Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2
by
Richard F. Burton
Part 3 out of 5
diary is, "Awaking extremely unwell, I directly swallowed five
grains of calomel"--a man worn out by work and sleeping in the
open air! The "Congo" sloop was moored in a reach surrounded by
hills, instead of being anchored in mid stream where the current
of water creates a current of air; those left behind in her died
of palm wine, of visits from native women, and of exposure to the
sun by day and to the nightly dews. On the line of march the
unfortunate marines wore pigtails and cocked hats; stocks and
cross-belts; tight-fitting, short-waisted red coats, and knee-
breeches with boots or spatter-dashes--even the stout Lord Clyde
in his latest days used to recall the miseries of his march to
Margate, and declare that the horrid dress gave him more pain
than anything he afterwards endured in a life-time of marching.
None seemed capable of calculating what amount of fatigue and
privation the European system is able to support in the tropics.
And thus they perished, sometimes of violent bilious remittents,
more often of utter weariness and starvation. Peace to their
manes!--they did their best, and "angels can no more." They
played for high stakes, existence against fame--
"But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorred shears,
And slits the thin-spun life."
"The Narrative of an Expedition to Explore the River Zaire"
(London, John Murray, 1818), published by permission of the Lords
Commissioners of the Admiralty, was necessarily a posthumous
work. The Introduction of eighty-two pages and the General
Observations (fifty-three pages) are by anonymous hands; follow
Captain Tuckey's Narrative, Professor Smith's Journal, and an
Appendix with seven items; 1, vocabularies of the Malemba and
Embomma (Fiote or Congo) languages; 2, 3, and 4, Zoology; 5,
Botany; 6, Geology; and 7, Hydrography. The most valuable is No.
5, an admirable paper entitled "Observations, Systematical and
Geographical, on Professor Christian Smith's Collection of Plants
from the Vicinity of the River Congo, by Robert Brown, F.R.S."
The "Geology," by Mr. Charles Konig, of the British Museum, is
based upon very scanty materials. The folio must not be severely
criticized; had the writers lived, they might have worked up
their unfinished logs into interesting and instructive matter.
But evidently they had not prepared themselves for the work; no
one knew the periods of rain at the equator; there was no
linguist to avoid mistakes in the vocabulary; moreover, Professor
Smith's notes, being kept in small and ill-formed Danish
characters, caused such misprints as "poppies" for papaws. Some
few of the mistakes should be noticed for the benefit of
students. The expedition appears to have confused Săo Salvador,
the capital, with St. Antonio placed seven days from the river
mouth (p. 277). It calls Santo Antăo (Cape Verds) "San Antonio;"
the Ilha das Rôlas (of turtle doves) Rolle's Island; "morfil"
bristles of the elephant's tail, and manafili ivory, both being
from the Portuguese marfim; moudela for mondele or mondelle, a
white man; malava, "presents," for mulavu (s. s. as msámbá, not
maluvi, Douville), palm wine, which in the form mulavu m'putu
(Portuguese) applies to wine and spirits. We have also "Leimba"
for Lyámba or Dyámba (Cannabis saliva); "Macasso, a nut chewed by
great people only," for Makazo, the bean of the Kola (Sterculia);
"Hyphća" and "Dom" for Palmyra Flabelliformis, whose "fruit hangs
down in bunched clusters;" "Raphia" for Raphia Vinifera, commonly
called the bamboo or wine palm, and "casa," a purgative legumen,
for nkasa, "sass," or poison wood, identified with the red-water
tree of Sierra Leone, the erythropheum of Professor Afzelius, of
the order Cćalpineae, which gave a name to the Brazil.
The next important visit to the Congo River was paid by Captain
Owen's Expedition, when homeward bound in 1826. The "Leven" and
"Barracouta" surveyed the stream twenty-five miles from its mouth
during a week, beginning with January 1, just after the highest
flood. At thirteen miles out at sea the water was fresh and of a
dingy red; it fermented and remained in a highly putrescent state
for some days, tarnishing silver; kept for four months, it became
perfectly clear and colourless, without depositing any sediment.
This reminds us of the changing colours, green, red and milky
white, to which the Nile and all great African rivers that flood
periodically are subject.[FN#15]
The next traveller that deserves notice is the unfortunate
Douville,[FN#16] through whose tissue of imposture runs a golden
thread of truth. As his first journey, occupying nearly two of
the three volumes, was probably confined to the Valley of the
Cuanza River, so his second, extending beyond the equator, and to
a meridian 25° east of Paris, becomes fable as he leaves the
course of the Loge Stream. Yet, although he begins by doubting
that the Coango and the Zaire are the same waters, he ends by
recognizing the fact, and his map justly lays down the Fleuve
Couango dit Zaire ŕ son embouchure. Whether the tale of the
mulatto surveyor be fact or not is of little matter: the
adventurer had an evident inkling of the truth.
A flood of side light is thrown upon the head waters of the Congo
River by Dr. Livingstone's first memorable journey (1852-56),
across Africa, and by the more dubious notices of his third
expedition The Introduction (p. xviii.) to Captain Tuckey's
narrative had concluded from the fact of the highest flood being
in March, and the lowest level about the end of August, that at
least one branch of the river must pass through some portion of
the northern hemisphere. The general observations affixed to
"Narrative" (p. 346), contain these words: "If the rise of the
Zaire had proceeded from rains to the southward of the Line,
swelling the tributary streams and pouring in mountain torrents
the waters into the main channel, the rise would have been sudden
and impetuous." Of course the writer had recourse to the "Lakes
of Wangara," in north latitude 12° to 15°: that solution of the
difficulty belonged inevitably to his day. Captain Tuckey (p.
178) learned, at Mavunda, that ten days of canoeing would take
him beyond all the rapids to a large sandy islet which makes two
channels, one to the north-west, the other to the north-east. In
the latter there is a fall above which canoes are procurable:
twenty days higher up the river issues, by many small streams,
from a great marsh or lake of mud.[FN#17] Again, a private letter
written from the "Yellala" (p. 343) declares that "the Zaire
would be found to issue from a lake or a chain of lakes
considerably to the north of the Line; and, so far from the low
state of the river in July and August militating against the
hypothesis, it gives additional weight, provided the river swell
in early September"--which it did. In his "Journal" (p. 224), we
find a memorandum, written as it were with a dying hand,
"Hypothesis confirmed. The water..."
On February 24, 1854, Dr. Livingstone, after leaving what he
calls the "Dilolo Lake," found on an almost level plain, some
4,000 to 5,000 feet high and then flooded after rains, a great
water parting between the eastern and the western continental
shores. I have carefully considered the strictures upon this
subject by the author of "Dr. Livingstone's Errors" (p. 101), and
have come to the conclusion that the explorer was too experienced
to make the mistakes attributed to him by the cabinet geographer.
The translation "despair" for "bitterness" (of the fish?) and the
reference to Noah's Deluge may be little touches ad captandum;
but the Kibundo or Angolan tongue certainly has a dental though
it lacks a cerebral d.
The easterly flow was here represented by the Leeba or upper
course of the "Leeambye," the "Diambege of Ladislaus Magyar, that
great northern and north-western course of the Zambeze across
which older geographers had thrown a dam of lofty mountains,
where the Mosi-wa-tunya cataract was afterwards discovered. The
opposite versant flowing to the north was the Kasai or Kasye
(Livingstone), the Casais of the Pombeiros, the Casati of
Douville, the Casasi and Casézi of M. Cooley (who derives it from
Casezi, a priest, the corrupted Arabic Kissis ); the Kassabi
(Casabi) of Beke, the Cassaby of Monteiro and Gamitto (p. 494),
and the Kassaby or Cassay of Valdez. Its head water is afterwards
called by the explorer Lomame and Loke, possibly for Lu-oke,
because it drains the highlands of Mossamba and the district of
Ji-oke, also called Ki-oke, Kiboke, and by the Portuguese
"Quiboque." The stream is described as being one hundred yards
broad, running through a deep green glen like the Clyde. The
people attested its length by asserting, in true African style,
"If you sail along it for months, you will turn without seeing
the end of it:" European geographers apparently will not
understand that this declaration shows only the ignorance of the
natives concerning everything a few miles beyond their homes. The
explorer (February 27,1854) places the ford in south latitude 11°
15' 47", and his map shows east longitude (G.), 21° 40' 30",
about 7° 30' (=450 direct geographical miles) from Novo Redondo
on the Western Coast. He dots its rise in the "Balobale country,"
south latitude 12° to 13°, and east longitude 19° to 20°.
Pursuing his course, Dr. Livingstone (March 30) first sighted the
Quango (Coango) as it emerged from the dark jungles of Londa, a
giant Clyde, some 350 yards broad, flowing down an enormous
valley of denudation. He reached it on April, 1854, in south
latitude 9° 53', and east longitude (G.) 18° 37', about 300
geographical linear miles from the Atlantic. Three days to the
west lies the easternmost station of Angola, Cassange: no
Portuguese lives, or rather then lived, beyond the Coango Valley.
The settlers informed him that eight days' or about 100 miles'
march south of this position, the sources are to be found in the
"Mosamba Range" of the Basongo country; this would place them in
about south latitude 12° to 13° and east longitude (G.) 18° to
19°.
The heights are also called in Benguela Nanos, Nannos, or Nhanos
(highlands);[FN#18] and in our latest maps they are made to
discharge from their seaward face the Coango and Cuanza to the
west and north, the Kasai to the north-east and possibly to the
Congo, the Cunene south-westwards to the Atlantic, and southwards
the Kubango, whose destination is still doubtful. Dr. Charles
Beke ("Athenćum," No. 2206, February 5, 1870), judged from
various considerations that the "Kassábi" rising in the primeval
forests of Olo-vihenda, was the "great hydrophylacium of the
continent of Africa, the central point of division between the
waters flowing to the Mediterranean, to the Atlantic, and to the
Indian Ocean"--in fact, the head-water of the Nile. I believe,
however, that our subsequent information made my late friend
abandon this theory.
On his return march to Linyanti, Dr. Livingstone, who was no
longer incapacitated by sickness and fatigue, perceived that all
the western feeders of the "Kasa" flow first from the western
side towards the centre of the continent, then gradually turn
with the main stream itself to the north, and "after the
confluence of the Kasai with the Quango, an immense body of water
collected from all these branches, finds its way out of the
country by means of the River Congo or Zaire, on the Western
Coast" (chap. xxii.). He adds: "There is but one opinion among
the Balonda respecting the Kasai and the Quango. They invariably
describe the Kasai as receiving the Quango, and beyond the
confluence assuming the name of Zairé or Zerézeré. And thus he
verifies the tradition of the Portuguese, who always speak of the
Casais and the Coango as "suppôsto Congo." It is regrettable that
Dr. Livingstone has not been more explicit upon the native names.
The Balonda could hardly have heard of the semi-European term
Zaire, which is utterly unknown even at the Yellalas. On the
other hand, it must be borne in mind that Maxwell was informed by
native travellers that the river 600 miles up country was still
called "Enzaddi," and perhaps the explorer merely intends Zairé
to explain Zerézeré. It is hardly necessary to notice Douville's
assertion (ii. 372).
Meanwhile the late Ladislaus Magyar, who had previously informed
the Benguelan Government that the Casais was reported to fall
into the Indian Ocean at some unknown place, in 1851 followed
this great artery lower than any known traveller. He heard that,
beyond his furthest exploration point (about south latitude 6°
30,[FN#19] and east longitude, G. 22°), it pursues a north-
easterly direction and, widening several miles, it raises waves
which are dangerous to canoes. The waters continue to be sweet
and fall into a lake variously called Mouro or Moura (Moráve or
Marávi?), Uhanja or Uhenje (Nyanza?), which is suspected to be
the Urenge or Ulenge, of which Livingstone heard in about south
latitude 3°, and east longitude (G.) 26°. The Hungarian traveller
naturally identified it with the mythical Lake Nyassa which has
done such portentous mischief in a day now gone by. Ladislaus
Magyar also states:[FN#20] "The Congo rises, I have convinced
myself by reports, in the swamp named Inhan-ha occupying the high
plateau of Moluwa, in the lands of the Luba, uniting with the
many streams of this region; at a distance of about five days
from the source it becomes a deep though narrow river, which
flows to the westward, through a level country covered with dense
forests, whose frequent streams coming from the north (?) and
south are taken up "by the river; then it bends north-westward
under the name of Kuango." Here we find the drowned lands, the
"sponges" of Livingstone, who, however, placed the sources much
further to the south-east.
