smaller than a bee, of a dull color, streaked with yellow on the lower
part of its body.
"And this fly is not venomous?" asked Mrs. Weldon.
"No, cousin, no; at least not for man. But for animals, for antelopes,
for buffaloes, even for elephants, it is another thing. Ah! adorable
insect!"
"At last," asked Dick Sand, "will you tell us, Mr. Benedict, what is
this fly?"
"This fly," replied the entomologist, "this fly that I hold between my
fingers, this fly--it is a -tsetse-! It is that famous dipter that is
the honor of a country, and, till now, no one has ever found a -tsetse-
in America!"
Dick Sand did not dare to ask Cousin Benedict in what part of the world
this redoubtable -tsetse- was only to be met. And when his companions,
after this incident, had returned to their interrupted sleep, Dick
Sand, in spite of the fatigue which overwhelmed him, did not close his
eyes the whole night.
* * * * *
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE TERRIBLE WORD.
It was time to arrive. Extreme lassitude made it impossible for Mrs.
Weldon to continue any longer a journey made under such painful
conditions. Her little boy, crimson during the fits of fever, very pale
during the intermissions, was pitiable to see. His mother extremely
anxious, had not been willing to leave Jack even in the care of the
good Nan. She held him, half-lying, in her arms.
Yes, it was time to arrive. But, to trust to the American, on the very
evening of this day which was breaking--the evening of the 18th of
April, the little troop should finally reach the shelter of the
"hacienda" of San Felice.
Twelve days' journey for a woman, twelve nights passed in the open air;
it was enough to overwhelm Mrs. Weldon, energetic as she was. But, for
a child, it was worse, and the sight of little Jack sick, and without
the most ordinary cares, had sufficed to crush her.
Dick Sand, Nan, Tom, and his companions had supported the fatigues of
the journey better.
Their provisions, although they were commencing to get exhausted, had
not become injured, and their condition was satisfactory.
As for Harris, he seemed made for the difficulties of these long
journeys across the forests, and it did not appear that fatigue could
affect him. Only, in proportion as he neared the farm, Dick Sand
observed that he was more preoccupied and less frank in behavior than
before. The contrary would have been more natural. This was, at least,
the opinion of the young novice, who had now become more than
suspicious of the American. And meanwhile, what interest could Harris
have in deceiving them? Dick Sand could not have explained it, but he
watched their guide more closely.
The American probably felt himself suspected by Dick Sand, and, no
doubt, it was this mistrust which made him still more taciturn with
"his young friend."
The march had been resumed.
In the forest, less thick, the trees were scattered in groups, and no
longer formed impenetrable masses. Was it, then, the true pampas of
which Harris had spoken?
During the first hours of the day, no accident happened to aggravate
the anxieties that Dick Sand felt. Only two facts were observed by him.
Perhaps they were not very important, but in these actual junctures, no
detail could be neglected.
It was the behavior of Dingo which, above all, attracted more
especially the young man's attention.
In fact the dog, which, during all this journey, had seemed to be
following a scent, became quite different, and that almost suddenly.
Until then, his nose to the ground, generally smelling the herbs or the
shrubs, he either kept quiet, or he made a sort of sad, barking noise,
like an expression of grief or of regret.
Now, on this day, the barking of the singular animal became like
bursts, sometimes furious, such as they formerly were when Negoro
appeared on the deck of the "Pilgrim." A suspicion crossed suddenly
Dick Sand's mind, and it was confirmed by Tom, who said to him:
"How very singular, Mr. Dick! Dingo no longer smells the ground as he
did yesterday! His nose is in the air, he is agitated, his hair stands
up! One would think he scented in the distance----"
"Negoro, is it not so?" replied Dick Sand, who seized the old black's
arm, and signed to him to speak in a low voice.
"Negoro, Mr. Dick! May it not be that he has followed our steps?"
"Yes, Tom; and that at this moment even he may not be very far from us."
"But why?" said Tom.
"Either Negoro does not know this country," went on Dick Sand, "and
then he would have every interest in not losing sight of us----"
"Or?" said Tom, who anxiously regarded the novice.
"Or," replied Dick Sand, "he does know it, and then he----"
"But how should Negoro know this country? He has never come here!"
"Has he never been here?" murmured Dick Sand.
"It is an incontestable fact that Dingo acts as if this man whom he
detests were near us!"
Then, interrupting himself to call the dog, which, after some
hesitation, came to him:
"Eh!" said he; "Negoro! Negoro!"
A furious barking was Dingo's reply. This name had its usual effect
upon him, and he darted forward, as if Negoro had been hidden behind
some thicket.
Harris had witnessed all this scene. With his lips a little drawn, he
approached the novice.
"What did you ask Dingo then?" said he.
"Oh, not much, Mr. Harris," replied old Tom, jokingly. "We asked him
for news of the ship-companion whom we have lost!"
