Bonny is familiar to English ears on account of the yellow-black chief who was pleased to call himself king, and who was well known in England as Pepper, King of Bonny. His name is varied as Pepper, Pimento, or Peppel. He is descended from Obullo, an Ibo (or Eboe) chief, who settled with his slaves on the Bonny River, and who was succeeded by his son and grandson, each of whom took the name of Pepper.
Being of a quarrelsome disposition, the present king shot a wife because she displeased him, murdered a chief called Manilla Peppel because he was jealous, and was ruining the trade of the river by his perpetual wars with the Calabars. So, at the request of all the native chiefs and traders, he was deposed, and his nephew Daphe placed in his stead. Daphe, however, died soon afterward,—poisoned, it is believed, at Peppel’s instigation; and then the government was handed over to four regents, while Pimento was transported to Ascension, a place which he was afterward fond of calling his St. Helena. However, he proved himself to be a clever savage, and, by dint of importunity, contrived to be taken to England, where he arrived in 1857.
Possessing to the full the imitative capacity of the negro, he adopted English customs with wonderful facility, abandoning, according to Captain Burton, his favorite dish of a boy’s palms, and drinking champagne and sherry instead of trade rum. Soon he became religious, was baptized, and turned teetotaler, gaining thereby the good-will of a large class of people. He asked for twenty thousand pounds to establish a missionary station, and actually induced a number of English who knew nothing of Africa, or the natural mendacity of the African savage, to accompany him as his suite, promising them splendid salaries and high rank at court.
No one who knows the negro character will be surprised to hear that when the king and his suite arrived at Bonny the latter found themselves cheated and ruined. They discovered that the “palace” was a collection of hovels inside a mud wall; that Bonny itself was nothing more than a quantity of huts in a mud flat; and that the best street was infinitely more filthy than the worst street in the worst part of London. As to the private life of the king, the less said about it the better.
Their health rapidly failed under the privations which they suffered, and the horrible odors of the Bonny River, which are so sickening that even the hardened traveller Captain Burton had to stop his experienced nostrils with camphorated cotton, as he was rowed up the river at low water. As to the royal salaries and apartments in the palace, they were found to be as imaginary as the palace itself and the rank at court, the king presenting each of the officials with a couple of yams as an equivalent for pay and lodging.
How genuine was the civilization and Christianity and teetotalism of Peppel may be imagined from an interview which Mr. W. Reade had with him after his return:—“I went ashore with the doctor on a visit to Peppel, the famous king of Bonny.... In one of the hovels was seated the monarch, and the scene was well adapted to the muse of his poet laureate. The Africans have a taste for crockery ware, much resembling that of the last generation for old china, and a predilection for dog flesh, which is bred expressly for the table, and exposed for sale in the public market.
“And there sat Peppel, who had lived so long in England; behind him a pile of willow-pattern crockery, before him a calabash of dog stew and palaver sauce. It is always thus with these savages. The instincts inherited from their forefathers will ever triumph over a sprinkling of foreign reason. Their intellects have a rete mucosum as well as their skins. As soon as they return to their own country, take they off all their civilization and their clothes, and let body and mind go naked. Like most negroes of rank, Peppel has a yellow complexion, as light as that of a mulatto. His features express intelligence, but of a low and cunning kind. In every word and look he exhibits that habit of suspicion which one finds in half-civilized natures.”
Peppel, although restored to Bonny, has scarcely any real power, even in his own limited dominions, from which he dares not stir. Yet, with the cool impudence of a thorough savage, he actually proposed to establish a consul in London at a salary of 500l., stating as his reason that he had always allowed the English consuls to visit his dominions in the Bight of Benin.
The architecture of the Bonny country is not very elaborate, being composed of swish and wattle, supported by posts. The floors and walls are of mud, which can be obtained in any amount, and the general look of the houses has been well compared to Africanized Swiss, the roofs being very high, and the gables very sharp. Ordinary houses have three rooms, a kitchen, a living room, and a Ju-ju room or chapel; but those of the wealthy men have abundance of chambers and passages. There are no chimneys, and as the door must therefore be kept open if a fire is lighted, the threshold is at least eighteen inches high, in order to prevent the intrusion of strange beasts. It is not thought to be etiquette to step over the threshold when the master of the house is sitting within, or he will be afflicted with sickness, thinking himself bewitched.
The Ju-ju room or chapel is a necessary adjunct to every Bonny house, and within it is the fetish, or Ju-ju, which is the guardian of the house, and corresponds with the Lares and Penates of the ancients. The negro contrives to utilize the ju-ju room, making it a storehouse for his most valued property, such as cowries, or rum, knowing that no one will touch it in so sacred a place. As to the Ju-ju itself, anything answers the purpose, and an Englishman is sometimes troubled to preserve his gravity when he sees a page of Punch, a cribbage peg, a pill box, or a pair of braces, doing duty as the household god of the establishment.