THE   SHERBRO   AND   ITS
HINTERLAND

CHAPTER I

THE  COLONY OF  SIERRA  LEONE

" You are stationed at Old Calabar, are you not ? Then
I suppose you often walk up to Sierra Leone and back
again on Sunday afternoons ? "

This was said in England by an English clergyman to
a friend of mine who had just returned from the West
Coast of Africa. Now the distance between Old Calabar
and Sierra Leone is roughly about twelve hundred miles.
Double that would make a very nice little walk, under the
broiling sun of a tropical Sunday afternoon, and one calcu¬
lated to render the man who took it remarkably fit for his
work on Monday morning !

Old Calabar is in Southern Nigeria. Between this port
and Sierra Leone are Lagos, the German Colony of Togo-
land, French Dahomey, and other French Colonies, the
Gold Coast and the Negro Republic of Liberia.

I begin with this little anecdote because it illustrates
so graphically the very hazy ideas of African geography

B