^^e L AN D ftbe WHITE HELMET EDGAR ALLEN FORBES .^-^ '^*^^, ^' ^^ ^^^ '.^ "■."c: '^x^' ."iS; %%* - ^^-^ . ^ * ..,v > 0* * <<• "^ o'^ ..^ 'f^. >- ^ ■,\ "^ '==-.. ^0^^ r A O '^^ ,0 ^N*^^ ^^ % ■& J-^ -^^^ v.- «>'-. ' ' The Land of the White Helmet The Land of the White Helmet Lights and Shadows across Africa By EDGAR ALLEN FORBES New York Chicago Toronto Fleming H. Revell Company London and Edinburgh Copyright, 1910, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY AFRICA SHADED ACCORDING TO ITS DEADLINESS New York: 158 Fifth Avenue Chicago: 80 Wabash Avenue Toronto: 25 Richmond St., W. London: 21 Paternoster Square Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street ©ci.a:^;592 I ^ TO HER ** O memories that bless and hum 1 ** PREFACE I have written the thing as I saw it, for the God of Things-As-They-Are. E. A. R CONTENTS I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. XL XII. XIII. XIV. XV. --XVI. XVIL XVIII. XIX. -^. XX. — XXI. ~ XXII. XXIII. XXIV. .XXV. At the Sign of the Three Balls . White Man's Africa — How He Got It The New Pharaoh in Egypt . France's African Empire . The Arab as a Frenchman Between the Sahara and the Sea In the Surf of the Desert Sea The White Helmet in the Sahara The Mix-up in Morocco . Casablanca and Captain Cobb . West Africa's Half- Way House The Log of a Deck-Passenger . The Negro as a Frenchman . A Hundred Years of Sierra Leone The United States in Liberia . The Truth about Liberia Who's What in Liberia ? . The Black Man's Last Stand . In the West African Bush Hobnobbing with African Kings Making King Wobeh's Heart Lie Down 291 The Women of Black Man's Africa African Guides I Have Cussed Hunting Africans with a Camera Perspective and Retrospective 7 PAGE II 21 43 64 79 95 113 130 137 151 165 177 187 196 211 226 238 254 264 275 309 326 348 354 GROWTH OF BRITISH AFRICA GROWTH OF FRENCH AFRICA SINCE i8is SINCE 1880 AFRICA TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO AFRICA THIRTY YEARS AGO ILLUSTRATIONS Crossing Les DUNES DE Sable . The White Helmet in the Sahara "Great Spaces Washed with Sun" A Sahara " Freighter " at Anchor . The Oasis City of El Oued, Sahara "There Is but One God Who Is God The Arab Chieftains of Algeria The Land of the Goat's-Hair Tents The Women of the Bedaween Tents In the Harbour of Sousse, Tunisia . The Arab Quarter Beyond the Wall Wind- Jammer with Works Like a Bazoo La reine des Ouled-Nails . A Moor of the Abd-el-Kader Type A Reminder of the Spanish Regime A Little Magdalen of Morocco General d'Amade_, the Fighter of Casablanca Taylor, Cross, Cobb, Lewis, at Casablanca Catsudas in Our Walburg "Stateroom" Hummel and the Dynamite Beneath It The Negro as a Frenchman at Rufisque Homes of Imported Negroes, Freetown A Crew of Kroo Coalers, Sierra Leone The United Brethren Home in Freetown Officers of the American Navy Ashore Eight Sons of One King at Muhlenburg 9 Facing Page Title 20 20 37 67 67 87 92 92 no no 122 128 144 162 162 182 182 190 196 196 204 204 213 10 ILLUSTRATIONS Pacing Page President Barclay, Governor Ponty, Secretary Johnson 226 Bishop S. D. Ferguson, of Monrovia 234 Consul-General Braithwaite Wallis 234 Dr. Ernest Lyon, American Minister to Liberia . . 234 Monrovia — The Hilltop 240 Monrovia — The Waterside . 240 Senator Harmon Entertaining Ship's Officers . . 248 The Justices of the Supreme Court of Liberia . . . 248 "Modest and Unobtrusive, Even in Death" . . . 262 Bishop Scott and His Kroo Preachers .... 262 Young Matrons of the Liberian Hinterland . . . 274 The Funeral Feast at Totoquelli 280 The Royal Family of Waisinga :i 280 Vai Girls in a Monrovia Street 292 The King and Queens of Maraquelli 302 A Kroo "Boy" and His Wife, Monrovia .... 318 The Pipe in Advance of Civilization 324 La Rue DES OuleD-Na'jls, Biskra 330 Bigotee, Abidi, Saadi, and the Raisuli Moor . . . 334 Developing Films in a Hinterland Creek .... 348 And in Salt Water on the Walburg . . . .348 Just to Show that I Was There 354 Diagrammatic Maps (Adapted from various sources) Africa Shaded According to Deadliness .... 4 Growth of British Africa Since 1815 8 Growth of French Africa Since 1880 8 Africa Two Thousand Years Ago 8 Africa Thirty Years Ago 8 French Schools in Tunisia 94 SiFRRA Leone After a Century 210 Liberia's Portable Boundary 237 AT THE SIGN OF THE THREE BALLS A FRICA makes strange bed- fellows. I remember , /•\ that when I stepped aboard the Solunta (the little Italian mail-packet that brought me from Naples to Tunis), the outlines of Vesuvius loomed dark and sinister in the gloaming. But what I recall much more distinctly is that the great Caruso was on board, bidding good-bye to the only three beauti- ful girls that I saw in Naples. The first-cabin list was small, but very select. In the first place, there was Caruso. There was al||^an interesting Roman — a tall, brown-whiskered gentle- man, with massive brow and the grave, thoughtful eye of a man who fishes for ideas in deep waters. He may be the Professor of Philosophy in the Uni- versity of Rome-^or even the head of some octopus- tical Spaghetti Trust. With him was his modest, sweet-faced wife, and her pride of ownership could be seen without binoculars. And there was the Man of Mystery, sitting just across the table from me. When the waiter who thought that he spoke English came along, I made merry with him about something in the catalogue of Italian food — and kept one eye on the Man of Mvs- tery. There was not the faintest gleam of intelli- 11 12 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET gence on his face. Then I decided that he must be a Frenchman. Met him on deck after breakfast. In my choicest French, I remarked that it was a fine day. In French, that evidently came out of the same Manual of Conversation, he answered that there was no doubt about it. We lingered in each other's presence for a few minutes, like two sail-boats that have run together, but neither seemed able to remember what came next in the Manual. And then we untangled the ropes and drifted apart in silence. One thing I was sure of — that he was not a German; but there I gave up. There were also some other passengers on board, but they don't matter. We were not a rollicking crowd. There was no disposition to assemble in the cabin and play *' Simon says ' Thumbs up'." Caruso and his companion paired off by themselves; the other Italians paired off by themselves; the Man of Mystery paired off by himselves; and I paired off by myselves. Caruso did not burst forth into song, but he never batted an eye-lash when my camera was pointed in his direction. For this I forgive him that he w^as too lordly to eat at the same table with the rest of us. And so the hours slipped by — a night and a day, and then some. Long past midnight, when Caruso and the Roman and the Man of Mystery and all other self-respecting men were in their berths, I lingered alone on the front porch of the Sohmto, AT THE SIGN OF THE THREE BALLS 13 Swiftly, over an unprotesting sea, sped the little packet, its bow pointed straight toward the full moon that hung low over the Barbary Coast. Mine was a lonely vigil, but he who starts out on the White Man's trail over Africa must accustom himself to great silences. Suddenly, a star that is not in the astronomies flashed out of the distant darkness and disappeared. It winked again, and then I knew that it was a beacon, set up there on a coast that was once the lair of the Barbarossas in the fat days when the Corsairs haunted the dreams of all who went down to the Mediterranean in galleons. Presently the beacon was re-enforced by another, more distant; then a third made up the crov/d — and there, hanging over the African coast as a warning to all weak peoples who would mortgage their in- dependence to Europe, were the pawnbroker's three golden balls! * 5{i ^ ^ ' ^ Daylight had not yet dawned when we entered the nine-mile canal that the French have cut from La Goulette to the very gate of Tunis. We glided past the ghostly silhouettes of fishing-boats whose sleepy crews were just beginning to stir. When the light finally came up out of the sea, its shafts struck the beautiful minarets and the dazzling white palaces ahead. Yonder, on the right, is the cathedral of Saint- Louis, springing up from the very soil that buried Carthage and all its glory. This scene must have lifted the hearts of the old Romans, when they came 14 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET in their galvanized-iron suits to remove the city of Carthage from the map and make of it the most deso- late spot on a picturesque coast. They say that the view of Tunis from this point is not the best. It is good enough. The mask is torn from the Man of Mystery! As soon as we warped alongside the dock, a bunch of hotel-runners swung themselves up without waiting for the gang-plank and swarmed over the deck for their prey. One of them waylaid the Man of Mys- tery, and I strolled shamelessly along, with my ear pointed toward the conversation. Was it Italian, or French, or German, or what? It was what. The first sentence I caught was this, from the M. O. M. : " I say, do you know anything about the hotels here?" I fell into the arms of a runner who spoke Manual English, and committed myself to his keeping. He chartered an Arab brigand to carry my baggage through the custom-house; I paid the Arab double- price but he yowled for more. The runner, who was a man of much discernment, hurled my baggage upon a cab and told me to get in. Then the yowling brigand threw my small and unholy coins into the cab in disdain. The runner clucked to his horses and calmly assured me that the brigand would soon be at the hotel to recover the coin. And it was so. AT THE SIGN OF THE THREE BALLS 15 Many names have been given to this vast continent — ^the last of the great divisions to have its veil of mystery rent asunder. From the early days when a Hebrew scribe called w^hat little he knew of it " The Land Shadowing with Wings," down to the time when Stanley stamped indelibly upon it the name of "The Dark Continent/' Africa's aliases were sug- gestive of mystery and horror, of fetichism and cruelty, of sweat and blood and the shadow of death. "The Dark Continent " it will always be, if you con- sider the complexion of its people, but the man who called it " The Land of Blinding Sunshine " has de- scribed it with equal faithfulness. And if another chooses to think of it as " The Land of the White Helmet," it is not merely because the head-dress of pith covered with duck is now the most conspicuous feature of the landscape upon whatever part of the long coast-line your foot may rest. In some other parts of the tropical world, the white helmet is worn for comfort; throughout the greater part of Africa it is worn to avert sunstroke — and in the middle of the day a sun-umbrella is often used as an extra precaution. Wherever you see it bobbing about in the sunlight, the white helmet lifts the heart, for it represents the civilization that seems to be so many millions of miles away — represents also that which you miss much more: good fellowship and good food. To the traveller it gladdens the eye like the sudden glimpse of a column of smoke cheers one who is lost in the woods. And one of the greatest disappointments of 16 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET Africa is that of finding now and then a black face beneath a head-covering that represents something else. By the pattern of the helmet you know in what language to address the wearer, for the helmet of Liverpool differs from that of Hamburg or of Mar- seilles as much as Tommy Atkins differs from the round-faced German trooper or the light-hearted French zouave. The pattern stands also for a distinct type of Euro- pean imperialism, for a certain method of colonial administration, and often for a sharply-defined atti- -tude toward peoples whose flesh is covered with bark of a different colour. But when two white helmets come together anywhere in Africa, all thought of what each stand for is lost in a hearty grip of the fingers and a greeting that obliterates all boundaries — "For there is neither East nor West, border, nor breed, nor birth When two strong men stand face to fac^, though they come from the ends of the earth." No man should write a book about Africa and ex- pect Americans to understand it unless he inserts a page or two of primary geography. Tht average European knows that Sierra Leone is not a suburb of Capetown, that Dakar and Nairobi are not con- nected by a trolley-line, and that Liberia is not in South Africa — but he is a rash man who assumes this much knowledge on the part of the average American. Again and again, in talking about the West Coast, I AT THE SIGN OF THE THREE BALLS 17 have been interrupted with the question : " Did you see Mr. Roosevelt?" There seems to be a childish ignorance of the small fact that fifty degrees of lati- tude lay between me and the Mighty Hunter ! And so, without apologies, the Author invites the Gentle Reader to slip on his knickerbockers and step back into the geography class. To begin with, Africa must be considered as some- , thing more than a jungle bounded on the north by elephants, on the east by lions, on the south by rhinos, and on the west by hippopotami. With a stretch of 6,000 miles from northern to southern headland and 5,000 miles from east to west, it is a continent so vast that in everything except climate its political divisions differ from one another as widely as do the states of the United States. It contains approximately one- fourth of the area of the globe; it is second only to Asia in size ; it is about four times as large as Europe and about as large as North and South America com- bined; four countries the size of the United States could be crowded into its outline. The eas^st thing to remember about its loc^on is that it is just across the Atlantic from the United States and South America. A ship sailing due east from Richmond, Va., would hit its northern coast-line at Tangier; another sailing eastward from Buenos Aires would see land first at Capetown. It lies just across the Mediterranean from Europe — thirty miles distant at Gibraltar and about twelve hundred miles at the widest point. From any part of the beach at 18 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET Tangier, the coast of Spain is plainly visible, and when the wind is right the sunset gun on the hill of Gibraltar can be heard. It is probably true, as the geologists assert, that Africa and Europe were once united by isthmuses at Gibraltar and at the toe of Italy's boot, the Mediterranean being then a lake. So far as its location is concerned, however, I pre- fer to remember that the great continent lies about five thousand miles from New York — a fact which was often painfully impressed upon me while on the West Coast. When a man with the germs of African fever in his blood and the home-longing welling up in his throat goes down at sunset and sits on the white sand beside the thundering surf, he needs no geog- raphy to remind him that five thousand miles beyond the northwestern skyline lies home. And yet it is misleading to say that Africa is so. many miles from any given point. The distance must be measured along the ocean highways, via Liverpool, or Ham- burg, or Marseilles, for the American will have a long search before he finds an Africa-bound steamer in the harbour of New York. Since miles are hard to remember, it is better to note how long it takes to get there. Morocco, the nearest point, is two weeks from New York, and Cairo is about three weeks. Sierra Leone and Liberia, on the big bulge of the West Coast, are two weeks from Liverpool or Hamburg, and there- fore about three weeks from New York. The Ameri- can can reach the mouth of the Congo, or Capetown, AT THE SIGN OF THE THREE BALLS 19 or Mombasa (the East-Coast port of the big-game hunters), in about four weeks. But one may often go more easily and more quickly from Europe to Africa than from one African colony to another. For instance, I once found it necessary to send an Associated-Press cablegram from Monrovia to New York; the nearest wire was at Sierra Leone, only twenty- four hours distant — yet the news was ten days old before a steamer for Sierra Leone ap- peared in Monrovia harbour. To get from one part of the interior to another, especially during the rainy season, is a task that may well be left to the imagina- tion. The map-makers are in the habit of dividing Africa politically, colouring each of the thirty or more colonies according to the European country whose yoke it wears. The result is a crazy-patchwork that can be fixed in mind only as the result of a series of mental gymnastics. For the plain man, it is sufficient to divide Africa into four horizontal zones: (i) The Barbary Coast, Tripoli, and Egypt — the northern part of the continent down to the Sahara — an arid, treeless region where the Arab and the Moor have roamed for centuries; it is an agricultural and grazing country with a climate somewhat like that of California. (2) The Sahara Desert — where life is to be found only under the palm-trees of its oases, which in many cases become the lair of the buccaneers of the Desert. This is a land of dazzling sunshine and suffocating heat, but it is not unhealthy. W THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET (3) Central Africa — stretching from the Desert as far as South Africa. This is an area covered with jungle, especially on the East Coast, and with the " big bush " on the west and in the Congo country. Practically all of this region that borders on the coast and that lies along the rivers deserves its name — " the white man's grave- yard." (4) South Africa — which has a climate as tolerable as that of the temperate zone, and which is now so thor- oughly civilized that it may properly be considered a part of Europe. Throughout every one of these zones you will find the White Helmet — singly or in groups. It is a part of the uniform of the commandant; it is made to fit into a place in the ecclesiastical regalia of many kinds of clergymen; it takes the place of hat and bonnet on the head of the missionary lady; it shields the dapper merchant along the Mediterranean and the West Coast trader whose rough garb is spotted with palm- oil. And it covers the dignified head of " The Officer Administering the Government " — the field-manager of the " Uncle " who sits behind the money-box at the Sign of the Three Balls. THE WHITE HELMET IX THE SAHARA " GREAT SPACES WASHED WITH SUN II WHITE MAN'S AFRICA— HOW HE GOT IT THE great History of Africa has never been written — and never will be — the picturesque history that is told only at night, to little groups of naked men squat on their heels around blazing fires. When the gloom of .night drops gently upon an African village and shuts it in with a canopy of dark- ness through which can be seen nothing but the stars, then it is that the silent bush becomes literally alive with life and sound. Myriads of crickets and katydids set up a din that strikes the ear-drum with a violence which no man has yet described ; the winged creatures of the night swish though the air like lost souls or croak their hoarse notes across infinite spaces; and louder than them all comes the love-yowd of a bush-cat or the death-cry at the watering-place. It is the feed- ing-time for all the creatures in the great zoo — and they must feed upon one another. And then who knows what uncanny shapes from another world are hovering about this curtain of blackness? (Are you afraid in the dark? It is a survival of the primitive terror that has outlived all the philosophies of the centuries — a grim reminder of 21 22 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET an ancestry that goes back to a time when all the spirits of the night were demons.) And so it is that the African must have his fire- light and his companionship and his " chop." Then his heart grows warm, and his tongue loosens, and he tells the wonderful stories of the bush. He can never really tell them in any other set of circumstances, and the educated African can tell them not at all. The modern history of the Dark Continent, from the White Man's standpoint, has been written in many volumes, many tongues, many graves. The man of the bush, who draws no subtle distinction between a " boundary commission " and a '' punitive expedition," will tell the history in five chapters, with a white man as the initial letter of each. The first White Man came up out of the sea in a too-big canoe that had wings like a sea-gull. He had red skin, and much whiskers, and hair that was straight and soft like the goat's — and his flesh looked good to eat. He came and he went, and the tale of the coast men who had the good luck to see him, and who carried the news back into the bush, overtaxed the belief of a credulous people. But there was the proof — the magic piece of glass which you might look into and see a black face from nowhere staring back ! The second White Man came up the sluggish river, or cut his way through the tangled bush, or dragged his heavy feet across the blistering sand-dunes of the desert. He was " the Breaker of Stones," and he had fire-spitting guns that drove invisible spear-heads WHITE MAN'S AFRICA 23 through every African that tried to shut up his road. Like a spectre he came and went — and somewhere back in the bush they are telhng the story yet. The third White Man was stranger yet, and he was not in such haste to pass on. He had loads of fine caHco and basketsful of shiny beads, and bottles of white water that set the heart on fire. For the commonest tusk of ivory, or an ordinary slave boy, a native could buy a bottle of the white water or a beautiful cloth called " Bandana." But when the tusks and the slaves had all been brought in, he also went the way to the coast. The fourth White Man also brought loads, but no white water. In his bundles were cloth and books and pots and little bottles filled with the medicine of the white Devil-man. He cared not for the tusks of ivory; he wished not to trade beads for girls; and he spoke soft words to the children. But he liked not the burning and the spearing and the much-marrying; and he built a king's house for the children and called it a School. The coast-trail did not swallow up the School-Man. His heart sleeps under the baobab, in the bed marked off with the white-water bottles that he liked not. The last White Man also came up from the great water — and to stay. He brought many loads, but " dashed " only the chiefs. He also built a king's house and on it a stick; and on the end of the stick he put a piece of bright cloth, which he called '' Flag." And he sent out his fighting men- — with their fire- spitting guns — to call all the kings to palaver in the M THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET house under the Flag. He spoke in a strong voice and said that he was the Government, and the kings should hereafter bring all big palavers to the Flag — also bring long tusks for the Biggest-of-all Chief down in the sea. And on and on for hours, the dark story of Africa might be told in the simple language of the bush. Africa's era of exploration is past ; there is nothing left to explore. " The partition of Africa " is over — because there is nothing left to divide. And now, after the scramble of Europe, what remains to the Blacks? The crazy-patchwork map shows that the whole of Africa is European except four small coun- tries — Morocco, Tripoli, Abyssinia, and Liberia. But Morocco is already in the unrelaxing grasp of the French. Tripoli is now Turkish, and it seems to be generally understood that to-morrow — when the Turkish Empire goes to pieces — it will become Italian. Abyssinia is a Brown Man's country, and the Euro- pean eagles are patiently watching from their lofty perch for the hour when they may swoop down upon it without raising an outcry. The only Black Man's country left in all Africa is the American colony of Liberia — and I saw, while I was in its capital, the failure of a careful plan to raise the British flag over the city that bears the name of a President of the United States. The story of the White Man in Africa is twenty- five centuries long — or longer. It all depends upon WHITE MAN'S AFRICA 25 your definition of "• white." I have seen hundreds of Arabs, for instance — soft-skinned, effeminate town- dwellers with sun-umbrellas — who were whiter than I ; and more than once I have mistaken brown-skinned French zouaves for Arabs. This much is certain: a White Man is not merely a man with a white skin. Another question springs up : Is the African Jew a white man? I defy any stranger to distinguish a Tunisian Jew except by his head-dress. The Semites who overran North Africa thirty centuries ago left the ruins of magnificent cities like Carthage and Utica, but I prefer to consider the Greeks as the first white colonists in Africa. In the wake of the galleys of Athens came the legions of Rome. They fitted their yoke upon Egypt and broke the sword of Hannibal at Tunis; the rest was easy. Tunis and Tripoli be- came the Roman colony of ''Africa"; Algeria was "Numidia"; and Morocco became " Mauretania." From the Red Sea westward to the Atlantic, and from the Mediterranean to the Sahara, the legions of the Caesars patrolled the hot plains where now you see the Chasseurs d'Afrique, the Turkish zouaves, and " Tommy Atkins." And here Rome laid deep the foundations of a wonderful white civilization — but where is it now ? Then came the Teutonic Vandals and the Byzantines — marching past to take their place in the columns of the silent, vanished races. Then, like a whirlwind out of the desert, came the horde of Moslem conquerors and they swept from 26 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET African shores all but the crumbled ruins of the White Man's civilization. For six centuries no one dared the lightning. Then came Saint-Louis a-crusading into Africa — ^you may see his tomb on the hill of Carthage to-day. His epitaph closes the early history of the white man in Africa. The Mariners of Portugal. The little sailing ves- sels of the Portuguese were the scout-boats of the modern white invasion that has made the Tragic Con- tinent a European plum-patch. Four centuries ago they landed fighting men at Ceuta (just across from Gibraltar) and took from the Moors a citadel that had once been Roman; to-day it is the armed camp of the Spanish. In 1446 a Portuguese sea-captain was at the mouth of the Senegal; to-day the little French city of St. Louis decorates that part of the map and a fussy locomotive connects it with Dakar, the capital of French West Africa, eighty miles to the southwest In 1479 the flag of Portugal was at the Canary Islands, westward from Dakar ; to-day the yellow and red of Spain flaps from the flagstaff s of Las Palmas, and toreadores from Cadiz play tag on Sunday after- noons in the Plaza de Toros of Teneriffe. By 1482 Portuguese seamen had rounded the big bulge of the western shore and anchored in the boom- ing surf off the Guinea Coast; to-day you will see there only the Elder-Dempster boats from Liverpool, the rusty, heavily-laden freighters from Hamburg, and an occasional Frenchman steaming to or from WHITE MAN'S AFRICA 27 Marseilles. Seven years before Columbus made our war with Spain possible, his Portuguese rivals were filling their water-casks in the Congo River ; but their less ambitious descendants left to the Belgians the distinction of being accused by Mr. E. D. Morel of more '' atrocities " than the Spanish Inquisition knew. That was an age of seamanship — in toy sail-boats along one of the most dangerous coasts in the world — and our school-book friend Vasco de Gama crowned it in 1498 by creeping all the way down the West Coast, crawling on hands and knees around the Cape of Good Hope, and sailing triumphantly northward along the eastern shore of Africa. By right of dis- covery, therefore, Portugal should to-day be ruler of three- fourths of the great continent instead of three wretched colonies — but it is lucky for the African that the sceptre passed with the opportunity. The Portuguese priest of that early time was an imperialist as daring as the sailor. Just one year before America was located on the map, he began saying mass on the Congo — the pioneer white resident of modern Africa. Ten years later there were in that region enough Catholic blacks to justify the appoint- ment of a native bishop. But the dream of the church- man faded along with that of the navigator. Al- though the colony of Angola (south of the Congo), has at Loanda a permanent settlement thirty-three years older than Jamestown, the only real progress dates from the arrival of the British engineers who are laying the Benguella Railroad across the wilder- ness to the copper mines southwest of Tanganika. 28 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET The only other colony remaining to the Portuguese along the thousands of miles of western coast dis- covered by their mariners is Portuguese Guinea, a part of Africa's- bay-window. Their best colony is Portuguese East Africa. It has more than a thousand miles of seaboard, and also extends inland along both banks of the Zambesi. There was a trading-station there in 1544; and two years before Captain John Smith founded the first families of Virginia, there was a Portuguese governor at Mozambique. There isn't much more there now. The Remnants of Spanish Africa. Four centuries and a half ago, when the last Moor had been driven from the stronghold of Granada, the Spanish avengers followed him across the narrow sea and captured his kasbah at Melilla. All that has happened on American soil has happened since then — but the 450 years have brought little change to the Spanish city that bakes in the Moroccan sun. The European imprinted his personality upon that region so lightly that when I entered the little harbour I saw marines from Spanish gunboats landing ammunition for the desperate strug- gle that almost swxpt the invaders from the coast last year. It was by chance that I took passage on a boat that touched at Melilla, for nobody except Spanish soldiers and convicts goes there intentionally. From the nar- row strip of marina to the citadel that tops the pre- cipitous headland, it is an armed camp whose streets swarm with soldiers in ill-fitting uniforms and officers WHITE MAN'S AFRICA 29 burdened with gold lace. Every building that rises above the commonplace is some sort of a military ciiartel; even the Moors in the narrow, crooked streets are unpicturesque. Grim retribution has surely overtaken the wretched criminals who have been transported to this hot and barren spot. Here the Spanish are stubbornly playing a losing game, trying to hold the narrow strip of coast that is all that re- mains of a chain of outposts that once extended from Morocco to Tunis. As for the outposts of Spain that were located along the Algerian and Tunisian seaboard, the French tri- colour has been waving over them these many years. In the busy port of Oran, for example, they will point out to you an ancient gateway bearing the Spanish coat-of-arms — just as they will show you the mosque that was built with money realized from the sale of Europeans in the slave-market. Except for Melilla and Ceuta, the language of Don Quixote is about all that is left of Spanish occupation in North Africa. A heavy downpour of rain — it has more than once reversed the tides of empires — proved to be the Span- ish deluge. It was at Algiers, in 1541, and the Turk- ish buccaneers of the Mediterranean had the fate of the Spanish overlords trembling in the balance. The heavens opened, the rains descended, and the Spanish were routed. Little by little they lost the whole coast except the little strip in north Morocco. Up to 1840, on the island of Djerba, east of Tunisia, a tower made of 18,000 Spanish skulls stood as a Turkish trophy. On the west coast, just south of Morocco, is another 30 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET Spanish colony (with a Portuguese name), Rio de Ouro. It may be reached once in two months by a boat from the Canaries. At Teneriffe I was told that there is nothing at Rio de Ouro except a garrison, and that the soldiers dare not venture a mile beyond their fortifications. The only other Spanish colony on the mainland of Africa is an insignificant settlement (Corisco Bay) south of the Cameroons. The most important Spanish possession is the group of Canary Islands, southwest of Morocco. Their prosperity is not due to the Spanish, however, but to the fact that the two chief cities, Teneriffe and Las Palmas, are coaling-stations for the West Coast steamers. If the official gentlemen ajt Washington in 1898 had been more familiar with the geography of the Spanish possessions, the American flag might now be over this gateway to West Africa ! Italy's Backward March. In 1884 the letter-boxes in Cairo had Italian labels, but who thinks of Italy now in connection with Egypt? Last year in Tunis I saw the same phenomenon, but Tunisia is Italian only in population. Italy now holds sovereignty in Africa over two unimportant colonies — Eritrea, at the southern end of the Red Sea, and Italian Somaliland, just around the corner. This territory was allotted in the blanket-agreement among the European Powers. When the French caught the Italians asleep and walked away with Tunisia, the international muddle was cleared by a promise that Tripoli should become Italian whenever the breaking-up of the Turkish WHITE MAN'S AFRICA 31 Empire should come to pass; at least, this seems to be the agreement of Europe. The influence of Italy is very strong in Tripoli now, but there is many a slip between the macaroni and the lip. The modern Romans have small claim to kinship with the ancient tribunes and the armoured legions that once ruled North Africa. The German Invasion. The Englishman ought to be a firm believer in Providence; the steady extension of his empire in spite of the stupendous blunders of his statesmen is surely a mark of Divine favour. The Germans were practically forced to enter Africa and hoist their flag over a region which they did not covet and which Great Britain would very gladly have to-day as a part of the Union of South Africa. It happened in 1880. Some isolated German mis- sionaries in southwest Africa appealed for much- needed protection, and Berlin made an Alphonse- Gaston bow to London. But Lord Beaconsfield and Mr. Gladstone stoutly disclaimed all responsibility over the region. Three years later the Kaiser's men raised the Red, White, and Black over their first colony — German Southwest Africa. Then the British gentlemen sitting in Downing Street raised their voices in a roar of diplomatic protests — but the Kaiser referred them to Lord Beaconsfield's letter-book from 1880 to 1883, and the incident was closed. The same flag went up the following year in the Cameroons, east of the British colony of Nigeria. This was a very clever piece of work on the part of 32 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET a nation not famed for quick action. The Germans had a vague claim on the region, a claim based upon discoveries and '' treaties " with native chiefs — and how many African crimes that clause has covered ! But the Germans played the game fairly. Official notice was sent from Berlin to London that the ex- plorer Nachtigal was headed for that part of the coast, yet the British consul whom Downing Street commissioned to raise the British flag in the Came- roons took his own time about it. Herr Nachtigal moved swiftly, but he could not make the old Cameroons chief hurry. After the treaty had been drawn up, the German was made to twirl his thumbs for a whole week while the chief waited for the British consul to arive. He arrived — a few hours after the treaty had been signed! And so the flag that flies over the Hoboken docks continues to drip on the rain-soaked coast of the Cameroons. Another year (1885) saw the Teuton in what is now German Southeast Africa, east of Lake Tan- ganika. This was another case where the English- man has been outwitted. Three German " mechanics " unloaded their tool-boxes and were officially snubbed by the German consul. The '' mechanics " wandered about the country — and before Britain knew what was going on they had riveted German sovereignty over a region that now precludes the possibility of an un- broken line of Union Jacks from Cairo to Capetown. And the best international lawyers in Britain could find no way to get the rivets out. The German claim to the little colony of Togo, on WHITE MAN'S AFRICA 33 the Guinea Coast, runs back for more than two cen- turies — to a time when there were a few isolated trading-posts planted there by Hamburg. One African colony calls for another; and so in 1885 the vision of empire focused on Togo and it became a " protectorate." All in all, it must be recognized that Germany has shown exceptional consideration for the territorial rights of others in Africa, including the rights of the natives themselves. Sharp practice in diplomacy does not count as a crime, for diplomatic ability is shown in '' beating the other fellow to it." The German flag is over no colony that was taken from a weaker power by bullying. The Overlordship of the Congo. Question: How did it happen that the ruler of a little country like Belgium became lord over one of the largest and richest regions of all Africa? Answer: Partly as the result of his own sagacity, but mainly on account of the short-sightedness of others. And it was a British subject — Stanley — who made it possible. The suc- cession of events was as follows : (i) April 9, 1877. Stanley reached the mouth of the Congo after his wonderful journey of three years " Through the Dark Continent." (2) January, 1878. Stanley, arriving in Europe, was met by representatives from Leopold. (3) November 25, 1878. The Coniite d'Etudes du Haut-Congo was formed in Brussels, with Leopold as honorary president and a capital of $1,000,000. (4) August 14, 1879. Stanley and his staff, acting for this 34 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET committee, reached the Congo and began to make treaties with the native chiefs. (5) April 22, 1884. The Congo State was recognized by the United States ; on November 8th Germany followed. (6) November 15, 1884, to February 26, 1885. The Berlin Conference threshed out all conflicting claims and left the Congo State independent, with Leopold as its head. (7) 1909- The sovereignty of the Congo was transferred from Leopold to Belgium. In the violent discussions that arose with England, France, and Portugal over territorial rights, Germany held the balance of power and swung it in favour of the Belgians. The Powers whose claims were shut out can now see several ways in which the Congo might have been swung their way, but Leopold saw them years before. Great bodies — such as the British Empire — move slowly. France's African Empire. In all the market-places north of the Sahara you may see squatting Arabs whisking away the flies with little fans of woven fibre ornamented with needlework. They are shaped like a battle-axe, and one of them gave to France the nucleus of its African empire. It happened in Algiers. Algeria was Turkish then and the French consul was pressing upon the Dey a claim for damages. They had some words and the Dey struck the consul in the face with his little fly- whisk. As a direct result, though long delayed. Gen- eral Bourmont landed some 30,000- French soldiers near Algiers in 1830, and within three weeks the Dey was out of a job. WHITE MAN'S AFRICA 35 Some years of wavering policy followed. The French announced, most politely, that they were only visiting Algiers; but they are there yet and Algeria is a part of France, with Senators and Deputies in Paris. It took eighteen years of almost continuous fighting to bring this about. Veteran officers who had served the great Napoleon directed the campaigns; and junior officers who were destined to be com- manders in the Crimean and Franco-Prussian wars — including young MacMahon (the future Marshal of France), whose name I saw hyphenated with Arabic on a lonely railroad station — received in Algeria their baptism of fire. Abd-el-Kader, son of a holy man, was the chief factor. This young Arab of twenty-four was a born leader of men; he was also a gentleman who had travelled as far as Mecca and Bagdad; and in diplo- macy he could sit with anybody. You may occasion- ally see his type to-day — fair complexion, high fore- head, blue eyes with black lashes, oval face fringed with a jet-black, scanty beard. Abd-el-Kader gave the young French officers all the practice they wanted from 1832 to 1841. Then landed General Bugeaud, also a leader of men — one of the kind that reports to the War Department but doesn't care much about receiving instructions. Bugeaud knew how to win the hearts of soldiers while working them to the limit — and it is no child's play to fight under the African sun. He also was a diplomat. He sent his adventurous interpreter to Mecca and pro- cured a document that tolerated infidel rule over 36 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET Mohammedan subjects; and he engraved upon his seal a text from the Koran : " The earth is the Lord's, and he gives it in heritage to those whom he has chosen." Bugeaud understood this to mean that the Lord had given Algeria to the French and ordained Bugeaud as his prophet. It was a real war, with from 80,000 to 90,000 French soldiers in the field. Abd-el-Kader was steadily out-generaled, but it remained for a young prince, the Due d'Aumale, to break the backbone of his power by a brilliant dash. It was a repetition of what Alexander did to Darius at Issus — and it cost the French nine killed and twelve wounded. The prince was made a lieutenant-general, Bugeaud became a Marshal of France, and Abd-el-Kader became a back- number. There have been many fights since, but France sits firmly in the high-backed Algerian saddle. The Italians thought Tunisia was theirs, and the British once had the same impression. But while the Sicilians in Tunisia were sharpening their knives over the melon, France ran away with it, vine and all. On the pretext that the Tunisian Arabs along the Algerian frontier — and a wild, rugged land it is — were ravag- ing French territory, a French army was unexpectedly landed. In one hand the Frenchman held behind his back a perfumed treaty, while the other hand held a big stick, with its knobbed end conspicuously protrud- ing. The Bey made the right guess, and Tunis is a '' protectorate " of France. The Bey's sign is still up and he comes to the office once a week, but the French resident does all the worrying. The Bey's job is the WHITE MAN'S AFRICA 37 softest in Africa, unless we except the Khedive's, and his pay-envelope comes regularly. He submits grace- fully, for the papers of North Africa are not filled with announcements of '' Bey Wanted." French West Africa dates back to the seventeenth century, but the Senegal possessions assumed no real importance until after Algeria and Tunis came under the Tricolour. In 1758, what we know as the French and Indian War resulted in the capture of the Senegal settlements by the British, but they were afterward returned. French explorers, traders, and fighters w^ere well on the way to make a real colony when the Franco-Prussian War came along and caused the Senegal to be forgotten. In 1887 they made a new start, with a railroad around the Senegal cataracts; an explorer (Captain Binger) gave France claim to a vast region along the upper Niger and to its present Ivory Coast colony; and in 1893 ^^e obstreperous King of Dahomey was subdued. Finally, Timbuctu — the geographical centre of the present empire, but then a Moslem stronghold — was captured by a French lieutenant with nineteen soldiers, twelve of them being Negroes. The next step was logical. Between the Mediter- ranean colonies and the Niger lay some millions of tons of red-hot sand, called the Sahara. England had no use for it, and therefore told France to take it. France took it. From one little foothold on the Gaboon River, ac- quired by treaty, has come the French Congo. Yet the foothold was more than once offered to England in 38 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET exchange for its tiny colony along the Gambia. Libre- ville was founded in 1848, and then for thirty years the explorer DeBrazza seems to have been the only Frenchman at work. When Leopold started Stanley on his trip to acquire titles, DeBrazza cut across from the Gaboon and beat him to the upper Congo. He hung up so many French flags that the Berlin Con- ference had to give France a large slice of the Congo basin and promise more if the Congo Free State should ever be dissolved. Lake Chad became the next objective point. Foreau, Lamy, and others reached it from across the Desert; Crampel and Gentil worked up from the Congo; and the whole of French Africa was thereby made into a continuous empire. This was not so easy as it sounds. South of Lake Chad, for instance, Major Lamy had to hurriedly raise a few hundred native troops and throw himself across the path of 60,000 marauders, led by a former slave of Zubeir Pasha, named Rabeh. There was a great fight, and the white man won. But when he reached the place where Rabeh lay wounded on the field, the Arab made a last effort and plunged a knife into Lamy's heart. And there, on the Great Divide that rolled back a dervish horde, two worthy foemen died together. Two isolated colonies round out the sum of French possessions in Africa. Madagascar became a perma- nent possession in 1895, after more than two centuries of strife; and French Somaliland was acquired mainly by purchase about the time of the break-up of the Egyptian Sudan. WHITE MAN'S AFRICA 39 Britain's African Empire. The British flag covers as much of Africa as the French, and the territory is of vastly greater wealth; but it is scattered over both sides of the great continent. Its four colonies on the West Coast — Gambia, Sierra Leone, Gold Coast, and the Nigerias — are mainly the heritage of great trading companies and have passed through varying changes of fortune. Gambia began with '' Good Queen Bess " in 1588, and after a century and a half of friction with the French, it is a peaceful little garden-patch running up both sides of the river. Sierra Leone, having the only good harbour on the entire West Coast of Africa, was naturally an object of British attention in the days when English captains commanded slavers instead of chasing them. Great Britain obtained Sierra Leone in 1787, and, by way of atonement for its share in the sin, turned it over to a society of benevolent gentlemen for use as a city of refuge for freed slaves. In 1807 it became a crown colony and has remained such this hundred years. Along the Gold Coast the British trading com- panies were administering a crude form of government as far back as 1672, but the natives back from the coast gave no end of trouble, especially the king of Ashanti. In 1821 the Government decided to rule it as a crown colony and Sir Charles MacCarthy was sent over as governor. The king of Ashanti notified the new ruler that the skin of his head would soon ornament the royal drum — and it did. The border warfare kept on with annoying persistence until 1873, 40 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET when England sent one of its famous regiments — the " Black Watch "—to end it. That was a fight long to be remembered. The Highlanders made a forced march under fearful conditions and faced at Koomas- sie shotguns that were loaded with pieces of broken pots and jagged slugs of lead that inflicted terrible mutilations. After it was over and Koomassie was in ashes, the black prisoners asked permission to place their hands over the hearts of the white men to absorb some of their courage. In 1895 the same work had to be done over again, but since that date there has been no king of Ashanti. It is now the hinterland of the Gold Coast colony. The Nigerias (Northern and Southern) began with Lagos, a narrow strip around the coast for the two hundred miles that the Niger needs for a delta. It was obtained in an honourable way by paying a native king $5000 a year for the last twenty-four years of his lifetime. After the Germans had thwarted them in the Cameroons, the British extended their influence up the Niger to meet the French, and eastward as a wedge between the Germans and the French at Lake Chad. There is no stain on the British name in this part of Africa. That can scarcely be claimed in South Africa. There England began in 1795 by forcibly taking Cape- town from the Dutch, because it was needed as a victualling station by British ships en route to India. In 1806 the whole of Cape Colony was absorbed. The rest of the story — Orange Free State, Bechuanaland, Natal, Transvaal, Matabeleland, and so on — are merely WHITE MAN'S AFRICA 41 successive chapters of the same kind. Had diamonds not been found at Kimberley and gold in the Rand, the banner of England would not be waving all the way to Victoria Falls and beyond. Perhaps, after all, it has been a good thing for Africa; it has certainly been a good thing for the British. That extension of territory known as Nyasaland and British Central Africa is a different story. This is the region where Livingstone and other missionary explorers and settlers preceded other white men and made a pathway for the man with the flag. The manner in which England came to be the over- lord of Egypt is outlined in the succeeding chapter. And when, a quarter of a century later, the British and Egyptian troops avenged Gordon, it was a foregone conclusion that the Sudan must be British all the way to the Nyanzas. The Union Jack and the Egyptian flag float side by side over all this region, but even the Egyptian does not take this seriously. Extending southeast to the coast, with Uganda as a hinterland, is British East Africa — nominally a " protectorate." (Wherever you meet that word on African soil, you may understand that diplomacy has been up to some of its sharp tricks, with the gleam of steel behind it.) But let us shed no tears over it, for the Sultan of Zanzibar and the kings of Uganda were not rulers who loved their fellow-men. The remaining colony, British Somaliland, is but part of the wreckage of the Egyptian Sudan. Its im- portance is mainly strategic, but even that is over- shadowed by Aden (in Arabia) and the island of 42 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET Perim (in the strait of Bab-el-Mandeb), at the exit of the Red Sea. In the consideration of British Africa it is important to remember that at the three points where Europe and Asia encroach upon the Dark Continent — Gibrahar, Suez, and Aden — the British flag marks the location of British batteries. This, then, is the Africa of our day : a vast tropical plantation dominated by two great landholders (Eng- land and France), with half a dozen little garden- patches held by other European " squatters." The old tribal distinctions are rapidly breaking down; the tribal dialects are doomed ; the tribal frescoes are van- ishing from foreheads and cheeks. The village kings have become police magistrates; the paramount chiefs are justices-of-the-peace ; and over them all is the Supreme Bench, the mailed fist, the iron-shod heel — the Man in the White Helmet. Ill THE NEW PHARAOH IN EGYPT PROVIDENCE and Imperialism call a few men to great tasks. Some — like Gordon at Khartum — are caught by a seething tide and swept away in the wreckage of their hopes, leaving only the great- ness of a memory that never dims. Others — like Cur- zon in India — go steadily forward until their way is blocked by a wall which they can neither break nor climb; the man drops out of sight but the road that he has hewn remains. Now and then one has the happi- ness to finish his great task and retire with the ap- plause of his countrymen ringing in his ears. This was the case with Evelyn Baring, the Earl of Cromer, the first Pharaoh of the British dynasty, who has made more permanent history in Egypt than any man since Rameses. For more than twenty years. Lord Cromer worked at his hard task — and it was his good fortune to be allowed to stay as long as he liked and to work with- out overmuch interference from Downing Street. Nominally he was merely " British Agent and Consul- General " at Cairo. What he was in reality was described by Mr. Perceval Landon in this picturesque way: 43 44 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET " Quite quietly and without further trumpetings and salutes than an official eulogy from those whose servant he has been for four and twenty years — and the usual 15-gun salute as his train steamed out from Cairo— the one absolute monarch in the world to-day resigned his throne on May 6th. There is never a crowned head east or west of Suez which possesses the uncon- ditioned autocracy which Lord Cromer has just laid down." Mr. Landon also tells the story of a perplexed American tourist who approached him in Cairo and requested an explanation of a poster that he had just seen on a schoolhouse. It was signed by Lord Cromer, the British Agent, and it said that since it had seemed good to the Agent (no reason given) to close this school, the school was and would henceforth remain shut. . " Just ' shut,' and no more about it," said the American. '' Now, who in is this Agent? Just ' shut ' ! It's more like the Book of Genesis than any- thing I have struck yet." It is a significant fact that England has entrusted the remaking of Egypt to men who are thoroughly famil- iar with local conditions and who are willing to stay on the job — not merely to men who happened to be classmates of the appointing power. Lord Cromer was in Egypt almost continuously from 1877; Sir Eldon Gorst, the present British Pharaoh, went to the Nile in 1880; Sir Reginald Wingate, Governor-Gen- eral of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, has had a part in almost every important happening in its modern his- tory. " He was among the last men that saw Gordon ; he was one of those who welcomed Slatin back to Cairo after his eleven years' captivity in the Mahdi's THE NEW PHARAOH IN EGYPT 45 country ; he was with Kitchener at Khartum ; he was with him at Fashoda when the famous interview oc- curred with Colonel Marchand." But think how many Governors we have had in Porto Rico and in the Philippines since 1898! How has it happened that a British Agent and Consul-General rules in the land of the Pharaohs — a land which is down on the map as a province of the Turkish Empire and has a Khedive of its own? Here is the story, in barest outline. The details are merci- fully omitted, for so good an authority as Lord Milner remarks that '' it is not given to mortal intelligence to master at one blow the complexities of Turkish suzerainty and foreign treaty rights." In 1863, Khedive Ismail came to the throne, his brain throbbing with big ideas. He was a royal financier — and a royal spender rarely surpassed in his- tory. Egypt was then fairly prosperous, with reve- nues sufficient to keep the antiquated wheels turning, and Ismail found his credit remarkably good in Europe. Everybody wanted to lend him money, so he sat up nights devising new ways of spending it. He succeeded so well that by the end of thirteen years he had advanced the national debt from about $15,000,000 to $425,000,000. During this period he and De Lesseps had built the Suez Canal — the Khedive retaining most of the shares. In 1876, Ismail found himself at the end of his rope, with howling creditors at the other end. In desperation, he offered his Canal shares to the Paris 46 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET bankers. The Frenchmen saw the wisdom of an in- vestment of $20,000,000, but they hesitated until their Government should guarantee its safety. Somebody flashed the news across the Channel. The Suez Canal is England's short-cut to India; and, besides, most of the commerce that passes that way is British. It would never do to allow another Euro- pean nation to control the highway to the East, so Lord Beaconsfield went to the Rothschilds and asked for a loan of $20,000,000; as collateral, he offered his promise to ask Parliament to pay it back. He got the money, cabled to Cairo — and Great Britain became the principal stockholder in the Canal. The remarks of the French bankers when Paris got the news are not permitted under the regulations governing the transmission of books through the mail. This simple transaction laid the foundation for a world of trouble. In a short while it became impera- tive that England and France take charge of Egypt's finances in self-protection. Each country sent a com- missioner; the Englishman was a major in the Royal Artillery — one Evelyn Baring. The name sounded gentle and ladylike — but it was the future Lord Cromer who landed with the name. After a few months he was transferred to India as the financial adviser to his cousin, Lord Northbrook, who was then the Viceroy. But it was not so easy for England to get away from Egypt. Troubles began to pile up after Major Baring left. Finally a native oflicial, one Araby (not "the Blest") headed a Boxer-like movement for sending THE NEW PHARAOH IN EGYPT 47 all Europeans back home — in coffins. There was a row at Alexandria, under the very guns of the British and French fleets, and scores of Europeans were mur- dered. Both fleets cleared for action, but the French- man received a cablegram and cleared for home. The English admiral then told Araby how much time he had in which to dismantle the Alexandrian forts. Araby put his hand over his mouth to restrain his merriment from becoming undignified. The Eng- lish cannon then put a number of shells where they did a lot of good. In retaliation, Araby prepared to cut off the water-supply of the European residents of Alexandria. England hurriedly attended to the for- malities written down in the book of international etiquette and then landed the marines. Araby left Alexandria and threatened the Canal. England called on the Powers to unite in its protection, but they were all too busy. France was then asked to help England save the work of De Lesseps's engineers, but its statesmen declined. England then put Tommy Atkins ashore at Ismailia. Tommy caught Araby at Tel-el-Kebir and made a good job of it. Araby dis- appeared over the horizon toward Constantinople ; two squadrons of English cavalry rode hard across the burning sands — and Cairo surrendered. Two days later, London notified Constantinople that Tommy w^ould be leaving for home shortly. That was in 1882, and London would not have believed that he would still be in Egypt to-day. It was really the Mahdi who blocked the game. When the Sudan began to seethe in rebellion, England 48 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET loaned Gordon to Egypt as Governor-General of the Sudan, and this was intended to result in the evacua- tion of that part of the country. But when Gordon was making his great fight, public sentiment forced tlie Gladstone ministry to land more troops on Egyp- tian soil. Major Baring had meanwhile returned to Egypt, landing in the midst of these stirring events. These happenings are only part of a long chain. Just as they show England's justification for entering Egypt, many others could be given to justify Eng- land's slowness in departing. Of course, if one be determined upon it, it is easy to see in all this a pre- determined scheme of British imperialism. (Does not half of Europe still regard the Spanish- American war as a clever scheme of ours for seizing the Philippines?) But, all political considerations aside, the world is ready to admit that England's work in Egypt is ample justification for its occupation of the land. And the story of England in Egypt is largely the story of the Earl of Cromer. ^ ^ ^ ^ 2jC Everybody knows that the Egypt of 1882 was one of the most hopeless lands in all the world. For cen- turies it had been the prey of the spoilers — " a satrapy of Persia, a colony of Greece, an estate of the Ptole- mies, a province of Rome, a dependency of the Arabian khalifate of Bagdad, and a pachalik of the Ottoman empire." Governor after governor, each with a different title but with the same insatiable greed for graft, ruled his little hour and went his way. To each, in turn, Egypt was a private plum-tree : he shook THE NEW PHARAOH IN EGYPT 49 the tree and gathered the ripe plums until a stronger than he came up out of the sea and drove him away. Ismail had been deposed by Turkey three years be- fore, and his son Tewfik was a weakling. The finances of the country seemed hopelessly wrecked. Tewfik was surrounded by an official class made up of the most unscrupulous scoundrels that ever cursed a help- less people. Tewfik periodically caught '' the men higher up " by the heels and shook them until the pockets of their capacious bloomers were emptied of coin; the ''men higher up" then exercised the men lower down in the same way. The lowest-of -all-down, the fellaheen, had no coin, but the tax-gatherers were skilled to the point of extracting blood from a turnip. They did not come down upon the peasant at the time of harvest and carry away his crop; this was an old, unscientific practice. They came while his crop was growing. If he could not procure actual money, they beat him. At their next visit, he had the choice of the frying-pan and the fire: he could either sell his crop in the field at half its value, or he could mortgage it to the money-lender and pay 60 per cent, interest. The tax outlaw and the money-lender were usually in league with one another — and the Shylock of Shake- speare was a philanthropist in comparison with either. Simple justice and " a square deal " were dreams as remote as the Paradise of Mohammed. Major Baring knew all these distressing facts and more when he took up his work at the beginning of 1884, but he did not get excited about it. He knew also that the task of cleaning up the land was not the 50 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET worst of it. There was a Parliament across the water that might stop him at any moment ; there was a con- cert of fifteen Powers whose consent must be obtained before certain prescribed steps could be taken; there were European parasites in Egypt whom he could not call to account without the cooperation of their con- suls; and there was a Khedive and a sensitive native government whose pride must be preserved and in whose name everything must be done. It was a Western job to be done in an Oriental way. This Oriental way is the way that leads to mad- ness. Take, for example, the farce of Turkey's con- firmation of the present Khedive on the death of his father in 1892. Before the British fleet waiting in the harbour could fire the salute in his honour, it was necessary that the official firman from the Sultan of Turkey be read from the steps of the palace. All Cairo was kept in a state of agitation for weeks by conflicting reports about this important document. '' It had started. It had not started. It really would have started, but the caligraphy had at the last moment been found defective." The British admiral, 'over- come with weariness, steamed away. At sea, he met the ship bearing the firman and returned with it. A great Turkish dignitary brought it up to Cairo in a mysterious bag. The Khedive did not have the nerve to open it, lest it be found to contain " a joker." The dignitary was cross-questioned as to the nature of the document, but he was overwhelmed with regret at his ignorance of His August Majesty's business. THE NEW PHARAOH IN EGYPT 51 Then he was reminded that it was customary for the ambassador to have a copy of it. True, a copy had been prepared for him, but it had not been deHvered before saihng time. And so the farce went on — '' the grave ambassador bowing over his bag, and his equally grave consignee declining to open it " — until all the diplomats in Cairo took a hand. The wires to Con- stantinople wxre kept red-hot until the Khedive re- ceived a cablegram from the Sultan which nerved him to open the bag. The gorgeous document was un- rolled and read with great ceremony — and there had been no mistake about the '' joker." Then the cable- gram removing it was read, and the salute was fired. It would be natural to suppose that this brusque Englishman, trained in a school which says to a man " Do this " and he doeth it, would clear away all this Oriental tape with one sweep of his artillery sword. But this he could not do, however much his soul may have longed for the privilege. He must do his work, but not in his own way; the overweening pride of a sensitive people must not be humiliated. The Khedive must remain the nominal head of the Government, and all the departments of that Government must be filled by native officials. He appointed an Englishman after his own heart as " adviser " to each official, but that meant unceasing demands upon his ingenuity and patience, for he was constantly called upon to adjust the relations between the officials and their English guardians. Furthermore, native officials were some- times misled by their outward show of authority, and did things without consulting their " advisers," and 52 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET this called for the ungloved hand. The Khedive him- self made this mistake once — but only once. Leaping over the space of years that belong to the English occupation, glance at the Egypt of to-day. Its condition is more than the measure of England's justification: it is the measure of the Earl of Cromer as a builder and as a man. Cromer introduced into Egypt the Bank-of-London kind of finance, as opposed to the high finance of Ismail. He first did for the bankrupt country what Alexander Hamilton did for the impoverished colonies in the early days of our Republic — he put it on a sound-money basis. Foreign capital no longer fears for its safety; more remarkable yet, French capital (or any other capital) is just as safe as English capital. The finances of Egypt, in all their ramifications, have been handled in a masterly way — and in an honest way. Land values have advanced i,ooo per cent, during the same period. The extraordinary rise is due in part to the great Assouan dam and other works of irrigation, but it is also largely due to the fact that Cromer made it possible for the fellaheen to till the soil and eat the fruit of their hands. It seems a great thing to read of the thousands of acres that have been added to Egypt's agricultural area by the reclamation works; it is a vastly more important achievement that he has wrought in the conditions of life surrounding the fellaheen. No effort was made to be spectacular in this constructive work; the foundations were laid THE NEW PHARAOH IN EGYPT 53 gradually and securely; no one claims that the task is done, but no one who knew the Egypt of 1882 ever expected to see in his lifetime the changes that have already taken place. The organization of the Agri- cultural Bank is a fair sample of England's creative work. It lends money to the fellaheen at reasonable interest, the principal to be repaid in instalments. Sir Eldon Gorst has said that the total annual pay- ment of principal and interest is less than the usurers formerly charged for interest alone. The reorganization of the native army is another example of good workmanship. When Cromer went down into Egypt, he found its army — as all the world knew — to be nothing more than a joke; he " advised " the Khedive that it be disbanded and a new army created. He also " suggested " the names of a few Enghsh officers who could turn the trick; one of these was named Kitchener. The briefest and most dramatic way to describe the result is to give three extracts. First, here is the Egyptian fighting man of 1884, as pictured by General Baker in a telegram announcing his defeat by the dervishes at El-Teb : " Marched yesterday morning with 3,500 towards Tokar. . . . Our square being only threatened by small force of enemy, cer- tainly less than 1,000 strong, the Egyptian troops threw down their arms and ran, allowing themselves to be killed without the slightest resistance. More than 2,000 killed. All material lost." The second part of the story is best told by Mr. Kipling in " Pharaoh and the Sergeant " : 54 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET " Said England unto Pharaoh, ' I must make a man of you That will stand upon his feet and play the game, That will Maxim his oppressor as a Christian ought to do.