Instruction? Well, the men are as innocent of eye-understanding music as they are of caligraphy. You might as well show them the signs of the zodiac or the combination of any other astronomical constellation. The English bandmaster teaches his pupils through their ear. Heaven only knows how he obtains the result from such raw material. Listening to the band playing alternately popular tunes and classical airs outside the officers’ mess in the evenings, you would indeed wonder. The titles of the pieces might naturally puzzle, or at least confuse, the performers. They could scarcely be expected to differentiate on an order for Cavalleria Rusticana or one for Rule Britannia. Therefore, the simple expedient is adopted of giving the compositions numbers, which obviously are much easier borne in mind. Thus, on the bandmaster ordering, for instance, “One,” God Save the King would be rendered; “Two,” Rule Britannia; “Three,” A Life on the Ocean Wave; “Four,” Hearts of Oak; and so on. It is not found specially difficult to replace a fresh tune to an old number. On one occasion you might hear, in response to the order “Five,” selections from The Bohemian Girl; a few months later the same word of command would produce The Policeman’s Holiday. You should see the Drum-Major, who is a native. He bears himself as though leading the Grenadiers, the Coldstreams, the Scots or the Irish Guards. His imposing staff is swung and twisted and twirled in the air, and presently balanced horizontally as he guides the front rank of the band wheeling, or he holds it aloft as a sign for the files to counter-march. He is quite conscious of his importance as regards his own men, I assure you; yet he knows his work so well that when Sergeant-Major Slaney, who had been detailed from the Coldstream Guards for Special Service instruction, told him how to take the band round the ground for kinematograph purposes, it was necessary to tell him only once. That induces me to mention the admirable method followed in handling the men. All words of command by the whites, whether officers or non-commissioned officers, are given in quiet, cool tones. There is never any undue bustling in a manner to make the men frightened or nervous. Nor are they treated as automatons. Every opportunity is taken to develop the intelligence of those capable of exercising any. I noticed both at Zungeru and Lokoja that whenever an officer wanted a section to go through a movement he invariably gave the order to the senior native non-commissioned officer and allowed him to move the squad accordingly. In this way these non-coms become self-reliant and of immeasurably greater value in an emergency on active service, where they may be thrown on their own resources.