is not even yet half filled up, there is a great deal of very
curious information in its place. I use the word curious
advisedly, for I think many seemed to translate my request
for practical hints and advice into an advertisement that
“ Rubbish may be shot here.” This same information is in a
state of great confusion still, although I have made heroic
efforts to codify it. I find, however, that it can almost all be
got in under the following different headings, namely and to
w it :—
The dangers of West Africa.
The disagreeables of West Africa.
The diseases of West Africa.
The things you must take to West Africa.
The things you find most handy in West Africa.
The worst possible things you can do in West Africa.
I inquired of all my friends as a beginning what they knew
of West Africa. The majority knew nothing. A percentage
said, “ Oh, you can’t possibly go there; that’s where Sierra
Leone is, the white man’s grave, you know.” If these were
pressed further, one occasionally found that they had had
relations who had gone out there after having been “ sad
trials,” but, on consideration of their having left not only
West Africa, but this world, were now forgiven and forgotten.
One lady however kindly remembered a case of a
gentleman who had resided some few years at Fernando Po,
but when he returned an aged wreck of forty he shook so
violently with ague as to dislodge a chandelier thereby
destroying a valuable tea-service and flattening the silver
teapot in its midst.
No • there was no doubt about it, the place was not
healthy, and although I had not been “ a sad trial,” yet
neither had the chandelier-dislodging Fernando Po gentleman
So I next turned my attention to cross-examining
the doctors. “ Deadliest spot on earth,” they said cheerfully,
and showed me maps of the geographical distribution _ of
disease. Now I do not say that a country looks inviting
when it is coloured in Scheele’s green or a bilious yellow, but
these colours may arise from lack of artistic gift in the
cartographer. There is no mistaking what he means by
black, however, and black you’ll find they colour West Africa
from above Sierra Leone to below the Congo. “ I wouldn t
go there if I were you,” said my medical friends, “ you’ll catch
something; but if you must go, and you’re as obstinate as a
mule, just bring me ” and then followed a list of commissions
from here to New York, any one of which but I
only found that out afterwards.
All my informants referred me to the missionaries. “ There
were,” they said, in an airy way, “ lots of them down there,
and had been for years.” So to missionary literature I
addressed myself with great ardour ; alas ! only to find that
these good people wrote their reports not to tell you how the
country they resided in was, but how it was getting on
towards being what it ought to be, and how necessary it was
that their readers should subscribe more freely, and not get
any foolishness into their heads about obtaining an inadequate
supply of souls for their money. I also found fearful confirmation
of my medical friends’ statements about its
unhealthiness, and various details of the distribution of cotton
shirts over which I did not linger.
From the missionaries it was, however, that I got my first
idea about the social condition of West Africa. I gathered
that there existed there, firstly the native human beings— the
raw material, as it were— and that these were led either to
good or bad respectively by the missionary and the trader.
There were also the Government representatives, whose chief
business it was to strengthen and consolidate the missionary’s
work, a function they carried on but indifferently well. But
as for those traders ! well, I put them down under the dangers
of West Africa at once. Subsequently I came across the
good old coast yarn of how, when a trader from that region
went thence, it goes without saying where, the Fallen Angel
without a moment’s hesitation vacated the infernal throne
(Milton) in his favour. This, I b e g . to note, is the marine
form of the legend. When it occurs terrestrially the trader
becomes a Liverpool mate. But of course no one need
believe it either way— it is not a missionary’s story.
B 2