Travels in West Africa. ... Second edition, abridged

Front matter

TRAVELS IN WEST AFRICA Frontispiece AN ANGOLA FISHERMAN AT HOME TRAVELS IN WEST AFRICA Congo Francais, Corisco and Cameroons BY MARY H. KINGSLEY SECOND EDITION, ABRIDGED ILontfon MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1897 All rights reserz'cd Richard Clay and Sons, Limited, london and bungav. The First Edition {Demy %vo) was sprinted in January, 1897 Reprinted, February, 1897 (three times), March, 18^7 Second Edition, abridged (Extra Crown Zvo), October, 1897. TO MY BROTHER, C. G. KINGSLEY THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED

Preface

To the Reader. — What this book wants is not a simple Preface but an apology, and a very brilliant and convincing one at that. Recognising this fully, and feeling quite incompetent to write such a masterpiece, I have asked several literary friends to write one for me, but they have kindly but firmly declined, stating that it is impossible satisfactorily to apologise for my liberties with Lindley Murray and the Queen's English. I am therefore left to make a feeble apology for this book myself, and all I can personally say is that it would have been much worse than it is had it not been for Dr. Henry Guillemard, who has not edited it, or of course the whole affair would have been better, but who has most kindly gone through the proof sheets, lassoing prepositions which were straying outside their sentence stockade, taking my eye off the water cask and fixing it on the scenery where I meant it to be, saying firmly in pencil on margins " No you don't," when I was committing some more than usually heinous literary crime, and so on. In cases where his activities in these things may seem to the reader to have been wanting, I

PREFACE.

X beg to state that they really were not. It is I who have declined to ascend to a higher level of lucidity and correctness of diction than I am fitted for. I cannot forbear from mentioning my gratitude to Mr. George Macmillan for his patience and kindness with me, — a mere jungle of information on West Africa. Whether you my reader will share my gratitude is, I fear, doubtful, for if it had not been for him I should never have attempted to write a book at all, and in order to excuse his having induced me to try I beg to state that I have written only on things that I know from personal experience and very careful observation. I have never accepted an explanation of a native custom from one person alone, nor have I set down things as being pre valent customs from having seen a single in stance.

I have endeavoured to give you an honest account of the general state and manner of life in Lower Guinea and some description ofthe various types of country there. In reading this section you must make allowances for my love of this sort of country, with its great forests and rivers and its animistic-minded in habitants, and for my ability to be more com fortable there than in England. Your superior culture-instincts may militate against your enjoy ing West Africa, but if you go there you will find things as I have said. January, 1897.

PREFACE.

TO THE ABRIDGED EDITION OF TRAVELS IN WEST AFRICA. When on my return to England from my second sojourn in West Africa, I discovered, to my alarm, that I was, by a freak of fate, the sea-serpent of the season, I published, in order to escape from this reputation, a very condensed, much abridged version of my experiences in Lower Guinea ; and I thought that I need never explain about myself or Lower Guinea again. This was one of my errors. I have been explaining ever since ; and, though not reconciled to so doing, I am more or less resigned to it, because it gives me pleasure to see that English people can take an interest in that land they have neglected. Nevertheless, it was a shock to me when the publishers said more explanation was required. I am thankful to say the explanation they required was merely on what plan the abridgment of my first account had been made.

I can manage that explanation easily. It has been done by removing from it certain sections whole, and leaving the rest very much as it first stood. Of course it would have been better if I had totally reformed and rewritten the book in pellucid English ; but that is beyond

PREFACE.

me, and I feel at any rate this book must be better than it was, for there is less of it ; and I dimly hope critics will now see that there is a saving grace in disconnectedness, for owing to that disconnectedness whole chapters have come out without leaving holes. As for the part that is left in, I have already apologised for its form, and I cannot help it, for Lower Guinea is like what I have said it is. No one who knows it has sent home contradictions of my description of it, or its natives, or their manners or customs, and they have had by now ample time and opportunity. The only complaints I have had regarding my account from my fellow- West Coasters have been that I might have said more. I trust my forbearance will send a thrill of gratitude through readers of the 736-page edition. There is, however, one section that I reprint, regarding which I must say a few words.

