BY S. F. MARTIN, LATE OF THE ROYAL NIGER COMPANY’S SERVICE. The modestly-told story of a daring deed. At a time of great anxiety, when England and France were on the verge of conflict in Africa and the powerful Mohammedan native States were watching for an opportunity of throwing off the yoke of both countries, Mr. Martin was District Agent of the Royal Niger Company at Borgu. He was instructed to secure reliable information as to what was happening in the turbulent robber kingdom of Kontogora, and he obtained it by the hazardous expedient of disguising himself as a Haussa and, taking his life in his hands, penetrating right into the enemy’s capital. His adventures during this journey are set forth below, though the narrative contains barely a hint of the strain of the ordeal or the awful fate that would have befallen the author had his real identity been suspected. Towards the latter end of 1898, before the conquest of Nigeria, I was placed in charge of the interests of the Royal Niger Company, Chartered and Limited, in the Borgu district of the Niger Territories. My instructions, amongst other things, were to watch events, political and otherwise, and to report the same to head-quarters. It was a time of great stress and no little peril to our West African Empire, for not only were the various races of the Territories in a state of unrest and hostility to the white man’s domination, but at that period we were also at loggerheads with the French, whose troops were encroaching on our frontiers from all sides, necessitating a special field force being formed, under Colonel (later General Sir Frederick) Lugard, to deal with the situation. The native Mohammedan States, seeing this, thought to take advantage of the crisis to the detriment of both nations. The most turbulent of all these native States was Kontogora, a town lying to the eastward of the Niger River. At the time of which I write there were British troops at Jebba, Leabba, Boussa, Roffia, Gomba, Lafagon, and Illa, as well as smaller garrisons scattered about, all on the Niger. There was a strong force also at Zaria, a large town away to the east, some distance south of Kano. The French were prowling about in between.