Part 2
In getting up our Caravan We met a most obliging man, The Lord Chief Justice of Liberia, And Minister of the Interior; Cain Abolition Beecher Boz, Worked like a Nigger--which he was-- And in a single day Procured us Porters, Guides, and kit, And would not take a sou for it Until we went away.[4]
[4]
But when we went away, we found A deficit of several pound.
We wondered how this fellow made Himself so readily obeyed, And why the natives were so meek; Until by chance we heard him speak, And then we clearly understood How great a Power for Social Good The African can be. He said with a determined air: “You are not what your fathers were; Liberians, you are Free! Of course, if you refuse to go--” And here he made a gesture so.
He also gave us good advice Concerning Labour and its Price. “In dealing wid de Native Scum, Yo’ cannot pick an’ choose; Yo’ hab to promise um a sum Ob wages, paid in Cloth and Rum. But, Lordy! that’s a ruse! Yo’ get yo’ well on de Adventure, And change de wages to Indenture.”
We did the thing that he projected, The Caravan grew disaffected, And Sin and I consulted; Blood understood the Native mind. He said: “We must be firm but kind.” A Mutiny resulted. I never shall forget the way That Blood upon this awful day Preserved us all from death. He stood upon a little mound, Cast his lethargic eyes around, And said beneath his breath: “Whatever happens we have got The Maxim Gun, and they have not.”
He marked them in their rude advance, He hushed their rebel cheers; With one extremely vulgar glance He broke the Mutineers. (I have a picture in my book Of how he quelled them with a look.) We shot and hanged a few, and then The rest became devoted men.
And here I wish to say a word Upon the way my heart was stirred By those pathetic faces. Surely our simple duty here Is both imperative and clear; While they support us, we should lend Our every effort to defend, And from a higher point of view To give the full direction due To all the native races. And I, throughout the expedition, Insisted upon this position.
VII.
Well, after that we toiled away At drawing maps, and day by day Blood made an accurate survey Of all that seemed to lend A chance, no matter how remote, Of letting our financier float That triumph of Imagination, “The Libyan Association.” In this the “Negroes’ friend” Was much concerned to show the way Of making Missionaries pay.
At night our leader and our friend Would deal in long discourses Upon this meritorious end, And how he would arrange it. “The present way is an abuse Of Economic Forces; They Preach, but they do not Produce. Observe how I would change it. I’d have the Missionary lent, Upon a plot of land, A sum at twenty-five per cent.; And (if I understand The kind of people I should get) An ever-present fear of debt Would make them work like horses, And form the spur, or motive spring, In what I call ‘developing The Natural resources’; While people who subscribe will find Profit and Piety combined.”
Imagine how the Mighty Scheme, The Goal, the Vision, and the Dream Developed in his hands! With such a purpose, such a mind Could easily become inclined To use the worst of lands! Thus once we found him standing still, Enraptured, on a rocky hill; Beneath his feet there stank A swamp immeasurably wide, Wherein a kind of fœtid tide Rose rhythmical and sank, Brackish and pestilent with weeds And absolutely useless reeds, It lay; but nothing daunted At seeing how it heaved and steamed He stood triumphant, and he seemed Like one possessed or haunted.
With arms that welcome and rejoice, We heard him gasping, in a voice By strong emotion rendered harsh: “That Marsh--that Admirable Marsh!” The Tears of Avarice that rise In purely visionary eyes, Were rolling down his nose. He was no longer Blood the Bold, The Terror of his foes; But Blood inflamed with greed of gold.
He saw us, and at once became The Blood we knew, the very same Whom we had loved so long. He looked affectionately sly, And said, “perhaps you wonder why My feelings are so strong? You only see a swamp, but I---- My friends, I will explain it. I know some gentlemen in town Will give me fifty thousand down, Merely for leave to drain it.”
A little later on we found A piece of gently rolling ground That showed above the flat. Such a protuberance or rise As wearies European eyes. To common men, like Sin and me The Eminence appeared to be As purposeless as that. Blood saw another meaning there, He turned with a portentous glare, And shouted for the Native Name. The Black interpreter in shame Replied: “The native name I fear Is something signifying Mud.” Then, with the gay bravado That suits your jolly Pioneer, In his prospectus Captain Blood Baptized it “Eldorado.” He also said the Summit rose Majestic with Eternal Snows.
