Affairs of West Africa

The Rabinek Case

(See Chapter xxxii.)

On October 27th, Sir Charles Dilke, having asked the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs if he could say whether, in the Rabinek case, the prisoner was taken by the Congolese authorities from a British ship in British waters, and, if so, what course his Majesty’s Government proposed to adopt, Lord Cranborne, in a printed answer, said: “It is at present uncertain whether Mr. Rabinek was actually on board a British vessel when arrested, or whether the ship was at the time in British waters. Inquiries are, however, being made, and on receipt of definite information his Majesty’s Government will be in a position to consider what action should be taken in the matter.”

Since the above question by Sir Charles Dilke, the doubt as to the actual place of Mr. Rabinek’s arrest has been removed. The Congo State authorities can no longer evade the point. Here is a copy of the Procès-verbal d’arrestation, showing conclusively that Mr. Rabinek was arrested on board a British vessel.

Procès-verbal d’arrestation.

Le soussigné, Saroléa, Louis, Sous-Lieutenant de la Force Publique, commandant la colonne mobile du Tanganyka, stationnée à Mpueto, officier de police judiciaire, a procédé le 15 Mai 1901, à 3 heures de l’après-midi, à l’arrestation du sieur Rabinek en exécution du mandat d’arrêt délivré le 17 Décembre, 1900, à charge du dit Rabinek par le tribunal territorial d’Albertville. Le prénommé se trouvait à bord du steamer anglais “Scotia,” ancré dans le port de Mpueto. Le Sieur Rabinek a été remis à M. Chargois ff du représentant du Comité Spécial du Katanga à Mpueto.

Fait à Mpueto, le 15 Mai 1901.

(L.S.) Lieutenant Commandant la
Colonne mobile du Tanganyka.

(Sig.) Saroléa.

The British Government has now a copy of the above.

Footnotes

1 Journal of the African Society, October 1901.

2 Among the principal exceptions may be mentioned gum arabic from Senegal, pepper, spices, &c., from the Guinea Coast.

3 The totals here given do not, of course, include foreign and Colonial merchandise shipped to British West Africa from British ports.

4 The total volume of trade—British and foreign and coastwise—in each of the West African Colonies in the five years 1896-1900, including specie, has been as follows:

Gambia	£1,797,916
Sierra Leone	4,646,503
Gold Coast	10,393,850
Lagos	8,853,461
Niger Coast Protectorate (and for 1900, “Nigeria”)	8,183,288
Gross total	£42,728,479

The trade of the former territories of the Niger Company, from 1896 to 1899 inclusive, is not reckoned in this total, no public figures being available.

5 The totals given are, of course, exclusive of foreign and Colonial merchandise shipped to these foreign possessions from British ports.

6 Due to exceptional imports of coal and telegraph apparatus.

7 German imports, like British imports, are largely for re-exportation to other European and American ports.

8 The chief town in Borgu on which the Lugard and Decœur expeditions were directing their efforts.

9 Journal of the African Society, January 1902.

10 This document is published in extenso in the annual report of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce for 1901.

11 The Foreign Office lost us the Cameroons, the French Congo littoral, Futa-Jallon, and heaven knows what besides. In doing so it showed itself the indifferent servant of an indifferent public.

12 See, more particularly, Appendices and the chapter on the Finances of Nigeria.

13 “By the end of April 1900,” says the report for Southern Nigeria for 1900, “twenty proclamations were passed.” I should be afraid to say how many have been passed since.

14 The activity of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine has been phenomenal, and the useful work performed by it is internationally recognised. To the splendid enterprise of Sir Alfred Jones, its initiator and President, is due the astonishingly strong financial position which the School has attained—entirely the outcome of private benevolence.

15 In the remarkable speech he made at the Lagos Literary Institute—the most able and statesmanlike oration ever delivered by a British official in West Africa—Sir William MacGregor said in reference to the extension of the Lagos Railway: “It would require probably not much greater expenditure than would a number of military campaigns, it would save many valuable lives to open up the country in that way, and it would leave a permanent valuable asset. In this the locomotive would be preferable to the Maxim.”

16 That admirable German Institution, the Kolonial Wirtschaftliches Komitee (Agricultural Committee) might also be imitated with advantage by our Government. Attached to the German Colonial Society, the Agricultural Committee devotes its exclusive attention to a study of the economic resources of the German possessions, giving special notice to cocoa, rubber, gutta-percha, cotton, &c. Experts have been despatched by the Committee to the South Seas to study gutta-percha, to the States for cotton, to Central and South America for cocoa, &c. The Committee is really composed of a trained body of agricultural and botanical specialists working in the joint interests of the Government and the merchants.

17 M. Empain has lately been granted by King Leopold a huge concession in the Aruwimi region of the Congo State in connection with the promotion of a railway to the Great Lakes.

18 The London Chamber being mainly—although not exclusively—concerned with Gold Coast trade and mining developments.

19 It was entirely owing to the assistance of the African Association’s agents that the people of the Niger Delta were induced to accept British protection and consular jurisdiction. By the merchants’ good offices, Consuls Johnston and Hewett were enabled to ascend the rivers to places where they would not have dared to enter unaccompanied by representatives of the merchants.

20 Chairman of the African Section.

21 Report of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, 1900.

22 Messrs. Shelford’s estimate is £7000 per mile. But this cannot be reconciled with the amount expended. It leaves out of account the cost of bridges between Lagos Island and the mainland, which are part and parcel of the railway scheme. In March of this year the Colony had already expended its loan of £1,053,700, which works out at £8430 per mile. But although the railway has reached its present terminus it is not yet properly finished. Speaking in March, Sir W. MacGregor foreshadowed a further expenditure of £60,000, and added, “the probability is, however, that this will not be sufficient.” On the same occasion the Governor, reviewing the state of the Colony, said that one of the two “principal causes of anxiety” was “the difficulty experienced in getting the railway into working order.”

23 French Guinea borrowed £480,000 at the rate of 4.10 per cent. and 4 per cent. respectively.

24 14s. 8d. per head of the whole population of the territory.

25 Another incident of the kind is referred to by Sir W. MacGregor in one of his speeches before the Legislative Council. Plans were sent home for a steam-hopper or tramway to remove refuse. The plans were rejected by the “consulting engineers.” The Governor sarcastically remarked: “It is doubtful that any remedy that would cost less than £100,000 will ever be approved by the engineers.”

26 The same belief was entertained, curiously enough, by the inhabitants of the Niger Basin itself even in Clapperton’s day, as witness Sultan Bello’s map, drawn for Clapperton at the latter’s request, referred to farther on.

27 Lyon subsequently gained Timbuctoo from Murzuk, being the second European to visit the mysterious city. It has always remained an open question whether Horneman did not actually cross the Desert and reach the Chad. Denham, indeed, believed that he did so, but no trace of the unfortunate German has ever been discovered from the time he left Murzuk, nearly a quarter of a century before Denham arrived there himself.

28 Caffre—i.e. unbeliever.

29 For instance, the Bahr-el-Ghazal, Bahr-el-Asrek, Bahr-el-Abiad, &c., all rivers.

30 Some authors consider the Hausas to be a branch of the Mandingo race. According to this theory, the Mandingoes are the parent stock, and the Hausas, Songhays, Bambarras, &c., are all offshoots of the same great family. Although there would appear to be a certain basis of probability—especially as regards the Bambarras—in the plea of a common Mandingo origin, our historical and ethnological knowledge of the different races of West Africa, which is still in the embryonic stage, precludes anything in the nature of a positive assertion.

31 Subsequent to the final overthrow of the Berbers, under Kuseila, by the Arabs in 688 A.D.

32 “Historical Account of the Kingdom of Tek-roor.” By Sultan Mohammed Bello of Hoosa. Denham & Clapperton. Vol. ii., Appendix xiii.

33 “Hausaland.” By the Rev. Charles Robinson. P. 179.

