device employed in small streams for the capture of either craw-fish or small fish is a line of calabashes, or earthen pots with narrow mouths; these are tied on to a line, I won’t say with tie tie, because I have said that irritating word so often, but still you understand they are; this line is tied to a tree with more, and carried across the stream, sufficiently slack to submerge the pots, and then to a tree on the other bank, where it is secured with the same material. A fetish charm is then secured to it that will see to it, that any one who interferes with the trap, save the rightful owner, will “swell up and burst,” then the trap is left for the night, the catch being collected in the morning.
Single pots, well baited with bits of fish and with a suitable stone in to keep them steady, are frequently used alongside the bank. These are left for a day or more, and then the owner with great care, crawls along the edge of the bank and claps on a lid and secures the prey.
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Round a Kacongo Camp Fire.
Hand nets of many kinds are used. The most frequent form is the round net, weighted all round its outer edge. This is used by one man, and is thrown with great deftness and grace, in shallow waters. I suppose one may hardly call the long wreaths of palm and palm branches, used by the Loango and Kacongo coast native for fishing the surf with, nets, but they are most effective. When the Calemma (the surf) is not too bad, two or more men will carry this long thick wreath out into it, and then drop it and drag it towards the shore. The fish fly in front of it on to the beach, where they fall victims to the awaiting ladies, with their baskets. Another very quaint set of devices is employed by the Kruboys whenever they go to catch their beloved land and shore crabs. I remember once thinking I had providentially lighted on a beautiful bit of ju-ju; the whole stretch of mud beach had little lights dotted over it on the ground. I investigated. They were crab-traps. “Bottle of Beer,” “The Prince of Wales,” “Jane Ann,” and “Pancake” had become—by means we will not go into here—possessed of bits of candle, and had cut them up and put in front of them pieces of wood in an ingenious way. The crab, a creature whose intelligence is not sufficiently appreciated, fired with a scientific curiosity, went to see what the light was made of, and then could not escape, or perhaps did not try to escape, but stood spell-bound at the beauty of the light; anyhow, they fell victims to their spirit of inquiry. I have also seen drop-traps put for crabs round their holes. In this case the sense of the beauty of light in the crab is not relied on, and once in he is shut in, and cannot go home and communicate the result of his investigations to his family.
Yet, in spite of all these advantages and appliances above cited, I grieve to say the West African, all along the Coast, decends to the unsportsmanlike trick of poisoning. Certain herbs are bruised and thrown into the water, chiefly into lagoons and river-pools. The method is effective, but I should doubt whether it is wholesome. These herbs cause the fish to rise to the surface stupefied, when they are scooped up with a calabash. Other herbs cause the fish to lie at the bottom, also stupefied, and the water in the pool is thrown out, and they are collected.
More as a pastime than a sport I must class the shooting of the peculiar hopping mud-fish by the small boys with bows and arrows, but this is the only way you can secure them as they go about star-gazing with their eyes on the tops of their heads, instead of attending to baited hooks, and their hearing (or whatever it is) is so keen that they bury themselves in the mud-banks too rapidly for you to net them. Spearing is another very common method of fishing. It is carried on at night, a bright light being stuck in the bow of the canoe, while the spearer crouching, screens his eyes from the glare with a plantain leaf, and drops his long-hafted spear into the fish as they come up to look at the light. It is usually the big bream that are caught in this way out in the sea, and the carp up in fresh water.
The manners and customs of many West African fishes are quaint. I have never yet seen that fish the natives often tell me about that is as big as a man, only thicker, and which walks about on its fins at night, in the forest, so I cannot vouch for it; nor for that other fish that hates the crocodile, and follows her up and destroys her eggs, and now and again dedicates itself to its hate, and goes down her throat, and then spreads out its spiny fins and kills her.
The fish I know personally are interesting in quieter ways. As for instance the strange electrical fish, which sometimes have sufficient power to kill a duck and which are much given to congregating in sunken boats, causing much trouble when the boat has to be floated again, because the natives won’t go near them, to bail her out.
Then there is that deeply trying creature the Ning Ning fish, who, when you are in some rivers in fresh water and want to have a quiet night’s rest, just as you have tucked in your mosquito bar carefully and successfully, comes alongside and serenades you, until you have to get up and throw things at it with a prophetic feeling, amply supported by subsequent experience, that hordes of mosquitos are busily ensconcing themselves inside your mosquito bar. What makes the Ning Ning—it is called after its idiotic song—so maddening is that it never seems to be where you have thrown the things at it. You could swear it was close to the bow of the canoe when you shied that empty soda-water bottle or that ball of your precious indiarubber at it, but instantly comes “ning, ning, ning” from the stern of the canoe. It is a ventriloquist or goes about in shoals, I do not know which, for the latter and easier explanation seems debarred by their not singing in chorus; the performance is undoubtedly a solo; any one experienced in this fish soon finds out that it is not driven away or destroyed by an artillery of missiles, but merely lies low until its victim has got under his mosquito curtain, and resettled his mosquito palaver—and then back it comes with its “ning ning.”
A similar affliction is the salt-water drum-fish, with its “bum-bum.” Loanda Harbour abounds with these, and so does Chiloango. In the bright moonlight nights I have looked overside and seen these fish in a wreath round the canoe, with their silly noses against the side, “bum-bumming” away; whether they admire the canoe, or whether they want it to come on and fight it out, I do not know, because my knowledge of the different kinds of fishes and of their internal affairs is derived from Dr. Günther’s great work, and that contains no section on ichthyological psychology. The West African natives have, I may say, a great deal of very curious information on the thoughts of fishes, but, much as I liked those good people, I make it a hard and fast rule to hold on to my common-sense and keep my belief for religious purposes when it comes to these deductions from natural phenomena—not that I display this mental attitude externally, for there is always in their worst and wildest fetish notions an underlying element of truth. The fetish of fish is too wide a subject to enter on here, it acts well because it gives a close season to river and lagoon fish; the natives round Lake Ayzingo, for example, saying that if the first fishes that come up into the lake in the great dry season are killed, the rest of the shoal turn back, so on the arrival of this vanguard they are treated most carefully, talked to with “a sweet mouth,” and given things. The fishes that form these shoals are Hemichromis fasciatus and Chromis ogowensis.
I know no more charming way of spending an afternoon than to leisurely paddle alone to the edge of the Ogowé sand bank in the dry season, and then lie and watch the ways of the water-world below. If you keep quiet, the fishes take no notice of you, and go on with their ordinary avocations, under your eyes, hunting, and feeding, and playing, and fighting, happily and cheerily until one of the dreaded raptorial fishes appears upon the scene, and then there is a general scurry. Dreadful warriors are the little fishes that haunt sand banks (Alestis Kingsleyæ) and very bold, for when you put your hand down in the water, with some crumbs, they first make two or three attempts to frighten it, by sidling up at it and butting, but on finding there’s no fight in the thing, they swagger into the palm of your hand and take what is to be got with an air of conquest; but before the supply is exhausted,
