CHAPTER XIV. — FROM CAPE PALMAS TO AXIM.
I had no call to land at Cape Palmas. All my friends had passed away; the Rev. C. E. Hoffman and Bishop Payne, both in America. Mr. Potter, of the stores, still lives to eat rice and palm-oil in retirement; but with the energetic Macgill departed the trade and prosperity of the place. Senator John Marshall, of Marshall's Hotel, has also gone to the many, and the stranger's only place of refuge is a mean boarding-house.
Much injury was done to the settlement by the so-called 'Grebo war.' These wild owners of Cape Palmas are confounded by Europeans with the true Krumen, their distant cousins. The tribal name is popularly derived from gré, or gri, the jumping monkey, and it alludes to a late immigration. A host of some 20,000 savages closely besieged the settlement and ravaged all the lands belonging to the intruders, especially the fine 'French farm.' Fighting ended with a 'treaty of peace and renewal of allegiance' (sic!) at Harper on March 1, 1876, following the 'battle of Harper' (October 10, 1875). The latter, resulting from an attack on Grebo Big Town, proved a regular 'Bull's Run,' wherein the citizens lost all their guns and ammunition, and where the Grebes slaughtered my true and trusty steward, Selim Agha.
I must allow myself a few lines in memory of a typical man. Selim was a Nubian of lamp-black skin; but his features were Semitic down to the nose-bridge, and below it, like the hair, distinctly African: this mixture characterises the negroid as opposed to the negro. In the first fourth of the present century he was bought by Mr. Thurburn—venerabile nomen—of Alexandria, and sent for education to North Britain. There he learned to speak Scotch, to make turtle-soup, to stuff birds, to keep accounts, and to be useful and valuable in a series of ways. Then his thoughts, full of philanthropy, turned towards the 'old mother.' The murder of Dr. Barth's companion, Vogel, in 1856, originated seven fruitless expeditions to murderous Wadáy, and he made sundry journeys into the interior. I believe that he took service for some time with Lieutenant (now Sir John H.) Glover before he became my factotum between 1860 and 1865. When I left the Coast he transferred himself to Liberia, where, he wrote, they proposed to 'run him for the presidency.' Selim joined the Monrovians during the Grebo war as an assistant-surgeon, his object being to mitigate the horrors of the campaign; and he met his death on October 9, 1875, during the mismanaged attack on Grebo Big Town. Captain A. B. Ellis, in his amusing and outspoken 'West African Sketches,' quotes from the 'Liberian Independent' the following statement: 'Mr. Selim Agha was also overtaken by the barbarous Greboes, and one of them, "Bye Weah" by name, after allowing him to read his Bible, which he had by him in his pocket, and which he made a present of to the barbarian, chopped his body all about, chopped off his head, which he took to his town with eighteen others, and threw the body with the gift into the swamp.' The account sounds trustworthy, especially that about the Bible: it is exactly what the poor fellow would have done. But many have assured me that he was slaughtered by mistake during the rout of his party. R.I.P.
Another reminiscence.
Although it has melancholy associations, I can hardly remember without a smile my last visit to good Bishop Payne. He led me to the mission-school, a shed that sheltered settles and desks, tattered books, slates and boards, two native pedagogues, and two lines of pupils sized from the right, the biggest being nearest the 'boss.' We took our places upon the bench, and the catechiser, when bade to begin, opened, after a little hesitation, as follows:—
Q. Who he be de fuss man?—A. Adam.
Q. Who he be de fuss woman?—A. Ebe.
Q. Whar de Lord put 'em?—A. In de garden.
Q. What he be de garden?—A. Eden.
Q. What else he be dere?—A. De sarpint.
Q. What he be de sarpint?—A. De snake.
Q. Heigh! What, de snake he 'peak?—A. No, him be debbil.
And so forth. The reading was much in the same style. The whole scene reminded me of a naïve narrative [Footnote: The Gospel to the Africans: Narrative of the Life and Labours of the Rev. William Jameson. London: Hamilton, Adams, & Co., 1861.] which gives the 'following account of the fall of our First Parents from the lips of an aged negro at the examination of candidates:'—
'Massa (God) said Adam must nyamee (eat) all de fruit ob de garden, but (be out, except) de tree of knowledge. And he said to Adam, "Adam! you no muss nyamee dis fruit, else you dead." De serpent come to say to Mammy Eve, "Dis fruit berry good; he make you too wise." Mammy she take lillee (little) bit, and bring de oder harf gib Daddy Adam. Daddee no will taste it fuss time, but Mammy tell him it be berry good. Den him nyamee de oder harf. Den Daddy and Mammy been know dat dem be naked. Dey go hide for bush. Massa come from heaven, but Him no fin' Adam all about. Den Massa strike Him foot on de ground and say, "I wage Adam been nyamee de fruit." Massa go seek Adam and fin' him hidin' in de bush, and put him out ob de garden. Then Daddy and Mammy dey take leaves and sew 'em for clothes.'
