The Fulani Region
The boundary line, which commences at Byaaer, a three days’ march from Yola, crosses the M’Bulo plain and follows the Upper M’Bulo river to its source in the Shebshi Mountains. “The plain,” to quote from Captain Nugent’s description, “is covered with thin bush, and dotted with villages, each with its surrounding patches of cultivation. The formation is brown laterite, the rocks containing occasional bands and lumps of ironstone.” The lower slopes of the isolated granite hills, which rise above the general level, are covered with pagan villages. “The people inhabiting the plains on both sides of the boundary are Fulanis, subject to the Emirs of Yola and Nassarawa; but the tops of isolated mountains, and the narrow valleys between the long spurs jutting out from the Shebshi group, are inhabited by pagans, offshoots of the Chamba and Dakka tribes. The habits and customs of the Fulanis are well known—they are by nature herdsmen, just as the Hausas are born traders and the pagans agriculturists. The country is rich in flocks and herds of cattle, sheep and goats. A large trade is also done in horses. The villages consist of round huts of sun-baked mud, with conical roofs thatched with dry grass. Sometimes, when the village is only intended to be temporary, the walls of the huts are made of zana matting, which is also used to enclose the compounds, or groups of huts inhabited by one family. Every village has its assembly place, generally under a large shady tree, where the headman and his advisers sit all day and smoke, while the slaves work in the fields or drive the cattle to pasture. Slave-dealing is still carried on in this country, advantage being taken of the proximity of the boundary, which makes it so easy to evade justice.... The work of marking the boundary was watched with the greatest interest by the Fulani population. The ‘kings’ of all the towns on the English side, and a good many from the German side, came to salute us, generally bringing a present of a fowl or a basket of limes. Each ‘king’ carries a long stick, surmounted by a brass crown, the emblem of his office under the Government. There are first, second and third class ‘kings’; the size of the crown varies accordingly.”
The line in crossing the Shebshi Mountains passes over the summit of Mount Dakka, upon which the boundary pillar is 5,388 feet above sea level. “The view from Dakka is magnificent. On all sides are tumbled masses of mountain, much cut up by deep ravines and rocky gorges, through which the many headwaters of the M’Bulo and Kam rivers tear headlong to the plains. On the German side, Vogel Spitz rises amid innumerable peaks and valleys to a height of nearly 7,000 feet, overlooking some hundred square miles of still unknown country. The northern spurs, projecting into the Cameroons, enclose high table-lands, extraordinarily fertile and highly cultivated.... The boundary crosses the plateau near the only practicable pass, the road being entirely on the German side, so that one result of the demarcation is to close the direct trade route between M’Bulo and Kam Valleys until a new pass is discovered. There are plenty of tracks over these mountains, but very few practicable for animals. A bull which costs £1 at Tibak, in the M’Bulo Valley, is worth £3 or £4 at Gankita, in the Kam Valley, the distance as the crow flies between these two places being no more than twelve miles.”