Two French Companies Run To The French Possessions, Subsidised By
Their Government (As The German Line Is, And As Our Lines Are Not) -
The Chargeurs Reunis And The Fraissinet.
The South-west Coast
liners of these companies run to Gaboon and then to Koutonu, up near
Lagos, then back to Gaboon, and down as far as Loango, calling on
their way home at the other ports in Congo Francais.
They are
mainly carriers of import goods, because they run to time, and on
the South-west Coast unless Time has an ameliorating touch of
Eternity in it you cannot get export goods off.
Below the Congo the rivals of the English and German lines are the
vessels of the Portuguese line, Empreza Nacional. These run from
Lisbon to the Cape Verde Islands, thence to San Thome and Principe,
then to the ports of Angola (Loanda, Benguella, Mossamedes,
Ambrizette, etc.), and they carry the bulk of the Angola trade at
present, because of the preferential dues on goods shipped in
Portuguese bottoms.
The service of English vessels to the West Coast is weekly; to the
Rivers fortnightly; to the South-west Coast monthly; and it is the
chief thing in West Coast trade enterprise that England has to be
proud of.
Any one of the English boats will go anywhere that mortal boat can
go; and their captains' local knowledge is a thing England at large
should be proud of and the rest of the civilised world regard with
awe-stricken admiration. That they leave no room for further
development of ocean carriage has been several times demonstrated by
the collapse of lines that have attempted to rival them - the Prince
line and more recently the General Steam Navigation.
But although the West Coast trader has at his disposal these
vessels, he has by no means an easy time, or cheap methods, of
getting his stuff on board, save at Sierra Leone and in the Oil
Rivers. Of the Gold Coast surf, and Lagos bar I have already
spoken, and the Calemma as we call the South-west Coast surf is
nearly, if not quite as bad as that on the Gold Coast. Indeed I
hold it is worse, but then I have had more experience of it, and it
has frequently to be worked in native dugouts, and not in the well-
made surf boats used on the Gold Coast. But although these surf-
boats are more safe they are also more expensive than canoes, as a
fine 40 or 60 pounds surf-boat's average duration of life is only
two years in the Gold Coast surf, so there is little to choose from
a commercial standpoint between the two surfs when all is done.
As regards interior transport, the difficulty is greater, but in the
majority of the West Coast possessions of European powers there
exist great facilities for transport in the network of waterways
near the coast and the great rivers running far into the interior.
These waterways are utilised by the natives, being virtually roads;
in many districts practically the only roads existing for the
transport of goods in bulk, or in the present state of the trade
required to exist. But there is room for more white enterprise in
the matter of river navigation; and my own opinion is that if
English capital were to be employed in the direction of small
suitably-built river steamers, it would be found more repaying than
lines of railway. Waterways that might be developed in this manner
exist in the Cross River, the Volta, and the Ancobra. I do not say
that there will be any immediate dividend on these river steamboat
lines, but I do not think that there will be any dividend, immediate
or remote, on railways in West Africa. This question of transport
is at present regarded as a burning one throughout the Continent;
and for the well-being of certain parts of the West Coast railways
are essential, such as at Lagos, and on the Gold Coast. Of Lagos I
do not pretend to speak. I have never been ashore there. Of the
Gold Coast I have seen a little, and heard a great deal more, and I
think I may safely say that railway making would not be difficult on
it, for it is good hard land, not stretches of rotten swamp. The
great difficulty in making railroads here will consist in landing
the material through the surf. This difficulty cannot be got over,
except at enormous expense, by making piers, but it might be
surmounted by sending the plant ashore on small bar boats that could
get up the Volta or Ancobra. When up the Volta it may be said, "it
would be nowhere when any one wanted it," but the cast-iron idea
that goods must go ashore at places where there are Government
headquarters like Accra and Cape Coast, places where the surf is
about at its worst, seems to me an erroneous one. The landing place
at Cape Coast might be made safe and easy by the expenditure of a
few thousands in "developing" that rock which at present gives
shelter WHEN you get round the lee side of it, but this would only
make things safer for surf-boats. No other craft could work this
bit of beach; and there is plenty of room for developing the Volta,
as it is a waterway which a vessel drawing six feet can ascend fifty
miles from July till November, and thirty miles during the rest of
the year. The worst point about the Volta is the badness of its
bar - a great semicircular sweep with heavy breakers - too bad a bar
for boats to cross; but a steamer on the Lagos bar boat plan might
manage it, as the Bull Frog reported in 1884 nineteen to twenty-one
feet on it, one hour before high water. The absence of this bar
boat, and the impossibility of sending goods out in surf-boats
across the bar, causes the goods from Adda (Riverside), the chief
town on the Volta, situated about six miles up the river from its
mouth, to be carried across the spit of land to Beach Town, and then
brought out through the shore surf - the worst bit of surf on the
whole Gold Coast.
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