English government on the river--he notes that the native houses are
now all of rectangular shape, and the people of Eboe type, and soon he
is at Abo, and the tidal waters are recognized just as the ruffians of
the Brass slaving fleet rush upon him and--capsizing his craft--Lander
barely escapes with his life to find his brother drowning also. Rescued
at last, John Lander is brought prisoner, together with Richard to the
Brass mouth of the Niger, and their sufferings whilst waiting release
and subsequently until landed at Fernando Po may well have made them
dread the name of Brassmen. It may be that some day at Brass, or
Akassa, English hands will raise a fitting and permanent memorial to
this modest, uncultured and sterling character, who solved for all
mankind the greatest geographical problem of his time, and opened the
door for European commerce and civilization into West Central Africa.
It must not be forgotten that MacQueen had all along contended that
the Niger would be found to issue into the Atlantic through the swamps
of the Bights of Benin and Biafra, nor are the reasons now obscure
that account for that long hiding of geographical truth in the Gulf of
Guinea. The Niger Delta is one covering 14,000 square miles; the Delta
rivers creep into the sea almost unperceived through the low-level
mangrove swamp; the whole region reeks with fevers and dysentery, and
at the time of Lander’s discovery the only trade to be done in that
“God-forgotten Guinea” was the slave-trade. Such white men as ventured
to the Delta, therefore, were bent on secrecy rather than on discovery;
and this had been the state of things for centuries. No wonder that the
Niger had been a mystery, but it was a mystery no more.
The next step for its exploration was taken by Liverpool. Macgregor
Laird raised a large fund among his merchant friends on the exchange,
and added thereto a large part of his own fortune, built and equipped
two steamships--the _Quorra_ and _Alburka_--and (with but little aid
from the Government) took charge personally of this bold expedition,
and in 1832 sailed for the Niger. Now, look at these banks forty feet
at least above the river level, and remember that for three to four
months of the year the villages lining them are simply floating in
the vast waste of the Niger inundations. Mr. Laird found by a bitter
experience that it was all very well to steam up the Niger when the
stream was at flood, but when your crew were all down with fever and
the river began to fall at the rate of a foot per day, the least
accident--such as the stranding of the little _Quorra_--locked you
up bag and baggage for a whole twelve months, and brought you face
to face with terrible dangers. The mortality on board the steamers
was awful, but Laird kept the expedition well in hand; he explored
a great part of the upper middle Niger, a considerable distance up
the Benué, and established the first English trading factories, 350
miles from the mouth of the Niger, ere his return to Liverpool. Like
all other travellers who have seen the Benué, Laird was greatly
impressed with the volume and purity of its waters, the beauty of its
landscape on either bank, and the rich promise of development in its
already quickened commerce. Look at the woodland beauty at Ribago, for
instance; or the fine cultivated plain at Yola; and the impressive
rock-fortress at Imaha. And see these fine Hausa peoples who inhabit
the Sokoto and Bornu countries of the inter-riverine plateau. They are
an ancient race, grave and industrious, of fine physique and highly
intellectual phrenological type.
Centuries ago Macrisi--the Egyptian historian--told of their
gourd-ferries, and the world laughed at such a “traveller’s tale”;
but here you see them for yourselves. Centuries ago men wrote of
the vast city of Timbuktu, but what is Timbuktu to Kano, the Hausa
capital? Look at this wall surrounding Sokoto City, and think of the
wall of Kano being as high as that and fifteen miles round! The Fulah
aristocracy live at Sokoto, and their Sultan bears spiritual rule
over the greater part of Hausaland; his temporal power is no myth,
either, for in 1891 he raised an army of 40,000 men--half of whom
were cavalry--under the eyes of Monteil. But the crumbling houses of
Sokoto tell their own tale of a city that has long passed its zenith,
and like Timbuktu, whose population has fallen from 200,000 to 7,000,
like Katsena, whose population has fallen from 100,000 to 6,000, so
Sokoto is daily yielding its temporal sceptre to Kano, the city of
markets and manufactures, the centre of literature as well as of
prosperous agriculture, the starting-point of the Soudan caravans, the
central slave market, cloth market, metal market and the busy focus
of all industries. See the great market square in which 30,000 people
assemble for commercial exchange every week; these fourteen gates,
through which the hosts of organized caravans are ever issuing, most
of them 600 or 800 strong at the very least, and twenty of which go
every year to Salaga for Kola-nut alone! Think of the Mecca pilgrims
who all assembled here to form their great cavalcades yearly; of
the 60,000 artificers and cultivators living in this Kano, with its
enclosed fields of rich crops, its leather factories, shoe and sandal
factories, dyeing works, cotton spinning and weaving, basket making,
brass manufacture and ornamentation, etc. And remember that, thanks
to our English chartered companies, this Kano, and these fine Hausa
people--whose language has long been the key-tongue of all trade in
Central Africa--are brought securely under the flag and influence of
Great Britain. It is, from our point of view, a drawback that Kano
lies at an unhealthy level, and its people defy every sanitary decency
in their abbatoir and cemetery arrangements, but that is their way of
being happy. Katsena is much more salubrious, having 1,500 feet of
elevation.
