It is also the Northern Divisional Headquarters of the Niger Company, the division supervised by Mr W. H. Hibbert, and comprising 6 districts, with 30 trading stations and stores, reaching as far as Ilorin in one direction and Jemma and Loko in the other.
Loading or unloading the larger river boats is worth describing. Word goes round the native town when the operation is to take place and a great crowd of all sorts and conditions foregather to take a hand. There is no elaborate and intricate supervision to ensure that each labourer shall prove himself worthy of his wage. He is paid piecework in the most direct, precise, and simple manner. The honorarium is rendered at every load.
Suppose it is a case of loading fuel—wood—for a stern-wheeler. The corps of workers assemble where the material is stacked, are given baskets, which, being filled, they hoist on their heads, and half-run, half-walk, close on one another’s heels, in a long, winding line to the boat.
As they pass along a plank from the shore to the craft there stands on it a native clerk who hands to every person payment. Wages are high at Lokoja, compared with what they were when I was up at Jebba three years ago. At Lokoja, as in some parts of England, there is the cry of rise in the cost of living. Consequently a few cowries no longer suffice as an inducement for beach work. A journey with a load to or from the boat is rewarded by a tenth of a penny. Nickel coins of that denomination are sent from England for currency in Nigeria. The native name is nini, pronounced neenee. Tenth of a penny is the minimum payment. Do not conclude that these very casual labourers would be content with whatever you cared to offer. Nothing of the kind. The tenth is for a generally-agreed distance between the points of taking a load and discharging it. Should the points be wider apart, two, three, or even four tenths must be disbursed as each worker performs his, or her, task.
An amusing crowd it is that scampers along at this work: men, women, and children of all ages and sizes. The most complete freedom of contract obtains. Everybody is free to enter and head a basket, and anybody can give up when they please. In hurrying over the narrow plank to the boat, occasionally bearer and load will overbalance and topple into the river, at which the noise of shouting with which the work is carried on will be heightened by loud laughter, whilst the fallen warrior collects basket and contents from the running stream and completes the task of depositing his charge at its proper destination.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
LOKOJA—(continued)
A cosmopolitan town—A Baron Haussman—The Cantonment Magistrate—Some of his duties—Expenditure and economy—King Abigah—A plea for generosity—The hospitals—A black Bishop’s legacy—The missionary question—Critics and the converse.
The commercial aspect of Lokoja has occupied the main portion of the preceding chapter, but, of course, a large business centre necessarily attracts other adjuncts of life. The coloured population is 13,484, of whom 11,680 are natives of Nigeria and 1,804 come from Coast towns. The 72 Europeans are composed of 38 Government officials and 34 engaged in the stores and missionary work.
Lokoja is a cosmopolitan town, in an African sense. It is Lagos on a small scale. In it you can see the West African of every kind to be met along the Coast belt, from the educated type of the Coast and portly mammies of Sierra Leone to the Mohamedans of other countries.