Four clear days were spent at Lokoja. In no corresponding period of the journey did I make more friends; at no place experienced a greater willingness to assist in obtaining information. Nowhere did I receive more individual kindness in the time; nowhere met better fellows. The four days were strenuous ones, spent amidst a torrid, damp atmosphere, but each hour was fully enjoyable and I said _au revoir_ with regret at parting. CHAPTER XXXIX NAVIGATING THE NIGER Rise and fall—A tideless stream—Comfort afloat—The uncertain river—Nasaru the Pilot—Altered channels—When aground—Breakdown of machinery and smart repair—Tropical scenery—The crocodiles’ rest—Riverside villages—Where money is ignored—Estimation for old bottles and tins—Harmattan fog—An island trading station—Hazard and skill to maintain a time-table. The River Niger at Lokoja should not be likened to the fickleness of a woman but to the quick alternating of moods which distinguish that inexplicable and unfathomable sex. In a July the river has been less than 2 feet in depth, by an October it once rose to more than 35 feet. The respective averages in the two months are 3 feet 6 inches and 31 feet 3 inches. Not an easy river to use for transport of heavy material, as the fall is as rapid as the rise, and by December it is generally below 8 feet, reduced in January to little more than 6 feet. Until the railway, which runs parallel to the river, starting at Lagos, 120 miles from the mouth of the Niger, was recently completed to the Bauchi Plateau, the river was the highway for goods eastward, i.e., in a line direct inland from the sea. At Lokoja where, as previously explained, the Niger is joined by the Benue, the former is three-quarters of a mile wide and the latter more than a mile. This two miles’ expanse has a number of islands, most of which are submerged at the high-water months, but, whatever the depth of the river, their positions produce currents running side by side in opposite directions. The Niger is tideless, in expression of ebb and flow; it is always running seawards. The rise and fall of the water are reflections of the rainy and dry seasons. But so long a distance have the floods to travel from the higher lands and so many tributaries empty themselves into the Niger and the Benue in the upper reaches that the wet season of one year does not make itself felt on the navigable parts of the rivers until 12 months later. The strength of the current, which varies from three to seven miles an hour—always towards the same quarter—and the height of the river considerably modify the time-table of the larger vessels. Lokoja to Forcados, 347 miles, in the high-water season occupies two-and-a-half days. Forcados to Lokoja, at the same time of the year, is a day more.