It is that on the trade and labour problem in West Africa, particularly the opinion therein expressed regarding the liquor traffic. This part has brought down on me much criticism from the Missionary Societies and their friends ; and I beg gratefully to acknowledge the honourable fairness with which the controversy has been carried on by the oreat Wesleyan Methodist Mission to the Gold Coast and the Baptist Mission to the Congo. It has not ended in our agreement on this point, but it has raised my esteem of Missionary Societies con siderably ; and anyone interested in this matter I beg to refer to the Baptist Magazine for October, 1897. Therein will be found my answer, and the

PREFACE.

comments on it by a competent missionary authority ; for the rest of this matter I beg all readers of this book to bear in mind that I confine myself to speaking only of the bit of Africa I know — West Africa. During this past summer I at tended a meeting at which Sir George Taub man Goldie spoke, and was much struck with the truth of what he said on the difference of different African regions. He divided Africa into three zones : firstly, that region where white races could colonise in the true sense of the word, and form a great native-born white population, namely, the. region of the Cape ; secondly, a region where the white race could colonise, but to a less extent — an extent analogous to that in India — namely, the highlands of Cen tral East Africa and parts of Northern Africa ; thirdly, a region where the white races cannot colonise in a true sense of the word, namely, the West African reafion, and in those regions he pointed out one of the main elements of pros perity and advance is the native African population.

I am quoting his words from memory, possibly imperfectly ; but there is very little reliable printed matter to go on when dealing with Sir George Taubman Goldie, which is re grettable because he himself is an experienced and reliable authority. I am however quite convinced that these aforesaid distinct regions are regions that the practical politician dealing with Africa must recognise, and keep constantly in mind when attempting to solve the many difficulties that that great continent presents, and sincerely hope every reader of this work will remember

PREFACE.

that I am speaking of that last zone, the zone wherein white races cannot colonise in a true sense of the word, but which is nevertheless a vitally important region to a great manufacturing country like England, for therein are vast unde veloped markets wherein she can sell her manu factured goods and purchase raw material for her manufactures at a reasonable rate. Having a rooted, natural, feminine hatred for politics I have no inclination to become diffuse on them, as I have on the errors of other people's cooking or ideas on decoration. I know I am held to be too partial to France in West Africa ; too fond of pointing out her brilliant achieve ments there, too fond of saying the native is as happy, and possibly happier, under her rule than under ours ; and also that I am given to a great admiration for Germans ; but this is just like any common-sense Englishwoman.

Of course I am devoted to my own John ; but still Monsieur is brave, bright, and fascinating; Mein Herr is possessed of courage and commercial ability in the highest degree, and, besides, he takes such a lot of trouble to know the real truth about things, and tells them to you so calmly and carefully — and our own John — well, of course, he is everything that's good and great, but he makes a shocking fool of himself at times, particularly in \Yest Africa. I should enjoy holding what one of my justly irritated expurgators used to call one of my little thanksgiving services here, but I will not ; for, after all, it would be impossible for me to satisfactorily thank those people who, since my

PREFACE.

