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To the Gold Coast for Gold

R >> Richard F. Burton >> To the Gold Coast for Gold




Cock-fighting takes place once a year, when the birds are in fittest
feather; it begins on Easter Sunday and ends with the following
Wednesday.

The bird that warned Peter of his fall

has then, if victorious, a pleasant, easy twelve months of life before
him. He has won many a gold ounce for his owner: I have heard of a man
pouching 400_l_. in a contest between Orotava and La Laguna, which
has a well-merited celebrity for these exhibitions. The Canarians ignore
all such refinements as rounds or Welsh mains; the birds are fairly
matched in pairs. _Navajas_, or spurs, either of silver or steel,
are unused, if not unknown. The natural weapon is sharpened to a
needle-like point, and then blood and condition win. The cock-pit,
somewhat larger than the training-pit, is in the Casa de la Galera;
there is a ring for betters, and the spectators are ranged on upper
seats.

Lastly of the wine Canary, now unknown to the English market, where it
had a local habitation and a name as early as madeira and sherry, all
claiming 'Shakespearean recognition.' The Elizabethans constantly allude
to cups of cool Canary, and Mr. Vizetelly quotes Howell's 'Familiar
Letters,' wherein he applies to this far-famed sack the dictum 'Good
wine sendeth a man to heaven.' But I cannot agree with the learned
oenologist, or with the 'tradition of Tenerife,' when told that 'the
original canary was a sweet and not a dry wine, as those who derive
"sack" from the French word "sec" would have us believe.' 'Sherris sack'
(_jerez seco_) was a harsh, dry wine, which was sugared as we
sweeten tea. Hence Poins addresses Falstaff as 'Sir John Sack and
Sugar;' and the latter remarks, 'If sack and sugar be a fault, God help
the wicked!' And the island probably had two growths--the saccharine
_Malvasia_, [Footnote: As we find in Leake (p. 197 _Researches in
Greece_) and Henderson (_History of Wines_) 'Malvasia' is an
Italian corruption of 'Monemvasia' ([Greek: _monae embasia_]--a
single entrance), the neo-Greek name for the Minoa promontory or island
connected by a bridge with the Laconian Coast. Hence the French
Malvoisie and our Malmsey. Prof. Azevedo (_loc. cit._) opines that
the date of the wine's introduction disproves the legend of that
'maudlin Clarence in his Malmsey butt.'] whose black grape was almost a
raisin, and a harsh produce like that of the modern _Gual_, with
great volume and alcoholic strength, but requiring time to make it
palatable.

The Canaries mostly grew white wines; that is, the liquors were
fermented without skins and stalks. Thus they did not contain all the
constituents of the fruit, and they were inferior in remedial and
restorative virtues to red wines. Indeed, a modern authority tells us
that none but the latter deserve the name, and that white wines are
rather grape-ciders than real wines.

The best Tenerife brands were produced on the northern slopes from
Sauzal and La Victoria to Garachico and Ycod de los Vinos. The latter,
famed for its malmsey, has lost its vines and kept its name. The
cultivation extended some 1,500 feet above the sea, and the plant was
treated after the fashion of Madeira and Carniola (S. Austria). The
_latadas_, or trellises, varied in height, some being so low that
the peasant had to creep under them. All, however, had the same defect:
the fruit got the shade and the leaves the sun, unless trimmed away by
the cultivator, who was unwilling to remove these lungs in too great
quantities. The French style, the pruned plant supported by a stake, was
used only for the old and worn-out, and none dreamt of the galvanised
wires along which Mr. Leacock, of Funchal, trains his vines. In Grand
Canary I have seen the grape-plant thrown over swathes of black stone,
like those which, bare of fruit, stretch for miles across the fertile
wastes of the Syrian Haurán. By heat and evaporation the grapes become
raisins; and, as in Dalmatia, one pipe required as much fruit as
sufficed for three or four of ordinary.

