Being reinforced by successive bodies of their brethren, the missionaries spread over the neighbouring countries of Lundi, Pango, Concobella and Maopongo, many tracts of which were rich and populous, although the state of society was extremely rude. Everywhere their career was nearly similar; the people gave them the most cordial reception, flocked in crowds to witness and to share in the pomp of their ceremonies; accepted with thankfulness their sacred gifts, and received by thousands the rite of baptism. They were not, however, on this account prepared to renounce their ancient habits and superstitions. The inquisition, that chef d'ouvre of sacerdotal guilt, was speedily introduced into their domestic arrangements, and, as was naturally to be supposed, caused a sudden revulsion, on which account the missionaries thenceforth maintained only a precarious and even a perilous position. They were much reproached, it appears, for the rough and violent methods employed to effect their pious purposes, and although they treat the accusation as most unjust, some of the proceedings, of which they boast with the greatest satisfaction, tend not a little to countenance the charge. When, for example, they could not persuade the people to renounce their superstitions, they used a large staff, with which they threw down their idols and beat them to pieces; they even stole secretly into the temples, and set them on fire. A missionary at Maopongo, having met one of the queens, and finding her mind inaccessible to all his instructions, determined to use sharper remedies, and seizing a whip, began to apply it lustily to her majesty's person: the effect he describes as most auspicious; every successful blow opened her eyes more and more to the truth, and she at last declared herself wholly unable to resist such forcible arguments in favour of the catholic doctrine. She, however, hastened to the king, with loud complaints respecting this mode of mental illumination; and the missionaries thenceforth lost all favour with that prince and the ladies of his court, being allowed to remain solely in dread of the Portuguese. In only one other instance were they allowed to employ this mode of conversion. The smith, in consequence of the skill, strange in the eyes of a rude people, with which he manufactured various arms and implements, was supposed to possess a measure of superhuman power, and he had thus been encouraged to advance pretensions to the character of a divinity, which were very generally admitted. The missionaries appealed to the king, respecting this impious assumption, and that prince conceiving that it interfered with the respect due to himself, agreed to deliver into their hands the unfortunate smith, to be converted into a mortal in any manner they might judge efficacious. After a short and unsuccessful argument, they had recourse to the same potent instrument of conversion, as they had applied to the back of the queen. The son of Vulcan, deserted in this extremity by all his votaries, still made a firm stand for his celestial dignity, till the blood began to stream from his back and shoulders, when he finally yielded, and renounced all pretensions to a divine origin.
A more intimate acquaintance discovered other irregularities amongst the natives, against which a painful struggle was to be maintained. According to the custom of the country, and it were well if the same custom could be introduced into some particular parts of Europe, the two parties, previously to marriage, lived together for some time, in order to make a trial of each other's tempers and inclinations, before entering into the final arrangement. To this system of probation, the natives were most obstinately attached, and the missionaries in vain denounced it, calling upon them at once either to marry or to separate. The young ladies were always the most anxious to have the full benefit of this experimental process; and the mothers, on being referred to, refused to incur any responsibility, and expose themselves to the reproaches of their daughters, by urging them to an abridgment of the trial, of which they might afterwards repent. The missionaries seem to have been most diligent in the task, as they called it, of "reducing strayed souls to matrimony." Father Benedict succeeded with no fewer than six hundred, but he found it such "laborious work," that he fell sick and died. Another subject of deep regret, respecting the many superstitious practices still prevalent, even among those who exhibited some sort of Christian profession, was, that sometimes the children, brought for baptism, were bound with magic cords, to which the mothers, as an additional security from evil, had fastened beads, relics, and figures of the Agnus Dei. It was a compound of paganism and Christianity, which the priests turned away from with disgust; but still the mothers seemed more inclined to part with the beads, relics, and figures of the Agnus Dei, than their magic cords. The chiefs, in like manner, while they testified no repugnance to avail themselves of the protection promised from the wearing of crucifixes and images of the Virgin, were unprepared to part with the enchanted rings and other pagan amulets with which they had been accustomed to form a panoply round their persons. In case of dangerous illness, sorcery had been always contemplated as the main or sole remedy, and those who rejected its use were reproached, as rather allowing their sick relations to die, than incur the expense of a conjuror. But the most general and pernicious application of magic was made in judicial proceedings: when a charge was advanced against any individual, no one ever thought of inquiring into the facts, or of collecting evidence—every case was decided by preternatural tests. The magicians prepared a beverage, which produced on the guilty person, according to the measure of his iniquity, spasm, fainting, or death, but left the innocent quite free from harm. It seems a sound conclusion of the missionaries, that the draught was modified according to the good or ill will of the magicians, or the liberality of the supposed culprit. The trial called Bolungo, was indeed renounced by the king, but only to substitute another, in which the accused was made to bend over a large basin of water, when, if he fell in, it was concluded that he was guilty. At other times, a bar of red hot iron was passed along the leg, or the arm was thrust into scalding water, and if the natural effect followed, the person's head was immediately struck off. Snail shells, applied to the temples, if they stuck, inferred guilt. When a dispute arose between man and man, the plan was, to place shells on the heads of both, and make them stoop, when he, from off whose head the shell first dropped, had a verdict found against him. While we wonder at the deplorable ignorance on which these practices were founded, we must not forget that "the judgments of God," as they were termed, employed by our ancestors, during the middle ages, were founded on the same unenlightened views, and were in some cases absolutely identical.