publication of this book, have given me help and information on the subject of West Africa. Chief amongst them have been Mr. A. L. Jones, Mr. R. B. N. Walker, Mr. Irvine, and Mr. John Holt. I have not added to this book any information I have received since I wrote it, as it does not seem to me fair to do so. My only regret regarding it is that I have not dwelt sufficiently on the charm of West Africa ; it is so difficult to explain such things ; but I am sure there are amongst my readers people who know by experience the charm some countries exercise over men — countries very different from each other and from West Africa. The charm of West Africa is a painful one : it gives you pleasure when you are out there, but when you are back here it gives you pain by calling you. It sends up before your eyes a vision of a wall of dancing white, rainbow-gemmed surf playing on a shore of yellow sand before an audience of stately coco palms ; or of a great man grove-watered bronze river; or of a vast aisle in some forest cathedral : and you hear, nearer to you than the voices of the people round, nearer than the roar of the city traffic, the sound of the surf that is breaking on the shore down there, and the sound of the wind talking on the hard palm leaves and the thump ofthe natives' tom-toms; or the cry of the parrots passing over the man grove swamps in the evening time ; or the sweet, long, mellow whistle of the plantain warblers calling up the dawn ; and everything that is round you grows poor and thin in the face of the vision, and you want to go back to the Coast that is call-

PREFACE.

ing you, saying, as the African says to the depart ing soul of his dying friend, " Come back, come back, this is your home." M. H. KlNGSLEY. October, 1897. Note.— The following chapters of the first edition are not in cluded in this edition :— Chap, ii., The Gold Coast ; Chap, iv., Lagos Bar ; Chap, v., Voyage down Coast ; Chap, vi., Libreville and Glass ; Chap, viii., Talagouga ; Chap, xvi., Congo Frangais ; Chap, xvn., The Log of the Lafayette ; Chap, xviii., From Corisco to Gaboon ; Chap, xxviii., The Islands in the Bay of Amboises ; Appendix ii., Disease in West Africa ; Appendix iii., Dr. A. Giinther on Reptiles and Fishes ; Appendix iv., Orthoptera, Hymenoptera, and Hemi ptera. CONTENTS PAGE Introduction i

Appendix

THE INVENTION OF THE CLOTH LOOM 529 INDEX LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS The illustrations to which asterisks are attached are published by kind permission of the Mission Evangelique of Paris ILLUSTRATIONS AN ANGOLA FISHERMAN AT HOME Frontispiece PAGE CAPE COAST 21 ON A GOLD COAST BEACH 27 FERNANDO PO AND AMBAS ISLAND FROM THE N.E 35 KING DUKE OF CALABAR IN FULL DRESS 37 THE MANGO AVENUE, FERNANDO TO 39 CALLE DE LA MARIANA, CLARENCE, FERNANDO PO 43 GOVERNOR'S PALACE, FERNANDO PO 47 CALLE DE SACRAMENTO, CLARENCE, FERNANDO PO 63 A TYPICAL WEST AFRICAN RIVER BANK 83 *VIEW OF ONE BRANCH OF THE OGOWE FROM KANGWE 94 CAFFEA LIBERICA — LIBERIAN COFFEE IOI *FAN CHIEF AND FAMILY Ill SOUTH BANK OF THE OGOWE RIVER NEAR ISANGALADI ISLANDS . 1 27 BOKO BOKO RAPIDS, OGOWE RIVER 1 29 SOUTH BANK OF THE OGOWE ABOVE BOKO BOKO 135 "IGALWA WOMEN l6l FANS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS XIV PAGE FANS WITH IVORY AND RUBBER 229 AN AKOA DWARF OF CONGO FRANCAIS 25~ ANGOLA BLACKSMITHS 2(>I *IN A FAN VILLAGE 267 '.MAKING A CHARM IN THE UPPER OGOWE REGION 3°2 DEATH DANCE COSTUMES, OLD CALABAR 335 VIEW ON THE MIDDLE VOLTA . 341 TRADE BOYS OF A CHIEF AT EQUETTA, OPOBO 345 LADY OF OBAMBO, OGOWE, SHOWING CICATRISATION 379 PEAK OF CAMEROONS FROM THE NORTH-WEST 397 CAMEROONS RIVER, FROM AEOVE AKKWA TOWN 4!3 A MAHOGANY TREE, GOLD COAST 453 SHIPPING MAHOGANY, AXIM . 459 BRINGING IN RUBBER— CONGO 4S7 loom AT equetta. (By permission of Alexander Co. ven, Esq.) . TRAVELS IN WEST AFRICA TRAVELS IN WEST AFRICA

