Читать книгу The Cameroons онлайн

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Because of their arrogant attempt to put their theories and their conclusions to the test, the German people are being stripped of all their overseas possessions. They have already lost their South-West Protectorate and Togoland, and the Allies are now successfully engaged in crushing German resistance in Eastern Africa. It is not my purpose in this little book to follow the fortunes of the Allied troops; it will be time enough to write the story of the campaigns when the task is accomplished, and the future administrations of the colonies are in operation. My object in the following pages is to give the public the particulars about the Cameroons which I have collected not without the expenditure of a considerable amount of time and trouble. A natural desire to ascertain the nature of the difficulties that would have to be surmounted by the allied forces, and a desire to learn something of the natural resources and commercial potentialities of the territory that was about to be acquired, sent me to bookshops and libraries in search of works that would satisfy my curiosity. I was disappointed to find that the information I wanted was not available in English form, English authors having decided, apparently, that the colony did not lend itself to interesting or marketable compilation, and since the British Government had not accredited a Consul to the Cameroons, not even a belated Consular Report was procurable. In this extremity I turned my attention to such German publications as were obtainable in this country and, from the official writings of Dr. Paul Rohrback, Dr. Grotefeld, Dr. Paul Preuss, Dr. Walter Busse, Herr Eltester, and Siegfreid Passarge, I gathered a mass of information concerning the geographical and geological features, the vegetation and forestry, and the natives and native cultivation, together with an interesting summary of the progress made under the German system of development and the success they had attained in their experiments in plantation cultivation. In a paper written by Captain W. A. Nugent, R.A., who had been a member of the Boundary Commission in 1907, and acted as British Commissioner appointed to survey and fix the boundary between the German Cameroons and Nigeria in 1912, I found a full and admirable description of the territory traversed. This volume contains the result of my researches, selected and arranged in such a manner as will, I trust, be found acceptable to English readers who share my curiosity concerning the natural resources, the commercial position and the prospects of the colony, and who also entertain the hope that part of it, at least, will ultimately form a link in the chain of British overseas dominions.