ABSTRACT
Agbaja lies about a hundred miles inland from the sea and four hundred feet above sea-level, where the great coastal belt of forested plain is beginning to rise and break up into tree-covered hills and sudden, steep-sided valleys, with frequent outcrops of rock. It is within sight-where one can get a glimpse from high ground through the forest -of the fine rolling uplands of Okigwi. The annual rainfall here is about 90 inches. This is considerably less than that of the coast, but enough to make a damp sticky heat which does not encourage energy either of mind or of body and makes more remarkable the amount of activity the Ibo people, and particularly the women, achieve. Most of the rain falls between April and November, but there is intermittent rain even in the dry season. In December and January there may be a certain amount of Harmattan, the dry, cool, desert wind. But it is unreliable and always short, and it is the only time that one's spare shoes do not grow green mould.
