Chapter XVI: German Africa

German settlement in Africa is not altogether the outcome of the
scramble for Africa in 1884; German settlements on the West coast of
Africa date back to 1683, and Prussian or German protectorates in
Africa were discussed during the sixties of the 19th century. Ships
from Emden[204] and Gretsyl, belonging to the Friesland possessions
of the Electorate of Brandenburg (the mother of the Prussian
monarchy), stole out of the North Sea and took a part in the West
African trade in slaves and gold. These ships were much harassed by
the French, Portuguese, and Dutch, but the Brandenburgers, together
with the Prussian Company of Emden, managed to establish a foothold
at the close of the 17th century on the Gold Coast, where they held
for a time Grossfriedrichsburg and Takrana. The little island of
Arguin near Cape Blanco, off the Senegal coast, was bought by
Frederic William (the Great Elector of Brandenburg) from the Dutch,
and was held for some years. The Brandenburg Africa Company was
definitely founded in 1681, but by 1720 these North Germans,
distracted by quarrels at home, had abandoned their West African
enterprise.

During the forties of the 19th century some consideration was given
in Germany to the question of colonization, but attention was
directed to unoccupied territories in America, and nothing was said
about Africa. About 1850 German steamships (under the Hamburg flag)
began to trade along the West Coast of Africa; and in that year the
celebrated House of Woermann opened its first agencies at Monrovia
(Liberia) and elsewhere on the West Coast.

Many German missionaries and colonists between 1845 and 1865 went
out to South Africa to settle chiefly in Cape Colony, Namakwaland
and Natal. Between 1860 and 1865, a Hanoverian Baron, von der
Decken, was exploring Kilima-njaro and the East coast of Africa. It
began to dawn on him that Zanzibar and the Zanzibar coast would form
a legitimate field for German enterprise, settlement, and
colonization, “especially after the opening of the Suez Canal.”
Although von der Decken was killed on the Jub River in 1865, he
transmitted his opinions to Otto Kersten, who wrote an article in
1867, stating that von der Decken had had ideas of buying Mombasa
from the Sultan of Zanzibar in order to found a German settlement.
By this time Hamburg merchants had established a flourishing trade
at Zanzibar, and until 1885 the German representative at that place
was almost invariably a Hamburg man; indeed before the unification
of the German Empire there was a Hamburg (Hanseatic) consul at
Zanzibar, rather than a German representative. Until the deliberate
intervention of Germany on the East coast of Africa, these Hanseatic
merchants practically placed themselves under British protection.

In 1878 the German African Society of Berlin was founded as a branch
of the International African Association. It absorbed two similar
societies dealing with Africa, more from a geographical than
political point of view. German “international” stations were
founded between Zanzibar and Tanganyika, and German explorers made a
careful examination of the country round Lake Mweru and of the river
Lualaba. Other German explorers (Wissmann amongst their number)
traversed and mapped the southern half of the Congo basin; and, when
the present writer visited the Congo in 1882-3, the German
explorers, nominally in the service of the King of the Belgians,
made no secret of the desire of Germany to acquire control over the
Western Congo. This, no doubt, was one reason why Bismarck opposed
the Anglo-Portuguese treaty of 1883-4 (pp. 89-343). But, when the
conference he had negotiated was brought about, he felt that French
and Belgian opposition, united, and the absence of German treaty
claims, made a German Congo State impossible. The energies of
Germany were then directed towards the Niger, but here they were
thwarted by the National African, afterwards the Royal Niger
Company.

Several emissaries were, however, sent out to Nigeria by the
German Colonial Society. This institution was founded at
Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1882, and at once met with enthusiastic
support.