The favourite of the Canaries is, or was, the _vidonia_, a juicy
berry, mostly white, seldom black: the same is the case with the
muscadels. The _Malvasia_ is rarely cultivated, as it suffered
inordinately from the vine-disease. The valuable _Verdelho_,
preferred at Madeira, is, or was, a favourite; and there are, or were,
half a dozen others. The _vendange_ usually began in the lowlands
about the end of August, and in the uplands a fortnight or three weeks
later. The grape was carried in large baskets by men, women, and
children, to the _lagar_, or wooden press, and was there trodden
down, as in Madeira, Austria, and Italy. The Canarians, like other
neo-Latins an unmechanical race, care little for economising labour. The
vinification resembled that of the Isle of Wood, with one important
exception--the stove. This artificial heating to hasten maturity seems
to have been soon abandoned.

Mr. Vizetelly is of opinion that the pure juice was apt to grow harsh,
or become ropy, with age. They remedied the former defect by adding a
little _gloria_, a thin, sweet wine kept in store from the
preceding _vendange_; this was done in April or in May, when the
vintage was received at headquarters. Ropiness was cured by repeated
rackings and by brandying, eight gallons per pipe being the normal
ratio. That distinguished connoisseur found in an old malmsey of 1859
all the aroma and lusciousness of a good liqueur; the 'London
particular' of 1865 tasted remarkably soft, with a superior nose; an
1871-72, made for the Russian market, had an oily richness with a
considerable aroma; an 1872 was mellow and aromatic, and an 1875 had a
good vinous flavour.

'Canary' possessed its own especial charác-ter, as Jonathan says. If it
developed none of the highest qualities of its successful rivals, it
became, after eight to twelve years' keeping, a tolerable wine, which
many in England have drunk, paying for good madeira. The shorter period
sufficed to mature it, and it was usually shipped when three to four
years old. It kept to advantage in wood for a quarter of a century, and
in bottle it improved faster. My belief is that the properest use of
Tenerife was to 'lengthen out' the finer growths. I found Canary bearing
the same relation to madeira as marsala bears to sherry: the best
specimens almost equalled the second- or third-rate madeiras. Moreover,
these wines are even more heady and spirituous than those of the
northern island; and there will be greater difficulty in converting them
to the category _vino de pasto_, a light dinner-wine.

Before 1810 Tenerife exported her wines not from Santa Cruz, but from
Orotava, the centre of commerce. Here, since the days of Charles II.,
there was an English Factory with thirty to forty British subjects,
Protestants, under the protection of the Captain-General; and their
cemetery lay at the west end of El Puerto, whose palmy days were in
1812-15. The trade was then transferred to the modern capital, where
there are, and have been for years, only two English wine-shipping
firms, Messieurs Hamilton and Messieurs Davidson. The seniors of both
families have all passed away; but their sons and grandsons still
inhabit the picturesque old houses on the 'Marina.' In 1812-15 the
annual export of wine was 8,000 to 11,000 pipes. The Peace of 1815 was a
severe blow to the trade. Between 1830 and 1840, however, the vintage of
the seven chief islands averaged upwards of 46,000; of these Tenerife
supplied between 4,000 and 5,000, equivalent to the total produce since
the days of the oïdium. In 1852 Admiral Robinson reduced the number of
pipes to 20,000, worth 200,000_l_. In 1860-65 I saw the grape in a
piteous plight: the huge bunches were composed of dwarfed and wilted
berries, furred and cobwebbed with the foul mycelium. The produce fell
to 100-150 pipes, and at present only some 200 to 300 are exported. The
Peninsula and the West African coast take the bulk; England and Germany
ranking next, and lastly Spain, which used the import largely in
making-up wines. The islanders now mostly drink the harsh, coarse
Catalonians; they still, however, make for home consumption a cheap
white wine, which improves with age. It is regretable that fears of the
oïdium and the phylloxera prevent the revival of the industry, for which
the Islands are admirably fitted. Potatoes and other produce have also
suffered; but that is no obstacle to their being replanted.

