Dr. Oscar Baumann Brought To Bear On Them His
Careful Unemotional German Methods Of Observation, Thereby Giving Us
More Valuable Information About Them And Their Island Than We
Otherwise Should Possess.
Mr. Hutchinson resided many years on
Fernando Po, in the capacity of H. B. M.'s Consul, with his hands
full of the affairs of the Oil Rivers and in touch with the Portos
of Clarence, but he nevertheless made very interesting observations
on the natives and their customs.
The Polish exile and his
courageous wife who ascended Clarence Peak, Mr. Rogoszinsky, and
another Polish exile, Mr. Janikowski, about complete our series of
authorities on the island. Dr. Baumann thinks they got their
information from Porto sources - sources the learned Doctor evidently
regards as more full of imagination than solid fact, but, as you
know, all African travellers are occasionally in the habit of pooh-
poohing each other, and I own that I myself have been chiefly in
touch with Portos, and that my knowledge of the Bubi language runs
to the conventional greeting form: - "Ipori?" "Porto." "Ke Soko?'"
"Hatsi soko": - "Who are you?" "Porto." "What's the news?" "No
news."
Although these Portos are less interesting to the ethnologist than
the philanthropist, they being by-products of his efforts, I must
not leave Fernando Po without mentioning them, for on them the trade
of the island depends. They are the middlemen between the Bubi and
the white trader. The former regards them with little, if any, more
trust than he regards the white men, and his view of the position of
the Spanish Governor is that he is chief over the Portos.
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