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Continued from Sir Charles Orr's Memoirs Volume 3
About 400 burghers were assembled there, mounted on their rough, hardy little ponies, each man carrying his rifle, with his bandolier slung over his shoulder. All the men wore rough homespun clothes and they looked very workmanlike, just the type for quick
guerrilla fighting. At their head was a fine looking bearded Boer whom we all recognised instantly as Louis Botha. He and General Bruce-Hamilton exchanged a polite and cordial "Good Morning" with a salute, and then Botha turned his horse and addressed the assembled burghers in Afrikaans. They had made a splendid fight, he said, but now everything was over, and he hoped they would be as loyal to their new country as they had been to the old, and would fight for it if necessary as they had fought for the old; and he ended to my surprise by getting them to sing the first verse of "God Save the King." Bruce-Hamilton then made a short and very nice little speech, in which he said he hoped there would be no bitterness on either side - there certainly would be none on ours - and with that the ceremony ended. The burghers filed past and threw their rifles in one big heap and their bandoliers on another, and everything was over. Botha and Smuts, who was with him, rode past where the Colonel and the rest of us were standing and exchanged a courtly "Good Morning" with us. In a letter I wrote to my sister a day or two later I find that I commented "He is a fine man, with a very gentle and manly face," and so I remember him. Oddly enough, I made no comment about Smuts. I suppose I had no eyes for anyone but Botha. Had I been enabled to see into the future I should have paid more attention to his companion.
The Colonel and the Chaplain rode off with Botha and Smuts on their return journey to Volksrust where the latter were to take the train for Pretoria - Wright and I fed our horses and after eating our scratch lunch in a little blockhouse close at hand we started homewards about one o'clock. We were passed by several groups of burghers some of whom rode with us a short way. They all looked very happy, but I said that they would cheerfully have gone on to fight, indefinitely, for they had grown used to the rough, simple life and constant movement; but they trusted their leaders implicitly and knew that whatever decision they made was the best for the country, and that was all that mattered.
We had rather a weary ride home, with an icy wind blowing in our faces, and the sun set just as we reached Volksrust, and by the time we made camp it was almost dark. But the sight we had witnessed was well worth the 45 mile ride.
Here is another extract from the letter to my sister: "Majuba - five miles away, stands magnificently overlooking us, and there is peace all round. But I am not in good spirits - one must have moods.... It is only because the war is over and I fear officers and men (who are only, after all, amateur soldiers enlisted for the war) will get slack and lose keenness. And the horses we have taken over from the disbanded Imperial Yeomanry here before us are such ragged, unkempt, lame, skin and bone animals. And the saddles! Heaps of broken, dirty, rusty gear, all patterns, enough to break one's heart. Still we must evolve order once more out of chaos. The Colonel is not so keen at present as I had hoped, but Cochrane (the Adjutant) who on board was terribly absent-minded is now working like a brick; and only I am lazy!"
Certainly the first week or two at Volksrust were somewhat disheartening to a keen soldier. I felt that I was doomed to instil into a lot of civilians, joined together with the intention of becoming temporary soldiers in an active campaign, a spirit of discipline and keenness when everyone knew that all the fighting was over, and all they now had to do was to kick their heels until they could return to civil life: and my Commanding Officer - a temporary soldier himself - was obviously not going to bother his head about the matter. While the equipment at my disposal was nothing but a lot of junk discarded by a battalion which had finished its soldiering and gone home to resume civil life.
My first job was to get the camp into some sort of order, and to see that each squadron commander got his men busy on sorting out there equipment and cleaning and polishing it, getting the horses fit and properly groomed, and generally evolving order out of chaos. Then we received orders to send some small detachments to various points in the surrounding district to occupy blockhouses and patrol the adjacent country so as to prevent the barbed wire and the corrugated iron and other materials from being stolen before steps had been taken by the HQ to have it collected and stored or sold. The Colonel had gone to Johannesburg on matters connected with his patent rifle carrier, and indeed I don't remember his being with us at all after we had been a week or two at Volksrust. So far as I can recall, I remained practically uninterruptedly in command of the Battalion till it was, to all intents and purposes, disbanded the following October, except when he returned for our march back from Wakkerstroom to the Mooi River in Natal some time in September as I shall relate presently.
My mood of depression could not have lasted more than a few days, indeed it passed the moment that the Colonel went to Johannesburg and I found myself in charge with a mountain of work and responsibility on my shoulders. There is no tonic for low spirits like hard work and responsibility, as I have found by experience over and over again. My Squadron commanders, galvanised into activity, set their officers, NCOs and men to work with a will and very soon the horses began to look fit and well groomed, the old saddles and bridles were polished up, the bits and metal work began to shine in the sun, and I could turn out quite a smart and well drilled battalion on parade once more. If a CO is keen, sets a high standard, makes big demands on his men and sees that they are met, and above all does not spare himself but is always on the spot where he is needed (though never lurking or fussing round where he is not), and has always a word of encouragement for any officer or man who works hard and does his best, he can always be sure of getting the best out of his men and of having a keen and efficient unit under his command.
For recreation, I got some good polo at Volksrust, as there was the greater part of a Brigade there, and the HQ staff of the Brigade. From someone at Brigade I bought a couple of ponies, one, an iron-grey Argentine, the other a bay mare out from England, the latter rather above the convenient height for polo, as she stood nearly 15 hands high, but handy enough for all that; incidentally she made me a very handsome charger, though as a matter of fact we all rode troop horses as our chargers, as the officers were not called upon to provide their own. But I was glad to have my own, and used to ride the mare and the Argentine alternately. It was rather a foolish extravagance buying them - I paid if I remember rightly £90 for the pair, £30 for the Argentine and £60 for the English mare - for we left Volksrust after I bought them, and I had no more polo; but I liked having my own horses and never regretted the extravagance.
From the day I arrived at Volksrust I determined to climb to the top of Majuba, which as I have said, overlooked our camp, towering against the sky line. I had read as a subaltern in India about the Boer War of 1880-81 and how we had attacked the Boers at Laing's Nek and been defeated, and how General Colley had then moved to the top of Majuba Hill: How the Boers had attacked him there, and had take the hill by storm, Colley himself being amongst those killed. But I had always pictured Majuba as a comparatively low Kopje rising a few hundred feet out of the veldt, and flat-topped. Imagine my surprise then when I found it to be in reality a great mass rising above the huge Drakensberg range some 2000 feet above the the latter, which itself was 5000 feet above sea level.
As soon as I had managed to get things more or less ship-shape in camp I made plans to scale the height, and one a fine sunny morning I started off taking a couple of officers and my groom with me. Our route lay first through Charlestown, then for about 8 miles, mounting steadily, to a blockhouse on a nek called Iketene. Here we had to leave our horses and continue the climb on foot. It was stiff going, and there was a succession of plateaux, like enormous steps, till we finally reached the top, a cup-shaped expanse large enough to hold a considerable force. This is where Colley made his stand, with a force of about 600 men - belonging mainly to the 92nd Regiment of Foot - the forerunner of the Gordon Highlanders and the 58th Foot the forerunner of the Northamptons. They occupied it on the night of February 26th 1881. The graves of the men who fell are enclosed by a little stone wall, and the spot where Colley himself was killed is marked by a stone. How it was that a force of trained soldiers came to surrender this seemingly impregnable position is a mystery to me. On one side is a sheer precipitous drop of some 2000 feet, and on the remaining sides the ground falls steeply down - a difficult and strenuous climb up for anyone attempting to reach the top, as I had found out for myself, and with no cover except for a few outcropping rocks scattered at random over the hillside. To scale the position in the face of even half a dozen rifles would have appeared almost a hopeless task against 600, impossible. Yet the Boers did it under Piet Joubert. The explanation I think is that none of our men could fire down the hillside at the attackers without exposing their heads, and indeed half their bodies, against the skyline, thus offering a perfect target; while the Boers, skilled marksmen and used to taking cover behind every available rock, could pick off any men thus exposing themselves and yet remain themselves under perfect cover. Anyhow, Colley's force after suffering heavy casualties and having their commander killed, surrendered, and the Boers gained a total and complete victory. No wonder they despised the English after the latter's double defeat, first at Laing's Nek and then at Majuba, both in attack and defence. No wonder they had defied us 18 years later. And even now it had taken three and a half years for the entire British Empire in all its might to defeat them. I felt sad and humbled; but my respect for the Boers as tough and stubborn fighters, which had been high since I had first come out to fight them three years before, became higher still as I stood on the top of Majuba amongst those British graves.
The view is magnificent. Natal stretches away southward for miles and the country lies like a map at one's feet, while all round is the gloomy tumbled mass of the Drakensberg. Going to the edge where the cliff falls off precipitously I could see Laing's Nek below. All along it lay the trenches which the Boers had dug three years before to resist Buller's advance. It took them, I reflected, six months to dig them, and just three days to evacuate them. Let's set that against Majuba, I thought, and call it quits. Here are some extracts from letters to my sister:
Volksrust
July 14th 1902
My dearest Lucy,
I have just returned from a tour of our outposts which are scattered about amongst the Drakensberg and the Free State, guarding the blockhouse line which runs from here along the Natal border and past Vrede to Heilbron. It was a most interesting trip. I started of on Thursday morning, a bright sunny day with cloudless sky and the most exhilarating breeze imaginable. I rode 'Taffy' the Government horse which I have ridden ever since we arrived here: my servant Harris rode my spare horse, and I had my valise and blankets, cooking pots and supplies for three days on a two wheeled Cape Cart drawn by two mules driven by a Kaffir. I worked by the map, and intended to cut round by a new way to our outpost on the Klip River. Shortly after mid-day I reached a pass called Alleman's Nek, and hoped to see the Klip beneath me, but instead there was only a magnificent view of rolling veldt and great mountains on all sides, but no sign of a river. I halted for 20 minutes and gave the horses some water and a mouthful of corn, and then pushed on down the pass. After going about an hour I saw a Boer Waggon loaded with sacks of wool, so I asked the old Boer in charge about my way. The 'Kleep Rivére' he said was a long way off, and our blockhouse line was 25 miles away. It was then past two o'clock, and much as I hated giving up what I meant to do I decided to make instead for another post of ours which lay almost due east. I therefore struck off right across the veldt, and reaching a nice little spruit about 3pm. I outspanned for an hour, had some bully beef and bread, and let the horses and mules crop the grass and roll. About four we started off again. The scenery was splendid. The district is very mountainous, and the veldt, dry scorched and in many places burnt black, added colour. The sun was bright and warm, and the fresh pure air sweeping over the veldt seemed to bring health and energy with it. As the sun was just setting over the hills to the west we arrived at our Quagga's Nek outpost, where I found the little garrison - a Sergeant and ten men - turned out to meet me. Our horses were taken off and watered and fed, and I was made comfortable in a little tin shanty where the men brought me some hot coffee and I made a meal of bread and the remainder of my bully. I read some magazines till about half past nine, then went out to see if the horses were all right, and came back and slept peacefully on the hard heart - which I never mind - with Judy, my new dog, beside me till dawn.
Thursday 17th July 1902
I haven't had time to continue so must do so now. I had some breakfast at Quagga's Nek about 8 and went round the post by daylight and gave a few orders and made a few notes, then started off across the veldt for our next post, Botha's Pass, some ten miles away. A high wind had got up during the night and was blowing in all its fury, and when I reached Botha's Pass I found our horses with their rugs swept up all over their backs, and finding some difficulty in standing up against the wind. I went all round the post with the subaltern in charge. There are large supplies there as it has been an important post for some time. I lunched with the four officers there, and was delighted to get out of the hurricane into their Mess - a comfortable though dark 'dug out' which was the only thing that afforded any shelter. At two I pushed on again through very fine scenery almost due west through the Free State to our Klip River Post, a ride of about 12 to 15 miles in the teeth of the wind. I arrived about four, and was greeted by Bradshaw, the Captain in charge. I went round the entire post, and Bradshaw gave me a most excellent dinner and a shake down in his own little shanty. A lawyer from Pretoria was staying the night too; he had bought a farm close by for the shooting and had come down to inspect it. He was a particularly nice man, young and I should say clever, and had been in Pretoria since 1893 I think, so he told me a great many interesting things about the Jameson Raid, etc which I will tell you some other time. I had intended to go on next day to Cork Farm, another post some 22 miles to the east, but things happened to make me change my mind, and I decided to go straight back to Volksrust. Accordingly I made an early start next morning and rode through Botha's Pass and reached Quagga's Nek about 12.30 outspanned and had a little food and started again at two, inspected at 4 a post at the foot of Majuba, and arrived here in camp about 6pm feeling rather tired but very fit after my 40 mile ride. Today all these outposts are coming back here, as the South African Constabulary take over their duties from them.
