putting on record here. We quote the following from the Morning Post, 21st January, 1902:—
"Arochuku, Christmas Day, 1901.
"Colonel Montanaro entered Arochuku with No. 4 Column, under the command of Major Heneker, on Christmas Eve, driving the enemy in front of him. The town itself was occupied without resistance, but beyond the town constant fighting has taken place between our advance posts and the enemy. Arochuku, which is the chief town of the hitherto unconquered Aro nation, is very extensive, occupying an area of about five square miles. For a race who are supposed to possess, for West Africans, remarkable intelligence, as instanced by the long lines of the admirably- constructed trenches which opposed our advance, surprise was generally expressed at the filthy state of the houses in the town,[1] and as the town will now be permanently occupied by the British, Montanaro decided on sanitary grounds to burn the whole place and to construct bush houses for his troops. The destruction of the town was carried out under a dropping fire from the enemy. The famous bogey called the "long ju-ju" lies about half a mile from the east entrance into the town of Arochuku. The six chiefs who are now prisoners in our camp describe "the long ju-ju" as the "life and breath of the Omo-chuku" (Anglice—Sons of the Great God, i.e., the people who inherit Arochuku). The "long ju-ju" is approached by narrow a path with very thick bush on either side. The path ends in a small clearing, and at the far end of this is a large grass and cloth screen. On the other side of this is the mouth of a deep gorge about forty yards long, thirty yards wide, with almost perpendicular sides seventy feet high. At the bottom of the gorge is a running stream, on either side of which altars are erected, which are adorned with skulls, white fowls, &c., while on one of them a white goat was tied down
- ↑ [Compare Miss Kingsley's account of negro habits (West African Studies, p. 422): "Africa, so far as I know it, namely, from Sierra Leone to Benguela, smells generally rather strong, but particularly so in those districts inhabited by the true negro. This pre-eminence the true negroes attain to by leaving the sanitary matters of villages and towns in the hands of Providence. The Bantu culture looks after the cleaning and tidying of the village streets to a remarkable degree, though by no means more clean in the houses, which, in both cultures, are quite as clean and tidy as you will find in England."—E. S. H.]
