I expected to find Zungeru a town more or less roughly divided into official, business and residential quarters, with clearly-defined and named roads and thoroughfares. The Capital of Northern Nigeria—the administrative headquarters—is, however, a city in a garden; and a very small city at that, probably the smallest in existence, much smaller than Monrovia, the Capital of the Republic of Liberia.

Still, power is seated at Zungeru—power strong, clear, absolute. The Governor of Northern Nigeria is given fuller authority over the people and the country than is in the hands of the Kaiser of Germany or the Czar of Russia. Without giving a reason he can decide questions of life and death; cancel a lease held by European or native; deny entry of or expel white or black; make law by simply issuing a Proclamation. He has not even a nominated Legislative Council, as in Crown Colonies. The form of government for natives in Northern Nigeria will be dealt with in a separate chapter.

Zungeru consists of a few bungalows dotted irregularly amidst trees in open grass and bush country. The roads, made by the Public Works Department, are very good: gravel, 10 to 30 feet wide and excellent for cyclists. The thoroughfares are all unnamed. You do not say that you live at such-and-such a house in such-and-such a road, or avenue, or street, but that your address is number one, two, or three, or any other number, as the case may be, Zungeru.

One point must not be included in this generalisation. Leaving out the Secretariat, five of the principal Government buildings face the same centre, and are designated by the natives Aiki—pronounced Ikey—Square. Aiki is the Hausa word for work, and the name therefore means “the place where the work is done.” Gratifying to the persons whose hours are spent there.

Certainly there is an official quarter, but it comprises the whole of the town, with the exception of the Niger Company’s store, and the native village, which is a recent creation. Midway between the two points are the native clerks’ houses. Distinct from all the places stated are the military lines and the police barracks. That, in outline, is the story of Zungeru to-day.

It is ten years old, and previous to the advent of the British, in 1901, was scarcely a “geographical expression,” for few maps gave the place. The population is made up of seventy officials, two hundred native officials, and four white members of the staff of the Niger Company and the Bank of Nigeria.

The extension of the Lagos Railway from Jebba to Kano via Zungeru last January has brought the last-named within two days of the sea, instead of between three and four weeks, according to the state of the rivers. But the character of Zungeru is unchanged, and is likely to remain so. There is no prospect within sight of its becoming a city or even a town, as understood in Europe. More passengers may pass up and down the line, for commercial or other reasons, than formally travelled through, and a number of individuals may consider it necessary to come to Zungeru to see Government officials about mining matters—though the total of these is not likely to be large, as the Government Inspector of Mines, who advises the Governor, is located at Naraguta—but there is nothing at present to indicate an appreciable influx of population to Zungeru.

Let there be no mistake about the accommodation in Zungeru. It is extremely limited. If anybody thinks to arrive by train and “roll off” to an hotel he will be grievously disappointed. Only in one town of Southern and Northern Nigeria—territory 333,300 square miles in extent—is there an hotel. That is at Lagos. Men come without previous notice or inquiry to Zungeru and expect provision to be made in the way of board and lodging. It simply cannot be done. Bungalows are few and nearly all are overcrowded, from Government House down. The Chief Secretary to the Government, the Chief Justice, the Attorney-General, the Commandant, the Treasurer, the Director of Public Works, the Principal Medical Officer, the Chief Transport Officer, the Inspector-General of Police, and the Commissioner of Police alone have separate housing, very circumscribed. The rest of the Government staff are “doubled-up,” i.e., two men to every three-roomed bungalow. As matters stand, there are not sufficient bungalows to go round even on this plan. It is not uncommon for an official to be moved from one to another as a man returns to duty, just finding room where somebody is going on vacation.

Four rest-houses are provided for visitors staying temporarily. The structures are rather primitive, of dried mud walls and thatched roofs. The stranger within the gates must bring all his daily requirements with him: bed, table, chair, cooking utensils, groceries, etc. Fresh meat can be bought in the native market at certain hours of the day.

Happy in the enjoyment of hospitality at a large private house, I felt quite a twinge of unworthiness at going to interview at one of these rest-houses a President of Chamber of Mines, Colonel Judd, who in England probably dines at the Carlton, the Ritz, or the Midland Grand, and who, even in Northern Nigeria, wearing a bush shirt, was still spruce, with a gold-rimmed monocle. A dozen people would have been glad to pay him the compliment of an invitation as guest, but there was simply no room in Zungeru where he could be placed. Colonel Judd was the least concerned of anybody. He expressed himself as quite content, and told me, as we both sat on the arm-rests of the single deck-chair available, that he had had to put up with much worse places in the course of his journey and that I would be fortunate to get as good in the areas I shall shortly cross.

These four rest-houses are frequently all occupied to the fullest extent. The advent of a stranger, perhaps bent on business with a Government department, creates a painful situation.

