So with smoking requisites. There have been times when men have had no alternative between either using the Contrabanda cigarettes sent out for natives and sold in boxes at 1s. 9d. a 100 or smoking nothing at all. Then, day after day, whoever you meet has between his lips a Three Castle cigarette, or it may be a Gold Flake cigarette, or, perchance, a State Express. Everybody is sporting the same brand, whatever it be. Answer why: Jos has received a consignment. It is peculiar how shortage of articles affects different people. Unto me, who had come from England to learn all about the country, were brought many complaints and expostulations. “Is it not bad,” said one, “that I can buy no flour?” “What do you think?” remarks another. “I can get no biscuits.” “Here none of us can buy a cigarette anywhere,” is the agonised wail of a third. And so on, almost indefinitely. To each and all I replied that I felt I was a greater sufferer than any. To every tale of woe, I represented my own plight and endeavoured, I must admit unsuccessfully, to play the martyr by setting forth the pathetic tale that “I cannot obtain either ink or paper.” The Finance Department is specially interesting. There is no bank nearer than Zaria, and were it not for this Finance Department of the Niger Company the mines would have to keep very large sums of money for the labourers’ wages. It is not a banking business; money is only paid on demand. Of course, there has been a preliminary arrangement between the mining concern and the Niger Company in London by which the former guarantees to meet the cheques presented to the latter up to a stipulated sum. That arrangement having been settled, the mine manager sends to Jos—maybe a distance of four miles, maybe a five days’ journey—for the money with which to pay his labourers weekly, presenting a cheque for the amount. The money is charged at a rateage according to where the cheque may be payable. Supposing it is drawn on the bank at Zaria, then 1½ per cent. is the rate; if it be drawn on the bank at Lokoja, which is further away, 2½ per cent. is charged. Why this difference? In England we are not charged a larger rate for a cheque drawn on a bank at Newcastle than we do for one drawn on Birmingham. No; but in England transport charges do not enter into the question as finely as they do in Northern Nigeria. It all relates to the cost of getting up specie, which works out on the river at the rate of 1d. per £200 per mile; and, of course, land carriage adds to the expense. Cost of transport regulates the price of everything in the country, even of money.