I suppose it is generally known that the Right Hon. John Burns, now a Cabinet Minister, in his younger years served a term, as an engineer, with the Niger Company. The statement is frequently made in West Africa that it took place at Burutu. That is incorrect. In Mr Burns’s time Burutu was a desolate mangrove swamp; the headquarters were at Akassa, at the mouth of the River Nun, about 50 miles further along the Coast from Forcados. Several renderings of a snake story have appeared in English papers. An old number of _The Engineer’s Gazette_, dated May 1893, has furnished me with what is evidently the correct account. The appended quotation is taken from a contribution by John Parkin, who in the text describes himself as “Superintendent of an engineering repairing shop.” I gather that the period of which he has written was 1880 or thereabouts. “My next adventure in the snake line was at Akassa, while in charge of the engineering workshop there. The shop was built between the river and the jungle and the boiler fixed outside the building and close to rank vegetation. One day, after making my usual inspection of the boiler, I was startled to see a large snake making tracks for me. For the moment I was half-paralysed with fear, but instantly recovering myself and deeming prudence the better part of valour, I took to my heels. I was soon arrested in my inglorious flight by the derisive laughter of a fellow engineer, who, with characteristic pluck and presence of mind, picked up a shovel and chased the serpent that was chasing me, and with one well-aimed blow cut it in two. That daring engineer was John Burns, now of the L.C.C. and M.P. for Battersea. “That was not the only occasion on which Burns showed his intrepidity. One day he and I were returning from the Brass River, through the creeks, in a steam launch. The propeller had only two blades.... They worked loose and fell off. The situation was alarming, as we were near a small village inhabited by cannibals, whilst the creek was teeming with sharks and reptiles. Fortunately the creek was not deep, it being low tide. The bottom was composed of soft, stinking mud and decayed vegetable matter; so we had but faint hopes of finding either of the blades. I proposed testing my skill as a diver, but Burns wouldn’t hear of it. ‘No,’ said he, ‘you are married and I am single. If either of us risks his life I’m the man’; and, immediately stripping, he plunged in. To my delighted surprise he found one blade, and we managed to fix it in the boss and proceeded on our course, arriving at Akassa in safety, though several hours late. We had been a long time without food and were ravenously hungry. Both of us did our duty at the table, but I was not in it with Burns, who ate nearly the entire leg of a goat.”