Many of the young unmarried men and those with small families headload a thousand nuts from two to four times a year to Mayo Daga in Mambila or to Yola, and make about 100% profit. They buy small quantities in Nsaw and sometimes the French Cameroons at 1s. 6d. a hundred, and retail them at 3s. The journey is a long one, involving some three weeks' absence if to Mambila, and as much as six or seven weeks to Yola. Despite the profits there are, however, disadvantages for the married man for he must make provision for his wife and children during his absence, and also arrange his journeys so that he is at home when she needs help for farm clearing and the harvest of cereals. Kibu (see No. 4 in App. C) made, as a rule, three trips a year, his net profits being about 40s. on the kolas. While in Mambila he bought rock salt or blankets, and from their sale made another 10s. These earnings were inadequate to meet all his commitments and were supplemented by the sale of small quantities of kolas in Kimbaw, and the disposal of bundles of firewood and thatching grass collected in the dry season. He had only a few plantain trees, and made, at most, about 6s. on his fowls. All told, his cash income for a year was about £4-6-0. His expenses for the household were lower than most other men, being about £3-8-0, but the margin for saving was still narrow.¹

Many men, however, when they reach their late thirties find the occupation too strenuous; and more than one said to me: "I became bald through carrying kolas to Yola!" If a man has a number of children there are further ties which keep him to his homestead. And, finally, there is always the possibility that his wife may go off with another man in his absence. This is the more likely to happen if the marriage has never been recognized by the head of the woman's lineage. Left alone for long periods, she is in a particularly vulnerable position in so far as her kin may seize the opportunity to persuade her to leave her husband. I recorded four such cases in one year in Veka'akwi area alone. But, even when a man is reasonably certain of his wife's affection and fidelity, there are the drawbacks which I have mentioned above. The solution is either to adopt another trade such as tailoring; or to combine the retailing of kolas locally with subsidiary occupations such as grass-cutting or the rearing of a few goats. For example, Mawo (see No. 5 in App. C) was a middle-aged man with one wife and a son. He sold about 4 goats annually at 5s. to 7s. each; about 28 bundles of heavy firewood at 14s., plantains at 10s., and 4 fowls at 6s. He occasionally trafficked in kolas locally; but, on the basis of his budget kept for five months, I doubt if he made more than 12s. a year. This brought his cash income to just under 66s., out of which he had to meet household and personal requirements at an outlay of some 60s.

Mawo's earnings were small as he did not deal regularly in kolas in the local market; but, for a full year, I recorded the transactions of another individual, who retailed kolas each week, in Kimbaw. Vincent Kwangha was in his fifties and lived in Djem compound. He was a gentle and a wise man, whom I trusted completely and who became my very good friend. As a youth, he had headloaded nuts to Banyo in the French Cameroons; but, after marriage, he was reluctant to leave wife and children for long periods, and thenceforth he confined his activities to the local market where he had some excellent business contacts among the Hausa. He bought, on an average, 600 nuts on market day, sometimes disposing of them immediately, sometimes waiting until the following week. His profits were small, - ranging from sixpence to a maximum of three shillings; over a full year they averaged a shilling a week.

¹ W. M. Bridges estimated that about 75% of the men in the kola trade made journeys to Ibi and Yola two or three times a year (see para. 197). At that time, 500 nuts fetched a mean price locally in Nsaw of 2s. In 1947, they varied between 5s. and 10s. In the records for 1947-1948, only one kola trader was assessed for income tax. His earnings were £28, and he loaded 4 asses six times a year with nuts and took them to Yola. The use of such transport obviously has possibilities for an expansion of the trade.

The smallest quantity of nuts he ever bought on a market day was 200; the largest 1,000. During the year he handled, all told, some 22,000, at a total outlay of £17-18-6. His sales amounted to £19-13-9, or a clear profit of £1-15-3 (see budget No. 1, App. C). On four occasions he sold at a loss; on three he broke even; and, during seven weeks, he bought nothing either because the market was bad or because he had work on the farm. In a very good year he might make 45s. to 50s. In addition to retailing, Vincent occasionally received a small commission for negotiating a sale for others, and particularly for the fai whose trees he tended. He also received from the latter about 400 small nuts and these, with windfalls, brought him in another 4s. 11d.¹

