The River Niger at Lokoja should not be likened to the fickleness of a woman but to the quick alternating of moods which distinguish that inexplicable and unfathomable sex. In a July the river has been less than 2 feet in depth, by an October it once rose to more than 35 feet. The respective averages in the two months are 3 feet 6 inches and 31 feet 3 inches.

Not an easy river to use for transport of heavy material, as the fall is as rapid as the rise, and by December it is generally below 8 feet, reduced in January to little more than 6 feet. Until the railway, which runs parallel to the river, starting at Lagos, 120 miles from the mouth of the Niger, was recently completed to the Bauchi Plateau, the river was the highway for goods eastward, i.e., in a line direct inland from the sea.

At Lokoja where, as previously explained, the Niger is joined by the Benue, the former is three-quarters of a mile wide and the latter more than a mile. This two miles’ expanse has a number of islands, most of which are submerged at the high-water months, but, whatever the depth of the river, their positions produce currents running side by side in opposite directions.

The Niger is tideless, in expression of ebb and flow; it is always running seawards. The rise and fall of the water are reflections of the rainy and dry seasons. But so long a distance have the floods to travel from the higher lands and so many tributaries empty themselves into the Niger and the Benue in the upper reaches that the wet season of one year does not make itself felt on the navigable parts of the rivers until 12 months later.

The strength of the current, which varies from three to seven miles an hour—always towards the same quarter—and the height of the river considerably modify the time-table of the larger vessels. Lokoja to Forcados, 347 miles, in the high-water season occupies two-and-a-half days. Forcados to Lokoja, at the same time of the year, is a day more.

At low water you may calculate anything beyond the periods given, but you should keep to calculating, not form any conclusion, for the precise, or even approximate, day and hour you reach your destination are largely on the knees of chance, in the matter of silted-in channels and quickly formed sandbanks; and though the skill and alertness of the native Pilot may evade these checks for a long time, he is sure to be caught by them sooner or later and the craft held up from an hour or so to a question of days.

I left Lokoja at 8 a.m. aboard the stern-wheeler Mungo Park, belonging to the Niger Company. She is the latest passenger-cargo boat on the service, carrying 220 tons on high water, drawing 5 feet, and 130 tons at low water, drawing about 4 feet. There is accommodation for eight saloon passengers, whose quarters are on the upper deck.

The vessel has electric light, electrically-operated air fans, and the bedrooms are mosquito-proof. I say bedrooms advisedly, not cabins, for the sleeping apartments are large, roomy apartments, with iron bedsteads which do not need the generally indispensable protection from winged insects of enclosing curtains. Every provision is here for comfort. Though we have no ladies this journey, the skipper, Captain W. H. Stephenson, has shown me, with pride, that their well-being has not been overlooked, for special accommodation has been furnished for them.

To me this form of locomotion is ideal of its kind. The barque is sufficiently large to give one the impression of being on an ocean-going ship, whilst the uniform smoothness of the stream sets the mind at rest. I am not oppressed by the uneasiness which ever haunts me on a liner and which prompts anxious looks to discern if there are signs of the wind freshening and enforcing a hasty retirement and abstinence from food. Whatever befalls on the Niger, there is no mal-de-mer. The most sensitive internal organism will not be disturbed.

We are propelled by two paddles at the back of the vessel and there are extra large balance rudders for sharp movement of the craft. They are frequently required at this season, as you shall learn. Our average speed is 12 miles an hour. Cargo is carried on the lower deck, where native passengers also settle.

There is only one European in the crew, the Captain. The other members are the Chief Engineer and his two assistants, the Pilot, Bos’n, four Quartermasters, and 22 deck hands. With the exception of the Engineers and the Pilot, all are river “boys” from the towns of Onitsha and Aboh and river villages.

The Niger Company does four-fifths of the cargo transport up and down the rivers—trading goods up, produce down—making no preference in selection between their own cargoes and those of firms who are side-by-side competitors in trading at dozens of places. The exception to this four-fifths division of carrying is Messrs John Holt, who have their own boats.