Ere long, under British tutelage, and freed from dread of the Fulah
slave-raider, the rascal who raids his own people for the mere joy of
it, freed from this curse, the Hausa States will rise to preëminence
through the aptitude and capacity for discipline inherent in that
virile people.
I must pass over Bornu and its great chief city of Kuka, but would like
to dwell for a moment on the deeply interesting fact that here--in the
Chartered State of British Nigretia--we tread upon the dust of empires.
At the time of our Heptarchy this very Bornu was the seat of a Negro
empire covering a million and a half square miles, and extending from
the Niger to the Nile. And Sokoto and Gandu--our Treaty states--formed
but part of the Negro empire of Songhay, having its capital at Gogo on
the Niger, and extending westward and northward as far as the Atlantic
and Morocco.
THE AMAZON
JOSEPH JONES
The main stream of the Amazon is about 4,000 miles long--long enough
that is to go in a circle twice round the British Isles, or 600 miles
longer than the voyage from Liverpool to New York. For the lowest 250
miles of its course it is fifty miles wide, or if the Island of Marajo
in its mouth be regarded as a huge sand bank, which is what it really
is, then it is 200 miles wide at its mouth. In other words, one might
take the whole of Scotland, push it into the mouth of this river and
leave only a small piece projecting. The Amazon has nineteen very large
tributaries, each of which is really a gigantic river in itself, and
through these tributaries it is connected with the Orinoco and the
River Plata. The Amazon rises near the west coast of South America,
about sixty miles from Lima in Peru, and runs into the Atlantic,
traversing nearly the whole width of the widest part of South America
in its course. Its depth in places is twenty fathoms or 120 feet. It
drains an area nearly the size of all Europe, and is the largest body
of fresh water in the world. Its average speed of flow is two and a
half miles per hour. Hence in going up-stream a boat hugs the bank to
avoid the current, whilst in descending it sails in mid-stream in order
to obtain full advantage of the same. As may be guessed, progress is
quicker down-stream than up. The influence of its flow can be felt 150
miles from the shore. On one occasion the mess-room steward filled
the filter direct from the sea when the ship was long out of sight
of land, yet the water was only very slightly brackish. The inland
navigation of the Amazon and its branches extends over 20,000 miles.
The name is supposed to be derived from “Amassona,” the Indian word
for “boat-destroyer,” on account of the tidal wave which rages in the
channel to the north of the Island of Marajo, and on account of which
boats enter by the south channel.
The river is high at the end of the rainy season and low after the
dry season, but even at low river the ship in which I sailed, an
ocean-going steamer, experienced no difficulty in sailing as far as
Manâos. The difference in level is a matter of thirty feet, so that
whereas in August you step out of a small boat on to the landing-stage,
in October, when the river is about at its lowest, you have to walk on
planks, from the boat to the foot of the landing-stage, mount this by a
ladder and go ashore.
Being so near the equator, the Amazon is in a warm district. In the
coolest part of the ship the temperature used to rise to 84° Fahrenheit
in the afternoon, whilst in the sun 120° Fahrenheit was registered,
and some of the pitch in the seams of the deck was melted. This was
when ascending the river. There is a ten knot breeze from the sea which
makes it cooler on returning, but on the inward journey when travelling
with the wind and at practically the same speed, one is of course in a
dead calm and uncomfortably hot. The river water itself at 6 A. M., was
always between 88° Fahrenheit and 89° Fahrenheit.
