Chapter I: Engaging Boys—lagos

It was at Seccondee on the Gold Coast that “John” came aboard. Do not mistake me!—he was not a first-class passenger nor an acquaintance. Far from it; he was one of a motley crowd of jabbering natives which, with an extraordinary conglomeration of hand-carried household belongings, were put aboard from surf boats and herded on to the open after-deck—already stacked with sacks of Kola nuts from Sierra Leone—like so many head of frightened sheep.

No! John was certainly not of a race or rank to claim intimate acquaintance. In the first place he was as black as the ace of spades, which in itself for ever barred him from any claim to equality or kinship—a hard plain fact which any old colonial on “The Coast” or anywhere in Africa would endorse, while with grave misgivings regretting the extraordinary policy and laws that grow, from what sane source is past understanding, more and more lenient in their evident stiffness of opinion to release native inhabitants of our colonies from the slightest restraint of a dominant European rulership; policy that is reacting— surely not with short-sighted blindness?—to bring about the downfall of the fine old decorum of the white man’s prestige which natives naturally observed in every respect in the past. And it would be well to remember, those singular innovations which are being brought in on the tide of European civilisation are being entrusted to natives who are endowed by nature with characteristics of a different race type to ours and which are irrevocably unchangeable at the line of their limitations. European education and European laws along certain well-chosen, sure-set lines can cultivate those characteristics of the native to a certain standard—_but not one step further_. It is the logic of Nature: up to a point, with many creatures and plants and even matter, artificial cultivation is possible and beneficial; but over-experiment with the material, over-nurture and Nature steps in and calls a decisive halt in this tampering with her creations, and death or decline is thenceforth observed.

It is difficult for anyone to foresee the Future— that word of wonderful depth which is the most awesome in the English language—into which men may cast the biggest venturings of experiment in the world; and generations watch them rise and flourish if they be right, or flounder and go under if they be wrong. And surely it shall never be— this would-be blending of two entirely opposite races to a semblance of equality, though it is for the present this ugly threat which is often before the “Coaster” and the men on the bush stations to-day.

But to return to John, for John has importance in the narrative, which African politics have not, the ship had hauled anchor and cleared Seccondee for Lagos, and I stood solitary by the taffrail of the upper deck looking idly on the low line of typical African shore that lay indistinctly in the north. The deck, for the moment, was free of passengers, for it was in the quiet afternoon hours, when almost everyone on board retired to indulge in a pleasant book or a snooze, as is the after-lunch habit in hot enervating climates like Africa.

But, suddenly, I was not alone, and a native, who had no doubt watched his chance to break the bounds of the lower-deck, stood beside me waiting permission to speak.

“What do you want?” I asked, somewhat curiously. “You have no right to be on this deck.”

“I want I make work for you, sir,” replied the native. “My massa, he live for back, him go England. I plenty glad work for you, sir.”

“But,” I warned, “suppose I want a boy? I am a hunter. I am not going to live in a town or station in Nigeria where the duties of cook-boy or house-boy are ordinary. I am going to travel far in a strange land north of Kano; work will be hard and plenty; good boys will catch good pay; bad boys will go home quick and catch nothing. You are a coast boy, and I do not think you are fit for bush in far country.”

But the boy was not so easily discouraged, either he wanted employment urgently or was ignorant of the full purport of my “white man talk,” for he answered in his pigeon English, with a broad grin of hopefulness: “Dat be all same same, sir! I no fit savvy dat bush now, dat’s true, by-n-bye I plenty fit to look him. I want work for you—I good boy, sir!”

To which what could one do but smile? But, nevertheless, I now looked the boy over more attentively.

His thick-set bulldog head was excessively ugly and unprepossessing in all its features. Any face is dull which has no attraction in the eyes or in the mouth, and those of this negro native had none, for the soiled whites of his eyes rolled alarmingly, and the large mouth had lips rolled into one that would have served three ordinary men adequately. Moreover, he was an Awori native of the Coast, and had profuse tribe marks on his face: three small deep-stamped marks over the cheek-bones, and a line of fourteen marks of the same stamp between the eye-corners and ears, while on the centre of the forehead he had a sort of square and compass scroll more lightly branded than the rest. He was clad, not in the picturesque nakedness of the aboriginal, but, after the fashion of the majority of “boys” on the Coast, in the cast-off clothing of some late master—even to a tweed cap, which sat with ridiculous incongruity on his black woolly head. Altogether he was a regular dandy in “rig-out.” But he was no exception in that respect, for the comical and audacious dress of house-boys of his kind, who are inordinately full of personal swagger, has ever been a source of much amusement to colonials and strangers alike.

