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Title: Nigeria
Its peoples and its problems
Author: Edmund Dene Morel
Release date: October 13, 2023 [eBook #71863]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Smith, Elder & Co, 1912
Credits: Peter Becker and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NIGERIA ***
NIGERIA
ITS PEOPLES AND ITS PROBLEMS
[Illustration: A BORGU CANOE-MAN.
(_Copyright._) (_Photo by Mr. E. Firmin._) _Frontispiece._]
NIGERIA
ITS PEOPLES AND ITS PROBLEMS
BY
E. D. MOREL
EDITOR OF “THE AFRICAN MAIL”
AUTHOR OF “AFFAIRS OF WEST AFRICA,” “THE BRITISH CASE IN FRENCH
CONGO,” “KING LEOPOLD’S RULE IN AFRICA,” “RED RUBBER,” “GREAT
BRITAIN AND THE CONGO,” “THE FUTURE OF THE CONGO,” ETC.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS
LONDON
SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15, WATERLOO PLACE
1911
_All rights reserved_
TO THE MEMORY OF MARY KINGSLEY WHO POINTED THE WAY
PREFACE
I have to express, in the first place, my indebtedness to the Editor and
Management of the _Times_ and of the _Manchester Guardian_ for permission
to reproduce the articles and maps which appeared in the columns of those
newspapers, and to all those who have so generously helped me to overcome
an accident to my camera by placing their own admirable photographic work
at my disposal.
In the second place, I desire to record my sincere appreciation for the
courtesy I received from the Colonial Office in connection with a recent
visit to Nigeria; and to Sir Walter and Lady Egerton, Sir Henry Hesketh
Bell, Mr. Charles Temple (Acting-Governor of Northern Nigeria) and their
Staffs for the kindness and hospitality extended to me while there.
Also to the Management and Staff of the Southern and Northern Nigeria
railways; in particular to the Director of the Public Works Department
of the Northern Protectorate, Mr. John Eaglesome and to Mrs. Eaglesome,
and to Mr. Firmin, the Resident Engineer of the Southern Nigeria line at
Jebba.
My travels in the country were facilitated in every way possible, and the
kindness everywhere shown me in both Protectorates far transcended any
claim which ordinary courtesy to a stranger might have suggested.
To the British merchants established in Nigeria I am under similar
obligations, more particularly to Messrs. John Holt & Co., Ltd., who were
good enough to place their steamers at my disposal. To Messrs. Elder
Dempster & Co. I am similarly indebted.
My special thanks are due to my friends Mr. and Mrs. William A. Cadbury
and Mr. John Holt and his sons, for much personal kindness in connection
with my journey. I am indebted to Mr. Trigge, of the Niger Company, Mr.
W. H. Himbury, of the British Cotton Growing Association, and many others
who have responded with unwearied patience to my importunate questionings.
I have also to express my sense of obligation to the Native Community of
Lagos—Christian, Mohammedan and Pagan—for the cordial public reception
they accorded to me in that place; and for the address with which they
were good enough to present me. Also to the leading Native gentlemen
of Freetown for the kind hospitality they extended to me during my
short stay at the capital of Sierra Leone, and to the Mohammedan
Chiefs representing many different tribes of the hinterland, who there
foregathered, under Dr. Blyden’s roof, to bid me welcome, and for the
addresses they presented to me.
West Africa is a land of controversy. There is not, I think, any question
of public interest concerned with it that does not give rise to acute
differences of opinion into which some influence—the climate, perhaps—and
the fact that the country is going through a difficult transition stage,
seems not infrequently to infuse a measure of bitterness. I fear it is
unavoidable that some of the opinions expressed in this volume, if they
give pleasure in certain quarters, will give displeasure in others. I
can only ask those who may be affected in the latter sense to believe
that the writer has really had no other object in view than that of
setting forth the facts as he saw them, and to draw from those facts the
inferences which commended themselves to a judgment no doubt full of
imperfections, but able, at any rate, to claim sincerity as its guiding
motive.
E. D. MOREL.
_August, 1911._
INTRODUCTION
My chief object in presenting to the public in book form a collection
of articles recently published in the _Times_[1] as revised, together
with additional matter, has been that of increasing—if haply this should
be the effect—public interest in the greatest and most interesting of
our tropical African Protectorates. It has been my endeavour throughout
not to overload the story with detail, but to paint, or try to paint, a
picture of Nigeria as it is to-day; to portray the life of its people,
the difficulties and tasks of its British governors, and the Imperial
responsibilities the nation has contracted in assuming control over this
vast region.
Parts II., III., and IV. consist of an attempt at a serious study of
these things.
Part I. consists of a mere series of pen and ink sketches, so to speak;
impressions jotted down in varying moods. The value, if, indeed, they
have any value at all, of these disjointed ramblings lies in the glimpse
they may afford of native character and the nature of the country, thus
helping, perhaps, to bring Nigeria a little nearer to us.
I ought, perhaps, to apologize for not having incorporated a history
of the British occupation of Nigeria. But, apart from the circumstance
that Captain Orr, now Colonial Secretary for Cyprus, and for many years
Resident in Northern Nigeria, is, I understand, about to publish a volume
on that subject written with the inside knowledge which he so peculiarly
possesses: the thing has already been done by others.
It seemed to me that if any public utility at all were to be attached to
my own modest effort, it could more fittingly be sought in the direction
of handling, from an independent outsider’s point of view, problems of
actuality in their setting of existing circumstances and conditions; and
in emphasizing a fact sometimes apt to be forgotten. I mean that in these
Dependencies the Native is the important person to be considered, quite
as much from the Imperial as from any other standpoint, interpreting
Imperialism as personally I interpret it, to signify a good deal more
than painting the map red and indulging in tall talk about “possessions”
and about “inferior races.” In Nigeria, the Nigerian is not, as some
persons appear to regard him, merely an incidental factor but the
paramount factor. Nigeria is not a Colony; it is a Dependency.
The West African native has two classes of enemies, one positive, the
other unconscious. The ranks of both are not only recruited from members
of the white race: they are to be found among members of the West
African’s own household. The first class corresponds to the school of
European thought concerning tropical Africa, whose adherents object to
the West African being a land-owner, and whose doctrine it is that in the
economic development of the country the profits should be the exclusive
appanage of the white race, the native’s _rôle_ being that of labourer
and wage-earner for all time.
In the fulfilment of the _rôle_ thus assigned to him, some of the
adherents of this school, those with the longest sight, would be quite
prepared to treat the individual native well; others would cheerfully
impose their will by brutal violence. That is a temperamental affair
which does not touch the essence of the deeper issue.
To this class of enemies belong some of the educated or half-educated
Europeanized natives whom our educational and religious system divorces
from their race, and who, having no outlet and bereft of national or
racial pride, betray the interests of their country into the hands of its
foes.
The second class is to be met with among the ranks of those who, by
striking at slavery and abuse, have rendered enormous benefit to the West
African, but who were also unwittingly responsible for fastening upon his
neck a heavy yoke, and who, not only with no motive of self-interest,
but, on the contrary, with the most generous desire to minister to his
welfare, are to-day in danger of ministering to his undoing. It is not
easy to affix any particular label to those influences which, in the
political field, contributed so powerfully in handing over the Congo to
Leopold II. (afterwards strenuously co-operating in freeing its peoples
from his grasp) and in placing two million West Africans in Liberia under
the pettily tyrannous incompetence of a handful of American Blacks. They
are partly educational, partly philanthropic, partly religious. The
basis of sentiment animating them appears to be that a kindness is being
done to the West African by the bestowal upon him of European culture,
law, religion and dress, and that, having thus unmade him as an African,
those responsible are in duty bound to support the product of their
own creation in its automatic and inevitable revolt against authority,
whether represented by the Native Ruler or by the European Administrator.
In the form it at present takes, and in the circumstances too often
accompanying it, this is not a kindness but a cruel wrong.
Let me try to make my meaning perfectly clear in regard to this latter
case. I make no attack upon any organization or body. I criticize the
trend of certain influences, and I willingly admit, as all must do, even
those who most dread their effects, that these influences have their
origin in centres imbued with genuine altruism. Also that of one side of
them nothing but good can be said—the destructive side, the side which
is ever prepared to respond to the call of human suffering. Neither do
I suggest that education can, or should be, arrested. I simply lay down
this double proposition. First, that educational and allied influences,
whose combined effect is to cause the West African to lose his racial
identity, _must_ produce unhappiness and unrest of a kind which is not
susceptible of evolving a compensating constructive side. Secondly, that
in no period of time which can be forecast, will the condition of West
African society permit of the _supreme_ governing power being shared
by both races, although short of the casting vote, so to speak, policy
should everywhere be directed towards consolidating and strengthening
Native authority.
Still less do I make any reflection upon the educated West African
as such. Among these Westernized Natives are men to be regarded with
the utmost respect, for they have achieved the well-nigh insuperable.
They have succeeded, despite all, in remaining African in heart and
sentiment; and in retaining their dignity in the midst of difficulties
which only the most sympathetic alien mind can appreciate, and, even
so, not wholly. To Mary Kingsley alone, perhaps, was it given to probe
right down to the painful complexities of their position as only a woman,
and a gifted woman, specially endowed, could do. Of such men the great
Fanti lawyer, John Mensah Sarbah, whose recent and premature death is a
calamity for West Africa, was one of the best types. The venerable Dr. E.
Wilmot Blyden, whose race will regard him some day as its misunderstood
prophet, is another. One could name others. Perchance their numbers are
greater than is usually supposed, and are not confined to men of social
distinction and learning. And these men wring their hands. They see, and
they feel, the pernicious results of a well-meaning but mistaken policy.
They appreciate the depth of the abyss. But they lack the power of
combination, and their position is delicate to a degree which Europeans,
who do not realize the innumerable undercurrents and intrigues of
denationalized West African society are unable to grasp.
Between these two schools of thought, the “damned nigger” school and the
denationalizing school (that, without appreciating it, plays into the
hands of the first), which threaten the West African in his freedom, his
property and his manhood, there is room for a third. One which, taking
note to-day that the West African _is_ a land-owner, desires that he
shall continue to be one under British rule, not with decreasing but
with increasing security of tenure; taking note that to-day the West
African _is_ an agriculturist, a farmer, a herdsman, and, above all,
to the marrow of his bones, a trader, declines to admit that he should
be degraded, whether by direct or indirect means, to the position of
a hireling; taking note that customary law it is which holds native
society together, calls for its increased study and demands that time
shall be allowed for its gradual improvement from within, deprecating its
supersession by European _formulæ_ of law in the name of “reform,” for
which the country is not ripe and whose application can only dislocate,
not raise, West African social life. A school of thought which, while
prepared to fight with every available weapon against attempts to impose
conditions of helotism upon the West African, earnestly pleads that those
controlling the various influences moulding his destinies from without,
shall be inspired to direct their energies towards making him a better
African, not a hybrid. A school of thought which sees in the preservation
of the West African’s land for him and his descendants; in a system
of education which shall not anglicize; in technical instruction; in
assisting and encouraging agriculture, local industries and scientific
forestry; in introducing labour-saving appliances, and in strengthening
all that is best, materially and spiritually, in aboriginal
institutions, the highest duties of our Imperial rule. A school of
thought whose aim it is to see Nigeria, at least, become in time the home
of highly-trained African peoples, protected in their property and in
their rights by the paramount Power, proud of their institutions, proud
of their race, proud of their own fertile and beautiful land.
E. D. MOREL.
_August, 1911._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
PART I
THOUGHTS ON TREK
I. ON WHAT HAS BEEN AND MAY BE 3
II. ON THE GREAT WHITE ROAD 8
III. ON THE CARRIER 14
IV. ON AFRICAN MODESTY AND AFRICAN COURTESY 19
V. ON THE MEANING OF “RELIGIOUS” 24
VI. A RAGOÛT OF THINGS SEEN AND FELT 29
VII. THE SALLAH AT ZARIA 35
PART II
SOUTHERN NIGERIA
I. NIGERIA’S CLAIM UPON PUBLIC ATTENTION 45
II. THE NIGER DELTA 49
III. THE FOREST BELT 56
IV. THE CENTRAL AND EASTERN PROVINCES 62
V. LAGOS AND ITS PORT—THE FUTURE BOMBAY OF WEST AFRICA 71
VI. THE YORUBAS AND THEIR COUNTRY 76
VII. BRITISH POLICY IN YORUBALAND 82
PART III
NORTHERN NIGERIA
I. THE NATURAL HIGHWAY TO THE UPLANDS OF THE NORTH 91
II. NORTHERN NIGERIA PRIOR TO THE BRITISH OCCUPATION 98
III. THE INDIGENOUS CIVILIZATION OF THE NORTH 103
IV. THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE—THE LONG-DISTANCE TRADER 107
V. THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE—THE AGRICULTURIST 111
VI. THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE—THE HERDSMAN AND THE ARTISAN 118
VII. THE CITY OF KANO AND ITS MARKET 123
VIII. A VISIT TO THE EMIR OF KANO 130
IX. GOVERNING ON NATIVE LINES 136
X. THE FOUNDATIONS OF NATIVE SOCIETY—THE TENURE OF LAND 140
XI. THE FOUNDATIONS OF NATIVE SOCIETY—THE ADMINISTRATIVE
MACHINERY 145
XII. THE PRESERVATION OF THE NATIONAL LIFE 151
XIII. A PAGE OF HISTORY AND ITS MORAL 155
XIV. A SCHEME OF NATIONAL EDUCATION 160
XV. COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT 166
XVI. MINING DEVELOPMENT AND THE BAUCHI PLATEAU 175
XVII. THE NECESSITY OF AMALGAMATING THE TWO PROTECTORATES 187
XVIII. RAILWAY POLICY AND AMALGAMATION 194
XIX. AN UNAUTHORIZED SCHEME OF AMALGAMATION 201
PART IV
ISLAM, COTTON GROWING, AND THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC
I. CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM IN SOUTHERN NIGERIA 213
II. THE COTTON INDUSTRY 222
III. THE COTTON INDUSTRY—_continued_ 232
IV. THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC IN SOUTHERN NIGERIA 245
INDEX 263
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
A BORGU CANOE-MAN _Frontispiece_
_Photo by Mr. E. Firmin (Copyright)_
FACING PAGE
“THROUGH PLAIN AND VALLEY AND MOUNTAIN SIDE” 6
“WE HAVE TREKKED TOGETHER” 6
A GROUP OF TUAREGS 8
A BORNU OX 8
“MAGNIFICENT SPECIMENS OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM” 10
DUG-OUT ON THE KADUNA MANNED BY NUPES 30
“SILHOUETTING PERCHANCE A GROUP OF PALMS” 30
THE HOE-DANCERS (THE HOE-DANCE IS A HAUSA AGRICULTURAL DANCE OF
GREAT ANTIQUITY) 34
THE “JAFFI” OR MOUNTED SALUTE 36
_Photo by Captain Mance._
THE EMIR OF ZARIA 38
THE EMIR OF KATSINA 38
JU-JU ISLAND NEAR JEBBA 46
_Photo by Mr. E. Firmin (Copyright)_
SHIPPING PALM OIL ON THE NIGER AT HIGH WATER 46
THE TROPICAL BUSH 56
ONE OF THE COMMUNAL RUBBER PLANTATIONS (FUNTUMIA ELASTICA) BENIN
CITY 66
_Photo by Mr. A. H. Unwin._
A SCENE IN YORUBALAND 66
_Photo by Mr. A. H. Unwin._
BENIN CITY TO-DAY. BINI CHIEFS SITTING OUTSIDE THEIR NEW COURT
HOUSE 68
_Photo by Sir Walter Egerton._
ONE OF THE SACRED STONE IMAGES AT IFE, THE SPIRITUAL CENTRE OF
YORUBALAND 78
_Photo by Mr. A. H. Unwin._
ONE OF THE SONS OF THE SHEHU OF BORNU 78
ENTRANCE TO THE “AFIN” OR RESIDENCE OF THE ALAFIN OF OYO,
SHOWING TYPICAL YORUBA THATCHING 82
_Photo by Mr. A. H. Unwin._
VIEW OF LOKOJA AND NATIVE TOWN FROM MOUNT PATTEY LOOKING S.E.,
THE BENUE IN THE DISTANCE 96
A NIGERIAN HUNTER STALKING GAME WITH THE HEAD OF THE GROUND
HORNBILL AFFIXED TO HIS FOREHEAD 108
_Photo by Mr. E. Firmin (Copyright)_
A TRADING CARAVAN 110
_Photo by Mr. Charles Temple._
FRUIT SELLERS 112
WATER CARRIERS 112
A GWARRI GIRL 116
A HAUSA TRADING WOMAN 116
A FULANI GIRL 118
_Photo by Mr. Charles Temple._
PANNING FOR IRON 120
_Photo by Mr. A. H. Unwin._
DYE-PITS 120
A VIEW OF A PART OF KANO CITY (INSIDE THE WALL) 124
ONE OF THE GATEWAYS TO KANO CITY, SHOWING OUTER WALL 128
ANOTHER OF THE ENTRANCES TO THE CITY 128
INSIDE KANO CITY 132
THE EMIR OF KANO ON THE MARCH 134
CORNER OF A NATIVE MARKET 148
_Photo by Mr. Freer-Hill._
ANOTHER CORNER 148
_Photo by Mr. Freer-Hill._
IRON SMELTERS 164
FULANI CATTLE 164
_Photo by Mr. Charles Temple._
SCENE IN THE BAUCHI HIGHLANDS 184
_Photo by Mr. Charles Temple._
SCENE ON THE SOUTHERN NIGERIA (EXTENSION) RAILWAY 194
_Photo by Mr. Freer-Hill._
PLATE-LAYING ON THE NORTHERN NIGERIA RAILWAY 194
_Photo by Captain Mance._
LANDING PLACE AT BARO 196
GROUP OF RAILWAY LABOURERS—BARO 196
VILLAGE HEAD-MEN 198
WOMEN COTTON SPINNERS 232
MEN WEAVING 232
MAPS
MAP OF SOUTHERN NIGERIA 46
” NORTHERN NIGERIA 92
” ILLUSTRATING AN UNAUTHORIZED SCHEME OF AMALGAMATION 204
PART I
THOUGHTS ON TREK
CHAPTER I
ON WHAT HAS BEEN AND MAY BE
After trekking on horseback five hundred miles or so, you acquire the
philosophy of this kind of locomotion. For it has a philosophy of its
own, and with each day that passes you become an apter pupil. You learn
many things, or you hope you do, things internally evolved. But when you
come to the point of giving external shape to them by those inefficient
means the human species is as yet virtually confined to—speech and
writing—you become painfully conscious of inadequate powers. Every day
brings its own panorama of nature unfolding before your advance; its
own special series of human incidents—serious, humorous, irritating,
soothing—its own thought waves. And it is not my experience that these
long silent hours—for conversation with one’s African companions is
necessarily limited and sporadic—induce, by what one would imagine
natural re-action, descriptive expansiveness when, pen in hand, one seeks
to give substance to one’s impressions. Rather the reverse, alack! Silent
communing doth seem to cut off communication between brain and pen. You
are driven in upon yourself, and the channel of outward expression dries
up. For a scribbler, against whom much has been imputed, well-nigh all
the crimes, indeed, save paucity of output, the phenomenon is not without
its alarming side, at least to one’s self. In one’s friends it may well
inspire a sense of blessed relief.
One day holds much—so much of time, so much of space, so much of change.
The paling stars or the waning moon greet your first swing into the
saddle, and the air strikes crisp and chill. You are still there as
the orange globe mounts the skies, silhouetting, perchance, a group of
palms, flooding the crumbling walls of some African village, to whose
inhabitants peace has ceased to make walls necessary—a sacrifice of the
picturesque which, artistically, saddens—or lighting some fantastic peak
of granite boulders piled up as though by Titan’s hand. You are still
there when the rays pour downwards from on high, strike upwards from
dusty track and burning rock, and all the countryside quivers and simmers
in the glow. Sometimes you may still be there—it has happened, to me—when
the shadows fall swiftly, and the cry of the crown-birds, seeking shelter
for the night on some marshy spot to their liking, heralds the dying of
the day. From cold, cold great enough to numb hands and feet, to gentle
warmth, as on a June morning at home; from fierce and stunning heat,
wherein, rocked by the “triple” of your mount, you drowse and nod, to
cooling evening breeze. You pass, in the twenty-four hours, through all
the gamut of climatic moods, which, at this time of the year, makes this
country at once invigorating and, to my thinking, singularly treacherous,
especially on the Bauchi plateau, over which a cold wind often seems to
sweep, even in the intensity of the noontide sun, and where often a heavy
overcoat seems insufficient to foster warmth when darkness falls upon the
land.
So much of time and change—each day seems composed of many days. Ushered
in on level plain, furrowed by the agriculturist’s hoe, dotted with
colossal trees, smiling with farm and hamlet; it carries you onward
through many miles of thick young forest, where saplings of but a few
years’ growth dispute their life with rank and yellow grasses, and thence
in gradual ascent through rock-strewn paths until your eye sees naught
but a network of hills; to leave you at its close skirting a valley
thickly overgrown with bamboo and semi-tropical vegetation, where the
flies do congregate, and seek, unwelcomed, a resting-place inside your
helmet. Dawning amid a sleeping town, heralded by the sonorous call of
the Muslim priest, which lets loose the vocal chords of human, quadruped
and fowl, swelling into a murmur of countless sounds and increasing
bustle; it will take you for many hours through desolate stretches,
whence human life, if life there ever was, has been extirpated by long
years of such lawlessness and ignorance as once laid the blight of
grisly ruin over many a fair stretch of English homestead. Yes, you may,
in this land of many memories, and mysteries still unravelled, pass,
within the same twenty-four hours, the flourishing settlement with every
sign of plenty and of promise, and the blackened wreck of communities
once prosperous before this or that marauding band of freebooters
brought fire and slaughter, death to the man, slavery to the woman and
the infant—much as our truculent barons, whose doughty deeds we are
taught in childhood to admire, acted in their little day. The motive
and the immediate results differed not at all. What the ultimate end
may be here lies in the womb of the future, for at this point the roads
diverge. With us those dark hours vanished through the slow growth of
indigenous evolution. Here the strong hand of the alien has interposed,
and, stretching at present the unbridged chasm of a thousand years, has
enforced reform from without.
And what a weird thing it is when you come to worry it out, that this
alien hand should have descended and compelled peace! Viewed in the
abstract, one feels it may be discussed as a problem of theory, for a
second. One feels it permissible to ask, will the people, or rather
will the Governors of the people which has brought peace to this land,
which has enabled the peasant to till the soil and reap his harvest
in quietness, which has allowed the weaver to pursue and profit by
his industry in safety, which has established such security throughout
the land, that you may see a woman and her child travelling alone and
unprotected in the highways, carrying all their worldly possessions
between them; will this people’s ultimate action be as equally beneficial
as the early stages have been, or will its interference be the medium
through which evils, not of violence, but economic, and as great as
the old, will slowly, but certainly and subtly, eat into the hearts of
these Nigerian homes and destroy their happiness, not of set purpose,
but automatically, inevitably so? I say that, approached as an abstract
problem, it seems permissible to ask one’s self that question as one
wanders here and there over the face of the land, and one hears the
necessity of commercially developing the country to save the British
taxpayers’ pockets, of the gentlemen who want to exploit the rubber
forests of the Bauchi plateau, of the Chambers of Commerce that require
the reservation of lands for British capitalists, and of those who
argue that a native, who learned how to smelt tin before we knew there
was tin in the country, should no longer be permitted to do so, now
that we wish to smelt it ourselves, and of the railways and the roads
which have to be built—yes, it seems permissible, though quite useless.
But I confess that when one studies what is being done out here in the
concrete, from the point of view of the men who are doing it, then it is
no longer permissible to doubt. When one sees this man managing, almost
single-handed, a country as large as Scotland; when one sees that man,
living in a leaky mud hut, holding, by the sway of his personality,
the balance even between fiercely antagonistic races, in a land which
would cover half a dozen of the large English counties; when one sees
the marvels accomplished by tact, passionate interest and self-control,
with utterly inadequate means, in continuous personal discomfort,
short-handed, on poor pay, out here in Northern Nigeria—then one feels
that permanent evil cannot ultimately evolve from so much admirable work
accomplished, and that the end must make for good.
[Illustration: “THROUGH PLAIN AND VALLEY AND MOUNTAIN SIDE.”]
[Illustration: “WE HAVE TREKKED TOGETHER.”]
And, thinking over this personal side of the matter as one jogs along up
hill and down dale, through plain and valley and mountain side, through
lands of plenty and lands of desolation, past carefully fenced-in fields
of cotton and cassava, past the crumbling ruins of deserted habitations,
along the great white dusty road through the heart of Hausaland, along
the tortuous mountain track to the pagan stronghold, there keeps on
murmuring in one’s brain the refrain: “How is it done? How is it done?”
Ten years ago, nay, but six, neither property nor life were safe. The
peasant fled to the hills, or hurried at nightfall within the sheltering
walls of the town. Now he is descending from the hills and abandoning the
towns.
And the answer forced upon one, by one’s own observations, is that the
incredible has been wrought, primarily and fundamentally, not by this or
that brilliant feat of arms, not by Britain’s might or Britain’s wealth,
but by a handful of quiet men, enthusiastic in their appreciation of the
opportunity, strong in their sense of duty, keen in their sense of right,
firm in their sense of justice, who, working in an independence, and with
a personal responsibility in respect to which, probably, no country now
under the British flag can offer a parallel, whose deeds are unsung, and
whose very names are unknown to their countrymen, have shown, and are
every day showing, that, with all her faults, Britain does still breed
sons worthy of the highest traditions of the race.
CHAPTER II
ON THE GREAT WHITE ROAD
You may fairly call it the Great White Road to Hausaland, although
it does degenerate in places into a mere track where it pierces some
belt of shea-wood or mixed trees, and you are reduced to Indian file.
But elsewhere it merits its appellation, and it glimmers ghostly in
the moonlight as it cuts the plain, cultivated to its very edge with
guinea-corn and millet, cassava and cotton, beans and pepper. And you
might add the adjective, dusty, to it. For dusty at this season of the
year it certainly is. Dusty beyond imagination. Surely there is no dust
like this dust as it sweeps up at you, impelled by the _harmattan_
blowing from the north, into your eyes and mouth and nose and hair?
Dust composed of unutterable things. Dust which countless bare human
feet have tramped for months. Dust mingled with the manure of thousands
of oxen, horses, sheep and goats. Dust which converts the glossy skin
of the African into an unattractive drab, but which cannot impair his
cheerfulness withal. Dust which eats its way into your boxes, and defies
the brush applied to your clothes, and finds its way into your soup
and all things edible and non-edible. Dust which gets between you and
the sun, and spoils your view of the country, wrapping everything in a
milky haze which distorts distances and lies thick upon the foliage. The
morning up to nine, say, will be glorious and clear and crisp, and then,
sure enough, as you halt for breakfast and with sharpened appetite await
the looked-for “chop,” a puff of wind will spring up from nowhere and in
its train will come the dust. The haze descends and for the rest of the
day King Dust will reign supreme. It is responsible for much sickness,
this Sahara dust, of that my African friends and myself are equally
convinced. You may see the turbaned members of the party draw the lower
end of that useful article of apparel right across the face up to the
eyes when the wind begins to blow. The characteristic _litham_ of the
Tuareg, the men of the desert, may have had its origin in the necessity,
taught by experience, of keeping the dust out of nose and mouth. I
have been told by an officer of much Northern Nigerian experience,
that that terrible disease, known as cerebro-spinal meningitis, whose
characteristic feature is inflammation of the membranes of the brain, and
which appears in epidemic form out here, is aggravated, if not induced,
in his opinion—and he assures me in the opinion of many natives he has
consulted—by this disease-carrying dust. In every town and village in
the Northern Hausa States, you will see various diseases of the eye
lamentably rife, and here, I am inclined to think, King Dust also plays
an active and discreditable part.
[Illustration: A GROUP OF TUAREGS.]
[Illustration: A BORNU OX.]
The Great White Road. It thoroughly deserves that title from the point
where one enters the Kano Province coming from Zaria. It is there not
only a great white road but a very fine one, bordered on either side
by a species of eucalyptus, and easily capable, so far as breadth is
concerned, of allowing the passage of two large automobiles abreast. I,
personally, should not care to own the automobile which undertook the
journey, because the road is not exactly what we would call up-to-date.
Thank Heaven that there is one part of the world, at least, to be found
where neither roads, nor ladies’ costumes are “up-to-date.” If the Native
Administration of the Kano Emirate had nothing else to be commended
for, and under the tactful guidance of successive Residents it has
an increasing account to its credit, the traveller would bear it in
grateful recollection for its preservation of the trees in the immediate
vicinity of, and sometimes actually on the Great White Road itself. It
is difficult to over-estimate the value to man and beast, to the hot and
dusty European, to the weary-footed carrier, to the patient pack-ox, and
cruelly-bitted native horse, of the occasional shady tree at the edge of
or on the road. And what magnificent specimens of the vegetable kingdom
the fertile soil of Kano Province does carry—our New Forest giants,
though holding their own for beauty and shape and, of course, clinging
about our hearts with all their wealth of historical memories and
inherited familiarity, would look puny in comparison. With one exception
I do not think anything on the adverse side of trivialities has struck me
more forcibly out here than the insane passion for destroying trees which
seems to animate humanity, White and Black. In many parts of the country
I have passed through the African does appear to appreciate his trees,
both as shade for his ordinary crops and special crops (such as pepper,
for instance, which you generally find planted under a great tree) and
cattle. In Kano Province, for instance, this is very noticeable. But in
other parts he will burn down his trees, or rather let them burn down,
with absolute equanimity, making no effort to protect them (which on
many occasions he could easily do) when he fires the grasses (which,
_pace_ many learned persons, it seems to me, he is compelled by his
agricultural needs to do—I speak now of the regions I have seen). I have
noticed quantities of splendid and valuable timber ruined in this way.
The European—I should say some Europeans—appears to suffer from the same
complaint. It is the fashion—if the word be not disrespectful, and Heaven
forfend that the doctors should be spoken of disrespectfully in this part
of the world, of all places—among the new school of tropical medicine
out here to condemn all growing things in a wholesale manner. In the
eyes of some, trees or plants of any kind in the vicinity of a European
station are ruthlessly condemned. Others are specially incensed against
low shrubs. Some are even known to pronounce the death-warrant of the
pine-apple, and I met an official at a place, which shall be nameless,
who went near weeping tears of distress over a fine row of this fruit
which he had himself planted, and which were threatened, as he put it, by
the ferocity of the local medical man. In another place destruction hangs
over a magnificent row of mango trees—and for beauty and luxuriousness
of foliage the mango tree is hard to beat—planted many years ago by the
Roman Catholic Fathers near one of their mission stations; and in still
another, an official, recently returned on leave, found to his disgust
that a group of trees he especially valued had been cut down during his
absence by a zealous reformer of the medical world.
[Illustration: “MAGNIFICENT SPECIMENS OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM.”]
In the southern portions of Southern Nigeria, where Sir Walter Egerton
is a resolute foe of medical vandalism, I am inclined to think that
the doctors will find it about as easy to cope with plant growth as
King Canute is reputed to have found the waves of the seashore. But
in Northern Nigeria and in the northern regions of Southern Nigeria
it is a different matter, and one is tempted to query whether the
sacrifice of all umbrageous plants in the neighbourhood of official and
other residences because they are supposed to harbour—and no doubt do
harbour—the _larvæ_ of all sorts of objectionable winged insects, may not
constitute a remedy worse even than the disease. I can imagine few things
more distressing for a European in Northern Nigeria, gasping in the
mid-day heat of the _harmattan_ season, to have nothing between his eyes,
as he gazes but beyond his verandah, but the glare of the red laterite
soil and the parched-up grasses and little pink flowers springing up
amidst it; and one feels disposed to say to the devoted medicos, “_De
grâce, Messieurs, pas de trop zèle_.”
In the particular part of the country of which I am now writing, another
aspect of the case strikes you. In very many rest-camps, and mining camps
one comes across, the ground is cleared of every particle of shade-giving
tree—cleared as flat as a billiard table. There is no shade for man or
beast. Now a grass-house is not the coolest place in the world with an
African noon-day sun beating down upon it—I mean an all-grass-house, not
the cool native house with clay walls and thatched roof, be it noted—and
... well, I content myself with the remark that it would be much cooler
than it is with the shade of a tree falling athwart it. Then they—the
Public Works Department—have built a road from Riga-Chikum to Naraguta.
I will say nothing about it except that it is, without exception, the
hottest road and the one more abounding in flies that I have struck
in this part of the world. And I assign a proper proportion of both
phenomena to the—to me—inexplicable mania of the builders thereof to hew
down the trees on the side of the road.
To come back to our Great White Road. What a history it might not tell!
For how many centuries have not Black and Brown men pursued upon it
the goal of their trade and their ambitions; have not fled in frantic
terror from the pursuer, ankle deep in dust. What tragedies have not been
hurried along its dusty whiteness. To-day you will meet upon it objects
of interest almost every hour. Now, a herd of oxen on their way to doom,
to feed the Southern Nigerian markets; now, a convoy of donkeys going
south, in charge, maybe, of Tuareg slaves from far-distant Sokoto, or the
Asben oases. These will be loaded with potash and tobacco. And even as
you pass this one going south, another convoy of donkeys, going north,
loaded with salt and kolas, will be trudging along behind you. Anon, some
picturesquely-clothed and turbaned horseman will be seen approaching,
who, with ceremonious politeness, will either dismount and salute, or
throw up his right hand—doing the “jaffi,” as it is termed.
The African is credited with utter callousness to human suffering. Like
most generalities concerning him, it is exaggerated. Life in primitive
communities (and to get a proper mental grasp of this country, and
its people, you must turn up your Old Testament and read Exodus and
Leviticus) is much cheaper and of less account than in more highly
civilized ones. That is a commonplace too often forgotten by people who
accuse the African of ingrained callousness. As a matter of fact, I have
noticed many sights on the Great White Road which show how rash such
generalities can be. I have seen water handed from one party to another
under circumstances which spoke of kindly appreciation of a want. I have
frequently seen fathers, or elder brothers, carrying small children on
their backs. The Residents have known cases of men found injured on the
road who have been tended and taken home by utter strangers; the Good
Samaritan over again, and in his old-world setting.
CHAPTER III
ON THE CARRIER
“Some Africans I have met”—the words conjure up a series of powerful
chiefs, or fantastic “witch doctors,” or faultlessly-attired barristers
from some centre of light and learning on the Coast. I shall be
content—if only by recording my gratitude for much amusement and no
little instruction—with jotting down a brief line or two which shall
be wholly concerned with a type of African to whom not the greatest
Negrophile that ever lived would dream of applying the epithet
distinguished. I refer to the carrier.
To-morrow I part with my carriers. We have trekked together for exactly
four weeks—one little man, indeed, with a goatee beard and a comical
grin, has been with me six weeks, having rejoined from my original
lot. And at the end of four weeks one gets to know something of one’s
carriers. Presumably, by that time they have their own opinions of you.
Whence do they come, and whither do they go, these vagrants of the road,
flotsam and jetsam that we create? Runaway slaves, ne’er-do-weels,
criminals, driven from their respective folds, unsuccessful farmers, or
restless spirits animated by a love of travel and adventure—_la vie des
grands chemins_. Reckless, improvident, gamblers, wastrels; they are
altogether delightful people. As an ecclesiastical friend invariably
winds up with a description of the man (or woman) he is interested in,
who has broken most of the commandments, and would have broken the
others had circumstances allowed: “X—— is the very best of creatures
really, and I love him (or her)”—so it is impossible not to like the
carrier. For with all his faults, he attracts. His spirit of independence
appeals somehow. Here to-day, gone to-morrow. And, like the sailor, with
a sweetheart at every port, somebody else’s sweetheart will do quite
as well at a pinch. Then consider his cheeriness. Be the load heavy or
light, be the march long or short, he has always a smile and a salute for
you as you pass along the line. I speak as I have found, and many men
will bear me out. Some men may have a different tale to tell, sometimes
with justification, sometimes, I think, without. For if there is the bad
type of carrier—and there is: I have found two in my crowd, but their
“little games” have fallen foul of the views of the majority—there is
also the type of European who, shall we say, forgets. He gets into camp
a long way ahead of his men, tired and hungry maybe, and curses them
for a pack of lazy scoundrels. He forgets, or long custom has blunted
perception, the potency of that sixty-pound load. Think of it! Sixty
pounds—the regulation load. Sixty pounds on your head for anything from
fifteen to thirty miles.
I say consider that under these conditions the man is cheerful. Nay,
he is more. He is full of quips and jokes ... at the expense of his
companions, and quite as much at the expense of himself. If you have
a special peculiarity about you, ten to one he crystallises it into a
name, and henceforth you are spoken of not as the “Baturi” the White
man, but as “the man with a back like a camel,” or “white hair,” or the
“hump-backed man of war,” or “red pepper,” or “hot water,” or as the
“man with a face like a woman,” and so on. It is this extraordinary
cheeriness which appeals to the average white human. That a creature of
flesh and blood like yourself, carrying sixty pounds on his head for
hours and hours in the blazing sun, dripping with perspiration, pestered
by flies, and earning sixpence a day—threepence of which is supposed to
be spent in “chop”—and doing this not for one day, but for day after day,
sometimes for over a week without a sit-down, can remain cheerful—that is
the incredible thing. One hopes that it is a lesson. Assuredly it ought
to be an inspiration. These votaries of Mark Tapley are severely tried
at times. Yesterday, after a tramp from six-thirty to half-past twelve,
the camp aimed for was found to be tenanted by other white men and their
carriers. There was nothing for it but to push on another eleven miles to
the nearest village and stream. Just as dusk began to sweep down upon the
land, the first carrier straggled in—smiling. “No. 1,” a long-limbed man
with the stride of an ostrich, who always goes by that name because he is
always the first to arrive, delighted at having kept up his reputation;
“Nos. 2” and “3” equally pleased with themselves for being close at his
heels, and coming in for their share of the prize money in consequence.
And then, in twos and threes, dribbling up, some unutterably weary,
others less so, all galvanised into new life by a chance joke, generally
at their own expense; joining in the acclamation which invariably greets
the strong man of the party—the mighty Maiduguli, to wit—who, because of
his muscles, carries the heaviest load, and whom Fate decrees, owing to
that load’s contents, shall be the last to start, both at the opening of
the day and after the breakfast halt, but who manages to forge ahead, and
to turn up among the first six, chaffing the tired ones on their way,
and stimulating them to fresh exertions. And when all had reached their
destination they had to stick up a tent by the light of the moon.
I have asked you to consider the carrier’s cheeriness and powers of
endurance—and my lot at least are not, with the exception of the mighty
man of valour already mentioned, big men physically. I ask you now to
consider his honesty—honesty in the literal sense and honesty in the
fulfilment of a bargain. For hours this man is alone—so far as you are
concerned—with your goods. You may, you probably are, either miles
ahead of him, or miles behind him. The headman—“Helleman,” as he is
termed by the rank and file—is at the rear of the column. Between the
first man and the “Helleman” several miles may intervene, and so on,
proportionately. During these hours of total lack of supervision, your
property is absolutely at the carrier’s mercy. Your effects. The uniform
case in which, he knows, you keep your money. The uniform case, of which
he knows the lock is broken. The “chop-box,” of which he knows the
padlock is missing. But at the end of every day your things are intact.
I have not lost a matchbox, except a few dozen or so that white men have
stolen (I may say it is the local fashion—I have caught it myself, and
steal matches regularly whenever I get the chance). The only thing I
have lost is something I lost myself. You may say “Yes, but think of the
risk and the difficulty of breaking open a uniform case on the road.” As
for the difficulty, there is little or none. A vigorous fling upon one
of these granitic boulders, and there would be precious little left of
your uniform case. As for the risk, well, in many parts of the country
I have traversed, a carrier could get clear away with his loot, and not
all the _Sarikuna_ and _dogari_ in the country would set hands on him.
Faithfulness to the bargain struck. Well, I have passed through the
mining country. Some of the mines declare they are short of labour—those
that do not suffer from that complaint declare that those that do have
themselves to thank for it—and the mines pay ninepence a day for work
which is much lighter than that of a carrier, who gets sixpence. The
few shillings a carrier would sacrifice by deserting, he would recoup
at the mines in ten days, or less. I have not had a desertion. The only
man of the crowd who has absconded, did so openly. On a certain spot on
the line of march he suddenly got a fit of fanaticism, or something
unhealthy of that kind, and declared himself to be proof against sword
cuts. Whereupon, being laughed at, he “gat unto himself” a sword and
smote himself with much vigour upon the head, with the natural result of
inflicting a deep scalp wound nearly seven inches long. The next morning,
finding his load incommoded him in consequence, he returned homewards, a
sadder, and, presumably, a wiser man.
If I were a poet I would write an ode to the African carrier. I cannot do
justice to him in prose. But I place on record this inadequate tribute
to the reckless, cheery, loyal rascal, who seems to me a mixture of the
knight of the road and the poacher—for both of whom I have ever conceived
a warm affection ... in books—and with whom I shall part to-morrow with
regret, remembering oft in days to come that cheery “_Sanu zāki_” as I
passed him, footsore, weary and perspiring, on the road.
CHAPTER IV
ON AFRICAN MODESTY AND AFRICAN COURTESY
Each twenty-four hours brings its own series of events and its own
train of thoughts following upon them. A new incident, it may be of the
most trivial kind, sets the mind working like an alarum; a petty act, a
passing word, have in them revealing depths of character. Nature seems
such an open book here. She does not hide her secrets. She displays them;
which means that she has none; and, in consequence, that she is as she
was meant to be, moral. The trappings of hide-bound convention do not
trammel her every stride like the hobble skirts of the foolish women who
parade their shapes along the fashionable thoroughfares of London. What
quagmires of error we sink into when we weigh out our ideas of morality
to the African standard—such a very low one it is said.
Well, I have covered a good deal of ground in this country—although I
have not been in it very long, measured in time—and I have seen many
thousands of human beings. I have seen the Hausa woman and the bush
Fulani woman in their classical robes. I have seen the Yoruba woman
bathing in the Ogun, clad only in the natural clothing of her own dusky
skin. I have seen the scantily-attired Gwarri and Ibo woman, and the
woman of the Bauchi highlands with her bunch of broad green leaves
“behind and before,” and nothing else, save a bundle of wood or load of
sorts on her head, or a hoe in her hand. I have visited many African
homes, sometimes announced, sometimes not, at all hours of the day, and
sometimes of the night. I have passed the people on the beaten track, and
sought and found them off the beaten track. I have yet to see outside our
cantonments—where the wastrels drift—a single immodest gesture on the
part of man or woman. Humanity which is of Nature is, as Nature herself,
moral. There is no immodesty in nakedness which “knows not that it is
naked.” The Kukuruku girl, whose only garment is a single string of beads
round neck and waist, is more modest than your Bond Street dame clad in
the prevailing fashion, suggesting nakedness. Break up the family life of
Africa, undermine the home, weaken social ties, subvert African authority
over Africans, and you dig the grave of African morality. It is easy,
nothing is easier, and it may be accomplished with the best intentions,
the worthiest motives, the most abysmal ignorance of doing harm. Preserve
these things, strengthen them, and you safeguard the decencies and
refinements of African life.
Here is a homily! Its origin one of those trivialities of which I have
spoken. One had pushed on ahead, desiring to be alone. With that curious
intuition which the African seems to possess, one’s mounted escort had,
somehow, gathered that, and a good half-mile separated one from one’s
followers. The sun was at its zenith, and danced over the dusky track.
But there were broad grateful trees on either side, and low bushes with
white sweet-scented flowers. A bend in the road brought into view a
little cameo of natural life. By a tree, straight-backed and grave-faced,
an elderly Fulani woman, supporting on her lap the head and shoulders of
a younger woman, who lay outstretched. At her feet a small child trying
to stand upright, with but indifferent success. For a moment one was
not perceived, both women’s eyes being fixed on the infant’s resolute
efforts, and one’s approach being quietened by the deadening dust under
foot. For a moment only. Then all three looked up. From her position the
younger woman’s limbs were more uncovered than a Hausa or Fulani woman
considers compatible with modesty before a stranger, and, with a sight of
that stranger, the instinctive movement came—the position was slightly
shifted, the robe drawn down, with no fuss or precipitancy, but calmly,
with dignity and decision.
We strayed yesterday. Starting off early we struck across country,
leaving the road, the red-and-green dressed gentleman and I; having
arranged to meet the rest ... somewhere. It does not matter where,
because, as a matter of fact, we didn’t. An imposing person the aforesaid
_dogari_, with a full black beard and fierce sword. It was good to get
away from the road, despite its varied interests, and for a couple of
hours one gave one’s self wholly up to the charms of the crispness of the
morning, the timid but sweet song of the birds, the whiffs of scent from
the mimosa bushes, the glimpse of some homestead farm in the distance,
the sight of a group of blue-robed women with biblical earthenware
pitchers on their heads issuing from a neatly thatched village, or
congregated in a circle round one of the wells whose inner rim is lined
and rendered solid by thick branches to prevent earth from falling in
and fouling the water. Their laughing voices were wafted across the
cultivated fields towards us, as cheery as the antics of the little brown
goats skipping over the ground. What a world of simple happiness in this
agricultural life of the _talakawa_—the common people—of Hausaland. And
then, well we were clearly at fault. No signs of any of the men. No
signs of breakfast, I mean of the person by whom breakfast is supposed
to be produced—and nearly eight o’clock. The gentleman in red and green
twisted his turbaned and bearded visage to right and left. He looked at
me expressively, which look I returned—with equal gravity, the substance
of our power of communicativeness. Then he turned his broad back and his
white horse’s head, and ambled on, and I followed. It is queer how you
accommodate yourself to philosophy, or how philosophy accommodates itself
to you. After all, every road leads to Rome; and there is a certain
amount of exhilaration in not knowing what particular Rome it may be, or
through what twists and turns the track may lead you on the way thither.
No homesteads now, and the risen sun had warmed the birds into silence.
One notices that, by the way. In the early mornings the timid notes are
heard, and as the sun’s rays pierce through the mists and burn them up,
they cease. It is a melodious little ode to the great Life-giver, and
when it has served its purpose it quavers, quivers, and is no more.
On a sudden the thunder of hoofs behind us, and an elderly,
aristocratic-looking horseman with an aquiline nose, short grey beard
and piercing eyes, gallops up over the deep furrows, followed by three
attendants also on horseback. An imposing figure of a man he is,
splendidly mounted on a chestnut stallion, with a heavy cloak of dark
blue cloth flung across his shoulders, the red crest of a fez just
showing through the top of his dark blue turban. An animated conversation
ensues between him and the gentleman in red and green. The Chief—for
one knows he must be such from his bearing and the sharp ring of his
tones—waves a long, thin hand to right and left. The _dogari_ listens
respectfully, somewhat crestfallen in appearance (perhaps he was hungry
too!). The mounted attendants career away in different directions, one, I
learn afterwards, to trace the main body of carriers, the other to find
the cook, the third to call for milk and firewood from some neighbouring
village. Then the Chief bows low over his horse’s neck, places himself
between the _dogari_ and myself, and we proceed once more along the
narrow pathway, cut at frequent intervals by small streams, now mostly
dry, with precipitous banks that need some negotiating. The courtesy of
that grey-bearded old aristocrat—every inch a ruler of men—the Fulani
who has become the statesman and the lord over many! He is the Governor,
I learn later, of one of the principal districts of Kano province, and
he looks it from head to foot. At the approach of every stream, half
hidden with tangled creepers, wherever the path is broken or impeded by
some natural obstacle, he half turns his horse towards one in warning,
then waits on the other side until he is satisfied that the difficulty
is overcome. Does the over-hanging branch of some tree threaten a blow
to the careless rider? He either breaks it off short in its passage,
or, if it be too formidable for that, points with uplifted finger. And
when, at last, in an open space a small group under a tree proclaims
the much perturbed—his usual condition—cook, busy boiling milk and
cocoa, another low bow, and the old gentleman retires at an appropriate
distance, turning his back with the politeness required of tradition
and custom, but not before another rapid order has been given, and the
quite unnecessary attention of clearing a piece of ground where you may
conveniently partake of your meal is in process of accomplishment.
And soon from out of nowhere come shouts and laughter, and the jangle of
bits and the confused hum of approaching men and horses. The bush and the
grasses cave outwards and your people appear, a little wondering whether
the white man is grumpy or not; very pleased to know they have pitched
on the right road at last; rather enjoying the adventure and thoroughly
happy with themselves and the world in general. Off-saddle and hobble the
beasts! Down with the loads! Out with the “chop!” And all as merry as a
marriage bell. So another morn has dawned and gone, bringing with it its
lessons and its thoughts.
CHAPTER V
ON THE MEANING OF “RELIGIOUS”
It was dusk, dark almost. The road glimmered dimly in the distance. Over
the deep furrows the shadows crept, and the little path between them
mingled with the gathering gloom.
I became aware of a vague white figure standing out from the sombre
background some little distance off. Presently it seemed to sink
downwards and assume formlessness. My route back to the camp took me
within perhaps a dozen yards of it. A nearer view disclosed a man, whose
bent back was turned to me, making his solitary evening prayer to God.
