“You remember so-and-so,” says another; “well, poor chap! (and as soon as he says “poor chap” we know the rest) he was found dead in bed one morning since you were here. They had used up all the lumber that they had laid away for coffins, so they took half the partition out of his house, to make a coffin; and then they didn’t get it long enough. The next fellow is now living alone in that same house with half the partition gone, and of course he can’t help reflecting that there is just enough left to make another coffin; and, indeed, to judge by the way he was looking when I saw him last they may have used it by this time.”
“Have you heard about the poor chap that so-and-so sent up country? Well, he died a few weeks ago. He was all alone except for the native workmen, and as soon as he died they ran away in fear. The agent got word of it and started up country immediately; but the rats had found him first.”
It is only when one reflects that all these “poor chaps” were somebody’s sons, and somebody’s brothers, that one realizes the tragedy of the coast. These little conversations on board seem like the final obsequies performed for those who are dead.
“Do men ever die of anything except fever?” asks a new comer.
“O yes,” says the Old Coaster. “Let me see: there’s dysentery,—poor C died of that last week; and there’s enlarged spleen, abscesses, pneumonia, consumption (one falls into consumption here very quickly, and often when he least expects it), kraw-kraw and smallpox (smallpox has just broken out at Fernando Po: that’s our next port), not to speak of seven or eight varieties of itch, which some men have all the time; but itch doesn’t kill. By the way, I suppose you know that in this climate it is necessary that bodies be buried a few hours after death.”
In the speech of the coast there is no such thing as reticence, and soon enough we all learn to speak with brutal bluntness. The only comfort held out to the new comer is the hope that he will receive, as a sort of obituary, the kindly designation, “Poor Chap.”
I have never argued for the salubrity of the African climate; nor am I disposed to protest the general opinion that it is “the worst climate in the world.” The white man never becomes acclimatized, and never will until he develops another kind of blood. One lives face to face with the constant and proximate possibility of death as long as he is on the coast. It is an unnatural consciousness, which, when prolonged through years, tends to become fixed and permanent even when one has removed from the circumstances that were its occasion. And yet, the conversation of the Old Coaster is liable to make an exaggerated impression. In the first place, the impression is natural that the climate being so unhealthful must also be uncomfortable. But, in reality, while several months of the year are extremely uncomfortable, the greater part of the year is tolerably comfortable and there are several months of exceedingly pleasant weather. Neither is the heat so great as is generally supposed. With the greatest effort on my part, I never succeeded in disabusing my friends of the notion that I was slowly roasting to death in Africa. With every hot spell in America, when the thermometer was standing at 100°, their thoughts turned towards me in profound sympathy. While I have at times suffered with the heat and there have been times on the river, between high banks, cut off from the breeze, when I nearly fainted, and one occasion upon which I was quite overcome, yet as a rule I lived comfortably by day; and the nights are always cool. The maximum temperature on the coast is from 86° to 88°, Fahrenheit, and even such a temperature is rare. One ought to add, however, that owing to the extreme humidity this temperature in Africa is incomparably hotter than the same temperature in America. It is the sultriness of the hottest weather that makes it insufferable. West Africa is heated by steam and without the medium of radiators. The uniformity of the climate is pleasurable, and is very strange to us of northern latitudes. One may reckon upon the weather to a certainty. Within the limits of a given season there is scarcely any variation from day to day.
The insalubrity is due to the deadly malaria of the reeking, mosquito-infested swamps. Mr. Henry Savage Landor, after a journey across Africa, announces to the world that he is a strong disbeliever in the mosquito theory of malaria. But, that the mosquito is the agent of the malaria bacillus, medical science no longer regards as theory, but as fact, a fact established by the most elaborate and painstaking series of experiments ever conducted in the interest of medical science. Mr. Landor also tells us that he and his men were frequently attacked by malarial fever, becoming so weak that they could not raise their hands; but in every case a dose of castor-oil effected a cure in a few hours. He is therefore a strong advocate of castor-oil, but disbelieves in quinine. The use of castor-oil is no new discovery. Every man who has had any experience in West Africa takes it at the approach of a fever. But there is no substitute for quinine. And the medical men of the coast will agree in saying that life depends always upon the judicious use of it.
In recent years there has been such progress in the knowledge of malaria, and how to meet malarial conditions, that the record of West Africa is continually improving. Then again, missionary societies, following the example of the various European governments, have ceased to make war upon the inevitable and have greatly reduced the term of service. In American missions the term is generally three years; in English missions it is a year and a half or two years; and in the government service the term is usually much shorter than in the missions. My first experience in Africa was not a fair test of the climate. We were engaged in opening a new mission station in the bush, and the conditions were the most unhealthful. Our food was the coarsest,—it was several mouths before we tasted bread; our accommodations were the poorest,—part of the time we lived in a tent that did not protect us against the heavy rains; and besides there were forced journeys to the coast in the wet season with incidental hardships. After a succession of fevers and sensational recoveries I fled from the coast with broken health at the end of a year and a half.
But the second time, when I lived at Gaboon, I stayed five and a half years,—far too long. During the first three years at Gaboon T had fever once every two or three months. I became very familiar with its preceding symptoms—physical exhaustion for several days, such that the least effort induced painful weariness and a frequent heavy sigh; aching of head and limbs; chills alternating rapidly with feverish heat, and a terrible temper. At the end of the third year I had a very severe fever which, instead of yielding to quinine the third day, became much worse, and the natives carried me in a hammock to the French hospital. There I remained for five weeks. But after that I had no more fever, not even once, though I remained in Africa more than two years longer, which would have been absolutely impossible if the fevers had continued. The difference was in my use of quinine. At first I took quinine only with the attacks of fever, and then I took an enormous quantity. But in the later period I kept myself immune by taking it daily whether I was ill or not. I took five grains every night for those several years. People are usually greatly surprised at this and ask if such an amount of quinine was not a terrible strain upon the constitution. It was, without doubt; but not so great a strain as malarious blood, and frequent fevers, and the shock of very large doses of quinine at such times. If I had not been in greatly reduced health before I began to take it regularly it is not likely that I should have required nearly so much. But this is anticipating; for we are still on the outward voyage.