There are dozens to whom the description applies. I shall presently show part of an Assistant Resident’s functions in operation and an estimate can then be formed of what these men do in Britain’s name for the people placed in their charge. Every one with whom I came in contact was imbued with the desire to administer the principles of humanity and justice between man and man, or man and woman, and to do so in a common-sense spirit.
This preamble is given so that readers may not be unduly shocked at the introduction of cannibalism, especially at the fact that the diet is indulged in merrily in a British colony. Other customs are given precedence.
CHAPTER XXX
IN A PAGAN TOWN
Bukuru Residency—Bukuru town—Its ingenious defences—Traps for an attacking force—The blacksmith—Musical instruments—Pagan orchestras—A royal male Pavlova—The Court band—A King’s reward—Pagan homesteads—The sleeping apartment—Farming—Incentives to obtain money—Enhancing nature’s charms—Male and female decorations—Bareback and bitless horsemanship—Races—Care of horses—The hunt—Sign language.
At Bukuru is the post of an Assistant Resident, typical of several. Formerly no Hausa would dare to penetrate so far into the Pagan country or within a week’s march of this part. Now there is a Hausa market established within sight of the highway, for the convenience of caravans passing through.
About half-a-mile away is the Residency, a ramshackle mud dwelling not nearly as good as a farmer’s stable in England. Living in such places, out of sight and out of mind of the public at home, badly housed, these Residents are paid immeasurably less than the value of the service they render the nation. A few feet from the entrance, at the top of a thin flagstaff planted in the ground, a Union Jack flutters. It is the symbol of a power—accepted by faith rather than by sight—strong enough to enforce peace and to hold the scales evenly in disputes brought to its representative.
Two miles from the Residency is the nearest Pagan town, that of Bukuru. It is not situated, as some are, in the mountains or on a high hill. It spreads, roughly, six miles by two, on ground slightly above the level of the surrounding country. But the approach is impossible to traverse without a guide. Nearly a mile before the first batch of houses is reached you enter a narrow avenue of cactus. Not the form of plant seen in English public parks but strong trees clustered from the ground to the crown with thick, hard leaves each edged with a dozen or more prongs sharp enough to tear a man’s clothes and his flesh to ribbons. These cactus trees are planted so closely that, the branches interweaving, you cannot see between them. The top ones cross and intertwine, forming a tunnel 15 feet high.
It was a scheme of defence in the days when a swarm of Hausa horsemen might swoop on a Pagan town and overwhelm it. The cactus avenue is planned on the principle of a maze. It winds, twists, turns, has branching courses leading to blind alleys where the sides are too close to allow a horse to be turned: a perfect ambush. Other narrow ways take you back to places you have passed in coming inwards, the design having been to bring the front sections of a hostile column of mounted men, hurrying on, face-to-face with the middle or the rear sections of the force, who would also be impetuously pushing forward, anxious to be clear of the trap in as short a time as possible.