I must say I am supremely happy here, the climate is so ideal and my work so interesting. I am training the officers and men in a way to develop their powers of observation and their individuality. I made a young subaltern take his troop out the other day and told him to ride up a valley and bring back a written report of a farm he would find at the end, taking all precautions as if there were Boers about in the hills. I let him act entirely on his own, and then after he had come back he brought me his report, and I pointed out where he had gone wrong and why.
At other times when I take a squadron out reconnoitering I halt and water the horses and let the men sit about and smoke and I sit with them and ask questions about where the railway runs, what they noticed on the way out from camp, how many head of cattle are grazing in the distance and so on. It gives rise to endless discussions and exchanges of ideas, and the men like it. This is the best and nicest soldiering I have ever done, and I know how absolutely impossible it would be for me ever to go back to the Gosport-Weymouth routine, and even the Staff College is hateful to contemplate. I'm glad the time is going slowly. I am just off to polo so won't add more.
Ever Your Affectionate Brother
Charles
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Wakkerstrom
East Transvaal
July 27th 1902
My Dearest Lucy,
I haven't written you a letter - a decent one anyway - for a long time. Today is my opportunity, for a more glorious day never shone, one of these perfect African winter days, bright warm sun, cloudless sky, pure clear perfectly transparent air and invigorating breeze. Our camp here is almost ideal. we are nearly two miles outside the town and can't see it. The beautiful smooth rolling veldt runs down to a small stream, and one can get nearly a three mile gallop over it. On all sides we are shut in by hills, and the stream widens into a vlei ('flay' please) or swamp which is almost dry now but holds a few duck and snipe. There isn't a farm in the neighbourhood, and one feels one is living a grand open air life away from all the shams and artificialities of civilisation, and health of mind and body is simply forced on one and can't be avoided even if one wished to. Here is my day: Reveille wakes me at six. I tumble out of my blankets shortly afterwards - having the luxury of a ten or fifteen minutes 'think', as I have no temptation to sleep, though I admit I should sometimes like to lie in and think - pull on some warm clothes and sally out in the bitter air of sunrise to early morning stables at 6.30. We finish at 7.30 and I have a cup of coffee sometimes, or go for a bit of a run on extra cold mornings with Judy, then shave, wash and dress and have breakfast. Parade ordinarily lasts from about 8.45 to 10.45, and perhaps consists in my taking a squadron or two out some miles to scout or drill. Stables, orderly room, etc... etc... carry me on very busily till lunch about 1.15. More work, and then I go out with my gun to look for a few partridges or duck, or else go for a gallop, or ride into the town to get something for the Mess, returning to camp at dark. I have an hour to read or write in my tent, then dinner at seven, Bridge till 10;30 or 11, then go and see my horses are all right for the night, then tumble into bed and sleep peacefully under my blankets till the trumpets sound Reveille. Can you imagine a more healthy or delightful life? It is varied of course in many ways - I often attend evening stables from 4 to 5, getting my exercise over between 2 and 4, but I generally am busy till about 3.30, and then go out either riding or with my gun till dark about 5.30. It sounds as if I had lots of spare time, but I really haven't. There are so many things to settle, and when I calculate an hour to myself, someone comes to my tent to ask me about a point of routine or discipline, and the hour is gone before I know where I am.
Under the circumstances I feel perfectly wicked when I hear of other people's troubles and ill-health, and I feel as if I was having much more than my fair share of the world's goodness and happiness....
I have certainly grown more in the last six months than in the previous six years. And I have only just discovered the reason. Up to the time when I joined the Imperial Yeomanry I was either actually a subaltern, or practically one (for with pompoms I had my own show, but no one under me), and I had got into the way of copying other people and only thinking of my own individuality as a thing I ought to alter in accordance with good qualities I noticed from time to time in others. That my individuality had any effect on others I never dreamed - was I not a subaltern whose sole duty it was to obey the orders and be taught what was right and wrong? Then I joined the Imperial Yeomanry and suddenly realised that what I did and said was being accepted as gospel by dozens of other beings and was being copied in every detail. I only really discovered this a month or two ago, and then I realised that it had been going on for months. It gave me a shock from which I am only just recovering because it suddenly thrust on my shoulders a huge burden of responsibility. It is pleasant to feel one can take credit for instilling ideas of honour, keenness, conscientiousness, duty, etc... into others by one's example and words, but the other side of the picture is appalling - the feeling that one's own bad qualities have been multiplied times over by imitation. It is an awful responsibility to have a tremendous influence over anyone and to feel that they are like a piece of wax in one's hands, ready to be moulded into anything one pleases; and yet this is a bad simile, for they take your shape of their own accord, and all you can do is so to regulate your own shape that the imitation may have most chance of being of good value and not bad....
Sunday. I have just come in from a long gallop across the veldt. I think I am happier than I have ever been before. Away from artificial civilisation one seems to live in a cleaner, purer atmosphere. I am happy in my work. It has grown under my eyes and I have seen definite results. Of course we have our trials, and I often lose heart for a bit. There are young subalterns who seem destitute of honour and conscientiousness; to whom one doesn't seem able to appeal in any way - who do their work, not cheerfully from a sense of duty, but grudgingly, and from fear of being 'caught out'. We have had subalterns in arrest over money matters and over rows in the town, subalterns with their wine bills stopped, etc... but I like every one of them and have helped some with their mess bills, and talked to others, and altogether I see improvements and I mean yet to have the best regiment of Imperial Yeomanry in the country. Indeed I believe it is the best now!
Ever Your Affectionate Brother
Charles
These letters give a far better account of my life and thoughts during those first few weeks in South Africa than any I could give messily by calling upon my memory. Indeed, many of the events chronicled in them I had quite forgotten though they come back vividly enough to me when I reread the letters. Once more they make me marvel at the singular good fortune which seems to have stood by me all through my life; for whatever the work was that I was doing and whatever the life I was leading from the day I joined 'The Shop' at Woolwich, I always seem to have been almost passionately in love with it. These letters breathe an almost exultant happiness, and I think dealing with human beings was always the real passion of my life. Soldiering is largely dealing with human beings, and so is civil administration, and my great good fortune consisted largely in my more or less chance selection, first of one and then the other, as my life's work.
As the letters show, we were moved from Volksrust to Wakkerstroom towards the end of July, and we were in camp there for something like 2 months, during the whole of which time, so far as I can remember, Colonel Patterson was away on leave and I was in command. Our camp was situated some 3 miles from the town of Wakkerstroom on a stretch of open veldt by the side of a stream, with hills all round and not a building in sight - as pretty a site for a camp as one could imagine. I kept the men hard at work with drills, scouting, manoeuvres, riding school, stables, saddle inspections and so on, because I knew well that if ever I let up, the men would get out of hand, for there was nothing for them to do in that lonely spot unless one could provide them with work and some kind of amusement. And all I could provide in the way of amusement was a couple of footballs. I must say the men gave me, strangely enough, no trouble, mixed grill as they were (In one squadron there was as a subaltern an ex-midshipman who had been present in that rank at the battle of Magersfontein and had subsequently left the Navy and later joined the Yeomanry; and in his troop was an ex-Lieutenant Commander of the Navy serving as a Corporal.) I heard through my squadron commander of occasional grumbles amongst the men, and complaints that I, as a regular officer, expected them to sweat away at spit and polish as if they were regulars, instead of civilians who had voluntarily joined up for the war, which was now over. But men will always grumble, I found them always willing and cheery, and I think they liked the life, and they probably realised themselves that without constant work and employment they would have been bored and miserable.
And then at last in September, we received orders to march down to Mooi River in Natal, where huts would be provided for us, pending demobilisation. Never were orders more welcome for after our long period of inaction it was exhilarating to be on the move once more: and marching with a mounted corps through a country and scenery such as was provided by Natal was an experience to which we all looked forward with the utmost keenness. Not only that, but our route lay through Ladysmith and Colenso where all the bitterest fighting had taken place in the early days of the war when Buller had been trying to relieve the besieged garrison of Ladysmith.
That march from Wakkenstroom in the Eastern Transvaal to Mooi River in Natal exceeded in interest and excitement most sanguine expectations. Not an hour, hardly a minute indeed from Reveille to Last Post, was without its interest. I made each Squadron Commander and his Troop Leaders keep an eagle eye on every horse in the squadron, and watch for any sign of a saddle sore, a girth gall, or a stone in the hoof. At every halt I went round myself and made each Squadron Commander report that he had inspected his horses, received reports from the four troop leaders, and that all was correct (or otherwise). At evening stables where we got into camp, a thorough inspection of every horse was made by the trooper in charge of it, and the Veterinary Surgeon was at once called to examine any horse that showed signs of lameness, saddle sore, girth gall, or any ailment. In this way I managed to instil into my four Squadron Commanders a healthy rivalry as to who should have the fewest casualties, the fittest and the best groomed horses, the best polished saddles, bridles, bits and equipment. And because the officers were keen, the men were keen, in spite of the fact that the war was a thing of the past and we were shortly to be demobilised, and that many would be reverting at once to their civilian life.
But besides the constant interest of keeping the officers and men up to a high standard of keenness, efficiency and horsemanship and the exhilaration of being on trek in that invigorating South African climate, I had the additional excitement of studying the country and of passing the very spots where the toughest fighting had taken place. Our route lay first through the Drakensberg Mountains and over the ill-fated Laing's Nek where our men had been defeated by the Boers 25 years previously, before the - to me - crowning disgrace of Majuba. Then we came to Elandslaagte where Sir John French (later to become Earl of Ypres) fought the only successful battle against the Boers before Ladysmith was surrounded and besieged; and then Ladysmith itself. I had heard stories of the siege from many of the officers who had been through it two and a half years before, and as we camped for two nights there I was able to wander about and visit several of the places where famous episodes of the siege had taken place. I climbed Waggon Hill which had been held by my old Rawalpindi friends, the Devons, against fierce attacks by the Boers a short time before Ladysmith had been relieved, and where several of my old friends had been killed. "The Siege of Ladysmith" had impressed itself so much on my mind, with all its drama and heroism, that to be camped in the town itself and able to explore the various spots of which I had heard so much was to me almost incredibly thrilling. Then followed the march from Ladysmith to Tugela River and Colenso, with trenches and shell holes all the way. I was puzzled at one place near the river, where the fighting had been most sustained and bitter, to find parallel trenches on a slope within 50 yards of one another facing in opposite directions; that is to say, the earth thrown up as a parapet or protection was in some cases on the upper side of the trench, in others on the lower. Why our men or the Boers had dug their trenches facing both ways, both up and down the slope I will not conceive, till at last, exploring the ground a little more fully, the explantation dawned on me. Some of the trenches had been dug by our men, and some by the Boers; and so fierce had been the fighting that the men had dug themselves in within fifty yards of each other!
We camped that night at Colenso, where Buller had been held up so long by the Boers who lined the rugged heights on the other bank of the Tugela River and picked off our men without exposing themselves at all. I found too the place on the railway where my friend Aylmer Haldane of the Gordon Highlanders, in charge of a detachment on reconnaissance in an armoured train, had been ambushed by the Boers, who had blocked the line in the rear of the train with rocks, attacked it with artillery and rifle fire and took Haldane and the whole detachment prisoners including Winston Churchill who was then acting as correspondent to the Morning Post. Winston behaved with great gallantry on the occasion - as he would - and was lucky to escape with his life, and indeed unwounded. It was less than 2 years before that Haldane had brought Winston to our battery mess in the Khyber Pass as I have already recorded. Winston subsequently made a sensational escape from the building in which he and others were confined in Pretoria and found his way to Lorenco Marquez. So, a little later did Haldane. I examined the building with great interest when I went up to Pretoria and Johannesburg a little later, taking a few days leave for the purpose.