In the fifties, sixties, and seventies, German Protestant
missionaries had established themselves in Damaraland and
Namakwaland, in South-West Africa. In 1864 some of these
missionaries bought the estates of the Walfish Bay Copper Company,
to the north-east of Walfish Bay, and here they hoisted the German
flag. So early as 1877 Sir Bartle Frere began to regard the
proceedings of the German missionaries with suspicion, and, to
combat their action, proposed adding Damaraland to the South African
Empire. But the British Government would only permit the annexation
of Walfish Bay. About 1880 the German missionaries renewed their
complaints as to the treatment they suffered at the hands of the
natives and the lack of protection they received from the British
authorities. Prince Bismarck took up these claims, and asked the
British Government whether it was prepared to protect Europeans in
Damaraland and the Namakwa country. Lord Granville repudiated any
responsibility outside Walfish Bay, and informed the Governor of the
Cape that the Orange River was the north-western boundary of Cape
Colony. In 1881 the German missionaries asked for a gunboat to
protect their interests on the Namakwa coast. The Foreign Office was
consulted, and again repudiated any British claims to this territory
outside Walfish Bay. At the beginning of 1883 Herr Lüderitz of
Bremen, acting possibly under the inspiration of the German Colonial
Society, asked the German Government whether he would receive German
protection if he acquired territories in South-West Africa. He
received a guarded consent (after the German Foreign Office had
again consulted the British Government and received a vague reply).
In April 1883 the agents of Herr Lüderitz went with a German ship to
the Bay of Angra Pequena, 150 miles north of the Orange River. The
Germans landed there, and marched inland 100 miles to the German
mission station of Bethany. The Hottentot chief of that district
sold to these agents of Herr Lüderitz a piece of land 24 miles long
and 10 miles broad, with that breadth of frontage on the Bay of
Angra Pequena, including all sovereign rights. On the 2nd of May,
1883, the German flag was hoisted on the shore of Angra Pequena Bay
over the first German colony. When the news reached the Cape, an
English gunboat, the Boadicea, went to Angra Pequena, and was met at
that place by a German gunboat, whose commander informed the captain
of the Boadicea that he was in German waters, and could exercise no
authority there. Nearly five months had apparently elapsed between
the hoisting of the German flag at Angra Pequena and this visit of
the British warship, and during that period no action had been taken
in England. Nor, indeed, could any action have been taken after the
explicit manner in which both Lord Beaconsfield’s and Mr Gladstone’s
Administrations had disavowed any British claims to the coast of
South-West Africa. Too late, Lord Granville informed Prince Bismarck
that “any claim of sovereignty or jurisdiction on the part of a
foreign power over any part of the coast between the Portuguese
boundary and the Orange River would be regarded as an encroachment
on the legitimate rights of Cape Colony.” Even then Germany did not
proceed to immediate action, but repeatedly pressed the question
whether England did or did not intend to take upon herself the
administration of this Damara coast. The British Government sought
to evade a direct reply by consulting the Cape Government. No answer
was returned by the latter till May 1884, when the Cape offered to
take over the control of the whole coast up to Walfish Bay. But in
April Germany had made a statement that she would not recognize
British protection over this coast, and on the 21st of June she
secured from England a recognition of a German protectorate. If the
action of the British authorities was blameworthy (from a national
point of view) in refusing to take Germany seriously, and in
puzzling her by declining to proclaim a British protectorate between
the Orange River and the Portuguese possessions, the blame falls
equally upon the Cape Parliament. It was the parsimony of Cape
Colony which feared to be led into expense, coupled with the
shortsightedness of the English Ministry of the day which refused to
believe in the possibility of Germany desiring colonies, that
permitted Germany to establish herself as a South African power. As
to the German Government, it behaved throughout with perfect
“correctness.” It gave the British Government ample time and
opportunity to make good any preceding rights.