Introduction

Relateth the various causes which impelled the author to embark upon the voyage. It was in 1893 that, for the first time in my life, I found myself in possession of five or six months which were not heavily forestalled, and feeling like a boy with a new half-crown, I lay about in my mind, as Mr. Bunyan would say, as to what to do with them. " Go and learn your tropics," said Science. Where on earth am I to go ? I wondered, for tropics are tropics wherever found, so I got down an atlas and saw that either South America or West Africa must be my destination, for the Malayan region was too far off and too expensive. Then I got Wallace's Geographical Distribution and after reading that master's article on the Ethiopian region I hardened my heart and closed with West Africa. I did this the more readily because while I knew nothing of the practical condition of it, I knew a good deal both by tradition and report of South East America, and remembered that Yellow Jack was ende mic, and that a certain naturalist, my superior physically and mentally, had come very near getting starved to death in the depressing society of an expedition slowly perishing of want and miscellaneous fevers up the Parana. £ B

INTRODUCTION.

2 My ignorance regarding West Africa was soon removed. And although the vast cavity in my mind that it occupied is not even yet half filled up, there is a great deal of very curious information in its place. I use the word curious advisedly, for I think many seemed to translate my request for practical hints and advice into an advertisement that " Rubbish may be shot here." This same information is in a state of great confusion still, although I have made heroic efforts to codify it. I find, however, that it can almost all be got in under the following different headings, namely and to wit : — The dangers of West Africa. The disagreeables of West Africa. The diseases of West Africa. The things you must take to West Africa. The things you find most handy in West Africa. The worst possible things you can do in West Africa I inquired of all my friends as a beginning what they knew of West Africa.

The majority knew nothing. A percentage said, " Oh, you can't possibly go there ; that's where Sierra Leone is, the white man's grave, you know." If these were pressed further, one occasionally found that they had had relations who had gone out there after having been " sad trials," but, on considera tion of their having left not only West Africa, but this world, were now forgiven and forgotten. I next turned my attention to cross-examining the doctors. " Deadliest spot on earth," they said cheerfully, and showed me maps of the geographical dis tribution of disease. Now I do not say that a country looks inviting when it is coloured in Schecle's green or a bilious yellow, but these colours may arise from lack of artistic gift in the cartographer. There is no mistakin" what he means by black, however, and black you'll find they colour West Africa from above Sierra Leone to below the Congo.

" I wouldn't go there if I were you," said my medical friends, "you'll catch something ; but if MISSIONARIES AND TRADERS 3 you must go, and you're as obstinate as a mule, just bring me " and then followed a list of commissions from here to New York, any one of which but I only found that out afterwards. All my informants referred me to the missionaries. " There were," they said, in an airy way, " lots of them down there, and had been for many years." So to missionary literature I addressed myself with great ardour ; alas ! only to find that these good people wrote their reports not to tell you how the country they resided in was, but how it was getting on towards being what it ought to be, and how necessary it was that their readers should subscribe more freely, and not get any foolishness into their heads about obtaining an inadequate supply of souls for their money.

I also found fearful confirmation of my medical friends' state ments about its unhealthiness, and various details of the distribution of cotton shirts over which I did not linger. From the missionaries it was, however, that I got my first idea about the social condition of West Africa. I gathered that there existed there, firstly the native human beings — the raw material, as it were — and that these were led either to good or bad respectively by the missionary and the trader. There were also the Govern ment representatives, whose chief business it was to strengthen and consolidate the missionary's work, a function they carried on but indifferently well. But as for those traders ! well, I put them down under the dangers of West Africa at once. Subsequently I came across the good old Coast yarn of how, when a trader from that region went thence, it goes without saying where, the Fallen Angel without a moment's hesitation vacated the infernal throne (Milton) in his favour.