I left Santa Cruz and Las Palmas, after two short visits, with the
conviction that both are on the highway of progress, and much edified by
their contrast with Funchal. The difference is that of a free port and a
closed port. In the former there is commercial, industrial, and literary
activity: Las Palmas can support two museums. In the latter there is
neither this, that, nor the other. Madeira also suffers from repressed
emigration. The Canaries wisely allow their sons to make gold ounces
abroad for spending at home.

Spain also, a few years ago so backward in the race, is fast regaining
her place amongst the nations. She is now reaping the benefit of her
truly liberal (not Liberal) policy. Such were the abolition of the
_morgado_ (primogeniture) in 1834, the closing of the 1,800
convents in 1836-37, and the _disamortizacion_, or suppression of
Church property and granting liberty of belief, in 1855. Finally, the
vigour infused by a short--which will lead to a longer--trial of
democracy and of republican institutions have given her a new life. She
is no longer the Gallio of the Western world.



CHAPTER X.

THE RUINED RIVER-PORT AND THE TATTERED FLAG.

On the night of January 10 we steamed out of Las Palmas to cover the
long line of 940 miles between Grand Canary and Bathurst. The
A. S. S. generously abandons the monopoly of the Gambia to its rival,
the B. and A., receiving in exchange the poor profits of the Isles de
Los. Consequently the old Company's ships, when homeward-bound, run
directly from Sierra Leone to Grand Canary, a week's work of 1,430
knots.

Hardly had we lost sight of the brown and barren island and Las Palmas
in her magpie suit, than we ran out of the Brisa Parda, or grey
north-east Trade, into calm and cool Harmatan [Footnote: The word is of
disputed origin. _Ahalabata_, or _ahalalata_, on the Gold Coast
is a foreign term denoting the dry norther or north-easter that blows
from January to March or April (Zimmerman). Christalier makes
_haramata_, 'Spanish _harmatan_, an Arabic word.'] weather. We
begrudged the voyage this lovely season, which should have been kept for
the journey. After the damp warmth of Madeira the still and windless air
felt dry, but not too dry; cold, but not too cold; decidedly fresh in
early morning, and never warm except at 3 P.M. The sun was pale and
shorn, as in England, seldom showing a fiery face before 10 A.M. or
after 5 P.M. The sea at night appeared slightly milky, like the white
waters so often seen off the western coast of India. Every traveller
describes the Harmatan, and most travellers transcribe the errors
touching the infusoria and their coats which Ehrenberg found at sea in
the impalpable powder near the Cape Verde islands. The dry cold blast is
purely local, not cosmical. There is a fine reddish-yellow sand in the
lower air-strata; we see it, we feel it, and we know that it comes from
the desert-tracts of northern Africa. The air rises _en masse_ from
the Great Sahara; the vacuum is speedily filled by the heavier and
cooler indraught from the north or south, and the higher strata form the
upper current flowing from the Equator to the Poles. But 'siliceous
dust' will not wholly account for the veiling of the sun and the
opaqueness of the higher atmosphere. This arises simply from the want of
humidity; the air is denser, and there is no vapour to refract and
reflect the light-rays. Hence the haze which even in England appears to
overhang the landscape when there is unusually droughty weather; and
hence, conversely, as all know, the view is clearest before and after
heavy showers, when the atmosphere is saturated or supersaturated.

On my return in early April we caught the northeast Trades shortly after
turning Cape Palmas, and kept them till close upon Grand Canary. They
were a complete contrast with the Harmatan, the firmament looking
exceptionally high, and the sun shining hot, while a crisp, steady gale
made the 'herds of Proteus' gambol and disport themselves over the long
ridges thrown up by the cool plain of bright cerulean. The horizon, when
clear, had a pinkish hue, and near coast and islands puffy folds of
dazzling white, nearly 5,000 feet high, were based upon dark-grey
streaks of cloudland simulating continents and archipelagoes. Within the
tropics the heavens appear lower, and we never sight blue or purple
water save after a tornado. The normal colour is a dirty, brassy
yellow-brown, here and there transparent, but ever unsightly in the
extreme. It must depend upon some unexplained atmospheric conditions;
and the water-aspect is often at its ugliest when the skies are
clearest. I have often seen the same tints when approaching Liverpool.

