plight: the huge bunches were composed of dwarfed and wilted berries, furred and cobwebbed with the foul mycelium. The produce fell to 100-150 pipes, and at present only some 200 to 300 are exported. The Peninsula and the West African coast take the bulk; England and Germany ranking next, and lastly Spain, which used the import largely in making-up wines. The islanders now mostly drink the harsh, coa.r.s.e Catalonians; they still, however, make for home consumption a cheap white wine, which improves with age. It is regretable that fears of the odium and the phylloxera prevent the revival of the industry, for which the Islands are admirably fitted. Potatoes and other produce have also suffered; but that is no obstacle to their being replanted.

I left Santa Cruz and Las Palmas, after two short visits, with the conviction that both are on the highway of progress, and much edified by their contrast with Funchal. The difference is that of a free port and a closed port. In the former there is commercial, industrial, and literary activity: Las Palmas can support two museums. In the latter there is neither this, that, nor the other. Madeira also suffers from repressed emigration. The Canaries wisely allow their sons to make gold ounces abroad for spending at home.

Spain also, a few years ago so backward in the race, is fast regaining her place amongst the nations. She is now reaping the benefit of her truly liberal (not Liberal) policy. Such were the abolition of the _morgado_ (primogeniture) in 1834, the closing of the 1,800 convents in 1836-37, and the _disamortizacion_, or suppression of Church property and granting liberty of belief, in 1855. Finally, the vigour infused by a short--which will lead to a longer--trial of democracy and of republican inst.i.tutions have given her a new life. She is no longer the Gallio of the Western world.

CHAPTER X.

THE RUINED RIVER-PORT AND THE TATTERED FLAG.

On the night of January 10 we steamed out of Las Palmas to cover the long line of 940 miles between Grand Canary and Bathurst. The A. S. S. generously abandons the monopoly of the Gambia to its rival, the B. and A., receiving in exchange the poor profits of the Isles de Los. Consequently the old Company's s.h.i.+ps, when homeward-bound, run directly from Sierra Leone to Grand Canary, a week's work of 1,430 knots.

Hardly had we lost sight of the brown and barren island and Las Palmas in her magpie suit, than we ran out of the Brisa Parda, or grey north-east Trade, into calm and cool Harmatan [Footnote: The word is of disputed origin. _Ahalabata_, or _ahalalata_, on the Gold Coast is a foreign term denoting the dry norther or north-easter that blows from January to March or April (Zimmerman). Christalier makes _haramata_, 'Spanish _harmatan_, an Arabic word.'] weather. We begrudged the voyage this lovely season, which should have been kept for the journey. After the damp warmth of Madeira the still and windless air felt dry, but not too dry; cold, but not too cold; decidedly fresh in early morning, and never warm except at 3 P.M. The sun was pale and shorn, as in England, seldom showing a fiery face before 10 A.M. or after 5 P.M. The sea at night appeared slightly milky, like the white waters so often seen off the western coast of India. Every traveller describes the Harmatan, and most travellers transcribe the errors touching the infusoria and their coats which Ehrenberg found at sea in the impalpable powder near the Cape Verde islands. The dry cold blast is purely local, not cosmical. There is a fine reddish-yellow sand in the lower air-strata; we see it, we feel it, and we know that it comes from the desert-tracts of northern Africa. The air rises _en ma.s.se_ from the Great Sahara; the vacuum is speedily filled by the heavier and cooler indraught from the north or south, and the higher strata form the upper current flowing from the Equator to the Poles. But 'siliceous dust' will not wholly account for the veiling of the sun and the opaqueness of the higher atmosphere. This arises simply from the want of humidity; the air is denser, and there is no vapour to refract and reflect the light-rays. Hence the haze which even in England appears to overhang the landscape when there is unusually droughty weather; and hence, conversely, as all know, the view is clearest before and after heavy showers, when the atmosphere is saturated or supersaturated.

