But The Main Cause Of
Work Is The Store, Which In This Exhausting Climate Is More Than
Enough Work For One Man Alone.
Payments on the Ogowe are made in goods; the natives do not use any
coinage-equivalent, save in the strange case of the Fans, which does
not touch general trade and which I will speak of later.
They have
not even the brass bars and cheetems that are in us in Calabar, or
cowries as in Lagos. In order to expedite and simplify this goods
traffic, a written or printed piece of paper is employed -
practically a cheque, which is called a "bon" or "book," and these
"bons" are cashed - i.e. gooded, at the store. They are for three
amounts. Five fura = a dollar. One fura = a franc. Desu = fifty
centimes = half a fura. The value given for these "bons" is the
same from Government, Trade, and Mission. Although the Mission
Evangelique does not trade - i.e. buy produce and sell it at a
profit, its representatives have a great deal of business to attend
to through the store, which is practically a bank. All the native
evangelists, black teachers, Bible-readers and labourers on the
stations are paid off in these bons; and when any representative of
the mission is away on a journey, food bought for themselves and
their canoe crews is paid for in bons, which are brought in by the
natives at their convenience, and changed for goods at the store.
Therefore for several hours every weekday the missionary has to
devote himself to store work, and store work out here is by no means
playing at shop. It is very hard, tiring, exasperating work when
you have to deal with it in full, as a trader, when it is necessary
for you to purchase produce at a price that will give you a
reasonable margin of profit over storing, customs' duties, shipping
expenses, etc., etc. But it is quite enough to try the patience of
any Saint when you are only keeping store to pay on bons, a la
missionary; for each class of article used in trade - and there are
some hundreds of them - has a definite and acknowledged value, but
where the trouble comes in is that different articles have the same
value; for example, six fish hooks and one pocket-handkerchief have
the same value, or you can make up that value in lucifer matches,
pomatum, a mirror, a hair comb, tobacco, or scent in bottles.
Now, if you are a trader, certain of these articles cost you more
than others, although they have an identical value to the native,
and so it is to your advantage to pay what we should call, in
Cameroons, "a Kru, cheap copper," and you have a lot of worry to
effect this. To the missionary this does not so much matter. It
makes absolutely no difference to the native, mind you; so he is by
no means done by the trader.
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