Those early days of the Boer War have been mostly forgotten now, but a few people still recall "Black Week" about December 15th 1899 when our Colenso force seemed to suffer disaster after disaster. Certainly there was something incredibly stupid about our strategy and tactics, and the highly mobile Boers, lightly armed and easily supplied, were far more than a match for our clumsy formations, trained for an entirely different kind of warfare - the Crimean perhaps. The night we spent at Colenso brought back to my memory all that I had read and heard of Buller's futile attempts to cross the Tugela River in the face of Boer opposition. In particular I was pointed out, a few miles to the east, a rugged hill called Hlangwane (Slangwani) which seemed to form part of the rocky hills lining the northern bank. In actual fact the river here gave a sharp bend to the north and this hill was on our side of the southern bank - of the river. I was assured that Buller's Intelligence Department was so inefficient that he and his staff did not realise this, but imagined that the hill was on the northern bank and allowed the Boers to cross the river to occupy it, driving off the small force of our men which had at first seized it. Had we occupied and held it in force we could have enfiladed the whole of the Boer position on the northern bank. Whether this story is true or not I cannot say, It was told me at Colenso by a local farmer.
But I am not writing history; I am merely jotting down my own personal memories. I record these incidents only to show the immense interest which that march down from the eastern Transvaal into Natal held for me.
We reached the Mooi River at last and found a hutted camp awaiting us there, a great luxury after so many months living in tents. But what a dull place it was, and how unhappy I felt during the few weeks I was destined to stay there. We were in process of being demobilised, and we had to hand over our horses to a Remount Depot some mile and a half from our camp. About half the officers and men opted to remain on for the year for which they had contracted to serve; the remainder preferred to take their discharge and go home. Only one incident can I remember which brightened those few dreary weeks that I spent at Mooi River. The Remount Depot had made a polo ground of sorts out of a bit of green turn that lay just outside their camp, and hearing that there were some polo playing Natal farmers in the neighbourhood I challenged the latter to a friendly match, as there were about half a dozen of us who knew and had played the game and I found I could just manage to make up a team of four. I had my own two horses that I had bought some months before as already related at Volksrust, the others picked out some likely mounts from our troop horses - which were all of the light cob variety. My challenge was readily accepted, and an afternoon fixed. When I arrived on the ground I found four young farmer who had ridden over from their farms - in some cases as much as twenty miles distant - and I had a good look at the steady little Cape ponies they had brought with them, and made a mental note that we should have our work cut out to out-gallop them. But I imagined that Natal farmers would be novices at the game and I confidently looked forward to a fairly even game. I was playing in my favourite place, number 3, and Wright, the Commander of D Squadron was to play back, Numbers 1 and 2 being a couple of subalterns who had played a little polo somewhere in the Transvaal. We tossed for place, the ball was thrown in, and the game began. What a surprise I got! Those Natal farmers would have put up a good performance against any of our crack teams at Hurlingham. Their strokes were marvellous, their eyes unerring, and they could ride like professionals. They just did what they liked with us, collared the ball, rode us off, passed the ball to one another with deadly accuracy and the neatest precision, and had scored their goals in almost as many minutes. The moment the first chukker was over I went up to the charming young farmer who was acting as their captain and admitted frankly that we were hopelessly outclassed and couldn't give them a game that was worth playing; and I suggest that the only thing to do was to split up, two of us playing with two of them against the other four. He with a charming smile agreed, and the remaining chuckers were more or less evenly contested and I for one enjoyed them immensely. Then we all had tea together and the farmers rode off home again on their sturdy and tireless little ponies, carrying with them my respect and admiration not only for their first class exhibition of really good polo but for their modesty and charm.
And so at last my service with the 33rd Imperial Yeomanry came to an end and I said goodbye to the officers and men for whom I had come to have a real affection, took the train for Durban and there embarked on a troopship bound for Cape Town. At Cape Town I was kept for 4 or 5 days awaiting transport back to England, and what I remember best was the sight of the lovely white arum lilies growing in profusion on either side of the road from Cape Town to Simon's Town. My voyage home was entirely uneventful. I travelled on a small troopship on which there were not more than about half a dozen officers besides myself, and I had of course no men to look after and nothing to do - for of all the dull voyages give me that one from Cape Town to England. Fortunately there was a library on board, which contained, besides the usual trash, some books of real interest. One of these enthralled me. It was the account, written by a young man called Grogan, of an expedition made by him with an older man, an elephant hunter named I think Sharp, from South Africa to Egypt, taking in fact the Cape to Cairo route of which Cecil Rhodes had dreamt. (It is available to read here). The two men had of course been months on the journey and had passed through districts in Africa never before explored, inhabited by tribes who had never previously seen a white man. They had had many adventures, and seen strange people and strange things. As I read I felt a strong urge to follow their lead and explore some of the strange and unknown territories in Central Africa. Fancy, I though, what it must be like to arrive at a village in the centre of Africa where no white man had ever been before. The book started a train of though in me that was to have momentous consequences.
Landing in England late in November I went straight to my mother and sisters in the charming little home they had made for themselves at Frimley Green which I had only left 6 months before, though it seemed much longer. I was told by the War Office that I was to consider myself on leave until I was "re-absorbed" into the Regiment (from which of course I had been seconded on joining the Yeomanry), and posted to a battery which they said might be in 2 or 3 months time. I had therefore nothing to do but kick my heels for the present, to which I had no objection as Christmas was not far off and I was happy at home. My sisters had made many friends in the neighbourhood, and now that the Boer War was over, there was nothing to do but enjoy ourselves. And we started off to rehearse for a little play dramatized by my sister Mindi from one of Anstey's stories under the title The Tinted Venus.
But all the time I was turning over in my mind what I was going to do when this short holiday interval was over. With the exception of a few brief intervals I had been on active service almost continuously since March 1895 - nearly eight years - first on the Indian Frontier, then in South Africa and after that in China, and then in South Africa again and in the course of my service I had been round the World, and seen many strange countries and many people. The idea of going back to peace-time, barrack square soldiering was absolutely abhorrent to me, and I shuddered at the mere remembrance of the few weeks spent on garrison duty at Gosport and Weymouth. I could not get out of my mind what I had read during the voyage home of the vast, unexplored spaces in Central Africa, and I felt an irresistible longing to get out to those parts myself and see something of them and their inhabitants. I recalled stories which Patterson had told me of East Africa with its fauna and flora and I thought of the book "The Man Eaters of Tsavo" in which he had written of the man-eating lions and how he had dealt with them. "The Uganda Railway" - the very name Uganda had a fascination which acted on my mind like a magnet. I had met men too who had been on the other side of Africa, in Nigeria, and I had heard from them of their adventures and experiences there. Was there no way in which I could get out to those wild parts of Tropical Africa? Nothing on earth, I vowed, would induce me to stay at home and stagnate, and give up my life to the dull, monotonous, humdrum work of peace time soldiering.
Something of the sort I must often have said during those holiday weeks with my mother and sisters, when one day my sister Harriette said: "Would Sir Frederick Lugard be any use to you? Because a very great friend of mine, Hilda Brackenbury is his niece, or rather Lady Lugard's niece, and lives with her, not far away at Abinger. I could easy ask her over to lunch one day, and you could talk to her about Nigeria." "Why," I said, "Lugard is one of the very men I have had in mind. He is High Commissioner of Northern Nigeria which is a huge area just taken under the British flag - one of the very places I should like to go to." "Very well" my sister replied "I'll write and ask Hilda Brackenbury to come over to lunch."
A few days afterwards she came, and I had a talk with her about Northern Nigeria and the work that Sir Frederick Lugard was doing there. In the end she said she was sure her aunt would like me to come to lunch one day, and next week I found myself at lunch with Lady Lugard and her niece in the charming little home which the former had made from two cottages amongst the trees of Leith Hill. Lady Lugard gave me a brief description of Nigeria, of the slave-raiding Mahomedan Emirs, of the peasants, of the task before Sir Frederick of putting an end to the slave-raiding and introducing law and order, and ended by saying that she thought the work was "the most interesting and most worthwhile that any young Englishman could put his hand to." She certainly found me an eager listener, and before I left she said that if I liked she would mention my name in her next letter to Sir Frederick and suggest to him that he should ask the Colonial Office for me to be sent out. I thanked her warmly and took my leave, my imagination on fire with the thought of going out to this country of slave-raiding Emirs and rescuing the unfortunate inhabitants from their depredations.
Next day I went hot-foot up to London and called at the Colonial Office and expressed my wish to go out at once and join Lugard in Nigeria. The Colonial Office official whom I saw smiled in a somewhat sarcastic way at my enthusiasm and explained in a superior manner that it was impossible for me to go out when there was no vacancy, but that if I would send in an application in writing it would "receive due consideration with that of others on the occurrence of a vacancy." How I loathed that rotund, bureaucratic phrase, so much beloved by all government departments, so damping to all eager enthusiasts. I remarked that I understood that Sir Frederick Lugard was much in need of young men to go out and help him and was greatly understaffed, to which I received the chilling reply, "He may be, but he can't get men for whom there are no salaries." I retorted that I was quite ready to go out at once without any salary, but a shudder and a withering look was the only reply vouchsafed; and with a curt "You can send in an application", and an admonition that I should in any case need to obtain permission from the War Office to be seconded for a non-military appointment, I was politely bowed out.
I then went to the War Office and said I wanted to go out to Northern Nigeria to serve under Lugard and asked if there would be any difficulty about my being seconded for that purpose. "You know, I suppose" was the reply of the Staff Officer to whom I had been directed "that there are three or four Artillery officers in Northern Nigeria attached to the West Africa Frontier Force for service with the guns? There are no vacancies at the moment, but they occur from time to time, and if you like to put your name down for one of them, with your record you'll stand a good chance of getting one." I did not, as a matter of fact, know anything about this, and was ignorant even of the existence of such a body as the West African Frontier Force. At the moment I didn't care particularly whether I went out to Northern Nigeria as a soldier or a civilian, so long as I got out there, and soon. But it seemed far better to stick to my original intention, since Lugard himself seemed likely to be asking the Colonial Office for my services almost at once, whereas I might have months to wait before a vacancy occurred in the West African Frontier Force. I therefore said that I preferred to go out in a civil capacity if I could be seconded from the Army for the purpose, and the Staff Officer replied that he would make a note of this, and that if and when the Colonial Office asked for the loan of my services, he was sure that no objection would be raised by the War Office.
With these preliminaries I had to be content, and after sending into the Colonial Office a formal application for an administrative appointment in Northern Nigeria there was nothing to do but wait for a reply, and damp down my impatience as best I could. Meanwhile I read up every book I could get hold of on West Africa.
It did not cross my mind to wonder whether I was doing the right thing in getting seconded from the Army for a civil appointment just when I ought to be working for the Staff College. For there would be no real future for any Army Officer who had not passed the two years' course at the Staff College which entitled him to the magic letters P.S.C. (Passed Staff College) after his name in the Army list; and if I were to spend 5 years in the wilds of Africa doing civil work, what chance should I have in the Army afterwards? I told myself that before taking the important step that I was contemplating it would be well for me to get the advice of one or two of my soldier friends on whose judgement I placed great reliance. So before sending in my application I asked my old Gordon Highlander friend Aylmer Haldane and an old Gunner friend Arthur Money, both some years older than myself and who had both passed the Staff College, if they would lunch with me at my Club; and after lunch I invited them up to a quiet room upstairs, and over a cup of coffee and some excellent liqueur brandy I laid my personal problem before them and asked their advice. Both with one accord said "Don't be an ass. You've got a good record of service behind you and have your foot already on the first rung of the ladder. Go for the Staff College at once; when you've passed that the other rungs will be easy. If you follow this silly idea of going out as a civilian to Nigeria you will forfeit all the advantages you have gained by your 14 years in the Army and you will begin at the very bottom of an entirely new ladder which leads nowhere." The logic of all this was of course unassailable. But the moment they had spoken I knew that I had already made up my mind. I was not, I said to myself, going to allow my life to be governed by pettifogging ideas of of my personal prospects and promotion and pay, nicely calenlated by weighing up pros and cons of personal advantage. I remembered the picture that Lady Lugard had drawn for me of a District Officer's life and duties in Nigeria, and her comment "I do not think there is any finer work for an Englishman today." That seemed good enough for me. "I daresay you fellows are right", I said, "and I'm awfully grateful to you for listening to my long yarn. But I realise now that my mind is made up. I'm going to Lugard in Northern Nigeria."
I have never regretted my decision, except possibly on a few a occasions during the 1914 - 1918 War when the Colonial Office definitely refused me to rejoin the Army. At the time I thought they were wrong, but I am not so sure when I look back. In any case, when war broke out in August 1914 I accepted their decision without demur (though I fear with rather a bad grace) because I felt that it was the duty of every individual to subordinate his own wishes and ideas wholly to the Government and go (or stay) where it wanted him.
