Part 12

We hunted all that day without success, but I saw the old tracks of an ordinary elephant. These the boys said were made by a “blue” elephant. We returned, after a long day, to the meat camp. The headman announced his intention of accompanying me on the morrow, as his women would arrive that evening and would take charge of the meat. Now, here is a curious thing about Africans. If one acquires, say, a lot of meat, he tries to get it into the charge of his wives as soon as possible. While he remains in possession everybody cadges from him: friends, relations, everybody of similar age, the merest acquaintances, all seem to think that he should share the meat with them. But once the meat is handed over to his wife it is secure. Whenever anyone asks for some he refers them to his wife. That ends it, for nobody will cadge from a woman, knowing, I suppose, that it would be hopeless, for if the wife were to part with any she would be severely beaten by the husband. Yet that same husband, while still in charge of the meat, cannot refuse to share it.

With this in view, the headman had sent a runner to the village to bring his women to the elephant shortly after death, and in the night of the second day they arrived. Our rather dismal little camp became quite lively. Fires were lit all over the place, and everyone was extremely animated. When natives have recovered from the effects of their first gorge of meat they become very lively indeed. If they have a large quantity of meat, requiring several days to smoke and dry it, they dance all night. The conventional morality of their village life is cast off, and they thoroughly enjoy themselves.

Early on the following day we were off for the big elephant. About twenty natives attached themselves to us. We wandered about, crossing numerous streams, until someone found tracks. If they were small I flatly refused to follow them. Late in the afternoon a real big track of a single bull was found. It was quite fresh and absurdly easy to follow. We soon heard him, and nothing untoward took place. The brain was where it ought to be, and he fell. As I anticipated, he was a normal elephant, about 10 ft. 10 ins. at the shoulder, with quite ordinary tusks weighing 31 lb. or 32 lb. The boys thought him a monster, and asked me what I thought of “blue” elephant. He certainly was much more nearly blue than the little red-mud coloured ones of the day before.

As it was too late for anyone to return to the village that night we all camped by the elephant. Being dissatisfied with the numbers of warrantable bulls about, I decided to return to the village with the boys. So off we set across country. We travelled and travelled, as I imagined, straight towards the village. This was far from being the case, as I discovered when we all stopped to examine a man-trail. It was ours. We had been slogging it in a huge circle, and here we were back again. I had often admired and envied the Africans for their wonderful faculty for finding their way where apparently there was nothing to indicate it. I have never yet been able to exactly “place” this extraordinary faculty. They cannot explain it themselves. They simply _know_ the direction without taking bearings or doing anything consciously. Always puzzling over this sense which we whites have to such a poor degree, I have watched closely leading natives scores of times. The only thing they do, as far as I could observe, is to look at trees. Occasionally they recognise one, _but they are not looking for landmarks_. They are quite indifferent about the matter. Something, which we have probably lost, leads them straight on, _even in pitch darkness_.

The occasion of which I am writing is the exception which proves the rule, for it is the only instance of natives getting seriously lost which has come under my observation, and that is more than twenty years of hunting. For seriously lost we were. We wandered about in that forest for three days. Leader after leader was tried, only to end up on our old tracks. Food ran out. The boys had eaten all the elephant meat they brought with them. My food was finished, but the cartridges were not, thank goodness. I remember ordering a cartridge belt from Rigby to hold fifty rounds. He asked me what on earth I wanted with so many on it. I said I liked them, and here was the time when it paid to have them. For now we lived entirely on monkeys, and horrible things they are. Tasting as they smell, with burning and singeing added, they are the most revolting food it has ever been my bad luck to have eaten.

At the end of the third day I thought to myself that something would have to be done. This kind of thing would end in someone getting “done in” with exhaustion. As it seemed to me that I should be the first to drop out, it appeared to be up to me to do something. But what? I had not the foggiest notion where we were. But one thing I knew: water runs downhill. Brooklets run down into streams, streams down into rivers, rivers to seas. Next morning I took a hand. I made the boys follow scrupulously the winding bed of the first stream we came to. It joined a larger one; we followed that. Not a word of remonstrance would I listen to, nor would I tolerate any short cuts. At length we reached a large river, and I was relieved to see that they all recognised it. Did they “savvy” it? I asked. Yes, rather. So I sat down for a rest. The boys were having a fearful argument about something. It appeared that some held that our village lay up-stream, others that it was down-stream. They came to me to settle it. I asked the up-streamers to come out; they numbered seven. I counted the down-streamers; they numbered nine. I said: “The village lies down-stream”; and by the merest hazard it did.

