The market is comprised of long streets of low, roofed-in open stalls, wherein the wares are exposed upon the ground within an allotted space, while the gown-clad Hausa merchants kneel behind them with becoming solemnity and do business. You may see upon some stalls British cotton, and British ironmongery, and British cigarettes which have been imported, and a few other things; but for the most part the wares are native, and you can single out baskets of raw cotton, bobbins of home-spun thread, and stout Kano Cloth—which is renowned in Nigeria—the weaving and dyeing of which is a large industry. Also the sale of hides, and leather-work, and basket-work, and pottery are local industries of importance that bring wares to the market; while tailors and blacksmiths flourish at their trades. There are food-stalls, where such staple foods as millet, and guinea corn, and maize, and beans (whole or ground to flour) are exposed for sale in calabash bowls or grass-woven baskets; and tomatoes, onions, yams, sugar-canes, and the pepper and plant-leaves that go to make up the local pottage condiments. The meat market is set apart, which is wise, for it is fly-ridden and odoriferous, and beef and mutton and choice parts of offal (of which natives are particularly fond) are there exposed for sale.

The merchants of the stalls are principally of the Hausa race, and there are a few Arabs. But in the cattle-market, which is also on one side, the natives are often Fulani and Beri-Beri, who have brought in cattle, sheep, goats, and camels from distant bush where their herds roam.

There are some horses for sale in the cattle-market; high-mettled, Arab-like beasts that are often very attractive, but which, very unfortunately, are almost invariably gone at the houghs through the stupid native habit of throwing a galloping horse suddenly back on its hindquarters on hard ground to make a dramatic halt before an audience or a king’s house, by means of pressure on the locally-made cruel bit-iron which projects on to the roof of the mouth.

It may be gathered at this stage that the local market of Kano is well equipped to supply the wants of the primitive people. Moreover, the whole interchange of trading is so extensive, that there is a very wholesome buying and selling within its own circle which employs almost everyone and makes the city doubly self-supporting and self-sufficient.

This market within the old city, in its entirety, is the everyday mart of the inhabitants and does not greatly concern the white traders, who buy, at their own warehouses in the European segregation outside the walls, their stacks of hides and tons of ground-nuts and beans, which are the rich exports from the place. There is also some European trade in cattle and sheep, which are railed for the consumption of people at “down country” stations and on “the Coast.”

But it is now time to pass on from the market-place and return to quarters, though the loitering crowd that presses about the stalls is so dense that it is difficult to pass through it, and the din of the eager voices is deafening. However, once clear of the congestion and noise, it is very pleasant walking or riding slowly home under the spell of a closing day. Hundreds of natives are still on the dusty roads, arriving joyfully at the journey’s end with burdened animals, from distant parts, or coming from the fields or villages near-by when the work of the day is finished; all gladly and contentedly returning home, or coming to a haven of rest, while the sound of pounding pestle-poles in their mortar stools resounds methodically in the still air to declare to all ears that industrious housewives are preparing the evening meal.

You may hear also, about this time, the monotonous tom-tom of small drums arising from the direction of a group of hutments, and the loud voice of a functionary raised in peculiar declaration to call forth neighbours; from which it may be understood that there is gaiety afoot in some quarter where a wedding-dance is starting. Such sounds on the evening air are very pleasant, as are all sounds close to nature when they are explanatory of familiar living things and joy of life to anyone who is overtaxed with the silence of the lone places, as are many men of the caravans and of the bush who drift into Kano from afar.

Passing through a shadowed gateway, named “Nassarawa,” in the eastern wall, you may leave the strange old city behind in the dusk and take the straight road to the white man’s town while snow-white flocks of Cattle Egrets fly gracefully and softly across the eve-lit sky to their night grounds, and satiated vultures and kites clamber heavily to their roosting-perches on gnarled old solitary trees to gather on each one in colonies.

CHAPTER III
HAUSA, CURRENCY, CAMELS, TRAVELLING

At Kano I picked up two more natives to accompany me on my journey, a Hausa youth named Mona and a half-caste named Outa, while the interviews with applicants were not without amusement, since conversation was carried on in my somewhat amateur Hausa, with John privileged to look on, and give his comical but shrewd opinion of the character of his probable fellow-travellers—and he had his strong likes and dislikes, though he judged his subjects solely by eye, for he could not speak Hausa, as is the case with many natives of other tribes, and in particular with coast boys.