Through the Harmatan-haze we failed to sight Cape Juby, opposite
Fuerteventura; and at Santa Cruz I missed Mr. Mackenzie, the energetic
flooder of the Sahará. He has, they say, given up this impossibility and
opened a _comptoir_: its presence is very unpleasant to the French
monopolists, who seem to 'monopole' more every year. South of Juby comes
historic Cape Bojador, the 'Gorbellied,' and Cabo Blanco, which is to
northern what Cabo Negro is to southern Africa. The sole remarkable
events in its life are, firstly, its being named by Ptolemy Granaria
Extrema, whence the Canarii peoples south-west of the Moroccan Atlas and
our corrupted 'Canaries;' and, secondly, its rediscovery by one Gonçalez
Baldeza in 1440.

On the afternoon of Saturday (January 14) we sighted in the offing the
two paps of Ovedec, or Cabo Verde, the Hesperou Keras, the Hesperium or
Arsenarium Promontorium of Pliny, the _trouvaille_ of Diniz
Fernandez in 1446. The name is _sub judice_. Some would derive it
from the grassy green slope clad with baobabs (_Adansonia
digitata_), megatherium-like monsters, topping the precipitous
sea-wall which falls upon patches of yellow sand. Others would borrow it
from the _Sargasso (baccifera), Golfão_, or Gulf-weed, which here
becomes a notable feature. Cape Verde, the Prasum Promontorium of West
Africa, is the 'Trafalgar,' the westernmost projection, of the Dark
Continent 'fiery yet gloomy;' measuring 17° 3' from the meridian of
Greenwich. The coast is exceedingly dangerous; consequently shipwrecks
are rare. The owners, as their national wont is, have done their best to
make it safe. Two lighthouses to the north of the true Cape mark and
define a long shoal with a heavy break, the Almadies rocks, a ledge
mostly sunk, but here and there rising above the foam in wicked-looking
_diabolitos_ (devilings), or black fangs, of which the largest is
die-shaped. A third pharos, also brilliantly whitewashed, crowns the
Cape, and by its side is a lower sea-facing building, the sanatorium;
finally, there is a light at the mole-end of Dakar.

Steaming past the Madeleine rocks, here and there capped with green and
whitened by sea-fowl, we sight, through an opening in the curtain of
coast, the red citadel and the subject town of Goree, the Gibraltar of
western Africa, and the harbour of St. Louis, capital of Senegambia. The
island is now the only port, the headquarters having suffered from the
sand-bar at the mouth of the Senegal. Here our quondam rivals have made
the splendid harbour of Dakar, whose jetties accommodate 180,000 tons of
shipping at the same time. This powerful and warlike colony, distant
only twelve hours' steaming from Bathurst, has her fleet of steamers for
river navigation; her Tirailleurs du Sénégal, and her large force of
fighting native troops. Fortified stations defend the course of the
river, even above the falls, from the hostile and treacherous Moors. The
subject and protected territories exceed Algeria in extent, and the
position will link the French possessions in the Mediterranean with the
rich mineral lands proposed for conquest in the south.

