The Journal of a Sporting Nomad 
amused me. He had on a shirt and nothing else, 
an ordinary “ boiled ” shirt as worn in England, 
save that it was printed all over the front and 
back with large black spots as big as a shilling. 
On the Forcados River the stranger sees several 
tiny grass huts, perhaps two feet square, built 
out from the banks, the front parts of the quaint 
structures being supported on two stakes driven 
into the bed of the river, and adorned by odd 
pieces of calico, white or coloured. Within is a 
small wooden god, or Ju-ju. Again, you may 
be walking up a native path, and come to another 
intercepting the first. At this junction an old 
egg, a bit of broken crockery, or some fragments 
of calico are sure to be lying—propitiatory gifts 
for the same deity. 
The troops employed in the Protectorate in 
my time were recruited from the Hausa tribes— 
extremely keen soldiers, who very soon pick up 
their business. They fight well too, and will 
follow their white officers with the greatest pluck. 
On one occasion I accompanied a Captain 
Searle, who commanded a company of Hausas, 
to barracks, to unpack a seven-pounder muzzle- 
loading gun which had just arrived from home. | 
The men who were to form the gun’s crew were 
wildly enthusiastic, and when the piece had been — 
undone, and leisurely put together, Searle ex- | 
plained its mechanism to them. Before he had 
finished with them that afternoon the men had 
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