Every palm-kernel or other trade-value tree cut down was paid for at five years’ purchase, assessed at the rate of 10s. annually, the money handed to the Chief of the area. This policy earned the hearty good-will of the population directly affected. The line passed through the county of three Emirs: those of Bida, Zaria, and Kano. All displayed the utmost cordiality and co-operation in the construction. They directed and encouraged their subjects to work in building the railway, though labourers were paid personally and individually. The Emir of Zaria evinced so much interest in construction that he was in the habit of sitting on the embankment, with his officers of State around, watching the rails laid. He would repeatedly enquire how much the locomotive ate, in the matter of fuel—wood—and what quantity of water it drank. He regarded it quite as a living creature. Above everything, he loved to hear its voice, to listen to its whistle and shriek. For his greater enjoyment, the whistle would be kept going at its loudest for several minutes at a stretch. That appealed to him more than the finest tones of a Caruso or the sweetest notes of a Melba or a Tetrazzini. The Emirs were each invited to perform the ceremony of opening the railway in his own Province. In 1909 the Emir of Bida opened the 43 miles’ section from Baro to Badegi, Sir Percy Girouard, then Governor of Northern Nigeria, being present with his staff; early in 1911 the Emir of Zaria opened the extension to 267 miles’ point, Mr C. C. Temple, Acting Governor, attending; and the lengthening to Kano was opened by the Emir of that name. The Emirs were presented with bronze spanners—a material more highly valued than silver—with which they screwed up the last fish-plate bolt. For the first few months or so that weekly trains were running to Kano, natives from the city and the surrounding villages displayed curiosity concerning the locomotive to the degree of assembling in crowds on the track at the railhead—there is no station yet—to gaze again and again at the engine. Quite polite and giving no trouble to the officials, they would examine it from every point of view, some lying on the ground to look underneath the phenomenal thing.