It did not take long to size the native up and note those brief somewhat unfavourable characteristics. But at the same time I had appraised the thick-set, sturdy build of the boy, so that the conclusions I finally arrived at were: “An ugly devil—not over intelligent, no doubt—but strong and healthy, and should stand up through plenty of hard work—and he looks honest.”

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“John, sir!” he replied. “John Egbuna,” he added, by way of giving his full name; for it was no less a person than he who had come aboard at Seccondee.

“All right,” I said, moving towards the deck smoking-room. “Come to me when we dock at Lagos and you can work for me.”

Thus John made his appearance. By keen watchfulness he had risked the abuse of ship’s officers and stolen a chance interview, and taking him on in this way was a chance shot, but time proved it to be a lucky one, for John went right through the whole expedition, ever faithful as a dog to his master, while his companions, one by one, fell out.

The ship docked at Lagos after she had come in over the bar on an early morning tide, and steamed slowly inshore and up the wide river-like tidal lagoon of muddy water disfigured with surface-floating green slime-like vegetation and white froth, which escaped, no doubt, from some swamp bank further inland. It was a lagoon which was nevertheless picturesque and novel, with a light morning haze upon waters from which protruded the poles and loosely hanging nets of many fish traps, past which, or about which, up and down the lagoon, plied long lithe dug-outs, and odd-shaped craft of many kinds, single-sailed, or pole-driven, or paddled, and paintless and dark as their negro occupants, except where the gay colour of a cotton garb caught the eye on a boatman more extravagant than his brethren, who were generally rag-clad or naked to the waist.

At Lagos, when I had landed, I made the disconcerting discovery that there was no hotel—a circumstance strange in a port of importance and modern in nearly every other way. I had natives to engage in Lagos for my forthcoming travels, and other business, and therefore it was necessary to stay a few days in the place. Lagos, being a crowded town, was not the sort of place one could pitch a tent in, or that would have been quickly done; but I finally overcame the difficulty by interviewing the purser on the ship, who kindly allowed me to retain my berth on board while the ship unloaded her cargo.

And in that little cabin, in the course of events, some strange interviews were entered on. I had an old-country friend on shore, and with true Coast courtesy he sent his head-boy out into the native town to carry the news that there was a white man on the ship who wanted natives to go north with him, but that, “he want to look boy fit to skin fine fine.”

Native news travels fast even in modern Lagos, and soon boys of various races and types began to come aboard armed with their pass-books and letters testifying character—in some cases letters which were truly from past masters, in others, false and flattering documents borrowed for the occasion were tendered, such is the unscrupulous craftiness of some castes.

The outcome of two days of interviewing natives was not very encouraging, since no boy was discovered who could skin birds or animals with practical skill. However, at the end of the second day I had selected three boys and dismissed the rest, despite their clamourings to be heard further and reluctance to leave the ship.

One of the natives held over for further examination was an extraordinary individual, with all smooth face features absolutely obliterated by the mass of seared vertical lines of tribe marks which ornamented his entire face. He was of middle age, lean, and hard-looking, and obviously the hunter and tracker that he claimed to be. What this individual proposed, when an engagement was broached, was that he be allowed to go to his tribe in the first place to take the news of his departure to his people, and then return and catch up with my caravan wherever I might be. Inquiry revealed that his home was distant a whole month’s travel by canoe along the coast. It would take him two months to go and return, and after that he would have to find my camp “somewhere” north of Kano. Yet he appeared to think nothing of such distance and to take to travelling as a duck to water, and declared with conviction that he would meet “master” anywhere, if he would but employ him. I had met this type of tireless hunter among natives before, and they are invariably very good if you can secure them. But, all things considered, taking the man on in faith of fulfilment of merely verbal promises, and advancing him some money to provide for his wives in his absence, savoured too much of bad business; and as he would not pack up and come along as he stood, he was finally allowed to go, with the understanding that if he hurried to his tribe and caught up with the expedition north of Kano, he would then be taken on at good wages, and his “back-time” made good.[3]

The other two boys were Hausa natives, the tribe that I had been strongly advised by men of experience to get my boys from if possible. They were both young—20 to 23—and had been selected from the crowd as being in appearance the most intelligent, for as it was of the utmost importance to secure some help in dressing specimens in the field, it was my intention to teach them to skin if in early practice they should show any aptitude for the work.

Hence one of them was sent ashore to the market in Lagos with instructions to buy a pair of tame pigeons, which would suffice for my purpose in lieu of a specimen dropped to the gun.