This, I beg to note, is the marine form of the legend. When it occurs terrestrially the trader becomes a Liverpool mate. But of course no one need believe it either way — it is not a missionary's story. Naturally, while my hfgher intelligence was taken up with attending to these statements, my mind got set on going, and I had to go. Fortunately I could number K

INTRODUCTION.

4 among my acquaintances one individual who had lived on the Coast for seven years. Not, it is true, on that part of it which I was bound for. Still his advice was pre-eminently worth attention, because, in spite of his long residence in the deadliest spot of the region, he was still in fair going order. I told him I intended going to West Africa, and he said, " When you have made up your mind to go to West Africa the very Jpest thing you can do is to get it unmade again and go to Scotland instead ; but if your intelligence is not strong enough to do so, abstain from exposing yourself to the direct rays of the sun, take 4 grains of quinine every clay for a fortnight before you reach the Rivers, and get some introductions to the Wesleyans ; they are the only people on the Coast who have got a hearse with feathers."

My attention was next turned to getting ready things to take with me. Having opened upon myself the sluice gates of advice, I rapidly became distracted. My friends and their friends alike seemed to labour under the delusion that I intended to charter a steamer and was a person of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. This not being the case, the only thing to do was to gratefully listen and let things drift. Not only do the things you have got to take, but the things you have got to take them in, present a fine series of problems to the young traveller. Crowds of witnesses testified to the forms of baggage holders they had found invaluable, and these, it is unnecessary to say, were all different in form and material. With all this embarras de choix I was too distracted to buy anything new in the way of baggage except a long waterproof sack neatly closed at the top with a bar and handle.

Into this I put blankets, boots, books, in fact anything that would not go into my portman teau or black bag. From the first I was haunted by a conviction that its bottom would come out, but it never did, and in spite of the fact that it had ideas of its own about the arrangement of its contents, it served me well throughout my voyage. THE VOYAGE OUT 5 It was the beginning of August '93 when I first Lft England for " the Coast." Preparations of quinine with postage partially paid arrived up to the last moment, and a friend hastily sent two newspaper clippings, one entitled " A Week in a Palm-oil Tub," which was supposed to describe the sort of accommodation, com panions, and fauna likely to be met with on a steamer going to West Africa, and on which I was to spend seven to The GrapJiic contributor's one ; the other from The Daily Telegraph, reviewing a French book of " Phrases in common use " in Dahomey.

The opening sentence in the latter was, " Help, I am drowning." Then came the inquiry, " If a man is not a thief? " and then another cry, " The boat is upset." " Get up, you lazy scamps," is the next exclamation, followed almost immediately by the question, " Why has not this man been buried? " "It is fetish that has killed him, and he must lie here exposed with nothing on him until only the bones remain," is the cheerful answer. This sounded discouraging to a person whose occupation would necessitate going about considerably in boats, and whose fixed desire was to study fetish. So with a feeling of foreboding gloom I left London for Liverpool — none the more cheerful for the matter-of-fact manner in which the steamboat agents had informed me that they did not issue return tickets by the West African lines of steamers.

I will not go into the details of that voyage here, much as I am given to discursiveness. They are more amusing than instructive, for on my first voyage out I did not know the Coast, and the Coast did not know me, and we mutually terrified each other. I fully expected to get killed by the local nobility and gentry ; they thought I was connected with the World's Women's Temperance Association, and col lecting shocking details for subsequent magic-lantern lectures on the liquor traffic ; so fearful misunderstand ings arose, but we gradually educated each other, and I had the best of the affair ; for all I had got to teach them was that I was only a beetle and fetish hunter, and so forth, while they had to teach me a new world,

INTRODUCTION.

and a very fascinating course of study I found it. And whatever the Coast may have to say against me — for my continual desire for hair-pins, and other pins, my intolerable habit of getting into water, the abomina tions full of ants, that I brought into their houses, or things emitting at unexpectedly short notice vivid and awful stenches — they cannot but say that I was a diligent pupil, who honestly tried to learn the lessons they taught me so kindly, though some of those lessons were hard to a person who had never previously been even in a tame bit of tropics, and whose life for many years had been an entirely domestic one in a University town. One by one I took my old ideas derived from books and thoughts based on imperfect knowledge and weighed them against the real life around me, and found them either worthless or wanting.

