For that matter the whole west coast of Africa is called by the natives The White Man’s Grave; and everywhere the fever stalks along the beach like a grim sentinel warning the stranger to stay away and ready to beat him into delirium and death if he lands. But the name, The White Man’s Grave, is especially attached to several of the oldest of the coast settlements. Notable among these is Gaboon, in the French Congo, almost exactly at the equator, where I lived for nearly six years, the period of my second term in Africa.

On the long voyage of five weeks from Liverpool to Libreville I had been duly prepared for the worst by the Old Coasters on board, who deem it their duty to instruct all newcomers in regard to the evils of the climate and the certainty of an early death. This duty constitutes a daily exercise during the entire voyage and is discharged faithfully and conscientiously. Each morning at the breakfast-table the young missionary is told that the African fever is inevitable, and to expect it will bring it on in two days. The healthy die first. “Missionaries die like flies.” The abnormal mortality among missionaries is due to several persistent delusions; chief among them, the temperance delusion, and the quinine delusion. According to the Old Coaster, everybody whose mind is open to conviction knows that temperate habits are no defense and that total abstinence is a quick method of suicide. Quinine only aggravates the fever; everybody knows that also; but missionaries will not admit it. Then there is the minor delusion of the umbrella. All those people who regularly carried umbrellas are dead. Those who didn’t carry them are dead too, but they lived longer.

The dreadful racking pain of the fever is adequately described, and then there is added the consoling thought that a man may sometimes escape having it fatally by having it frequently. “Fatally, or frequently:” the poets among them dwell fondly on the alliteration.

After we have begun to call at the African ports this elementary instruction is reinforced by a circumstantial and realistic account of the death of the “poor chaps” who have “pegged out” since the last voyage. The number is large: I did not know there were so many white men on the coast. Many among them were of my particular build, complexion and general appearance—I was told.

It is not that the Old Coaster is indulging a barbarous sense of humour in trying to frighten the newcomer, but he has become fairly obsessed with the thought of the climate. Sooner or later this morbid distemper seizes upon most of those who live for any length of time in West Africa.

After such an unappetizing conversation at the breakfast-table, a certain young missionary escaped to the upper deck where he was soon joined by an Old Coaster who asked him if he happened to have a prayer-book. Delighted that the conversation had taken a turn (and such a good turn) he replied that he hadn’t a prayer-book, not being an Anglican, but that he might procure one from a fellow passenger.

“I’d be ever so much obliged,” says the Old Coaster, “if you would; for I want to write down the burial service. You see, no matter how a man may have lived, it’s a comfort to him out here on the coast to think that he’ll have a decent burial; so we’re neighbourly, and we read the service for one another.”

In one last desperate effort to turn the conversation from the dead to the living, the missionary remarked, with considerable force: “But people don’t all die of fever out here! What about those that don’t?”

“Oh, no,” he replies; “they die of many other things besides fever. Let’s see;”—and he counts them off on his fingers:

“There’s kraw-kraw. Kraw-kraw is an awful nasty disease that just decomposes a man’s legs and nothing can stop it.

“There’s dysentery. A lot of people die of that. There’s every kind of tuberculosis. There’s abscesses. There’s pneumonia. There’s ulcers——”

“And kraw-kraw,” says another Old Coaster, coming up behind him. “Why, there was my friend So-and-so——”

“I’ve already said kraw-kraw,” says the other, and he passes on to the next finger.

“There’s Portuguese itch. Maybe you think you know what itch is, but you don’t if you’ve never had the Portuguese itch of the coast.

“There’s the Guinea worm. It favours the leg and is sometimes ten feet long. You may possibly get it out if you don’t try to wind it from the tail; but anyway it leaves a wound that doesn’t heal in this climate.

“There’s enlarged spleen. There’s——”

“Kraw-kraw,” says another arrival. “Why, there was So-and-so——”

“I said kraw-kraw,” answers the leader.

“There’s smallpox—in frequent epidemics,” he continues.

“And there are so many other parasites feeding on a man, inside and out, that one who has lived on this coast for several years ought to be able to furnish in his own body a complete course for a class of medical students.”

“Did you mention kraw-kraw?” says a late arrival.

“Kraw-kraw?” interposed the missionary. “I know all about kraw-kraw. The highest authorities on tropical diseases have declared that it is not a physical, but a mental, malady that attacks the Old Coaster. The victim imagines that he is an old crow, and he goes around flapping his wings and crying, ‘Kraw-kraw.’”

One morning at the breakfast-table, when the conversation turned for a moment to the cheerful subject of cocktails, a youngster exclaimed: “Gentlemen, gentlemen, I protest against this cheerfulness. For a whole minute the conversation has been utterly irrelevant. Men are mortal and the dead are accumulating. Let us therefore return to the obsequies.”