34 The Hausa bokoy, or seven States, as distinct from the Banza bokoy or Bastard States, representing the seven other provinces where the Hausa language had partly spread.

35 “A Mission to Central Africa.” By James Richardson. 1850-51.

36 “L’Annamite mère des langues.” Le Colonel Frey. 1892.

37 Lieutenant-Colonel Monteil’s estimate, 1891.

38 For hours you may wander about noting industrial scenes like these, showing to what a length their advance in civilisation has increased the wants of the people, and produced a necessary division of labour into weavers, dyers, blacksmiths, brass-workers, saddle-makers, tailors, builders, horse-boys, agricultural labourers, domestic servants, shoe-makers, shopkeepers, traders, and others.—Joseph Thompson, in Good Words, 1886.

39 Leo Africanus tells us that Gober “had a good trade and considerable industry, especially in leather-work” (beginning of sixteenth century).

40 Since the above was written, Mr. Consul Jago’s report (No. 578) on the “Trade and economic state of the vilayet of Tripoli during the past forty years” has been published by the Foreign Office. It is a most interesting document. The Consul gives a table of the value of Tripoli’s trade with the Central Sudan States (Sokoto, Bornu, Wadai) for the period 1862-1901 as follows: 1862-71, £318,000; 1872-81, £1,846,300; 1882-91, £1,283,000; 1892-1901, £1,141,700; annual average, £114,725.

41 Consul Jago appears to favour this view. I venture to suggest that the paragraphs (pp. 7 and 8) in which he refers to the point are open to criticism. Take, for instance, the cost of transport. Notwithstanding that, at first sight, the assertion may appear strange, I believe that, if any one cares to take the trouble to work out the cost of transport of a ton of European merchandise from London to Kuka (1) viâ Tripoli and by caravan across the desert, (2) viâ Burutu, the Niger and overland, the former route will be found the cheaper of the two. Things do not always appear to be what they are in Africa. If France can come to a working understanding with the Senussis, the caravan trade will revive.

42 According to Lieutenant-Colonel Pilcher, who commanded the West African Frontier Force in 1898, the Hausa is more quarrelsome than the Yoruba or Nupe, gets into trouble more often, and is not so quick at picking up drill or musketry (Colonial Office Report, No. 260, West African Frontier Force, June 1899). Other officers eulogise the Hausas, and among military men they are, I think, believed to be superior fighters to either the West Indian or Mendi Negro, while about equalling the Yoruba. The Negro seems to fight more fiercely and recklessly when he has Islam to fall back upon.

43 “Géographie Universelle,” livre xii. p. 587. 1887.

44 “The Colonisation of Africa,” p. 282. 1899.

45 “Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa.”

46 “The Language of Bornu.”

47 “Magana Hausa.” By J. F. Schön, D.D., F.R.G.S.

48 “Hausaland; or, Fifteen Hundred Miles through the Central Sudan.” 1897.

49 “Specimens of Hausa Literature.” “A Hausa Grammar.” “A Hausa-English Dictionary.” “The Gospel of St. John in Hausa.”

50 Full details are supplied in Canon Robinson’s book.

51 Apart from the question whether the Hausas can claim to have “attempted the production of a literature” any more than the Fulani or Kanuri, there remains the fact—which goes to confute Canon Robinson’s somewhat sweeping generalisation—that the language of the Tuareg—the Tamashek—has been reduced to literature in Tamashek characters, and that both sexes among the Tuareg are regularly instructed therein.

52 “Kanuri Proverbs and Kanuri-English Vocabulary.” By the Rev. S. N. Koelle. On page 9 of the introduction to his book, Koelle speaks of the system of orthography followed by him as that of Professor Lepsius, of Berlin, in the pamphlet entitled “Standard Alphabet for Reducing Unwritten Languages and Foreign Graphic Systems to a Uniform Orthography in European Letters.”

53 Baikie gives nine Hausa dialects, viz.: “Katshena, the purest and best; (2) Kano; (3) Gober; (4) Daure; (5) Zamfara; (6) Zuzu; (7) Biranta Goboz; (8) Kabi; (9) Shira, or Shura.”—“Narrative of an Exploring Voyage up the Rivers Kwora and Binue.” By William Balfour Baikie. 1856.

54 It is found in French Guinea, north of Sierra Leone, but is not there the staple product, rubber taking its place.

55 Southern Nigeria, or rather the Niger Delta, is commonly known as “the rivers.”

56 The figures for 1900 include the whole of Nigeria—that is, the former Niger Company’s territories in the Lower Niger, and the Niger Coast Protectorate, now incorporated into Southern Nigeria.

57 Idem.

58 Germany has a protective tax on kernel or other foreign crushed oil, which enables her to keep the home market to herself, and she has made a profitable use of the cake for feeding cattle, whilst our farmers—largely, I understand, through the operation of the tenant-right conditions of tenure, or perhaps through mere prejudice—refuse to use it to any extent.

59 In Senegal and the Gambia the ground-nut industry, which is also essentially a native industry, takes its place, the number of palm-trees in those possessions being very scanty—not worth mentioning, in fact.

60 It is also used for lubricating mixtures for the axles of railway carriages.

61 Giving out trust is not invariably confined to the European. Native chiefs have been known to give trust to Europeans up to 1000 cases of palm-oil, in days, too, when palm-oil was worth £15 per puncheon. This would represent a credit of £15,000.

62 In point of fact, palm-oil from the Congo district is the richest in stearine.

63 The first West African kernels were imported in 1860 by Mr. A. Mackenzie Smith and the late Mr. Charles Lane, of Liverpool. The Old Calabar district led the way in Southern Nigeria. The trade was begun there in a small way in 1864. Benin was the next place in Southern Nigeria to follow suit, and by 1867 the trade was fairly large. By 1880 the trade had spread to the other rivers, New Calabar, Bonny, Brass, and Opobo.

64 The average crushing of the African Oil Mills is, I believe, about 600 tons weekly.

65 The exception is the machine erected at the Brass River in 1877 (by the Count de Cardi, I believe) and used to this day by the firm which has the principal trade of this district. It can produce, I believe, forty or fifty bags of clean kernels per day of ten hours. It would require 600 or 700 pairs of hands to give this result in the same time.

66 I am given to understand that efforts to use hand-crushing machines are being made by a merchant firm in French Guinea.

67 An interesting account of this most valuable experiment is given by M. Pierre Mille in the Journal of the African Society for October 1901.

68 Various types of hand-ploughs are now being experimented with in Senegal for the purpose of quickening production.—See Journal d’Agriculture Tropicale, September 1901.

69 Many people, on the other hand, will consider the somewhat elaborate judicial machinery set up in Northern Nigeria as distinctly premature. The administration of English law in West African Protectorates (see p. 16, Northern Nigeria Report), even when modified by native law and custom, is a feature of the Crown Colony system which has little to recommend it. Dr. Ballay’s plan in French Guinea was infinitely preferable. In all matters affecting the relations of natives with natives Ballay insisted that native law should be the basis. He declined to introduce all the technicalities of European law among a people whose own laws are founded upon just principles, and, given security in their application, work effectively and well.

70 August 1, 1891. It was first called Consular Jurisdiction.

71 Sir Ralph Moor has since declared that Southern Nigeria is in “a very sound financial position.” The test of sound finance must be different in West Africa from any other part of the world.

72 Colonial Office Report, No. 315.

73 In that year Southern Nigeria spent £30,196 on military expenses and £8236 only on the “Aborigines” department. Under “Political and Administrative” expenses, £20,327 was absorbed; under “Marine Department,” £32,531; £24,654 only was spared for public works, but “Prisons” necessitated £7200, against £1171 under “Botanical” and £1147 under “Sanitary”!

74 In 1890 the value of exports from the Delta was estimated at over £1,300,000.

75 The Nupe campaign was undertaken after great provocation, and is understood to have been carried out with the approval, tacit or avowed, of the Emir of Sokoto, who had reason to complain of the Emir of Nupe’s conduct.