As soon as I had to come to a definite decision and sent in my application I looked round for something which would be of definite use to me in Nigeria, and it occurred to me at once that I should do well to learn something more of surveying than the rather elementary knowledge I had acquired at Woolwich and later on when preparing for my examination for promotion to Captain. I had never learnt the use of a sextant and I had an idea that if one learnt its use and took one into the depths of Africa it would be possible at any moment to find one's precise latitude and longitude by it. So I obtained permission to go to the School of Surveying attached to the HQ of the Royal Engineers at Chatham. When however I presented myself to the Major in charge of the School and explained my idea, he smiled and said that he feared it was hardly as easy as all that and after testing my knowledge (or rather my ignorance - of the science of surveying by a few shrewd questions, he informed me that it would be best before putting me on to the sextant, to give me a little practice in triangulation with a plane table, for which purpose he proceeded to detail a Sapper subaltern to instruct me. Then followed some days which I shall not entirely forget. Chatham is a cold, wind-swept spot at the best of times, and in mid-February it is unusually bitter. It certainly was that year and Russell Browne and I spent four or five days tramping round Chatham, carrying a clumsy plane table, on which with aching frozen fingers I did my best to mark out various triangulation points, aligning my ruler carefully on them - a task which I had learned long before at Woolwich. But the Major was adamant and insisted that until I had become really proficient in triangulation it was useless to teach me the sextant. How I welcomed the approach of darkness each day when Russell Browne and I knocked off work and foregathered with a number of other Sapper Officers in front of a blazing fire in the spacious ante-room of that lovely old R.E. Mess! At last the day arrived when I was to begin on the sextant; and by an odd chance the morning's post brought me an official looking envelope from the Colonial Office. I tore it open and found that Mr Joseph Chamberlain (who signed himself as "My obedient servant" ) was pleased to inform me that I had been selected for appointment as a "3rd Class Resident in Northern Nigeria" at a salary of (I think) £480 p.a. and that I should be expected to sail for West Africa as soon as I could make the necessary arrangements. That evening I was home again with my people at Highbridge, having said farewell for good to the R.E. School of Surveying and all my kind friends at Chatham.
There followed a hectic time getting my outfit necessary. I had been warned to take out supplies for 18 months - the then tour of service - and someone had given me the name of a firm in London which would not only advise me as to what was required but would also provide, pack and send on board everything I chose to order, from cases of whisky and champagne to tins of biscuits, anchovy sauce, gramophones with records and needles, prismatic compass and pyjamas, to say nothing of camp beds, chairs, tables and baths, tent and so on. I spent hours going with my sisters through long typed lists of groceries which the firm recommended that I should take with me, and checking up quantities. At long last it was all done, and on the 27th of February 1903 I bade farewell to mother and sisters and caught the night mail for Liverpool, unfortunately catching also a bad cold; and on the 28th of February I sailed from Liverpool by one of the Elder Dempster Line on my second Great Adventure. Amongst other things I took with me two Holland and Holland rifles - a double barrelled sporty .450 express and a handy little single barrelled .303 - and of course my 12 bore gun, with plenty of ammunition for all.
My start was inauspicious, for the moment we got out of the Mersey we ran into a raging storm, and I was - for the last time in my life - terribly sea sick and I never left my cabin till we had reached comparatively calm water and blessed sunshine off the coast of Portugal. Our first port of call was Grand Canary, where we coaled and we all took a run ashore to see the sights, such as they were. A day or two afterwards we reached Sierra Leone where somewhat to my surprise a smart looking ADC (Aide-de-Camp) came aboard and said he had orders to take me ashore to breakfast with the Governor, Sir Charles King-Harman and his wife. It appeared that Lady King-Harman was the sister of Major Hope (Alias 'Soapy') Biddulph whose Horse Artillery section (or as it would now be called, 'troop') of Pompoms I had taken over from him at Tientsin a couple of years before, and he had written to her as soon as he heard I was going out to West Africa on RMS Tarquah. I greatly appreciated the King-Harman's kindly hospitality, but I cannot say that I was impressed with Freetown, and the temperature seemed rather like that of a Turkish bath. Government House was a ramshackle wooden building, and breakfast was served in the verandah which was darkened by overhanging creepers. Indeed the whole house seemed to be buried in dense tropical foliage, beautiful enough in its way, but to my mind somewhat eerie and rather overpowering. I saw little of my host and hostess, for my ship was due to sail at noon, so I took my leave directly breakfast was over, and was conducted on board again by the charming-mannered ADC. Freetown itself is a busy looking town, with crowds of negroes and negresses in their best and brightest clothes who behaved rather as if the town belonged to them and the white folk were mere intruders. The harbour is pretty, and capacious, but there is no dock; and ships have to lie in midstream and their cargoes landed in lighters and the passengers in small launches or rowboats. The rock, shaped like a lion couchant, from which the port takes its name, overhangs the harbour with the town nestling at its foot, and looks as hot as it feels.
After Sierra Leone we turned eastwards, heading for what our geography books tell us is the Bight of Benin "where few come out, though many go in." Off the coast of Liberia we picked up a batch of Kru boys so essential to every ship in these sultry latitudes and then we made our way past the French Ivory Coast till we came to the Gold Coast, anchoring off those deadly looking places; Axim, Cape Coast Castle and Accra to land cargo and passengers. "The Coast", as it is usually called, certainly did not looking inviting. We saw a long low sandy beach fringed with mangrove trees on which the surf continuously and monotonously broke, although the sea appeared smooth and turgid. A few palm trees here and there broke the monotony, in the distance, we could just discern in land a line of hills, dim in the sultry haze.
The passengers on the Tarquah were for the most part District Officers going out to their appointments in one or other of the West African colonies; a few "Old Coasters" - traders or men employed in the gold industry, one or two nurses going to join the staff of hospitals at Accra or Lagos; and one officer on first appointment to the West African Frontier Force. I struck up a great friendship with a young man in the Public Works Department of Northern Nigeria, Cyril Ridsdale by name, a friendship to last undiminished for close on 40 years, and then only terminated by his death.
It was, I think, in the early hours of our nineteenth day out from Liverpool - the 18th of March 1903 to be precise - that I was waked up from a deep sleep by hearing the clank of the anchor chain, and I knew that the first stage of my journey was over and that I had reached the mouth of the Niger. When daylight came I dressed and went on deck. We were swinging at anchor in a dull coloured sea, and shorewards I could see a long dreary line of mangroves. The air was hot and humid; there was no breeze. Opposite to us was the Forcádos branch of the Niger Delta, and I was told that after breakfast a small shallow-draft steamer, known locally as a "branch boat", would come out from the Forcádos and that we and all our baggage stores would be transferred to it. This trans-shipment was due to the existence of a bar at the mouth of the river which could not be crossed by vessels drawing more than 8 to 10 feet of water even at high tide.
Sure enough after breakfast a little steamer came gliding out of the mouth of the river and in due course was securely moored alongside of us, and the trans-shipment of the heavy stores began at once. All morning the cranes were at work transferring cargo from the big ocean going streamer to the small "branch boat", and we hung over the sides in the sweltering heat idly watching the process. By noon all the cargo had been safely transferred, as well as the baggage and belongings of the four of us who were bound for Northern Nigeria - Ridsdale and myself, a newly appointed WAAF officer and one other. From the purser of the Tarquah we purchased a couple of loaves of bread, some ham, some cheese and an adequate supply of bottled beer, and, bidding goodbye to our friends on board, we transferred ourselves to the little "branch boat" and were soon heading for the mouth of the river. We had hardly settled ourselves down to the lunch we had brought from the Tarquah when we felt the little steamer bump and shiver as it made its was over the nine-foot bar, and we found ourselves steaming slowly up a wide, muddy-looking river with dense mangrove growth on either side, lining the water's edge - the Forcádos branch of the Niger Delta. Soon a clearing in the bush appeared ahead of us on our right, with a cluster of sheds, their sides and roofs of corrugated iron, and a broad landing stage, alongside which our skipper proceeded to moor his ship. This was Forcádos, an important station of the Niger Company. But our stay here was short, and before long we were once more heading upstream for Burútu, another of the Niger Company's stations, where we were to embark on the stern-wheeler which was to take us up to Lôkója, where the river Bénue flows into the Niger, and which had been the capital of Northern Nigeria when the latter first became a Government Protectorate. As we approached Burutu we saw on the wharf a cluster of eagerly expectant natives watching our arrival - the 'boys', i.e. cooks and houseboys with a smattering of pidgin English and knowledge of the "Whiteman's Ways", who were on the look-out for new masters to replace those who had gone home on leave and left them behind. Directly we landed we were surrounded by these "boys" who thrust into our launch somewhat ragged and dirty pieces of paper, usually known as "chits" purporting to be recommendations from previous masters with whom they had served. I say "purporting to be" advisedly since some of these "chits" were found on examination to be anything but recommendations - I need hardly say that none of the owners could read a word of them and all were therefore necessarily ignorant of what was written on them. "Me, very good cook", said one of the boys, rushing up to me excitedly "you see my chit." I glanced at the dirty bit of paper which he thrust into my hand. "The bearer of this" I read, "is the biggest rogue I have struck in this country and that's saying a lot. He is a thief and a liar, and dirty to boot. Cave canem (Beware of the Dog)" Ridsdale and my other two companions were of course being similarly assailed, but in due course all four of us had made the selection which seemed most promising, and the disappointed candidates melted away, to try their luck with the next batch of new arrivals. I had engaged as cook a cheery looking man who claimed to be a pagan from the Bautchi Province and who spoke tolerable English and fluent Hausa; and as houseboy a Nupé whose language qualifications were similar. Both produced good "chits", and indeed I found them as satisfactory as could be expected, and I kept them both throughout that fourteen months tour, and was in many ways sorry to part with them when my time came go go home on leave.
Having engaged servants our next job was to get them to sort out our personal belongings from the huge pile of baggage put ashore, and carry them to the stern-wheeler "Kampala" moored a little further upstream, waiting to take us and the mail and cargo to Lokoja. These vessels, propelled by two great paddle wheels at the stern, draw but 3 or 4 feet of water, and are the only type capable of navigating the Niger, at any rate in the dry season when the water is low; for this river, notwithstanding its length - it rises at the back of Sierra Leone - is for the most part shallow in its lower reaches, and sand banks abound. For this reason it is impossible to travel by night. During the hours of darkness the stern-wheelers anchor under lee of the river bank, resuming their journey directly the first ray of daylight enables the pilot to see his way. Long experience gives these native pilots an almost uncanny ability to sense hidden sandbanks and 'snags', and avoid running the ship on them. But, so trick is the navigation of this river, that from time to time even the most skilful and watchful pilot may fail to prevent his ship from running on a hidden sandbank, or being "holed" by a sunken tree-trunk or similar "snag". Running on to a sandbank is not a serious matter when steaming upstream, since the current will quickly float the vessel off unless the level of water is dripping very rapidly; but when going downstream the force of the current of course tends to "pile" the vessel ever more securely on to the bank. To get her off, the captain immediately sends out a boat with an anchor which is dropped some distance one side or another, whereupon the windlass is set going and the vessel hauled off the bank. If the vessel is very firmly piled up, it may be necessary to shift some or all of the cargo, or even put it ashore to lighten the boat; but as a whole the vessel can be pulled off without having recourse to such drastic treatment.