Alone. Yet not alone, perhaps.
That night I passed through my sleeping camp at the foot of the giant
_bombax_, bathed in the silvery beams of a full moon shining out of a
velvet sky; and trod the road again, trying to puzzle it out.
What does the word “religious” mean, I wonder? This white-robed figure of
a man was religious as one generally interprets the word. Yet we are to
suppose that he really wasn’t, because his religion is not the religion
we, in Europe, practise. But is that what “religious” infers? One kind of
religion?
What a queer mixture the Anglo-Saxon is. Probably it would be impossible
to convince the average Englishman that the African is a more religious
being than himself; or that there is anything incongruous in himself,
the Englishman, being at one and the same time the Imperialist ruler of
these dark races and their spiritual uplifter. And yet, to what vital
extent do spiritual influences mould the society or the policy of Europe?
Has not religion—official religion—there taken upon itself very largely
the character of a social force, and lost its spiritual significance?
Is not its whole trend social rather than spiritual? Has Europe, in any
racial sense, an inner spiritual life, as has the East? The “law of
Christ,” says the Church, in the matter of relations between the sexes
_everywhere_, commands monogamy. But the law of Christ commands, in a
far more definite manner than any words that may be culled from His
sayings in regard to this, many other things which the religion of Europe
absolutely, entirely, and wholly ignores, because the customs of Europe
and the laws of Europe, and the social life of Europe do not square with
it.
I was told the other day that a great Emir in these parts was informed of
the intended visit—this happened some years ago—of a great White _Mallam_
who was coming to uplift the spiritual life of the people. The Emir and
his councillors looked over the wide plain. “Surely,” they said to one
another, “as the White man is so strong in war, so cunning in invention,
so mighty in knowledge, then the White man’s _Mallam_ must be very, very
near to _Allah_.” Soon they saw a cloud of dust. Marvelling somewhat,
the Emir, nevertheless, sent out messengers. The messengers sped swiftly
onwards. They looked for a solitary figure, the figure of an ascetic,
bearing stamped upon features, lined and worn with thought, and in gaunt
form, the imprint of holiness; in whose eye, illumined with the fire of
inspiration, they would read intimate communing with God. What they saw
was a long file of weary carriers, conveying boxes full of food, drink,
apparel, and camp furniture. Behind them, quite an ordinary looking
White man on horseback. “Is this the great White preacher?” they asked
the interpreter, who headed the caravan. “Is this the _Mallam_ who is
to uplift our souls?” “Even so,” replied the interpreter. So two of the
Emir’s messengers off-saddled, and when the preacher came along they
bowed low, as is the custom of the country. But the third messenger had
turned back. He prostrated himself before the Emir, and he told what he
had seen.
The Emir drew his flowing cloak a little closer round him, for the sun
was about to set, and the air grew chill. Then he turned himself towards
Mecca, and lowered his forehead in the dust, followed by his councillors.
It is difficult to write plainly of Christian missionary effort in
West Africa. The individual missionary may be an influence for good in
the best sense. He may not be. He does not go into the country to make
money. He is, as a rule, singularly selfless. His life is often, perhaps
generally, a work of essential self-sacrifice. In the category of human
motives gravitating towards West Africa, his, it must be conceded,
takes front rank. Than the apostolic missionary there is no grander
figure, whether in West Africa or elsewhere. But it is the genesis of
the effort, not the man, that most counts fundamentally. If the effort
itself is out of perspective the work of the individual must feel the
effect. I say it is difficult to write about missionary effort. It seems
to be regarded as taboo. You must not touch it lest you hurt people’s
feelings. But nowadays, one sphere of human activity cannot be ruled out
of discussion, Christian effort out here seems to me to have forgotten in
many cases that Christ was the servant of the people, not their master.
It is intolerant of native customs; native religions irritate it; native
law it regards with contempt. I walked one evening along the Niger banks
with a missionary. We passed some native huts. In one was a fetish with a
votive offering at its feet. My companion jerked his stick disdainfully
towards the object, and with scorn in his voice declaimed against the
“idol.” Yet he knew, or ought to have known, that it was not the thing of
wood that was worshipped, but its indwelling spirit. That gesture was so
characteristic of much one sees and hears out here. I exclude the Roman
Catholics from that remark. Amongst them I have met the broad, tolerant
spirit of generosity and true kindliness of heart. I can hear now the
cheery, warm-hearted, jovial laughter of the Onitsha priests, their
sunniness, their infecting optimism.
There is so much that is dark and dismal about this missionary effort,
inwardly I mean. All the African world is black to it, black with
sin, black with lust, black with cruelty. And there is its besetting
misfortune—it is alien. It preaches an alien God; a White God, not a
Black God. The God that is imported here has nothing African about Him.
How can He appeal to Africa?
I saw a week ago in an English paper (about two months old) that there
is to be a crusade against Islam in Nigeria. Emissaries are to come out
and check this poisonous growth. That, too, is very strange to read ...
out here, as one listens to the call to God in the evening, and in the
morning, pealing out to the stars. These people are worshipping the God
of Africa. It seems they ought to worship the God of Europe; and yet
there is more evidence of spiritual influence out here, than in our great
congested cities. With the cry of the African priest, the faithful bows
his body to the earth—out here. The day before I left England, I heard
the bells ringing out in an old cathedral city. Their note was both
beautiful and sad. It was a spacious building, arched and vaulted, noble
in proportions. It might easily have held seven hundred worshippers.
There were many people in the streets. Yet, when the bells had ceased to
ring, there were less than a dozen worshippers within.
Yes, it is a great puzzle.
All is silent in the camp. The fires have gone out. Over the thatched
roofs the _bombax_ towers upwards to the majestic heavens. The whole
countryside is flooded with a soft, delicate effulgence, and the Great
White Road appears as a broad ribbon of intenser light, winding away,
away into the infinite beyond.
It is eleven o’clock. One wonders if London is looking quite so spiritual
just now, with its flaming lights, its emptying theatres, its streets
thronged with jostling, restless crowds.
CHAPTER VI
A RAGOÛT OF THINGS SEEN AND FELT
Some things detach themselves, as it were, from the general background,
rooting themselves in memory. Such, the rise in the road beyond which
the first of the great Mohammedan towns of the north lay concealed.
Bida, the capital of the Nupes, the centre of an active trade, known
for its handsomely embossed, if unsubstantial, brassware; known, too,
for its rough glass bangles of black or dull blue, made out of nothing
more romantic than old bottles melted in native furnaces kept going by
the blowers who, when the stuff is sufficiently liquid, twirl it round a
stick until the desired shape is attained; known, too, for its special
species of kola—the _labozhi_, highly esteemed throughout Nigeria,
requiring shade and a rich, deep loamy soil to bring it to perfection.
Until the British occupation the cultivation and sale of the _labozhi_
kola were the prerogative of the ruler, the Emir, who must now be content
with a tenth of the crop, and let his subjects have a chance. Past a
Fulani cattle encampment; past flat country covered with rice fields;
past rustling fields of guinea corn ready for the cutter, with heads
towering eleven feet in height; past clumps and dotted specimens of shea
butter trees, in the branches of many of which are fixed calabashes for
the bees; past the weird red clay monuments of the white ants dotting the
plain; along the rough pitted, red dusty road, and so on until the rise.
And then, between us and the rambling city, with its decaying walls, its
wide central avenue, and its umbrageous trees, its masses of blue robed
men and women with their henna-dyed teeth and picturesque head-dress, a
cloud of dust, and borne down the wind blowing towards us the blare of
trumpets and the rattle of drums.
[Illustration: DUG-OUT ON THE KADUNA MANNED BY NUPES.]
[Illustration: “SILHOUETTING PERCHANCE A GROUP OF PALMS.”]
The great Mamodu himself, once a notorious slave raider and the
perpetrator of innumerable infamies, has elected to ride out and meet us.
Surrounded by two or three dozen notables and officers of his household,
by a scarlet and green robed bodyguard, by four mounted drummers and
two mounted trumpeters; ambling gently beneath a large umbrella of many
colours held over his head by an attendant, and clad from head to foot
in green-grey robes, with a turban of the same colour, Mamodu’s tall,
powerful figure and olive complexion—a Nupe with Fulani blood—emerges
from the crowd. Trumpets—long thin trumpets blown lustily and not
inharmoniously—blare, drums beat, horses curvet and try to bite one
another’s necks. Mamodu and his escort dismount and do their _gaisua_
(salutation). We dismount also, advance, shake hands, and become the
target for a hundred pairs of dark pupils in bloodshot, whitish-yellow
balls, which glare at us over the lower part of dark blue turbans swathed
across chin and mouth and nose, while the introduction formally proceeds
to the accompaniment of many a guttural “_Ah! Um, Um, Um!_” At a word
from the stalwart gentleman in grey we could be cut down in a couple of
minutes with these long, fierce, leather-sheathed swords which hang at
every hip. In point of fact, we are a great deal safer on this African
road than we should be crossing Trafalgar Square. Presently we shall see
the process, here conducted by one Englishman—trusted, and even liked for
his own sake, by the people—aided by an assistant, of turning _ci-devant_
slavers and warriors into administrators. In his work this Englishman
relies for the pomp and panoply of power upon three policemen, one of
whom is old and decrepit. The Bida division covers 5,000 square miles,
and Bida itself counts 35,000 souls. The facts suggest a thought or two.
* * * * *
A long, broad stretch of golden sands. Winding through them the clear
green water of the reduced Kaduna. Several dug-outs, manned by Nupes,
magnificent specimens of muscular development, cross backwards and
forwards with men, women, and children conveying wares to market. Small
mites, naked and tubby, splash and rollick about on the water’s edge.
Lower down stream fishermen are getting out their nets, and, at a
shallow ford, shepherds are piloting a flock of sheep across, from whose
scattered ranks a chorus of loud bleating arises. A file of pack donkeys
stream across the sands to the village on the opposite bank. We watch the
sight from the foot of a great tree, from which hang sundry charms, and
as we sit there—it is a rendezvous, it seems, and a small market-place
in its way—several young women stroll towards us bearing wares in grass
platters which they spread close to us on the ground, conversing in low
tones broken now and again by the jolly African laughter—the mirth of the
child of nature with few cares and fewer responsibilities. The winding
river, the golden sands, the blue sky, the two villages—one on either
side of the crossing—with their conical thatched roofs, the green of the
trees and of the water, the peaceful, quiet human life, combine to make
as pretty and as harmonious a picture as you would wish to see.
* * * * *
Tramp, tramp, tramp! The stamping of innumerable feet. The murmur of
innumerable voices. The waving of arms, the jangle of iron anklets, and
the rising cloud of dust beneath the trampling of bare toes. The dancers
range themselves in a wide circle, which slowly revolves in the light of
the moon, now lighting up this part, anon the other part, giving a grey
and ghostly look to the naked shoulders and close-cropped heads. _Aah!
Aah! Aah!_ The chant rises and falls, monotonous, barbaric. Bracelets and
anklets, amulets and charms clash and clang again as the wearers thereof
bend this way and that, crouching, stooping, flinging the upper part of
their bodies backwards, raising high the knee and bringing down the leg
with thunderous stamp, shaking themselves from head to foot like a dog
emerging from his bath. Naked bodies, but for a strip of jagged leather
falling athwart the hips; naked, lithe bodies on which the moon sheds her
beams. _Aah! Aah! Aah!_
And with it the sound of the drum, the everlasting drum; stimulus to
labour, spirit of the dance, dirge at the death-bed, call to the feast,
frenzy-lasher at the religious ceremonial, medium of converse, warner of
peril, bearer of news, telephone and telegraph in one. Go where you will,
you cannot escape the drum—where human life is. The everlasting drum
which heralds the setting sun, which ushers in the morn, which troubles
your sleep and haunts your dreams. Borne across the silent waters,
booming through the sombre forest, rising from the murmuring town,
cheering on the railway cutters—the fascinating, tedious, mysterious,
maddening, attractive, symbolic, inevitable, everlasting African drum.
* * * * *
I suppose they must be thirsty like every other living thing in the
glare of the sun and the heat of the sky and the dust of the track,
for they crowd thick and fast about the _kurimi_, the narrow belt of
vegetation (a blessed sight in the “dries”) where the stream cuts
the road. _Pieridæ_ with white and yellow wings; _Lycaenæ_ shot with
amethyst and azure; _Theklas_, too, or what I take for such, with long,
fragile, waving extremities, infinitely beautiful. Now and then a black
and green _Papilio_, flashing silver from his under wing, harbinger of
spring. Or some majestic, swift-flying _Charaxes_ with broad and white
band on a centre of russet brown—not the _castor_, alas! nor yet the
_pollux_—I have yet to live to see _them_ afloat ’neath the African sun.
Narrow veins of muddy ooze trickle from the well-nigh dried-up bed.
And here they congregate in swarms, proboscis thrust into the nectar,
pumping, pumping up the liquid, fluttering and jostling one another for
preferential places even as you may see the moths do on the “treacles” at
home. The butterfly world is much like the human world after all in its
egotism.
But if you want to see it at its best, plunge into the cool forest glades
before the sun has attained his _maximum_ (when even the butterflies
rest) and watch the green and gold _Euphædra_ dodging in and about the
broad green leaves or tangled creepers. See him spread his glorious
panoply where that fitful sunbeam has somehow managed to pierce the
vault. A sight for the dear gods, I tell you—is the _Euphædra_ sunning
himself on a Niger forest path. Men and politics become as small fry.
The right perspective asserts itself. You almost forget the beastly,
clogging, mentally muddling helmet (how the Almighty has blessed the
African by granting him a thick skull which he can carry on his neck,
shaved—shaved, mind you (the bliss of it even in thought!),—and as clean
as a billiard ball at that) as you watch the _Euphædra_, and absorb the
countless other delights the forest contains, foremost amongst them
silence, silence from humans at least. “These are the best days of my
life. These are my golden days.”
* * * * *
The floods have fallen and a thousand dark forms are building up the
muddy, slippery banks against the next invasion, with saplings rough
hewn in the forest; the men chopping and adjusting these defences, the
women carrying up earth from below in baskets. Beneath, the fishermen
are making fast their canoes and spreading out their nets to dry—all
kinds of nets, ordinary cast nets, nets resembling gigantic hoops, stiff
nets encased in wood somewhat after the pattern of the coracle. The broad
river fades away into the evening haze. For the swift wings of night
are already felt, and the sun has just dropped behind the curtain of
implacable forest.
One by one, in twos and threes, in struggling groups, the workers
scramble up the slope on to the path—or what remains of it from the
floods—which skirts the village. It grows dark. One is vaguely aware of
many naked, shadowy, mostly silent figures on every side of one; wending
their way along the path, or flitting in and out among the houses. Eyes
flash out of the semi-obscurity which is replete with the heavy, dank
odour of African humanity when African humanity has been busily at work.
In the open doorways a multitude of little fires spring into life, and
with them the smell of aromatic wood. The evening meal is in preparation,
and presently tired and naked limbs will stretch themselves to the warmth
with a sense of comfort. The lament of a child serves to remind you how
seldom these Niger babies cry.
And now it is the turn of the fireflies to glow forth. Thick as bees,
they carpet the ground on every marshy spot where the reeds grow—vivid,
sentient gems. Patches of emeralds: but emeralds endowed with life;
emeralds with an ambient flame lighting them from within. They hover
above the ground like delicate will-o’-the-wisps. They float impalpable,
illusive, unearthly beautiful in the still night air, as some rare and
fleeting dream of immortality, some incarnation of transcendent joy
towards which dull clay stretches forth arms everlastingly impotent.
[Illustration: THE HOE-DANCERS. (THE HOE-DANCE IS A HAUSA AGRICULTURAL
DANCE OF GREAT ANTIQUITY.)]
CHAPTER VII
THE SALLAH AT ZARIA
All Zaria is astir, for this is December, the sacred month, the month
when the pilgrims to Mecca are offering sacrifices, and to-day the Sallah
celebrations begin. At an early hour masses of men began to swarm out of
the great Hausa city, dressed in their best gowns, driving before them
bullocks, sheep, and goats to be sacrificed on the hill—even Kofena,
the hill of many legends, the old centre of Hausa “rock worship,”
beyond the city walls—to the sound of invocations to Almighty God.
For days beforehand people have been pouring in from the villages in
the surrounding plain. Long files of oxen, sheep, and goats have been
passing through the gates. Every household has been busy getting together
presents for friends, making provision for poor relations, bringing
forth the finest contents of their wardrobes, preparing succulent dishes
for entertainment. Every class of the population has been filled with
eager anticipation, agriculturists and weavers, blacksmiths and tanners,
dyers and shoemakers. The barbers have plied an active trade, and the
butchers likewise. Every face has worn a smile, and the hum of human
life has been more insistent than usual. A city of great antiquity
this, boasting a long line of fifty-eight Hausa kings before the Fulani
dynasty arose, and thirteen since that event early in last century. It
rises out of an enormous plain, cultivated for many miles around, dotted
here and there with fantastic piles of granite, resembling mediæval
castles. Its reddish clay walls, crumbling in parts, twenty to thirty
feet high in others, and many feet in thickness at the base, enclose a
sea of compounds and tortuous picturesque streets, above which wave the
fan-palms, the paw-paw, the beautiful locust-bean tree, and the graceful
tamarind. In the plain itself the gigantic _rimi_, or cotton tree, is
a conspicuous landmark, and its rugged staunchness is the subject of
a legend uncomplimentary to the ladies of Zaria: _Rimayin Zaria sun
fi matan Zaria alkawali_, meaning that the old _rimi_ trees are more
dependable than the fickle beauties of the town.
But the outstanding feature of the day approaches. It is ten o’clock,
and the procession from Kofena hill is winding its way back again to
the city. Here the Emir will arrive in state after the performance of
his religious devoirs, and will address his people. Here, in the great
open square flanking the mosque, the district chiefs and notables will
charge down upon him in the traditional “jaffi,” or mounted salute.
As we enter the gates of the city, after a two miles canter from the
Residency down a long and dusty road, we find almost deserted streets.
Every one is congregating in the square. Soon we enter into it, to
see a vast concourse of people clothed in white and blue. They form a
living foreground to the walls on either side of the Emir’s residence,
which stands at one extremity of the square. Around the mosque, on the
left, they are as thick as bees, and, opposite the mosque, some broken
hillocky ground is covered with a multitude. At its further extremity
the square narrows into the road leading through the city to Kofena, and
towards the opening of this road as it debouches into the square all eyes
are directed. The brilliant sun of tropical Africa smites downwards,
giving a hard line to lights and shadows, and throwing everything into
bold relief. With the exception of a few denationalised Hausa wives
of our own soldiers, the crowd is exclusively one of men and youths,
for, according to custom, the women will not put in an appearance until
later in the day. We three White men,—the Resident, much respected, and
wise with the wisdom which comes of long years of experience of this
fascinating country, and with a knowledge of Mohammedan law which fills
the wisest _mallams_ with astonishment—his assistant, and the writer take
our stand on the right of the Emir’s residence. Behind us a few mounted
men in gallant array, and immediately on our left a charming group of
the Emir’s sons, or some of them, in costly robes of satin. One little
fellow, eight years old, perhaps, with a light olive complexion, glances
rather bored looks from under a snow-white turban. Another rather bigger
boy, clad in dark yellow satin, is an imposing figure.
[Illustration: THE “JAFFI,” OR MOUNTED SALUTE.]
A deep “Ah” comes from the throats of the assembled thousands as the
blare of trumpets resounds faintly in the distance, and a cloud of
dust rises from the road. From out of it there emerge a dozen horsemen
charging down the square at break-neck speed, their right arms raised,
their multi-coloured robes flying out behind them. With a shout they rein
up their steeds in front of the Emir’s residence, then wheel swiftly, and
are off again whence they came—the _avant-garde_ of the procession. The
sound of drums and trumpets gets louder. The head of the procession comes
in sight, or, to be more accurate, the dust solidifies itself into a
compact mass, flashing and glittering with a thousand shades. First, many
hundreds walking on foot, who, as they enter the square, deploy right
and left and mingle with the waiting crowd. Behind them more horsemen
detach themselves and gallop towards us, backwards and forwards. Each
man is dressed according to his own particular fancy. Some in red, some
in blue, some in white, some in green, others in vivid yellows, but most
of them, it would seem, wearing half a dozen different colours at the
same time, both as to robes and turbans. Their leather boots, thrust
into shovel-headed stirrups, are embroidered with red and green; their
saddle-cloths and bridles are also richly embroidered and tasselled.
The majority, we observe, wear long cross-handled swords in leather
scabbards. Some carry thin spears in their hands; one fierce-looking
warrior a battle-axe. He seems to have stepped out of the Middle Ages
does this particular chief, his horse wearing a metalled protection
as in the old days of the Crusaders. But the heart of the procession,
moving up slowly, puts an end to these evolutions, and the horsemen range
themselves up on either side of the Emir’s residence, their gallant
beasts, curvetting and prancing as the “Ah” of the crowd changes into a
great roar of sound. As a trial of patience I commend the effort to take
a photograph over the ears of a horse who is making strenuous efforts to
stand up on its hind legs, while a fine and smarting white dust rises in
clouds, entering eyes and mouth, and all round you are people in a fine
frenzy of excitement, mingled with apprehension, lest your mount takes
it into his head to ride amuck in the midst of them, which he has every
appearance of wishing to do.
Rattle, rattle, come the drums, mingled with the long-drawn-out notes
of the tin or silver trumpets. Suddenly a loud shout arises, a shout
of merriment, as a monstrous figure, clad in skins of beasts, and,
apparently, hung round with bladders, in his hand a long stick, dashes
out of the advancing throng, clearing the intervening space between it
and the Emir’s residence in a succession of frantic bounds. This is the
Court fool, and his appearance is quite in setting with the piece. For
this whole scene is a scene out of the Arabian Nights, and, really, one
would hardly be astonished at the appearance of Jins, or even of Eblis
himself. At last, here is the Emir and his immediate bodyguard, and
the drummers and the trumpeters. The air resounds with prolonged “Ah!
Ah! Ahs.” There is a vast tossing of arms, and prancing of horses, and
glittering of spears, a climax of sound and colour—and dust.
[Illustration: THE EMIR OF ZARIA.]
[Illustration: THE EMIR OF KATSINA.]
The Emir Aliu is a fine looking man, with a good straight nose,
intelligent, rather cruel-looking eyes. His mouth we cannot see, for
the folds of the turban are drawn across the lower part of his face. A
dark, indigo-dyed purple turban and under-cloak; over it a snow-white
robe of silk with a tasselled cape which half hides the turban—these
are the principal coverings to voluminous robes of many tints. His feet
are encased in beautifully embroidered boots, and his saddle is richly
ornamented. On the forefinger of his left hand is a heavy silver ring.
Halting, he turns and faces the multitude. His attendants, one on either
side, wave the dust away from his face with ostrich feather fans. Others,
dressed in red and green, and carrying long staves, range themselves in
front of him and shout his praises in stentorian tones. Four figures
on foot advance, three of them are clad in skins and carry drums. The
fourth is a crouching creature with a curious wizened face bearing a
drawn sword in his hand. A sword dance ensues, the four going round and
round in a circle. The gentleman with a sword contorts himself, prods
viciously at imaginary foes, and every now and then makes a playful
attempt to smite off one of the drummers’ legs. This performance being
terminated—accompanied the while by incessant shouting on the part of
every one in general—the actors retire, and the Emir holds up his thin
aristocratic hand.
Instantly a silence falls. The change is singularly impressive. The Emir
begins to speak in a low voice to a herald mounted on a raised platform
at his side. The herald, the perspiration pouring down his face, shouts
out each sentence as it falls from the Emir’s lips. As the speech
proceeds the Emir becomes more animated. He waves his arm with a gesture
full of dignity and command. And now the silence is occasionally broken
with sounds of approval. Finally he stops, and it is the turn of the
Resident who smilingly delivers himself of a much shorter oration which,
as in the previous case, is shouted to the assemblage by the herald.
I was able to obtain, through the courtesy of the Resident, from the
Emir’s _Waziri_ a rendering of the speech of which the following is a
translation—
“The Emir greets you all with thanks to God. He thanks God’s
messenger (Mohammed). He gives thanks for the blessings of his
parents and his ancestors. He gives thanks to the Europeans who
are the gates of his town. He thanks all White men. Next—you
must attend to the orders which the Emir gives you every year.
I say unto you leave off double dealing. Remove your hand
from the people. Let them follow their own courses. Separate
yourselves from injustice. Why do I say ‘Give up injustice’?
You know how we were in former days and you see how we are now.
Are we not better off than formerly? Next—I thank my headmen
who assist me in my work. I thank my servants who are fellow
workers. I thank my young chiefs who are fellow workers. I
thank the men of my town who are fellow workers. I thank my
followers in the town. I thank the village heads. I thank
all the people of the land of Zaria who are helping me in my
work. Next—I wish you to pay attention to the commands of the
English. And I say unto you that all who see them should pay
them respect. He who is careless of the orders of the White
man does not show them respect. Though nothing happens to
him he cries on his own account (_i.e._ his stupidity is his
punishment), for it is his ignorance that moves him. Next—every
one who farms let him pay his tax. Every one who says this man
is my slave, or this woman is my slave, or these people are my
slaves, and uses force against them, let judgment fall upon
him. What I say is this—may God reward us! May God give us
peace in our land! May God give us the abundance of the earth!
Amen. Those who feel joyful can say—‘This is our desire! this
is our desire!’”
After a vain attempt to shake hands with the Emir, our respective mounts
altogether declining to assist, we ride out of the town escorted by a
couple of hundred horsemen. A little way past the gates we halt while
they, riding forward a hundred yards or so, wheel, and charge down upon
us with a shout, reining their horses with a sudden jerk, so near to us
that the ensanguined foam from the cruel bits bespatters us.
As we ride home to the Residency two miles out of the town, uppermost
in the mind at least of one of us is the fascination of this strange
land, with its blending of Africa and the East, its barbaric displays,
its industrial life, its wonderful agricultural development—above all,
perhaps, the _tour de force_ of governing it with a handful of White
officials and a handful of native troops.
PART II
SOUTHERN NIGERIA
[Illustration: MAP OF SOUTHERN NIGERIA SHOWING THE THREE PROVINCES.]
CHAPTER I
NIGERIA’S CLAIM UPON PUBLIC ATTENTION
Nigeria is a geographical expression applied to a territory in West
Africa which by successive stages, covering a period of more than one
hundred years, under circumstances widely differing in character and
incentive, and almost wholly as the result of the initial enterprise
of British explorers and merchants, has passed under the protection of
Britain. With the discovery of Nigeria are associated exploits which
for romantic interest and personal achievements hold a prominent place
in British exploring records. The angry swirl of the Bussa rapids must
ever recall the well-nigh superhuman achievements of Mungo Park, as the
marvellous creeks and channels of the Niger Delta evoke the memory of
Richard Lander[2] and John Beecroft.
You cannot visit the Court of the Emir of Kano without remembering
Clapperton’s account of the awkward religious conundrums with which
the gallant sailor, the first European to enter that fascinating
African city, was amazed and confounded by one of the present Emir’s
predecessors; nor ride over the wide and dusty road into the heart of
Hausaland without thinking that but for Joseph Thomson’s diplomatic
tact in negotiating the early treaties with its potentates, which were
to pave the way for the statesmanship of a Taubman-Goldie and the
organising genius of a Lugard, Nigeria would to-day be the brightest
jewel in the West African Empire of the French. The spirit of MacGregor
Laird, the hardy pioneer who laid the first foundations of British
commerce in this country seems to hover over the broad bosom of the
Niger. The marvellous panorama that unfolds itself before your eyes
at Lokoja (the confluence of the Niger with its tributary the Benue)
conjures up the heroism and tragedy of the Allan-Trotter expedition;
while to negotiate in a dug-out the currents that eddy round the famous
_ju-ju_ rock—still termed Baikie’s Seat—is a reminder that somewhere
in the blue depths below lie the remains of Dr. Baikie’s ill-fated
_Day-spring_.
This land is, indeed, a land rich in heroic memories to men of British
blood. It is the more astonishing that so little appears to be known by
the general public either of its past or, what is much more important, of
the many complex problems connected with its administration.
* * * * *
Nigeria is, at present, arbitrarily divided into two units, “Southern”
and “Northern;” the division corresponds with the historical events
which have distinguished the assumption of British control, and is
to that extent inevitable. But to-day, with internal communications
and administrative control rapidly extending, this situation presents
many drawbacks. In the absence of any considered scheme of general
constructive policy laid down at home, the existence of two separate
Governments with ideals necessarily influenced by the personal
idiosyncrasies of frequently changing heads in a territory geographically
united, through which the channels of a singularly intensive internal
trade have flowed for centuries, must of necessity tend to promote
divergencies in the treatment of public questions, and, therefore,
create numerous difficulties for the future. I propose to deal with this
subject in greater detail later on.
[Illustration: JU-JU ISLAND NEAR JEBBA.
(_Photo by Mr. E. Firmin._)]
[Illustration: SHIPPING PALM-OIL ON THE NIGER AT HIGH WATER.]
Meantime it would seem necessary at the outset to emphasize two facts
which the public mind does not appear to have realized. The first is
that Nigeria, both in size and in population, is not only the most
considerable of our tropical dependencies in Africa, but is the most
considerable and the wealthiest of all our tropical dependencies (India,
of course, excepted). Embracing an area of 332,960 square miles, Nigeria
is thus equal in size to the German Empire, Italy and Holland, while
its population, though not yet ascertained with accuracy, can hardly
amount to less than fifteen millions, being double that of British East
Africa and Uganda with Nyassaland thrown in, and nearly three times as
numerous as the native population comprised in the South African Union.
The second is that nowhere else in tropical or sub-tropical Africa is
the British administrator faced, at least on a large scale, with a
Mohammedan population, already to be counted in millions and increasing
year by year with significant rapidity. Until a few years ago the work
of Great Britain in West Africa, apart from a few trifling exceptions,
was confined to the administration of the Pagan Negro. The position is
very different now. In the southern regions of the Protectorate, where
its progression is a modern phenomenon, Islam is, from the administrative
point of view, a purely social factor. But in the northern regions, where
Mohammedan rule has been established for centuries, under the Hausas, and
in more recent times under the Fulani, Islam has brought its laws, its
taxation, its schools and its learning. It is there a political as well
as a religious and social force, solidly entrenched. This fact which,
administratively speaking, need not alarm us—unless the Administration
is goaded into adopting a hostile attitude towards its Mohammedan
subjects—does, however, invest Nigeria with an additional interest of its
own and does supply a further reason why the affairs of this greatest of
our African protectorates should receive more intelligent consideration
and study at the hands of the public than it has enjoyed hitherto.
CHAPTER II
THE NIGER DELTA
What is now known as Southern Nigeria comprises 77,200 square miles,
and includes the whole seaboard of the Nigerian Protectorate, some 450
miles long, and the marvellous delta region whose network of waterways
and surpassing wealth in economic products must be seen to be realized.
Pursuing its southward course, the Niger, after its journey of 2,550
miles across the continent from west to east, bifurcates just below
Abo into the Forcados and the Nun. This is the apex of the delta, and
here the Niger is, indeed, majestic. From each of these main channels
of discharge spring countless others, turning and twisting in fantastic
contours until the whole country is honeycombed to such an extent
as to become converted into an interminable series of islands. The
vastness of the horizon, the maze of interlacing streams and creeks,
winding away into infinity, the sombre-coloured waters, the still more
sombre unpenetrable mangrove forests—here and there relieved by taller
growth—impress one with a sense of awe. There is something mysterious,
unfathomable, almost terrifying in the boundless prospect, the dead
uniformity of colour, the silence of it all. It is the primeval world,
and man seems to have no place therein.
Small wonder that amidst such natural phenomena, where in the tornado
season which presages the rains the sky is rent with flashes only less
terrific than the echoing peals of thunder, where the rushing wind hurls
forest giants to earth and lashes the waters into fury, where for months
on end torrential downpours fall until man has no dry spot upon which he
can place his foot; where nature in its most savage mood wages one long
relentless war with man, racking his body with fevers and with ague, now
invading his farms with furious spreading plant life, now swamping his
dwelling-place—small wonder the inhabitants of this country have not kept
pace with the progression of more favoured sections of the human race.
It is, on the contrary, astonishing, his circumstances being what they
are, that the native of the Niger delta should have developed as keen a
commercial instinct as can be met with anywhere on the globe, and that
through his voluntary labours, inspired by the necessities and luxuries
of barter, he should be contributing so largely to supply the oils, fats,
and other tropical products which Western industrialism requires. Trade
with the outer world which the merchant—himself working under conditions
of supreme discomfort, and in constant ill-health—has brought; improved
means of communication through the clearing and mapping of creeks
and channels, thereby giving accessibility to new markets which the
Administration is yearly creating—these are the civilizing agents of the
Niger delta, the only media whereby its inhabitants can hope to attain to
a greater degree of ease and a wider outlook.
The outer fringe of the delta is composed entirely of mangrove swamps,
whose skeleton-like roots rise up from the mud as the tide recedes, and
from whose bark the natives obtain, by burning, a substitute for salt.
For untold centuries the mangrove would appear to have been encroaching
upon the sea, the advance guard of more substantial vegetation springing
up behind it with the gradual increase of deposits affording root-depth.
Apart from the deltaic system proper, produced by the bifurcation of
the Niger and its subsequent efforts to reach the ocean, the seaboard
is pierced by several rivers, of which the Cross, navigable for stern
wheelers of light draught in the wet season for 240 miles and in the
dry for forty, is the most important. The Benin River links up with the
deltaic system on the east, and on the west with the lagoon system of
Lagos, into which several rivers of no great volume, such as the Ogun
and Oshun, discharge themselves. So continuous and extensive are these
interior waterways that communication by canoe, and even by light-draught
launches, is possible from one end of the seaboard to the other—_i.e._,
from Lagos to Old Calabar.
The mangrove region is sparsely populated by fishing and trading tribes.
It is curious to come across signs of human life when you would hardly
suspect its possible presence. A gap in the whitened, spreading roots,
a tunnelled passage beyond, a canoe or two at the opening; or, resting
upon sticks and carefully roofed, a miniature hut open on all sides, in
which reposes some votive offering, such are the only indications that
somewhere in the vicinity a village lies hidden. A visit to some such
village holds much to surprise. Diligent search has revealed to the
intending settler that the particular spot selected contains, it may
be a hundred yards or so from the water, a patch of firm land where,
doubtless with much difficulty, a crop of foodstuffs can be raised, and
here he and his family will lead their primitive existence isolated from
the outer world, except when they choose to enter it on some trading
expedition. Further inland somewhat, as for instance, near the opening of
the Warri creek (whose upper reaches, bordered with cocoanut palms, oil
palms, and ferns, are a dream of beauty), one of the many off-shoots of
the Forcados, where behind the fringe of mangroves the forest has begun
to secure a steady grip, neatly kept and prosperous villages are more
numerous. Their denizens are busy traders and there are plentiful signs
of surface civilization. An expedition in canoes to the chief of one of
these Jekri villages led us from a little landing stage cut out of the
mangroves and cleverly timbered along a beaten path through smelling mud,
alive with tiny crabs and insect life of strange and repulsive form,
into a clearing scrupulously clean, bordered with paw-paw trees and
containing some twenty well-built huts. A large dug-out was in process
of completion beneath a shed; fishing-nets were hanging out to dry; a
small _ju-ju_ house with votive offerings ornamented the centre of the
village green, as one might say; a few goats wandered aimlessly about,
and a score of naked tubby children gazed open-eyed or clung round their
mothers’ knees in affected panic. Beyond the _ju-ju_ house a one-storeyed
bungalow with corrugated iron roof and verandah unexpectedly reared its
ugly proportions, and before long we were discussing the much vexed
question of the liquor traffic over a bottle of ginger ale across a
table covered by a European cloth, with an intelligent Jekri host, whose
glistening muscular body, naked to the waist, contrasted oddly with the
surroundings. These included a coloured print of the late King Edward
hanging upon the walls in company with sundry illustrated advertisements
all rejoicing in gorgeous frames. The walls of the vestibule below were
similarly adorned, and through a half-open door one perceived a ponderous
wooden bed with mattress, sheets, pillows, and gaudy quilt (in such a
climate!) complete.
The deltaic region is the real home of the oil palm with its numerous
and still unclassified varieties, although it extends some distance
beyond in proportionately lessening quantities as you push north. No
other tree in the world can compare with the oil palm in the manifold
benefits it confers upon masses of men. Occurring in tens of millions,
reproducing itself so freely that the natives often find it necessary
to thin out the youngest trees, it is a source of inexhaustible wealth
to the people, to the country, to commerce, and to the Administration.
The collection, preparation, transport, and sale of its fruit, both oil
and kernels for the export trade is the paramount national industry of
Southern Nigeria, in which men, women, and children play their allotted
parts. Beautiful to look upon, hoary with antiquity (its sap was used in
ancient Egypt for cleansing the body before embalment), the oil palm is
put to endless uses by the natives—its leaves and branches as roofing
material, for clothing, for the manufacture of nets, mats, and baskets;
its fruit and covering fibre in various forms for food (not disdained
by the resident European in the famous palm oil chop), for light, for
fuel. To the Southern Nigerian native inhabiting the oil-palm area the
tree is, indeed, domestically indispensable, while its product represents
something like 90 per cent. of his purchasing capacity in trade. How
entirely wrong would be any attempt at restricting his free enjoyment of
its bounties needs no emphasizing. The importance of the export trade
in the products of the oil palm may be gauged by the returns for 1910,
which show that Southern Nigeria exported 172,998 tons of kernels and
76,850 tons of oil, of a total value of no less than £4,193,049; and yet
the capacities of the trade, especially in kernels, are only in their
infancy.[3] Many districts, rich in oil palms are unproductive owing to
inaccessibility of markets or lack of transport; in others which supply
oil, the kernels, for sundry reasons, among which insufficiency of
labour to spare from farming operations no doubt predominates, are not
collected, although it is commonly reckoned that three tons of kernels
should be available for every ton of oil. In considering these figures,
realizing the future potentialities of the trade, and realizing, too,
the truly enormous sum of African labour which it represents (every nut
is cracked by hand to extract the kernel), one cannot but reflect upon
the foolish generalities which ascribe “idleness” to the West African
negro, whose free labour in this trade alone gives employment directly
and indirectly to tens of thousands in England and in Europe, from the
merchant and his clerks, from the steamship owner and his _employés_ on
land and sea, to the manufacturer of soap and candles and their allied
trades; from the coopers who turn out the casks sent out from England in
staves for the conveyance of the oil, to the Irish peasants who collect
the stems of the common sedge shipped out to Nigeria from Liverpool for
caulking these casks.
The bulk of the oil is exported to England (£1,191,000 value in 1909),
but nearly the entire kernel crop goes to Germany, where it is treated
by the big crushing mills. It is possible that this state of affairs
may undergo considerable change within the next decade, and the reason
for it is, incidentally, of considerable economic interest, as it is of
moment to Nigeria. Up to within three or four years ago palm kernels
were crushed and the oil almost entirely used by the soap trade, but
chemistry has now found a process of refining and making palm-_kernel_
oil edible, as it may, perhaps, do some day for palm oil itself, as a
base for margarine, for which coprah and ground-nut oil were formerly
employed. This has had as a consequence an enormous widening of the home
market, and the soap trade has now to contend with keen competition for
the supply of one of its staples. The resultant effect is the initiative
of Lever Brothers (Limited), who, finding the need of enlarging and
giving increased security to their supplies of the raw material, are,
with commendable enterprise, erecting three large crushing mills in
Southern Nigeria, the one at Lagos being already in a fair way to
completion. If the numerous difficulties they will have to face are
successfully negotiated, the ultimate result can hardly fail to be that
of transferring the considerable palm kernel crushing industry from the
banks of the Rhine to those of the Niger, besides creating a new export
trade in oil cake from the Niger to England and the Continent.
CHAPTER III
THE FOREST BELT
Beyond the deltaic region proper lies the vast belt of primeval and
secondary forest of luxurious growth, giant trees, tangled vines and
creepers, glorious flowering bushes, gaudy butterflies, moist atmosphere,
and suffocating heat. Beyond the forest belt again lies, with recurrent
stretches of forest, the more open hilly country, the beginning of the
uplands of the North. When an authority on forestry recently wrote
that “British Columbia is the last great forest reserve left,” he
forgot West Africa. That is what West Africa has continually suffered
from—forgetfulness. The resources of the Nigerian forest belt are as yet
far from being fully determined, but sufficient is now known of them to
show that they are enormously rich. Besides the oil palm and the wine
palm (which produces the _piassava_ of commerce) the forest belt contains
large quantities of valuable mahoganies, together with ebony, walnut,
satin, rose, and pear woods, barwood, and other dye-woods, several
species of rubber, African oak, gums (copal), kola, and numerous trees
suitable to the manufacture of wood-pulp. Oil-bearing plants abound
in great quantities, as do also fibres, several of which have been
favourably reported upon by the Imperial Institute. The shea-butter tree,
to which I shall have occasion again to refer, is an inhabitant of the
dry zone.
[Illustration: THE TROPICAL BUSH.]
The soil of this forest region is wonderfully fertile, and forest
products apart, the possibilities of agricultural development are
considerable. The three articles under cultivation by the natives the
Administration has of late years done its best to popularize have been
cotton, cocoa, and maize. For several reasons maize is an uncertain
quantity. The land bears two crops a year, the larger crops ripening
in July, but a wet August will play havoc with harvesting and storing
arrangements, while the amount available for export must always depend
upon local food requirements and available labour. The cultivation of
cocoa, for which the humid atmosphere, rich alluvial soil, and abundant
shade of the forest region seem peculiarly suitable, has, on the other
hand, steadily, if slowly, increased since it was started fifteen years
ago. In 1900 the quantity of cocoa exported was valued at £8,622. It
had risen in 1910 to £101,151. The efforts made within the last few
years by the British Cotton Growing Association, supplemented by those
of the Administration, to revive on a large scale the export trade in
raw cotton started by the Manchester manufacturer, Mr. Clegg, at the
time of the American Civil War, has so far been partially, but only
partially, successful. The industry has progressed, but far less rapidly
than its promoters hoped.[4] Things do not move quickly in West Africa.
In all these questions several factors have to be taken into account,
for which sufficient allowance is not made in Europe. For one thing, the
really immense amount of labour which the Nigerian population is already
required to put forth in order to feed itself and to sustain the existing
export trade is not appreciated.
The idea that the native has merely to scratch the earth or watch
the fruit ripening on the trees in order to sustain himself and his
family is, speaking generally, as grotesque an illusion as that he is
a helpless, plastic creature with no will of his own. The native is on
the whole an active, hard-working individual, the ramifications of
whose domestic and social needs involve him in constant journeyings
which absorb much time, and if his soil is prolific in the bearing of
crops, it is equally so in invading vegetation, which has constantly to
be checked. He is also a keen business man and a born trader, as any
European merchant who has dealings with him will bear witness, and he
will turn his attention to producing what pays him best. In that respect
he differs not at all from other sections of the human race amongst whom
the economic sense has been developed, and he cannot be fairly expected
to devote his attention to raising one particular raw material which
a certain home industry may desire, if he can make larger profits in
another direction. The opening up of the country, the increasing dearness
of food supplies in the neighbourhood of all the great centres, the
intensifying commercial activity and economic pressure so visible on
every side, the growth of population, and the enlargement of the horizon
of ideas must necessarily lead to a steady development in all branches
of production. But the native must be given time, and the country is one
which cannot be rushed either economically or politically.
No sketch, however brief, of the potentialities of the Nigerian forest
belt would be complete without a reference to the labours of the
Forestry Department, which owes its initiation to the foresight and
statesmanship of the late Sir Ralph Moor. Such reference is the more
necessary since the work of the department crystallizes, so to speak,
the conception of its duties towards the native population which guides
the Administration’s policy. No other department of the Administration
reveals so clearly by its whole programme and its daily practice what the
fundamental object of British policy in Nigeria really is, and in view of
the increasing assaults upon that policy by company promoters at home,
on the one hand, and the obstacles to which its complete realization
is subjected in Africa on the other, it is absolutely essential that
public opinion in Britain should become acquainted with the facts and be
in a position to support the Colonial Office and the Administration in
combining equity with commonsense.
Briefly stated, the Forestry Department is designed to conserve forest
resources for the benefit of the State—the State meaning, in practice,
the native communities owning the land and their descendants, and the
Administration charged with their guardianship, and while encouraging
any legitimate private enterprise, whether European or native, to
oppose the wholesale exploitation of those resources for the benefit
of individuals, white or black. It aims at impressing the native with
the economic value of his forests as a source of present and continual
revenue for himself and his children; at inducing native communities to
give the force of native law to its regulations and by their assistance
in applying them, to prevent destruction through indiscriminate farming
operations and bush fires, to prevent the felling of immature trees, to
replant and to start communal plantations. It aims at the setting aside,
with the consent of the native owners, of Government reserves and native
reserves, and at furthering industrial development by private enterprise
under conditions which shall not interfere with the general welfare of
the country. In a word, the Forestry Department seeks to associate the
native communities with the expanding values of the land in which they
dwell, so that for them the future will mean increasing prosperity and
wealth, the essence of the policy being that these communities are not
only by law and equity entitled to such treatment, but that any other
would be unworthy of British traditions. It is what some persons call
maudlin sentiment, the sort of “maudlin sentiment” which stands in the
way of the Nigerian native being expropriated and reduced to the position
of a hired labourer on the properties of _concessionnaires_ under whose
patriotic activities the Nigerian forest would be exploited until it had
disappeared from the face of the earth like the forests of Wisconsin,
Michigan, Minnesota, and Eastern Canada.
Apart from the question of safeguarding the rights of the people of the
land, our wards, the necessity of forest conservation in the interest of
the public weal has been taught by bitter experience, and experience has
also shown that scientific forestry can only be profitably undertaken by
the Government or by bodies whose first obligation is the interest and
protection of the community. The Forestry Department of Southern Nigeria,
short as its existence has been, is already a revenue-making Department,
for in the last ten years it has either planted, or induced the natives
to plant, trees (some of which, like the rubber trees in Benin, are now
beginning to bear) whose present estimated value is £287,526, and has
thus added over a quarter of a million to the value of the capital stock
of the forests without taking into account the indirect effects of the
steps taken to help their natural regeneration. The Department has many
local difficulties to contend with, especially in the Western province,
which I shall have occasion to discuss in connection with the general
administrative problem facing the administration in that section of the
Protectorate.
The character of its work necessitates that, in addition to scientific
training in forest lore, those responsible for its direction shall be
possessed of knowledge of native customs and of considerable tact in
conducting negotiations with native authorities, always suspicious of
European interference in anything which touches the question of tenure
and use of land. The Administration is fortunate in possessing in the
Conservator and Deputy-Conservator two men who combine in a rare degree
these dual qualifications. It is but the barest statement of fact
to say that Mr. H. N. Thompson, the Conservator who went to Southern
Nigeria after many years in Burma, enjoys an international reputation.
As an expert in tropical forestry he stands second to none in the world.
His colleague, Mr. R. E. Dennett, has contributed more than any other
European living to our knowledge of Nigerian folklore, and he understands
the native mind as few men of his generation do. In view of its immense
importance to the future of the country it is very regrettable to have to
state that the Forestry Department is greatly undermanned and its labours
curtailed in many directions by the insufficiency of the funds at its
disposal. No wiser course could be taken by the administration than that
of setting aside a sum of borrowed money to be used, as in the case of
the railways, as capital expenditure on productive forestry work.
