46 FROM THE NIGER TO THE NILE 



While we were at Ibi the old cannibal king of the Gurkawa 

 was sent in as a prisoner, the result of a Government expe- 

 dition from the post of Wase 

 against that tribe. In the Ju- Ju 

 house of his country five skulls 

 of native traders were found, 

 which had been picked clean 

 by this old gentleman. My 

 brother took photographs of 

 him, an operation which caused 

 him some alarm, for he had 

 never had a camera levelled at 

 him before. 



One day in the Ibi market 

 I saw the pitiful sight of a 

 malefactor with his right hand 

 and left foot cut off. He had 

 suffered at the hands of the 

 Emir of Bida for stealing in 

 the days before the British 

 occupation. 



As our work in the future 

 would necessitate our going off 

 the beaten track into unsettled 

 districts, I applied when at 

 Lokoja to headquarters for an escort, which arrived at Ibi 

 before we left. It consisted of two corporals and eighteen 

 men, Yoruba and Hausa, of the West African Frontier 

 Force. 



At Ibi we spent many days of fruitless attempts to take 



THE PENALTY FOR THIEVING 



