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Title: The Cameroons
Author: Calvert, Albert Frederick
Language: English
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THE CAMEROONS
[Illustration: VICTORIA, CAMEROON.]
THE
CAMEROONS
BY
ALBERT F. CALVERT, F.C.S.,
_Knight Grand Cross of The Royal Order of Isabel
the Catholic, Knight Grand Cross of The
Royal Order of Alfonso XII., etc._
AUTHOR OF
_The German African Empire_, _South-West Africa_,
_Nigeria and its Tinfields_, _The Political Value of our Colonies_,
_The Exploration of Australia_,
_Mineral Resources of Minas Geraes, Brazil, etc._
London:
T. WERNER LAURIE, LTD.,
8, ESSEX STREET, LONDON.
1917.
_E. Goodman & Son, The Phœnix Press, Taunton._
PREFACE.
Although the designs, which German philosophers conceived and German
statesmen and strategists spent thirty years in perfecting, for the
conquest of our Cape territories and the creation of a Greater Germany
extending from the Mediterranean to Table Bay, are best illustrated and
exposed by the defiantly defensive policy they pursued in South-West
Africa, the rise, development and fall of the German Colonial Empire is
more completely epitomised in the chapter dealing with the Cameroons.
The establishment of the German East African protectorate forms a story
that is intensely interesting, inasmuch as it reveals the duplicity of
Teutonic methods in their relations with native races, European rivals
and their own agents. Bismarck, the last barbarian of genius, repudiated
Dr. Karl Peters when, equipped with private capital and acting on his
own initiative, he was acquiring in the hinterland of Zanzibar a
well-watered, fertile province equal in extent to South Germany, and
obtaining from the Sultan the concession for the ports of Dar-es-Salaam
and Pangani. It was necessary in 1884 for Germany to assure England that
the Imperial Government had no intention of securing possessions in a
region which was admittedly within Britain’s sphere of influence, and
Bismarck pursued Dr. Peters to Africa with an official intimation that
the State would not grant him protection for the lives of his party, or
for any possessions he might acquire opposite Zanzibar. But when the
intrepid Teuton, as the representative of the German East Africa
Company, had accomplished the spade work and returned to Berlin, the
Government continued negotiations with the Sultan through their
Consul-General at Zanzibar. The formal ratification of the treaties made
in the name of the Company, was followed by a revolt of the Arabs, and
when the Company’s representatives had been allowed to be murdered or
put to flight, Bismarck was able to declare that the situation that had
arisen was beyond the control of private enterprise, and an expedition,
under Major von Wissman, was accordingly despatched to East Africa to
suppress the slave traffic which still flourished in that region. For
the furtherance of such a humane and civilising purpose, the
co-operation of the British fleet was readily enlisted, and with this
support and the energetic measures taken by von Wissman’s army of
ex-British native soldiers, the disaffected populace was eventually
“pacified,” even if the slave traffic was not suppressed. The Company’s
claims to the territorial concessions granted under the treaties having
been made good--Great Britain could not, in politeness, protest against
the acquisition of Mount Kilimanjaro, since the amiable Kaiser had
expressed a sentimental wish that the highest peak in Africa might be
within the sphere of German _kultur_!--the Reichstag voted ten and a
half million marks for the maintenance and development of these newly
acquired territories. Then, and not until then, did England realise that
with the connivance of Downing Street and the assistance of British
men-of-war, this rich and important territory, with an area of 384,000
square miles, had become a Protectorate of Germany. Having duped
England, punished the natives, and established their rule, it was only
necessary to recall Dr. Peters and hand him over to the tender mercies
of his official and political enemies, to make this chapter of the
history of German empire building characteristic in its completeness.
What Germany succeeded in doing in East Africa after years of intrigue
and deceit, and the expenditure of much blood and money, she
accomplished in the acquisition of Togoland with a minimum of cost or
trouble. Dr. Nachtigal, in the capacity of German Trade Commissioner,
was sent to West Africa by his Government to enquire into and report
upon the progress of German commerce in those latitudes. He was
despatched at a time when the English Government had completed their
leisurely deliberations upon the appeal of the peoples of Togoland and
the Cameroons to be taken under the protection of the British flag, and
Mr. Hewitt, a British Consul, was voyaging to the Gulf of Guinea for the
purpose of complying with the native request, when Nachtigal arrived
there on his commercial mission. The German Commissioner, acting under
instructions from the Imperial Chancellor, hastily unfurled the flag of
the Fatherland at Lome, in Togoland, and succeeded in reaching Duala,
and formally placing the Cameroons under German rule, before Hewitt
arrived upon the scene. Lord Granville addressed a reproof to Bismarck
for not having divulged the nature of the errand upon which Nachtigal
had been sent, and the incident was closed. In the three decades that
followed, the German administrators in Togoland, with the thoroughness
with which the Teuton is gifted, taught the natives the “sharp lesson”
considered necessary to prepare them for the reception of Germany’s
civilising rule, furnished the colony with 200 miles of railway, over
750 miles of excellent roads of native construction, a score of postal
and telegraph stations, and a telephone system, and established a
wireless station--the most powerful in the world outside Europe--which
was not only in communication with Berlin, 3,450 miles distant, but with
East Africa, the Cameroons and South-West Africa. The final
installations at Kamina were completed in June, 1914; in August the
German operators learnt by wireless that Great Britain had declared war
on Germany; and on 26th August the Kamina Station notified Berlin that
the colony of Togoland, the smallest, completest, and only financially
independent German possession, had capitulated to an Anglo-French force.
The German annexation of South-West Africa was a more intolerably
humiliating and provocative act of aggression; it is one that only
now--after the territory has been recovered by the brilliant campaign of
the Union Army under General Louis Botha--can be forgiven Lord
Granville. Prior to 1883 the natives of Damaraland and Namaqualand,
suspicious of the intentions of Germany, had petitioned to be taken
under British protection. Downing Street experienced a temporary
uneasiness, but Bismarck’s assurance that Germany had no intention of
establishing Crown colonies in Africa, extinguished the fleeting
distrust. The Cape Colony was not so easily satisfied. A British
Commissioner, who was appointed to confer with the native chiefs,
reported favourably upon the proposal to officially confirm the
authority of the Cape Government over the region extending northward
from the Orange River to Portuguese Angoland. Sir Bartle Frere, the
Governor of Cape Colony, urged upon the home Government the desirability
of the step, and the Colonial Office decided upon the formal acquisition
of the port at Walfisch Bay. Bismarck, hesitating to commit what might
be construed as a deliberately hostile act, invited Great Britain to
state her intentions with regard to the rest of the south-west
territory, but failing to receive any definite reply, he decided upon
bold if impudent measures, and in April, 1884, the Chancellor announced
that the territory north of the Orange River was under the protection of
the German Empire. As Bryden says, in his _History of South Africa_,
“it was an unfriendly act, carried out in an unpleasant manner, and the
British Colonists in South Africa are not soon likely to allow it to
pass out of remembrance.” It not only destroyed the symmetry of a
British South Africa, and gave Germany rights in territories marching
with British colonies, but it added 322,450 square miles of African
territory to the German Colonial Empire, for which a Bremen merchant
named Luderitz parted with a hundred pounds and a score of old muskets.
Germany’s method of developing her new possession in South-West Africa
was entirely in keeping with her manner of acquiring it. From the first
she proceeded to colonise on military lines. Railways were constructed
with regard to their strategic importance; they were made on what is
still called the Cape gauge; and were directed towards the Union border.
A standing army was raised and compulsory service was instituted. An
artillery depot established at Windhoek, the capital, contained a
worthless collection of old gun-carriages and bales of locally-collected
hay. This was to secure the colony against the imaginary evil intentions
of the inoffensive and unarmed Ovambos, who inhabit the north-east
corner of the colony. At Keetmanshoop, some hundreds of miles further
from Amboland, but within 150 miles of Cape territory, was a great
arsenal, furnished with guns and shells, rifles and cartridges,
ambulances, transport vehicles, and military stores and supplies
sufficient to equip and maintain an army of fifteen thousand men for two
years. In the face of these facts and figures, we may be forgiven for
doubting the honesty of the German Colonial Secretary’s denial that
Germany ever had any intention of occupying, either permanently or
temporarily, the territory of the South African Union, and of
disregarding the expression of Lord Haldane’s pious belief that the
Kaiser’s life’s purpose was “to make the world better,” and that in
Germany’s method of colonial expansion, “she was penetrating everywhere
to the profit of mankind.”
In some ways the story of Germany’s annexation of the Cameroon
provinces, and her subsequent extension of that area, is the most
interesting of all, because if she secured her footing in East Africa by
subterfuge, and in South-West Africa by the exercise of sharp practice
supplemented by a certain display of bold decision, she edged her way
into the Gulf of Guinea by virtue of no other quality than that of
sheer bluff, but, having consolidated herself in the positions she had
thus gained in West Africa, she allowed the world to understand that she
was determined to expand her sphere of influence, if necessary, by
recourse to arms. In 1885 Germany legalised her occupation of the
Cameroons by placating France with an exchange of unimportant
territories, and renouncing in favour of Britain her nominal claims to
St. Lucia and to Forcados, at the mouth of the Niger River.
Having thus solidified their position, and secured themselves against
what Passarge calls “the intrigues and provocations of the English,” the
German administrators proceeded to Germanize their new province and
systematically to develop its tropical resources. Although they
established customs houses, courts of justice and post-offices, and
constructed about 125 miles of a projected railway system of 285 miles,
and, between 1898 and 1911, increased the total trade of the colony by
nearly forty million marks, the colony did not prove a departmental or
material success. The staffs of the Experimental Institute of
Agriculture at Victoria and the Department of Agriculture at Buea,
devoted their energies to the scientific raising of tropical economic
plants, to experiments in plantation culture, and to the training of
young natives in the virtues of Teutonic industry and organisation,
while, by Government Proclamation, all native children were compelled to
attend the Government schools, acquire an intelligent knowledge of the
language and history of Germany, and practice the art of singing German
patriotic songs. Despite this paternal concern for the agricultural and
educational well-being of the natives, the application of German methods
proved a disappointment. The children at the end of their school course
considered themselves too superior to undertake manual labour, while the
men, resenting the German indifference to their national feeling and
inherited methods of work, developed the spirit of native unrest. A lack
of sympathetic understanding of the natives was attended by culpably
injudicious treatment of them by the German officials, and the relations
between the authorities and the aborigines led to the frequent
employment of the Imperial troops, while the inadequacy of means of
internal communication rendered the progress of “one of the most
productive countries in the world” both slow and difficult.
But, disappointing and costly as was the German failure to administer
and develop the Cameroons, the Teutonic lust for territory was unabated,
and, in its resolve to extend its holding in this quarter of the globe,
the Government did not hesitate to emperil the peace of Europe. When the
German cruiser _Panther_ appeared at Agadir, in July, 1911, the object
of the Wilhelmstrasse was not to protect purely imaginary German
interests in that part of Morocco, but to maintain a menacing attitude
that would compel the French to cede to the Bully of Europe their
territory to the south of the German Cameroons. The negotiations for the
transfer were concluded in June, 1913, and fifteen months later French
and British troops commenced a joint expedition to wrest from the German
authority, by military means, the province from which the former had
been ejected by diplomatic blackmail and the insistant rattle of the
sword in the scabbard.
It is instructive to recall the methods by which Germany acquired her
African possessions, if only for the partial answer it provides to the
question as to what the Allies intend to do with them. It is absolutely
certain that however the Allies agree to dispose of the four colonies in
question, they will never be restored to Germany, notwithstanding the
fact that Herr Dernburg has committed the Emperor to the pledge that he
will never consent to make peace except on terms which include their
surrender. Germany got into Africa as a burglar effects an entrance into
a well-stored building, but it is not because her gains were ill-gotten
that she will be deprived of them. Having experimented in the
civilisation of natives for three decades, she has revealed an utter
inability to colonise for the benefit of mankind, but the hopeless
failure of the German system of imposing her rule upon subject races, is
not the reason why she will henceforth be debarred from participation in
the work of civilising the world. The colonial possessions of Germany,
as well as of England, France and Belgium, form part of the stakes for
which all Europe is in arms, and they will become the spoils of the
conquerors. As the Imperial Chancellor has announced, the future of the
Cameroons will be decided not in West Africa, but in another theatre of
war.
Germany’s explanation of her desire to acquire colonies was based upon
her need for extra territory capable of supporting her growing
population. For this purpose she acquired East Africa, and immediately
set about the task of raising, equipping and drilling a large force of
black troops. She seized the French Cameroons, and at once increased the
handful of natives which the French had found sufficient for the
maintenance of order in the colony, to an army of 1,550 black and 185
white troops, and she had planned the formation of additional corps of
mounted infantry, and the rearming of all the troops with modern rifles.
As soon as wireless telegraphy became a practical means of
communication, a wireless station was installed in Togoland which
rendered the little colony of inestimable potential value from a
military point of view, while in South-West Africa, the extent and
completeness of her defensive and offensive preparations, is abundant
proof that the real value to Germany of this territory lay in the
proximity of the region to the Boer States, disaffected to Great
Britain. “The land was not taken for _bona fide_ colonisation,” wrote
the Rev. William Greswell over thirty years ago, “only as a _point
d’appui_.” Germany pushed forward her military preparations in East,
West and South Africa, as she did in Prussia, because she had convinced
herself of England’s ultimate inability to hold India, Egypt and her
colonial dominions. Her professors assured the Kaiser and his junker
parasites, that the English had lost both “the qualities of creative
genius in religion and the valour in arms of a military caste”, that we
had become “a timorous, craven nation, trusting to its fleet”; and that,
while we had “failed to impress our dominion” on the chiefs of the
Indian Tributary States, the colonies were “shivering with impatience
under the last slight remnant of the English yoke.”
Because of their arrogant attempt to put their theories and their
conclusions to the test, the German people are being stripped of all
their overseas possessions. They have already lost their South-West
Protectorate and Togoland, and the Allies are now successfully engaged
in crushing German resistance in Eastern Africa. It is not my purpose in
this little book to follow the fortunes of the Allied troops; it will be
time enough to write the story of the campaigns when the task is
accomplished, and the future administrations of the colonies are in
operation. My object in the following pages is to give the public the
particulars about the Cameroons which I have collected not without the
expenditure of a considerable amount of time and trouble. A natural
desire to ascertain the nature of the difficulties that would have to be
surmounted by the allied forces, and a desire to learn something of the
natural resources and commercial potentialities of the territory that
was about to be acquired, sent me to bookshops and libraries in search
of works that would satisfy my curiosity. I was disappointed to find
that the information I wanted was not available in English form, English
authors having decided, apparently, that the colony did not lend itself
to interesting or marketable compilation, and since the British
Government had not accredited a Consul to the Cameroons, not even a
belated Consular Report was procurable. In this extremity I turned my
attention to such German publications as were obtainable in this country
and, from the official writings of Dr. Paul Rohrback, Dr. Grotefeld, Dr.
Paul Preuss, Dr. Walter Busse, Herr Eltester, and Siegfreid Passarge, I
gathered a mass of information concerning the geographical and
geological features, the vegetation and forestry, and the natives and
native cultivation, together with an interesting summary of the progress
made under the German system of development and the success they had
attained in their experiments in plantation cultivation. In a paper
written by Captain W. A. Nugent, R.A., who had been a member of the
Boundary Commission in 1907, and acted as British Commissioner
appointed to survey and fix the boundary between the German Cameroons
and Nigeria in 1912, I found a full and admirable description of the
territory traversed. This volume contains the result of my researches,
selected and arranged in such a manner as will, I trust, be found
acceptable to English readers who share my curiosity concerning the
natural resources, the commercial position and the prospects of the
colony, and who also entertain the hope that part of it, at least, will
ultimately form a link in the chain of British overseas dominions.
