Chapter X: From Bussa to the Sea; Conclusion of Our Voyage (2)

After passing an hour at our anchorage at Igga, we started for Lokodja to look for Mr. Wallace, whom it was very difficult to catch. Fortunately for us, the current was still very strong, but navigation was very tiring, for with the banks inundated as they were, it was difficult to find the bottom amongst the tall grass. Late in the evening we at last anchored near the left bank, and landed to cook a hasty meal. Fili, one of the coolies who looked after the kitchen department, had cleared a corner of bushes and lit a fire when, all of a sudden, the men made a rush for the boats screaming _manians! manians!_ They had been attacked by the black ants they call manians, the bite of which is very severe. No cooking for us to-night, no meal however simple! No sleep either for our poor men, for the rain began to pour down again. Worse still, the terrible manians began to climb on board by the anchor-chains, by the ropes of the grappling-hooks, by everything, in fact, which held us to the bank. They had come to storm the barges, and the ropes and chains became black with their swarms. The only way we were able to check this novel kind of invasion was by lowering the chains and ropes into the water.

This horribly comfortless night over, we started again with almost empty stomachs. The scenery was very picturesque, but although the water was high we felt the boats grate on the rocks lining the bed of the stream. Navigation must be generally far from easy here.

The vegetation now became denser, and the oil-palm of much more frequent occurrence. There were, however, few villages, and they became further apart, on the banks at least, as we advanced. At last in the evening our pilot told us we were approaching Lokodja. Picturesque hills, from about six hundred to a thousand feet high, lined the right bank, whilst on the left we could see the mouth of the Benuë, now greatly increased in width by inundations.

About six o’clock we came in sight of the huts of the village, rising in tiers from the slopes of a hill, their zinc roofs shining amongst the verdure in the glow of the setting sun. We were at Lokodja, and as it was nearly night we anchored off the bank.

Here we found Mr. Drew, the executive officer of the Company for the Lokodja-Geba district, for whom we had waited in vain at Geba, and also another officer who spoke French.

We were received with all due etiquette and invited to dinner. We talked about the river; and Mr. Drew, who did not allow himself to show any surprise at our having passed safely down it, must really have been astonished. He told us he had himself achieved the arduous task of going over the rapids in a light canoe accompanied by one man only. He had intended to go down to Bussa by the channel used by the natives. He had even been capsized, and dragged down into the whirlpool. He owed his life entirely to his canoe-man, who had plunged after him and brought him up from the bottom. He still had the scar of a wound he had got from the sharp flints, amongst which he had been rolled over and over.

Major Festing, who came in to dessert, invited us to go to him the next day. We cut but sorry figures beside our hosts in their unimpeachable costumes, for our clothes were torn by our struggles in the bush, our gold lace was tarnished, our breeches were patched, our boots had been bought in the country, and our helmets were terribly battered about.

I do not know which agent of the Company it was who refused to receive the leader of a French expedition because of his disreputable appearance, with untrimmed beard and clothes in rags. Times are greatly changed since then, or rather perhaps the instructions given have been modified.

The next day we had breakfast with Major Festing, and were most cordially received. Our host was then Commander-in-chief of the troops in the service of the Niger Company. Lokodja was his headquarters, and his soldiers, who were Haussas, were well lodged. Their cantonments are charming, and the Major’s house had every English comfort that could possibly be expected. Big airy rooms adorned with weapons, looking-glasses and hunting pictures, etc., native mats on the ground, flowers growing in the copper pots manufactured in the country. Everything very simple and suitable. Music was going on whilst we were at breakfast, as if we were on board an admiral’s flag-ship or at the Grand Hotel in Paris. Children played to us on the flute, regaling us with the familiar airs of the _café-concerts_ of France. We had printed _menus_, dainty salt-cellars, caviare, whisky-and-soda, good stout, etc. Oh, what a delight it was to eat a well-served meal on a table-cloth decked with fresh flowers! If only we had had a few ladies in light summer costumes to share it with us, it would indeed have been complete.

