Chapter Seven.
Enemies are Changed into Friends—Our Travellers Penetrate into the Interior of the Land
To possess the power of looking perfectly calm and unconcerned when you are in reality considerably agitated and rather anxious, is extremely useful in any circumstances, but especially so when one happens to be in the midst of grinning, gesticulating, naked savages.
Our hero, Harold Seadrift possessed that power in an eminent degree, and his first-mate, Disco Lillihammer, was not a whit behind him. Although both had started abruptly to their legs at the first alarm, and drawn their respective revolvers, they no sooner found themselves surrounded by overwhelming numbers than they lowered their weapons, and, turning back to back, faced the intruders with calm countenances.
“Sit down, men, every one of you except Antonio,” said Harold, in a quiet, but clear and decided voice.
His men, who, having left their guns in the canoe, were utterly helpless, quietly obeyed.
“Who are you, and what do you want?” demanded Antonio, by Harold’s order.
To this a tall negro, who was obviously the leader of the band, replied in the native tongue,—“It matters little who we are; you are in our power.”
“Not quite,” said Harold, slightly moving his revolver. “Tell him that he may overcome us, but before he does so my friend and I carry the lives of twelve of his men in our pistols.”
The negro chief, who quite understood the powers of a revolver, replied— “Tell your master, that before he could fire two shots, he and his friend would have each twelve bullets in his body. But I have not time to palaver here. Who are you, and where are you going?”
“We are Englishmen, travelling to see the country,” replied Harold.
The chief looked doubtfully at him, and seemed to waver, then suddenly making up his mind, he frowned and said sternly— “No; that is a lie. You are Portuguese scoundrels. You shall all die. You have robbed us of our liberty, our wives, our children, our homes; you have chained, and tortured, and flogged us!”—he gnashed his teeth at this point, and his followers grew excited. “Now we have got free, and you are caught. We will let you know what it is to be slaves.”
As the negro chief stirred up his wrath by thus recounting his wrongs, and advanced a step, Harold begged Disco, in a low, urgent voice, not to raise his pistol. Then looking the savage full in the face, without showing a trace of anxiety, he said— “You are wrong. We are indeed Englishmen, and you know that the English detest slavery, and would, if they could, put a stop to it altogether.”
“Yes, I know that,” said the chief. “We have seen one Englishman here, and he has made us to know that not all men with white faces are devils—like the Portuguese and Arabs. But how am I to know you are English?”
Again the chief wavered a little, as if half-inclined to believe Harold’s statement.
“Here is proof for you,” said Harold, pointing to Chimbolo, who, being scarcely able to move, had remained all this time beside the fire leaning on his elbow and listening intently to the conversation. “See,” he continued, “that is a slave. Look at him.”
As he said this, Harold stepped quickly forward and removed the blanket, with which he had covered his lacerated back after dressing it.
A howl of execration burst from the band of negroes, who pointed their spears and guns at the travellers’ breasts, and would have made a speedy end of the whole party if Antonio had not exclaimed “Speak, Chimbolo, speak!”
The slave looked up with animation, and told the rebels how his Portuguese owner had ordered him to be flogged to death, but changed his mind and doomed him to be drowned,—how that in the nick of time, these white men had rescued him, and had afterwards treated him with the greatest kindness.
Chimbolo did not say much, but what he did say was uttered with emphasis and feeling. This was enough. Those who would have been enemies were suddenly converted into warm friends, and the desperadoes, who would have torn their former masters, or any of their race, limb from limb, if they could have got hold of them, left our adventurers undisturbed in their bivouac, after wishing them a prosperous journey.
It was nevertheless deemed advisable to keep watch during the night. This was done faithfully and conscientiously as far as it went. Harold took the first hour by way of example. He sat over the fire, alternately gazing into its embers while he meditated of home, and round upon the dark forest while he thought of Africa. True to time, he called Disco, who, equally true to his sense of duty, turned out at once with a deep “Ay, ay, sir.” The self-styled first-mate placed his back against a tree, and, endeavouring to believe it to be a capstan, or binnacle, or any other object appertaining to the sea, stared at the ghostly stems of the forest-trees until they began to dance hornpipes for his special gratification, or glowered at the shadows until they became instinct with life, and all but induced him to rouse the camp twenty times in the course of his hour’s vigil. True to time also, like his predecessor, Disco roused Antonio and immediately turned in.
