containing some twenty well-built huts. A large dug-out was in process of completion beneath a shed; fishing-nets were hanging out to dry; a small _ju-ju_ house with votive offerings ornamented the centre of the village green, as one might say; a few goats wandered aimlessly about, and a score of naked tubby children gazed open-eyed or clung round their mothers’ knees in affected panic. Beyond the _ju-ju_ house a one-storeyed bungalow with corrugated iron roof and verandah unexpectedly reared its ugly proportions, and before long we were discussing the much vexed question of the liquor traffic over a bottle of ginger ale across a table covered by a European cloth, with an intelligent Jekri host, whose glistening muscular body, naked to the waist, contrasted oddly with the surroundings. These included a coloured print of the late King Edward hanging upon the walls in company with sundry illustrated advertisements all rejoicing in gorgeous frames. The walls of the vestibule below were similarly adorned, and through a half-open door one perceived a ponderous wooden bed with mattress, sheets, pillows, and gaudy quilt (in such a climate!) complete. The deltaic region is the real home of the oil palm with its numerous and still unclassified varieties, although it extends some distance beyond in proportionately lessening quantities as you push north. No other tree in the world can compare with the oil palm in the manifold benefits it confers upon masses of men. Occurring in tens of millions, reproducing itself so freely that the natives often find it necessary to thin out the youngest trees, it is a source of inexhaustible wealth to the people, to the country, to commerce, and to the Administration. The collection, preparation, transport, and sale of its fruit, both oil and kernels for the export trade is the paramount national industry of Southern Nigeria, in which men, women, and children play their allotted parts. Beautiful to look upon, hoary with antiquity (its sap was used in ancient Egypt for cleansing the body before embalment), the oil palm is put to endless uses by the natives—its leaves and branches as roofing material, for clothing, for the manufacture of nets, mats, and baskets; its fruit and covering fibre in various forms for food (not disdained by the resident European in the famous palm oil chop), for light, for fuel. To the Southern Nigerian native inhabiting the oil-palm area the tree is, indeed, domestically indispensable, while its product represents something like 90 per cent. of his purchasing capacity in trade. How entirely wrong would be any attempt at restricting his free enjoyment of its bounties needs no emphasizing. The importance of the export trade in the products of the oil palm may be gauged by the returns for 1910, which show that Southern Nigeria exported 172,998 tons of kernels and 76,850 tons of oil, of a total value of no less than £4,193,049; and yet