five o'clock
This small town was on the western bank of the salty Lake Chad , in the very heart of Africa , and on the southern border of the great Sahara Desert . It possessed no railroads or telegraph service , being linked with the outside world only by caravan route , and its inhabitants were practically all half-civilized negroes of the Fulbee tribe , who retained all of their forefathers ' superstitions and wore no garb over their frescoed black bodies except a short gikki or skirt . Mr. Giddings and Mr. Wrenn had had great difficulty in getting an English-speaking man to set up a field at this point for their flyers , and it was only after considerable telegraphing that a Scotch trader named MacInnis , situated at Lagos , the nearest coast-port of any size , had agreed to get a supply of gasoline and oil to Kuka and meet the airplanes when they arrived . It was five o'clock when the boys passed over the low banks of the Niger River . By seven they were in the heart of the wild , level territory of Sokoto , skimming over vast expanses of plume-like grasses and extensive marshes and swamps . Strange birds of enormous size flew up out of the morasses , startled at the sight and sound of the airplane . Some tried to follow it , evidently to give it battle , but the swiftest of them were hopelessly outdistanced before they were well started .