On the way down the Coast we were given a ten days old bull terrier pup, a very highly-bred little person, who, having had the audacity to be born with a fawn-coloured patch, had thoroughly disgraced himself in his owner’s eyes. We had a difficult time rearing him, and nights in bed became ‘things hoped for, not seen!’
On arrival in Lokoja we found Mr. Wallace there, just starting up river to Zungeru, and he gave us a cordial invitation to visit him there, when we had made the necessary preparations in Lokoja collecting ‘the office furniture’ for Katāgum, and engaging carriers. While there we were burgled in a fashion so characteristic that it may be worth describing.
My husband was known—evidently—to have a large sum of money in silver; this he deposited, naturally, in the largest, heaviest, and therefore least removable of our boxes, but the enterprising burglar evidently thought that a tin uniform case (which happened to be padlocked) looked promising, and, during a tornado at night, carried it off!
We discovered our loss early next morning, and I was utterly dismayed, as its contents were mainly a new photographic outfit, chemicals, paper, etc. We ‘communicated with the police,’ but, meantime, some thirty carriers came to be enrolled, and, guided by previous experience, my husband informed them of the loss, expressed an opinion that the box was not far off, and, telling them to search the ‘bush,’ offered a reward of five shillings to the finder. The grass all round was over the men’s heads, and drenchingly wet, but they plunged gaily in, shouting and hunting, and in less than half an hour emerged triumphant, with the box and its contents, the latter practically ruined, having been scattered far and wide in the frantic but unavailing search for money. It must have been a ‘horrid sell’ for the thief; his only prize—at least, the only article missing—was the clockwork engine of a toy train, which I had brought out as a present for a small black friend! He had, luckily, quite overlooked a large envelope, containing stamps to the value of £25, the nucleus of a Katāgum post-office!
We left Lokoja, a large party of twelve or fourteen people, with various destinations, rather tightly packed on the Sarota, and, during a tornado, trying to shut a cabin window, my husband had a nasty accident, absolutely tearing the nail right out of one finger. It was not an auspicious moment for even a ‘partial disablement,’ and gave him a bad time at first, but healed splendidly, and, in spite of many gloomy prognostications, he succeeded in growing a new nail eventually!
We made our way up the Kaduna in a steel canoe, slept one night under a corrugated iron shed at Barijuko, and the next morning started ‘by train’ for Zungeru. It was an experience quite amusing for the first time; safely embarked in a roofed-in truck we rattled, bumped and swayed along the tiny line, with much shouting and vociferation; various passers-by, walking to Zungeru, placidly crossed the line in absent-minded fashion, under the nose of the crazy little engine, and had terrific abuse and chunks of coal hurled at them by the native engine driver. The dirt was choking, and the noise made speech impossible, so I clutched my bull-pup tightly, and watched with interest the flowers along the line—glowing yellow coreopsis, tall and slender, away down below were patches of vernonia purpurea, like a copper-coloured ‘button’ chrysanthemum, while the grass was thickly dotted with a tiny rose-coloured flower, one which grows in uttermost profusion there and in the North, but which I have never seen farther South.
Some days later we had an opportunity of really appreciating the tram-line, when we made an expedition to Wushishi on a pump trolley, and found it a really exhilarating and delightful method of travelling!
We got a warm welcome from Mr. Wallace, and spent a few days with him, enjoying his cordial hospitality and kindness while we made our final preparations for our start. Government House is, indeed, an ‘oasis in the desert’ to the weary traveller, luxuriously furnished with costly English furniture, soft carpets, bright chintzes and silk curtains, and fitted with electric light; it is all very charming, though, perhaps, not the very best preparation for thirty days in the bush!
My husband had brought out from Home a couple of mono-wheel carts, his own invention, and now had them put together preparatory to our long trek.
The cart, briefly, consisted of a single wheel, about three feet high, which revolved in the centre of a platform six feet by four, with ordinary wheel-barrow handles at either end. The platform was fixed below the wheel axle, and thus lowered the centre of gravity as much as possible, and lessened the inclination to fall over. While in England two ordinary carpenters in the workshop where the carts were built, had taken one with a load of about seven hundred pounds up and down streets with ease, and we were therefore delighted, and hoped that Nigerian transport would receive a helping hand thereby. Alas! we had not reckoned with the carrier, who, we fondly imagined, would prefer the lesser effort of trundling to carrying. He would have none of it! While the man behind had to raise the handles and start, the one in front, whose duty was only to pull and assist the balance, would also endeavour to lift! This, naturally, threw much more weight on the back handles, with the result that every few yards the whole thing would tumble over and have to be reloaded. Even placing a man on either side to prevent this happening made no appreciable difference, and, in desperation, we were finally obliged to engage extra carriers for the contents of the carts, and eventually marched into Zaria, the carts being triumphantly carried on the heads of two men!