Travels in West Africa | Page 7

I merely beg to state this was
decidedly not my experience; although my deplorable ignorance of
French prevented me from explaining my humble intentions to them.
The Rev. Dr. Nassau and Mr. R. E. Dennett have enabled me, by
placing at my disposal the rich funds of their knowledge of native life
and idea, to amplify any deductions from my own observation. Mr.

Dennett's work I have not dealt with in this work because it refers to
tribes I was not amongst on this journey, but to a tribe I made the
acquaintance with in my '93 voyage--the Fjort. Dr. Nassau's
observations I have referred to. Herr von Lucke, Vice- governor of
Cameroon, I am indebted to for not only allowing me, but for assisting
me by every means in his power, to go up Cameroons Peak, and to the
Governor of Cameroon, Herr von Puttkamer, for his constant help and
kindness. Indeed so great has been the willingness to help me of all
these gentlemen, that it is a wonder to me, when I think of it, that their
efforts did not project me right across the continent and out at Zanzibar.
That this brilliant affair did not come off is owing to my own lack of
enterprise; for I did not want to go across the continent, and I do not
hanker after Zanzibar, but only to go puddling about obscure districts in
West Africa after raw fetish and fresh-water fishes.
I owe my ability to have profited by the kindness of these gentlemen on
land, to a gentleman of the sea--Captain Murray. He was captain of the
vessel I went out on in 1893, and he saw then that my mind was full of
errors that must be eradicated if I was going to deal with the Coast
successfully; and so he eradicated those errors and replaced them with
sound knowledge from his own stores collected during an acquaintance
with the West Coast of over thirty years. The education he has given
me has been of the greatest value to me, and I sincerely hope to make
many more voyages under him, for I well know he has still much to
teach and I to learn.
Last, but not least, I must chronicle my debts to the ladies. First to
those two courteous Portuguese ladies, Donna Anna de Sousa Coutinho
e Chichorro and her sister Donna Maria de Sousa Coutinho, who did so
much for me in Kacongo in 1893, and have remained, I am proud to
say, my firm friends ever since. Lady MacDonald and Miss Mary
Slessor I speak of in this book, but only faintly sketch the pleasure and
help they have afforded me; nor have I fully expressed my gratitude for
the kindness of Madame Jacot of Lembarene, or Madame Forget of
Talagouga. Then there are a whole list of nuns belonging to the Roman
Catholic Missions on the South West Coast, ever cheery and charming
companions; and Frau Plehn, whom it was a continual pleasure to see
in Cameroons, and discourse with once again on things that seemed so
far off then--art, science, and literature; and Mrs. H. Duggan, of

Cameroons too, who used, whenever I came into that port to rescue me
from fearful states of starvation for toilet necessaries, and lend a
sympathetic and intelligent ear to the "awful sufferings" I had gone
through, until Cameroons became to me a thing to look forward to.
When in the Canaries in 1892, I used to smile, I regretfully own, at the
conversation of a gentleman from the Gold Coast who was up there
recruiting after a bad fever. His conversation consisted largely of
anecdotes of friends of his, and nine times in ten he used to say, "He's
dead now." Alas! my own conversation may be smiled at now for the
same cause. Many of my friends mentioned even in this very recent
account of the Coast "are dead now." Most of those I learnt to know in
1893; chief among these is my old friend Captain Boler, of Bonny,
from whom I first learnt a certain power of comprehending the African
and his form of thought.
I have great reason to be grateful to the Africans themselves--to
cultured men and women among them like Charles Owoo, Mbo, Sanga
Glass, Jane Harrington and her sister at Gaboon, and to the bush natives;
but of my experience with them I give further details, so I need not
dwell on them here.
I apologise to the general reader for giving so much detail on matters
that really only affect myself, and I know that the indebtedness which
all African travellers have to the white residents in Africa is a matter
usually very lightly touched on. No doubt my voyage would seem a
grander thing if