In this store there was an array of another garment which my untutored eye took to be men’s undervests having intricate fretwork at the neck and on the short sleeves and under the fretwork what I thought to be blue and pink blotting-paper. On enquiring the correctness of my surmise, young Mr Coleman, who was showing me round, said in a rather loud tone, half-scornful at ignorance and half-pitiful, “What! Men’s undervests! Why, they are ladies’ chemises, with insertion. What you call fretwork, as though it were wood carved, is embroidery. Did anyone ever hear of embroidered men’s undervests!” And he laughed. After a pause he added, “Aren’t you married?” “No.” His rejoinder was merely “Oh!” I learnt he was. Naturally I wondered what female form was decorated with such trappings and was told that the belles from villages miles around were particularly partial to this adornment, worn without anything over it; whereas in more civilised lands—so Mr Coleman informed me in a confidential, fatherly way—a dress covered the artistic production. I always try to understand a subject in all its bearings, but you who may regard me as woefully deficient in knowledge on this topic please bear in mind that I have just come down from country where fashions and styles and manners of dress are much simpler and approximate—in fact, in many cases have not even attained—to the Garden of Eden stage. The large number of rat-traps for sale led me to enquire whether there was a plague of the rodents. I was told No, but that the folks of the neighbourhood esteemed the vermin as an article of diet, properly cooked. The traps were used to secure the delicacy. My boy Oje informs me his people—the non-Moslem Yorubas of Ibadan—also enjoy the dish of rat, but he made clear that they would not demean themselves to eat the house variety, as the Hausas at Baro do, instead catching the field rat, “because he chop (feeds) on corn and be big and good past the other.” Oje never misses an opportunity to give reasons why his tribesmen and tribeswomen are superior to all the coloured race. He has a bump of local patriotism fully developed. After looking over the excellent Railway Institute—a great boon to the employees—closer examination than had been practicable the previous evening was given to the Niger Company bungalow for staff quarters. It is built of cement blocks, with an overhanging verandah of wood and a roof of tiles, which has the immense advantage over iron or tin in that rest is not disturbed at night during the wet season, as, at the most, the rain merely purrs on the tiles. Under them is a wooden ceiling, giving coolness, and corresponding effect is obtained on the hottest day by use of cement blocks for the walls. The cement came out in barrels and the blocks were made by a Cyclops hand machine on the spot. When the railway authorities saw the bungalow a similar block-making machine was immediately ordered for their own purpose.