"Ah!" said the American, "the Portuguese, the ship's cook of whom you
have already spoken to me?"
"Yes." replied Tom. "One would say, to hear Dingo, that Negoro is in
the vicinity."
"How could he get as far as this?" replied Harris.
"He never was in this country that I know of; at least, he concealed it
from us," replied Tom.
"It would be astonishing," said Harris. "But, if you wish, we will beat
these thickets. It is possible that this poor devil has need of help;
that he is in distress."
"It is useless, Mr. Harris," replied Dick Sand. "If Negoro has known
how to come as far as this, he will know how to go farther. He is a man
to keep out of trouble."
"As you please," replied Harris.
"Let us go. Dingo, be quiet," added Dick Sand, briefly, so as to end
the conversation.
The second observation made by the novice was in connection with the
American horse. He did not appear to "feel the stable," as do animals
of his species. He did not suck in the air; he did not hasten his
speed; he did not dilate his nostrils; he uttered none of the neighings
that indicate the end of a journey. To observe him well, he appeared to
be as indifferent as if the farm, to which he had gone several times,
however, and which he ought to know, had been several hundreds of miles
away.
"That is not a horse near home," thought the young novice.
And, meanwhile, according to what Harris had said the evening before,
there only remained six miles to go, and, of these last six miles, at
five o'clock in the evening four had been certainly cleared.
Now, if the horse felt nothing of the stable, of which he should have
great need, nothing besides announced the approaches to a great
clearing, such as the Farm of San Felice must be.
Mrs. Weldon, indifferent as she then was to what did not concern her
child, was struck at seeing the country still so desolate. What! not a
native, not a farm-servant, at such a short distance! Harris must be
wild! No! she repulsed this idea. A new delay would have been the death
of her little Jack!
Meanwhile, Harris always kept in advance, but he seemed to observe the
depths of the wood, and looked to the right and left, like a man who
was not sure of himself--nor of his road.
Mrs. Weldon shut her eyes so as not to see him.
After a plain a mile in extent, the forest, without being as dense as
in the west, had reappeared, and the little troop was again lost under
the great trees.
At six o'clock in the evening they had reached a thicket, which
appeared to have recently given passage to a band of powerful animals.
Dick Sand looked around him very attentively. At a distance winch far
surpassed the human height, the branches were torn off or broken. At
the same time the herbs, roughly scattered, exhibited on the soil, a
little marshy, prints of steps which could not be those of jaguars, or
cougars.
Were these, then, the "ais," or some other tardi-graves, whose feet had
thus marked the soil? But how, then, explain the break in the branches
at such a height?
Elephants might have, without doubt, left such imprints, stamped these
large traces, made a similar hole in the impenetrable underwood. But
elephants are not found in America. These enormous thick-skinned
quadrupeds are not natives of the New World. As yet, they have never
been acclimated there.
The hypothesis that elephants had passed there was absolutely
inadmissible.
However that might be, Dick Sand hardly knew how much this inexplicable
fact gave him to think about. He did not even question the American on
this point. What could he expect from a man who had tried to make him
take giraffes for ostriches? Harris would have given him some
explanation, more or less imaginative, which would not have changed the
situation.
At all events, Dick had formed his opinion of Harris. He felt in him a
traitor! He only awaited an occasion to unmask his disloyalty, to have
the right to do it, and everything told him that this opportunity was
near.
But what could be Harris's secret end? What future, then, awaited the
survivors of the "Pilgrim?" Dick Sand repeated to himself that his
responsibility had not ceased with the shipwreck. It was more than ever
necessary for him to provide for the safety of those whom the waves had
thrown on this coast! This woman, this young child, these blacks--all
his companions in misfortune--it was he alone who must save them! But,
if he could attempt anything on board ship, if he could act on the sea,
here, in the midst of the terrible trials which he foresaw, what part
could he take?
Dick Sand would not shut his eyes before the frightful reality that
each instant made more indisputable. In this juncture he again became
the captain of fifteen years, as he had been on the "Pilgrim." But he
would not say anything which could alarm the poor mother before the
moment for action had arrived.
And he said nothing, not even when, arrived on the bank of a rather
large stream, preceding the little troop about one hundred feet, he
perceived enormous animals, which threw themselves under the large
plants on the brink.
"Hippopotami! hippopotami!" he was going to exclaim.
And they were, indeed, these thick-skinned animals, with a big head, a
large, swollen snout, a mouth armed with teeth which extend a foot
beyond it--animals which are squat on their short limbs, the skin of
which, unprovided with hair, is of a tawny red. Hippopotami in America!
They continued to march during the whole day, but painfully. Fatigue
commenced to retard even the most robust. It was truly time to arrive,
or they would be forced to stop.
Mrs. Weldon, wholly occupied with her little Jack, did not perhaps feel
the fatigue, but her strength was exhausted. All, more or less, were
tired. Dick Sand, resisted by a supreme moral energy, caused by the
sentiment of duty.