* And she sent old Pharaoh Sergeant Whatisname. It was not a Duke, nor Earl, nor yet a Viscount It was not a big brass General that came; • But a man in khaki kit, who could handle men a bit, With his bedding labelled Sergeant Whatisname." The third part of the story was told in 1891 by Colonel Holled-Smith in his report of a fight on the same road to Tokar, with the same enemy, and under the same conditions — Egyptian troops and English officers in both cases : " The bulk of their [the dervishes'] force was directed against the line occupied by the 12th battalion, their attack being pushed home with their usual intrepidity and fearlessness. The troops, however, stood their ground and did not yield one inch through- out the line." England's work for education is no less revolu- tionary. It must be remembered that 91 per cent, of Egypt's population is Mohammedan, and that the Western idea of education is a new proposition. The schoolgirl, for instance, was formerly an unknown — almost an unthinkable — quantity; now there are cer- tainly more than 25,000 girls in Egyptian schools every year. The new movement is only begun, for Lord Cromer had a conviction that Egypt's great need is for agricultural and trade schools. This system is being slowly built up, for first must come primary teaching. It is pleasing to know, incidentally, that Lord Cromer did not consider himself foreordained THE NEW PHARAOH IN EGYPT 55 to make English the language of the world. He insisted that instruction be given to Egyptian children in their native tongue. The contrast between the old and the new in higher education can be shown by brief reference to two great institutions. At Cairo is a Mohammedan '' uni- versity " which was old when the Universities of Ox- ford, Paris, and Berlin were founded. Judged by the number of its pupils, it is one of the largest in the world; judged by its work, it is one of the deadest. Its young men squat around ancient theologues and commit to memory passages from the Koran and other books, written in a form of Arabic now almost un- intelligible even to Arabs. The influence of this '■' university " — with its 10,000 students and its 300 " professors " — is about as progressive as that of the mummies on exhibition in the great museum at Cairo. At Khartum, on the banks of the Nile, stands Gor- don Memorial College — the university of to-morrow — a training school established on the spot where Gor- don fell. In 1898, Khartum was the stronghold of the Mahdi's successor. Now it has a college with three departments : ( i ) a normal school that is training young men to become teachers and judges; (2) a primary school for a larger number of pupils, most of whom will eventually hold government positions; (3) a manual training department which will furnish the land with its much-needed artisans. This university w^as in the mind of the poet who loudest and best sings the glories of the English when he wrote : 56 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET " They terribly carpet the earth with dead, and before their cannon cool They walk unarmed by twos and threes to call the living to school." Mr. Kipling did not consider it worth while to say that Kitchener's army (which did the carpeting) marched past more than a hundred American schools before it reached the junction of the Blue and the White Nile. Nor will you find proper recognition of this fact in any of the official reports of the British occupation. The fact remains, however, that while United States troops have never strewn Egypt with dead, United Presbyterian missionaries have called about as many of its living to school as Lord Cromer did in the course of his long reign. And, in point of practical efficiency, Assiut College has done more than Gordon University to train young Egypt. This in- conspicuous benevolence of the United Presbyterians of America already extends beyond Khartum; at Doleib Hill, 400 miles farther into the dreary waste of the Sudan, a graduate of the Iowa Agricultural College is teaching a tribe of wild men about the life that now is, as well as about that which is to come. The whole story of British rule in Egypt was fairly summed up by Mr. Roosevelt in a speech that stirred all England in 1910: "You have given Egypt the best government it has had for at least 2,000 years. The only reason I put in the 2,000 is that I happen not to know the details of the government of the Ptol- emies. Probably j^our government is better than any government Egypt ever had before, for never in history has the poor man THE NEW PHARAOH IN EGYPT 57 in that country, the tiller of the soil, the ordinary labourer, been treated with as much justice and mercy, under a rule as free from corruption and brutality, as during the last twenty-eight years." This was not the language of rhetoric. Criticise the British method as severely as you will — it remains true that justice is no longer a thing to be bought and sold in the land of Goshen. " The courbash may hang on the wall of the Moudirieh, but the Moudir no longer dares to employ it on the backs of the fellaheen." Surely this is a great achievement. For the transformation that has been wrought, credit must go in large measure to the Earl of Cromer. It goes without saying that much of the work has been accomplished by his associates, but Cromer de- serves credit for knowing how to pick men for difficult tasks. It is also much to his credit that he gave his younger associates opportunity to distinguish them- selves, when another type of man might have taken the honours to himself. " When I came to Egypt," he once said to a friend, " I made up my mind that the work was big enough for the life of one man, and that I would devote my life to it and not ask promotion until I had made it a complete success." And even the proffer of a Cabinet position did not change his purpose. One of the great factors in his success was his thorough honesty. He undoubtedly had opportunities a-plenty for enriching himself — which Egypt expected him to do — but at the close of a quarter-century he 58 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET left Egypt with his integrity unimpeached. " The idea that Lord Cromer would allow any suspicious deal whatever," remarked a native connected with the financial board, "is so absolutely impossible that one does not stop even to consider it." His administrative policy was admirably stated by Lord Milner some years ago: "The appHcation of a reasonable amount of common sense and common honesty to a country ruined by the absence of both." When it is remembered that Lord Cromer had to deal with three widely differing nationalities — the spineless native, the impetuous Frenchman, and his own stiff-necked countryman — it is perhaps not to be wondered at that he should have suffered adverse criticism at times. Men occasionally went to his office expecting to meet a diplomat, with bland, unctuous Oriental manners; they found an Anglo-Saxon, plain and blunt. Matter-of-fact he undoubtedly was — but he carried burdens enough to drive the affability from the most genial temperament. Hard to get along with, some have said; but the records of the service of his English associates seems to indicate some affection either for Cromer or for the job. To the end of his long service in the midst of Oriental peoples, Cromer remained an Englishman. Others of his countrymen have become semi-Oriental- ized, but not he. You will look in vain for a photo- graph of him in Eastern garb, with decorations strung over his breast. And yet the initials of the distinctions that have been conferred upon him would extend more than across a page. THE NEW PHARAOH IN EGYPT 59 Of the future of Egypt without Cromer some speak with misgiving. But the first Pharaoh of the British dynasty closes his own record with these words : " According to Eastern adage, the grass never grows again where once the hoof of the Sultan's horse has trod. In the sorely tried country of which this history treats, the hoof of the Turkish horse, whether the rider were Sultan or Khedive, has indeed left a deep impression. Nevertheless I would fain hope it is not indelible. " We are justified in substituting a sanguine in the place of a despondent metaphor. Where once the seeds of true Western civilization have taken root so deeply as is now the case in Egypt, no retrograde forces, however malignant they may be, will in the end be able to check germination and ultimate growth. . . . We have dealt a blow to the forces of reaction in Egypt from which they can never recover — and from which, if England does her duty towards herself, towards the Egyptian people, and towards the civilized world, they will never have a chance to recover." It was a piece of good fortune that Egypt had identified with its modern history two such remarkable Englishmen as Cromer and Gordon — as far removed from each other in temperament, in habits of thought, and in purpose of life as the West is distant from the East. The names of these two men are engraved in its modern history as ineffaceably as the names of Rameses and Cleopatra in the history that has been rolled up like a scroll. Throughout a few dramatic months, the careers of the two Englishmen were bound up together, for Lord Cromer was the connect- ing link between Khartum and London when Gordon 60 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET made his last fight. So, when the reviewers took up the Earl of Cromer's notable book, " Modern Egypt " —fitting climax to his fifty years of military and civil service — they instinctively turned first of all to see what the diplomat had to say concerning the soldier. The Earl of Cromer is to be commended for the spirit of frankness and fairness with which he dis- cusses the Sudan campaign, not hesitating to criti- cize the acts of others and not sparing himself. He consistently reaffirms his own judgment that no Eng- lishman should have been sent to Khartum — certainly not Gordon, whose appointment he had twice opposed — and regrets that he allowed the combined judgment of others to finally make him distrust his own. How- ever, the people of England had made up their mind that the native garrisons in the Sudan must be relieved, and that Gordon was the one man in the British army to execute the task. And, in passing, it may be re- marked that the English people seem very well pleased with the manner in which Gordon kept the faith. To Lord Cromer's credit be it said that, when Eng- land had determined to send Gordon, he backed him up to the full extent of his power. '' General Gordon was no friend to the particular official class to which I belonged," he says; and, on the other hand, Cromer had no great admiration for an officer " who habitually consults the Prophet Isaiah when he is in a difficulty." Yet the official correspondence of that period shifts the blame of Gordon's death from Cairo to London. Here is where the Earl of Cromer places the blame for the unforgetable tragedy at Khartum : THE NEW PHARAOH IN EGYPT 61 " Mr. Gladstone's error of judgment in delaying too long the despatch of the Nile expedition left a stain on the reputation of England which it will be beyond the power of either the impartial historian or the partial apologist to explain." He says also that the reason why it was sanctioned too late was that " Mr. Gladstone would not accept simple evidence of a plain fact, which was patent to much less powerful intellects than his own." Under the spell of the Earl of Cromer's charming style, it is easy to feel that Gordon has perhaps been too highly idealized by the Anglo-Saxon. But when the book is laid aside and the soldier's entire dramatic life passes in review, the diplomat's logic loses much of its convincingness. After all, he has told us noth- ing about Gordon that we did not already know — nothing that England did not know when it insisted on his appointment. Statesmen and diplomats feared that Gordon's religious convictions would alienate the Arab tribes that still remained loyal, overlooking the fact that Gordon had governed in the Sudan before and that most of his life had been spent among peoples whose religions differed widely from his own. Aside from this objection, the only indictment that Lord Cromer brings against him are those of inconsistency and " impulsive flightiness." Men who have served in Egypt have said worse things about Cromer. In- consistent Gordon unquestionably was, and this to the very end; but it was inconsistency vastly more sublime than that of the men who sealed his doom with official tape. It was most inconsistent in a British officer to stand on the steps of the Khartum palace at sunrise. 62 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET dressed in his white uniform, and receive the final onslaught of the Mahdists as calmly as if he were holding a Governor's reception — not even drawing his sword — but this was exactly the manner in which Eng- land believed that Gordon had died, even before eye- witnesses confirmed the fact. After the last word has been said about his " errors of judgment " and his " flightiness," the reader can recall that the overlords of England found it necessary to send Kitchener thir- teen years later to do exactly what Gordon had yearned to do. Lord Cromer acknowledges that the main lines of Gordon's character were worthy of admiration, that his religion was sincere, his private life unquestionably pure. He admits also that the man was wholly un- moved by any considerations of rank or money, and that it was no idle boast when he sent an aide to '' tell all the people in Khartum that Gordon fears nothing, for God has created him without fear." Surely, it would seem, such remarkable qualities in a governor of alien tribes are not altogether outweighed by incon- sistency and impulsiveness in matters of detail. At any rate, the postscript of Gordon's letter — " I am quite happy, thank God, and like Lawrence I have tried to do my duty " — will be remembered as long as anything that the Earl of Cromer has written in his book. As men come and go in the great Egyptian Sudan in the years that unfold, the measure of Gordon will become more and more impressive. Slowly but surely, across the dunes of the ancient empire of the Pto- lemies, rises the dawn that has never in all history THE NEW PHARAOH IN EGYPT 63 illumined the Sudan — and that dawn has thrown against the sky the silhouette of the hero of Khartum. By and by, when dawn shall have passed into merid- ian and meridian into twilight and the new Sudanese empire shall have gone the way of all empires, then the backward shadow cast by the afterglow will be that of Gordon. His is the one imperishable memory between Alexandria and the Nyanzas. For Cromer's sake, rather than Gordon's, it is a pleasure to find this final tribute, by way of summary : " In the course of this narrative, I have alluded to General Gordon's numerous inconsistencies. I have pointed out errors of judgment with which he may justly be charged. I have dwelt on defects of character which unsuited him for the conduct of political affairs. But, when all this has been said, how grandly the character of the man comes out in the final scene of the Soudan tragedy. ... He died in the plenitude of his reputa- tion, and left a name which will be revered so long as the quali- ties of steadfast faith and indomitable courage have any hold on the feelings of mankind." IV FRANCE'S AFRICAN EMPIRE SUPPOSE that a mehari camel with a speed of fifty miles a day (the mehari is the Mauretania of the desert liners, just as the ordinary camel is a cargo-boat) were to start southward from Algiers and follow the straight course of the crow. He would come out at Cotonou, on the Gulf of Guinea, forty- two days later. Let another mehari start from Dakar (on the West Coast) and make a bee-line for the Darfour boundary of the Egyptian Sudan : He would reach it two weeks after the first camel had groaningly anchored on the Guinea Coast. Let a third camel start from Tangier in the direction of Fez, and con- tinue southeastward at the fifty-mile rate: He would reach the Bahr-el-Ghazal province of the Sudan in two months. The first camel would cover a distance equal to that between New York and Santa Fe; the second would travel as far as it is from Pittsburg to San Francisco ; the trail of the third would reach from New York across the continent to Portland, Ore. Yet every one of the cloven footprints of each camel would be in French soil or within the French '* sphere of in- fluence." Such is the extent of France's continuous empire in the Dark Continent. 64 FRANCE'S AFRICAN EMPIRE 65 Of course, it is technically incorrect to include Morocco within the French imperial fence — and yet who of those who know the facts would exclude Egypt from the British Empire because it happens to be labelled '' Turkish " on the map? It is true that Morocco has — at least, many people think that it has — an independent government with a Sultan holding Oriental court at Fez. It is true, also, that the Spanish claims upon Morocco are much older than those of France, and they actually occupy a larger part of its area. Nevertheless I build the fence of the French Empire around Morocco. It should be remembered that the destinies of African states and tribes are not fixed in Africa, but in Europe — and the likes and dislikes of the subject races have little to do with the fixing. By the grace of the nation whose big guns are mounted on Gibral- tar, Morocco is recognized as a French " sphere of in- fluence." By all African precedents, the land of the Moor should next become a French protectorate — and the process of " protecting " has already begun. The final step will be annexation. But suppose the Moors object? So did the Arabs of Algeria and so did the Kabyles of the hills. But suppose that complications with Germany arise ? Very well : There are the yawning guns on Gibraltar and the big grey ships lying in the shadow of the Rock — and never did Briton and Frenchman love each other so dearly as now. Of course, if the dogs of war break their leash, it may be necessary to make a new map with Morocco outside the French fence. On the 66 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET other hand, there is the possibiHty that France's barbed wire would be extended around German Togoland and the Cameroons. Lots of things will happen in Africa when Europe goes to war; the fence-builder can only follow the line of human probability. For convenience we may split the empire up in this way: Tunis is about as large as North Carolina; Algeria would contain New York, New Jersey, Penn- sylvania, Ohio, and Kentucky ; into Morocco you might place Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida; French West Africa would make twenty-five states the size of Kentucky; French Guinea is as large as Oregon; the Ivory Coast is twice the size of Michigan; six New Hampshires could be placed in " little " Dahomey; the French Congo would make eight big states like Illinois; and the Sahara alone is nearly as large as the whole of the United States or of Europe. Nobody knows how many people live in some parts of the empire, but it is safe to say the Tricolour waves over 38,000,000 African subjects, counting the 2,500,- 000 in Madagascar. In thinking of the French, there- fore, it is approximately accurate to consider every other Frenchman as either an Arab or a Moor or a Negro. Marseilles is the great port from which go most of the steamships that carry into French Africa the complex cargo of white civilization — governors and traders, soldiers and missionaries, machinery and mail, merchandise and absinthe. The gates of entry are many, for the empire's headlands are washed on the FRANCE'S AFRICAN EMPIRE 67 north by the quiet waters of the Mediterranean, and on the west and south by the rolHng billows of the Atlantic. Every one of the great divisions except the Sahara has its water-front; and even the Desert has its inland " seas " and " lakes " of sand, with a picturesque " fleet " of four-legged freighters. Omit- ting a score of minor ports (any one of which may be a commercial metropolis to-morrow), Tunisia has Tunis, Sousse, Sfax, and the naval base at Bizerte; Algeria is entered at Algiers and Oran; Morocco has Tangier, Casablanca, and Mogador; Dakar and St. Louis are gateways into the Senegal and upper Niger regions; and Conakry (French Guinea) is one of the big names on the West Coast. The two colonies that front on the Gulf of Guinea welcome the steamers from France at Grand-Bassam, Assinie, and Cotonou; Libreville (on the equator) and Loango are gate- ways into the coastal region of the French Congo, but the lonely men " sitting tight " on the hot outposts between the Congo Free State, and Lake Chad receive their two-months-old letters and their '^ chop-boxes " from the small steamers that ascend the Shari and Ouibangui Rivers. And all the steamers of this com- mercial navy weigh anchor for the homeland with rich and varied cargoes that need no longer wait upon the whims of haggling natives on weekly market-days. Except in North Africa, the hoarse salute of the steamship's whistle is seldom answered by the shrill voice of the little French locomotive, but every little line of steel is strategic. French Guinea has under 68 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET construction a railroad from Conakry to the begin- ning of navigation on the Niger — 230 miles, of which half is completed; the Ivory Coast and Dahomey are slowly pushing rails toward the Niger; and Morocco now has its first railroad, a military convenience, be- ginning at Casablanca, and almost ending there. The most important system of transportation be- tween the Sahara and the Congo begins in French West Africa. When the big cargo-boats swing around the island of Goree and warp alongside the big stone docks inside the breakwater at Dakar, they find 164 miles of railroad running northward to St. Louis, at the mouth of the Senegal River. (At certain seasons, ocean-going steamers may enter the Senegal and avoid the freight haul.) From St. Louis eastward into what was once known as the Sudan, the Senegal river- steamers run as far as Kayes, the head of navigation. At Kayes the railroad takes up the cargo and carries it to Koulikoro (350 miles to the eastward), and turns it over to the Niger boats that steam up to Timbuctu. Meanwhile, the British in the Nigerias have been working up the Niger from its mouth toward Tim- buctu. Whenever it shall seem practicable for Eng- land or France to overcome a series of rapids between Timbuctu and Baro, there will be a continuous system of steam transportation from the mouth of the Senegal (on the Atlantic) to the mouth of the Niger — a dis- tance of nearly 3,000 miles. It is to Algeria and Tunis that one must go for an appreciation of the French genius in railroad build- FRANCE'S AFRICAN EMPIRE 69 ing. A total of 2,500 miles seems but a trifle to a nation of railroad builders like the United States, but it has already revolutionized that ancient, stagnant land known as the Barbary Coast. Three private French companies and the Algerian Government have laid track across mountains and plains and desert, all so connected as to form a trunk-line from Sousse on the east to Oran on the west, with a score of branch lines extending northward and southward. Year by year the engineers are pushing the track from oasis to oasis and saying to the camel caravan : " From this point your services are no longer required." All over the land you will find the stage-coach in waiting where the railroad leaves off. From Biskra, for example, you may go in two days to Tougourt — an oasis where the mercury almost boils in the thermometer. There the camel takes the white man's burden and mail on to the oasis of Ouargla — 219 miles from the end of the railroad. From Oran southward into the Desert runs a government railroad, and a trans-Saharan rail- road from Colomb-Bechar to Timbuctu and Gao on the Niger is in the project stage. Through trains from the Mediterranean to the Gulf of Guinea may yet be in operation before you can check your bag- gage from the Cape to Cairo. There is already a regular postal service entirely across the Sahara. From the Mediterranean to In- Salah there are two lines — one through Biskra, Tou- gourt, and Ouargla; the other via the oasis of La- ghouat, Ghardaia, and El Golea. From In-Salah other camels carry the mail to the Niger at Gao. From Gao 70 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HEL:\IET it is distributed in several directions, even as far as Zinder and Lake Chad. The Signal Corps has in the meantime been stringing its wires southward from Colomb-Bechar and northward from Timbuctu; from a hut of sun-baked mud-bricks in the heart of the Great Desert, a lonely French exile will transmit your cablegram to any part of the far-away world. The best preparation for a report on the white man's work in French Africa is to travel quietly through the country and observe him at his task. Let us therefore dismiss from present consideration every- thing south of the Sahara, for that belongs to Black Man's Africa. The northern half of the empire — the land of the Arab and the Moor — is wholly a different problem. Perhaps there is no other part of Africa that offers side by side such good examples of the three stages of white occupation — " sphere of influence," '' pro- tectorate," and " colony " — as Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria. When the rugged outline of the Barbary Coast looriis up before the traveller's eye for the first time, his thoughts instinctively go back to the days when the only white men in Africa were in Moorish prisons or were toiling as the slaves of Turkish masters. Then the coast-line w^s punctuated with the watch-towers of the Corsairs and lighted only by the moon and stars; now the ships of the nations come and go at will, guided by beacons that wink at one another from headland to headland. No lookout in the " crow's- FRANCE'S AFRICAN EMPIRE 71 nest " of a liner, no fisherman in his sail-boat, ever thinks of watching the horizon for the " rakish craft " of our dime-novel days. The history of navigation in this part of the world began a new chapter in 1815, with an American frigate as its initial letter, for Commodore Decatur applied the principle of " not one cent for tribute " to everything on the high seas except the stewards of ocean liners. Though piracy is one of the lost arts, there is plenty of evidence to prove that Morocco is only a " sphere of influence." I touched it first at the Spanish penal colony at Melilla, where the fight with the Rifflans was already under way; and I saw no more light- houses until we headed for Tangier — not even on one headland from which half -submerged rocks extended half a mile to seaward. Cape Spartel, the north- western corner of Africa, has a powerful beacon, but something like $300 of good American money has been going every year into the general fund contributed by Europe to keep it burning. There is not a port in Morocco where big steamers can discharge passengers and cargo on a pier; at Tangier, for instance, they . anchor in deep water and unload into lighters and row-boats manned by yelling, insistent Moors whose tumult is a vivid reminder of the pirates' regime. After you convince the Moorish officials sitting at the receipt of custom that your trunk contains nothing to swell their bank-account, you have the option of a donkey or a carrier, for the Tangier hotels have no omnibuses and the streets are not made for vehicles. 72 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET On the way through the crowded lane that leads from the port, you back into a doorway now and then and w^it until a donkey carrying water and one from the opposite direction carrying lumber decide which shall back up and let the other pass. At the hotel you learn that the city has no ice-factory; when you call for postage-stamps you learn that Morocco has found it thoroughly convenient to worry along without post- offices. Looking seaward from the hotel on a busy day in the harbour, you may count four warships but not more than three merchantmen. It would be superfluous to continue the specifica- tions; here you have only a "sphere of influence." Now let us see what a French " protectorate " looks like. Tunisia has for twenty-seven years been a " pro- tectorate " (or a ''regency") of France. The Bey still lolls in his Oriental palace, drives through the streets of Tunis in his six-mule carriage, and presides over the dispensary of Moslem justice; but his " Min- ister of Foreign Affairs " grips all the powers of a governor-general under his modest cloak of " Resident- General of France." In order that there might be no misunderstanding about this, the "treaty" of 1881 was amended and the Bey is under promise " to carry out all administrative reforms, judicial and financial, that the French government shall consider necessary." To one of France's ablest administrators, M. Cambon, was assigned the delicate task of remodelling the Tunisian government on French lines, and his sue- FRANCE'S AFRICAN EMPIRE 73 cessors have consistently followed those lines. With what results ? It was at Tunis that I first touched African soil, and I saw more high-grade civilization in the first half-hour than I had seen in Naples in three days. Instead of anchoring at La Goulette, seven miles dis- tant, as ships formerly did, the steamer glided through a ship-canal into a capacious harbour where twenty or more steamers were loading and unloading, and dropped its anchor alongside an excellent dock. From the custom-house (where my baggage was not even unstrapped) a hotel omnibus drove through a broad, well-paved, absolutely clean boulevard, down the centre of which I had a long vista of beautiful trees — all this where the French found a noxious marsh. Telephone wires, artistic iron posts surmounted by arc-lights, neat little towers for the bill-poster, letter- boxes, trolley-cars, and even electric trains were con- spicuously present. Long lines of carriages were in waiting beside the curb, and several automobile garages were in sight. Here was a cathedral, there a palace, yonder a handsome theatre; and on both sides were open-air cafes thronged with well-dressed men and women. On one side were the arcades of department stores — '' Au Nouveau Louvre," etc. — which would attract attention on New York's Fifth Avenue. On the newstands were half a dozen Tunis dailies, while Le Matin and Le Journal (two or three days from Paris) were everywhere. The native popu- lation, more numerous than the white, was well- dressed, picturesque, and apparently satisfied with life; 74 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET certainly there were few examples of squalid poverty. Through the middle of the street stalked a turbaned Arab with a phonograph (horn and all) on his head; further along was a red-fezzed Jew carrying a familiar American sewing-machine in the same man- ner. The hotel had nearly everything, from ice to perfumed tooth-picks, that one expects in a fine American hotel — and at about one-half the cost. When I passed through the Gate of France into the Arab city, I found its narrow, winding streets clean, well-lighted, labelled at every turn, and even the Arab houses were numbered. At any hour of the night I could pass alone in perfect safety, though a native gendarme might not be seen for an hour — an experiment that I would not advise in Naples, where I found a man's hand in my pocket, in a public place. It is true that the Arab city is merely clean, not made over; true that in the fascinating quarter given over to its famous souks and bazaars you may still see the craftsmen spinning and weaving and pounding in the same crude way that the Phoenicians worked yonder on the hill of Carthage; but the result is very pleasing and also very honest. Yet the num- ber of natives sitting at American sewing-machines shows that the era of labour-saving machinery has begun. It is also true that those who work for wages receive only a pittance, but they have money to spend in the cafes, they are in every trolley-car, and the Tunisian trains are often crowded with them. Right here let it be said that if the host of Ameri- cans who trot around Europe could realize how much FRANCE'S AFRICAN EMPIRE 75 more they may get for their money in an Oriental city like Tunis — whose charm is to be compared only with Constantinople and Cairo — the guides would soon find it necessary to learn English. I can think of no other trip out of New York that yields so much and such varied pleasure for the same expenditure of time and money. But it is highly essential to enjoyment that some member of every party understand a little French. Better two weeks of Tunis than two months north of the Mediterranean; and you need not worry much about the climate at any season of the year, un- less you are a weakling. The traveller who passes from Tunisia across the rugged frontier of Algeria makes the transition from a '' protectorate " to a possession — merely a difference of about fifty years. Here is a French colony with a mongrel govern- ment, a mixture of monarchy and republicanism. A Governor-General sits at Algiers with such plenary powers as those of making out the budget, contracting loans, and appointing Cabinets. But the French Min- ister of the Interior has jurisdiction over all his acts, and a council of local officials is supposed to advise him. Vox populi is expressed in two ways : ( i ) Algeria sends Senators and Deputies to what corre- sponds in France to our Congress; (2) and '' financial delegations " — representing the French colonists, the French tax-payers other than colonists, and the native Arabs — may vote on the budget. We have no form of government exactly like it; it is a mixture of 76 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET Oklahoma (the Indians corresponding to the Arabs) and the PhiHppines. The Arabs outnumber the foreigners four to one in Algeria, but it now has a permanent foreign popula- tion of about 400,000. About three-fourths of these foreigners are French; the others are Spaniards, Italians, Jews, Moroccans, etc. Algiers and Oran are the chief cities; in population they rank with Kansas City and Los Angeles. A military force of 56,000 men (nearly half of them being enlisted natives) is in the field, but the expense is borne by France instead of being charged against the colony. Algeria is a stern, grim-visaged land which has suf- fered much at the hands of the centuries. Its ancient forests have vanished and only a pitiful brushwood remains ; the torrents have washed bare the rugged hills and cut great furrows down every slope. Only the valleys remain for agriculture and grazing, yet 200,000 white colonists are making northern Algeria into another France. About three million acres in wheat, three other millions in barley, and at least three hundred thousand acres of vines, and thirteen million olive-trees — this exhibit shows the changes that the Frenchman is introducing into a landscape so dreary that a less optimistic government would turn away in despair. But the French capitalists who own mineral concessions in Algeria are less considerate than the government. They have been carting away into France about two million dollars' worth of phosphates a year — nutrition which nature had evidently stored away for Algeria's own hour of need. This is one FRANCE'S AFRICAN EMPIRE 77 of the most serious blunders that has happened under the French flag. He who is possessed with the idea that the British are the great builders in Africa should travel over the colonies of France. The splendid engineering triumphs in railroading and harbour-construction; the two thousand miles of beautiful roadway that cuts even through the hills of Kabylia; the electric lights and tramways and telephones ; the seven hundred post- offices handling seventy million pieces of mail a year; nine thousand miles of telegraph line transmitting three million messages annually — such figures as these indicate that the Frenchman has a serious and con- structive side that we are not familiar with. And he has faith, too — faith in his colonies and in his own genius — for he builds with his own money and trusts the future of the colonies for his repayment. The critical observer may of course find much in French North Africa to criticise, alongside the much that he commends. The American is pleased with the network of railroads and macadamized highways, but he deplores the obvious scarcity of labour-saving devices; yet Algeria alone imports something like a million dollars' worth of machinery a year. He will also miss the little red schoolhouse from the landscape, but the education of Mohammedan children has problems that no nation has yet mastered. The Eng- lishman frets because the shipping in the harbours does not fiy the Union Jack, and because Manchester- made goods do not have what he considers a square 78 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET deal; but the Frenchmen think they have a right to the ground-floor in their own establishment. Probably the most serious criticism that can be made is that France is apparently administering the country more in the interests of the French colonist than for the welfare of the native. The Frenchman seems to own all of the choicest " bottom " land and the well- watered plains ; the French are the beneficiaries of the mineral deposits; and even the ill-favoured Jews (African born) have come into French citizenship in advance of the Arabs, though they are not much higher in the scale of civilization. The only answer to these and other specifications is, that it remains to be seen if there be any large portion of Africa that is being administered primarily on a philanthropic basis. In seeking for a universal test to apply to the work of all white men in Africa, the mind always comes back to the benediction of Livingstone — the one over- shadowing memory in the Dark Continent — and to the words engraved upon his tomb : " All I can add, in my loneliness, is : may Heaven's rich blessing come down on everyone — American, English, or Turk — who will help to heal the open sore of the world." One may have in mind all the colonial crimes that have been charged to the account of France and still say that — unless Livingstone's influence at the Throne be over-estimated — the French are in line for this blessing. THE ARAB AS A FRENCHMAN A SOLID mass of 30,000,000 French Moham- medans to-day stands facing a civihzation which it can neither resist nor evade — an economical fact that makes the Arab loom large against the African sky. All in all there are probably 55,000,000 of brown and black Moslems north of the equator — and this is only one of the large units in a Mohammedan population that numbers about 235,000,- 000 throughout the world. The fact that all North Africa is being revolu- tionized — by the British in Egypt and by the French along the Barbary Coast — fades into lesser significance in the light of the fact that a semi-barbarous race is now in the first stages of its regeneration. The country itself has been " revolutionized " many times, but not since the days of the Prophet has the Arab changed in character. He has worn the same costume, eaten the same coarse food, marketed the same little handful of products in the same pitiful way, read the same Book, chanted the same prayers, and lived the same listless, ignoble life as the Arabs of the centuries that have folded up their tents and vanished into the night. Missionaries of many creeds have laboured to induce him to change most of these, 79 80 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET especially the ignoble life, but the Arab has stuck to his Koran like a barnacle to a rotting hulk. One of the most capable churchmen of modern times, Cardinal Lavigerie, conceived an imperial plan and sent a militant corps of White Fathers even into the Sahara, but the Cardinal sleeps in princely state on the hill of Carthage while the muezzin and not his cathedral-chimes calls the Arab to prayer. Down the long lane of the ages this picturesque and not unlov- able race has plodded its way contentedly, but the perspective shows the white burnmise and the brown jelab now at the turn of the lane. Beyond the bend will emerge a new type of African — the French Arab. The Arab and the Moor are as unfathomable as the Japanese, and no man who thinks in straight lines may expect to thoroughly understand them. But it is fairly accurate to interpret the Mussulman in the light of the Koran, for Islam is essentially a religion of externals and it governs the minute details of the daily life. The African Arab and the Moor are neither better nor worse than the Koran requires or permits. The kernel is essentially the same, regardless of the shell; a keen eye may differentiate the Kabyle from the Arab in the streets of Algiers and pick out the Berbers from the Moors in the great market at Tan- gier, but in nine cases out of ten it is some peculiarity of costume or the manner of wearing the hair that leads to the diagnosis. Whatever the differences in the skin or under it, they are so overshadowed by the sameness of the things that make up a Mohammedan's THE ARAB AS A FRENCHMAN 81 daily life as to be practically obliterated. So far as the North African's relation to the white man is con- cerned, racial origin makes little difference; the im- pervious creed of Islam that cements into a con- glomerate mass the various tribes unites them also to all the allied races that recognize Allah as God and Mohammed as the Prophet of God. Whether he have the fair complexion of the original Berbers, the pot- black skin of the Sudanese, or the brown of a lineage that goes back to the Prophet himself, the North African offers the same passive resistance to the white man and to what we call civilization. The resistance is passive from necessity, not from choice. It is inevitable that such be the case; to act other- wise would smack of apostasy and treason. Were Islam only a religion, it might continue to flourish side by side with the altars that the white race is building under the shadow of every minaret. But the scheme of the Prophet made no provision for the guidance of his followers under other than Moslem rulers. Forced by present circumstances to live out his life as one of a subject race, ruled by men whom his creed has taught him to spurn, the Mussulman is now confronted with this dilemma: Either he must renounce his an- cestral faith (which is equivalent to denationalization) and become an '' infidel," or he must remodel his creed and make it fit into the white man's scheme of civiliza- tion. It is this dilemma that makes the North African, standing to-day at the parting of the ways, one of the most interesting characters in a land of strange and interesting peoples. 8a THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET A policy of conciliation has made it easy for the Arab to become a Frenchman. No man of France ever forgets that the Arab is his inferior, but he acts as if he had forgotten it. There are no '' Jim Crow '' cars on any of the railroads and no reserved seats in the street-cars; on the other hand, I have frequently seen both Arabs and Europeans thrust into over- crowded compartments in order that the privacy of Arab women in an almost vacant compartment might be respected. The native is not elbowed aside at the ticket-seller's window, nor does he hop off the narrow sidewalk to let a white lady pass. He sits at will in the best cafes and in the dining-rooms of the best hotels, if he can pay the bill. But Arabs and French do not intermarry. That which surprised me more than anything else in North Africa was the French soldier's attitude toward the native. I have seen the man in uniform at all hours of the day and night, under all sorts of con- ditions, but I never heard him speak harshly to a native or act in a lordly, arrogant way. The zouaves off duty pass along the streets as quietly and inoffensively as if they were only visitors in the land that they have conquered; yet the average European all along the Moroccan coast will tell you that the French soldier is a ruffian who kills for pastime and spares not women and children. Here is an incident that shows the French policy: In the Arab quarter of a Tunisian city I stumbled into a street-fight. Three Arabs, apparently half-stupefied with hemp, were striking at each other like children THE ARAB AS A FRENCHMAN 83 and rolling about on the cobblestones. A big, good- natured Sudanese tried to stop the fight but he backed out of it when they began to tear his clothes. After about fifteen minutes, when the fighters had become a sorry-looking group, a French officer and two native police appeared. The reeling men revived sufficiently to begin afresh on the policemen. With a vivid recol- lection of New York, I stood expectantly, but the little Frenchman did not draw his club and put the fighters to sleep in " Metropolitan " style. He grasped the first by the arm, twisted it behind his back, and marched him down the street; once the prisoner de- cided to lie down in the street, but the officer got him on his feet again without striking him. The two native police, however, kicked their prisoners along in front of them. After seeing many instances of this kind and not one where a Frenchman in uniform handled a native roughly, one may be excused if he discredits the stories of French brutality that are peddled about by men who heard them from some one else who did not himself see them. It is undeniably true that the Arab of Algeria or Tunisia finds his prejudices respected. For this rea- son, the French Arab is and Vv^ill remain indefinitely a Mohammedan. It is in his moral responsibility toward the awakening race that the Frenchman falls most deplorably short. He does not reinforce the Arab with influences which will steady him as the power of his creed weakens. The Mohammedan doesn't drink, but he can learn; and his conscience 84 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET soon permits him to drink anything that is not red. But gambhng is not forbidden by the Koran, and the roulette-table follows the French flag. Now when a free-and-easy morality is superimposed upon a Mohammedan foundation, the result is some- what in doubt. It has pleased some writers, with " the artistic temperament," to effervesce over the mystical beauties of Mohammedanism. Perhaps another writer may make the bald statement that all Arab Africa is morally " rotten " without being accused of exaggera- tion by men who know. The crumbling and dis- coloured minarets of the mosques that have not been repaired by the French themselves tell more plainly than words the real state of this people. Minarets and the whitewashed domes of saints' tombs are as common as church-spires in Brooklyn ; theoretically, every Arab and every Moor pray five times a day: but an Arab who is genuinely pious is as rare as a snowstorm. It is only in the externals of religion that this new French protege is a marvel of devotion, and no wor- shipper of any creed in the world can beat him at that. It was my good fortune to divide the month of Rama- dan between Algerian Arabs and Tangier Moors. Ramadan is the Lent of the whole Mohammedan world — a period of thirty days during which the faith- ful must not eat nor drink nor smoke between sun- rise and sunset. Thousands upon thousands of these people were under my eye from one new moon to another, but I saw only one violation of this law of the Koran, and that was the case of a mother who THE ARAB AS A FRENCHMAN 85 gave her baby a little crust of bread. All day long in the market-places they handled food and water, but never a crumb nor a drop passed their lips; the same loafers sat moodily on the benches of the coffee- houses, but the proprietors brewed nothing except for an occasional European. The extreme of loyalty to the letter of the law was shown in the case of patients in one of the charitable hospitals : the surgeon told me that he generally closed the institution during Rama- dan because none of the patients could be persuaded to take a drop of medicine until they heard the sunset gun. But not even the Koran can keep the Arab from bringing the sum-total of sensual enjoyment for the twenty-four hours up to the average. The moment the boom of the evening gun is heard he begins to gorge himself; and he gives the whole night to the task of preparing for the evil of the morrow. When the morning gun. announces the hour of fasting, he is ready to sleep; since he remains in a state of unconsciousness until along in the afternoon, there really remain only a few hours of abstinence before the beginning of another debauch. So universal is this custom that European residents dread the approach of Ramadan, because their native servants are thoroughly demoral- ized for a w^hole month. It is seldom that one sees a drunken Arab or Moor, but when it comes to vices which the Koran does not interdict, the Mohammedan's conscience betrays its elastic qualities. In every important Algerian town 86 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET you may find the new type — the Frenchified Arab who has acquired a smattering of education and picked up all the European vices as a reinforcement to his own plentiful supply. The influence of this new type, par- ticularly upon boys, is very pernicious, yet he is the inevitable product of civilization. The Arab boys are going to school by the thousands, but all the training is directed mainly at their intellectual natures. This would not be deplorable were it not for the well- known fact that the average Arab boy, even as a child, is depraved almost beyond belief. So far as a traveller's limited observation goes, the French Arab who has merely become '' educated " cannot be considered much of an improvement upon the original. This is true, also, in regard to Arab honesty. I have heard more than one French trader say that he had much more confidence in the native of the interior than in the coast Arab. The truth of the whole matter is that the North African needs something more than civilization to make of him a white man — and he is not getting it. An Englishman who has lived among the Moors for thirty years, and is their warm friend, has made an analysis of the Moor's " bumps." Graded on the scale of lo, this is his summary : Courtesy 8 Self-esteem lo ^ General shrewdness 6 Loj^alty 2 Hospitality 8 Commercial honesty . . i ^ Kindness to animals . . . o ^ Love of Cleanliness .... 3 Love of pleasure lo Procrastination ii Courage 5 to 10 Truthfulness x THE ARAB AS A FRENCHMAN 87 This analysis fits the Arab as well as the Moor, and it shows that he needs something more than the veneer of civilization. I entered Africa with a well-defined conception of the Arab as a cruel, treacherous, fanatical, thoroughly despicable character. Daily contact with him under many kinds of circumstances, however, revealed inter- esting and admirable qualities. This is far from saying that any North African is a man to be idealized; but he is an individual with unlimited possibilities. He startles you, at first, by his personal appearance. His physical imperfections — and his sanitary sins, as well — are concealed by the robe that hangs loosely from his shoulders like a Roman toga or enshrouds him like the habit of a white-cowled monk; " it is as effectual a covering as charity." Generally tall and erect, especially in Tunisia, his carriage is superb and commanding; the bronzed features beneath his turban are usually stolid or stern, but not sinister; and his gutturals are much more pleasing to the ear than the chattering and cackling of some of his neighbours from the south of Europe. But if you strip from him the picturesque garb and put him in European clothes, most of his physical preeminence is gone; to American eyes, at least, he drops instantly to the level of an ordinary mulatto. This applies, also, with some exceptions, to the Arab in French uniform. The infantryman awakens no enthusiasm, but he likes his new clothes — and that 88 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET is the main thing. He is more easily kept under con- trol than the average Negro soldier, but he does not look like a man who would back up against a wall and fight to the last cartridge. General d'Amade, who had both Algerian Arabs and black Senegalese under him at Casablanca, told me that he preferred the Algerians ; but this is partly because the Arab has been French long enough to acquire something of the language and manner of life. Just outside of the General's model camp were some of those black fighters from the Senegal ; their sloppy women were unclothed above the waist and many of the children were naked to their toe-nails; this sort of thing does not appeal to the French officer's aesthetic sense. Of the Arab cavalryman (the Spahi) no one can have anything but praise. Many are the devices of the white man when he goes a-civilizing — school-bells, church-bells, printer's ink, justices of the peace, black powder sandwiched between lead and brass shells — but if I were asked to guess the most effectual method of making Frenchmen out of Arabs, the answer would be the Spahi uniform. Solomon in his most radiant glory may have been a finer exhibit of jewelry and gorgeous silks, but it is doubtful whether he ever brightened the Palestinian landscape more pleasingly than this pride of French native soldiery adorns the hot Algerian plains. However frequently he may be seen, he never tires the eye. He is clad in a scarlet (or perhaps a blue) waistcoat covered with gold braid. Baggy trousers of a contrasting colour disappear into European riding-boots. His turban (always of white) THE ARAB AS A FRENCHMAN 89 is apparently stretched tightly over an inverted soup- plate and is held in place by about twenty yards of brown cord wound around the head as a hat-band. This is only his fatigue uniform; he wears on every possible occasion a military cloak that makes another vivid contrast, and throws back one corner to show the brilliant lining. Put this cavalryman, spurred and sabred, on a horse with '' go " in him, and there is no Arab spectator so sluggish as not to open his eyes. And it is this that counts. The French have made military service so attractive that the Arab is willing to forget his racial antipathy and take the oath of allegiance to the white man's colours. Once in camp, he begins to pick up the language of his French offi- cers; little by little he learns civilized ways — and likes them; and little by little the deadening, stupefying atmosphere of Islam vanishes. He may crawl out of his uniform when his enlistment expires, but it is for- ever impossible for him again to see life at the angle from which he once viewed it. The Arab is not a citizen of France, but the Algerian Jew is — and there's a rub, for the Arab has long been accustomed to the pleasing spectacle of see- ing the Jew kiss the Moslem toe. As I was leaving Algeria, news came that the French government had decided to require every Arab to pass through a term of service in the army. This may not be the best thing that ever happened to the French army but it will be a means of grace to the Arabs. If compulsory 90 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELIVIET service shall result in universal citizenship (as it should), then the old rankle will disappear. The French listen with a more alert ear to the distant rumbling of colonies than do the English. They realize that any one of the usual mutterings that de- pendent races indulge in may prove to be the little puff of smoke that will precede the flash of a '' holy war " against the European — such as the Mahdist up- rising in the Sudan. This is the low-lying cloud on the southern horizon that the Governor-General in Algiers occasionally sees from his political observatory; and this is the spectre that now and then rises out of the wastes to confront the isolated colonist whose fields cover the valleys that the Arab wrongfully regards as rightfully his. Until the Mohammedan conception of the white man as an unbelieving dog has been removed, the Arab will not dismiss the anticipation of a day when Allah will give him the exquisite pleasure of kicking the dog back into the sea. But the Frenchman is apparently unconcerned and continues to replace battalions of French zouaves with the native soldiery. Even at Casablanca, I found Moors already in uniform — the beginning of the same policy in Morocco. It is evident that the Frenchman, who knows the Arab soldier better than any other European, pins his faith to him. The engineer goes ahead with his plans for railroads and highways; the well-digger's caravan moves on into the Sahara; the colonist continues to plant his olive-shrubs and vines for the future; and the schoolteacher goes on with the task of teaching a brown-skinned protege that the THE ARAB AS A FRENCHMAN 91 proper way for an Arab to pronounce " Ouach Kalekf '' is " Comment vous portez-vous? " Of the Arab woman few Westerners are competent to speak, but she is yet very far from being a French- woman. The curse of Islam rests heavily upon her. In addressing even a half-Europeanized Arab or Moor, it is still a breach of etiquette to inquire after the health of his wives or daughters. The girl's child- hood is spent in seclusion, with none of the outdoor pleasures and none of the school-life of Western children. Wedded (virtually sold) at an age when American girls are yet in short dresses, she merely passes from the seclusion of her own home to that of a man to whom she may never have spoken and who may have children old enough to be her father; and thenceforward her life is that of either a doll or a slave. Visits to the tombs of " holy " men (os- tensibly for prayer), a weekly trip to the public baths, and a Friday outing in the cemetery — these are the recreations of a Moorish or an Arab lady. Most of the native women that one sees along the Barbary Coast, therefore, belong to the peasant class, where the wife ranks with the burro as a beast of burden; and even these women are more or less veiled when in the towns. But a passing traveller may con- vince himself that many of the women have a complex- ion as fair as that of the women he knows at home, and that some are of extraordinary beauty. European ladies who have access to native homes generally admit 92 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET that beauty is about all that the native women have, even those of the higher classes. To take this Mohammedan woman by the hand and lead her into the larger liberty of Europe is a task that none need envy the French Government. It will probably require several generations to produce an Arab womanhood that will be at all comparable to ours — and much of the raw material will be spoiled in the making. You may easily prove this in the public squares of Algiers in broad daylight. The children — both Arabs and Moors — are attrac- tive and lovable in spite of the sins of the fathers that have been visited upon them for many generations, plus the sins of their own. The Arab baby has a hard time of it, and the percentage that never emerges from babyhood is appallingly large. Of those that survive, many go through life deformed or with weakened powers, but they acquire a sort of Spartan fortitude that fits well into the fatalistic doctrines of their philosophy. For instance, turning my gaze toward a market- place as I write, I see a peasant woman with a six- months-old baby suspended from her back by a wide, dirty sash. Its tiny feet stick out in front, the little legs being arched around the mother's broad back until they are curved like a bow. The baby hangs in this improvised hammock with its head downward, the unprotected head and eyes exposed to the glaring sun. It is safe to assume that its scalp is covered with scabs and scars, and its festering eyes with flies. It THE LAND OF THE GOAT'S-HAIR TENTS THE WOMEN OF THE ItEDAWEEX TENTS THE ARAB AS A FRENCHMAN 93 will hang there for the greater part of the day, as the mother goes about her work, the child's angle at any given moment depending upon the mother's position. When the woman is ready to trudge toward her wretched hut, one or more blanket coverings will be thrown over her back (and over the baby) and it will breathe whatever air it can get. It hasn't much of a chance in life, but it is learning the lesson of uncom- plaining endurance of the many ills that Allah gets credit for sending. The children of the upper classes fare better, but only the boys receive special solicitude. So pleasing is the sight of a well-to-do native riding along with his little son perched up in front of him that one forgets that he has never seen a father of the upper class in public with a daughter. Naturally, this conception of a girl's place in the universe makes the educational problem hard. Most of these people cannot read in their own language, and they have no desire for what we consider good learn- ing. The French are placing schools within their reach, but most of them are Koranic schools with Arab teachers. The chief task at present is to pro- duce a class of French Arabs that can lift these schools to a higher level. Normal schools and colleges of several kinds exist in the larger cities for this pur- pose. There are also several thousand Arab boys under French instructors every year; many of them become clerks or occupy minor government posts; the larger number are content to take their education and use it in their former spheres of action. 94 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET They have a great chance, these thirty milHons of Arabs that are now bhnking at the Hght. Perhaps France might be more paternal, but the conquered race may thank the stars that its destiny rests in a hand that seldom wears the rough gauntlet. FRENCH SCHOOLS IN TUNISIA VI BETWEEN THE SAHARA AND THE SEA TO the north, a long, indented coast-line, against which the spray of the Mediterranean splashes in a playful mood and over which blow breezes that have been cooled in their journey across leagues of water. To the south, a long, indented " coast-line," upon which the sand-dust of the Sahara sifts in a suffo- cating mist and over which blow scorching blasts that have come across leagues of burning sand. On the west, an impassable barrier of Moroccan mountains, guarded by impassable Moroccan tribes- men as wild and rugged as their hills. On the east, Tripoli — a. festering sore that a long- suffering Providence has permitted to remain un- healed, lest we forget what all North Africa was be- fore the white man seized it. Within, hemmed in by these boundaries, lie Algeria and Tunisia — two of the three most picturesque lands that are within easy reach of the traveller and two of the least visited. Merely to travel through them is a delight within easy reach of thousands of Americans who fill their diaries with the commonplaces of Europe. 