Germany did not act here as she did in the Cameroons, where she
merely informed the British Government that Dr Nachtigal had been
commissioned by the German Government to visit the West coast of
Africa in order to report on the state of German commerce, and asked
that he might be furnished with recommendations to the British
authorities in West Africa. Her ambassador did, it is true, mention
that Dr Nachtigal would conduct negotiations connected with certain
questions, but the context implied that these questions were
commercial matters. Therefore the British Government, which had
already made arrangements for establishing a protectorate over the
whole coast between Lagos and the Cameroons, did not cause Consul E.
H. Hewett to return to his post with any undue hurry. Dr Nachtigal
arrived at the Isles de Los, on the Sierra Leone coast of Africa, on
the 1st of June, 1884, with the intention of taking under German
protection the River Dubreka, situated in the district which the
French call Rivières du Sud; but, as there was some doubt as to
French claims, nothing further was done at the time; and, when
afterwards the German flag was hoisted, it was at once removed on
the receipt of a French protest. On the 5th of July Nachtigal
reached a district on the east of the English Gold Coast colony, now
known as Togoland. Here arrangements were made with the native
chiefs and the country was declared a German protectorate. Then Dr
Nachtigal steamed right across to the Cameroons. Here he was just in
time. The principal chief, King Bell, had been won over by the gift
of £1000 to sign a treaty with Germany. The other chiefs refused to
do so, and Bell himself waited for a week to see if Consul Hewett
would arrive. However, when the Consul did come on the 19th of July,
King Bell had signed the treaty, and the German flag had been
hoisted over the Cameroons River. Consul Hewett was in time to carry
out the rest of his programme, and, so far as actual treaty-signing
went, the British had only lost a small piece of the coast-line they
had determined to secure; but, in order that a grudging spirit might
not be shown to Germany, she was finally allowed to take over all
the Cameroons district[205].

In East Africa Germany’s procedure may be summarized thus. Count
Pfeil, Dr Carl Peters, and Dr Jühlke arrived at Zanzibar on the 4th
of November, 1884, as deck passengers, dressed like mechanics.
Officially discountenanced by the German Consul, they nevertheless
left at once for the interior; and on the 19th of November the first
treaty was signed with a native chief, and the German flag was
hoisted in Uzeguha. Eventually other treaties were concluded in
Nguru, Usagara, Ukami, and other adjoining countries, which resulted
in a solid block of 60,000 square miles being ostensibly secured on
paper. Dr Peters hastened back to Berlin, and on the 12th of
February, 1885, he had already founded a German East African
Company, to whom he transferred his treaty rights. On the 27th of
February following, the German Emperor issued an official notice of
the extension of his protection to the territories acquired, or
which might be further acquired. In vain the Sultan of Zanzibar
protested. The British representative was instructed to support
German claims, and eventually it was decided that the Sultan of
Zanzibar’s authority was to be limited to a strip ten miles broad
along the coast between Cape Delgado and Somaliland.

In May 1885 the Foreign Office informed Germany that a British
company desired to develop the country between the Mombasa coast and
the Victoria Nyanza. The foundation for this scheme was the treaties
which the present writer had concluded on or near Kilima-njaro in
the preceding year, and which at the suggestion of the Foreign
Office had been transferred to the late Mr James Hutton of
Manchester. The Sultan of Zanzibar, however, refused to give in,
even to British representations, and made strenuous efforts to
support his claims to the hinterland of the East African coast. On
the 7th of August, 1885, a German squadron hove to in front of
Zanzibar and delivered an ultimatum. The Sultan bowed to the
inevitable, and recognized the German territorial claims, including
a protectorate over Vitu[206], a little patch of territory near the
Tana River. Gradually, however, matters settled down. An agreement
was come to in 1885 between the British and German Governments for a
recognition with France of the independence of the Sultan of
Zanzibar, and the definition of his exact dominions by a joint
commission. Eventually, in 1886, the respective British and German
spheres in East Africa were defined. In the same forceful manner the
Germans had taken Kilima-njaro. Except for the bulge of
Kilima-njaro, a line drawn from Wanga on the coast (near the river
Umba) straight to the north-east shore of Lake Victoria Nyanza is
the Anglo-German frontier in East Africa. The limit of the British
sphere on the north was the Tana River, Germany maintaining her hold
on Vitu. The German Government then came to terms with Portugal, and
agreed that the territories of the two powers in East Africa should
march together as far as the east coast of Lake Nyasa. Germany also
concluded treaties along the Somali coast.

