WE LAND AT ACCRA 17 



passengers. By their features and dress they at once 

 strike us as being different from any of the negroes, 

 although they have black skins. They have Eastern 

 blood in their veins, and look very much like Arabs, 

 to whom they are akin. The Hausas are a distinct 

 race, which, though it has often been conquered, has 

 never renounced its individuality; outstanding charac- 

 teristics of the race are energy and enterprise in 

 trading, skill in craftsmanship, appreciation of art 

 as applied to things in everyday use, courteous 

 manners, and an entire absence of desire to ape the 

 European. The religion of these people is Mahom- 

 medanism; their language is the lingua franca of the 

 Sudan, and the only language of tropical Africa which 

 the natives have themselves learnt to put into writing, 

 a modified style of Arabic characters being used; 

 their home is North-Central Africa. Following the 

 habits of their forefathers from time immemorial, 

 the Hausamen trek hundreds of miles, peddling 

 Hausaland wares and wares from Old Testament 

 lands, which they have acquired by payment in money 

 or cowry shells, or by barter; the principal "curios " 

 they have in their packs are feathers, goatskins, grass 

 mats, beads, Kano cloth, and leather goods. Some of 

 them we now see squatting in picturesque attitudes 

 on the lower deck have made their way for nearly a 

 thousand miles to the coast from Timbuctoo, and are 

 bound for that other well-known old caravan centre, 

 Kano, another thousand miles or so away up in 

 Northern Nigeria. The walled city of Kano is now in 

 British territory; it is still one of the most important 

 and densely-populated towns of Hausaland. 



Since the moment you had an inkling of what the 

 Hausas have in their packs, I am sure your thoughts 



3 



