To the Gold Coast for Gold

R >> Richard F. Burton >> To the Gold Coast for Gold

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This quasi-venerable site is a little holm a hundred yards in diameter,
somewhat larger than the many which line the river's western bank. We
found its stony shingle glazed with a light-green sediment, which
forbade bathing and which suggested fever. The material is conglomerate,
fine and coarse, in an iron-reddened matrix; hence old writers call it a
'sort of gravelly rock, a little above water.' Salsolaceae tapestry the
shore, and fig-trees and young calabashes spring from the stone: the
ground is strewn with white shells, tiles, bricks and iridescent
bottles--the invariable concomitants and memorials of civilisation. The
masonry, lime and ashlar, is excellent, but time and the portentous
growth of the tropics have cracked and fissured the walls. Masses of
masonry are fallen, and others are assuming the needle-shape. The great
quadrangle had lozenge-shaped bastions at each end, then lined with good
brick-work: the outliers, which run round the river-holm, were three
horseshoe redoubts 'with batteries along the palisades from one to
another.' Four old iron guns remained out of a total of sixty to seventy
pieces. The features were those of the ancient slave-barracoon
--dwelling-houses, tanks and cisterns, magazines, stores,
and powder-room, all broken by the treasure-hunter.

The return to Bathurst was a bitter draught. We had wind and water
against us, and the thick mist prevented our taking bearings. Hungry,
thirsty, weary, cross, and cramped, we reached the steamer at 5 A.M.,
and slept spitefully as long as we could.

The last displeasure of my latest visit to Bathurst was the crowd of
native passengers, daddy, mammy, and piccaninny, embarking for Sierra
Leone, and the host of friends that came to bid them good-bye. They did
not fail to abscond with M. Colonna's pet terrier and with the steward's
potatoes: no surveillance can keep this long-fingered lot from picking
and stealing. It is a political as well as a social mistake to take
negro first-class passengers. A ruling race cannot be too particular in
such matters, and the white man's position on the Coast would be
improved were the black man kept in his proper place. A kind of
first-class second-class might be invented for them. Nothing less
pleasant than their society. The stewards have neglected to serve soup
to some negro, who at every meal has edged himself higher up the table,
and whose conversation consists of whispering into the ear of a black
neighbour, with an occasional guffaw like that of the 'laughing
jackass.'

'I say, daddee, I want _my_ soop. All de passenger he drink 'im
soop; _me_ no drink _my_ soop. What he mean dis palaver?'

The sentence ends in a scream; the steward smiles, and the
first-class resumes--

'Ah, you larf. And what for you larf? I no larf, I no drinkee soop!'

Here the dialogue ends, and men confess by their looks that travelling
sometimes _does_ throw us into the strangest society.

Even in Sierra Leone, where the negro claims to be civilised, a dusky
belle, after dropping her napkin at a Government House dinner, has been
heard to say to her neighbour, 'Please, Mr. Officer-man, pick up my
towel.' The other day a dark dame who missed her parasol thus addressed
H.E.: 'Grovernah! me come ere wid _my_ umbrellah. Where he be,
_my_ umbrellah Give me _my_ umbrellah: no go widout _my_
umbrellah.'

For our black and brown passengers, fore and aft, there is a graduated
and descending scale of terminology: 1. European, that is, brought up in
England; 2. Civilised man; 3. African; 4. Man of colour, the 'cullered
pussun' of the United States; 5. Negro; 6. Darkey; and 7. Nigger, which
here means slave. All are altogether out of their _assiettes_. At
home they will eat perforce cankey, fufu, kiki, and bad fish, washing
them down with _mimbo_, bamboo-wine, and _pitto_, hopless beer,
the _pombe_ of the East Coast. Here they abuse the best of roast
meat, openly sigh for 'palaver-sauce' and 'palm-oil chop,' and find
fault with the claret and champagne. _Chez eux_ they wear
breech-cloths and nature's stockings--_eoco tutto_. Here both men
and women must dress like Europeans, and a portentous spectacle it
is. The horror reaches its height at Sierra Leone, where the pulpit as
well as the press should deprecate human beings making such caricatures
of themselves,

In West Africa we see three styles of dress. The first, or semi-nude, is
that of the Kru-races, a scanty _pagne_, or waist-wrapper, the dark
skin appearing perfectly decent. The second is the ample flowing robe,
at once becoming and picturesque, with the _shalwar_, or wide
drawers, of the Moslems from Morocco to the Equator. The third is the
hideous Frank attire affected by Sierra Leone converts and 'white
blackmen,' as their fellow-darkies call them.