The German Colonization Society and the German Colonial Society
subsequently united under the latter title, while the German East
African Association had been incorporated by Imperial charter.
Further subsidiary companies were organized; and by 1888 numerous
plantations had been established in the north of German East Africa,
near the coast. In 1888 the German East Africa Company obtained from
the Sultan of Zanzibar the lease for 50 years of the whole of the
Sultan’s coast territory from the Ruvuma River to the Umba. A great
development then took place in the Company’s operations, which were
more and more identified with the German Government. A staff of over
60 officials was sent out to carry on the new administration. Sir
Charles Euan Smith, who had succeeded Sir John Kirk as British Agent
at Zanzibar, warned the German administration in a friendly manner
that, unless greater care for Arab susceptibilities was shown in
replacing the Sultan of Zanzibar’s government on the coast, troubles
with the Arabs might ensue. His warning was only too well founded.
Five days after taking over the administration of the country—on the
21st of August, 1888—disturbances fomented by the Arab and Swahili
population broke out, and in another month the Germans held very few
posts on the coast or in the interior. An animosity also began to be
directed not only against the Germans, but against all Europeans,
and the situation became very serious. In 1889, the resources of the
Company having broken down, Captain Hermann Wissmann (afterwards
Major von Wissmann) was appointed Imperial Commissioner for East
Africa. With 1000 native troops, mainly Sudanese recruited with the
help of the British Government, 200 German sailors, and 60 German
officers and non-commissioned officers, von Wissmann carried on a
vigorous campaign against the Arabs and Swahili, and by the end of
1889 he had put down the revolt and captured and executed the leader
of it, Bushiri. It took six months longer, however, to quiet some of
the interior districts and those near the River Ruvuma.

In the middle of 1890 Germany concluded a very wise arrangement with
England, by which, as has already been described in another chapter,
all German possessions to the north of the British boundary at the
Umba River were given up, and a British protectorate over Zanzibar
was recognized, while the German boundaries were carried inland to
the frontier of the Congo State. On the south, Great Britain was
admitted to the south end of Tanganyika, and secured all the west
coast of Lake Nyasa. From 1890 to the present time German settlement
and the development of German East Africa have gone on without any
disagreeable check so far as the Arabs or the European powers are
concerned. In 1893 a large and well-appointed steamer, the Hermann
von Wissmann, was placed on Lake Nyasa; and the British authorities
round that lake were amply rewarded for any help they might have
contributed towards its conveyance thither by the services which the
German steamer afterwards rendered in acting as a transport for a
portion of the British forces in the last war against the Lake Nyasa
Arabs. At the beginning of the 20th century the Germans had placed a
fine war-steamer on Lake Tanganyika.

On the Zanzibar coast new quarters in the old Arab towns sprang up
like magic, the streets being widened, kept clean, and well lit.
Flourishing plantations covered many acres of what was formerly
waste land. There was fair security for life and property, even in
the distant interior. The Arabs became reconciled to German rule,
while on the other hand the German officials slowly learnt the art
of dealing tactfully with subject races. Since 1890, when the coast
strip leased from the Sultan of Zanzibar was finally purchased from
him, the whole of German East Africa has been under direct Imperial
administration. This German possession has now an area of about
384,000 square miles, with a population—mainly Bantu
negroes—estimated at 10,000,000. The Asiatic settlers are stated at
only 7000, and the Europeans (mainly Germans) at 3800. It is likely
to turn out in course of time a flourishing tropical settlement; not
a country which Germans could colonize in the sense that Australia
or Canada are colonizable, but a Ceylon, a Java, a Southern India,
where the German planter may make a competence, where the goods of
Germany may find unrestricted markets, and where the Teuton may
educate and raise into a higher state of civilization a vigorous
negro people—some tribes of which, like the Wanyamwezi and the
Waswahili, possess fine qualities. The plateau region to the north
and north-east of Tanganyika may support here and there small but
flourishing colonies of white men. British Indians are already
settling somewhat thickly in the coast towns and are exchanging
their nationality for that of German subjects.

