Then we must go back over that few-inches-wide iron path! Why were engineers so madly stupid as to place such an ordeal under the uncertain feet of an enquiring journalist? However, there was no alternative. A repeated 660 feet of mental tribulation and we were safe on the other bank. Immediately I developed a wonderful power of conversation and comment on all the Deputy Director had told me during those horrible perambulations from bank to bank. In my exuberance of spirits I felt I wanted to slap him on the back. Oh, yes, I now saw quite distinctly and with eagerness the concrete piers on which the temporary bridge was laid for construction purposes, and a little higher up the river I recognised, visually, the ford used in the old days of the caravan road from the north. Kaduna is left at 5.45 a.m., and 13 miles further on is Rigachikun, remembered as the former point of departure from the train for the tin fields. It was from Rigachikun the Government made a 12 feet wide roading for transport to the fields. A further higher altitude is reached at Dumbi, 12 miles south of the station of that name. The native village is 6 miles nearer the station. From Dumbi there is again a descent. The land is open, with trees in some parts singly and occasionally in clusters, but never in the jungle density which flanks most of the line of another West African railway, the one from Secondee to Coomassie. The park-like appearance of this Province of Northern Nigeria makes the view indistinguishable from English scenery. The fields are in a bright, in fact brilliant, green from the overnight rain; the tall, waving grass brushes the carriages as they roll past. Sheep and herds of cattle are on the pasture land. One crowd of them merely gaze at the passing train; another batch, more apprehensive, scamper away. Their colours contrast with the uniformity of the green ground: brown, black, and a drove of about 30 all white. So the landscape continues until Zaria is reached. Here is a branch line—the Bauchi Light Railway—to the tin fields. To that I shall return for the Bauchi Plateau trek. Proceeding northwards, after half-an-hour’s stop at Zaria, 25 miles further on, for the third time since leaving Minna, there is a rise to over 2,400 feet above sea-level, at Anchou, and from here all the rivers and their tributaries flow into Lake Chad, those previously passed going to the Gulf of Guinea. Twelve miles south of Kano, which is 90 from Zaria, the Shallawa River—a broad, sandy stream—is spanned by the largest bridge on the Baro-Kano Railway. From Anchou there is a gradual fall, amounting to 700 feet, to Kano.