"I think you will have a chance now, doctor."
"Ay, sir; and I won't begrudge flailing around with the claymore a bit, and seeing my patients afterwards."
"Tell us something about Benin, sir, if you please," said Creggan.
"Well, lad, I've told you that the people are fearful savages when aroused, although seemingly quiet enough at all other times. Benin, you know, is really a country extending to Ashantee. Once exceedingly powerful, and densely populated still, it is now divided into many half-independent states.
"The city itself lies nearly eighty miles up the river Niger, from the Atlantic Ocean or Gulf of Guinea. It is about twenty miles inland. This river is miles wide where it joins the sea, and if you once get over the bar, it may be cautiously navigated by boats and launches nearly all the way up. But there is the dreaded bar to cross. What are those lines, lad, about Greenland's icy mountains?"
"Oh, I know," said Creggan, holding up one arm as if he were a school-boy.
"'From Greenland's icy mountains,
From India's coral strand;
Where Afric's sunny fountains
Roll down their golden sand.'
"Is there a lot of golden sand, sir?"
"There is a lot of constantly shifting black-brown mud, but if you expect to find gold or see it, you'll be sadly disappointed.
"The city itself contains from twelve to twenty thousand natives, as well as I could guess.