Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume Ii Part 12

I proposed to send back a party for rum, powder, and cloth to the extent of 150, or half the demand, and my factotum, Selim, behaved like a trump. Gidi Mavunga, quite beyond self-control, sprang up, and declared that, if the Mundele would not follow him, that obstinate person might remain behind. The normal official deprecation, as usual, made him the more headstrong; he rushed off and disappeared in the bush, followed by a part of his slaves, the others crying aloud to him, "Wenda!"-- get out!

Seeing that the three linguisters did not move, he presently returned, and after a furious address in Fiote began a Portuguese tirade for my benefit. This white man had come to their country, and, instead of buying captives, was bent upon enslaving their Mfumos; but that "Branco" should suffer for his attempt; no "Mukanda" or book (that is, letter) should go down stream; all his goods belonged of right to his guide, and thus he would learn to sit upon the heads of the n.o.blesse, with much of the same kind.

There are times when the traveller either rises above or sinks to the level of, or rather below, his party. I had been sitting abstractedly, like the great quietist, Buddha, when the looks of the a.s.sembly suggested an "address." This was at once delivered in Portuguese, with a loud and angry voice. Gidi Mavunga, who had been paid for Nsundi, not for the Yellala, had spoken like a "small boy" (i.e., a chattel). I had no wish to sit upon other men's heads, but no man should sit on mine. Englishmen did not want slaves, nor would they allow others to want them, but they would not be made slaves themselves. My goods were my own, and King Nessala, not to speak of Mambuco Prata--the name told--had made themselves responsible for me. Lastly, if the Senhor Gidi Mafung wanted to quarrel, the contents of a Colt's six-shooter were at his disposal.

Such a tone would have made a European furious; it had a contrary effect upon the African. Gidi Mavunga advanced from his mat, and taking my hand placed it upon his head, declaring me his "Mwenemputo." The linguisters then entered the circle, chanted sundry speeches, made little dances, then bent their knuckles to earth, much in the position of boys preparing to jump over their own joined hands, dusted themselves, and clapped palms. Very opportunely arrived a present from the king of fowls, dried fish and plantains, which restored joy to the camp. "Mwenemputo," I must explain, primarily meaning "the King of Portugal," is applied in East Central Africa to a negro king and chiefs ("The Lands of the Cazembe," p. 17). In Loango also it is the name of a high native official, and, when used as in the text, it is equivalent to Mfumo, chief or head of family.

At night Gidi Mavunga came to our quarters and began to talk sense. Knowing that my time was limited, he enlarged upon the badness of the road and the too evident end of the travelling season, when the great rains would altogether prevent fast travel. Banza Ninga, the next stage, was distant two or three marches, and neither shelter nor provisions were to be found on the way. Here a canoe would carry us for a day (12 miles) to the Sangala Rapids: then would come the third portage of two days (22 miles) to Nsundi. My outfit at Banza Nokki was wholly insufficient; the riverine races were no longer tractable as in the days of his father, when white men first visited the land. My best plan was to return to Boma at once, organize a party, and march upon Congo Grande (S. Salvador); there I should find whites, Portuguese, Englishmen and their "Kru-men" the term generally applied on the southern coast to all native employes of foreign traders. If determined upon bring "converted into black man" I might join some trading party into the interior. As regards the cloth and beads advanced by me for the journey to Nsundi, a fair proportion would be returned at Banza Nokki. And so saying the old fox managed to look as if he meant what he said.

All this, taken with many a grain, was reasonable. The edge of my curiosity had been taken off by the Yellala, and nothing new could be expected from the smaller formations up stream. Time forbade me to linger at Banza Nkulu. The exorbitant demand had evidently been made by express desire of Gidi Mavunga, and only a fortnight's delay could have reduced it to normal dimensions. Yet with leisure success was evident. All the difficulties of the Nsundi road would have vanished when faced. The wild people showed no feeling against foreigners, and the Nkulu linguisters during their last visit begged me to return as soon as possible and "no tell lie." I could only promise that their claims should be laid before the public. Accordingly a report of this trip was at once sent in to Her Majesty's Foreign Office, and a paper was read before the British a.s.sociation of September, 1864.

