The History of a Slave ... With ... illustrations ... from the author's drawings

Preface

In accompanying this little book with prefatory remarks I fear lest I may seem to be overestimating its importance ; but my publishers think a few words of explanation necessary, which will better enable readers to understand the character and the purport of what I have herein written and drawn. The ' History of a Slave' is an attempt to give a realistic sketch of life in the Western Sudan. It is the outcome of some considerable experience of the Dark Continent, but is especially based on what I have seen and heard when travelling in North Africa, in the Niger Delta, and on the Cross River. I have pieced together the accounts given me by negro slaves in the Barbary States and in Western THE HISTORY OF A SLAVE VI Equatorial Africa, especially by Mbudikum people, with whom I have conversed at Old Calabar.

While this little work does not pretend to topo graphical accuracy — especially in countries that are only known to us by native reports — yet, to speak colloquially, it is not all humbug. Many of the incidents herein related I have actually witnessed during some one of my journeys in Africa. The places and peoples I have named are of real existence, as are also the languages quoted, though some of them, as in the case of the Mbudikum tongue, pro bably appear in print for the first time. Were it not for the time and care which I have spent on the forty-seven illustrations of this booklet, I should consider even the few foregoing remarks superfluous ; but, for the sake of these drawings, I would ask the reader to treat me somewhat seri ously. These illustrations are truthful delineations of African life and scenery, and have most of them been done in Africa from actuality, though it does not necessarily follow that their application is to be

PREFACE.

vi. exactly localised ; that is to say, that, though the drawing may not have been actually done from the scene described in the book, it depicts an analogous scene elsewhere, from which, all or in part, it has been taken. It may, however, be well to mention that I have endeavoured to make my landscapes, architecture, implements, costumes — or the want of them — and studies of human types, as locally accu rate as possible. H. H. JOHNSTON. London : March, .889. ILLUSTRATIONS ' I am not an old man yet, am I ? ' Frontispiece ' My mother was a young woman who had a pleasant face, although, after the fashion of these pagans, it was scarred and tattooed on the forehead, and cheeks, and chin ' ...... To face page 3 ' We lived in a kind of compound, the four sides of which were houses built of clay, with palm-thatch roofs '...... 5 ' My father . . . was old, and his eyes were dim : he had a short grey beard, and the hair of his head was grey, and he had lost many of his teeth. . . .

For hours together he would sit on his haunches over the fire in his own hut '.......... 7 ' But one elephant that was stronger and more cunning than the others would not fly before the shouting, but turned round and made straight at my brother, whom he seized with his trunk and carried to the firm land among the bushes ' . . 13 Epfumo . . . . 15 ' There were great fires burning, so that the place was full of light, and round these fires were squatting or standing all the young men of the town '............ 21 ' We all went home with the birds we had caught ' .... 25 ' Around the base of the tree were walking two or three brown vultures. . . . When I said in a soft voice, " Ndeba !" her eyes opened, and she looked hard at me ' 27 a X THE HISTORY OF A SLAVE ' She set the bunch of plantains on my head, and made me carry the duck under one arm, and lead the goat by the hand ' .

To face page 29 The Ndoge Brotherhood 39 ' I espied a Bakuba man and woman who had been out cutting grass for their goats. . . .

They sought to escape our notice by crawling on their stomachs through the grass like snakes ' . . . . . .47 ' I dressed my hair in the fashion of those who were married men ' . 49 ' As the elephants, scared by the torches and the shouting, pressed onwards between the narrow hedges, some of them were pushed into the pit and were at the men's mercy ' . . . . . . . -SI ' When the day came round for the next big market to be held in our town . . . there were more of the Mohammedan, Ful, and Hausa traders there than we had ever seen before ' ...... 53 ' They said that along the horizon in the direction of Dokaka they saw the smoke of burning towns ' . . . . . . . -57 ' Some of the Ful-be horsemen would tie a rope round the ankle of one of these fugitives and fasten the other end of this rope to his stirrup, and then ride round and round the square at full gallop ' . . .63 ' I saw her body . . . cast out into the street, where the hyenas which wander through the town at night came and tore it to pieces ' . .67 ' On our way we passed on the west of a big, big mountain ' . . .69 ' He laughed much to see the way in which I at first wore it ' . ■ 7 1 ' The water seemed like a great sea without limits, except for the deleb palms which rose above the flood ' . . . . . . -73 ' And all these creatures, which are wont to disagree in the forest . . . were now so scared by the flood, which had driven them for refuge to this small village on a little mound, that they looked not at each other, but watched the water only ' . . . . . . . -77 ' Yakuba seemed the grandest place in all the world, with its fine houses of clay . . . and its dakakin (shops) ' . . . . . . .81 LLL USTRA TIONS XI ' In this court the camels and horses of my master were tethered, and there were many ducks and fowls, and a few sheep ' .