95 96 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELIVIET If by the favour of the gods a boat lands you in French North Africa, it will probably be at Algiers. From the deck the city reminds you of some Cali- fornian's description of Los Angeles, but when you come ashore you will find that " the white city " is not so white as the sunlight painted it. The Arab hovels on both sides of the narrow paths that lead up to the Kasbah on the hilltop have apparently not re- sponded to the transforming touch of the invading civilization; but, if you have ever travelled in a Mo- hammedan land before and learned how foul a Mus- sulman city may be when there is no department of sanitation, you will observe important changes that French occupation has brought. Algiers is the miost ambitious French city outside of the republic itself, and it tries to be as much like Paris as circumstances (including the Arabs) permit. Here in this African city you may be as comfortable as if you were at home — ^perhaps more so. All the guide-books will tell you much about Mus- tapha Superieur and other clusters of beautiful foreign villas, with magnificent driveways. Heed them not; you can see fine homes and boulevards at home. Linger, instead, in the lower city, where the human tide ebbs and flows along the Boulevard d'Alger or trickles down from the high hill on whose summit stand the crumbling walls of the Kasbah — the scene of many a revolting crime. Or, you may sit at an open-air cafe and sip any of the drinks of France, surrounded by the best tailoring and the choicest millinery of Paris. BETWEEN THE SAHARA AND THE SEA 91 Or, you may easily spend a day in the French shops under the arcade, and in the Oriental bazaars whose wares are displayed in a riot of colour. Or, you may stroll about in Le Place de Gouverne- ment while the band is playing, and incidentally get a glimpse of most of the attractive women and of the handsome officers of Algiers. Or, of course, you can hire a guide to take you the round of the " sights," stuff your ears with rubbish, and lighten your pocketbook with ill-advised purchases. Or — but never mind! Southwestward, a distance of 350 miles, near the Moroccan frontier, is the port of Oran — the second city in French North Africa. Leaving Algiers, the train passes through " the granary of the Roman Em- pire." (There seem to have been as many granaries of the Roman Empire as there are landing-places of Columbus.) This time it is the plain of Mitidja — 4,000 acres of fertile soil occupied by small colonists who do their own farming and by large planters who employ Arab labour. Thirty-five miles from Algiers is the attractive city of BHda, with 30,000 people; near El Afifroun, the Atlas range is pierced by a tunnel that seems to be a mile long — it must have been a triumph of engineering to put it through; St. Cyprien, an hour's ride farther on, presents the unique spectacle of an entire Arab village turned Catholic. On the whole, the journey to Oran becomes monotonous, for the most interesting regions are not on the main line. For instance, there 98 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET is Teniet-el-Haad, with 6,000 acres of cedars, many of the trees being ten feet in diameter; and Ferme- Blanche, a httle to the northeast of Oran, a wine- making estabhshment whose vats have a capacity of more than 1,000,000 gallons. Mare-d'Eau, southeast of Oran, is the centre of a forest of wild olive that spreads over an area of 25,000 acres. Were it not for the importance of Algiers as the centre of government, it is probable that Oran would quickly outstrip it in importance. A glance at the shipping in its half -moon harbour — one of the most beautiful in Africa — and at the merchandise piled in shiploads on its capacious wharves, shows the amount of business that comes to it even now. Algiers on its busiest day does not seem so busy as Oran on a dull day; and the number of new houses under construc- tion shows that the rest of the city is keeping pace with the harbour. Its hotels, its department stores, its bazaars, its public buildings, its street-cars, and all the appurtenances that go to make up a modern city are just as impressive as those of the Algerian capital. Once it was a Spanish city, and you may still see the Castillian coat-of-arms over one of the city gates; the Spanish tongue vies with French as the language of commerce; and in general the tincture of the Spaniard seems to act as a tonic upon the French resident. Furthermore, if it may be said without discourtesy, you may see more attractive women in an hour in the Spanish city of Oran than in an entire circuit of the other cities of French Africa. Only in one respect did I note evidence of com- BETWEEN THE SAHARA AND THE SEA 99 mercial decay: The grand mosque of Oran was built with money that came from the sale of white men as slaves, but I saw none then being haggled over in the open market. Commerce of this kind seems to have suffered a depression since the arrival of the French. Travellers who go to Oran should be careful to have all kinds of money in their pockets. It is the only place where my Bank of England notes were turned down. In order to buy a steamship ticket from an Italian-Spanish company, it was necessary to dis- count my English money at a French bank; the steam- ship agent accepted this and gave me French and Spanish in change; but when I boarded his steamer I made the discovery that it was against the rules for the steward to accept anything but Italian money in payment for meals ! ^ ^ :?? ^ jjs The trains that run from Algiers eastward are the best that French North Africa can offer, for the main line as far as Constantine is a part of the tourist trail to Biskra. The tourist was not abroad in the land when I travelled over it; even had it been the open season, however, I should have missed him, for the sightseer (poor as well as rich) has the foolish habit of riding first-class. But whenever I alighted in a city which Baedeker has made famous and saw the horde of unemployed guides bearing down upon me, I re- gretted that I was not journeying in the wake of a large party. A casual glance at the map may leave you under 100 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET the impression that you may breakfast in Oran, lunch in Algiers, sup in Constantine, and sleep in Tunis. As a matter of fact, it is a day's ride to Algiers, another to Constantine, and a third to Tunis — that is, if you travel only when you can see things. During the first hours of the ride from Algiers you pass from the environs of a miniature Paris into the vineyards of France and thence into the wilds of Kabylia. Like their Touareg cousins in the southern Sahara, the Kabyles are men of war; they fought so well that the French have erected a monument to one of their leaders as a tribute of admiration for a foe. They are also farmers and craftsmen as well as fight- ers; unlike the Arabs, they prefer stone cabins to tents, and their villages are perched upon the mountain-tops instead of in the plains. Moreover, their women go unveiled. If you have never before given thought to the genius of the French engineer, you will have respect for it by the time you leave the foothills of Kabylia behind. This railroad is one of his triumphs, and the military road that he cut through the mountain fastnesses is another. It may be that there is a European who sur- passes the Frenchman as a builder in Africa but I have yet to be convinced. He has this also to his credit — he builds with his own money, trusting to the future for reimbursement, and does not squeeze it out of the colonies. From the foothills of the Rockies your train drops down into the Western plains, and then into a region BETWEEN THE SAHARA AND THE SEA 101 that is a vivid reminder of the upland South; but here the hills are either bare or covered with stunted vegetation. Were it not for the costumes of the Arabs at the stations, there would be little in the journey across Algeria to remind the traveller that he is in Africa. The stately palms that one expects in a half- Oriental land are found only in the public gardens; the groves of olive look exactly like apple-orchards; the small native villages differ but little from groups of weather-beaten straw-stacks on an American farm; and the camel is rarely seen. The Arab (or somebody else) has long since since destroyed all the forests and left the slopes to the ravages of the torrents. Whenever you see a clump of flourishing trees on the horizon, you know that it marks either a railroad sta- tion or a Frenchman's home. I do not recall a station in French North Africa that did not have its grove of eucalyptus — the beginning of re-forestation. As a rule, you are looking out upon a half-cultivated plain bordered on either side by the bleak Algerian hills. It is a monotonous landscape and the arrival at Con- stantine is a great relief. Constantine is one of the " sights " of North Af- rica, and European visitors drop many exclamation points into its famous " gorge." The city is built upon a rock that reminds one of the river- front at Quebec. It is entirely surrounded by a caiion that is from 500 to 1,000 feet deep, and the bridge that spans it is the only connection with the plateau. This is historic soil. Here it was that " the Jugur- 102 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET thine War " was fought; and Sallust, its historian, was the Roman governor of Constantine. It has since been the scene of many a hard fight that had no Sal- lust to record it, but the city has never been taken except by siege or strategy. The books say that it is impregnable, but it doesn't look it. With all due credit to the excellent troops that now garrison it, I should guess that its capture would require an hour's hard work on the part of two such regiments as the Sixth United States Infantry or the Scots Guards, preceded by an overture from a good battery. My friend Saadi was much grieved at my indif- ference to the gorge of Constantine. He insisted that life would never be quite the same afterward unless I went down to explore it with him (fee, two francs), but I cheerfully proposed to take his word for all the wonders that it contains. I patiently allowed him to tell me what this and that European had said about it, and then I reversed the megaphone and filled his ears with big facts about American gorges. Standing on the brink of the chasm, I tried to explain how the Grand Canon of the Colorado would look beside it. Saadi respectfully refrained from any reply, but there was a reproachful look in his eye that seemed to say, " What a shame that you should try thus to deceive one so young! " You may continue your railroad journey from Con- stantine in either of several directions. You may go southward to Batna (near which are magnificent Ro- man ruins) and on to the oasis city of Biskra. Or you BETWEEN THE SAHARA AND THE SEA 103 may travel northward to the Httle port of Phil- ippeville on the Mediterranean. Or you may go eastward to Duvivier and branch northward through a fertile valley to Bone on the Mediterranean; here it was, in that long ago when this was a Chris- tian land, that St. Augustine preached and wrote his '' City of God." You will pass, on the mountains of Beni-Salah, 60,000 acres of good forest — a rare sight in Algeria. Or you may go eastward on the main- line and continue the journey across French North Africa. Eastward from Constantine on the main-line, your eye looks out upon the same monotonous plains and bare hills until you reach Duvivier; then, as you ap- proach the Tunisian frontier, you are again in well- forested hills that recall Kabylia. On reaching Ghardimaou, on the boundary-line, you are surprised by a French customs officer — though you are merely passing from one French colony into another. All your baggage must be lifted from the train and car- ried inside for inspection — but with the utmost courtesy. Leaving the rugged frontier that separates Algeria and Tunisia, you have a stretch of 115 miles to the city of Tunis. For a time the stations are far apart, but the eye is gladdened by the sight of acres of fer- tile soil being turned up with big gang-ploughs. Here, the plough is being drawn by six mules; farther on, it has ten or twelve oxen; now and then you see a horse hitched in front of the oxen to quicken the pace — some white man's idea, of course. 104 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET The stations are closer together now and a new ob- ject begins to appear — the steel windmill from Chi- cago, of which more than 400 were sold by one firm in Tunis. You may also see the stately ruins of the Roman aqueduct that once brought the pure water of Zaghouan across a distance of thirty or forty miles to Carthage — centuries before Chicago or its windmill was dreamed of. The last lap of the journey is through a vast fer- tile plain that lies between distant hills and now you are in the midst of beautiful villas and Arab palaces — the environs of Tunis, the most Oriental city west of Cairo. ^ :Jc :js sf: :Js Go and sit for an hour, if you please, beside any of the world's famous thoroughfares and cross-roads — Unter den Linden in Berlin, the Bois de Bologne in Paris, Charing Cross in London, the Corso Umberto in Rome, Broadway or Fifth Avenue in New York. Then come with me to Tunis and sip your coffee or vermouth in a cafe on the broad sidewalk just outside the Porte de France — you will see more that is strange and fascinating in five minutes than in your hour of civilized vaudeville. This Gate of France is not simply a hole cut in the wall of the ancient Arab city for the convenience of traffic. From the Arab side, it is the proscenium arch beyond which the drop-curtain has been raised to reveal a new and strange civilization; it is the telescopic lens through which an isolated race catches the blurred but alluring glimpse of a horizon of which BETWEEN THE SAHARA AND THE SEA 105 it never dreamed; it is the portal through which the follower of the Prophet may not pass and then re- pass without a sense of discontent with the old order of things. From the cafe side, the open space in front of the arched gateway is the stage of a comic opera (if you be frivolous) or of an Oriental drama (if you be serious-minded), with an ever-changing cast of char- acters. Here they come, at all hours of the day — the bowed form of the vender with his goatskin of oil or his basket of fish; the merchant prince in his spot- less burnouse; the Arab dandy in his a la mode, tailor- made suit and red fez; the tangled-bearded Jewish patriarch ; the Arab woman with her black-veiled face ; the unveiled Jewess with her Turkish bloomers and dunce-cap head-dress; and the nondescript children of Arab and Italian and Maltese and Jewish and what- not households. And there they go — the French officer, the British consul, the German baker, the Italian grocer, the Span- ish wine-merchant, the American missionary, the Greek labourer, the East Indian vender, and an end- less chain of dwellers out of almost every land be- neath the sun. There are many things to be seen in Tunis — you will find them all noted down in the *' Book Appointed to be Read by Tourists " — but the life that surges up and down the streets of the Arab town and of the market-places and of the European quarter is more fascinating than them all. Here for instance, is one entry in my notebook: 106 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET " To-day, in the market-place, I mingled with a thousand wrangling Arabs — countrymen and townsmen, wholesalers and retailers, Arabs with turbans and Arabs with fezzes, with now and then a pot-black Sudanese — sellers of everything that is pro- duced under this blazing sky. Every turn of the kaleidoscope brought fresh types of faces, but apart from them all stood out the face of a child of the desert, a little statue in bronze. He watched by the donkey while his father — a gaunt Arab in a soiled burnouse — sold out the remnant of the produce that they had brought in before the dawn. " This little lad, with his face of tan and wonderful eyes, had in him the fierce impetuosity of his race — I saw it flare up once when another boy crowded him — but he impressed me as one of the type that is the hope of Arab Africa. France is giv- ing him a chance ; he has a vision of which his grandfather had never a glimpse. Mohammedan he was born and Mussulman he will die, but he will not belong to the listless and stagnant past. He is a little Frenchman now." Tunis is preeminently a city that now is, but, if you feel creeping over you the awakening desire to step back into the ages that used to be, you may take the electric train for the crumbling ruins that once were Carthage. After a ride of twenty minutes you see a barren and dusty hillside baking in the hot African sun; its crest is crowned by a magnificent cathedral, a tomb, a hotel, an American windmill, and a few other houses, with the seminary of the White Fathers nearby. There are no stately ruins nor crumbling arches to remind you that you are at the most historic spot west of Egypt. So repeatedly and so completely was Carthage hum- bled that the visitor who strolls about over the hill BETWEEN THE SAHARA AND THE SEA 107 stumbles upon the remains of its glory before he is aware. Here, broken cisterns studded with snail- shells yawn at you with parched and dusty throats; over there are the remains of a splendid villa, the designs of the mosaic pavement yet almost perfect. Yonder, approached by a road that is lined with broken columns of marble, on which the lizards are sunning themselves, is the amphitheatre which was once the gathering-place of the thousands whose very memories have been obliterated. The world w^as comparatively young when the first stone foundations were laid on this hillside. Phoeni- cian navigators from Tyre and Sidon came into the quiet waters of this little bay nearly nine hundred years before the Christian era and built a city whose population eventually passed the million mark. They built also a great harbour, with docks for two hun- dred sail, and here lay " the ships of Tarshish," that were once the talk of that little world. It was about this time that the fame of the man who will forever be associated with Carthage began to shine. Hannibal, a young Carthaginian of twenty- six, had led an army across the Alps and caused a panic along the Tiber. Then Rome turned the tables and sent its galleys into these beautiful waters. Han- nibal hastened back to make his greatest fight. Scipio won, and Carthage passed under the Roman eagles. Hannibal became an exile and finally took poison rather than become an exhibit at Rome. No mar- ble shaft to his memory points its needle skyward here on this Tunisian hill; Hannibal is one of the 108 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET few African names that outlast even the best of marble. The fate of Hannibal was also the fate of the city whose battles he fought. The grim Romans brought together all the ships that bore the Carthaginian em- blem — five hundred of them — and made the most spec- tacular bonfire that ever happened on the North Afri- can coast. Then Senator Cato began to fill Rome's Congressional Record with '' Carthago delenda est " ("Carthage must be destroyed"). Rome caught up the cry and notified the African city to get off the map. Though Rome had burned its navy and taken away its weapons, there was fight still left in the Phoenician city. For two years it held the Roman legions off, but another Scipio came — Scipio Africanus. For sev- enteen days the flames of Carthage were reflected in the waters where its ships had perished, and 50,000 Carthaginians were sold into slavery. Then the re- lentless Scipio completed his work by ploughing up the site and sowing it with salt. That is the reason you see no magnificent Phoenician ruins to- day. Thirty years later, Julius Caesar sent over a colony to begin a new city. Caesar Augustus also approved the idea and '' boomed " Carthage like a suburban real- estate man. It grew and grew until it became the most important city in North Africa. Then the Vandals rolled in like a tidal-wave; finally, in 698, the Saracens swarmed down upon it and destroyed Carthage almost as completely as Scipio had done. Ten centuries passed BETWEEN THE SAHARA AND THE SEA 109 before this historic soil appeared in human history as the Turkish city of Tunis. During these centuries two other great names have been linked with the hill of Carthage. Saint Louis of France, the greatest of the Crusaders, died here of a pestilence — and that is why the stately church on Carthage hill, erected by Cardinal Lavigerie, is called the Cathedral of St. Louis. And when the great Car- dinal went to his last sleep, they brought his remains to Carthage and buried him on the site of so many ruined hopes. The curse of Cato — " Carthago delenda est '' — ^has been executed so vindictively that the deso- lation of the hillside to-day would gladden his spirit. Go you east or west or south from Tunis, or back to the land whence you came; sojourn in whatever strange and interesting places you may find; in mem- ory you will find yourself returning again and again to the city that overlooks the hill and the bay where Hannibal and Scipio fought it out. Just as variegated Tunis surpasses " the white city " of Algiers in quaintness and Oriental chanii, so does the land of Tunis surpass the older colony of Algeria. In the afternoon during which I first rode across it, there was never a moment when the eye wearied. Though I sat on a hard bench in a third-class com- partment, that short trip remains in memory as the most enjoyable railroad journey that I had in Africa. You will smile at the coaches of the narrow-gauge railroad — little boxes perched upon high wheels — you who expected to find a Limited Express. But this is 110 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET Africa, remember, and coaches that are good enough for southern Europe are considered good enough for Tunisia. Each coach is partitioned crosswise into four or five compartments, with doors on either side; you step inside, as though into a hack; and, if the traffic happens to be hvely, nine other passengers (with bun- dles of many shapes and sizes) squeeze in after you. When all is ready, the station-master trills a police- man's whistle; the conductor then blows a hoarse bazoo; the engineer answers with the locomotive's whistle — and you are off. It takes six hours to roll over the ninety miles to Sousse, but the panorama makes the traveller forget all of the railroad's deficiencies. First, we pass through a zone of suburbanites and gentleman- farmers — holders of commutation tickets. The little white-washed domes scattered here and there on their estates are the tombs of holy men — the Arab's village churches. (France is responsible for the white- wash.) Six miles out is a carefully pruned vineyard of 250 acres, looking most like a Southern cotton-field in August. At the fifteenth mile-post is a French plantation of 7,000 acres; here you enter a zone where the suburban villas are replaced by the neat homes of French colonists, and it is pleasant to read, as they flash by, the word '' Chicago " on most of the steel windmills that make their vineyards productive. At Enfidaville, some sixty miles from Tunis, is a fine example of syndicate farming — 300,000 acres bought by a French company from an ex-minister of the Bey. On this one estate have been uncovered the ruins IN THE HARBOUR OF SOUSSE, TUNISIA THE ARAB OUARTER I'.EVOND THE WALL BETWEEN THE SAHARA AND THE SEA 111 of seventeen Roman cities that apparently averaged 10,000 inhabitants each. This fact goes far to cor- roborate the reckless old Roman who wrote that one could pass from Sousse to Tunis (ninety miles) in the shade of villas and gardens. But you cannot make that journey bareheaded to-day; Chicago has not ex- ported enough windmills. As the afternoon glides behind you, a zone of waste land stretches out toward the horizon of your window- pictures. The homes of colonists now give way to flocks of sheep and goats, watched over by unkempt children of the wild, whose goat-hair tent probably sheltered their grandfather in his infancy. With alternating views of the valleys of southern California and the plains of New Mexico, the little narrow-gauge approaches the eastern coast. Then the curtain of darkness drops over your window and you see nothing more until the electric lights of Sousse flash up. Sousse, also, is an ancient city; much of the wheat that once fed Rome was shipped from this port. Now it is European (French and Italian), with the steam- ships of three regular lines in its fine harbour and with sailing craft of diverse wings. Here, again, you behold the artistic handiwork of France — streets wide and clean, beautiful shade-trees, a plaza of ornamental shrubbery, handsome public buildings, and imposing business houses. The era of the trolley-car has not yet dawned upon Sousse, but it can at least boast of a transportation novelty — a. horse-car that runs with- 112 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET out a track! Here, also, the conveniences and com- forts of civilization await you in the hotels and cafes; " Bar de la Poste " is one of the most conspicuous signs in the city. But through the arched gateway that pierces the old wall of Sousse you ciatch a glimpse of a different picture. There, in a heterogeneous mass, the Arabs and the Sicilians and the African Jews herd in wretched hovels, at whose threshold the sanitary squad of the municipality halts in despair. Seventy-five miles south of Sousse is the ancient port of Sfax, with sponge fisheries on one side and an olive-belt extending for forty miles on the other. The journey from Sousse may be made in a public automo- bile, there being no weighty reason for connecting the two ports by rails. At Sfax, however, you meet the locomotive again, for the white man has a road of steel extending west- ward for 1 20 miles to Gafsa — an oasis with 10,000 date-palms — and thence for twenty miles to the phos- phate mines to which the railroad owes its presence in the land. From Gafsa, if the call of the south be strong, you may mount your growling camel and follow the cara- van trail across fifty miles of desert to Tozeur, an oasis of 2,500 acres. But there are no ice-cream par- lours along the way. VII IN THE SURF OF THE DESERT SEA WHATEVER the map-maker may say, nearly everything in Tunisia south of Sousse (ex- cept a few Httle port-towns on the Mediter- ranean) is essentially part of the great desert whose sand-surf parches its vegetation. Yet the optimistic Frenchman ignores this geographical reality in his de- termination to include the arid plains within his recla- mation area. Blistering hot was the Tunisian sun when I made my pilgrimage from Sousse to the city of " Kairouan the Holy/' a journey that many a devout Moslem has made a- foot and a-camel in the years that are gone. After passing through ten miles of olive-trees, the little engine began to puff and pant with the exertion of pulling our few small coaches over a parched and dusty plain that would make any man from western Kansas feel at home. The good-natured guard allowed me to stand upon the platform all the way, and the rusty Arab in the compartment that I vacated gave brief thanks to Allah and stretched himself out at full length to sleep. There may be seasons when southern Tunisia is a field of green, but it was a scene of desolation when 113 114 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET I saw it. There was not a tree nor a bush except those that had been artificially planted; the vegetation was limited mainly to scattered tufts of desert grass; in none of the water-courses was there a drop of moisture for the flocks of lean goats and the gaunt camels that were munching cactus and sun-baked twigs. The sizzling rails of the track, the lonely but artistic sta- tions, and the yet more lonely home of a colonist here and there were the only evidences of civilization. The black tents of none-too-prosperous Bedouin, with don- keys and camels standing motionless in the full glare of the afternoon sun, reminded me of the distance that intei*vened between me and Broadway. Toward the end of the journey we came upon acres and acres of thickly growing "prickly-pear" cactus, cultivated as a Kansan grows alfalfa. This is camel- food; the burden-bearers of the desert country chew it up like a cow munching an ear of green corn; the " stickers " that torture the hand of man seem to have no effect upon the mucous membrane (or is it sole- leather) of the camel's alimentary tract. Then came a moist marsh, with an immense herd of camels graz- ing upon the green meadow, and beyond them rose the lofty minaret of the Grand Mosque; at a distance it looks not unlike the Metropolitan Tower of New York. The pilgrimage was ended. I was in the far-famed and holy city of Kairouan, founded in 671 a.d. by Sidi-Okba, the Mohammedan conqueror to whose eternal credit (or infamy) the Arab owes his pres- IN THE SURF OF THE DESERT SEA 115 ence in all North Africa. He it is who sleeps near Biskra in the little oasis that bears his name. Upon his tomb, in quaint Arabic characters, you may read the epitaph, " May God have mercy upon him! " He certainly needs it. But his chief memorial is this great mosque within the gates of Kairouan; outside the city, in a mosque yet more artistic, sleeps one who was a companion of Mohammed himself. So we are now treading upon holy ground. Curiously enough, the mosques in this desert Mecca (once the holiest in all Africa) are the only mosques in Tunisia which the French Government allows the foreigner to enter. I entered, and found myself in an open court that would accommodate thousands of the Faithful. The fount of ablution in the centre was dry, but my eye lit upon its substitute — the familiar, square tin that had once contained Standard Oil ! A portrait of Mr. Rockefeller himself would not have been more sur- prising. Mohammed (not the Prophet, but one of the milHons that bear his name) led me also into the sanc- tuary. At the portal I prepared to remove my shoes, but the attendant showed me a trick worth several of that. On the stone floor were long strips of matting; taking up one end of a strip, he pulled it over and laid it on the other end. My sacrilegious soles then touched the unsanctified stones for half the length of a strip, and the under-side of the matting for the other half. As a matter of fact, the under-side of the matting was cleaner than the holy side. Then we climbed the long, winding stairway that leads to the top of the minaret, a trail whose stones are worn with 116 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET the footsteps of the muezzins who have cHmbed it daily throughout these hundreds of years. From the top Mohammed pointed out the other mosques whither he would lead me — saying nothing about the two francs which he would share with the custodian of each. He also led me to the well that is said to have subter- ranean connection with Mecca. Proof : A pilgrim dropped his cup in the well at Mecca and found it in the Kairouan well when he returned ! In the gathering twilight, with my zeal for mosques quite abated, he led me unexpectedly into the most uncanny place that I saw in North Africa. It was an unpretentious place of prayer and in the centre of the enclosure sat a double row of wild-looking men. They were beating upon curious drums and each worshipper was chanting fiercely at his vis-a-vis, their voices ris- ing at times into what sounded like furious maledic- tions. A priest-like grey-beard in white urged them on. Wilder and wilder grew the chanting, and the scene was suggestive of a mad-house. Sitting there in the dusk, the only dog of an unbeliever present in the sanctuary, I observed with satisfaction that Mo- hammed viewed the turmoil without apprehension. I cannot say that I did. Then things began to happen. Several of the chanters sprang to their feet, threw off every garment except their trousers, and loosed their long, black hair so that it fell upon their shoulders. The din of the tom-toms and of the shouting was now almost deafen- ing, and the fanatics responded to it with contortion- IN THE SURF OF THE DESERT SEA 117 ate dancing that made the perspiration stream down their half-naked bodies. A cold chill ran up and down my spine when I saw the " priest " hand out to each what looked like ice- picks a foot and a half long. These they slowly inserted into their flesh — one through his cheeks, an- other through his hand, another into his naked abdo- men — dancing all the while. One boy of ten, with long hair like the men, thrust two picks through the skin that covers the collar-bone. As he jumped about the court, the heavy end of the picks bobbed up and down and utterly mystified me — for I had made up my mind that the instruments were made in two pieces, like the trick daggers of the mountebanks. When the dancers were exhausted to the point of dropping, the old man began to remove the ice-picks. He withdrew each slowly and held a cloth for a few moments over each wound. When he removed it I saw no wound nor any trace of blood. Every moment during the performance I was look- ing for evidence of trickery — and the dancers were cavorting all about me. Finally the " priest " came to the man with the pick through his cheeks. There it hung, the knob protruding from the left cheek, the point of the blade extending four or five inches from the right. They were not more than a yard from me. The old man seized the knob and slowly pulled out the blade — exactly as one would draw an ice-pick out of a melon. Then without any other movement, he handed it directly to me. I examined it closely — but the mystery was deeper than ever. 118 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET I have heard it explained in various ways by men who never witnessed it, but the theories are not satis- fying. Nor do they explain other weird acts of these same men (the sect of the Aissaweyas), such as eating broken glass, scourging one another with big branches of prickly pear, and so on. Mohammed and I slipped out into the dark street and walked silently away. " Mohammed," I asked, " why was there no blood?" " Oh, monsieur/' he answered, as one would reply to the foolish question of a child, ** they are holy It seemed a long way from the world, there in that ancient city on the fringe of the Desert. Yet there, sitting down to a course-dinner in a French hotel on a Friday, I was handed a copy of Monday's London Times. Afterward I sat in a cafe chantant and listened to comic-opera singers from Paris. But civilization ends at railhead there in the hot sand. I have read it in a book that you will find nothing in Biskra that you will not find better elsewhere. Per- haps; but I would that the writer had given the name of a city where one may find more that is strange and romantic and Oriental assembled in one fascinat- ing melange. Nowhere else in my notebook do I find such entries as this ; IN THE SURF OF THE DESERT SEA 119 " It is night in a desert city. The time is six centuries ago, and I am a milUon miles from my little world. The month is October, but that matters little in this zone of perpetual sunshine. " Here, in the Hotel du Sahara, a taciturn Arab has just served me with a French course-dinner, with wine squeezed out of the Algerian grape whose juice is the rich red of its pedi- greed ancestor uprooted in France — the only land that seems to be in the same hemisphere. " Standing on the balcony, I sniff the heavily scented at- mosphere that is laden with the pungent perfume of the sandal- wood furniture of my room. But the chief impressions of the hour are those that come through the sense of hearing. " From somewhere in the distance comes the chiming of Christian bells from a chapel of the White Fathers. " From the barracks comes the martial music of the drum- and-trumpet corps of the Chasseurs d'Afrique. " It is followed by the wild bagpipe strains that are dear to the heart of the Arab tirailleurs. " From the Rue des Ouled-Na'ils come the quivering notes from the puffed cheeks of the big black Sudanese who pipes for the dancing-girls. " In the street nearby, the newsboy toots the horn that ad- vertises La Depeche Algerienne, and Le Matin. " From the corner rises the doleful chant of a sightless beggar who pleads for alms in the name of his patron saint. " His quavering voice is answered by a weary camel who growls and squeals like a stuck pig as his master bids him kneel and be unloaded. " Up from the street rises incessantly the ' slip-slap ' of flap- ping sandals on Arab feet. " Overhead is the gentle ' swish ' of the date-palms whose branches kiss one another in the evening breeze. "Underneath is the gurgle and splash of the life-giving rivu- lets that trickle along the irrigation ditches that wind in and out among the palms. " How easy it would be to become a Moslem were it not for to-morrow's sense of sight — and of smell ! " The Ouled-Nail is an Algerian institution that has its counterpart in every civiHzed and semi-civilized 120 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET land beneath the sun — in every age that has thus far been recorded in the log-book of human history, and in all the ages that are yet unborn. In Japan " it " is the geisha; in India "it" is the nautch; in Persia " it " is the houri; in the Pacific islands '* it " is the hula; in Paris, London, and New York " it " is the chorus lady; in Algeria ''it" is the Ouled- Nail. She comes from an oasis far down in the Algerian Sahara, from a tribe whose daughters are dedicated to the profession of amusing men, just as deliberately as the sons of Levi were set apart for the service of tabernacle and temple. As a little tot she is trained to wriggle her body, just as children are trained to be contortionists and toe-dancers. There is nothing that can come into the life of a professional Arab dancer that she does not know, for her mother and her grand- mother have passed through every phase of it and all the family traditions centre in the smoky dance-halls of Algerian cities. In the flush of her young maidenhood, with the tribal O.K. upon her, she climbs into the litter that is strapped across the back of a kneeling camel and starts on her career of conquest — like the Vassar graduate with her diploma. For several years she will be " on the road," staying for weeks or months in this or that city, until she has perhaps covered Algeria from Ouargla to Oran. The coins of silver that her ad- mirers have moistened and stuck on her forehead have been transformed from time to time into coins of gold and strung together as necklaces and pendants. She IN THE SURF OF THE DESERT SEA 121 exercises all the wiles of her sex in adding to her col- lection, for her social status in the tribe of the Ouled- Na'ils depends upon the size of her coin-collection. The more wanton she has been in the cities of the north, the more likely she is to shine in the oasis of the south when she returns. For the Ouled-Nail, unlike her sisters in the pro- fession elsewhere in the world, returns to the parental tent, spends her golden age in jingling her coins in the ears of her neighbours and in telling the endless story of her amours — and then settles down to a cir- cumspect married life and to the rearing of another generation of Ouled-Na'ils. The Creole type of New Orleans is probably near- est to the desert dancer in sensuous charm — for the Ouled-Nail is a fascinating barbarian, with the olive- tint on her finely moulded features and the wild light in her dark eyes. Architecturally, she often becomes too stout and " dumpy " to please the aesthetic taste of the Westerner, but the Arab's preference seems to in- cHne in that direction. Yet there is infinite variety; many of them are lithe and graceful in every pose and movement. I have seen hundreds of Jewish and Italian girls in New York who could easily pass as Ouled-Nails if they should wear the costume and prac- tise *' the step " of the dance. In your wildest dreams, perhaps — you who have been attracted by the piercing strains of the " music " that accompanied the Oriental dance in " the streets of Cairo " — you have yearned for a glimpse of the dance 122 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET in its own home. Then come with me down the Rue des Ouled-Ndils. A small, dimly lighted room whose atmosphere is heavy with cigarette smoke; dingy walls decorated only with some lithographed advertisements; a dirty floor (of clay, perhaps) ; rough benches carelessly dis- arranged around the room; a small, raised platform at one side — ^that is a typical dance-hall. On the benches and floor sit or squat a score or two-score of noisy Arabs — all ages from the urchin up to grandpa, and all types from the girlish- faced dandy to the swarthy Bedouin. But they are always sober, for this is a Mohammedan land. On the raised platform you see the '' orchestra " — perhaps four men with instruments of torture. Sit- ting against the wall, smiling at or perhaps " jolly- ing " their admirers in the audience, are the Ouled- Nails, clad in their gayest raiment — but more nearly clad than the average dancer on a civilized stage. Every movement of their head makes their pen- dants and necklaces of coins jingle like bells on a dancer's toes. The general effect is decidedly exotic. The stage manager has evidently given a signal, for the musicians begin to unlimber. A sallow-faced youth picks up what looks like a large, brass vase, beautifully chased; he lays it across his lap and thumps the skin that is drawn tightly across the bottom. Number Two, a sour- faced Arab with a tangled beard, bumps an instrument that looks as if it had started out to become a snare-drum and then decided to be WIND-JAMMER WITH WORKS LIKE A BAZOO IN THE SURF OF THE DESERT SEA 123 a tambourine. Number Three is a dandified chap with a long, flute-like reed that emits soft, plaintive notes. But the star performer is a pot-black Sudanese with a wind-jammer shaped like a trumpet, but with works like a bazoo. After Number One had succeeded in getting the range, all went into action together. If you can imag- ine the strains of an infant bagpipe, plus the tremulous notes of a screech-owl, plus the yowl of an amorous cat, plus the tom-tom of a red Indian war-dance, plus the rasp of a rusty saw passing through a pine-knot — then you have a fair conception of Oriental dance-music. I confess that I like it, and that I would go farther to hear it again than to hear grand opera; but this preference may be due to the fact that nature has given me an ear-drum that can strain pleasurable thrills out of a collection of sounds that would make people in the best society summon the police. When the music is in full swing, Nourma throws away the stump of her cigarette and walks indiffer- ently to the front of the platform. She is fat and "dumpy"; she has a don't-give-a-rap look on her sullen features; and her collection of coins and other bric-a-brac is meagre. Evidently she is not a star performer. All the dancers begin to chant some Arab love-song; Nourma raises her arms in front until her hands are on a level with her face, palms front (the second posture of an Arab at prayer!), and ambles about the stage like a cinnamon-bear on the village green. Finally she settles down in one place and lets her hips walk around while the rest of the body re- 124 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET mains stationary. Then she waddles about the plat- form again, abruptly stops, steps down from the plat- form, and circulates among the spectators. A few admirers contribute small coins and she returns in dis- gust to her seat. Fatma comes next — also " dumpy," but not *' sloppy," and with a set of features which show that she is well pleased with life. She begins in the same way, but she puts " snap " into the movements. Every time she swings around to the spectators she banters them in Arabic, or catches up a bar of the love-song and hurls it at them. They like it and call for more. Then the music changes; every muscle in her body wriggles and she turns her mischievous eyes in every direction as the awakening audience yells to her to keep it up. When she gets tired, she quits as abruptly as Nourma and goes down to take up the collection. This takes some time, for some of her friends detain her with jests and other friendly doings before they give up the coin. She then returns to the platform and lights another cigarette. Next comes '' La Reine," and an exclamation rip- ples over the benches. She hears it and likes it. '' La Reine " has an Arab name, of course, but the first- nighters who came to see her initial performance were so carried away with it that they crowned her " The Queen " of the troupe. She is draped in gorgeous and expensive silks; her wrists and ankles are encircled with massive silver bands of curious workmanship; five strings of pearls are about her shapely throat; and at least one hundred and fifty coins (mostly gold) IN THE SURF OF THE DESERT SEA 125 hang in strings from the top of her head to her waist, jingHng at every step and sparkhng in the dim light. Her face is pleasing, but the lips are a little thick; in the centre of each cheek is a small star (tattooed or painted, I know not), and there are two little black marks on each side of her nose and three on her chin. The eyebrows, heavily blacked with kohl, are extended from temples to the bridge of the nose — two arcs of a circle uniting to form a '' cupid's bow." As she raises her jingling hands to begin the dance, she gives a command to the musicians and the music becomes soft and sensuous. Her body begins to sway and quiver, and a plaintive chant comes from her lips. The audience cranes its neck and sits spellbound. An- other command and the musicians take their feet off the soft pedal. " La Reine " sways and whirls and clinks her pendant coins; her mischievous eyes single out her admirers like the flashes of a searchlight; and she sings to each a line of a love-song that comes out of the Sahara. Then it all changes again, as suddenly as if the lights were turned low. Trembling and quiv- ering and writhing, but with never a movement of the feet, she responds to the low, insistent notes of the piper until the tense nerves of the hot-blooded men of the Desert are near the breaking-point. Then she shakes her whole body violently until every coin is jingling, begins a vivacious chant that ends abruptly in a merry laugh — and starts out into the audience for more coin. It was the dance of art and of poetry — Arab art 126 TliE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET and the poetry of the Great Sahara — ^but you will not often find it, even in the Rue des tiled -Nails. The traveller in southern Algeria will often bless the stars if he knows even a little French, for every- body aboard the little trains is interesting. If you sit semi-comfortably in a first-class compartment, your companion will be a government official, perhaps, or a colonel, or a rich merchant — and each has a story that unravels if you can get hold of the right end of the string. If you crowd into the second-class, you are jammed in with middle-class French and Italian colonists, with shop-keepers and tradesmen, with high-grade x\rabs — and if you let it appear that the language of France is as unintelligible to you as Arabic, your ears will be entertained. Or, you sit on the third-class benches and journey in the most interesting company of all — French sol- diers and Arabs of every class. But, if you would see en route the long, serpentine caravans winding over the dusty roads and the nomads in their brilliant garb of orange and purple and yellow and brown, be sure that you enter the train early and seize a seat by the window. Remember, also, the proverb of the barber-shop, '' Gentlemen leaving the room forfeit their turn ! " A good seat once vacated is gone for- ever, for the Arab stretches himself out and goes to sleep on it at the first opportunity. I recall one unusual coach that had a long bench extending lengthwise, a bench for six or eight passen- IN THE SURF OF THE DESERT SEA 127 gers. There were three of us — a beneficent old Arab who looked like a Presbyterian elder, a bearded French sergeant of zouaves, and myself. When the train stopped at a junction, I went out for a stroll on the platform. When I returned, I found the whole bench occupied by my fellow-passengers. There they lay, fast asleep — the military boots up against the yellow sandals, the point of the French sabre against the end of the Arab stick. The contrast was so interesting in its symbolism that I forgot to be vexed over the loss of my place. Southward from Constantine and near to the Desert is the sunburnt town of Batna — ten miles from the ruins of Lambese, which was the headquarters of the famous Third Legion of Augustus Caesar. Here again there were three of us in a compartment, all journeying into the Algerian Sahara. My companions were bearded Arabs of the Desert, evidently persons of consequence. They sat facing each other, with their feet drawn up on the seat under them, and their sandals on the seat beside them. One was evidently infected with civilization, for he wore socks; the other was a barbarian whose bare feet were infected only with Algerian dirt. They talked in the language of Mohammed and gesticulated with such violence that I was long puzzled to know whether they were in anger or merely in earnest. Were they hot with indignation over the rumour that the French Government was about to force military service upon all Algerians? Or were 128 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET they wrangling over some knotty problem in the Koran? Or was it the old story — the woman in the case? Just about the time when I expected blood to spatter over the walls, the train stopped at a village that looked like a stable-yard; the barbarian gathered up his footgear and bundles, kissed his hand to the other, and they parted the best of friends! And so the two of us were left for the rest of the journey going down into the South. We glanced at each other now and then, in a flirtatious way, but neither broke the impressive silence. Finally I re- membered my case of cigarettes — a case of imported, cork-tipped, golden-banded beauties reserved for im- portant occasions. I opened it and held it toward my be-socked companion. He bowed gravely and took one, but did not put it to his lips; I offered him a match, but he declined it. Evidently there was some- thing wrong about that cigarette. We stepped cautiously into conversation, as one steps into cold water, but his French was exceedingly limited. Every few minutes he would slip the ciga- rette from beneath his white burnouse and take a peep at it; the gold band and the cork were new propositions, perhaps. Finally I concluded that he was saving it to make an impression in his home town. By and by his eye rested upon my camera — an in- strument of abhorrence to all good Moslems, because it is a maker of graven images. I explained it to him and showed him some of the forbidden images. To my amazement, he asked me to make one of him — LA REIiXE DES OULED-NAILS IN THE SURF OF THE DESERT SEA 129 just what I was longing to do. I suggested that we wait until the train should stop at another station. When it stopped, I requested that he step out into brighter light. He acquiesced, but insisted upon get- ting out on the off-side, where nobody would observe the sacrilegious performance. We hurriedly went through the rites and climbed back into the train. Then he expressed his readiness to see the picture ! I explained the impossibility, and suggested that he give me his name and address, that I might send it to him by mail. To my surprise, he wrote it himself, in an excellent hand— " Hassan ben Ahmed ben Amar, Tolga, via Biskra." The next day I learned that Hassan, the son of Ahmed, the son of Amar, was a holy man — much holier than I. His word is Alpha and Omega to a lot of wild-eyed men down in an oasis of the Zibans, where he insists upon every jot and tittle of the ancient law. Let us hope that his prestige has not suffered on account of that unholy cigarette and the image graven on a Rochester film! VIII THE WHITE HELMET IN THE SAHARA WHEN you think of the French Sahara as a land accursed of God, yoii think rightly. But when you conceive of it as a stretch of yellow sand broken, only by little circles of palm-trees grouped around a well, you think wrong. Sand there is — leagues and leagues and leagues of it — but there are a great many other things in the Desert. Plateaus of soft limestone — bare of all vegetation and deep- furrowed by torrent-beds whose hot, dry surface may be the roof of subterranean streams — these also are a part of the land of a thousand horrors. There are also countless shallow lakes (chotts) of alkaline water; the Chott Melgigh, for instance, is nearly 200 miles long. The edges of these lakes, where the water has evaporated, are beds of salt, and a chott in the sunlight or the moonlight gives the tantalizing illusion of being a field of snow. When your camel splashes through one of these shallow lakes, it disturbs hundreds of little fish ; passing through the areas dotted with sage-brush or " turpentine " bushes, you startle lizards, chame- leons, and peculiar-looking rats; now and then you may see a crested lark; the desert mountains are graz- ing-grounds for wild sheep and antelope and gazelles 130 THE WHITE HELMET IN THE SAHARA 131 — so the Sahara is not wholly a lifeless land. Neither is it a summer-resort. The dunes of sand (erg, plural areg) may be traced on the map as vast islands of sand. The winds give to their surface a wave-like undulation, or pile them up in dunes varying from little mounds to hills that are a thousand yards high. The caravan trails wind tortuously around their base, where the earth is more solid. Even a slight wind lifts the sand-dust and causes it to i^ise like a mist, obliterating all tracks when it settles. Once I passed the Sahara at sea during the season of the harmattan winds, and the haze was so thick that it almost obscured the sun. I have a vial of this sand that was scraped from the deck fifty miles off-shore. If one imagine himself in the midst of an erg during the season of the harmattan, with his eyes and ears and nostrils filled with this impalpable sand-dust, and with the coarser grains being driven into his face with great force, he will appreciate one — and one of the smallest — of the discomforts of the Saharan explorers. These five physical features — plateaus of barren limestone, sand-dunes of varying height, torrent-beds of varying width, chotts and oases of varying size — make up the Great Desert. Its lowest point is near Biskra, and its highlands are mainly near the centre — geographical facts which were not considered by the dreamer who proposed to cut a canal and flood the Sahara with the ocean. One might as well try to inundate Arizona and New Mexico with the waters of the Gulf. THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET Something like three milHons of people live within the limits of this forbidding zone. Most of them are listless Arabs living in mud huts near their date-palms ; others, like the Bedaween of the Great Tents, roam over the sands from one grazing spot to another ; still others, like the restless Touaregs, have less respectable ways of making a living. All of them have the Moslem's hate of the Christian, but their fataHsm does not save them from the living fear of death which the white man has put into their souls. He is everywhere in their midst — this new French master — fearless, tact- ful, helpful. You may take off your hat without shame in the presence of the white men of the Sahara; they have tackled one of the world's hard jobs and the beginnings are inspiring. Just by itself, the Sahara is not worth to any nation the price of flags to cover it, but it fits well into the imperial plans of France. Nobody expects to turn square miles of bare, burning rock into granaries of empire, but the Frenchmen are busy with their artesian outfits in the regions where only moisture is lacking. One by one the existing oases are extend- ing the productive area; year by year the dry beds of torrents are tapped and new oases added to the map. The great desert city of Touggourt, for example, was saved by French engineers when its wells began to dry up. But the most that we can expect in our lifetime is a chain of green stepping-stones across the blistering zone, a highway of commerce from the. Sudan to the Mediterranean. Yet it is not impossible that little black Touaregs now strapped to their mother's backs THE WHITE HELMET IN THE SAHARA 133 may one day become " railroad men " in the southern Sahara. France's part of the Great Desert is shaped some- what Hke an ink-bottle — 2,500 miles across at the base and 700 miles at the neck (the Algerian Sahara). Draw on the map a horizontal line across this neck, from Igli on the Moroccan frontier to Ghadames on the boundary of Tripoli. That line — across the nar- rowest part of the Sahara, 500 miles of which lies in dunes of blistering sand — cuts through about twenty red lines winding from north to south. Each of the twenty is the trail of a man wearing a white helmet — a pathfinder of the French empire — an advance-agent of the maker of maps. Some day, when you are weary of the common- place records of ordinary men, take up the story of the exploration of the Sahara. The journals of Liv- ingstone and Stanley in the south tell of no deeds more daring, no endurance more heroic, no suffering more pitiful than the journals of the men who have toiled in the Great Desert. Lang and Barth and Richardson and Duveyrier have been forgotten; and a host of others like Flatters and Foureau and Lamy have never been really known to the American people. Which of the explorers spent more of his life on the trail than Foureau, with his long record of toilsome years? Who has journeyed farther through an unknown and dangerous region than he, the first white man to con- nect the Mediterranean and the Congo by an itinerary ? And how many have been " lost " in the Dark Con- 134 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET tinent for so long? Late in 1898 couriers broke Fou- reau's last link of communication with Algeria; it was in 1900, in the French Congo, that he received the next news from home. Yet how many people realize that one of the most daring of all the African ex- plorers is yet alive? Spread before your eyes a fine French map of the Sahara, like that of Paul Pelet's in the atlas of the Lihrairie Armand Colin. It tells a wonderful story of French activity in one of the most pitiless of all lands. You see, of course, the great oasis cities of Ouargla and Figuig and El Golea and Laghouat and Timmi- moun and In-Salah and Tuat and Ghat — but see how the great empty spaces that lay between on the old maps have been filled in with the names of villages and watering-places. Two black lines mark the rail- roads that have already entered the Desert, and two broken lines extending across the leagues of sand-dunes (El Erg and Grand Erg) show how much farther the steel roads have already been plotted. But you may also find all the caravan routes that cross the Sahara carefully traced from oasis to oasis, with little circles to mark the natural wells and black dots to show where a French engineer has pushed his drill all the way down to " living water." Here and there you see a little square; it tells you that here is a troop of spahis or goums, with their French officers, keeping guard over the Tricolour and making the long, hot trail across the furnace floor to Mecca or to market as safe THE WHITE HELMET IN THE SAHARA 135 as the Santa Fe trail now is. All the way across and on to Lake Chad, at varying distances apart, you see little T's — the chain of telegraph stations from Al- geria to the Sudan. The Frenchman a dreamer? Yes, he dreamed of cutting a canal to let in the Mediterranean and he has had visions of a Trans- Saharan Railroad from Oran to Timbuctoo. But he is a doer as well as a dreamer. Presently you will be reading of French aeroplanes flying from one oasis to another, carrying Les Temps and letter-pouches to the men of the white helmet, sun-scorched men who yearn also for a piece of ice. The simplest sort of catalogue of what the French have already done in this forbidding and unproductive land would make a thrilling record of achievement, and their work is only well begun. Moreover, it should be remembered that white helmets are a shin- ing mark in the bright sunlight and the Desert is full of men who consider it a passport to divine favour to hit one of them with a bullet. I have seen helmets coming out of the south with the marks of battle upon them ; and I have seen helmets going into the south, on beneficent well-boring errands, guarded by camel- cavalrymen. And, on the southern fringe of the Sahara, the land of the black-veiled Touaregs, you may view the same spectacle. But French imperi- alism is thoroughly in earnest and Mediterranean civilization is steadily replacing the type that was made in Mecca. By and by we shall have annual reports from Monsieur the Director of Touareg Schools. It is even possible that one of the Baedeker 136 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET masterpieces may blaze the Saharan trail for the tender tourist. But will all these dreams of African empire fall short of realization, after all? One man's guess is as good as another's, and we can only guess. French- men have dreamed stupendous projects before. One saw all the thrones of Europe standing about and making obeisance to his throne — but Waterloo inter- vened. It is a Frenchman's statue that overlooks the Suez Canal, but the British flag now covers the land of Egypt. The Panama Canal was another French dream, but the dredges rusted out their lives in the mud. France once had a magnificent colonial empire in the New World, and every acre of it slipped through the fingers. The over-seas history of the French makes one doubt the stability of the national char- acter, but history does not always repeat itself. ^ IX THE MIX-UP IN MOROCCO WHEN any speaker or writer, anywhere in the English-speaking world, wants to check up his facts and figures about some other part of the globe, he turns to the last " Statesman's Year- Book." If the two sets of figures do not agree, he throws his own away and uses those made in Great Britain. To the last " Statesman's Year-Book " I turn, therefore, to check up what I learned about Morocco while in Morocco itself. The erudite editor of the Year-Book is '' J. Scott Keltic, LL.D., Secretary to the Royal Geographical Society, Honorary Correspond- ing Member of the Geographical Societies of Scot- land, Paris, Berlin, Munich, Rome, Lisbon, Amster- dam, Brussels, Buda Pest, Geneva, Neuchatel, Philadelphia, and of the Commercial Geographical Society of Paris." Obviously, very few things can happen anywhere between the North Pole and Farthest South without Dr. Keltic knowing it — especially since his preface acknowledges " the generous cooperation, as in past years, of the Government departments of the various States of the world, including those of the British Empire." Hear, then, what J. Scott Keltic, LL.D., saith on page 1018: 137 1S8 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET "The form of Government of the Sultanate, or Empire of Morocco, is in reality an absolute despotism, unrestricted by any laws, civil or religious. The Sultan is chief of the State, as well as head of the religion. . . , The Sultan has six ministers, whom he consults if he deems it prudent to do so; otherwise they are merely the executive of his unrestricted will." All this you truly believe — if you are an inmate of one of the institutions for the feeble-minded. " Ab- solute despotism " ? " Unrestricted will " ? Oh, cer- tainly — within the circle whose circumference is the outer edge of the shadow cast by the Cherifian um- brella. Dr. Keltic has enlivened the pages of the Year- Book with several little jokes like this. Egypt, for instance, is solemnly placed under the heading of " Turkey," and this is what he says about its Govern- ment : " The administration of Egypt is carried on by native Ministers, subject to the ruling of the Khedive." Shall Anglo-Saxon humour perish from the earth? Not if Dr. Keltic can help it. It is a waste of time to take the back-trail of Moroccan history and watch the Moors being chased out of the Spanish castles whose keys have been handed down from father to son since 1492 in the expectation of a future return. What matters it now that Romans once ruled in the land, or that the Portu- guese swarmed along the coast, or that Spanish is the prevailing foreign language in Tangier? Everything in Morocco that is not British or French or German is now ancient history. True, Spain has fought right well for the narrow strip of coast that extends from THE MIX-UP IN MOROCCO 139 Tangier eastward to Algeria, and may do so again, but it is a hopeless fight. The day of Castile and Aragon in North Africa is done. In 1904 Great Britain and France (assuming that nobody else had anything to say in the matter) entered into a " gentleman's agreement " that was designed to fix the future of Morocco for all time to come. With the understanding that French concessionaires would not gobble up all the Moorish plums and that the French would build no rival Gibraltars near the en- trance to the Mediterranean, Morocco was virtually turned over to France. In the wonderful language of diplomacy, it is thus expressed: " Great Britain recognizes that it appertains to France to assist in the administrative, economic, financial, and military re- forms in Morocco." English translation: "Great Britain agrees to get out of the way and let France run the Moroccan government, control everything from commerce to agriculture, collect and spend Moroccan money, and pull the lead out of the cartridges of the Moorish army." " What did France do for England in return ? " I asked sundry diplomats on the hillside. They pointed to two houses farther up • the hill. From one flew the flag of Britain; the Tricolour was on the other. " Apply within," was the answer. I found the answer (at least, I believe it to be) far down the western coast, where a militant British Consul-General was telling an American-born republic 140 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET that if it did not quickly do some impossible things, it must prepare '' at no distant date to disappear from the catalogue of independent states." Strange to say, I found that the French consul had packed his trunk and departed — though France was supposed to be acutely interested in Liberian territory. "How is this?" I asked his Britannic Majesty's Consul-General in Monrovia. " Oh," replied Captain Wallis, " France will take no action in Liberian affairs without consulting His Majesty's Government." Liberia, therefore, may be the answer. '' Splash me in Morocco and Fll splash you in Liberia." But Britain and France overlooked a gentleman in Berlin — a highly respected member of the Hohen- zollern family. The Kaiser paddled his little boat across to Tangier and made so much splash that all Europe heard it. The result was another " gentle- man's agreement " — the Algeciras Conference of 1906 — with Germany and Spain present as active members and certain inconsequential nations like the United States as associate members. The absence of the Sul- tan of Morocco occasioned no embarrassment; all that was required of him was his signature to the agree- ment of the other gentlemen. The solemn conclave across the bay at Algeciras really made very little change in the Moroccan situa- tion. The interior of the country was left to the Sul- tan — for the present. Spain retained its own territory and was given a sop in the arrangement for policing THE MIX-UP IN MOROCCO 141 the coast towns. Germany was given assurances that its traders would not have the door closed in their faces. Morocco remained a French " sphere of in- fluence." Casablanca was apparently selected by France as the place for its entering wedge. In August, 1907, a perfectly good reason for bombarding it was found. Then the protection of the interests of French sub- jects justified the landing of troops. They are there yet, of course. It is the same old story. Then came the mix-up with Germany. Hamburg and Bremen had become convinced that they were to be shut out of Moorish markets, so the Kaiser began to seek a perfectly good reason for making a fuss. Some Germans in the Foreign Legion of the French army at Casablanca furnished it. (Remember the Foreign Legion? Your romantic friend from " Bingen on the Rhine," who " lay dying at Algiers," was a member of it.) The end came when the Kaiser received satis- factory assurances about his share of the commerce — and Morocco remains a French " sphere of influence." Meanwhile, the native overlords of Morocco were having the usual gentleman's disagreement. When I steamed out of the harbour, there were four rival Sultans thirsting for one another's blood — and harem. Mulai Abdul-Aziz and his troupe of chorus-girls were on a boat in Tangier harbour, " down and out." Mulai Hafid was at Fez, thinking up new and in- genious methods of torturing insurgents. Mulai Mohammed was having himself proclaimed in the 142 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET Marrakesch region. " The Pretender " was cutting a wide swath through the Riffian hills. And Raisuli (not a Mulai but a plain British subject) was furnish- ing as much copy for the daily paper as all of them together. Since then, Hafid has '' fixed " Mohammed, tor- tured " The Pretender," and given Raisuli a fat job — thus disposing of everybody except the foreigner. But what happens at Fez does not greatly disturb the little man who sits up in the French legation and passes the time in reading the winking signals from his gunboats below or in flashing a '' wireless " overland to Casa- blanca. His only comment is the French version of " If you want to know who is boss around here, start something! " Something will be started by and by, but let us not be sorrowful over the prospect. Remember that Mo- rocco is a sultanate whose national hymn might appropriately be made from its proverb : " Why run when you can walk? Why walk when you can sit? Why sit when you can lie down? " Morocco cannot properly be regarded, therefore, as a land of Oriental calm. There are five storm-centres, with the nucleus of a different kind of whirlwind in each: (i) Tangier, just across from Gibraltar; it is the tourists' Mecca and the seat of all the legations. Up in the ancient kasbah, encircled by Moorish cavalry- men longing for a pay-day, sits a bashaw; on the out- skirts of the city you will see Moorish soldiers in THE MIX-UP IN MOROCCO 143 khaki with a " 2 " on their collars — the Spanish po- lice; but " I " is on the collars of the French police, and the real chief is entrenched in the Legation of France up above the Grand Soco. (2) Fez, the capital of Morocco, about four days' ride in the interior. Here, within embattled walls and shut in by yet more forbidding ramparts of bigotry, jealousy, and hate, sits the hobbled Sultan, surrounded by European " agents " who watch every move. (3) Casablanca, on the western coast, the headquar- ters of the French army of occupation. Here, per- haps, you and I may one day see the chief city of Morocco. (4) Melilla, on the northeastern coast, near the Algerian frontier, where the red and yellow flag that once flapped over a large part of the Western Hemi- sphere now casts a limp shadow upon a hot city of convicts and barracks. The hills yonder are full of terrors, for nobody knows when the Riffians will re- sume their national game of sharp-shooting the Span- ish sentinels. (5) Marrakesch, in the southern mountains be- tween Fez and the coast — ^the ancient Moorish capital, now a stronghold of Moorish '' stand-patters " and at the same time a hot-bed of " insurgents." In any one of these centres, at any moment, one man may loose a tornado that may even spread over Europe. Moreover, if the calm should become too oppressive, that gentleman bandit Raisuli may have the squadrons of half of Europe in the harbour of Tangier. lU THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET It is not easy, even for La Depeche Marocaine, Tangier's French daily, to keep tab on the political status of Sidi Mohammed Raisuli. (It is safe to as- sume that Mohammed is his front name, for the majority of Moroccans wear the Prophet's label. Go into the crowded market-place of Tangier and shout " Mohammed ! " and see how many Moors prick up their ears.) One of the divertisements of a Moroc- can breakfast table is the Raisuli column in La Depeche; what it lacks in definiteness or authen- ticity is amply compensated for by its infinite variety. The news is always several days old by the time a courier arrives from Fez, for there is no telegraph line to the capital, and Raisuli does not carry around with him a wireless telegraph station. What is Raisuli? The answer is always changing as to detail, but permanent in one respect : He is a live wire. Of all the native gentlemen of North Africa since the time when Abd-el-Kader played tag with Napoleon's veterans in Algeria, Raisuli has had prob- ably the most picturesque career — and he is not on the retired list yet, not by any means. He has been Bashaw of Tangier — a post for which the present incumbent is reported to have paid $85,000 — and his personal property has once been sold at auction in the market-place of the same city. Famed far and wide as a kidnapper of British and American citizens, he is himself a British subject. He has had his house in an obscure village burned by a handful of Moorish troops, but he has also had the Mediterranean squad- ron of the United States Navy, plus a British war- A LITTLE MAGDALEN OF MOROCCO THE MIX-UP IN MOROCCO 145 boat, called into the harbour of Tangier on his account. His chief distinction has come as a gentleman bandit, on a large scale« He has been the James Broth- ers of Morocco, if you please, and he has always got- ten away with the loot. In 1903, he made Mr. Walter Harris, a British correspondent and wealthy resident of Tangier, his reluctant guest until a board-bill amounting to thousands of guineas was paid. The following year he made a formal call at the beautiful chateau of Mr. Ion Perdicaris, overlooking the Bay of Trafalgar, and both Mr. Perdicaris and his stepson were forced to return the call immediately. All that Raisuli asked for their ransom was this: (i) The release of a large number of personal friends who were then Moorish prisoners in the jail at Tangier. (2) The recall to Fez of the Sultan's troops, who were a menace to Raisuli's business. (3) A cash sum of $55,000, to be provided only from the sale of property belonging to his enemies, the Bashaws of Tangier and Fez. (4) Four or five small districts to be absolutely ceded to Raisuli by the Sultan. (5) The imprisonment of two objectionable sheikhs, and of two sons of one of them. (6) Free access to the markets to be given to the outlawed tribesmen who had given Raisuli refuge. (7) The curt dismissal of the Bashaw of Tangier. (8) Immunity guarantee against punishment by the United States or Great Britain. He got everything except Number 8, and practic- ally received that. From this it is evident that Raisuli did not miss his calling in life. His last success, the capture of Caid Maclean, was of the same piece. 