Here and there villages, charmingly adorned with nodding palms, peeped cosily from their bosky corners in the dark protecting forest. Near the houses stood or lolled groups of scantily clothed natives, passing the lazy hours away in dreamy idleness, as became the lords of creation. Children, naked as the day they were born, gambolled in the river like frogs; and women, ever at work, busied themselves with domestic cares. At some places battle had been given to the rank luxuriance of nature, and small clearings made in the forest for the raising of yams, beans, or sugar-canes. Not least inviting in the scene was the Niger itself. Now it spread before the voyagers like a beautiful lake, ringed with fringing festooned trees, and flashing brilliantly under the rays of the tropic sun. Again, far ahead, the forest frame opened and displayed the serpentine course of the silvery river, edged with yellow banks of sand. Canoes were seen gliding swiftly down stream, or with more laborious paddling were forced upward against the current. On the banks left by the falling waters, crocodiles disposed their repulsive length like rotting logs of wood, while in the deeper pools the hippos snorted defiance. Waterfowl in great numbers skimmed along the surface of the water, fished in the shallows, or rested on _terra firma_. The scene was arcadian and fascinating seen from the river. A closer acquaintance did not enhance its attractiveness. The voyagers were now among a people far different from those above the confluence of the Niger and the Benué (Tchadda). Here were only Pagan savages, steeped in the lowest barbarism, and ruled by the grossest superstition. Murder and plunder were in congenial union with fetishism and cannibalism, and hospitality was unknown. Only by force could Lander get his men to venture into this dangerous region. That their fears were not mere fancies was speedily proved on the very first occasion of landing, and again later on they only escaped utter destruction, to fall into semi-captivity to a party of men in large canoes who were up river ready to trade with the strong, and to attack and plunder the weak. The travellers now found themselves among people who came from near the sea, and who had not only heard of, but had actually traded with Europeans. It was therefore in no despondent mood that they submitted to their fate, and proceeded on their way, the captives of the Ibo.