Chapter II: We Encamp at ‘mann’s Spring.’ (1)

Precisely at 6 A.M. on the next day we arose, despite the ravages of mosquitos and sand-flies—pernicious little wretches, midge-sized, but capable of raising lumps as large as billiard-balls upon man’s exposed epidermis—bade adieu to Mrs. and Miss Saker, and fifty minutes afterwards found ourselves _en route_, with a hurrah. The party consisted of four heads and eighteen tails. Mr. Saker was attended by two men, who carried his bedding, water-breaker, and a locked box of necessaries, such as rice, tea, cocoa, sugar, boiled ham, salt pork, sweet cake, soft bread, salt, chilis, and a pocket-pistol of cognac, which _we_ emptied, and the veteran voyager never took his eye off the commissariat. He was temporarily accompanied by Mr. Johnson, a native of the Susu country, near Sierra Leone, above thirty years a resident in these parts: he had begun life as factotum to Mr. Beecroft, and had settled down in his old age as a teacher in the Camaroons Mission. By his inducement, ‘Money,’ alias Muni, a Dimbia runaway from King William, who had previously deserted M. Mann, on pretext of his mother’s illness, but who in reality feared capture for debt by the villagers, accompanied us as guide.

Judge Calvo travelled with four Krumen, all hopeless convicts from the _cuartel_ of Fernando Po, and his body servant, a youth named Eyo, who had succeeded in escaping the customs which followed the death of his patron, young Eyo Honesty, King of New Calabar. My party consisted of six men, under Black Will, a consummate ruffian,—these, brought to a sense of their duty, often make the best travellers. Despite, however, a sound preliminary dressing on board the ‘Bloodhound,’ and the vigorous applications of my excellent steward, Selim Aga, Black Will soon managed to sprain his ankle, and to return to Victoria. The tail was completed by four Krumen, who had been sent down from the mountains by M. Mann, to convoy a fresh supply of provisions. Not having ‘beef’ enough, we carried with us arms, surveying instruments, bedding, and rations for a week, leaving the remainder at Victoria till we could find hands.

The young sun glinting through that ‘cathedral of immensities,’ the bush—Americans call our rivers creeks, and such is the magnificent Anglo-African term for a forest of trees some 100 to 150 feet high—saw us threading the little clearing behind the settlement. In this lower part, under the outlying hills, the vegetation consists of palms—the cocoa, confined to the immediate seaboard,[38] the _Raphia vinifera_, called, from its uses, the bamboo and the wine palm,[39] the _Elæis Guineensis_, or oil palm—and a variety of other trees, known only by scientific names to Europe. A forest at home is often composed of one genus, some of two or three, oak, elm, and beech; in the tropics they must be numbered by dozens. The monarch of all trees is the mighty _Bombax_. Of little inferior size are the scrubby oak of Sierra Leone (_Lophira alata Banksii_, the light-red wings of whose fruit ‘the lady- natives wear in their hair and ears’[40]), the African ‘oak’ (_Oldfieldia Africana_, also called teak and mahogany, but neither this, that, nor the other), the sulphur-tree (_Morinda lucida Benthami_), also called brimstone-tree,—the latter three affording superior timber for house and ship-building. Of inferior size are the African cork (_Musanga Smithii_), the Kolu tree (_Sterculia acuminata_), and a variety of acacias and fici. The moss-streamers, so common in the Southern States of the late Union, and which gave a name to ‘Barbadoes,’ here appear upon the extremities only: at 7000 feet they will clothe the trees from boll to branch, and, by killing the smaller branches, render the forest somewhat unsafe during tornadoes. Where clearings have been made the Cardamom (an unknown Amomum—Danielli?), and large grasses, principally the broad-leaved panicum and the narrow saccharum,—which do not, however, cut like the sugar-cane,—extend from the shore to 4000 feet above sea-level, where smaller species take their place.

However beautiful the forest may be, it is ever a melancholy sight in these lands, this riotous nature, against which man’s force has hitherto been unable to prevail. One’s principal thought is how best to fell it, and as there is little underwood the land cannot be difficult to clear. The natives usually hew down the trees about November, after the rains, lop off the branches, which are fired for manure at the end of the dry season, or about the last of February, leave the trunks to decay, and plant their crops, yams and koko (_C. esculenta_), ground-nuts and cassava, maize and batatas, before the wet season begins.[41]

In these lower lands it would be necessary to corduroy a road. During the rains the traveller must slip from the stones to sink waist-deep in mire, and often when crossing over the mud his feet must hook in the tree-roots. The whole of this land, extending from the shore to 1500 feet above sea-level, is a rich yellow loam, admirably fitted for sugar- cane, tobacco, and cacao. The latter is far better for these idle races than coffee, which requires slave labour.[42] The seed should be procured, unboiled,[43] from Prince’s Island or San Thomé, set in prepared patches, and weeded round when young. After twelve months it keeps its own ground clear, and bears fruit after the third year. The only labour is that of gathering the produce, breaking the husk, removing the seed, sun-drying for two or three days, and carrying to market: the sole objection to ‘theobroma’ is that it will not keep. The plaintain, which grows luxuriantly, might be made a source of wealth.[44]

After a thirty minutes’ walk we found the tall grasses beginning. A little further we passed the path leading through the Batongo to the Bimbia country, here distant about ten miles, and from that point twenty miles of creek passage places the traveller in the Camaroons River. Beyond it the line became steeper, and we saw, through a thin screen of trees, the conical head of Mount Henry rising high to eastward of us. We twice forded the black bed of a pure and purling little stream, which seemed admirably adapted for water power. It varied in breadth from twenty-five to eighty feet, and in depth from two feet to six inches, and the dark stones both in the stream and on the banks were covered with the snowy flowers of a small aroid. The general course was to the S.S.W., and it was either the main stream, or a feeder of the rivulet which flows into the sea close to Victoria. The dense wet scrub now completely excluded the sun, and beyond the second fording began a steep and rocky ascent of degraded basalt.

