Through unknown Nigeria

Up early the following morning, to make most of the time before starting down the Niger, a quick look round at once gave a view more like the general pictures of West African towns seen along the Coast than the plains and highlands recently left. Small, square, and oblong houses, painted white and with red roofs, surrounded by a horseshoe-shaped hill 400 feet high, covered with green, bring to mind some resemblance to Sierra Leone and Monrovia, as seen from the sea at a distance.

Baro is 130 miles below Jebba, and was selected by Sir Percy Girouard for the terminus of the railway. The Niger is 1,000 feet across, divided into two channels by an island about two miles long, on which the native town is located. The south channel—the one nearest the railway—is only 100 feet wide, and you can walk over it, on sand, at lowest water.

Formerly Baro was an important produce-buying station of the Niger Company, principally for shea-nuts and ground-nuts. Since the opening of the railway the place has become important as a transport point for transference from the river stern-wheelers—run in connection with the ocean liners—to the train, for passengers and material bound for the tin mines. Now an average of 5,000 packages are handled weekly, ranging from personal baggage to heavy parts of machinery.

There are a number of people, particularly those going to the tin fields, who have little time to make purchases in England and who cannot supply the deficiencies when at the mouth of the Forcados River, as there is direct transhipment from the ocean ship to the stern-wheeler. Practically any requirement can, however, be satisfied at Baro, where there is always some interval between the arrival of the stern-wheeler and the departure of the train. The stay is long enough to make any outlays. The store of the Niger Company was stocked as I had not seen an establishment stocked for a long time, not since I had been in Zungeru more than six months earlier. There was everything actually on sale needed for a man going to the mines or prospecting. I walked up and down the building, as big as a large drill hall, and noted light tools for joiners and carpenters; oil stoves, useful for doing cooking on the train when a carriage has no facilities of that character; table and wall lamps; medicines, including quinine; tinned and bottled fruits; table necessaries and delicacies; liquids, from lemon squash, lime juice and Wincarnis to champagne; clocks and wristlet watches. I counted 6 brands of cigars and 20 kinds of cigarettes, camp-beds, deck chairs, men’s clothing, from soft felt and tweed hats to boots of various sorts, even to sock suspenders.

Then, to my surprise, I saw black frock-coats, just as the doctor or other professional man would wear in England. Although second-hand, I was staggered on learning that they are sold at 3s. 9d.! Fancy being rigged out in a respectable frock-coat 400 miles up from the Coast in West Africa at a cost of three shillings and ninepence! And, presumably, this figure leaves a profit after payment of transit from home.

And who wants to wear a black cloth frock-coat in these sultry regions, where white linen is more appropriate? I ask.

The answer is that there are two destinations for the articles. Natives in the district who are well off—such as a petty trader—buy and use them as rain-coats. They enquire at the store for “a water, black gown.”

The second destination to which a frock-coat goes which may have graced the figure of a company director, or even a member of the House of Lords, is as a present to some native Chief in Southern Nigeria, who will don it on State occasions, as the Lord Mayor of London comes out resplendent in his robes of office when an imposing ceremony is afoot.

In this store there was an array of another garment which my untutored eye took to be men’s undervests having intricate fretwork at the neck and on the short sleeves and under the fretwork what I thought to be blue and pink blotting-paper. On enquiring the correctness of my surmise, young Mr Coleman, who was showing me round, said in a rather loud tone, half-scornful at ignorance and half-pitiful, “What! Men’s undervests! Why, they are ladies’ chemises, with insertion. What you call fretwork, as though it were wood carved, is embroidery. Did anyone ever hear of embroidered men’s undervests!” And he laughed. After a pause he added, “Aren’t you married?” “No.” His rejoinder was merely “Oh!” I learnt he was.

Naturally I wondered what female form was decorated with such trappings and was told that the belles from villages miles around were particularly partial to this adornment, worn without anything over it; whereas in more civilised lands—so Mr Coleman informed me in a confidential, fatherly way—a dress covered the artistic production.

I always try to understand a subject in all its bearings, but you who may regard me as woefully deficient in knowledge on this topic please bear in mind that I have just come down from country where fashions and styles and manners of dress are much simpler and approximate—in fact, in many cases have not even attained—to the Garden of Eden stage.

The large number of rat-traps for sale led me to enquire whether there was a plague of the rodents. I was told No, but that the folks of the neighbourhood esteemed the vermin as an article of diet, properly cooked. The traps were used to secure the delicacy. My boy Oje informs me his people—the non-Moslem Yorubas of Ibadan—also enjoy the dish of rat, but he made clear that they would not demean themselves to eat the house variety, as the Hausas at Baro do, instead catching the field rat, “because he chop (feeds) on corn and be big and good past the other.” Oje never misses an opportunity to give reasons why his tribesmen and tribeswomen are superior to all the coloured race. He has a bump of local patriotism fully developed.

After looking over the excellent Railway Institute—a great boon to the employees—closer examination than had been practicable the previous evening was given to the Niger Company bungalow for staff quarters. It is built of cement blocks, with an overhanging verandah of wood and a roof of tiles, which has the immense advantage over iron or tin in that rest is not disturbed at night during the wet season, as, at the most, the rain merely purrs on the tiles. Under them is a wooden ceiling, giving coolness, and corresponding effect is obtained on the hottest day by use of cement blocks for the walls. The cement came out in barrels and the blocks were made by a Cyclops hand machine on the spot. When the railway authorities saw the bungalow a similar block-making machine was immediately ordered for their own purpose.

The whole bungalow is large and airy. It contains eight bedrooms—the verandah is suitable for sleeping during the highest temperature—and downstairs there are a lounge for smoking and reading, a dining-room, and a domestic store. All the rooms have been made mosquito-proof.

Baro presents a peculiar hygienic problem. The mortality formerly associated with Jebba baffled doctors as to its cause. Baro, on the other hand, used to be regarded as possessing peculiarly unhealthy conditions in the marshy land along the river shore. Yet, with the exception of the first year of railway construction, cases of illness have averaged few and are now lower than ever. So much so that the hospital has been closed some time as there were too few cases to keep the staff employed. There are not many of that kind in West Africa. This qualified immunity could probably be traced to personal precautions. The lesson should not be lost by new-comers to the country, not necessarily new-comers to this part, as the same principles apply all through West Africa.

There were other spots at Baro I should have been glad to visit, but, being due at Lokoja—70 miles—the same night, at 11 a.m. I went aboard the small steam-launch the Rattler and commenced the 406 miles’ journey down the Niger.