146 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET When I first arrived in Tangier, I found that this successful business man was living quietly as a Moor- ish gentleman in a handsome home about five minutes' walk outside the old wall. I was assured that he was " down and out," so far as public affairs in Morocco were concerned. Nevertheless, I had a strong desire to see the Moor who could call out a whole squadron of the American Navy and get what he wanted just as easily as if the warships had been fishing-smacks. A diplomatic plan for an interview with the gentleman was carefully worked out by a friend with experience in Moorish diplomacy, but the delay of a few days proved fatal. The evil wind that wafted misfortune in my direction, however, brought interesting " copy " to La Depeche in a series of reports that lasted sev- eral weeks. The most important are the following : Rumour No. i. Raisuli left yesterday for Fez. Perhaps the new Sultan sent for him. Perhaps he didn't. Anyway, there is " something doing." Rumour No. 2. Courier from Fez with news that Raisuli has been given command of a mehalla of the Sultan's troops, to be sent into the mountainous district near El-Ksar to collect back taxes for several years. Good job, and good man for the job. Rumour No. 3. Courier from Fez reports that Raisuli is to be appointed Governor of Tangier. " La nouvelle a cause a Tanger une veritable stupefaction." Rumour No. 4. Courier from Fez brings the news of Raisuli's appointment as Governor of the Fahs district, extending up to the walls of Tangier and including many European villas. Several interesting events followed this piece of news. The leading Moors of the Fahs district came into Tangier and, by way of protest, sacrificed a sheep THE MIX-UP IN MOROCCO 147 at the door of every European legation — and oi La Depeche. This was supposed by the Moors to be a sort of blood covenant that could not be ignored. Then the delegation called on the Sultan's representa- tive in Tangier, but that diplomat of the old school replied that no protest could be considered unless in writing and properly signed. The delegation retired, called a meeting in a caravanserai in the market-place, and signed the petition in due form. Rumour No. 5. Raisuli, the new Governor of Fahs, has opened an office on the street leading from the market to the beach, and his representative will there receive back taxes. Better come in and pay up. (The office was reported closed two days later.) Rumour No. 6. Courier from Fez brings a letter from the Sultan to the signers of the Fahs petition, inviting them to come to the capital and talk it over. The signers expressed great re- gret that they could not accept the invitation. Previous engage- ment. Rumour No. 7. Courier from Fez brings a report that Raisuli is to be given command of a mehalla to go against the Pretender in the mountains back of Melilla and kidnap him alive or dead, preferably dead. General opinion is that, if this rumour be true, the Pretender will cease to pretend. Rumour No. 8. In a private letter from Fez, it is said that Raisuli is in disfavour with Sultan Mulai Hafid and has been imprisoned. No celebration in Tangier or Fahs, for the news is too good to be true. Just at this point I left Morocco, after having waited many days for a rumour that the gentleman so frequently mentioned in the despatches was on his way back to Tangier. Why is Raisuli ? Why does the new Sultan, at this delicate point in Moroccan history, dare the displeas- 148 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET ure of the Powers by designating for high position and Cherifian honours a bandit whom the Powers have reason to dishke ? There are several reasons, most of them good. Raisuh detests Europeans and would gladly drive them out of the country; so would the Sultan. Raisuli has powerful friends among the northern tribes, and can raise an army at will; the Sultan needs all the friends and troops that he can get. Raisuli is a successful financier and his ingenious ways of raising money usually work out; the Sultan needs the money. Be- sides, Raisuli has done what no recent Sultan could do : he has defied powerful nations and not had to suffer for it. Finally, the probability is that Mulai Hafid is afraid not to honour Raisuli, lest the daring chieftain start a revolt that will dethrone him. Raisuli cannot himself become Sultan, because he is not a cherif (descendant of the Prophet); but there are plenty of cherif s in Morocco whose cause Raisuli might espouse. All in all, the bandit sustains about the same rela- tion to his sovereign that Tammany Hall bears to New York Democracy. He is not a patriot in any real sense, but he is a ward-leader who must be reck- oned with by any native ruler. If France should suc- ceed in establishing a " protectorate " in Morocco, Raisuli will have good cause to thank Allah for the gift of British citizenship. He could not get even a job of a road-overseer under a French regime. And when a man steps down in Morocco, he steps '' away down." THE MIX-UP IN MOROCCO 149 The traveller who goes ashore at Tangier soon finds himself as hopelessly mixed as Moroccan politics. If he wanders about alone in the crooked streets, he pres- ently meets himself coming back to the starting-place. His souvenir postal-cards may be mailed at four sepa- rate post-offices, with different stamps on each. Or, at a British hotel he may exchange French money for Spanish postage and mail his letter in a German post- office. But he may not put British, French, German, and Spanish stamps on the same letter, for that might lead to international complications. He may also do coin tricks equal to those of the prestidigitators. Let him take an American quarter- dollar and exchange it for English money : he now has a shilling, and a ha'penny over. He may exchange the shilling for a French franc, and receive thirty or forty centimes in change. The franc may be traded for a Spanish peseta, plus twenty centimos in copper. The Spanish peseta may now be converted into a Moorish^ peseta (" Hassani "), with a handful of cop- per to boot. He now has his pockets weighted down with American, English, French, Spanish, and Moor- ish copper, yet he can buy just as much from a Moor with his Hassani peseta as he could have bought with his original quarter! In a thoughtless moment one day, I held out a Hassani peseta to Mr. George E. Holt, American Vice- Consul-General at Tangier, and asked him how much it was worth. " A Hassani peseta/' he replied glibly, " is worth lo dhirems or 20 hdli-dhirems/' 150 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET " And 20 hali-dhirems equal " " Two or three cents less than a Spanish peseta" he answered. " But you must remember that the valu- ation of Moorish silver fluctuates from day to day; at times it is oflicially worth only a third of its face value." " To-day is Thursday," I said, in desperation. '' The hour is 1 145 p.m. Would you mind telling me just how much this Hassani is worth in American cents, at this moment?" " I'll figure it all out for you," he answered. At 2 130 he was still figuring, so I crept softly out and wandered into a Moorish tea-house. There I spent the Hassani in riotous living. X CASABLANCA AND CAPTAIN COBB THE December sun was just rising from the morning mists like a globe of burnished gold, flooding our little world with a blaze of yel- low light. The man at the wheel leaned to the spokes and the nose of the Royal Mail packet swung slowly around toward the low-lying coast-line. Far in the distance, like whitening shells on a beach of sand, we could pick out a few minarets and villas. Casablanca — the little Moorish town that had for months threat- ened to draw France and Germany into war with each other — was at hand. All night the little passenger-boat had been having fun with the stomachs of some tourist persons from London — stomachs which had not yet forgotten the Bay of Biscay. Now it would roll like a camel in full swing; then it would have a spell of rising and pitching like a porpoise; there were exclamations of regret when the bow would fall over a cross-wave and throw the propeller-blades into the air with a whir-r-r that sent a shiver through every part of the ship — and through one part of nearly every passenger. It was "most extraordinary, don't you know?" But the thought of lying for twenty-four hours in the har- 151 152 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET hour of Casablanca made even the stout gentleman from Manchester take a new grip on life. But it was evident, half an hour later, that the Agadir had jumped from the frying-pan into the boil- ing teapot. Every fathom's length gave us a new sort of lurch; a sullen roar with now and then a deep "boom!" told of the violence with which the mad Atlantic w^as driving against the sand and rocks. Then came the long rattle of the anchor chain, and the man from Manchester came waddling up-deck. " Cahn't we go in any closer, Captain? " he asked, anxiously. "If we go closer, we may never come out," said the skipper, cheerfully. " See how fast that line of breakers is going in? " Manchester took one look at the foaming surf, groaned, and waddled aft to his stateroom. We were so far off-shore that strong glasses were required to make out the nationality of the consular flags in Casablanca. The massive walls of the un- finished breakwater were visible, but not a surf-boat was in sight. The Captain, who was in a hurry to discharge cargo, paced the deck — and I fear that he swore. Finally a little speck appeared on the distant beach; the glasses showed that it was a boat being pushed into the surf. We watched it for perhaps an hour; sometimes it was so high upon the crest of a curling wave that it seemed to be turning a somersault; then it would disappear for such a long interval that we CASABLANCA AND CAPTAIN COBB 153 thought that it had gone down. When it was half- way, a ship's officer identified it as " the Company boat." It came alongside, grappled our gangway with a boat-hook, and rose and fell ten feet at a time while the Moorish chauffeur yelled things to our Captain. " He says there will be no boats coming off to-day," interpreted the skipper, gloomily. " Says seven big surf-boats were smashed yesterday and his men have lost their nerve." " But are we not going ashore ? " I asked. " The Company advertises that " '' My dear man ! " answered the Captain, " how can you go ashore when there are no boats? Look at those waves ! Even if you could get ashore you might be left behind, for if my anchor slips I shall have to go to sea." " But isn't this surf-boat going back? " '' It's going to start back," was the cautious reply of British conservatism. I leaned over the rail and watched the excited Moors in the boat; they were having a beautiful time keep- ing from being smashed against the Agadlr. Just then I heard a cheerful voice directed toward me : '' Are you thinking of going ashore ? " it asked. The speaker was a chunky little man with a Van Dyck beard — German or French perhaps, certainly not British. " Yes, thinking of it," I answered. '' But the Cap- tain says *" aher nicht! ' " 154 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET " Suppose we go back with these dagoes ? " he suggested. " I'm with you." " Wait a minute till I tell my wife." While he was gone, I gave the protesting captain my home address — ^just as a matter of formality. Then the Van Dyck reappeared and we practised the rare sport of di"opping into a surf -boat at the psycho- logical moment when it was on top of a wave, in- stead of falling down into the trough. We both landed in the boat. The Moor who commanded it took the precaution of collecting our fares in advance. We had our money's worth before we reached land. The breakers that looked wild from the steamer-deck were alarming when viewed from a row-boat; the force that rocked the steel Agadir had our skiff at its mercy. We held on to the side to. keep from being pitched out. " I think you must be a countryman of mine," re- marked my white companion, in one of the least- anxious moments. ''Perhaps," I said. "Where are you from?" " Iowa," he answered. " I have heard of the town " — and, in the face of all the traditional curses upon the man who rocks the boat, we shook hands. We did not begin a discussion of the political situa- tion in the Middle West, for the excited voice of our helmsman indicated that we had reached a point where a boat must race with the breakers toward a certain CASABLANCA AND CAPTAIN COBB 155 point — and whichever gets there first, wins. We got there first. The last hundred yards was easy; our boat sHd up on the beach and the American invasion of Casablanca was a reality. Then we shook hands again. " I hope that the sea will be less rambunctious when we go back," remarked Lewis, of Iowa and London. " I am pretty sure it will quiet down before / go back! Something seems to tell me so." To the two Americans just cast up by the waves, the points of interest in Casablanca were not the mosques and other relics listed in the guide-books of the tourists who waited on the Agadir for oil to be poured on the troubled waters. This was the place where the French camel stuck its head into the Mo- roccan stable-door. What cared we for the ancient chronicles of Portuguese governors and Moorish bashaws? Casablanca is a city of the here and now; modern history was bubbling over in the pot and we were looking for the bubbles. And so we clambered over the huge blocks of gran- ite that were waiting for the masons to cement them into the impregnable breakwater that would make a harbour after the heart of Frenchmen. We walked the little track over which run the first trains that have yet invaded the antiquated domain of the Sultan. We circumnavigated the old fort and looked for the carnage that had been wrought by French gunboats — but found only a few jagged holes in the crumbly walls. 156 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET The man who has not heard of Casablanca would fit well into an exhibit of illiteracy. An obscure town on the northwest coast of Morocco, it became a boon to cable companies and to editors; more of sensational copy went from there to the newspapers of France, Germany, Spain, and England in two years than from all the rest of Africa put together. No sooner had it ceased to be of interest as the one place on the globe where there was real fighting than it sprang into prominence again as a possible casus belli between Germany and France. There was at Casablanca a French regiment known as the For- eign Legion, made up of ex-convicts, gentlemen ad- venturers, and adventurers who were not gentlemen, from practically every country in Europe. Several German soldiers of this Legion deserted the colours and then claimed the protection of their consulate. The French commander ignored the claim and arrested the deserters. The little German vice-consul protested and leaped at one bound into international prominence — alongside the French vice-consul who had given the signal for the bombardment of Casablanca and who is said to have been first reprimanded and then decorated with the Legion of Honour. A little incident like the squabble over the de- serters would ordinarily be settled out of the papers, for the only question at issue was the legality of the arrest of criminals while under consular protection. But Germany was then hunting trouble with France in Morocco, and this afforded the chance. The wires from Berlin to Paris were soon at white heat, and the CASABLANCA AND CAPTAIN COBB 157 newspaper compositors kept " The Incident at Casa- blanca " as a standing head. A Moorish city of 20,000, founded by Portuguese, with a Spanish name meaning " White House," and occupied by the French — that is Casablanca. It is a flat town of reasonably white houses, with flat roofs, lying on a flat coast. The architecture is mainly European. It was a disappointment to find Casablanca to be a wretched, dirty town. Its streets were as abominable as if no European had ever invaded them, and there was an absence of the fine stores that ornament and serve most of the North African cities. Evidently the French were waiting until their tenure should be- come more certain. But they are said to be buying real estate in large sections and at " boom " prices. *' While we are seeing history-in-the-making," I suggested, " let's find the French camp and see General d'Amade, the maker." " How can we get at him? " " I have a letter that will turn the trick." " You seem to be a travelling post-office." " My African outfit is made up of three parts let- ters of introduction and one part kodak supplies. Come on ! " And off we went to lay siege to the French army of occupation. Once, when both I and a Chickamauga sentry were sadly unversed in military etiquette, I had gained ac- cess to two big Generals by the simple method of walk- ing into their tents and saluting. (Both the sentry 158 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET and I escaped court-martial.) I did not find the en- tree into the presence of the French commander so easy. The camp was outside the city, and it was a camp to be proud of. Neat barracks roofed with corru- gated zinc were mathematically arranged like over- grown bath-houses, along company streets that were as clean as a floor. At the gate was an Arab tirailleur, standing '' at ease." He came to " attention " as we approached and inquired for General d'Amade, but not a sign of intelligence crossed the face of the bronze statue. Apparently he had never heard of the man. We continued the one-sided conversation in French of one syllable, but it left us still standing outside the gate. Finally we made hubbub enough to arouse the sergeant of the guard — a tall Algerian who spake in the tongue of his commanders. He was not enthusias- tic over our visit, but I impressed it upon him that the letter in my hand was from the Government of France. Then he decided to deliver it. Monsieur le sergeant was more afifable when he re- turned. He lost no time in inviting us to come in out of the wet and follow him to the officers' quar- ters. There he disappeared into one of the bath- houses. While we waited, I carefully pieced together a few French phrases for whatever aide should come to inquire into the object of our visit. The door opened and out stepped a tall, grey- moustached officer in baggy cavalry trousers and un- dress blouse. It was the hero of Casablanca himself! General d'Amade had been described to me in Ian- CASABLANCA AND CAPTAIN COBB 159 guage which would fit General Weyler, " the butcher of Cuba." I expected to see a curt, snarly, evil-visaged man with cruel lines about the mouth. Instead, I was met by a handsome, smiling gentleman with the bluest eye that I ever saw in a fighting man. He spoke Eng- lish freely and answered every question frankly and without reserve. Moreover, he seemed to be pleased that two Americans should think it worth while to walk out to pay their respects. The first meeting between General d'Amade and the Moors, as described by a resident of Casablanca, was hardly so pleasant as ours. General Drude, his prede- cessor, showed a preference for city life and did so much of his skirmishing near the walls that the Moors decided that the French troops were afraid. When d'Amade was sent over, he ordered the legionnaires to tighten up their belts for a little exercise in the country. The Moors ran, as usual^ but the French did not stop, as usual. Then the Moors broke up into detachments and took to cover. D'Amade hitched a balloon to a caisson and sent signal-service men up into the air to locate the different bands and direct the aim of the artillerymen who were feeding shells into the light batteries. Some of the Moors are sup- posed to be running yet. The new General showed a fondness for the idea that where the vanguard rests to-day, the rear should camp to-morrow. Result : He told me that he had his outpost sixty miles inland, and that it would be safe for me to go anywhere within that limit. 160 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET Convinced that the French commander was not him- self a cruel and brutal fighter, Lewis and I set out to " size up " the rank and file. We went everywhere in Casablanca — wandering through street after street, loitering about the wine-shops, lounging in the open spaces wherever !Moors were congregating — but there was absolutely nothing to indicate that the city was under martial rule. In the gathering dusk we encoun- tered the General and an aide riding through the na- tive quarter on a final tour of inspection, but nobody ran for cover. Finally, about nine in the evening, we saw a sign which announced a dance in one of the amusement places — the " Eden " concert-hall. ''Ah!" we said, "here is where we shall behold a wild time " — and w^e made for the sign. The cafe was almost deserted and fiot a sound of revelry could be heard. " Where is the ball ? " we asked a Frenchman. " Oh, it doesn't begin until midnight! " he said. A cafe chantant called " Eden," with a soldiers' ball that begins at midnight, seemed to us the place where we should see wild disorder in all its tumult. We, therefore, made an engagement to take each other to the fandango. Promptly at midnight we were at the cafe. About fifty French " non-coms " from various regiments, half a dozen civilians, and a few French waitresses were in the brilliantly lighted hall. The music and the wine were both uncorked and the French soldier's idea of a '*' wild time " was in action. The room was CASABLANCA AND CAPTAIN COBB 161 full of ribald song, the floor was full of dancers, and everybody was full of wine. Those who are familiar with resorts frequented by soldiers will recognize the conditions requisite for '' a rough house " — especially when consideration is given to the significant fact that there was not more than one demoiselle to ten soldiers, and that the maidens were of the attractive kind that men around the world fight over. We spent two hours in the boisterous throng waiting for somebody to " start something." To our utter amazement there was neither fighting nor quarrelling, nor was there any apparent rudeness to- ward the girls. It was a revelation of French char- acter — or of manners, if you prefer — which was wholly new to me. I doubt if the result could be duplicated in the camp of any other nation in the world. If an American anywhere along the Moroccan coast announces his intention of visiting Casablanca, somebody will say, " Be sur^ to see Captain Cobb." We saw him. A diminutive follower of the Prophet led us by devious ways to one of Casablanca's institutions — a. saw-mill and a flour-mill combined. Here lives the one genuine American resident of the town — a Con- necticut sea-captain who lost his ship off Gibraltar some thirty years ago and who has never come home. The unfinished structure of Brooklyn Bridge is the most distinct recollection of New York City as he last saw it. He is an antique on an antiquated shore. 162 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET Stepping inside the doorway we saw a lean Yankee with white, whisk-broom chin-whiskers hammering away on a broken cog-wheel. With him was another retired sea-dog, Captain Taylor of the Royal Mail. The Connecticut skipper poised his hammer for a moment while we explained that we were two of his fellow-countrymen. We expected that when he heard the news he would throw his hammer at the English- man, seize us in his arms, and do a war-dance. In- stead, he spat deliberately and resumed his anvil chorus. "Take 'em into the settin'-room, Taylor; I'll be along directly," was all that he said. Lewis and I looked at each other in a dazed sort of way; then, in silence and without enthusiasm, we followed the Englishman. He led us into a large room which had in it a table, a lounge, a few chairs, and some pictures. There was not a Moorish article in it — it was plain New England from ceiling to floor. I sat down on the lounge and dived into a pile of magazines, curious to see how the old exile amused himself in this out-of- the-way place. The first that I saw gave me a shock; it was the one that I had been helping to make for the last two years! Two other American magazines were in the bunch and then I came to a trade-paper which I had once edited. I began to feel at home. Then the old captain sauntered in. Miffed by his air of utter indifference, we began to reach for our hats after a few commonplace remarks that stuck in our throats. To our surprise, Captain Cobb would GENERAL D'AMADE, THE FIGHTER OF CASABLANCA TAYLOR, CROSS, COBB, LEWIS, AT CASABLANCA CASABLANCA AND CAPTAIN COBB 163 not listen to any talk of farewell — we were going to stay for dinner! He expressed a vigorous opinion re- garding Americans who would think of leaving his house without eating with him ! Little by little the old man thawed out. In a vo- cabulary whose picturesque profanity has never been surpassed on sea or land — or in the United States Senate — he entertained us with reminiscences of the home-land, with incidents that he witnessed during the bombardment of Casablanca, and with stories of the sea. Hours passed before we again reached for our hats, and he reached for his, also. He insisted vipon closing up his mill and escorting us all about the town. Standing together on the beach, we invited the old hermit to come home and see the subways and the forty-story buildings — and the old New England hills. He shook his head and pointed to the old mill. " I reckon I'll weather it out here/' he answered. Captain Cobb is not an enthusiast on the subject of uplifting the Moors. He dropped that idea long ago as the result of an effort to revolutionize agriculture in the fertile wheat region back of Casablanca. Seeing that the Moors merely scratched the earth with the one-handled wooden ploughs of the ancients, after first cutting the weeds with a small sickle, the Captain sent to Chicago for a real plough. A wealthy Moor readily granted permission for a " show " on his estate. The plough was hauled out into the country, 164 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET and the Captain selected a spot where the weeds were so thick and tall that no native plough could ever get through. Taking the handles himself, he soon had every weed neatly turned under ; the wondering Moors were enthusiastic and Cobb began to see visions of fat commissions on shiploads of ploughs. Finally, the owner of the field asked the price. The captain told him — a sum equal to $io plus the cost of transporta- tion and a small profit. The Moor threw up his hands in one of those expressive Oriental gestures and si- lently walked away. The Captain dragged his steel plough back to Casablanca — but not in silence! You may see it there in his warehouse to-day. Thus ended the story of one American uplift. XI WEST AFRICA'S HALF-WAY HOUSE I STEAMED hopefully into the Canaries as a first- class passenger on a Royal Mail packet. I steamed despondently out as a deck-passenger on a Ham- burg cargo-boat, stretched out on a greasy tarpaulin. But why hurry away from the Half-way House to the West Coast of Africa? Whether outward-bound or homeward, whether four-funnelled cruiser or three-masted schooner, whether flying the Jack that flaps in all the sea-winds or flying the crew's weekly wash — you put in at Teneriffe or Las Palmas if you are in the West Coast trade. The Madeiras may be prettier and the Cape Verdes wickeder, but the Canaries are busier. If cer- tain gentlemen at Washington in 1898 had known more of the geography that is learned from a ship's deck, we might have annexed something Atlantic that is better than Porto Rico. We should also have an- nexed the vexatious problem of bull-fighting, which might have drawn attention away from the harems of that good American citizen, the Sultan of Jolo and Sulu. It is too much to say that the Spaniard cannot live without his bull-fight. He can, if he must, but much 165 166 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET of the joy of living is gone. It is true that a goat- fight might be more exciting, but goats recall none of the thrills once enjoyed in old Madrid. And how can there be a toreador without a tor of And so, there in the Canaries, southwest of Mo- rocco — on an island which was created as part of Africa, but which (through American oversight) is politically a part of Spain — Teneriffe celebrated my arrival by killing four bulls. At least, the two events happened on the same Sunday. A bull-fight in Teneriffe is not an everyday event. It is more like grand opera, or a horse-show, or a Yale- Harvard football game. The rarity of the spectacle is not due to lack of enthusiasmi, but to the cost of '' pulling off the show." Cattle of all kinds are ex- pensive there, even a burro selling for as much as $40; and the kind of a gentleman who is willing to play tag with the horns of a bull, and who is agile enough to do stunts that will make the audience get upon its feet and yell, also costs money. To repro- duce one of the Madrid fights would cost about $3,000 there, and the box-office would have to go in mourn- ing for a year. So Teneriffe does the best that it can afford- — and for an African island that best is fair to middling. They at least import the bulls and the fighters from Spain. The Plaza de Toros, located at one side of the city, is a circular structure of concrete about three stories high, with exits all around. In the centre is a circular arena of level sand, with a surrounding fence just low WEST AFRICA'S HALF-WAY HOUSE 167 enough for a toreador to scramble over when hard pressed — if not too hard pressed. There are also a number of small places of refuge near the fence, and they frequently come in handy. The seats of the am- phitheatre rise in tiers to the roof that shields a part of the audience from the sun. Even a December sun is something to keep away from in Teneriffe. The seats cost from twenty to seventy-five cents, American. The Tenerifhans began to flock to the Plaza de Toros at 2 :30 in the afternoon, in the same fashion as Americans turning out for " the greatest show on earth." The small boy was much in evidence, and a large number of them would have been glad of a chance to carry water for the bulls. The red trousers, blue blouses, and vari-coloured caps of Spanish sol- diers were almost as numerous, and they gave a pleas- ing touch of colour to the spectacle. Now and then dashed up a carriage with sefioras and senoritas — fully conscious of the effect of black eyes and hair against the background of a fluffy white mantilla. In front of the Plaza were the peanut- woman, the man with wine for the thirsty, and the boy with the in- evitable gambling-wheel. At one side were the carts waiting to haul off the carcasses — a guarantee that the show would be real. The amphitheatre has a large seating capacity and was not more than half-filled, so the sunny side was almost empty. The small boy was in the " loft," as usual, and he cared not who knew it. Most of the spectators were men, but enough ladies were present to make it a society event. Even little girls of six 168 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET were present. Instead of having a depressing effect upon the ladies, the gory spectacle that followed so aroused their enthusiasm that at times they stood up in order not to miss anything. In the audience was a cohort of police armed with carbines — evidently on passes — and about twenty Red Cross men to minister to the bruises of six toreadores. Promptly at three, the band struck up a lively air and the audience began to stretch its neck. Nothing happened. Eventually it played another selection, and then a trumpet in the key of high C was sounded. The gates were thrown open and a very ordinary young man rode in on an ordinary horse. Nobody got excited. He rode across the arena and saluted some- body up near the roof — evidently the owner of the show — and rode back again. Then another trumpet and the young man appeared again. This time he was more welcome, for he led the grand march of toreadores, resplendent in the traditional costume of the Madrid ring, which one may more conveniently see at the opera " Carmen." The six fighters in red, green, yellow, purple, and gold lace were followed by three white mules hitched abreast; it is theirs to drag away the toro when his little fight is over. The toreadores saluted, took off a part of their raiment and threw it into the audience, where it was eagerly seized by the idolizers of the sport. The men had plenty of colour and gold lace left, however. Then the real show began. Act I, Scene i. The bugle-man sounded again and WEST AFRICA'S HALF-WAY HOUSE 169 the gates of the bull-pen were thrown open. There was a moment of suspense, and then Toro No. i ap- peared — a black-and-white animal looking like a Texas steer, with long, curved horns, keen as a dagger. He had the air of a bull looking for trouble — and he was not long in finding it. The six toreadores shook out their brilliant cloaks and advanced toward the centre. The bull took a good look at one and made for him; another stepped in and threw his cloak over the animal's eyes and dis- concerted him. First one and then another played tag with him in this way for twenty minutes, and the toro began to tire. Had he kept straight on after one man, he would have caught him, but he usually made one lunge and stopped. Finally, the bugle an- nounced a change of scene. Scene 2. Two of the teasers (the two matador es or killers) withdrew, and a young man in black came out with a couple of banderillas for each of two picador es. These banderillas are sharp darts with handles about two feet long, wrapped in green and yellow tissue-paper. The two men without darts then resumed the game of tag, while the picadores awaited a favourable moment for maddening the toro by stick- ing the darts into him. To one who likes this part of the game, it is fine sport; personally I should not care for it. When the auspicious moment arrived, one of the picadores stepped in front of the bull, at a dis- tance of ten feet, and invited him to come on. The bull accepted the invitation, with horns lowered. The picador stood perfectly still until the animal was 170 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET within reach, then leaned over the sharp horns and thrust the darts into his shoulder — at the same instant springing to one side. The enraged bull bellowed and ran around the arena in the effort to shake off the darts, while the hardened audience roared. Then came another round of tag and the incident was re- peated when the second picador inserted his banderil- las. When the audience began to lose interest, the bugle announced another change. Scene j. The two picadores retired and one of the matadores took his place, a long, sharp sword con- cealed under his cloak. There were several minutes of teasing by the others, and then the matador took a hand. Waving his cloak on his left side, he slowly advanced and pointed his sword directly at the bull's left shoulder. The animal lunged at the cloak and the sword went to the hilt; the beast staggered, stopped, then sank to the ground; the sword had penetrated the heart. Scene 4. An attendant came up and grasped the dying toro by the horns while the matador thrust an- other sword into the spinal cord, just back of the horns. The attendant finished the work with a dag- ger, the white mules dashed in, and the limp carcass was dragged through the gate. The audience wildly cheered and threw cigarettes to its hero. Act II. The second bull was a brown fellow, full of fight, and he kept everybody busy. The teasing went on in the same way, but one of the teasers looked like " a goner " at one turn. He was knocked down, but another toreador stepped in at the right moment. WEST AFRICA'S HALF-WAY HOUSE 171 When the kilhng time came, a young matador came out with the sword. He appeared to be nervous, for the animal was very active; half-a-dozen times he pre- pared to thrust, and each time the bull went away with his enemy's cloak. Finally the audience became disgusted and began to blow little whistles — evidently Spanish for "give him the hook!" The young fel- low braced up and went at the toro again; this time he succeeded in putting in the sword, but it was some time before the animal was actually killed. Act III. Toro No. 3 was also brown, but not so full of fight. He looked frightened when he entered and ran around the fence as if seeking a place marked " Exit." But when he saw a gentleman in green and gold coming toward him with a long pole, he braced up. Then a surprising thing happened. When the bull was only a few feet away, the toreador placed one end of the pole on the ground and vaulted high into the air. His intention was to vault over the animal, but there was some miscalculation and he landed squarely between his horns. The toro lowered his head and the man fell backward, at the beast's mercy. For a moment, it looked as though he were being gored, but the intervention of another teaser saved him. The man was thoroughly " game " and went on with his vaulting a few minutes later. This feature so frightened the bull that he tried to jump the fence into the audience, and almost suc- ceeded. The cruel darts maddened him a little, but it was a relief to the spectators when the mata- 172 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET dor struck his sword in the right spot at the first effort. Act IV. The bull that was ushered in to close this bloody show was so small and thin that a hack-driver in the audience almost turned the tragedy into a comedy. Springing over the fence into the arena, he held up his cap to the manager of the show as a request for per- mission to take part in it himself. He must have re- ceived it, for he played about the bull's horns with nothing in his hands and came near making the tore ad ores out to be fakirs. Then he tried to take the darts from one of them, but the man held on until the hackman gave up and resumed his seat. Another Buttinski, the young attendant in black, decided that he also would get gay with the bull, but when the toreadores teased the animal away from him, the young fellow's black suit was ready for the rag- picker. The calf-like toro then chased one of the teasers over the fence and tore a big hole in his nice trousers while he was in transit. The last scene was particularly brutal, for the bull was very tenacious of life. The sword-man missed his aim and struck back of the shoulder on the right side. Though the sword was buried to its hilt in its body, the poor creature kept up the fight for fifteen minutes. This gave one of the fighters a chance for a very dar- ing performance; watching for the right moment, he grasped the sword-hilt and pulled out the blade, get- ting a rip from one horn as he did so. The matador then succeeded in getting the sword into the left side, but even that failed to kill. When the animal finally WEST AFRICA'S HALF-WAY HOUSE 173 fell, men and boys leaped over the fence and dragged the carcass away with their hands. Leaving the ethics of bull-fighting out of the ques- tion, it was a square game all the way through. Every man in it had a good chance of being killed, over and over again; just why two or three were not disabled is a mystery, but I am assured that they wear no chain armour. At any rate, the boy in black was not pre- pared for what happened to him. The Tenerifife morning paper gave scant notice to the fight and closed with this " roast " : " The torea- dores did what they could. The occurrence was regu- lar." While I am not an authority on bull-fighting, I should say that the men deserved better praise. If Teneriffe has anything to show that is more than " regular," I should like an invitation. The meat of the animals slaughtered in a bull-fight is supposed to go to the poor, but I had questioning thoughts at the hotel on Monday, when I saw beef- steak on the bill-of-fare." If the going down of the sun finds you in Las Palmas, there are many attractive spots where you may stroll and be lonesome; but if the gloaming catches you in TenerifTe, there is only the Plaza that overlooks the bay. Here, if you loiter long enough, you will see everybody in Teneriffe except those who are in jail or sick a-bed, for this is the evening parade- ground for the 40,000 Spaniards who live between the blue sea and the chain of lofty peaks. It is an unsafe 174 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET place to go if you owe money to anybody in the island, but if you have no creditors to dodge it is the glad- dest spot in the city. On certain evenings a fine military band blows it- self red in the face; but, band or no band, the beauty and the chivalry of the port may be found promenading up and down the rectangular '' square " or reviewing the parade from benches on the side. Juanita is here, fresh from the hair-dresser, in a gown made in Paris, with a white mantilla draped gracefully over her black hair. But, alas! mama is also here; likewise little sister; likewise papa, somewhere within easy range. You may camp here for a week without ever seeing Francisco sitting on a plaza bench with his arm around her; ''no se permite'' in Las Canarias! But Juanita knows how to use her eyes, and if she wills it that Francisco shall tell her in Castillian the story that is old in all languages, she will hear it from her window before the ancient cathedral bell strikes ten. There is nothing in the climate of the Canaries to prevent the course of true love from running along smoothly, but the Spanish traditions are so strong that it has a more bumpety-bump time than in any other city beneath the African sun. That ancient system of love-making at long distance is in full force. Let us follow Francisco and see what happens — for we may observe everything that happens. Shortly after Juanita and her vigilant family have disappeared up the stairway that leads to their apart- WEST AFRICA'S HALF-WAY HOUSE 175 ments over papa's tienda, Francisco saunters along the sidewalk. He stops in front of the house and pa- tiently waits. If no dark eyes appear at the window above, he softly whistles a signal note until he '' gets the number." But Juanita does not invite him to '' run up''; that cannot be until he is ready to be fitted to the bridal harness. Whatever he wishes to say must be said from the sidewalk, with the back of his head resting on his own shoulder. But, in spite of the drawbacks to the system, it is on record that weddings occur in Tene- riffe about as frequently as in any other city of 40,- 000 people. It might not work so well in New York, however — especially with Flossie on the sixth floor, front. From Juanita's standpoint (or sitting-point) the arrangement has many conveniences. If her corns happen to be painful, she can slip off her shoes, for Francisco's horizon does not extend below the waist- line. All that is really necessary is that her hair be dressed, her face powdered, and her waist clean. From Francisco's standpoint, there are also some advantages in the system. Since he must do his woo- ing from the sidewalk, it is obvious that all rival suitors must do the same. By standing on the corner when not on duty, or by carelessly passing along the street, he can see at a glance who is beneath the win- dow — and how often. From the neighbour's viewpoint, it is a system par excellence. By leaning out and looking up and down the street, an observant fem.ale can see every wooer 176 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET within the range of four blocks; by exchanging notes with a senora in the next street, her stock of knowl- edge is doubled. And so on, indefinitely. There are not many weddings in Teneriffe or Las Palmas that do not cast their shadows in advance. But the system is death to the ice-cream parlour and the moving-picture show. xn THE LOG OF A DECK-PASSENGER NEVER mind how it happened. That an Ameri- can traveller should " go broke " in a foreign land is not an experience so uncommon that an eager public yearns for the details. During August, 19 lo, 4,019 Americans returned to New York as steerage-passengers — and they had been no farther from home than Europe. These ladies and gentlemen were in the steerage *' because all the other accommo- dations had been taken," of course, but I was a deck- passenger because I was " strapped." Lt is a serious matter to land anywhere on the West Coast of Africa without money. It is bad enough to be stranded on a white man's coast in a temperate zone, where you have no African fever to think about; to "go broke " on the West Coast may mean that you will never come out. Therefore, I spent several days at Teneriffe in seri- ous reflection, pondering this " if " and that " per- haps." I had permission to cable for money to return home, but not for cash to go on. On Christmas Eve I decided to face whatever fate might be lying in wait for me on the out-trail. Then I drew up a will, wrote some letters, and packed my trunk. 177 178 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET My next port was to be Dakar, in French West Af- rica. I made the rounds of the steamship offices, but the second-cabin fare was $5 more than I possessed and none of them would sell a third-class ticket. Fi- nally I found a young German who offered me deck- passage on a cargo-boat nearly due. I did not know what " deck-passage " was, but it was evidently some- thing that would land me in the Senegal. " How much? " I asked. " Fifteen dollars, including meals." "Gimme it quick!" I said, and he gimme it. I went out with a ticket and ten jingling dollars left for a campaign in West Africa. Christmas in Teneriffe is not an experience that I ever wish to repeat. A traveller who finds himself suddenly '' broke " is not in a festive mood, and Tene- riffe is not a hilarious town. Everything seemed to go wrong all at once. A cablegram that I wanted did not come; two letters came that I did not want; the American consul invited me to eat Christmas dinner with him — and then forgot it! I celebrated alone, therefore — very much alone. Then I made myself a Christmas present of a ticket to the bull-fight and has- tened to the Plaza de Toros. The last act interested me. A very young matador had tried three times to thrust his sword through the bull's hide as it charged him; but the hide was so tough that it doubled the blade up as though it were a bamboo cane. Then the young fellow's nerve broke down and he turned half- appealingly to the audience. The spectators voted THE LOG OF A DECK-PASSENGER 179 that he should play the game to the end, and I thought that I knew how he felt. He braced up and played it through; the next lunge won. It was New Year's Eve when I saw my rusty freighter creeping into the harbour. It was so laden with cargo that the ordinary waves splashed up on the main deck. Two hours later a longshoreman was hauling me aboard the Walhurg like a bale of hay, and my baggage also had the good luck to get over the rail. There was not a white man in sight ; everybody was busy forward with cargo. I lit my pipe, sat down on the hatch in the broiling sun, and waited for some- thing to happen. From this point, let us follow the log: First Day Enter a chunky, cheerful German (Second-Mate Hummel); he sees me, looks at my two steamer trunks and suit-case as if they had dropped from the clouds. " Are you a passenger ? " he asks. "No, I am a deck-passenger." That doesn't seem to make any difference; says that he will send the Chief-Mate to me. Exit. Enter Chief-Officer Schmidt, good-looking Hamburger but rather stern. Is as courteous as if I had the best ticket that the company sells. He takes my ticket, shows me the cook's door, and tells me to go and get my "grub." "Where do I sleep? " I ask. " Better see the Captain." The Chef is a cheerful chap and has a Kroo-boy apprentice named George. George gives me a plate of pea-soup; there is no table, so I sit on a dirty tarpaulin. Chef rinses the plate and fills it with corned-beef, boiled potato, kraut, and stewed apples. 