CHAPTER IV
THE CENTRAL AND EASTERN PROVINCES
In connection with the internal government of the Protectorate it may
be advisable to refer briefly to the House Rule Ordinance of 1901 which
has recently given rise to some controversy. The House Rule Ordinance is
a measure designed by the late Sir Ralph Moor to prevent social anarchy
from ensuing when slavery was abolished by the British Government. It
gives force of Law to House Rule. House Rule is, in reality, the native
form of government, which has existed in Southern Nigeria for many
centuries. In recognizing the former the Administration acknowledges the
existence of the latter for which it can provide no substitute. Native
society, as already stated, is in the patriarchal state. The foundation
of it is the “Father,” whether of the family, of the community, or of the
tribe. The members of the House are, in a measure, apprentices. Under
native law there are obligations on both sides. It is a transitional
stage, and should be regarded as such, and allowed to reform itself
from within. The one difficulty, in this respect, is lest the Ordinance
should tend to prevent a gradual internal evolution towards a higher
state by sterilizing any healthy influences making for modification. A
much greater danger would be any sudden change which would throw the
whole country into absolute confusion. In the Western Province and in
the Bini district, where native rule has developed more rapidly than
in the Eastern and Central, the Father of the House is subject to the
Father of the district, and he in turn is subject to the Paramount Chief
of the whole tribe—the Supreme Father. There is, therefore, a check upon
despotic abuses by the head of the House. In the bulk of the Central
Province and in the whole of the Eastern Province, the head of the House
is virtually the head of the community, the higher forms of internal
control not having evolved. Any hasty and violent interference which
domestic “slavery,” as it is termed, in a country like the Central and
Eastern Provinces should be strenuously opposed. It would be an act of
monstrous injustice, in the first place, if unaccompanied by monetary
compensation, and it would produce social chaos. But there seems to be no
reason why the House Rule Ordinance should not be amended in the sense
of substituting for Paramount Chieftainship therein—which is virtually
non-existent—the District Commissioners, _aided by the Native Councils_,
as a check upon the now unfettered action of the heads of Houses. To
destroy the authority of the heads would be to create an army of wastrels
and ne’er-do-weels. Native society would fall to pieces, and endless
“punitive expeditions” would be the result.[5]
For purposes of administration Southern Nigeria is divided into three
Provinces, the Eastern (29,056 square miles), with headquarters at Old
Calabar; the Central (20,564 square miles) with headquarters at Warri;
and the Western (27,644 square miles), with headquarters at Lagos, the
seat of Government of the Protectorate. To the Western Province is
attached, as distinct from the Protectorate, what is termed the “Colony
of Lagos,” comprising the capital and a small area on the mainland—Lagos
itself is an island—amounting altogether to 3,420 square miles. The
supreme government of the three Provinces is carried on from Lagos by
the Governor, assisted by an Executive Council and by a Legislative
Council composed of nine officials and six unofficial members selected
by the Governor and approved by the Secretary of State. Each Province
is in charge of a Provincial Commissioner, although in the Western
Province his duties are more nominal than real. In none of the Provinces
is there a Provincial Council. The Central and Eastern Provinces are
sub-divided into districts in charge of a District Commissioner and
Assistant Commissioner, who govern the country through the recognized
Chiefs and their councillors by the medium of Native Councils which
meet periodically and over which the District Commissioner or his
assistant presides. These Native Councils or Courts constitute the real
administrative machinery of the country. They administer native law in
civil and criminal cases between natives. They may not, however, except
by special provision, deal with civil cases in which more than £200
is involved, or with criminal cases of a nature which, under native
law, would involve a fine exceeding £100 or a sentence of imprisonment
exceeding ten years with or without hard labour, or a flogging exceeding
fifteen strokes. Appeal from the Native Courts to the Supreme Court can
be made through the District Commissioners, who have the powers of a
Judge of the Supreme Court with powers of jurisdiction limited by law.
The District Commissioner’s Court is virtually a branch of the Supreme
Court, and deals almost entirely with cases in which non-natives are
concerned.
The Central and Eastern Provinces, which include the deltaic and the
larger part of the forest region, are inhabited by Pagan tribes,
among whom Mohammedanism is at present making but relatively slow
progress (none at all in many districts) and Christianity, which by
fits and starts and with long intervals has been at them since the
fifteenth century, still less. These tribes are of an independent,
sturdy temperament, and in the remoter parts of both Provinces still
uncontrolled, or virtually so. They are, almost without exception, great
traders, and the British merchants who know them best speak highly of
their honesty in commercial transactions.
The problem of governing these peoples offers no complications, which may
be called political, of a serious character. It is rendered easier in the
Central Province, where the authority of the Benin Kingdom, exercised
for so many centuries, has led to the centralization of a strong native
authority; and proportionately less so in the Eastern Province, where no
considerable native power was ever evolved. The Administration levies
no direct tax, and its chief concern is to keep the peace, to open up
the country, and to check barbarous customs. Astonishing progress has
been effected in these respects during the past decade, nor must it be
supposed that because there is an absence of complex political questions,
progress has not been attended with complexities of a different order.
Indeed, people at home can have no conception of the natural difficulties
under which the administrator, the merchant, and, for that matter, the
native also, labour in carrying out their respective tasks and avocations
in the deltaic and forest regions of Nigeria. For six months in the year
a very large portion of the Central and Eastern Provinces is partially
submerged. The Niger overflows its banks, every forest rivulet becomes
a river, the creeks and channels spread their waters upon the land, the
forest is flooded over an enormous area, and the pathways intersecting it
are impassable.
It is in circumstances such as these that District Commissioners have to
keep in touch with their districts, not infrequently spending days and
even nights in dug-outs under conditions which may be better imagined
than described; marching in the rear of weary carriers through reeking,
soaking, steaming forest; negotiating streams swollen into torrents;
camping where and when they can, the boots they remove getting mouldy in
a night, the clothes they hang up wringing wet when they come to put them
on again; add to this a body often plagued with malaria and rheumatism,
poorly nourished with sometimes insufficient and usually untempting
diet, tormented by stinging insects, and a faint idea can be formed of
conditions, during the rainy season, of a life which even in the dry
season calls upon the utmost reserves of a man’s moral fibre, to say
nothing of his physical powers. That the latter give way does not, alas!
need demonstration, for while a favoured few resist, the roll of deaths
and invaliding tells its own tale; and it would not be surprising if the
former proved itself frequently unequal to the strain. Such cases are,
however, extremely rare, and it is but natural if men labouring for their
country under the conditions of hardship I have inadequately sketched
should bitterly resent being portrayed on public platforms at home in the
light of rivets in an administrative machine cynically demoralizing the
natives of the country with drink in order to raise revenue.[6] Assuredly
it is necessary, as a prominent statesman addressing the House of Commons
declared some years ago, that “the more you extend your Empire the more
imperative it is that this House should extract from its agents abroad
the same standard of conduct which we exact at home.” But it is also
necessary that public opinion in Britain should take more trouble than it
does to realize something of the conditions under which its agents in the
most unhealthy tropical regions of the Empire have to spend their lives,
and should extend to them more sympathy than, at present, it seems often
inclined to do.
[Illustration: ONE OF THE COMMUNAL RUBBER PLANTATIONS (FUNTUMIA
ELASTICA), BENIN CITY.]
[Illustration: A SCENE IN YORUBALAND.]
It is in this part of Nigeria, where natural man is perpetually in
conflict with his environment, that you would expect to find those
darker customs and practices connected with the spiritual side of life,
whereby humanity has in all ages sought to propitiate the forces of
Nature; customs which under the modern form of sword-dances, Morris
dances, and the like attest to their former existence in Europe. If we
are honest with ourselves we must admit that the inspiration which has
evolved a sort of misty horror around the peoples of the West Coast of
Africa, has been largely drawn from the setting of swamp and forest where
the sacrificial rites associated with them, more prominently, perhaps,
than they deserve, have been performed. In themselves these rites differ
in no way from those we are familiar with in the records of white peoples
when they had reached a stage of intellectual advancement which the
Nigerian negro has certainly never attained, and which it is doubtful
if any human stock could, or can ever, attain, in such an environment.
Owing to the unconquered and, I think, unconquerable natural forces
surrounding him, the Nigerian of the delta is still in the stage “to
listen to the will of Jove which comes forth from the lofty and verdant
oak”; to seek as the load-star of his spiritual necessities and in his
ceaseless struggle against implacable odds, the conciliation of the
fertilizing spirit through whose assistance alone he can hope to subject
them; to incorporate the personality of protecting deities into man by
oblation and by human or animal sacrifice, the shedding of blood being
the mystic symbol of established contact with the protecting spiritual
elements (the same prompting animates the most sacred of Christian rites)
as it remains the tangible and most potent symbol of human brotherhood.
The sacrificial knife of the Nigerian negro may seem more repulsive to
the modern eye from the setting of black forms framed in the deep shadows
of primeval forest and fœtid swamp, and a double dose of original sin
may with complacency be assigned to him by the superficial. But in
itself and in the motive which raises it quivering over the bound and
helpless victim, it differentiates not at all from the story of Abraham
and Isaac handed down to us in the sacred writings and not, certainly,
in a light other than commendable, given the setting. If some of those
who are so ready to pass shallow judgment upon the social and spiritual
habits of the West African _chez lui_ and who are responsible for so much
misapprehension in the public mind as to his true character, would study
the book of Genesis, they might approach the subject with an exacter
sense of proportion. For a cessation of these practices in their most
repellant forms—already much curtailed, openly at least—time must be
relied upon and the most powerful element in hastening the process is not
the punitive expedition, but increased facility for inter-communication
which trade expansion generates and entails upon Government to provide.
It may be safely predicted that the process will be far more rapid than
it was in Europe.
[Illustration: BENIN CITY TO-DAY. BINI CHIEFS SITTING OUTSIDE THEIR NEW
COURT HOUSE.
(_Photo by Sir Walter Egerton._)]
No more striking object lesson in the capacity for real progress along
indigenous lines possessed by the Southern Nigerian pagan could be sought
than a comparison between the Bini people of 1897 and the Bini people of
to-day. A powerful tribe now numbering some 150,000 and inhabiting the
Central Province, the Binis had long been the slaves, so to speak, of
a theocracy which had succeeded in denaturalizing the original native
state-form and in obtaining an over-mastering hold over the people.
The King’s superstitions made him a puppet in its hands. The murder
of several British officials was followed by the capture of the city,
and the occupation of the country. Though mild in comparison with the
_autodafés_ and kindred pursuits of the Spanish Inquisition and the long
persecution of the Jews which have distinguished other priesthoods in
cultured surroundings that call for a certain sobriety of judgment in
discussing the priesthood of primitive Benin, the latter had succeeded
in inspiring a reign of terror throughout the country. No man’s life
was safe, and Benin city, the capital, was a place of abominations.
The priesthood were rightly broken, but the authority of the chiefs
maintained, and despite one single administrative error, which, if not
repaired, may occasion trouble later on, the Binis have become one of the
most prosperous and law-abiding people in the Protectorate. They have
co-operated so efficiently with the Forestry Department that throughout
the Benin territory no tree can be unlawfully felled without the Forest
Officer being informed. They are planting up their forest land with
valuable timber trees. Supplied by the department with seeds, shown
how to make nurseries and to supervise transplanting, but doing their
own clearing, planting, and upkeep, no fewer than 700 villages have
established communal rubber plantations of _Funtumia elastica_ which they
are increasing year by year. Many of the trees—of which there are one and
a quarter millions whose present estimated value at a low computation is
£165,000—are now of tappable size. Their share in the licence fees paid
by European lease-holders engaged in the timber and rubber industry in
Bini territory supplies the Bini communities with a further source of
income. So greatly do these intelligent people appreciate the efforts of
the Administration to enrich their country that when a little while ago
they started tapping operations in their rubber plantations under the
supervision of the Forestry Officer, the chiefs and villagers insisted
that a third share should go to Government, and, despite the Governor’s
objections, they would consent to no other arrangement. This has now
become embodied in law. The Forestry Department undertakes to dispose of
the rubber from the communal plantations, the profits being divided as to
one-third for the paramount chiefs, one-third for the village community,
and one-third for the Administration. From their increased revenues the
chiefs of Benin city, “the city of blood,” as it used to be termed, have
already built for themselves a substantial court-house of stone and brick
and furnished their capital with a proper water-supply, putting down
four miles of piping—thus saving the labour of thousands of persons who
had daily to trudge to and from the river—and finding the money for a
reservoir, a pumping station, and public hydrants.
Such surprising results in the short space of fourteen years are at once
a tribute to British rule and to the negro of the Nigerian forests. Many
obvious morals suggest themselves.
CHAPTER V
LAGOS AND ITS PORT—THE FUTURE BOMBAY OF WEST AFRICA
Early in the seventies, a decade after the British occupation, Lagos,
for more years than one cares to remember an important export centre of
the slave trade, was a small settlement inhabited by Yoruba and Bini
agriculturists and traders. The Hinterland, threatened by Dahomeyan
invasions from the west and Fulani inroads from the north, distressed
by internal struggles between various sections of the Yoruba people
rebelling against the central authority, was in a state of perpetual
ferment. Severed from the mainland, maintaining themselves from hand to
mouth, and swept by disease, the few British officials led an unenviable
existence. A small three-roomed house protected from the rains by an
iron roof harboured the Governor, and the members of his staff were glad
to accept the hospitality of European merchants earning a precarious if
lucrative livelihood by trading with the natives in palm oil, kernels,
ivory, and cotton.
To-day Lagos is a picturesque, congested town of some 80,000 inhabitants,
boasting many fine public buildings and official and European and native
merchants’ residences, churches, wharves, a hospital, a tramway, a
bacteriological institute, a marine engineering establishment, to say
nothing of cold storage and electric light plant, hotels, a racecourse,
and other appurtenances of advanced civilization. Like every other part
of West Africa that I have seen, Lagos is full of violent contrasts.
Every variety of craft—the tonnage of the place is something like 250,000
tons per annum—is to be observed in the water and every variety of dress
in the busy streets, from the voluminous robes of the turbaned Mohammedan
to the latest tailoring monstrosities of Western Europe. The Yoruba lady
with a Bond Street hat and hobble skirt; her sister in the infinitely
more graceful enfolding cloths of blue or terra-cotta, with the bandanna
kerchief for head-gear; opulent resident native merchants or Government
clerks in ordinary English costume; keen-featured “uneducated” traders
from whose shoulders hang the African _riga_—a cosmopolitan crowd which
includes Sierra Leonean, Cape Coast, and Accra men, attracted by the many
prospects of labour an ever-increasing commercial and industrial activity
offers to carpenters, mechanics, traders’ assistants, and the like. Here
a church thronged on Sundays with African ladies and gentlemen in their
finest array; here a mosque built by the local and rapidly increasing
Yoruba Muslims at a cost of £5,000. Here a happy African family laughing
and chattering in a tumbledown old shanty within close proximity to a
“swagger” bungalow gay with brilliant creepers; there a seminary where a
number of young ladies, looking supremely uncomfortable in their European
frocks, supplemented by all the etceteras of Western feminine wardrobes,
their short hair frizzled out into weird contortions, are learning as
fast as their teachers can make them those hundred and one inutilities
which widen the breach between them and their own beautiful, interesting
land. A certain kind of prosperity is writ large over the place, but
there is good reason to believe that economic pressure in its different
forms, none more acutely felt than the ascending price of foodstuffs, is
beginning to bear hardly upon the poorer classes, and the political and
social atmosphere of the town is not altogether healthy.
Historical circumstances rather than natural advantages have made Lagos
the most important commercial emporium of British West Africa and the
starting-point of a railway into the interior. It is difficult to see,
if the traffic of this railway and its future feeders develops, as
there is every reason to believe it will, how the already crowded and
circumscribed area of Lagos can possibly prove equal to the demands
upon it. Indeed, its physical features are in many respects most
disadvantageous for the _rôle_ of the West African Bombay it appears
called upon to bear, and it is only by the expenditure of millions which,
spread over the Protectorate, would have achieved results of much greater
fruitfulness, that Lagos can be converted into a harbour worthy of the
name. For Lagos is cursed with a bar which vessels drawing more than
fourteen feet cannot cross, and the absurd anomaly, to say nothing of
the expense and loss of time and damage to valuable cargo involved, is
witnessed of vessels with merchandise consigned to the premier port in
Nigeria having to steam 120 miles south of it and there discharge their
freight into branch steamers for conveyance to destination. An elusive
and sinister obstruction is Lagos bar, strewn with wrecks and hitherto
refractory to dredging, which shifts its depths three feet in a single
week, while the position of the channels is continually altering. As one
surveys the coast-line and notes the two, comparatively speaking, deep
and roomy anchorages of Forcados and Old Calabar, one cannot refrain
from marvelling somewhat at the curious chain of events which has
conspired to concentrate effort and expense upon a place so difficult of
access. However, the past cannot be undone, and no doubt there is much
to be said in favour of Lagos, or rather of the happenings which have
ministered to its selection. Be that as it may, the destinies of Southern
Nigeria have for the last five years been in the hands of a Governor
of large ideas and enormous energy. Sir Walter Egerton, who, despite
numerous disappointments and maddening delays, has pursued with dogged
persistence and infinite resource the object dearest to his heart—that
of opening the harbour. A comprehensive scheme of works, entailing the
construction of two stone moles, one on either side of the entrance,
combined with harbour and channel dredging, is proceeding under the
direction of Messrs. Coode, Son, and Matthews, and the constant personal
supervision of the Governor, in the confident belief that its completion
will ensure (combined with dredging) a depth of twenty-seven feet at
high water, corresponding to twenty-four feet at low tide. When I was
in Lagos a month ago[7] the work on the eastern mole had advanced 4,500
feet seawards, but the western mole is not yet started, and will not be,
it is feared, for some time, a further delay having been caused by the
foundering of the _Axim_, with much indispensable material on board.
One must have stood at the extremity of the eastern mole and watched
the greedy, muddy-coloured sea absorbing like some insatiable monster
the masses of grey rock hurled, at all times of the day and every day
in the week, into its depths, to appreciate the colossal difficulties
of a task which, brought to a successful issue, will always remain an
impressive testimony to human perseverance under climatic and other
conditions of perennial difficulty. West Africa has certainly never
seen anything comparable to it. Nature disputes with man for every
inch of vantage. As the work progresses the sand twists and withes
into ever-changing formations; banks arise and disappear only to again
re-form; the foreshore on the outer side of the mole grows and swells
and rises weekly, threatening to become level with the wall itself and
even to overwhelm it; the scour of the sea scoops into the ocean’s
floor, thus forcing the advancing mole into deep water, which demands
a proportionately larger meal of stone. From out the greyness of the
horizon the remains of the _Kano_, _Kittiwake_, _Egga_, and other vessels
that once were, lift lamentable spars above the angry breakers. From
Abeokuta, thirty miles away, these innumerable tons of granitic boulders
must be brought, despatched in “boxes” from the newly-opened quarries to
Ebute-Metta by rail. There the “boxes” are lifted from the waggons and
hoisted by cranes into lighters, the lighters are towed to the wharf,
the “boxes” lifted out of them, run along the mole, and their contents
hurled into the sea. Every foot’s advance requires sixty tons of stone.
At the accelerated rate of progress now ensured the eastern mole will be
finished in four years. The labour and organization required to bring
this great work to its present stage—initial steps in West Africa being
invariably characterized by endless impediments—have been prodigious.
Despite the sombre prognostications one hears in certain quarters, there
seems no reasonable doubt that the bar will yield in time, as the forest
has yielded, to British genius and pertinacity aided by African muscles,
but at a cost which, when the time comes to add up the bill, will prove,
I think, much heavier than generally supposed.
Lagos is joined to the mainland by two substantial bridges, one
connecting the island with another small island called Iddo, which stands
between Lagos Island and the continent, and one connecting Iddo with the
continent itself at Ebute-Metta. From thence the railway starts on its
way northward, traversing the whole of Yorubaland and tapping the Niger
at Jebba.
CHAPTER VI
THE YORUBAS AND THEIR COUNTRY
The administrative problems which confront the Government of Southern
Nigeria in the western, or Yoruba, province are very much more
complicated than any to be met with in the central and eastern provinces.
They arise partly from the character, at once progressive and unstable,
of the Yorubas themselves, partly from the curious divergence in the
political relations subsisting between his Majesty’s Government and
the various sections of the old Yoruba confederation, partly from the
influences working in favour of direct British rule which find favour in
the Lagos Legislative Council, but mainly through neglect, disinclination
to look a situation not without delicacy in the face, and the absence of
any serious effort to map out a definite, consistent policy.
In one respect at least, that of the rapid assimilation of every feature,
good, bad, and indifferent, which comes to them from the West with the
influx of European religious and social ideas, law, and commercial and
industrial activity, the Yorubas (who considerably outnumber them) may
be termed the Baganda of West Africa. If this capacity spells true
progress for a tropical African people, then the Yorubas are infinitely
more progressive than any of the peoples, not of Nigeria merely, but
of Western Africa. It is, nevertheless, worthy of remark that, without
exception, all the native papers published in Lagos which, if not
in every case edited by Yorubas, profess in every case to be the
mouthpieces of the “Yoruba nation,” ceaselessly lament the Europeanizing
of the country, the decay of the national spirit, the decadence of family
authority, and the deterioration of the rising generation without,
however—so far as many years’ perusal of their columns can enable
one to judge—ever making an attempt to grapple with the problem in a
constructive sense, and, in some cases, perhaps unwittingly, contributing
not a little to further the processes which they denounce and deplore. In
this, their notable characteristic, the Yorubas may have been influenced
by environment, for although a considerable portion of the area they
inhabit is forest land, much of it is open park-like country, and the
whole of it lies outside the deltaic region altogether. It is among the
Yorubas that Christian missionary propaganda has obtained most of its
converts in West Africa, although none of the ruling chiefs have accepted
the Christian faith, and although Islam is now making much more headway
than Christianity. Moreover, official Christianity, already represented
in Yoruba by as many sects as we have at home, has been riven by the
defection of a body, some 3000 strong, I believe, which has constituted
itself an independent Church, the real, though not explicitly avowed,
motive being a refusal to abide by the monogamous sexual relationship
which the Church enforces. With Christian missionary teaching Western
education, or, more accurately, and, generally, semi-education (and
indifferent at that) has, of course, gone hand in hand, and it is among
the Yorubas almost exclusively, so far as Southern Nigeria is concerned,
that the problem of the “educated native” and what his part is to be in
the future of the country arises and threatens already to become acute.
Nowhere in Africa, it may be confidently asserted, are so many radically
different influences, policies and tendencies at work among one and
the same people as are observable to-day in this Yorubaland of 28,000
square miles. The situation is really quite extraordinary, and offers
an unlimited field of speculation to the student. The natural aptitudes
of the Yorubas—of both sexes—are husbandry and trade, not soldiering.
But the necessities of tribal defence drove them to concentrate in
large centres. These centres have remained and become the capitals of
separate provinces, allegiance to the original head having mostly fallen
into virtual, in some cases into total, desuetude. Thus we find to-day
a series of native towns which for estimated numbers surpass anything
to be met with in any part of native Africa—such as Ibadan, 150,000;
Abeokuta, 100,000; Oshogbo, 40,000; Ogbomosho, 35,000; Ife, 30,000;
Oyo, 40,000; Ijebu-Ode, 35,000; Iseyin, 40,000; some twelve other towns
with a population of between 10,000 and 20,000; and twice as many more
whose inhabitants number 5000 to 8000. The most surprising contrasts,
illustrative of the divergences referred to, are noticeable in these
agglomerations of human life—for instance, between Abeokuta, Ibadan,
and Oyo. Abeokuta, the capital of the “Egba united Government” (whose
authority extends over 1869 square miles), its mass of corrugated iron
roofs glaring beneath the rays of the tropical sun, spreading around
and beneath the huge outcrop of granitic rock where its founders first
settled a hundred years ago, offers the curious picture of a Europeanized
African town in the fullest sense of the term, but with this unique
feature, that its administration and the administration of the district,
of which it is the capital, is conducted by natives—_i.e._ by the Alake
(the head chief) in council.
[Illustration: ONE OF THE SACRED STONE IMAGES AT IFE, THE SPIRITUAL
CENTRE OF YORUBALAND.]
[Illustration: ONE OF THE SONS OF THE SHEHU OF BORNU.]
It is, of course, true that the British Commissioner wields very great
influence, but he is invested with no legal powers of intervention
whatever, because the British treaty with the Egba section of the Yoruba
people recognizes their independence in all internal affairs; and all
Government notices and pronouncements posted up in the town are signed by
the Alake and the Alake’s secretary. The Commissioner, Mr. Young, finds
himself, indeed, in a position where the utmost tact is required. He has
passed through very unpleasant times, and the confidence and respect he
has ultimately won constitute a veritable triumph of personality. He
has achieved the seemingly impossible task of becoming a real power in
a native State over which, save in its external relations and in civil
and criminal cases affecting “non-Egbas,” the British Government has
no legal jurisdiction. The Alake, a burly African, has not—a matter
of thankfulness—adopted European dress, as the bulk of his officials
have done, but he lives in a two-storeyed European house boasting of
a tennis-court which, I am confident, the ample proportions of its
owner forbid him from using. The whole machinery of administration is
on the European pattern, with its Secretariat, Treasury, Public Works
Department, Police, Prison, Printing Offices, Post Office, etc.—all
managed by Europeanized Africans. I visited most of the Government
departments, the prison, and printing offices, and was impressed with the
industry and business-like air which reigned within them. The revenues,
thanks to the Commissioner, are in a healthy state. Excellent roads have
been and are being constructed. A water supply is being arranged for
out of a loan of £30,000 advanced by the Southern Nigeria Government.
Labour-saving machinery is being introduced at the Commissioner’s
suggestion. An imposing college is in course of erection. It is all very
remarkable and interesting. Whether it is durable is a matter which I
shall have occasion to discuss later on.
Very different is the state of affairs such as I found it early in this
year in Ibadan, capital of a district of 4000 square miles with a dense
population of 430,000 (107 to the square mile), an enormous, straggling,
grass-roofed, rather unkempt town luxuriating in tropical vegetation
and whose neighbourhood abounds with rich and delightful scenery. Here,
administratively speaking, government is neither fish, fowl, nor good
red-herring; neither African, nor European, nor Europeanized-African. All
real influence has been taken out of the hands of the Bale (head-chief)
and nothing has been substituted for it. Treated at intervals with unwise
familiarity and with contemptuous disregard, the present Bale, a man
obviously unfitted for his office, has no authority over his chiefs, who
in council—as I have myself witnessed—openly deride him. The inevitable
consequence is that the chiefs themselves constantly intrigue against
one another and have no prestige with the people, while the people
themselves have no respect either for their own rulers or for the white
man. A visit to the Bale’s Court in company with the recently-appointed
Acting-Resident was a surprising revelation—quite as painful, I am
inclined to believe, to that official as to the writer—of unmannerly
conduct, of total absence of respect for his Majesty’s representative,
of utter lack of decorum and dignity. The “Ibadan Government,” as I
saw it, is a caricature, and a dangerous caricature, of government,
unlike anything, I am glad to say, which I observed in either of the two
Protectorates. The town and the inhabitants are obviously out of hand,
and in my opinion—an opinion which, having felt bound to communicate
it to the responsible authorities in Nigeria, I am the freer to state
here—is that if the whole place be not thoroughly overhauled, events must
arise at no distant day leading to considerable trouble. I am inclined to
think that some people would rather welcome trouble.
Oyo, again, is a singular contrast both to Abeokuta and to Ibadan. The
seat of the Alafin, titular head of all the Yoruba-speaking peoples, Oyo
is a clean, peaceful, sleepy town charmingly situate in open country
and reverentially regarded by many Yorubas. Here the native form of
government has been happily preserved against many assaults from both
within and without. The Alafin’s abode—the Afin—consists of a collection
of spacious compounds beautifully thatched with here grass and surrounded
by a wall. Here the Court is held, distinguished by all the ceremonial
inherent to what was once (and might again become) a wonderfully
efficient national Government. In its courtliness, its simple if barbaric
dignity, the decorum of chiefs and councillors, and the manifest honour
in which the ruling head was held, this Pagan Court recalled the best
type of native government I had previously observed in the Mohammedan
Hausa provinces of Northern Nigeria, although differing radically from
the latter in construction and formulæ. The Alafin himself, a man of
great strength and stature, his head surmounted by the national casque or
crown of heavy native coral, with a curious face which reminded one of
the lineaments of the Egyptian Sphinx (the Yorubas profess to trace their
descent from Egypt), is one of the most striking native personalities
I observed in Nigeria. A notable incident in the State reception I
witnessed was the presence among the prostrated chiefs of several whose
dress showed that they had embraced Islam, doing obeisance to their pagan
lord.
This brief description of the three most important centres of Yoruba life
will serve to show how varied and haphazard are the forms which British
policy takes in the Western Province. I fear that much trouble lies ahead
if steps are not adopted to evolve something more closely approximating
to statecraft in handling the problems of the country. An attempt to show
what might be done and the reasons for doing it will be made in the next
chapter.
CHAPTER VII
BRITISH POLICY IN YORUBALAND
The political situation in Yorubaland, some aspects of which were
briefly sketched in the preceding chapter, is one that, obviously,
cannot last. Its inconveniences are too numerous and too palpable and
it bears within it the seeds of dissolution. The whole relationship of
the different Yoruba States (or, rather, dismembered sections) between
themselves and between them and the British _raj_ as established by
Treaty or by Agreement (which should have equally binding force)
abounds in contradictions, irregularities, and potency for mischief.
In the Abeokuta district we have theoretically no authority, since, as
already mentioned, there is a Treaty guaranteeing the independence of
the Egbas in their internal affairs. But every one knows that, given
an untactful Commissioner or the development of some more than usually
menacing intrigue against the Alake, circumstances might arise at any
time which would compel British intervention. With Oyo we have a treaty
of friendship and commerce and we have a separate treaty of the same kind
with Ibadan, although Ibadan recognizes the paramountcy of, and pays
tribute to, Oyo. In Oyo we have not materially interfered with native
government. In the Ibadan district native government is, in practice, a
myth. Such a state of things leads to singular inconsistencies, and the
Southern Nigeria Administration would find it difficult to reconcile its
actions in certain directions with its actions in others.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE “AFIN” OR RESIDENCE OF THE ALAFIN OF OYO,
SHOWING TYPICAL YORUBA THATCHING.]
Take, for example, the land question. If there is one thing upon which
all the most experienced Nigerian administrators are agreed it is the
absolute essentiality, for the future of the people of the country,
that their use and enjoyment of the land should be secured, not only
against a certain type of European capitalist who covets this rich soil
for his own schemes, and, under the pretence of industrial expansion,
would cheerfully turn the native agriculturist, farmer, and trader into
a “labourer,” but against the class of native who, for his own ends,
for speculative purposes mainly, seeks to undermine native law and to
change the right of user upon which native land tenure is based, into
that of owner at the expense of the community at large. More especially
does this become a question of vital importance to native communities
where, as in Yorubaland, you have a comparatively dense population which
under the _pax Britannica_ is bound to increase at a very rapid rate,
and thus requires every inch of land for its own future uses. But as
matters stand at present, we cannot, in the Egba district, which, being
nearer to Lagos, is more accessible to certain undesirable influences,
both European and native, and to the infiltration of European laws
and customs regulating the tenure of land, take effective measures to
counteract these influences. We could, of course, if we chose, not in
the Egba district only, but throughout Yorubaland. But there has been a
lamentable reluctance both at home and in the Protectorate to foresee
and cope with a predicament which all realize, which some from a natural
bent of mind inclining them to favour the substitution everywhere of
direct for indirect rule, and others who are of the same way of thinking
but from motives of self-interest may secretly rejoice at, but which the
officials whose hearts are really in the country and who have sufficient
experience to understand the endless and disastrous embarrassments
that the disintegration of native law relating to land would produce,
deeply deplore. What has been the result? The Egbas are beginning to
buy and to sell land among themselves in absolute violation of their
own customs and laws, thereby laying up for their country a heritage of
trouble and inserting the thin edge of the wedge of their own undoing by
letting in the land monopolist and speculator. This, according to all its
professions and to its actions in some specific circumstances, for which
it is to be warmly commended, is, in the view of the Administration,
inimical to the public interest of the Protectorate. What is springing up
in Abeokuta to-day will spread to the other districts to-morrow—nay, is
doing so.
Take another example. The welfare of an agricultural community demands,
for many reasons scientifically substantiated, that a stop should be
put to the reckless destruction of timbered areas such as has been
proceeding all over Yorubaland. This is inherently a public interest, and
the Forestry Officer in the discharge of his duties is merely a servant
of the public. But in the Western Province, for the same reasons, we
cannot or are unwilling to put our case to the native authorities for the
protection of the people against themselves with the same moral force
as in the case of the other two provinces. We are confined, or think
we are confined, to simple persuasion. Now, persuasion by the Forestry
Officer alone is one thing, and persuasion by the Forestry Officer
supported by direct representations from the Executive at Lagos is a
very different thing. It is the latter form of persuasion that has been
absent, and very great credit is due alike to the Forestry Officers and
to a Commissioner trusted by the native rulers, Mr. W. A. Ross, as well
as to the intelligence of those native rulers themselves, that in the
Oyo district both State and communal reserves have been created, the
latter of great extent including the entire valley of the Ogun. But
in the Abeokuta and Ibadan districts persuasion has failed hitherto to
secure any really tangible results. It is almost unnecessary to point out
that the interests of the population do not suffer merely indirectly and
potentially, but directly thereby. Not only does Southern Nigeria import
quantities of timber from Europe when the country should itself provide
for all requirements, but even so primitive a necessity as firewood is
beginning to make itself felt round such towns as Ede, Abeokuta, and
Ibadan.
In these problems the policy of the Southern Nigeria Administration has
been to leave the matter to the native authorities, in other words, to
let the land question slide down a perilous declivity, and to allow the
question of forestry preservation to be left to the unsupported efforts
of the Forestry Department. If this policy of non-interference had been
consistently applied in other directions an intelligible case, at least,
might be made out for it. But the facts are notoriously otherwise. To
mention but one instance. Two years ago pressure was put upon the Ibadan
authorities to vote unpopular licensing regulations in the interests
of temperance, and one of the incidents subsequently arising out of it
was the stoppage of the Bale’s stipend by the Acting Resident with the
concurrence of the Executive at Lagos! Only last February a Bill called
the “Foreign Jurisdiction Ordinance, 1911,” was passed through the Lagos
Legislative Council, which provides for the extension of the laws of the
colony to the Protectorate of Yorubaland (except Abeokuta) without the
native authorities being even consulted, the Attorney-General adopting,
in effect, the extraordinary position that the Government could take no
account of “agreements, understandings, or letters” (concluded or written
by previous Governors) with the native chiefs! If the native chiefs
realized what the logical outcome of the Ordinance might mean for them,
by an Executive in Lagos, which adopted the legal argument quoted, there
would be ferment from one end of Yoruba to the other.
It must be clear from what precedes that the time has come when the whole
position of the Yoruba States in relation to the paramount Power should
be reconsidered. The railway and other agencies are causing the country
to move forward very fast, and conditions are being evolved through the
attempt to drive in two directions at once, which can only lead, if
not to the ultimate annexation of Yorubaland, then to what would, if
possible, be even worse—viz. the strangulation by successive stages of
every effective agency in native government, leaving the chiefs and their
councils mere puppets in the hands of the Lagos Legislative Council. Now
neither of these courses is, I am convinced, desired by the Imperial
Government. The drift is, nevertheless, apparent to all that have eyes to
see and ears to hear. There is a strong party in Lagos favouring direct
rule. There is a combination of distinct influences—in many respects
working unconsciously—making for the break-up of native land tenure and
the undermining of native authority. There is the increasing danger of
leaving the land question unregulated and the difficulty attending the
adoption of adequate measures for forest preservation.
Only one course would appear open to the authorities if they desire to
stop the dry rot. The first step would consist in getting the Native
Councils—_i.e._ the Chiefs in Council—of all the districts in the Western
Province to pass an identical measure of national land preservation which
would become known as the Yoruba Land Act. Inalienability of land is the
cardinal principle of Yoruba land tenure. The preamble of the measure
would define Yoruba law and custom in regard to land. The body of the
measure would declare to be illegal all buying and selling of land,
either between natives and natives or between natives and non-natives,
and would establish limitations of area and time for the holding of
leased lands by private individuals or associations, with provision for
revision of rentals at specified periods. The need of such a measure
should be recognized and the action proposed sanctioned by the Secretary
of State, and the matter should be represented to the native authorities
with all the additional weight which in their eyes it would under those
circumstances possess. It cannot be doubted that were the measure fully
and thoroughly explained to the Native Councils and its urgency in
the interests of their people emphasized, little or no trouble would
be experienced in ensuring its adoption. In the improbable event of
difficulties arising it would be the plain duty of the Administration to
overcome them. The Administration should be able to count in a matter
of this kind upon the support of every patriotic educated Yoruban. The
second step would be more far-reaching—viz. the general reconstruction
of the machinery of national government over the whole province, and the
welding together under the headship of the Alafin of Oyo—the “King and
Lord of Yorubaland,” as he is described in the British Treaty—working
with a Council representative of all Yorubaland, of the separate
districts which internal anarchy and external aggression between them
have caused to fall away from the central authority. The existing
Councils of the various districts would, of course, remain, but we should
have what we have not at present, a true “Yoruba Council,” a strong
central native Government through which the development, the progress,
and the common welfare of the country could proceed on definite, ordered,
national lines.
This would be Empire-building of the real kind. It would not be
unattended with difficulty. It would require time, much tact, and, above
all, full and frank exposition and explanation. But it is feasible of
accomplishment, and by a policy of this kind alone can one of the most
interesting and promising races of Western Africa hope to reach, under
our supreme direction, its full development. The elements necessary to
the success of such policy exist. They do not need to be created, but
only to have their vitality revived and their course adjusted and guided.
PART III
NORTHERN NIGERIA
CHAPTER I
THE NATURAL HIGHWAY TO THE UPLANDS OF THE NORTH
A casual visitor provided by private kindness with the hospitality of a
stern-wheeler and not, therefore, exposed to the discomforts (soon, it is
to be hoped, to be a thing of the past, with the completion of railway
communications between Lagos and Zungeru) with which an inexcusably
inefficient service of river-boats afflicts the unhappy official on his
way to Northern Nigeria, packed like a sardine, and feeding as best he
can, may be pardoned for finding much of captivating interest in 400
miles of leisurely steaming, with many a halt _en route_, from Forcados
to Baro, the starting-point of the Northern Nigerian Railway to Kano. The
heat of the afternoons, the myriad insect visitors which are heralded
by the lighting of the lamps, blacken the cloth and invade every part
of the person accessible to their attentions, the stifling nights,
spent, may be, at anchor under the lee of perpendicular banks; these
are trifles not worthy of mention by comparison with the rewards they
bring. Kaleidoscopic varieties of scenic effects enchant the eye as hour
follows hour and day follows day on the bosom of this wonderful Niger,
passing from serpentine curves so narrow that the revolving paddles seem
in imminent danger of sinking into the bank itself or snapping against
some one of the many floating snags, to ever broadening and majestic
proportions with vistas of eternal forest, of villages nestling amid
banana groves, of busy fishermen flinging their nets, of occasional
dark massive heads lifted a brief second from the deeps to disappear
silently as they arose, of brilliant blue kingfishers darting hither
and thither. Now the river flows through some natural greenhouse of
palms and ferns, whose nodding fronds are reflected in the still green
waters, now past a fringe of matted creepers gay with purple convolvulus
pierced at intervals with the grey upstanding hole of the silk cotton
tree. Here its course is broken by long stretches of fine hummocky sand
across whose shining surface stalk the egret and the crane, the adjoining
rushes noisy with the cackle of the spur-winged geese. Here it glides
expanding between open plains bordered with reeds, only to narrow once
more as the plain heaves upward and the tall vegetable growth gives way
to arid granite outcrops, ascending towards the far horizon into high
tablelands. If at dawn the Niger veils its secrets in billowy mists of
white, at sunset the sense of mystery deepens. For that, I think, is the
principal charm of this great highway into the heart of Negro Africa,
the sense of mystery it inspires. Cradled in mystery, for two thousand
years it defied the inquisitiveness of the outer world, guarded from the
north by dangerous shoals and rapids; hiding its outlet in a fan-shaped
maze of creeks. To-day when its sanctuaries are violated, its waters
churned and smitten by strange and ugly craft, it is still mysterious,
vast and unconquered. Mysterious that sombre forest the gathering shades
encompass. Mysterious that tall half-naked figure on yonder ledge,
crimson framed in the dying sun, motionless and statuesque. Mysterious
that piercing melancholy note which thrills from the profundities beyond,
fading away in whispers upon the violet and green wavelets lapping
against the side of the boat. Mysterious those rapid staccato drumbeats
as unknown humanity on one shore signals to unseen humanity on the
other. Mysterious the raucous cry of the crown-birds passing in long
lines to their resting-place in the marshes. Mysterious those tiny lights
from some unsuspected haunt of natural man that spring into life as the
sun sinks to slumber, and darkness, deep unfathomable darkness, rushes
over the land there to rest until a blood-red moon, defining once again
the line of forest, mounts the sky.
[Illustration: OUTLINE MAP OF NORTHERN NIGERIA.]
From the point of view of navigation and of commerce the Niger is a most
unsatisfactory and uncertain river to work. It can be described, perhaps,
as a river full of holes with shallows between them. Its channels are
constantly changing. It is full of sandbanks which take on new shapes and
sizes every year. The direction of the water-flow below Samabri, where
the bifurcation begins, is so unreliable that within a few years the Nun
has become virtually useless, the Forcados gaining what the Nun has lost,
while there are recent indications that the process may again be altered
in favour once more of the Nun to the detriment of the Forcados. In the
course of the year the water level varies twenty-seven feet, the period
of rise being from June in an ascending scale until the end of September,
the fall then commencing, the river being at its lowest from December to
May. In the rainy season the banks are flooded in the lower regions for
miles around. In the dry season the banks tower up in places fifteen feet
above water level. Roughly speaking, the Niger is navigable for steamers
drawing five feet in June, six feet in July, and so on up to twelve feet
in the end of September; from November to April for vessels drawing
between four and five feet. But the conditions of two consecutive years
are seldom alike.
Government has done little or nothing to cope with these natural
difficulties. The Admiralty charts available to the captains of steamers
are ludicrously obsolete, and all wrong. No continuous series of
observations have been taken of the river, and no effort made to tackle
the problem of improving navigation. Four years ago, by Sir Percy
Girouard’s directions, soundings were, indeed, taken over a distance
of 350 miles from Burutu (Forcados) to Lokoja at the junction with the
Benue; with the result that only seven miles of sand-bars were reported
to require dredging in order to secure a six-foot channel all the year
round. The experienced merchant smiled. He is a slightly cynical person,
is the West African merchant who knows his Niger. Anyhow he is still
whistling for his six-foot channel. One dredger, the best which money
could buy, was purchased by the Northern Nigerian Administration. It
did a little dredging round about Lokoja (and the merchants in the
south declare that the performance has made matters worse for them),
has been used as a passenger boat up the Benue, and is now, I believe,
filling up the swamps at Baro; but the six-foot channel still exists as
an attractive theory in the Government Blue Book. There is so much to
praise, administratively speaking, in Nigeria that one feels the freer to
speak bluntly of the failure of Government to handle this matter of Niger
navigation. It is one of the inevitable, one of the many deplorable,
results of dual control over a common territory; one of the consequences
of the long competition between the two rival Administrations, each
quite honestly playing for its own hand and each quite satisfied that
it alone can think imperially. The upshot has been pernicious to the
public interest. The river-service is shocking from the point of view of
efficiency, and enormously costly. The steamers themselves are falling to
pieces. There is no system of public pilotage, or of lighting. Trading
steamers must anchor at night, which involves, in the aggregate, a great
waste of time and money. The two Administrations are so busy squabbling
over their competing railways and manœuvring to frame rates which will
cut one another out, that the great natural highway into the interior is
utterly neglected.
It is impossible that feelings of respect should not go out, not
only towards the official who labours under these conditions in the
Niger waterways but also towards the merchant building up in quiet,
unostentatious fashion the edifice of commercial enterprise upon which,
in the ultimate resort, the whole fabric of Administrative activity
reposes. I do not now speak of the heads of these powerful trading firms
in Europe, many of whom, by the way, have themselves gone through the
mill in their time. To them England is indebted for the Imperial position
she holds in Nigeria to-day, a fact which is too apt to be forgotten.
I refer to the men, mostly young, in charge of trading stations on the
banks of the Niger and its creeks, living a life of terrible loneliness
amid primitive surroundings in a deadly climate, separated in many cases
several days’ journey from another white face, not nearly so well housed
as the officials (I am describing Southern Nigeria, be it remembered),
and not, like them, helped by the consciousness of power or stimulated
by the wider horizon the latter enjoy. Thrown entirely on their own
resources, usually unfitted by their previous life to face the privations
and isolation of an existence such as this, very hard-worked—their lot
is not an enviable one. No doubt the hardships they have to endure are
incidental to a career they freely choose, although often enough with
little or no previous comprehension of its character. No doubt the fibres
of a minority will be toughened by their experiences. No doubt these
hardships are infinitely less severe than those which the early pioneers
were compelled to undergo, many succumbing under the process; but in that
connection it should not be forgotten that the latter had the incentive
of carving out their fortunes with their own hands, whereas the present
generation out in Nigeria are not their own masters. One cannot help
reflecting upon the irony of the contrast between the commiseration so
freely lavished at home upon the spiritual drawbacks of the Nigerian
native, and the total lack of interest displayed by the Church in the
welfare of these young fellows, many of them mere lads, exposed to
all the moral temptations of their savage environment in which only
exceptional natures will detect the broadening spiritual influences. What
an untold blessing would be a periodical visit to their African homes,
fronted by the silent river, invested by the tropical forest, from an
experienced, genial, sympathetic minister of God, who for a day or two
would share their lives and win their confidence.
There is another matter which should be raised. These young men who come
out from England—I refer to the English trading firms only, not having
inquired into the system prevailing among the Continental firms—do so
under a three years’ contract. This is an altogether excessive period
for the Niger. It should be cut down one half. Even then it would be
half as long again as the officials’ term of service. Professors of
tropical medicine and magnates at home may say what they like about the
improvement of health in the large European settlements. The towns are
one thing. The “bush” is quite another. Speaking generally, the climate
of Nigeria, and the conditions under which four-fifths of white humanity
have to live are such as combine, even in favourable circumstances,
to impose the severest strain, both physical and mental, upon all but
a select few. At the end of a year’s continuous residence, the strain
begins to make itself felt in a multiplicity of ways. Not to acknowledge
it, and not to make provision for it, is, on the part of an employer,
penny wise and pound foolish—to put the matter on the lowest ground.
[Illustration: VIEW OF LOKOJA AND NATIVE TOWN FROM MOUNT PATTEY, LOOKING
S.E.—THE BENUE IN THE DISTANCE.]
At Idah we leave Southern Nigeria. That bold bluff of red sandstone
crowned with grey-trunked baobabs and nodding palms—black with roosting
and repulsive vultures—which overhangs the river at this point, stands
out at the dying of the day, a sentinel pointing to the north. Henceforth
the appearance of the country undergoes a remarkable transformation,
more and more accentuated with every hour’s steaming. High valleys,
slopes and tablelands; a sparser vegetation; masses of granite or red
sandstone vomited promiscuously from broken, arid plains and taking on
fantastic shapes; in the distance, mountain ranges and solitary rounded
eminences—on our right, King William’s range rising to 1200 feet, on our
left, Mounts Jervis, Erskine, Soraxte, and many others, varying from
400 to 1000 feet. The river curves, winds and narrows, obstructed here
and there by dangerous boulders, which the falling waters bring into
view. More substantial, better-thatched huts appear upon the banks, and
around them an increasing number of robed Africans. Plantations of yams,
and guinea corn set out on parallel, raised ridges, attest a higher
skill in cultivation. Cattle are seen cropping the green stuffs near
the water’s edge, and canoes pass bearing cattle, sheep and goats to
some neighbouring market. We enter the spreading domain of Mohammedan
civilization, and before long we shall find ourselves in a new world,
as our gallant little vessel, none the worse for a narrowly averted
collision and grounding on a sandbank or two, casts anchor at Lokoja.
Here beneath the wooded heights of Mount Patte the wonderful prospect
afforded by the junction of the Niger and Benue unfolds itself, and
presently we shall mingle with robed and turbaned African humanity, come
from immense distances to this great market of the middle Niger. The
mangroves of the Delta, the awesome grandeur of the forests, these are
left far behind. We have entered the uplands of the North.
CHAPTER II
NORTHERN NIGERIA PRIOR TO THE BRITISH OCCUPATION
The political events of which Northern Nigeria was the scene last
century are well known, but a brief recapitulation of them is necessary
by way of introduction to the study of its present conditions, the life
of its people, and the accomplishments and problems of the British
Administration.
In the opening years of the nineteenth century, what is now Northern
Nigeria consisted of the shattered remnants of the once famous Bornu
Empire; of seven independent states more or less (generally less)
controlled by chieftains of the remarkable so-called “Hausa” race,
invaders of a thousand years before “out of the East,” and of the
aboriginal inhabitants whose origin is lost in the mists of antiquity.
Scattered throughout the region and constantly shifting their habitat
in response to the necessities of their calling, were tribes of
light-coloured straight-haired people, Fulani, nomadic herdsmen and
shepherds. From the ranks of these people, spread over West Africa
from the Senegal to the Chad, had sprung from time to time political
leaders, divines and men of letters who had played a conspicuous part
in the history of the old Niger civilizations. The Hausa Chieftains had
established a nominal authority over a wide expanse of territory and
were constantly at war with the aborigines on their borders. It was not,
however, for warlike feats, but for their commerce, farming, cotton and
leather industry; for the spread of their language; for the great centres
of human activity they had formed and for the fertility and prosperity
of the land which they had made their home, that the Hausas were justly
renowned all over Western and Northern Africa. They had evolved no great
imperial dominion whose various parts acknowledged a central Head, such,
alternately, as Melle, Ghanata, Kanem and Bornu; but they had leavened
with their intelligence and fertilised with their industrial achievements
some of the naturally richest areas of tropical West Africa, and they had
earned for themselves in these respects a widespread fame.
It was at this period that a learned Fulani, Othman Fodio, fell foul
of the chieftain ruling over the most ancient and aristocratic of the
Hausa States, Gober. The latter, fearing for his authority, ordered
all the Fulani in his country to be slaughtered, with the result that
Othman found himself at the head of a numerous following. Emerging
successfully from the struggle, Othman preached a _jihad_, confided
sacred standards to his worthiest captains and despatched them far and
wide. The Hausa Chieftains were successively overthrown and replaced by
Fulani, and regions unassimilated previously by the Hausas were occupied.