The vivacious chef de cuisine started up at once, took up his position at the foot of the tree which Disco had just left, leaned his back against it, and straightway went to sleep, in which condition he remained till morning, leaving the camp in unprotected felicity and blissful ignorance.
Fortunately for all parties, Disco awoke in time to catch him napping, and resolved to punish him. He crept stealthily round to the back of the tree against which the faithless man leaned, and reached gently round until his mouth was close to Antonio’s cheek, then, collecting all the air that his vast lungs were capable of containing, he poured into Antonio’s ear a cumulative roar that threw the camp and the denizens of the wilderness far and near into confusion, and almost drove the whole marrow in Antonio’s body out at his heels. The stricken man sprang up as if earth had shot him forth, uttered a yell of terror such as seldom greets the ear, and rushed blindly forward. Repeating the roar, Disco plunged after him. Antonio tumbled over the fire, recovered himself, dashed on, and would certainly have plunged into the river, if not into the jaws of a crocodile, had not Jumbo caught him in his arms, in the midst of a chorus of laughter from the other men.
“How dare ’ee go to sleep on dooty?” demanded Disco, seizing the culprit by the collar, “eh! we might have bin all murdered by rebels or eaten by lions, or had our eyes picked out by gorillas, for all that you would have done to prevent it—eh?” giving him a shake.
“Oh, pardon, forgif. Nevair doot more again,” exclaimed the breathless and trembling Antonio.
“You’d better not!” said Disco, giving him another shake and releasing him.
Having done so, he turned on his heel and bestowed a quiet look, in passing, on Jumbo, which of course threw that unfortunate man into convulsions.
After this little incident a hasty breakfast was taken, the canoes were launched, and the voyage was continued.
It is not necessary to trace the course of our explorers day by day as they ascended the Zambesi, or to recount all the adventures or misadventures that befell them on their journey into the interior. It is sufficient for the continuity of our tale to say that many days after leaving the coast they turned into the Shire river, which flows into the Zambesi about 150 miles from the coast.
There are many fountain-heads of slavery in Africa. The region of the interior, which gives birth to the head-waters of the Shire river, is one of the chief of these. Here lies the great lake Nyassa, which was discovered and partly explored by Dr Livingstone, and hence flows a perennial stream of traffic to Kilwa, on the coast—which traffic, at the present time, consists almost exclusively of the two kinds of ivory, white and black, the former (elephants’ tusks) being carried by the latter (slaves), by which means the slave-trade is rendered more profitable.
Towards this populous and fertile region, then, our adventurers directed their course, when they turned out of the great river Zambesi and began to ascend the Shire.
And here, at the very outset of this part of the journey, they met with a Portuguese settler, who did more to open their eyes to the blighting and withering influence of slavery on the land and on its people than anything they had yet seen.
Towards the afternoon of the first day on the Shire, they landed near the encampment of the settler referred to, who turned out to be a gentleman of a Portuguese town on the Zambesi.
Harold found, to his delight, that he could speak English fluently, and was, moreover, an exceedingly agreeable and well-informed man. He was out at the time on a hunting expedition, attended by a party of slaves.
Harold spent the evening in very pleasant intercourse with Senhor Gamba, and at a later hour than usual returned to his camp, where he entertained Disco with an account of his new acquaintance.
While thus engaged, he was startled by the most appalling shrieks, which proceeded from the neighbouring encampment. Under the impression that something was wrong, both he and Disco leaped up and ran towards it. There, to his amazement and horror, Harold beheld his agreeable friend Senhor Gamba thrashing a young slave unmercifully with a whip of the most formidable character. Only a few lashes from it had been given when Harold ran up, but these were so powerful that the unhappy victim dropped down in a state of insensibility just as he reached the spot.
The Portuguese “gentleman” turned away from the prostrate slave with a scowl, but betrayed a slight touch of confusion on meeting the gaze of Harold Seadrift.
“Senhor!” exclaimed the latter sternly, with mingled remonstrance and rebuke in his tone, “how can you be so cruel? What has the boy done to merit such inhuman chastisement?”