ALBERT F. CALVERT.
ROYSTON,
ETON AVENUE, N.W.
CONTENTS
PAGE
DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION 1
PLANTATION CULTIVATION 24
NATIVE EDUCATION 56
THE CAMEROON-NIGERIAN BOUNDARY 62
COLOURED PLATE
Victoria, Cameroon _Frontispiece_
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATE
Duala 1
The Quay at Duala 2
Landing-place at Duala 3
Post Office, Duala 4
Court House at Duala 5
Hospital at Duala 6
Natives’ Metal Work 7
The Bâle Mission at Duala 8
Workshop of the Bâle Mission, Duala 9
Manga Beli’s Palace, Duala 10
The Native Quarter, Duala 11
Business Offices in Duala 12
Natives Wood Carving 13
The Woermann Floating Dock at Duala 14
Landing Jetty 15
Constructing the Central Railway from Duala to the
Nyong River 16
View of the Wuri River at Bonaberi 17
The Wuri River above Duala 18
Elephant Grass 19
Buea, former Seat of the German Government of
Cameroon. Great Cameroon Mountains in the
Background 20
View of Buea 21
The late German Governor’s Palace, Buea 22
Buea 23
Algau Cattle grazing near Buea 24
Grazing Land near Buea 25
Tobacco Plantation near Buea 26
The new Okoti Crater on the Cameroon Mountain
taken from the East 27
Forest on the Cameroon Peak at an elevation of 1,800
metres 28
View of Victoria 29
Victoria, with the Great Cameroon Mountain and
Little Cameroon Mountain 30
View of Ambas Bay 31
Steep Coast near Victoria 32
Botanical Gardens, Victoria 33
Office in the Botanical Gardens, Victoria 34
Buildings of the Victoria Co., Victoria 35
Vegetation in the Forest 36
Kribi, at the Mouth of the Kribi River, the Chief
Trading-place on the Coast of South Cameroon 37
Kribi 38
Low-lying Coast near Kribi 39
Mission House at Kribi 40
Boa-constrictor 41
Natives of Bule 42
Marshy Land in the Oil-palm Region near the Coast 43
Oil-palm in a Maize Field 44
Preparation of Palm-oil by Native Methods 45
Oil-palms 46
Cocoa Tree with Fruit 47
Seven-year-old Oil-palm Trees 48
The Oil-palm. Crown with Clusters of Fruit 49
Station Yard at Edea 50
The Sanaga River near Edea 51
The Sanaga River near Edea 52
Bridge over the Southern Arm of the Sanaga River
(Duala-Nyong Railway) 53
Entrance to the Forest near Edea 54
Woermann Line Boats on the Sanaga River 55
Rapids in the Sanaga River 56
Maize Stores at Jaunde 57
Park-like District in a Clearing of the Forest on the
Edea-Jaunde Road 58
Native Soldiers at Jaunde 59
Native Troops in Camp 60
Native Troops on Active Service 61
Native Village. Gabled Huts 62
On the Upper Nyong River 63
Colonial Troops at a Factory on the Upper Nyong
River 64
Ferry Boat on the Nyong River 65
Steamer at the Landing-place of a Factory on the
Nyong River 66
Collecting Rubber in the Forest 67
Dehane Rubber Plantation (Nyong River) 68
Dehane Rubber Plantation (Nyong River) 69
Manager’s House on the Dehane Rubber Plantation 70
Clearing the Ground for Planting Rubber Trees 71
Ground Cleared for Planting 72
Mixed Trees in a Plantation 73
Pay Day on a Rubber Plantation 74
A Path through the Dehane Plantation on the Nyong
River 75
Natives Waiting for the Dinner Bell 76
Banana Trees on a Rubber Plantation 77
A Four-year-old Rubber Tree ready for Tapping 78
Natives at Dehane 79
Roll Call of Labourers on a Plantation 80
Elephant Grass 81
Tapping the Rubber Tree 82
Small huts for Patients suffering from Sleeping
Sickness 83
Forest on the Banks of the Mungo River 84
Native Suspension Bridge over the Mungo River 85
Native Suspension Bridge over the Mungo River 86
The “Mungo” German Government Steamer on the
River 87
A Tree Trunk used as a Bridge 88
Village of Ninong at the Western Base of the Manenguba
Mountains 89
The Elong Mountain in the Bamenda Range seen from
the foot of the Manenguba Mountains 90
Forest on the Banks of the Cross River 91
Fishing on the Cross River 92
The Cross River at Nssanakang 93
Factory on the Cross River for Trading with the
Natives 94
Banana Trees near Ossidinge 95
A Village in Keakaland, Ossidinge 96
Head-dress and Tribal Marks of Keaka Women 97
Native Musical Instruments in Keakaland 98
Caravan Crossing the Ndi River near Fontschanda 99
Typical Vegetation 100
A Palm Grove 101
A Suspension Bridge 102
A Suspension Bridge 103
Suspension Bridge over the Fi, near Tinto 104
Fumban in Bamum 105
Native Market at Bamum. Provisions and Kolo
Nuts being Sold 106
Ndjoia, Sultan of Bamum, between two War Drums,
at Fumban 107
Sultan of Bamum with the Captains of his Troops 108
Made by the Natives of Bamum 109
Trial Field for Cotton and Tobacco at the Government
Station, Fumban, Bamum 110
Bamum. Note the Frieze of Animals under the Grass
Roof 111
Street Scene in Bamum 112
Street Scene in Bamum 113
Street Scene in Bamum 114
A House in Bamum 115
A Street in the Women’s Quarter 116
Cotton Field near Bamum 117
Dracæna the Fetish Trees of West Africa 118
Market-place at Banjo with the Banjo Mountains in
the Distance 119
The “Malam” of Banjo in Hausa State Costume 120
Banjo, a Settlement in the Interior 121
Vegetation in the Forest 122
The “Island” Mountain District in North Adamaua
between Ntem and the Ribäu Slope on the Banjo
Road 123
Granite Mountain in Central Cameroon 124
Sudan Natives of Central Cameroon. Wute Natives
in War Costume 125
War Games of the Wute Natives 126
Woman of the Wute Tribe 127
Woman of the Wute Tribe 128
Sudan Natives in Central Cameroon. Wute Archers 129
Sudan Natives in Central Cameroon. Wutes with
their War Drums 130
Hump-backed Cattle of Adamaua 131
Hump-backed Cattle of Adamaua 132
The Faro above Tschamba 133
Caravan Travelling. Resting 134
Kumbo Highlands on the way to Lake Mauwe,
between Bakumbi and Banka 135
Kumbo Highlands between Banka and Lake Mauwe 136
The Remains of a Volcano in the Kumbo Highlands 137
Forest in the Highlands 138
Change from Forest to Grass Country on the broken
edge of the Inner Highlands near Fontem 139
Cultivated Portions of Grass Country 140
Typical Grass Country in Bafu-Fondong, on the Great
Dschang-Bamenda Road 141
Women Working in the Fields in the Grass Country,
North-west Cameroon 142
Death Dance of the Natives near Dschang 143
The Chief Bafu-Fondong on his Throne 144
Tatooed Fondong Negro 145
A Chief’s Wife in the Grass Country 146
Parasites on a Tree, near the Grass Country 147
Bali Negress in the Grass Country 148
Mbo, a Fortified Station near the Grass Country 149
Kusseri, a Fortified Station in North Cameroon 150
The Resident’s House at Kusseri 151
Mecca Pilgrims at Kusseri 152
Log Path through a Swamp 153
Horsemen in North Cameroon 154
View of Elephant Lake 155
Village of Kilgrim in the Mandara Mountains 156
The Lagone River at Musgum 157
Caravan Crossing a River 158
Njoja, with his Wives and Children, sitting in front of
his Palace 159
Bakwiri Women and Children Dancing 160
The Head Chief Balwen in his War Costume 161
Chieftain in Gala Attire 162
Hausa Girl at a Spring 163
Natives of North Cameroon 164
Deng-Deng, a Settlement in the Interior 165
Dikoa, a Settlement in the Interior 166
Ebolowa, a Settlement in the Interior 167
Floods near Ssigal 168
Sultan of Ngaumdere with his Bodyguard 169
Market at Ngaumdere 170
Main Buildings of the Bibundi Plantation 171
Bungalow on the Bibundi Plantation 172
Plantation in Full Bearing 173
Baia Youths 174
Baia Women 175
Dead Elephant 176
Walrus 177
A Hausa Village 178
A Native Village. Musgum Huts 179
A Native Village. Huts with Cone-shaped Roofs 180
Caravan Travelling. Hiring Carriers 181
Rubber Caravan 182
Ivory Caravan 183
Scene at an Ivory Factory 184
Weighing the Ivory 185
Factory in the Interior of South Cameroon 186
Roll-call of Labourers 187
Bridging over a Ravine 188
Sawing Wood 189
Njem Woman, South Cameroon 190
Prow of a War Canoe 191
MAPS
vPLATE
Density of the Population 192
Flora 193
Fauna 194
River Basins 195
Ivory Districts 196
Chart showing Entrance to Duala from the Sea 197
Hausa Territory 198
Profile of Cameroon 199
A. F. Calvert’s Map of Cameroon 200
THE CAMEROONS
DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION.
The large bay or estuary in the Gulf of Guinea, lying south of Nigeria
and facing the island of Fernando-Po, was discovered by Portuguese
navigators in the fifteenth or sixteenth century and christened the Rio
dos Camaroes (the River of Prawns), from the abundance of Crustacea that
infested its waters. The name was also used to designate the
neighbouring mountains, which rise to the north-west of the bay. The
English usage, until the end of the nineteenth century, was to confine
the term, the Cameroons, to the mountain range, and to speak of the
estuary as the Cameroon River. It was left to the acquisitive Germans to
extend the use of the name in its Teutonic form--Kamerun--to the whole
Protectorate.
The establishment of German trading firms and factories at various
places on the West African coast suggested to the Imperial Chancellor
the practicability of laying the foundations of his projected German
Colonial Empire in the Cameroon region of the Dark Continent. On March
19th, 1884, Dr. Nachtigal, a former Consul at Tunis, was instructed to
proceed on this civilising mission, and on July 5th and 6th he hoisted
the German flag at Bayida and Lome, in Togoland. On the 10th of that
month the English gunboat _Goshawk_ entered the Cameroon River, and the
mission’s hope of further extending the sphere of German influence on
the coast of West Africa appeared doomed to extinction. But the
_Goshawk_ departed on the following day, leaving the field clear for
Nachtigal, who rushed through some agreements with the chiefs Deido,
Bell and Akva, declared the country to be under the protection of
Germany on July 14th, and appointed Doctor Buchner Provisional Governor
of the newly acquired territory. The new Governor acknowledged the
protest against German occupation, which was formally made by the
British Consul on July 19th, and proceeded to hoist the German flag at
Bumbia, Maliba, and Batanga.
In this nefarious and undignified manner the German Government obtained
a foothold in the Gulf of Guinea, but it still remained for them to
regulate their intrusion among the nations already established in the
region. In order to solidify the position they had taken up, and, in
the phrase employed by Siegfreid Passarge, “to withstand the intrigues
and provocations of the English,” who laid claims to Victoria and the
Rio del Rey coast, it was necessary to have the treaty of occupation
confirmed. On May 7th, 1885, a treaty was concluded by which the British
waived their claims in favour of Germany, who reciprocated by renouncing
their nominal claims to Forcados, at the mouth of the Niger, and to St.
Lucia. In the same year the French ceded Great Batanga and the island
west of Kwakwa-Kriek in exchange for the German possession of Konakry.
These treaties legalised the position, and Germany was left a free hand
to develop her possessions in the Cameroons, under the Governorship of
Baron von Goden.
In July, 1911, the German cruiser _Panther_ appeared off the coast of
Morocco, at Agadir, for the alleged purpose of protecting German
interests, of which no trace existed in that quarter of the globe. The
incident was ultimately closed by the cession to Germany of the French
territory to the south of their Cameroon colony, which was subsequently
incorporated with it under the name of New Cameroon. The transfer was
made in June, 1913. Under French domination, three military stations,
garrisoned with a total force of four officers, twelve non-commissioned
officers, and 200 native troops, had been sufficient to preserve order,
but the new rulers had their own ideas as to the military requirements
of their growing Empire. We read in _Jahrbuch über die Deutscher
Kolonien_ (1913) that the German defence force numbers 185 Europeans and
1,550 natives, while it was the intention of the Government to form an
additional corps of mounted infantry, to establish a stud farm for the
breeding of troop horses, and to arm all the troops with 98·3 carbines.
Since the declaration of war in August last, Togoland has capitulated to
the French and British, and the German Cameroons are now being
systematically and successfully invaded by the allied forces. The
political future of these territories is, as yet, undetermined, but
however they may be ultimately allocated, German domination in West
Africa, with its blundering mismanagement and bumptious militarism, is a
chapter of colonial history that is closed for ever.
THE EXPLORATION OF THE INTERIOR.
Although the commercial activities of the tribes inhabiting the African
Mohammedan empires, and the construction of trade routes connecting
Senegal with the Red Sea, had opened up the Soudan to Europeans, the
territory which since 1884 has been known as German Cameroon was
practically unexplored at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In
1822 an English expedition succeeded in reaching Lake Tchad and
exploring its western and southern boundaries. This discovery was
supplemented in 1851-52 by Barth and Overweg. Barth went from Kuka to
Yola, and discovered the upper course of the Benue. He penetrated
further, through the country south of Lake Chad to Bagirmi. In 1854
Baikie went up the Benue, as far as Djen, about fifty kilometres from
Yola. Rohlf’s journey in 1865-67 and Nachtigal’s in 1869-74 are of
little importance. In 1879 began the activity of Edward Flegel, who, on
the steamer _Henry Benn_, navigated the Benue as far as Garna. Of much
greater importance were the explorations of the Benue district in 1882
and 1883, the southern limit of which was marked by the towns of
Ngaumdere, Banjo, Gaschaka, and Takum.
The knowledge of the coastal district was extremely limited. Burton and
Mann had ascended the Cameroon mountains in 1861-62. In 1872-75 three
German scientists, Buchholz, Reichenow and Lüders, made important
zoological discoveries, while Rogozinsky, a Pole, in 1883, reached as
far as Lake Barombi. But all efforts to penetrate into the interior were
frustrated by the impracticable condition of the roads, the
unhealthiness of the coast district--which was for the greater part
uninhabited virgin forest--and by the hostile attitude of the natives.
After many fruitless endeavours to explore this coastal region, an
expedition in 1888 succeeded in crossing from Batanga by way of Njong
and Sanaga, and in settling the boundary between Bantio and Sudannegern.
The effort to reach the Cameroon estuary was frustrated by the
opposition of the Bakoko; and after a journey of much difficulty the
expedition returned to the coast. In 1899 a station was established and
a foothold secured. In the same year the region north of Duala was
explored, and the forest district traversed, the plateau of Baliland was
ascended, and the grassy lands reached. With indescribable difficulty
the districts from Ibi on the Benue to Yola were traversed. In 1902-4 an
Anglo-German expedition, after a very minute survey, fixed the boundary
line between Yola and Lake Chad, and in 1908 an agreement was made
between Germany and France regarding the south and east boundaries. In
1907-8 the frontier between Cameroon and the Nigerias was surveyed by
the British and German representatives, and the approximate line of
demarcation subsequently settled between the two Governments was fixed
and marked by an Anglo-German commission in 1912-13.
BOUNDARIES AND TOWNS.
