The Wanderings of an Elephant Hunter by Walter Dalrymple Maitland Bell - HTML preview

XVI
 AFRICAN ADMINISTRATIONS

My object in writing this is to contrast the different administrations I have come in touch with during my hunting. I have made no deep study of the matter and simply record the impressions I received. The French system of administering native races in Africa appears to differ fundamentally from the British. They look upon country they occupy as conquered territory, and anyone may buy it or lease it who wishes; whereas, in West Africa at any rate, the British consider the country as belonging to the natives, and it is extremely difficult for a white man to acquire land.

When the French take over a new country they occupy it most efficiently. We frequently are contented to paint it red on the map, close it up to trade and leave it simmering, as it were, in its own juice of savagery. This appears to lead to considerable trouble ultimately, for firearms are liable to find their way in, or the country gets raided white. When the French have to deal with a new country a special force of military character—Colonial Army it is called—takes it over by marching into it and establishing posts. If this force encounters obstruction, so much the sooner will the country be subjugated. Terrorise or kill the present generation and educate the next generation, and in course of time you have a race of black Frenchmen. In the fullness of time perfect equality is given her black citizens, as anyone may see at Dakar in West Africa.

Here we have a modern town which might be anywhere in France. Remarkable docks and landing arrangements strike one first. Then the houses and cafés. French whites and French blacks apparently on perfect equality. I was told that Dakar elected a black Deputy to send to France. Every black speaks French—real French, not like our pidgin English. And their blacks are so polite; perfect manners. Contrast this with the following; it happened to me at Sierra Leone, one of our most “advanced” black possessions:

I was travelling by tramp steamer—the only passenger. As we dropped anchor I was leaning on the rail looking at the town and shipping, when, directly below me, I saw a black stoker crawl slowly out of the coaling port and coolly dive into the sea, when he struck out for the land. I thought he was a stowaway and wished him luck and thought nothing more about it. Some time after, the captain asked me if I had seen a boy jump overboard, and I admitted I had. He then told me that that boy had been to the magistrate, had sworn that he had been thrown overboard and much more to the effect that he had been half murdered, etc. The magistrate had summoned the captain and the chief engineer, and they asked me to go as a witness. We went ashore at the appointed time, and never have I seen natives so badly out of hand. At the landing place we were met by a mob of sympathisers of the boy’s, or, in reality, a mob of natives actively hostile to whites and not afraid to show it. In the Court House itself there was more or less peace. At any rate, the howling was confined to the outside of the building. I gave evidence to the effect that I had seen the boy drop quietly into the water apparently of his own volition. The result was given against the ship, whether justly or not I do not pretend to judge. But when we three proceeded to leave the Court our appearance was greeted in such a way by the mob outside as to send the captain back in alarm. Under police escort we went, with perhaps two hundred howling blacks baiting us the whole way. Now this scene would be unthinkable under any other flag. It may be the result of even-handed justice, but, I ask, what good does it do? Those blacks hated us and had no respect for us or any other white man.

Lest from the above remarks on French administrative methods it be thought that I am in favour of them, I would like to say that, on the contrary, I think that all wild tribes suffer by contact with any Western culture. All their old customs, many of which were good and all binding, go, and in their place we substitute English or Indian law, which is entirely unsuited to the African. But if we must go there, I honestly think that the French method entails least suffering in the long run.

It was my lot to travel in the German Cameroons while still under German rule. There every black was required to remove his hat when any white passed. This simple little law was undoubtedly good, at any rate for the first few generations of contact; and the natives appeared to me to be happier and much more contented in the Cameroons than anywhere else I have been. We say that we do not tolerate the brutality which French and German methods entail. And we do not do so directly. But under our system of employing and paying native chiefs and kings to gather taxes and to settle disputes we blind ourselves if we do not recognise that far worse injustices and cruelties go on than could ever happen under direct white administration, however corrupt.

In the Sudan I came in contact with, to me, quite a new idea of governing native races. It happened thus: I and a companion had arrived from Abyssinia by native dug-out. We came down the Gelo into the Pibor and then down the Sobat until that river joined the Nile. Just before its junction there was an American Mission Station. As we were floating leisurely down towards this, the boy steering one of our canoes was seized by a crocodile and pulled off the stern. The other occupant had a gun and let fly in the air. The crocodile abandoned his victim, who swam back and clambered on to the canoe. When we arrived we saw at once that the boy was very badly mauled, and we paddled him down to the Mission Station. There the doctor did what he could for him; but the poor fellow died soon afterwards. The Mission people told us that if we wished to dispose of our canoes they would gladly buy them, as wooden canoes were almost priceless on the Nile. In return for their kindness we promised to give them our canoes after we had unloaded them at Tewfikia Post.

We proceeded to Tewfikia and found it a large and well-laid-out military post. One of the crack Sudanese regiments, picked officers, grand mess, band; altogether a show place. Sentries on the bank, too. Well, we were most hospitably received, and I hasten to add here that no one there was to blame for the ridiculous thing that now happened. It was the fault of the man or men who had evolved this unique and wonderful system of governing native tribes.

We drew our flotilla of canoes up to the bank at a spot indicated, where there was a sentry who would keep an eye on our gear, which was mostly ivory. We off-loaded this, so that the canoes should be ready for our friends of the Mission. As the band was playing in the evening the natives came and stole all our canoes under the very noses of not only the sentry, but numerous other people. They were certainly lying not more than thirty yards from the mess.

The theft created a tremendous flutter, but no one seemed to know what to do. All was utter chaos. Eventually someone was found who knew of a chief, and he was sent for. He refused to come in. And then I heard that the policy of the Government (sic) was to leave the natives alone. I was told that this was carried out to the extent of allowing pitched battles between tribes to be fought on the large plain opposite the post, and the wounded of both sides were left to be tended in Tewfikia hospital.

We never heard that the canoes were recovered. This is the kind of thing that makes for trouble in the future, in my humble opinion. Far better clear out and let someone else have a try.

END