The Steel Canoe in which we descended the Bussa Rapids. ([p. 184])
The Tennis Court, Bida. ([p. 188])
CHAPTER X
Bida
The journey down river was less eventful than the one we had made the previous January; it commenced with an eight mile walk round the Mullale Rapid, while the steel barge, emptied of most of its contents, plunged and tossed like a small Noah’s Ark on the rushing river. The rest of the ‘bad water’ we negotiated in the barge ourselves, and some of it was quite exciting, the fall of the water being quite appreciable.
Christmas Day was spent on the river below Jebba, and on the 27th the familiar outline of the hulk at Mureji loomed large ahead, and we found ourselves among our old friends. We met Captain Mercadier, one of the French Commissioners of the Anglo-French Boundary Commission, on his way up to Bussa, which meeting was fortunate, as we were able to give him all necessary information about his journey and the transport arrangements made for him before we left. For this he expressed his gratitude with all the delightful courtesy so characteristic of our French neighbours, a courtesy we had more than once experienced in Borgu, where our Province marched with part of French Dahomey.
We paddled up the Kaduna in a steel canoe, slept at Dakmon, and in the morning mounted the horses sent for us and rode along the shady road winding away from the river and over the low hills to Bida.
The first instalment of our ‘welcome’ was a dainty breakfast on the road spread under the shady trees and greatly appreciated after a ten mile ride, and that disposed of, Mr. Lafone, the junior Resident, who had been in charge of the Province, arrived, escorting the Emir, accompanied by his ‘Court’ and, it seemed to us, most of the inhabitants of the city. It was an interesting meeting; one’s mind went instinctively back to the occasion of our last visit to Bida, when something of the same sort had happened, and one realized that five years in the placid lives of these simple people make little or no mark. But the Emir himself had aged very remarkably, having passed, seemingly, out of vigorous manhood into more than middle age, but his proportions were, if anything, more generous than ever, and his emotion and pleasure at seeing us was touching and sincere.