VIII.
Now it behoves me (or behooves) To give a retrospect that proves What foresight can achieve, The kind of thing that (by the way) Men in our cold agnostic day Must come from Africa to say, From England to believe.
Blood had, while yet we were in town, Said with his intellectual frown: “Suppose a Rhino knocks you down And walks upon you like a mat, Think of the public irritation, If with an incident like that, We cannot give an illustration.”
Seeing we should be at a loss To reproduce the scene, We bought a stuffed rhinocerous, A Kodak, and a screen. We fixed a picture. William pressed A button, and I did the rest.
To those Carnivora that make An ordinary Person quake We did not give a care.
The Lion never will attack A White, if he can get a Black. And there were such a lot of these We could afford with perfect ease To spare one here and there. It made us more compact--and then-- It’s right to spare one’s fellow men.
Of far more consequence to us, And much more worthy to detain us, The very creature that we feared (I mean the white Rhinoceros, “_Siste Viator Africanus_”) In all its majesty appeared.
This large, but peevish pachyderm (To use a scientific term), Though commonly herbivorous, Is eminently dangerous. It may be just the creature’s play; But people who have felt it say That when he prods you with his horn You wish you never had been born.
As I was dozing in the sun, Without a cartridge to my gun, Upon a sultry day, Absorbed in somnolescent bliss, Just such an animal as this Came charging where I lay. My only refuge was to fly, But flight is not for me![5] Blood happened to be standing by, He darted up a tree And shouted, “Do your best to try And fix him with the Human Eye.”
[5]
Besides, I found my foot was caught In twisted roots that held it taut.
Between a person and a beast (But for the Human Eye at least) The issue must be clear. The tension on my nerves increased, And yet I felt no fear. Nay, do not praise me--not at all-- Courage is merely physical, And several people I could name Would probably have done the same.
I kept my glance extremely firm, I saw the wretched creature squirm; A look of terror over-spread Its features, and it dropped down dead. At least, I thought it did, And foolishly withdrew my gaze, When (finding it was rid Of those mysterious piercing rays) It came to life again. It jumped into the air, and came With all its might upon my frame.
(Observe the posture of the hoof. The wire and black support that look So artificial in the proof Will be deleted in the book.)
It did it thirty separate times; When, luckily for all these rhymes, Blood shot the brute--that is to say, Blood shot, and then it ran away.
IX.
We journeyed on in single file; The march proceeded mile on mile Monotonous and lonely, We saw (if I remember right) The friendly features of a white On two occasions only.
The first was when our expedition Came suddenly on a commission, Appointed to determine Whether the thirteenth parallel Ran right across a certain well, Or touched a closely neighbouring tree; And whether elephants should be Exterminated all as “game,” Or, what is not at all the same, Destroyed as common vermin.
To this commission had been sent Great bigwigs from the Continent, And on the English side Men of such ancient pedigree As filled the soul of Blood with glee; He started up and cried:-- “I’ll go to them at once, and make These young adventurous spirits take A proof of my desire To use in this concern of ours Their unsuspected business powers. The bearers of historic names Shall rise to something higher Than haggling over frontier claims, And they shall find their last estate Enshrined in my directorate.”
In twenty minutes he returned, His face with righteous anger burned, And when we asked him what he’d done, He answered, “They reject us, I couldn’t get a single one, To come on the prospectus. Their leader (though he was a Lord) Stoutly refused to join the board, And made a silly foreign speech Which sounded like No Bless Ableech. I’m used to many kinds of men, And bore it very well; but, when It came to being twitted On my historic Sporting Shirt, I own I felt a trifle hurt; I took my leave and quitted.”
There is another side to this; With no desire to prejudice The version of our leader, I think I ought to drop a hint Of what I shall be bound to print, In justice to the reader. I followed, keeping out of sight; And took in this ingenious way A sketch that throws a certain light On _why_ the master went away. No doubt he felt a trifle hurt, It even may be true to say They twitted him upon his shirt. But isn’t it a trifle thick To talk of twitting with a stick?
