Cameroon with Egbert

by Dervla Murphy

  Gradually we descended, passing from mountain to mountain, then following cultivated slopes to a one-hut compound where a startled little boy stood alone. Here Rachel was the first to glimpse, through tall eucalyptus and pines, an expanse of blue water far below. She pointed to it and asked, ‘What is that?’

  For a long moment the little fellow stared up at her in timid silence. Then he gathered his courage and said, ‘Lake Nyos.’

  Just below the compound we sat in the aromatic shade of a eucalyptus grove, beside two fat tethered goats, and looked at one another. A Bamenda-met scientist had mentioned the bliss of swimming in Lake Nyos; it was now, he said, 99.9 per cent safe. We unfolded the map. Lake Nyos itself, we already knew, was not marked (though several smaller local lakes were) and we later had reason to be grateful for this omission. But there were two villages of that name, Nyos and Nyos-Acha (Lower Nyos) and we reckoned that by following the eastern shore we could avoid both and, with luck, soon rejoin our Nkambe path – though the map, for once being accurate, described it as ‘not clearly defined’. Before continuing we ate ten bananas each, tossing the skins to the goats.

  The lake had looked quite near when first glimpsed, yet to reach it took another hour and a half. In a few isolated compounds bare-breasted women stared at us fearfully; one, on being asked for the path to Lake Nyos, said, ‘Me no hear.’ By then the lake was invisible; and it remained so while we climbed steeply on a moist skiddy path through dense pines and eucalyptus. That ridge supported a long, rich village with maize fields flourishing between tall trees and fine compounds built back from the track. Here we were assumed to be scientists; four youngsters, already corrupted by vulcanologists’ dash, firmly attached themselves to us insisting that we needed guidance. Two were smallish boys, two adolescent girls – one blind in her left eye. The last thing we wanted was an aggressively predatory escort who would prevent our swimming together. But these adhesive youngsters were extraordinarily difficult to detach; on this one occasion I had to be harshly unpleasant to Cameroonians.

  Where we emerged from the trees a very long and sometimes difficult descent began, on a scrubby rocky slope. Now the sky had partially clouded over and Lake Nyos was jade-green. Its extent only gradually became apparent: more and more and more water appeared from behind a promontory of red-brown rock. The flat southern shore, which we were approaching, is thin jungle, or naked devastation, near the water. Uneven grass mountains, unusually green, form the eastern and some of the northern shore. The western shore is of sheer rock cliffs, sloping down to the north. Nyos is among the loveliest lakes I have ever seen – at first the shock of its beauty seems to obliterate its lethal past.

  On level ground our path petered out and to find the water (invisible again) we had to force our way through a dense belt of unfamiliar grey-green bush, seven feet high and in places almost impenetrable. Where we reached the shore it still looked battered – strewn for some eighty yards inland with dead vegetation, including palms, that had been uprooted by the violent wave accompanying the explosion. On the nearby promontory cliff a vivid straight line marked the water’s lowering; its level sank more than three feet after the expulsion of the gas. Here the ‘beach’ was of soft, black, volcanic muddy sand – slightly stained with reddish iron compound deposits, spewed from the floor of the lake. What looked like solid black rocks by the water’s edge crumbled disconcertingly when one touched them. The experts say Lake Nyos is new-born, not more than a few centuries old.

  I was faintly apprehensive lest our swimming might be observed from afar and considered disrespectful to the bereaved or provocative of spirits. But apart from this, and a twinge of guilt about enjoying ourselves in a lake that had behaved so badly, no ‘feeling’ made us hesitate before plunging in. To us Lake Nyos seemed entirely free of Lake Ocu’s negative vibes. Although some water-lilies grew near the shore there was no shallow ledge. I fancied the water tasted faintly of sulphur and that taint seemed to remain on my skin afterwards; but Rachel said I was imagining this. (I don’t think I was; and later we heard that scientists’ samples drawn from 600 feet down showed the depths then still fizzing.) Otherwise the only ‘strangeness’ – the ease of swimming in immensely deep water – was not strange to us who all our lives have been bathing in a mini-crater lake, reputed to be ‘bottomless’, near our Irish home.

