8 
COLONIAL REPORTS—MISCELLANEOUS. 
uncultivated. Land thus became of little account, and the Head 
of the clan was of more importance than thp theoretical owner 
ship of the land, a title to which could be obtained for nothing, 
or for a nominal present. As a natural result, we see to-day 
that where land has increased in value, owing to the density of 
the population, the territorial claim tends to supersede the clan 
claim, as in the thickly inhabited Emirate of Kano. With the 
increase of population, and the creation of a less centralised 
system of rule, territorial jurisdiction must inevitably oust the 
clan jurisdiction, but at present the intensely conservative 
tendencies of the people render it advisable to allow this change 
to come about gradually, and not to introduce a drastic and 
hasty alteration of the existing relations. The scheme, there 
fore, of creating districts under headmen, was, subject to this 
difficulty. In some provinces it does not exist, in others only 
to <a small degree, in others—as in Kano—it existed, but the 
enhanced value of land, and the growth of a superior organi 
sation in administrative detail rendered it easy to sweep it aside, 
and reconstitute the districts de novo. In others it remained 
a potent factor, which only time can gradually alter. Allied 
to this system, and a natural outcome of it, was the fact that 
the officers of the native state, who held lands from the Emir 
under a system analogous to the fiefs of our own feudal system, 
were the owners or lords not of a self-contained area, with its 
towns and villages, but of individual towns scattered at great 
distances from each other all over the Emirate, which made 
residence in the fief impossible. The fief-holder, therefore, 
lived at the capital, where he held some high-sounding title, as 
an officer of State, and squeezed his fiefs to provide the means for 
his extravagance. With the-creation of ‘‘districts - ’ the fief-holder 
disappears as such. As far as possible these former fief-holders 
have been given “districts/’ and they now become officials recog 
nised alike by the Native and the British Government resident 
in their districts, and responsible for its taxation, and for law 
and order within it. This system of creating districts in lieu of 
scattered fiefs, or of towns or groups of villages owning a clan 
allegiance to a separate chief, I have termed throughout the 
attached memorandum “ consolidation of districts ” for the sake 
of brevity. Where a district is entirely under its territorial 
“district headman,” or practically so, I have, for lack of a better 
term, called it “ self-contained.” The fief-holders have thus, for 
the most part, become district headmen where they were willing 
to reside in their districts. In some cases the districts were 
already “ self-contained,” and the headmen resided there (as in 
Katagum, and to a great extent in Bornu), and their status, 
duties, and responsibilities are in some degree modified only. 
In others, as in Katsena, they were practically resident, and the 
change has been greatly approved. In others, again, as in 
Kano, they are reluctant to leave the capital entirely, and the 
rule has, for the present, been somewhat relaxed. In vSokoto 
some were resident, others not, and the latter have been sent