Free The Viceroy of Ouidah by Bruce Chatwin Page A

sitting sidesaddle on a starved grey nag. A man led the beast by a grass halter. Another twirled a blue umbrella. A noisy entourage followed.
    It was raining. Boys splashed alongside carrying the old man’s cigar case, his stool, and the card table and decanters. Once inside the gate he signalled his wish to dismount, and the groom lifted him from the saddle, sat him down and removed his black tam-o’-shanter.
    The Yovogan clicked his fingers in salutation, then proposed his own King’s health in palm-wine and the Queen of Portugal’s in Holland’s Gin. He did not drink himself but poured the contents of both glasses down the gaping mouth of an acolyte.
    The interview began in broken Portuguese. The Yovogan’s face turned grey as he registered his disapproval at the lack of presents.
    What about the barquentine full of silk? What about the coach and horses? Or the trumpets? Or the silver hunting-gun?
    â€˜There are no presents,’ said Francisco Manoel.
    â€˜Not even the greyhounds?’
    â€˜Not even greyhounds.’
    Nor would there be any presents, until the King released the prisoners, repaired the Fort and resumed the sale of slaves.
    Everyone was confused, then angry. A man shouted, ‘Death to Whites!’ and an Amazon whirled her cutlass round her forefinger and brought it close to the Brazilian’s face.
    But when the Yovogan raised his hand, the crowd melted away muttering.
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    THAT SAME AFTERNOON, a hubbub of shouts and whiplashes awoke Francisco Manoel from his siesta. Peering over the north bastion, he saw a crowd of naked men piling up bundles of reeds, planks, baskets of oyster shells and buckets of swish: the Yovogan had sent a corvée of captives to make good the damage.
    In the weeks that followed Lieutenant da Silva worked in heat that would have driven most whites to their hammocks or their graves. Even on quivering afternoons, when the sun sucked out the colour of earth and leaves, he would strip to the waist, bark orders and shoulder the heaviest loads himself.
    The blacks were amazed to see a white man work.
    They thatched the roofs, whitewashed the walls and mucked out the cistern. Again the cannon gleamed with blacking and palm-oil. Again ships offshore saw the ‘five shields’ of the Braganzas floating from the flagpole, signalling that the Fort of St John the Baptist had slaves for sale.
    The first batch were criminals convicted of stealing the King’s palm-nuts and condemned to be fed on them till they burst: none seemed the least unhappy to be leaving Dahomey.
    More slavers came — the Mithridate, the Rinoceronte , the Fraternidade and the Bom Jesus — each carrying crates of muskets, rum, tobacco, silks and calico. The Alafin of Oyo did not invade. The King went to war against some defenceless millet planters in the Mahi Mountains and, within two years, Francisco Manoel had sent no less than forty-five slave cargoes to Bahia.
    Joaquim Coutinho had the sense to offer him a place in the syndicate.
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    DA SILVA TOOK to the Trade as if he had known no other occupation. Having always thought of himself as a footloose wanderer, he now became a patriot and man of property. No word of congratulation came from his superiors in Bahia. Yet he believed it was his heaven-sent vocation to fuel with black muscle the mines and plantations of his country, and he believed they would reward him.
    He persisted in this illusion with the obstinacy of the convert. Often on sleepless nights he would lie and listen to the groan and clank of the barracoon, only to remember the sweet singing in the chapel at Tapuitapera and roll over with his conscience clean.
    He lived in the Governor’s suite of rooms; he restored the chapel and imported a Portuguese padre to say Mass before the start of each voyage.
    As major-domo of the Fort, Taparica dressed in a green frock-coat, sailor pants of white canvas and a black felt