With two camp-beds up and mosquito curtains there is not much room for other furniture in a van. Folding chairs and tables are therefore brought and put on the rails, and along the side of the train they are ranged, each with its hurricane lamp amidst plates and dishes. The native servants make their fires the other side of the train, sit round them and join together in song, sleeping on the ground, in the open, which they prefer to inside the carriages. Six o’clock next morning another start was made. At Bibin, between the 60 and 61 miles’ boards, high, rocky hills are within a few hundred yards of the line. As the engine stops for water and you glance backwards, it looks as though the train had entered a very narrow opening. In front is a similar view. Going out of this gorge there is again grassy plains studded with trees. We had left Kudara Station, 66 miles from Zaria, and were thinking of an easy, plain spin for the rest of the journey, when occurred a sudden severe jolting, the more pronounced as the sleepers are of metal and not covered by gravel: we were derailed. There was just a semblance of panic among some of the passengers and one rather excitedly jumped from the train. We had been going round a curve and doing it slowly, at 6 miles an hour, so there was not much danger of being upset. The train was quickly stopped. The driver gave the double whistle which is a distress signal and tells all who know railway language that there is a mishap. It happened that near by was the hut of Mr Robert Brown, Bridging Foreman, who had gone in to read a letter from his wife, in England, which the train had dropped a few minutes earlier. Running out and seeing what had occurred he had a trolly put on the line and sent word to the temporary workshed at Kudara Station for hydraulic jacks and other implements. The double whistle had also brought hurrying to the spot Richard Brown, driver of a ballast train a quarter-of-a-mile away. Never have I seen men work with more energy than these two and the driver of the train, J. Swainson, did on that tropically hot morning. Swainson had ordinary jacks on the engine, and a start was made with them. Of the seven coaches, three had been derailed, each 26 feet long and weighing about 8 tons. Everyone who has duties keeping him in this country speaks some Hausa. It is especially necessary for persons who are in constant direction of natives. A large gang at work on construction—for the line is not nearly finished, and is only open unofficially for the convenience and assistance of transport to and from the tin fields—had been summoned and Robert Brown disclosed his linguistic acquirement as his men ran to and fro at his orders.