The Bishop looked on approvingly. We then spoke of the mysterious Mount Geddia, the Lybian Thala Oros of Ptolemy. [Footnote: Lib. iv. 6, §§ 12, 14, 16, the home of the Thála tribe.]
The people say that it may be seen at times from Settra Kru, that the distance by round road is some 200 miles, and that none have ascended it on account of the intense cold. If this be fact, there is a Kilima-njáro 18,000 feet high in Western Africa. The glitter of the white cap has been visible from great distances, and some would explain it by a bare vein of quartz—again, Kilima-njáro. The best time to travel would be in October or November, after the rains; and the Grebo rascals might be paid and persuaded to supply an escort.
At Cape Palmas we engaged thirty so-called Krumen: only seven were ready to accompany us, and the rest came nearly two months behind time. This is the farming season, and the people do not like to leave their field-lands. Jack Davis, headman, chief, crimp and 'promising' party, had been warned to be ready by Mr. R. B. N. Walker, whose name and certificate he wore upon a big silver crescent; but as Senegal appeared on Sunday instead of Saturday, he gravely declared that his batch had retired to their plantations—in black-man's English, 'small countries.' We were compelled to make an advance, a measure unknown of old, and to pay more than double hire for working on the Gold Coast. These races, Kruboys, Grebos, and their cognates, have not improved during the last score of years. Their headmen were old hands approaching the fifties: now they are youths of twenty-five. The younger sort willingly engaged for three years; now they begin to notch their tallies for every new moon, and they wax home-sick after the tenth month. Once they were content to carry home a seaman's chest well filled with 'chow-chow' and stolen goods; in these days they must have ready money to deal with the Bristol barques.
Having before described the 'Kráo' and the Kru republic, with its four recognised castes, I need not repeat myself. [Footnote: Wanderings, &c., vol. ii. chap. vi., which ends with a short specimen of the language.] We again admired the magnificent development of muscle, which stood out in bunches as on the Farnese Hercules, set off by the most appropriate dress, a coloured oblong of loin-cloth, tucked in at the waist. We marvelled too at the contrast of Grecian figure and cynocephalous features, whose frizzly thatch, often cut into garden-plots, is unnecessarily protected by a gaudy greasy cap.
In morals too these men are as peculiar as they are contradictory. They work, and work well: many old Coasters prefer them to all other tribes. They are at their best in boats or on board ship, especially ships of war, where they are disciplined. For carrying burdens, or working in the bush, they are by no means so valuable and yet, as will be seen, they are highly thought of by some miners in the Gold Mines. In the house they are at their worst; and they are a nuisance to camp, noisy and unclean. Their chief faults are lying and thieving; they are also apt to desert, to grow discontented, to presume, and ever to ask for more. These qualities are admirably developed in our headman, Toby Johnson, and his gang. I should not travel again with Krumen on the Gold Coast.
Another of their remarkable characteristics is the fine union of the quarrelsome with the cowardly. Like the Wányamwezi of East-Central Africa, they will fight amongst themselves, and fight furiously; but they feel no shame in telling their employers that they sell their labour, not their lives; that man can die but once; that heads never grow again, and that to battling they prefer going back to 'we country.' If a ship take fire all plunge overboard like seals, and the sound of a gun in the bush makes them run like hares. Yet an English officer actually proposed to recruit a force of these recreants for field-service in Ashanti. He probably confounded them with the Wásawahili, the 'Seedy-boys' of the east coast, a race which some day will prove useful when the Sepoy mutiny shall repeat itself, or if the difficulties in Egypt be prolonged. A few thousands of these sturdy fellows would put to flight an army of hen-hearted Hindús or Hindís.
We left Cape Palmas at 5 P.M., and duly respected the five-fathom deep 'Athole Rock,' so called from the frigate which first made its acquaintance. The third victim was the B. and A. s.s. Gambia (Captain Hamilton). [Footnote: Curiously enough a steamer carrying another fine of palm-oil has come to grief, owing, as usual, to imperfect charts.] She was carrying home part of the 400 puncheons exacted, after the blockade of 1876, by way of fine, from Gelelé, King of Dahome, by the senior naval officer, Captain Sullivan, the Dhow-chaser. The Juju-men naturally declared that their magic brought her to such notable grief.