“He has neglected my orders,” answered the Portuguese, as though he resented the tone in which Harold spoke.
“But surely, surely,” said Harold, “the punishment is far beyond the offence. I can scarcely believe the evidence of my own eyes and ears when they tell me that you have been guilty of this.”
“Come,” returned Senhor Gamba, softening into a smile, “you English cannot understand our case in this land. Because you do not keep slaves, you take the philanthropic, the religious view of the question. We who do keep slaves have a totally different experience. You cannot understand, you cannot sympathise with us.”
“No, truly, we can not understand you,” said Harold earnestly, “and God forbid that we should ever sympathise with you in this matter. We detest the gross injustice of slavery, and we abhor the fearful cruelties connected with it.”
“That is because, as I said, you are not in our position,” rejoined the Senhor, with a shrug of his shoulders. “It is easy for you to take the philanthropic view, which, however, I admit to be the best, for in the eyes of God all men are equal, and though the African be a degraded man, I know enough of him to be sure that he can be raised by kindness and religion into a position not very inferior to our own; but we who keep slaves cannot help ourselves we must act as we do.”
“Why so?—is cruelty a necessity?” asked Harold.
“Yes, it is,” replied the Senhor decidedly.
“Then the abolition of slavery is a needcessity too,” growled Disco, who had hitherto looked on and listened in silent wonder, debating with himself as to the propriety of giving Senhor Gamba, then and there, a sound thrashing with his own whip!
“You see,” continued the Portuguese, paying no attention to Disco’s growl,—“You see, in order to live out here I must have slaves, and in order to keep slaves I must have a whip. My whip is no worse than any other whip that I know of. I don’t justify it as right, I simply defend it as necessary. Wherever slavery exists, discipline must of necessity be brutal. If you keep slaves, and mean that they shall give you the labour of their bodies, and of their minds also, in so far as you permit them to have minds, you must degrade them by the whip and by all other means at your disposal until, like dogs, they become the unhesitating servants of your will, no matter what that will may be, and live for your pleasure only. It will never pay me to adopt your philanthropic, your religious views. I am here. I must be here. What am I to do? Starve? No, not if I can help it. I do as others do—keep slaves and act as the master of slaves. I must use the whip. Perhaps you won’t believe me,” continued Senhor Gamba, with a sad smile, “but I speak truth when I say that I was tender-hearted when I first came to this country, for I had been well nurtured in Lisbon; but that soon passed away—it could not last. I was the laughing-stock of my companions. Just to explain my position, I will tell you a circumstance which happened soon after I came here. The Governor invited me to a party of pleasure. The party consisted of himself, his daughters, some officers, and others. We were to go in boats to a favourite island resort, several miles off. I took one of my slaves with me, a lad that I kept about my person. As we were going along, this lad fell into the river. He could not swim, and the tide was carrying him fast away to death. Dressed as I was, in full uniform, I plunged in after him and saved him. The wish alone to save the boy’s life prompted me to risk my own. And for this I became the jest of the party; even the ladies tittered at my folly. Next evening the Governor had a large dinner-party. I was there. Having caught cold, I coughed slightly; this drew attention to me. Remarks were made, and the Governor alluded in scoffing terms to my exploit, which created much mirth. ‘Were you drunk?’ said one. ‘Had you lost your senses, to risk your life for a brute of a negro?’ said another. ‘Rather than spoil my uniform, I would have knocked him on the head with a pole,’ said a third; and it was a long time before what they termed my folly was forgotten or forgiven. You think I am worse than others. I am not; but I do not condescend to their hypocrisy. What I am now, I have been made by this country and its associates.” (These words are not fictitious. The remarks of Senhor Gamba were actually spoken by a Portuguese slave-owner, and will be found in The Story of the Universities’ Mission to Central Africa, pages 64-5-6.)
Senhor Gamba said this with the air of one who thinks that he has nearly, if not quite, justified himself. “I am no worse than others,” is an excuse for evil conduct, not altogether unknown in more highly favoured lands, and is often followed by the illogical conclusion, “therefore I am not to blame,” but although Harold felt pity for his agreeable chance acquaintance, he could not admit that this explanation excused him, nor could he get over the shock which his feelings had sustained; it was, therefore, with comparatively little regret that he bade him adieu on the following morning, and pursued his onward way.
