IN NORTHERN NIGERIA

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1628, 13 May 1903, Page 20

IN NORTHERN NIGERIA

THE CAPTURE OF KANO. (From Our Special Correspondent.) LONDON. March 27. At present John Bull is "at peace with all men” so far as the man-in-the-street is concerned, but in reality he has two “little flirtations” on hand in which rifle and Maxim play a prominent part. One is the expedition against that by no means to be despised adversary, the socalled “Mad Mullah” in Somaliland, the other the suppression of a dusky individual known as the Emir of Kano, who has been disturbing the harmony of Northern Nigeria. Colonel Morland is the head of the expedition entrusted with the task of bringing the Emir to a proper frame of mind. and we have just heard f-ull details of his capture of Kano, the Emir’s stronghold, and a very formidable place for a small force unprovided with heavy artillery to attack. Colonel Morland’s expedition, entirely composed of coloured troops officered by whites, left its advanced post at Zaria on January 29th. and marching in th® direction of Faki, met with no‘opposition for a couple of days, but on February Ist. a few miles from tlie town they met some of the enemy’s cavalry, who were promptly chased into the city by Colonel Mcrland’s mounted infantry. The town being strongly held was a safe refuge for the Emir’s fleeing cavalry till the main body of the Colonel’s column came up. Then a demand was made for the surrender of the place, hut as the Faki people refused to submit and lay down their arms the guns began to shoot, and very soon the main gate was reduced to a splintery mass. Next a storming party armed with axes was led by Captain Mackenzie to demolish the remainder of the gate, and this being accomplished without loss, the party entered fhe town. They found that the local King and three of his chiefs had met \m+h by the shell fire, and that the defenders had “cleared cut.” Later, the townspeople surrendered at discretion, and leaving Faki in charge of one of the* remaining chiefs, Colonel Morland set orit for Kano, some five-and-twenty miles distant, and driving the . Emir’s cavalry before him, encamped about six miles from the city. Here he constructed a formidable zareba. left his commissariat m the care of four score soldiers and a Maxim, and ,next morning, marched on to Kano. Halting his force less than half a mile from the city walls. Colonel Morland reconnoitred. The defences of the city were formidable. The stout loopholed walls were nearly forty feet high and strongly manned, and the moment the column halted the enemy commenced a fierce though happily very ineffective fusillade. Nothing uaunted, the colonel brought up liis Maxims to within a quarter of a mile and his four 75-mil-limetre guns commenced operations on the main gates. Eor an hour they banged merrily, but the gates held and tlie walls, which were 40 feet thick at the bottom and four feet at the loop-holes, proved quite impervious to the 75-m. guns. So leaving a force to watch the main gate, the colonel removed his main body westward. and concentrated bus attention in another gate which seemed to promise a less stout resistance to his somewhat light artillery. Half an hour’s bombardment proved enough to make a hole in this second gate, and as soon as daylight eonld be seen through it- a storming"party under Lieutenants Gascoyne and Dyer was despatched to demolish the remains. This body was followed up by a party under Captain Farquhar. with scaling ladders, and under a heavy fire the two forces made a dash for the breach. They soon effected an edit ranee, and. as they, did so the enemy “skedaddled.” Meanwhile, the guns had been taken through the gate, and the whole force started in pursuit. A large force of the Emir’s cavalry re-formed as if about to charge, but bolted on some shrapnel being poured into them. The main gate was now evacuated by the enemy, but it took the British force there twenty minutes to force an entrance. Within the city walls there is an intervening space of two miles before the city proper is reached, and Colonel Morland endeavoured to get all the fighting done here, so as to prevent damage to the houses or conflicts in the narrow and tortuous streets. On reaching the inhabited portion of the city the troops were re-formed in readiness for another attack, but uo further opposition was encountered, and Colonel Morland marched to the king’s palace and 1 occupied it. The palace was found to be a strong fort surrounded by a high wall, . and covering fifty acres of ground. The king had fled, having started off for Sokoto with a thousand cavalry on the 2nd of January, but he had left his leading fighting men behind with orders to fight to the death. His armoury was 1 also left intact under a custodian, who died at his post. The enemy’s fighting force included eight hundred cavalry and five thousand infantry, of whom three hundred were killed. The British captured eighty horses, several rifles, several hun- 7 dred guns, and a large quantity of powder and cartridges. The British casualties were insignificant. Lieutenant Dyer was wounded twice in. leading the storming partv, once sevei’ely by a sword cut bn the wrist and slightly wounded in th® arm, and twelve men have been reported wounded.