The road continued broad to-day, but grew ever heavier underfoot with loose sand. By the wayside there was not so much cultivation as yesterday, and few habitations, except at Kore and Minna. We camped in mid-afternoon at the small village of Kanya after a pleasantly smooth journey. It was gratifying, after our trials of yesterday, to see how nicely the camels of a well-ordered caravan move forward over the ground with their soft-footed methodical gait; they get over the heavy sand road not only with their long pacing stride, in which both legs on the same side are lifted together, but also they move with a strange stealthy silence, which is due to the rubber-like give of their soft elastic pads. A further odd and striking detail about the feet of a camel is that, unlike other animals, the fore-feet are larger than the hind-feet.
Travelling by the wayside in inhabited country, if you happen to be near human dwellings, cockcrows will herald in the African dawn from some village hut-top obscure among the bush foliage, and on the third day we were busy with the load-ropes in the chill of late darkness ere the first glad cock-call told of approaching day. Already we had learned that it was wise to travel in the cool hours as far as possible and save our animals from the great heat of day, so long as short nights and loss of sleep were not over-fatiguing to ourselves, or, rather, perhaps I should say to myself alone, for natives have the knack of sleeping in daylight just as easily as in darkness, and throw themselves down in any little patch of tree-shade at the end of a journey and retrieve their night-sleep almost before it is lost: while that I could never do, even if I had not work to attend to.
But there was one native with me who worked long hours without sleep much as I did, and he was the faithful John. On his broad shoulders rested all the petty duties of attending to his master’s welfare in camp: a host of small duties indeed, such as cooking meals at any hour— early or late, at noon or midnight; pitching or striking my camp-bed (for I slept in the open); or doing the services of a valet in looking after all my personal belongings, and my toilet, even washing clothes when he had the time to spare—in general, cookboy and houseboy all in one, and a treasure. Moreover, he afforded amusement all round through the medium of his perpetual cheerfulness and expansive grin. Often I have laughed to see him, after the rush of getting ready to start, when he had got the last bundle turned over to the camel-men and his master’s camp clear, come saucily forward in his cloth cap and with his cane walking-stick—both relics of the coast which were inseparable from his person— and with a perceptible swagger over his “English” (?) and his importance as the master’s boy, grin broadly and ejaculate to the head camel-man: “Come on, come on, Aboki (friend), we wait for you!” which assurance always provoked laughter among the men, while Sakari explained to them in Hausa John’s “English” (?), and added to it in the telling.
The Harmattan winds had been very pronounced since starting, and the third day was as bad as its predecessors. So full of sand-dust was the air, that a white cloud hung over the land through which the sun was unable to break clearly. The mane of my horse was white with dust, and, looking on the acacia trees a little way off in the bush, they had the appearance they would bear on a frosty morning, with the fine dust, like white mist, hanging low and falling upon them to lie whitely upon the leaves and boughs.
I noticed at Kanya, and beyond, that the peculiar reddish sand and soil of Kano had given place to ordinary whitish-grey.
On this day we travelled to Jigawa, 18 miles away, on the banks of the Tomas river, which, though it was nothing more than dry bed at this season, is a very considerable stream during the Rains, quite one hundred yards across the floodwater. The place is a small town, with the remains of a stockade about its outskirts, and it contained wells of water and the usual village produce of eggs, fowls, and millet-meal, as well as goats and cattle. It may be stated here that there is no scarcity of water or food experienced anywhere on the journey from Kano to Zinder.
I heard at this village the first news of big game that I had had, and in the cool of the afternoon I went out westward to investigate, and the result of a prolonged hunt through fairly open thorn bush was that I sighted, and viewed through field-glasses, four Red-fronted Gazelle, which the local natives with me said were in fair numbers in the neighbourhood. The beasts, at which I fired one ineffectual shot, were very wild, and gave me the impression that they were disturbed often by the natives who hunt them.
The fourth day was a pleasant one, for it entailed only a short ten-mile journey; and I can assure you that a short day after two or three long, hot, and exhausting ones is a very agreeable change.
We camped at noon at Barbara, our day’s task finished; and the camels were hobbled and turned out into the scrub bush to enjoy a lengthy repast. Barbara is a large town that lies five miles on the British side of the frontier, and here it was that I bid good-bye to Nigeria for a time. Hence I made it a stopping-place, and an easy day. (I did the same thing many months later, on my return, and was royally received by the Saraki (native king) and his people-a large number of whom were Fulani—who en masse spent the day in holiday and dance because the White Man had safely returned and was glad.)
On the morrow we crossed the boundary and entered French territory, having crossed the line about an hour after starting where it lay between the two small villages of Baban Mutum (British) and Dashi (French); places, like many others, that were not shown on either of the incomplete maps I possessed, which were the best I could procure in England.