I gave each of the instrumentalists a threepenny bit and the King a shilling. His Majesty was so overjoyed at this munificence that I believe I could have made a treaty of alliance, with any clauses I liked, straightway. I mean a treaty in the domain of diplomacy, not of matrimony. That has been offered to me times out of number in West Africa. [Illustration: PAGAN FARMER USING HIS ONLY IMPLEMENT, A SPADE-HOE. (See page 253.)] [Illustration: THE KING OF THE JARAWA PAGANS DANCING IN HONOUR OF THE AUTHOR’S VISIT. The accompaniment is by his Court band, in State uniform. (See page 250.)] A few hundred feet beyond the blacksmith’s establishment we are abreast of the first cluster of houses. The scattered Pagan settlements are called towns for want of a better title. They could as well be spoken of as big villages. Bukuru is one of the largest. A single family, perhaps two, will have its own plot of about a quarter-of-an-acre. This is enclosed by a fence of cactus, not nearly so formidable as the outer defences of the town; merely to prevent marauding sheep, goats and dogs of neighbours from enjoying themselves on the cultivated part of the compound. The ring-fence used to be stronger in days when the lust of combat induced disputes between a couple of men to result in an assault on the domicile of one of them, though, if blood did not boil too rapidly, the disputants usually agreed to fight out their differences at a suitable spot away from the dwellings, so that the friends of each party could have a hand in the fun. A Pagan homestead comprises a cluster of huts. Whereas the Hausa house may consist of one room screened by hanging mats into two or more compartments—though, among the well-to-do in cities such as Kano and Zaria the buildings have interior walls making distinct rooms—the Pagan has a separate hut for each part of his daily life. They are small, circular, very neat, about six or eight feet in diameter, of mud with a roof of the same material lightly covered with thatch. One or more will be the grain store, where the gathered crops are kept and drawn upon for food whilst others are growing. The supply is reached from the top, by tilting the roof, which makes thieving less easy than if there were a door. The solid wall also prevents insects getting through. To safeguard the contents against ants the grain huts are built on big stones and are placed high enough for the fowls to take shelter from storms and to go to roost at night. Various members of a family have different huts for sleeping; the younger children in one, grownups in another, and possibly an aged parent of wife or husband in a third. His spouses will be accommodated either singly or in couples and the requisite number of huts built.