CHAPTER XXXIX TRANSFER OF NIGER COMPANY'S TERRITORIES TO THE CROWN It was a necessity of commercial success, and therefore of existence to the Company, that the greater part of its practical work should be done upon the lower reaches of the river. The waterways of this part of Africa, as they approach the coast, pass through a forest belt rich in valuable forms of sylvan produce.

Palm oil and palm kernels, which form one of the most important staples of West African trade, are obtained in such quantities from the palm trees of this belt that the strip of coast through which the rivers of the district flow to the sea was for a long time known by the name of the ** Oil Rivers " Protectorate. Little industry or ingenuity is required on the part of the natives in order to collect the wild products of the forest, which they are willing to exchange for European goods, and the mere numbers of the population, in conjunction with the fertility of the soil, constitute the elements of a valuable export trade. The primitive nature of the needs of the natives unfortunately gave to the return trade from Europe the low character which it has always borne.

The Niger Company was so situated as to have no coast area beyond the main mouth of the Niger, and a small portion of the delta which attached to it. Its sphere of commercial activity lay in the valley of the river. Here, for upwards of 150 miles, the banks on both sides served as frontage to numerous tribes whose ;back country extended into the network of lesser water-366