Here we met villagers seemingly on their way to market. The dress of the many was a cotton _pagne_ or wrapper; the poorer were clad in the simple attire of the Fernandian Bube,[45] and of the Eastern Wagogo. A grass string was fastened round the waist, and a strip of cloth was made to act as T-bandage, an isosceles triangle, sometimes tight, and two inches broad at the base, at other times with ends depending in front. The original costume was, I believe, a kilt of plaintain-leaves. The stuffs were the common English cloths of barter, satin stripe, blue baft, turkey-red cheques, and a few silk bandanas. The ornaments were the small red and yellow, blue and white porcelain beads general in the Camaroons River; the incisors of the porcupine tied by a thread round the neck, and a multitude of ‘Lobo’-armlets[46] of brass, copper, and iron, especially the ‘manilla,’ a form now well-nigh obsolete. The head was mostly bare, and the shaving, as usual, highly fanciful. A few had calottes of blackened bamboo-splints inside and goatskin outside, and one young person wore a cap of some animal’s intestines. They walked with alpenstocks, between five and six feet long, in shape not unlike the Galician fungueiro. The extreme slipperiness of the clayey soil after rain—I have seen many an old mountaineer on his back both here and at Fernando Po—renders this third leg a necessity. It is sometimes neatly carved, and provided with a round bulge for a snuff-box at the handle. The men carried weapons, old muskets with greasy rags wrapped round the rusty locks, or long broad blades in skin sheaths, ending in a leathern disk, like the daggers of the Somal. Those who could not afford such costly sorts had common ‘matchets,’ thin choppers of base metal fitted with wooden handles. The women were evidently the bees of the social hive; almost all of them were laden with large black panniers of bamboo cane shaped and strapped to the back, except when the place was already occupied by the baby, clinging racoon-like to the parental person, and supported by a foot square of grass-cloth, with shoulder braces. There was little of beauty among the fair and faithless Bakwiri; some of them, however, had firmly-made lower limbs, like the _mollets_ of the constitutional-loving Englishwoman. The elders were ‘bales of cadaverous goods,’ the juniors had the grotesque prettiness of the baby gorilla, and some wore their faces blackened in sign of mourning, a practical illustration of sending coals to Newcastle, lily-painting, or gold-gilding. They were wonderfully tattooed with a blue, produced, it is said, by the soot of some root and a resinous gum picked up on the shore. The patterns were fanciful _sévignés_, perpendicular lines down the forehead, artificial eyebrows,—the natural being shaven,—wedges between the optics and temples, circles and wheels upon the cheeks and chin, and similar efforts of high art. The eyelashes were plucked, with the usual unpleasant effect, making the organ look bleared, fixed, and beast-like. The operation is an infallible preventive to

‘Ce trait de feu qui des yeux passe à l’âme,

De l’âme aux sens.’

All, even children three or four years old, were clamorous for a _prise_. In these countries both sexes sensibly use tobacco, which in Europe has mostly been monopolized by the wrong sex. It is placed between the lip and teeth,[47] and even the common powder made by Krumen is preferred to the best smoking leaf. They appeared healthy. A few cases of ulcers and hydrocele were seen, but on the whole they were freer from disease than our party of Krumen.

As we advanced a single woodman’s hut appeared upon the roadside, the scattered plantations showing a tolerable population; and loud musket reports were heard rumbling and echoing through the hills. Mr. Johnson accounted for them by some recent death. The wood was vocal with the hoo-hoo-hoo of the touraco, which a stranger might mistake for a dog’s bark. The palm-birds fluttered round their nested tree; and the widow- bird perched upon the spray. At times a brown kite (_F. chilla_) lay on the wing, the sole sign, except the sand-fly, of animal life. After an ugly pull up rocks and roots, dotted with grass, and bewildered by a labyrinth of paths—our carriers were compelled to rest every half- hour—we entered the district of Bosumbo, and found three scattered tents tenanted by Bakwiri. These people do not, like the Fernandian Bubes, congregate in towns: the scarcity of water and petty feuds keep them separate. They do not inhabit the immediate seaboard for fear of kidnappers; nor do they extend up the mountains higher than the banana and the oil palm. Their habitat is therefore, as is the case with the Bubes, between 1000 and 3000 feet above sea-level. Mr. Johnson insisted upon leading us to the tenement of the chief, Myombi, who lives, probably for safety, like most of his fellows, in the centre of his district. At 10·30 A.M. we reached the place, two blocks, each of two huts, surrounded by plantains, and separated by a hundred yards or so. It lies between N.N.E. and N. of Victoria, distant about 4½ miles;[48] and the altitude is 1055 feet. Presently Myombi himself made his appearance in the glazed hat of a British tar—these people must make themselves ridiculous in some way—and showed us a little civility, which time proved to be not wholly disinterested. We halted at his place for breakfast: water threatening not to last, we experimented upon the banana-stalk, and found its porous and cellular tissue to contain a refreshing supply of wholesome drink, with a faint flavour of cucumber. Some of the natives have not, it is said, any other potable; and it forms excellent fodder for cattle, keeping fresh for three weeks. Mr. Johnson mentioned succulent herbs and water-bulbs, like those of the South African karroos; none, however, were met with.

