Affairs of West Africa

_Photographs marked thus * are reproduced from “Adamawa” by kind permission of Mr. Ernst Vohsen (Dietrich Reimer). The author is indebted (through the kindness of a friend) to D...

One still—but too often, alas!—meets with people who wonder why England should bother about West Africa at all, and pooh-pooh the idea that we have interests there at the presen...

In the previous chapter we discussed in practical fashion the grounds upon which the British public is called upon to devote more attention to the affairs of West Africa than it...

“The nature of the natives, the climate, everything is against precipitate and hasty action. To advance slowly, leaving no bad or unfinished work behind, to gain the respect and...

“It is well known also that this personal system, at its best, is full of abuses of the worst kind politically; the Administrators and those who influence them, get to have favo...

The nineteenth century will ever be memorable for the exploration of the interior of the African Continent. It is difficult to realise when we read in the daily newspapers of st...

On the borders of the Lake the travellers observed the cotton shrub growing well and innumerable flocks of waterfowl disporting themselves. So tame were the latter that when app...

It has been said of the Hausas that they are “superior both intellectually and physically to all the natives of Equatorial Africa.” The statement strikes one as being exaggerate...

“Travellers who have been in the country tell us that Kano, which is the Manchester of Nigeria, has an attendance annually at its market of over one million persons.”—_Extract f...

The palm-oil tree is the staple product of the whole of the coastwise regions of West Africa from Sierra Leone[54] right down to the Lower Congo. The Niger Delta may be consider...

The Empire has few more experienced servants in the Tropical African field than Sir Frederick Lugard. Like every other man who has become prominent, he possesses critics, and no...

On June 30, 1899, a Treasury Minute informed the Royal Niger Company of the intention of her Majesty’s Government to revoke their charter. At the end of 1899 Sir Frederick Lugar...

It has been truly remarked that more permanent good can be accomplished “by tact and gold with Mohammedan chiefs in West Africa than by the Maxim and the rifle.” That is a polic...

The difficulty in estimating the producing capacity of the enormous territory of Nigeria is not in stating what _natural_ products of economic value grow there, but what do not....

Of late years the West African rubber industry has grown enormously. In some cases the increase has been phenomenal. The Niger Coast Protectorate and the Gold Coast have within...

“Remember that Paradise is found under the shadow of swords. These wretches are come to fight for an impious cause. We have called them into the right way, and to reward us they...

“In every kingdom and country on each side of the river there are some people of a tawny colour called Pholeys.... They live in hoards or clans, build towns, and are not subject...

Of all the mysteries which lie hidden, or but half unveiled, within the bosom of the still mysterious Continent of Africa, there is none that presents a more absorbing or more f...

The first question which any one who has studied the history of West Africa will ask, is this—Why has the country developed so slowly? It is actually nearer to Europe and more a...

“The so-called labour problem is, in my opinion, created by the people who complain of it, and not by the natives, who are perfectly willing to work when fairly treated.”—Mr. J....

Within the past few months a subject of the greatest possible moment to West Africa, and of vital importance to no inconsiderable section of the inhabitants of Great Britain, ha...

“The traveller who wanders through the dim recesses of the tropical forest of Western Africa soon feels the sense of its beauty lost in that of its mournful grandeur, and there...

The steady and continuous spread of Islam in the western portion of the Dark Continent is a fact which no one acquainted with the subject will attempt to deny. It is, indeed, so...

Being now perhaps in a somewhat more open frame of mind with regard to the work of Islam in West Africa, we may attempt to investigate the methods of Islam and the methods of Ch...

The subject of the relationship between England and France in West Africa is one to which every year that passes adds importance. The French have during the last few years left...

The history of France’s action in West Africa during the last ten years has been so remarkable that it deserves to be recorded in some detail, and where possible her policy may...

The logic of facts is gradually bringing home to Englishmen that the French have within recent years revolutionised the commercial position of their West African possessions; of...

Apart from the belief, which has been dealt with in the previous chapter, that France cannot manage her West African possessions successfully, another idea appears to be widely...

“What is important in colonial matters is that the Governments, in their difficult and uncertain, but systematic, march, should have increasingly before them the ideal which the...

“As to the ground on which we contend for the rights we have in the interior of Africa, they have really been our own guiding principles throughout. _It is not territory, it is...

“At the present time the body called the International Association—however startling it may appear to you—is invulnerable and unassailable. All the armies in the world could not...

“Our only programme, I am anxious to repeat, is the work of moral and material regeneration.”—Extract from a published letter of his Majesty King LEOPOLD II., King of the Belgia...

It is a little surprising to find that M. Cattier, the Belgian Imperialist, whose masterly indictment of King Leopold’s administration does him infinite honour, should attempt t...