A tropical dependency : an outline of the ancient history of the western Sudan with an account of the modern settlement of northern Nigeria

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO

3 1822 02605 9733

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A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

A TROPICAL
DEPENDENCY

An Outline of the Ancient
History of the Western Soudan
with an Account of the Modern
Settlement of Northern Nigeria

BY

FLORA L. SHAW

(LADY LUGARD)

llonDon
JAMES NISBET ^ CO., LIMITED
2t BERNERS STREET

1905

Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
At the Ballantyne Press

\

TO

^MT HUSBAND

CONTENTS

I. Introductory

II. Conquest of North Ap^rica and Spain by the
Arabs

III. Arab Civilisation in Spain

IV. The Empire of "The Two Shores".
V. African Rule in Spain ....

VI. Decline of Mohammedan Power in Spain
VII. Spanish Arabs in Africa ....
VIII. The Soudanese States ....
IX. Negroland and the Western Arabs

X. Berber and Black

XL The Trade of Ghana ....

XII. Morabite Conquest of the Soudan .

XIII. Ghana and Timbuctoo ....

XIV. The Mellestine

XV. Mansa Musa

XVI. Ibn Batuta in Melle ....

XVII. Administration of the Mellestine .
XVIII. Meeting of Eastern and Western Influence upon
the Niger ......

XIX. Rise of the Songhay Empire ...
XX. Military Conquests of Sonni Ali .
XXI. AsKiA Mohammed Abou Bekr ...
XXII. Songhay under Askia the Great

XXIII. Songhay under Askia the Great {conti7iued)

XXIV. The Later Askias

XXV. Ancient Connection of Haussaland with

Valley of the Nile ....
XXVI. The Pharaohs in Haussaland .
XXVII. The Haussa States .....
XXVIII. The Domination of Kano

PAGE
I

24

31
50
58
67

73
78

83

90

100

107

113

117
122
129

T42

153
163

174
181
190
199
21 1

218

227
236
245

Vlll

CONTENTS

CHAP.

XXIX. Haussaland to the End of the Eighteenth Cen-
tury .......

XXX. BORNU

XXXI. Condition of the Soudan at the End of the

Sixteenth Century ....
XXXII. The Moorish Conquest ....

XXXIII. The Soudan under the Moors

XXXIV. The Soudan Closed to the Western World
XXXV. Europe in West Africa ....

XXXVI. The European Slave Trade .
XXXVII. England and France on the Lower Niger
XXXVIII. The Royal Niger Company .
XXXIX. Transfer of Niger Company's Territories to th
Crown ......

XL. Origin of the Fulani ....

XLI. Rise of the Fulani in the Soudan
XLII. Sultan Bello ......

XLIII. Northern Nigeria under Fulani Rule

XLIV. Sla\'E-raiding

XLV. The Establishment of British Administration
XLVI. Military Occupation of the Southern Emirates

and Bornu .....

XLVII. Conquest of Sokoto and Kano
XLVIII. British Policy in Northern Nigeria .
XLIX. Nigeria under British Rule : Slavery .
L. Nigeria under British Rule : Taxation
LI. Nigeria under British Rule: Justice and Gene
RAL Reorganisation ....
LII. Economic Resources of Northern Nigeria
LI II. The Development of Trade .

258
268

282
296
306

315
322

333
348
356

366

373
381
390

399
408

417

426
438
449
460
466

476

485
491

INDEX

501

"^

A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

It has become the habit of the British mind to think of
the British Empire as a white empire. But, as a matter of
fact, we all know that ours is not a white empire. Out
of an estimated population of 413,000,000, only 52,000,000,
or one In eight, are white. Out of a territory of 16,000,000
square miles, which extends ^^eK,^ quarter of the globe,
about 4,000,000 square mile^^<?br a^yarter of the whole,
lies within the tropics. r o » /

The administration <^ jtMs^goarter of the Empire
cannot be conducted on the ^uirciple of self-government
as that phrase is underwood J^ white men. It must be
more or less in the natureVn" an autocracy which leaves
with the rulers full responsibility for the prosperity of the
ruled. The administration of India, where this aspect of
the question has been long appreciated, is among the
successes of which the British people is most justly proud.
The work done by England in Egypt is another proof
of our capacity for autocratic rule. We are justified
therefore In thinking of ourselves as a people who may
face with reasonable hopes of success still vaster questions
of tropical administration.

We stand now at an interesting moment in our history.
The most pressing questions which are connected with
the self-governing colonies would seem to have been
settled ; attention and interest are set free to turn them-
selves towards other channels ; and simultaneously with

A

2 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

this liberation of public sympathy the direction of a new
development is indicated by circumstances of almost
irresistible significance.

Within the last five-and-twenty years we have acquired
in tropical Africa alone territories of which the area
exceeds by one-half the whole extent of British India.
These, and othtr colonies and dependencies which lie
within the tropics, now call for some of the same
care and attention which have helped to make India
what it is.

In nearly all the tropical colonies there is much fertile
land which already produces some of the most necessary
and valuable raw materials of trade. Cotton, silk, rice,
rubber, sugar, coffee, tea, oils, drugs, dyes and spices, gold
and gems, and other important elements of civilised
industry, are home, products of our tropics. But in very
few of the colonies have these products been developed to
anything approaching the natural capacity of their sources
of origin. In many parts of the colonies the resources of
nature have not been cultivated at all. Valuable com-
modities produce themselves and grow wild — unsown,
unreaped. The increase which might result to British
trade by a mere opening of the markets that lie as yet
unapproached within the Empire, is past calculation.
Such opening would necessarily be reciprocal in its action,
and every market of supply over which our administration
extended would automatically become a market of con-
sumption for manufactured goods. At home the very
prosperity of our trade creates a demand for expansion.
And these potential markets are our own. We may do
as we will within them.

The cultivation of our tropical lands involves, we are
sometimes told, questions of transport and labour which
are too difficult to touch. Of these the question of
transport within the limits of our own colonies and
protectorates is very largely a question of money, and
its difficulties may easily be made to disappear whenever
a real demand for transport shall arise. The question of

INTRODUCTORY 3

labour is more serious. Tropical labour is coloured labour,
and we have not yet faced the question of organising free
coloured labour. But that this question has not yet been
faced is not a reason why the difficulties attending it
should be regarded as insurmountable. They must be
reckoned among the most interesting problems of tropical
administration.

The industrial development of ancient civilisations was
largely based on slavery, and, from the earliest periods
of which history has any record, countries lying within
the tropics — always prolific of population — were raided to
supply the slave-markets of the world. It was thought
worth while in the great days of Egypt, Persia, Greece,
Rome, and mediaeval Spain, to be at the expense of
sending caravans into the Soudan for slaves, who had
to be hunted and caught in the tropical regions further
south. Notwithstanding the cost of the overland journey,
the expense and waste of slave-hunting, and the large
percentage of deaths which occurred in transit, the labour
of Africa was considered valuable enough to be worth
transporting to any market in which it was required. The
trade was continued through the Middle Ages, and under
modern conditions of steam shipping and travelling it was
still found worth while less than fifty years ago to carry
African labour to America.

We have abolished slavery, and, as a consequence, it
has been assumed that the labour which once supplied
the great industries of the world has ceased to have any
value.

This is a curious anomaly, for which, however, many
explanatory reasons might be produced. Coloured labour,
without the control which the master exercises over the
slave, has its peculiar difficulties. In the face of them
the civilised communities of the Western world have
abandoned the use of coloured labour, and the intro-
duction of industrial and agricultural machinery, which
began almost coincidently with the abolition of slavery,
has minimised the consequences of the loss. The fact

4 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

is not altered that African labour had through many-
ages of the world's history a very high marketable value.
That this labour still exists, that it is native to an im-
mense area of the tropical colonies, and that it will
rapidly increase in volume under the conditions of peace
and security introduced by British administration, are
factors of great importance in considering the possible
development of the resources of these colonies. To
construct a bridge between the old system of civilisation
and the new, by finding means to organise as free labour
the labour which preceding generations could only use
enslaved, would be to lead the way in a very sensible
advance beyond the first and necessary step of the aboli-
tion of slavery.

In speaking of ancient civilisations, I have not men-
tioned the ancient civilisations of the Far East, where in-
dustry is believed to have been first carried to the highest
pitch. The industries of the Far East were supplied
with other than African labour. From the earliest times
the Chinese have been famed for manual dexterity, and
Eastern industries have been based upon yellow labour.
Yellow labour was carried to a far higher degree of
perfection than black labour ever seems to have attained,
and yellow labour has never been thrown out of employ-
ment. The products of its industries were always largely
imported by the nations which owned black slaves. It
retains to-day the dexterity for which it was famous
in the period of the Pharaohs, But the kingdoms of
the East having risen earlier to a condition of cohesion
in which they were able to protect their subjects, and
having also from a very early period maintained the
policy of exclusion practised by Egypt in its greatest
days, yellow labour has never been used to supply the
slave-markets of the West. Western communities have
felt the same repugnance to the employment of free
Chinese labour that they felt to the employment of free
African labour, and we have had to wait for the present
conjunction of events in order to see yellow labour.

INTRODUCTORY 5

under the direction of intelligence as acute as any
intelligence of the West, prepare to enter into com-
petition with white labour in the industrial markets of
the world.

That Japan, which has now established its military
and naval ascendancy on the shores of the Pacific, will
proceed to the fuller development of its industrial re-
sources, is scarcely doubtful. The labour of China is
under its hand. We have therefore an additional reason
to take stock of our imperial and of our industrial position.
We have within our Empire a body of coloured labour
greater than any which Japan can at present command.
There is nothing to prevent us from attracting by immi-
gration as much more as we please. But in order to use
our own, or to attract more with profit to the Empire,
we must face the whole question of tropical administra-
tion. We must study with an open mind the thorny
questions of native labour. We must prepare and make
known those parts of hitherto undeveloped colonies to
which it may be considered desirable to attract labour.
We must introduce systems of transport by means of
which not only the fruits of labour but labour itself may
be able to circulate within the Empire. We must, no
doubt, in many instances recast our local labour laws.
We must frankly recognise the fact that labour is the
foundation upon which development rests.

We may at the same time have the .satisfaction, even
in our earliest beginnings, of knowing that the develop-
ment of the tropical colonies, if we undertake it seriously,
will not end with industrial development. There are
many sides to the history of nations, and in the attempt
to introduce order and industry into the at present un-
civilised areas of many of our tropical possessions, we
shall no doubt meet with innate powers unsuspected
now, that in more favourable conditions may blossom
into life.

Our fathers, by a self-denying ordinance, did what they
could to set the subject populations free. It was nobly

6 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

conceived, and civilisation has profited by the step in
human progress that was made. But the actual enjoy-
ment of freedom is still far from the African native.
If we could realise the dream of abolition by carrying
freedom to every village, and so direct our administra-
tion that under it the use of liberty would be learned,
we should be filling a place that any nation might be
proud to hold in the annals of civilisation. It is not
a mere unworthy dream of gain which turns our eyes
towards the tropics. It is a great opportunity which
seems to be presenting itself in national life, one which
affords scope for the best qualities and highest talents
that we can command.

It is not, therefore, surprising that interest in tropical
questions should of late have become more general, and
it is only when we begin to think about them that we
realise how very little we know of some of our newer
possessions in the tropics. A recognition of this ignor-
ance on my own part in relation to the interior of West
Africa has led me to study such authorities as I could
find, and, with a very profound sense of my own incom-
petence in dealing with a subject which demands the
care and attention of an accomplished Oriental scholar, I
have put together a little account of the general move-
ment of civilisation in the Western Soudan which may
perhaps serve rather as a basis for future criticism than
for any of the permanent purposes of history. Fresh
information comes almost daily to light in the territories
occupied by civilised powers, which will doubtless elucidate
many points now left obscure, and rectify mistaken con-
clusions. In the meantime, what I have been able to
gather, in part from original manuscripts, but chiefly from
translations of Arab historians, may interest some of
those who, like myself, desire to have a connected idea
of the civilisations which have preceded our own in our
lately acquired territories in the interior of West Africa.
I am, of course, chiefly concerned with the territories of
the protectorate lying on the watershed of the Niger and

INTRODUCTORY 7

the Benue, of which the administration was only assumed
by the British Government on the ist of January 1900,
By this occupation an entirely new chapter has been
opened in the relations of Great Britain with West
Africa.

Nigeria — as we call our latest dependency — is not
properly a name. It cannot be found upon a map that is
ten years old. It is only an English expression which has
been made to comprehend a number of native states cover-
ing about 500,000 square miles of territory in that part of
the world which we call the Western Soudan. Ancient
geographers called the same section of Africa sometimes
Soudan, sometimes Ethiopia, sometimes Nigritia, some-
times Tekrour, sometimes and more often Genewah or
Genowah — which, by the European custom of throwing
the accent to the fore part of the word, has become
Guinea ; sometimes they called it simply Negroland.
Always, and in every form, their name for it meant the
Land of the Blacks. Genowah, pronounced with a hard
G, is a native word signifying "black." It is so generally
used to designate blacks that at the present day, among
the Arabs of Egypt and the Moors of Morocco — that is,
at both exits from the desert — I have myself heard it
applied to the negroes of the Soudan. From the earliest
periods of which we have any knowledge, Blackland has
stretched, as it stretches now, from the west coast of
Africa to the east, along that line of successive waterways
which begins with the mouth of the Senegal, and ends
only at the southern mouth of the Red Sea.

If the north of Africa be considered as a whole it
divides itself into three great main sections, all of which
run, like the Land of the Blacks, east and west. There
is first, outside the tropics and within the zone of winter
rains, the historic coast strip stretching along the Medi-
terranean shore from the mouths of the Nile to Cape
Spartel. A range of mountains at its back receding
towards the western end separates it from the deserts
and gives to its fertile lands the shelter and the water

8 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

which they need. These mountains have been as the
stronghold of civilisation to the coast. Behind them on
the southern slopes there is a belt of land on which the
date palm flourishes, salt mines abound, and flocks and
herds can find subsistence. In this belt there are even
spots of great fertility, and there are parts in which it
widens, spreading with fertile promontories into the desert.
But in its nature this southern face of the hills, known to
the ancients as the Land of Dates, is but an offshoot of
the coast strip.

It merires soon into the deserts of the rainless zone
which form the second great section of North Africa.
From the Atlantic coast to the Nile these deserts, under
different names, succeed each other across the continent
in a broad belt of desolation. Upon the map they cover
an area of between ten and fifteen degrees of latitude.
At their narrowest parts the caravans which traverse
them count upon a march of fifty days. They are in
part composed of drifting sand, through v/hich only long
practised local guides can find their way ; they are prac-
tically waterless, and it is of course only in places where
springs are known to exist that the passage of them is
possible. Marmol, a Spanish writer of the sixteenth
century, gives an interesting description of how these
wells were preserved in his day. " They are," he says,
"walled inside with camels' bones for want of stones, and
they are also covered with camels' skins lest the shifting
sands should blow over them and fill them up. The
natural consequence is that even when there the wells
are often hidden, and the traveller may die of thirst within
a few feet of water."

With the hot sands of the deserts the continent passes
into the tropics, and here again a natural barrier marks
the third great division of North Africa. A straight line
drawn upon the seventeenth parallel of latitude will mark
the edge of the zone of summer rains. Slightly to the
south of it may be traced the great water-belt formed by
the courses of the Senegal, the Niger, the Benue, the

INTRODUCTORY 9

rivers of Haussaland, Lake Chad, the Shari, the lakes and
rivers of Wadai and Darfour, the Bahr el Gazal, and the
sources of the Nile, which, with their network of tribu-
taries, fertilise the land from the Atlantic Ocean to the
mountains of Abyssinia. Other great lakes and rivers
traverse the continent farther south. The waterways that
I have named suffice, with the Nile, to arrest the advance
of the northern deserts and to place round them a border
of luxuriant vegetation.

Thus in silent prehistoric ages the rough outlines of
the destiny of North Africa were traced. There was a
fertile strip in the temperate zone, and near an easily
navigable sea ; there was a great barren strip in the
waterless desert near to nothing which could encourage
human occupation ; there was another fertile strip in the
tropic zone well watered, but sealess — save at its western
and eastern extremities, where on the western coast a
lack of good harbourage discouraged navigation — miasmic,
of a climate very different from that of the strip upon the
northern coast ; and, running north and south, connecting
these three which lay parallel to one another, there was
the wonderfully fertilised Valley of the Nile.

It was almost a foregone conclusion that one race
should inhabit the coast and a wholly different race the
tropics ; and that civilisation of a no less different sort
should spring up in both zones. Separated as they
were by the deserts, it was natural that connection
between them should be maintained by that Valley of
the Nile which has made itself immortal in the name
of Egypt.

It is accordingly to Egypt that we look for all our
earliest information concerning the Land of Blacks, and
it is to Egypt, and through Egypt to Asia Minor and
Arabia, that the blacks themselves trace their oldest
traditions.

As it is impossible to appreciate the position of Western
Negroland in the history of the world without reference
to the movements of other civilisations by which it was

lo A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

influenced, it may be useful, at the risk of repeating very-
familiar facts, briefly to recall some of the commonly
accepted dates relating to the rise and fall of the early
civilisations of the Mediterranean.

The great period of Egyptian civilisation, including
that of the southern end of the Nile Valley, under its
Ethiopian, Coptic, and Libyan Pharaohs, extends from
an antiquity which recent excavations tend to show ever
more remote, to the conquest of Egypt by Cambyses,
King of Persia, B.C. 527. Egypt then became a province
of the Persian Empire. It was in the early period, before
the time of Herodotus and Cambyses, that Egypt would
seem to have given the first inspiration of civilised life
to Western Negroland. It remained a dependency of
the Persian Empire for two hundred years, but during
the whole period was constantly at war with its conquerors.
In 332 B.C. Egypt was invaded by Alexander of Macedon
as a part of his campaign against Persia. It submitted
willingly, and on his death in 321 the dynasty of the
Ptolemies was founded and continued, until, on the death
of Cleopatra, who was the last sovereign of that dynasty,
Egypt became a Roman province, B.C. 30. On the
division of the Roman Empire it was included in the
•Prefecture of the East, and it remained a province of
the Byzantine Empire until it was conquered by the
Arabs in 638 a.d.

The civilisation of the Phoenicians, contemporary at
least in part with the history of Egypt, dates also from the
earliest periods of which civil history has any record.
The Phoenicians are believed to have migrated from
Erythrea on the coast of the Red Sea, about the year
2000 B.C., to the Mediterranean, where they were first
established on a strip of Syria between the chain of
Lebanon and the sea, and afterwards took possession of a
portion of Greece, of some of the islands of the Medi-
terranean, and of the principal promontories along the
coast of Africa to the Straits of Gibraltar, and as far down
the western coast as the mouths of the Senegal. They

INTRODUCTORY ii

also colonised Spain and spread up the coast of Western
Europe, navigating as far as the Baltic and the English
Channel. They were never permitted to have a colony
on the Egyptian coast, because it was a fundamental
maxim of the early Egyptians to suffer no vessel to enter
the mouths of the Nile ; but the Phoenicians had a large
settlement in the very heart of Egypt itself — an entire
quarter of Memphis being devoted to them. Tyre and
Sidon on the Syrian coast were among the most famous
of their early cities. The overthrow of Sidon by Joshua,
it will be remembered, took place about 1400 years before
Christ. Carthage, of later growth, is believed to have
been founded about 853 B.C. Other Phoenician cities on
the coast of Africa were of far greater antiquity than
Carthaofe, and Phoenician trade in the Gulf of Sallee on
the west coast of Morocco was famous for many centuries
before the Romans gave to that part of the coast the name
of Sinus Emporicus, or Merchants' Bay.

An even more interesting maritime trade than that
of the Phoenicians with the West seems to be clearly
established as having existed from a very early period
between the coasts of the Persian and Arabian Gulfs, the
east coast of Africa as far south as Delagoa Bay, and
possibly to the southern coast of the African continent,
the western coast of India as far south as Ceylon — the
Taprobane of the ancients — and beyond Ceylon to China.
By means of this commerce intercourse between India
and Africa was regularly carried on during the earliest
Egyptian era. The Ethiopian ports for the Indian trade
were Azab and Adule within the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb
on the Red Sea ; and the Phoenicians, after their land
trade had penetrated to India, had colonies upon the
Persian and Arabian Gulfs. They also fitted out ships at
Suez for the navigation of the Southern seas. The three
well-known names of Thule, Tarshish, and Ophir, would
appear to have been used generically to indicate these
three fields of maritime activity — Thule covering the
Atlantic ports, Tarshish the Mediterranean, and Ophir

12 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

those of the Southern seas. It may be interesting in
this connection to note that the words which are trans-
lated in the EngHsh version of the Bible as "ivory,
apes, and peacocks," are not Hebrew but Tamyl words —
a circumstance which serves to confirm historic evidence
that the commerce of Solomon extended at least as far
as Ceylon. The participation of the Phoenicians in the
trade of Ophir seems to have dated from the period of
their friendship with the Jews under Solomon, or about
looo years before Christ, but the trade itself was much
older.

Through a considerable portion of their history the
Phoenicians appear to have acted as commercial agents
for Egypt. It was by the orders of Necho, King of
Egypt, that about the year 612 B.C. Phoenician sailors,
playing for this famous king a part analogous to that
which Columbus played 2000 years later for Ferdinand
and Isabella of Spain, started from the Red Sea to
explore the Southern Ocean, and, according to the tradi-
tion related by Herodotus, proved the fact that Africa was
surrounded by water on all sides but the strip of land
which bound her to Asia, arriving in the third year from
their departure once more in Egypt by way of the Straits
of Gibraltar. As they sailed, it is related that they landed
on the coasts, sowing the land and waiting for harvests.
Thus a tradition of them lingers on the west coast as
well as on the east ; and to them it is in some quarters
believed that the legend of the first white men in Western
Negroland may be traced. It is the fashion to doubt this
statement of Herodotus with regard to the circumnaviga-
tion of Africa ; but, in the light of many remarkable facts
concerning African history which have of late become
known, it may be worth while to remember that the
achievement spoken of, if it really occurred, would have
been almost within the memory of an old man at the time
at which Herodotus wrote. Carthage had intercourse
across the desert with Negroland, and drew thence its
supply of elephants, as well as gold and carbuncles.

INTRODUCTORY 13

Later accounts of the immense quantities of gold which
abounded in Negroland render it not improbable that
some of the gold so lavishly used by Phoenician artificers
in the decoration of Solomon's Temple may have been
brought from the Valley of the Niger.

Greek influence in Africa was much later than that of
Egypt and Phoenicia, and the colony of Cyrene, which
afterwards became the province of Cyrenaica, between the
borders of what is now Tripoli and Egypt, was not founded
till 620 B.C., about 100 years before the conquest of Egypt
by Cambyses. It became subject to Egypt in 323, and
afterwards shared in her fortunes.

Libyan, or, as we should call them, Berber tribes, held
the extreme west, or divided it with the Carthaginian
colonies until the conquest of the northern region by the
Romans, during the two hundred years which immediately
preceded the birth of Christ. It may be remembered that
Scipio received the surname of Africanus in recognition
of his triumph over Hannibal in the year 202 B.C. Africa
proper, the territory owned by Carthage which corresponds
to the modern Tunis, was created a Roman province in
146 B.C. But Egypt and Cyrenaica did not become Roman
provinces until 30 B.C. Mauritania, in the north-western
corner, also became a Roman province in t,^ b.c. When
the Romans completed the nominal conquest of Africa,
they divided it into six provinces, of which Ethiopia or
Negroland was one. But though the northern strip was
well known to them, and flourished under their rule, and
they made some military expeditions to the south, they
had little if any recorded intercourse with Negroland.

Thus from the earliest dawn of Western history the
northern coast strip of Africa was the scene of civilised
occupation. The introduction of the previously existing
Berber or Libyan inhabitants into Africa belongs, says
Ibn Khaldun, their great historian, to "a period so remote
that God only knows tlie epoch of it." And as one race
of conquerors displaced another, there was a perpetual
pressure driving the Libyan inhabitants with the dis-

14 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

possessed peoples across the borders. The natural bor-
ders were the hills, and the hunted populations taking
refuge in them were forced down the southern slopes
upon the deserts. Gradually through the ages the deserts
became the home of nomad peoples, who learned, wander-
ing upon the inhospitable face of their drifting sands, to
pluck subsistence from widely scattered patches of fertility.
These wandering tribes, known under many names, from
the Toucouleurs, Tuaregs, Kabyls, Amozighs of the West,
to the Tibboos, Berdoas, and others of the eastern borders
of the desert, are generally classed as Berbers. It is
under the name of Berbers that they are most frequently
alluded to by Arab historians, from whom, at a much
later period, we derive our principal knowledge of them.
Between the coast strip and Negroland the desert itself
became in this manner sparsely inhabited by a race which,
though it is held to have had one Libyan origin, suffered
in the course of history so many invasions and infusions
of new blood, that it has broken into almost countlessly
diverse tribes, cherishing many and widely differing
traditions.

Speaking in roughly general terms, the Berbers are a
white people who, having a tradition that they once were
Christian, now profess Mohammedanism. North Africa,
in the centuries which elapsed between the birth of Christ
and the appearance of Mohammed, was the favoured home
of Christianity. The names of its saints and martyrs stand
high upon Christian rolls. St. Cyprian suffered at Car-
thage. St. Augustine was born at Hippo. Tertullian
and Lactantius, if they were not African, bore eloquent
testimony to the fervour of the African Church. In the
many contests of early Christian councils it was the African
divines who finally triumphed and gave to Christianity its
Western form. The African, like the Syrian desert, was
at one time honeycombed with the cells of hermits and
self-torturing monks. There was no heresy that had not
its counterblast in Africa. Proselytism was perhaps no-
where more active. There is, therefore, nothing to sur-

INTRODUCTORY 15

prise us in the Christian tradition of the Berber tribes.
They have presumably been, in turn, of the reHgion of
every great invader. Their language has been classed
among the Hamitic languages, but they have traditions
of Arabian descent. One among many stories of their
original introduction into Africa is that five colonies were
introduced from Arabia Felix by a certain leader Ifrikiah,
or Afrikiah, who gave his name to the continent ; and that
from these are descended no less than six hundred clans of
Berbers. Amongst their many tribes is not, however, to
be counted a race wholly distinct from the Berbers, but
also nomad in the eastern desert, who are said by those
learned in these matters to be the true gypsy of the East.
The tradition of the Zingari, as they are found in Northern
Africa, is that they came originally from India. This
tradition is to be met with again, though faintly and un-
certainly recalled, amongst some of the races of Western
Negroland.

While the northern strip pressed thus upon the desert,
the desert, there can be little doubt, pressed equally
upon the fertile belt to the south. Quite indirectly
the influence of Tyre and Sidon, Rome and Carthage,
must have been brought to bear from the very earliest
periods upon Negroland. But besides this indirect in-
fluence of pressure by the superior race along the whole
course of their borders — an influence which, as will pre-
sently be seen, was very potent in modifying the char-
acter of the leading black races of Negroland — there were
also channels of direct influence which, though Europe
has ceased to use them, remain unchanged to this day.
These are the caravan routes across the desert. Nature
laid them down, and has marked them by certain spots
where water can be obtained. The springs have not
changed their position within any period of which history
has preserved a record, and it is an interesting illustration
of the continuity of custom which strikes the imagination
in these remote regions of the earth, that the roads trodden
by the caravans which this year visit Kano and Tim-

i6 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

buctoo, are the same which offered themselves to the
first civilised footprints that crossed the desert.

There are two principal roads across the desert, one
through Tripoli and the Fezzan running due south to-
wards what is now Nigeria, taking the shape of a forked
stick, to rest upon Lake Chad and the Niger; the other
throueh Morocco, runninof acjain due south towards Tim-
buctoo and the western end of Negroland. These two
roads, as a glance at the map will show, mark the two
narrowest parts at which the desert can be crossed, for
in both instances the fertile land of the coast strip runs
down in important promontories into the arid sands.
Both these roads were counted as a fifty days' journey
from edge to edge of fertile land. They are, I believe,
so counted still. It hardly needs to be added that one
was the channel of Eastern and the other of Western
influence upon Negroland.

It is difficult now, when we are accustomed to regard
the west coast ports as the natural channels of entrance
into the Western Soudan, to remember that throughout
the early history of Europe, and up to the period of the
discovery of the passage of the Cape of Good Hope at
the end of the fifteenth century, the approach to Negroland
was by land. In the early periods of African history
the navigation of the Atlantic was for all practical pur-
poses unknown. Equatorial Africa faced civilisation on
the north. It looked northwards for all its finest inspira-
tion. The south represented to it only barbarism and
obscurity. This fact, although difficult now for the ima-
gination to grasp, is of first importance in endeavouring
to construct any true conception of Soudanese history.
The Soudan was regarded as occupying the edge of the
then known world. Homer, first of Europeans to men-
tion it, speaks of the Ethiopians as "the farthest removed
of men, and separated into two divisions." Later Greek
writers, borrowing their information from Egypt, carry
the description somewhat further, and characterise the two
divisions as Western and Eastern — the Eastern occupy-

INTRODUCTORY 17

ing the countries eastward of the Nile, and the Western
stretching from the western shores of that river to the
Atlantic coast. One of these divisions, we have to
acknowledge, was perhaps itself the original source of
the civilisation which has through Egypt permeated the
Western world. Both divisions alike faced north, and
had their frontage to the great civilisations of their day,
along what may be described as the shore of the desert,
fringing the 17th parallel of north latitude. Across this
desert the native camel was the ship which bore their
merchandise and maintained their intercourse with outer
life. The caravan roads were the trade routes marked
for them as clearly as the trade winds marked the route
to be taken on the ocean by later sailing ships. The
tonnage of the big caravans was greater than the tonnage
of the vessels by which at a subsequent period Drake
and Magellan circumnavigated the globe, and England,
Portugal, and Holland maintained a prosperous trade
with the East Indies. It was sufficient for the purposes
of a considerable commerce, and there can be no doubt
that from a very early period the communities of the
coast were in close and constant communication with
Negroland.

When the history of Negroland comes to be written
in detail, it may be found that the kingdoms lying towards
the eastern end of the Soudan were the home of races
who inspired, rather than of races who received, the
traditions of civilisation associated for us with the name
of ancient Egypt. For they cover on either side of the
Upper Nile, between the latitudes of 10° and 17°, terri-
tories in which are found monuments more ancient than
the oldest Egyptian monuments. If this should prove to
be the case, and the civilised world be forced to recog-
nise in a black people the fount of its original enlighten-
ment, it may happen that we shall have to revise entirely
our view of the black races, and regard those who now
exist as the decadent representatives of an almost for-
gotten era, rather than as the embryonic possibility of an

B

i8 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

era yet to come. Be this as it may, the traditions of the
Eastern Soudan of the present day would seem to be
derived from the same sources as those of Egypt and
Arabia, while the nations lying towards the western end
of the fertile belt have been more strongly imbued with
the influence of the Western Arabs, who in comparatively
modern times carried civilisation into Spain. This theory,
amply illustrated by the history of the Western Soudan,
receives further support from the philological studies of
M. Fresnel, who asserts that the alphabet of the Eastern
Soudan is the regular alphabet of Arabia, while the
alphabet of the Western Soudan is the alphabet of
Morocco.

In addition to the influence of the Western Arabs, there
was, at a period shortly after the Hegira, an immigration
from Arabia under a leader called Abou Zett, which appears
to have crossed the Red Sea at the Straits of Bab-el-
Mandeb, and to have spread westward along the fertile
belt. The tradition of this immigration is vivid in Kor-
dofan, Darfour, and Wadai. It is said to have extended
through the entire belt of Negroland, and, as a later
chapter will show, some members of it are believed to
have reached the bend of the Middle Niger, but the
tradition grows fainter in the territories west of Chad.

The influence of Egypt, also perceptible in the Western
Soudan, is naturally strongest in the territories which lie
nearest to the eastern caravan route across the desert.
The meeting ground in which it would appear to have
overlapped with the more modern influence of the Western
Arabs may perhaps be placed geographically upon the
Bend of the Niger. Es-Sadi, a native writer born in
Timbuctoo in the sixteenth century, states in his " History
of the Soudan" that "the town of Kuka was in exist-
ence under the Pharaohs." The only town of Kuka now
known to us is in Bornu, but as late as the sixteenth
century a.d. there were two Kukas, one of them on the
middle Niger — and it is to this latter Kuka that Es-
Sadi refers.

Sj-

INTRODUCTORY 19

In any case this neighbourhood has a special interest,
for the first spot in Negroland of which European history
preserves any record would seem to have been the site of
this very Kuka, or Kaougha, which stood near the present
Gao. Herodotus, writing something more than five hundred
years before Christ, gives an account in his second book
of an attempt which was made by certain Nasamonians,
occupying the territory on the Mediterranean coast behind
Tripoli, to penetrate into the desert by the eastern road,
afterwards so well known and used by the caravan trade of
Negroland and the coast. According to his account there
were among these people " certain daring youths, sons of
powerful men, who, having reached man's estate, formed
many extravagant plans, and chose five of their number by
lot to explore the deserts of Libya to see if they could
make any further discovery than those who had penetrated
the furthest." The Nasamonians related that when the
young men deputed by their companions set out, well
furnished with water and provisions, they passed first
through the inhabited country, and having traversed this
they came to the region infested by wild beasts, and after
this they crossed the desert, making their way towards the
west ; and when they had traversed much sandy ground
during a journey of many days they at length saw some
trees growing in a plain, and that they approached and
began to gather the fruit that grew on the trees ; and
while they were gathering it, some " diminutive men,
less than men of middle stature, came up," and, having
seized them, carried them away. The diminutive men con-
ducted them through vast morasses, and when they had
passed these they came to " a city in which all the inhabi-
tants were of the same size as their conductors, and black
in colour ; and by the city flowed a great river running
from the west to the east, and crocodiles were seen in it."

Herodotus does not mention the date of this discovery
of the Niger by the Nasamonians. It may have taken
place before or after the reported circumnavigation of
the continent by the Phoenicians. It may have happened

20 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

within the memory of those who related the facts, or it
may have been a tradition of much earher events. In
the incidents of the discovery there is an indication
which the further history of Negroland supports, that
the races which now inhabit equatorial regions further
south, at one time extended towards the northern edge
of the fertile belt. The "diminutive men," whose city
existed on the middle Niger some hundreds of years
before Christ, are presumably the dwarfs who in our
own day were found by Stanley in the Congo forests.
Their displacement illustrates the movement under the
influence of which the aboriginal inhabitants of the fertile
belt were pushed backwards towards equatorial Africa by
that pressure of superior races from the desert of which
I have spoken. Greek historians of a later date than
Herodotus establish the fact that between the purely
black people known as the Western Ethiopians, and
the Mauritanian inhabitants of the north-western corner
of Africa, there were tribes, known as the Pharusii and
the Nigretes, who used bows and arrows, and had chariots
armed with scythes. The description of the Nigretes, who
evidently knew at least the use of iron, would appear to
imply a somewhat superior race occupying a position
between the black dwarfs and the Northern Libyans.
Thus it would seem that in quite ancient times the exist-
ence of different races within the belt of Negroland was
established. There were evidently superior and inferior
tribes ; and without attempting to follow the question in
detail, it is interesting, though not surprising, to observe
that along the whole line of the fertile belt the superior
races, modified by intercourse with the white pressure from
the north, gradually established themselves in possession
of the uplands bordering more nearly upon the desert
and civilisation, while the inferior races were driven back
towards the then impenetrable regions of barbarism and
equatorial Africa. This movement of all that was inferior
towards the south is a fact of supreme importance to the
subsequent history of the Negro belt.

INTRODUCTORY 21

In the later history given to us by Arab records of
every one of the superior black kingdoms which established
themselves upon the borders of the desert from Kordofan
to the Atlantic, there is to be found at some point in the
description the information that to the south of this country
lies the country of the " Lem-Lems," or it may be of the
"Yem-yems," or the " Dem-dems," or the " Rem-rems,"
or the " Gnem-gnems," and after the double name comes
invariably the same explanation, "who eat men." In fol-
lowing the history of kingdom after kingdom it becomes
clear that a belt of cannibalism, of which the Nyam-nyams
of the Congo may be counted among the present survivors,
extended along the south of the Negro belt across the
whole breadth of Africa. M. de Lauture, a French writer
of much knowledge and acquaintance with his subject,
takes the latitude of 10° north as forming in his day,
1853, the northern limits of habitation of the debased
pagan negro. Between 10° and 17° he places the finer
races, which he qualifies generally as Mussulman negroes.
To-day I believe it will be found that there has been a
still further recession southwards of the inferior races, and
9° north would perhaps be nearer to the limit of their
northern extension. It is interesting to observe that
Northern Nigeria stretches from 7° to 14°, thus including
within its limits both classes of natives.

The modern history of Negroland may be said to date
from the period at which it accepted the Moslem religion,
but the finer black races had established their domination
over the inferior, and ruled by force of superior intelligence
and cultivation long before that time. Es-Sadi, the same
writer who speaks of Kuka as a town which existed in the
days of the Pharaohs, speaks also in turning to the west
of a kingdom extending to the Atlantic Ocean of which
Ghana was the capital, and adds : " They say that twenty-
two white kings had reigned over this country before
the year of the Hegira. Their origin is unknown." It
is also in this neighbourhood, about the sources of the
Senegal, that the original home in Africa of the Fulani,

22 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

who count as a partly white race, is placed. The move-
ment of this remarkable people in Africa within historic
time has unquestionably been from west to east, but this
does not preclude the theory of some more remote eastern
origin which may have preceded their African immigration.
Whether Phoenician, Egyptian, Indian, or simply Arab,
they are evidently a race distinct from the negroid and
other black types by which they have been surrounded,
and notwithstanding the marked effect produced on some
portions of their people by intermarriage with negro
women, they have kept the distinctive qualifications of
their race through a known period of two thousand years.
The Fulah of to-day is as distinct from the pure Negro
as was the first Fulah of whom we have record. How
long they may have existed in Africa before any record
of them was made it is with our present knowledge im-
possible to say. The Haussa and the Songhay are other
races which, though black, are absolutely distinct from
the pure negro type.

In accepting as an historic fact the gradual migration
southwards of all that was least valuable in the elements
composing the mixed and widely varying populations of
the Negro belt, it is to be also recognised that this
migration, though doubtless accentuated by the outside
pressure of civilisation from the north, was a natural
movement initiated by the native populations and carried
on by them throughout the known period of their history.
Not only were the uplands bordering upon the desert
the most desirable portions of the Negro belt, and as such
likely to pass into the hands of the strongest who could
hold them, but, as they were also the healthiest, the
races which inhabited them were maintained by climatic
conditions on a higher platform of mental and moral
activity than the more supine inhabitants of the denser
tropical regions to the south. Hence every cause, natural
and artificial alike, has combined to the one end, of
establishing the superior races in the northern and the
inferior races in the southern portions of the fertile belt.

INTRODUCTORY 23

The result as we see it to-day is strikingly illustrated
in British territory by a journey from the Niger mouth
to Sokoto. The river in its windings makes a sectional
cut of which the general direction is from north to south,
and leaving the nude savage of the coast to prowl in
dusky nakedness through the mangrove swamps of
Southern Nigeria at its mouths, the traveller who enters
the river sees the natives on the banks ever increasing
in decency and dignity as the latitude recedes from the
equator. At Lokoja no native is unclothed. A little
farther north, at Bida, where the town is approached by
avenues of trees, and native brass and glass manufactures
add to the usual industries, Moorish dress is already
common. In the markets of Sokoto and Kano the scene
is as varied and as dignified as in any market of the
Mediterranean coast.

CHAPTER II

CONQUEST OF NORTH AFRICA AND SPAIN
BY THE ARABS

The Roman occupation brings the history of North Africa
to the Christian era. The subsequent decline of the
Roman Empire was marked by a corresponding decline
of the Roman colonies in Africa. The Vandals, who
occupied Spain and gave it its name of Vandalusia or
Andalusia, followed the Romans and effected establish-
ments upon the coast. But they left the interior untouched,
and the conquest which was of supreme interest to
Negroland was that which was carried out in the seventh
century of the Christian era by the Arabs.

The Arabs conquered Egypt in 638, and their victorious
forces spread rapidly, as was to be expected, across the
provinces of North Africa. And, as might also be expected,
they did not occupy the prosperous northern provinces
without endeavouring to find out something of what lay
behind them in the desert. Tripoli was taken by them
in 643, and expeditions were immediately sent across the
hills to the slopes upon the south and as far as Wadan
in the western desert. A very little later, 666, Okbar
ibn Nafe made a military progress of a still more complete
description, and inquiring always of the inhabitants of
each conquered tribe — "What lies beyond you?" he
marched as far as Kawar, the country of the Tibboos
to the north of Lake Chad, which to this day does not
appear to be substantially altered from the condition in
which he found it. The people of Kawar, either not
knowing or not choosing to tell that there was anything
beyond them, replied in answer to his questions that

"4

NORTH AFRICA AND SPAIN 25

the country beyond was unknown. He turned back to
Tripoli, and thus just missed entering the fertile belt.
Fifteen years later, 681, the same Okbar attacked the
south-western part of Morocco, a very fruitful district then
occupied by Europeans and Christian Berbers, and made
himself master of the whole. The principal town, Medina
Niffis, is spoken of by Arab historians as a town of great
antiquity. It lies, however, on the other side of the
mountains which separate Morocco from the desert, and
he still did not enter the fertile belt of Negroland. But
Okbar was only a forerunner of the more celebrated
Musa Nosseyr, who was appointed Governor of Africa
under the Caliphs in 698, and made his administration
for ever famous by that Arab conquest of Spain which
so profoundly affected the civilisation of the West.

It is interesting, and important to the history of North
Africa, that Musa did not immediately undertake the inva-
sion of Spain. Upwards of ten years elapsed, during
which he had time to make his presence felt in the
province which was at that time known by the name
of Afrikyah, or, as it was more generally spelt, Ifrikyah.
This province of the Arab domination corresponded not
to Africa as we know it, but to the Carthaginian and
Roman Province of Africa Propria, which stretched from
Barca to the borders of Morocco and extended south-
ward to the edge of the desert. It held the head of
the eastern road into the desert through the Fezzan,
while the head of the western road through Morocco
appears, notwithstanding Okbar's partial conquests, to
have remained in the hands of the Europeans and
Christian Berbers who held the country which corre-
sponds to the modern Morocco.

Musa's first act on arriving at Cairouan to take up
the governorship, was to make a speech to his soldiers
which, interpreted by the light of succeeding events, had
almost a prophetic note: "I know well," he said, "what
sort of commander you want," and after describing to
them an ideal soldier "doubly cautious after victories,

26 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

doubly brave after defeat, trusting ever in the righteous-
ness of his cause," he lifted his hands to the mountains
in the shadow of which they stood, and cried : " You may
safely rely upon me as your commander, for I shall seize
every opportunity of leading you on to victory ; and, by
Allah ! I will not cease making incursions into yonder
high mountains and attacking the strong passes leading
into them, until God has depressed their summits, reduced
their strength, and granted the Moslems the victory. I
shall lead you on until God Almighty makes us the
masters of all or part of the territories lying beyond
them, and until we have subdued the countries which
His immutable decrees have already allotted to us."

His own province was far from being at that time
in a state of complete subjection. His first campaign
was against the Berbers of Arwah, who made forays
towards Cairouan. He overthrew them and took looo
prisoners. These were the first Berber captives taken
to Cairouan. Then he sent one of his sons against the
tribes. His son was successful, and returned with 100,000
captives. He sent another son in another direction, who
was successful, and returned with 100,000 captives. He
himself went in a third direction, and was successful, and
returned with another 100,000 captives. In all, upwards
of 300,000 captives resulted from this campaign. The
Caliph, we are told, would hardly believe it when he
was informed that his fifth of the captives amounted to
60,000. Musa, encouraged by his success, despatched
his troops farther and farther into the desert. The
Western Berber tribes of the Hawara, the Zenatah
Kotamah, and even as far south as the Senhajah, were
in turn taken by surprise. He fought with them — in the
words of his historian — "battles of extermination, he
killed myriads of them, and made a surprising number
of prisoners, with great booty of cattle, grain, and articles
of dress." These conquests took place in the years 699
and 700 A.D. The fame of Musa spread so far and
wide that all soldiers desired to serve under him in

NORTH AFRICA AND SPAIN 27

Africa, and the numbers of his army increased so much
that they were doubled. Conflict was constantly renewed
with the more warlike of the desert tribes, but "God was
pleased to permit that the Moslems should have every-
where the victory." By the year 702, Musa was joined
by the van of the Egyptian army, and a great battle was
then fought in the west, in which the Berbers were com-
manded by their famous king Koseylah. The Moslems
were entirely victorious, and with the spoils there were
taken from the Berbers "innumerable maidens inestim-
able by their beauty and accomplishments." The maidens
were distributed amongst the soldiers as wives. This
battle was ;the prelude of many further 'African con-
quests, including the conquest of the territory of Morre-
kosh. (The town of Morrekosh or Morocco was not
founded till near the end of the eleventh century.)

The territory of Northern Africa being conquered, and
Arab armies driving all before them to the southern
edges of the desert, where, as will presently be seen, the
harried tribes found refuge in the fruitful plains of Negro-
land, Musa turned his ambition to the sea. He ordered
the building of a dockyard at Tunis, and himself sailed
thither. From the moment of the completion of the dock-
yard the port of Tunis became "a place of safety for
ships when the winds blew at sea and the waves were
high." Musa ordered the construction of a hundred
vessels, and in these preparations passed the remainder
of the year 703.

In the year 704 all the best of his army embarked in
an expedition which was called "The Expedition of the
Nobles." They spoiled Sicily and returned safe.

In 705 another [expedition against the Berbers was
followed by their total submission. In the same year
Syracuse was attacked by sea and spoiled. Three years
afterwards Sardinia was attacked and immense spoil taken.
A great expedition inland to the territory to the south of
Morocco, lying on the slopes of the mountains between
it and the desert, and commanding the western road to

28 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

Negroland, resulted in the submission of that country.
There was also a sea expedition to Majorca, which was
conquered.

By this time (708) Musa was fairly master by sea
and land of the whole of North Africa from the Mediter-
ranean to the borders of Negroland. His influence upon
the Berber tribes whom he displaced or overthrew was
twofold. One effect of his conquests was to drive them
from their old habitations in the fruitful northern edge of
the desert to find new habitations in the no less fruitful
but already occupied southern edge, where to make room
for them disturbance was necessarily produced among the
existing black populations. The other effect was in an
exactly opposite direction. It was to draw them into the
circle of Arab influence and even to incorporate them
with the nation of their conquerors. It is related of Musa
that on his return to Egypt at a later period he was on
one occasion asked by the Sultan to describe the various
peoples whom he had conquered. It came to the turn of
the Berbers, and of them he said : " The Berbers, O
Commander of the Faithful, are of all foreign nations the
people who resemble most the Arabs in impetuosity,
corporal strength, endurance, military science, generosity,
only that they are, O Commander of the Faithful, the
most treacherous people upon earth." The Berbers them-
selves had various traditions purporting to show that they
were sprung from the same stock as the Arabs. It has
already been seen that the innumerable maidens who
were taken with the spoils of Musa's many conquests were
regarded as ''inestimable by their beauty and accomplish-
ments," and were distributed among his soldiers for wives.
Musa's own sons had sons by Berber wives who rose to
high repute. But it was not only by intermarriage, nor
by the revival of traditions of a common stock, that the
two races were mixed. It was also Musa's habit to spend
the immense sums with which the Sultan rewarded his
victories largely in the purchase of captured Berbers.
This he did, his biographer relates, in the interests of

NORTH AFRICA AND SPAIN 29

religion. " Whenever after a victory there were a number
of slaves put up for sale, he used to buy all those who,
he thought, would willingly embrace Islam, who were of
noble origin, and who looked, besides, as if they were
active young men. To these he first proposed the em-
bracing of Islam, and if, after cleansing their under-
standing and making them fit to receive the sublime
truths, they were converted to the best of religions, and
their conversion was a sincere one, he would then, by way
of putting their abilities to trial, employ them. If they
evinced good dispositions and talents he would instantly
grant them their liberty, appoint them to high commands
in his army, and promote them according to their merits."
If they showed no good dispositions, he returned them
to the common stock of captives belonging to the army.

The effect of such a system in bringing about an
amalgamation of the two races and in inducing the accept-
ance of Mohammedanism by the Berbers does not need to
be insisted upon. The races became by degrees so mixed
that in many cases the Berber could hardly be distinguished
from the Arab nor the Arab from the Berber. In all
that was subsequently done by the Arabs leading Berbers
had their share.

The amalgamation of the Arab and the Berber peoples,
which could not have taken place but for the similarity in
their dispositions noted by Musa, was very shortly to be
illustrated in that conquest of Spain which has left Musa's
name enshrined in the sacred places of Arab history.

Having assured himself of the necessary command of
the sea, Musa sent "the Berber Tarik, one of his freed-
men," to possess himself of Tangiers and the strong places
of the neighbouring districts with a view to crossing over
into Spain. Tarik accordingly marched thither and took
the strong places and cities of those Berbers. This being
done, Tarik wrote to his master, "Musa, I have found
here six vessels." Musa told him to take them and to sail
for Spain. Tarik did so in the year 710, and was joined
by Musa himself in the year 711. As is well known, the

30 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

mountain by which the expedition entered Europe bears
to this day the name of the military commander — the
Mountain of Tarik, Jebr el Tarik or Gibraltar — while the
spot, a little further along the coast, on which a lesser
detachment landed, is known as Tarifa from the name of
its leader Tarif, another of Musa's Berber freedmen.
What is not perhaps so generally recognised is that the
men who led this civilising expedition into Spain were of
the same race as those who, driven by the same compellin,g
cause to another fate, carried the banner of civilisation into
Negroland. The capacity for taking high command which
Musa recognised in the Berbers was a capacity of race
which was sure to find its satisfaction under circumstances
of the most diverse kind. North or south, it mattered
little in which direction they were forced by the resistless
pressure of a higher fate. Alike in Spain and Negroland,
where they went in misfortune they were to remain in
triumph, until that mysterious decadence which attends the
fate of peoples marked them for decay.

CHAPTER III

ARAB CIVILISATION IN SPAIN

The fascinating story of the conquest of Spain by the
Arabs and of the development of a civiHsation far in
advance of anything known at the time to Western
Europe, Hes outside the scope of this book. Yet the his-
tory of Negroland and of Spain were in their early days
so closely interwoven through the links of the Arab and
Berber connection that the records of Arab civilisation
are not altogether foreign to the history of West Africa.

The conquest took place at the beginning of the eighth
century, and was for all ordinary purposes complete. It
was carried out almost entirely by Berber troops whom
Musa continued to convert, to organise, and to draft into
Spain. Tangiers, which had always been a Berber
stronghold, became for this purpose his military head-
quarters, and he was enabled perpetually to recruit his
conquering armies with fresh troops. Tarik took 12,000
of these converts with him on his first landing. There
was a tradition lingering from the Greek occupation of the
country that Spain would be conquered only "by two
nations composed of peoples unaccustomed to the luxuries
of life, hardened by privation and fatigue." The Arabs
and the Andalusians alike translated the prophecy to apply
to the Arabs and the Berbers. " For a long period," says
one of their historians, " the Berbers and Andalusians
had hated each other across the Straits, but Berbers
being more in want of Andalusians than these were of
them, owing to certain necessaries not to be procured in
Africa, which were imported from Andalus, communi-
cation necessarily existed between the people of both

32 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

countries." The Berbers had long wanted Spain : Spain
had long feared the Berbers. The conquest of Spain was
therefore to some extent regarded as a fulfilment of the
destiny of both nations.

But while the Berbers claimed to be of the same stock
as the Arabs, and were admitted, as has been seen, to
some degree of comradeship, they were at a very inferior
stage of civilisation. The sense of difference of the culti-
vated Arabs was expressed by a comic poet, who suffered
under a subsequent Berber dynasty for his readiness of
speech. " I saw Adam in my dream," he makes one of
his characters declare, "and I said to him, 'Oh, Father
of Mankind ! Men generally agree that the Berbers
are descended from thee.' ' Yes,' replied Adam, * it is
true, but none dispute that Eve was at that time
divorced from me.' " Brothers, but brothers of divorce,
very fairly represents the relation which for a long time
existed between Berber and Arab.

Shortly after the whole of Spain was reduced there
was a general Arab migration to it, and it was with this
Arab migration that the high civilisation came. For
about fifty years the Berbers in fitful revolution struggled
against the Arabs for the sole possession of a country
which they claimed that they and they alone had won.
The conflict between the dynasties of the Ommeyades and
the Abbassides in the East gave opportunities for the dis-
affected in Spain. But about the middle of the eighth
century, when the Abbassides succeeded in overthrowing
the dynasty of the Ommeyades in the East and possessing
themselves of the Caliphate, one son of the Ommeyades
escaped into North Africa, and, after many adventures,
established himself under the name of Abdurrahman I.
upon the throne of his fathers in Spain. He ascended the
throne in 757, thus separating the Caliphate of the East
from the Caliphate of the West, and brilliantly opened the
chapter of cultivated Arab rule in the West.

The dynasty of the Ommeyades lasted in Spain for up-
wards of two hundred and fifty years, and may be thought

ARAB CIVILISATION IN SPAIN 33

of as coming to an end, in power at least, about the year
1000 A.D. ; when, after an interval of misrule, it was suc-
ceeded in the latter part of the eleventh century, that is,
shortly after the Norman conquest of England, by the
purely Berber dynasty of the Almoravides. During the
first two centuries of the rule of the Ommeyades the Arab
dominion in Spain reached its highest point. The court
of Abdurrahman and his successors became the centre of
all the art, the learning, the refinement, and the elegance
of the known world. Commerce brought to the shores of
Spain the best productions of every land. Science was
honoured. Arab travellers penetrated to the furthest limits
of the Eastern hemisphere. All that India and China had
to teach was known to them.

They had a common saying that " Science came down
from heaven and lodged itself in three different parts of
man's body : in the brain among the Greeks ; in the hands
among the Chinese ; and in the tongue among the Arabs."
Unfortunate in the fate that subsequently befell them, the
Arabs were fortunate in this, that during the period of
their prosperity they had historians and poets capable
of preserving for posterity records of the high level of
civilisation that was reached. Religious fanaticism, which
made a duty at a later period of sweeping the infidel out
of Spain, made it no less a matter of conscience to destroy
the admirable literature which centuries of enlightenment
had amassed in the libraries of his forefathers. Fortu-
nately, however, the writings were so copious that many
escaped destruction, and the industry of modern research
has brought again to light learning which was indignantly
rejected by the religious Europe of the Middle Ages.

To appreciate in any degree the debt which Europe
owes to the Arab civilisation of Spain, we have to re-
member the condition of barbarous ignorance, sloth, and
superstition in which the Continent was plunged after the
break-up of the Roman Empire. What the Berber was to
North Africa, such was the Scythian, in the many divisions
of Goths, Gauls, Huns, &c., to Europe. What the culti-

c

34 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

vated northern strip lying between the mountains and the
sea was to North Africa, such on the Continent of Europe
was the strip lying also between the mountains and the
sea which is known to us under the names of Italy, Spain,
and Greece. To both these famous districts the Mediter-
ranean had given life and the mountains defence. Beyond
the mountains, equally on the north and on the south,
countless hordes of nomads unacquainted with the gentler
arts of civilisation, but vigorous and active in their bar-
barism, awaited nothing but the opportunity of conquest.
The Scythians and the Berbers were, in their original con-
dition, pastoral tribes of migratory habits, feeding exclu-
sively on meat and milk, and clothing themselves in the
skins of animals. Of many of them it is said that they
had never even seen bread ; this, as well on the plains
of Europe and Asia as in the African desert. They had
no dwelling-houses and no domestic arts. Leather tents
or straw huts served all their temporary purpose. But
they were hardy, abstemious, expert riders, brave, brutal,
and proficient in all the ruder military virtues. Nothing
strikes the student of Berber history more than the re-
semblance to be noted between the characteristics of
the Berber tribes and the descriptive traits recorded by
Tacitus, and quoted by Gibbon from earlier authors, of
the primitive inhabitants of Northern Europe. The can-
nibalism which distinguished the extreme barbarism of
Africa was not wanting, as we know, among the abori-
ginals of Northern Germany.

In Europe the decadence of Rome and the downfall
of the Byzantine Empire gave opportunity for the northern
tribes to possess themselves of all the outlying terri-
tories of the Empire, and from the forced wedlock of deca-
dence and barbarism the states of modern Europe took
their rise.

In Africa the strong intellectual impulse of the Jews
and Saracens dominated the brute forces of barbarism by
which it was surrounded, and the southern tribes, instead
of conquering, became the instruments of conquest directed

ARAB CIVILISATION IN SPAIN 35

by a higher mind. While Europe fell to the level of her
conquerors, Arabian civilisation rose, and, spreading
through Africa to Spain, it maintained for the Western
world the moral ideals and the intellectual enliofhtenment
which, without the refuge afforded them in Spain, had
perhaps been wholly lost.

Medieval Arabian achievements in the higher paths of
learning are well known. There is no branch of scientific
development among the Western nations upon which the
Arabs have not set their mark, either by original research,
or by the service which they rendered in transmitting to
their European posterity the learning accumulated by
other generations in other lands. They initiated the
Renaissance in Europe by preserving and translating at
a much earlier period the great works of the Greeks.
They gave a vivifying impulse to all the intellectual life
of the West by introducing to it the hoarded knowledge
of the East. In mathematics they imported much from
India, amongst other things the numerals known to us as
"Arabic" numerals, and with them the advantages of the
decimal system. The word cypher, with all its deriva-
tions, is an Arabic word. They translated from the Greek
Euclid and the earlier geometers ; but it was to the
original studies of an Arab geometer — Ben Musa — of the
ninth century, that Europe owed its use of the improved
science to which the Arabs gave its modern name of
algebra. Ben Musa was the inventor of the common
method of solving quadratic equations, as well as of the
substitution of sines for chords in trigonometry. His
system was the system commonly adopted by the Arab
schools. The Arabs were ardent students of mathematics,
and a long list of astronomers and physicists, from Al
Maimon, who determined the obliquity of the ecliptic in
830 ; through Ebn Junis, who constructed the Hakemite
tables of the stars in 1008 ; Avicenna, the well-known
physician and philosopher, who wrote, amongst other
things, in the early part of the eleventh century, an
encyclopaedia of human knowledge in twenty volumes ;

36 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

Al Gazzali, who in 1058 was the forerunner of Descartes ;
Al-Hazen, the optician, who estabhshed the modern theory
of vision, basing it on clear anatomical and geometrical
evidence, and who was the first to trace, about the year
1 100, the curvilinear path of rays of light through the
air, deducing from his theory of refraction a determina-
tion of the height of the atmosphere ; to El Idrisi, the
geographer of Roger of Sicily ; the famous Averrhoes, the
commentator of Aristotle, who lived at the end of the
twelfth century ; and the brilliant schools of medicine and
surgery which adorned the thirteenth century : all serve
to demonstrate that in the application of the abstract
principles of science to natural phenomena, the Arabs
luminously opened the path of modern progress. Their
studies in chemistry were profound. Geber, or Djajar,
who lived in the ninth century, and of whom Roger
Bacon speaks at a much later period as the niagister
magistrorunt of chemical science, was the first to describe
nitric acid and aqua regia. Before him chemistry had
no stronger acid than concentrated vinegar. The pro-
perties and preparation of sulphuric acid and phosphorus
soon followed. For the composition of gunpowder we
get towards the end of the eighth century the following
prescription: "Pulverise on a marble mortar one pound
of sulphur, two of charcoal, and six of saltpetre." Any
one who may have visited the royal gunpowder works
at Waltham Abbey will know how little the prescription
has altered, except in varying proportions, to the present
day. In geology, also, Arabian investigations were on the
sound path of reason. Avicenna says of mountains that
they may be due to two different causes. " Either they
are the effect of upheavals of the crust of the earth . . .
or they are the effect of water which, cutting for itself a
new route, has denuded the valleys, the strata being of
different kinds — some soft, some hard." The Arabs were
early acquainted with the properties of the magnet and
the theory of gravitation. True conceptions of geology
and astronomy led naturally to truer conceptions of the

ARAB CIVILISATION IN SPAIN 37

age of the earth and the lapse of historic time than
have ever prevailed before the scientific era of the
present day.

History and geography were no less brilliantly repre-
sented than the natural sciences. Ibn Said, who wrote in
the middle of the thirteenth century, has preserved for us
a vivid description of the attainments of the Arabs of
Spain. There is no department of science or literature
in which he does not claim pre-eminence for them, and
supports his claim by lists of names, strange now to the
European ear, but, if we may judge by the manner in
which they are introduced, familiar enough to the learned
of his time. Ibn Said himself is described by his suc-
cessors as " the truthful historian." He was the descendant
of a line of distinguished men, and tells us that the history
of Andalusia, which he carried down to the year 1247, had
taken no less than 125 years to write and six authors to
complete it. It was conceived and carried to a certain
stage by his great-grandfather ; it was taken further by his
grandfather ; his two great-uncles worked upon it ; then
•' came my father Musa, who certainly was the most
learned and experienced of all my ancestors in these
matters"; finally, Ibn Said himself completed the work.
It is said that a better history of Andalusia was never
written. Contemporary with the earlier part of this com-
position was the geography of El Idrisi, who wrote about
the year 11 53. Nearly the whole of this work is still
extant. For the purpose of contrasting the state of
knowledge of Arabic Spain with the ignorance of the
Christian countries of the North, who had yet to wait
nearly four hundred years for a true knowledge of the
conformation of the earth, the following passage from it
may be quoted : —

"What results from the opinion of philosophers,
learned men, and those skilled in observation of the
heavenly bodies, is that the world is round as a sphere,
of which the waters are adherent and maintained upon
its surface by natural equilibrium. It is surrounded by

38 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

air, and all created bodies are stable on its surface, the
earth drawing to itself all that is heavy in the same way
as a magnet attracts iron. The terrestrial globe is divided
into two equal parts by the equinoctial line. The circum-
ference of the earth is divided into 360 degrees each of
25 parasangs. This is the Indian calculation. . . . From
the equinoctial line to each pole there are 90 degrees, but
there is no habitable land farther north than the 64th
degree." The earth, he says elsewhere, is essentially
round, but not of a perfect rotundity, being somewhat
depressed at the poles. His description of the countries
upon the earth, including England to the west and China
to the east, is extraordinarily full, and in many essential
particulars remains accurate to the present day. America
alone appears to have been unknown to the Arabs, and
when we remember that modern Europe had to wait for the
journey of Magellan round the world in the opening years
of the sixteenth century to be quite sure of the shape
of the globe, we must admit that in the learning of the
Arabs of Spain, Negroland had sources of information
far purer than any of which England at that time could
boast.

In every branch of science the theoretic conquests of
the Arabs gave practical results. Spectacles and telescopes
resulted from their study of optics. Ebn Junis, the astro-
nomer, was the first to apply the pendulum about the year
1000 to the measure of time, and from his abstruse studies
in astronomy clocks became a domestic possession. The
use of the astrolabe and the compass, revived again at a
later period in Europe, were common to Arab navigation.
Gunpowder has already been mentioned as a result of
chemistry, and military science was revolutionised by the
introduction of artillery and firearms. Improvement in
agriculture and the introduction and acclimatisation of new
plants were an even more important result of the same
study, combined with that of botany, to which the Arabs
were passionately addicted. Studies in the effects of drugs
and the nature of plants were the basis of their medicine,

ARAB CIVILISATION IN SPAIN 39

while physiology and anatomy gave to their surgical schools
the wide renown which they enjoyed.

For seven centuries the medical schools of Europe
owed everything they knew to Arabian research. The
Arabic impression is still to be traced in the derivation of
such words as syrup, julep, &c. Vivisection as well as
dissection of dead bodies was practised in their anatomical
schools, and women as well as men were trained to per-
form some of the most delicate surgical operations. Their
studies of the functions of the human body and the cure
of its diseases enabled them to establish hygienic systems
which were perhaps among the greatest of the many boons
which they conferred upon medieval Europe. Every court
and household of importance had at one time its Jewish or
Saracen physician. Amongst other very eminent names
may be quoted for surgery Albucasis of Cordova, and for
medicine Ibn Zohr.

Ibn Zohr, more generally known as Avenzoar, was
regarded as the great authority in Moorish pharmacy.
He lived in the first half of the twelfth century, and
was contemporary of another and almost equally eminent
physician, Al Far. A story is told of these two which
is not without application to the dietetic controversies of
the present day. Ibn Zohr was very fond of green figs,
and ate them freely. Al Far never ate them, and he used
to say to Ibn Zohr: "If you eat figs to that extent you
will have a very bad abscess." Ibn Zohr replied : " If you
don't eat them you will be subject to fever and die of
constipation." Ibn Zohr was right. Al Far had fever
and died of constipation. But Al Far was also right.
Shortly after Al Ear's death, Ibn Zohr was attacked by a
bad abscess and died of it in Seville in 1 161. The daughter
and granddaughter of this Ibn Zohr were both accom-
plished female doctors. Avempace was another physician
of the twelfth century whose reputation was European.
Averrhoes, also deeply versed in medicine, was a personal
friend of Ibn Zohr.

