The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies Part 3

Round this has collected an equally miscellaneous population of rescued slaves; and, besides these, there are immigrants, labourers, and barterers from all the neighbouring parts of the Continent--Krumen more especially.

A writer who, when we come to the Negroes of the Gold Coast, will be freely quoted, calls the Krumen the _Scotchmen_ of Africa, since, with unusual industry, enterprise, and perseverance, they leave, without reluctance, their own country to push their fortunes wherever they can find a wider field. They are ready for any employment which may enable them to increase their means, and ensure a return to their own country in a state of improved prosperity. There the Kruman's ambition is to purchase one or two head of cattle, and one or two head of wives, to enjoy the luxuries of rum and tobacco, and pa.s.s the remainder of his days as

"A gentleman of Africa who sits at home at ease."

Half the Africans that we see in Liverpool are Krumen, who have left their own country when young, and taken employment on board a s.h.i.+p, where they exhibit a natural apt.i.tude for the sea. Without being nice as to the destination of the vessel in which they engage, they return home as soon as they can; and rarely or never contract matrimony before their return. In Cape Coast Town, as well as in Sierra Leone, they form a bachelor community--quiet and orderly; and in that respect stand in strong contrast to the other tribes around them. Besides which, with all their blackness, and all their typical Negro character, they are distinguishable from most other western Africans; having the advantage of them in make, features, and industry.

A Kruman is pre-eminently the _free labourer_ of Africa. In the slave trade he has engaged less than any of his neighbours, attaches himself readily to the whites, and, in his native country, as well as in Sierra Leone, Coast Town, and other places of his temporary denizens.h.i.+p, is quick of perception and amenable to instruction. His language is the _Grebo_ tongue, and it has been reduced to writing by the American missionaries of Cape Palmas. It has decided affinities with those of the Mandingo tongues to the north, the Fanti dialects of the Gold Coast, and, in all probability, still closer ones with those of the Ivory coast. These last, however, are but imperfectly known; indeed, a single vocabulary of the _Avekvom_ language, in the "American Oriental Journal," furnishes nine-tenths of our philological data for the parts between Cape Palmas and Cape Apollonia.

The best measure of the heterogeneousness of the Sierra Leone population is to be found in Mrs. Kilham's vocabularies. That lady collected, at Free Town, specimens of thirty-one African tongues, from Negroes then and there resident. Of these--

A. Eight belonged to the Mandingo group, _viz._, Mandingo Proper, Susu, Bambara, Kossa, Pessa, Kissi, Bullom, and Timmani.

B. Two were dialects of the Grebo (Kru): the Kru, and the Ba.s.sa.

C. Two were Fanti: the Fanti and the Ashanti, closely allied dialects.

D. Two were Dahoman: the Fot, and the Popo.

E. Two Benin: the Benin Proper, and the Moko, languages of a tract but little known.

F. One Wolof, from the Senegal.

G. Eight from the parts between the rivers Formosa and Loango, _viz._, the Bongo, the Ako, the Ibu, the Rungo, the Akuonga, the Karaba, the Uobo, the Kouri.

H. One from the river Kongo, _i.e._, the Kongo properly so-called.

I. Two from the Lower Niger, but, still separated from the coast--the Tapua (Nufi) and Appa.

K. Three from the widely-spread nations of the interior--the Fulah, the Haussa, and the Bornu.

I do not say that all Mrs. Kilham's specimens represent mutually unintelligible tongues; probably they do not. At the same time, as several decidedly different languages are omitted, the list understates, rather than exaggerates, the number of the divisions and subdivisions of the western African populations, as inferred from the divisions and subdivisions of the language.

Thus, no samples are given of the--

1. _Sereres._--Pastoral tribes about Cape Verde.

2. _Serawolli._--On the Middle Senegal, different, in many respects, from the Sereres, the Wolofs, and the Fulahs; nations with which they are in geographical contact.

3. _The Feloops._--Between the Gambia and Cacheo, along the coast.

4. _The Papels._--South of the Cacheo; and also coastmen.

5. _The Balantes._--Coast-men to the south of the Papels.

6. _The Bagnon._--Conterminous with the Feloops of the river Cacheo.

7. _The Bissago._--Fierce occupants of the islands so-called.

8. _The Naloos._--On the Nun and river Grande.

9. _The Sapi._--Conterminous with the Naloo, and like all the preceding tribes, from the Feloops downwards, pre-eminently rude, fierce, intractable, and imperfectly known.

Southward, the unrepresented languages are equally numerous--especially for the Ivory Coast, and for the Delta of the Niger. Of these I shall only notice one--the Vey.

The settlement with which the tribes speaking the Vey language is in contact is one of which the tongue is English, but not the political relations. It is the American free Negro settlement of Liberia.