The greatest recantation I had to make I made humbly before I had been three months on the Coast in 1893. It was of my idea of the traders. What I had expected to find them was a very different thing to what I did find them ; and of their kindness to me I can never sufficiently speak, for on that voyage I was utterly out of touch with the govern mental circles, and utterly dependent on the traders, and the most useful lesson of all the lessons I learnt on the West Coast in 1893 was that I could trust them. Had I not learnt this very thoroughly I could never have gone out again and carried out the voyage I give you a sketch of in this book. Thanks to " the Agent," I have visited places I could never otherwise have seen ; and to the respect and affection in which he is held by the native, I owe it that I have done so in safety.

When I have arrived off his factory in a steamer or canoe unexpected, unintroduced, or turned up equally unheralded out of the bush in a dilapidated state, he has always received me with that gracious hospitality which must have given him, under Coast conditions, very real trouble and inconvenience — things he could have so readily found logical excuses against entailing upon himself for the sake of an individual whom he had never OBLIGATIONS ACKNOWLEDGED 7 seen before — whom he most likely would never see again — and whom it was no earthly profit to him to see then. He has bestowed himself — Allah only knows where — on his small trading vessels so that I might have his one cabin. He has fished me out of sea and fresh water with boat-hooks ; he has continually given me good advice, which if I had only followed would have enabled me to keep out of water and any other sort of affliction ; and although he holds the meanest opinion of my intellect for going to such a place as West Africa for beetles, fishes and fetish, he has given me the greatest assistance in my work.

The value of that work I pray you withhold judgment on, until I lay it before you in some ten volumes or so mostly in Latin. All I know that is true regarding West African facts, I owe to the traders ; the errors are my own. To Dr. Giinther, of the British Museum, I am deeply grateful for the kindness and interest he has always shown regarding all the specimens of natural history that I have been able to lay before him ; the majority of which must have had very old tales to tell him. Yet his courtesy and attention gave me the thing a worker in any work most wants — the sense that the work was worth doing — and sent me back to work again with the knowledge that if these things interested a man like him, it was a more than sufficient reason for me to go on collecting them. To Mr. W. H. F. Kirby I am much indebted for his working out my small collection of certain Orders of insects ; and to Mr. Thomas S. Forshaw, for the great help he has afforded me in re vising my notes.

It is impossible for me even to catalogue my debts of gratitude still outstanding to the West Coast. Chiefly am I indebted to Mr. C. G. Hudson, whose kindness and influence enabled me to go up the Ogowe and to see as much of Congo Frangais as I have seen, and his efforts to take care of me were most ably seconded by Mr. Fildes. The French officials in " Congo Francais " never hindered me, and always treated me with the greatest kindness. You may say there was no reason why they should not, for there is nothing in this fine colony of

INTRODUCTION.

France that they need be ashamed of any one seeing ; but I find it is customary for travellers to say the French officials throw obstacles in the way of any one visiting their possessions, so I merely beg to state this was decidedly not my experience ; although my deplor able ignorance of French prevented me from explaining my humble intentions to them. The Rev. Dr. Nassau and Mr. R. E. Dennett have enabled me, by placing at my disposal the rich funds of their knowledge of native life and idea, to amplify any deductions from my own observation. Mr. Dennett's work I have not dealt with in this work because it refers to tribes I was not amongst on this journey, but to a tribe I made the acquaintance with in my '93 voyage — the Fjort. Dr. Nassau's observations I have referred to. Herr von Lucke, Vice-governor of Cameroon, I am indebted to for not only allowing me, but for assisting me by every means in his power, to go up Cameroons Peak, and to the Governor of Cameroon, Herr von Puttkamer, for his constant help and kindness.