Un capitaine de quinze ans. English Page 29

  CHAPTER X.

  MARKET-DAY.

  So sudden was Dick's action that it had been impossible to parry hisblow. Several of the natives rushed on him, and in all likelihood wouldhave struck him down upon the spot had not Negoro arrived at that verymoment. At a sign from him the natives drew back, and proceeded toraise and carry away Harris's corpse.

  Alvez and Coimbra were urgent in their demand that Dick shouldforthwith be punished by death, but Negoro whispered to them that theywould assuredly be the gainers by delay, and they accordingly contentedthemselves with ordering the youth to be placed under strictsupervision.

  This was the first time that Dick had set eyes upon Negoro since he hadleft the coast; nevertheless, so heartbroken was he at the intelligencehe had just received, that he did not deign to address a word to theman whom he knew to be the real author of all his misery. He cared notnow what became of him.

  Loaded with chains, he was placed in the dungeon where Alvez wasaccustomed to confine slaves who had been condemned to death for mutinyor violence. That he had no communication with the outer world gave himno concern; he had avenged the death of those for whose safety he hadfelt himself responsible, and could now calmly await the fate which hecould not doubt was in store for him; he did not dare to suppose thathe had been temporarily spared otherwise than that he might suffer thecruellest tortures that native ingenuity could devise. That the"Pilgrim's" cook now held in his power the boy captain he so thoroughlyhated was warrant enough that the sternest possible measure ofvengeance would be exacted.

  Accompanied by Coimbra, Alvez himself was one of thefirst arrivals.]

  Two days later, the great market, the _lakoni_, commenced. Althoughmany of the principal traders were there from the interior, it was byno means exclusively a slave-mart; a considerable proportion of thenatives from the neighbouring provinces assembled to dispose of thevarious products of the country.

  Quite early the great _chitoka_ of Kazonnde was all alive with abustling concourse of little under five thousand people, including theslaves of old Alvez, amongst whom were Tom and his three partners inadversity--an item by no means inconsiderable in the dealer's stock.

  Accompanied by Coimbra, Alvez himself was one of the first arrivals. Hewas going to sell his slaves in lots to be conveyed in caravans intothe interior. The dealers for the most part consisted of half-breedsfrom Ujiji, the principal market on Lake Tanganyika, whilst some of asuperior class were manifestly Arabs.

  The natives that were assembled were of both sexes, and of everyvariety of age, the women in particular displaying an aptitude inmaking bargains that is shared by their sisters elsewhere of a lighterhue; and it may be said that no market of the most civilized regioncould be characterized by greater excitement or animation, for amongstthe savages of Africa the customer makes his offer in equally noisyterms as the vendor.

  The _lakoni_ was always considered a kind of fete-day; consequently thenatives of both sexes, though their clothing was scanty in extent, madea point of appearing in a most lavish display of ornaments. Theirhead-gear was most remarkable. The men had their hair arranged in everyvariety of eccentric device; some had it divided into four parts,rolled over cushions and fastened into a chignon, or mounted in frontinto a bunch of tails adorned with red feathers; others plastered itthickly with a mixture of red mud and oil similar to that used forgreasing machinery, and formed it into cones or lumps, into which theyinserted a medley of iron pins and ivory skewers; whilst the greatestdandies had a glass bead threaded upon every single hair, the wholebeing fastened together by a tattooing-knife driven through theglittering mass.

  As a general rule, the women preferred dressing their hair in littletufts about the size of a cherry, arranging it into the shape of a cap,with corkscrew ringlets on each side of the face. Some wore it simplyhanging down their backs, others in French fashion, with a fringeacross the forehead; but every _coiffure_, without exception, wasdaubed and caked either with the mixture of mud and grease, or with abright red extract of sandal-wood called _nkola_.

  But it was not only on their heads that they made this extraordinarydisplay of ornaments; the lobes of their ears were loaded till theyreached their shoulders with a profusion of wooden pegs, open-workcopper rings, grains of maize, or little gourds, which served thepurpose of snuff-boxes; their necks, arms, wrists, legs, and ankleswere a perfect mass of brass and copper rings, or sometimes werecovered with a lot of bright buttons. Rows of red beads, called_sames-sames_, or _talakas_, seemed also very popular. As they had nopockets, they attached their knives, pipes and other articles tovarious parts of their body; so that altogether, in their holidayattire, the rich men of the district might not inappropriately becompared to walking shrines.

