justified in reckoning the great care which the Songhay bestowed upon their dead. We see that even those among their kings who died in the very remotest part of the empire were transported with the greatest trouble to the capital, in order to be buried there with due ceremony. For instance, Sonni 'Alí had died in Gurma; but his sons, who accompanied him on the expedition, took out his entrails, and filled his inside with honey, in order that it might be preserved from putrefaction.* The remains of A'skía Dáúd were transported all the way from Tindírma to Gágho in a boat. Even in the case of the slaughter of distinguished enemies, we find strict orders given to perform toward them the ceremonies usual with the dead.

The attention thus bestowed upon the dead seems not to have been in consequence of the introduction of Islám, but appears rather to have been traditionally handed down from the remotest antiquity. Nevertheless, it is clear that the adoption of Islám exercised considerable influence upon the civilization of these people, and we even find a Medreseh mentioned in Gágho,† an establishment the institution of which we have probably to assign to El Háj Mohammed, who, while on his pilgrimage to Mekka, solicited the advice of the most learned men in Egypt, and especially that of the Sheikh Jelál e' dín e' Soyúti, as to the best method of propagating the Mohammedan religion in his own country.

The influence of learning and study, even in the royal family, is apparent enough from the example of the pretender Mohammed Bánkorí, who, when on his march to Gágho, ready to fight the King el Háj A'skía, was induced by the Kádhi of Timbúktu, whom he by chance visited, to give up his ambitious designs for a quiet course of study, to the great astonishment and disappointment of his army, who expected to be led by him, in a bloody contest, to power and wealth. A'hmed Bábá himself, the author of the history of Songhay, who gives a long list of learned natives of Negroland, may serve as a fair specimen of the learning in Timbúktu at that time. He had a library of 1600 books.

A great deal of commerce was carried on in Songhay during the dominion of the A'skías, especially in the towns of Gágho and Kúkiya; the latter being, as it appears, the especial market for gold as early as the latter half of the eleventh century. Salt, too, was the staple commodity, while shells already at that time *Journal of the Leipsic Oriental Society, p. 532.

Ibid., p. 527, from the year 936 A.H.

Ibid., p. 541.

the attention of the French traveler Raffenel,* during his journey to Kaárta, when he learned so much about a people, whom he calls "Arama," that he supposed them to be a distinct tribe, although the vocabulary which he collected of their idiom shows it to be nothing but a slight variety of the Songhay language. However, it is clear that under such circumstances the dominion exercised by this set of half-castes could not but be of a very precarious character; and after a protracted struggle with the smaller tribes around they have been entirely crushed by the Tawárek, and in most of the towns of Songhay form at present an integral part of the degraded native population, although they have preserved their name of Rumá, or, as the name is generally pronounced, Rummá, and still claim a sort of moral ascendency.

It will be seen from the preceding sketch, and become still more apparent from the chronological tables at the end of the volume, that Timbúktu has rather unjustly figured in Europe as the centre and the capital of a great Negro empire, while it never acted more than a secondary part, at least in earlier times; and this character evidently appears from the narrative of Ebn Batúta's journey, in the middle of the fourteenth century. But on account of Timbúktu becoming the seat of Mohammedan learning and Mohammedan worship, and owing to the noble character of its buildings, well deserving to rank as a city or "medína," a title which the capital itself perhaps never deserved, it always enjoyed great respect, even during the flourishing period of the latter; and after Gágho or Gógó had relapsed into insignificance, in consequence of the conquest by the Rumá at the end of the sixteenth century, Timbúktu, on account of its greater proximity to Morocco, became the more important place, where gradually the little commerce which still remained in that distracted region of the Niger was concentrated. But, nevertheless, during the age of anarchy which succeeded to the conquest of the country by the Rumá, and owing to the oppression from the Tawárek tribes on the one side and the Bámbara and Fúlbe on the other, the state of affairs could not be very settled; and the town, shaken as it was to its very base by that fearful struggle of the inhabitants. with the Kádhi Mústapha, with massacre, rapine, and conflagration following in its train, could not but decline greatly from its former splendor; yet under the alternately predominating influ

* See Raffenel, Nouveau Voyage dans le pays des Nègres (made in 1847), Paris, 1856, vol. ii., p. 349, et seq.; the Vocabulary, ibid., p. 399, et seq.

logical tables; but the fact of the enemy having found this piece of ordnance among the spoil of the capital, and not in the thick of the battle, sufficiently proves that the Songhay did not know how to use it. As for the matchlocks, which even at the present day are preserved in Gágho, and of which, by some accident, I did not obtain a sight, they belonged originally to the very conquerors from Morocco, who afterward, as Rumá, formed a stationary garrison, and even a certain aristocratical body, in all the chief towns of the kingdom.