76 Similarly Nupe refused to have anything to do with Herr von Puttkamer in 1889 without consulting the Company, although the German (or his interpreter) passed himself off as the “Queen of England’s messenger.”

77 Northern Nigeria.

78 “The Foundation of British East Africa.”

79 Colonial Report, No. 346, page 11, par. 2.

80 Lord John Russell’s Instructions to Captain Henry Dundas Trotter, Commander William Allen, Commander Bird Allen, and William Cook, Esquire, Commissioners for making and concluding agreements with the Chief Rulers of the Western Coast of Africa for the suppression of the traffic in slaves and the establishment of a lawful commerce, 1840.

81 The absence of any wish to “act otherwise” on the part of the native is invariably assumed in Europe, and but too often by Europeans in Africa. In this connection the following passage from Clapperton (when travelling in Nigeria) is worth noting: “It was with feelings of the highest satisfaction that I listened to some of the most respectable of the merchants, when they declared that; were any other system of trading adopted, they would gladly embrace it in preference to dealing in slaves.”

82 Archibald Constable & Co. 1898.

83 Not to be confounded with the King of Benin who massacred Consul-General Phillips.

84 Referring to domestic slavery in the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast, the late Lieut.-Colonel Northcott, C.B., whose death was a sad blow to the Empire and to West Africa particularly, in his report on those territories (Report on the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast—published by the Intelligence Division of the War Office in 1899), says: “The every-day life of slaves differs in no respect from that of the free men. Ground is allotted to them, on which they are free to work for their own benefit, the rule generally being that they may take two days out of every five for work on their own account. With the accumulated results of this labour they are at liberty to purchase their freedom. The price demanded is not excessive, and ranges from £2 to £5, according to locality; but so lightly does the yoke of slavery bear that only a comparatively small proportion seek their emancipation by this means. Slaves may marry, and are encouraged to do so, the children becoming the property of the master. The apparent hardship of liability to sale is in reality not oppressive. The march to the new owner’s place of abode is free from any suggestion of cruelty or force; the slave partakes of his master’s food and shares his lodging, and he is certain of kind treatment on arriving at his destination.”

85 This is pidgeon-English, the Hausa for ivory tusk (i.e. piece of ivory) being hakorin, or hauwin giwa.

86 Named in honour of Park, who is supposed to be the first European to have noticed it.

87 And Lagos again since the opening of the railway.

88 Up to the present, however, shipments of this prepared latex have met with scant success.

89 In the “Report of the Sierra Leone Company” (London: James Phillips, printer, 1794) the following passage occurs, which most probably refers to the Pendatesma butyracæ. “Butter and tallow tree. This is common in low lands about Freetown; it abounds with a juice resembling gambodge in taint and durability, which exudes after the least laceration, and becomes more coagulated, viscous, and of a darker colour. The wood of this tree is firm, and seems adapted to various economical purposes. The fruit is nearly oval, about twice the size of a man’s fist; the rind is thick, pulpy, and of a pleasant acid; in the inside are found from five to nine seeds of the size of the walnut, containing an oleaginous matter, extracted by the natives and used with their rice and other food.” A gentleman of my acquaintance who knows this tree, tells me he has seen it growing in Sierra Leone, so that there seems no reason why experiments similar to those undertaken in French Guinea should not be made in our colony, which adjoins that French possession.

90 Known as “piassava” in the trade. Large quantities are imported from Liberia. It is used in brush-making.

91 Benni seeds crushed yield a fine edible oil.

92 On the right bank of the Binue: in the Mitchi or (Munshi) country.

93 Stone potash used to be a monopoly of the Igarras, who sold it to the down-river tribes, but the Niger Company has taken the monopoly from the Igarras of late years and disposes of it at Lagos, realising, it is said, considerable profit—from 2 to 300 per cent.

94 He will sometimes cut the vine down and chop it into pieces of about one foot in length the more readily to extract the sap.

95 Or even 20 per cent.

96 There are many other ways of preparing rubber: this is one of them.

97 “A Short Account of the Invasion of Hausa by the Phulas.” By Bashima, a Hausa-Fulani, in the “Magana Hausa” (J. F. Schön. 1815).

98 About 1840.

99 And by no one so well as Joseph Thompson, “Mungo Park and the Niger.”

100 “Othman established the severest punishment upon whoever committed the slightest violation of the law.”—“Travels of Sheik Mohammed of Tunis” (Bayle St. John. London: 1854).

101 One of the numerous designations of the Fulani.

102 “Journal of a Second Expedition into the Interior of Africa,” &c. 1829.

103 Under the old Hausa régime the inhabitants of the Northern Hausa States paid direct taxes to the Kings. According to the curious and interesting records of Assid-el-Haji-Abd-Salam Shabiny, a Tunisian merchant, the Sultan of Hausa imposed a tax of 2 per cent. on all products of the land. The people also paid a land tax, and certain duties were exacted on all goods sold in the market-place (“Relation d’un voyage à Timbuctoo vers l’année 1787”).

104 A missionary has recently admitted that “To the Hausa what is in the Koran is of God, and what is not in the Koran is not worth knowing.”

105 To-day, Guinée française.

106 This is explained by the unwillingness of the Fulani to allow unions between their women-folk and their Negro neighbours.

107 Recently translated into French by M. O. Houdas (Paris: Ernest Leroux. 1900).

108 Leo Africanus.

109 At one time Melle ruled over Songhay and Timbuctoo. In 1329 the Mellians were driven from Timbuctoo by the pagan Mosis (the most powerful pagan kingdom which ever arose in West Africa). The people of Melle reconquered the place, but were finally expelled by the Tuareg in 1433. Melle was subsequently overcome by the Songhay and fell to pieces.

110 Published by the Hakluyt Society.

111 We are indebted to M. Dubois for the first complete copy.

112 The reigning family says the Tarik were white and their subjects Wakoris (Mandingoes). This strengthens the Fulani argument, the complexion of the pure-blood Fulani inclining to white by comparison with their neighbours. In his “Notice Géographique sur la Région du Sahel” (which includes Bakunu, the former Baghena), Commandant Lartigue says of the Fulani still inhabiting that district, “Quelques-uns sont presque blancs; leur cheveux sont à peine crépus, et ils ont les traits fins et réguliers des Européens de bonne race.”

113 The language of the Fulani.

114 The Empire which, as we have observed, was raised upon the ruins of Ghanata by the Mandingoes, the subject race at the time of the latter’s foundation.

115 D’Eichtal’s assertion (“Les Foulahs.” Paris: 1842), that the Fulani “to this day” call the whole of Senegambia “Melli,” I do not find confirmed, but it is worth mentioning, nevertheless.

116 The first map in which Melle figures is a Spanish one (1375 A.D.). In the map of Mathias de Villadestes, the Venetian (1413 A.D.), the word “Toucuzor” is written by the side of that of the King of Melli, “Mussa.” For “Toucuzor” read “Toukulor” (Tukulor), the cross race of Fulani-Joloff and Fulani-Mandingo.—“Considérations sur la Priorité des Découvertes Maritimes sur la Côte Occidentale d’Afrique.”—Binger.

117 Barth’s chronological table of the Songhay.

118 Marmol—born in Granada, 1580—translated by Nicholas Perot d’Ablancourt.

119 The Tarik’s statement that Salta Tayenda fled into “Futa” affords substantial indication of the presence of Fulani in that country at a previous date, which we know, of course, from other sources.

120 This tradition obviously refers to Fulani pressure—the root of the word (Pul, or Ful) signifying red, or reddish.

121 A correspondent of a Paris paper, La Dépêche Coloniale, writing from Kunde, on the Sangha River, on December 10, 1901, says: “Our clothes, which are ragged from bush travelling, do not convey a great idea of our influence, especially when compared to the Fulbes (Fulani) in their embroidered cloths and leather riding-boots. They are all on horseback and we are on foot. There are thousands of them, and all are armed.”

