A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

To the Gold Coast for Gold

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




[Footnote: The first African Company was established by Queen Elizabeth,
and in 1688 was allowed to trade with Guinea. The Royal African Company,
or Guinea Company of Royal Adventurers of England trading to Africa, was
incorporated under Charles II. on January 20, 1663. A third was patented
on September 27, 1672. The 'African Company' (1722-24) was not allowed
to interfere with 'interlopers.' On May 7,1820, it was abolished, after
bankruptcy, and its possessions passed over to the Crown.]

extended from N. lat. 20° to S. lat. 20°. I found it an independent
government, one of four, in 1860 to 1865. In 1866 it again passed under
the rule of Sierra Leone; in 1874 this ill-advised measure was
withdrawn, and the Gambia was placed under an Administrator and a
Legislative Council, the former subject to the Governor-in-Chief of
Sierra Leone. A score of years ago it was garrisoned by some 300 men of
the West African Corps. Now it is reduced to 100 armed policemen: the
Gambia militia, composed of the Combo and Macarthy's Island forces, is
never called out. The population of the twenty-one square miles is given
by Whittaker for 1881 as 14,150, including 105 whites. The Wesleyans
here, as everywhere, preponderating on the Coast, number 1,405 souls;
the Catholics 500, and the Episcopalians 200.

Another half-hour placed before us Bathurst in full view. The first
salient point is the graveyard, where the station began and where the
stationed end. Wags declare that the first question is, 'Have you seen
our burial-ground?' A few tomb-stones, mostly without inscriptions, are
scattered so near the shore that corpses and coffins have been washed
away by the waves. If New Orleans be a normal 'wet grave,' this
everywhere save near the sea is dry with a witness, the depth and
looseness of the sand making the excavation a crumbling hole. Four
governors, a list greatly to be prolonged, 'lie here interred.' But
matters of climate are becoming too serious for over-attention to such
places or subjects.

The first aspect of this pest-house from afar is not unpleasant. A long
line of scattered houses leads to the mass of the settlement, faced by
its Marine Parade, and the tall trees give it a home-look; some have
compared the site with 'parts of the park at Cheltenham.' At a nearer
view the town of some 5,000 head suggests the idea of a small European
watering-place. The execrable position has none of those undulations
which make heaps of men's homes picturesque; everything is low, flat,
and straight-lined as a yard of pump-water. The houses might be those of
Byculla, Bombay; in fact, they date from the same epoch. They are
excellent of their kind, large uncompact piles of masonry,
glistening-white or dull-yellow, with blistered paint, and slates,
tiles, or shingles, which last curl up in the sun like feathers. A
nearer glance shows the house-walls stained and gangrened with rot and
mildew, the river-floods often shaking hands with the rains in the
ground-floors. The European ends in beehive native huts, rising from the
swamp and sand; and these gradually fine off and end up-stream, becoming
small by degrees and hideously less.

Bathurst has one compensating feature, the uncommon merit of an
esplanade; the noble line of silk-cotton trees separating houses from
river is apparently the only flourishing item. We remark that while some
of these giants are clad in their old leaves others are bright green
with new foliage, while others are bare and broomy as English woods in
midwinter. They are backed by a truly portentous vegetation of red and
white mangroves, palms, plantains, and baobabs, rank guinea-grass
filling up every gap with stalks and blades ten feet tall.

Nor was the scene in the river-harbour at all more lively. The old
_Albert_, of Nigerian fame, has returned to mother Earth; but we
still note H.M.S. _Dover_, a venerable caricature, with funnel long
and thin, which steams up stream when not impotent--her chronic
condition. There are two large Frenchmen loading ground-nuts, but ne'er
an Englishman. The foreshore is defaced by seven miserable wharves,
shaky mangrove-piles, black with age and white with oystershells, driven
into the sand and loosely planked over. There is an eighth, the
gunpowder pier, on the north face of the island; and we know by its
dilapidation that it is Government property. These stages are intended
not for landing--oh, no!--but only for loading ships; stairs are
wanting, and passengers must be carried ashore 'pick-a-back.' The
labourers are mainly, if not wholly, 'Golah' women of British Combo,
whose mates live upon the proceeds of their labours. To-day being
Sunday, the juvenile piscators of Bathurst muster strong upon the piers,
and no policeman bids them move on.

