MANAGING AFRICAN SAVAGES

Press, Volume XLVI, Issue 7263, 24 January 1889, Page 6

MANAGING AFRICAN SAVAGES

H H. Johnston, in the Fortnightly Review. A savage is much like a cat. Once get your hand—your open hand, your palm, not yonr fist—in contact with his body, gently and in friendship, and it is rare that he does not yield sympathetically. If he waxes friendly you may pat his broad back approvingly, if he is saucy you may vent your annoyance in a smart slap, but beware of the kick and the knock-down blow. They effectually preclude reconciliation. Chaff the savage, poke him in the ribs, pull his ear, make him grin, and urge the grin on into a laugh, and he is yours and the contagion of good-humour spreads among his hesitating fellows. You need not go in for buffooneries or lower that dignity which should always attend the white man, but you will find a little playfulness, a little human sympathy and kindliness in no way prejudice the respect that the poor savage innately feels for the—to him—go.ilike white man. In penetrating and over running these uncivilised lands, European travellers should remember that they belong to the native inhabitants, not to the civilised discoverer—it is tlieir country, not ours —arid this is too easily forgotten. Let us try to realise what our feelings would be, if the natives of some Central African State, or some far Cathay, Cipango or remote Phoeacia, started on a voyage of exploration and discovered England, and proceeded to act on their discovery as Europeans too often behave in Central Africa, Cipaugo, or Plitcacia. We can imagine—though the thing is an impossibility that makes us smile —these adventurers of an alien race landing noisily on our shores and bullying the customhouse officers, chucking under the chin all the pretty girls they met in the streets, selecting the. conrt-yard of Buckingnam Palace as a nice dry place to camp out in, kicking and cuffing the sentries or police, men who objected, and calling them the foulest names in tbe English language, which they had Vjuickly and purposely acquired to hurl at our people, cutting down the trees in St. James's Park for firewood, and shooting the ducks for dinner. Then they would drive down in vehicles they had impressed to Windsor Castle and would insist on seeing the Queen immediately, for whom they had somewhat contemptuously brought as a present two flannel petticoats and a cask of rum. On being told that Her Majesty could not accord them an interview, and declined their offering, they would dwell loudly and emphatically on the insult offered to Cathay, and on resolving to leave " this beastly eouutry," they would probably break into two or three churches and carry off the vessels and candlesticks on the altar "as specimens of our fetiches," and abstract tbe spoons and forks and tablecloths of their inn as ** objects of native manufacture." Then the journals of Cathay, Phieacia, and Monomotapa would be filled with indignation at learning that their illustrious fellow-countrymen had been slain in a popular impute iv England, or sentenced to a long imprisonment, and the Cathayan or Ph-eacian galleys would start for our shores to avenge their death or to effect their release. Yet this tragicomic description is not-an inapt parallel to the deeds or misdeeds of Europeans in Africa.

I remember on one occasion, when I was staying with Stanley at Leopold viUe< be invited mc to accompany him on a cruise round Stanley Pool. He had arranged to meet an important chief named Ngantshu on an island in that lake-like expansion of the Congo. Ngantshu had hitherto been reported as deci.ledly hostile to Stanley a advance up river, but a meeting was arranged, and Ngantshu had corpe dawn the river some hundred and fifty miles to see " Bala Matadl" and confer with him. He arrived escorted by a number of canoes and many followers, and a show of state. Above all, he brought with him his ancestral fetish, a horrid-looking object made of a monkey's skull and red clay, studded with cowries and hung with little beils. This thing, tohis mind and " bringing-up," embodied the spirits of his departed ancestors, and must be treated with great consideration and respect. Libations of palm wine must be poured over its head when it was thirsty, and ehewed-np food spat into its mouth when it was an hungered. The fetish waa introduced deprecatingly to "Bula Matadl." Instead of doing as go many heedless explorers would have done —rudeJy laughing and saying through the interpreter, What dam nonsense! Ask him why he believes in such rotf— Stanley gravely sent for a camp chair, and respectfully seated the fetish in it, so that Nfjantgbu's ancestors might be present at the conference! and when lunoh-tima came, and Ngauteha squirted palm wine

, _ _j—^. over the beaded skull of the fetish, aad Bpat chewed-up fish and manioc Into fS gaping mouth, Stanley with a seri__ face followed suit with weak claret aS water and minced chicken. The result was that Ngantshu signed a treaty, and was • for ever after Stanley s friend, fla doubt long since the Baptist missionaries, or the fathers of tbe Catholic mission esS Wished at the mouth of the Kwa, taught Ngantshu that his ancestral fetta is foolish, and useless, and dirty, and hay, gently persuaded him to put It away; bot this result would not have been eaai« brought about had Stanley, on his flr. k acquaintance, commenced by jeering a_ flouting the savatce's belief.' That Stanley has consistently acquired the sympathy and respect of Africans those Who hvra seen him at work can testify, and there! fore it is that those who know him cannot believe, him to be dead, for his. deceag. even in the heart of Africa—the d__ of "Stainlee," "Standili," Mkubwa," "Mundelo munene," "BuE! matadi "—would have made such a retentissement among the natives that tha noise and news of it would have et_ reached our ears.