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Liverpool, a 12-ton full-decked barge, livery with a new era
entered the trade. The products purchased at the factories: oil,
ebony, ivory and palm kernels were carried in canoes down to a
storage place in the mangrove forest, located as high up the steamer
could go. After the full load had been collected there, it was picked up by the steamer
and the barge and shipped with them to Bibundi.
The Bonge factory was built in the lower Bongelandet at Meme.
To investigate the importance of the upper Bongelandet for trade, Valdau from Bonge undertook a trip in July 1890. During this march
a lake was discovered, somewhat smaller than Lake Elephant, or about
two kilometers across, which was called Lake Soden after Cameroon's first, enterprising
governor.
During these marches into the interior of the country, suitable sites were sought for the establishment of new factories. Thus, Itoki was built on the Massake River at the beginning of 1890, and Ndians at the Ndian River waterfall towards the end of the same year, and was opened for trade in the following February.
From this factory, on 21 November 1890, accompanied by six blacks armed with Mauser rifles, an interpreter and a guide, Valdau set out for the Ngolo country to the north in order to get to know it and try to break the trade between the whites and the peoples behind it. Penetrating the Batanga to the north of it was not successful due to the resistance of the Ngolo people and their refusal to leave guides; On the other hand, he advanced to Kirri-Kirri, located just next to Itoki na Ngolo, which I later visited, in the upper Ngolo country, right on the border of Batanga. It now turned out that the products that went to the Itoki factory, where the return march took place, were not even bought directly by the Itoki people from Batanga, the actual producing people, but were first bought from them by the northern Ngolo, and that the Swedes thus only got their goods from third parties, with each intermediary increasing the price of the goods by perhaps 100%.
This journey, which was mainly intended to reconnoiter, had gained quite significant advantages. The Swedes had become familiar with the road to the interior in this direction, had gained an idea of its appearance and the conditions there, and had provided several villages with direct access to their factories.
