He forgot to give me
the money to pay for it, but loaned us a half-dozen little princes
to bear our purchases to the wharf. For this service their royal
highnesses graciously condescended to receive a small "dash," and
with the chief clerk were especially delighted. He, being a
sleight-of-hand artist, apparently took five-franc pieces out of
their Sunday clothes and from their kinky hair. When we left they
were rapidly disrobing to find if any more five-franc pieces were
concealed about their persons.
The morning after we sailed from Duala we anchored in the river in
front of Calabar, the capital of Southern Nigeria. Of all the ports
at which we touched on the Coast, Calabar was the hottest, the best
looking, and the best administered. It is a model colony, but to
bring it to the state it now enjoys has cost sums of money entirely
out of proportion to those the colony has earned. The money has been
spent in cutting down the jungle, filling in swamps that breed
mosquitoes and fever, and in laying out gravel walks, water mains,
and open cement gutters, and in erecting model hospitals, barracks,
and administrative offices. Even grass has been made to grow, and
the high bluff upon which are situated the homes of the white
officials and Government House has been trimmed and cultivated and
tamed until it looks like an English park. It is a complete
imitation, even to golf links and tennis courts. But the fight that
has been made against the jungle has not stopped with golf links.
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