Everywhere along the Shire they met with a more or less hospitable reception from the natives, who regarded them with great favour, in consequence of their belonging to the same nation which had sent forth men to explore their country, defend them from the slave-dealer, and teach them about the true God. These men, of whom mention is made in another chapter, had, some time before this, been sent by the Church of England to the Manganja highlands, at the suggestion of Dr Livingstone, and laid, we believe, the foundation-stone of Christian civilisation in the interior of Africa, though God saw fit to arrest them in the raising of the superstructure.
Among other pieces of useful knowledge conveyed by them to the negroes of the Shire, was the fact that Englishmen are not cannibals, and that they have no special longings after black man steaks!
It may perchance surprise some readers to learn that black men ever entertain such a preposterous notion. Nevertheless, it is literally true. The slavers—Arabs and Portuguese—find it in their interest to instil this falsehood into the minds of the ignorant tribes of the interior, from whom the slaves are gathered, in order that their captives may entertain a salutary horror of Englishmen, so that if their dhows should be chased by our cruisers while creeping northward along the coast and run the risk of being taken, the slaves may willingly aid their captors in trying to escape. That the lesson has been well learnt and thoroughly believed is proved by the fact that when a dhow is obliged to run ashore to avoid capture, the slaves invariably take to the woods on the wings of terror, preferring, no doubt to be re-enslaved rather than to be roasted and eaten by white fiends. Indeed, so thoroughly has this been engrained into the native mind, that mothers frequently endeavour to overawe their refractory offspring by threatening to hand them over to the dreadful white monster who will eat them up if they don’t behave!
Chapter Eight.
Relates Adventures in the Shire Valley, and Touches on One or Two Phases of Slavery
Everything depends upon taste, as the monkey remarked when it took to nibbling the end of its own tail! If you like a thing, you take one view of it; if you don’t like it, you take another view. Either view, if detailed, would be totally irreconcilable with the other.
The lower part of the river Shire, into which our travellers had now entered, is a vast swamp. There are at least two opinions in regard to that region. To do justice to those with whom we don’t sympathise, we give our opponent’s view first. Our opponent, observe, is an honest and competent man; he speaks truly; he only looks at it in another light from Harold Seadrift and Disco Lillihammer.
He says of the river Shire, “It drains a low and exceedingly fertile valley of from fifteen to twenty miles in breadth. Ranges of wooded hills bound this valley on both sides. After the first twenty miles you come to Mount Morambala, which rises with steep sides to 4000 feet in height. It is wooded to the top, and very beautiful. A small village peeps out about half-way up the mountain. It has a pure, bracing atmosphere, and is perched above mosquito range. The people on the summit have a very different climate and vegetation from those on the plains, and they live amidst luxuriant vegetation. There are many species of ferns, some so large as to deserve the name of trees. There are also lemon and orange trees growing wild, and birds and animals of all kinds.” Thus far we agree with our opponent but listen to him as he goes on:—
“The view from Morambala is extensive, but cheerless past description. Swamp, swamp-reeking, festering, rotting, malaria-pregnant swamp, where poisonous vapours for several months in the year are ever bulging up and out into the air,—lies before you as far as the eye can reach, and farther. If you enter the river at the worst seasons of the year, the chances are you will take the worst type of fever. If, on the other hand, you enter it during the best season, when the swamps are fairly dried up, you have everything in your favour.”
Now, our opponent gives a true statement of facts undoubtedly, but his view of them is not cheering.
Contrast them with the view of Disco Lillihammer. That sagacious seaman had entered the Shire neither in the “best” nor the “worst” of the season. He had chanced upon it somewhere between the two.
“Git up your steam an’ go ’longside,” he said to Jumbo one afternoon, as the two canoes were proceeding quietly among magnificent giant-reeds, sedges, and bulrushes, which towered high above them—in some places overhung them.
“I say, Mister Harold, ain’t it splendid?”
“Magnificent!” replied Harold with a look of quiet enthusiasm.
“I does enjoy a swamp,” continued the seaman, allowing a thin cloud to trickle from his lips.
“So do I, Disco.”