180 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET The last course was alleged coffee. I feel like a sailor " before the mast," but am glad to be here. Sailed out of Teneriffe at 5 p.m. without seeing anything that looks like a Captain. Third-Officer Mutschink looks like his name but is a jolly good fellow. "Where do I sleep?" I ask. " See the Captain," he answers. " He'll fix you up." Saw the Captain, and he fixed me up ! Found him in his cabin — middle-aged, fat, red-faced, and in pink pajamas. I ex- plain that I am, of necessity, a deck-passenger — and where shall I sleep ? " Oh, anywhere you like ! " he answers. I linger a mo- ment. " I have no place ! " he snaps out, impatiently. New Year's Eve in Las Palmas harbour. Dinner consisted of lukewarm coffee and two bologna sandwiches a la tarpaulin. Burned tobacco until late, wondering what next. Rolled up in my army-blanket and lay down on the hatch. The stars are very pretty, and there is a brilliant moon. The mainmast and the huge derricks are swaying like dead pines in a storm, as the Walhurg sways with the tide. Midnight — January first ! The gong sounds eight bells and a dozen steamers start their whistles; some of the sailors are beating on tin ; the crew of the British gunboat try to sing but are too drunk; they quit after an hour's effort to sing. Have just discovered that my blanket is already wet with dew. I move back under a tarpaulin. This deck is certainly of hard- wood; have never felt boards so hard. Sleep is impossible; I know, for I have tried for three hours. Will sit up and burn tobacco until daylight. Second Day New Year's Day in Las Palmas, discharging cargo. Every- body working hard, except Captain Fleuter. British gunboat went out dipping its flag — to Las Palmas or to the British merchantmen ? Another passenger has come aboard — also of the deck variety. He is Andreas Catsudas, Greek, late cook at the Premier diamond THE LOG OF A DECK-PASSENGER 181 mines. Left Capetown for the Congo and had to come all the way to Las Palmas to get a ship ! Silent, dull-witted, badly down in the mouth. Sailed at 9:30 p.m. Found some matting to sleep on. It is full of fleas but they are the smallest of my troubles. Shaved by moonlight, without a mirror ; not so easy as you might think ! Grub was on the bum to-day. Mutschink, who is boss of the grub-house, slipped me an apple and an onion. May his tribe increase ! A cold, hard, sleepless night. Glad to see it end. Things begin to happen on this boat about 4:30 a.m. Third Day Lemon-yellow sunrise; windy. Breakfast of macaroni, with tiny cubes of bacon and potatoes. Crew cleaning ship, which certainly needs it. Awning is being stretched to keep the sun from pulling the caulking out of the deck. Lunched on Hamburger steak (genuine but tainted), pancake, and jam. Catsudas can't see the joke of life on this ship; doesn't like to eat without a table. Captain wobbles about the ship occa- sionally, but the other officers run the boat. Speed, 200 miles a day. Am getting chummy with Hummel and Mutschink. They work like niggers. Moved my matting into a life-boat and made an awning out of my poncho. Catsudas is in the other end of my " stateroom." Mutschink insists upon lending me an extra blanket ; it gets very cold at night. The ribs of the life-boat do not exactly fit into the spaces between my ribs! Fourth Day Windy and cloudy. Captain came down on Mutschink like a tornado because he let the steward have too much cheese. We are fifty or sixty miles off-shore, steaming southward. Harmattan wind blowing strong off the Sahara. Could not believe that the " fog " was sand-dust until it began to settle on 182 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET my clothes. Big dragon-fly, blown out to sea, has been flying around the ship all day. We take soundings every hour now. Hummel gave me another blanket. While the sun shines, it is August; after sunset it is December. Fifth Day No sun until 3 p.m. Harmattan strong and chilly. Poncho keeps the dust out of my eyes when sleeping in my " stateroom." Mutschink told me at night the story of his life on the high seas. Catsudas, the Greek, walked the deck and told me all about the siege of Troy. I let him think that it was news. Sixth Day Plenty of sun and wind but very little dust, so we must be south of the Sahara. Mutschink is in disgrace because he failed to see the lights of a distant steamer last night. Captain's eagle eye caught them and he went up and " cussed " Mutschink off the bridge ; will probably " fire " him when he gets back to Hamburg. Crew busy getting Senegal cargo up on deck. Fished up a narrow-gauge railroad — rails, ties, trucks, cars, everything except the locomotive. Also pulled up tons of lumber, scores of cases of Standard oil, and a few quarts of liquor. Deck looks like the morning after Christmas. Catsudas and I are slowly recovering from nervous prostration. When they moved our surf-boat and uncovered the hatch, we discovered that we had been peacefully sleeping above twenty tons of dynamite ! We have unanimously agreed to change our " stateroom." Peculiar sunset : blood-red sun on one side of the boat and reddish full-moon on the other. Hard to tell which is the other. And so the log goes on for the two weeks that I spent on the IValhurg. The despondency of Catsudas CATSUDAS IN OUR WALBURG ■■ STATEK00:M HUMMEL AND THE DYNAMITE BENEATH IT THE LOG OF A DECK-PASSENGER 183 never lifted; the frigid atmosphere that enveloped the Captain never thawed; the Chef's menu improved not; but the real friendship of the three junior officers made life worth the living, even for a deck-passenger. Every night, during the pause between work and more work, they sent for me that I might share the few luxuries that a West-Coast freighter provides. Hum- mel and Mutschink were quartered in a tiny cabin, but they discovered that a third could bunk therein, and they refused to hear my objections. They were royal fellows and, if there be such a place as a sailors' heaven, the Second and Third Officers of the Walhurg will get in. It is a hard life that they live along what they call *' the rottenest coast in the world." Up at 5 a.m., they toil with cargo under an awful sun from daylight until dark, sometimes not stopping for lunch. Then one must take the bridge while the other sits far into the night over bills-of-lading. It is also a life of con- stant peril, for that entire coast is strewn with the wrecks of steamers; I counted five near one cape. There is also the peril of African fever on top of the peril of handling dangerous cargo. A nervous winch- man may '' let go " too soon, for instance. A Kroo-boy at the winch did " let go " when the Walhurg was off Sekondi, loading mahogany. A log weighing many tons crashed to the deck and flattened Hummel's ankle out like a pancake. They took him ashore to the hospital; the British army surgeon took one look at the ankle and began to get out his saw. But Hummel said "' aher nicht! " If one foot had to 184 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET remain on the Gold Coast, he would stay with it. Four months later he took both feet back to Ham- burg, convalesced a little more, and shipped again for the West Coast. " Some day I meet that nigger ! " he said ominously. The Germans are taking the seas away from the British — no doubt about that. Everybody knows that the Liverpool boats had a monopoly of the West Coast trade a few years ago. Look at the latest authoritative figures that I have been able to obtain : German Trade With West Africa Colony— 1908 British West Africa French West Africa Belgian Congo Liberian Republic Portuguese West Africa German West Africa . . . Total, 1908 Imports therefrom Exports thereto $13,804,000 2,070,600 2,665,600 452,200 2,522.800 3,443,146 $2,784,600 595,000 238.000 285,600 833,000 5,483,520 $24,958,346 $10,219,720 It is a significant fact that in the colonies belonging to neither Britain nor France, the Hamburgers are overhauling the British or have left them astern. Eng- land is yet ahead in French West Africa. Manchester sends more goods to the Congo, but the Germans carry away a much greater quanity of raw exports. In the Liberian ports, there are two German flags to every British flag. Nearly all of the cacao beans of Portu- guese West Africa (its chief product) go to Germany. THE LOG OF A DECK-PASSENGER 185 And in their own colonies the Hamburg boats have almost a monopoly. More significant yet is the German gain in British West Africa. Manchester goods are yet far ahead, but more of the exports go to Germany than to the United Kingdom. Again and again have I seen a homeward-bound German low in the water, with bar- rels of palm-oil lashed to the rail all over the deck, while an Elder-Dempster boat just ahead was riding high, with no cargo overflowing its hatches. In South Africa the story is the same, according to this state- ment from a recent financial supplement to the Lon- don Times: "The steady increase in the German share of the trade is the most noteworthy development of recent years. Since 1908 Germany has left the United States behind and is now second only to the United Kingdom in the South African market." I learned the reasons while I was a deck-passenger on the rusty old Walhnrg: The German is winning on the seas because he deserves to win. Everybody likes him, including the Africans, because he is sociable; and they hold their cargo until he comes along. He does not require that the traders who deal with him shall learn his language; for example, nearly every member of the Walhurg's crew spoke English. The German is also far ahead of the Briton in his method of handling cargo — at least, so far as my experience on five steamers goes. Long before we sighted a port, the Walhurg had the cargo for that port on deck, surf-boats ready, and the launch under steam. Be- 186 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET fore the anchor hit the bottom, the small boats were being lowered. When loaded, the launch pulled them to the landing and came back for more. On the home- ward cruise the process was reversed. The officers spared neither themselves nor their crew so long as there was cargo to load or unload. It was the Ham- burg method — and it impressed me more forcibly than even the huckleberry soup. Travelling one day on an Elder-Dempster freighter, commanded by a profane but jovial Irishman and with a big-hearted Irish purser (green is your mem- ory, Harty!), I listened to the reading of the Riot Act in the office of the Company's local agent, who was also an important merchant. '' Tell the people in Liverpool," he said, " that if they want me to hold the business here, they must give better service. Look how long I have been waiting for you to come ! Look at my warehouse : all that palm- oil must be sent out to the ship at my expense. If I w^ere shipping to Hamburg, I would have nothing to do but point it out." "Why don't you write to the Company?" asked the Captain. " I have written until I am tired. I told 'em in my last letter that, if they don't wake up, their business on this coast is going to hell ! " I sat at meat with the Irishmen that night, aboard their boat. As we filled our pipes, the Captain re- marked, with never a sign of regret : " In ten years, England will be a Germany colony ! " XIII THE NEGRO AS A FRENCHMAN LIBREVILLE, the capital of the French Congo, . may be hotter than I found Dakar, the capital of French West Africa, on a January after- noon; if so, that should be a good market for asbestos helmets. Moreover, His Britannic Majesty's Vice- Consul-General was as hot as the weather, for he was telling me how the French had spoiled the Senegal Negroes. " Why," he said, " if you hit a nigger here — no matter what he has said or done to you — you go to jail! I tried it once — the time a native knocked out this tooth — ^and I know ! " I didn't hit any of the Senegalese to test the matter, but I saw enough to convince me that the French- man is a great colonizer of the Blacks — at least, from the standpoint of one who knows the American Negro from intimate acquaintance and believes that the race has possibilities. The atmosphere in the harbour of Rufisque also was hot and full of swear-words, but this time they were German. A Hamburg captain and two of his officers were saying very unkind things about Frenchmen in general and Senegal Frenchmen in particular. It was 187 188 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET all because the Hamburger wanted to work the native stevedores until midnight, so that he might get rid of his cargo and sail away; but the natives insisted upon a twelve-hour day, and not a man would work after sunset for the love of the Germans or for money. And nobody could '' bully " them into doing so, for there was the French Government. Months afterward I listened to another man — a Liberian, this time — whose comments on French rule were full of bitterness. His particular grievance was a law in the Ivory Coast colony (French) requiring every village to set out a specified number of cocoa- plants — a cruel wrong, as he saw it. To force a native to raise a crop (and cocoa requires scarcely any real work) was an outrage against the Bill of Rights. He left me under the impression that the French Negroes were being ground under an iron heel. After a brief visit to the Frenchmen on the Ivory Coast job, I journeyed inland for about two hundred miles along the big river that separates that colony from Liberia. With me was the Liberian Commis- sioner for that district, and in one of the Liberian vil- lages a native came with a palaver against the French. His woman had run away, he said, and was on the French side of the river. She refused to come back, and he wanted the Commissioner to go over and fetch her. The official gave the native and his neighbours a little common-sense talk about treating their wives in such a way that they would not run away to the French villages, and then he dismissed the petitioner. THE NEGRO AS A FRENCHMAN 189 " It is always the same story," he said. " I hear a lot of talk about the way the French governors treat their natives, but I have noticed that nobody complains about the Ivory Coasters running away. If they don't like it over there, all that they have to do is to paddle across in their canoes — but they don't." I have seen a good many types of Negroes — West Indians, Spaniards, Frenchmen, Germans, Arabs, Li- berians, Americo-Liberians, Sierra Leonese, Gold Coasters, and a few thousand Americans — with diverse civilizations superimposed upon a temperament that is eternally the same. Next to the American, I prefer the French Negro. Everybody knows how quickly the coloured man '^ catches on " to the styles and the manners of those whom he (or she) recognizes as his superiors : the French Negro has far outstripped the Arab Frenchman in acquiring the ways and manners of his overlords. I have a vivid remembrance of an apparition that passed before my eyes one evening in a hinterland village. Five young natives sauntered by in tailor-made suits, straw-hats, collars, neckties, and tennis-shoes — this in a town where even the king wore only a strip of cloth. I looked the town over the next day and saw noth- ing of them; in the gloaming, however, they appeared again — each of them arrayed in pajamas! I sent an interpreter to inquire if they were boys from a mission school. Not at all. They were uneducated bushmen — but they had been working as deck-hands up and down the coast on a French cargo-boat! 190 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET Once, in the Liberian bush, I stumbled upon a mili- tary outpost, and the sergeant was so exceptionally anxious to be obliging that I asked him about himself. I found that he had spent a term of years in the Senegalese Frontier Force — and that explained the difference. France has sent an exceptionally good type of men into its African colonies — men who put their hearts into their work. They are also trained men — trained specifically for their task — and they have less of " the deathless pride of race " than the Anglo-Saxons. Certainly they are more tactful than the British colonial officials, and this quality of mind gets results in a land whose people are merely grown-up children. They rule the land firmly, but lightly; the soldier is everywhere, but he is generally a native soldier. The policy and the tactics that have proved successful in Arab Africa are working also in Black Man's Africa. French West Africa is itself an empire — an empire that would make twenty-five states like Kentucky. It comprises five distinct colonies (Senegal, Upper Senegal and Niger, French Guinea, Ivory Coast, and Dahomey) and one protectorate; yet they are gov- ernmentally a unit and are ruled from Dakar by one man, with a lieutenant-governor over each. The military regime in this part of Africa was brief and decisive and not marked by ruthless slaugh- ter; the whole area is now policed by a civil govern- ment with less than 10,000 soldiers, three-fourths of them being natives. The annual budget is close to THE NEGRO AS A FRENCHMAN AT RUFISQUE THE NEGRO AS A FRENCHMAN 191 $10,000,000 but the mother country pays about a third of it. The population (estimated at ten milHons) is a mixture of many kinds of browns and blacks, for the Moors and Arabs filter down from the north. About seven or eight millions are Mohammedans — which means that the great markets are thronged with na- tives who wear more clothes than the climate actually requires, for the Mussulman loves a long robe and a distinctive headpiece. These details are reflected in the commercial statistics; France sells about $6,000,000 worth of cotton goods to them every year. Peanuts and other products from which oils can be squeezed are the chief money-crops. You may see little moun- tains of peanuts piled up at Rufisque for shipment to European oil-mills. Here is an " oil " country that is not dominated by '' the Standard " — but I saw plenty of cases of " Standard " going in under a French label. Senegal (formerly Senegambia) is the official centre of this vast West Coast empire. It has about a mil- lion and a half of people and is represented in the French Parliament by a full-fledged Deputy. He is elected by the ballots of the " communes " of Goree, Dakar, Rufisque, and St. Louis, where the natives are citizens of France and therefore allowed to vote. There are about 5,000 real Frenchmen in the Senegal, for most of the government offices are there. Here are the four principal cities: (i) Goree, population 2,000, on an island just outside the harbour of Dakar. 192 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET (2) Dakar, the capital of the five colonies; it is an at- tractive city of 25,000, clean and well-planned, with electricity, ice, and waterworks. Its crowning glories are the GkDvernor-General's palace and magnificent docks. (3) Rufisque, with 13,000, just across the bay. It is a busy port and has narrow-gauge tracks running from the docks through the principal streets; these are for trucks pushed by hand. (4) St. Louis, a picturesque city of 25,000, with " all modern im- provements"; it is the water-gate to the Upper Senegal. The transportation problem has been handled in a masterful way. Four regular steamship lines from France, one from Liverpool, and one from Hamburg serve the ports. A railroad and a river and another railroad and another river are the links of a trans- portation chain that reaches inland to Timbuctu and Gao. Within the limits of the Senegal alone are about 1,500 miles of telegraph wire and 100 miles of telephone. Through the Senegal, therefore, the products from the upper reaches of the great Niger find their way to the sea; inversely, through the Sene- gal may quickly pass soldiers and machine-guns into the Chad district, if occasion requires. At many places in this colony you may find the French schoolteacher on the job. At Dakar is a technical high school for all five colonies; at St. Louis is a commercial high school and a normal school for native schoolteachers, sheikhs, and the sons of chiefs. The towns that have a good French nucleus are pro- vided with regular French schools, somewhat modified THE NEGRO AS A FRENCHMAN 193 by the fact that the Senegal is not exactly France. There are probably fifty such towns, with a school attendance of at least 10,000. I know of no other place on the West Coast where the white man has so earnestly set himself to the task of educating a large bush population. The equally vast area of the Upper Senegal and Niger is a region where bush and desert meet and merge into each other, for it embraces the valley of the upper Senegal, two-thirds of the valley of the Niger, and not a little of the Sahara. Only the dis- tant outposts are under martial law. Here, in what was once the western Sudan, the Frenchman is building some big cities — and building for the future, (i) Kayes, at the head of naviga- tion on the Senegal, is the beginning of the railroad that reaches across 350 miles to the head of navigation on the Niger. It has a Grand Hotel, a tramway, a cafe, a boulevard, and miniature department stores. (2) Bamako, near the other end of the railroad, is the new capital of this colony. (3) Koulikoro, the actual terminal, is the starting-place of the small steamers that pick up the cargo marked " Timbuctu." (4) Timbuctu, once a world-famous centre of Islam, is half Sahara and half Sudan. Gone is its sanctity, for in the shadow of the Grand Mosque (nine centuries old) is the Cercle Militaire, the mission of the White Fathers of the Sahara, and the French hospital. (5) Gao, well within reach of the rriarauding Touaregs, is rising as the importance of Timbuctu wanes. It is 194 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET on the line to Zinder and Lake Chad, and therefore of great strategic importance. A company of Sene- galese infantrymen are there to police the blacks, and a corps of camel-cavalrymen look after the black- veiled Touaregs. Those who are inclined to regard the Frenchman as an impractical enthusiast may be surprised at the way he handles the educational problem so far back in the hinterland. Near Koulikoro, on the bank of the Niger, is a model farming village that spreads over a thousand acres. Near it is an agricultural rural school and an experiment station to help the natives out of the peculiar problem of finding tropical plants that can withstand long droughts. At Bobo- Dioulasso is another school; it teaches the natives how to profitably gather wild rubber. At Bamfora and other centres are demonstration schools to encour- age, the cultivation of rubber. At another place is a dairy school; at another an ostrich-" farming " sta- tion; and at another is a young Frenchman who spent two years in the United States learning how to grow cotton; he is now passing the knowledge along to the men of the bush. There are also stations for the en- couragement of finer grades of cattle and goats. The Frenchman an enthusiast? Yes. Impractical? No. Go down into French Guinea, then into the Ivory Coast, and on down into Dahomey — it is the same story in each. Governor-General Ponty has his do- main all planned out and he keeps his five lieutenants all in the air at once, like a juggler with his balls. THE NEGRO AS A FRENCHMAN 195 Harbour improvements, railroads tapping the hinter- land, river navigation, military roads, telegraphs, tele- phones, cables, primary schools, training schools, a native soldiery, city beautification — the programme is the same wherever you find the French flag wav- ing over African territory. And now, that I be not charged with exaggeration, hear the testimony of a distinguished Englishman who has seen most of " the new and naked lands." You will find it in Mr. A. H. Savage-Landor's book, " Across Widest Africa " : " We have a notion in England that the French occupy their colonies by mere brute force, by keeping a large staff of officers and a strong force of soldiers in all their military posts; but indeed no nation in the world does things in a simpler and more practical way than the French in their African colonies. ... I must confess that I was not aston- ished to find the French officer such an admirable person, but I was surprised to notice how intelligent non-commis- sioned officers were in the French colonial army — men of no higher grade than sergeants possessing sound technical knowledge of surveying, road and bridge making, and engi- neering in general, that many a superior officer of some other countries I know would have difficulty in emulating. " In the way of colonial wars, it is surprising what the French have done in Africa, and how they can keep their colonies going with so few officers and men." XIV A HUNDRED YEARS OF SIERRA LEONE ON the left, in a gorgeous blaze of orange and pink and lilac, the West African sun was dropping into the Atlantic. On the right, out- lined against the sky, was the bold headland that a daring mariner once saw as a crouching lion and named Sierra Leone. Slowly the nose of the cruiser swung round and pointed up the deep, sluggish river that the slave-ships of a century ago knew as the best harbour on the whole western coast. Historic Free- town was at hand. So beautiful was the extremity of the cape, with its thick growth of green, and so like one of the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence, that it was difficult to realize that we were alongside of one of the deadliest spots in Africa — ^the real, original " White Man's Graveyard." The little bungalows yonder on the heights are not summer cottages nor sanatoria; they are the cheerless homes of British officials who are doing their utmost to keep well until their year is up and they can run back to their families in England and Scotland for four months. But what about the thou- sands of blacks who have no cities of refuge? Pleasant it was, in the twilight, to see this little English-African city unfold in panorama. High up, 196 HOMES OF IMPORTED NEGROES, FREETOWN A CREW OF KROO COALERS, SIERRA LEONE A HUNDRED YEARS OF SIERRA LEONE 197 the "Sugar-Loaf" peak that sentinels the city; near its top the white of an invaHds' retreat and the bar- racks of the West India regiment; on the crest of a hill to the right, the mud huts of the West Africa Frontier Force; in the centre, the barracks of the British troops and the palace of '' the Officer Ad- ministering the Government"; along the waterside the well-built warehouses of many merchants; and all over the landscape the frame cottages of the Blacks and the spires of the churches. As the first African colony for freed slaves, it was founded more than a century ago, but it was not taken over by the Crown until 1807. Then it was the foul nest of slavers, a pitiful village of disheartened West Indians and raw natives brought ashore from cap- tured slave-ships, a pest-hole whose very breezes were laden with the fever that is the alien's most relentless foe. What is it now ? I waited eagerly for the dawn. Morning broke grey and cheerless — the heights veiled in mist and the saturated clouds hanging over Freetown like a pall. Then the rain came down in sheets, slackened, then came again. Between showers I was rowed ashore. Architecturally I found the lower city all that a West Coast city should be. The trading- houses were commodious and well-stocked with the showy merchandise that the African loves; the gov- ernment houses were like the English character — sub- stantial but not showy; the churches were not ornate but decidedly creditable. The people were fairly well- dressed, but with more slouchiness than in Monrovia. 198 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET The sloping street leading to the wharf was wide and well-graded; the other streets were wide but with plenty of grass. No wheeled vehicles of any kind were to be seen. Every cross-street had its little cow-paths worn bare by pedestrians. Many of the residences were attractive and the general average of the whole district was high — that is, for Africa. But an hour's walk in Freetown is like a walk through the Negro quarter of an American city: you are conscious of being in a ^' nigger-town " — which is not true of the residential district of Monrovia. The " colony "of Sierra Leone is the peninsula; the hinterland is the " protectorate." The inhabitants of the colony are descendants of American and West Indian immigrants on the one hand, and of pagans liberated from slave-ships on the other. The '' colour- scheme " of an early traveller still applies : they are blacks and browns — siennas, sepias, umbers, jets, and ebonies. Most of them are educated, and nearly every man, woman, and child belongs to one of the seventy-seven churches in the Freetown district. Many of them are intelligent and capable, but I am utterly at a loss to understand how anybody who knows Freetown can criticise Liberia. One experience in transacting business with native officials can hardly be equaled in any port of the world. Although I bore a letter of introduction from the Brit- ish Colonial Office, I had to leave my revolver and cartridges in the custom-house when I landed. When I was ready to sail, I procured a written order from A HUNDRED YEARS OF SIERRA LEONE 199 the Customs Inspector and expected to see my prop- erty promptly delivered — but I did not know Sierra Leone. Here is what actually happened: ( 1 ) A clerk made out a memorandum and sent me to a clerk higher up. (2) Clerk No. 2 made out another memorandum and sent me back to No. i. (3) No. I gave me another memorandum and re- ferred me again to No. 2. (4) No. 2 wrote another memorandum and re- ferred me to another government building. (5) There we had much palaver and I was given a messenger instead of a memorandum and sent back to the place of starting. (6) Then a clerk took me to the storehouse and produced the revolver. The procedure required nearly an hour, with the boat already under steam and its sailing-flag hoisted. And it was raining as only Africa knows how. Once, on a Liverpool steamer off the West Coast, two young officers were discussing the worthlessness of Monrovia Negroes, for whom they had no redeem- ing word. After they had exhausted themselves with this pastime, one of them brought his palm down on the other's knee: '' After all, old man," he said, " let's own up ! Do you know any nigger on the coast that is more con- temptible than the Sierra Leone nigger?" " I give it up," replied the other. " He's the limit of cussedness." From Freetown to Plymouth I shared a stateroom wo THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET with a big Yorkshireman who was quitting Sierra Leone after two years' service. From his point of view, everything in it was " rotten." I have heard the same story from so many white men who were fa- mihar with West Coast towns that I may quote with- out reluctance from the report of an American mis- sionary who visited Sierra Leone on a tour of in- spection : " No one here seems to have any very definite knowledge of anything about here, and very little conception of what I mean by my questions. An Englishman is slow enough to comprehend an American, but these African gentlemen are simply awful. . . . They are well-educated in book knowl- edge but have no judgment, and it requires a good deal of grace to deal with them. We do not want to begin our work within less than 200 miles of Sierra Leone — or, at least, we should be as far as possible from its influence. " There are thousands of well-educated people here — edu- cated almost to a man by the Church Missionary Society — and there is hardly a more wicked place on earth, I believe. And the worst of it is that they are and have been counted as fruit of the C. M. S., and they are nearer hell to-day than when they were dragging about a slave-chain." / But Freetown is not really so bad as this, in my opinion. I confess that I was much surprised to see how little the colony has to show for a whole century of British rule (outside of what the missionary schools have done), but there are many things to be com- mended. A West African town with a pure water- supply, several hospitals, a railroad, a bank, a savings bank, a postal service, and well-stocked stores is on the way to civilization, at least. But whenever Sierra A HUNDRED YEARS OF SIERRA LEONE 201 Leone " pokes fun " at any other West Coast city, it is a case of the pot calHng the kettle black. Here are a few of the most striking facts about this colony that is older than any other on the coast : (i) Though established as a refuge for slaves, it was made a Crown colony in 1807 mainly because it had the only safe harbour on the West Coast of Africa. Yet it is still true that vessels must anchor out in the river to discharge their cargoes into lighters. In harbour construction, Dakar is 3,000 years ahead. (2) In spite of a hut-tax on the natives of the hinterland and many other kinds of taxes (there are fifty-eight varieties of the stamp-tax that helped to bring on the American Revolution), the second cen- tury of English rule began with a deficit and with a public debt of about $6,000,000. (3) The death-rate of Freetown in 1907 was 23.5 per 1,000, whereas the birth-rate was only 16.9. (4) In spite of special provisions made for the health and comfort of British officials, the term of service is only twelve months, with a four-months' furlough. (5) At the close of the first century, there were 59 miles of first-class highway, 50 miles of third- class, and 71 miles of fifth-class trails — but there was no wheeled traffic anywhere except on the rail- road. (6) The annual report for 1907 shows that $350,- 000 worth of liquors was brought into the colony. (7) Except an intermittent ice- factory (mainly for Europeans), there was not a factory or mill in the land. 202 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET (8) A hundred years of governmental education (excluding small grants to mission schools) had pro- duced these results: four small Mohammedan schools in Freetown and one school in the protectorate for the sons of chiefs. The missionaries have educated the colony. (9) Fourah Bay College, the finest college on the West Coast, has been maintained by the Church Mis- sionary Society for nearly a century. The Governor's report for 1908 says : " If, however, by the end of .1911, no further arrangements have been made, it seems probable that the long and honourable career of the College will come to an end." (10) I expected to find the region back from Free- town checkered with little farms; I went through it on a railroad motor-car and found it covered with bush. (11) After various spasmodic efforts have been made to develop agriculture to feed the government railroad, the report makes this comment : "' Too little is known of the agricultural problem on the West Coast of Africa to enable the Government to advise the Chiefs as to the best method to pursue in the cul- tivation of the land." (12) Peace is maintained by a Frontier Force of 500 native troops, who are held in check by a West India regiment, which is watched over by a garrison of British soldiers. (13) The British Consul-General at Dakar (who was an army officer in Sierra Leone for an extended period) described the hinterland in 1903 as " a country A HUNDRED YEARS OF SIERRA LEONE 203 every whit as uncivilized as the Congo swamps of Cen- tral Africa to-day." But let the specifications stop here, and let us turn to the crowning glory of the colony, the Sierra Leone Government Railway, the first in British West Africa. It isn't much of a railroad, compared with the New York Central or the Pennsylvania, or even with the newer railways now under construction in other Brit- ish colonies on the West Coast of Africa, for it is only two and one-half feet wide and 22^ miles long. The first section was opened for traffic in 1899 and its extension has slowly but steadily gone forward year by year. The present inland terminus is within a day's march of the Liberian frontier, where the builders have apparently halted to await expected changes in the political status of the neighbouring Negro republic before going further. The railroad is a surface line, winding around the bases of the hills instead of cutting through them, and often avoiding the necessity of a trestle by making a long detour. In this respect the French railroad build- ers in Africa are immeasurably superior to the British. The road-bed of the Sierra Leone Railway is a good piece of work, however; in spite of the torrential rains of the wet season, there has occurred but one serious washout in ten years. Railroad construction in every part of West Africa must overcome certain difficulties peculiar to this coast. One of the most serious is the insignificant-looking white ant, usually known as the " bug-a-bug." This 204 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET voracious ant has a mania for dried wood and it de- vours everything from a dead tree in the forest to the furniture of the white man's bungalow. There are very few varieties of wood hard enough to resist its attack. In the face of an omnipresent enemy Hke the " bug-a-bug," it would be folly to make use of tim- bers in construction work, so all the ties, sleepers, girders, and other supports of tracks, all the trestles and bridges, are entirely of metal. Some of its " auxiliaries " are distinctly African. Three of these were inaugurated in the latter half of 1908, with a view to increase the traffic by providing up-country traders with facilities for transporting palm kernels and other products from the villages to the railroad. Two of these experiments — traction engines and bullocks — were disappointing on account of local conditions, but the method described as " bar- rel-roller transport " seems to be working out. This is a very primitive method, the device being nothing more than a well-constructed barrel with a detach- able head. The produce is loaded into the barrels, the heads are fastened down, and the barrels are rolled to the nearest station. It is a vast improvement over the native porterage method. Under climatic conditions such as prevail through- out West Africa, one may expect constant trouble with machinery of all kinds — and with the men who have it in charge. Months of daily rain cause every- thing from a watch to a locomotive to go wrong with rust, and even in the dry season the atmosphere con- tains a superabundance of moisture. Moreover, a THE UNITED BRETHREN HOME IN FREETOWN OFFICERS OF THE AMERICAN NAVY ASHORE A HUNDRED YEARS OF SIERRA LEONE 205 large part of the railroad's equipment must necessarily be entrusted to native subordinates who have neither the requisite knowledge nor the inclination to fore- stall the necessity for repairs by the exercise of proper precautions. And, indeed, some of the white men who come out are deficient in the same respects, yet they must be paid higher salaries than they can com- mand at home, and must also be furnished with trans- portation both ways (about $230) every eighteen months, and also provided with expensive bungalows on the field. As a result of these and other conditions, the working expenses of the little railway amount to upward of $300,000 a year. The general offices are located in the Freetown station, which is a much finer depot than one would expect to see on this coast. The country stations are also commendable structures and the grounds enclosing them are laid out in tropical plants and flowers. The only diminutive buildings are the flag stations, which are not much larger than a dry-goods box but answer their purpose admirably. The freight depot at Free- town has a novelty in the line of enabling native ship- pers to classify their own cargo according to its destina- tion. Since they cannot read the painted signboards, the background of each is of a different colour. A man accustomed to shipping goods to Bo, for example, need learn the place of deposit only once; thereafter he need only remember the colour of the sign. A feature of the yards is the group of attractive stone bungalows for the white employees. Those hold- ing the higher positions have each a house to him- 206 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET self, while the fitters, engineers, etc., are housed in groups. An ample recreation ground has been pre- pared and a clubhouse is now being fitted up. The men in the shops draw better wages and live in finer houses than they ever knew in England and Scotland, but it is a glad day nevertheless when they board the steamer that takes them home. The white man's life on the West Coast, even at its best, is a life that few men would envy. The men who come out are usually selected by the consulting engineers in England, and their term of service in Africa is only twelve months (half as long as the American missionaries stay) ; their passage is paid both ways and they are allowed to remain four months at home, on full pay. The following is a list of the positions filled by white men, with the salaries per year thereto attached : General manager, $3,360; his clerk, $1,368; chief accountant, $2,400; his assistant, $1,440; senior asst. traffic manager, $1,920 + $384 duty allowance; his assistant, $1,440; traffic inspector, $1,272; two traffic officers, $1,416 and $1,080; locomotive superintendent, $2,789; his assistant, $1,824; locomotive foreman, $1,440; six fitters at an average of $1,152; three fitters and engineers, average $1,180; boiler-maker, ^1,080; eleven engineers at from $360 to $1,224; two black- smiths at $1,176; maintenance engineer, $2,640 + $432 allowance; his assistant, $1,920 + $432 allow- ance; two draughtsmen at $1,680; track inspector, $1,440; thirteen tracklayers at $1,032. All of these are provided Vv^ith free quarters. A HUNDRED YEARS OF SIERRA LEONE 207 Some of the Sierra Leone blacks receive salaries equal to those of many of the whites. Among the examples are the traffic supervisor, $1,440; junior draughtsman, $1,440; storekeeper, $1,008; inspector of telegraphs, $864; and two engineers at $864. But the natives receive no free quarters, no travel allow- ance, and no four-months' leave. Some adequate conception of the working efficiency of the European staff may be gathered from the fol- lowing figures, which are for the latter half of 1907 : No. of white officials 52 No. of days on duty 7,058=75 . 19% " " " "leave 2,111=22.48% " " " " sick list 219=2.33% Twenty-six (one-half) of the men were not sick at all; nine were sick for ten days or longer; the longest sick leave was for nineteen days. No trains are run after dark — chiefly because they would not pay, but partly because of a playful native habit of placing stones on the rails. Some of the minor regulations governing passenger traffic would provoke perspiration and profanity, if not rioting, should they be adopted by American railroads. Here are a few: (i) The ticket offices at all stations are opened thirty minutes before train-time, but close five min- utes before the train leaves. No tickets are sold thereafter and no one is admitted to the station plat- THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET form without a ticket, though there may be an abun- dance of time in which to board the train. (2) The friends of a passenger may not pass the gatekeeper to " see him off " without presenting plat- form tickets — costing two cents apiece. (3) The baggage regulations are very restrictive. Hand baggage consisting of personal effects (but not merchandise) up to twenty- four pounds may be car- ried free on one ticket. Beyond that weight, the pas- senger is confronted with excess charges. An ordi- nary steamer trunk carried over the main line and back again would cost from $8 to $12. The American who travels over the Sierra Leone Railway and enquires into its workings will soon be apprised of his pitiful ignorance of the English lan- guage. He buys his ticket at the *' booking office " and his *' luggage " is " booked " instead of checked. The round-trip is the " double journey " or the " re- turn journey." The engineer is the " driver," the brakeman is the " guard " and the conductor is the " head guard." The track is the "way"; switches are ''points"; switchmen are '' point-boys "; and a switch engine is a '' shunting locomotive." Freight is always "goods "; a freight-car may be a " vehicle," a " van," or a " wagon " ; a cattle-car is a " cattle-truck "; a flat-car with side-boards is a " van "; a construction or repair car is a " breakdown van " ; a coach is a "carriage"; a parlour car is a "saloon carriage." The service involved in the delivery of a telegram is A HUNDRED YEARS OF SIERRA LEONE 209 "porterage." Crackers are ''biscuits"; tin cans and boxes are '' tins " ; a safe may be a '' chest "; a barrel or a keg may be either a " cask " or a " puncheon "; peanuts are "ground-nuts"; but hosiery is plain " socks " in His Britannic Majesty's English. The United States is admirably represented in this part of Africa by a corps of excellent men — the United Brethren missionaries. Their beautiful head- quarters in Freetown and Albert Academy (both built of concrete blocks) are among the few exceptionally fine buildings in the colony. The Academy is a train- ing school that any nation might be proud of. My personal relations were with the Vice-Principal, Mr. E. M. Hursh, who is also our Vice-Consul. The gracious courtesy of this energetic American and of Mrs. Hursh is one of the pleasantest memories of Africa. With the exception of the fine work being done in Albert Academy, the United Brethren are working mainly for the people of the bush. There are more than thirty active stations distributed through the hinterland. The significance of this American work may be seen in this extract from the report of one of the missionaries — Mr. Kingman, whose wife sleeps in a rain-soaked grave and who has himself braved death for many years: "We have set out 622 kola trees, 1,030 cocoa trees, and "^AZZ plantains and bananas, which we hope will serve as shade for the cocoa trees. " We have also recently planted in nursery 3,000 Para 210 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET rubber seeds, which have nearly all germinated and are now young trees a foot and more in height. We have also planted 7,000 cocoa seeds in cane pots, and I expect to see young cocoa trees when we return to the station. We have cane pots already in ground and filled with earth to receive 2,000 more cocoa seeds, which we hope soon to receive. " We have also planted about 6,000 lime-tree seeds. Some of these seeds were just beginning to germinate when we left the station. We have also growing a large variety of native fruit trees." FRENCH GUINEA = Cttltit Improrrf BoaJ SIERRA LEONE AFTER A CENTURY, XV THE UNITED STATES IN LIBERIA NOT many nations can say that they have gone into Africa with a pure heart and come out with clean hands. The greed for territory, the love of conquest, the lure of the gold-reef and the diamond-field, the lust for caoutchouc and yellow palm-oil — these baser passions have impelled most of the invaders of the Dark Continent. Slaughter of Moors at Melilla and Casablanca; slaughter of Arabs in Algeria; slaughter of fanatics in the Egyptian- Sudan; slaughter of Hottentots and Zulus and Boers in the South; slaughter of blacks in Angola and Ger- man Southwest Africa ; " atrocities " in the Belgian Congo, and " punitive expeditions " all along the West Coast' — the record is written in blood. There were extenuating circumstances, of course; but the carnage is deplorable. The American Government has not lacked oppor- tunities (that is, plausible excuses) for sharing in the loot of Africa. From the day in 1815 when Commo- dore Decatur sailed into the Barbary pirates down to the day in 1909 when Captain Wilson steamed into Monrovia harbour with two cruisers loaded with American Commissioners, we might have planted our 211 212 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET flagstaff ill African soil. But I am not sure that our staying out is a fact to brag about. The United States is known in Africa (wherever it is known) by its Chicago windmills and its Singer sewing-machines; by its Boston rum and its Standard oil; by its Virginia tobacco and its mining machinery; but mainly by its schoolhouses and its dispensaries. The American missionary is the widest and most fa- vourably known of all our exports. The sweep of American imperialism is infinitely wider than the average man realizes. Up to the Span- ish War we ruled no alien peoples; yet American money and American men and women were quietly making history in nearly every land under the sun — history that has been set down to the credit of others. (For instance, about four out of five of the educated men of Japan in 1890 had received their first instruc- tion in Western learning from American mission- aries.) An unreasoning prejudice has caused the average American to overlook the fact that the chief work of a missionary in any land is that of teaching school and healing the sick. And if you will study in detail the history of any successful colony under any flag, it will be apparent that the teacher and the doctor had much to do with it. The foreign visitor to America is fond of saying that our nation is money-mad; that in his swift pur- suit of wealth the American takes not time to eat, to think, to play, to help. They overlook such facts as these: THE UNITED STATES IN LIBERIA 213 (i) The number of mission schools and colleges supported by Americans with American money is nearly as large as that of all the schools conducted by the missionaries of all other countries combined. We have approximately 10,000 schools in lands that are not under our flag and from which we receive not a cent of revenue. (2) Of all the medical missionaries throughout the world, more than half are from the United States. (3) If a man in quest of material for an American educational exhibit were to sail out of San Francisco Bay with a phonograph recorder, he would come up on the other side at Sandy Hook with a polyglot col- lection of records that would give the people of the United States a new conception of their part in the world's advance toward light. His audience might hear a spelling-class recite in the tuneful Hawaiian tongue or listen to Moros, Tagalogs, and Igorrotes reading from the same '' McGuffey's Reader." A change of records might bring the sound of little Jap- anese reciting geography, or of Chinese repeating the multiplication table in a dozen dialects. Another rec- ord would tell in cjuaint Siamese the difference be- tween a transitive and an intransitive verb, or conju- gate the verb " to be " in any one of the languages of India: One might hear a professor from Pennsylvania lecturing on anatomy to a class of young men in the ancient kingdom of Darius; or a young woman from Massachusetts explaining the mysteries of an eclipse to a group of girls in Constantinople; or a Princeton man telling in Arabic the relation between a major 214 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET and a minor premise. And, when the audience had listened to all this and to '' My Country, 'tis of Thee " in Eskimo and in Spanish, the exhibit of American teaching would have only begun. We may have varying estimates of the usefulness of the man who goes abroad with Bible and hymn- book, but there can be little difference of opinion about the man who carries his gospel in a surgical case or the woman whose chapel is a thatched dispensary in an out-of-the-way corner of the world. You may journey from the Golden Gate to Steven- son's grave in the South Seas, wind your northward way through the Pacific islands to Canton and Shang- hai, take the overland trail across Asia to Constanti- nople or swing south to Bangkok and westward to Suez; then you may circumnavigate the Dark Conti- nent or cross it from Cairo to Capetown and from Sierra Leone to Khartum — and in all these months and months of travel you will never be far from the American missionary physician. His diploma is from one or another of the best medical colleges in the United States and his experience has been gained in a practice probably larger than that of any professor that taught him. These countrymen of ours are administering chloro- form in Jerusalem and Damascus and Tyre, vaccinat- ing in Peking and Singapore and on the road to Mandalay, and giving quinine in the malarial forests of the Zambesi, the Congo, the Niger. They are on the slopes of the Andes and high up in the Hima- THE UNITED STATES IN LIBERIA 215 layas, " the roof of the world." There is an Ameri- can medical station at Harpoot, near the headwaters of the Tigris and the Euphrates, and these are the in- structions how to get there : " Cross the Bosphorus from Constantinople to Scutari and take the train to Angora, going thence for three weeks by caravan." The critics of these men should remember that the act of wrapping powders in tracts instead of in tinted paper does not interfere with the efficacy of either; and because a surgeon has the habit of offering prayer before he gives the anaesthetic, it must not be as- sumed that his hand is unsteady or his instruments unsterilized. ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ Let us, in the fulness of our pride, boast also of the fact that the only place in Africa where the Black Man may rule himself is an American colony — a fact which it has taken nearly a century for. Washington to discover. An American colony? Of course. Was it not founded by the American Colonization Society, in conjunction with the United States Government, on land " acquired by purchase from the lords of the soil"? Nobody else participated in its founding; even the West Indian settlers came at a later period. As a republic it has a Declaration of Independence, a Constitution, and a flag, all modelled closely after our own, and its people have never claimed kinship with any other hemisphere but ours. i\s a matter of fact, Liberia is the only place in the world where the American people have established a colony made up 216 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET mainly of Americans. And yet, up to the time of Sec- retary Root, the most that an American Secretary of State would admit was this, '' To the United States it is an object of peculiar interest." Except during the brief visit of the American Com- mission, I was the only white American in Monrovia; in fact, the only one that many of the Liberians had ever seen. (I was introduced to the students of a large American school at Cape Palmas as the first visitor from America during the twenty-odd years that Mr. Neal has been in charge.) It was to me a cause of great satisfaction, therefore, that neglect was the only crime that the Liberians could lay at the door of my country. " Nobly and in perfect faith " is the phrase used in their Declaration of Independence to describe the conduct of the American people. It was distinctly pleasant to be an American in Liberia. News travels fast in these West African lands, and as soon as it was noised abroad that an American visitor had dropped in, all sorts and conditions of men began to call at the American Legation. To the vis- itor it was almost like a homecoming. Men and boys passing along the street tipped their hats in greeting, and even the children appeared anxious to welcome a man from the country about which they had heard all their lives. It happened during this first week that a delegation of farmers from up the St. Paul River came to the capital to make a political demonstration. Many of these men of the soil had served their appren- ticeship in the cottonfields of the South, and their THE UNITED STATES IN LIBERIA 217 welcome to me was almost an ovation. One patri- arch slowly climbed the steps as the delegation was leaving, and gave me his trembling hand. " I seed you on the porch," he said, apologetically, and with the old-time Negro deference, " and I know'd you wuz some o' mine — and I'm some o' your'n." When I visited the various settlements back from Monrovia, and along the coast, I found a universal and unmis- takable affection for everything that bears the Ameri- can name. It was a great pleasure to find that the man who represented the United States Government in Liberia was not a figurehead. At the time of my visit Dr. Ernest Lyon, a coloured minister from Baltimore, was Minister-Resident and Consul-General ; and he was nearing the close of six years' distinguished service at that sweltering post. As a rule, American diplomatic and consular offi- cers occupy a very small place in the political and social life of African cities, but in Monrovia I found the representative of the United States to be the big man among the legations. His residence was in the most conspicuous location; he was the only foreign representative above consular rank — ^but he was the American Minister, which is the main thing. Him- self a man of ripe experience and wide culture, and an official of strict rectitude, the leaders of the Liberian Government long leaned upon him as a friend in hours of perplexity, and he shared their confidence to a greater degree than any other foreigner in the republic. He knew everybody of prominence in the entire coun- 218 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET try and travelled through the interior more widely than the President himself. Everybody knew him and nearly everybody liked him. Through all the years of his service, he retained his energetic and systematic habits of work. It was his privilege to watch the development, step by step, of the series of international moves that led up to the gravest crisis in the modern history of Liberia, and he kept the State Department regularly informed of every event as it unfolded. Dr. Lyon filled a difficult post — one where life is lonely and health uncertain. The West Coast fever was as frequent a visitor in his home as is " the grippe " in America, and within the last year he was called upon to pay the toll of African service in the loss of his ac- complished wife. There has been much talk about measures to im- prove the Consular and Diplomatic Service. May one who has seen something of American and other consuls suggest that Washington try the experiment of appointing more men like Dr. Lyon? * Jk ^ _ ^ :}c It was odd to find, back in the hinterland, that the word " American " did not convey any idea to the native mind. Once a Liberian commissioner was ex- plaining to the head-men of a village who I was. First he took the negative side : I was not an English- man, and I was not a Frenchman. Then he explained that I was from '' Dr. Day's country " — and one by one they arose and snapped finders with me. Dr. Day, I learned, was a Lutheran missionary for twenty- five years, and his name has become among many THE UNITED STATES IN LIBERIA 219 tribes a synonym for America. His gracious influence has outlived a generation. American citizens, white and coloured, may be found in all parts of Liberia, but they are engaged almost exclusively in educational and missionary work. There is not a school in Liberia above the elementary grade that does not owe its existence to American beneficence. From Cape Mount to Cape Palmas, every college is an American mission institu- tion, except the state college at Monrovia, which was founded by the Massachusetts Colonization Society — which was missionary in everything but name. The Lutherans have a large boys' industrial school at Muhlenburg, on the St. Paul River, about thirty miles from Monrovia, and a girls' school just across the river. The pupils are altogether from the native tribes, many of them being the children of important chiefs. One king in the Bassa country has eight sons now in the institution. During the fifty years of its history under Dr. Day and Mr. Beck, this mission has exerted a civilizing influence that reaches far into the hinterland. Whenever I found in a native town a young man wearing clothes or speaking English, I usually found a former student of the Muhlenburg mission. The Methodists have more than a thousand students in their colleges and day schools. West Africa Col- lege, at Monrovia, is the most efficient institution of higher learning in this part of Liberia. Cape Palmas Seminary, at Harper, a large boarding-school for boys and girls, has Dr. Sherrill, of Atlanta, a real educator, 220 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET at its head. All the Methodist schools are on the up- grade under the direction of Bishop Scott, an Ameri- can coloured leader of the Booker Washington type. Endowed with common sense to an unusual degree, and also with a sense of humour, this jovial, unpre- tentious, earnest bishop is a man greatly esteemed in Liberia. He is as thoroughly at ease in meeting the hardships of bush travel as in conducting a religious service. The Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States is represented by Bishop Ferguson, a coloured churchman who has spent nearly all his life in Liberia and whose activity and natural strength have not abated. The schools under his supervision are en- gaged in high-grade work and their graduates are a credit to the benevolent Americans who support the institutions. The bishop and almost his entire staff of clergymen — most of whom are from native tribes — were educated in these mission schools, of which Cuttington Institute for boys and Brierly Hall for girls, both at Cape Palmas, are chief. At Bromley, near Monrovia, a large building to be used as a girls' industrial school is nearing completion; and the be- ginnings of another important school at Cape Mount have already been made. There are at least thirty men in public life, including Vice-President Dossen, ex-President Gibson, and a number of legislators, whose education was obtained at Cuttington. The list includes also eleven Americo-Liberian clergymen, ten native clergymen, and twenty-nine catechists and teachers — all now in active service. THE UNITED STATES IN LIBERIA 2^1 Two strong tendencies in all the schools of these three bodies are significant: The percentage of native African pupils is largely on the increase, and the in- dustrial idea is supplanting the scholastic ideal. For example, in the Episcopal school for girls at Cape Palmas, eighty-eight of the ninety-eight boarding- pupils are native African girls, and what we know as " housekeeping " is as unfamiliar to them as the deci- mal system. J|t ^ 5|< ^ ^ The coming of the American Commissioners to Li- beria was the one event that had for weeks been dis- cussed more than all others, but nobody knew exactly when they would arrive. An unofficial cablegram gave a clue, but the despatches from the State De- partment to the American Minister were, for some inexplicable reason, held up in Sierra Leone (the cable office), and the result was that the smoke of the Chester was seen from the lighthouse before the cablegrams announcing its departure from New York reached Monrovia. On the highest point of Cape Mesurado is the signal- tower, and near it is a battery of ancient and rusty guns, given to Liberia by the United States Navy and mounted there so long ago that only a historian can tell you who did it. Early on the morning of May 8, 1909, these old relics began to boom. Monrovia hopped out of bed, shook hands with itself, and said, '* The great day of the Lord has come!" The first gun pulled me out of bed, too, and I hur- ^22 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET ried out on the Legation porch and turned my glasses on the signal-tower, which always hoists the flag of an incoming ship. Now the Liberian flag is exactly like our own, except that it has only one star. I could see the stripes on the signal flag, but it provokingly refused to unfold. Finally a breeze straightened it out — and there it was, a whole basketful of stars! Not since I saw it go up over Morro Castle in San Juan, Porto Rico, have I seen anything that looked so good. My recollection is that I got into a few clothes and touched several of the highest places between me and that battery of forgotten American guns that were barking a joyful welcome to the incoming flag that used to snap in the salt-winds above them. I turned my eyes seaward and saw the black smoke bulging from the Chester's four funnels. Oh, it was a goodly sight ! And did Monrovia go wild? No; it just went wild. While the Commissioners were listening, in front of the American Legation, to the last of five addresses of welcome, a significant incident happened just across the street, at the residence of the agent of the Bank of British West Africa and of the Elder-Dempster Steamship Line. This subject of His Britannic Maj- esty had made preparations for running up the British flag just as the Commission reached the Legation, though there was no occasion for such display. It happened, however, that the rope broke and the Union Jack tumbled down. The coincidence appeared to af- THE UNITED STATES IN LIBERIA 22S ford a great deal of satisfaction to those who saw the occurrence. Tell it not in Gath — but the American Commission to Liberia was a good deal of a fizzle. Shortly before its arrival, the Liberian Register had published sketches of its distinguished members — Mr. Robert C. Ogden, Dr. Booker T. Washington, and Mr. Jacob H. Hol- lander — and it was at least wildly hoped that it might be convenient for Mr. Roosevelt to call by on his way to the hunting-grounds. But when Midshipman Wil- lett came ashore, we learned that not one of these gentlemen was in the harbour. For fifteen minutes after the departure of the Mid- shipman, there was turmoil in the American Legation. The entire household was frantically hunting a copy of " Who's Who in America " in order to find at least something about the Commissioners that would make their names sound big to the expectant Li- berians who were already gathering in the anteroom. Minister Lyon did his best to " feature " the Com- missioners, but I could see that he had a heavy heart. In the second place, they were understood to be coming in three battleships, but when Monrovia reached the top of the Cape it saw one lone cruiser. (The Salem had been disabled before starting, and the Birmingham was in the hospital at Cape Verde with boiler trouble.) But the Minister manfully " played up " the Chester as " the fastest boat in the United States Navy." The fact, however, that the Chester had saluted the Liberian flag with guns so 224 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET small that the salute was not heard in Monrovia weak- ened his praise. It was Liberia's answering salute that woke up the town. Next, when the Commission's Chairman made speeches, they took all the heart out of the people. As one man expressed it, " he seems to be afraid to say anything that will make us feel like holding on." It was not long until it was evident to all that the budding hopes of the people had received a decided American " frost." But the Minister went about ex- plaining that representatives of the State Department must be very conservative. The Commission's attaches helped to save the day, for they mingled with the people. Major Ashburn established a clinic and gave free medical treatment to everybody that came. Captain Cloman had a genial smile and a hearty handshake for all; Monrovia fell completely in love with him. Mr. Flower (who has recently died in Liberia) made a specialty of mixing with the unofficial society from early morning until late at night. But the Honourable Commissioners sat in solemn state in their house on the hill and received those whom they sent for. Even the press got the Arctic shoulder. The Com- mission itself had brought out to me authority from the Associated Press to cable important news, and the Chairman had every reason to trust my discretion. Yet he gave out not a single item of news during the entire session. He seemed to be so much afraid of offending Washington through publicity that I kept entirely away from the Commission's headquarters. THE UNITED STATES IN LIBERIA S25 As the Chester was leaving Monrovia for Freetown, Captain Wilson (its commander) invited me to go that far as his guest in order that I might catch a Liverpool steamer; when the Chairman learned of this, he sent his secretary with a special request that I would make it clear to Sierra Leone that I had no connection with the Commission! The absurdity of it all consisted mainly in the fact that no " state secrets " were involved. Liberia was anxious to be investigated and most of the facts and figures were already in my possession — for I had been " on the job " for several months. Besides, I had landed in Liberia unheralded and there was no time to cover up anything that looked unsightly. (Before the Commission arrived, for instance, the grass in the principal street was all carefully dug up!) I have this satisfaction, at least — that if any curious-minded person should ever dig up my article in The World's Work (written before the Commission landed) and compare it with the Commission's report to the Presi- dent, he will find a remarkable agreement^ so far as the main facts and conclusions are concerned. XVI THE TRUTH ABOUT LIBERIA IT is well for Americans to know — I say this de- liberately and with much emphasis — that informa- tion about Liberia is not to be trusted if it come from European sources. There are some English gentlemen, for instance, who have had an object in persuading the outer world that the Negro republic is on its last legs, tottering into anarchy and ruin. Take just one example out of many that I could give. The leading merchant of Grand Bassa was ex- pecting an important shipment of merchandise from Liverpool. The steamer that carried me into his port was expected to bring the goods. Instead the mer- chant received a letter from the Liverpool shippers saying that they deemed it inadvisable to fill his order until Liberia recovered from its turbulent condition. Now, to my knowledge, the whole land was as calm as Toronto on a Sunday, so I inquired into the cause of the Liverpool rumour. And this was the cause : A delegation of dissatisfied farmers from some of the settlements up the St. Paul River had come down to Monrovia, marched in orderly procession to the Senate chamber, formally petitioned that body to impeach President Barclay, 226 PRESIDENT BARCLAY SECRETARY JOHNSON GOVERNOR-GENERAL TONTY, OF DAKAR THE TRUTH ABOUT LIBERIA 227 and then quietly dispersed. It was the " tamest " sort of a political demonstration. I saw a larger one, got up by the opposite party to counteract the effect of the first, and it was no more tumultuous than a parade of Royal Arch Masons. Yet the British Consul- General cabled to Europe that Liberia was in a state of wild disorder and that the lives of foreign resi- dents were in danger! One who claims to speak truthfully about a controverted subject should have credentials. Here are mine: (i) I went to Liberia with only one object in view — to study the situation quietly and report exactly what I found. (2) I had previously had enough experience with the Negro race and with a republican form of gov- ernment to enable me to interpret what I should see — and I had already learned, in Africa itself, a few things about African politics. (3) I landed in Monrovia on January 13, 1909, when the atmosphere was relatively calm; I was on the spot and in close touch with the men and events that led up to ''the crisis"; I was there when the American Commission landed on May 8, and re- mained until its members left on May 29. (4) I have visited nearly every important Americo- Liberian settlement and have been about 200 miles back from the coast, among many native tribes. (5) My point of view was that of a critical but sym- pathetic American, Southern-born. 228 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET (6) I checked up my judgment about Liberian af- fairs by that of nearly every American resident and of the most prominent Liberians, and found a grati- fying unanimity. I landed on Liberian soil in absolute ignorance of the republic's troubles. To my amazement, this is what I found: British officials sitting at the receipt of custom. British army officers commanding the only regular troops, a large percentage of them being Sierra Leone (British) subjects; their arms and ammu- nition were in cases marked '' On His Majesty's Service." British naval officers commanding the only gunboat. British demands that the British inspector of cus- toms have supervision over the Treasury De- partment. A British consul-general dictating peremptory de- spatches to the Liberian Government after the manner of a Governor-General. Nobody outside of the British diplomatic service knows whether the fault lies with the Foreign Office or the Colonial Office, or with both, but nearly every foreigner in Liberia (except the English) will tell you that some one has unquestionably had a dream of see- ing the English flag flying over the Executive Mansion in Monrovia. The diplomacy that was rapidly shap- ing the end was so blunderingly open that its inten- tion could not be mistaken. The story is too long to tell except in bare outline. THE TRUTH ABOUT LIBERIA 229 Everybody knows how easy it is to lend money to a Negro — knows also that the lending of money is a popular way that Europe has in playing the game of grab. In 1871 some Jewish bankers of London floated a loan of $500,000 at an exorbitant rate of interest, with the export duty on rubber as security. Sir Harry Johnston, being an Englishman, will not be accused of exaggeration when he says in his book that there was so much fraud in the transaction that $200,000 is a fair estimate of the money that actually reached Liberia. Some later historian will show, in a similar way, how Sir Harry's company defrauded Liberia in the Loan of 1906, for another half-million. Sir Harry had come out to Liberia and made a great stir. He organized a development company, which was to do wonderful things for the republic; then he went to London to raise the money. But his distinguished name was not good at the bank, nor would the people of London buy his stock. Then happened what must give Sir Harry a permanent place among the world's financiers: He induced Liberia to authorize his com- pany to borrow $500,000 and give as security the cus- toms revenue of the republic. After it was too late, the Liberians found that they had not a word to say about the expenditure of the money. Sir Harry spent most of it in the manner that pleased him best, and President Barclay went to England and rescued a remnant from the hands of the bankrupt company. The President himself told me this. The financial result of these transactions is that, 230 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET from two loans amounting to more than half of Li- beria's public debt to-day and on which the country is regularly paying interest to the British, the republic has very little to show except the fresh scars of the English yoke to which it had bent its neck. The finan- cial result proved to be unimportant as compared with the political result. There are but four powers that have interests in Liberia — the United States, Germany, Great Britain, and France. America is represented by schools and mission-stations. Germany owns two of every three vessels that