When the mail-bags were ready, we received a visit from the black
health-officer, and we reflected severely on the exceeding 'cheek' of
inspecting, as a rule, new comers from old England at this yellow Home
of Pestilence. But in the healthy time of the year we rarely see the
listless, emaciated whites with skins stained by unoxygenised carbon, of
whom travellers tell. Despite the sun, all the Bathurstians save the
Government officials--now few, too few--flocked on board. Mail-days are
here, as in other places down-coast, high days and holidays. But times
are changed, and the ruined river-port can no longer afford the old
traditional hospitality.

Cameron and I landed under Brown's Wharf, the southernmost pier opposite
the red roof and the congeries of buildings belonging to the late
proprietor. We then walked up the High Street, or esplanade, which is
open to the river except where the shore is cumbered with boats, hides,
lumber, and beach-negroes. This is a kind of open-air market where men
and women sit in the shade, spinning, weaving, and selling fruits and
vegetables with one incessant flux of tongue. Here, too, amongst the
heaps, and intimately mixed with the naked infantry, stray small goats,
pretty and deer-shaped, and gaunt pigs, sharp-snouted and long-legged as
the worst Irisher.

Several thoroughfares, upper and lower, run parallel with the river; all
are connected, like a chess-board, by cross-lanes at right angles, and
their grass-grown centres are lined by open drains of masonry, now
bone-dry. The pavement is composed of stone and dust, which during the
rains becomes mud; the _trottoirs_ are in some places of brick, in
others of asphalte, in others of cracked slabs. Mostly, however, we walk
on sand and gravel, which fills our boots with something harder than
unboiled peas. The multiplicity of useless walls, the tree-clumps, and
the green sward faintly suggested memories of a semi-deserted
single-company station in Western India; and the decayed, tumble-down
look of all around was a deadly-lively illustration of the Hebrew
Ichabod.

I passed, with a sense of profound sadness, the old Commissariat
quarters, now degraded to a custom-house. The roomy, substantial edifice
of stone and lime, with large, open verandahs, here called piazzas,
lofty apartments, galleries, terraced roofs, and, in fact, everything an
African house should have, still stood there; but all shut up, as if the
antique _domus_ were in mourning for the past. What Homeric feeds,
what _noctes coenoeque deorum_, we have had there in joyous past
times! But now that most hospitable of West-Coasters, Commissary Blanc,
has been laid in the sandy cemetery; and where, oh! where are the rest
of the jovial crew, Martin and Sherwood? I found only one relic of the
bygone--and a well-favoured relic he is--Mr. W. N. Corrie, with whom to
exchange condolences and to wail over the ruins.

Passing the post-office and the French, Spanish, Portuguese, and
American consulates, poor copies of the dear old Commissariat, we halted
outside at Mr. Goddard's, and obtained from Mr. R. E. Cole a copy of his
lecture, 'The River Gambia,' read at York, September 1881. It gave me
pleasure to find in it, 'The man that is wanted throughout the West
Coast of Africa is not the negro, but the Chinaman; and should he ever
turn his steps in its direction he will find an extensive and
remunerating field for the exercise of his industry and intelligence.'

We then turned our attention from the town to the townspeople. They have
not improved in demeanour during the last twenty years. Even then the
'liberateds' and 'recaptives,' chiefly Akus and Ibos, had begun the
'high jinks,' which we shall find at their highest in Sierra Leone. They
had organised 'Companies,' the worst of trade-unions, elected headmen,
indulged in strikes, and more than once had come into serious collision
with the military. The Mandengas, whom Mungo Park calls Mandingoes and
characterises as a 'wild, sociable, and obliging people,' soon waxed
turbulent and unruly. This is to be expected; a race of warriors must be
governed by the sword. They would prefer for themselves military law to
all the blessings of a constitution or a plébiscite. But philanthropy
wills otherwise, and in these days the English authorities do not keep
up that state whose show secures the respect of barbarians. Where the
Governor walks about escortless, like a private individual, he must
expect to be 'treated as such.'

