Recollections of Thirty-nine Years in the Army. Gordon Charles Alexander
with an axe and long knife such as bush men in this part of Africa use, we cut a path for ourselves to the summit of a promontory from which it was practicable to take bearings for further progress. Meanwhile, and all through the following night, large numbers of men were busy clearing a road by which the mass of our contingent could advance. At daybreak our strange body of irregulars was mustered, and what a sight it presented! War dresses, wild in character, grotesque in aspect; umbrellas of many colours, carried over particular chiefs; uncouth gesticulations in the performance of war dances; strange sounds from drums, horns, trumpets, and other “musical” instruments, the chief ornaments on which were jawbones and other fragments of human mortality, combined to impress us with the aspect of savagery so presented. At the head of one of the “companies,” and in command, was a lady, who thus asserted her hereditary position as chief of her tribe.
In the early hours of a day in the first week of April (1848), our “army” began its march towards the left bank of the Encobra. By previous arrangement a number of canoes, sufficient to take the force across that river, were already outside the bar at its mouth, and these were quickly utilised for our purpose. A dense mass of natives crowded the opposite side of the river, its dimensions quickly increasing as others emerged from the bush. Our “artillery” consisted of two twelve-pounder rocket tubes, and two others of smaller calibre. In the absence of a “combatant” officer, I had been put in “command” of these, and having previously indulged in the necessary practice, was in a position to open fire upon the “enemy” as soon as the necessary order was given by the Governor, who was in supreme command. A few missiles were discharged; a few lanes ploughed among them, and then pell-mell the mass vanished in the forest. Having got across the river, we speedily reached an Apollonian village, deserted by its ordinary occupants, who in their haste had left behind their flocks and herds, both of which were quickly annexed by our “contingent.” Continuing what proved to be an extremely fatiguing march along the sea beach, – often having to wade more than knee-deep in the rippling tide, – we passed on the border of the forest a succession of villages, from all of which their occupants had fled. Towards evening we reached a town of considerable size. Our day’s march had been extremely exhausting, so that rest for the night was most welcome, especially to us white men.
In the course of the succeeding night, such snatches of sleep as we obtained were several times interrupted by the beating of tom-toms, braying of trumpets, the rushing hither and thither of considerable portions of our army. Now it was an alarm of night attack by “the enemy”; then the noisy return of a foraging party, bearing with them as trophies the heads of two Apollonians, which they cast before the Governor as tokens of their prowess. Resuming our march early the following morning, we arrived at the river Abimoosoo, across which we were floated by means of canoes that had so far followed by sea, keeping just outside the line of breakers. Shortly thereafter we were met by a messenger from “the king” against whom we were in progress; his office to express the desire of his Majesty to know with what object the Governor had brought an army into his country. The reply was a ball cartridge (according to the custom of the coast), together with a reply that if the king surrendered, then “a palaver” would be held, but not till then. Meantime we pressed on, and in the early part of the afternoon entered the capital of the king, to find it completely abandoned. Never before had I felt so “done up” and exhausted as now. I was, moreover, ill, and had every reason to believe that an attack of the much-dreaded fever of the coast was upon me.
As if to celebrate the entry of our “army” into the royal city, arrangements were speedily made by the native leaders to have a grand procession. When it did take place, no more wild and “savage” display could well be imagined than that presented by it. All around us were ghastly relics of death and murder. The palace garnished with festoons of human skulls, of which I counted one hundred and eighty after the greater part of such ornaments had been torn from their places and kicked about as playthings by our “soldiers.” The avenue leading to the palace was formed by palm-trees growing at short distances from each other along either side of the roadway. From time to time the king had disposed of a certain number of his enemies by living sepulture in a standing position; a cocoa nut placed on the head of each, the earth thrown in, and as in the progress of time the plume of palm grew higher and higher, each tree received the name of the particular enemy represented by it. At different points around, the larger trees were ornamented with various relics of humanity, skeleton hands and other fragments being nailed or otherwise attached to stems and branches.
During the few following days different portions of our contingent were variously employed. An expedition, led by two of our white associates,88 started inland, with a view, if possible, to capture the fugitive king; another, consisting entirely of blacks, having started independently into the bush, returned in triumph, with “music,” war dances, and much discordant noise, bearing with them gory heads of three Apollonians who had fallen into their power. A third party of our people, having proceeded on an independent expedition, came upon two men who had been made prisoners by order of that chief, each of them laden with three sets of heavy irons, which they had worn continuously during the two previous years. The manacles were removed after much labour; but their unhappy bearers, when relieved of them, were unable to stand erect. So long had they been kept in a sitting posture by sheer weight of their fetters, that the joints had become accommodated to it. Shortly afterwards eighty-eight other prisoners were discovered, their fetters similarly removed, but they themselves fixed in the sitting posture to which they had for longer or shorter periods been borne down by iron manacles.
Everywhere around the town the bush was impenetrable, for all communication with neighbouring tribes had been cut off for some years past, the pathways thus become obliterated by the forest. Attempts to cut new ones were but partially successful. Meanwhile serious difficulties beset us in respect to water, for the lagoons and rivers within available distance being brackish, they quickly ceased to be resorted to. A few casks of fresh water from our chartered ship thrown overboard were washed ashore, their contents carefully distributed among ourselves; but the fact became very evident that this supply being extremely limited, our “occupation” of the town must be short indeed, whether the object of our expedition was obtained or not.
Most fortunate for us there was treason in the king’s camp. By reason of his cruelty and tyranny, he had rendered himself hated by and hateful to his subjects. Now their opportunity had arrived. Three of their chiefs having tendered their submission, so far imitated certain civilized nations as to negotiate for the surrender of their king – their terms by no means exorbitant, namely one hundred ounces of gold dust, and a flag to them respectively. And so the bargain was closed.
A few more days passed, during which “palavers” of all sorts took place, and parties dispatched in various directions, though seemingly without result. Evening approaches; there is unusual tumult among our contingent. Discordant noises, emitted from drums, horns, and human mouths, announce the approach of large bodies of men; they are the former subjects of the king,89 whom they carry manacled and give over to the British leader. We feel relieved by the prospect of speedy ending of our privations and fatigues; for of our number, four are prostrate by sickness. So long as our prisoner, savage as he is, continued out of sight, we did our best to follow him up relentlessly. Now that he is in our presence, bound hand and foot, an object of abject misery, big tears rolling down his coarse black face, some of us were unable to smother a shade of sympathy for the man, monster of cruelty as he was.
Of atrocities committed by him the record of two will here suffice. He caused his mother to be secured to a stake at low-water mark when the tide was out, her eyelids to be cut off, her face turned towards the sun, – so left until overwhelmed by the returning flood, and her sufferings put an end to. His pregnant sister he caused to be cut open while alive, that he might see the position in her womb of the unborn infant, then directed that according to native custom her body should be buried within the palace.
In the room under the floor of which the remains were interred, bearing upon them her golden ornaments, the captive king was placed under guard, and so remained during the following night. With the return of daylight it was seen that the floor had been opened by the guard, the remains exhumed, all ornaments wrenched therefrom; the body itself, considerably advanced in decay, offensive to sight
Messrs. Brodie Cruickshank and Frank Swanzy.
Quako Acko by name.