Chapter XXIV: Appendix: I (4)

From this date Ja Ja never looked back, becoming the most popular chief in Bonny amongst the white men, and the idol of his own people, but looked upon with jealousy by the Manilla Pepple House, to which belonged the successful slave, Oko Jumbo, who was now, both in riches and power, the equal of Ja Ja, though never his equal in popularity amongst the Europeans. Though there was a king in Bonny, and Warribo was the head of the Manilla House, _id est_, the king's House, Oko Jumbo and Ja Ja were looked upon by every one as being the rulers of Bonny. The demon of jealousy was at work, and in the private councils of the Manilla House it was decided that Ja Ja must be pulled down, but the only means of doing it was a civil war. The risks of this Oko Jumbo, Warribo and the king did not care to face, as though the Oko Jumbo party was most numerous, each side was equally supplied with big guns and rifles up to a short time before the end of 1868, when two European traders, on their way home, picked up a number of old 32 lb. carronades at Sierra Leone, and shipped the same down to Oko Jumbo. This sudden accession of war material, of course, put him in a position to provoke Ja Ja, and he cast about for a _causus belli_, but Ja Ja was an astute diplomatist, and managed to steer clear of all his opponent's pitfalls. A very small matter is often seized upon by natives as a means to provoke a war, and in this case the cause of quarrel was found in "that a woman of the Annie Pepple House had drawn water from some pond belonging to the Manilla Pepple House." This was thought quite sufficient. A most insulting message was sent to Ja Ja, intimating that the time had come when nothing but a fight could settle their differences. His reply was characteristic of the man; he reminded them that he had no wish to fight, was not prepared, and, furthermore, that neither he, nor they, had paid their debts to the Europeans. The latter part of the message was too much for an irascible, one-eyed old fighting chief named Jack Wilson Pepple, so off he marched to his own house, and fired the first round shot into the Annie Pepple part of the town, and civil war was commenced. It was a bit overdue, the last having taken place in 1855. As a rule, they come round about every ten years, like the epidemics of malignant bilious fever of the coast.

The Annie Pepple House was not slow to reply, but Ja Ja knew he was over-matched, both in guns and numbers of fighting men, so he only kept up a semblance of a fight sufficiently long to allow him to make a retreat to a small town called Tombo, in the next creek to the Bonny creek, only about three miles from Bonny by water, less by land.

From here he was in a better position to parley with his opponents, and make terms if possible, but he soon saw that no arrangement less than the complete humiliation of himself and people was going to satisfy his enemies, for besides the jealousy of Oko Jumbo, the young King George Pepple, son of the gentleman who had been to England and brought out the European suite, had not forgotten that the Annie Pepple house, represented by the late Elolly, had been the chief opponents of his late father when he returned to Bonny in 1861 after his exile.

This young man had been educated in England, and I must say did credit to whoever had had charge of his education. He both spoke and wrote English correctly, and had his father been able to hand over to him the kingship as he had received it in 1837, he might have blossomed into a model king in West Africa; but, alas! the only thing he inherited from his father beyond the kingship was debt--king only in name, receiving only so much of his dues as the principal chiefs liked to allow him, not having the means of being a large trader, looked upon with scant favour by the Europeans, and owing to his English education lacking the rude ability of such men as Oko Jumbo and Ja Ja to make a position for himself, he became but a puppet in the hands of his principal chiefs; a fate, I am afraid, which has generally befallen the native of these parts who has attempted to retain any of the teachings of Christianity on his return amongst his pagan brethren.

Few people can understand the reason of this. It is simply another proof of the wonderful power of Ju-Ju amongst these people, for it is to that occult influence that I trace the general ill-success of the educated native of the Delta in his own country,--unless he returns to all the pagan gods of his forefathers, and until he does so many channels of prosperity are completely closed to him.

I am afraid I have wandered a little from my subject, but in doing so I hope I have made some things clear that otherwise might have appeared a little mixed from an European point of view, so will now return to Ja Ja.

From Tombo Town Ja Ja communicated with the Bonny Court of Equity, and a truce was arranged, native meetings followed, and after several weeks of palavering, no better terms were offered Ja Ja than had before been offered to him. The white men interested themselves in the matter, and held meetings innumerable, until at last they were as divided as the natives. With the exception of one or two at the outside, they understood so little of the occult workings of native squabbles that they could do little to smooth matters over. In the meantime, Ja Ja had been studying a masterly plan of retreat from Tombo Town to a river called the Ekomtoro, also called the Rio Conde in ancient maps.

Once in this river, by fortifying two or three points he would be able to completely turn the tables on his enemies by barring their way to the Eboe markets, but to get there he would have to pass one, if not two, fortified points held by the Manilla Pepple people. Besides this, what would his position be when there, if he could not get any white men there to trade with? Luckily for him, there dropped from the clouds the very man he wanted. This was a trader named Charley, who had been in the Bonny River some years before, and was now established at Brass on his own account. At an interview with Ja Ja, that did not last half an hour, the whole plan of campaign was arranged. Charley returned to Brass and confided the scheme to his friend, Archie McEachan, who decided to join him. Thus Ja Ja had the certainty of support in his new home if he could only get there, and get there he did.

