ABSTRACT
EARLY one morning, some little time after leaving Warri, we slid out of the fleecy mist into a wide lake-like reach of river, bound for New Benin. The engines pounded noisily under a full head of steam, for the flood-tide, pouring through countless miry creeks and mangrove-shrouded entrances, was hurrying inland against us to fill the vast network of water-ways beyond. Here and there on either hand a tuft of tall palms or cluster of giant cotton-woods rose up above the vapours, or a jutting point of mangroves loomed out shapeless and shadowy, but all the rest was hidden by wisps of blue-grey haze. This ceaseless moisture is everywhere prevalent throughout the year, with the exception of the brief harmattan, and, it may be repeated, is one of the principal causes of the unhealthiness of Western Africa.