A solemn-eyed Old Coaster leaned towards his neighbour and in a loud, sepulchral whisper remarked: “I give him a month.”

“I give him two weeks,” replied the other.

Many of those who came aboard, especially those from the more lonely places, looked like haunted men. Extreme isolation invites madness. There were moments when the heart of the traveller faltered or stood still, almost crushed by the pathos and tragedy of it all.

At the annual mission-meeting I was appointed not to Gaboon, but to Angom, seventy miles up the Gaboon River. Angom had a peculiarly evil reputation even in Africa, and the appointment was made only after a prolonged discussion in which some contended that the place ought to be abandoned and the climate of that particular station pronounced impossible. The facts arrayed in support of this opinion presented such a gloomy outlook that when, in conclusion, a missionary physician and his wife and myself were assigned to Angom, the appointment sounded in our ears somewhat like an order for our execution.

Three weeks after we reached Angom I stood one morning on the bank of the river, exceedingly lonely as I gazed after the boat that bore away the physician and his wife, both of them sick and returning to the United States. I remained alone at Angom only a few months, but I was expecting to remain for the entire year, sixty miles from the nearest white man, and unable as yet to speak the language of the jungle folk around me. And besides the barrier of an unknown language between them and me, there was at first such a mental and moral aloofness from the natives that their presence, and especially the sound of their constant laughter, only drove me to the centre of a vaster solitude.

Often in those first days I fought against loneliness and fever together, each aggravating the other. When loneliness would make its most terrible onslaught it assumed a disguise—and invariably the same disguise. More than half the battle was fought when I had penetrated the disguise and learned to recognize the foe even from afar. It invariably approached in the form of discouragement—the intolerable feeling that all I was doing was useless; that I was the fool of a pathetic delusion whose only redeeming feature was a good intention. The doubt suddenly emptied life of all that was worth while and left an aching void; and nothing in the whole world can ache like a void. In our nobler aims and enthusiasms doubt is the worst foe of courage—the thought that one may be making a fool of himself; the highest courage is to resist the doubt, and the highest wisdom is to know when to resist it. I think Hawthorne said something like that.

Let me anticipate the years so far as to say that, although I was always more or less alone in Africa, and drank the cop of solitude to the dregs, I completely outlived these attacks. And, strange enough, the very question which had been my dreaded foe became my strongest ally and defense, namely, the question, Is it worth while? For I fought that question out to a sure affirmative. In later years the dominant feeling, that which constituted the irresistible attraction of missionary life, and made its privations as nothing, was the constant feeling that life in Africa was infinitely worth while, and that nowhere else in the world could my life count for so much to so many.

The first letters from missionaries at the coast advised that I should not think of staying alone at Angom, but should move to the coast and join them at Baraka, our Gaboon station. This did not seem to me advisable, since it would separate me from the interior tribe, the wild Fang, among whom I was expecting to work and whose language I was learning. The coast tribe, the Mpongwe, were already provided for and did not need me. But as time passed letters came from all over the mission making so strong a protest that it seemed inadvisable to “insist upon being a martyr”—as my fellow missionaries expressed it, with naïve candour. One friend added that if I died, or rather when I died, I would have no one to blame for it but myself. That settled it. The idea of dying with no one to blame for it, after the lonely life at Angom, was entirely too unsensational; so I moved to Baraka, where some one could be blamed when I died.

The name Gaboon is used, especially by the English, in a general way to designate not only the river of that name but all the adjacent territory. Most people prefer it to the name Libreville, because it is of native origin; and they like the far-away sound of it. If we would be strictly accurate, however, the name belongs only to the great estuary of the river. The Gaboon River is not long, but it receives many tributaries and for the last hundred miles from the sea it is magnificent. Forty miles before it reaches the sea it bends northward by northwest and widens out into a broad estuary from five to fifteen miles in width and forty miles long, which I have always called the bay. It is one of the few, and one of the best, harbours on the entire coast of Africa. Libreville, the old French capital of the Congo Français, and Baraka, our mission station, are situated on the east bank of the estuary and opposite its broad mouth. They look therefore directly over the sea.

Gaboon was known in the Middle Ages and probably in the early centuries. Travellers and adventurers of a superstitious age, passing upon the high seas, reported that it was a dreadful land where at night strange fires bursting from the earth leaped to the clouds and reddened the sky, fires which probably came from “inferno” not far beneath. It is quite possible that the fire which they saw may have issued from Mount Kamerun, farther to the north, which is now an extinct volcano; but there is a more likely explanation. The country around Gaboon is more open than most parts of West Africa. A dense undergrowth of shrubbery and long grass grows up each year, which towards the end of the dry season is burned off by the natives, in some places to clear their gardens, and in some places for the fun of seeing it burn. As seen from the mission hill the fires are seldom extensive, though the effect is a ruddy glow upon the clouds and is beautiful. But as I have seen them when out upon the bay at night, and upon the sea, the effect of their full extent, the glowing sky and its reflection in the sea, were sufficient to inspire awe and impress deeply the superstitious mind of a sailor gazing on a strange land of savage people.

