Part 5

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.