Nigeria

by E. D. Morel

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.

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.