CONQUEST OF SOKOTO AND KANO 443 and 4 Maxims, left Zaria under the command of Colonel Morland. Captain Abadie, the Resident of Zaria, another of those members of the early staff whom, to the sorrow of all his comrades, death has since claimed, accompanied the force as Political Officer.

The first opposition was encountered at a walled town eight miles within the Kano frontier, where the inhabitants, after a parley with the Political Officer, said that they were obliged to resist, under a threat of death from the Emir of Kano to any one who should open the gates. A British shell blew in the gate, and the question of resistance was determined. The town was not looted or injured, and non-combatants were unharmed. A series of newly fortified towns, all instructed by the emir to fight, were expected to hold the approaches to Kano. After this first experience the garrisons abandoned them, and fled without fighting to Kano. The inhabitants remained quietly in the towns, and brought ample supplies for the British troops, which were paid for as in time of peace. The troops were kept within strict discipline. No looting and no disorder was allowed. The populace, knowing already by report the practice of the British on similar occasions, showed no alarm.

The force, therefore, reached Kano unopposed. The wall of the town, of which the circumference was eleven miles, was forty feet thick at the base, and from thirty to fifty feet high. It was loopholed, and strengthened in front by a double ditch. Its thirteen gates had been lately rebuilt, and some of them were designed in a re-entrant angle, so that access to them was enfiladed by fire from the walls on either side, while the ditch was full of live thorns, and very deep. The fortifications were such that, had there been any determined resistance on the part of the defenders, the town might have stood an almost interminable siege.

The event justified the British belief that in fighting the Fulani they had the wishes of the people of Haussa-