The 'mammies' at once grouped themselves upon the main-hatch, as near the quarter-deck and officers' cabins as possible. I can hardly understand how Englishmen take a pleasure in 'chaffing' these grotesque beings, who usually reply with some gross, outrageous insolence. At the best they utter impertinences which, issuing from a big and barbarous mouth in a peculiar patois, pass for pleasantry amongst those who are not over-nice about the quality of that article. The tone of voice is peculiar; it is pitched in the usual savage key, modified by the twang of the chapel and by the cantilene of the Yankee—originally Puritan Lancashire. Hence a 'new chum' may hear the women talking for several days before he finds out that they are talking English. And they speak two different dialects. The first, used with strangers, is 'blackman's English,'intelligible enough despite the liberties it takes with pronunciation, grammar, and syntax. The second is a kind of 'pidgin English,' spoken amongst themselves, like Bolognese or Venetians when they have some reason for not talking Italian. One of the Gospels was printed in it; I need hardly say with what effect. The first verse runs, 'Lo vo famili va Jesus Christus, pikien. (piccaninny) va David, dissi da pikien va Abraham.' [Footnote: Da Njoe Testament, &c. Translated into the negro-English language by the missionaries of the Unitas Fratrum, &c. Printed by the British and Foreign Bible Society. London: W. McDowall, Pemberton Row, 1829.]
This 'pidgin English' runs down West Africa, except the Gold Coast and about Accra, where the natives have learnt something better. The principal affirmation is 'Enh,' pronounced nanny-goat fashion, and they always answer 'Yes' to a negative question: e.g. Q. 'Didn't you go then?' A. 'Yes' (sub-audi, I did not), thus meaning 'No.' 'Na,' apparently an interrogative in origin, is used pleonastically on all occasions: 'You na go na steamer?' 'Enty' means indeed; 'too much,' very; 'one time,' once; and the sign of the vocative, as in the Southern States of the Union, follows the, word:' Daddy, oh!' 'Mammy, oh!' 'Puss,' or 'tittle,' is a girl, perhaps a pretty girl; 'babboh,' a boy. 'Hear' is to obey or understand; 'look,' to see; 'catch,' to have; 'lib,' to live, to be, to be found, or to enjoy good health: it is applied equally to inanimates. 'Done lib' means die; 'sabby' (Portuguese) is to know; 'chop,' to eat; 'cut the cry,' to end a wake; 'jam head,' or 'go for jam head,' to take counsel; 'palaver (Port.) set,' to end a dispute; to 'cut yamgah' is to withhold payment, and to 'make nyanga' is to junket. 'Yam' is food; 'tummach' (Port.) is the metaphorical heart; 'cockerapeak' is early dawn, when the cock speaks; all writing, as well as printing, is a 'book;' a quarrel is a 'bob;' and all presents are a 'dash,' 'dassy' in Barbot, and 'dashs' in Ogilby. All bulls are cows, and when you would specify sex you say 'man-cow' or 'woman-cow.' [Footnote: For amusing specimens of amatory epistles the reader will consult Mrs. Melville and the Ten Years' Wanderings among the Ethiopians (p. 19), by my old colleague, Mr. Consul Hutchinson.]
These peculiarities, especially the grammatical, are not mere corruptions: they literally translate the African dialects now utterly forgotten by the people. And they are more interesting than would at first appear. Pure English, as a language, is too difficult in all points to spread far and wide. 'Pidgin English' is not. Already the Chinese have produced a regular lingua franca, and the Japanese have reduced it to a system of grammar. If we want only a medium of conversation, a tongue can be reduced to its simplest expression and withal remain intelligible. Thus 'me' may serve for I, me, my. Verbs want no modal change to be understood. 'Done go' and 'done eat' perfectly express went and ate. Something of the kind is still wanted, and must be supplied if we would see our language become that of the commercial world in the East as it is fast becoming in the West.
We left Bathurst more than ever convinced that the sooner we got rid of the wretched station, miscalled a colony, the better. It still supplies hides from the upper country, ivory, bees'-wax, and a little gold. The precious metal is found, they say, in the red clay hills near Macarthy's Island; but the quality is not pure, nor is the quantity sufficient to pay labour. The Mandengas, locally called 'gold strangers,' manage the traffic with the interior, probably the still mysterious range called the 'Kong Mountains.' They are armed with knives, sabres, and muskets; and for viaticum they carry rude rings of pure gold, which, I am told, are considered more valuable than the dust.
