To The Gold Coast for Gold Volume I Part 14

Even half a century ago opinions differed concerning the climate of the colony. Dr. Madden could obtain only contradictory accounts. [Footnote: See _Wanderings in West Africa_, for details, vol. i. p. 275.]

There is a tradition of a Chief Justice applying to the Colonial Office for information touching his pension, the clerks could not answer him, and he presently found that none of his predecessors had lived to claim it. Mr. Judge Rankin was of opinion that its ill-fame was maintained by 'policy on the one hand and by ignorance of truth on the other.' But Mr. Judge died a few days after. So with Dr. Macpherson, of the African Colonial Corps. It appears ill-omened to praise the place; and, after repeated visits to it, I no longer wonder that the 'Medical Gazette' of April 14, 1838, affirmed, 'No statistical writer has yet tried to give the minutest fraction representing the chance of a surgeon's return from Sierra Leone.'

On the other hand, Mrs. Falconbridge, whose husband was sent out from England on colonial business in 1791, and who wrote the first 'lady's book' upon the Coast, pointed out at the beginning that sickness was due quite as much to want of care as to the climate. In 1830 Mr. John Cormack, merchant and resident since 1800, stated to a Committee of the House of Commons that out of twenty-six Europeans in his service seven had died, seven had remained in Africa, and of twelve who returned to England all save two or three were in good health. We meet with a medical opinion as early as 1836 that 'not one-fourth of the deaths results merely from climate.' Cases of old residents are quoted--for instance, Governor Kenneth Macaulay, a younger brother of Zachary Macaulay, who resisted it for twenty years; Mr. Reffall for fifteen years, and sundry other exceptions.

In this section of the nineteenth century it is the custom to admit that the climate is bad and dangerous; but that it has often been made the scape-goat of European recklessness and that much of the sickness and death might be avoided. The improvement is attributed to the use of quinine, unknown to the early settlers, and much is expected from sanatoria and from planting the blue gum (_Eucalyptus globulus_), which failed, owing to the carelessness and ignorance of the planters. A practical appreciation of the improvement is shown by the Star Life a.s.surance Society, which has reduced to five per cent. its former very heavy rates. Lastly, the bad health of foreigners is accounted for by the fact that they leave their own country for a climate to which they are not accustomed, where the social life and the habits of the people are so different from their own, and yet that they continue doing all things as in England.

But how stand the facts at the white man's Red Grave? Mrs. Havelock and the wife of the officer commanding the garrison are the only Europeans in the colony, whereas a score of years ago I remember half a dozen. Even the warmest apologisers for the climate will not expose their wives to it, preferring to leave them at home or in Madeira. During last March there were five deaths of white men--that is, more than a third--out of a total of 163. What would the worst of English colonies say to a mortality of 350 per thousand per annum? Of course we are told that it is exceptional, and the case of the insurance societies is quoted. But they forget to tell us the reason. A mail steamer now calls at Freetown once a week, and the invalid is sent home by the first opportunity. Similarly a silly East Indian statistician proved, from the rare occurrence of fatal cases, Aden to be one of the healthiest stations under 'the Company.' He ignored the fact that even a scratch justified the surgeons in s.h.i.+pping a man off on sick leave.

I quite agree with the view of Mr. Frederick Evans: [Footnotes: _The Colonies and India_, Dec. 24, 1881.] 'Let anyone anxious to test the nature of the climate go to Kew Gardens and sit for a week or two in one of the tropical houses there; he may be a.s.sured that he will by no means feel in robust health when he leaves.' The simile is perfect. Europeans living in Africa like Europeans as regards clothing and diet are, I believe, quite right. We tried gra.s.s-cloth, instead of broadcloth, in Western India, when general rheumatism was the result. In the matter of meat and drink the Englishman cannot do better than adhere to his old mode of life as much as possible, with a few small modifications. Let him return to the meal-times of Queen Elizabeth's day--

Sunrise breakfast, sun high dinner, Sundown sup, makes a saint of a sinner--

and especially shun the 9 A.M. breakfast, which leads to a heavy tiffin at 1 P.M., the hottest and most trying section of the day. With respect to diet, if he drinks a bottle of claret in England let him reduce himself in Africa to a pint 'cut' with, water; if he eats a pound of meat he should be contented with eight ounces and an extra quant.i.ty of fruit and vegetables. In medicine let him halve his cathartics and double his dose of tonics.

