456 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY Katsena, and Kano had been investigated, three emirs had been installed, many minor chiefs of importance had been interviewed, and the principles of British policy had been personally explained by the High Commissioner to the leading representatives of all the native states through which the British troops had marched.

The province of Kontagora had remained without an emir for two years. The population had been much dispersed, and no suitable heir to the throne had presented himself. At Sokoto, when the advice of the emir and Council was asked, a unanimous desire had been expressed that the recalcitrant chief Ibrahim, who was first cousin to the ex-Emir of Sokoto, and a man connected with the best families of the northern states, might be reinstated.

Ibrahim, after experience of exile and confinement, had become a profoundly altered man. The vehemence of his abjuration of all slave dealing, when the question of his restoration was discussed, was in somewhat comic contrast to his previous utterances on the same subject, and though the experiment seemed doubtful, it was decided to replace him, under conditions similar to the other emirs, upon the throne. The installation of Gando was provided for to take place at a later period.

Every important emir of the Protectorate now held his throne under a letter of appointment from Great Britain, and to many of the lesser pagan chiefs a no less formal ** staff of office " had been given. The pledges given by emirs and chiefs in return had been made in their own forms, but with full pomp of unmistakable public ceremony. By the end of April 1903 there was no population in the Protectorate that did not understand the transfer of sovereignty which had taken place from their ancient Fulani rulers to the British Government. This was strikingly illustrated by the action of the Munshis, an extremely ignorant and truculent native tribe occupying the northern bank of the Benue, nearly opposite to Bassa, one of the five provinces which at the beginning of the year 190 1-2 had been