THE DOMINATION OF KANO 255 him to marry one of his daughters, restoring him again to his kingdom, conditionally that he should pay to him the third part of all his tribute."

In the storm thus curtly described we may discern the ever recurring conditions of Haussa convulsions. The king, though conquered, was *' restored again." The detail of having to add a daughter of the Askia to his harem was not onerous. From the Haussa point of view it would, not unnaturally, be accounted among the customary compliments of an honourable peace. To surrender a third of his tribute was more serious, but to the philosophic Haussa this was but the fortune of war, and the resident officials whom Askia placed at the court of Kano would seem to have incommoded no one.

It is characteristic of the life of Haussaland that the whole of this important and well-attested episode is ignored in a chronicle which professes to give a minute and continuous record of the reigns of the kings. The name of Songhay is never mentioned. Nor can this omission be attributed wholly, as might at first be imagined, to a patriotic desire to ignore an inglorious chapter of local history. In the accounts which are given of contemporary local wars we are told frankly enough when Kano is beaten, and we are allowed to see the disastrous results of the fighting with Zaria and Katsena. I incline to believe, and that is why it may, I think, be properly qualified as characteristic, that the omission of this chapter of foreign conquest from the local annals is based on a real indifference to the event.

The net result of the operation was that the King of Kano was restored to his kingdom. The conditions which attached to his restoration were not important in the eyes of a historian who was acquainted with Zaria and Katsena, Gober and Bornu, but who knew practically nothing of the foreign king who reigned at Timbuctoo. Local affairs would seem to have been little affected by the inroad of the Songhay, whose adminis-