There is no difficulty in distinguishing at first sight Moslem from
Kafir. Besides the gypsy-like Pulo, the 'brown race,' our older Fúlahs
and Fellalahs, whose tongue is said to be a congener of the Nubian; and
the wild, half-naked pagan Jolu, the principal tribes, are two, the
Mandengas and the Wólofs. The former, whom Europeans divide into the
Marabút, who does not drink, and the Soninki, who does, inhabit a
triangle, its base being the line from the south of the Senegal to the
Gambia River, and its apex the Niger; it has even extended to near
Tin-Bukhtu (the Well of Bukhtu), our Timbuctoo. In old Mohammedan works
their territory is called Wángara. This race of warmen and horsemen
surprisingly resembles the Somal, who hold the same parallels of
latitude in Eastern Africa, as to small heads, semi-Caucasian features,
Asiatic above the nose-tip and African below; tall lithe figures, high
shoulders, and long limbs, especially the forearm.

There is the usual Negro-land variety in the picturesque toilette; no
two men are habited alike. A Phrygian bonnet, Glengarry or Liberty-cap
of dark, indigo-dyed cotton, and sometimes a Kan-top or ear-calotte of
India and Hausa-land, surmount their clean-shaven heads. For this they
substitute, when travelling, 'country umbrellas,' thatches of plaited
palm-leaves in umbrella-shape; further down coast we shall find the
regular sun-hat of Madeira, with an addition of loose straw-ends which
would commend itself to Ophelia. The decent body-garb is a _kamís_,
a nightgown of long-cloth, and wide, short drawers; the whole is covered
with a sleeveless _abá_, or burnous, and sometimes with a
half-sleeved caftan--here termed 'tobe'--garnished with a huge
breast-pocket. It is generally indigo-stained, with marblings or
broad-narrow stripes of lighter tint than the groundwork. An essential
article, hung round the neck or slung to the body, is the grigri,
_ta'awíz_, or talisman, a Koranic verse or a magic diagram enclosed
in a leathern roll or in a flat square. Of these prophylactics, which
answer to European medals and similar fetish, a 'serious person' will
wear dozens; and they are held to be such 'strong medicine' that even
pagans will barter or pay for them. Blacksmiths, weavers, and spinners
work out of doors. Contrary to the general Moslem rule, these Mandengas
honour workers in iron and leather, and the king's blacksmith and
cobbler are royal councillors.

Some of the motley crowd sit reading what the incurious stranger tells
you is 'the Alcoran;' they are perusing extracts and prayers written in
the square, semi-Cufic Maghrabi character, which would take a learned
Meccan a week to decipher. Others, polluted by a license which calls
itself liberty, squat gambling shamelessly with pegs stuck in the
ground. Now and then fighting-looking fellows ride past us, with the
Arabic ring-bit and the heavy Mandenga demi-pique. The nags are ponies
some ten hands high, ragged and angular, but hardy and sure-footed. As
most of the equines in this part of Africa, they are, when well fed,
intensely vicious and quarrelsome. Like the Syrians, they have only
three paces, the walk, the lazy loping canter, and the brisk hard
gallop; the trot is a provisional passage from slow to fast. Yet with
all their shortcomings I should prefer them to the stunted bastard barb,
locally called an Arab and priced between 20_l_. and 40_l_.
The latter generally dies early from chills and checked
perspiration, which bring on 'loin-disease,' paralysis of the
hind-quarters, or from a fatal swelling of the stomach, the result of
bad forage. Most of the men carried knives, daggers, and crooked swords
in curious leather scabbards. This practice should never be permitted in
Africa. Natives entering a station should be compelled to leave their
weapons with the policeman at the nearest guard-house.

The Wólofs, a name formerly written Joloff, also dwell in Senegambia,
between the Senegal and the Gambia, and their habitat is divided into
sundry petty kingdoms. As early as 1446 they were known to the
Portuguese, and one Bemoy, of princely house, soon afterwards visited
Lisbon, was baptised, and did homage to D. João II. More like the
Abyssinians than their Mandenga neighbours, they are remarkable for good
looks, pendent ringlets, and tasteful dress and decorations. 'Black but
comely,' with long, oval faces, finely formed features, straight noses
and glossy jetty skins, in character they are brave and dignified, and
they are distinctly negroids, not negroes. This small maritime tribe,
who make excellent sailors, is interesting and civilisable; many have
been Christianised, especially by the Roman Catholic missioners. The
only native tongue spoken by European residents at Bathurst is the
Wólof. As M. Dard remarks in his 'Grammaire Wolof,' the [Footnote: He
was Instituteur de l'École Wolof-Française du Sénégal, and published in
1826. It is still said that no one will speak Wolof like him, the result
of the new _régíme_ of compulsory French instruction. I printed 226
of his proverbs in _Wit and Wisdom from West Africa_ (London,
Tinsleys, 1865). It is curious to compare them with those of the pagan
negroes further south.]