Being shortly after joined by these two white traders trade was opened in the Ekomtoro, and on Christmas Day, 1870, Ekomtoro was named the [)O]p[)o]b[=o] River, after [)O]p[)o]b[=o], the founder of the town of "Grand Bonny," as Bonny men delight to call their mud and thatch capital.

The name of [)O]p[)o]b[=o] was chosen by Ja Ja himself. To students of the peculiar relationship existing between a bought slave and his master, the latter looked up to and called father by his slave, this choice of the name of a man who had been a great man in his father's house, _id est_, his master's, demonstrates in a striking manner the veneration a bought slave, under the system of domestic slavery in these parts, in many cases displays, equalling in every respect that of the free-born direct descendant.

The tables were now turned with a vengeance, and Ja Ja remained the master of the position, and for several years kept the Bonny men out of the Eboe and Qua markets; eventually agreeing to have the differences between himself and the Manilla Pepple people settled by the arbitration of the New Calabar and the Okrika chiefs with Commodore Commerell and Mr. Charles Livingstone, Her Britannic Majesty's Consul for the Bights of Benin and Biafra, as referees.

Evidently the arbitrators considered that Ja Ja was in no way to blame for the civil war that had taken place in Bonny, for in the division of the markets that had been common property when Ja Ja and his people had formed an integral part of the Bonny nation, the greater part was given to Ja Ja and his right to remain where he had established himself fully recognised.

Immediately on this settlement being come to, Her Britannic Majesty's Consul entered into a commercial treaty with Ja Ja recognising him as King of Opobo. This treaty was signed January 4th, 1873, the deed of arbitration having been signed the day previous.

In giving my readers the history of this man up to this point, I have always had in my mind the question of domestic slavery, being anxious to give its most favourable side as fair an exposition as its unfavourable.

I have in previous pages mentioned some of the latter, but those remarks only dealt with the early stages of the slave's condition after capture in the interior and his risks of arriving alive at his destination. I have now to deal with him as a chattel of one of the petty chiefs, chiefs or kings of Western Africa, admitting that his chances of improving his condition are manifold, his life until he gets his foot on the first rung of the ladder of advancement is terrible; he never knows from one moment to another when he may be re-sold, he is badly fed, in fact, some masters never feed their slaves at all when they are not actually employed pulling a canoe or doing other labour such as making farm, cutting sticks for house-building, &c. Failing these employments, the slave has all his time to himself. His chances of putting this time to any profit are very few in the Oil Rivers; and should he by chance get some employment from a white man, his owner takes good care to receive his pay, the only thing the slave getting out of it being three full meals a day for a few days, making the starvation fare he is accustomed to the harder to bear afterwards. Were it not for their adopted mother, _id est_, the woman they are given to on being bought, their state would be absolutely unbearable in times of forced idleness; but these women almost invariably have considerable affection for their numerous adopted children, and though their means may be very limited, they generally manage to supply them with at least one meal a day in return for the many little services they perform for them, such as fetching water, carrying firewood in from the bush, selling their few fowls and eggs to the white men, and doing any other little matter of trade for them.

Even those slaves who have been lucky enough to fall into the hands of a master who sees that they at least do not starve, have along with their less lucky brethren to put up with the ungovernable fits of temper which some of these black slave owners display at times, in many cases inflicting the most terrible punishment for trivial offences, as often as not only on suspicion that the slave was guilty. Amongst the numerous punishments I have known inflicted are the following.

Ear cutting in its various stages, from clipping to total dismemberment; crucifixion round a large cask; extraction of teeth; suspension by the thumbs; Chilli peppers pounded and stuffed up the nostrils, and forced into the eyes and ears; fastening the victim to a post driven into the beach at low water and leaving him there to be drowned with the rising tide, or to be eaten by the sharks or crocodiles piecemeal; heavily ironed and chained to a post in their master's compound, without any covering over their heads, kept in this state for weeks, with so little food allowed them that cases have been known where the irons have dropped off them, but they, poor wretches, were too weak to escape, as they had been reduced to living skeletons; impaling on stakes; forcing a long steel ram rod through the body until it appeared through the top of the skull. The above are a few of the punishments that even to this day are practised, not only in the Niger Delta, but in the outlying districts of the West African colonies. It is very rare that the Government officials get to know anything about them; and when they do, it is difficult to procure a conviction owing to the fear natives have to come forward and act as witnesses.

Besides the punishments enumerated above, there are many others, some of which are too horrible to be described here.

One often hears people who know a little about West Africa talk about native law, but they forget to mention, if they happen to know it, that in a powerful chief's house there is only one exponent of the law, and that is the chief; for him native law only begins to have effect when it is a matter between himself and some other chief, or a combination of chiefs, whose power is equal or superior to his own.