Other powers, of still higher name, held sway over the deluded minds of the people of Congo. Some ladies of rank went about beating a drum, with dishevelled hair, and pretended to work magical cures. There was also a race of mighty conjurors, called Scingilli, who had the power of giving and withdrawing rain at pleasure; and they had a king called Ganja Chitorne, or God of the earth, to whom its first fruits were regularly offered. This person never died, but when tired of his sway on earth, he nominated a successor, and killed himself; a step, doubtless, prompted by the zeal of his followers, when they saw any danger of his reputation for immortality being compromised. This class argued strongly in favour of their vocation, as not only useful, but absolutely essential, since without it the earth would be deprived of those influences, by which alone it was enabled to minister to the wants of man. The people accordingly viewed, with the deepest alarm, any idea of giving offence to beings, whose wrath might be displayed in devoting the land to utter sterility.
We cannot trace any record, stating the period or the manner in which the Portuguese and their officious missionaries were expelled from Congo; it is, however, supposed that they at length carried their religious innovations to such a length, as to draw down upon them the vengeance of the people, and that some bold and decisive steps were taken to liberate the country from its usurpers. It is, however, certain, that Capt. Tucky, in his late expedition, did not find a single trace of either the Portuguese or their missionaries on the banks of the Zaire.
The traveller has ever found much greater difficulty in making discoveries in Mahometan than in Gentoo or Pagan countries, and from this cause the great continent of Africa is much less known to Europeans than it was in ancient times. Until the present age, and a very recent part of it, our knowledge of that immense portion of the globe extended but very little way from the coast, and its enterprises have made great advances to a knowledge of that interior before unexplored. The design of examining on land Africa, to find out the manners, habits, and institutions of its men, the state of the country, its commercial capabilities in themselves, and relative to this country, formed the African Association. From the liberal sentiments, knowledge, and comprehensive views of that society, were the courage and enterprise of adventurers stimulated to particular undertakings of discovery.
CHAPTER II.
We are now arrived at the period when England, aroused by the commercial advantages, which Portugal was deriving from her African possessions, determined, in defiance of the pope of Rome and "the Lords of Guinea," to participate in the treasures, and to form her own settlements on the African coast, although it must be admitted, that one of the motives by which the English merchants were actuated, was not founded on humanity or patriotism. The glorious and splendid results, which had arisen from the discovery of the East and West Indies, caused the ocean to be generally viewed as the grand theatre where wealth and glory were to be gained. The cultivation of the West India Islands by the labour of Europeans, was found to be a task almost impracticable, and the attention was thence drawn to discover a source, from which manual labour could be obtained, adapted to the climate, and this resource was soon found in the black population of Africa. It is not to be doubted, that many of our African settlements were formed for the purpose of procuring a supply of slaves, for the West India possessions, at the same time, the attention of others was excited by a far more innocent and brilliant prospect. It was in the beginning of the seventeenth century, that an unbounded spirit of enterprise appears to have been excited amongst the British merchants, by vague reports of an Africa El Dorado. The most flattering reports had reached Europe, of the magnitude of the gold trade carried on at Timbuctoo, and along the course of the Niger; despatches were even received from Morocco, representing its treasures, as surpassing those of Mexico and Peru, and in 1618, a company was formed in London, for the express purpose of penetrating to the country of gold, and to Timbuctoo. Exaggeration stepped in to inflame the minds of the speculators, with the enormous wealth which awaited them in the interior of Africa. The roofs of the houses were represented to be covered with plates of gold, that the bottoms of the rivers glistened with the precious metal, and the mountains had only to be excavated, to yield a profusion of the metallic treasure. From the northern part of Africa, impediments of almost an insuperable nature presented themselves, to the attainment of these great advantages; immense deserts, as yet unexplored by human foot, and the knowledge of the existence of tribes of barbarous people on the borders of them, were in themselves sufficient to daunt the spirit of adventure in those quarters, and ultimately drew the attention to the discovery of another channel, by which the golden treasures of Timbuctoo could be reached, without encountering the appalling dangers of the deserts, or the murderous intentions of the natives.
The existence of the great river Niger, had been established by the concurrent testimony of all navigators, but of its course or origin, not the slightest information had been received. The circumstance of its waters flowing from the eastward, gave rise to the conjecture, that they flowed through the interior of the continent, and emptied themselves either by the Senegal or the Gambia, into the Atlantic. It was, therefore, considered probable, that by ascending the Senegal or the Gambia, which were supposed to be merely tributary streams of the Niger, of which they formed the estuary, that Timbuctoo and the country of gold might be reached; and so strongly was this opinion impressed upon the minds of the merchants, and other adventurers, that a journey to Timbuctoo became the leading project of the day, and measures were accordingly taken to carry it into execution.
The first person sent out by the company established for exploring the Gambia, was Richard Thompson, a Barbary merchant, a man of some talent and enterprise, who sailed from the Thames in the Catherine, of 120 tons, with a cargo valued at nearly two thousand pounds sterling. The expedition of Thompson was unfortunate in the extreme, but the accounts received of his adventures and death, have been differently recited. It is certain, that Thompson ascended the Gambia as far as Tenda, a point much beyond what any European had before reached, and according to one account, he was here attacked by the Portuguese, who succeeded in making a general massacre of the English. Another account states, that he was killed in an affray with his own people, and thence has been styled the first martyr, or more properly the first victim in the cause of African discovery.
The company, however, nothing daunted by the ill success of Thompson, despatched another expedition on a larger scale, consisting of the Sion of 200 tons, and the St. John of 50, giving the command to Richard Jobson, to whom we are indebted for the first satisfactory account of the great river districts of western Africa.