Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/369

 HAUSSA LAND. 309 plants the most widely spread is cotton, as, according to the statements of Leo African us, it already was in the sixteenth century. . Wild animals of large size have mostly disappeared from the central parts, but considerable herds of elephants are still met in some of the most remote districts, while the maneless lion of the Sahara infests the steppe lands about the ^N^iger. The chief domestic animals are goats, all of a uniform brown, and horned cattle, all of a pure white colour. Bee farming is actively carried on, the hives, formed of hollow branches, being generally suspended from the boughs of the baobab. In the low- lying and marshy tracts the mosquitoes are an almost intoler- able plague, far more dreaded than any beasts of prey. But in some places the people have devised an ingenious plan to escape from these pestiferous insects. At some distance from their huts they prepare a retreat placed 10 or 12 feet above the ground under a conic shed supported on stakes. This retreat is kept com- pletely closed during the day, and at night they gain access to it by a ladder, suddenly closing the door behind them, and thus escaping from the buzzing swarms of their tormentors. Inhabitants. The Haussawa, or " People of Haussa," claim to have come from the north, and the Goberawa, formerly dominant in the Air Mountains, certainly belong to this group. In their mythical genealogy the name of their great ancestor would seem to imply a servile origin for the whole race except the "sons of Gober." The traditional home of all the family is the divide between the Sokoto and Tsad basins, and more particularly the eastern watershed, whence they spread gradually westwards. According to the legend the Haussa family comprised seven " legiti- mate " sons, to each of whom was assigned a special department of the public service. Thus Gober, the warrior of the north, was required to defend the land ; Kano in the same way became the dyer, Katsena the trader, and Seg Seg, in the south, the slave-hunter. Then the family was further increased by seven " illegiti- mate" children, outsiders of different speech, but who understood the Haussa language. These are the inhabitants of the Lower Niger and Benue, still regarded as strangers and inferior in nobility to the Haussawa proper. While the domain of the latter is scarcely 50,000 square miles in extent, their language is spread over a region five or six times more extensi'^'e. Richardson called it " Sudanese," as if it were the universal speech of Sudan ; and it is certainly dominant in the whole region comprised between the Sahara, Lake Tsad, the Gulf of Guinea, and the Kong Mountains. It is even current in all the surrounding markets and amongst the Negro communities in Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers. Its structure is agglutinating with prefixes and postfixes, and for harmony, wealth of vocabulary, simplicity and elegance, it certainly deserves to take a foremost rank amongst the languages of Africa. Its literature is mainly restricted to religious works, grammars, and dictionaries composed by Europeans ; but, according to Schon and Krause, the Haussawa would also appear to possess original manuscripts, written, however, in the Arabic character. Haussa, which is said to be spoken