Through unknown Nigeria

“Steam at 10 o’clock, Cappy.” That was the order given by Mr Coleman at Baro in the evening to the skipper of the Rattler launch for the following morning. “Cappy,” of course, was an abbreviation of Captain. This commander was of the Nupé tribe, and the craft in his charge was used by Mr W. H. Hibbert, Divisional Agent of the Company, for inspection tours of the stations in his division. He had kindly sent it up from Lokoja to save me waiting three or four days for a large stern-wheeler coming down the Niger.

The wish, however, of several people that I should see the places in which they were specially concerned made the hour 11 a.m. when the Rattler steamed away on the 70 miles’ run to Lokoja.

The launch, propelled by a screw, was 75 feet long, with a beam of 8½ feet, and 4½ feet deep, drawing 2 feet 9 inches. The boat is used as a habitation by Mr Hibbert for weeks together as he travels up and down the main streams and tributary creeks to visit the many stations of the Company where produce is purchased by the men in charge and European goods sold to the natives.

Just below Baro the Niger is 1,200 feet across, as smooth as the Serpentine lake in Hyde Park. The banks of the river are low, in some cases edged with narrow strips of sand and in others completely grass covered. As one steams down, the crowded trees make a wall to within a quarter of a mile of the bank, whilst in spots this thick wooding comes to the edge of the water and continues along it. Occasionally, in the background, are ranges of hills, giving a higher and less regular sky line. Clear and distinct on the sand beaches crocodiles can be seen at intervals snoozing in the sun.

This broad river is not so easy for navigation as it looks, for there are plenty of shallows and submerged islands where our little craft might easily run aground. “Cappy,” therefore, does not take a direct line, but frequently has the boat in a diagonal course, as though he were tacking against the wind, giving directions by a slight move of the hand to the sailor at the wheel.

Although no stop was made on the journey down, it was quite dark half-an-hour before arriving at Lokoja, where Mr A. Coombe, also a fellow-passenger on the voyage from England and District Agent of the Niger Company, was waiting on the beach with a lamp to guide “Cappy” to his moorings alongside the bank.

Lokoja has a past. Not in the sense applied to Mrs Ebbsmith, but in the place it has occupied in the record of West African exploration. The story, even given briefly, may convey some notion of the climatic deterrents on the one hand and, on the other, how the British outlook on colonial expansion has changed—completely reversed—and how that policy was, it may be said, almost involuntarily effected.

I do not propose, at least here, to take a literary jaunt along the 2,500 years since the Niger River was first mentioned by a writer, the worthy Herodotus. I merely venture to sail lightly over the 82 years that have elapsed since the course of the waterway was discovered by the brothers Lander. That is done by reason of the very important trading position Lokoja occupies and the dominating influence it has had in the political advancement of the country.

The connection of Lokoja to the Niger is as strong as London is to the Thames or Liverpool to the Mersey, though the famous African town does not correspond topographically to either, for it is 337 miles from the sea.

That part of the Niger was unknown to whites until the brothers Lander came down the stream in a canoe from Boussa and, continuing, traced the river to its outlet. Europeans had traded in the delta for hundreds of years but did not suspect it was the same stream Mungo Park and other travellers had struck in the hinterland.

Two men had, however, formed theories concerning the course of the Niger from Boussa. One, Herr Reichard, argued in print, in 1808, that the river took the line which was to a large extent eventually proved, but he did not indicate accurately how it was disposed at the mouth. The other, James McQueen, issued in 1816 a small publication in which he traced the direction of the Niger to the sea; five years later he elaborated his views in a volume, illustrating them by maps. As McQueen—a merchant of the West Indies—had never been in Africa, his conclusion was scorned. Nine years afterwards he heard its accuracy verified, when Richard and John Lander came out at the southernmost arm of the mighty stream.

The news acquired by the Landers in 1830 that the river was navigable from the delta, in 1832 induced two vessels propelled by steam to be fitted out at Liverpool for trading up the river. The expedition was financed and organised by the pioneer of British commerce in this part of Nigeria, McGregor Laird. The vessels together carried a crew of 45, of whom, in a couple of years, the climate killed 36. This heavy mortality shocked people at home, and for some time the country was looked upon as impossible for Europeans.

However, in 1841 another attempt was made, though for a different purpose. Three steamers went out from England, carrying 145 persons. Their object was towards the abolition of slavery solely by peaceful measures. The officers were all drawn from the Royal Navy. The expedition, like the former one, were absent two years, and although the deaths were not so overwhelming in this case, they were appalling: practically 33 per cent., for 49 succumbed. In the main design of the journey nothing was effected. A piece of land was purchased adjoining the river. The intention was to work it as a model farm, using free labour. When the ships turned homewards the plot of ground was abandoned. It was, however, subsequently to be one of the most-talked-of spots in Northern Nigeria. Lokoja stands there.