Early on Thursday morning (Sept. 17) we began the down march. It was a repet.i.tion of the up march, except that all were bent upon rus.h.i.+ng home, like a.s.ses to their stables; none of those poses, or regular halts on the line of march, as practised by well- trained voyageurs, are known to Congo-land. There was some reason for the hurry, and travellers in these regions will do well to remember it, or they may starve with abundance around them. The kings and chiefs hold it their duty to entertain the outward bound; but when cloth, beads, and rum have been exhausted, the returning wanderer sits under a tree instead of entering the banza, and it is only an exceptional householder who will send him a few eggs or plantains. They "cut" you, as a rule, more coolly than ever town man cut a continental acquaintance.

Finally, the self-imposed hards.h.i.+ps of the down march break men's spirits for further attempts, and their cupidity cannot neutralize their natural indolence thus reinforced.

We entered on the next afternoon Gidi Mavunga's village, where the lieges received him with shouts and hand-clappings: at the Papagayo's there was a dance which lasted through that night and the next. I stayed three days at Chinguvu finis.h.i.+ng my sketches, but to have recovered anything from the guide would have required three weeks. The old villain relaxed his vigilance over the women, who for the first time were allowed to enter the doors without supervision: Merolla treats of this stale trick, and exclaims,--

"Ah pereat! didicit fallere si qua virum."

I was reminded of the cla.s.sical sentiment upon the Rio de S.

Francisco ("Highlands of the Brazil," ii. chap, xiv.), where, amongst other sentiments, the boatmen severely denounce in song

"Mulher que engana tropeiro."

As a rule throughout West Africa, where even the wildest tribes practise it, the "panel dodge" served, as Dupuis remarked, to supply the slave-trade, and in places like Abeokuta it became a nuisance: the least penalty to which it leads is the confiscation of the Lothario's goods and chattels. Foiled in his benevolent attempt, the covetous senior presently entered the hut, and began unceremoniously to open a package of cloth which did not belong to him. Selim c.o.c.ked his revolver, and placed it handy, so the goods were afterwards respected.

At length, on Sept. 19, a piece of cloth (=48 yards) procured a canoe. But calico and beads are not removed from an African settlement without disturbance: my factotum has given a detailed account of the scene.[FN#35] Gidi Mavunga so managed that the porters, instead of proceeding straight to the stream, marched upon Banza Nokki where his royal son was awaiting us. Worse still, Nessudikira's royal mother was there, a large old virago, who smoked like a steam-engine and who "swore awful." The moleques were armed, but none liked proceeding to extremes; so, after an unusually loud quarrel, we reached the river in three hours, and at 9.45 A.M. we set out for Boma.

The down voyage was charming. Instead of hugging the southern bank, we raced at a swinging pace down mid-stream. A few showers had wonderfully improved the aspect of the land, where

"Every tree well from his fellow grew With branches broad, laden with leaves new, That springen out against the sunny sheen, Some very red and some a glad light green;"

and the first breath of spring gave life to the queer antediluvian vegetation--calabash and cactus, palmyra, bombax, and fern. An admirable mirage lifted the canoes which preceded us clean out of the river, and looking down stream the water seemed to flow up hill, as it does, according to Mrs.---, in the aqueducts of Madeira. Although the tide began to flow up shortly after 10 A.M., and the sea-breeze wafe unusually strong, we covered the forty-five miles in 7 hrs. 15 m. Amidst shouts of "Izakula Mundeh,"--white men c.u.m agen!--we landed at Boma, and found that the hospitable Sr. Pereira had waited dinner, to which I applied myself most "wishedly."

Once more in civilization, we prepared for a march upon S.

Salvador.

No white man at Boma knew anything of the road to the old Capital; but, as a letter had been received from it after three days' march, there was evidently no difficulty. I wrote to Porto da Lenha for an extra supply of "black money," which was punctually forwarded; both Chico Furano and Nihama Chamvu volunteered for the journey, and preparations were progressing as rapidly as could be expected in these slow-moving lands, when they were brought to the abruptest conclusion. On the 24th Sept.

a letter from the Commodore of the station informed me that I had been appointed H. M.'s Commissioner to Dahome, and that, unless I could at once sail in H.M.S. "Griffon," no other opportunity would be found for some time. The only step left was to apply for a canoe, and, after a kindly farewell to my excellent host, I left Boma on the evening of Sept. 25.

