Chapter IV: The Life of the People—the Long-Distance Trader

A broad, sandy road, piercing a belt of shea trees, gnarled and twisted, their bark figured like the markings of a crocodile’s back, from which peculiarity you can distinguish the true shea from the so-called “false” shea, or African oak. From the burnt grasses, golden flowers destitute of leaf companionship peep timidly forth as though fearful of such uncongenial surroundings. The heat rays quiver over the thirsty soil, for it is Christmas time and no rain has fallen for nigh upon four months. On the summit of a blackened sapling, exquisite in its panoply of azure blue and pinkey-buff, a bird of the size of our English jay but afflicted with a name so commonplace that to mention it in connection with so glorious a visitant would be cruel, perches motionless, its long graceful tail feathers waving ever so slightly in the still air. The sun beats downward shrewdly, and combined with the gentle amble of the patient beast beneath you, induces drowsiness. You find yourself nodding in the saddle until the loosening grip of thighs jerks the rider once more into sentiency. It is hot, dreamily, lethargically hot. All the world seems comatose, the unfolding panorama unreal as if seen through a fog of visionary reverie. But there is nothing fanciful about the rapidly approaching cloud of dust ahead, which emits a swelling murmur of confused sound. It takes shape and substance, and for the next half-hour or so, drowsiness and heat are alike forgotten in the contemplation of a strange medley of men and animals. Droves of cattle, among them the monstrous horned oxen from the borders of Lake Chad, magnificent beasts, white or black for the most part. Flocks of Roman-nosed, short-haired, vacant-eyed sheep—white with black patches. Tiny, active, bright brown goats skipping along in joyful ignorance of impending fate. Pack-bullocks, loaded with potash, cloth, hides and dried tobacco leaves, culinary utensils, and all manner of articles wrapped in skins or in octagon-shaped baskets made of parchment, tight drawn in a wicker framework, which later—on the return journey—will be packed with kolas carefully covered with leaves. A few camels, skinny and patchy, and much out at elbows so to speak, similarly burdened. The drivers move among their beasts. Keeping in the rear, with lengthy staves outstretched over the animal’s back, they control any tendency to straggle across the road. Tall spare men, for the most part, these drivers, small-boned, tough and sinewy. Hausas mainly, good-featured, not unfrequently bearded men, often possessed of strikingly handsome profiles, with clean-shaven heads and keen cheerful looks. But many Tuaregs are here also from the far-distant north, even beyond the Nigerian border; their fierce eyes gleaming above the black veil drawn across the face, covering the head and falling upon the robe beneath, once white, now stained and rent by many weeks of travel. From the shoulders of these hang formidable, cross-handled swords in red-leather tasselled scabbards. Nor are the Hausas always innocent of arms, generally a sword. But here is a professional hunter who has joined the party. You can tell him from his bow held in the right hand and the quiver of reed-arrows barbed—and, maybe, poisoned—slung across his back. The legs of the men are bare to the knees, and much-worn sandals cover their feet. Some carry loads of merchandise, food and water-gourds; others have their belongings securely fastened on bullock or donkey. Women, too, numbers of them, splendid of form and carriage, one or both arms uplifted, balancing upon the carrying pad (_gammo_) a towering load of multitudinous contents neatly held together in a string bag. Their raiment is the raiment of antiquity, save that it has fewer folds, the outer gown, commonly blue in colour, reaching to just below the knees, the bosom not generally exposed, at least in youth, and where not so intended, gravely covered as the alien rides by; neck, wrists and ankles frequently garnished with silver ornaments. Many women bear in addition to the load upon the head, a baby on the back, its body hidden in the outer robe, its shiny shaven head emerging above, sometimes resting against the soft and ample maternal shoulders, sometimes wobbling from side to side in slumber, at the imminent risk, but for inherited robustness in that region, of spinal dislocation. Children of all ages, the elders doing their share in porterage, younger ones held by the hand (nothing can be more charming than the sight of a youthful Nigerian mother gladsome of face and form teaching the young idea the mysteries of head-carriage!). Two tired mites are mounted upon a patient ox, the father walking behind. A sturdy middle-aged Hausa carries one child on his shoulders, grasps another by the wrist, supporting his load with his free hand. A gay, dusty crowd, weary and footsore, no doubt, tramping twenty miles in a day carrying anything from forty to one hundred pounds; but, with such consciousness of freedom, such independence of gait and bearing! The mind flies back to those staggering lines of broken humanity, flotsam and jetsam of our great cities, products of our “superior” civilization, dragging themselves along the Herefordshire lanes in the hop-picking season! What a contrast! And so the trading caravan, bound for the markets of the south, for Lokoja or Bida—it may well be, for some of its units, Ibadan or Lagos—passes onwards, wrapped in its own dust, which, presently, closes in and hides it from sight.

(_Copyright._) (_Photo by Mr. E. Firmin._)]

Throughout the dry season the trade routes are covered with such caravans and with countless pedestrians in small groups or in twos or threes—I am told by men who have lived here for years and by the natives themselves, that while highway robbery is not unknown, a woman, even unattended (and I saw many such) is invariably safe from molestation—petty traders and itinerant merchants, some coming north loaded with kolas, salt and cloth, others going south with butchers’ provender, potash, cloth, grass, and leather-ware, etc., witness to the intensive internal commerce which for centuries upon centuries has rolled up and down the highways of Nigeria.