The first day the Mungo Park made 56 miles, measured by the direct course of the river, to Idah. It was not much to show for the full day’s steaming, but the way had to be picked very warily. Though the broad river was certified as between 6 feet and 7 feet deep, that did not mean all the way across; it only specified the channel along which such a boat as ours could travel. Nor was the channel necessarily in the middle or the side of the river; it might twist from the former to the latter, or vice versâ; or it might take a zigzag course. As a matter of fact, it described all these gyrations, with variations made from parts of them. We tacked and turned from bank to bank; then, perhaps, for a few miles heading straight down stream, along the middle of it, presently to revert to forming angles and curves.

The guide to these evolutions is the Pilot. A Nupé, clad in the long flowing robe of the Mohamedans, capped by a white turban, Nasaru remains at his post on the bridge from dawn to dusk. He takes no rest or time off. He has his food where he stands. His eyes are unvaryingly directed on the surface of the stream, from which he reads the changing position of the narrow channel. That is the only line we can thread without being caught on a submerged sandbank.

How Nasaru remains awake all these hot, monotonous hours, scarcely moving, his gaze fixed on an inappreciably altering, dull scene, is remarkable. His principal movement is to raise his forearm at right-angle from the elbow and extending the fingers as signs to the man at the wheel which way to steer; and, without looking down at the instrument, he frequently uses the telegraph to the engine-room to alter speed. The only occasions during the 14 hours’ run that Nasaru relinquishes duty is when he drops on his knees for the Moslem prayers. He does that on the bridge, at the spot where he stands throughout the day.

It is imperative the river be watched so closely and unremittingly, as during the low-water season the channel along which safe travel can be made changes continuously and the course up or back may be quite impracticable on the return. This is due to the sand washed down and the pressure of the current wearing a channel where there is least resistance from irregularity of the banks or any other cause, throwing the displaced sand into the previously-travelled channel. How requisite it is to visually trace the course was proved on our approaching a double channel, one each side of a large sandbank, really big enough to be termed an island.

Nasaru did not like the look of the water. It did not now appear to have the same depth as when traversed on his previous journey. The vessel was stopped, and he went off in a small boat to explore the channel on the other side of the island. On coming back from his soundings he directed the Mungo Park through the new channel, which gave 5 feet and 6 feet of water, whereas we subsequently learnt that the one he had stopped at bore only 3 feet 6 inches.

During the journey from Lokoja to Burutu three times we have seen stern-wheelers fixed on a sandbank. Each occasion, after he had peered through his telescope, Captain Stephenson remarked, with a chuckle of satisfaction, “Not one of our Company’s.”

When a steamer of size goes aground there are three courses to be followed. Perhaps only one or two of them need be resorted to. The first is to try to get off by means of the propelling engines. If the vessel does not readily respond the engines are stopped, as to keep them going in such a position must cause the paddles to throw up sand, which, settling round, still further embeds the craft.

The first attempt yielding no satisfaction, the next step is to have the rowing-boat, slung at the side, brought to the bows and the anchor put in it and taken to deep water, dropped there, and a steel hawser attached. The other end of the hawser is led to a powerful windlass on the stern-wheeler, and on heaving away—in landlubbers’ parlance, the windlass working—the vessel usually comes from her grounding. For this purpose a stern-wheeler of the Mungo Park type carries three Trotman anchors—respectively 10 cwts., 8 cwts., and 4 cwts.—besides the ordinary patent anchor for general use.

But should the vessel be so firmly fixed that she cannot be moved off by either of the means stated, then there is a third resource. At low water every stern-wheeler tows a barge alongside. On the most severe form of going aground the barge is piled with cargo from the stern-wheeler, and, when sufficiently lightened, that vessel is drawn into the navigable channel by again heaving on the anchors. But though the steamer has floated, the heavily laden barge, which was alongside it, is now itself obviously aground, so the cargo is once more transferred to the stern-wheeler, the operation being carried out by a roomy rowing boat, which may go backwards and forwards scores of times on the errand. Thus a couple of days are easily consumed. Less haste, greater speed is an axiom of navigation on the Niger for several months of the year.

Opposite the town of Onitsha, near where we stopped for native passengers, there was a large depression in the bed of the river, which a battleship would not cover, holding 40 feet of water, but no anchorage, as the bed was rock. Yet the other side of the deep water gave no more than 2 feet, except where the channel ran. It is easy enough to wreck a vessel in these parts.