In the higher departments of jurisprudence and poli-

40 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

tical economy, as well as in the literary fields of grammar,
logic, poetry, and biography, the Arabian schools excelled.
Their schools, colleges, and universities were the resort
of the learned of all nations ; but it was perhaps specially
in the material development of their civilisation that their
prosperity had its most direct effect in stimulating com-
mercial intercourse with Negroland.

An Arab historian, writing in the sixteenth century,
says of Cordova, where Abdurrahman I. established his
court : " One thing is certain, namely, that trade and
agriculture flourished in this place during the reigns of
the sons of Ommeyah, in a degree which has scarcely
been witnessed in any city of the world. Its market
was always over-stocked with the fruits of the land, the
productions of every district, and the best of every country.
No robe, however costly, no drug, however scarce, no
jewel, however precious, no rarity of distant and unknown
lands, but was to be procured in the bazaar of Cordova,
and found hundreds of purchasers." There were 471
mosques and 300 public baths, of which the numbers
afterwards increased. One "trustworthy writer" counted
the number of houses under the Caliph Al Mansur, and
found 63,000 of the "great and noble, and 200,077 ^^
the common people " ; there were at the same time up-
wards of 80,000 shops. Water from the mountains was
conveyed to the royal palace of Cordova, and "thence
distributed through every corner and quarter of the
city by means of leaden pipes into basins of different
shapes, made of the purest gold, the finest silver, or
plated brass, as well as into vast lakes, curious tanks,
amazing reservoirs, and fountains of Grecian marble
beautifully carved."

The town in the time of the Ommeyades measured
twenty-four miles by six, the greater part of which area was
covered by mosques, palaces, and the houses of the great
standing in beautiful gardens. These houses were palaces
of luxury, magnificently decorated, cooled in summer by
ingeniously arranged draughts of fresh air drawn from

1

ARAB CIVILISATION IN SPAIN 41

the garden over beds of jdowers chosen for their perfume,
warmed in winter by hot air conveyed through pipes
bedded in the walls. There were bath-rooms supplied
with hot and cold water. There were boudoirs, drawing-
rooms, libraries, halls, corridors, and galleries lighted by
windows of clear and coloured glass. Clusters of columns
of marble, either plain or incrusted with more precious
substances, supported roofs of mosaic and gold. The
walls were decorated with mosaics, or covered with arab-
esque and floral paintings. The furniture was of the most
precious and varied description. It was made of sandal
and citron and other woods brought from the tropics, and
curiously inlaid with mother-of-pearl, ivory, silver, and gold.
There were tables of gold, set with emeralds, rubies,
and pearls. In winter the walls were hung with tapestry,
the floors were covered with thick Persian carpets, of which
the most magnificent were embroidered with gold and
pearls. There were luxurious couches piled with pillows.
Vases of porcelain and crystal were filled with flowers.
Rare and curious objects from all parts of the world were
brought together to satisfy the eye and taste. In the
evening the rooms were lit by wax candles, which were
distributed by groups of hundreds in chandeliers that
hung from the ceilings. Great skill and taste were de-
voted to the design and workmanship of these chandeliers.
They were often made from the metal found in the
bells of Christian churches, and when this was the case,
there seems to have been a special pleasure in designing
them for use in the mosques. One famous chandelier is
mentioned which held no less than 1804 candles. The
gardens in which the great houses stood are described
by every writer in terms of rapture. Bowers of roses ;
orange and pomegranate groves ; shaded walks, over
which lemon-trees were trained, so that the fruit when
ripe "hung down like little lamps" ; successions of colour
and perfume, to procure which plants were brought from
all parts of the world. Sometimes, to please a favourite
wife, a whole hillside would be planted with her chosen

42 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

colour. The use of water was thoroughly understood.
Fountains, cascades, and lakes gave coolness and mois-
ture to the air, and also provided opportunities for the
keeping of fish and the special cultivation of water-plants.
Garden fruits and vegetables were cultivated in rare
perfection and variety. In the gardens there were laby-
rinths, and marble playing-courts. There were menageries
of curious animals, and aviaries of foreign birds. Botany,
horticulture, zoology, and ornithology were passions no
less of the learned than of the rich.

In the town of Cordova, for a distance of ten miles,
the streets were lit at night by lamps placed close to
one another. The descriptions of the mosques and build-
ings of Cordova — including the famous mosque with the
360 arches, and the even more famous palace of Azzahra,
which took forty years to build, and contained the Hall
of the Caliphs, roofed in pure gold, and lighted at will
by fountains of quicksilver, which, when they were set
in motion, caused the room "to look in an instant as if
it were traversed by flashes of lightning " — are so elaborate
as to fill many volumes. The size of the Azzahra palace
may be imagined from the fact that it had 15,000 doors.
It had amongst its many beauties remarkable fountains
and terraces of polished marble, which overhung "match-
less gardens." It was filled with works of art, and, ac-
cording to one writer, it was such that "travellers from
distant lands, men of all ranks, following various religions,
princes, ambassadors, merchants, pilgrims, theologians,
and poets, who were conversant with edifices of this
kind, and had surveyed this, all agreed that they had
never seen in the course of their travels anything that
could be compared to it."

The other cities of the Arabs in Spain were no less
remarkable. In the garden of one of the palaces of
Toledo there was an artificial lake, in the centre of which
there was a kiosk of stained glass adorned with gold.
" The architect so contrived this that by certain geo-
metrical rules the water of the lake was made to ascend

ARAB CIVILISATION IN SPAIN 43

to the top of the dome, and then, dropping at both sides,
join the waters of the lake. In this room the Sultan could
sit untouched by the water, which fell everywhere round
him, and refreshed the air in the hot season. Sometimes,
too, wax tapers were lighted within the room, producing
an admirable effect on the transparent walls of the kiosk."
It is worth remembering that glass was not introduced into
English domestic architecture until the reign of Queen
Elizabeth, and that the period at which this kiosk is de-
scribed was contemporary with the Saxon Heptarchy.

Seville, with its famous gardens, its noble squares,
its great observatory, its suspension bridge, was regarded
as one of the most important of Arab towns. Granada
was the Damascus of Andalusia, very famous under the
Almohade Sultans. Malaga, with its numerous towers,
had the advantages of land and sea. It was famous very
early in its history for the manufacture of forbidden wine.
Its oil and its figs were known all over the world, so were
its silks, especially the brocades, for which it had beautiful
designs. Its export trade extended to India and China.
Almeria was another of the rich coast towns. It had a
dockyard in which very fine vessels were built. It was,
according to an Arab author, Ash-shakandi, the "greatest
mart in Andalusia : Christians of all nations came to its
port to buy and sell, and they had factories established in
it, where they loaded their vessels with such goods as
they wanted, owing to which, and to its being a very
opulent and large city, filled with passengers and mer-
chants, the produce of the tithe imposed upon the goods
and paid by the Christian merchants amounted to very
considerable sums, and exceeded that collected in any
other seaport."

Almeria gained this trade largely by its famous manu-
factures of silk, and especially of brocades and damasks
and tissues of gold and silver. Thousands of hands were
engaged in each branch of the silk trade. It was also
famous for the manufacture of pottery and glass and what
we should in the present day call hardware. Ships from

44 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

the East brought to its ports all the finest wares of India
and China. " Almeria," says the author already quoted,
"is an opulent and magnificent city, whose fame has
spread far and wide. God has endowed its inhabitants
with various gifts, such as a temperate climate and
abundance of fruits ; they are handsome, well - made,
good-natured, very hospitable, very much attached to
their friends, and are above all things very refined in
their manners, and very elegant in their dress. Its coast
is the finest in all the Mediterranean as well as the safest
and the most frequented." Its inhabitants were said to
be the wealthiest in all Andalusia, and they would appear
to have somehow solved the problem of creating a manu-
facturing town without loss of beauty, for all authors vie
with one another in extolling the charm and picturesque-
ness of the town. It had no less than a thousand public
baths, and for forty miles the course of the river, " which
contributed no little to the ornament of the city and the
environs," was "through orchards, gardens, and groves,
where singing birds delight with their harmony the ears
of the traveller."

All the towns of the Arabs had public gardens planted
with groves of fine orange, pomegranate, and other trees,
of which the remains are still to be seen in the Alamedas
of Southern Spain. Abdurrahman I. was "passionately
fond of flowers." He planted beautiful gardens, to which
he brought all kinds of rare and exotic plants and fine
trees from foreign countries. He introduced good systems
of irrigation. His passion for flowers and plants led him
to send agents to Syria, India, and other countries with
a commission to procure him all sorts of seeds and plants,
many of which he successfully acclimatised in the royal
gardens, and this custom, followed by his successors and
adopted by the rich, led to the introduction of many fruits
and plants previously unknown even to cultivated Rome.
Among these, cotton, rice, the sugar-cane, the pome-
granate, and the peach may be mentioned, but many of
our garden vegetables have also come to us from the same

ARAB CIVILISATION IN SPAIN 45

source. It may be worth noting that the peach, to which we
are in the habit of attributing a Persian origin, was found
by the Persians, according to Strabo, in the eastern part
of Negroland, where it was cultivated by the Ethiopians
at the period of the conquest of Egypt by Cambyses.
It does not seem to be native to Negroland, and the
presumption is that it may have been introduced into the
valley of the Nile from India. Nevertheless we may
accept it as a pleasant fruit of the early intercourse of
Egypt with Negroland.

Amone the vepfetables which we owe to the Arab
passion for gardening is asparagus. This was introduced
somewhat later than the peach by a certain courtier and
epicure of the name of Zaryab, who came to Andalusia in
821. This Zaryab, who, like Tarik, Tarif, and others, was
a freedman, was a celebrated musician. He improved the
lute, adding a fifth string to the four which up to his time
had sufficed, and founded a great school of music. He
was renowned throughout Spain, enjoyed a public pension,
and on one occasion, when he came to Cordova, the Sultan
himself, to show the respect which he held to be due to
talent, rode out to meet him. Zaryab appears to have
been a remarkable as well as an extraordinarily popular
person. He was not only talented but learned. He was
an astronomer and geographer. He had a prodigious
memory. " He was, moreover, gifted with so much pene-
tration and wit, he had so deep an acquaintance with the
various branches of polite literature, he possessed in so
eminent a degree the charms of polite conversation and
the talents requisite to entertain an audience . . . that
there never was either before or after him a man of his
profession who was more generally beloved and admired.
Kings and great people took him for a pattern of manners
and education, and his name became for ever celebrated
among the inhabitants of Andalusia."

Zaryab, who is worth quoting individually as having
been evidently a leader of fashion in the most civilised
court of Europe in the early half of the ninth century,

46 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

appears to have disdained no detail of daily life. Aspara-
gus is not the only dish which he added to the menus of
his day. He was fastidious about cooking, and invented
many good things. He also introduced the fashion of
being served on crystal instead of on gold or silver, with
other refinements of the table. The manufacture of glass
was introduced into Spain by an Arab of the name of
Furnas at about this period. Zaryab also set the fashion
of changing dress for four seasons of the year instead of
for only two, as was the custom before his day. The
curious in such matters may read in the Arab chronicles
what was worn — silks and muslins, wadded clothes and
furs, according to the time of year. The ladies were
also extremely fond of jewels, and wore even jewelled
shoes, for which they would give as much as £\20 a
pair. But in dress as in food, Zaryab specially valued the
refinement of cleanliness. Before his time the Kings of
Andalusia, we are told, used to have their clothes washed
in water of roses and other garden flowers, the conse-
quence of which was that they never looked quite clean.
Zaryab taught them a method in which, by adding salt
to the mixture, "the linen could be made clear and
white." The chronicle gravely records that the " experi-
ment having been tried, every one approved of it," and
Zaryab was much praised for the invention. It was the
reputation of the Arabs that they were "the cleanest
people upon earth " in all that related to their person, dress,
beds, and the interior of their houses. Indeed, we are
told, "they carried cleanliness so far that it was not an
uncommon thing for a man of the lower classes to spend
his last coin in soap instead of buying food for his daily
consumption, and thus go without his dinner rather than
appear in public in dirty clothes." By way of contrast
in habits we may recall certain Irish earls, who, towards
the end of the Desmond rebellion about 1581, are described
as sleeping with their ladies and all their servants in a
hall so dirty as to be "not fit for a hog cote," while the
only toilet that the ladies made in the morning was "to

ARAB CIVILISATION IN SPAIN 47

get up and shake their ears." Zaryab flourished some seven
centuries before the ladies whose toilet was so simple. He
was the contemporary of Egbert and Charlemagne.

The contrast between Arab civilisation and the civilisa-
tion of Northern Europe of that date is sharply accentuated
by the fact that, while the literature of the Arabs was such
as to remain for our instruction to this day, Charlemagne,
the greatest monarch of the West, could not write. Spain
under the Arabs truly deserved, as we have seen, its name
as the " noble repository " of learning. One of the four
principal things in which Cordova was said to surpass all
other cities was "the sciences therein cultivated." It was
reputed to be the city of the earth where the greatest
number of books was to be found, One of the Ommeyade
Sultans was " so fond of books that he is said to have
converted Andalusia into a great market whereto the
literary productions of every clime were brought imme-
diately for sale." He also collected round him, and
employed in his own palace, the most skilful men of his
time in binding, transcribing, and illuminating books. He
amassed such literary treasures as no sovereign before or
after him, to the knowledge of his biographers, had ever
possessed. It is said of him that he was so fond of
reading that he preferred the pleasure of perusing his
books to all the enjoyments which royalty could afford.
He himself wrote a voluminous history of Andalusia.
His collection of books founded the great library of
Cordova, which remained until the taking of the city by
the Berbers in a.d. ioio. The catalogue alone consisted
of forty-four volumes.

Every wealthy man in Cordova had his own library.
To such an extent did this rage for collection increase, says
Ibn Said, that any man in a prominent position considered
himself obliged to have a library of his own, and would
spare no trouble or expense in collecting books. Books
were an expensive luxury too. A story is told of a
certain writer, richer in learning than in other goods,
greatly desiring a book, and watching for it daily in the

48 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

market till it came, "a beautiful copy, elegantly written."
He immediately bid for it and increased his bidding, but
to his great disappointment he was outbid, though the
price was beyond the value of the book. The book went
to his competitor. He approached to congratulate the
learned owner, but the man who had acquired it said :
" I am no Doctor ; neither do I know what the contents
of the book are ; but I am making a library, and there is
a vacant space which, as my means are ample, I resolved
to fill with this volume." The reader echoes with sym-
pathy the reply of the Doctor: "It is ever so; he gets
the nut who has no teeth."

Cordova was not singular in its literary reputation.
All the great towns had good libraries, and the Arabs
in Andalusia had a handwriting of their own which they
adopted at some period subsequent to their arrival in
Spain. It has already been mentioned that one of the
distinctions by which it has been made possible to learned
French research to trace the different origin of the
civilisation of Eastern and Western Negroland is the
employment of the Eastern alphabet of Arabia and Egypt
in the one, and the Western alphabet of Morocco and
Spain in the other. In addition to the geometricians,
astronomers, geographers, mechanicians, botanists, chemists,
physicians, who appear to have collected all that was
known in Asia as well as Europe, and who wrote volumin-
ously— the works of many of them amounting to fifty and
sixty volumes — every branch of literature was represented.
There were histories, essays, poems ; there were treatises
upon arithmetic, grammar, poetry, rhetoric, canon and
civil law, jurisprudence, logic. Lists of distinguished
writers have been preserved in biographical dictionaries
which have escaped destruction, and it is therefore pos-
sible to some extent to reconstruct the intellectual life of
the day. It would appear to have been active, charming,
polished. The Arabs claimed for their children and their
women that they had a natural gift for poetry, narrative,
and repartee. They appear to have had a sufficient

ARAB CIVILISATION IN SPAIN 49

number of poets to furnish matter for biographies of
poets, of which one is mentioned as having been in ten
volumes. Philosophy, theology, metaphysics, were richyl
represented, and fiction was not neglected.

The minor arts, as we have seen, were warmly
encouraged. Seville, which was the special home of
music, had a large export trade in musical instruments,
which it sent to Africa. In this town it was said that
every musical instrument was to be obtained. Toledo
was the centre of steel and metal work. In Cordova,
the famous Cordovan leather, of which the skins were
imported from Negroland, was worked into many designs
and extensively used in beautiful book bindings. All
the arts to which elaborate architecture and luxurious
domestic life gave rise were, of course, highly developed.
Painting appears to have been restricted chiefly to decora-
tive work, but we are repeatedly told that the palaces of
southern Spain were filled with works of art.

It is interesting to note that in the great days of
Mohammedan Spain, Arabian women were not confined^
as in the East, to harems, but appeared freely in public
and took their share in all the intellectual, literary, and
even scientific movements of the day. Women held
schools in some of the principal towns. There were
women poets, historians, and philosophers, as well as
women surgeons and doctors.

A national life, so varied and active, having a commerce
which reached to the confines of the known world, naturally
drew material for its consumption from every source with
which it was acquainted. Negroland offered to Saracen
Spain many of the same sources of supply which our
tropical colonies offer to us, and it will presently be seen
how deeply the development of Negroland was affected by
the high civilisation of the Peninsula.

D

CHAPTER IV

THE EMPIRE OF "THE TWO SHORES"

The dynasty of the Ommeyades lasted nominally in Spain
until the year 103 1 ; but the visible decay of its power
may be placed about the year 1000.

Abdurrahman III., one of the greatest of the Western
Caliphs, reigned for fifty years, between the dates of 911
and 961 A.D. He was the first to assume the title of
Commander of the Faithful in the West, and his reign
may be taken as marking the highest epoch of Moham-
medan authority in Europe. The Christian nations of
the North represented to the Mohammedans of that day
nothing more than barbarism, and in levying successful
war upon them, Abdurrahman took the place of the
champion of civilisation. Every year he renewed his
attacks. He carried war by land across the Pyrenees,
and his fleets dominated the Mediterranean.

"In this manner," says his chronicler, "the Moslems
subdued the country of the Franks beyond the utmost
limits reached during the reigns of his predecessors. The
Christian nations beyond the Pyrenees extended to him
the hand of submission, and their kings sent costly presents
to conciliate his favour. Even the kings of Rome, Con-
stantinople, Germany, Sclavonia, and other distant parts,
sent ambassadors asking for peace and suspension of
hostilities, and offering to agree to any conditions which
he should dictate." The most elaborate receptions were
accorded to these embassies, and it is rather interesting
to note incidentally in a description of the reception of
the embassy from Constantinople, which took place with
extraordinary magnificence in the year 949, that amongst

THE EMPIRE OF "THE TWO SHORES" 51

other things brought by the ambassadors there was a
letter enclosed in a gold case, with a portrait of the
Emperor Constantine, "admirably executed" in stained
glass,

Abdurrahman, moved, it is said, by the consideration
that he could not afford to have any hostile power so close
to the borders of Spain as Western Africa, subdued also
a great portion of Africa. He thus established the power
of the Western Caliphate from the borders of Negroland
to the Pyrenees, and this double kingdom was known
by the name of Adouatein, or " The Two Shores." In
the course of all his wars he suffered but one serious
defeat, and he had the surname of "the Victorious."
" Never," it is said, " was the Mohammedan Empire more
prosperous than during his reign. Commerce and agri-
culture flourished ; the sciences and arts received a new
impulse, and the revenue was increased tenfold." It was
under this Abdurrahman that cotton manufacture was
first established in Europe in the year 930. The Arabs
also introduced the art of printing calicoes from wooden
blocks.

Abdurrahman is described as the mildest and most
enlightened sovereign that ever ruled. His meekness,
his generosity, and his love of justice became proverbial.
None of his ancestors surpassed him in courage in the
field ; he was fond of science, and the patron of the
learned, with w hom he loved to converse, spending those
hours that he stole from the arduous labours of the ad-
ministration in literary meetings, to which all the eminent
poets and learned men of his court were admitted.

It is an interesting comment on this half-century of
glory and prosperity that, after Abdurrahman's death, a
paper was found in his own handwriting, in which those
days that he had spent in happiness were carefully noted
down, and, on numbering them, they were found to amount
to fourteen !

Before the nominal end of the Ommeyade dynasty a
usurper, Al Mansur, "called in Berbers and Zenatahs,

52 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

whom he divided into companies according to their tribes,"
and made himself Sultan. Al Mansur became one of the
great Caliphs, and established a splendid dominion in
Western Africa. But the fact that he was a usurper held
in power by African tribes introduced a dangerous element
of disruption into the body-politic of the Caliphate in
Spain. The Berbers of Africa began to recognise their
power. The descendants of the original Berbers who,
with the Arabs, had effected the conquest of Spain, were
growing soft with the pleasures and the luxury of a high
civilisation. Their ruder brothers in Africa had kept
their vigour, and began to realise the possibilities which
it opened to them. A great African revolt was organised,
the result of which was that Al Mansur gave Fez in
sovereignty to the Berber chiefs of the Zenatah tribes,
together with a good bit of Western Africa, including the
southern province of what we now call Morocco. Side
by side with the dominion of the Caliphs, local sovereign-
ties in Africa acquired importance, and the ambitions thus
partially gratified were not long limited to Africa.

Al Mansur died in 1002, and Arab historians are in
practical agreement that from this time the Mohammedan
Empire in Spain began to show signs of decay. Perpetual
claimants of the throne of the Caliphs employed African
troops in Spain. Between 1020 and 1030 the whole of
Andalusia submitted with revolts and civil wars to the
Berbers. It became the habit of the reigning Caliph to
employ a black bodyguard drawn from Negroland, and,
instead of maintaining the old attitude of united hostility
to the Christians on their northern borders, each faction
in turn called in Christian help.

It was not long before the Christian armies dominated
the situation. The limits of the Arab Empire became
narrower, and the power of the Caliphs was broken.
Cordova, Granada, Malaga, Seville, became separate
principalities. Here is a view of the situation as pre-
sented by an Arab historian of the sixteenth century : " In
Africa as well as in Andalusia the possessions of the

THE EMPIRE OF "THE TWO SHORES" 53

Ummeyah were broken up into petty provinces, thus
giving an opportunity to the cruel enemy of God to attack
in detail the divided Moslems, and to expel them at last
from those countries which they had so long held in their
power." Alfonso VI. took Toledo in 1081. In the
following year Al Mutammed, the Arab king of Seville,
refused to pay him tribute, and Alfonso swore to drive the
Arabs into the sea at Gibraltar. In this extremity Al
Mutammed looked across the straits for help, and Africa
once more intervened directly in the affairs of Spain.

To understand the position which had been reached in
Africa, it is necessary to go back for a few years. It has
been mentioned that of the two main roads by which com-
munication between Negroland and Northern Africa was
maintained, one lay across the western deserts in a direc-
tion almost due south of the territory now known as
Morocco. The consequence of many wars in Northern
Africa had been to force down certain Berber tribes upon
the western confines of Negroland. " From time im-
memorial," says Ibn Khaldun, " the Molet-themim (or
Wearers of the Veil) had been in the Sandy Desert. As
brave as they were wild, they had never bowed under a
foreign yoke. Having increased their numbers in the
vast plains of the desert, they formed several tribes — the
Goddala, the Lemtunah, the Messonfah, the Outzila, the
Tuareg, the Zegowah, and the Lamta. These people
were all brothers of the Senajah, who lived between the
Atlantic and Ghadames," that is, in the western half of
Northern Africa.

The Lemtunah were already a powerful nation obeying
hereditary kings when the Omrneyade dynasty reigned in
Spain, and the western portion of the desert over which they
ruled was known as the " Desert Empire." At that time
also the Negro nations of the West were very powerful,
but at a later period, after the Lemtunahs had subdued
the lesser tribes, the Western kingdom of the Negroes
began to decay. The Lemtunah made war upon them and
forced them partially to accept Islam. Under Tiloutan, a

54 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

Lemtunah king who died in the year 837, the Desert
Empire reached its height. Twenty Negro kings paid
tribute to him. It is said of his kingdom that the cHmate
was so healthy that men commonly reached in it the age
of eighty. The sons and successors of Tiloutan reigned
successfully until the year 918, when the dynasty was
overthrown by the Senajah. After this there was confu-
sion mixed with conquest for about 1 20 years, until there
came to the throne a Senajah ruler of the name of Yahya,
under whom there took place a union of the tribes which
resulted in the foundation of the Empire of Morocco.

In 1048 Yahya made the pilgrimage to Mecca, and
brought back with him for the instruction of his people a
religious teacher, Ibn Yasin. The united tribes had never
wholly abandoned the nomad habits of their ancestors.
They were a hardy, active people, who had kept the
abstemious customs of the desert. Their principal wealth
consisted in their flocks. They were among those of
whom it was said that many of them passed their lives
without ever seeing bread. They had long since em-
braced Islam, but they had apparently strayed from the
true path, and the reformation preached by Ibn Yasin was
stern. Severe penalties were imposed on wrong-doing.
The man who told a lie was beaten with eighty strokes ;
the man who drank wine was beaten with eighty strokes ;
serious offences were more heavily punished ; and every
stranger who joined the sect was required to forfeit
one-third of his property by way of redemption for any
injustice by which he might have acquired the rest.

The pressure of these doctrines in application produced
a revolt. Ibn Yasin with a few of his followers with-
drew to an island in the Senegal, the river which formed
the southern frontier of the Desert Kingdom, Here he
practised in rigid seclusion all he taught. The fame of
his doctrine spread through the West, and thousands
flocked to him, till at last, seeing the number of his
followers daily increase, he declared to them that it was
not enough to accept the truth themselves, they must also

THE EMPIRE OF "THE TWO SHORES" 55

constrain the world to accept it. He gave to his disciples
the name of " Morabites," or "Champions of the Faith,"
afterwards known as " Al Moravides," and proceeded to
preach a Holy War. To "maintain the truth, to repress
injustice, and to abolish all taxes not based on law " was
the formula of faith with which this relicrious movement
started from the extreme south of the then known Western
world. The Emir Yahya assumed command, and under
his leadership the Almoravides began that triumphant
march to the north which was to end only on the throne
of Spain. Yahya died in 1056 after a successful campaign
which established his power in South- Western Morocco.
He was succeeded by his brother Abou Bekr, who led the
Almoravides to further conquest. Their dominion spread
across the Atlas Mountains to the sea, and they subdued
all the territory to the western coast.

In 1 06 1 dissensions breaking out amongst the tribes in
the south, Abou Bekr returned to his Desert Kingdom,
leaving his cousin Yusuf Tachefin in command in the
north. This proved to be a final division. Abou Bekr
succeeded in reconciling his unruly tribes, and to give an
outlet to their energies he led them to the conquest of
Negroland, the northern border of which he overran for
a distance of ninety days' march from his own territory.
This should have carried him to the Haussa States. But
he returned no more to take command in the north. In
the year 1062 Yusuf laid the foundation of the town of
Morocco with his own hands, and not long afterwards
declared the independence of the northern kingdom of
which it was to become the capital. Abou Bekr acquiesced,
and Yusuf, left to himself, continued the conquest of North-
Western Africa. By the year 1082 he had long been the
supreme ruler of that portion of the world. His court had
begun to attract the learning and civilisation which civil
war was driving out of Spain, and we are told that it was
filled with Arabs from the frontier towns which had sub-
mitted to Alfonso. These men, "with tears in their eyes
and sorrow in their hearts, had come to Yusuf to implore

56 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

his protection." It was to this court and to this man that
Al Mutammed of Seville came in 1083 to ask for help
against the Christians.

Yusuf is described as a " wise and shrewd man, neither
too prompt in his determinations, nor too slow in carrying
them into effect." He had passed the greater part of his
life in his native deserts exposed to hunger and privation,
and had no taste for a life of pleasure. It is expressly said
of him that he did not speak Arabic. When, therefore, he
consented to cross over to Spain, and in the course of time
drove back the Christians and established once more a
supreme Sultan upon the throne of Andalusia, his con-
quest and the dynasty which he founded must be regarded
as an African conquest and an African dynasty. The
Almoravides ruling in Spain were identically the same
race as that which, moving from the West, imposed Islam
on the races of Negroland, and established kingdoms, of
which we shall presently hear, along the courses of the
Niger and the Senegal.

It is stated that when Yusuf crossed to Spain there
was no tribe of the western desert that was not represented
in his army, and it was the first time that the people of
Spain had ever seen camels used for the purpose of
mounting cavalry. Forming part of the army which
fought at Zalakah in 1086 there were also some thousands
of blacks armed with Indian swords and short spears,
and shields covered with hippopotamus hide. This battle
drove the Christian forces out of southern Spain and laid
the foundation of Yusuf's Spanish Empire. When, after
fighting it, Yusuf marched to Seville, the comforts and
luxury of that town, far from raising in his mind the
admiration and astonishment that might have been ex-
pected, impressed him with very different sentiments. His
councillors and courtiers pointed out to him the advan-
tages which power conferred in a civilised country. " It
strikes me," he replied, "that this man (meaning the King
of Seville) is throwing away the power which has been
placed in his hands. Instead of giving his attention to

THE EMPIRE OF "THE TWO SHORES" 57

the good administration and defence of his kingdom, he
thinks of nothing else than satisfying the cravings of his
passions."

Not long afterwards, when Yusuf had returned to Africa,
his generals informed him that the whole of the fighting
against the Christians was left to them, while the Kings
of Andalusia remained sunk in pleasure and sloth. They
asked for his instructions, and were ordered to conquer
the Kings of Andalusia, and to appoint to every city or
town as it fell into their power a governor from among
the officers of Yusufs army. Town after town fell to
the army of the Almoravides, till Seville itself was taken,
and the King sent a prisoner into Africa, where he died
in 1095.

Yusuf died in 11 06. His son succeeded to the Sul-
tanate of North Africa and Spain ; and the Almoravide
dynasty continued to reign with a double court, one in
Africa and one in Spain, the Sultan residing alternately
in either until the African dominion was overthrown in
1 142, and the Spanish dominion three years later, in 1 145.
The last Almoravide sovereign of Africa and Spain was,
according to Ibn Khaldun, executed in the presence of
the Almohade conqueror in 1147. During the whole of
this period, as under the dynasty of the Ommeyades,
intercourse between Spain and Negroland was freely
maintained.

CHAPTER V

AFRICAN RULE IN SPAIN

Although the Almoravides on their first entrance into
Spain came as reformers from the desert, preaching a
stern doctrine of abnegation, they yielded rapidly to the
seduction of Spanish luxury, and in little more than half a
century they are spoken of by Arab historians as having
become soft and effeminate like their predecessors. The
probability is that the body of the Moors in Spain re-
mained what they had been before the Almoravide in-
vasion, and the course of history was not altered, but only
delayed, by the African conquest.

In the same spirit of religious reform which had stirred
the founder of the Almoravide sect, a Mahdi arose in the
early part of the twelfth century in the northern provinces
of Ifrikiah, and preached a doctrine so stringent that he
excited a revolt among the populace, and was obliged to
fly from the anger of the Sultan. He appeared first in
Bugia in 1 1 18, and preached his ascetic reforms in Telem-
9an, Fez, Mequinez, and Morocco. Everywhere he excited
the anger of the people, and towards 1121 he withdrew
into the desert, where gradually disciples began to join him
in great numbers. The authorities persecuted him here
also, and he then called upon the Mesmudian Berbers to
rally to his cause, to defend his person, and to declare a
Holy War in defence of the doctrine of the Unity of God.
He declared himself to be the Mahdi, and he gave to
his followers the title of Almohades or Unitarians. He
entrenched himself in the Mountain of Tinmelel in the
southern fastnesses of the Atlas chain, and this spot
remained the stronghold of the sect until their final ex-

AFRICAN RULE IN SPAIN 59

tinction as a political power about a hundred years later.
The original Mahdi died in 11 28, but this event had little
effect upon the sect. In 11 30 a war began between the
Almohades and the Almoravides in Africa, which ended
in 1 147 by the capture of Morocco and the execution of
the reigning Almoravide sovereign.

No sooner was the province of Morocco subdued than
the Almohades crossed into Spain, and after a determined
contest with the Christian armies, who were only with the
greatest difficulty prevented from taking Cordova, Mussul-
man Spain swore fealty in 11 50 to the Almohades. Thus
for a second time a purely African dynasty reigned upon the
most civilised throne of Europe. This same Almohade con-
queror reconstructed the Moorish fleet, and added to it no
less than 460 vessels. His reign, which lasted until 1163,
was a period of constant war, during which he was com-
pelled to put out all his strength against the Christians.
He succeeded in holding his own with difficulty, and his
successor united all the tribes of North Africa in a Holy
War against the "infidels of Spain." It is curious to read
in the Arab chronicles the history of the Crusades told
from the other side. It will be remembered that the
famous Saladin took Jerusalem in 1187. In 1189 this
Caliph of the Eastern Arabs appealed to the reigning
Almohade Caliph of the West, El Mansour, to assist with
his maritime forces in the sieges of Acre, Tyre, and Tripoli,
and according to one historian 180 ships sent by the
African Sultan prevented the Christians from landing in
Syria.

Under the great Almohade sovereigns the glory of the
Arabs in Spain was well maintained. Monuments of their
civil activity remain in the Castle of Gibraltar, which they
built in 1160, and in the great mosque of Seville, which
was begun in 1183. The Giralda or tower of Seville —
not, alas ! now perhaps to be spoken of as existing — was
built as an observatory under the superintendence of the
mathematician Geber in 11 96. The Almoravides had
fixed their Spanish Court at Seville. The Almohades

6o A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

imported to their African Court in Morocco workmen
from all parts of Spain. Ibn Said describes Morocco in
the thirteenth century as the " Baghdad of the West,"
and says that it was never so prosperous as under the
early Almohadcs. Both dynasties had two courts, one
in Africa and one in Spain. Thus, whatever was the
prosperity or greatness of one part of their empire, it was
shared by the other, and under the Almohades there was
a shifting towards the African centre.

A good deal of jealousy seems to have existed between
the natives of the " Two Shores" as to the merits of their
respective territories. A certain distinguished citizen of
Tangier, Abu Yahya, arguing on one occasion with the
Sheikh Ash-shakandi of Cordova — who flourished under
the later Almohades and died 1231 — on the advantages of
their respective countries, provoked Ash-shakandi to say :
" Were it not for Andalusia, Africa, thy country, would
never have been known." " Do you really mean," replied
the African, "to say that excellency and power reside
anywhere in such degree as amongst us ? Prove it ! "
The Caliph, who was listening to the dispute, interposed.
He said that it was too serious to be decided by extempore
speaking, and ordered each disputant to put his views in
writing. Hence the celebrated epistle of Ash-shakandi,
written under the last of the Almohades, to which we are
indebted for a great deal of contemporary information.
It states the case for the civilisation of the Spanish half
of the empire. Unfortunately the counter-statement of
Abu Yahya, maintaining the claims of the African half,
has not been preserved.

" He pretends to make Africa superior to Andalusia!"
exclaims Ash-shakandi in derision of his opponent. " It
is as much as to say that the left hand is better than the
right, and that night is lighter than day." No claim is
allowed to be based on the fact that the Sultans of the day
kept their chief court in Africa. "We too," says Ash-
shakandi, " have had our Sultans," and he speaks of the
Ommeyades as " Sultans who succeeded each other as

AFRICAN RULE IN SPAIN 6i

pearls in a necklace united by the thread." The break-up
of their empire was as the cutting of the string. As the
Ommeyades are the objects of his panegyric, so the
Africans are of his disdain. Yusuf Tachefin, the founder
of the Almoravides, owed his fame, he says, wholly to
Al Mutammed, King of Seville. "Otherwise, I ask you,
would he have been known, ignorant and rude Bedowi as
he was ? " Among the limitations of Yusuf it is recounted
that on various occasions he jeered at the poets and their
fine metaphors, declaring that he understood nothing of
their writings except that the writers wanted bread 1
But Ash-shakandi proceeds: "Since Africa dares to dis-
pute the superiority in the sciences, can you produce such
men as these .-* " He then gives a list of scholars eminent
in the ranks of science, philosophy, and literature, which is
now valuable for the service it renders in rescuing the
names of great men from oblivion and preserving a record
of their works. This list contains geometers, philosophers,
theologians, historians, men distinguished in philology,
literature, geography, medicine, and all the natural sciences,
also grammarians, musicians, poets, and orators. Ash-
shakandi also distinguishes the scholar kings of the lesser
courts of Spain, men who could still devote their minds
with ardour to the study of science in the midst of all the
tumult of civil war.

He proceeds to the description of Spain itself, its
principal towns and monuments. Much that was said of
Cordova in a previous chapter was taken from this epistle.
Though himself a native of Cordova, he says of Seville,
where the later court of the Almoravides and Almohades
was fixed, that it was one of the finest cities of Spain, and
praises at great length its magnificent buildings, — especially
the famous mosque — its good streets, its spacious dwelling-
houses, — of which the courtyards were planted with orange,
citron, lemon, and other fruit-trees — and its generally
excellent arrangements. The river at Seville was navig-
able for large vessels, and was always filled with pleasure
boats kept by the inhabitants of the town, "who were

62 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

very luxurious and dissipated." It was held to be a
delightful boating river. The environs of Seville were
very picturesque — olives, figs, and sugar-cane abounded,
and the banks of the river were covered with fruit-trees
"formino a sort of canopy, so that it was possible to sail
sheltered from the rays of the sun, and listening to the
melody of singing-birds along the banks." The river ran
for a course of thirty miles through clusters of buildings
and farmhouses, high towers and strong castles, forming
a continued city. The mildness of the temperature, the
purity of the air, the abundance of provisions and com-
modities which were to be found in its markets, made it an
agreeable place of residence. There was a saying, common
in Andalusia, " If thou seekest for bird's milk, by Allah !
thou shall find it in Seville." The love of music of its
inhabitants has been already mentioned. They were,
Ash-shakandi says, "the merriest people upon earth,
always singing, playing on instruments, and drinking wine,
which among them is not considered forbidden so long as
it is used with moderation." Amongst its many manu-
factures Seville was as famous for oil as Malaga was for
wine. Beja, a town in its territory, was famous for its
cotton manufactures.

Other Spanish towns — Granada with its magnificent
chestnut trees, Toledo, Valencia rich in trade and noted
for the paper manufactories of Xatina in its neighbourhood ;
Jaen, so famous for its silk manufactures that it was called
"Jaen of the Silk" ; Murcia, Xeres, Malaga, Lisbon, each
famous for their special products ; Saragossa, afterwards
the seat of Empire of the Huddites, in which there was a
wonderful palace with a golden hall of extraordinary beauty
of design and workmanship, and many more, are described
by Ash-shakandi in detail enough to present a vivid picture
of the wealth, importance, and refinement of civilisation
which distinguished the Spain of the thirteenth century.
If his opponents in the literary contest had anything like
the same account to give of the African half of the Arab
Empire, the condition of this portion of the Western world

AFRICAN RULE IN SPAIN 63

under the African dynasties which administered it for
nearly two hundred years, must have been extraordinarily
prosperous.

We may add to Ash-shakandi's account a statement of
Ibn Said, made also in the thirteenth century, that in his
day Andalusia was " so thickly populated that if a traveller
goes any distance through it he will find at every step on
his road hamlets, farms, towns, orchards, and cultivated
fields, and will never meet, as is more or less the case in
other cultivated countries, with large tracts of uncultivated
land or desert. This, united to the habit of the Andalusians,
who, instead of living together as the Egyptians do,
grouped in towns and villages, prefer dwelling in cottages
and rural establishments in the midst of the fields, by the
side of brooks, and on the declivities of mountains, gives
altogether to the country an aspect of comfort and pros-
perity for which the traveller will look in vain elsewhere.
Their houses, too, which they are continually white-washing
inside and out, look exceedingly well by the side of the
green trees."

This picture of country life speaks much for the general
order and security which prevailed, and indicates that the
measures taken by Almoravide and Almohade sovereigns
to mamtain a general respect for law had been successful.
During the disorders preceding the Almoravide conquest
brigandage had become rife, and a quaint story is told of
a certain brigand, Greyhawk by name, who was brought
before Al Mutammed, King of Seville. This Greyhawk,
having committed atrocious crimes, was condemned to be
crucified, and while he hung on the cross watched by his
devoted wife and daughter, he managed still to beguile an
unwary traveller into leaving his laden mule to search for
treasure in a well, upon which Greyhawk instructed his
wife to make off with the mule and its burden. The
traveller meanwhile died in the well, and Greyhawk was
taken down from the cross and brought again before the
King. "Tell me, O Greyhawk," said the King, "how
couldst thou be guilty of such a crime as that now imputed

64 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

to thee, being as it were under the very clutch of death ? "
" O King," rephed the robber, " if thou knewest how
strongly nature impels me to the perpetration of such acts,
and how great is the pleasure I enjoy while I commit
them, I have no doubt but that thou wouldest relinquish
the royal power and embrace my profession."

That story and the state of affairs which it illustrates
belong, however, to another period. The reign of the
Almohade el Mansur, which lasted till 12 14, marks the
greatest period of Almohade prosperity. It was during
this reign, in the year 1195, that the three Christian kings
of Arragon, Castile, and Leon were overthrown in the
celebrated battle of Alarcos, at which it was said that the
loss of the Christians amounted to 146,000 men, besides
30,000 prisoners and an incredible amount of spoil. It
would seem to be after this battle, though it is variously
related and placed by some historians in the reign of one
of the Almoravide sovereigns, that the Christian population
of Granada, accused of intriguing with the governments
of Christian Spain, was transported by the Moors in a
body to Africa and settled by thousands in Mequinez,
Sallee, and other towns of the western coast. An Arab
historian who visited Sallee in the year 1360 says that at
that time the town of Rabat, not far distant, was almost
wholly inhabited by families from Granada.

Thus began in the twelfth century, after a long period
of African domination in Spain, a reaction of Europe
upon Africa which has continued to the present day.
This expulsion of the Christians from Granada may be
taken as the first of the great religious expulsions for
which Spain became famous in later years. It is just
to remember that the system was initiated by the Moors,
and it is perhaps worth noting that the celebrated Aver-
rhoes, one of the most famous among the many names
associated with the enlightenment which Arab civilisation
spread through the dark ages of medieval Europe, was
so warm an advocate of the measure, that he took the
trouble to cross from the Spanish Court to the Court of

AFRICAN RULE IN SPAIN 65

Morocco for the purpose of urging his views upon the
Sultan. He appears to have spent a considerable part
of his life at the court of Morocco, which was at that
time a centre of learning. He died there in 1198, and,
in recording his death, Morocco is mentioned as "the
capital " of Adouatein. The mere existence of this
geographical expression, used, as has been said, by the
Arabs to signify the two kingdoms of Spain and Africa,
shows how very closely the interests of the two countries
had become bound together. In connection with the
residence of the learned Averrhoes at the court of El
Mansur in Africa, it may be worth mentioning that the
praises of the same sovereign were sung in his court at
Seville by the " learned and celebrated poet, a black of
Soudan, Abu Ishak Ibrahim al Kanemi." The circum-
stance, though slight, is interesting, as serving to show
that at the end of the twelfth century Negroland con-
tributed, not only its commercial wares, but also its quota
of art to the stores of Europe.

From the beginning of the thirteenth century onward,
the decay of the Mussulman power in Spain is marked.
The Christian Powers made constant and successful on-
slaughts upon the Almohade possessions. Town after
town of importance fell into their hands. They were
assisted by internal divisions among the Mussulmans ;
and in 1230, after nearly a century of brilliant rule, the
Almohade dynasty was brought to an end by the deposi-
tion of the reigning sovereign. The Moslem portion of
the continent declared itself independent under Ibn Hud,
also a leader of African origin. Valencia fell into Chris-
tian hands, 1238; Cordova, 1239; Seville, 1260. A little
later the whole of the Moslem population was driven to
the coast between Ronda, iu the west, and Almeria, in the
east. In Africa the province of Ifrikiah, which stretched
at one period from the confines of Egypt to those of
Morocco, at the same time declared itself independent
under a Sultan of the Hafside dynasty. In 1269 the
Merinites possessed themselves of the throne of Morocco

E

66 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

and its surrounding provinces, and fixed their capital at
Fez. When nothing was left to the Almohades but
Tafilet and a small part of Ifrikiah, they returned to their
stronghold of Tinmelel, to maintain for a few years only
a " phantom Caliph," Ishak, last of his race, who, when
the successful siege of Tafilet in 1274 had given all that
remained of Moroccan soil to the Merinites, was brought
before the ruling sovereign of that dynasty and executed.
It is interesting to note that at this siege of Tafilet, which
put an end to even such empty pretence as still remained
of the Dual Empire of Spain and Africa, mention is made
of the use of firearms, or "fire-engines," which threw out
iron gravel. The shot, it is said, was forced from the
piece by means of a burning powder, "of which the sin-
gular properties work effects that rival the power of the
Creator."

CHAPTER VI
DECLINE OF MOHAMMEDAN POWER IN SPAIN

Thus, before the end of the thirteenth century, the dual
Mohammedan Empire of "Adouatein," or "The Two
Shores," had ceased to exist, and in its place there
had grown up three distinct Moslem powers. In Spain
the Huddites, who afterwards fell under the Hafside
leadership of the celebrated Ibn Ahmar, the builder of
the Alhambra, formed a Moslem kingdom within the
restricted limits still left to them, scarcely extending be-
yond the province of Granada. Upon the northern coast
of Africa, in the ancient province of Africa Propria, or
Ifrikiah, embracing Tunis and Tripoli, and henceforward
generally known as Barbary, an independent Hafside
dynasty was established, of which the subsequent history
is one long succession of war. In Morocco the dynasty
of the Merinites, ever at war with the Hafsides of the
coast, was to hold its own until, at the beginning of the
sixteenth century, it was overthrown by the Sherifs, whose
descendants now reign in Morocco. Almost simultane-
ously with this break-up of the Caliphate of the West, the
Caliphate of the East was overthrown by the Tartars
in 1258.

Notwithstanding the ceaseless wars to which all these
dynasties were exposed, the Courts of Tunis, Fez, and
Granada maintained a high reputation for learning, re-
finement, and civilisation. The most brilliant period of
Arab domination had come to an end, but the Arabs
continued for two hundred years to represent the highest
standard of knowledge and enlightenment which existed

in modern Europe. Their universities were the founts

67

68 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

of learning to which Christian ignorance went for its
early education. Their courts were homes envied openly
by the most distinguished of European kings. Among
the celebrated pupils of Arab teachers, Roger Bacon,
Peter the Venerable, Pope Sylvester II., are illustrious
names which occur at once to the memory, and up to
the end of the fifteenth century there was scarcely a man
of eminence or learning in the schools of England, France,
or Italy, whose biography, when it has been preserved,
does not acknowledge the debt which he owed directly
or indirectly to Arab learning. Arabian knowledge of
the physical conditions of the Universe remained far in
advance of anything known to Europe until near the
end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth
centuries. The entire medical faculty of the Continent
was trained in Arab schools. That they maintained this
high place in the front rank of science through all the
decadence of their later history, is sufficiently illustrated
by the fact that when, at the moment of the final ex-
pulsion of the Moors from Spain, the Catholic Cardinal
Ximenes ordered the destruction of the libraries of
Granada, he reserved from the general condemnation
three hundred medical works, to which Europe recognised
its obligation.

There is no department of our daily life upon which
the Arabs have not left their mark. Not only our
learning, our laws, our justice, our naval and military
science, our agriculture, our commerce, our manufacturing
industries, have been profoundly impressed by Arab
influence maintained in Europe for upwards of 800 years,
but our daily customs, our domestic life, have been no
less intimately touched. It is from the Arabs of Spain
that we have learned to wash, to dress, to cook, to garden.
They improved our musical instruments ; they gave us
new poetic metres ; they gave us the imaginative pleasures
of narrative fiction. From them France and Italy
borrowed the lighter play of wit and repartee, which has
since radiated through the northern races. From them

DECLINE OF MOHAMMEDAN POWER 69

modern Europe learned to associate with the emotions
of love the grace and joy of cultivated life. It was from
their hands that the growing life of the young nations
of the West received its happiest direction. We have
but to turn to the vocabularies of Europe and to trace
in them the many important words of Arabic origin in
order to appreciate to some extent the debt of which we
have lost sight.

I have no intention of entering into the history of
Spain during the centuries which led to the conquest of
Granada by Ferdinand and Isabella, and the final expulsion
of the Arabs from Europe in 1502. My purpose in briefly
relating the outlines of the Arab-African conquest of Spain
has been merely to indicate the nature of the national life
to which Negroland owed the impulse of its medieval
civilisation. If the impression made by Arab- African
civilisation upon Europe has been indelible, it is only
natural that the same impression should have been strong
upon the nations which were brought in contact with it
— even though in some instances they were of a wholly
different race — in the continent from which it sprang.

Here is a picture quoted by Ibn Said, the "truthful
historian," to whom allusion has been already made, from
a previous writer, the truth of whose words he endorses,
of the immediate effect upon Africa of the downfall of
the Almohade dynasty in Spain. Ibn Said was born in
Granada in 12 14; he died in Tunis in 1287, and was
therefore a personal witness of the condition of things
which he describes.

"Africa," he quotes, "may be said to have derived its
present wealth and importance, and its extent of commerce,
from Andalusians settling in it. For when God Almighty
was pleased to send down on their country the last
disastrous civil war, thousands of its inhabitants, of all
classes and professions, sought a refuge in Africa and
spread over Maghreb el Aksa (Morocco), and Africa
Propria (Barbary), settling wherever they found comfort
or employment. Labourers and country people took to

70 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

the same occupations which they had left in Andalusia.
They formed intimacies with the inhabitants, discovered
springs, made them available for the irrigation of their
fields, planted trees, introduced water-mills, and other
useful inventions. In short, they taught the African
farmers many things whereof they had never heard, and
showed them the use of excellent practices whereof they
were completely ignorant. Through their means the
countries where they fixed their residence became at once
prosperous and rich, and the inhabitants saw their wealth
increase rapidly, as well as their comfort and enjoyments.
. . There was no district in Africa wherein some of the
principal authorities were not Andalusians. . . . But it
was in the class of operatives and workmen in all sorts
of handicrafts that Africa derived the most advantage
from the tides of emigration setting towards its shores."

Ibn Ghalib, from whom the quotation is made, wrote
at an earlier period than Ibn Said. After making the
quotation, Ibn Said continues: "Perhaps some of my
readers, in perusing the accounts I have just given in the
words of Ibn Ghalib of the revolution created by the
Andalusian emigration in the trade and agriculture of
Africa, will say to themselves : ' This author was un-
doubtedly partial towards his countrymen, and he exag-
gerated their merits ' ; but let them plunge into his book,
let them weigh every one of his expressions, and com-
pare his narrative with those of other writers, and they
will soon feel convinced that he spoke the truth."

Of these same Andalusians the author, Ibn Ghalib,
who is quoted, says, at an earlier period : " They are
Arabs by descent, in pride, in the haughtiness of their
temper, the devotion of their minds, the goodness of their
hearts, and the purity of their intentions. They resemble
them in their abhorrence of everything that is cruel
or oppressive, in their inability to endure subjection or
contempt, and in the liberal expenditure of whatever they
possess. They are Indians in their love of learning, as
well as in their assiduous cultivation of science, their firm

DECLINE OF MOHAMMEDAN POWER 71

adherence to its principles, and the scrupulous attention
with which they transmit to their posterity its invaluable
secrets. They are like the people of Baghdad in cleanli-
ness of person and beauty of form, in elegance of manners,
mildness of disposition, subtlety of mind, power of thought,
extent of memory, and universality of talent. They are
Turks in their aptitude for war, their deep acquaintance
with every one of its stratagems, and their skilful pre-
paration of the weapons and machines used in it, as
well as their extreme care and foresight in all matters
concerning it. They have been further compared with
the Chinese for the delicacy of their work, the subtlety
of their manufactures, and their dexterity in imitating all
sorts of figures. And, lastly, it is generally asserted that
they are of all nations that which most resembles the
Greeks in their knowledge of the physical and natural
sciences, their ability in discovering waters hidden in the
bowels of the earth and bringing them to the surface ;
their acquaintance with the various species of trees and
plants and their several fruits, their industry in the pruning
and grafting of trees, the arrangement and distribution
of gardens, the treatment of plants and flowers, and all
and every one of the branches of agriculture. Upon this
last subject their proficiency is proverbial. The Anda-
lusians, moreover, are the most patient of men and the
fittest to endure fatigue."

Such was the estimate made by contemporary writers
of the people whom civil war and religious intolerance
drove from the cities of southern Spain, to spread through
the northern part of Africa and to found new homes upon
its shores. But to these descriptions it may be well, in
this place, to add another, made a hundred years later,
by a very competent historian, who, looking from a dis-
tance at the events which had taken place, was perhaps
able to form a truer opinion of the causes of the national
downfall. Ibn Khaldun, who was born at Tunis in 1332,
and died in Egypt in 1406, and whose " History of the
Berbers" is held to contain the most authentic information

72 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

of the internal history of North Africa, thus summarises,
on his opening page, the fate of the Arab nation to which
he belonged : " Raised to the height of power in Asia
Minor under the dynasty of the Ommeyades, formidable still
under that of the Abbassides, attaining the highest fortune
in Spain under the second dynasty of the Ommeyades,
the Arabs found themselves in possession of such glory
and prosperity as had never been the lot of another people.
Surrounded by luxury and devoted to pleasure, they
yielded to the seductions of idleness, and, tasting the
delights of life, they fell into a long sleep under the
shadow of glory and of peace. Then the soldier was
no longer to be distinguished from the artisan, except by
his ineptitude for work ; their hardy habits were gone,
and they were overthrown, not in the first instance by
strangers, but by their own Caliphs. They were enslaved,
then broken and dispersed."

Allowing for the somewhat over-flowery rhetoric of
Arabian writers, the facts would seem to justify both sides
of this description. The later decadence of the Arabs,
when, after the final expulsion of 1502, they entirely lost
touch with the progressive life of Europe, can only be
accounted for on the assumption that they had, as Ibn
Khaldun perceived, lost their early vitality, and that they
carried with them into Africa the elements of their own
decay. They were overthrown, not, in the first instance,
by strangers, but by themselves.

Yet, without a doubt, their influence upon Africa,
when the civil wars first drove them out of Spain, was
that described by Ibn Said.

CHAPTER VII
SPANISH ARABS IN AFRICA

From the break-up of the Arab Empire of " The Two
Shores" in the middle of the thirteenth century to the
moment of the final severance of North Africa from
Europe in the sixteenth century, the growth and spread
of civilisation in the independent kingdoms of North
Africa was very marked. Throughout the dark period
of the Middle Ages, when the Catholic Church was assert-
ing its claim to dominate the conscience of the Western
World, and to direct not only the action but the thought
of Christendom, all that was independent, all that was
progressive, all that was persecuted for conscience' sake,
took refuge in the courts of Africa. Art, science, poetry,
and wit found congenial homes in the orange-shaded
arcades of the colleges of Fez, in the palaces of Morocco,
and in the exquisite gardens of Tripoli and Tunis.

The charm of life which had been so sedulously culti-
vated in the Mohammedan towns of Spain was transported
to the coast of Africa. The beautiful palaces of southern
Spain were reconstructed upon African soil. The gardens
of El-Mostancer, a Hafside sovereign of Tunis who
reigned from 1252 to 1277, rivalled those of the Omme-
yades in Cordova. After describing the beauties of the
gardens, Ibn Khaldun says of the court of this monarch,
that it was always filled with distinguished persons.
"Here," he says, "were to be seen numbers of Anda-
lusians, amongst them distinguished poets and other elo-
quent writers, illustrious men of science, magnanimous
princes, intrepid warriors." Here, too, we may note, in
the year 1237, amidst all the brilliancy of such surround-

74 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

ings, a deputation from the king of the black countries
of Bornu and Kanem, who sent amongst other gifts a
giraffe, which so interested and delighted the inhabitants
of Tunis that it excited the greatest enthusiasm.

At Fez, which now became the capital of the Merinite
sovereigns, beautiful palaces and gardens were constructed,
and the life of the higher nobility was conducted with
much state. Learning also was encouraged, and it is
interesting to observe, as the result of a "Holy War"
successfully carried on against the Christians in Spain by
one of the greatest of the Merinite sovereigns of Morocco,
that among the conditions of peace imposed by the Mos-
lem kino; was the surrender of all scientific works which
had fallen into the hands of the Christians in the capture
of Mussulman towns. Unfortunately only about iioo
volumes had been saved. These were afterwards con-
veyed to the University of Fez.

Ibn Khaldun says that literature presently declined
at the court of Fez, owing to the too great materialism
of the Merinite sovereigns. This was not the opinion
of the celebrated traveller Ibn Batuta, but Ibn Khaldun
was probably the better judge.

Ibn Batuta, who, like Ibn Khaldun, was born in North
Africa of Arab parents, though about thirty years earlier
(1303), distinguished himself by spending five-and-twenty
years in travel, which extended over the greater part of the
known world, and included Europe, India, China, and
Thibet. He entered the "white town of Fez" on the 8th
of November 1349, and decided there to lay aside his
pilgrim's staff, because, for reasons which he sets forth at
length, his judgment was convinced that the noble country
over which its sovereign ruled was the best country and
the best administered of all those that he had visited.
Here he found the conditions of life better than in any other
country. Food was more plentiful, varied, and cheap ; life
and property were more secure, law was milder, justice was
more assured, charity more fully organised, religion more
truly maintained, and literature, science, and art more

SPANISH ARABS IN AFRICA 75

honoured than in any other centre of civilisation. He
mentions, in regard to the organised charities of the
country, that free hospitals were constructed and endowed
in every town of the kingdom. As regards the endowment
of science and literature, he describes the great College of
Fez as having " no parallel in the known world for size,
beauty, and magnificence." He speaks of the deep interest
taken by the sovereign in all that related to science and
literature, the very considerable literary achievements of
the sovereign himself, and of the generous protection which
he gave to all persons who were devoted to the study of
science. Here also, before the date of Ibn Batuta's visit,
we are brought into touch in the year 1338 with the
political life of the Negro kingdom of Melle. Mansa Musa,
a black sovereign, of whom we shall presently hear more,
and the seat of whose empire was in the territory now
known as the Bend of the Niger, sent an embassy on the
occasion of the conquest of Telem^an by the Merinites to
congratulate the Merinite sovereign, who was his nearest
white neighbour. His embassy was accompanied by an
interpreter from Masina in the Upper Niger, where the
Fulanis had then a principal seat of occupation. Abou el
Ha^en — the king so warmly praised a few years later by
Ibn Batuta — received them very cordially, and sent back
by their hands a very handsome present to Mansa Musa.

In the lists which are given of the presents exchanged
between monarchs on state occasions, interesting glimpses
of the condition of the nations concerned may be obtained.
The present made by Abou el Hagen to Mansa Musa is
not described, but here is the description of a present sent
by him to the reigning Sultan of Egypt on the same
occasion of the taking of Telem^an from the Hafsides
in 1337.

First on the list is placed a copy of the Koran written
by the monarch's own hand, and most beautifully bound at
Fez. The binding, which is described in great detail, was
made of ebony, ivory, and sandalwood, " inlaid with admir-
able art," and decorated with fillets of gold and pearls and

76 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

rubies. There was also an outside leather case, which was
solidly worked and decorated with fillets of gold. Next
after the book there came upon the list five hundred
thorouorhbred horses, of which the saddles were em-
broidered in gold and silver, and of which the bridles and
bits were some of them of pure gold and some of them
plated. Also there were five hundred loads of objects
made in Morocco — or Maghreb, as the portion of Africa
now known to us as Morocco was then called. There
were arms, and beautiful woollen stuffs ; cloaks, robes,
burnooses ; turbans, striped and plain stuffs of silk and
wool ; silks plain and in colours, embroidered and brocaded
with gold. Also shields brought from the countries of
the desert, made of the skin of the lamt, and " covered
with that famous varnish which renders them so hard."
Also many pieces of furniture " which is made in Maghreb
and much sought after in the East."

A country which can count all these objects amongst
its manufactures is evidently in a very fairly high condition
of industrial prosperity. A monarch who can transcribe a
copy of the Koran in his own hand in such a manner as to
render it worthy of being placed in so precious a binding
at the head of a present of this value must evidently have
at least some appreciation of the charms of literature. It
is said of Abou el Ha9en that he performed the feat of
transcribing the Koran with his own hand three times.

After this conquest of Telemcan intercourse between
Morocco and Negroland appears to have increased, which
is not unnatural, as already a very considerable trade
existed between Telem9an, which was one of the principal
ports of embarkation for Spain, and the countries of the
Negro belt. The king of Melle was at that time the
greatest of the black sovereigns, and Abou el Ha^en,
desiring to cultivate pleasant relations with him, sent him
an embassy with handsome presents, a compliment which
in 1360 the reigning king of Melle returned to Abou el
Haven's successor. Unfortunately the details of this
present are not recorded. It is only stated that Mansa

SPANISH ARABS IN AFRICA 77

Suleiman of Melle, " wishing to return the good treatment
of the Merinite sovereign, collected various products of
his country, all extremely rare and curious, and sent them
to Fez." He also added to his presents a giraffe, which
gave great pleasure to the Court of Fez. The embassy
was received with the greatest possible honour at Fez, the
place being thronged and people standing on each other's
shoulders in the crowd to see — while the Sultan, seated in
his golden kiosk, received and returned the assurances of
friendship sent to him by the black king.

An incident of the developed intercourse between
Morocco and Negroland which is of more interest to
posterity than the exchange of presents between their
respective sovereigns, was the decision arrived at by Ibn
Batuta to take up again his pilgrim's staff, and quitting
the lettered luxury of Fez, to add another chapter to his
travels by journeying through Negroland. He accordingly
crossed the frontier of Morocco on his southward journey
on February 18, 1352, and spent upwards of eighteen
months in a journey through the principal countries of the
Nigerian watershed, re-entering the kingdom of Morocco
in December of 1353. The record of this journey, which
he has added to the four volumes of his travels, is especially
interesting, as giving a picture of the Negroland of that
day written from personal observation. The earlier Arab
writers, from whom our information is principally drawn,
were not themselves personally acquainted with the
countries of which they write. They described them
generally from the hearsay of travellers and traders, and
though this has its value as representing the volume of
common knowledge which existed concerning Negroland,
other descriptions lack the vividness which Ibn Batuta
gives to his.

CHAPTER VIII

THE SOUDANESE STATES

We come now to the history of Negroland itself, which
began to be known in its relatively modern development
from about the period of the Arab conquest of Africa
and Spain. The sources of information regarding it are
mainly Arab, and the earliest records which have been
preserved carry us only vaguely back beyond the seventh
century of the Christian era. The records which exist
make it clear that the Empire of the Two Shores estab-
lished by the Arabs in North Africa and Spain was the
commercial field of Negroland. This was also the case
with the territories included in the dominion of the
Eastern Caliphate, and intercourse was frequent between
the principal countries of Negroland and the towns of
North Africa, Spain, Egypt, Syria, and Arabia. Negro-
land was therefore in closer touch than many of the
countries of Northern Europe with the highest civilisa-
tion of the period, and the effect of this closer relation
is of course traceable in its history. Throughout the
whole period it would seem that the ancient tradition of
civilisation, which had come to it from the East, so far
prevailed that the kingdoms of Negroland were disposed
to acknowledge the political supremacy of the Eastern,
rather than of the Western Caliphate. More than once
in later times there are instances of their sovereigns
accepting investiture from the Sultan of Egypt, even
after the overthrow of the Caliphate by the Turks. But
their intellectual and commercial intercourse would appear
to have been more active with the West than with the

East ; and in tracing the course of civilisation in their

78

THE SOUDANESE STATES 79

kingdoms from the seventh to the seventeenth century,
at which latter period the whole underwent a chaotic
change, it is to be observed that the tide of progress
spreads steadily from the West eastward, not from the
East westward. In saying this I allude especially to
those countries to the west of Lake Chad, which, taken
collectively, may be said to form the Western Soudan.
There is one other general observation which it is, I
think, interesting to make with regard to the civilising
influence exercised by the Empire of the Two Shores
upon Negroland. It is that between the seventh and
the seventeenth centuries, though there were many local
wars and conquests of black kingdoms by Berbers and
Berber kingdoms by blacks, there was never any military
conquest made or attempted by Spanish Arabs of the
black countries with which they traded. At the begin-
ning of the seventeenth century, when the Spanish Arabs
had themselves been expelled from Europe, this policy
was reversed with disastrous results, and the conquest
of the country by the decadent Moors put an end to the
prosperity of Negroland.