In 1891, scarcely two years after Wissmann had broken the power of
the Arabs, the Germans found themselves fighting a more difficult,
brave and unaccountable enemy, the Wa-hehe of the plateau region
south of the Rufiji river. These people seem to have some distant
affinity with the Zulu in appearance, character, and mode of
warfare. This may be due to their having been influenced by the
Wa-ngoni further south (partly in Portuguese, partly in German East
Africa), the Wa-ngoni (under various tribal names) being derived
from Zulu clans which left South-east Africa early in the 19th
century and crossed the Zambezi, reaching northwards nearly to the
Victoria Nyanza. The German war with the Wa-hehe lasted till about
1893. Then ensued a period of comparative peace till the year 1905,
when a most serious native rising took place in the southern
districts of the colony, between North Nyasa and the Kilwa coast.
Nearly all the tribes, Muhammadan and Pagan, joined in attempting to
oust the Germans. Officials, Catholic missionaries (male and
female), planters, and traders were murdered. It took nearly a year
and a half to subdue this rebellion completely, and something like
120,000 natives (adults and children) died during this struggle, or
from its immediate results; they were killed in battle, by famine
resulting from the destruction of crops or neglect of agriculture,
or by disease. The effects of this depopulation are still to be seen
in the coast belt of Kilwa and in the Ruvuma watershed. The Wa-ngoni
(or Magwangwara as they are sometimes called) were almost
exterminated—an achievement by no means to be greatly mourned, since
they had kept East Africa (Lake Nyasa to the Indian Ocean) unsettled
by their raids, sparsely populated, and scarcely cultivated for some
fifty years previously. The Germans subdued this native rising with
a small army of German officers and non-commissioned officers, and
Masai and Sudanese soldiers, and even brought the Oceanic negro of
New Guinea face to face with his African brother for the first time
for something like three hundred thousand years! But these Papuan
and Melanesian soldiers were not altogether a success.

It was alleged that this great rising was caused by misgovernment,
and by imposing on the people labour taxes which were most
unpopular, especially when this forced labour was leased out to
conscienceless European planters. Herr Dernburg—then German Colonial
minister—came out to investigate the cause of this revolt in 1907.
Since his recommendations were adopted the whole of German East
Africa has been peaceful.

In 1890 railway construction began, firstly in a line from Tanga (a
northern port) to Usambara and eventually Kilimanjaro. This at
present (1912) has a length of 108 miles. In the early years of the
20th century a Dar-es-Salaam[207]-Tanganyika line was begun which
already reaches Kilimatinde, 240 miles inland. Another line,
starting from Kilwa on the southern coast, aims at the northern end
of Lake Nyasa.

The later history of the Cameroons has been much like that of German
East Africa—revolts, “sharp lessons,” then attacks by hostile tribes
inland, which are quelled by expeditions and the building of forts,
followed by other revolts still further in the interior, to be
succeeded by still further victories and advances; but on the whole
increasing peace and order throughout the country, and a great
development of trade. Unfortunately, as amongst some officials of
the East Africa Company and Administration, so among a few of the
Government servants in the Cameroons, there were instances of great
cruelties committed between 1887 and 1896, cruelties which led to a
serious revolt among the negro soldiery (1895). Germany wisely did
not hush up these affairs, but investigated them in an open court
and punished the guilty. It will be seen, I fancy, when history
takes a review of the foundation of these African states, that the
unmixed Teuton—Dutchman or German—is on first contact with subject
races apt to be harsh and even brutal, but that he is no fool and
wins the respect of the negro or the Asiatic, who admire rude
strength; while his own good nature in time induces a softening of
manners when the native has ceased to rebel and begun to submit.
There is this that is hopeful and wholesome about the Germans. They
are quick to realise their own defects, and equally quick to amend
them. As in commerce so in government, they observe, learn and
master the best principles. The politician would be very
shortsighted who underrated the greatness of the German character,
or reckoned on the evanescence of German dominion in strange lands.

In 1904-5 there were risings of the Bantu negroes against German
authority in the western part of the Cameroons[208] colony. These
were suppressed after much bush fighting, but the cause of them
being oppressive legislation, the Governor of the Cameroons was
changed in 1906, since which time the whole country has been
peaceful. In the far interior German influence was established over
the banks of the Shari and of Lake Chad by 1902; and about the same
time Germans began to open up relations with the “Fang” country in
the western part of the Congo watershed. Railways were begun in the
first decade of the 20th century. One from Victoria (Ambas Bay—the
original settlement of the Baptist mission—see p. 244) runs round
the southern flanks of Cameroons Mountain to Buëa, the German
capital (3000 ft. above sea-level); another from the Cameroons river
(Duala) to the Manenguba mountains and Bayoñ (this will eventually
link up with the Victoria-Buëa line and be built northwards towards
the Shari river); and a third from Duala south-eastward to the
Nyanza river.

