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Slaves the Bubis do have, but their condition is the mild, poor relation or retainer form of slavery you find in Calabar, and differs from the Dualla form, for the slaves live in the same villages as their masters, while among the Duallas, as among most Bantu slave-holding tribes, the slaves are excluded from the master's village and have separate villages of their own.
And I may remark you will find the same opinion in regard to the Dualla in Cameroons river on the undeniable authority of Dr. Buchner, and my own extensive experience of the West Coast bears it out. Physically the Bubis are a fairly well-formed race of medium height; they are decidedly inferior to the Benga or the Krus, but quite on a level with the Effiks.
The slave villages belonging to these Igalwas are away down the north face of the island, opposite the Fan town of Fula, which I have mentioned. It strikes me as remarkable that the Igalwa, like the Dualla of Cameroons, have their slaves in separate villages; but this is the case, though I do not know the reason of it.
My paternal grandfather was a soldier, and my father was brought up by Rodolph Scully, of Dualla. "Old Rody," who kept a pack of harriers which my father hunted, was a well-known character in South Tipperary. He departed this life when I was about six years old yet I seem to remember him very clearly.
Many of their methods, however, are better. The Dualla medicos are truly great on poultices for extracting foreign substances, such as bits of iron cooking-pot a very frequent form of foreign substance in a man out here, owing to their being generally used as bullets.
For example, the other day I had a set of porters composed of four Bassa boys, two Wei Weis, one Dualla, and two Yorubas. None of their languages fitted, so they talked trade English, and pretty lively talk some of it was, but of that anon.
On another occasion a neighbor, whose name happened to be Cook, came to spend the day at Dualla. He brought with him his two children, a boy and a girl, of whom he was inordinately proud. Old Rody and Cook were sitting on the terrace, drinking punch; the children were playing on the lawn. "Now, Scully," said the proud parent, pointing to his boy, "isn't he a regular Cook?"
The drums used are both the Dualla form all wood and the ordinary skin-covered drum, and I think if I catalogue fifes made of wood, I shall have nearly finished the Bubi orchestra. I have doubts on this point because I rather question whether I may be allowed to refer to a very old bullock hide unmounted as a musical instrument without bringing down the wrath of musicians on my head.
The cruel experiment was tried. It may be some satisfaction to know that Old Rody had to pay the bet, but it would be more if we knew that he had been made to follow the poor animal. Once my people were on a visit to Dualla. Old Rody, who was much addicted to the pleasures of the table, was especially fond of roast goose. This, to satisfy him, had to be done to a particular turn.
I remember once seeing him administer a terrible thrashing with a hunting-crop to a stable-boy for some trivial fault. My recollections of Dualla are very, faint; such fragmentary, ones as survive are almost solely connected with its kennels and stables. There was, I know, a turret at one end of the house.
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