Othman’s warriors even crossed the Niger and invaded Yorubaland, a large
part of which they conquered and retained (Ilorin), the forest belt,
Yoruba resistance within it, and, probably, the tsetse fly proving an
insurmountable barrier to further progress southwards. Down the Niger
they advanced no further than the neighbourhood of Lokoja. Othman adopted
the title of _Sarikin mussulmi_, and during his life and that of his son
Bello, Hausaland experienced for the first time the grip of a central,
directing power. It is doubtful, however, if this change in their rulers
had much effect upon the mass of the population, to whom dynastic
convulsions mean very little, and it is noteworthy that the Fulani
conquerors possessed sufficient statecraft to interfere but slightly
with the complicated and efficient system of administration and of
taxation which the Hausas had introduced. They took over the government
of the towns from the Hausas, the people in many instances assisting and
welcoming them. The general condition of the country remained pretty much
what it had been. Moreover—and this fact is significant in connection
with the arguments I shall presently adduce as regards the inspiring
motive of the Fulani uprising—such of the old Hausa families who by their
learning and piety had become invested with a special public sanctity
were not generally molested by the conquering Fulani. Thus the Kauru,
Kajura and Fatika families of Zaria, which had given birth to a long line
of Mallams, were preserved in all their authority and dignity by Othman
and his successors.
A period of comparative political quiet ensued. Othman issued
regulations, and caused them to be strictly enforced, inflicting
the severest punishments upon robbers and evil-doers generally. A
recrudescence of spiritual influence and of letters everywhere manifested
itself. Learned men flocked to Sokoto, where Othman had built his
capital, from West and North Africa. The trans-desert trade revived.
Security was so well established that Clapperton, who visited the country
during Bello’s reign, records the common saying of the time that a woman
could pass unmolested through the land, even if she carried a casket
of gold upon her head. With the death of Bello the influence of the
central power, enormously difficult to maintain in any case owing to the
greatness of the area and the absence of ways of communication, declined.
Administrative decay gradually set in and extended with the years. Little
by little the authority of the Emir of Sokoto was openly questioned,
in all save spiritual matters. Allegiance slackened. Emirs quarrelled
amongst themselves. This or that chief acted on his own responsibility
in political affairs affecting the general weal, or entirely broke away
from control. The roads became infested with bands of highwaymen whose
proceedings differed in no way from the banditti of feudal Europe.
Rebellious chieftains formed robber strongholds. Military operations
degenerated into mere raiding for the capture and sale of prisoners of
war to replenish revenues from ordinary taxation which the disturbed
state of the country was causing to decrease.
There has probably been a natural tendency in recent years to exaggerate
the aggregate effect for evil upon the country which accompanied the
weakening of the Fulani dynasty. There is no proof that the state of
affairs was worse than what had obtained previous to Othman’s _jihad_.
It could hardly have been worse than the condition of Western Europe
at sundry stages in its history, when the weakness of the paramount
authority and the foraging and strife of rival Barons combined to
desolate the homesteads of the people and lay waste the country side.
Some notion of parallels in approaching the events of West African
history is very desirable, but not often conspicuous. But there can be
no doubt—the evidence of one’s own eyes in ruined villages and once
cultivated areas “gone to bush” is conclusive—that when the alien
Britisher arrived upon the scene as a reforming political force, Northern
Nigeria was once more urgently in need of a power sufficiently strong
to restore order. Such was the condition of the Hausa States. In Bornu
matters had gone from disorder to chaos, culminating in the final tragedy
of Rabeh’s incursion, the slaughter of the _Shehu_ and the sack of Kuka,
the capital.
There is no need here to describe the events which led to the British
occupation, or to narrate the circumstances attending it. We have
replaced the Fulani in supreme control of the destinies of Northern
Nigeria. We are there to stay. How are we carrying out our self-imposed
mission? What are the problems with which we have to grapple? These are
the questions to examine. But before doing so, let us first see what
manner of people they are over whom we rule henceforth as over-lords.
What is their mode of life, their principal occupation, their character,
and the material and spiritual influences which direct their outlook and
mould their existence?
CHAPTER III
THE INDIGENOUS CIVILIZATION OF THE NORTH
An attempted reconstruction of the prehistoric period—considered
locally—of that portion of Western Central Africa, now known as Northern
Nigeria, would take up many chapters, and would be largely founded upon
conjecture. It suffices to say that in the course of ages, through
the influences of Moorish, Semitic, and probably pre-Semitic Egyptian
culture, fused in later times with Mohammedan law, learning and religion,
there has been evolved in this region a civilization combining a curious
mixture of Africa and the East, to which no other part of the tropical
or sub-tropical continent offers even a remote parallel. And this is the
more remarkable since these territories have been separated from the east
by inhospitable, mainly waterless stretches, and from the north by vast
and desolate sandy wastes; while southwards the forest and the swamp
cut them off from all communication with the outer world by sea. The
peoples responsible for the creation of this civilization did not acquire
the art of building in stone, but, at a cost of labour and of time
which must have been gigantic (slave-labour, of course, such as built
the pyramids) they raised great cities of sun-dried clay, encompassing
them and a considerable area around, for purposes of cultivation and
food-supply, with mighty walls. These walls, from twenty to fifty feet
high and from twenty to forty feet thick at the base, in the case of the
larger cities, they furnished with ponderous and deep towered entrances,
protecting the gates with crenellated loop-holes and digging deep moats
outside. They learned to smelt iron and tin; to tan and fabricate many
leather articles durable and tasteful in design; to grow cotton and
fashion it into cloth unrivalled for excellence and beauty in all Africa;
to work in silver and in brass; to dye in indigo and the colouring juice
of other plants; to develop a system of agriculture including (in certain
provinces) irrigated farming, which, in its highest forms, has surprised
even experts from Europe; to build up a great trade whose ramifications
extend throughout the whole western portion of the continent; to
accumulate libraries of Arabic literature, to compile local histories
and poems, and, in a measure, to become centres for the propagation of
intellectual thought.
That is the condition in which Leo Africanus found them in the sixteenth
century, when he first revealed their existence to an incredulous and
largely unlettered Western world; in which the pioneer explorers of the
nineteenth century found them; in which the political agents of Great
Britain found them ten years ago when destiny drove her to establish
her supremacy in the country. That is the condition in which they are
to-day in this difficult transition stage when the mechanical engines of
modern progress, the feverish economic activity of the Western world,
the invading rattle of another civilization made up of widely differing
ideals, modes of thought, and aims, assailed them.
Will the irresistible might wielded by the new forces be wisely exercised
in the future? Will those who, in the ultimate resort, direct it,
abide by the experience and the advice of the small but splendid band
of men whose herculean and whole-hearted labours have inscribed on
the roll of British history an achievement, not of conquest, but of
constructive statesmanship of just and sober guidance nowhere exceeded
in our management of tropical dependencies? Will they be brought to
understand all that is excellent and of good repute in this indigenous
civilization; to realize the necessity of preserving its structural
foundations, of honouring its organic institutions, of protecting and
strengthening its spiritual agencies? Will they have the patience to
move slowly; the sympathy to appreciate the period of strain and stress
which these revolutionary influences must bring with them; the perception
to recognize what elements of greatness and of far-reaching promise
this indigenous civilization contains? Or will they, pushed by other
counsellors, incline to go too fast both politically and economically,
impatiently brushing aside immemorial ceremonies and customs, or
permitting them to be assaulted by selfish interests on the one hand and
short-sighted zeal on the other? Will they forget, amid the clamorous
calls of “progress” and “enlightenment” that their own proclaimed high
purpose (nobly accomplished by their representatives) of staying the
ravages of internal warfare and healing open wounds will be shamed in the
result if, through their instrumentality, the seeds of deeper, deadlier
ills are sown which would eat away this fine material, destroy the lofty
courtesies, the culture and the healthy industrial life of this land,
converting its peoples into a troubled, shiftless mass, hirelings, bereft
of economic independence and having lost all sense of national vitality?
Thoughts such as these must needs crowd upon the traveller through these
vast spaces and populous centres as he watches the iron horse pursue its
irrevocable advance towards the great Hausa cities of the plains, as he
hears the increasing calls from the newly opened tin mines for labour,
from the Lancashire cotton-spinner for cotton and markets; as he takes
cognisance of the suggestions already being made to break the spirit
of the new and admirable land-law, and of the efforts to introduce a
militant Christian propaganda; as he listens in certain quarters to the
loose talk about the “shibboleths” and “absurdities” of indigenous forms
and ceremonies, the cumbrousness of native laws and etiquette.
CHAPTER IV
THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE—THE LONG-DISTANCE TRADER
A broad, sandy road, piercing a belt of shea trees, gnarled and twisted,
their bark figured like the markings of a crocodile’s back, from which
peculiarity you can distinguish the true shea from the so-called “false”
shea, or African oak. From the burnt grasses, golden flowers destitute
of leaf companionship peep timidly forth as though fearful of such
uncongenial surroundings. The heat rays quiver over the thirsty soil, for
it is Christmas time and no rain has fallen for nigh upon four months. On
the summit of a blackened sapling, exquisite in its panoply of azure blue
and pinkey-buff, a bird of the size of our English jay but afflicted with
a name so commonplace that to mention it in connection with so glorious
a visitant would be cruel, perches motionless, its long graceful tail
feathers waving ever so slightly in the still air. The sun beats downward
shrewdly, and combined with the gentle amble of the patient beast beneath
you, induces drowsiness. You find yourself nodding in the saddle until
the loosening grip of thighs jerks the rider once more into sentiency.
It is hot, dreamily, lethargically hot. All the world seems comatose,
the unfolding panorama unreal as if seen through a fog of visionary
reverie. But there is nothing fanciful about the rapidly approaching
cloud of dust ahead, which emits a swelling murmur of confused sound. It
takes shape and substance, and for the next half-hour or so, drowsiness
and heat are alike forgotten in the contemplation of a strange medley
of men and animals. Droves of cattle, among them the monstrous horned
oxen from the borders of Lake Chad, magnificent beasts, white or black
for the most part. Flocks of Roman-nosed, short-haired, vacant-eyed
sheep—white with black patches. Tiny, active, bright brown goats skipping
along in joyful ignorance of impending fate. Pack-bullocks, loaded with
potash, cloth, hides and dried tobacco leaves, culinary utensils, and
all manner of articles wrapped in skins or in octagon-shaped baskets
made of parchment, tight drawn in a wicker framework, which later—on
the return journey—will be packed with kolas carefully covered with
leaves. A few camels, skinny and patchy, and much out at elbows so to
speak, similarly burdened. The drivers move among their beasts. Keeping
in the rear, with lengthy staves outstretched over the animal’s back,
they control any tendency to straggle across the road. Tall spare men,
for the most part, these drivers, small-boned, tough and sinewy. Hausas
mainly, good-featured, not unfrequently bearded men, often possessed of
strikingly handsome profiles, with clean-shaven heads and keen cheerful
looks. But many Tuaregs are here also from the far-distant north, even
beyond the Nigerian border; their fierce eyes gleaming above the black
veil drawn across the face, covering the head and falling upon the robe
beneath, once white, now stained and rent by many weeks of travel.
From the shoulders of these hang formidable, cross-handled swords in
red-leather tasselled scabbards. Nor are the Hausas always innocent
of arms, generally a sword. But here is a professional hunter who has
joined the party. You can tell him from his bow held in the right hand
and the quiver of reed-arrows barbed—and, maybe, poisoned—slung across
his back. The legs of the men are bare to the knees, and much-worn
sandals cover their feet. Some carry loads of merchandise, food and
water-gourds; others have their belongings securely fastened on bullock
or donkey. Women, too, numbers of them, splendid of form and carriage,
one or both arms uplifted, balancing upon the carrying pad (_gammo_) a
towering load of multitudinous contents neatly held together in a string
bag. Their raiment is the raiment of antiquity, save that it has fewer
folds, the outer gown, commonly blue in colour, reaching to just below
the knees, the bosom not generally exposed, at least in youth, and where
not so intended, gravely covered as the alien rides by; neck, wrists and
ankles frequently garnished with silver ornaments. Many women bear in
addition to the load upon the head, a baby on the back, its body hidden
in the outer robe, its shiny shaven head emerging above, sometimes
resting against the soft and ample maternal shoulders, sometimes wobbling
from side to side in slumber, at the imminent risk, but for inherited
robustness in that region, of spinal dislocation. Children of all ages,
the elders doing their share in porterage, younger ones held by the hand
(nothing can be more charming than the sight of a youthful Nigerian
mother gladsome of face and form teaching the young idea the mysteries
of head-carriage!). Two tired mites are mounted upon a patient ox, the
father walking behind. A sturdy middle-aged Hausa carries one child on
his shoulders, grasps another by the wrist, supporting his load with his
free hand. A gay, dusty crowd, weary and footsore, no doubt, tramping
twenty miles in a day carrying anything from forty to one hundred
pounds; but, with such consciousness of freedom, such independence of
gait and bearing! The mind flies back to those staggering lines of
broken humanity, flotsam and jetsam of our great cities, products of our
“superior” civilization, dragging themselves along the Herefordshire
lanes in the hop-picking season! What a contrast! And so the trading
caravan, bound for the markets of the south, for Lokoja or Bida—it may
well be, for some of its units, Ibadan or Lagos—passes onwards, wrapped
in its own dust, which, presently, closes in and hides it from sight.
[Illustration: A NIGERIAN HUNTER STALKING GAME WITH THE HEAD OF THE
GROUND HORNBILL AFFIXED TO HIS FOREHEAD.
(_Copyright._) (_Photo by Mr. E. Firmin._)]
Throughout the dry season the trade routes are covered with such caravans
and with countless pedestrians in small groups or in twos or threes—I am
told by men who have lived here for years and by the natives themselves,
that while highway robbery is not unknown, a woman, even unattended (and
I saw many such) is invariably safe from molestation—petty traders and
itinerant merchants, some coming north loaded with kolas, salt and cloth,
others going south with butchers’ provender, potash, cloth, grass, and
leather-ware, etc., witness to the intensive internal commerce which for
centuries upon centuries has rolled up and down the highways of Nigeria.
[Illustration: A TRADING CARAVAN.]
CHAPTER V
THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE—THE AGRICULTURIST
_Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!_ The sonorous tones perforate the mists
of sleep, heralding the coming of the dawn. _Ashadu Allah, ila-allahu,
ila-allahu!_ Insistent, reverberating through the still, cold air—the
night and first hours of the day in these latitudes are often very cold.
A pause. Then the unseen voice is again raised, seeming to gather unto
itself a passionate appeal as the words of the prayer flow more rapidly.
_Ashadu an Muhammad rasul ilahi! Haya-al essalatu! Haya al el falahi!
Kad Kamet essalatu!_ Another pause. The myriad stars still shine in the
deep purple panoply of the heavens, but their brilliancy grows dimmer.
The atmosphere seems infused with a tense expectancy. _Allahu Akbar!
Allahu Akbar! La illaha, ila-Allahu, ila-Allahu. Muhammad Rasul ilahi.
Salallah aleiheiu, ... Wassalama._ The tones rise triumphant and die
away in grave cadence. It thrills inexpressibly does this salute to the
omnipotent Creator ringing out over every town and village in the Moslem
Hausa States. “God the Greatest! There is no God but _the_ God!” And
that closing, “Peace!” It has in it reality. Surely it is a good thing
and not a bad thing that African man should be reminded as he quits his
couch, and as he returns to it, of an all-presiding, all-pervading,
all-comprehending Deity? His fashion may not be our fashion. What of
that? How far are we here from the narrow cry of the “Moslem peril”!
Whom does this call to God imperil? The people who respond to it and
prostrate themselves in the dust at its appeal? Let us be quite sure that
our own salvation is secured by our own methods, that the masses of our
own people are as vividly conscious of the Omnipotent, as free and happy
in their lives, as these Nigerian folk, ere we venture to disturb the
solemn acknowledgment and petition that peal forth into the dusk of the
Nigerian morn.
[Illustration: FRUIT-SELLERS.]
[Illustration: WATER-CARRIERS.]
And now a faint amber flush appears in the eastern sky. It is the signal
for many sounds. A hum of many human bees, the crowing of countless
roosters, the barking of lean and yellow “pye” dogs, the braying of the
donkey and the neigh of his nobler relative, the bleating of sheep and
the lowing of cattle. The scent of burning wood assails the nostrils
with redolent perfume. The white tick-birds, which have passed the night
close-packed on the fronds of the tall fan-palms, rustle their feathers
and prepare, in company with their scraggy-necked scavenging colleagues
the vultures, for the useful if unedifying business of the day. Nigerian
life begins, and what a busy intensive life it is! From sunrise to
sunset, save for a couple of hours in the heat of the day, every one
appears to have his hands full. Soon all will be at work. The men driving
the animals to pasture, or hoeing in the fields, or busy at the forge,
or dye-pit or loom; or making ready to sally forth to the nearest market
with the products of the local industry. The women cooking the breakfast,
or picking or spinning cotton, or attending to the younger children, or
pounding corn in large and solid wooden mortars, pulping the grain with
pestles—long staves, clubbed at either end—grasped now in one hand, now
in the other, the whole body swinging with the stroke as it descends,
and, perhaps, a baby at the back, swinging with it; or separating on
flat slabs of stone the seed from the cotton lint picked the previous
day. This is a people of agriculturists, for among them agriculture is
at once life’s necessity and its most important occupation. The sowing
and reaping, and the intermediate seasons bring with them their several
tasks. The ground must be cleared and hoed, and the sowing of the staple
crops concluded before the early rains in May, which will cover the
land with a sheet of tender green shoots of guinea-corn, maize, and
millet, and, more rarely, wheat. When these crops have ripened, the
heads of the grain will be cut off, the bulk of them either marketed or
stored—spread out upon the thatch-roofed houses to dry, sometimes piled
up in a huge circle upon a cleared, dry space—in granaries of clay or
thatch, according to the local idea; others set aside for next year’s
seeds. The stalks, ten to fifteen feet in height, will be carefully
gathered and stacked for fencing purposes. Nothing that nature provides
or man produces is wasted in this country. Nature is, in general, kind.
It has blessed man with a generally fertile and rapidly recuperative
soil, provided also that in the more barren, mountainous regions, where
ordinary processes would be insufficient, millions of earth-worms
shall annually fling their casts of virgin sub-soil upon the sun-baked
surface. And man himself, in perennial contact with Nature, has learned
to read and retain many of her secrets which his civilized brother has
forgotten. One tree grows gourds with neck and all complete, which need
but to be plucked, emptied and dried to make first-rate water-bottles.
A vigorous ground creeper yields enormous pumpkin-shaped fruit whose
contents afford a succulent potage, while its thick shell scraped and
dried furnishes plates, bowls, pots, and dishes of every size, and put
to a hundred uses: ornaments, too, when man has grafted his art upon its
surface with dyes and carved patterns. A bush yields a substantial pod
which when ready to burst and scatter its seeds is found to contain a
fibrous substance which resembles—and may be identical with, I am not
botanist enough to tell—the loofah of commerce, and is put to the same
uses. From the seeds of the beautiful locust-bean tree (_dorowa_), whose
gorgeous crimson blooms form so notable a feature of the scenery in the
flowering season, soup is made, while the casing of the bean affords a
singularly enduring varnish. The fruit of the invaluable _Kadenia_ or
shea tree is used for food, for oil, and medicinally. The bees receive
particular attention for their honey and their wax, the latter utilized
in sundry ways from ornamenting Korans down to the manufacture of
candles. As many as a dozen oblong, mud-lined, wicker hives closed at
one end, the other having a small aperture, may sometimes be seen in a
single tree. Before harvest time has dawned and with the harvesting, the
secondary crops come in for attention. Cassava and cotton, indigo and
sugar-cane, sweet potatoes and tobacco, onions and ground-nuts, beans
and pepper, yams and rice, according to the locality and suitability
of the soil. The farmers of a moist district will concentrate on the
sugar-cane—its silvery, tufted, feathery crowns waving in the breeze are
always a delight: of a dry, on ground-nuts: those enjoying a rich loam
on cotton, and so on. While the staple crops represent the imperious
necessity of life—food, the profits from the secondary crops are expended
in the purchase of clothing, salt and tools, the payment of taxes, the
entertainment of friends and chance acquaintances (a generous hospitality
characterizes this patriarchal society), and the purchase of luxuries,
kolas, tobacco, ornaments for wives and children. It is a revelation to
see the cotton-fields, the plants in raised rows three feet apart, the
land having in many cases been precedently enriched by a catch-crop of
beans, whose withering stems (where not removed for fodder, or hoed in as
manure) are observable between the healthy shrubs, often four or five
feet in height, thickly covered with yellow flowers or snowy bolls of
white, bursting from the split pod. The fields themselves are protected
from incursions of sheep and goats by tall neat fencing of guinea-corn
stalks, or reeds, kept in place by native rope of uncommon strength.
Many cassava fields, the root of this plant furnishing an invaluable
diet, being indeed, one of the staples of the more southerly regions, are
similarly fenced. Equally astonishing are the irrigated farms which you
meet with on the banks of the water-courses. The plots are marked out
with the mathematical precision of squares on a chess-board, divided by
ridges with frequent gaps permitting of a free influx of water from the
central channel, at the opening of which, fixed in a raised platform,
a long pole with a calabash tied on the end of it, is lowered into the
water and its contents afterwards poured into the trench. Conditions
differ of course according to locality, and the technique and industry
displayed by the farmers of one district vary a good deal from the next.
In the northern part of Zaria and in Kano the science of agriculture has
attained remarkable development. There is little we can teach the Kano
farmer. There is much we can learn from him. Rotation of crops and green
manuring are thoroughly understood, and I have frequently noticed in the
neighbourhood of some village small heaps of ashes and dry animal manure
deposited at intervals along the crest of cultivated ridges which the
rains will presently wash into the waiting earth. In fact, every scrap
of fertilizing substance is husbanded by this expert and industrious
agricultural people. Instead of wasting money with the deluded notion
of “teaching modern methods” to the Northern Nigerian farmer, we should
be better employed in endeavouring to find an answer to the puzzling
question of how it is that land which for centuries has been yielding
enormous crops of grain, which in the spring is one carpet of green,
and in November one huge cornfield “white unto harvest,” can continue
doing so. What is wanted is an expert agriculturist who will start out
not to teach but to learn; who will study for a period of say five years
the highly complicated and scientific methods of native agriculture, and
base possible improvements and suggestions, maybe, for labour-saving
appliances, upon real knowledge.
Kano is, of course, the most fertile province of the Protectorate, but
this general description of agricultural Nigeria does not only apply to
Kano Province. I saw nothing finer in the way of deep cultivation (for
yams and guinea-corn chiefly) than among the Bauchi pagans. The pagan
Gwarri of the Niger Province have for ages past grown abundant crops in
terraces up their mountainsides whither they sought refuge from Hausa and
Fulani raids. The soil around Sokoto, where the advancing Sahara trenches
upon the fertile belt, may look arid and incapable of sustaining annual
crops, yet every year it blossoms like a rose. But the result means and
needs inherited lore and sustained and strenuous labour. From the early
rains until harvest time a prolific weed-growth has continuously to be
fought. Insect pests, though not conspicuously numerous in most years,
nevertheless exist, amongst them the locusts, which sometimes cover the
heavens with their flight; the caterpillar, which eats the corn in its
early youth; the blight (_daraba_), which attacks the ripening ear. In
some districts not so favoured, the soil being of compact clay with a
thin coating of humus, intensive cultivation has proved exhausting, and
it is a study to note how every ounce of humus is tended with religious
care. Very hard work at the right time is the secret of success for the
Nigerian agriculturist. It is little short of marvellous that with all he
has to do he somehow manages to build our railways and our roads. Indeed,
if that phenomenon has in many respects its satisfactory, it has also
its sombre, social side. One can but hope that the former may outweigh
the latter as the country gradually settles down after the severe demands
placed upon it these last few years.
[Illustration: A GWARRI GIRL.]
[Illustration: A HAUSA TRADING WOMAN.]
Truly a wonderful country, and a wonderful people, a people who with
fifty years’ peace will double its numbers, a people whom it is our
paramount duty to secure for ever in the undisturbed occupation and
enjoyment of the land, precluding the up-growth of a middle-man class of
landlord from which the native system is free, and being so free need
never be saddled with.
CHAPTER VI
THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE—THE HERDSMAN AND THE ARTISAN
The word “peasant” as applied to the Fulani is, no doubt, a misnomer. I
employ it merely to distinguish the herdsmen from the caste of statesmen
and governors, evolved in Nigeria by the genius of Othman Fodio, but, as
their recorded history throughout Western Africa shows, inherent in this
mysterious race whose moral characteristics have persisted through all
degrees of admixture with the negro. The Fulani peasant is but rarely an
agriculturist in Nigeria, but he plays an important, if indirect, part
in the agriculture of the Hausa provinces. Over the face of the land he
wanders with his great herds—which may number upwards of several thousand
head in one herd—of beautiful hump-backed cattle, mostly white, ever
seeking “pastures new.” Speaking under correction, in Borgu only does
his settlement partake of permanency. Elsewhere he is a wanderer. One
month a given district may be full of Fulani camps, come from where his
fellow-man has but the vaguest of notions. The next, not a single Fulani
will be seen within it. But they return, as a rule, the ensuing year to
their old haunts. To the Hausa farmer the _M’Bororoji_ or “Cow-Fulani”
are an invaluable asset, and he enters into regular contracts with them
for turning their cattle on to his fields; and he buys milk from them.
I struck several of their encampments, at distances hundreds of miles
apart. The first, at the crossing of the Bako, between Badeggi and Bida,
was in charge of a patriarch who might have stepped out of the book of
Genesis: a Semite every inch of him: spare of form, emaciated in feature,
with high cheek-bones, hawk-like nose, flashing, crafty eyes, a long
white beard and a bronzed skin without a trace of black blood.
[Illustration: A FULANI GIRL.]
There is no more interesting sight in Nigeria than a Fulani encampment.
It is usually pitched well away from the beaten track, albeit within
convenient distance of a village. You rub your eyes and wonder if you
can really be in the heart of the Dark Continent, as these gracefully
built, pale copper-coloured men and women—one may say of some of the
young girls with the sun shining on their velvety skins, almost golden
coloured—appear tending their herds and flocks, or standing and sitting
at the entrance to their temporary shelters. Even the latter differ
frequently from the African hut, resembling in shape the wigwam of the
North American Indian. As for the people themselves, you are aware of an
indefinable sentiment of affinity in dealing with them. They are a white,
not a black race.
I have discussed their origin and West African history elsewhere,[8]
and will only say here that delicacy of form, refinement of contour and
simple dignity of bearing distinguish this strange people, just as the
ruling families possess the delicacy of brain and subtlety of intellect
which impress their British over-lords. A fact worth recording, perhaps,
is that while the Hausa woman spins and the Hausa man weaves cotton, the
Fulani woman does both the spinning and the weaving.
If the agricultural life of the Northern Nigerian peoples is a full
one, the industrial life, especially in the northern provinces of the
Protectorate, is equally so. It is an extraordinarily self-sufficing
country at present, and the peasant-cultivator and artisan are
interdependent, the latter supplying the domestic wants and making
the requisite implements for the former. The variety of trades may be
estimated from the old Hausa system of taxation. This system the Fulani
adopted, modifying it slightly here and there by enforcing closer
adherence to the Koranic law, and we are modifying it still further by
a gradual process tending to merge multiple imposts under two or three
main heads, with the idea of establishing a more equitable re-adjustment
of burdens and to ensure greater simplicity in assessment. The Hausa
system provided that taxes should be levied upon basket and mat-makers,
makers of plant for cotton-spinners, bamboo door-makers, carpenters,
dyers, blacksmiths and whitesmiths, as well as upon bee-keepers, hunters,
trappers and butchers. Exemption from taxes was granted to shoe-makers,
tailors, weavers, tanners, potters, and makers of indigo; but market
taxes were imposed upon corn measurers, brokers, sellers of salt,
tobacco, kolas, and ironstone.
The chief agricultural implement is the Hausa hoe, the _galma_, a curious
but efficient instrument, which simultaneously digs and breaks up the
soil and is said to be of great antiquity, but which is easier to draw
than to describe. There is also in daily use among the Hausas a smaller,
simpler hoe and a grass-cutter, while the pagan favours a much heavier
and more formidable-looking tool. This pagan hoe somewhat resembles our
English spade, but is wielded in quite different fashion. Iron drills,
rough hammers and axes, nails, horseshoes, stirrup-irons and bits are
included among the ordinary forms of the blacksmith’s art. Iron-stone
is common in many parts of the country and is extensively worked,
furnaces being met with in every district where the use of the metal is
locally in vogue. It is to be hoped that “Civilization” will not seek
to stamp out this native industry as the tin-miners have done their
best—and, unless the promise made to the smelters of Liruei-n-Kano by
Sir H. Hesketh Bell is not speedily carried out, but too successfully—to
crush the interesting tin-smelting industry. The history of native tin
smelting in Nigeria furnishes a remarkable proof of the capacity of the
Nigerian native, but is too long to set forth here in detail. Suffice it
to say that for a hundred years, a certain ruling family with numerous
branches, has succeeded in turning out a singularly pure form of the
white metal whose sale as an article of trade brought prosperity to the
countryside. When I left the tin district, owing to unjust and stupidly
selfish interference with immemorial rights, the native furnaces had been
closed for nine months and poverty was beginning to replace comparative
affluence.
[Illustration: PANNING FOR IRON.]
[Illustration: DYE-PITS.]
Hoe-handles, mortars, pestles, beds, doors, gins, spindles, bobbins,
looms, shuttles, saddles, riding-boots, sandals, slippers, bridles,
scissors, razors, rope, fishing-nets, earthenware cooking-pots, lamps,
water-bottles and pipes are among the innumerable articles turned out
by the artisan in Northern Nigeria. Indigo dye-pits are to be found in
many towns, but the great tanning centre is Kano. Cloth-beating is a
recognized branch of the former industry. After removal from the circular
pits sunk _à fleur de terre_, the clothes are hung up to dry and then
handed over to the beater. In a dark and spacious hut perspiring men
kneel in rows facing one another on either side of a huge log of wood,
stained black and smooth-polished with constant use, upon which the
cloths are spread and vigorously beaten with rounded wooden mallets. Very
hard work it is, as I can personally testify, having tried my hand at
it, much to the entertainment of the dusky experts. The Kano tanneries
are in appearance disappointing; in odours surpassing anything that can
be imagined. But the product is astonishingly excellent. The completed
skins, dyed deep red or orange with native dyes, the roots, leaves and
bark of sundry shrubs and trees being utilized in the many processes
through which the raw hide passes, are as soft to the touch as Russian
leather. They are greatly appreciated in the Western world, and the trade
is a rapidly increasing one.
CHAPTER VII
THE CITY OF KANO AND ITS MARKET
You are permanently conscious that this country has a history and
traditions. Nowhere, perhaps, does the fact impress the new-comer
more vividly than at Kano. It is a wonderful place to find in Central
Africa, this native city with its great enfolding walls, twelve miles
in circumference, pierced by thirteen deep gateways (_kofas_), with
platform and guardhouses and massive doors heavily clamped with iron;
with its written records dating back nearly eight hundred years. And
although incomparably the most important it is not the oldest of these
Hausa cities—Katsina, now in the same “province,” is probably older.
When the West-Saxon realm fell before the onslaught of the Danes and
the first Danish King reigned over England, Hausaland was conquered
by an unknown people from the East, and when the prosperity of the
English towns was beginning to revive under Henry I., Gijimasu, the
third King of the invading dynasty, was building Kano. When Henry VIII.
was laying the foundations of personal government, the “rich merchants
and most civil people” of Kano were entertaining Leo Africanus. Three
hundred years later (1824) Clapperton entered this “great emporium of
the kingdom of Hausa,” which Barth forty years afterwards termed the
“far-famed entrepôt of Central Africa;” which Lugard was subsequently
to describe as exceeding anything he had ever seen “or even imagined”
in Africa. Tributary now to this, now to the other, evanescent African
kingdom, frequently at war with its neighbours, repeatedly besieged, it
has survived every vicissitude. Neither the disastrous struggles with
Katsina in the seventeenth, and with Gober in the eighteenth centuries,
nor the deposition and defeat of the forty-third (and last) King of the
original dynasty by the Fulani early in the nineteenth century, nor
yet the occupation of the country by the British seven years ago, have
destroyed its influence or impaired its commercial prestige—a tribute to
the staying power and to the sterling qualities of the truly remarkable
African people whom, in the providence of God, it has now fallen upon
us to rule. Its market-place, still the scene of clamorous activity,
continues to attract merchants and merchandise from all parts of western
Central Africa. It still remains the nerve-centre of a district whose
natural fertility, aided by the labour and skill of a hard-working,
industrious population, not only supports, as it has done for many
centuries, a population of equal density to the square mile as England
boasts, but exports large quantities of grain to less-favoured regions;
and its looms continue to supply the requirements of an immense area
ranging from the Chad to Timbuktu and the borders of Tripoli, and (in
part, at least) southwards to the Niger.
[Illustration: A VIEW OF A PART OF KANO CITY (INSIDE THE WALL).]
Picturesque by day, with numerous and gaily dressed pedestrians and
horsemen perambulating its tortuous streets, busy crowds around its
markets, dye-pits, tanneries, and looms, Kano is still more so when the
moon floods its broad open spaces with light and flings strange shadows
across the sandy thoroughfares where they abut upon the dwelling-places
of its inhabitants. Then, but for the occasional howl of a dog, this
city which has endured so long and withstood so much lies wrapped in
impenetrable silence. The ugly sores of Africa—not, assuredly, as ugly
or as numerous as those of Europe, but more conspicuous—are mercifully
hidden. No one walks abroad. Yet you know as you wander with noiseless
footsteps through its curves and labyrinths, escaping for once from your
inevitable native attendants (delightful people, but sadly hampering
at times), that behind these thick clay walls and closed doors, the
mysterious world of Africa is awake and stirring, that social world
with its primitive impulses, but also with its many courtesies and
refinements, that world of habit and of thought, guarded with jealous
reticence from the alien, unfathomed and unfathomable even by the most
experienced of Residents. And, again, at sunrise, when from the summit
of the minaret outside the Emir’s residence, the pink flush of dawn
steals down the sides of the city’s guardian hills, Dala and Goronduchi,
flickers upon the fronds of the palm trees, and reveals the seemingly
interminable vista of houses, mostly flat-roofed, but varied here and
there by others of humbler thatch and conical in shape; when the blue
wreaths of smoke from many fires mount perpendicularly into the crisp,
still air, mingled with the aromatic scent of burning wood and a confused
murmur of awakening life—then, too, the city holds you in the grip of a
fascinated interest. It is difficult to explain this fascination, for
the architecture of Kano, though imposing in its way, is rude. There are
no flashing domes and sumptuous buildings as in the East; yet the few
who have visited it, and the handful of officers—all travelled men—who
by turn have had responsibility for the good order of the Emirate would
be prepared, I fancy, one and all to confess that not even the blunting
effects of familiarity can do away with the curious influences it
exercises.
A visit to the famous market-place—the _Kasua Kurumi_—which covers
a wide expanse, and where anything from 4000 to 7000 persons may be
congregated together, according to the day, is a bewildering experience.
In this tumultuous sea of humanity, shot with brilliant colours, details
are swamped at first in general impressions. You are aware of a vast
concourse of men and women, cheery-faced, closely packed together, clad
in robes of many hues—white and various shades of blue predominating;
of tossing arms and turbaned heads; of long lines of clay-built booths
where piled-up merchandise awaits the customer; of incessant movement,
the strife of many tongues, the waft of many scents, mostly the reverse
of fragrant—over all, blue sky and fierce hot sun. As you move along
with frequent pauses necessitated by the crush, and the eye gets more
accustomed to the scene, some at least of its component parts stand out
more clearly from the ever-shifting view, and the extraordinary variety
of human types and the multiplicity of articles on sale is realized.
The home of the Kanawa (people of Kano), whose industry is famed from
the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, one would naturally expect to find
their numbers in the ascendant. Keen-featured men of business, women with
elaborate coiffures resembling pictures of old Assyrian helmets, their
cheeks often disfigured by exaggerated “beauty spots” daubed on with lead
or antimony. Other Hausas, visitors from Katsina, Gober, or Daura, each
with the distinguishing facial mark of his clan, six strokes with a dot
for Katsina, two for Daura, and so on. Pale-complexioned Fulani from the
country, the women wearing their straight hair in ringlets, with silver
earrings and gentle eyes. The Nupe, with his characteristic headgear of
red, black, and yellow straw. Thick-lipped Kanuris from Bornu. Tall,
lithe Tuareg from distant Sokoto, or Asben. The Arab merchant, arrogant
and intriguer, making his way through the market to the “Arab quarter,”
a quarter of the city remarkable for its Moorish architecture and
unpleasantly notorious for its smells.
Each trade has its quarter. Beneath the shelter of the booths vendors
sit cross-legged, their wares spread out before them. Cloths of every
hue and texture under the sun, it would seem, absorb one whole quarter,
and form, perhaps, the most important article of sale, although the more
valuable clothes are seldom seen, for the Kano market is essentially a
retail one, transactions in objects of more costly worth taking place
within the shelter of private houses. You will see enough in the cloth
quarter, however, to appreciate the diversity of quality and design,
from the beautifully embroidered Kano _riga_ (a sort of hoodless cloak
universally worn by the better classes, covering the body from neck to
knee) to the common shirting of Manchester, the white _bullan_ or gown
from Bornu, the _arigiddi_, or woman’s cloth from Zaria, the _faringodo_,
or plain white cloth from Ilorin, the _majai_, or webbing made by the
pagan tribes of Bauchi, and used by the Fulani for girths. The products
of native looms from towns hundreds of miles distant, enjoying special
renown for some attractive peculiarity, are purchasable here, together
with the manufactures of Europe. The former are almost infinite in
diversity, and each has its particular uses. Black, white, and blue
gowns, brocade, striped brocade, striped shirting, white shirting,
shirting with a red border, white and black checks, drill, red baft,
cloths for turbans, caps, fezzes, expensively embroidered trousers,
sleeveless under-vests, velvet—all in endless variety.
In the leather quarter you will find great quantities of saddlery from
Tripoli, and also of local manufacture, highly ornamented bridles,
stirrup-leathers, despatch-bags, _Korans_ in leather cases, purses,
red slippers, sandals, quilted horsecloths, undyed goatskins and
cowhides, swords in scabbards, many of them admirable in workmanship.
An examination of the latter will disclose the interesting fact that
the blades of the most expensive specimens bear the Sölingen mark, a
curious example of the conservatism of this interior African trade, for
as far back as the middle of the last century Sölingen sword blades were
imported into Kano across the desert. Passing out of the leather quarter
you will find silver, brass, and tin ware; among the former necklaces and
earrings which would not disgrace a London jeweller’s shop-window, ruder
bangles and anklets, partly tin, partly silver; brass urns and bowls,
and glass bracelets from Bida. Necklaces of beads, Venetian and local,
of agates imported from Tripoli and polished and cut at Bida, of cheap
European coral, of different kinds of bright-coloured local seeds. Rough
pottery, but often of elegant design, such, for example, as the small
lamps used for burning ground-nut oil, in the manufacture of which mica
enters.
Sheds and stalls, in addition to the booths, are devoted to the sale
of numerous merchandise. The store of an elderly white-turbaned Hausa
contains a mass of rough silk mixed up with the cocoons; these are
produced by the silkworm, which feeds on the tamarind tree. The _rigas_
made from it are very dear, and also very pleasant to the touch,
resembling in that respect and in colour tussore. Here is a stall
containing the products of the local smithy, stirrup-irons, locks for
doors, every kind of agricultural implement used by the native farmer,
axes, knives, and skin-scrapers used in preparing goat and sheep skins
for export. There a stall filled with native herbs used as medicines,
from the _tafarnua_ for rheumatism to the _karijiji_ for colds, the
_kula_ and _passakori_ much used by women after child-birth. Much
space is taken up by the sellers of foodstuffs, mostly vegetable, such
as guinea-corn and millet in variety, beans, yams, sugar-cane, sweet
potatoes (in variety), pepper, onions, the fruit of the tamarind, the red
flowers of the tobacco plant, cassava, and ginger.
[Illustration: ONE OF THE GATEWAYS TO KANO CITY, SHOWING OUTER WALL.]
[Illustration: ANOTHER OF THE ENTRANCES TO THE CITY.]
In another direction you will observe on sale European salt and native
potash in cakes and cones, zana-mats, firewood, native rope, roofing,
sticks with branches, guinea-corn and millet stalks for fencing, native
beds, doors made of palm sticks, baskets, mats in great diversity of
size and colouring. Round about the booths and sheds on every side sit
men and women (mostly the latter) selling articles of local or European
origin; by their side, and, apparently, no more carefully watched than
the articles themselves, small piles of cowries and sometimes the new
nickel coinage we have introduced, and threepenny bits represent the
takings of the day. Among such articles are to be observed indigo,
antimony, ground-nuts, the inevitable kola-nut, shea-butter, spices,
cow-dung in small packets (very precious), raw cotton, henna (_lelli_)
for staining hands or feet, fresh honey, cakes and sweetmeats (of a
fearful and wonderful composition), native soap from Nupe (_sabouni_),
bobbins, shuttles, and other necessities of the national industry,
cigarettes, red wool, green wool, crochet-thread, water-pots, and sundry
cheap trinkets from Europe. The butchers’ quarter it is best to pass by
swiftly; unsavoury in Europe, the flies and tropical sun do not improve
it in Africa. Long files of cattle, donkeys, sheep, and goats can be seen
winding their way to the cattle market, where many thousands are daily on
sale.
CHAPTER VIII
A VISIT TO THE EMIR OF KANO
Kano Province under the British Administration includes a number
of independent Emirates which we found existing and which we have
maintained, viz.: Kano, Katsina, Katagum, Daura, Kazaure and Gummel. The
total area of the Province is 28,600 square miles, _i.e._ almost the size
of Scotland, and its population 2,600,000, or what that of Scotland was
in the middle of last century.
The present Emir, Abbas, a reserved and very dark Fulani, with refined
regular features and long aristocratic hands, is a fine figure of a
man. The description of a visit to him may serve to convey some idea
of the ceremonious etiquette observed at the courts of the Mohammedan
Emirs (Kano being typical of all the great Emirates, with the exception
of Sokoto where formalities are even more elaborate), besides throwing
light upon several questions of interest and moment connected with the
problems of British administration. To depict the Emir’s residence as a
compound built of clay is, while accurate, to give but an inadequate idea
of the imposing character of these solid structures, the best of which
are, with supervision, capable of resisting for centuries the action of
the weather. I am probably understating the case when I say that the tall
and bulky wall—some fifteen feet in thickness—surrounding the residence
encloses five acres. Dismounting at the principal entrance, we are
escorted through the gateway by several functionaries and emerge into a
vast enclosure open to the sky. At its extremity, facing us, is an inner
wall and another deep embrasured gateway leading to the state apartments.
On our right stands the Emir’s private mosque, a building of considerable
proportions but smaller, of course, than the public mosque outside the
walls. Here and there a few picturesque figures are noticeable. For,
perhaps, a minute we wait. Then a blare of trumpets resounds, and through
the inner gateway emerges a brilliant gathering which advances slowly
towards us, the Emir in the midst. Within a dozen yards or so it halts,
and the Emir, separating himself from the throng, greets us with hand
outstretched—the only African in the Emirate to whom etiquette allows
this particular form of salutation with the White man. Towering above
most of the councillors, officers of state and heads of leading families
by whom he is accompanied, and bearing himself with great dignity, the
Emir murmurs some words of welcome. He is dressed entirely in costly
white robes and turban; his feet are encased in ostrich-feather sandals,
a footgear introduced in the sixteenth century by Mohamma Rimfa, the
twentieth Emir of Kano, justly revered for a reign full of years and
usefulness, and he carries the silver-mounted staff of office presented
to all the ruling Emirs by Sir Frederick Lugard after the British
occupation. He invites us to follow him and leads the way in silence to
his apartments, his courtiers closing round us as we proceed. In the same
impressive silence we pass through the inner gateway and find ourselves
in a broad passage flanked on either side by lofty audience chambers
whose dimensions it is difficult to gauge in the semi-obscurity which
reigns within them. At the end of the passage is yet another gateway.
Thenceforth we proceed alone with the Emir and the _Waziri_ or Vizier—the
present holder of that office being a man of great independence and
strength of character, whose fearless candour and ripe judgment have been
of inestimable service in assisting successive Residents to understand
the many complex problems of native administration. Crossing a courtyard
we enter the outer room of the Emir’s private apartments. And here for
an hour we discuss many things, chairs being provided for us while the
Emir and Waziri, in accordance with the etiquette of the country, sit
cross-legged before us. A word as to the architecture and appearance
of the room, which, as we were subsequently to ascertain, is roughly
similar to the audience chambers we have left behind. It is some twenty
to twenty-five feet in height, with an arched roof supported by wooden
beams on the cantilever principle; both beams and roof are, like the
floor, stained a deep black with the varnish obtained from the shell of
the locust bean; a few plates of European manufacture are let into the
supporting rafters; the walls, constructed of the usual sun-baked clay
mingled with other substances, have a glittering appearance due to the
admixture of mica; two doors, an outward and an inward one, of massive
timber bound with iron bars affixed by native nails ornamented with large
circular brass heads, and a divan of rugs and shawls complete a picture
which suggests a certain austere simplicity.
[Illustration: INSIDE KANO CITY.]
After the usual interchange of compliments, I said it was desirable the
Emir should understand clearly in respect to any subjects which might
be touched upon, that I had no connection direct or indirect with the
British Government, or with any British commercial or other interest;
that I was merely visiting his country as an independent traveller, and
would report what I had seen and heard, and that I hoped he would feel
free to tell me frankly what was in his heart, for the people of England
only wished to know the truth. Conversation then ranged over the part of
the province of Kano I had, up to that time, visited; the industry of
the inhabitants, their methods of agriculture, the care they bestowed
upon secondary crops, such as cotton, cassava and onions, the great
city market and the variety of goods sold therein. I expressed a wish
to see the irrigated farms, and the Emir named certain localities near
the city where such farms were to be seen. The increasing prosperity
of the country through the preservation of peace was touched upon _de
part et d’autre_. The antiquity of the city and its interesting records
was the next subject approached. It would, I remarked, be a very great
pity if its essential characteristics were not maintained amid the
innovations which the railway would bring in its train. From that point
of view I ventured to express regret that the ancient walls of the
city were, in parts, falling into disrepair. In time to come future
generations of Kanawa would, I thought, lament the fact. Would it not
be possible to start repairs on one section at first, performing the
needed work gradually, doing a certain amount every year and finishing
section by section? The Emir fully concurred, saying that his people
themselves wished the walls restored. He hoped to deal with the matter,
but thought that it might be easier to commence preliminary repairs on a
general scale rather than start one part and finish that first as I had
suggested. From the question of the wall we turned to the more difficult
one of European traders and educated Native traders from the coast whom
the railway would bring, settling in the city. The Emir remarked that,
while foreign merchants were welcome, it would be better for them and for
the city and its inhabitants if those who wished to trade with the Kanawa
founded places of business at convenient spots outside.
[Illustration: THE EMIR OF KANO ON THE MARCH.]
Missionary propaganda in the Muslimised Hausa States of the north was
next touched upon. The subject has already given rise to discussions
at home, which are being followed in Northern Nigeria with anxious
concern, and such momentous consequences are bound up in it that I felt
it incumbent to ascertain through personal contact, the views of one
of the most important, in a certain measure the most important, of
the Mohammedan chiefs through whom we exercise supreme control. I told
the Emir I would be quite frank with him, and hoped that he would be
equally frank with me. The English people and the Kanawa people, I said,
worshipped the same Almighty Creator of the universe. The English people
followed the teachings of Christ, the Kanawa people the teachings of
Mohammed, and both peoples thought their religion the best. But although
the people of England held firmly to their beliefs, they had no desire to
interfere with that of the Kanawa. Their representative, Sir Frederick
Lugard, had pledged himself in their name to that effect, and the English
people always kept their word. But, I went on, some of my countrymen who
wished well to the Kanawa, thought Christianity could be preached in Kano
without breaking this pledge, because there would be no interference and
no moral pressure would be put upon the people of Kano to change their
religion even though Christian teachers sat down in the city and taught.
The Kanawa could come and hear them, or not, as they pleased. That was
the view held by some of the people in my country. What I wished to
know were the Emir’s opinions in the matter. Did he, or did he not, see
objections to the presence of Christian preachers in the city?
For some time the Emir kept silent, his fingers twitching nervously.
One could see the struggle passing in his mind and realize some of the
difficulties of his own position. Presently he spoke thus—I reproduce the
words as literally as possible:—
“Mohammedanism is a matter of the heart. Our fathers and our
grandfathers were Muslims. For many generations we have been
Muslims. What is the use of preaching if there are no converts?
Even if the Christian missionary tried to meet the native
on equal terms he could not do so because all white men are
Sarikis (chiefs), and the people cannot help so regarding them.
The missionaries might not wish to use force. But they would
exercise pressure amounting to force, because of the prestige
all white men have, and the people would be disturbed and
troubled in their minds.
“There would be unrest.”
I asked the Emir whether he would have any objection to confirming in
writing the views he had expressed. After a further period of silent
consideration, he said he had none. Here is the letter subsequently
received from him, rendered from the Arabic text:—
“Praise to God who only is to be praised.
