OKO JUMBO.

Western Star, Issue 1349, 27 April 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

OKO JUMBO.

King Oko Jumdo of Bonny, in whose august company Mrs Ker and myself, says David Ker in Harper’s Weekly , ihad the honour of being shipwrecked on the West Coast of Africa in the summer of 1885, was,said to be a bit of a humorist in his way ; but we saw very little trace of humour about him in the course of that disastrous voyage, during the whole of which he was probably the most wretched man on board. Indeed, what with his chronic internal malady, the ceaseless rain that prevented him from coming on deck, and the prolonged sea sickness which like Death in Shirley’s famous poem, “ lays its icy hands on kings,” the poor king might well bo weary of life at sea. JNor were these his only troubles. Having never been out of his own country till the trip to England from which he was returning, he had naturally very hazy ideas of geography, and doubtless imagined his little kingdom on the Bonny river (which he was pining to see) to be somewhere at the other end of the world, many long months away from him.

Bat one night (the very night before the shipwreck, by an ominous coincidence) we at length got him out upon the main-deck ; and it was a fine sight to see our sfcaiwart captain supporting the old man’s tottering steps, and helping him on to the cgne lounge set for him upon the after-hatch. The sick man brightened up wonderfully beneath the influence of good Captain Porter’s cheery talk about old times in Wes r Africa, and did his dest to eat .the food that we brought him ; but no persuasion could induce him either to take medicine or to see the ship’s doctor, who unfor unately happened to be a very young man. “ Medicine no good,” said the old warrior, disdainfully; “doctor no good—no sabbee nothing. One time I sick at home ;no can sleep two night. 1 make send for white man’s doctor from English factory. White doctor came—>ouug boy, smooth face, no sabbee nothing. I say ‘No can sleep now—you make me sleep.’ Doctor say—‘S’pose you take this bottle of sleep-stuff ; you drink ten-twelve drop one time, tentwelve drop other time, you sleep good ’ I take sleep-stuff; I drink him all up one time, 1 sleep five whole day, five whole night ! Eh, captain ? me sabbee better than doctor that time ! Ha, ha, ha!”

And the king exploded into such boisterous laugbter that all the features of his queer, old face seemed to change places and to dance a kind of insane quadrille in and out of each other, as if a hair's-breadth escape from death by an overdose of laudanum were the finest joke in the world. But I could not help chinking that there are not a few kings m far more civilised regions Bonny who are just as useful and intelligent when broad awake as poor Oko Jumbo was during his five days’ nap.