We then passed Grand Tabú (Tabou), in the middle of the bay formed by Point Tahou—a coast better known fifty years ago than it is now. The only white resident is Mr. Julio, who has led a rather accidented life. A native of St. Helena, he fought for the Northerners in the American war, and proved himself a first-rate rifle-shot. He traded on the Congo, and travelled like a native far in the interior. Now he has married a wife from Cape Palmas, and is the leading man at Tabú.
This place, again, is a favourite labour-market. The return of the Krumen repeats the spectacles of Sinou, and war being here chronic, the canoe-men come off armed with guns, swords, and matchets. After a frightful storm of tongues, and much bustle but no work, the impatient steamer begins to waggle her screw; powder-kegs and dwarf boxes are tossed overboard, and every attention is bestowed upon them; whilst a boy or two is left behind, either to swim ashore or to find a 'watery grave.'
Presently we sighted the bar and breakers that garnish the mouth of the Cavally (Anglicè Cawally) River: the name is properly Cavallo, because it lies fourteen miles, riding-distance, from Cape Palmas. Here Bishop Payne had his head-quarters, and his branch missions extended sixty miles up-stream. On the left bank, some fifteen or sixteen miles from the embochure, resides the 'Grand Devil,' equivalent to the Great God, of Krúland. The place is described as a large caverned rock, where a mysterious 'Suffing' (something) answers, through an interpreter, any questions in any tongue, even English, receiving, in return for the revelations, offerings of beads, leaf-tobacco, and cattle, which are mysteriously removed. The oracle is doubtless worked by some sturdy knave, a 'demon-doctor,' as the missionaries call him, who laughs at the beards of his implicitly-believing dupes. A tree growing near the stream represents 'Lot's wife's pillar;' some sceptical and Voltairian black was punished for impious curiosity by being thus 'translated.' Skippers who treated their 'boys' kindly were allowed, a score of years ago, to visit the place, and to join in the ceremonies, even as most of the Old Calabar traders now belong to the 'Egbo mystery.' But of late years a village called Hidya, with land on both banks, forbids passage. Moreover, Krumen are not hospitable. Masters and men, cast ashore upon a coast which they have visited for years to hire hands, are stripped, beaten, and even tortured by women as well as by men. The savages have evidently not learnt much by a century's intercourse with Europeans.
Leaving Cavally, the last place where Kruboys can be shipped, we coasted along the fiery sands snowed over with surf and set in the glorious leek-green growth that distinguishes the old Ivory Coast. The great Gulf Stream which, bifurcating at the Azores, sweeps southwards with easting, now sets in our favour; it is, however, partly a wind-current, and here it often flows to the west even in winter. The ever-rolling seas off this 'Bristol coast' are almost clear of reef and shoal, and the only storms are tornadoes, which rarely blow except from the land: from the ocean they are exceedingly dangerous. Such conditions probably suggested the Bristol barque trade, which still flourishes between Cape Palmas and Grand Bassam. A modern remnant of the old Bristolian merchant-adventurers, it was established for slaving purposes during the last century by Mr. Henry King, maintained by his sons, Richard who hated men-of-war, and William who preferred science, and it is kept up by his grandsons for legitimate trade.
The ships—barques and brigs—numbering about twenty-five, are neat, clean, trim craft, no longer coppered perpendicularly [Footnote: Still occurs sometimes: the idea is that as they roll more than they sail less strain is brought on the seams of the copper.] instead of horizontally after the older fashion. Skippers and crews are well paid for the voyage, which lasts from a year to fifteen months. The floating warehouses anchor off the coast where it lacks factories, and pick up the waifs and strays of cam-wood, palm-oil, and kernels, the peculiar export of the Gold Coast: at times a tusk or a little gold-dust finds its way on board. The trader must be careful in buying the latter. Not only have the negroes falsified it since the days of Bosnian, but now it is made in Birmingham. This false dust resists nitric acid, yet is easily told by weight and bulk; it blows away too with the breath, whilst the true does not. Again, the skippers have to beware of 'fetish gold,' mostly in the shape of broken-up ornaments of inferior ley.
The Bristolians preserve the old 'round trade,' and barter native produce against cloth and beads, rum and gin, salt, tobacco, and gunpowder. These ship-shops send home their exports by the mail-steamers, and vary their monotonous days by visits on board. They sail home when the cargoes are sold, each vessel making up her own accounts and leaving 'trust,' but no debts. The life must be like making one's home in a lighthouse, plus an eternal roll; and the line gives a weary time to the mail-steamers, as these never know exactly where the Bristol barques will be found.