Major Festing most courteously placed at our disposal as interpreter, a Haussa sergeant of his from the Senegal, who had been at one time in the service of Mizon, and also of De Brazza. He spoke a little French, and had been one of the last to leave the station of Yola. He told us of all his strange wanderings to and fro, and piloted us about the town when we went to make our purchases, for we did make some purchases at Lokodja. To begin with, we supplemented our stores of provisions, which was very necessary, if we wished suitably to return the hospitality we received. We had, moreover, very little of the dinner service left which we had brought from France three years before. We had, it will be remembered, sent to the bottom of the river everything not absolutely indispensable, and we wanted some claret and champagne-glasses badly.

The natives of Lokodja were very civilized, using table napkins, basins, dishes with covers, china flower-pots, etc., sold to them by the Company, or rather bartered for native productions, for there is no money currency in the Niger districts. The wages of the troops, labour, and raw material are all paid for in merchandise, such as salt, stuffs or ware of different kinds. The Company seem to make considerable profit on these transactions. As for us, we were rich enough to be generous. Suleyman, our interpreter, received orders to buy everything offered at the price asked, for we should only have to throw the things which were too heavy to take on, into the water later. So we gave silk drawers for a dozen eggs, and long strings of pearls, false ones of course, for three bananas.

The generosity of Commandant Mattei, agent of the old French Niger Company, whom we so clumsily allowed an English Company to supplant, has become proverbial, and the natives often quote it apropos of the stinginess of the Niger Company. I am very sure that our stay at Lokodja did nothing to lessen the fame of French liberality. The natives of the banks of the Niger still bemoan the loss of French traders and the hauling down of the French flag.

Lokodja, which we were able to visit, is a fairly large village, very picturesquely situated on a mountain. It is cut across by ravines and shaded by banana and papaw-trees, with numerous oil-palms. There is a splendid view of the meeting of the Benuë and the Niger. The remains of the steam-boat _Sokkoto_, which was wrecked on a rock, are still to be seen, and further down the river are other stranded boats.

We were told that Lokodja is the principal town of an extensive district numbering from twenty to thirty thousand inhabitants. The town properly so called, however, does not contain more than from four to five thousand at the very most. The market, which is very extensive, is much frequented, and is held in the afternoon. All manner of European articles are offered for sale in it. The only native industries are the beating of copper and the manufacture of rather peculiar drawers made of two pieces of stuff sewn together and adorned with a kind of open work. The blacksmiths, who are very skilful in a kind of _repoussé_ work done with a pointed instrument on copper, make vases, cups, and ewers of it, which are really very original in design.

Most curious of all the specialities of Lokodja, however, are the games and the _tam-tams_ held there. In the former, the performers are all young graceful girls who are perfectly nude. I have visited many towns of low morality. I know Naples, Port Saïd, and Colombo. I have seen the so-called flower-boats of China and the Japanese _yoshivaras_ in that Orient where everything is possible, but never did I witness anything to be compared with what goes on at Lokodja.

The chief of the village is the well-known Abegga, and the name calls up for us French all manner of memories. Abegga is really almost a relation of mine, for he is a freed man who was bought at Sokoto, and given his liberty by my Uncle Barth. Abegga followed his master to England first and then to Germany. Back again in Africa, he entered the service of Commandant Mattei as interpreter, and to-day he is king of Lokodja. Such are the chances of life!

We were received by him with effusion, for we awoke all his old memories. Taburet, who from his translations from Barth’s book knew more about Abegga than Abegga did himself, had a long talk with him in English. In the end we sent our royal friend, Baudry’s hunting-piece as a present, by the hands of his envoy.

We expected every minute to hear of the arrival of Mr. Wallace, but he did not come. I could not remain at Lokodja for ever, so I took Mr. Drew’s word for it that

neither he nor the Company had had anything to do with our difficulties at Bussa and Auru, accepting the offer made to me with so much urgency that we should be towed down-stream by the _Ribago_, the steamboat we had met at Igga, and which had now come down again to Lokodja.