Besides steamers the Amazon is navigated by battalongs, wooden craft,
about twelve yards in length, covered with an awning of palm branches,
which come from Peru and elsewhere with native produce, are manned by
Indians who live aboard, and which take two months to get back home
from Manâos against the stream. Smaller boats are driven by square
sails of blue and white cotton, which bear traces of Manchester origin,
and there are also native canoes propelled by paddles.
The Indians fish in an interesting manner by means of bow and arrow,
with a line attached to the arrow. If they can get a couple of arrows
firmly shot in they can usually haul in a river turtle or other large
fish. There is a large fish with red flesh which serves the people in
some parts instead of beef (cattle being dear). Thus they don’t fulfil
the old definition of an angler as “a worm at one end and a fool at
the other.” River turtle when caught are laid on their backs, in which
position they are helpless, and one on board the ship laid eighty-six
eggs at one break whilst in this position. The eggs are spherical,
covered with a flexible limy shell, and resemble in appearance a small
tennis-ball. They are a treat out there, where eggs are very scarce.
The flesh of this kind of turtle is rather tough and not unlike pork.
A great variety of animal life is to be found, including mosquitoes,
cockroaches, moths, butterflies, alligators, snakes, tarantulas,
centipedes, and grasshoppers.
The savage people, who live some little distance from the river, are
of about our average height and build, walnut-coloured, with long
straight jet-black hair. In war they fight with bamboo-headed spears
and poisoned arrows, the latter propelled by a powerful bow seven feet
long. The arrow-heads, of bone, are dipped in snake venom and inflict a
mortal wound. The venom is said to be procured by boiling snakes’ heads
to extract it from the glands and evaporating the solution to almost
dryness. Right inland the tribes often have battles, and the victors
kill the women and children of the vanquished. They have a horrible
habit of cutting off the heads of girls, skinning them, and curing the
skin in such a way that it shrinks, but retains its colour and texture,
when they stuff it, producing a head the size of one’s fist, but
perfect in shape. They sell them at from £12 to £30 to Europeans, who
ought to know better than to buy them.
The civilized people speak the Portuguese language and are of
European habits. They are more polite than the British, though this
is noticeable by their habits being different from ours rather than
by being better. For instance, I have seen a first-class passenger
expectorate on the saloon floor when at dinner and never blush, but
he would think himself dreadfully impolite if he wore his hat in a
restaurant. One is impelled to Max O’Rell’s conclusion that “one nation
is not better or worse than another. One nation is different from
another, that is all.”
The money is mostly paper, and there is no paper legal tender less than
the milreis (2s. 3d. nominally, actually about 7d.). In Pará small
change is given in tram tickets.
The vegetable kingdom numbers 17,000 species and is a veritable
fairy-land. Orchids, which with us are so highly prized, are much
cheaper there. Very many varieties grow quite wild and are little
esteemed. I know one man who had an orange tree in his garden and
considered it a nuisance. It crowded out some valuable exotic orchids.
He would willingly have let any one take it away but no one would have
it. The whole country resembles a gigantic greenhouse, and it is not
without a touch of annoyance that a Briton sees beautiful palms and
other trees wasted on people who do not appreciate them when they
would be welcome at home. The hanging roots or tendrils, which grow
downwards from the branches until they take root in the ground, are
quite strange to us, and they offer great resistance to path-making.
The most important tree is the india rubber, _Herveia Brasilensis_,
which is a large tree, and entirely different from the _Ficus
elasticus_, which is commonly called “india rubber” here and grown in
rooms. The raw rubber is obtained by incising the bark and collecting
the “milk” in a can. A paddle is dipped into this and the milk adhering
to it smoked over some burning nuts. This is done with successive
dippings until a piece the size of a ham is on the paddle, when a slit
is made in the side and the paddle withdrawn. It is quite possible that
the wily native may insert a pebble, when he has withdrawn the paddle,
since rubber is sold by weight. The best quality is that obtained
from the Island of Marajo and known as Island Rubber. This is said
to be because a species of nut grows there the smoke of which cures
the rubber better than any other kind of smoke. It is said that every
kind of rubber requires some admixture of the Pará variety to make it
useful in commerce. Many of the rubber cutters live in shanties on
the river’s edge and keep a canoe moored at the door. More inland the
poorer classes live in mud huts built on a framework of light wood.