In 1850 the British Government sent a small expedition, consisting of Richardson, a German named Barth, and another of the same nationality, Overweg, to march from Tripoli southwards across the desert and explore the eastern territory of what is now Northern Nigeria. The trio broke up. Mr Richardson died in Nigeria, and whilst Dr Overweg went to report on the country in Lake Chad district, Dr Barth reached Yola, on the Benue River, 467 miles from where it forms a junction with the Niger facing Lokoja. Barth advised the Government that the Benue be utilised for trading with the interior, Lander having demonstrated that the double waterway communicated with the sea.

On the strength of Barth’s reports, and notwithstanding the deplorable experience of the previous parties, McGregor Laird in 1854 applied to the Government for permission to explore and trade on the Niger. His request was granted and he built a steamer, the Pleiad, for the purpose. It carried quite a mixed consignment, consisting of trading goods; a zoologist, who was to pursue his own branch of study; and several native missionaries in the service of the Church Missionary Society. Every health precaution was adopted, including quinine daily; and, in striking contrast to former results, after about five months every one of the Europeans was brought back.

Laird’s expedition had proved so promising that in January 1857 he offered, for a subsidy by the Government, to place a steamer on the Niger and maintain communication between the sea and about 400 miles up country. The proposal was adopted, and a few trading centres were soon established along the route. These, however, resulted in friction with the natives, and, after a period of three years, Laird’s death and other causes were followed by abandonment of the centres and almost the complete relinquishment of direct British interest in that part of the territory.

Dr Baikie, R.N., who had been in charge of Laird’s first expedition, on the second being arranged was sent out as British Consul and took up quarters on the river shore which had been acquired for the 1841 model farm and which in Baikie’s consulate was named Lokoja.

In 1868, in furtherance of the policy of the period to reduce, not to extend, British influence, Baikie was withdrawn, and the Niger territory, beyond a few miles from the mouth of the river, cut from our control. The ideas of the day had been expressed by the House of Commons Resolution of 1865, which directed that: “... the object of our policy should be to encourage in the natives the exercise of those qualities which may render it possible for us more and more to transfer to them the administration of all the Governments with a view to our ultimate withdrawal from all [West Africa] except, probably, Sierra Leone.”

Well, where pusillanimous Cabinets feared to go unofficial enterprise boldly stepped, and, whether the Home Government wished it or not, circumstances so willed that the Union Jack came to be eagerly planted on the Niger territories and subsequently carried far into the interior, or the British would have been hemmed in on the coast by other Continental nations. The former attitude of general withdrawal had in the course of a single generation become utterly discredited. In 1886 the Niger Company received its Charter, and from that time the peace and prosperity of Northern Nigeria has proceeded apace.

Lokoja was the administrative headquarters of the Company. Here, in 1897, Sir George Taubman Goldie—the Mr Goldie Taubman of those days—organised the force to proceed to Kabba City, which was the initial occasion Hausas were put to fight against their co-religionists. The care and thought these pioneers gave to the study of local feeling and tendencies is shown by the appointment for the first time of Mallams to accompany the troops, and, like army chaplains, minister to their spiritual requirements. That step prevented the enemy from undermining the soldiers’ staunchness on the subject most likely to touch their sentiment, and it also counteracted the risk of a jehad being preached on the ground that the white man sought forcibly to convert the Mohamedans to his own faith.

It was from Lokoja that Sir George Taubman Goldie set out the same year, and, with native regiments which numbered all ranks between 500 and 600, defeated, in a two days’ battle, the Emir of Bida’s army, estimated at from 10,000 to 15,000 first-class fighting men, including the famous Fulani horsemen, who until that encounter had been looked upon as invincible in war.

The Company’s Charter was taken over by the Imperial authorities at the opening of 1900, and Jebba, 200 miles higher up the river, shortly afterwards made Government headquarters.

If Lokoja does not possess the former political predominance, its business importance is more than ever. The town may be said to occupy a strategic commercial position. It stands, as has been stated, at the confluence of the Benue and Niger rivers, which here are together about two miles across.

The Benue flows into the Niger at an angle of 45 degrees and is navigable to Yola, 467 miles distant. It runs through the Bassa country, remarkably rich in agricultural and sylvan produce, of which not a tithe has yet been tapped.

There are eight European firms in Lokoja, namely, the Tin Areas of Nigeria, the British Cotton Growing Association, the Niger Company, Messrs Pagenstecher, John Holt, G. W. Christian, J. D. Fairley, and the Bank of British West Africa. The first five are buyers of produce as well as storekeepers, whilst the remainder only engage in the latter form of business. The exception to both descriptions of business is, of course, the bank, which does not go beyond its own sphere.

