with your offerings; only God has a right to sacrifices.”
People were astonished.
“Who can have shown him the shrine?” said some. “Surely he is a powerful wizard.”
While one of our children, a Christian, went toward the place indicated, found the shrine, and destroyed it, I myself, a little carried away by the situation, made a big sign of the cross over the Devil’s well. Then something astonishing happened. There was an extraordinary noise behind the old baobab, everybody jumped back by instinct and, lo and behold, an enormous vampire bat, flew out of the hole, and, flying in a confused manner, was lost among the trees. The crowd kept silent, as though it were a face-to-face meeting with the Devil. Without wasting time, I threw down the bottom of the hole some handfuls of lighted straw, the dead leaves caught fire, the blaze spread, great clouds of black smoke rose, and the Devil’s well really looked like an ante-chamber of hell.
As you have understood, the point of doing all this is not to drive out the evil spirit, who is used to fire, but to clear out the unhealthy air; for I had been so rash as to say that I would go down into the well, and drink its water: then it would be in the public domain.
When the fire had gone out, a kind of improvised ladder, made there and then, was placed against the wall and I went down to the depths. Then, I climbed up safe and sound back to my fellow humans, carrying in a coconut cup, a little muddy water, unpleasant to look at, and smelling like rotten eggs, or, if you prefer, like hydroxide sulphuric acid. But, for local public opinion, the smell and the taste were entirely explicable by the prolonged diabolical presence. After us, those who had come with us dipped their lips eagerly in the cup. Then five or six workmen went down into the well to clean it out. I like to think that since then, the Prince of Darkness has not made a nuisance of himself to these poor human beings.
That evening, our services were rewarded by the gift of an old cock. Is there any French journalist, however prone to anticlerical diatribes, who would dare to suggest that I had not earned it?
Chapter 7: At Vanga
Where is Vanga? The Town and its Population.
A Magician’s Secret. Rescuing an Innocent.
On Strike. A Prison Door.
We got to Vanga after marching for four hours across lonely lagoons, muddy marshland, and remnants of forests.3 Vanga is a small town belonging to the old Vumba country, which is still represented here by an old and powerless chief, a Diwani, whose name is Mohammed. He said that his family came from Jeddah in Arabia and claims to be the ruler of all the people of the coastline as far as Pangani, despite the claims of the Sultan of Zanzibar, the Germans, and the British. Alas! What a lot of princes there are throughout the world who lack nothing except the actual power to rule.
In fact, who really owns Vanga? When Britain and Germany divided the country, this was a major problem for the two of them. Recourse was had to the map, as though it were a source of scientific certainty. Then it was found that the map put Vanga to the south of the river Umba, therefore in German territory, but in the actual layout of the land, Vanga was north of the river, in the British zone. The first explorer who had drawn the first map, had thought that a stretch of water was the river’s estuary, but in fact it was only a lagoon! There was a very definite disagreement, but the two sides did not want to resort to war, so they agreed to seek arbitration, and the chosen arbitrator was the commander of a French warship at harbor in Zanzibar.
He asked, “Is there salt water in Vanga?”
“Plenty,” replied the German representative.
“Then it is British.”
However, the German did not accept this.
“Then,” said the Frenchman, “let us rely on the judgment of Solomon. When the tide is in, and Vanga is surrounded by water, it will be British. When the tide is out, it will be German.”
This proposal was not, however, accepted, and it was decided that River Umba, which enters the sea half an hour’s walk south from the town, would be the boundary between the two spheres of interest. Vanga then belongs to the British, or to the Sultan of Zanzibar, who is under British protection. His representative there is the governor, an old Baluchi soldier, who cannot be called educated, as he does not know how to read, but who seems honest.
The town is built on a stretch of ground rather higher than the lagoons which surround it. At the season of very high tides, it is surrounded by water on all sides, and any Europeans who wanted to come there to spend their salaries would find it quite unattractive. It contains at the present time perhaps 2,000–3,000 inhabitants, namely Arabs, Swahilis, Africans, some free but many more slaves, with an Indian who is in charge of the customs office, and some Hindu traders. Small East African boats come into the harbor often. Some years ago a wall of stone, with a quadrangular shape, was built to defend the town against raids by the notorious Mbaruku, the terror of all the coastal area.
We camped in the shelter of coconut trees, at a cool, dry place where the wind from the sea played gently around us. We stayed there for two days.
Such as it is, with its unsatisfactory harbor and its malaria, Vanga has a certain relative importance. First of all, it is, as we have said, the town which marks the southernmost point of British territory, and an agent of the Imperial British East African Company lives opposite it, at Chuyu. Then, between Mombasa and Tanga, it is the coastal town which has most local boat traffic, indigenous traders, and people from the hinterland—Digo, Segeju, Pare, Taita, and Kamba—each coming with his products, his needs, his style of clothing, and his own facial appearance.
Naturally, our arrival, which was, as always announced by our men giving a volley of rifle shots, created some excitement in the place, and we were soon surrounded by a crowd of curious well-wishers, who helped us to set up camp: men, women, goats, hens, sheep, and children.
Among them, we immediately picked out a big fellow, who had a very unusual air, very definitely a rural African, and, to be fair, with something likeable about him. He came from Kamba country, up north, a long way in from the coast. From the point of view of public order, he was a vagabond. By profession, he was a magician. His dress was a real warehouse of rags, bits of skins, gourds, horns, claws, shells, bit of wood, and anthropological curiosities of every kind; his stature, his manner, his head, and his rig-out, all gave him the respect of the local people. From childhood onwards, he has been a wanderer in the African world, and he can speak in detail about all the villages and encampments spread out between Mount Kenya and Kilimanjaro, and from Vanga to Kavirondo. Straightaway, he told us about a route for crossing from Vanga to Taita and from there to Taveta, where we had been planning to go, across the great desert plateau, which has already been mentioned. This route has not been explored; in any case, we would not take it. But with regard to the man who had come to speak to us, I thought perhaps we could take him as a guide, for we really needed one.
While I was thinking this over, he took me aside, led me behind my tent, and with a very charming manner said, “Listen, I see that you are my friend and I am yours. You are a magician for the whites. I am a magician for the blacks: we must cooperate.”
“Well,” I said, “let us do so.”
“Often people ask me for some medicine for this or that. You understand.”
“Yes, to cure people.”
“Oh, no. To kill somebody.”
“Oh!”
“Yes. And I should be very happy and very grateful—if you could be so kind—if you can give me some medicine which kills people quietly, without leaving any trace, and which is always effective.”
This extraordinary request astonished and angered me. I felt it my duty to quickly give my “colleague” some sound moral teaching. But I had hardly begun when he slipped away. What a lot of strange professions there are in the world. That evening, there was a rather different situation. A young man, who looked