Noon saw as again on the footpath way. A short distance out of Bosumbo took us to a quadrivium, of which the north-east branch led down the hill-slopes, through a country of scattered settlements, to the populous town of Abo;[49] the south and east to the sea; and the west, our direction, up the mountain. Myombi had been persuaded, by the gift of a pair of matchets, to lend us a guide. The sun’s heat was overpowering in the lanes of grass that here opened out, and there strangled the road. It was a fine place for snakes. They are rare, however, in these dank regions; the only specimen seen was a fine asp (Cerastes), hanging outside one of the cottages. The bearing of our path somewhat perplexed me; we struck nearly due west; and instead of ascending from, we seemed descending to, the sea. Presently the cause appeared in a few scattered huts, called Turu,[50] whose chief came forth and forbade passage till presented with a cloth and a matchet. We then resumed the road, which dwindled to a hardly perceptible by-path, crossing from east to west, with other ramifications leading, it was said, to Bimbia. Here the face of the country was wrinkled with prisms of jagged trachytic rock, separated by chasms, cloughs, and ravines, which must roll torrents during the rains, and by pick and spade might easily be made to supply water throughout the year. We passed many old clearings, or rather fallows, denoted by high grass and plantains run wild, and a few fresh cuttings, a hundred feet each way, in the dense bush. The rocky, rooty ground rendered walking difficult, and condemned us to look more often at our feet than at the features of the country. On the dank, miry surface, unseen by the midday sun, the ants were unusually troublesome; and we found a few millepedes and land-shells, which were secured for transmission home. Llianas, which here extend from 2000 to 7000 feet high, ‘romped upon the trees.’ There were asclepiadæ, gardeniaceæ, convolvulaceæ, and cucurbitous plants, whose fruit, like the cocoa, forms a convenient water-dipper. The dry season is in these regions the flowery period. The ipomæa, a bright blue convolvulus, and momordica with red-yellow flower and little prickly gourd, invested the bush where it was more than usually open. The clematis was beautiful with its spangles of white bloom; and we especially remarked a geranium; a papilionaceous bean-like blossom of vivid scarlet; a perfumed flower, not unlike a honeysuckle; and the large yellow malvacea, popularly called hibiscus. There were orchids in numbers; but these epiphytes in Africa lack the beauty of the American. The conspicuous tree of the forest was the enormous eriodendron; the anthocleista and monodora were remarkable for their foliage; whilst the sterculia, though leafless, glowed with carmine-coloured fruit.

After three miles of hard labour, which made us tremble for our loaded Krumen’s feet, and halt frequently to recruit exhausted nature with _anizado_ and water, the guide suddenly exclaimed, ‘Mboka Botani!’ (Botani’s town). It had an ominous sound; and we were afterwards justified in terming it Botany Bay. The district is called Mapanya. Here every place appears to have two names, its own and that of its head-man. Presently tall shredded plantains appeared rustling in the now cooler breeze, which was odorous with a salvia bearing a fair blue flower. An African stile, three transverse rungs for steps—sometimes there is a notched palm-trunk—in the dwarf but solid palisade, introduced us to a settlement of two huts, from which the unarmed tenants sallied forth with horrid din, to gaze upon us with absorbed stare. During our few minutes’ _séance_ the judge descried a horn, probably ivory, and proposed adding it to his collection: the owner, however, modestly demanded only a hat, a coat, and a shirt; in fact, he wanted to become a ‘gentleman.’ The warning of the guide, who pointed to a sinking sun, brought us to our feet again; and after sundry rises and sinkings of ground we saw upon the summit of a grassy and flowery hill a figure in wide-awake and blanket-suit, which proved to be M. Mann. He had spent the day—as his first words informed us—in rest, having returned but yesterday evening from the summit. The announcement caused us to ‘tie a face,’ as the Africans say. Soon, however, I reflected that, considering the distance and the height, it was some mistake on his part; and this it proved to be. The enterprising botanist, so far from having scaled the summit, had never even seen it. Meanwhile he led us into a hut which he had cleared out and occupied, supplied us with some bad green water, which he had purchased at the rate of three tobacco-leaves per breaker,[51] and an excellent pepper-pot of yam and fowl.

We had hardly seated ourselves, and removed from our continuations the hamated burrs of the hedysarum,[52] before Botani, a buxom chief, made his appearance, and M. Mann introduced him as ‘an unusually polite person, quite different from those he had previously seen.’ He was a short thickset individual, aged about thirty-five, with a well-turned, hillman’s leg. His complexion, like that of his wives—many of whom had ‘taken venues under their girdles’—and his children, who were numerous, was a sallow yellow, a tint rare about the Camaroons River: the contrast with the dark brown of his followers would suggest in Eastern Africa a difference of descent. His brown eyes were bare of lash and brow; his long fat upper lip was clean shaven; his beard was the Yankee goatee; and he had a regulation whisker, tattooed in bright blue. Not less laughable than his _personale_ was this Soulouque’s costume: a lofty black beaver, a scanty breech-cloth of chequed cotton, and a full-dress coatee, all red and yellow—‘devil’s livery’—of the old Royal Marines. Thus attired _en roi_, he progressed towards the hut-door; and whilst the vulgar squatted upon the ground, shouting a song and beating time, he performed a solemn pavane, ending in a lavolt, a turn-about, a wheel- about, and a jump Jim Crow, in right royal African style. A frantic pushing of palms, as if he would prostrate each new-comer friend, and an accolade, right breast to right breast, were the signs of absolute welcome which our Polichinelle vouchsafed to us. The judge roared with delight; but I felt grave. When the negro king dances he expects the white man to pay the piper somewhat heavily.

