In morals too these men are as peculiar as they are contradictory. They work, and work well: many old Coasters prefer them to all other tribes. They are at their best in boats or on board ship, especially ships of war, where they are disciplined. For carrying burdens, or working in the bush, they are by no means so valuable and yet, as will be seen, they are highly thought of by some miners in the Gold Mines. In the house they are at their worst; and they are a nuisance to camp, noisy and unclean. Their chief faults are lying and thieving; they are also apt to desert, to grow discontented, to presume, and ever to ask for more. These qualities are admirably developed in our headman, Toby Johnson, and his gang. I should not travel again with Krumen on the Gold Coast.
Another of their remarkable characteristics is the fine union of the quarrelsome with the cowardly. Like the Wányamwezi of East-Central Africa, they will fight amongst themselves, and fight furiously; but they feel no shame in telling their employers that they sell their labour, not their lives; that man can die but once; that heads never grow again, and that to battling they prefer going back to 'we country.' If a ship take fire all plunge overboard like seals, and the sound of a gun in the bush makes them run like hares. Yet an English officer actually proposed to recruit a force of these recreants for field-service in Ashanti. He probably confounded them with the Wásawahili, the 'Seedy-boys' of the east coast, a race which some day will prove useful when the Sepoy mutiny shall repeat itself, or if the difficulties in Egypt be prolonged. A few thousands of these sturdy fellows would put to flight an army of hen-hearted Hindús or Hindís.
We left Cape Palmas at 5 P.M., and duly respected the five-fathom deep 'Athole Rock,' so called from the frigate which first made its acquaintance. The third victim was the B. and A. s.s. Gambia (Captain Hamilton). [Footnote: Curiously enough a steamer carrying another fine of palm-oil has come to grief, owing, as usual, to imperfect charts.] She was carrying home part of the 400 puncheons exacted, after the blockade of 1876, by way of fine, from Gelelé, King of Dahome, by the senior naval officer, Captain Sullivan, the Dhow-chaser. The Juju-men naturally declared that their magic brought her to such notable grief.
We then passed Grand Tabú (Tabou), in the middle of the bay formed by Point Tahou—a coast better known fifty years ago than it is now. The only white resident is Mr. Julio, who has led a rather accidented life. A native of St. Helena, he fought for the Northerners in the American war, and proved himself a first-rate rifle-shot. He traded on the Congo, and travelled like a native far in the interior. Now he has married a wife from Cape Palmas, and is the leading man at Tabú.
This place, again, is a favourite labour-market. The return of the Krumen repeats the spectacles of Sinou, and war being here chronic, the canoe-men come off armed with guns, swords, and matchets. After a frightful storm of tongues, and much bustle but no work, the impatient steamer begins to waggle her screw; powder-kegs and dwarf boxes are tossed overboard, and every attention is bestowed upon them; whilst a boy or two is left behind, either to swim ashore or to find a 'watery grave.'
Presently we sighted the bar and breakers that garnish the mouth of the Cavally (Anglicè Cawally) River: the name is properly Cavallo, because it lies fourteen miles, riding-distance, from Cape Palmas. Here Bishop Payne had his head-quarters, and his branch missions extended sixty miles up-stream. On the left bank, some fifteen or sixteen miles from the embochure, resides the 'Grand Devil,' equivalent to the Great God, of Krúland. The place is described as a large caverned rock, where a mysterious 'Suffing' (something) answers, through an interpreter, any questions in any tongue, even English, receiving, in return for the revelations, offerings of beads, leaf-tobacco, and cattle, which are mysteriously removed. The oracle is doubtless worked by some sturdy knave, a 'demon-doctor,' as the missionaries call him, who laughs at the beards of his implicitly-believing dupes. A tree growing near the stream represents 'Lot's wife's pillar;' some sceptical and Voltairian black was punished for impious curiosity by being thus 'translated.' Skippers who treated their 'boys' kindly were allowed, a score of years ago, to visit the place, and to join in the ceremonies, even as most of the Old Calabar traders now belong to the 'Egbo mystery.' But of late years a village called Hidya, with land on both banks, forbids passage. Moreover, Krumen are not hospitable. Masters and men, cast ashore upon a coast which they have visited for years to hire hands, are stripped, beaten, and even tortured by women as well as by men. The savages have evidently not learnt much by a century's intercourse with Europeans.
