SULTAN BELLO 395 against the revolted province, and the campaign is interesting for the illustration which it gives of Bello's respect for his father's division of the territory of Haussaland, and also for the growing evidence — which even the Fulani generals could not ignore — that the opponents of Bello were not entirely pagans. Throughout the campaign Bello forbade his troops to enter the town of Gando, which was under his uncle's rule, and we are allowed to know that warm discussions arose between the generals as to whether their enemies were infidels or not. When at last the battle which put an end to the revolt was fought, it was found necessary, in observance of Koranic law, to apply some religious test to the prisoners. They were called upon to recite the fatiha and to make their ablutions. Those who passed the test satisfactorily were set at liberty. Those who did not were sold as slaves. The refusal to permit slaves to be made after the battle of Dagh already indicated some scruple of conscience on Bello's part.

It was at about this period that Mohammed el Kanemi of Bornu, having completed the subjection of Baghirmi, turned his attention to Haussaland. All the vanquished Sultans of Western Haussaland, says the chronicler, grouped themselves round him, and he promised to restore them all to their thrones should he prove victorious in the struggle with the Sultan Bello. The encounter between the two forces took place, as we have seen, in the south-eastern provinces, and was unfavourable to the hopes of the Haussa kings. The army of Bornu, bearing a letter of defiance to Sultan Bello, marched in the first instance upon Kano. Bello, who appears to have fully recognised the magnitude of the danger which threatened him in now, for the first time, frankly facing a Mohammedan foe, rallied all his forces from the south, and called upon the Fulani sovereigns of Zaria and Bautchi to put their armies in the field. A general advance was made against El Kanemi, who appears to have turned and marched southwards. The