CHAPTER IX.
Sierra Leone—More Civility—Cobras—A Guilty Conscience—Naval Types—Freetown Society—A Musical Critic—The Rural Districts—A British Atrocity.
On January 1st, 1881, I returned once more to Sierra Leone. I found the place and people very much improved, which improvement was, I believe, entirely due to the action of the late Governor, Sir Samuel Rowe, who had consequently acquired the cordial hatred of all the Sierra Leone lower classes. Future Governors need not however lose heart; there is still something left for them to do, and, if they are only sufficiently energetic, they will have no difficulty in gaining that unpopularity with the natives which is, in West Africa, more honourable than popularity.
Civility to Europeans is still one of the weak points of the Sierra Leonians. Two or three days after my arrival some enterprising burglar ransacked my quarters during my absence, and removed everything which he considered worth taking. Suspicion fell upon the occupants of a certain house in the town, and a search-warrant was issued. As it was necessary that the stolen articles should be at once identified, if found, I had to accompany the police who went to examine this den; but, as the aroma of such dwellings is not usually pleasant, I allowed them to go into the house, and went and sat down on a rock by the roadside under the shade of a tree.
While so sitting, a Sierra Leone gentleman, whom I had seen for some distance coming along the road towards me, drew nigh, and lifted up his voice and spake, saying:—
“Hullo, you white nigger—what you do here, eh?”
I pretended to be deeply abstracted in the examination of the soil at my feet, and made no answer; while he continued, working himself into a passion as he proceeded—
“Heigh, you white nigger. You too proud to talk, eh? Dam brute.”
A small crowd began to collect and make facetious remarks at my expense, so I said to my annoyer:—
“If you don’t go away I’ll call the police.”
“Heigh! hear dat. You call de police, white nigger? Me call de police, and give you in charge for ’ssault. All dese gen’lmen here saw you ’ssault me—dam brute.”
At this moment, fortunately, for I was beginning to feel a little displeased at this language, the sergeant of the police came out of the house, and I called him. Quite a change at once came o’er the spirit of the scene; my antagonist, crestfallen, executed a skilful flank movement up a bye-street, covering his retreat by a continuous and heavy fire of abuse, while his supports scattered and sought the nearest cover.
I could not have had this man locked up for what he had done, but the law is a beautiful and far-reaching, if somewhat complex, machine, and of course I could have a legal remedy. It only required the few following little preliminaries. Firstly, I should have had to ascertain the name of the individual; secondly, discover his place of residence; thirdly, attend and take out a summons against him; fourthly, pay for it; fifthly, have it served on the defendant; and sixthly, have a day appointed for the hearing of the case. Then, after having satisfied, if possible, these first requirements, it would be necessary for me to go down to the town in the heat of the day, and remain in a crowded and suffocating court for perhaps hours, subjected to the insidious insinuations and brow-beatings of a negro lawyer, who would very likely after all turn the tables on me by producing fifteen or twenty witnesses, all thoroughly well schooled in what they had to say, who would swear that I had perpetrated a vindictive and brutal assault upon a poor black brother who had merely asked me what o’clock it was. Even if I did succeed in obtaining a conviction, the defendant would only be bound over to keep the peace; and he would incite his relatives and friends to give me plenty of entertainment during my residence in the country.
This of course is only one side of the question, and, I am bound to say on the other side, that the servants of the two steamship companies, which run vessels from Liverpool to West Africa, are a great deal too free in the violent application of their boots to the persons of negroes who may go on board the steamers; so perhaps the latter retaliate on those Europeans who live in the place as a kind of compensation.
An otherwise friendly critic thought it strange that this should be the state of things at Sierra Leone. It is strange; but then things are not on the West Coast of Africa as they are elsewhere. In what other colony, for instance, could one find a Colonial official, holding a high position and drawing a large salary, who advanced money to all applicants on the security of jewelry and such small portable articles of value, or in what part of the British Empire an officer, head of a Colonial department, who uses his influence to persuade his negro subordinates to insure their lives in a company for which he is agent, thereby pocketing a commission of twenty-five or thirty per cent. on each policy?