Many of the costumes that made the decks of the s.s. _Senegal_
hideous are _de fantaisie_, as if the wearers had stripped pegs in
East London with the view of appearing at a fancy-ball. The general
effect was that of 'perambulating rainbows _en petit_ surmounted by
sable thunder-clouds.' One youth, whose complexion unmistakably wore the
shadowed livery of the burnished sun, crowned his wool with a scarlet
smoking-cap, round which he had wound a white gauze veil. The light of
day was not intense, but his skin was doubtless of most delicate
texture. Another paraded the deck in a flowing cotton-velvet
dressing-gown with huge sleeves, and in _bottines_ of sky-blue
cloth. Even an Aku Moslem, who read his Koran, printed in Leipzig, and
who should have known better, had mimicked Europeans in this most
unbecoming fashion.

Men of substance sported superfine Saxony with the broadest of
silk-velvet collars; but the fit suggested second-hand finery. Other
elongated cocoa-nuts bore jauntily a black felt of 'pork-pie' order,
leek-green billycocks, and anything gaudy, but not neat, in the
'tile'-line. Their bright azure ribbons and rainbow neckties and scarves
vied in splendour with the loudest of thunder-and-lightning waistcoats
from the land of Moses and Sons. Pants were worn tight, to show the
grand thickness of knee, the delicate leanness of calf, the manly
purchase of heel, and the waving line of beauty which here distinguishes
shin-bones. There were monstrous studs upon a glorious expanse of
'biled' shirt; a small investment of cheap, tawdry rings set off the
chimpanzee-like fingers; and, often enough, gloves invested the hands,
whose horny, reticulated skin reminded me of the black fowl, or the
scaly feet of African cranes pacing at ease over the burning sands. Each
dandy had his _badine_ upon whose nice conduct he prided himself;
the toothpick was as omnipresent as the crutch, nor was the
'quizzing-glass' quite absent. Lower extremities, of the same category
as the hands, but slightly superior in point of proportional size, were
crammed into patent-leather boots, the latter looking as if they had
been stuffed with some inanimate substance--say the halves of a calf's
head. Why cannot these men adopt some modification of the Chinese
costume, felt hat and white shoes, drawers, and upper raiment
half-shirt, half-doublet? It has more common sense than any other in the
world.

It is hardly fair to deride a man's ugliness, but the ugly is fair game
when self-obtruded into notice by personal vanity and conceit. Moreover,
this form of negro folly is not to be destroyed by gentle raillery; it
wants hard words, even as certain tumours require the knife. Such aping
of Europeans extends from the physical to the moral man, and in general
only the bad habits, gambling, drinking, and debauching, are aped.

The worst and not the least hideous were the mulattos, of whom the
negroes say they are silver and copper, not gold. It is strange, passing
strange, that English blood, both in Africa and in India, mixes so badly
for body and mind (brain) with the native. It is not so with the
neo-Latin nations of Southern Europe and the Portuguese of the
Brazil. For instance, compare the pretty little coloured girls of
Pondicherry and Mahe with their sister half-castes the Chichis of Bengal
and Bombay.