  And yet, when it came to the crunch we were not really relaxed – only pretending to be so. By mutual wordless consent we stayed within a hundred yards of the shore, instead of swimming far out as in Lake Wum. And when my eye caught a barn-sized boulder, jutting over the water from a grass cliff, I began to think about the 0.1 per cent … We emerged after about fifteen minutes though the temperature was conducive to an hour-long splash. Afterwards, I wondered why. One would be equally vulnerable to another explosion in the water or on the shore. But human beings are not always logical.

  Finding a route along that southern shore was difficult, especially for Rachel carrying the heavy rucksack. The explosion wave had ravaged the friable ground and we had to climb in and out of five creeks – wet, black, treacherous gullies where the mud was semi-quicksand. If one paused one began to sink. Twice gully sides collapsed and came with us as we slithered down – a nasty feeling. Then at last we were on a firm grassy slope where we soon fell over a large box labelled ‘Edinburgh University’. From it, wires ran to the floor of the lake and we presumed it was sending messages to our friends in Bamenda’s Skyline Hotel. ‘D’you suppose,’ said Rachel, ‘our kickings in the water have been registered as seismic activity by Edinburgh University?’ A won-der-ful thought!

  As we traversed that long mountain, high above the placid, innocent-looking water, I gazed west and thought of the invisible deserted village on the far shore, over the cliff-top. Now we could see the low dip in the northern shore through which the gas spilled out. A major concern of the scientists was that that flimsy natural dam might collapse, as a result of some mild earth tremor, releasing the lake itself to engulf the valley below.

  Progress was easy along that grassy slope – until an impassable, jungle-filled ravine blocked our way.

  ‘We can’t get through that!’ said I decisively. ‘We’ll have to climb high and see if we can bypass it.’

  ‘You’re always so defeatist!’ complained Rachel. ‘At least we can try!’

  She then tried, with dire results that became apparent only days later. The jungle she challenged was peculiarly nasty. I half-heartedly advanced a few yards – then retreated. When she, too, saw sense we struggled upwards and eventually found a pathlet, around the top of the ravine, which led us out of sight of the lake. We wondered if it would soon meet our Nkambe path – as it should, according to the map. Then an inexplicable man-made barrier of tree-trunks and branches blocked the way. Laboriously we surmounted it, but no one could have driven cattle past.

  Soon another crater lake, shallow and partially weed-overgrown, appeared far below on our right. This was Lake Njupi: also very beautiful, surrounded on three sides by steep grass mountains. On first seeing it I suggested camping by its shore. Then, as we walked on, gazing down at it, we both simultaneously began to find it ‘spookier’ than Lake Nyos.

  So much lush grassland but no herds – not even on the most distant slopes – felt eerie. Far away, high on a mountain, we could see a solitary compound; if there weren’t too many intervening ravines, we might get there by fufu-time. ‘Let’s hurry!’ said Rachel – not having found Bafmeng, we had very little food left.

  Then we began to descend and came upon the first cattle carcasses. They were still dreadfully decomposing; everything that would have cleaned the bones had also been killed. After that, around every corner, there were more bovine skeletons or bones or skulls – at our feet or in the distance. Some groups of carcasses were half-burned. And, incredibly, eight months later, there were nauseating whiffs of putrefaction. Suddenly I began to react personally, emotionally, to what had previously been – as faraway tragedies always are
– an objectively observed event. This was the remains of some Fulani’s beloved herd …

  When we came to the first stricken compound – the one nearest the northern shore – a high washing-up trestle told us it had been Fulani. It was a one-hut compound. For us it should have been a milk-bar, where we sat gratefully sinking pints of milk or curds. Rusting basins, pots and enamelware were scattered outside the hut – and a few plastic shoes. Inside, a Bournvita tin and three mugs lay on the ground by the fireplace, where a blackened dented saucepan stood askew on its stones, above three half-burnt sticks. (Fire-extinguishers use carbon dioxide.) A dog-eared little book lay just inside the door: in Arabic, no doubt an Islamic tract. I thought, ‘How strange, to find a book here!’ I felt an impulse to rescue it but somehow couldn’t bring myself to touch anything in that hut.