The edifying exercise concluded, M. Mann told us the tale of his troubles. On the 13th December, after a ‘dash’ of ten ‘little’—pronounced lill—‘tings,’ each worth a shilling,[53] to Myombi and Nangasika, the first and second head-men of Bosumbo, he had left Victoria with Mr. Pinnock, Money his interpreter, six Krumen, and a Mokwiri guide, with seven followers, who had received, as fee for safe conduct to Mapanya, four pieces, _i.e._ goods worth 4_l._ Arrived in the evening at the Bosumbo, which he called ‘Bassumba,’ village, he gave the chief his present—an assortment of ‘lill’ tings’ worth about thirty shillings. The next day was a compulsory halt; the natives, pleading fatigue, refused to proceed, and Mr. Money, having drawn payments to the amount of 2_l._ in kind, naturally ran away. Thus the traveller was reduced to employ as interpreter a boy seven or eight years old, a Bimbia orphan in the service of Mr. Pinnock, and rejoicing in the name of ‘Poor Fellow.’ This was the first mishap. Everywhere in Africa the interpreter should be a man of weight and wealth. On the 15th, Myombi again refused passage till dashed to the extent of 2_l._ in a coat, a keg of powder, and minor articles. Here was a decided mistake, which patience would have prevented. The only return gift was a small black porker, a wretched fowl, and two yams. M. Mann, however, starting at 8 A.M., reached in four hours his _Meta Incognita_, Mapanya. On the 16th, Botani, who had left home ordering a hut to be cleared for his visitor, returned without pomp or dancing, and received his ‘dash’—one musket, one keg of powder, matchets and knives, snuff-box, mirror, rum, tobacco, and silk and cotton kerchiefs, worth in toto about 2_l._ 10_s._, for which he agreed to supply an escort. On the 17th the chief brought eleven men, and demanded for them each one head of tobacco and one fathom of cloth, besides extra blackmail for himself, a musket, sundry kerchiefs, rum, and tobacco, in value, perhaps, thirty shillings. M. Mann set out at 7 A.M., reached the water, which he afterwards christened by his name, at 5 P.M., and nighted a little beyond it. On the next day, the natives having disappeared, he was accompanied by two Krumen only to a Cone, where he left his maximum and minimum thermometers, and whence he returned—persuaded that he had reached _the_ Peak, which was under a cloud—arriving at Mapanya on the 18th December.

It is evident that ten guineas will not pay the expenses of a vacation tour to the Camaroons Highlands, as it has been made to do in Switzerland.

After the ‘stagnant air and leaden sky, the livid clouds and rain- torrents, heavy, prone, and broad,’ in the oil rivers, the ‘dissolution and thaw’ of Fernando Po, and the ‘simmering upon a damp mattress’ in the regions below, we enjoyed a pleasant soirée in the soft, light, hazy air. At 6 P.M. the thermometer showed 69° Fahr., in the Camaroons River it rarely sinks below 73°, and ranges from that to 82°. The Krumen, being sadly tired, asked, after their fashion, leave to play, and sang and danced through half the night. Mr. Saker and I slept in M. Mann’s tent, composed of three blankets, two for the pent-roof, and one for the boot and entrance. The judge and the botanist preferred the hard-knobbed floor of the tent.

My heart fell at the prospect before us. We had four sets of Krumen, the most disorderly of their unruly herd. All were apparently to be masters; it was the old query—

‘I Señor—thou Señor—he Señor,

Tell me who’ll pull the boat ashore?’

They entered the tent and impudently took whatever they inclined to, rum and tobacco, pork and white rice. We had set apart a breaker of pure water; they pushed in and helped themselves _ad libitum_. The savage instinct readily returns upon this race. I have heard old man-of-war’s Krumen tell their Captain that in the bush all men are equal. They contributed not a little to the failure of the Niger expedition in 1857. The members, supersaturated with Exeter Hall influences, treated their forty-seven negroes like rational beings. A little ‘prigging’ began; first a few leaves of tobacco, then a mirror, a knife, a matchet: after a few weeks the supercargo found that he had lost goods to the extent of 240_l._

My resolution was taken during that cool pleasant night, which was succeeded by a delightful morning, the mercury showing 64° Fah. at 5 A.M., and the small birds singing with all their throats. At the break of day we arose, banished the thoughts of the sand-flies with strong green tea, and saw our breath—What a pleasure to the Englishman in the tropics! My companions were persuaded to place the Kruman party under my charge, and I made them over to Selim Aga with an order that no man should enter the tent or touch the rations without leave. The fellows listened with a smile, and instantly disobeyed, a proceeding as readily noticed by the soundest external application. ‘He be debbil man,’ was the remark with which my ears were gratified. This, however, was the beginning of amendment; the fustigations were afterwards more ceremoniously conducted, and at the end of a fortnight my rascals were in fair working order, sighing for ‘Nanny Po,’ which at other places they regard with horror.

The 20th December was a Friday, and a halt. Mr. Johnson and Money, whose services were no longer required, returned to Victoria, and seven Krumen under Selim Aga accompanied them, with orders to bring a fresh relay of provisions. We had ample time to cast a look around Mapanya and at its population.

