206 
THOMPSON YATES LABORATORIES REPORT 
pond near the consulate. The water of this cemented pond was so often disturbed by 
fowls, turkeys, and other poultry, that never more than very few larvae were found 
here. Since our visit it has been regularly emptied. 
The water supply of the natives is a spring in the valley above the ' creek ' — ■ 
that of Europeans is rainwater caught from the roofs of their quarters, and 
stored in large iron tanks. A scheme is on foot, however, to bring water to the 
town from a spring about two miles distant, in the bush, and engineering opera- 
tions are at present being carried out. The spring occurs at the bottom of what 
appears to be a natural depression some one hundred feet deep. A well has been 
already bricked out here to the depth of some eight feet, and the neighbourhood of 
this was at the time of our visit flooded over a small area around. Here innumerable 
larvae were found. The district is visited by many natives for drinking water, and a 
number of labourers are employed during the day in the structural operations. 
These and the occupants of a small hut on the edge of the depression are the only 
people within half a mile of the place. The presence of such a large number of 
Anopheles larvae was therefore remarkable. 
Of the other places in Southern Nigeria visited by the members of the expedition 
but little description need be here given — they will be sufficiently referred to in sub- 
sequent chapters. The European communities at these places seldom exceed ten 
in number. 
Akassa must, however, be particularly referred to as a place which, in our 
opinion, should be at once abandoned by Europeans. A vice-consulate and the 
engineers' quarters are the only European habitations here, and these have been 
built on ' made ' sites in the midst of the mangrove swamp. Here are the only 
engineering yards of the country, which were taken over from the Niger Company by 
the Government at the beginning of last year. Were not the swampy nature of the 
district sufficient reason for abandoning the place, it has been rendered almost 
uninhabitable because of the prevalence of malarial fever among the Europeans — 
brought about by the presence of the small native village on one side and of the 
dwellings of the native artisans and labourers with their families on the other side of 
the engineering quarters, while the proximity of the barracks of the native soldiers is 
a perpetual menace to the health of the officials at the vice-consulate. To abandon 
this place and to transfer administrative quarters and engineering yards to Brass, a 
comparatively healthy district some twenty-five miles off, where already an excellent 
vice-consulate building exists, would, in our opinion, involve the expenditure of a 
much less sum than will be required to make Akassa inhabitable and at all healthy. 
Statistics. — It is very desirable that fuller and more detailed accounts of the 
meteorological conditions occurring at the various stations of Nigeria should be kept : 
at present there is a deplorable dearth of instruments for these purposes throughout 
the colony. It is only with considerable difficulty that we have been able to gather 
