Part 14

The Isle of Safal, belonging to Mr. Picard, offers the same advantages. Its soil is fertile as that of the islands of which we have just spoken. No drinkable water is found in any of them; but it would be easy to procure excellent water by digging wells about two metres in depth.

Cotton and indigo grow every where spontaneously; what then is wanting, to these countries, to obtain in them what the other colonies produce? Nothing but some men, capable of directing the natives in their labours, and of procuring them the agricultural implements, and the plants of which they stand in need. When these men are found, we shall soon see numerous habitations arise on the banks of this river, which will rival those in the Antilles. The blacks love the French nation more than any other, and it would be easy to direct their minds to agriculture. A little adventure, which happened to Mr. Corréard, will shew to what a degree they love the French.

In the course of the month of September, his fever having left him for some days, he was invited by Mr. François Valentin, to join a hunting party in the environs of the village of Gandiolle, situated six leagues to the South, South East of St. Louis. Mr. Dupin, supercargo of a vessel from Bordeaux, who was then at Senegal, and Mr. Yonne brother of Mr. Valentin, were of the party. Their intention was to prolong the pleasures of the chace, for several days; in consequence, they borrowed a tent of the worthy Major Peddy, and fixed themselves on the banks of the gulph which the Senegal forms, since its ancient mouth is entirely stopped up, and a new one formed, three or four leagues higher up than the former. There they were only a short league from the village of Gandiolle. Mr. Corréard directed his course, or rather his _reconnaissances_, a little into the interior, for he had conceived the idea of taking a plan of the coast, and of the islands formed by the Senegal. He was soon near to Gandiolle, and stopped some moments at the sight of an enormous Baobob tree, the whiteness of which much surprised him: he perceived it was covered with a cloud of the birds called aigrettes.[63] He advanced across the village to the foot of this tree, and fired two shot successively, supposing he should kill at least twenty of these birds. Curiosity induced him to measure the prodigious tree, on which they were perched, and he found that its circumference was 28 metres. While he was examining this monstrous production of the vegetable kingdom, the report of his piece had caused a great many blacks to come out of their huts, who advanced towards Mr. Corréard, doubtless, with the hope of obtaining from him some powder, ball, or tobacco. While he was loading his piece, he fixed his eyes upon an old man, whose respectable look announced a good disposition; his beard and hair were white, and his stature colossal; he called himself Sambadurand. When he saw Mr. Corréard looking at him attentively, he advanced towards him, and asked him if he was an Englishman? No, replied he, I am a Frenchman.--How, my friend, you are a Frenchman! that gives me pleasure.--Yes, good old man, I am.--Then the black tried to put on a certain air of dignity to pronounce the word Frenchman, and said, "Your nation is the most powerful in Europe, by its courage and the superiority of its genius, is it not?"--Yes.--It is true that you Frenchmen are not like the white men of other nations of Europe whom I have seen; that does not surprise me; and then, you are all fire, and as good tempered as we blacks. I think you resemble Durand in vivacity and stature; you must be as good as he was; are you his relation?--No, good old man, I am not his relation; but I have often heard speak of him.--Ah? you do not know him as I do: it is now thirty years since he came into this country with his friend Rubault, who was going to Galam. This Frenchman, whose language I learned at St. Louis, loaded us all with presents; I still keep a little dagger which he gave me, and I assure you that my son will keep it as long as I have done. We always remember those white men who have done us good, particularly the French whom we love very much.--"Well," answered Mr. Corréard, "I am sorry I have nothing which can suit you, and be kept for a long time, or I would offer it you with pleasure, and you would join the remembrance of me with that of the philanthropic Durand, who had conceived plans which, if they had been executed, would, perhaps, have been the glory of my country, and the happiness of yours; but here, take my powder and ball, if that can do you pleasure."--Ah! good Frenchman, I would willingly take them, for I know that you have as much as you please in your own country;[64] but at this moment it would deprive you of the pleasure of the chace.--No, take it all.--Take my advice Toubabe: let us divide it, that will be better. In fact, they divided. The black invited Mr. Corréard to enter his hut to refresh himself. "Come Toubabe," said he, "come, my women shall give you some milk and millet flour, and you shall smoke a pipe with me."