The clearing lies W.N.W. of Victoria, and N.N.W. of Bosumbo. It is distant from the sea about 7½ miles,[54] and the altitude was laid down at 2650 feet. The site is a dwarf platform, and the enclosure is 1100 feet across. Curious to say, in this land of chronic skirmish there are no stockades, the use of which is so well known to Africans. As early as 1562 Sir John Hawkins had 6 men killed and 40 wounded, out of a total of 150 men, before one of these ‘Pahs’ near Elmina. It is surrounded by a dense bush, in which the saccharum grows ten to eleven feet high, and the plantain, the cork-tree, and that locally called gamboge (_Psorospermum alternifolium_), forming a background. A little below the entrance is the last Elæis, that typical tropical type, here stunted to about thirty feet. The natives, I have said, cannot live without this tree: they tap it for their drink every morning, leaving an empty calabash for the next day’s draughts, and during the operation they make the peculiar laughing, crowing cry, which, echoed by the hills, sounds weird and strange in the wild. They prepare a modicum of oil for household use, and carry to market the fresh nuts removed from the spike. Where the wood opens there is a lovely view. Thousands of feet above us, bearing N. ¼ W., and emerging from the shaggy folds of the mountain, are three ‘nicks,’ as they are called in the North Country, one wooded, the two upper bare. M. Mann informed us that we should find water behind the highest and boldest Cone, which can be seen from Fernando Po, and we named them the ‘Three Sisters.’ The background, dense with eternal forest, which shuts in the higher cones, is clear and sharp between 8 and 9·30 A.M., and again an hour before sunset: during day, however, it is hid at this season by a veil of muslin-like vapour. Below us we sight, as though through the small end of a telescope, the blue and misty ocean, with its edge, not rising in the lowlands like a wall on the horizon, but ill defined and melting into sky; and by walking a few paces we see a bird’s-eye view of Mondori Island, the Bimbia Hills, hung in middle space between firmament and ocean, and the Camaroons River, winding, like a dull white thread, through an abyss of brownish blue.

The settlement consists of two parallel lines of huts, four on one side facing three on the other, as near the Camaroons and Gaboon Rivers, forming the nucleus of a single street, which runs into a steep grass- lined by-path, leading up the mountain. There are also little tracks and passages through the bush to the adjoining villages. The only objects of remark are a few large grindstones, the dwarf trellises for gourds growing at the entrance, and in the centre, propped by other stones, a small basaltic block, hollowed out like a shallow mortar. Before our arrival M. Mann had seen the principal men busy in ‘making Fetish’ to ward off bad luck and to keep the peace. They poured water from a dipper over a small broom placed upon this embryo altar, and offered similar libations on all the roads leading out of the villages. It is a race

‘Whose primitive religion reaches

As far as Adam’s first green breeches;’

but this time their Fetish was not ‘strong.’

The huts are oblongs, with pent-roofs of palm-thatch, and the walls are wattled posts of the strong and fibrous tree-fern, covered with sheets of bark to keep out the wind. Near the outside lie stones and logs, used as chairs, and the experienced eye notices the ominous drum. It is shaped like a large keg, with two parallel slits in one of the long ends, leaving between them a solid bar for handle;[55] the reverse side, upon which it stands, is flattened, and the sticks are a pair of little cudgels. The huts have a single door, but neither window nor chimney. The interior is divided into three: at one end is a dark chamber, serving, I presume, for the father and mother that make the family; the centre is the hall, &c.; and the other extremity may be called the kitchen, containing a rough hearth and an upper platform, below which meat is smoked in a hanging tray, and above which fuel is stored. Furniture there is none; the beds are coarse hatchet hewed planks four feet long, and placed upon cross-blocks. Cleanliness is the last thing thought of; the ceiling looks as if painted with coal-tar, the air reeks with smoke, and the floors show that sheep, goats, and poultry pass the night with their owners.

Under such circumstances life is necessarily simple. These gymnosophists have no want but food and drink, fuel and tobacco. Of course they will not labour, and, if they did, they would be fools. A few hours’ work in the year enables them to burn some square yards in the bush and to plant their banana-stems, after which climate does the rest. The Bakwiri rise with the dawn, and shiver till the fire is lit. The men then hasten to their palm-trees, and to assist them in their ascent, carry a hoop made of many kinds of creepers. It is an oval, of three feet conjugate; the part intended for behind the back is broad, that which touches the tree is twisted, and the ends are hooked and knotted together.[56] In the rainy season it is necessary to cut little steps in the trunk. The women, shouldering their panniers, go forth for food and water. About the latter article there is a mystery. When we ask where they find it, the reply is, ‘too far off;’ they refuse to show it. We observe that the people grease themselves with palm-oil instead of washing—imagine the consequences!—and that the animals are not allowed to drink. They return after some time from various directions, bearing calabashes corked with leaves, and the contents are turbid or green. We conclude, therefore, that their wells are probably stagnant pools, soon exhausted, and that they are then reduced to squeezing ferns, grasses, and dewy plants for their beverage. Presently the little flocks, which have kept up a concert of cries, are driven out by the boys to graze. The goats, like the Camaroons ‘Egbo,’ are superior to those of the coast; the sheep are of the lanky, hairy, thin-tailed kind, resembling dogs rather than Southdowns. These animals are greatly valued by the people, who will not sell them except for exorbitant sums; they are better treated than the children, and are used chiefly to pay ransoms, to settle palavers, or to serve as stock when ‘trust’ fails. They are never milked, and when we applied for a little of the article the answer was, ‘King he no will!’ The poultry is plentiful and good, but hardly to be bought. I saw amongst them the short-shanked African variety, black and yellow game- birds like those of Tenerife, and a breed of hens with spurs like cocks. Each village contains half a dozen long-legged pigs, somewhat like the black hogs of China, which are as familiar to the hut and as foul to the street as the Irishman’s best friend. A few prick-eared curs are also bred for the table and for hunting purposes. The children are numerous, and the high birth-rate amongst savages is the best test of prosperity, as increased infant mortality is the surest sign of civilization.

At 8 A.M. the villagers break their fast. The food is ‘fufu’ of plantain, pounded and made into paste with water; it is eaten with a kind of ‘palaver sauce,’ palm-oil, yam, hibiscus (_Corchorus olitorius_, the Egyptian mulukhiyah), and, when they can get it, ‘bush-meat.’ The women work through the day; the men pass their time chatting, smoking, and taking snuff, sleeping, brawling, and drinking—when rum is not to be had—palm-wine, which is boiled for greater strength. At 3 P.M. the flocks are folded, and at 4 there is a dinner like the breakfast. Wood and water are again brought in, and at 8 P.M. the village is as silent as the grave. Thus—

‘Les jours qui viennent et vont

Se refont.’

