The Country of the Dwarfs

I gave you, in my Apingi Kingdom, the legend concerning the Samba-Nagoshi Falls just as I heard it from the Apingi, and the Aviia repeated it to me. I found that the Apingi had added nothing to it at all.

I had at last seen the famous Samba-Nagoshi Falls at the base of the towering Nkoumou-Nabouali Mountains. I was satisfied, and a few days after I was on my way back to Olenda's village.

CHAPTER XII

THE DEATH OF REMANDJI. – A SINGULAR SUPERSTITION. – OUTBREAK OF THE PLAGUE. – A TOUCHING INCIDENT. – DYING OFF BY SCORES. – DEATH OF OLENDA

While on my way from the Falls of Samba-Nagoshi to Olenda a secret deputation had been sent to him from the Apingi country, where, as you are aware, I had been made king, and where the people were so superstitious about me. The King of Apingi had sent word that Olenda must endeavor to dissuade me from going into Apingi Land.

It appears that, after I had left the Apingi country, the people could not comprehend what had become of me. They would come to Remandji and ask him if he knew where I was. They declared that he had hid me in the forest for himself; that he was jealous, and did not want his people to see me. They came and asked for presents, but poor Remandji told them that the Spirit had not left him many things, and that really he did not know where I had gone; that they had seen me disappear in the forest, and had heard me say good-by to the people just as he had.

A few days after my departure Remandji was found dead in his little hut, on his bed. A cry of anguish rose from one end of the village to the other when the news of Remandji's death spread; the people felt sorry, for they loved him. There was mourning and lamentation in the Apingi tribe.

A party among the people rose and exclaimed that some of the neighboring people had killed their chief by aniemba (witchcraft), because they were jealous of him – jealous that he was my great friend – jealous that he possessed me.

Another party, and a very powerful one, having on its side the great doctors of the tribe, who had been consulted about Remandji's death, declared that the Spirit himself, meaning me, had killed Remandji, for I loved him so much I could not part with him, and I wanted to take his spirit with me wherever I went.

A few days after Remandji's death his son Okabi died also. Fear seized upon the Apingi people. "Surely," said they, "the Spirit has killed Okabi and Remandji," and many were oppressed with a presentiment of death, for many had been my friends, and from that day they believed that when I left a country I killed my friends in order not to part from them. The present chief of the Apingi Land, having heard of my arrival, sent a deputation to Olenda with the words "I do not want to see the Spirit. I do not want to follow him, as Remandji and his son have done, but rather prefer to stop at home and eat plantain. This present world is good enough for me."

The Apingi messengers were afraid of me, and had gone back to their own country without waiting for my appearance. So, after the departure of the Apingi messengers, a great council of all the Ashira chiefs was held to decide by which route I should be sent into the far country.

It was determined at last that I should go through the Otando country, and that messengers should be sent at once to the king of that far-off land, telling him that Olenda was to send me to him. Quengueza then made his preparations to return to Goumbi.

I sent my men out hunting every day to drill them and accustom them to fire-arms. I made them practice shooting every day, so that they might become better marksmen. I do not speak of Igala, who was what might have been called a dead shot.

A few days after what I have just related to you, a man called Elanga, a grand-nephew of Olenda, was taken ill with a disease which the natives had never seen. Elanga lived a long distance from our village, but his people came to me to see what I could do for him. The description they gave me was that of the small-pox. I promised to go and see him the next day, but that day the news came that Elanga had died. There was a great deal of mourning and wailing among the people; they all went to Elanga's village except Olenda, my Commi men, and Quengueza's people.

Elanga had been to our camp to fetch our baggage, so immediately the people said Elanga had been bewitched. I went to see the body of Elanga; it could not have been recognized. I was not mistaken; the worst type of confluent or black small-pox had killed him. So when I saw the people around him I tried to dissuade them from touching him, and advised them to burn every thing with which he had ever come in contact, even the house where he slept. Nevertheless, the mourning ceremonies took place as usual. My worst fears were realized. Soon after, two cases occurred among the mourners; then it spread like wildfire. Pestilence had come over the land. It came from the interior, and was working its way toward the sea.