The village from which I had done so much hunting and where I was so profusely “fêted” had acquired great riches with the meat I had given the people. In spite of this, or, perhaps, because of this, they showed great opposition to my going. At first I paid no attention to their protests, continuing calmly my preparations for departure, weighing and marking my ivory, etc. When my loads were ready I announced my intention of leaving on the morrow. This was wrong. What I should have done was to have kept my intention entirely to myself, then suddenly to have fallen in the boys, shouldered the loads and marched off. All would then have been well.

As it was, when the morrow came the boys did not. They could not be found. I could not move my loads without them.

I found the headman, accused him of playing this mean trick, and demanded the boys. He then tried all the persuasions he could think of to get me to stay. He offered me any women I fancied. That is always the first inducement in the African mind. Slaves, food, anything I wanted if I would only stay.

I got angry and cursed him and threatened to shoot up the town. He said quietly that the king was coming and I could talk to him.

Meanwhile I had to wait. I was simply furious. The suspicion that they were after my ivory kept poisoning my mind. I argued with myself that they knew the value of ivory; that they knew what a lot of gin and “trade” they would get if they took my tusks to the coast. And a white man, a hunter of elephants, “done in,” what would it matter? People would say: “Serve him right,” probably. Then they wanted my rifle. They had seen it kill elephant with one shot. It had wonderful medicine. Curious how near we are to the primitive. I thought of shooting someone; I actually wished to shoot someone. But that would not have helped matters. Then sense and experience came to help me and—I laughed. As soon as I laughed they laughed. I felt master of the situation.

Where was the king? Drinking beer. Let me talk to him.

I sat down in front of my hut. In a short time the king arrived with an escort of some forty guns. He seated himself in front of a hut directly across the street from me. I wanted to shake hands with him, but I did not wish to take my rifle with me, nor did I wish to leave it behind me, as it was to play a part in the comedy I had thought out.

No one could reach me from the back, as I leant against the wall of the hut. Therefore I assumed a belligerent attitude from the first, demanding to know why all my boys had been taken. The old king was, luckily, still sober—it being early in the day—and very calm and dignified. When I had stated my demand he started. He said that his people had shown me elephant; that without them I could not have found them. He said his people had treated me well. They had offered me wives of my own choosing. Food I had never lacked. Elephant were still numerous in the bush. Why should I wish to desert them in this manner?

I admitted that all he had said was true, but begged to point out that I was not a black man. I could not live always there among them. White men died when they lived too long in hot countries, and so on. Then I pointed to the fact that I had never sold the meat of the elephant I had killed, although I might have done so and bought slaves and guns with it. I had given it all freely away to him among others; and now when I wanted to go they seized my porters.

Then he tried another line. He said I could go freely if I gave him my rifle. He said I could easily get another in my country.

I turned this down so emphatically that he switched to another line.

He said, when black men went to the coast they had to pay custom dues on everything they took to or brought away from it. As this was entirely a white man’s custom and yet they enforced it upon black men, putting them in prison if they did not pay, he would be obliged to make me pay customs on my ivory. He thought that if he and I divided it equally it would be a fair thing. At this I could not help laughing. The king smiled and everyone smiled. I suppose they thought I was going to pay.

But, I said, there is a difference between your country and white man’s country. When a traveller arrives at the gates of the white man’s country the very first thing he sees is a long building and on it the magic sign “Customs.” Now on seeing this sign the traveller knows what lies before him. If he objects to paying customs, or if he has not the money with which to pay, he departs without entering that country. But when the traveller reaches the gates of the king’s country, he looks in vain for “customs.” Therefore, he says to himself, what a very wise and good king rules this happy country. I will enter, for there is no “customs.” But if, having entered the country on this understanding, the king levies customs without having a Customs House, that traveller will recall what he said about the king and will depart, cursing that king and spreading his ill-fame so that no more travellers or elephant hunters will come near him. Therefore, I ended, the whole matter resolves itself into this: Have you a Customs House or have you not? Here I peered diligently about as if searching among the huts. The whole lot, king, court, escort and mob roared with laughter.

They were not done yet, though. The palaver ran its usual interminable length. The king accused me of disposing of the pigmy hippo meat in an illegal manner. Pigmy hippo were royal game, and every bit of it should have been sent to him. I had him again with the same gag as the customs one, _i.e._, that when he made a law he should write it down for everyone to read, or if he could not write he ought to employ some boy who could. And so on and on.

Wearied to exhaustion, I at length decided to try what a little bluff would do. I had hoped that I would not have to use it, but it was now or never. If it came off, and the porters were forthcoming, we could just make the next village, hostile to the king, before dark.