We were to start at two o’clock. After we had made our farewell visits I went to Mr. Drew and said, “I have decided to accept your offer of having us towed down-stream.” Then I added rather awkwardly, “How much?”

“Five pounds for each white man, and one for each black, was the reply.

A good price truly just for towing us down-stream! It would come to 1450 francs altogether! I merely, however, said “Oh!” just to relieve my feelings.

Now was not this rather sharp practice on the part of the Company? After pressing me so much to accept a service, I had imagined that it was offered gratuitously as between one friendly government and another, and what had annoyed me was the thought of being under an obligation to the Royal Niger Company. But I was quite wrong; I was dealing with the traders of the Company only, and that put me at my ease.

They may have thought that having come so far I should not have money enough left to pay them, and that I should have to leave in their debt, but I simply said to Mr. Drew—

“All right; I will come back and settle with you in a minute.”

A few moments later I arrived with my bag of crown-pieces. I had not, however, brought enough after all, for by some misunderstanding, no doubt, we really had to pay six pounds for each white man, and twenty-five shillings for each black, which mounted the sum-total up to 1800 francs. However, I was able to make up the difference at once all but two sous, I think, and those I sent by Digui.

No doubt Carrol foresaw all these mercenary dealings when we were at Geba, when he made such a fuss about paying Taburet for his attendance on the people who were ill at the station, and wanted to give me money for the miserable little musical-box which I had been so glad to leave with him as a token of my gratitude.

The Royal Niger Company had in fact treated our expedition as a party of traders, and I preferred that both for myself and for France. I do not therefore owe the members of that Company any more gratitude than I should the conductor of an omnibus in Paris when I have paid him my six sous.

The loading of the _Ribago_ went on slowly, but at five o’clock we started; the pipers of Major Festing came down to the quay and played the _Marseillaise_, whilst the guns of the station fired a salute as, towed by the _Ribago_, we left for Assaba.

Now for a couple of words about the Royal Niger Company. I will say nothing of the treaties or of the constitutive acts which preceded its formation, for I have not got to draw up an indictment against it. I will confine myself to quoting what Naval Lieutenant Agoult said on the subject—“The Company is but the screen behind which England hides herself.”

To the great detriment of the shareholders, the Company tries to create an Empire, and in view of its acquisitions of territory, to make head against the revolts caused by its rapacity, it is obliged to maintain an army relatively large.

This necessity causes a mischievous friction between the military and civilian officers in the service of the Queen, they and the trading agents sometimes carrying their animosity to each other so far as to come to blows.

Then again the officers are anything but well treated by the Company. Like the agents, they are taxed and taxed again. Heaven only knows what an arduous profession theirs is. Carrol was always on the road, and Festing, when we saw him, was suffering horribly from a liver complaint. He had just returned from a twenty days’ campaign against the villages in the bush on the left bank, and he was so tired he could not remain in the saddle. We were told of several officers having recently been killed by poisoned arrows, and of one who had died from eating poison in a village on the banks of the river.

Moreover, this armed force and all the courage and devotion of those who command it, fail to secure peace. Whilst we were on our voyage, the horsemen of Bidda had come down to pillage as far as the bank opposite Lokodja. It is only in the immediate neighbourhood of the stations that things are quiet. The steam-launches have to be constantly going up and down the arms of the river, especially in the delta, to keep the natives in awe with their riflemen and their machine-guns. It is rare for a boat to go down the river without being fired at. At Abo, lower down-stream, the people were astonished that we had been able to come so far without any fighting. It may have been the effect of the flag we carried, for the tricolour flag is still beloved and regretted in these parts for the sake of the memory of Commandant Mattei.

The Company does not hold the country beyond the banks of the river. Then, again, there are no means of communication between one place and another. Truly we French may be proud of our work in the French Sudan. We have done better than the English on the Upper Niger; our colonization is far superior to theirs. On the Lower Niger they have neither telegraph wires, for these go no further than Akassa and Brass, at the mouth of the river, no road at all to be compared with our line of revictualling posts, and of course, need we add? they have no railway!