  With their teeth they had all played the strangest of vagaries; theupper and lower incisors had generally been extracted, and the othershad been filed to points or carved into hooks, like the fangs of arattle-snake. Their fingernails were allowed to grow to such animmoderate length as to render the hands well-nigh useless, and theirswarthy skins were tattooed with figures of trees, birds, crescents anddiscs, or, not unfrequently, with those zigzag lines which Livingstonethinks he recognizes as resembling those observed in ancient Egyptiandrawings. The tattooing is effected by means of a blue substanceinserted into incisions previously made in the skin. Every child istattooed in precisely the same pattern as his father before him, andthus it may always be ascertained to what family he belongs. Instead ofcarrying his armorial bearings upon his plate or upon the panels of hiscarriage, the African magnate wears them emblazoned on his own bosom!

  The garments that were usually worn were simply aprons ofantelope-skins descending to the knees, but occasionally a shortpetticoat might be seen made of woven grass and dyed with brightcolours. The ladies not unfrequently wore girdles of beads attached togreen skirts embroidered with silk and ornamented with bits of glass orcowries, or sometimes the skirts were made of the grass cloth called_lambda_, which, in blue, yellow, or black, is so much valued by thepeople of Zanzibar.

  Garments of these pretensions, however, always indicated that thewearers belonged to the upper classes; the lower orders, such as thesmaller dealers, as well as the slaves, had hardly any clothes at all.

  The women commonly acted as porters, and arrived at the market withhuge baskets on their backs, which they secured by means of strapspassed across the forehead. Having deposited their loads upon thechitoka, they turned out their goods, and then seated themselves insidethe empty baskets.

  As the result of the extreme fertility of the country all the articlesoffered for sale were of a first-rate quality. There were large storesof rice, which had been grown at a profit a hundred times as great asthe cost, and maize which, producing three crops in eight months,yielded a profit as large again as the rice. There were also sesame,Urua pepper stronger than Cayenne, manioc, nutmegs, salt, and palm-oil.In the market, too, were hundreds of goats, pigs and sheep, evidentlyof a Tartar breed, with hair instead of wool; and there was a goodsupply of fish and poultry. Besides all these there was an attractivedisplay of bright-coloured pottery, the designs of which were verysymmetrical.

  In shrill, squeaky voices, children were crying several varieties ofnative drinks; banana-wine, _pombe_, which, whatever it was, seemed tobe in great demand; _malofoo_, a kind of beer compounded of bananas,and mead, a mixture of honey and water, fermented with malt.

  But the most prominent feature in the whole market was the traffic instuffs and ivory. The pieces could be counted by thousands of theunbleached _mcrikani_ from Salem in Massachusetts, of the blue cotton,_kaniki_, thirty-four inches wide, and of the checked _sohari_, blueand black with its scarlet border. More expensive than these were lotsof silk _diulis_, with red, green, or yellow grounds, which are sold inlengths of three yards, at prices varying from seven dollars to eighty,when they are interwoven with gold.

  The ivory had come from well-nigh every part of Central Africa, and wasdestined for Khartoom, Zanzibar, and Natal, many of
the merchantsdealing in this commodity exclusively.

  How vast a number of elephants must be slaughtered to supply this ivorymay be imagined when it is remembered that over 200 tons, that is,1,125,000 lbs., are exported annually to Europe. Of this, much thelarger share goes to England, where the Sheffield cutlery consumesabout 382,500 lbs. From the West Coast of Africa alone the produce isnearly 140 tons.

  The average weight of a pair of tusks is 28 lbs., and the ordinaryvalue of these in 1874 would be about 60_l_.; but here in Kazonnde weresome weighing no less than 165 lbs., of that soft, translucent qualitywhich retains its whiteness far better than the ivory from othersources.

  As already mentioned, slaves are not unfrequently used as current moneyamongst the African traders, but the natives themselves usually pay fortheir goods with Venetian glass beads, of which the chalk-white arecalled _catchokolos_, the black _bubulus_, and the red_sikunderetches_. Strung in ten rows, or _khetes_, these beads aretwisted twice round the neck, forming what is called a _foondo_, whichis always reckoned of considerable value.

  The usual measure by which they are sold is the _frasilah_, containinga weight of about 70 lbs. Livingstone, Cameron and Stanley always tookcare to be well provided with this kind of currency. In default ofbeads, the pice, a Zanzibar coin worth something more than a farthing,and _vioon-gooas,_ shells peculiar to the East Coast, are recognized asa medium of exchange in the market. Amongst the cannibal tribes acertain value is attached to human teeth, and at the lakoni somenatives might be seen wearing strings of teeth, the owners of whichthey had probably, at some previous time, devoured. This species ofcurrency, however, was falling rapidly into disuse.