On my return in early April we caught the northeast Trades shortly after turning Cape Palmas, and kept them till close upon Grand Canary. They were a complete contrast with the Harmatan, the firmament looking exceptionally high, and the sun s.h.i.+ning hot, while a crisp, steady gale made the 'herds of Proteus' gambol and disport themselves over the long ridges thrown up by the cool plain of bright cerulean. The horizon, when clear, had a pinkish hue, and near coast and islands puffy folds of dazzling white, nearly 5,000 feet high, were based upon dark-grey streaks of cloudland simulating continents and archipelagoes. Within the tropics the heavens appear lower, and we never sight blue or purple water save after a tornado. The normal colour is a dirty, bra.s.sy yellow-brown, here and there transparent, but ever unsightly in the extreme. It must depend upon some unexplained atmospheric conditions; and the water-aspect is often at its ugliest when the skies are clearest. I have often seen the same tints when approaching Liverpool.

Through the Harmatan-haze we failed to sight Cape Juby, opposite Fuerteventura; and at Santa Cruz I missed Mr. Mackenzie, the energetic flooder of the Sahara. He has, they say, given up this impossibility and opened a _comptoir_: its presence is very unpleasant to the French monopolists, who seem to 'monopole' more every year. South of Juby comes historic Cape Bojador, the 'Gorbellied,' and Cabo Blanco, which is to northern what Cabo Negro is to southern Africa. The sole remarkable events in its life are, firstly, its being named by Ptolemy Granaria Extrema, whence the Canarii peoples south-west of the Moroccan Atlas and our corrupted 'Canaries;' and, secondly, its rediscovery by one Goncalez Baldeza in 1440.

On the afternoon of Sat.u.r.day (January 14) we sighted in the offing the two paps of Ovedec, or Cabo Verde, the Hesperou Keras, the Hesperium or a.r.s.enarium Promontorium of Pliny, the _trouvaille_ of Diniz Fernandez in 1446. The name is _sub judice_. Some would derive it from the gra.s.sy green slope clad with baobabs (_Adansonia digitata_), megatherium-like monsters, topping the precipitous sea-wall which falls upon patches of yellow sand. Others would borrow it from the _Sarga.s.so (baccifera), Golfo_, or Gulf-weed, which here becomes a notable feature. Cape Verde, the Prasum Promontorium of West Africa, is the 'Trafalgar,' the westernmost projection, of the Dark Continent 'fiery yet gloomy;' measuring 17 3' from the meridian of Greenwich. The coast is exceedingly dangerous; consequently s.h.i.+pwrecks are rare. The owners, as their national wont is, have done their best to make it safe. Two lighthouses to the north of the true Cape mark and define a long shoal with a heavy break, the Almadies rocks, a ledge mostly sunk, but here and there rising above the foam in wicked-looking _diabolitos_ (devilings), or black fangs, of which the largest is die-shaped. A third pharos, also brilliantly whitewashed, crowns the Cape, and by its side is a lower sea-facing building, the sanatorium; finally, there is a light at the mole-end of Dakar.

Steaming past the Madeleine rocks, here and there capped with green and whitened by sea-fowl, we sight, through an opening in the curtain of coast, the red citadel and the subject town of Goree, the Gibraltar of western Africa, and the harbour of St. Louis, capital of Senegambia. The island is now the only port, the headquarters having suffered from the sand-bar at the mouth of the Senegal. Here our quondam rivals have made the splendid harbour of Dakar, whose jetties accommodate 180,000 tons of s.h.i.+pping at the same time. This powerful and warlike colony, distant only twelve hours' steaming from Bathurst, has her fleet of steamers for river navigation; her Tirailleurs du Senegal, and her large force of fighting native troops. Fortified stations defend the course of the river, even above the falls, from the hostile and treacherous Moors. The subject and protected territories exceed Algeria in extent, and the position will link the French possessions in the Mediterranean with the rich mineral lands proposed for conquest in the south.