Dr. Livingstone's third and last expedition, which began on March
24, 1866, and which ended (1873) with fatal fitness in the swamps
of the Bangweolo, suggests a new and more distant derivation for
the mighty Congo. After travelling from the Rovuma River to Lake
Nyassa, the great explorer in l867-8 came upon an "earthern
mound," west of Lake Bangweolo or Bemba, in about south latitude
11°; and here he places the sources of the Nile, where
geographers have agreed provisionally to place the sources of the
Congo. Already, in 1518, Fernandez de Enciso (Suma de
Geographia), the "theoretical discoverer" of Kilimanjaro, was
told by the Congoese that their river rises in high mountains,
from which another great stream flows in an opposite direction--
but this might apply to more watersheds than one. The subject is
treated at considerable length in an article by Dr. E.
Behm,[FN#21] certain of whose remarks I shall notice at the end
of this chapter.
The article proves hypsometrically that the Lualaba, in which the
explorer found the head waters of the Egyptian river, cannot feed
the Tanganyika nor the Lake Nzige (N'zíghe, Mwutan, Chowambe, or
Albert Nyanza Lake), nor even the Bahr el Ghazal, as was once
suspected. From the latter, indeed, it is barred by the water
parting of the Welle, the "Babura" of Jules Poncet (1860), in the
land of the Monbuttú; whose system the later explorer, Dr.
Schweinfurth, is disposed to connect with the Shari.
Hydrometrically considered, the Lualaba, which at Nyangwe, the
most northerly point explored by Dr. Livingstone (1870), rolls a
flood of 124,000 cubic feet per second in the dry season, cannot
be connected either with the Welle (5,100 cubic feet), nor with
the Bahr el Ghazal (3,042 to 6,500 cubic feet), nor with the Nile
below the mouth of the Bahr el Ghazal (11,330); nor with the
Shari (67,500); nor with the shallow Ogobe, through its main
forks the Rembo Okanda and the Rembo Nguye.
But the Lualaba may issue through the Congo. The former is made
one of the four streams ferried over by those travelling from the
Cazembe to the Mwata ya Nvo, and Dr. de Lacarda[FN#22] records it
as the "Guarava," probably a dialectic form of Lualava. It is the
Luapula of the "Geographer of N'yassi," who, with his usual
felicity and boldness of conjecture (p. 38), bends it eastward,
and discharges it into his mythical Central Sea.
Dr. Behm greatly under-estimates the Congo when he assigns to it
only 1,800,000 cubic feet per second. He makes the great artery
begin to rise in November instead of September and decrease in
April, without noticing the March-June freshets, reported by all
the natives to measure about one-third of the autumnal floods.
His elements are taken from Tuckey, who found off the "Diamond
Rock" a velocity of 3.50 knots an hour, and from Vidal's Chart,
showing 9,000 English feet or 1.50 nautical miles in a Thalweg
fifty fathoms deep. Thus he assumes only two nautical miles for
the current, or sixty inches per second, which must be
considerably increased, and an average depth of ten fathoms,
which again is too little. For 1,800,000 cubic feet of water per
second, which Tuckey made 2,000,000, we may safely read
2,500,000.
Dr. Livingstone himself was haunted by the idea that he was
exploring the Upper Congo, not the Nile. From a Portuguese
subordinate he "learned that the Luapula went to Angola." He asks
with some truth, "Who would care to risk being put into a
cannibal pot, and be converted into blackman for anything less
than the grand old Nile?" And the late Sir Roderick I. Murchison,
whose geographical forecasts were sometimes remarkable, suspected
long ago[FN#23] that his "illustrious friend" would follow the
drainage of the country to the western coast.
The "extraordinary quiet rise of the periodical flood," proved by
the first expedition, argues that the Congo "issues from the
gradual overflowing of a lake or a chain of lakes." The increment
in the lower bed, only eight to twelve feet where the Nile and
the Ganges rise thirty and the Binuwe fifty, would also suggest
that it is provided with many large reservoirs. The Introduction
to Tuckey's "Narrative" (p. xviii.) assumes that the highest
water is in March, but he entered the stream only on July 6, and
the expedition ended in mid-October. The best informants assured
me that from March till June there are heavy freshets. As in the
Ogobe, the flood begins in early September, somewhat preceding
that of the Lualaba, but, unlike the former stream, it attains
its highest in November and December, and it gradually subsides
from the end of June till August, about which time the water is
lowest.
In the middle region of the Tanganyika, I found the rainy season
lasting from September to May. At Lake Liemba, the south-eastern
projection of the Tanganyika, Dr. Livingstone in 1867 saw no rain
from May 12 to September, and in Many-wema-land, west of the
central Tanganyika, about south latitude 5°, the wet season began
in November, and continued till July with intervals, marking the
passage of the belt of calms. But, for the Congo to rise in
September, we must assume the rains to have fallen in early
August, allowing ten or fifteen days for the streams to descend,
and the rest for the saturation of the land. This postulates a
supply from the Central African regions far north of the equator.
Even for the March-June freshets, we must also undoubtedly go
north of the Line, yet Herr H. Kiepert[FN#24] places the
northernmost influent of Congo some 150 miles south of the
equator. Under these limitations I agree with Dr. Behm:--"Taking
everything into consideration, in the present state of our
knowledge, there is the strongest probability that the Lualaba is
the head stream of the Congo, and the absolute certainty that it
has no connection with the Nile or any other river (system) of
the northern hemisphere." And again: "As surely as the sun stands
over the southern hemisphere in our winter and the northern in
our summer, bringing the rains and the swellings of the tropical
rivers when it is in the zenith with regard to them, so surely
can it be predicated, from a comparison of the rainy seasons and
times of rising, that the Lualaba belongs to no river of the
northern hemisphere; in the southern hemisphere Africa possesses
only one river, the Congo, which could take up the vast water
supply of the Lualaba." The Brazil shows the curious feature of
widely different and even opposite rainy seasons in the same
parallel of latitude; but this is not the place to discuss the
subject.
Since these lines were written, I have to lament the collapse of
the Livingstone-Congo Expedition. In 1872 the great explorer's
friends, taking into consideration the prospect of his turning
westward, organized a "relief" from West as well as from East
Africa. Mr. J. Young, of Kelly, generously supplied the sinews of
travel, and Mr. Clements R. Markham, Secretary of the Royal
Geographical Society, lent important aid in preparing the
exploration. Navigating-Lieutenant W. J. Grandy, who had seen
service on the eastern coast of Africa, landed at S. Paulo de
Loanda in early 1873, and set out from Ambriz in March of that
year. The usual difficulties were met and overcome, when
Lieutenant Grandy was summarily recalled. The official
explanation ("Royal Geographical Society," December 14th, 1874),
is that the measure was in consequence of Livingstone's death.
The traveller himself says:--"Complying with instructions, we,
with many regrets at the idea of leaving our work unfinished when
all seemed so full of promise, commenced preparations for the
return, leaving good presents with the chiefs, in order to
procure a good reception for those who might come after us." An
Ex-President of the Royal Geographical Society had asserted, "The
ascent of the (Upper) Congo ought to be more productive of useful
geographical results than any other branch of African
exploration, as it will bring to the test of experiment the
navigability of the Congo above the Falls, and thus possibly open
out a means of introducing traffic by steam into the heart of the
continent at least two thousand miles from the mouth of the
river."
With this explicit and stimulating assertion before us, we must
lament that England, once the worthy rival in exploration of
Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands, is now too poor to support
a single exploration on the West African Coast, when Germany is
wealthy enough liberally to subsidize two.
Note.
A nous deux, Dr. E. Behm!
My objections to your paper are the three following: 1. It
generally understates the volume of the Nzadi, by not allowing
sufficiently for the double equinoctial periods of high water,
March to June, as well as September to December; and by ignoring
the north-equatorial supply. 2. It arbitrarily determines the
question of the Tanganyika, separating it from the Nile-system
upon the insufficient strength of a gorilla, and of an oil-palm
which is specifically different from that of the Western Coast;
and 3. It wilfully misrepresents Dr. Livingstone in the matter of
the so-called Victoria Nyanza.
My first objection has been amply discussed. I therefore proceed
to consider the second. As Mr. Alexander G. Findlay observed
("Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society," No. 3, vol.
xvii. of July 28, 1873):--"Up to the time of Stanley's arrival at
Ujiji, and his journey to the north of the lake, Livingstone was
fully impressed with the conviction that the Tanganyika is
nothing more than what he called a ‘lacustrine river' (329 miles
long by twenty of average breadth); flowing steadily to the north
and forming a portion of the Great Nile Basin. The letters
contained his reasons for forming that opinion, stating that he
had been for weeks and months on the shores of the lake watching
the flow of the water northwards" (at the rate of a knot per
hour). At times the current appeared to run southwards, but that
was under the influence of strong northerly winds. Also by Dr.
Livingstone's letters to Sir Thomas Maclear and Dr. Mann ("
Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society,"No. i of 1873, pp.
69-70), it is evident that the explorer believed only in the lake
outlet north of Ujiji. Again, Mr. Findlay, after attentively
considering the unsatisfactory visit of Dr. Livingstone and Mr.
Stanley to the Rusizi River in November and December, 1871, holds
it to be a mere marsh-drain, which when the south winds prevail,
would possibly flow in the opposite direction; and he still
believes that Captain Speke and I, when at Uvira, were within
five or six miles of the head.
Since Dr. Livingstone's visit we have heard more upon this
disputed subject. A native of Karagwah assured my friend Sir
Samuel Baker--who, despite all prepossessions, candidly accepted
the statement--that it is possible and feasible to canoe from
Chibero,on the so-called Albert Nyanza, past Uvira, where the
stream narrows and where a pilot is required, to the Arab dépôt,
Ujiji. He described the northern portion of the Tanganyika as
varying much in breadth, immensely wide beyond Vacovia, and again
contracting at Uvira. His report was confirmed by a Msawahíli,
sent by King Mtesa, with whom he had lived many years, to
communicate with Baker Pasha at Fatiko; this man knew both Uvira
and Ujiji, which he called "Uyiyi." Nothing can be more
substantial than this double testimony, which wears all the
semblance of truth.
On the other hand, Lieut. Cameron, whose admirable work has, so
to speak, re-constructed the Tanganyika Lake, discovered, on the
3rd of May, 18-74, the Lukuga River, which he supposes to form
the outlet. It lies 25 direct miles to the south of the Kasenge
Archipelago, numbering seventeen isles, visited by Captain Speke
in March, 1857. Dr. Livingstone touched here on July 13, 1869,
and heard nothing of the outlet; he describes a current sweeping
round Kasenge to south-east or southwards according to the wind,
and carrying trees at the rate of a knot an hour. But Mr. Stanley
(pp. 400 et passim) agrees with Dr. Krapf, who made a large river
issue from "the lake" westwards, and who proposed, by following
its course, to reach the Atlantic. The "discoverer of
Livingstone" evidently inclines to believe that the Tanganyika
drains through the caverns of Kabogo near Uguhha, and he records
the information of native travellers that "Kabogo is a great
mountain on the other side of the Tanganyika, full of deep holes,
into which the water rolls; "moreover, that at the distance of
over a hundred miles he himself heard the" sound of the
thundering surf which is said to roll into the caves of
Kabogo."In his map he ‘cutely avoids inserting anything beyond
"Kabogo Mountains, 6,000 to 7,000 feet high."
The gallant young naval lieutenant's exploration of the Lukuga
has not yet reached us in a satisfactory form. He found the
current sluggishly flowing at the rate of 1.2 knots per hour; he
followed it for four or five miles, and he was stopped by
floating grass and enormous rushes (papyri?). A friendly chief
told him that the Lukuga feeds the Lualaba which, beyond Nyangwe
(Livingstone's furthest point, in about south latitude 4°) takes
the name of Ugarowwa. An Arab had descended this stream fifty-
five marches, and reached a place where there were ships and
white merchants who traded largely in palm-oil and ivory, both
rare on the Congo River. And, unfortunately, "the name (River)
Congo was also mentioned," a term utterly unknown except to the
few Portuguese-speaking natives.
At present, therefore, we must reserve judgment, and the only
conclusion to which the unprofessional reader would come is that
the weight of authority is in favour of a double issue for the
Tanganyika, north and west.
The wilful misrepresentation is couched in these words: "The
reports obtained by Livingstone are if anything favourable to the
unity of the Victoria Nyanza (Ukerewe, Ukara,) because along with
it he names only such lakes as were already known to have a
separate existence from it." As several were recognized, ergo it
is one! Dr. Livingstone heard from independent sources that the
so-called Victoria Nyanza is a lake region, not a lake; his
account of the Okara (Ukara), and the three or four waters run
into a single huge sheet, is substantially the same as that
which, after a study of the Rev. Mr. Wakefield's Reports I
offered to the Royal Geographical Society, and which I
subsequently published in "Zanzibar City, Island, and Coast."
