lint of the seeds (on flat stones), teasing, the men weaving, tailoring, and usually, but not always, embroidering. Woven in long, narrow strips, the manufactured article is of remarkable durability and firmness of texture. The predominating dye is the blue of the indigo plant, extensively cultivated for the purpose, dyepits being common all over the province. The embroidery, both in regard to design and execution, is astonishingly handsome, and the colours harmoniously blended. A fine specimen of a finished _riga_—the outer robe covering the shoulders, with an aperture for the head and neck, and falling in folds to the knee—is a work of art of which any people in any country might be proud. It is a very heavy garment, and it is costly. But it is suitable for the cold nights and chilly mornings, and it lasts for years. [Illustration: WOMEN COTTON SPINNERS.] [Illustration: MEN WEAVING.] It is impossible to separate the cultivation of cotton from the agricultural pursuits of the people generally. Cotton, like cassava, onions, ochro, pepper, ground nuts, and beans, takes its place as one of the secondary crops. The people are primarily a people of agriculturists, raising vast quantities of cereals year after year for home consumption and export to other districts—guinea-corn and millet, yams, maize, a little wheat. In the Kano Emirate or division—as distinct from what is known as the Kano province—the population is exceedingly dense, and virtually the whole land is under cultivation. I have seen nothing more remarkable in the way of cultivation either in France or Flanders. And it is all done with the _galma_, a peculiar kind of short-handled hoe, which would break the back of an English labourer to use, but which the Hausa will wield for hours together. The pattern of the _galma_ is of great antiquity. It came from ancient Egypt, with the original inhabitants probably; the plough, which was used in Egypt when intercourse was frequent between the valleys of the Nile and Niger, never seems to have penetrated so far West—a curious and unexplained fact.