CHAPTER XXVI THE PHARAOHS IN HAUSSALAND The annals of Egyptian history are not without some record of the very early connection which existed between the valleys of the Niger and the Nile. To enter into the spirit of them we must be content to lose ourselves in semi-mythical periods when, according to the records collected and preserved by historic writers, Housal and his descendants reigned in Egypt. The name of Housal meant, we are told, *' Servant of Venus." We may perhaps, therefore, carry back the date to a period when the Phoenicians dominated Egyptian politics, and the worship of Astarte or Venus Erycina was common in the Valley of the Nile.

Already, before Housal, Egyptian kings had marched through the west and into the country of the blacks in the south, where they had seen *' wonderful things." But it is with his descendant, Nimrod the Powerful, who was also called Nimrod the son of Housal, that we obtain a direct link with the southern states. Nimrod, we are told, was a king famous for his justice, under whom the people of Egypt lived happily. But his dead brother had been married to a magician from the south.

This magician fled with her son, on the accession of Nimrod, towards the south. There, by her charms, she raised a power for her son to claim the throne. Nimrod marched against her and was overthrown, and her son reigned in his stead. This is the Egyptian account.

But the people of Yoruba, which is not one of the true Haussa States, but which is a province included within the British Protectorate in the back country of Lagos, claim 227