The Cameroons are bounded on the north-west by Nigeria, on the
north-east and east by the French possessions of the Military Territory
of Chad and the Middle Congo and the French possession of Gaboon. The
frontier runs in a north-easterly direction from near Calabar in the
Southern Provinces of Nigeria to Lake Chad, and then in a general
south-south-east direction to about lat. 2° N., from whence it strikes
south-west by west, reaching the Atlantic just south of Spanish Guinea,
which is thus surrounded on the north, east and south by German
territory. The general outline of the country thus described is broken
in the middle east by a triangular piece of land which gives access to
the Ubangi river, an affluent of the Congo, at Singa, in lat. 3° 40´ N.;
whilst in the south-east corner a strip of land seventy miles broad
runs southwards, giving access to the Congo itself in about lat. 1° S.
The Protectorate, with an area of 290 square miles, had in 1913 an
estimated native population of 2,650,000, and a European population of
1,871, of whom 1,643 were Germans.
The chief towns on the coast, from north to south, are Victoria, Duala
(the capital), Kribi, and Ukoko. Buea is a large town on the eastern
slopes of the Cameroon mountain, and Edea is on the Sanaga, about forty
miles from its mouth. In the mountainous region in the north-west are
Bare, Dschang, Bali, Bamenda, Wum, Esu, and Kentu; to the east of these
is Fumban, and to the west, in the low-lying country near the Nigerian
border, Ossidinge. In the western portion of the plateau are Tibati,
Banyo and Tingere, and in the centre, at the junction of the main routes
of the interior, is Ngaumdere. In the country north of the plateau the
chief towns are Garua, an important trading centre on the Benue, Lere,
Binder, Marua, Mora, Dikoa, and Kusseri. In the southern part of the
country are Yaunde, Dume, Bertua, Gaza, Carnot, Bania, Lomie, and
Akoafim. Molondu is in the extreme south-east.
THE PROGRESS OF THE PROTECTORATE.
In the first twenty-eight years of their occupation the Germans had
established courts of justice at Buea, Duala, Kribi, and Lomie, custom
houses at Duala and Buea, thirty-eight post offices throughout the
territory, and had maintained order among the natives by means of twelve
companies of Imperial troops. They had constructed and opened 108
kilometres of the 1-m. gauge line of 160 kilometres from Duala to the
Manenguæ Mountains, and had opened the central line from Duala to
Widimange, on the Nyong River--a distance of 293 kilometres of 1-m.
gauge line--as far as Edea, ninety kilometres from Duala. The imports
had increased from 9,296,796 marks in 1898 to 29,317,514 marks in 1911,
and their exports in the same period had risen from 4,601,620 to
21,250,883 marks, a total increase in the trade of the colony of nearly
thirty-seven million marks. The want of means of communication was found
a hindrance in the economic development of the territory, which was
admittedly possessed of “unlimited liabilities.” Vast tracts in the
interior were proved to be suited for cotton cultivation; oil palms,
cocoa, and rubber were ascertained to be of “incalculable wealth,” and
the Cameroons were described by Dr. Grotewold as among the most
productive countries in the world.
But the administration, or the critics of the administration of the
Protectorate, had discovered that the lack of proper means of
communication was not the only factor that retarded the progress of this
richly endowed country. The unrest amongst the natives had revealed on
the part of the authorities the lack of that sympathetic understanding
of their native subjects which makes for successful colonisation. Their
treatment of the natives was culpably injudicious, and their mistakes in
dealing with them were so frequent and serious that the relations
between the Government and the native population were constantly
strained, and the services of the Imperial troops were in great demand.
GEOGRAPHICAL AND GEOLOGICAL FEATURES.
The country on the whole is mountainous and forms the north-west limit
of the central African plateau. The coastland is flat alluvial country
spreading out on either side of the Cameroon Mountains, and broken up
with mangrove swamps, lagoons and deep estuaries. The Rio del Rey region
on the west of the Cameroon Mountains is a stretch of alluvial land
with a breadth of thirty to forty kilometres, which forms the extreme
eastern portion of the great alluvial plain extending from the Gold
Coast to the Cameroon, and attaining its greatest development in the
Niger Delta. Within the alluvial the volcanic massive of the Cameroon
Mountain rises to a height of 4,070 m., and divides the land into two
parts, which are connected only by a small and high strip of territory.
To the east of the dividing mountain lies Dualaland. The other three
orographical regions which comprise the Cameroon country includes the
Cameroon plateau, which forms the largest and most important part of the
colony; the enormous region of Adamana, which is generally level and
nowhere reaches an elevation of more than 600 metres; and the extensive
swampy lands of the Lake Chad basin which are under water during several
months of the year.
The greater part of the colony is covered with red, loamy, sandy
weatherings, which are characteristic of the tropics. If this red earth
contains hard concretions of brown iron ore, they are named “Laterit.”
These cellular-like volcanic scoria are characteristic of the surface of
the soil generally, and especially in those districts where the loamy
deposits have been washed away by heavy rains. Vegetable soil is more
abundant in the rainy regions of the south, and also in the lowlands.
Indeed the result of this humid weathering is a kind of whitish yellowy
kaolin, or china clay, which is found in the south plateau. A blackish
mould to a thickness of one or two feet covers the lowland south of Lake
Chad, and is there called “Firki.” Whilst in the south of the colony red
and yellow clayey soil preponderates, the further north one goes to the
dryer regions, reddish sand, a product of the physical weathering, is to
be found.
CLIMATE.
In the coast region of the Cameroons the climate is warm and moist, with
a high rainfall. The temperature is not excessively high, the heat being
tempered by the cold Benguela current coming northward from the Polar
regions. According to Knox (_The Climate of Africa_) February is the
warmest month and July the coolest, the maximum and minimum temperatures
being 89·7° F. and 66° F. respectively. The mean temperature at Victoria
and Duala is about 77° F. The coast is one of the most unhealthy places
in Africa, but the conditions are considerably better and more suited
to Europeans in the high-lying districts in the north. The climate of
the latter is largely of the continental type, characterised by extremes
of temperature. At Bali the mean temperature is about 64° F., the
maximum 87° to 90° F., and the minimum 43° to 45° F. At Fort Crampel, on
the eastern side of the plateau, the maximum temperature reaches 113°
F., and the minimum 49° F. On the Ngaumdere plateau it is sometimes very
cold, and sleet storms are not uncommon, the temperature sometimes
falling to 37° F.
As regards rainfall, there are as a rule four more or less distinct
seasons in the southern and central regions--the chief dry season at the
beginning of the year, the so-called long wet season from June to
September, a short dry season in October and November, and a short
period of great rainfall in part of November and in December--but the
divisions indicated are by no means well marked. The Adamana district,
situated on the north of the plateau, lies beyond the equatorial beet,
and there are consequently only two seasons, one wet and one dry.
The massive of the Cameroon Mountains presents a district which is
singular with regard to its climate, vegetation and animal life. At its
base is a primeval forest, and the climate is tropical and humid.
Debundja and Bibundo have practically no dry season, the rain being
continuous nearly the whole year round. On the east side, the rainy
season lasts for only two to three months in the year. Buea, which lies
on the lower slopes of the misty region, has a fresh, cool climate, and
is quite free from malaria. The temperature varies frequently, in some
cases from 1·5° to 2° Cent. in the course of two or three minutes.
Instead of the usual heavy tropical rains, it has only a drizzling rain,
and the humidity penetrates everywhere, even the dwellings. On the upper
slopes, when the north-east wind blows, it is icy cold, except at
midday. Hoar frost is frequent and snow fairly so. The mountain is
nearly always cloud-capped, and it is seldom possible to obtain a really
clear view of the summit.
VEGETATION AND FORESTRY.
The combination of tropical heat and rain in the alternate regions of
forests and brushwood swamps produces a tropical growth of cocoa palms,
cotton plants, flax and fibrous trees, and rubber vines in prodigal
luxuriance and variety. The virgin forests are tropical to a height of
about 1,000 m., when they become less dense, and the oak ferns make
their appearance. Between 1,500 and 1,800 m. the wild coffee shrub grows
abundantly, the oak ferns disappear, and are succeeded by glades and
brushwood. At an altitude of 2,200 m. the forest suddenly comes to an
end and the grass land begins. Only in the ravines, in which the soil is
moist and sheltered from the winds, the forest continues to the 2,700 m.
level. The high forest--the most magnificent of all tropical forest
formations--is characterised by its amazing variety of entirely
different trees, including, among others, the great wool tree, the
mahogany tree, the yellow and red wood trees, the oil-palm, and rubber.
Among the trees of the brushwood districts the principal are acacias and
the oil-palm, which to a height of from 700 to 900 m. covers the slopes
of the Cameroon plateau to the coast.
The chief planting activity appears to have been at
Johann-Albrechts-Höhe, and in the Dibombari district on the Northern
Railway. A forestry plantation at Manoka, near Duala, was abandoned on
account of its remoteness, the difficulty of water supply, and the
constant lack of labour. The principal work for the making of forest
and state reserves has been conducted in Yabassi, Yaunde, Edea, and
Dschang. The efforts of the forest department and of private persons
have been concerned mainly with: (_a_) Investigations of woods suitable
for beams, wharves, and for boat and waggon building; (_b_) trials of
woods resistant to _teredo navalis_ for small boats; and (_c_)
experimental shipments to German South-West Africa of woods serviceable
for building, mining and street paving.
A large increase, amounting to 270 per cent. in the production of
building and other timber, took place in 1911. The first place in the
exports is held by Cameroons mahogany, which is stated to be increasing
gradually in value in the market; its exports having risen in value from
£7,022 in 1910 to £22,000 in 1912. The next wood in importance is
Cameroons ebony, the exports of which have been as follows: 1909, 672
tons, worth £3,038; 1910, 1,221 tons, worth £6,090; 1911, 1,652 tons,
worth £6,777; whilst in 1912 the value of the shipment was £9,055. The
increase of exports has been largely due to an increase of cutting by
the natives, and this has entailed a considerable amount of robbery by
them. As a consequence, timber exploitation on Government lands was
entirely prohibited to natives in the period 1912-13, and concessions
were given to Europeans with much caution; a decrease in the production
was therefore expected. A difficulty regarding the exploitation of
timber in the Cameroons is the lack of good waterways in the forest
regions.
CATTLE RAISING.
In spite of the very great difficulties caused by the tsetse fly, much
attention has been paid to stock-breeding in the Cameroons, although
with the exception of certain efforts made in Kusseri, in the extreme
north, and in Garua, in Adamana, nothing in the nature of methodical
horse-breeding by natives exists. The indigenous cattle are of two
kinds, the dwarf cattle and the humped cattle. Cattle-breeding in the
proper sense is only found among the Fulla tribe in Adamana, in Banyo
and the Lake Chad regions. From these places there was once an active
export of cattle to the neighbouring British and French Protectorates,
but this has been diminished in recent years owing to a large export
duty. The interest in cattle-production on the part of the natives has
been increased in recent years, under official encouragement, in the
districts of Dschang and Bamenda.
The Fulla cattle are greatly prized in the central districts, in which,
by reason of the ravages of the tsetse fly, no cattle can be bred, and
when railway communication has cleared the infected regions, a thriving
cattle export industry to the coast will be developed. The increased
prosperity of the rubber districts of the south, especially Molondu,
Dume and Lomie, has led, in recent years, to a demand for meat among the
natives, and this has been supplied from the Hausa and Fulani herds. In
1911 about 20,000 head of large stock and 8,000 of small stock were sent
from Adamana to the south, and this is estimated to mean an exchange
between the north and the south to the value of about £150,000.
As is usual in West Africa, the natives possess neglected goats, sheep
and fowls, and in some cases pigs, though this is only true to a very
small extent in the southern districts.
NATIVE AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION.
The chief agricultural products of the Cameroons are rubber, palm
kernels, cocoa and palm oil, and the Protectorate may be said, in a
general way, to present three chief agricultural areas: the southern,
with rubber in increasing production; the middle province around the
Cameroon river basin, with their plantations and areas rich in oil
palms; and the grass country, northward, suited specially for cattle
breeding. Nearly all the rubber exploited has been derived from the
native exploitation of wild plants. Almost all the male population of
Lomie, Molondu, Dume, and Dengdeng was concerned in rubber collection in
1910-11, in which years more than 1,000 coloured middlemen bought the
rubber from the natives and sold it to the forty-nine mercantile firms
who had no fewer than 230 stations established for its purchase. The
comparatively small share of rubber plantations in the whole production
of the Protectorate is shown by the fact that, of a total export of
5,957,516 lbs. in 1911, all except 23,912 lbs. was from wild plants;
whilst in 1912 cultivated plants accounted for only 53,040 lbs. in a
total shipment of 6,184,222 lbs. The results of the attempts to induce
the natives to take up new cultivations depend on the presence or
absence in their district of wild plants that they can exploit. Whilst,
for example, the inhabitants of the Lomie district, who still know of
rich stands of wild rubber plants, are hardly to be excited to commence
rubber cultivation, it has been experienced in Kribi, where these do
not exist, that the distribution of young plants are gratefully received
and readily planted.
It is also recorded that oil-palm cultivation has been introduced with
some success to the natives, in the districts of Lomie and Yaunde, but
any “cultivation” by the natives is very simple in nature, consisting
merely in the keeping of the stands clear of “bush.” The large decrease
in the exports of ivory in recent years is due in great measure to the
exhaustion of the stores of ivory hoarded by the natives and the extent
of elephant shooting in the past ten years. The exports in 1910 amounted
to sixteen tons, valued at £124, and although there was a slight
increase of quantity in the following year, the export in 1912 showed a
large diminution. The other native products are chiefly djair nuts, shea
nuts, kola, and gum arabic, but there has been comparatively little
activity as regards the actual cultivation of crops, because of the
natural richness of the country in products which enable the inhabitants
to buy what they require. The raising of food crops exists, however, for
special demands, such as arise near railways, administrative stations
and larger towns, and the chief places on the caravan routes and rivers.
Near such places the native raises maize, plantains, bananas, cassava,
sweet potatoes and ground nuts, as well as sorghum (dura or dari) in the
northern districts, and some kola and sesame in isolated places. In
several districts a certain amount of tobacco is planted; there is also
some little fruit raising, notably in the villages of Ambam. In the
highlands of Dschang, and in other places, such as Ebelowe and Yaunde,
new crops, such as the English potato, “black bush” beans and turnips,
for which the climate seems to be suited, have been introduced. Numerous
inhabitants of the districts of Duala and Edea have in recent years laid
out farms for the raising of cassava, plantains, maize, yams, and other
products.
North of the watershed the principal crops are guinea-corn, millet,
ground-nuts, cassava, and sweet potatoes; cotton and tobacco are also
cultivated by the Chamba pagans, Zumperis and Munchis. The corn is
planted in April at the end of the rainy season, the method of
cultivation being as follows. The ground is first cleared of weeds and
the remains of the last year’s crop. It is then prepared for sowing by
digging shallow trenches with a rough kind of hoe, the earth being piled
up to form ridges between the trenches. Guinea-corn (_Sorghum vulgare_),
the staple food of the country, is planted in these ridges. It grows to
a great height, often fifteen to twenty feet, and is harvested in
November. Millet is planted in the furrows; it ripens rapidly and is
harvested in July. Cotton is ready for picking after December; tobacco
and cassava are cultivated during the dry season on the hillsides, the
streams being used for irrigation.
From October to March, during the dry season, the natives are engaged in
stacking their corn into mud-walled granaries, and threshing what they
require for immediate use. These months are also spent in repairing the
damage done to the villages, grass being cut and tied into bundles for
thatching roofs, and making new zana matting. The dry season is also the
hunting season, when the long grass has been laid low by fire. This
grass-burning is an annual institution, although the Government has
given orders prohibiting it on account of the damage done to trees. But
the hill tribes care very little for trees or grass, and a good deal for
meat.
