UP AGAINST IT IN NIGERIA BY LANGA LANGA I UP AGAINST IT IN NIGERIA UP AGAINST IT IN NIGERIA BY LANGA LANGA WITH 47 ILLUSTRATIONS LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD. RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W,C. j 3>T First published in ig22 (All rights reserved) To those who have allowed me to pillage their albums for photographs, let me here- with record my gratitude. To my fellow exiles generally in the Outposts, who have made life possible by that indispensable possession, a sense of humour, and to those of them who have passed out of man's sight in particular, I DEDICATE THESE MEMOIRS PEEFACE This book does not purport to be a text-book on Nigeria : still less does it lay claim to any of the literary virtues. Of its very nature it could not, an' it would, command a large reading public. Let there be no misconception about that. It is not even meticulous in its accuracy, being written from memory —a West African memory at that —and unassisted by referenda. Chiefly for my own amusement, partly inspired " " by the time-honoured cliche at the Scotch Club : " if only one took the trouble to write these things " down, what amusing reading they would make ! I set myself to jot down my experiences of ten years —it seemed a pity that they should all "go West," for they cover most parts of the Nigerian compass. In doing so I found myself gradually writing what Boswell or Lander would have called a journal, but what I prefer to describe as a "small-chop" diary —that is to say, a collection of incidents, in more or less chronological order, written, as they would have been told, at the witching hour of small-chop, with scarce a camouflage of persons or localities. In these reminiscences questions of Administration have been left severely alone. — 8 PREFACE " But this is all very ordinary stuff which might " have happened to anyone ! it may be exclaimed. So much the better. It will then convey, I hope, a reasonable picture of the life of the average Political Officer in its essential features in this country as it was, is, and, in spite of the Railway and Political Memoranda, ever shall be. From it the newcomer may pick up a wrinkle or two " between the lines : while the old bird " may look backwards, and take it, as it is meant, not unkindly. I shall probably be accused of " coming the old coaster " in my allusions to " those days," " " and that time ; but it must be remembered that men and things die and change out here with remarkable rapidity, and that 1918 is as far removed from 1908 in Nigeria as 1908 is from 1838 in the civilized world. Nobody gets more irritable than I do with the prosy gentlemen who refer to the events of " nought four " and " nought six " and so on, as if they were speaking of some landmark in the Dark Ages, or an old vintage. And yet how many of those cheery bush-whackers we knew so recently as nought anything are alive to-day ! Not too many—certainly not 40 per cent, of the characters mentioned in this book and those who are, if we may believe the West African Pocket-book, are so solely by virtue of the drinks they have not, and the quinine they have taken—in my own case some 21,000 grains ! LANGA LANGA. Nigeria, 1921. CONTENTS PAGE Preface .... 7 CHAPTBB I. Bauchi . 15 II. Bauchi {continued) 24 III. Bauchi {continued) 39 IV. Bauchi {continued) 53 V. Naraguta 66 VI. BORNU . 89 VII. BoRNU {continued) . 107 VIII. BoRNU {continued) . 121 IX. Hobs d'CEuvbes Varies . 151 X. The Falaba . 168 XI. YOLA AND IlORTN . 186 XII. Ilorin . 212 10 CONTENTS AQ " " Appendix A. Suli Yola . 231 Appendix B. Appreciation of the late W. B. Thomson . 239 Appendix C. Appreciation of the late P. A. Benton . 242 Appendix D. Sketch Map of Nigeria, SHOWING Principal Routes Travelled . Facing p. 244 ILLUSTRATIOlSrS FACING PAGE POIJNG UP . THE RIVER BENUE . .16 (S. H. P. Vereker) A HAUSA GIRL . .16 (K. V. ElpMnstone) "THE general" . .32 (W. p. Hewby) "peter" in ENGLAND . , .32 SULI YOLA . .36 (M. C. Greene) BISALLA . .36 " " POLLARD LOADING UP THE MENAGERIE . 42 SOME TROPHIES . .42 MORE TROPHIES . .64 W. B. THOMSON . .94 GEORGE SECCOMBE AND TRAP . .94 {P. de Putron) THE CEMETERY, MAIDUGURI . .98 (TF. P. Hewby) U ! 12 ILLUSTRATIONS PACING PAGB MEMORIAL TABLET TO "THE GENERAL" . 98 W. P. HEWBY, C.M.G. .100 THE SHEHU OF BORNU . .100 (P. cLe Putron) A "EARIN GINDl" .... 108 (P. de Putron) BUDUMA CANOES ON LAKE CHAD . .108 (P. de Putron) A KANURI WOMAN . .112 {K. V. ElphinstoTie) A LAKE CHAD POLO-CLUB GROUP . .118 (P. de Putron) MY (later DE P.'s) TRAP . .118 (P. de Putron) "piccin" . .124 the start from geidam for gujba . .124 ivories and foot of big elephant . 