the vegetation is very varied in the rock-strewn sides of the ravines, in the granitic and quartzose regions it is very bare and weak. but where the plateau level has been less disturbed, the thick maxinde grass (x = sh) shows the richness of the soil; while the carefully tended farms near the towns, beautiful with the rich green of the ground-nut, thickly tangled with sweet-potatoes, or jungled with cassava bushes, show what can be done with the soil, by clearing and a little scratching with the hoe.
a congo village.
in the broader valleys, where the streams are smaller, or have done less destruction to the country, grows the giant diàdia grass, the stems often attaining two and a half inches in circumference and a mean height of fifteen feet; there may be found some of the richest soil in the world. where the diàdia has been exists the wildest luxuriance of vegetation; palms, plantain, indian corn,31 ground-nuts, yams and all garden produce are at their best, and ever at the mercy of the elephants, who rejoice in such choice selection. in the majinga country the native houses have to be scattered through their rich farms, and morning and night the people shout, scream, and beat their drums to frighten off these giant marauders.
it is not a forest country. strange clumps of trees grow on the tops of the hills, which mark the ancient plateau level, but the rich soil beside the streams and in the snug valleys is generally well wooded. the vegetation presents an altogether tropical appearance, the bracken in the glades is the only thing home-like. rich creepers drape the trees, beautiful palms lend their rare grace, and in their seasons an endless succession of beautiful flowers, from huge arums to a tiny crucifer of the richest scarlet, bright creepers, pure white stephanotis-like blossoms, rich lilies, and many other gorgeous plants, and bright berries, not in such wild, packed profusion that the eye is bewildered with a blaze of beauty, but here and there with sufficient interval to permit the due appreciation of their several lovelinesses. the beauty of the leaf-forms is alone a pleasure; while the tints from the darkest green to soft yellow, delicate pink, bronze, chocolate, and bright crimson are mysteries32 of colour. on the rocky stream banks and on the palm stems are graceful ferns, while the lycopodium climbs the bushes, mingled with the beautiful selaginella. the scenery of the country is described in an unequalled manner by mr. h. h. johnston in his book, the river congo. himself an accomplished artist, he describes as only an artist can.
the vegetation suffers from the annual grass fires, which sweep the country. as soon as the dry season has well set in (june) the burning commences; in some parts it does not become general until august. the grass is fired sometimes on a small scale by the children, that they may hunt their rats, but the great fires occur when the natives of a district combine for a grand hunt. for days the fire steadily sweeps along, the game flee before it, hawks wheel above the line of fire, catching the grasshoppers that seek to avoid the flames, while smaller birds catch the lesser insects. the internodes of the burning grass explode with a report like that of a pistol, and can be heard distinctly a mile distant. women and children follow on the line to dig out the rats; and in the holes may be found rats, mice, snakes, and lizards, seeking common protection from a common danger. at night the horizon is lit up by the zigzag lines of fire, and in the daytime are seen the thick columns of33 smoke slowly advancing, and filling the air with a dull haze, which limits the horizon to ten or fifteen miles.
the climate of the congo has been unduly vilified. in common with all intertropical regions there is a malarial fever, which has claimed many victims. it generally assumes an intermittent type, commencing with an ague ‘shake;’ sometimes it is remittent, and combines with grave symptoms. although the precise nature of the malarial germ is still unknown, continued study has enabled medical men to grapple much more successfully with this great enemy. so long as it was the custom to treat the fever with bleeding and calomel it was no wonder that africa was ‘the white man’s grave;’ that was not so much the fault of africa as the white man’s ignorance.
traders on the coast have generally fair health, and many live to old age. ladies in the mission stations and elsewhere live long on the coast. indeed, dr. laws, of livingstonia, has expressed an opinion that ladies, as a rule, stand the climate better than the men.
in these matters we are far readier to count up the misfortunes than to note the large proportion of those who live long and do good work in africa.
new missions and scientific expeditions have34 paid the penalty for ignorance and the difficulties of pioneering; but where the experience of others can aid, and due precautions are observed, there is no reason why the congo should be considered more unhealthy than india generally. it is certainly possible to live on the congo. the writer, who was one of the first party of the baptist missionary society’s congo mission, and has had five years’ pioneering work, had not a single fever during the last two and a half years. this is rather exceptional, but speaks well as to the possibilities. indeed, there are many reasons why the climate of india should be considered worse. the indian temperature is far higher, dysentery and cholera are annual scourges, and liver complaints far more common.