As an instance of the form which native justice (?) sometimes takes, I will relate what took place some years ago in one of the oil rivers. An old and very powerful chief had a young wife of whom he was immoderately jealous. Amongst his favourite attendants was a young male slave, a mere boy, to whom he had given many tokens of his favour; but the demon of jealousy whispered to him that his young slave boy was looked upon with too much favour by his young wife--herself little more than a child. That a slave of his should dare to cast his eyes on his wife was more than this terrible old chief could stand, so he decided to put an end at once to the love dreams of his slave, and at the same time point out to any other enterprising slave of his how dangerous it was to aspire to the forbidden favours of a chief's wife. So he ordered his young wife to cook him a specially good palm oil chop, a native dish of great repute, for his breakfast the following morning. The next morning when he sat down to his breakfast his favourite slave was behind his chair in attendance; his young wife was present to see her lord and master was properly served--the wives do not sit at table with their husbands--when suddenly the chief turned in his chair and ordered his young slave to sit at table with him. Naturally the slave hesitated to accept such an unheard-of honour as to sit at table with his master; quickly scenting something terrible was going to befall him, he attempted to leave the apartment, but other slaves quickly barred his way, and he was brought back trembling with fright, the beads of perspiration rolling down his face and body in little rivulets, and placed in a chair opposite his master, who, all this time had not displayed any signs of anger; gradually the boy began to regain somewhat his scattered senses. Finding his master displayed no signs of anger, he began to do as he was ordered, the chief at the same time plied him with repeated doses of spirits, till at last the boy began to chatter, and attacked the food with a will. At length, having eaten and drunk till he could scarcely stand, his master asked him had he enjoyed his young mistress's cooking. On his replying yes, the chief called for a revolver, and telling him it was the last thing he ever would enjoy of his young mistress, he emptied the six chambers of the revolver into the poor lad's head; then having ordered his body to be thrown into the river, went on with the usual occupations of the day, never having once mentioned the reason of his act to his people nor explaining his meaning to his young wife.

To the native mind the chief's actions spoke as plainly as possible; but not having spoken, his wife's family could not, had they wished, have made a palaver about his wife's good fame; for though the chief was originally a bought slave or nigger himself, his young wife was country free, her family being sufficiently powerful to have made things uncomfortable for him if he had accused her without proof of guilt. Had she been a slave, the chances are she would have been slaughtered.

I do not wish to convey to my readers the idea that all chiefs in the Niger Delta are cruel monsters, but they all have power of life and death over their slaves; the mildest of them occasionally may find themselves so placed that they are compelled in conformity with some Ju-Ju right to sacrifice a slave or two. The ordinary punishments for theft and insubordination practised amongst these people are often terribly cruel and unnecessarily severe.

Of course the Government of the Niger Coast Protectorate is steadily breaking down these savage customs, wherever and whenever they hear of them being practised within their jurisdiction; but the formation of the country, the dense forests, and the superstition of the people, all assist in keeping most cases from coming to their knowledge.

Before taking leave of the Bonny people, I must not omit to mention that the custom of destroying twin children and children who had the misfortune to be born with teeth was, and is, a custom still observed amongst them. Another custom prevalent amongst these people, and common more or less to all other natives in the Delta, was the destroying of any woman if she became the mother of more than four children.

ANDONI RIVER AND ITS INHABITANTS.

This river lies a few miles to the east of Bonny River. The inhabitants of the lower part of the river are called Andoni men, and during the slave-dealing days these people were as well known to Europeans as the Bonny men, but, owing in a great measure to the much deeper water at the entrance to Bonny River than was to be found on the Andoni bar, the former river offering thus more facilities for deep-draughted ships, the traders gradually deserted the Andoni altogether, though these people were, I believe, the original owners of the land now claimed by the Bonny people as forming the Bonny kingdom. The Andoni men, being deserted by the European traders, gradually became a race of fishermen and small farmers. The Bonny men, having become the dominant race, and not allowing the Andonis any intercourse with the white traders in their river, the Andoni men protested against this treatment, and waged war against the Bonny men on many occasions in the early part of this century. The last war between these two peoples continued for some years; the Bonny men not always getting the best of these encounters, were very glad to come to terms with them in 1846, a treaty being then signed between the two tribes, wherein the Andoni men were secured equal rights with the Bonny men, but the commercial enterprise of these people seems to have died out. Yet the King of Doni Town, as their principal town is called in old maps, was reported by traders, who visited him in 1699, as being a man of some intelligence, speaking the Portuguese language fluently, and having some knowledge of the Roman Catholic faith, yet still adhering to all the customs of Ju-Juism, furthermore describing the people as being such implicit believers in their Ju-Ju that they would kill any one who touched any of the idols in their Ju-Ju house.

