CHAPTER XLVII CONQUEST OF SOKOTO AND KANO The situation was such that all eyes were now turned to the north. Sokoto was the recognised religious and political head of Haussaland. All the Fulani emirates which were not subject to Gando took their investiture from him. The British High Commissioner, anxious to interfere, according to the terms of the British treaties, as little as possible with Mussulman law and custom, had done what he could in the circumstances to conciliate Sokoto and Gando. But the British treaties did not cover a position in which the leading emirates of the south should initiate an attack upon the British Administration, as in the case of Kontagora and Nupe, or should repudiate their agreements, raid British protected natives for slaves, and drive British traders out of their dominions, as in the case of Yola and Bautchi. These acts on the part of the southern emirates had created a new position. From the Niger to Bornu British sovereignty had been imposed by right, not of treaty, but of conquest, and in consequence of the refusal of Sokoto to exercise the functions of immediate suzerainty, in which Great Britain would willingly have maintained him, by nominating successors to the deposed emirs, all the emirs of the southern emirates now held their investiture from Great Britain. But the force of tradition dies hard, and so long as Sokoto existed, and had not signified his assent to the appointment of the Fulani rulers, there was for them an uncomfortable sense of irregularity in their position. The more loyally they worked with the British Government 438