The island of Lagos, measuring less than 600 square miles, with a population of nearly 80,000, was always congested, but never so badly as it is to-day. By day, and also by night, I have traversed the native quarters and found overcrowding which before long must produce a grave condition in that hub of West Coast commercial activity. Lagos is always hot, always humid, always malodorous to epidemic point, but Lagos, overcrowded though it was, has within recent years seriously added to its congestion by the forcible expropriation of some hundreds of people from the lands they occupied. No doubt a nicely-laid-out race-course is more pleasing to the eye of many British officials: the brightness and neatness of this fenced park is cheering to those who now have a monopoly of this vicinity, but the price paid for such expropriation is a further alienation of native loyalty and goodwill. Somehow the native does not like being driven from his home, even though “Hobson’s” compensation is provided. VII RACE PREJUDICE [Sidenote: RACE PREJUDICE AFLOAT] The most lamentable feature which confronts the traveller in British West African colonies to-day is that with the growth of commerce on the one hand, and with the spread of Christian thought on the other, race prejudice is rapidly increasing its hold not only through an ever widening area, but in an intensity which must before many years have passed precipitate a grave condition in the relationship of the two races. The decks of West African liners provide an incomparable mirror for reflecting white opinion upon the shortcomings of the black man. On shore each man is busy with his own affairs and usually meets only men of his own circle, but on board ship one meets every class; moreover, the conditions of travel tend to facilitate a flow of conversation. One sees stretched upon the deck, in every conceivable attitude of comfort and discomfort, all classes of the coast community: the dapper little colonel; the young district commissioner; the army doctor; dealers in oil, ebony and rubber; the Nimrod going out in search of big game, and the missionary going forth in quest of human souls. These varied interests cooped up on the decks under the enervating influence of the tropical sun will with some exceptions share little in common, but that of an indefinable dislike and contempt for that black man they come out to govern or exploit. To the student of human affairs, the conversation is of absorbing interest, revealing as it does every type of thought and superficiality. The loquacious trader, with the experience of but one term, opines with a lofty air that the “nigger” is the very embodiment of Satan. The “gentle” wife of Britain’s representative suggests that the sum of all evils—the native we have half-educated, should be curbed by measures dear to the heart of the short-sighted statesmen of Russia. The sympathetic doctor, with ten years’ practice, looks on and