WEST AFRICA

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1717, 25 January 1905, Page 61

WEST AFRICA

A NEW ZEALANDER’S LIFE. (From Our Special Correspondent.) LONDON. December 14. Mr James Wilkes, of Napier, a young New Zealander. whose roving spirit carried him through Siberia and Russia. to London, and then-ce to West Africa, sends to a friend here some interesting jottings of his life in Southern Nigeria. He find-s the climate of West Africa much milder than he had expected : its bad name, lie thinks, is undeserved. “There have been no deaths in Burutu for over two- years,’’ he says, “and it is very seldom that anyone dies up-country. We have men who have been here from six months to two years, and whose sum-total of disease and fever could he crammed into a week, and I have met fellows who have been here ten to fourteen years, and wouldn’t change for the best land on earth. Drink seems to- be tire curse of the Coast, and nearly all who- have bad attacks (of fever) have themselves te blame through overloading their systems with stimulants.”

Burutu has no claim to- beauty. It is situated in til© Niger delta, surrounded by swamps which cover thousands of square miles. “Burutu,” says the New Zealander, “is built- up out of the swamp, and its total area is enclosed m about a mile on the river-front and a quarter-mile back; then cc-mes •swamp- and the eternal mangrove. Scenery there is none, unless one would so call the long, dismal vista of mangrove trees with their peculiar roots brandling—octopus like —into the gt>G'und from about six to ten feet above water-level. Up-river, of course, things are different; once out of the delta distinct everything improves.” The place is infected with insect-life —cockroaches, bugs, ants of all kinds, wasps, mc-squitoes, malarial and otherwise, mangrove and sun cl-hies, and so on. A hire from a mangrove fly raises a swelling as big as a duck s egg, and if a “dagger” ant dives under your toenail—an unpleasant trick it lias of doing—it may necessitate the nail being pulled out. A python fourteen feet, long was caught in the fowlhouse of the place where tlie New Zealander resides. Stich are the joys of tropic climes!

Work in a West African business office is not very strenuous, thanks to the heat of the climate and the plentiful supply of na-.iv© labour. Mr Wilkes sketches a d ay’s time-table thus : 5.30 a.m. coffee and fruit and biscuits; 0 or 0.30 am., start work; 8 to 8.30, breakfast; 11 to 1, luncheon; 3 to 3 15, afternoon tea.; 5 or 5.30, cease work; 7 p.m., dinner. “We don’t, work very hard.” bo writes; “it’s mainly supervision of the larire staff of native clerks. I am in charge of the (Niger Company’s) Customs Department. I just tumbled into rather a good job. and have frequent trios in the launch to Fo, cad-os and to meet all tlie ships’ officers. . . After work we have cricket, football, billiards, archery, tennis, ping-pong, cards and music (gramo-phonic). There are six fellows at- our house and five whites in the engineers’ department, so we manage to have a pretty good time.”