In the course of a long journey on foot through an uncultivated country one acquires the faculty of unconsciously observing and generalising from certain geographical facts. By noticing the vegetation one can detect at a distance an invisible river or a change in the soil; in dense forest, the proximity of an unseen range of hills is inferred from rapidly-flowing streams with beds of shingle, and the general slope of the country can be judged, apart from particular inclines, from the average direction of the rivers.
Now, very shortly after leaving Juábin, it became evident that we had entered a new watershed, for, whereas the streams had previously flowed mostly in a southerly direction, they now took a course for the most part towards the north-west, and were, moreover, increasing in size, the little rivulets giving place, as we travelled northward, to more considerable streams. It did not, therefore, cause me any surprise when, on the fifth day after leaving Juábin, we came to the brink of a large, slowly-flowing river.
A river of any size is, however, always an object of interest to the traveller, and as we came out into the open space on the bank, we halted and looked about us curiously. The black, sluggish waters were spanned by a rude bridge formed of a single gigantic odúm tree, and on either bank, at each end of the bridge, was a high pile of sticks, while on the farther side of the river an opening in the trees showed that the road led into a village.
As we approached the bridge, a man who had been sitting by the pile of staves rose and held up one hand, while with the other he pointed to the heap; and although he spoke not a word, our people clearly understood his meaning, for each of them who carried a stick cast it on to the pile. Then the man walked on to the bridge and, when he had passed three-quarters of the way across, halted, and tinkled a kind of primitive bell. Our men followed him, and each of them, as he reached the middle of the bridge, drew from his pocket one of the little cloth packets of gold dust that form the ordinary currency in Ashanti and, opening it, shook the gold out into the river. I was greatly surprised at this behaviour on the part of my orthodox friends, but I thought it wise to do as they did, so, laying my stick upon the wooden cairn, I took out the smallest of the packets of gold dust with which Pereira had furnished me, and very reluctantly shook out the contents into the water.
As I landed on the northern bank, I passed close to the fetish priest or wizard—for such he evidently was—and examined him with no little curiosity. He was an emaciated, shrivelled-looking rascal with a sly, sinister face, and grey hair, and was loaded with necklaces and other ornaments of cowrie shells. He appeared to resent my earnest inspection, and Musa, observing this, plucked me by the sleeve and hurried me away, whispering, "Stare not so, my son; remember that he dieth early that gazeth into the eye of a wizard."
Although it was little past noon, Musa decided to camp outside the village (which I did not require to be told was Tánosu), for we were now beyond the seat of war and could not only rest in peace, but might expect to obtain some better food than plantains, of which we were all heartily sick. We did, in fact, obtain a fine short-haired ram which I gladly paid for out of my sack of cowries, silencing the protests of my comrades by stipulating that if I bought the animal, they should prepare it for eating; and having thus set them a task, I strolled away to enjoy the unwonted luxury of solitude.
And, indeed, it was necessary that I should be alone for a time, for my mind was in a veritable ferment. Here was the place just as the old journal had described it; there were the piles of staves, the wizard, the bridge, and the toll for the river god. What if this dream should turn out to be true after all?
Ah! what?
Should I be so very much forward? I had looked upon the river; I might look upon the wonderful pool; I might even trace the whereabouts of the cave itself. But what then?
I walked down to the bridge and looked at the pile of staves, which I now perceived rested on a great mound of black earth—the accumulation of centuries of decay. I turned away along by the river, and, sitting down on the bank, rested my elbows on my knees and fell into a reverie, gazing dreamily at the dark, turbid water as it crept slowly by.
What if I found the cavern? Should I, even then, be any nearer to its secret? And then, after all, what concern of mine could that secret possibly be? Was not my quest a mere wildgoose chase induced by credulity, mingled with idle curiosity?
I was still turning over these questions, with my eyes fixed on the water, when I started with a pang of disappointment. There had come into view a shoal of fishes swimming leisurely up stream and snapping at an occasional insect on the surface; not such fishes as had been mentioned in the journal, huge, hideous, and ferocious, but just ordinary river fish, much like grayling in appearance, and not more than a foot in length.
Here, then, the narrative had been embroidered by the fancy of the man Almeida, or of his informants, and if one part of the story was fabulous, how much more might turn out to be mythical?