Side by side with a certain degree of civilization, no doubt, many barbarous customs were retained, such as the use of the lash, which in other parts of Negroland we find rarely employed, except in the case of slaves, but which in Songhay we see made use of constantly, even in the case of persons of the highest rank; and instances occur, as in that of the instigator of the revolt of El Hadi under the King el Háj, of persons being flogged to death.*

It is certainly a memorable fact, of which people in Europe had scarcely any idea, that a ruler of Morocco, at the time when Spain had attained its highest degree of power under Philip II. and was filled with precious metals, should open an access to an extensive and rich country, from whence to procure himself an unlimited supply of gold, to the surprise of all the potentates of Europe. It is, moreover, a very remarkable circumstance that the soldiery, by means of which Múláy Hámed subdued that fardistant kingdom and who were left as a garrison in the conquered towns, intermarrying with the females of the country, in the same way as the Portuguese did in India, managed to rule those extensive regions by themselves, even long after they had ceased to acknowledge the supremacy of the Emperor of Morocco, whose soldiers these Rumá originally had been, Rumá or Ermá being the plural form of Rámi, "shooter," or "sharp-shooter;" and although they appear never to have formed a compact body ruled by a single individual, but rather a number of small aristocratic communities, the Rumá in Timbúktu having scarcely any connection with those in Bághena, nay, probably not even with those in Bamba and Gágho, yet superior discipline enabled them to keep their place. The nationality of these Rumá puzzled me a long time, while I was collecting information on these regions in the countries farther eastward; and they have lately attracted * Journal of the Leipsic Oriental Society, p. 543.

!

the attention of the French traveler Raffenel,* during his journey to Kaárta, when he learned so much about a people, whom he calls "Arama," that he supposed them to be a distinct tribe, although the vocabulary which he collected of their idiom shows it to be nothing but a slight variety of the Songhay language. However, it is clear that under such circumstances the dominion exercised by this set of half-castes could not but be of a very precarious character; and after a protracted struggle with the smaller tribes around they have been entirely crushed by the Tawárek, and in most of the towns of Songhay form at present an integral part of the degraded native population, although they have preserved their name of Rumá, or, as the name is generally pronounced, Rummá, and still claim a sort of moral ascendency.

It will be seen from the preceding sketch, and become still more apparent from the chronological tables at the end of the volume, that Timbúktu has rather unjustly figured in Europe as the centre and the capital of a great Negro empire, while it never acted more than a secondary part, at least in earlier times; and this character evidently appears from the narrative of Ebn Batúta's journey, in the middle of the fourteenth century. But on account of Timbuktu becoming the seat of Mohammedan learning and Mohammedan worship, and owing to the noble character of its buildings, well deserving to rank as a city or "medína," a title which the capital itself perhaps never deserved, it always enjoyed great respect, even during the flourishing period of the latter; and after Gágho or Gógó had relapsed into insignificance, in consequence of the conquest by the Rumá at the end of the sixteenth century, Timbúktu, on account of its greater proximity to Morocco, became the more important place, where gradually the little commerce which still remained in that distracted region of the Niger was concentrated. But, nevertheless, during the age of anarchy which succeeded to the conquest of the country by the Rumá, and owing to the oppression from the Tawárek tribes on the one side and the Bámbara and Fúlbe on the other, the state of affairs could not be very settled; and the town, shaken as it was to its very base by that fearful struggle of the inhabitants with the Kádhi Mústapha, with massacre, rapine, and conflagration following in its train, could not but decline greatly from its former splendor; yet under the alternately predominating influ

* See Raffenel, Nouveau Voyage dans le pays des Nègres (made in 1847), Paris, 1856, vol. ii., p. 349, et seq.; the Vocabulary, ibid., p. 399, et seq.

ence of paganism, represented most strongly by the warlike tribe of the Bámbara, and of Mohammedanism represented by the Arab tribes,* it struggled on, till in consequence of its being conquered by the Fúlbe of Másina, in the year 1826, a few months before the unfortunate Major Laing succeeded in reaching the town, it was threatened with the loss of all its commerce. For these peo

ple, owing to the impulse given to Mohammedanism in this part of Negroland by their countryman 'Othmán dan Fódiye,† had become far more fanatical champions of the faith than the Arabs and Moors; and treating the inhabitants of the newly-conquered city, as well as the foreigners who used to visit it, with extreme rigor, according to the prejudices which they had imbibed, they could not fail to ruin almost the whole commercial activity of the place. Their oppression was not confined to the pagan traders, the Wangarawa, who carry on almost the whole commerce with the countries south of the Niger, but extended even to the Mohammedan merchants from the north, especially the traders from Tawát and Ghadámes, against whom the Morocco merchants, instigated by a feeling of petty rivalry, succeeded in directing their rancor. It was in consequence of this oppression, especially after a farther increase of the Fúlbe party in the year 1831, that the Ghadámsíye people induced the Sheikh el Mukhtar, the elder brother of El Bakáy, and successor of Sídi Mohammed, to remove his residence from the hille or hillet e' Sheikh el Mukhtár, in A'zawád, half a day's journey from the well Bel Mehán, to Timbúktu. Thus we find in this distracted place a third power stepping in between the Fúlbe on the one side and the Tawárek on the other, and using the power of the latter, as far as their want of centralization allowed, against the overbearing character of the former. In consequence of this continued collision the Tawárek drove the Fúlbe completely out of the town about the year 1844, when a battle was fought on the banks of the river, in which a great number of the latter were either slain or drowned. But the victory of the Tawárek was of no avail, and only plunged the distracted town in greater misery; for, owing to its peculiar situation

*This condition of the town explains the great divergence of reports as to the creed prevalent in Timbuktu; but it is unintelligible that a person could actually visit the town without becoming aware that it contained several mosques, and very large ones, too, for such a place. For particulars, see the Appendix.

† See what I have said, p. 182, about the Sheikh A ́hmedu, or rather Mohammed Lebbo, the founder of the kingdom of Hamda-Alláhi, having brought from Gando the religious banner under which he conquered Másina.