They are not as the Moslem who has never been out of Hausaland and who knows you only by the prowess and governing ability of your countrymen there. These cosmopolitan Arabs appraise differently. They tell you, by looks, that chance has given you the upper hand. So be it. They care not. Let them go on with their trading and they are utterly cold as to who rules. There is no common, fellow-feeling between these men and those among whom they move. No feeling of patriotism unites them. There is a link, however, stronger, more potent, one that would draw as a magnet millions of Moslems in Africa and beyond. It is their religion. Let us beware. You may not like these Arab merchants from the north and from the east. You may regard them as prepared to trade in anything for gain. You may believe them to have been the moving spirit of the former slave-hunting days. But they are picturesque, and if you are not satiated with sightseeing you must turn and look at them. These Arabs, who are principally from Morocco, from Algeria and from Tripoli, bring European goods—wools, cloths, beads, scents—and take back chiefly skins and ostrich feathers. They formerly came, and some still do, by camel caravan from the north, traversing the sandy wastes of the Sahara. The journey occupies 6 months in the wet season and 4 months in the dry. [Illustration: EX-SERGT.-MAJOR DOWDU. A Beri-Beri from Bornu.] [Illustration: AN ARAB MERCHANT Who trades from the shores of the Mediterranean to Kano. (See page 101.)] It was inevitable that the extension of the railway from Lagos would draw the life out of the desert route. This process of travel is dying of inanition. It might still have lasted years, for trading was to be done en route and people naturally conservative in habit do not readily change their methods. But the Morocco trouble and the Tripoli war have given the desert route the happy despatch. It is already practically dead. Healthy commerce and warfare cannot exist together, and the desert route has been abandoned by the majority of the Arab traders. They are coming and going by the sea service from Europe to Lagos or Forcados and thence either by train all the way from the former port or from the latter one by boat up the Niger to Baro and then by rail to Kano. These plans have been accompanied by other advantages, for the continental goods previously brought by the Arabs from the Mediterranean ports have to a considerable extent been replaced by British manufactures. Moreover, several of the Arab merchants are establishing branches in Manchester and Liverpool. If they can obtain in England the articles wanted the men will not incur the expense of going to the Continent to buy.