Polo at Lokoja ([p. 9])
I often wonder whether any one who had not seen the place for ten years or so would be able to recognize it to-day! The change, even since I have known it, has been amazing. When we landed there, five years ago, the ‘Civil Lines’ consisted of a straggling row of bungalows, rejoicing in the significant appellation of ‘Blackwater Crescent’! In front stretched a waste of swampy ground, thickly covered with coarse, rank grass.
To-day, with its numbers of neat bungalows, well-tended little gardens, the swamp drained and converted into a recreation ground, containing tennis-courts, cricket-pitch, etc., good roads, and flowering trees and hedges, it is as pretty a little cantonment as one could wish to see, and the view from the hills behind is extremely beautiful—the two rivers, Niger and Benue meeting just below the cantonment, winding down to the confluence like two silver ribbons, visible for miles up river.
The 2nd Battalion of the N.N.R. are quartered in Lokoja, with a company of native gunners, and we still call their lines ‘the camp’—a survival of the days when the soldiers existed in wretched discomfort, under canvas. Behind the camp is the polo ground, and, on the farthest ridge, the new hospital is prominent, with the Sisters’ bungalow, and medical officers’ quarters. Personally, I have always thought Lokoja a far prettier and pleasanter place than Zungeru, the new headquarters, but comparisons are ever ungracious, and lasting impressions of places—to me—depend so much on associations, that Lokoja has always been more of a ‘home’ than a ‘headquarters’ to me. I have always been sorry to leave it, and always glad and contented to see it again.
CHAPTER II
On Tour
Exactly a month after our arrival, we set forth on our first tour in the ‘bush.’ The object of our journey was the delimitation of the Northern Nigeria-Lagos boundary, from Aiede to Owo, and at the former place we were to meet the Lagos Travelling Commissioner.
We made our preparations mostly by the light of our Kashmir camping experience, for, beyond generalities, none of my friends in Lokoja—with the best will in the world—could help me very much, never yet having had such a problem to tackle! Indeed, I think, had they advised me frankly, they would have said, ‘Don’t go!’ and they were quite wise and kind enough to refrain from saying that!
So, on the 28th of May, we rode leisurely out of Lokoja, about four o’clock, having decided on a short march for the first day—a very sound precaution, on which we have acted ever since. We jogged down to the Mimi River, on the far side of which our camp was arranged, the carriers and servants having been sent on ahead, so that everything was ready for us in the little ‘rest-house’ (a thatched shelter, innocent of walls), hot baths announced, and dinner preparing.
Things were not exactly ship-shape that night—they never are at a first halt—and the sandflies and mosquitoes gave us a bad time; but, all the same, we were very happy at being out in camp, with a good six weeks before us, to be crammed with novel experiences, new flowers, new birds, new butterflies to discover, heaps to learn about everything, and no drawbacks, saving a little physical discomfort, a comparatively trifling matter to energetic inquisitive folks like ourselves.