“ Until the last decade of the 19th century no important attempt had been made to introduce Christianity, but the fact that the Hausa are fond of reading, and that native schools exist in all parts of the country, should greatly facilitate the work of Christian missionaries. ”

“ The greatest obstacle to its general acceptance is the institution of the Ramadan fast. In a climate so hot as that of Hausaland, the obligation to abstain from food and drink from sunrise to sunset during one month in the year is a serious difficulty. ”

“ In Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast territory they form the backbone of the military police, and under English leadership have again and again shown themselves to be admirable fighters and capable of a high degree of discipline and good conduct. ”

“ Religion.—About one-third of the people are professed Mahommedans, one-third are heathen, and the remainder have apparently no definite form of religion. Their Mahommedanism dates from the 14th century, but became more general when the Fula sheikh Dan Fodio initiated the religious war which ended in the founding of the Fula empire. ”

“ HAUSA, sometimes incorrectly written Haussa, Houssa or Haoussa, a people inhabiting about half a million square miles in the western and central Sudan from the river Niger in the west to Bornu in the east. ”

“ It is the only language in tropical Africa which has been reduced to writing by the natives themselves, unless the Vai alphabet, introduced by a native inventor in the interior of Liberia in the first half of the 19th century be excepted ”

“ They are extremely intelligent and even cultured, and have exercised a civilizing effect upon their Fula conquerors to whose oppressive rule they submitted. They are excellent agriculturists, and, almost unaided by foreign influence, they have developed a variety of industries, such as the making of cloth, mats, leather and glass. ”