FROM BUSSA TO THE SEA 483 we received. We had, moreover, very little of the dinner service left which we had brought from France three years before. We had, it will be remembered, sent to the bottom of the river everything not absolutely indispensable, and we wanted some claret and champagne-glasses badly.

The natives of Lokodja were very civilized, using table napkins, basins, dishes with covers, china flower-pots, etc., sold to them by the Company, or rather bartered for native productions, for there is no money currency in the Niger districts. The wages of the troops, labour, and raw material are all paid for in merchandise, such as salt, stuffs or ware of different kinds. The Company seem to make considerable profit on these transactions. As for us, we were rich enough to be generous. Suleyman, our interpreter, received orders to buy everything offered at the price asked, for we should only have to throw the things which were too heavy to take on, into the water later. So we gave silk drawers for a dozen eggs, and long strings of pearls, false ones of course, for three bananas.

The generosity of Commandant Mattei, agent of the old French Niger Company, whom we so clumsily allowed an English Company to supplant, has become proverbial, and the natives often quote it apropos of the stinginess of the Niger Company. I am very sure that our stay at Lokodja did nothing to lessen the fame of French liberality. The natives of the banks of the Niger still bemoan the loss of French traders and the hauling down of the French flag.

Lokodja, which we were able to visit, is a fairly large village, very picturesquely situated on a mountain. It is cut across by ravines and shaded by banana and papawtrees, with numerous oil-palms. There is a splendid view of the meeting of the Benue and the Niger. The remains of the steam-boat SokkotOy which was wrecked on a rock,