African culture, I may remark, varies just the same as
European in this, that there is as much difference in the
manners of life between, say, an Igalwa and a Bubi of Fernando
Po, as there is between a Londoner and a Laplander.
The Igalwa builds his house like that of the M’pongwe,
of bamboo, and he surrounds himself with European-
made articles. The neat houses, fitted with windows, with
wooden shutters to close at night, and with a deal door— a
carpenter-made door— are in sharp contrast with the ragged
ant-hill looking performances of the Akkas, or the bark huts
of the F an, with no windows, and just an extra broad bit of
bark to slip across the hole that serves as a door. On going
into an Igalwa house you will see a four-legged table, often
covered with a bright-coloured tablecloth, on which stands a
water bottle, with two clean glasses, and round about you
will see chairs— Windsor chairs. These houses have usually
three, sometimes more rooms, and a separate closed-in little
kitchen, built apart, wherein you may observe European-made
saucepans, in addition to the ubiquitous skillet. Outside, all
along the clean sandy streets, the inhabitants are seated.
The Igalwa is truly great at sitting, the men pursuing a policy
of masterly inactivity, broken occasionally by leisurely netting
a fishing net, the end of the netting hitched up on to the roof
thatch, and not held by a stirrup. The ladies are employed in
the manufacture of articles pertaining'to a higher culture— I
allude, as Mr. Micawber would say, to bed-quilts and pillow
cases— the most gorgeous bed-quilts and pillow-cases— made
of patchwork, and now and again you will see a mosquito-bar
in course of construction, of course not made of net or muslin
because of the awesome strength and ferocity of the Lem-
barene strain of mosquitoes, but of stout, fair-flowered and
besprigged chintzes ; and you will observe these things are
often being sewn with a sewing machine. Here and there
you will see a misguided woman making a Hubbard. Forgive
me, but I must break out on the subject of Hubbards ;
I will promise to keep clear of bad language let the effort
cost me what it may. A Hubbard is a female garment
patronised by the whole set of missions from Sierra Leone
to Congo Beige, so please understand I am not criticising
the Mission Évangélique in this affair. I think these things
are one of the factors producing the well-known torpidity of
the mission-trained girl ; and they should be suppressed in her
interest, apart from their appearance, which is enough to
constitute a hanging matter. Their formation is this— a
yoke round the neck and shoulders fastens at the back with
three buttons— two usually lost ; from this yoke protrude
dwarf sleeves, and round its lower rim, on a level with the
armpits, is sewn on a flounce, set in with full gathers, which
falls to the heels of the wearer. Sometimes this flounce is
sewn on with a chain-stitch machine; whereby I once saw
a dreadful accident on the Leeward Coast. In church a limb
of a child, seeking for amusement during the long extemporary
prayer of its pastor, came across a thread of white sticking
out from the back of the yoke of the Hubbard of the woman
in front of her, and pulled it out by the yard. Of course,
when the unconscious victim rose up, the whole of what
might be called the practical part of her attire subsided on to
the floor. This is only an occasional danger ; but the constant
habit of the garment is to fall forward and reap the
dirt whenever the wearer stoops forward to do anything,
going into the fire, and the cooking, and things in general, and
impeding all rapid movement. These garments are usually
made at working parties in Europe ; and what idea the pious
ladies in England, Germany, Scotland, and France can have of
the African figure I cannot think, but evidently part of their
opinion is that it is very like a- tub. I was once helping to
unpack a mission box. “ What have they sent out these
frills for palm-oil puncheons for ? ” I inquired of my esteemed
friend, the lady missionary. “ Don’t be more foolish than
you can help,” she answered. “ Don’t you see the sleeves ?
They are Hubbards.” I was crushed ; but even she acknowledged
that it was trying of the home folk to make them
like that, all the more so because. their delusion on the
African figure was not confined to the making of Hubbards,
but extended to the making of shirts and chemises. There
is nothing like measurements in- ethnology, so I measured and
found one that with a depth of thirty inches had a breadth of
beam of forty-two inches; one with a depth o f thirty-six