Historical circumstances rather than natural advantages have made Lagos the most important commercial emporium of British West Africa and the starting-point of a railway into the interior. It is difficult to see, if the traffic of this railway and its future feeders develops, as there is every reason to believe it will, how the already crowded and circumscribed area of Lagos can possibly prove equal to the demands upon it. Indeed, its physical features are in many respects most disadvantageous for the _rôle_ of the West African Bombay it appears called upon to bear, and it is only by the expenditure of millions which, spread over the Protectorate, would have achieved results of much greater fruitfulness, that Lagos can be converted into a harbour worthy of the name. For Lagos is cursed with a bar which vessels drawing more than fourteen feet cannot cross, and the absurd anomaly, to say nothing of the expense and loss of time and damage to valuable cargo involved, is witnessed of vessels with merchandise consigned to the premier port in Nigeria having to steam 120 miles south of it and there discharge their freight into branch steamers for conveyance to destination. An elusive and sinister obstruction is Lagos bar, strewn with wrecks and hitherto refractory to dredging, which shifts its depths three feet in a single week, while the position of the channels is continually altering. As one surveys the coast-line and notes the two, comparatively speaking, deep and roomy anchorages of Forcados and Old Calabar, one cannot refrain from marvelling somewhat at the curious chain of events which has conspired to concentrate effort and expense upon a place so difficult of access. However, the past cannot be undone, and no doubt there is much to be said in favour of Lagos, or rather of the happenings which have ministered to its selection. Be that as it may, the destinies of Southern Nigeria have for the last five years been in the hands of a Governor of large ideas and enormous energy. Sir Walter Egerton, who, despite numerous disappointments and maddening delays, has pursued with dogged persistence and infinite resource the object dearest to his heart—that of opening the harbour. A comprehensive scheme of works, entailing the construction of two stone moles, one on either side of the entrance, combined with harbour and channel dredging, is proceeding under the direction of Messrs. Coode, Son, and Matthews, and the constant personal supervision of the Governor, in the confident belief that its completion will ensure (combined with dredging) a depth of twenty-seven feet at high water, corresponding to twenty-four feet at low tide. When I was in Lagos a month ago[7] the work on the eastern mole had advanced 4,500 feet seawards, but the western mole is not yet started, and will not be, it is feared, for some time, a further delay having been caused by the foundering of the _Axim_, with much indispensable material on board.