As in all parts where the tsetse fly prevails, and the employment of
cattle for ploughing is impossible, the land is chiefly cultivated with
the hoe; and as the West African hoe is a tool which calls for the
exercise of patience rather than skill or strength, the native leaves
the field work to his women. From this form of servitude the women will
not be emancipated until cattle are rendered immune from tsetse fly and
the hoe is supplanted by the plough.
PLANTATION CULTIVATION.
The Cameroons were regarded by the Germans as a plantation country of
the highest promise, and the proximity of the Cameroon Mountain to the
coast, facilitating the realisation of the products, render this part of
the colony an ideal area for the planter. All the largest plantations
are situated in this district, which has been extensively developed, and
its products have already assumed considerable proportions in the export
statistics of the dependency. The laying out of a plantation in Cameroon
is by no means an easy task, as the fertile soil must be drawn from the
primeval forest. And as the Cameroon primeval forest has no equal for
vastness and impenetrability, laborious and costly preliminary work is
necessary before any real planting can be attempted. On the whole it is
very much the same as in East Africa, with the distinction that as a
rule in the latter colony there is only the so-called bush to clear,
while in Cameroon one has to deal with high-grown primeval forest.
The cultivation of cocoa prospers on the slopes of the Cameroon
Mountain, where the climate and soil resemble those of the adjacent
Islands of St. Thomas and Fernando-Po, and its cultivation is almost
confined to the Cameroon Mountain and to some plantations in Sanaga and
Kampo. It is to be hoped that with the further opening up of the
country, many districts will be found suitable for its cultivation. In
this case the many years’ experience on the Cameroon Mountain will
facilitate the spreading. The cocoa-tree is, on an average, six to eight
m. high, with a trunk diameter of about fifteen to twenty-five cm., and
it begins to produce after four or five years. At harvest time the fruit
must be carefully gathered, to avoid injuring the tree. The opening of
the fruit to obtain the seeds is done with a cane, or by beating open
the fruit on a stone. When the seeds are taken from the fruit, they
undergo the important process of fermentation. It would take too long to
relate the different methods employed, but it may be mentioned that the
fermentation process affects the taste and aroma of the cocoa very much,
drawing away the bitterness of the bean, modifying its sharp taste, and
developing the aroma and the red-brown colour.
A still further proceeding is the drying of the beans, which is done
either by the heat of the sun and the fresh air on threshing floors with
removable roof, or by artificial heat in drying apparatus. Some days
after the cocoa has been carefully dried, it is ready for exportation.
It is packed in sacks or matting, and in the past it has been dispatched
principally to Germany to be worked up in the factories. The kernels are
ground and the grease when extracted is used in the form of cocoa-butter
for medicinal purposes and for the fabrication of soap. The export of
cocoa, which amounted to 2,450 tons in 1908, reached a total of 4,550
tons, valued at £212,500, in 1912.
RUBBER.
The attention of the rubber dealers was at first confined to certain
lianas, especially the Landolphia florida, which was regarded as the
greatest rubber-yielding plant in the colonies. But in the beginning of
the century it was discovered that the great virgin forests of South
Cameroon contained vast numbers of Kickxia-elastica trees, and that
extensive subsidiary tracts covered with the same plant existed in the
savannahs of South Adamana, in the Kumbo highlands, and the region of
Lake Chad. Kickxia-elastica, known in the trade as “silk rubber,” was
first discovered on the West African Coast in Lagos in 1894, and by
October of the following year the exports had reached well over a
million pounds. The eagerness of the natives to exploit this very
valuable product led to the total destruction of the rubber-yielding
trees, with the result that by 1906 the export had entirely ceased. Dr.
Schlecter introduced the Kickxia rubber trees from Lagos into the
Cameroons, where he proved that 1½ lbs. of dry rubber may be obtained
from the six-year-old trees, a result which was more than confirmed
subsequently by Dr. O. Warburg, the well-known authority on rubber. The
first shipments of rubber from the Kickxia trees were obtained from the
wild rubber trees known as Funtumia-elastica, and it has only been
during the last few years that the Germans, realising that the Kickxia
rubber trees are indigenous to the colony, have cultivated it, and there
are now large plantations of Kickxia in the Cameroons containing
millions of trees, which are doing well.
From the tapping of wild Funtumia trees, it is known that this species
yields latex more readily than others, and that it is almost as
sensitive to drastic tapping as Castilloa. Tapping of the cultivated
tree has occurred experimentally in Cameroon. These trees, however, do
not stand closely-planted, but singly or in rows, and the results must
be judged accordingly. It can be assumed that from 3 to 3¾ ozs. are to
be expected from six-year-old trees planted at good distances from each
other, and 1 to 2 ozs. from closely-planted trees. The method of tapping
practised in the last experiments with Funtumia differed from all other
methods, in that vertical incisions the whole length of the trunk were
made. As to its advantage over the herring-bone system, further
observations and a more extended series of comparative tapping trials
are first necessary. The rubber is procured by boiling the latex after
diluting it with water; treatment with hydrofluoric acid yields a better
product. Although Funtumia rubber is at present inferior in quality to
that of Hevea and Ficus, and at most is equal to that of the Castilloa,
still it may be confidently anticipated that with more suitable
preparation it will yield a good serviceable product.
THE COST OF PRODUCTION.
Most of the Kickxia plantations are laid out on land which has been
cleared of jungle, a process which does not entail a heavy outlay. The
expenses, including all costs for inspection, tools, labour, &c.,
amount to about £10 per acre. A fair supply of native labour is
available, and the average wage, including board, is about £10 per
annum. The cost of the upkeep of the planted areas should not exceed
30s. per acre for the first year, 22s. 6d. per acre for the second year,
and 18s. 6d. and 10s. for the third and fourth years respectively. The
estimated inclusive cost of tapping the trees and delivering the produce
in Europe should not exceed 1s. 3d. per lb. The value of Kickxia rubber,
if properly prepared, is almost equal to that of the best Para rubber,
and it is certainly safe to estimate that it will always fetch within
1s. of Para. These figures compare very favourably with those obtaining
in other plantations, and they are given here as an indication that in
its rubber exports alone the Cameroon territory has a profitable future
before it.
In considering the question as to whether Germany will ever be in a
position to supply her own demands in rubber from her own colonies, Dr.
Paul Preuss, writing in the _India Rubber Journal_, says that it depends
on three factors: (1) Soil, (2) Climate, (3) Labour. “Regarding soil,”
he says, “the Colonies of Cameroon and New Guinea alone possess several
hundred thousand acres of land suited for the cultivation of the most
valuable rubber trees. The climate there is also very favourable. Taking
the annual requirements of Germany in rubber at 16,000 tons, this
quantity can be produced from an area of 150,000 to 170,000 acres
exclusively planted with Hevea, and from 200,000 to 250,000 acres under
cultivation with the various species already planted, but with Hevea
predominating. Even if the demand for the raw material should
considerably increase, the answer to this question would be an
affirmative as regards soil and climate; whether, however, with the
accompanying development in the cultivation of cacao, cotton, cocoa-nut
and oil-palms, &c., the necessary labour will be procurable for such an
extension in rubber cultivation, the question cannot be answered.” It
has been stated that in the coming years, when the rubber plantations
are ready for tapping, and the tobacco plantations are demanding the
services of thousands of natives, the insufficiency of labour will prove
a serious problem, and the importation of Chinese labour was submitted
to the consideration of the German Government as a feasible solution.
RICE, COFFEE, COCOA, AND TOBACCO.
During recent years the cultivation of rice has received more attention,
especially in the experimental gardens. The forest land inhabitants have
also begun to lay out water and hill rice fields in great extent, and it
is only a question of time for the Cameroons to become a rice producing
country. But whether the negroes will ever be capable of carrying out
the troublesome cultivation of water rice, with the necessary
transplanting and careful watering, is regarded as doubtful.
One can depend with greater confidence on the exportation of maize and
millet from the forest land and the drier hinterland, as soon as means
of transport are provided, as it has been found that the black can be
entrusted with this cultivation. Rice, as well as maize and millet, and
also bananas and pines, which grow in great quantities, would be, as
native cultivation solely, open to question.
Regarding the cultivation of coffee, the greatest hopes were raised in
the first years of occupation of the colony. The Cameroon Mountains
resemble in every respect the island of San Thomé and Fernando-Po,
where, in 1884, a flourishing coffee cultivation existed. Nothing was
more natural than the expectation than that a fresh impetus would be
given to coffee cultivation on the mainland, but these hopes were not
fulfilled, and now scarcely any coffee plantations are to be found. Tea
was planted in Buea by Deistel, and the tea-shrub developed splendidly.
Plantation cocoa has borne the preponderating share of the total exports
of that product in recent years, the areas in bearing having increased
as follows: 1909, 13,328 acres; 1910, 15,290 acres; 1911, 17,560 acres;
1912, 20,438 acres. The large increase of exports in 1912 is attributed
to the very favourable weather in that year. It is stated that more
care, with artificial manuring, is wanted in the cultivation, and that
the chief diseases and pests of cocoa, such as brown rot, “cockchafer
grubs,” and “bark bugs,” are not under control. Nevertheless the future
for cocoa is believed to be good.
Much was expected of tobacco planting, especially in Bibundi, where
tobacco was planted at first, and the quality was excellent, although
the cultivation was proved to be too dear and too difficult on account
of the dampness of the climate. In 1902 there was a deficit of 200,000
marks, and for some time the cultivation was discontinued. Attempts
were made in 1911 to encourage tobacco planting in the German colonies
by the guarantees of a definite price for quantities of at least 100
cwts. raised and prepared in those colonies. The planted area in
plantations in the Cameroons increased from fifty acres in 1911 to 383
in 1912; 230 acres of the latter had yielded a crop. In view of the
expensive nature of the cultivation, it was hoped that Cameroons’ leaf
for wrappers would gain a good market.
The planting of the Kola-nut was undertaken very energetically, and in
1904, 400 were planted in Garna, but with what result is unknown. The
experimental cultivations in the gardens of Victoria have produced no
palpable result. The trees flourished and bore fruit, but it was
entirely consumed by worms. The natives, on the other hand, cultivate
this tree in great extent in the forest land, and especially in the
Kimbo highland. Among different plants, especially in the trial gardens,
are the vanilla, pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon, and other spices. Vanilla was
quite destroyed by blight in Victoria. Pepper, cloves and cinnamon all
furnish excellent productions.
PALM OIL CULTIVATION.
The oil-palm in the old days was the glorious heritage of the native,
who found a ready sale for such oil as his women-folk were able to
extract by a slow and laborious process. It is likely that the native
believed that so long as he retained the tree and the fruit, his
time-honoured oil business would never be taken from him, but the great
and growing demand for oil has beaten him, and he is fast losing the
trade because he can no longer make the quantity that the market
requires. Palm oil is now requisitioned for a hundred-and-one new uses.
It is no longer the monopoly of the soap-maker or the chandler. Palm oil
deodorised by hydrogen is needed for the “nut butters” of the
vegetarian; makers of nitro-glycerine explosives derive their glycerine
constituents more and more from palm oil; whilst the exploiters of
novelties in metal polishes ransack the ship’s hold for leakages from
the palm-oil cask. Oil must be had in increasing quantity; machinery
speeds up the production; yet still the cry is for more oil, until the
European himself attempts to become owner of thousands of trees, eagerly
and not too scrupulously encroaching on lands that once were considered
native, in the vain hope of finding a speedier road to prosperity.
THE PALM TREE AND ITS PRODUCTS.
The profitable carrying on of this industry depends on the demand for
palm oil and the use which can be made of the residues. That the supply
of palm kernels themselves should decline is unthinkable. The steady
increase in their growth in all parts of the West African Coast is
conclusive evidence of their almost limitless possibilities. Moreover,
the statistics clearly show the extensive nature of the demand. Great
Britain and Germany are no longer the only purchasers; South Africa has
entered the market, as well as Holland and France, though their lots are
comparatively small, and could not in any way effect the profitable
exploitation of kernel-crushing on a large scale.
In a paper read before the Royal Colonial Institute, entitled “The War:
British and German Trade in Nigeria,” Mr. R. E. Dennett, of the Forest
Department, Nigeria, made it abundantly evident that Germany had been
farming the commerce of the Protectorates to the detriment of the
Britisher. He showed from statistics that Germany’s export trade to
Nigeria greatly exceeded ours, while of the Nigerian produce which left
the country, Germany in 1913 took nearly all the copra, half the cocoa,
more than two-thirds of the palm kernels, one-eighth of the palm oil,
half the hides, one-third of the mahogany, more than half the
ground-nuts, over a third of the shea nuts, and all the palm kernel
cake.
On the subject of the palm tree and its products, Mr. Dennett is both
interesting and instructive, and in view of its inevitable increase in
importance as a British industry, the following extracts from his paper
may be usefully reproduced here.
“People who have little or no knowledge of the palm tree (_Elæis
guineensis_) confuse the palm fruit with the palm kernel. The palm
kernel of commerce is the seed of the palm tree. This is surrounded by a
hard shell, and it is then called the palm nut. This shell is in its
turn covered by an oily fibrous matter, and is then known as the palm
fruit. If we take this fruit and cut it into two parts, we can see these
three parts of the fruit more distinctly; first the outer yellow
covering or the fibrous pericarp, from which the palm oil of commerce is
extracted; then the shell, and finally the kernel, from which the white
palm kernel oil is extracted.
“The composition of this fruit is as follows:--
Pericarp Oil 18 per cent.
Fibre and Moisture 12 “
Shell and Disk 58 “
Kernel 12 “
---
Total 100 “
“The uses of the palm oil tree are various. It yields the palm oil and
kernels of commerce. It gives the native a drink he is very fond of,
called palm wine, which, when fermented, gives our cooks yeast for
bread-making. The shells of the nuts are used by blacksmiths as fuel, as
they give off great heat. At the present time there are three methods of
making palm oil: (_a_) from the fresh fruit, (_b_) from partially
fermented fruit, and (_c_) from well fermented fruit.
THE NATIVE AS CULTIVATOR.
“Bunches of fruit having been severed from the parent tree, are sliced
and hammered by natives, using long poles, until the fruit becomes
detached from the bunch. The fresh fruit is either prepared at once into
what is called soft oil, or allowed to ferment, or partially ferment,
and made into hard oil. The procedure followed in making either of
these kinds of oil is much the same. The fruit is placed either into
canoes or clay troughs, water is poured over them, and then, by treading
or beating, the fibrous matter containing the oil is separated from the
nuts. The nuts are then taken out and placed in the sun to dry, while
the fibrous matter, by further beating or treading, is made to yield the
oil which floats to the surface of the water. This oil is ladled out
into pots and boiled, and then allowed to rest, so that all dirt or
sediment falls to the bottom of the pot. This clean oil, soft or hard,
is the palm oil of commerce. This oil is taken in calabashes or tins to
the traders’ factory, which, generally speaking, is near to a river or a
railway, and there put into casks and sent to the nearest port for
shipment to Europe.
“There are, practically speaking, two kinds of palm oil exported from
the West Coast, i.e., hard and soft, but soft oil is of two
qualities--Lagos and ordinary soft oil. As a rule, Lagos and soft oil is
worth £3 to £4 more than hard oil, the reason being that there is about
8 per cent. more glycerine in the soft than in the hard. The percentage
of glycerine varies in inverse proportion with the acidity.