From its topographical as well as its geographical position the climate of Freetown is oppressively hot, damp, and muggy. The annual mean is 79.5 Fahr.; the usual temperature of the dwellings is from 78 to 86 Fahr. Its year is divided into two seasons, the Dries and the Rains. The wet season begins in May and ends with November; for the last five years the average downfall has been 155 inches, five times greater than in rainy England. These five months are times of extreme discomfort. The damp heat, despite charcoal fires in the houses and offices, mildews everything--clothes, weapons, books, man himself. It seems to exhaust all the positive electricity of the nervous system, and it makes the patient feel utterly miserable. It also fills the air with noxious vapours during the short bursts of suns.h.i.+ne perpendicularly rained down, and breeds a hateful brood of what the Portuguese call immundicies--a foul 'insect-youth.' Only the oldest residents prefer the wet to the dry months. The Rains end in the sickliest season of the year, when the sun, now getting the upper hand, sucks the miasmatic vapours from the soil and distributes them to mankind in the shape of ague and fever, dysentery, and a host of diseases. The Dries last from November to April, often beginning with tornadoes and ending with the Harmatan, smokes or scirocco. The climate is then not unlike Bombay, except that it lacks the mild East Indian attempt at a winter, and that barometric pressure hardly varies.

During my last visit to Sa Leone I secured a boat, and, accompanied by Dr. Lovegrove, of the A.S.S. _Armenian_, set out to inspect the lower bed of the Rokel and the islands which it waters. Pa.s.sing along Fourah Bay, we remarked in the high background a fine brook, cold, clear, and pure, affording a delicious bath; it is almost dry in the Dries, and swells to a fiumara during the Rains. Its extent was then a diminutive rivulet tumbling some hundreds of feet down a shelving bed into Granville Bay, the break beyond Fourah. On the way we pa.s.sed several Timni boats, carrying a proportionately immense amount of 'muslin.' Of old the lords of the land, they still come down the river with rice and cocoa-nuts from the Kwiah (Quiah) country, from Porto Loko, from Waterloo, and other places up stream. They not unfrequently console themselves for their losses by a little hard fighting; witness their defence of the Moduka stockade in 1861, when four officers and twenty-three of our men were wounded. [Footnote: _Wanderings in West Africa_, vol. i pp. 246-47.] Some of the boats are heavy row-barges with a framework of sticks for a stern-awning; an old Mandenga, with cottony beard, sits at each helm. They row _simplices munditiis_.

At Sa Leone men are punished for not wearing overalls, and thus the 'city' becomes a rag-fair. The Timni men are dark negroids with the slightest infusion of Semitic blood; some had coated their eyebrows and part of their faces with chalk for ophthalmia. They appeared to be merry fellows enough; and they are certainly the only men in the colony who ever pretend to work. A Government official harshly says of them, 'I would willingly ascribe to the nearest of our neighbours and their representatives in Freetown, of whom there are many, some virtues if they possessed any; but, unfortunately, taken as a people, they have been truly described by able and observant writers as dishonest and depraved.' Mr. Secretary evidently forgets the 'civilising' and infectious example of Sa Leone, _versus_ the culture of El-Islam.

Arrived at Bishopscourt, we disembarked and visited the place. Here in old days 'satisfaction' was given and taken; and a satirical medico declared that forty years of _rencontres_ had not produced a single casualty. He was more witty than wise; I heard of one gentleman who had been 'paraded' and 'winged.' Old Granville Town, which named the bay, has completely disappeared; the ruins of the last house are gone from the broad gra.s.sy shelf upon which the first colonists built their homes.

From Granville Bay the traveller may return by the 'Kissy Road.' Once it was the pet promenade, the Corso, the show-walk of Freetown; now it has become a Tottenham Court Road, to which Water, Oxford, and Westmoreland Streets are preferred. The vegetation becomes splendid, running up to the feet of the hills, which swell suddenly from the shelf-plain. The approach to Sa Leone is heralded by a row of shops even smaller and meaner than those near the market-place. There are whole streets of these rabbit-hutches, whose contents 'mammy,' when day is done, carries home in a 'bly'-basket upon her head, possibly leaving 't.i.tty' to mount guard upon the remnant. The stock in trade may represent a capital of 4_l_., and the profits 1_s_. a day. Yet 'daddy' styles himself merchant, gets credit, and spends his evenings conversing and smoking cigars--as a gentleman should--with his commercial friends.

