Page:The land of fetish.pdf/131

the river is one mile and a-half wide, and there are several of these guns in Bonny-town. When making war upon another tribe, the natives dismount these guns and lash them upon a sort of deck built in the bows of one of their large canoes, which can carry from thirty to forty persons. The gun then is of course immovable, so in action the canoe is manœuvred till the piece points in the right direction, when it is discharged. As they aim point-blank whether the object aimed at be distant a mile or only a few yards, they do not do much execution, except by accident. Besides these Armstrongs there are thousands of breech-loading rifles, Sniders, Martini-Henrys, and Winchester repeaters, in the hands of the natives, almost every man possessing one. These are all imported by British merchants, and are manufactured so cheaply in Birmingham that a trader in the oil rivers can afford to sell a Snider rifle for 2l. and then make a slight profit. Directly these natives obtain such rifles they want to go and try their effect on something, and as they are useless for purposes of sport, except against large game, which is not found in the delta, they go and rake up some old quarrel with an insignificant tribe, and try the efficacy of their weapons upon its members. To this cause may be attributed most of their wars.