Samba: A Story of the Rubber Slaves of the Congo

by Herbert Strang

  CHAPTER VI

  Samba is Missing

  Nando was like a child in his humours. His broad facecould not long be overclouded. When the party oncemore embarked he performed his work as chief paddlerwith his usual cheerfulness. All that day the river washedthe edge of a continuous forest tract--a spur, as Jackunderstood from Nando's not too lucid explanations, of thevast Upper Congo forest that stretched for many hundredsof miles across the heart of Africa. Jack gazed with greatcuriosity, merged sometimes in a sense of awe and mystery,at the dark impenetrable woodland. It was only a yearor two since he had read Stanley's account of his wonderfulmarch through the forest, and his vivid recollectionwas quickened and intensified by the sight of the actualscene.

  "And are there pigmies in that forest--little men, youknow?" he asked Nando.

  "Sartin sure, sah. Me fight fousand hundred littletiny men: me no 'fraid. Dey shoot plenty good, sah:one arrow shoot two free birds. Dey hab berrah fineeye, sah; see what big man no can see. Massa see demsome day: make massa laugh plenty much."

  Here and there, in places where the river widened out,the travellers came upon herds of hippopotami disportingthemselves in the shallows. Their presence was oftenindicated first by strange squeals and grunts: then a hugehead would be seen on the surface of the water as thebeast heard the regular splash of the paddles and wasprovoked to investigate its cause; his jaws would open,disclosing a vast pink chasm; and having completed his longyawn, and satisfied himself that the strangers intended noharm, he would plunge his head again beneath the water,or turn clumsily to wallow in uncouth gambols with hismates. The negroes always plied their paddles morerapidly at such spots. Nando told stories of hippopotamiwhich had upset canoes out of sheer mischief, and of otherswhich, pricked and teased by native spears, had lain inwait among the rushes and wrecked the craft of fishersreturning to their homes at dusk.

  "Me no 'fraid of little man," said Nando; "me plentymuch 'fraid of hippo."

  Now and again a crocodile, disturbed in his slumbers bythe splashing of the paddles or the songs of the men, woulddart out of a creek and set off in furious chase; but findingthe canoe a tougher morsel than he expected, would sinkafter a disappointed sniffing and disappear. OccasionallyMr. Martindale or Jack would take a shot at the reptiles,but they were so numerous that by and by the travellersdesisted from their "potting," Mr. Martindale regardingit as a waste of good ammunition.

  The natives whom they saw at riverside villages werenow sometimes suspicious, and disinclined to have anycommunication with the strangers. Returning frominterviews with them, Nando reported that they had heard ofthe massacre at Banonga, and though he assured themthat his employer was no friend of the tyrants, he failedto convince them: he was a white man; that was enough.It was with some difficulty, and only after the exerciseof much tact, patience, and good humour on Nando's part,that he managed to secure enough food to supply theneeds of the men.

  Two days passed amid similar scenes. The journey neverbecame monotonous, for in that wonderful land there isalways something fresh to claim the traveller's attention.Jack began to give Samba lessons in English, and foundhim an apt enough pupil, though, in practising hisnewly-acquired words afterwards, the boy, to Jack's amusement,adopted a pronounced Irish accent from Barney.

  On the morning of the third day, when the camp becameactive, Barney was somewhat surprised to find that Sambaand Pat did not join him as usual at breakfast. Boy anddog had gone to sleep together in his tent, and he had notseen or heard their departure. Breakfast was clearedaway, everything was packed up in readiness for starting,and yet the missing members of the party had not appeared.Both were very popular; Samba's unfailing cheerfulnesshad made him a general favourite, and Pat's sagacity, hiskeen sporting instincts, and the vigour of his barking whenhippopotami or crocodiles came too near the canoe, wonfor him a good deal of admiration from the natives.

  "What! Samba gone!" exclaimed Mr. Martindale,when Barney told him of the disappearance. "Have youcalled him?"

  "Sure me throat is sore wid it, sorr," said Barney,"and me lips are cracked wid whistling for Pat, bad cessto 'm."

  "The dog has gone too, eh? I reckon Samba's a thieflike the rest of 'em."

  "Begging yer pardon, sorr, it takes two to make a thief,one to steal, the other to be stolen. Pat would never agreeto be stolen, sorr; besides, he would never be such anungrateful spalpeen uv a dog, not to speak uv the badtaste of it, as to desert his ould master for a nigger bhoy."