Toward four o'clock in the evening, old Tom found, in the grass, an
object which attracted his attention. It was an arm, a kind of knife,
of a particular shape, formed of a large, curved blade, set in a
square, ivory handle, rather roughly ornamented. Tom carried this knife
to Dick Sand, who took it, examined it, and, finally, showed it to the
American, saying:
"No doubt the natives are not very far off."
"That is so," replied Harris, "and meanwhile----"
"Meanwhile?" repeated Dick Sand, who now steadily looked Harris in the
face.
"We should be very near the farm," replied Harris, hesitating, "and I
do not recognize----"
"You are then astray?" quickly asked Dick Sand.
"Astray! no. The farm cannot be more than three miles away, now. But, I
wished to take the shortest road through the forest, and perhaps I have
made a little mistake!"
"Perhaps," replied Dick Sand.
"I would do well, I think, to go in advance," said Harris.
"No, Mr. Harris, we will not separate," replied Dick Sand, in a decided
tone.
"As you will," replied the American. "But, during the night, it will be
difficult for me to guide you."
"Never mind that!" replied Dick Sand. "We are going to halt. Mrs.
Weldon will consent to pass a last night under the trees, and
to-morrow, when it is broad daylight, we will proceed on our journey!
Two or three miles still, that will be an hour's walk!"
"Be it so," replied Harris.
At that moment Dingo commenced to bark furiously.
"Here, Dingo, here!" cried Dick Sand. "You know well that no one is
there, and that we are in the desert!"
This last halt was then decided upon.
Mrs. Weldon let her companions work without saying a word. Her little
Jack was sleeping in her arms, made drowsy by the fever.
They sought the best place to pass the night. This was under a large
bunch of trees, where Dick Sand thought of disposing all for their
rest. But old Tom, who was helping him in these preparations, stopped
suddenly, crying out:
"Mr. Dick! look! look!"
"What is it, old Tom?" asked Dick Sand, in the calm tone of a man who
attends to everything.
"There--there!" cried Tom; "on those trees--blood stains!--and--on the
ground--mutilated limbs!"
Dick Sand rushed toward the spot indicated by old Tom. Then, returning
to him: "Silence, Tom, silence!" said he.
In fact, there on the ground were hands cut off, and above these human
remains were several broken forks, and a chain in pieces!
Happily, Mrs. Weldon had seen nothing of this horrible spectacle.
As for Harris, he kept at a distance, and any one observing him at this
moment would have been struck at the change made in him. His face had
something ferocious in it.
Dingo had rejoined Dick Sand, and before these bloody remains, he
barked with rage.
The novice had hard work to drive him away.
Meanwhile, old Tom, at the sight of these forks, of this broken chain,
had remained motionless, as if his feet were rooted in the soil. His
eyes were wide open, his hands clenched; he stared, murmuring these
incoherent words:
"I have seen--already seen--these forks--when little--I have seen!"
And no doubt the memories of his early infancy returned to him vaguely.
He tried to recall them. He was going to speak.
"Be silent, Tom!" repeated Dick Sand. "For Mrs. Weldon's sake, for all
our sakes, be silent!"
And the novice led the old black away.
Another halting place was chosen, at some distance, and all was
arranged for the night.
The repast was prepared, but they hardly touched it. Fatigue took away
their hunger. All were under an indefinable impression of anxiety which
bordered on terror.
Darkness came gradually: soon it was profound. The sky was covered with
great stormy clouds. Between the trees in the western horizon they saw
some flashes of heat lightning. The wind had fallen; not a leaf moved
on the trees. An absolute silence succeeded the noises of the day, and
it might be believed that the heavy atmosphere, saturated with
electricity, was becoming unfit for the transmission of sounds.
Dick Sand, Austin, and Bat watched together. They tried to see, to
hear, during this very dark night, if any light whatsoever, or any
suspicious noise should strike their eyes or their ears. Nothing
troubled either the calm or the obscurity of the forest.
Torn, not sleepy, but absorbed in his remembrances, his head bent,
remained quiet, as if he had been struck by some sudden blow.
Mrs. Weldon rocked her child in her arms, and only thought of him.
Only Cousin Benedict slept, perhaps, for he alone did not suffer from
the common impression. His faculty for looking forward did not go so
far.
Suddenly, about eleven o'clock, a prolonged and grave roaring was
heard, with which was mingled a sort of sharper shuddering. Tom stood
up and stretched out his hand toward a dense thicket, a mile or more
distant.
Dick Sand seized his arm, but he could not prevent Tom from crying in a
loud voice: "The lion! the lion!"
This roaring, which he had so often heard in his infancy, the old black
had just recognized it.
"The lion!" he repeated.
Dick Sand, incapable of controlling himself longer, rushed, cutlass in
hand, to the place occupied by Harris.
Harris was no longer there, and his horse had disappeared with him.
