Sporting Trips of a Subaltern 



suddenly up river again. Skins take a long time 

 drying in the damp heat of Nigeria, and, despite 

 my efforts with wood-ashes, etc., my roan skin 

 was not nearly prepared, so, as it was no good 

 taking it with me, I had to leave it. I huried 

 the skull in an ant-heap for the ants to clean ; 

 but when I returned to Lokoja long after, our 

 temporary headquarters had been moved, thick 

 bush covered the old spot, and I never found my 

 skull again, so the horns, which I had taken off, 

 were all that remained of my trophy. 



Before starting up river, I was given a tent and, 

 luxury after luxury, a camp bed, a very welcome 

 exchange for the tornado-soaked ground. 



For five more days we steamed up the Niger 

 in a stern-wheeler till we arrived at a large island 

 called Jebba. Here we had orders to camp. The 

 island was very swampy, but some rocky hills 

 looked the most inviting, so we endeavoured to 

 pitch our tents there. The pegs wouldn't go into 

 the rocky soil, so we had to secure the ropes as 

 we could to boulders. We managed with hard 

 work to get them up as the sun set, and within 

 half an hour down swooped a tornado, and not 

 only blew them flat, but distributed our belongings 

 over many hundred yards. Exactly what we ate, 

 or how we ate it, for the next few days I quite 

 forget, but I remember I was always ravenously 

 hungry, and we were glad when the arrival of 



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