In these reflections I was interrupted by the tinkling of a bell, and looking up, saw the fetish priest approaching with a basket on his head from which steam was rising. He seated himself close to the water's edge, not far from me, and as I was on a higher level I could watch his proceedings. He laid his basket on the ground beside him, and I could now see that it was filled with eggs, which he took out one by one, and squeezing them in his hand began to peel off the shells, which he threw into the river. The bright-scaled fish gathered round, snapping at the egg-shells as they sank, and crowding nearer and nearer to the bank. Suddenly the entire shoal darted off, and then there loomed through the turbid water a great dark shape, and then another, and another, until a troop of seven had come into view; and as they slowly sailed into the clear water under the bank, I could see them distinctly—huge, smooth-skinned, slate-coloured fish, fully four feet long, with great blunt heads, and grinning mouths fringed with rows of worm-like barbules.
When the priest had finished his preparations, he took the peeled hard-boiled eggs one at a time and cast them out into the stream; and as each one fell, the hideous brutes rushed at it, lashing the water into foam and snapping their jaws in a most horrible manner.
As the last of the eggs vanished the fetish man rose, shook out his basket and departed, and the fish soon disappeared into the dark depths of the river. The truth of Almeida's story was again vindicated and, in spite of my doubts, I was conscious of a feeling of elation and satisfaction.
I now retraced my steps towards the village, but, being still absorbed in thought, I missed my way and presently entered it at the farther end, where I saw a group of children gathered round a blacksmith's shop; and, being in an idle frame of mind, I halted to look on. It was a primitive affair—just a thatched roof on four posts—but the work was proceeding briskly enough. A sturdy boy sat on the ground between a pair of goat skins that served as bellows, and, though the forge was but a wide-mouthed jar sunk in the ground, with a hole in the bottom for the blast-pipe, the charcoal fire in it glowed brightly. The smith was at the moment fashioning a spear head on a flat slab of iron-stone that served as an anvil, holding it with queer little tongs and tapping it with an absurd little hammer, but shaping it quickly and skilfully nevertheless.
I was about to move on, when my eye fell on the heap of crude iron—fresh from some native bloomery or furnace—and I observed an object that I decided to acquire if possible. This was a rough iron bar about ten inches long by an inch and a half thick—probably a half-wrought "pig." It tapered somewhat to one end, and at the other it had an irregular cup-like hollow. The general shape—doubtless accidental—was that of a sounding lead, and for that purpose I proposed to use it, as will be seen hereafter; but it would be necessary to have a hole made in it to reeve the line through.
The smith, having finished the spear head, put it aside to cool, and then observing me for the first time accosted me in very barbarous, but quite intelligible, Hausa.
I returned his salutation, and, picking up the bar, asked him if he wished to sell it.
"Yes. I will sell it," he replied.
"Canst thou make a hole through this end?"
"Certainly I can."
"And what will the price then be?" I asked.
He considered a moment, and then said, "A thousand kurdi."
"Very well," I replied. "Make the hole and I will pay thee."
He seemed greatly astonished at my accepting his price without haggling—a thing unheard of in Africa—but he promptly stuck the rod in the fire and looked out a point to make the hole with, while the boy worked the bellows.
I fished up out of my capacious pocket the remnants of my bag of cowries, and had hardly finished counting them out on the ground before the work was done and the hissing iron plunged into a calabash of water to cool.
That night our camp outside the village was a scene of roaring conviviality, for we had passed through the starving wilderness and now, for the first time, enjoyed the luxury of a hearty meal. And, let ascetics preach as they will, there is great virtue in a good dinner "which maketh glad the heart of man," as anyone would have admitted who could have seen the beaming faces upon which the red glow of our camp fire shone that night. Now a man can smile—after a certain fashion—with his mouth full, whereas conversation under those circumstances is hardly practicable; whence it happened that the early part of the entertainment was of a somewhat silent character, communication being maintained principally by gestures and grins of satisfaction. But as the evening wore on and the remains of the ram dwindled into a "frail memorial" of clean-picked bones, and the roasted yams were scraped out to the very rinds, tongues began to wag and conversation and anecdote to buzz round the fire.
Naturally enough, the talk fell on the river god of Tano and the strange customs at the bridge.
"This is a proud god," remarked Dam-Bornu, "that will not suffer any man to carry a staff before his face."
