Traversing a few miles of bush country, we pass hills of rock, showing, with uneven tops, one line behind another. Occasionally 15 feet boulders are at the side of the path, rolled down from the mountains, cut and severed by perpetual rain wearing away this hardest of granite until it breaks and tumbles below. Mountains hundreds of feet high have huge slabs resting on the solid hill. Intense heat has expanded, and sharp cold the same day has contracted, the rock, splitting it into slabs and dome-shaped crags. All around, on the rocky hill and over the earthy soil, there are the grass, trees, and the low bush of Northern Nigeria, with patches here and there of guinea-corn, sweet potatoes, ground-nuts and yams. The entire acreage is cultivatable.
Small Hausa villages are passed. At one, native-grown cotton is being drawn into thread by the naked fingers. Badiko is reached at 9.45 a.m. and a stop made until the following morning. Water and wood are brought by a little maiden and her small brother, both bearing the necessaries on their heads in the orthodox fashion.
The first hour or so at a rest-house are occupied by attending to the domestic details, when one has to superintend them oneself. The cook receives his instructions for the day and perhaps is sent to market for articles not provided by the village Headman. The horse must be looked after. It is a sound precaution to always have him fed within sight; otherwise the doki boy will take the “chop” for his own larder and the pony be in the plight of the “poor little dog” in the nursery rhyme of Mother Hubbard. The amount of guinea-corn I give out is 2 lbs. before starting in the early morning, 2 lbs. on arrival at the day’s destination, and 4 lbs. about 5.30 p.m. after watering, with plenty of dry cut grass. Two lbs. can be gauged as two double handsful. A full day with the pen will find you quite ready for bed at 7 o’clock.
I fixed 5 as the hour for starting next morning. Four o’clock is my favourite time to commence trekking, 3.30 is still better; but, for either, a clearly-seen roadway or a full moon is required, and as at this period the nights are quite dark and we are mostly on bush paths, it is desirable not to set out until at least the approach of daybreak. The early start enables 18 miles, which is as much as carriers will cover, except in emergency, to be done by 9 or 10 o’clock; allows marching in the coolest hours, and gives a full day for work.
It is remarkable how a reliable Headman, without watch, moon, or sun, will wake up and rouse his men at any hour. But if I can avoid doing so I never rely entirely upon anybody. My watch had been rather erratic and was not quite sure at the end of a day whether to be 20 minutes fast or 20 minutes slow. It refrained from registering the happy mean. In order to run no risk of being late next morning, the night at Badiko I put it on an hour, there being, of course, no clock to check by. I had not met a European since leaving Rahama. As might have been expected, it was eventually discovered that before the alteration the watch had been 20 minutes ahead of meridian time, so instead of rising at 4 o’clock as intended, I turned out at 2.30 a.m. and within an hour had finished breakfast. When the fact became clear that I had anticipated the time of assembly, I sat down to an hour-and-a-half of writing by a hurricane lamp. At 4.45, not waiting for Hanza’s whistle, I sounded my own. He, however, was ready; repeated the sound; and we sallied out just as a thin streak of dawn appeared across the eastward sky.
As the sun rose we wound round great hills of rock, circular, oblong, pointed, and flat topped, the liquid deposit of past ages now gneissose and hegmatite. Here and there the face had been washed by recent floods to a brightness which in the distance looked like a mirror of running water.
At 7.45 a halt was made in the market-place of Magama village for the carriers to have breakfast. Ground-nuts, maize, and milk made up the meal, Hanza having a rather superior course of milk mixed with powdered millet and taken from a calabash by a wooden spoon. When they had finished eating every man washed his mouth and teeth at a stream, and one good-looking young Hausa completed his toilet by placing antimony on his eyelids. Another had utilised a few spare minutes by bringing needle and cotton and mending a garment: scarcely an indication of “the lazy black.”
At 8.30 Hanza’s whistle caused the loads to be hoisted and five minutes later the chilling wind gave sign of rain, which presently came in torrents. Mr F. G. Graham, in charge of Lucky Chance Polchi Mine, hearing I was in the neighbouring village and noting signs of the coming downpour, had ridden out and left an invitation with the head of the little column for me to shelter at his house, near by. At the path leading to the haven of hospitality Mr Graham’s servant waited to direct me. But what the carriers, my own servants, and the doki boys had to endure without any protection was quite good enough for me, in oilskin and mounted, so, with a message of thanks to Mr Graham, I went on with the men, who were being drenched.
I am sure I would not have been happier in the dry house eating a welcome second breakfast, for the heavier the rain beat on them the merrier the carriers became, shouting and singing. In spite of the discomfort they would not be downhearted. At each gust of wind, enough to shiver them, they shouted the louder. Amadu’s musical pipe was brought into vigorous use, and when from sheer lack of breath it slackened for his lungs to be replenished, the men broke into a chorus, the notable part of which seemed to me to be a series of hurrahs. It made one’s heart glad to be with a party determined not to be cast down by trying circumstances. Somehow, although it is known not to generally last long, tropical rain in the day-time is usually distinctly depressing. I suppose the feeling is induced by the sudden fall in temperature. Little more than half-an-hour and the rain had ceased; the sun shone, and soon we were all dry again.
Meantime, there was evidence we had entered the tin country, not merely where it was being prospected, but where it was in being. A board announced “Nigeria Tin Corporation,” and as we went along men, singly and in twos and threes, were met carrying shovels. Further certainty we were nearing the goal was a piece of wood on low posts notifying “Juga, 5½ miles.” That was probably fixed before distances were understood and when a few miles understated made no difference to anybody.