Stories of the Gorilla Country

CHAPTER XIX

Not long after we returned from our hunting expedition, I prepared to go to Fetich Point on a fishing excursion. For this purpose it was necessary to have canoes. I had called on King Bango since I returned, but, remembering the rats, I had respectfully declined the hospitality of his palace. Nevertheless, he remained my friend and gave me all the men I wanted.

I not only wanted to fish, but I also wished to see the burial-ground of the Oroungous, which is not far from Fetich Point. There were also some enormous turtles on Fetich Point, I was told, and I wished to catch some of them.

My old hunting friend, Fasiko, had got together a party of forty men. Besides Fetich Point, I was to visit the Fetich river, and the end of Cape Lopez. There being no houses whatever there, the women had prepared for us a great quantity of powdered manioc, baskets of ground nuts, sweet potatoes, and bunches of plantain. We had a very large outfit. Fasiko got together a lot of mats to sleep upon, and kettles to cook in, and a great quantity of salt, with which to salt the fish we hoped to catch. We had several fish-nets made, of the fibre of a vine. We also had fish-hooks; and I took an enormous hook to catch sharks. I always had a hatred of sharks, they are such savage and voracious monsters.

We had a great number of baskets. The women carried these to put the fish in. We did not forget guns; for leopards lurk in the jungle, on the south side of the cape, and the boa hangs from the trees, waiting for his prey. If you got up early there, as everybody at a watering-place should, you can see huge elephants trotting down along the beach, and cooling their tender toes in the surf.

It was a very jolly party, for Cape Lopez is the Cape May, or Nahant of Sangatanga. The dry season there answers to our July, when "everybody that is anybody" is supposed to be "out of town and down by the seaside."

Niamkala and Aboko were of the party; for we were great friends; and wherever I went they wanted to go with me. They were slaves of King Bango; but we had shared the same dangers, we had shared the same pleasures.

At last everything was ready. I embarked in the biggest canoe, which was manned by sixteen oarsmen. As usual, there was a good deal of shouting and bustle before we got off. The sails, made with matting, were unfurled, and we set out across the bay. We had an exciting race to see which canoe was the fastest. There was a stiff breeze; but unfortunately the wind was nearly in our faces, so that our sails were of little use. The men worked lustily at their paddles, and as they paddled they sang their wild canoe songs. The morning was clear and bright, but in the afternoon the sky became clouded. We reached Fetich Point a little before sunset; and the men, who seemed as lively and jolly as could be, at once cast their net, in a way not materially different from our mode of using the hand-net, and made a great haul of fish, the principal part of which were mullets. How beautiful they looked! They seemed like silver fish.

The men went immediately in search of firewood. We lighted our fires; and, having cooked and eaten our fish, which were delicious, we prepared for a night's rest by spreading mats upon the sand. It was terribly cold; for we were not sheltered from the wind, which went right through my blanket.

Not far from Fetich Point is the river Tetica, one of the tributaries of the Nazareth river. The Nazareth falls into the bay, through a tangled, dreary, and poisonous track of back country, consisting of mangrove swamps, like those I have described on the Monda river, and where, I daresay, no animals, except serpents, are to be found. There are no human habitations there.

In the morning, I wished to see the Oroungou burial-ground, before starting for Cape Lopez itself. It lay about a mile from our camp, towards Sangatanga, from which it is distant about half a day's pull in a canoe.

It was only by the promise of a large reward that I persuaded Niamkala to accompany me. The negroes visit the place only on funeral errands, and hold it in the greatest awe, conceiving that here the spirits of their ancestors wander about, and that they are not lightly to be disturbed.

Niamkala and I left the camp, and, following the seashore, we soon reached the place. It is in a grove of noble trees, many of them of magnificent size and shape. As I have said, the natives hold the place in great reverence.

The grove is by the sea. It is entirely cleared of underbrush; and, as the wind sighs through the dense foliage of the trees, and whispers in their darkened, somewhat gloomy recesses, there is something awful about the place. I thought how many lives had been sacrificed on these graves.

Niamkala stood in silence by the strand, while I entered the domain of the Oroungou dead.

The corpses are not put below the surface. They lie about beneath the trees, in huge wooden coffins, many of which are made of trees. By far the greater number were crumbling away. Some new ones betokened recent arrivals. The corpses of some had only been surrounded by a mat. Here was a coffin falling to pieces, and disclosing a grinning skeleton within. On the other side were skeletons, already without their covers, which lay in the dirt beside them. Everywhere were bleached bones, and mouldering remains. It was curious to see the brass anklets and bracelets, in which some Oroungou maiden or wife had been buried, still surrounding her whitened bones, and to note the remains of articles which had been laid in the coffin or put by the side of some wealthy fellow now crumbling to dust. What do you think these articles were? Umbrellas, guns, spears, knives, bracelets, bottles, cooking-pots, swords, plates, jugs, glasses, etc.

