STORY OF BULBOPHYLLUM BARBIGERUM
This species is so rare in Europe that I must give a word of description. The genus contains the largest and perhaps the smallest of orchids—B. Beccarii, whose stem is six inches in diameter, carrying leaves two feet long, and B. pygmaeum of New Zealand. They are all fly-catchers, I think, equipped with apparatus to trap their prey, as droll commonly in the working as ingenious in the design. Barbigerum has pseudo-bulbs less than an inch high, and its flowers are proportionate. But charm and size are no way akin. Fascination dwells in the lip, which, hanging upon the slenderest possible connection, lengthens out to the semblance of a brush. Thus exquisitely poised it rocks without ceasing, and its long, silky, purple-brown hairs wave softly but steadily all day long, as if on the back of a moving insect. Pretty though it be, all declare it uncanny.
The species was introduced from Sierra Leone by Messrs. Loddiges, so long ago as 1835. I have not come upon any reference to a public sensation. Assuredly, however, the orchidists of the day were struck, and it is probable that Messrs. Loddiges sold the wonder at a high price if in bloom. Some people in Sierra Leone forwarded consignments. But an orchid so small and delicate needs careful handling. None of them reached Europe alive, I dare say.
It appears, however, that Bulbophyllum barbigerum is common throughout those regions. The example at Kew, which diverts so many good folks year by year, came from Lagos, near a thousand miles east and south of Sierra Leone. And the story I have to tell places it at Whydah, between the two.
A young man named Boville went thither as clerk in the English factory, soon after 1835. We have not to ask what was his line of commerce. I have no information, but it must be feared, though perhaps we do him wrong, that one branch of it at least was the slave trade. Boville had heard of Messrs. Loddiges’ success. Residents at Whydah do not commonly explore the bush, but he was young and enterprising. On his first stroll he discovered the Bulbophyllum, and to his innocence it seemed the promise of a fortune. Real good things must be kept quiet. The treasure was plentiful enough to cause ‘a glut’ forthwith if many speculators engaged. Luckily he had a Kroo boy in attendance, not a native. To him Boville assumed an air of mystery, said he was going to make fetich, and ‘something happen’ to any one who spoke of his proceedings—‘make fetich’ and ‘something happen’ are among the first local expressions which a man learns in West Africa. The Kroo boy grinned, because that is his way of acknowledging any communication whatsoever, and snapped his fingers in sign of willing obedience. So Boville gathered a dozen plants, and hoped to have a stock before ‘the ship’ arrived. There were no steamers then, and at Whydah, a very unimportant station for lawful trade, English vessels only called once in three months. Slavers did not ship orchids.
It was Boville’s employment henceforth to collect the Bulbophyllum whenever he had a few hours to spare. He hung his spoils on the lattice work which surrounds a bedroom in those parts, between roof and wall, designed for ventilation—hiding them with clothes and things. It is proper to add that the ‘English Fort’ was already deserted, and the ‘Factory’ a mere name. The agent, his superior officer, was not at all likely to visit a clerk’s quarters. This good man belonged to a class very frequent then upon ‘the coast.’ He had not returned to England, nor wished to do so, since coming out. At a glance he recognised that this was his real native land, and without difficulty he made himself a fellow-countryman of the negroes, living like a caboceer, amidst an undeterminate number of wives, slaves, and children. Very shocking; but it may be pointed out that such men as this established our colonies or seats of trade in Africa. They had virtues, perhaps, but their vices were more useful. The moral system of the present day would not have answered then. An agent secured his position by marrying a daughter of every chief who might be troublesome. He had no Maxim guns.
Mr. Blank knew every feeling and superstition of the negroes,—that is the point of my reference to his character. And one evening he entered the room just as Boville was hanging up his latest acquisitions, some of which were in flower. Whatever Mr. Blank’s business, it fled from his mind on beholding the orchids.
‘Good God!’ he cried. ‘What—what—you are no better than a dead man! I won’t protect you—I can’t! Good God! What possessed you?’