In one town a handsome boy was determined to come with me, and by prolonged talking I had subdued his father and was hurrying away when suddenly the mother appeared upon the scene, cursing me, and threatening to take the boy’s life. Another contention followed, which I won by many words and a small piece of laundry soap. The victory seemed complete; the father and mother were sending the boy away with their blessing, and speaking kind words to me; we were about to get into the canoe to go to the launch, which was in the middle of the river, when an old and very ugly woman, grand-aunt or something of that sort, came rushing towards us, shrieking and flinging her arms about her, cursing me, and altogether presenting such a spectacle as might suggest that one of Macbeth’s witches had escaped from the underworld. Quickly, and in great alarm, we sprang into the canoe and pushed off; for I would rather fight with ten men than one woman. But there were many of us, we were standing up in the canoe, and before we had sufficient way on she had waded after us up to her neck in water, and laying hold of the canoe with both hands, she tried to capsize it—which would be easily done. The state of my health made it advisable that I should try to avoid being thrown into the river. Besides, the whole town was now gathered on the bank, rending the air with laughter, and if I failed they would continue to laugh for a year or two. I caught her hands and tried to wrench them from the side of the canoe; but I did not wish to use all my strength against an old woman, and moreover she had the advantage of standing on the ground, while I had to balance the canoe; so I failed in the effort. A second more and we would have been in the river, when I caught her by the back of the neck, and, ducking her head under the water, I held her there as solemnly as I could until she so far weakened as to let go her hold on the canoe, and we moved on, while the audience on the bank cheered. But I had a most unheroic feeling all the rest of that day.
In another town, a father who refused to let his boy go, said: “I don’t want my boy coming back here knowing more than his father, his skin all clean, while his old father sits around with the itch scratching himself. Why, the boy would despise me! I won’t let him go.”
For more than a year I taught the school daily without any assistance except that one or two of the advanced boys sometimes taught the junior classes. Then I engaged, as an assistant, a Mpongwe, named Nduna, a boy of seventeen years, whose father, Rekwangi, was quite civilized and an old friend of our mission. Poor Nduna’s life ended very tragically less than two years later. He was a handsome boy, of quiet disposition and kind-hearted. He was with me so much in the schoolroom and was so faithful in his work that I came to know him well and to like him. At the end of the year he told me that he had the offer of a better-paying position in one of the bureaus of the government at Libreville and I advised him to accept it. I understood that he gave good satisfaction to his employer. After several months a sum of money was stolen from a safe that had accidentally been left open. There were French clerks in the same office, but Nduna was the only native. He was immediately arrested. There was not a shred of evidence against him except that the money had been stolen from that particular office and that he was the only native there. It was hard for me to believe that he was guilty even before I had heard the evidence, and when I supposed that it must be strongly against him. But when upon inquiry I learned all that was known, I concluded with a great many others that he was innocent. And the others did not know him personally as I did.
A native may be capable of committing a very clever theft, but I never knew a native who could cleverly conceal it. A certain workman, Ndinga, stole a coat from me, and a few days later walked into the yard with it on. Ndinga was not intelligent like Nduna. But I knew another boy who about the same time stole a considerable amount of cash from a white man. He was a very clever rascal, and proved himself so in the procuring of the money. Yet he carried it in his pocket as long as it lasted (which was only a few days) and treated all his friends with lavish generosity. Among themselves the detective faculty is dull. And this is probably because they so readily resort to supernatural means of discovering a criminal, instead of following a natural clue, or weighing the evidence of circumstances against a suspected person. While the white man racks his brains with mere probabilities, the native goes to the witch-doctor, who promises him certainty. The witch-doctor names several persons, often personal enemies to himself, and they are forced to undergo some ordeal, such as dipping their hands in boiling oil, which will burn only the guilty. It is an easy and expeditious method, and especially remunerative for the witch-doctor. But it involves none of those mental operations whereby facts are weighed, comparisons made and conclusions reached. The judgmatical faculty lies dormant. It would not therefore be expected that the thief would be as careful of his tracks as if he lived in the land of Sherlock Holmes.
In the case of Nduna no money was found either with him or his relations. Neither had he spent an extra centime. The natives themselves never believed Nduna guilty, and there were others also who thought him a victim of foul play. The natives of Libreville and the immediate vicinity are treated with humanity and justice, as a rule; but there have been exceptions to the rule. Nduna was tried and sentenced to imprisonment. I have forgotten the term of his sentence. He was not strong; his lungs were weak, and after several months in the noisome prison he developed tuberculosis. He failed rapidly, and when several more months had passed it was very plain that he had not long to live. His father, Rekwangi, and his mother, Aruwi, pleaded piteously for his release, but the request was sternly refused. I shall never forget the grief of those unhappy parents, grief mingled inevitably with bitterness against the white man; for they had no doubt that their boy was innocent. The weeks passed and still the same message came: “A little worse to-day.”
At length one night some one brought word to Rekwangi that Nduna was dying. The father hurried to the prison, two miles away. But the guard told him that the white man would not admit him. If I had only known it in time I could probably have procured his admission. Or if not, I at least might have afforded the parents some relief by going in myself and staying with Nduna. For many of the officials who are bold in dealing with defenseless black people are abjectly compliant when they confront a white man. For hours that night the father walked outside the prison wall crying aloud: “O Nduna, Nduna, my only son, how can I give you up! It is not God, but the white man who has taken you from me. Is he still living? Tell him that his poor old father is close to him, standing just outside the prison wall. O Nduna, my son, my son!”
At last, towards morning, the guard cried out: “Your son is dead.”
Then the wretched man, overwhelmed with grief and frenzied with bitterness, gave way to doubt of the Christian’s God, and running to the house of a friend near by asked for rum. “Give me rum,” he cried, “lest I kill myself.” The rum was given him and he drank till he was drunk.
That morning Nduna’s body was carried home. All the family and many friends were gathered together. They laid him on a pile of mats on the floor of the room, with his feet towards the door, and covered him completely with a coloured robe. As soon as I heard that the body had come I went to the house. While I was yet a great way from the town I heard the wail of their mourning dirge; that weird, unceasing cry of hopeless grief, which I had heard so often, but never before under such harrowing circumstances, and it smote upon my heart. As many as could enter the house were sitting on the floor and many on the ground outside. All the women who were in civilized dress had turned their clothes inside out as a sign of grief. Aruwi sat on the floor at Nduna’s head, piteously sobbing. As I entered the door they all stopped mourning and there was a deep silence. For once, in Africa, I felt that I could not speak. No words could do justice to that heartrending scene. I stood a long time before the covered body, as silent as themselves. At last I said: “Aruwi, I want to see Nduna’s face.”
She turned down the covering and when I had looked at him a while I said: “It is a good face, Aruwi,—a beautiful face. Nduna was a good boy. You will not forget, Aruwi, that there was one white man who knew him and who loved him.”