In some places there remained only little heaps of shapeless dust, from which some copper, or iron, or ivory ornaments, or broken pieces of the articles I have just mentioned, gleamed out, to prove that here, too, once lay a corpse, and exemplifying the saying of the Bible, "Dust, to dust thou shalt return." I could not help saying to myself. "Man, what art thou?"

Suddenly I came to a corpse that must have been put there only the day before. The man looked asleep, for death does not show its pallor in the face of the negro as it does in that of the white man. This corpse had been dressed in a coat, and wore a necklace of beads. By his side stood a jar, a cooking-pot, and a few other articles, which his friend, or his heir, had put by his side.

Passing on into a yet more sombre gloom, I came at last to the grave of old King Pass-all, the brother of the present king. Niamkala had pointed out to me the place where I should find it. The huge coffin lay on the ground, and was surrounded on every side with great chests, which contained some of the property of his deceased majesty. Many of them were tumbling down, and the property destroyed. The wood, as well as the goods, had been eaten up by the white ants. Among some of these chests, and on the top of them, were piled huge earthenware jugs, glasses, mugs, plates, iron pots, and brass kettles. Iron and copper rings, and beads were scattered around, with other precious things which Pass-all had determined to carry to the grave with him. There lay also the ghastly skeletons of the poor slaves, who, to the number of one hundred, were killed when the king died, that he might not pass into the other world without due attendance.

It was a grim sight, and one which filled me with a sadder feeling than even the disgusting slave barracoons had given me.

The land breeze was blowing when I returned, and we started for the sandy point of the cape. It is a curious beach, very low, and covered with a short scrub, which hides a part of the view, while the sand ahead is undistinguishable at a distance from the water, above which it barely rises. I was repeatedly disappointed, thinking we had come to the end, when in fact we had before us a long narrow sand-spit. Finally we reached the extreme end, and landed in smooth water on the inside of the spit.

The point gains continually upon the sea. Every year a little more sand appears above the water, while the line of short shrubs, which acts as a kind of dam or breakwater, is also extended, and holds the new land firm against the encroachments of old Neptune.

Among these shrubs we built our camp, and here for some days we had a very pleasant and lively time.

The weather was delightful; we had no rain, it being the dry season, and we were not afraid of the awful tornadoes.

CHAPTER XX

Our camp presented a very picturesque appearance, and was unlike the one described a little while ago, and of which I gave you a picture. Here each man had built for himself a cosy shade with mats, which, by the way, are very beautiful. These mats are about five or six feet in length and three feet wide. We made our walls of them, so that we were sheltered from the wind. Our houses looked very much like large boxes.

As usual, the first day was occupied in making everything comfortable, and in collecting firewood, which it was not so easy a matter to find, for the shrubs did not furnish much, and we had to go far to get it; afterwards it was made the business of the children to gather brushwood for the fires; and the poor children had hard work too.

We built large oralas, or frames, on which to dry the fish when salted, or to smoke it by lighting a fire beneath, in which case the oralas were built higher.

Some had brought with them large copper dishes, called Neptunes, which looked like gigantic plates, in which they were to boil down salt water to get supplies of salt for salting the fish, and to take home with them. Some of the women were all day making salt; when made, it was packed securely in baskets, and placed near the fire to keep it dry.

Every day we had some new kind of fish to eat, or to salt down.

As for myself, as I have said, I had brought along an immense shark-hook and a stout rope. The hook was attached to a strong chain two feet long, so that the teeth of the shark could not cut the line if they should swallow the piece of meat or the large fish put on the hook for a bait.

There were so many sharks swarming in the waters about the cape that they were often almost washed upon the beach by the waves. I never saw such an immense number. The Chinese, who eat sharks' fins, would find enough here to glut the Canton market. In truth, I sometimes trembled when in a canoe at the idea that it might upset, for if that had happened, in a short time I should have been seized by a dozen hungry sharks, been dragged to the bottom of the sea, and there been devoured. These sharks are certainly the lions and tigers of the water: they show no mercy. The very sight of them is horrible, for you cannot help thinking and saying to yourself, "I wonder how many people this shark has eaten!" There is a superstition among sailors that whenever there is a sick person aboard, the sharks will follow the ship, watching for the corpse to be thrown overboard.