A sort of revelation took place in Dick Sand's mind. He was not where
he had believed he was!
So it was not on the American coast that the "Pilgrim" had gone ashore!
It was not the Isle of Paques, whose bearing the novice had taken at
sea, but some other island situated exactly to the west of this
continent, as the Isle of Paques is situated to the west of America.
The compass had deceived him during a part of the voyage, we know why!
Led away by the tempest over a false route, he must have doubled Cape
Horn, and from the Pacific Ocean he had passed into the Atlantic! The
speed of his ship, which he could only imperfectly estimate, had been
doubled, unknown to him, by the force of the hurricane!
Behold why the caoutchouc trees, the quinquinas, the products of South
America were missing in this country, which was neither the plateau of
Atacama nor the Bolivian pampa!
Yes, they were giraffes, not ostriches, which had fled away in the
opening! They were elephants that had crossed the thick underwood! They
were hippopotami whose repose Dick Sand had troubled under the large
plants! It was the -tsetse-, that dipter picked up by Benedict, the
formidable -tsetse- under whose stings the animals of the caravans
perish!
Finally, it was, indeed, the roaring of the lion that had just sounded
through the forest! And those forks, those chains, that knife of
singular form, they were the tools of the slave-trader! Those mutilated
hands, they were the hands of captives!
The Portuguese Negoro, and the American Harris, must be in collusion!
And those terrible words guessed by Dick Sand, finally escaped his lips:
"Africa! Equatorial Africa! Africa of the slave-trade and the slaves!"
End of Part I
-PART II-
* * * * *
CHAPTER I.
THE SLAVE TRADE.
The slave trade! Nobody is ignorant of the significance of this
word, which should never have found a place in human language. This
abominable traffic, for a long time practised to the profit of the
European nations which possessed colonies beyond the sea, has been
already forbidden for many years. Meanwhile it is always going on
a large scale, and principally in Central Africa. Even in this
nineteenth century the signature of a few States, calling themselves
Christians, are still missing from the Act for the Abolition of
Slavery.
We might believe that the trade is no longer carried on; that this
buying and this selling of human creatures has ceased: it is not so,
and that is what the reader must know if he wishes to become more
deeply interested in the second part of this history. He must learn
what these men-hunts actually are still, these hunts which threaten
to depopulate a whole continent for the maintenance of a few slave
colonies; where and how these barbarous captures are executed; how
much blood they cost; how they provoke incendiarism and pillage;
finally, for whose profit they are made.
It is in the fifteenth century only that we see the trade in blacks
carried on for the first time. Behold under what circumstances it was
established:
The Mussulmans, after being expelled from Spain, took refuge beyond
the Strait on the coast of Africa. The Portuguese, who then occupied
that part of the coast, pursued them with fury. A certain number of
those fugitives were made prisoners and brought back to Portugal.
Reduced to slavery, they constituted the first nucleus of African
slaves which has been formed in Western Europe since the Christian
Era.
But those Mussulmans belonged, for the most part, to rich families,
who wished to buy them back for gold. The Portuguese refused to accept
a ransom, however large it might be. They had only to make foreign
gold. What they lacked were the arms so indispensable then for the
work of the growing colonies, and, to say it all, the arms of the
slave.
The Mussulman families, being unable to buy back their captive
relatives, then offered to exchange them for a much larger number of
black Africans, whom it was only too easy to carry off. The offer
was accepted by the Portuguese, who found that exchange to their
advantage, and thus the slave trade was founded in Europe.
Toward the end of the sixteenth century this odious traffic was
generally admitted, and it was not repugnant to the still barbarous
manners. All the States protected it so as to colonize more rapidly
and more surely the isles of the New World. In fact, the slaves of
black origin could resist the climate, where the badly acclimated
whites, still unfit to support the heat of intertropical climates,
would have perished by thousands. The transport of negroes to the
American colonies was then carried on regularly by special vessels,
and this branch of transatlantic commerce led to the creation of
important stations on different points of the African coast. The
"merchandise" cost little in the country of production, and the
returns were considerable.
But, necessary as was the foundation of the colonies beyond the sea
from all points of view, it could not justify those markets for human
flesh. Generous voices soon made themselves heard, which protested
against the trade in blacks, and demanded from the European
governments a decree of abolition in the name of the principles of
humanity.
In 1751, the Quakers put themselves at the head of the abolition
movement, even in the heart of that North America where, a hundred
years later, the War of Secession was to burst forth, to which this
question of slavery was not a foreign one. Different States in the
North--Virginia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania--decreed the
abolition of the slave trade, and freed the slaves brought to their
territories at great expense.
But the campaign commenced by the Quakers did not limit itself to the
northern provinces of the New World. Slaveholders were warmly attacked
beyond the Atlantic. France and England, more particularly, recruited
partisans for this just cause. "Let the colonies perish rather than a
principle!" Such was the generous command which resounded through all
the Old World, and, in spite of the great political and commercial
interests engaged in the question, it was effectively transmitted
through Europe.
