New Cameroon
The region of New Cameroon which was added to the German territory under the Franco-German Agreement of November 4th, 1911, was represented as being swampy, depopulated, and devastated by sleeping sickness, and the Teuton acquisition was greeted with general derision. But a more thorough investigation of the possession has shown that it is not so bad as it was painted, and while there are tracts that hold out no promises of profitable development, there are districts in the New Cameroon which will handsomely repay exploitation. The German “frontier” expedition into the interior has published descriptions of a steppe region covered with tall grasses, bushes, and trees interspersed with grassy plains. The country abounds with a variety of animals, including giraffes, antelopes, gazelles, buffaloes, zebras, rhinoceri, elephants, and apes, and the Lagone and its tributaries contain large quantities of fish. It is inhabited by the Lakka tribe, a very independent race of Sudan negroes, who live in villages and disclose many differences in languages, manners, and customs. Hunting and fishing are their secondary occupation, but their regular occupation is agriculture. Their well-tilled fields, fertilised with the ashes of burnt grass, produce millet, ground-nuts, tobacco, hemp, and cotton, and their greatest delicacies are dried fish and caterpillars. They possess a few horses and goats, and the women employ themselves in pottery and basket work when not engaged in agriculture. Herr Eltester says that the Pangwe tribe, inhabiting the Muni district, are distinguished by every conceivable bad quality. They are thieves, liars, and idlers, and are given to indolence. The men sit around in the villages and smoke, the boys lay traps for wild animals, and the women till the fields.