John H. Harris

“ No man ever goes on a journey, no matter how short, without a string of charms about his neck, to ward off the grim form of death, which he believes lurks in every forest, along every river, in every home. There is one charm to protect from violent death through wild animals, there is one to protect from death at the hands of strangers, but chiefest of all is that little charm stuffed away in the ram’s horn, which is a perfect safeguard against the death curse of strangers whom the traveller may meet when on his way from village to village. ”

“ In the back streets of Angolan ports, on the highways of Lobito and Benguella, and in the shady by-paths of Catumbella, the traveller may at any time penetrate the secrets of the tragedies which attach themselves to the souls of men and women who have lost their freedom. The same tragedies but with attendant secrets darker still, are locked within the breasts of the slaves on the Portuguese cocoa islands in the Gulf of Guinea. ”

“ I am not here concerned in condemning the sale of European outfits, importation of spirits, least of all European education, but in fairness to the African, let us brush aside unreasoning and unreasonable prejudice and put ourselves in his place for a moment. Let us at least recognize for example that if grave faults exist in the educational systems we provide for Africa, it is upon us, rather than upon the African, that the responsibility rests. ”

“ Commerce, too, is changing; the kind-hearted merchant of West Africa going forth at his own charges, trudging from village to village founding branches, paddling up and down the rivers and planting factories, is disappearing, and the soulless corporation with directors who are mere machines for registering dividends, are taking his place. Commerce in West Africa is rapidly losing all the humanity which was once its driving force.
The natives are abandoning the old forms of warfare. ”

“ I never read of punitive expeditions with “many natives killed” without [134] inwardly fuming at the folly of the administration which should know how precious from an economic standpoint alone, is the life of every single native. Yet in some places the tribes are hustled, tormented and even butchered in a manner little realized as yet by the European public. Think of the loss of life by violent death in both Belgian and French Congo, and in German West Africa! Think of the countless thousands of bleaching bones scattered over the highways through Portuguese Angola! ”

“ It seemed justifiable to murmur when crossing those swamps and fighting one’s way through impenetrable forest, but at a distance, and with time for calm reflection, there can surely be no other thought in the mind of any African traveller than that of admiration, as he pictures those sons of Africa with heavy and cumbersome loads upon their heads, floundering through swamps, or toiling up steep hills and along stony paths, cutting and blistering the feet, while the fierce rays of the tropical sun scorch every living thing. ”

“ To-day by its aid we travel thousands of miles at express rate; it has been so handled by modern science that it enters largely into our diet; the merchants in Hamburg and Liverpool make fortunes out of it; millions of coloured people live by it, and yet it is barely known to the civilized community. A fortnight’s fairly pleasant steam from Liverpool brings the traveller in sight of the high red clay coast line of Sierra Leone, and there the oil palm first greets the traveller in all its luxuriant grandeur. ”

“ A monkey has perhaps been seen overhead springing from bough to bough, or sitting nibbling the fruit of some forest tree, or it may be an edible bird with flesh as tough as its plumage is gorgeous, that watches us till the gun booms out and the creature is brought down. For a moment it struggles in the river, then with a sudden splash, a man is swimming with powerful strokes towards the prey which he a moment later lands in the canoe, while the rest look approvingly on at their prospective meal. ”

“ The African is shaking himself free from the shackles he has worn for so long and is at last beginning to realize his strength. At present Britain, with all her shortcomings, leads the way in giving the native the fullest scope for his abilities. In British and Portuguese Colonies alone in West Africa has the free native the chance of attaining the full stature of a man. In German and French tropical territories, the native is there, not as a citizen, but merely as a necessary adjunct to the production of wealth for the white man. ”

“ An exposure of African immorality cannot, it is true, be long delayed; sooner than most people think that day is coming. Locked in the breasts of governors, doctors, missionaries and educated natives are strange stories and appalling statistics; their volume is daily increasing; facts are being labelled and classified and these only await the opportunity which an increasing virulence of attack upon native immorality—ignoring that of the white race which obtains in every African town—will precipitate. ”

“ The two colonies of San Thomé and Principe are by far the most serious problem. The area of the two islands is not large—only 400 square miles together—but they are extraordinarily fertile; the very air seems to intoxicate with abounding fertility; everything flourishes, cocoa, sisal and rubber; everything multiplies and replenishes on the earth, but man; for some reason there appears to be a curse upon those islands, they are almost without an indigenous population and the wretched slaves imported to fill the ranks die off like flies. ”

“ Nothing can check that flow, nothing can stop its increase, for it springs to-day from lands overflowing with forest wealth; lands where natives are inured to the hardships of labour, natives of infinite patience and withal the world’s keenest traders. There is but one danger to this increasing flow—race prejudice—which may, unless checked, give birth to actions which will utterly shatter African confidence in the British race. ”

“ The watchers can see that it is only a matter of hours and the general weeping is at first silent, occasionally ceasing when the sick one speaks or calls for something. The nearer relatives rub and bathe the limbs which begin to chill; one or two affectionately hold a foot, a hand, or a finger; the favourite wife, as her right and duty, tenderly nurses the head.
In proportion as the weakness increases, the crying becomes more audible; then louder still the women cry, invoking all the spirits of the other world to surrender their grip and restore to life and vigour their beloved tribesman. ”