122 Their presence in Omdurman—that is to say, in the heart of the Eastern Sudan in the Nile valley—has already been noted by Father Ohrwalder. On page 300 of “Ten Years’ Captivity in the Mahdi’s Camp” (Major Wingate, R.A. London: 1895), we read, “Several of the Fellata, who came from distant parts of Bornu, Wadai, &c., were stopped at Omdurman on their way to Mecca”; and again, on page 305, “The inhabitants of Omdurman are a conglomeration of every race and nationality in the Sudan—Fellata, Takruris, natives of Bornu, &c.”

123 Dr. Barth’s estimate as to the date of the foundation of Ghanata is certainly not exaggerated, in view of the Tarik’s statement that twenty-two kings had reigned before the Hejira.

124 Ernest Flammarion, Paris. English edition: W. Heinemann.

125 Toledo was wrested from the Moors in 1085; Saragossa in 1118; Valencia, 1238; Seville, 1248; the Beni-Nasr held Granada until 1492.

126 De Barros, Barth, Tarik.

127 Makrizi, de Barros, Barth.

128 L’Anthropologie (Tome x., No. 6), of which Dr. Verneau is one of the editors.

129 In plain language, a prominence of the jaws—one of the characteristics of the Negro type.

130 Dr. Randle MacIver and Anthony Wilkin, in “Libyan Notes.” Macmillan & Co. 1901.

131 Concubinage with negresses being the natural explanation.

132 Other authorities, basing their arguments, inter alia, upon the assumption that the wild people “covered with hair” encountered by the Carthaginian colonists were none other than the gorillas which Du Chaillu, more than two thousand years afterwards, brought to the knowledge of an incredulous world, and upon the unlikelihood of any of those animals being in Hanno’s day so far north, maintain that the expedition reached the Gaboon estuary, or even the mouth of the Congo. The point is never likely to be cleared up. The two sides are stated with great clearness by the late Miss Kingsley in “West African Studies.” (Macmillan & Co.)

133 Lest it be supposed that I am appropriating other people’s ideas without acknowledgment, I hasten to add that Major Rennel, in his notes on Park’s travels (“Travels in the Interior of Africa.” London: 1799) hazards the same suggestion, and Barth and Frey follow suit. But I think that, in the light of our further knowledge of the peoples and history of Western Africa, the identification of the “Leucæthiopes” with the Fulani becomes a good deal more than a suggestion.

134 The cattle possessed by the Fulani—who are the herdsmen of West Africa—are the hump-backed Asiatic kind (Bos indicus). That was a great point with Faidherbe in favour of the Eastern theory. The Abyssinians’ cattle, it may be observed, belong to the same breed.

135 “Then Joseph came and told Pharaoh, and said: ‘My father and my brethren, and their flocks, and their herds, and all that they have, are come out of the land of Canaan, and, behold, they are in the land of Goshen.’”

136 Cattle-rearer.

137 “An Account of the Native Africans in the Neighbourhood of Sierra Leone.” By Thomas Winterbottom, D.D., Physician to the Colony of Sierra Leone. 1803.

138 The Joloffs (Senegal) declare that the Fulani converse habitually with their cattle.

139 Moore, writing of the Gambia Fulani in the eighteenth century, says, they manage cattle so well that the Mandingoes give them their own to look after.

140 Native cavalry soldier.

141 Related in the French African Committee’s journal.

142 De Guiraudon was, apparently, unaware of this passage, which has an important bearing upon his statements.

143 Not pear-shaped, as with the negress.

144 Barth, Baikie, Gray, Monteil, Mollien, De Giraudon, Callié, &c., vie with one another in their enthusiasm over the beauty of the Fulani woman of pure blood, which is all the more pronounced in view of their ethnic surroundings. Barth speaks of young Fulani girls whose forms “recall the finest Grecian sculptury.” “The women are very beautiful, and possess strange powers of fascination in their large deep eyes,” says Monteil. “The women in particular,” remarks Gray, “might vie in point of figure with the finest forms in Europe, and their walk is particularly majestic.” “The Fulani women, many of whose countenances are resplendent with a veritable beauty” (Reclus).

145 “West Africa.”

146 Ibid.

147 Witness, for example, the admirable work on land tenure on the Ivory Coast just published by Administrator Clozel; also that gentleman’s article in the Journal of the African Society for July.

148 I have not yet heard of any departure from the rule.

149 “Modern ideas and legislation,” says Dr. Alfred Zimmerman, “forbid violent proceedings. The natives should be taught to work by cultivating the sentiment in them that it is their interest to do so. Experience proves that protection of property is the surest means to attain that end.”

150 Paul Kollmann’s “The Victoria Nyanza” may be consulted in this connection with advantage. The illustrations of domestic ornaments, of flasks, bark-boxes, drums, &c., constructed by the natives of Usukama and Ukerewe show real beauty of design.

151 Sir Marshall Clarke’s recent report is instructive. Speaking of the natives of Rhodesia, he says: “They work in the mines either from direct pressure brought to bear upon them by the administration, a pressure only short of force, or the necessity of earning enough to pay their taxes.... This,” continues Sir Marshall Clarke, “does not tend to make industry attractive”; and, he adds, “At present there is undoubtedly discontent among the natives.”

152 “The evidence available seems to indicate that the labour difficulty on the Gold Coast may probably be overcome without the importation of labourers from other countries, and that success or failure in the matter is largely dependent on the person in charge of the undertaking. It is very desirable that the persons in charge should be gentlemen and men of education, as it is found that such are more likely to be able to deal satisfactorily with the natives, who generally require to be handled with much tact and judgment.”—Par. 9, “Labour Ordinance”: issued by Colonial Office.

153 “According to native ideas there is no land without owners. What is now a forest or unused land will, as years go on, come under cultivation by the subjects of the Stool, or members of the village community, or other members of the family” (“Fanti Customary Law,” J. M. Sarbah). What holds good in the Gold Coast is equally applicable to the rivers and to Lagos, indeed throughout West Africa, wherever Negro culture is met with.

154 In order, of course, to do away with the idea that there is any wish or desire on the part of the Government to alienate the land from the rightful owners thereof.

155 The amended Lagos Bill exempts from its operation native customary rights and defers to the authority of the Native Councils of the hinterland. Its working depends largely, therefore, upon the interpretation placed by the Colony’s Governor for the time being on the nature of the relationship between those Councils and the Administration. Sir W. MacGregor has passed a Bill (the Native Councils Bill) which, he thinks, will strengthen the position of the Councils. But it is safe to say that, in all matters affecting land legislation in West Africa, the procedure for safeguarding native rights, and in their main lines those rights themselves, should be laid down as clearly as possible in the Act itself.

156 For an intelligent native view on the subject the reader is referred to the speeches of Dr. O. Johnson, Member of the Legislative Council of Lagos, in moving the rejection of the Amended Forest Ordinance (May 1902). Dr. Johnson’s status in the Colony may be estimated from the fact that the extraordinarily able historical address on the native history of Lagos, delivered by him at the Lagos Institute last year, was published as a Government paper in the Colony.

157 Who, for some time past, has individually done much to stimulate cotton-growing for export in West Africa.

158 In the manifesto issued by the Association in October there figures a list of Vice-presidents, headed by Sir Alfred Jones, K.C.M.G., and including no less than twenty-two members of Parliament, among whom one notices such well-known names as Winston S. Churchill, R. Yerburgh, Alfred Emmott, Sir William Mather, Lord Stanley, the Hon. Arthur Stanley, the Hon. W. R. W. Peel, C. A. Cripps, K.C. J. H. Whitley, Sir J. Leigh, &c.

159 Moloney.

160 Secretary of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce.

161 The cotton-producing capacities of Northern Nigeria have already been commented upon.

162 The Deutsche Togo-gesellschaft.

163 And as with cotton, so with rice—the Songhays were great rice-growers, and Gao, or Gago, their ancient capital, is said to mean rice in the Songhay language.

