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Show G&merouTi A Musician of the Cameroun. (Prepared by National Geographic Society, Washington. D. C.) WNU service. IN THE Who's Who of former German Ger-man colonies in Africa, now mandates man-dates under the control of the vari- ous European nations, Cameroun stands out as one of the most interesting. interest-ing. Wedged in between French and British territory at the inner corner of the Gulf of Guinea on the western coast, It was "Kamerun" to the Germans. Ger-mans. Now it has become a French mandate and is governed along with French Equatorial Africa, a sizable empire under the tricolor. Cameroun is a vast territory itself. It touches the sea for a distance of about 125 miles, and then fans out gigantically to reach the Sahara to the north, the Oubangui river to the east, and Gabon colony at its lower boundary. boun-dary. The steamer which carries the traveler trav-eler to this out-of-the-way objective passes through a 19-mile channel between be-tween the huge guardian masses of the island of Fernando Po on one side and Mount Cameroons on the other, and turns eastward into the mouth of a broad estuary. To the south stretches an endless vista of low mangrove swamp. On the left, 60 miles away, is the mountain, Its peak rarely visible in so humid a climate. In midstream, to the annoyance of the captain, is the wreckage of two German ships deliberately sunk at the beginning of the World war to obstruct ob-struct the passage. After several slow miles upstream Douala, the "big-town," becomes visible. vis-ible. It lies on a flat-topped, not very lofty, promontory and continues behind the promontory along a glaring beach and hilly ridge. The effect, especially after -a month of sea, Is charming. Douala Is Attractive. The big house of the chief of the local administrative division of the mandate appears white, elegant, and richly shaded In the foreground. Behind the mansion, up and down the hill, are other sturdy, pretty stucco residences, mango, palm, and breadfruit bread-fruit trees overhanging them ; and, of course, along the water front are the inevitable and Inevitably ugly trading "factories," their galvanized iron roofs shimmering in the violence of the sun. On closer examination Douala proves at once the prettiest and the plainest of West African cities. It is a question ques-tion of neighborhood. On the palm of the flat Douala promontory the Germans Ger-mans established an exclusive white residential quarter, complete with parks, bandstand, and double or quadruple quad-ruple lines of trees on every street. Alnog the wrist and forearm, to continue con-tinue the metaphor, they planned a native and trading section which could continue inland upriver as far as it liked, incorporating as it grew the existing villages of Akwa, Deido, New Bell, New Akwa, and New Deido. "In times these town names threaten to become repetitious.) This arrangement, substantially, has kept up, though the French government govern-ment has made no effort to enforce it. The section immediately around the park, enlivened fcy the presence of several cafes, is the best shaded, most serenely quiet and lovely bit of town on the coast. For the rest for-the miles of deep, hot sand along the river's edge, the Innumerable hideous stores and warehouses, ware-houses, the noisy recklessness of dilapidated dilap-idated auto trucks and even more dilapidated native laborers one can say little that is kind. It is commercially commer-cially flourishing and trade Is growing, at least. It is the one logical outlet for the produce of the entire interior, and the harbor is excellent. In thirty years the population has grown from negligibility to over 25,000, more than 1,000 of whom are Europeans. Douala will never be proud of Its climate. In the dry season it is hot, breathless beyond belief. A temperature tempera-ture of SO degrees is absolutely chilly. And in the rainy season one sloshes about in high boots and a raincoat through an almost continual downpour, which, mysteriously, does little to modify mod-ify the temperature. The average annual an-nual rainfall here Is more than 13 feet, and at one place on the seacoast the precipitation reaches the phenomenal phenom-enal figure of 30 feet. To the Interior by Rail. The two Cameroun railways center at Douala. One runs due north for 100 miles to the terminal town of Nkongsamba. The other, which has no connection with the first, goes east ward for 190 miles, to the new administrative admin-istrative capital, Yaounde. To reach the terminus of the first the Chemin de Fer du Nord one crosses the Douala river to the village of Bonaberi. The daily train, following the ignoble ig-noble custom of civilization, leaves at a fiendishly early hour, an hour when the fleecy dawn mists lie on the river, permeate one's clothes, and unglue the labels from the baggage. Passengers of both colors intensely dislike each other, as is natural before breakfast, and embarkation is accompanied by profanity in something over thirty languages. lan-guages. The engine burns wood, frequently such trifles as ebony and mahogany, and the rain of blazing sparks makes it incumbent upon the pasengers to remain re-main close within the carriages. j Almost at once, however, the multiplicity multi-plicity and grandeur of Cameroun become be-come manifest, and one can no longer be dull. All the way to Nkongsamba the line climbs upward, slowly for three-quarters of the distance, then sheerly. For the first six hours the route lies through the region of the great equatorial equa-torial forest'. At either side of the narrow cut rear up the mighty, regimented trees. The tops, flaring flat and wide to take the sun, are often 200 feet above the ground. Some of the trunks are four feet through and all are wrapped and tangled in vines that make a continuous, continu-ous, eternal pattern. Bushes, weeds, ferns the size of apple trees, choke the ground. Everything is green, superbly living in immortal summer. Plantations and Uplands. Occasionally the forest breaks and the train passes plantations of tobacco (certain grades of Cameroun wrapper sell for $2.50 a pound wholesale), banana, palm oil, and cacao. Less frequently, fre-quently, there are native villages of half a dozen ramshackle "long houses" of the Bantu type, and now and then larger towns with the ubiquitous corrugated cor-rugated Iron "factory" Id evidence. Then, on higher ground, the train begins to go through open clearings, stretches of lush, rolling meadowland of a sort unimaginable in ordinary tropical "bush." The trees begin to dwindle, the vegetation thins down and becomes more orderly. At a few miles from Nkongsamba there Is no more jungle, only what a northerner would accurately call "woods." The equatorial equato-rial forest, In less than 100 miles and, more importantly, with 3,000 feet of altitude, has been forced out. From Nkongsamba an auto goes 137 miles north and a little east to the native na-tive city of Foumban. It Is a lovely road, speaking strictly from the standpoint stand-point of scenery, not roadbed. Foumban Is Surprising. After a tiring day's drive In a bumpy truck, Foumban Is astonishing, so complete Is Its contrast with what has gone before. The city stands upon a hill and Is surrounded by an elaborate elab-orate system of ancient trench fortifications fortifi-cations dating from the years of the Fulah raiders. The trees, which have been planted along every street, give it a wooded effect wholly absent among the neighboring grass meadows. One has an immediate Impression of order, prosperity, civilization. Many of the houses of Foumban are of sun-dried brick and are roofed with native tiles or grass thatch. The compound com-pound fences are neatly constructed. The market, made of brick and tile, is modern in type and perfectly clean. At the center of the town is an imposing impos-ing three-story structure set in the midst of elaborate gardens. It is the palace of Njoya, sultan of the Bamoum and overlord of Foumban. Everything order, bricks, and garden is indigenous. Foumban existed when the white man was no more than a myth. Even now outside influences have touched it only slightly. The sultan and the majority of his people are Mohammedans. In accordance accord-ance with the curious rule that people of the African deserts and prairies readily adopted Mohammedanism, and that the people of the African forests almost Invariably did not, the Bamoum scarcely recall a time when their life was not strongly Influenced by the Arabic belief. In the center of the town, facing the sultan's palace, Is the mosque, a frame building of strongly Moorish type, even to the vertical stripes of red and white paint. Here, every Friday, the elite of the Bamoum gather. |