I was a close watcher of Mongo John
whenever he engaged in the purchase of slaves.
As each negro was brought before him, Ormond examined
the subject, without regard to sex, from head to foot.
A careful manipulation of the chief muscles, joints,
arm-pits and groins was made, to assure soundness.
The mouth, too, was inspected, and if a tooth was
missing, it was noted as a defect liable to deduction.
Eyes, voice, lungs, fingers and toes were not forgotten;
so that when the negro passed from the Mongo’s
hands without censure, he might have been readily
adopted as a good “life” by an insurance
company.
Upon one occasion, to my great astonishment,
I saw a stout and apparently powerful man discarded
by Ormond as utterly worthless. His full muscles
and sleek skin, to my unpractised eye, denoted the
height of robust health. Still, I was told that
he had been medicated for the market with bloating
drugs, and sweated with powder and lemon-juice to
impart a gloss to his skin. Ormond remarked that
these jockey-tricks are as common in Africa as among
horse-dealers in Christian lands; and desiring me
to feel the negro’s pulse, I immediately detected
disease or excessive excitement. In a few days
I found the poor wretch, abandoned by his owner, a
paralyzed wreck in the hut of a villager at Bangalang.
When a slave becomes useless to his
master in the interior, or exhibits signs of failing
constitution, he is soon disposed of to a peddler
or broker. These men call to their aid a quack,
familiar with drugs, who, for a small compensation,
undertakes to refit an impaired body for the temptation
of green-horns. Sometimes the cheat is successfully
effected; but experienced slavers detect it readily
by the yellow eye, swollen tongue, and feverish skin.
After a few more lessons, I was considered
by the Mongo sufficiently learned in the slave traffic
to be intrusted with the sole management of his stores.
This exemption from commerce enabled him to indulge
more than ever in the use of ardent spirits, though
his vanity to be called “king,” still
prompted him to attend faithfully to all the “country
palavers;” and, let it be said to
his credit, his decisions were never defective in
judgment or impartiality.
After I had been three months occupied
in the multifarious intercourse of Bangalang and its
neighborhood, I understood the language well enough
to dispense with the interpreter, who was one of the
Mongo’s confidential agents. When my companion
departed on a long journey, he counselled me to make
up with Unga-golah, the harem’s Cerberus,
as she suspected my intimacy with Esther, who would
doubtless be denounced to Ormond, unless I purchased
the beldame’s silence.
Indeed, ever since the night of warning,
when the beautiful quarteroon visited my hovel,
I had contrived to meet this charming girl, as the
only solace of my solitude. Amid all the wild,
passionate, and savage surroundings of Bangalang, Esther the
Pariah was the only golden link that still
seemed to bind me to humanity and the lands beyond
the seas. On that burning coast, I was not excited
by the stirring of an adventurous life, nor was my
young heart seduced and bewildered by absorbing avarice.
Many a night, when the dews penetrated my flesh, as
I looked towards the west, my soul shrank from the
selfish wretches around me, and went off in dreams
to the homes I had abandoned. When I came back
to myself, when I was forced to recognize
my doom in Africa, when I acknowledged that
my lot had been cast, perhaps unwisely, by myself,
my spirit turned, like the worm from the crashing
heel, and found nothing that kindled for me with the
light of human sympathy, save this outcast girl.
Esther was to me as a sister, and when the hint of
her harm or loss was given, I hastened to disarm the
only hand that could inflict a blow. Unga-golah
was a woman, and a rope of sparkling coral for her
neck, smothered all her wrongs.
The months I had passed in Africa
without illness, though I went abroad after
dark, and bathed in the river during the heat of the
day, made me believe myself proof against
malaria. But, at length, a violent pain in my
loins, accompanied by a swimming head, warned me that
the African fever held me in its dreaded gripe.
In two days I was delirious. Ormond visited me;
but I knew him not, and in my madness, called on Esther,
accompanying the name with terms of endearment.
This, I was told, stirred the surprise and jealousy
of the Mongo, who forthwith assailed the matron of
his harem with a torrent of inquiries and abuse.
But Unga-golah was faithful. The beads had sealed
her tongue; so that, with the instinctive adroitness
peculiar to ladies of her color, she fabricated a
story which not only quieted the Mongo, but added
lustre to Esther’s character.
