Between these two schools of thought, the “damned nigger” school and the denationalizing school (that, without appreciating it, plays into the hands of the first), which threaten the West African in his freedom, his property and his manhood, there is room for a third. One which, taking note to-day that the West African is a land-owner, desires that he shall continue to be one under British rule, not with decreasing but with increasing security of tenure; taking note that to-day the West African is an agriculturist, a farmer, a herdsman, and, above all, to the marrow of his bones, a trader, declines to admit that he should be degraded, whether by direct or indirect means, to the position of a hireling; taking note that customary law it is which holds native society together, calls for its increased study and demands that time shall be allowed for its gradual improvement from within, deprecating its supersession by European formulæ of law in the name of “reform,” for which the country is not ripe and whose application can only dislocate, not raise, West African social life. A school of thought which, while prepared to fight with every available weapon against attempts to impose conditions of helotism upon the West African, earnestly pleads that those controlling the various influences moulding his destinies from without, shall be inspired to direct their energies towards making him a better African, not a hybrid. A school of thought which sees in the preservation of the West African’s land for him and his descendants; in a system of education which shall not anglicize; in technical instruction; in assisting and encouraging agriculture, local industries and scientific forestry; in introducing labour-saving appliances, and in strengthening all that is best, materially and spiritually, in aboriginal institutions, the highest duties of our Imperial rule. A school of thought whose aim it is to see Nigeria, at least, become in time the home of highly-trained African peoples, protected in their property and in their rights by the paramount Power, proud of their institutions, proud of their race, proud of their own fertile and beautiful land.
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PART I
THOUGHTS ON TREK
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CHAPTER I
ON WHAT HAS BEEN AND MAY BE
After trekking on horseback five hundred miles or so, you acquire the philosophy of this kind of locomotion. For it has a philosophy of its own, and with each day that passes you become an apter pupil. You learn many things, or you hope you do, things internally evolved. But when you come to the point of giving external shape to them by those inefficient means the human species is as yet virtually confined to—speech and writing—you become painfully conscious of inadequate powers. Every day brings its own panorama of nature unfolding before your advance; its own special series of human incidents—serious, humorous, irritating, soothing—its own thought waves. And it is not my experience that these long silent hours—for conversation with one’s African companions is necessarily limited and sporadic—induce, by what one would imagine natural re-action, descriptive expansiveness when, pen in hand, one seeks to give substance to one’s impressions. Rather the reverse, alack! Silent communing doth seem to cut off communication between brain and pen. You are driven in upon yourself, and the channel of outward expression dries up. For a scribbler, against whom much has been imputed, well-nigh all the crimes, indeed, save paucity of output, the phenomenon is not without its alarming side, at least to one’s self. In one’s friends it may well inspire a sense of blessed relief.