language is widely spread: Mungo Park often uses expressions which he
deems Mandenga, but which belong to the 'Jews of West Africa,' as the
Wólofs are sometimes called, their extensive commercial dealings between
the coast and the western Sudan being the only point of likeness. For
instance, in the tale of 'poor Nealee' the cry 'Kang-tegi!' ('Cut her
throat!') is the Wólof 'Kung-akateke!' ('Let her head be cut off!'), and
'Nealee affeeleeata!' ('Nealee is lost!') appears equally corrupted by
author or printer from 'Nealu afeyleata!' ('Nealee breathes no more!')

Pursuing our peregrinations, we reach No. 1 Fort, at the northern angle
of the town, north-eastern corner of the islet St. Mary the Less. This
old round battery is surmounted by three 32-pounders, _en
barbette_, with iron carriages and traversing platforms, but without
racers: a single 7-inch shell would smash the whole affair. Thence we
bent westward and passed the once neat 'Albert Market' with its metal
roof, built in 1854-56 by Governor Luke O'Connor and Isaac Bage. We did
not enter; the place swarms with both sexes in blue: African indigo
yields a charming purple, but one soon learns to prefer white
clothing. Nor need I describe the stuff exposed for sale: there will be
a greater variety at Sierra Leone.

Passing the market we come upon the engineer's yard, which a hand-bill
sternly forbids us to enter. It contains a chapel, where the
Rev. Mr. Nicol officiates: this loose box is more hideous than anything
I have yet seen, a perfect study of architectural deformity. The
cracked bell and the nasal chant, at times rising to a howl as of
anguish, were completely in character. As the service ended issued a
stream of worshippers, mostly women, attired in costumes which will be
noticed further on; most of them led negrolings suggesting the dancing
dog. Meanwhile the police, armed only with side-arms, sword-bayonets,
and looking more like Sierra Leone convicts reformed and uniformed,
followed a band composed of drums, cymbals, and a haughty black
sergeant, a mulatto noncommissioned, bringing up the rear. They went
round and round the barrack square, a vast space occupied chiefly by
grass and drains; in the back-ground is the large jaundiced building
upon whose clock-tower floated, or rather depended, the flag of
St. George. The white building by its side is the Colonial Hospital: it
has also seen 'better days.'

We resolved to call upon Mr. Administrator V. S. Goulsbury, M.D. and
C.M.G. He had lately been subjected to an attack, of course anonymous,
in the 'African Times;' an attack the more ungentlemanly and cowardly
because it reflected upon his private not public life; and consequently
he could neither notice it nor answer it, nor bring an action for
libel. This scandalous print, which has revived the old 'Satirist' in
its most infamous phase, habitually inserts any tissue of falsehoods
suggested to proceed from a 'native,' an 'African,' a 'negro,' and
carefully writes down to the lowest level of its readers. It attracts
attention by the cant of charity, and shows its devotion to 'the Bible,
and nothing but the Bible,' by proving that the earth, having 'four
corners,' is flat, and that the sun, which once 'stood still,' must move
round its parasite. The manner of this pestilence is right worthy of its
matter, and the style would be scouted in a decent housekeeper's
room. All well-meaning men, of either colony, declare that it has done
more harm in West Africa than the grossest abuse yet written. Its tactic
is to set black against white, to pander for the public love of scandal,
and systematically to abuse all the employés of Government. And the sole
object of this vile politic, loudly proclaimed to be philanthropic and
negrophile, has been low lucre--in fact, an attempt to butter its bread
with 'black brother.'