“There’s such a many outs and ins an’ roundabouts in it. And such powerful reflections o’ them reeds in the quiet water. W’y, sir, I do declare w’en I looks through ’em in a dreamy sort of way for a long time I get to fancy they’re palm-trees, an’ that we’re sailin’ through a forest without no end to it; an’ when I looks over the side an’ sees every reed standin’ on its other self, so to speak, an’ follers the under one down till my eyes git lost in the blue sky an’ clouds below us, I do sometimes feel as if we’d got into the middle of fairy-land,—was fairly afloat on the air, an’ off on a voyage through the univarse! But it’s them reflections as I like most. Every leaf, an’ stalk, an’ flag is just as good an’ real in the water as out of it. An’ just look at that there frog, sir, that one on the big leaf which has swelled hisself up as if he wanted to bust, with his head looking up hopefully to the—ah! he’s down with a plop like lead, but he wos sittin’ on his own image which wos as clear as his own self. Then there’s so much variety, sir—that’s where it is. You never know wot you’re comin’ to in them swamps. It may be a openin’ like a pretty lake, with islands of reeds everywhere; or it may be a narrow bit like a canal, or a river; or a bit so close that you go scrapin’ the gun’les on both sides. An’ the life, too, is most amazin’. Never saw nothin’ like it nowhere. All kinds, big an’ little, plain an’ pritty, queer an’ ’orrible, swarms here to sitch an extent that I’ve got it into my head that this Shire valley must be the great original nursery of animated nature.”
“It looks like it, Disco.”
The last idea appeared to furnish food for reflection, as the two friends here relapsed into silence.
Although Disco’s description was quaint, it could scarcely be styled exaggerated, for the swamp was absolutely alive with animal life. The principal occupant of these marshes is the elephant, and hundreds of these monster animals may be seen in one herd, feeding like cattle in a meadow. Owing to the almost impenetrable nature of the reedy jungle, however, it is impossible to follow them, and anxious though Disco was to kill one, he failed to obtain a single shot. Buffaloes and other large game were also numerous in this region, and in the water crocodiles and hippopotami sported about everywhere, while aquatic birds of every shape and size rendered the air vocal with their cries. Sometimes these feathered denizens of the swamp arose, when startled, in a dense cloud so vast that the mighty rush of their wings was almost thunderous in character.
The crocodiles were not only numerous but dangerous because of their audacity. They used to watch at the places where native women were in the habit of going down to the river for water, and not unfrequently succeeded in seizing a victim. This, however, only happened at those periods when the Shire was in flood, when fish were driven from their wonted haunts, and the crocodiles were reduced to a state of starvation and consequent ferocity.
One evening, while our travellers were proceeding slowly up stream, they observed the corpse of a negro boy floating past the canoe; just then a monstrous crocodile rushed at it with the speed of a greyhound, caught it and shook it as a terrier does a rat. Others dashed at the prey, each with his powerful tail causing the water to churn and froth as he tore off a piece. In a few seconds all was gone. That same evening Zombo had a narrow escape. After dusk he ran down to the river to drink. He chanced to go to a spot where a crocodile was watching. It lay settled down in the mud with its head on a level with the water, so that in the feeble light it could not be seen. While Zombo was busy laving the water into his mouth it suddenly rushed at him and caught him by the hand. The limb of a bush was fortunately within reach, and he laid hold of it. There was a brief struggle. The crocodile tugged hard, but the man tugged harder; at the same time he uttered a yell which brought Jumbo to his side with an oar, a blow from which drove the hideous reptile away. Poor Zombo was too glad to have escaped with his life to care much about the torn hand, which rendered him hors de combat for some time after that.
Although Disco failed to get a shot at an elephant, his hopeful spirit was gratified by the catching of a baby elephant alive. It happened thus:—
One morning, not very long after Zombo’s tussle with the crocodile, Disco’s canoe, which chanced to be in advance, suddenly ran almost into the midst of a herd of elephants which were busy feeding on palm-nuts, of which they are very fond. Instantly the whole troop scattered and fled. Disco, taken completely by surprise, omitted his wonted “Hallo!” as he made an awkward plunge at his rifle, but before he could bring it to bear, the animals were over the bank of the river and lost in the dense jungle. But a fine little elephant, at that period of life which, in human beings, might be styled the toddling age, was observed to stumble while attempting to follow its mother up the bank. It fell and rolled backwards.