  We hurried away; what had started as a light-hearted detour, to have a swim in Lake Nyos, was becoming an ordeal. No path was visible. Blundering through a terrible desolation of weed-strangled cassava, we came to another compound half a mile farther down the hillside. Only charred roof-poles remained; three huts had been deliberately burned to exorcise evil spirits. Crossing a fast deep stream, we found a distinct but overgrown path which passed two large compounds – their mango, avocado and banana groves laden with unpicked fruit, the jungle already creeping towards the dwellings and covering the graves.

  When the path began to climb a scrubby mountain I exclaimed, ‘Thank God! This will take us away from the area!’

  Now we could hear a roaring river on our left, a semi-waterfall hidden amidst trees rushing down the steep slope from Lake Nyos – the river that carried the gas. ‘If it sounds like that now,’ said Rachel, ‘what must it be like in the rainy season!’

  Around the high shoulder of that mountain we could no longer hear the river and were overlooking a narrow valley and a by now familiar sight – many tin roofs, glinting through dense foliage. But there were no people to be seen. And there was no sound – absolutely no sound, of any sort.

  ‘It’s Nyos village,’ muttered Rachel.

  ‘It can’t be!’ I said. ‘Nyos was on the lakeshore, it’s way behind us, up by the water – somewhere over that rocky cliff.’ (Thus do the media mislead.)

  We walked on – unwillingly, but by that stage like automatons and anyway without much choice. Whichever way we turned, it seemed our only companions that evening would be the dead. As we descended the path widened and was carpeted with rotting fruits. Then we were amongst the houses: many fine substantial dwellings set in fertile gardens with handsome carved doors and shutters. Some were closed, some open – but every compound was a burial plot.

  ‘You must be right,’ I whispered. ‘This must be Nyos.’

  Suddenly the vegetation seemed menacing in its exuberance – almost mocking. Crops growing on – maize, yams, cane, cassava – not knowing they weren’t wanted and for eight months being fought by a jungle unopposed. The silence was profound, the only movement our own. And it was 5.30 p.m. Smoke should have been starting to rise, people should have been coming home from the fields, scrubbing themselves in bathroom corners, fetching water, pounding maize, shredding jammu-jammu greens, whisking curds, drinking ‘33’. We became mourners then – not people reading the newspaper and exclaiming ‘How awful!’ but people grieving in their hearts for Nyos.

  Soon, astonishingly, we were on a rough muddy motor track – the ring-road again, though we were too bemused to realise that.

  Nyos was an important village, the hub of an exceptionally prosperous district. Its weekly market drew people from a wide area, hence the deaths of so many visiting outsiders that Thursday evening. Its merchants’ stalls served many Fulani compounds on the surrounding mountains and many Bantu compounds up and down the intensively cultivated valley of the fatal river. It had recently been expanding; long rows of newish solid stalls and neat dwellings lined the track. And right beside us, as we stood staring up and down that soundless, motionless ‘main street’, was an off-licence with its bright frieze of those little beer advertisements which had so often cheered us from afar. The door was open, a ‘Papal Visit’ poster hung behind the bar, dusty bottles lay overturned on the floor. For us, irrationally yet understandably, that was the ultimate poignancy; there we would first have got to know the people of Nyos. But we said nothing – we had long since ceased to talk, or even to look at one another. There was nothing to say: and each of us had enough to do, keeping a grip on herself.

  When I turned to look up the valley a robed figure was standing still in the middle of the road, fifty yards away. My heart lurched with primitive fear – real fear, so real that to recall it can frighten me now. For an instant I truly thought this was a ghost. And, in a sense, he was – a bereft young Fulani from the first compound we passed. He had lost all his family and all his cattle and then had lost his mind and couldn’t be persuaded by anyone (we learned later) to leave the area. Slowly we walked towards him and I called out (a measure of my own demoralisation), ‘Where is this?’

  He replied in clear English, very calmly, ‘This was the village of Nyos. But everyone is dead. All my people are dead.’ He didn’t look mad, just inexpressibly sad. ‘Where do you go?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘Where does this road go?’

  ‘There is nowhere to go,’ he said. ‘Everyone is dead. No people are here – nowhere anyone.’ He pointed down the ring-road. ‘That way is Wum, you go Wum, in Wum are people.’

