NIGERIA UNDER BRITISH RULE 479 civilisation regards as inhuman, and to make them effective instruments of justice. They are to be so far supervised as to put an end to flagrant abuse. The AlkaHs are to be taught the principles of British justice, and the elementary rules of evidence. The number of the courts is to be increased so that justice may be brought within easier reach of complainants.

In order to constitute a native court, a warrant is issued which defines its powers, and confers legality on its sentences. In practice, the jurisdiction of the native courts is usually confined to civil actions. The number of these courts is now rapidly increasing through all the provinces. In the pagan districts, where courts consist only of a council with judicial powers composed of the chiefs or elders of contiguous villages, their action is still uncertain and elementary, but in Mohammedan centres they are in full activity, and the number of cases brought to them for settlement is steadily increasing.

This peaceful development has not been wholly without disturbance since the fall of Sokoto. Difficulties have arisen, caused by the efforts of deposed emirs to make good their pretensions to the thrones from which they have been deposed, or from the recalcitrancy of smaller independent chieftains who did not, in the first instance, accept the submission of the northern states as universal and complete. In some instances these difficulties have been settled without fighting ; in others, there has been occasion for the display of military force ; but the conquest and death of the ex-Sultan of Sokoto, and of the rebellious Magaji of Keffi, which took place in an engagement near Burmi, on the western frontier of Bornu, in July of 1903, practically put an end to any further question of opposition to the supremacy of British rule. This has been the only fighting of importance since the fall of Sokoto.

It is, of course, to be expected that from time to time disturbances will arise which will have to be repressed by force. But for ordinary purposes of law and order, a