A Strange Promise

: The Great White Queen

BY the light of the flambeaux the sleek, black, oily-looking natives

managed their clumsy craft, which, dipping suddenly now and then, shipped

great seas, compelling us to hang on for life. The sails creaked and

groaned as they bent to the wind, speeding on in the darkness towards the

mainland of Africa. To be transferred to such a ship, which I more than

suspected was a slaver, was a complete change after the clean,

w ll-ordered Liverpool liner, and I must confess that, had we not been in

charge of Kouaga, I should have feared to trust myself among that

shouting cut-throat crew of grinning blacks. Clinging to a rope I stood

watching the strange scene, rendered more weird by the flickering

uncertain light of the torches falling upon the swarm of natives who

manned the craft.



"Are these your mother's people?" I inquired of Omar.



"Some are. I recognize several as our slaves, the remainder are Sanwi, or

natives of the coast. Our slaves, I suppose, have been sent down to be

our carriers."



"Judging from the manner in which they crawl about this is, I should

think, their first experience of the sea," I said.



"No doubt. Over a thousand English miles of desert and almost

impenetrable bush separates the sea from our kingdom, therefore few, very

few of our people have seen it."



"They'll go back with some wonderful tales, I suppose."



"Yes. They will, on their return, be considered heroes of travel, and

their friends will hold feasts in their honour."



As he finished speaking, however, our cumbrous craft seemed suddenly to

be lifted high out of the water, and amid the unearthly yells of the

whole crew we were swept through a belt of foaming surf, until in a few

moments our keel slid upon the sand.



I prepared to leap down upon the beach, but in a second half-a-dozen

willing pairs of arms were ready to assist me, and I alighted in the

midst of a swarm of half-clad, jabbering natives.



One of them, elbowing his way towards me, asked in broken English:



"Massa have good voyage--eh?" whereupon the others laughed heartily at

hearing one of their number speak the language of the white men. But

Kouaga approached uttering angry words, and from that moment the same

respect was paid to me as to Omar.



We found there was a small village where we landed, otherwise the coast

was wild and desolate. In an uncleanly little hut to which we were taken

when our boxes were landed and the excitement had subsided, we were

regaled with various African delicacies, which at first I did not find

palatable, but which Omar devoured with a relish, declaring that he had

not enjoyed a meal so much since he had left "the Coast" for England.

But I did not care for yams, and the stewed monkey looked suspiciously

like a cooked human specimen. My geographical knowledge was not so

extensive as it might have been, and I was not certain whether these

natives were not cannibals. Therefore I only made a pretence of eating,

and sat silently contemplating the strange scene as we all sat upon the

floor and took up our food with our fingers. When we had concluded the

feast a native woman served Omar with some palm wine, which, however, he

did not drink, but poured it upon the ground as an offering to the fetish

for his safe return, and then we threw ourselves upon the skins stretched

out for us and slept till dawn.



At sunrise I got up and went out. The place was, I discovered, even more

desolate than I had imagined. Nothing met the eye in every direction but

vast plains of interminable sand, with hillocks here and there, also of

sand; no trees were to be seen, not even a shrub; all was arid, dry and

parched up with heat. The village was merely an assemblage of a dozen

miserable mud huts, and so great was the monotony of the scene, that the

eye rested with positive pleasure on the dirty, yellow-coloured craft in

which we had landed during the night. It had apparently once been

whitewashed, but had gradually assumed that tawny hue that always

characterises the African wilderness.



Again Omar and I were surrounded by the crowd of fierce-looking

barbarians, but the twenty stalwart carriers sent down from Mo,

apparently considering themselves a superior race to these

coast-dwellers, ordered them away from our vicinity, at the same time

preparing to start for the interior. Under the direction of Kouaga, who

had already abandoned his European attire and now wore an Arab haick and

white burnouse, the gang of chattering men soon got their loads of food

and merchandise together--for the Grand Vizier had apparently been

purchasing a quantity of guns and ammunition in England--hammocks were

provided for all three of us if we required them, and after a good meal

we at length set out, turning our backs upon the sea.



After descending the crest of a sand-hill we found ourselves fairly in

the desert. As far as we could see away to the limitless horizon was

sand--arid, parched red-brown sand without a vestige of herbage. The wind

that was blowing carried grains of it, which filled one's mouth and

tasted hot and gritty; again, impalpable atoms of sand were blown into

the corners of one's eyes, and, besides, this injury inflicted on the

organ of vision was calculated by no means to improve one's temper.

