I was out driving round the town with a German friend one day when he pulled up at an inclosure, and said he would show me something that I would not see anywhere else on the coast. He took me in and showed me a merry-go-round, and I was sufficiently surprised to gratify him. What could have induced any one to bring such a thing out to West Africa? It was one of the old kind, worked by hand; an organ stood by, and I could almost imagine I smelt the sawdust and gingerbread, and heard the shouts and cries with which such machines were associated in my memory. I believe the speculation did not pay, the natives all wanted to ride for nothing, and the Europeans did not want to ride at all. The yard was full of Yoruba women, looking with wistful eyes at the wooden horses and triumphal cars, so we hired the whole coach of the proprietor for half-an-hour, and told all the women to get up on it. It was a most anomalous sight to see all these Mohammedan women, with their shawled heads, floating cloths, and long slim limbs, going round and round to the tune of Champagne Charlie. They seemed to enjoy it very much, and their bright eyes sparkled with fun; they were so grateful that I believe they would have done anything for us, even kiss us, if we had wanted them to. Some of them were by no means bad looking, and the custom they have of touching up the eyes with _kohl_ gives them a rather languishing appearance. The British first became mixed up in the affairs of Lagos after the repulse of the Dahoman army from Abbeokuta, which I have narrated in a former chapter. After that event the King of Dahomey commenced intrigues with the kings of Porto Novo and of Lagos with a view to cutting off the Abbeokutans from all communication with the sea, he believing that they received assistance there, both in money and weapons, from the British. These two potentates fell the more readily into his plans because they were both interested in the maintenance of the slave-trade, while the Egbas were anxious for its suppression. The river Ogu is navigable for canoes to within a mile of Abbeokuta, and, as it discharges itself into the sea at Lagos, that town may be said to be the natural port of Abbeokuta. Owing to differences however with Kosoko, the king of Lagos, a bloodthirsty despot who had dethroned his uncle Akitoye and murdered some two thousand of his friends and adherents in cold blood, the Egbas of Abbeokuta had been obliged to use Badagry, a small independent township some thirty-five miles to the west of Lagos, as their port; doing so at great inconvenience to themselves, as communication between Abbeokuta and Badagry could only be carried on by means of difficult roads, over which all goods and produce had to be carried upon the heads of men and women.