[to be continued.]
BY PAUL DU CHAILLU.
Part II.
Now we must put our heads together and think of the outfit necessary for our explorations. It is not a small undertaking to explore the great equatorial African forest, and a great many things are required.
It troubles me when I think of our outfit, for I dislike luggage, and I have learned that the less luggage a man has with him the better off he is; the fewer wants he has the better off he is; the fewer people he has round him the more independent he finds himself; and the more he can help himself the freer and the happier he is. But when he has to buy the right of way in Africa, he cannot travel with little luggage, for he is obliged to get a lot of things and goods, not only to give to the Kings who send him forward, but also for the men who are to be his followers and carry his goods and outfit. He has to give presents to his hunters, who face dangers and sometimes death with him.
An explorer has also to take care of his followers, and to have a fellow-feeling for them when they are ill, so he must take quantities of medicine for his people and for himself.
If he expects to have some big hunting and to kill birds, he must have lots of powder and small shot and bullets. He must have shot-guns and rifles. If he wants to stuff the animals and birds he kills, he must have the instruments and other things necessary for the purpose.
If the explorer wants to astonish the natives and fill them with wonder, he must take with him articles that will surely help him to attain that purpose. The explorer should also have a careful personal outfit, so that he may not be in want of clothing or shoes before he can return.
So, dear young folks, we have to think a good deal about what we need, and be very busy before we sail from New York for our destination, the west coast of Africa, and we are to land somewhere on the Gulf of Guinea by the equator. We must first buy our goods; money in gold and silver coins is of no value among the savage Africans. A rod of gold or copper or brass is the same in their eyes, except that they would prefer the brass rod to one of silver. The gold or the brass rod would be of the same value. Friend Paul would have been a poor spirit in a short time if he had had nothing to give to the natives, and nothing to pay them with when they carried his loads. In fact, nobody would have carried his loads; no King would have sent him to another King, and in the course of time they would have become tired of giving him food for nothing. What made me a great spirit in their eyes was what I gave them, the strange things I carried with me.
Goods to buy.—We must have a lot of beads of different sizes and colors. They must be opaque—that is, not transparent—if not, the natives will not take them at any price. The beads are the most important item of the outfit. In many tribes the natives only wear strings of beads round their waists, and, if they are rich, also copper or brass rings, round their necks, or several round their wrists or ankles. White beads are very much prized by the cannibal tribes, among whom I have been; they string them in their hair and beards. One must have black beads—these are prized very much by non-cannibal tribes—also red, blue, yellow, green, and brown beads. Large beads of the size of our marbles, and even larger, are very much valued by some tribes. All these beads are manufactured in Venice, Italy, and nowhere else.
After the stock of beads, the most important item is that of copper or brass. You must have a good stock of brass and copper rods about the thickness of your little finger and 2½ feet long—these are used round the neck, ankles, and wrists; brass kettle; large shallow copper dishes about 2½ feet in diameter—with these they make hollow rings for the neck, wrists, or ankles; a little quantity of cheap cotton goods with gaudy patterns; a few gaudy coats with sleeves of different colors to the body of the coat—the natives like bright colors; a few cotton umbrellas of very bright colors—these and the coats are for chiefs, who also like opera-hats. No one but people of royal blood in some tribes can wear high hats, and often a hat is the only thing Kings or Princes wear.
Red woollen caps; fire-steel and flints together for the natives to start a fire with; files; knives; fish-hooks; and a good many small looking-glasses; a few flint guns—the kind known as Tower guns, made especially for the natives of the Guinea coast; and coarse powder for chiefs ruling over tribes where the use of firearms is known; a few bright second-hand yellow and plush waistcoats with large brass buttons of the size of dollars are also very much appreciated by the people of royal blood; a few colored shirts. Trousers are of no use. I had to throw away those I bought for the natives; no one would wear them. Beads are the most useful to pay the porters with. Of course the explorer could travel with fewer articles, but the stock I have described is one that gives him great prestige.
Medicine.—These are medicines that are essential. The most important of all is quinine. When not a physician, it is not necessary to take with you an apothecary shop. I took calomel, morphine, laudanum, rhubarb, castor-oil, Epsom salts, Fowler's solution of arsenic, ammonia, a couple of bottles of brandy to be mixed with laudanum, some lancets, and pincers. Fever and dysentery are the two diseases to be most dreaded by the white man, especially the fever. Many white men who go to Africa die of fever. I always used to take big doses of quinine—ten, twenty, thirty, forty grains at a time, and repeated those doses two or three times during the day.
Ammunition.—Let us attend to the ammunition. First we must get some good rifles that are strong and not complicated in their mechanism, for the big forest is a bad country for rust; some shot-guns, and also revolvers and hunting-knives. We must take, if we wish to make a large collection of birds to take home, hundreds of pounds of the smallest kind of shot for small birds, and then hundreds of pounds of large-size shot for larger birds; a great many cartridges, and large numbers of bullets for the rifles, and buck-shot; steel-pointed bullets and explosive bullets. Powder for ammunition must always be plentiful. My ammunition alone amounted to over ten thousand pounds.
