Wherein the Voyager, having fallen among the black traders,
discourses on these men and their manner of life; and
The
difficulties and dangers attending the barter they carry on with the
bush savages; and on some of the reasons that makes this barter so
beloved and followed by both the black trader and the savage. To
which is added an account of the manner of life of the Fan tribe;
the strange form of coinage used by these people; their manner of
hunting the elephant, working in iron; and such like things.
I spent a few, lazy, pleasant days at Agonjo, Mr. Glass doing all he
could to make me comfortable, though he had a nasty touch of fever
on him just then. His efforts were ably seconded by his good lady,
an exceedingly comely Gaboon woman, with pretty manners, and an
excellent gift in cookery. The third member of the staff was the
store-keeper, a clever fellow: I fancy a Loango from his clean-cut
features and spare make, but his tribe I know not for a surety.
One of these black trader factories is an exceedingly interesting
place to stay at, for in these factories you are right down on the
bed rock of the trade. On the Coast, for the greater part, the
white traders are dealing with black traders, middle men, who have
procured their trade stuff from the bush natives, who collect and
prepare it. Here, in the black trader factory, you see the first
stage of the export part of the trade: namely the barter of the
collected trade stuff between the collector and the middleman. I
will not go into details regarding it. What I saw merely confirmed
my opinion that the native is not cheated; no, not even by a fellow
African trader; and I will merely here pause to sing a paean to a
very unpopular class - the black middleman as he exists on the South-
West Coast. It is impossible to realise the gloom of the lives of
these men in bush factories, unless you have lived in one. It is no
use saying "they know nothing better and so don't feel it," for they
do know several things better, being very sociable men, fully
appreciative of the joys of a Coast town, and their aim, object and
end in life is, in almost every case, to get together a fortune that
will enable them to live in one, give a dance twice a week, card
parties most nights, and dress themselves up so that their fellow
Coast townsmen may hate them and their townswomen love them. From
their own accounts of the dreadful state of trade; and the awful and
unparalleled series of losses they have had, from the upsetting of
canoes, the raids and robberies made on them and their goods by
"those awful bush savages"; you would, if you were of a trustful
disposition, regard the black trader with an admiring awe as the man
who has at last solved the great commercial problem of how to keep a
shop and live by the loss.
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