Àbọ Canoe

"Eboe Canoe." An Abö canoe via the Lander Brothers while on their expedition of the Niger River in 1830. via archive.org.

An hour or two after this, or about midday, one of the Eboe men in our canoe exclaimed, “There is my country!” pointing to a clump of very high trees, which was yet at some distance before us; and after passing a low fertile island, we quickly came to it. Here we observed a few fishing-canoes, but their owners appeared suspicious and fearful, and would not come near us, though their national flag, which is a British Union, sewed on a large piece of plain white cotton with scallops of blue, was streaming from a long staff in the bow. The town was yet, we were told, a good way down the river. In a short time, however, we came to an extensive morass, intersected by little channels in every direction, and by one of these we got into clear water, in front of the Eboe town. Here we found hundreds of canoes, some of them even larger than any we had previously met with. They are furnished with sheds and awnings, and afford commodious habitations for a vast number of people, who constantly reside in them; perhaps one of these canoes, which is made of a single trunk, contains as many as seventy individuals.

– The Lander Brothers, 1832. From Journal of an Expedition to Explore the Course and Termination of the Niger. Vol. II, p. 210.