Clearly, his earnings from his major occupation were inadequate for a bare subsistence, and he looked therefore to other means of supplementing his income: thatching-grass and firewood, which yielded him about 12s. a year; and the sale of eggs and fowls which accounted for another 7s. 1d. For many years he had cultivated pear and mango trees near his compound and on one of his large farms. From their produce he gained 8s. 10 1/2d. He had started as. a sideline a diminutive nursery for coffee, and made 2s. 6d. on the sale of seedlings. Finally, from his kin and friends, he received 20s. in cash, so that all told his income for the year was £4-12-10. The weekly margin of profit on which Vincent worked was small and was not infrequently swallowed up in the purchase of necessaries. Having bought a little salt, oil, groundnuts for the children, and some tobacco for himself, he very often, as he phrased it, had "nothing to bring home but his body"! His household was large, comprising his wife (Elizabeth-Bika), two daughters, three sons, and a granddaughter. Another adult daughter had married a man of Kimbaw, but her husband rarely gave anything to Vincent.² Finally, there was an adult son who was a teacher in a mission school in a distant village. He was a good lad who sometimes sent calabashes of oil to his parents, receiving in return bags of maize flour and plantains. From time to time he made cash gifts to his father, and assisted his two younger brothers in the payment of part of their school fees, so that Vincent himself had only to meet an outlay of 12s. 3d. on that score. Vincent's wife and adolescent daughter, with occasional help from his mother-in-law, farmed a large area and had no time to engage in petty trade. The year 1947 was a good one so that Vincent did not have to buy any staple foods; but his expenditure on meat, groundnuts, oil, salt, and pepper amounted to £1-9-4, with an extra 1s. 5d. for tobacco and beer. Replacement of tools and utensils cost him 6s. 4d.; and he also paid 4s. 6d. to the Mission for "contribution cards" for himself and his wife for half the year. To obtain the money for the remaining six months he made 300 mud-bricks during the course of a week for the Mission, while his wife did other work for her contribution. The provision of clothes was something of an acute problem in a large female Christian family! At Christmas, in 1945 and 1946, Vincent had bought wraps and headties for his wife and daughter; during 1947 he had to replenish his own scanty wardrobe and garb his sons. He spent, during the year for which the budget was kept, 51s., part of which went towards the purchase of a second-hand military overcoat. Vincent was not a particularly

¹ Mr. Bridges, in discussing the kola trade, mentioned that a man, who confined his transactions to the local market, handled only about 500 nuts a year. His figure is very low, and is undoubtedly an underestimate. Op. cit., para. 197. In my Preliminary Report of 1945, where I made a rough calculation of Vincent's income, I suggested 35s. for the retailing of nuts - a figure which is the same as that obtained later from detailed weekly records. However I overestimated by a large amount the value of the perquisities from tending kola trees. The kola nuts in Vincent's storehouse, on which I had based my earlier assessment, belonged not to him but to the fai.

² Vincent's adult daughter was his first-born child, and hence came under the authority of the head of her mother's lineage in so far as her marriage was concerned.

vain person, as Nsaw men go; but, as head of a large family, he had a certain status to maintain when visiting and when selling in the market. At home he went about in a shabby loincloth and, on more than one occasion, apologized to me for his rags; but, he explained, "better I go naked for skin than my pikin be shamed!" That is, he preferred to be shabby himself rather than his children should be inadequately clothed. Finally, Vincent had saved 25s. from the previous year and, with this, he just about balanced his budget.

I have discussed Vincent's transactions in some detail firstly, because I had weekly records made over a full year; secondly, I could place complete reliance on his statements; and, thirdly, he was a man skilled in an occupation which is still the mainstay of a considerable percentage of the men in Nsaw. He possessed a keen sense of responsibility towards his wife and children, as well as a strong affection for them; he scorned no means of augmenting his slender income; and, at the same time, he managed to clear outlying farms and to tend the kitchen garden by the compound. Even so, his income was larger than that of men engaged in some of the traditional Nsaw crafts, - if general statements might be accepted at their face value. Those men who made bags, caps, or mats earned about 30s. per annum, while those, who specialized in stools, matchet-scabbards, baskets, umbrellas, or raffia bins, earned from 20s. to 25s.¹

