JEBBA ON THE NIGER.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19529, 11 July 1925, Page 19

JEBBA ON THE NIGER.

HOTTEST PLACE IN THE WORLD. Thoro are several places which claim *to bo the hottest this side of Hades, but, having sampled a good many of them, I certainly award tho pairn to Jobba, through which the Prince of Wales recently passed on ilia way up tho Kamo (writes Mrs Horace Tremlott in the Daily Ohroniclo). Kano itself is as hot as a brick kiln with the fires on, and has tho same dusty, sulphurous smell of baked earth; but the air at that altitude is dry and exhilarating, and if the sun blazes like a furnace all day, tho nights aro cool and delicious. Jonbo, lying in a steamy hollow, on tho banka of tho Niger, seems to got no air whatever. All there is to breathe is n damp, asphyxiating miasma which comes off the yellow, turgid water, and tastes like hot, soggy ootton-wooL His Royal Highness, in his two-piece oostumo of khaki and shorts, was well advised, for tho most immaculate of silk suits has a piebald and lamentable appearance after a few minutes’ wear, patches of dark brown moisture causing its owner to slink off jjurriodly for yet another change if any ladies are present. But, on the other hand, tho less surface ex[>o3ed to mosquitoes the bettor, for the place is lyrical with them. I remember very pleasantly a large moat safe in a cqruor of a verandah where, after sundown, our host used to sit and mop his face in great content. Tho sight of tho frenzied creatures trying to get at him, he said, made him happy. Crocodile hunting was at that time a groat favourite Sunday sport. You tied an empty barrel to a dead chicken, throw it in tho river, and watched tho crocodile, having swallowed the chicken, towing it up and down, lashing and churning tho water in a fury to got rid of it, till ho was tired. Whereupon you shot him, and the natives searched his interior for tho brass bangles of their missing wives. Standing lioidly out of tho river is tho groat Ju-ju rock, where not so long ago young men and maidens were sacrificed to tho deity who dwells therein. Nowadays, under British rule, he may have only goats to appease him, and tho natives attribute most of their misfortunes to tho fact that tho mighty Ju-ju does not got enough to cat. But in spite of black magic, crocodiles, and hot cotton-wool to breathe, Jobba is a KC-rono and lovely spot. When the setting sun is on the river and tho craggy granite rocks aro deep purple against a flaming orange sky, it is a sight of imposing beauty. So still, so darkly tragic, it seems to bo tbo living heart of Africa itself, silent and impenetrable, heavy with old-age secrets that no white man will ever know.