With a view of "doing" the mosquitoes, we ran down the Ns.h.i.+bul or central arm of the Nzadi, and found none of the whirlpools mentioned by the "Expedition" near Fetish Rock. The bright clear night showed us silhouettes of dark holms, high and wooded to the north, and southwards banks of papyrus outlying long straggling lines of thin islands like a huge caterpillar. The canoe-men attempted to land at one place, declaring that some king wanted "dash," but we were now too strong for them: these fellows, if allowed, will halt to speak every boat on the river. The wind fell to a dead calm, and five hours and a half sufficed to cover the thirty miles between Boma and Porto da Lenha. Here Mr. Scott supplied me with a fine canoe and a fresh crew of seven paddles.

The noon was grey and still as we left the Whydah of the south, but at 2 P.M. the sea-breeze came up stiff and sudden, the tide also began to flow; the river roared; the meeting of wind and water produced what the Indus boatmen call a "lahar" (tide rip), and the Thalweg became almost as rough as the Yellala. Our canoe was literally

"Laying her whole side on the sea, As a leaping fish does."

Unwilling to risk swamping my instruments, I put into the northern bank, where our friend, the palhabote Esperance, pa.s.sed under a tricolour, and manned only by Laptots. As we waved a signal to them, they replied with a straggling fire of musketry to what they considered a treacherous move on the part of plundering Musurungus. At sunset a lump of scirrhus before the sun was so dense that its dark shadow formed a brush like the trabes of a comet. This soon melted away, and a beautifully diaphanous night tempted us to move towards the dreary funnel of darkness which opened ahead. The clouds began to pour; again the stream became rough, and the swift upper or surface current meeting the cross-tide below represented an agitated "Race of Portland." Wet and weary we reached Banana Point on Sunday, Sept.

27, 1863, fortunately not too "late for the mail," and, next day, I was on board "Griffon," ready for Dahome and for my late host King Gelele.

Chapter XVI.

The Slaver and the Missionary in the Congo River.

In the preceding pages some details have been given concerning domestic slavery upon the Congo River. Like polygamy, the system of barbarous and semi-barbarous races, it must be held provisional, but in neither case can we see any chance of present end. Should the Moslem wave of conquest, in a moral as well as a material form, sweep--and I am persuaded that it will sweep--from North Africa across the equator, the effect will be only to establish both these "patriarchal inst.i.tutions" upon a stronger and a more rational basis.

All who believe in "progress" are socially anti-slavers, as we all are politically Republicans. But between the two extremes, between despotism, in which society is regimented like an army, and liberty, where all men are theoretically free and equal, there are infinite shades of solid rule and government which the wisdom of nations adapts to their wants. The medium of const.i.tutional monarchy or hereditary presidents.h.i.+p recommends itself under existing circ.u.mstances to the more advanced peoples, and with good reason; we nowhere find a prevalence of those manly virtues, disinterestedness and self-sacrifice to the "respublica," which rendered the endurance of ancient republics possible. Rome could hardly have ruled the world for centuries had her merchants supplied Carthage with improved triremes or furnished the Parthians with the latest style of weapons. We must be wise and virtuous before we can hope to be good republicans, and man in the ma.s.s is not yet "h.o.m.o sapiens;" he is not wise, and certainly he is not virtuous.