Kabba Province, in which Lokoja stands, is noted for the rubber, palm-kernels, and shea-nuts cultivated by the native farmers, with comparatively little beeswax and a few hides. The Niger Company is the largest buyer. Away from the headquarters, at Burutu, it is the largest station of the Company. In the sheds I saw tons and tons of palm-kernels, shea-nuts, rubber, and other forest products brought from the interior and exchanged for British goods and for the small amount of Continental articles which British manufacturers cannot make; and there are also large cash transactions—in fact, most of the purchases are paid for in cash—of which only a small proportion is expended on the spot.

This is not done at once, nor is it necessarily carried out with the firm to whom the native farmer or trader has sold the produce. He is not the man quickly to launch into outlay. He is cool, careful, calculating, and, having disposed of what he has to sell, will sit down for two or three days to cogitate on what he shall buy in the way of presents to take to his folks at home. Having brought himself to the mood of expenditure, he probably inspects all the stores before deciding where he is to bestow his patronage, which may be no more than 5s.

A somewhat similar procedure is followed when he is a seller. Each European firm will be tried and the amount it will give for the produce ascertained previous to one being selected. Time is no object. If anybody fresh from England and not conversant with native methods sought to inculcate new ideas and method by refusing to pay the price offered and declined a few days earlier for the native produce, then that merchant would simply take it away and probably never bring more to the same place.

Lokoja has this difference from its Lancashire prototype, Liverpool, that whereas the Mersey and the Manchester ends of the Ship Canal are the water termini of sea-borne merchandise, Lokoja is a kind of clearing-house for general distribution. To its beach are moored screw and stern-wheelers, from 10 tons’ freight to the larger ones of the “Naraguta” class, for freight of 600 tons; barges drawing 12 to 15 inches, for passing up the broad though very shallow creeks of the Niger and the Benue, carrying goods of English make to the inhabitants of districts which can give our home manufacturers those essential oils and other products of the soil necessary for their industries, and which they scour the world to discover.

To other parts of the beach come and go native canoes of infinite variety in shape and size, some as long as vessels seen on European canals, and decreasing by degrees until there is the plain dug-out made from the trunk of a tree, in which the perambulating trader, with wife and child, makes his peregrinations perhaps 500 miles up the Benue, buying and selling and exchanging at the stopping-places, and at night sloping his mat on a pole fixed horizontally, thus providing a house and shelter for sleep. Lokoja is the great centre of them all.

It is also the Northern Divisional Headquarters of the Niger Company, the division supervised by Mr W. H. Hibbert, and comprising 6 districts, with 30 trading stations and stores, reaching as far as Ilorin in one direction and Jemma and Loko in the other.

Loading or unloading the larger river boats is worth describing. Word goes round the native town when the operation is to take place and a great crowd of all sorts and conditions foregather to take a hand. There is no elaborate and intricate supervision to ensure that each labourer shall prove himself worthy of his wage. He is paid piecework in the most direct, precise, and simple manner. The honorarium is rendered at every load.

Suppose it is a case of loading fuel—wood—for a stern-wheeler. The corps of workers assemble where the material is stacked, are given baskets, which, being filled, they hoist on their heads, and half-run, half-walk, close on one another’s heels, in a long, winding line to the boat.

As they pass along a plank from the shore to the craft there stands on it a native clerk who hands to every person payment. Wages are high at Lokoja, compared with what they were when I was up at Jebba three years ago. At Lokoja, as in some parts of England, there is the cry of rise in the cost of living. Consequently a few cowries no longer suffice as an inducement for beach work. A journey with a load to or from the boat is rewarded by a tenth of a penny. Nickel coins of that denomination are sent from England for currency in Nigeria. The native name is nini, pronounced neenee. Tenth of a penny is the minimum payment. Do not conclude that these very casual labourers would be content with whatever you cared to offer. Nothing of the kind. The tenth is for a generally-agreed distance between the points of taking a load and discharging it. Should the points be wider apart, two, three, or even four tenths must be disbursed as each worker performs his, or her, task.

An amusing crowd it is that scampers along at this work: men, women, and children of all ages and sizes. The most complete freedom of contract obtains. Everybody is free to enter and head a basket, and anybody can give up when they please. In hurrying over the narrow plank to the boat, occasionally bearer and load will overbalance and topple into the river, at which the noise of shouting with which the work is carried on will be heightened by loud laughter, whilst the fallen warrior collects basket and contents from the running stream and completes the task of depositing his charge at its proper destination.