Part 11 (1/2)
1843
The canoe manned by four paddlers in which I had crossed the bar at Guet-n-dar was carried high up on the sand on the crest of a huge wave.
A crowd of blacks rushed forward before the wave could come back, lifted me out, and put me down, with loud shouts of ”Pet.i.t roi pas goutte d'eau” (Not a drop of water on our little king), at the feet of Bobokar, King of Guet-n-dar, a tall negro, dressed in a striped cotton gown, and with a laced c.o.c.ked hat on his head, which had seen better days on a general officer's or a coachman's.
As soon as I was landed, the King of Guet-n-dar (I only call him king in obedience to the African custom which bestows the t.i.tle on every chief who has a right to beat other people)--the King, I say, set himself to work to make way for me through his subjects crowding round, with heavy blows from his cudgel, and crossing the tongue of sand between the Senegal river and the sea, which forms his kingdom, I entered St. Louis, the capital of our possessions on the West African coast. While n.o.body talks anything but sugar at Martinique, nor cod in Newfoundland, at St. Louis the only subject of conversation is GUM. It is its staple product, and indeed is found nowhere else, except in Arabia.
The gum forests are in country belonging to the Arabs, on the right bank of the Senegal river, and are consequently in the hands of the Moors, who carry the produce to the river. The various stations we have established along its course are intended for the protection of the traders or coloured agents, acting as intermediaries between the natives, and the white merchants, unable themselves to face the deadly climate, and also to close the road to the British markets on the Gambia river to the Moors. To the garrisons of these stations, regular charnel-houses, our officers and men come out to die, or else to catch the germ of some incurable illness. I learn that nowadays, by dint of using quinine as a preventive, and of improvements in some other respects, the effects of the unhealthy climate have been somewhat reduced, but when I was there the condition of things was really terrible. So my first care, when I reached St. Louis, was to go and see the victims of duty in the hospital into which they were crowded, and my heart swelled at the sight of all the poor yellow wasted faces many of them already bearing the signs of approaching dissolution. Poor brave fellows! How I wished I had crosses to pin on all their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, to soften the last moments of the life they had given for their country, by a sign of its remembrance of them! But I had not one, and I could not help feeling furious at the thought that we were close on New Year's day, and that a perfect rain of honours was about to fall on a heap of theatrical directors who had done special service to the government, and private secretaries, and political writers, who had never been off the Boulevards, the favoured elect of the world of politics--those odious politics! The dismal, ill-built, rickety hospital was perfectly well managed at all events, thanks to our naval surgeons, and also to our admirable sisters of charity, whose names I cannot p.r.o.nounce without indulging in another and an indignant digression.
Can we really have fallen so low as to tolerate that these holy and n.o.ble women, who have lightened so much suffering, and so worthily sustained the good name of France all over the world, should be sacrificed in these latter days to a pack of public-house reformers and would-be strong-minded freethinkers?
From the hospital, that ante-chamber of death, I went to the barracks for the living, mere dens, built by St. Routine to sealed pattern, at so much a foot, identically the same in every climate, and absolutely unsuitable for any. How different from the s.p.a.cious, airy, comfortable edifices raised by the English for the comfort and well-being of their colonial garrisons!
St. Louis is built beside a river, the flat banks of which are seen stretching away hedged in by ma.s.ses of green vegetation. In the mornings the town is usually wrapped in an unhealthy fog. Yet this is the moment at which the inhabitants are to be seen languidly dragging themselves along the straight sandy streets, between the negro huts and a few white houses with terraces before them. When the fog lifts the place is nothing but a scorching desert. I was to have gone up the river to inspect our military stations and their garrisons, but the only available boat was detained outside the bar across the mouth of the river, which was absolutely impa.s.sable. After waiting for it in vain for several days, I left St. Louis for Goree and Dakar.
At Goree I once more saw the pretty signares, a regularly enlisted company of mulatto women, which furnishes our officers, civil and military, with wives and housekeepers during their turn of colonial service. Then I came again upon my friend the King of Dakar, an old acquaintance of mine, who sent me his compliments by his ”general of cavalry,” a perfect giant in stature, excessively thin, who wore a stock and a c.o.c.ked hat, and no breeches.