We English hug to ourselves the idea that the French are bad colonists: if so, France, like China and India, is improving at a pace which promises trouble. Algeria, Senegambia, and Siam should considerably modify the old judgment. Our neighbours have, and honestly own to, two grand faults--an excessive bureaucracy and a military, or rather a martinet, discipline, which interferes with civil life and which governs too much. On the other side England rules too little. She is at present between the two proverbial stools. She has lost the norm of honour, Aristocracy; and she has lost it for ever. But she has not yet acquired the full strength of democracy. This is part secret of that disorganisation which is causing such wonder upon the continent of Europe. Moreover, Colonial England has caught the disease of non-interference and the infection of economy, the sp.a.w.n of Liberalism; while her savings, made by starving her establishments, are of the category popularly described as penny-wise and pound-foolish. France has adopted the contrary policy. She spends her money freely in making ports and roads and in opening communication through adjacent countries. She lately sent a cruiser to Madeira, proposing to connect Dakar by telegraph with the Cape Verde islands. She is a.s.siduous in forming friendly, or rather peaceable, relations with the people. She begins on the right principle by officering her colonies with her best men, naval and military. In England anyone is good enough for West Africa. She impresses the natives, before beginning to treat, by an overwhelming display of force; and, if necessary, by hard knocks. She educates the children of the chiefs, and compels all her lieges, under a penalty, to learn, and if possible to speak, French. So far from practising non-interference, she allows no one to fight but herself. This imperious, warlike, imperial att.i.tude is what Africa wants. It reverses our Quaker-like 'fad' for peace. We allow native wars to rage _ad libitum_ even at Porto Loko, almost within cannon-shot of Sierra Leone. On the Gambia River the natives have sneeringly declared that they will submit to the French, who are men, but not to us, who are ------. Later still, the chiefs of Futa-Jalon went, not to London, but to Paris.

In 1854 France commenced a new and systematic course of colonial policy. She first beat the Pulos (Fulahs), once so bold, and then she organised and gave flags to them. She checked, with a strong hand, the attacks of the Moors upon the gum-gatherers of the Sahara. And now, after drawing away from us the Gambia trade, she has begun a railway intended to connect the Senegal with the Niger and completely to outflank us. This line will annex the native regions behind our settlements, and make Bathurst and Sierra Leone insignificant dependencies upon the continent of Gallic rule. The total distance is at least 820 miles, and the whole will be guarded by a line of forts. It begins with a section of 260 kilometres, which will transport valuable goods now injured by a.s.s and camel-carriage. The natives, wearied with incessant petty wars, are ready to welcome the new comers. The western Sudan, or Niger-basin, has a population estimated at forty millions, ready, if a market be opened, to flock to it with agricultural and industrial products, including iron, copper, and gold. Meanwhile the Joliba (Black Water), with the Benuwe and other tributaries, offers a ready-made waterway for thousands of miles. Sierra Leone lies only 400 miles, less than half, from the Niger; but what would the Colonial Office say if a similar military line were proposed? Nor can we console ourselves by the feeble excuse that Senegal has a climate superior to that of our 'pest-houses.' On the contrary, she suffers severely from yellow fever, which has never yet visited the British Gold Coast. Her mortality is excessive, but she simply replaces her slain. She has none of that mawkish, hysterical humanitarianism which of late years has become a salient feature in our campaigning. During the Ashanti affair the main object seems to have been, not the destruction of the enemy, but to save as many privates as possible from ague and fever, sunstroke and dysentery.

Ninety miles beyond Cape Verde placed us in the Gambia waters, off the lands of the Guinea region. I will not again attempt a history of the disputed word which Barbot derives from Ginahoa, the first negro region visited by the Portuguese; others from Ghana, the modern Kano; from the Jenneh or Jinne of Mungo Park; from Jenna, a coast-town once of note, governed by an officer under the 'King' of Gambia-land, and, in fine, from the Italian Genoa.

The s.s. _Senegal_ spent the night of the 14th on the soft and slippery mud, awaiting the dawn. What can the Hydrographic Department of the Admiralty be doing? What is the use of the three cruisers that still represent the old 'Coffin Squadron'? This coast has not had a survey since 1830, yet it changes more or less every year, and half a century makes every map and plan obsolete. But perhaps it would be wrong to risk seamen's lives by exposure in open boats to 'insolation,' showers, and surf.

From sunrise the sea had changed its Harmatan-grey for a dull, muddy, dirty green; and the leadsman, who is now too civilised to 'sing out' in the good old style, calmly announced that the channel was shallowing. 'Gambia,' or 'Gambi,' the Gamboa and Gambic of Barbot (Chapter VII.), is said to mean clear water, here a perfect misnomer; it is miry as the Mersey. The 'molten gold of the Gambia River' is only the fine phrase of some poetic traveller. Low land loomed on both sides, with rooty and tufted mangroves, apparently based upon the waves, showing that we approached an estuary, which soon narrowed from thirty miles to seven and to two. Three buoys, the outermost red, then the 'fairway' with chequers and cage, and lastly white without cage, all at a considerable distance off the land, marked the river-bar, and presently a black pilot came on board from his cutter. We made some easting running along sh.o.r.e, and gave a wide berth to the Horseshoe Bank and St. Mary's shoal portwards, to African Knoll and Middle Ground starboardwards, and to a crowd of other pleasant patches, where the water was dancing a breakdown in the liveliest way.

