VIII

COMMERCIAL CONDITIONS AND PROSPECTS

Bauer says very appropriately in his book, when treating of commerce, that ‘the treasures of the Northern Kameruns consist in fertility and capacity for labour’.[448] This statement holds good in a still higher degree for German Bornu, the northernmost part of the Northern Kameruns, and for the whole of Bornu in general; for there does not seem to be the slightest prospect of finding useful minerals here, as far as one can judge from geological conditions. All the more urgent, therefore, is the duty of the Colonial Power interested in the commercial opening-up of the country to devote the most assiduous attention to the numerous and comparatively civilized population. In a climate like this, quite unsuited to Europeans, the natives alone can extract the full market value from the natural fertility of the soil, and they are already to a large extent prepared to receive the products of European industry.

How prodigiously full of vitality the population of Bornu is, is proved by the high figure at which it has been able to maintain itself, in spite of the fact that before the beginning of the anti-slavery movement it was yearly decimated over wide districts. How destructive were the military expeditions, which generally started from Kukawa and penetrated into the heart of Adamawa,[449] expeditions which were only undertaken because ‘the treasure-chests and slave-huts were empty and must be filled’,[450] we know well enough from the descriptions of Denham, Barth, Vogel, Rohlfs, and Nachtigal. Not only the Shehus, but all their vassal chiefs also, undertook razzias on their own account into the thickly populated districts. Everything that the slave-raiders had no use for—and this was the larger part—was destroyed on the spot; in spite of this, slave caravans of over 4.000 slaves were dispatched from Kukawa, of whom naturally only a very small proportion lived to reach their final goal, Murzuk and Tripoli.[451] This inhuman, senseless, and aimless traffic, dealing in the most valuable goods which the Central Sudan possesses, viz. its numerous and industrious population, has now ceased, since the Colonial Powers have paved the way for an orderly state of affairs. But it would not be less wrong, and like throwing the helve after the hatchet, were one now, considering the present state of the Sudan peoples, to forcibly free all so-called slaves, especially as the marriages of free-born women in the Sudan are often nothing more than a purchase on the part of the man and an entry into a kind of slavery on the part of the woman; yet this is the object actually aimed at by a false philanthropy, utterly unacquainted with the conditions prevailing in these regions. One must entirely approve, therefore, when Passarge, at present the best authority on, and the most faithful delineator of, conditions in the Central Sudan, states that: ‘The abolition of slavery, even supposing it were generally successful, would mean the ruin of agriculture and the creation of a state of chaos.’[452] People at home often take offence at the mere word ‘slave’, and connect it in their thoughts with such a state of things as was described in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The entire opposite was rather the case. The ‘slave’ experiences, once he has found a master, an almost invariably mild treatment on the part of his owner, who is dependent on him in many respects. The ‘slaves’ often enjoy a comparatively large amount of personal freedom, dwell in their own villages, and live under far better conditions than many free men, whilst in general the difference between free men and slaves is by no means obvious. Generally speaking, the term ‘serfdom’, as proposed by Passarge, would be much more suitable to this condition than ‘slavery’; but even this term is not altogether accurate for the Chad countries, seeing that in Germany, for example, the serfs, not so very long ago, could seldom emerge from their subordinate condition. Very different was the case in the Sudan. Many slaves have risen here to wealth and great influence—such as one or other of the eunuchs of the court of Bornu or this or that kachella, who was originally a slave—and, indeed, as a foreign and therefore invigorating element, have played a not unimportant rôle in politics.[453]

The last great events which had a definite bearing on the social condition of the population, were the conquest of Bornu by Rabeh and his final overthrow; these occurred only a decade ago. The result of these events was, owing to the facile character of the Kanuri, less a destructive than a transforming, perhaps even a stimulating one—thanks to the new elements introduced into the country. A few years after these events, the thickly inhabited districts of Bornu—if one excepts Kukawa or Dikoa—nowhere give the impression of being countries which a short time ago were ravaged by the furies of war. Besides, one should take into consideration that the traces of devastation and destruction are soon effaced in these latitudes. What is more important is the fact that very soon after the overthrow of Rabeh, the chief hindrance to the development of prosperity in this part of the Sudan—that is to say, slave-raiding—also ceased to exist.

