A SINGULAR COINCIDENCE.

Colonist, Volume LIV, Issue 13418, 16 May 1912, Page 3

A SINGULAR COINCIDENCE.

A well-known country resident of Ot;;.*jo litis just received a letter from a former employee from Benin City, West Africa, relating a singular coincidence, .which affords another striking proof of tho fact that tho "Otago Witness" penetrates into the remotest corners of the habitable globe. It might be mentioned that some time ago a pen and ink sketch by Stuart Reid of the receiver of the letter appeared among the illnstrai tions in the "Otago Witness," and it is to t'liis sketch that the writer (Mr. D. M. Thomson) refers. The letter reads: Sapeti, Southern Nigeria.' W. Africa, February 7. JuKt a lino to lot you know of a rather remarkable coincidence.' L.".st month while prospecting for new mahogany timber concessions away in tho hinterland of this colony, and. while in country that had only been visited once before, and that by a- German some years ago, I -o.air.o on a Ju Ju house —that is, a native hut kept apart for the worship of all sorts of curious things. Happening to glance iiisido I noticed some pictures taken from some' illustrated paper. Curiosity ni-aib me go in to have a look at them, as exactly five- weeks had elapsed sinco I hud seen any paper but Imy notebooks. What was my asfcnnish--1 .wont when I found that they wore pic- ' tures taken from the "Otago Witness" with a caricature of yourself as the cen- ' trepieco. The picture was evidently one ■of a series of similar pictures by the ' tiumbor on it. There was no mistake; "it had your name and that of —— on 1 it. However the picture get there is L one of thn many mysteries of this coast, 5 as none of tho Europeans away down tiie river, two weeks away, in the dis- '. trict (where the natives from tliir; pa-rt | - trade with) have ever been in New Zealand or receive New Zealand papers. It • must have come away along the West; 1 ! C.'oafit from tho Gold Coast, wiioro there - aro- a few New Zealand miners in charge -> of the gold mines there. Probably some .wandering Kroo boy stole it, then-sold t it for a week or two's board and lodging us ho gently, like a truo tramp, o worked his way up the Kroo boy's '■~ Mecca, Lokoia, in North?™ Nigeria.