CHAPTER XIII.
IN A WILD AND LOVELY MOUNTAIN-LAND.
I believe, reader, that human nature is pretty much the same all the world over. The motto, "Don't sit on a man when he is down", is strictly adhered to, only the word "don't" is always deleted. And when a man is down, physically, morally, or financially, people, even old "friends", do sit on him, just as a cabby sits on his fallen horse's head to keep him down.
There is hardly any such thing as extending a kindly hand to a fallen man to help him up again, or even giving him a word of encouragement which might save his life itself. He is simply ostracized.
But in very truth there was considerable excuse for those hillmen from the Wild West. That blood-stained Ju-Ju king had ruled them with a rod of steel, ravaged their country, killed the men who could not escape, and carried off their women and children.
And now their time had come. The trampled worm had turned, and their proposal was simplicity in itself. It may best be expressed in the interpreter's own words.
"Dese gentlemans," he began, as he pointed to the niggers, and Creggan and some other officers smiled aloud; "dese gentlemans come from de far-away mountain. Plenty cold sometimes up dere. Dey want to bringee down five, ten tousand warrior to help we. Dey kill all, all dey men-men, take away de women-men and de little chillen. All de men-men dey eat plenty quick, and dey will nail de debil-king to a tree, all spread out, and roast he alive, for true. De king, when all nice and plopah, dey give to you to gobble up."
Colonel Fraser had a hearty laugh over this, then he made a short speech, in which he said he did not see his way at present to accede to their request, but if they would promise not to attack the king till he, Colonel Fraser, returned to punish him again, he would accept their proposal, but was not quite certain that he would eat the king, even if he were done to a turn.
Then with his own hands he returned to them their spears and shields, and, bowing and salaaming, thanked them.
Those emissaries of a poor oppressed race went back to their mountains rejoicing, and the march to the river was at once commenced.
They carried the wounded and even the dead in hammocks. Had they buried the latter anywhere near Benin they would, Colonel Fraser thought, be speedily disinterred and eaten.
In the woods, ten miles from the City of Blood, they buried their fallen comrades, after Colonel Fraser himself had said a prayer—not a printed one, but an earnest prayer from his honest, kindly heart.
Many a tear trickled down the cheeks of the blue-jackets and marines as comrade after comrade was laid side by side in the deeply-dug trench, while such expressions as the following were heard on every side:
"Good-bye, Bill, we'll never see you more!"
"Ah, Joe, you and I 'as spent many a 'appy day together. Farewell, old man, farewell!"
"Jim, if I thought a pipe 'ud comfort ye, I'd put all my 'baccy beside ye in the grave. Blest if I wouldn't, messmates!"
Rough but kindly words, and not without a certain degree of pathos.
* * * * * * * * * * *
There was no need to hurry back; so, after crossing a creek about ten miles from the river they bivouacked at Siri, a wretched village, for the night. But the inhabitants had heard of the battle, and the downfall of the assassin king, and brought them presents of fruit and cassava, besides nutmegs and spices, for all of which they were substantially thanked with gifts of coloured beads, which made the sable ladies chuckle and coo with delight.
Next day the expedition reached the river and crossed to Sapelé, and soon after the sailors reached their ship.
But they had not quite done with Benin yet. The wounded soldiers had been safely seen to at Sapelé, but the colonel and a Lieutenant Aswood boarded the Rattler to dine with Flint and his officers, and considering everything, a very jolly evening was spent. The doctor had reported that the wounded would all do well, so Commander Flint gave a dinner-party, and orders to splice the main brace, from the gun-room aft right away forward to the cook's galley.
There was jollity, therefore, forward. Yarns were told, songs were sung, and every now and then the sweet music of guitar and fiddle floated aft.
It was for all the world like an old-fashioned Saturday-night at sea.
And those in the saloon or commander's cabin, including the soldiers, the ship's doctor, first lieutenant, and Creggan, felt very happy indeed. The chief talk naturally centred on the recent fight, and the terrible condition of the City of Blood.
"Now, Flint, as far as niggers go I'm not a bad prophet." This from the colonel. "And I'll tell you what will happen."
"Well, Fraser," said Flint, "heave round and give us your ideas."
"Well, then, I'm half-sorry now that I didn't hang that blood-drunkard of a king to begin with. But the king that the priests would have then placed on the stool called a throne might have been quite as bad, if not worse."
"True, Fraser, true."
"Do you think he will be influenced by that treaty?"
"About a week, perhaps."
"Just so."
"On the other hand," said the colonel, "I am half-sorry I didn't allow the mountain-men to wipe the savages out.
"But," he continued, "that Ju-Ju monarch is no more to be restrained from sacrificing his subjects than a cat could be from catching sparrows. Now he'll go on till he gets hold of some whites and massacres these. Then there will be another war. If we do not kill the king, he'll be sent down to the coast and imprisoned for life."
