A desultory palaver "came up;" the soul of the meeting not being present. M. Pissot explained my wish to "take walk and make book," carefully insisting upon the fact that I came to spend, not to gain money. The grizzled senior's face, before crumpled like a "wet cloak ill laid up," expanded at these last words, and with a grunt, which plainly meant "by' m' by," he rose, and retired to drink— a call of nature which the decencies of barbarous dignity require to be answered in private. He returned accompanied by his nephew, Manbuku Prata (pronounced Pelata), the "Silver Chief Officer," as we might say, Golden Ball. The title is vulgarly written Mambuco; the Abbé Proyart prefers Ma-nboukou, or "prince who is below the Makaia in dignity." The native name of this third personage was Gidifuku. It was a gorgeous dignitary: from the poll of his night-cap protruded a dozen bristles of elephant's tail hair, to which a terminal coral gave the graceful curve of a pintado's crest, and along his ears, like the flaps of a travelling casquette, hung two dingy little mirrors of talc from Cacongo, set in clumsy frames of ruddled wood. Masses of coral encircled his neck, and the full-dress naval uniform of a French officer, with epaulettes of stupendous size, exposed a zebra'd guernsey of equivocal purity. A long black staff, studded with broad-headed brass beads, served to clear the room of the lieges, who returned as fast as they were turned out—the baton was evidently not intended to be used seriously.
But the Manbuku Prata is not a mere "Punch in a puppet show." His face expresses more intelligence and resolution than usual, and his Portuguese is not the vile article of the common trader. He means business. When other chiefs send their "sons," that is their slaves, to fight, he leads them in person—venite, non ite. The French "Emigration Libre" put 30,000 dollars into his pocket, and he still hopes against hope to ship many a cargo for the Banana factory. He has some 300 armed serviles at Chinímí and Lámbá, two villages perched like condors' nests upon hills commanding the river's northern bank, and, despite the present dearth of "business," he still owns some 100,000 francs in cloth and beads, rum and gunpowder.
As the "Silver Minister" took his seat upon the ground before the king, all removed their caps with a simultaneous grunt and performed the "Sákilá" or batta-palmas; this hand-clapping must be repeated whenever the simplest action is begun or ended by king or chief. Monteiro and Gamitto (pp. 101 et seg.) refer to the practice everywhere on the line of country which they visited: there it seems to be even a more ceremonious affair than in the Congo. The claps were successively less till they were hardly audible; after a pause five or six were given, and the last two or three were in hurried time, the while without pronouncing a word. The palaver now opened steadily with a drink: a bottle of trade "fizz" was produced for the white man, and rum for his black congeners; then the compliment of healths went all round. After this we fell to work at business. By dint of abundant wrangling and with an immense display of suspicion, natural under the circumstances, it was arranged that the king should forward me in a couple of his own canoes to Banza Nokki, the end of river navigation, as we were told, and falsely told; in my turn I was to pay goods valued about £6, at least three times the usual tariff. They consisted of fourteen red caps, as many "sashes," and fifty-two fathoms of cloth for the crew; ten Peças de lei or Chiloes for each interpreter, and two pieces for the canoes. I should have given four fathoms for each man and the same for each boat. The final scene was most gratifying to the African mind: I solemnly invested old Nessala with the grand cloak which covered his other finery; grinning in the ecstasy of vanity, he allowed his subjects to turn him round and round, as one would a lay figure, yet with profound respect, and, lastly, he retired to charm his wives.
This part of the negotiations ended with presenting some "satin stripe" and rum to the Nchinu and Manbuku Prata, and with shaking hands—a dangerous operation. The people are cleanly; they wash when rising, and before as well as after every meal; they are always bathing, yet from prince to pauper, from baby to grey beard, they are affected with a psora known by its Portuguese name, "sarnas." The Congo "fiddle" appears first between the articulations of the fingers, and bleaches the hands and wrists as if it were leprosy. Yet I did not see a single case of true lepra Arabum, or its modifications, the huge Barbadoes leg (elephantiasis), and the sarcoma scrotale and sarcocele of Zanzibar and East Africa. From the extremities the gale extends over the body, especially the shins, and the people, who appear in the perpetual practice of scalpturigo, attribute it to the immoderate use of palm wine. I observed, however, that Europeans, in the river, who avoid the liquor, are hardly ever free from this foul blood-poison, and a jar of sulphur mixture is a common article upon the table. Hydrocele is not unfrequent, but hardly so general as in the Eastern Island; one manner of white man, a half caste from Macáo, was suffering with serpigo, and boasted of it.
