Through unknown Nigeria

Be sure no package exceeds 60 lbs. That is the first thing to govern preparation for the trek. If parcels are heavier carriers may refuse to take them. Do not talk about “making” the men do so. You who have had experience with carriers on the Coast, in other parts of Africa, or in the Far East, must not think of putting into operation methods which obtain there. You will find that the natives here are entirely different, have different ideas, and require different handling. You must begin learning knowledge of carriers and other labour afresh. That is not the product of my own philosophy. The words were said by a man who had been mining all over the world and whose years of observation probably doubled those of anybody now actively engaged in Northern Nigeria. The carrier here is, however, one of the best fellows on the face of the globe. He needs to be understood. That accomplished, you can get him to do anything in reason. Such is my conclusion and testimony. I am referring to men who are carriers from choice, not to those taken from other occupation, more or less against their wish.

Though it is essential your loads shall not exceed 60 lbs. each, to avoid opening and redistributing the contents of trunks in the open ground there is no reason to inconvenience yourself by placing more in boxes than you desire. The golden rule is not to have any above the specified standard. Below it does not mean increase in the number of carriers. The procedure at Rahama is this. All packages are set in a line. Mr Garrard looks at each and quickly weighs them up mentally, testing by lifting. A load of, say, 20 lbs. is placed with another or more and all securely tied to equalise every load to about 60 lbs. The carriers do their own roping, according to the individual manner of bearing a package, which is on the head.

For the first day an early start is out of the question. A number of little things have to be done which cannot be effected in advance. Nor should a long stretch be decided upon for the initial stopping-place. The men like a near one in order that they may settle down and become accustomed to their loads before the journey is entered upon in real earnest. You will lose nothing in the end by humouring these feelings of the carriers. Give way to them in small things, which do not matter, and you will be able to have your way in larger ones that do matter.

My packages were paraded in the way prescribed, and the carriers stood behind them ready for Mr Garrard’s directions. Just then I walked up, and as soon as it was seen that I was to accompany the party two of the men showed restiveness and said they did not wish to go. Now, I do not think I am a very fearsome-looking personage, and I failed to understand why a glance at me at once deterred otherwise willing workers. It was subsequently elicited that the two men had previously marched with a European who had hurried, harried and bullied them, and whilst they were quite ready to take any load and go anywhere, they desired to do it only with their fellows. When a party of that kind travels the men usually do very short distances in the preliminary part and select their own stopping-places, generally near a market that suits them, but whatever time be lost by these deviations they are sure to make it up and to arrive at a destination at the stipulated hour. They merely like to do things in their own way.

Mr Garrard simply dismissed the gang and called up the next in waiting. All these carriers working for the Niger Company receive a fixed wage, with additions for the journeys carried out. I asked whether any reprimand or punishment would be given to the two refractory carriers. Mr Garrard replied, not by him. The gang would be put last of those in waiting and might not be sent out that day. The members of it would, therefore, lose their “extra,” and those of them who were willing would be sure to lead the couple of recalcitrant ones to a suitable place and there administer the measure of their displeasure at being baulked of the earnings.

The fresh carriers were soon apportioned their loads and streamed away towards Gidan Gombo, the first stopping-place, 11 miles. They left at 11 a.m. The caravan consists of 20 carriers and a Headman, two doki boys and three boys for domestic service. The last department is made up of a steward, a cook and a small boy as general help.

I did not ride out until 4 p.m., staying to write and send off African World despatches, as after leaving Rahama I would not be near a post office for at least nine days. Kogini Rahama—Rahama Brook—a narrow river, had a bridge made of rails and sleepers thrown across it by the railway survey people, but it had met the fate of many bridges at this season; it had been broken by the storms and floods. Mr Garrard has an arrangement with the owner of a canoe to take across any traveller and his carriers at a charge of 2s.

A few hours previous to my starting heavy rain had fallen, and the first miles were over ground so slippery for the horse that I found it quicker to walk. Where the road was firm I rode hard, in the endeavour to get to Gidan Gombo before dark. Mr Garrard’s own doki boy, who was to bring a parcel back, came with me, and however quickly I rode he remained running in front, carrying a rather heavy writing satchel all the time. (Doki is the Hausa word for horse, and all servants, no matter their age, are styled boys.) Among those for whom I shall take away a very kindly feeling, and also one of admiration, is the best type of doki boy.

The portions of greasy road were so long that, following the brief twilight of the tropics, though darkness had set in by 7 o’clock I was still jogging along. The doki boy, however, knew the route, and there was no drawback except that of going over strange ground with no moon. About a quarter-of-an-hour later there was the unpleasant sound under these circumstances of breaking water ahead. Nobody had passed us for some time. During the day it is easy to learn if a stream across the high road is fordable. Persons coming from the direction on the tramp have evidently crossed the water, but at night, after a recent downfall, streams which might have been walked over on stones prior to the deluge are impassable.

I was nearing the place and debating in mind whether to chance trying to go over—there seemed no alternative, unless I was either to ride back and so put twenty miles on the journey, or stay at the spot all night—when a light swung ahead. A little party from the rest-house had brought a lantern to obviate the difficulty of crossing and by its light stepping-stones were clearly visible. The rest-house was only a mile further on, and into the compound I passed at 7.40.

An example of willingness on the part of good carriers was furnished. One had been overtaken by a mounted messenger when nearly half-way with an order to return. He was bearing a steel trunk not less than 60 lbs., and awkward to hold. It contained papers which should have been shown at Rahama. The man turned back, set out again, and although walking alone and going over the same ground on which I found it not easy to keep a horse up, and the latter part over which the pony went at a fair pace, still the carrier, who only had two hours’ start, came in at 8 o’clock, with no more stimulus than 1s. given at Rahama.