"I follow you," said Flint. "What next?"
"Oh, annexation of course, and the whole of this rich and lovely country will become ours.
"What do you think of its healthiness?" he added, turning to Dr. Grant.
"Give a dog a bad name," replied Grant, "and you may kill him as soon as you like. When we annex this land of Benin, the niggers under our kindly sway—and they swarm in millions, you know—will till it and drain it for us; cut down useless jungles, fell valuable timber, which will help to dry up the creeks and bogs. All unhealthiness will then vanish, sir, like the morning mist from the mountain tops; land will be cheap and good, and colonists will come from Scotland by the shipload. As for sickness, we shall have splendid sanatoriums far away among those lofty mountains, where the climate must be temperate, and even bracing."
"Capital, Dr. Grant! Capital! Just my own ideas," said the colonel, "only expressed in far prettier language than any I could use. And now, Flint, what say you to stay for a week here, while we explore the country as Moses did the Holy Land?"
"Oh, Colonel Fraser," cried Creggan laughing, "it wasn't Moses, but Caleb and Joshua. Poor Moses only had a bird's-eye view of it from a hill-head, you remember."
"Quite right, boy, and thank you. Well, Flint, suppose you and I on this occasion go and spy out the land, which must eventually be ours, you know."
"Good!" said the commander. "We shall go in peace, and with peace-offerings for the people."
"Beads and bonnie things," said Grant, with a broad Scotch smile.
"That's it, doctor," said the colonel. "Beads and bonnie things. But an escort as well, eh?"
"Yes, fifty marines and blue-jackets."
"And start to-morrow?"
"Capital!"
"And now, Grant, I know you sing and play. Yonder is the piano; sit down and delight us."
Grant required no second bidding.
After a most charming prelude he said smiling:
"I'm going to sing you songs of the triune nation—Scotland, England, and Ireland."
And so he did.
After a beautiful, sad, and plaintive Scotch song, he rattled off into a strathspey and reel. After singing "Good-bye, Sweetheart, Good-bye", he played a waltz, and on concluding "The Harp that once through Tara's Halls", he dashed off into such a soul-inspiring, maddening, droll old jig, that everybody all round the table clapped their hands and shouted "Encore!"
Well, on the whole, the evening passed away most delightfully, but by eight bells or the end of the first watch, all on board save those on duty were sound asleep in hammock or cot.
The exploration of the country was commenced next day. Tents were not taken, but tins of potted meats, and potted vegetables. They would sleep beneath the stars in open ground. Rum was also taken, but it was mixed with quinine.
The explorers were fifty-and-six all told, including Creggan and Dr. Grant. Creggan, being a mountaineer, proved himself invaluable. He was so light to run, too, and went on ahead here, there, and everywhere, even shinning up trees to find out the best roads.
The people they encountered were none too gentle. They even looked askance at the presents. So Colonel Fraser decided not to make use of any as guides, for fear of being led into an ambush.
When they came at last to—altering Scott somewhat—a
Land of green heath and shaggy wood,
Land of mountain and of flood,
the forests grew denser, darker, and deeper. The roar of wild beasts, too, was heard by day as well as by night, so that caution had to be used. And here were many lakes, though there were streams instead of creeks. And these lakes were literally alive with fish.
"Beautiful! Beautiful! What a happy hunting-ground!" exclaimed Fraser, as two strange deer went past like the wind.
"It is indeed a land flowing with milk and honey," said the doctor.
"And all to be ours. All to be British!"
They passed the forests safely enough, and now got fairly into the mountain-land. Here were glens, as bonnie and bosky as any in Scotland. They entered one particularly beautiful dell.
They had paused to admire and wonder, when the distant sound of war-drums or tom-toms fell upon their ears, and presently a huge band of savage warriors appeared, as if by magic, on the opposite brae. So suddenly did they spring up, that the brave lines of the poet came back with a rush to Creggan's mind. Yonder, of course, were no waving tartans or plumes. Yet that dark army rose from the bush in the same startling way. It is in Roderick Dhu's interview with the Saxon Fitz-James on the Highland hills. Roderick cries:
"'Have, then, thy wish!' He whistled shrill
And he was answered from the hill;
Wild as the scream of the curlew,
From crag to crag the signal flew.
Instant, through copse and heath, arose
Bonnets and spears and bended bows;
On right, on left, above, below,
Sprang up at once the lurking foe;
From shingles gray their lances start,
The bracken bush sends forth the dart;
The rushes and the willow-wand
Are bristling into axe and brand,
And every tuft of broom gives life
To plaided warrior armed for strife.
That whistle garrisoned the glen
At once with full five hundred men,
As if the yawning hill, to heaven
A subterranean host had given."