At the close of the second day, which accounted for 90 miles, we stopped overnight at a point 10 miles below Onitsha and 146 miles from Lokoja.

A fog on the morning of the third day prevented a start until 7.30, and later there was a breakdown of machinery, which brought us to a complete standstill. The mishap was not a slight one. A fracture had occurred to the shaft on the circulating pump, which forces water through the condenser to cool steam that has passed through the cylinder. The shaft was broken diagonally close to the flange. The nearest marine engineering shops were at Burutu, about 170 miles down the river. Had we been compelled to send there and wait for mechanics and new parts we should have had to remain helpless three or four days.

The Chief Engineer informed Captain Stephenson that he could repair and set the engines going with the material at hand. All the Company’s large boats carry a forge, anvil and general outfit of tools. This Chief Engineer is a black, a Sierra Leonean, trained by the Niger Company at the Burutu workshops. He and his assistants were soon at work.

The flange was filed out, neatly fitted on the broken shaft by filing key-ways and securing the flange in position by steel keys, forged there and then, which held the shaft to the flange. I watched all this, which was done with celerity, yet in a cool, matter-of-fact way, as though it were all in the day’s work.

At the commencement of the repair no statement could be made as to how long it would take. At the end of five hours’ close application the skipper received the Chief Engineer’s report that he was ready for the word to proceed, and, the engines starting very gently at first, in a few minutes were once more full speed ahead.

All the way down there has been a full range of tropical landscape. At some places the forest comes to the edge of the water and presents a barrier to sight of what may be beyond. At other sections of the route trees are not so crowded and stand a few score feet back, whilst where they are more scattered there is opportunity to notice the arboricultural variety, in which the palm always stands out distinctively against the sky background.

Where a stretch of sand lines the shore or there is grass not shadowed or hidden by taller growths, crocodiles are frequently seen at rest. They sprawl on the sandbanks and seldom dive off unless the stern-wheeler passes quite near. There are plenty opportunities for a rifle-shot at the brutes, but he who fires does so at a risk of being fined £5, for that is the penalty the Government has fixed to deter shooting from a boat.

The usual scenery of the bank is occasionally broken by a trading station, usually consisting of two or three corrugated iron sheds placed adjacent to the beach but on rising ground which the flood-level does not reach.

Standing quite alone, many miles from trading stations, are the riverside villages, enveloped on three sides by the forest. The architecture tells that the Hausa country has been left. These lower-river tribes build their oblong houses of bamboo, placed vertically. On the approach of the stern-wheeler numbers of the male inhabitants paddle off in frail, dug-out canoes and plunge in the water after anything pitched to them, as though there were no crocodiles on the prowl. Bottles are the articles most esteemed by the seekers of what they can get from the passing boat. If a bottle and money be thrown together, the swimmers will always ignore the coin for the bottle. Next in value are tin boxes of the kind which have held sardines or biscuits.

Apart from this crowd in the water to pick up unconsidered trifles, there is a turn out of villagers for the purpose of yelling a greeting to some neighbour who is among the crew. The exile will have made a hoard of all the discarded bottles and tins he could lay hands upon since the boat last passed, and over they go to delight his kinsmen and friends.

Captain Stephenson, in order to assist my having a photograph of the scramble in the water, told his personal steward boy to bring up some old bottles. The lad appeared with two, saying they were all he could find. He was sternly sent back and eventually produced six, declaring he knew of no more on board. Later the same afternoon, as we went by another village the skipper pointed to his steward boy perched on the deck where he imagined he could not be seen, flinging bottles with both hands, as quickly as he could pick them up from a pile of not less than two dozen. They were his collection on the voyage and now he was giving them to the folks of his home.

That night we stabled at a point two hours’ steaming below Aboh, having done 64 miles since the morning. There was still a chance that, in the absence of any but small mishaps—and not many of them—we should complete the balance of 127 miles to our destination on the morrow.

We started at the usual hour, 5.30 a.m., but at 7 o’clock there was an ominous check. A thick, harmattan, dry fog compelled us to anchor. For what period we should remain no one could say. It must be until the air cleared. To go on would be madness, sure misfortune. That was plain enough, whatever remained obscured. Vision was very deceptive; the nearest bank appeared to be half-a-mile away, whereas it was less than 200 yards distant.

