CHAPTER IX
A GENTLEMAN ADVENTURER
The London and Kano Trading Company—The Captain intervenes—Army, Civil Service, Commerce—Discarding appearances—Contrast of mansions—The pleasure of business—“Traders” and others.
Although there is a law that no non-native of Nigeria may live permanently in Kano City, the London and Kano Trading Company has a large establishment there. That is because the firm took the step long before the present regulation was promulgated, or probably thought of.
The London and Kano Trading Company was started in 1903 by Mr Loder Donisthorpe and Mr White. Both were in the Northern Nigeria Government service, and they were so taken with the idea—and, I think I may add, with the prospect of making a fortune—that, not staying to finish their 12 months’ term of duty, they resigned and commenced the new concern. But though chances were plentiful enough, the handicaps to utilising them formed a serious drawback, so serious that, at least once, abandonment of the enterprise was contemplated, or, at all events, considered.
Within the last year two events occurred which placed the L. and K. T. C. in an entirely superior position. One was the completion of the railway, which, forming a junction at Minna, connects Kano with the port of Lagos and with Baro, thus linking up the river route. The second occurrence was the advent of Captain J. J. Brocklebank on the directorate of the L. and K. T. C. That event proved the turning-point in the career of the concern.
Yet, it took place quite by chance, almost accidentally. Having acquired an interest in the company, he came to Northern Nigeria—not for the first time—for a short visit of 4 months, intending to dabble in the work and have some big game shooting; but, captivated by the first, he threw in his lot with the company and now largely directs its operations, which have since proceeded at express speed and have become greatly enlarged.
No more interesting or romantic figure—certainly among the Europeans—is to be found within 100 miles of Kano. Educated at Eton and Cambridge, Captain Brocklebank commenced soldiering by going on active service in the South African war, as a subaltern of the 8th Imperial Yeomanry, from which he was gazetted in 1900 Second Lieutenant in the King’s Dragoon Guards and soon afterwards won the D.S.O. Seeing little chance of adventure with that regiment, he got seconded to serve with the Mounted Infantry of the Northern Nigeria Regiment, and in 1908 was promoted Captain in his own corps. The same year, at his request, he was transferred to the Political Branch of the Northern Nigeria Government, but in 1911 he resigned from that and from the Army, electing for leisure, travel and sport. The London and Kano Trading Company meeting him before he could formulate a scheme of jaunts, there he is. It is rumoured that he has a personal income which would enable him to pass life luxuriously and without effort. He evidently prefers to be in Kano.
He dresses with studied neglect. Sundays and week-days I have seen him in the same suit of clothes, which are not even of the style generally worn here in the bush country. They are made of tweed and are faded to the verge of shabbiness. The ends of the coat sleeves are usually covered by the turned-up cuffs of his shirt. Instead of riding boots, he wears low-cut shoes, like dancing pumps—of course, of dull leather. A first-rate horseman, he is never seen mounted; he goes hither and thither in a pair-horse buggy, the only horse-drawn vehicle in or about Kano. Colonials in hot climates have their hair cut close, but his would almost do for a Bohemian actor, musician, or artist. He is the only man I have seen for hundreds of miles who wears a beard that is more than stubble. Yet no one would mistake him for anything but what he is, a gentleman—gentleman from boyhood. Thinking of him, it strikes one as childish to painfully labour the point that the managers of the stores are merely “traders,” as distinct and distant from the very superior persons who are not. Technically correct, the term trader is understood in these parts to apply to natives who sit in open places or who are peddlers.