“ The most economic and the most politic line to follow is that of the employment of free labour. Supervision is reduced to a minimum, abuses of authority are rare, the work goes more smoothly, the song takes the place of the boot and the lash, the native labourer goes home when the day’s toil is over vowing vengeance on no one, and the white man returns to his somewhat primitive home with a mind undisturbed by conscious wrong-doing. ”

“ Humorous as the London Jehu of the twentieth century, dexterous as his civilized confrères of the ocean, as adaptable to his surroundings as the clay to the potter’s art; at home everywhere and in all conditions in his native land, swimming or standing, sitting or lying, squatting or reclining, sleeping as soundly on the nose of the canoe or the river bank as we in our downiest of feather beds. ”

“ It is difficult to imagine a tract of country more ideally suited to the cultivation of cocoa than that of Mayumbe. The hills and valleys abound in water-courses, the soil is good and the climate reminds the traveller very much of the Gold Coast territories. Some of the plantations run for miles along winding valleys, but the great trouble with Mayumbe is that perpetual nightmare—common to the whole of West Africa—scarcity of labour! ”

“ John Bull must wake up to the existence and the needs of these children, must realize that their education, whether in the colony or in the Mother Country, is of supreme importance, and that the friendly and wise oversight of their education is an Imperial responsibility of the highest order. It is more, for all nations have looked to us in the past for the solution of these problems, and upon such facts—rather than upon a colossal navy—rests the real strength of Great Britain. ”

“ The most lamentable feature which confronts the traveller in British West African colonies to-day is that with the growth of commerce on the one hand, and with the spread of Christian thought on the other, race prejudice is rapidly increasing its hold not only through an ever widening area, but in an intensity which must before many years have passed precipitate a grave condition in the relationship of the two races. The decks of West African liners provide an incomparable mirror for reflecting white opinion upon the shortcomings of the black man. ”

“ From Freetown away down the coast as far as San Paul de Loanda, the traveller is never far from the home of the oil palm—the most valuable tree of West Africa—probably the most prolific source of human sustenance in the world. ”

“ Now that public attention is being focussed upon labour conditions, it becomes increasingly imperative that Governments should lay down the broad lines upon which they are prepared to allow contract labour. Nor must the labourer only be considered, the employer has the right to be heard in framing such conditions. In spite of much evidence to the contrary, I am still inclined to the belief that, as a class, the employers of labour everywhere in Africa detest as much as anyone labour conditions which are unfair. ”

“ Is there any feature, social, political or religious so important in West Africa as the wife and mother? No “teeming millions” are to be found in the African [58] tropics and every colony is crying out for more native workers as the development of her industries gets beyond the fringe. As a wife the African woman is generally but one of a number. In most coast towns to-day the stress of modern competition has forced up the cost of living, which together with the absorption of civilized ideas has made monogamy—oftentimes, alas, only surface monogamy—the passport into respectable society. ”

“ The screeching grey parrot of West Africa with its horny bill tears the oily fruit from the bunch, after consuming most of the oleaginous fibres of the pericarp, drops the nuts whilst flying, far and wide. These, in turn, add to Africa’s economic wealth, and thus do man and animal join in spreading through ever wider regions the growth of the oil palm. ”

“ Cursing in West Africa, which almost invariably takes the form of invoking death upon some relative, is one of the most frequent causes of trouble. A curse hurled at himself, the African merely resents, and returns the compliment, but let a man invoke death upon another’s mother or sister, and the dagger leaps instantly from its scabbard, or the spear goes hurtling through the air with deadly precision. ”

“ Not the bloodthirsty and strongly entrenched barbaric paganism which confronted Livingstone in East Africa, Ramseyer at Kumasi, Hannington in Uganda, and Grenfell in the Congo, but a paganism so broken by the forces of civilization, so rent and riven by internal mistrust, that the masses of the people are crying out: “Who will show us any good?” ”

“ She is seen at her best as she glides down stream under the combined influence of the current and the swinging impetus of her thirty stout paddlers. There is the rickety old canoe with broken stern and crippled sides, and her leaking bottom stuffed with clay, but there is life in her yet. She ships water fore and aft, and amidships too, soaking the traveller’s blankets and provisions, but her long experience gives her an ease in travel which her younger though stouter relatives cannot rival. ”

“ The British merchant knows with absolute certainty that he may rely on receiving a warm welcome and every assistance in German colonies. He knows, too, that none will be given a preference before him. He knows that if “public good”—the stick which governors so frequently wield—demands the removal of his factory, or that a road must be driven through his ground, the German Government will not quibble over doubtful legal points, but will look at the question on broad lines of common-sense policy. ”

“ But make them change positions, force the man to take the load, tell the women to walk in front, and before you have gone many yards the women will all have bolted into the bush, for the “Lord Protector” under a load is no longer ready to shield them from the danger which lurks behind every tree and beneath almost every leaf in the African forests. The African knows his business when on a journey, and his first duty, from which no matter what the odds, he never shrinks, is that of protecting his family from the ravages of wild animals no less than the violence of hostile tribes. ”

“ And how they love a race! Let them but see a competitor ahead bound for the same goal, and despite their long day’s paddle they will redouble their strokes. Caution is thrown to the winds and the canoe springs in a mad gallop, rocking to and fro, pitching and tossing against the current until the rival ahead, scenting a race, enters the competition with keen zest. At such times I [15] have found all warnings are in vain. With a rapid girding up of the loin cloths as the boats proceed, a rearranging of the cargo, children, dogs, fowls, baggage and all—the race begins in real earnest. ”