The Hausas.

Manawatu Herald, 28 December 1895, Page 3

The Hausas.

According to an interesting paper in the Leitur* Hour the Hausas are the inhabitants of that very large part of Central Africa bounded by the Sahara desert on the north, on the tast by lake Tsbad and the ShadLogan "river, on the south by the river Benae and on the west by the river Niger. It includes Ashante, Mid the gold coast, thus taking in the country over which King Prempeh rales, and who has so mistaken England's power as to dare to be impudent. The Hausa people possess many admirable qualities but, like the Poles, have seldom been able to govern themselves. The Hausa people furnish the best of oar armed forces in West Africa. Amongst them are recruited the men for the Gold Coaßt Constabulary and the Lagos Police. They have also proved the mainstay of the armed forces of the Congo Free State. The Hausa are also singularly deft in most trades and manufactures. They have a very strong arti9tic sense of design and colour, as is manifested in their leather work, Iheir saddlery, their household a ten sils, and their clothes. They are celebrated for their skill as dyers, and for this purpose they have much developed the manufacture of indigo. Such literature as they possess is mainly Arabic in origin, and they are attentive students of the Koran.

They are all Mohammedans, bat do not display the same amount of intolerant fanaticism which is met with amongst the Moors and Fulbi, or in tho people of the Eastern Soudan, at the same time their Mohammedanism preserves them to a much greater extent from the curse of alcohol than it does the dissolute Ful people.