“In the olden days one of the chief occupations of slaves was that of
cracking palm nuts; now this work is left to boys and women. After the
nuts have been dried in the sun, they are heaped up under little sheds
to protect them from the rain. In places where rocks are plentiful the
nuts are taken there and cracked on them by a stone held in the hand of
the cracker. In other places the nuts are put on a block of wood resting
on the ground between the cracker’s legs and struck with a piece of iron
held in the cracker’s right hand. In this way one worker will crack from
15 lbs. to 25 lbs. of kernels per day. The kernels are then packed in
different kinds of baskets and taken to markets near rivers, where they
are bought by native middlemen. Competition is very keen, and so these
middlemen are tempted to adulterate the kernels by adding shells to them
or by soaking them in water for two or three days. Finally, they are
taken in canoes down rivers or by rail to the European traders and sold
by measurement at so much a bushel.... Think of it! 241,000 tons of palm
kernels shipped to Hamburg in 1913, and nearly every nut containing one
kernel is cracked by hand.”
THE FUTURE OF PALM OIL AND KERNEL INDUSTRY.
Although the palm kernel industry has not attained important dimensions
in the Cameroons, there is no reason why it should not form one of the
staple products of the colony, or why the whole of the trade in palm
kernels should not be transferred from Germany to this country. Hitherto
the quarter of a million tons of palm kernels--valued at over
£4,000,000--exported annually from British West Africa has gone to
Germany, where crushing-mills and manufacturing plants have been
established, while considerable quantities of high-priced kernel oil, in
manufactured or unmanufactured form, have been exported from Germany to
Great Britain. About 50 per cent. of the produce of the crushed palm
kernels is marketed in the form of oil, and the balance is made up into
palm kernel cake, practically the whole of which is consumed in Germany,
where it commands a good price and is in great demand, especially among
dairy farmers.
This profitable German industry has now been suspended owing to the war,
which has rendered it necessary for planters to find a new market for
their produce, and the opportunity seems propitious for an endeavour to
establish it in Great Britain upon a substantial scale. With a view to
arousing interest in the subject in commercial and agricultural circles,
Sir Owen Phillipps, K.C.M.G., Chairman of the West African section of
the London Chamber of Commerce, has issued a timely pamphlet in which
the present position of the trade is described and its potentialities
are indicated. The Anglicisation of the industry, in addition to
promoting Imperial commercial intercourse, and securing increased
industrial employment in the United Kingdom, would furnish British
farmers--who are complaining of the enhanced prices of present
foods--with a new supply of a relatively cheap and excellent feeding
material.
The profitable exploitation of this crushing industry depends upon the
capacity of the British market to absorb a larger supply of palm kernel
oil and upon the possibility of inducing British farmers to adopt the
use of palm kernel cake. There are at present two mills, both at
Liverpool, for dealing with palm kernels, capable together of crushing
annually about 70,000 tons, leaving a balance unprovided for of at least
180,000 tons. To cope with this additional quantity several of the great
milling companies of Liverpool, London, Hull, &c., have already made and
are making alterations in their machinery in order to crush palm
kernels, so that in the near future much greater quantities will be
dealt with. A new mill on the Thames, at Erith, is also being erected,
which, when completed after the war, will be capable of crushing a very
large quantity.
PALM KERNEL CAKE FOOD.
In order to ascertain whether British farmers would be prepared to make
a larger use of palm kernel cake, Sir Owen Phillipps placed himself in
communication with the leading agricultural authorities in all parts of
the country--principals of agricultural colleges, experimental stations,
&c., and these gentlemen have taken up the matter with the greatest
enthusiasm. They are practically unanimous in asserting that the fact of
large quantities of palm kernel cake being available at a price
comparing favourably with that of other similar foods (now becoming more
expensive than formerly) has only to be brought to the notice of farmers
to ensure a greatly increased demand; in fact, that farmers are looking
out for a new and comparatively cheap feeding material. Many of the
principals and professors of the colleges referred to in various parts
of the country have undertaken an elaborate series of comparative
experimental feeding tests with palm kernel and other cakes, so as to
demonstrate the merits of the former. When these are completed the
results will be made widely known to the agricultural community.
In an article published in the _Field_ on “Palm Kernel Cake,” Mr. F. J.
Lloyd, F.I.C., points out that a really good cake, made from this
product, is now available in this country. The nutrients in palm kernel
cake are quite exceptionally digestible, and one German authority says
that, “owing to its pleasant taste, its great digestibility, and the way
in which cattle thrive on it, no cake fetches so high a price.” It
increases the yield of milk, improves the quality as regards butter fat,
and is said to impart a good colour to the butter, so that it is
especially valuable for winter feeding. Though mainly used in Germany
for dairy cattle, Professor Lloyd adds that it has also been given with
satisfactory results to steers, sheep, and pigs.
PALM KERNEL STATISTICS.
The _Bulletin_ of the Imperial Institute contains an article calling
attention to the magnitude of the trade in palm kernels, and discussing
its commercial aspect. The following table shows the quantities and
values from each of the chief producing countries in West Africa in
1912:--
_Quantities._ _Values._
British Possessions: _Tons._ _Tons._ £ £
Gambia 445 6,518
GoldCoast 14,629 205,365
Nigeria 184,624 2,797,411
Sierra Leone 50,751 793,178
-------- 250,449 --------- 3,802,472
French Possessions:
Dahomey 36,708 535,937
Gaboon 354 4,671
Guinea 5,054 41,079
Ivory Coast 6,692 70,710
Senegal 1,736 28,221
------ 50,544 ------ 680,618
Belgian Congo -- -- 110,835
German Possessions:
Kamerun 15,742 220,300
Togoland 11,456 168,978
------- 27,198 ------- 389,278
------- ----------
Totals 328,191 £4,983,203
This article also gives the average value of the kernels, which in
Hamburg ranges from £18 2s. to £19 2s. per ton (June, 1914); the value
in Liverpool was £17 17s. 6d. to £18 18s. 9d. per ton in July last, and
in September was £16 7s. 6d. to £17 10s. per ton.
Palm kernel oil is used for the same purposes as cocoa-nut oil, viz.,
the manufacture of soap and candles and the preparation of various
edible fats, such as margarine, cooking fats, vegetable “butters,” and
chocolate fats. By suitable treatment it can be separated into a liquid
portion (olein) and a hard white fat (palm kernel stearin), and in this
way the consistence of the material can be varied for the preparation of
different edible products. These edible palm kernel oil products are
prepared on a very large scale in Germany and elsewhere, and are largely
imported into this country. With palm kernels at £17 to £18 per ton, the
value of palm kernel oil in the United Kingdom is from £36 5s. to £36
15s. per ton, with Ceylon cocoa-nut oil at £40 per ton.
It is added that British oil-seed crushers who undertook to work them
would find no difficulty in getting a market for the oil among
soap-makers and makers of edible fats. Although the article points out
that some difficulty might be experienced in finding a market quickly in
the United Kingdom for the palm kernel cake, because English farmers do
not readily take up feeding stuffs which are new to them, it will be
gathered from what has already been said that, thanks to the initiative
of Sir Owen Phillipps, this difficulty is likely to be overcome, and the
opportunity is a particularly good one now that other feeding stuffs
are becoming more expensive, as that is a point which will have great
influence. It is not a new feeding material, but all the evidence points
simply to the fact that it has only to become better known and available
on a large scale to result in mutual benefits to the farmer, the miller,
the manufacturer, and the West African colonies.
COTTON.
The cultivation of fibrous plants, which have made a highly satisfactory
start in Togoland and East Africa, are to be found in Cameroon only in
the preliminary stage. In the experimental garden, Sanseveria, the
Romelia-pita from Central America, manilla hemp, Musa textiles, as well
as the Uttari jute, have been planted.
Cotton should have a much greater future than the so-called fibrous
plant. It is cultivated at present to a great extent south of Lake Chad
by the natives, and the cultivation of cotton has been called
systematic, as only one to two year-old plants are harvested. In that
region the conditions are so favourable that a considerable development
of the cotton cultivation may be counted upon, as soon as more
favourable communication conditions are made. In the Benue Valley,
cotton has also been cultivated for several decades. The whole of the
forest and coastland are unfit for this cultivation, and it is somewhat
surprising to hear that on the uncultivated lands of the Mandara
Mountains, a very beautiful long fibrous cotton grows. At the
instigation of the Colonial Agricultural Committee, cotton cultivation
made a tremendous start in Togo, and in East Africa as well as in the
Cameroons.
The export of timber has increased by leaps and bounds in recent years.
While in 1909 timber to the value of only £8,500 was imported, this sum
in 1912 had risen to £35,000, and, with the extension of the railway
system, the revenue from this source can be increased almost
indefinitely.
EXPERIMENTAL AGRICULTURAL WORK.
Dr. Walter Busse, of the Imperial German Colonial Office, writing in the
“Bulletin of the Imperial Institute” on “The Organisation of
Experimental Work in Agriculture in the German Colonies,” tells us that
in Cameroon, as in other parts where land is being opened up for
agriculture, the conditions of settlement of the natives, the density of
the population, the general standard of civilisation, and the capacity
of the natives for any particular kind of activity, all play an
important role. “And in proportion as the people incline towards
agriculture, so attention must be paid to the inclinations and needs of
the separate races, and lastly to the extent, organisation and methods
of native agriculture.... The German Colonial Government,” the German
colonial official proceeds to explain, “has laid it down as a principle
that native agriculture in the tropical colonies should be allowed to
develop freely side by side with plantations under European control,
wherever this does not interfere with higher interests. Local conditions
will decide how far in each particular region this or that method of
organising agriculture is to be preferred. But wherever climate, soil
and condition of settlement do not admit of plantation culture, and a
native population capable of production is present, the Government will,
as a matter of course, encourage native agriculture as much as possible,
and by this means create an improved economic position.”
Unfortunately for the native, as Hanns Vischer points out in his article
on “Native Education in German Africa,” his national feeling, his own
industry and aptitude for work, was entirely ignored by the Government,
and “higher interests” frequently interfered to retard the development
of native enterprise, while the Teutonic professors proved too
determined, for the good of colonial agriculture, to transfer to it “the
long-approved system of German agriculture, which rests on a strong
scientific foundation, built on the results of exact investigation and
methods.” Germany started her experimental work as soon as she entered
upon the occupation of colonies, with the establishment of gardens for
raising imported economic plants, such as coffee, cocoa, rubber, &c., in
the interest of plantation culture, and for the advancement of gardening
and fruit production. When European planters commenced to take up
agriculture on their own account, it was found that the experimental
work of the botanical gardens was no longer adequate to the new
requirements. For this purpose, experimental work on a purely
agricultural basis, and an effort to effect an improvement of native
agriculture, became necessary. To meet these demands, institutes were
established, and agricultural staffs were organised, and the measures
taken in Togoland in 1900, for the introduction and extension of cotton
cultivation, became the standard for agricultural experimental work in
the other tropical African colonies of Cameroon and East Africa.
THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE.
The Experimental Institute of Agriculture at Victoria remained as the
centre for the whole of the experimental work in Cameroon until the year
1911, when the Imperial Government created a Department of Agriculture
at Buea to deal with all questions relating to organisation, while the
Victoria Institution continued to undertake the technical and scientific
investigations. At first the agricultural work was mainly devoted to
assisting the planting industry in the Cameroon Mountains, but as the
colony became opened up, fresh problems presented themselves. The
reckless exploitation of the _Funtumia elastica_ and Landolphia vines in
the rubber forests led to the establishment of a special rubber
inspectorate, and various arrangements were made for the development of
all branches of native cultivation. Special small experimental gardens
were created in the larger administrative stations of the interior and
placed under the management of a European farmer or gardener, to deal
with the cultivation by natives of products suitable for export. Later,
a cocoa inspectorate was established to organise native cocoa
cultivation in districts in which European cocoa plantations did not and
were not likely to exist, and an experimental station was founded in the
Jaunde district to encourage the cultivation of such crops as
ground-nuts, plantain and manioc, with a view to export. At Kuti and
Pittoa two agricultural experimental stations were established,
primarily for the cultivation of cotton, but other branches of
agriculture, including stock-raising, were embraced in the programme of
work at these stations. In 1913 the agricultural staff consisted of
fourteen first-grade, seven second-grade and twenty-eight third-grade
officers.
The Institute at Victoria comprised a botanic garden and botanical and
chemical laboratories, and the work carried on there included the
raising of tropical economic plants, experiments in plantation culture
and manuring, &c. Since 1910 young natives were trained as plantation
managers in the agricultural school attached to the institute. At the
cattle-breeding stations at Buea, Dschang and Djuttitsa (in the Dschang
district), and Jaunde, the breeding of Allgau bulls and cross-breeding
experiments with Allgau bulls and the indigenous humped cows were
carried on with the object of obtaining draught cattle for the several
districts and supplying meat and dairy produce to the Europeans. At the
Dschang School of Agriculture, young natives were instructed in the use
of the plough and in other rational methods of agriculture. At the Kuti
station, in the Bamum district, and the Pittao station, in the Adamana
district, the advancement of cotton cultivation is the primary study,
but the programmes of work also include comparative cultivation
experiments with indigenous cereals, pulses, root-crops, and fodder
plants, the use of the plough, manuring and rotation experiments,
cattle-breeding and cattle-keeping, and the training of native
travelling instructors.
The Rubber Inspectorate established stations for rubber cultivation at
Sangmalima (Ebolowa district), Akonolinga (Jaunde district), Dume (Dume
district), and Djahposten (Lomie district), and the work comprised the
distribution of Funtumia and Hevea plants to the natives, the
superintendence of new plantations, the regeneration of the stocks of
wild rubber which had become exhausted by careless exploitation, and the
instruction of the natives in the tapping of rubber trees and the
preparation and preservation of the rubber.
In order to deal adequately with the agricultural questions which arose
locally in the various districts, most of the administrative stations
possessed--apart from the established experimental gardens--agricultural
officers whose duty it was to superintend local experimental fields and
gardens. Such officers were employed, among other places, at Duala,
Edea, Bara, Yoko, and Bamenda, the chief aim of the experimental gardens
at these places being to develop the cultivation of export products,
while experiments with foreign economic plants, yielding produce
suitable for export, were also conducted.
MINERAL RESOURCES.
The mining industry has not yet penetrated into the Cameroons, and the
mineral deposits of the country are commercially improved. Cretaceous
and Tertiary rocks occur in the coastal area and extend northward to the
Nigerian border. Gneisses and schists of pre-Cambrian age, with
intrusive granites, extend over wide areas in the hinterland, and
volcanic rocks of supposed Tertiary age are very abundant. Pegmatites
and quartz veins are associated with granite intrusions in the
pre-Cambrian rocks. These carry tourmaline in the region north of Duala,
as in the Dschang district. Quartz veins with small amounts of pyrite
and arsenopyrite also occur.
Tinstone, which occurs in pegmatite veins in Nigeria, may be expected to
be encountered in the Cameroons, but although prospecting has been
carried on in various parts of the region bordering on Nigeria, in the
hope of finding tinstone and wolframite, no results have been obtained.
The only trace of gold yet discovered was an occurrence of spangles of
gold of theoretical interest only, which was found in a dyke rock (a
bostoorite) on the eastern boundary of the Ossidinge district.
Promising finds of mica have been made in the pegmatites of the
Ossidinge and Kentu districts, and galena also occurs in the cretaceous
sandstone in the Ossidinge district; but hitherto no argentiferous
lead-zinc ores comparable with those of Nigeria have been located.
Iron ores, some of which are manganiferous, are abundant in the country.