“Give way for your lives!” roared Disco.
The boat shot its bow on the bank, and the seaman flew rather than leaped upon the baby elephant!
The instant it was laid hold of it began to scream with incessant and piercing energy after the fashion of a pig.
“Queek! come in canoe! Modder come back for ’im,” cried Jumbo in some anxiety.
Disco at once appreciated the danger of the enraged mother returning to the rescue, but, resolved not to resign his advantage, he seized the vicious little creature by the proboscis and dragged it by main force to the canoe, into which he tumbled, hauled the proboscis inboard, as though it had been the bite of a cable, and held on.
“Shove off! shove off! and give way, lads! Look alive!”
The order was promptly obeyed, and in a few minutes the baby was dragged into the boat and secured.
This prize, however, was found to be more of a nuisance than an amusement and it was soon decided that it must be disposed of. Accordingly, that very night, much to the regret of the men who wanted to make a meal of it, Disco led his baby squealing into the jungle and set it free with a hearty slap on the flank, and an earnest recommendation to make all sail after its venerable mother, which it did forthwith, cocking its ears and tail, and shrieking as it went.
Two days after this event they made a brief halt at a poor village where they were hospitably received by the chief, who was much gratified by the liberal quantity of calico with which the travellers paid for their entertainment. Here they met with a Portuguese half-caste who was reputed one of the greatest monsters of cruelty in that part of the country. He was, however, not much more villainous in aspect than many other half-castes whom they saw. He was on his way to the coast in a canoe manned by slaves. If Harold and Disco had known that this was his last journey to the coast they would have regarded him with greater interest. As it was, having learned his history from the chief through their interpreter, they turned from him with loathing.
As this half-caste’s career illustrates the depths to which humanity may fall in the hot-bed of slavery, as well as, to some extent, the state of things existing under Portuguese rule on the east coast of Africa, we give the particulars briefly.
Instead of the whip, this man used the gun, which he facetiously styled his “minister of justice,” and, in mere wantonness, he was known to have committed murder again and again, yet no steps were taken by the authorities to restrain, much less to punish him. Men heard of his murders, but they shrugged their shoulders and did nothing. It was only a wild beast of a negro that was killed, they said, and what was that! They seemed to think less of it than if he had shot a hippopotamus. One of his murders was painfully notorious, even to its minutest particulars. Over the female slaves employed in a house and adjacent lands there is usually placed a head-woman, a slave also, chosen for such an office for her blind fidelity to her master. This man had one such woman, one who had ever been faithful to him and his interests, who had never provoked him by disobedience or ill-conduct, and against whom, therefore, he could have no cause of complaint. One day when half drunk he was lying on a couch in his house; his forewoman entered and made herself busy with some domestic work. As her master lay watching her, his savage disposition found vent in a characteristic joke: “Woman,” said he, “I think I will shoot you.” The woman turned round and said, “Master, I am your slave; you can do what you will with me. You can kill me if you like; I can do nothing. But don’t kill me, master, for if you do, who is there to look after your other women? they will all run away from you.”
She did not mean to irritate her master, but instantly the man’s brutal egotism was aroused. The savage jest became a fearful reality, and he shouted with rage:—
“Say you that! say you that! fetch me my gun. I will see if my women will run away after I have killed you.”
Trained to implicit obedience, the poor woman did as she was bid. She brought the gun and handed him powder and ball. At his command she knelt down before him, and the wretch fired at her breast. In his drunken rage he missed his mark—the ball went through her shoulder. She besought him to spare her. Deaf to her entreaties, he ordered her to fetch more powder and ball. Though wounded and in agony, she obeyed him. Again the gun was loaded, again levelled and fired, and the woman fell dead at his feet. (The above narrative is quoted almost verbatim from The Story of the Universities’ Mission to Central Africa, pages 78 and 79, the author of which vouches for its accuracy.)
The facts of this case were known far and wide. The Portuguese Governor was acquainted with them, as well as the ministers of justice, but no one put forth a hand to punish the monster, or to protect his slaves.