All predicted to me a similar fate from the "botch of Congo," but happily I escaped. Indeed, throughout the West African Coast, travellers risk "craw-craw," a foul form of the disease, seen on board the African steamers. Kru-men touching the rails of the companion ladders, have communicated it to passengers, and these to their wives and families.
The town was neat and clean as the people. The houses were built upon raised platforms, and in the little fenced fields the Cajanus Indicus vetch was conspicuous. In Hindostani it is called Thur, or Doll-plant, by the Eastern Arab Turiyan, in Kisawahili Mbarazi, in Angola voando (Merolla's Ouuanda), and in the Brazil Guandu.[9] The people had lost their fear, and brought their exomphalous little children, who resembled salmon fry in the matter of umbilical vesicles, to be patted by the white man; a process which caused violent screams and in some cases nearly induced convulsions— the mothers seemed to enjoy the horror displayed by their hopefuls. There is little beauty amongst the women, and settled Europeans prefer Cabinda girls. The latter have perhaps the most wiry and wig-like hair on the whole West African coast, where all hair is more or less wiry and wig- like. Cloth was less abundant in the village than a smear of red; the bosom even after marriage was unveiled, and the rule of fashion was shown by binding it tightly down. The rich wore armlets and leglets of staircase rods, brass and copper, like the metal gaiters and gauntlets of the Gaboon River. The only remarkable object was the Quesango, a wooden effigy of a man placed in the middle of the settlement: Battel mentions it amongst the "Gagas or Guides," and Barbot terms it "Likoku Mokisi." Three faint hurrahs, a feeble African echo of England like the "hoch!" of Vienna, and the discharge of a four- pounder were our parting honours.
We returned viâ the gateway between the two islets. On the south- eastern flank of Chisalla is a dwarf precipice called Mbondo la Zumba and, according to the interpreters, it is the Lovers' Leap of Tuckey. But its office must not be confounded with that attributed to the sinister-looking scaur of Leucadia; here the erring wives of the Kings of Boma and their paramours found a Bosphorus. The Commander of the First Congo Expedition applies the name to a hanging rock on the northern shore, about eighteen miles higher up stream. A portentous current soon swept us past Père la Chaise, and shortly after noon we were comfortably at breakfast with Sr. Pereira.
During the last night we had been kept awake by the drumming and fifing, singing and shouting, weeping and howling, pulling at accordions and striking the monotonous Shingungo. Merolla names this cymbal Longa, and describes it justly as two iron bells joined by an arched bar: I found it upon the Tanganyika Lake, and suffered severely from its monotonous horrors. Monteiro and Gamitto (p. 232) give an illustration of what is known in the Cazembe's country as "Gomati:" The Mchua or gong-gong of Ashanti has a wooden handle connecting the cones. Our palhabote had brought up the chief Mashel's bier, and to-day we have the satisfaction of seeing it landed. A kind of palanquin, covered with crimson cloth and tinsel gold like a Bombay "Tabút," it had three horns or prominences, two capped with empty black bottles, and the central bearing the deceased's helmet; it was a fancy article, which might have fitted him of Gath, with a terrific plume and the spoils of three horses in the sanguine hues of war. Although eight feet long by five broad, the coffin was said to be quite full. The immense respect which the Congoese bear to their rulers, dead as well as alive, prevented my verifying the accounts of the slave dealers. I knew that the chief who had died at Kinsembo, had been dried on a bamboo scaffolding over a slow fire, and lay in state for some weeks in flannel stockings and a bale of baize, but these regions abound in local variations of custom. Some declared, as we find in Proyart, that the corpse had been mummified by the rude process of smoking; others that it had been exposed for some days to the open air, the relatives sitting round to keep off the flies till preliminarily bandaged. According to Barbot (iii. 23), the people of Fetu on the Gold Coast and the men of Benin used to toast the corpse on a wooden gridiron; and the Vei tribe, like the Congoese, still fumigate their dead bodies till they become like dried hams. This rude form of the Egyptian rite is known to East as well as to West Africa: Kimera, late King of Uganda, was placed upon a board covering the mouth of a huge earthern pot heated from below.
Instances are known of bodies in the Congo region remaining a year or two above ground till the requisite quantity of fine stuffs has been procured—the larger the roll the greater the dignity, and sometimes the hut must be pulled down before it can be removed. Here, as on the Gold Coast, we find the Jewish practice recorded by Josephus of converting the tomb into a treasury; in the case of Mashel some £600 in gold and silver, besides cloth, beads, and ornaments, shared, they say, his fate. The missionaries vainly fought against these customs, which are evidently of sentimental origin—
"Now bring the last sad gifts, with these
The last lament be said;
Let all that pleased and still may please
Be buried with the dead."