The impetus was given. In 1807, England abolished the slave-trade
in her colonies, and France followed her example in 1814. The two
powerful nations exchanged a treaty on this subject--a treaty
confirmed by Napoleon during the Hundred Days.
However, that was as yet only a purely theoretical declaration. The
slave-ships did not cease to cross the seas, and to dispose of their
"ebony cargoes" in colonial ports.
More practical measures must be taken in order to put an end to this
commerce. The United States, in 1820, and England, in 1824, declared
the slave trade an act of piracy, and those who practised it pirates.
As such, they drew on themselves the penalty of death, and they were
pursued to the end. France soon adhered to the new treaty; but the
States of South America, and the Spanish and Portuguese colonies,
did not join in the Act of Abolition. The exportation of blacks
then continued to their profit, notwithstanding the right of search
generally recognized, which was limited to the verification of the
flag of suspicious vessels.
Meanwhile, the new Law of Abolition had not a retroactive effect. No
more new slaves were made, but the old ones had not yet recovered
their liberty.
It was under those circumstances that England set an example. In May,
1833, a general declaration emancipated all the blacks in the colonies
of Great Britain, and in August, 1838, six hundred and seventy
thousand slaves were declared free.
Ten years later, in 1848, the Republic emancipated the slaves of the
French colonies, say about two hundred and sixty thousand blacks. In
1861, the war which broke out between the Federals and Confederates,
of the United States, finishing the work of emancipation, extended it
to all North America.
The three great powers had then accomplished this work of humanity. At
the present hour, the trade is no longer carried on, except for the
benefit of the Spanish and Portuguese colonies, and to satisfy the
wants of the populations of the Orient, Turks, or Arabs. Brazil, if
she has not yet restored her old slaves to liberty, at least no longer
receives new ones, and the children of the blacks are born free there.
It is in the interior of Africa, in the prosecution of those bloody
wars, waged by the African chiefs among themselves for this man-hunt,
that entire tribes are reduced to slavery. Two opposite directions are
then given to the caravans: one to the west, toward the Portuguese
colony of Angola; the other to the east, on the Mozambique. Of these
unfortunate beings, of whom only a small portion arrive at their
destination, some are exported, it may be to Cuba, it may be to
Madagascar; others to the Arab or Turkish provinces of Asia, to Mecca,
or to Muscat. The English and French cruisers can only prevent
this traffic to a small extent, as it is so difficult to obtain an
effective surveillance over such far-extended coasts.
But the figures of these odious exportations, are they still
considerable?
Yes! The number of slaves who arrive at the coast is estimated at
not less than eighty thousand; and this number, it appears, only
represents the tenth of natives massacred.
After these dreadful butcheries the devastated fields are deserted,
the burnt villages are without inhabitants, the rivers carry down dead
bodies, deer occupy the country. Livingstone, the day after one of
these men-hunts, no longer recognized the provinces he had visited
a few months before. All the other travelers--Grant, Speke, Burton,
Cameron, and Stanley--do not speak otherwise of this wooded plateau of
Central Africa, the principal theater of the wars between the chiefs.
In the region of the great lakes, over all that vast country which
feeds the market of Zanzibar, in Bornou and Fezzan, farther south,
on the banks of the Nyassa and the Zambesi, farther west, in the
districts of the upper Zaire, which the daring Stanley has just
crossed, is seen the same spectacle--ruins, massacres, depopulation.
Then will slavery in Africa only end with the disappearance of the
black race; and will it be with this race as it is with the Australian
race, or the race in New Holland?
But the market of the Spanish and Portuguese colonies will close some
day. That outlet will be wanting. Civilized nations can no longer
tolerate the slave trade!
Yes, without doubt; and this year even, 1878, ought to see the
enfranchisement of all the slaves still possessed by Christian States.
However, for long years to come the Mussulman nations will maintain
this traffic, which depopulates the African continent. It is for them,
in fact, that the most important emigration of the blacks is made, as
the number of natives snatched from their provinces and brought to
the eastern coast annually exceeds forty thousand. Long before the
expedition to Egypt the negroes of the Seunaar were sold by thousands
to the negroes of the Darfour, and reciprocally. General Bonaparte was
able to buy a pretty large number of these blacks, of whom he made
organized soldiers, like the Mamelukes. Since then, during this
century, of which four-fifths have now passed away, commerce in slaves
has not diminished in Africa. On the contrary.
And, in fact, Islamism is favorable to the slave trade. The black
slave must replace the white slave of former times, in Turkish
provinces. So contractors of every origin pursue this execrable
traffic on a large scale. They thus carry a supplement of population
to those races, which are dying out and will disappear some day,
because they do not regenerate themselves by labor. These slaves, as
in the time of Bonaparte, often become soldiers. With certain nations
of the upper Niger, they compose the half of the armies of the African
chiefs. Under these circumstances, their fate is not sensibly inferior
to that of free men. Besides, when the slave is not a soldier, he is
money which has circulation; even in Egypt and at Bornou, officers and
functionaries are paid in that money. William Lejean has seen it and
has told of it.
