CLX.
Bonny River, Gulf of Guinea, March 27, 1860.
From Lagos, our steamer proceeded to the river Benin, landed some cargo, and received forty-two puncheons of palm oil. We there found a Hamburg ship, just in from Zanzibar, on the coast of Africa, with a full cargo of cowrie shells, used for currency and ornaments. The shores are here monotonous; the vegetation is rank, as well as at the mouth of the Niger, which we passed on our way to this place.
A project is on foot for a new expedition up the Niger, the former expedition on the part of the British government having met with disaster. We have a disabled steward now on board, who accompanied these adventurers; he is as yellow as a marigold, and the seeds of fever in him will probably never be eradicated.
The entrance to Bonny river is difficult, and requires watchful navigation. We brought on deck a huge iron riveted air-tight boiler, to be used as a buoy or guide to mariners passing the bar, and came near losing it, as well as our vessel.
Sunday morning, May 25th, according to usual custom on board of British vessels, the Church of England service was read in the presence of crew and passengers; and I was quite interested in noticing some blacks from Monrovia, who were present, and seemed to take some interest in the ceremonies. At five P. M., just at the close of dinner, the ship some seven miles from the mouth of the river, under full sail and heavy head of steam, the captain on the bridge, struck a sand-bar, jumped twice, and we rushed on deck and found her in a perilous condition. We got out hawsers astern, furled all sail, and worked the machine and windlass back, to haul off, but without success. Night was approaching, and the breakers increasing, the ship at times keeling over, and then jumping as if the masts would come out of her. The ports and skylights of cabin closed, with the sea breaking over the stern, made it look dreary enough. Being on a barbarous coast, where no white man lives, the prospects were not very flattering. The boats were all got in condition, with buckets for bailing. Rockets were sent up for relief, hoping they might be seen some five miles up from the mouth of the river, where lay a small steamer, used as a tender, and for the continuation of the voyage to Fernando Po. Our own steamer being at the end of her line in the Gulf of Guinea, usually takes in her coal from a hulk moored in the stream, brushes up, and waits the return of the tender, with freight picked up in the Old Calabar and Camaroon rivers. A little time after the accident occurred, one of our passengers, an old sea captain, came to me, and said softly, “If you have anything valuable which you wish to save, you had better get it out, as I would not give fifty pounds for the vessel.” I was hurriedly packing up a few articles, when the purser came to me and said, “I have been securing the ship’s papers and valuables, and I would advise your taking a few articles in your valise, as we may have to take the ship’s boats outside the breakers, and wait for the tide.” You can imagine we passed a wretched and sleepless night. The engines were soon choked up with sand, and all began to think the ship must be lost, although strongly built. Morning brought us more quiet weather. We sent the second mate with a boat’s crew up the river for relief. He had twelve miles to make, with sails and oars. At mid-day the little steamer came. We threw overboard coal, and palm oil in puncheons, to lighten the ship, took advantage of the wind, steam, &c., and succeeded in forcing her over the sandbars by nightfall. We had taken refuge on board of the small steamer, in the distance, as she could not approach us for the shoals; and I got off with a portion of my effects, in wet condition.
The Bonny is a broad and navigable river. The New Calibar River comes in a short distance from this place. The trade of the two rivers is in palm oil. Vessels of large size come out from England with a variety of goods, that can be used by the natives in the interior, such as waistcloths, beads, rum, tobacco, guns, powder, &c.
The vessels are anchored, sails put away, the ship is housed in, with peaked roof, covered with palm leaf, making it cool; and here they remain for two years, or until they get full. They have their cooperage on board, the casks being brought in shooks [bundles of staves]. The natives come alongside in canoes, with the oil made from the berry of the palm tree, boiled and skimmed, and enter the ship, fitted up like a country store for barter and trade. Some want brass stair rods as currency, which treasure can, in emergencies, be buried, and not injured by rust. Some want a portion of most articles named. The native chiefs and traders buy largely, and some on credit, which is paid for in oil in quantities.
The small currency here is not the cowrie-shell, but small horseshoe-formed brass articles called manillas.
At this enlightened age of the world we hear so little of cannibalism, that were I not an eye-witness, I also should be doubtful. I lauded with a party here on the shore, proceeded through the bush, was carried on the shoulders of our Kroomen sailors, through the pools of water, and came to the village of Bonny, composed of huts of reed, plastered with mud, covered with palm leaves, without any attempt at ornament or architecture in construction on lines of alleys or streets. A party of girls and boys, of some ten years of age, whose dress consisted of a string of beads about the loins, and with long poles in hand, were trying to drive out a “guana”