After hugging the coast and prospecting Biribi, we sighted the Drewins, whose natives are a powerful and spirited race, equally accustomed to either element. There are no better canoe-men on the coast. They ship only on board the Bristol ships, and they have more than once flogged a cruel skipper caught ashore. Passing King George's Town, we halted (11 A.M., January 23) opposite the river and settlement of Fresco, where two barques and a cutter were awaiting supplies. Fresco-land is beautified by perpendicular red cliffs, and the fine broad beach is feathered with cocoas which suggest kopra—the dried meat of the split kernel. At 3.15 P.M. came Grand Lahou—Bosman's Cabo La Hoe—180 miles from Cape Palmas. The native settlements of nut-brown huts in the clearings of thick forests resemble heaps of withered leaves. The French have re-occupied a fort twenty miles up the pretty barless river, the outlet of a great lagoon; it was abandoned during the Prusso-Gallic war. Nine Bristol barques were lying off Three Towns, a place not upon the chart, and at Half-Jack, 205 miles from the Cape. Here we anchored and rolled heavily through the night, a regular seesaw of head and heels. Seamen have prejudices about ships, pronouncing some steady and others 'uncommon lively.' I find them under most circumstances 'much of a muchness.'
The next morning carried us forty miles along the Bassam country and villages, Little, Piccaninny, and Great, to Grand Bassam. It is a regular lagoon-land, whose pretty rivers are the outlets of the several sweet waters and the salt-ponds. Opposite Piccaninny Bassam heads, with its stalk to the shore and spreading out a huge funnel eastward and westward, the curious formation known as the 'Bottomless Pit.' The chart shows a dot, a line, and 200 fathoms. In these days of deep-sea soundings I would recommend it to the notice of the Hydrographic Office. We know exactly as much about it in A.D. 1882 as in A.D. 1670, when Ogilvy wrote, 'Six miles beyond Jak, in Jakko, [Footnote: Bosman's Jaqui-Jaqui] is the Bottomless Pit, so called from its unfathomable deepness, for the seamen, having Sounded with their longest Lines and Plummets, could never reach the bottom.' It would be interesting to know whether it is an area of subsidence or a volcanic depression. The adjacent Gold Coast suffers from terrible earthquakes, as Accra learnt to her cost in 1862.
At 10 A.M. we made Grand Bassam, where the French have had a Résidence for many years. Here the famous Marseille house of Régis Frères first made fortune by gold-barter. The precious ore, bought by the middlemen, a peculiar race, from the wild tribes of the far interior, appears in the shape of dust with an occasional small nugget; the traders dislike bars and ingots, because they are generally half copper. We have now everywhere traced the trade from Gambia to the Gold Coast, and we may fairly conclude that all the metal comes from a single chain of Ghauts subtending the maritime region.
Grand Bassam is included in the French Côte d'Or, but not in the English Gold Coast, which begins east of the Ivory Coast. The Dutch was even narrower, according to Bosnian: 'Being a part of Guinea, it is extended about sixty miles, beginning with the Gold River (Assini) twelve miles above Axim, and ending with Ponni, seven or eight miles east of Accra.' Grand Bassam has only two European establishments. Eastward lies the 'Blockhouse' of M. Verdier, 'agent of the Government at Assini,' so called from its battlemented roof. It is the old Fort Nemours, built in 1843. The 'Poste,' abandoned during the war of 1870, was let to Messieurs Swanzy; it is a series of ridge-roofs surrounded by a whitewashed stockade. Both have been freely accused of supplying the Ashantis with arms and ammunition during the last war. Similarly the Gambia is said to have supported the revolteds of Senegal. The site is vile, liable to be flooded by sea and rain. The River Akbu or Komo (Comoe), with its spiteful little bar, drains the realms of Amatifú, King of Assini. It admits small craft, and we see the masts of a schooner amid the trees. The outlet of immense lagoons to the east and west, it winds down behind the factories, and bears the native town upon its banks. Here we discharged only trade-gin, every second surf-boat and canoe upsetting; the red cases piled upon the beach looked like a bed of rose-buds. The whole of this coast, as far as Axim, is so dangerous that men land with their lives in their hands. They disembark when outward-bound and re-embark when homeward-bound, and in the interim they never tempt surf and sharks.