  "Well, what's become of them, then? Nando, where's Samba?"

  "Me no can tell, sah. Me fink crocodile eat him, sah.Little tiny black boy go walk all alone alone night time.Yah! crocodile come 'long, fink black boy make plentygood chop. Soosh! little black boy in ribber, crocodileeat him all up, sah. What for black boy go walk alone?One time all right, Nando eat manioc[1]; nudder time allwrong, crocodile eat Samba."

  Nando shook his head sententiously; Samba's exploiton the night of the alarm was evidently still rankling.

  "That's not it at all," said Barney. "Pat would niverpermit any crocodile, wid all his blarney, to eat him; andif a crocodile ate Samba, sure Pat would have been thefirst to come and tell us."

  "No, it's your Irish that has frightened the boy," saidJack gravely. "I've been trying to teach him a fewwords of English; but I've noticed once or twice, afterI've done with him, that he pronounces the words as ifhe'd learnt them in Ireland. No decent black boy couldstand that, you know, Barney."

  "Faith, 'tis Irishmen that speak the best English,"returned Barney; "did I not hear them wid me very ownears in the house uv Parlimint?"

  "Well, Jack, we must go on," said Mr. Martindale."I was afraid the boy would be a botheration."

  "He has done us a good turn, uncle. Couldn't we waitan hour or two and see if he appears?"

  "It's not business, Jack."

  "My dear uncle, it's no use your posing as a hard-heartedman of business. You know you're quite fondof the boy."

  "Eh! Well, I own he's a likely little fellow, and I sortof felt he's a part of the concern; in short, Jack, we'llput in an hour or two and give him a chance."

  An hour passed, and Pat made his appearance. Hetrotted soberly into the camp, not frisking or barkingjoyously as was his wont.

  "Arrah thin, ye spalpeen, where's Samba?" criedBarney as the dog came to him.

  Pat hung his head, and put his tail between his legs andwhined.

  "Go and fetch him, then," cried Barney.

  The terrier looked at his master, turned as if to dohis bidding, then moved slowly round and whinedagain.

  "Sure 'tis not devoured by a crocodile he is, or Patwould be in a terrible rage. The bhoy has deserted, sorr,and Pat's heart is after being broken."

  "Well, we'll wait a little longer, Barney," saidMr. Martindale; "he may turn up yet."

  The day wore itself out, and Samba had not returned.Mr. Martindale and Jack spent part of the time in shooting,adding a goodly number of wild ducks, a river hog and anantelope to the larder. Part of the time they watchedthe men fishing, or rather harpooning, for they caught thefish by dexterous casts of their light spears. Towardsevening Mr. Martindale became seriously anxious, and alittle testy.

  "I'm afraid a crocodile has made a meal of him, afterall," he said. "I don't reckon he'd any reason for leavingus; he got good victuals."

  "And a good knife, uncle. Perhaps he has gone tofind his father."

  "No, I don't bank on that. Too far for a young boyto go alone, through the forest, too, on foot. Anyway,he's an ungrateful young wretch to go without saying aword; I've always heard these blacks don't measure upto white people in their feelings."

  Mr. Martindale delayed his departure until the middleof the next day in the hope that Samba would return.Then, however, he declared he could wait no longer, andthe party set off.

  Late in the afternoon of the next day they came to aspot where a gap occurred in the thick vegetation thatlined the bank. Here, said Nando, they must land. Ilola,the
principal village of the chief to whom they were bound,stood a short distance from the river, and the way to it laythrough the clear space between two forest belts. A quarterof an hour's walking brought them to the village, a clusterof tent-shaped grass huts almost hidden in the bush. Thesettlement was surrounded by a stockade, and the plantationsof banana, maize, and ground-nuts showed signs ofcareful cultivation.

  Nando went alone to interview the chief, bearing apresent of cloth and a small copper token which Mr. Martindalehad received from his friend Barnard. The chiefwould recognize it as the replica of one given to him. Nandoreturned in an hour's time, troubled in countenance.Imbono the chief, he said, had refused to meet the white man,or to have any dealings with him. He well rememberedthe white man who had cured his son and given him thetoken two years before; had they not become bloodbrothers! But since then many things had happened.Dark stories had reached his ears of the terrible consequencesthat followed the coming of the white man. One of hisyoung men--his name was Faraji--who had joined a partyof traders carrying copper down the Congo, had just comeback with dreadful tales of what he himself had seen.When Imbono was a boy his people had lived in terror ofthe white-robed men from the East.[2] There had been agreat white-robed chief named Tippu Tib, who sent hisfighting men far and wide to collect ivory and slaves.These men knew no pity; they carried destructionwherever they went, tearing children from parents, husbandsfrom wives, chaining them together, beating them withcruel whips, strewing the land with the corpses of slavesexhausted by long marching or slain because they wereill or weak.