"Say rather a proud devil," said Musa gravely. "There is no god but God."
"It is true," replied Dam-Bornu, "there is but one God, the wise and the merciful. But this Tano devil, hast thou ever seen the heathen people worship him?"
"Never," answered Musa. "How do they worship?"
"I saw them," said Dam-Bornu, "when I went to Kumasi, at a town not far from here. The wizards dressed in strange garments and wore great wooden faces with horns all painted most horribly, and the people, too, wore curious garments, and danced round the wizards in a ring, sweeping the earth with brushes and shaking rattles."
"Great is the folly of the heathen," remarked Musa, sententiously, apparently forgetting the offering he had made to the river god as he crossed the bridge.
"Hast thou heard the story that Alhassan Ba-Adami tells about the gods' treasure house?" asked Dan-jiwa.
"I have not heard it," replied Musa. "Wilt thou tell us the story, Alhassan?"
"I will tell what I have heard," said Alhassan; "but I know not if it be true or a fable."
We all settled ourselves to listen, and Alhassan, a quiet, gentle-mannered man, began, a little shyly because of the sudden silence:
"It is said that in the days of old, certain Nasaráwa (Christians) came to this country to search for gold. And they came to a place called Aboási, where is a great rock and near to it a pool, in which pool the river Tano beginneth; and finding there much gold, they dug a mine which they made after the fashion of their country, not only digging a pit as the black men do, but burrowing deep into the earth as a mole doth. Now, the people of this country hated the Christians, and on a certain day, when the white men were working in their mine, the men of the country arose and took their knives and spears—for in those days the black people had no guns—and said to one another, 'Let us go to the mine and take the white men and kill them; so they shall trouble us no more, and we shall have their gold.'
"So they came to the mine and went into one of the burrows, but did not find the white men. Then they went to another burrow, and the white men were not there. And they went into a third burrow, which was the deepest of all, and there they saw the Christians with lamps and torches digging for gold. Then they fell upon the Christians to kill them, but the white men had guns in the mine with them, and they fired at the black people. And the voice of the guns went out through the burrows and shook the earth so that it fell in and buried them, and they all perished, both the black people and the Christians, and were never seen again. And it is said that the demon of the river took the mine for his own, and that his priests serve him there in a temple underground to this day, and heap up more and more treasure, which they hide in a strong place deep in the earth; and, moreover, that these wizards waylay and catch strangers and drag them to the mine, where they keep them to labour for the river god; but what these slaves do I did not hear and cannot guess since—so it is said—the wizards put out their eyes so that, should any of them escape, they should not be able to tell any of the secrets of the place nor guide others to the mine. This is what I have been told of the river god, but whether or not it is true I cannot tell."
As Alhassan finished speaking, a somewhat uncomfortable silence fell upon the assembly, and more than one of the men glanced round nervously towards the village whence the sound of drumming came down upon the night air.
"Where is this Aboási?" inquired Dan-jiwa.
"It is about two days' journey from here," replied Alhassan. "We pass near to it on the way to Kantámpo—that is to the pool; whereabouts the mine is I do not know."
There was another silence and then Musa said—
"Well, we are ten strong men, followers of the Prophet and servants of the true God. So we need not fear the demons of the heathen. Still, I like not these wizards, and shall be glad to see the last of their accursed country."
We were preparing for a somewhat leisurely start on the following morning when there filed into the village a caravan led by a fine stately Hausa, who stalked down the street as though the entire country belonged to him, until catching sight of Musa, he ran forward and embraced him with many demonstrations of joy and affection. It appeared that Imóru (which was the stranger's name) was an old friend and fellow townsman of our leader, and had come direct from their country. So the members of the two caravans sat down joyfully together to exchange experiences and talk over the news.
I learned that Imóru was travelling first to Cape Coast and thence to Quittah, where he had a relative who was the mallam or priest to the Hausa troops with whom he had formerly lived for a time. I asked him if he knew a Christian named Pereira, and on his replying that he knew him very well, I determined to make him the bearer of a letter. But I soon saw, by the interest that my proposal to write a letter aroused, that I should have to write it in public and that it would be in the highest degree impolitic to display any knowledge of European language or letters. When, therefore, Imóru produced from his scrip a sheet of coarse paper, a reed pen and a little gourd of thick brown ink, and my comrades gathered round to look on, I contented myself with writing, in my very best Arabic, a brief but affectionately-worded note stating that all was well with me so far, and hoping to see my friends again before long. When I had given Imóru this letter I felt more easy in my mind with regard to Isabel and her father, for although the missive told them little, I knew that they would learn all they wished to know by questioning the bearer.