As for the section conventionally called 'fair,' and unpolitely termed
by Cato the 'chattering, finery-loving, ungovernable sex,' I despair to
depict it. When returning north in the A.S.S. _Winnebah_, we
carried on board a dark novice of the Lyons sisterhood. She looked
perfectly ladylike in her long black dress and the white wimple which
bound her hair under the sable mantilla. But the feminines on board the
_Senegal_ bound for Sierra Leone outrage all our sense of fitness
by their frightful semi-European gowns of striped cottons and chintzes;
by their harlequin shawls and scarves thrown over jackets which show
more than neck and bare arms to the light of day, and by the head-gear
which looks like devils seen in dreams after a heavy supper of underdone
pork. Africa lurks in the basis: the harsh and wiry hair is gathered
into lumps, which to the new comer suggest only bears' ears, and into
chignons resembling curled up hedge-hogs. Around it is twisted a
kerchief of arsenic-green, of sanguineous-crimson, or of sulphur-yellow;
and this would be unobjectionable if it covered the whole head, like
the turban of the Mina negress in Brazilian Bahia. But it must be capped
with a hat or bonnet of straw, velvet, satin, or other stuff, shabby in
the extreme, and profusely adorned with old and tattered ribbons and
feathers, with beads and bugles, with flowers and fruits. The _tout
ensemble _would scare any crow, however bold.

I am aware that the sex generally is somewhat persistent in its ideas of
personal decoration, and that there is truth in the African proverb, 'If
your head is not torn off you will wear a head-dress,' corresponding
with our common saying, 'Better out of the world than out of the
fashion.' But this nuisance, I repeat, should be abated with a strong
hand by the preacher as well as by the pressman. The women and the
children are well enough as Nature made them: they make themselves mere
caricatures, figures o' fun, guys, frights. If this fact were brought
home to them by those whose opinions they value, they might learn a
little common sense and good taste. And yet--wait a moment--may they not
sometimes say the same of us? But our monstrosities are original, theirs
are borrowed.

The 'mammies' at once grouped themselves upon the main-hatch, as near
the quarter-deck and officers' cabins as possible. I can hardly
understand how Englishmen take a pleasure in 'chaffing' these grotesque
beings, who usually reply with some gross, outrageous insolence. At the
best they utter impertinences which, issuing from a big and barbarous
mouth in a peculiar _patois_, pass for pleasantry amongst those who
are not over-nice about the quality of that article. The tone of voice
is peculiar; it is pitched in the usual savage key, modified by the
twang of the chapel and by the cantilene of the Yankee--originally
Puritan Lancashire. Hence a 'new chum' may hear the women talking for
several days before he finds out that they are talking English. And they
speak two different dialects. The first, used with strangers, is
'blackman's English,'intelligible enough despite the liberties it takes
with pronunciation, grammar, and syntax. The second is a kind of 'pidgin
English,' spoken amongst themselves, like Bolognese or Venetians when
they have some reason for not talking Italian. One of the Gospels was
printed in it; I need hardly say with what effect. The first verse runs,
'Lo vo famili va Jesus Christus, pikien. (piccaninny) va David, dissi da
pikien va Abraham.' [Footnote: _Da Njoe Testament_, &c. Translated
into the negro-English language by the missionaries of the Unitas
Fratrum, &c. Printed by the British and Foreign Bible Society. London:
W. McDowall, Pemberton Row, 1829.]