As we drew in sh.o.r.e the now burning sun shone with a sickly African heat through the scirocco-clouds and the thick yellow swamp-reek. 'It will be worse when we land,' said the normal Job's comforter. Six knots to starboard, (west), on high and healthy Cape St. Mary, rose a whitewashed building from a dwarf red cliff. To port on the river's proper right bank (east) lay Fort Bullen, an outpost upon a land-tongue, dead-green as paint, embosomed in tall bentangs, or bombax-trees (_Pullom Ceiba_). This 'silk-cotton-tree' differs greatly in shape from its congener in Eastern Africa. The bole bears sharp, broad-based thorns; the wings or flying b.u.t.tresses are larger; several trunks rarely anastomose; the branches seldom stand out horizontally, nor are the leaves disposed in distinct festoons. It is, however, a n.o.ble growth, useful for shade and supplying a soft wood for canoes and stuffing for pillows. Fort Bullen, about one hour's row from Bathurst, formerly lodged a garrison of seventeen men under the 'Commandant and Governor of the Queen's Possessions in the Barra Country.' Now the unwholesome site has been abandoned.

The island and station of St. Mary, Bathurst, of old a graveyard, now start up to starboard. The site was chosen apparently for its superior development of mud and mangrove, miasma and malaria. It is an island within an island. St. Mary the Greater is the northernmost of that ma.s.s of riverine holms and continental islands which, formed by the Cacheo and other great drains, extends south to the Rio Grande. Measuring some twenty miles from north to south, by six from east to west, it is embraced by the two arms of the Gambia delta, and is marked in old maps as the Combo, Forni, and Felup country. St. Mary the Less, upon which stands the settlement facing east, is bounded eastward by the main mouth and westward by Oyster Creek, a lagoon-like branch: it is a mere sand-patch of twenty-one square miles, clothed by potent heats and flooding rains with a vivid and violent vegetation. Water is found everywhere three feet below the surface, but it is bad and brackish. There is hardly any versant or shed; in places the land sinks below the water-level; and, despite the excellent brick sewers, the showers prefer to sop and sod the soil. And, lest the island should be bodily carried away by man, there is a penalty for removing even a pailful of sand from the beach.

Bathurst was unknown in the days of Mungo Park, when traders ran up stream to Jilifri, nearly opposite Fort James, and to Pisania, the end of river-navigation. St. Mary's Island, together with British Combo, Albreda, and the land called the 'Ceded,' or 'English Mile,' were bought from the Mandenga chief of the Combo province. First christened St. Leopold, and then Bathurst, after the minister of that name, the actual town owes its existence to an order issued by Sir Charles Macarthy. That ill-starred Governor of Sierra Leone (1814-24) is still remembered in Ashanti and on the Gold Coast: he is immortalised by a pestiferous island in the Upper Gambia well described by Winwood Reade. The settlement, designed for the use of liberated Africans, was built in 1816 by Lieutenant-Colonel Brereton and by Captain Alexander Grant. In 1821 it was made, like the Gold Coast, a dependency of Sierra Leone, whose jurisdiction, after the African Company was abolished in 1820,

[Footnote: The first African Company was established by Queen Elizabeth, and in 1688 was allowed to trade with Guinea. The Royal African Company, or Guinea Company of Royal Adventurers of England trading to Africa, was incorporated under Charles II. on January 20, 1663. A third was patented on September 27, 1672. The 'African Company' (1722-24) was not allowed to interfere with 'interlopers.' On May 7,1820, it was abolished, after bankruptcy, and its possessions pa.s.sed over to the Crown.]

extended from N. lat. 20 to S. lat. 20. I found it an independent government, one of four, in 1860 to 1865. In 1866 it again pa.s.sed under the rule of Sierra Leone; in 1874 this ill-advised measure was withdrawn, and the Gambia was placed under an Administrator and a Legislative Council, the former subject to the Governor-in-Chief of Sierra Leone. A score of years ago it was garrisoned by some 300 men of the West African Corps. Now it is reduced to 100 armed policemen: the Gambia militia, composed of the Combo and Macarthy's Island forces, is never called out. The population of the twenty-one square miles is given by Whittaker for 1881 as 14,150, including 105 whites. The Wesleyans here, as everywhere, preponderating on the Coast, number 1,405 souls; the Catholics 500, and the Episcopalians 200.

