LUGARD OF NIGERIA.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CIII, Issue 12159, 24 March 1900, Page 9

LUGARD OF NIGERIA.

In the last “ War Office Gazette ” (writes “ Anglo-Afrikander,’’ in the “Mi James’s Budget”) appeared the following announcement:— “Lieutenant-Colonel (temporary Colonel) P. J. D. Lngard, C. 8., D. 5.0., is granted the local rank of Brigadier-General while employed as High Commissioner in Northern Nigeria.” If the proper study of mankind be man,, the most interesting problem for a gentleman adventurer should bt that relating to another. If the soldier of fortune was a personage whose existence was inconsistent with the facts that make up the story of how Britain grew, the gentleman adventurer, and later still, the chartered merchant adventurer —as a rule a no less worthy gentleman—had in that respect a distinctly national individuality. He was a Hawkins, a Drake, or perhaps a Cavendish, who sailed “ far out,” animated by a desire to rectify a deficiency in the Budget, but moved no less by a huge desire to penetrate the Unknown. To us who live in. the ripe manhood of the world it is difficult to realise the intense yearning of the vigorous men of action of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries for the Undiscovered. With the exception of a trifle of the no longer Dark Continent, we of the present generation know the configuration of our globe fairly well, and so the exploration and development of Inner Africa is now perhaps the only outlet for that spirit of adventure and enterprise which in the past found its expression in the establishment of trading factories in Surat or Calcutta, or the strictly less legitimate pursuit in the Western Indies of “singeing the King of Spain, his beard,” and eke laying fast hold should occasion offer of a convenient port or island. But had these adventurers in the first instance lacked the support of their Sovereign and Ministers sitting at home, the boundaries of our vast Empire would have sloped at the Cinque Ports. Which brings me to our fin-de-siecle Clive—Lugard, THE UNTIRING EXPLORER AXD ADMINISTRATOR, in whose person has been effected the most rapid advancement in our military hierarchy that I have ever heard—that of, in the almost incredibly brief spell of four years, promotion from the modest rank of captain in a marching regiment to that of General Officer. If in the use and creation of our East African, and ,especially our West Afri can Empires, the hero of Uganda and the Mid-Niger had not found in the temper of his Government, and the genius of his countrymen, sympathy and co-operation, his capacity and courage, so memorably displayed on each side of the tragic continent, would have accomplished no more enduring results than followed in India the briliant achievements of the Gallic rivals of Clive— Dupleix and Labcurdonnais. . Lugard’s is (perhaps excepting that of Sir Hayry Johnton) the one iris'.nice I know of where, in the long story of the opening up of Africa, “ God’s own common sense ” and inflexible resolve has met with meet and almost immediate reward. A trio of my friends, who were each in their own time leaders in the noble mission of throwing open to the outer world the sealed regions .of mysterious Africa, departed, for the happy hunting grounds with but scant mark of official recognition in the cases of Sir Richard Burton and Captain Lovett Cameron, and hone at all in that of poor Joseph Thomson. But to the newly-made general, as he stands forth in my recollection of our last meeting just a bare half-dozen weeks past: —A tall, “hard-trained” figure, without an ounce of adipose tissue to spare, bright, keen, grey eyes, dark brown heavy moustache, an exact copy of the fashion in which Burton wore bis, and which gives to Lugard, as it did to the discoverer of Lake Tanganyika, a, suggestion' of ferocity—which is, however, more apparent than real—strongly marked, aquiline features, also, as in the case of Captain Burton, curiously reminiscent of the profile of an Arab nomad, and burnt to the colour of a pigskin cigar-ca.se. Such is the outer man of him who has taken oyer a mighty responsibility in the Western Soudan, and, oddiy enough, is physically a striking if less massive replica of Africa’s greatest of travellers—Captain Sir Richard F. Burton, K.C.M.G. THE INHOSPITABLE HILLS OF AFGHANISTAN, the far-stretcning sands of the sad Soudan, and the steaming jungles of Upper Burmah, had been up to eight years ago the scenes of Lugard’s fighting and adventure—net result, three medals and sundry clasps, the D. 5.0., a stock of not easily-acquired experience, and a return to the flesh-pots of Piccadilly and Pall Mall—to wit, six months’ leave, in which to rest and recruit a muchtried constitution. But the conception of a holiday entertained by the then Captain Lngard was not'unlike that peculiar to the typical actor, whose idea of resting is proceeding forthwith to the nearest theatre, there to'study the art of a brother-mum-mer. And so, when auoi-ner soldier on leave after a long spell of active service might easily be excused for playing the flaneur in the Park, or philandering it at Hurlinghaffl, the present High Commissioner of Northern Nigeria adopted, according to his way of looking at tilings, the perfectly, reasonable course of taking ship for Massoush, on the mere off-chance of being permitted t.. be a witness of a big action which was impending between the Italian Army and the host of the Emperor of Abyssinia. Quoth the latest of African High Commissioners to me the other day, when describing his first intrusion into the Daik Continent, “With fifty sovereigns in my belt and with practically no outfit at all, except an old express .400 rifle paid for in India—in the absence of funds-—by shooting a man-eating tiger with a reward on his head, I got on a ‘ tramp ’ as a second-class passenger and sailed for Naples, and afterwards for Suez. My .sovereigns were running down, and I was driven to strange shifts and expedients, m the exigency of rapidly diminishing financial resources, I took a deck passage in a timber ship bound for Massouah,‘and slepfat haphazard among the deck cargo. The necessities of the case drove me for my morning bath to the forecastle, and a bucket of water. among the sailors, and for my meal of broken victuals with the Italian cook in the galley alongside the engines—in the Red Sea ! where the heat was such as would'grill a black-stoker. Adversity finds us strange bed-fellows. An Italian who spoke a little English, the boatswain of the crew, had become my friend. I saw him seldom, but though I was herded with Arab coolies, he saw through my disguise, and told me that he knew I was a gentilhomme, and, impulsive but sincere, he surprised me one evening by suddenly saying, with a fervid imprecation, -I do anything for you. You want- shirt. Here is my other shirt ; I give it to you because you have good heart.’ I suffered much from the paucity of my travelling equipment, and the well-meant sympathy of this goodhearted feilow touched me deeply.” I am rather inclined to believe that General Lugard has proudly retained during these past years that opportune under-gar-ment of the boatswain as a memorial of'the days when he set forth R the Dark Continent as A GENTLEMAN ADVENTURER, on that wonderful career of professional advancement and kudos which be never could have hoped to have attained had his military. life been confined to a daily round of the 'buffooneries of the parade ground and the red tapery of the orderly-room, A passing strange story, is it not,’ that of the man I here use as a central figure of an appreciation of the trade of the African chartered pioneer? At sun-baked Mbssouah every living horse had been pressed into the service of the Italian transport, and not having found the opportunity to filch a commissariat bullock wherewith to undertake a feat similar to that performed manv vears ago by a gallant and resourceful Queen’s Messenger, who was afflicted by » temporary scarcity of horseflesh, Lugard hardened his heart, and tramped off to the front, some sixteen miles, by so-called road—the thermometer registering. the while close upon a hundred in the shade. But Ins pilgrimage was a fruitless one, for on his arrival at headquarters he had the inexpressible mortification to learn that the powers that be had decided that no foreigners, and especially foreign officers, were to be allowed to be present at their impending operations against those same Abyssinians whom we had in ifififi auilvenn.