GENERAL TRADE

A more lucrative occupation was general trade which, even in 1934, engaged some 12.6% of the adult taxable males. The number is probably larger now with the increased demand for European goods and greater mobility of population. Income varies, of course, with the type of articles handled and according to whether they are bought in Bamenda or in Nigeria. Among some of the 11 "plutocrats" of Nsaw were tailors who went, with their own carriers, two or three times a year to Calabar or Northern Nigeria to buy cloth, haberdashery, buckets, basins, and blankets. In the records for income tax there were 15 of these individuals who made between £28 and £38 a year. Others, who had no assistants, made less and their profits were in the vicinity of £10. Finally, there were those who confined their activities to Bamenda, sometimes buying fish, calabashes and matchets from the Ndop Plain and retailing them in Kimbaw, Mbiami, and other markets in Nsaw.²

Among the small-scale traders was Tanye, whose budget I recorded weekly for a little over five months. He had no licence to buy salt (which was rationed during the war and afterwards) and had, perforce, to obtain it in the market at anything from 10s. to 14s. a bag, as against 8s. in the U.A.C. canteen. He retailed it in small quantities and sometimes his only profit was derived from the sale of the cotton bag at two shillings. He also trafficked in kerosene but, having no friends in the U.A.C., he had to buy it in the open African market at 28s. or 30s. a tin, as against the canteen price of 16s. 5d. On one occasion I sold him at cost a spare tin that I had and, by retailing the kerosene by the pint-bottle, he made 17s. 7d. on the deal. In his jubilation he bought

¹ From a number of men I received statements about the amount of time required to manufacture various articles, and the average output per week. These corresponded very closely to those given to Mr. W. M. Bridges in his Report (paras. 198-230). Prices have increased since 1934, as the following figures show. I have placed the 1934 value in brackets for comparison: mat - 9d .to 1s. 3d. (6d.); stool - 2d. to 4d. (1d.); umbrella - 4d. (5d.); hoe-handle - 1d. (5d.); matchet-scabbard - 1s. to 1s 6d. (3d. to 6d.); cap - 1s. 6d. to 3s. (1s. 6d); basket - 5d. to 9d. (3d. to 4d.); bag - 7d. to 9d. (2d.)

² One trader of this type was a Christian who, finding the profits small and fired by the example of his friend who was a mixed farmer, abandoned his occupation and took to farming in earnest. His father, commenting on the change, said to me in some astonishment: " My son works harder than his own wife on the farm! "

a fowl for the evening meal, and a khaki shirt for himself! He made on an average 1s. 3d. a week on the sale of kerosene and salt, or an annual income of 2-16-0.¹

He had three bee hives and, during the five months, obtained 4s. 6d. for the honey (or about 10s. per annum). He sold only 1s. 6.5d. worth of plantains, but he had an extremely large grove and would normally make 10s. from their produce. His fowls brought him in another 6s., and the sale of raffia poles about 8s. Finally, he had cut 59 bundles of thatching-grass during the dry season and, with most of this and a little firewood, would earn another 15s. I estimated that his total annual income was £6-2-3, but, although he had only one pagan wife and a small child for whom to provide, he required every penny. In the previous year he had been deprived of some good farm land, and the harvest from the remaining plots was negligible. Already, by the beginning of March 1948, he had spent 12s 9d. on maize, and ahead of him lay the long period of scarcity until August. All told, his expenditure amounted to about £5-12-0. It should be stressed, however, that this was an exceptionally bad year for him. His wife, in the dry season in 1948, had managed to secure the loan of some good land and, if her crops were successful, his expenses would have been reduced to about £3-14-0. His savings on this basis would be considerable by Nsaw standards; but they still seem small when one takes into account the multiplicity of his activities, - trade in kerosene, salt, honey, plantains, fowls, raffia poles, thatching-grass, firewood, and a little hunting. In addition, he had started a tiny coffee plantation and in his spare time he was making sun-dried mud bricks for a new house!² (See No. 6 in App. C). One hears much of the improvidence and laziness of the Bamenda male, but the budgets of the pagan Tanye and his small family, and of the Christian, Vincent, with his large one should do something to explode that myth.