“Salutations.
“This letter is directed to the stranger, Mr. Morel, who has
come.
“Know that as regards the preaching (of Christianity) which
we discussed here, my opinion is that it were better to stop
it altogether, from the first—because, if our people are
disturbed about their religion they will become suspicious and
afraid. Hence the country will become unsettled. Neither you
nor we desire the country to become unsettled, for that would
be harmful. On the other hand, as regards secular matters and
the affairs of this world, we can do anything—however great
a change it might be—since our people are accustomed to law
and to obey the orders of their rulers as their fathers and
grandfathers were before them. Also, as regards white men
living in the city of Kano, if they do so many of our people
will leave it, since the white men are too strong, and every
one of them is in our eyes, a great man and powerful. The lion
and the lamb cannot lie down together. My opinion is that the
white man who may wish to settle should have a separate town
outside the city of Kano—then we shall have our town and they
will have theirs. This is the wisest course, and far more
advantageous for our subjects than a mixed city of natives and
non-natives.
“Peace.”
At the close of the interview we were reconducted with the same
ceremonious politeness and in the same silence as before to the centre of
the outer enclosure, where we took our leave.
CHAPTER IX
GOVERNING ON NATIVE LINES
The fundamental principle aimed at by the Government in Northern Nigeria
is indirect administration, i.e. administration through the native
rulers of the communities, the Chiefs and their executives, under the
supervision and with the assistance of the Residents. That was the policy
laid down by Sir Frederick Lugard in a series of comprehensive Memoranda
which form not the least notable feature of the great work he carried out
during his tenure of office, a work entirely creative, be it remembered,
a work of which the value can but grow in public estimation as the sense
of perspective deepens with the years, and as additional information
supplies what in the early days of the occupation was largely lacking.
That was the policy Sir Frederick Lugard’s successor, Sir Percy Girouard,
found in being, not, indeed, unthreatened, but enthusiastically upheld
by the most experienced members of the Political Staff. He not only gave
it his full official support and checked certain leanings of an opposite
kind, but he brought to bear upon the situation a personal sympathy,
an illuminating and penetrative genius which popularized the policy in
quarters previously hostile or indifferent. Sir Henry Hesketh Bell has
loyally followed in the footsteps of his predecessors. That nothing
should be allowed to divert us from keeping on the same road is the
writer’s conviction, for what it may be worth, after several years’ study
at a distance and recent investigations on the spot.
A genuine and honest endeavour is being made not only to rule through
the native Chiefs, but to rule through them on native lines. Too much
importance can hardly be ascribed to the distinction. The success
already attained would be thrown away if policy were deflected in the
direction of substituting European for native ideas. If the native
machine is expected to perform functions for which it is unqualified,
the works get out of gear. If the Chiefs are called upon to exercise
their authority in enforcing measures essentially alien to the native
constitution, their prestige over the individual lapses. They become
mere puppets, and indirect rule breaks down. I hope to make clear what
the native constitution is, and what is meant by ruling on “native
lines.” The difficulties of improving and purifying when required a
native administration, without impairing its general efficiency, are
always considerable. In Northern Nigeria they are, for several reasons,
peculiarly so. If the result, so far, has shown the wisdom of the
original conception, it has been due to the determination and tact of the
senior Political Residents, and to the excellence of the native material.
Our task has been furthered by the administrative capacities of the
Fulani Emirs. Some were, indeed, found unfit and had to be removed, but
the majority are increasingly showing themselves not only capable but
quite indispensable to the work of government.
It would, however, be mischievous to conceal the fact that indirect
rule in the proper sense of the term, _i.e._ involving the preservation
of native law and custom, has to bear, in West Africa, the brunt of
constant and insidious assaults on the part of interested, or prejudiced,
or ill-informed opinion. This opposition is often quite honest and
quite easy to understand if the conditions are grasped. It is important
they should be grasped. Indirect rule is an obstacle to employment and
promotion in some branches of the service. It restricts the scope of
secretarial, judicial, police and military activities. It robs the
educated native barrister trained in English law, and the educated native
clerk, of a field for the exercise of their professions. It checks the
European capitalist in a hurry to push on “development.” The missionary
is apt to regard it as a stumbling-block to Christian propaganda.
Finally, there is the type of European who is racially biased against
the retention of any sort of control by the native in his own country.
Indirect rule, therefore, has very many enemies, and it cannot have
too many friends among the thinking public at home. So far as Northern
Nigeria is concerned, strenuous efforts will have to be put forward
by all who are convinced of the necessity of upholding indirect rule
therein, when the amalgamation of the two Protectorates is taken in
hand. That time cannot be far distant and the wind which blows from the
south is charged with many hostile particles. There would seem, then, to
be solid reasons for the public to appreciate the conditions, at once
severely practical, and of the moral order, which make the continuation
of the existing policy necessary to the welfare of the Northern
Protectorate.
Let us first consider geographical verities and ways and means.
Northern Nigeria is 255,000 square miles in extent and the territory is
divided into thirteen provinces. Of these provinces, Sokoto, the most
considerable in point of area, is nearly as large as Scotland and Wales;
Bornu is the size of Ireland; Kano is almost as large as Scotland;
Kontagora-Borgu is slightly larger than, and Bauchi and Muri the size
of, Greece; the Niger Province is as extensive as Servia; Yola is as
large as Denmark, and Nassarawa exceeds the area of Switzerland. It
is only by realizing space, by realizing that months of travel still
separate some provinces from others, that the expense, to say nothing
of other considerations, which would be entailed in gathering up all
the administrative threads of such a territory into the hands of a
staff of British officials can be understood. I have never heard it
suggested that the Lords of the Treasury parted enthusiastically with
the meagre sum allotted to Northern Nigeria. One cannot imagine that
their Lordships’ satisfaction would increase if they were presented
not with a bill of a quarter of a million but of two millions. The
single Province of Kano, which under the present system is supervised
by seventeen political officers, and more than pays its own way, would
require at least three hundred officials if direct rule were established,
or the prestige of the Emirs so weakened as to deprive them of all real
authority over the people, and this, exclusive of a swarm of native
officials who could not be done without in any case. That brings me to
my next point. Direct rule would, of necessity, involve an enormous,
directly paid, native staff. For its every action the Government would
be compelled to accept responsibility, and its members would, perforce,
be largely composed of the class of native—the most undesirable type, it
may be added—from which the policemen and soldiers are now recruited.
Putting aside the question of expenditure altogether, can any sane man,
disposed to look the facts squarely in the face and knowing anything
of the country, contemplate with equanimity the consequences of such a
_régime_? Then, assuming for purposes of argument the non-existence of
these impediments, where would lie the moral justification, let alone the
purely political expediency, of sweeping away the rule of the natural
rulers of the country?
CHAPTER X
THE FOUNDATIONS OF NATIVE SOCIETY—THE TENURE OF LAND
Having indicated some of the quagmires into which direct rule would
lead us, one may now pass to an examination of the foundations upon
which native law and custom repose in the organized society of the
north, as revealed by systematic inquiry extending over the past five
years. Essentially the same groundwork is found in the more rudimentary
pagan communities which have remained without the area of Mohammedan
organization. Incidentally, it may be well to mark that Northern Nigeria
has not evolved powerful pagan organisms comparable with those of Yoruba
and Benin in the south. The basis of the social system is the village
community. A number of village communities form the tribal community.
The partly hereditary, partly elective rule of the tribal community
constitutes, with the Executive, the Government of the entire community.
The ruler himself is the “Governor,” against whose actions the people
can appeal to native law and custom. For the welfare of that community
the ruler is guardian. Land is the common heritage of the community. The
ruler is trustee for the land. Upon him devolves the granting of rights
of occupancy. The structural law of tenure is the right of occupier and
user, not of owner. Private ownership of land is unknown. The cultivator
is, in reality, a licensee. Alienation of land is unknown. The unit
of taxation is the village community. Each individual is supposedly
assessed according to his earning capacity. If he is an agriculturist
he furnishes a proportion of his crop, which, in effect, is a rent paid
to the community for the use of land. If an artisan, he pays a tax upon
his trade. If a herdsman, upon his cattle. The community as a whole
is subject to specific imposts which assist in maintaining the civil
list of the ruler. The character of the taxes and imposts follows the
requirements of the Koranic law modified, when considered expedient, by
pre-Koranic customary law. Justice is administered by judges conversant
with the sacred books, appointed by the ruler and exercised on the
principles of Koranic law. If a balance could be struck, it would
probably be found that a system of this kind ensures a greater amount of
human happiness than many of the forms of government even now existing in
Europe. Indeed, the closer one’s knowledge of African life and the more
insight one obtains into the immense sea of human misery heaving beneath
the crust of Western civilization, the more one is led to marvel at the
shallow commonplaces which picture the African wallowing in degraded
barbarism. Like all institutions, the African system lends itself to
abuse. Those abuses the British Administration has set itself to correct,
while maintaining the system itself. Upon the Colonial Office continuing
to support that policy, and upon the men who are applying it on the spot
being enabled to go on with their work free from interference, depends
the future happiness and prosperity of the Nigerian peoples, which,
in effect, is at once the Imperial interest and the justification of
Imperial rule.
The British, having replaced the Fulani, are in native law and custom
the conquering tribe. The urgency of devoting as much time as it was
possible to spare from the pressing problems of the hour demanding daily
solution, to an investigation of the exact conditions prevailing in
each province was, therefore, imperative. In so extensive a territory,
differing local circumstances affecting soil, population, occupation,
distribution of power, and so on, had obviously created different methods
or rather heads of taxation and variation in the formulæ of Government,
assessment and levying of revenue, etc. One question above all others
had to be elucidated, that of the ownership of land—basis of the whole
social edifice. Sir Frederick Lugard initiated these inquiries. They
were vigorously prosecuted by Sir Percy Girouard and the Residents, and
when it became apparent beyond all possibility of doubt that the land,
whether actually occupied or not, was national; that freehold property
was foreign to all native ideas; and that, under native law and custom,
the new rulers of the country were recognized as holders of the land in
trust for the people and, thereby, the grantors of occupants’ rights,
Sir Percy Girouard pressed for these cardinal principles being given
force of law. Legislation which should embody them was, moreover, of
additional moment for two reasons. First, because the opening up of the
country was bound to give rise to the danger of alienation of occupancy
rights creeping in and being incorporated into native custom, out of
which would automatically evolve a customary sanction for the mortgaging
of land, the creation of a class of landlords, a wide field for the
European speculator in land, and a general break-up of the native system.
Secondly, because the approach of the railways, the development of roads,
the increasing demand for foodstuffs and the all-round intensifying
economic pressure were bound, once more automatically, to originate,
independently of the industry of the cultivator, an incremental value in
the land. Before that state of affairs was brought home to the native
and had, perhaps, been made under native law and custom, the subject of
private property, which would have meant the creation of vested interests
difficult to displace, it was the obvious duty of a Government trustee
for the community to step in and secure these expanding values for the
future benefit of that community. But things move slowly in West Africa,
and legislation of the kind referred to was novel: unique, indeed. West
Africa’s problems had never been thought out ahead before. Just as
matters were ripening, Sir Percy Girouard was suddenly transferred to
East Africa. But the Colonial Office was sympathetic, and there were
men in Nigeria who, comprehending well the perils of leaving the land
question unregulated, were determined to do their utmost to push the
matter through.
On January 1st of this year the most far-seeing measure of constructive
statesmanship West Africa has ever known was put upon the statute-book.
“The Land and Native Rights Proclamation” consecrates the three main
principles of native law and custom. First, that the whole of the land
whether occupied or unoccupied is “native land.” Secondly, that the land
is under the control and subject to the disposition of the Governor, to
be “held and administered by him for the use, need and common benefit
of the natives of Northern Nigeria.” Thirdly, that the Governor’s power
shall be exercised in accordance with “native laws and customs.” For the
rest, and without going into detail, the measure can be described as
expressing the native system, and the natural developments of the native
system, in English. It is not, in Nigeria, an innovating measure, but
a conservative measure; not an experiment, but a preservation of the
_status quo_. It is not a measure of land nationalization, because land
nationalization means State control of the land and all that is done upon
it. What this measure does is to provide for the communalizing of the
communal value of the land, leaving the occupier full control over the
use of land and full benefit for his private enterprise upon it, with
payment of rent to the community to which the land belongs, instead of to
a landlord. The individual’s right to all that is due to individual work
and expenditure, but not to the communal value, is secured. No freehold
can creep in and no monopoly profit can be made out of the land. The
holding up of land for speculative purposes is, in effect, penalized,
while the man who is industrious is not made to pay more as the outcome
of his enterprise. At the same time the basis is laid for a land revenue
which, with the years, will be the chief source of income of the
Government—the healthiest form of income, perhaps, for any Government.
For the first time in the history of West Africa, the art of governing
the native on native lines has become consecrated in British legislation
and the pernicious tradition of applying the law of England to African
land questions has been set aside. It is impossible to exaggerate the
potentialities for good of such a departure from crude, ignorant and
unscientific precedent. It will be the duty of the Colonial Office, to
whom everlasting credit is due for having sanctioned this proclamation,
to watch strictly that the principles laid down therein are not departed
from in practice, and to apply them, with the modifications of method
which differing and pre-existing conditions render advisable, to Southern
Nigeria also. That attempts to undermine the provisions and the spirit of
the Northern Nigerian law will arise, may be unhesitatingly assumed.
CHAPTER XI
THE FOUNDATIONS OF NATIVE SOCIETY—THE ADMINISTRATIVE MACHINERY
The policy of governing Northern Nigeria on native lines—in other words,
of training the natives to govern themselves instead of trying to govern
them ourselves—has the approval of the entire native community except the
criminal classes, who would be the only ones to benefit by a weakening in
the position of the native authorities and in the decay of the etiquette
attaching to their position. It is being pursued in every branch of the
Administration concurrently, with a steadily marked improvement in the
efficiency and purity of the public service.
The native administrative machinery varies slightly in the different
Emirates, and is better organized in some than in others, but a
description of the system as it obtains in the Kano Emirate, which is
a little larger than Belgium and Luxemburg, will serve as a general
indication applicable in its essentials to the others. The executive
consists of the Emir—advised and assisted by the Resident—and his
judicial and executive Council, composed of the Waziri (Vizier, or Chief
of Staff), the Maji (Treasurer), the Alkali (Chief Justice), and five
Mallamai (“teachers,” men versed in the law and in the customs of the
country) of repute. This is the Supreme Court of Appeal. The Emirate
is divided into districts under a district Chief or Headman (Hakima)
responsible to the Executive. Each district is divided into sub-districts
under a sub-district Chief or Headman (Maijimilla) responsible to the
District Headman. Each sub-district is composed of townships or villages
with village-heads (Masugari) responsible to the sub-district Headman.
Kano city itself is under the supervision of the _Maajen-Wuteri_, who
corresponds roughly with our English mayor with twenty town police
(dogarai), picturesque individuals in red and green, and twenty night
watchmen (masugefia) under him. Ninety more police are spread over the
various districts and attached to the District Courts. There are no
British native police whatever. That experiment was tried for a time,
being attended with such conspicuous ill-success and being accompanied
by such an increase in crime that it was wisely abandoned. Nothing could
surely convey a more striking proof of the order reigning throughout the
Emirate and of the law-abiding character of the people, than the fact
of its being policed with ninety men armed with nothing more formidable
than a sword. Think of ninety constables sufficing for Belgium and
Luxemburg or any other area of 13,000 square miles in Western Europe;
or take the population of the Emirate—one and a half millions—and
point to a single comparable proportion of police to population in
Europe. Crimes of violence are extraordinarily scarce, and the Native
Administration, backed by the British “raj,” has now such a hold upon
the country that for a case to be unreported would be hardly possible.
The roads are safe for the solitary traveller—I frequently passed
women alone, or accompanied by a child, sometimes husband, wife and
child, many miles from the capital. I have walked alone save for one
white companion through the deserted streets of Kano city at night.
Kano city is not, however, free from thieves, and seeing that so many
strangers are constantly coming and going it is hardly to be wondered
at. Some two years back night burglaries became unpleasantly frequent.
Native ingenuity hit upon a plan to cope with them. The services of
the professional rat-catchers were enlisted. They were enrolled as
night-watchmen, paid £1 a man, and told they would be fined 2_s._ 6_d._
every time a robbery was committed. Very few fines were inflicted, and
Kano was cleared of its nocturnal undesirables “one time.”
The general standard of probity among the inhabitants of Kano themselves
is, however, shown by the free and easy manner in which merchandise is
left unguarded in the great market, and it appears that lost property is
constantly being handed over to the Alkali, who has the articles called
out by a public crier in the market-place.
The absence of a fixed scale of emoluments for public servants is always
the weak point of native government. Northern Nigeria was no exception to
the rule. The proportion of the taxes actually collected which eventually
found its way into the so-called Public Treasury, was used by the Emir
with small regard to the public interest and with a great deal for his
own. The Alkalis and their assessors, though by no means universally
corrupt, were dependent for their living upon such sources as the fees
(usheri) upon judgment debts and upon the estates of deceased persons
(ujera). To Mr. Charles Temple, now Acting Governor, whose knowledge of
Northern Nigeria and its peoples is unequalled, belongs the credit of
having instituted in the Kano Emirate the Beit-el-Mal or Public Treasury
in the proper sense of the word, which has since been extended, or is
being extended, into all of them. The system follows traditional lines
but vastly improves them. In practice it works out as follows. Half the
total revenue collected goes direct to the Northern Nigeria Government.
Of the remaining half, fifty per cent. is paid into the Beit-el-Mal
to provide salaries for the native officials and to pay for necessary
public works. The balance is divided into fifths on the basis of
two-fifths of each district’s yield to the District Headman; two-fifths
of the sub-district’s yield to the Sub-district Headman; one-fifth of
his own village’s yield to the Village Headman. It will doubtless be
possible, as the system becomes perfected, for each district to have its
own Beit-el-Mal with limited powers, receiving its instructions from
the central Beit-el-Mal, just as the local British Treasuries receive
instructions from the Treasury at Zungeru. This would enable the District
Heads, Sub-district Heads and Village Heads to have fixed salaries like
the Native Executive, a very desirable ideal to aim at.
The Emir draws a fixed sum monthly from the Beit-el-Mal for his private
expenses, which are numerous, and the public expenditure is accounted
for and overlooked by the Resident. The _Waziri_ draws £1000 a year, the
_Maji_ £360, the _Alkali_ £600, the _Limam_ (High Priest) £72. There are
thirteen districts in charge of thirteen local _Alkalis_ drawing £60
a year each. The public works completed out of the Beit-el-Mal funds
during the last year or two include the rebuilding of the Kano market at
a cost of £600, a new jail at a cost of £1000, a new Court House, £250,
besides keeping the thirteen gates of the city in repair, additions to
the mosque, etc. In regard to the latter, it is interesting to note that
the work of adding to the mosque and repairing the minaret, was entirely
carried out by contract labour. The contract was given out by the Emir
and the contractor paid the workmen to the number of over a thousand, a
previously unheard-of event in native annals and an example of one of
the many improvements which the Native Administration is carrying out
under British influence. The Emir has also directed that £1000 shall
be contributed to the National School at Nassarawa, which I shall have
occasion to speak about in a subsequent letter. Legislation for the
purpose of legally constituting the native Beit-el-Mals would seem to be
called for.
[Illustration: CORNER OF A NATIVE MARKET.]
[Illustration: ANOTHER CORNER.]
The administration of justice has been vastly purified by the
inauguration of fixed emoluments. The District Courts and the Supreme
Court administer Koranic law, or customary law, _i.e._ traditional law
based on custom, or Government proclamations. Speaking generally, the
Alkalis are a fine body of men, and they appear to be realizing more
and more the dignity and responsibilities of their position. The chief
Alkali in particular is a man of very high character. The legal code in
criminal and civil matters is, of course, mainly inspired by the sacred
books, and the Alkali is generally a Doctor of Mohammedan common law.
His influence and power appear to be more extensive than that of the
Egyptian _kadi_, since he has jurisdiction in criminal cases and in land
suits, which the latter has not. Of the cases tried in the courts of
the Kano Emirate, about 30 per cent. are matrimonial, such as divorce,
restitution of conjugal rights, alimony, etc. The courts are very hard
worked, dealing with about 7000 to 8000 cases _per annum_, and the
Alkalis fully earn their salaries. I attended the chief Alkali’s court in
Kano city, and was greatly impressed by the general decorum, the respect
shown to the Alkali, the activity of the assessors, the marshalling of
the witnesses, the order, rapidity, and business-like manner in which
the whole proceedings were conducted. It was an example of _native_
self-government in Western Africa which would have astonished a good many
people in Europe. No British court, no alien magistrate, could possibly
deal with these “affairs of the people,” which require a complete mastery
of Koranic law and customary law, such a mastery as only a trained native
can ever acquire, and it is to be hoped that any attempts which may arise
to curtail the jurisdiction of the native courts—accepted by all classes
of natives—will be promptly discouraged, together with similar attempts
to interfere with the present Beit-el-Mal system. From a practical
point of view the maintenance of the Native Administration, guided and
supervised by the Resident, _i.e._ indirect rule, is inseparable from the
financial question. If the Native Administration were not financially
provided for it would cease to exist. If the Emirs and their executives
were converted into mere civil pensioners of the Government, they would
become figure-heads deprived of all power and prestige. Under the system
I have described the Emirs have power, and only hyper-sensitiveness and
short-sightedness can see in their power our weakness. It is, on the
contrary, our strength and defence against the reactionary elements which
exist, and which are bound to exist in a country but newly occupied,
and which are certainly not less hostile to the native authorities, who
pursue their labours under the ægis of the British “raj,” than they are
to the British “raj” itself. Anything that impairs the influence of the
native authorities, not only impairs the efficiency of the Administration
of the country, but is an invitation to lawlessness and disorder.
It is only fair to state in this connection that the initiative of
perpetuating, under British rule and with the modifications required,
the system of land taxation indigenous to the community, was due to
the suggestion of Sir William Wallace, for many years Acting High
Commissioner of Northern Nigeria.
CHAPTER XII
THE PRESERVATION OF THE NATIONAL LIFE
Among those to whom the government of the coloured races of mankind
appears in the light of a sacred trust committed to an Imperial white
people, as to the servants of that people possessing the widest
experience in the practice of such government, the preservation of the
national life of these races must be a matter of paramount importance.
Increased knowledge born of familiarity in the art of tropical government
and of anthropological knowledge, a clearer realization of human needs
which an expanding mental horizon brings with it, are teaching us many
things. They are teaching us that there can be no common definition
of progress or common standard for all mankind; that the highest
human attainments are not necessarily reached on parallel lines; that
man’s place and part in the universe around him must vary with the
dissimilarities of race and environment; that what may spell advance
for some races at a particular stage in their evolution may involve
retrogression, if not destruction, for other races in another stage;
that humanity cannot be legislated for as though every section of it
were modelled on the same pattern; that to disregard profound divergence
in culture and racial necessities is to court disaster, and that to
encourage national growth to develop on natural lines and the unfolding
of the mental processes to proceed by gradual steps, is the only method
by which the exercise of the Imperial prerogative can be morally
justified. Our one and only conspicuous Imperial failure was due to a
misguided belief that we could, and that it was desirable in our own
interests that we should, crush out nationality by violence. It inflicted
upon the victims immense misery and upon the performers embarrassments
which have endured for centuries. Elsewhere we are experiencing the
discomforting reflex of a policy based upon the supposition that East is
capable of assimilation with West under alien guidance. British India is
rent with confusion and mentally unsettled by a jumble of conflicting
ideals, to which the Protected Native States offer a contrast that cannot
but carry with it its own very significant lessons.
All the good work accomplished in Northern Nigeria during the last seven
years can be flung away by a refusal to benefit from experience in other
parts of the world. In pleading for the slow but sure policy everywhere
in Nigeria, and in pleading that where in Nigeria national life has
already expanded through the exercise of its own internal forces into
organized communities, possessing their own laws and customs, their own
machinery of government and their own well-defined characteristics, that
national life shall be protected, preserved and strengthened to enable
it to bear the strain of new conditions, one is pleading, it seems to
me, for the true welfare of the people and for the highest concept of
Imperialism.
These considerations hold good as regards every branch of European
activity. Effective British political control does not require constant
encroachments of departmental activity. British industrial interests can
be allowed to find a natural outlet in the ordinary play of economic
forces without calling upon Government assistance, for example, to
undermine a national weaving industry in which, as Barth remarked of
it many years ago, there is something that is “truly grand,” giving
employment and support as it does to innumerable families without
compelling them to sacrifice their domestic habits or to pass their lives
in immense establishments detrimental to health. British commercial
necessities do not demand that the big native cities should be thrown
open to the White trader, who can pursue his useful avocations just
as well, and certainly with much greater regard to health conditions,
outside than inside them. In the same way the advent of the missionary
into the organized Mohammedan provinces of the north before the country
is ripe to receive them, would be a positive danger, besides being an act
perilously akin to a breach of faith. Surely we have become sufficiently
intelligent to take a broadly human view of these things? There is a
field in pagan Northern and pagan Southern Nigeria sufficiently extensive
to occupy all the energies of all the missions put together, without
invading the heart of Moslem Nigeria. The advent of Christian missions
into Kano or Katsina or Sokoto, for example, would be regarded as an
act of aggression. Their presence in Zaria is a great mistake, and I
make bold to assert that it is only comparable to a man smoking a pipe
on a barrel of gunpowder. We hold this newly occupied country by the
force of our prestige, far more than by the very small number of native
troops in our service. That it is the duty of Government to prevent
the introduction of elements, whatever their character and however
lofty their motives, whose presence is calculated to cause unrest, is
sufficiently self-evident as not to need emphasizing. No Government can
afford to disregard so clear a view as that formulated, for example, in
the Emir of Kano’s letter given in Chapter VIII. But one would desire, if
possible, that the leaders of the Christian Churches themselves should be
brought to appreciate the justice of the contention. The establishment
of Christian missions in the Mohammedan Emirates would not succeed in
damming up the self-propelling currents of Islamic propaganda which are
permeating Nigerian paganism. That is the true problem which the Churches
have to face.
The question of economic development is on the same plane. That peace,
the advent of railways and the growth of population will eventually
result in the creation of a large commercial movement of affairs with
Northern Nigeria—apart from the mineral output—is not to be doubted. But
exaggeration as regards immediate prospects is to be deprecated, and
the claims of economic development, important as they are, should not
be allowed to play too great a part in administrative solicitude. The
main concern of the Administration for the next few years should be that
of placing the political, financial and educational organization of the
country upon secure foundations. Political unrest and social confusion
are stumbling-blocks to commercial progress, and everything should be
done to avoid them. Those in a position to realize the marvels already
accomplished in this region of Africa by the handful of British officials
administering the country, and the many problems requiring on the part
of those who are called upon to deal with them the utmost delicacy and
tact in adjustment, cannot but enter a _caveat_ against all tendencies,
from whatever source they may emanate, be they of self-interest or of
unselfish devotion, to “rush” Northern Nigeria. Rapid expansion does
not necessarily mean progress. Sometimes it means exactly the reverse.
Let us, rendered wise by experience elsewhere, set our faces like flint
against the “Europeanizing” of Northern Nigeria. In Sierra Leone, in the
Gold Coast, in the Western Provinces of Southern Nigeria we have daily
object-lessons of the deplorable results of this denationalizing process.
That Northern Nigeria should be preserved from it must be the earnest
wish of all who are acquainted with its peoples and alive to their
possibilities.
CHAPTER XIII
A PAGE OF HISTORY AND ITS MORAL
If we have the imagination to grasp the true significance of the events
which led, a century ago, to the break-up of the Hausa dynasty by the
Fulani, we shall find the key to the moral side of permanently successful
government in Northern Nigeria. The motive of the Fulani _jihad_ has
usually been attributed either to mere religious fanaticism or to
personal and racial ambition; or, again, as an incident in the prolonged
struggle for power on the part of this or that ruler or dynasty which
has destroyed the fertile uplands of Western Africa south of the Sahara
since the shattering of the ancient Niger civilizations by the Moorish
invasion at the end of the sixteenth century. It appears to me that
this appreciation is superficial, and that we must look deeper than the
surface results. I am not sure that these surface results themselves do
not suggest the need of doing so. A man of letters galvanizing a whole
countryside to revolt against oppression. Shepherds and cowherds flinging
away their sticks and staves and rallying to his standard. Initial defeat
turned into victory. A number of independent States converted into a
homogeneous entity acknowledging a temporal and spiritual over-lord. An
immense region ill-provided with means of internal communication brought
to recognize one common authority—and all within a year or two. These
are remarkable occurrences. They insinuate the existence of some driving
force below the surface. Is it possible to trace that force in the
chequered annals of this part of Africa?
The Moorish invasion dealt the great Negroid Empire of the middle
Niger—the Empire of the Songhay—a blow from which it never recovered.
The invasion did not actually swamp the Hausa States, but its indirect
consequences must have been felt throughout them in everywhere shaking
established order, and in the decay of spiritual influence following
upon the heels of anarchy. In the absence of any continuous written
records, the history of the period following the advance of Morocco’s
musketeers into the Western Sudan, appears to Western minds as a confused
medley of internecine strife without defined objects of any kind. One
can imagine, let us say, a Chinese historian picturing the history of
England from the tenth to the fifteenth century much in the same light,
if his materials for composing it were almost wholly confined to oral
traditions. But a close study of the few documents at our disposal
must, I think, induce the belief that, dating from the introduction of
a higher spiritual influence into the country—Mohammedanism had begun
to acquire a footing by the eleventh century—the land was never free
from an agency which sought the uplifting of society. Before the Moorish
generals carried fire and sword into the Niger Valley, holy voices were
raised in protest against the “decay of faith with the increase of
infidelity.” “Not one of the acts forbidden by God”—lament learned Arabic
historians—“but was openly practised; wine was drunk, and adultery had
become so frequent that its practice seemed to have acquired legality.”
The terrible punishment which ensued was ascribed to these lapses: “It
was on account of these abominations that God avenged Himself by calling
in the victorious Moroccan army.” We seem to be listening to another
Moses denouncing the wickedness of the people of Israel. In the midst of
all these disordered turmoils, when the worship of the true God was being
swept aside by a wave of recrudescent paganism, when mosques were being
destroyed and desecrated and social lawlessness reigned supreme, little
knots of true believers gathered, forming as it were islands in the sea
of turbulence and moral abasement, to which Christian Europe added a
renewed element of subversion by her demand for slaves, thus intensifying
internal warfare by furnishing it with a new and deadly incentive.
There is evidence that in the middle and towards the close of the
eighteenth century the Hausa Kings were relapsing into paganism (in
Zaria, for instance, the old Hausa “Tsafi,” customs—rock worship—had been
revived). It was at this period that the spark of a spiritual renascence
arose in the most northerly of the Hausa States, Gober. Othman Fodio,
a Fulani, ultimately the leader of the uprising, was above all a moral
and spiritual reformer, as was his teacher the Mallam Jibrila. He sought
to raise the whole tone of society. He used his influence at the Court
of the Hausa King to secure the building of schools and the spread of
letters. He himself and his brother and his son—into whose hands he
placed affairs of state after the conquest—wrote a number of books whose
titles are sufficient to indicate their character. Here are some of them:
“The Book manifesting the Path of Righteousness and Unrighteousness,”
“The Book for the saving of the People of the Time and the Teaching of
the Ignorant to understand the Knowledge of the Word,” “Explanation to
the Rulers as regards their Duties and what is due from them in the
execution of their Duties,” “The Book expressing the Difference between
Right and Wrong,” “The Book the Window for Students in the holding of
the Doors of the Faith in God the Giver,” “The Book to prevent others
from following the promptings of the Devil,” “The Book plainly showing
that the love of the World is the cause of every Fault.” A reflection by
the way. When the Fulani reformers were composing these works, and for
many years afterwards, European and American slavers were periodically
visiting the lower Niger, six hundred miles south, and, by presents of
guns and powder, hounding on the natives to raid one another for the
benefit of the Western plantations!
Othman’s converts were by no means limited to men of his own race, as was
subsequently shown in the adherents he obtained. But it was not unnatural
that such a man should have been an offence to many; that his converts
should have been molested; and that finally, by his personal action in
releasing a number of them from bondage, a collision with the authorities
should have been precipitated, which eventually led to the proclamation
of a holy war. Othman engaged in the struggle with the words: “If I
fight this battle that I may become greater than my fellows, may the
unbelievers wipe us from the land.” Upon its successful termination, the
statesman and the warrior became once more the social reformer. Othman
returned to his preaching and to the compilation of his books.
A consideration of these facts irresistibly suggests that the root causes
of the Fulani outburst were spiritual in their nature. Othman led a moral
and spiritual revival, among a people who, like all negroes and negroids,
are naturally more accessible to spiritual influences than are the white
peoples of the earth. He gave a renewed inspiration to letters. That the
country, after half a century, fell back once more into political chaos
does not in the least weaken the moral to be gleaned from these events.
The religious revival has not gone back. From that political chaos
the country has been rescued by the British power. One of the obvious
duties of the Administration is to continue the work of the great
Fulani reformer in everywhere extending and broadening the intellectual
horizon, and doing nothing to weaken the national spiritual influences,
of the people of the land. The creation of a system of education which
shall be truly national is imperative at this moment when the whole
fabric of native society is being shaken by disturbing elements. The
field is clear: the slate clean. We are here unfettered by those bitter
experiences of the West Coast of Africa and of India which are perpetual
reminders of past blunders and daily handicaps to true progress.
CHAPTER XIV
A SCHEME OF NATIONAL EDUCATION
The predominant characteristic of our educational methods—official
and unofficial—in Western Africa hitherto may be summed up in one
word—denationalization. The result is so notoriously unsatisfactory
as to need no specific illustration. If readers of Mr. Valentine
Chirol’s book on India will turn to his chapters on the failure of our
educational methods there, and substitute West Africa for India, they
will be furnished with a replica of the situation on the West Coast of
Africa. It is not an exact replica—for the reason that while the ties
of caste in India are a deterrent to denationalization, such deterrent
is non-existent in West Africa. But there is not one charge which Mr.
Chirol brings against the Indian system that could not be equally brought
against the West African system, and identical consequences are ensuing.
We are barely beginning to realize that the policy, or rather impolicy,
of the last half-century has been a hideous example of misdirected
effort, and there is hardly an administrator who does not contemplate the
development of the “educated native problem” with the gravest foreboding.
The object of the Northern Nigeria Administration is to set on foot
an educational system throughout the country which shall save the
Protectorate from these follies, while at the same time affording the
rising generation the intellectual pabulum we are bound to provide, and
ultimately laying the basis for a native civil service. At the present
moment the scheme is only in its infancy, but the infant is robust and
full of promise. It is at Nassarawa, a beautifully situated and healthy
spot a few miles outside Kano, close by the Emir’s country residence,
that the first Government schools have been started. They consist at
present of the _Mallamai_ school, or school for teachers, a school for
the sons of Chiefs, an elementary vernacular school and a technical
school with carpenters’, blacksmiths’, leather-workers’, and agricultural
classes. The creation of a primary and secondary school will follow as
soon as the work is sufficiently advanced. Special importance attaches
to the elementary schools, as through them the mass of the population
will be influenced. As soon as the teachers now being trained are ready
they will be supplied to the Provinces, where the Residents are eagerly
awaiting them, and it is the intention in every case that they shall
be accompanied by a technical instructor. The training of Government
clerks and of artisans for the Public Works Department is recognized
as a necessity, but it takes quite a secondary place in the general
educational plan which has been so successfully initiated, and these men
will be trained so as to retain both their national instincts and their
national dress.
A ride out to Nassarawa and some hours spent in investigating the work
already accomplished (there are some 350 pupils) I shall always remember
as one of the most pleasurable experiences of my visit to Northern
Nigeria. Here at last, one saw, was a common-sense, well-thought-out,
scientific scheme to enlarge the mental outlook of the West African on
African lines, to preserve his racial constitution, to keep him in touch
with his parents, in sympathy with his national life. Here, one felt, was
the nucleus of a future Hausa university to be raised some day by the
people themselves on their own initiative, a university which should far
outshine the ancient glories of Timbuktu and Jenne, which should herald
the dawn of a real African renascence, which instead of divorcing the
people from their land should bind them to it in intensified bonds of
pride and love. For one thing, the preservation of the national tongue
is aimed at, the general teaching being given in the vernacular, for the
present in Hausa—the _lingua franca_ of the country—although in course
of time, as the system extends, classes in Fulfulde (_Fulani_), Kanuri
(the language of Bornu), and, perhaps, Nupe, will doubtless suggest
themselves; not, however, to the exclusion of Hausa, but in combination
with it. For another thing, the fatal mistake of taking in pupils free,
or even paying them to come, is not being repeated here; the principle of
every pupil paying a fee, paying for his books and paying for his medical
attendance having been laid down from the start.
The _Mallamai_ school was full of special interest, being composed
of grown men from eighteen to thirty; for these are the teachers of
to-morrow. I was told, and I can well believe it from their intellectual
faces, that the rapidity with which they acquire and the ease with which
they retain knowledge, is amazing. Land surveying and farm measuring
is included in their _curriculum_, and some of them, although their
course of instruction is not completed, have already rendered very
considerable assistance, their work (which I was able to examine at a
later date), calculated in acres and roods and covering many assessment
sheets, being neat and generally accurate. I attended the geography
lesson which was then going forward, and found these future teachers
studying, not the configuration of the Alps or the names of the English
counties, but the map of Africa, the rivers, mountain ranges and
political divisions of their own continent: not the distances between
Berlin and St. Petersburg, Rome and Paris, but between Kano and Lokoja,
Zaria and Yola, and the routes to follow to reach those places from a
given spot. The various classes, I observed, were not puzzling over,
to them, incomprehensible stories about St. Bernard dogs rescuing
snow-bound travellers, or busy bees improving shining hours, but becoming
acquainted with the proverbs and folk-lore of their own land; not being
edified with the properties of the mangel-wurzel or the potentialities
of the strawberry, but instructed in the culture requirements of yams,
sweet potatoes, and sugar-cane. I did not see rows of lads in European
costume, unsuited to the climate, hideous (out here) and vehicles for the
propagation of tuberculosis, but decently clothed in their own graceful,
healthy African garb.
The school for the sons of chiefs—which, I venture to hope, will not, as
rumoured, be abandoned without very careful consideration—struck me as
a triumphant proof of what a sympathetic Administration can accomplish
in a very short time out here by way of winning confidence and removing
suspicions. Here were perhaps threescore youngsters, the older and
more advanced boys forming a separate class, and a more intelligent,
keener crowd it would be difficult to select in any country. Their
presence—among them were sons of the Emirs of Sokoto, Kano, Bauchi,
Bornu, Katsina, Katagum, Bida, Gombe, Gando, Daura, and Muri—together,
was evidence of the revolution which a few years have brought, for their
respective fathers were until our advent more or less in a state of
chronic friction and sometimes of open warfare. These _Yan Sarikis_ (sons
of chiefs) are not only allowed, but encouraged, to correspond with their
parents, and constant are the mounted messengers passing to and fro.
In the technical school, the leather-workers were particularly
interesting. The encouragement of this branch of native art should prove
a great incentive to what is a national industry. There is no reason
why in time the Hausa leather-workers should not only cut out the trade
in Tripoli saddlery and boots, imported across the desert and sold at
fabulous profits in the local markets, but supply, as the Hausa cotton
manufacturer supplies, the needs of French and German territory. Indeed,
there is no limit to the vistas which this national system of education
opens up. A people of considerable intellect, of notable industrial
aptitudes, having the sense of history, possessed of singular national
vitality, guided on national lines of thought expansion, the old-time
barriers of internecine strife wiped out—what a magnificent experiment,
and how great the privilege of the initiators! I referred to the
opportunity for true Empire-building which lies before us in Yorubaland,
if we will but seize it. Here at Nassarawa is Empire-building of another
kind in actual progress. One other fact needs chronicling in connection
with these national schools. It is the intention of the Administration
to insist that all pupils receive careful religious instruction from
teachers of their own creed. When I visited the schools, lessons in
reading and writing the Koran were being given by a Kano Mallam specially
selected by the Emir of Kano, somewhat on the model of the Egyptian
schools. It is earnestly to be hoped that the Colonial Office will resist
any attempt at interference with this policy. Interference would be
disastrous. It has been a prodigious labour of tact and careful steering,
for which Mr. Hanns Vischer, the director of education and the founder of
these schools, deserve the greatest credit, to secure the support of the
Emirs for a truly national system of education. Many prejudices have had
to be overcome. The older school of Mallams do not look with a favourable
eye upon an innovation which must gradually displace their influence
in favour of a younger generation, broader-minded and more tolerant
because better educated than they. Attempts both internal and external
have not been, and are not, wanting to warn the chiefs of the danger
of permitting their sons to become contaminated by foreign doctrines
inimical to Islam. Justification for the confidence which the chiefs
repose in our good faith can alone enable us to defeat these influences.
Were that confidence to be shaken, the effort to train the future rulers
(under the British suzerainty) of the country with a view to making them
mentally and physically better fitted to assist the Administration,
and to bring them into closer contact with one another and with the
Government official, would receive a fatal blow, and the prestige of the
Government would be deeply shaken. Let us once more turn to the pages of
Mr. Chirol’s weighty volume and note the consequences which have followed
the elimination of religious instruction from the Government schools. To
allow a weakening of the spiritual forces at work among the peoples of
the Northern Hausa States would be to perpetuate a cruel wrong upon those
who have come under our protection and from thenceforth are our wards.
[Illustration: IRON-SMELTERS.]
[Illustration: FULANI CATTLE.]
A rapid multiplication of national schools in Northern Nigeria, so
eminently desirable, entirely depends upon the financial support which
the Administration, hampered in every direction for lack of funds, is
able to contribute. The Imperial Government would be displaying wisdom
in making a special grant for the purpose, the present sum available
being altogether inadequate for the importance and urgency of the object
in view, and in seriously broaching the problem of control over all
unofficial educationary agencies in the Protectorate.
CHAPTER XV
COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT
The external, by which I mean non-indigenous, trade of Northern Nigeria
plays as yet but an insignificant part in the commercial and industrial
activities of the country. It is largely in the hands of one company, the
Niger Company, Limited, to the enterprise of whose founder, Sir George
Taubman Goldie, is due our possession of the Northern Protectorate.
Three or four other commercial houses have extended their operations
to the territory, and more will certainly follow. At present the only
other European firm, outside the Niger Company, which is doing a large
general business is that of Messrs. John Holt & Co., Limited. Another
alien commercial element is the Arab trader. His seat of interest is Kano
city, where he has been established for several centuries, and where,
as already stated, there is a recognized Arab quarter. The trans-desert
trade from Tripoli has always been in his hands, but he is now beginning
to use the parcel post and the western route largely. Ten thousand
parcels, weighing eleven pounds each, were despatched or received by Arab
traders during the first half of last year. The Arabs appear to deal in
lines of trade with which European firms are not in touch. Several of
them have been in England, and the business headquarters of one of them
is in Manchester. They are intelligent men, but form an uncertain and not
particularly safe element in the affairs of Kano. A representative of
these traders who visited me at the house kindly placed at my disposal
near the Residency, two miles from the city, gave it as his opinion that
the railway would double the trade of the country in five years.
The two principal articles of import at present are cotton goods and
salt. The articles of export are shea-nuts or butter, dressed and dyed
goat and sheep skins, ostrich feathers, rubber, ground-nuts, gum arabic,
hides, gum copal, beeswax, various kinds of oil-beans, cotton, and a
fibre resembling, and equal in value to, jute. Tin and other minerals
stand, of course, in a different category, and cannot be regarded
as “trade.” Of these I formed the opinion that a very large future
expansion in the shea-nut trade and ground-nut trade may be legitimately
expected. I rode for days through woods of shea, and I found these
trees growing abundantly all over the parts of the Niger Province and
Zaria Province I visited, and in many parts of the Kano Province. The
ground-nut is already cultivated, its cultivation is easy, and the soil
in many districts along the Baro-Kano railway is suitable. I see no
reason why that railway should not, in parts, and in time, attract to
itself a population of ground-nut cultivators, as the Dakar-St. Louis
railway has done, and the new Thiès-Kayes railway is doing in Senegal.
The industry is at present handicapped because the merchants will not
buy the undecorticated nut, and the price offered to the native is not
sufficiently attractive to induce him to go to the great labour involved
in decortication. Seeing that the Niger ground-nut fetches much higher
prices than the Senegal and Gambia nut, it is astonishing that the
merchant is not prepared to deal with the nut himself, and to purchase
the undecorticated article from the native. The present policy strikes
one as short-sighted.
A great many hopes have been engendered touching an immediate and large
export of raw cotton consequent upon the termination of the railway.
I should be extremely loath to say anything here which would tend to
throw cold water upon the commendable enterprise of the British Cotton
Growing Association, to which Imperially we owe much, and the problem
is one which is affected by so many varying local influences that to
dogmatize upon it would be unwise. Enormous quantities of cotton are
undoubtedly grown, some districts in the Zaria and Kano Provinces being
almost entirely devoted to its production, and many more off the beaten
track could be, if transport were available. But at present there are
two difficulties, apart from the general difficulties affecting all
economic development in Northern Nigeria, to which I shall refer in a
moment. One is the question of price. The other is the local demand. In
one sense they are inseparable. The local demand for the raw material
by local weavers exceeds the supply, and the result is that the price
the Association finds itself, either directly or through its agents,
the Niger Company, able to pay is insufficient to tempt the growers.
To overcome these obstacles the Association relies upon the attraction
offered by a permanent market at a fixed price irrespective of local
fluctuation; an increased yield _per_ acre through an improvement in the
varieties produced, and improvement in methods of cultivation; and the
inroads upon the local weaving industry through the increasing import of
Manchester cotton-goods. These views may be quite sound, but, granted
their soundness, some time must elapse before they become appreciably
operative, and I have difficulty myself in believing that any really
substantial export of raw cotton is to be looked for in the _immediate_
future. But that the Association’s general line of policy in seeking to
develop and expand the existing native-growing industry, as such, is
right, and that its labours are calculated to achieve these ends, I am
persuaded; while I see no reason to doubt that a considerable export of
raw cotton will eventually be the outcome of those labours.[9] Among
agricultural products, corn should also figure largely in course of time.
The export of dressed goat and sheep skins is steadily increasing. The
trade now amounts to over one million skins _per annum_, of a total home
value of £50,000 to £60,000. Until a few years ago it was an entirely
trans-desert trade, and the skins were purchased at Tripoli for the
American market. Latterly the _London and Kano Trading Company_ have
diverted more than half of this trade by the western route, and London is
to-day the principal purchaser.
There would seem to be a good future for a trade in hides, especially if
Kano becomes a slaughter-centre for cattle for the southern markets. The
possible obstacle to this is partly political and partly ethnological,
and the first, at least, is worthy of special attention on the part of
the Administration. Virtually all the herds in the Hausa States are the
property of the Fulani. Now the Fulani M’Bororo, as already pointed out,
is a nomad, and it is very doubtful if he will ever be anything else.
Indeed, his very calling necessitates that he should be continually on
the move to seek out pasture-land, according to the seasons, and the
localities he knows. But the more the Protectorate is organized the more
ill at ease will the nomad Fulani become, especially as he dislikes
most intensely the _jangali_ or cattle-tax, at the best of times an
unsatisfactory tax to enforce, and one which, moreover, operates unfairly
towards the small herdsman. Here the ethnological peculiarity comes
in. The Fulani is very fond of his cattle. He does not breed them for
slaughter, but because he literally loves them. He knows every one of
them by name, and lavishes as much attention upon them as he does upon
his children. This is peculiar to him not in Nigeria only but all over
Western Africa. Often have our officers in Northern Nigeria found it
impossible to resist the pitiful appeal of some old Fulani herdsman
or his wife, begging with eyes full of tears for the restitution of a
favourite ox or heifer taken with others under the “jangali” assessment.
The dual problem must be thought out or the M’Bororo will silently
disappear into the vastness of Africa, as the Shuwa—his nomadic colleague
of Bornou—has already partly disappeared from Nigeria. Fulani migration
eastwards towards the Nile valley is a marked phenomenon of the last
ten years, both as regards French and British territory in West Africa.
Khartoum now numbers some 5000 Sokoto Fulani alone. The disappearance of
the Fulani M’Bororoji from the Hausa States would not only arrest any
development of the cattle and hides trades, but would be an incalculable
loss to Hausa agriculture for the reasons given in a previous chapter.
The forest resources of the country are as yet practically untapped,
for lack of adequate transport. They are not as rich in Northern as in
Southern Nigeria, because the forests are much fewer, but there are very
extensive gum-copal forests in Bornu; there is a good deal of rubber
in Bauchi and in some other provinces, the Benue region especially
abounding in rubber, copal, and fibres of great value. The Muri province
is particularly rich. A forestry department organized on the lines of
Southern Nigeria is urgently needed. But in this, as in almost everything
else, the Administration is hampered for lack of funds.
There can be no doubt whatever, that Northern Nigeria has immense
potentialities but they are not going to be developed in a day, or in
a decade, and no useful purpose can be served by pretending otherwise.