Such is, then, the actual state of the trade.
Must it be added that a number of agents of the great European powers
are not ashamed to show a deplorable indulgence for this commerce.
Nevertheless, nothing is truer; while the cruisers watch the coasts of
the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans, the traffic goes on regularly
in the interior, the caravans walk on under the eyes of certain
functionaries, and massacres, where ten blacks perish to furnish one
slave, take place at stated periods!
So it will now be understood how terrible were those words just
pronounced by Dick Sand.
"Africa! Equatorial Africa! Africa of slave-traders and slaves!"
And he was not deceived; it was Africa with all its dangers, for his
companions and for himself.
But on what part of the African continent had an inexplicable fatality
landed him? Evidently on the western coast, and as an aggravating
circumstance, the young novice was forced to think that the "Pilgrim"
was thrown on precisely that part of the coast of Angola where the
caravans, which clear all that part of Africa, arrive.
In fact it was there. It was that country which Cameron on the south
and Stanley on the north were going to cross a few years later, and at
the price of what efforts! Of this vast territory, which is composed
of three provinces, Benguela, Congo, and Angola, there was but little
known then except the coast. It extends from the Nourse, in the south,
as far as the Zaire in the north, and the two principal towns form two
ports, Benguela and St. Paul' de Loanda, the capital of the colony
which set off from the kingdom of Portugal.
In the interior this country was then almost unknown. Few travelers
had dared to venture there. A pernicious climate, warm and damp lands,
which engender fevers, barbarous natives, some of whom are still
cannibals, a permanent state of war between tribes, the slave-traders'
suspicion of every stranger who seeks to discover the secrets of their
infamous commerce; such are the difficulties to surmount, the dangers
to overcome in this province of Angola, one of the most dangerous of
equatorial Africa.
Tuckey, in 1816, had ascended the Congo beyond the Yellala Falls;
but over an extent of two hundred miles at the most. This simple
halting-place could not give a definite knowledge of the country,
and nevertheless, it had caused the death of the greater part of the
savants and officers who composed the expedition. Thirty-seven years
later, Dr. Livingstone had advanced from the Cape of Good Hope as
far as the upper Zambesi. Thence, in the month of November, with a
hardihood which has never been surpassed, he traversed Africa from the
south to the northwest, cleared the Coango, one of the branches of the
Congo, and on the 31st of May, 1854, arrived at St. Paul de Loanda. It
was the first view in the unknown of the great Portuguese Colony.
Eighteen years after, two daring discoverers crossed Africa from the
east to the west, and arrived, one south, the other north, of Angola,
after unheard-of difficulties.
The first, according to the date, was a lieutenant in the English
navy, Verney-Howet Cameron. In 1872, there was reason to fear that the
expedition of the American, Stanley, was in great danger. It had been
sent to the great lake region in search of Livingstone. Lieutenant
Cameron offered to go over the same road.
The offer was accepted. Cameron, accompanied by Dr. Dillon, Lieutenant
Cecil Murphy and Robert Moffat, a nephew of Livingstone, started from
Zanzibar. After having crossed Ougogo, he met Livingstone's faithful
servants carrying their master's body to the eastern coast. He
continued his route to the west, with the unconquerable desire to pass
from one coast to the other.
He crossed Ounyanyembe, Ougounda, and Kahouele, where he collected
the great traveler's papers. Having passed over Tanganyika, and the
Bambarre mountains, he reached Loualaba, but could not descend its
course. After having visited all the provinces devastated by war and
depopulated by the slave trade, Kilemmba, Ouroua, the sources of the
Lomane, Oulouda, Lovale, and having crossed the Coanza and the
immense forests in which Harris has just entrapped Dick Sand and his
companions, the energetic Cameron finally perceived the Atlantic Ocean
and arrived at Saint Philip of Benguela. This journey of three years
and four months had cost the lives of his two companions, Dr. Dillon
and Robert Moffat.
Henry Moreland Stanley, the American, almost immediately succeeded the
Englishman, Cameron, on the road of discoveries. We know that this
intrepid correspondent of the New York -Herald-, sent in search of
Livingstone, had found him on October 30th, 1871, at Oujiji, on Lake
Tanganyika. Having so happily accomplished his object for the sake of
humanity, Stanley determined to pursue his journey in the interest of
geographical science. His object then was to gain a complete knowledge
of Loualaba, of which he had only had a glimpse.
Cameron was then lost in the provinces of Central Africa, when, in
November, 1874, Stanley quitted Bagamoga, on the eastern coast.