Another half-hour placed before us Bathurst in full view. The first salient point is the graveyard, where the station began and where the stationed end. Wags declare that the first question is, 'Have you seen our burial-ground?' A few tomb-stones, mostly without inscriptions, are scattered so near the sh.o.r.e that corpses and coffins have been washed away by the waves. If New Orleans be a normal 'wet grave,' this everywhere save near the sea is dry with a witness, the depth and looseness of the sand making the excavation a crumbling hole. Four governors, a list greatly to be prolonged, 'lie here interred.' But matters of climate are becoming too serious for over-attention to such places or subjects.

The first aspect of this pest-house from afar is not unpleasant. A long line of scattered houses leads to the ma.s.s of the settlement, faced by its Marine Parade, and the tall trees give it a home-look; some have compared the site with 'parts of the park at Cheltenham.' At a nearer view the town of some 5,000 head suggests the idea of a small European watering-place. The execrable position has none of those undulations which make heaps of men's homes picturesque; everything is low, flat, and straight-lined as a yard of pump-water. The houses might be those of Byculla, Bombay; in fact, they date from the same epoch. They are excellent of their kind, large uncompact piles of masonry, glistening-white or dull-yellow, with blistered paint, and slates, tiles, or s.h.i.+ngles, which last curl up in the sun like feathers. A nearer glance shows the house-walls stained and gangrened with rot and mildew, the river-floods often shaking hands with the rains in the ground-floors. The European ends in beehive native huts, rising from the swamp and sand; and these gradually fine off and end up-stream, becoming small by degrees and hideously less.

Bathurst has one compensating feature, the uncommon merit of an esplanade; the n.o.ble line of silk-cotton trees separating houses from river is apparently the only flouris.h.i.+ng item. We remark that while some of these giants are clad in their old leaves others are bright green with new foliage, while others are bare and broomy as English woods in midwinter. They are backed by a truly portentous vegetation of red and white mangroves, palms, plantains, and baobabs, rank guinea-gra.s.s filling up every gap with stalks and blades ten feet tall.

Nor was the scene in the river-harbour at all more lively. The old _Albert_, of Nigerian fame, has returned to mother Earth; but we still note H.M.S. _Dover_, a venerable caricature, with funnel long and thin, which steams up stream when not impotent--her chronic condition. There are two large Frenchmen loading ground-nuts, but ne'er an Englishman. The foresh.o.r.e is defaced by seven miserable wharves, shaky mangrove-piles, black with age and white with oystersh.e.l.ls, driven into the sand and loosely planked over. There is an eighth, the gunpowder pier, on the north face of the island; and we know by its dilapidation that it is Government property. These stages are intended not for landing--oh, no!--but only for loading s.h.i.+ps; stairs are wanting, and pa.s.sengers must be carried ash.o.r.e 'pick-a-back.' The labourers are mainly, if not wholly, 'Golah' women of British Combo, whose mates live upon the proceeds of their labours. To-day being Sunday, the juvenile piscators of Bathurst muster strong upon the piers, and no policeman bids them move on.

When the mail-bags were ready, we received a visit from the black health-officer, and we reflected severely on the exceeding 'cheek' of inspecting, as a rule, new comers from old England at this yellow Home of Pestilence. But in the healthy time of the year we rarely see the listless, emaciated whites with skins stained by unoxygenised carbon, of whom travellers tell. Despite the sun, all the Bathurstians save the Government officials--now few, too few--flocked on board. Mail-days are here, as in other places down-coast, high days and holidays. But times are changed, and the ruined river-port can no longer afford the old traditional hospitality.

Cameron and I landed under Brown's Wharf, the southernmost pier opposite the red roof and the congeries of buildings belonging to the late proprietor. We then walked up the High Street, or esplanade, which is open to the river except where the sh.o.r.e is c.u.mbered with boats, hides, lumber, and beach-negroes. This is a kind of open-air market where men and women sit in the shade, spinning, weaving, and selling fruits and vegetables with one incessant flux of tongue. Here, too, amongst the heaps, and intimately mixed with the naked infantry, stray small goats, pretty and deer-shaped, and gaunt pigs, sharp-snouted and long-legged as the worst Irisher.

