White Men In Black Skin

Black Harvest-3

The prospect of becoming rich instantly, to afford many wives and slave concubines, thrilled and blinded the gullible men who offered Salim all they owned to enroll them on the trip to the Black World. Salim had the absolute knowledge, authority and discretion over missions abroad, which he fully exploited to fleece his unsuspecting countrymen.

At the back of his mind, Salim knew very well what lay ahead of those foolishly gluttonous men, both in the ocean and in the cannibal land. He never told anyone about his encounters with the treacherous stormy ocean, the hungry sharks, the invisible corral reefs or the ferocious cannibals. He was certain nobody would come back alive but never cared who perished next. He remembered with shudder and cold terror, the yelling cannibal children in his hot pursuit and the reeking, filthy massive cannibal woman who almost tore off his throat and flung him down the cliff.

CHAPTER THREE

After generations of disastrous attempts to enter the Black World, the obstinately greedy Arabs from the Asian world tried various strategies and methods without much success to penetrate the continent that was naturally fortified by fierce cannibals, wild animals, malaria and dense jungles.

As a grand strategy they set up small supply outposts along the Black World’s eastern coastline and far from the cannibal territories, from where to launch their hinterland onslaughts. On their interior missions, they would disguise themselves as black native savages by painting their bodies black.

The mission statement was to enter the Black World of Afrika with determination, seek, possess and bring home anything of value to the Arab world and explore possibilities of expanding the Arab Empire.

The motto for each individual was, “Don’t come home without a black slave and a ten foot ivory!”

Any obstacles had to be dealt with ruthlessly and decisively by instant annihilation. The black pagans who inhabited the continent, according to the Arab faith, had no souls and never existed in the eyes of god, and therefore could be exterminated without mercy or remorse whenever necessary. The mission was an Arab course, a moral obligation and a call of duty to enrich the Arab world and spread the Arab faith, with full blessings and support of the Arab governments and gods.

The camps along the coast were fully stocked with enough supplies of muskets, ammunition, g*n powder and other weaponry, foods, drugs, clothing and other logistics, which were constantly replenished by monsoon driven ships and dhows. The camps held thousands of tough battle‑hardened Arab warriors comprising crooks, opportunists and others who sought adventure.

Scanty intelligence information had it that the interior jungles were full of dangerous wild animals, venomous snakes, red scorpions, swarms of deadly malaria carrying mosquitoes, deadly diseases, fierce warlike tribes and the dreaded unknown creatures of the dark, which sheered and gnowed peoples’ flesh to bone while asleep.

And according to the same intelligence information, most savage societies lived in villages headed by polygamous and extremely corrupt and gluttonous chiefs.

As the interior onslaught drew nearer the Arabs packed enough supplies of muskets, ammunition, swords, daggers and assortment of other necessities to last them several months as they traversed the unknown virgin jungles. They carried enough supplies of petty gifts to bribe the gluttonous savage chiefs, to allow them carry out their missions and catch the much‑treasured slaves without resistance. Unnecessary armed conflicts with the black natives had to be avoided at all times.

* * *

The much‑awaited feat into the interior took off very early one morning. Parties of several thousand men traveled in military formations of well‑armed and equipped troops, with scouts and spies traveling ahead, on the lookout for barbarians’ dwellings. The Arabs painted their whole bodies black to look like the natives. They marched confidently, cautiously, apprehensively and steadily into the unknown treacherous virgin wilderness of the Black World where no other outsider had ever trod.

As they trekked, the parties distinctly marked their trail right from start so that they could easily retrace their way back to the coast after their interior missions, and also for the standby emergency rescue teams left at the coast, to reach them easily incase the exploring parties got stranded in the unknown hostile wilderness.

The first two days march into the interior was too easy to be true. The infinite scrublands looked desolate with no sign of life except for some small grazing game dotting the endless horizons.

The Arabs’ black painted bodies glittered with sweat in the blistering tropical sun. Towards evening they pitched camp at the foot of a huge hill. The hill’s shadow provided the much‑needed cool breeze. To their joy, a brook of very clean and cool water flowed by.

They feasted on the meat of some small game that they had killed during the day. Some sentries kept watch, as the rest slept at nightfall.

The sentries positioned themselves on higher ground where they could easily see any movement around the camp. At dawn the sentries spotted a pride of lions stalking towards the camp. They raised alarm and everybody woke up in panic firing volleys of their muskets, which scared away the lions.

They hurriedly packed their belongings and set off once more on their treck before sunrise.

Towards midday the scrubland vegetation gradually gave way to some dense thorny shrubs which drastically slowed down their pace. The Arabs got exhausted and frustrated as they weaved and struggled through the endless thorny bushes. They were puzzled by scattered skeletons of whole animals that were freshly eaten, with all the flesh removed clean to the bones. Some skeletons were even dripping with blood.

The jungle became extremely dense with tall huge trees, thorny creepers and twines. They had to cut their way using their machetes through the thick and dark forest. They were so exhausted that they decided to camp in the thick and damp forest. Shrills of wild animals, flaps of huge vampire and fox bats, night birds and insects filled the night air. They kept the fires burning throughout the night to scare away the lurking wild animals.

