496 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY native traders living at Ilorin. The trade is entirely exclusive of trade spirits, which are not admitted into Northern Nigeria, and small as its total is at present, it equals already about half the trade which was done forty years ago with all the West Coast settlements together.

This is not a despicable beginning when it is considered that there are at present but two English firms who have established operations in the country, and that they have not yet taken possession of the field which has been opened by the extension of British administration to the northern provinces and to Bornu.

It must be understood that in entering the northern states we enter regions of civilised industry which bear no comparison with the peoples of the coast, and which have already markets susceptible of indefinite expansion.

Over the greater part of the territories the native population are reported as being eager to buy English agricultural implements. Some dissatisfaction has been felt with the bad quality of English cloth which has been introduced, and a consequent impetus has been given to native dyeing and weaving industries, but for good cloth there is a ready sale. Hardware, needles, thread, writing paper, mirrors, and many other articles of English manufacture, are keenly appreciated, and since the superiority of the road from Lagos to Kano has been demonstrated over the desert route to Tripoli, it is to be hoped that English goods will before long take the place in the market of Kano which has hitherto been held by other European goods imported through the Mediterranean coast. Tea, of which the stimulating quality is recognised by the Tuaregs of the desert, under the name of ** Water of Zem-Zem," has now largely taken the place of coffee with the richer class of Mohammedans ; and European provisions are readily bought in the northern states.

Here a wide market evidently waits. Two main obstacles are opposed to the rapid development of trade.