Several thoroughfares, upper and lower, run parallel with the river; all are connected, like a chess-board, by cross-lanes at right angles, and their gra.s.s-grown centres are lined by open drains of masonry, now bone-dry. The pavement is composed of stone and dust, which during the rains becomes mud; the _trottoirs_ are in some places of brick, in others of asphalte, in others of cracked slabs. Mostly, however, we walk on sand and gravel, which fills our boots with something harder than unboiled peas. The multiplicity of useless walls, the tree-clumps, and the green sward faintly suggested memories of a semi-deserted single-company station in Western India; and the decayed, tumble-down look of all around was a deadly-lively ill.u.s.tration of the Hebrew Ichabod.

I pa.s.sed, with a sense of profound sadness, the old Commissariat quarters, now degraded to a custom-house. The roomy, substantial edifice of stone and lime, with large, open verandahs, here called piazzas, lofty apartments, galleries, terraced roofs, and, in fact, everything an African house should have, still stood there; but all shut up, as if the antique _domus_ were in mourning for the past. What Homeric feeds, what _noctes coenoeque deorum_, we have had there in joyous past times! But now that most hospitable of West-Coasters, Commissary Blanc, has been laid in the sandy cemetery; and where, oh! where are the rest of the jovial crew, Martin and Sherwood? I found only one relic of the bygone--and a well-favoured relic he is--Mr. W. N. Corrie, with whom to exchange condolences and to wail over the ruins.

Pa.s.sing the post-office and the French, Spanish, Portuguese, and American consulates, poor copies of the dear old Commissariat, we halted outside at Mr. G.o.ddard's, and obtained from Mr. R. E. Cole a copy of his lecture, 'The River Gambia,' read at York, September 1881. It gave me pleasure to find in it, 'The man that is wanted throughout the West Coast of Africa is not the negro, but the Chinaman; and should he ever turn his steps in its direction he will find an extensive and remunerating field for the exercise of his industry and intelligence.'

We then turned our attention from the town to the townspeople. They have not improved in demeanour during the last twenty years. Even then the 'liberateds' and 'recaptives,' chiefly Akus and Ibos, had begun the 'high jinks,' which we shall find at their highest in Sierra Leone. They had organised 'Companies,' the worst of trade-unions, elected headmen, indulged in strikes, and more than once had come into serious collision with the military. The Mandengas, whom Mungo Park calls Mandingoes and characterises as a 'wild, sociable, and obliging people,' soon waxed turbulent and unruly. This is to be expected; a race of warriors must be governed by the sword. They would prefer for themselves military law to all the blessings of a const.i.tution or a plebiscite. But philanthropy wills otherwise, and in these days the English authorities do not keep up that state whose show secures the respect of barbarians. Where the Governor walks about escortless, like a private individual, he must expect to be 'treated as such.'

There is no difficulty in distinguis.h.i.+ng at first sight Moslem from Kafir. Besides the gypsy-like Pulo, the 'brown race,' our older Fulahs and Fellalahs, whose tongue is said to be a congener of the Nubian; and the wild, half-naked pagan Jolu, the princ.i.p.al tribes, are two, the Mandengas and the Wolofs. The former, whom Europeans divide into the Marabut, who does not drink, and the Soninki, who does, inhabit a triangle, its base being the line from the south of the Senegal to the Gambia River, and its apex the Niger; it has even extended to near Tin-Bukhtu (the Well of Bukhtu), our Timbuctoo. In old Mohammedan works their territory is called w.a.n.gara. This race of warmen and hors.e.m.e.n surprisingly resembles the Somal, who hold the same parallels of lat.i.tude in Eastern Africa, as to small heads, semi-Caucasian features, Asiatic above the nose-tip and African below; tall lithe figures, high shoulders, and long limbs, especially the forearm.