‘What a wretched existence!’ the European reader will exclaim.

I vehemently doubt this. The so-called reflecting part of Creation will measure every other individual’s happiness or misery by its own; consequently it is hoodwinked in its judgment. Considering the wisdom displayed in the distribution and adaptation of mankind, I venture to opine that all are equally blessed and cursed: both sexes and every age, the great and lowly, the rich and poor, the robust and the confirmed invalid. Some temperaments enjoy more acutely, and suffer in proportion; others are less sensitive; both, however, it appears to me, have the same sum total of felicity. The Lawgiver of the Hebrews must have so believed when he made this world the sole scene of human existence, requiring no future life to restore the fancied unevenness of the balance. ‘If it were not for the assistance of artificial madness, false lights, refracted angles, varnish, and tinsel, there would be a mighty level in the enjoyments of mortal man,’ said one of the wisest of our modern humourists. The Anatomist of Melancholy somewhere remarks that the two greatest enjoyments are meeting the ‘object of one’s affections’ and the intermission of severe sickness: thus explaining why those hug life who live in what the healthy deem tortures. I am convinced that my dull and half-fossilized Bakwiri are not a whit less happy or less miserable than any prince, millionaire, or philosopher in Europe.

The chief Botani had shown himself most eager for his ‘hansel,’ and we persuaded him with difficulty to wait till 11 A.M. He then appeared in great hurry, armed with what the Chinese call the ‘divine utensil,’ his symbol of chieftainship, his throne—a stool. We presented him in due form with his ‘dash,’—one mirror, two knives, two cutlasses, two heads of tobacco, one cotton kerchief, one silk bandanna, and a 10-lb. keg of powder, the latter here worth as many shillings. Though accompanied by his confidant, whose eyes expressed infinite greed, he appeared satisfied, emitted sundry ‘meditative grunts of much content,’ and in sovereign self-satisfaction retired with his easily-won, ill-gotten gains to speechify about his grandeur as protector of all the whites, and to get tipsy.

The consequence was a lively scene. Botani had been ‘fresh’ in the morning, and unpleasantly civil. In the _bonhomie_ of his early drink, not having the fear of Allah before his eyes, but being moved thereto and seduced by the instigation of the Shaytan, he had offered me—not _en tout bien et tout honneur_—his daughter, a small yellow child, about twelve years old, and seemed thunderstruck by my refusal. Continence, everywhere a rare and difficult virtue, is regarded by barbarians—despite what Dr. Livingstone asserts—rather with contempt than with respect. He had been treated like a great Mogul, and with a few glasses of rum he became a Great Mogul. About 2 P.M. he rushed out of his hut, with drawn dagger, and began the war-dance. After a long brawl he laid forcible hands upon the small interpreter ‘Poor Fellow,’ and swore that he would seize him for Money’s debts. When in this state, and only then, these negroes, losing their sense of fear, become dangerous; at other times they are not more formidable than hyænas. M. Mann, though unarmed, pluckily enough pulled away the boy and drew him into a hut. Botani then rushed to the war-drum, and commenced a frantic _pas de charge_; the women—ominous sign!—slunk into the bush, and the men provided themselves with knives and muskets. Mr. Saker and I had taken up quarters for the day in a hut opposite that occupied by our companions. He began to harangue the people in Isubu, a language which the Bakwiri, who intermarry with the Bimbias, understand, and the rest of us had recourse to our revolvers. Presently a diversion in our favour arose. An old hunter, who had led the botanist up the mountain—we called him ‘Balmat’—came forth, armed like the rest, and addressed furious reproaches to his chief, who was running to and fro like a vicious madman, hoping that we might bolt, but fearing to begin the fray. After much of this display, Botani’s brother, _i.e._ confidant, addressed us civilly, and, after a long speech, split a plantain-leaf into three pieces, which he severally deposited in ‘Poor Fellow’s’ hand,—a kind of memorandum of how much ‘trust’ was owing to the village. Botani then pressed palms with all around, once, twice, and thrice, as men about to be hanged are wont to do; the strangers, who had flocked from the neighbouring settlements at the sound of the war-drum, departed, and the women reappeared. Our doughty chief then retired to sleep off his rum. When all was over, we pulled out our revolvers from our breeches- pockets, and made signs that next time their use should be made manifest.

Liquor was the primal cause of this trouble; there were, however, others. The Judge, wild with delight at escaping Fernando Po, had been a little overintimate with the people, dancing with them, and making them laugh, under the erroneous impression that it would win their good graces. Familiarity breeds contempt in Africa as well as in Europe, and the fun ended in horseplay, chiefly beard-pulling. It was a misfortune, but inevitable, that we had a child for our interpreter. But it was a great mistake to encamp in a central village; we should have followed the East African plan, and either have bivouacked outside, or at any rate at the further end of the enclosure.

A profound calm succeeded this tempest. We passed a pleasant night listening to the bush-dog calling for ‘fire ’tick,’[57] the murmurs of the wind, the growling of thunder down south, and the rustling of the tattered plantain-leaves, which sounded like raindrops. ‘Poor Fellow’ spent the time in fear and trembling, whilst the Krumen armed themselves with matchets, and begged for candles, which we refused; they retired doggedly, and probably spent hours in calculating whether in case of desertion they could steal a boat and make some ship, where they would have been thankfully received.