This 'pidgin English' runs down West Africa, except the Gold Coast and
about Accra, where the natives have learnt something better. The
principal affirmation is 'Enh,' pronounced nanny-goat fashion, and they
always answer 'Yes' to a negative question: _e.g._ Q. 'Didn't you
go then?' A. 'Yes' (_sub-audi_, I did not), thus meaning 'No.'
'Na,' apparently an interrogative in origin, is used pleonastically on
all occasions: 'You na go na steamer?' 'Enty' means indeed; 'too much,'
very; 'one time,' once; and the sign of the vocative, as in the Southern
States of the Union, follows the, word:' Daddy, oh!' 'Mammy, oh!'
'Puss,' or 'tittle,' is a girl, perhaps a pretty girl; 'babboh,' a
boy. 'Hear' is to obey or understand; 'look,' to see; 'catch,' to have;
'lib,' to live, to be, to be found, or to enjoy good health: it is
applied equally to inanimates. 'Done lib' means die; 'sabby'
(Portuguese) is to know; 'chop,' to eat; 'cut the cry,' to end a wake;
'jam head,' or 'go for jam head,' to take counsel; 'palaver (Port.)
set,' to end a dispute; to 'cut yamgah' is to withhold payment, and to
'make nyanga' is to junket. 'Yam' is food; 'tummach' (Port.) is the
metaphorical heart; 'cockerapeak' is early dawn, when the cock speaks;
all writing, as well as printing, is a 'book;' a quarrel is a 'bob;' and
all presents are a 'dash,' 'dassy' in Barbot, and 'dashs' in Ogilby. All
bulls are cows, and when you would specify sex you say 'man-cow' or
'woman-cow.' [Footnote: For amusing specimens of amatory epistles the
reader will consult Mrs. Melville and the _Ten Years' Wanderings among
the Ethiopians_ (p. 19), by my old colleague, Mr. Consul Hutchinson.]

These peculiarities, especially the grammatical, are not mere
corruptions: they literally translate the African dialects now utterly
forgotten by the people. And they are more interesting than would at
first appear. Pure English, as a language, is too difficult in all
points to spread far and wide. 'Pidgin English' is not. Already the
Chinese have produced a regular _lingua franca_, and the Japanese
have reduced it to a system of grammar. If we want only a medium of
conversation, a tongue can be reduced to its simplest expression and
withal remain intelligible. Thus 'me' may serve for I, me, my. Verbs
want no modal change to be understood. 'Done go' and 'done eat'
perfectly express went and ate. Something of the kind is still wanted,
and must be supplied if we would see our language become that of the
commercial world in the East as it is fast becoming in the West.

We left Bathurst more than ever convinced that the sooner we got rid of
the wretched station, miscalled a colony, the better. It still supplies
hides from the tipper country, ivory, bees'-wax, and a little gold. The
precious metal is found, they say, in the red clay hills near Macarthy's
Island; but the quality is not pure, nor is the quantity sufficient to
pay labour. The Mandengas, locally called 'gold strangers,' manage the
traffic with the interior, probably the still mysterious range called
the 'Kong Mountains.' They are armed with knives, sabres, and muskets;
and for viaticum they carry rude rings of pure gold, which, I am told,
are considered more valuable than the dust.

But the staple export from Bathurst--in fact, nine-tenths of the
total--consists of the arachide, pistache, pea-nut, or ground-nut
(_Arachis hypogoea_). It is the beat quality known to West Africa;
and, beginning some half a century ago, large quantities are shipped for
Marseilles, to assist in making salad-oil. Why this 'olive-oil' has not
been largely manufactured in England I cannot say. Thus the French have
monopolised the traffic of the Gambia; they have five houses, and the
three English, Messrs. Brown, Goddard, and Topp, export their purchases
in French bottoms to French ports.

Moreover, the treaty of 1845, binding the 'high contracting Powers' to
refrain from territorial aggrandisement (much like forbidding a growing
boy to grow), expired in 1855. Since that time, whilst we have refrained
even from abating the nuisance of native wars, our very lively
neighbours have annexed the Casamansa River, with the fine coffee-lands
extending from the Nunez southwards to the Ponga River, and have made a
doughty attempt to absorb Matacong, lying a few miles north of Sierra
Leone.

Whilst English Gambia is monopolised by the French, French Gaboon is, or
rather was, in English hands. For a score of years men of sense have
asked, 'Why not exchange the two?' When nations so decidedly rivalistic
meet, assuredly it is better to separate _a l'aimable_. Moreover,
so long as our economical and free-trade 'fads' endure, it is highly
advisable to avoid the neighbourhood of France and invidious comparisons
between its policy and our non-policy, or rather impolicy.

