One hears from the natives of the coast more complaints of cold than of heat and in the hottest weather their black skin is always cool. The hot months are December and January; and the coolest are June and July.
The wet and dry seasons of Gaboon are very distinct. The dry season begins in May and lasts for four months, during all which time there is not a shower. Then the wet season begins in September and lasts four months, during which it rains almost incessantly. This is followed by a short dry season of two months and a short wet season of two months, thus completing the year. This succession of the seasons is as regular and distinct as our winter and summer. The effect of the long dry season corresponds in some respects to our winter, giving vegetation a rest. Europeans delight in the dry season, although towards the last they long for the rain. But the natives dislike the dry season, which is too cool for their comfort; and since the land-breeze is very strong, and their bodies but slightly protected with clothing, there is much sickness among them in these months.
I never told the Africans about ice, nor described snow, lest it would overtax their credulity and discredit me; for if they should doubt I had no way of proving it. But after the French hospital was built the Gaboon people not only heard about ice but many of them actually saw it. One day we obtained a piece of ice at Baraka, sufficient to make ice-cream. When we had finished eating I took some of it out to the men of my boat-crew and after telling them that it was something which we liked very much, I gave a teaspoonful to Makuba, the captain. No sooner had it entered his mouth than he leaped into the air with a wild yell—wild even for Africa. He shouted: “I’m killed! I’m burned to death! I’m burned to death!”
The extremest sensation of cold seems to be not distinguishable from that of extreme heat. Never having tasted anything cold, it is positively painful to them.
Despite the exaggeration of the Old Coaster we are constantly reminded that, after all, Gaboon is The White Man’s Grave. There were a number of Anamese prisoners of war whom the French had transported from Anam. They were employed in the construction of two miles of road along the beach. During the few months of work seventy out of one hundred died. In this dreadful death rate there were probably unusual factors. The road crosses a marsh that is a first-class incubator for mosquitoes. And besides, it is not likely that the men were reasonably provided with food or medical attendance.
Even upon the subject of the climate opinions differ. There are some persons—very few—who, after living in West Africa a number of years, become so used to its death record that they seem to think that every other place is just the same. One or another of these occasionally becomes an indignant champion of the climate. At one of our annual mission meetings I offered a resolution appealing to the Board of Missions in New York for an extra allowance for health changes, in view of the “hostile climate.” A veteran missionary, whose many years in Africa made him the wonder of the coast, objected to the word hostile, declaring that unless it were stricken out he would vote against the resolution. But with charming inconsistency he added that he fully realized the need of the extra allowance and he would gladly vote for it if only, for the word hostile, we would substitute the word peculiar.
Next morning after breakfast, Mr. Gault, in whose home I was staying, said to me: “Apropos of the objection made yesterday to the word hostile as applied to this salubrious climate, have you observed that every one who asks a blessing at the breakfast-table seems to be thankful—and surprised—that none of us has been stricken down during the night and that we are all again able to get to the table?
“The more remarkable,” he added, “when we recall that we were chosen by the Board not because we were either good or clever, but chiefly because of our constitutions.”
It was only a short time afterwards that Mr. Gault himself one morning was not able to get to the breakfast-table. Two days later they buried him at Batanga. He was one of the truest and best men I have ever known.
There is less fever now than there was a few years ago, and the death record is decreasing. Not that the conditions are much improved; but common sense has prevailed, and men as soon as they become seriously ill hasten away on the first steamer. Besides, the proper use of quinine as a preventive is better understood as the result of the knowledge of the sources of malaria and its various stages.