164 Sir Alfred Jones has voluntarily offered to carry cotton from West Africa freight free for two years, and I understand that Mr. Woermann, of the line of that name, has agreed to ship a considerable quantity of Togo cotton free of charge.

165 And where the enterprise has been carried out on the household labour plan, which has been compared to the peasant proprietary system.

166 Chemical manure has been supplied free by manufacturers of the article. An exhibit of cloths manufactured with Togo cotton has been held at Dusseldorf, &c.

167 Sir H. Johnston’s and Mr. Grogan’s discoveries have recently emphasised this fact.

168 Now Southern Nigeria.

169 And, say the merchants engaged in the trade, to high freights.

170 The American demand is, I understand, increasing.

171 C. O. Report, No. 348.

172 For a technical explanation read the following: “The extremely high prices obtained here for figured logs have naturally excited shippers, especially native traders, and all are desirous to learn what constitutes figure.... This is a subject difficult to elucidate, but we may say that ‘roe’ may be described as the curved direction the grain of the wood takes by one ring overlapping the other; to be of any value, beyond ordinary plain wood, it must be of a very pronounced and bold character. This gives the required variation of light and shade.”

173 The conversion of several hundred natives to Islam at Jebu-Ode, one of the large Yoruba centres in close proximity to Lagos, and where the Church has laboured for years, is a recent incident which points in the direction stated.

174 Tarik.

175 Kanem at the time ruled over what was known later as Bornu.

176 Makrizi attributes the introduction of Islam into Kanem to Hadi el Othman, who was probably of Fulani origin, although Makrizi does not say so.

177 Timbuctoo was not founded until about seventy years after the conversion of Za Kasai.

178 The theory which gives an Eastern origin to Mohammedan proselytism in Kanem seems unworthy of consideration.

179 The manatee is the ayu of the Fulani, and its signification—viz. that of a mythical creature living in the water and dragging any one in who sees it—seems to argue the existence of an ancient superstition. In various parts of the Niger and Binue this strange animal is still regarded with a certain awe, which, however, does not prevent it from being slaughtered, both for its flesh and skin. The Soninke legend of the water serpent, which each year claimed the handsomest girl of the village as a victim, would seem to bear a distinct relation to this, the former ayu worship of the Songhays.

180 Binger suggests that the word Mande, or Mandingo, is derived from the same root as manatus, and signifies the people of a country where the manatus is worshipped.

181 “Mungo Park.” Joseph Thomson. The “World’s Greatest Explorers” series.

182 Palgrave’s “Arabia,” vol. i. p. 372.

183 “Niger and Yoruba Notes,” January 1900.

184 A native of the Western Sudan.

185 Blyden.

186 It has been pointed out to me that the Muslim teachers in this mosque do not teach reading, but only the Slate-pattern. That simply shows that Islam in West Africa is capable of being much improved, and should be moulded, if possible, on Western lines of thought; but it does not affect the main argument in the least.

187 Captain Morrison’s report, issued by the Government of the French Sudan.

188 For instance, read the following passages in “Pilkington of Uganda” (C. F. Harford Battersby). “This is the lost truth, the loss of which gave Satan the opportunity of introducing both Mohammedanism and Popery.... They (the Waganda) have learnt to contend with the three forms of darkness which they will meet in Africa: Heathenism, Mohammedanism, and Popery.” And again: “Does it not seem as if the French Mission is just God’s appointed instrument to complete the confusion of Rome in Uganda?”

189 Le Chatelier.

190 The nineteenth century.

191 The nineteenth century.

192 It is a remarkable fact, frequently borne witness to, that an unarmed Muslim Negro can travel without molestation through vast stretches of country in Africa, a privilege denied to his Christianised compatriot.

193 “Esclavage, Islamisme, et Christianisme.”

194 Affecting in many parts the laws and customs of the people in respect to native land tenure.

195 “Le Sénégal: la France dans l’Afrique Occidentale.”

196 Negro medical men—I mean qualified medical men—of whom there are a few in West Africa, emphatically corroborate this: and they bring a great many arguments, founded upon actual experience, in support of the contention.

197 An ecclesiastic well known in the African field, and for whose really wonderful labours I entertain the highest respect and admiration, informed me only the other day that, within his personal cognisance, over 150 couples had been married in Liberia by a certain minister, in a certain district, within a period of five years; and that the total number of births up to date was five, and the survivals two. My reverend friend found in that striking fact (for the truth of which he vouched, and he is a truthful man) a justification of his view that a large proportion of Liberians, that is to say, the descendants of the blacks from the States, led indolent and unhealthy lives. To my mind, it conveys an eloquent demonstration, that on West African soil monogamy for the Negro spells race extinction. Naturally my friend would not admit the conclusion, although in his heart of hearts I believe he is rather troubled on the subject. But he recognised—and admitted—in course of conversation that polygamy was a question which the Church, in her work among tropical peoples, had now to resolutely face and earnestly discuss. There is, I fear, no doubt that the monogamist—or professing monogamist—Liberians are, like the Waganda, dying out.

198 Politically, the same attitude is adopted by the British authorities; and in the case of the Sierra Leone Hut-tax war, and the Forest Ordinances in Lagos, it has been sought to divorce the educated—and mainly, professing Christian—element of the coast from community of thought, sympathy, and common racial feelings with the non-educated, and mainly pagan or Mohammedan, element of the interior.

199 “As soon as half a dozen missionaries leave Liverpool,” writes the same authority, Archbishop Dobson, “no end of a stir is made about the devoted party, and so forth. I do not mean to be sarcastic about the missionaries, but it does make one a trifle ashamed at times to meet a stalwart trader hereabouts on an occasion, who has been coming here off and on for twenty years, and his chief business is palm-oil, and his best view a mangrove swamp.”

200 It is even admitted to be harmful by Sir Alfred Jones, whose steamers carry a large proportion of this liquor to West Africa, and by a large proportion of the merchants who deal in it. The merchants are sometimes violently attacked on account of this trade. Personally, I detest the West African liquor traffic. I look upon it in the same light as the opium traffic in the Far East—a blot upon the escutcheon of Christian Europe. But those who denounce the merchants might just as well, and more logically, denounce the Governments. Per se the liquor traffic is not a lucrative trade to the merchant, but to the local administrations on the coast it is the backbone of revenue. I was never able to share the late Miss Kingsley’s views on this subject, while fully agreeing with her as to the inanity of making the merchants the scapegoats of an evil the responsibility for which is, in a sense, universal. Despite anything that may be said to the contrary, I shall believe that a powerful factor in determining Miss Kingsley’s views was the knowledge that, but for the existence of the liquor traffic as a supplier of revenue, direct taxation would be substituted throughout British West Africa owing to the extravagance of the Crown Colony system; and I know that Miss Kingsley strongly objected to the introduction of European spirits into the interior regions by means of the railways. The liquor question would require a special chapter to adequately discuss.

201 He will, no doubt, be edified to learn that the Cape Government has found it necessary to pass a law imposing a severe term of imprisonment upon white women convicted of sexual intercourse with the natives—a circumstance not precisely calculated to increase his respect for our Christian civilisation.

202 Captain—now Commandant—Binger has for some little time past been in charge of the African Department of the French Colonial Office. His travels, books, and pamphlets are familiar to every student of Western Africa.

203 It would seem now that they have temporarily prevailed with the Government.

204 In the Sokoto Empire (Hausa States) more particularly.

205 They did it so well that, after the failure of their attack upon the French camp, they denuded the country of supplies and reduced the expedition to terrible straits for a time.

206 The fall predicted, and officially foreseen, in 1901 has come about, owing to the rubber crisis. The measures taken during the last fifteen months to stimulate fresh industries in the country, and the advance of the railway, will, no doubt, make themselves felt in the next two or three years.

207 For the Lagos exports and expenditure, see Appendix.

208 C.O. Report. 1900.

209 “Rapport d’ensemble.” Dahomey, 1900.

