CHAPTER XIV

RUBBER-COLLECTING IN NIGERIA

I have already briefly alluded to the vegetable products of Nigeria. The collection of rubber, however, presents many features of interest, and deserves more extended treatment.

Of late years the West African rubber industry has grown enormously. In some cases the increase has been phenomenal. The Niger Coast Protectorate and the Gold Coast have within the space of six years more than doubled their rubber exports. The performance of Lagos has been still more remarkable, although unfortunately the wastefulness, or perhaps it would be fairer to say the lack of scientific knowledge on the part of the natives in tapping the trees and vines, has led to a notable falling off in production during the last three years. It seems evident that Western Africa may in time rival Brazil as the rubber-producing country of the world.

The rubber found in West Africa is of various kinds. The place of honour, so far as our own Colonies are concerned, may be given to the rubber-tree properly so-called, _Kickxia Africana_ (the “Ere” or “Ireh” of the natives), and a beautiful tree it is, springing up clean and smooth to a height of sixty feet. Then come various species of _Ficus_, and last, but not least, the _Landolphias_, or rubber-vines.

In Nigeria rubber is found, roughly speaking, from Abutshi, 120 miles up the river Niger, as far as Jebba on the Niger and Yola on the Binue. We will suppose that a rubber-collecting expedition has been decided upon by the inhabitants of some village fifteen or twenty miles from the river side (rubber in Nigeria is scarce on the actual river banks).

Soon after dawn all the available men and women gather together—a light-hearted, jabbering crowd. Extraordinary animation reigns throughout the village. The ground is strewn with the implements necessary to the rubber-collector’s art, and with the victuals essential to the sustenance of his body while the work is being pursued. They include such varied articles as calabashes, “matchets,” knives, dried yam in bags, and fresh water in bottles which once contained that delectable, throat-peeling liquid known as Hamburg gin. Mingled with them, in apparently hopeless confusion, numerous spears and flint-lock guns lie scattered. There is generally something or other on the prowl in an African forest in the shape of leopards, or “humans,” or spirits—and it is just as well to be prepared for any emergency. Hence these warlike accompaniments, calculated to deceive the inexperienced into a belief that raiding and not rubber is in question.

Through the village and beyond it, passing plantations of millet, yams, Indian corn and cassava, winds the caravan, until the fringe of the forest looms near. Then, abruptly parting with the bright sunlight and the waving fields, we plunge headlong into an atmosphere of gloomy, fantastic weirdness, and disappear amid the silent shadows of the giant trees. By this time the caravan is reduced to single-file formation. It has stretched out for a mile or more along the narrow curling path, which often takes the form of an almost complete circle, those who compose its extreme rear being within hailing distance of the leaders, while between the two extremities and the centre is a broad belt of impenetrable bush. And what a solemnity broods over all! Everything is hushed. The bare feet of the natives sink noiselessly on generations of fallen, rotting leaves. The air is damp, humid, and enervating. We glide along in the semi-religious light as though oppressed by some vast, undefined, awesome presence. It is a world of great black shadows and mysterious depths; and within it the soul shrinks and falters beneath a weight of indescribable, all-potent, unnerving melancholy. A hot breath, laden with sickly and overpowering perfume, rises in stifling gusts till the brain reels, and you long with a great yearning for air and light and waving fields. And then, suddenly, a glimpse of Paradise. Shattered by lightning, or perchance, riddled by the larvæ of some monstrous coleoptera, a forest giant has tumbled headlong, tearing by the impetus of his fall a great rent in the sombre dome above, through which, though chastened and subdued, the sun’s rays filter down upon the path beneath. There, in that temporary clearing, Nature seems to have lavished all her gifts. Festoons of glorious orchids stretch out their capricious blooms, asking to be plucked. The wild tamarind, with its exquisite, plum-coloured, plush-like fruit, invites the touch. Round flowers and fruit flutter countless brilliantly coloured butterflies, and the glimpse of a deep tropical blue, far, far overhead, completes the fairy sight. No palm-fringed oasis among shifting sands can be more blessed to the traveller than these gem-like clearings amid the sullen gloom of the tropical forests of Western Africa.

