FISH, FLESH, AND FOWL
Only too well do we remember those days, fifteen years ago, when once on board the ship at Liverpool, the travellers said good-bye to European diet. How different the case now! Directly the ship casts anchor, coloured messenger boys, and more often the white men, come on with orders for beef and mutton, eggs and milk, chicken and sausages, even game and fruit. It is a great day when Elder Dempster’s boats steam into port, hurried invitations go out for dinner and luncheon parties, and once a month at least the pale-faced commercial agent or the anæmic government official is able to enjoy a meal or two which puts new life into his tired body.
Over and above the provisions for the passengers on the steamer, each ship will now carry for sale—beef, lamb, mutton and kidneys; pheasants and other game; eggs, sausages, fresh butter and sterilized milk; potatoes, carrots and onions; kippers, bloaters and salmon; grapes, pears and apples—a veritable combination of shops, butcher, dairy, greengrocer, fishmonger and fruiterer!
Usually each ship will carry for sale from 1000 to 2000 lbs. of beef, a couple of thousand eggs, three or four hundred pounds of butter, five hundred blocks of ice and three hundred pints of milk. Festive seasons, too, are not forgotten and Christmas boats carry a large stock of turkeys and geese.
Think for a moment what a blessing the monthly visit of a ship like this is to such foodless places as Boma and Matadi in the Congo, the island of Fernando Po, the isolated merchant houses of Rio del Rey, or the ports of Spanish Guinea;—the drawn and sickly faces of the men who come off for provisions tell their own tale. They can not only buy all they want, but at a reasonable price. The Belgian in the Congo buys beef cheaper than he can in Antwerp, i.e., 10d. a pound. Lamb and steak he can get at 1s. per pound. The Scotch engineer running his steamer up and down the Ogowé can get a whole box of Aberdeen haddies for 5s., or salmon at 2s. a pound. Ice can be purchased at 2s. 6d. a half-hundredweight block. Potatoes and onions at 9s. a case.
This enterprise of Sir Alfred Jones has already developed into the creation of cold storage companies at ports like Lagos, Calabar and Seccondee, and the firm of Elder Dempster has now built chambers on some of their ships capable of carrying twenty tons of European provisions every week to Seccondee alone. The health of West Africa, bad though it is, has greatly improved within recent years, and though, of course, the medical profession has so largely contributed to the change, the house-builder, the merchant and the ship-owner have loyally co-operated in an endeavour to lighten the burden of the white man in West Africa.
III
GOVERNMENTS AND COMMERCE
Nothing in West Africa is more striking than the attitude adopted by the several colonizing Powers towards commerce. At present, Germany is easily in the front rank; her policy towards business men is the most enlightened of any Power, and it is therefore to be the more regretted that her treatment of the natives is not equally far-sighted. Were it so, all students of African questions could view with equanimity her gradual absorption of the whole of Equatorial Africa.
The British merchant knows with absolute certainty that he may rely on receiving a warm welcome and every assistance in German colonies. He knows, too, that none will be given a preference before him. He knows that if “public good”—the stick which governors so frequently wield—demands the removal of his factory, or that a road must be driven through his ground, the German Government will not quibble over doubtful legal points, but will look at the question on broad lines of common-sense policy.