  Towards the middle of the day the excitement of the market reached itshighest pitch, and the uproar became perfectly deafening. The voices ofthe eager sellers mingled with those of indignant and overchargedcustomers; fights were numerous, and as there was an utter absence ofany kind of police, no effort was made to restore peace or orderamongst the unruly crowd.

  It was just noon when Alvez gave orders that the slaves he wished todispose of should be placed on view. Thereupon nearly two thousandunfortunates were brought forward, many of whom had been confined inthe dealer's barracks for several months. Most of the stock, however,had been so carefully attended to that they were in good condition, andit was only the last batch that looked as if they would be improved byanother month's rest; but as the demand upon the East Coast was nowvery large, Alvez hoped to get a good price for all, and determined topart with even the last arrivals for whatever sum he could obtain.

  Amongst these latter, whom the havildars drove like a herd of cattleinto the middle of the chitoka, were Tom and his three friends. Theywere closely chained, and rage and shame were depicted in theircountenances.

  Bat passed a quick and scrutinizing gaze around him, and said to theothers,--

  "I do not see Mr. Dick."

  Tom answered mournfully,--

  "Mr. Dick will be killed, if he is not dead already. Our only hope isthat we may now all be bought in one lot; it will be a consolation tous if we can be all together."

  Tears rose to Bat's eyes as he thought of how his poor old father waslikely to be sold, and carried away to wear out his days as a commonslave.

  The sale now commenced. The agents of Alvez proceeded to divide theslaves, men, women and children, into lots, treating them in no respectbetter than beasts in a cattle-market. Tom and the others were paradedabout from customer to customer, an agent accompanying them to proclaimthe price demanded. Strong, intelligent-looking Americans, quitedifferent to the miserable creatures brought from the banks of theZambesi and Lualaba, they at once attracted the observation of the Araband half-breed dealers. Just as though they were examining a horse, thebuyers felt their limbs, turned them round and round, looked at theirteeth, and finally tested their paces by throwing a stick to a distanceand making them run to fetch it.

  All the slaves were subjected to similar humiliations; and ail alike,except the very young children, seemed deeply sensible of theirdegradation. The cruelty exhibited towards them was very vile. Coimbra,who was half drunk, treated them with the utmost brutality; not thatthey had any reason to expect any gentler dealings at the hands of thenew masters who might purchase them for ivory or any other commodity.Children were torn away from their parents, husbands from their wives,brothers from sisters, and without even the indulgence of a partingword, were separated never to meet again.

  The scenes that occur at such markets as this at Kazonnde are tooheartrending to be described in detail.

  It is one of the peculiar requirements of the slave-trade that the twosexes should have an entirely different destination. In fact, thedealers who purchase men never purchase women. The women, who arerequired to supply the Mussulman harems, are sent principally to Arabdistricts to be exchanged for ivory; whilst the men, who are to be putto hard labour, are despatched to the coast, East and West, whence theyare exported to the Spanish colonies, or to the markets of Muscat orMadagascar.

  To Tom and his friends the prospect of being transported to a slavecolony was far better than that of being retained in some CentralAfrican province, where they could have no chance of regaining theirliberty; and the moment, to them, was accordingly one of great suspense.

  Altogether, things turned out for them better than they daredanticipate. They had at least the satisfaction of finding that as yetthey were not to be separated. Alvez, of course, had taken good care toconceal the origin of this exceptional lot, and their own ignorance ofthe language thoroughly prevented them from communicating it; but theanxiety to secure so valuable a property rendered the competition forit very keen; the bidding rose higher and higher, until at length thefour men were knocked down to a rich Arab dealer, who purposed in thecourse of a few days to take them to Lake Tanganyika, and thence to oneof the deptos of Zanzibar.

  This journey, it is true, would be for 1500 miles across the mostunhealthy parts of Central Africa, through districts harassed byinternal wars; and it seemed improbable that Tom could survive thehardships he must meet; like poor old Nan, he would succumb to fatigue;but the brave fellows did not suffer themselves to fear the future,they were only too happy to be still together; and the chain that boundthem one to another was felt to be easier and lighter to bear.

  Their new master knew that it was for his own interest that hispurchase should be well taken care of; he looked to make a substantialprofit at Zanzibar, and sent them off at once to his own privatebarracks; consequently they saw no more of what transpired at Kazonnde.