At Goree I embarked on board the colonial despatch boat Galibi to inspect our stations on the Gambia and the Cazamanze. This vessel was herself a curiosity, not indeed as a s.h.i.+p of war, for she was a fine little steam despatch boat, armed with four guns, but on account of the organisation and composition of her crew. There were only four whites on board--the lieutenant in command, a poor fellow who was soon to fall a victim to the climate and die at his post, a clerk, an engineer, and a master-gunner. All the rest of the crew were negroes, hypocritically denominated Government prisoners, whose whole costume, as a rule, consisted of a monkey-skin cap and a string of grigris, or charms, round their waists. ”Haven't you ever tried to dress them?” said I to the lieutenant.
”Oh yes, but as soon as they get on sh.o.r.e they instantly sell their things, or give them away to their women, and come back naked. So I have given it up.”
When it was time for us to start, the captain owned to me that none of the crew had ever known how to steer, except one negro, who acted as his butler, and he could only steer in a river, by keeping the s.h.i.+p at an equal distance from the two banks. He had never been able to understand anything about steering by the compa.s.s at sea. As we had to go a certain distance at sea before reaching the mouth of the rivers, I took on board a whaler and crew from my frigate, and my men went to the wheel. But now a fresh difficulty arose. The single engineer could not stop by his engine for ever, without taking any rest. Now and then the care of the machinery had to be confided to a negro, whom he had trained after a certain fas.h.i.+on, and I confess I felt far from easy when I saw him handling the levers and taps with all the self-confidence of a monkey showing off a magic lantern. Besides our negro crew, there was a perfect menagerie of creatures loose on board.
Gazelles, which were inoffensive enough, I must grant, a legion of ill-behaved monkeys, and a tame civet. The monkeys never stopped playing spiteful tricks on everybody all day long, and at night they all huddled together, clasping each other, with their tails sticking out like the rays of a star or the spokes of a wheel. If by anybody's fault or misfortune one of those tails got trodden on, the whole cl.u.s.ter of monkeys yelled for an hour, just as journalists do if a finger is laid on one of their fraternity. As for the civet, she used to offer her company as bed-fellow to each of us in turn, and it was of the most stinking and disagreeable kind.
We soon reached the mouth of the Gambia River, and, entering it through a labyrinth of sandbanks, we saw a wide stream with flat sh.o.r.es covered with mangrove swamps, behind which aquatic form of vegetation huge trees rose, fantastically tall, and in all the splendour of their tropical growth. All the rivers of the West African coast present this identically same appearance. We had hardly entered this one before we were confronted by one of those international questions which swarm on the coast in this part of the globe. The Gambia is a British river, but on its banks is a territory belonging to us, called Albreda, which I was about to visit. Had we a right to go there direct, up the English waters of the Gambia, or ought we to stop first of all at St. Mary Bathurst, the capital of the British possessions on the river, to ask permission to do so? If a merchant vessel, French or otherwise, tried to get up to Albreda, the British stopped her by fair words or force, to maintain their right. But this we were contesting, and as the business was still in suspense, I pa.s.sed St. Mary Bathurst without stopping, and anch.o.r.ed at Albreda. It is not a very important factory.
I was received by four white men and a crowd of negroes. The white inhabitant stretched on a couch under the veranda of the one-storied house in which he dwells, has no society beyond that of the signare, who acts provisionally as his wife, and the crowd of slaves of both s.e.xes who go and come around him. Fever lurks on every side, and carries him off on the slightest imprudence. But it is a rich country, for it is inhabited by a race of negroes, fervent Mussulmans, who are industrious workers, and the produce of their industry is a lucrative article of barter. In the evening, after a long walk through the woods, balmy with a thousand sweet scents, where flights of lovely birds, long-tailed parrokeets, and black-plumaged widow birds, perched in the trees, I saw a small British vessel approach, and an officer put off from her. He had been sent by the governor, who was on board, and had been going up the river to call on the captain of the French s.h.i.+p, and express his regret at not having seen him at Bathurst in the morning--a covert complaint, in fact. On hearing who I was, and that I expected to go to Bathurst the following day, he sent me word that he would return and receive me there.
The flagstaff on which our colours had been hoisted having fallen down, I had it set up again. It was necessary in a disputed country, such as this was, and pending the Government's decision, that our flag should wave over our colonists, and protect them from all insult.