enter Liberian ports, and nearly every im- portant trading-house in the country is from Ham- burg. With these two nations — those having by far the largest interests — the Liberians have had only pleasant relations. France is the neighbour on the north and east; having seized a sixty-mile strip of Liberian territory on the Ivory Coast side and lopped off parts of the northern limits, it threatens further boundary difficulties. The serious trouble has been almost wholly with the English, whose Liberian interests include two loans, one steamship line, one important trading-house, and a " development company." It soon became apparent that the British Government was backing the interests of the capitalists in a very suspicious way. It began to demand that Liberia immediately bring about cer- tain " reforms " — some of which would require years — " or be prepared, at no distant date, to disappear from the catalogue of independent countries." THE TRUTH ABOUT LIBERIA 231 It has been charged that the EngHsh are lacking in a sense of humour. I have not found it so. British diplomatic literature is to me far more entertaining than Punch. Any one reading Consul-General Wal- lis's curt letters to Liberia, for instance, would get the impression that Downing Street is as anxious as a JPresbyterian elder that the Negro republic should set Its house in order — provided the setting be done by British officials at Liberian expense. But here are certain facts that are as unquestionable as a Bank of England note: The British wanted to reform Liberian finances — yet the two big financial frauds that had taken at least half a million dollars out of the Liberian cash-box were both British. The British insisted upon a Liberian Frontier Force commanded by British officers — yet Major Cadell (the commandant) had to leave Monrovia in disgrace and in debt, refusing to account for the expenditure of perhaps $60,000 of public money. On arriving in London he legally changed his name to Mackay. The British insisted that Liberian troops be sent to the boundaries — yet the most acute boundary trouble is at Kahre Lahun, where British troops are twenty-five miles over the line that a British commis- sion had pegged out. A small tribe armed with a few antiquated shotguns was accused of harassing a strong colony that has one of the most efficient Frontier Forces in Africa! The British sold to Liberia a revenue-cutter and supplied an officer to command it — yet practically all THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET the smuggling on that coast has been done by British vessels. While I was in Liberia, two captains of English steamers were caught and fined — one $500, the other $1,500. The British made a great ado about the multiplicity of Liberian officials — yet the salaries of the civil of- ficials required for the government of Sierra Leone would run the whole Liberian Government for two years. The British Consul-General was always talking about Liberia's failure to civilize the interior — yet I went unarmed and without a guard anywhere in the hinterland that I desired. But the most convincing evidence of Captain Wal- lis's sense of humour came out in a conversation. He told me what a burning shame it was .that the Li- berian legislature had ordered the revenue-cutter to bombard Grand Cess, a Kroo tow^n of 1,000 huts which was in open rebellion against the customs officials. In the name of His Britannic Majesty and of the civilized world, he had notified the Liberian Government that the gunboat could not perform this inhuman atrocity so long as it was commanded by one of His Majesty's subjects. Now I knew that this tender-hearted consul had commanded a punitive expedition in the Sierra Leone uprising twelve years before, at which time more na- tives had been slaughtered than Grand Cess ever saw — and all because they didn't like the hut-tax. Also, I had just been reading about it in his own book and remembered this sentence : " Great Britain has been THE TRUTH ABOUT LIBERIA 233 unceasingly employed in crushing the power of the many hostile races in West Africa." What was there about Grand Cess, I asked myself, that had so aroused His Majesty's Consul-General that he was filling the papers of Europe with his indignant protests? The answer came later, when the Chief Customs In- spector (himself a British subject and an excellent gentleman) made his report to the President of Li- beria. This is an extract : " I held several long interviews with the rum merchants of Grand Cess and they gave me numerous details of the contra- band trade that has been carried on here for so long. Grand Cess has been the distributing point for every little town along the coast as far as Cape Palmas and even beyond, and the im- portation has been everything from lOO 20-gallon barrels up to 400 per month — all purchased from Elder, Dempster & Co. [British] steamers." A detailed account of British activities in Liberia would run along in this fashion until it filled several chapters. It is a shameful story, and I regret the necessity for having told it in outline, for I am Anglo- Saxon myself. My personal bias in favour of Brit- ish rule in Africa is shown in the chapter on "The New Pha.raoh in Egypt " — but for British rule in Liberia I have no sympathy. Personally, I am not overfond of the Englishman, it is true; but neither am I overfond of the Negro. The situation reached its climax on February 10, 1909. Was it an accident, or was it planned ? Listen. On the 4th (this was learned later) Consul-General 2S4i THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET Wallis cabled for a gunboat; it arrived on the loth, with Sierra Leone troops aboard. On the 4th Captain Wallis told me that Major Cadell's troops (Liberian) were on the verge of mutiny; also that some ex- soldiers who had long since been discharged because they were British subjects had come to Monrovia to demand back-pay. On the nth Major Cadell wrote an insulting letter to President Barclay, saying that his force would probably mutiny at nine o'clock the next day. They mutinied, threatened the life of the President, and only the cool temperament of the Mo- rovians averted bloodshed. In any American Negro-quarter there would have been carnage. The Monrovians had their teeth set hard, but if a mob of reckless patriots had burned the British consulate or a drunken Negro had thrown a rock or a bullet through a British window — which would have been perfectly natural — the British pro- gramme would have been carried through. But the expected outbreak did not outbreak — ^and the Consul- General had no excuse that would justify him in sig- nalling to the gunboat for troops. American Minister Lyon promptly called a meeting of the foreign consuls, but the attendance of the Brit- ish Consul-General was prevented by " a previous engagement." President Barclay formally notified him of the mutiny, and he quickly responded with an offer of troops from the British gunboat — an offer which was declined with equal promptness and sa- gacity. Some Liberian militiamen were called out and a small detachment, under a Liberian officer, was sent CONSUL-GENERAL WALLIS BISHOP S. D. FERGUSON DR. ERNEST LYON, AMERICAN MINISTER TO LIBERIA THE TRUTH ABOUT LIBERIA 235 to take charge of the camp. But Major Cadell had secretly fortified all approaches to the camp, and he refused to admit the Liberians. Thereupon the Presi- dent requested the British Consul-General to order all British subjects out of the camp by a certain hour, as it would be taken by assault. There was nothing left except to evacuate; Major Cadell removed to the consulate and his men were dismissed from the serv- ice. His unitemized bill was paid in full and he left for England — left also a number of debts, it is said, which the government agreed to pay. Cool but determined diplomacy beat Captain Wal- lis at his own game, and Monrovia settled down to await the next move. But just then something happened. What happened? Oh, nothing much; only your Uncle Sam — ^back on the old job! Liberia got word that Congress had authorized the President to ap- point three Commissioners, and send them to Liberia in three warships — and every Liberian blew out his chest-measurement four inches. It was merely a co- incidence, of course, that the time had arrived for His Britannic Majesty's Consul-General to take a leave of absence! He had fumbled the ball. He is now Consul-General at Dakar, and Briton's mild- mannered and courteous representative at Dakar (Major Baldwin) was transferred to Monrovia. Liberia's trouble with the French (whose territory adjoins on the north and east) is the old, old story of the pasture-fence. The quarrel with the French 236 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET began along in the '80' s, about the time that French West Africa began to take shape as a vast tropical empire. French Guinea, 'which lies to the north of Sierra Leone, was extended around behind that col- ony and Liberia and pushed on down to join the small neck of land on the Gulf of Guinea known as the Ivory Coast. Then it began pushing its frontier-line steadily toward the coast, taking one region of the Liberian hinterland after another — but being careful not to tinker with the Sierra Leone hinterland. In 1892, sixty miles of Liberian coast east of the Cavalla River was seized by France on the flimsiest of pre- texts. In words of one syllable, it was a plain steal. The Liberian commissioners appealed to the Ameri- can Ambassador in Paris and learned that the United States could not be expected to intervene. Since then, with a diplomatic cleverness that Negroes can never hope to match, the French boundary-line on both north and east has been steadily pushed into Liberia. In 1905-06 thousands of square miles along the northern boundary became French; before the new line had been surveyed, part of the agreement was repudiated in order that the boundary of the Ivory Coast might be pushed across the Cavalla River. Nor did that end the encroachment. I met the Belgian sur- veyor who represented Liberia on the delimitation commission and he showed me on his map just where the Governor of the Ivory Coast insisted upon run- ning the line, in violation of a specific treaty, because he had discovered another region that was rich in rubber. THE TRUTH ABOUT LIBERIA 237 Meanwhile, like the British Government, the French have indulged in the most unctuous expressions of in- terest in the welfare of the Black Republic. It is hard, even for one who has always firmly believed in the white colonization of Africa, to retain his faith in the humanitarianism of Colonial Offices after a somewhat extended observation of their workings on the spot. William. EognniDg Co.,_N.Y. LIBERIA'S PORTABLE BOUNDARY XVII WHO'S WHAT IN LIBERIA " In coming to the shores of Africa, we indulged the pleasing hope that we should be permitted to exercise and improve those faculties which impart to man his dignity — to nourish in our hearts the flame of honourable ambition, to cherish and indulge those aspirations which a beneficent Creator hath implanted in every human heart, and to evince to all who despise, ridicule, and oppress our own race that we possess with them a common nature, are with them susceptible of equal refinement, and capable of equal advancement in all that adorns and dignifies man. . . . Thus far our highest hopes have been realized." — Liberia's Decla- ration of Independence. *' r I ^HUS far" — ^but that was sixty-three years I ago. The agitation that preceded the Civil War came upon us then and the little African republic dropped below the horizon, there to maintain its struggle as best it could. What about its "highest hopes" to-day? This was the question in my mind as I looked one night upon the dark outline of Cape Mesurado and waited on shipboard for the dawn. With eager in- terest I went ashore the next morning, curious to see how the little experiment had turned out — and curious, as a Southern man, to see how the Negro type had been affected in the second and the third generations. To one who has wandered about in Africa and 338 WHO'S WHAT IN LIBERIA? 239 realized that mission schools, Standard oil, and Singer sewing-machines are there the only reminders of the existence of an American republic, Liberia is a start- ling change. Elsewhere in Africa the United States is merely a geographical fact, and a fact of no con- sequence; its currency is good only here and there; its colloquial language is an unknown tongue; its most familiar institutions are as foreign as a Fourth-of-July celebration in Russia. But sit with me on the balcony of the American Le- gation in Monrovia and remember that you are in Africa. This little capital, like the Monroe Doctrine, bears the name of a President of the United States. This main street, the Pennsylvania Avenue of the capital, has the name of Ashmun, who lies buried in New Haven, Conn. Yonder lagoon, Stockton Creek, which leads into the St. Paul River, commemorates an officer of the United States Navy. The little strip of land beyond it, Bushrod Island, got its name from Bushrod Washington. That building across the street is the " Executive Mansion." Glance at the flagstaif above it — the flag is the Star and Stripes. And where else, on the eastern side of the Atlantic, will you hear men talking familiarly about " the President," " the Senate and the House," and '' the Supreme Court "? All along Liberia's 350 miles of coast and up and down the sluggish rivers, the story is the same. You are constantly passing little settlements that bear such familiar names as Virginia, New Georgia, Clay-Ash- land, New York, Louisiana, Buchanan, Hartford, Greenville, and Lexington. And if you go ashore 240 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET at Harper and Latrobe (Cape Palmas), in Maryland County, you can refer to Baltimore without explain- ing that it is a city in the United States. And if you stop to talk with Liber ians in any part of the country, you learn quickly that these are not the names of a glory that has departed. It is a curious fact that the American spirit is stronger in Liberia than in many parts of the United States itself. I once sat at a banquet given in Cape Palmas by Vice- President Dossen. As the speakers responded to their various toasts, it struck me that a chance listener would have imagined that this was a company of American Negroes come ashore from some passing steamer. They will tell you on most of the steamers that Monrovia is '' the rottenest town on the coast." Here is the most faithful picture of it that I can draw — and it was drawn in Monrovia itself : Beautifully situated on the neck of a high cape, near the mouths of two rivers, the capital presents from the ship's deck an aspect of quiet civilization that is in marked contrast with the clusters of thatch-roofed huts on the islands nearby. On landing at " the water- side," the favourable impression is marred by a nar- row, most unattractive street lined by rickety frame buildings and zinc warehouses, with the booths of street-venders on both sides. This, the business cen- tre of Monrovia, is thoroughly discreditable; but the discredit falls most heavily upon Europeans, for nearly every important business house on this street MONROVIA—THE HILLTOP MONROVIA— THE WATERSIDE WHO'S WHAT IN LIBERIA? 241 is occupied by a British or German firm. From the waterside to the hill-top, a distance of two blocks, the steep ascent has been so washed by the torrents of the rainy season that the visitor is convinced, before he reaches the summit, that the capital of Liberia is indeed the most disreputable of all cities. But the real Monrovia, as the eye takes it in from the hill-top, is as different as the Central Park region of New York City is from the tenements of the East Side. The main street is lined with attractive cot- tages having large porches and balconies, with the Ex- ecutive Mansion facing an open square. These cot- tages are occupied mostly by government officials and foreign legations. Beyond is the residence district proper — streets of frame cottages constructed after the pattern of those seen everywhere throughout the Southern States. Of these, Sir Harry Johnston re- marks that there is nothing like them to be seen any- where else in Africa. The general average is about that of the homes of the most prosperous Negroes in America, and I was told that most of the Monrovians own their own homes. The city, as a whole, gives little evidence of civic pride, but even the American Negro is not an enthusiast on the subject of the beau- tification of cities. There was much about Monrovia that reminded me daily of home, more particularly of my earlier home in the South. I saw no real difference between the people of Monrovia and those of the same race in the United States. Even their shortcomings were homelike. 242 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET The people of Monrovia look, dress, and act very like the better class of Negroes of Atlanta or Louis- ville. All the Americo-Liberians (and many civilized natives) are neatly but not flashily clothed, and most of the aborigines put on an extra cloth when they come to town. I doubt if there be anywhere in the United States a Negro community of the size of Monrovia where there is so little boisterousness, pro- fanity, and indecency. Swearing is a lost art, and I saw but one case of drunkenness during my first month in Monrovia. The Liberian Sundays suggest the quiet of a New England city — a quiet that is broken only by the sound of church organs and congregational singing. There appears to be a complete absence of the American saloon, of the degrading concert-hall, and of the Negro " dive." The Monrovian may not be a paragon of virtue and sobriety, but he is certainly a decent citizen. In most respects, this description of Monrovia ap- plies also to Harper (Cape Palmas), the original capital of the Maryland colony. For tropical beauty and whole-souled hospitality, Cape Palmas is not sur- passed on the West Coast of Africa — so far as one man's experience goes. Between these two cities are several important ports of entry, and all along the coast are scattered little settlements of Liberian planters — some prosperous and well-housed, others reflecting the deep poverty of sloth and failure. Bor- dering upon this coast-belt of civilization is a fringe of half -civilized natives, with a few fruit trees and WHO'S WHAT IN LIBERIA? 243 some coffee-bushes around their squahd villages; and beyond these lies the great mass of the uncivilized, who plant nothing but what they eat and whose civilized attainments rarely extend further than to- bacco, gin, calico, and gunpowder. The total number of the Americo-Liberians is gen- erally given as 30,000 or 40,000, and that of the na- tive population is placed at 2,000,000. At the last Presidential election (1907), according to the " Hand- book of Liberia," 7,167 votes were cast; but only land-owners may vote. * * * * ^ The head of the government, President Arthur Barclay, is a leader of ability and infinite patience, but his drawling speech (characteristic of many West Indians) betrays a slow-going disposition. He is fifty-six years old and is a full-blooded Negro, but his features are refined and pleasing. He is simple and unaffected— the acting mayor of Monrovia puts on many more airs— and admits everybody into his pres- ence except when they interfere with the despatch of business. (" Despatch of business " is an expression too dynamic for the West Coast, however.) It is a common sight to see his vestibule crowded with the retainers of native chiefs who have come down to have " the Big Daddy " settle their palavers. Mr. Barclay was born in Barbados, West Indies, and therefore was a British subject. But he went to Liberia in his boyhood and was educated there. He became a real-estate lawyer, was Secretary of the Treasury three times, and has been sent abroad on 244 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET several diplomatic errands. He became President in 1904 and his term expires in 191 1. All the other Liberian Presidents have been preachers, yet Mr. Barclay has done more than any of them to stop in- ter-tribal warfare — and that without the aid of an army. Though elected with the idea that he would become the saviour of his country from the English political invasion, which was then looming up, he has been charged with collusion to deliver Liberia over to the British and with having negotiated the Loan of 1906 with that in view. This charge is probably without foundation; Mr. Barclay's sympathies have undoubt- edly inclined toward the British, but he is not a rascal like Liberia's most distinguished son. Dr. Blyden. Delegations in different parts of the country have gone so far as to demand his impeachment. How- ever, he is strongly entrenched behind the leaders of the only political party in the republic. That Liberia has been upon the verge of losing its integrity as a nation is due to his lack of experience rather than to want of patriotism; and his luke- warmness toward the United States is not surprising when it is remembered that he has never been in our country, neither has he seen, until recently, any real indications of interest displayed by the American Government. The Vice-President, Judge James J. Dossen, Is also a gifted man and a fine executive. He presides over the Senate with dignity and sees that its business is conducted without waste of time. He will be remem- WHO'S WHAT IN LIBERIA? 245 bered by many Americans as the leader of the envoys who visited the United States, for he made a fa- vourable impression everywhere he went. Judge Dos- sen comes from the Maryland colony, and his sympa- thies are strongly American. There are few men in Liberia so well qualified as he for public service in a time of great stress. He is a young man, an xALmerico-Liberian, and is also of unmixed blood. He was educated in the American Episcopal school in his native city, and is a practising lawyer of note. He is rather a reserved man, inclining toward the aristocratic, and is not very popular outside of his own county. He aspires to the Presidency, but his immediate chances are slight unless President Barclay makes some serious mistakes in his attitude toward America. Any man can be elected President of Liberia if he be American in sym- pathy, provided the issue should chance to be squarely drawn against him on that line. The Secretary of State, F. E. R. Johnson, is the grandson of a former President, is about half- white, and has travelled more widely and acquired a more extensive " culture " than any other Liberian. Paris and Berlin are his favourite topics when he meets for- eign visitors, but he does not " make a hit " with strangers. He has never been in the United States, and lacks Judge Dossen's enthusiasm on that subject. He is a diplomat by instinct, and a lawyer by pro- fession. Being the only Liberian now in the country who can speak French fluently, he ^as had a great 246 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET deal to do with the negotiations concerning the Franco-Liberian boundary. Mr. Johnson continues his practise of law, though he is a Cabinet officer^ and he usually wins his cases. He is credited with being one of the wealthiest men in Liberia, and his new residence is one of the finest in Monrovia. Secretary of the Treasury Howard is a son of the soil, but he outranks all the members of the Cabinet in local importance, for his fingers grip the purse- strings of the nation. Of course, a treasurer can dis- burse moneys only upon order from his superior; but when funds are habitually short, that ofificer may easily arrange to pay vouchers in the order that best suits his convenience or pleasure. It is all-important that every man who expects to have dealings with the Li- berian treasury should be on good terms with the Treasurer; and since this officer is also the chairman of the political party that names the President (who, in turn, appoints nearly every other official in public life), it can easily be seen that Secretary Howard need envy no man in Liberia his position. He is a modest, quiet gentleman, but is also a man of spirit. When President Barclay once decided to yield to British pressure and allow the Chief Inspector of Customs (British subject) to supervise the paying-out of the public revenues, Mr. Howard promptly resigned. The President was too wise to allow an open rupture with the chairman of his party, however, so the Secretary of the Treasury remains his own financial adviser. My guess is that his chief lack is money, not advice. WHO'S WHAT IN LIBERIA? 247 Chief-Justice Roberts, who Hves halfway down the coast, is a venerable Negro from Georgia, with a fund of humour and a laugh that carries for a block. He is now extremely feeble, but his intellect is clear and his spirit unbroken. Associate-Justice Richardson is also President of Liberia College. Aside from the general charges against him as a justice, he has been publicly accused of gross immorality and has not called his accusers to account. The College (founded and still partly supported by the American Colonization Society) is on the down-grade and will never amount to anything until it gets a new president. The other Associate, Justice Tolliver, has not been in office long enough to make his mark. Of the eight gentlemen who compose the Liberian Senate, Senator Harmon, of Grand Bassa, is perhaps the most widely esteemed man in the body, if not in all Liberia. He is a native Liberian, a self-made man, and is now one of the wealthiest men in the country. He is the agent of the Elder-Dempster steamship line at Grand Bassa, where he is also the leading merchant, and he has at least twenty-five branch houses along the coast and in the interior. His new residence is prob- ably the finest in Liberia and his hospitality is also of the finest. No suspicion of dishonesty or disloyalty has ever shadowed his fame, and up to his election as Senator he had never held public office. The Senator- ship was practically forced upon him. He is a modest, straightforward man, with a pleasing personality. If he had Presidential ambitions and cared to press a campaign, he could probably be elected over any 248 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET man in the republic, in anything like a fair election. Among the fourteen members of the House of Rep- resentatives, there are really no men of exceptional influence, so far as the republic as a whole is con- cerned. Most of them are new to official life and have not yet made their reputations. Moreover, as soon as a man's influence foots up to the requisite total, he naturally seeks a transfer to the Senate. The members impressed me as being sincere patriots. A legal adventurer of great astuteness who has plied his craft in various parts of the world, Mr. T. Mc- Cants Stewart, is again in Liberia. A gentleman of polish, with a flow of language that is remarkable and that is backed up by intellect, Mr. Stewart might easily become one of the greatest men of his race but for two or three fundamental weaknesses. He lacks sin- cerity, worst of all; in January, 1909, he published a letter endorsing the English in their demand for re- forms and insisting that the American Government was also supporting them. He argued it with me hotly for an hour, but in a conversation just before the ar- rival of the American Commissioners, he was not only pro- American but claimed a large share of the credit for bringing the event to pass. The Liberians distrust him, but he stands close to President Barclay — too close, in the judgment of some. Another gifted American Negro whose cog-wheels have become entangled is an all-round mechanic by the name of Faulkner. He is one of the most useful men in Monrovia, for he can repair anything from a SENATOR HARMON ENTERTAINING SHIP'S OFFICERS THE JUSTICES OF THE SUPREME COURT OF LIBERIA WHO'S WHAT IN LIBERIA? 249 boiler down to a watch. He installed the telephone system, which does not ndw exist. He has cut a chan- nel through the bar in the harbour. He runs the only ice-plant in Liberia. But he also dabbles in politics and is one of about half-a-dozen young men who are constantly stirring up antagonism against the Administration. One of his associates in agitation is Editor Gray, a " yellow " journalist whose paper might be put to much better use. An editor of a different school is John L. Morris, who is also chiefly responsible for the reforms in the Postmaster-General's department, of which he was Secretary. Young Morris is a re- markable man in many respects. He edits the semi- official Liberian Register and has made of it a real newspaper. He is now the Comptroller of the republic. Another young man who will have much to do with Liberian affairs in the future is Counsellor C. B. Dun- bar, who was one of the envoys to America. He manages to keep out of the political ring and is steadily making money at the bar. But he is too capable a man to be allowed to remain indefinitely in private life. There is another young leader of the Dunbar fam- ily at Cape Palmas, an Episcopal clergyman in charge of Cuttington Institute, the only institution in the country that impresses the visitor with the idea that he is in a college. This is the school which has gradu- ated so many men who are now in the public service. The Rev. Mr. Dunbar is an ambitious, tireless worker 250 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET and doubtless has a long career of usefulness before him; but he is not as practical in his ideals as might be wished. Bishop Ferguson's son, also of Cape Palmas and also a clergyman, is another young man of the same type, but with a predilection for printing-presses and newspaper work. He is now fitting up his shop with the expectation of making his own half-tones for use in his church-paper. The Silver Trumpet. He does the cleanest printing in the republic and can also bind books, as well as edit them. No mention of Cape Palmas is complete without a reference to Major-General Tubman, the most radical American sympathizer that I met in Liberia. He is a real fighter and not merely a tin-soldier, and he is also a real patriot; but in his zeal he gets things pretty badly mixed sometimes. Let the list of Who's Who in Liberia not overlook the names of three successful farmers whose influ- ence is mighty in their counties. Mr. J. J. Hill, of Arthington, about thirty miles from Monrovia, was once a slave boy; he came to Liberia and started at the very bottom — but he was a w^orker. He built up a cofifee plantation of about three hundred acres and now owns valuable city real-estate, including the house occupied by the American Legation. He has never held public office. Mr. James J. Morris has also devoted his life mainly to his plantation, with some trading on the side. His farm, a few miles from Monrovia, produces about the WHO'S WHAT IN LIBERIA? 251 same amount of coffee as that of Mr. Hill. Mr. Morris has steadfastly declined to accept public of- fice until last year, when he was prevailed upon by the President to become Superintendent of Montser- rado County. He is a man of sterling character, a true patriot, and a warm friend of the United States. A few miles below Cape Palmas is a Grebo town of thatch-roofed huts called Cavalla, and its inhabitants are a thrifty, restless people. One of these natives, now named Morgan, was educated and even became a member of the House of Representatives. But sci- entific farming seemed to be the bee in his bonnet and he left politics for the Ivory Coast, where he estab- lished a fine cocoa plantation. Then he had trouble with the French underlords, with the result that he returned to the Liber ian side of the Cavalla. There, on a little twenty-five acre plot, he now has one of the choicest examples of tropical farming in the whole country. Mr. Morgan has also a beautiful modern home at Cavalla, but he prefers to spend his time out in the comfortable mud-house on his new farm. So active and skilful has his agricultural work been that he has recently been selected as the Commissioner of Agriculture for Maryland County. One box of cigars would be enough to provide a smoke for every leading man in Liberian affairs, white and black, politicians, clergy, and laity. Nearly every white man in the country (and most of the black Americans) is a gentleman of consequence, either by virtue of his home connections or by reason 252 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET of his commanding personality. Generally speaking, the British have figured most largely in the tangle of international politics; the Germans control most of the steamship business and have by far the lion's share of trade; the Americans are the only white people en- gaged in benevolent and educational work; the French are entirely absent, being even without consular rep- resentation at the present time. Broadly speaking, the Americans are men of middle age or beyond; the British average about thirty-five years of age; and most of the Germans are younger. Indeed, it seems to be a feature of Germany's com- mercial conquest to send its young men out to the ends of the earth to learn the business on the spot. Broadly speaking again, the foreigners out here be- have themselves much more creditably than might be expected. Aside from the question of international politics, which entangles men as well as nations in its meshes, the foreigners are respected by the Liberians everywhere. The Americans get along with them best of all, as a matter of course, but the Germans are quite sociable. The British, however, are very clan- nish and have as little to do with the Negroes as pos- sible — after office-hours. The biggest name in Liberia — ^bigger than that of President Barclay because more lasting — is that of Woermann of Hamburg. The letters of this name spell steamships, mails, commerce, and financial as- sistance. It is a dull day in Monrovia when the Woer- mann house-flag is not run up on the signal mast at the lighthouse to announce the approach of one of WHO'S WHAT IN LIBERIA? 253 its steamers, outward or homeward. Frequently there are two in the harbour at one time. This Hamburg firm already controls most of the shipping of the en- tire West Coast and is rapidly taking away more of it from the British. This firm is also the largest trading-house in Liberia, having wholesale and retail stores in all the ports, smaller branches in the inte- rior, and itinerant traders still farther back in the hinterland. It believes in Liberia and gives the gov- ernment almost unlimited credit — say, at an advance of 33 1-3 per cent, above the regular selling price. Herr Dinklage, one of the Woermann managers, is also Liberia's consul in Hamburg. He has been try- ing to establish a German bank in Monrovia. If he succeeds, the House of Woermann will practically own Liberia. There are two other Hamburg houses in Monrovia and one Dutch trader. The official head of the German colony is Herr Freytag, the Imperial German consul — the Kaiser's " man Friday." He is a stout, thick-necked German with a sparkling eye and a shrewd expression of coun- tenance. He is quite sociable, but speaks English with some difficulty. The extensive commercial interests of his countrymen naturally incline him to the Li- berian side, as opposed to the British, and he is, there- fore, somewhat of a diplomatic ally of the American Minister. I noticed that he did not mingle with the Liberians, however, and was rarely seen outside of his consulate. XVIII THE BLACK MAN'S LAST STAND " The western coast of Africa was the place selected by American benevolence and philanthropy for our future home. Removed beyond those influences which depressed us in our native land, it was hoped we would be enabled to enjoy those rights and privileges, and exercise and improve those faculties which the God of nature has given us in common with the rest of man- kind. Under the auspices of the American Colonization Society, we established ourselves here, on land acquired by purchase from the lords of the soil." — Liberia's Declaration of Independence, 1847. Liberia " must not lose a moment in setting herself seriously to work to put her house in order, or be prepared, at no distant date, to disappear from the catalogue of independent countries." " If, however, the Government do not reform, no amount of guarantees will save them from the end which must surely, in the near future, await them." — His Britannic Majesty's Consul- General, igo8. " It is the conviction of the Commission that unless she has the support of some power commensurate in strength with Great Britain or France, she will as an independent power speedily disappear from the map." — Report of the American Commission to Liberia, igio. ALTHOUGH the requiem mass for Liberia has not yet been said, the British gentle- men who would divide the estate are already announcing their plans. Mr. E. D. Morel — Brit- ish publicity agent and Congo atrocity specialist — 254 THE BLACK MAN'S LAST STAND 255 has turned his attention to the Negro re- pubHc since his campaign farther south has petered out. In a recent article in Cornhill, he proposes to set aside twenty-five miles of seaboard for the Americo-Liberians and divide the rest among the Powers. Of course, he would like to see the United States take it ! But — " in the absence of any such professed desire on the part of the United States, the natural inheritors of the territory would be France and England, whose possessions run parallel to it." As the tender sympathies of Mr. Morel expand, we shall expect by and by the outline of a plan whereby the whole round world will be part of the British Empire. Another and cleverer Englishman who is concerned about Liberia's future is Mr. L F. Brahm, the man- ager of the rubber and '* development " company which was organized out of the wreckage of Sir Harry Johnston's company. The $500,000 '' capital invested " is the half-million which Liberia borrowed in 1906 but did not have the pleasure of spending. Mr. Brahm is his own publicity agent. He allows himself to be '' interviewed " frequently, and views on Liberian affairs are often found in the New York papers. Those which I have read may be grouped in two classes: (i) Assurances that Liberia is wonder- fully rich in undeveloped resources, and that foreign capital is perfectly safe. These are for the British in- vestor. (2) Warning advice to the United States ^56 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET against financing the Liberian Government or encour- aging American capital to cross the Atlantic. The New York papers print Mr. Brahm's " interviews " in the news column, strange to say, whereas they should be paid for at regular advertising rates. He does not want the American Government to finance Liberia, because he has a plan of his own to fasten another loan upon the Negroes. This was told to me by an ofificial before I left Monrovia, and a recent " Englishman's Warning " against American inter- vention contains this significant phrase, " A fresh loan of £300,000 would wipe it [Liberia's debt] out and leave a margin on the safe side." It is a good deal easier to figure out the age of Ann than to discover why the New York papers use Mr. Brahm's communications. Personally, I was much pleased with this affable Englishman — but Liberia classes him with Cadell and Wallis. There is also a white nigger in the wood-pile down in Maryland County. A New York paper recently pub- lished a letter bearing the signature of a Grebo chief near Cape Palmas. It was addressed to the American Colonization Society and complained bitterly against the Americo-Liberians. The letter is unmistakably the work of a" white man of no ordinary intelligence; his nationality may be guessed from one of the con- cluding sentences: " We are therefore constrained to offer our country to some European power — preferably England, whose methods of coloni- zation are less onerous — for their government." THE BLACK MAN'S LAST STAND 257 I have had the honour of drinking palm-wine with a number of Grebo chiefs, but I never met one who spake such excellent English as this. When I left Cape Palmas, there was a man in the dungeon, charged with raising the British flag and inciting the native Greboes to rebellion. Since my departure there has been bloodshed, and an American cruiser was sent to aid the little city of Marylanders. The significant fact is that these are neighbours of the people who were in rebellion against the customs authorities, and that at least two British captains have been fined for smug- gling on this part of the coast. As usual, Liberia's trouble with natives is wholly with tribes in touch with Europeans. The deluded Greboes are merely cat's-paws. The English are loud in their condemnation of the Liberians for internal disorder, but the republic has never had an uprising like that which devastated Sierra Leone in 1898, when 28,000 square miles was a scene of carnage. Liberia discards the crushing pol- icy; it even allows its native tribes to retain all the guns and ammunition that they can buy; yet I found no part of the hinterland where I needed to ask for a bodyguard of soldiers. Traders and missionaries travel or establish stations in perfect security any- where in the republic. It cannot be stated too emphatically that the only real peril in Liberia is '' the white peril." The repub- lic makes an appeal to America, for it is not able to match the wit of Europe that is plotting its downfall by clever intrigue. The Americo-Liberian point of 258 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET view has been expressed by Mr. Roosevelt in words that will echo in diplomatic corridors for years : " The relations of the United States to Liberia are such as to make it an imperative duty to do all in our power to help the little republic which is struggling against such adverse con- ditions." Liberia is the only section of the Black Man's con- tinent that is now governed by the Black Man him- self. All Africa is European except Abyssinia, Trip- oli, Morocco, and Liberia, and the people of the first three are not Negroes. It is sometimes overlooked that it is one of the most interesting colonial experi- ments of modern times. There are three cities on that death-inviting West Coast that were founded as homes for returned slaves — Freetown, Libreville, and Liberia — all with prefixes meaning " free." Freetown was taken over by the British Crown more than a cen- tury ago because it then had the only safe harbour on the entire coast. Libreville went the same way when French imperialism awoke, and it is now the capital of the French Congo. Only Liberia remains free. Just to be let alone on a little piece of Africa " ac- quired by purchase from the lords of the soil," just to be allowed to work out their own salvation in their own way — ^this was all that the pioneer colonists asked of the world. The length of a lifetime has since been passed; the government is in the hands of the second and third generations; yet the wish to be let alone to work out their own salvation in their own way is the THE BLACK MAN'S LAST STAND 259 one overpowering wish of Liberia to-day, as I heard it expressed from Monrovia to Cape Palmas. All the parties concerned one way or another in the perpetuation of a Negro republic on the West Coast of Africa are now waiting to see what the American State Department will do, now that it has all the facts in its possession. Here is what the Liberian Govern- ment wants us to do: (i) Guarantee the integrity and independence of Liberia. (2) Refund their public debt of only $1,290,000, so that the yoke of the English may be removed. They do not want to repudiate a single dollar of it, no matter how fraudulently con- tracted. (Our State Department knows how to liquidate much larger debts for Central-American republics who love us far less than the Liberians do.) (3) Take a diplomatic hand in all future boundary disputes, to prevent Liberia from being bulldozed and robbed by France and England. (4) Lend to Liberia some financial, agricultural, military, and educational experts to straighten out the kinks in the govern- ment and train the young men — these experts to be paid out of the Liberian Treasury. (5) Establish closer business relations and organize an Ameri- can bank. (6) Let Europe understand that Liberia is something more than "an object of peculiar interest" to the American people. If these simple requests be granted — ^and the Ameri- can Commission so recommends — nobody need worry about Liberia's future. The Liberians are not a tur- bulent people; so peaceful and united have they been for years that there is but one political party of any consequence. They have plenty of men competent to 260 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET carry on the government if outside interference be headed off. The country is rich in undeveloped re- sources that would add many- fold to the present rev- enues if they knew how to utilize them. And there are two million natives in the hinterland that can gradually be added to the republic's assets. Most of these bushmen are on the best of terms with the Li- berian Government and no army is needed for national defence. Soldiers are needed only on the British and French frontiers; the only men whom Liberia fears are whites. There is not an Americo-Liberian from the Mano River to Cape Palmas who lacks confidence in the future, if only the other fellow can be made to keep his hands off. It is wholly unnecessary for Liberia to stand abso- lutely alone; duty to the memories of the Americans who founded the little republic should have moved us long ago to inquire whether we might be of assist- ance. President Roosevelt and Secretary Root im- mortalized their names in Liberia at the close of their administration by taking a clear-cut, unmistakable at- titude toward the Negro republic — one that put a new heart into the whole country. There has crept in a fear that President Taft and Congress are more con- cerned about the welfare of Filipinos and Chinese than about our second-generation Negroes in Africa, but this may be only a fear. In any event, it is extremely improbable that the American people will calmly sit still — after having busied themselves in Cuba and Manchuria — and see the only American colony in the world wiped off the map because it has no friends to THE BLACK MAN'S LAST STAND 261 protest against the greed of two nations that already own nearly two-thirds of Africa. With the Dominican republic in the receiver's hands and the yet more pitiable spectacle of Hayti before the American's eyes, his gaze naturally turns across the Atlantic to the coast whereon the rolling surf breaks upon the white sand. Liberia, the only Negro republic in all Africa, should forever be the final answer to the question : Can the Black Man stand alone ? And the Black Man can stand alone if some unde- signing white man will keep other white men from tripping him and from building inclined planes that are greased beyond the first few steps. Here is a cause sacred enough to fight about — but a State Department that cannot preserve Liberia with- out even a ripple in the diplomatic waters would not be worth mentioning in the annals of American history. n* ^ '1^ 'K '^ I know the thrill that comes from standing upon holy ground. Have I not seen Bunker Hill and tented at Chickamauga? Do I not know the venerable tree where Washington took command, and the sacred soil of Arlington? I know also a sacred spot in Monrovia, down near the surf that is never still, where the his- toric past calls to the American heart as insistently as does the tomb of '* Don't-Give-Up-the-Ship " Law- rence in Trinity churchyard. It is the old cemetery where the first Liberian settlers lie in their unwaking sleep, their graves almost concealed by the profusion 262 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET of ferns that cover nearly every square yard from the street back to the impenetrable green of the African bush. To an American wandering through the bracken, it becomes transformed into a map of the Southern States. ''A Native of the U. S. A.," ''Of Charleston, S. C," "A Native of Georgia" — almost every discoloured slab bears some such inscription. Near the farther side of the cemetery, modest and unobtrusive even in death, I found the white men and women who went to their graves for Liberia — in the dark days when the fate of the republic was swinging in the balance. There are thirty mounds in one place, and no American can look down that long row with- out feeling that the place whereon he stands is holy ground. The fragmentary records of the closing hours of these men and women show that those who wrapped themselves in bloody mantles at Gettysburg and Santiago died no more grandly than these for- gotten Americans — or for a sublimer cause. Perhaps it was in vain. Perhaps the American love of liberty and fair play expended itself in freeing Cuba and preventing the dismemberment of China. If so, we should at least have a decent respect for the mem- ories of our own people, white and black, who lost their lives in the effort to make Liberia a success. Should the day ever come when we allow a European nation to haul down the republic's flag, the little ceme- tery wherein lie the original settlers should be re- served. There let the Stars and Stripes float side by side with the Star and Stripes of Liberia, that there " MODEST AND UNOBTRUSIVE, EVEN IN DEATH BISHOP SCOTT AND HIS KROO PREACHERS THE BLACK MAN'S LAST STAND 263 may forever remain one piece of African soil that the greed of Europe cannot touch. The call that comes to us across the Atlantic is an appeal based upon sentiment — but we are a people in whom sentiment is strong. What else caused the fight with Spain? And this is the call, in the language of July 26, 1847: " Therefore, in the name of humanity and virtue and religion — in the name of the great God, our common Creator and our com- mon Judge — we appeal to the nations of Christendom and ear- nestly and respectfully ask of them that they will regard us with sympathy and friendly consideration to which the peculiarities of our condition entitle us, and to extend to us that comity which marks the friendly intercourse of civilized and independent com- munities." XIX IN THE WEST AFRICAN BUSH THE remark that " the African has no more ap- preciation of time than a setting-hen " was a real contribution to the science of ethnology. Here is an illustration that can be duplicated by every man who has ever set out for the bush : Kennedy (my Liberian companion) was to send carriers to meet me at the Muhlenburg Mission in time for an early start, so that we might reach our first village before the heat became so intense as to be dangerous. I therefore arose at 5 :30 a.m. and, with- out waiting for breakfast, crossed the river to the girls' school, which was the place of rendezvous. The two American girls in charge smiled at my haste and assured me that I should have ample time for break- fast before the carriers arrived. They were quite right : it was exactly ten o'clock when I saw my " boys " leisurely ascending the hill. Four of them were immediately sent to Kennedy's house for the loads, while the fifth was detailed to guide me at once to the village. We reached it at two o'clock, but it lacked only an hour of midnight when the four strag- glers — one of them with my bedding — came in! On the day preceding my second departure for the bush, all arrangements were made to start promptly 264 IN THE WEST AFRICAN BUSH 265 at 8 o'clock. In order to be sure of this, we agreed to assemble the carriers at 7 :oo. As a matter of fact, we actually started at 12:30 p.m. From the African point of view, this was keeping the schedule fairly well. All my bush travel was done on foot, which is the only sportsmanlike way to play the game. Dignitaries and weaklings with plenty of money to spend for hammockmen may travel en Pullman if they like, but this luxury adds that many more rogues to the list of carriers. Travelling in light marching order, here is the personnel of one of my " expeditions " : (i) The American Traveller. (2) Commissioner Sam Watkins — my Americo-Liberian companion. (3) Joe Tull — My no-count Americo-Liberian attendant. (Not ordered.) (4) Virgil Merchant — Watkins's lazy attendant. (Not ordered.) (5) Sammy-o — a stubborn Bassa carrier. (6) David — a silent and faithful Bassa carrier. (7) Umo — an active but deceitful Bassa carrier. (8) Dish-Pan — a weak and lazy Bassa carrier. (9) You-Fool — an utterly worthless Bassa carrier. (10) Jack-o, the Bushman — my guide with a tapeworm. (11) Crack-o — a faithful Tobo carrier. And this is what they had to carry : (i) Food-basket with a few cans of salmon, condensed milk, tea, sugar, salt, and crackers for emergency use. Also one bottle brandy and one box cigars (both donated). (2) The Traveller's cot and blanket; suit-case loaded with change of clothing, camera supplies, medicine, and toilet articles. (3) Watkins's iron box and folding cot. 266 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET (4) Merchant's iron box. (5) TuU's iron box. (6) One Colt revolver and two shot-guns. In some regions, the money required to pay '' hotel " bills and '' dash " the village chiefs may be carried as cash in the traveller's pocket — that is, in his suit-case, for it must be in small silver coins. You cannot change bills or cash checks in a bush town. It often happens, however, that real money is " no good " on the trail. When, this is anticipated, the coin is converted into yards of cloth, leaves of tobacco, strings of beads, bot- tles of gin, or tiny kegs of powder — and all this must be carried on the backs or heads of extra carriers. The process of paying it out is one that taxes the ingenuity as well as the experience of even the native guide who knows the peculiarities of each village. The values increase with each day's march into the hinterland, so the capital stock of your department store often remains stationary in spite of the demands upon it. Only the man who has tried to drive a bunch of pigs across a bridge can appreciate the vexation of manag- ing a group of carriers during the first week. Some- thing is always happening to somebody's load, and you must halt until he fixes it in order to make sure that he does not run away with it. Meanwhile the carriers ahead have disappeared and you are not sure that you will ever see them (and your goods) again. I have never lost one, but have had frequent cause for apprehension. Oh, yes, you can sit down beforehand and diagram IN THE WEST AFRICAN BUSH 267 it all out — your guide in front, you behind, and your carriers sandwiched in between. You may even ar- range their sequence so that your camera outfit is just ahead of you and your bed just behind the guide — but before the first hour is up the carriers will have your planning all upset. There is a science or art in engineering a caravan, but you do not learn it the first day. Getting from the coast back to the bush is the easiest but the hottest part of the trip. For instance, in going from Cape Palmas into the Liberian hinterland, I had first to cover the sixteen miles that lay between me and the mouth of the Cavalla River. The surf is too rough to go by boat, but there is a lagoon that extends for ten miles. Two days before we started, however, the natives cut a channel and let the lagoon run out into the Atlantic, so we had to walk. Although I was pretty well '' seasoned," that tramp of sixteen miles was the hardest day's work except one that I had in Africa. There was no trail except along the beach and we sank into the hot sand at every step. Once in a while we could step on a few tufts of parched grass, but that gave small relief. The sun was blistering hot, and the heat was reflected from the sand like the hot breath of a furnace. In half an hour our clothes were '' wringing wet." At the end of the march every man in the party dropped down in the sand beside a reeking swamp; the fact that it was said to be full of crocodiles gave us no concern at all. 268 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET The next day was different; we had to go in a log canoe for ninety miles against a strong current. Our canoe — hewn out of a log — was twenty-five feet long, five feet wide, and three feet deep, and it had to be paddled upstream in an awful sun that seemed to hang about ten feet above our heads. After two days of this, we were ready for the bush trail. The trail through the West African hinterland is not like a path through a forest : it is a small, sinuous tunnel through a tangled mass of foliage and creepers. You can get out of the trail only by cutting your way through, and you can see nothing except what is in the path. Now and then — especially in a mahogany region — you may have a semi-obstructed view beyond. By way of compensation, this tangled mass of un- broken green shields you from the sun and you may march bareheaded for hours at a time; scarcely a ray filters through the foliage. But it is hot and stifling, even in the shade. Clothes soon become " wringing wet " and the perspiration streams down the face in rivulets; a towel takes the place of a handkerchief on the trail. Not the heat, nor the sweat, nor the fatigue, nor the blistered feet, but the horrible thirst makes the remembrance of the bush-trail a nightmare. The only water is that of the creeks and rivers, but you gulp it down by the pint at every opportunity — germs and all. And, as you gulp, memory recalls every ice-cream-soda factory that you ever visited ! The native escapes this tantalizing retro- spect, for creek water is the coolest thing that he has. ever known. IN THE WEST AFRICAN BUSH 269 The Liberian bush is ahve with insects and reptiles and the smaller African animals, but you would never suspect it. The sound of an approaching caravan drives every living creature to cover and to silence^ — everything except monkeys and " driver " ants. The troops of monkeys take the elevator to the tops of the tallest trees, where they are usually safe, and the " driver " ants drive everything else to cover — man included. Glance down the trail. You can catch a glimpse of the rear of your little caravan — bare heads bobbing up and down as the stooped carriers step over the roots that intersect the path or squat low to avoid a creeper that hangs over the trail like a noose. You hear the leisurely pat of bare feet on the clay that has been washed with the torrents of years and tramped by generations of calloused soles. All at once you see the heads bobbing up and down rapidly, and the patter of the feet is fast and forcible. Curious phenomenon, is it not? By no means. You may observe it on an average of once an hour throughout the day. The carriers have encountered an army of " driver " ants crossing the trail; some one ahead has disturbed them and they have spread out along the path in battle array, ready to attack anything that comes. Your carriers are running through them and stamping off those that catch their feet in transit; presently you will give a performance of the same kind. When the " drivers " are crossing in regular forma- tion — two or three abreast, with " captains " running 270 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET alongside as file-closers — you merely step over them and call out a warning to the man behind you; it is just like stepping over an electric wire. But if you fail to keep your eyes constantly on the ground, sooner or later you will plant your foot on the wire and dis- cover that it is indeed " live." The '' driver " is a tiny creature, not more than half an inch long, but he has nippers like pincers and has the disposition of a bull terrier. Once he gets his pincers fastened in your flesh, he refuses to let go until it thunders. You must pull him to pieces and then pull out his nippers. If any of them crawl up beneath your trousers, the trousers come off, and that quickly — no matter who's looking. Moreover, when the painful visitation comes upon you, it is useless to expect sympathy from your companions; this is merely one of the divertisements of Africa. The " drivers' " mission in life is to devour animal food — anything from a flea to an elephant. Their " intelligence " is remarkable and their organization perfect. An " army " may require an entire week to pass a given point, and nothing except fire will turn it aside. If its leaders take a notion to cross a stream or a swamp on the '' monkey-bridge "of poles, all human traffic must wade. When the scouts locate delectable food in a village, the army scatters out and invades every hut ; everything that is flesh or oil is cleaned up. Unfortunately, their invasion is apt to occur at night and you may have to camp out in the rain until the *' house-cleaning " is over. So imminent is this event that I habitually hung my shoes up at night, in reach IN THE WEST AFRICAN BUSH 271 of my cot, so that I might avoid the necessity of run- ning through them barefoot. If they happen to reach a chicken-coop before they get to your hut, you will get the alarm — ^but you will have to " pick " your chickens in a new way. I know one man who lost nine pigs to the '' drivers." Once, in running through them, my foot caught in a creeper and I fell sprawling in their midst. They covered me instantly from head to foot. My hut was invaded only once. I had dragged through a pouring rain all day, with the African fever burning in my veins, and had stopped in a dilapidated village. My cot was stretched out quickly and, without removing my clothes, I fell across it and went off into a stupor. On this night my Liberian companion (Watkins) had stretched his cot in the same hut. Along in the night he aroused me and said that the " drivers " had come. As he held a candle to the ground beneath my cot, I could see that the ground was black with them, but they had not started up the legs of the cot. The natives finally cleared the hut with firebrands. In some African book I have read that if you lie perfectly still the " drivers " will not attack you; they may even crawl over you — but lie perfectly still! Perhaps. I have met men who have faced African lions and bull elephants, but not yet have I seen one who had nerve enough to lie still with " drivers " crawling over his cot. Of all the atrocities of which Africans have been guilty, perhaps the most cruel was that of staking a prisoner to the ground to be eaten alive by '' drivers." 