TAILORING

Living in Mbonyaar and the adjoining compound of Ka were two Christian tailors, both with large families. Nicholas Ngee in his youth and early marriage had headloaded kolas to Yola, and with his earnings had bought rocksalt there to sell later to Fulani. As a rule, the profits were good; but if the market were bad it meant that almost two months had been wasted on a tiring and fruitless journey. Nicholas therefore looked round for a more sedentary and steady occupation. His brother was a tailor who, over a period of two years, taught him to sew a variety of garments, including the Fulani type. In 1941 Nicholas bought a second-hand machine for £5 from a Hausa, and set up as a tailor in a stall in the small Hausa market which functioned daily. He told me that he enjoyed the work, but at the time at which he is speaking (February) he was losing heart because profits were small. Men were hunting, cutting grass, burning off, clearing, and housebuilding, and attendance had fallen off in the market. He was longing for the advent of the rains which would herald a period of better trade. Even when he went to the Mbiami market (some five hours' walk distant), where competition was less severe, he often made only a few coppers. As at that time there was a shortage of cotton goods, he was unable to get cloth in the U.A.C. canteen, and so had to buy in the market. Sometimes more affluent friends gave him 6 yards of cloth on credit, and he made it up into garments. For his sewing for other people Nicholas earned about 1s. 9d. a week, or £3-18-0 a year. On clothes made up from cloth, which he himself had bought or borrowed, he made roughly 3s. a week or £6-15-0 a year. His major craft, therefore, brought him in approximately

¹ In estimating annual income I have calculated on a basis of 45.5 Nsaw weeks to a year.

² Tanye belonged to Mbonyaar ngwa, which he "cooked" for £3; and also to another ngwa from which he obtained £2. He had 31 5d. in the Mbonyaar "bank".

£10-13-0 a year. During the five months in 1947-1948, he sold neither fowls nor plantains; but his wife occasionally disposed of small quantities of cooked foods at a profit of 2s. 10d. for the period (see No. 7 in App. C).

Compared with the budgets which we have been discussing, that of Nicholas seems a large one. But his position was, in some respects, much more insecure than that of Vincent who possessed good farm land, whereas he had rather poor plots and a large family of children for whom to provide. The harvest of maize and millet had failed in 1947 and, as mentioned earlier, he had spent by the beginning of March 21s. 5d. on bags of maize. Like Biy-Menggu, Nicholas' wife had managed to obtain some better land about 4 1/2 miles away from the compound; but, even with a good crop of potatoes to supplement the larder in May and June, about another 30s. would be spent on maize during the period of scarcity. Margaret, his wife, farmed about 2.1 acres with the assistance of her energetic daughter, Natasha, aged about 14 years, whom the women of the neighbourhood already regarded as "a great little worker of rizga plots (ngaa-kinsheef feyi)." Nicholas himself was sickly, had a bad goitre, and rarely gave any help on the farm, or even with the weeding of the small plantation of coffee which he had started about 2 years previously.

During the period in which I recorded his budget, Nicholas spent £1-5-5 in five months on salt, oil, and meat, which was not much for a household of nine. He sent a portion of these commodities to his wife's kin. House and farm replacements cost him 3s. 2d., and firewood another 3s. 2 1/2d. The last item requires some comment. Nicholas had built for his family a large mudbrick house which, by Nsaw standards of comfort, was cold and far too wellventilated! The kindling brought in by his wife and daughter was only sufficient for cooking; and, as Nicholas was too sickly and also too busy to gather firewood himself, he had to buy it. Even so coughs and colds seemed to be endemic in the household.¹ Clothes were also a problem and, during the period when I was in Kimbaw, he provided cloth to the value of 38s. 6d. for wraps for his wife and daughter, and shorts and shirts for his school-boy son. The cloth had been bought early in 1947 and so does not appear as an item in the recorded budget. I estimated that he spent about £3 per annum on clothes for himself and his household. He had one adolescent son at school and paid 12s. a year for fees, plus another 3s. 6d. for books and pencils. Both he and Margaret worked at the Mission in order to pay for their contribution cards. Granted a better harvest, Nicholas would in normal years have to meet an expenditure of about £9-15-6. But in the year under review - March 1947 to March 1948 - I estimated that his outlay was in the vicinity of £11-6-2, a sum which just balances my estimate for his income (plus a little from his wife's trading profits), namely £11-6-21. He had "cooked" the Mbonyaar djanggi for £4, and the one in his own compound for £1-9-0. He also had 3 Is. 5d. in the Mbonyaar "bank" as a reserve against emergency. In June and October 1947, and again January 1948, he had on each occasion borrowed 30s., but had repaid these sums with 2s. 6d. interest after a lapse of two months.