In order to follow with any interest the historic de-
velopment of this little known portion of the world, it is
well to glance at a map of Africa and note the more
salient physical features which have to some extent de-
termined here, as they determine elsewhere, the political
distribution of the country. It has already been men-
tioned that the latitude of 17° N. may be taken as the
edge of the summer rains, and that between 10° and 17°
all the finest races of this part of Africa are to be found.
This is M. de Lauture's limit of distribution. Later
experience would lead us perhaps to draw the southern
line a little lower. Probably the parallel of 9° would be
found more accurate. If two blue pencil lines be drawn
upon these parallels on a map of north-west Africa, it will
be seen that they include within their limits the whole
course of the Senegal from its rise in the mountains
north of Sierra Leone to its mouth in the Atlantic Ocean,

8o A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

and the course of the Upper and Middle Niger from its
rise in the same mountains to its most northerly bend,
almost on the parallel of 17°, and its descent in a south-
easterly direction to that fall in its bed which has been
rendered famous by Mungo Park's death in the rapids
which are caused by it near Boussa. The same limits
include Lake Chad and all the tributaries which drain
to it from the highlands of the Haussa States. It will
be observed that towards the northern portion of this
territory the country has a general tendency to open into
level plains ; while towards the southern portion hilly
regions, drawing together, form a natural dividing-line
from the countries of the coast. It will also be observed
that the line drawn upon the parallel of 9° excludes from the
area occupied by the fine races every one of those territories
hitherto occupied by the nations of modern Europe in
the maritime settlements made upon the southern portion
of the coast, except the French settlement of the Senegal.

It becomes apparent, in looking broadly at the lines
thus traced upon the map, that the country which lies
between them is cut by its main watercourses into four
principal divisions. There is the territory lying south-
west of the Senegal, between the course of that river
and the sea ; there is the country lying north-east of the
Senegal, between that river and the Niger to the point
where the Niger presses upon the desert at Timbuctoo ;
there is the country lying south of the Niger enclosed
in the bend of the river, and generally known now by
the geographical expression — the Bend of the Niger ; and
there is the country stretching from the eastern bank of
the Niger to Lake Chad. Allowing something for the
always too arbitrary nature of geographical boundaries,
it will be found that the history of Negroland tends also
to group itself within these four divisions.

The very earliest records which we have in point of
date, exclusive of the tradition of ancient Egypt in the
East, relate to the north-east of the Senegal, between that
river and the Niger. This territory was known by a

THE SOUDANESE STATES 8i

confusingly different number of names ; but the name of
its principal town, and the name by which the territory
itself was most generally known in the first days of its
medieval prosperity, was Ghana or Ghanata. At a later
date the territory was called Walata, and the principal
town became Aiwalatin.

We are told that white kings had reigned over Ghana
before the year of the Hegira ; but when the Arabs visited
the country in the eighth century they found it in the pos-
session of a black monarch, to whom the Berbers or white
people of the more northerly desert towns paid tribute.
The town of Ghana lay towards the eastern portion of
this district, and at one time the territory over which it
ruled extended to the sea.

The district to the south-west of the Senegal, between
that river and the sea, is regarded by early writers as the
original place of settlement of the Fulani in Africa. The
Djolfs, who inhabited it during the Arab period, are de-
scribed in the Tarikh-es-Soudan as "the best of men."
" By their acts and their character," the author says,
"they differ essentially from all the other Fulanis. God
by a special grace has endowed them with a generous
nature, and He inspires in them fine actions and conduct
worthy of all praise. For valour and bravery they have
no equal. , . . In all that we have ever heard about them,
loyalty and fidelity to their engagements appear to be
innate, and to have reached the highest expression in
them." It will be noticed that this praise of the Djolfs
is given at the implied expense of "all other Fulanis."
There can be no doubt that from the beginning of their
history there has been a wide variation in the endowments
of this people. They are, however, so remarkable, and
from our earliest knowledge of them have maintained the
character of their own race so exclusively of the life and
history of the other races of the Soudan, that the account
of their progress as a ruling power from the extreme
western corner upon the Atlantic coast, in which we first
hear of them, to the eastern regions between the Niger

F

82 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

and Lake Chad, where, at the beginning of the nineteenth
century, they established their domination over the Haussa
states, will best be given later in a separate chapter.

The history of Ghana and of the Empire of Melle
which superseded it constitute the two first chapters of the
native history of Negroland. Melle, which extended at
one period of its history over the territory of Ghana and
also over the Bend of the Niger, gives way in its turn to
the extraordinarily interesting history of Songhay — an
empire which from the middle of the fifteenth to the end
of the sixteenth centuries extended over the entire Bend
of the Niger, and even carried its domination for a time
to the Atlantic on one side and to Lake Chad upon the
other. Contemporaneously with the rise of Melle and
Songhay, the Haussa States and Bornu rose to prosperity
between the Niger and Lake Chad, while the native
states of Nupe, Borgu, Mossi, and some others, appear
to have maintained an independent existence from a
period of considerable antiquity upon the Niger. To
the south of these territories, during the whole period of
which we have the record of their history, the country
was inhabited in a continuous belt by Pagan cannibals.

As civilisation in the medieval epoch of Negro history
would seem to have arisen in the west, and gradually to
have crept across towards the east, meeting, in the Bend
of the Niger and the Haussa States, that other wave of
civilising influence which in earlier days had inspired its
life from the east, so it will not be surprising to find
that decadence spreads also along the same path and
in the same historic order. When the Arabs first
visited Negroland by the western route in the eighth
and ninth centuries of our era, they found the black
kings of Ghana in the height of their prosperity. The
countries bordering upon Lake Chad are then spoken
of contemptuously as the " country of the idolaters."
But the black kings of Ghana had long passed into
oblivion when Edris, one of the greatest of the kings of
Bornu, was making gunpowder for the muskets of his army
t a period contemporary with Queen Elizabeth.

CHAPTER IX

NEGROLAND AND THE WESTERN ARABS

It has already been mentioned that the whole of the Fez-
zan and the south-western province of what is now Morocco
were conquered by the Arab general, Okbar, in the middle
of the seventh century, but that he did not penetrate at
either end of the Western Soudan to the territories of the
fertile belt. There was not for nearly a thousand years
any direct military conquest of these territories by the
Arabs. But the Berber tribes, dispossessed and driven
southwards by the Arabs, made room for themselves at
different periods in the fertile belt, and in doing so neces-
sarily fought with and overthrew or were overthrown by
the blacks. As in the case of the conquest of the British
Isles by Saxons, Danes, and Normans, this resulted in a
very great admixture of blood, and though the black strain
would seem generally to have prevailed in point of colour,
the characteristics of the races occupying the fertile belt
were in the course of centuries so modified that in speak-
ing of them it will perhaps be more accurate to employ
the word " black " than the in many ways misleading term
of " negro."

The true negro is hardly to be found amongst these
races of the northern inland belt — the cast of face,
even when jet black in colour, being frequently European
in form, with the high nose, thin lips, and deep-set eyes,
characteristic still of the Arab of the Mediterranean coast.
The aristocratic thin hand, and the slight, somewhat square
shoulders of the Arab of the coast are also frequently
noticeable. As a consequence of many invasions from the

north this blood no doubt penetrated as far as climatic

83

84 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

conditions would allow. I shall also hope to show that
from any time of which history has note, the northern belt
of the Soudan has been occupied by races of a higher
than negroid type. The operation of these types upon the
purely negroid races was to drive them southwards into
the tropical swamps of the coast belt in which the higher
type could not live.

The pressure of the tribes of the desert upon Negro-
land dates of course from a very much earlier period
than the Arab conquest of North Africa, but it was
renewed and accentuated by that conquest. The earliest
Arab writer who is known to make any allusion to Arab
dealings with Negroland in the west is Abd el Hakem,
who died in Egypt in Syo, but he merely alludes to a
military expedition against the Berbers in the south-west,
undertaken about the year 720, which reached the Soudan
and brought back as much gold as the soldiers wanted.
The next writer in point of date whose writings have
been preserved is Ibn Haukal, the geographer, who wrote
about the year 930. But he confines his writings chiefly
to "those lands which are the seat of Islam and the resi-
dence of true believers," and though these extended in the
tenth century from Spain to China, through Trans-Oxiana,
Tibet, and Hindostan, the black countries of the Western
Soudan are regarded as being still at that date outside
the pale. " As for the Land of Blacks in West Africa,"
he says, " I make but slight mention of them, because
naturally loving wisdom, ingenuity, religion, justice, and
regular government, how could I notice such people as
those or exalt them by inserting an account of their
countries." It is evident that this haughty writer had
but a small acquaintance with the Land of the Blacks
which he despises, and that he knew only its northern
edge. "The Land of the Blacks," he says, "is a very
extensive region, but extremely dry. In the mountains of
it are to be found all the fruits which the Mohammedan
world produces." He tells us also that it extends to the
ocean on the south and is bordered on the north by

NEGROLAND AND WESTERN ARABS 85

deserts which reach across Africa to Zanzibar. In his
day the Tripoli-Fezzan route would appear to have been
closed. " Whatsoever they get," he says, " comes to them
from the western side, because of the difficulty of entering
their country from any other quarter."

This scant notice is only interesting as showing that,
although intercourse with the Arabs had already begun by
the western route, it was not in the middle of the tenth
century sufficiently active to be regarded in the higher
circles of the learned as having serious importance.

The step from this writer to the next who has pre-
served for us any contemporary knowledge of Negroland,
is the more remarkable. Ibn Haukal died in 968. Just a
hundred years later, in 1067, a book was written that gives
us a description as vivid as the description of Ibn Haukal
is bare. The name of the book is usually translated as
" Roads and Realms." It treats of the whole of North
Africa, but of Negroland in special detail, and the intimate
knowledge which it displays serves to indicate the develop-
ment of intercourse with the Soudan which must have
taken place under the Ommeyades. The author, whose
long Arabic name is usually shortened to El Bekri, was
the son of a prince of Huelva, who, as a consequence
of civil war in Spain, sold his principality to the
Prince of Seville in or about the year 1051. He then
went as a rich man to live at Cordova, taking with
him his son, the famous El Bekri. The exact date of
El Bekri's birth is doubtful, but the best authorities put
it at 1028. It was the moment of the break-up of the
Ommeyade power in Spain, when petty courts were estab-
lishing themselves in the principal towns. On the northern
frontier of Mohammedan Spain the Christians, gaining
daily strength, were before the end of the century to be
led to victory by the immortal Cid, while in the far south
of Western Africa that army of the Al Moravides was
drawing together upon the banks of the Senegal, which
was first to bring regeneration to unconscious Spain.

In the meantime the life of the pleasant courts, which

86 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

the weakness of the declining power of the Ommeyades
had permitted to erect themselves into independence, was
gay, cultivated, splendid, and refined. El Bekri knew
them all. After his father's death in 1066 he went to
that of Almeria, then one of the first cities in importance
of Southern Spain. It is claimed by some Arab writers
that the commercial greatness of the Italian republics had
its foundation in trade with Almeria, and through Almeria
with the East. In Almeria El Bekri was the favoured
guest of El Mutassim, the reigning prince. From Almeria
he afterwards went to take up his residence at Seville,
the home of art and science, where also he was honoured
of the great. He loved the good things of life ; he enjoyed
the society of the learned, and, eminent among all that
was most eminent of his day, he was remarkable for his
own great attainments and intellectual industry. He died
in 1094. It is not recorded of him that he ever left
Spain. It is true that his geographical works can there-
fore only be regarded as compilations, but this renders
them for our purpose in one sense the more important,
as serving to show how much was known at that time
of West Africa in the cultivated circles of the courts of
Spain.

It is evident from El Bekri's account that the trade
of the Soudan with Spain and the countries of the Medi-
terranean coast had for a long time been important enough
to attract attention and interest. He notes the two prin-
cipal caravan roads into the western and eastern end of
the Soudan, but describes the western road by Morocco
and Tafilet as being that in most frequent use. Kanem,
lying at the eastern end of the Western Soudan, is to him
a "country of idolaters very difficult to reach," while the
country to the south of Morocco is evidently as well
known as the provinces of Spain.

Tafilet — known to the Arabs and always spoken of
under the name of Sidjilmessa, the last town at which
the road to the Soudan left the fertile territories of
Morocco — was, according to El Bekri, founded in the

NEGROLAND AND WESTERN ARABS 87

year 757 of our era. He describes it as being situated
at the junction of several streams, in a plain of which the
soil was impregnated with salt and was extraordinarily
fertile. Among their crops the people grew " Chinese
wheat." The town was large, containing some very
splendid buildings, and was surrounded by extensive
suburbs and gardens. Grapes, dates, and all kinds of
fruits were very plentiful, and amongst other industries
the town was celebrated for drying raisins. There was
a gold currency, and it was regarded as a peculiarity that
gold pieces at Sidjilmessa were received by count and
not by weight.

The founder and first governor of this town was black.
It seems contrary to modern ideas that white people
should under any circumstances consent to be ruled by
blacks, but it will be seen that in the history of the
Western Soudan this objection was not universally felt.
Instances are common, especially in the western portions
of the territory of the Soudan, of Berbers paying tribute
to black sovereigns. The Fulani, who counted them-
selves a white race, were constantly subject to black
rulers, and it is related of the black women of one of
the kingdoms of the Soudan, that when their monarch
was overthrown by a contemporary Berber king, they,
" too proud to allow themselves to fall into the hands of
white men," preferred to commit suicide.

Sidjilmessa was already Mohammedan in El Bekri's
time. It was the meeting-place of many roads : those
leading from Wargelan and other places in the Barbary
States which were marts of the trade of the Soudan, and
also from Morocco, Telem9an, and the coast. For all
these roads it formed the most westerly entrance to the
desert.

From Sidjilmessa to Ghana in the Land of Blacks
there was a march of nearly two months to be made
across a practically uninhabited desert. Throughout this
vast region only nomad tribes were in El Bekri's day to
be met with, having, he says, no town for their head-

88 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

quarters, with the exception of the Wadi Dra, at five
days' distance from Sidjilmessa, which was the meeting-
point of the Masmouda Berbers, a fraction of the Senajah
tribe. For the accurate geography of this road the reader
who is interested should refer to Cooley's " Negroland of
the Arabs," in which he will find a learned and most care-
ful examination of the ancient geography of the country.
From the conclusions drawn by Cooley it would seem
quite clear that the road described by El Bekri coincides
almost exactly with that shown in modern maps as con-
necting El Harib on the south-western frontier of Morocco
with Timbuctoo, via Mabruk, which encampment Cooley
identifies with the Audoghast of the Arabs. The only
difference would appear to have been that the meeting-
point of Tamedelt mentioned by El Bekri as being eleven
days west of Sidjilmessa, was slightly to the west of El
Harib. Cooley fixes it at lat. 28° 45' N., long. 7° 10' W.
Dr. Barth disagrees with Cooley, and would place Audo-
ghast somewhat to the west of Mabruk.

To reach Negroland by the western route there were,
however, two possible variants of the road, both of which
have been so accurately described by El Bekri, and after
him by Ibn Batuta and other travellers, as to leave little
room for doubt as to their direction ; one led via Audo-
ghast, the other, as pursued by Ibn Batuta at a later
date, ran more directly south via Tegazza to Aiwalatin or
Walata. Both would appear to have been equally well
known and equally used from the earliest times. Both
required a journey of about two months from Sidjilmessa ;
but the one skirted the western and the other the eastern
border of the desert of Tizer or Ayawad. Both traversed
the desert, using as guides the nomad Berbers of the
locality. Ibn Batuta describes the portion of it just north
of Aiwalatin as " a vast plain, beautiful and bright, of
which the air is so invigorating that the spirits rise and
the lungs dilate." It is, however, quite waterless for
many days, and in order to reach Aiwalatin the custom
was to send a practised guide seven days ahead to give

NEGROLAND AND WESTERN ARABS 89

warning of the approach of a caravan, which messengers
from the town were then sent to meet, carrying water
into the desert for a four days' march. Without this
precaution caravans frequently perished of thirst. Like
all great plains in which the mirage is common, this desert
had the reputation of being haunted by demons. On the
more westerly route, at a distance of twenty days from
Sidjilmessa, lay the great salt-mine of Tegazza, which is
described in detail by every writer.

CHAPTER X

BERBER AND BLACK

These two roads, forming together the great western
caravan route to the Soudan, led each to a separate
and typical objective. The stopping-place of the easterly
branch was Audoghast ; the stopping-place of the more
westerly branch was Aiwalatin. Audoghast was about
fifteen days north of the present position of Timbuctoo.
It lay, therefore, between 21° and 22° N. lat., and
whether Cooley or Barth is right as to its exact position,
it was well outside the belt of the Soudan proper, while
Aiwalatin, or Walata, between the seventeenth and
eighteenth parallels, lay on the edge of the summer rains,
and was the frontier town, and at one time the capital of
the ofreat black king-dom of Ghana. These two towns
represented two elements in the life of the Soudan, and
are therefore worth dwelling upon. The one represented
the Berber, the other the black, element, which are to be
found constantly side by side. Audoghast was a type of
the Berber state, lying not in but on the northern edge
of the Soudan, fronting the black races and having
intercourse with them, but preserving a semi-separate
existence. Aiwalatin was a type of the purely black
state lying in the heart of the fertile belt. Each of
these states in turn would seem to have paid tribute
to the other ; each in turn was ruled by princes of
the opposing race ; each had its periods of independence.
The Soudanese author of the Tarikh-es- Soudan tells
us that forty-four white princes had ruled over Ghana
before the great black princes arose. In the early part
of the eleventh century Audoghast was tributary to

BERBER AXD BLACK 91

Ghana, and was ruled, as Sidjilmessa had once been, by
a black prince.

El Bekri has preserved an interesting description of
both towns as they were known to the travellers and
merchants of Mohammedan Spain.

Before reaching Audoghast, he tells us, the pure desert
of drifting sand gave way to sandy but wooded uplands,
where a succession of wells furnished an ample water
supply. Amongst these woods a rubber or gum tree was
plentiful, of which the produce was exported to Spain,
and much used in the manufacture of silk. From these
wooded uplands the road led down to Audoghast, which
was a large and thickly populated town, built in a sandy
plain and surrounded by gardens and date-groves. Its
pastures were well stocked with sheep and cattle, and
meat was very plentiful, but wheat was cultivated as a
garden crop. The rich alone indulged themselves in the
use of it. The common grain, used by the people was
dourra. Fields of henna bore heavy crops. The town had
several mosques and other fine public buildings, and the
houses generally were "very elegant." The people were
rich and lived in great comfort. There was a large and
extremely busy market, where, notwithstanding the dis-
tance, wheat, fruit, sugar, and dried raisins from the
Mohammedan countries were regularly sent. Honey,
which was very plentiful, came from Negroland. Luxu-
ries of all kinds were to be obtained for gold dust, which
was the medium of exchange. There was no proper
currency. Amongst the trade imports El Bekri mentions
worked copper and dress stuffs, and amongst the exports
amber and refined g:old run into the form of ofold wire.
The refined gold of Audoghast had the reputation of being
purer than that of any other country in the world. The
population of Audoghast was very mixed, but was mainly
Berber, consisting of natives from the Barbary coasts and
members of the surrounding Berber tribes. There were
also to be seen, El Bekri says, but in smaller numbers,
people from all the great ^Mussulman towns o\ Spain, and

92 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

amongst the white women many were remarkable for their
beauty. The service of the households would appear to
have been done by negroes, and the rich merchants
of Audoghast owned sometimes as many as a thousand
slaves. There were especially clever negress cooks who
were worth ^loo apiece, and who knew how to prepare
most appetising dishes, the flesh of camel calves stewed
with truffles, maccaroni dressed with honey, nut cakes,
and all kinds of sweetmeats.

Between the years 961 and 971, that is, a hundred
years earlier than the date of El Bekri's writing, Audo-
ghast formed the centre of a Berber state which was ruled
by a prince of the Senajah tribe whose name was Tin
Yeroutan. More than twenty black kings acknowledged
his rule and paid tribute to him, and his empire extended
over an inhabited country which it required two months to
march through from end to end. He was able to put in
the field an army of no less than 100,000 men mounted
upon trained camels. When the King of Macina, a
Berber frontier state situated south of his territory upon
the Niger, asked for help against a powerful black neigh-
bour, he sent him 50,000 mounted men. The whole
country from Audoghast to the Atlantic coast was in those
days in the possession of the Berbers. Certain tribes,
amongst whom were the Beni Goddala and the Lemtunah,
destined afterwards to give the dynasty of the Almora-
vides to Spain, retained their independence on the western
coast, and as nomads continued for a long time to haunt
the more westerly of the two roads to Negroland. All
these tribes of the desert wore the double veil, the nicab,
which concealed the upper part of the face, and the litham,
which concealed the lower in such a way that only the
orbit of the eyes was visible. "Never," El Bekri says,
" in any circumstances did they take off the veil, and if
by accident a man's veil had been taken off he would
have been quite unrecognisable by his parents." When it
happened in battle to a warrior the body could not be
identified. "The veil," he adds, "is a thing which they

BERBER AXD BLACK 93

no more take off than their skins, and to men who do not
dress as they do they apply the nickname of ' fly-traps.' '"

The Berber Tin Yeroutan had ruled in Audoghast a
hundred years before El Bekri wrote, and in that time
much had happened. The black kingdom of Ghana,
already famous in the eighth centun,', had risen in pros-
perity and importance, and had spread northwards,
conquering amongst other territories the kingdom of
Audoghast. In the year 1054 the town of Audoghast.
still rich and flourishing, not only acknowledged the rule
of Ghana and paid tribute, but was also a place of
residence of the black monarch. But in the followingr
year, 1055, the Almoravides, already setting out upon
their northward march, made a first example of this town.
They took it by assault and sacked and pillaged it, ex-
posing it to every horror of barbaric warfare, and it is
especially stated that " they treated the population of
Audog-hast with this extreme ris^our because the town
had acknowledged the sovereignty of the black king of
Ghana. '

The actual position of the town of Ghana, of which no
certain trace now remains, has been much disputed. Leo
Africanus, by a careless phrase, confused it with the town
of Kajio, upwards of 1200 miles distant in the Haussa
States, and as a consequence, in the ver}- unenlightened
condition of European knowledge, the traditions of the
one town were commonly associated with the other until
Cooley, in his " Xegroland of the Arabs," demonstrated
once and for all the absurdity of such a geographical
transposition. That the town of Ghana was somewhere
in the west, situated between the Niger and the sea, and
near to the issue of the western caravan road from
Morocco, is not questioned. The exact locality is un-
certain, but it is generally held that it was some days to
the south-west of Timbuctoo. Taking into consideration
that it is constantly spoken of as the capital of the kingdom
of Ghana or Ghanata, and that that capital is also some-
times spoken of as Biru and Walata, Ghanata and Walata

94 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

beino- interchangeable, and that Walata, Biru, and Aiwa-
latin are one, also noting the points of resemblance between
the geographical description given by El Bekri of the
position of Ghana, and by Ibn Batuta 300 years later of
Aiwakitin, it scarcely seems to be doubtful that the Ghana
of the eighth century was identical with the Aiwalatin of
the fourteenth, and with the Walata of to-day.

We learn by extracts from a Haussa record, of which
the orio'inal has unfortunately been destroyed, that the
people of Ghana were anciently known by the name of
Towrooth or Taurud, and that they claimed to have come
from the territory lying between the Tigris and the
Euphrates. In other words, they claimed descent from
the Assyrians or the Babylonians, both peoples who had
their orio-in in the Taurus Mountains, and reached their
hicrhest development in the Valley of the Euphrates and
the Tigris. If the migration of the people of Ghana
formed part of the movement impelled by the Chaldean
conquest of Babylon, this would carry their settlement in
Africa back to the seventh century before Christ. It may
have been much earlier. When Alexander the Great took
Babylon, he sent back for the information of Aristotle
records of Babylonian astronomical observations extend-
ing over 1903 years.

Among the peoples ruled by Ghana in the Arab
period, one of the most important was known by the
name of Ungara, Wangara, or Wakore, of whom many
were Fulani. The Wangara, at a later date, migrated
eastward into the Haussa States. This people claimed
on their part to have descended from the Persians. When,
at a later period, they moved eastward from Ghana to
Haussaland, the province which they founded was called
indifferently Wangara or Ungara. It is, therefore, in-
teresting to find that in the Ramayana, the Indian epic,
a Rajah of Ungar is mentioned among, those who paid
tribute to the famous Desaratha. Commentators who
were in no way concerned with African history, have
agreed that Ungar must have been a province of Persia

BERBER AND BLACK 95

on the northern frontier of India. We get, therefore,
somewhere about the time of Moses a spot in Persia
whence the Wangara may have originated. The fact
that Persian influence extended at a very early period
to the black countries of Africa is also attested by the
ruins of Persepolis, where amongst the bas-reliefs believed
to have been carved in commemoration of the glories of
Cyrus and his immediate successors, there is one which
shows the king in the act of receiving tribute from the
ambassadors of subject nations, and amongst them there
is a negro. Niebuhr tells us that the profile is unmistak-
able, and that the hair of the negro is so carefully carved
that it is impossible to mistake it for the hair of an Asiatic.
Cambyses, son of Cyrus, conquered Egypt in 527 B.C.,
and his army perished in marching into Ethiopia. There
is nothing impossible in the supposition that fragments
of that defeated army may have remained and settled in
the Soudan.

Further information of the remote antiquity of Ghana
seems unfortunately to be at present unattainable. So
far as we are aware, no monuments remain to confirm
the traditions of the people. I give these surmises, there-
fore, for what they may be worth, and have myself found
nothing to connect the Taurud of Ghana with the ancient
Babylonians except two characteristics mentioned by
El Bekri : one is that they were workers in gems, the
other is that their notables indulged a passion for fine
dogs. Both of these, as we know, were also charac-
teristics of the people of Babylon.

We are on safer ground when we return to the
medieval records of Arab writers.

In the years 1067 Ghana was still the principal black
kingdom of the Western Soudan. The name of its
reigning sovereign was Tenkamenin, who ascended the
throne in the year 1062, in succession to his maternal
uncle, Beci. It was the custom amongst these blacks
for the succession to go always to the son of the king's
sister.

96 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

The town of Ghana, which, after the sack of Audoghast
by the Almoravides, became the royal residence of the
kings, was composed, according to El Bekri, of two towns
situated in a plain. One town was Mussulman and the
other pagan. The king himself was a pagan, and lived
in the pagan town. The Mussulman town was very
large, and contained no less than twelve mosques. All
these mosques had their i7nanis, their nioweddins, and
their salaried readers. There were also schools and
centres of learning, and according to the author of the
Tarikh-es-Soucimiy the town, besides being the meeting-
place of commercial caravans from all parts of the world,
was "the resort of the learned, the rich, and the pious
of all nations." They came, he says, from Egypt, from
Augila, from the Fezzan, from Ghadames, from Taouat,
from Dra, from Sidjilmessa, from Sus, from Bitou, and
other places. This account is fully borne out by later
writers. El Edrisi, writing in 1153, describes the king's
residence as being a well-built castle, thoroughly fortified,
decorated inside with sculptures and pictures, and having
glass windows. El Bekri makes no mention of glass, but
says that the king's residence in the pagan town consisted
of a "castle" surrounded by native huts. He mentions
that the buildings generally were composed of stone and
acacia wood. The native town was six miles distant from
the Mussulman town, but the w^hole space was covered
by suburbs, consisting of stone houses standing in gardens.
In the native town there w^as one mosque for the use of
Mohammedans occupied on duty round the king. The
king's principal ministers and advisers were at this time
Mohammedans, and he and his heir-presumptive wore
Mohammedan dress, but the religion of the country was
still devoutly pagan, and all other persons of native religion,
except the king and his heir, wore robes of cotton, silk, or
brocade, according to their means. The local religion,
evidently different from the paganism now practised among
the lower class tribes upon the coast, had yet certain points
of resemblance.

BERBER AND BLACK 97

The royal town, says El Bekri, was surrounded by
groves jealously guarded, which were sacred to the worship
of the gods. Here dwelt the priests who directed religious
worship. No other person was allowed to enter or to
know anything of what happened within their precincts.
Here were the idols of the nation. Here also were the
tombs of the kings, and the royal prisons, in which, if a
man were once confined, he was never heard of again.
From the description of royal funerals it may be inferred
that a new grove was planted for each tomb. On the
death of a king, the custom was to construct a great dome
of wood on the spot which was to serve as his tomb. The
body was then laid upon a couch covered with drapery
and cushions, and placed within the dome. Round the
dead were laid his decorations, his arms, the dishes and
cups from which he was in the habit of eating and drink-
ing, and various kinds of food and drink. With the body
of the sovereign were enclosed several of his cooks and
attendants. The edifice was covered with cloth and mats.
The assembled multitudes then threw earth upon the tomb
until a great hill was formed. When this was done the
monument was secured from defilement^By^ ditch which
left only one passage of approach, ^^gf^fices^sto the dead
were also made. v" /

This system of burial recalls ^d^sci^ibtion given by
Macrizi, in his " Historical Descriptidrj^^loFEgypt," of the
burial of Misraim, who died seven hun(3/ed years after the
Flood, and who is said to have given the ancient name
of "Misr" to Lower Egypt. Misraim being dead, they
prepared for him, INIacrizi tells us, a hollow place most
richly decorated, with a pedestal in the midst of it. On
the pedestal they engraved an inscription: "He never
worshipped idols, neither was he ever old, nor sick, nor
downcast, nor morose. His strength was in the Most
High God." The body, in a coffin of marble and gold,
was laid near the pedestal, and on the pedestal — of which,
perhaps, the translation should be platform — was heaped
every kind of precious possession, emeralds, pearls, gold,

G

98 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

talismans, perfumes, &c. The whole was then covered
with rocks, over which earth was heaped, between two
mountains, and his son took the reins of government.

The descent from this form of sepulture to that of
Ghana, and again from that of Ghana to that now practised
among the fetish worshippers of the coast, is illustrative of
the decadence which an ideal may undergo as it passes
from its original source into the keeping of lower orders
of comprehension.

Magic and trial by ordeal were also in use among the
people of Ghana. El Bekri is the latest of the Arab
authors who refers to these native rites. Shortly after the
period at which he wrote the whole country would appear
to have become Mohammedan.

Ten days to the south of Ghana was the country of
tl5b Lem-Lems or cannibals, whom it was the custom to
raid for slaves. Within the kingdom there was a district
of which the inhabitants were naked pagans, very expert
in the use of the bow and arrow. There was another
district entirely inhabited by the descendants of the soldiers
sent by the Ommeyade Arabs against Ghana in the first
years of the Hegira. These people kept their light com-
plexions and the fine features of their race.

In nearly all the important towns of the country,
Mussulman traders from the countries of the north were to
be met. In some of the towns Mussulmans did not take
up their residence, but they were always well received.

Tenkamenin, besides having already adopted Moham-
medan dress, was much governed by Mohammedan opinion.
He is described as the master of a vast empire, and of a
power which rendered him very formidable. He could put
in the field an army of 200,000 men, of whom more than
40,000 were armed with bows and arrows. The wealth of
the country was very great. The soil was fertile, and
gave generally two crops a year. Gold was abundant.
The custom, according to El Bekri, was that all nuggets
found in the mines of the Empire belonged to the
sovereign, while the public was allowed to keep the gold

BERBER AND BLACK 99

dust. "Without this precaution," El Bekri gravely
states, "gold would become so abundant that it would
have hardly any value." The nuggets found in the mines
of Ghana varied usually in weight from an ounce to a
pound ; some were much larger. The king had one which
weighed thirty pounds. There was a part of the country
called El Ferouin, in which gold was so plentiful and
salt so scarce, that salt was sold for its weight in gold.
The king had further sources of wealth in a very large
customs revenue raised on salt, copper, and foreign
merchandise.

When he gave audience to the people, Tenkamenin
appeared in great state, seated under a pavilion round
which were ranged ten horses caparisoned in gold.
Behind him were ten pages bearing shields and swords
mounted in gold. On his right stood " the sons of the
princes of the Empire, magnificently dressed." The
governor of the town and all the ministers sat upon the
ground before the king. The door of the pavilion was
guarded by pure-bred dogs, whose collars were of gold
and silver, with bells of the same metal. It was the
custom for these dogs never to leave the spot occupied
by the king. On the days of audience the grievances of
the people were inquired into by the king. El Bekri
tells us little of the system of justice of the country,
except that it was organised by the Mohammedan
ministers of the king.

Mohammedanism had made such evident progress in
the middle of the eleventh century, that it is not surprising
to learn a century later from El Idrisi, that the King of
Ghana and the notables of his day were Mohammedan,
and that the king accepted investiture from the Eastern
Caliph. There had, however, intervened between the
period of the two writers a Mohammedan conquest of
which we have yet to hear.

CHAPTER XI
THE TRADE OF GHANA

The constant allusions made by early writers to the trade
of Ghana leave no doubt that its commercial relations
with the outside world had already become very important
during the period in which the Ommeyades ruled in Spain.
Gold, slaves, skins, ivory, kola-nuts, gums, honey, corn,
and cotton, are among the articles of export which are
most frequently named. Hardly a town is mentioned
in the states of Northern and North- Western Africa of
which it is not said that it carried on trade with the
Soudan. Augila, in the back country of Tripoli, War-
gelan or Wargla, in the back country of Algiers, with
Sidjilmessa in the back country of Morocco, were all
known by the name of "Gates of the Desert." Augila
was the special entrance of the trade with Egypt and the
East ; Sidjilmessa, which was the entrance for the trade
of the West, has already been described ; Wargelan, which
lies on the parallel of Bugia, is specially mentioned as
being inhabited by very rich merchants, who made their
fortunes from the gold of the Soudan, brought to War-
gelan in the form of gold dust, and "coined" there for
export. From Wargelan to Ghana was, we are told, a
journey of thirty days.

At a somewhat later date, towards the end of the
jjeriod of the Ommeyades, we have a circumstantial
account of how the ancestors of the historian Al Makkari
carried on a trade between Europe and the Soudan, by
which the fortunes of the house of Makkari were laid. An
ancestor of his, writing in the fourteenth century, says :
" From time immemorial my family had exercised the pro-

THE TRADE OF GHANA loi

fession of commerce in the countries where they settled,
deriving no small share of influence and riches from it.
They furrowed the sands of the desert in all directions ;
they dug wells and facilitated travelling in the Sahara,
thus affording security to merchants and travellers. They
took a drum, and marching always preceded by a banner,
they headed the numerous caravans which from time to
time penetrated into the country of the blacks. . . ."

A certain Abdurrahman, one of the family, having
died and left behind him five sons, " they determined
upon forming a partnership, carrying on the trade con-
jointly, and dividing between themselves the profits of
their mercantile speculations." They accordingly threw
together in a "common fund all their father's inheritance,
and having held a consultation together as to the means
of carrying on the trade to the greatest advantage," it was
"agreed" that two should remain and establish themselves
at Telem9an, at this time a principal port upon the Medi-
terranean for European trade ; that one should fix his
residence at Sidjilmessa ; and lastly, that two should go
to Aiwalatin in the desert.

"It was done as agreed between them. Each reached
his place of destination, settled there, married and had
a family, and they began to conduct their trade in the
following manner : those in Telem9an sent to their part-
ners in the desert such goods and commodities as were
wanted in those districts, while these supplied them in
return with skins, ivory, and kola-nuts. In the mean-
while the one stationed at Sidjilmessa was like the tongue
of the balance between the two, since, being placed at
a convenient distance between Telem^an and the desert,
he took care to acquaint the respective parties with the
fluctuations of trade, the amount of losses sustained by
traders, the overstock of the markets, or the great demand
for certain articles ; " and, in short, to inform them of
the "secret designs of other merchants engaged in the
same trade, as well as of the political events which
might in any way influence it. By these means they were

102 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

enabled to carry on their speculations with the greatest
success ; their wealth increased, and their importance
waxed every day greater."

An account is then given of how on one occasion
in Aiwakitin, when the neighbouring Sultan of Tekrour
attacked and took the town, the property and lives of the
Arab merchants, including those of the Makkari company,
were placed in great danger. " But my ancestors, being
men of great courage and determination, would not con-
sent to witness their ruin. They assembled all their
servants and dependents, and such traders as happened
to be in Aiwalatin at the time, and having distributed
arms among them, they shut themselves up in their
warehouses, and decided to fight, if necessary, for the
defence of their goods and chattels."

Catastrophe was averted, however, by an interview
between the senior partner and the invading king, who
agreed to extend his protection to the company, and who
treated them from that time with the utmost favour and
distinction. "He frequently after this wrote to the
partners at Telem9an, applying directly for such goods
as he wanted for his own consumption, or such as
were most sought for in his dominions." This political
development seems to have greatly enlarged the scope
of the operations of the Makkari firm. "The moment
my ancestors perceived that they could trust and rely
on kings, such difficulties as might have existed before
were speedily removed. . . . The desert and its dangers
seemed no longer the scene of death and misery, and
they began to frequent its most lonely and dangerous
tracts, their v/ealth thereby increasing so rapidly that
it almost surpassed the limits of computation. Nor,"
says the account, " were these the only advantages arising
from their enterprise ; the natives with whom they traded
were considerably benefited by it. For it must be under-
stood that the trade with the desert was in the most
deplorable state before the people of Makkareh engaged
in it. Merchants, totally unacquainted with the real wants

THE TRADE OF GHANA 103

of the inhabitants, carried thither articles which were
either of no use or of no vahae to them, taking in exchange
objects which were a source of profit and wealth. This
even went so far that an African sovereign was once heard
to say : ' Were it not that I consider it a bad action, I
would, by God ! prevent these Soudan traders from stop-
ping in my dominions ; for thither they go with the most
paltry merchandise, and bring in return the gold which
conquers the world.' However, when my ancestors had
once established a direct trade with those countries, the
scene changed, and the blacks were better and more
abundantly provided with such articles as they stood most
in need of. They also were furnished with goods which
they had never seen before, and they obtained a better
price for their returns."

The writer of this account was a Judge of the Supreme
Court of Fez in the year 1356. Presumably, therefore,
he may have been born about the year 1300, and he
counts himself sixth in descent from Abdurrahman, the
founder of the firm. Allowing thirty years for a genera-
tion, this would get us back near to the year 1 100, or not
very far distant from the period at which the life of Ghana
has been described. As all writers agree that the trade
of Ghana was important in the eighth and ninth centuries,
we must assume that, with the approaching decline of
the kingdom, the trade had already fallen into some
decay, from which it was revived by the exertions of the
Makkari firm. The account is interesting for the in-
dication which it gives that, in the early period of Arab
trade with the Soudan, companies found it necessary, as
European companies have found at a later date, to acquire
political as well as commercial influence, and also that
the better class of traders exercised a wise discretion
as to the class of articles which they introduced to the
notice of the natives.

The allusion made in the incidents which have been
related to the successful attack upon Ghana by a neigh-
bouring king may be taken, perhaps, to presage the con-

104 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

quest of Ghana, first by Susu and then by Melle, events
which took place, the first in the twelfth, and the second
in the thirteenth century.

Many lesser kingdoms, both black and Berber, sur-
rounded Ghana. Amongst the black, El Bekri mentions
specially Tekrour and Silla, both of which, though black,
already in the middle of the eleventh century professed
Mohammedanism. Silla, which was situated on the banks
of the Niger, where the river skirted the south-eastern
frontier of the Empire of Ghana, was, when El Bekri wrote,
a country of some importance, able, he says, to maintain
its independence against Ghana, and was a centre of the
cotton industry. At Terensa, a town within the limits
of this country, he remarks, "that no house is without
its cotton plantation."

Among the lesser kingdoms, also, south and east of
Ghana, one which deserves special mention is Masina, of
which the inhabitants were largely Fulani. This little
state is particularly interesting as having in its origin
submitted by agreement to draw its rulers equally from
Fulani and Berber sources, and as having succeeded in
maintaining its integrity if not its independence for many
centuries against the invasion of surrounding black peoples.
It has been already mentioned as having solicited with
success the assistance of Tin Yeroutan, the Berber king
of Audoghast in the tenth century, against its black neigh-
bours of Aougham. After passing through many vicissi-
tudes, including submission to the black dynasty of Melle
and the Songhay dynasty of Timbuctoo, it is mentioned
again by the author of the Tarikh-es-Soudan, as re-
fusing any longer, in 1629, to accept the investiture of
its rulers from the hands of the decadent and Moorish
Timbuctoo.

But it does not fall within the scope of this book to
attempt to deal with the many nations of the Western
Soudan who arose and fell within a period of a thousand
years. For the purpose of tracing the course of civilisation
through the fertile belt it is enough to mention a few of

THE TRADE OF GHANA 105

the most important. Amongst these Melle followed most
closely upon the footsteps of Ghana, but at the end of the
eleventh century it was a mere town, mentioned by El
Bekri, under the name of El Melel, as occupying a position
of no great importance on the Bend of the Niger. Its
kings were at that date already Mohammedans, but the
mass of its people were " still plunged in idolatry."

Little would seem to have been known to the Spanish
Arabs in El Bekri's days of the countries lying eastwards
of the Bend of the Niger. El Bekri gives, however, a very
accurate account of the course of the Niger throughout the
northern portion of the Bend, describing some of the prin-
cipal towns, though not all, which were at that time in
existence on the part of the river known as the " Ras-
el-Ma," or " Head of the Waters," where, near to the
present position of Timbuctoo, the river, according to El
Bekri's description, "leaves the Land of the Blacks"
and runs eastwards for six days to a place which he calls
Tirca before turning south by the famous city of Kagho
or Kaougho. El Bekri tells us little of the place, of which
the author of the Tarikh-es-Soudan says " that it was a
city in the days of the Pharaohs." It has been gener-
ally identified as occupying the position of the present
town of Gao. El Bekri's knowledge of it went no fur-
ther than to enable him to say that its king was Moham-
medan though the people were still pagan, and that from
this point the Niger ran southward into the country of
the Dem-Dems or cannibals.

In the immediate neighbourhood of this place there
were, he tells us also, "a great quantity of mines which
furnished eold dust." Of all the countries of the blacks
it was the richest in gold, and foreign and black merchants,
whom he designates by the name of Noughamarta, were
constantly occupied in carrying this gold into all countries.
All that El Bekri appears to know of the country lying
between the Niger and Lake Chad is, that first there came
a great kingdom, extending for more than an eight days'
march, of which the sovereigns bear the title of " Du,"

io6 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

beyond which comes Kanem, a country of the idolaters.
The names of the early kings of Bornu all began with
" Du." It is therefore presumable that El Bekri was
correctly informed as to the position of Bornu, which at
that time probably overran Haussaland ; but he gives us
no information with regard to it. This silence on the part
of a Spanish Arab, so generally well informed as El Bekri,
seems to confirm the theory that the countries eastward of
the Bend of the Niger derived their civilisation largely
from Egypt via the Tripoli-Fezzan route, scarcely used at
this time by the Western Arabs.

El Bekri makes no mention at all of Nupe, one of the
oldest and most important of the purely native kingdoms,
nor of Borgu, also a kingdom of great antiquity, which is
said to have derived an early Christianity from the Copts
of Egypt.

The waters of the Niger at the northern part of its
course divided the Land of the Blacks, he tells us, from the
territories of the Berbers on its northern banks. As the
operations of these Berber tribes precede, in point of date,
the rise of the kingdom of Melle, it may be well to turn
for a moment to the eastern development of that Desert
Kingdom which gave the Almoravide dynasty to Spain.

CHAPTER XII •

MORABITE CONQUEST OF THE SOUDAN

It will be remembered that the population of the Desert
Kingdom was composed of united Berber tribes, whose
occupation of the desert was of immemorial antiquity.
The united tribes were ruled, in the very healthy part of
Africa which spreads inward from the Atlantic coast to
the Sahara, by hereditary Berber kings. It has already
been mentioned that Tiloutan, who died in 837 a.d., was
one of the first of these to exact tribute from the black
kingdoms of the Western Soudan, and that his descendant,
Tin Yeroutan, was ruling in Audoghast between the years
961 and 971. This Berber rule having been overthrown
by the black monarch of Ghana, it was by an act of natural
retribution, when the Almoravides formed themselves into
a religious fighting force in the heart of the desert kingdom,
that one of the first incidents of their Holy War was the
sack of Audoghast and its restoration to Berber rule. But
the taking of Audoghast was indicative of a movement
which was in some sort to decide the fate of the Desert
Kingdom. At the moment at which El Bekri wrote, this
ancient kingdom was about to divide itself permanently
into two sections, of which one, moving northwards under
the Morabite commanders, was to renew the power of
Africa upon the throne of Spain, while the other, breaking
away from its brethren of the north, was to follow the
road suggested to its armies by the taking of Audoghast ;
and, having carried the banners of the Crescent from the
shores of the Atlantic to the Nile, was to scatter itself
eventually in divided communities along the southern edge
of the Sahara Desert. The Desert Kingdom itself dis-

io8 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

appeared, but in Africa the northern branch of the
Almoravides left a permanent mark upon history by the
foundation of the town of Morocco, while the southern
branch left a no less permanent record in the foundation of
Timbuctoo. These two towns came into existence within
twenty-five years of each other. They were born of the
same Almoravide parents, and were the outcome of the
same religious and political upheaval.

El Bekri, safe in the seclusion of the court of Seville,
to which before his death the Almoravides were to march
as stern deliverers from the Christian yoke, was aware of
the formation of the sect on the southern frontier of the
Desert Kingdom. He had heard of the taking of Audo-
ghast and of the advance to Sidjilmessa in 1056. But
after the taking of the latter town he had evidently re-
ceived only imperfect rumours of the reorganisation of the
Almoravides under their new leader Yusuf. He makes
no mention of the foundation of the town of Morocco,
which took place in 1062 ; and writing — as he expressly
says — in the year 1067, he no doubt gave the latest infor-
mation possessed at Seville, when he says : "The present
Emir of the Almoravides is Abou Bekr, but their Empire
is broken up and their power divided. They now main-
tain themselves in the desert."

It is to I bn Khaldun that we turn for the fuller history
of this movement.

The northward march of the Almoravides has been
related in an earlier chapter. It will be remembered that
when, after the death of the original leader, success had
crowned the arms of Abou Bekr, he was recalled from the
northern provinces by the report of dissensions which had
broken out between the tribes of the kingdom in the south,
and that, placing full power in the north in the hands of
his cousin Yusuf (or Joseph) Tachefin, he himself returned
southwards with the object of reconciling his turbulent
subjects. To effect this reconciliation he initiated a new
campaign to the east, in the direction thrown open by the
taking of Audoghast, and, as a matter of fact, he never

MORABITE CONQUEST OF SOUDAN 109

again returned to the north. By a friendly partition
agreed to in 1062, the northern provinces to the Medi-
terranean were ceded to Yusuf, while Abou Bekr retained
for himself the old regions of the desert in the south.
He retained also the old licence to extend these regions as
far as force of arms could carry them.

We first hear of him as leading the armies of his
followers on a victorious march across the southern borders
of the desert, fighting with the pagan nations of the
Soudan for a distance of ninety days east of the most
easterly frontier of the Desert Kingdom. In these
territories, as he conquered them, he assigned areas
for the habitation of the principal tribes who had united
beneath his banners. But these territories were not in the
Soudan proper, as we know it. They were north of the
Great River, and Ibn Khaldun, describing the position
occupied by their descendants who were still all " Wearers
of the Veil " 300 years later, especially tells us that they
had never territorially occupied the Soudan, but remained
in the desert, changing nothing in their ways. "Always
divided and disunited by the diversity of their habits and
their interests, they formed," he says, "a cordon of desert
nations upon the northern frontier of the Soudan, sepa-
rating its territory from the sandy regions that lie between
it and the States of North Africa and Morocco."

By the end of the fourteenth century, when Ibn
Khaldun wrote, this cordon of desert nations stretched
from the Atlantic to the Nile ; but by that date the people
comprising it were subject to the black kings of the
Soudan, paid them tribute, and furnished contingents for
their armies.

Under Abou Bekr, at the end of the eleventh century,
the united tribes marched as conquerors, and their cam-
paign did not abandon its character as a Holy War. If
they made no territorial confiscations, they claimed tribute
from the vanquished peoples, and they imposed the Moslem
faith upon all infidels who submitted to their arms. In
some cases the necessity of accepting the faith was com-

110 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

muted for payment of a subsidy ; but historians are practi-
cally in agreement that the conversion of the northern
belt of the Soudan to Mohammedanism became general
at about this date. The Almoravides did not confine their
requirements to a purely nominal conversion. Doctors of
divinity and Moslem teachers were sent into the black
countries to teach the true faith, and no doubt the increase
of communication which at this time took place with Spain
opened the way for the acceptance of more enlightened
religious views.

Although the cordon of natives spoken of by Ibn
Khaldun in the fourteenth century extended at that period
as far eastward as the Nile, the march of Abou Bekr
in the eleventh century does not appear to have been
carried beyond the deserts lying to the north and north-
east of the Bend of the Niger. The Berber nations which
completed the cordon are distinctly stated by other writers
to have come down from Tripoli and the East.

Two important political incidents marked the campaign
of Abou Bekr. In 1076 he carried the vengeance of
Audoghast to the gates of Ghana, and, overthrowing the
reigning black dynasty, placed a Berber on the throne.
The life of the country does not seem to have been pro-
foundly affected at the time by this revolution. El Idrisi,
writing nearly a hundred years later, still speaks of it as
being the greatest kingdom of the blacks. He mentions
the fact that it is ruled by a king of Berber descent,
who " governs by his own authority, but gives allegiance
to the Abbasside Sultan of Egypt," and that the king
and people are now Mohammedans ; but he does not
speak of it as having become in any respect a Berber
kingdom.

Here is his account : " Ghana ... is the most consider-
able, the most thickly populated, and the most commercial
of the black countries. It is visited by rich merchants
from all the surrounding countries, and from the extremities
of the West. Its inhabitants are Mussulman. . . . The
king governs by his own authority, but he does obeisance

MORABITE CONQUEST OF SOUDAN m

to the Abbasside Commander of the Faithful" — that is,
the Egyptian CaHph. Then follows a description of the
palace already mentioned, and the date of its construction,
1116 A.D. "The territory and domains of this king,"
Edrisi continues, " are conterminous with Wangara,
or the country of gold." The king's nugget, weighing
30 lbs., is mentioned, and we are told that it was "an
entirely natural production, which has been neither
melted nor worked by the hand of man, except for
the fact that a hole had been made through it in order
that it might be fastened to the king's throne." It was
regarded as a curio, unique of its kind, and the king was
proud of its fame in the Soudan. Other writers give
more fabulous weights to this famous nugget, and it
appears to have remained among the royal treasures for
upwards of two hundred years ; for Ibn Khaldun mentions,
at the end of the fourteenth century, a degenerate monarch
of the conquering dynasty of Melle who sold the nugget
for the value of its gold. Edrisi describes the King of
Ghana, who was contemporary to himself, as "one of the
most just of men," whose custom it was to ride once daily
into the poorest and most wretched quarters of the city, and
there to dispense justice to all who had ground for com-
plaint. On all other occasions he rode with great pomp,
magnificently dressed in silk and jewels, surrounded by
guards preceded by elephants, giraffes, and other wild
animals of the Soudan, and no one dared to approach him.
The territory of Ghana proper was bounded, Edrisi tells
us, by " Mazzawa on the west, by Wangara on the east,
by the desert plains of the Soudan and the Berbers on
the north, and on the south by the pagan countries of
the Lem-lems and others." Mazzawa must be taken to
represent the territory which was the seat of the Desert
Kingdom, a country over which Melle was soon to extend
its authority. Of Wangara Edrisi gives the following
description : " From the town of Ghana to the frontier
of Wangara is an eight days' journey. This latter country
is renowned for the quantity and the quality of the gold

112 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

which it produces. It forms an island of about 300 miles
in length by 150 in breadth, which the Nile [Niger] sur-
rounds on all sides, and at all seasons. Towards the
month of August, when the heat is extreme and the Nile
overflows its bed, the island, or the greater part of the
island, is inundated for a regular time. When the flood
decreases, natives from all parts of the Soudan assemble
and come to the country to seek for gold during the fall
of the water. Each gathers the quantity of gold great or
small which God has allotted to him, no one being entirely
deprived of the fruit of his labour. When the waters of
the river have returned to their bed every one sells the
gold he has found. The greater part is bought by the
inhabitants of Wargelan, and some by those of the extreme
west of Africa, where the gold is taken to the mints, coined
into dinars, and put into circulation for the purchase of mer-
chandise. This happens every year. ... In Wangara
there are flourishing towns and famous fortresses. Its
inhabitants are rich. They possess gold in abundance,
and receive productions which are brought to them from
the most distant countries of the world." Like the in-
habitants of Ghana, they wore mantles and veils. They
were entirely black. The whole of the country owed
allegiance to Ghana, in the name of whose sovereign the
Khotbah was read and government was carried on.

The change of dynasty in Ghana between the eleventh
and twelfth centuries altered little, therefore, in the habits
or prosperity of the country. It serves principally to
illustrate the alternating rule of black and white sovereigns,
which was apparently accepted without difficulty in the
Soudan.

It was perhaps rather in the other political event of
the campaign to which allusion has been made than in the
substitution of Berber for native rule in Ghana that a
prophetic eye would have seen the little cloud destined
some day to overspread the fair horizon of Ghana's future.
This was the foundation of Timbuctoo by the Tuaregs in
the year 1087.

CHAPTER XIII

GHANA AND TIMBUCTOO

It was indeed a fine movement of historic fate which
caused the conqueror of Ghana to become the instrument
of the foundation of Timbuctoo. " The prosperity of
Timbuctoo," says the author of the Tarikh-es-Soudan,
who was himself born in that town in the year 1596, "was
the ruin of Ghana." Before the great days of Timbuctoo,
Ghana, he tells us, "was the centre of the Soudan."
After the rise of Timbuctoo all was gradually transferred.
Timbuctoo drew to itself not only the wealth but the
learning and enlightenment of the civilised world, and
became the home of all that was " pure, delightful, and
illustrious " in the Soudan. But the days of Timbuctoo's
greatness were not yet ; queen of the Soudan, as she was
afterwards proudly to become, she was born, if not in a
manger, yet under circumstances nearly approaching to
the lowest conditions of humility. Abou Bekr was not
himself the founder of the town. The Tuaregs of his
train, to whom were allotted for their occupation the por-
tion of the desert opposite to the most northerly reaches
of the Nipfer, would seem to have chosen the site some
nine years after his death. They were, like all the nomads
of the desert, a pastoral people, and used to feed their
flocks in the summer season upon the northern or left
bank of the Niger. They never crossed the river to
the Soudan side, but withdrew in the autumn and winter
months to the interior uplands of the desert. The spot
on which Timbuctoo now stands was the extreme limit
of these summer wanderings. At first they had only an
encampment there ; gradually their encampment became

113 H

114 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

a meeting-place for travellers coming from different parts
of the country. Then they made of it a store where they
left food and other objects of necessary use, and they
placed the store under the care of an old female slave
called Timbuctoo. So homely, according to the appar-
ently best-informed writers, was the origin of the after-
wards famous name. But if Timbuctoo had the homeliness,
she had also the purity of a simple origin. The town,
founded by Mohammedans, was never sullied by pagan
worship. " Upon its soil," we are told, " no knee was
ever bent, except to the Most Merciful " — a curious com-
mentary, alas, upon certain subsequent passages of its
history. At first the dwellings of the town were con-
structed simply of thorns and straw, later they grew into
clay huts. Later still low walls were built all round them.
Finally a mosque was erected large enough for the needs
of the inhabitants. But though the site was never altered,
and the foundation of Timbuctoo, the stronghold of Moham-
medanism in the Soudan, may therefore be regarded
as the direct outcome of the religious campaign of Abou
Bekr, it was not for two hundred years that the real town
of Timbuctoo, as it was known in its greatness to pos-
terity, was built by one of the kings of Melle, himself a
Mohammedan, though black, and two more centuries were
added to these before Timbuctoo reached the summit of
its prosperity and fame as the capital of the Songhay
empire.

However much it may flatter the pride of the historians
of Timbuctoo to represent it as the cause of the downfall
of Ghana, it is evident that the rivalry between the two
towns must have been of much later date than the
Almoravide conquest of Ghana. Ghana was in a position
to bear a very active part in such rivalry for many genera-
tions after its conquest by the Berbers of Abou Bekr's
train. The conquest by which the independence of Ghana
was overthrown was not in fact the conquest of Abou
Bekr. Between the Almoravide campaign of the end of
the eleventh century and the development of the greatness

GHANA AND TIMBUCTOO 115

of Timbuctoo under the Songhay dynasty, a very important
chapter of Soudanese history was to intervene. This was
the rise of the kingdom of Melle, the first of the black
Mohammedan native states to be recognised on terms of
equality by the other Mohammedan kingdoms of North
Africa. It was the conquest of Ghana by Melle which
really put an end to the independence of Ghana, and
merged its history in that of the more civilised empire.

We have seen that at the end of the eleventh century,
when Ghana submitted to the vengeance of Abou Bekr,
Melle was but a town of second-rate importance in the
bend of the Niger. A place of more distinction mentioned
by El Bekri was Tekrour. Whether the Tekrour of El
Bekri was identical with Jenne, a town of which the
history is famous, and which was founded by Songhay
pagans about the year 800 of our era, I leave for the
more learned to decide. There are grounds for believing
that this may have been the case ; but " Tekrour," of
which the literal meaning is " black," is one of the names
that create confusion in the history of the Soudan. It
has evidently been applied at different periods to different
peoples. However this may have been, Ghana was at a
period subsequent to the Almoravide conquest attacked
and apparently for a time overwhelmed by the neigh-
bouring black kingdom of Tekrour. In the earlier
period of its history, Ghana had ruled over the Wangara.
When Idrisi speaks of it in the middle of the twelfth
century, though still the greatest of black kingdoms, with
a trade extending to Egypt, North Africa, and Spain, its
territory had apparently diminished, for Idrisi describes
it as limited on the east by the territory of the Wangara,
— whom he calls also by the alternative name of Man-
dingoes — and they, instead of forming part of the kingdom,
were only tributary. Ibn Khaldun says that before the
rise of Melle, Ghana was conquered by the Su-Su. The
Su-Su, as they now exist, are of Mandingo origin. It is
therefore possible that the Wangara, once the subjects of
Ghana, became its rulers. No historian, however, dwells

ii6 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

with any detail upon these early conquests. They are
interesting merely as indications of the approaching dis-
appearance of the supremacy of Ghana. While Tim-
buctoo, which was destined to represent the great centre
of Mohammedanism in the Soudan, was growing, Ghana,
the great centre of paganism, was passing away. It had
maintained itself from a period long antecedent to the
Hegira. After an existence of perhaps a thousand years,
the term of its decadence had arrived, and toward the
beginning of the thirteenth century of our era it had
reached a condition in which, being at once rich and
weak, it could scarcely fail to become the prey of stronger
neighbours. By the end of that century it had become
subject to its Mohammedan neighbour Melle.

So silently, and without dramatic rites, the gods of
paganism disappear from the front rank of the history
of the Soudan. No dome was built for them in Ghana.
No ditch was dug. No sacred grove was planted. They
simply fell back into the dark and barbarous country to
the south — the land of the Lem-Lem, which Arab his-
torians dismiss contemptuously as the land of idolaters
"who eat men." The memory of these pagan gods
lingered long amongst the lower orders of the northern
states ; but whatever their worship had brought with it
of enlightenment from the antiquity of eastern civilisa-
tion was finally extinguished in the barbaric caricature
which is the memorial preserved of them to the present
day by certain tribes of the southern coast.

CHAPTER XIV

THE MELLESTINE

The empire of Melle and its dependencies, known to the
Arabs as " The Mellestine," which rose in the thirteenth
century on the ruins of Ghana, was the first of the gfeat
black Mohammedan kingdoms of the Western Soudan to
claim intercourse on equal terms with contemporary civilisa-
tion. In the days of its greatest prosperity the territories
of the Mellestine extended from the coast of the Atlantic
on the west to the Niger boundary of Haussaland on the
east, and from the country of the cannibals on the south
its protectorate extended into the desert as far as the
frontier of Wargelan.

^^ I353j when the fortunes of Melle were at their
highest, Ibn Khaldun, who was then employed on a
political mission at Biskra, met one of the notables of
Tekadda, an important Berber town of the desert, which,
"like all other towns of the Sahara," at that time acknow-
ledged the sovereignty of Melle. Amongst other details
of the caravan trade which Ibn Khaldun learned from
this man he mentions that caravans from Egypt, consist-
ing of 12,000 laden camels, passed every year through
Tekadda on their way to Melle. The load of a camel
was 300 lbs. : 12,000 camel loads amounted, therefore, to
something like 1600 tons of merchandise. In the com-
parison which has so often been made of a caravan of
the desert to a ship, it is worth while to remember that,
at this date, there was probably not a ship in any of the
merchant navies of the world which would carry 100 tons.
At the time of the Armada, 250 years later, when English
and Spanish merchant ships were scouring the Eastern

ii8 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

and the Western seas, the average tonnage of the vessels
which composed the Spanish force was 500 tons, and
that of the English ships much less. The largest ship
which Queen Elizabeth had in her navy, the Great Harry,
was 1000 tons, but it was considered an exception and
marvel of the age.

The western half of the desert was no less active in
trade with Melle than the eastern. All the desert towns,
we are told, from Twat westward, were halting-places for
caravans passing between Morocco, the Barbary coast,
and Melle. Tementit, a community of about 200 villages,
lying to the west of Twat, was a great centre of this
passing trade. These desert towns of the back country
of Algiers possessed the inestimable boon of artesian
water. The method of obtaining it was to sink a deep
well, of which the sides were carefully built up. This
was carried down to the rock under which water was
expected to be found. The rock was cut away with picks
and axes until nothing but the thinnest layer was left.
The workmen were then taken out of the well, and a
great mass of iron was dropped upon the rock, which,
giving way, the water leaped up, "sometimes with such
force as to carry everything before it," into the receptacle
which had been prepared, whence, overflowing, it formed
a little stream upon the ground. Not only the artesian
water of Twat, but also the great salt-mines of Tegazza,
lay within the limits of the Mellestine.

The first sovereign of Melle to accept Islam was
Bermandana, who made the pilgrimage to Mecca — a
custom afterwards adopted by his successors. The date
of this pilgrimage does not appear to have been preserved,
but it may be gathered from a list of ten kings descending
from one of his successors, Mari Djata, to the famous
Mansa Musa, who made the pilgrimage in 1324, that
his conversion must have been rather before than after
the Morabite invasion of Negroland at the end of the
eleventh century.

Leo Africanus, whose history, however, is not usually

THE MELLESTINE 119

trustworthy, says that the people of Melle embraced the
law of Mohammed when "the uncle of Joseph, King of
Morocco" — that is, Abou Bekr, the Morabite leader — was
then prince. He also says that the government of Melle
remained for some time in the posterity of that prince.
If Melle in the beginning took its rise, as Leo Africanus
suggests, under Berber princes, it is but one instance the
more of the profound impression made by the Morabite
invasion upon Negroland. But there can be no doubt
that in the days of its greatness the kings of Melle
were black, and ousted the Berber descendants of the
Morabites in the desert.

In the early part of its history Melle consisted of three
principalities claiming equal rights. The first of its kings
who would appear to have consolidated the kingdom and
enlarged its boundaries to any appreciable extent was
Mari Djata, who overthrew the Su-Su and conquered
Ghana in the early part of the thirteenth century. The
name of Ghana from this time is no longer heard, Ghana
being properly the title of the ruler, not the name of
the kingdom. The country heretofore known as Ghana
now becomes Ghanata or Walata. Mari Djata's name
of Djata meant Lion. His hereditary title Mari was
something less than king, confirming the theory that
he was the first of the rulers of Melle to consolidate
its possessions under one sovereign. He reigned for
twenty-five years, and his descendants and successors
are all known by the full title of Mansa, or king, the
succession going, as in the old pagan succession of
Ghana, in female descent, not to the king's son but to
his sister's son.

The pilgrimages made by these kings to Mecca are
the dates by which we are usually able to fix the period,
if not the exact limit, of their reigns. The son of Mari
Djata made his pilgrimage as king in 1259. A famous
usurper, Sakora, who greatly extended the dominions
of Melle towards the east, made his pilgrimage in the
year 13 10.

I20 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

Under Sakora the territories of Melle were as much
extended in the east as they had been by the conquest
of Ghana in the west, for he conquered Gago or Kaougha,
the capital of Songhay, of which the site was the present
town of Gao. This town was, at the beginning of the
fourteenth century, the centre of a rich and important
territory shaken for the moment by internal convulsions,
and therefore open to conquest by a powerful neighbour.
In the twelfth century it was described by El Idrisi as a
"populous, unwalled, commercial and industrial town, in
which were to be found the produce of all arts and trades
necessary for the use of its inhabitants." Ibn Said, in
the thirteenth century, speaks of it also with respect. It
was throughout its history celebrated for the great quan-
tity of gold with which its markets abounded ; it will
be remembered that this peculiarity was noted by
El Bekri.

The Mohammedanism of Songhay, having presumably
come to it by the eastern and not by the western road,
dated from an earlier period than that of Melle and
Ghana. The first of the Songhay kings to accept Islam
was Za-Kosoi, whose conversion took place in 1009. The
early kings of Songhay were all known by the title of
'* Za," which was afterwards changed to Sonni, and at a
later period still to Askia or Iskia. The " Zas " were
still reigning when Songhay was conquered in the early
years of the fourteenth century.