the excellent observations météorologiques of dr. a. von danckelman, of the international association (asher and co., berlin), gives most interesting statistics of the lower congo. the highest temperature registered by him at an elevation of 375 feet was 96·5° fahr., and the lowest 53°, the highest mean temperature being 83°. the general midday temperature in the house in the hot season is 80°-85°; and at night 75°-80°. on the coast a cool breeze blows in from the sea from about eleven o’clock in the morning; commencing somewhat35 later in proportion to the distance in the interior. this same cool sea-breeze blows freshly on the upper river, and even when high temperatures can be taken in the sun the air is cool. very frequently thick clouds cover the sky and temper the heat. in this respect the congo compares very favourably with india, and with other parts of the african coast. on the congo a punkah is quite unnecessary at any time, in a house built on a reasonable site.
the rainy season commences in the cataract region about september 15, attaining the maxima in november and april, with a minimum (the ‘little rains’) about christmas time, and ceasing about may 15. the rise of the river commences about august, for the northern rains, culminating about january 1, when it falls rapidly until april 1. it then rises rapidly to a second but lower maximum about may 1; it then steadily falls until august. these dates may vary a fortnight, or even three weeks; that is to say, they may occur so much earlier, but seldom later.
the rain generally falls at night, often with a violent tornado soon after sundown. heavy clouds appear on the horizon, the tornado arch advances, the wind lulls, and with breathless suspense everything prepares for the onslaught of the storm. a36 dull roar is heard. the hiss of coming rain, fierce gusts of wind, and in a moment the deluge is upon you. wild wind, torrents of rain, incessant peals of thunder, flashes of lightning every few seconds. the whole world seems to be going to rack and ruin. after an hour or two the fury of the storm is spent, and heavy rain continues for a while.
considering the intensity of the electric disturbance, accidents by lightning are rare. one or two cases only have been noted thus far: the mission boat on the cameroons river was struck, and three people on board killed; a house of the international association was fired; the same thing occurred in a native village. occasionally a tree is struck.
a scene on the congo.
game is not by any means abundant. several species of antelope are found, the most common being the harnessed antelope (tragelaphus scriptus). elephants are numerous in some parts, but are very seldom hunted. leopards are found throughout the country. there are two species of buffaloes on the upper river; west of stanley pool they are less numerous, and more confined in their distribution. the gorilla is reported three days north of stanley pool. the chimpanzee has been heard of, but not seen. many monkeys inhabit the woods. the jackal is not uncommon; but the lion, which was common until fifty years ago, has disappeared37 over the district between the kwangu and the mouth of the river. hippopotami are very numerous; three varieties of crocodile infest the rivers. fish in great variety are caught by the natives in traps and nets, and by hooks and spearing. whitebait fishing affords occupation to many men38 in the cataract regions. by day they sit on the rocks waiting for the gleam of a shoal; and when one appears, in an instant they have divested themselves of their scanty clothes, and rush into the strong shallow water with their nets—not unlike a shrimper’s net—each one a little beyond the other, and often are well rewarded for their trouble. their take is then dried in the sun and sold in the market.
the grey parrots fly home in the evenings in great flocks, whistling and screaming, the happiest birds there are. there is an endless variety of bird-life, which as the mating season nears dons brighter and more striking colouring.
not very promising was the aspect which the wild people dwelling on the banks of the congo river presented to mr. stanley during the first journey through these unknown regions. as he approached a village, the great war drums and horns thundered through the woods, canoes were manned, and, apparently without the remotest reason, they proceeded to attack the white man with his little flock.
fierce, wild savagery, loathsome cannibalism, cruelty, the densest darkness and degradation of heathenism—such was the aspect as the two white men, with some one hundred and fifty followers,39 endeavoured quietly and peaceably to paddle in midstream past the villages.
ngombe warrior.
we have talked with these folk about this humiliating phase of humanity.
‘why did you attack the mundele (white man)?’
40 ‘we did not, but we were going to.’
