Though there are 30,000 inhabitants, streets are not named, but each house has a number. I do not know the top numerals; all my observations and investigations were made without official local assistance. Adamu’s house is 4,032, and I have seen 6,249. So, whilst in the Cantonment at Zungeru you may live up to number 8 Zungeru—if I remember rightly that is the highest—here your address might be 6,242 Kano. I happened to pass number 1 and took a photograph of it. It struck me as distinctive—no. 1 Kano. But there was nothing distinctive about the house. The occupier’s 9 olive branches came outside for the picture, but neither is that quantity of youngsters distinctive for a proud father in these parts. [Illustration: HOUSES IN KANO CITY. The cheapest type of house. Rent, 1/6 a year. A detached dwelling. Rent, 1/9 a year. (See page 93.)] The population is to some extent a floating one. Many persons stay in Kano a matter of weeks or months, then journey eastwards or north for a similar period, alternating from Kano to the centres of commerce in the interior of Africa and on the shore of the Mediterranean. Certain of the Arab merchants keep their own houses in Kano. Others are boarded and lodged for a stipulated amount. The more general arrangement is for a man to be put up at no settled sum. He agrees to pay his host 1s. from each £5 worth of goods sold, and the host helps the guest by making enquiries respecting requirements in quarters where he will have better and more intimate knowledge than the stranger within the gates. The mud habitation is characteristic of Hausaland. Persons in Europe may think of them as thin, weak structures, run up in a few hours and liable to be blown to bits by a strong wind. Nothing of the sort. A mud house which you folks at home would look upon as a mere hut, properly made may be the ideal form of domicile, away from the perfectly-constructed stone bungalow with scientific ventilation—punkahs, air-fans, etc., etc.—and electric light. And I am not at all sure that I do not prefer the mud dwelling. The principal advantage of the former is that a continuous draught clears winged insects, an exasperating torment when writing continuously. In the course of the last few weeks, days and nights have been passed in four mud houses each of which differed from the others. Two of them were as comfortable as one could wish to be, much more so than the ordinary house in England during the extremes of summer or winter. But the mud house, as I have said, must be properly built. There is a right and a wrong way, as in most things. They know the correct way in Kano. The time to erect your mud house is at the end of the wet season, when there is an abundance of water in the ponds and lakes of the city and the ground is soft, for you can obtain ample material gratis. But it must not be taken from the street; fields are set apart for the purpose, and there people draw supplies.