The rest-house compound at Gidan Gombo had within it quite an assemblage of natives who were tramping to Naraguta district attracted by the expectation of employment at the tin fields. Not labourers—they sleep in villages—but Coast mechanics and similar workmen and interpreters. In a rest-house compound are a number of smaller mud huts for the carriers, and in these shelters coloured men pass the night. There was a lad among them said to be son of the former Emir of Kano. If so, the scion of royalty had been much reduced in position. He—who whether the story be true or not was evidently of a superior caste—had been servant to Captain Maclaverty, of Zungeru, and was walking to Naraguta with a friend of the family—an interpreter—to enter the service of an Englishman there.

These rest-houses are put up by the Government. But for them one must perforce carry a tent or go to a native village, not an ideal place in which to sleep, from the health or any other point of view. The rest-house usually consists of a fairly stout circular mud wall, round which is a lower one, the intervening space covered by the sloping roof and forming a verandah. Rest-houses are in charge of the Headman of an adjacent village. He collects, for the Government, 2s. per night from each occupant, the payment including a supply of wood and water. If required, he has to sell for himself, at fixed rates, fowls and guinea corn for horses.

It is quite a little ceremony at some places where the Headman, accompanied by one or two village elders, pays his respects to the white visitor by coming to the rest-house, and there on knees saluting, by bowing the head and exclaiming several times, “Zaki! Zaki! Zaki!”—literally “Lion”—corresponding to “Sir” or “Your Honour” or “Your Lordship.” The visitor gravely replies “Agaisheka!” (“Hail to you!”) and then proceeds to business by stating his requirements in the matter of supplies and asking how much he has to pay. After the evening meal prepared by his servants in a cook-house in the compound, bed is the usual order of procedure.

The start next morning was at 6.30. I did not accompany the carriers but turned back to look for a Swan fountain pen jerked out of my pocket the previous afternoon and immensely valued not so much for its great convenience on a journey of this kind, when writing must be done at odd moments anywhere, but still more prized at being the gift from former colleagues. Nearly an hour’s search along the road failed to discover the article, so the forlorn hope was abandoned, and I turned round to overtake the carriers.[3] They would be, of course, about two hours in advance.

I had long repassed Gidan Gombo and, relying on the horse’s reputation for being sure-footed, was galloping him along a ridge on the road, each side cut into a ditch by further heavy rains of the early morning, when, a slip to the right, he involuntarily bent his head and over it I went, as cleanly as if I had been an acrobat. As is my practice when dismounting in this manner, I retained hold of the reins, but it was well the doki knew his manners and pulled up, for the bridle came off completely. A mud bath and a few slight bruises constituted the casualties, for the pony did not even go on his knees. He looked rather forlorn standing in the road with naked head, and as I went up to replace the bit he appeared to say, with a half-apologetic, sorrowful air, “Well, upon my soul! Who would have thought it?”

The sun had come out strongly, removing the dampness and leaving a caking of earth and mud on breeches and shirt as I cantered along to Gussum, 14 miles from Gidan Gombo, reaching it some time after the carriers.

Everybody having now settled down to their work, I decided on a 5 a.m. start for next morning, but at that hour the night rain was still falling, and you will seldom induce carriers to step out into a storm. If one comes whilst they are on the march they sturdily go on. A wetting from above is the most severe minor discomfort a native can suffer. It was 7 o’clock before the air had cleared, and we set forth. The Naraguta pilgrims continued towards their goal along the road that has been made southwards, whereas we, after going back a few hundred yards, left the road and struck south-east.

It was the first day I had ridden with the carriers, and within a couple of hours, without having spoken to any, I seemed to be on good terms with each. A more buoyant, light-spirited, smiling set nobody would wish to march with. One, Amadu, had suspended round his neck a kind of shepherd’s pipe roughly fashioned of wood, which, with a line of airholes along it, yielded shrill tunes. We set out with this pipe sounding a cheery note that stimulated all of us more for the day’s work.

Another leading figure of the party is the Headman Hanza, a fine type of Hausa, the kind of man whom nature has indicated should be above his fellows. His control of the men is thorough yet easy, and exercised with an entire absence of anger or high words. When he has to speak to any of them reprovingly, which is only called for when getting them to make more haste for the early morning assembly, it is never done by shouting. A few words in a deliberate, slow tone are all that is necessary. His articulation through a perfect set of teeth is so clear that a stranger to his language could catch every syllable.

It is on the Bauchi Light Railway that the Pagan belt of land is first touched, but there they are a very mild variety, a kind of Hausa-Pagan, the two having largely mingled and intermarried. Along the route we are now crossing there is a nearer approach to the real article, but nothing approaching the wild tribes on the further stages on the plateau. Men and women in the Gussum-Juga direction wear scarcely any clothing—males, a narrow loin-cloth; females, a bunch of leaves in front and another at the back—and keep themselves rather apart from the other population. The men turn from their work in the fields to bow to the white men. The Hausa villages and Fulani farms are not far from the dwelling-places of their aforetime prey, for slaves, and sworn enemies. Cultivation of the land, though not general, is fairly frequent. Pagan villages, instead of always being made in rocky heights where they were safe from the raiding Fulani horsemen, are now seen pitched lower, and not infrequently in the valleys. The British power ensures them protection and peace. Raiding for slaves is over, in these parts.

From Rahama the ascent to the plateau of Bauchi Province is an imperceptible slope. After leaving Gussum towards Juga there is a gentle down-grade for half the distance, carrying and concentrating rain from the hills and mountains, and in the course of a few hours making dry river beds and shallow streams into rushing, dangerous waters. This we experienced.