138 melbourne inman and " ivories " of rogue elephant . .138 . ( the ostrich farm . .142 (P. de Putron) DISTRICT officer's HOUSE, MAIDUGURI . .142 (P. de Putron) ILLUSTRATIONS 13 FACING PAGE THE SUBMARINE . 168 TAKING TO THE BOATS . 168 NO. 6 BOAT DIVING FROM THE DAVITS . 170 NO. 1 BOAT IN TROUBLE . 170 MORE TROUBLE . 176 THE STEAM-DRIFTER EILEEN EMMA . 176 THE CREW OF THE EILEEN EMMA . 176 {.TJit above seven photos by courtesy of the Daily Mirror) NIGER IDOLS . 196 (X>. Orocombe) A NUPE GIRL .... 198 (K. V. Elphinstone) JEBBA BRIDGE BEFORE COMPLETION . 198 (iS. M. Grier) THE GUARD OF HONOUR. 200 {B. Sutherland) ARRIVAL OF HIS EXCELLENCY'S TRAIN . 200 (B. Sutherland) HIS EXCELLENCY INSPECTING RELICS OF THE DAYSPBING . 202 (B, Sutherland) JUJU ROCK .... 202 (JB. Sutherland) 14 ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE TAME REEDBUCK AT ILORIN . 204 JEBBA BRIDGE COMPLETED . 204 (B. Sutherland) SMALL-POX JUJU WORSHIPPERS UNDER ARREST 224 (A. H. Discomhe) TRIAL OF THE DELINQUENTS . 224 (A. H. Discombe) PUBLIC DESTRUCTION BY FIRE OF SMALL-POX FETISHES ..... 224 {A. H. Discombe) "pansy" and "adam". 226 (K. V. Elpliinstone) SERGEANT-MAJOR GARUBA, ILORIN POLICE . 226 (S. W. Walker) ^ CHAPTER I BAUCHI Probably nobody has ever left the bosom of his family more reluctantly and with less desire for " travel " than I did on Christmas Day, 1908. There was no dinner served on the restaurant train from Euston ; and the porter at Lime Street, when he heard that West Africa was my desti- " " nation, said God 'elp you ! I, with my spaniel " Peggy," was apparently the sole occupant of the North-Western Hotel that Christmas night, and as a special privilege she was allowed to share my bedroom. We were driven on Boxing Day by a stale-drunk cabman through a funereal Liverpool fog to the Wharf, and sailed on the Dakar (Captain Lawson) the same afternoon. At about the same moment a not un-remote relative of mine was paying the penalty of his recent adoption as Parliamentary candidate by kicking off a football, in a similar drizzle, in some purlieu of Croydon. I remember wondering which of us felt the brighter. There were only sixteen first-class passengers on board, and the voyage, but for a furious tossing in the Bay of Biscay, was uneventful. Stone, a subaltern with whom I afterwards travelled 1 Now Brigadier-General. 15 16 THE JOYS OF BURUTU as far as Ibi, was the only other officer on board bound for Northern Nigeria. As there were no electric fans in those days, the cabins after Sierra Leone became not unlike ovens, in which one was gently fried. We made Forcados on the 12th of January, and it was my luck that this should be the last steamer to stand off the Bar, and tranship her passengers and freights on to the branch boat. All subsequent boats passed over the Bar into Forcados harbour. On this occasion we lay off in a mist, while the branch boat hunted for us, to the melancholy accompani- ment of the bell-buoy on the Bar. We were then lowered in mammie chairs into surf-boats, and paddled, wet and dejected, to the branch boat, which in turn transferred us to the river stern-wheeler, Sarota, in almost pitch darkness at Burutu. The lights were not working, and our chop- boxes being in the hold, we had to go to bed empty but for a small tot of brandy, very kindly provided by a Roman Catholic missionary, who had come on board. These Fathers are noted for their hospitality, and their Mission is the most, if not the only, practical one in West Africa. The misery of the newly arrived exile at Burutu is a byword—and I will not enlarge on the dismal subject. It is from Burutu that some drunkards have dated their original fall. I had my share of misery, what with the attentions of the Customs, who relentlessly tore from one duty on cases of liquor, which turned out afterwards to have been broken, or broached, to vanishing point, the POLING UP THE EIVER BENUE, A HAUSA GIRL. BAUCHI 17 inability to find anything one wanted, and of course the usual difficulty with " boys." In this connection coming events did indeed cast their shadow before them when a German trader, who was travelling to Onitsha, said to " me deprecatingly : Vy vorry apout your poys ? I alvays bromise my poy von bound on arrival at Onidsha, and ven I gets there I kick him out vidout nothings." A scrap of paper, in fact. Stone, by the way, handed me over one of his boys, " Yaro," ^ who has been with me, off and on, as boy, cook, and finally courier, ever since.