Libreville as it is approached from the sea is one of the most beautiful places on the entire West Coast. The government buildings stand upon a hill, the Plateau, from which a handsome boulevard runs to the south parallel with the beach, between rows of giant coco-palms. On this boulevard are the trading-houses, French, Portuguese, German and English. The buildings are nearly all white, including the iron roofs; but some of them have roofs of red tile. There are many beautiful trees. The houses are only half visible through screens of foliage; and along the walks every unsightly thing, every deserted building or decaying hut is overgrown with vines of delicate beauty and the wildest profusion of scarlet, purple and lavender flowers.

The beach is strewn with logs of African mahogany of great value, which the traders are preparing to ship. For these they have exchanged a variety of goods. They carry a large stock of flint-lock guns especially for the interior trade. The average price of a trade-gun is five dollars. They are called “gas-pipe” guns in the vernacular of the coast. The barrel is three feet four inches long, and the bore Mr. Richard Harding Davis compares to an artesian well. “The native fills four inches of this cavity with powder and the remaining three feet with rusty nails, barbed wire, leaden slugs, and broken parts of iron pots.” This dreadful weapon “kicks” so violently in the recoil that it is always a question as to which is the more dangerous end. Of course, if the contents of the barrel should actually enter a man’s body it would tear him all to pieces. But there is always a doubt about the aim, and there is no doubt about the kick.

Two miles south of the Plateau there is another hill nearly as high, and having the finest outlook towards the sea. On this hill is the mission station, Baraka.

The house, as one approaches it, appears through a screen of palms and orange-trees, of the strong-scented frangipani, the scarlet hibiscus, and oleander growing as high as the house. There is an abundance of roses everywhere. There are also a few coffee-trees in the yard, and one exquisite cinnamon.

The view from the veranda of the mission house at Baraka is a scene of magic beauty. The joyous lavishness of colour excludes from the mind the thought of the deadly serpent and the relentless fever-fiend that stealthily glide within the shadows. The long hillside sloping to the beach is half covered with mangoes and palms, oleander and orange-trees, and the graceful plumes of the bamboo that wave to and fro and tumble in the breeze like children at play. In front is the open sea. On the left, looking up the estuary, one sees in the bright morning light a fairy island of deep emerald set in a silver sea, and beyond it a distant shore in dim purple and gold. And even while one is looking, the island, the silver sea and the golden-purple shore gradually dissolve and disappear in the haze that gathers and deepens as the day advances. But again, and always, it appears in the clear evening light, more beautiful than ever.

I found it impossible to persuade my friends that Gaboon is not the hottest place in the world, since it is not only in Africa, but at the equator. This was also my own idea of Gaboon until it was corrected by experience. It is not as hot at the equator as it is several hundred miles north or south of it. The thermometer ranges between 72° and 86°, seldom going above or below this range. But the humidity is extreme (not surpassed, I believe, in the world) and this makes it seem hotter than these figures would indicate. The atmosphere feels as if it were about fifty per cent. hot water. At the coast there is the delightful sea-breeze—but as soon as one says it is “delightful” he is reminded that it is very dangerous.

One hears from the natives of the coast more complaints of cold than of heat and in the hottest weather their black skin is always cool. The hot months are December and January; and the coolest are June and July.

The wet and dry seasons of Gaboon are very distinct. The dry season begins in May and lasts for four months, during all which time there is not a shower. Then the wet season begins in September and lasts four months, during which it rains almost incessantly. This is followed by a short dry season of two months and a short wet season of two months, thus completing the year. This succession of the seasons is as regular and distinct as our winter and summer. The effect of the long dry season corresponds in some respects to our winter, giving vegetation a rest. Europeans delight in the dry season, although towards the last they long for the rain. But the natives dislike the dry season, which is too cool for their comfort; and since the land-breeze is very strong, and their bodies but slightly protected with clothing, there is much sickness among them in these months.

I never told the Africans about ice, nor described snow, lest it would overtax their credulity and discredit me; for if they should doubt I had no way of proving it. But after the French hospital was built the Gaboon people not only heard about ice but many of them actually saw it. One day we obtained a piece of ice at Baraka, sufficient to make ice-cream. When we had finished eating I took some of it out to the men of my boat-crew and after telling them that it was something which we liked very much, I gave a teaspoonful to Makuba, the captain. No sooner had it entered his mouth than he leaped into the air with a wild yell—wild even for Africa. He shouted: “I’m killed! I’m burned to death! I’m burned to death!”