The plague broke out with terrible violence all over the country. Olenda's village was attacked; Olenda's favorite wife was the first victim. Every body who was attacked died. It was in vain that I begged them to stop their "mourning" ceremonies. Almost every body who had attended Elanga's funeral had caught the plague and died. A cry of anguish rose over the land.

I established a quarantine camp, and forbid my men to move out of it. I was full of anxiety on account of poor Quengueza.

Half of the people of Olenda had died; half of the Ashira had gone down to their graves. Olenda is still well.

I implored Quengueza to go back to his country. "If you love me, Quengueza," I said, "go home." "No," said the old chief; "to leave you when you are in trouble! I, Quengueza, do such a thing! No, Chally; the people would laugh at me, and say 'Quengueza had no power to help Chally on his way.'"

Things had now become gloomy indeed; the storm is threatening. Rigoli, Quengueza's favorite little slave, had taken the plague, which had at last invaded our premises. Quengueza took him into his own hut. I was horror-struck at the idea, and cried, "Do you want to die, Quengueza?" His answer was beautiful. "I love Rigoli," said he; "he is the child of an old slave my brother Oganda left me. I can take better care of him here. If I get the plague it will be God's palaver." I looked at this savage king, and his noble reply made me love him more than ever. A few days afterward Rigoli was dead.

Three several times a gang of men had been sent for the transportation of my baggage to the Otando country; three times within a few days the plague had carried away the greater number of them.

I succeeded in making Quengueza send a large number of his people back to Goumbi. Then thirty Ashira men were mustered. I wanted them to go with my men to the Otando country with part of the luggage. To this my Commi men demurred. "How can we leave you here? Who, in the midst of this fearful disease, shall cook for you? Some of us must remain with you. These Ashira may poison you by putting the gall of a leopard into your food. Some of us will stay with you, come what may; if we are to die, we will die by you." Noble fellows!

So, with the thirty men which Olenda could now place at my disposition, I sent Igala, Rebouka, Mouitchi, Rapelina, Rogueri. Poor Olenda could only give me thirty men, for his people were either down with the plague or dead. Olenda promised solemnly to Quengueza that as soon as the men came back he would send them with me to the Otando.

In the mean time intelligence had been received that the plague had reached the banks of the Rembo-Ovenga, and that Bakalai and Commi were dying fast; so old Quengueza took his departure for Goumbi, but not before I took a good photograph of him.

Before he left us he said, "Chally, when you come back with your people, bring me a big bell that rings ding, dang, dong, a silver sword that will never rust, a brass chest, and plenty of fine things."

I accompanied Quengueza part of the way over the prairie. How sad I felt! for if I ever loved a friend I loved friend Quengueza, and just before we were to turn our backs upon each other there was a pause. "Chally, go back to Olenda," said Quengueza to me. Then he took my two hands in his own, blew upon them, and invoked the spirits of his ancestors to follow me as they had followed him. We looked in each other's face once more for an instant, and parted, he going toward the sea, and I toward the interior. I stood still as the old man moved away; he turned several times to get a glimpse of me, but soon disappeared in the tall grass of the prairie. He had but few of his people with him, for the plague had come heavily on Goumbi, and many had died of it.

Quengueza had hardly left the country when the plague became yet more terrible; not a day passed without its hundreds of victims. A cry of anguish was all over the land; the wailings, the mournful songs were heard every where.

At last there were not left well people enough to fetch food, and famine succeeded to the pestilence. My poor Commi men, who went in search of food in the neighboring villages, were driven back, threatened with death by the terrified inhabitants, who shouted, "The Spirit with whom you came has brought this eviva (plague) upon us. What have we done to him?"

Not one of Olenda's numerous wives was well, but the king remained my steadfast friend. He said to his sick people that he remembered that when he was a boy the same thing had come over the land. How glad I was to have Olenda on my side!

A few days after the departure of Quengueza, if you had been in my little hut, you would have seen me seated on the side of my bed, my head resting on my hands, in utter loneliness and desolation of heart.

My boy Retonda had died and been buried that day. How could I feel otherwise than unhappy when a whole country was cursing me, and the people were more afraid of me than of the plague itself?