The very vastness of the country and the natural difficulties of
communication preclude rapidity in development. In West Africa the game
is generally to the tortoise, not to the hare. And several factors
must ever be borne in mind. Northern Nigeria, as already stated, is a
remarkably self-sufficing country, one part of it supplying the wants
of another; peopled with born traders busily occupied in furthering the
needs of a comprehensive internal traffic. For instance, the river-borne
traffic of the Benue, both up and down, is entirely in the hands now of
Nupe and Kakandas trading on behalf of native merchants, mostly Yorubas,
at Lokoja. There is an active overland trade between the Benue region,
north towards Kano and Bauchi, south with Southern Nigeria right down
to Calabar on the ocean. Native merchants from the north import cloth,
sheep and cattle, and corn, taking away cash, galena and silver from the
Arifu native mines. Between district and district, province and province,
all over the country there is a ceaseless interchange of commercial
commodities. That is one factor to take into account. Another is that we
must revolutionize our ideas as to general conditions and capabilities
for labour, proportionately to the needs and extent of population. The
belief that the majority of the inhabitants of Northern Nigeria pass
their time in idleness, or what approximates to idleness, is a pure
delusion. Even from the European standpoint, which is not and cannot
be the African’s from climatic causes alone, the Northern Nigerian,
speaking generally, is the reverse of idle. Moreover, if on the one hand
our political administration tends to root the people in the soil and
increase the area under cultivation; on the other hand, our roads and
railways and the opening of the tin mines tend to take the people off the
land and to create an increasing class of casual, floating labour which
cannot itself provide for its own sustenance, and has to purchase its
food requirements. The economic consequence is a steadily ascending price
of foodstuffs in the neighbourhood of all the great centres. From this
the farmer benefits, but at the expense of an increase in the production
of raw material for the export trade with Europe. The Northern Nigerian
farmer will grow the crop which it pays him best to grow, and if he sees
a larger profit in corn for local consumption than in ground-nuts or
cotton for export, he will grow corn. These economic questions do not
appear to me to be given their due proportion in the estimates which are
made. The whole country is in a state of transition, and it must be given
breathing space in which to adjust itself. Patience and statesmanship are
the main necessities of the moment. Sir Henry Hesketh-Bell, who takes a
keen interest in all questions of economic development, may be trusted to
do all that is humanly possible to encourage the commercial progress of
the territory.
The outsider who attempts any detailed investigation of trade conditions
in Northern Nigeria must be prepared to walk as delicately as any Agag,
and even then he is pretty sure to ruffle somebody’s feelings. The
fact of the matter is, that the paramount position held by the Niger
Company—the “monopoly” as some call it, although it hardly amounts to
that and must decreasingly do so—is a very sore point with many of the
officials. The aims of the latter and the aims of the company necessarily
diverge, but there is, I think, a tendency on the part of some of the
officials to forget the fact that the Niger Company’s enterprise is the
explanation of our presence in the country. One very sore point is the
question of “cash for produce,” and this affects not the Niger Company
only, but the other merchants. The official case is, that the natives
desire cash for their produce, but that the merchants will not pay cash,
or pay as little cash as possible, because they make a very much larger
profit on the barter business; that this strangles trade development
by discouraging the native producer, who is automatically forced to
accept goods he often does not require, and must afterwards sell at a
loss in order to get the cash he wants. Indeed, the official case goes
further. It is contended not only that the merchants will not buy produce
against cash when asked for cash, but on occasion actually refuse to
sell goods against cash offered by the native, demanding produce in lieu
thereof. For example, if a native has sold his produce against cloth and
then, possessing some loose cash, desires to purchase, shall we say,
earthenware or salt, he is told that his cash will not be accepted, but
that he must bring shea-nuts or ground-nuts, or whatever may be the
product out of which the merchant can make the biggest margin of profit.
Instances are given of merchants having refused to sell salt to natives
for cash; of natives being able to buy cloth in the open market for
actually less than the merchants reckon in paying the native producers,
and so on. Why, it is urged, should the political officer encourage the
native to bring produce for sale to the merchant when all he will get is
cloth that he must sell at a loss in the market in order to get silver to
pay his taxes? Hence we arrive at a point when, as in the last published
Government Report, the “pernicious barter system” is denounced, lock,
stock, and barrel. The views of the merchants are various. In certain
quarters the official allegations are altogether denied. In others it is
contended that the barter trade is the best means of getting into touch
with the actual native trader; that it would not pay to import cash to
buy rough produce like shea-nuts or ground-nuts, which in many cases
are all the natives have to offer; that the out-stations are in charge
of native clerks from the coast, who cannot be trusted with cash; that
the native gets as good value in goods as he does in cash, and so on.
Proceeding from the defensive to the aggressive, many of the merchants
contend that competition, and competition alone, can be expected to put
large quantities of cash into commercial circulation, and that the
Government, instead of fostering competition by encouraging new-comers,
and especially the small man, to go into the country, handicaps the
merchant by disproportionately heavy taxes. The £20 trading licence
for every trading station, even far away in the bush, is particularly
resented. It is pointed out that if the Administration of Southern
Nigeria, whose economic resources are so much richer, makes no such
charge, it is preposterous that the Administration of Northern Nigeria,
whose economic fortune, in the European sense, depends so largely upon
the growth of trade, should do so. One firm of merchants showed me their
books, which disclosed in rent, assessment, and licences a total annual
charge of £150 for a single station. No doubt there is much to be said on
both sides, and each side has a case. It was, for instance, proved to my
satisfaction that in certain instances cash had undoubtedly been refused
to native traders bringing produce to the merchant stores for sale, and
that, in other instances, when cash had been given, the prices paid, as
compared with the local price governing merchandise, was so much less
as practically to drive the native to accept merchandise. On the other
hand, to dub as “pernicious” the barter system, which is responsible for
the vast bulk of the trade that provides the Government all over West
Africa with such large revenue, must appear a straining of the use of
language; nor does the Administration, I think, allow sufficiently for
the innumerable difficulties which the merchant has to face in Northern
Nigeria. For example, in many of the out-stations produce has often to
be stored for six months or more, depreciating all the time, before
the state of the river permits of its shipment. But, after all, cash
is spreading rapidly, and the key to the situation undoubtedly lies in
competition. The more the Administration can do to attract new blood the
better will be the all-round results.
CHAPTER XVI
MINING DEVELOPMENT AND THE BAUCHI PLATEAU
There appears to be no doubt that Nigeria is a highly mineralized
country. Iron exists in considerable quantities and in many districts,
in Southern but more particularly in Northern Nigeria. In the Southern
Protectorate large deposits of lignite have been discovered 40 miles
inland from Onitsha, and require more than a passing mention.
Lignite, as is well known, stands about halfway between wood and coal. It
forms an excellent combustible, and if it can be produced in the proper
form for the purpose, it would be invaluable for the Nigerian railways
and for the steamers and steamboats plying up and down the river, besides
saving the Administration, which is a large importer of coal, much
expense. The first experiments made with the raw material, as extracted,
by the Marine Department, the Northern Nigerian Railway, and the Niger
Company were not altogether satisfactory, which is, perhaps, not
surprising. The Imperial Institute in London is giving close attention
to the matter. That the deposits are of commercial value is undoubted.
An analysis of the Nigerian lignite and a personal investigation of
lignite deposits in Bohemia and elsewhere, conducted by Professor Wyndham
Dunstan, the Director of the Institute, have shown that the Nigerian
article is virtually identical with the German and Austrian. Lignite is
extensively used in Germany, where it is manufactured into briquettes,
and excellent briquettes have been made by a German firm from specimens
of the Nigerian lignite supplied by the Institute. It is probable that
the difficulties experienced locally in utilizing the material in its
raw state would vanish if the necessary machinery for the manufacture of
briquettes could be erected at or near Asaba. Meantime the Administration
has had a road constructed from Asaba to the lignite-fields.
Great importance is attached locally to the Udi deposits, specimens
of which I was able to examine. To the non-expert eye they have every
appearance of rather dirty-looking coal. Credit for this discovery
is wholly due to the mineral survey party sent out by the Imperial
Institute under Mr. Kitson. I am told that the deposits cover an area
of no less than five square miles. To work them commercially a railway
between Onitsha and Udi will, of course, be necessary. The Udi district
can hardly be described as “open” at the moment, but a metalled road to
connect it with Onitsha is in a fair way of being completed.
There can be little doubt that in these deposits the Administration has a
valuable source of potential revenue, and that the Colonial Office will
be called upon before long to come to a decision as to the best means
of reaping advantage therefrom. It is an open secret that demands for
prospecting licences and even for concessions are already being made.
In some quarters the opinion is entertained that the home and local
authorities would be well advised to refuse to part with control over
the fields, but, for some years to come at any rate, to let the Southern
Nigeria Administration itself develop them. There seems to be no reason
why these deposits of fuel should not be made to play as important a part
in the future economy of West Africa as the Nile Sudd appears likely to
do in the economy of Egypt and the Sudan.
Mineral oil has also been discovered in the Southern Protectorate,
but the extravagant hopes held out of being able to work the latter
at a profit seem in a fair way of being abandoned, and the financial
assistance lent by the Administration has not so far justified itself.
West Africa is a peculiar country and is apt to turn the tables upon
the company promoter with a disconcerting completeness. In the Northern
Protectorate salt exists in Bornu, Sokoto, Muri, and Borgu. Monazite has
been found, although not in large deposits, in Nassarawa and Ilorin.
Mica and kaolin occur in Kano. Tourmaline has been found in Bassa. Kabba
contains limestone deposits favourably reported upon by the officers
of the Imperial Institute as suitable for agricultural purposes and
the preparation of mortar. Certain parts of Muri are rich in galena,
containing lead and silver. I am told that quite recently extensive
supplies of silver have been discovered in the same district, the natives
of which have, of course, been trading in both silver and in lead for
many years. Rumours of the existence of gold and copper have not so
far, to my knowledge, been justified. Of precious stones, I have only
heard of small garnets being won, although I was shown a handful of
inferior diamonds supposedly discovered in Southern Nigeria, and the blue
clay formation certainly exists in some parts of Bauchi. A number of
mineral surveys have been carried out by the Imperial Institute, but the
potentialities of the vast bulk of the country are still unknown.
The chief discoveries have been concerned with tin. The industry was
originally, and in restricted form, a native one, and has a somewhat
romantic history. Its brief outlines, obtained from conversation with the
native authorities of Liruei-n-Kano and Liruei-n-Delma, are as follows.
Some eighty years ago the people of the former place, a small town in
the south-east of Kano Province, whose inhabitants carried on an iron
smelting industry under the direction of an able woman, _Sariki_, found
the white metal. They ascertained that it possessed a trading value.
They invented an ingenious but simple method of treating and producing it
in an exceedingly pure form, which remained a secret among the members of
the ruling family and their adherents, but which was explained to me by
them in detail, by the side of one of their furnaces at Liruei-n-Kano.
After honeycombing the neighbourhood of Liruei-n-Kano with vertical pits,
they wandered in course of time over the whole stanniferous area, washing
and digging in the beds, as far south as the tenth parallel. Further than
that they could not move owing to the hostility of the pagan tribes. Tin,
in thin, rounded rods, became a regular article of sale in the markets.
The first sample of tin ore was sent home by Sir William Wallace, then
Acting High Commissioner, in 1902. It was examined by the Imperial
Institute and was found to contain over 80 per cent. of tin di-oxide,
equal to about 64 per cent. of metallic tin. From that time onwards the
Niger Company which, under the arrangement contracted with the Imperial
Government at the time of the abrogation of the Charter, stands to gain
very largely through the development of the mineral resources of the
Protectorate, has spent considerable sums—at first without return—in
proving and in encouraging the industry. To the company is due the fact
that the field has been opened out at all. It is but fair to state this
because the company is the butt of much criticism in Northern Nigeria,
and in some respects, I think, criticism inspired by jealousy of its own
remarkable enterprise. In the last three or four years no fewer than
eighty-two companies have been floated to exploit Northern Nigeria tin
with a total capital of £3,792,132.[10] Hardly a week passes but that
some fresh company is not floated, or the attempt made to do so. It has,
therefore, become a very big thing indeed, and an outside non-expert
opinion may be of some use from the point of view of the “man in the
street” at home. The country is flooded with prospectors, on the whole of
a much better type than is usually attracted to a new mining region, and
the Government, under guarantee from the Niger Company, are now building
a light railway in the direction of the principal deposits.
Needless to say, there has been the usual amount of swindling, and,
perhaps, more than the usual amount of lying. Tin has been located
in districts where there never was and never will be the slightest
vestige of tin; imaginary “bore-holes” have been sunk and companies
have been formed in London on the strength of utterly fraudulent
reports. Statements have been issued proclaiming that the country is
self-supporting for the white prospector in the matter of supplies,
which is totally untrue; and that it is a health resort, which is
equally false. Young fellows have been sent out on agreements which are
a disgrace to those who drew them up, and in some cases, their bones
are rotting in the ground. An unpleasant feature of the affair has been
the indecent precipitancy with which in certain instances ex-Government
officials have identified themselves with syndicates formed in London,
a practice which appears to be growing and which is to be deprecated
in the interest of the high standard and general purity of our public
service.[11] No doubt these incidents are common in the initial stages of
every such enterprise. They are none the less to be deplored.
The western portion of the Bauchi province is the true centre of the
nascent industry. The country about here is wild and beautiful, broken
by mountain ranges which cannot always be negotiated on horseback, and
rising to a considerable height, up to 5000 feet round about Bukuru
and Pankshin. Anything more at variance with the forest regions of the
south it would be impossible to imagine. The whole province is well
watered, and the mineral section lies in the watershed of three fluvial
systems, one feeding the Chad of which the Delimi (or Bunga) is the most
important; another the Benue, of which the Gongola, Kaddera and Sango
are the principal contributory offshoots; another the Niger, through its
tributary the Kaduna which branches out into a fan of numerous lesser
streams. Naraguta, on the Delimi—where most of the mining is actually
concentrated—is situate almost at the heart of these three systems. There
appears to be no bed of tin-bearing wash over the whole country, but
for centuries upon centuries hundreds of feet of rock—chiefly granite
of sorts, with gneiss and basalt—have been denuded by the action of
the weather, and the tin discovered is the concentration of the tin
disseminated throughout those rocks which has been washed into the beds
of the rivers. Practically (there is one known exception, perhaps two)
all the tin as yet discovered is alluvial, and there is virtually no
alluvial tin except in the river-beds themselves. It occurs in patches,
which explains, although it does not excuse, the flamboyant statements
issued on the strength of specific returns, over a given area, from
washings. A company may have secured a licence, or a lease, over a wide
area in one particular corner of which one or more of these patches has
been met with. The returns from washings in these patches, some of which
are very rich, are made to apply in prospectus-framing to the whole area,
when the bulk of it may be virgin not only of tin in payable quantities,
but of any trace of tin at all.
It is unwise to dogmatize about a new country where further discoveries
may give a different complexion to the situation. But in the present
state of our knowledge, the statements describing Northern Nigeria as
the “richest tin field in the world,” are, to put it mildly, a manifest
exaggeration, and the happiest thing which could happen to the country
and to the industry would be a cessation of the “boom.” It may be fairly
urged that the Government’s business is not the protection of the home
investor. All the same, it is not in the public interest that Northern
Nigeria should get a bad name, through wild-cat schemes and dishonest
finance. Five years hence a boom may be justified by results. At present
it is not. Disinterested expert opinion on the spot estimates the
eventual output of the discovered field at 5000 tons per annum. It is
always possible that further and valuable deposits may be struck. On the
other hand, the life of an alluvial tin mine is, by general consent, a
short one, and ten years will probably cover the life of the existing
mines. Under the circumstances it is very evident that a great number of
the companies which have been floated are over-capitalized and will never
pay an honest dividend. Companies with a small capital, whose property
is a good one and favourably situated, have every chance of doing so.
For the small man, working with a modest capital, who is fortunate
enough to select a good site and who is prepared to come in and do the
actual mining, the prospects, I should say, are distinctly good; and
prospectors of that sort could count upon receiving every assistance from
the Administration, which is anxious to encourage them. For two energetic
men—it is always better to be _à deux_ out here—a capital of £3000 would
be ample, and the conditions made to licence and lease-holders are
not onerous, although the staff for dealing with applications is too
small, entailing vexatious delays. There is no serious labour trouble,
and there is not likely to be any, provided the natives are properly
treated. The representative of the Niger Company, who has considerable
knowledge of the country and whom I saw at Joss—a beautiful station
reflecting the greatest possible credit upon the company and its local
staff—was very emphatic on this point, and his views were borne out
by the most experienced people I consulted. In this connection I feel
impelled to remark that both from the political point of view, as from
the standpoint of the interests and progress of the industry itself—not
to mention other considerations—it is absolutely essential that abusive
acts, such as the incident which occurred at the close of last year at
Maiwa, should be punished with exemplary severity. On that occasion the
guilty party escaped with a substantial fine. Should anything of the
sort recur, expulsion from the country ought to accompany the fine. The
Bauchi province is not yet entirely “held,” and much of it is peopled by
very shy and timid pagan tribes. These are amenable under just treatment
to regular labour on short terms and prompt pay, as has been proved in
the final stages of the completion of the Riga-Chikum-Naraguta road,
although such labour is quite foreign to them. Harsh and unjust handling
would send them flying to the inaccessible hills. While on this subject I
am also bound to say that the political staff of the Bauchi province is
hopelessly and dangerously undermanned, or was when I left the country
last January. It is tempting Providence to allow three hundred white
prospectors to go wandering over the face of a vast country like this
(27,000 square miles) with a political staff amounting to no more than
thirteen all told; and that number, a purely nominal one, be it stated.
Twenty political officers at least should be permanently on duty in the
province.
The question of transport has been a difficult one and still remains
so. The situation has been somewhat alleviated by the construction of
a road connecting Naraguta with the Baro-Kano railway at Riga-Chikum,
although, following that road for its whole (then) completed length, I
fail to see for my part that it will be of much use in the rains without
a series of pontoons over the rivers which cut it at frequent intervals,
and no measure of the kind was in contemplation last January. Possibly
the situation has changed since. The scarcity and the distance of the
villages and, consequently, of food supplies for men and beasts, from
the road is also a drawback. But doubtless the road will fall into
disuse and turn out to have been more or less a waste of money with the
completion of the railway which, mercifully, be it said, has been started
from Zaria instead of following the deserted country from Riga-Chikum
as was originally proposed. This railway is being constructed in the
direction of Naraguta. But not to Naraguta itself, which is wise, for the
development of the industry in that immediate neighbourhood is still a
sufficiently doubtful quantity to permit at least of the supposition that
the centre of gravity may shift to Bukuru or some other spot. The railway
traverses the region where the Kano tin deposits are situate—virtually
the only ones not entirely alluvial in character. At the present time
the road chiefly used for the transport of the tin is that opened and
maintained by the Niger Company between the mines and Loko on the Benue,
a distance of 180 miles. The Niger Company have established ferries
across the rivers and organised a system of carriers and donkeys. But at
best the route is not an ideal one, costs a great deal to keep open, and
is hardly capable of dealing with more than 500 tons _per annum_. I found
complaints rife as to the alleged favouritism shown by the company in its
management of the transport, but I failed to discover any specific facts
justifying them. Of course the company enjoys a complete monopoly of that
road, even the Government, it seems, having to apply to the company for
carriers; and a monopoly is always undesirable in theory and sometimes
very irritating in practice. (Apparently the same situation has come
about in regard to the Riga-Chikum road.) But it is difficult to see how
any tin at all could have been got down, or machinery and stores got up,
to and from the river if it had not been for the company’s enterprise and
far-seeing methods. Certainly the loudest of its local critics would have
been quite unable to have coped with the problem.
Something remains to be said of the Bauchi province. The province
consists of the Bauchi and Gombe Emirates, the Ningi Division, an
independent community half Muslim, half pagan, of erstwhile noted
freebooters and fighters, and the purely pagan section, of which the
Hill Division is the most important. The total population is about half
a million. In no part of Africa probably is there such a conglomeration
of different tribes—Angass, Sura, Tangali, Chip, Waja, Kanna, Bukurus,
etc., etc.—as is to be found in the pagan division of Bauchi which,
for centuries, has been the refuge of communities fleeing from Hausa,
Fulani and Beri-Beri (Kanuri) pressure. No fewer than sixty-four distinct
languages—not dialects—are said to have been noted within it. The men are
an upstanding race, lithe rather than muscular, great archers and in many
cases daring horsemen, riding bare-backed, covering immense distances in
a phenomenally short space of time and shooting accurately (with the bow)
while mounted. Most of them go about absolutely naked but for a sanitary
adornment of special character. For a picture of primitive man commend
me to the spectacle of a naked Bauchi pagan carrying a bow in his hand,
on his back a quiver of arrows; on his head, its horns sticking out on
either side, the gory and newly severed head of an ox—the “Boar of the
Ardennes” in variation and in an African setting of rugged mountains and
dying sun! I observed this sight one evening riding into Naraguta from
a distant mining camp, passing, ten minutes later, a gorgeously attired
Mohammedan _Sariki_ in his many coloured robes on a richly caparisoned
horse. Northern Nigeria is a land of extraordinary contrasts, which
to some extent no doubt is the secret of its fascination. The women’s
clothing is also of the scantiest, consisting of a bunch of broad green
leaves fixed round the waist and falling over the hips and lower abdomen.
Their chastity is proverbial even among the dissolute camp-followers.
[Illustration: SCENE IN THE BAUCHI HIGHLANDS.]
Among these people many customs of great anthropological interest must
linger, many religious practices and philological secrets that might
give us the key to much of which we are still ignorant in the history
of the country, and assist us in the art of government. It seems a
pity that their gradual Hausa-ising, which must be the outcome of the
_pax britannica_, should become accomplished before these facts have
been methodically studied and recorded. The pagan division of Bauchi
is a unique corner of Africa, and it would be well worth the while of
Government and of some scientific body at home to prosecute research
within it. The Administration has no money to spare. But it is really a
misfortune that public opinion in England is so lax in these matters.
We wait in order to understand the ethnological lore of our African
dependencies, until German scientists have gone through them and told us
what they contain of anthropological value, incidentally sweeping the
country bare of its ethnological treasures. In these things we appear to
have no national pride whatever. If any British scientific body should be
stung by these mild remarks into some sort of action, I would advise its
communicating with Captain Foulkes, the Political Officer until recently
in charge of the Hill Division, who is keenly interested in the people
and their customs which he has more knowledge of than any one else.
The soil of the province is supposedly poor, but I observed it to be
covered in many places with millions of casts of virgin soil flung up by
earthworms, and these must, when the rains come, enrich its recuperative
properties. The province would probably grow wheat. The pagan cultivation
is very deep and remarkably regular, and these communities, for all
their primitiveness, weave grass mats of tasteful finish, colouring and
design; grow cotton which they manufacture and sell, and tobacco which
they smoke, and snuff, and smelt iron. They are also readily taking to
the rubber trade and learning how to tap the rubber trees which, in some
parts, are to be met with in every village, without destroying the tree.
In the plains there are large herds of cattle, which form the principal
wealth of the inhabitants, and an abundance of good grazing land. The
Fulani herdsman, ubiquitous as ever, may be seen tending his beasts.
On all hands the Bauchi plateau is looked upon as an eventual sanatorium
where officials can recoup, and thanks to which the term of service may
be ultimately prolonged, which, with the keenness which distinguishes
this service, they all seem to want—the Politicals, I mean. Even now they
play hide-and-seek with the doctors, and keep uncommonly quiet when the
time comes round for furlough, lying low like Brer Rabbit. I hesitate
to strike a discord where so much unanimity prevails. No doubt it is a
generally accepted maxim that the bracing air of a mountainous region,
its cool nights and mornings, have recuperative effects upon the system
undermined with malaria and other ills, and it may well be—I devoutly
hope so—that in course of time the plateau will become the Nigerian
Simla and may also contain a population of white settlers engaged in
stock-raising and, perhaps, agriculture. But the period within which
these things can come about strikes me as still remote. If they are to
be, it will mean the expenditure of much money, and, under existing
circumstances of transport and housing, the climate of Bauchi has been
over-praised. You have always the tropical African sun to reckon with,
and there appears to be some subtly dangerous quality about it which even
men who have lived in other tropical lands find very trying.
CHAPTER XVII
THE NECESSITY OF AMALGAMATING THE TWO PROTECTORATES
No interested student of Nigerian affairs can fail, I think, especially
after an examination of the problem on the spot, to arrive at the
conclusion that the present dual system of administration, with its
artificial territorial boundaries, its differing methods, and its
inevitable rivalries, has served its turn and should be brought to an
end as speedily as possible. The situation, as it obtains to-day, is
incongruous—in some respects almost absurd; and the absence of a sense
of proportion in estimating responsibilities and acknowledging public
services is conspicuous. No comprehensive scheme of development and, what
is more important, no unity of principle in public policy is possible
while it lasts. Moreover, just as each Administration settles itself
more firmly in the saddle and pursues its own aims with increasing
determination, so will differences in the handling of great public
issues accentuate themselves and eventual adjustment on a common basis
of principle be attended with additional perplexity. It is not only
quite natural, but under the existing circumstances it is right that
the Administration of Southern Nigeria should work for the interests
of Southern Nigeria and the Administration of Northern Nigeria for
the interests of the latter. But Nigeria is geographically a single
unit, and Imperial policy suffers from a treatment which regards the
interests of one section as not only distinct from, but in certain cases
antagonistic to the interests of the other. It is not suggested that
administration should everywhere be carried out on the same pattern.
No one would contend that the problems of government in the Northern
Hausa provinces can, for instance, be assimilated to the problems of
government in the Eastern Province of the Southern Protectorate. But
that the main principles of government should be identical, and that
the governing outlook should be directed to a consideration of the
interests of Nigeria as a whole, can hardly be disputed. Take, for
example, the question of direct and of indirect rule. The tendency in
Southern Nigeria, as the Secretariat gets stronger and the initiative
of the Commissioners decreases, is towards direct rule, especially in
the Western Province. Northern Nigeria has resolutely set the helm in
the contrary direction. Take the question of taxation. North of the
imaginary line which separates the two Protectorates the native pays a
direct tax to the Administration, and tribute from the people to their
natural Chiefs and to the Government is assured on specific principles.
South of that line the native pays no direct tax to Government, and in
the Western Province the Central Administration doles out stipends,
apparently suspendable, to the Chiefs, while the paying of native
tribute to the Chiefs, where it has not altogether ceased, exists
only by the internal conservatism of native custom. Take the question
of education. The Southern Nigerian system is turning out every year
hundreds of Europeanized Africans. The Northern Nigeria system aims at
the establishment of an educational system based upon a totally different
ideal. In Northern Nigeria the land question has been settled, so far as
the Northern Protectorate is concerned, on a broad but sure foundation;
but the Southern Nigerian native is an alien in Northern Nigerian law.
In Southern Nigeria there is no real land legislation, and the absence
of such, especially in the Western Province, is raising a host of future
complications. Every year the gulf widens between the two ideals, and
its ultimate bridging becomes a matter of greater difficulty. While on
the one hand the Northern Nigeria Administration has had the priceless
advantage of “starting fresh” and has been compelled to concentrate upon
political and administrative problems, British rule in Southern Nigeria
has been the slow growth of years, advancing here by conquest, there by
pacific penetration, here by one kind of arrangement with native Chiefs,
there by another kind of arrangement. Politically and of necessity
British rule in Southern Nigeria is a thing of shreds and patches. The
last two Governors, both very able men in their respective ways, have
had, moreover, strong leanings in particular directions; sanitation was
the load-star of the first; road construction, clearing of creeks and
channels, harbour improvements and commercial development the chief
purpose of the latter. It is no reflection upon either (the material
advance of the Protectorate under Sir Walter Egerton’s administration has
been amazing) to say that, between them, questions vitally affecting the
national existence of the people, the study and organization of their
laws and courts and administrative authority, have been left somewhat
in the background. In criticizing a West African Administration it must
always be borne in mind that no broad lines of public policy are laid
down from home. None of the Secretary of State’s advisers have ever
visited Nigeria, and however able they may be that is a disadvantage.
There is no West African Council composed of men with experience of the
country, as there ought to be, which would assist the Permanent Officials
in advising the Secretary of State. The result is that each Governor
and each Acting-Governor “runs his own show” as the saying is. One set
of problems is jerked forwards by this Governor, another by another.
The Governor’s position is rather like that of a Roman Emperor’s, and
the officials responsible for large districts, never knowing what a
new Governor’s policy is going to be, look upon every fresh change with
nervous apprehension, which has a very unsettling effect. A vast wastage
of time as well as many errors would be avoided if we had clear ideas at
home as to the goal we are pursuing, and laid down specific principles by
which that goal could be attained. This could be done without hampering
the Governors. Indeed, the very indefiniteness of the home view on all
these problems is often a serious handicap to a Governor who, for that
very reason, may hesitate to take action where action is required,
fearing, rightly or wrongly, the influence which Parliamentary questions
may exercise upon the Secretary of State, and who may also find himself
committed by an Acting-Governor, in his absence, to actions of which he
personally disapproves. In other instances the existence of definite
plans in London would act as a salutary check upon sudden innovations by
a new and inexperienced Governor. Frequent changes of Governors there
must be until the conditions of life in Nigeria are very much improved;
but the inconveniences arising therefrom would be largely mitigated if
there were continuity of a well-thought-out policy at home.
This digression is not, perhaps, altogether irrelevant to the subject
under discussion.
The position of Northern Nigeria is very anomalous. A vast Protectorate
shut off from the seaboard by another less than four times its size;
having no coastline, and the customs dues on whose trade are collected by
the latter. Southern Nigeria enjoying a very large revenue; its officials
decently housed and catered for; able to spend freely upon public works
and to develop its natural resources. Northern Nigeria still poor, a
pensioner upon the Treasury, in part upon Southern Nigeria; unable to
stir a step in the direction of a methodical exploration of its vegetable
riches; its officials housed in a manner which is generally indifferent
and sometimes disgraceful, many of them in receipt of ridiculously
inadequate salaries, and now deprived even of their travelling allowance
of five shillings a day. The latter measure is so unjust that a word
must be said on the subject. The reason for the grant of this allowance
[which the Southern Nigerian official enjoys] was frequent travelling,
expensive living, and mud-house accommodation. As regards the two first,
the arguments to-day are even stronger than they used to be. The safety
of the roads and the increased pressure of political work compels the
Resident and his assistants to be more or less constantly on the move if
they are worth their salt. When travelling about the country, 4_s._ to
5_s._ a day and sometimes a little more is an inevitable expenditure; at
present, a clear out-of-pocket one. As to living, it is a commonplace
that the price of local food supplies is very much higher than it was
seven years ago, while the price of goods imported from abroad have
not all appreciably decreased. So far as the mud-houses are concerned,
probably more than half the officials, except at places like Zungeru and
Kano, live in mud-houses to-day. The Resident at Naraguta, for instance,
lives in a leaky mud-house, while the Niger Company’s representative at
Joss, five miles off, has a beautiful and spacious residence of brick
and timber. A good mud-house is not to be despised, but the money to
build even good ones is quite inadequate. I could give several examples
where officials have spent considerable sums out of their own pockets
to build themselves a decent habitation of mud and thatch. Some of the
juniors have to be content with grass-houses, draughty, bitterly cold
at night and in the early morning, and leaky to boot. Moreover, many
of the brick-houses supplied are an uncommonly poor exchange for £90 a
year. They are made of rough local brick, which already show symptoms
of decay, and the roof is often so flimsy that in the verandah and
supper-room one has to keep one’s helmet on as protection against the
sun. I am not at all sure that the real official objection to all but
leading officials bringing out their wives is not to be sought in the
assumption that married officials, other than of the first grade, would
no longer put up with the crude discomfort they now live in, and would
be a little more chary of ruining their health by touring about in the
rains—at their own expense. That Northern Nigeria is not under present
conditions a fit place for other than an exceptional type of woman I
reluctantly admit; but that the constant aim of Government should be to
improve conditions in order to make it so I am fully persuaded. Our women
as well as our men have built up the Empire and made it, on the whole,
the clean and fine thing it is, and what a good woman, provided she is
also a physically strong one, can accomplish in Northern Nigeria is
beyond calculation. It is not too much to say of a very extensive region
in the eastern part of the Protectorate, that the moral influence of one
such woman is powerfully felt throughout its length and breadth. Other
aspects of this question will obviously suggest themselves, and they
ought to be boldly tackled; but the national prudery makes it difficult
to discuss such matters openly. The salaries paid in Northern Nigeria
fill one with astonishment. The salary of a first class Resident appears
to vary from £700 to £800; that of a second class Resident from £550 to
£650; that of a third class Resident from £450 to £550. Kano Province
when I visited it was in charge of a third class Resident, admittedly
one of the ablest officials in the country, by the way; that is to say,
an official drawing £470 a year was responsible for a region as large as
Scotland and Wales, with a population of 2,571,170! The Bauchi Province
was in charge of a second class Resident, drawing £570 a year; it is the
size of Greece, has a population of about three-quarters of a million,
and additional administrative anxieties through the advent of a white
mining industry. These two instances will suffice. The men saddled
with these immense responsibilities are really Lieutenant-Governors and
should be paid as such. It is perfectly absurd that an official in whom
sufficient confidence is reposed to be given the task of governing a huge
Province like Kano should be paid the salary of a bank clerk, when, for
instance, the Governor of Sierra Leone, with half the population,[12]
is drawing £2500, exclusive of allowances. A comparison of the Northern
Nigeria salaries with those paid to the Governors of the West Indian
Islands gives furiously to think. The Governorship of the Bahamas, 4404
square miles in extent, with a population of 61,277, is apparently worth
£2000; that of the Bermudas, with an area of twenty-nine square miles and
a population of 17,535, £2946; that of Barbados, 166 square miles and a
population of 196,498, £2500.
CHAPTER XVIII
RAILWAY POLICY AND AMALGAMATION
[Illustration: SCENE ON THE SOUTHERN NIGERIA (EXTENSION) RAILWAY.]
[Illustration: PLATE-LAYING ON THE NORTHERN NIGERIA RAILWAY.]
To all these incongruities must be added the series of events which have
led to the creation of two competing railway systems, and, consequently,
to open rivalry between the two Administrations in the effort to secure
the traffic from the interior, a rivalry which is certainly not lessened
by the circumstance that the method of railway construction followed in
one Protectorate differs radically from that pursued in the other. This
rivalry, needless to say, is perfectly honourable to both sides, but it
is deplorable, nevertheless, and not in the public interest, and were
the two systems placed under one management before the amalgamation of
the Protectorates, _i.e._ if Southern Nigeria took over the Northern
line, which it very naturally wishes to do, having lent the money for
its construction, and not appreciating the _rôle_ of milch cow without
adequate return, friction between the railway management and the
Political Staff would be inevitable owing to the fundamental divergence
of method already referred to. Moreover, the results achieved by Mr.
Eaglesome and his staff in laying the Baro-Kano railway have been of so
revolutionary a character as to suggest the advisability of reconsidering
the whole policy of railway construction in British West Africa, such
as has been pursued hitherto. I will refer briefly to this method in a
moment. Meanwhile the position of the competing lines is roughly this.
Southern Nigeria has built—or rather is building, for the last section
is not quite finished—a railway from Lagos which crosses the Niger at
Jebba, proceeds therefrom to Zungeru, the capital of Northern Nigeria,
and onwards to a place called Minna.[13] Northern Nigeria has built
a railway from Baro, a spot 407 miles up the Niger to Minna, where
the junction is effected, and thence to Kano. Southern Nigeria, which
looks upon the Northern Protectorate as its natural hinterland, wishes
to attract the trade of the north over its line to Lagos, and desires
that the through rates it has drawn up should be accepted by Northern
Nigeria, and claims the right of fixing the rates on the section of its
railway from the point where it enters Northern Nigeria territory (Offa)
to the point of junction. The Northern Nigeria Administration, which
does not in the least regard itself as the natural appanage of Southern
Nigeria, desires to feed the Baro-Kano railway in conjunction with the
Niger, and declares that the through rates proposed by Southern Nigeria
are so manipulated as to ensure the deflection of the northern trade to
Lagos and thus to starve the Baro-Kano line, which would tend to reduce
a considerable section of it, apart from its very definite strategical
importance, to scrap iron. That was the position when I left the country,
and I do not gather that it has greatly advanced since. There has been a
conference, but it has not resulted, and could not result, in agreement
as to the question of what line is to get preferential treatment; and
that, of course, is the main question which should be decided by an
impartial authority, having regard to the interests of Nigeria as a
whole. Now a word as to the two systems. So far as governing principles
are concerned, it would probably be regarded as a fair description to
state that the Southern Nigerian method is less concerned with capital
expenditure and with rapidity of construction, as with the advisability
of securing permanently good construction and putting in permanent
work throughout, including stone ballast, fine stations and so on.
The Northern Nigerian method, on the other hand, aims at keeping down
initial capital expenditure and interest, exercising strict economy in
the matter of buildings, both for the public and for the staff, combined
with rapidity of construction and improving the line as the traffic
grows. These ideas represent two schools of thought, and beyond the
general remark that a rich Administration may be able to afford what a
poor one certainly cannot, the non-expert had best not venture upon an
expression of opinion lest peradventure he be ground between the upper
and the nether millstone. But as regards the respective systems under
which these principles are carried out, it is impossible to resist the
conclusion that Northern Nigeria has demonstrably proved its superiority
so far as actual construction is concerned. The Southern Nigeria line has
been, and is being, constructed on the old model. Consulting engineers
in London are employed by the Colonial Office, and appoint the staff in
Africa. They are unchecked, for the Colonial Office has no independent
railway adviser for tropical Africa, no railway board, or department,
or anything of that kind. Thus there are two distinct staffs concerned,
a staff appointed by and responsible to the Consulting Engineers in
London, and the General Manager’s Staff in the Dependency. Where the
responsibility of one begins and the other ends, both would probably
find it difficult to define; and no one who knows West Africa can fail
to appreciate the divided counsels, the friction, the waste of time and
money which such a system must inevitably entail, even though every human
rivet in the machine were endowed with superlative qualities. It is very
difficult to arrive at a clear idea as to what the average expenditure of
the Southern Nigerian railway has been per mile, but it does not appear
to be disputed that the cost of construction of the first section of 120
miles to Ibadan, plus the capital expenditure incurred on the open line
and the working capital for stores, was enormous, viz. £11,000 per mile.
The expenditure upon the remaining sections will probably be found to
work out at an average of between £5000 and £6000 per mile, exclusive of
railway stock and maintenance. Contract labour has been employed except
in the later stages, when the line entering Northern Nigeria territory
has come under the system of political recruiting which will now be
described.
[Illustration: LANDING-PLACE AT BARO.]
[Illustration: GROUP OF RAILWAY LABOURERS—BARO.]
The great advantage which the Northern Nigerian system possesses
over that of Southern Nigeria is unity of direction. But the vital
difference between the two systems is this: Northern Nigeria has shown
that it is possible to construct a railway without the services of
Consulting Engineers in England at all. Now this is a fact which cannot
be too pointedly emphasized; because Consulting Engineers are most
expensive luxuries if they are not necessities. The logical deduction
is, either that Consulting Engineers can be, and if they can be should
be, dispensed with for any future railways in West Africa; or that the
Baro-Kano railway, without them, is a failure. It appears to me that the
Baro-Kano railway has been a marvellous success from the point of view of
construction. What are the facts? The Administration, _i.e._ its Public
Works Department, with the help of a few Royal Engineer officers lent
by the Home Government, has been its own builder. The absence of any
foreign body has reduced friction to a minimum. In fact, there has been
no friction whatever, because the Railway Staff has co-operated in every
way with the Political Staff, and the exercise of the Political Officers’
legitimate duties in protecting the interests of the natives has not
been resented or looked upon in the light of vexatious interference by
the railway management. I should be the last to wish to minimize the
excellence of the individual work performed by the engineers in charge
of the Southern Nigeria line, which I was able to admire, and from whom
I received the greatest hospitality and kindness at various stages
in my journey; but the nature of the system there followed precludes
that enthusiastic co-operation of all the elements concerned which is
the predominating characteristic of Northern Nigerian methods. And,
as already stated, there is a very considerable item of expense to be
considered through the employment of Consulting Engineers in London. In
the Northern Protectorate every one, from the Governor—the Baro-Kano
railway owes, of course, its inception to Sir Percy Girouard—down to the
foreman, has been, as it were, a member of a single family. In fact,
one might almost say that the line has been built on the communistic
principle. In no direction does the system show better results than in
the organization of labour. It has proved to demonstration what is the
right way of dealing with native labour in West Africa, viz.: that the
labourer on public works shall be drawn from the neighbourhood where
the public works are situate, that he shall proceed to the scene of his
labours accompanied by his own Village or District Headman, the native
authority to whom he owes allegiance, and whom he knows and trusts; that
he shall perform his duties in the presence and under the supervision of
that Headman, and that for the conduct of the Headman himself, and for
the whole proceedings under which recruitment is carried on and labour
performed, the Political Officer shall be responsible. In other words,
it shows the right procedure to be that of recruiting through and with
the co-operation of, and by the orders of, the natural authorities of the
people under the supreme control of the Resident, combined with a form of
payment which shall ensure the wage being placed in the wage-earner’s own
hand, not in somebody else’s hand. By this system alone can the labour of
the country employed in agricultural and industrial pursuits be capable
of bearing an additional burden for public purposes, without injustice,
without ferment, without dislocating the whole labour system of the
region. Persuaded of this truth, the Political Officers of Northern
Nigeria, aided by the ready willingness of the Railway Staff, have
achieved a veritable triumph of organization which should ever remain
a model to follow. And in that triumph can be read a deep political
lesson. That such organization has been possible in Northern Nigeria
is due, primarily, to the existence of a native political organization
to which we could appeal and upon which we could rely. The principle
adopted on the works themselves has been to give to each foreman his own
set of Headmen, with their own gangs to look after, and to so regulate
the labour that no individual should work more than eight hours _per
diem_. Built under conditions such as these, the Northern Nigeria
railway, constructed under great difficulties with wonderful rapidity
and at a cost of well under £4000 per mile, rolling-stock and stores
included, is not only in itself a striking performance—with, I believe,
if free conditions of development are assured to it, a bright economic
future—but a political and educational work of permanent value. It has
helped to bring the Political Officers into closer personal touch with
the population. It has increased the confidence of the people in the
honesty of their alien overlords, and has imbued them with a personal
interest and friendly curiosity in the railway. It has taught them many
things which they did not know before, things which will be useful to
themselves in their own social life. It has brought previously hostile
tribes together into the same trench, effacing tribal barriers and
burying old feuds. It has largely increased the use of silver coinage,
and stimulated commercial activity. The same system is being followed
in the construction, now proceeding, of the branch line towards the
tin-fields; but many more railways will be required to develop the
commercial potentialities of Northern Nigeria, and the fact constitutes
one more argument to those already given in favour of an amalgamation of
the two Protectorates, and the evolution of one set of governing ideas.
[Illustration: VILLAGE HEAD-MEN.]
[Illustration: VILLAGE HEAD-MEN.]
I cannot leave the question of railway construction in the Nigerias
without expressing regret that in authorizing the construction of the
new line, the Colonial Office should have been led to break the gauge,
and to decide upon a 2 feet 6 inch line instead of the 3 feet 6 inch
standard. Apart from other objections, which can be urged more fittingly
by experts, it is obvious that this departure necessitates a complete
equipment of new rolling stock, and the erection of special engineering
shops to deal with it. Every freshly constructed line is bound to have
a surplus of rolling stock. The Baro-Kano railway is no exception to
the rule, and its surplus stock could have been utilized on the new
branch line. It is a penny wise and pound foolish policy, and, in all
probability, the ultimate result will be that this 2 feet 6 inch line
will cost very little, if at all, less than a 3 feet 6 inch would have
done.
CHAPTER XIX
AN UNAUTHORIZED SCHEME OF AMALGAMATION
An effort was made in the previous chapter to depict some of the
disadvantages and drawbacks arising, and likely to become accentuated
with time, from the dual administrative control now obtaining in
Nigeria. For the following suggestions as to the character amalgamation
could assume, the writer claims no more than that they may, perhaps,
constitute an attempt, put forward with much diffidence, to indicate a
few constructive ideas which might form the basis for expert discussion.
The objects an amalgamation might be expected to secure, apart from the
inconveniences needing removal, would, in the main, be four in number.
(_a_) Financial management directed not only to meeting present needs
but to making provision for the future. (_b_) The right sort of man
to fill the important and onerous post of Governor-General. (_c_) The
division of the territory into Provinces corresponding as far as possible
with natural geographical boundaries and existing political conditions,
involving as few changes as possible. (_d_) A comprehensive scheme of
public works.
These various points can, in the limits of a chapter, be best examined
collectively.
In the accompanying map Nigeria is divided into four great Provinces. I.
The Northern or Sudan Province, comprising the regions where a Mohammedan
civilization has existed for many centuries, and where the majority of
the people, except in Kontagora, are Muslims. The ruling families in
Kontagora are, however, so closely related with those of Sokoto that
it would probably be found expedient to incorporate the former into
the same Province, which would, therefore, consist of Sokoto, Kano,
Bornu, the Zaria Emirate and Kontagora. Its headquarters would be Kano.
II. The Central Province, comprising the pagan section of the present
Zaria province, _i.e._ Zaria outside the limits of the Emirate proper,
and the Nassarawa, Bauchi, Niger, Yola, and Muri (north of the Benue)
provinces. It is not quite easy to forecast where the centre of gravity
of the Central Province will ultimately fall, but if, as is possible, the
Bauchi highlands become in time a second Simla for the Central Executive,
the headquarters of the Central Province would presumably be fixed at
Zungeru, the present capital of the Northern Protectorate. III. The
Western Province, comprising all that is now incorporated in the existing
western province of Southern Nigeria, plus—to the north—Kabba, Ilorin
and Borgu, while the right bank of the Forcados and Niger would form the
eastern boundary, the boundaries of the Province following natural lines.
Its headquarters would be Oshogbo, or its immediate neighbourhood. IV.
The Eastern Province, comprising what is now the eastern province of
South Nigeria, but with its western frontier coterminous with the left
bank of the Niger and Forcados and its northern frontiers pushed up to
the south bank of the Benue, embracing Bassa and part of Muri, Yola,
however, being left, for political reasons, in the Central Province, as
noted above. Its headquarters would be Old Calabar, the starting-point of
the future eastern railway (see map).
Each of these great provinces would be ruled by a Lieutenant-Governor,
with Residents and Assistant Residents under him, and, wherever possible,
the present political boundaries of what are now provinces, but would
become known as districts and sub-districts, would be retained. Thus in
the Northern or Sudan Province nothing would be changed in this respect,
save the separation of Mohammedan Zaria from pagan Zaria; nothing would
be changed in the Central Province, so far as the units remaining within
it were concerned, except the division of Muri, which would offer no
political embarrassments. The enlargement of the Eastern Province as
proposed, would in some respects facilitate the work of administration
and would not cut across any ethnic divisions. In the Western Province
the principal alteration would be the re-grouping of the different Yoruba
sections in their old state form (_vide_ Part II.) under a Resident
who would reside at Oyo; Ilorin, Kabba, and Borgu would remain under
Residents as at present. Warri (the capital of the existing central
province of Southern Nigeria) would become the seat of a Residency for
the Bini, Sobo, Ijaw and Jekri speaking peoples.
Lagos town would continue to be what the expenditure of much money, and
the enterprise of the Yorubas, have made it, the commercial emporium of
at least the western portion of the Protectorate, and the headquarters
of the small surrounding area known as the “Colony” (_vide_ Part II.),
administered by a “Lagos Council,” which would replace the present “Lagos
Legislative Council,” and be composed of much the same elements as the
latter now consists of, presided over by a Resident. The functions of the
Lagos Council would be confined to the Colony.
The headquarters of the Governor-General and the central seat of
Government would be the high plateau immediately behind Lokoja, known as
Mount Patte, situated in the very centre of the Protectorate, commanding
the Niger and the Benue, within easy steam of Baro the starting-point of
the central railway, and linked up with the western railway by a branch
line to Oshogbo as indicated on the map. The Governor-General would
be assisted by an Executive and Legislative Council. Of the former the
Lieutenant-Governors and Senior Residents would be _ex officio_ members,
together with the Chief Justice, the Colonial Secretary, the Financial
Secretary, and the officer commanding the troops. The official members
of the Legislative Council would include the Directors of rail and river
transport, of public works, of agriculture, of forestry and of commercial
intelligence; the Director of mining; and the Principal Medical Officer.
The unofficial members would include selected representatives of the
educated native community, and, later on, one or two distinguished
Mallams, and selected representatives of the European commercial and
mining communities.
Possibly, in course of time, the work of the Council could be carried
out in conjunction with periodical Durbars attended by all the important
Emirs, but in no case would the functions of the Council be allowed to
conflict with the Native Administrations of the Mohammedan Provinces.
[Illustration: SKETCH MAP OF NIGERIA, SHOWING SUGGESTED REARRANGEMENT OF
PROVINCES.]