The present state of Africa suggests two questions concerning the abolition of the export slave-trade, which must be kept essentially distinct from domestic servitude. The first is, "Does the change benefit the negro?" Into this extensive subject I do not propose to enter, contenting myself with recording a negative answer. But upon the second, "Is the world ready for its abolition?" I would offer a few remarks. They will be ungrateful to that small but active faction which has laboured so long and so hard to misinform the English public concerning Africa, and which is as little fitted to teach anything about the African as to legislate for Mongolian Tartary. It has prevailed for a time to the great injury of the cause, and we cannot but see its effects in almost every step taken by the Englishman, civilian or soldier, who lands his British opinions and prejudices on the West Coast, and who, utterly ignoring the fact that the African, as far as his small interests are concerned, is one of the clearest sighted of men, unhesitatingly puts forth addresses and proclamations which he would not think of submitting to Europeans. But I have faith in my countrymen. If there be any nation that deserves to be looked upon as the arbiter of public opinion in Europe, it is England proper, which, to the political education of many generations, adds an innate sense of moderation, of justice, and of fair play, and a suspicion of extreme measures however theoretically perfect, which do not exist elsewhere. Heinrich Heine expressed this idea after his Maccabean fas.h.i.+on, "Ask the stupidest Englishman a question of politics, and he will say something clever; ask the cleverest Englishman a question of religion and he will say something stupid." Hence the well-wishers of England can feel nothing but regret when they find her clear and cold light of reason obscured, as it has been, upon the negro question by the mists and clouds of sentimental pa.s.sion, and their first desire is to see this weakness pa.s.s away.

I unhesitatingly a.s.sert--and all unprejudiced travellers will agree with me--that the world still wants the black hand.

Enormous tropical regions yet await the clearing and the draining operations by the lower races, which will fit them to become the dwelling-place of civilized man.

But slave-exportation is practically dead; we would not revive it, nor indeed could we, the revival would be a new inst.i.tution, completely in disaccord with the spirit of the age. It is for us to find something which shall take its place, and which shall satisfy the just aspirations of those who see their industry and energy neutralized by want of labour. I need hardly say that all requirements would be met by negro-emigration; and that not only Africa, but the world of the east as well as of the west, call for some measure of the kind. The "cooly" from Hindostan may in time become a valuable article, but it will be long before he can be induced to emigrate in sufficient numbers: the Chinese will be a mistake when the neglected resources of the mighty "Central Empire," mineral and others, shall be ready to be developed, as they soon must, under the supervision of Europeans. It remains only for us to draw upon the great labour-bank of Negro-land.

A bona fide emigration, a free engage system, would be a boon to Western and Inner Africa, where the tribes live in an almost continual state of petty warfare. The anti-slavers and the abolitionists, of course, represent this to be the effect of the European trade in man's flesh and blood; but it prevails, and has ever prevailed, and long will prevail, even amongst peoples which have never sent a head of negro to the coast. And there is a large cla.s.s of men captured in battle, and a host of those condemned to death by savage superst.i.tion, whose lives can be saved only by their exportation, which, indeed, is the African form of transportation. "We believe," says the Abbe Proyart (1776), "that the father sells his son and the prince his subjects; he only who has lived among them can know that it is not even lawful for a man to sell his slave, if he be born in the country, unless he have incurred that penalty by certain crimes specified by law."

It will be objected that any scheme of the kind must be so involved in complicated difficulties that it cannot fail to degenerate into the old export slave-trade. This I deny.

Admitting that such must at first be its tendency, I am persuaded that the details can so be controlled as to secure the use without the abuse. Women and children, for instance, should never be allowed on board s.h.i.+p, unless accompanying husbands and parents. Those who speak some words of a foreign tongue, English, French, Spanish, or Portuguese, and on the eastern coast Hindostani, might lead the way, to be followed in due time by the wilder races. Probably the best ground for the trial would be the Island of Zanzibar, where we can completely control its operations. And what should lend us patience and courage to meet and to beat down all difficulties is the consideration that success will be the sole possible means, independent of El Islam, of civilizing, or rather of humanizing, the Dark Continent. The excellent Abbe Proyart begins his "History of Loango" with the wise and memorable words: "Touching the Africans, these people have vices,--what people is exempt from vice? But, were they even more wicked and more vicious, they would be so much the more ent.i.tled to the commiseration and good offices of their fellow- men, and, should the missionary despair of making them Christians, men ought still to endeavour to make them men."