You, Dr. Behm, are apparently satisfied with a lake drained by an
inverted delta of half-a-dozen issues--I am not. Nor can I agree
with you that "whether the Victoria Nyanza is one lake or several
is a point of detail of less importance," when it has disfigured
the best maps of Africa for nearly a score of years. The last
intelligence concerning the "unity" of the lake is from Colonel
C. C. Long, a staff-officer in the service of His Highness the
Khedive, who was sent by Colonel Gordon on a friendly mission to
King Mtesa of Uganda. With permission to descend "Murchison
Creek," and to view "Lake Victoria Nyanza," Colonel Long, after a
march of three hours, took boat. He sounded the waters of the
lake, and found a depth of from 25 to 35 feet; in clear weather
the opposite shore was visible, appearing "to an unnautical eye"
from 12 to 15 miles distant; nor could this estimate be greatly
wrong. After much negotiation and opposition he obtained leave to
return to Egyptian territory by water, and on the way, in north
latitude 1° 30', he discovered a second lake or "large basin," at
least 20 to 25 miles wide. The geography is somewhat hazy, but
the assertions are not to be mistaken.
Finally, I read with regret such statements as the following,
made by so well-known a geographer as yourself: "Speke's views
have been splendidly confirmed; the attacks of his opponents,
especially of Burton, who was most inimically inclined to him,
collapse into nothing." This unwarrantable style of assertion
might be expected from the "Mittheilungen," but it is not
honourable to a man of science. There are, you well know, three
main points of difference between the late Captain Speke and
myself. The first is the horse-shoe of mountains blocking up the
northern end of the Tanganyika; this, after a dozen years, I
succeeded in abolishing. The second is the existence of the
Victoria Nyanza, which I assert to be a lake region, not a lake;
it is far from being a "point of detail," and I hope presently to
see it follow the way of the horse-shoe. Thirdly is the drainage
of the Tanganyika, which Captain Speke threw southward to the
Zambeze, a theory now universally abandoned. This may be your
view of "splendid confirmation"--I venture to think that it will
not be accepted by the geographical world.
Chapter XI.
Life at Banza Nokki.
I was now duly established with my books and instruments at
Nkaye, and the inevitable delay was employed in studying the
country and the people, and in making a botanical collection. But
the season was wholly unpropitious. A naval officer, who was
considered an authority upon the Coast, had advised me to travel
in September, when a journey should never begin later than May.
The vegetation was feeling the effect of the Cacimbo; most of the
perennials were in seed, and the annuals were nearly dried up.
The pictorial effects were those of
"Autumn laying here and there
A fiery finger on the leaves."
Yet, with Factotum Selim's assistance, I managed to collect some
490 specimens within the fortnight. We had not the good fortune
of the late Dr. Welwitsch (Welwitschia mirabilis), but there is
still a copious treasure left for those who visit the Congo River
in the right season.
I was delighted with the country, a counterpart of the Usumbara
Hills in Eastern Africa, disposed upon nearly the same parallel.
The Cacimbo season corresponded with the Harmattan north of the
Line; still, grey mornings, and covered, rainless noons, so
distasteful to the Expedition, which complained that, from four
to five days together, it could not obtain an altitude. The
curious contrast in a region of evergreens was not wanting, the
varied tintage of winter on one tree, and upon another the
brightest hues of budding spring. The fair land of grass and
flowers "rough but beautiful," of shrubbery-path, and dense
mottes or copse islets, with clear fountains bubbling from the
rocks, adorned by noble glimpses of the lake-like river, and of a
blue horizon, which suggested the ocean--ever one of the most
attractive points in an African landscape,--was easily invested
by the eye of fancy with gold and emerald and steely azure from
above, whilst the blue masses of bare mountain, thrown against a
cloudless sky, towered over the black-green sea of vegetation at
their base, like icebergs rising from the bosom of the Atlantic.
As in the Brazilian Rio de Săo Francisco, the few miles between
the mouth and the hill-region cause a radical change of climate.
Here the suns are never too hot, nor are the moons too cold; the
nights fall soft and misty, the mornings bring the blessing of
freshness; and I was never weary of enjoying the effects of dying
and reviving day. The most delicate sharpness and purity of
outline took the place of meridian reek and blur; trees, rocks,
and chalets were picked out with an utter disregard to the
perspective of distance, and the lowest sounds were distinctly
heard in the hard, clear atmosphere. The damp and fetid
vegetation of the Coast wholly disappeared. By the benefit of
purest air and water, with long walks and abundant palm wine from
the trees hung with calabashes, the traces of "Nanny Po" soon
vanished; appetite and sleep returned, nightly cramps were things
unknown, and a healthy glow overspread the clammy, corpse-like
skin. When the Lower Congo shall become the emporium of lawful
trade, the white face will find a sanatorium in these portals of
the Sierra del Crystal,--the vine will flourish, the soil will
produce the cereals as well as the fruits and vegetables of
Europe, and this region will become one of the "Paradises of
Africa."
The banzas of Congo-land show the constitution of native society,
which, as in Syria, and indeed in most barbarous and semi-
barbarous places, is drawn together less by reciprocal wants than
by the ties of blood. Here families cannot disperse, and thus
each hamlet is a single house, with its patriarch for president
and judge. When the population outgrows certain limits, instead
of being confounded with its neighbours, it adds a settlement
upon neighbouring ground, and removal is the work of a single
day. The towns are merely big villages, whose streets are
labyrinths of narrow pathways, often grass-grown, because each
man builds in his own way. Some translate the word "Banza" by
city, unaware that Central African people do not build cities.
Professor Smith rightly explains it "a village, which with them
means a paterfamilias, and his private dependants." So the
maligned Douville (i. 159)--"On donne le nom de banza ŕ la ville
ou réside le chef d'une peuplade ou nation nčgre. On l'attribue
aussi ŕ l'enceinte que le chef ou souverain habite avec les
femmes et sa cour. Dans ce dernier sens le mot banza veut dire
palais du chef."
Our situation is charming, high enough to be wholesome, yet in a
sheltered valley, an amphitheatre opening to the south-east or
rainy quarter; the glorious trees, here scattered, there gathered
in clumps and impenetrable bosquets, show the exuberant fertility
of the soil. Behind and above the village rises a dwarf plateau,
rich with plantains and manioc. After the deserted state of the
river banks,--the effect of kidnapping,--we are surprised to find
so populous a region. Within cannon-shot, there are not less than
twelve villages, with a total, perhaps, of 2,400 souls.
Banza Nkaye, as usual uninclosed, contains some forty
habitations, which may lodge two hundred head. The tenements are
built upon platforms cut out of the hill slopes; and the make
proves that, even during the rains, there is little to complain
of climate. Ten of these huts belong to royalty, which lives upon
the lowest plane; and each wife has her own abode, whilst the
"senzallas" of the slaves cluster outside. The foundation is
slightly raised, to prevent flooding. The superstructure strikes
most travellers as having somewhat the look of a châlet, although
Proyart compares it with a large basket turned upside down. Two
strong uprights, firmly planted, support on their forked ends a
long strut-beam, tightly secured; the eaves are broad to throw
off the rain, and the neat thatch of grass, laid with points
upwards in regular courses, and kept in site by bamboo strips, is
renewed before the stormy season. The roof and walls are composed
of six screens; they are made upon the ground, often occupying
months, and they can be put together in a few minutes. The
material, which an old traveller says is of "leaves interwoven
not contemptibly with one another," is a grass growing everywhere
on the hills, plaited and attached to strips of cane or bamboo-
palm (Raphia vinifera); the gable "walls" are often a cheque-
pattern, produced by twining "tie-tie," "monkey rope," or
creepers, stained black, round the dull-yellow groundwork; and
one end is pierced for a doorway, that must not front the winds
and rains. It is a small square hole, keeping the interior dark
and cool; and the defence is a screen of cane-work, fastened with
a rude wooden latch. The flooring is hard, tamped clay, in the
centre of which the fire is laid; the cooking, however, is
confined to the broad eaves, or to the compound which, surrounded
with neat walls, backs the house. The interior is divided into
the usual "but" and "ben." The latter communicates with the
former by a passage, masked with a reed screen; it is the
sleeping-place and the store-room; and there is generally a
second wicket for timely escape. The only furniture consists of
mats, calabashes, and a standing bedstead of rude construction,
or a bamboo cot like those built at Lagos,--in fact, the four
bare walls suggest penury. But in the "small countries," as the
"landward towns" are called, where the raid and the foray are not
feared, the householder entrusts to some faithful slave large
stores of cloth and rum, of arms and gunpowder.
The abodes suggest those of our semi-barbarous ancestors, as
described by Holingshed, where earth mixed with lime formed the
floor; where the fire was laid to the wall; where the smoke,
which, besides hardening timber, was "expected to keep the good
man and his family from quake and fever, curled from the door;
and where the bed was a straw pallet, with a log of wood for a
pillow. But the Congoese is better lodged than we were before the
days of Queen Elizabeth; what are luxuries in the north, broad
beds and deep arm-chairs, would here be far less comfortable than
the mats, which serve for all purposes. I soon civilized my hut
with a divan, the Hindostani chabutarah, the Spanish estrada, the
"mud bank" or "bunting" of Sierra Leone, a cool earth-bench
running round the room, which then wanted only a glass window.
But no domestic splendour was required; life in the open air is
the life for the tropics: even in England a greater proportion of
it would do away with much neuralgia and similar complaints. And,
if the establishment be simple, it is also neat and clean: we
never suffered from the cimex and pulex of which Captain Tuckey
complains so bitterly, and the fourmis voyageuses (drivers),
mosquitoes, scorpions, and centipedes were unknown to us.
The people much resemble those of the Gaboon. The figure is well
formed, except the bosom, whose shape prolonged lactation,
probably upon the principle called Malthusian, soon destroys;
hence the first child is said to "make the breasts fall." The
face is somewhat broad and flat, the jowl wide, deep, and strong,
and the cerebellum is highly developed as in the Slav. The eye is
well opened, with thick and curly lashes, but the tunica
conjunctiva is rarely of a pure white; the large teeth are of
good shape and colour. Extensive tattoos appear on breasts,
backs, and shoulders; the wearers are generally slaves, also
known by scantier clothing, by darker skins, and by a wilder
expression of countenance. During their "country nursing," the
children run about wholly nude, except the coating of red wood
applied by the mothers, or the dust gathered from the ground. I
could not hear of the weaning custom mentioned by Merolla, the
father lifting the child by the arm, and holding him for a time
hanging in the air, "falsely believing that by those means he
will become more strong and robust." Whilst the men affect caps,
the women go bare-headed, either shaving the whole scalp, or
leaving a calotte of curly hair on the poll; it resembles the
Shúshah of Western Arabia and East Africa, but it is carried to
the fore like a toucan's crest. Some, by way of coquetterie,
trace upon the scalp a complicated network, showing the finest
and narrowest lines of black wool and pale skin: so the old
traveller tells us "the heads of those who aspire to glory in
apparel resemble a parterre, you see alleys and figures traced on
them with a great deal of ingenuity." The bosom, elaborately
bound downwards, is covered with a square bit of stuff, or a
calico pagne--most ungraceful of raiment-wrapped under the arms,
and extending to the knees:
"In longitude'tis sorely scanty,
But ‘tis their best, and they are vaunty."
The poor and the slaves content themselves with grass cloth. The
ornaments are brass earrings, beads and imitation coral; heavy
bangles and manillas of brass and copper, zinc and iron, loading
the ankles, and giving a dainty elephantine gait; the weight also
produces stout mollets, which are set off by bead-garters below
the knees. The leg, as amongst hill people generally, is finely
developed, especially amongst the lower orders: the "lady's"
being often lank and spindled, as in Paris and Naples, where the
carriage shrinks the muscles as bandages cramp Chinese feet.
In these hamlets women are far more numerous than men. Marriage
being expensive amongst the "Mfumo" or gentry, the houses are
stocked with Hagars, and the children inherit their father's rank
as Mwana Mfumos, opposed to Mwanangambe, labouring people, or
Wantu, slaves.
The missionaries found a regular system of "hand-fasting." Their
neophytes did not approve of marriage in facie ecclesić, "for
they must first be satisfied whether their wife will have
children; whether she will be diligent in her daily labour, and,
lastly, whether she will prove obedient, before they will marry
her. If they find her faulty in any of these points, they
immediately send her back again to her parents." The woman, not
being looked upon the worse for being returned into stores, soon
afterwards underwent another trial, perhaps with success.