The districts from which originated practically all the slaves who in former days reached the markets of Mourzuk or Tripoli—that is to say, the rich Musgu country—are still at the present day the best populated part of Bornu, nay, even of the Interior of Africa, and may indeed compare in this respect with the centres of population of many European industrial districts.[454] But many other tracts of Bornu, with its fertile lowlands, afford the same delightful prospect. Under this category, for example, falls village after village on the right bank of the Yedseram between Isga and Malematari. In all this district there is no poverty or difficulty in supporting life; everywhere there is prosperity and the unmistakable traces of a comfortable existence. Even the hills on the border are everywhere thickly inhabited, however inhospitable and inaccessible they may appear.[455]

Nachtigal attempted to ascertain the population of Bornu on the same basis as Barth’s estimate, and, like his predecessor, fixed the numbers at 5,000,000 for the whole of Bornu.[456] It is evident, however, that in this estimate the majority of the Musgu were not included in the reckoning, for the traveller’s route only allowed him to perceive the small part which at that time had yet been explored. Bearing this fact in mind and, further, taking into consideration the peaceful development of the country during the last ten years, one may certainly add to-day half a million to the figures of Barth and Nachtigal. Of the numbers thus obtained, at least one-third come from the specially thickly populated portion of Bornu that belongs to Germany.[457]

To watch over the peaceful development of the country, to keep an eye on anything that affects it, and to suggest the policy to be followed, is the business of the Residents appointed by the Colonial Powers; they are merely the advisers of the native chiefs, to whom must be left the direct jurisdiction over these territories according to the degree of civilization prevailing in each. It should be the prime duty of the European officials under all circumstances to prevent a return to the former state of affairs, i.e. mutual hostility between the pagans and Mohammedans—which would immediately degenerate again into slave-raiding—to make skilful use of existing divisions, but wherever possible to bridge them over. But this is all the more difficult since the pagan natives, remembering the former slave-raids, regard as an enemy any one of a different colour to themselves. Only a many years’ acquaintance with the peculiarities of the country can supply a key to a political system which is full of pitfalls. Though one cannot suppose that the Europeans responsible for the administration will possess the same intimate knowledge of native languages and customs as was displayed by Barth and Nachtigal, nevertheless the mastery of at least one of the locally spoken idioms, whether Arabic, Kanuri, Hausa, or Fulani, is absolutely necessary if their efforts are to be really useful. If anywhere, this holds good of the Central Sudan, where so many threads of North African tribal life are interwoven, and where all conditions and events are under the fixed control of the particularly well-organized sect of the Senussi,[458] which, though they hardly reach so far, are the moving spirit of the Pan-Islamic movement in North-East Africa, and whose activity was already noticed by Nachtigal.[459] It is this last circumstance especially that prescribes rules for the other colonizing factor which brings the native into touch with European culture, i.e. for the missionaries, rules which must differ from those which hold good for the rest of Africa. In spite of unmistakable religious tolerance, at least on the part of the Kanuri, the dominant race, it must not be forgotten that Islam, to which the country owes its ancient pre-eminence in the Sudan, has lost no ground to speak of, but on the contrary is engaged in steadily advancing. Only the very greatest patience on the part of Christian missionaries, careful conduct and a systematic advance from an assured base on the coast, can enable them to conquer this country. The slightest precipitancy would not only for ever put in question the results of missionary labour, but would have a most fatal effect on the whole political state of the country. This is especially true to-day of places where lack of suitable international arrangements has given the European Powers no opportunity of showing the great development of authority lately established in these distant regions.[460]

The chief industry of Bornu is agriculture, for which the necessary conditions exist to a degree they scarcely do elsewhere in tropical countries. The unstinted praise which Barth assigns to the Southern Musgu country as ‘the most fruitful and most richly watered tract in the world’,[461] holds equally true of many other districts of the Sultanate. No district is really bad, for even the ‘firki’ regions which, owing to the quickness with which they dry up, are to-day almost useless,[462] could certainly be made productive by the employment of a more highly developed system of husbandry. There are wide tracts in the lowlands of Bornu that present a field for agriculture of unparalleled extent. What an abundance of all the necessaries of life are to-day wrung from the soil by means of the primitive hoe, and what might not be produced by the mere introduction of the plough! It cannot be doubted that the intelligent and industrious natives, who exhibit such an exemplary system of horticulture with the most primitive implements, and who have long been aware of the value of artificial manuring, would soon grasp the advantages of the plough.[463] A suitable draught animal, the humped ox, is everywhere available, and that it is suited to use with the plough has been sufficiently proved by experiments undertaken in the Southern Kameruns.[464]

Pretty well every agricultural product of the Sudan is produced in Bornu in abundance, and certainly far cheaper than almost anywhere else in Central Africa, a circumstance to which Barth drew especial attention.[465] Of greater significance is the fact that the plant which at the present day has the greatest importance in world-commerce, i.e. cotton, has for ages been cultivated in Bornu. The good cotton produced in the country, which is manufactured in large quantities by the natives of the Sudan, proves as a matter of fact to be far superior to the cheap cotton goods imported from Europe.[466] And yet it is all produced by the primitive means of a native loom. Barth repeatedly emphasizes the fact that far from all of the soil of Bornu suited to the production of cotton is thus utilized.[467] What possibilities, therefore, are disclosed for this branch of agriculture by the utilization of all cotton soils after the introduction of better quality seed, and, above all, of a more intensive method of cultivation. Bornu, with its regular climate, is in a far more favourable position than many other cotton centres—such, for example, as the Southern States of North America, with their weather conditions which are never to be depended upon—and doubtless has a future before it so far as this product is concerned.[468]