"Striking a Snag" is a very different matter. The riverbed is strewn with boulders of rock or great tree trunks carried down at flood tide, and some of these are apt to lie, just submerged, on a hidden sandbank. The river steamers are somewhat lightly built, and if one of them strikes some hidden obstacle or snag of this description - a tree trunk for instance - a great gaping hole is apt to be torn in her hull, with the inevitable result that the water rushes in and sinks the vessel unless there is time tot run her on to a neighbouring sandbank. Such an accident occurred on one occasion when I was going upstream on my return from leave. We happened to be carrying amongst other things a considerable number of boxes of small arms ammunition for the West African Frontier Force depot at Lokoja. Fortunately it was stacked on deck, covered by tarpaulin, but the rest of the cargo was stored below deck as is customary. It was almost 7 o'clock in the morning, and I had just shaved and had my bath and dressed and was enjoying a cigarette while my boy was preparing breakfast. It was a lovely sunny morning, and we were in a pretty reach of the river with picturesque forest on either bank, and I was admiring the scenery and thoroughly enjoying myself. Suddenly there was a crash, and I was almost thrown on to my feet. The Captain gave a quick order to the engineer, and a great hubbub rose from all the natives below deck. Fortunately there was a sandbank just ahead on our port bow, and the captain was just able to run the ship on to this and beach her, the water pouring through a great hole that had been torn in the bows of a submerged tree trunk. Fortunately the ammunition we were carrying was, as I have said, stowed on the upper deck, so no harm was done to it. With a speed which astonished me the Captain set about repairing the damage, passing a tarpaulin under the bows so as to cover the gaping hole, and getting the crew on the pumps to empty out the water. Fortunately another steam-wheeler was coming up river only an hour or so behind us, and we were able to transfer ourselves and all the cargo on to her and continue our journey to Lokoja leaving the crippled ship to make such temporary repairs as were possible and make her way to Lokoja where she could be docked and made fit once more for service. The Marine Department of Northern Nigeria had a difficult task in keeping river communications - on which at that time Northern Nigeria was wholly dependent - running with any sort of regularity, especially in view of the fact that it was, like every other Government Department, necessarily kept very short of funds, and had to "make do" as best it could, on the exogenous sum allotted to it. In those early years, the local revenue of Northern Nigeria was altogether insufficient to meet the administrative expenses, and an annual grant was made by the Imperial Government to bridge the gap between revenue and expenditure, and the Imperial Treasury naturally took every care that this grant should be as small as possible. Sir Frederick Lugard, with a loyalty characteristic of him, accepted the situation and imposed on the Protectorate and every Department in it the most rigid economy down to the smallest detail, and cut all the estimate and expenditure down to the bone. Carelessness and extravagance on the part either of a Department or an individual were visited with his utmost displeasure, and woe betide the official found guilty of either; he might find his prospects of promotion seriously jeopardised.
To return to my narrative after this long digression, the four of us managed to get settled in on Stern-Wheeler 'Kampala' shortly after 4 o'clock, and our boys made us some very welcome tea; and about 5 o'clock, passengers and cargo being "all aboard"", we loosed our moorings, the Captain gave the order "slow ahead", the paddles began to revolve and thrash the water, and in a few minutes we found ourselves in mid-stream, making our way up the channel, with dense forest on either side of us. When darkness fell, the Captain selected a suitable spot under lee of a high bank and here we anchored for the night. Our boys prepared a meal of a sorts for us, and afterwards set up our camp beds in a row on the deck, each with its indispensable mosquito net, and we turned in early after our long and exciting day.
Next morning we resumed our journey as soon as it was light enough to see and I was out of bed the moment I heard the first movements of the crew, anxious to miss nothing of this new and, to me, thrilling experience. A splash in my little canvas bath in the tiny room allotted for the purpose, a hasty shave, and I was ready for anything, especially for my breakfast which my boy had been preparing while I was dressing. A thin silk shirt and a pair of khaki slacks formed I found an ideal costume for the occasion for the atmosphere was sultry even at that time of the morning, and our rate of progression was not sufficient to create much breeze. Soon we had left the Forcados branch of the delta and we were now in the main stream of the river, still with thick forest on either bank. From time to time we reached a clearing in the forest and came upon a village, consisting of a cluster of circular thatched huts; directly the inhabitants sighted our steamer they would jump in their canoes and swam around our ship, shouting and gesticulating, and we would throw them empty bottles, empty tins - anything in fact that we had done with and didn't want - and they would either catch them or dive in the river to recover them. Often their canoes would capsize but this was nothing to the occupants, for all these villages are as much at home in the water as out. The scene was one of which I never tired on that first journey of mine up the river, though subsequently its novelty wore off and regarded such episodes with the same indifference that Ridsdale displayed on this occasion.
I think it was on the morning of the fourth day after our departure from Burutu that we reached Lokoja and tied up alongside the wharf. Here was what looked like a vast expanse of water, for Lokoja lies at the confluence of the two great rivers of the Niger, flowing from North to South, with the Benue, a broad river coming in from the east and mixing its waters with those of the Niger.
Leaving my two boys to collect my belongings, I landed and walked up to the Court House where I was told I should find the Resident of the Province, Kabba, of which Lokoja is the capital, my instructions being to report to him on my arrival. The Court House I found to be a fair-sized house, built, native-wise of wattle and mud with a large thatched roof. The floor was of beaten mud, and at the end farthest from the door was a kind of dais, also of mud, standing 2 or 3 feet above the level of the rest of the room. Outside the thatched roof was brought down well below the walls so as to form a kind of verandah all round the house, well protected from sun and rain. The building itself stood at one end of a large grassy open space, such as in India would be called a "Maidan", and on either side of this were rows of bungalows with wide intervals between them, and at the far end I could see a large rectangular building with thatched roof which I guessed - correctly as it turned out - to be the Officers' Mess of the battalion of the Northern Nigeria Regiment of the West African Frontier Force which had its depot and Headquarters at Lokoja. The bungalows seemed to be all of one pattern, with sides and roofs of corrugated iron, raised on iron uprights about 5 feet above the ground. A narrow flight of wooden steps led up to a broad verandah, looking on to which were the 2, or in some cases 3 rooms of which the bungalows were composed. Behind each bungalow and a short distance from it was a small kitchen of corrugated iron, and quarter for the native boys and their women-folk.
I found the Resident at the Courthouse, sitting at a table on the dais, with a native clerk in European clothes and an interpreter in native clothes in attendance, whilst on the verandah were a couple of native policemen in dark blue uniform and a crowd of natives of both sexes and all kinds. The Resident, whom I will call M, greeted me cordially when I introduced myself, and said that he was expecting me, and that he had orders to keep me in Lokoja until instructions were sent as to my posting. Sir Frederick Lugard, he explained, had gone up to Kano and Sokoto to install the new Emirs, and the Deputy High Commissioner, Sir William Wallace, was temporarily in charge of the Protectorate at the capital, Zungeru, but could not send any orders about my posting until he had got in touch with Sir Frederick and received his instructions. M. told me that he had arranged for my temporary accommodation in a spare bungalow, and would send a messenger with me to show me where it was. He added that when I had sent for my boys and my belongings from the wharf and settled in, he would be very glad if I would walk across and have lunch with him at his bungalow, which he pointed out to me. It took me no time to summon my boys and get them to bring up all my belongings and unpack my bed and bedding and such clothes and necessities as I waited, and by the time we had settled ourselves in, it was just on one o'clock, and time to walk across to M's bungalow for lunch.
M. was waiting for me, and we sat down to lunch in his comfortably furnished bungalow. Somewhat to my surprise I learnt that he had been only a few weeks in the country, for he looked as if he were between 40 and 50 and seemed therefore to be rather old for a new recruit. It appeared that Lugard had wanted a lawyer for Lokoja, as several trading firms were established there and he thought it advisable to appoint someone with legal knowledge. It did not take long to dawn on me however that no more unsuitable man than M. could possibly have been selected for what was in fact pioneering work in a new country. M. had lived most of his life in London and had never been abroad. What legal practice he had had after being called to the bar - and I gathered it had been very little - was of an academic nature, and the worst possible training for work amongst primitive African natives. He was also of a timid nature, nervous and easily scared, and the most gullible man that I have ever met. On the voyage out he had been regaled with all sorts of absurd stories about "life in the African bush", about lions and wild animals in general, about the climate and conditions of living, and about the natives most of them concocted for his special benefit. On arrival at Lokoja he had been the object of all sorts of practical jokes on the part of young subalterns in the West African Frontier Force and others. Partly as the result of this and partly because he had no interest in anything but legal technicalities and the dignity of the magisterial bench he had never attempted to tour his District or go outside of Lokoja and its Courthouse, and it is hardly too much to say that he was the butt - innocent and unsuspecting - of everyone in Lokoja, more especially the military. I tried my best during lunch to get from him some idea of the duties of a Political Officer in Nigeria, and what his daily routine was, but I had no success. He did tell me however that every Resident in charge of a Province had to send the High Commissioner at the end of each month a Report giving particulars of all the work done in his Province during the month under separate Headings: Administrative, Judicial, Public Works, Medical, Police, and so on. I asked him therefore if he would mind letting me see the copies of the last few months Reports of his Province, as I though that by reading them through I might get some idea of the work that I should have to do. For, being entirely ignorant of civil administrative affairs, my training and experience up to date having been solely military, I was anxious to learn what I could of the nature of the duties I should be called upon to perform. M. replied that he would certainly send me over that afternoon the office copy of the only two reports that he had so far sent in, but he added with some diffidence, I thought, that he feared there wasn't much in them.
He was as good as his word, for the same afternoon when I had returned to my bungalow, a uniformed messenger came over from the Courthouse and handed me a file of papers "With the Resident's compliments." I seized them with avidity and started on the Reports. But M. had told the stark truth when he said he feared there was much in them. Apart from a few dry and unimportant facts and dull statistics, all that he had found to report to the High Commissioner concerning Kabba Province and Lokoja was that the lock of the Courthouse door was out of order and that he had not yet been able to find anyone to mend it; and that he had given much though as to what "forensic habit" he should wear when taking cases in Court, since he considered that his barrister's wig would be too hot for the Lokoja climate, and had finally decided to wear a short black alpaca coat when on the bench, and "trusted that His Excellency would approve." On reading these extraordinary trivialities I sat back and tried to imagine what Lugard, immersed in the countless and intricate problems involved in setting up an efficient administration in a tract of African country about the size of France and Germany combined, would think of this Report of one of the fourteen Provinces - many of them as big or bigger than Ireland - into which he had divided the Protectorate. Lugard, as I found when I came to know him, suffered fools with marvellous patience, but not gladly.
Some days passed at Lokoja before the eagerly expected news of my posting arrived. The West African Field Force extended much hospitality to me, making me an honorary member of their mess and inviting me to dinner as a Mess Guest on their Guest Night, But at long last a telegram arrived from the Secretary of the Government at Zungeru informing me that I was posted to the Province of Zaria and was to proceed at once to Wushishi in that Province and take over from the Honourable A. Bailey who was going home on leave. Wushishi, I found, was the headquarters of a small District in the south of Zaria Province, and was only a few miles from Zungeru, the capital of the Protectorate. To get there, one travelled up the Niger by a small stern-wheeler until one reached the spot where the river Kaduna coming from the North, joined the Niger. Here one embarked in a native canoe, which was poled and padded up this shallow stream for several days till a place called Bari Tuku was reached, and from here a tiny too-foot gauge railway had been built to Zungeru, a distance of about 24 miles. Wushishi was about 8 miles from Zungeru.