Many of these are of the lateritic type, and furnish material for native
smelting, as in other parts of Western Africa. In some localities, iron
ore has been formed by the decomposition of basalt. Masses of red and
brown ores of this type are found on hill-slopes in the neighbourhood
of Bali and Bamenda. A sample of this ore was found to contain 42·25 per
cent. of metallic iron, 0·35 of manganese, 0·17 of phosphorus, and 12·26
of silica. Richer ores of the magnetic type are found among the
pro-Cambrian gneisses.
Limestones are scarce and of unserviceable quality, but clays and loams,
suitable for brick-making, are abundant. Indications of the presence of
petroleum in the neighbourhood of Duala were falsified by borings.
Asphal is said to occur at Ossidinge and Mamfe on the Cross River. A
thin layer of coal yielding 48·3 per cent. of ash has been located at
Mamfe. Salt springs exist in the Ossidinge district, and the yield of as
much as from 5 to 8 per cent. of sodium-chloride from samples of brine,
is believed to indicate that salt beds may be found beneath the surface
in this district.
NATIVE EDUCATION.
In order to ascertain the work done by Europeans, the Government and the
Missionary Societies in schools for the natives of their various African
possessions, the German Colonial Institute in 1911 sent out to the
colonies over 2,000 printed _questionnaires_, with a request to the
authorities to return answers according to the state of the schools on
June 1st in that year. From the information filled in and returned, Herr
Missions-Inspector Schlunk, of Hamburg, was able to publish a voluminous
report on the subject, and the state of affairs thus revealed is
illustrative of the best and worst features of the Teutonic colonising
system. The facts in themselves concerning the educational work
accomplished in the way of providing the natives with schools and
teachers are remarkable.
In Cameroon the first educational work among the natives was begun by
the London Baptist Mission in 1845, and in 1885, the year in which the
Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United
States of America entered the field, the London Baptists resigned their
organisation to the Missions Gesellschaft, of Basel. Two years later the
first Government School was opened in Duala, and in the following four
years the Apostolic Vicariat Kamerun, of Limburg on the Lahn, and the
German Baptists, of Steglitz, established schools in the colony. In
Cameroon, as in Togo, the Government were behind the missions in the
number of schools and scholars, having, in 1911, only eight elementary
schools, as against the nine of the American Presbyterians, thirty-eight
of the German Baptists, eighty-six of the Roman Catholic, and 275 of the
Basel Mission. Altogether there were in the colony 499 elementary
schools, with forty-two European and 611 native teachers, and 32,056
pupils; twenty-one higher schools, with thirty-three European and thirty
native teachers, and 1,802 pupils; eleven industrial schools, with
twenty-two European and five native teachers, and 259 pupils; or a total
of 531 schools, with ninety-seven European and 646 native teachers, and
34,117 pupils. Of the teachers 3·3 per cent. and of the pupils 8·1 per
cent. were females.
THE SCHOOL COURSE.
In both Togo and Cameroon, the course of the elementary schools began
with an infant class and lasted four or five years, the objects of the
schools in both colonies having been to provide Christian instruction to
natives and to train pupils for the higher schools with a view to their
entering the service of Europeans. Instruction in German began in the
first year, and in the third year pupils were required to read and write
German fluently in both characters. The curriculum for the last year
included the history of the German Empire since the Franco-German War of
1870-71, the history of the German Emperors since January 18th, 1871,
the Geography of Germany, and the singing of German patriotic songs.
In the higher schools, the object of the teachers was to “impart such
knowledge as is required in the service of Europeans,” and all
instruction was given in the German language. The schools for practical
work trained girls for domestic work, laundry work and farming, while
boys received instruction in carpentering, cabinet-making, smiths’ work,
boot-making and tailoring, printing and book-binding. At the completion
of their course, all pupils were obliged to remain in the service of the
Government for two or more years. In both Togoland and Cameroon, the
Government had a school of agriculture, where pupils were instructed in
farming, especially cotton-growing and the use of the plough, and at
some of the mission schools in the latter colony the pupils were trained
in brick-making and cocoa-planting, and the work connected with
water-supply and bridge-making.
In both colonies the schools generally were open on five or six days a
week, with from twenty to thirty-five hours’ instruction per week,
according to the grade of the several schools. The average length of
holidays for Mission and Government schools was from two to three months
per annum. Unfortunately, no statement of revenue or expenditure is
included in the case of Togoland beyond the fact that the Government
made a yearly grant of £750, distributed among the various schools for
the encouragement of German language-study. In Cameroon, in 1910, the
Basel Mission spent £5,386 on teachers’ salaries, and the Roman
Catholics £1,626. The cost of the Government schools in that year was
£1,963. Generally no school fees were paid except in some of the higher
schools in Togo, where pupils paid 50s. per annum, and at Garna, in
Cameroon, the Government pupils paid 30s. per annum in kind.
THE RESULTS OF GERMAN METHODS.
In Cameroon a Government Proclamation of April 25th, 1910, made school
attendance obligatory for all native children, instruction in German
from the first class was made law, and the punishment for a child who
left school before completing the whole course was fixed at a fine of £2
10s. or a flogging. Although children generally were anxious to attend
school in order to qualify for service with Europeans, truantry appears
to have become more popular after obligatory attendance was introduced,
and the native police were kept busy in bringing back absentees. School
children, who were distinguished by the wearing of brass-buttons and
cockades, showed a tendency to become denationalised: few of them
returned to the family farms when they completed their school course,
which had the effect of causing them to lose touch with their own tribe
and families.
It is impossible, after reading Herr Missions-Inspector Schlunk’s
report, to refuse admiration to the thoroughness of the German system of
instituting these inquiries, or to the care with which the Germans lay
themselves out to Teutonise their native subjects. Their organising
ability, as revealed in their methods of imparting instruction to the
natives and preparing their minds for the reception of _kultur_, is
amazing, but as Hanns Vischer shows in his analysis of this informative
publication, contributed to the _Journal of the African Society_, their
method has its disadvantages. “Little love and scarcely any respect for
the native,” he comments, “are to be found among the various reports. No
mention is ever made of the natives’ national feeling. Natives are
taught German history and the names of the German Emperors, and they can
sing German patriotic songs. From every colony we hear that the boys who
have been to school seldom or never return to their own surroundings,
and although this is regretted, as being detrimental to the interests of
a peasant community, no mention is made of the breaking-up of the native
family and the inevitable harm which must follow. The importance of
practical instruction is everywhere recommended to teach the native to
work, but no mention is made of the natives’ own industry and love for
work which might be developed.”
THE CAMEROON-NIGERIAN BOUNDARY.
The country bordering on the Nigerian boundary from Yola to Obokum on
the Cross River, a distance of 360 miles, and the peoples inhabiting the
several districts it passes through, have been admirably dealt with by
Captain W. V. Nugent, R.A. Captain Nugent, who had been a member of the
Commission under Colonel Whitlock which surveyed this area between 1907
and 1909, was sent out in August, 1912, to mark the boundary between the
Cameroon and the Nigerias along the line which had been previously
settled approximately on the map at a conference between the British and
German Governments. The British Commissioner and his assistants met
Lieut. Detzner, the German Commissioner, on October 8th, 1912, and the
work of demarcation continued without interruption for six months,
during which time 116 pillars were placed in position. Both
Commissioners wrote accounts of this Anglo-German Frontier Demarcation
Expedition, but, while Lieut. Detzner’s official article on the subject,
published in _Deutsches Kolonialblatt_ (1913) is a dull, pedantic and
unsatisfactory document, the paper read by Captain Nugent before the
Royal Geographical Society in March, 1914, is compact of information and
extremely interesting, and it is from his descriptions that I have
derived the following details and extracts.
The frontier line divides the mountains, torrential streams and
sparsely-inhabited areas of the Cameroons form the wide fertile plains,
great navigable waterways and densely populated districts on the
Nigerian side of the border. The fact that Benue River and its three
great southern tributaries, the Teraba, Donga and Katsena Rivers, all
rise on the plateaux of the Central Cameroon, and only become navigable
for canoes upon entering Nigerian territory, explain the unequal
distribution of man over the country; for, while the savage pagan tribes
have withdrawn to the almost inaccessible hilltops, the more civilised
agricultural and trading peoples have kept to the well-watered plains.
THE FULANI REGION.
The boundary line, which commences at Byaaer, a three days’ march from
Yola, crosses the M’Bulo plain and follows the Upper M’Bulo river to its
source in the Shebshi Mountains. “The plain,” to quote from Captain
Nugent’s description, “is covered with thin bush, and dotted with
villages, each with its surrounding patches of cultivation. The
formation is brown laterite, the rocks containing occasional bands and
lumps of ironstone.” The lower slopes of the isolated granite hills,
which rise above the general level, are covered with pagan villages.
“The people inhabiting the plains on both sides of the boundary are
Fulanis, subject to the Emirs of Yola and Nassarawa; but the tops of
isolated mountains, and the narrow valleys between the long spurs
jutting out from the Shebshi group, are inhabited by pagans, offshoots
of the Chamba and Dakka tribes. The habits and customs of the Fulanis
are well known--they are by nature herdsmen, just as the Hausas are born
traders and the pagans agriculturists. The country is rich in flocks and
herds of cattle, sheep and goats. A large trade is also done in horses.
The villages consist of round huts of sun-baked mud, with conical roofs
thatched with dry grass. Sometimes, when the village is only intended to
be temporary, the walls of the huts are made of zana matting, which is
also used to enclose the compounds, or groups of huts inhabited by one
family. Every village has its assembly place, generally under a large
shady tree, where the headman and his advisers sit all day and smoke,
while the slaves work in the fields or drive the cattle to pasture.
Slave-dealing is still carried on in this country, advantage being taken
of the proximity of the boundary, which makes it so easy to evade
justice.... The work of marking the boundary was watched with the
greatest interest by the Fulani population. The ‘kings’ of all the towns
on the English side, and a good many from the German side, came to
salute us, generally bringing a present of a fowl or a basket of limes.
Each ‘king’ carries a long stick, surmounted by a brass crown, the
emblem of his office under the Government. There are first, second and
third class ‘kings’; the size of the crown varies accordingly.”
The line in crossing the Shebshi Mountains passes over the summit of
Mount Dakka, upon which the boundary pillar is 5,388 feet above sea
level. “The view from Dakka is magnificent. On all sides are tumbled
masses of mountain, much cut up by deep ravines and rocky gorges,
through which the many headwaters of the M’Bulo and Kam rivers tear
headlong to the plains. On the German side, Vogel Spitz rises amid
innumerable peaks and valleys to a height of nearly 7,000 feet,
overlooking some hundred square miles of still unknown country. The
northern spurs, projecting into the Cameroons, enclose high table-lands,
extraordinarily fertile and highly cultivated.... The boundary crosses
the plateau near the only practicable pass, the road being entirely on
the German side, so that one result of the demarcation is to close the
direct trade route between M’Bulo and Kam Valleys until a new pass is
discovered. There are plenty of tracks over these mountains, but very
few practicable for animals. A bull which costs £1 at Tibak, in the
M’Bulo Valley, is worth £3 or £4 at Gankita, in the Kam Valley, the
distance as the crow flies between these two places being no more than
twelve miles.”
THE SHEBSHI MOUNTAINEERS.
“The Shebshi Mountains are interesting from the fact that they would
form the principal obstacle, a well-nigh insuperable one, to the
construction of a direct line of railway from Calabar, or a point on the
Cross River, _via_ Takum and Bakundi, to Yola. Yola is one of the few
important points in Nigeria which does not appear likely to be linked up
with the coast by a railway for many years to come. The German railway
from Duala to the north, if it ever does reach Garua, will pass to the
east of the Shebshis, where many obstacles, almost as formidable, will
have to be overcome....
“The people inhabiting the Shebshi Mountains and their foothills are
principally Chamba and Dakka pagans. They have many points in common
with other hill pagans of Northern Nigeria and Adamawa. The effect of
Mohammedan inroads upon these tribes is especially evident. They may be
divided into two classes: firstly, those who are slaves and mingle
freely with the Fulanis, their villages being in the plain; and,
secondly, those who hold themselves aloof on the hill-tops. The former
have copied many things from the Fulanis, such as clothing, houses,
&c.--almost everything, in fact, except their pastoral proclivities. The
pagan will keep goats and fowls, but he will have nothing to do with
horses and cattle.
“It is with the hill-top pagans, however, that we are principally
concerned, as nine-tenths of the whole boundary zone are inhabited by
people of this denomination. The first sign of the lower stage of
civilization is the absence of clothing. A tuft of grass is the national
dress, and even this is often dispensed with.
“The villages consist of little beehive-shaped huts of mud or grass,
perched on apparently inaccessible heights, or cunningly hidden away in
mazes of dense tropical vegetation. The inhabitants bear a great
resemblance to monkeys, being small in stature, but extraordinarily
active. The steepest and most difficult ascent over rocks and ravines is
to them as easy as a straight, broad, level road. In fact, I have often
noticed that these pagans, made to carry a load on the level, are
utterly at a loss. They only come down from their rocky fastnesses to
cultivate their fields, or to make war on their neighbours. They are
armed with bows and poisoned arrows, from which it is never safe for
them to be parted, even when working in the fields. They are almost
invariably at war with a neighbouring village, the probable reason being
that some of their women have been carried off. No regular trade is
indulged in, but they are very fond of salt, which they obtain from
Hausa traders. A bag of salt which costs half-a-crown on the coast has a
purchasing power of at least ten shillings in this country.
“Each village is an independent community under a chief. The inhabitants
are entirely ignorant of the world beyond the next village to their own.
The nominal chief of the village has not, as a rule, as much influence
as the local ju-ju man or witch doctor, whose power over these extremely
superstitious people is directly proportionate to his success in
imposing upon their credulity. Any calamity, such as an epidemic of
sickness or a sudden death, is always attributed to the evil eye, and
some member of the community is at once suspected, and either killed or
sold to passing Hausa traders. If a chief dies, the village always moves
to another site. This partly accounts for the number of deserted
villages and ruins found in the Shebshi Mountains.
“The Chambas are industrious agriculturists, and keep large numbers of
goats and fowls in their villages. The farms are generally at the foot
of the hills. After the harvest the people brew large supplies of spirit
from the grain, and get drunk for several days together. These orgies
generally result in fighting among themselves. The principal industry,
besides agriculture, is working in iron. They make their own farm
implements, spear and arrow heads, and pipe-stems.”
THE TERABA VALLEY.
From Dakka the boundary line follows the Kam for about a dozen miles,
and then, leaving the river, it runs over a block of hills which form
the fringe of a vast unknown tract of the Cameroon country. Here the
hill-top villages are few, the inhabitants are wilder and more squalid
than the Dakka natives, and the land is the haunt of the elephant, the
lion, the bush-cow and the leopard. From these hills the boundary
descends into the valley of the River Lumen, which runs for twenty or
thirty miles under a dark arch of overhanging trees. The water of the
Lumen is very cold, even in the heat of the day, and the sands of the
river are full of iron. The line crosses the Lumen and mounts a high
ridge, called Shina, to descend again into the vast plain of the River
Teraba. Along the banks of the Teraba are numerous Hausa and Jukum
villages, situated on important trade roads between Northern Nigeria and
Cameroon, the principal trade being in rubber, kola nuts, sheep, and
goats. There are no cattle, as many kinds of biting fly, including the
tsetse, have their breeding places in this area. As the Teraba is
typical of all the great southern tributaries of the Benue, the
following short description, which Captain Nugent gives of one of the
upper reaches, will be read with interest:--
“Fifteen miles above Karbabi the river bends sharply at right angles,
forming noisy rapids. Above the rapids the bed is rocky with deep pools.