Suddenly seizing my rifle I covered the king. No one moved. The king took it very well, I must say. I said I was going to fight for my porters and begin on the king.

He said that to fight was a silly game. However well I shot, I could not kill more than ten of them before someone got me. I replied that that was so, _but that no one knew if he would be among the ten or not_.

I had them. They gave it up. I kept the old king covered and told him not to move until the porters arrived. He sent off runners at once. They came on the run, picked up the loads and marched. I stopped a moment to shake hands. The insatiable old rascal begged for at least some tobacco. I felt so relieved and pleased at seeing my loads on the road at last that I promised him some when we had caught up with the caravan.

B. told me on my arrival at the coast that during my absence in the interior the inspector of his company had come on a visit, straight from London. He had started from the coast with a caravan of head carriers to visit another of their depots. He had been promptly arrested, carried before the magistrate and fined twenty-five dollars for travelling on the Sabbath. The fine had been demanded at once, and someone sent off to purchase gin. The magistrate knocked the neck off a bottle, took a pull and offered it to _the prisoner_!

B. said the inspector had been very haughty with the Liberians and that they were out to get their own back.

It must not be thought that they are unfriendly towards whites. If treated politely they are very nice people indeed; they will do anything to help. But they must be treated just as if they were ordinary white foreigners. I liked them immensely, and regretted having to leave their country owing to the smallness of the ivory. And so ended my dealings with the citizens of Liberia and the natives of the hinterland.

X

BUBA GIDA, THE LAST AFRICAN POTENTATE

Now situated in the French sphere of influence can still be found a remarkable relic of the old slave-dealing days. The country goes by the name of its despotic ruler, Buba Rei on maps, Buba Gida to everyone cognisant of it. The principal town is also so called. And the whole organisation is an example of what can be done by courage, energy, force of character and extreme cunning allied to ferocity and cruelty; for the redoubtable Buba Gida, the owner—body and soul—of tens of thousands of slaves, is no scion of a kingly race. Mothered by a slave of the Lakka tribe and fathered by a Scrub Fulani of sorts, everything he has and is he owes entirely to his own ability.

In early life he left his humble home and started out into the wild no man’s land with some companions of a like spirit. Slaves at all costs were what Buba Gida and company were out for. Perhaps it was mere chance that led them towards the Lakka country, whence Buba Gida’s mother had been raided, or perhaps it was information from her. However that may be, in close proximity to the Lakka country they found what they were looking for—a fine country, well watered and obviously good for cattle. Pagan Lakkas and other bush tribes were in plenty within raiding distance. Their first raid set them up in labour. Their tiny camp became a village. More raids were planned and carried out with invariable success. The village became a town.

Buba now ruled supreme. By pursuing the system of “putting away” all those who obstructed him, judiciously mixed with generous treatment in the matter of women—to acquire which the African will do anything—he obtained such a power over his people that none, not even the white man, has been able to overthrow it.

I will now try to describe how my companion and I fared when the pursuit of elephants took us into Buba Gida’s country. To reach this country we traversed some very rich cattle districts inhabited by Fulani, a tribe akin to the Somals. At Buba Gida’s boundary we were met by some forty or fifty of his smaller fry, for it must be understood that we were simple elephant hunters and not “big” white men. Everything about us was known to Buba Gida days before our arrival at his boundary by his wonderful system of intelligence. We remembered noticing casual horsemen about our caravan; they were Buba Gida’s intelligence. From the boundary to the king’s town was six days’ march, and the headman of every village we slept at was under orders to escort us to Buba Rei. As each headman in turn was escorted by five or six men, all being mounted, it will be seen that we formed quite a little army by the time we got to the capital. Had we been “big” white men, doubtless we should have been several hundred strong by that time. At the end of the sixth day we were camped within sight of the mysterious city. And mysterious it certainly is, for, surrounded as it is by well-known, if somewhat distant countries, and within 120 miles of a large Government post, nothing is known of this curious mediæval city or its despotic tyrant, Buba Gida; and yet every white man wishes to know more about it. Countless thousands of questions must have been asked about Buba Gida. He even visits the Government station Garua; and sufficiently foolish to us he appears when he does so, for he goes with thousands of followers, women and men. Special beds and tents are carried with all kinds of paraphernalia; in fact, anything for show. He even must buy the whole contents of the stores he honours with a visit, much of them quite useless to him.

It was not clear to us why we had to camp so near the city, so we asked why we did not proceed. The answer was that the king had ordered us to sleep at that spot. There are few remaining places in Africa where a white man’s actions are governed by a black man’s wishes. Abyssinia under Menelik was one. Liberia and Buba Rei are still among them.

