"I could tell you many more adventures," said Mr. Hagenbeck, as we shook hands on parting, "but the fact is I have just written a book in which I have given a complete story of my life, and I have embodied in it the little adventures I have had while hunting, collecting, and handling my strange merchandise." That book certainly ought to make good reading.
HOW WE CAPTURED THE REBEL CHIEF.
By E. F. Martin, late of the Royal Niger Company's Service.
A powerful native chief was stirring up trouble against the white man, and the order went forth that he was to be arrested and brought in for trial. The author was in charge of the expedition, and here relates the thrilling happenings that befell his little band ere the "wanted" rebel was safely caged at head-quarters.
IT was the month of July, in the year 1898, and we were kicking our heels in idleness about Asaba, waiting for the return of the Chief Justice to decide an important local matter, when the senior executive officer of the district requested me to take political charge of a mission into the Hinterland, to bring in the paramount chief of a great secret organization, which was the cause of grave unrest in the territory behind Benin, its members having vowed to drive the white man out of the country. Overjoyed at the news, I ran across to the bungalow of Lieutenant Townsend, the officer commanding the local detachment of the Royal Niger Constabulary, and handed him the order to accompany me with an escort of fifty men. After luncheon we mounted the Maxim gun belonging to the station on Townsend's veranda, and practised, in turn, on logs floating down the great sluggish Niger, which passes in a wide sweep by the foot of the slope on which Asaba nestles.
Our target-practice over, we set to work to review the light column that had, meanwhile, been getting ready to accompany us on the morrow on our adventure into the unknown. The fifty Hausa soldiers looked wonderfully smart and keen in their light khaki marching-kit.
At daylight next day we set out, our transport consisting of sixty coolie carriers. The dreary pattering of the rain on the myriad leaves of the forest trees, and the splash, splash of many feet on the flooded pathway, provided a melancholy accompaniment to the hushed whispers of the men and our own serious thoughts.