There is unmistakable evidence of approaching Kaduna. The line broadens out to four tracks and there are other adjuncts of a locomotive depôt. Kaduna has also the importance of being the headquarters of the Director of Railways. In the absence on vacation of Mr Eaglesome, I spent the evening—the train stays overnight—with the Deputy Director, youthful Mr E. M. Bland, referred to in the Zungeru chapter.
Among the entertainments in the way of sightseeing and instruction which he gave me was a walk across the adjacent Kaduna River railway bridge. I was lured on unsuspectingly and, I am sure, innocently on the part of Mr Bland. He never guessed—nor will he know until he sees these lines in print—of the ordeal it was to the visitor. The Kaduna Bridge is 660 feet long. The rails are fixed to sleepers the spaces between which are open to the river below.
In the middle of the track is a narrow sheeting of iron and along this Blondin-like tight-rope strode the Deputy Director, I tremulously following. Had I half an idea that he intended going beyond the first few inches I would either have invented some excuse for turning back or have boldly asked to be excused on the score of a sudden headache or something of the kind. I certainly expected every minute that this exasperatingly cruel guide would stop. When we reached midway across I wondered why on earth he was continuing the walk. Only that I did not trust myself to turn round on the narrow pathway I would have returned forthwith.
Mr Bland never ceased to speak of points of interest left and right, throwing a directing finger first in one direction and then in another, I more or less mechanically answering in monosyllables, the slippery, heavy nails in my boots striking the narrow metal pathway ominously, and, scarcely lifting my eyes from it all the time, I thought of people I knew in England, conjuring up what they would say to my having come to my end by falling through into the waters beneath Kaduna Bridge, instead of going under by the more heroic malarial fever.
Once Mr Bland, indicating a notable landmark, turned round to make the matter clearer, and on my quickly replying with a “Yes,” as though I saw and understood everything—earnestly praying he would get over the bridge at the earliest possible moment—he remarked that I was looking the wrong way and that the object to which he referred was half-a-mile off the opposite side of the bridge.
At last we were across, and I glanced around to discover a boat by which we could row or paddle back. Before I could gain breath to utter a word out spake Mr Bland. He said how sorry he was that he could not indulge in canoeing, as he did at home—he is a Canadian—as there was no craft of any kind for miles.
Then we must go back over that few-inches-wide iron path! Why were engineers so madly stupid as to place such an ordeal under the uncertain feet of an enquiring journalist? However, there was no alternative. A repeated 660 feet of mental tribulation and we were safe on the other bank.
Immediately I developed a wonderful power of conversation and comment on all the Deputy Director had told me during those horrible perambulations from bank to bank. In my exuberance of spirits I felt I wanted to slap him on the back. Oh, yes, I now saw quite distinctly and with eagerness the concrete piers on which the temporary bridge was laid for construction purposes, and a little higher up the river I recognised, visually, the ford used in the old days of the caravan road from the north.
Kaduna is left at 5.45 a.m., and 13 miles further on is Rigachikun, remembered as the former point of departure from the train for the tin fields. It was from Rigachikun the Government made a 12 feet wide roading for transport to the fields.