Well, let it pass. He acted well. This species of official swell, Especially the peer, Who stoops to a delimitation With any European nation Is doomed to disappear. Blood said, “They pass into the night.” And men like Blood are always right.
THE SECOND shows the full effect Of ministerial neglect; Sin, walking out alone in quest Of Boa-constrictors that infest The Lagos Hinterland, Got separated from the rest, And ran against a band Of native soldiers led by three--
A Frenchman, an official Prussian, And what we took to be a Russian-- The very coalition Who threaten England’s power at sea, And, but for men like Blood and me, Would drive her navies from the sea, And hurl her to perdition. But did my comrade think to flee? To use his very words--Not he! He turned with a contemptuous laugh. Observe him in the photograph.
But still these bureaucrats pursued, Until they reached the Captain’s tent. They grew astonishingly rude; The Russian simply insolent, Announcing that he had been sent Upon a holy mission, To call for the disarmament Of all our expedition. He said “the miseries of war Had touched his master to the core”; It was extremely vexing To hear him add, “he couldn’t stand This passion for absorbing land; He hoped we weren’t annexing.” The German asked with some brutality To have our names and nationality. I had an inspiration, In words methodical and slow I gave him this decisive blow: “I haven’t got a nation.” Perhaps the dodge was rather low, And yet I wasn’t wrong to Escape the consequences so; For, on my soul, I did not know _What_ nation to belong to.
The German gave a searching look, And marked me in his little book:-- “The features are a trifle Dutch-- Perhaps he is a Fenian; He may be a Maltese, but much More probably Armenian.”
Blood gave us each a trifling sum To say that he was deaf and dumb, And backed the affirmation By gestures so extremely rum, They marked him on the writing pad: “Not only deaf and dumb, but mad.” It saved the situation. “If such a man as _that_” (said they) “Is Leader, they can go their way.”
X.
Thus, greatly to our ease of mind, Our foreign foes we left behind; But dangers even greater Were menacing our path instead. In every book I ever read Of travels on the Equator, A plague, mysterious and dread, Imperils the narrator; He always very nearly dies, But doesn’t, which is calm and wise. Said Sin, the indolent and vague, “D’you think that we shall get the plague?” It followed tragically soon; In fording an immense lagoon, We let our feet get damp. Next morning I began to sneeze, The awful enemy, Disease, Had fallen on the camp! With Blood the malady would take, An allotropic form Of intermittent stomach ache, While Sin grew over warm; Complained of weakness in the knees, An inability to think, A strong desire to dose and drink, And lie upon his back. For many a long delirious day, Each in his individual way, Succumbed to the attack.
XI.
Our litters lay upon the ground With heavy curtains shaded round; The Plague had passed away. We could not hear a single sound, And wondered as we lay-- “Perhaps the Forest Belt is passed, And Timbuctoo is reached at last, The while our faithful porters keep So still to let their masters sleep.”
Poor Blood and I were far too weak To raise ourselves, or even speak; We lay, content to languish. When Sin, to make the matter certain, Put out his head beyond the curtain, And cried in utter anguish: “This is not Timbuctoo at all, But just a native Kraal or Crawl; And, what is more, our Caravan Has all deserted to a man.”
* * * * *
At evening they returned to bring Us prisoners to their savage king, Who seemed upon the whole A man urbane and well inclined; He said, “You shall not be confined, But left upon parole.”
Blood, when he found us both alone, Lectured in a pedantic tone, And yet with quaint perfection, On “Prison Systems I have known.” He said in this connection:--
“The primal process is to lug A Johnny to the cells--or jug. Dear Henry will not think me rude, If--just in passing--I allude To Quod or Penal Servitude. Of every form, Parole I take To be the easiest to break.”
On hearing this we ran To get the guns, and then we laid An admirable ambuscade, In which to catch our man.