Some of these when whitewashed make very presentable houses, as seen
in the view of the main street of Parentins, where the post-office
and neighbouring buildings are all of this sort. The cathedrals are
generally handsome buildings, and the post-office at Pará is a pretty
structure.
The shops are open fronted and usually have no windows, so that at a
short distance one cannot tell of what kind they are unless the goods
are displayed outside.
The streets are peculiarly named, for instance “Fifteenth of November
Square” (date of foundation of the Republic), “Dr. Guimarez Lane,” and
so on.
The cities bear very evident traces of newness. You may see a public
square enclosing a tract of virgin soil and except that the palms are
planted in straight rows all the vegetation is natural. There are
handsome walnut counters in whitewashed stores and burglar-proof safes
inside offices which you could demolish with your foot.
Outside the cities the general appearance of the country gives one
an idea of what Britain must have been like at the time of the Roman
invasion, and shows how civilization spread along the course of the
rivers.
THE YANGTSE CHIANG
W. R. CARLES
The great river of China which foreigners call the Yangtse Chiang, has
its sources on the south-east edge of the great steppes which form
Central Asia. Rising almost due north of Calcutta, it flows eastwards
for some 500 miles, draining a very considerable area on its way, and
then turns southwards until it is penned in by the great parallel
ranges which until recent years have hidden it and its great neighbours
from European eyes. Even after entering China its course has remained
obscure, and the deep rift through which it makes its way to the
navigable portion of its waters in Sze Chuen is, save here and there,
still unexplored. In the eastern half of Sze Chuen it receives the
drainage of another large area, before entering the country commonly
known as the Ichang Gorges, and on leaving the Gorges its arms spread
north and south from the Yellow River to the Canton province, affording
easily navigable routes through the heart of China, and by the Grand
Canal to Tientsin.
One of the largest rivers in the world, its importance to China as a
waterway in some of the wealthiest and most thickly populated provinces
of the empire completely overshadows all the other river-systems of the
country.
The actual length of the Yangtse Chiang is at present unknown. The
navigable portion, _i. e._, to Ping-shan Hsien, is 1,550 miles. West of
Ping-shan Hsien the river attains its extreme southern and northern
limits; but from a careful measurement made for me of the best maps
owned by the Royal Geographical Society, its entire length is not much
more than 3,000 miles. The area of drainage is probably between 650,000
and 700,000 square miles.
Between the Tangla Mountains, whose south slopes drain into the
Tsang-po and the Salwin Rivers, and the Kuenlun Mountains, which form
the south buttress of the Tsaidam steppes, the Yangtse Chiang, even at
its source near the 90th meridian, draws on a basin nearly 240 miles
in depth from north to south. Below the confluence of the three main
streams this basin is somewhat contracted by the north-west south-east
trend of the Baian Kara range, and the river is gradually deflected
southwards. From the 99th meridian its course is almost due south,
passing through the country of the Tanguts, or St. Fans, until at last
it enters China.
This part of its course is, roughly speaking, parallel with the Mekong
and Salwin Rivers. Penned in by high mountains, which form an extension
of the great plateau of Central Asia, these rivers continue in close
proximity to each other for nearly two hundred miles.
The immense depth of the gorges through which the Yangtse Chiang has
cut its way in Yun Nan and west Sze Chuen, and the extraordinary
freaks played by its tributaries on the right bank, have prevented the
course of the Yangtse Chiang below the Ya-lung from being thoroughly
ascertained. Its course, as laid down by the Jesuits, appears to have
been mainly mere guesswork, and some corrections have recently been
made. Apparently it here attains its lowest latitude--26° north. The
strength of the stream and the height of the banks above the river
prevent much use being made of it for boat traffic, even in the
few portions where no dangers exist. The grandness of these gorges
culminates in the “Sunbridge,” Tai-yang-chiao, a mountain at least
20,000 feet high, “which falls to the Yangtse Chiang in a series of
terraces, which from below appear like parallel ridges, and abuts on
the river into a precipice or precipices, which must be 8,000 feet
above its waters. The main affluent on the right bank received in this
part of its course is the Niu-lan River, the gorges of which are also
very grand.