In my own little hut Ngoma was lying near unto death; the crisis had come to him; his pulse was low. Was he to die also?

After a while I approached Ngoma, and said, "Ngoma, my boy, how do you feel?" He could hardly speak; the disease had gone also into his throat; he could not see – he was blind; mortification had set in, and the smell emanating from him was dreadful, and yet there I had to sleep.

In the next hut to mine lay Igala-Yengo; he too was taken with the plague. Poor Igala-Yengo was one of Quengueza's slaves, and had said to his master that he would go with me.

Those were indeed dark days for me. One morning, as I went to ask old Olenda how he was, he said, "My head pains me, and I am so thirsty." That day he laid him down on his bed never to get up again. For two days the fever increased, and part of the time I was by his bedside. The good chief, seeing my sorrowful countenance, would say, "Chally, do not grieve. It is not your fault if I am sick. You have not made me ill."

Oh, these words sounded sweetly to me. I left him toward nine o'clock in the evening to go to my hut to get a little rest, and found poor Ngoma a little better. I did not want Macondai to sleep in my hut; he was the only one besides myself that had not been seized by the plague.

As I lay wide awake on my couch, suddenly I heard a cry of anguish, a shriek from house to house. A shudder came over me. Olenda was dead – Olenda, my only friend, was dead.

As soon as that shriek was heard, Macondai, in despite of my former orders, rushed into my hut and said, "Chally, are your guns loaded? are your revolvers ready? for I do not know what the Ashira may do, since the great Olenda is dead."

I confess that I partook of Macondai's apprehensions, but I said to him, "Be of good cheer, my boy; there is but one God, and he will battle for us. Men can only kill the body."

This was a terrible blow for me, the consequences of which I could not foresee. Olenda, before dying, ordered his people to take care of me, and in a short time passed away as peacefully as if he had gone to sleep.

CHAPTER XIII

BURIAL OF OLENDA. – A DESOLATED VALLEY. – SUSPICIONS AROUSED. – ROBBERY. – PAUL IN PERPLEXING CIRCUMSTANCES. – FREEING A MAN FROM THE STOCKS. – RAVAGES OF THE PLAGUE

The day of Olenda's burial had come, but there were hardly people enough left to bury him – such had been the devastations of the plague. Not far from the village stood in the prairie a little grove of trees, beneath whose shade the chiefs of the Ademba clan, to which Olenda belonged, were always buried; but it had been long since an interment had taken place there, for Olenda had outlived his brothers a score of years. All the people who could came to the funeral of their chief.

Olenda looked as if he were asleep. They had dressed him in the big coat I had given him, and came to ask me if I would give to my friend Olenda the umbrella I had. It was the only one I had, but I could not well refuse, and I said, "Take it."

They bore Olenda's body to the grove of trees with many manifestations of deep sorrow, shouting, "He will not talk of us any more; he will not speak to us any more. Oh, Olenda, why have you left us? Is it because we are all dying?" I followed the body to the grave, and I saw that they seated him on his big coat, and put over his head the umbrella I had given them for him. By his side was placed a chest containing the presents I had brought for him, and also plates, jugs, cooking utensils, his favorite pipe, and some tobacco; a fire was kindled, which was to be kept up from day to day for a long time, and food and water was brought, which was also to be daily replenished for an indefinite period.

Before dying, Olenda had told his people that he was not to leave them entirely; he would come back from time to time to see how they were getting on; so, for a few days after his death, the people would swear that they saw Olenda in the middle of the night walking in the village, and that he had repeated to them that he had not left them entirely.

The once beautiful Ashira, at the sight of which I had fallen into ecstasies, had now become the valley of death. Crazy men and women, made crazy only by the plague, wandered about till they died on the road-side. Every body was afraid of his neighbor; they had found out, at last, that the disease was contagious, and when one got it he was left to himself, and the poor creature would die of starvation: his wife, his father, his mother, his sister, his brother, if any such relatives had been left to him by the plague, would fly away from him as from the curse of God.

My Commi men did not come back; I wondered why, and began to feel very anxious about them. What had become of them? What a blunder I had made in letting these men go ahead of me! I would have given the world to see them again with me, for I did not know what those far-away people would do to them.

