24 SIERRA LEONE 



Improvements in the Local Manufacture. During recent 

 years great efforts have been made by the Adminis- 

 tration to increase the exports of both palm oil and 

 kernels by opening up the previously rather inaccessible 

 areas in which palm trees were found growing almost un- 

 touched. The first step in this direction was the exten- 

 sion of the Sierra Leone Railway line from Boia, a small 

 village just beyond the Headquarters District boundary, 

 to Mafokoyia, lying a short distance to the north. From 

 here a road was made eastwards towards Yonnibannah, 

 passing through country fairly well studded with oil 

 palms. Later from Yonnibannah the objective of the 

 railway became Baga, a town on the Maybole river, 

 again to the north. At the present time this line has 

 reached Kamabai, at the foot of the Koinadugu mountains 

 and to the west of Bumban, passing the town of Makump 

 on its way there. The whole of this route has been chosen 

 in order to make the oil palm regions more accessible, and 

 the increase in exports of both oil and kernels between 

 1907 and 1913 is almost entirely attributable to this 

 development. 



Not only was it desirable to open up new areas from which 

 palm fruits could be gathered, but, owing to the deficiency 

 of pericarp oil shipped from the country in comparison 

 with palm kernels, it was thought that, by the introduc- 

 tion of improved methods for extracting the pericarp oil, 

 more of this commodity might be obtainable in the 

 future. 



The prospect of working a large area both experi- 

 mentally and commercially for oil extraction in situ, 

 attracted Messrs. Lever Brothers, who installed ample 

 mechanical apparatus at Yonnibannah in 1914. The 

 Government had granted this firm a concession to work 

 several hundred square miles on the understanding that 

 the local traders and merchants were not thereby to be 

 debarred from buying the hand-prepared oil from the 

 natives as before. The scheme was intended to demon- 

 strate the advantages of mechanical means of extraction 

 over those of hand power ; and it was thought that, by 

 the introduction of these greater facilities for dealing 

 with the oil palm products, labour would be liberated and 

 would be employed to a greater extent in the less heavy 

 and more remunerative direction of plantation and field 