This may have been true at the time, but about five and twenty years ago I visited the town of Doni, as also their Ju-Ju house, and handled some of their idols, and they showed no irritation at my so doing. I had, of course, asked permission to do so of the Ju-Ju man who was showing me round. I have no doubt they would resent any one interfering with them without their permission. When I visited these people they gave me the idea that they had never seen a white man, or had any communication with him, for I vainly searched for any evidence that the white man had ever been established in their river. From all I was able to gather of their manners and customs I found that they differed little from any of their neighbours, though they are always described by interested parties as being inveterate cannibals and dangerous people for strangers to visit.

OPOBO RIVER.

After leaving Andoni, and continuing down the coast some ten or fifteen miles, the Opobo discharges itself into the sea. This river, marked in ancient maps as the Rio Conde and Ekomtoro, is the most direct way to the Ibo palm-oil-producing country.

This river was well known to the Portuguese and Spanish slave traders, but as Bonny became the great centre for the slave trade, this river was completely deserted and forgotten to such an extent that, though an opening in the coast line was shown on the English charts where this river was supposed to be, it was never thought worth the trouble of naming, and remained quite unknown to the English traders until it came suddenly into repute, owing to Ja Ja establishing himself here in 1870.

The people here are the Bonny men and their descendants who followed Ja Ja's fortunes, therefore their manners and customs are identical with those of Bonny.

The physical appearance of these people is somewhat better than that of the Bonny men, owing, I think, to the position of their town, which is built on a better soil, and raised a few feet higher than that of Bonny from the level of the river, also their uninterrupted successful trade since their arrival in this country has doubtless not a little contributed to their improved condition, while, on the other hand, the Bonny men suffered severely during the years from 1869 to 1873, owing to Ja Ja barring their way to the markets, and they seem never to have recovered themselves.

Trading stations of the white men are at the mouth of the river and at Eguanga, the latter a station a few miles above Opobo town.

Opobo became, under King Ja Ja's firm rule, one of the largest exporting centres of palm oil in the Delta, and for years King Ja Ja enjoyed a not undeserved popularity amongst the white traders who visited his river, but a time came when the price of palm oil fell to such a low figure in England that the European firms established in Opobo could not make both ends meet, so they intimated to King Ja Ja that they were going to reduce the price paid in the river, to which he replied by shipping large quantities of his oil to England, allowing his people only to sell a portion of their produce to the white men. The latter now formulated a scheme amongst themselves to divide equally whatever produce came into the river, and thus do away with competition amongst themselves. Ja Ja found that sending his oil to England was not quite so lucrative as he could wish, owing to the length of time it took to get his returns back, namely, about three months at the earliest, whilst by selling in the river he could turn over his money three or four times during that period. He therefore tried several means to break the white men's combination, at last hitting upon the bright idea of offering the whole of the river's trade to one English house. The mere fact of his being able to make this offer shows the absolute power to which he had arrived amongst his own people. His bait took with one of the European traders; the latter could not resist the golden vision of the yellow grease thus displayed before him by the astute Ja Ja, who metaphorically dangled before his eyes hundreds of canoes laden with the coveted palm oil. A bargain was struck, and one fine morning the other white traders in the river woke up to the fact that their combination was at an end, for on taking their morning spy round the river through their binoculars (no palm oil trader that respects himself being without a pair of these and a tripod telescope, for more minute observation of his opponents' doings) they saw a fleet of over a hundred canoes round the renegade's wharf, and for nearly two years this trader scooped all the trade. The fat was fairly in the fire now, and the other white traders sent a notice to Ja Ja that they intended to go to his markets. Ja Ja replied that he held a treaty, signed in 1873, by Mr. Consul Charles Livingstone, Her Britannic Majesty's Consul, that empowered him to stop any white traders from establishing factories anywhere above Hippopotamus Creek, and under which he was empowered to stop and hold any vessel for a fine of one hundred puncheons of oil. In June, 1885, the traders applied to Mr. Consul White, who informed King Ja Ja that the Protectorate treaty meant freedom of navigation and trade.

So the traders finding their occupation gone, decided amongst themselves to take a trip to Ja Ja's markets, the only sensible thing they had done since the trouble commenced. This was a step in the right direction, namely, by attempting to break down the curse of Western Africa _id est_, the power of the middle-man.

The names of the four traders who first attempted to trade in the Ibo markets of King Ja Ja deserve to be recorded, for their action was not without great risk to themselves. They were:

Mr. S. B. Hall }
Mr. Thomas Wright } English
Mr. Richard Foster }
Mr. A. E. Brunschweiler--Swiss.

To these must be added the name of Mr. F. D. Mitchell, who, though not in the first trip to the markets, joined in the subsequent attempt to establish business amongst the interior tribes. Their reception at the markets was not altogether a success, owing to the reception committee, or whatever represented it in those parts, being packed with either Ja Ja's own people or Ibos favourable to him.

This good beginning was continued under great difficulties by these first traders with little profit or success for about two years, owing to the great power of Ja Ja amongst the interior tribes and the pressure he was able to bring to bear on the Ibo and Kwo natives.