The method of handling the finances of the Protectorate would depend to
a large extent upon the capacity of the Home Government, in conjunction
with the potential Governor-General and other advisers, to map out ahead
a considered scheme of railway construction and improvement of fluvial
communications, which would proceed from year to year and for which
provision would be made. The whole problem of communications, both rail
and river, ought to be placed under a special department, subject to
periodical inspection by an independent expert sent out from home by the
Colonial Office, and the services of consulting engineers in England
disposed of if possible. The situation financially lends itself, in a
general sense, to a certain boldness of treatment and departure from
ordinary British West African precedent. Two distinct classes of budgets
might with advantage, perhaps, be evolved, viz. a Colonial budget and
the Provincial budgets. In other words, there would be a central budget
and four local budgets, one for each Province. The Colonial budget would
be fed by the customs revenue, the whole of which would be credited to
it. (It may be estimated that two or three years hence the total customs
revenue collected in Nigeria will amount to £2,500,000.) It would be
augmented by the profits on the railways, the mining royalties, harbour
dues, and pilotage fees (there should be a system of public pilotage on
the waterways). The Protectorate could be authorized to raise a loan
on its own recognizances of £5,000,000 redeemable in a term of years.
This loan would be expended in a succession of public works—some of the
necessary lines of rail are indicated in the map—in accordance with the
scheme of construction mapped out as previously suggested. The Colonial
budget would determine the successive instalments of expenditure out
of loans, and would provide the interest on the new loan and on the
existing loan of £5,000,000 contracted by Southern Nigeria (for public
works in Southern and Northern Nigeria). The revenues of the Colonial
budget from whatever source derived, other than from loans, would be
distributed by the Governor-General in council for the administration
of the four Provinces in accordance with their respective needs. These
needs would show marked variation for some years to come. For instance,
the hypothetical Northern and Central Provinces (_i.e._ the territory
which now comprises the bulk of Northern Nigeria), relying upon the
increasing regularity and juster assessment of internal direct taxation,
the nature of which may roughly be termed a graduated property tax, might
be expected to advance steadily towards the self-supporting stage. When
that stage had been reached, the surplus would be set aside under the
Provincial budget for extending the system of fixed salaries to native
officials, for expenditure on provincial public works and economic
research, improvements in sanitation, and so on, in collaboration
with the native authorities of its various sections. A portion of my
hypothetical Northern or Sudan Province is already self-supporting,
viz. Kano. Indeed, but for the military establishment the whole of that
Province would be showing to-day a handsome surplus and, apart from the
public works to be met out of loans, would require—even if it continued
to be debited with the military establishment—very little assistance from
the Colonial budget. The hypothetical Central Province would require more
assistance for a time, but, as in the Northern Province, the basis of an
expanding land revenue is securely laid and a not inconsiderable mineral
development bringing revenue, apart from royalties, is assured to it. On
the other hand, most of the hypothetical Western Province and almost the
whole of the Eastern Province—_i.e._ in combination, Southern Nigeria of
to-day—produces no internal revenue whatever except licences, the amount
derived from which will assuredly grow but will not become really large
for many years. Therefore, until and unless the delicate problem of
introducing direct taxation among peoples—the majority of whom we have
been in touch with for years without requiring of them the payment of
any form of tribute—were approached, the Colonial budget would have to
furnish these Provinces with most of their administrative revenues.
An alternative scheme would be to abandon the idea of a Central
Legislative Council for the whole Protectorate and of a new
administrative headquarters, the Governor-General spending a certain
time at the headquarters of each Province. Lagos would, under such a
scheme, become the capital of the extended Western Province (see map),
and the action of the Lagos Legislative Council would extend to the
whole of that Province. A Legislative Council would be created for the
extended Eastern Province. The administrative machinery of the new
Central and Northern Provinces would be left as it is now. On the finance
side the alternative scheme to the one I have sketched would be to let
each Province contribute to the Colonial budget in accordance with its
capacities upon a definite proportionate basis, the sums thus accruing
to the Colonial budget, _plus_ the loan funds, being utilized in the
creation of public works on the lines already sketched. This alternative
scheme, amalgamation on federation, would possess some advantages over
the first, and compares unfavourably with it in others.
It will be objected that these suggestions do not take into account
the present military expenditure of the Protectorates and are dumb
with regard to the Imperial grant to Northern Nigeria. I have left a
consideration of these two questions until now because they can, I think,
be taken together. The military establishment of Southern Nigeria costs
£100,000 per annum. That of Northern Nigeria costs £160,000 per annum.
Neither is excessive in itself, although in the latter case it amounts to
no less than 33 per cent. of the total expenditure of the Protectorate!
It is not one penny too much, and to reduce the number of troops would
be folly, having regard to the immensity of the country and the kind of
political problem facing us. And yet could anything be more topsy-turvey?
Here is a financially struggling Protectorate urgently in need of the
most vital necessities; incapable even of building decent houses for
its over-worked and short-handed staff; forced to deprive the latter of
even their travelling allowances, and to sacrifice considerations of
reasonable comfort and, therefore, of health for its _personnel_; in a
position to pay so little for posts of enormous responsibility that the
entire political expenditure is only some £70,000 per annum; able to
devote but a miserable £1300 a year upon economic forestry, but saddled
with this incubus of £160,000 upon a military establishment which has
already been called upon (in the case of the last Ashanti war) to provide
contingents for service outside the Protectorate, which would infallibly
happen again, in the by no means remote contingencies of a further
outbreak in Ashanti or disturbances in the Sierra Leone hinterland. This
situation needs to be examined in conjunction with the Imperial grant
about which so much fuss is made.
The nation imagines that Northern Nigeria is costing the Imperial
Treasury something like £250,000 to £300,000 per annum. Nothing of
the kind. The grants in aid from 1906 to 1909, inclusive, amounted to
£1,220,000, or an average of £305,000. But against this must be set
the direct profit to the revenues of the United Kingdom derived from
the profit which the Mint makes upon the silver coin exported, in ever
increasing quantities (and the process will go on extending), to the two
Nigerias. The average yearly cost of silver in the last nine years has,
I believe, varied between 2_s._ 0¾_d._ and 2_s._ 6⅞_d._ The coin at par
value is issued at 5_s._ 6_d._ an ounce, and I am credibly informed that
the profit to the Mint is considerably more than half the net import by
Nigeria, seeing that half the face value of the coinage is greater than
the cost of minting, plus maintenance of gold reserve and provision for
remitting. The net export of coinage, virtually the whole of it silver,
to the two Nigerias (_i.e._ the total exported _minus_ the coin returned)
amounted from 1906 to 1909 to £981,582. If the profit of the Mint is
taken at only 50 per cent., it will thus be seen that the nation is
making a direct average profit of nearly £125,000 a year out of the two
Nigerias, against an average of £305,000 paid to Northern Nigeria by way
of a temporary grant in aid. To say, therefore, that Northern Nigeria
is costing the British taxpayer a quarter of a million a year or more,
is to make a statement which is not in accordance with fact. What the
nation advances directly, it recoups itself for directly in part; without
counting that these grants are in the nature of a capital investment.
Let this grant under amalgamation be cancelled, and let the Imperial
Government, on the other hand, foot the bill for the military expenditure
(which, as we have seen, amounts to £260,000), looking upon it, say, for
the next ten years as Imperial expenditure. Nothing would so alleviate
the whole situation, while at the same time simplifying it, and, as has
been shown, the actual disbursement of the nation on this item would be
considerably less, even now, than what it would appear nominally to be,
owing to the profit made by the Mint on the silver coin sent out.
As already explained, the above proposals, illustrated in part by the
accompanying map, are put forward merely as a basis for the discussion
of a problem of some difficulty but of great urgency. I claim for them
nothing more than that, and no conceivable scheme of amalgamation
could be set down which would not lend itself to copious criticism.
But that the mush of anomalies now obtaining cannot be perpetuated
without increasing detriment to Imperial interests in Nigeria, I am
fully persuaded. The existence of two public policies side by side in
a single territorial area, where internal peace is rapidly fusing the
indigenous communities, divided by an imaginary line which does not even
correspond to natural boundaries and exhibiting multiple differences of
aim and method—in some cases, acutely antagonistic interests—presents
many obvious inconveniences and paves the way for future embarrassments
of every kind. If these remarks can influence in any way an early and
serious examination of the problem by the Colonial Office, they will
not, however open to criticism, have been made in vain. Amalgamation
must come. All realize that. Unforeseen events might very well, at a
given moment, compel decisions of far-reaching moment being precipitately
reached without due consideration being given to all the features of
the case, such as characterized the amalgamation of the Lagos Colony
and Protectorate with old Southern Nigeria in 1899. The advantages of
clear thinking out ahead, and of taking the inevitable step before the
situation has got tied up into more knots than it already contains,
with calm deliberation, after a full and serious study of all the
facts, surely needs no emphasizing. As to the man, a last word. The
responsibility of selecting the official to be in supreme control
over the amalgamated Nigerias is no light one. The task confronting a
Governor-General, especially in the first five years, will be replete
with difficulties. The post will need heavy calls upon tact, patience,
and a peculiarly high type of constructive statesmanship. The only remark
I would venture to make on the point is this. Any serious administrative
error perpetrated in handling affairs in the north would be attended with
consequences of exceeding gravity. That is a proposition I think no one
will be inclined to dispute. It suggests either that the Governor-General
himself should be personally acquainted with the political conditions
of what is now known as Northern Nigeria, or, at least, that the
Lieutenant-Governors of the hypothetical Northern and Central Provinces
should be chosen from among the most experienced of the existing Senior
Residents.
PART IV
ISLAM, COTTON GROWING, AND THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC
CHAPTER I
CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM IN SOUTHERN NIGERIA
I have referred to Christian missionary propaganda in Mohammedan Northern
Nigeria. There has now to be considered the question of Christian
missionary propaganda in Southern Nigeria, and the corresponding growth
therein of Mohammedanism. The relative failure of the one and the
admitted success of the other are at present the subject of much debate
and give anxious thought to the heads of the Church. The fundamental
cause appears to lie in a disinclination to face the fact, however
obvious, that a religion which took centuries upon centuries to take root
in Europe, owing, very largely, to its ethical demands upon man, cannot
hope to establish itself in the now accessible tropical forest regions
of West Africa in a few decades, while a religion embodying a distinct
advance upon paganism but not involving the complete structural change
in native society which the Christian Church exacts, has every chance of
doing so. Then, too, there is another question which the ecclesiastical
authorities may never, it is true, find it possible frankly to confront,
but which laymen, it seems to me, are bound to do—those, at any rate, who
are persuaded that the African race is one of the great races of mankind,
not intended by the Almighty Architect to disappear from the scene of
human affairs. I refer to the physiological requirements, in the present
age, of the Nigerian forest peoples in their struggles with the forces of
primeval Nature.
All that remains of the Portuguese attempts to Christianize the deltaic
region of Nigeria in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries are a few
names and the addition of crucifixion to native punishments of criminals
or happy despatch of sacrificial victims. The chief obstacle to the
modern efforts of the Anglo-Saxon in Southern Nigeria and the real
explanation of the successful modern efforts of the African Muslim, are
to be sought in the appeal respectively made by Christianity and Islam
to the patriarchal communities to which they are addressed, and in the
methods and character of the respective propaganda. Christianity in
West Africa either cannot be divorced, or cannot divorce itself, from
Europeanism and the twentieth century. It remains for the people of
Nigeria, and of all West Africa, an alien religion taught by aliens who
cannot assimilate themselves to the life of the people. Islam, on the
other hand, has long ceased to be an alien religion. It is imparted by
Africans. It is disseminated by Africans. It has its roots in the soil.
It has become a religion of the people, losing much of its rigidity and
fanaticism as it works down to the coast absorbing the true negro.
Everything is against Christianity as presented to the Nigerian (I
venture to emphasize this), and everything is in favour of Islam,
although Christianity, in itself, contains more that should appeal to
the Negro character than does Mohammedanism. The conditions of Southern
Nigeria are the conditions of the Old Testament. The crying need of
the country, as of all western tropical Africa, is the need which
is proclaimed in, and stamps itself upon, every page of the book of
Genesis, the Divinely ordained requirement—population. Vice plays only a
microscopic part in the relationship of sex in Nigeria. Race propagation
is the motive force which regulates sexual relationship. The Nigerian,
incessantly striving with the destructive agencies of Nature, responds
to the instinctive and mysterious call of racial necessity. Infant
mortality is terrible. With the Nigerian the reproduction of the species
is the paramount, if unanalyzed and, no doubt, uncomprehended obsession.
It must continue to be so for a period whose limit will be determined by
the rate of his progression in coping with these destructive agencies.
This is not the place to discuss what the attitude of the Christian
missionary should be to this paramount racial need, but it is obvious
that his insistence upon an acceptance of a sex relationship contrary
to the promptings of Nature must present a barrier—one of the greatest,
if not the greatest—to the acceptance of the Christian faith, or,
perhaps, it would be better to say, of orthodox Christianity. One might
be permitted, perhaps, to suggest that those who are disposed to regard
the condition of the Nigerian forest-dweller in these matters as calling
for hard and rigid regulation, are too prone to forget what Lecky
describes as the “appalling amount of moral evil, festering uncontrolled,
undiscussed and unalleviated under the fair surface of a decorous
society,” in civilized Europe, monogamistic social laws notwithstanding.
Sex relationship, whatever its character and whatever the conditions of
society or climate, is never, and can never be, free from abuses. West
African polygamy contains many ugly sores, and so does the European
system.
Family bonds are equally threatened by Christianity, _as propounded
to the Nigerian_, for it trains the child, whether deliberately or
otherwise, to look upon his parents as living a life of sin, thus
introducing a subversive element into the household. Those who assert the
absence of affections and sanctities in Nigerian family life assert that
which is untrue. Native authority is likewise menaced, for how can the
convert entertain his former respect for rulers whom he has been taught
to regard as morally and spiritually his inferiors? These are some of the
reasons why Christianity, _as propounded to the Nigerian_, at the opening
of the twentieth century, presents itself to him in the light of a
hurtful and disintegrating influence. And this creed is proffered either
by aliens between whom and the inner life of the people there yawns an
unbridgeable gulf, or by denationalized Africans who have become in the
eyes of the people, strangers well-nigh as complete as the alien himself,
part and parcel of the alien’s machinery. As if these did not constitute
sufficient deterrents to the permanency of its footing, the alien race
which tenders to the Nigerian this creed—this creed claiming for all men
equality before God—is the conquering, controlling, governing race that
scorns to admit—because, being an Imperial race, it cannot—equality of
racial status with the Nigerian whom it subjugates and controls. Between
the race of the converter and that of the would-be convert there gapes
an abyss of racial and social inequality which does not lessen, but, if
anything, widens with conversion—the colour line.
Finally, there is the lamentable intolerance displayed by Christian
proselytizers towards one another. Only the other day I read in a West
African newspaper the address of a white American Protestant Bishop,
whose sphere of work lies in Africa, to his flock. This episcopalian
interpreter of the Gospel of Christian charity to the benighted African
is concerned in his address with the downfall of the Portuguese Monarchy
and the accession of the Republic which, he says, “opens wide every
door leading to Christian work among millions of native Africans.” He
proceeds: “Of course Rome howls. On October 13, 1910, among weeping
Jesuits, speaking of the new nation, the Pope said ‘A cursed Republic!
Yes, I curse it!’ The curse of Balaam against the people of God was
turned into a blessing by Jehovah; and so, too, will this blasphemy be
turned into a blessing to the struggling people of Portugal.”
Islam, on the other hand, despite its shortcomings, does not, from the
Nigerian point of view, demand race suicide of the Nigerian as an
accompaniment of conversion. It does not stipulate revolutionary changes
in social life, impossible at the present stage of Nigerian development;
nor does it undermine family or communal authority. Between the converter
and converted there is no abyss. Both are equal, not in theory, but in
practice, before God. Both are African; sons of the soil. The doctrine
of the brotherhood of man is carried out in practice. Conversion does
not mean for the converted a break with his interests, his family, his
social life, his respect for the authority of his natural rulers. He
is not left stranded, as the Christian Church, having once converted,
leaves him, a pitiful, rudderless barque upon a troubled sea. He does
not become, through conversion, an alien in thought, in custom, and in
outlook; a foreigner in his own land, a citizen of none. He remains
African, attached to his country, looking for inspiration inwards,
rather than towards an alien civilization across thousands of miles of
unknown seas. No one can fail to be impressed with the carriage, the
dignity of the Nigerian—indeed, of the West African—Mohammedan; the
whole bearing of the man suggests a consciousness of citizenship, a
pride of race which seems to say: “We are different, thou and I, but
we are _men_.” The spread of Islam in Southern Nigeria which we are
witnessing to-day is mainly social in its action. It brings to those
with whom it comes in contact a higher status, a loftier conception of
man’s place in the universe around him, release from the thraldom of a
thousand superstitious fears. It resembles in its progress the annual
overflow of the Niger diffusing its waters over the land. The extensive
ramifications of internal trade, now greatly fostered by the construction
of additional roads and railways and rendered wholly safe by the _pax
britannica_, leads to the multiplying of facilities for human intercourse
among the various peoples of the Protectorate. The Hausa pushes ever
further south his commercial operations. The Delta, and still more the
Western Province, yearly attest to the widening area of his activities.
Not to be outdone, his trading rival the Yoruba taps in additional
numbers the markets of the north. Railway construction finds the
Mohammedan labouring side by side with the pagan in the same trench. A
sense of security and the increasing circulation of a portable medium of
exchange in the shape of silver and nickel coinage attract to the great
native markets of the Central Province, such as Onitsha, for example,
the tattoed pagan Ibo and his pagan colleagues the Anams, Katundas, and
Kukurukus, where they rub shoulders with the Mohammedan Hausa, Nupe,
and Igarra. In and around Ibadan, Oyo, and Lagos you meet the Kano and
Sokoto trader with his donkeys and pack-bullocks, and even the Tuareg
with whom you parted company months before in the far north, travelling
on the roads or camping for the night near some local village. The road
is at once the club-house and public rendezvous for Nigerian humanity.
A vast commingling, a far-reaching fusion unexampled in the history of
these peoples is taking place. The expansion of an African religion
which, somehow, succeeds in investing the convert with a spiritual and
social standing that at once raise him among his fellows, follows as a
matter of course. The Mohammedan teacher wanders over the face of the
country visiting the centres of human activity, haunting the roads and
market-places, unattended, carrying neither purse nor scrip, making no
attempt at proselytizing beyond saying his prayers in public, not in a
manner to cause obstruction, but quietly in some corner; waiting until
people come to him, literally fulfilling the command, “Take nothing for
your journey, neither staves, nor scrip, neither bread, neither money,
neither have two coats apiece.” The Mohammedan trader or agriculturist
settles in a pagan village, marries pagan women, enters the family and
social circle of the community and imparts to it his faith, the women
making even readier converts than the men.
This is why and this is how Islam is propagating itself and taking root
in pagan Nigeria without financial outlay, without doles and collecting
boxes. One of the oldest of Christian missionaries in Nigeria, a man of
venerable appearance and saintly character, who for twenty-five years
has laboured with hands as well as with heart and head for moral and
material improvement, not of his converts only, but of their unconverted
relatives, confessed to me his fear that nothing could stop Islam from
absorbing in course of time the whole of West Africa. He was almost
disposed reluctantly to allow that in the providence of God, Islam might
prove to be intended as the halfway house through the portals of which
it was necessary the West African negro should pass in order to lift him
out of a sterilizing paganism and make him a fitter vessel to receive
in course of time the nobler ideals of the Christian faith. Sir Harry
Johnston is right, I think, when he says that “to Negro Africa,” Islam
has come “as a great blessing, raising up savages to a state, at any
rate of semi-civilization, making them God-fearing, self-respecting,
temperate, courageous, and picturesque.” But Islam does more than this;
it preserves racial identity. In West Africa, Christianity destroys
racial identity. It should not: as taught it does.
“Picturesque,” says Sir Harry Johnston, and there speaks the artist. But
the word covers a profound truth. A great deal of the denationalizing or
Anglicizing process which is going on and which makes bad Africans and
bad Christians, is attributable to the discarding of the national dress.
Why cannot the Administration and the missionary societies combine in
some practical, positive form, to combat this curse of alien dress? There
is absolutely nothing to be said in its favour. The West African looks
better in African dress, the robe of the Mohammedan and of many pagan
Africans. It is much healthier for him. It is preservative of his racial
identity; and that is, perhaps, the most important of all pleas which can
be put forward for its retention. With very slight modification—such as
one sees among the native staff, and personal servants in many parts of
Northern Nigeria—it can be made suitable for any form of labour, literary
or otherwise. Clad in his national dress the African has a dignity which
in most cases he loses almost entirely when he attires himself in a
costume totally unfitted for the country, and hideous at best. Nothing
to my mind is more pitiable than to visit school after school in West
Africa, filled with little boys and girls and big boys and girls in an
alien dress, to see the denationalizing process going on day after day
and nothing whatever done to stop it. In the case of the women it is not
only dignity and nationalism which are concerned, but decency as well.
The national dress of the women in West Africa is classical and graceful,
and although leaving more of the body exposed than is usual at home
(except in the ballroom) it lacks suggestiveness. It does not accentuate
the figure. It emphasizes that racial difference—not inequality, but
_difference_—which it is so essential to emphasize. With the substitution
of European dress, especially of the prevailing fashion, the West African
woman loses much of what she need never lose, and acquires that which
is of no profit to her. These things cannot be altered in a day, nor
would it be possible in some cases for the present adult generation to
go back to African costume. But it would in many cases, and the reform
could be at once taken in hand so far as the children are concerned.
Government could do much. The missionary societies could do more. The
anglicised native community could do most. I believe that if some popular
Government official, known and trusted, could be led to appeal, in
private conference to the native staff and win them over, the movement
once started would spread and have enormously beneficial results. That
many members of the anglicised community would be hostile goes without
saying—that is the fault of the wretched system everywhere at work.
That a body of thoughtful men would not, I am satisfied by the many
representations on this very subject personally made to me. I shall
always recollect, in particular, the private visit paid to me in one of
the great Yoruba towns by one of the leading merchants of the place.
A magnificent specimen of an African, dressed in African costume and
speaking our language fluently, he came with the usual touching words and
gifts, and begged me very earnestly to take up the question of dress with
his compatriots.
And, in conclusion, there is another and a very serious handicap upon
Christianity in West Africa, in Southern Nigeria especially. Under the
native social system, religion and politics—the religious organization
and the political organization—go together. It is inconceivable to the
native mind that they should be separate or antagonistic. Islam, again,
preserves this ingrained conviction. But in West Africa the political
and religious organizations of the white man are separate and distinct.
The religious organization itself is split up into countless opposing
sections. And in Southern Nigeria the section specially identified in
the native mind with the white over-lord has for some years past played
a discordant note in that white over-lord’s political organization.
Its representatives are almost everywhere, and upon many subjects
persistently hostile critics of the Administration, begetting unrest and
disloyalty to Government. The mass of native opinion concludes there is
something rotten in the system presented to it, and the Islamic wave
rolls on.
CHAPTER II
THE COTTON INDUSTRY
Is Nigeria a cotton-growing country? Is an export trade in cotton, of
any large dimensions, a possibility—early or remote? I will endeavour to
answer these questions to the best of my ability. I am not, however, an
expert on cotton-growing, and I am in general sympathy with the work the
British Cotton-growing Association is trying to carry out, although, as
will be seen, I am not entirely in agreement with all its methods, either
here or in Nigeria. To that extent it will be possible for any one who
wants to do so to discount the views here expressed.
One of the earliest impressions one forms out there is the contrast
between the presentation of the case at home and conditions on the spot.
The view at home—somewhat modified by recent events—has seemed to be
inspired by the idea that if the number of square miles which Nigeria
covers is totted up in one column and the number of inhabitants it
supposedly contains in another and these totals compared with conditions
in the cotton belt of North America, then you arrive at a conclusion
which enables you to speak of the “huge possibilities” of Nigeria, and
even to forecast that Northern Nigeria alone “at some future date” will
be able “to supply the whole of the requirements of Great Britain and to
leave an equal quantity over for the other cotton-consuming countries.”
Four years ago a prominent British statesman declared publicly that
“once the fly belt near the river was passed ... cotton would be grown
under exactly the same conditions as it was grown under on such a great
scale in America.” He went so far as to say that the native of Northern
Nigeria was “beginning to cease to grow cotton” because he could get
British manufactured goods in lieu of his home-grown article. Well,
between these statements and actualities there is a “huge” gulf fixed.
In the first place it can be said of Nigeria that in a part of it only
is cotton now grown, and that in a part of it only will cotton ever be
grown. To talk of Nigeria, as a whole, being a cotton-growing country
_par excellence_, either now or potentially, is absurd. Three-fourths
of Southern Nigeria and a third, probably more, of Northern Nigeria are
quite unsuitable for cotton-growing, and this for many reasons. To talk
of Nigeria supplying the whole requirements of Great Britain (to say
nothing of the promised surplus) is tantamount to saying that some day
“Pleasant Sunday Afternoon” excursions to the moon will be a regular
feature of the national life. Both may become possible “at some future
date,” but there is so much future about the date that such flights of
rhetoric might well be left to the compilers of gold-mining prospectuses.
These extravagances have not helped the Association. The sincere and
sober persons connected with that body are merely hindered by them. As
to cotton being produced in Northern Nigeria under the “same conditions”
as in the States, and the natives of the country “beginning to cease” to
grow cotton, one can only remark that they are too silly to deal with.
In Southern Nigeria, the deltaic region, the Eastern Province, virtually
the whole of the Central Province, and a considerable portion of the
Western Province—_i.e._, four-fifths of the whole Protectorate—may be
ruled out of account as a cotton field. The deltaic region will not
produce cotton. The forest belt behind it, passing (with occasional
breaks) from dense to secondary growth and fading away into open country,
no doubt would. But only if you cut down the forest first. To destroy
the West African forest to any extent in order to grow cotton would be
economic madness. Indeed, the Administration is working hard to preserve
the forests from the ignorance and improvidence of primitive man, and to
build up for the native communities, and in the public interest, a source
of future revenue from the methodical exploitation of its inexhaustible
wealth. With trifling exceptions the whole of this region is the home of
the oil-palm, the most beneficent tree in the world, and such activities
as the inhabitants can spare from their own requirements are given
over, in the main, to the palm oil and kernel trades. It is the home of
valuable cabinet woods, of vegetable oils, gums, and rubbers, and in
time is likely to become a great natural nursery for the cultivation of
plantation rubber and such a moisture-loving plant as the cocoa; never, I
think, of cotton.
In the Western Province large areas of forest have been destroyed; the
population is, in a certain measure, more enterprising, and a fair
amount of cotton for export may reasonably be expected, especially, I
venture to suggest, if certain methods now prevalent are modified. The
Egba district (1869 square miles, with a population of 260,000), the
capital of which is Abeokuta, a town of about 100,000 inhabitants, is
the principal but not the only centre for cotton-growing in the Western
Province, and here the Association has a large and well-equipped ginnery,
as it has at Ibadan and Oshogbo. Out of 2,237,370 lbs. of lint cotton
exported from Southern Nigeria in 1908, Abeokuta and neighbourhood
was responsible for 722,893 lbs. The Egbas are good farmers and not
strangers to cotton-growing for export. The industry owes its origin
there to a Manchester man, Mr. Clegg, who introduced it at the time of
the American Civil War. In 1862 the export amounted to 1810 lbs., rising
in 1868 to over 200,000 lbs., and continuing, I believe, at that figure
or thereabouts for some years. Cotton then began to fall heavily in
price, and the Egba farmer, finding no profit in growing it, turned his
attention to other crops. The industry was revived on a much larger scale
by the Association in 1905. The exports of cotton lint from Southern
Nigeria from 1906 to 1910—_i.e._ since the Association came upon the
scene—have been as follows:—
1906 2,695,923
1907 4,089,530
1908 2,237,370
1909 4,929,646
1910 2,399,857
The total value of these five years’ output amounts to something like
£350,000. It is entirely creditable to the Association that it should
have been instrumental in reviving a decayed industry in one district and
creating one in others, and in five years to have fathered an export of
cotton to so considerable an amount. I found the best-informed opinion
in Southern Nigeria imbued with the belief that the 1911 crop will be a
poor one, though better than last year’s, but that the prospects for the
crop of 1912 are good. The newly opened ginnery at Oshogbo is said to be
doing well. The ginnery at Oyo, however, is apparently lying idle. At any
rate, it had done nothing, I was there informed, ever since it was put
up, some four years ago. A good deal seems to have been spent upon the
experimental plantation at Ibadan, with indifferent results. It has now
been taken over by the Government, whose officers, I was informed, found
it in a very neglected condition.
Personally, I do not attach, in a sense unfavourable to the growth of
the industry, much importance to the drop in the output. The field, it
must always be remembered, is small, the entire Western Province being
only 27,640 miles square, and much of it, as already stated, covered
with forest. In West Africa new industries are always liable to violent
fluctuations. The drop in the maize export is much more considerable than
the falling off in cotton. Unfavourable seasons, too much rain or too
little, late sowing, and other considerations play a determining part
in these matters. Things move very slowly in West Africa as a rule. The
cotton crop is not the easiest to handle. Compared with ground nuts,
for instance, it entails a great deal more time and trouble. All kinds
of obstacles have to be encountered and overcome which people at home
have difficulty in fully appreciating. The experimental stage of any
enterprise, especially in a place like West Africa, is bound to leave
openings for error, and error in West Africa is a costly luxury. The
Protectorate is under considerable obligations to the Association for the
good work it has done and is doing.
It seems to me that the British Cotton-growing Association may perhaps
find it advisable, so far as the Western Province of Southern Nigeria is
concerned, to reconsider two aspects of its policy. Fundamentally that
policy is without question sound—viz. the recognition that agricultural
development in West Africa can only be possible on any scale worth
mentioning when undertaken by the natives themselves. A policy of large
plantations run under white supervision by hired native labour will not
pay in West Africa, and, politically speaking, is virtually impossible.
The Association should receive public support in resisting any pressure
which might be placed upon it to alter its fundamental policy by those of
its supporters who may be impatient of a comparatively slow advance—slow,
_i.e._, in comparison with the unwise optimism displayed by some of the
Association’s friends upon public platforms. I doubt, however, if an
export trade in cotton will ever reach substantial proportions—let us
say 100,000 bales per annum twenty years hence—in the Western Province
unless the element of competition is introduced. Hitherto, by combining
with the merchants, the Association has established a fixed buying
price. In the initial stages this was a good thing. The native farmer
wanted the certainty that his crop would be purchased if he were induced
to grow it. Now that the industry is well on in its stride it may be
seriously questioned whether the Yoruba farmer, the certainty of sale
notwithstanding, will be content with the prices offered him under the
monopoly agreement now obtaining. He has always the oil palm to fall
back upon; but he has, in addition, cocoa and maize. Cocoa is rapidly
increasing, and the profit realized by the cultivator is a good one.
The timber trade, too, is growing slowly, and the forest is always
yielding fresh elements of trade. The bulk of the cotton produced in
the Western Province to-day is roughly similar to “middling American,”
which is now quoted, I believe, at 8_d._ a pound, but some of the Yoruba
cotton fetches up to 3_d._ above “middling American.” It is asserted by
the Association that 4 lbs. of seed cotton are required in the Western
Province to produce 1 lb. of lint. The native cultivator is (now)
supposed to get from the combine—_i.e._ from the Association and the
merchants, as the case may be—from 1d. to 1⅛_d._ per lb. of seed cotton.
I say “supposed,” because I was informed that the actual producer had not
always got the amount which he was understood to be getting. As regards
Northern Nigeria, until the close of last year the native had never been
paid 1_d._ a lb. cash, and I was given to understand that conditions
had been much the same in the Southern Protectorate, except at Ilushi,
where it was proved to my satisfaction that the amount of 1_d._ cash had
actually been paid.
The Association reckons, I understand, that at this rate every pound
of lint landed in Liverpool costs the Association 6½_d._ I cannot check
that figure. I merely quote it. But one may point out that in addition to
the profit at the present price of “middling American” disclosed by this
estimate, there must be a considerable profit to the Association on the
seed, which, upon arrival in England, is worth, I believe, between £5 and
£6 per ton. Moreover, as already stated, some of this Yoruba cotton is
fetching a higher price than “middling American,” and I do not think it
is beyond the mark to say that, but for the fact that the Association’s
ginneries are not continuously employed, the Association’s profits on
Southern Nigerian cotton to-day would be substantial. It must be fairly
obvious from what precedes that if the industry were placed upon an
ordinary commercial footing like any other, with merchants competing on
the spot for the raw material, the Yoruba farmer would have no difficulty
in obtaining very much more than he gets at present for his crop.
Cultivation, under those circumstances, would become proportionately
more profitable and a greater acreage would be laid out in cotton. No
doubt it would cut both ways, the native restricting his acreage when
the price fell, but it may be fairly argued that no special reason now
exists for treating the cotton industry on an artificial basis, that it
must take its chance like any other, and like any other become subject
to ordinary economic ups and downs. We cannot expect the native farmer
to concentrate upon one particular crop if he can make a greater profit
in cultivating another. No industry can develop healthily on artificial
lines. If this suggestion were thought worthy of consideration, the
Association’s _rôle_ could be confined to ginning, and, if asked to do
so, selling on commission, or that _rôle_ might be combined with buying
and selling in cases where the producers preferred to deal with the
Association, or found it more convenient to carry the cotton direct to
the various ginneries. That, no doubt, would force the Association into
competition with the merchants, and the merchants, bringing out their own
gins (if it paid them to do so), might cause the Association’s position
to become precarious. The first alternative would, therefore, appear the
most desirable, the merchants being the buyers and the Association, the
ginners, and, if necessary, sellers on commission. Each force would then
be operating within its natural orbit, and an unnatural alliance would
cease, unnatural in the sense that one price means one market, and that
one market is not an inducement to economic expansion, especially when
the price of other tropical products produced by the Yoruba farmer with
an open free market to deal in has been steadily rising during the last
few years. The Association has always contended that its primary object
is not money making, but the establishment in our oversea dependencies of
an Imperial cotton industry calculated in the course of time to relieve
Lancashire, in whole or in part, of her dangerous dependence on American
speculators.
The other point which those responsible for the management of the
Association might conceivably think over, is one that impressed me in
Northern Nigeria when inspecting the beautifully kept cotton plantations
in the Kano and Zaria provinces. I was later on to find that it was
one upon which very strong, though not unanimous, opinions were held
by persons of experience and judgment in the Southern Protectorate. A
great deal of energy, and doubtless money too, is apparently expended
by the Association in experimenting with and distributing seeds of
non-indigenous varieties of cotton. Now, although one cannot say without
careful cultivation, speaking of the north, one can at least say without
perpetually improving scientific cultivation extending over a century,
Nigeria is able to produce indigenous cotton, fetching to-day 1¼_d._,
2_d._, and even 3_d._ per lb. above “middling American.” Does not
this fact constitute the strongest of pleas for concentrating upon the
improvement of the indigenous varieties instead of distributing effort
by worrying about the introduction of exotics? If these indigenous
plants, without a century’s scientific care, can produce cotton superior
in value to “middling American,” what could they not do with a tithe of
the attention which has been lavished upon the industry in the States?
I know the experts will argue that the indigenous varieties make a lot
more wood, and that an acre planted with American varieties will yield
much more lint than an acre planted with a Nigerian variety. Not being
an expert I would not venture to dispute this. All that I would make
bold to query would be whether experiments tending to prove it have in
Nigeria been sufficiently continuous and carried out under conditions
of fairness to the indigenous cotton sufficiently conclusive to place
the matter beyond the pale of discussion. Even if this were so, I am not
sure that it could be taken as an irrefutable reply to the contention I
have ventured to put forward. For, on the other side, must be reckoned
the diseases which invariably attack all exotics, animal, vegetable, and
human, introduced into the West African forest region. At every halt
on my trek from Riga-Chikum to Kano, a matter of twelve days, wherever
I saw cotton plantations, and often enough at points on the road, I
made it my business whenever practicable to put a number of questions
to the Sarikis (chiefs) and to individual farmers on the subject of
cotton-growing. I always prefaced these questions with an assurance that
I did not belong to the Government and that I was not a commercial man,
but merely a Mallam (I believe my interpreter sometimes inserted on his
own account the word “wise” before Mallam), who travelled about and wrote
“books,” and that my friends could therefore feel satisfied that they
would not be causing me any pleasure at all by answering my questions in
any particular manner—that, in short, I did not care a row of yams what
their answer might be. One question I never failed to ask was whether the
Government had distributed seed to that particular village or in that
particular area, and if so, what result had followed the sowing of it?
Sometimes the answer was in the negative. When it was in the affirmative
it was invariably the same. The Government seed had come. It had been
sown. But it was “no good.” Now, I disclaim all attributes of wisdom in
this matter of cotton. But I beg you to believe me when I say that the
Hausa farmer is no fool.[14]
CHAPTER III
THE COTTON INDUSTRY—_continued_
Cotton is grown extensively in parts of Northern Nigeria, not for
export—outside the Hausa provinces—but for home consumption. In Kano
province—28,600 square miles in extent with 2,500,000 inhabitants,
more than one-fourth of the total population of the Protectorate—its
cultivation is accompanied by what can, without exaggeration, be termed
a national industry of weaving, manufacturing, embroidering, and dyeing
the garments, both under-garments and over-garments, which the Kano
people wear. But not the Kano people alone. For many centuries, for
nearly 1000 years probably, the Kanawa have been famed throughout the
great region comprised between the bend of the Niger and the ocean as the
expert cotton manufacturers of Africa; the most interesting region in all
the Dark Continent, where divers races have ceaselessly intermingled,
attracted thither by its fertile soil and abundant pastures; Libyan and
Berber, Egyptian and Semite, and the mysterious Fulani. Three-fourths of
the “men of the desert,” too, the fierce-eyed, black-lithamed Tuareg,
descendants of the Iberians, who roam over the vast spaces between
Tripoli and the Chad, replenish their wardrobes from the Kano looms.
Throughout Bornu, Wadai, and Baghirmi, in the northern German Cameroons
as far east as Darfur, Kano cloths hold unquestioned sway. The Kanawa are
not the only Nigerians who manufacture cotton goods; but they are the
only people among whom the industry may be truly called a national one.
As carried out in Kano province this industry adds dignity, interest,
and wealth to the life of the people, assists their inventive faculties,
intensifies their agricultural lore, and sustains several other branches
of industrial activity, binding in close alliance of material interest
the agriculturist and the artisan. It gives a healthy, attractive
employment to many thousand homes—employment carried on in the free air
of heaven, beneath the bright sunshine of Africa. It has become a part
of the national life, the pride and profit of the people. Men, women,
and children participate in it, the men clearing the ground, hoeing and
sowing, the women and children doing the picking, the women cleaning the
lint of the seeds (on flat stones), teasing, the men weaving, tailoring,
and usually, but not always, embroidering. Woven in long, narrow strips,
the manufactured article is of remarkable durability and firmness
of texture. The predominating dye is the blue of the indigo plant,
extensively cultivated for the purpose, dyepits being common all over
the province. The embroidery, both in regard to design and execution,
is astonishingly handsome, and the colours harmoniously blended. A fine
specimen of a finished _riga_—the outer robe covering the shoulders, with
an aperture for the head and neck, and falling in folds to the knee—is
a work of art of which any people in any country might be proud. It is
a very heavy garment, and it is costly. But it is suitable for the cold
nights and chilly mornings, and it lasts for years.
[Illustration: WOMEN COTTON SPINNERS.]
[Illustration: MEN WEAVING.]
It is impossible to separate the cultivation of cotton from the
agricultural pursuits of the people generally. Cotton, like cassava,
onions, ochro, pepper, ground nuts, and beans, takes its place as one of
the secondary crops. The people are primarily a people of agriculturists,
raising vast quantities of cereals year after year for home consumption
and export to other districts—guinea-corn and millet, yams, maize, a
little wheat. In the Kano Emirate or division—as distinct from what is
known as the Kano province—the population is exceedingly dense, and
virtually the whole land is under cultivation. I have seen nothing more
remarkable in the way of cultivation either in France or Flanders. And it
is all done with the _galma_, a peculiar kind of short-handled hoe, which
would break the back of an English labourer to use, but which the Hausa
will wield for hours together. The pattern of the _galma_ is of great
antiquity. It came from ancient Egypt, with the original inhabitants
probably; the plough, which was used in Egypt when intercourse was
frequent between the valleys of the Nile and Niger, never seems to have
penetrated so far West—a curious and unexplained fact.
Long, deep, broad, parallel ridges cover the surface of the land, dotted
here and there with magnificent specimens of the locust-bean tree, the
shea, the tamarind, and many other varieties, under whose shade it seems
a favourite device to grow a catch crop of pepper. How does the soil
retain, year after year, its nutritive properties? That is the secret
of the Kanawa, who from generation to generation have studied it in
conjunction with the elements, as the Niger pilots have learned to read
the face of the waters and can steer a steam launch where no white man
could without running his craft upon a sandbank, especially at low water.
That they have acquired the necessary precise knowledge as to the time to
prepare the land for sowing; when to sow and how to sow; how long to let
the land lie fallow; what soils suit certain crops; what varieties of the
same crop will succeed in some localities and what varieties in others;
how to irrigate the land situate in the vicinity of the waterways and
planted with secondary crops in the dry season; how to ensure rotation
with guinea-corn, millet, ground nuts, and beans; when to arrange with
the Fulani herdsmen to pasture their cattle upon the land—so much at
least the outsider interested in agricultural problems can gauge to some
extent. For miles and miles around Kano city one passes through a smiling
country dotted with farms, riven by fine, broad native roads lined with
hedges of euphorbias and other plants.
Great care is lavished upon the cotton and cassava plantations—the two
chief secondary crops. When the cotton fields are in the neighbourhood
of a road, and very often when they are not, they are surrounded by tall
fencing, eight to ten feet in height, usually composed of reeds and
grass or guinea-corn stalks, to protect them from the depredations of
cattle, sheep, and goats, all of which abound. In April and May, with the
advent of the early rains, the land is cleared and hoed into furrows and
ridges. Along the ridges drills are made at a distance of two and a half
to three feet apart, the seed dropped in, and the ridge hoed up. In some
districts, however, this custom is varied by the ridges being made after
the sowing. The water lies in the hollows between the ridges, prevents
the seeds from being washed away by the torrential downpour, and allows
air to circulate freely, thus keeping the plants in a healthy state. A
month later, when the plants have grown to a foot or more, the ground
is again hoed. That is the first sowing. With variations according to
localities there are successive sowings up to July and even August. The
success of these late sowings depends very much upon the extent to which
the land has been previously manured. Conditions are slightly different
with the variety of cotton grown, but as a rule the plants are in a fit
condition for picking about five months after sowing. December, January,
March, and April appear to be the months when cotton is most abundant in
the markets. In November and December of last year I observed that while
in some of the fields the pods were bursting well and picking beginning,
in others they were still in full flower; in others, again, they had not
reached the flowering stage. Speaking generally, the plantations were
in excellent condition, and the absence of weeds would have done credit
to an up-to-date British farmer. But the difference in vigour of plant
growth was very marked—affected, doubtless, by locality and manuring or
the lack of it. One of the finest plantations I saw was at Gimmi, to the
north of Zaria province, and the intelligent _sariki_ (chief) of that
village informed me that his people not infrequently treated the plant as
a perennial up to the third year, when it was plucked up. I subsequently
ascertained that in the Hadeija division of the Kano province, where the
soil has a good underlying moisture, the perennial treatment is carried
on sometimes for no less than seven years. After the third year the
annual crop decreases. When so treated the plant is invariably manured.
I found it exceedingly difficult to obtain reliable figures as to the
average yield of cotton per acre in any one district, or the average
acreage under cultivation; and the Residents share the view that only
continuous residence in the country by a Hausa-speaking (that is
essential) European expert in constant and close touch with the farmers
will permit of anything approaching exact information being acquired on
the point. In the Katagum division of Kano province an acre is _said_ to
produce an average of 266 lbs. The average annual acreage under cotton in
Katsina is _said_ to be 16,000 acres. In Zaria province the soil, which
is a sandy clay, the subsoil being reached at six inches, is generally
rather poor, and the farmer is not so great an expert as his Kano
colleague. In some places it is so poor that one hundred plants are said
to be required to produce a single _riga_. In the true cotton-farming
districts of the northern part of the province—such as Soba, Gimba, and
Dillaya—the soil is, however, very much better, obtaining more moisture
than the higher ground of Kano province and producing even finer cotton.
Broadly, the problem which faces the native farmer in Zaria province
is how to increase the fertility of his land. Artificial chemical
manuring is out of the question; the rains would wash it all out of
the soil. Green manuring is well understood but might be improved. The
introduction of one or two shallow ploughs might work wonders by showing
the farmers how the subsoil could be broken up, but the experiment would
have to be carefully demonstrated. The native is only affected by actual
demonstration, and, so far, demonstrations inspired by Europeans designed
to show the Hausa farmer how to improve his agricultural systems have
done little more than provoke a smile. The white man has failed where
the black man has succeeded, because the white man thought he knew local
conditions and did not. A Government experimental farm was started at
Maiganna rather late last year, the sowings being made in July, if I
remember rightly, seventeen miles from Zaria city. This is an excellent
initiative which it is to be hoped will be maintained. It is really
Government work. The British Cotton-growing Association should be spared
all expense of this kind. Two varieties indigenous to the southern
provinces (Bassa and Ilorin) and “Nyassaland upland” were planted. I
was told last November by the official in charge that the indigenous
varieties were doing fairly well, but that the “Nyassaland” was suffering
from red-leaf. The British Cotton-growing Association was then about to
put up a large and costly ginnery at Zaria. The operation is proceeding,
and a substantial quantity of cotton has already been bought. I will
refer to that later on. Meantime I cannot help thinking that it might
have been better to have waited a little and set up the ginnery at Kano.
However, this is merely a personal opinion.
The chief varieties of indigenous cotton grown in the Kano province
are three in number. The first is known under the four following
names—_gundi_, _bagwandara_, _lutua_, or _mailaushi_; the second as
_chukwi_ or _labai_. These two are the best kinds, their quality being
about the same. The third is called _yerkarifi_ or _yergeri_. It is of
an inferior quality with a shorter staple, usually but not always grown
where the soil is not naturally rich enough to support the other kinds.
It is the _yerkarifi_ variety, I gathered, which is more often used as
a perennial. It fetches a lower price on the local markets and takes a
month longer to mature. Cotton plants are fairly free from insect pests,
but the following are identified: the cotton boll worm (_tsutsa_), what
is described, doubtfully, as an ant which attacks the root (_zago_), and
two species of blight (_makau_ and _madi_). The native remedy, apart from
constant hoeing, is to light a fire to windward, upon which the dried
leaves of a certain plant, and also dried fish, are thrown. The question
of indigenous _versus_ exotic varieties here crops up again. One hears
talk of flooding the country with exotic seed and doing away altogether
with the indigenous varieties. I refer to Zaria, where some five hundred
bags of exotic seed—or at least non-local seed—were distributed this
spring after a palaver with the Emir and his principal headmen. No
doubt it may be all right. From the non-expert point of view it seems
dangerous. As already stated, African insect life fastens with relentless
savagery upon exotic plant life, just as it revels in nice fresh blood
out from Europe. One season’s failure with an exotic or non-local
variety, sown by instructions of the Emir’s headmen in lieu of the
indigenous kind, might create a prejudice in the native’s mind that it
would take years to remove. Concentration upon improving the fertility of
the soil, and therefore the quality and quantity of the local varieties
(combined, of course, with seed selection) would be a slower process. It
is just possible that it might be a wiser one.
The distribution of the cotton now grown in Zaria and Kano provinces is
as follows: Zaria is visited by the weavers (or their representatives)
of Kano and of French territory—from the neighbourhood of Zinder
principally. They buy up between them virtually the whole crop, importing
live stock and manufactured goods, which they dispose of in the markets
for silver coin, buying with that coin the cotton. What is not taken
by the Zinder people is taken by Kano. The Kano division of the Kano
province consumes all the cotton it grows. So does the Katagum division.
The Katsina division exports a percentage to Kano and consumes the rest.
The soil of this division compares unfavourably with that of Kano, except
in the southern district, where it is even better than in Kano. In this
district cotton-growing forms the principal means of livelihood of the
inhabitants. The total annual output of the Kano province is estimated
at about 5200 tons—3500 from the Kano division, 1000 from the Katsina
division, 700 from Katagum-Hadeija. But these figures are mere estimates,
and not over-reliable at that. The country is too extensive and the
British occupation too recent to permit of accuracy in such matters at
present. I was unable to obtain even an estimate of the Zaria output,
which is, of course, very much lower—probably about one-fifth, or less
than that at Kano.
As already remarked, the whole of the crop now grown is used by the
local industry (except the Association’s purchases this year, which I
will refer to in a moment). So far this industry not only shows no signs
of decreasing, but the demand, especially from the southern markets
is, I was told, steadily increasing. The advent of the railway may,
apart from the activities of the Association, modify the situation
appreciably through the increasing influx of Manchester goods. As
well-being increases—and up to a certain point it is doing and will do
so as the result of our occupation—the consumption of Manchester goods
wall doubtless increase, but it does not altogether follow that the
output of the native looms will decrease. It is curious that the Kano
weavers themselves think that the railway will enlarge their market. I
was informed that the natives of the south, who have been in touch with
Manchester cotton goods for many years, very much prefer the Kano cloths,
which although dearer, are much more durable. In the north I heard
frequent complaints of the quality of the Manchester goods imported. Many
of them, so I was told, were much too thin, and so heavily starched that
on the first washing they became threadbare and useless. I saw nothing on
sale in the markets from Manchester suited for the early and late hours
of the day. Cheap prints are all very well for the hot hours of the late
morning and afternoon. But the people require warmer garments than that.