Converts were fined nine crowns for such irregularities. "But,
oh!" exclaims a good father, "what pains do we take to bring them
to marry the lover, and how many ridiculous arguments and reasons
do they bring to excuse themselves from this duty and restraint."
He tells us how he refused absolution to a dying woman, unless
she compelled her daughter to marry a man with whom she was
"living upon trial." The mother answered wisely enough, "Father,
I will never give my daughter cause to curse me after I am dead,
by obliging her to wedlock where she does not fancy." Whereupon
the priest replied, "What! do you not stand more in awe of a
temporal than an eternal curse?" and, working upon the feelings
of the girl, who began to tremble and to weep, extorted from her
a promise to accept the "feigned husband." He adds,
"Notwithstanding this, some obstinate mothers have rather chosen
to die unconfessed, than to concern themselves with the marriage
of their daughters." Being obliged to attend Communion at Easter,
these temporary couples would part on the first day of Lent;
obtain absolution and, a week afterwards, either cohabit once
more or find otherpartners. The "indiscreet method of courtship,"
popularly known as "bundling," here existed, and was found by
Caillié amongst the southern Moors: "When everybody is at rest,
the man creeps into his intended's tent, and remains with her
till daybreak."
An energetic attempt was made to abolish polygamy, which, instead
of diminishing population as some sciolists pretend, caused the
country to swarm like maritime China. Father Carli, who also
dilates upon the evil practice of the sexes living together on
trial, ca. didly owns that his main difficulty lay in "bringing
the multitude to keep to one wife, they being wholly averse to
that law." Yet old travellers declare that when the missionaries
succeeded, the people "lived so Christian-like and lovingly
together, that the wife would suffer herself to be cut to pieces
rather than deceive her husband." Merolla, indeed, enlarges on
the constancy of women, whether white or black, when lawfully
married to their mates; and praises them for living together in
all manner of love and amity. "Hence may be learned what a
propensity the women have to chastity in these parts, many of
whom meet together on the first day of Lent, and oblige
themselves, under pain of severe penance, to a strict continence
till Easter." In case of adultery the husband could divorce the
wife; he was generally satisfied by her begging his pardon, and
by taking a slave from the lover. Widowed "countesses," proved
guilty of "immorality," suffered death by fire or sword. On the
other hand, the "princess" had a right to choose her husband;
but, as in Persia, the day of his splendid wedding was the last
of his liberty. He became a prisoner and a slave; he was
surrounded by spies; he was preceded by guards out of doors, and
at the least "écart" his head was chopped off and his paramour
was sold. These ladies amply revenged the servitude of their sex-
-
"Asperius nihil est humili cum surgit in altum."
Rich women were allowed to support quasihusbands until they
became mothers; and the slaves of course lived together without
marriage. Since the days of the Expedition a change for the
better has come over the gentil sesso. The traveller is no longer
in the "dilemma of Frčre Jean," and, except at the river-mouth
and at the adjacent villages, there is none of that officious
complaisance which characterizes every hamlet in the Gaboon
country. The men appear peculiarly jealous, and the women fearful
of the white face. Whenever we approached a feminine group, it
would start up and run away; if cooking ground-nuts, the boldest
would place a little heap upon the bottom of an upturned basket,
push it towards us and wave us off. The lowest orders will submit
to a kind of marriage for four fathoms of cloth; exactly double
the tariff paid in Tuckey's time (pp. 171-181); and this ratio
will apply to all other articles of living. Amongst themselves
nubile girls are not remarkably strict; but as matrons they are
rigid. The adulterer is now punished by a heavy fine, and, if he
cannot pay, his death, as on many parts of the Southern Coast, is
lawful to the husband.
The life is regular, and society is simple and patriarchal, as
amongst the Iroquois and Mohawks, or in the Shetlands two
centuries ago. The only excitement, a fight or a slave hunt, is
now become very rare. Yet I can hardly lay down the "curriculum
vitae" as longer than fifty-five years, and there are few signs
of great age. Merolla declares the women to be longer-lived than
the men. Gidi Mavunga, who told me that the Congo Expedition
visited their Banza when his mother was a child, can hardly be
forty-five, as his eldest son shows, and yet he looks sixty. The
people rise at dawn and, stirring up the fire, light the
cachimbos or large clay pipes which are rarely out of their
mouths. Tobacco (nsunza) grows everywhere and, when rudely cured,
it is sold in ringlets or twisted leaves; it is never snuffed,
and the only chaw is the Mákázo or Kola nut which grows all over
these hills; of these I bought 200 for 100 coloured porcelain
beads, probably paying treble the usual price. No food is eaten
at dawn, a bad practice, which has extended to the Brazil and the
Argentine Republic; but if a dram be procurable it is taken "por
la manana." The slave-women, often escorted by one of the wives,
and accompanied by the small girls, who must learn to work whilst
their brothers are idling with their rattles, set out with water-
pots balanced on their Astrachan wool, or with baskets for grain
and firewood slung by a head-strap to the back The free-born
remain at home, bathing and anointing with palm-oil, which
renders the skin smooth and supple, but leaves a peculiar aroma;
they are mostly cross enough till they have thoroughly shaken off
sleep, and the morning generally begins with scolding the slaves
or a family wrangle. I have seen something of the kind in Europe.
Visiting, chatting, and strolling from place to place, lead to
the substantial breakfast or first dinner between 9 and 10 A.M.
Meat rarely appears; river fish, fresh or sun-dried, is the usual
"kitchen," eaten with manioc, toasted maize, and peeled, roasted,
and scraped plantain: vegetables and palm-oil obtained by
squeezing the nut in the hands, are the staple dish, and beans
are looked upon rather as slaves' food. They have no rice and no
form of "daily bread:" I happened to take with me a few boxes of
"twice-baked," and this Mbolo was the object of every chiefs
ambition. "Coleworts" are noticed by Merolla as a missionary
importation; he tells us that they produce no seed; and are
propagated by planting the sprouts, which grow to a great height.
The greens, cabbages, spinach, and French beans, mentioned by
Tuckey, have been allowed to die out. Tea, coffee, sugar, and all
such exotics, are unappreciated, if not unknown; chillies, which
grow wild, enter into every dish, and the salt of native
manufacture, brown and earthy, is bought in little baskets.
Between breakfast and midday there is a mighty drink. The palm-
wine, here called "Msámbá," and on the lower river "Manjewa," is
not brought in at dawn, or it would be better. The endogen in
general use is the elai's, which is considered to supply a better
and more delicate liquor than the raphia. The people do not fell
the tree like the Kru-men, but prefer the hoop of "supple-jack"
affected by the natives of Fernando Po and Camarones. A leaf
folded funnel-wise, and inserted as usual in the lowest part of
the frond before the fruit forms, conveys the juice into the
calabashes, often three, which hang below the crown; and the
daily produce may be ten quarts. On the first day of tapping, the
sap is too sweet; it is best during the following week and, when
it becomes tart, no more must be drawn or the tree will be
injured. It cannot be kept; acetous fermentation sets in at once,
and presently it coagulates and corrupts. At Banana and Boma it
is particularly good; at Porto da Lenha it is half water, but the
agents dare not complain, for the reason which prevents them
offering "spliced grog" to the prepotent negro. Europeans enjoy
the taste, but dislike the smell of palm-wine; those in whom it
causes flatulence should avoid it, but where it agrees it is a
pleasant stimulant, pectoral, refreshing, and clearing the primć
vice. Mixed with wine or spirits, it becomes highly intoxicating.
The rude beers, called by Merolla Guallo and by Tuckey (p. 120)
Baamboo, the Oualo of Douville, and the Pombeof East Africa,
mentioned by almost every traveller, are not now found on the
lower river.
About noon the slaves return from handling their trowel-shaped
iron hoes, and the "gentleman" takes a siesta proportioned to his
drink. The poorer classes sit at home weaving, spinning, or
threading beads, whilst the wives attend to household work,
prepare the meals, buy and sell, dig and delve. Europeans often
pity the sex thus "doomed to perform the most laborious
drudgery;" but it is a waste of sentiment. The women are more
accustomed to labour in all senses of the word, and the result is
that they equal their mates in strength and stature; they enjoy
robust health, and their children, born without difficulty, are
sturdy and vigorous. The same was the case amongst the primitive
tribes of Europe; Zamacola (Anthrop. Mem. ii. 38), assures us
that the Basque women were physically powerful as the men, with
whom they engaged in prize-fights.
The master awakes about 3 P.M. and smokes, visits, plays with his
children, and dawdles away his time till the cool sunset, when a
second edition of the first meal is served up. If there be
neither dance nor festival, all then retire to their bens, light
the fire, and sit smoking tobacco or bhang, with frequent
interruptions of palm wine or rum, till joined by their partners.
Douville (ii. 113), says that the Pangué or chanvre, "croît
naturellement dans lepays" I believe the questions to be still
sub judice, whether the intoxicating cannabis be or be not
indigenous to Africa as well as to Asia; and whether smoking was
not known in the Old World, as it certainly was in the New,
before tobacco was introduced. The cannabis Indica was the
original anćsthetic known to the Arabs and to civilized Orientals
many centuries before the West invented ether and chloroform.
Our landlord has two wives, but one is a mother and will not
rejoin him till her child can carry a calabash of water unaided.
To avoid exciting jealousy he lives in a hut apart, surrounded by
seven or eight slaves, almost all of them young girls. This
regular life is varied by a little extra exertion at seed-time
and harvest, by attending the various quitandas or markets of the
country side, and by an occasional trip to "town" (Boma). When
the bush is burning, all sally out with guns, clubs, and dogs, to
bring home "beef." And thus they dwell in the presence of their
brethren, thinking little of to-day, and literally following the
precept, "Take no thought for the morrow." As the old missioners
testify, they have happy memories, their tempers are mild, and
quarrels rarely lead to blows; they are covetous, but not
miserly; they share what they have, and they apply the term
"close-fist" to the European who gives "nuffin for nuffin."
The most superstitious of men, they combine the two extremes of
belief and unbelief; they have the firmest conviction in their
own tenets, whilst those of others flow off their minds like
water from a greased surface. The Catholic missioners laboured
amongst them for nearly two hundred years; some of these
ecclesiastics were ignorant and bigoted as those whom we still
meet on the West African Coast, but not a few were earnest and
energetic, scrupulous and conscientious, able and learned as the
best of our modern day. All did not hurry over their superficial
tasks like the Neapolitan father Jerome da Montesarchio, who
baptized 100,000 souls; and others, who sprinkled children till
their arms were tired. Many lived for years in the country,
learning the language and identifying themselves with their
flocks. Yet the most they ever effected was to make their
acolytes resemble the Assyrians whom Shalmaneser transplanted to
Assyria, who "feared the Lord and served their graven images" (2
Kings, xvii. 33-41). Their only traces are the word "Deus,"
foully perverted like the Chinese "joss;" and an occasional
crucifix which is called cousa de branco--white man's thing.
Tuckey was justified in observing at Nokki that the crucifixes,
left by missioners, were strangely mixed with native fetishes,
and that the people seemed by no means improved by the muddle of
Christian and Pagan idolatry.
The system is at once complicated and unsettled. There is,
apparently, the sensus numinis; the vague deity being known as
Nzambi or Njambi, which the missionaries translated into God, as
Nganna Zambi--Lord Zambi. Merolla uses Zambiabungů, and in the
vocabulary, Zabiambunco, for the "Spirit above" (Zambi-a-npungo):
Battel tells us that the King of Loango was called "Sambee and
Pango, which mean God." The Abbé Proyart terms the Supreme
"Zambi," and applies Zambi-a-n-pongou to a species of malady
brought on by perjury. He also notices the Manichćan idea of
Zambi-a-Nbi, or bad-God, drawing the fine distinction of European
belief in a deity supremely good, who permits evil without
participating in it. But the dualism of moral light and darkness,
noticed by all travellers,[FN#25] is a bonâ fide existence with
Africans, and the missionaries converted the Angolan "Cariapemba"
into the Aryo-Semitic Devil.
Zambi is the Anyambia of the Gaboon country, a vox et prćterea
nihil. Dr. Livingstone ("First Expedition," p. 641), finds the
word general amongst the Balonda, or people of Lunda: with the
"Cazembes" the word is "Pambi," or "Liza," and "O Muata Cazembe"
(p. 297) mentions the proverb, "Ao Pambi e ao Mambi (the King)
nada iguala." In the "Vocabulario da lingua Cafrial" we see (p.
