The jungle folk of Africa

by Robert H. Milligan

The Fang work included itinerating over a field more than a hundred miles by fifty miles, and the charge of a school in which I had no adequate assistant for two years. To this was added the Mpongwe work when Mr. Boppell’s health compelled him to leave the field. The Mpongwe work included the charge of the church at Baraka with its regular Sunday and mid-week services, and the pastoral work, a class in the Sunday-school, a teachers’ meeting, and the instruction of a candidate for the ministry. At such a station there is also a great deal of secular work; the care of the premises and the buildings, which are in constant need of repair, the care of several boats, the buying of building material, the charge of a store, ordering and receiving our own supplies, the treasurership—the latter a large work, because all purchases of goods and food were made in Europe and America. I suffered some under the strain, and the work, of course, suffered more than I did. My day and evening were laid out by the hour in a routine that was fixed as far as circumstances would allow.

The arrival of an English steamer, once a month, deranged all plans; but it was a welcome interruption, chiefly because it brought the mail. It is a pathetic instance of the white man’s interest that the natives everywhere, even if they know no other word of English, have learned to call the steamer, “the mail,” because this is what they hear the white man say when he sees it. The steamer nearly always came in the morning. While it was still fifteen miles away we could see the smoke on the horizon. There was always a strife among the boys and the men for which of them would be the first to announce it. At the sight of it they all came running and shouting, “Mail! Mail!” If Toko made the announcement he would say: “Mr. Milligan, mail live for come; I look him.”

Immediately I call Ndong Koni and tell him to call the crew, get out the Evangeline, and see that they all have their uniforms.

Meanwhile I put on a suit of white drill, such as I have described, a white helmet, and white shoes. Thus attired in the regulation best I go aboard and take breakfast with the captain, who gives me all the news of the coast. If he has cargo for the mission I wait until it is discharged on the beach, and then go ashore and have it carried up to the mission storeroom. When this is done I read my letters. But I sometimes carried the bundle of them around with me full half a day before reading them; and I always waited until I could close the door of my study and give the order that I was not to be disturbed.

But an urgent duty awaits me. A technical and minute declaration in French must be made of any and all the goods that have arrived. In declaring provisions, for instance, the different provisions in a given box must be declared separately, with the weight of each. The boxes, of course, could not be opened under any circumstances until everything was declared and a permit received. But if the bills of lading should be delayed, or if they were not made out with all the particular weights, there was endless trouble. I could not open the boxes until I made the declaration, and I could not make the declaration until I opened the boxes. In such a case, after much waiting and annoyance, an officer would come and I would open the boxes in his presence. Sometimes these declarations were very troublesome. In one instance there was malted milk in one of the boxes. I did not know how to declare it; for I could not imagine under what class it would come. That I might make no mistake, and run the risk of a fine, I sent some malted milk that I had already on hand to the chef of the douanes telling him what it was and how it was made, and asking him how I should declare it. After a day’s consideration he wrote advising me that malted milk should be declared as pain d’épice—spiced bread. But if the rules and regulations bothered me, I must say that the French custom-officers are, I believe, the most courteous and obliging in the world, and a striking contrast to American custom-officers.

But besides the arrival of the steamer there are other interruptions less welcome. While I am busy preparing my sermon for Sunday, in time stolen from other duties, a man appears at the door, and without waiting for recognition asks me to go with him to the mission store and get him a package of rat-poison—price about five cents. Shall I, or shall I not, go to the store? We are owing him this amount for produce he has sold us, and he holds a “bon” for it, which he can negotiate only at our store. He lives far away, and his friends are waiting for him. Besides, rat-poison itself is a kind of Gospel in this rat-ridden land. It ranks about next to soap. I get him his rat-poison. But I do not believe in mission stores. At some stations, of course, they are a necessity: at some, I know they are a serious hindrance to the real work of the missionary. It is vain to answer that some money (a small amount at the most) is thus turned into the mission treasury. I reply that missionaries are not sent out to make money; let those who stay at home do that: they are sent to spend it. I am glad to say that if I accomplished nothing else in Africa I finally sold out that mission store, and gave our trade to one of the trading-houses. And I am glad also to add that instead of a financial loss, we actually gained by dealing with the traders, not to speak of the great saving of time for the serious work of the missionary.

The work of itinerating I regarded as my chief work, however much detained from it. For most men it is also the most interesting work, inasmuch as it brings one into contact with the people in their native condition. With all their savagery there is really very little danger of violence at their hands. But a drunken savage is to be feared. Not that he is much more bloodthirsty; but his greed overmasters him, and he might easily be tempted to kill for plunder. For if the white man had nothing but the suit of clothes which he had on him he would still be rich enough to inspire native cupidity.

One Sunday at Nenge Nenge, a town sixty miles up the river, I left the launch at anchor and went on up the river several miles in a canoe borrowed from a trading-house located at Nenge Nenge. It was a very large canoe; and since the workmen were all idle, the trader gave me a crew of fifteen men. The West African trader is supremely generous in granting all such favours. It happened that a short time before this a white trader of Gaboon, a young man whom I knew very well, who had been in Africa less than a year, returning one night by boat from Elobey Island to the mainland, was drowned. The body was never recovered, and indeed, it is not unlikely that he was immediately seized and devoured by the sharks. Not one of the crew was lost, and although we could not formulate a charge against them, we more than suspected foul play on their part. No one will ever know the tragedy of that young man’s last hour.

The recency of this occurrence made me, perhaps, more suspicious than usual, or qualified my courage, on the occasion of the canoe ride at Nenge Nenge. The men had all been drinking, which I did not observe until we had started, and they were all of one tribe, a distinct disadvantage to me if they should mean mischief. And what was worse, they were just fresh from a distant bush town, and never had been in contact with white men. The river is broad at this place, and the current is very swift. They first started to sing one of their wild and fascinating boat-songs, keeping time with the paddles. Then the leader began improvising, according to their custom, on the theme of the white man and the white man’s riches, the others responding with a refrain. They were gradually getting excited, and were swaying their bodies from side to side, so that I feared continually that the canoe would be capsized. Then the song became a yelling-match, and they were getting still more excited. I had never at any time had a more distinct feeling that I was in a dangerous company of real savages, fifteen to one, and if I had been in their musical mood I should have been singing Robert Louis Stevenson’s immortal buccaneer song: