LAND OF WONDERS.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1687, 1 March 1913, Page 10

LAND OF WONDERS.

WEIRD STORIES OF SOUTHERN NIGERIA. LAKE OF THE DEAD. WITCHCRAFT & POISONING.

Native poisoners who would mako Catherine de Medici and Lucretia Borgia look liko amateurs, human beings with tho "souls" of elephants and buffaloes, dusky Amazons to whom men are but slaves, and magicians who appear able to make lightning striko where they please— these were among tho strango people and things described recently by a big man with keen eyes and a skin tanned brown by tho African sun who sat in tho study of his home at Abbots Morton, in Worcestershire.

This man is P. Amaury Talbot, who is 'his Majosty's Commissioner for tho district of Oban in Southern Nigeria, as well as the only survivor of the ill-fated expedition which the lata Lieutenant Boyd Alexander led into tho Lake Chad district. Ho recently returned to this country after two years of travel in unexplored .parts of the Dark Continent, in tho course of which he nearly lost his lifo, aiid saw things that have convinced him that there are more things "op earth, anyway, than ar© dreamt of in our philosophy. As lie told the most interesting of his experiences, chapters of "Allan Quartermain" and "lving : Solomon's Mines" came back to ono's mind, especially when he described underground rivers and the "smelling out" of witches, and one blinked and looked again to make sure that one really Saw an English rose garden bounded by meadows and hedgerows through the open window, and not the tangled African jungle. Mrs. Talbot, who accompanied her husband oil his three latest expeditions, admits that she lias been "a bit nervous" at times while in Africa, which is not surprising, considering that this plucky Englishwoman has been charged by elephantsi and had leopnrds sniffing around her bed-curtains, not to mention having marched by her husband's side into regions of the Dark Continent where no Government official, to say nothing of a wliitoWoman, ever before had penetrated. It was in their company that Miss Olive Macleod niado-tho pilgrimage to Lieutenant Boyd Alexander's grave, and it was after this journey through the German Cameroons, French Central Africa, aud Northern Nigeria to Lake Chad, which took eight months, that the Talbots started on their year of wanderings in Southern Nigeria that resulted, among other things, in the discovery of the Lake of the Dead, which a giant python guards, and tho strango Ekoi tribe whoso women rule the roost and who havo reduced tho use of poisons to a fine art.

Heart of the luju Country. The Nigerian district of which Mr. Talbot is Commissioner, is in the heart of the Juju country, where a firm belief in witchcraft and the power of strange deities rules the native mind, and perhaps oven more striking than the strangest of 'his 1 adventures was this matter-of-fact Englishman's confession that lie believes "t!ios-;i people know things we don't knotv." As examples, ho told of almost incrediblo instances of the 1 efficacy of juju—represented generally by a mixture of herbs or a small figure—all of which he saw with his own eyes.

"A native," lie says, "will not buy a juju unless he has seen, it tried, and knows that it is 1 a good one. Nigeria is tho land of thunderstorms, and, therefore, there is a great lightning juju. If a man goes to buy some of this juju the owner will point out to him sonio tree that tho juju, as a test of its ability, will sacrifice, to the storm, and in the course of two or three storms tho particular tree usually is struck by lightning. Then the purchaser is.satisfied, and tiie deal is:Com-plet-ed; The'remarkable thing is,'though, that the test hardly over fails. "A few years ago," ho went on, "a town in my district .was infested with, leopards. They ussd to climb tho house-tops and even 'enter , the houses at night. The townsmen, therefore, purchased a strong juju to help them. ' The next time I went there not a leopard was to. be found, and not a goat or a cow had been killed since the new juju had been installed. That juju has a native namo meaning 'The leopard .knocks' its .foot.' Since it came into the to,vn, though, palm-nuts must be picked from the bunch before thoy arc brought in, for a leopard will come and take a cow on tho first night after any native omits to do this." '

Interchange of Souls, ■ Queerer even than theso things,. however, was the account tho explorer gavo of the native belief that the souls of human beings can inhabit the bodies of animals and vice versa. "Eight years or so back," he said, "the natives killed an elephant, which they declare had a human foot. .A few months ago, too, one of my hunters shot a fino bull elephant that had for tusks two flat, ribbed, gnarled pieces of ivory about a foot long and half an inch thick. The hunter swore that tho beast had had enormous tusks, but-that they dwindled to these abnormalities as he lay dying. This was considered proof positive that the elephant was no ordinary beast, but one "possessed" by tho soul of a man. And, strange as it seems, the son of a chief, long suspected as 'efumi,' or 'of being the owner of an elephant body, expired at tho same time. "I know, too," Mr. Talbot went on, "a head chief, a very gifted man, named Awaw Anjanna, who was a buffalo soul. Tho last time I went to his village, after being absent and replaced by another District Commissioner for a time, he was not there, and a native told mo that tho temporary District Commissioner had 'shot Awaw.' The District Commissioner, in fact, luid shot a buffalo in his station garden— for buffalo often come into the gardens— but had not killed it at once. Awaw was in his house some twenty miles away, and at the time, approximately, of the shooting was heard to cry out: 'White man has shot me for station.' He died a few hours afterwards at the time, approximately, at which the buffalo died, though on the previous day he had been in Oban in perfect health. I make no attempt to explain these things, but I can't shut my eyes to the fact that they happen."

Human Flesh Tasty, But Not Nourishing. According to this explorer, a diet of human flesh cannot be an especially nourishing one, however tasty it may ba, nearly all the. cannibals of his acquaintance being as "lean and hungry" as Ca3sius in "Julius Caesar." One tribe of cannibals who reside in Southern Nigeria lie found living in houses entirely of ebony. "The side of our tent," he said, "almost touched a little ebony hut built over a large and gruesome looking pot, the sides of which were ornamented with iron hooks while in front of our tent door was a tUll. carved pillar, decorated with human skulls.' The people all had the thin, shrunken appearanco which characterises those . who practice cannibal rites, and although they one and all stoutly denied any knowledge of anything of the kind, every one of our carriers said ■ that not only was tile pot in the little hut meant for tho sacrifice of human victims, but the two hideous iniul 'figures of a god and goddess in another shed on tho further sido of the carved pillar had had their heads worn away by tho constant libations of human blood poured over them." He visited another tribe whose arms were covered with queer, raised, circular soars, evidently souvenirs of self-inflicted wounds, and he discovered that these were made until an eye to the future—the idea being that, after death, these scars can bo taken off'and given to the "ghosts" in payment for food. None of these tribes, however, interested him or Mrs. Talbot so much as the Ekoi, among whom'the "rights of women" are recognised to an extent that would rejoice the heart of Mrs. Pankhurst. A Suffragette Paradise. "If tho suffragettes could import enough Kkoi women," said Mr. Talbot, "they would get tho vote in no time, for in Ekoi land the stronger sex are merely tho servants of the fair. Tlio local legends nearly all end in the same way—namely, that although a woman is married to her husband, she does not belong to Tiim, but he to her, and she has a rigjit to demand from him any sorvico she may choos-o. To begin with, a prospective bridegroom has

to servo his loved ono's family for thrco years ns a hewer of wood and 11 drawer of water, and, moreover, lias to bring valuable gifts to them. Quite often the lady accepts the presents and service, and then, at the end of two years or so, says calmly-' 'Oh, I didn't know you were thinking of marriage—l thought it was just friendship.' Then she gets engaged to somebody else, who, in his turn, serves, for three years. Naturally enough, the old folks, who stand to gain by it, encourage this kind of fickleness on tho part of their daughters. "Tho Ekoi women form secret societies, arid woe betide tho man who gives offence to any woman, for her society will be on his track in no time. A while ago the women raised the price of produce to men only, women being allowed to buy at tho usual prices. "There is a strong line drawn between men's and women's woyk. Ekoi men build a house, for instance, but women apply the clay to the inside walls. It would be considered a most serious thing if the men did this. It is also the women's job to smooth the floor. Henpecked as the Ekoi men are, most of them have several wives, being egged on to marry again and again by the iirst fair one they lead to the altar, who is tho boss of all the future wives.

Dangerous Dining. "Going out to dinner in Ekoi land is taking a big risk, because, as liko ns not, the invitation is inspired by an amiable desiro on the part of the host to poison his guest. What the Ekois don't knowabout death-dealing drugs isn't worth knowing, and their favourite pastime is to try a new one on a friend. Every houso stocks at least a dozen antidotes to poison, and the Ekoi diner-out takes care to have several of the strongest about him. Quite often he takes ,one before ho goes. It is the universal 'belief in witchcraft which is responsible for all 'this poisoning—the natives believing that it is their duty to send to a better world anybody whom they suspect of being afflicted with the evil eye. "It's a bad thing to be suspected of practising witchcralt, as nobody will ber l : ove you are all Tight until you havo either taken poison and survived, or gone through the ordeal of having boiling oil poured on the palms of the hands. Another ordeal, too, consists of having peppercorns stuffed into one's eyes, but both this and the boiling oil ordeal are dreaded less than the most common one of making the unlucky person' eat 'esere/ a poisonous bean, which kills in nine cases out of ten " ... i. Air. Talbot 6ays that when his native bearers discovered he was on his way to tho Lake of theDead-or, rather, for the part of the Oban country in which the explorer believed this supposedly haunted spot must be located-they begged to bo excused, and were left behind, but no catastrophe overtook the rest of tho party when they reached it.

A Lake of Ghosts. "The scone was a weird ono," he said. "The surface of the lake was absolutely still, and round about were bushes ten feet liiffh. The place is a sanctuary for all wild things, for no hunter would daro to penotrate the bush to this dreaded spot. As wo stood at the edge, gazing out over the water, its quiet was suddenly broken by a broad ripple, and little fish were seen to jump agitatedly above tho surface. A great python was crossing, and this, we learned, shared with crocodiles the guardianship of the Sacred Lake. Nothing, we were told,.must be allowed to touch the water, or even to touch its. outer edges, or famine and pcstilenco would ensue. •"Here, according to popular belief, the ghosts of long dead Ekoi come by night to drift in sad companies, hopeless and wailing, over tho surface of tho water. Even in tho bright sunlight tho place has an uncanny look, and ono can easily imagine that at midnight, when tho white mists shimmer ghost-like in the light of tho moon, people with the terror and mystery of tho bush in their blood would rather sit chatting round the lire or dance by torchlight in tho open spaces of the towns, than seek out this uncanny spot ,on tho chance of holding communion with the spirits of. theiri long! dead ldnl".

Mr. and Mrs. Talbot, when "at homo" near Oban are keen botanists, and they have brought back a lot of African flowers thai; are now to the experts at tho South Kensington Museum. A good many of ; them Mr. Talbot shot. The explanation of this rather surprising statement is that these flowers grow in the bark of trees, which are so high and so close together that the only way to get the plants, short of, cutting down the tree, was to shoot them off with a fowlingpiece. , Giant Trees.. "When we got back to England," said Mr. Talbot,'"the oak and elm seemed to ;is mere walking-sticks in comparison with the- gigantic trees we had left behind. Some of them grow at the rate of over a foot a month, and they are so close together that tho sky almost'hidden. As a result the natives know" only six stars by name, one of which they have christened 'God's Hen/ One free to which it is just as well to givo a wide berth is the agara, for its fruit ia of the size and almost as heavy as a cannon ball, and if one of those balls drops on a man's head it's tho cemotory for him." Mr. Talbot, who is only thirty-six, has represented tho Great White King in Nigeria since 190G, and once just escaped being' wiped out by a savage tribe named the Ik®, who bitterly regrotted their failure, and sent a nolite message to the Commissioner just before he returned to England, begging him to revisit them, as they were most anxious to shoot him. While on the Niger to Nile expedition, he took the lead in several brushes with the savage Mnrragi, and when, in another action,, a Hausa was badlv wounded by a poisoned arrow. Mr. Talbot, without a moment's , hesitation,. sucked tho wound and. saved tho man's life. An official report and- not the explniw told about that. —"Weekly Scotsman."