The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-04-27
AUTHOR-EXP[ORER
HAS NARROW ESCAPE
Failure of Signal Saves Life
of Amaury Talbot
CHIEFS APOLOGIZE
Explain They Acted Under Misap-
prehension---Watson Speaks Up
for American Intervention.
Literary Gossip
CHIEFS
By HAYDEN CHURCH

London, April 2S.-(SpecaL)-Tha en-
terprising representative of King George
" p. Amaury Talbot, district commits
sioner of Southern Nigeria, has been
making more queer discoveries and hav
ing more adventures. Incidentally he re-
Gently escaped being butchered by ma
tives who were laboring under a misap-
prehension regarding his intentions to-
ward themselves only by the skin of
his teeth, but he must be getting used to
that by now For, besides being the only
survivor of the Inflated expedition that
was captained by the late Lieut.. Boyd
Alexander, Talbot, since he has been in
Africa. has had one close. call after an
other, sometimes in fights with the blacks,
sometimes in encounters with wild
beasts, and once or twice at the hands
Of the accomplished native poisoners of
his district where it Is impolitic to go
out to dinner without taking an antidote
or two in ones pocket
Talbot of course, is the discoverer of
the Lake of the Dead in Southern
Nigeria. whereof the guardian is a giant
python: likewise of the Ekoi tribe the
men of which are little better than
slaves to the women. and his adventures
among the latter and among men with
buffalo souis. originally described in
this correspondence were set forth In
greater detail in his recent book, I'm the
Shadow of the Bush.
Soon after Talbot and his equally In
trepid wife got back to Africa again,
= bai in, tru o
CO Commissioner started out on a new expe-
dition, which resulted in the discovery
OF a sacred Lake of Life, the existence Of
which had been kept as a jealous secret
rom the knowledge of Europeans. Some
thing about this latest discovery of the
commissioner was published in the Lon
don newspapers, but Talbot gives fuller
details in the course of letter dated
Exit near Calabar, which have just
received from him.
"On the safeguarding of this Lake of
Life, according to local beliefs he
writes 1.-The welfare of over a quarter of
a million Ibibios depends" and then goes
on to tell how close a shave he and his
companions had from passing in their
checks s
1t seems that what we in America call
graft" is practiced pretty extensively
by the up-to-date native officials of Tai
bot's district. Soon after his return, in
fact, the commissioner discovered that
the duslxy clerks of the region had been
iudulgIng in wholesale corruption, and he
promptly imprisoned four of them. "The
rest. he writes, fearing revelations,
started rumor among the villagers that
the expedition just starting out was to
burn and slay. and that their sole chance
was to anticipate events by numbering
the white men,
1t was only owing to the accidental
fpilure of a signal that the commissioner
escaped. Afterward however. Talbot re-
ceived a charming apology from the
chiefs, expressing their satisfaction that
they had not been led into the error of
killing him before they found that the
reports as to his intentions were untrue.
'.The trouble with life out here" re
marks Talbot sententiously, lis that it |
contains superabundance of thrills
s.To give you an idea of everyday oc-
currences Last week a boy of was
brought up to me for stabbing play
mate through the heart. because the lat !
fer tried to take away a bit of string
Next day a woman with her forehead |
c,,t through to the bone from the hair |
line to the top of the nose came to COM
plain that her brother had done it be- |
cause they could not agree as to the |
ownership of few feet of yam patch.
Arother day a white man told us that
in bicycling along a track which leads
through one Of the sacred crocodile |
swamps ne fell over the rotting body of |
woman. the skull cleft through and
-.
broken lars set round her
To-day we have just learned that an
other man and womaf are guilty Of de- |
stroyinr the twins Which were born TO |
tLcm. / Just mention these cases to !