But the staple export from Bathurst—in fact, nine-tenths of the total—consists of the arachide, pistache, pea-nut, or ground-nut (Arachis hypoga). It is the best quality known to West Africa; and, beginning some half a century ago, large quantities are shipped for Marseilles, to assist in making salad-oil. Why this 'olive-oil' has not been largely manufactured in England I cannot say. Thus the French have monopolised the traffic of the Gambia; they have five houses, and the three English, Messrs. Brown, Goddard, and Topp, export their purchases in French bottoms to French ports.
Moreover, the treaty of 1845, binding the 'high contracting Powers' to refrain from territorial aggrandisement (much like forbidding a growing boy to grow), expired in 1855. Since that time, whilst we have refrained even from abating the nuisance of native wars, our very lively neighbours have annexed the Casamansa River, with the fine coffee-lands extending from the Nunez southwards to the Ponga River, and have made a doughty attempt to absorb Matacong, lying a few miles north of Sierra Leone.
Whilst English Gambia is monopolised by the French, French Gaboon is, or rather was, in English hands. For a score of years men of sense have asked, 'Why not exchange the two?' When nations so decidedly rivalistic meet, assuredly it is better to separate à l'aimable. Moreover, so long as our economical and free-trade 'fads' endure, it is highly advisable to avoid the neighbourhood of France and invidious comparisons between its policy and our non-policy, or rather impolicy.
According to the best authorities, the whole of the West African coast north of Sierra Leone might be ceded with advantage to the French on condition of our occupying the Gaboon and the regions, coast and islands, south of it, except where the land belongs to the Portuguese and the Spaniards. Some years ago an energetic effort was made to effect the exchange, but it was frustrated by missionary and sentimental considerations. Those who opposed the idea shuddered at the thought of making over to a Romanist Power (?) the poor converts of Protestantism; the peoples who had been peaceful and happy so long under the protecting aegis of Great Britain; the races whom we were bound, by an unwritten contract, not only to defend, but to civilise, to advance in the paths of progress. The colonists feared to part with the old effete possession, lest the French should oppose, as they have done in Senegal, all foreign industry—in fact, 'seal up' the Gambia. A highly respectable merchant, the late Mr. Brown, contributed not a little, by his persuasive pen, to defeat the proposed measure. And now it is to be feared that we have heard the last of this matter; our rivals have found out the high value of their once despised equatorial colony. If ever the exchange comes again to be discussed, I hope that we shall secure by treaty or purchase an exclusively British occupation of Grand Bassam and the Assini valley, mere prolongations of our Protectorate on the Gold Coast. A future page will show the reason why our imperial policy requires the measure. At present both stations are occupied by French houses or companies, who will claim indemnification, and who can in justice demand it.
We steamed out of the Ruined River-port, and left 'this old sandbank in Africa they call St. Mary's Isle,' at 11 A.M. on January 16, with a last glance at the Commissariat-buildings. Accompanied by a mosquito-fleet of canoes, each carrying two sails, we stood over the bar, sighting the heavy breakers which defend the island's northern face, and passed Cape St. Mary, gradually dimming in the distance. After Bald Cape, some sixty miles south, we ran along the long low shore, distinguished only by the mouths and islands of the Casamansa and the Cachéo rivers. Our course then led us by the huge and hideous archipelago off the delta of Jeba and the Bolola, the latter being the 'Rio Grande' of Camoens, which Portuguese editors will print with small initials, and which translators mistranslate accordingly. [Footnote: The Lusiads, v. 12. I have noticed this error in Camoens: his Life and his Lusiads (vol. i. p. 896. London: Quaritch, 1881). It was probably called Grande because it was generally believed to be the southern outlet of the Niger.] These islands are the Bijougas, or Bissagos, the older 'Biziguiches,' inhabited by the most ferocious negroes on the coast, who massacred the Portuguese and who murder all castaways. They are said to shoot one another as Malays 'run amok,' and some of their tribal customs are peculiar to themselves.
Here, about 350 miles north of Sierra Leone, was established the unfortunate Bulama colony. Its first and last governor, the redoubtable Captain Philip Beaver, R.N., has left the queerest description of the place and its people. [Footnote: African Memoranda. Baldwin, London, 1805.] Within eighteen months only six remained of 269 souls, including women and children. In 1792 the island was abandoned, despite its wealth of ground-nuts. After long 'palavering' it was again occupied by Mr. Budge, manager of Waterloo Station, Sierra Leone; but he was not a fixture there. It is now, I believe, once more deserted.