Then I landed at Bathurst. Our captives, anxiously directed by the master-gunner, contrived somehow or other to fire a salute of twenty-one guns, which was instantly returned from the British forts, and I went ash.o.r.e in the whale-boat I had brought from the Belle-Poule.
The commander of the Galibi, who wanted to escort me, had manned a boat and rigged out his men for the nonce in smart striped s.h.i.+rts and red caps. Wonderful to relate, they were so electrified by the reception I was given, and the example of my white crew, that they brought both s.h.i.+rts and caps faithfully back! I was received on the beach by a company of what in those days was called the Royal African Corps--splendid black troops, officered by white men. I had a great deal of conversation with the governor, a very sensible man, who expressed the hope that my visit would result in a prompt settlement of a state of local affairs which might give rise to the most serious difficulties. He was exceedingly civil to me, and gave me a very fine dinner-party, before which I was somewhat astonished to see ”the ladies” appear in the drawing-room, in the shape of three very dark mulattoes, in full evening dress--low bodices, lace pocket-handkerchiefs, and fans. The doors of the dining-room having just been thrown open, the governor indicated to me by a gesture that I was to take one of these ladies into dinner. Not knowing which of them should take precedence, I held my arm out in the middle of the drawing-room, and one of the dark-skinned ladies blus.h.i.+ngly put hers within it. Many years afterwards, dining at Was.h.i.+ngton with that agreeable man, Charles Sumner, the great abolitionist, and some very charming ladies, I amused myself by telling him about my Bathurst dinner, and asked him whether HE had ever given his arm to a negress. I awaited his answer with some curiosity, to see whether he would dare answer in the affirmative before the American ladies, who are so sensitive on the colour question, but he got out of it very adroitly.
”My dear Prince,” said he, ”in every religion each man has his own share of work. I preach and you practise. Don't let us mix the two things up together.”
As we were steaming out of the Gambia I saw the commander of the Galibi on his bridge, in a state of violent excitement, with all his crew mustered before him, and appealing in the most vehement manner to his capitaine de riviere (river captain), the t.i.tle borne by the chief of the negro crew. I joined him, and he said, ”I've just been mustering the men. I can't recollect all the fellows' names, so I count heads.
I've done it over again four or five times, and there is always one man too many.” And then he began to yell again, ”Capitaine de riviere!
What's the meaning of this? There's a man too many!” The capitaine de riviere, who had stationed himself well forward, pretended not to hear, but, driven at last from his refuge, he came aft, pulling off his bell-crowned hat, the distinctive sign of his authority, and, uncovering his shock of gray hair, like a woollen travelling cap, murmured in his gentlest tones, ”Please, sir, he's a LITTLE PRESENT I was given at Bathurst!”
We were soon in the Cazamanze, after having very nearly been lost on the sandbanks obstructing the entrance to the river, on which the sea breaks furiously. The river is a fine one, wide and deep. I steamed up it for about a hundred miles. After the few villages near the mouth we came to a desert country, covered with impenetrable forest and jungle.
We steamed along between two walls of green, and our only excitement as we went was to watch the numerous hippopotami, who seemed very much put out by the pa.s.sing of the Galibi. As we neared our station at Sedhiou, which I was going to inspect, we noticed several villages, the inhabitants of which greeted us with yells. The jungle had been cleared around the houses, over which the great trees stood like huge parasols.
So gigantic was the growth, that sometimes a whole village was sheltered by one and the same tree. The post of Sedhiou--a brick-built fort, with a little bastion armed with a gun at each corner--is placed at a point of great importance on the caravan line from the interior. I was received by an infantry captain, M. Dallin, who had done the most excellent service there, but ruined his health, and by two white soldiers, both wasted by fever. The rest of the garrison consisted of black soldiers, splendid fellows, brave and faithful, and excellent workmen, who had done, and were still doing, all the work on the station.
