To the Gold Coast for Gold

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

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As we made fast to the Marina our tobacco was temporarily sealed after
the usual mean Italian fashion. Next morning an absurd old person, in a
broad red baldrick, came on board and counted noses, to ascertain that
we had not brought the dreaded small-pox from the Ionian Islands. After
being graciously and liberally allowed to land, we were visited by the
local chapmen, whose goods appeared rather mixed--polished cowhorns and
mildewed figs, dolls in costume and corrosive oranges; by the normal
musical barber, who imitates at a humble distance bird and beast; and by
the vendor of binoculars, who asks forty francs and who takes ten. The
captain noted his protest at the Consulate, and claimed by way of
_sauvetage 200l_. The owners offered 200 lire--punds Scots. Briefly,
noon had struck before we passed out of the noise and the smells of
Messina.

Our good deed had cost us dear. A wet scirocco had replaced the bright
norther and saddened all the view. Passing the tide-rip Charybdis, a
meeting of currents, which called only for another hand at the wheel;
and the castled crag of naughty Scylla, whose town has grown
prodigiously, we bade adieu to the 'tower of Pelorus.' Then we shaped
our course for the Islands of AEolus, or the Winds, and the Lipari
archipelago, all volcanic cones whose outlines were misty as Ossian's
spectres. And we plodded through the dreary dull-grey scene of drizzling
scirocco--

Till, when all veiled sank in darkling air,
Naught but the welkin and the wave was there.

Next morning showed us to port the Cone of Maritimo: it outlies Marsala,
whose wine caused the blinding of Polyphemus, and since that time has
brought on many an attack of liver. The world then became to us
_pontus et aer_. Days and nights were equally uneventful; the diary
tells only of quiet seas under the lee of Sardinia and of the Balearics,
ghostly glimpses of the North African coast and the steady setting in of
the normal wester, the indraught of 'the Straits.'

On Friday (November 9) the weather broke and deluged us with rain. At
Gibraltar the downpour lasted twenty-four hours. We found ourselves at
anchor before midnight with a very low barometer, which suggested
unpleasantries. Next morning we sighted the deep blue waters of the Bay,
and the shallow brown waters of the Bayside crested with foam by a
furious norther, that had powdered the far Ronda highlands with
snow. Before noon, however, the gale had abated and allowed me to
transfer myself and African outfit on board the _Fez_ (Capt. Hay),
Moroccan Steamship Company, trading to North Africa. This was a
godsend: there is no regular line between Gibraltar and Lisbon, and one
might easily be delayed for a week.

The few hours' halt allowed me time to call upon my old friend,
M. Dautez, a Belgian artist. Apparently he is the only person in the
place who cares for science. He has made extensive collections. He owns
twenty-four coins from Carteia, whereas Florez (Medallas, Madrid, 1773)
shows a total of only thirty-three. Amongst his antiquities there is a
charming statuette of Minerva, a bronze miniature admirably finished. He
has collected the rock fauna, especially the molluscs, fossil and
modern. He is preparing an album of the Flora Calpensis. His birds'
nests were lately sold to an Englishman. All these objects, of immense
local interest, were offered by him at the lowest possible rate to the
Military Library, but who is there to understand their value? I wonder
how many Englishmen on the Rock know that they are within easy ride of
the harbour which named the 'Ships of Tarshish'? Tartessus, which was
Carteia, although certain German geographers would, against the general
voice of antiquity, make the former the country and the latter the city,
lay on both sides of the little Guadarranque stream, generally called
First River; and the row of tumuli on the left bank probably denotes the
site of the famous docks. I was anxious to open diggings in 1872, but
permission was not forthcoming: now, however, they say that the Duke of
Medina Sidonia would offer no objections.

Gib, though barbarous in matters of science, is civilised as regards
'business.' It was a treat to see steamer after steamer puff in, load up
with blue peter at the fore, and start off after a few hours which would
have been days at Patras, Zante, and Messina. Here men work with a will,
as a walk from the Convent to the Old Mole, the Mersa or water-port of a
Moroccan town, amply proves. The uniforms are neat and natty--they were
the reverse five years ago--and it is a pleasure to look upon the fresh
faces of English girls still unstained by unconsumed carbon. And the
authorities have had the good sense to preserve the old Moorish town of
Tarik and his successors, the triangle of walls with the tall tower-like
mosque for apex, and the base facing the bay.