In 1911-12, Germany obtained from France additional territory on the
south and west of the Cameroons Colony to the extent of 100,000
square miles, bringing this African dominion eastwards into the
Central Sudan, to the Mubangi river, main Congo, and north coast of
the Gaboon. Germany thus secures the whole basin of the Sanga river
(a valuable waterway into the Fang country) and now possesses in the
Cameroons—or as it is spelt in the German fashion, Kamerun—an Empire
in Western Equatorial Africa of some 292,000 square miles, with a
population of negroes and negroids numbering about 4,000,000. The
country is rich in valuable products, and already the annual trade
amounts to about £2,200,000 in value.

In South-west Africa Germany, by arrangement with Portugal and
eventually with England, secured a protectorate or sphere of
influence over a very large stretch of country—322,450 square
miles—bounded on the north by Portuguese West Africa, on the south
by the Orange River, and on the east by British Bechuanaland, with,
in addition, a long, narrow strip, which reached the Zambezi at its
confluence with the Chobe. This country along the coast-line is very
barren; it is, in fact, a hopeless desert, most hopeless of all
between the Orange River and Walfish Bay. But the interior is
mountainous, and in these mountains there are stretches of
well-watered country where cattle are kept in enormous herds.
Moreover, this mountainous country is very healthy. With the Bantu
Herero, who inhabit the northern part of German South-west Africa,
the Germans at first got on very well, thanks to the influence
exerted by the German missionaries; but with the pure-blood and
half-caste Hottentots, who inhabit the southern section of the
colony and almost all the coast-belt, the Germans have been
constantly at war. These Hottentots, many of whom have some slight
infusion of Dutch blood which renders them more warlike than their
relations in Cape Colony, are Christians of a kind, wear clothes,
and bear Dutch names. They at first found a leader in a certain
Hendrik Witbooi, who again and again inflicted defeats on small
parties of German soldiers, made treaties and broke them, and from
first to last gave the Germans a great deal of trouble. Although he
could boast of but a paltry number of followers, he fought in a
waterless, mountainous country, where concealment was easy and
pursuit difficult. In 1894 he made peace with the Germans and
remained more or less their ally till 1904. As he spoke Cape Dutch
fluently he soon mastered German, and for a time seemed really
reconciled to the Germanization of his people—already Calvinist or
Lutheran Christians.

But in 1903, the Hottentots living on the north of the Orange River
and largely mixed with Boer blood—the Bondelzwarts—rose against the
Germans; and, although they only numbered some five thousand
fighting men at most, they occupied the German forces for four years
before they were conquered, mainly by extermination. The deserts in
which they lived (yet from which they were being dispossessed) were
remote and inaccessible except from the British possessions. Whilst
the German forces were attacking the Bondelzwarts, the Bantu Damara
or Ova-herero in the far north broke out into rebellion, attacked
the German settlers and traders without warning, and murdered some
of them, destroying all the homesteads they could find. The excuse
they gave for this furious outburst was that, when they signed the
original treaties of friendship and acceptance of protection, they
had no idea they were signing away their native land; and that
subsequently much vacant land in the Damara country had been given
or sold by the German Chartered Company[209] or government to white
settlers, some of whom also on unfair pretexts had taken away native
cattle. Reinforcements came out from Germany under General von
Trotha, and the mass of the Herero army was attacked in its
stronghold, the Waterberg range of mountains in about Lat. S. 21°.
The Herero warriors were slaughtered in numbers; nevertheless, the
larger proportion of the fighting men succeeded in evading the
encircling movement of the Germans and escaped under the leadership
of a chief, Samuel Maherero, and fought against the Germans for
months after their great defeat in the Waterberg mountains in August
1904[210].