During the next two days our road lay mostly along the right bank of the Tano river, although, owing to its windings, we only saw it occasionally; but we crossed a number of tributary streams, and the main river rapidly diminished in volume as we ascended towards its source. About noon on the second day I noticed that the river, which had now dwindled to quite an inconsiderable stream, had, from being dark and turbid, suddenly become as clear as crystal; and Alhassan, who was walking near me, informed me that we had passed the last (or rather the first) of the tributaries, and that the clear water we saw came direct from the Aboási pool.
Soon afterwards we halted for our midday rest and meal, and I then took Alhassan aside and asked him if he knew how far away the pool was.
"It is quite near to this place," he replied. "I can show thee the little path that leads to it from the road."
"Come then and show it to me," said I.
As we were starting off, Musa caught sight of us and called out to know where we were going.
"Yusufu has asked me to show him the little path to the pool," said Alhassan.
"What hast thou to do with the pool, Yusufu?" asked Musa suspiciously.
"I have heard much talk of it," I replied, "and would see for myself what manner of place it is."
"The curiosity of fools is the bane of wise men," exclaimed Musa angrily. "Because thou speakest little I had thought thee a man of sense; and now thou wilt bring a mischief on us by prying into the secrets of the heathen."
"Surely," said I, "it is no harm to go and look at the water. It is there for any man to see."
"I tell thee the place is sacred and forbidden, and thou must not go near it," persisted the old man.
"I am going to see it," said I, and to save further discussion I pulled Alhassan by the sleeve and strode off.
In a few minutes we came to a small track that turned off from the caravan road into the forest.
"This is the path," said Alhassan. "Shall I come with thee?"
He was brimful of curiosity, but mighty nervous, and would not have been sorry, I think, if I had refused his company. However, I told him he might come if he pleased, and we entered the path together; but we had not gone a couple of hundred yards when we encountered an object that brought Alhassan to a dead stop.
In the middle of the path and completely barring the way was a grotesque and frightful figure with long curved horns and great goggle eyes, seated on a stool and staring stonily before it. It was nearly life-size and was the more diabolical in aspect because it was really skilfully modelled and painted, and an additional touch of realism was imparted by an actual garment of palm fibre.
"Let us go back, Yúsufu," exclaimed Alhassan in a shaky voice, surveying the apparition with dismay, as it sat with its little heap of votive offerings before it; "this place is the abode of devils. Come away."
"Go thou and wait for me in the road," said I. "I am going to see this pool since I have come so far"; and I pushed past the image and proceeded along the path.
I could now distinguish the sound of falling water, and walking on another hundred yards, I came out on to the bank of the pool.
A brief glance round sufficed to convince me that here again Almeida's narrative was strictly veracious. The pool was a sheet of water some hundred and fifty yards across, surrounded by forest. At one end the bank rose so steeply as to form a kind of cliff, and from one part of this a small stream of red, muddy water fell into the pool, while at a little distance from the spring there stood up out of the water a solitary mass of red rock from which two slender tusk-like fragments of quartz projected. The spring did not, however, gush out of the tusked rock as Almeida had described it, but it may have done so formerly, as it now spouted from the end of a gorge which it had excavated, in the course of years, in the cliff.
The pool was evidently of considerable depth, even close inshore, and the water was very clear where I first came out on to the bank; but as I followed the path along the brink towards the spring, it became more turbid.
Before returning to the forest path I stood on the bank where the water was clearest, and attentively examined the bottom, which appeared to be of a greyish red mud; and as I stood there I was suddenly startled by the appearance of a shoal of the huge and hideous fishes such as I had seen at Tánosu. In the clear water they were horribly distinct, and as they crowded round the bank at my feet and leered up at me with their dull, glazy eyes, I felt quite a thrill of horror, and instinctively stepped back a pace lest I should slip down the bank; and as I did so, something rustled in the bush behind me. But although I turned round quickly I could see nothing, and concluded that some animal must have passed through the undergrowth.