We English hug to ourselves the idea that the French are bad colonists:
if so, France, like China and India, is improving at a pace which
promises trouble. Algeria, Senegambia, and Siam should considerably
modify the old judgment. Our neighbours have, and honestly own to, two
grand faults--an excessive bureaucracy and a military, or rather a
martinet, discipline, which interferes with civil life and which governs
too much. On the other side England rules too little. She is at present
between the two proverbial stools. She has lost the norm of honour,
Aristocracy; and she has lost it for ever. But she has not yet acquired
the full strength of democracy. This is part secret of that
disorganisation which is causing such wonder upon the continent of
Europe. Moreover, Colonial England has caught the disease of
non-interference and the infection of economy, the spawn of Liberalism;
while her savings, made by starving her establishments, are of the
category popularly described as penny-wise and pound-foolish. France has
adopted the contrary policy. She spends her money freely in making ports
and roads and in opening communication through adjacent countries. She
lately sent a cruiser to Madeira, proposing to connect Dakar by
telegraph with the Cape Verde islands. She is assiduous in forming
friendly, or rather peaceable, relations with the people. She begins on
the right principle by officering her colonies with her best men, naval
and military. In England anyone is good enough for West Africa. She
impresses the natives, before beginning to treat, by an overwhelming
display of force; and, if necessary, by hard knocks. She educates the
children of the chiefs, and compels all her lieges, under a penalty, to
learn, and if possible to speak, French. So far from practising
non-interference, she allows no one to fight but herself. This
imperious, warlike, imperial attitude is what Africa wants. It reverses
our Quaker-like 'fad' for peace. We allow native wars to rage _ad
libitum_ even at Porto Loko, almost within cannon-shot of Sierra
Leone. On the Gambia River the natives have sneeringly declared that
they will submit to the French, who are men, but not to us, who are
------. Later still, the chiefs of Futa-Jalon went, not to London, but
to Paris.

In 1854 France commenced a new and systematic course of colonial
policy. She first beat the Pulos (Fulahs), once so bold, and then she
organised and gave flags to them. She checked, with a strong hand, the
attacks of the Moors upon the gum-gatherers of the Sahará. And now,
after drawing away from us the Gambia trade, she has begun a railway
intended to connect the Senegal with the Niger and completely to
outflank us. This line will annex the native regions behind our
settlements, and make Bathurst and Sierra Leone insignificant
dependencies upon the continent of Gallic rule. The total distance is at
least 820 miles, and the whole will be guarded by a line of forts. It
begins with a section of 260 kilometres, which will transport valuable
goods now injured by ass and camel-carriage. The natives, wearied with
incessant petty wars, are ready to welcome the new comers. The western
Súdán, or Niger-basin, has a population estimated at forty millions,
ready, if a market be opened, to flock to it with agricultural and
industrial products, including iron, copper, and gold. Meanwhile the
Joliba (Black Water), with the Benuwe and other tributaries, offers a
ready-made waterway for thousands of miles. Sierra Leone lies only 400
miles, less than half, from the Niger; but what would the Colonial
Office say if a similar military line were proposed? Nor can we console
ourselves by the feeble excuse that Senegal has a climate superior to
that of our 'pest-houses.' On the contrary, she suffers severely from
yellow fever, which has never yet visited the British Gold Coast. Her
mortality is excessive, but she simply replaces her slain. She has none
of that mawkish, hysterical humanitarianism which of late years has
become a salient feature in our campaigning. During the Ashanti affair
the main object seems to have been, not the destruction of the enemy,
but to save as many privates as possible from ague and fever, sunstroke
and dysentery.

Ninety miles beyond Cape Verde placed us in the Gambia waters, off the
lands of the Guinea region. I will not again attempt a history of the
disputed word which Barbot derives from Ginahoa, the first negro region
visited by the Portuguese; others from Ghana, the modern Kano; from the
Jenneh or Jinne of Mungo Park; from Jenna, a coast-town once of note,
governed by an officer under the 'King' of Gambia-land, and, in fine,
from the Italian Genoa.

The s.s. _Senegal_ spent the night of the 14th on the soft and
slippery mud, awaiting the dawn. What can the Hydrographic Department of
the Admiralty be doing? What is the use of the three cruisers that still
represent the old 'Coffin Squadron'? This coast has not had a survey
since 1830, yet it changes more or less every year, and half a century
makes every map and plan obsolete. But perhaps it would be wrong to risk
seamen's lives by exposure in open boats to 'insolation,' showers, and
surf.