To face page 85 ' The Sultan was sitting on his carpet smoking a water-pipe ' . . 91 ' His executioner, a tall Kanuri man with a red turban, naked to the waist, stood by the Sultan's side with a drawn sword ' . . -93 ' And his head was stuck on a post, and the body we dragged about the town by the legs ' 95 ' Stealthily walking through the streets of the town where the shadows were deepest ' . .......... 101 ' A hungry lion had leapt the barrier of thorns, and fastened on to one of the asses, who in terror broke loose from the stake to which it was tethered '...... 103 ' Often I would stop to weep at the misfortunes that had befallen me ' .111 ' I was now forced to walk in step with a poor wild pagan slave from the Ibo country, joined to him during the march by a chain which united our heavy wooden collars ' 113 In the slave market . . -US Beating the taubs 117 ' Lowering my head, I charged at him like a bull, butting him full in the stomach' 121 The Kano Cavalry . 123 ' We carried off a rich spoil of slaves, cattle, and camels ' . . .127 ' One night a lion and lioness jumped into our camp . . . but we drove them off with burning brands ' 131 The Tree of Death 13S ' The executioner every now and then turned and made a jest to the people ' 137 Al-Haj-Ayub 139 ' The Mirage (These lakes were shams, and the work of the Jann) ' .143 THE HISTOR Y OF A SLA VE ' Then he led me through many streets to the house of a Ghadamsi merchant To face page 145 ' Many slaves . •. . would be able just to reach the drinking place, and then would sink down and die before the water reached their lips ' . 147 ' But when these creatures came nearer — I being too dazed to thiok of flight— I saw they were only baboons, of a kind not unlike those which were found in my own country' .149 ' The great Wadan, the big animal with the mane, something of the sheep-kind . . . would come down in the night-time from the cliffs that surrounded the Wadi to . . . the pool' . . . . .159 ' And she, too, after running for some distance, threw up her hands and fell down in a heap '......... 165 ' For at this hour he is wont to leave the Mosque of the Olive Tree ' .167 THE HISTORY OF A SLAVE

Chapter I

How do I know when I was born ? We black men cannot remember the number of years that we have lived. Perhaps it was forty years ago — I don't know, I am not an old man yet, am I ? You see my muscles are strong and firm, my teeth are sound, my skin is smooth and shining, and not puckered and scaly, as it is with old men. And I know that I am not young, because I have left my country in the land of the blacks for a long, long time, and when I was first caught by the slavers I was a strong full grown man, already married. What curious people you Europeans are ! You ask so many questions, and you want to know so much about things that do not concern you. Why should you care about slaves B THE HISTOR Y OF A SLA VE 2 from the Sudan, and how they live, and what lan guages they speak ? See, you have written many words already that I have spoken of, Marghi and Fulde, and Mbudikum and Batta, and other tongues of the barbarians and pagans, who know not God, and reject the teaching of His Prophet.

I too, was like them once. The country where my mother bore meis far away — far, far away, beyond the Desert, beyond the Great River, beyond the king doms of the Muslemin, in a land of Kufar (un believers), where the people, my brothers, went naked, and knew not shame. It is a country so far that, though you may love travelling, I doubt if you would ever reach it : yet once or twice I have heard that white men have been near my mother-land. They came — I have heard it said — to spy out the country and the chiefs of the Ful people, and the Wazir of Bornu afforded them protection. Then, too, I have heard that the great rushing river, which was distant a month's walk from my home, towards the north — the river that the Ful-be > call Mayo Fumbina, and the Batta call the Benue — that this 1 The Ful or ' Fula ' people.

Pul-o is the singular form (one Fulo man), Ful-be the plural. Ful-de or Fulful-de, the language. The Arabs call the Ful, ' Fillani.' My mother was a young woman who had a pleasant face although, after the fashion of these pagans, it was scarred and tattooed on the forehead, and cheeks, and chin.' water flowed towards the setting sun, where it joined the Kwara, which comes from Timbuktu ; and up this Kwara they used to say that white men came in big ships to buy slaves. The white men, I heard, would come to Nufe, and sometimes the Arabs have told me they were English, and sometimes they said they were another kind of Englishmen called Mera kani. And once, too, some white men came up the Benue River in a steamer, and now the Bornu people bring news to Tarabulus that the white men have got houses on the Benue, where they trade with the Ful people.

