Native Types at Kankan
This place is a big rubber market of French Guinea. Rubber commands a good price, so most of the natives are well-to-do, as may be judged by their prosperous appearance. The country east of Kankan is prolific in rubber vines, and the labour entailed in tapping the vine is very small.
Rubber is collected in balls, which have a dirty greyish appearance, and it is in this form that it is sold to the merchants. To increase the weight of these balls it is a common practice for the wily natives to mix water with the rubber, or to place mud or some heavy substance in the interior. These tricks are now becoming well known to the European trader, who is not often deceived by them, although, when the ruse was first started, I understand it met with considerable success. It is probable that a large portion of French Guinea will be entirely devoted to the rubber trade in the future, for it is mostly a rather scrubby bush-country eminently suited to this particular commerce. Owing to the large and increasing demand for rubber at the present time, Guinea rubber, which is of good quality, commands a high price in France.
At Kankan I had to change my carriers, and here I arranged to send all the kit which I did not require on to Bamako, while only taking a month’s stores, my rifles and camp equipment, on my shooting trip into Wasulu country. After an interview with one of the French trading firms, it was settled that my surplus baggage should be forwarded in their lighters by river to Bamako, where I would find it on my arrival at that place.
My carriers were now reduced to eight, and with this small party I set out on the 3rd of February. For the first few miles the road was the main route to the gold-mining district of Siguiri, a fine, broad highway which joins Kankan to the town of that name, a distance of sixty miles. After leaving this road we turned into a small bush path, striking nearly due east into the heart of the Wasulu country. At Niansumana the Milo River is crossed. It is a stream about 100 yards wide, which we found fordable at this season. That evening I observed a big drum in the chief’s compound, and thinking it might be of some service to me, I inquired whether the village would send word of my approach to the town of Falama, and ask if the hunters I required were ready. The chief readily acquiesced, stating that within an hour the people of Falama would have knowledge of the message. Falama was nearly fifty miles from Niansumana, so that I was anxious to see if the experiment would really be successful. In less than three hours a reply had come from the hunters to say they were ready awaiting me.
These drums are much used for signalling in this part of the country, and without doubt account for the rapidity with which news becomes known at a considerable distance from the spot where it originates. The drums are made of a rough piece of log hollowed out, often as much as four feet long, with the ends covered with goat’s skin stretched taut. The drummer beats on the end with a couple of sticks, or with his hands. It is wonderful how skilled they are about sending quite long messages in this way. Of course, every native does not understand the drum language. An expert ear is necessary to send as well as to read a message. When war is declared the inhabitants of the surrounding villages are all made aware of the news by a drum message. In fact, when rapidity is an object, the natives prefer to send their messages this way rather than by messenger. The drum is in common use in many West African countries. It is frequently used to call the people together for a palaver, and can be heard by men working in the most distant farms, who at once obey the signal, leaving their crops to return to the town.
We were now getting into a more open country watered by numerous streams, most of which flowed north-west into the Niger. Villages were becoming scarcer, and it was evident that the country was more thinly populated. I was careful at each village I passed to make inquiries for game, but it appeared that the game country hardly started before the Sankarani River, which I should cross before arriving at Falama. Cattle were far more numerous here than I had yet seen them. The milk was exceedingly rich, and I was always supplied with a large bowl of it on camping near a village. The people were mostly cattle-men, and were a fine stalwart race. The men must average five feet ten inches. The women are considerably smaller. The latter go in for a great deal of personal adornment. Their hair is dressed in small ringlets, screwed up tightly to the side of the head, giving them a decidedly comical appearance, and hardly enhancing their rather doubtful claims to good looks. The wealthier women wear a large amount of cheap jewellery. Their fingers and toes are decorated with silver rings, generally about as thick as a lady’s bracelet in England. Their necks are freely adorned with necklaces of large yellow or blue beads. Like most native women, they are extremely fond of bright-coloured dresses.
CHAPTER VII
Hippopotami — Game in the Wasulu country — Lazy carriers — In pursuit of elephants — Fetish haartebeest — “Red” elephants — A fetish altar — Braimah’s juju — Charms and tests.
AT Falama I found the two hunters I had engaged for my shooting expedition. They were the head hunters of the district, one of them being a man from the big hunting village of Dialakoro, who was reputed to know every yard of the game haunts in the Wasulu country, so it was with high hopes of good sport that I began to talk over plans with these two local celebrities. The Sankarani River runs in a semicircle round the village of Falama, at a distance varying from one to three miles from the place. I was informed that there was a hippopotamus pool in the river, so I decided to bend my steps thither that afternoon, on the chance of getting a hippo and also with a view to seeing the nature of the country from a shooting standpoint.