Pa.s.sing the easternmost end of the peninsula, and sailing along the Bullom ('lowland') sh.o.r.es, we verified Dr. Blyden's a.s.sertion that this 'home of fevers' shows no outward and visible sign of exceeding unhealthiness. The soil is sandy, the bush is comparatively thin, and the tall trees give it the aspect of a high and dry land. We then turned north-east and skirted Ta.s.so Island, a strip of river-holm girt with a wall of mangroves. It had an old English fort, founded in 1695; the factors traded with the Pulo (Fulah) country for slaves, ivory, and gold. It was abandoned after being taken by Van Ruyter, when he restored to the Dutch West Indian Company the conquests of Commodore Holmes. The rich soil in 1800 supported a fine cotton plantation, and here Mr. Heddle kept a 'factory.' The villagers turned out to gaze, not habited like the Wolofs of Albreda, but clad in shady hats and seedy pantaloons.

After clearing Ta.s.so we advanced merrily, and at the end of two hours'

and a half actual sailing and pulling we landed upon Bance, which some call Bence's Island. A ruined jetty with two rusty guns, buried like posts, projected from the sand-strip; and a battery, where nine cannon still linger, defended the approach. There is a similar beach to the north-east, with admirable bathing in the tepid, brackish waves and a fine view of the long leonine Sierra. The outlying rocks, capped with guano, look like moored boats and awnings. The sea-breeze was delicious; the lapping, dazzling stream made sweet music, and the huge cotton-trees with laminar b.u.t.tresses gave most grateful shade.

The island resembles Gambian James multiplied by four or five. Behind the battery are the ruins of a huge building, like the palaces of old Goa, vast rooms, magazines, barrac.o.o.ns, underground vaults, and all manner of contrivances for the good comfort and entertainment of the slaver and the slave. A fine promenade of laterite, which everywhere about Sa Leone builds the best of roads, and a strip of jungle rich in the _Guilandina Bonduc_, whose medicinal properties are well known to the people, leads to the long-deserted graveyard. We pa.s.s an old well with water thirty-five feet deep, and enter the _enceinte_, that contains four tombs; the marble tablets, which would soon disappear in India for the benefit of curry-stuffs, here remain intact. One long home was tenanted by 'Thomas Knight, Esquire, born in the county of Surrey, who acted eighteen years as agent for the proprietors of this island, and who died on August 27 of 1785,' beloved, of course, by everybody. Second came the 'honourable sea-Captain Hiort, born in 1746, married in 1771 to the virtuous lady Catherine Schive, and died in 1783, leaving two good-natured daughters, which his soul is in the hands of G.o.d.' The third was Mr. John t.i.ttle, who departed life in 1776; and the last was Captain Josiah Dory, a 'man of upright character,' who migrated to the many in 1765.

Barbot (ii. 1) describes Bance's Island as defended by a small fort on a steep rock of difficult access, ascended only by a sort of stairs cut in the stone, and acting as the store-house of the Royal African Company. The low walls of lime and ashlar had a round 'flanker' with five guns, a curtain with embrasures for four large cannon, and a platform just before it for six guns, all well mounted. The only good buildings were the slave-booths. Winterbottom, who places it over eighteen miles above St. George's Bay (_Baie de France_) and north of Ta.s.so Island, thus describes Bance: 'This is a small barren island considerably elevated, with a dry, gravelly soil; but being placed as it were in the midst of an archipelago of low marshy islands, the breeze, from whatever quarter it blows, is impregnated with moisture and marsh effluvia, which render it sickly. The air also is very much heated, and the thermometer generally stands 4 or 5 higher on this island than it does at Freetown.'

We regained the steamer shortly after dark, delighted with our picnic and resolved always to take the same advantage of all halts. In those days the interior was most interesting. The rivers Scarcies, Nunez, and Ponga were unknown; the equestrian Susu tribe had never been visited; and, the Timbo country, the great centre whence arise the Niger, the Rokel, and the Senegal, awaited exploration.

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.