Ping-shan is generally regarded as the head of continuous navigation,
but Mr. Hosie descended the river by boat from Man-i-sau, forty _li_
higher up.
The Fu-ling, Chien Chiang, Kung-t’an or Wu-chiang, which joins the
Yangtse Chiang at Fu-Chau on the right bank, is the last considerable
tributary received before reaching the gorges leading to Ichang. This
river is important as the first of the streams which form the great
network of water-communication which binds Peking and Canton with
Central China. By the Fu-ling Canton can be reached with only two short
portages, and a certain amount of trade with Hankau is carried on by
this and the Yuan River in preference to taking goods up the Yangtse
Chiang.
The gorges which have shut in the Yangtse Chiang almost from its source
close in upon it again below Fu-Chau, and continue to within a few
miles of Ichang, contracting the river at one or two points to a width
of 150 yards.
In the autumn of 1896, some forty miles below Wan Hsien, a landslip
occurred, which carried down into the river a portion of the
mountainside, estimated by Mr. Bourne at 700 yards by 400 yards. This
at present forms a complete obstacle to any hope of steam navigation
between Ichang and Chung-King, and is much more formidable than the
Yeh-tan, Hsin-tan, or any of the other rapids which had hitherto been
in question. The Ching-tan, or Hsin-tan, was similarly formed some two
hundred and fifty years ago, and it is probable, therefore, that other
rapids originated in the same way.
Many rivers are received on either bank before Ichang is reached, of
which the most important is the Ching-Chiang, which enters the Yangtse
Chiang on the right bank below Ichang.
At Sha-shih, the port of Chong-Chau Fu, the character of the country
changes, and an extensive embankment thirty feet high, and from seventy
feet to three hundred feet wide at the base, is necessary to protect
the country from inundation. The inland water communication extending
from Ching-chau to Hankau, on the east, and connecting with the higher
parts of the Han River, exposes an immense area to suffering from
floods, and the city itself was almost destroyed on one occasion by
freshets in the inland waters. The facilities of communication afforded
by these routes make Sha-shih a centre of great commercial value, for,
independent of the great highway of the Yangtse Chiang and of the
canals already mentioned, there are also two large canals on the right
bank of the river connecting with the Tung-ting Lake.
Driven onwards by the immense pressure from behind, the waters of the
Yangtse Chiang, though moving in an almost perfect plane, have an
average surface current throughout the year of two knots at Hankau,
where the river is 1,450 yards broad, and has an average depth of
forty-two feet. In their course to the sea, the entrance to the Poyang
Lake is almost the only place below Wuhsueh at which a passenger on
a steamer can detect the influx of any other river. The main river,
its tributaries, and the inland canals all form a part of one great
network, which proclaims the delta of the river. The rivers of East
Hu Peh, North Kiang Si, An Hui, and Kiang Su, which enter the Yangtse
Chiang, are very scarcely recognizable as fresh contributions. Even
the waters of the Yellow River drained into the Yangtse Chiang in 1889
without for some time exciting any comment on the addition to its
volume.
The coal fields of Hu Nan have of late concentrated attention on the
Tung-ting Lake and the valley of the Hsaing as the future trade route
between South and Central China; but until recently the valley of the
Kan, which is navigable by boat from near the Mei-ling Pass on the
frontier of Kwang-Tung to the Poyang Lake, was the great official
waterway from Canton to Peking.
The Shu or Chin Chiang, which passes Nan-Chang-Fu to the north-west
of the lake, and the Chin or Chin-Chia Chiang, which descends from
Kwang-Hsin-Fu on the north-east, are the largest of the other rivers
which drain into the Poyang Lake, but part of the waters of Hui-chu-Fu
in An Hui are also received by it, and it is noteworthy how many routes
exist through the mountains on the east to the Che Kiang and Fu Kein.
The lake, which is reported to be 1,800 square miles in extent, acts,
like the Tung-ting Lake, as a great reservoir to check inundations.