Mr. Corréard refused, in order to continue his sport, which was interrupted by the cries of the blacks, who pursued a young lion, which came from the village of Mouit, and attempted to enter that of Gandiolle; this animal had done no harm, but the natives pursued him in the hopes of killing him, and to sell his skin. Dinnertime being come, all the white hunters returned to their tent. A few moments after, they saw a young negro, twelve years of age at the most, whose mild and pleasant countenance was far from indicating the courage and the strength which he had just displayed; he held in his hands an enormous lizard quite alive, at least a metre and eighty centimetres in length. These gentlemen were astonished to see this child holding such a terrible animal, which opened a frightful pair of jaws. Mr. Corréard begged Mr. Valentin to ask him how he had been able to take, and pinion it in this manner. The child answered as follows in the Yoloffe language: "I saw this lizard come out of a hedge, I immediately seized it by the tail and hind feet: I raised it from the ground, and with my left hand took it by the neck; and holding it very fast, and at a distance from my body, I carried it in this manner to the village of Gandiolle, where I met one of my companions, who tied his legs, and persuaded me to come and present it to the Toubabes who are in the tent; he told me also that they were Frenchmen, and as we love them much, I have come to see them, and offer them this lizard." After these details, Mr. Corréard presented the but end of his piece to the animal, which made a deep indenture with its teeth; having then presented it the end of the barrel, it immediately seized it furiously, and broke all its teeth, which made it bleed very much; nevertheless, it made no effort to disengage itself from its bonds.[65]

The environs of Gandiolle appear to be extremely fertile; we find there grass two metres in height, fields of maize and millet. This country is full of large pieces of water, which the natives call marigots; the major part of which cover an immense space; but it would be easy to drain them by means of some little canals, particularly in the part near the coast. These lands would be very productive, and proper for the culture of the sugar cane: the soil is mud mixed with very fine sand.[A15]

After having examined the environs of St. Louis, let us cast a glance upon the rock called the Island of Goree, and its environs. This isle is nothing of itself; but its position renders it of the greatest importance: it is situated in longitude 19° 5', and in latitude 14° 40' 10", half a league from the main land, and thirty-six leagues from the mouth of the Senegal. The Cape de Verd Islands, are eighty leagues to the West. It is this position that renders it mistress of all the commerce of these countries. Its port is excellent; and so great a number of ships and boats are seen there that its road is continually covered; there is so much activity that some persons have said the Island of Goree was, perhaps, the point in the world, where there was most bustle and population. The number of its inhabitants is estimated at 5000 souls, which is by no means in proportion with its confined surface, which is not above 910 metres in length, and 245 in breadth. Its circumference is not above 2000 metres. It is only a very high rock, the access to the coasts, of which is very difficult. The numerous rocks, which surround it on all sides, have made some navigators give it the name of _Little Gibraltar_; and if nature were seconded by art, there is no doubt but like that, it would become impregnable. It was first taken possession of by Admiral d'Estrées, about the end of the year 1677. This isle lies in the direction of S.S.E and N.N.W. and is only about 2600 metres distant from Cape Verd. It is defended by a fort, and by some small batteries in very bad condition; but it is, nevertheless, impregnable by its position. In fact, it is not accessible, except on the E.N.E. where there is a pretty large and deep bay, capable of receiving the largest ships. Its road is immense; vessels are safe in it, and tolerably well sheltered. At two leagues from Goree is the bay of Ben, which affords the greatest facilities for the careening of vessels, and for the repairs of which they may stand in need.

The Island of Goree is cool during the evening, the night and the morning; but during the day, there prevails in the island an unsupportable heat, produced by the reflection of the sun's rays, which fall perpendicularly on the Basalt rocks which surround it. If we add to this the stagnation of the air, the circulation of which is interrupted by the houses, being very closely built, a considerable population, which continually fills the streets, and is beyond all proportion with the extent of the town, it will be readily conceived that all these reasons, powerfully contribute to concentrate here such insupportable heat, that one can scarcely breathe at noon day. The blacks too, who certainly know what hot countries are, find the heat excessive, and prefer living at St. Louis.

The Island of Goree may become of the greatest importance if the government should ever think proper to establish a powerful colony, from Cape Verd to the river Gambia; then this isle would be the bulwark of the settlements on the coast of Africa. But it will be objected that Goree is very small, and that great establishments can never be formed there; we think, only, that it is proper to be the central point, till a greater colony shall be established on Cape Verd, which nature seems to have intended for it, and the advantages of which, in a military and maritime point of view, are of the highest importance. Men of sound judgment who have examined it, have considered it calculated to become one day a second Cape of Good Hope. It is certain that, with time and by means of some works, this Cape would become highly interesting, and would serve as a _dépôt_, to accustom to the climate, such Europeans, as might wish to settle either in the projected colonies, or on those which might be founded, between this Cape and the Gambia, or on the islands of Todde, Reffo, Morphil, Bilbas, and even in the kingdom of Galam.