469) that "Murungo" means God or thunder. It is the rudimental
idea of the great Zeus, which the Greeks worked out, the God of
Ćther, the eternal, omnipotent, and omniscient, "who was, who is,
and who is to come," the Unknown and Unknowable, concerning whom
St. Paul quoted Aristćus on Mars' Hill. But the African brain
naturally confused it with a something gross and material: thus
Nzambi-a-Npungu is especially the lightning god. Cariambemba is,
properly, Kadi Mpemba or Ntangwa, the being that slays mankind:
Merolla describes it as an "abominable idol;" and the word is
also applied to the owl, here as in Dahome the object of
superstition. I could trace no sign of worship paid to the sun
(Tangwa or Muinyi), but there are multitudes of minor gods,
probably deified ghosts, haunting particular places. Thus,
"Simbi" presides over villages and the "Tadi Nzazhi," or
Lightning Rock, near Boma; whilst the Yellala is the abode of an
evil being which must be propitiated by offerings. As usual
amongst Fetish worshippers, the only trace of belief in a future
state is faith in revenants--returning men or ghosts.
Each village has an idol under a little wall-less roof,
apparently an earthern pot of grease and feathers, called
Mavunga. This may be the Ovengwa of the "Camma people," a
"terrible catcher and eater of men, a vampire of the dead;
personal, whilst the Ibamba are indistinct; tall as a tree;
wandering through the woods, ever winking; whereas the Greek
immortals were known by their motionless eyelids. "Ngolo Wanga"
is a man-shaped figure of unpainted wood, kept in the hut. Every
house is stuck inside and outside with idols and fetishes,
interpreters of the Deity, each having its own jurisdiction over
lightning, wind, and rain; some act as scarecrows; others teach
magic, avert evils, preserve health and sight, protect cattle,
and command fish in the sea or river. They are in all manner of
shapes, strings of mucuna and poison-beans; carved images stuck
over with feathers and tassels; padlocks with a cowrie or a
mirror set in them; horns full of mysterious "medicine;" iron-
tipped poles; bones; birds' beaks and talons; skins of snakes and
leopards, and so forth. We shall meet them again upon our
travels.
No man walks abroad without his protecting charms, Nkisi or
Nkizi, the Monda of the Gaboon, slung en baudrier, or hanging
from his shoulder. The portable fetish of our host is named "Báká
chyá Mázínga: Professor Smith (p. 323) makes "Mázengá" to be
"fetishes for the detection of theft." These magicć vanitates are
prophylactics against every evil to which man's frailty is heir.
The missioners were careful not to let their Congo converts have
anything from their bodies, like hair or nail parings, for fear
lest it be turned to superstitious use; and a beard (the price of
conversion) was refused to the "King of Micocco." Like the idols,
these talismans avert ill luck, bachelorhood, childlessness,
poverty, and ill health; they are equally powerful against the
machinations of foes, natural or supernatural; against wild
beasts, the crocodile, the snake, and the leopard; and against
wounds of lead and steel. They can produce transformation;
destroy enemies; cause rain or drought, fine or foul weather;
raise and humble, enrich and impoverish countries; and, above all
things, they are sovereign to make man brave in battle. Shortly
before we entered Banza Nkaye a propitiation of the tutelary gods
took place: Coxswain Deane had fired an Enfield, and the report
throughout the settlement was that our guns would kill from the
river-bank.
The Nganga of Congo-land, the Mganga of the Wasawahili and the
Uganga of the Gaboon, exactly corresponds with M. Michelet's
Sorcičre of the Middle Ages, "physicienne," that is doctor for
the people and poisoner; we cannot, however, apply in Africa the
adage of Louis XIII.'s day, "To one wizard ten thousand witches."
In the "Muata Cazembe" (pp. 57, et passim) we read "O Ganga or O
Surjăo;" the magician is there called "Muroi," which, like
"Fite," is also applied to magic. The Abbé Proyart opines of his
professional brother, "he is ignorant as the rest of the people,
but a greater rogue,"--a pregnant saying. Yet here "the man of
two worlds" is not l'homme de révolution, and he suffices for the
small "spiritual wants" of his flock. He has charge of the
"Kizila," the "Chigella" of Merolla and the "Quistilla" of James
Barbot--Anglicč putting things in fetish, which corresponds with
the Tahitian tapu or taboo. The African idea is, that he who
touches the article, for instance, gold on the eastern coast of
Guinea, will inevitably come to grief. When "fetish is taken
off," as by the seller of palm wine who tastes it in presence of
the buyer, the precaution is evidently against poison. Many of
these "Kizila" are self-imposed, for instance a water melon may
never enter Banza Nokki, and, though slaves may eat bananas upon
a journey, the master may not. Others refuse the flesh of a fowl
until it has been tasted by a woman. These rules are delivered to
the young, either by the fetishman or the parents, and, when
broken, they lead to death, doubtless often the consequence of
strong belief. The Nganga superintends, as grand inquisitor, the
witch-ordeal, by causing the accused to chew red-wood and other
drugs in this land ferax venenorum. Park was right: "By
witchcraft is meant pretended magic, affecting the lives and
healths of persons, in other words it is the administering of
poison." European "Narratives of Sorcery and Magic" exactly
explain the African idea, except in one point: there the witch
"only suffered from not being able to prove to Satan how much she
burned to suffer for his sake;" here she has no Satan. Both
European and African are the firmest believers in their own
powers; they often confess, although knowing that the confession
leads directly to torture and death, with all the diabolical
ingenuity of which either race was capable. In Tuckey's time a
bargain was concluded by breaking a leaf or a blade of grass, and
this rite it was "found necessary to perform with the seller of
every fowl:" apparently it is now obsolete. Finally, although the
Fetish man may be wrong, the fetish cannot err. If a contretemps
occur, a reason will surely be found; and, should the "doctor"
die, he has fallen a victim to a rival or an enemy more powerful
than himself.
A striking institution of the Congo region is that of the
Jinkemba, which, curious to say, is unnoticed by Tuckey. It is
not, however, peculiar to the Congo; it is the "Semo" of the
Susus or Soosoos of the Windward Coast, and the "Purrah" of the
Sherbro-Balloms or Bulloms, rendered Anglicč by "free-masonry."
The novitiate there lasts for seven or eight years, and whilst
the boys live in the woods food is placed for them by their
relations: the initiation, indeed, appears to be especially
severe. Here all the free-born males are subjected to the wrongly
called "Mosaic rite." Merolla tells us that the wizards
circumcise children on the eighth day (like the Jews), not out of
regard for the law, but with some wicked end and purpose of their
own. At any time between the ages of five and fifteen (eight to
ten being generally preferred), boys are taken from their parents
(which must be an exceeding comfort to the latter), and for a
native year, which is half of ours, they must dwell in the Vivála
ya Ankimba, or Casa de Feitiço, like that which we passed before
reaching Banza Nokki. They are now instructed by the Nganga in
the practices of their intricate creed; they are taught the
mysteries under solemn oaths, and, in fine, they are prepared for
marriage. Upon the Congo they must eat no cooked food, living
wholly upon roots and edibles; but they are allowed to enter the
villages for provisions, and here they often appear armed with
matchets, bayonets, and wooden swords. Their faces and necks,
bodies and arms, are ghastly white with chalk or ashes; the hair
is left in its original jet, and the dingy lower limbs contrast
violently with the ghostlike absence of colour above. The dress
is a crinoline of palm-fronds, some fresh and green, others sere
and brown; a band of strong mid-rib like a yellow hoop passed
round the waist spreads out the petticoat like a farthingale, and
the ragged ends depend to the knees; sometimes it is worn under
the axillae, but in all cases the chalked arms must be outside.
The favourite attitude is that of the Rhodian Colossus, with the
elbows bent to the fore and the hands clasped behind the head. To
increase their prestige of terror, the Jinkomba abjure the use of
human language, and, meeting a stranger, ejaculate with all their
might, "Hár-rr-rr-rr-rr!" and "Jojolo! Jojolo!" words mystic and
meaningless. When walking in procession, they warn the profane
out of the way by striking one slip of wood upon another. They
are wilder in appearance than the Hindu Jogi or Sanyasi, who also
affects the use of ashes, but neglects that of the palm-thatch.
It is certainly enough to startle a man of impressible nerves--
one, for instance, who cannot enter a room without a side-long
glance at an unexpected coffin--to see these hideous beings
starting with their savage cry from the depths of an African
forest. Evidently, also, such is the intention of the costume.
Contrasting the Congoese with the Goanese, we obtain a measure of
difference between the African and the Asiatic. Both were
Portuguese colonies founded about the same time, and under very
similar circumstances; both were catechized and Christianized in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; both had governors and
palaces, bishops and cathedrals, educational establishments and a
large staff of missioners. But Asia was not so inimical, mentally
or bodily, to the European frame as Africa; the Goanese throve
after a fashion, the mixed breed became the staple population,
and thus it continues till this day. On the other hand the
Hamitic element so completely asserted its superiority over
insititious Japheth, that almost every trace has disappeared in a
couple of centuries. There lingers, it is true, amongst the
Congoese of the coast-regions a something derived from the olden
age, still distinguishing them from the wild people of the
interior, and at times they break out naturally in the tongue of
their conquerors. But it requires a practised eye to mark these
minutiae.
The Congoese are passably brave amongst themselves; crafty and
confined in their views, they carry "knowledge of life" as far as
it is required, and their ceremonious intercourse is remarkable
and complicated. They have relapsed into the analphabetic state
of their ancestors; they are great at eloquence; and, though
without our poetical forms, they have a variety of songs upon all
subjects and they improvise panegyrics in honour of chiefs and
guests. Their dances have been copied in Europe. Without ever
inventing the modes of the Greeks, which are still preserved by
the Hindoos, they have an original music, dealing in harmony
rather than in tune, and there are motives, of course all in the
minor key, which might be utilized by advanced peoples; these
sons of nature would especially supply material for that
recitative which Verdi first made something better than a vehicle
for dialogue. Hence the old missioners are divided in opinion;
whilst some find the sound of the "little guitar," with strings
of palm-thread and played with the thumbs of both hands, "very
low, but not ungrateful," others speak of the "hellish harmony"
of their neophytes' bands. The instrument alluded to is the
nsambi or nchambi; four strings are attached to bent sticks
springing from the box; it is the wambi of the Shekyanis (Du
Chaillu, chap. xii), but the bridge, like that of our violin,
gives it an evident superiority, and great care and labour are
required in the maker.
This form of the universal marimba is a sounding-board of light
wood, measuring eight inches by five; some eight to eleven iron
keys, flat strips of thin metal, pass over an upright bamboo
bridge, fixed by thongs to the body, and rest at the further end
upon a piece of skin which prevents "twanging." The tocador or
performer brings out soft and pleasing tones with the sides of
the thumbs and fingers. They have drums and the bell-like cymbals
called chingufu: M. Valdez (ii. 221 et passim), writes
"Clincufo," which he has taken from a misprint in Monteiro and
Gamitto. The chingufu of East Africa is a hollow box performed
upon with a drum-stick of caoutchouc. The pipes are wooden tubes
with sundry holes and a bridge below the mouth-piece; they are
played over edge like our flutes. The "hellish harmonies" mostly
result from an improvised band, one strumming the guitar, another
clapping the sticks, and the third beating the bell-shaped irons
that act as castanets.
The language of the people on and near the Congo River is called
"Fiote," a term used by old travellers to denote a black man as
opposed to Mundele (white), and also applied to things, as
Bondefiote or black baft. James Barbot (p. 512) gives specimens
of some thirty-three words and the numerals in the "Angoy
language, spoken at Cabinde," which proves to be that of the
River. Of these many are erroneous: for instance, "nova," to
sleep (ku-núa); "sursu," a hen (nsusu): while "fina," scarlet;
"bayeta," baize; and "fumu," tobacco, are corrupted Portuguese. A
young lad, "muleche" (moleque), Father Merolla's "molecchas, a
general name among the negroes," for which Douville prefers
"moleke" (masc.) and "molecka" (fem.), is applied only to a
slave, and in this sense it has extended west of the Atlantic. In
the numerals, "wale" (2) should be "kwále," "quina" (4) "kúyá,"
and "evona" (9) "iowá." We may remark the pentenary system of the
Windward Coast and the Gaboon negroes; e.g., 6 is "sambano"
("mose" and "tano" 1 + 5), and 7 is "sambwale" ("mose" and
"kwale") and so forth, whilst "kumi" (10), possibly derived from
neighbouring races, belongs to the decimal system.
The first attempt at a regular vocabulary was made by Douville,
(vol. iii. p. 261): "Vocabidaire de la Langue Mogialoua, et des
deux dialectcs principaux Abunda (Angolan) et Congo" (Fiote); it
is also very incorrect. The best is that published in Appendix
No. I. to the Congo Expedition, under the name of "Embomma;" we
may quote the author's final remark: "This vocabulary I do not
consider to be free from mistakes which I cannot now find time to
discover. All the objects of the senses are, however, correct."