According to the best authorities, the whole of the West African coast
north of Sierra Leone might be ceded with advantage to the French on
condition of our occupying the Gaboon and the regions, coast and
islands, south of it, except where the land belongs to the Portuguese
and the Spaniards. Some years ago an energetic effort was made to effect
the exchange, but it was frustrated by missionary and sentimental
considerations. Those who opposed the idea shuddered at the thought of
making over to a Romanist Power (?) the poor converts of Protestantism;
the peoples who had been peaceful and happy so long under the protecting
aegis of Great Britain; the races whom we were bound, by an unwritten
contract, not only to defend, but to civilise, to advance in the paths
of progress. The colonists feared to part with the old effete
possession, lest the French should oppose, as they have done in Senegal,
all foreign industry--in fact, 'seal up' the Gambia. A highly
respectable merchant, the late Mr. Brown, contributed not a little, by
his persuasive pen, to defeat the proposed measure. And now it is to be
feared that we have heard the last of this matter; our rivals have found
out the high value of their once despised equatorial colony. If ever the
exchange comes again to be discussed, I hope that we shall secure by
treaty or purchase an exclusively British occupation of Grand Bassam and
the Assini valley, mere prolongations of our Protectorate on the Gold
Coast. A future page will show the reason why our imperial policy
requires the measure. At present both stations are occupied by French
houses or companies, who will claim indemnification, and who can in
justice demand it.

We steamed out of the Ruined River-port, and left 'this old sandbank in
Africa they call St. Mary's Isle,' at 11 A.M. on January 16, with a last
glance at the Commissariat-buildings. Accompanied by a mosquito-fleet of
canoes, each carrying two sails, we stood over the bar, sighting the
heavy breakers which defend the island's northern face, and passed Cape
St. Mary, gradually dimming in the distance. After Bald Cape, some sixty
miles south, we ran along the long low shore, distinguished only by the
mouths and islands of the Casamansa and the Cacheo rivers. Our course
then led us by the huge and hideous archipelago off the delta of Jeba
and the Bolola, the latter being the 'Rio Grande' of Camoens, which
Portuguese editors will print with small initials, and which translators
mistranslate accordingly. [Footnote: _The Lusiads_, v. 12. I have
noticed this error in _Camoens: his Life and his Lusiads_
(vol. i. p. 896. London: Quaritch, 1881). It was probably called Grande
because it was generally believed to be the southern outlet of the
Niger.] These islands are the Bijougas, or Bissagos, the older
'Biziguiches,' inhabited by the most ferocious negroes on the coast, who
massacred the Portuguese and who murder all castaways. They are said to
shoot one another as Malays 'run amok,' and some of their tribal customs
are peculiar to themselves.

Here, about 350 miles north of Sierra Leone, was established the
unfortunate Bulama colony. Its first and last governor, the redoubtable
Captain Philip Beaver, R.N., has left the queerest description of the
place and its people. [Footnote: _African Memoranda_. Baldwin, London,
1805.] Within eighteen months only six remained of 269 souls, including
women and children. In 1792 the island was abandoned, despite its wealth
of ground-nuts. After long 'palavering' it was again occupied by
Mr. Budge, manager of Waterloo Station, Sierra Leone; but he was not a
fixture there. It is now, I believe, once more deserted.

Early next morning we were off the Isles de Los, properly Dos Idolos (of
the Idols). On my return northwards I had an opportunity of a nearer
view. The triad of parallel rock-lumps, sixty miles north of Sierra
Leone, is called Tama, or Footabar, to the west; Ruma, or Crawford, a
central and smaller block of some elevation; and Factory Island, the
largest, five or six miles long by one broad, and nearest the
shore. Their aspect is not unpleasant: the features are those of the
Sierra Leone peninsula, black rocks, reefs, and outliers, underlying
ridges of red soil; and the land is feathered to the summit with palms,
rising from stubbly grass, here and there patched black by the
bush-fire. A number of small villages, with thatched huts like beehives,
are scattered along the shore. The census of 1880 gives the total
figures at 1,300 to 1,400, and of these 800 inhabit Factory
Island. Mr. J. M. Metzger, the civil and intelligent sub-collector and
custom-house officer, a Sierra Leone man, reduced the number to 600,
half of them occupying the easternmost of the three. He had never heard
of the golden treasures said to have been buried here by Roberts the
pirate, the Captain (Will.) Kidd of these regions.