The position and figure of Cape Verd are such, that it would be easy to form there an excellent port at a small expense; perhaps it would not be impossible to make some use of the Lake or _Marigot_ of Ben, which is but a short distance from the sea. Its road, which is the same as that of Goree, might almost serve as a port, even in its present state. The following is an extract from a Letter, written to Mr. Corréard by a Physician, who has carefully examined Cape Verd.

"This Cape is very different from what we thought. Its surface is not above six or eight square leagues; its population is very numerous, and by no means in proportion with the part of this peninsula, proper for cultivation, which is not above one-third of its surface. Another third serves for pasture for the flocks of the blacks; and the other part is too much _vulcanised_, too full of rocks, to afford any hope of advantage in an agricultural view. But its military position is admirable; all seems to concur to render it impregnable, and it would even be easy to insulate it entirely from the Continent, and to form upon it several ports, which nature seems to have already prepared."

This letter likewise speaks of the advantages offered by the environs of Rufisque, which are so well known, that we may dispense with speaking of them here. We shall only mention as among the principal points to be occupied, with the _mornes_ of Cape Rouge, Portudal, Joal, and Cahone, this last on the river Salum near the Gambia; they are large villages, the environs of which are covered with magnificent forests, and the soil of which is perhaps the most fertile of any in Africa. For more ample accounts of these countries, we refer to the excellent works of Messrs. Durand and Geoffroy de Villeneuve, who have examined them like enlightened observers, and perfectly well described them in their travels, only that they have too much exaggerated the agricultural advantages of Cape Verd.

We shall not have the presumption to lay down plans, to propose systems, to enforce such or such means for putting them in execution. We shall merely terminate our task by some general considerations calculated to confirm what numerous and able observers have already thought, of the importance of the establishments in Africa, and of the necessity of adopting some general plan of colonisation for these countries.

However pride, prejudice and personal interest, may deceive themselves respecting the re-establishment of our Western Colonies, nobody will be able longer to dissemble the inutility of attempts to persevere in a false route. Calculation will at length triumph over blind obstinacy and false reasonings. There is already a certain number of incontestable data, the consequences of which must be one day admitted. And first, though some persons who fancy that, like them the whole world have been asleep for these twenty-five or thirty years, still dream of the submission of St. Domingo, reasonably persons now acknowledge, that even were the final success of such an enterprise possible, its real result would be, to have expended, in order to conquer a desert, and ruins drenched in blood, ten times more men and money than would be sufficient to colonise Africa. It is well known, also, that the soil of Martinique is exhausted, and that its productions will diminish more and more; that the small extent of Guadaloupe confines its culture to a very narrow circle, and does not permit it to offer a mass of produce sufficient to add much to the force of the impulse, which a country like France, must give to all parts of its agricultural and commercial industry. It is not to be doubted, but that nature has given to French Guiyana the elements of great prosperity; but this establishment requires to be entirely created; every thing has hitherto concurred to prolong its infancy. There are not sufficient hands: and how will you convey thither the requisite number of cultivators, when you have proclaimed the abolition of the slave trade.

The Abolition of the Slave Trade: this is the principle, pregnant with consequences, which should induce every enlightened government speedily to change its whole colonial system. It would be in vain to attempt to prolong this odious trade by smuggling, and thus still to draw from it some precarious resources. This sad advantage would but keep open the wound which has struck the western colonies, without being able to effect their recovery, as is desired by those who seek to found their prosperity on the regular farming out of one of the races of mankind. The slave trade is abolished not only by religion, by treaties, by the consent of some powers, by the calculations and interest of some others, which will not permit it to be re-established; but it is abolished also by the light of the age, by the wish of all civilised nations; by opinion, that sovereign of the world, which triumphs over every obstacle, and subdues all that resist her laws. Without the slave trade, you cannot transport to the West Indies those throngs of men whose sweat and blood are the manure of your lands: on the other hand, you see the Genius of Independence hover over the New World, which will soon force you to seek friends and allies where you have hitherto reckoned only slaves. Why then do you hesitate to prepare a new order of things, to anticipate events, which time, whose march you cannot arrest, brings every day nearer and nearer? Reason, your own interest, the force of circumstances, the advantages of nature, the richness of the soil, every thing tells you that it is to Africa, that you must carry culture and civilization.

Without entering into the question, whether the Government should reserve to itself, exclusively, the right of founding colonies on that continent, or whether it ought to encourage colonial companies, and depend on the efforts of private interest suitably directed, let us be permitted to offer some views, on the prudent and temperate course which ought to be laid down, to arrive at a satisfactory result, not only in respect to the civilization of the blacks, but even relatively to the commercial advantages which the colonist must naturally have in view.