210 For 1902, on a total estimated expenditure of £121,560, Dahomey provides £32,000 for the railway and £11,911 for public works ordinary or, say, a total of £43,911 for railway and public works.

211 The following statistics of the export trade of Dahomey, compiled from figures recently obtained, are interesting:

Quantities in Kilos.
(1015 kilos to the ton.)

	Palm-kernels.	Palm-oil.
1898	18,091,312	6,059,539
1899	21,850,982	9,650,081
1900	21,986,043	8,920,359
1901	24,211,614	11,290,658
First quarter 1902	6,972,297	3,488,766
Ibid. 1901	4,768,050	1,993,520

212 See Appendix.

213 It is worthy of note that the French Government authorises the Administration of the several West African colonies to make their own agreements for railway construction.

214 So far as the heavier duties charged on spirits in Lagos are concerned, the fact is distinctly to the credit of Lagos.

215 There is a very curious circumstance connected with the ground-nut trade. All the ground-nuts go to the Continent—both from Senegal and Gambia—the oil extracted, therefrom, or the bulk of it, is used in making margarine, which is subsequently consumed, to a very large extent, by the English people! Why have we not our own crushing-mills? Is it because we are short of milk? It cannot but strike one as peculiar and unfortunate that we should send our West African ground-nuts to France, and afterwards buy from the French the oil the nuts yield for our own consumption! Ground-nuts will grow anywhere in West Africa, and the labour involved in cultivating them is very small.

216 Belgian syndicates have been trying, and are still trying, to get hold of the French Ivory Coast goldfields. Hitherto they have been defeated by the vigilance of the French merchants; but there is no knowing what may happen in view of the extraordinary influence which King Leopold appears to wield over the French official world.

217 “Sur des traces probables de civilisation Egyptienne et d’hommes de race blanche à la Côte d’Ivoire.” Masson & Cie., Paris. A pamphlet which ought to be read by all students of West Africa.

218 Specie is usually included in the trade figures—a very misleading practice.

219 Sir David Chalmers’ report, p. 169.

220 Like the Susus, for example, who are very numerous in French Guinea, but of whom a few only have settled in the British Protectorate adjoining.

221 Let it not be imagined that the contrast here made between French political action in Dahomey and British political action in Ashanti implies approval of direct taxation per se. It is ever a dangerous experiment in West Africa, especially with pagans, even if conquest has supervened. If the system under which the taxes are collected is not carefully watched, grave abuses are almost certain to follow. Quite recently rumours of oppression in the taxation of the natives in Upper Dahomey have appeared in the French Press. What truth there may be in them I do not know. But it is true, I believe, that the excellent staff whom Governor Ballot gathered round him has left the Colony since Ballot left it, and has been replaced by less experienced and less competent material.

222 Last Ashanti Blue Book, 1902.

223 See Note in Appendix.

224 See the evidence of Lieutenant-Colonel Gore, Colonial Secretary for Sierra Leone. Sir David Chalmers’ report.

225 Between July 1894 and February 1898 no fewer than sixty-two convictions—admittedly representing a small proportion of offences actually committed—were recorded against them for flogging, plundering, and generally maltreating the natives.

226 One of the pet arguments of the authorities consists in invoking the benefits which have accrued to the people of the Protectorate since the passing of the Protectorate Ordinance in the matter of putting down the slave trade. For these benefits the natives, says officialdom, ought to be delighted to pay a tax. Possibly they would have paid it in time, more or less willingly, had they been approached in a different spirit. But, so far as the slave trade is concerned, the argument is singularly weakened by the circumstance that Sir F. Cardew publicly declared in 1895 that the slave traffic had “practically disappeared within the Protectorate.”

227 The French West African Company, Cie française de l’Afrique Occidentale, is the largest French firm of African merchants in West Africa. Founded in 1887 with a capital of 7,000,000 francs; total turn-over in 1899, 22,000,000 francs; factories in Senegal, French and Portuguese Guinea, Gambia, Sierra Leone, Lagos, and Ivory Coast.

228 In 1900, 39,874,005 francs; in 1901, 43,965,950 francs.

229 The same game was tried with the Germans in Cameroons. To quote from an article in the National Zeitung, which, as I have reason to know, may be accepted as authorised: “If in the Congo State itself the Berlin Act could be disregarded in this way, and the natives obliged to bring in the produce against their will, why could it not also be done in other places? And as the Congo State was itself making the best use of its monopoly, and only gave concessions to others at high prices, the monopolists tried, and not without result, to obtain the same state of affairs both in France and in Germany. In Germany, the German Colonial Society at once protested against this state of affairs. In spite of this, however, several of the Belgian capitalists were able to obtain the help of influential German persons, who obtained from the Government the concession of South Cameroon. This company had obtained the assistance of Colonel Thys for its operations on the Brussels Stock Exchange, and immediately after the flotation of the company the shares were driven up to two or three times their value. Further concessions in the free-trade zone were not conceded, and, with the exception of the North-West Cameroon concession, in consequence of the energetic opposition in colonial circles, no further concessions were, or will be, made in the German territories. The German Government has entirely abandoned this policy of concessions.”

230 It is, of course, no easy matter to get at the precise constitution of these companies, but the following example of one of the “groups” is typical of the majority of them. Comptoir Colonial français. Parent company: head offices, Paris; has founded at least six Concessionnaire Companies, of a total capital of 9,650,000 francs; Board of Administration numbers six directors, of whom three are Belgians; two-thirds of the shares held in Belgium; two of the Belgian directors are directors of the four Domaine Privé Companies in the Congo State, whose profits are shared by the State (read the King); the third also belongs to the Congo clique; among the Belgian shareholders are other directors of these same Domaine Privé Companies, all men enjoying the confidence of, and closely connected with, the Sovereign of the Congo State. One of the six Concessionnaire Companies of this “group” has specially distinguished itself in the persecution to which British merchants have been subjected—discussed in the next chapter.

[231] Some light has been thrown upon its African chapters by Mr. R. E. Dennett, an Englishman in French Congo, and a recognised authority on the Fjort peoples, in “West Africa.”

232 I should say now, ex-Deputy.

233 “Une idée domine l’ensemble du système, tous les produits du territoire, concédé quels qu’ils soient, sont la propriété de la Société Concessionnaire. Seuls les agents de cette Société ont le droit de les recueillir ou de les acheter des indigènes qui les ont récoltés; ces derniers ne pouvant disposer librement que des produits des reserves qui leur ont été spécialement attribuées et sur lesquelles je reviendrai, et devant en thèse générale, lorsqu’ils s’emparent d’un produit quelconque du sol en dehors de ces reserves, les remettre aux concessionnaires dont l’intérêt bien entendu, est de remunérer ensuite leur travail.”

234 “Les indigènes ont droit aux superficies qui leur sont nécessaires pour les cultures vivrières correspondantes aux besoins de leur alimentation. On peut leur attribuer une certaine étendue de forêt nécessaire à leurs besoins de chauffage et de construction, mais ils n’ont pas droit a réclamer des forêts domaniales dans le but de faire commerce de leurs produits naturels et de constituer ainsi une concurrence ruineuse pour le concessionnaire” (Art. 18).

235 The French Government has recently voted De Brazza an annual pension of 10,000 francs.

236 “Concessions Congolaises.” By Albert Cousin, Membre du Conseil Supérieur des Colonies. Paris: Augustin Chalamel.

237 An English trader, Mr. Walker, was the first to do so. He is admitted by French writers to have discovered the Ogowe.

238 Messrs. John Holt & Co. and Messrs. Hatton & Cookson, both of Liverpool, and both connected with the West African Trade for upwards of half a century. Mr. John Holt is probably the most enterprising pioneer of Britain’s trade in West Africa, possessing trading stations in most of the British and Foreign West African Colonies. He is the vice-chairman of the African Trade Section of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, and very few men living have so wide a grasp of West African questions or so profound a knowledge of West African problems.

