CHAPTER XIII

THE PRINCIPAL PRODUCTS OF NIGERIA

The difficulty in estimating the producing capacity of the enormous territory of Nigeria is not in stating what _natural_ products of economic value grow there, but what do not. Nigeria is the tit-bit of West Africa, and practically every form of vegetable growth peculiar to West Africa, or shared by West Africa with other and less favoured tropical portions of the globe, is to be found within its extensive limits. A soil of surpassing richness; numerous waterways, a prolific, industrious population—all the elements are there to make of Nigeria under wise management a second if smaller India, but an India unvisited by drought, or those fearful scourges which are so terrible a drawback to the internal prosperity of India; perchance a happier, richer India.

With the exception of the oil-palm industry, everything is in its earliest stages in Nigeria. Development is rudimentary. Deducting palm oil and kernels, the value of the whole of Nigeria’s exports in 1900—the only year available—amounted to the relatively small sum of £212,457. Rubber, ivory, timber, ground-nuts, fibres, coffee, cocoa, gum copal and shea butter are amongst the other products exported. The white sweet-smelling flowers of the rubber vine are one of the commonest sights in the forests of Nigeria. The tree, shrub and vine rubber are all met with. The value of rubber exported from Nigeria in 1900 was £137,289. It may increase to almost any figure if the authorities will but take warning by the sad experience of Lagos, enlist a brigade of trained rubber-workers to instruct the chiefs in the science of collecting, and prevent—which they can easily do—grossly adulterated rubber from leaving the country, and so preserve a high standard of quality, for, in the present sorry condition of the rubber market, low-class rubbers are almost unsaleable. Here, again, one is compelled to preach, if it be for the fiftieth time, co-operation between the officials and the merchants. In French Guinea, the evils of adulteration (for which, by the way, the merchants were, I am afraid, primarily responsible) have been successfully combated by a working partnership, so to speak. It is not necessary to impose restrictions upon the freedom of the native in collecting this product in his forests, but it is essential to maintain a _permanent_ staff of native rubber-collecting instructors. It would cost very little, and the experiment, if patiently and intelligently pursued, would give magnificent results.

Next in importance to rubber comes ivory, which, however, must be regarded as a temporary commerce. Almost the whole of the ivory trade of Nigeria hails from the Binue region, and for many years Yola was the principal buying depôt of the Niger Company, as much as forty tons being sometimes purchased there in the course of the year. The consequences of the Anglo-German Agreement of 1893 and the Franco-German Convention of 1894 are calculated to greatly diminish the trade. The ivory business is entirely in the hands of Hausa traders, who make, or used to make, most of their purchases in the famous markets of Banyo, N’Gaundere, and Tibati, carrying the teeth overland to the Binue and then conveying them across the river, to dispose of either at the Niger Company’s pontoon at Yola or factories at Ibi, Lake Bakundi, Lau, and Amageddi, or at Kano, where it was sold for cloth and found its way eventually to Europe, _viâ_ the desert route and Tripolitan ports. This is still done, but, for the reason stated, the volume of trade is almost certain to diminish as the years go on. When the ivory is sold to the Niger Company, English manufactured cloths are purchased in exchange, and this again is bartered by the Hausa traders against the superior article of native make in Kano. Sometimes salt, tobacco, copper-rods, and gunpowder are in request by the ivory traders, instead of cloth. It is always an open question with Hausa traders which pays them best, the single transaction if they sell direct at Kano, or the double transaction involved by sale to the Niger Company. The chief currency of these regions is now the cowry shell, and cowries have a native market price just like anything else; for example, a hundredweight of salt will equal 25 heads of cowries, or roughly 12_s_. 6_d_. When a tusk is brought to the factory it is weighed on a butchers’ steelyard. The tariff per pound is 10 heads of cowries. If the tusk weighs, say, 28 lb., it fetches 280 heads of cowries, about £7, or £560 per ton in barter goods, but the price actually paid for mixed ivory in the Binue has been under £500 per ton for many years past. The arrival of an ivory caravan is always the occasion for a great deal of excitement. Some of these caravans stretch over a mile in length. First comes the trader and his friends on horseback, followed by the trader’s wives and the various members of his household. Behind them come the slaves, weary and footsore (slaves of Hausas be it noted—not of Fulani), struggling under their valuable loads. The tusks are carried sometimes on the heads and sometimes upon the shoulders. Of course, these caravans can only travel in the dry season, for during the rains the long marches would be attended with enormous difficulty. There are plenty of tricks in the ivory trade, and our Hausa friend is very fond of putting heavy substances in the hollow of the tusks, knowing well that if he is undetected the increased weight will add to his profit. The Hausas call ivory “owry”[85] and elephants “giwa.” They very often bring the flesh of the animal, which fetches higher prices in the native markets than beef or mutton.

