Neither does the white man become acclimated in the tropics—no more than the diver in the deep sea. The longer he remains, his physical and moral resources become the more exhausted. Let us keep these facts in mind in judging those of whom we have spoken, and those of whom we have yet to speak in the next chapter.
X
WHITE AND BLACK
“Our only program, I am anxious to repeat, is the work of moral and material regeneration.”—King Leopold II.
“The work of civilization, as you call it, is an enormous and continual butchery.”—M. Lorand, in the Belgian Parliament.
St. Paul de Loanda, in the Portuguese colony of Angola, is the only place on the entire west coast of Africa that looks like a real city. It is several centuries old, and from the sea the appearance is not unlike the Mediterranean cities of North Africa. But as soon as one goes ashore this illusion is dissolved. What makes it unlike any other settlement on the west coast is chiefly its roofs of red tile instead of corrugated iron, with its superheated appearance, that is used in all places recently built. The city is also lighted by oil lamps. The harbour being one of the best, I went ashore with the captain and after a walk about the town we played a few games of billiards with the British consul. I had then been several years on the coast and this seemed like a brief return to civilization. The night coming on brought with it more civilization. A native band played, by ear, two or three tunes, and played them well—considering. It is said that they have played those same tunes since the band was organized, and no one now living remembers when that was.
A mouldering church, Our Lady of Salvation, which stands on the beach, is two and a half centuries old, and is a work of art, containing interesting and historical scenes in blue and white tiles. From this place in the dark age of slavery thousands of slaves were shipped across the Atlantic; and the Roman Catholic bishop sat on the wharf and baptized them, not individually, but in shiploads. Surely Our Lady of Salvation might have been called Our Lady of Sorrows.
There were very few passengers on board, but there were a number of dogs. The captain had a weakness for dogs. The breed of the dog made no difference. Whether they were useful or useless, whether sound and healthy or dreadfully diseased and scarcely able to walk, he loved them all without partiality or discrimination. Men further up the coast who had European dogs that were particularly mangy or threatened with rabies would give them into the captain’s care and he would take them for a health-change down the coast. At one time there were nine dogs living on board. He never seemed to realize that in this, as in all other things, tastes differ; and that a certain dog, an English mastiff, as ugly as the rest of its kind, might not be entirely welcome to share my soup at the table just because it was welcome to his.
There were two fox-terriers tied together with five or six feet of small rope between them. As their health improved these two terriers became animated beyond all control. They amused themselves by pulling down cages full of parrots for the delight of hearing them remonstrate in a prolonged concert of harsh squawking. But their chief exercise was straight running at breakneck speed from one end of the promenade deck to the other, with six feet of rope stretched taut between them, to the terror of the passengers, who were so few in number that they were regarded as a negligible quantity. There was a lady on board with whom I occasionally walked until the terriers made it impossible to do so without sacrificing either comfort or gallantry. At the sight of them coming towards her, like a whirlwind sweeping down the deck and the rope threatening to trip her up, the lady’s energy all went to her hands instead of her feet; for she invariably lost her presence of mind and stood still wringing her hands instead of hastily retreating into some safe corner. But I could not understand why she should think that I also ought to lose my presence of mind and stand still and be tripped when I had youth and fleetness of limb to accomplish an escape.
We were three days at Benguela during which we witnessed the Mardi Gras celebration. Men, women, and children filled the streets with merrymaking and presented a spectacle of fantastic colours, grotesque costumes, and uncouth masks, such as I had never before seen. Our errand to Benguela was the delivery of a large consignment of supplies for the newly projected railway which, it is expected, shall ultimately extend far inland to the region of Lake Tanganyika, thus connecting with the traffic of the east coast. The bit of this railway already built represents what Portugal has done towards the development of Africa in the course of several centuries.