Sanders Of The River E-Book

Edgar Wallace

• Herausgeber: Edgar Wallace
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Sanders of the River was written by Edgar Wallace in 1911. This was the height of Edwardian power culminating in positive ideas about The British Empire and the role of Britain in 'civilising' its colonies. This book was written firmly in that context. It makes for very uncomfortable reading in the twenty first century, but it still offers a valuable insight into what many people thought was the way that British administrators should run their colonies.Sanders is one such caricature of the British Colonial Administrator responsible for keeping the peace along a stretch of river in deepest, darkest Nigeria. The character was probably based on the career of the Frederick Lugard who was basically responsible for the creation of the Northern Nigeria and implementing a subtle but firm form of indirect rule. The stories are certainly evocative of a disappeared imperial outpost and nicely illustrates how large areas of the empire were administered with such a miniscule bureaucracy. It also shows how British power could be called upon if absolutely necessary, although the budget constraints and motives of the Colonial Office are very cynically.

Leseprobe

SANDERS OF THE RIVER

By

Edgar wallace

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CHAPTER I.

THE EDUCATION OF THE KING.

Mr. Commissioner Sanders had graduated to West Central Africa by such easy stages that he did not realise when his acquaintance with the back lands began. Long before he was called upon by the British Government to keep a watchful eye upon some quarter of a million cannibal folk, who ten years before had regarded white men as we regard the unicorn; he had met the Basuto, the Zulu, the Fingo, the Pondo, Matabele, Mashona, Barotse, Hottentot, and Bechuana. Then curiosity and interest took him westward and northward, and he met the Angola folk, then northward to the Congo, westward to the Masai, and finally, by way of the Pigmy people, he came to his own land.

Now, there is a subtle difference between all these races, a difference that only such men as Sanders know.

It is not necessarily a variety of colour, though some are brown and some yellow, and some—a very few—jet black. The difference is in character. By Sanders' code you trusted all natives up to the same point, as you trust children, with a few notable exceptions. The Zulu were men, the Basuto were men, yet childlike in their grave faith. The black men who wore the fez were subtle, but trustworthy; but the browny men of the Gold Coast, who talked English, wore European clothing, and called one another "Mr.," were Sanders' pet abomination.

Living so long with children of a larger growth, it follows that he absorbed many of their childlike qualities. Once, on furlough in London, a confidence trick was played on him, and only his natural honesty pulled him out of a ridiculous scrape. For, when the gold-brick man produced his dull metal ingot, all Sanders' moral nerves stood endways, and he ran the confiding "bunco steerer" to the nearest station, charging him, to the astonishment of a sorely-puzzled policeman, with "I.G.B.," which means illicit gold buying. Sanders did not doubt that the ingot was gold, but he was equally certain that the gold was not honestly come by. His surprise when he found that the "gold" was gold-leaf imposed upon the lead of commerce was pathetic.

You may say of Sanders that he was a statesman, which means that he had no exaggerated opinion of the value of individual human life. When he saw a dead leaf on the plant of civilisation, he plucked it off, or a weed growing with his "flowers" he pulled it up, not stopping to consider the weed's equal right to life. When a man, whether he was capita or slave, by his bad example endangered the peace of his country, Sanders fell upon him. In their unregenerate days, the Isisi called him "Ogani Isisi," which means "The Little Butcher Bird," and certainly in that time Sanders was prompt to hang. He governed a people three hundred miles beyond the fringe of civilisation. Hesitation to act, delay in awarding punishment, either of these two things would have been mistaken for weakness amongst a people who had neither power to reason, nor will to excuse, nor any large charity.