But to return, with apologies for this digression, to our rubber-collectors. No sooner has the member of a caravan—every one acts, as a rule, independently of his fellow—pitched upon a spot which seems propitious, than down comes the load off his head. A little preliminary in the shape of refreshment is ever conducive to good labour, so recourse is had to the _ci-devant_ gin-bottle and the dried yams. These inner cravings having been satisfied, the rubber-collector makes with his “matchet” a number of transverse incisions in the bark of an adjacent rubber-tree, or vine,[94] as the case may be; hangs his calabashes (empty gourds) beneath the cruel rent, sees that the sap is running; looks round for more trees, makes more incisions, hangs up more calabashes; and then, feeling fully satisfied with his labours, casts himself down upon the ground and lies there awhile, heedless of the crawling legions of the insect fraternity. Every now and then he will lazily rise and make the round of the trees he has tapped, to assure himself that the sap is flowing freely into the calabashes. A really good workman will collect three or four pounds of rubber a day, so that, taking an average of, say, two pounds for each individual, a caravan numbering one hundred and fifty souls will gather a considerable quantity of the stuff in a comparatively short time. The sap is then boiled in an iron pot to make it coagulate, salt and lime being sometimes added to help the process of solidification. It is then rolled into balls. When the calabashes are full the homeward march begins.

The home-coming of the caravan is marked by congratulations on the part of those who stayed behind, and every proud owner of a calabash or two of rubber recounts to the members of an admiring household the wild and terrible adventures (in the shape of spooks, leopards, and what not) which have befallen him in the forest.

The last stage in the business, so far as the native is concerned, has then to be carried out. The rubber having been collected, it must be sold. So off goes the collector to the nearest trading station with the spoil. Now, if the commercial ways of the Heathen Chinee are dark, the ways of the Heathen son of Ham are much the same on occasion. The rubber, he knows, is bought by weight. Primitive reasoning convinces him that if he rolls his rubber round a stone or bullet, not only will the ball weigh more, but he will be able to make more balls out of the rubber he has collected. The consequence is that the European trader, when he cuts the rubber ball in two (being used to these little pranks), frequently comes across a stone, bullet, or other heavy substance embedded in the centre, to the unbounded astonishment, needless to remark, of our friend the collector, who cannot for the life of him understand who placed it there, and asserts, with much emphasis and gesticulation, that only a ju-ju or spirit of the most depraved character could have played an honest man so low-down a trick.

[Illustration: WASHING RUBBER]

When the rubber has finally passed into the white trader’s hands, after the preliminary native preparation, it is still found to contain a large proportion of water (about 10[95] per cent.) and emits a most disagreeable odour. This water has to be ejected before the rubber is fit for the European market. The balls or cakes are therefore placed in a pressing machine, resembling an ordinary mangle, then cleaned of the impurities which may still remain, and finally cut into strips, soaked in sea-water to prevent “sweating,” and shipped in wooden casks.[96]

The rubber trade of Nigeria is only in its infancy, and the advent of competitive private enterprise into the Niger territories should have the effect of stimulating the industry to a notable extent.

The unfortunate destruction of the rubber trees and vines in the Lagos forests has been instrumental in producing a _furor_ of restrictive legislation on the part of the authorities. There is grave doubt as to whether this method of approaching the subject is not mistaken and likely to defeat its own ends. It is incongruous, to say the least of it, to first of all encourage the native to exploit a new product, to give him no scientific instruction or training in the process, and then, when the inevitable happens, to express great indignation at his villainous capacity for mischief, and frame legislation calculated to interfere with his free use of his own property! It is not the general custom of the native to destroy a product out of which he makes money. In the case of the oil-palm, in the usage of which they have been long accustomed, the native chiefs themselves legislate against over-tapping, witness the “porroh” of the Mendis. It is a matter of instruction. It is notorious that the crisis in the Lagos rubber industry is entirely attributable to the gross foolishness displayed by the authorities in the first instance in not taking the necessary means to teach the natives the art of rational production. What is wanted is the creation of small centres of instruction in every district, where the natives could come for information, where various products could be shown, tested and commented upon. The official in charge would have no powers whatever conferred upon him in a political sense, but would be connected, of course, with the Government. His duty would be that of instructor, supervisor, guide, and assistant. He would certainly be welcomed by the chiefs, so long as they were assured that his _rôle_ was entirely divorced from political designs. The experience would cost very little, and the benefits accruing therefrom, both as regards the perfecting of existing native industries and the stimulation of new ones, would be considerable, and would do away with the necessity, or alleged necessity, of subsequent legislation of an irritating character. A little more of that sort of thing and a little less blood-letting and “murder of native institutions,” as Miss Kingsley used to put it, in order to improve them, would be very desirable.