Thinking of those fine soldiers, and then casting back my memory to the services recently rendered by their successors, the Senegalese Riflemen--first-cla.s.s troops, useful anywhere, like our Algerian Turcos, who have already proved what they are worth--I ask myself why we should not utilise the considerable recruiting opportunities Western Africa offers us to raise a number of negro battalions. They might if properly enlisted be most usefully employed, especially in those unhealthy countries where we now squander so many invaluable lives. I will even go further, for it is my conviction that in thus acting we should be preparing for the future, and outstripping the march of events. The state of armed preparation which now exists in Europe--with every man a soldier, and forced to be a soldier, with every man's career interrupted, and each man's existence hanging on the chance of an electoral surprise or a parliamentary incident--cannot possibly last. It is unhappily to be feared that to escape from this insane condition of things some violent shock will be necessary, which will make a clean sweep of the false notions dressed up in fine names which we have been acc.u.mulating for the past century. When that crisis is over, people will want to be free, as Americans are free--free to do and to be WHAT THEY CHOOSE, and, especially, free not to be soldiers UNLESS THEY CHOOSE. There can be no doubt at all that those inventions of revolutionary tyranny, conscription and compulsory service, will become the object of universal horror, and that the first person who dares to take the initiative in abolis.h.i.+ng them will be saluted by the blessings of the entire human race. Wherefore every government will perforce have to come to what is right and just--to armies consisting of volunteers and auxiliaries. And who knows whether we shall not then find the real strength of our army in our black regiments, just as Russia would in her yellow-skinned ones and Great Britain in her Indian troops? But I must bring this digression to a close.
As we steamed down the Cazamanze we ran aground, and while the s.h.i.+p was being got off I went ash.o.r.e, in a creek, where at the very outset I disturbed the slumbers of a couple of crocodiles sleeping on a stone. A moment later I was nearly knocked over by a big boar with reddish bristles and up-curved fangs, a ”wart hog.” Then I got into the brush, tall gra.s.s much higher than myself, above which hung the green roof of the giant trees. Pus.h.i.+ng my way along I came to a place where the ground was trodden and the branches broken, and on which I saw the traces and fresh tracks of a herd of elephants. Close to me, too, I heard the crackling caused by the pa.s.sage of some big animal which I could not see. We followed the elephants' path, but hindered by the gra.s.ses they had trodden down, and our feet catching in the holes made in the damp soil by their huge feet, we were soon forced to beat a retreat. Another wild beast's track led us to an immense glade, like a small plain, hemmed in by the woods, where we saw herds of antelope quietly feeding. We started in pursuit of them, but like the ducks on the ponds, the creatures seemed to have a very correct appreciation of the distance our guns would carry and the impotent fire we poured on them disturbed them not. Not a single beast even left the plain to take shelter in the woods, where we could hear the greater wild ones howling. Ah! if we had possessed long-range weapons, what a shoot we should have had, and what a paradise of sport that virgin country was!
But one victim only fell to our rifles, a big monkey, which one of our sailors killed, and which he and his comrades eat. It was, so it would appear, a dish to lick your lips over!
For want of game we brought something else back with us from this expedition up the Gambia and Cazamanze rivers--fever. Not a soul escaped it, and in spite of the care of the surgeon-major of the Belle-Poule, who was particularly skilful in treating the malady, we took a long time to get over it. I went back to Goree, where I was to see another sad sight. One of our gunboats had come in from a river-station with only four healthy men out of seventy-five. Typhus fever was decimating the crew. I had to present the Cross of the Legion of Honour to the lieutenant in command, M. de Langle, who had behaved like a hero. I went alongside his s.h.i.+p to see him in the lonely creek to which the infected vessel had been relegated. A crowd of spectral figures crept to the ports to look at me. It was a pitiful scene.
I had by this time gone the round of nearly all our possessions along the West Coast of Africa, and the impression I was carrying away was far from being a good one. On this coast, as elsewhere, France originally outstripped all other nations, and the first European expeditions to the Black Continent were sent out from Dieppe during the fourteenth century. The princ.i.p.al merchandise they brought back consisted of ivory, and the branch of industry occupied by working this substance still exists in that town at the present day. Up to the eighteenth century all the important factories on the coast were in our hands. After that date, just as in India and America, where also we had been the earliest colonists, everything began to go to ruin, and our possessions dwindled to the unimportant posts I had just been to see.
Since my visit an effort has been made to recommence some extension of our factories and trade in the locality. The question is whether it will be successful, and, above all, whether, amidst the vicissitudes of our politics and the constant state of provisional arrangement in which we live, we possess the coherence and connectedness of design and system necessary to that success. I pray it may be so! But there are two insurmountable obstacles which will always prove stumbling-blocks to us--the unhealthy climate, deathly indeed to white men, and the black population, a childish race, who may be disciplined into being good soldiers, but who will never work except when made to by force, and that brute force.