Never was a piece of arm-chair geography worked out more admirably. In its broad outlines it was perfectly correct. To M‘Queen it was as much a certainty as if he had actually explored and mapped it on the spot.
Imbued with this faith, he proceeded to point out the importance of the Niger to the commerce of England and the future of Africa. With Fernando Po and the Niger in the hands of his countrymen, he saw Britain mistress of the fate of the continent. Bussa was to be the inner key of the situation. “Therefore,” he says, “on this commanding spot let the British standard be firmly planted, and no power on earth could tear it up.... Firmly planted in Central Africa, the British flag would become the rallying point of all that is honourable, useful, beneficial, just, and good. Under the mighty shade thereof the nations would seek security, comfort, and repose. Allies Great Britain would find in abundance. They would flock to her settlement, if it had the power and the means to protect them. The resources of Africa, and the energies of Africa, under a wise and vigorous policy, may be made to subdue and control Africa. Let Britain only form such a settlement, and give it that countenance, support, and protection which the wisdom and energy of British councils can give, and which the power and resources of the British empire can so well maintain, and Central Africa to future ages will remain a grateful and obedient dependency of this empire. The latter will become the centre of all the wealth, and the focus of all the industry, of the former. Thus the Niger, like the Ganges, would acknowledge Great Britain as its protector, our king as its lord.... A city built there under the protecting wings of Great Britain, and extended, enriched, and embellished by the industry, skill, and spirit of her sons, would ere long become the capital of Africa. Fifty millions of people, yea, even a greater number, would be dependent on it.”
These are brave words, truly, about what after all was merely a “mental discovery,” and taken alone, they might only evoke a smile, if we did not know that they are those of a man of no ordinary genius and power of insight. Looking back seventy years after he wrote, we can see how truly prophetic he was in most that he wrote, and that he was no more the blatant patriot than the geographical dreamer. His genius for looking ahead was as great as for looking around. Take, for instance, his warning of the danger of a French advance from the Senegal to the Niger, and its far-reaching consequence, if carried out, to our commercial and political position in West Central Africa. He it was who foresaw nearly seventy years before its accomplishment the necessity of a Chartered Company to take full advantage of our (then prospective) position on the Niger, and the results that would ensue without such a method of developing the resources of that region. Of these matters, however, we shall treat in their proper place. Enough for the moment if we show how thoroughly M‘Queen had made himself master of the geographical problems then before the public, as well as of the political and commercial situation that was to follow the opening up of the Niger to European intercourse. Only now, after more than half a century of gross and irreparable mismanagement in West Africa, we are waking up to the wisdom of his views, and striving in some measure to carry them into effect.
[CHAPTER XXVI.]
THE TERMINATION OF THE NIGER.
Unhappily for the stay-at-home geographer, no matter how skilfully he may set forth the discoveries made in his study, his triumph can only come after they have been demonstrated by actual travel, and even then the credit that falls to his share is small. The case of M‘Queen is one in point. We have no evidence that his theory regarding the Niger’s termination made any special impression upon the general opinion of the time. Unfortunately for him, too, his views were published immediately after several disastrous attempts from the West Coast to settle the question he had so ably worked out, so that Government and people alike were disposed to fight shy of the fatal region.
Yet with every succeeding failure the attraction of the mysterious river seemed ever to become greater, and a stubborn determination was evinced to break through the deadly belt which hedged in the countries of the interior. Conquered and rebuffed in one direction, there was nothing for it but to try another, and once more the Arab caravan route from Tripoli to the Sudan was thought of. As has been elsewhere shown, attempts in this direction had already been made by other travellers, and all had alike failed. Of these Horneman alone had penetrated beyond the northern borderland of the desert, only, however, to disappear for ever. In every other case these expeditions had failed at the outset through fatal fevers and Oriental obstructiveness—what, then, had the traveller to expect, who, surmounting these initial dangers, found himself face to face with the terrors of the great Sahara, where nature in its fiercest aspects reigned supreme, and man was represented only by wild roving tribes savage as their environment.
Nevertheless men there were ready and eager to try this route, as had been others before them to brave the dangers of the West Coast.
