172 Incidents of Foreign Field Sport. 



Lakoja is the most desirable place I know on the 

 Niger. It is situated on the right bank on an eminence, 

 and at the junction of the Binnue with the main river. 

 The best site is occupied by the missionaries of course. 

 Everywhere in heathen lands I have found these men 

 better housed and better cared for than even Govern- 

 ment servants. At the head of the Mission was 

 Archdeacon Johnson, a coloured gentleman, who had 

 not only received a good education in England, but 

 had travelled considerably, and lived in the Holy Land 

 for two years to study Arabic. He was one of 

 nature's gentlemen. Bishop Crowther lived on the 

 opposite bank. He was then old and somewhat infirm, 

 and his sons were as much trouble to him as Lot's 

 daughters had been to that patriarch. There was 

 also a European medical officer attached to the 

 Mission. With these exceptions, the others were full- 

 blooded Africans of a very low type. 



Now the history of this place is peculiar. Very 

 many years ago it had been ceded to Great Britain 

 by the then chief of that part of Africa. We had vice- 

 consuls there, but about the last of them was given 

 to intemperate habits, rode about stark naked on a 

 pony, prodding a man here and a woman there with 

 a spear. Misgoverned as it had been, and misre- 

 presented for some years, it was still deemed British 

 territory, and the King of Bida had never ventured 

 to put a foot thereon, though his armies skirted it 

 every year to carry war into the interior among 

 the heathen. Nearly every man and woman spoke 

 English. They liked us, and w y e got on well with 

 them. The Arab element much predominated, so 

 there was very little of the true African to be seen 



