Through unknown Nigeria

Although there is a law that no non-native of Nigeria may live permanently in Kano City, the London and Kano Trading Company has a large establishment there. That is because the firm took the step long before the present regulation was promulgated, or probably thought of.

The London and Kano Trading Company was started in 1903 by Mr Loder Donisthorpe and Mr White. Both were in the Northern Nigeria Government service, and they were so taken with the idea—and, I think I may add, with the prospect of making a fortune—that, not staying to finish their 12 months’ term of duty, they resigned and commenced the new concern. But though chances were plentiful enough, the handicaps to utilising them formed a serious drawback, so serious that, at least once, abandonment of the enterprise was contemplated, or, at all events, considered.

Within the last year two events occurred which placed the L. and K. T. C. in an entirely superior position. One was the completion of the railway, which, forming a junction at Minna, connects Kano with the port of Lagos and with Baro, thus linking up the river route. The second occurrence was the advent of Captain J. J. Brocklebank on the directorate of the L. and K. T. C. That event proved the turning-point in the career of the concern.

Yet, it took place quite by chance, almost accidentally. Having acquired an interest in the company, he came to Northern Nigeria—not for the first time—for a short visit of 4 months, intending to dabble in the work and have some big game shooting; but, captivated by the first, he threw in his lot with the company and now largely directs its operations, which have since proceeded at express speed and have become greatly enlarged.

No more interesting or romantic figure—certainly among the Europeans—is to be found within 100 miles of Kano. Educated at Eton and Cambridge, Captain Brocklebank commenced soldiering by going on active service in the South African war, as a subaltern of the 8th Imperial Yeomanry, from which he was gazetted in 1900 Second Lieutenant in the King’s Dragoon Guards and soon afterwards won the D.S.O. Seeing little chance of adventure with that regiment, he got seconded to serve with the Mounted Infantry of the Northern Nigeria Regiment, and in 1908 was promoted Captain in his own corps. The same year, at his request, he was transferred to the Political Branch of the Northern Nigeria Government, but in 1911 he resigned from that and from the Army, electing for leisure, travel and sport. The London and Kano Trading Company meeting him before he could formulate a scheme of jaunts, there he is. It is rumoured that he has a personal income which would enable him to pass life luxuriously and without effort. He evidently prefers to be in Kano.

He dresses with studied neglect. Sundays and week-days I have seen him in the same suit of clothes, which are not even of the style generally worn here in the bush country. They are made of tweed and are faded to the verge of shabbiness. The ends of the coat sleeves are usually covered by the turned-up cuffs of his shirt. Instead of riding boots, he wears low-cut shoes, like dancing pumps—of course, of dull leather. A first-rate horseman, he is never seen mounted; he goes hither and thither in a pair-horse buggy, the only horse-drawn vehicle in or about Kano. Colonials in hot climates have their hair cut close, but his would almost do for a Bohemian actor, musician, or artist. He is the only man I have seen for hundreds of miles who wears a beard that is more than stubble. Yet no one would mistake him for anything but what he is, a gentleman—gentleman from boyhood. Thinking of him, it strikes one as childish to painfully labour the point that the managers of the stores are merely “traders,” as distinct and distant from the very superior persons who are not. Technically correct, the term trader is understood in these parts to apply to natives who sit in open places or who are peddlers.

Captain Brocklebank will occasionally say something stronger than a big D but always with the slight drawl which marks his intonation, never raising his voice, and with the smile which shows he is not angry. I have never seen him look so serious and solemn as he did when I was taking his photograph. He speaks Hausa colloquially and will frequently make the natives laugh by his waggisms in that tongue. I have heard him switch off his conversation with an Arab merchant to discuss matters with a French officer who could talk only in his own language. He would probably strike you as being languid and indifferent, but no Arab merchant is more alert, mentally, to the turns in a business transaction, and I happen to know that there are few, if any, individuals who look further ahead in a commercial survey. He appears to take things easily, and never hustles; but no day’s work ever overlaps another.

A man who in England is spick and span, keeps his high-power motor and dwells in a large town house and a country mansion, at Kano his domicile is a more or less dilapidated mud dwelling where white ants cause pieces from what must be called the ceiling to drop continually on the mosquito curtains over the camp-bed. The combined sitting and dining-room is, I warrant, not nearly as comfortable as the stable for his hunters in England. The “wine cellar” is a shelf in the mud wall furnished with one decanter and three other bottles. The wines are for his friends. He does not take any.

As we sat in this hovel, comparatively speaking, smoking cigarettes over a cup of tea, Captain Brocklebank leaned back in his folding chair and remarked laughingly, “I really don’t know why I am here.”

“Nor does anybody else,” was my rejoinder. “I assume because you like it.”

“Yes, that’s the explanation, I suppose.”

“But how came you to give up the Army, and then the interesting occupation of the political branch of the Northern Nigerian Government?”

“Well, there did not seem much in humdrum soldiering. I might have reached command of my regiment, but there appeared to be nothing beyond. And with all its engrossing interest, the civil department in Northern Nigeria was a little monotonous.”

“You wanted greater freedom?”

“Not quite that—opportunities for initiative. I felt that I wished to do something, to be going ahead, and going by my own efforts.”

“Being your own master, as the phrase is?”

“Yes and no. I had not the slightest ground for complaint of any kind against the policy I was a humble unit in helping to carry on, nor against my colleagues, with whom I have always been on the best of terms. I simply wanted to do something fresh, and chance brought me here.”

“Neither you nor your present associates regret the connection?”

The reply was a smile, followed by “I think not.”

“Are you likely to remain?”

“Oh, certainly, unless there is an unexpected upheaval.”

“That was not your original plan?”

“Quite so. I commenced by nibbling; now I have my teeth fairly locked in a grip of the things; and I have no inclination to lose them. I am going on.”

In a compound near by Captain Brocklebank had 20 horses; his personal property. I asked whether they were kept for pleasure or for business purposes, and the answer was “For either, or rather for both.” The cost of feeding such a stud by one who bought his guinea-corn in the fat period of the year is small. If his friends wish to borrow a horse for a day or so they can have it. If there is enquiry for something the London and Kano Company have not but which is worth getting, Captain Brocklebank sends half-a-dozen mounted messengers in as many directions to try and secure it. If anybody desires to purchase a horse he is pretty sure to see one at his figure among the batch; and if anyone desires to sell, then the Captain is ever a buyer. An animal more or less makes little odds.

The acquisition of a man of this kind by the London and Kano Company is of value beyond words. Well-to-do and helping the concern with “the sinews of war,” he can assist in a commercial fight at every step. He has already reaped largely in the new sphere opened by the railway. Greatly liked by both the official element and the representatives of the merchants, he can probably do business easier than one of less ingratiating manners, and, being a principal in the firm, he can promptly say yea or nay to a proposition of any magnitude. A man of his education, means, family connection, and social status is surely the equal, to say the least of it, of anybody else in Kano Province, which shows still more clearly the absurdity of looking down on the commercial class as something beneath notice, or only to be noticed in curt, frigid form and sternly ignored in every other way.