We inspected the second or western fort, a similar battery of six
32-pounders, with two 10-inch mortars, fit only to pound 'fúfú,' or
banana-paste; add a single brass field-piece, useful as a morning and
evening gun for this highly military station. Then we came to Government
House, apparently deserted, flying a frayed and tattered white and blue
flag, which might have been used on board H.M.S. _Dover_, but which
ought to have been supplanted on shore by a Union Jack. After waiting a
quarter of an hour, we managed, with the assistance of a sentinel, whose
feet were in slippers and whose artillery carbine was top-heavy with a
fixed sword-bayonet, to arouse a negro servant, by whom we sent in our
cards to H.E. the Administrator. An old traveller on the Gold Coast, and
lately returned from a long expedition into the interior, [Footnote:
_Gambia: Expedition to the Upper Gambia_. London: Eyre and
Spottiswoode, 1882.] he had much to tell us. His knowledge of
Ashanti-land, however, induced him to place the Kong Mountains in that
meridian too far north; he held the distance from the seaboard to be at
least 500 miles. But he quite agreed with us about the necessity of
importing Chinese coolies. Here no free man works. The people say, 'When
a slave gets his liberty he will drink rainwater'--rather than draw it
from a well. The chief cargo of the S.S. _Senegal_ was Chinese
rice, when almost every acre of the lower Gambia would produce a cereal
superior in flavour and bolder in grain. Hands, however, are wanting;
and all the women are employed in loading and unloading ships.

The Residency is a fine large building in an advanced stage of
decomposition; the glorious vegetation around it--cotton-trees,
caoutchouc-figs, and magnificent oleanders--making the pile look grimmer
and grislier. And here we realised, to the fullest extent, how
thoroughly ruined is the hapless settlement. The annual income is about
24,500_l_., the expenditure is 20,000_l_. in round numbers,
and the economies are said to reach 25,000_l_. This sum is
forwarded to the colonial chest, instead of being expended in local
improvements; and, practically, when some petty war-storm breaks it is
wasted like water. The local officials are not to be blamed for this
miserable system, this niggardly colonial policy of the modern
economical school, which contrasts so poorly with the lavish republican
expenditure in French Senegambia. They have, to their honour be it said,
often protested against the taxes raised from struggling merchants and a
starveling population, poor as Hindûs, being expended upon an 'imperial
policy.' But economy is the order of the day at home, and an
Administrator inclined to parsimony gladly seizes the opportunity of
pleasing his 'office.' The result is truly melancholy. I complained in
1862 that the 'civil establishment' at Bathurst cost 7,075_l_. I
now complain that it has been reduced to 2,600_l_. [Footnote:
Administrator = 1,300_l_;.; Chief Magistrate = 600_l_.;
Collector and Treasurer = 700_l_. Thus there is no Colonial
Secretary, and, curious to say, no Colonial Chaplain. I formerly
recommended the establishment to be reduced by at least one-half, and
that half to be far better paid (_Wanderings in West Africa_,
i. 182).] The whole establishment is starved; decay appears in every
office, public and private; and ruin is writ large upon the whole
station. An Englishman who loves his country must blush when he walks
through Bathurst. Even John Bull would be justified in wishing that he
had been born a Frenchman in West Africa.

We returned to the s.s. _Senegal_ anything but edified; and there
another displeasure awaited us. Our gallant captain must have known that
he could not load and depart that day. Yet, diplomatically mysterious,
he would not say so. Consequently we missed a visit to Cape St. Mary,
the breezy cliff of which I retain the most agreeable memory. The
scenery had appeared to me positively beautiful after the foul swamps of
St. Mary's Island;--stubbles of Guinea-corn, loved by quails; a velvety
expanse of green grass sloping inland, with here and there a goodly
palmyra grander than the columns of Ba'albek; palms necklaced with
wine-calabashes, and a grove of baobab and other forest trees cabled
with the most picturesque llianas, where birds of gorgeous plume sit and
sing. We could easily have hired hammocks or horses, or, these failing,
have walked the distance, six or seven miles. True, Oyster Creek, the
shallow western outlet of the Gambia, has still a ferry: a bridge was
lately built, but it fell before it was finished. It would, however,
have been pleasurable to pass a night away from the fever-haunts of
Bathurst.