272 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET The African fever is an incident of the trail less common than " drivers " but not less certain. It struck me once in two weeks on an average, and always with great suddenness. An unaccountable feeling of utter exhaustion, then a chilly sensation along the spine, then a flushing of the face and a slight nausea, then unconsciousness for a few hours, then rapid recovery — this is the way in which it invariably affected me. I had it frequently while on the coast, less frequently back in the bush, not at all at sea, and intermittently for five months after my return to New York. Here are two typical experiences that show how suddenly it strikes, even in the home-land. I left my office in New York at two o'clock one afternoon, feel- ing well. At the door, I lit a cigar. It flashed over me instantly that it was foolish to be burning up money in that way. By the time I reached the corner, I had decided to quit smoking — to quit gradually. At the second corner I determined to quit all at once. Before I reached the third corner I said : " Why not quit now?'' and I threw away the cigar. When I reached home I was burning up with fever and realized that this was the explanation of " the reform move- ment." After the usual routine, I came out of the stupor and called for my pipe. Again : the great Hudson-Fulton celebration in New York was in progress. I was standing on the corner at Union Square, in an ideal location. The parade was approaching and I was particularly anxious to see it. My knees began to weaken; I became sus- picious. A few minutes later the chills began to chase IN THE WEST AFRICAN BUSH 273 up and down my spine. I knew what would come next — fever and unconsciousness. Leaving the pa- rade, I hastened home, fell into bed with shoes and overcoat on — and awoke in good health the next morn- ing. The following day the same experience was repeated. But the African fever does not touch so lightly all the foreign invaders of the West Coast. The mor- tality has at times been frightful and it is deplorably high to-day. At every mission-station, for instance, you will find a graveyard out of all proportion to the white population. This in spite of frequent furloughs. It strikes the foreign-born Negro as quickly as the white man, and is especially fatal to children. The only white baby that I saw in West Africa was one which had been brought ashore from a steamer for a few hours. The schools of tropical medicine are doing much to eradicate this ancient scourge, and quinine has done more. But it still remains true that every enterprise in West Africa — missionary, commercial, or govern- ment — must keep constantly in mind the fact that its field-manager may at any moment be carried away with fever — and must have an " understudy." Yes, I know that " African fever " is a pernicious form of malaria; that the mosquito is its cause, and that quinine is a preventive. But listen: the mos- quitoes were so rare that I used my mosquito-net only to keep spiders and tarantulas from dropping off the ceiling in my face during the night; and I began taking five grains of quinine daily a month before I reached 274 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET the coast. Moreover, I had served in Porto Rico dur- ing a military campaign and without a hospital record. Also, all my bodily functions remained normal in Africa. Yet I had the fever. I fear that the prob- lem of the white man's health on the West Coast — anywhere between French West Africa and German Southwest Africa and along all the rivers — is yet far from being solved. Worn with the long march and wet with perspira- tion, you reach a cleared space in the midst of which is what looks like a group of weather-beaten haystacks. It is an African village and one of those " stacks " is your " hotel." But you must sit in your wet clothes until much palaver is over. Then the king leads you to one of the best huts and the tenants are hustled out, bag and baggage. One of your boys builds a fire on the floor in the centre (never mind the smoke!) and you pre- pare to change your clothes. As a hint to the merry villagers who are crowding into the hut, you take off a garment or two. The crowd moves — but moves closer! You take off something else, and the excite- ment increases: your interpreter explains that the spectators are wondering how much of you is white! To their bitter disappointment, you send the interpreter to the king and he clears the hut. The opportunity of a bush lifetime is gone! YOUNG MATRONS OF THE LIBERIAN HINTERLAND XX HOBNOBBING WITH AFRICAN KINGS NO particular '^ divinity " hedged Bamboo, king of the Boporo country, as he trudged into the circle of my African acquaintances — the first potentate of the bush to get on my calling-list. To begin with. Bamboo was barefoot, and it is diffi- cult to be impressively kingly without shoes — espe- cially when the toes spread out to a distance much wider than the foot. Moreover, the royal head was covered with a broad-brimmed, black hat which was much too large, and previous experience had never prepared me for the sight of a real king whose head- dress makes his ears flop. He wore also a cloth of dingy white, which dropped from his shoulders to his knees. To American eyes he was simply a very black Negro in a soiled nightshirt. But Bamboo took himself very seriously. In the first place, he is a '' paramount chief " — that is, a lord of lords and king of kings throughout the whole Boporo country. He has also the prestige of a proud hneage; he is ahead of all the kings of Liberia, for he is the grandson of King Boatswain, a war-chief who once saved the little band of colonists at Mon- rovia from annihilation. In remembrance of that 275 276 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET great service the Liberian Government has recognized Bamboo's claim to the chieftainship of his grand- father's tribes, and the President decorated him with a large silver heart, which Bamboo wears suspended from a chain about his neck. The inscription reads, in essence, " When this you see, remember Boat- swain." It is Bamboo's proudest possession, his gold- hilted sword and his wives not excepted. Physically, he is one of the finest specimens of Af- rican manhood on the West Coast. Stockily built, his muscular legs are in striking contrast to the spind- ling shanks of the average West African Negro. He would make a fine man to travel with a moving-van, for nature evidently built him for the job of carrying furniture up several flights of stairs. But I believe that this proud chieftain has never been known to engage in any exercise quite so violent. Bamboo also has a moustache, which is somewhat of a wonder in this land of scant beards. The King's English vocabulary is not larger than that of the average parrot, so our chance meeting in the street was marked neither by feast of reason nor flow of soul. He had just come in from the bush to see the '' Big Daddy " — that is, the Presi- dent of Liberia — presumably because he needed the money. Some weeks later I had the opportunity of seeing Bamboo in a local setting. It was at the funeral of King Wobeh, when half-a-dozen royal personages were on the scene. Figuratively speaking, he fell upon my neck in welcome, for by all African precedents HOBNOBBING WITH AFRICAN KINGS 277 I should have had a generous present of very bad gin to help the festivities along — for a king's funeral is not a particularly solemn occasion in Africa. The five days that I spent in the village of To- toquelli taught me something of Bamboo's character and very much about his reputation as a wild bull of Bashan. Bamboo of the moustache and vigorous muscles is a ladies' man, be it understood, and when the ardour of his wooing is at its height he overrides the laws of the bush in a way that ordinarily leads to the grave encircled with gin bottles — and that is where Bamboo would now be resting were it not for the favour of the government and the silver heart that marks him out as the paramount chief. On the second night of my stay in Totoquelli, Bam- boo precipitately took unto himself a wife in the per- son of a girl not yet out of the bush school — and this without the formality of getting the consent of the parents or even of the girl. No particular fuss was made about it until the next morning. Then the girl ran to the parental hut and raised the thatched roof with her story. All the kings and the counsellors were gathered together under the palaver-tree, and every one of them could tell of previous happenings of the same sort in which Bamboo had figured. The royal culprit was promptly summoned to ap- pear before the palaver. The impetuous Bamboo re- plied that since he was paramount chief and also the friend of the President, the palaver might descend into a region much hotter than the equator, four days to the south. His logical argument was that all the 278 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET people were legall}^ his property, and that he could do with any of them as he pleased. The palaver went on just the same, without the personal attendance of the " prisoner at the bar." The evidence was discussed in great detail; the ver- dict was "guilty"; the sentence was that Bamboo should pay a fine equal to the value of seven slave- boys. In hard cash this meant 7 X $15 = $105. At a pinch, Bamboo could not have raised more than a couple of shillings in real money, so he rose in his dignity and appealed unto Csesar. Moreover, he bolted that night for Monrovia, in order that he might state the case to the President in advance of the report of the district commissioner. It is perhaps needless to say that the two reports differed widely. The " Big Daddy," as is his custom in such cases^ settled the quarrel between him and the village by compromise. In spite of the fact that Bamboo is a capable Negro and a general good fellow, his future is foggy with doubt. When I left Totoquelli his people were openly discussing the advisability of giving him poison. Sooner or later this tragic fate of the bush is almost sure to overtake him. My next king was a modern example of the truth of the old proverb, '' Train up a king's son in the way he should go, and when he is king away he'll go from it." George Settlemore is the Christian name that was given him in a mission school when he was a boy, but the name is practically all that is left of his mission training. I found nothing approximating HOBNOBBING WITH AFRICAN KINGS 9.19 a Sunday-school in George's village. The nearest thing to it was one woman with real clothes on. George reigns in the village of Wai-Singa. He is a sleepy-looking old man, w^th a dreamy, far-away look in his eyes, but the politician who wants to be the next President of Liberia should first " see " George. A " ward leader " who had helped in the election of President Barclay told me an interesting story of George's part in the triumphant result. To vote in Liberia, remember, a man must be a landowner. This condition properly shuts out 2,000,000 natives of the bush, but the political party now in the saddle has worked out a very clever scheme by which the provi- sion may be evaded in some cases. Wai-Singa was one of the cases. All the land adjacent to the vil- lage was formerly deeded to the tribe, and the adult men of the village were considered thereby to become landowners — that is, voters. It is perhaps unneces- sary to say that an African village votes as one man — and that man is the chief. It became part of King George's duty, therefore, to marshal his men at the polls for the first time. There was never any doubt in his mind, or in the mind of anybody else, as to the unanimity of the vote, but it was evidently not very clear to George just how many votes were proper on such an occasion. Wai-Singa, it should be explained, is a mud village of about thirty huts. There are several little " half- towns " that are tributary to it, and also a fringe of civilized Liberian farmers in the same district, which is known as Mount Coffee. When the votes were 280 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET counted it was found that this district (with the aid of George's amateur voters) had turned in more bal- lots for President Barclay than Monrovia and Cape Palmas combined. And yet there are some people who think that the African is slow to acquire the ways of civilization ! George has a thirst for fire-water that would draw the cork out of a bottle, but he is a good-natured, hos- pitable old man, with all his faults. My first night in an African hut was spent in his village, and he gave me the best that he had. Before taking my leave I expressed a wish that he might get all of his wives to- gether and let me make a photograph of the Royal Family of Wai-Singa. The idea pleased him much, and there was a commotion throughout the entire vil- lage as he went to sound the " assembly " call and to get his hat — for no African chief would ever will- ingly pose for his picture without his hat. When all was ready for the picture, I found a large and varied assortment of African beauties, as many as could con- veniently get on my film, but George explained apolo- getically that a number of his wives were scattered around in the neighbouring half-towns, and could not be gathered together on such short notice. Third, in the order of time, comes Jah-Golah, genial but over- fond of rum. The circumstances under which I met him are more interesting than the chief him- self. In the hinterland of Liberia, shortly before my arrival, a native trader had been found murdered. THE FUNERAL FEAST AT TOTOOUELLI THE ROYAL FAMILY OF WAISINGA HOBNOBBING WITH AFRICAN KINGS 281 When the crime was reported to the government at Monrovia, the king of the tribe (Jah-Golah) was in- structed to find the murderer and send him to the coast for trial. After a few weeks, Jah-Golah turned in the criminal's name, but was sorry to say that he had escaped from the tribe. He happened to be a rela- tive of the King's chief wife. The government decided to impress the entire tribe with the majesty of the law. The superintendent of the county was ordered to place the King and his head-men under arrest and, if necessary, hold them as prisoners until the murderer should be produced. In other colonies, a detachment of the Frontier Force would have been sent on this errand. The Liberian official, however, entrusted a half -naked na- tive (who receives a salary of $5 a month and boards himself) with the job of going four days back in the bush to arrest a king and three head-men. The only force which he had at his hand was a small Liberian flag, which answers the same purpose as the silver- plated star of a rural deputy-sheriff. The fact that Jah-Golah is on the list of kings with whom I have hobnobbed is evidence of the success of the native policeman. The King and his three head-men were exhibits in the case when I reached the home of the superintendent. This is a very different method from that which was used in Southern Nigeria about the same time. In that case, however, it was a white trader who had been murdered. The local government sent a " puni- tive expedition " to impress the tribe with the majesty 9.S2 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET of British law. The village nearest to the scene of the crime was burned, and 157 natives were slain. So reported a Southern Nigerian official who was on leave of absence. The King of Wodee was not at home when I called, but his head-man decided that the honour of the visit called for a royal present. He gave an imperative or- der to a very small (and very naked) urchin, and a very small chicken was chased all over the village before it was attached to my luggage. But I found the King in the next town, where he keeps his " medicine-house " — for he is a wizard as well as a potentate. He was delighted to see me, and much pleased when he heard about the chicken. That was not enough honour, however; I must rest until he had a bowl of " dumboy " prepared. " Dumboy " is not on the bill-of-fare at Martin's, I believe. It is cassava pounded in a mortar; it looks like putty and tastes like dough. The King thought it a good joke that the white man should try to chew it instead of swal- lowing it like a capsule. In Totoquelli, presiding over the funeral of its late ruler, I met old King Sow — 2l stately specimen of the African chief. Though at least sixty years of age, he has the fire of youth in his eye, and his conduct of affairs shows that he has many of the qualities of leadership. He is more than six feet in height, slightly stooped, and his hair and scant beard are white. His HOBNOBBING WITH AFRICAN KINGS 283 hair is plaited close to the scalp and ornamented with charms sewed up in leather cases; his beard consists mainly of one little twist of braid about the size of a lead-pencil and five inches long. It hangs under- neath his chin like an icicle, but curving to the front. He is a Mandingo chief and in many respects re- minded me of an American Indian. His dress is quite unpretentious. He usually wears a robe of na- tive cloth, striped blue and white like an awning. His bare feet are encased in sandals, with a leather button on top of each foot. His head is usually bare or shielded by an umbrella, but when I first saw him it was covered with a derby hat, yellow with age. He has a silver- topped staff of office, but generally carries a calf's tail as his sceptre, using it also to brush away an occasional fly. His chief glory, however, is a low chair covered with leopard-skin and decorated with monkey-skin. An attendant always carries it behind him when he walks abroad. The old man showed me many courtesies, but he drew the line when I asked him to sell me his leopard- skin throne. Had it been merely one of his wives — that would have been a much simpler request. The only mean trick that he played was intended as a great favour. The night before I left his village, coastward-bound, he came to the hut where I lay sick and said that he was sending his favourite nephew as head-man over the carriers, and the nephew would be my devoted slave until I reached the big water. I gave him my most gracious thanks and snapped fingers with the donor by way of appreciation. 284< THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET The nephew went, but he proved to be the most no-count rascal in my troupe of imbeciles and rogues. The fact that he reached the big water alive and well is a testimonial to my patience and long-suffering. Passing by the monarchs of less interest and those who are mentioned elsewhere, I am sorry to say that I met the King of Bowrah. I had been warned against Bowrah and my guide had implored me to avoid it. He assured me that the heart of the King was not white and that he would give us no " chop." More- over, my best carrier (who belonged to the same tribe) made much of a stubbed toe and refused to go on. But to Bowrah I went. It is on the bank of a small river, and its one log canoe was on that side. While we waited for the ferryman, we heard the war-drum sending some sort of a " wireless " to the men out at *' the farm." By the time we had crossed (on the instalment plan), all the villagers were among those present — all except the King. They said that he was off in the bush, but we had an idea that he would hear in a few minutes all that we had to say. The atmosphere of Bowrah was ominous from the first. The men were an evil-looking bunch, and nearly every man had a shotgun — loaded probably with pieces of broken pots. Besides, every gun was capped and cocked. With their hair and beards twisted into little cords, they looked like the Assyrians that are pictured on the monuments. They gave us the huts that we asked for, but placed me at one end of the HOBNOBBING WITH AFRICAN KINGS 285 village, Watkins (my Liber ian companion) at the other end, and our carriers somewhere between. Still the King remained secluded. Our entrance interrupted a cruel execution. A " sea-boy," returning from a two years' absence, had found his wife living with another man. He had demanded a palaver and the man had been condemned. The " sea-boy " was to do the job. It was the law of the bush. The cold chills chased one another up and down my spine when I saw the vindictive manner in which the injured husband went about his task. He crossed the culprit's ankles and tied them with rattan, drawing the knot until the rattan cut into the flesh; the hands were tied behind the back in the same way. Then he left the man on the ground, disappeared into his hut, and returned with an armful of tough withes and a raw-hide whip. Not until then did we realize that the culprit was to be flogged to death. Still no King. The '' sea-boy," with a wicked grin on his face, strutted up and down, preparing his withes. Then a woman raised an uproar and a fierce palaver followed. In the midst of it, the mother of the " sea-boy " came running with two chunks of fire and tried to reach the helpless victim with them. The other women held her back. The palaver ended in a decision in favour of the prisoner; he was unbound and got up. Then came another palaver, and the man was bound a second time. The grin came back on the " sea- boy's " face. A second time the woman raised a point of order, and appealed to the old men of the village. 286 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET They sustained her and released the prisoner. The next day^ when we were miles from Bowrah, my guide told me that the men were afraid to proceed while I was in the village, and that the flogging had merely been postponed. All afternoon they kept us on the anxious seat, and we could not get at the King. One old Assyrian, who spoke a little English, stuck to me like a leech. He wanted to know the contents of my "loads;" he wanted to borrow my revolver to shoot monkeys; he wanted to take me down to the river to bathe; and he tried to trap me into what I knew were unpar- donable sins in the bush. All the while, in a hut nearby, an incessant tom-tom indicated that some mys- terious rites were in progress. Night came, and with it came the King — a meek old Negro. He insisted that we must spend another day, but I took much care to explain w^hy it was im- possible. As he left my hut, he solemnly promised, for the fourth time, that he w^ould furnish the one carrier that I needed. Watkins paused long enough to let me know that he didn't like the look of things; they had tried to borrow his gun, too ! For the first time in the bush, I barred the door of my hut. Sure enough, my Assyrian tried to get in about lo P.M., but there was a heavy beam across it. He went away, but the whole town was in a pande- monium until long past midnight — drums beating, men singing, women yelling in terror, and dogs howling. I had no thought of going to sleep; every moment I expected trouble, so I kept my clothes on and my re- HOBNOBBING WITH AFRICAN KINGS 287 volver at hand. The next morning I learned that Wat- kins had done the same. At six o'clock we lined up the carriers, and for once there was no lagging back. We asked the King for his carrier and found that we had been tricked. No carrier, not even a boy, would go ! It w^as one of three clever schemes to prevent our leaving. Also, every man in town was there with his gun. I called Wat- kins aside and told him that we must get out of Bow- rah, even if we had to fight. He agreed, for the fiend- ish grin of the " sea-boy " was yet before his eyes. We passed the word to the carriers and immediately told the King good-bye. The Assyrians were so sur- prised at our leaving without breakfast that they had no plan; some of them straggled along after us, and we did not breathe freely for an hour. All that day, breakfastless and without food-sup- plies, we marched through a forest that had no human habitation and nothing that could be eaten. Darkness came upon us before we reached the next village, faint and fagged but thankful to the stars that we were out of Bowrah. It was Easter Sunday, and I grimly com- pared our "procession" with those at home! The suffragette movement has not reached the West Coast hinterland, but I found one town that is already ruled by a woman — and she is a Queen of Clubs. The story of how it happened is a romance of the African bush. Twenty-five years ago, when the inter-tribal wars were laying waste the Liberian hinterland, a Mandingo 288 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET town near the Sierra Leone frontier was wrecked. Shambo, one of the King's wives, objected to becom- ing a part of the loot, so she took to the bush and finally reached a large island in the upper St. Paul River, where King Hawkwell had a town that was safe from attack — because the bush-men back from the river are afraid of the demons that swarm in the mists. Shambo was a comely young copper-skin, and old Hawkwell gladly added her to his collection. It was not long before she had him twisted around her finger, and the old man's loyalty to her outlived his life. When he began to feel that the end was approaching, he worked out a plan (or was it Shambo's?) whereby she would be on Easy Street after he was gone. Gath- ering together some other Mandingan refugees, he took them back about four hours into the bush and laid out the nucleus of a new village, which is now called Shambo Town. Here his favourite was pro- claimed Queen, and here " Mammy " Shambo rules to this day. I strolled into Shambo Town one day in advance of my carriers; I had an interpreter with me, but he could not remain over-night. " Mammy " had one of her queenliest huts ready for me, for she had heard that I was a white " medicine-man " who could cure her many ailments. She met me in partriarchal fash- ion, leaning on the top of her staff, and her wrinkled and haggard face beamed a genuine welcome. After a royal supper of fricasseed chicken, I sent the interpreter to escort Her Serene Royal Highness HOBNOBBING WITH AFRICAN KINGS S89 to my hut for medical treatment. All the village came with her to observe the white man's incantations; in the dim light of a single candle, I played the game with all the solemnity of a mullah-man. When I showed " Mammy " how to stick out her tongue, all the villagers stuck out theirs, also. They looked in wondering silence while I put my finger on " Mammy's " wrist and counted; and they hardly breathed while the thermometer was in the royal mouth. The examination showed that I could really do nothing for the old lady in one night, except to slow down her heart — which was pulsing at an alarm- ing rate — and to leave her some beneficent quinine. The giving of medicine to an African monarch is a ticklish business; if anything happens, from any cause, the bush-people are very quick to fix the blame, for it is a land heavy with suspicion, and the giving of poison is one of the commonplaces of society. Before the interpreter left, therefore, in the hearing of all the village, the white " medicine-man " was careful to explain what he proposed to do : " ' Mammy ' be wise woman, for true, for true. But she have to get old to know all dem tings. * Mam- my's ' heart been running away — faster, faster, faster. It now run like big rock rolling down hill. It make her head hurt; it make her want drink water; it make her tired. " Medicine-man no give ' Mammy ' new heart. He only stop it, so it not go too fast — so her head no hurt, so she sleep, so she not be tired." It was pathetic to see how they hung upon every 290 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET word as it filtered through the interpreter's Hps, for they seemed to think that the white man controlled the issues of life and death. I drew out a small bot- tle and placed two white tablets in '' Mammy's " leathery palm. The interpreter told her to swallow them, and she obeyed without the slightest hesitation. My royal patient was better in the morning, and correspondingly grateful. But the white " medicine- man " waited in vain for his breakfast — waited in vain also for his lunch. I was both famished and furious when the interpreter returned late in the evening. I sent him in haste to the Royal Presence to demand the wherefore. He came back with " Mammy's " profuse apology — also with a bowl of " chop." No- body had told her to provide me with food, and she had supposed my black box to be full of it! " By special request," I am influenced to mention the benevolent King of Dee-ah-bo, who showed me a new way of getting fun out of tobacco. He had a large (spiral) snail-shell, nearly as large as a small teapot. Into this he put leaf-tobacco, poured water on it, and macerated it until he had a thick nicotine bouillon. I could not imagine what he intended to do with it. When all was ready he threw back his head, placed the " spout " to his nostril, inhaled deeply — and the juice filled the nostril. The method is not copyrighted ! XXI MAKING KING WOBEH'S HEART LIE DOWN IT was a piece of good news to me, and I confess it without shame, when the tidings came that the King of TotoquelH was dead — not that I had any personal grudge against the old man, but because I had long cherished a desire to assist in the last sad rites of an important native chief. Since a death is a prerequisite of a funeral, it might just as well be that of the King of TotoquelH. Even if the old man and I had been mutual friends, the messenger would have brought no sudden shock of grief, for the news of the King's death had percolated through the African bush at least a week before. The formal announce- ment at the present time merely meant that his funeral was beginning — and this was the good news. An Af- rican king's funeral is often long deferred; there is the case of the King Pomoporo, whose name (''a pot of pepper soup") is a brevet received on the field of battle; he died more than a year ago, but his funeral notice had not yet been peddled among the villages. I was in the Liberian hinterland, four days back from the coast, a region where the government levies no taxes, where the native chiefs reign supreme, where the only statutes are the laws of the bush, and the 292 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET only courts are the excited tribunals in the shade of the palaver-tree. A couple of English prospectors, an English rubber-trader, and an American missionary compose the white population all the way back to the French frontier. After some sweltering days and restless nights in mud huts, I was enjoying the hospitality of the gov- ernment station at Dobli Zulu; the official hut was also of mud and thatch, but it had the luxury of a porch large enough to admit the hammocks of palm fibre which the industrious Pessi women sell for a shilling or two. In one of these I lazily smoked my pipe and marvelled that Broadway and I had been able to get along smoothly without each other for so many months. The world was very, very far away and I had not the remotest idea of what had been hap- pening for weeks — ^and, strange to say, very little curiosity. When this indolent reverie was interrupted by the announcement of a king's funeral^ I welcomed the messenger as gladly as if he had been a roll of newspapers from home. Without delay I packed up my luggage and checked it for Totoquelli via five stout-backed carriers, devoutly hoping that if any one of the covetous crew lost himself in the bush, it would not be the boy whom I had entrusted with my camera and my daily quinine. It was a tramp of six hours through " the big bush/' where the tangled vegetation is so dense that the narrow, serpentine trail is continually shaded from the killing sun. Here and there we crossed elephant VAI GIRLS IN A MONROVIA STREET MAKING WOBEH'S HEART LIE DOWN 293 trails — wide swaths where the momentum of the huge beasts on their way to watering-places had cut through a jungle impenetrable by man — and once we found fresh tracks in the mud. During this long walk I im- proved the opportunity to inquire into the life of the dead monarch. King Wobeh, whose full name was Wobeh-Keekee, did not come into the world with a royal spoon in his mouth. His father was a trader named Gahway, an itinerant merchant who got the cloth, cutlasses, guns, powder, salt, tobacco, and rum of the coast and ped- dled them out in little dribs as he passed from village to village. His profits were as much as two hundred per cent., perhaps, and the currency which he received for his goods included slaves, wives, goats, ivory, fowls, rice, and anything else that might be sold at the coast or along the way. Generally his coastward caravan was twice as long as that with which he had gone out, but everybody was satisfied in this region, where even now there is only one paltry store within a three days' march. Naturally Gahway came into contact with the outer fringe of civilization — a crude imitation, it is true, but superior to anything that he had ever seen. He appreciated the conveniences which it had to offer: a man could produce a state of exhilaration and forget- fulness so much more quickly with rum than with palm-wine. Gahway also became well acquainted with the chiefs throughout a large area in the unexplored hinterland, and in his day the war-drums kept the na- 294 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET tives huddled together in the large towns of the war- rior chiefs. One of the most important of these chiefs was Bangaquelli, King of Totoquelli, in what is now known as the Boporo country. Bangaquelli's chief claim to distinction is that he had the famous King Boatswain for his father; locally he is remembered more for the number of rum jugs which he emptied. Now Gahway had a very promising boy named Wobeh, and he wanted to give him a good send-off in life. There were no schools except the " devil- bush " and boys had to pick up their training wherever they could find it. Gahway, therefore, gave the keeping of young Wobeh into the hands of King Bangaquelli. He must have had more confidence in the boy than in the king, for Bangaquelli had made a sorry mess of it with his own sons. Young Wobeh sauntered into Totoquelli with one eye on the main chance, and he walked not in the ways of Bangaquelli's sons. He came into the King's house- hold very much as the shepherd boy David came into the life of King Saul. Little by little he was entrusted with responsibilities that Bangaquelli would not risk with his own sons, and Wobeh soon showed that he had inherited his father's aptitude for business. Bangaquelli went on his way to the dogs at a rapid rate, but Wobeh kept his property and his town from following him — kept them also from the King's harum-scarum boys. He must have had a level head and a way of winning the favour of the tribe, else the jealousy of the royal household would have led him up MAKING WOBEH'S HEART LIE DOWN 295 to the poison-cup that made Socrates famous. The result was that when Bangaquelli came to die he did a very unusual thing, the wisest act of his reign: he committed into Wobeh's hands his entire estate — wives, sons, town, everything — to be administered by him. This decree of the dying king was readily ac- cepted by the tribe, for all Totoquelli knew that Bangaquelli's sons could not administer anything ex- cept gin. It seems that Wobeh executed the trust with fidelity and honesty — as honesty goes in the bush. Certainly he administered the estate with shrewd ability. Whenever one of Bangaquelli's widows showed a tendency to be unruly or reckless with her affections, she was promptly converted into goats and other cur- rency. Every dollar's worth of property left by Bangaquelli was made to grow, and the town of To- toquelli also grew apace under the nominal kingship of Bangaquelli's brother. All went well until a series of inter-tribal wars began to devastate the whole region and the dummy King proved unequal to the emer- gency. The town of Totoquelli was taken by a hostile tribe and burned to the ground, Wobeh escaping with such wreckage as could be hurriedly carried away on men's backs. He made no stop until he reached the narrow coast-belt, where he could live under the shel- ter of the little Liberian Government. Some links in the chain of events are missing just here. The devastating wars between rival chiefs con- 296 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET tinued intermittently until the Liberian Government arranged a big palaver on neutral ground. To it came the vi^arrior-kings v^ith thousands of their wild re- tainers, armed v^ith everything from a rusty spear to a muzzle-loading brass cannon that had been looted from some hapless v^reck. For days the most eloquent spokesmen of each tribe told, with violent gesticula- tion, of wrongs that cried for vengeance — and the two American Negroes who represented the Liberian President patiently puffed away at their pipes, waiting for the African temperament to exhaust its fury in oratory. When the lull came, they walked into the centre of the great circle and explained how anxious " the Big Daddy " at Monrovia was that they should stop killing one another and quit burning the towns and destroying the " farms." Then they told how much gin and tobacco and cloth and gunpowder the Big Daddy would give each year to every king who put away the war-drum and kept the roads open. This was the convincing argument. Permanent peace was agreed upon and the compact duly sealed by splitting in two a white chicken — and that peace has remained unbroken to this day. Then Wobeh was instructed to return and rebuild the town of Totoquelli. The unsettled state of the whole region gave him his chance, and on the tortu- ous current of African politics he floated into a king- dom. The original town was gone, so there was noth- ing for Bangaquelli's sons to rule over. Wobeh left them to their own devices and undertook the task of town-building on his own account. Selecting a site MAKING WOBEH'S HEART LIE DOWN 297 near the base of a beautiful hill, he built a village and gave it the original name of Totoquelli. While Wobeh's star was in the ascendency, Death came out of the foggy bush and laid its hand upon him. A famous mullah-man was called to make in- cantations, and the local " sand-cutter " brought out all his paraphernalia of divination and peeped impres- sively into the future. That which Wobeh really needed, a good physician, does not exist in this region. The mullah and the " sand-cutter " gave an unfa- vourable prognosis, so the suffering King was prepared for his departure in the weird manner prescribed by the law of the bush. Secretly and in the dead of night he was carried back into the bush to an obscure " half-town " called Goomah, no woman being allowed to know his where- abouts. Courtesy to the mullah and the " sand- cutter " demanded that Wobeh should promptly pass into the unknown^ but the old man held on to life with his characteristic tenacity. It was several weeks be- fore the news was quietly brought to Totoquelli that its founder was dead. The information was passed on to Boporo, and King Sow came over to take charge of the town until all its palavers were settled. Prepa- rations for the burying were then taken in hand. The funeral of an African chief follows the law of the bush implicitly, but the details vary in different parts of the West Coast. The proceedings in this case extended over a period of about three weeks, so I was not present all the time. 298 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET First, Wobeh's body was removed from the hut where he had died and placed in an '' open kitchen " in Goomah. These " kitchens " are merely large huts without walls; or, rather, with walls about three feet high. The roof is of thatch and the floor of clay. In the centre of one of these kitchens a shallow grave was dug. The feet were bound together; the arms were extended down the body and the hands bound together; by means of a strong stick placed between hands and feet, the body was placed in the grave and lightly covered. After it had lain there for two days it was taken up by night and carried to Totoquelli, where it was again placed in a shallow grave, but in a hut where no woman could bring ill-luck by look- ing upon it. (The law of the bush shuts out all women from any approach to the dead.) Then the family and the town began to make ready for the obsequies, formal notices being sent to all the kings within two days' walk, in order that they might come (with gifts) and assist in ''making Wobeh's heart lie down." ^ ^ *jl ^ ^ The final ceremonies began three days before I reached Totoquelli and continued for five days there- after. First the body was again lifted from the grave and *' laid out " in an open kitchen, carefully screened from the view of the women. The King's wives were then segregated in another kitchen and intrusted with the duty of making great lamentation — and the Af- rican woman has exceptional gifts in that line. Then the head of the "devil bush" (he is a great func- MAKING WOBEH'S HEART LIE DOWN 299 tionary in West Africa) came into the village to announce the King's death — a performance on a par with the formal notification given to a Presidential nominee by a committee from a national convention. The " devil bush " is a sort of combination of secret society and a boys' boarding school. It is a collec- tion of huts hidden away in the bush which women must avoid on penalty of death. Here are collected most of the boys of the community and they remain in seclusion for a period varying from three to six years, being taught some sense and much nonsense. The grip of superstition is so strong that the head of the bush becomes a great man in the tribe, and death awaits any woman who looks upon his face. To- toquelli's '' devil " preceded his entrance into the town by an unearthly yell, which w^as the signal for all the women and girls (and every man not a member of the "devil bush") to secrete themselves. Then with a series of ventriloquistic yelps he came into the centre of the towm, announced the death of Wobeh, ordered the funeral to proceed, and vanished into the bush. Then the real noise began. Wobeh's women and children reassembled in their kitchen and resumed their mournful wail — and Wo- beh's family was large enough to be heard. Mean- while, for two days and nights the men of the town made it lively for the spirits of evil that were sup- posed to be hovering in the bush that surrounds the village. Guns heavily charged with powder were fired at intervals throughout the entire time to frighten away the shapes of evil. Most of the night was 800 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET given over to the beating of drums, the women and younger men dancing in procession all over the town. Under ordinary circumstances the body of the King would have lain in the kitchen for four days, but the intrigues of some of the neighbouring chiefs caused the two eldest sons of Wobeh to make a coup d'etat. King Sow had insisted on burying the body in his own town of Boporo, and a messenger had come from Yavaropay, a great war-chief now on the decline, ask- ing that Wobeh be interred in his country. But the family of the deceased and the head-men of Totoquelli were insistent that the proper tomb of Wobeh was the town that he had founded, and a lively palaver was in sight. Back of all this clamour for the body of Wobeh was the bush law that a king's people must dwell near his grave and watch over it. If any of the neighbouring kings could succeed in burying Wobeh in his village, Totoquelli would be broken up and the other town would become twice as large in a very short time. Wobeh's sons met the emergency with firmness and determination. They arose on the second night and quietly slipped the body into a permanent grave under the '' medicine "-tree in front of Wobeh's house — a grave from which he could not again be moved. Into the earth with him went a plentiful supply of things intended for his use in the other world — cloth, pow- der, kettles, cutlasses, gin, etc. — about a hundred dol- lars' worth in all. The Totoquellians were determined that their King should be a great man in the unknown MAKING WOBEH'S HEART LIE DOWN 301 world to which his spirit would go when the funeral was over. The funeral was at this stage when my little cara- van straggled into Totoquelli just before noon. The presence of the District Commissioner who accom- panied me placed me at once on an easy footing. Had I come alone, a stranger, I should have been shelved in some hut until the local " sand-cutter " shuffled around in his junk-shop to see whether my coming meant weal or woe to the spirit of Wobeh. As it was, we were at once ushered into the presence of King Sow, the master of ceremonies, and of King Bamboo, whom I already knew. Our coming was cordially wel- comed; presumably on account of the case of gin which we did not have with us! When night closed in on my first day and the moon began to shed its soft light through hazy clouds, the night's dancing began. There was no undercurrent of sadness in it; everybody was literally ''out for a good time." The dancers were drummed up in groups, the drummers shuffling all through the town to or- ganize a procession. A second crowd was gathered under the leadership of a man with a stringed instru- ment made from a calabash, and eventually a third group shuffled along to the rattle of a calabash strung with iron rings. I can close my eyes on any moonlight night and hear it yet — the sound being that of a gourd half-fflled with dried peas. After these separate groups had paraded the " streets " to their satisfaction, chanting all the while. 302 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET they united in a large circle near Wobeh's grave, drums in the centre, and began a song and dance that could have been heard for a mile. This was kept up nearly all the night, the chanting being varied from time to time, first in one dialect, then in another, and then in another. At times the dancers chased one another around the circle in a lock-step; then they would join hands and sway their bodies back and forth, bowing at regular intervals to the drummers. Men, women, and children were mixed up indiscrimi- nately. There was nothing that resembled anything American — no couples, no cake- walking, no jig danc- ing. There was a quaint harmony in their chant- ing, for their voices are soft and musical, but the performance soon grew monotonous, except to them. During the exercises some of the women of the deceased spread their mats on the grave and lay down to witness the dancing. They took a keen interest in it, at times laughing and ap- plauding. My second day was rather quiet. A big palaver was called in the morning to sit in judgment on King Bamboo, who had seriously sinned against the native law. Though technically king of the whole country, he was ordered to pay a fine of seven slaves. The day was further marked by the arrival of Dookbah, King of Maraquelli, with his wife and daughter. Dookbah is a man of about forty and is every inch a king, though he does not look it when he puts on his Euro- pean hat. His wife was easily the leading lady of the court circle and was, indeed, the most stylish na- THE KING AND QUEENS OF MARAQUELLI MAKING WOBEH'S HEART LIE DOWN 303 tive woman that I ever saw. Her millinery was not made in Paris, however! The third day was one of the most eventful of all. Before sunrise the men of the town brought large stones to the grave and walled it in, making an en- closure about six feet wide and ten feet long. Dozens of empty gin-bottles were placed all around the grave — a very common custom on this coast. The mound was then levelled down and the entire enclosure cov- ered with stones and wet sand. At the head they placed a couple of small ivory tusks, a rice bowl con- taining Wobeh's silver ring and some kola-nuts, two pitchers, and a small brass kettle. Across these was laid an unsheathed sword. The fixing of the grave was not completed until they had brought a small jug of rum and poured a little of it into each vessel. The thirst of Wobeh's spirit was apparently more easily quenched than had been that of the man in life — and this enabled the men about the grave to put the greater part of the rum to a more exhilarating use. Commissioner Kennedy came forward at this juncture and presented the village with a large Li- berian flag for the grave. It was accepted with ap- preciation and placed on a small stick until an appro- priate staff could be secured. When the Commissioner walked up to the grave the following morning, he saw the star and stripes of Liberia flying from a thirty-foot bamboo staff, with the empty rum- jug perched on top ! After the grave had been properly arranged, the town assembled to witness the significant ceremony 304 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET of killing the white chicken. The principal nephew of the late King knelt on the grave and held the chicken's head above Wobeh's head. King Sow made a long speech and then different members of Wobeh's family gave the chicken some messages to take to his spirit. This part of the ceremony was very solemn and im- pressive. It was clear that they implicitly believed that the messages would reach their destination. Then the nephew pulled off the chicken's head and threw the body down on the grave. Curiously enough, the headless chicken fluttered around until it reached the head of the grave and seemed to be trying to bore its way down to the King. Even to an onlooker who did not share their superstitious beliefs, there was something uncanny in the convulsions of the headless fowl. It then fluttered away, the throng crowding each other in their efforts to watch its every move- ment. When it finally ceased its struggles there was a chorus of " Ah ! " followed by some excited talk- ing. It was explained to me that when a chicken dies with its feet in the air, it is a sign that the one who killed it has been true to the King and has not med- dled with his women. In this case the chicken had died on its side! Then another chicken was brought for another nephew to kill. It likewise died on its side, and there was another chorus of excited grunts. A third chicken was killed by a niece, with the same result; but the fourth, killed by another niece, stopped with its feet in the air. The crowd went wild, caught up the girl, and marched through the town with, her on their MAKING WOBEH'S HEART LIE DOWN 305 shoulders, like a crowd of college-boys with a foot- ball hero. Wobeh had one relative that had been true! This ceremony was followed an hour or two later by that of eating the chickens, together with rice cooked in palm-oil. The food was placed at the head of the grave and Wobeh's head-wife presided over the pot. All the children squatted about on the grave and the other relatives were assembled around it. King Sow had a good many remarks to make before he called up the eldest son and motioned for him to take the palmful of rice which the widow held out. Before eating it he was required to make certain promises relative to peace in the family. Each of the relatives was called out in turn and required to go through the same performance. Old King Sow kept his ears open, and whenever he was not satisfied with a given promise he arose and cross-questioned the rela- tive like a country lawyer until he made him promise what he wanted. Parts of this ceremony were excit- ing; at times there were outbursts of laughter at one of Sow's jokes; very little of it was sad or pathetic. But when the chief widow's turn came, I had a startling revelation of the untaught African's belief in some sort of an immortality. Turning her moth- erly face to the grave, she sat there and talked to Wobeh as naturally as if she were looking into his face. There was an undertone of pathos in her voice as she reminded her lord that she had always been true to him, and assured him that she would do her full duty to his family and his town. When she had 306 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET ended, she sat for a moment in motionless silence. But nobody needed to cross-question her. There was nothing extraordinary for the next two days. On the fourth the mourning women were taken to the creek and washed, in order that they might be- gin to dress up for the final feast. On the fifth day the men of the town were assembled under the big palaver-tree at the creek and individually sworn to be loyal to the town. The oath was administered by making the man drink from a bowl of milkish fluid, which was supposed to kill him if he were insincere. On this day, also, the men brought in large quanti- ties of firewood and the women were busy threshing and cleaning rice. Then came the last and greatest day — the slaughter of the bullock and the great feast. So far as I could learn, there is no sacrificial idea involved in the cere- mony; the slaughter is solely for the purpose of pro- viding a joyful banquet. The big bullock was led to a vacant place near the grave, just at sunrise, and se- curely tied down on its side. Its throat was then cut, the windpipe being severed, and the animal slowly bled to death, the blood being carefully caught in a large wooden bowl. It was twenty minutes before it ceased to struggle, but its tail had been severed long before, this being the especial perquisite of the men selected as butchers. The carcass was then skinned and King Sow sat in his leopard chair while the bullock was cut up. He kept a careful watch to see that not even an ounce MAKING WOBEH'S HEART LIE DOWN 307 of meat was taken by anybody. A boy started to walk away with a tiny morsel, but the King's voice roared out in anger and the frightened lad brought it back in haste. Two large brass kettles and a large basket were placed in front of His Majesty, and in these were placed the internal organs and the choicest cuts — " the King's meat." Now and then one of the butchers would overlook some small portion, but the King over- looked nothing; he had every error promptly rectified. Altogether, he received about one-third of the bul- lock. The remainder was cut up and distributed among the families to be cooked — but not eaten ; posi- tively no part of the animal except the hide and horns was discarded. There was not quite enough to go around, so the King ordered a dog killed to make up the deficiency. As a compliment to the one white man in the town. Sow gave me a piece of liver and the breast-bone out of '' the King's meat," to be cooked in the white man's fashion. In the afternoon he sent for me to come to the grave, and there I found the whole village hungrily eyeing fifty-two large vessels filled with rice and cov- ered with meat, to be distributed by the King among the families. Two bowls were topped off with dried elephant meat that looked like chunks of asbestos, and one dish was covered with at least a dozen juicy rats. The old man made a long speech and then began the difficult task of distributing the bowls. The first came to me, and I examined it carefully to see that I had not drawn the rats. The next two or three went to visiting kings, but the distribution of the remaining 308 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET vessels was accomplished only after much wrangling. The natives then disappeared into their huts to gorge themselves during the rest of the afternoon. At eventide the whole village, kings and all, came out with musical instruments and began the final dance. The shuffling procession was for the first time led by the royal visitors, all of them half-drunk. Old King Sow was so proud of himself that he marched the procession to my hut and gave me his leopard chair to sit upon while he executed some fancy steps. The kings soon grew weary, but the town resounded with revelry until past midnight. This was the end of the funeral. Wobeh's heart had been made to lie down. His spirit had started on its long journey. XXII THE WOMEN OF BLACK MAN'S AFRICA BETWEEN the fusilades of the big-game shoot- ers, the roaring of wounded lions, and the trumpeting of charging elephants, hear now a song of broken interludes about a very human side of African life. The first white woman that I met in the Black Man's land was a waitress in a French cafe — a camp- follower of colonization. It was in Dakar, the capital of French West Africa. In the middle of a blazing January afternoon I had strolled into a cafe, giving thanks to whatever gods there be that the French col- onizer invariably takes along the cooling cafes of civilization as well as its railroads and gunpowder. That cafe was Tunis and Biskra and Casablanca over again- — only it wasn't. Monsieur was not so affable; the Senegal life was getting on his nerves, perhaps. There was the same red-trousered French soldier, sipping the same white and 3^ellow and green drinks — but there was the black, slouchy Senegalese instead of the monk-like Arab and Moor. But the drinks were the same — anisette and chartreuse and absinthe and creme de menthe — and there was the blessed coolness of a little lump of ice. And so I pointed to the milky anisette that a souave 309 310 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET was absorbing, for I had found pointing to be the quickest way of getting things in a French cafe. When it arrived, Mademoiselle arrived with it — same old Mademoiselle, only there were hard lines in her face and more roof -paint on her cheeks. Then, too, she was careless about her millinery, w^hich shows how very far the Senegal is from Paris, and there was something about the eyes that seemed to say what I afterward heard from many lips — " Life on this coast is hell ! " The worst of it was that Mademoiselle was drunk — too drunk to take a hint, even when badly expressed in French. It is her job to drink, of course, and to be sociable on short acquaintance. But either she was too sociable, or the acquaintance was too short, and so we parted. Mademoiselle and I — abruptly. They will tell you on the steamers that ply up and down the coast that there are fifty damsels like Mademoiselle in Dakar. Not having seen the other forty-nine, I merely pass along the gossip. I passed it once to the captain of a ship-of-war, as I partook of his gracious hospitality in a rolling sea, and he pricked up his ears. He was going to lie up for a few days at the Canaries, he had said, while the engineers scraped the barnacles off the propellers. When I caught the last sight of his smoking funnels, however, the steel nose of his cruiser pointed toward — not the Canaries ! But here's to you. Mademoiselle, in your cafe at Dakar. They don't think much of you in the com- fortable altitudes north of the Tropic of Cancer, THE WOMEN OF BLACK MAN'S AFRICA 311 where the West Coast is a meaningless phrase and where they cannot understand that you also have your little part to play in the endless game of empire. You were not polite to me on that sultry afternoon, Mademoiselle, but you were ivhite^ thank God. So here's hoping that you have long since gone up the gang-plank of the Homeward-bound! In vivid contrast stands out clear and strong the remembrance of the last white woman that I saw in Africa. It was in sleepy old Freetown, Sierra Leone, where for a hundred years the ships of England have come and gone — come with cloth and rum and bright- eyed young Britons, gone with palm-nuts and piassava and gaunt spectres on furlough, whose hearts beat stronger at the thought of seeing the coastwise lights again. She is Indiana-bred and she presides with gracious- ness over a most imposing residence in Freetown — and it flies the Flag. Her husband is a missionary (and our Vice-Consul also) and she is there with him because she also is a factor in the civilization of Af- rica and her heart is in her work. She has come to stay — this cultivated American woman with her piano and her hand-painted china, and the beautiful ma- hogany furniture that she carved with her own hands. Result: Her husband goes joyously and hopefully at his task and sits at night on the porch of a real home, while his English brother in the government service smokes his pipe in a lonely bungalow — or gets drunk and goes to bed to forget it all! 312 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET Among the American women in Africa — ^and there are many of them between Tangier and Capetown — I found no rarer and choicer specimens than two Lutheran schoolma'ams, thirty miles up the St. Paul River from Monrovia, on the border-line between civilization and the bush. Technically speaking, they are missionaries, but they overlook technicalities. Whole-hearted, cheery, good-looking American girls, they laughed out loud when they felt like it, they asked no embarrassing questions about my spiritual status — and I could sit on their piazza and smoke any kind of vegetable matter that my pipe would hold. Their heart, also, is in their work. And their work is a ramshackle boarding-school for young girls from the bush — a young ladies' seminary and conservatory of music, so to speak. Theirs is a more difficult task than you realize until you try it. Besides, you can hear all sorts of weird noises at night; there are plenty of snakes crawling about; bush-men sometimes come a-prowling — and there is not even a dog to chase them away. All the men missionaries are at the boys' school across the river, and several things could hap- pen in the half-hour that it takes to cross. One of the younger men, with an inventive brain, once loaded up an old shotgun and carried it over to the girls' school for use as an emergency alarm. The emer- gency came one night, but neither girl had nerve enough to pull the trigger! They upset all missionary traditions, these girls at Muhlenburg. After two years' service they were not only hale and hearty, but had gained flesh! Their THE WOMEN OF BLACK MAN'S AFRICA 313 furlough was due in August, and when I saw them in March they were '' fussing " because the board had instructed them to return home four months earlier. I have seen many missionaries, but I know no others like these. But not all the American girls who go into the West African bush take on flesh. Once, three hundred miles to the southward, I photographed a group of newly arrived Methodists, on the day they went in- land to their lonely station. Within the year, one was in his grave, and three of the women were in- valided home. Some of the women, however, are able to work on for years, and one that I saw, eighty miles from any- where, had married a bright young bush-boy whom she had redeemed from paganism; she severed her homeland ties, and settled down in the bush for life. On my way down the river that flows by the mud village where she makes her home, I passed a log canoe into which the bush-husband was loading three little half-castes, starting for the school at the coast. She is no longer a missionary, of course; that is, she is not on the pay-roll of any society. Now and then, but not often, you will meet the American-born coloured girl out on this unhealthy coast; and, whatever her work may be, it is generally of the same high grade as that of her white country- woman. In the American Legation at Monrovia, for exam- 314 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET pie, I found a Baltimore girl, Miss Annabel Lyon (now Mrs. Walker). She was the Clerk of the Legation, and that is a hot and busy job. The diplomatic de- spatches that she ground out of her typewriter were just about as neat and accurate as any that go into the files at Washington. She is also a young woman of culture and irreproachable character. There is no colour-line in Monrovia, unless you choose to draw one for yourself, and the young Germans in the trading-houses whiled away many evenings at the American Legation. At lonely Garroway, near the farther extremity of the Liberian coast, is another young Negro woman — Miss Anna Hall, of Atlanta. I had heard so much about her work that I did not protest (though I was sick at the time) when a jovial Methodist Bishop hauled me out of bed at 3 a.m. to make a pilgrimage to her station. In an open boat, rowed by Kroo-boys, we went twenty miles by sea, along a dangerous coast, and had to come back by night, in the dark of the moon — but it was worth it. Miss Hall is an unpretentious, matter-of-fact woman who does the work of three husky men. She conducts a boarding-school for about a hundred boys and girls from the villages scattered throughout the bush. That of itself is a fair-sized job. Then she oversees the little farm that produces most of what her school-children eat. She teaches the principal classes herself and also finds time to manage an in- dustrial department as a side-line. Having been trained in Spelman Seminary (At- THE WOMEN OF BLACK MAN'S AFRICA 315 lanta) as a nurse, she has estabhshed a small hos- pital and a big clinic for the natives. From the balcony of the mission-house, on the top of a high hill, you can see the lonely grave of the only white man on that part of the coast — a young English trader who went swiftly by the fever route. It was Miss Hall's skilful hands and not those of a rough Kroo- boy that smoothed his way to the end; she gave him a Christian bed with white sheets to die on; he had benefit of clergy as well as cooling cloths on his head; and, when it was over, he went to his grave like an Englishman. There are so many ministrations to this Negro woman's credit that I lost count. Somebody is get- ting big dividends from the money invested in that young woman's work. To prove that I am not biased in her favour, I may add that she wouldn't let me smoke on her porch ! If you make a cross-section of Liberian society, no microscope is needed to show that it is not one con- glomerate mass; the different strata are sharply marked, and there is far less commingling than any- body would imagine. The upper stratum is composed of Negro women born in the United States or the West Indies — such as Miss Lyon and Miss Hall. Socially and intellec- tually, they lead all the women of their race. By her free-and-easy, self-reliant bearing you may rec- ognize the American-born wherever you see her. The West Indians are more numerous and are equally well 316 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET educated, but they lack the snap of the Americans. In the next stratum are the Americo-Liberians — the granddaughters of the pioneer colonists and the daughters of the Negroes who went to Liberia after the dark days had dropped behind the western hori- zon. There is something pathetic about them, know- ing no civilization higher than their own, yet strug- gling to keep their homes and their social life up to a standard that is only a tradition. They have been criticised for holding themselves aloof from the peo- ple of the bush, but therein lies their salvation. They compare favourably with any Negro women in the world. On my first Sunday in Monrovia I responded with alacrity when the call of the church-bells broke the morning stillness; I was eager to compare these sec- ond and third-generation American Negroes with those of a Kentucky congregation. First, I went to the Episcopal Church. It was well- filled. Nearly all the women and girls were dressed in white; not one wore the brilliant colours that char- acterize the costumes of a coloured congregation in Louisville on a summer's morn. The service had not begun, but there was no loud talking nor giggling; the Episcopal atmosphere per- vaded the house. At the proper moment they opened their prayer-books and made the responses promptly and reverently. The singing was well-modulated, but lacked the spontaneity (and also the nasal character- istics) of an American congregation. From begin- ning to end, in pulpit or choir or pew, there was noth- THE WOMEN OF BLACK MAN'S AFRICA 317 ing that seemed ludicrous even to a critical stranger's eyes. Then I went to the Methodist Church. Things seemed more familiar here. The pastor, as well as the pipe-organ, was American, and there was a fringe of brother-clergymen on the rostrum. The congrega- tion here was not clothed solidly in white raiment, but there was only one " loud " costume — that of a young man arrayed in a tennis-coat of broad and bril- liant stripes. I discovered later that he was a convert from Kroo Town who had come to '' join the church." The Methodist singing was congregational — hearty but fashionable — and there was one aged saint who punctuated the prayers with loud " Amens ! " It was not until the afternoon that I was made aware of the perpetuation of old-time religion in Mon- rovia. From the African Methodist — ^the old church which Lott Carey helped to build with his own indus- trious hands — came the high-pitched, sonorous hymns of the " piney-woods " churches in the upland South. From the distance of a block I could hear the min- ister *' lining out " the old long-metre hymns — ^two lines at a time — and as his voice died away the con- gregation sang the couplet so that all the sinners in Monrovia might hear. It was unctuous and inspiring and home-like. At public functions, the Americo-Liberian women were a disappointment. There was no lack of culti- vation and refined manners, but they were noticeably backward and ill-at-ease. With the exception of those whose duty it was to receive the guests, the women 318 THE LAND OP THE WHITE HELMET sat back against the wall; conversation was laborious on both sides. The men are to blame for this. They have kept their wives too much in the background. Until re- cently it was not " the thing " for an Americo- Liberian gentleman to appear with his wife at a func- tion. A white American who made an informal visit to an ex-President of Liberia told me that he found him at dinner, alone; his wife and the other members of his family were eating in the kitchen. The younger Liberians are " bringing out " their wives, however. I recall with pleasure the gracious bearing of Mrs. Dossen, wife of the Vice-President, who may eventu- ally become '' the first lady " of Liberia. She would make an excellent national hostess. The women of Cape Palmas — the Maryland colony — are nearer to the American type, possibly because there are few West Indians in that part of Liberia. Take the one that I know best, the wife of Rev. S. D. Ferguson, Jr., in whose home I spent two pleas- ant weeks. Mrs. Ferguson is an educated, refined woman, a leader in the social and religious life of the Cape. Yet her chief pride is her home. She has four household servants, but she herself does the cooking — and the best luck that I can wish for myself in Africa is that whenever I am sick I may be near the Fergu- son's. She can serve more appetizing dishes that no sick man should eat than any woman I know of on that coast. By all the laws that limit tropical eating, I should now be tucked away under a palm-tree — but I have discovered that some men can stand quite an [^^^^^^^^^H^H^^^^HKfl|^H^V^^^^^^^^^^E[j^!