When I got back to the road I found Alhassan awaiting me with evident anxiety, and I had no sooner joined him than he hurried me off towards the camp.
"Didst thou see the wizards, Yúsufu?" he asked in a whisper.
"Wizards!" I exclaimed. "No, I saw no one."
"They saw thee," said he, "for they came along the path soon after thee, having watched us both from the bush."
I was sorry to hear this, for not only did I not want to arouse the suspicions of the fetish men on my own account, but I should hardly have forgiven myself if I had involved my kind and hospitable companions in any trouble with the natives. It was also a little disagreeable to find the priests so watchful and alert, and I took my way back to the camp in a rather anxious frame of mind.
The meal was nearly finished when we arrived, so we had but a short rest before the march was resumed; but this turned out to be of little importance, for before we had gone more than a couple of miles, the gathering clouds and a certain chill in the air gave warning of a threatened tornado, although the season of storms had gone by. The careful Musa, therefore, called a halt, and huts were hurriedly put up to shelter our persons and merchandise from the rain; but after a time the clouds drifted away and the slanting rays of the afternoon sun shone brightly enough on our little encampment. It was, however, too late to continue our journey, so our men sat about for the rest of the day chewing kola and talking.
The evening meal was prepared earlier than usual, and when it was finished we sat round the fire and talked again, until getting tired of this the men went off one by one, to rest either in huts or by the fire. I spread my own mat on the side of the fire farthest from the huts and lay down to think over my plans and wait till my comrades should be asleep.
The night was at first very dark, but as the time went on and the drowsy mutter of conversation gradually died away, the sky cleared, and presently the red beams of the rising moon began to filter through the trees. I turned out the contents of my great pocket on to the mat to make sure that I had forgotten nothing. The iron bar or sinker, a coil of the wiry stem of a creeper three or four fathoms long, a lump of shea butter wrapped in a piece of rag, a large knife, and my revolver; these formed my outfit for the night's expedition, and when I had "mustered" them I put them back. I had spent the evening in fitting a shaft to my spear irons, and the finished spear lay by my mat.
The camp was wrapped in silence except for the ordinary sounds of the forest. A potto shrieked in a neighbouring tree, an owl hooted, a couple of flying foxes whistled monotonously as though they were blowing across gigantic keys, and from the undergrowth came the squeaky bark of a genet, and the stealthy, secret chuckle of some prowling civet.
I stood up on my mat and looked round at our little camp. The fire was already dull, every man was asleep, and the big white moon now sailed high above the tree tops. I took up my spear, and picking my way softly past my sleeping comrades, stole off at a rapid pace along the road towards Aboási.
It was a most eerie walk. The brilliant moonlight made the road in parts as clear as in broad daylight, for the forest being less dense here than it had been farther south, the path was fairly open. But on either side was a wall of impenetrable shadow, and, in places where the forest closed up, the road itself was as dark as a vault, and I had to fairly feel my way with the butt of my spear. And, as I went, I seemed to be accompanied by an invisible multitude. Every clump of bush stirred as I approached it; the dark undergrowth was all in a rustle of movement: stealthy steps came to and fro on all sides, and the air was full of strange whirrings and flutterings.
Several times I was startled by some bulky creature leaping up at my very feet and bounding away into the shadow, and once, as I was feeling my way along a stretch of road that was wrapped in absolute darkness, there appeared in the gloom before me a constellation of green and shining eyes that flitted and danced to a murmur of soft, snuffling growls; and when I flourished my spear and rushed at them, the forest rang out with a peal of wild laughter. It was only a pack of hynas, but I breathed more freely when I came out again into the moonlight and saw that they had left me.
The path to the pool was not difficult to find, for a great silk-cotton tree stood at the junction and flung its huge serpent-like roots right across the road; so I strode along it with confidence, and soon came in sight of the grim idol which stood out, a hideous silhouette, against the moonlit opening. And certainly if it was frightful by daylight it now looked truly diabolical, and I half sympathised with Alhassan as I passed it in the gloom. It was quite a relief to get out into the open space by the pool; and very lovely the little lake appeared in the clear moonlight, its farther margin shrouded under the dark wall of forest and the tall monolith of the tusked rock faithfully repeated below its quiet surface.
