ON THE NIGER.

Otago Witness, Issue 2251, 22 April 1897, Page 50

ON THE NIGER.

It would be difficult for the moat gifted

writer to convey a clear idea of the Niger Bwamps. On every hand, as far as eye can Bee, stretch the dreary mangroves — olive green leaves and white stems above, banks of. rotting mud, festering slime, and yeasty water below. Theie is water everywhere — yellow lagoons shimmering beneath the dancing heat, winding river reaches, some wide and some so narrow that as the steamers pass their yardarms brush the trees on either side, and a network of tunnellike creeks, creeping beneath the overhanging boughs in a bewildering maze. How the early explorers ever found their way out after once entering these water-ways is hard to understand. Over all there hangs a dense, steamy atmosphere, which of itself would crush the vitality out of most Europeans, but, charged as it is with the emanations of rotting mud and the sour odours of vegetation fermenting in the fierce heat of tbe tropics, there is sickness or death in it for the generality of white men. There are Europeans who thrive even in these swamps, and are healthier there than in the bracing North. These, however, are but few and far between ; most die suddenly, or are glad to escape with their lives — broken - down wrecks.

It was towards the end of afternoon when we approached Sapelli, the point from which the Late unfortunate expedition marched towards Benin. Near SipelH, however, the dismal swamps give place to dry land, and this station, unlike most others in the Dalta, is rich with the luxuriant beauty of the tropics. The river is as clear as crystal, and strewn with starry lily cups. The banks are clothed wioh feathery palms and immerse cottonwoods, from whoso mossy boughs hang creepers of gorgeous hue, while ab their feet are tall clusters of fragrant lilies and the crimson tpikes of the wild pineapple. AgMnst the steep bank of the creek there lay a flotilla of canoe« — craf k of all pizes, from an unwieldy vessel 40ft by Bft, hollowed out of a sit,gle cotton wood, to tiny ones 12ft long and 2ft beam. All were loaded to the water's edge with greasy black kernels and sticky yellow palmoil, the staple export of the Niger, and the 6nly one worth mention, with tne exception of broken-down Europeans. The crews thereof, gigantic river merj, clad in nothing but a foot-wide strip of cloth, and a device of blue tattoo standing out in high relief upon their ebony skin, were shouting and fighting among themselves to be the first to land their cargo. All were of great breadth of shoulder and splendid muscular development of arms and chest, for the paddle is rarely out of their hands, and their hair was knitted up into corkscrew pints. In the stern of every craft were piled sharp matchets and flintlock gun?, for when a river headman desires to replenish his treasury he generally does it by muidering the oil carriers and confiscating their goods, until some long-suffering consul goes up with the Yombas and burns his stockade. There were many women among them, in as scanty attire as the men, several carrying woolly-haired infants, slung beb -.d their shoulders in a strip ot netting ; and it may be observed that African beauty — unadorned — is by no means gratifying to European eyes. On the beach two young trading clerk?, white-faoed and sickly, as are most Englishmen in this region, stood beside a big tub measure, a " cooler," into which each sable merchant casts his load of kernels, receiving in return a tally or a voucher. Considering that half the time these clerks bave the fever upon them and that they work from dawn to dark in beat and steam, it will be granted that they earn the £G0 or £70 per annum which is the mual pay for the first two years. As a rule they die before tbe salary is raised. The writer felt disposed to agree with a Scotch quartermaster, who remarked drily, "Man. brekkin stones would be a luxury after that."

Later I visited the store sheds where the palm oil is stowed, after being carefully probed le6t the wily savage had inserted chnnk» of wood therein, the latter being cheaper than oil. Here a number of Accra coopers, brawny Fantis from the Gold Coast, were hard at work closing np the big puncheons in which oil ia shipped. When they had time they showered insulting comments upon the Nigerman, for one Wflst African race looks down upon another as the dirt beneath its feet. The writer waß once rebuked by a naked savage for calling him a niggdr. " No, sah," he said in the Coast palaver, "I be chief too much in we countiy ; only Liberia customsman- and low bush man nigger, sab." The scene in the trade shed of a West African factory, where the vouchers are exchanged for goods, is a thing to remember. The temperature of the low building of galvanised iron was almost insupportable. It was also crammed with burly river-men, hurling down their tallies, shouting, pushing, and grabbing at whatever took their fancy, regardless of price ; while the harassed agent ran to and fro, soaked in perspiration, doing what he could to protect his goods from -wholesale loot. How any man, weakened by many fevers, can work 12 hours a day in a stifling room, where the atmosphere is tbick with the odour of n?.lm oil, rubber, and the naked ec id this last ia very .different from ' of Araby — it is hard to say, but it is <!■ ue in the Oil Rivers. Trade powder, flintlock guns, hair oil (used as condiment), brassframed looking glasses, and rolls of Manchester cotton, value 2s in standard currency on the Niger, were mostly in demand, but there is also a very large trade in salt and gin.

New Benin is not a fascinating place as seen from the river, neither does it improve on closer acquaintance. Imagine a milewide sheet of shimmering water, on the on« hand a sombre cottonwcod forest, where woolly wreaths of fever mist crawl in and out among the giant trunks, and on the other side the eternal mangroves crawling out across' ooze and mud, among which are four whitewashed factories, and you have this delectable settlement. As we swung round a point the tide caught the steamer's bows, and before the reversed engines could check her way she plunged half her length into the watery forest. The pale mangrove stems crumpled up like cardboard before the iron bows, huge slimy roots tore out of the ooze and scraped the vessel's side, while the deck* were strewn with splintered branches and fallen leaves. Antß. inch-lone veno-

moos spiders, centipede?, .and mangrove flies, whose bite means a poisoned wound, showered down upon us, and it needed gome skill to keep out of harm's way. The prospeller whirled astern, churning up festering mad and rotting leaves, while the exhalations rising from tho sewer of the tropics almost took one's breath away, but presently the Atumba backed safely out and was afloat ones more. Thin is an accident common enough in the Oil Rivers, and gives some idea of -the depth of water among the crawling roots and of what a mangrove swamp is like. But neither pestilence nor danger, snowy tange nor tangled swamp, can tarn aside the fierce energy of the Anglo- Sixon where there is a pcs3ibility of the extension of commerce cr dominion. So in tbe Oil Rivers, as elsewhere, when Government officer or trader falls at his post, there is no lack of adventurous spirits ready to step into the imminent breach. Occasionally one wonders whether, after all, it is worth while, and if the game i 3 worth the candle— but this is a big qaestion, and those who are interested can work these things out for themselves. At certain seasons of the year headle-s bodies drift down this river with every ebb tide, as they do down a certain creek in the Calabar , district, a grim hint of what goes on in the | dark places just beyond the borders of the , Niger Protectorate. Also, if the stories of the native traders are true, the cruelties j practised by the robber headmen in honour ! of AmalakU'and the "Ju-Ju" devils are horrible and extensive. Many of them happen within 30 miles of British con- j eulates and points where steamers call every week, which shows how little contact witb civilised white men does for the negro savage. There are those who wonder why, .instead of turning its arms against the Mahomedan powers higher up the river, where in spite of the slave trade there is comparative "peace and order, the Royal Niger Company did not clean out some of the habitations of unspeakable oruelty within a short distance of its headquarters^ at Akassa ; bat the Chartered Company" doubtless knows its own business bast. — From " On the Road to Benin," by Habold Blikdloss, in London i Society. !