Chapter XII Mushari and its Cannibals
After these two unsuccessful attempts to reach Mushari—first, north by Kahanga’s country, and secondly, by the path that runs round the base of Mount Götzen—I determined to cut straight across the lava-streams, in spite of everything that the natives said to dissuade me. Lies, lies, lies, I was sick to death of them, and resolved to go to Mushari by the direct route, cost what it might, the behaviour of my pagazi,8 which caused my second attempt to fail, making me only the more determined to show them that their little games were of no use. In vain I sent out to the villages for guides, none were forthcoming; frightened, as I afterwards discovered, by my boys, they obstinately assured me there was no way across; that we should die of thirst, be eaten by lions, and so forth, ad nauseam. I gave out orders that all my boys were to make sandals, and prepare food and water for two days. In the morning three-quarters of them hobbled up on sticks, pleading sickness; and when I finally started, half of them burst into tears and swore that they were not slaves, to be led into the wilderness to die. When we reached the edge of the lava-stream, there were no shoes or food or water; but when I once stepped on to the stones, the whole scene changed. Beads were produced, natives with sandals for sale brought forth, guides sprang up in bewildering plenty, and, as I had half suspected, I found there was a well-used track across. There is one thing to be said for the Manyema: they play their game right out to the end.
We went south-west for four hours across the eastern stream, making about half a mile an hour; it is like a very broken glacier such as that which lies under the north-west side of the Aiguille du Dru near Chamounix, huge blocks of lava piled one upon the other, and sharp as razors. The length is about twenty miles, and breadth about two in the narrowest part. Further north it branches off to the east and west, the western branch mingling with the great western stream about fifteen miles from the pass between Mount Götzen and Mount Sharp. The natives say that the lava came down two years ago, and that great numbers of elephants were killed; I myself saw the bones of one in our comparatively short traverse.
Already there are patches of bush several miles in extent where the stream eddied, stayed by some extra strong clump of trees, and so wonderful is the tropical growth produced by the combination of damp and fertile soil, that in another twenty years all obvious trace of the great eruption will have been erased. The trees on all the higher spurs which were above the level of the streams were snapped off short by the wind, and lie in regular rows towards the main centres of disturbance. The eruption must have been accompanied by considerable seismic waves, huge rents occurring in the surrounding forests; and very beautiful these rents are, being already converted by a luxuriant nature into exotic ferneries. After leaving the lava the path led west into the bush, and about 4 p.m. we reached a pool of water formed by an old crater. My inquiry as to the death-rate caused much merriment, and the evening passed with howls of joy and those unearthly noises which in Africa pass current for song.
Here we were joined by numbers of natives coming from Mushari with loads of food. On inquiry I found that they were refugees, having been driven out by the Baleka or Bareka, a tribe of cannibals from the Congo who had raided their country. They told me that those who had survived were living in the forest, and that great numbers were dying every day of hunger. On the morrow we skirted along the base of the new volcano for about fourteen miles through the most beautiful glades, coming across several pools of water. Dead natives lined the path, showing that the tales of our last night’s companions were only too true. Towards evening we reached the great western stream, and here we met several natives who were living amongst the stones in the most awful misery, hardly daring even to make a fire. They said that they had been living thus for six months. When driven to despair by hunger, they would make a dash for an armful of half-ripe grain, each time losing some of their number by the Baleka, who were watching all the paths. I lined their bellies and warmed their hearts (identical organs, I believe, in the African and perhaps some others) with beans; and in the morning we advanced into the dreaded land. All the paths up the hills that led to the uplands of Mushari were lined with grain and torn skins, relics of those unfortunates who had been caught; and dried pools of blood, gaunt skeletons, grinning skulls, and trampled grass told a truly African tale. On arriving at the top of the ridge a beautiful rolling country opened out before us, dotted with clusters of grass huts and stately trees; russet patches of ripening mtama contrasted with the emerald green of the wild banana, range upon range of purple hills melted into the nether-world of a tropical horizon. But we were not to enjoy the scenery long, for distant howls showed that we had been observed, silhouetted as we were against the sky; and strings of black figures, brandishing spears and howling at the expected feast, came running down from a neighbouring hill. I was still uncertain as to the exact state of affairs. The refugees and the numerous corpses made it obvious that there was something in the wind, but I imagined that it was merely an ordinary case of native fractiousness, some intertribal squabble, such as occurs every day in these remote corners of the Dark Continent, and that the Baleka and their doings were merely a characteristic effort of the African imagination. But the diabolical noise made by the onrushing natives decided me that the matter was serious. I questioned my guide as to their intentions, and was scarcely reassured by his naïve remark: “They are coming to eat us.” Accordingly I kept quiet behind a clump of grass till they were quite close and there was no further doubt of their intentions, and opened fire with my light rifle. They disappeared like rabbits into the standing crops.