  Suddenly our collective nerve broke; we only wanted to get out of Nyos. I groped in my pocket and pressed a CFA note into the young man’s hand – it might have been for one thousand or ten thousand, I never knew. Then I hurried after Rachel who, despite the rucksack, was walking so fast away from Wum, towards Nkambe, that for the next half-hour I couldn’t keep pace with her.

  The first report of the disaster was written by Father Peter, an elderly Dutch Mill Hill priest, from Bafmeng, in whose parish Nyos and the other affected villages lay. He was the first White person on the scene, arriving in Nyos at noon on the Saturday, the tragedy having occurred on the Thursday evening between nine and ten o’clock. On the Sunday he wrote to his Bishop:

  Your Grace, Last night, Saturday night, I came back from Nyos. On Friday rumours reached us that the lake had killed some Fulani and his cows. Then again that the quarterhead of Cha was lying dead in his compound with his two women. On Saturday morning I was so worried that I went with my two catechists, Sylvester and Hortensia, to Ise, which is high on the top, overlooking the Nyos valley. We thought to get information there but all the men had gone down and nobody had yet returned.

  The first compound we entered in Nyos we found only 8 dead people. A child and the mammy lying very peacefully outside with the dog and the goat. In one house a big fat pa had tried to crawl to the door; two other young men were lying on the floor. So, too, the next door we opened. We rushed on to Mr Vincent Zong’s big compound. He is the government teacher. His wife, Mary, is head of our school in Nyos. Vincent was lying dead with his eldest son, Mary with her baby in the next room. And in the children’s room, four girls. Little Jacqueline who attends the school at Ise, was also at home for the holidays. All dead. We rushed on past all the houses in the Nyos market square which were all still locked. We knew that everybody was dead behind these locked doors. We rushed on to the mission. When we opened the door we found Nazarius, our catechist, as if he was saying his prayers with his head on the bed I usually sleep on when I am on trek. Four of his brothers had come from the coast to salute him. All dead. The one had a beautiful watch on, which had stopped at one o’clock in the night. Sylvester stayed behind with Hortensia to bury our catechist. I went as far as the Subum mission, which is about 7 km farther on the ring-road. When I opened the door, I found Lawrence our catechist, lying on the bed, cold as ice. I shouted: Anthony! Anthony! Because I had sent Anthony, one of my seminarians schooling at Fundong, to help the catechist in Subum. Anthony answered. He had survived. H
e was digging the grave for Lawrence and some other Christians. He and Lawrence were sitting in the half kitchen outside, at ten o’clock on Thursday night. Then something held his breathing. He struggled to get into the house, where he collapsed on the bed. At about 1 in the night, he managed to wake up and look for Lawrence. He had died on the spot. Then, my Anthony, who is perhaps 16 years of age, Form 4, had carried him inside and covered him and gone out to find what had happened. His chest was hurting and he felt very weak, but he started to do the only reasonable thing. He began to dig graves for all the Christians who had died … The number who had died in Subum was more than one hundred. In Nyos simply all people had died, except one Pa and one boy who had slept a little higher up the mountain. There may have been 500 people sleeping in Nyos that night, because Thursday had been market and people from all sides attend the market. Some went back, others stayed and died. I do not know how many of our Christians of Ise have died because they slept at Nyos, but no one Christian of Nyos itself came to salute me or cry for me. The Church of Nyos has died, with Mattias, the head-Christian, and Nazarius the catechist and Mary the choirmistress …

  This is what I surmise has happened:

  Gas under the lake, probably sulphur from the smell of it, had accumulated until it shot out down the slope into the village. The plantains and the high grass were flattened by the blast. It must have penetrated right through every house in Nyos. There was no difference between people outside or inside. Then spreading, it still had power to kill people at Subum, about 7 km away and even at Cha, about 11 km to the other side.

  The gas may be building up again. I have heard that the governor wants all people to leave that area.

  On Tuesday I shall go with all my parish to make a cry-die Mass at Subum (it is about 5 hours trekking) then in the night we shall proceed to Nyos about 7 km farther and sing for the last time in their church and pray for them. Then in the morning we shall climb back to Ise. We shall carry all the holy books along.