It may be lying, it may be true, I do not know ; but you white men are wonderful, and so are the things you do. Are you going to write my history in a book ? The Sidi, my master, said you wished to do so, and as he likes you, and wishes to please you, he has sent me here, and told me I am to do your bidding. If you wish me to be silent, I am to be silent ; if you wish me to talk, I am to tell you all that I know, if it be words of the E rtana ' of the Pagans, or if it be of all the things that I have seen and done in all my life, since I was born. Oh, yes ! I will tell you truth — Jargon, savage language. B by God, I will not lie — why should I ? You white men know everything, and if you found I was deceiv ing you, you would send me away, and my master would punish me ; and I like coming to see you, it makes me proud to talk to a white man — all my friends say, ' See, Abu-1-Guwah l must be a man with something in him, or the Englishman would not send for him every day, and write down in a book the words that he speaks.' ' ' The Father of Strength,' the strong, lusty.

A name sometimes given by the Arabs to Negro slaves. ' We lived in a kind oj compound, the four sides of which were houses built of clay, with palm-thatch roofs. ' THE HISTORY OF A SLAVE 5

Chapter II

The name they called my mother-country was Mbudikum. It was a land of forests and mountains — a land where water never failed, because in all directions there were brooks and rivers, and my country-people never thought of digging wells. When I can first remember, I was a small, small boy, and I lived in a large village of this country called Bahom. My mother was a young woman who had a pleasant face, although, after the fashion of these pagans, it was scarred and tattooed on the forehead, and cheeks, and chin. My mother was one of the five wives of a man called Asho-eso, who was the chief of the village, and also ruled over three other neighbouring towns. We lived in a kind of compound, the four sides of which were houses built of clay, with palm-thatch roofs ; in the middle of the compound or yard was a small tree growing, and on this tree were hung the skulls of THE HISTOR Y OF A SLA VE people whom my father, the old chief, had killed, and there were also a lot of charms and gri-gris, such as these pagans believe in, tied round the trunk of this tree ; and every now and then, when the men of the village killed a slave or a prisoner whom they had captured when they fought with the Bakuba — the Bakuba were a tribe who lived on a high mountain two days' journey from our village, and who used sometimes to fight with us — when, I say, the men of our town killed some one and roasted his flesh for a feast — for my people were man-eaters like the Ghuls of the desert — the bones of the men they had eaten were laid round about the base of this tree.

The first thing I remember clearly was playing with the skull of one of these people whom the young men of the town had eaten. I used to roll it about on the ground of the compound, and amuse myself by filling it with sand, and then holding it up to let the sand run out from the eyes and nose. There were a number of other boys — perhaps eight or ten — living with me in the compound, who were said to be my father's children. My mother was the youngest of his wives. Her name was Tutu, and My father . . . . was old, and his eyes were dim ; he had a short grey beard, and the hair of his head was grey, and he had lost many of his teeth .... For hours together he would sit on his haunches over the fire ?'» his own hut.* the name of the head-wife was Ndeba. I hated Ndeba, and she did not like me, because she was jealous of my mother, and her own children had died.

The old chief, my father, they said had been a strong man when he was young, and they had made him chief because he had fought very bravely against the Bakuba, and had captured many prisoners and women and goats and sheep, and, as he was very generous, they made him chief in the place of another man who had been killed ; but, when I remember him, he was old and his eyes were dim ; he had a short grey beard, and the hair of his head was grey and he had lost many of his teeth. His knees were swollen and large, and he could only walk slowly and with a stick. For hours together he would sit on his haunches over the fire in his own hut, and do nothing but take snuff occasionally out of a small antelope horn which hung round his neck. Only when the women wrangled too loud would he raise himself and find his voice, and when he was angry and shouted, the brightness came back to his eyes, and his voice was strong, and it made us tremble, because it was told that once in his younger days, when a wife had refused to stop yelling because the head-wife had SLA VE 8 taken her portion of peppers, he struck her on the head with his ebony stick, and she died.

