any one interfering with them without their permission. When I visited these people they gave me the idea that they had never seen a white man, or had any communication with him, for I vainly searched for any evidence that the white man had ever been established in their river. From all I was able to gather of their manners and customs I found that they differed little from any of their neighbours, though they are always described by interested parties as being inveterate cannibals and dangerous people for strangers to visit.
OPOBO RIVER.
After leaving Andoni, and continuing down the coast some ten or fifteen miles, the Opobo discharges itself into the sea. This river, marked in ancient maps as the Rio Condé and Ekomtoro, is the most direct way to the Ibo palm-oil-producing country.
This river was well known to the Portuguese and Spanish slave traders, but as Bonny became the great centre for the slave trade, this river was completely deserted and forgotten to such an extent that, though an opening in the coast line was shown on the English charts where this river was supposed to be, it was never thought worth the trouble of naming, and remained quite unknown to the English traders until it came suddenly into repute, owing to Ja Ja establishing himself here in 1870.
The people here are the Bonny men and their descendants who followed Ja Ja's fortunes, therefore their manners and customs are identical with those of Bonny.
The physical appearance of these people is somewhat better than that of the Bonny men, owing, I think, to the