Twenty-one months after, August 24th, 1876, he abandoned Oujiji, which
was decimated by an epidemic of smallpox. In seventy-four days he
effected the passage of the lake at N'yangwe, a great slave market,
which had been already visited by Livingstone and Cameron. Here he
witnessed the most horrible scenes, practised in the Maroungou and
Manyouema countries by the officers of the Sultan of Zanzibar.
Stanley then took measures to explore the course of the Loualaba and
to descend it as far as its mouth. One hundred and forty bearers,
engaged at N'yangwe, and nineteen boats, formed the material and the
force of his expedition.
From the very start he had to fight the cannibals of Ougouson. From
the start, also, he had to attend to the carrying of boats, so as to
pass insuperable cataracts.
Under the equator, at the point where the Loualaba makes a bend to
the northeast, fifty-four boats, manned by several hundred natives,
attacked Stanley's little fleet, which succeeded in putting them to
flight. Then the courageous American, reascending as far as the second
degree of northern latitude, ascertained that the Loualaba was the
upper Zaire, or Congo, and that by following its course he could
descend directly to the sea.
This he did, fighting nearly every day against the tribes that lived
near the river. On June 3d, 1877, at the passage of the cataracts of
Massassa, he lost one of his companions, Francis Pocock. July 18th he
was drawn with his boat into the falls of M'belo, and only escaped
death by a miracle.
Finally, August 6th, Henry Stanley arrived at the village of Ni-Sanda,
four days' journey from the coast.
Two days after, at Banza-M'bouko, he found the provisions sent by two
merchants from Emboma.
He finally rested at this little coast town, aged, at thirty-five
years, by over-fatigue and privations, after an entire passage of the
African continent, which had taken two years and nine months of his
life.
However, the course of the Loualaba was explored as far as the
Atlantic; and if the Nile is the great artery of the North, if the
Zambesi is the great artery of the East, we now know that Africa still
possesses in the West the third of the largest rivers in the world--a
river which, in a course of two thousand, nine hundred miles, under
the names of Loualaba, Zaire, and Congo, unites the lake region with
the Atlantic Ocean.
However, between these two books of travel--Stanley's and
Cameron's--the province of Angola is somewhat better known in this
year than in 1873, at that period when the "Pilgrim" was lost on the
African coast. It was well known that it was the seat of the western
slave-trade, thanks to its important markets of Bihe, Cassange, and
Kazounde.
It was into this country that Dick Sand had been drawn, more than one
hundred miles from the coast, with a woman exhausted by fatigue and
grief, a dying child, and some companions of African descent, the
prey, as everything indicated, to the rapacity of slave merchants.
Yes, it was Africa, and not that America where neither the natives,
nor the deer, nor the climate are very formidable. It was not that
favorable region, situated between the Cordilleras and the coast,
where straggling villages abound, and where missions are hospitably
opened to all travelers.
They were far away, those provinces of Peru and Bolivia, where the
tempest would have surely carried the "Pilgrim," if a criminal hand
had not changed its course, where the shipwrecked ones would have
found so many facilities for returning to their country.
It was the terrible Angola, not even that part of the coast inspected
by the Portuguese authorities, but the interior of the colony, which
is crossed by caravans of slaves under the whip of the driver.
What did Dick Sand know of this country where treason had thrown him?
Very little; what the missionaries of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries had said of it; what the Portuguese merchants, who
frequented the road from St. Paul de Loanda to the Zaïre, by way of
San Salvador, knew of it; what Dr. Livingstone had written about it,
after his journey of 1853, and that would have been sufficient to
overwhelm a soul less strong than his.
Truly, the situation was terrible.
CHAPTER II.
HARRIS AND NEGORO.
The day after that on which Dick Sand and his companions had
established their last halt in the forest, two men met together about
three miles from there, as it had been previously arranged between
them.
These two men were Harris and Negoro; and we are going to see now what
chance had brought together, on the coast of Angola, the Portuguese
come from New Zealand, and the American, whom the business of trader
obliged to often traverse this province of Western Africa.
Harris and Negoro were seated at the foot of an enormous banyan, on
the steep bank of an impetuous stream, which ran between a double
hedge of papyrus.
The conversation commenced, for the Portuguese and the American
had just met, and at first they dwelt on the deeds which had been
accomplished during these last hours.
"And so, Harris," said Negoro, "you have not been able to draw this
little troop of Captain Sand, as they call this novice of fifteen
years, any farther into Angola?"
"No, comrade," replied Harris; "and it is even astonishing that I have
succeeded in leading him a hundred miles at least from the coast.
Several days ago my young friend, Dick Sand, looked at me with an
anxious air, his suspicions gradually changed into certainties--and
faith--"
"Another hundred miles, Harris, and those people would be still more
surely in our hands! However, they must not escape us!"