Thereafter, down in the hot narrow cabin, while the ship lay at anchor, I gave an object lesson on bird skinning—a necessary but not very edifying proceeding. To begin with, there was a ridiculous familiar pillow-cushion aspect about those dead _tame_ pigeons which robbed one at once of any æsthetic enthusiasm, no matter how solemnly I was prepared to set about the delicate operation of skinning; and a glance from the work-table to my pupils, great loutish curly-headed negroes, with no appreciable sign of dawning understanding as my handiwork proceeded, made me much more inclined to laugh than to be serious.

When the lesson for the day was over, I sent the boys home with money to buy each a pigeon, which they were to try to skin in their homes in the way I had shown, and bring their handiwork on the morrow.

In due course they came aboard again with their “specimens”: one poor skin in rags and with half the plumage gone, the other not so heavily handled, and showing some signs of painstaking work. On that day the lesson in my cabin was repeated, and then independently at home, and the result was that, on the eve of starting north to Kano, one boy—Sakari by name—was engaged, since he had shown some intelligence and skill over his skinning lessons, and the other dismissed as useless, as he had developed no aptitude for the work.

It may not be out of place to say here, while on the subject, that in spite of reports one hears at times of natives who have become expert at preparing specimens—doubtless exceptions—I would advise no collector to rely on local skill to any great extent, for I have always found them most difficult to educate, and skilful and careful only up to a certain point. For my own part I have never employed a native on such work who, when the skin was separated from the carcass, I could allow to apply the coating of preservative and reset the specimen in the natural, faultless repose which is essential to a finished skin required for scientific purposes. For straightforward skinning, however, good natives are procurable, and with practice can save much of the collector’s time by doing the preliminary work.

Meantime, while hunting preparations were progressing, I had spent some time on shore each day in the native quarters of Lagos. The port at which a traveller disembarks in a land which is foreign always holds the lively interest of novelty, if nothing more, and Lagos had much that was novel. Notwithstanding the fact that the outward aspect from the lagoon is almost entirely European, Lagos is, broadly speaking, a great native city; and it is on that account that it is so attractive to the curious stranger. The European section, which runs chiefly in a line along the long shores of the lagoon, is as a rampart between the sea and the great area of native town which lies hidden behind the solidity and imposing stature of the commercial and domestic buildings of the white man. And it is behind those colonial buildings that one must pass to gain entrance to the true city of primitive native hutments which bears the aspect of the historic antiquity and primitive character of the people who inhabit it. So turning from the main street which runs along the water-front, and walking up one of the side-streets, one finds oneself immediately among curious scenes and curious people in narrow streets which are lined with irregular closely packed native huts on either side—huts of every imaginable shape, and built, for the most part, with a most nondescript collection of materials which owners appear to have gathered together with little or no cost to their pockets. The walls of the huts are of mud, but the roofs, if they are not thatched, and the little dog-kennels of bazaars which are in front of almost every dwelling, are made up with old crate-boards, planks, corrugated iron, pieces of tin, old sacks, canvas— anything; paintless, untidy squalor for the most part, and the sun-basking places of countless lizards that come out from behind the shady cracks.

Were the huts and the streets deserted of human life, Lagos would indeed be a dismal place, and little short of one huge rubbish heap; but it is entirely otherwise, for the scene is crowded— even overcrowded—with life and colour, and hence attractive and sometimes very beautiful, and down the hot dusty streets, which in many instances are very narrow, and in and out of side lanes, one may pass for hours and never be clear of the brilliant cotton-clad throng; every individual of which, whether Yuroba, Egba, Hausa, Arab or Kroo, seems intent on selling or buying something in a veritable hive of trading and industry.

It is an uncommon sight, and a wonderfully picturesque one, to view those busy streets of native Lagos—their fullness of motion and rich, almost Oriental colouring of native dress, worn as a rule with all the grace of perfect physique; bazaars bright with wares exposed for sale; children toddling by the doors; and goats and chickens, at risk of their lives, tripping and feeding among the throng. Time without number, as I passed curiously through those streets, my eye was arrested by little gleams of perfect colouring in a perfect natural native setting—lovely pictures without one single act of preparation or posture—and I confess I sighed and moved on, regretting I was not an artist with genius to catch such scenes, and hold them in all their beauty and simplicity, so that I might show them also to my fellow-men, less fortunate in their freedom to travel.

Wherefrom it may be gathered that I much enjoyed my brief sojourn in Lagos, where I would fain have stayed longer, had not my duties called me to hurry on to Kano.