I do not think I have hitherto made any mention of the black cobras-di-capello which are the pest of the barracks at Tower Hill. These playful companions seem to have a particular predilection for the sunny banks and rocks of that hill, and, during my two months’ residence there in 1874, four were killed within five or ten yards of the officers’ mess; but they appear to have become much more familiar of late years, and, a few days after my arrival, one was seen, and another killed, in a bedroom on the second story. As a bite from one of these snakes causes certain death within three hours, one would wish to have less dangerous domestic creatures at large. There must be hundreds of them in the vicinity of the barracks, as I have seen eight or nine myself at different times; and while walking up the hill one evening in the dusk barely escaped treading on one, being only just warned in time by a shrill hiss. These cobras usually go about in couples, and during the breeding season they will, though totally unmolested, make direct for any person who may happen to approach them.
Apropos of snakes,—a naval officer had rather an amusing adventure with one at Tower Hill. He had come ashore, from a gunboat lying in the harbour, to dine at mess; and, as is usually the case, had suddenly discovered, after the third or fourth rubber, about 11 p.m., that he could not get off to his ship that night, and must trespass upon somebody’s kindness for a bed. He was assisted to a room, and the lights were being put out in the mess when we heard a series of wild shouts up stairs, and then a noise as of some heavy body thumping and banging down the steps. We ran out into the passage, and discovered the naval man lying curled up, half undressed, at the bottom of the stair-case; so we lifted him up and asked what was the matter. He appeared very much frightened, and gasped out:—
“Oh, Lord! I’ve got them at last.”
“Got what?” we inquired.
“Oh, Lord: I’ve got them at last—Oh, send for a doctor will you. I’ll never touch another drop of that cursed ship’s rum, if I get over this.”
“But what have you got?” we reiterated.
“Got? I’ve got the jumps—that’s what I’ve got.”
“Nonsense! go to bed! you’re all right.”
“I tell you I’m not. I could have sworn I saw a snake in my bed just now, and that’s one of the first signs.”
He was so eager to see a doctor that we took him to one, and then went up to examine his room. True enough there was a snake, coiled up in the blanket on his bed. It was a python, which had escaped from a cage in which several were confined in an adjoining room. Two of us seized it by the head and two by the tail to take it back to its prison. As we were carrying it along it drew itself up and our four heads collided together with a crash; then it straightened itself out, and we shot off violently towards the four corners of the room; it required the united efforts of six men to remove that snake to his own domicile. This adventure shows what a guilty conscience will effect; and it was the more amusing because the naval hero had, not with the best taste, been loudly proclaiming that he was almost a teetotaller, that all military officers were drunkards, and that nobody ever died in West Africa except from the effect of ardent spirits. He went away rather early next morning without waiting to say “good-bye” to anybody.
I wonder what has become of the jovial, open-handed, and open-hearted naval officers that one reads about in works of fiction, and who continually interlard their conversation with nautical expressions; one never meets any of this description now-a-days, in fact quite the contrary; and I am half inclined to believe that they never were more than creatures of the imagination, but if ever they did exist the species is now extinct. The life that naval officers lead shut up in a floating tank on the West Coast of Africa is horrible; sometimes they do not set foot on shore for months together, but lie day after day, rolling fearfully, off a few mud huts and a grove of cocoanut palms. They have hardly any work to do, and, as but few of them have any resources of amusement or occupation, they as a natural consequence quarrel amongst themselves; and in almost every gunboat one finds the five or six officers divided into two or three cliques, each of which will have nothing to say to either of the others, except on official matters. This sort of thing is rather unpleasant for any stranger who may happen to be on board. First of all one will come up and enter into conversation with you, during which he is sure to say:—
“Do you know that man over there?”
“No, I don’t,” you reply.
