Travels in West Africa

handle. Into this I put blankets, boots, and books—in fact, anything that would not fit into my portmanteau a large traveling bag that opens into two equal parts or black bag. From the start, I was haunted by the conviction that its bottom would fall out, but it never did. Despite the fact that it had its own ideas about how its contents should be arranged, it served me well throughout my voyage.

It was the beginning of August 1893 when I first left England for “the Coast” A common term for the West African coastline. Packages of quinine with some postage still due arrived up until the last moment. A friend hastily sent two newspaper clippings. One was titled “A Week in a Palm-oil Tub” A slang term for the slow cargo steamers used by palm oil traders, which offered basic accommodations for passengers, which was supposed to describe the type of accommodations, companions, and wildlife likely to be encountered on a steamer going to West Africa. I was destined to spend seven weeks on such a ship, compared to The Graphic A British weekly illustrated newspaper (1869–1932) contributor’s single week.

The other clipping was from The Daily Telegraph, reviewing a French book of “Commonly used phrases” in Dahomey A historical West African kingdom, now part of modern-day Benin. The opening sentence in the latter was, “Help, I am drowning.” Then came the inquiry, “Is this man not a thief?” and then another cry, “The boat has capsized.” “Get up, you lazy rascals!” was the next exclamation, followed almost immediately by the question, “Why hasn’t this man been buried?” The cheerful answer provided was, “It is fetish a term used by Europeans at the time to describe West African traditional religions, charms, or spiritual objects that has killed him, and he must lie here exposed with nothing on him until only the bones remain.”

This sounded discouraging to a person whose work would require traveling extensively in boats and whose fixed desire was to study fetish. So, with a feeling of looming dread, I left London for Liverpool. I was not made any more cheerful by the matter-of-fact way the steamship agents informed me that they did not issue return tickets for the West African lines A grim reference to the high mortality rate for Europeans in the region; many were not expected to survive to make a return trip.

I will not go into the details of that voyage here, much as I am prone to wandering off-topic. They are more amusing than educational, for on my first trip out, I did not know the Coast, and the Coast did not know me—we terrified each other. I fully expected to be killed by the local royalty and upper class; meanwhile, they thought I was associated with the World’s Women’s Temperance Association and was collecting scandalous details for future magic-lantern an early type of image projector using transparent plates lectures on the liquor trade. These fearful misunderstandings...