At the close of the second day, which accounted for 90 miles, we stopped overnight at a point 10 miles below Onitsha and 146 miles from Lokoja.
A fog on the morning of the third day prevented a start until 7.30, and later there was a breakdown of machinery, which brought us to a complete standstill. The mishap was not a slight one. A fracture had occurred to the shaft on the circulating pump, which forces water through the condenser to cool steam that has passed through the cylinder. The shaft was broken diagonally close to the flange. The nearest marine engineering shops were at Burutu, about 170 miles down the river. Had we been compelled to send there and wait for mechanics and new parts we should have had to remain helpless three or four days.
The Chief Engineer informed Captain Stephenson that he could repair and set the engines going with the material at hand. All the Company’s large boats carry a forge, anvil and general outfit of tools. This Chief Engineer is a black, a Sierra Leonean, trained by the Niger Company at the Burutu workshops. He and his assistants were soon at work.
The flange was filed out, neatly fitted on the broken shaft by filing key-ways and securing the flange in position by steel keys, forged there and then, which held the shaft to the flange. I watched all this, which was done with celerity, yet in a cool, matter-of-fact way, as though it were all in the day’s work.
At the commencement of the repair no statement could be made as to how long it would take. At the end of five hours’ close application the skipper received the Chief Engineer’s report that he was ready for the word to proceed, and, the engines starting very gently at first, in a few minutes were once more full speed ahead.
All the way down there has been a full range of tropical landscape. At some places the forest comes to the edge of the water and presents a barrier to sight of what may be beyond. At other sections of the route trees are not so crowded and stand a few score feet back, whilst where they are more scattered there is opportunity to notice the arboricultural variety, in which the palm always stands out distinctively against the sky background.
Where a stretch of sand lines the shore or there is grass not shadowed or hidden by taller growths, crocodiles are frequently seen at rest. They sprawl on the sandbanks and seldom dive off unless the stern-wheeler passes quite near. There are plenty opportunities for a rifle-shot at the brutes, but he who fires does so at a risk of being fined £5, for that is the penalty the Government has fixed to deter shooting from a boat.
The usual scenery of the bank is occasionally broken by a trading station, usually consisting of two or three corrugated iron sheds placed adjacent to the beach but on rising ground which the flood-level does not reach.
Standing quite alone, many miles from trading stations, are the riverside villages, enveloped on three sides by the forest. The architecture tells that the Hausa country has been left. These lower-river tribes build their oblong houses of bamboo, placed vertically. On the approach of the stern-wheeler numbers of the male inhabitants paddle off in frail, dug-out canoes and plunge in the water after anything pitched to them, as though there were no crocodiles on the prowl. Bottles are the articles most esteemed by the seekers of what they can get from the passing boat. If a bottle and money be thrown together, the swimmers will always ignore the coin for the bottle. Next in value are tin boxes of the kind which have held sardines or biscuits.
