Chapter III: Bosambo of Monrovia

For many years have the Ochori people formed a sort of grim comic relief to the tragedy of African colonisation. Now it may well be that we shall laugh at the Ochori no more. Nor, in the small hours of the night, when conversation flags in the little circle about the fires in fishing camps, shall the sleepy-eyed be roused to merriment by stories of Ochori meekness. All this has come about by favour of the Liberian Government, though at present the Liberian Government is not aware of the fact.

With all due respect to the Republic of Liberia, I say that the Monrovians are naturally liars and thieves.

Once upon a time, that dignity might be added to the State, a warship was acquired--if I remember aright it was presented by a disinterested shipowner. The Government appointed three admirals, fourteen captains, and as many officers as the ship would hold, and they all wore gorgeous but ill-fitting uniforms. The Government would have appointed a crew also, but for the fact that the ship was not big enough to hold any larger number of people than its officers totalled.

This tiny man-of-war of the black republic went to sea once, the admirals and captains taking it in turn to stoke and steer--a very pleasing and novel sensation, this latter.

Coming back into the harbour, one of the admirals said--

“It is my turn to steer now,” and took the wheel.

The ship struck a rock at the entrance of the harbour and went down. The officers escaped easily enough, for your Monrovian swims like a fish, but their uniforms were spoilt by the sea water. To the suggestion that salvage operations should be attempted to refloat the warship, the Government very wisely said no, they thought not.

“We know where she is,” said the President--he was sitting on the edge of his desk at Government House, eating sardines with his fingers--”and if we ever want her, it will be comforting to know she is so close to us.”

Nothing more would have been done in the matter but for the fact that the British Admiralty decided that the wreck was a danger to shipping, and issued orders forthwith for the place where it lay to be buoyed.

The Liberian Government demurred on account of expense, but on pressure being applied (I suspect the captain of H.M.S. Dwarf, who was a man with a bitter tongue) they agreed, and the bell-buoy was anchored to the submerged steamer.

It made a nice rowdy, clanging noise, did that bell, and the people of Monrovia felt they were getting their money’s worth.

But all Monrovia is not made up of the freed American slaves who were settled there in 1821. There are people who are described in a lordly fashion by the true Monrovians as “indigenous natives,” and the chief of these are the Kroomen, who pay no taxes, defy the Government, and at intervals tweak the official nose of the Republic.

The second day after the bell was in place, Monrovia awoke to find a complete silence reigning in the bay, and that in spite of a heavy swell. The bell was still, and two ex-admirals, who were selling fish on the foreshore, borrowed a boat and rowed out to investigate. The explanation was simple--the bell had been stolen.

“Now!” said the President of the Liberian Republic in despair, “may Beelzebub, who is the father and author of all sin, descend upon these thieving Kroomen!”

Another bell was attached. The same night it was stolen. Yet another bell was put to the buoy, and a boat-load of admirals kept watch. Throughout the night they sat, rising and falling with the swell, and the monotonous “clang-jangle-clong” was music in their ears. All night it sounded, but in the early morning, at the dark hour before the sun comes up, it seemed that the bell, still tolling, grew fainter and fainter.

“Brothers,” said an admiral, “we are drifting away from the bell.”

But the explanation was that the bell had drifted away from them, for, tired of half measures, the Kroomen had come and taken the buoy, bell and all, and to this day there is no mark to show where a sometime man-of-war rots in the harbour of Monrovia.

The ingenious soul who planned and carried out this theft was one Bosambo, who had three wives, one of whom, being by birth Congolaise, and untrustworthy, informed the police, and with some ceremony Bosambo was arrested and tried at the Supreme Court, where he was found guilty of “theft and high treason” and sentenced to ten years’ penal servitude.

They took Bosambo back to prison, and Bosambo interviewed the black gaoler.

“My friend,” he said, “I have a big ju-ju in the forest, and if you do not release me at once you and your wife shall die in great torment.”

