Archibald P

GULF OF GUINEA CONSERVATION GROUP

GULF OF GUINEA ISLANDS' BIODIVERSITY NETWORK

Archer P. Crouch was an engineer involved in laying the submarine telegraph cable between St. Louis, Senegal and Luanda, Angola for the West African Telegraph Company (much later to become part of Cable and Wireless) in 1885. The cable linked several locations on the west African coast as well as the then Portuguese colonies of Sao Tome, Principe and Angola. (see map below).

On his return to England, he authored two books describing his adventures. The first, On a Surf-Bound Coast, was published in1887 and described his travels from England upto Accra. This first book was soon followed by a sequel, Glimpses of Feverland, in 1889. This describes his journey from Accra along the west African coast to Cameroun and then to Sao Tome, by the mailboat, where he stays for five days. The author then continues to Luanda on the cableship Dacia. Upon the inauguration of the cable in October, 1885, the book then describes his return journey to England calling at Sao Tome once again and also Principe.

Unlike many travelogues of the period, this is not written by an explorer or missionary, but by a technician, presumably attracted by the salary and possibly the adventure, who states:

"I had not come out to the land of fever, palm oil, and black ivory to discover a new route into the Dark Continent, nor yet to take up any civil or military appointment on the treacherous coast, but in connection with the laying of a cable to put certain places, principally French and Portuguese, in telegraphic communication with Europe."

The two books provide vivid descriptions of the landscape of the west African coast and islands and the customs of its inhabitants, both native and colonial, at a time when the colonialists had hardly ventured into the interior, and on Sao Tome and Principe the cocoa boom had still to begin. The author is distinctly an observer, most of the works being narratives of his day-to-day working life interspersed with observations of the environment around him. Racist colonial attitudes are expressed, but are intermixed with native voices, allowed to narrate, within the linguistic and cultural limitations of both the indigenous people and the author, for example, a German massacre of the indigenous population in the Cameroun.

"The name of the company by which the expedition was taken is not mentioned, and the names of its ships, together with those of their officers, staff, etc., are, for the purposes of the narrative, ficticious. For the same reason the names of gunboats and merchant-ships encountered during the trip, except in one or two obvious cases, and the names of all persons met with on board them or on shore, are similarly treated; while the author, in order to preserve uniformity on this point, assumes the name of Bertram. In other respects, the events are narrated just as they happened, and as they entered in the diary at the time of their occurrence."

However, it is easy to identify the ships and with more detailed research it might even be possible to identify some of the characters he meets. The CS Dacia is named the Thracia, CS Silvertown, the Copperfield and CS Buccaneer, the Pioneer.

The following pages, describing the author's visits to Sao Tome and Principe, have been scanned from Glimpses of Feverland.