I confess I felt a hatred for sharks, and while at Cape Lopez I killed as many of them as I could. Almost every day you could have seen me in a canoe near the shore, throwing my shark-hook into the sea, and after awhile making for the beach, and calling all the men together to pull with all our might, and draw in my victim. One day I took a blue-skin shark. He was a tremendous fellow. I thought we should never be able to haul him ashore, or that the line would part. It took us an hour before we saw him safely on the beach. Now and then I thought he would get the better of us, and that we should have to let the line go, or be pulled into the water. At last he came right up on the beach, and a great shout of victory welcomed him. Aboko was ready for him, and with a powerful axe he gave him a tremendous blow that cut off his tail. Then we smashed his head, and cut his body into several pieces, which quivered to and fro for some time. In his stomach we found a great number of fish. If I remember correctly, he had six or seven rows of teeth, and such ugly teeth! I pity the poor man whose leg should unfortunately get caught between them.

Hardly a day passed that I did not catch some sharks, and then for a bait I used to put on my hook a piece of their own flesh, which, like the cannibals, they ate apparently without any remorse.

There is another species of shark, of a grey leaden colour, which is shorter and thicker than the blue-skin shark; it has a broader head, and a much wider mouth, and is far more voracious. This species is the most common. It will attack a man in shallow water. I remember a poor boy who was going to his canoe, where the water was not up to his knees, when suddenly, just as he was going to get in, he was seized by his leg and dragged into the water by one of these terrible sharks, which had probably been for some time swimming along the beach watching for prey. In that country it is dangerous to bathe in the sea, and I did not attempt to do so. So much for the sharks.

Every day, on the muddy banks near the mouth of the Fetich river, we hauled in with our nets a great quantity of mullets and other fish. These were split open, cleaned, salted, dried, and smoked, and then packed away in baskets.

Sometimes, early in the morning, we went out to turn turtles. To do this we had to start before daylight. They came on the beach to lay their eggs in the sand, which the sea does not reach. There the heat of the sun hatches them out. I have sometimes spied these turtles early in the morning coming out of the water and ascending the beach in a clumsy way, until they reached the dry spot where they wish to lay their eggs. After laying them, they manage to cover them with sand. I should have liked very much to have seen the young ones come out of the eggs. How funny the little wee turtles must look! But I have never been so fortunate.

One day we caught a turtle which had only three legs; the fourth had been bitten off, no doubt by a hungry shark. The wound had got well, and must have been made long before we caught the turtle.

Would you like to know how we captured turtles?

As soon as they see people coming towards them they generally make for the water. Then we rush with all speed upon the unwieldy turtle, and with one jerk roll it over on its back, where it lies, vainly struggling to recover its legs. Then we kill it.

Hundreds of eggs are sometimes found in one turtle. I was very fond of them when found in the body, otherwise I did not like them. They made splendid omelettes.

The turtles look very curious when they lie fast asleep on the water. At such times I am told that, with great care, they may be approached and captured.

Besides fishing, we had hunting also. South of the cape was a dense forest, in which might be found most of the animals that live in African woods. Several times we saw elephants on the beach, but we shot none. I killed a great number of sea fowls, which fly about there in such flocks as almost to darken the air. They collect in this way in order to feed on the fish which are so plentiful.

One evening, as Aboko, Niamkala, and I were returning from a fruitless hunt in the woods, we fell in with larger game. Passing along the edge of the forest we were suddenly startled by a deep growl. Looking quickly about, we perceived an immense male leopard just crouching for a spring upon our party. Fortunately our guns were loaded with ball. No doubt we had come upon the animal unawares. In a flash we all three fired into the beast, for there was no time to be lost. He was already upon the spring, and our shot met him as he rose. He fell dead and quivering almost within a foot of Aboko, who may be said to have had a very narrow escape, for the leopard had singled him out as his prey. He was an immense animal, and his skin, which I preserved as a trophy, is most beautifully shaded and spotted; in fact there is scarcely a more beautiful animal than the African leopard.

At the mouth of the Nazareth the savage saw-fish is found. It is no doubt one of the most formidable, and the most terrible of the animals that live in the water.

I was quietly paddling in a little canoe, when my attention was drawn to a great splashing of water a little way off. I saw at once it was a deadly combat between two animals. All round the water was white with foam. The cause of this could not be two hippopotami fighting, for in that case I should have seen them.

I approached cautiously, having first made my two rifles ready in case of an emergency. At last I came near enough to see an enormous saw-fish attacking a large shark. It was a fearful combat; both fought with desperation. But what could the shark do against the powerful saw of his antagonist?

At last they came too near my canoe. I moved off lest they might attack my canoe, for they would have made short work of my small, frail boat; and a single blow of the saw-fish would have disabled me. Each tooth of the saw must have been two inches long, and there were, I should say, forty on each side; the saw was about five feet long. In the end, the saw-fish, more active than the shark, gave him a terrible blow, making his teeth go right through the flesh of the shark. Several such blows were quickly delivered, and all became still, the foam ceased, and the water resumed its accustomed stillness. I paddled towards the scene, when suddenly I saw, at the bottom of the river, what I recognised to be a great shark; it was dead, and lay on its back, showing its belly. The body was frightfully lacerated.

