A Liberian Journey

Creator

Richard Pearson Strong

Date

9/28/26

Coverage

Gbai, Hinterland, Liberia

Transcription

September 28th.

I must go back to September 24th. Our last dinner of the entire eight was on the evening of September 23rd, as we did not expect to be together again for forty days and forty nights. I spoke to the men a few words complimenting each on the success of his work. It really has been most satisfactory; every man has worked hard and each one has been successful. I thanked them and expressed my appreciation of this and of the cooperation with one another which had been universally shown. We plan to meet in Monrovia about November 3rd to 5th. After dinner I went over with Bequaert final instructions for the second party regarding route to be traveled, results to be sought for, etc. I gave him copies of necessary official papers and supplied him with money. From henceforth we shall travel in Liberia without tents and shall rely upon native huts for shelter. I have shipped all the tents, flies, etc. (except those needed by the second division) to Monrovia. They will be taken down by carriers in charge of a sergeant of the Liberian frontier force. We have divided the food supplies, etc. I got off all the porters carrying our loads at 6:30 A.M. on September 28th and after George, Harold and Whitman had taken the road I said a last farewell to the other men, and Gbanga. The day proved to be a cruel one to travellers on the road. I can use no other more apt word to describe it. The sun came out early and fiercely. By quarter past ten I felt suddenly so dizzy that I was compelled to stop and sit down for a few minutes. One could already realize the penetrating force of the long heat rays and their seeming merciless effect. As the hours wore on and noon was reached, at times one felt the desire to become a little hysterical and to repress a scream and throw oneself into the forest at the side of the trail. Of course such a sensation was only momentary, but as one walks along at noon time on such a day, one can better understand why a white rabbit can not withstand direct exposure to such a sun for more than twenty minutes to half an hour before “giving up the ghost.” As one went up and down one ridge and then another and another, one felt the desire to murmur, “Oh Lord! how long?” One does not pray for rain, for a glance at the sky makes one realize the impracticability of rain coming from such skies. The porters had the advantage of us, for they left their loads on the trail and jumped into the streams we crossed to cool themselves, a thing we could not do for a number of obvious reasons. I suppose this all seems rather silly to read: they are just impressions which quickly pass when the hardship has gone by. Finally I reached the side of a high clay bank that gave about two feet of shade and turning the corner found the others huddled there quite overcome by the heat. There is no need to make a long story of it, for after rubbing our heads with a little water from the canteens and drinking from them, we tumbled along and finally reached the town of Kpai (pronounced “By”) at two o’clock. In the late afternoon when we opened our iron boxes, the things inside were quite hot to the touch. After bathing and putting on dry things and resting a little I went nearby to arrange for fresh porters for the next day’s march. We were in bed by 6:30 P.M. and up next morning at 4:45 before dawn. We got away at six o’clock with all our loads. The trail was not so open and much more through the forest, and we did not suffer greatly from the heat. We passed through the towns of Dauer, Zili and Yopi. At Yopi I saw a well-developed case of small pox in a man, the lesions being especially upon the face; there were still vesicles and pustules and already there was some searing. We reached the river (the St. John) at 11 A. M. and here rafts were constructed and ferried across with a long rope made of spliced lianas. All our boxes were brought over safely without any disaster. There were no canoes in sight on the river, the current of which was quite swift though the river was about 200 yards in width. We reached Quelle town about two o’clock. We were now among the Mano or Mani people, a somewhat more primitive and savage race than the Pwesses among whom we had been for some days. They still practice cannibalism when there is opportunity for it. Our third day of travel we left at six-fifteen and reached the Yapa river, a branch of the St. John, about ten minutes later. This river we also crossed upon hastily built rafts of tree trunks tied together with rattan rope and lianas. Our objective as our next base station was Tappi town. Tappi town is marked on the map almost directly east from where we have had our base camp and measured in a straight line about seventy-five miles. As I have already intimated, it is impossible to travel in a straight line to almost any town in Liberia. One cannot, of course, go through the impenetrable forest except by the trails. None of the names of the towns we passed through during our first two days of travel on this march from Gbanga were shown on the map, though other names of towns were on the map along our route (by compass) that the people living in these regions had never heard of. As I have said or intimated, we were trying to travel east and southeast to Tappi town, but on this day we found we had to swing southwest for more than half the day and to make part of a circle before we could find a trail going southeast. We after passing through several smaller towns, where the people said they had never seen white men before, we reached Ziggers town at three P. M. Here we spent the night.

The next morning, September 27th, George and I spent about half an hour studying a case and sent Loring and Harold on ahead with the porters. Fortunately the day was not so hot, and much of the road was through high forest; not until about four o’clock did we come out into a broad road or trail, and we finally reached Tappi town at ten minutes to five, being on the way nearly ten hours. I only sat down to rest on one occasion for twenty minutes in the forest and in another own for about ten minutes. We must have walked yesterday for bout 23 to 24 miles according to the distance in a straight line by the map, but by the trail, some 27 to 28 miles. Along the route at different times eight of our porters were too tired to go on and left their loads and ran away and it was necessary to get others. In the last town at which we stopped yesterday (Bonnepiew) twelve more men deserted. As there were no men in this town, twelve women came forward and volunteered to take the loads, which they did very satisfactorily. This is the first time we have had women porters. The work of the women seems to be generally pretty well defined. They work the farms, do the cooking, etc. but as a rule they never carry the heavier loads, hampers of rice, for example, on their backs. They however carry farm produce on their heads.

During the first four days we have walked as nearly as we can estimate some seventy-six miles in a straight line on the map but to do this we had to walk by trail some ninety-two miles. From now on it will probably not be necessary to make such long marches. I think we are now within one day’s march of the French border or the Ivory Coast, the eastern border of Liberia.

We are now in the Gio country and Tappi town may be spoken of the center of the region of human and animal “leopards”. Nesso is the next district bordering on this one. The government has been making considerable effort recently (during the past year or two) to break up the practice of cannibalism as practiced by the leopard men in these two districts. The leopard men come out in groups at night clothed in leopard skins and armed with hooks with which they kill and sometimes carry off their victims, which are of course eaten. The method which the government is using in dealing with cannibalism here seems peculiar. When a group of these leopard men is caught, the government collects the evidence and when their guilt is apparent the people of the village from which the leopard men are convicted are permitted to give them the “sasswood ordeal.” That is, the convicted ones are ordered to drink a poisonous sasswood mixture. Sometimes they are compelled to drink as many as twenty cups of it. This usually kills them, but if they confess while drinking it (which they usually do if guilty) then, if they recover, they are placed in iron chains and these are some of the men I saw in chains this morning. Twenty-seven leopard men were apprehended last month in this district and last week two leopard women and a man were given the sasswood ordeal in this town and died after drinking the twenty cups ordered for them. There are, we are told, a good number of animal leopards about here and we have seen today quite a number of skins and leopards teeth, and also two large leopards very crudely stuffed. There are elephants also about here and one bush cow was killed three hours from here six days ago. Bush cow (buffalo) are also reported to be near here. We shall see.

Type

Diary

Citation