"Why," said Colonel Fraser, pointing to the hillside, "just look yonder, Flint. We don't want to fight these poor hill-men. They are doubtless the same from whom the emissaries came."
"Well, anyhow," said Flint, "they look as vicious as vipers. Let us send our interpreter over at once. He will explain things."
"Good!"
So this was done.
But it was evident that the hill-men were not open to reason, for the poor fellow was immediately seized and bound.
"Now," cried the colonel, "we must and shall advance. If there were twice five hundred we should not submit to that indignity."
So the little brave band proceeded at once to descend the hill and ford the stream. Bayonets were fixed, and all were climbing slowly up the steep brae on the other side, but a long way to the right, in order to get higher than the threatening savages and thus have all the advantage, when wild whooping and yells arose above them.
They could not understand this, until down rushed the guide and interpreter—a free man.
"All right, sah, all right! De men who come to Benin, dey am dere now, and all de oder sabages am plopah fliends now.
"Come on! Come on!" he added.
And on they went.
They were received by the hill-men with shouts of joy, and one tall, very black savage, much ornamented with feathers and beads, insisted on taking Colonel Fraser's hand, and bending low over it touched it with his brow. He repeated the same ceremony with all the officers, then waved his dark hand in quite a dignified way to the blue-jackets and marines.
Strange to say, he could even talk a little English.
"I am please, I am mooch delight," he said. "At Gwato I meet plenty goot trader, ah! and plenty vely bad. Ha, ha!"
The officers laughed.
"Well, chief, we have thrashed the cruel king of Benin, and now we want to see your dear mountain-land, because one day we shall kill the Ju-Ju king, and then the kind-hearted Great White Queen shall reign over you, and you will be all very happy."
"I guide you, I guide! Be delight,—plenty mooch delight!"
So, high up into the mountains marched the sailor-band, with the chief and twenty savages as guides.
It was getting late now, but before sunset they arrived at a mountain village, the huts of which seemed to be perched upon the shelves of the rock, like eagles' eyries.
They found the village clean and sweet.
The chief took the officers into the largest hut, which he had caused to be rebedded with withered ferns, while the couches all round were made of beautiful heaths, intermingled with wild flowers.
Then Creggan and the gunner went out to see to the men's supper, and found them all contented and jolly.
When he returned, lo! a banquet of fried fish, sweet potatoes, roast yams, capsicums, and fruit of many kinds, was spread on boards or pieces of bark before his shipmates.
"Take seat, take seat!" cried the chief, "and eatee plenty mooch foh true!"
"Why," said Creggan, as he squatted on the ferns, "this is indeed a land flowing with milk and honey."
It was, and behind each officer kneeled a little girl with a palm-leaf fan to keep the guests cool.
A modicum of rum was served out, and the chief, Gabo, was asked to drink.
He drew back in horror.
"No, soldiers, no!" he cried. "Dat am de debil foh true. Sometime we hab plenty from the oil-traders at Gwato. Den we all go mad, and mooch kill eberybody. Now we nebber look at he."
A band of girls came in afterwards, and danced while they sang. A strange wild dance it was, with many wonderful swayings of arms and bodies.
An hour after this the British were sleeping soundly.
All hands were called just a little before sunrise, and what a gorgeous sight they beheld! Only a Turner could have done justice to that sky of orange gray and gold, and to the splendid landscape of forest and water that lay between. Lake on lake, stream or creek everywhere, and the purple mist of distance over all, save where a lake caught the crimson glare of the sun and was turned into blood.
And down beneath them the nearest braes were clad in a wealth of wild heaths and geraniums, and many a charming flower hugging the barer patches. The officers were silent as they gazed on all this loveliness.
"No beauty such as this," said Grant at last, "can be seen even in Scotland."
But every bush seemed to be alive with bird-song, every leaf appeared to hide some feathered songster; and when any of these flitted from tree to tree, it was found that they were quite as beautiful in colour as the flowers themselves.
The air, too, was cool and delightful.
Creggan and Grant went for a little walk farther up the hill, where they found a great basin of rock filled with clear limpid water, and here they bathed, so that the appetite both had for the excellent breakfast, roast wild game, birds, and mountain trout, with, as before, yams and sweet potatoes, was quite striking—striking down, I may say.
They all went hunting that day. But up in the hills there were few wild animals of any sort, yet they enjoyed the tramp nevertheless.
They stayed with this wild tribe for over a week, and every day brought them something fresh in adventure or pleasure.
Colonel Fraser made sketches, and took many observations of this beautiful land of wild bird, tree, flower, and fruit, which at no distant date will become the possession of the enterprising British colonist, and give riches to men now starving perhaps in the overcrowded cities of our island home.
Soon may this day come!
There is nothing impossible in Africa.