‘why? sit down, and tell us all about it.’
this to a zombo slave of the bayansi of bolobo, who had been sold by his countrymen for ivory, when scarcely more than a baby. his forehead scored with the tribal mark of his master, he was in bearing and speech a thorough mubangi, but remembered his old language, as there are many such slaves on the upper river.
‘the news reached us,’ he said, ‘that a white man and his followers were coming down the river. every one above us had attacked him for the honour and glory of having fought one of the mysterious whites we hear of, and for whose cloth we trade. we could not let the opportunity pass; had we done so, we should have been behind the rest, and become the ridicule of the river. when we went to trade, and joined the dance in friendly towns, the girls would sing how their braves had fought the white man, while the bolobo people had hidden in the grass like women. we manned our canoes, and hid behind the long point above our town; but a little above us the white man crossed to the other side of the river. we waited to see what would happen, and soon one of our people came from the opposite towns, and told us that the white man was buying food, and giving beads,41 brass wire, and glorious things. we quickly filled our canoes with plaintain, cassava pudding, fowls, etc., and hurried over, and so we did not fight after all.’
that was the beginning of better days for mr. stanley. the story as we heard it at stanley pool explains in a measure the persistent savage attacks.
since november, 1882, there has been a station of the international association at bolobo; and the congo mission is hoping shortly to occupy that populous district.
* * * * *
the inhabitants of africa have been divided into six great races. their languages form the basis of such division. mr. r. n. cust, the secretary of the royal asiatic society, has recently published a valuable work on the languages of africa, and the coloured map accompanying it presents the distribution of races very graphically to the eye. to the north we find the semitic race. in the sahara, on the nile, in abyssinia and in somali land, a hamitic race, speaking languages allied to ethiopic. from gambia to the mouths of the niger the negro race, of whom the ashantees are types.
interspersed among the negro and hamitic races42 are detached peoples, speaking languages of the nuba fullah group, of whom the masai, among whom mr. thomson has been travelling, to the east of the victoria nyanza, may be taken as types.
to the south of all these is the great bantu (= men) race. a line drawn eastward from the gulf of biafra to the indian ocean will mark roughly the boundary of this greatest of the african races. near to the cape of good hope are found the hottentot bushman, a degraded race, who appear to have been the aborigines, but now driven to the remotest corner, are still yielding to the stronger bantus.
it is surmised that some dwarf races, said to be scattered through the bantu countries, may be of this aboriginal stock, but no satisfactory opportunities have yet offered for ascertaining the truth. these dwarfs are always a little beyond the countries visited by travellers, a few specimens, said to belong to them, have been seen, but their country is ever elusive. it is likely that they may prove to be degraded tribes of the races among whom they dwell, just as the niam niams are believed to be nuba-fullahs.
of the bantus the zulu kaffirs may be the best known types, although they have borrowed from43 the hottentots the clicks that so much disfigure their language.
with the exception of these hypothetical dwarfs, the inhabitants of the congo basin are all bantus.
as before stated, language is the basis of such classification. with the other races they have nothing in common. in roots, grammatical construction and all distinguishing features of language, the bantu dialects have a marked individuality, differing almost totally from the other races, while showing the most marked affinities among themselves. it would be inappropriate to burden the present paper with a lengthy dissertation on the peculiarities of the bantu languages. the most marked feature is the euphonic concord, a principle by which the characteristic prefix of the noun is attached to the pronouns and adjectives, qualifying it, and to the verb of which it is the subject. thus matadi mama mampwena mampembe mejitanga beni: these great white stones are very heavy. quoting j. r. wilson, mr. cust remarks that ‘the bantu languages are soft, pliant, and flexible, to an almost unlimited extent. their grammatical principles are founded on the most systematic and philosophical basis, and the number of words may be multiplied to an almost indefinite extent. they are capable of expressing all the nicer shades of44 thought and feeling, and perhaps no other languages of the world are capable of more definiteness and precision of expression. livingstone justly remarks that a complaint of the poverty of the language is often only a sure proof of the scanty attainments of the complainant. as a fact the bantu languages are exceedingly rich.’ my own researches fully confirm these remarks. the question is very naturally raised, whence do these savages possess so fine a language? is it an evolution now in process from something ruder and more savage or from something inarticulate? the marked similarity of the dialects points to a common origin; their richness, superiority, and the regularity of the individual character maintained over so large an area, give a high idea of the original language which was spoken before they separated.