Although the other vegetable products of Bornu cannot compete in importance with cotton, still the cultivation of many valuable agricultural products, which to-day play an important part in the export statistics of other African countries, could likewise experience an important increase. To this category belong especially ground-nuts and sesame.

Stock-raising has always received the same attention in Bornu as agriculture. The principal branch of this is cattle-breeding. One gets an idea of the enormous wealth of Bornu in cattle when one reads the descriptions of the Musgu country. Kund estimates that in these districts, where village joins village, a single place of some 100 farms possesses from 200 to 250 head of cattle.[469] Even if one takes into consideration that all districts are not suited for stock-raising, especially those where large stretches of forest make cattle-keeping difficult, still one may assume that Bornu is one of the richest countries in cattle of the whole of the Dark Continent. Flocks of sheep and goats are in places by no means inconsiderable, but they are generally met with in districts of Bornu less favoured by nature.[470]

From the proximity of the Sahara it is only natural that camel- and horse-breeding should have been undertaken in Bornu from early times. Although the prospects of camel-breeding have proved to be poor owing to reasons already mentioned, horse-breeding still flourishes, encouraged as it is by the possibility of always importing fresh stock from the North to reinvigorate the breed.[471] Nevertheless, it appears that this branch of industry has not attained the development since Denham and Barth’s times that one might have expected from the descriptions of these travellers. At a review Barth saw 10,000 horses at one spot—this, indeed, comprised the entire mounted force of the country—but it is doubtful whether at the present day this number could be again assembled, though one must also take into consideration that the occasion for such an assembly has disappeared for ever.

The existence of such a high development of agriculture, including the important occupations of cotton-growing and stock-raising, is bound to entail among a numerous population many forms of industry. It is not necessary to recapitulate here the industrial productions of the country; they have already been mentioned in the description of the various tribes. This much is certain, that everything which the industries of Bornu have accomplished—not only in the production of textile and leather goods—shows that the task of the European merchant here of creating wants and finding markets for native manufactures has already to a great extent been fulfilled. In this connexion it is to be remembered that Bornu was perhaps the first of the Mohammedan countries of Central Africa to enter into commercial relations with foreign nations, and thus came early into touch with Western products.[472]

A further proof of the commercial spirit of the population of Bornu is the comparatively highly developed form of currency which Barth found already in existence. Besides the very common system of barter, purchases for cash were at that time usual everywhere. The oldest medium for reckoning was a fixed weight of copper, the ‘Rottl’, a term which has remained even to-day as the unit of computation even after the introduction of other and commoner forms of currency. To these forms of currency belong the cotton-strips called ‘gabaga’, four of which go to one ‘Rottl’. At that time and until quite lately the Maria Theresa dollar,[473] a medium of reckoning which is very widely distributed in the Mohammedan world, was also current as well as that peculiar substitute for coin, the cowry-shell; in Barth’s and Nachtigal’s time the exchange was 3,000 to 4,000 cowries to the dollar and 32 to the ‘Rottl’.[474] Although the rate of exchange was fixed, still important fluctuations took place and always made cash transactions somewhat complicated.[475] It is only quite recently that European currency has been officially introduced and made available by the Colonial Powers, but naturally it is only able to supersede very gradually the medium of reckoning hitherto customary.

According to Rohlfs, the reason of the high development of trade in Bornu is the ‘absolute freedom of trade and industry’ and the freedom of all goods from tolls.[476] Nachtigal, however, mentions a kind of river-toll on the Logone, and similar arrangements of a more local nature may even still be found.[477]

How these trade relations—which naturally depend on the interchange of goods by the Sudan peoples among themselves—will shape in the future it is not yet possible to foresee. But this much is certain, that the chief objects of export and the lines which they take will have quite changed within a few years. Both certainly depend on the same causes.

