The word “peasant” as applied to the Fulani is, no doubt, a misnomer. I employ it merely to distinguish the herdsmen from the caste of statesmen and governors, evolved in Nigeria by the genius of Othman Fodio, but, as their recorded history throughout Western Africa shows, inherent in this mysterious race whose moral characteristics have persisted through all degrees of admixture with the negro. The Fulani peasant is but rarely an agriculturist in Nigeria, but he plays an important, if indirect, part in the agriculture of the Hausa provinces. Over the face of the land he wanders with his great herds—which may number upwards of several thousand head in one herd—of beautiful hump-backed cattle, mostly white, ever seeking “pastures new.” Speaking under correction, in Borgu only does his settlement partake of permanency. Elsewhere he is a wanderer. One month a given district may be full of Fulani camps, come from where his fellow-man has but the vaguest of notions. The next, not a single Fulani will be seen within it. But they return, as a rule, the ensuing year to their old haunts. To the Hausa farmer the _M’Bororoji_ or “Cow-Fulani” are an invaluable asset, and he enters into regular contracts with them for turning their cattle on to his fields; and he buys milk from them. I struck several of their encampments, at distances hundreds of miles apart. The first, at the crossing of the Bako, between Badeggi and Bida, was in charge of a patriarch who might have stepped out of the book of Genesis: a Semite every inch of him: spare of form, emaciated in feature, with high cheek-bones, hawk-like nose, flashing, crafty eyes, a long white beard and a bronzed skin without a trace of black blood. [Illustration: A FULANI GIRL.] There is no more interesting sight in Nigeria than a Fulani encampment. It is usually pitched well away from the beaten track, albeit within convenient distance of a village. You rub your eyes and wonder if you can really be in the heart of the Dark Continent, as these gracefully built, pale copper-coloured men and women—one may say of some of the young girls with the sun shining on their velvety skins, almost golden coloured—appear tending their herds and flocks, or standing and sitting at the entrance to their temporary shelters. Even the latter differ frequently from the African hut, resembling in shape the wigwam of the North American Indian. As for the people themselves, you are aware of an indefinable sentiment of affinity in dealing with them. They are a white, not a black race.