heathenism is degrading, and under its influence everything is going backwards. we are led by the evidence of the language to look for a better, nobler origin of the race, rather than to consider it an evolution from something infinitely lower. the bantu languages are as far removed from others of the continent as english is from turkish or chinese. some earlier writers have endeavoured to trace similarities, but later research has proved that they do not exist. the origin of the race45 must ever remain a mystery. what, when, and where, cannot be ascertained, for no memorials exist in books or monuments. the bantu race and languages cannot be an evolution from something inferior; they are a degradation from something superior. coastwards there are traditions of change and movement on the part of the people; in the east and on the south marauding tribes and slave-hunters have devastated large tracts of country, but there is no sign of general movement on the part of the bantus.
the traditions of countries along the coast where white men have long settled speak of much greater, more powerful kingdoms in the past; and after due allowance has been made for exaggeration, it is too evident that the kings of congo, kabinda, loango, and angola, exerted at one time far more influence than they do to-day. indeed, the king of congo is the only chief who maintains his style and title; the others have become extinct during this century. we find then the whole country in a state of disintegration; every town a separate state, and its chief, to all practical purposes, independent.
makoko, the teke chief with whom de brazza made his famous treaty, is said to have levied taxes on the north bank people near his town. the king of congo used to receive a tribute from the46 remnants of the old congo empire; but to-day he has to content himself with levying a mild blackmail on passing caravans, and receives a present, when he gives the ‘hat’ and the insignia of office to those who succeed to chieftainships over which in olden times the kings exercised suzerainty. few, indeed, of those acknowledge him to-day even to that extent.
these independent townships group themselves into tribes and tribelets; it is, however, a matter of great difficulty to learn the tribal names, which are best obtained from neighbours. the old congo empire formerly included the countries on the south bank from the coast to stanley pool, and southward to the bunda-speaking people of ngola (angola), while homage was rendered by the kings of loango and kabinda. to-day the influence of the king is merely nominal outside his town. he is respected, however, in a radius of thirty or forty miles, but seldom if ever interferes in any matters.
san salvador is situated on a plateau 1,700 feet above the sea, about two-and-a-half miles long by one mile wide. broad valleys 300 feet deep surround it, and in the south flows the little river lueji, a tributary of the lunda-mpozo.
there are abundant traces of its former importance. the ruins of a stone wall, two feet thick47 and fifteen feet high, encircle the town. the ruins of the cathedral are very interesting, and show it to have been a very fine building. the material is an ironstone conglomerate, while the lime was burnt from rock in the neighbourhood.
amid the strong rich grass that covers the plateau exist ruins of some twenty-six buildings, which are said to have been churches, while straight lines of mingomena bushes mark the sites of suburban villas and hamlets. the story runs that the old kings kept up the population of the mbanza (chief town) by raids into the country. the natives of a town forty miles away would wake up in the morning to find themselves surrounded. as they came out of their houses they would be killed, until there was no further show of resistance; then those who remained would be deported to the capital and be compelled to build there, while many would be sold to the slave-traders on the coast. these days are for ever past. men-of-war have so closely watched the coast that the slave trade has languished and died, except in angola, where it exists under a finer name, the slave being considered a ‘colonial,’ while portuguese ingenuity and corruption arrange for ‘emigration’ to the islands san thomé, principe, and even to the bissagos.
48 while these slave raids in congo are things of the past, a mild domestic slavery exists among the natives. in most cases the slaves are more like feudal retainers or serfs. a man of means invests his money in slaves, and thereby becomes more independent, for his slave retainers can support him in difficulties with his neighbours. it frequently happens that he builds a stockade at a little distance from the town in which he has been brought up, and this becomes the nucleus of a new town. in the latter end of the rainy season and the beginning of the ‘dries,’ they will cut nianga grass, the long six-foot blades of which spring up out of the ground, and have no stem or nodes. this grass is dried and used for the covering of the huts. stems of palm fronds are also trimmed and split. papyrus is brought from the marshes, and strips of its green skin twisted into string, with which they tie together securely the posts and rafters, so that they may stand the strain of the fierce tornadoes which sweep the country.
49
manner of dressing the hair.