I followed the path round the brink to a place that I had settled upon at my first visit, where a tree jutted out nearly horizontally, with its trunk partially immersed in the water. I had chosen this spot for two reasons. In the first place it was near to the spring, and I had calculated that, if there was really gold in the bed of the pool, that gold must be brought by the spring, and, as the heavy gold dust would settle sooner than the earthy sediment, the bottom in the neighbourhood of the fountain would be richest in gold. My second reason was the tree itself, which would form a kind of stage, convenient to work from.
I now hastily prepared my appliances. Passing the end of the line through the hole in the iron sinker I made it fast with a couple of half hitches. Then I took a lump of the shea butter and pressed it into the hollow at the end of the sinker to form what sailors call an "arming." Kicking off my slippers to make my foothold safer, I crept out on to the tree trunk as far as I could, and, taking the coil of line in one hand, with the other softly dropped the sinker into the water, letting the line run through my fingers until I felt the iron thump on the bottom. Then I drew it up and crawled back on to the bank to examine it. The arming of shea butter was covered by a thick layer of greyish mud, but, although I inspected it most minutely, to my deep disappointment I could not discover a trace of gold.
However, I determined to save the mud for more thorough examination by daylight, and, to this end, sliced off with my knife the top layer of the arming and laid the muddy fragment in the rag. I then crept out on to the tree and again dropped the sinker to the bottom and returned to shore to see if I had any better fortune this time; but the mud which adhered to the sticky arming was similar to that brought up by the first cast—soft grey deposit with never a trace of sparkle or colour.
I was stooping over the rag with the sinker in my hand, comparing the two soundings, when, chancing to glance up, my eye was attracted by the swaying shadows of foliage on the white, lichen-clad trunk of a tree close by; and even as I looked, another shadow appeared on the tree and slowly moved across it—the shadow of a man's head.
I remained for an instant petrified; then, as the shadow suddenly vanished, I sprang to my feet, whirling the sinker round as I rose. The heavy iron struck some hard object with a dull shock and, as I faced round, a man staggered backwards and fell, nearly upsetting a second man who was following close behind. The latter, however, quickly recovered and, as he rushed at me with an uplifted knife, I again raised the sinker; but before I could strike, he seized my wrist with his free hand and made a lunge at my chest with his dagger, which I barely escaped by grasping his arm below the elbow. So we stood for near upon a minute, holding one another at arm's length, tugging and wrenching, swaying to and fro and trampling upon the prostrate body. Then we stood stock-still for a few moments, till suddenly, with a jerk of his arm, he swept the point of his knife within an inch of my neck, and as I twisted his elbow back, he snapped at my face with his teeth, snarling like a wild beast.
Meanwhile, as we staggered backward and forward, we were gradually edging nearer and nearer to the water, and each of us struggled to back the other towards the bank. We were within a couple of yards of the brink when my assailant made another sudden lunge at me with his knife, which again narrowly missed me; but the wrench that I gave his arm to save myself, turned the weapon, so that its point pricked him in the pit of his stomach, causing him to recoil so violently that he lost his footing, letting go my wrist in his confusion. I gave him a brisk shove so that he staggered back two or three paces, and he stood for a moment on the very edge of the bank, waving his arms and striving to recover his balance; then he toppled backwards and fell with a splash into the water.
He disappeared for an instant only and rose close to the tree, which he clutched at frantically, and struggled to haul himself up; but the trunk was wet and slippery, and offered very little hold, so that he continually slipped back. I debated hurriedly whether I should take the opportunity to make off, or knock him on the head with the sinker, and was inclining to the former course—for it was a repulsive idea to kill a helpless man—when the water around became violently agitated. The unfortunate wretch gave vent to a yell of agony and horror, and flinging up his arms, vanished below the surface.
I stood for some moments rooted to the spot, watching the foaming eddies that told of the awful struggle that was taking place in those black depths, but, as the prostrate man now began to show signs of returning animation, I thought it high time to be gone; so, wrapping the sinker in the rag, I dropped it into my pocket, picked up my spear, and ran off down the path.
When I got back to the camp all was still and quiet save for the heavy breathing of my comrades, and my mat lay by the dull fire just as I had left it. I pushed the ends of the long faggots into the heap of embers, and as a cheerful flame leaped up, I settled myself on my mat and immediately fell asleep.
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