There is the usual Negro-land variety in the picturesque toilette; no two men are habited alike. A Phrygian bonnet, Glengarry or Liberty-cap of dark, indigo-dyed cotton, and sometimes a Kan-top or ear-calotte of India and Hausa-land, surmount their clean-shaven heads. For this they subst.i.tute, when travelling, 'country umbrellas,' thatches of plaited palm-leaves in umbrella-shape; further down coast we shall find the regular sun-hat of Madeira, with an addition of loose straw-ends which would commend itself to Ophelia. The decent body-garb is a _kamis_, a nightgown of long-cloth, and wide, short drawers; the whole is covered with a sleeveless _aba_, or burnous, and sometimes with a half-sleeved caftan--here termed 'tobe'--garnished with a huge breast-pocket. It is generally indigo-stained, with marblings or broad-narrow stripes of lighter tint than the groundwork. An essential article, hung round the neck or slung to the body, is the grigri, _ta'awiz_, or talisman, a Koranic verse or a magic diagram enclosed in a leathern roll or in a flat square. Of these prophylactics, which answer to European medals and similar fetish, a 'serious person' will wear dozens; and they are held to be such 'strong medicine' that even pagans will barter or pay for them. Blacksmiths, weavers, and spinners work out of doors. Contrary to the general Moslem rule, these Mandengas honour workers in iron and leather, and the king's blacksmith and cobbler are royal councillors.

Some of the motley crowd sit reading what the incurious stranger tells you is 'the Alcoran;' they are perusing extracts and prayers written in the square, semi-Cufic Maghrabi character, which would take a learned Meccan a week to decipher. Others, polluted by a license which calls itself liberty, squat gambling shamelessly with pegs stuck in the ground. Now and then fighting-looking fellows ride past us, with the Arabic ring-bit and the heavy Mandenga demi-pique. The nags are ponies some ten hands high, ragged and angular, but hardy and sure-footed. As most of the equines in this part of Africa, they are, when well fed, intensely vicious and quarrelsome. Like the Syrians, they have only three paces, the walk, the lazy loping canter, and the brisk hard gallop; the trot is a provisional pa.s.sage from slow to fast. Yet with all their shortcomings I should prefer them to the stunted b.a.s.t.a.r.d barb, locally called an Arab and priced between 20_l_. and 40_l_.

The latter generally dies early from chills and checked perspiration, which bring on 'loin-disease,' paralysis of the hind-quarters, or from a fatal swelling of the stomach, the result of bad forage. Most of the men carried knives, daggers, and crooked swords in curious leather scabbards. This practice should never be permitted in Africa. Natives entering a station should be compelled to leave their weapons with the policeman at the nearest guard-house.

The Wolofs, a name formerly written Joloff, also dwell in Senegambia, between the Senegal and the Gambia, and their habitat is divided into sundry petty kingdoms. As early as 1446 they were known to the Portuguese, and one Bemoy, of princely house, soon afterwards visited Lisbon, was baptised, and did homage to D. Joo II. More like the Abyssinians than their Mandenga neighbours, they are remarkable for good looks, pendent ringlets, and tasteful dress and decorations. 'Black but comely,' with long, oval faces, finely formed features, straight noses and glossy jetty skins, in character they are brave and dignified, and they are distinctly negroids, not negroes. This small maritime tribe, who make excellent sailors, is interesting and civilisable; many have been Christianised, especially by the Roman Catholic missioners. The only native tongue spoken by European residents at Bathurst is the Wolof. As M. Dard remarks in his 'Grammaire Wolof,' the [Footnote: He was Inst.i.tuteur de l'ecole Wolof-Francaise du Senegal, and published in 1826. It is still said that no one will speak Wolof like him, the result of the new _regime_ of compulsory French instruction. I printed 226 of his proverbs in _Wit and Wisdom from West Africa_ (London, Tinsleys, 1865). It is curious to compare them with those of the pagan negroes further south.]

language is widely spread: Mungo Park often uses expressions which he deems Mandenga, but which belong to the 'Jews of West Africa,' as the Wolofs are sometimes called, their extensive commercial dealings between the coast and the western Sudan being the only point of likeness. For instance, in the tale of 'poor Nealee' the cry 'Kang-tegi!' ('Cut her throat!') is the Wolof 'Kung-akateke!' ('Let her head be cut off!'), and 'Nealee affeeleeata!' ('Nealee is lost!') appears equally corrupted by author or printer from 'Nealu afeyleata!' ('Nealee breathes no more!')

