Snow on the Equator

It was a Sunday evening, and it seemed to me that the whole of the European population of Bangui, numbering about three hundred, were assembled on the terrace outside, drinking apéritifs and talking as only Frenchmen can talk. I had forgotten there were so many white people in Africa, and that some of them could be as noisy and as voluble as the natives.

not very eventful journey of 3000 miles across Africa. Satisfaction at getting across was tinged with disappointment at the extraordinary sameness (I had almost said ‘tameness’) of the scenery of the western half of the journey as compared with the variety seen in the eastern; once the central highlands have been crossed and left behind, the monotony of forest and long grass is all-embracing. Neither is there the great diversity of peoples one meets with in East Africa, where the tribes, differing widely in dress, features, customs, and modes of life, combine with the ever-changing scene to make travel in Kenya, Uganda, or Tanganyika a constant delight. But in spite of the complaint of monotony, which might also be levelled at travel in the desert or the Arctic, for that man who travels by his own exertions no day can be dull and no journey without an abiding interest.

A surprise, perhaps another disappointment, was the comparative ease with which the journey had been done. From what has been said, it should be clear that the sole requisite for success was ability to follow the advice of James Pigg to ‘keep tambourine a-roulin.’ This absence of difficulty and danger may be disappointing to others, too, for the tradition of Darkest Africa dies hard. Ten or fifteen years earlier such a ride would have been difficult enough, if not impossible, and even today the road is but a slender thread, and Africa, a vast country in which, away from the road, one can still find the Africa of boyhood’s dreams—the dreams inspired by Rider Haggard, Selous, Stanley.

coast delicacies of palm-oil chop and ground-nut stew. Very excellent dishes they are, too, but in my opinion more suitable for the Arctic than the tropics. As their eating necessitates the revivifying effects of much gin, meals in which they figure are serious affairs. On the coast, the day set aside by custom for their consumption is Sunday, just as at home we in England on the same day celebrate the solemn rites of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.

twenty-three miles up the wide estuary of the Wuri River; opposite, on the north side of the estuary, lie the British Cameroons and the great mass of the Cameroon mountain, an extinct volcano, towering to 13,000 feet. From the upper part of the town one can see in clear weather both the Great and Small Cameroon mountains, and the 9000 feet peak on the island of Fernando Po.

There are about a thousand Europeans and two thousand five hundred natives in the town, which is divided roughly into three parts. The European part, known as Bell, where Germans have been responsible for the general lay-out, boasted many fine avenues and buildings. Evidences of similar careful planning and readiness to spend money can be seen in the ex-German port of Dar-es-Salaam, on the east coast. Lagos, the principal British port on the coast, seems to have grown up fortuitously, for it is a hotch-potch mixture compared with the orderliness of Duala.

whole of native Kribi, dressed in European finery, paraded the streets to the music of the town band. These brass bands, peculiar to the Cameroons towns, are a relic of the German days.

Kikuyu women I had seen walking in the streets of Nairobi with their fingers busy weaving string bags. I saw the same sort of thing in a village near Bangassu, but there they were weaving mats; men, women, and children, all carrying a piece of mat and weaving it, whether lying, sitting, standing, or walking.

Yaunde is the administrative capital of the French Cameroons, connected by a railway to Duala, the principal town and port 200 miles away. This was formerly the capital, but when the railway was extended inland to Yaunde the French were wise enough to transfer the seat of administration. It is situated on the central plateau in a hilly, well-wooded region, 2300 feet above sea level. Considering it is only four degrees north of the equator, the climate is pleasant, while fever is almost absent. Compared with the coast itself it is a health resort, and it is much frequented by people from Duala on that account. The European population numbers about two hundred and fifty. There are many well-built, red-tiled bungalows for the officials and an imposing residence for the Governor of the Cameroons. It was interesting to see the unpretentious, democratic site chosen for this building, befitting that of the representative of a republic. It was in the town, with its main entrance opposite to a football ground on which the natives of Yaunde played with much noise every evening. Until then Government House had always conjured up for me a vision of a place set at a respectful distance from the town in the dignified seclusion of its grounds of many acres, so surrounded with trees that all one knew it by was the sentry-box at the gate. This idea is seen at its best or worst in Uganda, where Government House and its satellites have a town of their own (where nothing so plebeian as a shop is allowed), twenty-five miles from the real capital.

The railway terminates at Yaunde, which is thus the collecting centre for the native produce of a large area. Palm oil, palm kernels, cocoa, ground nuts, are brought here to be despatched to the coast, either by the State-owned railway to Duala or by road to Kribi, a smaller port a hundred miles south of Duala.

several hundred men drawn up in columns of fours, advancing slowly, tamping down the newly laid murram with heavy wooden logs. The logs rose and fell together with a glorious thud which shook the ground, the time being taken from a two-man band which marched in the rear, one man playing a sort of Jew’s harp, the other a wooden drum.

The name ‘Cameroons’ is derived from a river which was called by the early Portuguese navigators the Cameroes River, meaning the river of prawns.

once I had entered the Cameroons, I no longer found chairs in the villages.