DYE-PITS.
Hoe-handles, mortars, pestles, beds, doors, gins, spindles, bobbins, looms, shuttles, saddles, riding-boots, sandals, slippers, bridles, scissors, razors, rope, fishing-nets, earthenware cooking-pots, lamps, water-bottles and pipes are among the innumerable articles turned out by the artisan in Northern Nigeria. Indigo dye-pits are to be found in many towns, but the great tanning centre is Kano. Cloth-beating is a recognized branch of the former industry. After removal from the circular pits sunk à fleur de terre, the clothes are hung up to dry and then handed over to the beater. In a dark and spacious hut perspiring men kneel in rows facing one another on either side of a huge log of wood, stained black and smooth-polished with constant use, upon which the cloths are spread and vigorously beaten with rounded wooden mallets. Very hard work it is, as I can personally testify, having tried my hand at it, much to the entertainment of the dusky experts. The Kano tanneries are in appearance disappointing; in odours surpassing anything that can be imagined. But the product is astonishingly excellent. The completed skins, dyed deep red or orange with native dyes, the roots, leaves and bark of sundry shrubs and trees being utilized in the many processes through which the raw hide passes, are as soft to the touch as Russian leather. They are greatly appreciated in the Western world, and the trade is a rapidly increasing one.
CHAPTER VII
THE CITY OF KANO AND ITS MARKET
You are permanently conscious that this country has a history and traditions. Nowhere, perhaps, does the fact impress the new-comer more vividly than at Kano. It is a wonderful place to find in Central Africa, this native city with its great enfolding walls, twelve miles in circumference, pierced by thirteen deep gateways (kofas), with platform and guardhouses and massive doors heavily clamped with iron; with its written records dating back nearly eight hundred years. And although incomparably the most important it is not the oldest of these Hausa cities—Katsina, now in the same “province,” is probably older. When the West-Saxon realm fell before the onslaught of the Danes and the first Danish King reigned over England, Hausaland was conquered by an unknown people from the East, and when the prosperity of the English towns was beginning to revive under Henry I., Gijimasu, the third King of the invading dynasty, was building Kano. When Henry VIII. was laying the foundations of personal government, the “rich merchants and most civil people” of Kano were entertaining Leo Africanus. Three hundred years later (1824) Clapperton entered this “great emporium of the kingdom of Hausa,” which Barth forty years afterwards termed the “far-famed entrepôt of Central Africa;” which Lugard was subsequently to describe as exceeding anything he had ever seen “or even imagined” in Africa. Tributary now to this, now to the other, evanescent African kingdom, frequently at war with its neighbours, repeatedly besieged, it has survived every vicissitude. Neither the disastrous struggles with Katsina in the seventeenth, and with Gober in the eighteenth centuries, nor the deposition and defeat of the forty-third (and last) King of the original dynasty by the Fulani early in the nineteenth century, nor yet the occupation of the country by the British seven years ago, have destroyed its influence or impaired its commercial prestige—a tribute to the staying power and to the sterling qualities of the truly remarkable African people whom, in the providence of God, it has now fallen upon us to rule. Its market-place, still the scene of clamorous activity, continues to attract merchants and merchandise from all parts of western Central Africa. It still remains the nerve-centre of a district whose natural fertility, aided by the labour and skill of a hard-working, industrious population, not only supports, as it has done for many centuries, a population of equal density to the square mile as England boasts, but exports large quantities of grain to less-favoured regions; and its looms continue to supply the requirements of an immense area ranging from the Chad to Timbuktu and the borders of Tripoli, and (in part, at least) southwards to the Niger.
A VIEW OF A PART OF KANO CITY (INSIDE THE WALL).
Picturesque by day, with numerous and gaily dressed pedestrians and horsemen perambulating its tortuous streets, busy crowds around its markets, dye-pits, tanneries, and looms, Kano is still more so when the moon floods its broad open spaces with light and flings strange shadows across the sandy thoroughfares where they abut upon the dwelling-places of its inhabitants. Then, but for the occasional howl of a dog, this city which has endured so long and withstood so much lies wrapped in impenetrable silence. The ugly sores of Africa—not, assuredly, as ugly or as numerous as those of Europe, but more conspicuous—are mercifully hidden. No one walks abroad. Yet you know as you wander with noiseless footsteps through its curves and labyrinths, escaping for once from your inevitable native attendants (delightful people, but sadly hampering at times), that behind these thick clay walls and closed doors, the mysterious world of Africa is awake and stirring, that social world with its primitive impulses, but also with its many courtesies and refinements, that world of habit and of thought, guarded with jealous reticence from the alien, unfathomed and unfathomable even by the most experienced of Residents. And, again, at sunrise, when from the summit of the minaret outside the Emir’s residence, the pink flush of dawn steals down the sides of the city’s guardian hills, Dala and Goronduchi, flickers upon the fronds of the palm trees, and reveals the seemingly interminable vista of houses, mostly flat-roofed, but varied here and there by others of humbler thatch and conical in shape; when the blue wreaths of smoke from many fires mount perpendicularly into the crisp, still air, mingled with the aromatic scent of burning wood and a confused murmur of awakening life—then, too, the city holds you in the grip of a fascinated interest. It is difficult to explain this fascination, for the architecture of Kano, though imposing in its way, is rude. There are no flashing domes and sumptuous buildings as in the East; yet the few who have visited it, and the handful of officers—all travelled men—who by turn have had responsibility for the good order of the Emirate would be prepared, I fancy, one and all to confess that not even the blunting effects of familiarity can do away with the curious influences it exercises.
A visit to the famous market-place—the Kasua Kurumi—which covers a wide expanse, and where anything from 4000 to 7000 persons may be congregated together, according to the day, is a bewildering experience. In this tumultuous sea of humanity, shot with brilliant colours, details are swamped at first in general impressions. You are aware of a vast concourse of men and women, cheery-faced, closely packed together, clad in robes of many hues—white and various shades of blue predominating; of tossing arms and turbaned heads; of long lines of clay-built booths where piled-up merchandise awaits the customer; of incessant movement, the strife of many tongues, the waft of many scents, mostly the reverse of fragrant—over all, blue sky and fierce hot sun. As you move along with frequent pauses necessitated by the crush, and the eye gets more accustomed to the scene, some at least of its component parts stand out more clearly from the ever-shifting view, and the extraordinary variety of human types and the multiplicity of articles on sale is realized.