During one of my many visits to Bathurst I resolved to inspect old Fort
James: one thirsts for a bit of antiquity in these African lands, so
bare of all but modern ruins. Like Bance Island, further south, it is
the parent of the modern settlement; and so far it has the 'charm of
origin.' My companion was Captain Philippi, then well known at Lagos:
the last time we met was unexpectedly at Solingen. A boat with four
Krumen was easily found; but our friends warned us that the
_ascensus_ would be easy and the _descensus_ the reverse; the
latter has sometimes taken a day and a night.

The Gambia River here opens its mouth directly to the north; and, after
a great elbow, assumes its normal east-west course. We ran before a
nine-knot breeze, and shortly before noon, after two hours' southing, we
were off the half-way house, reef-girt Dog Island, and Dog Point, in the
Barra country. The dull green stream sparkled in the sun, and the fringe
of mangroves appeared deciduous: some trees were bare, as if dead;
others were clothed with bright foliage. Presently we passed British
Albreda, where our territory now ends. This small place has made a fuss
in its day. It was founded by the French in 1700 as a dependency of
Goree, and it carried on a slave-trade highly detrimental to English
interests. In 1783 the owners had abandoned all right to its occupation,
and in 1858 they ceded it to their English rivals. The landing is bad,
especially when the miry ebb-tide is out. The old village of the French
company was reduced when we visited it to a few huts and two whitewashed
and red-roofed houses, occupied by a Frenchwoman in native dress and by
an English subject, Mr. Hughes. The latter did the honours of the place
and showed us the only 'punkah' at that time known to the West African
coast.

From Dog Island we bent to the east and passed the Jilifri or Grilofre
village, in the Badibu country, a place well known during the days of
Park. Then bending south-east, after a total of four hours, covering
seventeen to eighteen knots, we landed upon James Island, the site of
Fort James. The scrap of ground has a history. First the Portuguese here
built a factory: Captain Jobson found this fact to his cost when (1621)
he sailed up in search of gold to Satico, then the last point of
navigation. A few words in the native dialects--'alcalde,' for
instance--preserve the memory of the earliest owners. It passed
alternately into the hands of the Dutch, French, and English, who
exchanged some shrewd blows upon the matter of possession. In 1695 it
was destroyed by M. de Gennes, and was rebuilt by the Royal African
Company, which had monopolised the traffic. It fell again in 1702 to
Capitaine de la Roque, and cost the conqueror his life. In 1709 it was
attacked for the third time by M. Parent, commanding four privateering
frigates. About 1730 we have from Mr. Superintendent Francis Moore a
notice of it amongst the Company's establishments on the Gambia
River. The island is described as being situated in mid-stream, here
three to four miles broad, thirty miles from the mouth: the extent was
200 yards long by fifty broad. The factory had a governor and a
deputy-governor, two officers, eight factors, thirteen writers, two
inferior attendants, and thirty-two negro servants. The force consisted
of a company of soldiers, besides armed sloops and shallops. Compare the
same with our starved establishment at the Ruined River-port! In other
parts of the Gambia valley eight subordinate comptoirs, including
Jilifri or Gilofre, traded for hides and bees'-wax, ivory, slaves, and
gold. When Mungo Park travelled (1795-97) the opening of the European
trade had reduced its exports to a gross value of 20,000_l_., in
three ships voyaging annually. After the African Company was abolished
(1820) it passed over to the Crown, and the station was transferred to
its graveyard, Sainte-Marie de Bathurst. Barbot [Footnote:
Lib. i. chap. vii., _A Description of the Coasts of North and South
Guinea, &c., in 1700_. Printed in Churchill's Collection. Also his
Supplement, _ibid._ pp. 426-26.] tells us that Fort James was
founded (1664), under the names of the Duke of York and the Royal
African Company, by Commodore Holmes when expeditioning against the
Hollanders in North and South Guinea. It was the head-centre of trade
and its principal defence. But, he says, the occupants were obliged to
fetch fresh water from either bank. Had the cistern and the
powder-magazine been bomb-proof, and drink as well as meat stored
_quant. suff._, the fort would have been 'in a manner impregnable,
if well defended by a suitable garrison.' The latter in his day
consisted of sixty to seventy whites, besides 'Gromettoes,' free black
sepoys.

Copyright (c) 2007. famouswriterz.com. All rights reserved.