We returned to the s.s. Senegal anything but edified; and there another displeasure awaited us. Our gallant captain must have known that he could not load and depart that day. Yet, diplomatically mysterious, he would not say so. Consequently we missed a visit to Cape St. Mary, the breezy cliff of which I retain the most agreeable memory. The scenery had appeared to me positively beautiful after the foul swamps of St. Mary's Island;—stubbles of Guinea-corn, loved by quails; a velvety expanse of green grass sloping inland, with here and there a goodly palmyra grander than the columns of Ba'albek; palms necklaced with wine-calabashes, and a grove of baobab and other forest trees cabled with the most picturesque llianas, where birds of gorgeous plume sit and sing. We could easily have hired hammocks or horses, or, these failing, have walked the distance, six or seven miles. True, Oyster Creek, the shallow western outlet of the Gambia, has still a ferry: a bridge was lately built, but it fell before it was finished. It would, however, have been pleasurable to pass a night away from the fever-haunts of Bathurst.
During one of my many visits to Bathurst I resolved to inspect old Fort James: one thirsts for a bit of antiquity in these African lands, so bare of all but modern ruins. Like Bance Island, further south, it is the parent of the modern settlement; and so far it has the 'charm of origin.' My companion was Captain Philippi, then well known at Lagos: the last time we met was unexpectedly at Solingen. A boat with four Krumen was easily found; but our friends warned us that the ascensus would be easy and the descensus the reverse; the latter has sometimes taken a day and a night.
The Gambia River here opens its mouth directly to the north; and, after a great elbow, assumes its normal east-west course. We ran before a nine-knot breeze, and shortly before noon, after two hours' southing, we were off the half-way house, reef-girt Dog Island, and Dog Point, in the Barra country. The dull green stream sparkled in the sun, and the fringe of mangroves appeared deciduous: some trees were bare, as if dead; others were clothed with bright foliage. Presently we passed British Albreda, where our territory now ends. This small place has made a fuss in its day. It was founded by the French in 1700 as a dependency of Goree, and it carried on a slave-trade highly detrimental to English interests. In 1783 the owners had abandoned all right to its occupation, and in 1858 they ceded it to their English rivals. The landing is bad, especially when the miry ebb-tide is out. The old village of the French company was reduced when we visited it to a few huts and two whitewashed and red-roofed houses, occupied by a Frenchwoman in native dress and by an English subject, Mr. Hughes. The latter did the honours of the place and showed us the only 'punkah' at that time known to the West African coast.
From Dog Island we bent to the east and passed the Jilifri or Grilofre village, in the Badibu country, a place well known during the days of Park. Then bending south-east, after a total of four hours, covering seventeen to eighteen knots, we landed upon James Island, the site of Fort James. The scrap of ground has a history. First the Portuguese here built a factory: Captain Jobson found this fact to his cost when (1621) he sailed up in search of gold to Satico, then the last point of navigation. A few words in the native dialects—'alcalde,' for instance—preserve the memory of the earliest owners. It passed alternately into the hands of the Dutch, French, and English, who exchanged some shrewd blows upon the matter of possession. In 1695 it was destroyed by M. de Gennes, and was rebuilt by the Royal African Company, which had monopolised the traffic. It fell again in 1702 to Capitaine de la Roque, and cost the conqueror his life. In 1709 it was attacked for the third time by M. Parent, commanding four privateering frigates. About 1730 we have from Mr. Superintendent Francis Moore a notice of it amongst the Company's establishments on the Gambia River. The island is described as being situated in mid-stream, here three to four miles broad, thirty miles from the mouth: the extent was 200 yards long by fifty broad. The factory had a governor and a deputy-governor, two officers, eight factors, thirteen writers, two inferior attendants, and thirty-two negro servants. The force consisted of a company of soldiers, besides armed sloops and shallops. Compare the same with our starved establishment at the Ruined River-port! In other parts of the Gambia valley eight subordinate comptoirs, including Jilifri or Gilofre, traded for hides and bees'-wax, ivory, slaves, and gold. When Mungo Park travelled (1795-97) the opening of the European trade had reduced its exports to a gross value of 20,000l., in three ships voyaging annually. After the African Company was abolished (1820) it passed over to the Crown, and the station was transferred to its graveyard, Sainte-Marie de Bathurst. Barbot [Footnote: Lib. i. chap. vii., A Description of the Coasts of North and South Guinea, &c., in 1700. Printed in Churchill's Collection. Also his Supplement, ibid. pp. 426-26.] tells us that Fort James was founded (1664), under the names of the Duke of York and the Royal African Company, by Commodore Holmes when expeditioning against the Hollanders in North and South Guinea. It was the head-centre of trade and its principal defence. But, he says, the occupants were obliged to fetch fresh water from either bank. Had the cistern and the powder-magazine been bomb-proof, and drink as well as meat stored quant. suff., the fort would have been 'in a manner impregnable, if well defended by a suitable garrison.' The latter in his day consisted of sixty to seventy whites, besides 'Gromettoes,' free black sepoys.
This quasi-venerable site is a little holm a hundred yards in diameter, somewhat larger than the many which line the river's western bank. We found its stony shingle glazed with a light-green sediment, which forbade bathing and which suggested fever. The material is conglomerate, fine and coarse, in an iron-reddened matrix; hence old writers call it a 'sort of gravelly rock, a little above water.' Salsolaceæ tapestry the shore, and fig-trees and young calabashes spring from the stone: the ground is strewn with white shells, tiles, bricks and iridescent bottles—the invariable concomitants and memorials of civilisation. The masonry, lime and ashlar, is excellent, but time and the portentous growth of the tropics have cracked and fissured the walls. Masses of masonry are fallen, and others are assuming the needle-shape. The great quadrangle had lozenge-shaped bastions at each end, then lined with good brick-work: the outliers, which run round the river-holm, were three horseshoe redoubts 'with batteries along the palisades from one to another.' Four old iron guns remained out of a total of sixty to seventy pieces. The features were those of the ancient slave-barracoon —dwelling-houses, tanks and cisterns, magazines, stores, and powder-room, all broken by the treasure-hunter.
The return to Bathurst was a bitter draught. We had wind and water against us, and the thick mist prevented our taking bearings. Hungry, thirsty, weary, cross, and cramped, we reached the steamer at 5 A.M., and slept spitefully as long as we could.
The last displeasure of my latest visit to Bathurst was the crowd of native passengers, daddy, mammy, and piccaninny, embarking for Sierra Leone, and the host of friends that came to bid them good-bye. They did not fail to abscond with M. Colonna's pet terrier and with the steward's potatoes: no surveillance can keep this long-fingered lot from picking and stealing. It is a political as well as a social mistake to take negro first-class passengers. A ruling race cannot be too particular in such matters, and the white man's position on the Coast would be improved were the black man kept in his proper place. A kind of first-class second-class might be invented for them. Nothing less pleasant than their society. The stewards have neglected to serve soup to some negro, who at every meal has edged himself higher up the table, and whose conversation consists of whispering into the ear of a black neighbour, with an occasional guffaw like that of the 'laughing jackass.'
'I say, daddee, I want my soop. All de passenger he drink 'im soop; me no drink my soop. What he mean dis palaver?'
The sentence ends in a scream; the steward smiles, and the first-class resumes—
'Ah, you larf. And what for you larf? I no larf, I no drinkee soop!'