We hid behind a little knoll, And waited for our prey To take his usual morning stroll Along the fatal way. All unsuspecting and alone He came into the danger zone, The range of which we knew To be one furlong and a third, And then--an incident occurred Which, I will pledge my sacred word, Is absolutely true.
Blood took a very careful aim, And Sin and I did just the same; Yet by some strange and potent charm The King received no kind of harm! He wore, as it appears, A little fetish on a thread, A mumbo-jumbo, painted red, Gross and repulsive in the head, Especially the ears.
Last year I should have laughed at it, But now with reverence I admit That nothing in the world is commoner Than Andrew Lang’s Occult Phenomena.
On getting back to England, I Described the matter to the Psy- Chological Committee.
Of course they thanked me very much; But said, “We have a thousand such, And it would be a pity To break our standing resolution, And pay for any contribution.”
XII.
The King was terribly put out; To hear him call the guard and shout, And stamp, and curse, and rave Was (as the Missionaries say) A lesson in the Godless way The heathen will behave. He sent us to a Prison, made Of pointed stakes in palisade, And there for several hours Our Leader was a mark for bricks, And eggs and cocoanuts and sticks, And pussy-cats in showers. Our former porters seemed to bear A grudge against the millionaire.
And yet the thing I minded most Was not the ceaseless teasing (With which the Captain was engrossed), Nor being fastened to a post (Though that was far from pleasing); But hearing them remark that they “Looked forward to the following day.”
XIII.
At length, when we were left alone, Sin twisted with a hollow groan, And bade the Master save His comrades by some bold device, From the impending grave.
Said Blood: “I never take advice, But every man has got his price; We must maintain the open door, Yes, even at the cost of war!” He shifted his position, And drafted in a little while A note in diplomatic style Containing a condition.
“If them that wishes to be told As how there is a bag of gold, And where a party hid it; Mayhap as other parties knows A thing or two, and there be those As seen the man wot hid it.” The Monarch read it through, and wrote A little sentence most emphatical: “I think the language of the note Is strictly speaking not grammatical.”
On seeing our acute distress, The King--I really must confess-- Behaved uncommon handsome; He said he would release the three If only Captain Blood and he Could settle on a ransom. And it would clear the situation To hear his private valuation.
“My value,” William Blood began, “Is ludicrously small. I think I am the vilest man That treads this earthly ball; My head is weak, my heart is cold, I’m ugly, vicious, vulgar, old, Unhealthy, short and fat.
I cannot speak, I cannot work, I have the temper of a Turk, And cowardly at that. Retaining, with your kind permission, The usual five per cent. commission, I think that I could do the job For seventeen or sixteen bob.”
The King was irritated, frowned, And cut him short with, “Goodness Gracious! Your economics _are_ fallacious! I quite believe you are a wretch, But things are worth what they will fetch. I’ll put your price at something round, Say, six-and-thirty thousand pound?” But just as Blood began with zest, To bargain, argue, and protest, Commander Sin and I Broke in: “Your Majesty was told About a certain bag of gold; If you will let us try, We’ll find the treasure, for we know The place to half a yard or so.”
Poor William! The suspense and pain Had touched the fibre of his brain; So far from showing gratitude, He cried in his delirium: “Oh! For Heaven’s sake don’t let them go.” Only a lunatic would take So singular an attitude, When loyal comrades for his sake Had put their very lives at stake.
* * * * *
The King was perfectly content To let us find it;--and we went. But as we left we heard him say, “If there is half an hour’s delay The Captain will have passed away.”
XIV.
Alas! within a single week The Messengers despatched to seek Our hiding-place had found us, We made an excellent defence (I use the word in legal sense), But none the less they bound us. (Not in the legal sense at all But with a heavy chain and ball).
With barbarism past belief They flaunted in our faces The relics of our noble chief; With insolent grimaces, Raised the historic shirt before Our eyes, and pointed on the floor To dog-eared cards and loaded dice; It seems they sold him by the slice. Well, every man has got his price.
The horrors followed thick and fast, I turned my head to give a last Farewell to Sin; but, ah! too late, I only saw his horrid fate-- Some savages around a pot That seemed uncomfortably hot; And in the centre of the group My dear companion making soup.