It seems to me a fact that of all the Niger districts, the richest and the most favoured by Nature from every point of view are those we occupy in the French Sudan.

Assaba is the residence of the Agent-general of the Company, and there is a hospital there for the use of the employés. When the French mission of the _Pères du Saint Esprit_ left Lokodja it established itself at Assaba.

A missionary was waiting for us when we landed, and I went at once to his house. The situation is beautiful enough, but what a hard life the Fathers lead! They are, I believe, rather harassed by the Company, as much because they are French as because they are Catholic, and as a result their tale of converts is not very long. Some Sisters of Charity work in connection with them, and make their way on foot from village to village in the interior, marching at night to avoid the heat of the sun, and visiting the Christian natives far away from the river.

A few hours’ walk off, the Fathers told us, are some big, very big, villages, into which alone they are able to penetrate, not without considerable danger to life sometimes. Terrible scenes of human sacrifice and cannibalism have been witnessed by the devoted Sisters. Such atrocities would never be tolerated in the French Sudan.

But what does all that matter to the Company as long as it can buy its palm-oil at the market-price, a price fixed by force?

That evening we had to dine with us the only Father of the mission just then at Assaba, and two Sisters, one the Superior, Sister Damien, a pale-faced Italian, whose hands had become almost transparent, and whose features were wasted through successive attacks of fever. For all that she still eagerly pursued her vocation. I know nothing finer than the life led by these women at the extreme advance guard of civilization, exposed to the heat of the sun, to fever, to all manner of fatigue, to the indifference of the negroes, and sometimes, as if all that were not enough, to the malice of the whites.

I imagine that it was long since the Father and the Sisters had enjoyed themselves so much. Unfortunately a tornado burst upon us in the middle of dinner, and at eight o’clock we had to take refuge in Father Hacquart’s rooms, through the cracks in the roof of which, however, the rain poured in torrents.

We escorted our guests back to the mission house through the rain.

That same night the long-expected Mr. Wallace, Agent-general of the Company, arrived on the launch _Nupé_. I went to call on him the next day. After congratulating me on our successful journey, he renewed the assurances already made to me by Carrol, Festing, and Drew. I heard later that Mr. Flint, another important member of the Company, was also on board the _Nupé_. But he preferred to avoid us.

When we left we were able to rejoice the hearts of the missionaries of Assaba, with a few bales of stuffs and knick-knacks, with which they could reward their faithful natives. We wanted to stop at Onitcha, the cross of the mission of which we could already see, to give a greeting to the _Pères de Lyon_ stationed there, but the captain of the _Ribago_ told us he had been ordered not to go there, although Mr. Wallace had assured me to the contrary only a minute before.

Avoiding Onitcha, therefore, we went to anchor for a few moments, first at Illuchi, and then at Abo, where the _Ribago_ was to leave us.

The Company, however, was determined to escort us to the very threshold of their territories. Those who know what it is to be suspected, will involuntarily compare this conduct to the way in which, in certain shops, customers are escorted to the door lest they should steal anything on their way out.

No doubt, without being exactly sharpers, we might have got a lot of information, and have made observations on many things if we had remained longer on the river. Would that have been altogether to the advantage of the Company? D’Agoult says he saw the steamer laden with spirits going by, yet all the time, according to the Company, all its subjects, white or black, would, under its beneficial influence, become teetotalers or total abstainers.

It was politic too, perhaps, to hide from us the troubled state of the district all along the river, and the precarious position of the Company. Do its members know, I wonder, how happy these discontented regions once were under the French Company, and all that would result from the mere presence once again of the French flag?

As for me, however, I prefer to think simply that this obsequiousness of the Company towards us, this insistence on our accepting the offer of being towed down-stream, and paying for the service rendered, this eagerness to see us off, had but one aim, and that aim a humane one.

