The Martyrdom of Man, Winwood Reade [best book club books TXT] 📗

were greatly benefited by the change. They had no

longer to sail through the straits of Gibraltar; Lisbon was

almost at their doors.

 

The achievements of the Portuguese were stupendous — for a

time. They established a chain of forts all down the western

coast of Africa, and up the east coast to the Red Sea; then

round the Persian Gulf, down the coast of Malabar, up the coast

of Coromandel, among the islands of the Archipelago, along the

shores of Siam and Burma to Canton and Shanghai. With handfuls

of men they defeated gigantic armies; with petty forts they

governed empires. But from first to last they were murderers

and robbers, without foresight, without compassion. Our eyes

are at first blinded to their vices by the glory of their

deeds; but as the light fades, their nakedness and horror are

revealed. We read of Arabs who had received safe conducts, and

who made no resistance, being sewed up in sails and cast into

the sea, or being tortured in body and mind by hot bacon being

dropped upon their flesh; of crocodiles being fed with live

captives for the amusement of the soldiers, and being so well

accustomed to be fed that whenever a whistle was given they

raised their heads above the water. We read of the wretched

natives taking refuge with the tiger of the jungle and the

panther of the hills; of mothers being forced to pound their

children to death in the rice mortars, and of other children

being danced on the point of spears, which it was said was

teaching the young cocks to crow. The generation of heroes

passed away; the generation of favourites began. Courtiers

accepted offices in the Indies with the view of extorting a

fortune from the natives as rapidly as could be done. It was

remarked that humanity and justice were virtues which were

always left behind at the Cape of Good Hope by passengers for

India. It was remarked that the money which they brought home

was like excommunicated money, so quickly did it disappear. And

as for those who were content to love their country and to

serve their king, they made enemies of the others, and were

ruined for their pains. Old soldiers might be seen in Lisbon

wandering through the streets in rags, dying in the hospitals,

and crouched before the palace which they had filled with gold.

Men whose names are now worshipped by their countrymen were

then despised. Minds which have won for themselves immortality

were darkened by sorrow and disgrace. In the island of Macao,

on the Chinese coast, there is a grove paved with soft green

velvet paths, and roofed with a dome of leaves which even the

rays of a tropical sun cannot pierce through. In the midst is a

grotto of rocks, round which the roots of gigantic trees

clamber and coil; and in that silent hermitage a poor exile sat

and sang the glory of the land which had cast him forth. That

exile was Camoens; that song was the Lusiad.

 

The vast possessions of the Spaniards and Portuguese were

united under Philip the Second, who closed the port of Lisbon

against the heretical and rebellious natives of the

Netherlands. The Dutch were not a people to undertake long

voyages out of curiosity, but when it became necessary for them

in the way of business to explore unknown seas they did so with

effect. Since they could not get cinnamon and ginger, nutmegs

and cloves at Lisbon, they determined to seek them in the lands

where they were grown. The English followed their example, and

so did the French. There was for a long period incessant war

within the tropics. At last things settled down. In the West

and East Indies the Spaniards and Portuguese still possessed an

extensive empire; but they no longer ruled alone. The Dutch,

the English, and the French obtained settlements in North

America and the West India Islands, in the peninsula of

Hindustan, and the Indian Archipelago; and also on the coast of

Guinea.

 

West Africa is divided by nature into pastoral regions,

agricultural regions, and dense forest, mountains, or dismal

swamps, where the natives remain in a savage and degraded

state. The hills and fens are the slave preserves of Africa,

and are hunted every year by the pastoral tribes, with whom war

is a profession. The captives are bought by the agricultural

tribes, and are made to labour in the fields. This indigenous

slave-trade exists at the present time, and has existed during

hundreds of years.

 

The Tuaricks or Tawny Moors inhabiting the Sahara on the

borders of the Sudan, made frequent forays into that country

for the purpose of obtaining slaves, exacted them as tribute

from conquered chiefs, or sometimes bought them fairly with

horses, salt, and woollen clothes. When Barbary was inhabited

by rich and luxurious people, such as the Carthaginians, who on

one occasion bought no less than five thousand negroes for

their galleys, these slaves must have been obtained in

prodigious numbers, for many die in the middle passage across

the desert, a journey which kills even a great number of the

camels that are employed. The negroes have at all times been

highly prized as domestic and ornamental slaves, on account of

their docility and their singular appearance. They were much

used in ancient Egypt, as the monumental pictures show: they

were articles of fashion both in Greece and Rome. Throughout

the Middle Ages they were exported from the east coast to India

and Persia, and were formed into regiments by the Caliphs of

Baghdad. The Venetians bought them in Tripoli and Tunis, and

sold them to the Moors of Spain. When the Moors were expelled,

the trade still went on; negroes might still be seen in the

markets of Seville. The Portuguese discovered the slave-land

itself, and imported ten thousand negroes a year before the

discovery of the New World. The Spaniards, who had often negro

slaves in their possession, set some of them to dig in the

mines at St. Domingo: it was found that a negro’s work was as

much as four Indians’, and arrangements were made for importing

them from Africa. When the Dutch, the English, and the French

obtained plantations in America, they also required negro

labour, and made settlements in Guinea in order to obtain it.