I used to strike camp when trekking at about 5 a.m. or 5.30 a.m., and
at that time, and for a couple of hours afterwards, I was glad of two
sweaters over a khaki shirt, riding. When the sun goes down it is equally
chilly. The robes worn by the better-class natives are of a consistency
and weight which would astonish us here.
I am persuaded that the British Cotton-growing Association is in every
way worthy of support, that its ideal is a fine one and a patriotic
one, and that the West African dependencies of Southern and Northern
Nigeria are very much indebted to it. At the same time I should not be
giving honest expression to the views I have rightly or wrongly formed
if I did not enter a _caveat_ against any Government action calculated
to undermine or destroy the weaving industry of the Kano province. That
industry may disappear as the result of natural causes. But nothing
should be done by the Administration to assist its decay. Frankly, I
am compelled to state that from the standpoint of the happiness and
welfare of these Hausa people, our wards, the disappearance of their
national industry would be deplorable. It would lower their outlook and
stunt their development, and send them down in the scale of civilization.
Their intelligence is of an order which would enable them under tuition
to advance their methods of production beyond the hand-loom. While the
duty of the Administration to lend its moral support, as it is doing,
from the Governor, Sir Henry Hesketh Bell (who is most interested in this
question) downwards, to any legitimate effort directed at increasing
the area of cotton under cultivation, increasing the yield per acre by
improving the fertility of the soil, facilitating communication and
the accessibility of markets, is unquestioned, I submit that there is
an equally clear call of duty on its part to encourage rather than
discourage an indigenous industry of great antiquity, of wonderful
promise, which is at once a source of profit to, and an elevating
influence in, the life of the people of the land.
I have now endeavoured to sketch the chief factors to be considered in
estimating the possibilities of a substantial export trade in raw cotton
from Northern Nigeria. There remains to be examined the question of price
and of competing articles of production. The British Cotton-growers
Association’s _début_ at Zaria has been attended with no little success.
They bought this season, I believe, something like 60,000 lbs. of
cotton, a considerable proportion of which, I am informed, came from the
Katsina division of Kano. Whilst the Association’s buyers, lent to its
representative by the authorities, could not compete in price with the
Kano and Zinder buyers in the big markets, they competed successfully
with them in the remoter small markets of the province which buyers from
the native weaving interest do not usually visit.
I hope I shall not be thought desirous of “crabbing” the Association’s
efforts or minimising what they have accomplished if I venture to
point out that there would be some danger—of which the Association is
doubtless aware—in drawing too definite conclusions from these first and
satisfactory results. The taxes fell due in Zaria province at the time
of the maturing of the crop, and the growers were anxious for cash to
meet them. The Emir of Katsina is a very intelligent man and wishful of
encouraging in every way he can any desires he deems the Government to
entertain. His influence would be directed to giving a tangible proof of
his interest and goodwill. This desire would be shared by his people,
by whom he is personally respected. It would be unwise, however, to
imagine that Katsina farmers will permanently be willing to send their
cotton all the way to Zaria for 1_d._ per lb., when in the ordinary run
of things they can get as much, if not more, than 1_d._ from the native
weaving interest. If the cotton were bought on the spot the farmers
might be willing to sell at 1_d._ The question of price is bound to
play an important part in the interesting developments which have now
begun. Taking year in year out, the local price of cotton in Zaria and
Kano varies from 1¼_d._ to 2_d._ per lb. in the seed. In Zaria last
November and December it varied from 1⅝_d._ to 2_d._ In Kano it kept
at 2_d._ throughout November, December, and part of January, having
fallen from 2¼_d._ in September. In the latter part of January it fell
temporarily to 1_d._ It went up again to 2_d._ in February. The bright
side consists in the possibility—the probability, perhaps—that the
knowledge of a permanent and unlimited market at a fixed price, albeit
a low one, in their midst will incline farmers to patronize that market
(and increase their acreage), assuring them as it does of an immediate
sale. Personally, I cannot but think that the Association will have to
put up its price if it is to obtain substantial quantities. Competition
here, as in Southern Nigeria, would undoubtedly tend to increase
production, but I believe that the advent of the European merchant to
Zaria and Kano is to be characterized by the same arrangement as I have
already commented upon in Southern Nigeria. There is, of course, what
there is not in Southern Nigeria, an element of competition in the
Northern provinces—viz. the native weaving interest—and the play of these
two forces, if both are allowed a fair field, will, no doubt, have a
stimulating effect in itself.
Another element comes in here which is worthy of note. I refer to the
price of foodstuffs. Everywhere the price of foodstuffs is growing with
our occupation of the country. Round the main highways and large markets
it has risen enormously in the past eighteen months. In one part of
the Niger province the native farmer now reckons upon getting, I was
informed, £8 to £10 per acre out of yams. Cotton at 1_d._ per lb. would
bring him in from £3 to £4. That is rather an extreme case, I admit, nor
does the whole country produce yams, and the farmers generally do not
appear yet to have fully grasped the economic importance for them of the
increased demand for foodstuffs. On the other hand, it is, of course,
true that the sowing of cotton between the ordinary food crops is not
uncommon.
I have thought it well to describe the position just as I read it, and
to make certain suggestions, the outcome of personal observation and
discussion on the spot. It may well be that in certain respects I have
read the situation wrong and that the suggestions made are faulty.
Prediction at the present time, I am convinced, must be largely made
in the dark, and they are no friends of the British Cotton-growing
Association who describe the outlook in Nigeria in “high falutin’” terms.
It is too soon to say how matters will develop. That development will
in any case be slow may be taken for granted. The Administration is in
urgent need of a properly equipped agricultural department with at the
head of it the very best man that money can secure.
Reviewing the whole situation, the only definite conclusions I have been
able to arrive at in my own mind are—first, that all attempts at giving
an artificial basis to cotton production in the Nigerias will, in the
long run, defeat its own ends; secondly, that by some means or other the
price paid to the native farmer must be raised if any extension of the
industry worth talking about is to be looked for. Everywhere in Northern
Nigeria, whether the personal view inclines to optimism or pessimism, I
found the officials without exception deeply interested in and anxious to
assist in every way the effort to build up an export industry in cotton,
and fully persuaded of the great importance and value of the work of the
Association.
CHAPTER IV
THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC IN SOUTHERN NIGERIA
Apart from religious questions there is probably no subject upon which
it is more difficult to secure reasonable discussion and study than the
subject of drink; none upon which it is more easy to generalize, or which
lends itself more readily to prejudice and misunderstanding of the real
points at issue. That moral reformers in England and elsewhere should
feel strongly about drink is natural enough. A considerable proportion of
the population of this country, of France, Germany, Belgium, and other
European States live wretched and unhealthy lives. They are over-worked,
under-fed, herded in insanitary tenements with insufficient space,
ventilation, and light, under conditions which preclude decency and
breed moral and physical diseases. Their horizon is one dead, uniform,
appalling greyness from birth to death. Who can feel surprise that
people thus situated should seek momentary forgetfulness in drink? The
drink problem in Europe is not a cause but an effect. The cause lies
deep down in the failure-side of our civilization, and statesmen worthy
of the name are grappling with it everywhere. Those of us who think
we see beyond an effect, are striving to prevent the reproduction in
tropical Africa of this failure-side of our civilization. We are striving
to maintain the economic independence of the West African; to ensure
him a permanency of free access to his land; to preserve his healthy,
open-air life of agriculturist and trader, his national institutions,
his racial characteristics and his freedom. We are endeavouring to show
him to the people of Europe, not as they have been taught by long years
of unconscious misrepresentation to regard him, but as he really is. We
feel that if we can protect the West African from the profounder economic
and social perils which encompass him on every side; from the restless
individualism of Europe; from unfair economic pressure threatening his
free and gradual development on his own lines; from the disintegrating
social effects of well-meaning but often wrongly informed and misdirected
philanthropic effort; from political injustice—that if we are able to
accomplish this even in small measure, the question of drink, while
requiring attention, becomes one of secondary importance. The West
African has always been a moderate drinker. From time immemorial he
has drunk fermented liquors made from various kinds of corn, and from
different kinds of palm trees. It is not a teetotal race, as the North
American race was. It is a strong, virile race, very prolific.
Unfortunately this question of drink has been given a place in the
public mind as regards Southern Nigeria altogether disproportionate to
the position it does, and should, hold. It has been erected for many
sincere, good people into a sort of fetish, obscuring all the deeper
issues arising from the impact upon the West African of civilization at
a time when civilization has never been so feverishly active, so potent
to originate vast changes in a few short years. The temperance reformer
in England strikes, often blindly, at “drink” anywhere and everywhere
on the same principle, utterly oblivious to physiological and climatic
differences; he cannot see beyond or behind the subject which specially
interests him and which has become his creed. The use of intoxicants of
some kind is common to humanity all over the world. It responds to a
need of the human body. Christ Himself did not condemn its use, since
He Himself, the Sacred Writings tell us, changed water into wine at a
marriage feast. Excessive indulgence in liquor, like indulgence in any
other form of human appetite, is a human failing. It is not the drink
which is an evil, but the abuse of it. The abuse of liquor nine times
out of ten is the outcome of social discomfort and unhappiness, a way
of escape, like a narcotic, from the pangs of conscience, or of misery.
People who concentrate merely upon effects are unsound guides when
constructive measures are required. The temperance reformer in England
approaches the question of drink in West Africa from the subjective point
of view which characterizes the home outlook upon most questions lying
outside the home latitudes. Saturated with his home experience, the
English temperance reformer places the West African in the same economic
and social setting as the European and argues on parallel lines. To that
mode of reasoning, three-fourths of the evils which civilization has
inflicted upon coloured races may be traced. Nothing is more curious or
more saddening to observe than the unfailing success of such methods
of thought translated into public action, in their effect upon home
sentiment. Consumption sweeping through the ranks of a coloured people
as the consequence of the educationary and religious processes of
Europeanism may make a holocaust of human victims. The public remains
indifferent. European marriage laws; European ethics, or nominal ethics,
in the matter of sex relationship; the European individualistic social
system grafted upon the communal life of a coloured people—these things
may produce widespread human misery and immorality. The public is cold
and unconcerned. European interference and innovation in social customs
and usages essential to the well being, to the political and racial
needs of a coloured people in one stage of development, but repugnant
to European twentieth-century notions, may cause social disturbance and
widespread anarchy which those who are responsible for such interference
can never themselves witness, let alone suffer from. It is virtually
impossible to arouse popular interest. For these and kindred disasters
are very largely brought about by the uninstructed zeal of God-fearing,
Christian men and women in Europe who judge other countries by their
own, other peoples by their own people, other needs by their own needs,
with the best of intentions and with the purest of motives; and outside
a small band of students, ethnologists and experienced officials, the
public mind is scandalized and even incensed if any one ventures to doubt
the excellent results necessarily flowing from disinterested action. It
is disinterested: therefore it must be right. That is the popular belief
and the general fallacy.
Poor Mary Kingsley, who knew her West Africa as few have ever known it
and who had the true scientific mind, fought hard against this ingrained
characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon temperament. But she fought in vain.
Despite her charity, the geniality and the humour in which she clothed
her truths, she had against her the whole weight of what is called the
philanthropic school of home opinion, responsible for so much good and
yet for so much unconscious harm.
“The stay at home statesman,” she once said, “think that
Africans are all awful savages or silly children—people who
can only be dealt with on a reformatory, penitentiary line.
This view, you know, is not mine ... but it is the view of the
statesmen and the general public and the mission public in
African affairs.”
And again:—
“The African you have got in your mind up here, that you are
legislating for and spending millions in trying to improve,
doesn’t exist; your African is a fancy African.... You keep
your fancy African and I wish you joy of him, but I grieve more
than I can say for the real African that does exist and suffers
for all the mistakes you make in dealing with him through a
dream thing, the fiend-child African of your imagination. Above
all, I grieve for the true negro people whose home is in the
West Coast....”
No, you cannot excite public interest in these matters. But mention the
liquor trade, describe the Nigerian as an infant in brain, incapable of
self-control, down whose throat wicked merchants are forcibly pouring
body and soul destroying drink which a wicked Administration taxes in
order to raise revenue. Public sentiment responds with alacrity. It
becomes at once a popular cry, and the most inconceivable distortions
of native character and native life pass muster. Oppose that view and
it will be a miracle if you emerge with any shred of reputation you may
once have possessed. Stones from episcopal catapults will whistle round
your ears. Scribes, utterly ignorant of the country whose inhabitants
they portray in an absurdly false light, and who make their living by
going shuddering around in professional temperance circles, will hint
darkly that somewhere in the dim back of beyond your attitude is dictated
by personal interest. A certain type of missionary will denounce you
from the housetops, ransack the Bible for quotations to describe the
extent of your fall from grace, and end up by praying the Almighty for
the salvation of your soul. You will be described as a man who cynically
ministers to the degradation of the negro. People who believed in you
will ponder sadly over your moral declension. You may consider yourself
lucky if your best friend does not cut you in the street. To disparage
the Administration, to describe the English gentlemen who serve it in
Nigeria as callous onlookers while a people sinks down before them in
ruin and decay; to paint the sober Nigerian as a drunken brute—all this
is permissible. But the deafening clamour which arises, the protesting
and outraged indignation which obtains if a humble voice is heard to
deny the accuracy, and to resent, in the public interest, these sweeping
charges against White and Black alike, beggars description. You find
yourself denounced to the whole world as a cruel libeller of godly men,
and much else besides. It would be humorous if it were not pathetic,
because amidst all this froth and fury the vital problems arising out
of European contact with West Africa are obscured, and a force which,
instructed and directed in the right way, might be of untold benefit is
wasted on a sterile issue.
The onslaught upon Southern Nigeria in the matter of the liquor traffic
carried on by that sincere, but tactless, misinformed and pugnacious
cleric, Bishop Tugwell, and the bulk of his assistants in West Africa,
aided by the Native Races and Liquor Traffic United Committee at
home, is a typical example of the harm which lack of perspective and
muddle-headedness can do to a good cause. The liquor traffic is common to
the whole of West Africa and requires constant and vigilant attention.
For more than a century, long before the bulk of the coast line was
occupied by the Powers in a political sense, spirits had been exported
to West Africa from Europe together with cotton goods, woollen goods,
beads, ironware, hardware, haberdashery, perfumery, salt, tobacco and
a host of other articles. At first the trade was untaxed. As European
political influence extended, the various Administrations found it
necessary to control the traffic by placing an import duty upon spirits
at the port of entry. In this policy Great Britain has always led; the
other Powers have always lagged. When interior penetration from the coast
began and the scramble for Western Africa was well on its way, Great
Britain’s influence was responsible for the proposal that the import
should be prohibited beyond a certain geographical limit interiorwards.
Thus Northern Nigeria was excluded from the accessible zone of European
spirit import. By general consent the trade has been looked upon as a
potential danger, if unregulated, and nowhere has the determination to
prevent it from becoming an active evil been so clearly recognized as
in Southern Nigeria; by successive increases of duty, and, as I shall
show, by so adjusting taxation as virtually to penalize spirits of high
potency in favour of spirits of weak strength. The Governor-General
of French West Africa, M. Ponty, told me only last autumn at Dakar,
how he desired to bring the French duties up to the British level, and
what difficulties he was experiencing in doing so. Now the existence
of a permanent, outside influence, whatever its origin, directed at
encouraging the Administration in this course could only be to the good.
While differences of opinion must exist as to the relative importance of
the matter compared with other problems of administration, I have met no
one who would not regard a policy of letting in spirits free, as wrong.
I have met no one who is not convinced that it is right to tax the trade
just as high as it can be taxed, up to the point, that is, when people
will still buy and not be driven to illicit distilling, which in the West
African forest could not be suppressed. If Bishop Tugwell and his friends
had concentrated upon the potentiality of the danger, and had given every
help and assistance to the Administration to cope with it, supplying
the Administration with such information as they might possess of a
specific, controllable, accurate character, it would have been difficult
to over-estimate their usefulness from this particular point of view.
But the course they have been pursuing for the last few years has been
quite different. It has been so illogical, so lacking in judgment and
sobriety, and so pronouncedly foolish and unjust, as to disgust every
fair-minded man who has looked into the facts for himself. Instead
of common-sense and reasonable debate, there has been violent and
senseless denunciation accompanied by the grossest misstatements. The
Administration, urged perpetually to increase the tax, has been cursed
with bell, book and candle for the automatic result in swelling the
proceeds of revenue derived from these increases. What was demanded as a
moral duty has, in its inevitable result, been stigmatized as a crime,
and the very men who clamoured for more taxes, have denounced the effect
of them. A trade forming from time immemorial, as already stated, part
of the general barter trade of the West Coast has become identified
in the public mind with a particular British dependency, the very one
where official vigilance has been specially exercised. A difficult
and complicated economic and fiscal problem has been handled in so
unintelligent a manner that it has degenerated into systematic and silly
abuse of British officials, who have no more to do with the existence
of the traffic than has the Duke of Westminster who presides over the
Native Races and Liquor Traffic United Committee. These officials of
ours, some of whose difficulties I have attempted to portray, have
actually been accused—nay, are still being—of encouraging the trade in
every possible way, of forcing it upon the people, of thriving on the
drinking habits of the native. Fanaticism has even gone the length of
stating that they are “financially interested” in the traffic, as though
they received a percentage from Government on the revenue derived from
taxing the article! The very Commission which Lord Crewe sent out to
investigate the charges persistently brought, has been assailed with
unmeasured vituperation for the crime of having rendered a truthful
report on the evidence produced, and the public at home has been asked to
believe that these Commissioners, the Political and Judicial Staff of the
Protectorate, the Medical Staff, the Roman Catholic missionaries[15]—the
most numerous in the Protectorate—together with prominent natives and
independent outside witnesses as well, are either deliberate perjurers
or incompetent observers; although the accusers’ testimony was
hopelessly, even pitifully, inadequate when brought to the test of public
examination and inquiry. In an official pamphlet issued by the Native
Races Committee the statements of Sir Mackenzie Chalmers, the Chairman
of the Commission, as recorded in the minutes of evidence, have been
reproduced in mutilated form, presumably in order to carry conviction
of his bias with the public. Those who can stoop to such methods do
irreparable injury to a good cause. What in its origin was undoubtedly a
movement of a genuine philanthropic character, has been converted into
an agitation which has so incensed authorized Native opinion, that Mr.
Sapara Williams, the leading Native member of the Legislative Council
of Southern Nigeria and a fearless critic of the Government, found
it necessary to voice the feelings of the community in the following
vigorous language uttered in the Legislative Council itself:—
“I must say that I believe every unofficial member and every
member of the community of these countries feel bound to say
that the majority of the statements made by Bishop Tugwell
are untrue. It is a slander on the Administration, a slander
on the gentlemen who sit here, and a slander on the general
public; and for a man in Bishop Tugwell’s position as the
head of the Church here—namely, a Church which always makes
it a boast amongst the native communities of its connection
as being in communion with the great Church of England—to
go before the British public and endeavour, by means of
gross misrepresentations and statements which are absolutely
incorrect and palpably false on the face of them, to enlist
their sympathy and induce them to support a noble cause, is
not only detrimental to the good cause itself, but also to
the progress of Christianity and missionary work in these
countries.... If Bishop Tugwell will talk of something else,
instead of this persistent indulging in calumny and malignity
simply to promote the movement against the Liquor Traffic it
would, perhaps, be better for the interest of this Colony and
Protectorate, and the welfare of the Church, and of the mission
work in Western Equatorial Africa under him. I say that, to
my thinking, these misstatements are made deliberately with a
view to influence subscriptions towards the various branches of
his many diocesan funds, a course clearly opposed to the true
principles of Christianity, inconsistent with the high purpose
and professions of his calling and the dignity of his office.”
I am not concerned with Mr. Williams’ views, but nothing could be more
significant than this speech—and it is not the only Native protest which
has been made in the Southern Nigeria Legislative Council—coming from a
native in Mr. Williams’ position, a Christian and a total abstainer. The
Native Races Committee has been singularly ill led. It has identified
itself completely with extremists whose looseness of statement, whose
persistency in statistical and other errors, and whose extraordinary
lack of judgment were so painfully apparent when they testified before
the Commission of Inquiry. It is matter for regret that divines of high
position in this country and Members of Parliament have plunged into the
fray without exercising sufficient caution before allying themselves to a
campaign conducted on lines inconsistent with accuracy and fair play.
The literature on this subject is enormous, and several chapters would
be needed to follow it in any detail. I propose, however, to summarize
certain points.
First. The statements as to race demoralization and deterioration, of
decrease of energy for labour; of decrease in other branches of trade;
of an increase in crime and decrease of population as the result of
the spirit trade, have been totally disproved. They have, indeed,
been officially dropped by the Native Races Committee. Secondly. The
allegations as to the evil quality of the liquor imported have also been
disproved and dropped by the Committee. Thirdly. By a system of sur-taxes
upon the higher forms of alcohol initiated by Sir Walter Egerton, the
character of the Southern Nigerian spirit trade has been revolutionized
for good in the last six years. The system inaugurated in 1905 imposed,
over and above the general duty, a sur-tax of ½_d._ for every degree
or part of a degree in excess of 12·4 under proof. This sur-tax was
successively raised until it reached its present figure of 2½_d._,
with the result that while five years ago nearly 60 per cent. of the
total spirits imported varied in strength from between 45 degrees and
55 degrees _Tralles_, to-day something like 90 per cent. of the total
spirits imported are just under 40 degrees _Tralles_, _i.e._ 28 per
cent. under proof.
Fourthly. Not only is the general trade (_i.e._ the trade in cotton
goods, hardware, etc.) increasing at a far greater ratio than the spirit
trade, but the amount of alcohol imported into the Protectorate is
actually decreasing, notwithstanding the enormous development of general
trade and the steady opening up of the country to which the former is
largely due. Here are the figures. They are official and their accuracy
has been endorsed by the Secretary of State—
GALLONS OF ALCOHOL
Years Totals Annual average
1902-04 8,947,000 2,982,332
1905-07 8,746,000 2,915,333
1908-10 8,626,000 2,875,333
Fifthly. The population of Southern Nigeria, according to the 1911
census, is 7,750,000. It is believed to be, and probably is, much
greater. Thus on the basis of estimated population the consumption of
alcohol per head works out at a fraction over one quarter of a gallon.
It is, of course, not nearly so great, and this for several reasons. The
alcohol imported is not all drunk, to begin with. A great deal of it is
stored, sometimes for years, as banked wealth. A great deal of it, in the
Central Province and to some extent in the Eastern Province, circulates
continuously as a sort of barter currency. This system, a purely native
one (in certain regions cloth and tobacco are also used as currency) will
gradually fade away with the increased circulation of silver coin. Then,
again, a good deal of it is wasted, poured out on the ground as libations
to the gods; how much it is impossible to say.
I will now conclude with a consideration of what other steps may be
possible to adopt with a view to further controlling the traffic. The
policy of the Native Races Committee and of Bishop Tugwell and his
friends has apparently changed. Up to the time of the Commission
of Inquiry they alternated between a demand for higher duties, and
prohibition. Some years ago a deputation waiting upon Mr. Chamberlain put
forward a request for a 4_s._ duty per Imperial gallon. The duty to-day
is 5_s._ per Imperial gallon, apart from the sur-taxes already referred
to. “Total prohibition” was officially demanded by the Native Races
Committee shortly before the Commission was appointed. The Committee has
now dropped the demand for total prohibition, which does not prevent
Bishop Tugwell’s friends and coadjutors from continuing to denounce the
Administration and describe the ravages of the traffic in lurid terms up
and down the country. That the demand for prohibition has been abandoned
is significant. Coupled with a cessation of the abusive tactics it would
indicate the beginning of wisdom. That the latter continue suggests the
possibility that the demand for prohibition will be or may be revived.
The only concrete demands now put forward by the official spokesmen of
the Committee (_vide_ the deputation to Mr. Harcourt in July) are (1)
an international conference; (2) what is described as a system of local
option. That is the somewhat feeble conclusion to the raging, tearing
propaganda of the last ten years.
How the Native Races Committee can reconcile it with the furious attacks
upon all and sundry in which they have indulged is not my affair. At any
rate, it is a confession of constructive impotence. And for this reason.
International conferences on this subject are held regularly every few
years, and much portentous talk is indulged in by grave gentlemen sitting
round a table. As a matter of fact, Britain, as already stated, leads in
the matter of high duties and adjustment of duties to strike at spirits
of higher potency. We have difficulty, which is perennial, in getting the
other Powers to agree to our level. At the present moment the duty levied
in the French territory of Dahomey, which borders Southern Nigeria, is
much lower than ours, and smuggling is the result. Therefore, whatever
good a Conference may do, that good will affect foreign territory, not
Southern Nigeria. As a practical policy the international conference is,
thus, devoid of import so far as Southern Nigeria is concerned. “Local
option” is largely a catch word which appeals to the public—always
influenced by the subjective point of view. What is really meant by it
is that a native community should be given the option of not buying
spirits. But it has that option now! The native community of Ibadan and
of Abeokuta stopped buying spirits three years ago for several months on
end, because the people objected to a licensing duty, which naturally put
up the price of spirits and was an innovation entirely foreign to the
native mind. Any native community in Southern Nigeria is free, to-day, to
buy or not to buy spirits, or cotton goods or tobacco or anything else.
But a native community consists not of one Chief, but of a Paramount
Chief or King (when the native state form has developed to that extent
which, in the Eastern Province, for example, is not yet the case), a
number of ordinary Chiefs with their councillors, and the people. It is
one thing for a Native community to make up its mind not to buy spirits.
It is quite a different thing for a Chief to impose his caprice, which
may be purely temporary in its action, upon his people. If, for example,
we suppose a Chief desirous to please the missionaries in his locality,
or objecting to the present high price of imported spirits and wishing
to pull it down, or for some other reason, forbidding his people to
buy spirits; then the Administration would be clearly in the wrong in
supporting that Chief if his views did not coincide with the views of
his people. Such action would amount to coercion and interference with
the liberties of the people themselves. The Chief so acting would be
violating native law and assuming the powers of a dictator, which in
Southern Nigeria under the native system of rule he does not possess.
He could only do so backed by the British Administration, and in backing
him the British Government would be making native rule impossible and
inciting to disturbance and turmoil.
The Native Races Committee’s suggestions carry us then no further. The
alternative line of action I suggest is the following:—
The liquor traffic in Southern Nigeria (as everywhere else in
Western Africa), must be carefully watched.
It is not now an active evil in Southern Nigeria. It need never
become one if certain things are done.
Those things are—
_A._ Frequent analyses of the imported article. Severe
punishment if bad stuff is going in.
_B._ Continuation of the legislation, consistently followed
since 1905, of taxing, over and above the general tax, higher
degrees of alcoholic strength _pro rata_. Perhaps pursuing that
still further by prohibiting altogether the importation of
liquor above a certain strength.
_C._ Keeping duties to the level of safety, raising them
whenever possible, but never so highly that the population will
altogether cease to buy, and take to distilling, which by the
pot-still process is the easiest thing in the world.
_D._ Not permitting the proportion which the spirit trade now
bears to the general trade to increase—that means watching, and
increasing the duty when possible. At every sign of the present
proportion being increased, another increase of duty should be
made.
_E._ Restricting, if possible, the present proportion, by
_degrees_ either by the policy of successive increases of
duty; or by an arrangement with the merchants (very difficult
to bring about, owing to the advent of new firms; but not,
perhaps, impossible), whereby they would be precluded from
exceeding in the spirit branch of their trade a certain fixed
proportion to their general trade turn-over—the imports of
each firm being calculated on a basis which would establish
a decrease in the total volume of the spirit trade. This
arrangement, if it were possible, would have, really, the same
effect as judicious increases of duty, by making the imported
article dearer.
_F._ The creation of a sitting committee in Lagos—sitting and
permanent—the members of which would be gazetted and paid a
small salary: with two branches, one in the Central and one in
the Eastern Province, and (if necessary) with corresponding
members in several of the more important centres—with the
object of creating in each province a sort of bureau of
information on the spirit trade to which every one would feel
free to communicate.
_G._ Standing instructions to every medical officer to give
attention to the subject from the physiological point of view,
within his area and to furnish a half-yearly report to the
Principal Medical Officer. These reports would be annotated by
the P. M. O., who, reviewing the whole evidence, would give
_his_ report. Specific instances raised by any medical officer,
might if necessary be referred to the permanent committee above
mentioned.
_H._ A yearly report to be furnished by the Chairman of the
permanent committee, and by the P. M. O. respectively, to the
local Government, and published in the Official Gazette.
_I._ Maintenance of the prohibitory line under amalgamation;
and its deflection southwards in the Eastern Province in order
to keep from the influence of the trade, the northern portions
of the Eastern Province where the trade has, up to now, not, or
barely, penetrated.
_J._ Gradual, _very gradual_, introduction of direct taxation
in the Central and Eastern Provinces, working upwards from
the coast line—preceded by full explanations, and the calling
together of District Chiefs and Heads of Houses for purposes of
_discussion_. In the Western Province, where direct taxation
by the British Government would be a violation of Native law
and of Treaties and Arrangements, a policy (sketched in Part
II.) of re-constituting according to native law, the old Yoruba
Kingdom, and reviving through the Alafin, the tribute which
in native law is due to him, and eventually controlling the
expenditure of the proceeds through the Alafin and the heads of
the various Yoruba States. These respective proceedings being
taken with the object of _gradually_ making us independent, or
virtually independent, of taxation on spirits as a source of
revenue.
That is, broadly, the constructive policy I venture to recommend. It
might have to be modified here and there. But in its main lines I believe
it to be sound.
On the main issue I would say this. The Southern Nigeria Administration
stands for high ideals and good government, sound native policy,
preservation of native authority and land tenure. In my belief the
untruthful and malignant charges brought against it are weakening that
for which the Administration stands. This is a grave danger, and one’s
sense of justice revolts at allegations made against an Administration
the bulk of whose officials are doing good work under many difficulties.
It is bad for the Empire and for the forces making for just native
government within the Empire, that public opinion should be led to
believe that Southern Nigeria is a thing to be ashamed of rather than to
be proud of—which ought legitimately, on the facts, to be the case.
It is bad for public policy and the integrity of public life that a
Commission of Inquiry should be dragged in the mud when it has recorded
the truth.
It is Imperially foolish, and essentially unjust in itself, that the
natives of Nigeria should be represented as degraded and demoralized,
helpless creatures, when they are nothing of the kind. They resent
it, and it is untrue. The propagation of continuous untruths about a
native race will sooner or later lead that native race to be held in
such low estimation, that it will be persecuted and unjustly dealt by.
This picture drawn of this race, strengthens, in public opinion, the
various forces which are bent upon perpetuating the legend of the African
half-child and half-devil, which is so great an obstacle to sane public
views at home, and, therefore, in the ultimate resort to sane policy in
Africa.
If the Colonial Office is driven to prohibition or any violent step of
that sort, direct taxation must immediately follow in order to raise
revenue, and that will mean the massacre of thousands of innocent people.
It will also lead to the destruction of palm trees, which will impoverish
the country and lower trade; to the stoppage of all export in cereals,
the surplus crop being used to produce fermented liquors, and thus,
again, to the impoverishment of the country and possibly to the shortage
of crops, with the resultant scarcity of food supply; to the creation of
illicit stills and the production of a crude liquor full of impurities,
and, consequently, very harmful in effects. The Nigerian population of
the south must have liquor of some sort. It requires it, like every
race does, that is not naturally a teetotal race, which the Nigerian
race has never been. To stop drinking is impossible—nor, perhaps, is it
desirable if it were possible, especially in the forest zone which is
more or less under water for six months in the year. _Anyway, it cannot
be done._ The Nigerians do not over-drink. They are much more sober than
we are—that is incontestable. They occasionally drink more than is good
for them at weddings, etc. (just as many people do in this country), and
at their religious feasts. But they did that (since feasting and drinking
has always been part and parcel of the religious stage of humanity the
Nigerians are now in—part of the cult of the fertilizing spirit of
nature) long before we knew they existed.
The danger of increasing over-indulgence in drink by “educated” natives
is a very real one. But “trade spirits” have nothing to do with this. The
secret of this tendency is to be found in the false ideal of Christianity
which is propagated by many of the missionaries and the denationalizing
tendencies which appear to be inseparable, on the present system, from
our religious and educationary influences.
The establishment of the European licensing system away from the
chief towns of the coast is, I consider, impossible for at least a
generation—and undesirable if it were possible.
As an antidote to any dangers of over-indulgence in drink among the mass
of the people which may exist, the spread of the Mohammedan religion is
automatically the most effective, from the purely social standpoint;
and this, not because of any special virtue attaching to Islam, but
because Islam in West Africa has become an African religion which does
not denationalize, and does not produce the social unhappiness which
denationalization brings in its train.[16]
FOOTNOTES
[1] With the exception of the articles on Cotton, which appeared in the
_Manchester Guardian_.
[2] Lord Scarborough, I am glad to know, is instituting a movement
designed to put up a monument to Richard Lander and Mungo Park at
Forcados, one of the mouths of the Niger. The suggestion that a monument
should be erected to the memory of Richard Lander at the mouth of the
Niger was made last year in the _Times_ by the writer, who had the honour
of reporting to Lord Scarborough upon various sites examined in the
course of this year, and recommending Forcados as the most appropriate.
[3] The total value of the nett commercial trade of Southern Nigeria
amounted to £9,288,000 in 1910, viz. imports £4,320,000, exports
£4,968,000. Among the imports, cotton goods amounted to £1,306,812. Ten
years ago the total import of the latter was only £605,146. The whole
commercial movement has grown enormously in the last few years, the total
nett turnover in 1907 amounting only to £6,974,000.
[4] Vide Part IV.
[5] In this connection Mr. Dennett’s paper in the September issue of the
journal of the Colonial Institute is very valuable.
[6] Vide Part IV.
[7] February, 1911.
[8] “Affairs of West Africa.” Heinemann, 1902.
[9] The subject is discussed at greater length in Part IV.
[10] In the case of some of these companies, such as the West African
Mines, Ltd., the Anglo-Continental Mines Company, Ltd., etc., only a part
of their capital is invested in the tin mines.
[11] Perhaps the above remarks are a little too sweeping. It has been
brought to my knowledge that in one such case where permission was sought
by an experienced ex-Government official and granted by the authorities,
the former’s action was, as a matter of fact, twice instrumental in
preventing a fraudulent concern from being unloaded upon the public; and
no doubt there is something to be said in favour of the practice from
that point of view, arguing from an isolated case. But I must adhere to
the opinion that, speaking generally, the practice is objectionable, and
lends itself to incidents which are calculated to impair the very high
standard of public service of which Great Britain rightly makes a boast.
[12] Whose administration offers no problems comparable with the task of
governing a Hausa province.
[13] Now the capital of the Niger province.
[14] It is only fair to state that Mr. W. H. Himbury, of the British
Cotton Growing Association, has since pointed out, in regard to the
prices fetched by indigenous Southern Nigerian cotton (p. 227), that
the prices here given only refer to small samples and cannot be taken
as indicative of the general selling value of Southern Nigerian cotton.
The official report of the Commercial Intelligence officer of Southern
Nigeria, from which the figures here given are quoted, is thus somewhat
misleading. But the correction does not appreciably affect my general
line of suggestion. Referring to the cotton grown in the Bassa and
Nassarawa provinces of Northern Nigeria, Professor Wyndham Dunstan in
his recent report states that in making a comparison of the lint for the
Liverpool market the standard employed is “Moderately rough Peruvian,
which is a grade of higher price than Middling American.”
[15] And some of the Wesleyans—notably the Superintendent of the Wesleyan
Missions in Southern Nigeria, the Rev. Oliver Griffen.
[16] It may, perhaps, be well to emphasize, in view of the printed
statements describing the writer as the “champion of the liquor traffic”
and so forth, which are so freely made in certain quarters, that the
above remarks are concerned solely with the liquor traffic _in Southern
Nigeria_—not in West Africa as a whole. They deal with specific facts
affecting a specific area of West Africa and with specific circumstances
surrounding those facts which have formed the subject of public
controversy.
INDEX
Abeokuta, city of, 78, 79, 80, 84, 224
Alake of, 79
Alkalis, their functions, 149
Amalgamation of the Protectorates, 46, 187, 209.
(_See under_ British policy.)
Anthropological research, British indifference to, 185.
(_See under_ British policy.)
Ants, white, 29
Arab traders in Kano, 166
Baikie, Dr., 46
Baro, 91, 195, 203
Barth, Dr., 123, 152
Bassa, 117, 202, 231
Bauchi, people, plateau and Province of, 4, 19, 127, 138, 171, 177,
179-186, 192, 202
a unique ethnological field, 185
(_See also under_ Mining and Tin.)
Beecroft, John, 45
Bees, 29, 114
Beit-el-Mals, the, 147, 148, 149
Bell, Sir Henry Hesketh, Preface, 136, 172, 241
Bello, Emir, 99, 100
Benin, country and people of, 65, 68-70, 140, 203
Benue, river and region of the, 94, 170, 171, 180, 183, 202-203
Bida, city of, 29, 31, 110, 119, 128
Blyden, Dr. E. Wilmot, Preface, Introduction
Borgu, 118, 138, 177, 202, 203
Bornu, 99, 101, 126, 127, 138, 170, 177, 202, 232
British Cotton Growing Association, 222, etc.
(_See under_ Cotton.)
British policy, its ultimate effects, 6-7, 102-105, 171
danger of interference with social life, 20, 151-154
in Nupe, 29-30
a _tour de force_, 41
absence of constructive views from home, 46, 189-190
towards Mohammedanism, 47, 111, 112, 133-135, 152-153, 164
lack of home interest in, 48
as to forest development, 58-61
towards domestic “slavery,” 62-63
in the Central and Eastern Provinces of Southern Nigeria, 64, 65
in Benin, 68-69
in Yorubaland, 76-80, 82-88
neglect of the Niger river, 93-94
towards land tenure, 117
towards European trade in the Hausa towns, 133, 135
of indirect rule, its character and objects in Northern Nigeria;
its enemies; arguments for its retention, 136-139, 145-150
consequences of direct rule, 139-140, 154
in connection with native law and custom, 140-144
in connection with the preservation of national life, 151-154, 159
towards Christian Missions in Northern Nigeria, 153
towards the national weaving industry of Kano, 152, 240-241
towards education, 160-165, 188
towards European trade, 172-174
towards mining enterprises, 180-183
towards ethnological research, 185
in Southern and Northern Nigeria compared, 188-189
position of a West African Governor, 189-190
position of officials, 190-193
in connection with officials’ wives, 192
opposing views regarding, Preface
(_See also under_ Amalgamation, Christianity, Islam, Railways,
Education, _etc., etc._)
Bukuru, 179, 183
Butterflies, 32, 33, 56
Carrier, the, 14-17, 23
Cattle, 12, 108.
(_See under_ Nigerian.)
Cerebro-spinal meningitis, 9
Chad, Lake, 124, 179
Chalmers, Sir Mackenzie Dalzell, 252
Chamberlain, Right Hon. Joseph, 256
Chirol, Mr. Valentine, 160, 165
Christianity, character of mission work, 26-28
in Yorubaland, 77
an untouched field, 96
and indirect rule, 138
in the Mohammedan provinces, 153
in Kano, 133-135
and Islam in Southern Nigeria, 213-221.
(_See under_ Islam, and British policy.)
Civilization, failure side of, 245
Clapperton, Commander, 100, 123
Clegg, Mr., 224
Cocoa, export of, 57, 224
Cotton, cultivation, manufacture and export of, 57, 114, 115, 119,
127, 152, 168-169, 222, 224.
(_See under_ Hausas, Nigerian, Kano.)
Crewe, Earl of, 252
Cross, river, 51
Delimi, river, 119, 180
Dennett, Mr. R. E., 61
Dress, question of, 219-220
Drum, the Nigerian, 32
Eaglesome, Mr., Preface, 194
Educational policy, 72-76, 154, 158-159, 160-165, 188.
(_See under_ Nassarawa, British policy.)
Egba, district of, 224.
(_See under_ Yorubas.)
Egerton, Sir Walter, Preface, 11, 74, 254
Emigration, Fulani, 170
Finances of Northern Nigeria, 207-208.
(_See under_ Amalgamation and British policy.)
Fireflies, 34
Firmin, Mr., Preface
Food supplies, 58, 142, 171, 179, 182, 191, 243
Forcados, port and river of, 45, 49, 73, 91, 93, 202
Forest belt in Southern Nigeria, 56-61, 224, 251
forestry resources in Northern Nigeria, 170
Forestry Department in Southern Nigeria, 58-61, 69, 84
need of one in Northern Nigeria, 170
Foulkes, Captain, 185
Fulani, women, 19, 21, 119
as rulers, 23, 30, 47, 98, 118, 137, 140-142
as herdsmen, 29, 118, 119, 169-170
place in West African history, 98-99
conquest of Hausa, 99, 101, 124
as a spiritual force, 155-159
in Bauchi, 186
(_See under_ Othman, Bello, British policy, Nigerian.)
Girouard, Sir Percy, 94, 137, 142, 143, 198
Gober, country of, 124, 157
Goldie, Sir George, 45, 166
Gombe, Emirate of, 184
Gummel, Emirate of, 130
Gwarris, the, 116
Hadeija, division of, 236
Harcourt, Hon. Lewis, 256
Harmattan, the, 8, 9, 11
Hausas, the, and their country, 19, 21, 45-47, 98-101, 108, 156, 169,
217, 231, 232, 237.
(_See under_ Kano, Nigerian, British policy.)
Henna, 30
Himbury, Mr., Preface, 231
Holt, Mr. John, Preface
John & Co., Ltd., Preface, 166
House-rule, in Southern Nigeria, 62, 63
Ibadan, 78, 80, 81, 85, 110, 196, 218, 224
Idah, 96
Ilorin, 99, 127, 177, 202, 203
Islam, in Nupe, 29
in Zaria, 35-41
as a political and social force, 47, 48, 111-112
in Lagos, 72
in Yorubaland, 77
Othman’s _jihad_, 99
formative of Nigerian civilization, 103, 140-141, 149
morning prayer in Hausaland, 111-112
etiquette at Mohammedan Courts, 130
Emir of Kano’s views, 133-135
inadvisability of interference with, 153
as a reforming force, 156-157
as a spiritual influence, 164-165
and Christianity in Southern Nigeria, 213-220
as a preservative to national life, 213-220, 260
Kabba, province of, 202, 203.
(_See under_ Mining.)
Kaduna, river, 31, 180
Kakandas, the, 171
Kano, Province and Emirate of, 115-116, 130, 138-139, 145, 147, 153,
167, 177, 192-193, 202-206, 229, 232, 236, 239, 241
city of, 45, 91, 121, 123-129, 133, 146, 163, 166, 191, 195
Emir of, 45, 130-135, 148, 153, 164
native administration of, 145-150
Katagum, Emirate of, 130, 236, 239
Katsina, city, Emirate and Province of, 123, 124, 130, 153, 236, 239,
241-242
Kingsley, the late Miss Mary, Dedication, Introduction, 248
Kitson, Mr., 176
Kontagora, 138, 202
Lagos, 51, 63, 71-75, 76, 83, 84, 91, 110, 195, 203, 218
Land, Nigerian tenure of, Introduction, 83-84, 117, 140-144.
(_See under_ British policy.)
and Natives’ Rights Proclamation, 143
legislation in Northern and Southern Nigeria, 188
Lander, Richard, 45
Lever Bros., Ltd., 54
Life, preservation of national, 151-154
Lignite, 175-176
Liquor traffic, problem of, 66, 245-261
Liruei-n-Delma, 177
Liruei-n-Kano, 121, 177, 178
Loko, 183
Lokoja, 46, 94, 97, 110, 163, 171, 203
Lugard, Sir Frederick, 46, 123, 131, 134, 136, 142
MacGregor Laird, 46
Merchants, British, 95, 96, 153, 172-174, 227, 243
Mining Development, 175-183.
(_See under_ Tin and Bauchi.)
Minna, 195
Moor, Sir Ralph, 58
Mungo Park, 45
Muri, Province of, 138, 170, 177, 202-203
Naraguta, 180, 183-184, 191
Nassarawa, Province of, 138, 177, 231
national schools at, 161-165.
(_See under_ Education.)
Native Races and Liquor Traffic United Committee, 254, etc.
(_See under_ Liquor.)
Niger, delta of, 49-54, 218, 223
river, 51, 75, 91-97, 124, 180, 195, 202, 203
Province, 138, 167, 202, 243
old civilizations of, 155
company, 166, 172, 178, 179, 181, 183, 186, 191
Nigeria, importance of, 47
size of, 47, 49, 63, 138
need for public interest in, 48
flora of, 10, 29, 36, 50, 51, 52, 113, 114, 170
history of, 98-104
self-sufficing character, 119, 171
a land of contrasts, 72, 184
anomalous position of Northern Protectorate, 190
comparison with American cotton belt, 222
Nigerian, perils which beset him, Introduction, 245-248
false ideas about, 247-249, 260
his alleged callousness, 13
as a carrier, 14-17
his modesty and courtesy, 19-23
his dancing, 31-32
as a fisherman, 34
as a trader, 50-52, 107-110, 125-127
his capacity for labour, 57-58, 181-182
his spiritual side, 24, 28, 67, 111-112, 155-159
as an agriculturist, 112, 113, 118, 120, 172, 185, 224, 228, 231,
233-237
as a cotton manufacturer, 121, 127, 185
as a dyer, 121
as a tanner, 121, 127, 163-164
as an artisan, 119, 120, 121
as a smelter, 6, 120-121, 177-178, 185
as a potter, 128
as a herdsman, 118-119
his law-abiding character, 146-147
his probity in Kano, 147
as an _intéllectuel_ and reformer, 157-158
his capacity for self-government on indigenous lines, 130-159.
(_See under_ British policy, Trade, Kano, Railways, Education,
Islam, Cotton, Tin, Hausa, Fulani, Yoruba, Othman Fodio, etc.)
Ningi, country and people of, 184
Nupe, people of, 29-31, 126, 171, 218
soap, 129
Officials, labours of British, 6, 7, 30, 31, 41, 65-66, 104, 137,
143, 154, 190-191, 244
Oil palm and its products, 52-55.
(_See under_ Trade.)
Old Calabar, 51, 73, 202
Onitsha, 176, 218
Oshogbo, 202-203, 224-225
Othman Fodio, 99-101, 118, 157, 159
Oyo, city of, 78, 203, 218, 225
Alafin of, 80, 81, 87
Railways and railway policy, 91, 167, 183, 194-200, 239
Rat-catchers of Kano, 146
Religions, African, 24-28, 35, 67-68, 218.
(_See under_ Islam.)
Revenue, method of distribution in Northern Nigeria, 147-148.
(_See under_ British policy and Amalgamation.)
Road, the great white, 7, 8-13, 28
the Riga-Chikum-Naraguta, 182, 183
its _rôle_ in social life, 218
Roman Catholics, 11, 27, 252
Ross, Mr. W. A., 84
Rubber, in Bauchi and in the Benue region, 170-185
in Benin, 69
Salaries of officials in Northern Nigeria, 192
Sallah, the, at Zaria, 35-41
Sarbah, the late John Mensah, Introduction
Shuwas, the, 170
Sokoto, 12, 100, 116, 126, 138, 153, 170, 117, 203, 218
Songhay, Empire of, 156
Taxation, Hausa and Fulani system of, 120, 140.
(_See under_ British policy and Fulani.)
_Jangali_ or cattle tax, 169-170
Temple, Mr. Charles, Preface, 147
Thompson, Mr. H. N., 61
Thomson, Mr. Joseph, 45
Tin, 124, 127, 128, 166, 232.
(_See under_ Mining.)
Trade, internal, 12, 107-110, 120-122, 127-128, 217-218
external, 50-53, 121-122, 154, 166-174
Trees, destruction of, 10-12, 59, 84
Tripoli, 124, 127, 128, 166, 232
Tugwell, Right Rev. Bishop, 250.
(_See under_ Liquor traffic.)
Udi, district of, 176
Vischer, Mr. Hanns, 164.
(_See under_ Education and Nassarawa.)
Wallace, Sir William, 150, 178
Warri, 51, 203
Wesleyan Missionaries, 252
Williams, Hon. Sapara, 253
Women, European, in Nigeria, 192
Wyndham Dunstan, Professor, 150, 178
Yola, province of, 138, 163, 202
Yorubas, the, and their country, 74-88, 99, 140, 171, 203, 218, 221,
227, 229.
(_See under_ Abeokuta, Ibadan, Oyo.)
Young, Mr., 79
Zaria, Province and Emirate of, 167, 202-203, 229, 236, 237, 241
city of, 35, 46, 127, 237-238
Emir of, 39, 40
Court fool of, 38
learned families of, 100
old pagan customs of, 157
missionaries in, 153
Zinder, 239, 241
Zungeru, 148, 191, 195, 202
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