Sometimes I used to creep into my father's hut and watch him as he sat over the fire ; he never spoke much to me, and much of what he said seemed to be nonsense. A few sentences of his talk I still remember ; he said them over and over again, like a kind of song : ' The elephants came down from the mountains — two, three elephants came. They wasted my farm, they dragged down my plantains, and they trampled my maize, and I, Eso, I, the chief, did a cunning thing against them, for I dug a big, big pit, and I overlaid its mouth with thin sticks, and on these sticks I reared the maize stalks upright, as though they were growing, and I scattered grass about in between them, so that none might know that the sticks hid the mouth of the pit, and when the elephants came at night to eat my plantains, they pressed on the sticks, and one, the biggest, fell into the pit, and there, I, Eso, found him, and I cut the tendons of his feet so that he could not walk, and I and my men stuck him in many places with spears, so that he bled to death, and for many days we feasted on his flesh, till our bellies ached with food.

And his tusks, one I sold to a Tibari J trader, and the other I made into bracelets for my wives, and that is why they call me " Asho-eso," the " elephant-killer." ' And this tale he would tell many times, until I wearied of it, and little else he would say, except when the women quarrelled, and he could not sleep. My eldest brother was a big young man. He was the son of the second wife. I liked him because he was kind to me, and because he, too, hated the eldest wife. When she quarrelled with my mother he took my mother's part. His own mother we all laughed at, because she had once broken her leg, and when it mended the bone stuck out in a lump, and one leg was shorter than the other, so that, when she walked, she walked with a hop. We called her the ' Hyena,' because her gait was limping — and in our language we call the hyena the ' limping leopard ' — but my eldest brother was good to me, and would play with me, and when he took part in these pagan feasts, he would bring back a little of the man's heart they had eaten, so that I might taste it, and grow brave for Wallah !

I was a Fula. SLAVE 10 pagan and a man-eater, too. I knew no better, and was as a brute, and none had told me of Allah and his Nabi.1 My eldest brother taught me to make bows and arrows — the bow out of the springy wood of the climbing palm, and the string, too, of palm fibre or the twisted gut of a goat — and our arrows were made out of stout grass-stems and notched, or some times the blacksmith of the village would beat me out a small barb of iron, which I would fasten on to the end of my arrow. With these bows and arrows I soon learned to kill small birds, which I took home to eat. I always shared them with my brothers, as was our custom, for we shared every thing — we boys — but if the women tried to take something of what we had killed to put in their own pots, we made a great noise and stoned them, and my mother would scream and shout at the other women if they tried to take away the things I had killed, for my mother set much store by me, and would let no one do me hurt if she could prevent them.

And I learned to fish in the brooks, where we ' Prophet,' viz. Mohammed. made weirs of reeds and bush-creepers, and once I remember, when I jumped into the deep water of one of these pools, which we had dammed up, to catch in my arms a large fish that was entrapped there, a big lizard, such as the Arabs call ' Waran,' attacked me, for he, too, was after the fish, and with his long, sharp-edged tail cut the skin all down my right thigh, and I thought I should have died, because so much blood ran out, and I could hardly drag myself home, where my mother wailed over me ; and because the head-wife was learned in medicine, and knew the best way to stop the flowing of blood and heal the wound, my mother had to give her a large present — I think she gave her a goat — that she might apply her skill to close up the wound in my thigh ; and this she did, as I remember, by washing it, and putting on it the red paste of a wood that was bitter to the taste, and then she strapped up the whole thigh in plantain leaves, and in a few days I was well. THE HISTORY OF A SLAVE 12

Chapter III

About this time a great trouble came on us, for my elder brother went out to hunt the elephant with some young men of the town. They would follow the elephants till they came to a great marsh, which was a long day's journey from the town, and here, hiding among the reeds, where the elephants came to drink and bathe, they would let fly at them with spears and poisoned arrows, hoping, by much noise and by gradually closing on them, to drive the ele phants out of the clear water into the thick mud, where they would stick, and where the men could get close to them and kill them without the ele phants having the power to escape or to run at the men. But one elephant, that was stronger and more cunning than the others, would not fly before the shouting, but turned round and made straight at my brother, whom he seized with his trunk and carried to the firm land among the ' But one elephant that was stronger and more cunning than the others would not fly before the shouting, but turned round and made straight at my brother, whom he seized with his trunk and carried to the firm land among the bushes.' THE HISTOR Y OF A SLA VE 13 bushes ; and here, though he was like a porcupine for the lances and darts and arrows that stuck in his hide, thrown by the young men who were my brother's companions, he desisted not from his purpose, but, placing him on the ground with his trunk, he knelt down and drove one of his great tusks through my brother's body and then broke away from the young men, so that none saw in what direction he escaped through the forest, he bear ing all the time my brother's body spitted on his tusk.