In the meantime, clouds had been gathering round the head of King Ja Ja. His wonderful success since 1870 had gradually obscured his former keen perception of how far his rights as a petty African king would be recognised by the English Government under the new order of things just being inaugurated in the Oil Rivers; honestly believing that in signing the Protectorate treaty of December 19th, 1884, with the _sixth_ clause crossed out, he had retained the right given him by the commercial treaty of 1873 to keep white men from proceeding to his markets, he got himself entangled in a number of disputes which culminated in his being taken out of the Opobo River in September, 1887, by Her Britannic Majesty's Consul, Mr. H. H. Johnston, C.B., now Sir Harry Johnston, and conveyed to Accra, where he was tried before Admiral Sir Hunt Grubbe, who condemned him to five years' deportation to the West Indies, making him an allowance of about L800 per annum and returning a fine of thirty puncheons of palm oil, value about L450 in those days, which the late Consul Hewett had imposed upon him, a fine that the Admiral did not think the Consul was warranted in having imposed.

Poor Ja Ja did not live to return to his country and his people whom he loved so well, and whose condition he had done so much to improve, though at times his rule often became despotic. One trait of his character may interest the public just now, as the Liquor Question in West Africa is so much _en evidence_, and that is, that he was a strict teetotaler himself and inculcated the same principles in all his chiefs. In his eighteen years' rule as a king in Opobo he reduced two of his chiefs for drunkenness--one he sent to live in exile in a small fishing village for the rest of his life, the other, who had aggravated his offence by assaulting a white trader, he had deprived of all outward signs of a chief and put in a canoe to paddle as a pull-away boy within an hour of his committing the offence.

During the Ashantee campaign of 1873 Sir Garnet Wolseley sent Captain Nicol to the Oil Rivers to raise a contingent of friendly natives; on his arrival in Bonny he was not immediately successful, so continued on to Opobo, where he was the guest of the writer. Upon Captain Nicol explaining his errand, Ja Ja furnished him with over sixty of his war-boys, most of whom had seen considerable fighting in the late war between Bonny and Opobo. The news reaching Bonny of what Ja Ja had done, put the Bonny men upon their mettle, and when Captain Nicol reached Bonny on his way back to Ashantee, he found a further contingent waiting for him from the Bonny chiefs.

This combined contingent did good work against the Ashantees, being favourably mentioned in despatches. Poor Captain Nicol, who raised them, and commanded them in most of their engagements with the enemy, was, I regret to say, killed whilst gallantly leading them on in one of the final rushes just before Coomassie was taken.

In recognition of the above services of his men, Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria presented King Ja Ja with a sword of honour, the King of Bonny receiving one at the same time.

Shipwrecked people were always sure of kindly treatment if they fell into the hands of Ja Ja's subjects, for he had given strict orders to his people dwelling on the sea-shore to assist vessels in distress and convey any one cast on shore to the European factories, warning them at the same time on no account to touch any of their property. He was also the first king in the Delta to restrain his people from plundering a wrecked ship, though the custom had been from time immemorial that a vessel wrecked upon their shores belonged to them by rights as being a gift from their Ju-Ju--an idea held by savage people in many other parts of the world.

It seems a pity that a man who had so many good qualities should have ended as he did. He was a man who, properly handled, could have been made of much use in the opening up of his country. Unfortunately, the late Consul Hewett was prejudiced against Ja Ja from his first interview with him, finding in this nigger king a man of superior natural abilities to his own.

Had the late Mr. Consul Hewett had the fiftieth part of the ability in dealing with the natives his sub and successor, Mr. H. H. Johnston, showed, there would never have been any necessity to deport Ja Ja. Unfortunately, between Ja Ja's stubbornness and the late Consul Hewett's bungling, matters had come to such a pass that some decisive measures were actually necessary to uphold the dignity of the Consular Office.

When Mr. H. H. Johnston succeeded the late Mr. Consul Hewett, the Opobo palaver was in about as muddled a state as it was possible for it to have got into. Matters had been in an unsatisfactory state for some years between King Ja Ja and the late Consul. Ja Ja had over-stepped the bounds of propriety in more ways than one. He tried the same tactics with Mr. Johnston, who to look at, is the mildest-looking little man you can imagine, and therefore did not fill the native's eye as a ruler of men; but Mr. Johnston very soon let Ja Ja and the natives generally see he was made of different stuff to his predecessor, and the first attempts on Ja Ja's part not to act up to the lines he laid down for him settled his fate. Mr. Johnston offered him the choice of delivering himself up quietly as a prisoner or being treated as an enemy of the Queen, his town destroyed and himself eventually captured and exiled for ever. He elected to give himself up, was taken to Accra and there tried and condemned after a fair hearing. I was present myself at the trial, and old friend as I was to him, I don't think the verdict would have been otherwise had I been in the judge's place, though there were many extenuating circumstances in his case, all of which were fully considered by Admiral Hunt Grubbe in his final sentence.