Pursuing our peregrinations, we reach No. 1 Fort, at the northern angle of the town, north-eastern corner of the islet St. Mary the Less. This old round battery is surmounted by three 32-pounders, _en barbette_, with iron carriages and traversing platforms, but without racers: a single 7-inch sh.e.l.l would smash the whole affair. Thence we bent westward and pa.s.sed the once neat 'Albert Market' with its metal roof, built in 1854-56 by Governor Luke O'Connor and Isaac Bage. We did not enter; the place swarms with both s.e.xes in blue: African indigo yields a charming purple, but one soon learns to prefer white clothing. Nor need I describe the stuff exposed for sale: there will be a greater variety at Sierra Leone.

Pa.s.sing the market we come upon the engineer's yard, which a hand-bill sternly forbids us to enter. It contains a chapel, where the Rev. Mr. Nicol officiates: this loose box is more hideous than anything I have yet seen, a perfect study of architectural deformity. The cracked bell and the nasal chant, at times rising to a howl as of anguish, were completely in character. As the service ended issued a stream of wors.h.i.+ppers, mostly women, attired in costumes which will be noticed further on; most of them led negrolings suggesting the dancing dog. Meanwhile the police, armed only with side-arms, sword-bayonets, and looking more like Sierra Leone convicts reformed and uniformed, followed a band composed of drums, cymbals, and a haughty black sergeant, a mulatto noncommissioned, bringing up the rear. They went round and round the barrack square, a vast s.p.a.ce occupied chiefly by gra.s.s and drains; in the back-ground is the large jaundiced building upon whose clock-tower floated, or rather depended, the flag of St. George. The white building by its side is the Colonial Hospital: it has also seen 'better days.'

We resolved to call upon Mr. Administrator V. S. Goulsbury, M.D. and C.M.G. He had lately been subjected to an attack, of course anonymous, in the 'African Times;' an attack the more ungentlemanly and cowardly because it reflected upon his private not public life; and consequently he could neither notice it nor answer it, nor bring an action for libel. This scandalous print, which has revived the old 'Satirist' in its most infamous phase, habitually inserts any tissue of falsehoods suggested to proceed from a 'native,' an 'African,' a 'negro,' and carefully writes down to the lowest level of its readers. It attracts attention by the cant of charity, and shows its devotion to 'the Bible, and nothing but the Bible,' by proving that the earth, having 'four corners,' is flat, and that the sun, which once 'stood still,' must move round its parasite. The manner of this pestilence is right worthy of its matter, and the style would be scouted in a decent housekeeper's room. All well-meaning men, of either colony, declare that it has done more harm in West Africa than the grossest abuse yet written. Its tactic is to set black against white, to pander for the public love of scandal, and systematically to abuse all the employes of Government. And the sole object of this vile politic, loudly proclaimed to be philanthropic and negrophile, has been low lucre--in fact, an attempt to b.u.t.ter its bread with 'black brother.'

We inspected the second or western fort, a similar battery of six 32-pounders, with two 10-inch mortars, fit only to pound 'fufu,' or banana-paste; add a single bra.s.s field-piece, useful as a morning and evening gun for this highly military station. Then we came to Government House, apparently deserted, flying a frayed and tattered white and blue flag, which might have been used on board H.M.S. _Dover_, but which ought to have been supplanted on sh.o.r.e by a Union Jack. After waiting a quarter of an hour, we managed, with the a.s.sistance of a sentinel, whose feet were in slippers and whose artillery carbine was top-heavy with a fixed sword-bayonet, to arouse a negro servant, by whom we sent in our cards to H.E. the Administrator. An old traveller on the Gold Coast, and lately returned from a long expedition into the interior, [Footnote: _Gambia: Expedition to the Upper Gambia_. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1882.] he had much to tell us. His knowledge of Ashanti-land, however, induced him to place the Kong Mountains in that meridian too far north; he held the distance from the seaboard to be at least 500 miles. But he quite agreed with us about the necessity of importing Chinese coolies. Here no free man works. The people say, 'When a slave gets his liberty he will drink rainwater'--rather than draw it from a well. The chief cargo of the S.S. _Senegal_ was Chinese rice, when almost every acre of the lower Gambia would produce a cereal superior in flavour and bolder in grain. Hands, however, are wanting; and all the women are employed in loading and unloading s.h.i.+ps.