We left Gibraltar at 5 P.M. on Saturday (December 10), giving a wide
berth to the hated Pearl Rock, which skippers would remove by force of
arms. Seen from east or west Gib has an outline of its own. The
Britisher, whose pride it is, sees the 'lion of England who has laid his
paw upon the key of the Mediterranean,' and compares it with the king of
beasts, sejant, the tail being Europa Point. The Spaniards, to whom it
is an eyesore, liken it to a shrouded corpse, the outlined head lying to
the north, and declare, truly enough, that to them it is a dead body.

The norther presently changed to the rainy south-wester, the builder of
the Moroccan 'bars' and the scourge of the coast fringing North-west
Africa, Rolling set in with the usual liveliness. Events were not
eventful. The first midnight found us off Cape Trafalgar, and the second
off St. Vincent. At 4 P.M. (December 12), we saw the light of Espichel
(_Promontorium Barbaricum_), the last that shines upon the voyager
bound Brazilwards. Before nightfall we had left Buzio lighthouse to
starboard. We then ran up the northern passage in charge of a lagging
pilot; and, as the lamps were lighting, we found ourselves comfortably
berthed off that pretty toy, Belem Tower.

Next morning broke upon a lovely view: no wonder that the Tagus is the
pride of Portuguese bards. The _Rosicler_, or rosy dawn-light, was
that of a May morning--the May of poetry, not of meteorology--and the
upper windows of distant Lisbon were all ablaze with the unrisen sun. It
was a picture for the loveliest colours, not for 'word-painting;' and
the whole scene was classical as picturesque. We may justly say of it,
'Nullum sine nomine saxum.' Far over the rising hills of the north bank
rose shaggy Cintra, 'the most blessed spot in the habitable globe,' with
its memorious convent and its Moorish castle. The nearer heights were
studded with the oldest-fashioned windmills, when the newest are found
even in the Canaries; a single crest bore its baker's dozen, mostly
decapitated by steam. Advancing we remarked the glorious Belem
monastery, defiled by its ignoble modern ruin to the west; the new
hippodrome crowning the grassy slope; the Bed House of Belem, now being
brightened up for Royal residence during the Exhibition of 1882; the
Memoria and the Ajuda Palace, more unfinished, if possible, than
ever. As we approached the bulk of the city the marking objects were the
cypressed Prazeres Cemetery; the red Necessidades Palace, and the
Estrella, whose dome and domelets, built to mimic St. Peter's, look only
like hen and chickens. Then in due time came the Carmo Church, still
unrepaired since 1755; Blackhorse Square, still bare of trees; the
Government offices, still propped to prevent a tumble-down, and the old
Custom House, still a bilious yellow; the vast barrack-like pile of
S. Vicente, the historic _Se_ or cathedral with dumpy towers; the
black Castle of Sao Jorge, so hardly wrung from the gallant Moors, and
the huge Santa Engracia, apparently ever to be a ruin.

I spent a pleasant week at Lisbon, and had a fair opportunity of
measuring what progress she has made during the last sixteen years. We
have no longer to wander up and down disconsolate

Mid many things unsightly to strange ee.

If the beggars remain, the excessive dirt and the vagrant dogs have
disappeared. The Tagus has a fine embankment; but the land side is
occupied by mean warehouses. The sewers, like those of Trieste, still
want a _cloaca maxama_, a general conduit of masonry running along
the quay down-stream. The Rocio has been planted with mean trees,
greatly to the disgust of the average Lusitanian, who hates such
sun-excluding vegetation like a backwoodsman; yet the Quintella
squarelet shows what fine use may be made of cactus and pandanus, aloes
and palms, not to mention the ugly and useful eucalyptus. The
thoroughfares are far cleaner than they were; and Lisbon is now
surrounded by good roads. The new houses are built with some respect for
architectonic effect of light and shade: such fine old streets as the
Rua Augusta offend the eye by facades flat as cards with rows of pips
for windows. Finally, a new park is being laid out to the north of the
Passeio Publico.