Gums, of which there exist many different kinds in Nigeria, also constitute a source of future riches. There is gum arabic (_Acacia senegalensis_) which oozes from the bark—much like sap from a venerable cherry—and the “copals” found in solidified, translucent lumps, by digging at the roots of acacias, and which sometimes fetch as much as £80 per ton on the European markets. Very beautiful some of these specimens are, varying in colour from pale lemon to deep orange-yellow, and clear as the finest amber. These graceful gum-trees form in many places a notable feature of Binue scenery, and abound in many parts of Bornu, and it is not an unusual circumstance for a Bornuese cavalcade, including several individuals wearing the old-world surcoats of chain armour which has so excited the interest and curiosity of travellers in that country, to arrive at a trading-station on the Upper Binue with a load of gum arabic for sale. The natives of Hamarua (Muri), too, are noted gum-collectors. As in the case of almost all Nigerian products, the absence of competition among European purchasers (the Niger Company, it must always be remembered, has been the sole trader in these regions) has hitherto prevented the natives from bringing in very large quantities of gum, and where ivory is to be got, it is hard to induce Hausas to go in for laborious gum collecting and picking. There can be little doubt whatever that the gum trade is susceptible of being increased to thousands of tons per annum. The supplies must be almost inexhaustive. After many years of assiduous collection, the Kauri pine forests of New Zealand still furnish 8,000 to 10,000 tons per annum of fossil gum, more or less similar to the West African “copals.” It can be said without fear of exaggeration that there are hundreds of thousands of tons of this valuable product in West Africa waiting to be dug up. One fine day the fact will be better realised than it is at present, and we may then expect to see a remarkable development in the product. Among other valuable trees freely growing in Nigeria, but of which the economic aspects have not yet been thoroughly studied, two at least deserve special attention. They are the Kedenia (Kedenya) or Shea-butter tree (_Butyrospermum_ or _Bassia parkii_[86]—the _beurre de Karité_ of the French), sometimes, and erroneously, called the tallow-tree, and the papain or paw-paw (_Carica papaya_). Shea butter has of late appeared as a regular if small export from the Niger.[87] Large forests of it are to be found in the Lagos hinterland, and also in Dahomey, where the French hope to exploit it when their railway enters the zone of production. Shea butter fetches about £24 to £26 per ton in Europe. It contains certain medicinal properties of a purgative nature, I believe, and is said to form a component part of the well-known Elliman’s Embrocation. By the inhabitants of Nigeria the butter of the Kedenia is held in high esteem, and is put to a number of varied uses: medicinally, for cooking purposes, &c. The Fulani dose their horses internally with it, and also rub it on the sores which the cumbrous high-peaked saddles of the country frequently produce on the backs of their steeds. The Kanuri, or Bornuese, use it to light their lamps with, and other tribes believe it to be a sure cure for rheumatism. There seems to be a possibility of the shea-butter tree being put to a second use; recent experiments have shown that the latex furnished by this tree contains properties similar to gutta-percha.[88] The butter- or tallow-tree (_Pendatesma butyracæ_), which is often confounded with the shea-butter tree, is an entirely different tree, belonging to the genus _Guttifera_, whereas the shea butter is of the genus _Sapotacæ_. The French appear to have been the first to make any economic use of this tree, and for the first time last year, when a trial shipment of nuts was forwarded from Conakry to Marseilles by the leading French firm of merchants in the former place. The nuts when crushed were found to yield a valuable oil possessing ingredients which render it particularly applicable for the manufacture of candles. That wise and brilliant administrator, the late Dr. Ballay, Governor-General of French West Africa, left a legacy of priceless worth behind him in the shape of officials reared in his school and imbued with his sentiments, and M. Cousturier, the present very able Governor of French Guinea, has taken up this subject of the tallow-tree nut—“lamy” as it is called—most energetically, in co-operation with the council of merchants established in that Colony. My latest information on the subject is that further shipments of “lamy” nuts from French Guinea have taken place to Marseilles, Hamburg, and Bremen, and that the prospects of disposing of the nuts to seed-crushers at remunerative prices is assured. It remains to be seen whether the nut can be produced in adequate quantities in French Guinea. I have not been able to positively ascertain whether the tallow-tree occurs in Nigeria, but there is every probability that it does, and if so, it will be another vegetable product of value to be added to Nigeria’s long list.[89]