  But terrible as were the warriors of Tippu Tib, surelythe servants of the Great White Chief[3] were more terriblestill; for it often happened that the slave hunters, havingcome once, came not again; like a fierce tempest theypassed; but as, when a storm has devastated a forest, newtrees grow and flourish in the room of the old, so whena village had been robbed of its youth, their places were incourse of time filled by other boys and girls. And evenwhen the slave hunters came some villagers would escape,and hide in dens or among the forest trees until the dangerhad passed. But the servants of the Great White Chiefwere like a blight settling for ever on the land. They came,and stayed; none could escape them, none were spared,young or old. Imbono feared the white man; he prayedhim to go in peace; the men of Ilola were peaceable, andsought not to make enemies, but they had bows and arrows,and long shields, and heavy-shafted spears, and if needbe they would defend themselves against the stranger.

  "I guess this is kind of awkward," said Mr. Martindalewhen Nando had finished his report. "You can't tradewith a man who won't see you. Did you explain thatwe don't belong to the Great White Chief, Nando?"

  "Me say all dat, sah; chief shake him head."

  "I suppose you told him our men are not armed?"

  "No, sah; me forgot dat, dat am de troof."

  "Well, go back; tell the chief that I'm a friend andwant to see him. Say that I'll come into the village alone,or with Mr. Jack, and we'll leave our guns behind us.Tell him the white man he saw two years ago said he wasa very fine fellow, and I'll trust myself unarmed amonghis people, bows and arrows and spears and all."

  Nando went away, and after another hour returned andsaid that Imbono, after much persuasion, had agreed toreceive the white man because he was a friend of his bloodbrother. Leaving their rifles and revolvers in Barney'scharge, Mr. Martindale and Jack accompanied Nando tothe village. The single entrance to the stockade wasguarded by a throng of tall warriors with curiously paintedskins, and armed with the weapons Nando had described,carrying in addition knives with long leaf-shaped blades.

  "They ain't the daisiest of beauties," said Mr. Martindaleas he passed them.

  "Ugly fellows in a scrimmage," said Jack.

  They went on, past the first huts, stared at by knots ofthe villagers, until they came to the chief's dwelling in thecentre of the settlement. Imbono was a tall, well set up,handsome negro, standing half a head taller than the menabout him. He received the strangers with grave courtesy,offered them a cup of palm wine, and motioned them totwo low carved stools, seating himself on a third.

  Through Nando Mr. Martindale explained his business,dwelling on the friendly relations which had existed betweenthe chief and the white man, and assuring him of hispeaceable intentions and of his absolute independence of theservants of the Great White Chief. Imbono listened insilence, and made a long reply, repeating what he hadalready said through Nando. Suddenly he turned to theyoung man at his side, whom he called Faraji, and badehim tell the white man what he had seen.

  "Ongoko! Ongoko!"[4] exclaimed the other men. Farajistepped forward and told his story, with a volubility thatoutran Nando's powers as an interpreter, and at the sametime with a seriousness that impressed his hearers.

  "I come from Mpatu," he said. "It is not my village:my village is Ilola. I passed through Mpatu on my wayhome. It is no longer a village. Why? The servantsof the Great White Chief had come up the river. They toldthe people that the lords of the world, the sons of heaven,had given all the land to the Great White Chief. Mpatubelonged no more to the chief Lualu: it belonged to theGreat White Chief. But the Great White Chief was a goodchief; he would be a father to his people. Would he taketheir huts, their gardens, their fowls, their children? No,he was a good chief. Everything that was theirs shouldbe left to them; and the Great White Chief would keeppeace in the land, and men should live together as brothers.Only one thing the Great White Chief required of them.In the forest grew a vine that yielded a milky sap.This stuff when hardened with acid from another plantwould be of use to the Great White Chief, and hewished them to collect it for him, and bring to hisservants every fourteenth day so many baskets full. Everyman of Mpatu must bring his share. And they said toothat the Great White Chief was just: for all this rubberthey collected he would pay, in brass rods, or cloth, or salt;and seeing the Great White Chief was so kind and good, onlya bad man would fail in the task set him, and such badmen must be punished. And two servants of the GreatWhite Chief would be left in Mpatu to instruct the peopleas to the furnishing of the rubber; and these kind teachersthe men of Mpatu would surely provide with food andshelter.