The Senegal left Grand Bassam at 5.30 P.M., to cover the eighty-five miles separating us from our destination. The next important feature is the Assini River, also the outlet of enormous navigable lagoons, breaking the continuity of forest-backed sands. It lies fourteen to fifteen miles (which the chart has diminished to seven) west of the French settlement, of old Fort Joinville. The latter shows a tiled and whitewashed establishment, the property of M. Verdier, outlying the normal ant-hill of brown huts. In 1868 Winwood Reade here found a poste and stockade, a park of artillery, a commandant, a surgeon, and a detachment of tirailleurs sénégalais levied amongst the warlike Moslem tribes of Senegambia. Like Grand Bassam it was under the station admiral, who inspected the two once a year, and who periodically sent a gunboat to support French interests.
By night we passed New Town, not on the charts, but famed for owning a fine gold placer north of the town-lagoon. After my departure from the coast it was inspected by Mr. Grant, who sent home specimens of bitumen taken from the wells. Then came the two Assinis, eastern and western, both places of small present importance. The 'Assini Hills' of the chart lie to the north, not to the south of the Tando water; and by day one can easily distinguish their broken line, blue and tree-clad. The Franco-English frontier has been determined after a fashion. According to Mr. Stanford's last map, [Footnote: Gold Coast, November 20, 1873. A foot-note tells us, 'The whole coast belongs to the English, the French having withdrawn since 1870 from Grand Bassam and Assini' (Winwood Reade). This is obsolete in 1882. The limits of Ashanti-land are immensely exaggerated by this map.] the westernmost point was in west long. 2º 55' (G.) Thus our territory begins between Great Assini and New Town, the latter being included in the Protectorate. This position would reduce the old Gold Coast from 245 direct geographical miles of shore-line between the River Assini (W. long. 3º 23') and the Volta mouth (E. long. 0º 42') to some 217 or 220 in round numbers. Inland the limit should be the Tando valley, but it has been fancifully traced north from the Eyhi lagoon, the receptacle of the Tando, on a meridian of W. long. 2º 50' (G.) to a parallel of N. lat. 6º 30', or ninety-eight miles from the coast about Axim (N. lat. 4º 52'). Thence it bends east and south-east to the Ofim, or western fork of the Bosom Prah, and ascends the Prah proper, separating Ashanti-land (north) from Fanti-land (south).
It should be our object to acquire by purchase or treaty, or both, the whole territory subject to Grand Bassam and Assini. The reasons may be gathered from the preceding pages.
By night we also passed Cape Apollonia and its four hummocks, which are faintly visible from Axim. The name has nothing to do, I need hardly say, with Apollo or his feasts, the Apolloniæ, nor has it any relationship with the admirable 'Apollinaris water.' It was given by the Portuguese from the saint [Footnote: Butler's Lives gives 'S. Apollonia (not Appolonia, as the miners have it), v.m. February 9.' This admirable old maid leaped into the fire prepared for her by the heathen populace of Alexandria when she refused to worship their 'execrable divinity.' There are also an Apollonius (March 5), 'a zealous holy anchorite' of Egyptian Antinous; and Apollinaris, who about A.D. 376 began to 'broach his heresy,' denying in Christ a human soul.] who presided over the day of discovery. In the early half of the present century the King of Apollonia ruled the coast from the Assini to the Ancobra Rivers; the English built a fort by permission at his head-quarters, and carried on a large trade in gold-dust. Meredith (1800) tells us that, when his Majesty deceased, some twenty men were sacrificed on every Saturday till the 'great customs' took place six months afterwards. The underlying idea was, doubtless, that of Dahome: the potentate must not go, like a 'small boy,' alone and unattended to the shadowy realm. The 'African Cruiser' [Footnote: Journal of an African Cruiser, by an officer of the U.S. navy. Edited by Nathaniel Hawthorn. Aberdeen: Clark and Son, 1848.] speaks of the royal palace being sumptuously furnished in European style; of gold cups, pitchers, and plates, and of vast treasures in bullion. When the King died sixty victims were slain and buried with their liege lord; besides a knife, plate, and cup; swords, guns, cloths, and goods of various kinds. The corpse, smeared with oil and powdered cap-à-pié with gold-dust, looked like a statue of the noble ore.
As the Senegal advanced under easy steam, we had no rolling off this roller-coast, and we greatly and regretfully enjoyed the glorious Harmatan weather, so soon about to cease. The mornings and evenings were cool and dewy, and the pale, round-faced sun seemed to look down upon us through an honest northern fog. There was no heat even during the afternoons, usually so close and oppressive in this section of the tropics. I only wished that those who marvelled at my preferring to the blustering, boisterous weather of the Northern Adriatic the genial and congenial climate of West Africa could have passed a day with me.