Mansa Musa, the next great king of Melle, completed
the conquests made by Sakora, and Songhay remained
subject to Melle until about the year 1356. Although in
its state of unwalled prosperity it fell a comparatively easy
prey to the military strength of Melle, it is probable that
Songhay regarded itself even at that period as possessing
a higher civilisation than that of its conquerors. In
including it within the territories of the Mellestine and
causing its princes to be brought up at his own courts,
the Sultan of Melle unconsciously played the part of one
who takes to his hearth a slave destined eventually to

THE MELLESTINE 121

become his master. For about fifty years Melle ruled
Songhay. At the end of that period Songhay recovered
its independence, and a hundred years later it reared
upon the ruins of Melle an empire which outdid in splen-
dour and enlightenment the most glorious epoch of the
Mellestine.

CHAPTER XV

MANSA MUSA

Mansa Musa, who completed the conquest of his pre-
decessor Sakora, was a prince whom all historians com-
bine to praise, celebrating his justice, piety, and enlighten-
ment. He was the friend of white men, and entertained
pleasant relations with the kings of Morocco and the
Barbary coast, at whose courts, as has been mentioned,
the Arab civilisation of Spain had already in great part
taken refuge. He exchanged presents with them, and
kept himself well informed of the political developments
of their kingdoms.

He made a celebrated pilgrimage to Mecca in the
year 1324, of which the details, preserved by more than
one contemporary witness, furnish an interesting illustra-
tion of the condition of his country and the state pre-
served by its monarchs.

The caravan consisted on this occasion, we are told,
of no less than sixty thousand persons, a considerable
portion of whom constituted a military escort. The
baggage of the caravan was carried generally by camels,
but twelve thousand young slaves formed the personal
retinue of Mansa Musa. All these were dressed in tunics
of brocade or Persian silk. When he rode, five hundred
of them marched before him, each carrying a staff of pure
gold, which weighed sixty-two ounces. The remainder
carried the royal baggage.

1 he caravan was accompanied by all essential luxuries,
including good cooks, who prepared elaborate repasts,
not only for the king, but for the king's friends, at every
halting-place. To defray the expenses of the journey.

MANSA MUSA 123

Mansa Musa took with him gold dust to the value of
upwards of a million sterling. This was carried in eighty
camel loads of 300 lbs. weight each. His Songhay his-
torian says of him that, notwithstanding all this mag-
nificence, he was not generous in the gifts which he
made in the holy cities. Others say that, on the con-
trary, he was so lavish in his gifts, that the large provision
which he had made for his journey was insufficient, and
that he had to borrow money for his return, which, as
his credit was good, he had no difficulty in doing, and
that the debt was afterwards punctually paid.

He made of his pilgrimage something more than a
religious journey to Mecca, It was also a state progress
through his dominions. Instead of starting eastward,
as might have been expected, he started in a westerly
direction, going first through the conquered territory of
Ghana to the town no longer spoken of by that name,
but by the modern name of Walata, or Aiwalatin. On
his way thither, at Mimah, one of the conquered towns,
a characteristic little incident occurred. There was in
the Sultan's train a white judge to whom he had given
four thousand ducats to meet the expenses of the journey.
At Mimah this white judge complained that his four
thousand ducats had been stolen. Mansa Musa sent
for the governor of the town, and ordered him, on pain
of death, to produce the robber. The governor caused
the town to be vigorously searched, but he found no
robber, "because in that town there were none." He
went to the house occupied by the judge and cross-
examined the servants. A slave of the judge then
confessed : " My master has lost nothing ; but he himself
hid the money in this place." He showed the place to
the governor, who took the ducats, and reported the
circumstances to the Sultan. Mansa Musa sent for the
judge, and, after trial, banished him to the country of
the pagans "who eat men." He remained there, the
historian states, for four years, at the end of which time
the Sultan allowed him to return, not to Melle, but to

124 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

his own native country. "The reason," it is added, "why
the cannibals did not eat him is that he was white. They
say that the flesh of white men is unwholesome because
it is unripe. Black flesh alone, in their opinion, is ripe."

The caravan proceeded from Walata by the westerly
route northward to Twat, and here suffered a very con-
siderable diminution by an affection of the feet which
attacked a large portion of the caravan. This malady,
of which no descriptive account is given, was, it is said,
called in their language touat. There is no hint that
it was caused by "jiggers," but the event, important
enough to have been preserved in subsequent chronicles,
of half a caravan incapacitated by an epidemic of the
feet, suggests the widespread devastation of the "jigger,"
and it would be interesting, were it possible, to ascer-
tain whether any surviving word in the Melle language
connects touat with the destructive insect. The author
of the Tarikh-es- Soudan says that the name of the
oasis of Twat was bestowed upon it in consequence of
this catastrophe. Commentators reject, however, this
derivation of the name.

From Twat the caravan would seem to have pursued
the usual road to Egypt, where it camped for a time
outside Cairo, and passed on to Mecca and Medina.
Here Musa made a profound impression on the peoples
of the East, who have left in their annals, says one his-
torian, a record of his voyage, and of their astonishment
at the magnificence of his empire. But it appears that
he gave only 20,000 gold pieces in alms in each town,
and in comparison with the immense extent of the terri-
tories he governed, this was not considered munificent.
The same author, however, mentions incidentally that
throughout his journey, wherever he halted on a Friday,
he built a mosque. The funds required for such a pur-
pose, even though some of the mosques were but small,
must have been considerable.

At Mecca the Sultan of Melle made literary acquaint-
ances, and persuaded the Spanish poet and architect,

MANSA MUSA 125

Abu Ishak, better known by the name of Toueidjen, to
return with him, and to take up his residence at the court
of Melle. Every kind of royal favour was afterwards,
it is said, showered upon the family of Toueidjen, who
established themselves permanently at Aiwalatin. The
caravan returned from Mecca by the eastern route, and
at Ghadames, in the desert, it was met by a certain El
Mamer, a chief who, being at the time out of favour with
the powers of Tunis, was anxious to conciliate Mansa
Musa, " whose authority extended over the desert."
Mansa Musa received him very hospitably, and took
him also in his train to Melle. El Mamer relates how
he and the Spanish architect travelled together in the
royal cortege in great comfort. Precedence was given
them over many of the native chiefs and viziers. "His
Majesty," El Mamer says, "seemed to take pleasure in
our conversation." And at every halting-place their table
was provided from the royal kitchen with food and sweet-
meats. On its way to the capital the caravan passed
through Songhay and stopped at Kagho, where the em-
peror caused a mosque to be built. It was apparently
a mosque of some importance, and it was still in existence
three hundred years later. Mansa Musa also took the
two young sons of the Songhay monarch, by name Ali
Kolon and Suleiman Nare, to educate at his court.

Having thus made the complete round of his empire,
Mansa Musa re-entered his capital and immediately em-
ployed his Spanish architect to design for him a hall of
audience, built after the fashion of Egyptian architecture.
Abou Ishak, it is said, displayed all the wonders of his
genius in the creation of "an admirable monument" which
gave great satisfaction to the king. The hall was square
and surmounted by a dome. It was built of stone, covered
with plaster, and decorated with beautiful coloured ara-
besques. It had also, we are told, two tiers of arched
windows, of which the windows of the lower tier were
framed in gold, plated upon wood, and the windows of
the upper tier were framed in silver, plated upon wood.

126 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

This hall of audience communicated by an interior door
with the palace. In expression of his satisfaction, the
Sultan gave Abou Ishak 12,000 mitkals of gold dust, a
sum amounting in our money to about ;!f 8000. But to
this, which seems to us a relatively moderate reward,
must be added, says the historian, the high favour of the
prince, an eminent place at court, and splendid presents
made from time to time.

Upon his return from this great pilgrimage, Mansa
Musa turned his arms against Timbuctoo, and after a
severe conflict with the Sultan of Mossi, who sacked the
town in or about the year 1330, Musa became master,
in 1336, of the future capital of the Soudan. This town
offering fresh opportunity to the young architect, it was
embellished by a royal palace and mosque. Both build-
ings were of cut stone, and the remains of the palace exist
at the present day, though they are now used only as a
slaughter-house. The Great Mosque, which had a remark-
able minaret, was afterwards rebuilt about the year 1570
by a pious governor of Timbuctoo in obedience to advice
from Mecca, where it was stated that the prosperity of
Timbuctoo was closely associated with the prosperity of
the minaret, then apparently in a dilapidated condition.
Some portion of the old mosque still remains, and when
Barth saw it in 1855 it was perfectly distinguishable from
the later construction.

The first Imaums of this mosque were all learned
blacks, many of whom made their studies in the Uni-
versity of Fez. One of these, Katib Moussa, who was
a jurisconsult and very learned, had also extraordinary
health. He lived to a great age and filled the position
of Imaum for forty years without a single day's illness.
Being asked to what he attributed his good health, he
gave three simple hygienic rules, of which the last, at
least, if not the other two, is still worthy the consideration
of white men in West Africa. He never slept, he said,
exposed to the night air ; he never missed anointing
himself at night and taking a hot bath in the morning ;
and he never went out without breakfast.

MANSA MUSA 127

The Great Mosque continued to be the centre of reli-
gious Hfe in Timbuctoo until the conquest of the town by
the Moors in 1591, while the still older Sankor6 Mosque
was the centre of university life. A teacher of this
mosque, who also returned with Musa from the East,
found Timbuctoo full of black jurisconsults, whose know-
ledge of law was greater than his own. He accordingly
went to Fez, where he studied law for some years, and
then returned to found a chair of law at Timbuctoo.

In 1337, the year after Musa's conquest of Timbuctoo,
Abou el Ha9en, the reigning monarch of Morocco, effected
that conquest of Telem9an which has already been men-
tioned in a previous chapter, and Mansa Musa sent a de-
putation to congratulate him. Abou el Ha9en, on his part,
being, it is said, "animated by a proper pride," had "adopted
the habit of interchanging presents with all monarchs his
equals." The King of Melle was at that time the greatest
of the black kings, and his territories were nearest to
Morocco. Abou el Ha^en therefore determined to send
him a "truly royal" present of the finest products of his
kingdom. We are not told of what it was composed, but
we are told that he carefully chose all the objects which it
included himself, and that he confided it to the care of a
highly honourable chief, Ibn Ghanem, A deputation com-
posed of the most eminent persons of the empire was
selected to accompany it. The magnificence of the offer-
ing, Ibn Khaldun says, was the subject of general com-
ment, and we may draw from this circumstance our own
inference as to the importance of the place occupied by
Melle among the states of Africa. But the splendid gift
never reached Mansa Musa. While it was on its way he
died. It was delivered to his successor, who sent the
handsome return present once before mentioned, composed
of products of his own country all extremely rare and
curious, and it became the habit of the sovereigns of
Melle and Morocco to interchange presents by the medium
of the great officials of their kingdoms. The amiable
relations thus established between them were maintained
by their successors for several generations.

128 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

Durlne the reisfn of Mansa Musa the limits of the
Mellestine were extended over the desert until they
became practically conterminous with those of Morocco
and the westernmost portion of the Barbary States. They
were separated from them only by a belt of shifting sands,
of the breadth of a three days' journey, known to the
Arabs under the name of "El Areg," or "The Dunes,"
which, uninhabited by any peoples, stretched more or
less continuously across the continent from the Atlantic
to the Nile. The Mellestine had by this time become
so important that all its towns were frequented by the
merchants of Morocco, Barbary, and Egypt. The capital
is described by a contemporary writer as a place of con-
siderable extent, very populous and commercial. Numer-
ous streams watered the cultivated lands which surrounded
it. Merchandise from all countries was sent to it, and it
was the meeting-place of caravans from Morocco, North
Africa, and Egypt. The system of government and
justice established by Musa would seem to have been
that which animated the political existence of Melle
during the prosperous period of its history.

Mansa Musa himself reigned twenty-five years, and
his death, which took place between the sending of his
deputation to congratulate Abou el Ha^en on the conquest
of Telem(;an in 1337 and the arrival of the return present
of Abou el Ha^en, must have been presumably not later
than 1339, more probably 1338. Ibn Khaldun says of
him : " Mansa Musa was distinguished by his ability and
by the holiness of his life. The justice of his administra-
tion was such that the memory of it still lives." This was
perhaps not much to say at the end of the fourteenth
century, when he had hardly been dead for sixty years ;
but nearly 300 years later his Songhay historian, writing
with no bias in his favour, in the middle of the seven-
teenth century, repeats the praise and speaks of him
as a pious and equitable prince, unequalled for virtue or
uprightness.

CHAPTER XVI

IBN BATUTA IN MELLE

It was at the court of Abou el Ha9en, the conqueror of
Telemgan, that Ibn Batuta, as we have seen, resolved in
the year 1349 to rest from further exploration, and though,
like Marco Polo, he wrote nothing himself, to dictate to
his scribes a record of the voyages he had made. Inter-
course between the sovereigns of Melle and Morocco had
within the ten years preceding his arrival received a great
development. The fame of Mansa Musa's journey to
Mecca, his admirable and upright character, and the
opening of his country to the commerce of North Africa,
formed at the time subjects of fresh interest at the court
of Fez. That a king so enlightened and intelligent as
Abou el Ha9en should wish to know more of the countries
lately opened to Moorish influence was natural, and having
at his court a traveller so experienced as Ibn Batuta, it is
not surprising that the idea of still further voyages should
have been suggested to the explorer.

Notwithstanding his intention of travelling no more,
Ibn Batuta was, as we have already seen, infected by the
general enthusiasm, and in 1352 he started on the journey
which gives us, from the lips of an eye-witness, a picture
of the court and kingdom of Melle as they existed within
ten or fifteen years of the death of Mansa Musa. Mansa
Musa's son had had only a short reign of four years, and
the succession had passed to his uncle, Mansa Suleiman,
a brother of Musa. This Suleiman reigned twenty-four
years, and was the sovereign of Melle at the time of Ibn
Batuta's visit.

Ibn Batuta travelled south by the road already de-

130 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

scribed by El Bekri, taking the westernmost branch which
led through the "Salt City" of Tegazza. It is unnecessary
to reproduce his description, to which allusion has been
made in an earlier chapter. It is chietiy interesting as
serving to prove the accuracy of El Bekri's description
given from the reports of Spanish merchants three hundred
years earlier, and to illustrate incidentally the continuity
of life and tradition which left the conditions of travel
upon the road practically unchanged after the lapse of
so long a time. El Bekri's account, gathered from the
experience of travellers passing over the road in 1052,
might equally have been written by Ibn Batuta in 1352,
and the account given by Ibn Batuta have been given by
EI Bekri. Indeed, in one respect, Ibn Batuta's account
carries the imagination even further back, for his descrip-
tion of the town of Tegazza, in which the houses and the
mosque were built of slabs of salt, recalls the description
given by Herodotus of the salt towns of the " Land of
Dates."

The whole of these desert stopping-places lay within
the limits assigned by Ibn Khaldun to the Mellestine. Ibn
Batuta crossed the frontier of Melle proper at Aiwalatin,
the capital of the old kingdom of Ghanata. But the
Ghana of El Bekri's day had fallen low. Ibn Batuta
found it occupied largely by Berbers, descendants of the
IMorabites, whose degeneracy gave him cause for amaze-
ment. Mohammedan as they called themselves, they
had fallen into habits which scandalised him. He felt,
as unfortunately many a white man since then has had
sorrowful occasion to feel in similar circumstances, that
these white men did not sustain the dignity of their race
in the presence of the blacks by whom they were sur-
rounded and to whose rule they bowed.

The black viceroy who received the merchants of the
caravan with which Ibn Batuta travelled remained seated
while they stood before him. He spoke to them through
an interpreter, not because he did not understand, or
because they were not close enough for him to hear, but

IBN BATUTA IN MELLE 131

"solely to indicate his disdain for them." The experience
stirred in Ibn Batuta such wrath that he regretted to have
entered the country of black men who were thus ill-
mannered, and who treated white men with so little
respect. His disgust and indignation were for several
days overpowering. He could hardly prevail with himself
to continue his journey, and he had nearly resolved to
return with the caravan with which he had come. How-
ever, a stay of seven weeks in Aiwalatin appears to have
modified his views. Possibly what he observed there of
the degeneracy of the Berbers led to more sympathetic
reflections upon the attitude assumed towards them by
the blacks, and he determined to carry out his intention
of travelling at least as far as the court of Melle.

It is evident from what he says that the Berbers of
Ghana, though Mussulmans, and observing all the religious
customs of their faith, studying jurisprudence and theology,
and devoting a considerable portion of their time to
learning the Koran by heart, had to a very great extent
assimilated themselves to the customs of the blacks. The
domestic privacy of the Moslem was not observed, and
they had adopted the native habit of tracing their gene-
alogy in the female line through a maternal uncle. The
inheritance, as with the native royal dynasties in pre-
Mohammedan days, went to the son of a sister. This
was a practice which, though it is known to be common
in Negroland, Batuta says that he had never seen, except
amongst pagan Indians in Malabar.

The climate of Aiwalatin, Ibn Batuta says, was
exceedingly hot. Food was abundant there, and the
inhabitants were very prettily dressed, in clothes imported
for the most part from Egypt. The women were beautiful,
and, in Ibn Batuta's opinion, very superior to the men.

He found occasion for much criticism of their domestic
conduct, but with regard to the strictures, of which he is
not sparing, it is possible that there may he another side.
Mohammedan women, in the great days of the Ommeyades
in Spain, were not confined to harems, but went unveiled,

132 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

and enjoyed the society of men as freely as do the English
and American women of the present day. The Moham-
medans ol the desert may have preserved the custom of
this freedom after it had been abandoned by the more
cultivated Moslems of the towns, and may have felt that
in doing so it was they, and not the orthodox, who had
maintained the purer traditions of the faith. There is a
hint of something of this sort in an argument which took
place between Ibn Batuta and the leader of the caravan
with whom he travelled — a rich man who possessed a house
of his own in Aiwalatin. "The companionship of men
and women in this country," urged the caravan leader, "is
respectable and good. There is no harm attaching to it,
and no unpleasant suspicions are aroused by this freedom
of which you complain." But Ibn Batuta remained un-
convinced. "I was surprised at his folly," he says, "and
went no more to his house, though he invited me several
times."

From Aiwalatin to the capital of Melle was a twenty days'
march, for which, Ibn Batuta says, it was hardly necessary
to have a guide or companions, as the road was perfectly
safe. He travelled himself with three companions. All
along the road they found immense and very old trees, of
which one would have been enough to shelter a large cara-
van. Many of the trees had hollow trunks, in which, during
the rains, water accumulated, and they served as cisterns for
the passers-by. Others were much used by bees to build in,
and men took the honey. In one a weaver had established
his loom, and was weaving when Ibn Batuta passed.

The country between Aiwalatin and Melle would seem
to have been wooded and thickly interspersed with villages.
Amongst the trees of the wooded country Ibn Batuta notes
fruits "resembling plums, apples, peaches, and apricots,
but not quite like them." He also notes plantains ; and
ground nuts, of which the oil was employed for many
purposes, formed a prevailing crop. Spices, salt, beads,
and aromatic gums appeared to be the currency of the
smaller villages. Everything required for a journey was

IBN BATUTA IN MELLE 133

easy to buy on the way. There was no need, Ibn
BatLita says, to make any provision : food was plentiful,
villages succeeded each other at short distances, and
the inhabitants were always willing to sell anything that
was required.

About half-way between Ghana and Melle Ibn Batuta
and his companions reached the large town of Zaghari,
principally inhabited by black merchants called Ouand-
jaratak, who remind us of the Noughaniarta mentioned
by El Bekri, In most of the towns there was a white
quarter — in all of them Ibn Batuta notes the presence
of white men. Zaghari was the centre of a great corn
country, whence millet was exported to the frontier. From
it the party struck the Niger at the point at which Segou
now stands.

We get at this stage of the journey a description of
the course of the Niger which is worth quoting. Some of
the principal towns upon the river are first mentioned,
including Zaghah. This town had adopted Islam, Ibn
Batuta says, at a very early period. It had a king of its
own who paid tribute to Melle, and its inhabitants were
distinguished by their great zeal in the study of science.
"From Zaghah," he continues, "the river flows down to
Timbuctoo and Gao ; thence to Muri or Muli, a place
which forms part of the country of the Semiyyown (or
Cannibals) and is the most distant limit of Melle. The
river then flows down from Muri to Nupe, one of the
most important countries of the Soudan, whose sovereign
is among the greatest kings of the country. No white
man enters Nupe, because the blacks would kill him before
he arrived there." The course of the Lower Niger, where
the river flowed through the territories of the cannibals
and entered the swampy districts of the coast, was wholly
unknown to Arab geographers, and Ibn Batuta accepted
the common theory, which supposed that the Benue was a
continuation of the Niger, and that below Nupe the river
turned eastward to join the Nile.

There is a noticeable increase of respect in the tone

134 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

adopted by the traveller as he approaches the capital of
Melle.

Quitting the Niger at Segou, "we travelled," he says,
" towards the river Sansarah, which is about ten miles
from Melle. The custom is to forbid the entrance of
Melle to any one who has not obtained permission,
but I had written beforehand to some of the principal
personages in the white community of Melle to en-
gage a house for me, and no objection was made to my
entrance."

He went at once to the white quarter of the town,
and found that one of his friends who was a lawyer had
hired a house for him just opposite to his own. Ibn Batuta
took possession of the house without delay. Food and
wax candles were supplied to him, and on the following
day he received visits from distinguished persons, of
whom he subjoins a list. Amongst these there were
men of letters, lawyers, jurisconsults. One black judge is
specially mentioned as a man of merit, "adorned with most
noble qualities." The royal herald Dougha, also a " black
of great distinction," and holding one of the principal
positions at court, was among his early visitors. These
men and others all sent him presents and compliments,
and caused him to feel at once that in the capital of the
kingdom he was treated with the consideration which was
his due.

The reigning king was somewhat miserly, and seldom
gave presents of any value. He at first paid no attention
to the arrival of the distinguished traveller, but during
the period of Ibn Batuta's stay in the town the sorrowful
news was received of the death of the Sultan of Morocco,
Abou el Ha9en. The king on that occasion gave a
"banquet of condolence," and Ibn Batuta was invited.
The governors, the jurisconsults, the judge, and the prin-
cipal preacher of the mosque, are mentioned as being
present. Caskets containing chapters of the Koran were
^pjarently taken by the guests, and the entire Koran
was rei?.^ through on the occasion. Prayers were offered

IBN BATUTA IN MELLE 135

for the soul of Abou el Ha9en, that the Almighty might
have mercy upon him. Prayers were also offered for Mansa
Suleiman.

It was after this ceremony that Ibn Batuta was first
presented to the sovereign, who received him with a
gravity befitting the occasion. A purely formal " gift of
hospitality " was subsequently sent to him, which consisted
only of meat and bread, and for two months he had no
further private audience of the sovereign. He, however,
continued to attend the public audiences, of which he
describes the ceremonial in some detail. They were held
sometimes in the Hall of Audience, designed by Mansa
Musa's Spanish architect ; sometimes outside in the Place
of Audience, an enclosed square upon which the palace
opened, and which was approached from the town by a wide
and long boulevard, planted with trees. Whether they were
held indoors or in the open air, a very strict and pompous
ceremonial was observed. The boulevard was lined by
detachments of soldiers armed with bows and lances, each
detachment having its own commandant and military
band. The bands were composed of drums and trumpets,
horns made of ivory, and other instruments made with
reeds and gourds, which gave a "most agreeable sound."
The commandants were mounted, and armed with bows
and arrows, each bearing a quiver full of arrows at his
back, and carrying his bow in his hand. The soldiers were
some on foot and some mounted. The general public,
and all persons who had business to lay before the
Sultan, waited in this boulevard. On occasions when
the Sultan held his audience within the hall, the square
outside was occupied by 300 servants of the palace, who
stood to left and right in double rows, the front row
seated on the ground armed with little shields and short
spears, the back row standing and armed with bows and
arrows.

No one entered the Hall of Audience itself till the
curtains of the windows, which were usually kept closed,
were, on the entrance of the Sultan, drawn back. At the

136 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

same time a handkerchief or Httle banner was waved, which
served as a signal to the public, and there was a burst of
music from the bands. Then on receiving the summons of
the King, certain officials, including the military governor,
the preacher, and the jurisconsults, took their places in
the Hall of Audience, seating themselves to left and right
before the King's arm-bearers, and the royal herald or inter-
preter placed himself in the doorway. This official was a
personage of the greatest importance. He was "superbly
dressed " in stuff of the finest silk, with a very handsome
turban. He was booted and spurred, and wore hanging
from his neck a sword in a gold scabbard. In each hand
he carried a short spear, one of gold and one of silver,
tipped with iron. Any one who had a cause to present
then approached the open door and laid their case before
the herald. He in turn repeated it to the lieutenant of
the King, and this official repeated it to the King.

When the audience was held outside, a throne was
erected for the King on a platform under a great tree in
the square. The platform, which was approached by
three steps, was covered with silk and cushions, and over
it an immense silken umbrella "resembling a dome" was
opened, on the summit of which perched a large golden
bird.

The Sultan, preceded by his own private band, then
issued in state from the palace. His band was composed
of singers who accompanied themselves upon gold and
silver instruments, of which the native name was a word
signifying "larks." The band marched first. Then came
the Sultan, dressed usually in red velvet with a golden
helmet upon his head, a bow in his hand, a quiver full of
arrows slung across his back. Behind him marched 300
armed slaves. The Sultan walked slowly. When he
reached the platform, his custom was to pause to look
at the public, and then very slowly to mount the platform
" as a preacher mounts the pulpit." As he took his seat
the military bands broke out, and the same ceremony was
then observed as for the other audiences.

IBN BATUTA IN MELLE 137

On occasions of public festivities these ceremonials
were immensely increased, the whole crowd wearinc,^
only fine white clothes, public prayers and thanksgivings
being offered up, and magnificent gifts presented by
subjects to the Sultan and by the Sultan to subjects
whom he wished to honour. On the breaking of the
fast of the Ramadan, it was the custom to present
arms to the Sultan in a more literal sense than that
usually conveyed by the term ; and on the occasion of
that ceremony when Ibn Batuta was present, "squires"
offered to the Sultan for his acceptance arms which
are described as "magnificent." "They were," Ibn
Batuta says, "swords ornamented in gold, with scab-
bards of the precious metal ; spears of gold and silver ;
quivers made of gold and silver ; and clubs made of
crystal." On these occasions there were dramatic dis-
plays, including dancing, fencing, and gymnastic per-
formances, which Ibn Batuta, having experience of
similar performances in India, declared to be extremely
good. There were also poetic recitations of an apparently
comic kind.

Poets wearing masks and dressed like birds were
allowed to speak their opinion to the monarch. Ibn
Batuta states that this practice was of great antiquity,
long anterior to the introduction of Islam amongst these
people. The description which he gives in some detail
can hardly fail to recall similar practices inherited from
the Tezcucans by the Aztecs, who in nearly the same
latitude on the American continent were at this very
moment, in the middle of the fourteenth century, making
good their position upon the Mexican plateau.^ Ibn

^ See likeness to Aztec performance at contemporary date. Prescott, in his
account of Aztec literature and civilisation previous to the conquest of Mexico
by the Spaniards, says : " They are said to have had also something like
theatrical exhibitions of a pantomimic sort, in which the faces of the per-
formers were covered with masks, and the figures of birds or animals were
frequently represented." — Conquest of Mexico^ vol. i. p. 98.

For a fuller account of these mummeries Prescott refers his readers to
Acosta, lib. 5, cap. 30 ; and also Clavigero, Stor-del-Messico. See also for Aztec
customs, Toribio, Hist, de los Indios, MS., parte 3, cap. 7.

138 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

Batuta also notices with censure the extreme servility which
the Sultan of Melle exacted from the nobles and others
by whom he was surrounded, and here, too, there is a
resemblance to Aztec manners which is striking. "When
the Sultan, seated in the Hall of Audience, calls any
one before him," says Ibn Batuta, "the person sum-
moned immediately divests himself of his fine clothes,
puts on shabby garments, and, taking off his turban,
covers his head with a dirty cap. He then enters the
presence barefooted, with his trousers rolled half-way
up his legs, listens with an air of profound submission
to what the Sultan has to say, and covers his head and
shoulders with dust, exactly as one might do who was
performing his ablutions with water." Ibn Batuta's com-
mentator, Ibn Djozay, adds to this passage a note to the
effect that the Secretary of State, who was present when
Mansa Musa's ambassadors were received at Fez by
Abou el Ha9en, told him that on all state occasions,
when the ambassador had audience of the Moorish
Sultan, he was accompanied by an attendant carrying
a basket of dust, and every time that the Sultan said
something gracious to him he covered himself with dust.
Prescott, in describing the ceremonial of the court of
Montezuma, the Aztec Emperor of Mexico, at the time of
the Spanish conquest, says that when ambassadors from
foreign states were introduced, "whatever their rank,
unless they were of blood royal, they were obliged to
submit to the humiliation of shrouding their rich dress
under the coarse mantle of nequen, and entering barefoot,
with downcast eyes, into the presence." This custom of
taking off the sandals and covering fine clothes with a
mantle of the coarsest stuff which was made in Mexico,
was imposed equally on all the nobility of Montezuma's
capital. The Mexican's mode of obeisance was not to
throw dust upon the head, but, bowing to the earth, to
touch it with the right hand. The Aztecs were, it will
be remembered, though not negroes, a dusky or copper-

IBN BATUTA IN MELLE 139

coloured race, apparently of the tint which Earth describes
as that of the "red races" of the Soudan. They had
other customs which correspond to those of the Soudanese.
The Aztec crown was transmitted, like that of Melle, in
collateral descent, though in both kingdoms exceptions to
the rule occurred. The practice of keeping the sons of
subject princes as a sort of honourable hostage at the
court of the monarch was perhaps too general to be
worthy of special note, though it also was common to
the two peoples. The more terrible custom of propitiating
the gods with human sacrifice which was so extensively
practised by the Aztecs, was, it will be remembered, only
the other day brought to an end under British rule in
Benin, and is probably still practised in less accessible
portions of the pagan belt. Such heathen rites were, of
course, unknown in the Mohammedan Melle of the thir-
teenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries. The custom
of wearing the heads of animals as a head-dress, which
was also common to the Aztecs, was preserved amongst
the pagans of the West African coast at the time of
the first occupation of the Gold Coast by the Portuguese
in 1 48 1.

On festive occasions the servants of the rich at Melle
would seem to have worn livery. The royal herald
Dougha's thirty servants are mentioned as being all
dressed in red cloth, with white caps. Music evidently
formed a prominent part of every entertainment. The
women are described as wearing pretty clothes, and
having their hair dressed with bands of gold and
silver.

We get an indication of social etiquette from the
experience of Batuta. The treatment which he had re-
ceived from the Sultan was not considered by his friends
to be sufficiently honourable, and about two months after
his arrival in Melle he was presented a second time.
This was done on the advice of the herald, Dougha, who
told the traveller that he must rise and call attention to

I40 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

himself at one of the public audiences, and promised when
he did so to explain matters.

Accordingly, Ibn Batuta rose at the audience and said :
" Surely I have travelled in the different countries of the
world, and I have known their kings ; but I have been
in your country four months, and you have not treated
me as a guest. What shall I say of you to the other
kings ? "

The Sultan replied : ''I have not seen you, nor
known you." Then the judge and other important
persons rose and said : " He has already saluted you,
and you have sent him food ! " After this the Sultan
ordered him to be lodged at his expense, and on the
distribution of gifts at the end of Ramadan did not
forget him.

The customs of the town were very devout. Prayer
was regularly said in private houses. There was a
cathedral mo.sque to which all fashionable people went
on Fridays, and it was habitually so crowded that the
worshipper who was late could find no place. The prac-
tice of the rich was to send their slaves in good time to
spread their seat in the place to which they considered
themselves to have a right, and the slaves kept the place
till the master arrived.

At this mosque one Friday Ibn Batuta had the
pleasure of seeing vengeance fall on the head of one of
the black officials of Aivvalatin, who had so offended
him on his first crossing the frontier of Melle. " I was,"
he said, " taking part in the prayers, when a Berber
merchant, also a student and a man of letters, rose and
cried : ' Oh, you who are present in this mosque, be
my witnesses that I accuse Mansa Suleiman ' (the Sultan),
'and I cite him before the tribunal of God's envoy,
Mohammed.' Immediately there came from the Sultan's
grated gallery messengers who approached the com-
plainant, and asked : ' Who has committed an injustice ?
Who has taken anything from you.-*' He replied:
' Mancha Djou, the governor of Aiwalatin, has taken from

IBN BATUTA IN MELLE 141

me goods worth 600 ducats and he has given me in com-
pensation only 100 ducats.'"

The result of the incident was the arrest of the
governor of Aiwalatin, who was brought to the capital,
and having been tried before the regular tribunal, was
found guilty. The merchant recovered his money, and
the governor was deprived of his functions.

CHAPTER XVII

ADMINISTRATION OF THE MELLESTINE

I HAVE lingered, perhaps, too long over the personal
experiences of Ibn Batuta in Melle, but they serve to
illustrate, as a drier chronicle of historic events might fail
to do, the actual life of the town and the degree of
civilisation which had been reached.

Politically, as we have seen, the Empire of Melle was
divided into Melle proper and the Protectorate, which
extended into the desert until it met the boundaries of
the civilised states of the north and west. The empire
would appear to have been further divided into provinces,
each ruled by a " Ferba " or viceroy of the sovereign,
while each town had its "Mochrif" or inspector, who
was responsible to the viceroy for the maintenance of
order, the suppression of crime, and, presumably, for the
collection of the taxes.

The "Ferba" is spoken of by Ibn Batuta as the
viceroy of the Sultan, but there existed another dignitary,
known as the " Koi," who was apparently a native and
subject king, not dispossessed, but holding his possessions
as tributary to Melle. In some instances, he would seem
to have been confirmed by Melle in the occupation of an
old position ; in others, he was apparently appointed by the
Sult^in. In speaking of the Timbuctoo Koi, a little later,
at the beginning of the fifteenth century, the author of
the Tarikh-es-Soudan says that it was customary for the
Koi to receive one-third of the total taxes, and that in Tim-
buctoo he had all administrative and financial powers in his
hands. It is evident that if the Kols were petty native
kings, who, on submission to the Sultan of Melle, were by

ADMINISTRATION OF THE MELLESTINE 143

him confirmed during good behaviour in certain powers,
and on occasion superseded by his appointment, it would
be necessary to make some fairly ample provision for their
revenues. A certain semi-independence on their part
would seem to be argued by the fact that when the
Tuaregs took Timbuctoo from Melle in 1434, they con-
firmed the existing Timbuctoo Koi in his powers. At
one time there were thirty-six Kois in the empire of
Melle. As the empire extended it is probable that their
number may have increased, and, at a later period, as the
central government weakened, the power and self-assertion
of the Kois grew, and contributed, doubtless, to the dis-
ruption of the empire.

Unfortunately, though the finances of the country in
the middle of the fourteenth century would appear to have
been flourishing, no special accounts have been left to
us of the revenue or system of taxation. We can only
assume from incidental allusions that taxation continued
to be based, as in the kingdom of Ghana, on a system
of royalties on minerals and taxes on foreign merchandise.
We hear of the great wealth of the country and of the
kings, but we get no hint from Batuta of taxation which
was felt to be oppressive by the people. He mentions
that Mansa Suleiman was unpopular because of his avarice,
but this would appear to apply rather to his personal
thriftiness than to any system of government. A narrative
which abounds in anecdote, and is not animated by any
sentiment of friendliness for the government, would have
been likely to incorporate any instance of oppression which
reached the author's ears. But, after a residence of several
months in the country, Ibn Batuta not only brings forward
none ; his evidence is given in a contrary direction.

The judicial system of the country, though not de-
scribed in detail, would seem to have been carefully and
fully organised. The frequent reference which is made
in all chronicles to judges, black and white, to lawyers
and jurisconsults, indicates that men of this profession
occupied a very prominent position in the social organisa-

144 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

tion of the country. The fact that it was the custom of
the Suhan to send cases in which he was appealed to
for justice, to be tried at the " proper tribunal," would
seem also to indicate a severance of the executive and
judicial powers which it is the habit of civilisation to
regard as one of the guarantees of justice. But the con-
dition of the country itself is, perhaps, the best testimony
which can be borne to the efficacy of the system by which
crime was punished and repressed. Amongst the admirable
things which Ibn Batuta feels it to be his duty to praise,
when, at the end of his visit, he summarises his opinion of
the people of Melle, is, he says, the rare occurrence of acts
of injustice in the country. " Of all people," he thinks
that " the blacks are those who most detest injustice.
Their Sultan never forgives any one who has been guilty
of it." He also praises the "complete and general safety
which is enjoyed in the country. Neither those who travel
nor those who remain at home have anything to fear from
brigands, thieves, or violent persons." " The blacks do
not," he says, " confiscate the goods of white men who die
in the country, even though it may be a question of
immense treasure. On the contrary, their goods are
always placed in charge of some white man, trusted by the
community, until those who have a right to them can apply
and take possession of them."

The organisation of the Church was orthodox, every
town having its mosque or mosques with salaried readers
and teachers ; and in the principal towns, such as Melle,
Timbuctoo, and Gago, mention is made of a "Cathedral
Mosque." Schools are mentioned in many towns, and
some, as in Zaghah, are specially spoken of as centres of
distinguished learning. Ibn Batuta mentions with praise
the religious assiduity of the people — the custom of cele-
brating regular prayer, not only in the public mosques, but
in private meetings of the faithful — and the care with
which children were brought up to observe similar practices.
All educated children were expected to learn the Koran,
and were either whipped or had fetters placed upon their

ADMINISTRATION OF THE MELLESTINE 14s

feet when they were negligent in doing so. In the house
of the principal judge he one day saw all the children
chained up, and was told that it was a punishment for not
having learned their Koran. On another occasion he
saw a magnificent young black, superbly dressed, who
had shackles on his feet, and on inquiring whether he had
committed a crime, was told laughingly that he was only
being forced to learn his Koran. The principal preacher
of the cathedral mosque and the principal judge of the
town of Melle were constantly in the presence of the
sovereign, and would seem to have occupied a recognised
position as ministers and the heads of their respective
professions.

The army, which is spoken of as very large, was an
organised military force, composed partly of cavalry and
partly of infantry, armed with bows and arrows, swords,
and long and short spears. It was divided into units, each
commanded by a captain or commandant, and it is interest-
ing to note in relation to the appointment of these com-
mandants that it was the custom, on the occasion of their
selection for command, for the viceroy or governor of the
town to cause the new commandant to be placed upon a
shield and raised above the heads of the soldiers in exactly
the same manner as was common in Northern Europe.
It will be remembered that the Merovingian and Carlo-
vingian kings were always raised on a shield as part of
the ceremony of their enthronement, and as late as the
Latin Conquest of Constantinople in 1204, when Baldwin
of Flanders was elected Emperor of the East, he was, we
are told, raised upon the buckler by the hands of his rival
candidate. The smaller military units led by the com-
mandants were apparently grouped into a larger formation,
which in its turn was commanded by a military chief or
general, and these larger formations were again united into
two divisions, one forming the army of the south, and the
other of the north. The two generals-in-chief command-
ing these divisions were very high personages, who occa-
sionally gave to the reigning sovereign all that he could do

K

146 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

to keep them in order. The strength of the army of Melle
receives indirect testimony from the fact that Jenne, a
territory which, though lying within the Hmits of the
Mellestine and paying tribute to Melle, had its own king,
and was never conquered until 1468, thought it necessary,
in order to preserve the much-cherished independence of
its town, to keep no less than twelve army corps always
on foot charged solely with the duty of watching the
military movements of Melle and of guarding against any
approach of the Melle troops which was not authorised
by the king.

Beyond the general indication that the country was
fertile, cultivated, and very populous, Ibn Batuta gives
no satisfactory account of its agriculture nor of the num-
bers of its population. Other writers dwell, however,
on the fact that it was rich in cattle, corn, and cotton,
which last was exchanged freely in its markets for the
woollen cloth of Europe. That it was very populous
may be inferred from a fact mentioned by the author of
the Tarikh-es-Soudan in relation to Jenne, through whose
territory Ibn Batuta travelled without mentioning that
it was more populous than any other portion of the
country. The territory of Jenne extended for a journey
of several days. If the king, it is said, desired to send
a message, though it might be to the farthest limits of
the territory, the royal messenger simply mounted upon
the rampart near one of the gates of the town and called
aloud the message with which he was charged. The people
from village to village repeated the call, and it was delivered
in the farthest village to the individual to whom it was
addressed. This custom not only illustrates the density
of population in a country in which it could be practised,
but it also suggests an explanation of the extraordinary
rapidity with which news is even now sometimes trans-
mitted among natives in countries where no mechanical
means for the purpose exist. A message so delivered
from voice to voice might pass with almost the rapidity
of a telegram, and doubtless the calling of royal messages

ADMINISTRATION OF THE MELLESTINE 147

was not left to the chance of any hearer. There must
have been an organised system of pubHc criers to make
the practice effective. Of this, however, no indication
appears to exist, and it would be interesting if light could
be thrown upon the subject.

Ibn Batuta is equally unsatisfactory on the subject of
the trade of Melle. Though he travelled with a caravan
of merchants, he tells us nothing that is interesting upon
the subject, and we are left to learn from other sources
the great importance which it had assumed. All European
goods, it would seem, were welcomed in the markets of
the Mellestine, and were paid for apparently in gold,
cotton, slaves, ivory, skins, and kola-nuts. A good deal
of corn would seem to have been exported to the frontier,
but presumably this was destined rather for the towns
of the desert than for Europe. At a somewhat later
period the trade in "written books" from Barbary was
said to be one of the most profitable. Ibn Batuta men-
tions an interesting copy of a book called "The Mar-
vellous," ^ which was lent to him by one of his many hosts,
in a place of which he had forgotten the name, and there
must already in his day have existed a very considerable
demand to satisfy the needs of the many schools which
are mentioned. When the King of Jenne, somewhat
later, at the end of the twelfth century, adopted Islam,
and desired that all the Ulemas of his territory should
be present at his abjuration of the gods of paganism,
they assembled to the number of 4200. If the relatively
small territory of Jenne produced so large a number, it is
evident persons of some degree of Mohammedan learning
must have been numerous in the countries of the Soudan.
There can be no doubt that gold abounded with which
to pay for all desired luxuries. In the market of Gago
it is said that the inhabitants frequently brought in more
gold than they could exchange for commodities. All
travellers allude to the golden arms and utensils frequently

^ Perhaps " The Choice of Marvels," composed at Mossul by a writer of
Granada in 1160, a copy of which FeHx Dubois found at Timbuctoo.

148 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

used by persons of importance. This perpetual testimony
to the quantity of gold in the country begins, it may be
remembered, in the eighth century, when, according
to Abd el Hakem, the first military expedition of the
Arabs brought back " all the gold it wanted," and con-
tinues through the testimony of El Bekri in the eleventh
century, El Idrisi in the twelfth, and all subsequent writers
of the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth
centuries, up to the moment of the overthrow of native
independence by the Moors in the conquest of 1591.
Allusions to the cotton trade are scarcely less constant,
though less prominent and less important, and there must
have been a considerable local consumption. Ibn Batuta
mentions amongst the good qualities which he ascribes
to the blacks of Melle, that they never failed to dress
in fine white robes on Friday, and the dressing of many
millions of persons must have needed a large supply.

The other never-failing supply of wealth which would
seem to have persisted throughout the history of the
Soudan was the slave labour raided from the pagan belt
to the south. The attitude of the Mohammedan black
towards those people seems to have been almost identical
with that of the Spaniards towards the natives of the
New World, They were idolatrous, and had no rights.
Probably the occupation of raiding the little known and
unhealthy regions of the pagan belt gave occupation in
times of peace for the immense armies which were kept
on foot. But, beyond the actual cruelty of the raid, the
slave does not appear to have been badly treated. He
served in the armies of the conquerors and performed
the duties of the house and farm. He seems to have
received little more consideration than a domestic animal,
but he does not appear to have been persecuted. All
rich people in Melle were proud of possessing a very
large number of slaves. Ibn Batuta mentions that he
gave twenty-five ducats for a good woman slave, but the
price of the ordinary slave was much less. In the sixteenth
century Leo Africanus mentions that the price of a Barbary

ADMINISTRATION OF THE MELLESTINE 149

horse in Bornu was fifteen slaves. In Ibn Batuta's day a
Barbary horse cost one hundred ducats at Melle ; but no
deductions can be legitimately drawn from these two facts
as to the money value of the ordinary slave.

The vast body of slaves no doubt represented the
labour power of the country, and that they existed within
its boundaries without disturbance and without the multi-
plication of crime, if it says much for the organisation
and the administration of justice, says also something for
the manner in which they were treated.

After a stay of several months in the capital of Melle,
Ibn Batuta visited some of the minor towns, in most of
which he mentions the black governor with respect, and
in nearly all of them received hospitality from " persons
of merit " who had made the pilgrimage to Mecca.

Amongst these minor towns he mentions Timbuctoo,
which was still far from the height of its fame. He
disposes of it in a sentence, as a town situated at a dis-
tance of four leagues from the Niger, and occupied chiefly
by Berbers. It was here that he witnessed, on the occa-
sion of the appointment of the captain of a troop, the
ceremony of lifting him on a shield above the heads
of his men. He mentions incidentally that this captain
was a Berber. Berbers and blacks seemed to enjoy at
the time perfect equality throughout the kingdom — all
being alike Mohammedan. The only class distinction
seemed to be idolater or orthodox, slave or free. He
does not mention either the mosque or palace of Tim-
buctoo, though as they were at the time of his visit only
fifteen years old, and as we know from previous and sub-
sequent descriptions that they were handsome buildings
of cut stone, they might have been expected to attract
his attention. He does, however, mention the tombs of
several distinguished persons, amongst them that of the
young poet and architect from Granada who designed the
mosque, and who had not lived long to enjoy the favour
of his black patrons, the monarchs of Melle.

From Timbuctoo Ibn Batuta, having evidently resolved

i^o

A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

to see the whole of the Mellestine, travelled eastward by
water to Gago. On the way, amongst other incidents of
travel, he made the acquaintance of the black governor,
who lent him the book already alluded to, who spoke
Arabic fluently, who had made the pilgrimage to Mecca,
and who impressed him as "one of the best and most
generous of men." In the cordial expression of the
respect and sympathy awakened in his mind by friendly
intercourse with this and other black dignitaries of the
kingdom of Melle, it becomes clear how greatly he had
modified his opinion with regard to the inhabitants of the
Soudan since he first crossed the frontier at Aiwalatin.

He remained a month at Gago, the capital of Songhay,
which he describes as " one of the finest cities of the
blacks." It evidently occupied in his estimation a far
higher position than Timbuctoo. It was, he said, one of
the largest and one of the best-supplied towns in the
Soudan. Food was very plentiful, especially rice, milk,
fowls, fish, and he mentions a particular kind of cucumber,
which he held to be "unequalled.' The currency amongst
the natives in the market both here and at Melle was still
in cowries. He mentions a " white man's mosque," and
gives a list of distinguished persons from whom he received
attentions and hospitality.

Gago and Aiwalatin were evidently regarded as the
extreme limits east and west of Melle proper. The
authority of INIelle was respected vaguely to the south in
the country of the cannibals and amongst other minor
kingdoms of some importance, which are confusingly
enumerated under different names by different authors.
Amongst these Mossi was one of consequence enough
to inflict very heavy blows upon Melle itself at a later
date. Borgu was another which had preserved its inde-
pendence from a period of great antiquity. Nupe, on
the opposite bank of the river, was, as we have seen, also
an independent native state of importance, though practi-
cally unknown to the Mohammedans of the West. Melle,
however, never extended beyond the limits of the Niger

ADMINISTRATION OF THE MELLESTINE 151

in the East. Haussaland and Bornu drew their civiHsation
more directly from Eastern sources, and belong to another
chapter of history, with which we have yet to deal.

The Mellestine took a wider extension as it spread
north into the desert, and Tekadda, which is on nearly the
same parallel as Aiwalatin, may perhaps be taken as
forming, at the end of the fourteenth century, its most
easterly development in the desert. Here, as will be
seen, the frontier of the Mellestine trenched upon the
territory of Gober and the Haussa States, and the autho-
rity claimed over Tekadda was at a future period the
cause of the friction.

Ibn Batuta, who confined his journey entirely to the
Mellestine, went from Gago north-eastward to Tekadda,
where he gives some description of the copper mines. At
Tekadda he received an order from the new Sultan of
Morocco, who had succeeded Abou el Ha^en, to return
to court and give an account of his wanderings. He
turned his steps north-westward, abandoning the Tripoli-
Fezzan road where it branched off towards Ghat, and
made his way with a friendly caravan to Touat, thus
reversing the road which the Emperor Musa had followed
on his famous pilgrimage. From Touat the road to
Sidjilmessa and Fez was easy, except for the incident
of a very heavy snowstorm which overtook the caravan
shortly after leaving Sidjilmessa ; and having seen
practically the whole of the black empire, which at first
he so much despised as to have been tempted to turn
back on the frontier, Ibn Batuta re-entered Fez in the
early days of January 1354.

The curiosity which his travels excited at the court
of Fez was, it is said, so great that the Sultan himself
wished to hear his adventures, and after listening to him
for several consecutive nights, ordered that the whole
should be drawn up and made into a book. This was
done, and the account, as it now exists, was finished on
December 13, 1355.

This may be regarded as the period at which Melle

152 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

reached its greatest prosperity. Mansa Suleiman reigned
for twenty- four years, but he was succeeded by Mansa
Djata, a vicious tyrant, during whose reign of fourteen
years the decadence of the kingdom began. Mansa Djata,
far from practising the frugality of his ancestors, had a
passion for expenditure which he carried to madness. He
spent, it is said, in every kind of folly and debauchery,
the immense wealth which had been amassed by the kings
his predecessors. It was this king who sold the famous
nugget which was regarded, we are told, as one of the
rarest of the public treasures. He died finally of sleeping-
sickness. Ibn Khaldun describes the malady as being
very common in the country, but as this is the first instance
which we have of it historically, the symptoms as then
recognised are perhaps worth noting. It was specially
apt, Ibn Khaldun says, to attack the upper classes of the
people. It began by periodic attacks, and finally brought
the patient to such a state that he could not remain awake
for a moment. It then declared itself permanently, and
ended sooner or later in death. The King Djata suffered
for two years from periodic attacks before he died in

1374-

This was practically the end of the kingdom of Melle.
The Songhay kingdom had already asserted its inde-
pendence in 1355, within two years of Ibn Batuta's visit.
The Tuaregs took Timbuctoo in 1434. In 1468 the
overthrow of the empire was begun by Sonni Ali, the
Songhay precursor of the great dynasty of the Askias,
and the conquest of Melle by the Songhays was com-
pleted in a twelve years' war carried on by Askia the
Great, from 1501 to 1513. It is interesting to note that
in this very year, 15 13, a map was published in Strasburg
in which the kingdom of Melle appears under the title of
Regnum Musa Melle de Ginovia.

CHAPTER XVIII

MEETING OF EASTERN AND WESTERN INFLUENCE
UPON THE NIGER

It has been said that civiHsation flowed to the Soudan
from two sources. There was a civilisation of the East,
and a civiHsation of the West. The two streams flowed
in from different ends of the country, and there was a
point at which they met and overlapped. We have now
come to that very interesting point.

We have seen in the fall of Ghana under Mohammedan
influence the final extinction at its most westerly limit of
an order of civilisation which belonged to a different epoch
of the world's history. It is probable that the civilisation
of Ghana may have drawn its original inspiration also from
the East. But historical documents are wanting. The
care of students has not been devoted to this point, or
if it has, the results of their labours have been unfortu-
nately lost in the many holocausts made by ignorant
conquerors of learned libraries. The Christians dis-
tinguished themselves in Spain by destroying Arab
libraries wherever they conquered Arab towns, and at a
later period their example was unhappily imitated in the
Soudan by Moors and Fulahs in relation to the docu-
ments of local learning.

Hence of the antique civilisation which preceded that
of the Middle Ages under the Tropic of Cancer in West
Africa we know but little. What we know either by
document or direct tradition is first connected with the
rise of the Songhay people, and it is at a point farther
east than Ghana, and at a period subsequent to the
Mohammedan domination of that town, that the advancing

154 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

waves of West and East may be discerned as clearly meet-
ing each other in the Soudan. In the shock and amalga-
mation of the two forces, black civilisation attained the
greatest height which it has ever reached in modern
Africa. The gentle nature of the Soudanese black,
inoculated with intellectual germs from a long for-
gotten civilisation, would seem to have allied itself in
the Songhay race with the virility of the Arab, and
a result was produced unlike anything which the world
had seen.

The sixteenth century, so full of interest to contem-
porary Europe, was the period of fulfilment of this
development. The halcyon days of the modern Song-
hay Empire lay between the years 1492 and 1592. The
rise of the Songhay people dates, however, from a
much earlier period. Though in the order of the great
kingdoms of the Soudan as they came into touch with
the outer world Songhay succeeds to Melle, it was as a
matter of fact a far older kingdom. The first true chapter
of its history, though lost to us, had been lived in the
aspiration and the efforts of its people, and had resulted
in its own conquest, long before modern influences had
reached it, of a level of civilisation higher than that of
any of the surrounding countries.

Hitherto we have taken the historians of the Western
Arabs for our principal guides. In opening this new
chapter of the history of the Soudan we abandon them
and turn to local literature. From this point onward the
Soudan has its own historians. Chief amongst them in
regard to the history of Songhay is the author of the
TarikJi-es-So2idan, or " History of the Soudan," which has
within the last few years been translated into French by
M. Houdas, the eminent French Professor of the Oriental
School of Languages. The book is a wonderful docu-
ment, of which the narrative dealing mainly with the
modern history of the Songhay Empire relates the rise
of this black civilisation through the fifteenth and sixteenth

EASTERN AND WESTERN INFLUENCE 155

centuries, and its decadence up to the middle of the seven-
teenth century, Barth, who obtained some fragments of
an Arabic copy when he was on his way to Timbuctoo,
goes so far as to say that the book forms " one of the most
important additions that the present age has made to the
history of mankind." But it is not merely an authentic
narrative. It is for the unconscious Hght which it sheds
upon the life, manners, politics, and literature of the
country that it is valuable. Above all it possesses the
crowning quality, displayed usually in creative poetry
alone, of presenting a vivid picture of the character of
the men with whom it deals. It has been called the
"Epic of the Soudan." It lacks the charm of form, but
in all else the description is well merited. Its pages
are a treasure-house of information for the careful student,,
and the volume may be read many times without extract-
ing from them more than a small part of all that they
contain.

Its chief author, Abdurrahman Es-sadi, was a black of
Timbuctoo, who was born in that town in the year 1596.
He came of learned and distinguished ancestors, and his
genealogy is interesting because he united in his own
person three of the most important strains of blood in
the Soudan. His mother was a Haussa woman. His
great-great-grandfather, he tells us, was the first white —
that is, Berber — Imaum of Mansa Musa's mosque, and
succeeded that Katib Moussa whose remarkable longevity
and health were mentioned in a previous chapter. This
ancestor married a Fulani woman, and from the combina-
tion of Berber and Fulani blood his father was descended
on the maternal side. Es-sadi was himself Imaum of the
university mosque in Timbuctoo, but he also exercised
the functions of a notary at Jenn^, where he would seem
generally to have lived. In this capacity he was frequently
called upon to prepare state papers. He was also entrusted
on various occasions with public missions, and seems to
have had very special opportunities for acquiring informa-

156 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

tion. He first relates as an historian the history of the
country up to the period of his own manhood, and from
that time continues to write as a contemporary of the
events which he records up to the year 1656, when pre-
sumably he died. But a great part of the charm of the
Tarikh consists in the fact that it is not the work of one
hand alone. Nor is it always easy to distinguish when
Es-sadi has ceased to write and has given place to some
other distinguished contemporary. Among those whose
chronicles are thus incorporated with his own is Ahmed
Baba, the well-known historian of the Soudan, who at the
period of the overthrow of the Songhay Empire by the
Moors was carried as a captive into Morocco, but was
so profoundly respected there for his learning and philo-
sophical demeanour that he was allowed in 1607 to
return to Timbuctoo, where he died twenty years later.
Though an older man than Es-sadi, Ahmed Baba was
writing in Es-sadi's lifetime, and his work is so freely
incorporated in the Tarikh that when Barth had the
book in his hands in Gando he took it to be the work
of Ahmed Baba.

From Ahmed Baba, who was the descendant of a
long line of learned ancestors, we get some charming
biographical sketches ; amongst them many of his own
family, which enable us perfectly to reconstruct for
ourselves the cultivated and dignified life of letters in the
palmy days of Timbuctoo, when Sultans, however great,
felt themselves to be honoured by the presence of the
learned, and to do justice was recognised as the first
quality of a gentleman. Ahmed Baba tells us of his father
that he had " a fine and sagacious mind and a sensitive
heart," that he was as firm in his dealings with kings as
he was with other men, and so earned their profound
respect, that he had no hatreds and did justice to all.
He was widely read, and very fond of books. His well-
furnished library contained many rare and precious works,
and "he lent them willingly." This last-mentioned form

EASTERN AND WESTERN INFLUENCE 157

of generosity, greater in that day than we can easily now
imagine, is frequently noted in relation to the rich and
learned men of Timbuctoo. Indeed, Ahmed Baba con-
fesses that it sometimes amazed him to observe to
what extent it was carried. " But this," he adds,
"they did for the love of men." His father died in
1583, and the son mentions that he had studied under
him for some years, and had obtained from him his
diplomas as a licentiate in several subjects. He was
himself born in 1556, His life and that of Es-sadi,
therefore, cover a hundred years of a very important
period of the history of the Soudan, of which they
were able to write as contemporaries.

We turn now to the people with whom the Tarikh is
principally concerned. The ancient capital of the Songhay
Empire stood where Gao now stands upon the Eastern
Niger, and was generally called Kaougha or Kaukau by
the ancients. It was situated within the edge of the
summer rains upon the course of the river, where, having
turned southward from its most northerly extension, the
Niger flows steadily from west, south-eastward towards
the Gulf of Guinea. The Tarikh tells us that, according
to tradition, it was from this town that Pharaoh obtained
the magicians who helped him in the controversy
which is related in the Twentieth Sourate of the
Koran as having taken place between him and Moses.
Barth, travelling through this neighbourhood in the
middle of the nineteenth century, also heard at Burrum,
a little town near Gao, that it had once been a resi-
dence of the Pharaohs. An older authority than either
the Tarikh or Barth also, it will be remembered, speaks
of a city in this place inhabited by black dwarfs, not, it
is true, at a date so remote as that of Moses, but still at
a period of very respectable antiquity ; for it is here that
the young men of the adventure related by Herodotus
found a city built upon a river which flowed from the
west towards the east.

158 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

But the history of the dwarfs is hidden from us as
completely as the history of the magicians. If the dwarfs
of the Coni^o forest ever did inhabit the vicinity of Gao,
all that we know of them now is that, in common with
other lower types of black humanity, they were driven
by superior pressure from the north, backwards and south-
wards towards the equator. As for the magicians and
the link which they may have been supposed to establish
between the contemporary history of Kaougha and the
Egypt of the Pharaohs — if the tradition of this is pre-
served in the annals of Egypt, it is all that we have.
Knowledge of the country in which they lived vanishes,
alas, in that chapter of Songhay civilisation which is lost
to us. The religion of Egypt, the art of Egypt, the
intellectual fertility of Egypt, even the policy of Egypt,
while they are at times to be traced as a tradition carried
in the blood of this half of the Western Soudan, and
expressing itself unconsciously in customary life, offer
yet a scarcely more definite outline to description than
the impression of a ghostly hand laid by the past upon
the present, and visible in short glimpses only to the
eyes of faith.

It is perhaps most continuously observable in the
physical characteristics of the Songhay race. Their skin
is black like that of the negro, but there is otherwise
nothing negroid in their appearance. A modern writer,
who has had ample opportunity for observation, describes
them thus:^ "The nose of the Songhais is straight and
long, pointed rather than flat ; the lips are comparatively
thin, the mouth wide rather than prominent and thick ;
while the eyes are deeply set and straight in the orbit.
... It is to the south of the island of Philae that we
find a similar race."

In speaking of the people of ancient Egypt, Herodotus
informs us that they were " black, with curly hair " ; and
though modern investigations of Egyptian monuments
have led to the conclusion that there were three races,

' Felix Dubois, " Timbuctoo the Mysterious," p. 97, Eng. trans.

EASTERN AND WESTERN INFLUENCE 159

of which one was probably red, Hke the still existing red
races of the Soudan, and another yellow, or practically
white, we yet draw from the history of that Ethiopian
people who dwelt to the south of Philas a very different
conception of the possibilities of black achievement from
any furnished by our knowledge of the negroid native
of Africa. The language of the Songhay is also different
from that of the dialects of the Western Soudan, and gives
proofs of Nilotic extraction.

The modern history of this people is supposed to
date from about the year 700 a.d., and it is with this
alone that the historian can deal.

The story which the Songhay s themselves tell of the
period which preceded this, and included the foundation
of the first recorded dynasty of this era, is that at a
period when they were still pagans and worshipped a
river-god, there arrived one day at their city two brothers
out of the East. They were weary, travel-stained, and
in so piteous a condition that they had almost lost their
human form. Their nakedness was only hidden by the
skins of wild beasts thrown upon their shoulders, and
to the question whence they came, the reply was made
by one brother for the other: '' Dia men el Yemen''
(he comes from Yemen). This by the Songhays, who
did not speak Arabic, was taken to be a proper name,
and the elder stranger was known by the name of Dia,
afterwards corrupted to " Za " al Yemen. He was,
according to the legend, a prince who had left his native
land, attended only by his brother, with the intention of
travelling over the world. Destiny had brought him to
Gao. He accepted the decree of fate and remained in
the city. But perceiving that his hosts were the wor-
shippers of false gods, he killed the river-god, and "was
himself worshipped in its place." This was the beginning
of the dynasty who, like their founder, were all known
by the tide of " Za."

I give the legend as commonly repeated in Songhay.
It is perhaps worth mentioning in connection with it the

i6o A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

tradition preserved in the history of Egypt that when
the descendants of Misraim divided the land of Egypt
between them, a territory which stretched from the present
position of Alexandria to the borders of Tripoli fell to
the portion of a well-beloved younger son called " Sa."
"Sa" devoted himself with the greatest interest to his
kingdom, and made it very prosperous. He built towns
full of marvels ; he constructed baths ; he had palaces
with stained glass windows and exquisite gardens. He
erected statues bearing burning-glasses, and other marvels,
along the Mediterranean coast. His explorations ex-
tended to the Atlantic on the west, and far into the desert
on the south.

Macrizi, writing in the fifteenth century, says of the
towns which he constructed in the desert : " The dwell-
ings have disappeared, their inhabitants are scattered,
but the vestiges remain ; and all travellers who have
penetrated into those regions relate what they can still
see among those marvellous ruins."

This kingdom of "Sa" covered the Tripoli-Fezzan
caravan road into the desert. If we may judge from all
that is related of its monuments, it must have endured
for many generations. It is no more difficult to believe
that two of the princes of this Egyptian house of " Sa "
should have reached Gao by marching southwards through
the desert, than to accept the story that they came from
the still more distant Arabia. The change of sound from
" Sa " to " Za " is less than from " Dia " to " Za."

Whatever was their origin, the " Zas " reigned for
many generations over Songhay, and "none of them
believed in God," till in the year 1009 ^.d. Za Kosoi
accepted Islam. It will be observed that this was nearly
a hundred years before Islam was generally accepted
throughout the Soudan.

The fact is corroborated by El Bekri, who, writing
in 1067, says that the inhabitants of Kaougha were then
Mussulman, though the surrounding populations were
pagan.

EASTERN AND WESTERN INFLUENCE i6i

Under the pagan " Zas " Songhay influence extended
as far west as the town of Jenne, which was founded by
them in the eighth century, though afterwards cut off
from their possessions and isolated on the westerly frontier
of the "Bend of the Niger" by the Morabite invasion
of the Soudan. Jenn6, it will be remembered, maintained
its paganism until the twelfth century in the midst of sur-
rounding Islam, and, though tributary to Melle, kept the
independence of the town until, as will be seen, it was once
more incorporated with the Songhay Empire in or about
1477. The most westerly manifestation of the influence
of ancient Egypt in the Soudan is placed by the talented
author of " Timbuctoo the Mysterious" in this town of
Jenn6, where, when he visited it at the end of the nine-
teenth century, he found, to his amazement, "a colony
of ancient Egypt " in the heart of the Soudan. He
describes the architecture of Jenne as '* neither Arabic
nor Byzantine, Greek nor Roman, still less Gothic nor
Western." "At last," he says, " I recall these majestically
solid forms, and the memory is wafted to me from the
other extremity of Africa. . . . It is in the ruins of ancient
Egypt, in the valley of the Nile, that I have seen this
art before."

