The present king of New Calabar[88] is a son of my old friend King Amachree, and is called King Amachree also, but has shown little of the ability of his late father, being completely led by the nose by his brother George Amachree, who practically rules both king and people.
The former is a small, quiet, and rather amiable man, but of a vacillating and unreliable character; his brother and prime minister is, on the contrary, a tall and very fine specimen of the negro race, endowed by nature with a very suave and not unmusical voice, a very able speaker, clear and logical reasoner, but of a very grasping nature—an excellent and successful trader and exceedingly nice man to deal with, as long as he has got things moving the way that suits him and his policy; but when thwarted in his designs, trading or political, he becomes a difficult customer to deal with, and a very unpleasant and objectionable type of negro “big man.” Nevertheless, had he had the fortune to have been born in a civilised Africa, I feel confident his natural abilities, assisted by education, would have made him a man of eminence in whatever country his lot might have been cast.
Most of the New Calabar chiefs bear a very favourable repute amongst the white traders, and compare very favourably intellectually with the neighbouring chiefs of the Niger Delta.
Another chief of no mean capacity is Bob Manuel, of Abonema, exceedingly neat, almost a dandy in appearance, a very shrewd trader, clear and concise in his speech, honourable in all his dealings, of a very reserved temperament; but a charming man to talk with, once started on any topic that interests him or his visitor.
Owing to some peculiarities in their dress, the New Calabar chiefs are very different to the chiefs in other parts of the Delta. They never appear outside of their houses unless robed in long shirts (made of real india madras of bold check patterns, in which no other colour but red, blue and white is ever allowed to be used) reaching down to their heels; under this they wear a singlet and a flowing loin cloth of the same material as their shirts. Of late years, during the rainy season, some of them have added elastic-side boots and white socks, but the most curious part of their get-up is their head-gear, for since about 1866 they have taken to wearing wigs. These are only worn on high days and holidays and at special functions, but the effect sometimes is so utterly ridiculous as to be more than strangers can look at without laughing. Imagine an immensely stout and somewhat podgy negro with elastic-side boots, white stockings, long shirt, several strings of coral hung round his neck and hanging in festoons down as far as where his waistcoat would end, did he wear one, a Charles II. light flaxen wig, the latter topped up by an ordinary stove-pipe black silk hat!
This fashion of wearing wigs, I am afraid, was unconsciously inaugurated by me, having taken with me in 1865 to New Calabar some wigs that I had used in some private theatricals in England. A chief named Tom Fouché saw them, and was enchanted with a nigger’s trick wig, the top of which could be raised by pulling a hidden silk cord, and eventually he became the proud possessor of my stock, and produced a great sensation the first public festival he appeared at. Previous to this I never saw a wig in New Calabar; as a matter of fact, they have no excuse for them, a bald-headed native being an almost unheard-of curiosity, and grey or white heads are very scarce. Alas! like all pioneers, I did not reap the reward I should have done, as I left the New Calabar river before the fashion had caught on, and Messrs. Thomas Harrison and Co., of Liverpool, became the principal purveyors of wigs to the Court of New Calabar.
These people are remarkable for the bold stand they have made against the persecution of their neighbours almost from the day their founder planted his foot on the New Calabar soil, or mud rather, I should say; besides their wars with the Bonny men, they were often attacked by the Brass men, allies of Bonny. With the Okrika men they were almost constantly at war. This latter was a kind of guerilla warfare carried on in the creeks, and consisted in seizing any unprotected small canoe with its crew of two or three men or women and cargo, the latter generally being yams or Indian corn, the custom being on both sides to eat these prisoners.
The Church Missionary Society established a mission here in 1875, but during the war of 1879 and 1880 the missionary had to leave. Their success had not been brilliant up to this date, owing, no doubt, in some measure, to the immense power wielded by the Ju-Ju priests in New Calabar.
It was not until 1887-8 that the missionaries were able to again commence their labours amongst these people, and then not in the principal town. Archdeacon Crowther, however, succeeded about this time in getting a plot of ground in Bob Manuel’s town, Abonema, for the purpose of building a mission station. As to the success of this last effort I can’t speak from personal observation, as I left this river shortly afterwards myself; in fact, it was on my last visit to Abonema that I conveyed in my steamer, the Quorra, the missionary and his wife to their new home from Brass. They were a young couple of very well educated and most intelligent Sierra Leone natives.