As this chapter is already somewhat long I do not wish to devote much space to the affairs of three other men, whose incomes were about the same as that of Nicholas. Thomas Kintarir had traded kolas in his youth, but had later been trained by his father's brother to be a tailor. He bought a second-hand machine for £4, and devoted much of his time to sewing in his hut in the compound, except on market days. He had four children (one at school), and his wife farmed 1.8 acres unaided. She had a pleasant placid disposition,

¹ It is worth noting that two members of the nobility, who had built large mud-brick houses, normally slept in smaller huts because these were warmer. Until the people have more fuel or can buy large supplies of blankets, better housing has definite disadvantages from the point of view of comfort and even health!

was almost completely absorbed in her household affairs, and was regarded as somewhat of a field-drudge by the women of the compound. During the dry season she devoted nearly 70% of her days to her farms. Her harvest of maize and millet was good by Nsaw standards; and, in addition, Thomas augmented supplies by spending 15s. in five months on maize and potatoes (see budget 8 in App. C.). Another man of Ka was Alphonse Fannso who repaired pots, pans and guns, and sold gunpowder as a sideline. He was a somewhat elusive person and, when caught, was apt to be reticent about his earnings; but from my records I estimated that he made about £1 on the sale of gunpowder, and about £9 per annum from his craft. With the sale of pineapples and fowls, as well as the petty earnings of his wife from trade (about 8s.), he probably had an annual income £10-15-0. He had five children one of whom, an adolescent daughter, helped her mother to cultivate 2.1 acres. But the crops had been poor in 1947 and by March 1948 he had already bought 12s. 9d. worth of maize (see No. 9 in App. C.). As in the case of Nicholas, this additional drain on his resources would have left him very little in the way of savings for the current year.

The third individual had secured employment as a handyman at the Government Resthouse at a wage of 26s. a month. In addition he got 30 lbs. of coffee from a small plantation, which brought him in another 10s. a year. He had only two young children; his wife was a young and energetic farmer, who cultivated 3.9 acres of good land with the help of her mother; and his standard of living in the matter of food and clothes was higher than that of most other members of the compound. (See No. 10 in App. C.)

BRICKMAKING AND HOUSE-BUILDING

Francis Lole of Mbonyaar was a man in his fifties who, in his youth, became a Christian and married his Christian wife against the wishes of her kin, - an event eternally commemorated in the names which he had bestowed on his first-born children. With the passing years, however, a reconciliation was effected, one which without doubt was facilitated by the fact that he was related, through his mother, to a senior councillor, and through his father to one of the Aya. Francis was a wiry, indefatigable little man of exceptional tenacity and initiative. He was devoted to his own wife and family, and had a keen sense of responsibility towards the children of his deceased brothers, providing them with food, sending some to school, and training others in his craft of brickmaking. His two eldest daughters had passed standard VI, in 1943 or 1944, at the Mission School and, as there seemed to be no opening for them as teachers, he got them to apply for government scholarships for training in midwifery. In September 1947 they returned from Nigeria, one being appointed a health visitor in Bamenda Station, and the other in Kimbaw. Just before I left in 1948, his eldest son, who had kept his father's budget for me during my absence in the west of the Province, secured a scholarship to a secondary school at Sasse in Victoria.

Francis, as a skilled bricklayer, had built a relatively large four-roomed house as sleeping quarters for his family; a store and a kitchen for his wife; and a small room adjoining for his widowed sister, Camilla. During the year under survey, 4th March 1947 to 5th March 1948, Francis made £5-10-8 from brickmaking and supervision of housebuilding for people of Kimbaw, in addition to the £9-15-0 which he secured for a contract to provide bricks and bricklayers for the new Domestic Science Centre. Finally, he had earlier signed an agreement to take on an apprentice in consideration for a payment of £3; but although the training was completed in 1947 he had received only 30s. Typically, he had not pressed his debtor for the money. His earnings from his major craft for the year were thus £18-5-0; but, as the government

work was in the nature of a windfall, his normal earnings would be £10 or £12. Besides his main job, Francis found time to give some assistance to his wife on the farm; to tend some raffia he had planted 5 miles away, to weed a coffee plantation from which he obtained 38s.; to traffic a little in such commodities as soap, shirts, fish, and groundnuts; to participate in two djanggis, and to attend church frequently! His total income for the year was £19-18-1/2, in addition to which his wife made a profit of £3-0-9 1/2, from the brewing of beer.

