Wading up to our ankles in mud through the rank dense vegetation, and passing a primitive forge, where four swart negroes were making nails on a stone anvil with a stone hammer, their forge bellows being two sheepskins worked alternately by a man with two short sticks, as if he were playing on a pair of kettledrums—such a bellows and forge, in fact, as you may see any day on the Egyptian hieroglyphics—we caught sight of King Ja-Ja coming to meet us. A brilliant-coloured umbrella was held over his head by an attendant, and, as usual with African chiefs, he was followed by quite a crowd of evil-looking rapscallions of all ages and in all states of undress, carrying a perfect museum of obsolete arms, the staff of state, like a beadle’s mace, and other paraphernalia. Ja-Ja is a fine-looking old savage, as black as polished ebony, with hair like silver, and was in full dress to receive us—a red flannel shirt, worn as usual with the tails loose, embroidered most elaborately with the imperial French arms, and plentifully besprinkled with Ns and Es, the Napoleonic bees, and other emblems of a bygone dynasty in France. This was the king’s only garment, except the usual bandana loincloth of two uncut handkerchiefs.
Ja-Ja received his great patron the consul with much finger-snapping and other signs of friendship, and led the way to his house. The outer wall of his compound, which incloses some three acres of ground, is formed by the huts of his slaves and people, the whole place reeking with filth beyond all European imagination. In the centre of the compound stands a fetich india-rubber tree, with a ju-ju hut under it; and near it is built the house inhabited by some of Ja-Ja’s favourite wives; the palace itself being at the end of the compound, and overlooking all. It is a gaudily painted wooden building, raised on piles some eight feet high, and surrounded by a veranda. The house, a new one, is the pride of old Ja-Ja’s heart, and was constructed by negro workmen from the British settlement at Accra. It is furnished with a desperate attempt at European style; but the whole effect is absurdly incongruous with the nude or semi-nude male and female servitors, and the evident uneasiness of Ja-Ja himself amongst his civilised surroundings. In the corner of the principal parlour, which leads straight from the veranda, is a most gorgeous red and gold throne, with a liberal allowance of crowns, sceptres, orbs, and ‘King Ja-Jas’ scattered on every coign of vantage; and on its topmost pinnacle is stuck jauntily an absurd conical hat like a fool’s-cap, with enormous feather-like ears on each side of it, with which head-dress the king volunteered the statement that he had been ‘making ju-ju’—whatever that might mean.
I was trying hard, but unsuccessfully, to make out Ja-Ja’s extraordinary attempts at pigeon-English, when from the adjoining room came a female voice, which partly explained the attempts I had noticed at European furnishing.
‘O yas, sah,’ said the voice, with the comical affectation and bombastic intonation of the civilised nigger—‘O yas, sah, I’se berry seedy, sah; I’se miscalkerlated de day, sah!’ and thereupon Miss Sally Johnson—‘a Barbadian born, sah!’—sailed into the room, positively dressed in a flowing cotton gown of most approved fashion; evidently a very superior person, looking down upon poor Ja-Ja and his people with much commiseration, and not a little contempt. This lady is prime-minister, secretary of state, and Ja-Ja’s guide, philosopher, and friend in all that relates to the ways of the white man; and her experience and knowledge of all civilised matters are too great to be questioned within the realms of Opobó. Her initiative with regard to the gown, however, was not followed, for she was the only person dressed in the place, unless we so consider the eccentric harlequin suits of dye upon the children of all ages, and even upon Ja-Ja’s marriageable daughters, who were plentifully scattered about the compound. The patterns stained upon the bright sleek brown skins are in some cases very elaborate and brilliant, and had really a pleasing effect.
Ja-Ja was rather overcome with the responsibility of entertaining the consul and his friend at so short a notice, and seemed so distressed that he had no civilised ‘chop’ to offer us, that we proposed to go on to the mouth of the river and dine with the white traders in the hulks, and return on the morrow to a grand ‘chop’ or banquet at Ja-Ja’s. So the old king brought out some calabashes of mimbo or palm-wine—which tastes like soap-suds and gin—and, what was more acceptable, a bottle of very drinkable Rudesheimer, and saw us down to our boat, followed by all his rabble rout of subjects.
The next morning, in a tropical downpour, we were received at Opobó with due honour. One of the rusty old guns had been turned right side uppermost, and was being banged away at a great rate, to the imminent risk of everybody within a hundred yards of it. Ja-Ja, with a largely reinforced guard of more truculent-looking ragamuffins than ever, awaited us on the beach. Tom-toms and horns vied in their din with the shrieks, yells, and howls with which the untutored subjects of Ja-Ja honoured their monarch’s guests. In the principal room of the palace we found the table laid for our repast, and Miss Johnson was continually changing from the languid super-fine importance of the reception-room to the fierce invective and stern command of the kitchen, or back again, as circumstances required. It required several applications of severe corporal punishment to the wretched slaves—to judge from the howls we heard when any hitch occurred—before what is termed the ‘chop’ was served. Neither beef nor mutton can be reared on this pestilent coast, so the choice of viands is not large; but what was wanting in variety was made up in quantity. Kids stewed and roasted whole, great fish, and fowls enough for a ship’s company, were served up, all in great clay bowls, and all made into ‘palm-oil chop,’ the prevailing dish of the coast. This is a sort of greasy curry, made with many spices and the finer parts of the palm-oil, very trying to European stomachs unaccustomed to such delicacies. Mimbo, again, was the principal drink, and Ja-Ja pledged us all in mimbo many a time and oft; but although I can stand palm-oil or mimbo, I cannot stand palm-oil and mimbo, so contented myself with a beverage at once less soap-suddy and less intoxicating. Ancient steel knives and forks were produced with an air of proud superiority by Miss Johnson for our use; but Ja-Ja, although he made a timid attempt to use them too, soon gave it up as a dangerous experiment, and took to his fingers with a sigh of relief, handing us out the titbits, moreover, by the same medium.
The redoubtable guard flocked round the veranda, and scrambled to every point where a view of our extraordinary proceedings could be gained, and an aggregate of acres of ivories saluted each movement of the wonderful white men who can do everything. Doors and windows were darkened by grinning happy brown faces, and the crowd of servitors within the room were envied mortals indeed. Ja-Ja himself was served by the heir-apparent or heir-presumptive of his swampy kingdom; but it is wonderful how little difference there is between heirs-apparent and common clay when there is no tailor to accentuate it. The consul seeing the king in so good a temper, broached the subject of a mission-school to be established at Opobó, which Ja-Ja had always refused; but on this occasion he not only promised to allow it, with effusion, but offered to build the house at his own expense. All being arranged about the next palaver at Bonny, which Ja-Ja promised to attend personally or by proxy, we took our leave with many presents and words of good-will.
Of our tedious, sickly journey back to Bonny, I say nothing here, only that in it our brave, great-hearted consul, as true an Englishman as ever breathed, caught the deadly fever he had defied so long. The next morning, I found him yellow and delirious; and in three days he died, one more sacrifice of England’s brightest and best to the insatiable fever-fiend of the West Coast.