From sunrise the sea had changed its Harmatan-grey for a dull, muddy,
dirty green; and the leadsman, who is now too civilised to 'sing out' in
the good old style, calmly announced that the channel was
shallowing. 'Gambia,' or 'Gambi,' the Gamboa and Gambic of Barbot
(Chapter VII.), is said to mean clear water, here a perfect misnomer; it
is miry as the Mersey. The 'molten gold of the Gambia River' is only the
fine phrase of some poetic traveller. Low land loomed on both sides,
with rooty and tufted mangroves, apparently based upon the waves,
showing that we approached an estuary, which soon narrowed from thirty
miles to seven and to two. Three buoys, the outermost red, then the
'fairway' with chequers and cage, and lastly white without cage, all at
a considerable distance off the land, marked the river-bar, and
presently a black pilot came on board from his cutter. We made some
easting running along shore, and gave a wide berth to the Horseshoe Bank
and St. Mary's shoal portwards, to African Knoll and Middle Ground
starboardwards, and to a crowd of other pleasant patches, where the
water was dancing a breakdown in the liveliest way.

As we drew in shore the now burning sun shone with a sickly African heat
through the scirocco-clouds and the thick yellow swamp-reek. 'It will be
worse when we land,' said the normal Job's comforter. Six knots to
starboard, (west), on high and healthy Cape St. Mary, rose a whitewashed
building from a dwarf red cliff. To port on the river's proper right
bank (east) lay Fort Bullen, an outpost upon a land-tongue, dead-green
as paint, embosomed in tall bentangs, or bombax-trees (_Pullom
Ceiba_). This 'silk-cotton-tree' differs greatly in shape from its
congener in Eastern Africa. The bole bears sharp, broad-based thorns;
the wings or flying buttresses are larger; several trunks rarely
anastomose; the branches seldom stand out horizontally, nor are the
leaves disposed in distinct festoons. It is, however, a noble growth,
useful for shade and supplying a soft wood for canoes and stuffing for
pillows. Fort Bullen, about one hour's row from Bathurst, formerly
lodged a garrison of seventeen men under the 'Commandant and Governor of
the Queen's Possessions in the Barra Country.' Now the unwholesome site
has been abandoned.

The island and station of St. Mary, Bathurst, of old a graveyard, now
start up to starboard. The site was chosen apparently for its superior
development of mud and mangrove, miasma and malaria. It is an island
within an island. St. Mary the Greater is the northernmost of that mass
of riverine holms and continental islands which, formed by the Cachéo
and other great drains, extends south to the Rio Grande. Measuring some
twenty miles from north to south, by six from east to west, it is
embraced by the two arms of the Gambia delta, and is marked in old maps
as the Combo, Forni, and Felúp country. St. Mary the Less, upon which
stands the settlement facing east, is bounded eastward by the main mouth
and westward by Oyster Creek, a lagoon-like branch: it is a mere
sand-patch of twenty-one square miles, clothed by potent heats and
flooding rains with a vivid and violent vegetation. Water is found
everywhere three feet below the surface, but it is bad and
brackish. There is hardly any versant or shed; in places the land sinks
below the water-level; and, despite the excellent brick sewers, the
showers prefer to sop and sod the soil. And, lest the island should be
bodily carried away by man, there is a penalty for removing even a
pailful of sand from the beach.

Bathurst was unknown in the days of Mungo Park, when traders ran up
stream to Jilifri, nearly opposite Fort James, and to Pisania, the end
of river-navigation. St. Mary's Island, together with British Combo,
Albreda, and the land called the 'Ceded,' or 'English Mile,' were bought
from the Mandenga chief of the Combo province. First christened
St. Leopold, and then Bathurst, after the minister of that name, the
actual town owes its existence to an order issued by Sir Charles
Macarthy. That ill-starred Governor of Sierra Leone (1814-24) is still
remembered in Ashanti and on the Gold Coast: he is immortalised by a
pestiferous island in the Upper Gambia well described by Winwood
Reade. The settlement, designed for the use of liberated Africans, was
built in 1816 by Lieutenant-Colonel Brereton and by Captain Alexander
Grant. In 1821 it was made, like the Gold Coast, a dependency of Sierra
Leone, whose jurisdiction, after the African Company was abolished in
1820,

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