In the Vey language, it had been known for some time to the American missionaries, that there were _written books_, a fact not likely to be undervalued by those who felt warmly on the social and civilizational prospects of the coloured divisions of our species. One of these books was discovered by Lieutenant Forbes, of H.M.S. the Bonetta; local inquiry was further made by the Rev. W. S. Koelle; and the MS. was critically a.n.a.lyzed by Mr. Norris, of the Asiatic Society.[12]

The phenomenon, if properly measured, is by no means a very significant one; since, although the Vey alphabet, the invention of a man now living, so far differs from the Mandingo, as to be spelt by the _syllable_ rather than the _letter_, it is anything but an independent creation of the Negro brain. Doala Bukara, its composer, an imperfect Mahometan, had seen Mahometan books, and, although he was no Christian, had seen an English Bible also. He knew, then, what spelling or writing was. He knew, too, the phonetic a.n.a.lysis of the Mandingo, a tongue closely allied to his own. And this is nine parts out of ten in the so-called invention of alphabets.

The true claims of Doala, in this way, are those of the phonetic reformers in England, as compared with those of Toth or Cadmus--real but moderate. His own account of the matter, as he gave it to Mr. Koelle, was, that the fact of sounds being _written_, haunted him in a dream, wherein he was shown a series of signs adapted to his native tongue.

These he forgot in the morning; but remembered the impression. So he consulted his friends; and they and he, laying their heads together, coined new ones. The king of the country made its introduction a matter of state, and built a large house in Dshondu, as a day-school. But a war with the Guru people disturbed both the learners and teachers, so that the latter removed to Bandakoro, where all grown-up people, of both s.e.xes, can now read and write.

This alphabet is a _syllabarium_.

The books written in it are essentially Mahometan; the Koran appearing in them much in the same way as the Bible appears in the more degenerate legends of the middle ages.

How far the Vey alphabet will be an instrument of civilization, is a difficult question. For my own part, I half regret its evolution; since the Arabic that served for the Mandingo, would have served for the Vey as well--or if not the Arabic, the English.

As a measure of African capacity it is of some value; and in this respect, it speaks for the Negro just as the Cherokee alphabet speaks for the American Indian. This latter was invented by a native named Sequoyah. Like Doala, he knew what reading was. Like Doala, too, he had a language adapted to a _syllabarium_. Hence, both the Vey and the Cherokee, the two latest coinages in the way of alphabets, are both syllabic.

We now move southwards to the--

_Gold Coast Settlements._--The climate of Western Africa requires notice. It suits the native, but destroys the European. Of the two settlements, already mentioned, the Gambia is the most deadly; though Sierra Leone has the worst name. _Both_ are on the coast; both, consequently, on the lower courses of the rivers, and both on low levels. The import of these remarks applies to the Negroes of America.

At present, it ushers in a brief notice of the climate of the Gold Coast; this district being chosen for the purpose of description because it makes the nearest approach to the equator of any English settlement in Africa. Consequently, it may serve as a typical sample of the malarious parts of the coast in question.

From April till August is the rainy season, which gradually pa.s.ses into the dry; heavy fogs forming during the transition. These last till the end of September. Occasional showers, too, continue till November. Then the weather becomes really clear and dry, until, towards the end of January, the dry parching wind, called the Harmattan, sets in, with its over-stimulant action upon the human system, and clouds of penetrating impalpable sand. If this is not blowing, the atmosphere is loaded with moisture; and this it is, combined with the heat of an intertropical sun, and the effluvia engendered by the decay of an over-luxuriant vegetation, which makes Western Africa the white man's grave. Not that the soil, even on the coast, is always swampy and alluvial. About Cape Coast it is rocky and undulating. Still, it is inordinately wooded, as well as full of spots where water acc.u.mulates and exhalations multiply.

Yet the thermometer ranges between 78 and 86 Fahrenheit--a low _maximum_ for the neighbourhood of the equator; a high one, however, to feel cold in. Nevertheless, such is the case. "From this peculiarity of the atmosphere, the sensations of an individual almost invariably indicate a degree of _cold_, especially when sitting in a room, or not taking bodily exercise; so that, to ensure a feeling of comfortable warmth, it becomes necessary to dress in a thicker material than what is usually considered best adapted for tropical wear, and to have a fire lighted in one's bedroom for some time before one retires to rest."[13]

The chief Africans of these parts--and we now approach the great _officina servorum_--alone tolerant of the heats, and droughts, and rains, and exhalations are--

1. The Fantis.

2. The Ghans.

3. The Avekvom (?)

A. _The Fantis._--Of the true natives of the country these are the chief.

The term _Fanti_, like the term _Mandingo_, has a double sense--a general and a specific signification.

The particular population of the parts about Cape Coast is Fanti in the limited sense of the term.

The great section of the Negro family, which comprises, besides the Fantis Proper, the Ashanti, Boroom, and several other populations, is _Fanti_ in the wide sense of the term.

The Fanti, Ashanti, and Boroom forms of speech are merely dialects of one and the same language.

A great proportion of the vocabularies of "Bowdich's Ashanti" are the same.