Having always found 'Olisipo' exceptionally hospitable and pleasant, I
look forward to the days when she will be connected with Paris by direct
railway. Her hotels are first-rate; her prices are not excessive; her
winter climate is delightful, and she is the centre of most charming
excursions. The capital has thrown off much of her old lethargy. Her
Geographical Society is doing hard and honest work; she has nobly
expiated the national crime by becoming a 'Camonian' city; and she
indulges freely in exhibitions. One, of Ornamental Art, was about to be
opened when I last saw her, and it extended deep into the next spring.

CHAPTER II.

FROM LISBON TO MADEIRA.

My allotted week in Lisbon came to an end only too soon: in the society
of friends, and in the Camonian room (Bibliotheca Nacional), which
contains nearly 300 volumes, I should greatly have enjoyed a month. The
s.s. _Luso_ (Captain Silva), of the 'Empresa Insulana,' one of the
very few Portuguese steamers, announced her departure for December 20;
and I found myself on board early in the morning, with a small but
highly select escort to give me God-speed.

Unfortunately the 'May weather' had made way for the _cacimbas_
(mists) of a rainy sou'-wester. The bar broke and roared at us; Cintra,
the apex of Lisbon's extinct volcano and the Mountain of the (Sun and)
Moon, hid her beautiful head, and even the Rock of Lisbon disdained the
normal display of sturdy flank. Then set in a _brise carabinee_,
which lasted during our voyage of 525 miles, and the _Luso_,
rolling like a moribund whale, proved so lively that most of the
fourteen passengers took refuge in their berths. A few who resisted the
sea-fiend's assaults found no cause of complaint: the captain and
officers were exceedingly civil and obliging, and food and wines were
good and not costly.

From Madeira the _Luso_ makes, once a month, the tour of the
Azores, touching at each island--a great convenience--and returning in
ten days.

Early on Thursday, the 22nd, the lumpy, churning sea began to subside,
and the invisible balm seduced all the sufferers to the
quarter-deck. They were wild to sight Madeira as children to see the
rising of the pantomime-curtain. There was not much to gaze at; but what
will not attract man's stare at sea?--a gull, a turtle, a flying fish!
By the by, Captain Tuckey, of the Congo Expedition, remarked the
'extraordinary absence of sea-birds in the vicinity of Madeira and the
Canaries:' they have since learned the way thither. Porto Santo appeared
as a purple lump of three knobs, a manner of 'gizzard island,' backed by
a deeper gloom of clouds--Madeira. Then it lit up with a pale glimmer as
of snow, the effect of the sun glancing upon the thin greens of the
northern flank; and, lastly, it broke into two masses--northern and
southern--of peaks and precipices connected by a strip of lowland.

It is generally held that the discovery of the Madeiran group (1418-19)
was the first marking feature of the century which circumnavigated
Africa, and that Porto Santo was 'invented 'by the Portuguese before
Madeira. The popular account, however, goes lame. For instance, the
story that tried and sturdy soldiers and seamen were deterred from
advancing a few miles, and were driven back to Portugal by the 'thick
impenetrable darkness which was guarded by a strange noise,' and by
anile fancies about the 'Mouth of Hell' and 'Cipango,' reads like mere
stuff and nonsense. Again, great are the difficulties in determining the
nationality of the explorers, and settling the conflicting claims of the
French, Genoese, Portuguese, Spanish, English, and Arabs. History, and
perhaps an aptitude for claiming, have assigned the honour exclusively
to Lusitania: and every guide-book tells the same old tale. But I have
lived long enough to have seen how history is written; and the discovery
was, at best, a mere re-discovery, as we learn from Pliny (vi. 36),
whose 'insulae purpurariae' cannot be confounded [Footnote: Mr. Major,
however, would identify the Purple Islands with Oanarian Fuerteventura
and Lanzarote, both possibly Continental.] with the Fortunate Islands,
or Canaries. The 'Gaetulian dye' of King Juba in the Augustan age is
not known. Its origin has been found in the orchilla still growing upon
the Desertas; but this again appears unlikely enough. Ptolemy (iv. 1,16)
also mentions 'Erythia,' the Red Isle--'red,' possibly, for the same
reason; and Plutarch (in Suet.) may allude to the Madeiran group when he
relates of the Fortunate Islands: 'They are two, separated only by a
narrow channel, and at a distance of 400 leagues (read 320 miles) from
the African coast.'

