NATIVES DRAWING WATER AT BABAN TUBKI WELLS, ZINDER.
AMONG THE ROCKS OF ZINDER.
On the high ground just outside the western walls of Zinder there has sprung up, since the date of French occupation in 1900, an extensive European cantonment which is altogether modern and in strange contrast to the old town, to which it is distinctly foreign. Herein are the headquarters of the military administration of the Territoire Militaire du Niger. Here, laid out on broad lines, there are spacious buildings of creditable French colonial design—long flat-roofed, one-story bungalows in type, with pleasant balustrades that shelter cool verandas. The thick walls of the buildings are constructed by natives, with bricks which are baked with clay mud, obtained, strangely enough, by breaking into the ancient wall fortifications of Zinder, and kneaded, with the addition of fibrous straw, and baked or dried in the blazing sun. The domestic quarters or the administrative offices within the bungalows are delightfully cool, and it is pleasant indeed to have occasion to go inside out of reach of the hot sun of day which strikes down perpetually and without mercy on the scorched, expressionless sand of bare streets and compounds. (In the month of February the thermometer registers about 80° Fahr. in the shade at 8 a.m., and about 100° Fahr. at noon, although the hottest season is not reached until June and July.) The cantonment, which might almost be called a town within itself, is unique in the territory, there being nothing but outlying forts to compare with it; indeed, if we go outside it, not even the segregation at Kano, which contains about an equal number of Europeans, can compare, in my opinion, with the general planning and architectural appearance of Zinder. Which may be due to the fact that Kano is principally a township of trading stores, with domestic quarters overhead, whereas at Zinder there is not a shop in the place, and all the buildings are laid out on a well-conceived plan to accommodate the military administration, with due consideration to comfort and their exalted rank.
For the white traveller to come unawares upon the imposing buildings of Zinder, in such isolated surroundings, is naturally a great surprise, and a totally unexpected pleasure; and to the natives who arrive from the distant bush, or stop in the passing of their caravans, they must be a constant source of wonder.
In Zinder or in Kano, or, in fact, anywhere south of Aïr, you never hear “Zinder” given its official name, for, without exception, it is spoken of among the Hausa people under the designation of “Damagarim.” Their explanation is that the name “Zinder” is not of Hausa origin, but is an old Arabic or Tamāshack name belonging to ancient rulers of northern race whose tribes have long ago been driven back, though the name still remains in use among the Semitic races in Aïr and other distant places on the old caravan routes to Tripoli and Algeria.
Zinder came under French rule in 1900.
It was in 1898 that large military missions were organised with the purpose of entering and occupying the country now known as the Territoire Militaire du Niger in the Western Sudan. The project was supported by a treaty between Britain and France which had been agreed on and signed in 1890—eight years before the undertaking was actually set afoot.
There was, in all, three separate missions, which started from Algeria, from the Niger river, and the Congo of French Equatorial Africa; and the scheme was that all would converge on Lake Chad, which was to be the rendezvous should each column meet with success. An object ultimately attained—and the Territoire Militaire was created in 1900, under the jurisdiction of a commandant, with headquarters established at Zinder. In 1901 a second mission was organised to stabilise the position, and this mission was a powerful one in strength of arms, so that an imposing and awesome impression should be made on the minds of any disaffected native inhabitants, should such be encountered. During that year complete occupation of the Damagarim Region was peacefully carried out.
Below are statistics kindly furnished by the commandant, in September, 1920, of the native population in the region known as Damagarim, of which Zinder is the capital:—