The jungle folk of Africa

by Robert H. Milligan

The deeper ravines we crossed on bridges. Bridge-building in Africa is no great triumph of mechanical engineering. The bridges which crossed the narrower ravines and gorges consisted simply of several long, slender poles laid down side by side. They ought to be on a level but are not. One is six inches or a foot higher than the other, and there is so much spring in them that the feat of crossing is equal to a tight-rope performance. Over extensively flooded areas where the water is too deep to wade, a bridge of single poles is supported in forked uprights at intervals of the length of the poles, and above the bridge a rope of vine is stretched to hold with the hand. It happened more than once that by some mishap we tumbled into the stream below; but the natives were quick to fish us out.

The worst part of the journey was on the last day, through the new clearings which the natives had made for their gardens. In these the whole forest lay prostrate,—trees great and small, the tangled mass of vines, and all the débris made by its crashing fall. The whole enormous mass is left lying until the lighter parts of it dry: then it is burned over. This burning is repeated at long intervals until at length much of it is burned away. But by this time the natives are perhaps thinking of deserting it and making a new garden somewhere else, or they may have moved their town away. Meanwhile, they somehow reach the ground and plant their cassava which flourishes in the fresh, rich soil. The difficulty in an African garden is not to get things to grow, but to keep other things from growing. They never hesitate to fell the forest thus across the road, obstructing the caravans and bringing curses on their heads.

One might think on approaching a town through one of these clearings that it had been made as a formidable defense in time of war. To go through it is a tedious and exhausting trial. One moment the traveller is crawling on all fours under a log; then he walks up the inclined trunk of a tree a distance of fifty feet, then turns and follows one of its branches, from this leaps to a branch of another tree which he follows down to the trunk, which is perhaps ten feet above the ground, while below him are upright sticks or broken branches upon which he may be impaled if he falls, or at least badly bruised. From this he mounts a cross-log and proceeds downwards to another which he follows until it brings him five feet from the ground, when he jumps the rest of the way, crawls under another log, proceeds a few yards on the ground, mounts another log, follows it until he finds himself again six feet off the ground and wondering how he will reach it; but the next moment he has already reached it and wonders how he got there. Then he does this all over again, and then again. I never passed through such a clearing without getting bruised or hurt in some way. The natives with their bare feet climb over these smooth logs better than the white man with his shoes unless they have rubber soles; in the morning before the dew has dried it is especially hard. It is much harder from the fact that we are no longer in the shade of the forest, but exposed to the fierce tropical sun unrelieved by the least breeze because of the surrounding forest.

A caravan with their heavy loads, walking through such a forest ruin, presents a picturesque scene to the spectator. Some are crawling under logs, some are climbing on top of them, half a dozen are walking in procession up an inclined trunk, some are walking a log ten feet in the air, others are twisting their way through a maze of branches and some have fallen to the ground. With such a clearing in mind, and remembering what has been said about African bridges, the reader will not be likely to ask the oft-repeated question, why donkeys and horses are not more used. The use of either would necessitate the carrying of a derrick with rope and tackle.

This recalls to my mind an occasion some years afterwards that afforded high amusement to some friends of mine. I had been home in America for several years and was about to go to Africa a second time when I received a visit from Mr. Kerr, who was home on furlough. He gave me an enthusiastic account of the work done by the German government in improving the Bulu roads,—although it was perhaps the road to Lolodorf rather than that to Efulen of which he was speaking. He declared that as compared with the first roads that he and I had travelled, I would never recognize it as an African road; for it was “grand,”—“simply grand.”

With an outburst of enthusiasm I replied that since I might be appointed to that station, and since the road was “simply grand,” I would buy a pair of donkeys at the Canary Islands and take them with me.

“Man alive!” he exclaimed, “one would think you had never been in Africa; a donkey couldn’t get over it.”

To my friends it was a hopeless paradox that a road could be “simply grand,” and yet be impassable to a donkey. Nevertheless, about that time they began using donkeys on the road to Efulen, so much had the roads been improved in the intervening years, and they have been using them more and more since that time. There is difficulty, however, in getting them over the streams and ravines, and I am not sure whether they are used to advantage in the wet season.

Only experience will teach a man to walk the bush-road with the least effort; and some never learn. I can remember yet how on that first morning I shrunk from the water and the mud, trying to keep my feet dry and my clothes clean. I think Mr. Kerr had more sense from the beginning. I, however, was in a state of rigidity, both physical and mental, that would soon have exhausted me. But after a while a kindly Providence took me in hand, sending upon me a rapid succession of blessings in disguise. The mud lay deep in the path and I was trying to straddle it as I walked, when, as I sprang forward to clear a wider space, some demon was evidently permitted to catch my foot and throw it up, with the result that I landed full length on my back in the mud. A few minutes later the same impalpable enemy tripped me and I fell headlong on my stomach. Still later we reached a broad, black, quiescent pond of water of the consistency of molasses.