Field Notes

c. 1958

Hard to imagine market streets so empty anywhere in Nigeria, nonetheless Onitsha.

All work and no play makes Rev Joseph Smith a dull missionary. 

Self-portrait of a missionary, when his camp chair betrayed him in 1907.

And on my last night in Ibadan, Benson encountered the fountain he’ll install in front of his house when he becomes a ‘big man’ (har-har)

On this point, I agree with Mr. Lyttelton: language should always have a good appetite.

The old-city of Zaria, and the Emir’s Palace, September 2015.

One of the guards at the Emir’s Palace in Zaria, holding a hollow (but heavy) elephant’s foot.

Selection of passport photos of Nigerian pilgrims, mostly from the 1940s and 1950s.

When Islam met Capitalism (in 1964): ​

Emir of Kano at Eid-al-Adha, 1964, “in the garb of an alhaji.”

From the New Nigerian, 1964.