ABSTRACT
BEING now on what may be termed the main river -for the Nun entrance is the most direct route to the hinterland of all the myriad water-ways-a space may be devoted to tracing the Niger back to its source. Here the writer would state that he is indebted to the records of the adventurous explorers who have visited its upper waters, for there are still reaches of the great river which few white men have ever seen. Above Akassa the yellow stream rolls down through a waste of festering mangroveswamps, and alternating strips of firmer earth crowned by mighty cotton - woods or clustering palms, the country gradually becoming drier as one travels north, and the condition of its inhabitants changing little by little from that of the naked savage. Near the Company's station of Abo, and some hundred miles from its mouth, the delta appears to end. About forty miles farther the strong post of Asaba, R.N.e., is passed on the one
hand, and the large native town of Onitsha on the other, and about here the change from savage heathenism to some degree of order and a trace of Moslem influence becomes apparent. Beyond Asaba a rich undulating country rolls away on either hand, diversified by patches of primeval forest, and the banks are golden sand until the river pours through a narrow gorge strewn with fallen crags and boulders, where great flat-topped mountains tower above the frothing rush. This passed, the wide expanse where the Benue, flowing from the east, mingles its waters with the Niger is reached. Here, and some 250 miles from the sea, the R.N. Co.'s station of Lukoja, now a great fortified camp, stands beside a lake-like reach, and in all frontier troubles Lukoja will figure prominently.
