Whenever it was practicable, we always preferred travelling at such times; and although much is said in disparagement of night air in Africa, certainly in our case, if injurious at all, it was not as much so as the effects of the sun.
We found Abbeokuta in considerable commotion. Only a few days before, the Dahomians were known to be advancing against the city, but informed doubtless by their spies of the reception that was prepared for them, they suddenly wheeled about and retraced their steps, not without committing much depredation among the people through whose territory they passed.
Every one was also speculating on the war in the interior, and its probable consequences and duration. Being the only person who had returned thence for a fortnight, every one wanted to hear news from me: the king and chiefs desired an interview particularly, respecting the Ibadans we met on the road, who were suspected to be loitering there to join the Dahomians in their contemplated attack.
The morning after my arrival I was waited upon at the house of my kind friend Mr. Samuel Crowther, Jr., by a large deputation of the relatives of the woman who came with me from Awaye. She was not with them herself, being ill from the
