The Postmaster-General strikes you as a fair-haired boy of twenty-two. He tells you, with pride, he is “much older than that.” He is thirty-two. The Acting Chief Justice is no “potent, grave, and reverend seigneur,” but is of an age when in England he would probably be fulfilling the rôle of “devil” to a leader in the High Court. The cool, clear-headed, and obviously capable officer temporarily in command of the 1st Battalion (1,314 men) Northern Nigeria Regiment, Captain G. C. Kelly, would, elsewhere, in these days of slow promotion, be lucky to have got his company. His colleague in charge of the battery of four light guns, Captain C. F. S. Maclaverty, could not hope to discharge anything like that responsibility at home. The Deputy Director of Railways, under the famous John Eaglesome, might pass as a youth who had not long finished his articles. Those at the head of affairs are not much older in years. I do not venture to ask the Acting Governor his age, and there is no “Who’s Who” within reach, but I should judge Mr C. L. Temple, C.M.G., to be on this side of forty; and the next in rank, the Acting Chief Secretary, Mr H. S. Goldsmith, who recently temporarily carried out the duties of the highest position—with absolute rule over a territory containing 10,000,000 inhabitants—is, I learn from a friend, thirty-eight. He started thirteen years ago, when Northern Nigeria was taken over by the Crown from the Niger Company. He began, as there was urgent demand for getting the administrative machinery into working order, in a very junior post in the Protectorate. In the course of his first year he had to give help wherever it was most pressing, going from one office to another: Stores, Transport, Treasury, and the Marine Department. All his willingness and eagerness were not wasted. Although seemingly unnoticed at the time, it marked out the kind of officer Sir Frederick Lugard wanted. In the last birthday honours list Herbert Symond Goldsmith, Acting Chief Secretary to the Government of Northern Nigeria, received a C.M.G. Yes, the country has still opportunities for the man who is ready and keen. But it is not the place where “the lotus life” can be lived. The tradition of plenty of work and responsibility which Lugard established still obtains. Government office hours end at 2 p.m., with an hour’s interval from nine to ten for breakfast. But they start early, and you may be startled at first at finding that an appointment for which you asked has been fixed for 7 a.m. The time for official hours does not mean that it is a case of “down tools” as the clock points. I have found the Chief Secretary still hard at his duties at 5.30 in the afternoon, and one Sunday morning, when I went to see Captain Kelly at his bungalow, I learnt that he was closely engaged at the Brigade Office on a defence scheme.