At 10·15 A.M., on the morning of the 21st December, Selim Aga returned with his small command from Victoria. Unhappily he was accompanied by the chief Myombi, who had behaved badly to M. Mann, and that chief was moreover ‘sprung.’ He began by demanding a glass of bilám—rum—and when refused he retired in dudgeon to some hut, where he apparently found it. The beery Botani was this morning as tame as one when liquor is dying within him; he was sitting upon the stool of repentance with a very hangdog look. Shortly after our breakfast a gathering of the clan took place upon the logs and stones outside the tent, at whose door he was squatting. Something evidently was in the wind. Presently ‘Poor Fellow’ was sent for, and ordered to ask us our intentions on the morrow.

Our reply was brief, but explicit. On the morrow we were to ascend the mountain with nine or ten guides, whom we offered to fee, and we expected in return for our ‘dashes’—which had not provoked any retaliation—kindness and civility.

Botani, the dipsomaniac, was then put forward by Myombi, who sat ostentatiously in the background. After a long consultation, ‘Poor Fellow’ was directed to inform us that the price of ascending the mountain was 500 ‘big tings,’ _i.e._ 500_l._, otherwise that we might return whence we came. Yesterday Botani had shown the normal African dread of our leaving his village whilst we had cloth and food, and now he was urged to desperation by the villain Myombi. The demand provoked a shout of laughter, and we asked them if they could not take something less. In another half-hour they brought it down to 300_l._ But we had now seventeen Krumen besides our five selves—a force too strong for the Bakwiri: ‘ultimate sovereignty resides in the right arm of man;’ the _mollia tempora fundi_ had passed by; ‘defiance not defence’ became our motto. Despite the excited remonstrances of M. Mann, who, desiring to make a depôt at Mapanya, urged the _suaviter in modo_, which infallibly would have led to other and greater troubles, I resolved by Mr. Saker’s advice to try the _fortiter in re_. ‘Poor Fellow’ was told to say that we were tired of this ‘fool talk,’ that we would not pay another farthing, but advance by foul, if not by fair means. The reply was, that we should not have carriers nor guides. We rejoined that ‘it was nothing to Bacchus,’ that we would go alone; and pointing to Myombi, who frequents the market at Victoria, we made him understand that he should answer for this ‘palaver.’

Whilst Mr. Saker spoke to the people, I was pleased to find how much could be done by one wholly ignorant of the language, with the assistance of signs learned amongst the North American aborigines. Gestures have been well defined as the hieroglyphics of speech. If fate ever lead me back to Europe, and lend me leisure, I hope to make a further study of the subject in surdo-mute establishments, and to produce a system which may prove generally useful, especially to those beginning a foreign tongue. A hundred words easily learned in a week, 200 signs, and a little facility in sketching, would enable, I believe, a traveller to make his way through any country, even China, a few days after arrival.

But as neither eloquence nor gestures appeared to produce the least effect upon the mule-like Bakwiri, we suited the deed to the word, arose, and prepared for departure. It was now a treat to see the avidity of the savages as they peered over our shoulders into bag and box.[58] Botani and Myombi had many confabs.; many too were the confabs. of their followers. The great men at last retired under a plantain clump at the side of the village, and, eyeing our proceedings with the superiority of sarcasm, declared that we should never find the way, and that if we did our valuables must be abandoned. Our loads were for twenty-five men, of whom we had only fourteen. Presently all departed, leaving only the women, children, and four-footed animals in the village. Their conduct was eminently childish—African. They knew, poor worshippers of St. Belly, that they gained, and greatly gained, by being in our good graces; but they wanted more—in fact all—and not being able to get all, they would take nothing. We debated upon the propriety of recovering our ‘dashes;’ presently we resolved to leave them no ground for complaint. But before Europeans can travel about this country, the people must be taught to expect pay for service only, and be severely punished if they attempt their avanies.

A little after midday we sent forward up the Hill of Difficulty our first detachment under Messrs. Calvo and Saker, ordering the Krumen to return after finding a camping-place in the bush. The rest of us waited below with the remnant, doing watch and ward, and straining our eyes for the reappearance of the carriers. The distance was little more than a mile.[59] Yet 2 P.M. passed—then three—then four—we were beginning to fear some accident, and to dread the delay of a day; Dante himself could not walk in the Cimmerian night of an African _selva oscura_—when at 5 P.M. our truants heralded their approach with the Swiss-like Kru-cry ‘Ohyo! Ohyo! Hyo! Hyo-o-o!’ and presently appeared with flourishing matchets, skipping down the hill-path. They had lost the road when ascending, and had had a weary time.

Twenty minutes were consumed during the second loading; it reminded me of bygone hair-whitenings in East Africa. Only nine Krumen had returned, five having shirked duty. The strongest insisted upon loading most heavily the weakest: we reduced all the weight we could, still two loads lay hopelessly upon the ground. At that time, however, some of the humbler sort of villagers began to show, and amongst them ‘Balmat.’ The Grison professed inability to carry; he found for us, however, two youths, who, after the usual futilities—retiring to consult friends, demanding ‘ready-money’—and ‘cabbaging’ a finger’s length in the measurement—consented to accompany us, _moyennant_ two fathoms of satin stripe. One did his work manfully, and was rewarded with rum and extra pay; the other, who had prudently left his hire in his tent, resolutely refused after a few hundred yards to advance, nor did the muzzle of a gun thrust against his breast induce him to ‘budge an inch.’

