CHAPTER XXVIII THE DOMINATION OF KANO I DO not propose, with the very limited material which is available, to attempt to reconstruct any detailed history of the fortunes of the Haussa States. Nor is it likely that such a narrative would be very interesting, even did the material exist for its relation. The daily life of primitive states, and the petty incidents of their public fortune, are no more interesting than the daily life of private individuals. It is with the general movement of civilisation, as it rises or falls in the flood and ebb of national life, that history is concerned ; and, in the records of relatively undeveloped peoples, it is only in that portion of their existence which contributes to, or is associated with, the general movement that we are interested.

The scraps of history and legend which have been preserved, and of which some specimens have been offered to the reader, would seem to establish the broad fact that in some period of, to us, remote antiquity, the Haussa people were brought into existence by a union between earlier races inhabiting the Valley of the Nile or the shores of the Red Sea, and the aboriginal pagans whose descendants are now to be found in the hills of Bautchi and Adamawa. At a very early period the simpler arts of domestic and civil life were developed among them, for in the legend of Kano it is related that even before the coming of the founder of that town there were eleven great pagans who were respectively the ancestors and patrons of Love, of War, of Water, of Strong Drink, of Hunting, 245