To other parts of the beach come and go native canoes of infinite variety in shape and size, some as long as vessels seen on European canals, and decreasing by degrees until there is the plain dug-out made from the trunk of a tree, in which the perambulating trader, with wife and child, makes his peregrinations perhaps 500 miles up the Benue, buying and selling and exchanging at the stopping-places, and at night sloping his mat on a pole fixed horizontally, thus providing a house and shelter for sleep. Lokoja is the great centre of them all. It is also the Northern Divisional Headquarters of the Niger Company, the division supervised by Mr W. H. Hibbert, and comprising 6 districts, with 30 trading stations and stores, reaching as far as Ilorin in one direction and Jemma and Loko in the other. Loading or unloading the larger river boats is worth describing. Word goes round the native town when the operation is to take place and a great crowd of all sorts and conditions foregather to take a hand. There is no elaborate and intricate supervision to ensure that each labourer shall prove himself worthy of his wage. He is paid piecework in the most direct, precise, and simple manner. The honorarium is rendered at every load. Suppose it is a case of loading fuel—wood—for a stern-wheeler. The corps of workers assemble where the material is stacked, are given baskets, which, being filled, they hoist on their heads, and half-run, half-walk, close on one another’s heels, in a long, winding line to the boat. As they pass along a plank from the shore to the craft there stands on it a native clerk who hands to every person payment. Wages are high at Lokoja, compared with what they were when I was up at Jebba three years ago. At Lokoja, as in some parts of England, there is the cry of rise in the cost of living. Consequently a few cowries no longer suffice as an inducement for beach work. A journey with a load to or from the boat is rewarded by a tenth of a penny. Nickel coins of that denomination are sent from England for currency in Nigeria. The native name is nini, pronounced neenee. Tenth of a penny is the minimum payment. Do not conclude that these very casual labourers would be content with whatever you cared to offer. Nothing of the kind. The tenth is for a generally-agreed distance between the points of taking a load and discharging it. Should the points be wider apart, two, three, or even four tenths must be disbursed as each worker performs his, or her, task.