The fetish folk of West Africa

by Robert H. Milligan

Though I had never before been in Nkol Amvam I had had five of their boys in my school the preceding year. The chief had brought them out to the river. I was therefore not entirely a stranger, and as usual the exceedingly kind reception which I received from all the people was in striking contrast to that of those towns from which I had never had boys in the school; and the boys themselves fairly shouted for joy. This time they wanted me to take all the boys in the town. I held a service and then started back to the river taking nine boys from Nkol Amvam.

I reached Fula at noon, just in time to prevent a quarrel between my crew and the two soldiers who were in charge of the government post. These natives of Senegal, although they know French, and many of them have some education, are still savages; and it is a pity that they should ever be armed and left among a people who are foreign to them without the supervening authority of a white man. They are cruel and bestial. These two men were a terror to all the husbands in the surrounding towns. This day they had come into the town, and seeing two of my men, Ndong Koni and Toko, who were chatting freely with the people and naturally attracting a good deal of attention, they thought they would let the townspeople see that they were the superiors of these coastmen. To their insolence my men responded with contempt, and the quarrel had gone about as far as mere words could go when I arrived. I soon settled that palaver and we hurried on board, and started down the river.

We had great difficulty in turning the launch. The current was exceedingly swift, a roaring torrent, and the channel narrow and dangerous. As we began to turn, the bow necessarily came close to the bank into slack water, while the stern was in the strong middle-current. And before we could get sufficient way on her the stern would be carried down leaving her bow still up-stream and headed for the bank. Twice we had to drop the anchor. Then we threw out a line from the stern and passed it around a tree, and weighing the anchor let the bow turn with the current. We were soon rushing down the river through rapids and whirlpools, and swirling currents. We called at one or two towns on the way, and reached Angom about three o’clock, where I had work for the rest of the day. It was a great relief to get back into the well-known channel of the broad deep river that “flows unvexed to the sea.”

On the way up the river the preceding day, we had stopped at a town where one of my former schoolboys, Ngema, whose father refused to let him come again, said that he would like to go up the river with me to the towns beyond, expecting to stop on the way back. I told him that I could not stop at his town coming down; so he took a small canoe in tow. Next day, when we made our last stop before passing his town, he got into the canoe and was towed behind us; but when he was near home he suddenly scrambled upon the launch and as we passed by he cut the tow-line and called out to the people to send some one after the canoe, that he was going back to school with me. I of course consented to his coming, for he had already been in my school two terms and I had a claim on him. I was delighted with the plan and greatly enjoyed carrying him swiftly past his town while a concourse of his scandalized parents stood on the bank executing fantastic gestures of remonstrance; for, standing beside the engine, I could not hear their words. I waved back at them pleasantly as we swept around a curve out of their sight.

Later in the day, when we were at Angom, Ngema came to me with a peculiar expression that combined amusement and annoyance, with his head inclined to one side as if he were too weak to hold it up, being quite overcome by some piece of intelligence. He said, “Mr. Milligan, father has come.” At the same time a loud noise, increasing as it approached, confirmed the news. But I was not alarmed, as I had the man at a disadvantage, away from his own town. Supposing that we might stop at Angom, he had followed us in a canoe. The boy kept close to me, while I went on with my work, not paying much attention to the father’s loud remonstrance, but occasionally jesting with him on the score of the boy’s success in getting away from his town. The African likes to be teased; it is the consummate expression of brotherly love. In the evening when I was about to start for the coast I went to him and said: “Now don’t you think you have cursed me enough for this trip? Can’t we be friends before I go?”

Looking somewhat abashed, but no longer unfriendly, he replied quietly: “A bar of soap would settle the palaver.”

The African savage is more than “half child.” I was sure that when I would take these boys back to their towns, no matter what might have been the circumstances under which I obtained them, their parents would be the best friends I had in the town.

That evening I started down the river with the Evangeline in tow, which had been at Angom while we were up the river. I made two short stops to take on more boys. An entertaining episode occurred at one of these places. Eight boys, seeing the Dorothy coming down the river, came out in a large canoe, some of them expecting to go with me to Baraka. They had not the least idea of the speed or the momentum of the Dorothy, and they ran straight across her bow. It was an exciting moment when the river suddenly closed over a canoe and eight boys and a terrific yell. I scarcely knew which of the submerged elements formed the largest bubbles on the surface. But they all came up—boys, canoe, and yell—and we secured them.

I had in all fifty-one persons on board the Dorothy and the Evangeline. I ran all that night and reached Baraka in the early morning. But I must tell the story of that night; for we encountered a tornado on the way.

I usually left Gaboon in the morning so as to have the first thirty miles of the journey past and get into the river before the sea breeze became strong. In returning it was not so easy to choose the time for this part of the journey; and I sometimes encountered a rough sea. On this occasion I had intended to anchor over night at a point sixty miles from Gaboon and finish the journey in the early hours of the next day. But I felt the strain of responsibility for this big human cargo and I was anxious to reach home. Sleep would be impossible for me in the crowded launch. When I considered also that the sea is usually more quiet at night, I decided to go on the remaining sixty miles to Gaboon. The moon and the stars were shining brightly above us, and almost as brightly in the depths of the swift, silent river. When we reached the sea it was as smooth as satin, and it continued so for a few hours. The air was so still that at length the stillness became ominous, and I began to fear that it was the calm that precedes a storm.