Chapter I: Preface

“In the realm of the unknown, Africa is the absolute,” said Victor Hugo. Since the time of Hugo the civilized world has become better acquainted with African geography; but the Africans themselves are still a people unknown.

A certain noted missionary, while on furlough in America, after delivering a masterly and brilliant lecture on Africa to an audience of coloured people, gave an opportunity for persons in the audience to ask him questions pertaining to the subject. He was rather abashed when an elderly negro, who had been deeply interested in the lecture, called out: “Say, Mistah S., is they any colo’ed folks ovah thah?” Most people know that there are a goodly number of “colo’ed folks” in Africa; but the knowledge of the majority extends only to the colour of the skin. And if in this book I endeavour to make the Africans known as they really are, it is because I believe that they are worth knowing.

In the generation that has passed since the books of Du Chaillu were the delight of boys—old boys and young—the African has received but scant sympathy in literature. Du Chaillu had the mind of a scientist and the heart of a poet. He never understated the degradation of the African nor exaggerated his virtues, but he recognized in him the raw material out of which manhood is made. He realized that the African, like ourselves, is not a finality, but a possibility—“the tadpole of an archangel,” as genius has phrased it. But, then, Du Chaillu lived among the Africans long enough to speak their language, to forget the colour of their skin, and to know them, mind and heart, as no passing traveller or casual observer can possibly know them.

In more recent books the African is usually and uniformly presented as physically ugly, mentally stupid, morally repulsive, and never interesting. This is by no means my opinion of the African. Kipling’s characterization, “half child, half devil,” is very apt. But what in the world is more interesting than children—except devils?

This book is an attempt to exhibit the human nature of the African, to the end that he may be regarded not merely as a being endowed with an immortal soul and a candidate for salvation, but as a man whose present life is calculated to awaken our interest and sympathy; a man with something like our own capacity for joy and sorrow, and to whom pleasure and pain are very real; who bleeds when he is pricked and who laughs when he is amused; a man essentially like ourselves, but whose beliefs and whose circumstances are so remote from any likeness to our own that as we enter the realm in which he lives and moves and has his being we seem to have been transported upon the magic carpet of the Arabian fable, away from reality into a world of imagination—a wonderland, where things happen without a cause and nature has no stability, where the stone that falls downwards to-day may fall upwards to-morrow, where a person may change himself into a leopard and birds wear foliage for feathers, where rocks and trees speak with articulate voice and animals moralize as men—a world running at random and haphazard, where everything operates except reason and where credulity is only equalled by incredulity. Elsewhere it is the unexpected that happens: in Africa it is the unexpected that we expect.

A knowledge of the jungle folk of Africa will include some acquaintance with their jungle home, their daily life, their work, their amusements, their social customs, their folk-lore, their religion, and, among the rest, it will include their response to missionary effort. Of these several subjects, those which receive scant treatment in this book will be more fully presented in a second book on Africa, which is now in course of preparation.

I have avoided generalizations and abstractions, in the belief that the concrete and the personal would be not only more interesting but also more informing. This book is, therefore, in the main, a narration of the particular incidents of my own experience and observation during seven years in Africa; incidents, many of which, at their occurrence, moved me either to laughter or to tears, and sometimes both in alternation. For, nowhere else in the world does tragedy so often end in comedy, and comedy in tragedy.

I am indebted to Mr. Harry D. Salveter for his kindness in furnishing me with many photographic illustrations, including the best of my collection.

ROBERT H. MILLIGAN.

_New York._

CONTENTS

I

THE VOYAGE 19

Dreadful alternatives—A pork and cabbage saint—The
outfit—A parting pain—Canary Islands—The change to the
tropics—Sierra Leone—The native yell—Deck passengers—A meal of
potato-peelings—Liberia—Shipboard conversation—A shrewd decision.

II

THE COAST 36

Wet and dry seasons—The climate—The trader—Old Calabar—The
crocodile—The most beautiful place in West Africa—The ugliest place
in the world—Mount Cameroon—A ride on a mule—Landing in the surf.

III

BUSH TRAVEL 55

Where no white man had been—The greatest forest in the
world—The caravan—Outfit—African roads—Bridges—The worst of the
road—Blessings in disguise—The art of walking—The arrival in
camp—The misery of morning—Rubber stomachs.

IV

BUSH PERILS 73

The road at the worst—Tired out—A palaver with the
carriers—Elephants—A caravan astray—A long night—A borrowed
shirt—The sullen forest—Accident the constant factor—A last
journey—Advantage of breakfast before daylight.

V

THE CAMP-FIRE 89

The camp—African mimics—The lemur’s cry—Legend of the snail—The
chimpanzee and the ungrateful man—A fable of the turtle—Why the
leopard walks alone—A “true” story—A magic fight—Discovering
a thief—A spirit who spreads disease—A shadow-slayer—A witch
discovered—Lying awake at night.

VI

A HOME IN THE BUSH 107

Efulen—The “white animal” performs—Africa no solitude—The mail—The
first fever—Yearning for a shirt—A vivid account of my funeral—The
first house—Cooks and cooking—The medical layman—Mrs. Laffin’s
visit.

VII

THE BUSH PEOPLE 131

The Bulu tribe—“Better-looking than white
people”—Dress—Ornamentation—A sociable queen—The white man’s
origin—Our fetishes—A magic letter—Buying and selling—Chief
Abesula.

VIII

AFTER A YEAR 148

Killed by mistake—A woman stolen—A passion for clothes—The
Batanga church—Expectoration a fine art—Romantic career of a
nightshirt—Bekalida—Keli, the incorrigible—Death of Dr. Good.

IX

THE KRUBOYS 170

The Kru tribe—The “real thing”—Kru English—The Kruboy’s
superstition—The ship’s officers—Dressing with much
assistance—Loading mahogany—The Kruboy and the surf—The white man
out of his element.

X

WHITE AND BLACK 195

St. Paul de Loanda—Canine passengers—Portuguese slavery—An American
problem—A health-change—Boma—Belgian atrocities—Matadi—Stanley—What
I heard at Matadi—The apathy of the nations.

XI

THE FANG 217

Gaboon—The village—The house—The door—The kiss unpopular, and no
wonder—Marriage customs—A woman tortured—An elder brother—Immoral
customs—The Gorilla Society—War—A troublesome sister—A blessing
that resembled a curse—A strange war-custom—Music—Dancing—Story of
the elephant and the gorilla—Fable of the sun and moon.

XII

FETISHES 249

The conception of God—Dreams—Ancestor-worship—The conception
of nature—The fetish proper—A wonderful medicine-chest—Various
fetishes—A case of discipline—Witchcraft—A convicted witch—Wives
and witchcraft—The white man and witchcraft.

XIII

A BOAT CREW 273

The Evangeline—Makuba—An un-dress ball—Ndong Koni—A saint
that lied—Capsized and rescued—A dying slave—Dressed in a
table-cloth—Flogging a chief—A story of true love.

XIV

A SCHOOL 302

The language difficulty—Lacked nothing but the essentials—The late
M. de la R.—One of Macbeth’s witches—Death of Nduna—Bojedi—More
candid than kind—The racial weakness—A royal romance—Marriage
ceremonies—A penitent—A fall.

XV

A LITTLE SCHOLAR 329

A health-change—The brightest of his class—Rotten Elephant—Very
sick—An object of wonder—Mount Teneriffe—Adventure with a
stage-coach—Adventure with a donkey—The crisis—The Ashantee war—A
burial at sea.