With eight in the household, his expenses were considerable although his wife farmed 1.7 acres with occasional assistance from his adolescent niece who lived with them. On foodstuffs alone (staples and relishes) Francis spent £4-3-9 1/2; on meat, fish and eggs -£1-8-1/2; and on salt and oil £2-7-11 (see No. 3 in App. C). Additional fuel was required, not only to warm his large house, but also for the brewing of beer and entailed an annual outlay of £1-4-7. Besides locally made tools and utensils, Francis also purchased an enamel basin, a blanket, and an alarm clock - the last to ensure an early rising for his work at the Domestic Science Centre! Clothes accounted for another £3 odd; and school fees for another £2-9-0 for his own daughter, a brother's son and a sister's daughter's son. Both he and his wife paid for their "contribution cards", plus an extra shilling or so for the church collection. Finally, there were miscellaneous expenses for gunpowder to celebrate his daughters' return from Nigeria; for medicine and hospital treatment; for tax; for wine and beer to the four djanggis to which he belonged, and interest on his withdrawals from the "bank". He and his wife had many visitors and, during the year, Francis gave. away £1-19-0 in cash to needy friends and relatives.

COFFEE-PLANTING AND MIXED FARMING

The last budget, which I wish to discuss in detail, is that of Benedict Somo. In his early married life he had been a teacher at the Mission School; but, finding wages small and prospects limited and also being interested in farming, he resigned. When I arrived in Kimbaw in 1945, he already had 3.2 acres of coffee under cultivation, some castor plants, and an acre of Irish potatoes at Meluf which he hoped to sell to the Government. The last proved a disappointment, since the cost of motor transport at 2s. 6d. a mile over a distance of 65 miles made the enterprise uneconomic. Towards the end of 1945, the S.A.0. suggested that Somo take two months' training at Bambui Government Farm in mixed farming and that he should then, with financial and other assistance, build his own styes on a strip of good alluvial land, where he could grow food to feed his pigs. Somo and his wife, Christina Lambiif (who also traded in starch, gari, and other foods), worked very hard and in the face of considerable setbacks and a small amount of capital. The first styes, constructed mainly from local materials, were not strong enough and their cost represented almost a total loss. The second lot entailed the use of cement which, with timber etc., ran him into an outlay of £3 odd, plus a debt to Bambui for some £17. Moreover, during the first year, the farm did not produce enough to feed the pigs and Somo had to spend £5-8-6 on that item alone, not to mention overhead for labour (budget No. 2). His sale of pork in the local market in the 12 months under review amounted to £10-17-3. When I left Kimbaw in March 1948, Somo had his styes built, his pigs breeding, and his farm under cultivation. But he faced a debt of £28 for pigs and cement to the Government Farm, another to a soldier who had lent him £5 earlier in the year. A year previously the N.A. Treasury had lent him £15 of which he had still to pay off £1. It was not without a touch of irony, mingled with some hope for the future, that Somo had named his last-born son, Christopher Berdu, the Lamnso meaning "it remains to go forward!" Fortunately, he had in February 1948 sold £18 worth of coffee berries; and, in case of necessity, he could sell his horse which he had bought for £6.

Before discussing the rest of Somo's budget it is relevant to point out at this stage that his experiences with pig-raising do not augur well for any development of this industry in Nsaw.¹ He was industrious and had a certain amount of working capital from his coffee. But it was inadequate in the initial stages. More importantly, he could not produce enough food to feed the pigs, although he had good land and had terraced the slopes. In view of the period of seasonal scarcity for many farmers of Nsaw, the question might well be raised whether it would not be better to reserve any surplus food for supplementing the diet of human beings rather than of pigs! In a letter recently received (1950) from a friend in Kimbaw, I was told that Somo had decided to kill off his pigs and start raising cattle. But, if he is to make a success of this, he would have to leave his compound in Kimbaw and go farther afield. Cattle trading would be an alternative but would entail journeys to Victoria or Northern Nigeria. The profits are good. In the income tax assessments for 1947-1948, there were 44 Nsaw men engaged in this occupation, of whom 33% had 10 to 19 head of cattle, and another 33% had 20 to 39 head. A few individuals had as many as 68 to 106, and one had 176. It was estimated that £3 profit was made on each animal.