Under the tall trees along the banks are open glades like an English
beech wood, entirely free from undergrowth, the ground being carpeted
with soft moss. There are the feeding-grounds of huge herds of
hippopotami, who live in the pools in the daytime. The river is here 200
to 300 yards wide, with high banks; the channel winds among huge
boulders, forming a chain of pools, but leaving a narrow deep waterway
among the larger rocks. The pools are like dark mirrors, silent and
stagnant, yet bright and clear, reflecting the trees on the opposite
bank in full detail. Wild geese and ibis fly overhead, whilst large
alligators move about like torpedoes, with their noses out of the water,
leaving long trails of bubbles on the surface.
“There is no village within many miles of this place, and it was only
with the greatest difficulty that we could obtain guides, as there are
no tracks except those made by the larger game. The inhabitants of the
pools were thoroughly startled at our approach. There seemed to be a
sort of collusion between the different birds and beasts. The shrieking
ibis warned the alligators asleep on the rocks in the sun, they, in
alarm, slid into the water and warned the river-horse that something was
amiss; the river-horse in his turn went pounding up-stream, under water,
coming up to breathe at intervals behind the rocks and branches. The
snorting was terrific. We estimated that there were between thirty and
forty hippopotami in the largest pool. I have never seen a
wilder-looking place; it seemed to be alive with everything except
humanity.
IN THE CANNIBAL COUNTRY.
“The boundary after crossing the Gazuba River, a tributary of the
Teraba, again ascends into an unexplored continuation of the Banjo
highlands, and drops into the plain of the Donga Valley. The inhabitants
here are a mixture of Jukums and Zumperis, but there are numerous
settlements of Hausas, whose trade consists of smuggling rubber and kola
nuts into Nigeria without paying the German tax. The pagans, who live in
‘swallow-nest’ villages on the heights, cultivate guinea-corn and root
crops, while yams, cassava and sweet potatoes grow in abundance in the
interstices between the huts. The boundary reaches the Donga, and after
following the river for fifteen miles and crossing the plateau of the
Wanya Mountains, reaches the plain of the Bamana Valley, in which oil
palms are first encountered.
“The country between the Gamana and Katsena Rivers is inhabited by
Zumperi pagans, who are cannibals and live on hill-tops. They are of
small stature and of remarkably repulsive appearance. Every other man
appeared to be suffering from goitre or elephantiasis--whether the
legacy of cannibalism, or the effect of drinking infected water, it is
difficult to say. The people are industrious, and besides corn, grow
large quantities of cotton and tobacco on the hillsides. They breed dogs
for eating purposes, and all the villages are full of yelping curs,
covered with sores like their owners. In one village a large deposit of
human skulls was seen. The villages are well built and surrounded by mud
walls and ditches. Among the numerous ‘ju-jus’ found in the deserted
huts was a grotesque mask, which was apparently kept to frighten the
women. Any woman seeing it must die at once. When the community is short
of meat, the local witch doctor puts on the mask and runs about the
hills until he meets a likely looking victim, who is then killed and
eaten. The Zumperis are great hunters, and have killed off nearly all
the game in their country except leopards.”
MUNCHI CIVILISATION.
From the Zumperi country the Commission traversed the undulating plain
that connects it with the valley of the Katsena, the last of the three
great tributaries of the Benue, and ascending this valley reached the
Agara or Misa Munchis district. The branch of the large and powerful
Munchi tribe which inhabits this area have preserved themselves from
contamination with the neighbouring tribes, by whom they are greatly
feared. The Munchis of the plains, who are of good physique and very
intelligent, are supposed to have come originally from a country called
Para, somewhere north of Yola, and they still call themselves Para among
themselves. Many of their customs are similar to the Zulus, with whom
they have often been compared, and the majority of their laws are
identical with those of Leviticus. Their villages are well built and
clean, and the men are brave in war and industrious in peace. Their
marriage customs, in addition to the payment of a dowry, include
exchanges of sisters, daughters and sometimes wives. Polygamy is rife,
and the value of a dowry varies from two cows in the case of a young
girl, to one cow or less in the case of a widow or elderly woman.
“The Munchis are of striking appearance. Those near the boundary are
poor and wear few clothes. They go in for extravagant hairdressing, the
most popular coiffure being a shaven head with one or two balls of hair
left growing. Others wear their hair in beaded strands, falling over the
side of the face. The tribal markings are a number of raised tattoo
marks, in the form of a crescent, on both sides of the temple. These are
universal, and are compulsory for both sexes, but the marks disappear in
old age. Other markings are tattoed stars and rings on the forehead,
chest and back, but these are all optional. The two front teeth of the
upper jaw are filed into V-shape.
“The Munchis are excellent farmers, and grow guinea-corn, yams, millet,
beniseed, maize, and ground-nuts in large quantities. They also
cultivate cotton, from which they weave good cloth, dyeing is with
indigo, which is grown round every compound. Each village has at least
one public dye-pit. Tobacco is also grown, and is either used as snuff
or smoked in large pipes with bowls of clay and stems of smelted brass.
“They are clever workers in wood and iron, making chairs and stools, in
the carving of which they display some art and much ingenuity. The iron
ore found locally used to be smelted in large quantities, and the
remains of old workings can be seen in many places, but trade iron bars
are now more generally used: from these spears and arrow-heads, hoes,
knives, and daggers are constructed. The small knives are curious in
shape, the handles being iron loops, which fit over the palm of the
hand. The hoes have broad, heavy blades, fitted with short, crooked
wooded handles, and are most effective agricultural implements. The
principal weapons of offence are bows and arrows, the arrows being
poisoned with a compound of crushed and boiled strophanthus seeds,
snakes’ heads, and poisonous plants, &c., which when freshly made is
very potent, the slightest scratch causing a man to die in agony in
twenty minutes. The fumes from this poison, when it is being boiled, are
very deadly, even in the open air. The mixing is always done by one of
the numerous ju-ju men, who profess to have antidotes, both external and
internal, but there is no authenticated case of a cure having been seen
by any European up to date.
“In every village there is a large war-drum, constructed from a
hollowed-out log, over which is stretched a hide. The Munchis are expert
in the use of these drums for signalling purposes, and messages are
sent in code from village to village throughout their country with great
rapidity and accuracy.
“They are very fond of dances and plays, which, accompanied by songs,
are held on the occasion of the death of a chief or the headman of a
compound, also at births and marriages. These dances are often kept up
for several days when the host is rich enough to supply the food and
drink, the latter being an intoxicating liquid distilled from
guinea-corn.
THE GRASS LAND REGION.
“Leaving the Munchis’ country, the Commission came to the junction of
the Amiri and Mahana Rivers--whose steep banks are lined with
magnificent trees, from which hang long ribbon orchids over a series of
deep clear pools full of large fish--in a region of open grass land. The
road up the Amiri Valley passes through extensive yam fields and Olitti
and Atcho villages, composed of roomy, massive houses in small
stone-walled compounds, protected with loop-holed thorn palisades. Grass
land is reached at a height of 4,000 feet, and the path after crossing
five separate peaks of 2,000 feet reaches the main ridge about 5,000
feet above sea level. To the north and east, as far as the eye can see,
stretches open grass land, with range upon range of blue mountains in
the distance. Across the plain sweep parallel shining rivers,
disappearing through gaps in the hills to the north. To the south and
west, the great forest-clad plain extends to the Cross River, whose
valley forty miles away is marked by a long bank of clouds. All around
is high tableland, cut up into small plateaux by numerous ravines, down
which countless streams tear headlong to the plains.”
Descending from the main plateau, which is covered with thick short
grass and appears to be an ideal district for cattle raising, the
Commission came to the first villages of the Anyangs, who are almost
invariably at war with the grass land people. “Their villages are hidden
away in the forest, and consist of long, low, rectangular mud houses
with roofs of palm-leaves, on either side of a squalid street. The
people are very poor, and live almost entirely on plantains, their farms
being in small clearings, widely separated. Pigs are kept in large
numbers in the villages. Further south, the people met with are Bokis,
who extend to the Cross River.... The village boundaries, although in
dense forest, are well known to the natives, who are extremely jealous
of their rubber-collecting rights.”
The geological structure of the boundary zone, taken as a whole, is said
to present few features of interest. Traces of tin were found in some of
the rivers flowing north from the watershed of the Cross River and Benue
system, and nearly all the rivers crossed by the Commission contained
traces of monazite. The occasional belts of forest along the streams in
the open bush country, north of the watershed between the Benue and
Cross River systems, are mostly full of vine rubber (_Landolphia_). The
forest line to the south of the Benue-Cross River watershed extends
without a break to the Cross River, and from there to the sea. The trees
grow to a great height, and the whole forest abounds in ebony, mahogany
and other valuable timbers. The rains in the boundary districts begin in
March with a few violent tornadoes, which become more frequent and less
violent until May, and from that month till September heavy rain falls
almost every day. By the end of September the rivers are in full flood,
and the low-lying country is under water. In October the steady rain
ceases, and at the end of the month the dry season sets in.
NEW CAMEROON.
The region of New Cameroon which was added to the German territory under
the Franco-German Agreement of November 4th, 1911, was represented as
being swampy, depopulated, and devastated by sleeping sickness, and the
Teuton acquisition was greeted with general derision. But a more
thorough investigation of the possession has shown that it is not so bad
as it was painted, and while there are tracts that hold out no promises
of profitable development, there are districts in the New Cameroon which
will handsomely repay exploitation. The German “frontier” expedition
into the interior has published descriptions of a steppe region covered
with tall grasses, bushes, and trees interspersed with grassy plains.
The country abounds with a variety of animals, including giraffes,
antelopes, gazelles, buffaloes, zebras, rhinoceri, elephants, and apes,
and the Lagone and its tributaries contain large quantities of fish. It
is inhabited by the Lakka tribe, a very independent race of Sudan
negroes, who live in villages and disclose many differences in
languages, manners, and customs. Hunting and fishing are their secondary
occupation, but their regular occupation is agriculture. Their
well-tilled fields, fertilised with the ashes of burnt grass, produce
millet, ground-nuts, tobacco, hemp, and cotton, and their greatest
delicacies are dried fish and caterpillars. They possess a few horses
and goats, and the women employ themselves in pottery and basket work
when not engaged in agriculture. Herr Eltester says that the Pangwe
tribe, inhabiting the Muni district, are distinguished by every
conceivable bad quality. They are thieves, liars, and idlers, and are
given to indolence. The men sit around in the villages and smoke, the
boys lay traps for wild animals, and the women till the fields.
THE DIFFICULTIES OF DEVELOPMENT.
The greatest drawback to the systematic development of the Cameroons is
the naturally bad means of communication as regards both roads and
waterways. The country being largely of steppe-like formation, the
rivers are frequently interrupted by rapids and waterfalls. The chief
rivers, the Munga, Wuri, and Sanaga, are only navigable by steamers for
a distance of seventy kilometres. Beyond this point, litter-transport
has to be employed, and as bearers can only carry loads of 60 to 70 lbs.
for a distance of from twenty to twenty-five kilometres a day, and as
the distance from Duala, the coast station, to Central Cameroon is a
thirty days’ journey, and to Lake Chad twenty days’, few products,
except ivory and rubber, can bear this expensive means of transport. The
most important tasks before the Government which is entrusted with the
future of the Cameroons is the amplification of the means of
communication, the encouragement of native civilisation, the
exploitation of the economic resources of the valuable hinterland, and
the extension of the plantation system. The enormous physical
difficulties in the way of railway construction must not be
under-estimated. The country is covered with colossal tropical growths,
which must be cleared, the plague of sleeping-sickness must be stamped
out, and the dreaded tsetse fly banished. In such regions railway
building is arduous and costly, but not until the rich regions hitherto
unreached have been brought into communication with the coast, will the
Cameroons begin to profit by its “unlimited possibilities.”
[Illustration: PLATE 1
DUALA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 2.
THE QUAY AT DUALA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 3.
LANDING-PLACE AT DUALA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 4.
POST OFFICE, DUALA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 5.
COURT HOUSE AT DUALA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 6.
HOSPITAL AT DUALA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 7.
NATIVES’ METAL WORK.]
[Illustration: PLATE 8.
THE BÂLE MISSION AT DUALA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 9.
WORKSHOP OF THE BÂLE MISSION, DUALA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 10.
MANGA BELI’S PALACE, DUALA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 11.
THE NATIVE QUARTER, DUALA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 12.
BUSINESS OFFICES IN DUALA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 13.
NATIVES WOOD CARVING.]
[Illustration: PLATE 14.
THE WOERMANN FLOATING DOCK AT DUALA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 15.
LANDING JETTY.]
[Illustration: PLATE 16.
CONSTRUCTING THE CENTRAL RAILWAY FROM DUALA TO THE NYONG RIVER.]
[Illustration: PLATE 17.
VIEW OF THE WURI RIVER AT BONABERI.]
[Illustration: PLATE 18.
THE WURI RIVER ABOVE DUALA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 19.
ELEPHANT GRASS.]
[Illustration: PLATE 20.
BUEA, FORMER SEAT OF THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT OF CAMEROON. GREAT CAMEROON
MOUNTAINS IN THE BACKGROUND.]
[Illustration: PLATE 21.
VIEW OF BUEA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 22.
THE LATE GERMAN GOVERNOR’S PALACE, BUEA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 23.
BUEA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 24.
ALGAU CATTLE GRAZING NEAR BUEA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 25.
GRAZING LAND NEAR BUEA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 26.
TOBACCO PLANTATION NEAR BUEA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 27.
THE NEW OKOTI CRATER ON THE CAMEROON MOUNTAIN TAKEN FROM THE EAST.]
[Illustration: PLATE 28.
FOREST ON THE CAMEROON PEAK, AT AN ELEVATION OF 1,800 METRES.]
[Illustration: PLATE 29.
VIEW OF VICTORIA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 30.
VICTORIA, WITH THE GREAT CAMEROON MOUNTAIN AND LITTLE CAMEROON
MOUNTAIN.]
[Illustration: PLATE 31.
VIEW OF AMBAS BAY.]
[Illustration: PLATE 32.
STEEP COAST NEAR VICTORIA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 33.
BOTANICAL GARDENS, VICTORIA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 34.
OFFICE IN THE BOTANICAL GARDENS, VICTORIA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 35.
BUILDINGS OF THE VICTORIA CO., VICTORIA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 36.
VEGETATION IN THE FOREST.]
[Illustration: PLATE 37.
KRIBI, AT THE MOUTH OF THE KRIBI RIVER, THE CHIEF TRADING-PLACE ON THE
COAST OF SOUTH CAMEROON.]
[Illustration: PLATE 38.
KRIBI.]
[Illustration: PLATE 39.
LOW-LYING COAST NEAR KRIBI.]
[Illustration: PLATE 40.
MISSION HOUSE AT KRIBI.]
[Illustration: PLATE 41.
BOA-CONSTRICTOR.]
[Illustration: PLATE 42.
NATIVES OF BULE.]
[Illustration: PLATE 43.
MARSHY LAND IN THE OIL-PALM REGION NEAR THE COAST.]
[Illustration: PLATE 44.
OIL-PALM IN A MAIZE FIELD.]
[Illustration: PLATE 45.
PREPARATION OF PALM-OIL BY NATIVE METHODS.]
[Illustration: PLATE 46.
OIL-PALMS.]
[Illustration: PLATE 47.
COCOA TREE WITH FRUIT.]
[Illustration: PLATE 48.
SEVEN-YEAR-OLD OIL-PALM TREES.]
[Illustration: PLATE 49.
THE OIL-PALM. CROWN WITH CLUSTERS OF FRUIT.]
[Illustration: PLATE 50.
STATION YARD AT EDEA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 51
THE SANAGA RIVER NEAR EDEA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 52.
THE SANAGA RIVER NEAR EDEA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 53.