Jenne may be taken as marking the limit of pagan
Songhay development, though at a later period of con-
quest the dominion of the Songhays included the whole
of the Western Soudan from the Atlantic to Lake Chad.
The Songhay kingdom flourished exceedingly under the
Mohammedan Zas. Their capital was, of all the cities of
the blacks, that which had most gold. It had also abund-
ance of cotton and rice, and it is at this period that
Idrisi says of it that " it was populous, commercial, and
industrial, and that in it was to be found the produce of
all arts and trades necessary for its inhabitants."

After Za Kosoi there were twelve more Moham-
medan "Zas" before the country was conquered by Mansa
Musa, and the two sons of the reigning Za Yasiboi were
taken by him to be educated at his court. After that

L

i62 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

four more Zas were allowed to occupy the throne, pre-
sumably in the position of tributaries of Melle, while the
young princes grew up at the court of the Mansas. The
elder of the young princes, Ali Kolon, was destined to
throw off the yoke of Melle and to found the new dynasty
of the Sonnis upon the throne of Songhay.

CHAPTER XIX
RISE OF THE SONGHAY EMPIRE

When, on his return from his great pilgrimage in 1326,
Mansa Musa stopped at Gago and ordered the construc-
tion of a cathedral mosque, he took away with him,
according to the custom of the kings of Melle in dealing
with the children of vassal potentates, the two young
sons of Za Yasiboi, the conquered sovereign, to finish
their education at his court. These boys, of whom the
elder was called Ali Kolon, were the sons of two sisters,
wives of Za Yasiboi, and were both, as it happened, born
in the same hour on the same night. But being both of
them in the darkness laid side by side, and not washed
until the morning, it was never certain which of the two
came actually first into the world. Ali Kolon was, how-
ever, the first washed, and therefore it was determined
that he should have the honours of the firstborn. By
all he was accepted as the elder, and by none with more
faithful devotion than by his younger brother Selman, or
Suleiman.

These brothers, inspired, perhaps, by the legend of
the two other brothers to whom their dynasty owed its
foundation, resolved in their state of honourable captivity
at Melle that they would some day return and free Song-
hay from the yoke of the conqueror. Ali Kolon as he
grew up showed himself to be a man of sense and intelli-
gence, and was trusted by Mansa Musa and his successor
with the conduct of occasional raids, presumably against
the cannibals of the pagan belt, which gave him cause for
traversing the empire in various directions. He profited

by the opportunity to make himself acquainted with all

163

i64 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

roads leading to the east, and to make deposits of arms
and provisions at important points. When the time was
ripe, he communicated to his brother his design to make
good their escape from Melle. To this end they care-
fully trained their horses, preparing them to endure long
marches, and at last boldly left the capital of Melle, riding
in the direction of Songhay. The king, hearing of their
flight, gave orders that they should be pursued and killed.
But they had doubtless prepared friends for themselves,
as well as arms and resting-places along the roads, and
with many hairbreadth escapes they eluded their pursuers,
and succeeded in reaching their own country.

They succeeded, too, in their larger design. AH
Kolon was hailed as king by the Songhays. For some
reason which is not given, possibly connected with the
uncertainty of his birthright, he caused himself to be
proclaimed by the title not of " Za " but of " Sonni," thus
founding a new dynasty — and under his leadership his
people were delivered from the yoke of Melle. This
result was achieved in 1355, nearly thirty years after he
had been taken as a child to the court of Mansa Musa.
On his death he was succeeded by his faithful brother
Suleiman ; and there were in all seventeen kings of this
dynasty, who continued to reign independently during the
gradual decadence of the Empire of Melle. But though
the Songhay kings succeeded in maintaining their indepen-
dence, and resistance to Melle became an inherited policy
of the race, there was no important extension of the limits
of Songhay beyond the immediate neighbourhood of the
capital until the last and greatest prince of the dynasty
ascended the throne. His name was the same as that
of the first of the Sonnis. He also was Sonni Ali, and
he began to reign in 1464.

At this time the Tuaregs were again in possession of
Timbuctoo. They had for a long time ravaged the country
with impunity up to its walls, and under a chief called
Akil they had been tempted by the feeble condition of
Melle to make an effort to recover their ancient town.

RISE OF THE SONGHAY EMPIRE 165

" A prince," says the Tarikh, " who cannot defend his
possessions, does not deserve to keep them." Melle
had accordingly been forced in 1434 to abandon Tim-
buctoo, and at the date of Sonni Ali's accession to the
Songhay throne the Tuaregs had been masters of the
town for upwards of thirty years.

Rude people as they were, their conquest does not
seem at first to have carried with it any disastrous con-
sequences to the life of Timbuctoo. There had been no
convulsion. The sovereignty of Melle had simply been
withdrawn, and the existing Timbuctoo Koi, a man of
eminent piety and learning of the name of Mohammed
Naddi, had continued to exercise his functions. It is
expressly stated that he had all powers in his hands, that
under the domination of the Sultan of Melle he was
already the chief of the city, and that his title alone was
changed by the change of government. Up to the time
of his death all went well, but shortly before the accession
of Sonni Ali, Mohammed Naddi died. A new Koi was
appointed whose authority was not respected, and Tim-
buctoo then became a prey to the "odious exactions" of
the Tuaregs. An epoch of violent tyranny ensued, during
which desolation spread within its walls.

While the Tuaregs had thus shorn Melle of power on
its desert frontier, the King of Mossi was ravaging its
territories from the south ; and the Fulanis of Massina
towards the west, forced to defend themselves against
the inroads of Mossi, were also incidentally strengthening
their independence of an empire which could no longer
give them adequate protection. Jenn6, with its 7000
villages, rich and famous as the centre of an extremely
flourishing cotton industry, remained, as ever, independent.
Aiwalatin — or Biro, as it is usually called by Song-
hay historians — was fast becoming, on the far north-
western frontier, the safest place of residence in the
empire for persons of peaceful disposition. The dis-
turbances in Timbuctoo were restoring Aiwalatin to the
distinction enjoyed by the Ghana of old days as the

i66 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

nearest point of junction between the Soudan and the
civilisation of the Western world. It is accordingly to
Aiwalatin that hasty migrations of wealth and learning
are directed in the yet more troublous days about to fall
upon the once flourishing Empire of Melle.

This was the general position of the western portion
of the Soudan when Sonni Ali, last of his race, but first
of the great Songhay kings of modern times, ascended
the throne. He was one of the born soldiers of the world,
and the moment was favourable to the gratification of
military ambition.

The hereditary enemy of his country, attacked by
rude and vigorous foes on all her borders, was paralysed
by internal decay, and a great sceptre -was falling from
a hand too weak to hold it. A lesser mind might perhaps
have been content to join the ranks of the enemies of
Melle, and revenge old wrongs by helping forward a work
of sheer destruction, but Sonni Ali would seem to have
had wider views. Whether, as is probably the case with
many a constructive genius, his work grew under his hand
till he himself was surprised at the dimensions it assumed,
or whether he knew from the first at what he aimed, the
result is the same. The Empire of the Soudan was the
heritage which the petty kings in revolt against Melle
purposed to divide. Sonni Ali resolved to keep it intact,
and to take it for himself. To this end it was necessary
to overthrow, not only Melle, but all her foes.

He early perceived the strategic value to him who
would rule the Soudan of that command of the water
which on wider fields has brought about the creation
of great navies. The Niger was the ocean of the desert,
and his first object was to possess himself of its shores.
Fortune favoured his desires. Shortly after his accession
an incident occurred at Timbuctoo which gave him the
opening that he required. It was the custom, as has
already been mentioned, for the Koi to receive one-third
of the taxes. The Tuareg Chief Akil, who was growing
old and infirm, forbade this third to be paid. "Who is

RISE OF THE SONGHAY EMPIRE 167

the Timbuctoo Koi ? " he contemptuously asked on one
occasion of the puppet of his own creation. "What is
the meaning of him? What good is he to me?" And
he distributed among his followers the revenue which
had been set aside for the Koi. The town was already-
seething with discontent, and the Koi, now at the end
of his endurance, sent secretly a messenger to Sonni Ali
informing him of the condition of affairs, and promising
to deliver the town into his hands if he would march
against Timbuctoo. Timbuctoo is on the north side of
the river. In marching across country from Gao, boats
were needed to transport an army across the stream.
These it would seem that the Timbuctoo Koi undertook
to provide. Sonni Ali richly rewarded the messenger
who brought him the welcome invitation, and marched
upon the town. But for some reason the Timbuctoo Koi
was unable, or at the last moment unwilling, to fulfil his
promise of delivering Timbuctoo into Sonni All's hands.
The boats were not ready, and the first approach from
the south side of the river was unavailing. A second
attack had to be made from the direction of Haussaland,
on the north bank of the river, where no crossing had to
be effected and no boats were needed. By the time this
could be done, the town had had full warning of Sonni
Ali's approach. Opinion was much divided as to the
gain likely to result from a change of rulers. Measures
were apparently taken for defence, and there was a great
exodus of the learned and cultivated towards the haven of
Aiwalatin.

The Tuareg Chief Akil making, it is said, no attempt
to defend himself, headed a caravan of a thousand camels
with which went, besides much valuable property, the
greater number of the jurisconsults of the university.
Eminent names are mentioned in the lists, and some
who lived to return at a later period to Timbuctoo, and
to lead lives of high distinction under the succeeding
reign, took part in the exodus as children of only five and
six years old. The craven Koi fled also to Aiwalatin.

i68 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

In connection with the departure of this caravan,
scenes are described which throw a curious light upon
the habits of the learned in the remote universities of
the Soudan at that day. " On the day of departure,"
it is said, " there were to be seen bearded men of middle
age trembling with fright at the prospect of having to
bestride a camel, and falling helplessly off as the animal
rose from its knees." This came, we are told, from the
custom which existed amongst the "virtuous ancestors"
of the people of Timbuctoo of " keeping children so
close to their apron-strings, that, having while they
were young never learned to play, they grew up with-
out knowing anything at all of the affairs of life. Now
games in the season of youth," the chronicle gravely
continues, "form the character of man and teach him
a very great number of things." After the exodus to
Biro this was recognised. " Parents regretted from this
time to have acted as they had done, and when they
afterwards returned to Timbuctoo they relaxed the con-
straint which they had been accustomed to impose, and
the children of the learned were allowed the time to
play."

The middle-aged professors who tumbled off their
camels because they had not practised athletics in their
youth, must have suffered considerably on the road to
Aiwalatin, which was a rough ride of 500 miles across
the desert. Their children — still the degenerate children
who had not learned to play — were carried the whole
way on the backs of faithful slaves. But, having arrived
safely at Aiwalatin, the members of the caravan had
reason to congratulate themselves upon their flight, and
upon the safety of such precious books and manuscripts
as they had brought with them.

For Sonni Ali, enraged at the unexpected resistance
of the town, took it by assault, sacked and burnt the
principal buildings, and put many of the leading inhabitants
to death.

Three times in the course of its native history Tim-

RISE OF THE SONGHAY EMPIRE 169

buctoo, says the Tarikh, has suffered the horrors of being
taken by assault. Once by the Sultan of Mossi before it
passed into the safe keeping of Mansa Musa, once by
Sonni Ali, and once more again when at the end of its
period of prosperity it was sacked by the Moors in 1591.
The author of the Tarikh, whose account of the siege
we are following, was the historian of the Askias, and as
such was bound to justify them at the expense of Sonni
Ali. A distinct bias is observable in all that he has to
say of him, and the actions of that " tyrant and libertine,"
as he usually calls him, receive no merciful interpreta-
tion at his hands. Of the three assaults which Tim-
buctoo had to sustain, this, he says, was the worst.
Sonni Ali spared neither age nor sex, and "seemed to
take pleasure in destroying or dishonouring all that was
most cultivated in Timbuctoo." It was perhaps the better
classes of Timbuctoo who had inspired and organised
the resistance of the town, and it was upon them that
Sonni Ali determined to let his vengeance fall.

He took the town in 1468, and it is said that for
three years he continued to persecute the learned. Many
succeeded in leaving Timbuctoo, and all the members of
the university who had remained during the siege fled
to Aiwalatin. Others were not so fortunate as those who
went with the first caravan. On one occasion the new
Timbuctoo Koi appointed by Sonni Ali was ordered to
pursue and destroy a flying caravan, and a massacre took
place at Tadgit in which some of the most eminent lost
their lives. The same fate overtook many of those who
fled to different towns. It seemed for a time as though
the conqueror had determined to extirpate learning from
the Soudan. But after three years the persecution
ceased, and the theory that it was intended as a punish-
ment for a definite offence is supported by the fact,
admitted even by the author of the Tarikh, that not-
withstanding the persecutions which Sonni Ali caused
the learned to endure, he did, nevertheless, recognise
their merits. He was heard to say that " without learn-

I70 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

ing life would have neither pleasure nor savour," and
"if he injured some, he did great good to many, and
loaded them with favours." Amongst other favours, in
keeping with the rude character of the conqueror, was
the presentation on one occasion to the more favoured
"notables, saints, and sages" of Timbuctoo of a number
of Fulani women whom he had captured in a military-
expedition against a settlement of this people in the
north of Gurma. One of the favoured was the Imaum of
the cathedral mosque, the great-great-grandfather of the
author. To him was sent a very charming Fulani girl
of the name of Aicha, whom, contrary, it would appear, to
the usual custom of Sonni Ali and his profligate favourites,
he married. From this marriage, as has been already
stated, was descended the family of Es-Sadi.

The conqueror's religion was no more orthodox than
his morals. He was the son of a pagan woman of the
neighbourhood of Sokoto, and was deeply imbued, it is
said, with the superstitions of the race. He was nominally
Mohammedan, and like Henry IV. of Navarre, knew the
value of a mass. But he cared nothing for these things.
In private he habitually left his five daily prayers to be
said when it was convenient, either in the evening, or
perhaps not till the following day. He would even pro-
fanely call the prayers one after another by their names,
and without more ceremony dispose of them, saying : " You
know my sentiments, you can divide them between you."
His temper was violent, and he would order men to be
executed for trifling offences ; sometimes this would happen
even to those who were his best friends and to whom he
was most attached. In such cases he frequently repented,
and in his court it became the custom, when the order
appeared unreasonable, to hide the victim of his indig-
nation for a time, and when the fit of remorse followed
upon anger to produce the culprit.

All this gave occasion for great horror and dismay
in those circles of Timbuctoo where it was felt that in
exchanging the nominal rule of the Tuaregs — accompanied

RISE OF THE SONGHAY EMPIRE 171

though it had been with occasional outbreaks of disorder
— for the heavy hand of Sonni Ali, they had exchanged
freedom for a yoke which was almost too heavy to be
borne.

The only circumstance which rendered their fate toler-
able was the interposition of Sonni Ali's prime minister,
a man for whose counsels he had a great regard, and who
acted as a moderating influence upon him. This man,
whose name was Mohammed Abou Bekr Et-Touri, was
a pure-blooded black of Songhay. He was born of well-
known parents in the island of Neni, a little below Sinder,
in the Niger, and though he first made his fame as a
soldier, being one of the most distinguished generals of
Sonni Ali's army, he was more remarkable for the quali-
ties which usually characterise great civilians. He appears
to have been a man of liberal principles and large views,
naturally humane, and disposed to temper justice with
mercy, more than usually cultivated, active, wise, and
firm. He had been fortunate in the circumstances of his
youth. He came of good stock. His father was a man
universally respected. His mother was a woman of re-
markable piety, who brought up her children with care.
A brother of his is mentioned by Leo Africanus — who
was by no means disposed to be a gentle critic — as "black
in colour but most beautiful in mind and conditions."
Mohammed himself had been brought up in the strictest
orthodoxy, and throughout his life he adhered closely
to the faith of his youth. He took no part in the luxuries
and the loose living of Sonni Ali's court. Possibly the
purity of his life contributed no less than the well-balanced
power of his mind to the creation of the remarkable
friendship which existed between him and the wild
monarch, so unlike himself in every particular, except
that of a certain greatness which they had in common.
Sonni Ali, with all his faults, had qualities which won him
friends. When his name was mentioned with blame before
them, they would say, " He has been good to me ; I will
speak neither praise nor blame." His prime minister would

172 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

seem to have been one of these. For thirty years their
friendship, though often severely strained, never gave
way. The minister would seem to have had the rare
power of understanding the strength and the weakness
of the character with which he had to deal. He ap-
preciated the genius of Sonni Ali, and entered into his
great designs. His constant care was to assist him in
carrying them out. At the same time he endeavoured
to save both him and the country from the consequences
of the madness with which in this case genius seems to
have been closely allied.

It was this minister who instituted at Sonni Ali's
court the practice of concealing for a time culprits capri-
ciously condemned to death. He had the courage
frequently to disobey the unjust orders of his master,
and thus, while he risked his own life, stood between
the monarch and the defenceless people over whom he
ruled. He was enabled to do this, says his chronicler,
because God had endowed him with a special force of
character.

He had the wishes of the people on his side, and
often, when his struggles with the conqueror became
critical, his mother, it is said, would cause prayers to
be offered in Timbuctoo that the Almighty would sustain
him in his opposition. The picture is curious, of a
prime minister sustained by public prayer in opposition
to a friend and tyrant whose lightest word had power
to end his life. It serves to illustrate the typical relation
of Mohammedan to pagan greatness in the country where
each commands, even to this day, its own form of respect.
Sonni Ali, though nominally Mohammedan, was in truth
of the pagan type. He was the last of the great
pagans, and in the double strain of conflict and affec-
tion which existed between him and his minister, may
be seen reflected the conflict between enlightenment
and natural instinct, between law and tyranny, between
reason and force, which form the elements of the eternal
conflict between the higher and the lower life of peoples.

RISE OF THE SONGHAY EMPIRE 173

Yet through all the conflict it reflects also the natural
affection of man to the race from which he springs, to
the customs amongst which he was born, to the aims
and aspirations which are the aims and aspirations of
his blood. Standing as they do side by side on the
field of history, Sonni Ali and his great minister must
be taken as representing in the Soudan the genius of
paganism and the genius of Islam clasping hands in a
last salute before their respective roads cross and part.

CHAPTER XX

MILITARY CONQUESTS OF SONNI ALI

While by the exertions of Mohammed Abou Bekr the worst
evils which might have resulted from Sonni Ali's adminis-
tration were averted, the military genius of the monarch
himself extended the limits of this administration year by
year. To meet the requirements of the army he imposed
a general military service upon the people, and his reign
of nearly thirty years was one long series of campaigns.
From Timbuctoo he marched on Jenne. That town, which
had successfully resisted, it is said, no less than ninety-nine
sieges from Melle, cost him a siege of seven years, seven
months, and seven days, during which time his army camped
and cultivated the fertile fields by which Jenne is sur-
rounded. At the end of the siege the town yielded by
honourable capitulation. No injury of any kind was done to
its inhabitants, and the seven days which are added to the
period of the siege were consumed, it is said, by festivities
on the occasion of the marriage of Sonni Ali with the
widow of the ruler of the town, who had died during the
siege. Thus, after about four hundred years of separation,
Jenne became once more a portion of the Songhay Empire.
The exact date of the fall of Jenne is not given, but it
was presumably towards the year 1477, and in the mean-
time the troops of Sonni x\li had not been idle. The entire
course of the Middle Niger was in their general's hands.
From Gago to Jenne he commanded the great highway of
the Soudan. He had repulsed Mossi in the south. He
had conquered Hombori in the Bend of the Niger, and
Kanta, and other countries in the east. A little to the
north of Jenne on the west, and again to the south of Gago

CONQUESTS OF SONNI ALI 175

on the east, he had successfully encountered the semi-
independent Fulani rulers, on whom he had imposed his
suzerainty. Either at this time or later — I have been
unable to ascertain the exact date — he constructed and
placed upon the Niger a great fleet under the supreme
command of an officer of high naval rank, corresponding
to an admiral, whose headquarters were at the port of
Kabara near Timbuctoo. In 1477-8-9 we find him free
to devote his principal efforts to the western province and
to encounter his chief enemy, the King of Mossi, who,
having been driven from the Bend of the Niger, had
crossed the river, and, to the terror of the unhappy pro-
fessors of Aiwalatin, was making his way over the ravaged
territories of Melle towards that town. The campaign
which ensued in the province of Walata practically placed
Melle in the hands of Sonni AH, although in the year 1480
Aiwalatin was taken and occupied for a month by the King
of Mossi. Mossi was unable to hold it, and was compelled
to withdraw and to abandon the booty which he had seized.
The result of the fighting would seem to have convinced
Sonni Ali of the difficulty of holding and defending a
frontier town in the isolated position of Aiwalatin as
a part of an empire of which the river Niger was the
base, for he conceived and put into partial execution the
daring scheme of connecting Aiwalatin by water with
Timbuctoo by means of a canal which he proposed to
construct across the desert.

The fame of Sonni Ali by this time had spread beyond
the limits of the Soudan. He was recognised in Northern
Africa as the most powerful of the black sovereigns of the
West, and he is mentioned in European annals under the
name of Sonni Heli, King of Timbuctoo, whose power
was acknowledged as extending to the West Atlantic
coast.

It was a moment in which African affairs were be-
ginning to be regarded with interest by European powers.
The Portuguese, under Prince Henry the Navigator, had
in the early part of the century begun that career of ex-

176 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

ploration and settlement which was to lead to the discovery
of the passage of the Cape of Good Hope, and so to
revolutionise European history. A curious theory still
prevailed amongst the ignorant that at the Equator the
sea ran dry, and that the passage of ships would be found
barred by sand. No sailor having as yet dared like
Columbus to put boldly out to sea, the Portuguese move-
ment crept round the African coast, and the sandbanks
of the West African harbours served during the early
explorations to confirm the common view. Each was
taken in turn to represent the last step which could be
safely made. It was considered a great feat when a man
in Prince Henry's service courageously doubled Cape
Bogador, and two others explored the coast at Angra de
Cintra in 1435. ^^^ Cape Blanco followed in 1441.
The banks of Arguin were discovered in 1443, and Cape
Verde and the mouth of the Senegal in 1444 and 1445.
Trade was opened on the Senegal with the natives, and
after this the Portuguese discovery of Gambia, Sierra
Leone, and the Gold Coast, rapidly followed. The last-
named coast was explored by two Portuguese sailors in
1 47 1, and the quantity of gold which they obtained was
so great as to give to their first landing-place the name
which it has always kept of The Mine or Elmina. Within
a few years the Portuguese had established trading stations
along the coast, and in i486, having built a first fort and
church at Elmina, the King of Portugal took the title
of Lord of Guinea. In 1481, at the moment when Sonni
Ali had driven the King of Mossi out of the province of
Walata, and was preparing to strengthen his own hold
upon the capital of that province by the construction of
a canal from Timbuctoo, the Portuguese had taken to
Lisbon and were receiving there with great honour a
certain prince of the Joloffs, or black branch of the Fulani
people, who inhabited the territory to the south of the
Senegal, lying between that river and the Atlantic coast.
This visit is interesting, as giving one of the earliest
authentic descriptions which we possess of the Fulah

CONQUESTS OF SONNI ALI 177

in his most westerly African home. The prince, whose
name was Bemoy, is described as " a man of about forty
years of age, of a fine figure and generally well made.
He had a long and well-trimmed beard, and did not
appear to be a negro, but a prince to whom all honour
and respect were due." He was received by King John
with the utmost distinction. Fetes, bull-fights, and other
entertainments were given in his honour, and he had
many audiences of the king and queen. In these inter-
views he spoke well, and gave the king most interesting
information about Negroland, and especially about the
King of Mossi, of whose defeat by Sonni Ali he had not
then heard, and whom he described as "neither pagan
nor Mohammedan, but as conforming in many things to
the views of the Christians." Mossi was at that time
regarded by the pagans of the coast as the greatest of
the kings of the interior — so little did they know of the
life and civilisation of the Nigerian Soudan. Bemoy, who
would seem to have been himself better informed, gave
it as a proof of the important position held by Mossi that
he had not been conquered by the King of Timbuctoo.

The outcome of all this knowledge gained by the
Portuguese was that they conceived the idea of carrying
their trade from the coast to the interior of the country,
and that they desired to gain the friendship of the King
of Timbuctoo. They accordingly despatched an embassy
to Sonni Ali, asking for his permission to establish a
trading station at Wadan in the back country of Cape
Blanco, within the western borders of the Mellestine.
Sonni Ali acceded to their request, and a Portuguese
trading station was actually established within his terri-
tories at the oasis of Hoden or Wadan in the western
desert. The place was unsuitable, and it was afterwards
abandoned. The fact of its having existed for some time
with the friendly recognition of the Songhay king is an
interesting indication of the intercourse with Europe,
which might have been developed along the northern
trades routes of the Soudan, but for the approaching

M

178 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

events in Spain, of which the immediate result was to close
the interior of Northern Africa for four hundred years to
Christian enterprise.

At the same time that the Portuguese sent embassies
to the King of Timbuctoo they also sent an embassy to
Mossi. They wished to conciliate his goodwill for their
trade upon the southern coast. But the glory of Mossi
was at an end. After driving him from Walata in
1480, Sonni Ali devoted himself for two years to the
work of constructing the canal which was to join Tim-
buctoo with Aiwalatin. He was himself engaged in
superintending the operations at a place in the desert
called Chan - Fenez, when word was brought to him
in 1482 that the King of Mossi had assembled all his
forces, and was marching against Timbuctoo. Sonni
Ali immediately abandoned the canal, and the place
which it had reached when the news was brought to
him was, we are told, the farthest point in the desert
which it ever attained. Placing himself at the head
of his troops, he marched against Mossi, and completely
overthrew him in the year 1483. He followed up the
victory by pursuing him to the farthest limits of his
territories, and in 1485-86 he conquered the mountain
territory to the south. By this conquest he carried
Songhay arms far into the pagan belt. But the moun-
tain range in which the Niger and the Senegal have
their sources, at the back of Sierra Leone and Sene-
gambia, and which runs from west to east between the
tenth and eighth parallels of latitude, until it passes on to
become the mountains of the Cameroons in German West
Africa, would seem to have been always regarded as the
natural southern boundary of the Nigerian Soudan. On
the southern side of this range, usually known by the
name of the Kong Mountains, the country assumes that
swampy and tropical character which renders it apparently
unfit for the habitation of the higher races. Its rivers
run through belts of oil-palm and mangroves to the
coast, and it has ever been the habitation of pagans and

CONQUESTS OF SONNI ALI 179

cannibals. Sonni AH carried his arms no farther. The
pagans of the Gold Coast were left unmolested by his
victories, and it is probable that the naked savages who
received the Portuguese at Elmina and Achem, with
heads surmounted by the grinning masks of wild beasts,
and no other covering but a palm-leaf fringe, were as
ignorant a hundred years later of the existence of Songhay
as they were in i486. The Benins were at this time
the most powerful and the most civilised among the coast
natives, and they were known to the Portuguese as "an
extremely cruel people who lived upon human flesh."

The conquest of Mossi placed Sonni Ali in the posi-
tion of having subdued all those enemies of Melle whom
he found in arms at the time of his accession. He was
virtually the master of the Mellestine, though Melle itself
still preserved a nominal independence, and the town of
Aiwalatin enjoyed a quasi-separate position apart from the
subdued province of Walata upon the frontier. He now
turned his arms against the east. A campaign against
Borgu, which lies south of Gurma on the Eastern Niger,
was only partially successful. Details are wanting, but
the people of Borgu were able at a later period to boast
that they had never been conquered. Some other con-
quests took place, of which it is difficult to identify the
localities, and in 1492 he undertook a campaign against
the Fulani of Gurma, lying also in the bend of the
Eastern Niger, between Borgu and his capital of Gago.

This was his last campaign. Here, though success-
ful, he lost his life. He died, not as so great a soldier
would have wished to die, under the spears of his enemies,
but by a trivial accident of fate. He was drowned in
the sudden flood of a stream on his return from his vic-
torious expedition. His death occurred far from the
capital, and the hand of ancient Egypt is for a moment
visible in the circumstance that his sons, who were
present, immediately disembowelled the body and filled
it with honey, that it might be safely transported to
take its place in the tombs of his fathers.

ISO

A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

In summing up Sonni All's military career, the
chronicle says of him : "He only suffered two reverses,
one at Duoneo^ and the other in Borgu. He surpassed
all the kings his predecessors, in the numbers and valour
of his soldiery. His conquests were many, and his
renown extended from the rising to the setting of the
sun. If it is the will of God he will be long spoken of."

^ Dounna, a mountainous country in the West, which had resisted Sonni
Ali, and afterwards fought Mohammed El Hadj so well, that neither of them
could achieve anything against its inhabitants. — Tarikh^ p. 8r.

CHAPTER XXI
ASKIA MOHAMMED ABOU BEKR

SoNNi Ali was succeeded by his great minister, Mo-
hammed Abou Bekr — not without fighting. There was
a minority who upheld the claim of one of Sonni All's
many sons, and two great battles were fought near Gago.
The second battle decided the question without any
further doubt, and Mohammed ascended the throne,
supported by the good wishes of every important section
of the people. He seems to have felt himself fully
justified in thus taking the supreme power, and it is
said that the title by which he and the dynasty that
he founded were known for the next hundred years
had its rise in his calm acceptance of the position. After
the battle in which the fate of Sonni All's dynasty
was decided, the news of Mohammed's accession was
brought to the daughters of Sonni Ali. They received
it with a cry of "Askia!" or "the Usurper!" The
incident was related to him, and instead of showing any
resentment, he said, " By that title I will be known."
By his command his sovereignty was accordingly pro-
claimed under the title] of " Askia Mohammed Abou
Bekr," and Askia became the royal title of the Songhay
kings until their empire was overthrown by the Moors.

Sonni Ali had conquered an empire. The great
work of the Askias was to organise it, and to bring it
to a condition of peace, prosperity, and cultivation, which
was little suspected as existing in the heart of the Soudan
during that century which witnessed in Europe the
expulsion of the Moors from Spain, the crusade of
Charles V. against the Saracens, the victory of Lepanto

I82

A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

over the Turks, and the closing of the principal ports of
the Mediterranean to the infidels.

The lately subjected portions of Askia Mohammed's
empire not unnaturally seized the opportunity of a change
of dynasty to rebel, and in the course of the long reign
which lay before him he fought perhaps as many cam-
paigns as Sonni Ali. Nevertheless his reign was, to
the majority of his people, a reign of peace. Almost
his first act was to issue orders for the organisation of a
standing army — a scheme which had no doubt been long
matured — and by this separation of the fighting element
from the people he saved the country, says his chronicler,
from the desolating effects of war. The industrial and
learned life of the towns went on without interruption,
and one end of the empire hardly knew whether the
other end was at peace or war. Simultaneously with
his reform of the military forces of the empire, he gave
his attention to the Church. The orthodox and pious,
whose voices had not been heard during the late reign,
now came from their obscurity. Mohammed consulted
frequently with the heads of the Mussulman communities
in all the towns, and everything that could be done to
improve the religious position of the country was under-
taken. Schools were founded, mosques were rebuilt. A
new activity was felt throughout the empire.

Sonni Ali died in November of 1492. Mohammed was
occupied for nearly three years with these first necessary
reforms, and with the subjugation of outlying and rebellious
populations. But though he had accepted with such
apparent calm the irregularity of his own position, it is
clear that he was not indifferent to the importance of
affirming his power by a sanction stronger than that of
popular acclamation. As soon as the immediate neces-
sities of the situation had been dealt with, and it was
possible for him to contemplate a temporary absence
from the country, he appointed his favourite brother to
be regent in his place, and proceeded to Mecca to make
the pilgrimage and to seek at Cairo a formal investiture

ASKIA MOHAMMED ABOU BEKR 183

at the hands of the Caliph of Egypt. The Turks had,
it will be remembered, long since overthrown the political
supremacy of the Caliphs, and had affirmed their own
position by the taking of Constantinople in 1453. But
the Caliphs of Egypt still kept their position as the
religious head of the Mussulman world.

This pilgrimage of Askia Mohammed, which has kept
a place in the annals of the country side by side with the
pilgrimage undertaken nearly two hundred years before
by Mansa Musa, was made the object, like that earlier
pilgrimage, of the display of some magnificence. But
there is a distinct progress observable in the nature of the
display. The pilgrimage of Askia Mohammed does not
involve the march of an army of 60,000 persons, accom-
panied by a baggage train of thousands of camels, to be
moved in a slow royal progress round the empire. The
king went accompanied by a brilliant group of the principal
notables and the most holy and learned men of the Soudan.
It is probable that he moved with some state, for both
Marmol and Leo Africanus inform us that he kept a mag-
nificent and well-furnished court. But a military escort of
500 cavalry and 1000 infantry was considered sufficient for
the protection of his caravan, and there is no mention that
he caused himself to be preceded, like Mansa Musa in pro-
cession across the desert, by slaves dressed in silk brocade
and carrying golden wands. Neither did he take with
him eighty camels laden with gold dust. Three hundred
thousand gold pieces are mentioned as his more portable
and convenient provision for financial necessities. It was
not in barbaric splendour like that of Mansa Musa that
the fame of Askia's pilgrimage consisted, but rather in
the distinction of the persons who accompanied him, of
whom Ahmed Baba gives us some of the biographies,
and in the great number of learned doctors and noble
friends whom Askia had the opportunity of meeting in
Cairo and in the Holy Cities. The friendships which
were here formed lasted for the rest of his life, and cor-
respondence with some of the most distinguished men of

i84 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

letters of the East, which was at this time entered into,
was never dropped.

Es Soyouti, the famous Arabian encyclopedist and
scholar, was one of those who met Askia Mohammed
during this visit to the East, and with whom the Songhay
king continued to correspond. It is said that he never
afterwards undertook a reform of importance in the State
without previously consulting Es Soyouti. All who met
the king were impressed with the keen interest which he
displayed on many subjects, his readiness to listen to the
best opinions, his diligent discussion with the learned, and
his anxiety to acquire information on practical questions.
Askia Mohammed remained for two years in the East,
during which period he devoted much time to study.
Amongst subjects named as arresting his special atten-
tion we find : " Everything that concerned the govern-
ment and administration of peoples ;" "principles of taxa-
tion, and especially land tax and the tithe or tribute to
be taken from newly conquered peoples ; " " verification
and inspection of weights and measures, regulation of
trade, laws of inheritance, laws for the suppression of
fraud, customs duties ; " " laws for the suppression of
immorality, and measures to be taken for the introduction
of better manners among the people." The limits of re-
ligious tolerance and persecution also appear to have
occupied his mind, and it is mentioned of him by one
or two of his biographers that he allowed himself to be
influenced by orthodox marabouts in the direction of the
persecution of the Jews.

There can be little doubt that to a man of his age,
having had already thirty years of practical acquaintance
with affairs, but having now for the first time the sense
of security in his own position and of power to carry his
views into operation, the visit under the circumstances
which seem to have accompanied it must have been one
of extraordinary interest and importance. Mohammed
Abou Bekr was already a distinguished soldier at the
time of the conquest of Timbuctoo in 1468. He cannot

ASKIA MOHAMMED ABOU BEKR 185

have been less than fifty years of age in 1495. He
had been educated in an island of the Niger, and such
portion of his life as had not been spent in attendance
upon Sonni Ali at one or other of his rough courts had
been spent in the hardest form of active campaigning in
the tropics. It throws a remarkable light upon the vigour
of his mind and the natural distinction of his character,
that at this age, and having lived the life which he had
lived, he was able to apply himself with the eagerness of
youth to the sources of learning, and, undeterred by dif-
ferences of colour, to form friendships on equal terms with
men of the orreatest enlio-htenment and hia-hest intellectual
activity which a centre of civilisation like that of Egypt
could produce.

The phases of development of a despotic monarch
have a wide-reaching influence, and it is hardly too much
to say that the course of history in the Soudan was pro-
foundly modified by this visit of its sovereign to the East.

He accomplished the political and religious purposes
for which he went. The cities of Mecca and Medina
were visited, and vast sums given in charity in both towns.
In Mecca he bought a garden and established a charitable
institution for the benefit of all future pilgrims from the
Soudan. In Cairo he received investiture at the hands of
El Motawekkel the Fourteenth, Abbasside Caliph of
Egypt. The ceremony included a solemn abdication on
Askia's part for three days of the Songhay throne. On the
fourth day the Caliph appointed him to the position of
Lieutenant of the Abbasside Sultans in the Soudan, and
invested him, in sign of this authority, with a turban and
cap. Thus politically, but far more intellectually, was
Songhay restored to its ancient position as a child of

Egypt-

It is an interesting coincidence that 1493, the year
in which Askia formed the resolution to seek the religious
sanction of the head of the Mohammedan Church to his
occupation of the throne of the Soudan, was the year in
which, in consequence of the discoveries made by Columbus

i86 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

in the western hemisphere, and the differences which
had arisen between Spain and Portugal with regard to
their respective rights in the new world opening to ex-
ploration, the two great powers of Southern Europe
resolved to settle their controversy by reference to the
head of the Christian Church. Already, under a Papal
Bull of Martin V., Portugal had acquired supreme rights
over all non-Christian territories which she might discover
between Cape Bogador and the Indies. Greek and
Arabian geographers, although so well informed on the
general geography of the eastern hemisphere, had, up to
the period of the discoveries of Columbus, laid down the
dictum that the "Ocean Sea" which washed the western
borders of Europe and the eastern borders of Asia, sur-
rounded one-half of the world without interruption, and
that in it there existed absolutely no habitable land. This
view was accepted by enlightened opinion in Europe.
The claim was therefore put forward by John II. of
Portugal — the same king who, in i486, had received the
Fulani Prince Bemoy with so much honour in Lisbon —
that Columbus, in sailing westward till he came to land,
was likely to trespass upon territories already granted to
Portugal in the east. To obviate the difficulties which
might arise from such undetermined rights, Ferdinand
and Isabella appealed to the Pope to give the sanction
of the Church to their occupation of lands discovered in
America; and, in response to their request, Pope Alexander
VI. issued, in May 1493, the famous Bull by which all
territories, not already in the possession of Christian
powers, and situated to the east of an imaginary line drawn
from pole to pole through what was then believed to be
the immovable point of non-variation of the compass,
were given to Portugal, and similar territories to the west
of it were granted to Spain. The grant was accompanied
by an injunction to subdue and convert the barbarous
nations with whom either power should come in contact,
and plenary indulgence was accorded for the souls of all
those who should perish in the conquest. The exact

ASKIA MOHAMMED ABOU BEKR 187

position of the dividing-line was decided by a commission
which met at Torde^illas in January 1494, and after much
discussion the point through which the Hne should pass
was fixed at 370 leagues west of Cape Verde.

Thus it happened that while Spain was about to expel
the Moors entirely from her dominions, and to close the
ports of the Mediterranean, so far as lay in her power,
against them, Portugal was invested by the Pope with
supreme authority over those territories of the Western
Soudan which the Spanish Arabs had always regarded as
their natural though unconquered appanage in Africa.

As the resolution conceived by Askia in 1493 was not
carried out till 1495, it is possible in point of time that
he may have been already acquainted with the move-
ments that were taking place in the Western world, and
that his investiture by the Egyptian Caliph was part of
a general drawing together of the Mussulman forces in
the East. But of this, if it was so, we have no trace.
I have been unable to find any allusion to interest ex-
pressed or felt in the Soudan in the great discoveries of
Columbus and Vasco da Gama. Rather it would seem
that the conquest of the Moors by Ferdinand and Isabella
in 1492, shortly followed as it was by the total expulsion
of that people from Europe, must be regarded as closing
the connection of the Moors, and through them of the
Soudan, with the progressive life and science of the West.

Yet it was from Cairo, only a few years before the
visit of Askia, that news had been sent to King John II.
of Portugal of a south Cape of Africa with which Arabian
mariners, who had long been accustomed to the use of
compass, quadrants, and sea-charts, were well acquainted.
It was a matter of common knowledge to their seamen
that the African continent terminated with a cape, and
that there was no difficulty in the way of sailing round
it to the west. Two Jews took the information to King
John that it could be easily doubled from the west, and
to prove their statement took also with them an Arabic
map of the African coast. In consequence of this infor-

i88 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

mation, King John was preparing the expedition of Vasco
da Gama at the time that Askia was in Cairo. The
interest aroused by the discoveries of Columbus must
have been great in Arabian as well as European circles.
The geographers of the East must have believed that he
had reached the eastern shores of Asia, and as they were
well acquainted wMth the geography of Asia to the farthest
limits of China and Japan, they must have been greatly
exercised to account for the discrepancy apparently dis-
played in the size of the world as long since measured
by the astronomers of India, and corrected and accepted
by the scientific observations of Greeks and Arabs. These
matters must have been subjects of discussion in intelli-
gent circles in Cairo during the visit of the Askia, and he
must presumably have shared in the general interest which
they excited.

He returned to the Soudan in 1497, too early to have
heard of the result of the expedition of Vasco da Gama,
which in November of that year attained the object for
which it was despatched, and succeeded in doubling the
Cape of Good Hope. This last event was one of supreme
importance to the history of the Soudan, for it opened
the passage of the Atlantic to European commerce ; and,
in conjunction with the almost simultaneous closing of
the northern ports of Africa to Christian intercourse, it
determined the fact that the subsequent approach of
Europe to West Africa should be from the south by sea,
instead of, as in all the previous chapters of Soudanese
history, from the north by land. The frontage of the
Soudan upon civilisation was reversed.

But, as has been seen, the southern portion of West
Africa, following the sinuosities of the Gulf of Guinea,
is cut off from the healthier uplands by a swampy belt
of densely wooded malarial jungle, backed by a con-
tinuous range of hills. This swampy belt was, at the
end of the fifteenth century, as it had been from im-
memorial antiquity, the habitation of pagans, who, in
the estimation of their Arab chroniclers, represented the

ASKIA MOHAMMED ABOU BEKR 189

lowest types known to humanity. They were for the
most part cannibals, idolaters, and barbarians ; their
country had been for centuries the place of exile for all
that was basest in the Arabian Soudan ; their people,
from the earliest ages of history, had been regarded as
the lawful prey of the slave-hunter, only differing by
the lesser value that was placed upon them from the
elephants which they hunted in the impenetrable recesses
of their tropical jungle. The territory of these lower
tribes, extending for a couple of hundred miles inland
from the coast, offered, under their existing conditions
of transport, a practically impassable barrier to civilised
exploration. The character of the inhabitants, and the
deadly nature of the climate, did not encourage the ex-
pansion of European settlement. As will presently be
shown, the coast settlements of Europe for four hundred
years spread no farther than a few miles from the sea.
Direct commercial intercourse with the interior was never
established over the difficult and unfrequented roads which
penetrated towards the higher lands, and from this period
the relations of Europe with West Africa were confined
mainly to trade in three lucrative products of the coast
— gold, ivory, and slaves. None of these required any
high state of civilisation to produce. All were to be
obtained in profusion in the belt which lay between
the mountains and the sea. The knowledge of what
lay beyond the mountains was lost to Europe by the
cessation of intercourse between Africa and Spain. Ap-
proach, which could not be seriously attempted from the
south, was rendered impossible from the north. The
Soudan of the Arabs was visited no more by the outer
world, and a civilisation which had been in touch for
nearly a thousand years with the most highly cultivated
centres of European life was silently buried in the sands
of Africa.

CHAPTER XXII

SONGHAY UNDER ASKIA THE GREAT

AsKiA THE Great, in returning from Cairo to the Soudan
in 1497, had Httle knowledge of the strange destiny which
lay before his country. He knew, indeed, that the last
stronghold of the Moslems in Western Europe had been
conquered five years before by the Christian sovereigns
of Spain. But the expulsion of the Arabs from the
Spanish Peninsula had not yet taken place. He was
probably acquainted with the authority given to Portugal
to prosecute a career of exploration and conquest on the
African coasts. But the coast territory interested him
little. It was a matter of no great moment to him whose
armies raided with his own upon the prolific populations,
of whom the experience of history served to prove the
slave supply to be inexhaustible. No wisdom could have
enabled him to foresee that the whole current of European
life would flow to the channel opened by the maritime
enterprise of the Atlantic nations, that the supremacy
of the East was at an end, and that his own people,
isolated in the heart of Africa, were to be left untouched
by the tide of a civilisation sweeping past them to fertilise
the shores of continents then unknown.

To himself it must have seemed that the work which
lay before him of reforming the administration of his
vast empire, and raising the life of the populations
committed to his care to the level which reflection and
experience led him to believe to be attainable, was a
labour of absorbing interest, and demanded the whole
activity of his mind.

Already past the zenith of middle age, he must have

SONGHAY UNDER ASKIA THE GREAT 191

doubted whether the portion of Hfe which still remained
would be enough to permit him to carry his many schemes
to a point at which their success would ensure stability.
It was, perhaps, with this thought in his mind that he
had caused himself to be accompanied to the East by
his eldest son and heir, as well as by a picked band of
chosen counsellors and ministers. This group of persons
who had shared his experiences, and had no doubt been
admitted to his confidence, offered not only a guarantee
of the continuance of the reign of enlightened principles
in the event of his death, but also a number of trained
instruments, by whose co-operation his ideas of govern-
ment might be brought into effect. Amongst these
he appears to have been fortunate in possessing for his
principal minister just such a faithful friend and coun-
sellor as he had been himself, during a term of thirty
years, to Sonni Ali. Ali Folen — sometimes called Fulan
or Fulani — mentioned amongrst the foremost of those who
accompanied him on the pilgrimage of 1495, remained
absolutely devoted not only to him, but to his ideas,
throughout the long reign which, though neither of them
knew it, lay still before him. At the end they were
separated only in the old age of the then blind monarch
by the jealousy of others, who could not tolerate the
"mutual understanding and support which was perfect
between these two." The man who had been himself
a loyal friend was able to accept and to appreciate the
loyalty of others. He freely trusted and freely used the
service of his friends. He was more than a wise
monarch, he was the founder of a school, and so long
as his inspiration lasted, enlightenment, order, and pros-
perity were enjoyed in the Soudan.

The institution of a standing army, recruited, no doubt,
largely from the slave and subject populations, had already
relieved the people from one of their most intolerable
burdens. This was of the utmost importance, as Askia
found himself obliged to sustain an almost continuous
state of war. In the first year of his return from Mecca,

192 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

he undertook a war, formally invested with all the char-
acteristics of a " Holy War," against the Sultan of Mossi,
whose paganism it was resolved no longer to tolerate
within the empire. The circumstances of this war, and
the devotion of Mossi to his idols, are related with some
detail, and serve to dispose of the Portuguese rumour
that Mossi was a Christian after the manner of Egypt.
The result of the war was a complete conquest on the
part of Askia, and the acceptance of Islam by the con-
quered people. This, it is expressly stated, was the only
" Holy War " of Askia's reign. He conquered all that re-
mained unconquered of the West as far as the Atlantic
Ocean, and reasserted his authority to the utmost limits of
the salt mines of Tegazza and the old north-western frontiers
of the Mellestine. Immediately after subduing Mossi, he
subdued the Fulani of the south-west. In 1501 he en-
trusted his brother with the command of an army destined
for the overthrow of Melle, but the campaign proving
unsuccessful, he himself took the field in the following
year, and, having completely defeated the armies of Melle,
sacked the capital and carried the family of the reign-
ing prince into captivity. Amongst the captives was a
girl of the name of Miriam, who became the mother of his
son and subsequent successor, Ismail.

It is mentioned that after this campaign there was
no more fighting for three years, and Askia remained for
some time in Melle studying the country, and devoting his
attention to the amelioration of its condition, and to its
reorganisation upon a new political footing. His system
would seem to have been, as was the universal custom in
the confines of the Soudan, to allow the country to remain
quasi-independent — that is, governed by its own rulers
under the suzerainty of Songhay, to whom tribute was
paid and obedience in certain respects was given. A
Melle- Koi is spoken of from this time forward up
to the period of the overthrow of the country by the
Moors. But Askia's measures of reorganisation, whatever
they may have been, can hardly have satisfied himself,

SONGHAY UNDER ASKIA THE GREAT 193

for we read of further campaigns, or perhaps more pro-
perly punitive expeditions, against Melle, which recurred
with sufficient frequency to be described by some his-
torians as a "twelve years' war," before Melle was
finally subdued.

After Melle came Borgu, and here again a captive
was taken who became the mother of another of the
sons of the great Askia. These marriages or connections
which resulted in the birth of princes, recognised as royal,
are worthy of mention, as they represent a custom of the
Soudan, where, amongst terms of peace, the demand of
a wife for the conqueror from the royal family of the
conquered almost invariably appears. They also indi-
cate a gentle method by which the amalgamation of
conquered provinces was made secure. There was no
province of the empire from whom the future Emperor
or Caliph of the Soudan might not be taken. Askia
the Great lived, as will be seen, to an unusual old age.
There reigned after him in succession four of his sons.
The mother of the eldest of these, Askia Moussa, was
taken from the household of the Hombori Koi, a con-
quest made in the Bend of the Niger while Mohammed
was still minister of Sonni Ali. The mother of the
second of his successors, Askia Ismail, was the Wan-
kori girl first mentioned, very probably Fulani by birth,
who was taken from Melle. The mother of the third,
Askia Ishak, was from Tendirma, also the result of a
conquest of the western province. The mother of the
fourth, Askia Daouad, came from Sana, and was the
daughter of the subject King or Koi of that province.
Other marriages, although they did not give successors
to the throne, gave personages of high importance and
influence in the political administration of the country.
Viceroys, governors, generals, admirals, inspectors, cadis,
and officials whose functions it is not now easy to
determine but whose titles were so eagerly sought as
to show them to have been accompanied by consider-
able emoluments and power, were frequently selected

N

194 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

from the sons and nephews of the kings. Oriental his-
tory has demonstrated that such a system has its serious
inconveniences, and the Soudan was no exception to the
rule, for if on the one hand the honours of the kingdom
were opened freely to the best blood of every province,
the system also created an excessive number of claimants
for all preferment, and gave rise to labyrinths of intrigue,
which not infrequently upset for personal motives the wisest
plans. Successions were too often accompanied by the
private murder or public massacre of superfluous co-heirs.

After the campaign against Borgu, which would appear
to have been very severe, there followed further cam-
paigns against Melle, and in 15 12 there arose in the West
a Fulani false prophet, Tayenda, against whom the Askia
marched with success. Tayenda was killed. His son
Kalo fled with the remnant of his troops to the Fouta
Djallon, a country which at that time belonged to the
Djolfs, and founded a second Fulani kingdom, which
continued to exist even after the Moorish conquest of
the Soudan. Towards the end of the same year, 15 12,
the Askia marched into the Haussa states.

The very meagre account which we have of the cam-
paigns which appear to have occupied his troops in that
region for the next few years, constitute the first mention
of any importance of the Haussa States from the point
of view of the Songhay Empire. These states, which
at the present day constitute the greater part of
Northern Nigeria, have a history of their own which
dates back as far as that of Songhay itself.

At the time of the Askia's conquests in the first half
of the sixteenth century they were an agricultural and
commercial people who, situated as they were between
the two powerful empires of Songhay on the one hand
and Bornu on the other, had already suffered the tide
of conquest to sweep over them more than once in the
course of their long existence. Yet always as the waters
of war subsided, they had emerged with independence, and
by means partly of a not despicable courage and partly of

SONGHAY UNDER ASKIA THE GREAT 195

payments, which were called either tribute or subsidy
according to the humour of those who received and
those who paid, they had sustained the continuity of
their history and the individuality of their political life.

Katsena and Zaria, two of the states, would seem to
have had some cause of quarrel with their more power-
ful neighbour Kano, and to have in the first instance
solicited the intervention of the Askia. There are hints
of some shadowy claim of suzerainty on the part of
Songhay, which may have been the survival of previous
and unrecorded conquests. Whatever the cause, Askia
marched first against Katsena and took it in 15 13.
He also made himself master of Zaria and Zamfara —
this last province being mentioned as especially rich in
cotton and other crops — and proceeded to march against
Kano and Gober. The conquest of Kano cost him a
long siege, but both states fell to his arms, nnd were
made tributary to Songhay. He then marched against
the Sultan of Aghadez, a Berber kingdom lying north
of the Haussa States, and stated by some authors to
have been tributary to Songhay. Tekadda, in the desert
to the west, was at one time, as we have seen, tributary
to Melle, and causes of dispute between border provinces
were not difficult to find. After a campaign which lasted
for two years Aghadez yielded, and an annual tribute of
150,000 ducats was imposed upon it.

In Aghadez in the sixteenth century we have the
counterpart of Audoghast in the eleventh century, and it
furnishes again an example of a rich white town ruled by
blacks. Aghadez was, we are told, at the time of the
Songhay conquest, a wealthy town inhabited by white
people, in which the houses were stately mansions, built
after the fashion of Spain and Barbary, and the greater
part of the citizens were either foreign merchants, artificers,
or government officials.

It was on the return of the Askia's armies from
this campaign that Kanta, an important chief of territory,
conquered, as has been mentioned, some thirty years

196 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

previously by Sonni Ali, dissatisfied with the treatment
which had been accorded to him, revolted, and established
an independent province, still known as Kanta, on the
eastern side of the Niger. At a later date the whole
of the province of Kebbi became subject to him. A
campaign directed specially against him in the year
151 7 was unavailing. The independence of Kebbi was
maintained against all succeeding Askias, though its
territory was enclosed in the territory of Songhay and
its tributaries on all sides, and ultimately Kebbi became
the bulwark which saved Haussaland from the encroach-
ments of the Moors, when they attempted to overrun
it from the west. During the years 1517-18 there was
further successful fighting in the western portion of the
empire. From this time to the end of the Askias' reign
in 1528 peace would seem to have prevailed.

Askia the Great reigned altogether thirty-six years,
during the whole of which time his minister, Ali Folen,
continued to be the faithful assistant of his counsels and
the interpreter of his wishes to the people.

I have thought it well very briefly to summarise the
military history of the reign in order that the borders
of the empire over which the rule of the Askia ex-
tended might be defined, but war was far from being
the principal subject either of the Askia's or of his
people's thoughts. The administrative organisation of
the empire occupied his immediate care, and a parallel
of the system which he partly adopted, and partly de-
veloped, from the already existing sytem of Melle, may
perhaps be most nearly found in our own early adminis-
tration of India. Native rulers continued to occupy
positions of dignity and quasi-independence, and would
seem to have been even permitted in some cases to
levy troops, on the understanding that they furnished a
regular quota to the imperial army. But the repre-
sentatives of Songhay were supreme in all parts of the
empire, and over the heads of the native rulers there
was a complete network of Songhay administration.

SONGHAY UNDER ASKIA THE GREAT 197

By the acquisition of the Haussa States the territory
of the empire was carried from Bornu on the borders
of Lake Chad to the Atlantic. The southern Hmits had
been securely extended, by the final conquest and con-
version of Mossi and the subjection of Borgu, to the
mountains which divide the uplands of the interior from
the jungle of the coast. Its northern frontier was re-
established on the old limits of the Mellestine, being so
far enlarged in the north-east by the conquest of Aghadez
as to command the Tripoli- Fezzan route into the desert.
It already commanded the routes entering on the west
from Sidjilmessa and Wargelan. Thus Songhay held
the southern side of the three already mentioned "gates
of the desert," and in language of latitude and longitude
the empire may be described as extending, in the middle
of the sixteenth century, from about 17° west to 13° east,
and from about 10° to between 25° and 30° north. Its
shape, however, was not that of a parallelogram, but
rather that of a figure enclosed within a great semicircle,
of which the base, extending from the country south of
Lake Chad to the Atlantic, measured about 2000 miles,
while the greatest diameter, taken at right angles to the
base due north in the neighbourhood of Twat, measured
a little over 1000 miles.

For the purposes of administration this vast empire
was divided into the home provinces and the vice-
royalties. There were four vice-royalties. Beginning
at the west, the first vice-royalty was called Kormina,
and was composed of the south-western provinces, in-
cluding what remained of the dismembered Melle, the
Fulani State of Masina, the country of the pagan
Bambaras, and the territory lying between the Niger
and the Atlantic, up to the limit at which it met the
frontier line of the second vice-royalty known as Bal
or Bala. The vice-royalty of Bal took in the north-
western provinces, including Ghanata, and extended from
Timbuctoo to the salt-mines of Tegazza. The frontier
of Bal was conterminous in the desert with the frontier

198 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

of the third vice-royalty of Bankou, which covered the
country extending north-east from the river between
Timbuctoo and Kagho or Gao. The eastern frontier
of Bankou was again conterminous in the desert, pro-
bably about the limits of Tekadda, with that of the
great vice-royalty of Dandi, which seems to have had
an extension in the east equal to that of Kormina in
the west. It reached from the eastern end of the southern
mountains, in the neighbourhood of the province now
known as Yoruba, at the back of Lagos, and after in-
cluding Borgu and the country as far north as Gao on
the western side of the Niger, it spread over the
eastern side of the river as far as Aghadez in the north-
east, and across the Haussa States to the borders of
Wangara and Bornu near Lake Chad.

The exact frontiers of the vice-royalties are unknown.
Presumably they did not always remain the same. But
roughly speaking, if the Niger be divided into the four
sections which have been indicated, that is, from the
sources of the river in the west to Jenne, from Jenne
to Timbuctoo, from Timbuctoo to Gao, and from Gao
to a point above the junction with the Benue, which
might perhaps be fixed at the Boussa rapids above
Jebba, radiating lines drawn from the meeting points
of those four sections to the circumference of the empire
will serve to give a fairly definite impression of the
political division of the outlying provinces.

The territory which remained, and which was en-
closed between the river and the southern mountains
in the area now known as the Bend of the Niger, was
divided into the home provinces. Of these there were
several of importance. Amongst them may be named
Hombouri, Sansanding, and Bandouk. The old capital
of the empire, and the residence always preferred by the
great Askia, was Kagho, now represented only by the
unimportant little town of Gao. But the true centre of
political, religious, and commercial life was Timbuctoo.

CHAPTER XXIII

SONGHAY UNDER ASKIA THE GREAT {continued)

To cross the dominions of the Askia was, we are told, a
six months' journey. Yet so effective were the measures
taken by him for its administration, that before the
end of his reign, the result is thus summarised by his
historian : " He was obeyed with as much docility on
the farthest limits of the empire as he was in his own
palace, and there reigned everywhere great plenty and
absolute peace."

He laboured unceasingly to introduce the reforms
which he thought desirable, and to appoint to every
position of importance men whom he could trust to
supervise his measures. The reformation of the army
and the church, which had occupied the opening years
of his reign, represented but the beginning of the care
which he continued to bestow upon these two great
institutions. The evolution of systems of government
suitable to the widely differing peoples over whom he
ruled, the development of trade, the protection of letters
and the opening of communications, were among ques-
tions to which he gave much of his time. Moslem judges
were appointed in the lesser towns, which up to this time
had been content with the services of scribes or con-
ciliators ; and among the biographies of upright judges
given to us by Ahmed Baba or Es Sadi, the comment
is not infrequent : "He was one of those appointed by
Askia the Great." There was a state prison for political
offenders, which seems to have served a purpose similar
to that of the Tower of London, and the courtyard of the

prison of Kanato was no less famous in local annals than

199

200 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

Tower Hill. The general rule would seem to have been
a rule of mildness, but it is to be noted that inhuman
punishments which, in their survival, shock the sentiment
of the twentieth century, were used on occasions which
called for exceptional severity. Among these, burying
alive in bottle-shaped holes, which were closed over the
head of the victim, and sewing up in the hides of oxen
or wild beasts, are two which connect the criminal code
of Songhay with the past and with the present. The
sewing up of victims in the skins of wild beasts was,
it may be remembered, practised in Rome under the
Emperor Makrinus, and was still in use at a much
later period. The practice of burying alive remained
among the punishments of the Soudan, and was only
abolished in the states acknowledging British rule by the
expedition to Sokoto and Kano in 1903. Askia the
Great does not seem to have gone the length of codify-
ing the Songhay laws, but the attention which was given
to the study of law, and the long lists of distinguished
lawyers who are mentioned in the annals of this and the
succeeding reigns, would seem to indicate that Moham-
medan law was generally accepted and practised through
the Songhay Empire, with only such local modification as
experience may have suggested. The system of local
law existing at the present day in the Haussa States is
admirable in theory. In the decadence of the country it
is the administration of it which has failed.

Askia also introduced a reform of the markets. A
unification of weights and measures was drawn up.
Inspectors of the markets — an office which already
existed under the Sultans of Melle — were selected with
special care. They were enjoined to keep close watch
over the introduction of the new system, and any falsifi-
cation was severely punished. The markets were, it is
said, rendered so honest, that a child might go into the
market-place and would bring back full value for value
sent. The Niger was, of course, the great highway of
commerce, and the towns situated upon it were the prin-

SONGHAY UNDER ASKIA THE GREAT 201

cipal centres of trade. Jenn6, which continued to be
enriched by a great cotton industry, was looked upon
as the principal market for internal trade. Timbuctoo
governed the trade of the west and north-west, including
relations with Morocco and the coast. Kagho, or Gao,
governed the trade of the east and north-east, including
relations with Egypt and Tripoli, but in the Haussa States
Kano had long been an important trading centre ; and
Gober, Zamfara, and Zaria — all rich in local produce,
especially cotton, for which their soil and climate was
said to be particularly fitted — possessed a well-established
and busy trade. Aghadez formed a very wealthy station
on the main north-eastern trade route, and it is not
improbable that the cause of the war which occupied
the armies of the Askia for two years had its origin
in the commercial rivalry of that town with the town
of Tekadda, on the borders of the vice-royalty of
Bankou.

Systems of banking and credit, which seem to have
existed under the kings of Melle, were improved. Bank-
ing remained chiefly in the hands of the Arabs, from
whom letters of credit could be procured, which were
operative throughout the Soudan, and were used by the
black travelling merchants as well as by Arab traders.
Commerce, as was to be expected, developed greatly
under the encouragement and security given to it by
the Askia's measures.

With the increase of commerce and luxury came also
the gradual refinement and softening of manners which
accompany wealth in a community where military service
is no longer a universal obligation. The reforms of the
great Askia did not neglect the department of morals.
The great freedom prevailing in the intercourse of men
and women was among the scandals for which he would
seem to have endeavoured, but without much success, to
legislate. He seems to have instituted a body of cor-
rectional police, who were charged with the prevention of
any infringement of the laws. Women were placed on the

202 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

same footing as in the harems of the East, and obliged to
veil themselves when they appeared in public. Never-
theless, Timbuctoo remained ever celebrated for the
luxury of its habits and the gaiety and licence of its
manners. Music, dress, dancing, and amusement formed,
say its indignant chroniclers, the principal objects of
life to a large portion of the population. The immense
domestic establishments of the East would seem to have
excited in the Askia no displeasure. He was himself
the father of a hundred sons, of whom the youngest was
born when he was ninety years of age. But his influence
appears to have been strongly and indignantly excited
against forms of licence which exceeded the bounds
of this very liberal standard of morality. His adviser,
in respect to these reforms, was a learned fanatic of
the name of El Mocheili, whose writings remain to
attest the workings of the royal mind. The Askia's
own sons, less rigid in their principles than their
father, did not escape when punishment seemed to
him to be due to their offences. El Mocheili, whose
advice was at times more enthusiastic than discreet,
was among those who are said to have influenced the
Askia in the direction of the religious persecution of
the Jews.

Another great counsellor of the Askia, whose name
has been preserved, was a Marabout of the name of
Mohammed Koti, a scholar and writer of great emi-
nence, the author, amongst other things, of a history
of the kingdoms of Ghanata, Songhay, and Timbuctoo,
called "The Fatassi," which has unfortunately been lost.
M. Felix Dubois, who, after diligent search, was able to
recover a few fragments of this valuable work, gives an
interesting account of the destruction of the only existing
copy of the history by the Fulani, as late as the middle
of the nineteenth century. The author was born in
1460, and survived Askia the Great by fourteen years,
being connected during the whole period of the reign
with public affairs. Under the influence of Koti and

SONGHAY UNDER ASKIA THE GREAT 203

other distinguished scholars, letters received well-directed
sympathy and encouragement.

After the siege of Aiwalatin in 1480, there began
a gradual but steady flow of learning and cultivation from
that decadent capital of Ghanata to Timbuctoo. The
death of Sonni Ali and the accession of Mohammed gave
confidence to this movement, which soon gathered force
and volume, and we are enabled to reconstruct from
the writings of Ahmed Baba, who was himself born
during the reign of Askia Daouad, the fourth and last
reigning son of the great Askia, some picture of the
intellectual and literary revival of Timbuctoo.