Somo was very successful with his Arabica coffee plantation. In 1948 he sold £18 worth at 5d. a lb., less transport, to the U.A.C. in Bamenda Station, and he disposed of small quantities of ground coffee in Kimbaw for £3-7-2. As the price of coffee has now risen to 9d. a lb., his plantation should bring him in a tidy income and this may have been one factor in his reported decision to give up pig-breeding. Somo also obtained 12s. from the sale of castor seed, and another £2-11-5 1/2 from onions, tomatoes, cabbages, beans, peas, and potatoes. In his spare time he occasionally did a little tailoring and during the year earned £1-17-9. His total cash income was about £37-17-0. His wife was of considerable assistance to him not only on the farm but also by her enterprise in making starch and gari for sale, and in knitting sweaters and caps. She obtained from these activities a little under £4, most of which she spent on relishes and luxury foods for the household.

Despite his debts and his difficulties Somo and his family enjoyed, by Nsaw standards, a relatively high standard of living. With his wife, three children (a fourth stayed for long periods with the mother-in-law in Bamenda Station), a brother's child, and a labourer, he lived in the compound which he had built in Banka area. There was a traditional type of kitchen for his wife; a large two-roomed dwelling which provided bedroom and living room; and a third house consisting of two small rooms, - one for sewing and business conferences, and the other for a small store. Over a number of years he had accumulated a certain amount of European furniture - chairs, tables, iron bedstead and mattress, pots and pans, not to mention the inevitable Victorian array of photographs for the walls! He and his wife possessed a fairly extensive wardrobe, which also included shoes and hats; and, finally, they kept open house and entertained lavishly. From their guests, some of whom stayed a few days and even weeks, they received gifts of food, as well as cash; but, on the other hand, Somo and Christina were generous to their own kin and friends.

On salt, oil, butter (a luxury for most people), meat, fish and eggs, Somo spent £7-7-1 during the year; on staples, relishes and honey (the last as a sweetening for coffee), another £5-2-0. Clothes cost him £5 odd, and in addition his wife's sister, who was a teacher, frequently presented members

¹ This does not apply, however, to the more fertile parts of Nsaw. According to the Colonial Office Report for 1950, paras. 303 and 348, there are now eleven mixed farmers in the Province who have received training at Bambui. The Headmaster of Bambui N.A. School and the Føn of Bali have both received loans for the improvement of piggeries.

of the family with frocks, shirts, shoes, and ornaments.¹ I do not wish to enumerate here all the items, which have been set out in his budget and which I have placed on the pages following that of Vincent Kwangha. These two men represent in my sample two extremes in income for large Christian families. In the case of Vincent, we have a middle-aged, skilled and thrifty man following a traditional Nsaw occupation. His wife is in her late forties and much of her time is absorbed by farming. In the case of Somo, we have a much younger man who, in his youth, had gained some experience working for Europeans in Victoria and who later became a school teacher. With good health, intelligence, and ambition and, not least, a young, energetic and co-operative wife, he could afford to take some risks in launching out into occupations which represented a break with tradition, and even with the traditional division of labour between the sexes.

¹ A Nsaw man, who was a Government employee and earned just under £40 a year, showed me a budget which he had kept for 2 months in 1946. 1 calculated from it his annual expenditure on various items, and it is worth noting that it is similar to that of Somo who had about the same income, though many more debts! Oil cost approximately 56s., salt, 22s.; meat - and fish, 71s. 3d.; staples and relishes about 82s. 6d.; groundnuts for the children 20s.; and honey for coffee 20s. Kerosene was bought in relatively large quantities, since he used to read at night, and cost 45s.; firewood accounted for another 40s.; and clothes about 80s. His wife worked on the farm but also traded regularly in gari and starch and made, according to him. about 6s. a week. This last was probably an overestimate.