An-hour-and-a-half, and the mist lifted, and again we were under way. At places the depth of the narrow channel on which we glided became so reduced, nearly on the border line of safety, that great care had to be exercised and slow speed maintained for several stretches.

It is still broad, afternoon daylight as we pass Gana-Gana, 35 miles from Forcados, and therefore only 30 miles from Burutu, which is regarded as practically the same; so we may still reach the latter to-day.

Gana-Gana is the first trading station of the Niger Company from the headquarters at Burutu. The river is a-quarter-of-a-mile across. In mid-stream is a small island on which the station has been made. The manager’s house is a medium-size stern-wheeler hauled up on the island, The lower part of the boat is used as a store for bought produce; the upper part remains little altered from when the barque was afloat, the saloon merely modified to the conveniences of living on land.

A screw steamer has also been drawn up, roofed with corrugated iron and is used as living quarters for the black staff. No one else remains on the islet during the night.

In addition there are three corrugated iron sheds for stores and another for trading goods. Produce is brought by natives in canoes from both banks of the river.

This placing of a trading station on an island was of considerable advantage in the old days when a general attack on a European store, firing the building and murdering the occupants was a periodical entertainment of inhabitants up the rivers. The station being surrounded by water which had to be crossed gave the defenders a chance, with the use of rifles, to beat off an assault.

All the trading stations are kept busy from morning to night, so there is little likelihood of anybody in one experiencing monotony; but in former days there was the additional exhilaration of always having in mind the probable need of a sudden run for firearms to keep at bay a howling mob of savages bent on killing and plunder. By comparison, things are quite tame nowadays.

Although the river, broad as it is, gives practically nothing to spare in depth, we spin along in the effort to reach Burutu to-night, but the channel occasionally becomes so shallow that, unless we are to be run aground after all, the engines have to be slowed; for, whilst it is urgent to reach Burutu without stop, as a mail liner leaves Forcados to-morrow morning for England and we have light cargo for her, if we go on a sandbank the whole scheme must be upset and a week’s delay ensue. That means, instead of the goods being directly transhipped, the labour and extra expense of warehousing and handling them three times instead of once. Therefore, notwithstanding the brief twilight is passing and darkness coming on, the engines continue their regular sharp pulsation and the stern-wheels strike the water with their pat-pat-pat sound, and no halt is made as the night settles around, though we are still some 20 miles from Burutu. Fortunately, the moon is clear. Nasaru looks unflinchingly ahead. He has been doing so for 12 hours, yet he shows no sign of weariness and appears as visually alert as he was at the start.

Should anything untoward occur to delay us, it is the skipper who will be blamed. He is expected to be in time for whatever is to be transferred from his boat to the homeward-bound liner. If he does not maintain that time-table he must give a good reason why; it must be a very good reason. Still worse is it for his reputation if he runs aground. That may be no fault of his; still, he is judged from results. There is nothing like being careful; an excess of that quality, however, means that dovetailed arrangements and schedules are put out of gear. Whatever difficulties or obstacles come in the path of a skipper of a large stern-wheeler on the Niger—and many do—in thinking how to overcome any one of them he can always murmur truthfully, as did Desdemona, “I do perceive here a divided duty.”

Steadily, yet with unrelaxed caution, paddling, the miles between us and our goal are reduced one by one, until, at nearly 10 o’clock, in the distance there is a cluster of white specks, too bright to be stars. As we move onwards it becomes plain they are the electric lights on the wharf at Burutu. Half-an-hour more and we are up to them and at anchor.

It seems we have suddenly sailed into a new world, or, rather, into the old, strenuous, restless world again. The long rows of large sheds, the big arc lamps and the smaller ones together throwing a glare half-way across the river, and the wide-funnel ocean ships and others of lesser degree clustered, all tell you are at a large shipping port planted in West Africa.

Nearly everybody ashore has gone to bed, but Captain Stephenson promptly reports his arrival to Mr Price, the Burutu Agent of the Niger Company, and word is brought back from him that the Mungo Park is to leave at 6 a.m. for Forcados, so that anybody who desires to land at Burutu must do so before that hour next morning.