The "Free Emigration" schemes. .h.i.therto attempted have been mere snares and delusions; chiefly, I hold, because the age was not ripe for them. In 1844 three agencies were established at Sierra Leone for supplying hands to British Guiana, Trinidad and Jamaica. As wages they offered per diem $0.75 to $1, with leave to return at pleasure; the "liberated" preferred, however, to live upon sixpence at home, suspecting that the bait was intended as a lure to captivity. Nor were their fears lulled by the fact that the agents s.h.i.+pped amongst 250 "volunteers" some seventy-six wild slaves, fresh captives, who were not allowed to communicate with their fellow-countrymen ash.o.r.e. In 1850 certain correspondents from Liverpool inquired of King "Eyo Honesty" if he could provide for service in the West Indies 10,000 men, women, and children, as the "quotum from the Old Calabar River,"

which would mean 100,000 from the West Coast. "He be all same ole slave-trade," very justly remarked that knowing potentate: he added, that he would respect the Suppression Treaty with England, and that he personally preferred palm-oil, but that all the "Calabar gentlemen" and the neighbouring kings would be glad to supply slaves at a fixed price, four boxes of bra.s.s and copper rods.

Followed, in 1852-3, the gigantic scheme of MM. Regis et Cie, which began operations upon the East as well as the West Coast of Africa. Having studied it on both sides of the continent, I could not help forming the worst opinion of the attempt. The agents never spoke of it except as a slave- trade; the facetiae touching "achat" and "rachat" were highly suited to African taste, and I have often heard them declare before the people that "captives"

are the only articles which can profitably be exported from the coasts--in fact, as old Caspar Barle said, "precipuae merces ipsi Ethiopes sunt." I subjoin to this chapter the form of French pa.s.sport; it will serve, when a bona fide emigration shall be attempted, to show "how not to do it." Happily this "emigration"

has come to an end": M. Regis, seeing no results, gave orders to sell off all the goods in his factories, and to retain only one clerk as housekeeper. The ouvriers libres deserted and fled in all directions, for fear of being "put in a cannibal pot" and being eaten by the white anthropophagi.

The history of missionary enterprise in the Congo regions is not less interesting than the slave-trade. The first missioners sailed in December, 1490, under Goncalo de Sousa; of the three one were killed by the heat, and another having made himself "Chaplain to the Congolan Army," by a "Giaghi" chief. The seed sown by these friars was cultivated by twelve Franciscans of the Order of Observants. The Right Reverend Fathers of the Company appeared in 1560 with the Conquistador Paulo Dias de Novaes.

According to Lopez de Lima, who seems to endorse the saying, "Si c.u.m Jesuitis, non c.u.m Jesu itis," they worried one captain- general to death, and they attempted to found in Congo-land another Uruguay or Paraguay. But here they totally failed, and, as yet indeed, they have not carried out, either in East or West Africa, the celebrated boast popularly attributed to their general, Borgia (1572):

"We shall come in like the lambs; We shall be driven out like the dogs, We shall rush like the wolves; We shall be icnewed like the eagles."

The baptism of D. Alvaro I. (1491), the founding of the cathedral at S. Salvador (1534), the appointment of the Bishop and Chapter, and their transfer to So Paulo de Loanda (1627), have already been alluded to.

According to Fathers Carli and Merolla, Pope Alexander VII. sent twelve to fifteen Capuchins and apostolic missioners, who baptized the King and Queen of Congo and the Count of Sonho.

Between A.D. 1490 and 1690 were the palmy days of Christianity in Congo-land, and for two centuries it was more or less the state religion. After this great effort missionary zeal seems to have waxed cold, and disestablishment resulted, as happens in such cases, from unbelief within and violent a.s.saults from without.

Under the attacks of the Dutch and French the Church seems to have lost ground during the eighteenth century. In A.D. 1682 the number of propagandists in Sonho fell from a father superior and six missioners to two (Merolla). In A.D. 1700 James Barbot found at Sonho only two Portuguese friars of the Order of Bernardins.

In A.D. 1768 the Loango Mission was established, and in A.D. 1777 the fathers were followed by four Italian priests sent by the Propaganda for the purpose of re-christianizing Sonho. Embarking at La Roch.e.l.le they entered the Nzadi, where one died of poison, and the survivors escaped only by stratagem. Christianity fell before the old heathenism, and in 1814 we find the King of Congo, D. Garcia V., complaining to His Most Faithful Majesty that missioners were sadly wanted. Captain Tuckey's "Expedition" (A.D.

