Passing the length of the lagoon—a mile wide at its broadest point—leaving the town of Lagos, with its busy wharves and crowded streets, on his right, less than an hour’s steaming from the Roads and the traveller is at Iddo Wharf. The train is drawn up near the water, and passengers walk a few steps from marine to land locomotion.

Strange sights appear to the traveller as he stands at Iddo Wharf. The strangest—or the strangest thought—of all is that there should be a train running in West Africa on which there is every reasonable comfort and luxury, and that this train should be in existence—the first of its kind in this part of the world—a few months after the extension of the line had been opened. First, however, a word or two on the surroundings at the terminus.

The train leaves at 9 p.m. on whatever day the ocean ship arrives. The vessel is due in the morning, but people have not the inconvenience of loafing about a strange town for hours. The boat train is an ark, available all day as a resting-place for the sole of the foot. All its resources for meals can at once be utilised.

By nightfall most of the luggage will have been stowed in the vans. A few late arrivals, perhaps persons who have not come by the ship, will be having their belongings attended to. Black wharf labourers, who have been working late and are going home, put their umbrellas on the ground in order to give a hand in packing the vans. These labourers, whose attire is usually like that of the Wandering Minstrel in “The Mikado,” “a thing of shreds and patches,” almost to a man carry an umbrella as they go home o’ nights—bless you! not for protection against rain, but as an article of adornment. It is as much a matter of course with them as the clay pipe and the cloth cap are with their counterpart in Great Britain. Different countries, different customs.

Nearly all the other officials at Iddo Wharf are also indigenous West Africans—clerks, inspectors, foremen, porters. There are as many grades and degrees of education among any one Coast people as there are with our folks in Europe. Were this fact always recognised and remembered, perhaps a little more tact might be exercised by individuals who regard all black men as “niggers” and suit their actions to the word. I stand as no apologist for the smatteringly-educated native, who dressed in uniform takes up an attitude truculent and offensive towards white men. It is British policy and systems of education which are responsible.

There is also at Iddo Wharf at least one first-class, white railway official on duty to attend to any matter requiring his attention.

The train usually consists of eight coaches, some of them fifty feet long, and therefore easy running at the fairly high speed over certain portions of the line. Meals are served en route, and every attention is received from the inspector of restaurant cars, who was formerly a chief steward in the Elder Dempster fleet. In the course of the journey I witnessed his solicitude, and that of the European head guard, Cyril Richards, for passengers who were not well and unable to take the table meals. The inspector, whose name I regret to have mislaid, had light food brought instead, the charge for which was, in instances, less than a quarter that of the regular menu. Perhaps the action does not appear surprising, but it means a deal in a country where a man feels weak and knows he has little margin of strength to withstand the effect of the climate.[1]

The term sleeping saloon means provision of bed, blankets, and linen. Couches are fitted for rest during the day. Electric light is in all compartments, which are provided with electrically-driven fans and have mosquito-proof windows. Shower baths are another luxury for which there is no extra payment. No doubt it all sounds prosaic enough to the trotter across the European continent. Let him “pad the hoof” in the tropics, or so much as be in an ordinary West African train for several days where he is entirely “on his own,” with a temperature ranging from 90 degrees to 112 degrees in the shade, or with the Harmattan winds bringing scorching dust into his ears, nostrils and the pores of his skin, covering every mouthful before it can enter that avenue. Should he have experienced these things, have a memory, and is inclined to gratitude, then he will take off his hat to the Administration of the Lagos Government Railway, if he does not go so far as to be Biblically impelled and rise up and call the work of their hands blessed.

The traveller wakes for early morning tea to find himself traversing the palm belt. There is a continuous line of the tall, thin, bare trunks, surmounted by the graceful, drooping palms beneath which cluster the kernels which are the main wealth of Southern Nigeria. Palm kernels and palm oil are to Southern Nigeria what coal is to England. There are rumours that that mineral has been located on the lower Niger. Possibly I may be able to say something on the subject as I come down the river on the return journey.

Running through at night, several features of interest are unseen, prominent among them the exceptionally pretty view towards the Sacred Hill at Olokemeji and Ibadan, the largest town in West Africa, though not nearly so frequently spoken of as the much smaller ones of Zaria, Bida, Sokoto and Kano. Each has had the advertisement of war.

A short stop for water—not the first—is made at 6.45 a.m. at Oshogbo, 187 miles from Lagos, and still one of the hopes of the British Cotton Growing Association. Little more than an hour later the line enters Northern Nigeria. At Offa, the station over the frontier, permits have to be shown to take wines or spirits into the Mohamedan land, even for personal consumption. We are now 1,500 feet above sea level.

Jebba, 306 miles, is reached at noon, and here one of the stiff difficulties of railway construction which faced the engineers can be seen. The Niger must be crossed. The easiest way of doing so is from the south mainland to a large island, thence to the north mainland. The south channel is 1,100 feet broad, the north one rather less. The latter has been bridged; the former is still under that operation, which will not be finished for two years, making three in all.

The length across the river is the least of the obstacles to be solved. Heavy rises and falls of the water—in a month it may alter from 15 feet to 50 feet—made the work not only hard and hazardous, but impossible at certain periods of the year. But with hundreds of miles of rail completed south and north last November, it would have been an exasperating position to have to wait a further two and a half years for through connection. A civil engineer will tell you that nothing on earth is impossible. It is only a matter of money and time.

Well, the same train which carries you from Lagos to its destination at Minna, 161 miles beyond Jebba, covers its course without the traveller having to leave his carriage. The train goes over the Niger by means of a ferry. That, however, is itself a difficult subject by reason of the varying height of the river. The question at issue was how to transport weights, too heavy to be safely lifted, from a fixed level to an alternating one.

The carriages are run to the head of an inclined plane and a wire rope fastened to each coach, the other end encircling a winding drum. Another rope bound to the further end of the carriage draws it on the slope of the plane, and the winding machine lets it down. The plane carries the carriages to a trolly bridge resting on the river, and rising and falling with it. The trolly bridge fits to a steam ferry which bears four carriages, so that the entire train is taken over in two journeys. At Jebba Island the reverse process is followed, and a freight engine being coupled up the train proceeds over the north channel bridge and thus onwards.

Kooty-Wenji should be made by daylight, and there a halt is made till next morning, as the line has not yet been ballasted, and is therefore not safe to be used at night.

At 6 a.m. the train is again on the move, and in less than an hour-and-a-half we draw up at Zungeru, 430 miles from Lagos. The course has been covered in thirty-six hours. A week later the boat train attained a record by doing the journey in twenty-four hours.

I am making a short stay at Zungeru; but perhaps it will make a better connected narrative if a few additional railway particulars are given now. Midday the train leaves for Minna, which is its destination. A journey straight ahead can be made by ordinary train to Kano, 282 miles from Zungeru. The traveller for the tin fields in the Bauchi and the Nassarawa Provinces will alight at Zaria, 90 miles south of Kano. From Zaria, the Bauchi Light Railway will in seven hours take him the 88½ miles to Rahama railhead.

Appended are the through fares by the boat train, including sleeping accommodation and attendance:

First-class passengers by the boat train are allowed the following weight of luggage, excess of which is placed at heavier rates:

Meals are charged: early morning tea, 6d.; breakfast, 2s.; lunch, 3s.; afternoon tea, 1s.; dinner, 4s. 6d.

Doubtless very mundane details, but useful to the man who desires to know before setting forth from Europe how he is to fare financially in small matters.