For preserving the skin of animals and birds.—Fifty pounds of arsenical soap; arsenic, one hundred pounds; scalpels, a dozen; pincers; big knives, half a dozen; camphor.
I had a peculiar way of preserving my butterflies.
Things to astonish the natives.—Musical boxes; powerful magnets; round plain Waterbury clocks; lots of matches; electric battery. Hardly anything I had astonished the natives more than my musical boxes. When I used to put these playing in the midst of the street, they thought many spirits were talking to me. They marvelled when they saw the magnet holding in the air their knives or spears. My round plain Waterbury clocks, which only cost me a dollar apiece, were of great service to me. I used to hang them outside of my huts, and the tick-tack used to frighten the natives, and they did not dare to come round my huts at night, for they thought the noise inside the clock was made by guardian spirits. The matches were objects of great curiosity to them, and a present of a box of matches to a King, or even a few matches, was highly prized by him. The electric battery used to bring terror into their hearts after they had received a shock.
Provisions.—A little stock of rice, for it takes time to get accustomed to the food of the country, which is chiefly of plantain and manioc. I had some flour, for I intended to make my own bread on the coast. I had coffee—coffee and quinine I never was in want of. I had two little filtered coffee-pots. The forest was so full of malaria that very seldom I woke without a headache in the morning, and the first thing I did was to make a cup of coffee; after drinking it my headache went away. Do not forget to take salt with you, for salt becomes priceless in the interior, and to be without salt is a great privation.
A thorough explorer who goes in wild and unknown regions must find his way by astronomical observation, so that he may be able to present a reliable map on his return. This part of the outfit alone is quite an item and somewhat expensive, for not only must you have instruments to find out your longitude and latitude, but you must have others to give you the height of the country, the temperature in the sun and in the shade. You must have a number of watches; these are absolutely necessary in order to know your longitude. Never mind if they do not go very well; but you must time the space of time by minutes and seconds between the observations.
Scientific instruments.—Five watches; one I wore at home, and four were specially made for observation. They were large, and of silver, and made especially for me. The hands were very black, and so were the hands marking the seconds, so that the minutes and seconds could be distinctly seen. If my watches had stopped, I should not have been able to find my longitude—that is, to know how far east or west I was. Four sextants; one for taking altitudes of the stars and planets, in connection with a lunar (a lunar is to find the distance between the moon and one of the eleven lunar stars), to an artificial horizon—that is, an improved iron trough which I filled with quicksilver kept in an iron bottle, to imitate the sea; on this the stars were reflected, and with the aid of my sextant I could see when they were on the meridian. Three thermometers for knowing the height of the country by boiling water; two thermometers to know the heat of the sun, marked to 230°; three other thermometers, graduated for Fahrenheit and Centigrade. (I wish we might give up the Fahrenheit, for it has no scientific basis.) Three aneroids to know approximately the height of the country while on the march, to avoid making observations by boiling water, which takes so much longer time; two telescopes; four compasses; universal sun-dial; two magnifiers or reading-glasses, to find out quickly the degrees, minutes, and seconds marked on the sextants; one extra bottle of mercury, containing seven pounds, for artificial horizon; rain-gauge, to find out the amount of rain falling in the country; scale; two protectors, circular, with compass rectifier; paper, slates and slate-pencils; nautical almanacs for four consecutive years; memorandum-books for keeping journals. Skeleton maps, ruled in squares. Note-books.
Clothing.—This item is a very important part of the outfit of the explorer. I was more afraid to be without shoes than anything else, for if the worst came I could have made garments with the skins of goats, gazelles, or antelopes. Clothing of wool is of no value whatever in the jungle. After a few hours nothing but shreds would be left. Twill goods which are strong are the best. These should be of dark blue, which become lighter in color as they are washed. No coats, but a certain kind of blouse, as here represented, of very strong material, just as strong as the trousers, with many pockets, etc. The shirts must be of gray flannel, just like our common shirts. This avoids underwear. Panama hat with high crown, in which you can put green leaves or wet towels when going in the sun. I learned how to make soap by boiling ashes, then using the water that had been boiled, and mixing with palm-oil or some other oil, and boiling these two together. In many tribes I had to do my own washing, for the natives, who rubbed their bodies with clay and oil or powder of colored wood, did not know what dirt was. Oh, how I used to hate washing-day! One must have an outfit of needles of different sizes. These I kept in quicksilver salve, otherwise they become useless in a few days on account of the rust. No neck-ties. One hundred pairs of lace boots, these coming above the ankles, with no high heels, and soles not too thick, so that they may bend when jumping from the root of one tree to another. The nails were of copper, for, as I have said before, iron gets rusty so quickly in the great forest; forty-eight pairs of strong twilled trousers; forty-eight flannel shirts; ten dozen pairs socks. Such is the outfit friend Paul had with him.
