FROM BUSSA TO THE SEA 481 from about six hundred to a thousand feet high, lined the right bank, whilst on the left we could see the mouth of the Benue, now greatly increased in width by inundations.

About six o'clock we came in sight of the huts of the village, rising in tiers from the slopes of a hill, their zinc roofs shining amongst the verdure in the glow of the setting sun. We were at Lokodja, and as it was nearly night we anchored off the bank.

Here we found Mr. Drew, the executive officer of the Company for the Lokodja-Geba district, for whom we had waited in vain at Geba, and also another officer who spoke French.

We were received with all due etiquette and invited to dinner. We talked about the river ; and Mr. Drew, who did not allow himself to show any surprise at our having passed safely down it, must really have been astonished. He told us he had himself achieved the arduous task of going over the rapids in a light canoe accompanied by one man only.

He had intended to go down to Bussa by the channel used by the natives. He had even been capsized, and dragged down into the whirlpool. He owed his life entirely to his canoe-man, who had plunged after him and brought him up from the bottom. He still had the scar of a wound he had got from the sharp flints, amongst which he had been rolled over and over.

Major Festing, who came in to dessert, invited us to go to him the next day. We cut but sorry figures beside our hosts in their unimpeachable costumes, for our clothes were torn by our struggles in the bush, our gold lace was tarnished, our breeches were patched, our boots had been bought in the country, and our helmets were terribly battered about.

I do not know which agent of the Company it was who refused to receive the leader of a French expedition because