About half-a-mile away is the Residency, a ramshackle mud dwelling not nearly as good as a farmer’s stable in England. Living in such places, out of sight and out of mind of the public at home, badly housed, these Residents are paid immeasurably less than the value of the service they render the nation. A few feet from the entrance, at the top of a thin flagstaff planted in the ground, a Union Jack flutters. It is the symbol of a power—accepted by faith rather than by sight—strong enough to enforce peace and to hold the scales evenly in disputes brought to its representative. Two miles from the Residency is the nearest Pagan town, that of Bukuru. It is not situated, as some are, in the mountains or on a high hill. It spreads, roughly, six miles by two, on ground slightly above the level of the surrounding country. But the approach is impossible to traverse without a guide. Nearly a mile before the first batch of houses is reached you enter a narrow avenue of cactus. Not the form of plant seen in English public parks but strong trees clustered from the ground to the crown with thick, hard leaves each edged with a dozen or more prongs sharp enough to tear a man’s clothes and his flesh to ribbons. These cactus trees are planted so closely that, the branches interweaving, you cannot see between them. The top ones cross and intertwine, forming a tunnel 15 feet high. It was a scheme of defence in the days when a swarm of Hausa horsemen might swoop on a Pagan town and overwhelm it. The cactus avenue is planned on the principle of a maze. It winds, twists, turns, has branching courses leading to blind alleys where the sides are too close to allow a horse to be turned: a perfect ambush. Other narrow ways take you back to places you have passed in coming inwards, the design having been to bring the front sections of a hostile column of mounted men, hurrying on, face-to-face with the middle or the rear sections of the force, who would also be impetuously pushing forward, anxious to be clear of the trap in as short a time as possible. [Illustration: APPROACH TO A PAGAN TOWN. A maze of impenetrable cactus. (See page 248.)] [Illustration: A PAGAN HOMESTEAD. Built against a rock to prevent rear attacks. (See page 251.)] The confusion produced is easily imagined. From the side walls of cactus through which the Hausas could not break, even with the weight of their horses, the Pagans sent showers of poisoned arrows, galloping on ponies from point to point as the situation required.