402 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY appear to have been monsters of inhumanity, who rejoiced, like the depraved emperors of Rome, in witnessing the mortal agonies of their victims. The public prisons became places of public torture, from which few who were confined in them could escape alive. Here is the description of the prison of Kano, as it was in existence up to the moment of the British occupation of the province. I quote the High Commissioner's account, given in the Colonial Report for Northern Nigeria, 1902 : — ** I visited the dungeon myself. A small doorway, 2 feet 6 inches by i foot 6 inches, gives access to it. The interior is divided, by a thick, mud wall, with a similar hole through it, into two compartments, each 17 feet by 7, and 11 feet high. This wall was pierced with holes at its base, through which the legs of those sentenced to death were thrust up to the thigh, and the condemned men were left to be trodden on by the mass of other prisoners till they died of thirst or starvation. The place is entirely air-tight and unventilated, except for the one small doorway, or rather hole in the wall, through which you creep. The total space inside is 2618 cubic feet, and at the time we took Kano, 135 human beings were confined here each night, being let out during the day to cook their food, &c., in a small adjoining area. Recently as many as 200 have been interned at one time. As the superficial area was only 238 square feet, there was not, of course, even standing room. Victims were crushed to death every night, and their corpses were hauled out each morning. The stench, I am told, inside the place when Colonel Morland visited it was intolerable, though it was empty, and when I myself went inside, more than three weeks later, the effluvia was unbearable for more than a few seconds." These were the forms and these the instruments to the use of which Fulani justice had degenerated, and in the midst of them the only chance of obtaining favourable consideration of a given case lay in heavy bribery. The