M. Parrot showed me a MS. left at Banana Point by a French
medical officer, but little could be said in its praise. Monteiro
and Gamitto (pp. 479-480) give seventeen "Conguez" words, and the
Congo numerals as opposed to the "Bundo."
The Fiote is a member of the great South African family; some
missionaries argued, from its beauty and richness, that it had
formerly been written, but of this there is no proof. M. Malte-
Brun supposes the Congoese dialects to indicate "a meditative
genius foreign to the habitual condition of these people,"
ignoring the fact that the most complicated and laborious tongues
are those of barbarous nations, whilst modern civilization in
variably labours to simplify. It is copious; every place, tree,
shrub, or plant used by the people has its proper name; it is
harmonious and pleasing, abounding in vowels and liquids,
destitute of gutturals, and sparing in aspirates and other harsh
consonants. At the same time, like the rest of the family, it is
clumsy and unwieldy, whilst immense prolixity and frequent
repetition must develope the finer shades of meaning. Its
peculiarity is a greater resemblance to the Zanzibarian
Kisawahili than any tongue known to me on the Western Coast:
often a question asked by the guide, as "Njia hápá?" (Is this the
road?) and "Jina lako nani?" (What's your name?) was perfectly
intelligible to me.The latter is a fair specimen of the peculiar
euphony which I have noticed in "Zanzibar" (vol. i. chap. x.). We
should expect "Jina jako," whereas this would offend the native
ear. It requires a scholar-like knowledge of the tongue to apply
the curious process correctly, and the self-sufficient critic
should beware how he attempts to correct quotations from the
native languages.
I need hardly say that the speakers are foul-mouthed as the
Anglo-African of S'a Leone and the "English" Coast; they borrow
the vilest words from foreign tongues; a spade is called a spade
with a witness, and feminine relatives are ever the subject of
abuse; a practice which, beginning in Europe with the Slav race,
extends more or less throughout the Old World. I specify the Old
World, because the so-called "Indians" of North and South America
apparently ignore the habit except where they have learned it
from Southern Europe. Finally, cursing takes the place of
swearing, the latter being confined, I believe, to the
Scandinavians, the Teutons, and their allied races.
Nothing can be more unpleasant than the Portuguese spoken by the
Congoman. He transposes the letters lacking the proper sounds in
his own tongue; for instance, "sinholo" (sinyolo) is "senhor;"
"munyele" or "minyele" is "mulher;" "O luo" stands in lieu of "O
rio," (the river); "rua" of "lua" (luna), and so forth. For to-
morrow you must use "cedo" as "manhaa" would not be understood,
and the prolixity of the native language is transferred to the
foreign idiom. For instance, if you ask, "What do you call this
thing?" the paraphrase to be intelligible would be, "The white
man calls this thing so-and-so; what does the Fiote call this
thing?" sixteen words for six. I have elsewhere remarked how
Englishmen make themselves unintelligible by transferring to
Hindostani and other Asiatic tongues the conciseness of their own
idiom, in which as much is understood as is expressed. We can
well understand the outraged feelings with which poor Father
Cannecattim heard his sermons travestied by the Abundo negroes do
Paiz or linguists, the effect of which was to make him compose
his laborious dictionary in Angolan, Latin, and Portuguese. His
wrath in reflecting upon "estos homems ou estos brutos" drives
the ecclesiastic to imitate the ill-conditioned layman who
habitually addresses his slave as "O bruto! O burro! O bicho! O
diabo!" when he does not apply the more injurious native terms as
"Konongwako" and "Vendengwandi." It is only fair to confess that
no race is harsher in its language and manners to its "black
brethren," than the liberated Africans of the English
settlements.
At Banza Nokki I saw the first specimen of a Mundongo slave girl.
The tribe is confounded with the Mandingo (Mandenga) Moslems by
the author of the "Introduction to Tuckey's Journey" (p. Ixxxi.);
by Tuckey (p. 141), who also calls them Mandonzo (p. 135), and by
Prof. Smith (p. 315); but not by the accurate Marsden (p. 389).
She described her tribe as living inland to the east and north-
east of the Congo peoples, distant two moons--a detail, of
course, not to be depended upon. I afterwards met many of these
"captives," who declared that they had been sold after defeats: a
fine, tall race, one is equal to two Congo men, and the boldness
of demeanour in both sexes distinguishes them from other
serviles. Apparently under this name there are several tribes
inhabiting lands of various elevations; some are coloured café au
lait, as if born in a high and healthy region; others are almost
jet black with the hair frightfully "wispy," like a mop.
Generally the head is bullet-shaped, the face round, the features
negroid, not negro, and the hands and feet large but not ill-
shaped. Some again have the Hausa mark, thread-like perpendicular
cuts from the zygomatic arches running parallel with the chin; in
other cases the stigmata are broad beauty-slashes drawn
transversely across the cheeks to the jawbone, and forming with
the vertical axis an angle of 45°. All are exceedingly fond of
meat, and, like the Kru-men, will devour it semi-putrified. The
Congoese declare them to be "papagentes" (cannibals), a term
generally applied by the more advanced to the bushmen living
beyond their frontier, and useful to deter travellers and
runaways. They themselves declare that they eat the slain only
after a battle--the sentimental form of anthropophagy. The slave-
girl produced on this occasion was told to sing; after receiving
some beads, without which she would not open her lips, we were
treated to a "criard" performance which reminded me of the
"heavenly muse" in the Lake Regions of Central Africa.
The neighbours of the Mundonoros are the Mubangos, the Muyanji
(Muyanzi?), and the Mijolo, by some called Mijere. Possibly
Tuckey alludes to the Mijolos when he tells us (p. 141), that the
"Mandingo" slave whom he bought on the Upper River, called his
country "M'intolo." I have seen specimens of the three, who are
so similar in appearance that a stranger distinguishes them only
by the tattoo. No. 1 gashes a line from the root of the hair to
the commissure of the nose: No. 2 has a patch of cuts, five in
length and three in depth, extending from the bend of the eye-
brow across the zygomata to the ear, and No. 3 wears cuts across
the forehead. I was shown a sword belonging to the Mijolo: all
declared that it is of native make; yet it irresistibly suggested
the old two-handed weapon of Europe, preserved by the Bedawin and
the Eastern Arabs, who now mostly derive it from Sollingen. The
long, straight, flexible, and double-edged blade is neatly
mounted by the tang in a handle with a pommel, or terminating
knob, of ivory; others prefer wood. The guard is very peculiar, a
thin bar of iron springing from the junction of blade and grip,
forming an open oval below, and prolonged upwards and downwards
in two branches parallel with the handle, and protecting the
hand. They dance, brandishing this weapon, according to the
slaves, in the presence of their princes.
I inquired vainly about the Anzicos, Anzichi, Anzigui, Anzigi, or
Anziki, whose king, Makoko, the ruler of thirteen kingdoms, was
placed by Dapper north-west of Monemugi (Unyamwezi), and whom
Pigafetta (p. 79) located close to the Congo, and near his
northern Lake. "It is true that there are two lakes, not,
however, lying east and west (Ptolemy's system), but north and
south of each other, and about 400 miles asunder. The first is in
south latitude 12°. The Nile, issuing from it, does not,
according to Odoardo (Duarte Lopez), sink in the earth nor
conceal itself, but, after flowing northwards, it enters the
second lake, which is 220 miles in extent, and is called by the
natives a sea." If the Tanganyika shall be found to connect with
the Luta Nzige or Mwutan Lake, this passage will be found
wonderfully truthful. The Tanganyika's southern versant is now
placed in south latitude 8° 46' 54", or in round numbers 9°, and
the other figures are nearly as correct. James Barbot causes
these Anzikos to wander "almost through all Africa," from Nubia
to the Congo, like negro Bedawin or Scythians; the common food
was man's flesh fattened for the market and eaten by the
relatives, even of those who died diseased. Their "capital,"
Monsol, was built by D'Anville, close to the equator in the very
centre of Africa (east longitude Greenwich, 26° 20') hard by
Douville's "Yanvo;" and the "Opener of Inner Africa in 1852" (pp.
3, 4, 69), with equal correctness, caused them to "occupy the
hills opposite to Sundi, and extending downwards to Emboma below
the Falls."
Mr. Cooley ("Ocean Highways," June, 1873), now explains the word
as A-nzi-co, "people not of the country," barbarians, bushmen.
This kind of information, derived from a superficial knowledge of
an Angolan vocabulary, is peculiarly valueless. I doubt that a
negative can thus be suffixed to a genitive. The name may simply
have been A-nziko (man) of the back-settlement. In 1832, Mr.
Cooley writes: "the nation of the Anziko (or Ngeco):" in 1845,
"the Anziki, north of Congo:" in 1852, "the Micoco or king of the
Anziko"--und so weiter. What can we make of this geographical
Proteus? The first Congo Expedition who covered all the ground
where the Creator of the Great Central Sea places the Anzikos,
never heard of them--nor will the second.
Not being then so well convinced of the nonexistence of the
Giaghi, Giagas, Gagas, or Jagas as a nation, I inquired as vainly
for those terrible cannibals who had gone the way of all the
Anzikos. According to Lopez, Battel, Merolla, and others, they
"consider human flesh as the most delicious food, and goblets of
warm blood as the most exquisite beverage." This act on the part
of savage warriors might have been a show of mere bravado. But I
cannot agree with the editor of Tuckey's "Narrative," "From the
character and disposition of the native African, it may fairly be
doubted whether, throughout the whole of this great continent, a
negro cannibal has any existence." The year 1816 was the Augustan
age of outrageous negrophilism and equally extreme anti-
Napoleonism. "If a French general" (Introduction, p. i),
"brutally seized the person and papers of a British naval
officer, on his return from a voyage of discovery," who, I would
ask, plundered and destroyed the fine botanical collection made
at risk of health and life, during fifteen months of hard labour,
by the learned Palisot de Beauvois, author of the "Flore
d'Oware?" The "Reviewer" of Douville (p. 177) as sensibly
declares that cannibalism "has hitherto continually retired
before the investigation of sober-minded, enlightened men," when,
after a century or two of intercourse with white traders, it
still flourishes on the Bonny and New Calabar Rivers.
We are glad to be rid of the Jagas, a subject which has a small
literature of its own; the savage race appeared everywhere like a
"deus ex machina," and it became to Intertropical Africa what the
"Lost Tribes" were and even now are in some cases, to Asia and
not rarely to Europe. Even the sensible Mr. Wilson ("West
Africa," p. 238) has "no doubt of the Jagas being the same people
with the more modernly discovered Pangwes" (Fans); and this is
duly copied by M. du Chaillu (chap. viii.). M. Valdez (ii. 150)
more sensibly records that the first Jaga established in
Portuguese territory was called Colaxingo (Kolashingo), and that
his descendants were named "Jagas," like the Egyptian Pharaohs,
the Roman Ceesars, the Austrian Kaisers, and the Russian Czars:
he also reminds us (p. 150) that the chief of the Bangalas
inhabiting Cassange (= Kasanjí) was the Jaga or ruler par
excellence.
Early on the morning of September 11, I was aroused by a "bob" in
the open before us. We started up, fearing that some death by
accident had taken place: the occasion proved, on the contrary,
to be one of ushering into life. The women were assembled in a
ring round the mother, and each howled with all the might of her
lungs, either to keep off some evil spirit or to drown the
sufferer's cries. In some parts of Africa, the Gold Coast for
instance, it is considered infamous for a woman thus to betray
her pain, but here we are amongst a softer race.
Chapter XII.
Preparations for the March.
Gidi Mavunga, finding me in his power, began, like a thoroughbred
African, to raise obstacles. We must pass through the lands of
two kings, the Mfumo ma Vivi (Bibbie of Tuckey) and the Mfumu
Nkulu or Nkuru (Cooloo). The distance was short, but it would
occupy five days, meaning a week. Before positively promising an
escort he said it would be necessary to inspect my outfit; I at
once placed it in the old man's hands, the better to say, "This
is not mine, ask Gidi Mavunga for it."
My patience had been severely tried on first arrival at Banza
Nokki. From ruler to slave every one begged for cloth and rum,
till I learned to hate the names of these necessaries. Besides
the five recognized kings of the district, who wore black cloth
coats, all the petty chiefs of the neighbourhood flocked in,
importunate to share the spoils. A tariff, about one-third higher
than at Boma, was set upon every article and, if the most
outrageous price was refused, the seller, assuming an insipid
expression of countenance, declared that great white men
travelled with barrels, not with bottles of aguardente, and that
without liberality it would be impossible to leave the village.