239 Whose existence was unknown in England until towards the end of last year.

240 Seizure of British goods on public roads; breaking open of British factories; flogging of British native agents, &c.

241 Notably that most excellent monthly, Le Bulletin du Comité de l’Afrique française, through the instrumentality of the two distinguished thinkers and writers who dictate its policy, Count Robert de Caix and M. Auguste Terrier.

242 Forty tons of ebony, bought in the usual way by a British firm on the Congo and shipped to Havre in a French ship, were seized at that port (1902) on a mandate of a Concessionnaire Company. This produce has, however, now been restored.

243 The Foreign Office was warned as far back as the beginning of 1898 by the Manchester Chamber of Commerce of the danger of the possible inauguration of a system of territorial monopolies. Lord Salisbury said it would receive “our most earnest attention,” and admitted inferentially that in fiscal questions England had, as a free-trade country, “inferior” means of influencing other countries; “with the occasional exception,” added his lordship, “of territorial concessions, we have no means whatever of persuasion.” Nevertheless, in the purely fiscal question which formed the principal object of the Deputation of Chambers of Commerce to Lord Salisbury on this occasion, that of the differential tariff in the French possessions, Lord Salisbury was able to get his own way, simply by persuasion, by “influencing France’s ideas.” Yet in this matter of the French Congo Concessions, in which the purely fiscal question does not enter at all, and where we have an international treaty to work on, Lord Lansdowne has been unable to prevent the expulsion of British merchants from an internationally free-trade zone!

244 The Morning Post, the Manchester Guardian, the Liverpool Daily Post, and West Africa.

245 The German merchants, despairing of obtaining even the most elementary justice, have evacuated the territory. Our merchants have chosen the nobler part of making a stand for their rights, guaranteed under international law.

246 To which must now be added the somewhat similar Rabinek affair—an Austrian subject arrested and “removed” by the Congo State in the Katanga district under circumstances analogous, in some measure, to the case of Mr. Stokes.

247 The other day the then French Parliamentary representative of Senegal, in a speech to his constituents at St. Louis, warned them that the greatest danger threatening their hinterland, the French Sudan, was King Leopold of Belgium and his monopolist gang.

248 At the great “Colonial Congress” held in Berlin on October 11, Consul Vohsen moved a resolution, unanimously carried, calling upon the Powers to institute proceedings for the revision of the Berlin Act. Consul Vohsen said: “From the very first the Congo State, and recently France in the French Colony of French Congo, have acted against the principles laid down in the Congo Act.”... Referring to the Congo State, he continued: “All so-called countries ‘not occupied by natives’ situated in the Free Trade zone were, as far back as July 1885, declared the property of the State, and in the year 1892 heavy taxes were imposed upon the rubber trade, which was entirely prohibited in parts of the Free Trade zone. The consequence was that the freedom of trade and commerce guaranteed by the Congo Act was practically abolished. The first condition of freedom of trade for the nations is freedom to the natives, in such a way as to leave them free to dispose of the natural products of the soil and of the chase; which state of affairs existed before the passing of the Act in all French, English, and German colonies in West Africa, and exists to-day, with the exception of the territories of the Congo State and the French Congo, the very colonies where, strange to say, free trade is insisted upon by Articles I. and V. of the Act.”

249 Among the supporters of the Mansion House meeting of May 15 (held under the auspices of the Aborigines Protection Society) were Mr. John Morley, Sir J. Kennaway, Earl Spencer, the Marquis of Ripon, Lord Avebury, Mr. Lecky, M.P., Sir Edward Clarke, K.C., Sir W. Brampton Gurdon, M.P., K.C.M.G., Sir Charles Dilke, M.P., Sir Mark J. Stewart, M.P., Mr. James Bryce, M.P., Mr. W. S. Robson, M.P., and other politicians of both parties. Five Chambers of Commerce, the African Society, and the German Colonial Society were represented, and Dr. Alfred Zimmermann, attaché to the German Embassy in London, also attended.

250 Commandant Binger’s views are well known. M. Cousturier (Governor of French Guinea), in his report on French Guinea for 1901, does not conceal his adverse opinion of Belgian methods of collecting rubber in the Congo State.
The author could produce documentary evidence showing that similar opinions are held by other well-known French officials in West Africa.

251 Belgium, Great Britain, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy and Russia sent delegates to the conference.

252 This was done with the exception of England.

253 Diego Cam.

254 The original title had by this time been changed to that of “International Congo Association.”

255 The point is brought out very clearly by Mr. Dennet, our only authority on the Fjort Kingdom of Congo, and the author of several books concerning the Fjort, in a series of interesting letters published last year in “West Africa.” Mr. Dennet, who has lived twenty-two years consecutively in the Lower Congo, positively declares that the treaties made by the Association, and referred to by General Sandford, had no validity whatever in native law.

256 In his report on the Congo State for 1898, Consul Pickersgill concludes a long enumeration of the taxes levied upon independent trade by the following humorous passage:
“I may sum up this portion of my remarks by quoting the jocose observations of the English and American missionaries, who declared to me that there is nothing free in the Independent State, except fevers; while a Belgian Father with whom I had some conversation on the subject, remarked: ‘The Government taxes even the civilisation we bring.’”

257 Who held the monopoly of the ivory trade in the Upper Congo, which the Congo State, by exterminating them with the aid of its cannibal soldiery (see Hinde’s “Fall of the Congo Arabs”), became possessed of.

258 See Mr. Herbert Ward’s “Five Years with the Congo Cannibals,” p. 297.

259 The whole paragraph might have been written a few weeks, instead of eleven years, ago. The state of affairs pictured by Colonel Williams has worsened instead of bettered. The evil is more widespread and the means of perpetuating it more extensive and more powerful. Read in this connection the latest revelations by Mr. Canisius and Captain Burrows.

260 The importance of the 10 per cent. import duty was purposely exaggerated. The amount derived therefrom was trifling. The merchants objected to it on principle. As Sir Albert Rollit justly remarked, “The reason for our opposition is only that they (the import duties) would infringe the great principle of freedom of commerce, which was the very basis of the programme of the Berlin Conference.” It is quite clear, however, that the majority of the merchants also opposed the import duties from a vague distrust of the king’s ultimate intentions, a distrust which events proved to be only too well founded.

261 The map published by the African Society in the May (1902) issue of its Journal may be consulted with advantage in this respect.

262 Among whom might be mentioned Augouard, Hinde, Glave, Morrison, Hawkins, Sheppard, Andrew, Sjöblom, Alfred Parminter, De Mandat-Grancy, Rankin, Murphy, Lloyd, Grogan, and many others, without counting Belgian authorities—more numerous than all foreigners put together.

263 At the present moment heavy fighting is going on in the Welle district, due, as I have reason to know, to the usual rubber taxes. The facts as to this particular rising may, happily, have been made public before the publication of the present volume.

264 The regular army—Force Publique—of the Congo State is admitted officially (Bulletin, July 1900) to be 15,000, but we know that in addition to this regular force—15,000 cannibals armed with Albinis, sections of whom are continually revolting—the State habitually arms, whenever it deems necessary, thousands of irregulars, cannibals for choice (see the letter written in October 1899 to the king by the acting head of the American Presbyterian Mission in the Kassai district). There is also a large reserve corps, but the extent of it is not known.

265 It may be usefully noted here that the impôts de nature are applied by the Congo State in the so-called Free Trade Zone as well as in the Domaine Privé, and until the Kassai district was incorporated in the Domaine Privé many and bitter were the complaints by companies operating in the former zone of the unfair competition to which they were subjected by the levying of this tribute. Instances have been given by some of these irate traders where the State’s officials have threatened the natives with condign punishment if they did not hand over all their rubber to the said officials. An arrangement has recently been concluded between the State and the Kassai companies—the Kassai district was the only portion of the Upper Congo where independent trade had been allowed—whereby the Kassai companies have amalgamated into a syndicate in which the State holds one half the interest. To all intents and purposes, therefore, the Kassai has now been incorporated in the Domaine Privé, which henceforth embraces the whole of the Congo State north of Stanley Pool.