Angola fed the Portuguese Brazil; Elmina fed the Dutch

Manhattan; Cape Coast Castle fed Barbados, Jamaica, and

Virginia; Senegal fed Louisiana and the French Antilles;

even Denmark had an island or two in the West Indies, and a

fort or two upon the Gold Coast. The Spaniards alone having no

settlements in Guinea, were supplied by a contract or assiento;

which at one time was enjoyed by the British Crown. We shall

now enter into a more particular description of this trade, and

of the coast on which it was carried on.

 

Sailing through the Straits of Gibraltar, on the left hand for

some distance is the fertile country of Morocco watered by

streams descending from the Atlas range. Then comes a sandy

shore, on which breaks a savage surf; and when that is passed,

a new scene comes to view. The ocean is discoloured; a peculiar

smell is detected in the air; trees appear as if standing in

the water; and small black specks, the canoes of fishermen, are

observed passing to and fro.

 

The first region, Senegambia, still partakes of the desert

character. With the exception of the palm and the gigantic

Adansonia, the trees are for the most part stunted in

appearance. The country is open, and is clothed with grass,

where antelopes start up from their forms like hares. Here and

there are clumps of trees, and long avenues mark the water

courses, which are often dry, for there are only three months’

rain. The interior abounds with gum-trees, especially on the

borders of the desert. The people are Mohammedans, fight on

horseback, and dwell in towns fortified with walls and hedges

of the cactus. In this country the French are masters, and have

laid the foundations of a military empire; an Algeria on a

smaller scale.

 

But as we pass towards the south, the true character of the

coast appears. A mountain wall runs parallel with the sea, and

numberless rivers leap down the hill slopes, and flow towards

the Atlantic through forest covered and alluvial lands, which

they themselves have formed. These rivers are tidal, and as

soon as the salt water begins to mingle with the fresh, their

banks are lined with mangrove shrubberies, forming an intricate

bower-work of stems, which may be seen at low water encrusted

with oysters, thus said by sailors to grow on trees. The

mountain range is sometimes visible as a blue outline in the

distance; or the hills, which are shaped like an elephant’s

back, draw near the shore: or rugged spurs jut down with their

rocks of torn and tilted granite to the sea. The shore is

sculptured into curves; and all along the coast runs a narrow

line of beach, sometimes dazzling white, sometimes orange

yellow, and sometimes a deep cinnamon red.

 

This character of coast extends from Sierra Leone to the Volta,

and includes the Ivory Coast, the Pepper Coast, and the Gold

Coast. Then the country again flattens; the mountain range

retires and gives place to a gigantic swamp, through which the

Niger debouches by many mouths into the Bight of Benin, where,

according to the old sailor adage, “few come out, though many

go in.” It is indeed the unhealthiest region of an unhealthy

coast. A network of creeks and lagoons unite the various

branches of the Niger, and the marshes are filled with groves

of palm-oil trees, whose yellow bunches are as good as gold.

But in the old day the famous red oil was only used as food,

and the sinister name of the Slave Coast indicates the

commodity which it then produced.

 

Again the hills approach the coast, and now they tower up as

mountains. The Peak of Cameroons is situated on the Line; it is

nearly as high as the Peak of Teneriffe; the flowers of

Abyssinia adorn its upper sides, and on its lofty summit the

smoke of the volcano steals mist-like across a sheet of snow.

 

A little lower down, the primeval forest of the Gorilla Country

resembles that of the opposite Brazil; but is less gorgeous in

its vegetation, less abundant in its life.

 

Farther yet to the south, and a brighter land appears. We now

enter the Portuguese province of Angola. The land, far into the

interior, is covered with farmhouses and coffee plantations,

and smiling fields of maize. San Paolo de Loanda is still a

great city, though the colony has decayed; though the convents

have fallen into ruin, though oxen are stalled in the college

of the Jesuits. Below Angola, to the Cape of Good Hope, is a

waterless beach of sand. The west coast of Africa begins with a

desert inhabited by Moors; it ends with a desert inhabited by

Hottentots.

 

In the eighteenth century, a trifling trade was done in ivory and

gold; but these were only accessories; the Guinea trade

signified the trade in slaves. At first the Europeans kidnapped

the negroes whom they met on the beach, or who came off to the

ships in their canoes; but the “treacherous natives” made

reprisals; the practice was, therefore, given up, and the trade

was conducted upon equitable principles. It was found that

honesty was the best policy, and that it was cheaper to buy men

than to steal them. Besides the settlements which were made by

Europeans, there were many native ports upon the Slave Coast,

and of these Whydah, the seaport of Dahomey, was the most

important. When a slave vessel entered the roads, it fired a

gun, the people