Nsundi, the settlement above the Falls, was a journey of two
moons, and none of the ten "kings" on the way would take less
than Nessudikira's "dash." Congo Grande, as the people call Săo
Salvador, was only four marches to the E.S.E.; the road, however,
was dangerous, and an escort of at least fifty men would be
necessary.
But when I was "upon the head of Gidi Mavunga" matters changed
for the better. Shortly after he took charge, one Tetu Mayella,
"King" of Neprat, accompanied by some twenty followers, entered
the village with a view to the stranger's rum: by referring them
to the new owner they perforce contented themselves after three
hours' "parliamenting," with a single bottle. The ruler of Nokki
wanted, besides gin and cloth, a pair of shoes for his poor feet,
which looked clad in alligator's skin; I referred him to his
father, and he got little by that motion.
On the evening of September 10, Gidi Mavunga, who had been
visiting his "small country," returned, and declared himself
ready to set out. He placed before me ten heaps, each of as many
ground-nuts, and made me understand that, for visiting Nsundi and
S. Salvador, he would take fifty short "pieces" (of cloth) for
himself and the same number for his slaves; one moiety to be
advanced before the first trip to the Cataracts and the rest to
follow. For half my store of beads he undertook to ration his
men; a work which would have given us endless trouble. As I
agreed to all his conditions he promised to move on the next day-
-without the least intention of carrying out any one of his
conditions.
These people are rich, and not easily tempted to hard work.
During the French émigration, the district of Banza Nokki drove
slaves to the value of 60,000 dollars per annum, and the dollar
is to the African the pound sterling of Europe. It is one of the
hundred out-stations which supplied the main dépôts, Boma and
Porto da Lenha. Small parties went out at certain seasons
provided with rum, gunpowder, and a little cloth; and either
bought the "chattels" or paid earnest money, promising to settle
the whole debt at their villages. Gidi Mavunga, like most of the
elders, was perfectly acquainted with the routes to Nsundi, S.
Salvador, and other frontier places, where the bush people
brought down their criminals and captives for barter. Beyond
those points his information was all from hearsay.
Besides the large stores in their "small countries," the middle-
men have a multitude of retainers, who may at any moment be
converted into capital. Yet "slave" is a term hardly applicable
to such "chattels," who, as a rule, are free as their lords. They
hold at their disposal all that the master possesses, except his
wives; they sleep when they choose, they work when they like;
they attend to their private affairs, and, if blamed or punished,
they either run away, as at Zanzibar, to their own country, or
they take sanctuary with some neighbouring Mfumo, who, despite
the inevitable feud, is bound by custom to protect them. Cold and
hunger, the torments of the poor in Europe, are absolutely
unknown to them, and their condition contrasts most favourably
with the "vassus" and the "servus" of our feudal times. Their
wives and children are their own: the master cannot claim the
tyrannous marriage-rights of the baron; no "wedding-dish" is
carried up to the castle; nor is the eldest born "accounted the
son of the serf's lord, for he perchance it was who begat him."
The brutality of slavery, I must repeat, is mainly the effect of
civilization. "I shall never forget," says Captain Boteler, "the
impatient tosses of the head and angry looks displayed by a--
lady--when the subject was canvassed. ‘A negro, a paltry negro,
ever understand or conform to the social tie of wedlock! No,
never! never!' Yet this lady was an English-woman." And when
James Barbot's supercargo begins to examine his negroes like
cattle he is begged, for decency's sake, to do it in a private
place, "which shows these blacks are very modest." It rather
proved the whites to be the reverse.
At 7.20 A.M. on September 11, the "moleques" seized our luggage,
and we suddenly found ourselves on the path. Gidi Mavunga,
wearing pagne and fetish-bag, and handling a thin stick in which
two bulges had been cut, led us out of Banza Nokki, and took a
S.S.W. direction. The uneven ground was covered with a bitter
tomato (nenga) and with the shrub which, according to Herodotus,
bears wool instead of fruit. I sent home specimens of this
gossypium arboreum, which everywhere grows wild and which is
chiefly used for wicks. There is scant hope of cotton-culture
amongst a people whose industry barely suffices for ground-nuts.
The stiff clay soil everywhere showed traces of iron, and the
guide pointed out a palm-tree which had been split by the
electric fluid, and a broad, deep furrow, several feet long,
ending in a hole. The Nzazhi (lightning) is as dangerous and as
much dreaded on these hills as in Uganda: the south-west trade
meets the land wind from the north-east; strata of clouds in
different states of electricity combine, says the popular theory,
to produce the thunder and lightning which accompany rain like
the storms upon the mountains of Yemen. After 30' (- 1.50 miles)
we reached our destination, Banza Chinguvu, the head-quarters of
Gidi Mavunga. As we entered it he pointed to a pot full of greasy
stuff under a dwarf shed, saying, "Isso č meu Deus:" it was in
fact his Baka chya Mazinga. Beyond it stood the temple of Nbambi;
two suspended pieces of wood, cut in the shape of horns, bore
monkey skins on both sides of a dead armadillo, an animal
supposed to attract lightning when alive, and to repel it after
death.
The Banza was beautifully situated on a dwarf platform, catching
the full force of the sea-breeze, and commanding to the north-
west a picturesque glimpse of the
"waters rippling, flowing,
Flashing along the valley to the sea;"
a mountain tarn representing the mighty stream. On the right lay
fields, dotted with papaw-trees, and plantations of maize and
manioc, thur (Cajanus), and sweet potatoes, a vegetable now
common, but not noticed by Tuckey; on the left, a deep ravine,
densely forested with noble growth, and supplying the best of
water, divides it from Tadi ja Mfimo, a pile of rock on the
opposite hill-side; here lay the Itombo village, belonging to
Gidi Mavunga's eldest son. Beyond it, the tree-clad heights,
rolling away into the distance, faded from blue-brown to the
faintest azure, hardly to be distinguished from the empyrean
above. The climate of these breezy uplands is superior even to
that of Banza Nokki, which lies some 170 feet lower; and the
nights are sensibly cooler.
A few fathoms of altitude here make a surprising difference. The
little valleys with their chalet-like huts reminded me of the
Maroro and Kisanga basins, in the sister formation, the East
African Ghats, but now we have a hill-climate without ague and
fever. Our parallel is that of Yorukan Abokuta, where the people
are anti-oeci, both being about 6° distant from the Line,-- those
north, these south. There the bush is fetid, and the clammy air
gives a sense of deadly depression; here the atmosphere is pure,
the land is open, and there is enjoyment in the mere sense of
life. The effete matter in the blood and the fatty degeneration
of the muscles, the results of inactivity, imperfect respiration,
and F. Po, were soon consumed by the pure oxygen of the highland
air. I can attribute this superiority of the Congo region only to
the labours of an old civilization now obsolete; none but a thick
and energetic population could have cleared off the forest, which
at one time must have covered their mountains.
The Banza consists of about fifty cottages, which are being new-
thatched before the rains, and the population may number 300. Our
host assigned to us one of his own huts; it fronted west, and was
a facsimile of that which we had just left. The old fox,
determined not to be "taken alive," has provided his earth with
three holes, opening to the north, to the east, and to the west.
We often detected him in the "ben," the matrimonial sanctum,
listening to private conversations which he could not understand.
Gidi Mavunga is decidedly a "serious person." The three walls
round the standing bedstead are hung with charms and amulets,
like the sacred pictures in country parts of Europe; and at the
head is his "Mavunga," of which Tuckey says (p. 180), "Each
village has a grand kissey (nkisi), or presiding divinity, named
Mevonga:" it is an anthropoid log, about three feet high, red,
white, and black, the former colour predominating. Two bits of
looking-glass represent the eyes, the nose is patulous, as though
offended by evil savour; the upper lip is drawn up in disdain,
the under overlaps the chin; and a little mirror is inserted into
the umbilical region. Mavunga's dress is represented by an
English billy-cock hat; while all kinds of "medicines,"
calabashes, and a coarse knife depend from his neck to his
shoulders. The figures at the door are generally called
"Ngolowándá."
It is said, I believe, of the Englishwoman-
"If she will, she will, you may depend on't;
If she won't, she won't, and there's an end on't."
I may safely predicate the same of the negro, who owns, like the
goose, a "singularly inflexible organization." Whenever he can,
he will, and he must, have his head. Gidi Mavunga would not even
break his fast before touching the cloth and beads, which are to
pay for guidance and carriage. The hut-door was closed, and in
half an hour all was settled to every one's satisfaction. Yet the
veteran did not disdain a little rascality. Awaiting his
opportunity, he tossed into a dark corner a little bundle of two
fancy cloths which I had given the "linguistero" and, when
detected, he shamelessly declared that such people have no right
to trade.
Finally, our departure was settled for the next morning, and the
women at once began their preparations. Although they have sperm-
candles, torches are preferred for the road; odoriferous gums are
made up, as in the Gaboon, with rags or splints of bark; hence
the old writers say, "instead of putting wicks into the torches,
they put torches into the wicks." The travelling foods are mostly
boiled batatas (sweet potatoes), Kwanga, a hard and innutritious
pudding-like preparation of cassava which the "Expedition" (p.
197) calls "Coongo, a bitter root, that requires four days'
boiling to deprive it of its pernicious quality;" this is
probably the black or poisonous manioc. The national dish,
"chindungwa," would test the mouth of any curry-eater in the
world: it is composed of boiled ground-nuts and red peppers in
equal proportions, pounded separately in wooden mortars, mixed
and squeezed to drain off the oil; the hard mass, flavoured with
salt or honey, will keep for weeks. The bees are not hived in
Congo-land, but smoked out of hollow trees: as in F. Po and
Camarones Peaks, they rarely sting, like the harmless Angelito of
the Caraccas, "silla," or saddleback; which Humboldt ("Personal
Narrative," chap. xiii.) describes as a "little hairy bee, a
little smaller than the honey-bee of the north of Europe."
Captain Hall found the same near Tampico; and a hive-full was
sent to the blind but ingenious Francis Huber of Geneva, who died
in 1831. This seems to be the case with the busy hymenopter
generally in the highlands of Africa; the lowland swarms have
been the terror of travellers from Mungo Park's day to that of
the first East African Expedition.
About noon we were visited by the confidential slaves of a
neighbouring chief, who prospectively welcomed us to his
territory. These men were gaudily attired in cast-off clothes,
and in the crimson night-caps formerly affected by the English
labourer: on the mountains, where the helmet is confined to
royalty, it is the head-dress used for state occasions. They sat
in the hut, chatting, laughing, and discussing palm wine by the
gallon, till they had their wicked will in the shape of a bottle
of gin; after this, they departed with many low congés.
It was a study to see Gidi Mavunga amidst the vassals and serfs
of his own village. He had no moated castle, no "Quinquengrogne;"
but his habitation was grander far,--that glorious hill-side,
with all its prospects of mountain and river, field and forest,
valley and village. As he sat upon the mat under his little
piazza, all the dependants gathered in an outer semicircle, the
children, dogs, and cats forming an inner chord. A crowd of
"moleques" placed before him three black pots, one containing a
savoury stew, the others beans and vegetables, which he
transferred to a deep platter, and proved himself no mean
trencherman. The earthenware is of native make, by no means
ornamental, but useful because it retains the heat; it resembles
the produce of the Gold Coast, and the "pepper-pot" platter of
the West Indies. His cup was filled as fast as he drained the
palm wine, and, at times, he passed a huge mouthful to a small
son or daughter, smiling at the serious and awkward attempts at
deglutition. The washing of hands and mouth before and after
feeding shows progress after Tuckey's day (p. 360). We were not
asked to join him: an African, when upon a journey, will beg for
everything he sees you eat or drink, but there is no return in
kind. I have read of negro hospitality, but it has never been my
fate to witness an approach to that virtue. The chief will, it is
true, quarrel with you if his house be passed without a visit;
but his object in taking you in is to make all he can of you. If
a purse be pulled out, he waxes wroth, because he wishes to
secure at once the reputation of generosity and the profits of a
present doubling the worth of a regular "addition." When Gidi
Mavunga rose from his meal, the elder dependants took his place;
the junior bipeds followed, and the remnants were thrown to the
quadrupeds. It was a fair copy in black of a baronial and
medićval life.