BRIDGE OVER THE SOUTHERN ARM OF THE SANAGA RIVER (DUALA-NYONG
RAILWAY).]
[Illustration: PLATE 54.
ENTRANCE TO THE FOREST NEAR EDEA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 55.
WOERMANN LINE BOATS ON THE SANAGA RIVER.]
[Illustration: PLATE 56.
RAPIDS IN THE SANAGA RIVER.]
[Illustration: PLATE 57.
MAIZE STORES AT JAUNDE.]
[Illustration: PLATE 58.
PARK-LIKE DISTRICT IN A CLEARING OF THE FOREST ON THE EDEA-JAUNDE
ROAD.]
[Illustration: PLATE 59.
NATIVE SOLDIERS AT JAUNDE.]
[Illustration: PLATE 60.
NATIVE TROOPS IN CAMP.]
[Illustration: PLATE 61.
NATIVE TROOPS ON ACTIVE SERVICE.]
[Illustration: PLATE 62.
NATIVE VILLAGE. GABLED HUTS.]
[Illustration: PLATE 63.
ON THE UPPER NYONG RIVER.]
[Illustration: PLATE 64.
COLONIAL TROOPS AT A FACTORY ON THE UPPER NYONG RIVER.]
[Illustration: PLATE 65.
FERRY BOAT ON THE NYONG RIVER.]
[Illustration: PLATE 66.
STEAMER AT THE LANDING-PLACE OF A FACTORY ON THE NYONG RIVER.]
[Illustration: PLATE 67.
COLLECTING RUBBER IN THE FOREST.]
[Illustration: PLATE 68.
DEHANE RUBBER PLANTATION (NYONG RIVER).]
[Illustration: PLATE 69
DEHANE RUBBER PLANTATION (NYONG RIVER).]
[Illustration: PLATE 70.
MANAGER’S HOUSE ON THE DEHANE RUBBER PLANTATION.]
[Illustration: PLATE 71.
CLEARING THE GROUND FOR PLANTING RUBBER TREES.]
[Illustration: PLATE 72.
GROUND CLEARED FOR PLANTING.]
[Illustration: PLATE 73.
MIXED TREES IN A PLANTATION.]
[Illustration: PLATE 74.
PAY DAY ON A RUBBER PLANTATION.]
[Illustration: PLATE 75.
A PATH THROUGH THE DEHANE PLANTATION ON THE NYONG RIVER.]
[Illustration: PLATE 76.
NATIVES WAITING FOR THE DINNER BELL.]
[Illustration: PLATE 77.
BANANA TREES ON A RUBBER PLANTATION.]
[Illustration: PLATE 78.
A FOUR-YEAR-OLD RUBBER TREE READY FOR TAPPING.]
[Illustration: PLATE 79.
NATIVES AT DEHANE.]
[Illustration: PLATE 80.
ROLL CALL OF LABOURERS ON A PLANTATION.]
[Illustration: PLATE 81.
ELEPHANT GRASS.]
[Illustration: PLATE 82.
TAPPING THE RUBBER TREE.]
[Illustration: PLATE 83.
SMALL HUTS FOR PATIENTS SUFFERING FROM SLEEPING SICKNESS.]
[Illustration: PLATE 84.
FOREST ON THE BANKS OF THE MUNGO RIVER.]
[Illustration: PLATE 85.
NATIVE SUSPENSION BRIDGE OVER THE MUNGO RIVER.]
[Illustration: PLATE 86.
NATIVE SUSPENSION BRIDGE OVER THE MUNGO RIVER.]
[Illustration: PLATE 87.
THE “MUNGO” GERMAN GOVERNMENT STEAMER ON THE RIVER.]
[Illustration: PLATE 88.
A TREE TRUNK USED AS A BRIDGE.]
[Illustration: PLATE 89.
VILLAGE OF NINONG AT THE WESTERN BASE OF THE MANENGUBA MOUNTAINS.]
[Illustration: PLATE 90.
THE ELONG MOUNTAIN IN THE BAMENDA RANGE SEEN FROM THE FOOT OF THE
MANENGUBA MOUNTAINS.]
[Illustration: PLATE 91.
FOREST ON THE BANKS OF THE CROSS RIVER.]
[Illustration: PLATE 92.
FISHING ON THE CROSS RIVER.]
[Illustration: PLATE 93.
THE CROSS RIVER AT NSSANAKANG.]
[Illustration: PLATE 94.
FACTORY ON THE CROSS RIVER FOR TRADING WITH THE NATIVES.]
[Illustration: PLATE 95.
BANANA TREES NEAR OSSIDINGE.]
[Illustration: PLATE 96.
A VILLAGE IN KEAKALAND, OSSIDINGE.]
[Illustration: PLATE 97.
HEAD-DRESS AND TRIBAL MARKS OF KEAKA WOMEN.]
[Illustration: PLATE 98.
NATIVE MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS IN KEAKALAND.]
[Illustration: PLATE 99.
CARAVAN CROSSING THE NDI RIVER, NEAR FONTSCHANDA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 100.
TYPICAL VEGETATION.]
[Illustration: PLATE 101.
A PALM GROVE.]
[Illustration: PLATE 102.
A SUSPENSION BRIDGE.]
[Illustration: PLATE 103.
A SUSPENSION BRIDGE.]
[Illustration: PLATE 104.
SUSPENSION BRIDGE OVER THE FI, NEAR TINTO.]
[Illustration: PLATE 105.
FUMBAN IN BAMUM.]
[Illustration: PLATE 106.
NATIVE MARKET AT BAMUM. PROVISIONS AND KOLO NUTS BEING SOLD.]
[Illustration: PLATE 107.
NDJOIA, SULTAN OF BAMUM, BETWEEN TWO WAR DRUMS, AT FUMBAN.]
[Illustration: PLATE 108.
SULTAN OF BAMUM WITH THE CAPTAINS OF HIS TROOPS.]
[Illustration: PLATE 109.
MADE BY THE NATIVES OF BAMUM.]
[Illustration: PLATE 110.
TRIAL FIELD FOR COTTON AND TOBACCO AT THE GOVERNMENT STATION, FUMBAN,
BAMUM.]
[Illustration: PLATE 111.
BAMUM. NOTE THE FRIEZE OF ANIMALS UNDER THE GRASS ROOF.]
[Illustration: PLATE 112.
STREET SCENE IN BAMUM.]
[Illustration: PLATE 113.
STREET SCENE IN BAMUM.]
[Illustration: PLATE 114.
STREET SCENE IN BAMUM.]
[Illustration: PLATE 115.
A HOUSE IN BAMUM.]
[Illustration: PLATE 116.
A STREET IN THE WOMEN’S QUARTER.]
[Illustration: PLATE 117.
COTTON FIELD NEAR BAMUM.]
[Illustration: PLATE 118.
DRACÆNA, THE FETISH TREES OF WEST AFRICA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 119.
MARKET-PLACE AT BANJO, WITH THE BANJO MOUNTAINS IN THE DISTANCE.]
[Illustration: PLATE 120.
THE “MALAM” OF BANJO IN HAUSA STATE COSTUME.]
[Illustration: PLATE 121.
BANJO, A SETTLEMENT IN THE INTERIOR.]
[Illustration: PLATE 122.
VEGETATION IN THE FOREST.]
[Illustration: PLATE 123.
THE “ISLAND” MOUNTAIN DISTRICT IN NORTH ADAMAUA BETWEEN NTEM AND THE
RIBÄU SLOPE ON THE BANJO ROAD.]
[Illustration: PLATE 124.
GRANITE MOUNTAIN IN CENTRAL CAMEROON.]
[Illustration: PLATE 125.
SUDAN NATIVES OF CENTRAL CAMEROON. WUTE NATIVES IN WAR COSTUME.]
[Illustration: PLATE 126.
WAR GAMES OF THE WUTE NATIVES.]
[Illustration: PLATE 127.
WOMAN OF THE WUTE TRIBE.]
[Illustration: PLATE 128.
WOMAN OF THE WUTE TRIBE.]
[Illustration: PLATE 129.
SUDAN NATIVES IN CENTRAL CAMEROON. WUTE ARCHERS.]
[Illustration: PLATE 130.
SUDAN NATIVES IN CENTRAL CAMEROON. WUTES WITH THEIR WAR DRUMS.]
[Illustration: PLATE 131.
HUMP-BACKED CATTLE OF ADAMAUA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 132.
HUMP-BACKED CATTLE OF ADAMAUA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 133.
THE FARO ABOVE TSCHAMBA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 134.
CARAVAN TRAVELLING--RESTING.]
[Illustration: PLATE 135.
KUMBO HIGHLANDS ON THE WAY TO LAKE MAUWE, BETWEEN BAKUMBI AND BANKA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 136.
KUMBO HIGHLANDS BETWEEN BANKA AND LAKE MAUWE.]
[Illustration: PLATE 137.
THE REMAINS OF A VOLCANO IN THE KUMBO HIGHLANDS.]
[Illustration: PLATE 138.
FOREST IN THE HIGHLANDS.]
[Illustration: PLATE 139.
CHANGE FROM FOREST TO GRASS COUNTRY ON THE BROKEN EDGE OF THE INNER
HIGHLANDS NEAR FONTEM.]
[Illustration: PLATE 140.
CULTIVATED PORTIONS OF GRASS COUNTRY.]
[Illustration: PLATE 141.
TYPICAL GRASS COUNTRY IN BAFU-FONDONG, ON THE GREAT DSCHANG-BAMENDA
ROAD.]
[Illustration: PLATE 142.
WOMEN WORKING IN THE FIELDS IN THE GRASS COUNTRY, NORTH-WEST CAMEROON.]
[Illustration: PLATE 143.
DEATH DANCE OF THE NATIVES NEAR DSCHANG.]
[Illustration: PLATE 144.
THE CHIEF BAFU-FONDONG ON HIS THRONE.]
[Illustration: PLATE 145.
TATOOED FONDONG NEGRO.]
[Illustration: PLATE 146.
A CHIEF’S WIFE IN THE GRASS COUNTRY.]
[Illustration: PLATE 147.
PARASITES ON A TREE, NEAR THE GRASS COUNTRY.]
[Illustration: PLATE 148.
BALI NEGRESS IN THE GRASS COUNTRY.]
[Illustration: PLATE 149.
MBO, A FORTIFIED STATION NEAR THE GRASS COUNTRY.]
[Illustration: PLATE 150.
KUSSERI, A FORTIFIED STATION IN NORTH CAMEROON.]
[Illustration: PLATE 151.
THE RESIDENT’S HOUSE AT KUSSERI.]
[Illustration: PLATE 152.
MECCA PILGRIMS AT KUSSERI.]
[Illustration: PLATE 153.
LOG PATH THROUGH A SWAMP.]
[Illustration: PLATE 154.
HORSEMEN IN NORTH CAMEROON.]
[Illustration: PLATE 155.
VIEW OF ELEPHANT LAKE.]
[Illustration: PLATE 156.
VILLAGE OF KILGRIM IN THE MANDARA MOUNTAINS.]
[Illustration: PLATE 157.
THE LAGONE RIVER AT MUSGUM.]
[Illustration: PLATE 158.
CARAVAN CROSSING A RIVER.]
[Illustration: PLATE 159.
NJOJA, WITH HIS WIVES AND CHILDREN, SITTING IN FRONT OF HIS PALACE.]
[Illustration: PLATE 160.
BAKWIRI WOMEN AND CHILDREN DANCING.]
[Illustration: PLATE 161.
THE HEAD CHIEF BALWEN IN HIS WAR COSTUME.]
[Illustration: PLATE 162.
CHIEFTAIN IN GALA ATTIRE.]
[Illustration: PLATE 163.
HAUSA GIRL AT A SPRING.]
[Illustration: PLATE 167.
NATIVES OF NORTH CAMEROON.
1. The “Lamido” of Banjo (Fullah).
2. Hausa Traders.
3. Arab from Lake Chad.]
[Illustration: PLATE 165.
DENG-DENG, A SETTLEMENT IN THE INTERIOR.]
[Illustration: PLATE 166.
DIKOA, A SETTLEMENT IN THE INTERIOR.]
[Illustration: PLATE 167.
EBOLOWA, A SETTLEMENT IN THE INTERIOR.]
[Illustration: PLATE 168.
FLOODS NEAR SSIGAL.]
[Illustration: PLATE 169.
SULTAN OF NGAUMDERE WITH HIS BODYGUARD.]
[Illustration: PLATE 170.
MARKET AT NGAUMDERE.]
[Illustration: PLATE 171.
MAIN BUILDINGS OF THE BIBUNDI PLANTATION.]
[Illustration: PLATE 172.
BUNGALOW ON THE BIBUNDI PLANTATION.]
[Illustration: PLATE 173.
PLANTATION IN FULL BEARING.]
[Illustration: PLATE 174.
BAIA YOUTHS.]
[Illustration: PLATE 175.
BAIA WOMEN.]
[Illustration: PLATE 176.
DEAD ELEPHANT.]
[Illustration: PLATE 177.
WALRUS.]
[Illustration: PLATE 178.
A HAUSA VILLAGE.]
[Illustration: PLATE 179.
A NATIVE VILLAGE. MUSGUM HUTS.]
[Illustration: PLATE 180.
A NATIVE VILLAGE. HUTS WITH CONE-SHAPED ROOFS.]
[Illustration: PLATE 181.
CARAVAN TRAVELLING. HIRING CARRIERS.]
[Illustration: PLATE 182.
RUBBER CARAVAN.]
[Illustration: PLATE 183.
IVORY CARAVAN.]
[Illustration: PLATE 184.
SCENE AT AN IVORY FACTORY.]
[Illustration: PLATE 185.
WEIGHING THE IVORY.]
[Illustration: PLATE 186.
FACTORY IN THE INTERIOR OF SOUTH CAMEROON.]
[Illustration: PLATE 187.
ROLL-CALL OF LABOURERS.]
[Illustration: PLATE 188.
BRIDGING OVER A RAVINE.]
[Illustration: PLATE 189.
SAWING WOOD.]
[Illustration: PLATE 190.
NJEM WOMAN, SOUTH CAMEROON.]
[Illustration: PLATE 191.
PROW OF A WAR CANOE.]
[Illustration: PLATE 192.
DENSITY OF THE POPULATION.]
[Illustration: PLATE 193.
FLORA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 194.
FAUNA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 195.
RIVER BASINS.]
[Illustration: PLATE 196.
IVORY DISTRICTS.]
[Illustration: PLATE 197.
CHART SHOWING ENTRANCE TO DUALA FROM THE SEA.]
[Illustration: PLATE 198.
HAUSA TERRITORY.]
[Illustration: PROFILE OF CAMEROON.
Profil I. Von Kribi über Lomle nach Wesso am Ssanga.
Profil II. Von Lomic über Kunde-Ngaumdere-Garua zum Tschad.
Profil III. Durch das Mandara-Gebirge zum Logone.
Profil IV. Durch die Massivregion von Adamaua von W. nach O. zum
Benuë-und Kebbi-Gneisland.
Profil V. Vom Kamerunberg über Tinto und das Kumbohochland nach Garua.
I. From Kribi through Lomie to Wesso on the Ssanga.
II. From Lomie through Kunde, Ngaumdere, Garua to Tschad.
III. Through the Mandara Mountains to the Logone.
IV. Through the Peak Region from Adamaua in the W. to Benue and Kebbi
Gneiss Region in the E.
V. From Cameroon Mountain through Tinto and the Kumbo Highlands to
Garua.]
[Illustration: PLATE 200.
CAMEROON.]
[Illustration: FRENCH CONGO
A. F. CALVERT’S MAP OF CAMEROON.]
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