we find ourselves facing Wasini, a small inhabited island, with a good harbor, but not much drinking water. The inhabitants have farms and wells on the continent which they face, at Chuyu, at Pongwe, at Madzoreni, where we had arrived, and at Vanga, where we were going. All these places, which together are called Vumba, an area which goes up to Pangani, was formerly occupied by settlements of Persian Shirazi, so says tradition, and there are ruins to prove it. Nowadays the inhabitants have a rather poor standard of living; some farm, others fish, a few make salt. Every three days at a place near here, the coastal people and the people from the interior come here for a market and exchange commodities and news. The Digo enjoy these markets and people sometimes come from a great distance.
About half an hour after our arrival, a large group of people came to Mgr. de Courmont, who told them to come and see me. What was up?
The spokesman, after some steady coughing, the result of his being overcome by emotion, began by saying as follows.
“A long time ago, a very long time ago, people about whom we know nothing, but who must surely have been Europeans, came here. We were not born, nor were our fathers, nor even our grandfathers. It was long ago. And these Europeans built a town, of which one can see the ruins, and they dug a well and put a wall of stone around it. Why afterwards did they leave our country? We do not know; but it is still the case with Europeans that they travel around everywhere, and just when you think they have settled down, they disappear. Every tribe has its own manner of living. We stay where we are: but you are nomads. Well, to come back to these Europeans, ever since they left, the Devil has been controlling the well, and this is particularly regrettable since it seems to have clean water, something we often lack.”
“Well, then?” said I.
“Well, when we saw you coming here today, you being the first Europeans to come here after those who came before our grandfathers were born, we said to each other, ‘It is God, who has sent them.’ Please, drive out the Devil, whom your brothers have placed there and let us draw water from your well.”
“All right, we give you our permission.”
“Many thanks. We were sure such kind people as you would agree, but please drive the Devil out before we start.”
Straightaway, I explained the problem to the bishop and asked for authorization to perform an exorcism, for evidently the problem was a very serious one.
“I give you all necessary powers,” said Mgr. de Courmont.
Then, in a great crowd—locals, porters, children, old men, and old women—we set off to find the bedeviled well. Really, it was a story to set your blood tingling. After marching for a quarter of an hour, we found ourselves caught up in a maze of creepers, undergrowth, and tall trees. Finally, we came up against ruins, probably of Persian origin, certainly not left by Europeans. On one side, there was a hole, guarded by a stone wall, about six meters deep and quite broad, with, at the bottom, a pool of greenish water covering a heap of rotten leaves. The oldest man in the crowd took my hand, and, with an air of mystery, whispered to me, “Here it is.”
Fr. Gommenginger, who roared with laughter like a pagan, made it difficult for me to keep a straight face. But, finally, I pulled myself together, I asked people to bring dead trees and dry leaves. They brought me armfuls which I hurled into the frightening hole. A deep silence gripped us all. In front of us, an enormous trunk of a baobab tree lay, stretched out. A narrow path went up to it, and so I guessed that here was one of the shrines where traditional Africans make sacrifices.
“If” said I, “you want the Devil to leave, you must renounce him. Do you renounce him?”
“We renounce him,” they cried.
“Then destroy the shrine you have built there and stop going there 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