  "The men of Mpatu laughed at first. Well they knewthe vine! Was there not enough of it and to spare in theforest? How easily they could collect what was demanded!How soon would they become rich! And they set thewomen and children to weave new baskets for the rubber,and made ready new and well-built huts for the men whowere to teach them their duty to the Great White Chief.

  "But as time went on, woe came to Mpatu. The twoservants of the Great White Chief were bad men, selfish,cruel. They stalked about the village, treating the peopleas their slaves; they seized the plumpest fowls and thechoicest fruits; if any man resisted, they whipped himwith a long whip of hippopotamus hide.

  "But the servants of the Great White Chief demandedstill more. It was not only rubber the men of Mpatuwere bade to bring them, but so many goats, so manyfowls, so many fish and cassava and bananas. How couldthey do it? The rubber vines near by were soonexhausted. Every week the men must go farther intothe forest. They had not enough time now to hunt andfish for their own families. How supply the strangers too?

  "Grief came to Mpatu! For long days there was noman in the village save the chief Lualu and the forestguards. The women cowered and crouched in their huts.No longer did they take pride in tidy homes and well-tendedhair; no longer sing merrily at the stream, or croon lullabiesto their babes; all joy was gone from them.

  "Some of the men fled, and with their wives andchildren lived in the forest, eating roots and leaves. Buteven flight was vain, for the forest guards trackedthem, hunted them down. Some they killed as soonas they found them; others they flogged, chained bythe neck, and hauled to prison. There they are givenheavy tasks, carrying logs and firewood, clearing thebush, cutting up rubber; and there is a guard over themwith a whip which at a single blow can cut a strip from thebody. Many have died; they are glad to die.<
br />
  "And now Mpatu is a waste. One day the rubber wasagain short; the soldiers came--they burned the huts;they killed men, women, and children; yea, among thesoldiers were man-eaters, and many of Mpatu's childrenwere devoured. Only a few escaped--they wander in theforest, who knows where? I tell what I have seen andheard."

  When Faraji had finished his story, there was silence fora time. The chief seemed disposed to let the facts sinkinto the minds of the white men, and Mr. Martindale wasat a loss for words. Faraji's story, so significantlysimilar to what he had himself discovered at Banonga, haddeeply impressed him. Were these atrocities going onthroughout the Congo Free State? Were they indeed apart of the system of government? It seemed onlytoo probable--the rubber tax was indeed a tax of blood.And what could he say to convince Imbono that hewas no friend of the white men who authorized orpermitted such things? How could the negro distinguish?

  "'Pon my soul," said the American in an aside to Jack,"I am ashamed of the colour of my skin."

  Then the chief began to speak.

  "The white man understands why I will have nothingto do with him--why I will not allow my people to tradewith him. It may be true that you, O white man, arenot as these others; you may be a friend to the black man,and believe that the black man can feel pain and grief; butdid not the servants of the Great White Chief say that theywere friends of the black man? Did they not say theGreat White Chief loved us and wished to do us good?We have seen the love of the Great White Chief; it is thelove of the crocodile for the antelope: we would have noneof it. Therefore I say, O white man, though I bear youno ill-will, you must go."

  Courteously as the chief spoke, there was no mistakinghis firmness.

  "We must go and take stock of this," said Mr. Martindale."It licks me at present, Jack, and that's a hardthing for an American to say. Come right away."

  They took ceremonious leave of the chief, and wereescorted to their camp at the edge of the stream.

  "What's to be done, my boy?" said Mr. Martindale."We can't find the gold without the chief's help, unlesswe go prospecting at large: we might do that for monthswithout success, and make Imbono an open enemy intothe bargain. We can't fight him, and I don't want tofight him. After what we've seen and heard I won't beresponsible for shedding blood; seems to me the whiteman has done enough of that already on the Congo. Thisis a facer, Jack."

  "Never say die, uncle. It's getting late: I vote wesleep on it. We may see a way out of the difficulty in themorning."

  [1] The native word for any food or meal.

  [2] Arab slave raiders.

  [3] Leopold II, sovereign of the Congo Free State and king ofthe Belgians.

  [4] Yes, do so.