Strange rumors came from the Otando country: the news was that the people did not want me to come, as I carried with me the eviva (plague) wherever I went.

Several weeks passed away; no tidings of my men, no tidings of Arangui, or of the Ashiras who had gone with them. The plague was now diminishing in virulence for want of victims, for, except Macondai and myself, every body had been attacked with it, and those who did not succumb had recovered or were fast recovering. In the beginning, every body attacked was sure to die.

I began to feel suspicious, for three Otando men had come to me and told me they had important intelligence to communicate, but could not give it just then, and had promised to come back after two days. Three days had passed away, and I heard one night somebody talking in a hut; I listened outside, and was rewarded by finding out that the Ashiras had frightened away the three Otando men, who had gone back to Mayolo.

At length three of my Commi men suddenly made their appearance from Mayolo by themselves. I was thunderstruck; the Ashiras of the village were frightened. What did all this mean?

Rebouka, Mouitchi, and Rapelina were the good fellows. Though it had taken four days to come from the Otando country, they had found their way back. They were armed to the teeth, and looked like terrible warriors. Igala, tired of waiting for me, had sent them back to see what was the matter.

I now learned that the Ashiras had returned long ago, and, though weeks had passed away, I had seen none of them. I heard also that several of the loads had never reached Mayolo; that the porters had gone back to their plantations with them; that Arangui was at the bottom of all the thieving; and that Igala, with all his threats, could not make the porters sleep together near him at night. Then, to cap the whole thing, they told me that Arangui had seized one of the Otando men that had come to see me, and that this was the reason why the other two had fled.

"What is to be done?" said I to myself. "I must be crafty and cunning, and as wise as a serpent." It would never have done to get in a rage.

I told my men to keep quiet, and not to say a word about the robbery. I did not want to frighten them – I wanted more porters.

It did, indeed, require a great amount of self-control for me to keep cool when I was quite certain that all the men of the village knew that I had been plundered by their own people, and that probably most of them had been sharers of the plunder. Even Ondonga, who now was chief of the village and a cousin of Arangui, knew all about it. It is wonderful how savages can keep secrets: not a child, not a woman, not a man in the country had breathed to me the slightest word on the subject.

That night I kept revolving in my mind how I must act to get out of the scrape. I said to myself, "I must become a hypocrite, and fight cunning with cunning, in order to win."

The next morning I said to my men, "Tell the Ashiras that you have not said a word to me about the robbery, for you were afraid that I might kill some of them if I knew it; and tell Ondonga, Mintcho, and their people that you know they are too great friends of mine and of Quengueza to have had any thing to do with the plunder. Tell them that you were obliged to tell me about Arangui and the seizure of the man in order to give an excuse for your coming." I then dismissed them with saying, "Boys, mind and do just as I have told you."

To Ondonga, patting him on the shoulder, though I felt like blowing out his brains, I said, "Ondonga, I know that you are my friend; I know that the Olenda people are good people. I know that you never knew of the return of Arangui; if you had known it you would have surely told me."

Ondonga swore that it was so; he would have told me at once.

I shouted so that every body could hear me, "Of course, Ondonga; I know that you would have told me, for you have a heart, and would not tell a lie. Why did friend Arangui do such a thing as to seize that Otando man – Arangui, whom I loved so much? The only thing Arangui can do is to give up the man. Must he not give up the man, Ashiras?" I cried.

"Yes!" exclaimed the people; "Arangui must give up the man."

I knew very well that no Ashira man would dare to go into the Otando country after having put in nchogo an Otando man, for they would all be seized, and then who should carry my baggage?

Mintcho and Ondonga said to me, "We will go at once to Arangui's plantation to see if he is there." "He must have been hiding from us," said Mintcho, with a laugh. "Hypocrite," said I to myself, "what a lying rascal you are!"

They went to Arangui's plantation, and on their return, as soon as they saw me, they shouted, "That is so; Arangui is back. Arangui is a noka (rogue, liar), and none of us knew it."