The University of Sankore would seem to have been
a very active centre of civilisation. It was attached to
the mosque of the same name, and was in correspondence,
both by letter and by the frequent visits of its professors,
with the universities of North Africa and Egypt. It
was already in existence under the rule of Melle, and
at that time was in touch with the universities of Spain-
The latter source of knowledge was now, of course, cut
off, by the cessation of intercourse between Spain and
Africa. But, as the first result of the expulsion of the
Moors was to drive the more learned Arabs of Spain
into the recesses of the University of Fez, the full effect
of the measure had not yet been felt. On the contrary,
the life of Timbuctoo had probably received some stimu-
lus from the influx of learning to Morocco. The his-
torians of Timbuctoo distinctly state that civilisation and
learning came to it from the West. In the middle of
the sixteenth century there existed in the town, side by
side with the luxury of the court and the frivolity of
fashion, a large and learned society, living at ease, and
busily occupied with the elucidation of intellectual and
religious problems. The town swarmed also with
Soudanese students, of whom we are optimistically told
that they " were filled with ardour for knowledge and
virtue."

The more distinguished professors would seem to

204 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

have had schools in which they gave courses of lectures,
attended by students, who afterwards received diplomas
from the hands of their masters. In the biographical
sketches of Ahmed Baba, the master from whom diplo-
mas were received is mentioned as regularly as the
school or university in which a man receives his educa-
tion is mentioned in similar English works. A sketch
which Ahmed Baba gives of one of the principal pro-
fessors under whom he himself had studied, may serve
to indicate the type of sage who was revered by the
youth of Timbuctoo, and incidentally presents a picture
of local scholastic life.

Mohammed Abou Bekr of Wankore, his pupil tells
us, writing himself as an old man forty or fifty years later,
was "one of the best of God's virtuous creatures. He
was a working scholar, and a man instinct with goodness.
His nature was as pure as it was upright. He was him-
self so strongly impelled towards virtue, and had so high
an opinion of others, that he always considered them as
being so to speak his equals, and as having no knowledge
of evil. He did not believe in the bad faith of the world,
but always thought well of his fellow-creatures until they
had committed a fault, and even after they had committed
a fault. Calm and dignified, with a natural distinction
and a modesty that rendered intercourse with him easy,
he captured all hearts. Every one who knew him loved
him." He taught during the whole of a long life, while
at the same time he continued to take an active interest,
and even some part, in public affairs. The Sultan, who
shared the general respect for him, offered him the
lucrative appointment of Governor of the Palace, but he
refused it — "God having," he said, "delivered him from
such cares." He was also offered the appointment of
principal preacher to the great mosque, but that also he
prayed the Sultan to excuse him from accepting. He
was apparently wealthy, and possessed a fine library.
"His whole life was given," says Ahmed Baba, "to
the service of others. He taught his pupils to love

SONGHAY UNDER ASKIA THE GREAT 205

science, to follow its teachings, to devote their time to
it, to associate with scholars, and to keep their minds
in a state of docility. He lavishly lent his most precious
books, rare copies, and the volumes that he most valued,
and never asked for them again, no matter what was
the subject of which they treated." Sometimes " a
student would present himself at the door and ask for
a book, and he would give it without even knowing who
the man was." Ahmed Baba recalls with affection an
instance when he himself wanted a rare work on grammar,
and the master not only lent it, but spent a long time
searching through his library for other works which
might help to elucidate his pupil's difficulties. " It was
astonishing to see him," says Ahmed Baba; "and he
acted thus, notwithstanding the fact that he had a passion
for books, and that he collected them with ardour,
both buying and causing them to be copied." It is not,
alas! surprising to hear that "in this way he lost a
great quantity of his books."

His industry in teaching was equalled only by his
patience. " When I knew him," says Ahmed Baba,
"he used to begin his lectures after the first prayer,
and continued them until the second prayer at half-past
nine, varying the subjects of which he treated. He
then returned home for the prayer, and after it usually
went to the cadi to occupy himself with public affairs.
After that he taught at his own house till mid-day. He
joined the public mid-day prayers, and then continued
his lectures at home till the fourth prayer. Then he
went out and lectured in another place until twilight.
After the sunset prayer, he taught in the mosque until
the last night prayer, and then returned to his own house.
No pupil was too stupid or too ignorant for him. He
never allowed himself to be discouraged, or to despair
of gaining an entrance into the understanding of his
hearer. Sometimes, indeed, his patience with the stupid
was so great, that the more intelligent members of the
class were moved to wonder and impatience. " He

206 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

must have drunk the water of Zem-Zem to be able
to stand it," was the comment of one of Ahmed
Baba's fellow-pupils on such an occasion. But Ahmed
Baba, in faithful remembrance, forgets the impatience
of youth, and keeps only admiration. " His like," he
says, "will never be found again." The mind of this
teacher is described as "subtle, sagacious, ready, swift
to comprehend. His intelligence was broad and lumi-
nous. His usual manner was taciturn and grave, but
he would occasionally break into sallies of wit. He
occupied himself with what concerned him, listened to
no gossip, and took part in no frivolity, but "wrapped
himself in a magnificent mantle of discretion and re-
serve. His hand held fast the standard of continence."

In the atmosphere of laborious calm which is pic-
tured by such a rule of existence, the sages of Timbuctoo
would seem to have lived and carried on their labours
to advanced old age. It is impossible not to be struck
by the long periods of activity which are assigned to
distinguished scholars. Ahmed Baba himself was born
in 1556, and did not die till 1627, writing industriously
during the greater part of his grown-up life. Nor was
his career exceptional in this respect. Seventy, eighty,
and even ninety, are ages at which men were still fre-
quently to be found at work.

The study of law, literature, grammar, and theology
would seem to have been more general at Timbuctoo
than that of the natural sciences. We hear, however, of
at least one distinguished geographer, and allusions to
surgical science show that the old maxim of the Arabian
schools, "He who studies anatomy pleases God," was
not forgotten. At a later date (16 18) the author of the
Tarikh incidentally mentions that his brother came from
Jenn6 to Timbuctoo to undergo an operation for cataract
at the hands of a celebrated surgeon there — an operation
which was wholly successful. The appearance of comets, so
amazing to Europe of the Middle Ages, is also noted calmly,
as a matter of scientific interest, at Timbuctoo. Earth-

SONGHAY UNDER ASKIA THE GREAT 207

quakes and eclipses excite no great surprise. In the sketch
which has just been quoted of Mohammed Wankore, the
teachers under whom this professor himself learnt Arabic
are named, showing that Arabic was by no means considered
to be the language of Timbuctoo. That language was
Songhay, and if the civilisation of Timbuctoo came from
the West, it was wedded within the city walls to the
traditions and the forms of expression of the East.

Travellers give us a picture of the town as it existed
in the early part of the sixteenth century. The houses,
which would seem to have been fairly spacious, were
built, some say of clay, and some of wood covered with
plaster — the roofs, like the Dutch buildings of South
Africa, being universally thatched. The mosques are
described as stately buildings of cut stone and lime, and
there was a "princely palace," of which the walls were
also of cut stone and lime. There were a great many
shops and factories, "especially," says Leo Africanus, who
was there in 1526, "of such as weave linen and cotton
cloth." The court maintained by the Askias is described
by Marmol as being so well ordered that it yielded in
nothing spiritual or temporal to the courts of Northern
Africa. Under the successors of Askia the Great, the
palace was enlarged and greatly embellished, the court
being then thronged with courtiers in ever-increasing
numbers. The habits of dress became sumptuous, and
it would seem from incidental allusions that different
functionaries had their different uniforms and insignia
of office, to the wearing of which great value was at-
tached. The dress and appointments of women became
also extravagantly luxurious. They were served on gold.
In full dress their persons were covered with jewels, and
the wives of the rich when they went out were attended
by well-dressed slaves.

Amongst the possessions of the rich, large libraries
and good horses would seem, in Askia the Great's time,
to have been the most valued. The libraries of wealthy
and learned citizens are frequently mentioned, and horses

208 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

from Barbary would always fetch their price. The king
was specially fond of horses, paid for them liberally, and
always caused himself to be informed when good ones
were brought into the town for sale. Gold plate was
also apparently remarkable. Leo Africanus says that " the
rich king of Timbuctoo had many plates and sceptres
of gold, of which some weighed as much as 1300 lbs."
As we are not told that the Askia was waited on by a
race of giants, we may permit ourselves to doubt the state-
ment that he caused himself to be served on trays that
weighed 1300 lbs. Yet we may remember the famous
missorium or dish for the service of the table, which in
the sixth century was found by the Franks in the Gothic
palace of Narbonne, and of which even the grave and
careful Gibbon accepts the statement that it weighed 500
lbs. of massy gold. Taken in conjunction with previous
accounts of the gold plate of the sovereigns of Melle and
the maofnificent arms of their retainers, this statement
may at least be accepted as showing that the court of
the Askias was well supplied with the precious metal.

Among the amusements of the town, music held
always a high place, and under Askia the Great's suc-
cessors, orchestras, provided with singers of both sexes,
were much frequented. Of Askia the Great him-
self, it is said that "his mind was set towards none
of these things." Chess-playing, of a kind which is
particularly described as "Soudanese chess," was some-
times carried to the extreme of a passion. We hear
of a general in the reign of one of the succeeding
Askias, who gave it as an excuse for allowing himself
to be surprised by the enemy's cavalry, that he was so
much absorbed in a game of chess as not to have paid
attention to the reports of his scouts. The whole town
in Askia the Great's day was very rich, the people
living with great abundance, and trade was active.
The currency was of gold, without any stamp or super-
scription, but for small objects in the native markets
shells were still used.

SONGHAY UNDER ASKIA THE GREAT 209

A very great trade was done both here and at
Kagho in cotton, which was exchanged for European
cloth. Unfortunately their relative value is not men-
tioned. We are told only that the money price of fine
European cloth was reckoned at fifteen ducats an ell,
and for scarlet of Venice or Turkey cloth, Leo says
they would give as much as thirty ducats an ell. In
Kagho he says that it was "a wonder to see what
plenty of merchandise is daily brought hither, and how
costly and sumptuous all things be." Marmol, who
wrote about thirty years later than Leo, specially
dwells upon the cotton trade of Jenne, Melle, Tim-
buctoo, Gober, Kano, Zamfara, and Bornu. Both Leo
and Marmol, who are worth quoting, as being writers
professedly antagonistic to the Soudan, speak of the
great trade done in manuscripts and written books from
Barbary, which, they say, "are sold for more money
than any other merchandise " ; and Leo was at least so
far aware of the literary life of Timbuctoo as to note
that " Here are great store of doctors, judges, priests,
and other learned men."

It is interesting and remarkable that while Tim-
buctoo undoubtedly dominated the life of the Songhay
Empire, and was the first town of the Soudan, many
other towns are almost equally noticed by travellers for
their trade and for the learning of which they were the
centre. Marmol, writing in the reign of Askia Daouad,
speaks of Melle as not only rich in trade but also in
learning, having its own schools of science and religion.
The writers of Timbuctoo themselves make frequent
allusions to learned doctors of Melle, Aiwalatin, Jenne,
and Katsena. In Masina also there were an "immense
number of distinguished men of letters and divines."
Even the far distant Tekadda is named as the seat in
which El Mocheili chose to establish his school, when,
as a consequence of his fanatical hatred of the Jews,
he was driven from the western part of the Soudan.
Marmol says that in his day Songhay was the lan-

o

2IO A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

guage commonly spoken in Ghanata, that is, the most
westerly of the provinces of the empire. The state-
ment sounds improbable, as seventy-five years of a
mild foreign rule would hardly suffice to change the
language of a people; but it is possible that Songhay
may have been the officially adopted language of the
empire.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE LATER ASKIAS

AsKiA THE Great reigned for thirty-six years. It is
sorrowful to have to relate that he was not allowed to
finish his life upon the throne which he had so con-
spicuously adorned. In 1528 he, being- by that time
blind, and being supposed to have fallen too com-
pletely under the influence of Ali Folen, was deposed
by his eldest son, who ascended the throne under the
title of Askia Moussa, and reigned only for three years.
During his reign the old Askia lived in comfort in
his favourite palace and farm near Kagho ; while Ali
Folen, after a first flight to Aiwalatin, made his way
to Kano with the intention of performing once again
the pilgrimage to Mecca, but, falling ill, died and
was buried in that town. On the death of Moussa
the throne of the Askias was usurped by a nephew,
Mohammed Benkan, the son of the great Askia's
favourite and profoundly trusted brother. The son did
not repay with gratitude the many favours which his
dead father had received. Not content with sitting on
the Askia's throne, he removed the blind old man from
his palace, and confined him in miserable quarters on
an island in the Niger. But his ill-doing brought de-
served punishment in its train.

In an interview which is related as taking place
between the deposed monarch and his son Ismail — a
young man of twenty-seven years of age, who came to
visit him one night in the island in which he was con-
fined— we see the vigour which had inspired the life
of the old Askia still unextinguished. Ismail sat down

212 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

before his father. The Askia, taking hold of his son's
arm, said: "Heavens! how can an arm Hke this allow
mosquitoes to devour me, and frogs to leap upon
me, when there is nothing which so revolts me ? "
Ismail, the son of that Miriam who was married after
the great campaign of Melle, was an upright but not
brilliant representative of his father's stock. He replied
with grief that he could do nothing. The Askia
answered by telling him where there was a secret stock
of money ; who were the men that he could trust ; how
he was to come into touch with them ; and, sitting in
his miserable dungeon in all the feebleness of blind old
age, the still unconquered monarch planned and dictated
a scheme by which his unworthy nephew was removed
from the throne he had usurped, and Ismail was seated
upon it in his place. Under the protection of Ismail
the old Askia returned with honour to his palace, and
died there in 1538 at an age which cannot have been
far short of a hundred.

Ismail reigned only two years, and was succeeded
in 1539 by his brother Ishak, a cruel but very able
prince, who, after a reign of nearly ten years, was suc-
ceeded in his turn by another brother, Askia Daouad,
the most distinguished of all the great Askia's sons.
Askia Daouad reigned from 1548 to 1582. After him
three more Askias of the next generation brought this
brilliant period of the history of the Soudan to an end.
When Ishak, the son of Askia Mohammed, was at the
height of his power, Muley Hamed, the Sultan of
Morocco, called upon him to give up his right to the
great western salt mine of Tegazza. His spirited answer,
read by the light of subsequent history, has a prophetic
ring. " The Hamed who makes such a demand," he
replied, "can hardly be the great Emperor of Morocco;
the Ishak who can listen to it is not I. That Ishak
has still to be born." The Ishak who would listen
was born in the next generation of Askias, and it was
under Ishak II. in 1591 that the salt mines were taken.

THE LATER ASKIAS 213

and the Empire of Songhay was overthrown by the
Moors.

Under Askia Daouad we hear of the murder of
the Songhay governor of Tegazza by the instigation of
the Emperor of Morocco. Work at the salt mines be-
came so dangerous, and the interruption of the salt trade
was so frequent, that Askia Daouad was led to authorise
the opening of another salt mine which was found
in the desert ; but Askia Daouad abated nothing of
the claims of his father, although he and a succeeding
Muley Ahmed came to a friendly understanding. Be-
fore the end of the sixteenth century, conflict between
the troops of Songhay and the troops of Morocco, on
the question of the salt mines, was clearly becoming
inevitable.

Under Askia Daouad military expeditions were re-
newed on all the borders of the empire. Melle and
the Fulani provinces of the west — Mossi, Borgu, Boussa,
Gurma, all in turn gave occasion for the exercise of
military activity. It is during the military expeditions
of Askia Daouad that we get definite accounts of the
contingents furnished by subordinate Kois. Two Kois
are mentioned in one of the western campaigns as fur-
nishing 12,000 men each, which, it is said, was their
regular contingent. An expedition was sent also into
the Haussa States, and the campaign against Katsena
in 1554 was remarkable for an incident which did equal
honour to both sides. In an encounter between the
Songhay and the Haussa troops, twenty - four picked
cavaliers of Songhay sustained a long and desperate
struggle against a regiment of 400 Haussa soldiers.
They were at last overpowered, fifteen of them being
killed. The remaining nine, all badly wounded, were
taken prisoners, and the Haussa soldiers were so im-
pressed by their courage that they dressed their wounds,
nursed them with the greatest care, supplied their wants,
and then set them at liberty, sending them back to
Askia Daouad with the courteous assurance that "men

214 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

so brave should not be allowed to die." Other expeditions
occupied the greater part of this reign. As a result of
a successful campaign in Melle in 1559, Askia Daouad,
like his father, married a daughter of the house of Melle.
Here is the description, given by the Tarikh, of her
bridal train : "He caused the princess to be conducted
to Songhay in a sumptuous equipage. She was covered
with jewels, surrounded by numerous slaves, both men
and women, and provided with an abundant baggage
train. All the utensils of the household were of gold —
dishes, pitchers, pestle and mortar, everything." Under
Askia Daouad the town of Timbuctoo was much em-
bellished. The great mosque of Mansa Musa was
restored and enlarged. Two other mosques were also
rebuilt, and the restoration of the Sankore Mosque was
begun. These works were all undertaken and carried
out under the inspiration of a very public-spirited cadi,
whose name, El-Aquib, deserves to be remembered as
a representative of illustrious learning, fearless justice,
and disinterested devotion to public duty. Askia Daouad
himself contributed handsomely to the rebuilding of the
great mosque.

The last military expedition of Askia Daouad's reign
was a campaign conducted by his son, the Viceroy of
the south-western province, against the Fulani of Masina.
A lawless portion of the population of Masina had ven-
tured to attack and pillage a royal boat laden with
merchandise, which was on the way from Jenne. Such
a thing, it is said, had never happened before under
the dynasty of Songhay, and the indignant Viceroy
resolved to make a terrible example of Masina. He
ravaged the country with fire and sword, allowing his
troops to massacre indiscriminately ; and in the general
slaughter there perished, we are told, a great number
of distinofuished scholars and divines. The Sultan of
Masina fled to a place of safety till the storm had
passed, and then returned to his estates. Askia Daouad
entirely disapproved of the policy and conduct of his

THE LATER ASKIAS 215

son. The massacre of Masina happened, however, in
the spring of 1582, and before Askia Daouad had time
to take any action in the matter, he died on his favourite
estate near Kagho, on the 21st of August of that year.
With him died the last of the great Askias. He was
succeeded by his son, who, in consequence of having
made the pilgrimage to Mecca, was known, like his
illustrious grandfather, by the name of " El Hadj." He
was an estimable prince, but an invalid, and he reigned
only four years. He was succeeded in his turn by his
brother, Mohammed Bano, a mere nullity, who occupied
the throne for two years; and in 1588 that second Ishak,
also a son of Askia Daouad, who lives in the tradition
of the Soudan as "the worst of the Askias," closed the
line of the independent sovereigns of Songhay.

In bringing to an end this notice of the most remarkable
dynasty of which we have any record in the Soudan, it is
perhaps worth while to draw attention to the length of the
reigns not only of the two most distinguished monarchs of
this line, but generally of the more remarkable native
sovereigns of the Soudan. The reign of Askia Daouad
lasted for thirty-four years, that of Askia the Great for
thirty-six years. Sonni Ali, whose life and whose reign
were brought to an end only by an accident, reigned for
thirty years. The great Mansa Musa reigned for twenty-
four years. His brother, who after a short interval suc-
ceeded him, reigned for twenty-six years. In the Desert
Empire the son of the famous Teloutan, who had himself
a very long reign, reigned from 837 till 910, that is,
upwards of seventy years, and was then killed in battle.
Nor was this longevity confined to the rulers of the
country. It has already been mentioned that the common
age to which men lived in the Desert Empire was eighty
years, and the great age of the teachers and writers of
Timbuctoo has been noticed. Public men not only lived
to a great age, but kept their offices for long periods of
time. The great Askia, after having been a successful
general, was Prime Minister for thirty years before he

2i6 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

became a monarch for thirty-six years. Ali Folen, his
Prime Minister, already a chosen councillor whose fidelity
had been approved in 1492, held office till the end of the
sovereign's reign in 1528. Mohammed Goddala, the first
Cadi of Timbuctoo appointed by the great Askia, a man
highly distinguished both for learning and justice in the
annals of his country, lived to the age of eighty-four, and
was Cadi for fifty years. The Cadi el Aquib, who rebuilt
the mosques of Timbuctoo under Askia Daouad, held his
functions as Cadi for eighteen years. Mohammed Naddi,
the famous Timbuctoo Koi, who, having held office under
the Sultan of Melle, was reinstated by the Tuaregs on
their capture of the town, had held office for more than
thirty years when he died in 1464. It is needless to
multiply examples ; but the longevity of the individual is
an element of so much importance in the development of
the race that, in view of the opinion usually entertained
with regard to the climate and institutions of the Soudan,
it seems interesting to establish the fact that there is
nothing in the health conditions of the country which, for
those who are acclimatised, is opposed to long and active
life. As regards the institutions, continuity of office in
the individual is nearly always coincident with stability in
the state. Short reigns, short ministries, short military
commands, are symptoms which seldom fail to indicate an
unsettled and unsatisfactory condition of public life. Pros-
perity and permanence go hand in hand ; and where we
find judges, generals, viceroys, kings, holding their public
positions for periods varying between twenty - five and
fifty years, we may fairly argue a peaceful and prosperous
condition of the country.

The history of the Soudan offers no contradiction to
the assumption that the life of the nation will correspond
to the life of the individual. The duration of the
Soudanese empires will bear comparison with that of
others which are better known to fame. Ghana enjoyed
an independent existence of about iioo years — that is, a
period nearly equivalent to the period of existence of our

THE LATER ASKIAS 217

own British monarchy from the abolition of the Saxon
Heptarchy to the present day. Melle, who succeeded
her, had a shorter national life of about 250 years.
Songhay counted its kings in regular succession from
about 700 A.D. to the date of the Moorish conquest in
1 59 1 — a period which almost exactly coincides with the
life of Rome from the foundation of the republic, 509 B.C.,
to the downfall of the empire in the first half of the
fifth century of our era. The duration of the Empire of
Bornu was, as will be seen, no less respectable.

The civilisation represented by these empires was no
doubt, if judged by a modern and still more by a Western
standard, exceedingly imperfect. The principles of free-
dom, as we understand them, were probably unknown.
Authority rested upon force of arms. Industrial life was
based on slavery. Social life was founded on polygamy.
Side by side with barbaric splendour there was primeval
simplicity. Luxury for the few took the place of comfort
for the many. Study was devoted mainly to what seem
to us unprofitable ends. These are grave drawbacks.
Yet the fact that civilisation, far in excess of anything
which the nations of Northern Europe possessed at the
earlier period of Soudanese history, existed with stability
enough to maintain empire after empire through a known
period of about 1500 years, in a portion of the world
which mysteriously disappeared in the sixteenth century
from the comity of modern nations, is interesting enough
to merit recognition, and, it seems to me, to justify some
study of the new chapters of history presented to our
consideration.

CHAPTER XXV

ANCIENT CONNECTION OF HAUSSALAND WITH THE
VALLEY OF THE NILE

The next great event of importance in the history of the
Soudan is the conquest of the country by the Moors, but
before approaching the narrative of this catastrophe it will
be well to bring the history of Bornu and the Haussa
States — which fill the last remaining section of the
country lying between the Atlantic and Lake Chad — up
to the point of their contemporary development in the
sixteenth century. These portions of the Soudan are
especially interesting to us, as they constitute at the
present day the northern portion of the British Protec-
torate of Nigeria.

It has been said, in entering upon the history of
the Songhay Empire, that in it we reached that part
of the history of the Western Soudan in which the
influence of the West and of the East visibly met and
overlapped. In crossing the Niger, and passing to the
territories which lie still farther east, we come to that
part of the country in which the influence of the East
begins more distinctly to predominate.

To establish the grounds on which such influence may
be presupposed, a short digression is necessary into what
is knov/n of the geographical connection of the countries
of Northern Africa with each other during a very early
period of their history.

The ancient civilisation of Egypt spread, as we know,
from south to north, and without venturing to accept
or to reject the assumption of some learned writers that
it came originally by way of the Arabian Gulf from
India, there is seemingly no doubt that the earliest seat

3l8

HAUSSALAND AND THE NILE VALLEY 219

of civilisation in Africa was the country watered by the
Upper Nile, which was known by the name of Ethiopia
to the ancients, and which lay in an easterly direction,
between the very latitudes of 10° and 17° that on the
western side of Lake Chad fixed the limits of habitation
of the higher races of the Soudan. Monuments, of which
a more or less consecutive chain can be traced from
Nubia to the Straits of Bab-el- Mandeb, point to the
existence in this territory, at a period of great antiquity,
of a people possessing many of the arts of a relatively
high civilisation. The principal state of this Ethiopian
country bore the well-known name of Meroe. It occu-
pied the territory watered by the Nile and its tribu-
taries, of which the most northerly point is marked
by the meeting of the Atbara and the Nile. The
capital of Meroe was a city of the same name, which
stood a little below the present Shendy, under 17° N.
latitude, and in 32^^° E. longitude. That is to say,
Meroe stood, like Ghana, on the extreme edge of the
summer rains. The limits of the State of Meroe ex-
tended probably at one time to the north of 17° and to
the south of 10°. Those parallels may, however, be
taken as indicating its permanent limits.

This is not the place, nor am I competent to discuss
the arguments which form the ground of belief that
the civilisation of Meroe preceded that of Egypt. It is
enough to say very briefly, that on the site of the city of
Meroe there exist remains of temples and pyramids, from
which archaeologists have drawn the conclusion that the
pyramid was a form of architecture native to Meroe, and
only afterwards brought to perfection in Egypt. It is evi-
dent, from the decoration of the temples, that they were
dedicated to the worship of Ammon. It is believed that
the remains of the temple of the most famous oracle
of Jupiter Ammon are to be found in ruins at about
eight hours' journey to the north-east of Shendy. This
temple of the oracle was known to exist within a few
hours' journey of Meroe, and the priestly traditions of

220 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

Ethiopia and Egypt assert that the worship of Ammon
and Osiris, with its feasts and processions, was first
settled at the metropolis of Meroe. This remark-
able spot is regarded by the ancients as the "cradle
of the arts and sciences, where hieroglyphic writing was
discovered, and where temples and pyramids had already
sprung up while Egypt still remained ignorant of their
existence." From this temple the worship of Ammon
and his attendant gods would seem to have spread to
Egypt, and through the oasis of Siwah to Carthage and
the Mediterranean coast.

The carvincTs of the monuments of Meroe show a
people in possession of the arts and luxuries of civilisation,
and having some knowledge of science. On the base
of one of the monuments a zodiac has been found, and
in the more northerly monuments of Nubia, which por-
tray the conquest of Meroe by Rameses the Great of
Egypt at a much later date, the conquered nation is
shown as being not only rich, civilised, and important,
but also as possessing tributary states, presumably in
Central Africa, whence came giraffes and other Central
African produce. We learn from the same monuments
that the women of Meroe were frequently armed, and
appeared to live on equal terms with men. They are
constantly portrayed as queens. The Empire of Meroe
had its settled constitution and its laws. It was com-
posed of many little states, but the whole were apparently
governed by a priest-caste, and the portraits of priests,
frequently repeated upon the monuments, show them as
tall and slender, with handsome profile, red-brown in
colour, and with hair indifferently straight or curled.
The general population are believed to have been of the
black and straight-haired Nubian race. Here is the
conclusion drawn by a competent German critic, nearly
a hundred years ago, from the discoveries made by
Gau, Champollion, and others : " In Nubia and Ethiopia
stupendous, numerous, and primeval monuments proclaim
so loudly a civilisation contemporary to, aye, earlier than

HAUSSALAND AND THE NILE VALLEY 221

that of Egypt, that it may be conjectured with the greatest
confidence that the arts, sciences, and religion descended
from Nubia to the lower country of Misraim ; that civi-
lisation descended the Nile, built Memphis, and fmally,
something later, wrested by colonisation the Delta from
the sea." ^

The monuments, though eloquent, are not the only
grounds upon which this conclusion has been reached.
The fame of the Ethiopians was widespread in ancient
history. Herodotus describes them as " the tallest, the
most beautiful and long-lived of the human race," and
before Herodotus, Homer, in even more flattering lan-
guage, described them as "the most just of men; the
favourites of the gods." The annals of all the great
early nations of Asia Minor are full of them. The Mosaic
records allude to them frequently ; but while they are
described as the most powerful, the most just, and the
most beautiful of the human race, they are constantly
spoken of as black, and there seems to be no other
conclusion to be drawn, than that at that remote period
of history the leading race of the Western world was
a black race. When we reflect that this black race
flourished within the very latitudes of Africa which
European nations are now engaged in opening to
modern civilisation, a great interest is added to the
study of their possible descendants.

The people of Ethiopia colonised to the north and
west. Amongst their colonies to the north, one of the
most important was Thebes. Thebes and Meroe to-
gether founded the colony of Ammonium in the western
desert, and through Thebes the religion of Meroe was
carried into Lower Egypt. It was at a much later
period, about 1500 B.C., that Egypt returned upon Meroe
and conquered it.

In the ancient world, as in ours, commerce and re-
ligion were constantly associated. The routes of pil-
grimage were also the routes of trade, and with the

' Heeren, " Historical Researches : African Nations."

222 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

help of the magnificent remains which have from
time to time been discovered in the southern regions
watered by the Nile and its tributary streams, it has
been found possible to re-establish some of the great
trade routes which were used by Meroe in the days of
her prosperity. In briefly indicating them I follow the
account given by Heeren in his " Historical Researches."

There can be no doubt that from a very early period
maritime commerce existed between India, Arabia, and
the East African coasts. Probably at an even earlier
period Chinese navigators frequented the shores of Africa.
Marmol, writing of the East Coast of Africa in the six-
teenth century, says: "There was a time when the
Chinese navigated these shores as freely as the Portu-
guese now do," and his statement obtains some modern
corroboration from the fact that at the excavation, about
twenty-five years ago, of Kilwa, once the capital of a
native empire, upon the east coast of Africa, where
three towns were superimposed upon one another, the
lowest town was found to be full of Chinese coins.
Commerce between the countries lying on the shores
of the Indian Ocean was favoured by the fact, thus
recorded by an ancient writer, that for " one half of the
year, from spring to autumn, the wind regularly sets
in and wafts the vessels from Arabia to India; the
other half, from autumn to spring, it as regularly carries
them back from India to Arabia." Arrian, in his
" Periplus of the Erythrean Sea," written in the first
century of our era, speaking of the commerce, which
was then, of course, a matter of ancient, though also
of contemporary history, says : " Before merchants sailed
from Egypt to India, Arabia Felix was the staple (or
market) both for Egyptian and Indian goods, just as
Alexandria now is for the commodities of Egypt and
foreign merchandise." The Indians nowhere appear as
navigators ; the Arabians always do. It seems to be
demonstrated that they possessed the navigation of the
Indian Ocean, not only in our own medieval times,

HAUSSALAND AND THE NILE VALLEY 223

but certainly through the period of the Ptolemies, and
probably much earlier. That they communicated with
Ethiopia in early ages is not a matter of doubt.

Africa contributed largely in gold and probably also
in frankincense — which was obtained in the regions now
known as Somaliland — to the ancient commerce of the
Indian Ocean. Considering the position occupied by
Arabia in that commerce, it is not surprising to find
that the ports through which the trade entered Ethiopia
were Asab and Adule, both situated within the Straits
of Bab-el- Mandeb on the western shore of the Red
Sea. Roads from these two points led to Axum, in the
interior, on the western side of the Abyssinian Mountains,
a town of which the colossal remains still testify to its
ancient greatness. From Axum, which had its temples
and was itself a great centre of trade, the road led north-
westward through the State of Meroe to the town of
the same name. The town of Meroe was a great centre,
whence roads spread in many directions. The principal
trade route led from Meroe northwards, either along the
Nile or across the Nubian desert to Thebes, thence to the
oasis of Siwah in the western desert, thence to Augela,
often mentioned as an Egyptian colony, and thence
south-westward to the site of the modern Murzuk in the
Fezzan, whence communication was direct to Carthage
and the Mediterranean coast. These last stations were
at the head of the Tripoli-Fezzan route into the southern
desert, and marked the junction of that route with the
Egyptian route. There was a road from Meroe across
the desert which ran due westward into Kordofan. This
road still exists, but Burckhardt, who visited Shendy in
1770, says that now, "as in ancient times," the commerce
with the west is insignificant. It seems to result from
the most careful investigation that the principal com-
merce of the interior of Africa has always been carried
on in two directions : that which has been described
from Ethiopia through the Valley of the Nile, and that
of the Soudan from the Niger to the Mediterranean

224 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

coast. The Empire of Bornu, or Kanem, including at one
time the present kingdoms of Wadai and Darfour, formed
a separation between these two streams which have always
run in parallel channels from south to north. This, at
least, is the general opinion of explorers and historians,
who, it is to be remembered, have necessarily written
from the external point of view. What may have been
at any given period the lateral branching of local native
trade, is difficult for the European writer to determine.

Heeren, in his researches into the trade of the Cartha-
ginians and the Ethiopians, has been able to establish
the existence of at least one important cross-road of
communication, of which a portion has been already noted
in tracing the direction of the main trade route, after it
branched from Thebes westward to the oasis of Siwah
and the Mediterranean coast. The western end of the
road starting from Carthage ran in a south-easterly direc-
tion through the Fezzan to the site of the present Murzuk.
After making the junction at that point with the Egyptian
road, it turned southwards to the Niger, and was the
road which has been so often mentioned as the Tripoli-
Fezzan road of the present day. Along this road the
Carthaginians traded with the Niger for carbuncles, skins,
gold, ivory, and other goods.

Thus we get on unquestionable authority evidence of
a well-established connection in very early times between
Ethiopia and Egypt by the Valley of the Nile; between
Egypt and Carthage by a road crossing the desert
through Siwah and Augela, and between Carthage and
the Niger by the present Tripoli-Fezzan route. If we
take Murzuk and Thebes as lying almost on the same
parallels of latitude outside the Tropic of Cancer, and
Gao and Meroe as having also almost parallel positions
on the edge of the summer rains, some eight degrees
farther south, we get the four corners of an irregular
parallelogram, of which three sides were in permanent
communication with each other. The base of this paral-
lelogram rests on the fertile belt, which crosses Africa

HAUSSALAND AND THE NILE VALLEY 225

between the parallels of 10° and 17°; and taking into
consideration the fact that Mohammedan states now
stretch continuously across it from Bornu to Fashoda,
it seems in no way improbable that, at a period when
the trade of Ethiopia was important enough to extend
down the Valley of the Nile and across the difficult
desert road from Thebes to Murzuk in the north, trade
may also have found channels of extension along the
fertile territories to the west.

In corroboration of the view that the trade and in-
fluence of Meroe may have extended farther west than
has as yet been ascertained by modern exploration, I may
mention a fact told me by Zebehr Pasha, when, during
his confinement at Gibraltar in 1886, he related to me
the history of the foundation of his ephemeral empire
in the Bahr-el-Ghazal. It was that, having occasion to
act as the military ally of a certain native king Tekkima,
whose territory lay somewhere south and west of the
spot marked upon modern maps as Dem Suleiman or
Dem Zebehr — that is, presumably about 8° N. and 25° E.,
he was informed that he had to fight against magicians,
who habitually came out of the earth, fought, and then
disappeared. A careful system of scouting disclosed to
him the fact that they came from under ground, and
when, after cutting off their retreat and conquering them,
he insisted upon being shown their place of habitation,
he found it to be deeply buried in the sand, a wonder-
ful system of temples "far finer," to use the words in
which he described it, "than modern eyes have seen in
the mosques of Cairo and Constantinople." It was, he
said, such work of massive stone as was done only by
the great races of old. Through this underground city of
stone there ran a stream, and by the stream his native
antagonists lived in common straw native huts. "Were
your people, then," he asked them, "a nation of stone-
cutters?" And they said, "Oh, no! This is not the
work of our forefathers, but our forefathers found it here,
and we have lived for many generations in these huts."

p

226 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

Whether this accidental discovery of unknown monu-
ments may yet be repeated farther west, and links be
established in a continuous chain of ancient civilisation
reaching from the Red Sea to the country west of Chad,
or whether the civilisations of the western and the
eastern ends of the fertile belt of the Soudan were
in fact separated from one another by a sea of which
the waters of Chad are but the disappearing trace, is,
however, a question which, interesting as it is, becomes,
in the light of the proved connection by the northern
road, a question rather of detail than of principle.

If there was no connection by the south, there cer-
tainly was connection by the north, by means of which
the early inhabitants of the Haussa States may have
been brought under the same influences of civilisation
which spread from Ethiopia to ancient Egypt and thence
to Europe and Northern Africa.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE PHARAOHS IN HAUSSALAND

The annals of Egyptian history are not without some
record of the very early connection which existed be-
tween the valleys of the Niger and the Nile. To enter
into the spirit of them we must be content to lose our-
selves in semi-mythical periods when, according to the
records collected and preserved by historic writers, Housal
and his descendants reigned in Egypt. The name of
Housal meant, we are told, " Servant of Venus." We
may perhaps, therefore, carry back the date to a period
when the Phoenicians dominated Egyptian politics, and
the worship of Astarte or Venus Erycina was common
in the Valley of the Nile.

Already, before Housal, Egyptian kings had marched
through the west and into the country of the blacks in
the south, where they had seen ** wonderful things."
But it is with his descendant, Nimrod the Powerful, who
was also called Nimrod the son of Housal, that we
obtain a direct link with the southern states. Nimrod,
we are told, was a king famous for his justice, under
whom the people of Egypt lived happily. But his dead
brother had been married to a magician from the south.
This magician fled with her son, on the accession of
Nimrod, towards the south. There, by her charms, she
raised a power for her son to claim the throne. Nimrod
marched against her and was overthrown, and her son
reigned in his stead. This is the Egyptian account.
But the people of Yoruba, which is not one of the true
Haussa States, but which is a province included within the
British Protectorate in the back country of Lagos, claim

228 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

to descend from Canaanites — that is, Phoenicians — of the
tribe of Nimrod. They claim, further, that all the pagan
tribes in the mountains of Haussaland descend from them,
because in their southward journey they left, in every
place they stopped at, a tribe of their own people in the
mountains. Sultan Bello, who records this claim of the
Yoruba people, was apparently unacquainted with the
Egyptian story. But the coincidence between the two
accounts is too striking to be ignored. The Nimrod
the Powerful of Egyptian history, son of Housal, who
worshipped the Phoenician gods, and Nimrod the Mighty,
the first son of Canaan (or Phoenicia) of the Mosaic
record, may fairly be taken as identical, and it is easy
to comprehend how the dispersion of a large army, of
which the component parts would be driven to take
refuge where they could, might lead to just such a tradi-
tion as that cherished by the Yoruba population of the
present day.

It is interesting also to observe in Egyptian records
the constant reference to " magicians of the south." The
part which magic played in the chronicles of Egypt is
of course a matter of common knowledge. The whole
north coast of Africa was, we are told, protected by
talismans, burning glasses, and other marvels raised on
pedestals, which were placed at intervals along the shore.
Alexandria could not be built till talismans had been
erected which had power to protect it from the monsters
of the deep. Macrizi, in his " Historical Description of
Egypt," written in the fifteenth century, has preserved
for us accounts of some of the most famous talismans
constructed by the kings, and quite as often by the
queens, who reigned in the Valley of the Nile. We find
there the magical bird with outspread wings, raised on a
pedestal for protective purposes above towns or graves,
which in the seventeenth century had still its prototype
in the copper birds, described by Barbot as spreading
their wings above all the best houses of Benin. The
same idea perhaps inspired the golden bird perched on

THE PHARAOHS IN HAUSSALAND 229

the cupola of the king's umbrella which Ibn Batuta men-
tioned in describing the court ceremonies of the court
of Melle in the fourteenth century. Marvels of every
kind are catalogued among the creations of the wisest of
Egyptian sovereigns. Nor need we confine ourselves to
the Soudan to find in later times the prototypes of statues
which healed, relics which could detect injustice, dirty
water which, being washed over sacred stones, had power
to impart saving grace. The ideas which underlay the
magic of Egypt have been common to all time. They
took sometimes, in Egypt as elsewhere, very charming
shape. We hear of one benevolent king who constructed
a temple in which he placed statues to heal every human
infirmity. On the head of each statue was written the
name of the evil which it could cure. When he had
cured all recognised evils, he made last of all the statue
of a smiling woman, "and whoever looked on her, lost
his secret sorrow."

In the construction of these talismans the "magicians
of the south " played their part. We have seen in the
Tarikh-es-Soudan that Gao was celebrated in ancient
times as a town of magicians, whence the Pharaohs on
occasion summoned help. Borgu and its neighbourhood
to the south of Gao is to this day celebrated for the
pursuit of magic, and the whole coast of West Africa
is permeated with a belief in witchcraft and charms.
Doubtless when Egyptian records speak of the south,
they frequently mean Ethiopia and Meroe. But that the
name of Ethiopia was extended in some instances to
cover the country as far west as the Atlantic is made
quite clear by ancient writers. Strabo expressly says so.

If, in the magic practised by the inhabitants of the
territories lying between the Niger and Lake Chad, we
find one indication of the very early connection of these
countries with Egypt, other indications present them-
selves, as we approach the period of the Pharaohs of
the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties, which appear
by comparison to stand on historic ground. I abridge

230 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

from Macrizi an account of an eleven years' expedition
of one of the Pharaohs into the west and south, which
seems definitely to confer upon Borgu the honour of
connecting the existing territory of British Northern
Nigeria with the Egypt known to us in the Old Testa-
ment. The expedition took place some 1 700 years before
Christ. The Pharaoh was king of Egypt when "a
young Syrian, of the name of ' Joseph the Truthful,' was
sold by his brothers into Egypt." The Pharaoh of
Joseph was known by many names. Amongst them
the Copts gave him the name of " Barkhou."

After a long struggle with Phoenician forces in the
north, this Pharaoh subdued Syria, and then resolved to
conquer the world to the south and west. He set out
with an army of 700,000 men, marched westward to that
point of Africa where the Atlantic meets the Mediter-
ranean, crossed over to Spain, and, having conquered
and imposed tribute as he went, he returned and marched
eastward through the country of the Berbers. Thence
he turned south, fought with various peoples, and sent
a general before him to a town situated upon the "black
water." The king of this town had never heard of
Pharaoh, and being questioned about the water to the
south, said that no one had ever navigated it, because
of the mists which made it dangerous. When Pharaoh
arrived, the native king offered presents, amongst them
a mystic black stone, and fruits, chiefly bananas. Pharaoh
then " marched into the countries of the Soudan, and
came to the country of the Dem-Dem cannibals, who
marched against him entirely naked." He conquered
them, and took the road to the "dark sea," but as mists
arose, he returned northwards as far as a colossal statue
of red stone, which bore the inscription, " Beyond me
there is nothing." He appears then to have turned
eastward. In his march he encountered various marvels
which I will not relate, amongst other things a town of
hermits or magicians living in the mountains, from whom
he received good advice, and by whom he was shown

THE PHARAOHS IN HAUSSALAND 231

immense stores, worthless to them, of gold and emeralds
and sapphires. Finally, after an absence of eleven years,
he reached Nubia — showing that, in his day at least,
communication was supposed to be possible between the
Niger and the Nile along the parallels of the fertile
belt — and he re-entered Egypt, having built monuments
or otherwise "left traces of himself" in every country
through which he passed.

The account, of which I have given the essential

geographical points, seems clearly to indicate that this

Pharaoh on his return from the west followed the Tripoli-

Fezzan route into the desert. The town upon which he

marched may have been the town of Kaougha or Kau-

Kau, which appears to have existed in ancient times

somewhere near to the site of the present town of Kuka

on Lake Chad ; but remembering that the Arab name of

the Niger is the " Huad el Nichar," or Black Water, and

that the account of the expedition has been taken by Arab

writers from the Coptic, it is equally probable that the

town where he got the black stone and the bananas

may have been that very town of Gao on the Niger, also

called Kaougha, the antiquity of which has been so often

alluded to. He marched "thence" into the Soudan and

the country of the cannibal Dem-Dems. This at least

identifies the locality of a portion of this expedition, for

every early Arab writer has located the Dem-Dems in the

country to the south and south-east of Gao, spreading down

the western side of the river and across the river into the

hills to the south of the Haussa States, known later as

Bowshy, Bowsher, or Jacoba, and now included in British

Northern Nigeria under the name of Bautchi. In these

hills the cannibals have survived even to our own day, but

on the western side of the river they have long since been

driven out, and their place has been taken by the peoples

of Gurma and Borgu, or, as this latter province was often

called by early Arab writers, Barkou. Here again the

coincidence of name is at least striking. A Pharaoh of the

name of Barkhou, of whom it is said that he left a trace of

232 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

himself in every country through which he passed, is stated
to have marched victoriously with a large army over a
country to the south of the Black Water, which is de-
scribed as the country of the Dem-Dems. At a very
much later period a country bearing his Coptic name, and
claiming for its people Coptic descent, is found to be
situated between the Black Water and the country of the
Dem-Dems. I do not wish to push the argument of
names too far, especially when the uncertain nature of the
records of those "Traditionists" from whom Macrizi
quotes is taken into consideration. Yet in conjunction
with the popular belief in Egyptian extraction, this story
which I find in the annals of Egypt, where there was
no thought of shedding light on questions of the Soudan,
seems to me interesting enough to plead its own excuse
for insertion.

Whether the "Dark Sea" — rendered in the French
translation which I am following by the words " Mer
obscure'' — really meant the sea on the south coast, or
whether it was, as I think more probable, some other body
of water such as Lake Chad, which must have been passed
if the expedition re-entered Egypt by way of Nubia, I
leave to the more learned to decide. The direction of his
march after achieving the conquest of the Dem-Dems
appears to me to have been round the north shores of
Lake Chad, and so across the desert into Nubia. If it be
true that he built monuments or left traces of himself in
every country through which he passed, there is hope that
his cartouche may yet be discovered upon some hitherto
unexplored rock of Northern Nigeria. The persistent
reference in early descriptions to a colossal statue in the
neighbourhood of the Almena rocks may have a foundation
in interesting fact.

Before and after this Pharaoh, other Pharaohs — includ-
ing the intrepid Phoenician usurper who, according to
Macrizi, was the Pharaoh of Moses — marched at the head
of armies into the Soudan and fought and conquered
among the blacks and Berbers, forcing the people of the

THE PHARAOHS IN HAUSSALAND 233

Soudan to pay tribute. The black nations of Ethiopia
were sufficiently vigorous to have at times invaded the
southern and western frontiers of Egypt, and to have
necessitated the building of a great wall of defence against
them. This wall, which extended from the frontiers of
Abyssinia to Nubia, and through Nubia to the oases,
was built by a queen called Dalouka. It was fortified
at intervals throughout its length.

We know from other sources that, about the year 1400
B.C., Rameses the Great, who is usually assumed to have
been the Pharaoh of Moses, made extensive conquests to
the south. This was the Pharaoh whose conquest of
Ethiopia is shown upon the monuments, and on those
monuments is also indicated the conquest of tributary
nations to the West. In connection with these conquests
we must not forget the statement of the Tarikh-es-Soudan
that it was the Pharaoh of Moses who drew his magicians
from Gao. That the nations of the Niger and Lake Chad
should have been tributary to Eastern Ethiopia is not
surprising, and the inference to be drawn from the monu-
ments and the statements of ancient writers is confirmed
by the mere fact that the name of Ethiopia was extended
to them. Libyan as well as Ethiopian dynasties are
known to have reigned in Egypt after the Pharaohs of the
nineetenth dynasty. When, therefore, we read of the re-
conquest of Egypt, and a march of Ethiopian armies against
the Kings of Israel about 1000 b.c, and of an Ethiopian
dynasty established at Memphis under Sabako at a period
contemporary with the prophet Isaiah, about 750 B.C., we
may assume it to be probable that the peoples in the
neighbourhood of Lake Chad contributed their share, if not
actually to the armies, at least to the strength of the then
conquering empire.

After the Ethiopian dynasty came the Persian con-
quests, during which, as we have seen, expeditions appar-
ently took place which have left a tradition of ancestry
among the black nations of the extreme west of the
Soudan. After the Persians came Alexander and the

234 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

Ptolemies. The picture given by Egyptian historians of
the last of the Ptolemies is very different from that usually
received in the West. Cleopatra's vigilance, they tell us,
watched over the extreme limits of the kingdom of Egypt,
and some historians have attributed to Cleopatra the wall
of Dalouka. There was, therefore, we may infer, the same
need under the Ptolemies that there had been under
earlier dynasties for defence against the peoples of the
Soudan.

It is not surprising that Haussaland and Bornu, which
lie between the Bend of the Niger and Lake Chad, and of
which the territory occupied at the south-westerly end
of the great trade routes of the ancient world a position
corresponding to that occupied by Ethiopia proper at the
south-eastern end, should have received the inspiration of
their civilised development rather from Egypt, and at a
later period from the Arabs of the Barbary coasts, than
from those Arabs who established the civilisation of the
Ommeyade dynasty in Spain. As, however, there is no
clear distinction to be made between the Arabs of the
west and east, so there will be found comparatively little
difference between the medieval civilisation of the western
and the eastern portions of the West African Soudan.
The more remarkable differences were of earlier date,
when the influence of ancient Egypt was stronger, and
when the schismatic Christians of the Roman Empire
found their way, under the pressure of persecution, along
the same eastern desert road, to the oblivion and the
freedom of the south.

During the second and third centuries of our era, when
Christians were liable to spasmodic persecution under the
pagan emperors of Rome, the African desert was a favourite
refuge of the enthusiast, and the conception of winning
heaven by preaching the gospel to the most remote nations
of the earth was not daunted by the unknown dangers of
the Soudan. In the sixth century, when the Emperor
Justinian and the Empress Theodora took opposite sides
in the great schism of the Incarnation, the Coptic Church,

THE PHARAOHS IN HAUSSALAND 235

persecuted in Syria and Egypt, spread its monophysite
emissaries far into the heart of Africa, leaving to its
Nestorian rivals the open road of Persia, China, and the
East. Distinct traces are to be found in the eastern part
of the West African Soudan of this Coptic movement.
Borgu, already famous for its connection with the
Pharaohs, claims to have received in more modern times
a form of Christianity from the East, and though the
tradition is not general in the country, Borgu natives
have recently asserted that their prophet is not Moham-
med but Kisra, a Jew who died for the sins of men. In
the second half of the fifteenth century the Portuguese
had knowledge of a native state in the interior which
professed Christianity "after the manner of Egypt." They
took that state to be Mossi, but if reliance is to be placed
on the very circumstantial account of the Tarikh-es-
Soudan, they were mistaken in their assumption, and
the honour must be attributed to some other people.
It may have been Borgu, but it must be admitted that
the Christianity of this province, if schismatic to begin
.with, has wandered now so far from the established path
as to be scarcely recognisable.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE HAUSSA STATES

With this slight indication that the native traditions of the
Soudan are not without some foundation in recorded
history, we may return to what should be the surer if
narrower ground of local chronicles. Unfortunately, in
approaching the history of Haussaland and Bornu, we are
met in both cases by the fact that their records were pur-
posely destroyed at the beginning of the nineteenth century
by Fulani conquerors in Haussaland, and by the new
dynasty of the Kanemyin in Bornu. The new rulers had
in both instances the same object, to obliterate as far
as possible the trace of their predecessors, and they have
been so far successful that the materials of local history
which have survived are extremely scanty. A few manu-
scripts have, however, escaped the general destruction-
Dr. Earth found one in Bornu which gives a brief and
dry chronicle of the kings of Bornu from a very early,
though undated period. There is one containing a chro-
nicle of the history of Katsena. The Niger Company
obtained in Kano a manuscript as yet only imperfectly
translated, which gives in similar brief fashion a chronicle
of the reigns of forty-two kings of Kano. Dr. Robinson
found in Zaria another, though more modern manuscript,
giving some account of a period of the history of Zaria,
We have also, though from a tainted source, native notes
on the history of the Haussa States. Sultan Bello, the
commander of the victorious Fulani, while he permitted
and presumably encouraged the destruction of the Haussa
records, so far showed his appreciation of the importance

of history as to compile from his own study of documents

336

THE HAUSSA STATES 237

lost to us, an account of the Haussa States, in which some
truth may be assumed to mingle with the presentment of
facts coloured to suit the Fulani point of view. From
these and a few other records, combined with oral tradition
and the slight notices of contemporary Arabs at different
periods of the history of Haussa and Bornu, it is possible to
frame a general outline of the history of the two countries.
Little trustworthy detail as to the customs, laws, industry,
literature, administration, or religion, which would have
enabled us to construct a complete picture for ourselves
of these long-existing civilisations, has been preserved.
More material will, however, doubtless come to light from
year to year as the country is opened up, and, in fact, from
each province contributions to history are already begin-
ning to be made. This is especially the case in regard
to pagan history, which may prove to be scarcely less in-
teresting, in some districts, than Mohammedan history.
Although lying in geographical juxtaposition between
the parallels of 9° and 14° N. latitude, and now united
within the limits of the British Protectorate, Bornu and
Haussaland are two very distinct countries inhabited by
people of wholly different race, having their own traditions
and their distinct history. Except when, as a consequence
of border wars, there has been a temporary overlapping of
the frontier, they have always possessed their distinct
territories. The Bornuese people are of Berber extraction,
and though to European eyes actually black, count them-
selves among the white or red races of the Soudan. Com-
pared with the history of Haussaland their history is
modern. The Haussa is wholly black, but not negroid in
type. He has not the smooth hair of the Songhay, but
in other respects he has frequently a cast of countenance
scarcely less Aryan in type, and in his peculiar and
strongly marked characteristics he is universally recog-
nised as ranking among the most interesting of the
peoples of the Soudan. His known history, though never
brilliant, has been persistent. Many times conquered, he
has nevertheless continued to preserve a clearly defined

238 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

political individuality. He has always been merchant,
peasant, soldier, and artisan. Storms have swept over him,
to which he has bowed a submissive head. According to
circumstances his territory has contracted or expanded, but
in the Haussa nation the life of the individual appears to
have been so little dependent on the political development
of the race, that it has lost no vigour in the incidents of
history, and we find him to-day pursuing his avocations
as his fathers before him pursued the same avocations
when they first emerge to our sight from the dimness of
antiquity.

The territory covered by Haussaland to-day stretches
roughly from about 9° to 14° N. lat., and from 4° to
11° E. long., and it contains a population estimated at
perhaps ten millions of people. No accurate census
has as yet been made, and this estimate, lower than
that usually given, is only approximate. The Haussa
language, which is classed with Coptic amongst the
Hamitic languages, is said to be more widely spoken
than any other single native language in West Africa.
The Haussas have themselves, like most other West
African races, a tradition of having come once from
the east beyond Mecca, but their presence in the Soudan,
somewhat to the north of the territory which they now
occupy, is, like that of the Berbers in the Western African
desert, of immemorial antiquity. Dr. Barth connects
them with the Aterantes of Herodotus. They have
also been connected with the Habeches, Habais, or
Habes, of Strabo. Within historic times they have
been known as divided into seven independent Haussa
States, upon which certain other states, also largely peopled
by Haussas, have been dependent. The seven original
states were Biram, Gober, Kano, Rano, Zaria, Katsena,
and Daura. Some of these have now sunk into insig-
nificance. Some form still the most important provinces
of Northern Nigeria. Though within any period of
which we have record — dating for about a thousand
years — these states have been independent of and

THE HAUSSA STATES 239

generally hostile to each other, their own traditions
point to a more ancient period when they were united
in some form of federal bond.

Their mythical history, which presumably reflects
some political reality, is that Biram, the father of the
states, wedding Diggera — which is the name of a Berber
settlement in the desert to the north of Haussaland — had
six children, of whom Zaria and Katsena were first born
as twins, then Kano and Rano, another pair of twins,
and after them Gober and Daura. To each of his
children the progenitor of the Haussa States is said to
have assigned certain duties, Gober, the most northerly
of the states, which in historic times has served as a
military rampart between peaceful Haussaland and the
warlike tribes of the desert, was appointed war chief, with
the special duty of defending his brethren. Kano and
Rano, safe behind this rampart, were appointed ministers
of industry — dyeing, weaving, &c. Katsena and Daura
were ministers of intercourse and trade, and Zaria, which
is a province of great extent lying south of the others,
and dividing their fruitful plains from the hilly country
of Bautchi, was appointed chief of the slaves, with the
special duty of providing a supply of labour for the
industry of his brothers. Bautchi, the hilly country in
question, was for many centuries the home of the cannibal
and the hunting-ground for slaves, its name, which is
a corruption of Boushy, meaning the country of the
Bauwa, or the slaves.

In this myth we get a fairly clear picture of a union
of states, of which the northern and southern frontiers
were actively defended, and where the Soudanese practice
of raiding to the south for a labour supply, by means of
which the industry of the Central States was maintained,
was in full force. But this condition of things received
a still further development before any period of which we
have contemporary historic observation, for according to
the myth the legitimate children of Biram were presently
increased by seven illegitimate children. These are the

240 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

States of Zanfara, Kebbi, Nupe, Gwari, Yauri, Yoruba,
and Kororofa. In these states the Haussa language,
though spoken, is not original, and we have already
seen that Yoruba claims for itself a separate descent
of more than respectable antiquity. Yoruba, if included,
would carry Haussaland practically to the sea at Lagos.
Nupe, as we have seen, was considered in the fourteenth
century to be one of the most important of the purely
native states of the Soudan. In Ibn Batuta's day it
still maintained its reputation of being wholly impene-
trable to the white man. The period at which these
" illegitimate " states became infused with Haussa blood,
or were made dependent upon Haussaland, is left, so
far as the myth is concerned, indefinite. No part of the
account deserves more than such credit as a myth may
receive.

When we come to examine the few historical docu-
ments which are available, we find no trace of political
union between the Haussa States, except when, for
certain periods in their history, one among them assumed
or acquired a temporary dominance over the others. On
the contrary, their history, as embodied in the chronicles
to which allusion has been made, and which date back
to the eighth or ninth centuries of our era, show them
as independent kingdoms in a state of more or less
chronic internecine war. Any union which may have
given rise to the myth must therefore have existed
before the year 800 of our era.

In considering the civil and political conditions of
the Haussa States we are necessarily reminded of the
organisation of the early states of antiquity. The
peoples of Asia Minor, of Arabia, and of Egypt itself,
in days before the rise of the Persian, Macedonian, and
Roman Empires, were commonly organised in a number
of allied but separate cities. Heeren tells us that,
amongst the Syrian populations, as far as the light of
history carries us back, we find everywhere a number
of single cities, with the territory around them, under

THE HAUSSA STATES 241

a monarchical form of government, the sovereign power
being placed in the hands of kings or princes. " Examples
certainly are," he says, "to be met with where some of
these cities and their monarchs obtained a decided pre-
ponderance, and assumed to themselves a degree of
authority. This, however, was a kind of forced alliance
which extended no further than the exaction of tribute
and subsidies in times of war, without depriving the sub-
jected cities of their government and rulers." Phoenicia,
like Syria, was never one state, but from the earliest
period down to the Persian monarchy, was always
divided into a number of separate cities, each with its
little territory around it. Allied cities in Phoenicia were
very numerous, and it is thought probable that there
may have been periods when all the cities of Phoenicia
formed one confederation, at the head of which at one
time stood Sidon, and at a later period Tyre. Neces-
sities of defence led more or less naturally to this
system. These confederations, we are told, prevailed in
all countries colonised by Phoenicians. Throughout the
colonies of Phoenicia, as well as in the mother-country,
a common religion formed likewise a bond of union
for the cities, and strengthened and preserved the
connection between them.

Each city had its own proper government, and in this
respect they were perfectly independent of each other.
The chief authority was placed in the hands of kings, who
in turn were to some extent controlled by high priests.
The revenues of the cities depended in large measure on
their trade, and the Phoenicians have lived in history as a
commercial people.

The parallel between the political organisation of the
Phoenician and the Haussa States seems to me to be worth
indicating, if only as another trace of the inspiration which
Haussaland has unquestionably drawn from the East.
There is hardly anything which has been said of Phoenicia
which would not be applicable in the present day to the
cities of Haussaland. Their independence, their cohesion,

Q

242 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

their mutual jealousies, their occasional acceptance of a
dominant leader, their commercial activity, their common
religion, are features of a quite remarkable similarity.

There are, I think, especially interesting conclusions
to be drawn from a consideration of the early religion of
the Haussa States.

As regards the genealogy of the Haussa people, their
Fulani historian, Sultan Bello, not anxious to glorify the
race whom he desired his own people to supplant, ascribes
their origin to a slave, excepting, however, the people of
Gober, whom he admits to have been free-born, and to
have descended from the Copts of Egypt. Curiously, the
manuscript obtained by the Niger Company in Kano, which
professes to carry the history of that town from mythical
times to the period of the Fulani conquest in the beginning
of the nineteenth century, gives a certain corroboration to
this view. "The chief of the people of Kano," it says,
"was named Berbushay. He was a black, strong man,
and a lover of hunting." Bushay, as has been already
said, means the land of slaves. " Ber" is frequently used
to signify man. Therefore the name of this first chief of
Kano may well be taken to signify " a man from the land
of slaves." A man from the land of slaves is far from
being necessarily a slave, but the coincidence may be
taken to justify, in part at least, the statement of Bello.
The story of the founding of Kano town by this hero has
a Herculean flavour. He achieved, it is said, many
labours, and, having one day killed an elephant with his
spear, he carried the animal for a long distance on his head.
Where he put it down was the site of Kano town. He
himself lived on the Hill Dalla, which is now within the
walls of Kano, and he had a family of seven children. He
was of course a pagan. It is said of him that "he in-
herited the customs of Dalla, which were handed down
through the pagan families," and this mystic inheritance
of Dalla appears to have made of him the high priest, as
well as chief, of the pagan tribes who owned his sway.
These spread far on all sides of Kano, and they gathered

THE HAUSSA STATES 243

to him for religious festivals. There was a pagan goddess
who had many names, amongst them Gonkie and Shem-
susu. This goddess lived upon a walled hill which was
guarded day and night, and none were allowed to approach
her except Berbushay himself. Her religious festivals
took place twice a year, and on these occasions the people
from north and south and east and west brought black
animals for sacrifice. It may be mentioned in connection
with this custom that, according to the account given by
Captain Clapperton, the pagan natives of Yoruba and
Nupe still assemble once a year round a high hill, and
sacrifice a black bull and a black sheep and a black dog.
The custom was that, when the sacrifices were made, Ber-
bushay went in alone to the enclosure of the goddess, and
apparently his intercourse with her conferred some special
sanctity upon him, for when he came out, he cried to the
people : " I am the heir of Dalla, and whether you will or
not you must serve me." And the people replied: "We
serve you without fear." There were also in connection
with this ceremony mystic rites, during which the people
divested themselves of their clothing, but the description
given in this very imperfect translation is too vague to be
comprehensible. A learned investigator will perhaps some
day ascertain whether these primitive customs, dedicated
to the worship of a female deity in the Soudan, have any
connection with the sanctity of the black stone of the
Caaba, and the pagan rites of naked worship with which
Astarte, or the Venus Erycina of the Phoenicians, was once
honoured within the walls of Mecca. If the paganism of
the Soudan were shown to be identical with that super-
seded by Islam on the shores of the Red Sea during the
lifetime of the prophet, it would be a curious and in-
structive example of the continuity of history that it
should be tracked to its last stronghold in equatorial
Africa, and abolished to-day, after an interval of more
than a thousand years, by a far-off pulsation of the same
moral and intellectual forces.

This Berbushay was also a prophet. He foretold the

244 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

coming of kings and the building of mosques. " There is
one," he said, " coming to this town with his people. He
will be our head, and we shall be his servants." And the
people cried: "This is a bad saying. Why do you
prophesy evil things ? " And they wished him to be
silent. But he said : " You shall see it by the power of the
goddess. If it do not come in your time it will come in
the time of your children. He will be lord over all that
you possess, and he will forget you, and dwell long with
his own people." The people were grieved in their hearts
at his saying. But they knew him for a true prophet,
and they believed his word. They asked him: "What
shall we do to hinder this mighty thing } " And he
said, " There is no help but in patience." Therefore
they waited in patience till afterwards, in the time of their
children, there came Bagoda, also called Daud (or David),
who with all his people marched upon the place. Then
it was said: "This is the man whose coming Berbushay
foretold." And he was the first of the kings of Kano,

I have quoted this narrative at length, partly for the
picture that it gives of pagan customs, which vaguely recall
those noted by El Bekri as existing in Ghana at the end
of the eleventh century, and partly for the sake of the
prophecy, so typical of the fate of Haussaland that it can
only have been produced by the national character which
ensured its fulfilment. " You shall be conquered, and
there will be no remedy but in patience." This prophecy
alone, accomplished as it has been by history, would seem
to confirm the authenticity of that descent from the ever-
conquered peoples of Egypt which has been attributed to
the Haussa race.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE DOMINATION OF KANO

I DO not propose, with the very hmited material which
is available, to attempt to reconstruct any detailed his-
tory of the fortunes of the Haussa States. Nor is it
likely that such a narrative would be very interesting,
even did the material exist for its relation. The daily
life of primitive states, and the petty incidents of their
public fortune, are no more interesting than the daily life
of private individuals. It is with the general movement
of civilisation, as it rises or falls in the flood and
ebb of national life, that history is concerned ; and, in
the records of relatively undeveloped peoples, it is only
in that portion of their existence which contributes to,
or is associated with, the general movement that we
are interested.