The saw-fish had killed its antagonist, and left the field of battle, and only the blood of the shark stained the water.

In the bay of Cape Lopez, in the month of July, I could see whales playing about in every direction, and sending water high into the air.

They come at that time of the year with their young; and the water of the bay being very quiet, they enjoy there the sea, and the young whales get strong before they go into the broad ocean. Very pretty it looks to see them swimming by the side of the big mothers.

Year after year the whales came, always in July; but one year the whalers found them out, and made war upon them; and now, when July comes, they are no more to be seen, for the whale is very intelligent, and knows well the places where he is not safe; so they look out for some other unfrequented bay wherein to play and train their young.

Besides the whale, all the year round can be seen what the sailor commonly calls the bottle-nose, an enormous fish, not so big as a whale, but nevertheless of great size. It is of the whale family.

CHAPTER XXI

I have been a great wanderer. On the 5th of February, 1857, I was on board of a little schooner, of forty-five tons burden, bound for the mouth of a river called Fernand-Vaz. From there I expected to penetrate into the interior. I was on my way to a wild and unexplored region.

The name of the schooner was the Caroline. She was full of provisions and goods for the long journey I had to undertake; for I intended to make a very long exploration before my return to America. The captain was a Portuguese negro, Cornillo by name. The crew, seven in number, were Mpongwes, Mbingos, and Croomen, not more than two of whom could understand each other, and not a soul could properly understand the captain. A fine prospect for the voyage!

I got aboard at daylight, and should have been glad to go immediately ashore again; but, by dint of steady shouting, and a great deal of standing idle, with a little work now and then, we got the anchor up just at dusk. The captain did not like to leave port on Friday. I told him I would take the responsibility. He asked what good that would do him if he went to the bottom. It appears that the Portuguese have the same absurd superstitions as many of the sailors of other nations.

No sooner had we got into the swell than our two black women, and every man on board (except the captain), got sea-sick. The cook was unable to get the breakfast next morning; and the men were lying about, looking like dying fish.

We set sail from the Gaboon river, and hoped to get down to the Commi country in five days. But for four days after starting we had light wind and a contrary current; and, on the fifth day, we were caught in such a storm at sea as I hope never to experience again.

The steering went on so badly when Captain Cornillo was below, that I was forced to stand watch myself. I had been steering for four hours, and had been perhaps one hour in my berth, when I was awakened from a sound sleep by the captain's voice, giving orders to take down the mainsail. I sprang on deck immediately, knowing there must be at least a heavy squall coming. But no sooner did I cast my eyes to the leeward than I saw how imminent the danger was. A tornado was coming down upon us. The black clouds which had gathered about the horizon were becoming lurid white with startling quickness. It seemed almost as if they were lit up by lightning. The tornado was sweeping along and in a moment would be upon us. As yet all was still – still as death. There was not a breath of wind.

I turned to see if the mainsail was down, but found nothing had been done. The captain was shouting from the wheel; the men were also shouting and running about, half scared to death; and, in the pitchy darkness (for I could not see my hands when held close before my eyes), no one could find the halliards. In the midst of our trouble the wind came roaring down upon us. I seized a knife, determined to cut everything away; but just then somebody let go the halliards, and, in the nick of time, the mainsail came half-way down. The tornado was upon us. The jibs flew away in rags in a moment. The vessel was thrown upon her beam ends. The water rushed over her deck, and the men sang out that we were drowning; as, in fact, we should have been in a very few minutes. Happily the wind shifted a little; and, by the light of some very vivid lightning, we seized on the mainsail, like men that felt it was their last hope, and pulled it down, holding it so that the wind should not catch it again. The vessel righted, and in less than twenty minutes the squall died away, and was succeeded by a driving rain, which poured down in such torrents that in a very short time I was drenched to the skin. The lightning and thunder were something terrific. I was afraid of the lightning, striking us as the Caroline had no lightning-rod, and we had powder enough on board to blow us all to atoms. The deck was so leaky that even below I could not get protection from the rain.

The next morning we had no jibs, and our other sails were severely damaged. To add to our difficulties, no one on board, not even our captain, knew where we were. At that time I knew not how to make astronomical observations. The captain was in the habit of bringing up, every day, an old quadrant; but about the use of it he knew as much as a cow does about a musket.

At last we made the land. A canoe came on board, and we asked where we were. We found that we must be somewhere near Cape St. Catherine, and therefore a good many miles south of the mouth of the Fernand-Vaz, the place where I was bound. So we turned about to retrace our path. Sailing close in shore, when I passed the village of Aniambia, or Big Camma, the natives came with a message from their king, offering me two slaves if I would stay with him.