Everything in Zungeru has been done on the lowest price scale, which is perhaps not the cheapest. From the first, Northern Nigeria has been short of funds. The Imperial grant-in-aid was kept down to a minimum, and that minimum much less than it should be in justice to the men who serve here at great risk to life and health. Not a penny has been spent that could be avoided. With the exception of the railway bungalows, which are of brick, but for which rich Southern Nigeria paid, all the others are of wood which has been exposed to a wasting climate for ten years. Several are in a dilapidated condition. They are occupied by men holding high posts whose work is essential to the administration, the finances, and the peace of the country; yet we make them live in dwellings—there are none other—which are a daily challenge to health and provocation to disease. This is not economy; it is gambling with men’s lives for the sake of a miserable few shillings capital outlay. Sanitary housing—houses of the proper material and with ample air and protection against the insect and accompanying pests of the land—is second only to good food in keeping “fit.” It is high time the necessary measures were carried out.

Excuses have been made for the situation. The future of Zungeru is uncertain as the Capital of the Protectorate. I will deal with that as a separate question. On the ground that the Capital may eventually be located elsewhere, the word went forth five years ago that no further building was to take place beyond what was absolutely necessary. It is only what is absolutely necessary that I advocate.

The high invaliding and death-rate which formerly obtained amongst officials in Northern Nigeria is to be attributed to the bad housing to which they have been subjected. The rate has lowered greatly. But too strong a deduction should not be drawn from the latest figures. An unhealthy station may enjoy long immunity. Tropical illnesses will not always arrange their appearance in the arbitrary terms of twelve months. To facilitate statistical argument, they more frequently rise and fall in a cycle of years. Let the proper steps be taken in Zungeru before the old high percentage of mortality reasserts itself.

Northern Nigeria is a country of and for young men.

The Postmaster-General strikes you as a fair-haired boy of twenty-two. He tells you, with pride, he is “much older than that.” He is thirty-two. The Acting Chief Justice is no “potent, grave, and reverend seigneur,” but is of an age when in England he would probably be fulfilling the rôle of “devil” to a leader in the High Court. The cool, clear-headed, and obviously capable officer temporarily in command of the 1st Battalion (1,314 men) Northern Nigeria Regiment, Captain G. C. Kelly, would, elsewhere, in these days of slow promotion, be lucky to have got his company. His colleague in charge of the battery of four light guns, Captain C. F. S. Maclaverty, could not hope to discharge anything like that responsibility at home. The Deputy Director of Railways, under the famous John Eaglesome, might pass as a youth who had not long finished his articles.

Those at the head of affairs are not much older in years. I do not venture to ask the Acting Governor his age, and there is no “Who’s Who” within reach, but I should judge Mr C. L. Temple, C.M.G., to be on this side of forty; and the next in rank, the Acting Chief Secretary, Mr H. S. Goldsmith, who recently temporarily carried out the duties of the highest position—with absolute rule over a territory containing 10,000,000 inhabitants—is, I learn from a friend, thirty-eight.

He started thirteen years ago, when Northern Nigeria was taken over by the Crown from the Niger Company. He began, as there was urgent demand for getting the administrative machinery into working order, in a very junior post in the Protectorate. In the course of his first year he had to give help wherever it was most pressing, going from one office to another: Stores, Transport, Treasury, and the Marine Department. All his willingness and eagerness were not wasted. Although seemingly unnoticed at the time, it marked out the kind of officer Sir Frederick Lugard wanted. In the last birthday honours list Herbert Symond Goldsmith, Acting Chief Secretary to the Government of Northern Nigeria, received a C.M.G.

Yes, the country has still opportunities for the man who is ready and keen. But it is not the place where “the lotus life” can be lived. The tradition of plenty of work and responsibility which Lugard established still obtains. Government office hours end at 2 p.m., with an hour’s interval from nine to ten for breakfast. But they start early, and you may be startled at first at finding that an appointment for which you asked has been fixed for 7 a.m.

The time for official hours does not mean that it is a case of “down tools” as the clock points. I have found the Chief Secretary still hard at his duties at 5.30 in the afternoon, and one Sunday morning, when I went to see Captain Kelly at his bungalow, I learnt that he was closely engaged at the Brigade Office on a defence scheme.

The Secretariat has only a few constituting the personnel, nothing like the number one might look for at the Capital of such a large and well-populated territory. In Northern Nigeria the Government is greatly decentralised. Wide discretion is left to the Residents, who in some distant and not easily accessible places, such as Bornu and Sokoto, occupy the position of well-nigh sovereign kinglets. Further, actual and daily rule is left to the hereditary Emirs of the Provinces, subject to the advice and guidance, when necessary, of the Residents.

Another cause of the limited staff at the Secretariat is that in Northern Nigeria strict, stern, severe economy remains the order of the hour. There is evidence of it all round. The Secretariat is a poor building indeed. Bare brick whitewashed walls and cement floor crumbling in places, and in others worn into holes. Not a roll-top desk or anything approaching it in the place. Old, plain wooden tables, and, at the farther edge of each, roughly-made pigeon-holes. By way of contrast, the tables are of a light colour and the pigeon-holes have at some time or other been given a single daub of green paint, now faded. The Chief Secretary’s room is just like the others. His table is covered by a bit of threadbare green baize which a messenger at Whitehall would not think fit to wipe his boots upon and for which no Hausa trader would give a handful of cowries.