We were escorted to Wari to save us from another attack from the Patanis. Our departure was hastened because we were tired, worn out, eager to taste once more the joys of home and family life. All serious thinkers, whose opinion is of any weight, and who know anything about English ways, will agree with me, irony or no irony!

We dined at Abo, and when night had fallen, a launch arrived at our anchorage, which was to take charge of us. On board was a bright, jovial young officer, Lieutenant Aron by name, of Australian birth. Judging from what we saw of him, Australia must be to England what the south of France is to the French. Did he not tell us one day that the Company had a post at Kano, another at Kuka, and twelve big steamers on the river? But for these venial exaggerations he was a charming companion, what the English call a very good fellow, who made the hours we were in his company pass very pleasantly. We shall all, Lieutenant Aron included, long remember the dinner we had together on the _Kano_, as the Ganagana pontoon is called, whilst a tornado was raging, and he sung at the top of his voice all the comic songs in the Anglo-Franco repertory, to the accompaniment of the flute and the harmonium, whilst quaffing the whisky and the claret we still had left.

As is well known, the Niger flings itself into the sea in an immense number of branches. Two of these branches, viz. that of Brass and of Forcados, are more practicable for navigation than any others. The first belongs to the Royal Niger Company, the second to the Niger Protectorate, a regular colony governed directly from England, and I was told that the competition in trade between the two was very keen.

I had long intended to go down to the sea, not by the Brass, but by the Forcados branch, which would enable me to get away from the Royal Niger Company sooner, and pass a few days in the English districts on the coast belonging to the Niger Protectorate.

I preferred to embark there than in a port belonging to the Company. The two Companies are, as already stated, more or less rivals, and those on the French despatch boat _Ardent_ had cause to speak in terms of high praise of the way in which they were treated by the English of the Protectorate.

Lieutenant Aron accompanied us on the Forcados branch as far as Wari, where resides an English vice-consul. We were breakfasting on board the launch when we came in sight of the houses of Wari. Our three barges were roped together, and their three tricolour flags flying. The launch, however, could not hoist the British flag, its gear having somehow got damaged.

The _Dantec_ now brought us up to the stockade, where we awaited the arrival of the officers of the Protectorate. Then between ourselves and our guide began an animated and certainly very curious colloquy; astonishment on one side, vehement explanations on the other. What changes in the expressions of the faces of those engaged in the conversation! What shouts of laughter! What were they saying? This is what I thought I made out. Seeing our three barges each flying a tricolour flag, and the launch with no colours at all, the English of the Protectorate had thought we had retaliated on the Company by a skilful manœuvre for the bad turn they had done the French the year before. “The Company,” they said, “had intended to confiscate our barges, but they being well manned and well armed, had instead captured the launch and taken her down under the French flag to Wari.”

No, I cannot have understood the conversation, I must have dreamed it all! The English never could have believed us capable of such a thing, and would never have suggested it, even in their own language. And yet—!

Who was it told me that the Protectorate and the Company were enemies at heart, and that the English of Wari are always brooding on the damages paid to the Niger traders on account of a certain attack on the people of Brass from Akassa?

No doubt all these are merely such calumnies as are always circulating.

We shall, all five of us, always remember the welcome we received at Wari from the agents of the Protectorate, and this memory will be the more cherished because a few days after our return to France we heard the terrible news of the death of several of them, who, having gone on a mission to the interior almost unarmed, were massacred by the natives of Benin.

We had the best of receptions at Wari; the officers even gave up their rooms and their very beds to us, knowing how greatly we should appreciate such comforts. We became much attached to our new friends.

At Wari I got rid of all the rest of my stores, which would have been an encumbrance to me on my return journey. There were plenty for the missionaries and for the servants at the Consulate. Suzanne, our bicycle, rejoiced the heart of a Sierra Leonese; the _Dantec_, with a few bottles of claret, delighted Lieutenant Aron; even the _Aube_ we left as a token of our friendship with the agents at the Consulate. We were generous, no doubt, but unless we had sunk our barges when we got to the sea, what else could we have done with them?