"Ondonga, my friend," I whispered, "a necklace of beads shall be on your neck to-night" (and I felt very much like putting a rope around his neck and choking him). "Now tell me the palaver."

Ondonga said, "Two dry and two rainy seasons ago, the Otando people seized a relative of Arangui because Arangui owed them two slaves and had not brought the goods, and the man is still kept in nchogo (the native stocks). Arangui wanted his relative back, and by keeping that man he thought they would send back his relative."

I knew that, according to African fashion, this palaver would last several years. That would never do for me, for I must be off.

My men said that what Ondonga had said was true; they had heard so in the Otando country; so I sent Mintcho back, and said to him, "Tell friend Arangui that he must give up the man. If I had not to take care of my people I would go and see him. Tell him that he must do that for his friend Chally. Did not Arangui take Quengueza and myself from Obindji's place to come here?"

The two rascals Mintcho and Ondonga went again, and several days elapsed before Arangui let the man go. He did not do it until he was taken ill with the plague; then he became frightened, and thought I was going to kill him, so he immediately gave up the man, and Ondonga and Mintcho brought him in triumph to me. Poor fellow! his legs were dreadfully lacerated.

The plague was in its last stage. Arangui had been the only one who had not taken it before. The Otando man had not had it, and I was afraid he would catch it. If he were to die of it in the country of the Ashiras, not one of them would dare to go into that of the Otandos, and that would be the end of my trip; so it was necessary that I should hurry my departure. If it had not been for the rascality of Arangui I would have been in the Otando country two months ago. The thought of this made my blood boil, and I felt very much like hanging Arangui to the nearest tree.

It was the first time that I had been robbed in Africa, and that by Olenda's people. I knew they would not have done it if their old chief had been alive.

What a sea of trouble poor Paul Du Chaillu had to contend with! Indeed, these were days of trial; but I had to face them, and I faced them manfully, though several times I was on the verge of despair.

By some means news of the death of Olenda had reached Quengueza, and I was astonished one day to receive a messenger from him with word that, as Olenda had left no people to carry me and my goods to the next country, he was coming to take me to another Ashira clan that had people. This frightened Ondonga, and he tried hard to get porters for me.

Terrible tidings now came from Goumbi: all the Goumbi people that had come with Quengueza to the Ashira country had died of the plague; nearly all the nephews of Quengueza were dead; Obindji had died, and every Bakalai chief. In some of the Bakalai villages not a human being had been left. Death had come over the land. But Quengueza had been spared; the plague had not touched him, though his head slave, good old Mombon, was no more.

CHAPTER XIV

DEPARTURE FROM ASHIRA LAND. – A SILENT LEAVE-TAKING. – THIEVISH PORTERS. – A CUNNING OLD RASCAL. – MISFORTUNE ON MISFORTUNE. – WITHOUT FOOD IN THE FOREST. – A DESPERATE PLOT. – FEASTING ON MONKEY-MEAT. – OUT OF THE WOODS

The threat of Quengueza had the desired effect. At last Ondonga succeeded in getting porters, who, with my own men, made the number of our company about thirty. No amount of pay could induce more to come. They were afraid of trouble. They could not tell what the trouble would be, but they had a vague fear that something dreadful was impending.

Every thing that we could not take with us I either gave away or destroyed.

Early in the morning of the 16th of March I left Ashira Land. How I had suffered in that poor, unfortunate land! The plague had destroyed the people, and the survivors accused me of having destroyed the victims of the plague. Then things had looked so dark that many and many a time I thought the end had come; that no more explorations were to be made, and I fully expected to be murdered by the infuriated savages.

My party of ten Commi men had been reduced to seven. Retonda had died; Rogueri, a slave, had run away, and it was he who had advised the Ashira to rob me, and who had tried to disabuse them of my power. The plague had disabled Igala-Yengo. He was going back to Goumbi now that he was much better, and he was to take letters for me.

I felt thankful that God had spared the lives of so many of my men, for Rebouka, Mouitchi, and Rapelina took it on their return from Otando.

I was anxious about Macondai; he was the only one who had not had the plague, as you are aware; and, leaving the Ashira country, I knew that I was going into a country where the plague had not yet disappeared.