I feel confident that had Mr. Consul Johnston had the management of affairs in the Opobo a few years earlier, Ja Ja would never have been deported, and instead of having to censure him, he would have handled him in such a manner as to make use of his influence in furthering British interests. I do not think I can describe the late King Ja Ja better than Mr. Consul Johnston did in a letter he addressed to Lord Salisbury under date of September 24th, 1887, wherein he writes as follows:--"Ja Ja's chief friends and supporters for years past have been the naval officers on the coast. His generous hospitality, his frank, engaging manner, his naif discourse, and amusing crudities of diction have gained the ready sympathy of these gentlemen; no doubt Ja Ja is no common man, though he is in origin a runaway slave,[89] he was cut out by nature for a king, and he has the instinct of rule, though it not unfrequently degenerates into cruel tyranny.

"His demeanour is marked by quiet dignity, and his appearance and conversation are impressive.

"Nevertheless, I know Ja Ja to be a deliberate liar,[90] who exhibits little shame or confusion when his falsehoods are exposed. He is a bitter and unscrupulous enemy[91] of all who attempt to dispute his trade monopolies, and the five British firms whose trade he has almost ruined during the past two years."

A complaint often made against the Government by merchants established on the West Coast of Africa is want of official protection and assistance; in many cases in the past this has been the case; but they certainly could not make this complaint during the few months that Mr. Consul Johnston was at the head of the Consular service in the Oil Rivers. I will here give a summary of what exertions were made by the Government to assist the merchants in their praiseworthy attempts to get behind the middlemen in this one river, where Ja Ja was always given the credit of being the head and front of the obstruction, nothing ever being said about the king and chiefs of Bonny, who were equally interested with Ja Ja in keeping the white men out of the markets, their principal markets being on the River Opobo.

Owing to the energetic representations of Mr. Consul H. H. Johnston, the British Government placed at his disposal for the settlement of the market question and the Ja Ja palaver the following Government vessels, viz., the _Watchful_, the _Goshawk_, the _Alecto_, the _Acorn_, the _Royalist_, and the _Raleigh_, the latter bringing Admiral Sir Hunt Grubbe up from the Cape of Good Hope for the trial of King Ja Ja.

Result: Within a very short time after the deportation of Ja Ja, all the firms who had been so anxious to establish in the interior markets and thus get behind the middlemen (without doubt the curse of the Oil Rivers and every part of Africa where they are tolerated) gave up trading at the interior markets that had caused the Government so much trouble to open for them, and made an agreement with the middlemen, represented in this case by the Bonny men and Opobo men, that they would not attempt to trade any more in the interior markets if the middlemen would promise to trade with no European firm that attempted to trade in the interior markets. On the writer's last visit to the Opobo in 1896 there was only one firm trading in the interior markets, and that firm was not one of those that were in the river at the time of the clamour for the removal of Ja Ja and the opening of the interior in 1887.

KWO IBO.

This river was first visited in modern days in 1871 by the late Mr. Archie McEachan, who found the people very troublesome to deal with, and did not long remain there. No doubt the people were not so easy to deal with as those natives that have been for some hundreds of years dealing with Europeans; but as he was at the same time posing as a friend and supporter of Ja Ja, and the oil he got in Kwo Ibo was being diverted from Ja Ja's markets, the latter no doubt exerted a certain amount of pressure on his friend, and aided, if he did not actually cause him to decide to withdraw from Kwo Ibo.

Kwo Ibo lay fallow for some time, then one or two Sierra Leone men attempted to trade there, but with little success, owing to the influence King Ja Ja had in the country. It was not until 1880-1 that any sustained effort was made to trade in this river; but about this time a Mr. Watts established a small trading station there, and succeeded in creating a trade, though he had a very difficult task to combat the opposition of King Ja Ja, who considered he was being defrauded of some of his supposed just rights. Had Mr. Watts pushed his way into the interior markets and dealt direct with the producers, he would deserve the united thanks of every merchant connected with the trade in the Niger Delta; but he did not, and contented himself with buying his produce on a little better terms than he could have done in Opobo or Old Calabar, and created another set of middlemen, who to-day consider they, like their neighbours, are justified in doing their utmost in keeping the European out of the interior. Mr. Watts eventually sold out his interest in the trade of this river to the combination of river firms now known under the name of the African Association of Liverpool.

A mission has been established here for some years and I had the pleasure of meeting the missionary in charge, some two years ago, on his way home after a long sojourn in the Kwo Ibo; his description of the people and of the success of his mission work was most interesting. If he has returned to the seat of his labours and is still alive, I can only wish him every success in the work in which evidently his whole heart was centred.

