Lastly, the native is not without an important bearing on the future of our East African colony. As an ethnographer, I am in a better position to form an opinion about him than with respect to other questions, in which the outsider like myself has only common sense to guide him. The black man is pronounced by some, “an untrained child;” by others, “utterly depraved and incurably lazy.” There is yet a third party who are inclined to leave him at least one or two small virtues, but these are steadily shouted down. It is true that the native population of the Coast towns have a horror of any serious work, and look down on it as a lowering of themselves; but I think we may be permitted to entertain a better opinion as to the great mass of the people in German East Africa. The most numerous tribe in the whole colony are the Wanyamwezi, who are estimated at about four million souls, and occupy the whole central area east of the Great Rift Valley. No one has yet ventured to doubt their industry or their capacity for progress; they are excellent agriculturists, and at the same time they were, for a whole century, the mainstay of the caravan trade between the coast and the heart of the continent. Before long this traffic must in the nature of things cease, but we have no right to suppose that the Wanyamwezi will therefore become superfluous. A glance over the reports of the Uganda Railway will show us how fortunate we are in possessing such an element in the social structure as this vigorous tribe. Let us then be wise enough to encourage and develop this economic force for the native’s own benefit, and above all to get the full advantage of it ourselves. What is true of the Wanyamwezi is also true of many other tribes. Even now, I cannot forget the impression made on me by the high average of the farming which I saw among my friends in the Rovuma Valley. People who, however often they have been displaced, still cling so firmly to the soil, must certainly have great potentialities for good, or all the teachings of racial psychology and history are falsified. This unexpectedly high stage of culture can only be explained by an evolution extending over a period of incalculable length. There is nothing to disprove the great antiquity of agriculture among the Bantu; they are conservative, as their continent is conservative; the few alien elements still in the economic stage of the collector and hunter—the Bushmen in the most arid parts of the south, and the Pygmies in the most inaccessible forests of Central and West Africa—must have been crowded out by them many centuries ago.

The farming of our natives is done entirely with the hoe—that implement-of-all-work, with the heavy transverse blade which serves alike for breaking up and cleaning the ground, for sowing the crops, and, to a certain extent, for reaping them. We are too much inclined to think of this mode of cultivation as something primitive and inferior, and, in fact, in so far as it dispenses with domestic animals, whether for work or for the supply of manure, it is really very far behindhand. But we must also take into account that some parts of our colonies are infested with the tsetse-fly, and that the system of cultivating narrow strips of ground entirely with the hoe really marks a very high stage of farming. The best proof of this is the retention of the narrow bed in our gardens, where the cultivation can scarcely be said to be of a more elementary description than that of our fields. It is significant, too, that for the more intensive forms of culture when carried on in the open fields, e.g., flower-growing, as near Erfurt, Quedlinburg, Haarlem, etc., and market-gardening as in the neighbourhood of Brunswick, Hanover, Mainz, and other large towns, the long, narrow bed is most in favour. Moreover, it is difficult to see how the native could cope with the weeds—the principal danger to his crops—were it not that his narrow beds are easily reached from all sides.

The native mode of agriculture, therefore, need not be interfered with: it has been tested and found excellent.

Another question is, how shall we, on this basis, make our black fellow-subjects useful to ourselves? In my opinion, there are two ways, as to both of which the pros and cons are about equal. Both have been in operation for some time, so that we have a standard to guide us in forecasting the ultimate development of the whole colony. In the one, the native is not encouraged to advance in his own home and on his own holding, but is trained as a labourer on the plantation of a European master—plantations being laid out wherever suitable soil and tolerable climate promise a good return for outlay. The other method has the progress of the native himself in view, and aims at increasing his economic productivity by multiplying and improving the crops grown by him on his own account, teaching him new wants and at the same time increasing his purchasing power. In this way it is hoped that he will exchange his exports for ours.

The future must show whether the German people will decide for one of these ways to the exclusion of the other, or whether, as heretofore, both will be retained. For the mother country their value is about equal and depends on the degree of activity shown in colonial affairs as a whole. But the second is decidedly to the advantage of the native himself. As a plantation labourer he is and remains a mshenzi; as a peasant proprietor he is able to advance. At the same time we must not forget that our colonies were founded in the expectation of providing homes for our surplus population, and that if the native is to claim the most fertile parts of his own country for himself, nothing can come of that ver sacrum. It also depends on the general direction of our policy whether the numerical increase and physical improvement of the native are to our interest or not. Some primitive peoples have almost or entirely disappeared under the influence of civilization; the Tasmanians belong to history; the Maoris of New Zealand and the Kanakas of Hawaii are rapidly diminishing, and we have lately heard of the last Vedda in Ceylon. The negro race does not belong to these candidates for extinction; on the contrary, wherever it has come in contact with the white, it has grown stronger in every respect; there is therefore no fear of its dying out. But shall we go further and, by artificial selection, deliberately raise their coefficient of multiplication? Certainly we ought to do so, for a numerous resident population is under all circumstances a benefit to us. It solves the labour problem for the planter, and, on the other hand, the European manufacturer and merchant will, of course, prefer a large number of customers to a small one. How is this improvement to be initiated? I have nothing further to add to the remarks which, à propos of the various diseases and other scourges of this continent, occur in the preceding pages.

In Europe some people are stupid, others of moderate capacity, and yet others decidedly clever. The huge lip-ornaments of the Makonde and Makua women sometimes produce the impression of a simian type of face, and small boys occasionally suggest by their features a not remote kinship with the missing link, but this exhausts the list of excuses I could have alleged for looking down from a superior height on the people in question. In all the months spent among the natives of the Rovuma Valley, I never discovered any reason why we should, as we are so fond of doing, associate the idea of absurdity with the African. On the contrary, the behaviour, not only of the elders, but of the liveliest of the young people in their intercourse with Knudsen and myself, was characterized by a quiet dignity which might well have served as an example to many a European of similar social position. My personal experiences will not allow me to believe in the dogma of the negro’s incapacity for development. It cannot be denied that he has achieved a certain intellectual progress, even in North America, though the obstacles there are greater than the facilities. Why, therefore, should he not rise, as soon as the opportunity is offered to him in such a way that he can take advantage of it? Only we must not expect this advance to take place overnight, any more than we can expect a rapidity of economic progress at variance with every law of historical probability.

It is now quite dark; the boat must have changed her course, for the gale no longer meets us in front, but comes from the port side, so that no doubt we are approaching Crete. To-morrow, or the day after, we shall pass the coast of Greece. I must confess that I am looking forward to a sight of this country, though I do not regard its classic age with the same unbounded and uncritical enthusiasm as many of our countrymen, to whom the ancient Greek is the embodiment of all historical and cultural virtues. One thing only even the blackest envy cannot deny to the Hellenes of old—a courage in colonial enterprise which we should do well to imitate both now and in the future.

This future is still shrouded in mystery. Will our East African colony become a second India? I do not doubt for a moment that it will, and my mind’s eye sees the whole country traversed by railway lines. One of these follows the old caravan road from the coast to Tanganyika. The iron horse has superseded the old carrier-transport, and the clattering train now bears the carriers themselves, as well as bulky goods which could never have been put on the market under the old system. One line runs to the Victoria Nyanza and another to distant Nyasa; we are able to link up with the British network of railways in South Africa, with the communications of the Congo State, with the Nile Valley. Thirty years ago Stanley’s march to the Lake Region and his boat-voyage down the Congo were epoch-making achievements. We of to-day may perhaps live to make the trip by train de luxe from the Cape to Cairo, and from Dar es Salam to Kamerun.

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