1816) well sets forth the spiritual dest.i.tution of the land. He tells us that three years before his arrival some missionaries had been murdered by the Sohnese; the only specimen he met was an ignorant half-caste with a diploma from the Capuchins of Loanda, and a wife plus five concubines. In 1863 I found that all traces of Christianity had disappeared.

These reverends--who were allowed to dispense with any "irregularity" except bigamy or wilful murder, and "to read forbidden books except Machiavel,"--took the t.i.tle of Nganga Mfumo[FN#35]--Lord Medicine-man. In the fulness of early zeal they built at S. Salvador the cathedral of Santa Cruz, a Jesuit College, a Capuchin convent, the residence of the father superior, maintained by the King of Portugal; a religious house for the Franciscans, an establishment for the Bishop and his Chapter, and half-a-dozen stone churches. All these edifices have long been in ruins.

Father Cavazzi da Monte Cuccoli, Denis de Carli, and Merolla, themselves missioners, have left us ample accounts of the ecclesiastical rule which, during its short tenure of office, bore a remarkable family resemblance to that of the Jesuit missions in South America. The religious despotism was complete, a tyranny grossly aggravated by the credulity, the bigotry, and the superst.i.tion,--I will not say of the age, because such things are of all ages, but of the imperfect education which the age afforded. There was no improvement, but rather a deterioration from the days of Pliny. One father tells the converts that comets forbode ill to the world. Another describes a bird not much unlike a sparrow, at first sight it seems wholly black, but upon a nearer view it looks blue; the excellency of its song is that it harmoniously and articulately p.r.o.nounces the name of Jesus Christ. A third remarks, "they (the heathen) are excited by the heavens forming a cross under the zone; they are excited by the mountains which have the cross carved on them, without knowing by whom; they are excited by the earth which draws the crucifix in its fruit called Nicefo." Yet all these things are of little force to move the hearts of those Gentiles who scoffingly cry, "When we are sick, forsooth, the wood of this cross will cure us!" Another father, resolving to denounce certain heathen practices, placed on the Feast of Purification an image of the Virgin in relievo upon the altar, and "with a dagger struck through her breast on which the blood followed:" like Mark Antony, he "improved the occasion," and sent home the fathers of families to thrash their wives and daughters who were shut up in the "paint houses." It is gravely related how a hungry friar dines copiously on fish with an angel; how another was saved by the "father of miracles, the glorious Saint Anthony of Padua,"

whom another priest, taking as his patron, sees before his hammock. A woman, bearing a child in her arms and supposed to be the Virgin, attends the Portuguese army, and she again appears in the shape of a "beautiful beggar." The miraculous resurrection of a boiled c.o.c.k is gravely chronicled. A certain man lived 380 years "at the intercession of Saint Francis d'a.s.sise." Of course, the missioners saw water-monsters in the Congo River. A child "came from his mother's womb with a beard and all his teeth, perhaps to show he was born into the world grown old in vice." A certain scoffer "being one day to pa.s.s a river with two companions, was visibly taken up by an invisible hand into the air. One of his companions, going to take hold of him by the feet, had such a cuff given him that he fell down in the boat, and the offender was seen no more." Father Merolla talks of a breed in the Cabo Verde Islands "between bulls and she-a.s.ses, which they compa.s.sed by binding a cow's hide upon the latter:" it would be worth inquiring if this was ever attempted, and it might add to our traditions about the "Jumart." And the tale of the elephant-hunters deceiving the animals by anointing themselves with their droppings deserves investigation. Wounds of poisoned arrows are healed by that which produced them. A woman's milk cures the venomous foam which cobras spit into the eyes. A snake as big as a beam kills and consumes men with its look. An "ill liver," reprimanded by his father for vicious inclinations, fires a pistol at him; the rebound of the bullet from the paternal forehead, which remains whole, severely wounds the would-be parricide: the ablest surgeons cannot heal the hurt, and the flesh ever continues to be sore and raw upon the forehead, acting like the brand of Cain.