French enterprise in Africa

by Hourst

A few moments later I arrived with my bag of crown-pieces. I had not, however, brought enough after all, for by some misunderstanding, no doubt, we really had to pay six pounds for each white man, and twenty-five shillings for each black, which mounted the sum-total up to 1800 francs. However, I was able to make up the difference at once all but two sous, I think, and those I sent by Digui.

No doubt Carrol foresaw all these mercenary dealings when we were at Geba, when he made such a fuss about paying Taburet for his attendance on the people who were ill at the station, and wanted to give me money for the miserable little musical-box which I had been so glad to leave with him as a token of my gratitude.

The Royal Niger Company had in fact treated our expedition as a party of traders, and I preferred that both for myself and for France. I do not therefore owe the members of that Company any more gratitude than I should the conductor of an omnibus in Paris when I have paid him my six sous.

The loading of the Ribago went on slowly, but at five o’clock we started; the pipers of Major Festing came down to the quay and played the Marseillaise, whilst the guns of the station fired a salute as, towed by the Ribago, we left for Assaba.

Now for a couple of words about the Royal Niger Company. I will say nothing of the treaties or of the constitutive acts which preceded its formation, for I have not got to draw up an indictment against it. I will confine myself to quoting what Naval Lieutenant Agoult said on the subject—“The Company is but the screen behind which England hides herself.”

To the great detriment of the shareholders, the Company tries to create an Empire, and in view of its acquisitions of territory, to make head against the revolts caused by its rapacity, it is obliged to maintain an army relatively large. This necessity causes a mischievous friction between the military and civilian officers in the service of the Queen, they and the trading agents sometimes carrying their animosity to each other so far as to come to blows.

Then again the officers are anything but well treated by the Company. Like the agents, they are taxed and taxed again. Heaven only knows what an arduous profession theirs is. Carrol was always on the road, and Festing, when we saw him, was suffering horribly from a liver complaint. He had just returned from a twenty days’ campaign against the villages in the bush on the left bank, and he was so tired he could not remain in the saddle. We were told of several officers having recently been killed by poisoned arrows, and of one who had died from eating poison in a village on the banks of the river.

Moreover, this armed force and all the courage and devotion of those who command it, fail to secure peace. Whilst we were on our voyage, the horsemen of Bidda had come down to pillage as far as the bank opposite Lokodja. It is only in the immediate neighbourhood of the stations that things are quiet. The steam-launches have to be constantly going up and down the arms of the river, especially in the delta, to keep the natives in awe with their riflemen and their machine-guns. It is rare for a boat to go down the river without being fired at. At Abo, lower down-stream, the people were astonished that we had been able to come so far without any fighting. It may have been the effect of the flag we carried, for the tricolour flag is still beloved and regretted in these parts for the sake of the memory of Commandant Mattei.

The Company does not hold the country beyond the banks of the river. Then, again, there are no means of communication between one place and another. Truly we French may be proud of our work in the French Sudan. We have done better than the English on the Upper Niger; our colonization is far superior to theirs. On the Lower Niger they have neither telegraph wires, for these go no further than Akassa and Brass, at the mouth of the river, no road at all to be compared with our line of revictualling posts, and of course, need we add? they have no railway!

It seems to me a fact that of all the Niger districts, the richest and the most favoured by Nature from every point of view are those we occupy in the French Sudan.