The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1903-09-03

stuu pli4AlS, WAN IL w >AASAS
Saxon coolness, cid our sturdy
leader inform us that, within very
few hours, hundreds Of armed sav&ges
land cannibals to boot might be ex-
pected to fall upon our unarmed COM
pany of tifty-nine souls, two OF whom
were women, and seven more helpless
invalids prostrated by the terrible
African fever.
Our vessel had been cast away at the
mouth of q small West African river
three nights before, and h:d not our
boats providentially touched the shore
at the very point where two White
traders had established themselves.
few months before, we should prob
ably have been (as our Irish doctor
POLITICALLY phrased it, 1.-The deadest men
alivew Even as it was, when we at
length succeeded in landing (after
series of sensational adventures too
long to he told here), we had to show
fight at once with oars, boat hooks,
and even fists, against the marauding
natives, who seemed bent upon strip
ping us Of what few clothes the sea
had spared.
But when once fairly housed after
their five hours in open boats beneath
the pelting African rain my brave com
rades accepted the situation with thor
ough British stoicism, and made them
selves as comfortable as could be ex-
pected where fifty-nine persons were
crammed into trading station orig
inally built for two. No stranger could
have found any token Of peril or hard
ship in the merry talk and ringing
laughter of these men who had just
lost all they had except their lives, as
they sat there around tie one small
lamp which our kind hosts limited re-
sources could furnish, chatting, singing,
telling tales Of adventure, reading the
two or three soaked and tattered books
which I had luckily brought ashore IN
nay pockets, or drowning the moan of
the night wind and the thunder of the
breakers on the bar with the lusty
chorus Of an impromptu parody on
$50 Early in the Morning"
s'The sun it baked US black and brown,
The scorpions sauntered up and down..
And the flies kept gadding about like
bricks,
Till you couldn't draw breath without
swallowing SIX; -
HWhere we were wrecked that morning,
bod hof
Where we were wrecked that morning,
Before the break of day"
Briskest and blithest of all was poor
Frank v, Stanley's famous lieuten-
ant on the Lower Congo, who, little
dreaming Of the miserable end that
awaited him in the hideous swamps Of
the Niger not many months later, was
the life and soul of our party. And yet
all this time he knew welEand we all
knew it as well as he did-that there
was but step between US and de-
struction.
For the first two days after the
wreck, however, there was no sign of
mischief, our fierce neighbors being
fully occupied with the picking up OF
the countless waits and strays which
kept drifting ashore from our poor old
steamer, while some Of the bolder
spirits among them, defying in their tiny
canoes the fury Of surf that would
have beaten any other craft to atoms.
went out to the wreck itself, and
helped themselves as freely as Robin
son Crusoe. We could not look sea-
ward in quest of possible sail with
out seeing :: swarm Of human ants
creeping up and down the two taa
masts which stood gauntly up out Of
the sullen waters that had engulfed
our lost vessel, and witnessing hack.
ing Of sails and chopping away Of
cordage from which our poor captain
already heart-broken at the loss Of his
ship-turned away his eyes with q
stided groan.
I may observe in parenthesis that
the natives OF West Africa can fairly
claim at least one clause Of the bitter
old Leyantine proverb, ''The Greek
wines steal all heads, the Greek
women steal all hearts, and the Greek
men steal everything" Nothing is
''too hot or too heavy" for the savage
Of the Guinea coast. With him thieving
is one of the fine arts; and while other
thieves steal for the baser motive Of
gain, he steals in the spirit Of an artist,
for the mere pleasure of taking what
does not belong to him. however use
less 1t may be. The true West African
will steal Latin dictionary, sextant,
q map Of ancient Greece; and in sew
eral Of the native villages which
afterward visited higher up the river
I found spoils quite as incongruous as
these. ] have known "Kroo boy"
spend whole afternoon aboard slip
in patiently unscrewing the brass knob
of ventilator, which could be Of no
possible use to him when he had got
it; and such a case is by no means
unique.
Seeing the worthy savages so fully
employed, we began to hope that, after
all, the occupation Of robbery might
prove more attractive to them than
that Of murder. But, as third-rate
novelists say when they want to be
impressive, ''the time was coming, and
it came"
Our captain had foretold (as have
said that the third night would be the
critical one; and his seventeen years
experience of African savages gave
special weight to his opinion, in which
our two trader hosts fully concurred.
The wary traders. saw at once that
their small garrison would have no
chance of being able to defend against
determined attack the wide circuit
of the palisades which inclosed the Sta
ton, and wisely decided upon trying
to hold the house itself till the tribe
beyond the river with which they We're
on friendly terms, could come up to
the rescue. This, indeed, they had al
ready done Oh q similar occasion some
months before. when a band Of say.