The Jesuit, Antonio Cordeyro, [Footnote: _Historia insulana das Ilhas
a Portugal sugoytas_, pp. 61-96. Lisbon, 1717.] who borrows from the
learned and trustworthy Dr. Gaspar Fructuoso, [Footnote: _As Saudades
da Terra_, lib. i. ch. iii, _Historia das Ilhas, &c_. This
lettered and conscientious chronicler, the first who wrote upon the
Portuguese islands, was born (A.D. 1522) at Ponta Delgada (Thin Point)
of St. Michael, Azores. He led a life of holiness and good works,
composed his history in 1590, left many 'sons of his soul,' as he called
his books, and died in his natal place, A.D. 1591. The Madeiran portion
of the two huge folios (some 4,000 pages of MS.) has been printed at
Funchal, with copious notes by Dr. A. Rodrigues de Azevedo, Professor of
Literature, &c., at the National Lyceum; and a copy was kindly lent to
me, during the author's absence in Lisbon, by Governor Viscount de Villa
Mendo.] declares in 1590: 'The first discoverers of the Porto Santo
Island, many say, were those Frenchmen and Castilians (Spaniards) who
went forth from Castile to conquer the Canaries; these, when either
outward or homeward bound, came upon the said island, and, for that they
found it uninhabited and small, they abandoned it; but as they had
weathered a storm and saved themselves there, they named it Port Holy.'
Fructuoso (i. 5) expressly asserts that the Portuguese sailed from
Lisbon in June 1419 for 'the Isle of Porto Sancto'(in 32 deg. N. lat.),
which two years before had been discovered by some Castilian ships
making the Canaries, the latter having been occupied a short time
previously by the French; wherefore the pilot took that route.' The
Jesuit chronicler continues to relate that after the formally proclaimed
annexation of the Canaries by the Normans and Castilians (A.D. 1402-18),
Prince Henry, the Navigator, despatched from Lagos, in 1417, an
expedition to explore Cape Bojador, the 'gorbellied.' The three ships
were worked by the Italian master-seaman Bertholomeu Palestrello or
Palestro, commonly called Perestrello. The soldiers, corresponding to
our marines, were commanded by the 'sweet warman,' Joao Goncales da
Camara, nicknamed 'O Zargo,' the Cyclops, not the squint-eyed;
[Footnote: Curious to say, Messieurs White and Johnson, the writers of
the excellent guide-book, will translate the word 'squint-eyed:' they
might have seen the portrait in Government House.] his companion was
Tristao Vaz Teyxeyra, called in honour 'the Tristam.' Azurara,
[Footnote: _Chronica do Descobrimento de Guine._ By Gomes Eannes de
Azurara, written between A.D. 1452-53, and quoted by Prof. Azevedo,
Notes, p. 830.] a contemporary, sends the 'two noble squires,' Zarco and
Tristam, 'who in bad weather were guided by God to the isle now called
Porto Sancto' (June 1419). They returned home (marvellous to relate)
without touching at Madeira, only twenty-three miles distant; and next
year (1420) Prince Henry commissioned Palestrello also.

The Spaniards prefer to believe that after Jehan de Bethencourt's attack
upon the Canaries (A.D. 1403), his soldier Lancelot, who named Lanzarote
Island, touched at Porto Santo in 1417; and presently, sailing to the
south-west, discovered Madeira. This appears reasonable enough.

Patriotic Barbot (1700), in company with the mariner Villault de
Belfons, Pere Labat, and Ernest de Freville, [Footnote: _Memoire sur
le Commerce Maritime de Rouen._] claims the honour for France.
According to that 'chief factor for the African Company,' the
merchants of Dieppe first traded to West Africa for cardamoms and
ivory. This was during the reign of Charles V., and between 1364 and
1430, or half a century before the Portuguese. Their chief stations were
Goree of Cape Verde, Sierra Leone, Cape Mount, the Kru or Liberian
coast, then called 'of Grain,' from the 'Guinea grains' or Malaguetta
pepper (_Amomum granum Paradisi_), and, lastly, the Gold
Coast. Here they founded 'Petit Paris' upon the Baie de France, at
'Serrelionne;' 'Petit Dieppe,' at the mouth of the St. John's River,
near Grand Bassa, south of Monrovia; and 'Cestro' [Footnote: Now
generally called Grand Sestros, and popularly derived from the
Portuguese _cestos_--pepper.] or 'Sestro Paris,' where, three
centuries afterwards, the natives retained a few words of French. Hence
Admiral Bouet-Willaumez explains the Great and Little 'Boutoo' of our
charts by _butteau_, from _butte_, the old Norman word still
preserved in the great western prairies.

