From Dakka the boundary line follows the Kam for about a dozen miles,
and then, leaving the river, it runs over a block of hills which form
the fringe of a vast unknown tract of the Cameroon country. Here the
hill-top villages are few, the inhabitants are wilder and more squalid
than the Dakka natives, and the land is the haunt of the elephant, the
lion, the bush-cow and the leopard. From these hills the boundary
descends into the valley of the River Lumen, which runs for twenty or
thirty miles under a dark arch of overhanging trees. The water of the
Lumen is very cold, even in the heat of the day, and the sands of the
river are full of iron. The line crosses the Lumen and mounts a high
ridge, called Shina, to descend again into the vast plain of the River
Teraba. Along the banks of the Teraba are numerous Hausa and Jukum
villages, situated on important trade roads between Northern Nigeria and
Cameroon, the principal trade being in rubber, kola nuts, sheep, and
goats. There are no cattle, as many kinds of biting fly, including the
tsetse, have their breeding places in this area. As the Teraba is
typical of all the great southern tributaries of the Benue, the
following short description, which Captain Nugent gives of one of the
upper reaches, will be read with interest:--
“Fifteen miles above Karbabi the river bends sharply at right angles,
forming noisy rapids. Above the rapids the bed is rocky with deep pools.
Under the tall trees along the banks are open glades like an English
beech wood, entirely free from undergrowth, the ground being carpeted
with soft moss. There are the feeding-grounds of huge herds of
hippopotami, who live in the pools in the daytime. The river is here 200
to 300 yards wide, with high banks; the channel winds among huge
boulders, forming a chain of pools, but leaving a narrow deep waterway
among the larger rocks. The pools are like dark mirrors, silent and
stagnant, yet bright and clear, reflecting the trees on the opposite
bank in full detail. Wild geese and ibis fly overhead, whilst large
alligators move about like torpedoes, with their noses out of the water,
leaving long trails of bubbles on the surface.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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