As one approaches the 50 miles radius from Kano City one sees evidence of close cultivation of the soil which marks that Province of Northern Nigeria. The land is flat, open, and in parts fairly well wooded. There appears to be no barren waste soil within sight. Plots, varying in size, are clearly marked off and separated by 2 feet high straw fences, close-growing grass of the same height, or neatly-trimmed bushes. The fields are green—freshened by recent light rains—and occasionally the bright colour merges into a fainter tint, whilst tracts are yellow with the ripened crops shortly to be harvested. As the eye is cast across the level plains, now and again backgrounded by hills and small mountains, the scene might be taken for one in an English agricultural county. The illusion would the more readily be accepted, for the circular clumps in the fields might easily pass as small haystacks. They are native houses, and a fuller understanding of the situation is grasped as the busy figures hoeing the furrows look up and it is seen that they have black skins. Are these busy groups of men industriously winning produce from the soil the “lazy negroes” in whom we—new-comers to the land—are to inculcate “the dignity of labour”? Can it be that we have as little to teach them in that respect as in several others? The scenes of sowing, planting, reaping, gathering, are repeated in various forms as the train rolls on until, there in the distance, is a greyish line which must be the walls of famed Kano City. The engine heads straight for the wall, as though it would impatiently break down whatever should stand in the way of modern ideas of advancement; but as we draw nearer it would seem wiser councils prevail, and, bearing to the right, we swing past the city walls, showing that by tact, sympathy, imagination, and judgment the two civilisations can exist side by side. Speed is being reduced, but a couple more miles are to be covered, and as we go slowly a clearer view of the stout encircling wall is discerned. First to relieve its evenness is the Dan Agundi Gate, and near that opening—between it and the railway—is the discarded mission house, where a few months ago poor Fox died. Next we pass the Nassarawa Gate, then the Mata Gate, and a few yards further on the train pulls up at the spot where Kano Station is to be built. CHAPTER VI ARRIVAL AT KANO Plans and expectations—Small water-famine—The handy man—Change of quarters—Ants as sauce—Niger Company. It is well perhaps that things should not go too smoothly. It is well, probably, that though matters are thought out and plans made in advance they should crumble by no fault of the maker. It is as well, no doubt, that suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune should befall one who until arriving in Kano had had a pleasure trip, not made less pleasurable by unremitting work, the joy of the journey enhanced rather than lessened by a few minor discomforts.