After Basingstoke’s great effort, several travellers appeared in succession in the M’Korio valley, and completed his work. Each entered after incredible exertions through the Kuru gorge; each descended the river to its mouth, bearing his life in his hands, each survived, and each published a book upon his return to England. Bayley Pasha in 1876, the indomitable Higgs in the same year, poor Lord Charles Hampton in 1878-79, and “Hell or Glory” Powell, in 1880, achieved the exploration of the country. These, together with a few rather noisy continental claimants to similar honours, were the pioneers. Sir Henry Jeorz signed the first treaty with the Noyo of Naya in 1882, thereby overriding the previous arrangement which that sovereign had signed with some German adventurer. Next year a similar footing was obtained in the town of Saràka and the surrounding district by the genius of Captain Ronald, who deposed and exiled the Alemami, forbade polygamy, put down the slave trade with a rigorous hand, publicly burned the Sacred Umbrella, and was on the point of executing a Belgian botanist, when news of his exploits reached England, and he was suddenly recalled by the Secretary of State for War, a personal friend who had long mourned him as dead.
Ronald was given an excellent post, and has since enjoyed all that public repute and a wealthy marriage can afford, but the error of his recall was the beginning of a series of official blunders, which all but forfeited the fruit of so much private heroism.
CAPTAIN RONALD
(BY THE KIND PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR AND PUBLISHER OF “RULERS OF MEN”)
So long as Mr Gladstone continued by his marvellous personal influence to concentrate English opinion upon parochial matters, the valley of the M’Korio remained upon the map as British territory; it was taken by our neighbours and rivals to be in some vague way attached to the British Empire, the Portuguese claim to the settlement at the mouth of the river was tamely submitted to arbitration, upheld, and finally bought out for the monstrous sum of eighty-three thousand seven hundred and forty-six pounds. A few stations scattered along the eleven hundred miles of the stream, each occupied by a mere handful of troops—these and the missionary enterprise peculiar to our race alone maintained the prestige of Great Britain.
With the great national movement of 1886, this dangerous and unworthy state of affairs came to an end. A Government which comprehended the meaning of the word Imperial proceeded to the partition of Africa. So far as the M’Korio was concerned, that partition was marked by a majestic simplicity. The whole of the right bank was recognised as falling within the sphere of influence of the French, with whose acknowledged possessions in Africa these districts ultimately merged. The whole of the left bank, right up-country as far as the Cameroons, was similarly adjudged to Germany. We retained for our portion no useless shadowy sovereignty over the immense spaces of the interior, but the solid and tangible possession of the Delta. The future may yet show that we there established our power over one of the most valuable territories of the earth.
This Delta has a frontage upon the sea of some 145 miles. It is contained between two main branches of the river, which meet at a distance of about ninety miles from the coast; but, as is nearly always the case in such formations, the M’Korio also finds its way to the ocean by a very great number of smaller channels.
A “MORO-KANU,” OR MEMBER OF THE UPPER CLASS OF THE YABA. THIS CLASS POSSESSES MOST OF THE LAND, AND OBTAINS ALL THE POLITICAL DIRECTION OF THE DELTA. INDEED IT IS FROM THEIR DOMINATION OF A CLOSELY ARISTOCRATIC POLICY THAT THE PRINCIPAL HOPES OF AN IMPERIAL EDUCATION OF THAT PROVINCE DEPEND
By no means the whole of this province is permanently under water. There are several considerable islands of firm earth, sufficient to afford sustenance for a sparse but combative population which is split up into some five or six distinct tribes, but is known to the surrounding natives under the collective name of the Yaba. The reduction of these our fellow-citizens, “half devil and half child,” would probably have proved too heavy a task for any troops save those who had been trained in our own magnificent and permanent school of colonial warfare. As it was, a short campaign sufficed to establish that Pax which the commander in his despatches cleverly termed Britannica. Before the month of December 1887, the army was able to re-embark upon the Princess Mary; its task was accomplished.