When I went to the Marine Department to make arrangements for my journey upstream I found that a passage had already been booked for me on one of the tiny sternwheelers the "Black Swan" plying up the Niger beyond Lokoja, and to my great delight I learnt that Ridsdale was to be my companion and that we were to start next day. I ordered my boys to get my things together and make all preparations for our move, and I spent the afternoon saying farewell to M. and the West African Field Force officers and all who had showed me hospitality in Lokoja. Next morning Ridsdale and I met on the little "Black Swan" and were soon thrashing our way upstream. It took us I think 3 days to get up to Murrejji (Mureji) where the shallow Kaduna, flowing in from the North, joins the Niger, which here was from West to East; and here Ridsdale and I changed from the "Black Swan" to native canoes which were to take us up the Kaduna to Barijuko. March is nearly the end of the dry season, and all the rivers are then at their lowest. The flat-bottomed dug-out canoes of which we proceeded to transfer ourselves, our "boys", and our belongings, hardly draw more than a foot of water, and were propelled by means of long poles, after the fashion of a punt on the Thames. A straw mat tied to four upright sticks protected the middle of the canoe - where there was just room for 2 deck chairs - from the sun and rain. One stalwart native worked his pole in the bow, the other in the stern, and the men would cheerfully keep at this exhausting work for hours at a time, often bursting into song, or cracking jokes with their companions, whilst Ridsdale and I sat in our deck chairs in the scantiest of clothing, chatting, reading, writing or just idly watching the scenery. Our boys, with our cooking utensils, our stores and our motley accumulation of boxes and baggage, followed us in another canoe. At meal times we would usually make a halt by a sandbank, and the boys would jump ashore, cook our meal, and bring it to us in our deck chairs. At dusk we would select a suitable sandbank and run the canoes on to it. Our boys would get out our camp-beds and mosquito nets, camp table and chairs, canvas baths, and Ridsdale and I would have our hot tubs al fresco, dress in our pyjamas, with a shooting jacket over the pyjama coat, and our indispensable mosquito boots reaching well above the calf of the leg; and sit down to our evening meal. Then a chat over a pipe in our deck chairs till about 9 o'clock, when we would go to bed under the glorious African star-strewn sky, and as like as not sleep dreamlessly till early dawn. The days were long but they passed quietly and the monotony was from time to time varied when we spotted duck in the offing and getting out our guns we would kick off our mosquito boots (which we wore day and night), put our legs over the side of the canoe, and wade after the birds. Ridsdale used in later days to refer often to those days and nights we spent together in that canoe journey up the Kaduna, and draw an amusing word picture of me, wading after duck, wearing nothing but a large sun-hat and a very exiguous silk shirt, gathered round my middle, whilst my other hand grasped my gun. I was indeed happy, for it was all new to me, and I had a feeling of romance and adventure which intoxicated me. Since leaving Lokoja we had got away from the dense forests of the Niger Delta and the country was becoming more open and park like. On either bank of the Kaduna the country was indeed flat and open, with a few scattered shea-butter trees and occasional scrub, and it seemed to be entirely uninhabited, for not a village did we pass. Not till later did I learn that the district had at one time been quite thickly populated, and that there had been villages and cultivation on either side of the river, down to its edge. Then it had been devastated by the Fulani horsemen and the inhabitants carried off into slavery, and the whole district turned into an empty desert. During the coming months I was destined to meet with many more signs of the cruel devastation carried over wide tracts of these Northern Provinces of Nigeria by the habitual slave-raiding carried out by the Mahomedan Emirs who had, previous to our arrival, ruled the land. Most of the Emirs spent a great part of the dry season roaming the country with their hordes of horsemen, raiding the pagan tribes for slaves and living at the expense of the Mahomedan inhabitants. Slave-raiding was in fact the chief occupation of most of the Emirs and their henchmen during something like half the year and their principal means of livelihood. Slaves were property, slaves were currency, and the ownership of slaves meant wealth and ease. Slavery was the basis of the social organisation of those parts; it was recognised in the Koran as a part of the natural order of human society. Nor was the state of slavery in itself by any means wholly evil. The Koran prescribes the duties and responsibilities which the owner owes to his slave; hence if he fails to carry them out the slave is entitled to lay his complaint before the Judge, who is bound to decide the case according to Koranic law. The slave in Nigeria therefore had no need to take thought for the morrow, being assured of food, clothing and accommodation, provided by his master, as well as care and medicine in case of sickness. True, he or she was a chattel, and could be sent to the market place and there exposed for sale, examined in the cruellest manner by likely buyers, and finally sold to some entire stranger and put to any sort of work that his or her purchaser might ordain. But in the last analysis the state of slavery was by no means as bad as most people in this country imagined and still imagine it to be. What was unspeakably savage and cruel was the enslavement of free men and women, and the bloodshed, devastation, and the ruthlessness with which this was effected by means of slave-raids, and the callousness with which the slaves were transported to the slave markets and there exposed for sale. It was this aspect of slavery which aroused the humanitarian feelings of every decent man and woman who learnt the conditions under which slavery in Africa was carried on, and which Livingstone brought so passionately to the notice of the British people and the British Government. This it was that stirred the feelings of men like Sir John Kirk and Captain Lugard in East Africa, and Sir George Goldie in West Africa, and led to so much of the territory of Tropical Africa being brought under British control.
And now to return to my journey with Ridsdale up the Kaduna. Notwithstanding the efforts of the men toiling at their poles from dawn till dusk day after day, progress was incredibly slow. Not only did we have to make our way against the current, but the river itself, flowing through that flat, open country, twisted and turned unceasingly, so that to make one mile's advance as the crow flies we often had to push our way through two or even three miles of water. To Ridsdale, who was doing his third tour, I think, the journey was frankly boring; but to me, a novice, it was supremely interesting and exciting, and I revelled in every minute of it. Lying in my camp chair under the mat awning watching the banks go by, chatting, reading, writing and every now and then slipping over the side of the canoe and wading off with my gun, all under a blue sky and a hot sun - this to me was fascinating and I never tired of it. And, perhaps best of all, were the nights, camping on a sandbank, when we had had our hot baths and a good dinner under a gorgeous clear sky, sparkly with stars, and we sat and chatted before turning in still under that marvellous canopy of stars, with the cool air gently blowing our mosquito nets, soothing and fresh after the heat of the day. I would generally fall into a deep sleep within a few minutes of putting my head on the pillow, and only wake at dawn when the camp began to stir. If by chance I did wake during the night, there would be the semi-glorious galaxy of stars overhead, the same cool breeze rustling my mosquito net, and the faint ripple of the river as it flowed quietly past the sandbank.
At long last we reached the spot where the river was no longer navigable, even in shallow, dug-out canoes. And there, on the top of a twenty foot high cliff, was a quaint little train awaiting our arrival. It consisted of a small locomotive and four trucks, the one nearest the engine covered-in by a roof of canvas flaps of the same material forming the sides, the other three being open, similar to the usual railway trucks at home. The latter were already loaded up with building materials and public works stores of all kinds. A galvanised iron tank raise some ten feet above the permanent way on iron supports, and several stacks of log-wood neatly arranged alongside the track, served to supply the tiny locomotive with water and fuel. A rough platform, with a small corrugated iron hut, and a few open sheds with corrugated iron roofs, completed the picture of this modest railway "terminal" which met my eyes as I clambered up from the canoe. I greeted the white engine driver, who was raising steam on his engine, with a cheery "Good Morning" and received a curt and rather gruff "Mornin" in reply. Very soon Ridsdale's boys and mine had carried our deck chairs out of the canoes and placed them in the covered-in truck where they found the sole seating accommodation, and the boys then transferred the whole of our belongings to the same truck, piling them neatly at the end not occupied by our chairs. By the time this was completed the engine driver had managed to get steam up, and with a piercing scream from the whistle, the train moved slowly off on its way to Zungeru along the single track, two-foot gauge line. My own destination was, I knew, Wushishi, some 8 or 9 miles short of Zungeru, and here I was to part with Ridsdale whose destination was the capital itself. Our route lay over open country mostly covered with scrub, but occasionally we came across a collection of mud huts with thatched roofs - insignificant villages with a certain amount of cultivation round them. Our rate of progress was certainly not fast - I reckoned that our best pace was little more than twenty miles an hour, and whenever an incline, no matter how slight, had to be negotiated, it fell to considerably less. At long last, when we had been travelling for almost three quarters of an hour, I saw a solitary figure standing by the side of the track ahead of us; the engine driver slackened speed, applied his brakes and pulled up. This was Wushishi, and the solitary figure awaiting me was Arthur Bailey, whom I was to relieve. He gave me a cheery welcome, and said he had brought a few carriers to take charge of my loads and transport them to the bungalow, which, he told me, was only a few hundred yards away. I said farewell to Ridsdale as soon as all my possessions had been lifted down from the train, and promised to come and see him in Zungeru at the earliest opportunity; the whistle screamed, the train moved slowly off, and before I knew where I was I found myself walking with Bailey to the bungalow which I could now see at no distance. On arrival, I found it was exactly like those with which I had become so familiar in Lokoja - raised 4 or 5 feet on iron supports, roof sides of corrugated iron, and steps leading up to a broad verandah on to which its two rooms opened. Bailey had a good meal ready for me, and while we ate it on the verandah, my boys had collected all my possessions in the room I was to occupy, had put together my camp bed, set out my camp furniture and immediate necessities, and made the little room look quite comfortable.
That night Bailey and I sat up till long after midnight, exchanging our news, such as it was, sitting in long chairs in the verandah, and it wasn't till close on one o'clock that we turned in. He was going home on leave directly he had handed over to me, and he gave me some sort of idea of the work which lay ahead of me. Wushishi, I found, was not a village of any importance itself, and had in fact, prior to our arrival, been merely a fair-sized slave camp, a sort of base for slave-raiding expeditions. All the surrounding district was inhabited by pagans, mostly belonging to a tribe called Gwari; but these Gwaris were themselves split up into small communities, each independent, under its own Chief or Headman, chosen by the people. These autonomous communities would usually - though not always = combine for war, if attacked but in times of peace each guarded its independence jealously and brooked no interference. All this made administration somewhat difficult, since each Gwari tribe - generally consisting of one fair-sized walled town, with a few insignificant villages nearby - had to be dealt with separately. There was no Head Chief with whom one could deal. Wushishi - this old slave-camp - had a polyglot population at whose head was a Fulani who claimed a shadowy kind of suzerainty over the surrounding Gwaris, which however none of them admitted; indeed, all f them hotly contested any such claim.
I must explain that the Fulanis are a race whose origin is obscure and history unknown. The pure Fulani is light-skinned, almost red-skinned, and, so far from being negroid, is Asiatic or Semitic in feature, and I was often struck by the odd likeness between the pure Fulani and the Afghans, or the Pathan tribes of the North West Frontier of India. Many theories have been put forward as to their origins, and it has been suggested that they are descended from the Hyksos Shepherd Kings of Egypt. And it is curious that today the pure Fulani is to be found leading a nomadic life in the Northern States of Nigeria, tending his cattle. Our earliest history of them however shows them as living in the far west of Africa in the hinterland of what is now known as Sierra Leone, and from there they seem to have made their way gradually, with their herds of cattle eastwards towards the Hausa States. They were early converts to Islam, and about 150 years ago they staged a semi-religious revolt against the then mainly pagan dynasties that reigned in the Hausa States. Their leader, one Dan Fodio, made himself master of Sokoto, and assumed, or was given by his followers the title of Seriku-n-Mussulmin, or Chief of the Moslems. Certain of his followers made themselves masters of the semi-independent Hausa States which composed the large tract of country which we call Hausaland; and converted the inhabitants to Islam.... When British explorers first made contact with this part of Africa in the early part of the 19th Century crossing the Sahara Desert from Tripoli, they found each of the Hausa States ruled by a Fulani Emir, owing a shadowy allegiance to the Sultan of Sokoto, through in practice each State was independent and autonomous. The Fulani seems to possess a singular gift for leadership and also for administration, and the Hausas appears to have from the first accepted the rule of the Fulani without demur. It was not altogether autocratic for each Fulani Emir had around him a number of Hausa office-holders on whose support he largely relied and to whom he looked for advice and for the details of administration. On the death of any Fulani Emir his successor was chose from among his relatives or descendants, mainly on merit; but the choice was always restricted to the members of the Royal House i.e. the family of the original Fulani ruler. Dan Fodio's astonishing victories synchronised fairly closely with those of Napoleon. But by the time we arrived in Northern Nigeria the Fulani rulers had become so mixed into Hausa and negroid blood that many were not easily distinguishable, either in colour or physiognomy from the Hausas. Their ability and their mental alertness were however strongly marked, and this was made evident by the excellent system of administration which prevailed under their rule. Courts of justice were in existence, presided over by a Judge, or Alkali as he was locally known, well versed in Koranic law. There were schools - although the pupils were taught little except learning portions of the Koran by hear - and there were gaols of a sort for malefactors. There was a regular system of taxation - though this was spoiled by the existence of rapacious tax collectors and the custom of farming out taxes. On the whole, however, it may be said that when the British Government took over the administration of Nigeria, there was found in the Northern Provinces under the Fulani Emirs a degree of civilisation comparable with large parts of Morocco and North Africa. Injustice, extortion, cruelty and rapacity of course existed - it would have been absurd to imagine that under the semi-autocratic rule of the Emirs they would not be found. But on the whole, the Moslem Hausas - traders, craftsmen and peasants - of the Northern Emirates enjoyed a very fair share of freedom and justice, and were able to live their own lives in comparative peace and comfort.
With the pagan population of Nigeria it was very different. There were pagan tribes and communities scattered over the great part of Nigeria, in every stage of civilisation from that of the Gwaris, which was little if at all inferior to the Hausas', down to the most primitive type of naked cannibal. An immense number of languages were spoken by these tribesmen, and in a large majority of cases each village formed a separate and independent community, living its own life according to its own habits and customs under its own Headmen or Elders, and holding no intercourse with the world outside its own boundaries. For centuries they had been subjected to sporadic slave raids. Many of the villages were hidden away in dense bush, many were situation on tops of rocky hills out of the reach of slave-raiding horsemen. Some villages and even tribes had purchased a precarious security from slave-raids by agreeing with the raiders to pay an annual tribute in slaves - mainly children, or persons suspected of witchcraft or who had in some way incurred the hostility of the community.