And when the news was brought home, it was said everywhere that it was witchcraft, that some enemy of my brother's had entered into this elephant as a devil, so that he might bring about my brother's death, and I heard the women whisper that the enemy who had done this was my father's head-wife ; and the poor Hyena, as we called my brother's mother, was mad for rage, and threw her self on the head-wife, biting and striking her until my father roared in his angry voice, and the other women pulled her off and tied her with bush-rope, and then for two days there was quiet ; but the young men had found part of my brother's body in the forest, and had brought it back to the town, and THE HLSTOR Y OF A SLA VE 14 then I heard it said that ' Epfumo ' was out to find who had bewitched my brother, and entered the elephant to kill him.

When I heard the great ' Bong ! bong ! ' of the ' Etum,' which is a kind of drum made of a hollow sounding wood, that gives out a noise almost like a bell, I was frightened and ran to my mother, she everywhere looking for me to hide me with herself in the house ; for you must know the custom was, when this Epfumo was out, that he should slay all women and children, and all youths who were unin itiated, whom he met in his path. And the reason of this was, that these pagans believe that Epfumo is a ' Shaitan,' a great devil, who is able to search out the truth. He appears like a man dressed in a great mantle made of palm-fronds, a mantle which descends from his shoulders to his knees, and is very broad and constructed somewhat like a cage, but there are holes to let the arms pass out through, and on to his finger-nails are fastened leopards'-claws.

In one hand he holds a great cutlass, and in the other a pierced antelope-horn, with which he blows a strong blast at times, to warn people out of his way. On Epfumo, his head is a hideous mask of painted wood, from the top of which hangs down behind a black-and white monkey-skin. When I was a child I thought that the Epfumo was a real devil, but now I know it is only a man dressed up, and generally the ' doctor,' the pagan priest of the town, and this Epfumo that came out to find the person who bewitched my brother must have been an old man named ' Asho-ntshon,' which means in our language ' Kill-thief.' And all this time that the Epfumo was searching through the town for the bewitcher of my brother, the drum in the fetish-house was going ' Bong ! bong ! bong ! ' and there was no other sound in the town but the noise of the drum, except when a dog howled or the fowls cackled ; and I hid myself in the darkness of my mother's hut, fearing to let go her hand, and she, too, was frightened, and had put the screen of latticed palm-stems against the doorway of her hut ; but presently we heard quite close to the entrance to our compound a blast from the Epfumo's horn.

My mother started up and trembled all over. ' He is coming in here,' she said, ' I knew it ; it is the head-wife that has bewitched thy brother ; ' and THE HLSTOR Y OF A SLA VE although I was very frightened, I was very curious to see what the Epfumo would do, so I crept close to the doorway and peeped through the cracks of the palm-lattice, and for the first time I saw the terrible Epfumo.

He came into the compound, walking at the head of a troop of other devils, dressed somewhat like himself, but with white staves in their hands and no cutlass, and the Epfumo cried, with a loud voice, ' I smell the witch who has bewitched Ejok ' (that was my brother's name), and at these words I saw my father come out of the house, walking very slowly and painfully, and helping himself with his stick, and he said, ' What seekest thou here, Epfumo ? ' and the devil said, ' I seek the bewitcher of Ejok, and I know I am near,' and the Epfumo walked towards our house, or rather he danced towards us with a curious mincing step, and again I shut my eyes with fright, for I saw he was coming to our door, and all this time my mother was crouching on the ground, putting her hands before her eyes ; and when I looked out again the Epfumo had passed on, and he went very near the next house, and the next, but stopped at none till he came to the house of the head-wife, and there he danced in ; and then I heard a frightful yell, and the Epfumo came out, dragging the head wife by the wrist, and she in her scare set both her feet together and bent her body, so that he might fail to move her from the threshold of her hut ; but it was of no use, for my father said, ' Bind her,' and the other dressed-up men that accompanied Epfumo took coils of bush-rope from underneath their mantle of palm-leaves, and bound the head-wife round and round, so that she was stiff, and could move nothing about her but her head ; and all the while she screamed and screamed, until her screams became like the hoarse cry of an angry camel, and then when she was bound they lifted her up, and carried her out of the compound.