Though the abolition of the slave trade has been proclaimed, yet the present slaves must be led to liberty only in a progressive manner. The whites who are possessed of negroes, should not be allowed to prolong their possession and their dominion over them, beyond the space of ten years, and without being permitted to resell them during that period. During these ten years, the negroes should be prepared for their new condition as well by instruction as by the successive amelioration of their situation; it would be necessary gradually to relax the chain of slavery; and by affording them means to lay up a part of the produce of their labour, inspire them with the desire, and the necessity of possessing something of their own.

After these ten years, which may be called a Noviciate, it is to be presumed, that if lands were granted to them upon advantageous conditions, fixed before hand, if they were furnished in case of need, with the agricultural instruments, the use of which they would have learned, they would become excellent cultivators: it is needless to remark that the man who cultivates the soil, and whose labour the soil rewards, by its produce, becomes strongly attached to the land, which supplies both his wants and his enjoyments, and is soon led by family affections to the love of social order, and to the sentiments which constitute a good citizen.

The blacks have been too long encouraged to sell their fellow-creatures, for us to depend upon their soon forgetting this deplorable traffic. But doubtless we ought to begin by renouncing the perfidious means of inflaming their cupidity and their passions. The articles which they are the most desirous to obtain from us, ought to be the price of the produce of the soil, and no longer the means of exchange, and the aliment of this dreadful traffic in human flesh. It would, however, be proper that, as long as slaves should continue to arrive from the interior, the whites might buy them. This permission should be granted for a time, and in a certain extent of country. Their slavery should also be limited to ten years, as we have said above, and their moral and physical improvement, should be directed in such a manner as to attach them to the soil by exciting in them the love of property.

The laws and institutions which govern the mother country, would incontrovertibly be applicable to the new establishments. It would certainly be presumable, that on account of particular considerations of moral and political order, it would be proper to allow local regulations, in forming which, all proprietors enjoying the rights of citizenship, ought to participate, without any distinction of colour. It would especially be highly important, that the regulations for the government of the slaves, should be founded on mildness and humanity, that prudent and enlightened persons should superintend the execution of them, and have the necessary authority to prevent abuses, and to secure to the slave the protection of the law.

In order to obtain these results, it is evident that it would be no less essential to preserve the colonies from the scourge of arbitrary authority, from the excesses of power, which always accompany abuses, injustice, and corruption. When favor and caprice are the only laws that are attended to; when intrigue supplies the place of merit; when cupidity succeeds to honorable industry; when vice and meanness are titles to distinctions, and the true means of making a fortune; when honours are no longer synonimous with honour; then society presents only disorder and anarchy, then people renounce obscure virtue, and laborious acquisition to follow the easy ways of corruption; then enlightened men, for whom public esteem is a sterile recommendation, the true servants of the king, the faithful friends of their country, are forced to disappear, to withdraw from employments, and the interest of the public, as well as that of humanity, is miserably sacrificed to the basest calculations, to the most guilty passions.

He who desires the end, desires the means of attaining it. The end at present, should be to prepare every thing beforehand, and rather sooner than later, in order to repair in Africa the past losses and disasters, which irremediable events have caused in the Western Colonies, and to substitute for their riches their prosperity, the progressive decline of which is henceforward inevitable, new elements of wealth and prosperity: the means will be to carry into these countries, so long desolated by our relentless avarice, knowledge, cultivation, and industry. By these means we shall see in that vast continent numerous colonies arise, which will restore to the mother country all the splendour, all the advantages of her ancient commerce, and repay her with interest for the sacrifices she may have made in the new world. But to effect this, let there be no more secret enterprises; no more connivance at fraudulent traffic, no more unhappy negroes snatched away from their families; no more tears shed on that sad African soil, so long the witness of so many afflictions; no more human victims, dragged to the altars of the shameful, and insatiable divinities, which have already devoured such numbers: consequently, let there be no more grounds for hearing in the English Parliament, voices boldly impeaching our good faith, attacking the national honour, and positively asserting that France maintains in her African possessions, the system of the slave trade in the same manner as she did before she consented to its abolition.

Africa offers to our speculators, to the enterprises of our industry, a virgin soil, and an inexhaustible population peculiarly fitted to render it productive. It must be our business to form them according to our views, by associating them in these by a common interest. In conquering them by benefits, instead of subjugating them by crimes, or degrading them by corruption, let us lead them to social order and to happiness, by our moral superiority, instead of dragging them under scourges and chains to misery and death, we shall then have accomplished a useful and a glorious enterprise; we shall have raised our commercial prosperity on the greatest interest of those who have been the voluntary instruments of it, and above all, we shall have expiated, by an immense benefit, this immense crime of the outrages, with which we so long afflicted humanity.