BRITISH CAMEROONS 331 
landing at Victoria, the capital, one may have to hire a cook and 
purchase all one’s provisions, crockery, cooking utensils, etc., in 
order to get the next meal, and finally sleep under a tree—that 
is, if one arrives without introductions or contacts. There is a 
small rest-house for passing Government officials, but there had 
been a sudden influx of newly appointed welfare and educational 
officers and so forth, to fill the posts that formerly never existed, 
and nowhere to house them, so the rest-house was turned into a 
permanent residence. 
Fortunately, as was the case when I visited French Cameroons, 
I had a letter of introduction from the head office of the United 
Africa Company in London, and so the local manager, who was 
most obliging, saw to it that I had somewhere to eat and sleep. 
During my first few days I engaged a cook and houseboy, beth 
of whom were prepared to go anywhere with me into the back of 
beyond. 
As usual, the difficulty of finding the most suitable spot for a 
collecting-base presented itself. Ninety-nine per cent of the Euro- 
peans in such places have little or no interest in natural history 
and are vague and often misleading as to where there is an 
abundance of wild-life. Transport in British Cameroons is a per- 
petual headache. The only form of conveyance for long distances 
by road is the native-owned, native-driven lorry. The Government 
had fixed the charges so that there was no argument. Any journey 
was at the rate of half-a-crown a mile, but one had to pay two 
shillings a mile for the returning empty lorry—thus the total 
really worked out at four shillings and sixpence per mile. As far 
as I know, no native driver had ever been known to admit that he 
had a return load, so the hirer had always to pay for the return 
journey in spite of the fact that every lorry fills up in no time with 
native passengers and their baggage. 
Under this system it is little wonder that the cost of getting any 
produce from the far interior to the coast by road was prohibitive. 
My first trip inland enabled me to sidetrack the transport boys 
of Victoria, as the Public Works Department kindly gave me a 
lift to Ayang, about one hundred and thirty-five miles inland. 
This road was constructed during the last war, the only inland 
route previously being up the Cross River to Mamfe, a town about 
