194 FROM THE NIGER TO THE NILE 



look up, snujffing at the call, and, following their leader, 

 tail slowly back in line to the herdsman's hand. 



Though to-day in peaceful times there is no longer the 

 necessity for their protective habits of aloofness, the Cow 

 Fulani still are by nature shy and retiring. They Hve in 

 the bush, where they make little grass huts for themselves 

 and thorn zarebas, into which they fold their herds at night. 

 In the markets of the villages and towns, where the Fulani 

 of the plain, and Hausas, and sometimes the far-travelling 

 Arab, and even a few pagans from their hill retreats, mingle 

 in the busy crowd, the Bush Fulani are never to be found. 

 Instead, on certain days they make a market by the roadside 

 or in the bush, where the people of the neighbouring villages 

 come to buy milk and butter. Save for large silver coins 

 which they can beat into ornaments, money is not understood 

 and is refused by them, and primitive cowries are the only 

 form of currency that they use when they do not barter for 

 cloth or beads or salt. They are pale of skin and have hair 

 of fine texture, and their features — especially is this notice- 

 able with the women — have a regularity and dehcacy about 

 the lines that instantly recall the more romantic East. So, 

 too, the architecture of the Fulani of the plains, w^hich has 

 preserved its purity of type little changed by its surround- 

 ings, has a character and grace of proportion and orna- 

 ment that are eloquent of an ancient civilisation, and the 

 big men's houses remind one forcibly of Egyptian temples. 

 The Fulani, who are Mahomedans, have by their schools 

 preserved their faith more strictly than other peoples who 

 migrated from the East. 



As one passes through the streets of a Fulani town, or 