The scraps of history and legend which have been
preserved, and of which some specimens have been
offered to the reader, would seem to establish the
broad fact that in some period of, to us, remote anti-
quity, the Haussa people were brought into existence
by a union between earlier races inhabiting the Valley
of the Nile or the shores of the Red Sea, and the
aboriginal pagans whose descendants are now to be
found in the hills of Bautchi and Adamawa. At a
very early period the simpler arts of domestic and civil
life were developed among them, for in the legend of
Kano it is related that even before the coming of the
founder of that town there were eleven great pagans
who were respectively the ancestors and patrons of
Love, of War, of Water, of Strong Drink, of Hunting,

246 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

of Medicine, of Iron-smelting, of Salt- working, and of
Blacksmiths, &c. The generally accepted religion was
a form of paganism in which a goddess was supreme,
and in which the manner of worship would seem to
have had something in common with the worship of
Venus or Astarte, from which Housal, one of the
earliest recorded kings of Egypt, took his name. It
is on the authority of Macrizi that I give this mean-
ing of the name of Housal, and I am not so rash as
to assume from the mere similarity of sound that the
same meaning attaches to the name of Haussa, or, as
it is sometimes written, Houssaland. I only note the
fact that the origin of the name of Haussa is unknown,
and that the great common bond of the people who
bear it would seem to have been their religion and
their lanauao-e. If this name had its oriofin in their
religion, it would have been the same name wher-
ever their language was spoken. The form of their
religion differed from that of the Ju-ju worship of
the coasts, and at the present day the pagans of
Yoruba express themselves in terms of horror when
speaking of the fetish worship and human sacrifices of
Benin.

This universal worship of a supreme goddess ap-
pears to have given rise to the tradition that the
Haussa States were at one time under the domination
of a woman, whose seat of government was said to
have been at Zaria. Early tradition attributes to her
the founding of the town, and associates a colossal
statue of her with some remarkable rocks which bore
the name of Almena, to the south-east of the present
position of Zaria. But Sultan Bello, who repeats the
tradition that the seven provinces of Haussa were at
one time under the domination of one queen, says that
the name of the queen was Amina, that she was a
daughter of the Prince of Zaria, and that she sub-
dued the seven provinces of Haussa by force of arms,
making them all tributary to her, and conquering also

THE DOMINATION OF KANO 247

other native states as far as the navigable reaches of
the Lower Niger.

Legend and history seem in this instance to have
aUied themselves, for, while the worship of the goddess
was long anterior to the existence of any lady bearing
the suspiciously orthodox name of the Mother of the
Prophet, and allusions to the statue are to be found
in the very earliest writers, the Kano chronicle places
an excellent queen, Amina of Zaria, who reigned for
thirty-four years, in just the place in which we might
expect to find her — that is, towards the end of the
fourteenth century, about a hundred years after Mo-
hammedanism was introduced into the Haussa States.
The theory of the domination of Amina over the
Haussa States is still further disposed of by the state-
ment that in this reign the long struggle between
Kano and Zaria was brought to an end by the final
subjugation of Zaria. Queen Amina seems, however,
to have been a person whose importance was fully re-
cognised, and after the conquest the King of Kano
assigned to her use the whole of the land tax from

o

the southern provinces of Nupe to Kororofa — that is,
the country lying on the right bank of the Benue — and
also laid on Nupe a special tax of eunuchs and kola
nuts to be paid to the queen.

"The country of Haussa," says Sultan Bello, who
wrote in the nineteenth century, "consists of seven
provinces, to each of which a prince is appointed to
superintend its affairs, and the inhabitants of the whole
speak one language. The central province of this
kingdom is Katsena, the most extensive is Zaria, the
most warlike is Gober, and the most fertile is Kano."
Sultan Bello thus places Katsena in the centre of the
Haussa States, and references to Katsena in the writ-
ings of the Arabs imply that it was a place of impor-
tance in the later development of Haussaland, famous
alike for the industry and the learning of its inhabi-
tants. The myth, to which reference has been made in

248 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

an earlier chapter, also speaks of it as being, with
Zaria, the oldest of the states. But history places its
development at a later date than that of Kano. As
will be seen, it did not rise to its full power till after
the Moorish conquest, when, by the destruction of the
eastern capital of the Songhay Empire, a stream of
commerce was directed to its oates. The most bril-

o

liant period of the history of Kano was already closed
before the end of the sixteenth century.

Gober, by its geographical position on the edge of
the northern desert, and the necessity which was entailed
upon it of constant conflict with the desert tribes, early
acquired a more warlike reputation than its sister states ;
but, perhaps because of the peril to which it was per-
petually exposed upon the north, it seems never to have
attempted in its earlier period to achieve by force of
arms any general conquest in the Haussa States, and
its importance in Haussaland, like that of Katsena, is
subsequent to the greatest epoch of Kano. At one time
it stretched far northward into the desert, and its people
inhabited the territories of Ahir or Asben upon the
Tripoli-Fezzan route, but it was driven from this posi-
tion towards the end of the eleventh century by Berber,
perhaps Morabite, invaders.

Daura would seem to have been one of the most
ancient of the Haussa States, and references to it are fre-
quent in the Kano chronicle ; but, like its sister Rano, it
does not appear to have played a very important public
part in the history that is known to us of Haussaland.

Zaria, the most southerly of the original seven states,
distinguished itself from a very early date by the conquest
of the southern non-Haussa provinces. It extended its
power over the whole of the hilly country to the conflu-
ence of the Niger and the Benu^, and even beyond it
towards the sea.

It will be seen, on glancing at a map of West
Africa, that the Niger and the Benue, flowing towards
each other from north-west and north-east, and meeting

THE DOMINATION OF KANO 249

at Lokoja, a little south of the eighth parallel of latitude
— whence their combined flood flows under the one name
of the Niger very nearly due south for upwards of 250
miles to the Gulf of Guinea — form within the boundary
of the British Protectorate of this part of Africa the
figure of a large and loosely outlined Y. The connection
of the Benue with Lake Chad is a matter of controversy ;
but the southern portion of this great inland sea, lying
north of the sources of the Benue, completes the easterly
development of the Y-shaped water-system of the country.
It is within the branches of this Y that Bornu and Haussa-
land proper are contained. One state — Borgu — included
now within the limits of Haussaland, though not a Haussa
State, lies altogether outside this figure on the west bank
of the Niger ; but the most southerly extension of Borgu
carries it only to the ninth degree. We may say that
all the countries with which we are now about to be
concerned lie between 8° and 14° north latitude. And
the original seven states of Haussa have an even more
northerly extension, being all situated to the north of
10°. The southward course of the united rivers runs
through pagan countries to the sea.

We are necessarily obliged, in making use of the
Kano chronicle, to view the life of the Haussa States
through Kano eyes ; but for that very reason it is perhaps
the more to be trusted when it presents to us a picture
of constant strife, with varying fortune, between itself
and the other states, leaving us to learn from foreign
sources that from time to time a submerging tide of
external conquest swept over the country, and reduced
all alike to the equality of submission. There can be
no doubt that Kano occupied from early times a leading
position in Haussaland, but so evenly do the strokes of
fate appear to have been distributed, that, notwithstanding
the predominant rank of Kano, it is probable that the
history of that province offers a fair type of the history
of any one of its legitimate or illegitimate sister states.
We take it up at a point in the general history of Haussa-

250 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

land, when Daura and Zaria were already fully developed,
and the southern country to the confluence of the rivers
acknowledged the greatness, if it did not absolutely accept
the sway, of Zaria. The non-Haussa States of Borgu,
Nupe, Bautchi, and Kororofa, stretched in a belt of for-
midable pagan strength along the course of the two
rivers, and we have already made ourselves acquainted
with an outline of the contemporary history of the great
non-Haussa nations lying to the west. The pagan belt,
stretching from 8° north latitude to the coast, was prac-
tically unknown to the early Haussa races.

The first king of Kano, whose second name of Daud,
or David, would appear to indicate an Eastern origin,
reigned, so far as our uncertain dates may be trusted,
towards the end of the tenth century, or about a hundred
years before the Morabite invasion from the west, which
carried Mohammedanism through the Western Soudan.
Opinions differ as to whether the invasion reached as
far as the countries lying to the south of the Tripoli-
Fezzan route ; but if it did, the Mohammedanism of the
five tribes was not carried so far south as to enter the
Haussa States. The establishment of Islam in Ahir in
the desert, is attributed to the eleventh century ; but the
State of Gober offered an impassable barrier to any more
southerly extension of the doctrine of Mohammed by the
sword. The Haussa States remained pagan until the
emigration of Wankore or Wangara Mohammedanism
from Melle, in the rising epoch of that empire, about the
middle of the thirteenth century, brought the new religion
peacefully to Kano. It was accepted by a certain King
Yahya, who was then reigning, and the story of his con-
version is embellished by a graphic account of a miracle
worked upon the pagan chief and people of Gazawa, who
not only refused to be converted, but purposely defiled
the mosque erected by King Yahya. The chief and his
people were summoned on a given day, and when they
were assembled, " the Mussulmans prayed against the
pagans." God answered the Mussulman prayer, and

THE DOMINATION OF KANO 251

the pagans were all stricken with blindness, "not only
the chief and his people who were assembled, but the
women in their homes." After this, the chronicle says
that the religion of Mohammed was accepted, and that,
by the force of the true God, King Yahya conquered his
enemies as far as Kororofa and Atagher — that is, practi-
cally as far as Lagos. He reigned for thirty-seven years,
and was widely feared and respected.

The next reign was a reign of peace, and when the
king died he was buried by the imaum. It is recorded
of him that he was the first who, when he died, was
wrapped in a white cloth and had prayers read over
him. But when, in the succeeding reign, the southern
provinces refused to pay tribute, and the great war with
Zaria began, the king consulted the old pagan priests,
and they told him that if he wished to be victorious he
must return to the religion of his ancestors. He attended
the pagan ceremonies, where the priest "sang the song
of Berbushay." After that, when he went against Zaria
he was successful. The King of Zaria was killed, and
the people were scattered abroad. This king is reported
to have introduced the use of iron caps among his soldiers.
The shirts of mail in which the warriors of the Haussa
States still come out to battle are said to have come to
them originally as spoils of the Crusaders, brought down
by Arab merchants from Palestine. They may have
been in use at an earlier period, but I find no note of
any armour until this reign of the early part of the
eleventh century.

All the early reigns are filled with the struggle
between paganism and Mohammedanism, with miracles
duly recorded on either side, and lapses in times of
crisis on the part of the kings. Gradually the pagan
element drops out, and it becomes evident that all the
intelligence and cultivation of the country has become
Mohammedan. In the reign of the fifteenth king, another
David, Kano enters into closer relations with Bornu,
and a king of Bornu, attended by many Mohammedan

252 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

priests and teachers, spent a period of several months
in Kano. The Bornu chronicle quoted by Dr. Barth,
says that Kalnama, King of Bornu, took refuge in Kano
from his rebellious subjects about the year 1430. The
Kano chronicle would seem to date the visit nearly a
hundred years earlier, but the agreement between the
two chronicles is sufficient to show that, at the end of
the fourteenth century, Mohammedanism was generally
accepted in the high places of Haussaland. It was in
the reign of this David that the conquest of Zaria was
completed under orthodox conditions, and Queen Amina
ranked among the subject sovereigns of Kano. At
this time, according to Kano authority, the whole of
the south of what is now Northern Nigeria was sub-
ject to Kano. A more malicious interpretation of the
facts of the treaty with Zaria would suggest that the
generosity of King David in allotting the land tax of
the southern provinces, as well as the special taxes of
Nupe, to the service of Queen Amina, was not wholly
voluntary.

During the next reign a general of the Kano forces
remained in the southern provinces for seven years,
conquering the pagans, taking many prisoners, and send-
ing every month a thousand slaves from the seat of war
to Kano. The King kept the armies well supplied, and
after this experience the affairs of the southern portion
of Haussaland seem for a time to have given no more
cause for preoccupation. Relations with Bornu in the east
had in the meantime become pressing. Embassies and
the opening of the roads led finally to war, of which
the result, towards the beginning of the fifteenth century,
is glosed in the single sentence that "many towns were
given to Bornu." This, king was the first to have camels
and to drink wine in Haussaland.

In the reign of the following king, Yakoub, or Jacob
— that is, about the year 1402 to 1422 — we first hear of
the immigration of Fulani, who came from Melle and
Masina, to Haussaland, and were given land in Kano,

THE DOMINATION OF KANO 253

Zaria, and Gazawa. This was the declining period of
the history of Melle, and the emigration seems to have
been a movement of considerable magnitude. Some of the
Fulani, we are told, passed on eastward to Bornu, some
were left on the way with their slaves, and all who
were too weak to proceed on their journey remained
in Haussaland. At this period, trade seems to have
received an active stimulus, and foreign caravans are
noticed as coming from various places. Berbers and
Arabs came into the country, some of whom settled
in Kano and some in Katsena. There was also local
trade between Kano and Nupe.

This peaceful reign brings us, in the first half of the
fifteenth century (probably 1422-1459), to the reign of
a king of Kano, whose name of Mohammed Rimpa
has survived in all the chronicles. Under him Moham-
medan civilisation spread through the country. Sherifs
came to Kano from the East, bringing with them books
and learning. Mosques were built, and "religion became
strong in Kano." Mohammed Rimpa was the first to
observe the fast of Ramadan. He gave titles to his
eunuchs, and shut his women up after the fashion of
the East. Mohammed Rimpa built the walls of the
town of Kano with seven gates. He also built a palace
for himself, as did some of his principal officers. He
divided the territory of Kano into nine provinces, and
appointed to rule over them nine subject kings. " There
was no king," says the chronicle, "so great as Rimpa."
Of contemporary history during his reign, we are told
only that for eleven years Katsena was at war with her
neighbour Mastur.

Mohammed Rimpa seems, indeed, to have possessed
one of those commanding individualities which, when
fortune places it upon a throne, marks an epoch in
the country over which it rules. From the reign of
Mohammed Rimpa, Kano may be reckoned with the
civilised native powers of the Soudan. Yet, as so often
happens when the influence of one man has achieved

254 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

a strong forward movement, the brilliant period of the
prosperity of Kano under Rimpa was destined to undergo
a speedy reactionary eclipse under weaker successors.

The ten years' reign of the next king was a long
series of wars with Katsena in the north-west, with
Zaria in the south, finally and disastrously with Bornu
in the east. The result of the Bornu campaign is again
tersely related in a sentence: "The King of Bornu
dethroned the King of Kano, and put his own slave on
the throne of Kano."

History does not condescend to record the fate or
the doings of the Bornu slave, but after the persistent
fashion of Haussaland, we shortly find the son of the
defeated king of Kano reigning in his father's stead.
This king, Ahmadu Kesoke, had the strong blood of
his grandfather Rimpa in his veins. He " conquered
the four corners of Haussa, east and west and north
and south." Bornu marched against him, but was de-
feated and driven back with considerable loss. In this
reign learning prospered, and various Sheiks and Mallams
are mentioned as coming to Kano from other towns.

The reign of Ahmadu Kesoke must have represented
the summit of the greatness of Kano, for we know that,
in the early years of the sixteenth century, Haussaland
was overrun by the armies of Songhay. The dates and
account of the campaign given in the TmHkh-es-Soudan
are too circumstantial to admit of doubt, and Leo Africanus,
writing in 1526, speaks of the greatness of Kano as being
already in decline. After a description of the state and
of its capital, he says : " The inhabitants are rich mer-
chants and most civil people. Their king was in times
past of great puissance, and had mighty troops of horse-
men at his command, but he hath since been constrained
to pay tribute to the Kings of Zaria and Katsena.
Afterwards Askia, the King of Timbuctoo, feigning
friendship unto the two foresaid kings, treacherously slew
them both, and then he waged war against the King
of Kano, whom after a long siege he took, and compelled

THE DOMINATION OF KANO 255

him to marry one of his daughters, restoring him again
to his kingdom, conditionally that he should pay to him
the third part of all his tribute."

In the storm thus curtly described we may discern
the ever recurring conditions of Haussa convulsions. The
king, though conquered, was " restored again." The
detail of having to add a daughter of the Askia to his
harem was not onerous. From the Haussa point of view
it would, not unnaturally, be accounted among the
customary compliments of an honourable peace. To
surrender a third of his tribute was more serious, but
to the philosophic Haussa this was but the fortune of
war, and the resident officials whom Askia placed at the
court of Kano would seem to have incommoded no
one.

It is characteristic of the life of Haussaland that the
whole of this important and well-attested episode is
ignored in a chronicle which professes to give a minute
and continuous record of the reigns of the kings. The
name of Songhay is never mentioned. Nor can this
omission be attributed wholly, as might at first be
imagined, to a patriotic desire to ignore an inglorious
chapter of local history. In the accounts which are
given of contemporary local wars we are told frankly
enough when Kano is beaten, and we are allowed to
see the disastrous results of the fighting with Zaria and
Katsena. I incline to believe, and that is why it may,
I think, be properly qualified as characteristic, that the
omission of this chapter of foreign conquest from the
local annals is based on a real indifference to the event.
The net result of the operation was that the King of
Kano was restored to his kingdom. The conditions
which attached to his restoration were not important in
the eyes of a historian who was acquainted with Zaria
and Katsena, Gober and Bornu, but who knew practi-
cally nothing of the foreign king who reigned at Tim-
buctoo. Local affairs would seem to have been little
affected by the inroad of the Songhay, whose adminis-

256 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

tration of these distinct provinces was never much more
than nominal. Therefore, though we know from outside
information the epoch at which the Songhay conquest
must have taken place, the chronicle pursues its narra-
tive as though Songhay had not existed.

In addition to the disputes with Katsena and Zaria,
which, as we know, occasioned the intervention of Askia
the Great, we hear from it of civil war in Kano itself.
A King Jacob, who was taken off the throne by a local
revolution, refused to be reinstated when his generals
had subdued the opposing faction, because he preferred
to devote his life to study. The fortunes of Kano are
very evidently in eclipse. Yet, through several reigns,
we are given no hint of what must have been the pre-
dominating cause. The conquest by Songhay must appa-
rently have taken place during the last years of the
reign of Ahmadu Kesoke, then a very old man. After
Kesoke came Jacob, and then others of no importance.
Durino- the war with Katsena the condition of the pro-
vince became so bad that people could no longer farm
in the open country. They were obliged to take refuge
in the walled towns. The villages were broken up, and
the land was left untilled. The King Abu Bekr, who
had succeeded to Jacob and another dethroned king,
gave himself up to religion. "His throne was uncared
for, and so were his people. But the town was crowded
with priests and learned men, many of whom came, it is
said, from Baghirmi." The next king was more active,
but not more fortunate. In his war with Katsena there
were two great battles, and being outnumbered, "Kano
had to run away, willing or unwilling." The weakness
of Kano provoked a revolution of the southern provinces,
and in the succeeding reign Kororofa, one of the southern
pagan provinces on the right bank of the Benue, invaded
the province of Kano, ravaging all the lesser towns and
getting actually within the walls of Kano. The Katsena
war proceeded at the same time, and the chronicler
sorrowfully narrates that the Katsena and Kororofa wars

THE DOMINATION OF KANO 257

"broke the spirit of Kano." "The people had to sit still
and be afraid, and for twenty years they were not able
to go to war."

After this, famine, the not unnatural result of a long
period of war, during which the agricultural population
had been driven from the land, added its desolation to
the miseries of the country. It lasted for eleven years,
and brought the fortunes of Kano to their lowest ebb,
at a moment which must have coincided with the date
of the Moorish conquest in the last decade of the sixteenth
century.

CHAPTER XXIX

HAUSSALAND TO THE END OF THE EIGHTEENTH

CENTURY

The Moorish conquest, for reasons which will presently
be told, affected the Haussa States so much less than it
affected the more westerly portions of the Soudan that
it will, I think, be excusable to abandon the strictly
chronological order of narration, and to say here what
remains to be said of the history of Haussaland, even
though it carries us somewhat beyond the era of the
great convulsion which severed the connection of the
Soudan with the civilised world.

I wish that I had the material which will perhaps
some day be discovered for a history of the interesting
pagan states, especially Nupe and Kororofa, which lay
on or to the south of the tenth parallel of latitude,
peopling both banks of the Benue, and clustering about
the confluence of the Niger with that river. We know
of the inhabitants of Kororofa who occupied the eastern
end of this belt, that they were long-haired, and apparently
of the higher physical type which was brought to per-
fection in the Songhays. At a very early period we hear
of them and of the people of Nupe as practising the arts
of smelting, of smith's work, of weaving, dyeing, &c., and
as being well clothed in neat cotton robes. Their local
civilisation would appear to have preceded the more
northern civilisation of the Haussa States proper. Though
they were pagan, their paganism was of the order of the
goddess- worship of the Haussas, and as far removed from
the fetish worship of the coast as their industrial and
social habits were removed from those of the Dem-Dem

cannibals, whom they partly drove southwards across the

258

HAUSSALAND 259

river and partly hunted into the mountains which on the
north made a defensible barrier between their own and
subsequent Haussa settlements. The river, no doubt, at
first formed the southern boundary of their territory, and
was afterwards peopled by them on both sides.

The northern mountains, constantly visited by all
the peoples of Haussaland for the sake of the gold, silver,
tin, lead, iron, and antimony, which from the earliest
times they were reported to contain, were rendered
dangerous by the nature of the rude tribes who inhabited
them, and they are to this day the home of lingering
tribes of naked cannibals. They were from the earliest
period a favourite hunting-ground for slaves, more valu-
able because more easily obtained than the minerals with
which the sometimes inaccessible rocks were reputed to
be so richly stored. Landor observed, in travelling south
from Zaria to the Benue through this country in 1827,
that the people on his route were ready to sell their
children for a chicken, and at the moment of the British
occupation these districts still formed a slave reserve for
the more northern states. Last year, 1904, when the
High Commissioner made a tour through these provinces,
he found that, notwithstanding the suppression of slave-
raiding which has taken place under the British flag,
parents were privately selling their children at a price
varying from is. 6d. to 2s. apiece.

Between these people and the higher-class pagans
of Borgu, Nupe, and Kororofa, there has been, for all
the time of which we have any record, a very wide gulf
fixed. For the most part these lower-class pagans have
been driven by the movements of local civilisation far
southward towards the coast.

Assuming, as I think we may assume, that the belt
of native civilisation which stretched from Borgu on
the west bank of the Niger through Nupe to Kororofa,
not far from the sources of the Benue on the east, re-
presented the earliest wave and farthest extension of
the great movement which at some very distant period

260 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

pressed upon the Soudan from the north and east, we
may observe that the chronological order of civilisation
in the Haussa States was almost coincident with the
ascending degrees of latitude.

Next after the civilisation of these southern states
followed the rise and domination of Zaria, a province
which, even in the nineteenth century, the Fulani his-
torian describes as the most extensive of the Haussa States.
It is probable that the early prosperity of Zaria may have
been contemporary with that of Daura and Biram in the
north, but I am obliged reluctantly to abandon the history
of these Haussa States for lack of material. References
to Daura as an old and still existing state are frequent
in the Kano chronicle, and Dr. Barth specially commends
Daura, of which the capital is at the present day a town
of some importance, to the notice of the antiquarian for
the interest of the legends which attach to it. The only
legend with which I am acquainted is one resembling
that already related in connection with the foundation
of Kano, and attributes the foundation of the town to a
strong man who killed there the " dodo " or fetish lion.
" Dodo," I may say, is a native word signifying the
King of Beasts, and may apply equally to rhinoceros,
elephant, or any other great wild animal. The myth
may, I think, be taken to indicate that, in the time of
this hero, the worship of the goddess was substituted for
the worship of the fetish, and it is interesting to observe
that here, as in the early history of Songhay, the memory
of the destruction of the fetish is preserved as an historic
era in local tradition. The latitude of Daura is not far
from the latitude of Gao, and such facts, collected from
wholly different sources, tend to confirm the theory
that there was a time when the fetish worship now
confined to the belt of the southern coast extended far
to the north.

The sign-posts in the almost forgotten ways of ancient
local history are few, but they point to the conclusion that
at some very early period a general and widespread religious

HAUSSALAND 261

movement, having points of resemblance to the Phoenician
worship of Astarte, and assimilated with a superior order
of native civilisation, superseded the fetishism which is
now to be found among the tribes of the coast, driving
it gradually towards the south, and that the difference
between the peoples professing this form of paganism
and the cannibal fetish worshippers, was scarcely less
than the difference which afterwards declared itself be-
tween the peoples who accepted Mohammedanism and
those who retained the local form of goddess-worship.
Interest is added to the subject by the fact that the
three types still exist, and can be studied in Nigeria,
where it may be said that, at the present day, three
distinct historic ages are persisting contemporaneously.

After dominating the southern provinces, Zaria in
its turn was dominated, as we have seen, by Kano.
With the rise of Kano, and its conversion to Moham-
medanism in the thirteenth century, we enter historic
times, and the history of Kano involves to some extent
the history of the principal provinces of Haussaland.
After the period of the Moorish conquest, its arms, which
had been directed to the south and east, were turned
more continually to the north and west. In its later
history Katsena, Zamfara, and Gober, take the place
previously occupied by Zaria and the southern provinces,
with the difference that, following the mysterious law
by which conquest remained ever with the north, Katsena
in the first instance established its superiority, and, after
Katsena, Gober, a still more northern state, took the
leading place, until the Fulani eruption of the nineteenth
century, issuing from Gober, subjugated the whole of
Haussaland.

Katsena, whose literature, like that of Kano, was
purposely destroyed by the Fulani at the beginning of the
nineteenth century, but of whose history a chronicle similar
to the Kano chronicle has been preserved, would seem to
have risen into importance somewhat later than Kano.
The dates which have been examined and accepted by

262 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

Dr. Barth attribute the foundation of the city to a hero of
the name of Komayo as late as the middle of the four-
teenth century, while King Ibrahim Maji, who lived about
the middle of the sixteenth century, is counted as the first
Mussulman king. This must, however, I think, be an
error. It seems scarcely probable that Kano, which is at
no great distance, should have had Mussulman kings from
the end of the thirteenth century, while Katsena, nearer
to northern civilisation, and in commercial and intellectual
touch with Egypt and the Barbary States, should have
waited till 1550 to seat a Mussulman on the throne. A
little bit of direct evidence which supports the assump-
tion of Katsena's earlier conversion is contained in the
Tarikh-es-Soudan, where, in relating the life of one of
the distinguished Mussulman scholars of Timbuctoo,
Aicha Ahmed, who died in 1529, it is stated that, having
spent many years in study in the East, "he returned to
the Soudan and took up his residence at Katsena, where
the Sultan treated him with much consideration, and
conferred on him the function of Cadi." It may, I think,
be taken for granted that the appointment of Cadi was
not made by a pagan Sultan, nor would a pagan court
have offered attractions as a residence to one of the
most cultivated traditionists of Timbuctoo. The Kano
chronicle mentions Katsena as a place to which many
of the Fulani went to settle when they came from Melle
in the end of the fourteenth century. It seems probable
that Katsena, shortly to be distinguished under a Habe
dynasty for superior learning, cultivation, and enlighten-
ment, and gladly sought as a residence by men of
letters from all parts of the Soudan, received Moham-
medanism very shortly after the foundation of the town.

It is not certain that the present town of Katsena
was the first capital of the province, but if it is not
certain neither is it material. By the middle of the
sixteenth century, that is, after the conquest by Songhay,
and the at least nominal incorporation of Katsena with
that great empire, the present town had spread to a

HAUSSALAND 263

size of which the circuit was between thirteen and
fourteen English miles, and was divided into quarters,
of which the names give some indication of its activities.
There was the "old quarter," which was believed to
have been the site of the original town ; there was the
Melle, or "strangers' quarters," which would seem by its
double name to have been associated with the Fulani
immigration from Melle ; there were also the quarters
for people from Bornu and Gober, and there was an
Arab quarter. There were quarters for the different
trades and industries, saddlers, shoemakers, dyers, &c.
There was, as in all great towns, a students' quarter ;
there was — not far off — a dancing quarter. There was
a government, or official quarter. There were quarters
taking their names from the eight gates of the town,
and besides these, innumerable others of which, after a
list of native names approaching to a hundred, it is
said : " These are the names of the larger quarters of
the town, but there are still many smaller ones."

The province of Katsena, extending — within prob-
ably fluctuating limits — to a considerable distance beyond
the town, contained places of importance of which the
names compose a long list. The town has now fallen
from its former greatness, and has shrunk to a fraction
of its dimensions ; but the province, like the province of
Kano, retains its natural advantages. It is thus de-
scribed by Dr. Barth, writing about half a century ago ;
"Altogether the province of Katsena is one of the finest
parts of Negroland, and being situated just at the water
parting of the Chad and the Niger, at a general eleva-
tion of from 1200 to 1500 feet, it enjoys the advantage
of being at once well watered and well drained, the
chain of hills which diversify its surface sending down
numerous rapid streams, so that it is less insalubrious
than other regions of this continent. Its productions
are varied and rich." In the country lying between
Katsena and Kano, though devastated at the time of
his passage by civil war. Dr. Barth proceeds to enumerate

264 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

cotton, corn, yams, sweet potatoes, beans, ground nuts,
bananas, papaws, wheat, onions, tobacco, indigo, as
forming the ordinary crops. Katsena had also, he tells
us, figs, melons, pomegranates, and limes, and, until
the destruction of the vines at the period of the Fulani
conquest, grapes were plentiful. In addition to these
evidences of agriculture, the rich pasturage was dotted
with vast herds of cattle and goats, while the park-like
scenery, diversified by native woods, formed, he says,
one of the finest landscapes he had ever seen in his
life. Amongst the woods the shea butter tree of com-
merce and the tamarind tree were remarkable.

The effect of the Moorish conquest on Katsena was
rather to increase than to diminish its importance, for
the downfall of Kagho, the Songhay capital, and the
disasters which followed under its Moorish conquerors,
diverted a stream of commercial activity to Katsena ;
and the Habe dynasty, whose system of law and ad-
ministration was so admirable as to command the respect
and the still more emphatic tribute of adoption by the
Fulani conquerors of the nineteenth century, was founded
in Katsena in the beginning of the seventeenth century,
shortly after the coming of the Moors. " Habe," which
is the name given to this dynasty by the Fulani, would
seem to be only a native name for Haussa, but it
applies to a special dynasty which at about this period
possessed itself of power.

Katsena, like Kano, came early into conflict with
Bornu, and would seem to have acknowledged its suzer-
ainty by the payment of a tribute in slaves. No other
inconvenience arose from the conquest, and for all prac-
tical purposes Katsena not only remained independent,
but having come successfully out of the long wars with
Kano, filled, during the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries of our era, the position of the leading city of
this part of Negroland. In the latter half of the
eighteenth century it was said to be at the height of its
prosperity. It was important not only in commerce and

HAUSSALAND 265

politics, but also in learning and in literature. It seems to
have been regarded as a sort of university town. The
Haussa language attained here, it is said, to its greatest
richness of form and refinement of pronunciation, while
at the same time the manners of Katsena were dis-
tinguished by superior politeness over those of the other
towns of Haussaland.

During the rise of Katsena in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, Kano recovered in part from its
prostration. But it was subjected to many indignities,
and the end of the seventeenth century was marked by
a war with the then rising power of Zamfara on the
north-west, in which the troops of Kano were beaten
with great slaughter at Argaye, and so utterly dispersed
that few were able to find their way home.

The eighteenth century in Haussaland was dis-
tinguished especially by the intrusion and rise to power
among the more southerly states of Gober — a state
which, it will be remembered, occupied a position on
the extreme north of Haussaland, and at an earlier
period of its history had extended into the desert as
far north as Ahir or Asben. At a comparatively early
period the more northerly portions of the territory
of Gober had been conquered by a Berber combination
known as the "five tribes." Whether these were
the five tribes of the Morabite invasion led eastward
by Abou Bekr at the end of the eleventh century, or
five other Berber tribes from the north, is a matter
of dispute. The fact alone is undisputed that they
established the Mohammedan religion in Asben, and
drove the people of Gober, who maintained the higher
type of paganism, farther south. Gober was made tri-
butary to them, and the feuds arising between the two
races kept the people of Gober constantly occupied upon
their northern frontier. In the first half of the eighteenth
century the hereditary antagonists of Gober were them-
selves conquered by the Kellowi, a fine race of North
African Berbers. The ultimate consequence was to

266 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

liberate the attention of Gober, and to change the direc-
tion of its miUtary activity. The march of its armies
from this date onward was directed to the south Instead
of the north.

Katsena alone of the Haussa States was able to resist
successfully the practised strength of this warlike state.
Zamfara was subdued by it about the year 1750, and in
Kano the century was chiefly occupied by a long conflict
with varying results. Reign after reign has the same
record of fighting with Gober, and sometimes success is
recorded, sometimes defeat, till at last, about the middle
of the century, Gober, under the leadership of the king
Babari, who had established himself on the throne of
Zamfara, triumphed over Kano. Yet the subjection was
not complete. Through this ceaseless wrangle the life of
Kano may be seen to be holding on a more or less un-
interrupted way. The wealth of the province seems to
have helped the town to weather its many storms. A
king at the beginning of the seventeenth century is
recorded as being the first to take tax in cows from the
Fulani who were settled in the province. In the intervals
of war we are told that learning prospered and that trade
was developed. After the war with Gober had reached
its climax, Kano, though conquered, appeared no whit the
worse. The king under whom the defeat took place is
described as "bad," but of the next we are told that he
reigned for fifteen years, and " he was great, kind, and
peaceful. The country was prosperous under him, and he
was much loved." Three more reigns bring us to the end
of the eighteenth century, and under them we hear only of
prosperity. One king who reigned for eight years, per-
haps about 1770 to 1778, was the first to bring guns into
Kano, and is described as being almost like an Arab in
everything. The last king mentioned by the Kano
chronicler is Al Wali, of whom we are told nothing but
that his mother's name was Bawuya, and that he was a
very powerful king. Earth mentions that, on the conquest
of Kano by the Fulani in the early years of the nineteenth

HAUSSALAND 267

century, Al Wali the king fled to Zaria, and the Zaria
chronicle mentions the fact that a king of Kano called Al
Wali rebuilt the walls of Kano about the year 1787. We
are therefore, I think, justified in supposing that this
prince was the last of the line of Haussa kings in Kano.
The conquest of Haussaland by the Fulani, which took
place in the beginning of the nineteenth century, repre-
sented to all the towns alike a catastrophe of the first
magnitude, only to be paralleled in the country lying to
the east of the Niger by the earlier catastrophe of the
Moorish conquest in the countries lying to the west.

CHAPTER XXX
BORNU

To the east of the Haussa States, but lying within the
same degrees of latitude — that is, north of io° and at
present south of 14° — though once perhaps extending to
the limit of the summer rains, lies the kingdom of Bornu.
The history of this country, often closely associated with
that of the Haussa States, is, as has been already said, in
truth wholly distinct, the people being of Berber descent,
and the language quite distinct from that of Haussaland.
The difference observable in the national characteristics
of the Bornuese and the Haussas is said by travellers
amongst them to be marked. The Haussa is by nature
lively-spirited and cheerful, the Bornuese melancholic,
dejected, and brutal. The Haussas are generally good-
looking, with regular and pleasant features and graceful
figures. The Bornuese have generally a broad-faced,
heavy-boned physiognomy, which, especially in their
women, is said to be far from pleasing.

The territory in which the people of Bornu rose to
occupy a position of first importance amongst the nations
of the Soudan was somewhat to the north and east of
the present province of that name. Kanem, a country
which now lies in French territory to the north and east
of Lake Chad, was their first seat of empire, and the
inhabitants of Bornu still take their native name of
Kanuri from this circumstance. Under the domination
of their early kings the territory of Kanem spread, at
one time, on the east to the borders of the Nile, and on
the west, Arab historians of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, who take no note of the Haussa States,

BORNU 269

speak of its power as extending to the borders of the
Songhay Empire. It has been seen in the history of
the Haussa provinces that they were, at different periods
of their history, content to pay tribute alternately to
Songhay and to Bornu. In the north the authority of
Kanem extended to the Fezzan, and its limits must have
approached very nearly in its northern, as well as in its
western extension, to those of Songhay. The historians
of Songhay describe the extent of Songhay as offering
a six months' march from frontier to frontier ; Macrizi
says of Kanem in the fifteenth or early sixteenth century
that the breadth of its dominions was a three months'
march. It is under the name of Kanem that we get our
earliest information about the country, and under that
name, though El Bekri speaks of it in the middle of the
eleventh century as a land of idolaters, very difficult of
access, it seems to have entered at an early period into
relations with Europe and North Africa. A pagan
dynasty of Dugu, or Duguwa, reigned from about the
middle of the ninth century until the end of the
eleventh century, and, according to the information of
El Bekri in 1067, this dominion extended on the west to
the eastern bank of the Niger — that is, over the whole
of Haussaland. Whether his information was accurate
or not in detail, it tends to show that the kings of the
name of Du, to whom he makes allusion, were at the
time of more importance than any other rulers in that
eastern territory. In the end of the eleventh century
a new dynasty of Mohammedan kings was founded, but
though Islam was brought to Kanem at about the same
period as to the rest of the Soudan, it did not come
through the same Morabite agency ; it came direct from
Egypt.

Under its Moslem kings, Kanem rose rapidly to
the rank of one of the first powers of the Soudan. It
entered into close relations with Egypt and the Barbary
States. We have seen a black poet from Kanem at the
court of El Mansour, one of the Almohade sovereigns

270 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

of Spain, in the end of the twelfth century. In this and
the succeeding century the armies of Kanem were very
powerful, and the kings of Kanem, who maintained con-
stant intercourse with the Hafside monarchs of the Barbary
States, were known as Kings of Kanem and Lords of
Bornu.

Ibn Said, who wrote in the thirteenth century, is the
first Arab to speak of Bornu by its present name, and
to define the country lying on the south-western shore
of Chad as forming part of the kingdom of Kanem. Ibn
Khaldun, having occasion to notice the embassy which
has been already mentioned as having been sent by the
King of Bornu to the King of Tunis about the year 1257,
adds the information that the capital of Bornu was on
the same meridian as Tripoli. This fixes for us the
fact that since the middle of the thirteenth century there
has been no great change in the position of the Bornuese
seat of government. At that time a great and successful
invasion was made by Bornu of the southern country, now
known to us as Adamawa. The thirteenth century would
seem to have been a brilliant period of early Bornuese
history. In this century the power of Kanem was ex-
tended over the Fezzan, and carried as far north as to
a place within eight days' march of Augela, and Islam
was widely disseminated in the Soudan. It is probably
also to this period that the following passage from Sultan
Bello's notice must be referred. Speaking of Bornu he
says : —

" Fortune having assisted them, their government
flourished for some time, and their dominion extended
to the very extremity of this tract of the earth. VVadai
and Bagharmi, as well as the country of Haussa, with
those parts of the province of Bautchi which belong to
it, were in their possession. In the course of time, how-
ever, their government became weakened and their power
destroyed."

It is no doubt upon this original dominion over Haussa-
land that certain shadowy claims of sovereignty on the

BORNU 271

part of Bornu existed. Nevertheless, as we have seen,
the Haussa States were at this period rising into individual
importance, and Kano did not receive Mohammedanism
till it was brought to her from Melle towards the end of
the thirteenth century. This information with regard to
the source of Mohammedanism in Kano receives interest-
ing confirmation from the history of Bornu, for in the
chronicle of the reigns of the kings of Bornu, it is also
mentioned that religious teachers came from Melle be-
tween the years 1288 and 1306. In the case of Bornu
it is added that these teachers were Fulani, but the
Fulani immigration did not take place in any force until
a century later.

We are told that before the twelfth century the kings
of Kanem were light complexioned, proving beyond all
doubt their Berber origin, but from the beginning of the
twelfth century it is distinctly mentioned that they were
black. Presumably there was intermarriage at an early
period between Berber rulers and black inhabitants. The
original inhabitants of the greater part of the country
which we now call Bornu, were a powerful native tribe
of the name of Soy or So. No historian, so far as I am
aware, has attempted to identify them with the Songhay,
and I have no information which permits me to do so.
Barth mentions the " So " as the name of one of the four
divisions of the Fulani, but he does not appear to regard
these people as Fulani. They seem to have been a
remarkable and very active people, who towards the end
of the thirteenth century rose against their conquerors,
and in a long struggle, which lasted for nearly a hundred
years, had almost succeeded in breaking the power of
Kanem. In the year of Ibn Batuta's visit to Melle,
1352-53, King Edris of Bornu appeared, however, to be
holding his own against them. Bornu was doing an
active trade in slaves, eunuchs, and yellow cotton
cloth, with Tekadda on the north-eastern border of the
Mellestine, and from this period the Soy appear gradu-
ally to lose their importance, though they remain as

272 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

a turbulent element in the composition of the Bornu
Empire.

Edris would appear to have enjoyed a long and com-
paratively peaceful reign, but under his immediate suc-
cessors the eastern neighbours of Kanem, a people called
the Bulala, on the other side of Lake Chad, fought against
the people of Kanem with such vigour and pertinacity
that the power of the Empire of Kanem was broken, and
the kings were driven to abandon the old capital Njimye
or Jima, and to fix the royal residence in Bornu. This
happened about the year 1380, after which time different
kingdoms rose to independence in the territory lying be-
tween Lake Chad and the Nile, and the Kanuri definitely
adopted the present territory of Bornu on the western
side of the lake as the seat of their kingdom.

From this date we hear more constantly of Bornu
as interfering with the Haussa and southern pagan states
of the country lying between the Niger and the Benue.
It may be remembered that, towards the end of the four-
teenth century, a king of Bornu was driven to remain
for several months at Kano. His stay is courteously
described as a " long visit." As a matter of fact, it was
one of the effects of the Bulala invasion from the east, and
represents the final expulsion of the Bornu dynasty from
Kanem. The King of Bornu came, it is said, to Kano
with a great host, many men with drums on horseback,
fifes, flags and guns, and he was accompanied by many
Mallams. A usurper who was placed upon his throne
was shortly afterwards driven from it and killed by the
Bulala.

Thus in the first hours of their adversity the Bornuese
kings received shelter and help in Haussaland, but it was
not altogether without foresight on the part of Kano of
evils to come. When the reigning King David of Kano
took counsel with his Galadima, or Prime Minister, as to
the manner of entertaining the King of Bornu, the Gala-
dima warned him : "If you allow this man to stay in
one of the towns of your territory he will take possession

BORNU 273

of the whole place." It was therefore determined to
make new houses for the Bornu party in an open field
shaded by locust trees, between Kano and a frontier
town at which they had paused. The King of Kano
did all that he could to please his guests, and the next
King of Bornu, recovering his throne, was known by
the title of the Haussa King, or the King from Haussa-
land. Fifty years later another King of Bornu was
driven to beg for similar hospitality from Kano, and it
was not refused. The name of the Bornu king was
Othman Kalnama, and he remained in Kano to the time
of his death. This was under the great King of Kano,
Mohammed Rimps, and marks perhaps the highest point
of the prosperity of Kano, and the lowest point of the
fortunes of Bornu before the rise of the Songhay Empire
in the West.

All these obligations did not affect the memory of
the rulers of Bornu when, after a long succession of civil
wars, they at last made good their position on the throne,
and, in the person of Ali Ghajideni, who began to reign
in 1472, opened a new and glorious epoch of Bornu
history. Ali Ghajideni, who built the old capital of
Bornu, now known by the name of Birni, three days
west of the modern town of Kuka, on Lake Chad,
reigned from about 1472 to 1504, and therefore brought
the history of Bornu up to the moment of the Songhay
conquest of Haussaland. He reformed the government,
reorganised the army, and renewed the ancient glory of
Bornu. He fought many and successful local wars, and
amongst other exploits marched against Kano, where
his immediate predecessor had dethroned a weak and
incapable ruler.

It will be remembered that the Wankor6, or Wan-
garawa, were mentioned as having brought Moham-
medanism in the thirteenth century to Kano. This
people effected a settlement in the Haussa country, and
in the fifteenth century the province of Wangara, or
Ungara, is described as lying south-easterly of Zamfara

s

274 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

and westerly of Bornu. This would seem to place the
territory of the Wangarawa between the jurisdiction of
Kano and Bornu ; so, at least, the rulers of these two
places would appear to have considered. Bornu appar-
ently regarded the Wangarawa as in its dependence.
The King of Kano, who, in spite of some discrepancy
of dates, I take to have been the contemporary of Ali
Ghajideni, having a cause of quarrel with them, took
their punishment into his own hands. He marched
against one of their towns, took it, and, sitting under
a bread-fruit tree by the principal gate, ordered that all
the roofs should be taken off the houses and burned, but
that no prisoners should be made. The King of Bornu,
demanding an explanation of the outrage, Kano refused
to give it, and war was the result. According to the
Kano chronicle the King of Bornu was beaten. Accord-
ing to the Bornu chronicle Bornu had resolved upon
the complete conquest of Wangara, when once more the
Bulala attacked Bornu upon the east, and diverted its
attention from western fields. There is no mention of
any conflict with Kano in the Bornu account.

The very brilliant reign of Ali Ghajideni covered the
period at which the Portuguese were making settlements
upon the Guinea coast, and the intercourse of Bornu with
Arab civilisation in the days of its early greatness having
caused its territories to be well known, it is not sur-
prising that the fame of Ali Ghajideni should rank with
that of his contemporary, Sonni Ali of Timbuctoo. It
has already been mentioned that the territories of the
Mellestine were shown upon European maps in 15 12.
The territorial limits of Bornu were known to Euro-
peans at an even earlier date, and Bornu is shown upon
Portuguese maps in 1489.

The attack of his eastern neighbours upon Ali Gha-
jideni prevented him from carrying any further his
intended subjugation of the west, and, in the meantime,
Songhay, under the great Askia, achieved from the west
what Ali Ghajideni had intended to do from the eastern

BORNU 275

frontier of Haussaland. Askia Mohammed intervened,
as has been already related, in the local disputes of the
Haussa States, and conquered them all. From this time
the central Haussa States lay between Songhay and
Bornu, as between the upper and the nether mill-
stones.

It may be remembered that, on the return of the
Askia from his second expedition into the Haussa country,
in February of 15 16, an influential chief, of the name
of Kanta, revolted, and that he formed an independent
principality, of which Kebbi, on the eastern side of the
Niger and to the west of Zamfara and Katsena, became
the seat. Sultan Bello, who gives us some further
account of him, describes Kebbi as being under his
rule a very extensive and fruitful province, which was
peopled half by Songhays and half by natives of Kat-
sena. The town of Birni-n-Kebbi, which is to be found
now on the north-western frontier of Northern Nigeria,
lies almost directly between Katsena and Gao, and it
was natural that the at-that-time important province of
which it was the capital should be peopled partly from
one and partly from the other source. As will presently
be seen, this hybrid province played so important a part
in defending Haussaland from the inroads of the Moors
that its rise to power in the early part of the sixteenth
century is worth mentioning. Probably Kanta's court
formed a nucleus of meeting for all the more vigorous
of the turbulent spirits of Songhay, who for any reason
were discontented with the administration of the Askias.
The growth of luxury and the love of ease, which
gradually undermined the Songhay Empire, left Kebbi
perhaps untouched, and thus, at the end of the sixteenth
century, there was yet a refuge in the territory lying
between Haussa and Songhay, for all that remained of
local energy and courage in the empire of the fallen
Askias. It was in Kebbi that the Moors met with their
first reverse ; Borgu and Kontagora sustained the opposi-
tion to their rule, and the rocks of Almena, in the pro-

276 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

vince of Zaria, marked the furthest limit of their advance
into Haussaland. But these were among the events
of a century yet to come. At the beginning of the
sixteenth century Kanta had but just estabHshed his
independence, and the vigour of his arms was yet to
prove.

AH Ghajideni of Bornu lived only through the first
twelve years of Askia's reign. But Bornu, like Song-
hay, was at this epoch of its history fortunate in the
succession of two remarkable kings ; Edris, who fol-
lowed his father, Ali Ghajideni, on the throne of
Bornu, was scarcely less enlightened than his great
neighbour of Songhay. He extended the power of
Bornu, and carried still further the administrative re-
forms initiated by his father. The early part of his
reign was distinguished by conquests in the East. He
defeated the Bulala, who had interfered with his father's
intended conquest of Wangara ; but when he in turn
directed his arms against Haussaland, he was met and
defeated by Kanta. Sultan Bello gives an account of
the campaign, attributing it to Ali Ghajideni, but as
Kanta did not establish his independence until after the
death of Ali, we must take the opposing forces to
have been under the command, not of Ali, but of his
equally warlike successor, Edris.

Sultan Bello says that at this time Kanta, who
had conquered the country, governed it with equity,
and had established peace in its very extremities and
remotest places. Bello makes no distinction apparently
between the conquests of Kanta as a general of Song-
hay and as an independent prince. He speaks of him
as having conquered Katsena, Kano, Zaria, Gober,
and the country of Asben or Ahir, all of these being,
of course, really the conquests of Songhay and not
of Kebbi. It would seem to have been some act of
oppression on Kanta's part towards one of these towns,
which gave the King of Bornu an excuse to march
against him. It is evident that the campaign on this

BORNU 277

occasion was undertaken with the consent of the
Haussa States, for the armies of Bornu marched north
of Daura and Katsena and to the west of Gober with-
out opposition till they entered the country of Kebbi
and reached a fortified place called Surami. Then after
a battle, which lasted from the rising to the going down
of the sun, Bornu was victorious, and Kanta was
forced to fly westward. But the fort held out. The
Sultan of Bornu was unable to reduce it, and, finding
himself obliged to raise the siege, he marched south
to Gando and thence easterly towards Bornu. Kanta
reorganised his army, and rapidly, pursuing the Bornu
force, he came up with it at a place called Onghoor
(presumably Ungar or Wangara) and there inflicted a
crushing defeat.

The Sultan of Bornu after this again found himself
fully occupied in the East, where, as a result of more
than one brilliant campaign, he entirely subdued the
old enemies of Bornu and re-established his authority
over Kanem. Kanta himself shortly afterwards died,
but the successors of Edris of Bornu continued to dis-
pute with the descendants of Kanta the supremacy of
Haussaland, while, as we have seen, the life of the
individual Haussa States went on without much regard
either for Kebbi or for Bornu. The chronicles, though
somewhat confused, would seem to assign the final
victory to Bornu.

This period of constant war was the period which
we have seen to have been one of great adversity in
the Haussa provinces. Although we find no mention in
their chronicles of the campaigns of their greater neigh-
bours, there can be no doubt that the long struggle
between opposing powers for the suzerainty of Haussa-
land must have contributed much to the conditions of
disturbance and unrest which issued for them in local
wars. It is only amazing that under the circumstances,
every province being at war with each other, and two
great powers fighting over their heads, there should

2/8 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

have been any possibility of the continuance of trade
and the spread of learning, of which the chronicles
continue constantly to speak. That trade should have
persisted under conditions so adverse says much for the
commercial tenacity of the Haussa people. Agriculture
probably suffered even more severely than trade, and
the great famine with which the century ended was
widespread. The famine is mentioned in the chroni-
cles of Bornu as extending to that country, and we
find the statement in the Songhay accounts of the
Moorish conquest that during the campaigns of the
first two years (1591-92) on the eastern side of the
Nio-er, the Moorish soldiers were reduced by famine
to eat the pack animals on which the transport of the
army depended.

Nevertheless, under a king of the name of Mo-
hammed, Bornu rose about the middle of the sixteenth
century to a position of great prosperity and power^
and its relations with the outer world were maintained.
The causes which operated to cut off the countries ot
the Western Soudan from their old connection with Spain,
and to interrupt their communication with Christian
Europe, did not apply to the Mohammedan East, where
the Turks were the ruling power. Embassies from
Bornu to Tripoli are frequently mentioned, and before
the end of the sixteenth century the armies of Bornu,
more advanced than the majority of European troops,
were armed in great part with muskets. The Spaniards
were ahead of the rest of Europe in this respect, but
it may be remembered that at the battle of Lepanto,
which was fought in 1571, only the crews of the more
important ships were armed with muskets. In an en-
gagement which Drake had with the Spaniards off the
American coast in 1572, the English crews were armed
only with bows and arrows, and when Queen Elizabeth
ascended the throne in 1557, the principal weapons in
the arsenals of England were bows and arrows. Yet,
if the Kano chronicle is to be trusted, the troops of

BORNU 279

Bornu had "guns" as early as the beginning of the
fifteenth century.

From Ali Ghajideni, who ascended the throne of
Bornu in 1472, to Edris Alawoma, who was the con-
temporary of Queen Elizabeth and died in 1603, the
destinies of Bornu were guided by almost uniformly
vigorous and enlightened kings. There were a few
short reigns of no importance, but for the most part
the period was for Bornu, as for Songhay, one of
great and prosperous development. The Government
of Bornu was, in theory at least, somewhat less despotic
than that of Songhay, and was conducted by the
medium of a council of twelve, between whom the
principal offices of State were divided. According to
some authorities the monarchy itself was elective, but
with the interruption of certain revolutions it seems to
have descended very generally from father to son.
The territory of Bornu was divided, like that of Song-
hay, into districts of which each had its governor, but
it does not appear to have had the superior grouping
of districts into viceroyalties, which in some degree
assimilated the organisation of the Songhay Empire
to that of Imperial Rome. In the records of Bornu
there is frequent reference to the position and influ-
ence of the queen mothers, and women appear to
have played a not unimportant part in its history. In
the latter half of the sixteenth century, Aicha, the
mother of King Edris, herself reigned for a short
period before her son's accession. She was a very
distinguished woman, to whose advice it is believed
that her son owed much of the wisdom of his conduct.
Under her influence an important embassy was sent
to Tripoli, and the policy of maintaining intercourse
and trade with the outer world by the medium of
the Turkish Empire, which had always been the policy
of prosperous Bornu, was actively developed. In this
latter period of Bornuese prosperity, foreign trade and
local conquest form the two important notes of its his-

280 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

tory. We have seen that conquests had been effected
on the East, and the domination of Bornu over Kanem
had been substituted for the ancient domination of
Kanem over Bornu. Campaigns, though not always
successful, had been carried out in the West, and the
Haussa States at a somewhat later date became one by
one tributary, though not in any true sense subject to
Bornu.

Ali Ghajideni in the fifteenth century reorganised
the Empire of Bornu. His immediate successors en-
larged and aggrandised it. Edris Alawoma, at the end
of the sixteenth century, undertook the special task of
consolidating it and binding its somewhat heterogeneous
elements into one political whole. He once more gave
attention to the pagan Soy, who continued at that date
to defy the power of Bornu in independent fastnesses of
their own. Having reduced them with much difficulty to
submission in the north-western portions of his territory,
he carried away a great number of the people, and the
remainder fled eastward to Kanem. He marched then
south-westward against other pagan tribes, and it is
especially mentioned in recounting his campaigns that
he achieved his success mainly by the force of his
muskets. He then undertook a great campaign against
Kano, which must have occurred during the worst period
of the misfortunes of Kano, during that twenty years
when, the spirit of the Kano people being broken, they
were obliged "to sit at home and be afraid." Never-
theless, though the strong places of the province of
Kano fell into the hands of Bornu, the town itself suc-
ceeded in maintaining its independence. As this fact is
acknowledged by the Bornu chronicle, it may be held
to be undoubtedly accurate. After Kano, Edris turned
his arms northwards towards the Berbers of the desert,
and attacked the " five tribes " or Berbers of Asben,
with whom it has been mentioned that Gober durinpf
all this period of its history maintained a perpetual war.
Here, too, Edris was victorious to the extent of impos-

BORNU

281

ing a tributary sort of allegiance. North, south, east,
and west he carried his conquering arms. To give a
list of the many tribes that he subdued could only weary
the reader, but amongst many unfamiliar names that of
Katagum, which is of sufficient importance to form now
one of seventeen provinces of Northern Nigeria, may be
selected for mention as having at this time made its
submission to Bornu.

The result of twelve years of fighting is all that the
reader can be asked to carry in his mind. This was
to weld the Empire of Bornu into one victorious and
formidable whole, of which the troops, armed with a
weapon superior to any then known in the Soudan, had
acquired a military reputation of being practically irre-
sistible as early as the year 1583, that is, eight years
before the coming of the Moors. Had Songhay under
the later Askias kept pace with her neighbour of
Bornu, and introduced as she might have done the
musket into the armament of her troops, it is possible
that the whole subsequent fate of the Soudan might have
been changed. It was the possession of muskets by the
Moors which, as will presently be seen, enabled them to
make an easy conquest of a once famous empire, while
it is probable that the possession of the same weapons
by Bornu was among the causes which operated to check
the Moorish invasion at the limits which it actually
attained.

Edris Alawoma himself was killed in battle in the
year 1603 by the rudest of pagan weapons, a hand-bill
or hoe, thrown at him by an adversary concealed in a
tree, when he was reducing one of the tribes of Southern
Bornu to obedience. But at the moment of the Moorish
conquest of Songhay he was still upon the throne, and
the thirty-three years of his prosperous and enlightened
reign had placed Bornu in a strong position to contest
the suzerainty of Haussaland with the new-comers.

CHAPTER XXXI

CONDITION OF THE SOUDAN AT THE END OF THE
SIXTEENTH CENTURY

The slight outline which has been given of the course
of history in the eastern portion of the West African
Soudan, renders it possible to construct some picture of
the general condition of the country from the shores of
the Atlantic to those of Lake Chad at the moment of the
coming of the Moors in 1591.

In the west the Empire of Songhay having risen
to the zenith of its prosperity and fame, still enjoyed,
according to its own historians, the blessings of peace and
order throughout its vast extent. We are expressly told
that when the Moorish army arrived in the Soudan, it
found the country to be one of the most favoured of
the Almighty for wealth and for fertility. Peace reigned
in all its provinces, and, thanks to the admirable organisa-
tion established by the great Askia in the beginning of
the century, the orders of the monarch were obeyed
implicitly from the frontiers of the Eastern Viceroyalty
of Dandi to the borders of the Atlantic, and from
the southern mountains to Touat and Tegazza in the
northern desert — as well as in all the dependencies of
these Berber towns. The awful misery which followed
when the supreme power was suddenly destroyed is laid,
without hesitation, to the count of the conquerors, who
are held responsible by the local annalists, not only for
what they did, but, very properly, for the ravages of
the powers of disorder which they let loose. " All
was changed in a moment," says the Tarikh-es-Soudan.
" Danger took the place of security, destitution of opu-
lence, trouble, calamities, and violence succeeded to tran-

CONDITION OF THE SOUDAN 283

quillity. Everywhere the populations began to destroy
each other. In all places and in every direction rapine
became the law, war spared neither life nor property,
nor the position of the people. Disorder was general,
it spread everywhere till it reached at last the highest
degree of intensity."

But while the author of the Tarikh attributes this
condition of things directly to the Moors, we find in his
own pages, long before the coming of the conquerors,
indications which serve to explain not only how the
Moors made of this great and wealthy country such an
easy prey, but also to show that in the reigns of the
later Askias the strenuous spirit of heroism, which had
marked the rise of that dynasty, was dead, and the
aspiration to live on a higher plane of civilisation than
their predecessors had given place to nothing more
noble than a love of luxury. The Songhay Empire at
the end of the sixteenth century had become fatally con-
tent to exist upon the tradition of its former greatness.
One generation had borne the labours of preparing the
ground for seed. Another, when the harvest stood
ripe, thought only of gorging themselves with the fruit.
Thus, when all seemed to be at its best, the empire
was in truth nearest to its end. After describing the hap-
piness of the country under the earlier Askias, and the
perfect order which prevailed, the Tarikh says, in words
which might have applied to decadent Rome : " Things
continued thus until towards the moment in which the
Songhay dynasty approached its end, and its empire
ceased to exist. At this moment faith was exchanged
for infidelity ; there was nothing forbidden by God which
was not openly done. Men drank wine, they gave them-
selves up to vice. ... As to adultery, it become so
frequent that indulgence in it was almost accepted as
permissible. Without it there was no elegance and no
glory. . . , Because of these abominations," continues
the pious annalist, "the Almighty in His vengeance
drew down upon the Songhay the victorious army of

284 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

the Moors. He brought it through terrible suffering
from a distant country. Then the roots of this people
were separated from the trunk, and the chastisement
which they underwent was exemplary."

But, if at the end of the sixteenth century the body
of the Songhay Empire stood ready for the axe, there
were offshoots to which the felling of the trunk was
destined to impart perhaps only the more vigour. In
the western province, Masina, already mentioned as
having established in the eleventh century, with the
help of its Fulani population, an independence which,
though it had paid tribute to many rulers, was sacrificed
to none, was destined yet to play a part of some
importance in the future of the country. In the east
the Viceroyalty of Dandi, including the territory of the
independent Sultans of Kebbi, the practically inde-
pendent Haussa States, and the State of Borgu, with
its neighbouring territory of Southern Gurma, was the
refuge of all that was yet loyal to the old traditions of
Songhay. The dynasty of Kebbi, founded in rebellion,
was vigorous with the old vigour of conquering Songhay,
and it had not cut itself off from the prosperity of the
empire to accept a tame share in its defeat. To the
Moor who knew no difference between them, Kebbi had
a lesson of its own to teach.

Beyond the rampart which was created from Kebbi
to Nupe by these states of the Eastern Niger lay Haussa-
land, a congeries of states, Mohammedan and pagan, of
great fertility, of no little local industry, famous from the
earliest times for their commercial and agricultural activity,
but containing populations composed of such extraordinarily
diverse elements that internecine war was their habitual
condition. Their lack of internal cohesion deprived them,
notwithstanding the many advantages of their position,
of external strenfjth. ThouQfh one or other in turn assumed
a locally dominant position, they can hardly be said either
to have made or to have resisted conquest, but under
all conquest they preserved their individuality and per-

CONDITION OF THE SOUDAN 285

sisted in their habits. The black traders of the eleventh
century, whom we hear of in the pages of El Bekri, did
not differ substantially from the black traders whom Idrisi
mentions in the twelfth century, and Ibn Batuta speaks
of in the fourteenth century. Their trade prospered
through the great period of the fifteenth century, and
when, in the sixteenth century, Kano fell upon evil days,
Katsena rose quickly to take her place. The agricultural
population was driven off the land, but misfortune does
not seem to have altered the habits of Haussa traders.
When the outposts of Songhay fought with the out-
posts of Bornu, Haussaland was the battlefield, but the
Haussa States took no part in the war. Like a bed of
rushes they have ever allowed the storms of encircling
forces to beat over their heads. At times they have
appeared to be laid low, but when the hurricane has
passed they have raised themselves, no worse for the
buffeting of fate. Their populations, which have never
enjoyed any wide foreign reputation, were perhaps locally,
in their modest way, the best known and the best informed
of all the peoples of the Soudan. They were very
numerous, and in their recognised capacity of travelling
traders through all the states, their language was one
of the most widely spoken in the Soudan. By the end
of the sixteenth century it supplied to the eastern portion
of the country a lingua franca, which to the present day
remains as a means of communication with those "great
multitudes of negroes and of other people," of whom Leo
Africanus confesses in the beginning of the sixteenth
century, that he " could not well note the names."
Travelling as they did in small trading caravans through
the entire country, they became naturally acquainted
with the affairs of every neighbouring kingdom. They
were themselves well known from the shores of the
Atlantic to the lip of the sacred well of Zem-Zem, where
they drank as pilgrims within the precincts of the temple
of Mecca — and as peace was essential to their trade, they
quarrelled only with next-door neighbours and rivals.

286 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

Peaceful abroad and quarrelsome at home, they earned
the character, which they enjoy to-day, of being at once
the best fighters and the most industrious traders of the
Soudan.

Eastward again of Haussaland and its multitudes, in-
cluding the settlements which have been already men-
tioned of Fulanis, Wangaras, and all the southern pagan
states, lay the well-organised Empire of Bornu, occupy-
ing on the western side of Lake Chad a territory more
extensive, but not widely different from, its present
position, as shown upon modern maps, while to the north
and east it spread round the shores of the great lake,
and extending far into the desert, was almost conter-
minous with the Egyptian frontiers of the Turkish
Empire.

It will be remembered that in the contemporary life
of Europe Mohammedanism had been steadily gaining
in the East, under the Turks, what it had been losing
in the West under the Saracens. The Seljukian Turks
had overrun Egypt itself in the middle of the thirteenth
century. Their Mamelukes or foreign soldiery elected a
Sultan for themselves in Cairo in the year 1260, and
though the Abbasside Caliphs preserved a nominal supre-
macy, which was chiefly religious, Egypt was, in fact,
governed by the Mameluke Sultans, until they in turn
were overthrown by the Ottoman Turks. The Ottoman
Turks were established in Europe, in the Balkan Penin-
sula, in 1353, exactly one hundred years before their
final conquest of Constantinople. About the year 1389
their famous leader, Bajazet, accepted the title of Sultan
from the Abbasside Caliph of Egypt, who still kept the
name of Head of the Moslem Church. Shortly after
accepting the title of Sultan he defeated the confederate
army of the Christian powers at Nicropolis, and while
an attack of the gout prevented him from fulfilling a vow
to stable his horse in St. Peter's at Rome, he was able
so closely to besiege Constantinople that it must have
fallen in 1402 but for the intervention of Tamerlane.

