The jungle folk of Africa

by Robert H. Milligan

MOUNT TENERIFFE, CANARY ISLANDS.

Probably the Mount Atlas of ancient fable, which was supposed to support the firmament.

The change to tropical life takes place in one day and it is like being suddenly transported into another world. The men nearly all are dressed in white drill suits, and most of them wear white caps and white canvas shoes. If they go ashore at various ports along the way they will exchange the cap for a cork helmet and besides will probably carry a white umbrella. The white suits if well made and well laundered look much more comfortable and becoming than any other clothing. They are usually made in military style with stitched collar, so as we go on further south the shirt of civilization may at length be dispensed with and the coat worn directly over an undershirt,—which latter ought to be of wool and medium weight. Except my first year, I wore no shirt at any time through all the years that I lived in Africa, not even at the French Governor’s annual reception at Gaboon. The English at Old Calabar on formal occasions make themselves ridiculous in black dress suits with the conventional area of shirt-front and collar. In these they swelter, vastly uncomfortable, while the starch dissolves and courses towards their shoes down back and breast. It is not only, nor chiefly, the high temperature but the extreme humidity that makes the atmosphere so oppressive. It seems to be seventy-five per cent, warm water.

On shipboard it is usually comfortable and pleasant while we are under way. The most delightful part of the voyage is the first few days after leaving the Canary Islands, when the course lies in the track of the northeast trade-winds. One thinks very differently, however, of this trade-wind in coursing against it on the homeward voyage after a length of time on the fever-stricken coast. It seems piercing cold, and, as Miss Kingsley says, one wishes that the Powers above would send it to the Powers below to get it warmed. It is in this zone that deaths most frequently occur on board. On the outward voyage immediately after the most delightful part of the voyage comes the very worst part of it, as we pass beyond the trade-wind and close in to the coast near Cape Verde. For several days one is tempted to wish that he might turn back. There is a dead calm on board, and the heat is enough to curl one’s hair. It recalled Sydney Smith’s description of some such place, where “one feels like taking off his flesh and sitting in his bones.” But it continues only two or three days. During this time the “punka” is installed, a large fan suspended from the ceiling, the entire length of the table, worked by a rope, which a boy pulls with his hand.

A week after leaving the Canary Islands we reached our first African port, Sierra Leone. It has the finest harbour on the entire west coast. From the harbour it is very beautiful, with mountains of intense green standing like sentinels on either side and behind the town. The sound of the wind raging about these peaks, like the roaring of a lion, gives the name, Sierra Leone. Despite its attractive appearance, it is called The Whiteman’s Grave, and its history justifies the name. But as we proceed down the coast we find that every place which has any considerable number of white men is called The Whiteman’s Grave. The name Sierra Leone applies to the entire English colony; that of the town at this place is Freetown. It was originally a colony of freed slaves, which the English planted there during the suppression of the slave traffic. The first ship-load of colonists, between four and five hundred, was landed in 1787. Of these, sixty died on the way or within a fortnight after landing. Freetown has now a population of thirty thousand, and is prosperous. Along the wharf are warehouses with roofs of corrugated iron. The roofs of the traders’ houses also, both here and all along the coast, are of corrugated iron. Here and there among the colourless huts of the natives there stands out boldly the frame houses of successful native traders, made of imported material and usually painted an impudent blue. Houses with floors are everywhere called deck-houses; for the decks of ships were the first floors ever seen by the natives.

So soon as we had anchored, the natives, in a score of boats, were crowding about the gangway, pushing back each other’s boats, fighting, cursing and yelling, in a general strife for the very lucrative privilege of rowing passengers ashore. However otherwise engaged in this scramble they are all yelling; and the resultant noise is the proper introduction to Africa. For, as noise is the first, so it will be the final and lasting impression. It is the grand unity in which other associations are gradually dislimned. We went ashore in the late afternoon. The people were all in the streets, moving about, but no one moving rapidly; all active, but no one very active. As there are no vehicles, pedestrians occupy the whole street, which is covered with grass. There is a great variety of dress and considerable undress. Many of the women wear a loose calico wrapper—a Mother Hubbard; and many of the men are dressed in the Mohammedan costume, which is more becoming, and more suitable for the climate, than any possible modification of European dress. It consists of a long white shirt with loose, flowing sleeves, and an outer garment somewhat like a university gown, of black or of blue. The ordinary man wears anything he may happen to have, from an eighth of a yard of calico to a rice-bag in which he cuts holes for his head and arms.

Ever so many were carrying loads on their heads—never any other way—and without touching them with their hands. Indeed, if their hands were engaged I am not sure whether they could talk; for when they talk they gesticulate continually. Some were carrying beer bottles erect on their heads, some carried books, some of the women carried folded parasols; others carried fire-wood, or bananas, or large baskets of vegetables. They exchange the neighbourhood gossip as they pass, but without turning their heads; and sometimes they throw down their loads and seat themselves on opposite sides of the street to have “a friendly yell.” When we returned to the steamer we found on board, on the lower deck, about twenty native passengers. They have brought all their household goods, including chickens; and several of the women have babies strapped to their backs. They pay only for a passage on deck, taking the risk of the weather, and expect to yell their way to Fernando Po, in about two weeks. The number of deck passengers increases at each of the next several ports, until the deck is crowded; but they are never allowed on the upper deck.

The deck, formerly spacious and shining, is now covered with baggage, the abundance of which is only exceeded by its outlandish variety. The first mate is the ship’s general housekeeper. Cleanliness and order are a mental malady with him. If he could have his way the ship would carry no cargo, since the opening of the hatches and the discharging of it deranges the order of the lower deck and litters it with rubbish. Besides he would like to employ the boat-crews in holystoning one deck or another all the time instead of only once each morning. The sight of a dog affects him more seriously than seeing a ghost. Passengers are a great trial to him who carelessly place their deck chairs for comfort or for conversation with each other instead of leaving them in unneighbourly straight lines as he arranged them. He is rarely on speaking terms with the chief engineer, because the latter must frequently have coal carried from the forehold; and there is a standing feud between him and the cook, whose grease-tub sits outside the galley door. The mate’s sole horror of a storm at sea is that the rolling of the ship spills the grease. Imagine the life this gentleman lives from the time that the native passengers begin to come aboard and fill the deck with their piles of miscellaneous baggage. He ages perceptibly. Disorder is precisely the weak point in the native character; and much of the mate’s time is spent in pitched battles with the native women, over the bestowment of their goods. No sooner has he, with the help of several deck-hands, arranged a lady’s goods in a neat square pile ten feet high and seated her children in a straight row than the lady orders all her children to get out of her way and proceeds to tear down the pile in order to get a cosmetic and a mirror that happen to be in two different boxes in the bottom. When the mate is not around the deck passengers seem very happy as they sit at random on their baggage and yell at each other. Here and there men in Mohammedan dress sit on the sunny deck in cross-legged tailor-fashion, reminding one of old Bible pictures. If they quarrel a great deal they also laugh a great deal, and the quarrels are no sooner ended than they are forgotten.