In the early autumn of that year the Hottentots broke out again with
renewed vigour, first under the leadership of a Herero half-caste,
Morenga, and a few days later under the renowned Hendrik Witbooi.
The Nama Hottentots, as a signal of their defiance of the German
power, assassinated about sixty German settlers in the south-east
part of the Colony, scrupulously distinguishing between them and the
Boers or British residing in or travelling through the country.
These (as the Herero had done, far to the north) they left uninjured
in any way. General von Trotha was baffled by the double
enemy—Hottentots and Bastards in the south, Herero in the north. He
issued proclamations of a somewhat savage tone in his exasperation,
and these being annulled by the Imperial Government he resigned and
returned to Germany in 1905. In the autumn of that year a new
governor—von Lindequist—arrived, and by reasonable measures of
conciliation and by the allotment of definite native reserves made
peace with the Ovaherero. Samuel Maherero however preferred to
remain on British territory, where he had taken refuge. Since the
close of 1906, however, there has been no more trouble between the
Germans and the Herero, who are slowly recovering from the awful
loss of life and diminution of their notable nation during this
terrible war of fierce hatred on either side[210]. The Ovambo
farther north have given signs of unrest, but are believed now to
have become reconciled to German rule.

Hendrik Witbooi died in 1905; and Morenga was finally killed by a
British police patrol, in August 1907, in the Kalahari desert. He
had fled to British territory in 1906, but had not been surrendered
to the Germans. On the contrary, he was treated as a political
refugee and given every chance of settling down peacefully. He only
abused this kindness, however, in order to organize attacks on the
Germans from the secure basis of the British frontier. Therefore his
death in a skirmish with British mounted police was entirely his own
fault.

By 1908 all these troubles were at an end, and German South-west
Africa was free from native foes. But the long war in these deserts
and bare, rocky mountains had cost the Germans the lives of over
five thousand soldiers and settlers, and an expenditure of 15
millions sterling! So that it would have been cheaper at the
commencement of this colony’s history to have carried out a fair
land-settlement which would have contented the natives and still
have left more than half the area of South-west Africa at the
disposal of the white man.

In 1908 diamonds were discovered in the sandy desert country at the
back of Luderitz Bay. Their quality was that of the Brazilian or
Liberian diamond, rather than of the type of Cape Colony or
Transvaal stone. Though as yet not large in size they were of good
“water,” and in 1909 the total value of the diamonds exported was
£771,776 in value. In succeeding years the supply fell off somewhat.
In the northern part of the Colony, at Otavi and Tsumeb, copper
mining is carried on; and the output of copper is sufficient to
warrant the construction of railways of considerable length. Cotton
cultivation has been begun, and the keeping of cattle, sheep, and
Angora goats has revived once more with the cessation of warfare.
The amount of sheep indeed is beginning to approach a total of half
a million. Cattle thrive well in the interior, especially in the
northern half. So also do horses, camels, asses and pigs. Camels
have proved most useful for the desert regions of the coast-belt and
the south.

The guano islands along the coast all belong to British subjects and
are part of Cape Colony. So also is the only really good harbour on
the coast—Walfish Bay. This little enclave of 430 square miles
belongs to Cape Colony and is British territory. It would be an act
of not wasted generosity some day to transfer this little patch to
Germany for the benefit of German South-west Africa. Its retention
by the British Empire is of the dog-in-the-manger type of policy. It
is no longer of any use to us, nor does the want of it cripple
German South-west Africa; yet its possession by Germany would
relieve her of the continued heavy expenditure needed to maintain
the adjoining Swakopmund as a landing-place for passengers and
goods.

A railway of over two hundred miles now connects the southern port,
Luderitzhafen (Angra Pequena) with the inland settlement of
Keetmanshoop, and will be extended some day to the Orange River and
the Cape railway system. Another and longer railway (359 miles) goes
from Swakopmund to the Tsumeb copper mines. A third railway (237
miles) of small gauge—the first constructed—connects Swakopmund with
the administrative capital, Windhoek. There is also a short line
between the Otavi copper mines and Groot Fontein. So that, between
1900 and 1912, Germany has constructed over 1000 miles of railway in
her colony of South-west Africa.