We then hurried on to the huts from which we had seen these people come; but they were too quick for us, and fled. A cloud of vultures hovering over the spot gave me an inkling of what I was about to see, but the realization defies description; it haunts me in my dreams, at dinner it sits on my leg-of-mutton, it bubbles in my soup—in fine, Watonga would not eat the potatoes that grew in the same country, and went without food for forty-eight hours rather than do so: ask your African friends what that means; negroes have not delicate stomachs. Loathsome, revolting, a hideous nightmare of horrors; and yet I must tell briefly what I saw, for the edification of any disciple of the poor-dear-black-man, down-with-the-Maxim, Africa-for-the-African Creed, who may chance to peruse these pages.
Item.—A bunch of human entrails drying on a stick.
Item.—A howling baby.
Item.—A pot of soup with bright yellow fat.
Item.—A skeleton with the skin on lying in the middle of the huts; apparently been dead about three months.
Item.—A gnawed thigh-bone with shreds of half-cooked meat attached.
Item.—A gnawed forearm, raw.
Item.—Three packets of small joints, evidently prepared for flight, but forgotten at the last moment.
Item.—A head, with a spoon left sticking in the brains.
Item.—A head, one cheek eaten, the other charred; hair burnt, and scalp cut off at top of forehead like the peel of an orange; one eye removed, presumably eaten, the other glaring at you.
Item.—Offal, sewage.
Item.—A stench that passeth all understanding, and, as a fitting accompaniment, a hovering cloud of crows and loathly, scraggy-necked vultures.
Every village had been burnt to the ground, and as I fled from the country I saw skeletons, skeletons everywhere; and such postures, what tales of horror they told! Let this suffice, worse than all this I saw, and that I have not exaggerated one jot or tittle, may God bear me witness! I would not have entered into these revolting details, but that I think it advisable that those who have not the chance of seeing for themselves should know what is going on every day in this country. A beautiful yellow covers this spot on the map, with a fringe of red spots with flags attached, denoting (as the map informs you) stations of the Congo Free State. And yet a peaceful agricultural people can be subjected to horrors like this for months (without any one knowing). And why? Because the whole system is bunkum—the so-called partition of Africa. The stations marked do not exist; and read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest this fact: I have to pay a licence to carry a gun in the country.
The next day I reached Kishari, and found that this beautiful and well-watered country had been converted into a howling wilderness, Kameronse having suffered to the same extent. Thus a tract of country about 3,000 square miles in extent has been depopulated and devastated. I do not believe that two per cent. of the thousands of inhabitants have survived the massacre and famine: in Kishari and Kameronse there is not one single soul. And all this is directly attributable to the revolted Askaris of the Congo: they led the attack with thirty guns, took all the cattle, and then departed, leaving this horde of hyænas in their wake; and a similar fate has, I suppose, befallen all those tribes between Tanganyika and Albert Edward through whose country they passed.
The partition or occupation of Africa with a view to sound colonization—that is, to fit the country as a future home for surplus population—is the obvious duty of the nations which form the vanguard of civilization. This is the object of our occupation of the various territories under the British flag, and of the Germans in the East and South-west Africa, and, I believe, of the French in the north, to make new markets and open up country for coming generations; to suffer temporary loss for the future benefit of overcrowded humanity. Experience and the suitability of our institutions are the reasons of our success. The predominance of militarism is the reason of the hitherto comparative failure of the two great land powers, and corruption and senile decay are the reasons of the abject failure of the nation that led the van of colonization. However, experientia docet, and Germany, at least, is laying a sound foundation for a broader colonial policy, while Portuguese occupation is only a negative failure. But what can be said in favour of permitting a vast tract of country to be run merely as a commercial speculation without more legitimate objective than that of squeezing as much rubber and ivory out of the natives as possible; of arming large numbers of savages and entrusting them to inexperienced men from a land of untravelled commercials to whom expatriation is akin to disgrace; of making the administrators of districts to all intents and purposes farmers of the taxes? However sound the intentions of the fountain-head, there can be no responsible administration without a connection with a definite home government. Men do not take employment in Africa for the joke of the thing. Hopes of preferment or pecuniary profit are what induce them to give up the comforts of civilization, and where the former is lacking the latter must be offered, or only the dregs of other trades will be forthcoming.
