We crossed the Oki river by a felled silk-cotton tree, and stopped at Sutah, or, as the natives call it, Fittah, in the middle of the day for breakfast; after which epicurean meal Colonel Justice and the Commissariat officer went on, while I waited for the invalid, who, as he knew how to treat himself, would be able to go on as soon as the sun lost its force. About 4·30 p.m. he was pretty well and we started off; the sunlight faded imperceptibly into moonlight, and with no casualties worse than occasionally staking ourselves on the stumps of trees left standing from three to four feet high in the middle of the path, we reached Yancoomassie Assin about 9 p.m. Through our delay at Sutah I made a discovery as to which portion of the twenty-four hours is the most suitable for travelling in the bush. As travelling during the heat of the day renders one liable to “touches” of the sun and heat apoplexy, most Europeans in West Africa who have to go anywhere start at an unearthly hour in the morning, before it is light, and then go on until ten or eleven o’clock, when they breakfast. In my opinion this is a mistake. All night long a heavy dew has been falling, and as you walk, or are carried along, showers of dew-drops fall upon you from the overhanging trees, sufficiently heavy to make you wet and give you a chill; then, as the sun begins to gain power, all kinds of exhalations and noisome vapours rise from the rank and wet vegetation, and various overpowering stenches salute the olfactory nerves, while for the last two hours of your journey you are baked in your hammock. Now none of these things are conducive to health in such a climate as that of West Africa, and they might all be avoided by travelling, say from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m., when the sun has been drying the forest all day and drawing up the miasma, while no dew to speak of has begun to fall. Should there be no moon, a native torch, made of dry palm-stems, can be manufactured anywhere in a few minutes; and the only objection I have ever heard urged against choosing this time for journeying is that it is not pleasant to enter a village, and have to choose a hut to sleep in and prepare the evening meal, so late; but this is easily reduced to a _minimum_ by sending on your boys an hour ahead of you to prepare for your arrival. It is not as if there was anything to be seen during a trip to the bush, for few people, who have not experienced it, can understand the loathing with which one regards the endless monotony of the forest, through the dense rank vegetation of which one moves on day after day, as if between two lofty walls of foliage, without seeing a single glade or break in the sameness. Of course I refer here to the feeling of those accustomed to the country, for to a newcomer there is a certain amount of novelty, and consequently interest, in such scenes.