On the following morning we all sallied forth in our very best paint. As all the riding horses are stallions and some of them alarmingly vicious, and all of them ready at any time to bite, kick, strike, rear and prance, and, indeed, taught to do so, it is easy to imagine the scene as we drew near the capital. Right in the thick of it, in the middle of the prancing _mêlée_, on a very high rakish-looking stallion over which he appeared to have no control, was a gentleman with a very white and anxious face. He seemed to be somewhat insecurely seated on a flat saddle and appeared to be trying to do something to his horse by means of a snaffle. I know all this because I was he. My companion looked much more at ease, but I must confess I felt thoroughly alarmed lest I should fall off and disgrace the whole show. This will be better understood when I explain that all the riders except ourselves were in saddles with great high horns in front and high canties behind. Most of them clung openly to the horns; and besides this, their mounts were bitted Arab fashion, with great spades and a ring round the lower jaw, so that they really had control over their beasts.

Luckily, I did not fall off, and presently we halted about a mile from one of the great gates in the wall which surrounds the town. We were told we should have to wait here until the king gave the order to enter. After waiting about two hours—done chiefly to impress the people with the greatness of the king, to see whom even the white men had to wait—a mob of mounted men about two hundred strong was seen to come forth from the city gate and to approach. We now hastily mounted, and I remember having more trouble with my infernal beast. The two opposing bodies of horsemen now began to approach one another until there remained perhaps forty yards separating us. Some very impressive speeches were made. Luckily for us, the king had lent us a speech-maker, and he held up our end in a very creditable manner, judging by the amount of talking he did. I thought it would never end, my horse becoming more and more restive. Every time he squealed and bit one of the neighbouring horses the whole mob began playing up. I was awfully afraid he might take charge and go barging in among the knights, for such they were. Genuine knights—if not in armour, at any rate all clothed in arrow-proof quilted cloth—horses and all. On their heads the knights had bright native iron caskets. They carried long bamboo spears with iron heads. At their sides were Arab swords. Beneath the bright little caskets were faces of such revolting ugliness and ferocity as to be almost ludicrous. We had the speeches of the opposition translated to us, and the gist of them was to the effect that we were about to have the honour of entering the town of the greatest king on earth—a king who was, if not immortal, next door to it, and so on. Then we were requested to count the knights. Before we had time to count more than twenty or so we were told that they numbered 500. An obvious lie; 200 at the outside. Then we were told that each of these knights had under him 500 other knights, armed and mounted as he was. After that our attention was drawn to a foot rabble in leopard skins and large quivers full of arrows. I had failed to notice these before owing to anxiety about my steed’s capers. They looked a pretty nasty crowd. Never have I seen so many hideous men together.

After the speeches we proceeded slowly towards the gates, gallopers continuously going off to report progress to the king. The wall totally encloses the town, and the gates are wide enough to allow of six men riding abreast. The wall itself is perhaps 20 ft. high and made of sun-baked mud. The thickness at the gateway is about 50 ft., but this is chiefly to impress the visitor and to shelter the guard. The rest of the wall is no more than perhaps 6 ft. at the base.

The buildings in the town are simply the ordinary grass and mud-and-wattle huts of that part of Africa, any more pretentious style of architecture not being allowed. Even pretentious or costly clothing, ornaments or style of any sort are forbidden. Music is forbidden. The drinking of intoxicants within the town is punishable by death. Outside it is allowed. No child must cry, none may laugh loudly or sing or shout. Noises of any sort are forbidden in this dismal city. The filth is indescribable. The obvious healthiness of its dwellers may be due to the fact that Buba Gida has every one of them out of it hard at work in his immense plantations every day and all day long, and also perhaps to the fact that everyone is well nourished. Where all belongs to the king who but he can make a ring in corn! Who but he can raise the cost of living! The only approach to a grumble that we heard from his people was the wish that they might own their own children.

Near about the centre of the town a great high inner wall became visible. This, we were informed, surrounded the king and his palaces. Few townsmen had ever been inside, and the king seldom comes out. Under this wall our quarters were situated, two unpretentious grass huts. In front of our huts, besides our usual ration, there were mountains of prepared foods. The things for us two white men would have fed thirty. With the food came a taster. That is a man who, by tasting everything before you, thereby guarantees it free from poison. This is the usual thing in Africa. Generally the chief of the village does it. Everything was most comfortable, and we began to think highly of our chances of coming to some arrangement with the king about elephant hunting. We were left alone for about two hours.