484 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY to the acceptance of a British garrison, which will occupy Hadeija as one of the chain of frontier forts already mentioned. The Emir of Katsena, whose conduct since the occupation of Katsena by the British had been radically unsatisfactory, was deposed, and his heir, selected by the Council of Notables, was installed in his place. This new emir, and the Shehu of Bornu, both took the oath of allegiance to King Edward on the Koran in public, with the knowledge of all their people, as a part of the installation ceremony.

In Kano and Katsena, as at Bornu, much interesting conversation upon the subject of the new system of administration was held with the emirs, and the knowledge that the High Commissioner in person, the representative of the British sovereign, had travelled within a few months through every capital of the Protectorate, had its visible effect in helping forward the realisation of the fact that the Protectorate has been consolidated into a unity administered in the name of the King of England.

The capitals of the other provinces — Kontagora, Ilorin, Nupe, &c. — were visited in a separate short tour. Thus a personal supervision of the provinces has already, to a certain extent, become possible, and, notwithstanding the obstacles of space and time, free communication between them may be said to have been established.

But for the purposes of that further communication, which is essential to the opening of trade and the development of their commercial resources, the crying need of the Protectorate is, of course, for a railway through the heart of its most populous districts, which should connect the commercial centres of Kano and Zaria with an all-the-year-round navigable port upon the Niger.