Barbot resumes that in 1383 the Rouen traders, combining with the Dieppe
men, sent upon an exploring voyage three ships, one of which, _La
Vierge_, ran down coast as far as where Commenda (Komenda or Komani)
and Elmina now stand. At the latter place they built a fort and factory
just one century before it was occupied by the Portuguese. The Frenchman
declares that one of the Elmina castles was called Bastion de France,
and 'on it are still to be seen some old arithmetical numbers, which are
_anno_ 13' (i.e. 1383); 'the rest being defaced by weather.' This
first factory was afterwards incorporated with the modern building; and
in 1387 it was enlarged with the addition of a chapel to lodge more than
ten or twelve men, the original garrison.

In 1670 Ogilvy [Footnote: London: Printed by Tho. Johnson for the
author, and to be had at his house in White Fryers, MDCLXX.] notes: 'The
castle (Elmina) was judged to be an Antient Building from several marks
of Antiquity about it; as first by a decay'd Battery, which the
_Dutch_ repaired some years ago, retaining the name of _the
French Battery_, because it seems to have been built by the
_French_; who, as the Inhabitants say, before the coming of the
_Portugals_ harbour'd there. The _Dutch_ when they won it,
found the numerical Figures of the year thirteen hundred; but were not
able to make anything of the two following Characters. In a small place
within also, may be seen a Writing carved in Stone between two old
Pillars, but so impair'd and worn out by the weather that it is not
legible.' At Groree, too, similar remains were reported.

The adventurers, it is said, carried on a good trade till 1430-90, when
the civil wars distracting France left her without stomach for distant
adventure; and in 1452 Portugal walked over the course. M. d'Avezac, who
found Porto Santo in a French map of the fourteenth century, [Footnote:
_Bulletin de la Societe de Geographie_, cinquieme serie, tome
v. p. 260. Also 'Iles de l'Afrique,' in the _Univers._ Paris,
1868.] seems inclined to take the part of 'quelques precurseurs
meconnus contre les pretentions trop exclusives des decouvreurs
officiels.'

Barbot's details are circumstantial, but they have not been confirmed by
contemporary evidence or by local tradition. The Portuguese indignantly
deny the whole, and M. Valdez in his 'Complete Maritime Handbook'
[Footnote: _Six Years of a Traveller's Life in Western Africa._
London, Hurst & Blackett, 1861.] alludes contemptuously to 'Norman
pirates.' They point out that Diego d'Azembuja, the chief captain, sent
in 1481 to found Sao Jorje da Mina, our 'Elmina Castle,' saw no traces
of previous occupation. But had he done so, would he have dared to
publish the fact? Professor Azevedo relies upon the silence of Azurara,
Barros, and Camoens concerning the French, the Spaniards, and the
English in the person of Robert a Machim. But this is also at best a
negative argument: the 'Livy of Portugal' never mentions the great
mathematician, Martin Behaim, who accompanied Diego Cam to his discovery
of the Congo. In those days fair play was not a jewel.

The truth is that it would be as easy to name the discoverer of
gunpowder or steam-power as to find the first circumnavigator of the
African continent. I have no difficulty in believing that the
Phoenicians and Carthaginians were capable of making the voyage. They
were followed to West Africa in early days, according to El-Idrisi and
Ibn. el-Wardi, by the Arabs. The former (late eleventh century) relates
that an Arab expedition sailed from Lisbon, shortly after the eighth
century, and named Madeira and Porto Santo the 'Islands El-Ghanam and
Rakah.' However that may be, the first Portuguese occupants found
neither men nor ruins nor large quadrupeds upon any of the group.

