Нигерия: народы и проблемы - страница 20

Small wonder that amidst such natural phenomena, where in the tornado season which presages the rains the sky is rent with flashes only less terrific than the echoing peals of thunder, where the rushing wind hurls forest giants to earth and lashes the waters into fury, where for months on end torrential downpours fall until man has no dry spot upon which he can place his foot; where nature in its most savage mood wages one long relentless war with man, racking his body with fevers and with ague, now invading his farms with furious spreading plant life, now swamping his dwelling-place—small wonder the inhabitants of this country have not kept pace with the progression of more favoured sections of the human race. It is, on the contrary, astonishing, his circumstances being what they are, that the native of the Niger delta should have developed as keen a commercial instinct as can be met with anywhere on the globe, and that through his voluntary labours, inspired by the necessities and luxuries of barter, he should be contributing so largely to supply the oils, fats, and other tropical products which Western industrialism requires. Trade with the outer world which the merchant—himself working under conditions of supreme discomfort, and in constant ill-health—has brought; improved means of communication through the clearing and mapping of creeks and channels, thereby giving accessibility to new markets which the Administration is yearly creating—these are the civilizing agents of the Niger delta, the only media whereby its inhabitants can hope to attain to a greater degree of ease and a wider outlook.

The outer fringe of the delta is composed entirely of mangrove swamps, whose skeleton-like roots rise up from the mud as the tide recedes, and from whose bark the natives obtain, by burning, a substitute for salt. For untold centuries the mangrove would appear to have been encroaching upon the sea, the advance guard of more substantial vegetation springing up behind it with the gradual increase of deposits affording root-depth. Apart from the deltaic system proper, produced by the bifurcation of the Niger and its subsequent efforts to reach the ocean, the seaboard is pierced by several rivers, of which the Cross, navigable for stern wheelers of light draught in the wet season for 240 miles and in the dry for forty, is the most important. The Benin River links up with the deltaic system on the east, and on the west with the lagoon system of Lagos, into which several rivers of no great volume, such as the Ogun and Oshun, discharge themselves. So continuous and extensive are these interior waterways that communication by canoe, and even by light-draught launches, is possible from one end of the seaboard to the other—i.e., from Lagos to Old Calabar.

The mangrove region is sparsely populated by fishing and trading tribes. It is curious to come across signs of human life when you would hardly suspect its possible presence. A gap in the whitened, spreading roots, a tunnelled passage beyond, a canoe or two at the opening; or, resting upon sticks and carefully roofed, a miniature hut open on all sides, in which reposes some votive offering, such are the only indications that somewhere in the vicinity a village lies hidden. A visit to some such village holds much to surprise. Diligent search has revealed to the intending settler that the particular spot selected contains, it may be a hundred yards or so from the water, a patch of firm land where, doubtless with much difficulty, a crop of foodstuffs can be raised, and here he and his family will lead their primitive existence isolated from the outer world, except when they choose to enter it on some trading expedition. Further inland somewhat, as for instance, near the opening of the Warri creek (whose upper reaches, bordered with cocoanut palms, oil palms, and ferns, are a dream of beauty), one of the many off-shoots of the Forcados, where behind the fringe of mangroves the forest has begun to secure a steady grip, neatly kept and prosperous villages are more numerous. Their denizens are busy traders and there are plentiful signs of surface civilization. An expedition in canoes to the chief of one of these Jekri villages led us from a little landing stage cut out of the mangroves and cleverly timbered along a beaten path through smelling mud, alive with tiny crabs and insect life of strange and repulsive form, into a clearing scrupulously clean, bordered with paw-paw trees and containing some twenty well-built huts. A large dug-out was in process of completion beneath a shed; fishing-nets were hanging out to dry; a small ju-ju house with votive offerings ornamented the centre of the village green, as one might say; a few goats wandered aimlessly about, and a score of naked tubby children gazed open-eyed or clung round their mothers’ knees in affected panic. Beyond the ju-ju house a one-storeyed bungalow with corrugated iron roof and verandah unexpectedly reared its ugly proportions, and before long we were discussing the much vexed question of the liquor traffic over a bottle of ginger ale across a table covered by a European cloth, with an intelligent Jekri host, whose glistening muscular body, naked to the waist, contrasted oddly with the surroundings. These included a coloured print of the late King Edward hanging upon the walls in company with sundry illustrated advertisements all rejoicing in gorgeous frames. The walls of the vestibule below were similarly adorned, and through a half-open door one perceived a ponderous wooden bed with mattress, sheets, pillows, and gaudy quilt (in such a climate!) complete.