As usual, sentries positioned themselves at strategic points with their muskets ready. The rest succumbed into deep slumber with exhaustion.

For the first time, they had a feel of the Black World’s fury. Those asleep snored and farted loudly while the sentries struggled hard to keep awake. They could not take chance to doze off in such a forest that seemed home to all sorts of creatures.

In the dead of the night the dreaded ‘night devils’ crawled out of their boroughs in thousands, attracted by the alien smell of human beings. They were crawly, terrifying, grotesques. The powerful‑jawed carnivorous rodents had very large razor sharp protruding front teeth. Their b****y‑ red lips barely covered the rusty looking protruding teeth. Their fierce unblinking large bulging red eyes that had no eyelids glowed at night. The rodents were the size of the largest, fat adult domestic cats. The tips of their more than seven feet long tails looked like cobra heads, complete with deadly fangs and bright beady eyes. The tails reacted and attacked any intruders independent of the rest of the rodents’ bodies. As the rodents moved, their tails stood out over seven feet tall, striking at any living obstacle ejecting their deadly morphine‑like venom.

The creatures ate their prey alive after injecting the morphine‑like substance with their tail fangs. After anaesthetizing the prey the rodents would patiently gnaw away all the flesh to the bone of any exposed part of the body starting from the feet. They had such insatiable appetite that one rodent could eat a whole adult person. Usually most prey died without feeling any pain but if by bad luck the prey woke up partly eaten, they died an extremely agonizing death because the rodents’ saliva contained excruciating pain causing poison.

They crawled towards the deeply asleep Arabs, dragging and wagging their snake‑like tails. The sentries could not see them. The creatures were known as devils because they were almost invisible.

One by one they bit with their tails and injected the anesthesia into the deeply asleep Arabs sending them to deeper sleep. They patiently sheared off all the flesh of any exposed part of the bodies starting with the legs usually leaving white skeletons of the legs from the toes to the waist. Their teeth were sharper than surgical blades. Myth had it that the creatures preferred to eat their prey from the legs so that the prey won’t be able to escape in case they woke up.

One sleepy sentry accidentally discharged his musket hitting one of the monsters that let out some demonic yell. The loud bang sent the rodents scampering as the whole camp came to life. It was almost dawn and everybody was happy to wake up early and get out of the eerie forest.

Soon as the rodent victims came to their senses they screamed with unbearable burning pain. They writhed as they tried to move their lifeless limps. Their colleagues just stared in bewilderment. Men writhed on the ground in excruciating pain. What used to be healthy legs were bare white bones from toes to waist. It was as if someone had used a surgical blade to smoothly pare away the flesh without spilling a drop of blood.

There was stampede and pandemonium as the whole camp fell into confusion and chaos. Some took off in panic and vanished in the dense forest when they saw the creatures’ tails striking in all directions like spitting cobras. One Arab who stumbled close to one of the monsters was bitten by the demon’s tail. He fell down totally immobilized. There were cries and screams of agony as the casualties pleaded for water. The rodents ferociously descended on their prey attacking with their tails, teeth and their sharp claws that were equally venomous.

The daring Arabs were unnerved and terrified by the fierce creatures as they battled them with machetes, muskets and all other available weapons. Hundreds of men had either been killed or permanently immobilized by the ‘forest devils’.

As soon as the creatures beat a temporary retreat in the forests’ undergrowth the Arabs hastily packed their belongings and abandoned their mortally injured colleagues to the mercy of Allah and the vagaries of the jungle, after some brief prayers. Many lost their turbans in the melee. Nothing better could be done for the casualties. Those who escaped the creatures into the dense forest never found their way back to rejoin their colleagues.

Packs of hyenas, wild dogs and other carnivorous animals prowled slyly in waiting. Vultures perched patiently on top of nearby trees, cleaning their sharp hooked beaks and talons ready to do battle with the hyenas, wolves, foxes and other canines and felines on the ground over the feast below.

The ill‑fated Arab party, once again narrowly escaped some more calamity when they were ferociously attacked by a charging herd of very huge elephants.

They fired volleys at the elephants but the bullet shots were too feeble for the massive jumbos. The Arabs wondered how the black savages managed to kill such massive elephants.

By the time the Arabs emerged from the dense jungle into the open plains, a number of them had succumbed to snake bites and malaria. But their greedy determination supplied them with renewed energy and impetus necessary to push ahead into the uncertain interior of the unknowed Black World.

* * *

Suddenly there was a sign of human life. Over the distant hills, they saw smoke billowing into the cloudless blue skies. The advance party signaled the rest to a halt. The scouts climbed some higher ground for a vantage view of the entire countryside. The spy leader pulled out a telescope and surveyed the area. The smoke came from what looked like a hamlet in the distance. Sounds of drums, bugles and banging of various objects, accompanied by loud blasts of deep sounding horns filtered in the air. There seemed to be some sort of carnival going on in the hamlet. The spy leader could make out some black dancing figures jumping up and down, twisting and rolling on the ground to the rhythm of drums and horns. They could also hear women and men singing and screaming in chorus.