The name Kwo Ibo, which has been given to this river, gives one the idea that the inhabitants are a mixture of Kwos and Ibos. This to a certain extent may be a very good description as regards the inhabitants of the upper reaches of the river, which takes its rise, so it is supposed, in a lake in the Ibo country, afterwards passing through the Kwo, and discharges itself into the sea about half-way between the east point of the Opobo River and the Tom Shotts Point.

The lower part of the river is inhabited principally by Andoni men by origin, but calling themselves Ibenos or Ibrons.

These people deserve a great deal of credit for the plucky manner in which they withstood the numerous attacks the late King Ja Ja made upon them, and their stubborn refusal to discontinue trading with the white men established in their river, though they were but ill-provided with arms to defend themselves. During several years they must have suffered severely from the repeated raids the late King Ja Ja made upon them, not only from losses in battle, but also in having their towns destroyed and many of their people carried off as prisoners. Some of the earlier raids made by Ja Ja, I must in fairness to him say, were to a great extent brought on by the actions of the Ibrons themselves, who were not slow to attack and slay any Opobo men they caught wandering about, if the latter were not in sufficient numbers to defend themselves.

In language, these people are closely allied to the old Calabar people, and many of their customs show them to have had more communication with those people than they have had with the Andoni people, at any rate for many years. I find no mention amongst the writings of the early travellers to Western Africa of their having visited this river, nor is it even named on any old chart that I have consulted, though on some I have seen a river indicated at the spot where the Kwo Ibo enters the sea.

Needless to mention, they were, and the majority are to-day, steeped in Ju-Juism, witchcraft, and their attendant horrors.

The Kwo people, whose country lies on both sides of the Kwo Ibo, and behind the Ibenos, are the tribe from whom were drawn the supplies of Kwo or Kwa slaves known under the name of the Mocoes in the West Indies.

OLD CALABAR.

I now come to the last river in the Niger Coast Protectorate, both banks of which belong to England, the next river being the Rio del Rey, of which England now only claims the right bank, Germany claiming the left and all the territory south to the river Campo, a territory almost as large as, if not equal to, the whole of the Niger Coast Protectorate, which ought to have been English, for was it not English by right of commercial conquest, if by no other, and for years had been looked upon by the commanders of foreign naval vessels as under English influence?

Owing to some one blundering, this nice slice of African territory was allowed to slip into the hands of the Germans, hence my account of the Oil Rivers ought to be called an account of the Oil Rivers reduced by Germany.

In speaking of the inhabitants of this river, I must also include the people who inhabit the lower part of the Cross River. This explanation would not have been necessary some few years ago, but I notice the more recent hydrographers make the Cross River the main river and the Old Calabar only a tributary of that river, which is, without doubt, the most correct.

The principal towns are Duke Town (where are to be found nowadays the headquarters of the Niger Coast Protectorate, the Presbyterian Mission, and the principal trading factories of the Europeans), Henshaw Town, Creek and Town; besides these, the various kings and chiefs have numberless small towns and villages in the environs. In the lower part of the Cross river are many fishing villages, the inhabitants of which are looked upon as Old Calabar people, and owing to the latter being the dominant race they have to-day lost, or very nearly so, any trace of their forefathers, who I believe to have been Kwos with a strong strain of Andoni blood.

These villages did, in days anterior to the advent of the European traders, an immense business with the interior in dried shrimps, the latter being used by the natives, not only as a flavouring to their stews and ragouts, but as a substitute for the all necessary salt.

The original inhabitants of the district now occupied by the Old Calabar people were the Akpas, whom the Calabarese drove out, and to a great extent afterwards absorbed. This immigration of the Calabarese is said to have taken place very little over one hundred and fifty years ago. Originally coming from the upper Ibibio district of the Cross River, they belong to the Efik race, and speak that language, though nowadays, owing to numerous intermarriages with Cameroon natives and the great number of slaves bought from the Cameroons district, they are of very mixed blood. Most of the kings and chiefs of Old Calabar owe their rank and position to direct descent, some of them being of ancient lineage, a fact of which they are very proud. In this respect they differ in a great measure from their neighbours in Bonny and Opobo, where, oftener than otherwise, the succession falls to the most influential man in the House, slave or free-born.

The principal town of these people boasted, some few years ago, of many very nice villa residences, belonging to the chiefs, built of wood, and roofed with corrugated iron, mostly erected by a Scotch carpenter, who had established himself in Old Calabar, and who was in great request amongst the chiefs as an architect and builder. Unfortunately, these houses being erected haphazard amongst the surrounding native-built houses did not lend that air of improvement to the town they might otherwise have done if the chiefs had studied more uniformity in the building of the town, and arranged for wide streets in place of alley ways, many of which are not wide enough to let two Calabar ladies of the higher rank pass one another without the risk of their finery being daubed with streaks of yellow mud from the adjacent walls.

