434 The National Geographic Magazine 



arms, so that no friction might occur 

 .and no violence be perpetrated in the 

 town. Later three soldiers did manage 

 to break out and kill a man in a quarrel 

 in the market. The murderer was tried 

 by court-martial and shot, and I de- 

 sired that one or two of the Kano chiefs 

 should be witnesses of this vindication 

 of British justice. In the arsenal was 

 found every conceivable kind of ammu- 

 nition and a great quantity of powder. 

 About 20,000 rounds were destroyed 

 and 350 firearms. Within three days 

 of our occupation three large caravans 

 left for the south, and the great market 

 was. in full swing, as though nothing 

 had happened. 



I had myself joined the force after the • 

 capture of Kano, marching up from Zun- 

 geru by the wonderful caravan road 

 which leads through Zaria. I have seen 

 nothing like it in Africa. The track is 

 often 50 feet wide, and one meets cease- 

 less caravans of laden donkeys, men, 

 women, and live stock along its whole 

 length. I must have passed many thou- 

 sands in the 250 miles w r e traversed to 

 Kano. Between Zaria and Kano the 

 road is frequently inclosed between 

 hedges of great age, a very striking con- 

 trast to the universal bush path of Af- 

 rica. The road leads for the most part 

 through cultivation and villages. The 

 method of cultivation is more thorough 

 and more advanced than is usual in Af- 

 rica. The soil is worked to a depth of 

 over a foot, and here and there rude 

 forms of irrigation are employed, while 

 for the first time in Africa I saw with sur- 

 prise that the fields are manured. The 

 tamarind, the Dum palm, the acacia, 

 and the Adansonia take the place of the 

 shea, copaiba, and the locust trees of the 

 south. 



THE CITY OF KANO 



Kano alone, among the cities of Africa 

 which I have seen, with the exception of 

 Katsena, is worthy of the name of city, 

 for its houses are of solid mud, with flat 



roofs impervious to fire, and lasting 

 through the centuries, instead of the 

 beehive-shaped huts of the populous 

 towns of the south. Traces of Moorish 

 architecture are visible everywhere, and 

 the horseshoe arch, which some writers 

 assert was introduced by thfe Arabs from 

 Syria and Mesopotamia, modified by the 

 Berbers and Egyptians, is a feature of 

 the buildings. 



I took up my quarters in the small 

 hall of audience, a room 25 feet square, 

 18 feet high, decorated with quaint 

 shapes and designs in black, with pale 

 green and yellow — the latter formed of 

 micaceous sand, which glistens like gold. 

 The dome-shaped roof is supported by 

 twenty arches, all of mud, but admira- 

 bly fashioned, and converging on the 

 center. The photo (see page 439) will 

 give you a better idea of its structure 

 than my words can convey. Kano thus 

 marks the limit of the northern type of 

 building, of which only occasional remi- 

 niscences are seen in some emir or 

 chief's house in Zaria and Bida. Admi- 

 rable in design as were the great houses 

 of the king and chiefs of Uganda before 

 the Pax Britannica taught the people to 

 prefer architecture of the railway-shed 

 pattern, they were but of grass and palm 

 stems, which a fire would destroy in a 

 night; but the greatest fire would leave 

 Kano intact as a city. 



The city is divided, like all others in 

 Nigeria, into quarters where the differ- 

 ent races congregate, and it is striking 

 to see white-faced Tripoli merchants 

 with their wares of tea and sugar, silk 

 and spices, in the Arab quarter of this 

 African city. 



There are large open spaces every- 

 where in Kano, each with its enormous 

 hole of reeking sewage, from whence 

 the clay has been dug to build the 

 houses. Unlike Bida, which, as you 

 approach it, looks like a forest, Kano 

 is almost treeless. Over these bare 

 spaces sweeps the dusty wind, and on 

 the margins of the great holes or stag- 