In our older and more energetic colonial days we had a garrison on the
Isles de Los. They found the climate inferior to the Banana group, off
Cape Shilling. Factory Island still deserves its name. Here M. Verminck,
of Marseille, the successor of King Heddle, has a factory on the eastern
side, an establishment managed by an agent and six clerks, with large
white dwellings, store-houses, surf-boats, and a hulk to receive his
palm-oil. The latter produces the finest prize-cockroaches I have yet
seen.

My lack of strength did not allow me to inspect the volcanic craters
said to exist in these strips, or to visit any of the 'devil-houses.'
Mr. G. Neville, agent of the steamers at Lagos, gave me an account of
his trip. Landing near the French factory, he walked across the island
in fifteen minutes, followed the western coast-line, turned to the
south-west, descended a hollow, and found the place of sacrifice. Large
boulders, that looked as if shaken down by an earthquake, stood near one
another. There were neither idols nor signs of paganism, except that the
floor, which resembled the dripstone of Tenerife, was smoothed by the
feet of the old worshippers. When steaming round the south-western point
we saw--at least so it was said--the famous 'devil-house' which gave the
islands their Portuguese name.

Factory is divided by a narrow strait from Tumbo Island, and the latter
faces the lands occupied by the Susus. These equestrian tribes,
inhabiting a grassy plain, were originally Mandengas, who migrated south
to the Mellikuri, Furikaria, and Sumbuyah countries, and who
intermarried with the aboriginal Bulloms, Tonko-Limbas, and Baggas. All
are Moslems, and their superior organisation enabled them to prevail
against the pagan Timnis, who in 1858-59 applied to the Government of
Sierra Leone for help, and received it. Of late years the chances of war
have changed, and the heathenry are said to have gained the upper
hand. The Susus are an industrious tribe, and they trade with our colony
in gum, ground-nuts, and _benni_, or sesamum-seed.

It is uncommonly pleasant to leave these hotbeds and once more to
breathe the cool, keen breath of the Trades, laden with the health of
the broad Atlantic.

CHAPTER XI.

SIERRA LEONE: THE CHANGE FOR THE BETTER.

After a pleasant run, _not_ in a 'sultry and tedious Pacific,'
covering 490 miles from Bathurst, we sighted a heavy cloud banking up
the southern horizon. As we approached it resolved itself into its three
component parts, the airy, the earthy, and the watery; and it turned out
to be our destination. The old frowze of warm, water-laden nimbus was
there; everything looked damp and dank, lacking sweetness and
sightliness; the air wanted clearing, the ground cleaning, and the sea
washing. Such on January 17, 1882, was the first appearance of the
redoubtable Sierra Leone. It was a contrast to the description by the
learned and painstaking Winterbottom. [Footnote: _An Account of the
Native Africans im the Neighbourhood of Sierra Leone, etc._ London,
Hatchard, 1803.] 'On a nearer approach the face of the country assumes a
more beautiful aspect. The rugged appearance of these mountains is
softened by the lively verdure with which they are constantly crowned
(?); their majestic forms (?), irregularly advancing and receding,
occasion huge masses of light and shade to be projected from their
sides, which add a degree of picturesque grandeur to the scene.'

And first of the name. Pedro de Cintra (1480), following Soeiro da Costa
(1462-63), is said to have applied 'Sierra Leone' to the mountain-block
in exchange for the 'Romarong' of its Timni owners. He did nothing of
the kind: our English term is a mere confusion of two neo-Latin tongues,
'Sierra' being Spanish and 'Leone' Italian. The Portuguese called it
Serra da Leoa (of the Lioness), not 'Lion Hill.' [Footnote: So the late
Keith Johnston, _Africa_, who assigns to the apex a height of 2,500
feet.] Hence Milton is hardly worse than his neighbours when he writes--

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