The credulous old man finding Unga
so well disposed towards his watchful clerk, restored
the warehouse to her custody. This was the height
of her avaricious ambition; and, in token of gratitude
for my profitable malady, she contrived to let Esther
become the nurse and guardian of my sick bed.
As my fever and delirium continued,
a native doctor, renowned for his skill, was summoned,
who ordered me to be cupped in the African fashion
by scarifying my back and stomach with a hot knife,
and applying plantain leaves to the wounds. The
operation allayed my pulse for a few hours; but as
the fever came back with new vigor, it became necessary
for my attendants to arouse the Mongo to a sense of
my imminent danger. Yet Ormond, instead of springing
with alacrity to succor a friend and retainer in affliction,
sent for a young man, named Edward Joseph, who had
formerly been in his employment, but was now settled
on his own account in Bangalang.
Joseph proved a good Samaritan.
As soon as he dared venture upon my removal, he took
me to his establishment at Kambia, and engaged the
services of another Mandingo doctor, in whose absurdities
he believed. But all the charms and incantations
of the savage would not avail, and I remained in a
state of utter prostration and apparent insensibility
until morning. As soon as day dawned, my faithful
Esther was again on the field of action; and this
time she insisted upon the trial of her judgment,
in the person of an old white-headed woman, who accompanied
her in the guise of the greatest enchantress of the
coast. A slave, paid in advance, was the fee
for which she undertook to warrant my cure.
No time was to be lost. The floor
of a small and close mud hut was intensely heated,
and thickly strewn with moistened lemon leaves, over
which a cloth was spread for a couch. As soon
as the bed was ready, I was borne to the hovel, and,
covered with blankets, was allowed to steam and perspire,
while my medical attendant dosed me with half a tumbler
of a green disgusting juice which she extracted from
herbs. This process of drinking and barbecuing
was repeated during five consecutive days, at the
end of which my fever was gone. But my convalescence
was not speedy. For many a day, I stalked about,
a useless skeleton, covering with ague, and afflicted
by an insatiable appetite, until a French physician
restored me to health by the use of cold baths at
the crisis of my fever.
When I was sufficiently recovered
to attend to business, Mongo John desired me to resume
my position in his employment. I heard, however,
from Esther, that during my illness, Unga-golah used
her opportunities so profitably in the warehouse,
that there would be sad deficiencies, which, doubtless,
might be thrown on me, if the crone were badly disposed
at any future period. Accordingly, I thought it
decidedly most prudent to decline the clerkship, and
requested the Mongo to recompense me for the time
and attention I had already bestowed on him.
This was refused by the indolent voluptuary; so we
parted with coolness, and I was once more adrift in
the world.
In these great outlying colonies and
lodgments of European nations in the East Indies and
Africa, a stranger is commonly welcome to the hospitality
of every foreigner. I had no hesitation, therefore,
in returning to the house of Joseph, who, like myself,
had been a clerk of Ormond, and suffered from the
pilferings of the matron.
My host, I understood, was a native
of London, where he was born of continental parents,
and came to Sierra Leone with Governor Turner.
Upon the death or return of that officer, I
do not recollect which, the young adventurer
remained in the colony, and, for a time, enjoyed the
post of harbor master. His first visit to the
Rio Pongo was in the capacity of supercargo of a small
coasting craft, laden with valuable merchandise.
Joseph succeeded in disposing of his wares, but was
not equally fortunate in collecting their avails.
It was, perhaps, an ill-judged act of the supercargo,
but he declined to face his creditors with a deficient
balance-sheet; and quitting Sierra Leone for ever,
accepted service with Ormond. For a year he continued
in this employment; but, at the end of that period,
considering himself sufficiently informed of the trade
and language of the river, he sent a message to his
creditors at the British settlement that he could
promptly pay them in full, if they would advance him
capital enough to commence an independent trade.
The terms were accepted by an opulent Israelite, and
in a short time Edward Joseph was numbered among the
successful factors of Rio Pongo.
As I had nothing to do but get well
and talk, I employed my entire leisure in acquiring
the native language perfectly. The Soosoo is a
dialect of the Mandingo. Its words, ending almost
universally in vowels, render it as glibly soft and
musical as Italian; so that, in a short time, I spoke
it as fluently as my native tongue.