“Ah! his name is Blank. He is the most awful ass I ever met—I shouldn’t have anything to say to him if I were you.”
Then he goes away, and he is barely out of sight before another saunters up and begins talking. Presently he will say:—
“Do you know Smith well?”
“No, who’s Smith?” you inquire.
“Oh, that was Smith that was talking to you just now. He’s the most inveterate liar I ever met—you must never believe anything he tells you.”
Then after he has gone away Blank will come forward, and after a few preliminary sentences casually inform you that both Smith and your second acquaintance are confirmed drunkards. No sooner has Blank moved off than the confidential naval officer, who calls you “old man” and speaks in low and thick tones, will draw nigh and tell you what the failings of every officer on board may be; finally leaving you under the impression that every one but himself is thoroughly incapable, untrustworthy, and of intemperate habits, and that were it not for him the ship would go to the dogs.
I was once on board a man-of-war for a few days in which this unsociability was carried to such a degree that at the gun-room mess every officer, at breakfast and tea, used to produce, from the depths of his bunk, a pot of jam, or a tin of potted meat, and devour it all by himself without offering it or saying a word to his comrades.
Then there is the naval officer, who, before you have fairly set foot on board, rushes at you and informs you that you have omitted saluting the quarter-deck; and who always loses his temper when you tell him that you do not know where it is, and are looking for it; and the self-asserting man who is perpetually telling you what his relative rank is. I remember an individual of this latter class, who when a guest at a military detachment mess, the senior dining member of which was a captain, kept remarking.—
“You know I’m senior to all you fellows. As I’m a lieutenant of eight years’ service I rank with a major.”
He might have ranked with a major-general for all any one cared, but after he had said this at intervals some nine or ten times it began to become monotonous; so somebody said, as if to the punkah:—
“I’ve often heard that remark made before, but I never yet heard a major in the army boast that he ranked with a lieutenant in the navy.”
Society at Sierra Leone is in a very bad way; in fact from an English point of view one may say that there is no society at all. The only Europeans in the place are the officers of the garrison, the Colonial officials, and a few shop-keepers, who, although they will sell anything from three-pence worth of rum upwards, rejoice here in the title of merchants. Ladies there are none, except on the few occasions on which an officer’s wife may be found residing at Tower Hill, so what little society there is consists of men alone, and is composed of the most heterogeneous elements. Most of the so-called merchants appear to have sprung from the lower strata of English life, many of them have black wives, and a large majority of the Colonial officers are coloured; the Governors never seem to make the slightest attempt to collect around themselves the more cultivated members of the Colony, and everybody does that which seems good in his own eyes. The élite of the coloured population sometimes get up balls, similar to the one I witnessed at Lagos, and which like it usually terminate in an orgie, and to these Europeans are occasionally invited; but it is only those who have no sense of the ludicrous, or who have their facial muscles well under control, that can afford to go. The retailing of scandal seems to be the principal occupation of the town society, and if one were to place implicit credence in the tales and gossip which abound one would inevitably arrive at the conclusion that there was not an honourable man or a virtuous woman in the place.
In by-gone years the officers of the garrison used to inaugurate races, and a tract of ground near Kissi, on which stands a diminutive grand-stand, is still called the race-course; but now the sole amusement of the colony is the performance of the band of the regiment therein stationed, on the green patch of ground known as the Battery. This performance takes place once a week, but the majority of the people are too lazy and apathetic to go to hear it, and, with the exception of a few Colonial officers and some forty or fifty ragged children, the musicians discourse to empty air. There was one Colonial officer who was a regular attendant on band days, and whose principal aim in life seemed to be to pose as an authority on music before the uninitiated. As he knew nothing whatever of the science, and had successfully picked up the phrases used in music without in the least understanding their meaning, he frequently entangled himself in the most irretrievable confusion, and was a source of much amusement.