However, Omar told me that a beautiful and fruitful land lay beyond,

therefore we made light of these discomforts, and, after a march of three

days, during which time we were baked by day by the merciless sun and

chilled at night by the heavy dews, we at last came to the edge of the

waterless wilderness, and remained for some hours to rest.



My first glimpse of the "Dark Continent" was not a rosy one. As a

well-known writer has already pointed out, life with a band of native

carriers might for a few days be a diverting experience if the climate

were good and if there was no immediate necessity for hurry. But as

things were it proved a powerful exercise, especially when we commenced

to traverse the almost impenetrable bush by the native path, so narrow

that two men could not walk abreast.



Across a great dismal swamp where high trees and rank vegetation grew in

wondrous profusion we wended our way, day by day, amid the thick white

mist that seemed to continually envelop us. But it required a little more

than persuasion to make our carriers travel as quickly as Kouaga liked.

At early dawn while the hush of night yet hung above the forest, our

guide would rise, stretch his giant limbs and kick up a sleeping

trumpeter. Then the tall, dark forest would echo with the boom of an

elephant-tusk horn, whose sound was all the more weird since it came from

between human jaws with which the instrument was decorated. The crowd of

blacks got up readily enough, but it was merely in order to light their

fires and to settle down to eat plantains. At length the horn would sound

again, but produce no result. The whole company still squatted, eating

and jabbering away, indifferent to every other sound. The head man would

be called for by Kouaga. "Why are your men not ready? Know you not that

the son of the great Naya is with us?" With a deprecatory smile the

head-man would make some excuse. He had hurt his foot, or had rheumatism,

and therefore he, and consequently his men, would be compelled to rest

that day. He would then be warned that if not ready to march in five

minutes, he would be carried captive into Mo for the Great White Queen

herself to deal with. In five minutes he would return to Kouaga, saying

that if the Grand Vizier would only give the men a little more salt with

their "chop" (food) that evening, they would march.



Kouaga would then become furious, soundly rating everybody, and declare

that the Naya herself should deal with the whole lot as mutineers;

whereupon, seeing all excuses for further halt unavailing, loads would

be taken up, and within a few moments the whole string of half-clad

natives would go laughing and singing on the forward path.



The first belt of forest passed we entered a vast level land covered with

scrub, which Omar informed me was the border of the Debendu territory.

Proceeding down a wide valley we came at length to the first inhabited

region. Every three or four miles we passed through a native

village--usually a single street of thirty or forty houses. Each house

consisted, as a rule, of three or four small sheds, facing inwards, and

forming a tiny courtyard. The huts were on built-up platforms, with hard

walls of mud, and roofs thatched with palm-leaves, while the front steps

were faced with a kind of red cement. In the middle of each centre of

habitation we found a tree with seats around it formed of untrimmed logs,

on which the elders and head-men of the village would sit, smoke, and

gravely discuss events. As we left each village to plunge boldly onward

through the bush we would pass the village fetish ground, well defined by

the decaying bodies of lizards and birds, a grinning human skull or two,

broken pots and pieces of rag fluttering in the wind, all offered as

propitiation to the presiding demon of the place, while away in the bush,

behind the houses, we saw the giant leaves of the plantain groves that

yielded the staple food of this primitive people.



Deeper and deeper we proceeded until we came into regular forest scenery,

where day after day we pushed our way through solemn shady aisles of

forest giants, whose upper parts gleamed far above the dense undergrowth

in white pillars against the grey-blue sky. Sometimes we strode down a

picturesque sunny glade, and at others struggled through deep dark

crypts of massive bamboo clumps. Here the noisome smell of decaying

vegetation nauseated us, for the air in those forest depths is deadly.

Beautiful scarlet wax-flowers would gleam high among the dark-green

foliage of the giant cotton-tree, whose stem would be covered with

orchids and ferns and dense wreaths of creeper, while many other

beautiful blossoms flourished and faded unseen. In that dark dismal place

there was an absence of animal life. Sometimes, however, by day we would

hear the tuneful wail of the finger-glass bird or an occasional robin

would chirrup, while at night great frogs croaked gloomily and the sloth

would shriek at our approach.



It was truly a toilsome, dispiriting march, as in single file we pushed

our way forward into the interior, and I confess I soon began to tire of

the monotony of the terrible gloom. But to all my questions Omar would

reply:



"Patience. In Africa we have violent contrasts always. To-day we are

toiling onward through a region of eternal night, but when we have

traversed the barrier that shuts out our country from the influence of

yours--then you shall see. What you shall witness will amaze you."