The native houses of the better classes are certainly an improvement upon any others in the Protectorate, showing as they do some artistic taste in their embellishments. They are generally built in the form of a square or several squares, more or less exact, according to the extent of ground the builder has to deal with and the number of apartments the owner has need for. In some cases, I have seen a native commence his building operations by marking out two or three squares or oblongs, about twenty feet by fifteen, round which he would build his various apartments or rooms. In the centre of the inner squares, which are always left open to the sky, you almost invariably find a tree growing, either left there purposely when clearing the ground, or planted by the owner; occasionally you will find a fine crop of charms and Ju-Jus hanging from the branches of these trees.

The inner walls, especially of the courtyards, are in most cases tastefully decorated with paintings, somewhat resembling the arabesque designs one sees amongst the Moors. No doubt this art and that of designing fantastic figures on brass dishes, which they buy from the Europeans and afterwards embellish with the aid of a big-headed nail and a hammer, comes to them from the Mohammedans of the Niger, of whom they used to see a good deal in former days.

With regard to the dress of these people, I have not anything so interesting to relate about them as I had of the New Calabar gentlemen. Except on high days and holidays, there is little to distinguish the upper classes here from the same classes in any of the other rivers of the Protectorate, except that it might be in the peculiar way they knot the loin cloth on, leaving it to trail a little on the ground on one side, and their great liking for scarlet and other bright coloured stove-pipe hats. On their high festivals the kings appear in crowns and silk garments; the chiefs, who do not stick to the native gala garments of many-hued silks, generally appear in European clothes, not always of irreproachable fit, their queen, as every chief calls his head wife, appearing in a gorgeous silk costume that may have been worn several seasons before at Ascot or Goodwood by a London belle. Sometimes you may be treated to the sight of a dusky queen gaily displaying her ample charms in a low-cut secondhand dinner or ball dress that may have created a sensation when first worn at some swagger function in London or Paris. As the native ladies do not wear stays, and one of the greatest attributes of female beauty in Calabar is plumpness, and plenty of it, you may imagine that the local _modiste_ has her wits greatly exercised in devising means to fill up the gaping space between the hooks and eyes. I once heard a captain of one of the mail steamers describe this job as "letting in a graving piece down the back."

One of the customs peculiar to the Old Calabar people, practised generally amongst all classes, but most strictly observed by the wealthier people, is for a girl about to become a bride to go into retirement for several weeks just previous to her marriage, during which time she undergoes a fattening treatment, similar to that practised in Tunis. The fatter the bride the more she is admired. It is said that during this seclusion the future bride is initiated into the mysteries of some female secret society. Many of the chiefs are very stout, and given to _embonpoint_, a fact of which they are very proud.

The lower-class women are not troubled with too much clothing, but still ample enough for the country and decency's sake. As one strolls through the town to see the market or pay a visit to some chief, one often encounters young girls, and sometimes women, in long, loose, flowing robes, fitting tight round the neck, and on inquiring who these are, the reply generally comes, "Dem young gal be mission gal, dem tother one he be Saleone woman."

The mission here is the United Presbyterian Mission of Scotland,[92] and a great deal of good has been done by it for these people, and is being done now, and great hopes are expected from their industrial mission, started only a few years ago, therefore, it would be unfair to make further comment on the latter; it is a step in the right direction.

Some of the missionaries to Old Calabar have put in about forty years of active service, most of it passed on the coast. Amongst others who have lived to a great age in this mission should be mentioned the Rev. Mr. Anderson, who lived to the advanced age of between eighty and ninety years, greatly respected by both the European and native population. Amongst the lady missionaries the name of Miss Slessor stands out very prominently, and, considering the task she has set herself, viz., the saving of twin children and protection of their mothers, her success has been marvellous, for the Calabarese is, like his neighbours, still a great believer in the custom that says twin children are not to be allowed to live. This lady has passed about twenty years in Old Calabar, a greater part of the last ten years all alone at Okyon, a district which the people of Duke Town and the surrounding towns preferred not to visit, if they could manage any business they had with the people of Okyon without going amongst them. Many of these old customs will now be much more quickly stamped out than in the past, owing to the fact that it is in the power of the Consul-General to punish the natives severely who practise them. The preaching and exhortation of the missionaries to the people in the past was met by the very powerful argument, in a native's mind, that "it was a custom his father had kept from time immemorial, and he did not see why he should not continue it," the Ju-Ju priests being clever enough to point out to the natives that, though the missionaries preached against Ju-Juism, they could not punish its votaries. But that is all changed now, and even the Ju-Ju priests begin to feel that the power of the Consul-General is much greater than that of their grinning idols and trickery.

Though these people have been in communication with Europeans for at least two centuries, and under British influence for upwards of sixty years, and a mission has been established in their principal town for the best part of fifty years, it was a common thing to see human flesh offered for sale in the market within a very few years of the establishment of the British Protectorate.

In judging the result of missionary effort in this river, or, in fact, any other part of Western Africa, one is apt to exclaim, "What poor results for so much expenditure in lives and money!" The cause is not far to seek if one knows the native, and has sufficiently studied his ways and customs as to be able to understand or read what is working in his brain.