Then followed two of the worst days of my life. Rapid movements alone could save us from annihilation, and we travelled from sunrise to sunset, camping in patches of forest, and concealing our route by leaving the paths and forcing our way through the grass. Mummies, skulls, limbs, putrefying carcases washing to and fro in every limpid stream, marked the course of the fiendish horde. An insufferable stench filled the land, concentrating round every defiled homestead. This was the Congo Free State. Fear of being rushed at night made sleep well-nigh impossible, tired as we were. The country was exceedingly beautiful. Wild stretches of undulating hills, streaked with forest and drained by a hundred streams, each with its cargo of bloated corpses, made a terrible combination of heaven and hell. It was a scene that made one wonder if there be a God. To the west I could see two lakes nestling between the hills. A stream connects the two, and empties out at the south end, flowing, I imagined, towards the Congo. Flights of gorgeous butterflies floated here and there, and, settling on the gruesome relics, gave a finishing touch to the horrors of that land.
Leaving Kishari, we passed over the watershed, about 9,500 ft., and descended into Kameronse. Here we were met by the same scenes of desolation; the whole country had been swept clean—not so much as a sweet potato, which grow almost as weeds, was left. As we were skirting along a large papyrus swamp, which absorbs all the neighbouring streams, we came on the fresh spoor of natives. I had only just seized my gun, for which I had to wait about ten minutes, when a woman, girl, and two small boys appeared. These my natives captured; and no sooner did the woman realize that she had fallen into undesirable quarters, than she offered to show us where her relations lay. I followed the direction indicated with great caution, the way leading through very tall and thick grass; and as I turned a corner, my guide flashed past me like a streak of lightning, and I found myself confronted by half a dozen gentlemen of anthropophagic proclivities on supper intent. The unexpected apparition of a white man checked their rush, and dodging a spear, I got my chance and dropped one with a shot through the heart, two others escaping by my magazine failing to feed the barrel. We rushed on in pursuit, and shortly came on their encampment in a banana grove; here were the same ghastly relics as we had seen before. It appeared that they had raided an outlying village of Bugoie the previous night, and had caught two unfortunate wretches, whose remains were baking and stewing in pots. From the number of the rude huts there must have been at least fifty Baleka, but they had disappeared into the grass and papyrus, and we saw no more of them. Some baskets of grain were lying about, and these the Manyema eagerly seized upon; but I could not bring myself to eat any, and my Watonga were equally fastidious, although we had been almost without food for three days. Our captives were terribly thin, and these outlying bands of raiders are evidently leading but a hand-to-mouth existence; and as the Baleka have cut their boats adrift by wiping out the whole country behind them (in their wanton madness they even cut down the banana palms), I am afraid the people of Bugoie will eventually succumb, although hitherto they have held out. As yet they have only had to repel the attacks of small bands, the main mass of the Baleka being still occupied in demolishing the mtama fields of northern Mushari. When the general onslaught begins, I think they will have to give way before the thousands of savages rendered desperate by the impossibility of retreat, and those, too, men of superior courage. Those Baleka that I had the chance of observing at close quarters were well made and pleasant-featured, averaging not more than 5 ft. Their possessions—baskets, shields, knives, etc.—are very crude, and their dress consists of air and an occasional scrap of hide, human or otherwise. Whether they have a definite country or not, I cannot say; some natives told me that they have, many days’ journey west of Kivu, while the majority say that they lead a nomadic existence like a flight of locusts, eating up just as effectually whatever they come across. At a rough estimate, there cannot have been less than 5,000 of them in the countries I passed through.
The next morning we came on another small encampment, which, fortunately, had been unable to see our fires, owing to the dense bush, although we were not half a mile away. To my amazement our guide, seeing one gentleman apart from the rest and unarmed, rushed in and speared him. The others turned on me, but were dispersed with a couple of shots. This was the last we saw of the Baleka, as, in the evening, we reached the outskirts of Bugoie, but skulls and charred relics for many miles bore witness to their recent raids. Very glad I was of a night’s rest, for although the moral and sometimes physical effect of firearms on these unsophisticated people is very great, still the danger of being rushed at night, or in the dense forest and long grass, made it very anxious work; also the smallness of my caravan—twelve carriers with only two sniders, and such excitable curs at the end of them that I forbade them to fire—made us a tempting prey for any large number of natives we might meet; however, this was balanced by the rapidity of our movements and unexpected appearance, which would have been impossible with a larger caravan.