Obviously the administration of a country with such a social background presented a problem of first-class complexity. Only the barest outlines of its geographical features was known when we first occupied Northern Nigeria, and the approximate position of a few of its largest towns. The location of the various Hausa Emirates was known vaguely, but their boundaries mostly a matter of guesswork. Outside these Emirates the only thing that was known was that the land was inhabited as I have said, by natives in every stage of civilisation, living in scattered villages for the most part hidden in dense bush, each village a law unto itself, in many cases, speaking its own language, where these villages were, what tribes lived in them, whether there was any tribal organisation what manner of social life existed in them - these and a score of other questions leapt to one's mind, when one began to think of making contact with the strange tangle of unknown and unmapped pagan districts which lay outside the established Emirates.
During my talks with Bailey I found out something about the Province to which I had been posted and in which Wushishi - and only a few miles away, Zungeru, the newly built capital of Northern Nigeria - lay. The Province of Zaria as it then existed was about the size of Ireland, and roughly the same shape. The town of Zaria, where the Fulani Emir of Zaria lived, was in the north of the Province, only about 40 miles from the boundary of Kano Province and on the high road to the great market town of Kano. About half of the Province of Zaria composed the Emirate, and consisted mainly of a great plain of some 2000 feet above sea level covered with prosperous villages, surrounded by their farms and inhabited by Moslem Hausas. The Emir claimed authority likewise over a number of pagan areas, a claim usually disputed by the inhabitants of the latter, though some villages had paid an annual tribute in slaves to the Emir as a guarantee against being subjected to slave-raids by him. The remainder of the Province - that is to say, the southern half - was inhabited by pagan tribes independent of and mostly hostile to each other, and as I have said before, themselves split up into groups of villages, each group - and sometimes even a single village - regarding itself as independent and autonomous.
The Kano-Sokoto Expedition sent up by Lugard to Kano and Sokoto in the winter of 1902-03 to bring that Northern part of the Protectorate under administrative control and consisting entirely of native troops of the Northern Nigeria Regiment of the West African Frontier Force, with a handful of British officers and NCOs, had met with no opposition at Zaria itself and the Emir having fled to the north and joined the Emir of Kano. Between Zaria and Kano - a distance of some 80 miles - it had met with slight opposition at one village only, and this had been overcome. The great city of Kano, surrounded by a high mud wall some 15 miles in circumference, put up a fight, but the Emir fled with his entourage when the West African Frontier Force stormed and carried the South Gate, and the expedition moved on to Katsina and then to Sokoto, easily overcoming all resistance. Directly these towns had been occupied, Lugard himself went up and held a kind of Durbar in the capital city of each of the Emirates. Those Emirs who had remained at their posts and offered practically no resistance, Lugard confirmed in their offices and presented each with a handsome "Staff of Office", some 4 or 5 feet in length and with a heavily embossed silver head, the carrying of which was the sign that the bearer was endowed with full Government authority. Where an Emir had resisted and fled, or had absconded, Lugard after full enquiry as to who was the rightful heir, or was recognised as the most suitable successor, proclaimed him at a public function as Emir, installed him in office, and presented him with his "Staff of Office". Lugard invariably explained at these public ceremonies that the British came to introduce law and order and help the Chiefs in the development of their country, and that they had no intention of interfering at all with the religion of the inhabitants, nor with their customs and traditions so long as the latter were not contrary to humanitarian ideas; and that the authority of the Emirs and Chiefs would be respected and upheld by the British administration, provided it was exercised for the good of the people and in their interest. This was the beginning of what has since become known as "Indirect Rule", and in order to show that the duty of administrative officers was to watch and guide the native rulers rather than instruct the latter in their duties, they were from the outset called "Residents", and not "District Officers" or "District Commissioners" as had been the custom up then in our African and most of our other Colonies and Protectorates.
Bailey also told me that Lugard had appointed Captain Abadie as the first Resident of Zaria Province, with the rank of "2nd Class Resident" (there was if I remember rightly only one "1st Class Resident" in Northern Nigeria, an officer taken over from the Niger Company which had administered Nigeria under the Company's Royal Charter until the Charter had been revoked and the administration of the whole country taken over by the British Government). Abadie, I learned, was with Lugard somewhere up country acting as his Chief Political Officer, and the Province was being administered by a 3rd Class Resident now at Zaria, Reginald Popham Lobb by name, who would in all probability be in charge for the next 6 months or so, as Lugard was going home on leave directly he returned from his tour of the Northern Emirates (which included the ceremonial installation of the various Emirs), and Abadie was to accompany him. Both would return, it was expected, about October. My own duties at Wushishi were to administer, under Lobb's orders, the pagan districts in the neighbourhood, though how precisely I was to "administer" these scattered and heterogeneous communities was not very clear to me. My long talk with Bailey that first night had indeed given me plenty to think of. The task ahead of me seemed alive with problems, and difficulties, and I must confess to a feeling of some shame when I remembered that the motive which had caused me to throw up - temporarily at any rate - my military career and come out somewhat lightheartedly to West Africa to take on a job in which I had no previous training or experience whatsoever was purely self-regarding longing for Romance and Adventure. Thinking it over, I now realised very clearly that I was not justified in taking up this task of the civil administration of a largely unknown and very extensive country in Africa unless I could devote my whole time and all my thoughts to doing something to benefit the inhabitants, to protect them from the horrors of slave-raiding, cruelty and injustice, and help them to live their lives in peace and reasonable security and enjoy ultimately some part at least of the amenities and comforts which I felt sure that modern European civilisation could bring to them.
The morning after my arrival at Wushishi, Bailey summoned the Emir of Wushishi to come to the bungalow - which served also as office and courthouse - with his office bearers to be presented to me. The Emir was a tall, good-looking Fulani, about 45 years of age I judged, wearing a long robe of local cotton, embroidered in front, and on his head a large white turban. he looked intelligent, though I thought I discerned a somewhat shifty glance in his eyes as Bailey presented him to me and I clasped his hand and greeted him. He then called up his office bearers one by one and presented them to me, and after a few complimentary exchanged had taken place, Bailey rose from his chair to signify that the interview was over, and the Emir mounted his horse and rode back to the town accompanied by the large cortége with which he had arrived.
The following morning Bailey and I walked to the railway line and boarded the train as it came from Bari Juko, and in about a quarter of an hour arrived at Zungeru.
Zungeru was a somewhat desolate spot which had been selected by Lugard about a year previously (1902) as the new capital of Northern Nigeria, mainly because it was as far north as could be reached by water transport; for during the rainy season the Kaduna River carried enough water to render it navigable by the small stern wheelers and flat bottomed barges toured by them, whilst even at the end of the dry season native canoes - as I knew now by experience - could get up and down it. When Northern Nigeria had first come into existence as a British Protectorate - on the 1st January 1900 - and Lugard had been appointed High Commissioner (the term 'Governor' was avoided for political reasons), he made his first capital at Lokoja; after a few months he shifted it to Jebba on the Niger River where were the rapids that caused the death of the explorer Mungo Park more than a hundred years previously. But he required for the capital of the new Protectorate a site more centrally located which would form a convenient base from which the great Northern Emirates - Sokoto, Kaur, Katsina, Zaria and Bauchi - could be administered, and after a few preliminary and rather hurried surveys had been made, Zungeru was chosen and a light 2 foot gauge railway lid down to connect it with Bari-Juko, the highest navigable point of the Kaduna. Building materials were hurriedly sent up, and bungalows for officers and administrators' residences were rapidly erected, barracks built as were a hospital and a gaol. Government House was a long, low straggling building of the usual bungalow style with corrugated iron roof and wooden sides, and a long deep verandah running the whole length. It was as simple and primitive as all the other bungalows, but Lugard never cared for comfort, still less for any sort of pretentiousness, and refused to sanction anything but the simplest and least expensive building that would accommodate himself and his staff, his office, and an occasional guest or two.
Zungeru when I arrived there with Bailey that morning in early April, 1903, struck me as a singularly uninviting spot. Corrugated iron bungalows covered a tree-less, dusty expanse, rough and broken, and they seemed to be dotted about with a strange absence of plan, though in the centre of the cantonment (pronounced cantoonment) as it was called (following the custom in India) was an open square, three sides of which were formed by buildings of the usual monotonous pattern. This, I learnt from Bailey, was familiarly known as "Aiki Square", the word "Aiki" being Hausa for "work", for the buildings were all offices where the various Departments of Government carried out their duties. Close to this was the one and only feature which redeemed Zungeru from pure sterility and ugliness - a stream which ran gaily through the cantonment to the river Kaduna some 2 or 3 miles distant. At this time of year there was very little water in it, but it was bridged by an almost picturesque bridge of concrete, and in places it widened out into quite respectable pools. Government House was built on a low ridge not very far from "Aiki Square" and it was here that Bailey and I first directed our steps so that I might pay my duty call on the Deputy Governor, Sir William Wallace, who was living there during Lugard's absence up country. I contented myself with writing my name in the book, as I understood that Sir William was engaged in a conference with some of the Heads of Departments. Bailey and I then returned to "Aiki Square" in order that he might introduce me to the various Departments, and I was certainly greatly surprised by the warm and cordial welcome we received everywhere. Cocktails were ordered, cigarettes offered, and these cheery officials whom I had imagined I should find with their noses to the grindstone seemed only too ready to knock off work, sit in their shirt sleeves at the edge of their tables and swap the latest yarns and exchange the newest jokes.
We got back to Wushishi in time for a late lunch, and I spent the afternoon going through the office files with Bailey, counting the official cash and seeing that it corresponded with the balance shown in the Cash Book, and generally "taking over". Next day he left by the little train for Bari-Juko where canoes were awaiting him to take down the Kaduna to Murejji, whence he would make his way down the Niger by way of Lokojo to Burutu, and so home by the weekly Elder Dempster. My few days with him had been happy ones, and I said to myself that if all my fellow officers were like him I should certainly enjoy my life and work in Nigeria.
The next day an official telegram arrived for me from Reginald Popham Lobb at Zaria. I have already said that he was in charge of the Province whilst Abadie was absent in Lugard's staff, and it was intended that he should remain in charge until Abadie's return from leave in October. What was my astonishment then to learn from the telegram that Lobb had been ordered home immediately by the Medical Department on account of ill health, and that I was to come up at once to Zaria and take over the Province, closing down the Wushishi station for the time being as no one was available who could be sent there. Here was news indeed! I, an entirely inexperienced new-comer, was to take charge of one of the largest and most important Provinces of the Protectorate, which had only been constituted a Province some 3 months before, and accept full responsibility for its administration for a period of something like six months! Here indeed was an opportunity of which I had never dreamed. I decided to go at once into Zungeru and hand over to the Treasury the government cash in the safe, prior to locking up the bungalow and closing down the station till some junior officer could be posted to the Province. I sent an urgent message to the Emir requesting him to send me the following morning the 40 carriers whom I reckoned I should need to carry all my personal possession and stores up to Zaria, and I hurried to the railway line to await and signal the morning train bound for Bari-Juko to Zungeru. On arrival at the latter place I made straight for the offices in "Aiki Square". But to my surprise instead of the cheery greetings with which I had been welcomed a few days before I found all the officers working apparently at high pressure at their desks with their heads buried in official files, and no offers of cigarettes or cocktails were made. What had come over them all, I wondered? I was not left long in doubt. It appeared that Lugard, whose return from his Northern tour had not been expected for several days, had been making forced marches and covering the ground far more rapidly than anyone had anticipated, and was now only one march away and was expected the next day. Hence this sudden access of alarming industry and zeal. It gave me an idea of the tremendous effect which his drive and energy and tireless passion for work had on all his subordinates, and I realised something of the fear which his attitude towards the slightest slackness or lack of zeal or energy inspired. I got through my business as expeditiously as I could and was back in Wushishi in time to pack and make all my preparations for my department the next day.