Seldom is it that on village market-days in Nigeria the golden pear-shaped fruit of the _paw-paw_ does not appear for sale. The natives look upon paw-paw fruit in the double light of a delicacy and article of considerable utility. The juicy milk of the fruit, and the large, handsome leaves contain the singular property of making hard meat tender, a peculiarity which has given rise to many “travellers’ tales” on the coast. The toughest steak is rendered soft and agreeable to the palate by being rubbed with the juice of the paw-paw, or wrapped round in its leaves. The active principle of the dried juice of the paw-paw is somewhat akin in nature to pepsin, and is regularly used as a substitute for the latter in France and Germany. So far, the demand is small, but there seems every likelihood that it will increase. In connection with the future development of the paw-paw in Nigeria, it is interesting to note that a small factory for the preparation of pepsin from this fruit has been established within recent years in the Island of Montserrat. In addition to the trees already mentioned, the kola (_Sterculia acuminata_, sometimes termed the _Sterculia cola_), the gutta-percha, the giant baobab (_Adansonia digitata_) or monkey bread-fruit tree, and the bamboo palm (_Raphia vinifera_) must be briefly touched upon. The kola-nut is to the Fulani, the Hausa, the Kanuri, the Songhay, &c., what coffee is to the Arab and opium to the Chinese—a never-failing panacea. So indispensable is the kola to the daily existence of the native of Northern Nigeria, so enormous the demand, that the Hausa journeys thousands of miles to the districts of the Niger bend (the Gold Coast hinterland chiefly), and even to the Gambia hinterland and the valley of the Senegal, to barter his blue cottons for this much-sought-after fruit. European science will, no doubt, eventually succeed in so improving the quality of the Nigerian kola as to make these long journeys yearly less necessary. Kola plantations should then become a lucrative feature of Nigerian industry.

Gutta-percha is as valuable an article of commerce, and as greatly in demand for European manufactures, as rubber itself. In Nigeria gutta-percha is collected immediately the rainy season is over, the sap at that time of year flowing more freely from the tree. In coagulating, the milk assumes a reddish tinge.

The baobab has been aptly termed the monarch of the African vegetable kingdom. From the bark of the _kuka_, as the Hausas call it, excellent ropes and strings for musical instruments are fashioned, while the fruit, when crushed and dried, furnishes the natives with an excellent substitute for sponges.

[Illustration: A BAOBAB

THE GIANT OF WEST AFRICAN FLORA]

Vast groves of the bamboo palm (_R. vinifera_) exist in many parts of Southern Nigeria, and although but little utilised at present, experiments have demonstrated that the fibre derived from the branches of this palm is capable of producing an excellent and durable bass[90] somewhat similar in quality to that which is obtained from the allied spices, the _Raffia ruffia_ of Madagascar, the demand for which on the European market is already extensive.

Date palms, dum palms, and cocoa-nut palms, lemons, bananas, plantains, sweet potatoes, yams, sugar-cane, hemp, tobacco, benni seed,[91] pepper, cassada, castor seed, capaiva—Nigeria produces all these in more or less abundance, according to the locality, and also ground-nuts and large quantities of capsicums (red pepper). The valuable indigo plant is widely cultivated by Hausas and Fulani, and Kano owes much of its wealth to the dyeing industry carried on by the natives. The native-woven Kano cloth, dyed a deep indigo blue, is renowned all over Northern, Western and Central Africa. With European skill, the cultivation of indigo in Nigeria may possibly have a future before it, although the present outlook is not encouraging.

The cotton shrub grows luxuriantly in Northern Nigeria, and the cloth manufactured from it by the natives can favourably compare, for durability and fineness of texture, with the best Manchester article. There may yet be a great cotton industry in Nigeria, but the subject of cotton cultivation in West Africa is sufficiently large to justify a special chapter.

Ebony, mahogany and other valuable cabinet woods abound in the enormous untapped forests of Southern Nigeria, and if no peddling restrictions are placed upon the development of the timber industry, it should reach large proportions. Sapelli is beginning to have some importance as the foremost port of shipment for Southern Nigeria timber.

Nigeria also produces cereals in plenty, such as maize or Indian corn, millet, rice, barley, guinea corn, gero, &c., and on the high plateaux coffee, tea, and perhaps vanilla could be grown.

As far as minerals are concerned, silver,[92] tin, antimony and stone potash[93] are known to exist in several parts of Nigeria, but none of them, save the latter, have been worked. When the country has been better explored and surveyed, gold and copper may also be found (small quantities of gold dust are sometimes sold by the Kanuri to Fezzan and Ghadamseen merchants), but their presence in any extent is at present problematical.

Tin is known to exist up the Binue, and an English Syndicate has been formed to explore and report upon the tin-bearing possibilities of certain districts. The Niger Company are about to start prospecting operations, and the Germans are also said to be studying the same subject at Garua.

Such, briefly enumerated, are the chief natural products of Nigeria, the most fertile and prolific portion of the Central African Continent, towards which has gravitated a commercial movement from north, east and west for centuries past. Such eminent authorities, in their respective ways, as Barth, Nachtigal, Monteil, Thomson, &c., speak in terms of unbounded admiration of the fruitfulness and the beauty of these regions, and all the information brought by travellers and explorers of lesser importance only tends to confirm the assertion of the great geographer Reclus, that the countries of the Chad Basin are the richest in Africa.