"Ah! How could they?" replied Harris, shrugging his shoulders. "I
repeat it, Negoro, there was only time to part company with them. Ten
times have I read in my young friend's eyes that he was tempted to
send a ball into my breast, and I have too bad a stomach to digest
those prunes which weigh a dozen to the pound."
"Good!" returned Negoro; "I also have an account to settle with this
novice."
"And you shall settle it at your ease, with interest, comrade. As to
me, during the first three days of the journey I succeeded very well
in making him take this province for the Desert of Atacama, which
I visited formerly. But the child claimed his caoutchoucs and his
humming-birds. The mother demanded her quinquinas. The cousin was
crazy to find cocuyos. Faith, I was at the end of my imagination,
and after with great difficulty making them swallow ostriches for
giraffes--a god-send, indeed, Negoro!--I no longer knew what to
invent. Besides, I well saw that my young friend no longer accepted my
explanations. Then we fell on elephants' prints. The hippopotami were
added to the party. And you know, Negoro, hippopotami and elephants
in America are like honest men in the penitentiaries of Benguela.
Finally, to finish me, there was the old black, who must find forks
and chains at the foot of a tree. Slaves had freed themselves from
them to flee. At the same moment the lion roared, starting the
company, and it is not easy to pass off that roaring for the mewing
of an inoffensive cat. I then had only time to spring on my horse and
make my way here."
"I understand," replied Negoro. "Nevertheless, I would wish to hold
them a hundred miles further in the province."'
"One does what he can, comrade," replied Harris. "As to you, who
followed our caravan from the coast, you have done well to keep your
distance. They felt you were there. There is a certain Dingo that does
not seem to love you. What have you done to that animal?"
"Nothing," replied Negoro; "but before long it will receive a ball in
the head."
"As you would have received one from Dick Sand, if you had shown ever
so little of your person within two hundred feet of his gun. Ah! how
well he fires, my young friend; and, between you and me, I am obliged
to admit that he is, in his way, a fine boy."
"No matter how fine he is, Harris, he will pay dear for his
insolence," replied Negoro, whose countenance expressed implacable
cruelty.
"Good," murmured Harris, "my comrade remains just the same as I have
always known him! Voyages have not injured him!"
Then, after a moment's silence: "Ah, there, Negoro," continued he,
"when I met you so fortunately there below, at the scene of the
shipwreck, at the mouth of the Longa, you only had time to recommend
those honest people to me, while begging me to lead them as far as
possible across this pretended Bolivia. You have not told me what you
have been doing these two years! Two years, comrade, in our chance
existence, is a long time. One fine day, after having taken charge of
a caravan of slaves on old Alvez's account--whose very humble agents
we are--you left Cassange, and have not been heard of since! I have
thought that you had some disagreement with the English cruiser, and
that you were hung!"
"I came very near it, Harris."
"That will come, Negoro."
"Thank you!"
"What would you have?" replied Harris, with an indifference quite
philosophical; "it is one of the chances of the trade! We do not carry
on the slave-trade on the coast of Africa without running the risk of
dying elsewhere than in our beds! So, you have been taken?"
"Yes!"
"By the English?"
"No! By the Portuguese."
"Before or after having delivered your cargo?" asked Harris.
"After--," replied Negoro, who had hesitated a little about replying.
"These Portuguese now make difficulties. They want no more slavery,
though they have used it so long to their profit. I was denounced
--watched. They took me--"
"And condemned--"
"Me to finish my days in the penitentiary of St. Paul de Loanda."
"A thousand devils!" exclaimed Harris. "That is an unhealthy place for
men accustomed, like us, to live in the open air. As to me, perhaps I
should prefer being hung."
"One does not escape from the gallows," replied Negoro; "but from
prison--"
"You were able to make your escape?"
"Yes, Harris. Only fifteen days after being put in prison. I was
able to hide myself at the bottom of the hold of an English steamer,
sailing for Auckland, of New Zealand. A barrel of water and a case of
conserves, between which I had intruded, furnished me with food and
drink during the whole passage. Oh! I suffered terribly, from not
being willing to show myself when we were at sea. But, if I had been
imprudent enough to do it, I would have been confined again at the
bottom of the hold, and, voluntarily or not, the torture would be the
same. Besides, on my arrival at Auckland, they would have returned me
again to the English authorities, and finally brought me back to the
penitentiary of Loanda, or, perhaps, hung me, as you said. That was
why I preferred to travel incognito."
"And without paying your passage!" exclaimed Harris, laughing. "Ah!
that is not considerate, comrade, to be fed and carried gratis!"
"Yes," returned Negoro, "but thirty days' passage at the bottom of the
hold--"
"At last that was over, Negoro. You set out for New Zealand, in the
land of the Maoris. But you have returned. Was the return made under
the same circumstances?"
"Not so, Harris. You may well believe that, over there, I had only one
idea--to return to Angola and take up my trade of slave-trader again."
"Yes," replied Harris, "one loves his trade--from habit."
"For eighteen months--"
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