This indeed comes nearer to being a real colony than any other
possession of Germany in Africa. Out of a total population of not
quite 100,000, nearly 11,000 are Germans, the rest of the twelve to
thirteen thousand whites being Boers and British. (The negro
population—Bantu, Hottentot, Bushman, and half-castes—only numbers
about 85,000 since the wars of 1903-7.) The climate is nearly
everywhere healthy for the white man, and the tsetse fly is almost
completely absent from the entire colony of 322,450 square miles.
Only in the extreme north, near the Kunene River, the Kubango, and
Kwando is there malarial fever. In the interior, more or less
parallel with the coast, are mountain ranges rising to considerable
altitudes—8972 feet is the highest point. They enclose fertile
valleys, and their mists and rains nourish perennial streams, which
however do not send their waters to the sea except in flood time.
Indeed over much of this central and northern mountain region the
average yearly rainfall, between October and April, is only 20
inches.

Germany has made far from a bad bargain with Fate in investing in
what was thought at the time by ignorant statesmen in England and
Cape Colony to be a derelict portion of South Africa. Like parts of
the French Sahara, German South-west Africa may turn out to be a
singularly healthy and wealthy tract of land. But can it remain long
a German Colony? Will not the attraction of the South African Union
be more powerful than the fiat of governments five thousand miles
away in London and Berlin? The parallel instances of Texas, Florida,
and the United States may be quoted some day, very appositely. But
such a movement, if it ever does come about, will be a peaceful one
because it will be irresistible; and it may be coeval with a very
close alliance in Europe, Asia, and Tropical Africa between Germany
and her oldest Colony—Britain.

Togoland, between the Gold Coast and Dahomé, became a German
protectorate in 1884. It has an area of 33,700 square miles and a
negro population of about 1,000,000. Its boundaries were finally
settled with France and Britain in 1899, and the neutral sphere,
which contained the towns of Yendi and Salagá, was divided between
Germany and Britain. Togoland stretches northward to the 11th degree
of N. Lat. (its boundary with France) and includes the important
Muhammadan towns of Yendi and Sansanne Mangu, in which the trading
population is mainly Hausa. The administrative capital is Lome on
the very narrow coast-belt. High and less unhealthy land for
European settlement has been discovered in the interior; there have
been no disturbances with the natives, and German trade has
prospered. The annual total of imports and exports is now (1912)
about £900,000. There is a railway, in all of about 130 miles, which
links up Lome with other coast stations and with the hill stations
in the interior. Togoland is the only German colonial possession
which is self-supporting and does not require an annual subsidy
towards its upkeep. The land has not been taken from the natives,
and the native “Kings” and chiefs not only remain in power but are
much consulted by the German government. Consequently there has
never been any native rising or discontent with the white man’s
over-rule.

Germany now possesses an African Empire of 1,032,000 square miles
with a population of about 14,500,000 negroes and 30,700
whites—mainly Germans.

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GERMAN AFRICA

Plate VI.

EXPLANATORY NOTE

[red] _Area of German Possessions in 1885_
[yellow]  ”   ”   ”    _1912_

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Footnote 204:

East Friesland.

Footnote 205:

Perfunctory regret for such concessions may be spared when it is
borne in mind that the United States of Europe (as they would have
become in an Anti-British League) would hardly have allowed even
Free-trade England to acquire _all_ the coast-line of the Dark
Continent.

Footnote 206:

The concession of Witu, or Vitu, had been obtained by the Denhardt
brothers on the 8th of April, 1885, and a German protectorate was
declared on the 27th of May. For subsequent history see page 384.

Footnote 207:

Dar-es-Salaam is the capital of German East Africa.

Footnote 208:

Kamerun is the official spelling of the old Portuguese name for
this region (Camarões) which we render “Cameroons.”

Footnote 209:

In the early days of the colony, when Germany rather despaired
about the unprofitable region she had annexed on the map, she
brought into existence the German South-west Africa Company in
order to introduce capital into the country. To this company were
given extensive land and mineral concessions without any regard
whatever for native rights or sentiment. Hence, when these rights
were exercised, arose much trouble with the settled negro
population.

Footnote 210:

There are said to be only about 20,000 Herero people now living in
Damaraland. It would be a great pity if this intelligent, strong
race of Bantu negroes disappeared. They must have an interesting
history behind them, which is being slowly pieced out by tradition
and by the etymology of their remarkable language, by some
regarded as the “Sanskrit of the Bantu.” They seem to have
emigrated almost direct to South-West Africa from East Equatorial
Africa some fifteen or sixteen hundred years ago, bringing their
long-horned cattle with them.