Leaving Cavally, the last place where Kruboys can be shipped, we coasted along the fiery sands snowed over with surf and set in the glorious leek-green growth that distinguishes the old Ivory Coast. The great Gulf Stream which, bifurcating at the Azores, sweeps southwards with easting, now sets in our favour; it is, however, partly a wind-current, and here it often flows to the west even in winter. The ever-rolling seas off this 'Bristol coast' are almost clear of reef and shoal, and the only storms are tornadoes, which rarely blow except from the land: from the ocean they are exceedingly dangerous. Such conditions probably suggested the Bristol barque trade, which still flourishes between Cape Palmas and Grand Bassam. A modern remnant of the old Bristolian merchant-adventurers, it was established for slaving purposes during the last century by Mr. Henry King, maintained by his sons, Richard who hated men-of-war, and William who preferred science, and it is kept up by his grandsons for legitimate trade.
The ships—barques and brigs—numbering about twenty-five, are neat, clean, trim craft, no longer coppered perpendicularly [Footnote: Still occurs sometimes: the idea is that as they roll more than they sail less strain is brought on the seams of the copper.] instead of horizontally after the older fashion. Skippers and crews are well paid for the voyage, which lasts from a year to fifteen months. The floating warehouses anchor off the coast where it lacks factories, and pick up the waifs and strays of cam-wood, palm-oil, and kernels, the peculiar export of the Gold Coast: at times a tusk or a little gold-dust finds its way on board. The trader must be careful in buying the latter. Not only have the negroes falsified it since the days of Bosnian, but now it is made in Birmingham. This false dust resists nitric acid, yet is easily told by weight and bulk; it blows away too with the breath, whilst the true does not. Again, the skippers have to beware of 'fetish gold,' mostly in the shape of broken-up ornaments of inferior ley.
The Bristolians preserve the old 'round trade,' and barter native produce against cloth and beads, rum and gin, salt, tobacco, and gunpowder. These ship-shops send home their exports by the mail-steamers, and vary their monotonous days by visits on board. They sail home when the cargoes are sold, each vessel making up her own accounts and leaving 'trust,' but no debts. The life must be like making one's home in a lighthouse, plus an eternal roll; and the line gives a weary time to the mail-steamers, as these never know exactly where the Bristol barques will be found.
After hugging the coast and prospecting Biribi, we sighted the Drewins, whose natives are a powerful and spirited race, equally accustomed to either element. There are no better canoe-men on the coast. They ship only on board the Bristol ships, and they have more than once flogged a cruel skipper caught ashore. Passing King George's Town, we halted (11 A.M., January 23) opposite the river and settlement of Fresco, where two barques and a cutter were awaiting supplies. Fresco-land is beautified by perpendicular red cliffs, and the fine broad beach is feathered with cocoas which suggest kopra—the dried meat of the split kernel. At 3.15 P.M. came Grand Lahou—Bosman's Cabo La Hoe—180 miles from Cape Palmas. The native settlements of nut-brown huts in the clearings of thick forests resemble heaps of withered leaves. The French have re-occupied a fort twenty miles up the pretty barless river, the outlet of a great lagoon; it was abandoned during the Prusso-Gallic war. Nine Bristol barques were lying off Three Towns, a place not upon the chart, and at Half-Jack, 205 miles from the Cape. Here we anchored and rolled heavily through the night, a regular seesaw of head and heels. Seamen have prejudices about ships, pronouncing some steady and others 'uncommon lively.' I find them under most circumstances 'much of a muchness.'