266 Both these facts have been repeatedly asserted. They were proved beyond manner of doubt last year by the disclosures attendant upon the Mongolla scandals, in which agents of the Société Anversoise were involved.

267 Seven, if we include the Kassai Trust recently formed.

268 Baron A. Goffinet is “Conseiller de Légation, Secrétaire des Commandements de leurs MM. le Roi et la Reine, Major de l’Etat, Major de la Garde Civique, Aide-de-camp, Ministre Résident.” Baron C. Goffinet is “Conseiller de Légation, Intendant de la Liste Civile du Roi, Ministre Résident, Major de la Garde Civique.”

269 I have quite recently received from another correspondent in the Congo the photograph here reproduced.

270 “Abir (Société à responsabilité limitée) Statuts.” Anvers: Imprimerie Ratinckx Frères, Grand Place, 40-42.

271 “Comptoir Commercial Congolais (Société à responsabilité limitée) Statuts.” Anvers: Imprimerie Ratinckx.

272 “Compagnie du Lomami (Société Anonyme) Statuts.” Bruxelles: P. Weissenbruch, Imprimerie du Roi, 45 rue du Poincon.

273 In chapter xxviii. I referred to the constitution of the Comptoir Colonial français, which has managed to secure for its subsidiaries such a respectable slice of French Congo. Well, Alexis Mols is one of the Administrators, and so is A. Osterrieth, a shareholder in the Abir, and so is A. Lambrechts, also a shareholder in the Abir, &c. &c.

274 I am afraid Sir H. M. Stanley was somewhat premature when, in 1884, he told the London Chamber of Commerce that people “could not appreciate rightly” King Leopold’s philanthropy, because there were “no dividends attaching to it.”

275 Whip made out of hippo hide—the Congo sjambok.

276 Or was until quite recently.

277 In Congo circles in Belgium it is suggested that to guard against “attacks which might become too threatening” (by “attacks” is meant exposures in the public Press, and on public platforms in England and Germany) the Congo State should largely increase its standing army.

278 The author, who may claim to have brought the Rabinek affair to light, is able to state that the British Government is causing specific inquiries to be made through its representatives in Central Africa in connection with the matter. See Appendix.

279 The trade of the Lower Congo has sensibly diminished since the Congo State came into existence. On August 10 of last year the merchants established in the Lower Congo (of whom there remain a few) petitioned the king to reduce taxation. After pointing out the heavy import and export duty on goods and produce (20s. per ton on palm-oil, for instance) and showing how small the existing export trade already was, owing to the taxes and emigration of native labour, due to “the means employed in raising native levies,” the petitioners went on to say: “We do not disguise from ourselves that business in the Lower Congo is practically nil.... Each of us,” continues the petition, “consistently hopes for an increase in trade; but these hopes appear to us more and more unreliable, and the Government of the Congo State, instead of coming to aid us, imposes increased and too onerous taxes.”

280 The figures for 1900 are based upon the known sale on the Antwerp market by the State brokers in 1900 of 1828 tons of rubber and 153,445 kilos. of ivory, worked out at an average of 6 francs per kilo. for rubber (1115 kilos, to the ton) and 18 francs per kilo, for ivory. I believe a proportion of the produce imported was held in stock on account of the poor state of the rubber market.

281 “There is no trade, properly so called,” says Mr. Codrington, “on the Congo coast of Tanganyika, but all rubber and ivory is regarded as the property of the State, and has to be surrendered by the natives in fixed quantities annually. The natives are, however, continually in rebellion, and the country is unsafe, except in the immediate vicinity of the military garrisons, and within the sphere of influence of the missionaries.”

282 As was anticipated, the acquirement from Spain for purposes of exploitation of a portion of the Muni territory (which was recently handed over to Spain by France) by the Belgian “clique” has been followed by the usual results. A correspondent, whose name commands universal respect, and who is in a position to speak de visu on the subject, wrote to an English friend recently that “atrocities” were going merrily on; natives being shot down, and villages burnt in the course of “ivory collecting” by the Belgian concessionnaires; “outrages on the villagers are indiscriminate,” the writer adds. The same “clique” is threatening Fernando Po.

283 Apart from the large quantities of rifles, cap-guns, and ammunition imported into the Congo State for the arming and equipment of the soldiers, regular and irregular, it is morally certain, although not easy to prove, that the agents of the State and the agents of the Domaine Privé Companies encourage some of the biggest and most powerful chiefs of the Upper Congo to obtain ivory for them by presents of repeating-rifles and ammunition. In this connection a M. Léon. C. Berthier, writing from the French Upper Congo to the Paris organ La Dépêche Coloniale (issue July 16, 1902), says: “The M’Bomu (a branch of the Upper Ubanghi, which forms the frontier between the French and Congolese possessions, and which pursues its course to the Bahr-el-Ghazal), here very wide, forms the southern base of the square; this is the route where the ivory passes sous notre barbe to be sold to the Belgians on the other bank, who pay for it in Albini rifles, notwithstanding all the Acts of Berlin and Brussels, which forbid even the sale of percussion-cap guns!” The writer goes on to assert that he has documents to prove his statements.

284 Mary Kingsley, in the “Story of West Africa.”

285 Excluding specie. The figures are taken from the Parliamentary Report, June 1902.

286 Sierra Leone Royal Gazette, April 18th, 1902.

287 Estimated. Appropriation Ordinance, 1902.

288 “Railways and Telegraphs,” Appropriation Ordinance, 1902.

289 Colonial Office Report, No. 324. On page 8 of the same Report the figures a given as £29,126 18s. 7d. I cannot explain the difference.

290 Sierra Leone Royal Gazette, April 18th, 1902.

291 Idem.

292 Estimated.

293 The figures for 1900 do not include the expenses of the Ashanti expedition.

294 Including exports of specie.

295 Ordinary for 1897, 1898, 1899 and 1900; extraordinary for 1897, 1898 and 1899.

296 Sir Matthew Nathan’s report on the Northern Territories (No. 357—issued July 1902) says: “The expenditure in 1901 has not yet been completely estimated.” Farther on he estimates the expenditure for 1902 at £52,381 11s. 7d. The expenditure is, therefore, largely increasing. The above amount includes £23,038 11s. 7d. or military purposes.

297 According to Lieutenant-Colonel Morris (C.O. Report, No. 35) the revenue in 1901 was £7415 4s. 3d. It was estimated at £8000; and the estimate for 1902 is also £8000.

298 Including £97,769 paid back to the Imperial Government for cost of expenditure on Ashanti expedition.

299 Official statement, dated March 1902:—1st section, 39¼ miles long, open to traffic; and section, of 9¾ miles, “approaching completion.”

300 Colonial Office Report, No. 344:—Sum borrowed to end 1900, apparently £798,000 (£220,000, 1898; £578,000, 1899).

301 Idem.

302 Railway development, £578,000; harbour works at Accra, £98,000.

303 Estimated.

304 Colonial Office Report, No. 348.

305 Idem.

306 If for re-sale.

307 Idem.

308 One mile—1609 metres.

309 In 1901 there was an increase of 4600 tons of palm oil and kernels exported compared with the previous year.

310 Wallach.

311 Late Lieutenant-Colonel Northcote’s estimate. It does not include the portion of the Anglo-German neutral territory, which is eventually to be incorporated within the British sphere, according to the Anglo-German Convention of November 1899.

312 The principal towns of the Protectorate are Ibadan (population 180,000), Abbeokuta (population 150,000), Oyo (population 50,000).

313 If we assume the population of Northern Nigeria to be 30 millions, this gives us a rough total, exclusive of Ashanti, of 33,218,324 inhabitants to 645,000 square miles of territory; or not far short of the population of France, in a territory as large as France and Germany, with a good half of Austria-Hungary thrown in.