"Since 1898, successive expeditions have converged from the French Niger Territories, from South Algeria, and from the French Congo towards Lake Tchad, which has ever exercised a mystic charm over the minds of explorers. Rabah, the usurper of Bornou, has been killed, and his son Fadel’allah recently met the same fate, so that all the belt of black countries stretching from the north of Sokoto, the north of Bornon and Baghirmi to the confines of Wadaï, the most easterly limit of the French sphere, are now occupied in a military sense. … Even if we consider the French as now firmly settled in these countries, peopled with timid blacks from whom little is to be feared, the succeeding problem, what to do with them, presents no seductive outlook. "The key to the situation is the question of transport, for here we have a vast land-locked empire, the roads to which are long, complicated, and difficult. For the present the question of a great Trans-Saharan railway may be left out of account, and in all probability more mature consideration will convince the French of the futility of such a scheme. Three roads running through French territory are available; from the east by the Niger, from the south by the French Congo, and from the north, Tunis or Algeria, across the great Sahara. {5} Of the three, the only one which can be made of practical utility for a long time to come is that across the Sahara. From the centre of Africa there are several well-known caravan routes, all capable of being commercially used, provided the intervening tribes can be brought to acquiesce in the French domination. All these terminate in Turkish territory." _E. J. Wardle, The French in Central Africa (Contemporary Review, October, 1902)._ AFRICA: Subjugation of Hausa Land and occupation of Sokoto. Early in 1903 the High Commissioner of Nigeria, Sir F. Lugard, sent an expedition against the Emir of Kano, in the northern part of the Nigerian Protectorate, within the Sultanate of Sokoto, which had never been made submissive to the rule which Great Britain claimed. Kano was reached and taken by assault on the 3d of February, the Emir and his horsemen escaping toward Sokoto. The expedition then proceeded against Sokoto, where feeble resistance was offered, and the seat of the Sultanate was taken on the 15th of March. These conquests are believed to have effected a firm establishment of British ascendancy throughout the Niger territory, from the coast to the Saharan sphere of the French. The possession of Kano is important, as it is the starting point of caravan routes eastward and northward and the chief commercial town of the Western Sudan. AFRICA: Rapid development of the railway system. See (in this Volume) Railways: Nigeria. AFRICA: French Mauretanie. See Morocco: A. D.1909.