MY JOURNEY FROM LOKO TO DORRORO 201 



the Magaji's deserted palace. In the centre of one of the 

 rooms, about 20 ft. high, there was a huge circular granary 

 that rose right up to the roof, reminding one of the furnaces 

 in a Kentish oast-house. 



From Keflfi. we left the main road, following bush paths 

 in a north-easterly direction. That day we had to wade 

 through many swollen streams, and four hours of this sort of 

 travelling was long enough, so we pitched camp at the next 

 small village. The rains had now settled in with steady 

 downpours, which made travelling heavy work, what with 

 our frequent soakings in the streams and the sodden camping- 

 grounds. My work of collecting was also hampered very 

 much, and it was a troublesome matter to preserve the skins 

 from the wet. Four days more of this not very pleasant 

 travelling brought us to the eastern end of the Keffi and 

 Panda range, the watershed of the Gurara and Kaduna 

 rivers. The former rises on the northern slopes and the 

 latter on the southern, both falhng into the Niger before its 

 confluence with the Benue. The path now rose and dipped 

 up and down pretty hills, and followed the curves of the 

 valleys across the lines of green luxuriance in the hollows, 

 where wound swift-running streams, which spread into marshy 

 pools covered with a glory of lily cups, some white, some 

 a Wedgwood blue and others blue slashed with pink. It 

 was along these green-shaded watercourses and round the 

 lily pools, in that enchanted hour at sunrise when Earth 

 seems exhaling the fragrance of the just-departed fairies 

 she has couched, and again when day pauses with drooped 

 eyelids to catch the sound of night's soft foot-fall, I heard 

 for the first time the entrancing song of the red thrush. 