trived to thrash. Back again the same day, Lugard footed it to the Red Sea port to catch the outward bound steamer on her way to Zanzibar, whence came a rumour - that British missionaries and planters were sore best hard by Lake Nyassa. And so to the land consecrated to us by the liie and labours of Livingstone hied the now halfpay Captain of the 9th, where for nearly a year, as at another Khartoum, he at Karonga defied Arab strength and craft. Again to town, to report his readiness to return to regimental duty, and again to receive a generous allowance of leave to “rest.” But London, as before, exercised no spell, rather did it whisper that weighty events were impending near THE LONG-HIDDEN SOURCES OF OLD FATHER NILE. A few weeks had scarce passed since Lugard’s return from Zambesai and Nyassaland, when this indefatigable gentleman adventurer was again nearing the bare East African littoral. At an intermediate port be fell in with Mr George Mackenzie, then Acting Administrator of the Imperial East African Company. This keen, characterreading, hard-headed Scot had just learnt that the famous Dr Peters had, in the interest of Germany, stolen, at the head- of a formidable filibustering expedition, a march upon us in the direction of the semi-Christian kingdom situated on the great inland seas, and the possession of which by a European Power meant the control of Egypt’s artery of life. Said Mackenzie to Lugard, “ Will you try and save Uganda for England?” How effectively he did so wants nothing in the telling. Is it not, as are other things I have written here, duly embalmed in literature of the order F. 0. Blue Book? And there are other things I might tell but that discretion calls “ Hold, enough! ’ How, for example, Lugard’s last departure but one for the Middle Niger, when the powerful “West African Field Force” was organised, nearly meant a complete breakdown of the negotiations regarding the debatable Nigerian borderland which were then preceding with a neighbouring Europeon Power. So hostile were our neighbours, on account of the former- affairs in Uganda,'to Lugard’s presence on the Niger, that threats of the last resort in diplomacy were exchanged between Downing Street and the- Qaai d’Orsay. However, all is well that ends well, and Lord Salisbury carried his point and despatched -the hero of this sketch to act as a vigilant Warden of cur Marches in the basin'of the mighty highway which was first opened to civilisation by British explorers. But some day I will tell the strange story I now hint of. North, south, east and west BrigadierGeneral Lugard*s name as an explorer, a chartered exploiter and administrator, is written large on the African map. In the Egyptian Soudan under Lord Wolseley, in Nyassa land for the African Lakes Company, in Uganda for the late Sir William Mackinnon, in the west and central Moslem sultanates for Sir-George Gildie, and in North and Western Rhodesia for Cecil Rhodes, of a- verity there ought to be few rivals in Africa’s opening up who would grudge him the well-earned grade that was conferred upon him in the last " Gazette.”