I have referred at great length to the Krumen because of their
importance, and also because they are the natives
The white men have
more to do with as servants than any other; but methods of getting
on with them are not necessarily applicable to dealing with other
forms of African labourers, such as plantation hands in the Congo
Francais, Angola, and Cameroon. In Cameroon the Germans are now
using largely the Batanga natives on the plantations; the Duallas,
the great trading tribe in Cameroon River, being too lazy to do any
heavy work; and they have also tried to import labourers from Togo
Land, but this attempt was not a success, ending in the revolt of
1894, which lost several white lives. The public work is carried
on, as it is in our own colonies, by the criminals in the chain-
gang. The Germans have had many accusations hurled against them by
people of their own nationality, but on the whole these "atrocities"
have been much exaggerated and only half understood; and certainly
have not amounted to anything like the things that have gone on in
the "philanthropic" Congo Free State. The food given out by the
German Government is the best Government rations given on the whole
West Coast. When they have allowed me to have some of their native
employes, as when I was up Cameroon Mountain, for example, I bought
rations from the Government stores for them, and was much struck by
the soundness and good quality of both rice and beef, and the
rations they gave out to those Dahomeyans or Togolanders who
revolted was so much more than they could, or cared to eat, that
they used to sell much of it to the Duallas in Bell Town.
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