Near some villages along the railway are a few small patches of tobacco growing, the long and broad leaf drawing attention to the plant from the surrounding greenery. There is a freshness of verdure in these low-lying lands of more marked kind than the higher, cooler, and drier reaches yield. It is here and still further below in the valleys of the Benue that cotton will be produced if the plant is to be cultivated in any quantity in Northern Nigeria. The train was due at Baro on Saturday evening, and my plan was to go straight on board a launch, if one was available, leave in the early morning for Lokoja, there to join the first mail stern-wheeler for the sea. During Saturday afternoon a telegram was handed me at a station, sent by Mr E. N. Coleman, Transport Agent of the Niger Company at Baro, who had been a fellow-traveller on the voyage from England, containing an invitation to the hospitality of the bungalow there for the night, and stating that the launch was ready for continuing the journey next day. It was quite dark when the train drew into Baro. CHAPTER XXXVI BARO ON THE NIGER Baro port—A Selfridge-Whiteley 400 miles up the Niger—London frock-coats in West Central Africa—Fretwork and ladies’ garments—An untutored eye and its guide—The rat a table delicacy—Oje’s local patriotism—Baro and Jebba; hygienic problems—A superfluous hospital. Up early the following morning, to make most of the time before starting down the Niger, a quick look round at once gave a view more like the general pictures of West African towns seen along the Coast than the plains and highlands recently left. Small, square, and oblong houses, painted white and with red roofs, surrounded by a horseshoe-shaped hill 400 feet high, covered with green, bring to mind some resemblance to Sierra Leone and Monrovia, as seen from the sea at a distance. Baro is 130 miles below Jebba, and was selected by Sir Percy Girouard for the terminus of the railway. The Niger is 1,000 feet across, divided into two channels by an island about two miles long, on which the native town is located. The south channel—the one nearest the railway—is only 100 feet wide, and you can walk over it, on sand, at lowest water. Formerly Baro was an important produce-buying station of the Niger Company, principally for shea-nuts and ground-nuts. Since the opening of the railway the place has become important as a transport point for transference from the river stern-wheelers—run in connection with the ocean liners—to the train, for passengers and material bound for the tin mines. Now an average of 5,000 packages are handled weekly, ranging from personal baggage to heavy parts of machinery.