214 CHIEFS & CITIES OF CENTRAL AFRICA 



The fireplaces consist of holes in the floor lined with 

 a special clay, and as the logs of wood are thrust into 

 them from above, a splendid blaze is attained. 



The people were delightfully friendly, but their one 

 rather tedious idea of fun was to summon Mr Talbot to 

 shoot huge green-backed crocodiles that crawled out on 

 to a sandy bay just opposite the town. This and the 

 fact that the zakis were in constant danger from big 

 dogs that prowled about our premises, made us glad 

 to end our visit, which had been protracted by icy 

 gales that stopped all river traffic. 



When we started for the lake the skies were still 

 grey and overcast, and a bitter wind swept through us, 

 painfully reminiscent of an easterly haar on the Scottish 

 coast. It was the harmattan, which in Nigeria is looked 

 forward to with despair, for it fills the atmosphere with 

 dust, though there is compensation in the coolness 

 brought by a veiled sun and steady breeze. These 

 conditions recur regularly in Nigeria, but in the 

 Southern Chad territories the French experience them 

 so slightly that an official for some years resident at 

 Fort Lamy had never even heard of the harmattan. 

 We shivered with cold as the canoe was paddled down 

 a mouth of the river, past thickly wooded banks, where 

 creepers hang from the boughs in rich luxuriance, 

 especially one with a small white and wine-coloured 

 flower and a green plum-like fruit, flecked with purple. 

 A great mass of grasses grow along the banks, in- 

 cluding a tall fluffy species that crocodiles eat ; also 

 quantities of papyrus at least twenty feet high. Vari- 

 ous strange birds flitted about, and sometimes a little 

 bay would be covered with them. Behind was the 

 blackness of dense thicket, and, from the top of a tree 



