the occult workings of native squabbles that they could do little to smooth matters over. In the meantime, Ja Ja had been studying a masterly plan of retreat from Tombo Town to a river called the Ekomtoro, also called the Rio Condé in ancient maps.
Once in this river, by fortifying two or three points he would be able to completely turn the tables on his enemies by barring their way to the Eboe markets, but to get there he would have to pass one, if not two, fortified points held by the Manilla Pepple people. Besides this, what would his position be when there, if he could not get any white men there to trade with? Luckily for him, there dropped from the clouds the very man he wanted. This was a trader named Charley, who had been in the Bonny River some years before, and was now established at Brass on his own account. At an interview with Ja Ja, that did not last half an hour, the whole plan of campaign was arranged. Charley returned to Brass and confided the scheme to his friend, Archie McEachan, who decided to join him. Thus Ja Ja had the certainty of support in his new home if he could only get there, and get there he did.
Being shortly after joined by these two white traders trade was opened in the Ekomtoro, and on Christmas Day, 1870, Ekomtoro was named the Ǒpŏbō River, after Ǒpŏbō, the founder of the town of "Grand Bonny," as Bonny men delight to call their mud and thatch capital.
The name of Ǒpŏbō was chosen by Ja Ja himself. To students of the peculiar relationship existing between a bought slave and his master, the latter looked up to and called father by his slave, this choice of the name of a man