‘Man,’ says the Arab proverb, ‘eats you; the desert does not.’ With a light heart, although the sun was casting shadows of portentous length, we stepped out of Botany Bay; ascended the grassy slope; passed sundry outlying huts, the highest human habitations on this part of the mountain; and crossing a tall stile found ourselves once more in the bush. The road was a copy of that leading to Mapanya; steep pitches, ladders of root and rock, ridges, hollows, and scrambling places, girt by tall grasses, and with a slippery moss-grown surface, where biting ants attacked us, and held on even after decapitation. The plantain- clearings presently ceased, and we saw the succulent tree no more. The nettles, so troublesome on Fernando Po Mountain, began in real earnest. There was one vegetable wonder, a giant of the forest, raised high above the earth upon aërial roots, like the conical spindles of the red mangrove. Several trees, the African cork for instance, affect a similar formation; but this surpasses them all in stature and exaggeration. The road was like Jordan, ‘a hard one to travel.’ As darkness was imminent, we saw a real light after having often been mocked by the fire-flies; we heard shouts above us, and presently the rested came down to assist the weary. I arrived at 6 P.M. Selim Aga and M. Mann put in an appearance shortly afterwards. Only one bag of rice had been left behind, and old ‘Balmat’ had promised to forward it on the morrow.

The camp was pitched with a refreshing ignorance of encamping. Its site was a steep, narrow ridge, with a slope of 15° and a chasm on both sides. Some twenty-four human beings were huddled together on a few square feet. The fire was built to leeward, and, as the cool night set in, fuel became scarce. It was too late to re-form. My attention was confined to the water-breaker; we had but one; the inhospitable villagers had refused to fill our others; and the nearest, indeed the only known spring, could not be reached before the evening of the morrow, if then. During the evening I made a chair of the precious breaker, and at night a pillow, determined that on such a vital occasion as this there should be no pilfering. Krumen, inhabitants of a maritime country where water abounds, are uncommonly impatient of thirst; some of them actually preferred a drink of the element to a dram, but these had probably been making free with our rum. They did not, however, neglect to ‘play’ in their usual style. An individual dances and addresses, in black man’s English, French, and Spanish, the circle of squatters, who reply in roaring chorus ‘Bateo’—‘Give way!’—and ‘O-e! O-e!’ These people suffer much from nostalgia; a drum and a horn should always accompany them on expeditions. Often when they are unable to perform a heavy task, one of their number dancing before them and singing a home ditty has surprised them into renewed exertion. The snorting and snoring of the Krumen, a ripping and rag-tearing noise, which awoke with awful echoes the stillness of the night, combined with a cup of strong green tea, whose pleasant intoxication is as exciting as that of ague and fever, caused me a sleepless night that told heavily upon the next day’s hard march.

Before dawn on the 22nd December we arose and addressed ourselves to our tasks. The Krumen received a ration of pork and biscuit and a mouthful of water each; they were unable to boil their rice, without which they rarely do a good day’s work. Hands being short, we determined to place some loads in deposit. The first detachment set out at 7·15 A.M., and soon returned to fetch the packs still lying in camp. After a quarter of an hour’s walk we deposited them in a hollow, marked by two dwarf parallel palisades of sticks with a heap of stones between, showing that large game had been killed there, a practice also common amongst the Fernandian Bube. We left behind two breakers, four heavy bags of rice, a case of liquor and coffee, and sundry tin specimen-boxes containing sundries. Such a _câche_ would not have baffled a Sioux for five minutes; here, however, we found it answer, and when safely encamped on the mountain we recovered all by sending down detachments of Krumen.

The march began at 8 A.M., up a rugged rise, wooded, with forest rather than with bush, and presently we debouched upon the fern region. It was fern, fern, everywhere. The valleys were filled with cyatheas, tree- ferns like palms, from ten to thirty feet high, surpassingly graceful and beautiful, especially when their delicate tracery was viewed from above, picked out by the golden rays of the sun. Others were little epiphytes (Trichomanes and _Dicksonia Selinifolia_) springing like moss upon the stems—miniature things hardly a foot long. There were beds of ferns resembling the common English variety, and others running creeper- like up the trunks, contrasting with the broad-leaved orchids based upon the boughs. Never has ‘rambler in search of ferns’ seen a more beautiful fernery, set off as it was by the grand tropical growth around. My companions were less struck; they had familiarized themselves with the spectacle at Fernando Po; moreover, on Camaroons Mountain the best sites are occupied by clearings and plantations, which is not the case with the Sister Peak. At this season, however, the asparagus of the Himalayas was too old for eating. The view was charming—

‘Summer winds about us blowing

Made a murmur in the land’—

but the path was vile, wet and muddy. After a good hour’s march we passed under an archway formed by cross trees, supported by others still standing. It was at once called Fern Gate. And beyond it we fell into a new country.

The bush and forest suddenly disappeared, as though by the work of woodmen, and, O joy! we emerged from the region of the clammy, dewy grasses that imprisoned us. The eye revelled over a broad field of lovely green, a dense mass of small moss and thick fern of a single species, _T. nephrolapis_, so called from its fructification. The base was a bed of old and degraded lava, much more modern, however, than any in Madeira, or even in the valley of Orotava. We were destined to trace this stream to its source, and it was palpably the oldest formation of the kind. We called it Lava Bed No. 1. The direction is from north to south, gradually bending at the end towards the E.S.E.; in fact, nearly fronting the north-east wind, which appears to be that prevalent upon the mountain. I conjectured that by following this bearing we could hardly fail to make the main source by the nearest line, and was not disappointed by my rude analogy. The breadth where we struck the outflow might be half a mile; below that point, however, the discharge, finding scantier slope, thinned out, spread, and possibly ceased to flow; at least we guessed so, from its ending in a forest which conceals from sight the sea, to which it extends. It is girt on both sides by a dense belt of trees, springing from a stiff yellow clay, the portions of the slope which the lava did not overflow. A B. P. observation gave us an altitude of 4535 feet, about 1000 feet above Snowdon and the Reeks of Kerry, and 800 feet higher than Vesuvius.