One day the band was playing Gounod’s Serenade, and during the performance the critic walked round and round as usual, beating time in the air with his walking-stick, and assailing every inoffensive bystander with a hailstorm of scientific jargon. When the piece was finished he nodded approval and said:—
“Ah! pretty thing—pretty thing. Fine scale of minor fifths. Let me see; what is it called?”
“That? Oh! it’s one of Whistler’s ‘Nocturnes,’” said somebody.
“Yes, yes. Of course it is. Whistler’s ‘Nocturne.’ How stupid of me to forget the name.”
It is said that this connoisseur once remarked that the Marquois scale was most difficult for a beginner on the flute; but that, when once learned, it was so beautiful as to well repay all trouble.
The peninsula of Sierra Leone is, exclusive of Freetown, divided into various rural districts, known as the First Eastern, Second Eastern, Western, and Mountain districts. In addition to these the outlying territories of British Sherbro, the Isles de Los, and Ki-Konkeh at the mouth of the Scarcies river, form integral portions of the Colony. The Mountain district is very picturesque and affords some fine views, especially in the neighbourhood of Regent, where the Sugar Loaf, a densely-wooded peak about 3000 feet in height, towers over the little village. At Leicester Park, 1990 feet high, the Government have lately purchased a building called the Hospice, which had been constructed by the Roman Catholic Mission, 1495 feet above the sea, and it is used as a kind of sanitarium. Living up in these mountains takes one into an entirely different atmosphere to that of the town, and it is decidedly more healthy, except during the rainy season, when sometimes for days together the mountains are shrouded in clouds, and a drenching mist drives in at every opened door and window. These mountains all abound in deer and other game, but the cover is so dense that they are rarely seen; and to endeavour to beat up a ravine or valley is an expensive operation, as fifty or sixty beaters are required, all of whom want to be paid unreasonably highly for their services.
The Eastern district may be described as the frontier district of the peninsula, it being bounded by the Waterloo creek and Ribbi river, which separate it from Timmanee country. The Timmanees periodically commit outrages on British subjects, and small wars ensue. These wars are, however, almost invariably bloodless; as the natives, on the approach of a disciplined force, at once evacuate their towns and take refuge in the forest. The towns are then destroyed and the troops and police return to Freetown, to wait until the natives have repaired the damage done, and begin their pillaging and murdering afresh.
In 1880 the Timmanees, who had been quiet for some time, began making disturbances; and the inhabitants of the village of Waterloo could not leave their homes without being murdered, or, at all events, fired upon. A handful of men was accordingly sent out from the garrison of Freetown, a few Timmanee villages burned, and order restored. During this small campaign a surgeon who accompanied the force committed a most unheard-of outrage. The bodies of a number of friendly natives, who had been killed by the Timmanees, had been placed in a pit, but not covered with earth, in order that the officers who were sent to restore order might actually see what the Timmanees had done. Upon this pit, about a week after the corpses had been placed in it, the surgeon chanced to light. To the astonishment and disgust of those who were with him he immediately sprang into it, and, drawing his sword, proceeded to hack off three or four heads from the bodies. Some of the relatives of the murdered men came running up, and their indignation and horror at this mutilation can be better imagined than described. Notwithstanding all they could say the surgeon continued his work until he had obtained sufficient specimens. He then clambered out, put the heads in a calabash, and walked off: remarking in a jocular manner that he had fleshed his maiden sword. On arriving at his boat he appeared surprised and annoyed that any one should blame him for what he had done, and when the officer in charge of the boat refused to take his ghastly cargo on board his indignation knew no bounds. Should a Turk impale a Bulgarian, or a Montenegrin cut the ears off a dead Turk, the whole of England is convulsed with horror, and the entire diplomatic machinery of the country set at work to discover and punish the offender; but in West Africa, when a British officer wantonly mutilates the dead, nothing is said about the matter. Can it be a subject for surprise that the natives of this part of the world should be barbarous, when such examples as this are set them by those whom they consider their superiors?