Such was the country that had been described to me by Dr. Kandt, who had visited it six months before, as a beautiful district teeming with peaceful agricultural folk. The natives informed me that of all that flourishing community but sixty remained. I was very anxious about Sharp, fearing that he might enter the country by a different road to that by which I had just left. Had he arrived hampered by a large caravan and cattle, he must inevitably have been destroyed. Hoping that he was still south of the volcanoes, I hurried east through the forest that is springing up on the great lava-bed thrown out by the last eruption but one. Here too the path was strewn with skulls, showing the desperate efforts that the Baleka had made to force an entry into Bugoie. Late in the afternoon we arrived at an old volcanic cone. This was the outpost of Bugoie, and the few wretched survivors, seeing us approaching through the forest, naturally mistook us for Baleka, and quickly prepared for battle. It was only after an hour’s shouting that we allayed their fears. With some difficulty we managed to procure a jar of bad water, which we sadly needed, having had nothing to drink since daybreak, and we endeavoured to appease our ravening hunger with a brace of pumpkins, which was all the poor creatures had to offer us. Their destitution was complete, and filled me with pity, but I was powerless to assist them. It was impossible to obtain any definite information about Sharp, and it was with the direst forebodings that I started the following morning, as I knew that there was now no chance of intercepting him. However, an hour later I met an elderly pigmy in the forest and managed to induce him to talk. He was a splendid little fellow full of self-confidence, and gave me most concise information, stating that the white man with many belongings had passed near by two days before, and had then gone down to the lake-shore, where he was camped at that moment. These people must have a wonderful code of signs and signals, as, despite their isolated and nomadic existence, they always know exactly what is happening everywhere. He was a typical pigmy as found on the volcanoes—squat, gnarled, proud, and easy of carriage. His beard hung down over his chest, and his thighs and chest were covered with wiry hair. He carried the usual pigmy bow made of two pieces of cane spliced together with grass, and with a string made of a single strand of a rush that grows in the forests.
I sent off two of my boys with a note to Sharp, and pushed on as fast as possible to the food districts of Bugoie, where my boys ate so much that I despaired of their surviving. For the next two days I was very ill, owing to my having eaten a number of green bananas in the first banana plantation that I entered. The scarcity of water made it still more difficult to endure the pangs of hunger during the last day of our march.
Having partially recovered, I marched back to my northernmost camp and waited for Sharp. The natives, thinking that I could be imposed upon with my small caravan, ignored my presence, and in face of several requests refused to bring in food for sale. The country was very rich in produce, so I warned the chief that unless he brought in food in the ordinary way for sale I should be obliged to come and take what I wanted, as I could not starve. I was just preparing to carry out my threat, when Sharp arrived, and the chief soon turned up with a diseased sheep and about a quart of flour, which I promptly clapped on to his head, while Sharp roared with laughter at him. He tried hard to maintain his dignity, but with little effect: a little, tub-bellied man, he presented the most ridiculous spectacle imaginable as he stalked out of camp half black, half white, preceded by his awed followers. In the afternoon he returned with plenty of supplies, and after receiving a handsome present in exchange, retired quite satisfied. After making yet two more attempts after elephant, in the course of which I came on many cattle-yards hidden in the deepest recesses of the forest, we gave it up as hopeless, and determined to press on to the Albert Edward Lake. During one of my elephant hunts I came on the skeleton of a gigantic ape, larger than anything I have ever seen in the anthropoids, but I never saw a live specimen, though the natives assured me that they were plentiful, and were a great source of annoyance to the villages, being in the habit of carrying off stray women.
While exploring with a small number of followers, I observed some ape-like creatures leering at me from behind banana-palms, and with considerable difficulty my Ruanda guide induced one of them to come and be inspected. He was a tall man with the long arms, pendent paunch, and short legs of the ape, pronouncedly microcephalous and prognathous. At first he was terribly alarmed, but soon gained confidence, and when I asked him about game and elephant, he gave me most realistic representations of them and of how they should be attacked. I failed to exactly define their status, but from the contempt in which they were held by the Wa Ruanda their local caste must be very low. The stamp of the brute was so strong on them that I should place them lower in the human scale than any other natives I have seen in Africa. Their type is quite distinct from the other people’s, and, judging from the twenty to thirty specimens that I saw, very consistent. Their face, body, and limbs are covered with wiry hair, and the hang of the long, powerful arms, the slight stoop of the trunk, and the hunted, vacant expression of the face, made up a tout ensemble that was a terrible pictorial proof of Darwinism. Two of them accompanied me to Mushari. On the road they showed me the ease with which they can make fire with their fire-sticks.
Notes
8 Porters.