I had requested the Emir to send the 40 carriers to me at the bungalow at 10 o'clock, and by that hour I had everything packed, all the loads made ready, and had eaten a hearty breakfast so as to be thoroughly ready for my first march. My destination was a rest camp some 7 miles north of Zungeru and about 13 from Wushishi, the first halting place for all convoys and travellers starting for the north - Zaria, Kano, Katsina and so on - from the capital. Ten o'clock arrived, but no sign of carriers. I sent a messenger into Wushishi to make enquiries. He returned with a message from the Emir informing me that he was experiencing great difficulties in collecting carriers, but would send them over directly he could procure them. Hour succeeded hour, and I sent message after message, each one more peremptory than the last, but it was not till close on one o'clock next day that a crowd of about 40 natives arrived under an escort from the Emir, and my boys and I were all to distribute the loads between them and send them off to the rest camp. when I had seen all the carriers off and my boys with them, I locked up the bungalow, mounted my horse, and set out on my journey. It was intolerably hot, and the 27 hours delay in procuring the carriers had somewhat exasperated me, together with all the fuss and trouble of getting the assortment of loads distributed - each carrier not unnaturally rushed for the lightest and easiest looking load, and the hub-bub caused by this had lasted a good half hour before a start could be made. However I consoled myself by the thought that I had at least made a start and that if all went well I should be in Zaria in twelve days' time. The total distance, I knew, was almost 150 miles, and there were rest camps roughly ever 12 or 15 miles.
I rode at a leisurely pace, not more than 3 or 4 miles an hour for I wanted my boys and all the carriers to get into camp before me. If there chanced to be any stragglers, I decided, I could round them up. The road was nothing but a track running through the bush, and the scenery though monotonous was not unattractive. I had not been riding for more than an hour and a half, or possibly two hours, however, before I spied something lying on the track ahead of me - it was one of my wooden boxes of stores brought out from home. But there was no sign of a carrier. When I reached it I dismounted, and presently gave a shout, in case the carrier had laid down his load to have an afternoon snooze, and was somewhere nearby. No answer came however, and though I searched the bush all round I could find no signs of a carrier either awake or asleep, and I could not escape the conclusion that he had just laid down his load and down a bolt, probably back to his native village. There was no alternative but to ride on, and on reaching camp to send the Headman of the carriers back with one of the men to bring the load in. Before I had reached camp however I had come upon at least three more of my loads abandoned by the roadside, so when I reached camp between five and six in the evening I sent back the Headman of the carriers with 3 or 4 of the latter, and by nightfall the loads were all in.
It would be tiresome to tell the story of my twelve days on the march to Zaria and my constant trouble with deserting carriers. Poor devils, I didn't blame them, for I soon learnt that most of them were just villagers, farmers from a number of the Gwari and other villages around Wushishi. They had been impressed for this, to them, most distasteful job. The Emir of Wushishi had sent out messages to the Headmen of the surrounding villages, ordering them in the name of the whiteman (known in Hausa as the "Baturé" (pronounced Batooré) by which name I shall henceforth refer to him, as it is as universal through Northern Nigeria as the word "Sahib" is in India), to send in such and such a number of his villagers (the number demanded depending on the size of the village) to carry the Baturé's loads to Zaria. Now apart from their dislike of being used as carriers, the villagers had the strongest objection to leaving their villages just when the first rains were expected and they wanted to prepare their farms for the sowing of their crops. Naturally then, these simple villagers dropped their loads as soon as opportunity occurred, and made straight back to their farms. How I managed to get my 40 odd loads up to Zaria I can't precisely remember, but it gave me, a novice, a pretty bad headache. Sometimes I would get the Headman of one of the villages where the Rest Camps were, to give me a dozen or so men to carry my loads to the next village, where I would pay them off and let them return home at once. And about midway in my journey I came across a Sapper NCO in charge of a party erecting a telegraph line, and finding he had something like 100 professional carriers (some being Yorubas from Southern Nigeria) I asked him to dine with, gave him as good a dinner as my cook could manage, and as many whiskies and sodas as he wanted, and then got him to lend me 10 of his men to carry that number of loads - my personal necessities - to Zaria
Had it not been for this perpetual worry about carriers I should have enjoyed that twelve day march more than I can possibly say. The track wound its way for some distance through woods which threw welcome shadows across my path and over streams which at that season carried not more than a foot or two of water, rippling over their stony bed, but which my boys told me became raging torrents in the rainy season. At distances varying from about 12 miles to 20 or more, Government had constructed rest camps, if that is not too flattering a name to give them. They consisted merely of an open space cleared in the bush, with one large circular mud hut of the pattern I had come to know so well, with large thatched roof overhanging a mud-floored verandah, which was thus protected from sun and rain, and could accommodate all one's boxes and stores, and where one could have one's bed and mosquito net placed if one didn't care to sleep outside the hut. Behind this hut were a couple of small mud huts for use as kitchen and boys' sleeping quarters, while some distance away were a couple of rows of little conical huts of reeds for the carriers, in case of rain - otherwise they usually preferred to sleep on the ground out of doors, with a camp fire to keep the mosquitoes off.
On arrival at the Rest Camp one was met by a deputation of the Headmen (or Seriki as I shall henceforth call them) bringing a chicken or two, some eggs and possibly some sweet potatoes, for which one paid the prevalent price which was uncommonly small. The carriers would go off to the village and buy their own food. In the later afternoon I would probably go off with my gun in the hopes of getting a guinea-fowl or a partridge, either of which was always a welcome addition to one's larder. When darkness fell, my boy would bring in a huge kerosene tin full of hot water which he had been preparing for my bath, and I would enjoy the luxury, after the day's fatigues, of a glorious hot tub, then get into my pyjamas, pull on my mosquito boots, and in a short time my boy would bring me my dinner with the usual ceremonial announcement: "Chop lib for table" which basically means "Dinner (or any food) is on (i.e. it "lives for") the table! After dinner I would have my deck chair placed outside the hut, and wrapping a towel round my legs to keep off the mosquitoes, would light a pipe and read or write by the aid of a 'hurricane lamp' (burning kerosene), or I would just sit in the dark under the gorgeous canopy of stars, and cogitate. I never felt lonely, indeed I enjoyed the solitude. I found plenty to think about, and I was keyed up with the thrilling realisation that I was on my way to Zaria where I was to take over supreme charge of this new, large and important Province, and that it was up to me to call upon all the energy and imagination and experience and brains that I possessed to this tremendous task which had so unexpectedly been entrusted to me.
On the eleventh day after my departure from Wushishi we suddenly emerged from the thick bush through which we had been travelling, and there before me lay a great open plain with a few rocky hills in the far distance. I have seldom felt more excited in my life. Here, I thought, is Hausaland, of which I have read so much, and which Denham and Clapperton were the first Europeans to visit and to describe to the British Public after making their way to it from Tripoli across the vast Sahara Desert and returning by the same route nearly a hundred years previously. The town of Zaria could not, I was sure, be more than 30 miles ahead of me, and the great city of Kano lay, I knew eighty miles beyond it, while away to the north-west was Sokoto, and far to the north-east was the Province of Bornu, and Lake Tchad. The map shows Lake Tchad to be almost exactly half way between the east and west coasts of the vast landmass of Africa, itself some 4000 miles in width; and it lies roughly one third of the distance north and south - between Morocco and the Cape of Good Hope. I had indeed, I felt, attained the first part of my ambition - I had left the coast of Africa far behind and plunged into the very heart of the great Continent.
We arrived that afternoon at a village of considerable size, surrounded by a great mud wall some 20 feet high, after the fashion, I found later, of practically every town and village throughout Hausaland. I was met outside the gate by a handsome looking white bearded old man wearing a long white robe of local manufacture and a white turban, who introduced himself as the Seriki of the village. With his escort he led me into the town through the main gate, and presently we came to a large circular hut of the usual pattern which constituted the Resthouse in which travellers were accommodated. Here I found 2 or 3 natives awaiting me with the usual supply of chickens, eggs and sweet potatoes, and also, to my great delight, two or three ripe pawpaws - almost the best fruit I know, and not unlike a cantaloupe melon.
Next morning I was wakened just before the dawn by that stirring and melodious sound one hears in every moslem village, town or city throughout the world - the chant of the Muezzin who cries in liquid Arabic "Come to prayer, come to prayer. Prayer is better than sleep. God is great, and Mahomed is his Prophet." I must have heard this pre-dawn chant scores and scores of times in the many Mahomedan countries in which I have lived or through which I have travelled, but the voice of the muezzin has never failed to touch some emotional chord within me - I know not what it is - and when it ceases and silence falls once more, I find myself in the throes for a few seconds of some spiritual exaltation which I have never been able to understand or explain.
After my usual early breakfast I started off in high spirits, exhilarated by the thought that I was going to reach my destination that day, at last after my long journey up from the coast. The sky was a bright blue and the sun was hot, but the air was fresh and invigorating. The open plain through which the road lay was largely under cultivation, and in many places the inhabitants were already clearing the ground and making it ready for the sowing of their crops directly the first rains fell - and we were now, in mid-April, nearly at the end of the dry season. Presently I saw in the distance the great walls of a big town, and away to my left the rocky hills which I had seen in the dim distance the previous evening became clearer, and their shape, rising from the plain, reminded me forcibly of the Rock of Gibraltar as it stands out from the sea. Gradually their came into view some two miles west of the great walled town which I guessed rightly to be Zaria, a collection of mud-houses of various shapes and sizes, which presently turned out to be the Residence, and the headquarters of the newly raised regiment of Mounted Infantry, and before I had time to take it all in I had arrived and was being greeted by Popham Lobb. He showed me the way to a big rectangular mud hut which had been allocated to me, and to which I told my boys to have all my goods and stores taken, and he then invited me to another fair-sized rectangular hut which he said was "the mess". His own residence was the oddest-looking building I had ever seen, rather like a bulky tower, and built entirely of mud. It was his own design he said, and had been built under his personal supervision by a large batch of prisoners whom he had brought "as hostages" from a large pagan district in the south-east of the Province through which he had recently toured, taking with him a company of West African Field Force soldiers under a British officer. At the base of the tower was a big doorway through which one entered; from this one climbed up by a dark, winding circular ramp till one reached another doorway which gave access to a huge room, some 15 feet above the ground level. Openings in the wall formed windows, from which a good view of the surrounding country was available, including the walls of Zaria town, some two miles away. This room formed Lobb's sleeping room, sitting room and private office all in one. On the far side was a horizontal slit in the wall, about 6 inches wide, just alongside a solid table made of mud, on which scores of papers were spread out. He told me that a flight of rough steps cut in the outside of the mud wall of the house, led up from the ground to this slit, and by these steps all communications were brought to him and passed through the slit, no order or messenger, in fact no-one except his intimate friends or his boys, when he summoned them, being permitted to enter the building by way of the ramp. Thus he preserved his solitude and privacy. I may add that the circular ramp was so dark that one had to keep tapping the sides of the wall on either side with one's stick or one's hand to avoid running into the wall. The centre of this weird building was hollow, and infested by bats, whose squeaking was as obnoxious to me as their smell and their filth.
It was clear to me that Lobb was somewhat eccentric. In later years I came to know him well and a more complicated character I have seldom met, a truly extraordinary mixture of delightful characteristics with others which were very much to the reverse. He had an exceptionally good brain, and a great sense of humour. But his brain ran to theories rather than to practice, and he had a passion for writing long memoranda on administrative and other matters, excellent in their way, but rather unsuited to a new country like Nigeria (new to Europeans of course I mean), where rough and ready methods were essential at the outset, and rapid progress could only be achieved by constant trials and experiments which led in many cases to error, but more often to success. Lobb's treatment of the natives was in my opinion rather overbearing, and frequently imponderably harsh. He imagined, I fancy, that he could achieve order rapidly from chaos by the immediate introduction into a country steeped it its own traditions and for centuries cut off from all contact with the outside world, of modern views and European standards. And he was inclined to punish, and punish with, to my mind, undue severity, any actions which ran contrary to his own Public School ideas of what was right and wrong, although according to local standards and traditions they might be perfectly ethical and proper.
I need hardly say that I realised little or nothing of this on my first arrival at Zaria. My task was obviously to pick up as rapidly as I could the threads of administration; and as I was starting, so to speak, from scratch, I had to learn the ABC of civil administration from Lobb, and had little or no time to consider the validity or otherwise of the lessons I was trying hurriedly to learn, or to ponder on the qualifications of my teacher of ethics or his doctrines by which his own actions and conduct appeared to be guided.
Continued at Sir Charles Orr's Memoirs Volume 5
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