The dogs were not neglected during the meal; but over-eagerness
was repressed by a stout truncheon lying handily near the old
negro Jarl. The animals are small and stunted, long-nosed and
crooked-limbed, with curly tails often cut, sharp ears which show
that they have not lost the use of the erecting muscles, and so
far wild that they cannot bark. The colour is either black and
white or yellow and white, as in Stambul and India. Overrun with
ticks and foul with mange, they are too broken-spirited to rob,
except by secretly sneaking into the huts, and, however often
beaten off, they return to the charge like sitting hens. The
people prize these wretched tikes, because they are ever ready to
worry a stranger, and are useful in driving game from the bush.
Yet they barbarously ill-treat them. The hungry cats are as poor
a breed as the pure English, and, though no one feeds them, these
domesticated tigerkins swarm. The only happy pets are the
parrots. Every village swarms with hogs, the filthy wealth of the
old Saxon proprietor, and their habits are disgusting as their
forms are obscene. Every Anglo-Indian will understand what I
mean.
My memory of "Congo chop" is all in its favour: I can recommend
it even to "Fin Bee." The people of S'a Leone declare that your
life is safe when you can enjoy native food. Perhaps this means
that, during the time required to train the palate, strangers
will have escaped their "seasoning" fevers and chills. But
foreigners will certainly fare better and, cćteris paribus,
outlive their brother whites, when they can substitute African
stews for the roast and boiled goat and cow, likest to donkey-
meat, for the waxy and insipid potato and for heavy pudding and
tart, with which their jaded stomach is laden, as if it had the
digestion of north latitude 50°. It is popularly believed that
the Germans, who come from the land of greatest extremes, live
longer at the White Man's Grave than the English, whereas the
Spaniards are the most short-lived, one consul per annum being
the normal rate. Perhaps the greater "adaptability" of the Teuton
explains the cause.
The evening began with a game of ball in the large open space
amongst the houses forming the village square. The implement was
a roll of palm-coir tightly bound with the central fibre of the
plantain-leaf. The players, two parties of some twenty slaves, of
all ages and sizes, mingled, each side striving to catch the
ball, and with many feints and antics to pass it on to a friend.
When it fell out of bounds, the juniors ran to pick it up with
frantic screams. It was interesting, as showing the difference
between the highlander and the lowlander; one might pass years on
the Congo plains without seeing so much voluntary exertion: yet a
similar game of ball is described by the Rev. Mr. Waddell
("Twenty-nine years in the West Indies and Central Africa," chap.
xvii. London, Nelsons, 1863). The evening ended, as it often does
before a march, when rest is required, with extra hard work, a
drinking bout deep as the Rhineland baron's in the good old time,
and a dance in which both sexes joined. As there were neither
torches nor moon, I did not attend; the singing, the shouting,
and the drumming, which lasted till midnight, spoke well for the
agility and endurance of the fair montagnardes.
What lightens Gidi Mavunga's steps is the immediate prospect of
the Munlola or preliminary showers, which, beginning in mid-
September, last, with a certain persistence of fall, till
October. During the Munlola, the sea-breeze is silent, and the
sky is clad with a very thin mist, which, however, supplies
abundant downfalls. The year in the Lower Congo corresponds with
that of the Gaboon in practice, if not in theory, and the storms
are furious as those of Yoruba, where the seasons are, of course,
inverted, the great rains extending from May to August. The
climate is capricious, as everywhere about the equator, and the
nearer the river the heavier are the showers. The people double
their lives by reckoning the rains as one year, and the dries as
another: when the old missionaries wished to explain that the
Saviour offered Himself for the sins of man at the age of thirty-
three, they said that he was sixty-six seasons old.
After the light rains of the autumnal equinox, come the Mvula za
Chintomba, the "Chuvas grandes" of the Portuguese, lasting to the
end of November. They are heavy, accompanied by violent tornadoes
and storms, greatly feared by the people. The moisture of the
atmosphere, not being gradually condensed by forests, must be
precipitated in violent downfalls, and this is perhaps the
principal evil of clearing the country. December begins the
"little dries," which extend to February and March; then set in
the rains of the vernal equinox, with furious discharges of
electricity; June is the wettest month on the highlands, but not
on the lower river. In mid-July commence the "middle-dries," here
called Ngondi Asivu (Tuckey's "Gondy Assivoo"); upon the upper
river this Cacimbo lasts between April and September; when it
passes over the bush is burned, and the women hoe the ground to
receive its seed. Carli well describes this season when he says:-
-"The winter of the kingdom of Congo is the mild spring or autumn
of Italy; it is not subject to rains, but every morning there
falls a dew which fertilizes the earth." This meteor was not
observed on the highlands of Banza Nokki and Nkulu; it is
probably confined to the low country, where I found it falling
heavily.
Chapter XIII.
The March to Banza Nkulu.
But revelry at night brings morning headache, and we did not set
out, as agreed, at dawn. By slow degrees the grumbling, loitering
party was mustered. The chiefs were Gidi Mavunga, head guide, and
his son Papagayo, a dull quiet body; Chico Mpamba, "French
landlord" of Banza Nokki, and my interpreter Nchama Chamvu.
Fourteen armed moleques carried our hammocks and our little
viaticum in the shape of four bottles of present-gin, two costa-
finas, (= twenty-four yards of fancy cotton), and fourteen
fathoms of satin-stripe, the latter a reserved fund. The boy
"Lendo," whose appropriate name means "The Go," bore a burden of
his own size all day, and acted as little foot-page at the halt.
The "gentlemen" were in full travelling costume. Slung by a thong
to the chief guide's left shoulder were a tiger-cat skin,
cardamom-sheaths and birds' beaks and claws clustering round a
something in shape like the largest German sausage, the whole
ruddled with ochre: this charm must not be touched by the herd; a
slave-lad, having unwittingly offended, knelt down whilst the
wearer applied a dusty big toe between his eyebrows. Papagayo had
a bag of grass-cloth and bits of cane, from which protruded
strips of leather and scarlet broadcloth.
At 6.45 A.M. on Saturday, September 12, we exchanged the fields
surrounding Banza Chinguvu for a ridge or narrow plateau trending
to the north-east and bending to the magnetic north. A few
minutes led to a rock-slope, fit only for goat-hoofs or nude-
footed natives. Winding along the hill-sides, we passed out of
the Nokki territory into that of Ntombo, the property of Mfumo
Nelongo: here we descended into a little vale or gorge bright as
verdure could make it--
"arborets and flowers
Imborder'd on each bank"
of a bubbling brook, a true naiad of the hills, which ran to the
embrace of the mighty stream; it characteristically stained its
bed with iron. On our right was a conspicuous landmark, Zululu ke
Sombe, a tall rock bearing the semblance of an elephant from the
north-east, visible from the Congo's right bank and commanding a
view of all the hills. Banza Vivi, our first destination,
perching high on the farther side of the blue depression, bore
due north. We then struck the roughest of descents, down broken
outcrops and chines of granite--no wonder that the women have
such grand legs. This led us into a dark green depression where
lay Banza Chinsavu, the abode of King Nelongo. Our course had
been three miles to the north-north-east.
Nothing can be more charming than the site, a small horseshoe
valley, formed by a Wady or Fiumara, upon whose raised left bank
stands the settlement, sheltered by palms, plantations, and wild
figs. Eastward is a slope of bare rock polished by the rain-
torrents; westward rise the grassy hills variegated with bush and
boulder. We next crossed a rocky divide to the north and found a
second basin also fertilized by its own stream; here the cactus
and aloes, the vegetation of the desert, contrasted with half-a-
dozen shades of green, the banana, the sycamore, the egg-plant,
the sweet potato, the wild pepper, and the grass, whose colours
were paling, but not so rapidly as in the lower lands.
We dismounted in state from our tipoias at the verandah of an
empty house, where a chair had been placed; and we prepared for
the usual delay and display. The guides will not leave these
villages unvisited lest a "war" result; all the chiefs are
cousins and one must not monopolize the plunder. A great man
takes an hour to dress, and Nelongo was evidently soothing the
toils of the toilette with a musical bellows called an accordeon.
He sent us some poor, well-watered Msámbá (palm toddy), and
presently he appeared, a fat, good-natured man, as usual,
ridiculously habited. He took the first opportunity of curtly
saying in better Portuguese than usual, "There is no more march
to-day!" This was rather too much for a somewhat testy traveller,
when he changed his tone, begged me not to embroil him with a
powerful neighbour, and promised that we should set out that
evening. He at once sent for provisions, fowls, and a small
river-fish, sugar-cane, and a fine bunch of S. Thomé bananas.
About noon appeared Chico Furano, son of the late Chico de Ouro,
in his quality of "English linguister;" a low position to which
want of "savvy" has reduced him. His studies of our tongue are
represented by an eternal "Yes!" his wits by the negative; he
boasts of knowing how to "tratar com o branco" and, declining to
bargain, he robs double. He is a short, small, dark man with
mountaineer legs, a frightful psora, and an inveterate habit of
drink. He saluted his superior, Nelongo, with immense ceremony,
dating probably from the palmy times of the Mwani-Congo. Equals
squat before one another, and shaking hands crosswise clap palms.
Chico Furano kneels, places both "ferients" upon the earth and
touches his nose-tip; he then traces three ground-crosses with
the Jovian finger; again touches his nose; beats his "volć" on
the dust, and draws them along the cheeks; then he bends down,
applying firstly the right, secondly the left face side, and
lastly the palms and dorsa of the hands to mother earth. Both
superior and inferior end with the Sakila or batta-palmas,[FN#26]
three bouts of three claps in the best of time separated by the
shortest of pauses, and lastly a "tiger" of four claps. The
ceremony is more elaborate than the "wallowings" and dust-
shovellings described by Ibn Batuta at the Asiatic courts, by
Jobson at Tenda,by Chapperton at Oyo,by Denham amongst the
Mesgows, and by travellers to Dahome and to the Cazembe. Yet the
system is virtually the same in these distant kingdoms, which do
not know one another's names.
Chico Furano brought a Mundongo slave, a fine specimen of
humanity, some six feet high, weighing perhaps thirteen stone,
all bone and muscle, willing and hard-working, looking upon the
Congo men as if they were women or children. He spoke a few words
of Portuguese, and with the master's assistance I was able to
catechize him. He did not deny that his people were "papagentes,"
but he declared that they confined the practice to slain enemies.
He told a number of classical tales about double men, attached,
not like the Siamese twins, but dos-ŕ-dos; of tribes whose feet
acted as parasols, the Plinian Sciapodć and the Persian Tasmeh-
pa, and of mermen who live and sleep in the inner waters--I also
heard this from M. Parrot, a palpable believer. He described his
journey down the great river, and declared that beyond his
country's frontier the Nzadi issues from a lake which he
described as having a sea-horizon, where canoes lose sight of
land, and where they are in danger from violent storms; he
described the latter with great animation, and his descriptions
much reminded me of Dibbie, the "Dark Lake." Probably this was
genuine geography, although he could not tell the name of the
inner sea, the Achelunda of old cosmographers. Tuckey's map also
lays down in N. lat. 2° to 3° and in E. long. (G.) 17° to 18° a
great swamp draining to the south; and his "Narrative" (p. 178)
tells us that some thirty days above Banza Mavunda, which is 20
to 24 miles above the Yellala, "the river issues by many small
streams from a great marsh or lake of mud." This would suggest a
reservoir alternately flooded and shrinking; possibly lacustrine
bays and the bulges formed by the middle course of the Lualaba.
Despite the promise, we were delayed by King Nekorado, whose
town, Palabala, lies at some distance, and who, negro-like, will
consult only his own convenience. In the afternoon we were
visited by a royal son, who announced that his royal father
feared the heat, but would appear with the moon, which was
equivalent to saying that we might expect him on the morrow. He
is known to be a gueux, and Gidi Mavunga boasts of having harried
and burned sundry of his villages, so he must make up by
appearance for deficient reality. His appearance was announced by
the Mpungi, the Egyptian Zagharit, the Persian Kil; this
"lullilooing" in the bush country becomes an odd moaning howl
like the hyaena's laugh. Runners and criers preceded the hammock,
which he had probably mounted at the first field; a pet slave
carried his chair, covered with crimson cloth, and Frédérique his
"linguister" paced proudly by its side.
After robing himself in Nelongo's house, King Nekorado held a
levee under the shadiest fig, which acted bentang-tree; all the
moleques squatting in a demi-lune before the presence. A short
black man, with the round eyes, the button-like nose, the fat
circular face, and the weakly vanishing chin which denote the
lower type of Congoese, he coldly extended a chimpanzee's paw
without rising or raising his eyes, in token that nothing around
him deserved a glance. I made him au-fait as to my intentions,
produced, as "mata-bicho," a bottle of gin, and sent a dash of
costa-fina, to which a few yards of satin-stripe were thrown in.
The gin was drunk with the usual greed, and the presents were
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