The extremest sensation of cold seems to be not distinguishable from that of extreme heat. Never having tasted anything cold, it is positively painful to them.

Despite the exaggeration of the Old Coaster we are constantly reminded that, after all, Gaboon is The White Man’s Grave. There were a number of Anamese prisoners of war whom the French had transported from Anam. They were employed in the construction of two miles of road along the beach. During the few months of work seventy out of one hundred died. In this dreadful death rate there were probably unusual factors. The road crosses a marsh that is a first-class incubator for mosquitoes. And besides, it is not likely that the men were reasonably provided with food or medical attendance.

Even upon the subject of the climate opinions differ. There are some persons—very few—who, after living in West Africa a number of years, become so used to its death record that they seem to think that every other place is just the same. One or another of these occasionally becomes an indignant champion of the climate. At one of our annual mission meetings I offered a resolution appealing to the Board of Missions in New York for an extra allowance for health changes, in view of the “hostile climate.” A veteran missionary, whose many years in Africa made him the wonder of the coast, objected to the word hostile, declaring that unless it were stricken out he would vote against the resolution. But with charming inconsistency he added that he fully realized the need of the extra allowance and he would gladly vote for it if only, for the word hostile, we would substitute the word peculiar.

Next morning after breakfast, Mr. Gault, in whose home I was staying, said to me: “Apropos of the objection made yesterday to the word hostile as applied to this salubrious climate, have you observed that every one who asks a blessing at the breakfast-table seems to be thankful—and surprised—that none of us has been stricken down during the night and that we are all again able to get to the table?

“The more remarkable,” he added, “when we recall that we were chosen by the Board not because we were either good or clever, but chiefly because of our constitutions.”

It was only a short time afterwards that Mr. Gault himself one morning was not able to get to the breakfast-table. Two days later they buried him at Batanga. He was one of the truest and best men I have ever known.

There is less fever now than there was a few years ago, and the death record is decreasing. Not that the conditions are much improved; but common sense has prevailed, and men as soon as they become seriously ill hasten away on the first steamer. Besides, the proper use of quinine as a preventive is better understood as the result of the knowledge of the sources of malaria and its various stages.

The mosquito theory—that the Anopheles mosquito is the carrying agent of the malaria parasite—is of course generally accepted. The late Dr. Koch advised that a liberal dose of quinine every eighth or ninth day ought to be an effective preventive with most persons. Major Ronald Ross, head of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, advised the destruction of the mosquito, chiefly by drainage, and the segregation of white people from the natives. The natives have become at least partially immune; but there are numerous malaria parasites in their blood constituting the source from which it is carried by the mosquito, which after biting a native bites a white person; and when the white man’s blood is malarious a little exposure to the tropical sun, a slight chill, even a mental shock or undue strain, anything that lowers the vitality, is likely to precipitate the fever.

I myself, after several years of frequent fever, at last gained practical immunity by taking five grains of quinine every night, which I did without omission for three years, until I left the coast. If my vitality had not been already reduced to the minimum I would not have required so much quinine. Many persons, instead of taking quinine regularly, wait until the fever actually comes and then take very large, nerve-shattering doses for successive days, from thirty to sixty or even ninety grains a day. One may recover from the fever, but one does not entirely recover from the quinine until he leaves the coast.

Sometimes the newcomer is fairly frightened into a fever by those who have lived in Africa long enough to have become obsessed with the thought of the climate and whose conversation it completely absorbs.

Near the end of my voyage to Africa I spent a night ashore at a certain mission, where a good lady who was in a very sociable mood, having shown me to my room, stood in the doorway telling me of the various persons—not a few—who had died in that particular room, and giving some graphic detail of each death. It was gradually borne in upon me that there must be some horrible fatality attached to that room. Finally she advised me not to lock my door. “For,” said she, “Mr. P——, who always locked his bedroom door, was found dead in bed one morning in this very room, although he went to bed looking as well as you do now. About noon next day they broke the door open, and sure enough there he was—lying right there!”

I replied: “My dear lady, won’t you please knock on my door very early in the morning, and if I do not answer, open the door and walk in; for I fully expect to be dead.”

A certain American lady, who was a missionary for some years in Liberia, tells how that when she landed, expecting to proceed to a station some distance inland, where she would join several other missionaries, she was met with the news that the missionaries of that station (four, I believe) had all died of fever a few days before she landed, one immediately after another. Nevertheless, the person who had the authority for her appointment escorted her to that desolate station and left her there alone. A partition of boards in the house was nearly all gone; it was only a few feet from the floor. She asked the explanation of this appearance and was told that the boards had been used to make coffins. Having received this interesting, though somewhat curious information, she was left alone to find what comfort she could in the reflection that there was enough of the partition left for one more coffin.

She told me about it herself—many years afterwards.