The English accident of hitting upon Madeira, and the romantic tale of
Master Robert a Machim, or Machin, or Macham, and Mistress Anne d'Arfet,
or Darby, or Dorset, which would have suited Camoens, and which I have
told elsewhere, [Footnote: Wanderings in West Africa, vol. i,
p. 17. Chapter II., 'A Day at Madeira,' was written after my second and
before my third visit.] and need not repeat, was probably an 'ingenious
account' invented for politico-international ends or to flatter Dom
Enrique, a Britisher by the distaff-side. It is told with a thousand
variants, and ignored by the learned Fructuoso. According to the
apocryphal manuscript of Francisco Alcoforado, the squire who
accompanied the Zargo, this elopement took place in the earlier days of
Edward III. (A.D. 1327-77). The historian Antonio Galvao fixes upon
September 1344, the date generally accepted. Thus the interval between
Machim's death and the Zargo's discovery would be seventy-four years;
and--_pace_ Mr. Major--the Castilian pilot, Juan Damores (de
Amores), popularly called Morales, could _not_ have met the remnant
of the Bristol crew in their Moroccan prison, and could _not_ have
told the tale to the Portuguese explorers.

M. d'Avezac (_loc. cit._ p. 116) supports the claims of the
Genoese, quoting the charts and portulans of the fourteenth century in
which appear Italian names, as _Insule dello Legname_ (of wood,
materia, Madeira), _Porto Sancto, Insule Deserte_, and _Insule
Selvaggie_. Mr. R. H. Major replies that these Italian navigators
were commandants of expeditions fitted out by the Portuguese; and that
this practice dated from 1341, when two ships officered by Genoese, with
crews of [footnote: Amongst the 'ridiculous little blots, which are
"nuts" to the old resident,' I must confess to killing Robert Machim in
1334 instead of 1344; 'Collegio' was also translated 'College' instead
of 'Jesuit Church.'] Italians, Castilians, and _Hispani_ (Spanish
and Portuguese), were seat to explore the Canaries.

'Holy Port' began badly. The first governor, Perestrello, fled from the
progeny of his own she-rabbit. This imprudence was also committed at
Deserta Grande; and, presently, the cats introduced by way of cure ran
wild. A grass-clad rock in the Fiume Gulf can tell the same tale: sheep
and lambs were effectually eaten out by rabbits and cats. It will be
remembered that Columbus married Philippa, third daughter of the
navigator Perestrello, lived as a mapper with his father-in-law, and
thence travelled, between 1470 and 1484, to Guinea, where he found that
the equatorial regions are not uninhabitable by reason of the heat. He
inherited the old seaman's papers, and thus arose the legend of his
learning from a castaway pilot the way to the New World. [Footnote:
Fructuoso writes that in 1486 Columbus gave food and shelter to the crew
of a shattered Biscayan ship; the pilot dying bequeathed to him papers,
charts and valuable observations made on the Western Ocean.]

Long years rolled by before Porto Santo learnt to bear the vine, to
breed large herds of small cattle, and to produce cereals whose yield is
said to have been 60 to 1. Meanwhile it cut down for bowls, mortars, and
canoes, as the Guanches did for shields, its thin forest of 'Dragons.'
The Dragoeiro (_Dracaena Draco_ Linn., _Palma canariensis_
Tourn.), which an Irish traveller called a 'dragon-palm,' owed its
vulgar name to the fancy that the fruit contained the perfect figure of
a standing dragon with gaping mouth and long neck, spiny back and
crocodile's tail. It is a quaint tree of which any ingenious carpenter
could make a model. The young trunk is somewhat like that of the
_Oreodoxa regia_, or an asparagus immensely magnified; but it
frequently grows larger above than below. At first it bears only
bristly, ensiform leaves, four feet long by one to three inches broad,
and sharp-pointed, crowning the head like a giant broom. Then it puts
forth gouty fingers, generally five, standing stiffly up and still
capped by the thick yucca-like tufts. Lastly the digitations grow to
enormous arms, sometimes eighteen feet in girth, of light and porous,
soft and spongy wood. The tree then resembles the baobab or calabash,
the elephant or hippopotamus of the vegetable kingdom.

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