seeds being shaken out, “ C h i ! C h i ! C h i! ” says A., “ this
is worthless, there are no seeds.” “ Ai, Ai, ” says B., 1 never
were there so many seeds in a bunch of lhiamba,” &c. It is
used smoked, like the ganja of India, not like the preparation
bhang, and the way the Africans in the Congo used it was
a very quaint one. They would hollow out a little hole
in the ground, making a little dome over i t ; then in went
a few hemp-tops, and on to them a few stones made red hot
in a fire. Then the dome was closed up and a reed stuck
through it. Then one man after another would go and draw
up into his lungs as much smoke as he could with one prolonged
deep inspiration; and then go apart and cough in a
hard,hacking distressing w ay for ten minutes at a time, and then
back to the reed for another pull. In addition to the worry of
hearing their coughs, the lhiamba gives you trouble with the
men, for it spoils their tempers, making them moody and
fractious, and prone to quarrel with each other; and when
they get an excessive dose of it their society is more terrifying
than tolerable. I once came across three men who had got
into this state and a fourth man who had not, but was of the
party. Th ey fought with him, and broke his head, and then
we proceeded on our way, one gentleman taking flying leaps
at some places, climbing up trees now and again, and embedding
himself in the bush alongside the path I because of
the pools of moving blood on it.” (“ I f it had not kept moving,”
he said as he sat where he fell— “ he could have managed
it ”)— the others having grand times with various creatures,
which, judging from their description of them, I was truly
thankful were not there. The men’s state of mind, however,
soon cleared ; and I must say this was the only time I came
across this lhiamba giving such strong effects ; usually the
men just cough with that racking cough that lets you know
what they have been up to, and quarrel for a short time.
When, however, a whiff of lhiamba is taken by them in the
morning before starting on a march, the effect seems to be
good, enabling them to get over the ground easily and to
endure a long march without being exhausted. But a small
tot o f rum is better for them by far. Many other intoxicants
made from bush are known to and used by the witch
doctors.
You may s a y :— W e ll! if it is not the polygamy and not the
drink that makes the West African as useless as he now is as
a developer, or a means of developing the country, what is it ?
In my opinion, it is the sort of instruction he has received, not
that this instruction is necessarily bad in itself, but bad
from being unsuited to the sort of man to whom it has
been given. It has the tendency to develop his emotionalism,
his sloth, and his vanity, and it has no tendency
to develop those parts of his character which are m a rudimentary
state and much want i t ; thereby throwing the whole
character of the man out of gear.
The great inferiority of the African to the European lies in
the matter of mechanical idea. I own I regard not only the
African, but all coloured races, as inferior— inferior in kind
not in degree— to the white races, although I know it is unscientific
to lump all Africans together and then generalise over
them, because the difference between various tribes is very great.
But nevertheless there are certain constant quantities in their
character, let the tribe be what it may, that enable us to do
this for practical purposes, making merely the distinction between
Negroes and Bantu, and on the subject of this division I
may remark that the Negro is superior to the Bantu. He is
both physically and intellectually the more powerful man, and
although he does not christianise well, he does often civilise
well. The native officials cited by Mr. Hodgson in his letter to
the Times of January 4, 1895, as having satisfactorily carried on
all the postal and the governmental printing work of the Gold
Coast Colony, as well as all the subordinate custom-house
officials in the Niger Coast Protector ate-—in fact I may say all
of them in the whole of the British possessions on the West
Coast— are educated Negroes. I am aware that all sea-captains
regard this latter class as poisonous nuisances, but then every
properly constituted sea-captain regards custom-house officials,
let their colour be what it may, as poisonous nuisances anywhere.
In addition to these, you will find, notably in Lagos,
excellent pure-blooded negroes in European clothes, and with
European culture. The best men among these are lawyers,
doctors, and merchants, and I have known many ladies o f
Africa who have risen to an equal culture-level with their
lords. On the West African seaboard you do not find the
Bantu equally advanced, except among the M pongwe, and I
am persuaded that this tribe is not pure Bantu but of Negro
origin. The educated blacks that are not M’pongyre on the
Bantu coast (from Cameroons to Benguela), you will find are
Negroes, who have gone down there to make money, but this
class of African is the clerk class, and we are now concerned
with the labourer. The African’s own way of doing anything
mechanical is the simplest way, not the easiest, certainly not
the quickest: he has all the chuckle-headedness of that overrated
creature the ant, for his head never saves his heels.