Travels in West Africa | Page 4

either South America or West Africa must be my destination, for the
Malayan region was too far off and too expensive. Then I got Wallace's
Geographical Distribution and after reading that master's article on the
Ethiopian region I hardened my heart and closed with West Africa. I
did this the more readily because while I knew nothing of the practical
condition of it, I knew a good deal both by tradition and report of South
East America, and remembered that Yellow Jack was endemic, and that
a certain naturalist, my superior physically and mentally, had come
very near getting starved to death in the depressing society of an
expedition slowly perishing of want and miscellaneous fevers up the
Parana.
My ignorance regarding West Africa was soon removed. And although
the vast cavity in my mind that it occupied 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 wit: -
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 mans 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.
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 many
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 beg 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.
Naturally, while my higher intelligence was taken up with attending to
these statements,