“Of your ju-ju I know nothing,” said the gaoler philosophically, “but I receive two dollars a week for guarding prisoners, and if I let you escape I shall lose my job.”

“I know a place where there is much silver hidden,” said Bosambo with promptitude. “You and I will go to this place, and we shall be rich.”

“If you knew where there was silver, why did you steal bells, which are of brass and of no particular value?” asked his unimaginative guard.

“I see that you have a heart of stone,” said Bosambo, and went away to the forest settlement to chop down trees for the good of the State.

Four months after this, Sanders, Chief Commissioner for the Isisi, Ikeli, and Akasava countries, received, inter alia, a communication of a stereotyped description--

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN.

Wanted, --on a warrant issued by H.E. the President of Liberia,

Bosambo Krooboy, who escaped from the penal settlement near

Monrovia, after killing a guard. He is believed to be making for

your country.

A description followed.

Sanders put the document away with other such notices--they were not infrequent in their occurrence--and gave his mind to the eternal problem of the Ochori.

Now, as ever, the Ochori people were in sad trouble. There is no other tribe in the whole of Africa that is as defenceless as the poor Ochori. The Fingoes, slaves as they are by name and tradition, were ferocious as the Masai, compared with the Ochori.

Sanders was a little impatient, and a deputation of three, who had journeyed down to headquarters to lay the grievances of the people before him, found him unsympathetic.

He interviewed them on his verandah.

“Master, no man leaves us in peace,” said one. “Isisi folk, N’Gombi people from far-away countries, they come to us demanding this and that, and we give, being afraid.”

“Afraid of what?” asked Sanders wearily.

“We fear death and pain, also burning and the taking of our women,” said the other.

“Who is chief of you?” asked Sanders, wilfully ignorant.

“I am chief lord,” said an elderly man, clad in a leopard skin.

“Go back to your people, chief, if indeed chief you are, and not some old woman without shame; go back and bear with you a fetish--a most powerful fetish--which shall be, as me, watching your interest and protecting you. This fetish you shall plant on the edge of your village that faces the sun at noon. You shall mark the place where it shall be planted, and at midnight, with proper ceremony, and the sacrifice of a young goat, you shall set my fetish in its place. And after that whosoever ill-treats you or robs you shall do so at some risk.”

Sanders said this very solemnly, and the men of the deputation were duly impressed. More impressed were they when, before starting on their homeward journey, Sanders placed in their hands a stout pole, to the end of which was attached a flat board inscribed with certain marks.

They carried their trophy six days’ journey through the forest, then four days’ journey by canoe along the Little River, until they came to Ochori. There, by the light of the moon, with the sacrifice of two goats (to make sure), the pole was planted so that the board inscribed with mystic characters would face the sun at noon.

News travels fast in the back lands, and it came to the villages throughout the Isisi and the Akasava country that the Ochori were particularly protected by white magic. Protected they had always been, and many men had died at the white man’s hand because the temptation to kill the Ochori folk had proved irresistible.

“I do not believe that Sandi has done this thing,” said the chief of the Akasava. “Let us go across the river and see with our own eyes, and if they have lied we shall beat them with sticks, though let no man kill, because of Sandi and his cruelty.”

So across the water they went, and marched until they came within sight of the Ochori city, and the Ochori people, hearing that the Akasava people were coming, ran away into the woods and hid, in accordance with their custom.

The Akasava advanced until they came to the pole stuck in the ground and the board with the devil marks.

Before this they stood in silence and in awe, and having made obeisance to it and sacrificed a chicken (which was the lawful property of the Ochori) they turned back.

After this came a party from Isisi, and they must needs come through the Akasava country.

They brought presents with them and lodged with the Akasava for one night.

“What story is this of the Ochori?” asked the Isisi chief in command; so the chief of the Akasava told him.

“You may save yourself the journey, for we have seen it.”

“That,” said the Isisi chief, “I will believe when I have seen.”

“That is bad talk,” said the Akasava people, who were gathered at the palaver; “these dogs of Isisi call us liars.”