In Barth’s time slaves were still the chief export of Bornu,[478] and even when Rohlfs visited the country things had altered little, as is proved by the figures previously quoted. Nachtigal says, not much later, that the exports of Bornu are confined ‘almost entirely to slaves, ostrich feathers, and ivory’. This traveller was the first to notice a distinct falling off in the most important ‘article’—a natural result of the restrictions that had begun to be enforced on the slave-trade.[479] But it is only in quite recent years that the export of slaves across the Great Desert to the shores of the Mediterranean has ceased. Ivory as well as living merchandise has now ceased to be an important article of export, owing to the war of extermination waged for many years against the elephant. Moreover, the quantity of ostrich feathers produced in Bornu was not important enough to influence trade. But it was these three chief Bornu products alone that made remunerative the caravan trade across the Desert, inseparable as this trade was from so much risk and expense.[480] The efforts of individual Tripoli merchants to maintain trade along the old routes in spite of quite altered conditions—by importing the goods hitherto customary and exporting the excellent Bornu leather—cannot be considered to have much vitality, especially as the condition of the Sahara has become more and more insecure.[481] The restless robber tribes of the Desert, Tuareg and others, who were formerly dependent on the caravan trade, on which they levied voluntary or involuntary tolls, have pushed southwards, seeking new sources of subsistence, and have thus not only rendered conditions in the northern parts of Bornu increasingly precarious, but have also made trade along the old routes almost entirely impossible.[482] This circumstance has contributed materially to assist—partially at any rate—the development of the natural artery of commerce for the Central Sudan, the Niger-Benue route advocated long ago by Barth and Rohlfs.[483] Thus the apprehensions of the Arab merchants, who have been intriguing for the last sixty years against European competition, have been realized.[484] As a matter of fact the Niger-Benue route is the only natural one by which the products of the Central Sudan, especially ground-nuts, shea-butter, sesame, and gum-arabic, articles of extremely low intrinsic value, can be conveyed to the coast. Only when it was possible to bring these products to the coast in considerable quantities, and when cotton—and that, too, in large quantities—was added to them, was the existing natural water-way made use of, so far as this was possible. But there is no doubt that the importance of the Niger-Benue route, in consideration of the poverty of natural means of communication between the Central Sudan and the coast, has always been overrated. Any one who has once made the wearisome canoe journey up the Benue, lasting at least four weeks in the dry weather, when progress is often only possible by digging artificial canals, will not estimate too highly the value of this water-way. It is not till July that the water of this river, which rises very rapidly and increases many feet in depth, reaches such a height that large steamers can reach German Adamawa; but by October the water begins to fall with the same rapidity, and steamers which have not got away at the right time have to stick where they are and await the next rainy season before they can return. All merchandise that cannot be shipped on steamers during the rains must either be entrusted to the very costly and insecure canoe transport or be stored to await a more favourable opportunity for shipment. It may be imagined what an unfavourable influence these periodic possibilities of shipment have, for example, on the sale of cotton, an article which is subject to such considerable fluctuations both in supply and demand. Canoe transport would be quite out of the question for the utilization of other agricultural products, especially of course for a trade in cattle. This means of transport is so dear even for the importation of the European goods in vogue in the Sudan, that the Hamburg firm of Pagenstecher, trading in German Bornu, has had to withdraw the ‘factories’ which it had pushed forward to Dikoa and Kusseri, as they could not show a profit.[485] As regards German Bornu the water-ways, which for the greater part lie in British territory, have also the disadvantage that though navigation on the rivers is free in accordance with international agreements, still there is an inevitable control by the British of German trade, which under the circumstances is not at all convenient.

But the German colony of the Kameruns is in a fortunate position, for by far the shortest ideal line of connexion between the sea and Bornu, which may be regarded as the focus-point of the Sudan, runs through their territory; this line is the one from the Bight of Biafra to Lake Chad. It is the urgent duty of the German Empire to make use of this fortunate circumstance.

Barth, Rohlfs, and Nachtigal with one accord perceived many years ago the high value of the Chad countries, and any one who has personal knowledge of them will gladly join in Nachtigal’s dictum that ‘there may be many tropical countries in which, thanks to mighty rivers and the alternation of mountain and valley, Nature may seem more stupendous and more opulent, beauty more sublime, vegetation more luxuriant, and the soil more fruitful, but there is scarcely any country in Central Africa which, if the efforts of mankind corresponded to the powers of the soil, offers a more beneficent prospect of rapid development’.[486]

Nevertheless, this development cannot proceed at the rate which this rich and fortunate country deserves. The fault lies with the insufficiency of its natural trade routes. Nothing but a railway can change this; it alone could render possible a full utilization of the rich cotton soil and of the other resources of the country. The conditions are very favourable, for the technical difficulties of railway building from the Bight of Biafra to Lake Chad are not too great, and the line—whose first stage from Bonaberi to the Manenguba Hills will be ready in 1910—is nowhere intended to be a trunk line, since everywhere it will pass through districts capable of development. The railway will be the first thing to disclose, as they deserve, the high value of the Chad countries; without it they have lain hitherto like the dead and useless stock on a merchant’s shelves.