At present occupied by the Acting Governor, Mr Temple—whose wife shares his “plain living”—the Governor’s “Palace” is a mean shanty. A seven-roomed, wooden bungalow, it has stood “the battle and the breeze” for nine years and shows signs of the ordeal in all directions. It looks as though it could be easily shaken to bits. The dining-room is walled with boards which once received a single dash of brown staining. This apartment, however, is luxurious compared with the Governor’s office adjoining, the plank partition of which has not its ugliness improved by a sparse covering of green paint, of the quality used in England on the garden fences of thirty-pounds-a-year houses. Nor does His Excellency recline on soft velvets or plush cushions, as might be expected of the ruler of Emirs and Kings who turn out in splendour. As I talked with him he sat in a plain chair, the hardness of the seat of which was somewhat relieved by an old horse-blanket folded.

The furniture at Government House is of the same nondescript character. It might have been picked up in job lots at public auction rooms. In order that I might take a group photograph six chairs were brought into the grounds from the drawing-room and I noticed that the six were made up of three different styles. Before the picture could be composed I had to do a temporary repair to one of the chairs.

The motor-car in which he gets about Zungeru, and which is used for traversing distant roads the railway does not cover, is an old shambling machine making as much noise as a traction engine. The motor-cabs of Europe, and even the vehicles of the London General Omnibus Company are smart and ultra-fashionable by comparison. I should say that a suburban shopkeeper would scorn to hire it at a shilling per hour on a Bank Holiday to take his family round Battersea Park or Hampstead Heath. Well-to-do natives in Lagos use better.

These latter things are not written in any mere fault-finding, jeering spirit. They are set out in heartfelt admiration of the manner in which unnecessary hardships are cheerfully accepted by the members of the Government of the Northern Nigeria Protectorate, from the highest to the humblest. Millions have been spent on the country, but the money has gone in building railways, facilitating commerce, bettering the material opportunities of the native population and assuring them protection that they may pursue their ways in peace. The question may fairly be asked whether the time has not come when something should be done for the men who have put this policy into actual operation. John Bull stands to gain a great deal by the acquisition of Northern Nigeria. I am sure he would willingly acquiesce in more liberality on the part of those who act for him.

A figure which pervades Zungeru at every turn is the Cantonment Magistrate. The Governor is a commanding person, of whom everyone, from the visiting Sultans and Emirs to resident and travelling Europeans, stand much in awe. But the Governor is on a pedestal away from the general, daily run of affairs. Excepting on special occasions, when Government House is opened to hospitality, or an audience is sought, the ordinary individual does not come in contact with the Governor.

The Chief Secretary, as the leading member of the administrative staff, is pretty prominent, yet unless a matter is of importance he will not personally appear on the scene, though his name or signature will be used.

But the Cantonment Magistrate! You cannot get away from his authority. His functions seem interminable. He is a dozen individuals rolled into one. He is a veritable “Pooh-Bah” without, as it was darkly hinted to me, the emoluments of that Gilbertian creation.

Here are some of the parts carried out by the Cantonment Magistrate of Zungeru, formerly Captain, now Mr, J. Radcliff:

See the Cantonment Magistrate in his own court. Note the side glance of scepticism, scorn, and unbelief as a voluble female pours out her tale of woe. It is just the glance of the stipendiary on the bench at home. Looking at the lady, one would be driven to the conclusion that, after all, human nature is pretty much the same the world over, and that there is no great difference between Bridget or Mary Ann in England and Amina, Fatima, or Rekia in Zungeru.

Every Wednesday morning the local native Council consult with the Cantonment Magistrate. I chanced to be at his office as the four of them and the Chief came up. They salaamed by kneeling and bending their heads to the ground, and then arose and followed the Englishman into the building. Conversation ranged over several subjects. The C.M. lightly reminded the Chief that rents of market pitches were not being collected with that regularity, thoroughness, and completeness which the Governor liked. The Chief responded that people complained of little business, but that he would see to the arrears forthwith, and he improved the occasion by pointing out to the C.M. that certain parts of the market needed repair and money spent on improvements. The C.M. answered that it would be the first thing to be put in hand as soon as the arrears were received.

The talk branched into another channel. The Chief proceeded to say that he had been somewhat troubled in mind of late. The slightest trace of a questioning smile came on the visage of the Cantonment Magistrate. The Chief continued that it was so long since he had paid his respects to the Acting Governor that he was commencing to feel quite uneasy. His Excellency might consider him indifferent to politeness and his obligations.

The Cantonment Magistrate gravely told him to sleep well at nights on that score, as the Acting Governor was thoroughly aware of the Chiefs loyalty. All the same, the C.M. would ascertain His Excellency’s convenience for the audience and would promptly inform the Chief.

Then the visitor asked about the health of the Acting Governor. The C.M. gave satisfactory assurances on that point. The next enquiry was as to the well-being of Mrs Temple. The C.M. rendered an equally gratifying report, and diplomatically remarked that she was looking forward to the pleasure of meeting the Chief, at which his face showed that he rejoiced exceedingly.

With similar ceremony to that at the commencement of the visit it ended.