As for the _Davoust_, it took us two days to empty, dismantle, and take her to pieces, after which she was embarked in sections on board the _Axim_, a Liverpool steamer, which took her back to Europe.

Sold as old metal, and what she fetched debited to the credit of the budget of our expedition, all that is left of the _Davoust_ is now circulating in fairs or figuring in shop-windows, in the form of light match-boxes and other small articles such as are made of aluminium.

And this was the end of all the three sturdy barks: _Davoust_, _Aube_, and _Dantec_, which for twelve whole months were all the world to us!

The _Dantec_ had often seemed likely never to get to the end of her journey; the _Aube_ certainly ought not to have arrived, judging by the two or three occasions on which she had seemed done for; at the end of the voyage you could put your fingers through her rotten planking. If she had run aground but once more, or if she had got another blow in passing the last rapid, all would have been over with her worm-eaten keel, and also with her crew. The _Davoust_ too had received many wounds, and what was more serious still, oxidation was beginning to work havoc in her sections.

Ten times at least, face to face with some specially bad rapids, I had made up my mind to lose one of the three, if not all; but, as the English said, they were gallant ships. Bravely, in spite of rapids, whirlpools, and rocks, they had made for the appointed goal, the mouth of the river, bringing there without faltering the whole expedition: we white men, the coolies, all our goods, and the French flag!

No doubt it was Aube, Dantec, and Davoust, their sponsors, our comrades, who had died at the task of the conquest of the Niger, who had brought good luck to our three boats.

Thanks to them, I had kept my oath of 1888.

It was not therefore without emotion, without a sadness which may have been childish, but which many will understand, that we parted finally with the companions of so many dangers.

Have not boats souls? Sailors love them like old friends, like heirlooms. We must attach ourselves affectionately to something in this life, must we not?

The _Axim_ took us to Forcados; the _Forcados_ to Lago; the _Olinda_, chartered specially for us, to Porto Novo.

On November 1, at five o’clock in the morning, there was great excitement at the house of the officers of Porto Novo. Some people had suddenly arrived, and were banging against the shutters. The door was soon half-opened and a voice inquired, “Who are you?”—“Hourst!”—“Where do you come from?”—“Timbuktu”— and the next moment, without any further questioning, we all fell into each other’s arms.

After all I experienced in Dahomey and in the Senegal, I will not dwell too much on the goodness the Governor-General, M. Chaudié, showed to us on our return, on the kindness he lavished upon every member of the expedition, or on the reception our friends of St. Louis gave us later, but I can never thank any of them enough.

We dismissed our coolies at St. Louis, thus effecting an immense economy. Abdulaye, the carpenter, at once changed his costume for that of a private citizen. A soft hat, a frock-coat, and a cane with a silver handle, converted the chrysalis into a butterfly; at the same time our old servant began to make up for his long months of sobriety and abstinence. It was, in fact, impossible to find him even to give him an extra tip.

The rest of our coolies dispersed about the town, holding receptions in all the public places of the Sarracolais quarter, telling their adventures with much declamation, and eliciting considerable applause.

The negroes also, it seems, have their mutual admiration for geographical societies!

Later all the brave fellows who had been devoted to us to the death, and some of whom we looked upon as real friends, dispersed themselves once more amongst the Galam villages dotted along the banks of the Senegal, and there at least I can confidently assert our mission, or rather, as Digui called it, the _Munition_, was and still is popular.

That is something, at all events.

On December 12, 1896, we landed from the steamer on the quay of Marseilles, where men were spitting just as they had been when I left Brest. Looking out of the window of my cab upon the deserted street, I saw a little Italian boy in the drizzling rain which was falling, holding in his arms a plaster statuette representing a nude woman with graceful, supple limbs, probably meant for Diana resting on a crescent of the moon. She and her bearer looked cold and melancholy enough. This was my first sight of a really civilized human being after my three years’ exile.