^S^K^l|^^^^^^^^^^^^^H Hifnf ^V- . a^ ^^^^^^^^^H ^^^^Hi' " 1 A KROO " BOY " AND HIS WIFE, MONROVIA THE WOMEN OF BLACK MAN'S AFRICA 319 amount of good food on emerging half- famished from a bush-trip. The third stratum — the semi-civilized — includes a picturesque variety of African beauties. First, there are the Kroos, the wives and daughters of the " sea- boys " who travel up and down West Africa as deck- hands on the cargo-boats. There are thousands of these good-natured, happy-go-lucky coast people; in disposition they are very much like the women and girls of the Negro quarter in the average Southern city. As a rule, however, the Kroo woman is care- lessly clad in " cloth " instead of skirts, and her lan- guage is a jargon-English that completely bewilders the newcomer. You may see in Monrovia, also, the women from other half-civilized native tribes, especially the Vai girls, who are the comeliest of that coast. There is a small village of them on an island in front of the capital, and its reputation is not the best. In this half-and-half class belong also the Congo girls — the descendants of Negroes from what is now the Belgian Congo who were liberated from slave- ships and colonized in Liberia. The present gen- eration is yet sharply defined; their dialect, their weird songs and wild dances, and their voodooism have sur- vived, though greatly modified by contact with the Americo-Liberians. Now and then, also, even in a bush-village, you will find a half -civilized woman — perhaps the only one in the town who wears real clothes. The explanation S20 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET of the phenomenon is simple; she was brought up in some American mission school. As a rule, her man- ners as well as her clothes are evidences of the patient training that somebody gave her years before. The first woman of the bush that I really came to know was a Golah girl named Nang-quee. District- Commissioner Kennedy was piloting me on my first trip into the hinterland and I had spent my first night in a king's house — ^that is, a mud hut. When our little caravan was strung out on the trail next morn- ing, I noticed a woman and a girl in the lead. Ken- nedy explained that they belonged to a village four days inland, and that the President had asked him to pick them up and take them back. Nang-quee was an unusually good type of the sweet- girl graduate from the bush school. Do the raw Afri- cans have schools ? Plenty of them. The bush school is an institution that may be defined as a cross be- tween a girls' boarding-school and the Order of the Eastern Star. I have seen but one, for the school village is hidden away in the jungle and the trail that leads to it is always marked by a sign that no bush- man can mistake. The penalty for trespass is said to be death. The principal of this young ladies' seminary was an old hag who was supposed to be the wisest in the tribe and she had perhaps two hundred girls of all ages under her tuition. She teaches them orally every- thing that a bush- woman should know, and plenty of things, perhaps, that they might better find out for THE WOMEN OF BLACK MAN'S AFRICA 321 themselves. The institution is enveloped with mys- tery and superstition; there is an initiation ceremony of a weird kind, and nothing in life is more binding than the oath of secrecy. Graduation week is lit- erally " a howling time "; it is also the wedding week for most of the larger girls. Nang-quee was dressed to suit the climate. She wore a belt of beads, a strip of cloth about three inches wide, and had a bandana handkerchief about her head. She was a vivacious, good-natured girl and differed from the average in being brown instead of pot-black. Her presence embarrassed me at first, for I was anxious to impress the natives favourably; but Ken- nedy (who knows the bush) assured me that the belt of beads would indicate virginity in every village we should pass through. Since the girl was somebody's property and we were temporarily a trust company, I was solicitous that no harm should befall her. When we stopped to spend the night in a strange town, I noticed that Nang- quee disappeared; nothing more was seen of her until the next morning. I spoke to Kennedy about it, telling him that a young and attractive girl should not be turned loose at night in a strange village, to sleep in whatever hut she could find lodgment. This amused the Commis- sioner and he told me something about uncivilized life that I never learned at a missionary lecture. It was this : The virtue of an unmarried girl is safe anywhere in the bush, at any hour of the day or night. The poison-cup or the bonfire, or whatever other punish- 32^ THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET ment a palaver-council may decree, awaits the man who violates this fundamental law of the bush. I didn't worry about her any more. When we de- livered her over to the head-man of her village, there was nothing to be explained. The matrons of the bush village wear, as a rule, only a " cloth "^ — a couple of yards of cheap calico fastened at the waist and reaching to the knees. From the native point of view, there is nothing immodest about it. There are those who smile when the word " mod- est " is mentioned in connection with a half-naked African, yet there is a native modesty that is not to be laughed at. Its requirements are scrupulously ob- served, even by the men. My civilized sensibilities were never shocked by carriers, though I travelled with the same men for weeks. There may be African tribes where the men and women are like beasts, but I have not seen them. Being property, these African girls are marketed early; the price varies in different localities. I was informed that I could have Nang-quee for about $20 worth of merchandise, but in another part of the bush the standard price seemed to be cattle and goats to the value of about $50. The price also fluctuates ac- cording to the wealth of the prospective husband, and his eagerness. The personal appearance of the girl cuts no figure, but any physical deformity that inter- feres with her ability to work causes her to be placed on the odds-and-ends counter. THE WOMEN OF BLACK MAN'S AFRICA For it is the woman who must bear the Black Man's burden. The wife and daughters are nothing more nor less than domestic slaves to the lord of the hut. When the January rains are over, the men of the vil- lage go out to the village " farm," cut away the jungle with their butcher-knives, and leave the brush to dry in the hot sun. Then it is set on fire and man's work is o'er. The planting, the care of the growing crop, the gathering, and the milling is woman's work. The man lounges around while his woman slings the baby on her back, puts a big jar on her head, and goes to the creek for water. Aside from the unequal division of labour, how- ever, the woman of the bush is not badly treated in these little tribal republics. I saw but one town where there was gross cruelty toward the weaker sex, and even there it was evident that the women had a good deal of influence in the village palavers. Bush housekeeping is a very simple matter. Afri- cans are early-risers. At daybreak most of the men scatter into the bush to examine their snares or climb some distant palm for the sour " wine " that has seeped out during the night. Meanwhile, the woman puts fresh wood on the smouldering embers in the middle of the clay floor and goes off to the creek to bathe and bring the jar of water. There are no beds to make up, no floors to sweep, nothing to be dusted. The cooking is all done in one pot. Rice that has been hulled with a wooden mortar and pestle is the staple food in some regions; in others it is cassava — SU THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET which is a sweet-potato without the sweetness. Into the pot is placed also a piece of smoked meat or fish, usually tainted. If there is no meat, " palm-butter " (a soup made from the oily husk of the palm-nut) is poured over the rice when cooked. The family eats out of the pot and there are no dishes to wash. There is no " wash Monday " to be dreaded, no but- tons to sew on, no socks to darn. The bush mother is a good mother, in her way, but it is rather a Spartan way. The little black babies do not cry like civilized babies; they know better. The saddest fact is that so many of them die in that hot climate, for there is no protection against epidemics and there are no physicians. These African mothers have a strong, animal af- fection for their babies, and are rarely separated from them during the first three years. The native chil- dren are generally supposed to have more affection for the mother than for the father, but it seemed to me that no sharp distinction could be drawn. For instance, in villages where the sight of a white face sent all the pickaninnies flying in terror, they would run to their fathers for protection as quickly as to their mothers. And in the few instances when a bush baby was fearless and allowed the white man to take it in his arms, the father's pride equalled that of the mother. The sudden apparition of a white man in a village which has never seen one before inspires a terror which THE PIPE IN ADVANCE OF CIVILIZATION THE WOMEN OF BLACK MAN'S AFRICA 325 only strong-nerved men can withstand. The few na- tives who have visited the coast get a good deal of fun out of the first experience of their untravelled neighbours. When a woman with a load on her head and a baby on her back meets a white apparition in the trail, and both give a howl and go flying into the bush, the native who is not afraid howls with de- light. With the exception of the little girls and babies, however, the fear is soon overcome. I recall one of the King's women in the little town of Dee-ah-bo, on top of a hill that required half an hour of laborious climbing. We had halted in the royal hut for lunch, but it required time and patience to get his household back after they caught sight of the white man. This woman was a fat, good-natured soul, black as the Gold Dust Twins and shiny with palm-oil. Her entire wardrobe would have made about three handkerchiefs. For a long time she could not be induced to come farther than the door, and whenever I looked at her she ran. She was eventually coaxed inside and was at last persuaded by the King to put her hand on the back of my head. Then she became excited and stroked it as if it were a kitten, making exclamations which were interpreted as wonder at its softness. Fear now gave way to ad- miration, and we furnished no end of merriment to the King and to my carriers. But the best of friends must part, so I passed out of sight with the old lady standing on the hill-top, silhouetted against the grey sky. XXIII AFRICAN GUIDES I HAVE CUSSED " "T SHALL not go trotting around Africa with I a guide tagging at my heels, advertising me as a fool tourist," I said resolutely before I went ashore. Few things in life are certain, but that was one of the few. This was made very clear to an expectant group of Arabs in the lobby of the Grand Hotel, as I came out from breakfast and prepared for my first inspection of Tunis. I was not a tourist, I explained; I did not need a guide. It was gratifying to observe that they received the shock with the calm stoicism of true Mus- sulmans, and I sauntered carelessly down the Avenue de la France. " This is the way to do the thing," I mused. " Dress like the foreign residents, side-step the guides, and make the natives think that you have lived here half your life." Nothing was easier. Just then a fine-looking, well-dressed Arab stepped in front of me, begged my pardon in French, and handed me a card. This is what I read : Hassin Forga Courrier^ Interpreteur et Guide Autorise par le Goiivernement Grand Hotel Tunis 326 AFRICAN GUIDES I HAVE CUSSED 327 " He must have seen me when I arrived," I thought. Then, gently but with much firmness, I explained to Hassin that I was not a tourist, and that I did not need a guide. Very well, but if I should wish for a guide later, I could inquire for him at the Grand Hotel. The concierge knew where to find him. A treacherous memory fails me when I try to re- call how often this experience was repeated during that morning walk. My explanation became less and less gracious, but not less firm, until the Bright Idea dawned. Noticing that most of them addressed me either in broken English or guide-book French, I af- fected absolute ignorance of both languages. '' Ich kann es nicht verstehen! " was my stock response. But even this ruse failed to work. They must have passed the word dow^n the line, for on my return they offered their services in German. I withstood the daily siege for a whole week and then gave up. In every Arab city the experience began — and ended — in the same way. It is folly to try to dodge them; they watch all the hotels and, one after an- other, in an endless chain, waylay the traveller. The only way of escape lies in hiring one of them; then the others quit the trail. Your new-found Mohammed will thenceforth stick to you closer than a brother and will be a continual source of annoyance unless you make him a source of amusement. If you assume at the outset that all of his general information is mis- information, and use him mainly as a street-directory and an interpreter, you are safe. But if you use him THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET as a purchasing agent or a manual of history, you are a chump. There was Mohammed of the Grand Hotel in Kairouan the Holy, for example. (Every French city has a Grand Hotel, and every hotel has several Mohammeds.) After I had explained to him that I had no intention of buying or building a mosque, and that two were, therefore, quite enough for me to see — also that I had not the remotest idea of purchas- ing a Kairouan rug (upon which he would receive a commission from the seller as well as the buyer) — ^he became quite useful. There was also Abidi ben-Afayer of Biskra, who was an Arab gentleman of superior intelligence. He was not one of the hangers-on at the Hotel du Sahara; he waited until I was contentedly sipping an ice at the Cafe Glacier. Abidi was a born diplomat. If any- body is looking for an Arab to sell lightning-rods or life insurance in southern Algeria, I heartily recom- mend him. He could sell an Equitable policy to an agent of the New York Life. In some ingenious way, Abidi succeeded in having himself invited to sit down at the table, while I or- dered his coffee. He never mentioned the word guide, but I am a born suspicioner and lost no time in care- fully explaining that I was not a tourist, and that I did not need a guide. Abidi understood, oh, quite perfectly ! By the way, I had been to the Cafe Maure and seen the dance of the Ouleds-Nails, of course. No? Well, he was go- AFRICAN GUIDES I HAVE CUSSED 329 ing down that way; we might walk together. Now, it happened that the cafe where the white-cowled Arabs squat around by the scores and swap yarns over their black coffee was my next station, but I bade Abidi an revoir and sauntered back to the hotel to '' shake " him. Half an hour later I was sitting alone at a rude table in the Cafe Maure, delightedly sizing up the wild-looking men of the Desert who were squatting in front of a graphophone that had been fed with Arab records. A touch on the arm — and there was my faithful friend, Abidi ben-Afayer. We had another coffee. Perhaps I would like to see the dancing-girls ? Not now? Oh, very well; since I was going back to the hotel, he would walk with me as far as the Cafe Glacier. But let me cover my face in shame while I confess that I innocently allowed him to lead me down a " short-cut," and that the short-cut led into the Rue des Oideds-Ndils, after all — but he got no tip for his pains. By the time I had reached the hotel, however, he had drunk four coffees at my expense. Thenceforward he was my shadow. In the early morning, as I stepped out upon the broad verandah, I was sure to see Abidi somewhere on the horizon. If I lost myself in the crowded market-place, not caring if I ever found my way out, I was sure to bump into the surprised (?) Abidi. His ingenuity was as re- markable as his persistency, but he did not make me his captive until the rest of the guides began to make life a burden. It was comforting, at least, to know that I could not long be lost in Biskra. 330 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET I had never been in Constantine before, yet the smooth, boyish face of Saadi Amar lighted up with pleasure when he overtook me in the square. Memory tells me that I made a curt response to his affable *' Good evening, Sir!" but the fact is that Saadi jarred on my nerves. It was moonlight and I was thinking great thoughts — thoughts of the great Con- stantine who built this Algerian city, and of Sallust and the Jugurthine War which the old Romans fought on this spot — ^and Saadi's voice brought me back over the centuries with the suddenness of a sharp tug on the bit. But if the ungraciousness of my response does not disturb you any more than it did Saadi, we won't worry about it. In the most care-ful-ly ar-tic-u-la-ted Eng-lish that I ever heard from an Arab's lips, he explained how welcome I was to his city. Then he let it out that he was a guide — not an ordinary hotel- guide, but a professional companion, interpreter, and friend. There was something in the drawl of Saadi's voice and in the English swagger of his walk that made me itch to kick him. My self-restraint was rewarded by an outburst of confidence. Saadi began to tell me his life-story. '* I have been guide to many wealthy English gen- tlemen," he said. No response. '' I like the English gentlemen very much," he continued. Deep silence. LA RUE DES OULED-XAILS, BISKRA AFRICAN GUIDES I HAVE CUSSED 331 " I like the English gentlemen better than any other gentlemen who visit Constantine." " Really ? " I asked, encouragingly. " Oh, certainly." " I don't." Saadi almost dropped his cane, which he was swing- ing along in the London style which you see on the stage. He had picked it up along with his English boots. '' Are you not English gentleman? " he asked. " Not quite," I modestly answered. '' Then you are American? " " Said to be." "Ah!" — and then he lifted up his voice and sang the praises of the wealthy American gentlemen whom he had led through the devious ways of Constantine. All the American gentlemen had gone to see the dancing-girls: would I not like to go now and see le danse Arahe? Not to-night? Then would I not like to have him give m^ an Arab bath? All the American gentlemen But the American gentleman said that he was going to his hotel. He also explained that he was not a tourist and did not need a guide, etc. Nevertheless, my powers of resistance, which had been weakened by weeks of repeated onslaught, soon gave way before his naive persistence. I promised that I would engage his services the following morning. This promise put Saadi on a confidential footing and he began to enumerate the pleasing things that I might see and do before next morning. He spread 332 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET his wares before me as a countryman spreads his produce in the market-place — and it was the most picturesque and vicious assortment of vice that I had ever heard of. It was clear that this polished young Arab with the idealized face of a saint did not pos- sess even the rudiments of a moral conscience. His proposals would make a Bowery policeman blush. Yet, shortly before twelve the next day, Saadi ex- cused himself that he might hasten to the mosque in time for le grand priere. As I was leaving Constantine, Saadi was again on the scene. He showed me the cards of some of the " English gentlemen " whom he had guided, includ- ing a Rothschild, and requested mine. I gave it to him, and then he asked me to write a recommendation on it. " You want something for the American gentlemen who may come ? " I asked. Yes, that was the idea. Whereupon, I cheerfully complied, in this wise: '* As a smooth Oriental proposition, Saadi is a wonder. I have not seen his equal in that respect in North Africa." Saadi read it in silence. The closing sentence met his approval, but the other puzzled him. He asked me about it, so I translated it into both English and French. AFRICAN GUIDES I HAVE CUSSED 333 " Smooth proposition," I explained, means " pol- ished gentleman"; "a wonder" is something mar- vellous. The bewilderment cleared aw^ay and his face fairly beamed with pleasure. Saadi and I were even! ^ jf: ^ ^ ^ In mentally stepping across the almost imperceptible boundary that separates the Arabs from the Moors, the first figure that appears on the horizon is Bigotee. Once he had a Moorish name, no doubt; but ever since his short, scraggy beard grew out and ran down his chin into a small goatee, he has been known in Tangier by the Spanish w^ord for beard, bigote. Ethnologically speaking, Bigotee is a country Moor come to town; intellectually, he is a child; financially, he is habitually in debt; morally, he is a perfect speci- men of total and spontaneous depravity. If there be one of the Ten Commandments which he does not break every day of his life, it is for lack of opportu- nity. Nevertheless, to a little group of Americans in Tangier, Bigotee was a loyal and indispensable serv- ant. He could always be depended upon to appear with a couple of donkeys within an hour of the ap- pointed time; we could swear at him in three lan- guages without rufifling his serene disposition; and we could lend him money with the certainty of getting part of it back, if we were willing to wait long enough and take it in trade. To be buncoed by Bigotee was well worth the price. Suppose, for example, a Moor comes along and wants to sell you a dagger for $3. You offer him $1, and S34 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET he turns away in disdain. Bigotee, who hears every- thing, indulges in some violent conversational exer- cises with the Moor and you know (if you know Bigotee) that he is arranging the sale on the basis of a commission to be collected later. Then Bigotee announces that you can have the dagger for $2. You are firm in your ultimatum — $1. More gesticulating — and to see Bigotee in action is well worth the price of admission. Then you are told that you may have the dagger for $1.50, and that it is a bargain. You put your dollar back in your pocket and walk away. The Moor and Bigotee go off together. By and by Bigotee returns and tells you that he knows another Moor who has a dagger just like it, and he thinks that he can get it for a dollar. You give him the money and in a few minutes he returns with the identical weapon that you have been examining. If you accuse him of lying, he is ready with the entire family his- tory of the friend he bought it from. Bigotee never allows himself to be convicted on circumstantial evidence. Once I gave him half a dollar with which to nego- tiate for some pictures that I had been unable to buy. The next day I met him unexpectedly in the street and demanded the pictures. He explained that the man wanted a dollar, but that he knew where he could get some others for fifty cents — and that he was then on his way to get them! Three days later his bland, in- nocent face appeared at the hotel window. The pic- tures ? No, the man didn't have any left, but he knew another man — — BIGOTEE, OF TANGIER THE RAISULI MOOR ABIDI, OF BISKRA SAADI, OF CONSTANTINE AFRICAN GUIDES I HAVE CUSSED 335 " Then give me back my half-dollar! " Bigotee dropped his eyes for a moment and then, with an expression that would move a wooden Indian to pity, confessed that he had spent it, but would pay it back soon. He owes it to me yet — nevertheless it was Bigotee who loaded my baggage on a donkey and steered it safely through the narrow street down to the dock when I was leaving Tangier. What was half a dollar between friends? The simple credulity of the average tourist — and Americans are as bad as any of them — is a never- ending source of wonderment and disgust to the aver- age European resident. The traveller usually arrives in Tangier on the ferryboat from Gibraltar about two o'clock in the afternoon and is landed in the arms of a battalion of young Moors, every one of whom wants to take him and her to a hotel. On the way, the young Mohammed lets it leak out that he is the official guide of the hotel and leaves the tourist under the impression that all others are sharks and octopuses? By the time the traveller's luggage has reached the hotel, a full programme of sightseeing has been made out, and about half of the '' sights " are pure, eighteen- karat fakes. For instance, you and your lady are deposited in red Moorish boxes called saddles, on top of a listless donkey or mule. It would be far better if you walked, but then the guide would get no commission from the owner of the beasts. You are prodded along the nar- 336 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET row streets, past a number of places really worth see- ing, and escorted up to the Kasbah hill. After you have peeped through the round hole in the prison- door — behind which the guide ought to be — and otherwise afforded amusement to the Moors loitering about the Kasbah, the guide offers to show the ladies of the party through " the Sultan's harem." This chance of a lifetime is eagerly accepted, and the la- dies disappear through a doorway which the gentle- men would give up a gold coin to pass. (They can pass it later in the evening, if their inclination runs in that direction.) This "Sultan's harem" is noth- ing more wonderful than a bunch of Moorish women (not of " questionable " character) whose chief oc- cupation is that of helping to fake the fool touristess. They never saw a Sultan in their lives and would not know his harem from a troupe of dancing-girls. There is one Sultan's harem now in Tangier — that of Abdul Aziz — but no guide has the entree to it. When the ladies have come out of the harem and the proper entries have been made in the diaries, the procession heads for the Soco Grande, the great market-place; it is really the most interesting on the North African coast. But it is not the Soco that the guide brings you to see; he knows that there are two hungry-eyed Moors watching every rider that comes through the Soco gate. One, an old Sudanese in ragged clothes and a turban ornamented with cowrie-shells, has a small banjo and a face that lends itself to contortionate grimaces. He thumps away AFRICAN GUIDES I HAVE CUSSED 337 on his banjo, sings one or two bars of a wild song, keeping time with his abdomen, and then calls for contributions. If he suspects that the traveller is an American, he begins by calling out '' New York — Washington — Chicago — Buffalo ! " Hke a railroad brakeman. Then he gives a real Negro laugh, stretch- ing his mouth back to his ears, and this is perhaps worth what it costs. Under my tuition, this tourist- entertainer added " Hoboken " and " Sing Sing " to his list of American cities, but a few days later he shook his head when I prompted him. Somebody else had evidently been tinkering with his education when I was not looking. The other Soco pirate is the snake-charmer. He usually brings his three harmless reptiles in a bag of straw to a vacant spot near the Hotel Cavilla and pa- tiently awaits the traveller who has come so far to see him. He gives a brief but tame performance, per- suades a snake to grasp his tongue or his nose, then puts them away, and makes smoke and fire come out of his mouth and ignite the straw. The touristess puts all this down in her diary as scenes from Moroccan life; as a matter of fact, these two members of the profession rarely perform before a Moorish audience. But it makes good stuff to tell the folks at home. But the baldest and most conscienceless fake, next to the harem, is '* the Desert." The guide explains that the traveller may see here at Tangier the edge of the Sahara — and not one in ten knows Moroccan THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET geography well enough to expose the fraud. In truth, the tourist would have to ride a month before even seeing the edge of the Sahara, but his ignorance is the guide's help to a livelihood. And so, you and your little caravan are off for the Sahara. You approach it via the beach, since the fake would be apparent if you did not. You see the dunes of sand stretching inland to infinity — or you think you do. If you were to start across on foot or burro, half- an-hour's detour would bring you again to hard soil. But when seen only from the shore, these dunes make a great hit with the tourist. As a freak of nature, as well as a fake of the guide, this " desert " is really remarkable. There is another one like it at Mogador, on the southwest coast of Morocco, but it does not extend back from the shore far enough to make a first-class fake. In some re- spects, the Tangier dunes are a good imitation of the real Sahara — that is, of the sandy part of the Great Desert. A far more interesting experience, if the tourist only knew it, is to walk across this diversified tract of sand just before dusk, coming out at the beach, and then try to find his way back. I lost myself twice in doing this. If the wind happens to be blowing, the finest particles of the sand rise like mist or steam and soon obliterate all traces of the trail that leads across it. Unless there is sufficient light to enable the wanderer to recognize the landmarks of Tangier, which is in plain view by daylight, he will be tired when he eventually reaches the far side. Incidentally, he may have an unpleasant experience with a pack of AFRICAN GUIDES I HAVE CUSSED 339 wolf-like dogs if he wanders too near the huts of so- called Bedouins. " For ways that are dark and tricks that are [not] vain " the Moor can beat the Celestial any day in the week. After I had been two months in Morocco and thought that I knew all the fakes at sight, I met my Waterloo. I had been several miles back of Tangier and had blundered into a trail that led me into a Moor- ish village instead of around it. The trail ended in a " pocket," but a simple-minded country Moor led me back into the main road. I discovered that I had no loose coins, so I told him that I should be out there the next day to photograph some ruined tombs. As I expected, my mild-eyed, taciturn countryman strolled casually into view at the tombs the next morn- ing. He also, but casually, explained that he was a sort of deputy-sheriff of that district. He spoke a little Spanish and showed a disposition to be obliging. After we had walked about for an hour, we reached a high point commanding a beautiful view of the val- ley, in the centre of which was the polo-ground, then occupied by a circle of cavalry tents. These, he said^ were some of Raisuli's men. Under ordinary circumstances, I should not have believed a word of it; but I knew that Raisuli had horsemen, and La Depeche Marocaine had that morning announced that the Sultan had authorized Raisuli to take a body of troops into a rebellious district and collect back-taxes. My credulity was strengthened when the man declined a tip which I offered him — an experience that I had 340 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET never had happen before in North Africa. Plainly, here was a country Moor in whom was no guile. I felt guilty as I put the coin back into my pocket and apologized. Then the countryman volunteered to take me down to the camp. I gladly accepted. On circling back he showed me a small estate, which he said was Raisuli's. He also gave me interesting de- tails of Raisuli's family history. A European mounted on a fine horse came down the road, drew rein, and shook hands with my guide. As he rode off, the Moor explained that this was Raisuli's business manager, on his way to pay off the troops in the camp. As I was cordially taking leave of him on the hill- top, he delicately suggested that I might tip him now. I did so with genuine pleasure, but he demurred and asked for twice as much. I gave it, but a deepening suspicion that I had been tricked haunted me all the way back to Tangier. The next morning I read in La Depeche that the horsemen forming the escort of Si Mohammed Ben- Aissa, Bashaw of Safh, were in camp out on the polo- grounds while the Bashaw awaited permission to pro- ceed to Fez! Not since that day have I believed anything that a Moor has told me. All along the wet lanes of Africa, at every port of call for passenger steamers, I found the hotel-runner and the guide standing expectant on the pier or wad- ing into the surf to seize me with his itching fingers. But from the time that I put foot on the soil of the AFRICAN GUIDES I HAVE CUSSED 341 Senegal and thenceforward until the peaks of the Canaries again rose up to greet me on the Homeward- bound, this human pest gladdened me by his absence. In the average port along the West Coast, remem- ber, there are no hotels. If you are a personage, you are invited to become the guest of a government official or a consul or a missionary or a merchant; if your social status is not high enough for that, you go to a cheap boarding-house. It is true that you will find various kinds of institutions that are called " ho- tels," but they are not recommended as such by the white residents. The traveller may at least give thanks to whatever gods there be that there are no hotel-runners to vex his soul. And how can there be guides where the tourist never comes, where " Cook's " is an unknown term, where the picture postcard exists merely for the con- venience of the European resident who wants to send tabloid greetings to friends that seem as far away as the canals of Mars. And so, if you are a mere bird of passage flitting along the low coast-line like a stormy petrel, alighting here and there for an instant, you may forget that the word guide is in the dictionary. But if you should set your face toward the hinterland, you must once more submit to being personally conducted — ^but un- der conditions for which your previous experience has been no real preparation. But here, at last, your guide justifies his existence, for he is a trail-blazer instead of a catalogue of historical incidents, an interpreter instead of a purchasing agent, and a take-me-by-the- 342 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET hand guardian in all of the many emergencies that are awaiting the white man down the African trail. Let me call out of the mist of the bush three of these guides — the three whom I know most intimately. Zach Kennedy is the first — a tall, skinny, good- natured old Negro, American-born. For many years he has been a district commissioner of the Liberian Government, a persuasive envoy who acts as a go- between in the adjustment of the delicate relations with native tribes. He could tell me of stirring scenes in the not-distant days, of great war-camps bristling with spears, of imposing peace-palavers whose issue determined whether or not a vast region should be soaked in blood and strewn with whitening skeletons. Besides, Kennedy was a pocket manual of bush-lore. He could tell me whether to snap fingers (they snap fingers instead of shaking hands in the bush) once, twice, or thrice in any given tribe; in order to be on the safe side, however, I usually went the limit in each place. He knew all the kings and most of the vil- lagers in the region through which we were travelling, and could quickly set at rest any doubt concerning the purpose of my visit. Moreover, Kennedy is one of the few foreigners who have been admitted into the mysterious " devil bush," a universal secret fraternity whose membership is supposed to be limited to native men. Instead of a revolver, he carries with him a peculiar fetish which is scrupulously guarded from ordinary eyes, but which has the effect of a secret- service badge when the occasion demands. AFRICAN GUIDES I HAVE CUSSED 343 For weeks I toiled through the bush with Kennedy, who enhvened the day's march with stories of per- sonal experience and with chapters on folk-lore and native customs. He exasperated me to the point of explosion at times, for he had a way of dealing with emergencies in a characteristic Negro fashion, and the patience of the white man in the bush is not a thing to brag about. But he looked after my personal com- fort; he exalted my dignity in the eyes of the tribal chiefs; and when a violent attack of dysentery made it impossible for me longer to walk, he had me ham- mocked in safety back to the coast. I hold him in pleasing and grateful remembrance also because of a glorious breakfast of hot biscuits, ham and eggs, and real coffee which his sister prepared for me on the morning that I emerged from the bush in a distressing condition. On the strength of that meal I discharged the hammock-men and walked the twelve miles into Monrovia in a drenching rain. Another government man who guided me over many a weary trail was Sam Watkins, of Cape Palmas. He is the only African guide whom I never " cussed," and yet we were together for nearly a month. There are few experiences in life that bring to the surface all that is unlovely in the disposition of a man more quickly than the hardships of the bush trail — ^and so the simple statement that we never quar- relled speaks more for Watkins than anything else that I might say concerning his virtues. He was resourceful in every emergency, even to the SM THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET point of impressing a canoe when there was none to be hired. He was patient and uncomplaining when the white man's eagerness to travel rapidly was not to his liking. He was thoughtful of my privacy as well as of my comfort, and never under any circum- stances forgot that I was a gentleman in disguise. And in the only village where it looked as though we must either fight or allow ourselves to be robbed, he accepted the decision to fight with a calm, cheerful courage. If Liberia had fewer selfish politicians and more real men like Sam Watkins, the republic would be revolutionized. Lest the gentle reader make the mistake of think- ing that there is too great a contrast between the guides of the West Coast and the Arab and Moorish gentlemen who have already been described, a few paragraphs about Jacko is here inserted. A government commissioner had told me, as I left for the bush, that I would find at a village called Tobo, several days back from the coast, a man who always accompanied him on his tours of the hinter- land. At Tobo, therefore, I asked for Jacko. A tall, gaunt, hungry-eyed man of the bush re- sponded. He spoke a little English, and said that he knew every step of the trail ahead and could speak all the languages — and so he was engaged indefinitely at two shillings a day, which was double price. (My confidence was slightly shaken during the second hour, however, when I was called upon to give two leaves of tobacco to another bushman who had led Jacko into AFRICAN GUIDES I HAVE CUSSED 345 the main trail. ) Jacko's experience on government business had left him with an exalted sense of his importance. He declined to carry anything except his gun; he had a way of taking the bit in his teeth with- out waiting to learn my pleasure; and since he had never travelled with a white man before, he had not even the faintest appreciation of the white man's ways. On the trail he was superb. In the evening, when he had the honour of introducing me to the villagers (often the first white man that they had ever seen), he was merely amusing in his vanity. But Jacko's main consideration from sunrise to sunset was his stomach, and he lost no opportunity of filling it at the expense of my pocket or of my convenience. For instance, it was extremely difficult for us ever to get an early start, because Jacko always protested that the king of the village would be offended if we should leave without eating the " chop " that was be- ing prepared; as a matter of fact a bush king rarely bothered his head about our " chop " unless Jacko put him up to it, assuring him of a generous " dash " from me. He also had a habit of arranging with the king for two chickens to be caught for me, instead of one, so that there would be something left over for him — but he always represented to me that the king felt so highly honoured at my presence that he wished to show me unusual courtesy. Once Jacko thought to have a feast of goat at my expense. It was in Belliblow, a town that gave me a glad hand. He came with a message from the king. 346 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET saying that since I was the first white guest that his village had entertained, he wished to kill a goat in my honour. (This meant, as I well knew, that I must give the king two or three times the value of the goat before leaving — and Jacko probably had arranged for a commission.) The refusal of that goat with- out offending the susceptibilities of a suspicious king was a notable achievement. It was accomplished as the result of what I had already learned about a curi- ous custom that prevails in every tribe that I had visited. First I sent Jacko to bring the king to my hut, in order to be sure that he would "get it straight." The conversation went along in piecemeal, so that Jacko, who was interpreting, might not see the point until he was too far along to turn aside from it and defeat my purpose : " All dem bushmen have something they no eat," I began in the " English "of the coast. Jacko translated and the king grunted by way of assent. " My boy Sammy-o no eat dem monkey." Jacko interpreted, and the king grunted louder. '' My boy Ben eat dem monkey, but he no eat dem chicken." Another grunt, crescendo. '' My boy Cracko, he eat dem monkey and eat dem chicken, but he no eat dem bullock." A long guttural showed that this part of the dia- logue was definitely clear to the old king. Then I got down to the point. AFRICAN GUIDES I HAVE CUSSED 347 " White man just like bushman — some things he no eat." The grunt this time was full of surprise. " Me, I eat dem monkey; I eat dem chicken; I eat dem bullock; but I no eat dem goat!" The grunt of understanding had in it an unmistak- able note of disappointment, and I was saved. The king abandoned his intention of killing the goat, and Jacko lost both his feast and his commission. Jacko worried me on this trip so much that my soul longed for the sight of Tobo again, when I would be on safe ground and able to deal with him in my own fashion. When we reached Tobo, however, I discovered that Jacko had the delusion that I was go- ing to take him all the way back to the coast — at two shillings per day — and he also had visions of work- ing a government graft while at the coast. Instead of paying him off at Tobo^ where he might have stampeded my carriers, I allowed him to con- tinue for another day. At every village which we passed on the coast-ward trail, he was shouting tem- porary farewells to his acquaintances and telling them of his good fortune. But night brought us to the Cavalla River, and I knew the route from that point as well as he. I therefore called him in and counted out his shillings. He was the most surprised guide that it has been my fortune to see. The monotony of the following day was much relieved by the reflec- tion that Jacko was probably spending most of it in explaining to his friends why he had returned so soon. XXIV HUNTING AFRICANS WITH A CAMERA THE man who goes into Africa with an elephant- gun may average more thrills to a minute than the man with a camera, but the fellow who returns with a bagful of negatives does not begrudge the other any of the pleasure that he gets from his trophies. However, it may be that I am not a quali- fied judge, for I slew no African beast larger than a mosquito and brought back no trophies, other than blood corpuscles full of fever germs. It is customary in African books, I believe, to print in an appendix a catalogue of the photographic outfit. From this the reader is here spared, for the list of my paraphernalia would not make a respectable foot- note. An Eastman kodak and tripod, a suit-case full of films, a box-developer, some chemicals, and print- ing-paper — that was the outfit. Every detail had been selected with the West Coast in mind. By taking a folding kodak, I saved space; by using films, I saved weight; with the box-developer I could develop on the spot and avoid the loss of negatives from dampness. By having the camera fitted out with a Zeiss-Tessar lens, I was able to make snap- shots without sunlight — an important consideration in Africa — and negatives that would enlarge well. 348 DEVELOPING FILMS IN A HINTERLAND CREEK AND IN SALT WATER ON THE WALBURG HUNTING AFRICANS WITH A CAMERA 349 I had been in the Dark Continent fifteen minutes, perhaps, before I discovered that the tripod was use- less. I was in the land of Islam, where the Mussul- man has a theological prejudice against pictures; if you want him, you must get him quickly and unob- trusively. If you set up a tripod and focus, he either turns his back or draws the hood of his hiir- nouse across his face. I have a theory that the best plan is to go after him with a box-camera that has a fake lens on the side; then you may take him leisurely while he thinks that he is watching you photograph something at a right angle to him. Aside from the Mussulman's reluctance to assist in breaking the Commandment about graven images, there is his fear of " the evil eye " to be considered. I well remember the anxious face of a sick patriarch at Kairouan who saw my lens looking at him as he was being lifted upon a camel; and so dark and threaten- ing were the scowls of his attendants that I used my ingenuity to convey the impression that I was taking the mosque beyond them. I know of one case where the death of a child was laid directly at the door of an American who had carelessly photographed it a few days before. If the camera-man be discreet, however, he may fill his bag with Arab negatives without danger. Now and then he will stumble headlong into fanaticism of course — as I did once when I mistook a ragged " holy man " for a common beggar. However, al- most any man would be willing to forego some of the 350 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET safety if he could thereby remove the other difficulties of getting exactly what he wants. The Bey of Tunis was one of the first Africans for whom I went " gunning." It was no easy job, for his soldiers and attendants have the habit of getting in the way as he comes out of the railway station and walks rapidly to his closed carriage. It was merely by chance that I succeeded in getting him on the wing. Curiously enough, I had even more difficulty in photographing a distinguished American who stopped for several days at the same hotel with me. The concierge had told me, excitedly, that an American millionaire was motoring across from Algiers — either a Rockefeller or a Vanderbilt, he thought. When he arrived, I recognized Monsieur Samson — at least, that is the name on the hotel register. With him was '' Mme. Samson" (of the Spanish opera), and a femme-de-chambre^ and a coiirrier, and a chauffeur, and an English valet. It was the valet who blocked my simple plan of photographing an American millionaire and his lady in an automobile in Africa. If the machine drew up at the door. Monsieur Samson never came downstairs if I was on the landscape; but the valet was sure to come down every little while and then go back up- stairs. By chance, one morning '' Madame Samson " came out on the balcony as I was standing across the street in full view. " Click " went the shutter, and away went the Madame. Then she came hurriedly down- HUNTING AFRICANS WITH A CAMERA 351 stairs, called Hassin Forga (a guide), and said things to him with much gesticulation. Hassin at once headed for my corner; in his palm were coins, which he clinked significantly as he ap- proached. All the loiterers pricked up their ears. " Run, quick, and photograph the Bey! " suggested Hassin. I smiled, thanked him, and told him that I had al- ready done so. There was more talk from Hassin and more sig- nificant clinking of the money, but it had the opposite effect from what Madame intended. I positively re- fused to budge. " Mr. Samson " was evidently out, and Madame had an important engagement. She sent the auto off in a rush, raised her parasol in the corridor, and held it between her face and the camera as she rushed up the street. But my game-bag has negatives of the whole party, machine and all, just the same! In Tangier I had many a merry chase, for the Moor is an elusive bird. The common varieties were easy prey, but those that I really wanted had to be stalked. A newly elected Bashaw, for instance, came from Fez with an imposing cavalcade. I waited two hours at a strategic point, and then came word that he had chosen the beach route. At the beach I waited another hour; just as his cavalcade came in sight he suddenly changed his mind — and I chased all the way across the town before I caught him. Another Moorish gentleman who tried to dodge THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET me may be seen at the Soco gate almost any day — a venerable '' saint " with a long, white beard. Once he was a soldier detailed for duty at the American Legation, but the influence of that institution led him into the realms of holiness. I w^as in Tangier six weeks before I got him — but I got him. Things happen in Africa by contraries. When I had reached the West Coast and gone back into regions that had seldom or never seen a white man, I ex- pected camera difficulties. To my amazement, even the most superstitious tribe was perfectly at ease in front of the lens. Some of the little folks were timid, but a white man can run them into the bush with a bar of soap. My chief difficulty with the Blacks grew out of the desire of the whole village to be photographed. Notwithstanding the cheerful consent of the parties of the second part, most of my failures were on the West Coast. Hundreds of picturesque scenes on the trail, for instance, could not be photographed on ac- count of the deep gloom of the African bush. Among all my negatives there is none showing a caravan on the trail — for the simple reason that only a small part of a caravan is visible at a time, except when it leaves the bush. It is the climate, however, that is the inveterate foe of the camera. A film soaks up moisture like a sponge, and the West Coast atmosphere is composed of about nine-tenths moisture and one-tenth air. In the dry season, even, you must dry your tobacco over a fire HUNTING AFRICANS WITH A CAMERA 353 before you can crumble it into your pipe. All my films were kept in air-tight tins and placed in the camera only when needed; but experience proved that they must be promptly developed or be lost. This is the point where the box-developer was worth its weight in ivory. Every village has a creek — and there, in the cool of the early morn, I developed my negatives. The water was tepid, of course, but the results were fairly good. The chief trouble cen- tred in the drying of a roll of film after it was de- veloped, for it had to be hung up in an atmosphere from which you could almost squeeze moisture. There were times when a film would dry only in the blazing sun, and more than once I have had to hold it hori- zontally for an hour to prevent the emulsion from run- ning off like molasses. And, of course, it was in- variably the wrong negative that suffered a mishap. Once, in the rainy season, I decided to take the risk of leaving my films to be developed after my return to the coast. I carefully followed instructions not to re-seal in the tins a negative that had been in the camera. It was an interesting and exciting month in the hinterland; I made the choicest exposures of the entire year. But when I developed them at the coast, I found only one indifferent negative; all the others were ruined! Kings and carriers, quaint vil- lages and picturesque canoes, mahogany camps and monkeys in the tree-tops — all gone! And the bitter- ness of the experience is not lessened by the reflection that if I had daily gone down to the creek with my little box-developer, three- fourths of them might have been brought back in my game-bag. XXV PERSPECTIVE AND RETROSPECTIVE IT is now too late to question the white man's right to Africa. The continent is his, and his it will remain — regardless of the Black and the Brown. Besides, this question of inalienable rights and the tenure of land is too complex for ordinary minds to grapple with. After all, how much difference is there between the purchase of Manhattan Island for $24 worth of trinkets and the acquisition of a hundred square miles from an African chief in return for a bottle of gin and a bolt of cloth? Before the day of international codes and Hague Tribunals, that thing became right which was agreed upon by the strong men and established with spear and bow. And when boat-building became ship- building, it became an international law — a right, if you please — that newly discovered lands belonged to the nation whose ships should first beach on their shores. Upon such a simple ceremony as planting a stick with a flag on it rested England's claim to Virginia and Massachusetts, France's claim to Canada, and Spain's tenure of Florida and Louisiana. The right of conquest was established as firmly as the right of discovery — and so New Amsterdam be- came New York, and Canada became British soil. 854 JUST TO SHOW THAT I WAS THERE PERSPECTIVE AND RETROSPECTIVE 355 Followed another '' right " — that of throwing off the yoke of the mother country — if you can. Africa has not reached that stage. Within our own little era, it has passed the stage of discovery and ex- ploration. It is ours now to observe Africa in its era of development. We see South Africa as Europe saw New York in 1700; the Congo as Georgia looked in 1750; the great French Sudan as the undistricted region south of the Ohio appeared to European eyes in 1775. And they who weep over the White Man's conquest of Africa are the grandchildren of good men and women who once shed tears over the wrongs of the Red Man who had to move on because he wouldn't work. The humanitarian generally forgets what Africa was when the white man found it. Livingstone, who was temperate in language, summed up his impres- sions in one sentence : " It gives me the impression of being in hell." The inscription upon his tomb in England's Abbey of immortals — and it was written to the American people just a year before his death — calls for a blessing upon every man who shall help to heal " the open sore of the world." That was Black Man's Africa as the White Man found it. There is one long tragedy about the centuries of conquest in a pitiless land, for Africa has taken its greedy toll of all the whites that have run their keels upon its inhospitable coast-line — explorers, slavers, traders, missionaries, officials. It is not gross exag- geration to think of the Dark Continent as one vast cemetery, enclosed by a coast-line of white marble 356 THE LAND OF THE WHITE HELMET slabs to represent the graves of the whites that have died. Their resting-places — forgotten now save by the few who loved them or revere their memory — are chiefly around the continent's rim, but all over the vast rain-soaked and sun-washed interior you will find little crosses under lonely palms and baobabs, the crypt and key to buried treasure, for the kind of cour- age that brought them to this end was a real asset of their nations — regardless of the purpose for which they went out — and their loss impoverished the world in a real sense. ;}t >I< ^ ^ 5|; I am loth to close this fragmentary record of a year in the Dark Continent — a year which has brought me many heartaches — without a word of tribute to the men and women who wear the White Helmet. It is not merely because you were kind to a passing traveller — you of Tunis, and of Tangier, and of Dakar, and of Freetown, and of Monrovia, and of Cape Palmas, and of many steamships — but because I honour you for your great work in a hot and lonely land. "I have eaten your bread and salt, I have drunk your water and wine; The deaths ye died I have watched beside, And the lives that ye led were mine." I stand uncovered, here across the leagues of water that breaks in a booming surf on your coast, and my best wish for you is that you also may live to hear the whir of the windlass as the anchor drops to its bed in the port of Home ! IN OTHER LANDS ISAAC TAYLOR HEADLAND Court Life in China : ^i^e capital n^s^officiau Illustrated, i2mo, Cloth, net $1.50. Prof. Headland's vivid sketches of Chinese social life have awakened unusual interest as they have appeared in The Century, Everybody's, The Cosmopolitan, The Outlook and other magazines. From most intimate association he has prepared this fascinating account of facts little known out- side of Chinese Court Circles. Much has been said of the Empress Dowager, but no one has previously succeeded in giving such an intimate picture of this renowned ruler. Mrs. Headland has been of material assistance in her hus- band's preparation of this work. In her professional ca- pacity she has been admitted to the inmost circles of the court, having had many audiences with the Empress Dowager, herself. GERALDINE GUINNESS Peru : Its Story, People and Religion Illustrated, 8vo, Cloth, net $2.50. "The author possesses a keen power of observation, a good deal of enthusiasm, and the faculty for wr'ting a stir- ring account of an interesting people. 'llie facts are well grouped and the Peruvian people are made to glow with life. The book presents a vivid picture of life in the larger cities of modern Peru." — Review of Reviews, MANUEL AND U JAR Spain of To-day from Within With Autobiography of Author. Illustrated, net $1.25. "A work considerably different in tone and treatment from the usual book of travel. Ihe author knows his coun- try intimately. His narrative is candid and interesting, an authentic and entertaining comment on modern Spain and its matters of interest to the general reader — an honest in- side view of a land that is particularly hard to get acquainted with." — Cleveland Plaiti'Dealer, SUSAN BALLARD Fairy Tales from Far Japan New Edition, Fully Illustrated, net $1.00. Mrs. Isabella L,, Bird Bishop says: "Miss Ballard has done English readers a great service in placing within their reach these most popular specimens of Japanese fairy lore, showing the sort of pabulum on which Japanese children are reared. I have much pleasure in commending these charming tales to all who desire a glimpse of Japanese fairy lore." - MISSIONS HOME AND FOREIGN All About J^ipan A Young People's History of Japan. i2mo. Cloth, net $1.00. BELLE M. BRAIN A young people's history of Japan from the earliest days down to the present. A great mass of information, historical and otherwise, is condensed with surprising skill within the covers of a small rolume. With Tommy Tompkins in Korea Illustrated,i2mo,Cloth,net J1.25. L. H. UNDERWOOD, H.D. A vivid story of life in Korea. Native life is most graphically and humorously presented in connection with the experiences of this American family. Entertainment and accurate information about things Korean are here admirably blended. Home Mission Readings i2mo. Cloth, net, 50c., Paper, net, 25c. ALICE M. GUERNSEY A collection of stories and sketches dealing with various phases of Home Mission work, and especially designed for use in missionary meetings. Women's auxiliary societies, and Young People's societies will find it of value in making out their programes. A bright story will catch and hold the attention better than a prosy speech. Indian and Spanish Neig^hbors Interdenominational Home Mission Study Course. i2mo. Cloth, net 50c., Paper, net 30c JULIA H. JOHNSTON The Third volume in the series begun in Under Our Flag. In- tended for use as a text book in all Women's Home Mission Societies. Covers the needs, and opportunity for work, among the Indians and Spanish speaking people in our Western states, in Cuba and Porto Rico. The Burden of the City 3rd Edition. i6mo, Cloth, net 50c. ; paper, net 30c. I5ABELLE HORTON A study of Home Mission work as applied to our large cities, by a deaconess of wide experience. Especially designed for use by Mis- sion Study Classes whether young or old. Our People of Foreign Speech i6mo Cloth, net 50c. SAMUEL McLANAHAN "There is a fund of information contained in this little volume that those interested in the religious and socialistic problems of the day will do well to avail themselves of." — Presbyterian Banner. At Our Own Door Home Missions in the South. Cloth, Illustrated, net fi. 00. Paper, net 3Sc. S. L. flORRfS "This book will be a power in the land. It is brimful of energy and common sense enthusiasm. It is aggressive, interesting, instructive." Southwestern Presbyterian. THE BRIGHT SmE OF MISSIONARY LIFE HELEN E. SPRINGER Snap Shots from Sunny Africa Introduction by Bishop Hartzler. Illustrated, i2mo. Cloth, net $1.00. A singularly interesting- collection of incidents of mis- sion life among the African natives, such as "Attending a Native Dance," "An African Vanity Fair," "The Glorious Fourth in Africa," "Watapo's Wedding," "Bicycling in Cen- tral Africa," and many other subjects of equal fascination. Daybreak in Korea ^ '^^^^ °^ Transformation ANNIE L A. BAIRD 'r\fckt:t A Ta in the Far Fast. Illustrated, i6mo, cloth, net 6oc. "A keen, incisive story, which depicts the life of the Korean woman in a most revealing way. It is just the book for those who would quickly penetrate beyond outward ap- pearances and see what moves the Korean mind. It is full of snap and vim with a true insight into reality." — JVm. Elliot Griffis. MARY CULLER WHITE The Days of June The lyife Story of June Nicholson. i6mo, Cloth, net 50c. In this little transcript from actual life may be seen clearly the "stuff of which missionaries are made." W. R. Lambreth, General Secretary of the Board of Missions M, F- Church, South, says: "Such books help us to realize the potentiality of a life given to a life mission. ... .The spright- liness of the author's style, the pathos, the insight and the deep currents of thought are almost inimitable." ISABELLA RIGGS WILLIAMS By the Great WaU Selected Correspondence of Isabella Riggs Williams, Mis- sionary of the American Board to China, 1866-1897. With an introduction by Arthur H. Smith. Illustrated, lamo, cloth, net $1.50. "This volume is a little window opened into the life and •work of an exceptionally equipped missionary. Mrs. Wil- liams won the hearts of Chinese women and girls; showed what a Christian home may be, and how the children of such a home can be trained for wide and unselfish useful- ness wherever their lot is cast." — Arthur H. Smith, Author of Chinese Characteristics, Etc. IN THE WIDE, WIDE WORLD. Modern India Illustrated, 8vo, Cloth, net $2.00. WILLIAM ELEROY CURTIS With so many books on India one might aSk, why any more ? The answer is that Mr. Curtis has a way of finding out what others miss, and of telling his story so that it cannot be forgotten, £i(ypt> Burma &nd British Malaysia Illustrated, 8vo, Cloth, net $2.00. WILLIAM ELEROY CURTIS Mr. Curtis is the most skillful observer in the ranks of American travelers and correspondents. His pages are fascinating pictures of life, men and affairs in out-of-the-way places, and moreover he tel\s one just the things most worth knowing about everywhere he goes, whether it is scenery, politics, business or religion. The Mediterranean Traveller IS'^.'^iSdelS/' 2nd Edition, revised. Illustrations and Maps, izmo. Cloth, net $2.50. DANIEL E. LORENZ "Gives essential facts in one compact volume, and it is done well. Treats in order Madeira, Southern Spain and Gibraltar, crosses the Strait to Tangier, Algiers and Tripoli, then carries the reader to Tur- key, Palestine and Egypt, and returns him along the northern shores, through Italy and the Riviera. The traveler will find it of service in planning his travels through these fascinating lands." — N, Y. Sun. Round the World Toward the Westering Sun i2mo. Cloth, net |i. 25. LEE S. SMITH In an earlier volume " Through Egypt and Palestine " Mr. Smith gave ample evidence of his ability to write entertaingly. Tn this new book, with a wider field he has produced not only an exceedingly in- teresting work, but a valuable guide to intending touristy Two Years in Three Continents 8vo, Cloth, net $2.00. E. M. CONDIT "It is impossible to read the cheerful narrative of this lively globe- trotter without absorbing some of his enthusiasm, for he is full of it." — Boston Transcript. Missions from the Modern View Introduction by Charles Cuthbert Hall, D.D. i2mo. Cloth, net #1.25. ROBERT A. HUME "Dr. Hume's treatment of the theme is that of one on the firing line, engaged in manifold practical activities but at the same time keeping pace with the best Christian thought of England and Amer- ca, "—Congregationalist. v> vOc :% .-.v ^ ^^^• •^^ -0' o \' _,,, . \,'o..-^ ^G^ x?^ .-!>' ..■ ,^-^ •% • '>.. -0> OQ^