CONDITION OF THE SOUDAN 287

Tamerlane, chief of that other branch of the Tartars
which is best known to history as the Moguls, was the
representative, though not the legitimate descendant, of
the heirs of Genghis Khan. He frankly aspired to con-
quer the world, and he had conquered Persia, Tartary,
and India, when, hearing on the banks of the Ganges
of the conquests of Bajazet in Europe, he resolved to
march against the rival of his military glory. The Mogul
and Ottoman conquests already touched each other in the
neighbourhood of Erzeroum and the Euphrates. Tamer-
lane's first move was to attack Syria, which was still
subject to Egypt. Aleppo, Damascus, and Bagdad fell
to his arms amid awful massacres. Ibn Khaldun re-
lates the interview he had with him outside the walls
of Damascus, in 1401.

But the Mamelukes defended their territory with
vigour, and the losses and fatigues of the campaign
caused Tamerlane to turn from Egypt and Palestine, and
concentrate his forces upon the Ottoman Empire. At
the battle of Ancyra, in Anatolia, Bajazet was overthrown
and taken prisoner, in 1402, and while the Mogul armies
advanced to the Asiatic shores of the Sea of Marmora,
Bajazet himself died in captivity. Thus, in 1403, Tamer-
lane held Asia from the Ganges to the Mediterranean.
But the Ottoman Turks held one passage into Europe
at the Hellespont, and the Christians of Constantinople
held the other at the Bosphorus. Bajazet's successor,
Suleiman, and the Greek Emperor, both agreed to pay
tribute to Tamerlane on the condition that his armies
did not pass the Straits. Egypt also agreed to pay him
tribute, with a similar condition that he should not pass
into Africa. How long these compositions with superior
force, on the part of rich, weak nations, would have held
good, cannot be known. Tamerlane died in 1405. After
his death the Mogul Empire gradually sank beneath the
processes of time and war, till it lost itself in the sham
splendour of the throne of Delhi.

The empire of the Turks, on the contrary, recovered

288 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

from the short and sharp attack of Tamerlane. In 142 1
a grandson of Bajazet succeded to his five uncles as
Amurath II., and during his capable reign of thirty years,
the Turkish Empire reconstituted itself alike in Europe
and in Asia Minor. The capture of Constantinople, though
attempted by Amurath in 1422, was reserved for his
successor, Mohammed II. The town was taken by the
Turks on the 29th of May 1453, and with it fell the
Christian Empire of the East. St. Sophia became a
Turkish mosque. The throne of Constantine and his
successors became the seat of Islam. There was at
that time no power in Christendom which could dis-
lodge the Turk from the almost impregnable position
of Constantinople. It was in vain that the feeble heirs
of the family of Paleologus sold their imperial rights to
European sovereigns. Before the end of the fifteenth
century the Greek Empire in Europe and Asia had
passed into Turkish hands, and the sack of Otranto
by the Turks in 148 1 convulsed the Christian world
with fear that the conquest of Rome might be added
to that of Constantinople.

But Mohammed died in 1481, and his successors
turned their attention rather to the east and south. The
Turkish fleets which had been created during the reigns
of Amurath and Mohammed, and numbered no less than
250 galleys, under the command of the famous Barbarossa
scoured the African coasts. Algiers and Tripoli became
Turkish strongholds in the opening years of the six-
teenth century. Egypt and Syria, which had continued
to exist under the Mamelukes during the period of
European conquest, were taken by Selim I. in the
year 1517. The Knights Templars were driven out of
the island of Rhodes on Christmas Day of 1522. Tunis
was captured in 1534, Gibraltar was sacked in 1539,
and though the fortress was held for Spain, the Turkish
fleet sailed round the coast, pillaging the Spanish towns
as they went. Thus, from one end of the Mediterranean
to the other, Turkish corsairs became the terror of the

CONDITION OF THE SOUDAN 289

sea. The greater part of the North African coast passed
into Turkish hands, a position which was not conquered
without much fighting, taking and re-taking of towns.
Tunis and Tripoli changed hands more than once.

Italy itself was not spared. A separate squadron,
under Dragout, another famous Turkish sailor, ravaged
its coasts. In 1569, in a great naval campaign, the
Turks attacked and pillaged the coasts and islands
belonging to Venice. They took parts of Crete and
Cyprus. Finally, on the 1st of August 1571, Famagosta
capitulated to the Turks, after a long and arduous siege,
and the island of Cyprus was theirs. This was the last
Turkish triumph of the century. The Christian Powers
were at last able to combine effectively under the leader-
ship of Don John of Austria against the common enemy,
and the battle of Lepanto, which was fought on October
7th of the same year, destroyed the Turkish sea-power
in the Mediterranean.

I owe an apology to the reader for this crude list
of dates, but the rapid rise of a relatively new Moham-
medan power on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean
must be borne in mind in order to understand with
what a different world the commercial and intellectual
intercourse of Bornu was carried on, to that known and
frequented in the West by the caravans of Melle, and
of Songhay in its earlier days, and also to explain the
fury of hatred and persecution by which the Moorish
citizens of Spain were, in the fifteenth century, attacked,
conquered, and driven out of the country which they
had once civilised and still enriched. As the crescent
waxed stronger in the East it waned in the West, and
the decline of those nations of the Western Soudan
which were dependent on their touch with Western
markets and Western sources of civilisation, is propor-
tionately observable.

It was not to be supposed that Christian Powers,
however indifferent individually to each other's fate,
could collectively regard with indifference the rise of

T

290 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

a force which threatened to destroy them all. Had
they not been enfeebled by jealousies, corruption, and
superstition, they must have learned long before the
end of the sixteenth century to combine in such force
as to prohibit the further advance of Islam. But in
the fifteenth century the darkness of the Middle Ages
was still upon them. Gibbon, in relating the fall of
Constantinople, quotes from ^neas Silvius, afterwards
Pope Pius II., who thus describes the state of Christen-
dom: "It is a body," he says, "without a head; a
republic without laws or magistrates. The Pope and
the Emperor may shine as lofty titles, as splendid
images ; but they are unable to command, and none are
willing to obey ; every state has a separate prince, and
every prince has a separate interest. What eloquence
could unite so many discordant and hostile powers under
the same standard.-* Could they be assembled in arms,
who would dare to assume the office of general ? What
order could be maintained? What military discipline?
Who would undertake to feed such an enormous multi-
tude? Who would understand their various languages,
or direct their stranger and incompatible manners ? What
mortal could reconcile the English with the French,
Genoa with Arragon, the Germans with the natives
of Hungary and Bohemia? If a small number en-
listed in the Holy War, they must be overthrown
by the infidels ; if many, by their own weight and
confusion."

This picture of the weakness of Europe in the
fifteenth century needs no amplifying touches. It may,
however, be recalled that at the very moment that
Mohammed II. was engaged in besieging and sacking
Constantinople, a private German citizen of the name of
John Gutenberg was no less absorbed in the work
of perfecting at Mentz an invention of cut metal types
from which he printed, in the years between 1450 and
1455, the first typed copy of the Latin Bible. If the
work of Mohammed tended to consolidate Christendom

CONDITION OF THE SOUDAN 291

by the blows which were struck against its distracted
kingdoms from outside, the work of Gutenburg was
perhaps even more effectual in rendering the angular
forces malleable by mutual comprehension from within.
It took more than a hundred years for the use of
printing to spread to some of the remoter parts of
Europe. There need be no surprise that it took more
than a hundred years for Europe to emerge sufficiently
from the disunited state described by ^neas Silvius,
to present a united front to the Turk, and it is a
curious but not inappropriate coincidence that we find
the use of printing extended to the farthest western
shore of Europe by its first adaptation to Irish characters
in 1 57 1, the very year of the battle of Lepanto. There
is no need to dwell on the part that must have been
played by the discovery of this art alone in the move-
ment which drew the warring nations of Christendom
together. Similarity of thought is the great unifier of
peoples, and from the middle of the fifteenth century
the learned in all the nations of Europe had the means
of communicating their thoughts not only to each other,
but to the body of their respective nations.

But if in 1453 Europe was unfit, as a whole, to
oppose the progress of the Turk, there were individuals
who burned with a holy zeal. The sack of Otranto,
which, in 1481, had almost driven the Pope to abandon
Italy, found Isabella and Ferdinand on the throne of
Spain, and it is hardly to be wondered at that these
Catholic sovereigns, sharing to the full in the grief and
terror which Turkish triumphs were spreading through
Christendom, were inclined to act with something of the
harshness of panic towards the Mohammedan peoples
who filled the southern towns of Spain, and still held
within the precincts of Granada an independent kingdom
upon Spanish soil. The policy pursued against the
Moors, the ruin of the industries of Spain by the ex-
pulsion, under circumstances of the utmost rigour, of
immense multitudes of its most skilful artisans and most

292 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

valuable citizens, stands out in such striking contrast to
the general wisdom and benevolence of Isabella's mild
and enlightened reign, that it can only be understood
by reference to a state of feeling which was stirring the
orthodox Catholics of every court of Europe to preach
the duty of a new crusade against the infidel. The
natural sagacity of Isabella would lead her to deal
directly with the infidel upon her own borders, rather
than to waste her energy and resources in the endeavour
to unite Europe in a common movement. The Spanish
sovereigns were besieging Granada when Columbus ob-
tained from them, in camp, in April of 1492, the long-
desired permission to start on his voyage of discovery
to the West, and it is indicative of the general tone of
feeling in Europe, that he vowed to provide out of the
proceeds of his enterprise, if it should prove as success-
ful as he hoped, funds for the prosecution of a crusade
to deliver Palestine from the Turks. From Gibraltar to
Constantinople a dread of victorious Islam inspired the
policy of every court.

The result was the expulsion of Mohammedanism
from Western Europe. When Granada submitted to
Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492, the Moors were not at
first driven out of Spain. They remained as subjects
of the Catholic kings. But Cardinal Ximenes, Isabella's
great adviser, did not long remain content with this mea-
sure of moderation. In 1502 they were expelled. The
contents of their famous libraries were collected and de-
stroyed, with the exception, as has been already men-
tioned, of some 300 books of medical science. Their
property, offered in nominal sales, for which gold and
silver were not allowed to be used in payment, was, in
fact, subjected to wholesale pillage. All that they took
with them to enrich the cities of Africa to which they
went, was the skill, the taste, the learning, the industry,
the habits of good citizenship, which each man carried
in his breast, and by the loss of which Spain was for

CONDITION OF THE SOUDAN 293

ever impoverished. Spain has never recovered from
the blow dealt against its public life by the wisest of
its sovereigns.

Africa, which for a time seemed to receive all that
Spain had lost, suffered on her part by the severance
which took place between her own life and the pro-
gressive life just then opening upon new possibilities of
the West. Isabella died in 1504. She was succeeded by
her daughter, Joanna, the mad queen, and after her by
Charles V., who ascended the throne in 15 16, just one
year before the Turks took Egypt from the Mamelukes.
Charles V., Emperor of Germany as well as King of
Spain, and champion of Catholicism against the tendencies
of the Reformation in Europe, reigned for forty years,
and during the whole of that time showed himself the
determined enemy of Islam. He pursued the Moors to
the shores of Africa. He took their coast towns. He
engaged the European Powers to help him in closing the
ports of the Mediterranean to their ships. He fought
indiscriminately against Moors and Turks, and in beating
the Moors, prepared the way for the triumph of the
Turks, who proved themselves a harder enemy for him
to overthrow. Tripoli had been already taken by Spain
in 1 5 10. When the Turks took the island of Rhodes
in 1522, Charles V. gave Malta to the Knights Templars,
and five years later established them in the very camp
of Islam by giving them Tripoli, which they held till the
Turks took it again in 1551.

Oran, which had also become Spanish in the early
part of the century, was gallantly defended against suc-
cessive attempts, alike on the part of Moors and Turks,
to repossess themselves of it. In the siege of 1563, in
the succeeding reign, the Turks used muskets, heavy
artillery, and mines, but without avail, for the place, on
the eve of surrender, was relieved by the fleet of Andrea
Doria. In 1535 Charles led in person the attack on
Tunis, which the Turks had taken in 1534, and he sue-

294 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

ceeded in capturing the town, which was held by a
Spanish garrison till the Turks, under Barbarossa, re-
took it in 1550. But though the Christians were able to
take certain seaports, and eventually, after the battle of
Lepanto, to hold the sea, the Turks gradually possessed
themselves of the coast of Northern Africa. The pro-
vinces which surrounded the seaports were in their hands.
"Where the Turks have once taken foot," says Marmol,
who wrote about the year 1573, "they can never again
be dislodged."

Charles V. abdicated in 1556. His son Philip abated
nothing of his policy, and while he persecuted Protestants
in Flanders, he found time to pursue with equal zeal
Turks, Jews, and heretics in the Mediterranean. This
reign saw the battle of Lepanto. The fleets of Spain
and Italy could close the Mediterranean to the Turks,
but the Italians and Spaniards could never penetrate
into Africa. All that happened was that the Turks —
banned as militant infidels by the nations of Europe —
possessed themselves of the fruitful provinces stretching
from Egypt to Morocco, that harbours once crowded
with the merchant shipping of the world became mere
nests of corsairs, sallying out to prey upon a trade that
passed them by, and that between the interior of Africa
and the civilised world a barrier was erected which, as
years went by, became impassable — Africa was cut off
from Europe.

The Moors, suffering equally beneath the blows of
Turks and Christians, withdrew into the north-western
corner of the continent. Unable to maintain external
relations with any equal power, they lost the finer elements
of national life, and rapidly became a decadent people.
During the long struggle of the sixteenth century we
hear of them as taking part, under their chiefs, from time
to time in the sieges and battles of the coast. At the
end of that century they made one effort, which was as
the last flicker of their expiring glory, to obtain for
themselves in some other direction the outlet which had

CONDITION OF THE SOUDAN 295

been closed upon the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts.
The North was held against them by superior force.
Before they submitted to the living death which isolation
marked for them in the heart of Africa, they endeavoured
to break through to the South. The outcome of their
endeavour was the Moorish conquest of the Soudan.

CHAPTER XXXII
THE MOORISH CONQUEST

*' DjouDER Pasha was a little man with blue eyes." Thus
begins the chapter in the Tarikh which recounts the
coming of the Moors. Another account says that he
had a light complexion of the colour of steel. Djouder
Pasha was the commander - in - chief of the Moorish
army. He had at his disposal for the purposes of
an expedition to the Soudan only a small force of
something under 4000 men, but they were well armed
with muskets — which were apparently unknown to the
western armies of the Soudan — they were well mounted,
well disciplined, well equipped with tents and medical
stores, and, for the purposes of an army which meant to
live upon the country through which they passed, they
were sufficiently well provisioned. Their organisation
had been reformed on the model of the Turks, with
whom the armies of Morocco had had more than one
occasion to measure their strength.

A little steel-coloured man with blue eyes, at the
head of such a force, was in a position to play, if he chose,
amid the rich and supine populations of the Soudan, a
part not unlike that of the leader of a pack of wolves
among flocks of sheep. The disproportionate numbers
of the sheep were only so much the more to the advan-
tage of the wolves. Djouder Pasha was an accomplished
soldier. He had gained experience in the wars of the
coast with Turks and Spaniards. The results to be
obtained with modern weapons were well known to him,
and it is probable that he fully appreciated the importance

of moving with a small, rather than with a large unwieldy

396

THE MOORISH CONQUEST 297

force, across the difficult and waterless deserts which had
hitherto served as the best military defence of the Soudan.
When a military nation wishes to fight with one
which it has reason to believe to be unprepared, a cause
of quarrel is never far to seek. Morocco found its cause
of quarrel with Songhay in the possession of the salt
mines of Tegazza. It will be remembered that these
mines lay upon the western road leading from Tafilet,
or Sidjilmessa, to Ghana and Timbuctoo. Their posi-
tion upon modern maps is about 8° W. by 26° N. They
were within the limits of the Mellestine, and when the
power of Songhay had succeeded to that of Melle, they
were included in the territories of the Songhay Empire.
They furnished the principal salt supply of the Soudan,
and their possession was therefore a matter of supreme
importance to Songhay. We have seen that during the
sixteenth century the Sultans of Morocco had from time
to time made efforts to dispute the supremacy of Songhay
over this valuable border district, and that their claims
had been vigorously rejected by the earlier Askias. It
happened, in the year 1590, when the second Askia Ishak
was on the throne of Songhay, and that of Morocco was
occupied by Muley Hamed, that a certain Songhay official,
who had been interned at Tegazza as a punishment for
malpractices by a previous Askia, succeeded in effecting
his escape, and fied across the northern border to the court
of Morocco. He there represented to Muley Hamed the
ease with which the conquest of Songhay, in the present
condition of the country, could be effected, and he treach-
erously placed all his knowledge at the disposal of the
enemy. As a consequence of these representations, Muley
Hamed wrote to Askia Ishak, and announced that he
proposed to invade his country, unless he were willing
to transfer to Morocco the salt mines of Tegazza. The
sovereign of Morocco urged that he had a right to
possess the mines, since it was only thanks to his exer-
tions that the country was defended and protected against
the incursions of the Christians. Askia Ishak rejected

298 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

the claim as indignantly as the Ishak of a previous gene-
ration had rejected a similar proposition, and, by way of
defiance, accompanied his answer with the significant
present of spears and iron shackles.

Muley Hamed accepted the defiance, and in November
of 1590 Djouder Pasha, with a staff of ten picked generals
and a very carefully selected body of officers, crossed the
border at the head of his already well-prepared little force.
Military expeditions had been attempted before against
Songhay by Morocco. They had always failed in con-
sequence of the difficulty of moving large bodies of men
through the desert, and their record had been records of
disaster. Djouder Pasha knew his business better. The
march, which is supposed to be one of from fifty to sixty
days for an ordinary caravan, seems to have doubled itself
for his army, which, with carriers, hospital corps, &c.,
amounted to about 10,000 men; but on March 30, 1591,
he encamped safely on the Niger. It was a river which
had never before been seen by Moorish troops, and the
general celebrated the event by a great banquet. The
force appears from the account to have passed in the
desert to the east of Timbuctoo, and to have then de-
scended upon the river at a point still east of Timbuctoo,
leaving the town entirely untouched.

After recruiting his forces with food and drink in the
fertile country which they had entered, Djouder marched
without delay towards Kagho.

In the meantime Askia Ishak, having information of
the approach of the Moors, called his generals and the
principal personages of the kingdom together, in order,
it is said, to ask for their opinion, and to consult them
on the measures to be taken. But nothing can more
graphically represent the fallen condition of the country
than the description which is given in two lines of the
debates of this council: "Whenever judicious advice was
given it was hastily rejected." To the last moment the
officials of Songhay refused to believe that the Moorish
army would succeed in reaching the river. Finally, how-

THE MOORISH CONQUEST 299

ever, an army of 12,000 horse and 30,000 foot was put
in motion.

On the 1 2th of April, 1591, the forces met at a
place called Tenkoudibo, which I have not been able
to identify, but which would appear by the context to
be in the valley of the Niger, on the northern side of
the river, perhaps something more than half-way be-
tween Timbuctoo and Kagho. The battle resulted in
the absolute defeat of the Songhay army. The cavalry
was routed, the chivalry of Songhay fled. But among
the rank and file of the foot-soldiers a touching incident
is reported. Seeing that the battle was lost, and being
pledged by their oath as soldiers not to fly in case of
defeat, the infantry, we are told, kept their oath by
throwing their bucklers upon the ground and sitting
upon them to await the onset of Djouder's troops,
and were all massacred in that attitude. Askia Ishak
fled with the rest of the army, sending word to the
populations of Kagho and Timbuctoo to evacuate these
towns, and to join him on the other side of the river
in the province of Gurma. He himself, without passing
through Kagho, fled to Korai Gurma. He camped there
with the remnant of his army, surrounded by lamenta-
tions. Next day, "with cries and vociferations," the
passage of the Niger was commenced in little boats.
The boats appear to have been insufficient. In the
confusion which resulted great numbers perished, and
wealth, "of which God only knows the amount," was lost.
Djouder marched on Kagho, but in that town there
remained no one except a few aged persons, teachers,
students, and merchants, who had not been able to
leave in a hurry with the rest of the population.

A certain Khatib Mahmoud Darami, an old man held
in high esteem amongst the people, received Djouder
Pasha and his staff, and entertained them "with mag-
nificent hospitality." He was treated by them in return
with every consideration. He had long discussions with
Djouder, and became the negotiator of the terms of

300 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

peace which were offered by Askia Ishak. The account
which has reached us of these appears to be very in-
complete. All we are told is of one condition — that
Songhay should pay an indemnity of 100,000 pieces of
gold and 1000 slaves, and that the Moorish army should
return to Morocco. To these advances Djouder — who
seems to have been very little impressed with the riches
of Kagho — was content to reply that he was not a prin-
cipal : he was the servant of the Sultan, and could only
refer the question to Morocco.

After consulting with the Arab merchants of the
town, he drew up proposals which he despatched by a
sure messenger to Muley Hamed, and leaving Kagho,
after having been only seventeen days in the town, he
withdrew his troops to Timbuctoo, where he resolved to
await the answer of the Sultan. The people of Tim-
buctoo, in view of the difficulty of transporting them-
selves and their property with safety into the province
of Gurma, had not obeyed the summons of Askia, but
preferred the chances of negotiation with the Moors to
the certainty of destruction among their own countrymen.
They only profited so far by the order to evacuate the
town as to hold themselves dispensed from any duty to
defend it. They received Djouder coldly, but without
opposition, and he, who during the whole of this early
period appears to have kept his troops in admirable
control, selected the quarter of the town which he pre-
ferred, and proceeded to build a fortress in it, while he
kept the greater part of his army encamped outside the
town. Cold civilities were exchanged on both sides be-
tween him and the authorities. People augured, it is
said, nothing good from the position of affairs ; but a
sort of thunderous truce was maintained until the mes-
senger should have time to return from Morocco with
the signification of the Sultan's will. The messenger
left Kagho in April. The Moorish troops entered Tim-
buctoo on the 30th of May. It was not until August
that the answer of the Sultan was received.

THE MOORISH CONQUEST 301

In the meantime, though Djouder held his troops
sternly in leash, Askia Ishak remained in the far eastern
provinces, and the Songhay Empire became aware that
one form of central authority had been destroyed, and
that no other had been substituted. Subversive forces
began to work on all its borders. The antagonistic
tribes which had been held in peace by the strength of
supreme authority broke into war. The first to rise
were tribes in the neighbourhood of Timbuctoo itself,
who plundered the rich territory on the banks of the
river which is known as the Ras-el-ma, or Head of the
Waters, and carried off the inhabitants as slaves. Then
the people of Zaghawa, a particularly wealthy district
to the south-west, which was mentioned, it may be
remembered, by Ibn Batuta, did the same thing in
territories lying within the Viceroyalty of Kormina. The
territory of Jenne was ravaged in the most horrible
manner by pagan barbarians from the south who had
long been a terror to its inhabitants. Throughout the
west there was an outbreak of brigandage, and among
the tribes who profited by this period of licence to
enrich themselves at their neighbours' expense are to be
found more than one under the leadership of Fulani
chiefs. In the eastern portion of the empire the dis-
affected populations tended to gather round the defeated
Askia in the territory of Borgu to which he had fled.

Upon all this Djouder's blue eyes appear to have
looked with steely indifference while he waited for the
orders of the Sultan. They came in a form which was
not expected. The receipt of the proposal for peace
aroused nothing but fury in Muley Hamed's mind.
That such a victory as had been achieved should lead
to so small a result appeared to him to be the evidence
only of treachery. Advisers were not wanting who
whispered that the general had been bribed, and in a
transport of rage the Sultan deposed Djouder Pasha from
his command. A personal enemy, Mohammed ben Zer-
goun, was made commander-in-chief in his place.

302 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

Djouder's first intimation of the storm was the
arrival of Mohammed ben Zergoun at Timbuctoo, accom-
panied by a new staff and invested with full powers
by the Sultan.

Mohammed immediately deposed Djouder and assumed
the supreme command, at the same time indulging his
personal enmity by the bitterness of a military cross-
examination, in which he taunted Djouder with his
inactivity, and asked what had prevented him from
pursuing the Askia across the river. Djouder answered
that it was the lack of boats, which had all been
removed by the enemy. Mohammed ordered boats
to be constructed, for which purpose the plantations of
trees which had been made within the walls to beautify
the town of Timbuctoo were cut down, and the panels
of the doors were torn from the houses. It was the
beginning of the destruction which was soon to fall upon
the country. From this time Songhay was allowed no
pause upon the downward path.

The orders of Muley Hamed to his new commander-
in-chief were that Askia Ishak was to be driven from
the Soudan, and Mohammed lost no time in proceeding
to carry his instructions into effect. Djouder Pasha
had reached the country in April, at the beginning of
the rains, and his period of inactivity corresponded to
the season of highest flood, when in many districts the
Niger, overflowing its shores, spreads like a lake over
wide tracts of country. Mohammed arrived at Tim-
buctoo on the 17th of August. In the last week of
September, when the rains are drawing towards their
close, the army, having with it Djouder Pasha and all
the revoked generals who had composed Djouder Pasha's
staff, marched south-eastward towards Kuka in Borgu,
where Askia Ishak was established. In a battle which
was fought on October 14th Ishak was completely
defeated, and fled within the confines of the Viceroyalty
of Dandi to the same spot, Korai Gurma, at which the
remains of his army had crossed the river when fleeing

THE MOORISH CONQUEST 303

southwards from Djouder Pasha. They now recrossed
in the opposite sense, and from this time the river in its
eastern course formed the defensible frontier which was
maintained between the Hngering remains of Songhay
authority and the country which was soon to be known
as the Moorish Soudan. Mohammed occupied the
position evacuated by Ishak in Borgu, and we are able
to form an estimate of the fighting strength of his
columns by the fact that the camp included 174 tents,
each tent containing, in accordance with the Turkish
model followed by the Moors, twenty fusiliers. He had,
therefore, at his command a force of 3480 men armed
with muskets in a country in which the native army had
fallen into a disorganised rabble, badly led, and armed
only with bows and arrows. There was no unreasonable
arrogance in the supposition that he would be able to do
what he pleased.

I will not attempt to follow this or succeeding
campaigns in detail. I will only indicate the essential
points.

Askia Ishak, intending to fly for safety into the
territory of Kebbi, was murdered by pagans in Gurma,
and was succeeded in April of 1592 by a supine brother,
Mohammed Kagho, who, shortly after his succession,
offered to take the oath of fidelity to the Sultan of
Morocco. The famine, which has already been men-
tioned in connection with the history of Kano, was
making itself felt, and the Moorish army was reduced
during its campaign in the eastern provinces to eat its
pack animals. Mahmoud therefore called upon Moham-
med Kagho to prove the sincerity of his proposals by
coming to the assistance of the troops and providing
them with food. Mohammed Kagho ordered all the
crops which were ripe in Haussaland to be reaped for
the benefit of the enemy, and this was appropriately
enough the last exercise ever made of Songhay authority
in Haussaland. Mohammed Kagho was required to
come in person to the camp of the Moors to make his

304 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

submission to the Sultan. He did so, and by order of
Mahmoud he was treacherously murdered. Of the
eighty-three notables who accompanied him the majority
were massacred, but a few of the ablest escaped to group
themselves round the new Askia, a younger brother of
Kaofho, who succeeded under the name of Askia Nouh.
One of the eighty-three, Suleiman, a cousin of Nouh,
was selected by Mahmoud and proclaimed as a rival
Askia at the camp near Kuka in Borgu.

From this time until the authority of the Askias
altogether disappeared there were always two Askias —
one at Timbuctoo, appointed and maintained by the
Moors, and used as a puppet when convenient to give
a semblance of legitimacy to their acts ; the other, repre-
senting the wishes of the Songhay people and claiming
legitimate descent, maintained himself in some degree
of independence in the Viceroyalty of Dandi, which,
though it included Kebbi and the practically indepen-
dent Haussa States, still constituted nominally a portion
of the Songhay Empire that never submitted to the
Moors.

Askia Nouh formed a seat of government in 1592
near the southern border of the province of Kebbi.
During some of his earlier battles Kanta's people, it is
said, could hear the sound of the firing. Nouh was of
a different temperament from the later Askias, and all
the efforts of Mahmoud Zergoun were insufficient to
overthrow the resistance which he organised to the
advance of the Moors. War continued for two years,
during which time the Songhay forces, notwithstanding
their inferior arms, obtained many successes. " Numerous
and terrible," says the Tarikh, "were the combats which
took place in this region." On one occasion, at the
battle of Birni, Mahmoud lost eighty of his best fusiliers.
Famine and climate worked on the side of Askia Nouh.
The Moorish army suffered severely. Mahmoud wrote
to the Sultan that the whole of his cavalry was destroyed.
Six army corps were sent successively in reinforcement.

THE MOORISH CONQUEST 305

but at the end of two years Mahmoud, still unsuccessful,
was forced to withdraw, and to turn his attention to Tim-
buctoo and the Western Provinces. He left Djouder
Pasha at Kagho in the capacity of lieutenant-governor,
with the river, along which a chain of fortresses had been
constructed, to serve as an eastern boundary. We can
imagine the deposed commander-in-chief smiling grimly
at the failure of his rival to achieve that which he
himself had judged it best not to attempt.

CHAPTER XXXIII
THE SOUDAN UNDER THE MOORS

The events which recalled Mahmoud Zergoun to the
west were of a serious character. The whole country
was in disorder. Shortly after the army had marched
eastward, in September of 1591, riots had broken out at
Timbuctoo, and had continued until the last days of
December. The Moors, having some difficulty in hold-
ing their own, had called in the help of the Tuaregs
of the desert, already employed in ravaging the fertile
territory of the Ras-el-Ma, and, with the help of these
allies, had put the town to fire and sword. Nevertheless,
on the withdrawal of the Tuaregs, the Moors were again
driven to take refuge in the fortress which had been
built for them by Djouder Pasha. They succeeded in
conveying intelligence to Mahmoud of their position, and
he detached from his army a force of 324 soldiers under
one of his best young generals, who, marching to the
relief of the imprisoned garrison, struck terror into
Timbuctoo. The town submitted, and took an oath of
fidelity to the Sultan of Morocco. After this, peace was
for a short time established in Timbuctoo. The roads
were opened, and the military forces of the Moors were
directed against the Zaghrani and other rebels who
were pillaging the surrounding country. Jenn6 also
made its submission, and took the oath of allegiance to
the Sultan of Morocco. But the riots were hardly at
an end in Timbuctoo before similar disturbances broke
out in Jenn6. The Moorish Cadi of the town was taken
prisoner, and sent in chains to a distant stronghold in

the pagan country to the south. The rioters, whose

306

THE SOUDAN UNDER THE MOORS 307

forces were largely composed of pagans, ruled Jenn6 for
a time, and committed many atrocities. They wished
to elect an Askia for themselves, but were dissuaded
from that design by the representations of the principal
Songhay officials that nobody as yet knew what would
be the issue of the fighting between Mahmoud and
Askia Nouh. Finally, order was restored in Jenn6 by
the same young general whom Mahmoud had despatched
to Timbuctoo, and the heads of the principal rioters,
sent as proofs of the success of his operations to the
political governor of Timbuctoo, decorated the market-
place of that town. Throughout these operations, the
native forces do not appear to have been uniformly
opposed to the Moors. On the contrary, the officials,
at least, appear to have in many instances endeavoured
to support their authority. There was no well-organised
movement of revolt, but the general condition of the
country was fast resolving itself into chaos.

No sooner was Jenn6 reduced to order, than the
Tuaregs, once the allies of the Moors, possessed them-
selves of a Moorish fortress established in the Ras-el-
Ma, and threatened to attack Timbuctoo. The numbers
of the Moorish garrison were much reduced, but hearing
that an army corps sent from Morocco for the reinforce-
ment of Mahmoud Zergoun was on the way, messengers
were sent into the desert to hurry its arrival, and with
its timely assistance the Tuaregs were overthrown. The
reinforcements were then passed on to Mahmoud Zergoun
in the east, and reported to him fully the state of affairs.

Mahmoud Zergoun returned to Timbuctoo in the
autumn of 1593. He first occupied himself with an
expedition against the Tuaregs, who were again ravaging
the Ras - el - Ma, and then turned his attention to the
internal affairs of Timbuctoo. He had probably good
reason to doubt the sincerity of the official attitude of
submission, and so long as riots continued in this and
the neighbouring towns he suspected some understand-
ing between the leading citizens and the rioters.

308 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

The first requirement which he made, therefore, was
that all arms which were in the town should be given
up. To ensure a complete surrender, an announcement
was made that on a certain day the houses in the town
would be searched, with the exception of the houses of
the jurisconsults and certain privileged persons. The
natural result of such an announcement was that the
populace, fearing lest much besides arms would be
taken by the soldiery in their search, deposited every-
thing that they had of value with the owners of the
exempted houses.

But the measures of Mahmoud ben Zergoun were
thorough. The jurisconsults — a term which seems in
the narratives of the Soudan to cover all the educated
portion of the population — were precisely the class at
whom he proposed to strike. When the search for arms
in the houses of the populace had been effected, he
caused a further announcement to be made that an oath
of allegiance to the Sultan of Morocco would be publicly
administered in the Sankore Mosque. The taking of
the oath was to be accompanied with all due ceremonial,
and three days were allotted for its completion, October
the 1 8th, the 19th, and 20th of 1593.

The two first days of the ceremony are interesting,
as showing incidentally to what distance the authority
of Songhay at that time extended in the north and
west. The first day was entirely occupied by the swear-
ing of the people from Touat, Fezzan, Augila, and the
northern regions of the desert ; on the second day
the oath was taken by people from Walata, Wadan, and
the western regions ; on the third day none were left
to take the oath but the jurisconsults and distinguished
residents of Timbuctoo, who were to swear in presence
of the assembled people. On that day, when the mosque
was full, the doors were suddenly closed. Every one
was told to leave the mosque, with the exception of
jurisconsults, their friends, and their followers. When
none but these remained in the building, Mahmoud

THE SOUDAN UNDER THE MOORS 309

Zergoun ordered the whole of them to be arrested.
He then divided them into two groups, and sent them
by different roads to the fortress in which they were
to be confined.

Whether by accident or by design, one group was
massacred. Amongst the victims were representatives of
some of the greatest famihes of the town. The houses
of the jurisconsults were then pillaged. Their wives
and daughters were subjected to every indignity, and
the whole of their wealth, including that deposited with
them by the less influential persons of the town, was
appropriated by Mahmoud Zergoun to himself. The
families of the jurisconsults, after suffering these injuries,
were imprisoned, and were kept in confinement for about
six months. During this interval the Fulani ruler of
the semi-independent province of Masina made the most
urgent representations in their favour. Mahmoud, how-
ever, rejected his advice, and resolved to deport them
to Morocco. This resolution involved the deportation of
the whole body of the best society of Timbuctoo. All
that was cultivated, all that was enlightened, all that was
rich, refined, and influential, was driven out, and the
greater number, men, women, and children, were taken
in chains across the desert.

The caravan which conveyed them left Timbuctoo
on 1 8th March 1594. The scenes which were witnessed
were, we are told, very terrible. Fathers, children,
grandchildren, men and women, were made to march
together, "pressed close as arrows in a quiver." They
were exposed to all the brutality of the Moorish sol-
diery, and they had a journey of upwards of two months
through the desert. Amongst the exiles were the most
distinguished men of letters of the Soudan, and the
most delicately nurtured women and children of the
town. Ahmed Baba, the biographer and historian, who
has already been mentioned more than once, and to
whom we are indebted for many of the most interesting
pages of the Tarikk, was among them. Fortunately

310 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

for him, his fame was so widespread as to command
respect in all centres of learning. When he arrived in
Morocco he was treated with the respect due to his
great reputation, and, though he was not permitted to
return to Timbuctoo for many years, he was given prac-
tical freedom in Morocco, and allowed to form a school,
where he continued the life of study and of teaching
which he had led in the Soudan. Many others were
less fortunate, and the note is to be found in more than
one biography of his distinguished contemporaries : "He
died a martyr in Morocco."

It is interesting, in the midst of all that the exiles
had lost, to find them chiefly concerned for the de-
struction of their libraries. " I," said Ahmed Baba after-
wards to the Sultan of Morocco, " had the smallest
library of any of my friends, and your soldiers took
from me 1600 volumes." Others, those who in the
happier days had so generously lent their books to all
who needed them, lost every volume that they possessed.
Unfortunately, while other forms of wealth were greedily
appropriated, the contents of the libraries were destroyed.

The sack of Timbuctoo was the signal for the letting
loose of all the evils of lawless tyranny upon the country.
From this time the history of the Soudan becomes a
mere record of riot, robbery, and decadence. The
appropriation to himself of the immense wealth of Tim-
buctoo did not redound to the ultimate advantage of
Mahmoud ben Zergoun. The caravan deporting all the
distinguished exiles of Timbuctoo arrived in Morocco
on the ist of June 1594. With it arrived information
which led the Sultan to understand the extent of the
wealth which had been confiscated, in comparison to
which the 100,000 gold pieces sent to him as the royal
share was as nothing. Informers further carried to
him reports of the independent arrogance of Mahmoud
ben Zergoun, from which it was not difficult to draw
the deduction that he aimed at nothing less than the
independent sovereignty of the Soudan. "When any

THE SOUDAN UNDER THE MOORS 311

one speaks to him of the Sultan," said one report, "he
draws his sword half out of the scabbard, and says,
'Here is the Sultan!'" The indignation of Muley
Hamed knew no bounds, and he despatched a new
Pasha, Mansour Abdurrahman, to the Soudan with
orders to arrest Mahmoud ben Zergoun and put him
to an ignominious death.

With this sentence, of which he was of course quickly
informed, hanging over his head, Mahmoud determined
to make what he could of his position. By the cruel
licence of his rule, the western part of the Soudan had
become too hot to hold him. The Fulani ruler of the
province of Masina, who had interceded urgently, but
vainly, in favour of the noble families of Timbuctoo,
had revolted against the Moors. The once prosperous
territory of Jenne was also in perpetual disorder. After
a short campaign against Masina, of which, though it
was accompanied by widespread massacre of the peace-
ful population and destruction of the crops, the result
was practically nil, Mahmoud resolved to rally all his
forces for a campaign against the still independent
Askia of Songhay in the east, and to put the greatest
possible distance between himself and the avenging
emissary of the Sultan.

Askia Nouh, having in the meantime strengthened
his own position in the province of Dandi, and entered
into close alliance with Kebbi on his northern frontier,
had succeeded in forcing the chain of Moorish fortresses
at a place called Kolen on the Niger, and advanced
into the Bend of the Niger, where he awaited the
coming of Mahmoud. Mahmoud called upon Djouder
to join him with all available forces from Kagho.
But Djouder finding a suitable excuse, Mahmoud, who
seems in the first instance to have been successful and
to have possessed himself again of the territory of
Gurma and Borgu, pressed on in an easterly direction,
taking with him the dummy Askia Suleiman as far as
the rocks of Almena. Unless there exist some other

312 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

rocks of Almena not mentioned, so far as I have been
able to ascertain, by any other writer, these must have
been the rocks already alluded to once or twice, in the
province of Zaria, where in very ancient days a colossal
statue is said to have been carved. The spot is in-
teresting, because it marks the farthest extension of the
conquest of the Moors in Haussaland.

Mahmoud camped at the foot of the rocks, which
were strongly held by pagan troops. He determined,
much against the advice of Askia Suleiman, to whom
the country was well known, to endeavour to storm
the position by a night attack. Suleiman represented
that nothing short of certain death could result. Mah-
moud listened to no advice. Death lay behind him
as well as in front. He selected a storming party of
his best men, and in the early hours of the morning
made the attempt. The result was as Askia Suleiman
had predicted — Mahmoud himself was among the first
to fall, pierced by many arrows. In the attempt to
rescue his body his men were put to flight. The
pagans cut off his head and sent it to Askia Nouh,
who in his turn sent it to Kanta, the King of Kebbi,
and it was exposed on the end of a stake in the
market-place of Lika for a very long time. Suleiman
the Askia rallied the Moorish troops and effected a
hurried retreat, ultimately succeeding in joining Djouder,
under whose orders the troops remained until the
arrival of Mansour from Morocco.

In 1595 the combined Moorish troops, under the
command of Djouder Pasha, made one final and suc-
cessful 'attempt to deal with what remained of the
Songhay Empire, and in a great battle which took
place between them and Askia Nouh in the Bend of
the Niger in June of that year, the Songhay army
was hopelessly defeated and put to flight, leaving the
population at the mercy of the Moors. The people
were carried into captivity, and placed by the Moors
under the jurisdiction of Askia Suleiman.

THE SOUDAN UNDER THE MOORS 313

Djouder now became the ruling power o( the Soudan.
The new Pasha Mansour died, poisoned, it is said, by
Djouder's orders, when he was on the eve of a further
expedition against Dandi. His successor, Mohammed
Taba, also about to march into the eastern province,
died, poisoned, again it is said by orders of Djouder.
The next general, Mostafa. died, strangled by orders
of Djouder. There would be no interest in following
further the details o( the history of the Moorish con-
quest of the Soudan. It is enough to say that nominal
Askias continued to succeed each other on the south-
eastern district, which for a long time kept the name
oi' Dandi, while attempts to invade Hauss<iland by a
more northern route were vigorously and successfully
opposed by the independent Sultans of Kebbi. The
domination o( the Moors may therefore be said to have
never spread more than nominally beyond the south-
eastern Bend of the River Niger.

In the west the history of the Moorish dominions
presents a record of ceaseless fighting, accomp.\nied by
the destruction of all that was civilised and admirable
in the Soudan. Djouder, the best of the Pashas, who
knew his own mind and could keep his rude soldiery
in order, even though his methods were somewhat
trenchant, returned to Morocco in 1599. He was a
loyal soldier and servant of his sovereign. He was
also an able administrator, and had he been properly
supported he would have converted the Soudan into a
rich dependency of Morocco. As it was. he was made
the object during his stay in the Soudan of ceaseless
cabals. In 1599 his counsels were, however, needed
nearer to the throne. He was recalled with honour,
and he returned no more to Timbuctoo.

After him Pasha succeeded Pasha, each to be the
victim oi' militarv revolt and civil misrepresentation, while
misrule prevailed in the Soudan until, in 1612. the last
Pasha appointed by Morocco was deposed by the troops,
who put their general in his place. After 1012 i\\c army

314 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

in the Soudan elected its own rulers. The tribute to the
Sultan was not paid, the country conquered at so much
cost became independent of Morocco, and the native
populations of the Western Soudan, barred from all
access to civilisation, fell under the despotism of a purely-
military tyranny. From this date their descent in the
scale of nations was rapid and inevitable. By the end
of the seventeenth century they had become practically
what they now are.

CHAPTER XXXIV

THE SOUDAN CLOSED TO THE WESTERN WORLD

Ahmed Baba records that the Sultan Muley Zidan, son
and successor to Muley Hamed, told him at a later
period that, from the time of Pasha Djouder to that of
Pasha Suleiman, his father, Muley Hamed, had sent in
different army corps 23,000 of his best soldiers into the
Soudan, and added : " All this was a pure loss. The
whole of the men perished in the Soudan, with the ex-
ception of 500 who returned to Morocco and died in
that town." As a matter of fact, the Sultan was ill-
informed. His armies, as we have seen, had not perished
in the Soudan, but had simply cut themselves off from
their allegiance, and had formed in the southern countries
an independent system of military brigandage of which
the remains exist to the present day.

But for all practical purposes the Soudan itself was
from this date lost to the world. Its military tyrants
had their own reasons for breaking off relations with
Morocco. Morocco in turn was cut off by the religious
sentiment of the Western world from all connection with
Southern Europe, and the political rivalry of the Turks
deprived her at the same time of the position which
she might otherwise have occupied upon the Barbary
coast. The Saracens, whose rule had once extended
from the borders of China to the western coast of Spain,
had become an outcast race, the seat of whose dwind-
ling monarchy was to be looked for, if anywhere, in
Morocco, and whose representatives, wandering at hazard
through the desert wastes of Africa and Arabia, hardly
knew to which of the cardinal points to set their

3i6 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

faces when they desired to turn themselves towards
home.

While access to the civilised world was barred to
the western portion of the Soudan, the most easterly
states, Bornu and Haussaland, still kept their touch
through the Tripoli- Fezzan route with the old markets
of Egypt and Arabia. Whatever they had of external
civilisation still came to them by that route from the
north-east, and the influence permeated through them
to the rest of the Soudan. But the influence was the
influence of Turkey, and it is unnecessary to dwell
on the difference between the Ottoman Empire from
the sixteenth century onwards, and the civilisation of
the Egyptian and the Arab which it had overthrown.
Rome in the great days of the republic might as fitly
be compared with Italy after the conquest by the Huns.

Nevertheless, though cut off in the sixteenth century,
alike by the triumph of Mohammedanism in the east,
and by the downfall of Mohammedanism in the west
of Europe, from all true touch with northern centres of
civilisation, the Soudan could not unlearn the lesson of
centuries. It continued to keep its face turned blankly
to the north. I have endeavoured to show that through-
out its history the touch of the Soudan with the world
had been maintained ever through the desert to the
north. Everything that was interesting, its new races,
its religions, its science, its literature, its commerce, its
wars, had come to it from the north. It faced north
to civilisation. And behind it to the south there had
always been the unknown, the barbaric, the uninhabitable.
It is no doubt this last qualification which maintained
the character of the equatorial region in regard to the
other two. From about the latitude of 7° southwards
the climate of the Western Soudan became practically
uninhabitable for those finer races which, whether they
derived their origin from Egypt or elsewhere, required
a good climate in which to attain to their natural limits
of perfection. The Copts have a saying that "in the

THE SOUDAN CLOSED 317

beginning when God created things he added to every-
thing its second." " ' I go to Syria,' said Reason ; ' I
go with you,' said Rebellion. 'I go to Egypt,' said
Abundance; 'I accompany you,' said Submission. 'I
go to the desert,' said Poverty ; ' I will go with you,'
said Health." Barren though it was, the reputation of
the desert which lay to the north had been a reputation
of health from time immemorial. It had its dangers,
but all that escaped from them alive was the better for
the experience. For those who knew how to traverse
it, its sands were but as the sea, and its edges were
the most favoured portions of the Soudan. In pro-
portion as the fertile belt receded from the desert it
became unhealthy and unsuitable to the habitation of the
higher races.

I have tried to show that, through the whole of the
history of these higher races, their tendency had been to
drive southwards before them everything that was weak
or degraded or outworn. All the lower human types to
be met with in the country went southwards into the
equatorial belt, where frequent rain and the swampy over-
flow of rivers running to the coast develops a malarial
climate unsuitable to higher activities. In the early tradi-
tion, quoted by Herodotus, pigmy races seem to have
inhabited the country of the Middle Niger. At the pre-
sent day they are to be found in the regions of the
Congo. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the
cannibal belt extended along the northern slopes of
the Kong Mountains to about 12° north latitude. Now,
though there are some exceptions, it is rare to find
cannibals north of 7°, and the southern base of the Kong
Mountains may be taken as the limit of habitation of the
pure negro.

The movements of religion will, I think, be proved,
when research has obtained clearer results than can now
be securely claimed, to have corresponded to the move-
ments of race. Fetishism, which is now to be met with
chiefly in the strip lying between the Kong Mountains

3i8 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

and the coast, extended at one period to the north of
Songhay and Haussaland. It has been related in the
early myths of Gao, of Kano, of Daura, that the killing
of the fetish and the substitution of a higher form of
religion was the beginning of their recorded history.
This higher form of paganism, which would appear to
have been derived from sources similar to those that
furnished the religions of Phoenicia, Egypt, and Arabia,
seems gradually, at some very early period, to have pushed
fetishism southward before it, and to have held the
ground to the north until, in the four hundred years
between the tenth and the fourteenth centuries, Moham-
medanism was generally accepted along the northern
border. The higher form of paganism then suffered the
fate which it had itself inflicted upon fetishism. It was
driven south, and in turn drove fetishism farther before
it, until, as in the present day, the religions of West
Africa could almost be defined by latitudinal lines. If,
following the opinion quoted in the earlier portion of
this book from a distinguished French authority, we take
io° as the most southerly limit of Mohammedanism, and
give 7°, as I think we may be justified in doing, as the
farthest extension northwards of fetishism, we get three
degrees, from 7" to 10°, in which the higher forms of
paganism may be held still to prevail. As a matter of
fact, these latitudinal divisions will be proved to be too
arbitrary. M. de Lauture wrote upwards of half a century
ago, and Mohammedan influence has since his day extended
farther south. On the other hand, the higher paganism
also extends in places farther north than the limit which he
assigned. In the Nigerian Provinces of Zaria, Bautchi,
and Yola, through which the tenth parallel extremity
passes, but which extend to and even beyond 11°, many
tribes of pagans still exist. And I have little doubt that
the same observation would hold good in French territory
farther west, with which I am unacquainted.

The general drift, however, of the observation is, I
think, sound, and it is with this that we are for the

THE SOUDAN CLOSED 319

moment concerned. There have been evidently three
stages in the history of West Africa, to which three great
religious movements have corresponded. There was a first
and very early period of what I may call pure negroidism,
to which the religion of the fetish corresponded. During
this period pigmy races occupied the Middle Niger, and
fetish worship prevailed upon its banks. There was
a second period, still very early, of occupation by peoples
whose origin is variously stated to have been from
India, Babylon, Persia, ancient Egypt, and Phoenicia, and
with this occupation came a form of paganism of which
the rites, still practised, have points of similarity with what
we know of the worship of Astarte, Jupiter-Ammon, and
Isis. There was a third period of Arab influence and
subsequent conquest, of which the beginning may be
placed in the ninth or tenth century of our era, that was
accompanied by the spread of the Mohammedan religion.
The Soudan, under the higher form of paganism, attained,
as its parent nations in the north and east had attained,
to a relatively high stage of civilisation. Indeed, the
Fulani conquerors of Haussaland in the nineteenth cen-
tury put forward the unfounded claim that, up to the
period of their conquest, Mohammedanism was scarcely
known in the great cities of the Haussa States. This, as
has been shown in the chapters upon Haussaland, was
not the case, but undoubtedly paganism of the finer type
continued to flourish for a long period, and is now, after
a thousand years of Mohammedanism, still to be met with
side by side with the faith of Islam. The difference
between these two was not so great as the difference
between paganism and fetishism. It was fetishism, and
fetishism only, which was banished with the lower negroid
races to the jungle belt of the coast.

These considerations of the general movement of
civilisation in West Africa bring us to an important
development in its history. The first chapter of European
settlement in the country was opened at a critical moment.
During the latter half of the fifteenth century, while the

320 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

Turks were pressing upon Eastern Europe and interfering
with all the old routes of the Indian and Chinese trade,
the Portuguese, in their capacity of an Atlantic people,
were making courageous efforts to find another and a
safer road by sea to the Eastern markets. Already, as
has been seen, they had crept round the shoulder of the
African coast, and had made a few cautious settlements
upon its shores. In 1497 ^^^Y attained the object of
their desire, and Vasco da Gama doubled the Cape of
Good Hope. The date of the expulsion of the Moors
from Spain was 1502. Thus, within five years of each
other, there happened two events which profoundly in-
fluenced the history of the Soudan. The expulsion of
the Moors, followed during the sixteenth century by
the wars of Charles V. and his successors against
Mohammedanism upon the Mediterranean coasts, closed
the old means of approach by land to the territories of the
finer races of the Soudan. The discovery of the passage
of the Cape of Good Hope opened at the same moment
new means of approach by sea. It diverted the whole
stream of European intercourse with the far East, and
as the caravan trade of Egypt, Persia, and Arabia sank
into insignificance, the maritime trade of the Atlantic rose
in importance. The Atlantic Ocean became a highway
of the world, and while, all unaware of the change, the
peoples of the interior continued to look vainly towards
the closed avenues of the north — the west coast of
Africa fronting on the Atlantic began to face no longer
north but south to civilisation. The sea was open to
all who had ships to sail upon it. Thus, when Europe
approached West Africa, it was upon the coast that her
adventurers landed. It was with coast natives that she
had to deal — natives who had from time immemorial
been enslaved — and it was in the coast climate that her
settlements were made. The coast belt was too broad
for her to traverse. Its inhabitants were savage, its
climate was deadly, its jungle impenetrable without the
auxiHary force of steam. For upwards of 400 years

THE SOUDAN CLOSED 321

Europe held the coast. Slaves were hunted for her in
the far interior. Ivory was shot for her, gold was washed
for her; but Europe herself, the civilisation, the order,
the justice for which her name now stands, penetrated
no farther than perhaps twenty miles inland.

Thus not only did the finer races of the Soudan lose
touch with the civilised world, but the civilised world
lost also touch with them. Their records were preserved
by Arab writers, and modern Europe, in its religious
fervour, had banished Arabic from its literature. The
traditions of intercourse with the Soudan had been all
traditions of Saracen Egypt and of Moorish Spain.
Turks had destroyed the one, Ferdinand the Catholic
had obliterated the other. By the end of the sixteenth
century the mystery of Africa had closed round these
ancient races, and they were lost to history for a period
that was to last three hundred years.

CHAPTER XXXV

EUROPE IN WEST AFRICA

The first chapters of European intercourse with the
West Coast of Africa are not chapters of which we
have any reason to be proud. I do not propose to
relate in detail the history of early European settlement
upon the coast, but the relations of civilisation with the
natives had certain general characteristics which it is
necessary very briefly to indicate. They cannot, how-
ever, be fairly indicated without a constant recollection
of the fact that the races with whom Europe had now
to deal were not those fine races of the northern terri-
tories known to ancient historians as Nigritia, but the
generally negroid inhabitants of that strip which was
for a long time included under the appellation of the
Guinea Coast. Barbot, a Frenchman, who traded with
West Africa in various capacities for upwards of twenty
years towards the end of the seventeenth century, and
who, writing both in French and English, is perhaps to
be counted as the best and most voluminous historian of
the coast, defines Nigritia as extending northward from
8° to 23°, and Guinea as extending southwards from
8° to the coast. The history of European settlement
deals exclusively with the southern strip.

The progress of the Reformation in Europe through-
out the sixteenth century tended to deprive Papal decrees
of the authority which once attached to them, and
throughout that and the succeeding century the nations
of the Atlantic coast competed eagerly with each other
for a share of the newly-opened African trade. With
the exception of France, where, however, a great in-

EUROPE IN WEST AFRICA 323

dustrial population professed the Protestant faith, the
countries which contested with Portugal the validity of
the papal gift to her of all countries which she might
discover to the east of the Azores, were of the Reformed
religion. France justified herself, perhaps, by the argu-
ment that she had prior claims, for it is stoutly asserted
on her behalf, and the claim is admitted by some foreign
writers, that during the fourteenth century, and before the
approach of the Portuguese, French adventurers had dis-
covered and French companies had traded with the West
Coast of Africa. Such trade had not, however, according
to the accounts which are given of it, proved successful,
and all traces of French occupation had disappeared
before the Portuguese discoverers of the middle of the
fifteenth century made Europe acquainted with the coast.

Whatever may be the truth of this story, France
was among the earliest and the most successful of the
competitors of the Portuguese upon the coast. She
was very shortly followed by the English, Dutch, Danes,
and Prussians. The first Portuguese company was
formed in 1444 for the purpose of exploring the coast,
and it initiated the European trade in slaves by sea.
Both Spain and Portugal had long been supplied with
slaves from the Soudan by land.

Spain, having its hands full elsewhere, willingly entered
into an agreement with Portugal not to interfere with its
possessions in Africa. Towards the end of the fifteenth
century the King of Portugal formed a Guinea Com-
pany, and caused forts to be built at Accra, Axim, El-
mina, and at other places up and down the coast. The
Governor-General of these forts resided at Elmina.
No attempt was made or could be made to penetrate
inland, the natives being barbarous, and most of the
way being, as Barbot tells us, "through vast, thick
forests, swarming with robbers and wild beasts." This
part of the coast, now known as the Gold Coast, was
the best part of the coast for gold, and though inland
wars often spoilt the trade, the position of Governor

324 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

at Elmina was regarded as one in which a European
could speedily accumulate vast wealth. It was as a
rule bestowed upon some king's favourite, and by the
gradual operation of this system the garrison, we are
told, came to be commonly comprised of "lewd and de-
bauched persons," intent on making speedy fortunes.
The Portuguese Government also used the West Coast
from a very early period as a place of deportation for
convicts. No wonder, therefore, says Barbot, " that the
histories of those times give an account of unparalleled
violences and inhumanities committed there by those
insatiable Portuguese."

Barbot does not over-estimate the character of the
blacks with whom the Portuguese had to deal. " They
are," he says, "generally extremely sensual, knavish,
revengeful, impudent liars, impertinent, gluttonous, ex-
travagant in their expressions, and giving ill language,
luxurious beyond expression, and so intemperate that they
drink brandy as if it were water, deceitful in their dealings
with Europeans and no less with their own neighbours,
even to the selling of one another for slaves if they have
an opportunity, and, as has been hinted before, so very
lazy that rather than work for their living they will rob
and commit murders on the highways and in the woods
and deserts. ... It is very dangerous travelling in that
country. . . . They are so very dexterous and expert at
stealing that the ancient Lacedaemonians might have learnt
from them the art." Nevertheless this certainly open-
minded judge thought that the Portuguese treated them
too badly for human nature of any sort to endure.

In 1587 the blacks rose against the barbarities of the
Portuguese, surprised the fort of Accra, and razed it to
the ground. The French, who had as yet only a very
slight footing upon the Guinea Coast, seized the occasion
for intervention, made the most of their opportunities,
and from that date the power of the Portuguese declined.
The French Senegal Company established itself success-
fully upon the Senegal, and became in the course of the

EUROPE IN WEST AFRICA 325

following century the principal French company in West
Africa. A French West India Company also traded to
the Slave and Ivory Coast, and the French company
on the Senegal established the tradition, well maintained
by Frenchmen in later years, of pressing further than
other Europeans into the interior. They did not, how-
ever, accomplish anything which amounted to real com-
munication with Nigritia. All that was known of the
inland country were vague rumours of Arabs and white
people riding upon mules and asses, and living in great
state at Timbuctoo and the richer of its sister cities. The
accounts of Leo Africanus and of Marmol were both, we
must remember, published during the sixteenth century.
Imperfect as they are, they represent a certain amount
of information about the interior which, though it was
not gained from the coast, must have been presumably
in the possession of all persons interested in the coast.
Some knowledge of the internal country was, of course,
felt to be very desirable, but writing at the end of the
seventeenth century, a hundred years or more after the
appearance of the latest of these publications, Barbot
explicitly states that " none of the Europeans living along
the coast have ever ventured far up the land, it being
extraordinarily difficult and dangerous, if not altogether
impossible, for Europeans to venture so far into such
wild and savage countries."

The Dutch very rapidly followed in the footsteps of
the French. The first Dutch venture was conducted by
a man of the name of Ericks in 1595. The natives, liking
his goods, became more and more restive under Portuguese
exactions, and another rising in the year 1600 practically
confined Portuguese authority within the walls of their
forts. The native chiefs entered into treaties with the
Dutch, and in 1624 allowed them to build forts at Moree
and Cape Coast. This transaction was made with the
Dutch Government, but the forts afterwards passed into
the possession of the Dutch West India Company. The
Portuguese bitterly accused the Dutch of obtaining their

326 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

inrtuence over the nations "more by wine and strong
liquors than by force of arms," and even here, on the
West Coast of Africa, we get the echo of the reHgious
controversies which were raging so furiously in the
countries at that time engaged in the Thirty Years'
War. The Portuguese had consistently sent many
Catholic missionaries among the natives of the coast,
and then, as now, commerce and conversion went hand
in hand. But the blacks, we are told by Portuguese
writers, " being a barbarous people, readily enough
swallowed Calvin's poison spread among them, inter-
mixed with merchandise."

It was not long before this attitude of mutual detesta-
tion broke out into open war, and on August 29, 1637,
the Dutch possessed themselves of the fort of Elmina.
From this period the Portuguese were gradually driven
from the trade. The Dutch took Axim from them in
1642, and by the end of the century there was only one
Portuguese fort left upon the coast. In 1664, on the
outbreak of the Dutch war, the English took from the
Dutch the fort known now as Cape Coast Castle, with
many others. But during the continuation of hostilities,
the Dutch under De Ruyter fully revenged themselves,
and took all the principal English stations upon the coast,
besides recovering their own, with the single exception
of Cape Coast Castle. The peace which shortly followed
left the Dutch in a very strong position on the coast,
where they erected a chain of forts, and, as was the
uniform outcome of all operations, "used the natives with
great severity." The influence of every European war
was, of course, felt upon the coast. As the successes of
the Dutch under De Ruyter threatened in 1665 to destroy
the English settlement's, so in 1677 the French were for
a time predominant, and captured all the more important
Dutch settlements. Under the Treaty of Nimeguen in
1678 these were, however, given back to Holland.

Denmark and the Electorate of Brandenburgh, two
small but also Protestant powers, had their share in the

EUROPE IN WEST AFRICA 327

coast trade, and, making friends with the blacks at two
or three points of the coast, built forts from which they
traded. These were commercial settlements of no great
importance, whose local representatives won small respect
for themselves upon the coast, and they were at a later
period bought out by the English.

The rise of English trade followed close upon the
heels of the Dutch. It may perhaps be said to have
begun with the famous slave-raiding expeditions of
which Hawkins relates the details without any shame,
and of which Queen Elizabeth was not too proud to
share the profit.

Hakluyt, in describing the initiation of the English
trade, shows clearly enough in what good esteem it was
held. "Master John Hawkins," he tells us, "having
made divers voyages to the Isles of the Canaries, and
there by his good and upright dealing being grown in
love and favour with the people, informed himself . . .
that negroes were very good merchandise in Hispaniola,
and that store of negroes might easily be had upon the
coast of Guinea." He accordingly "resolved with him-
self to make trial thereof, and communicated that devise
with his worshipful friends of London, namely, with Sir
Lionel Ducket, Sir Thomas Lodge, Mr. Gunson, his
father-in-law, Sir William Winter, Mr. Bromfield, and
others. All which persons liked so well of his intention
that they became liberal contributors and adventurers in
the action. For which purpose there were three good
ships immediately provided." These good ships sailed
under Hawkins' command in October of 1562, touching
at Sierra Leone, where Hawkins " stayed some good
time, and got into his possession, partly by the sword
and partly by other means, to the number of 300 negroes
at the least. With this praye he sailed over the ocean
sea to the island of Hispaniola." His venture proved
so profitable that, in addition to lading his own ships,
he laded two other hulks with hides, sugars, ginger,
pearls, and other commodities of the islands, " So with

328 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

prosperous success, and much gayne to himself and the
aforesaid adventurers, he came home, and arrived in the
month of September 1563."

The names quoted by Hakluyt are evidently names
to be respected, yet the account given by Hawkins
himself of his methods in a subsequent expedition of
1567 differs in nothing from the accounts given by eye-
witnesses of Arab slave-raids of the present day. He
not only traded, he raided, " There came to us," he
says, "a negro sent from a king oppressed by other
kings, his neighbours, desiring our aide, with promise
that as many negroes as by these warres might be
obtained, as well of his part as of ours, should be at
our pleasure." As a result, " I went myselfe, and with
the helpe of the king of our side assaulted the towne
both by land and sea, and very hardly with fire (their
houses being covered with dry palm leaves) obtained
the towne and put the inhabitants to flight, where we
took 250 persons, men, women, and children ; and by
our friend, the king of our side, there were taken 600
prisoners, whereof we hoped to have had our choise,
but the negro (in which nation is seldom or never
found truth) meant nothing lesse." The negro king
decamped in the night with his prisoners, and Hawkins
was left with the "few which we had gotten ourselves."
It is interesting to observe, in Hawkins' letters describ-
ing these and other expeditions, the perfect reliance of
the mariners upon the Almighty to be on their side,
and to bring them out of all their dangers with "good
store of negroes " for sale. On one occasion they were
becalmed for eighteen days, and in great danger of death
from starvation, having so great a company of negroes
on board; but "Almighty God, who never suffereth His
elect to perish," sent, we are told, a special wind to
carry the slave-raiders safe to their destination, and
when they reached it they obtained licence to sell their
cargo on the ground that their vessel was "a shippe of
the Queen's Majestie of England," and that the cargo

EUROPE IN WEST AFRICA 329

"pertained to our Queen's Highnesse." Church and
State watched over their operations, and they worked
in an odour of the highest sanctity.

Another famous English sailor, Drake, who as a
young man accompanied Hawkins on one of his earlier
expeditions to the coast, was more humane or more
fastidious in his tastes than his great leader, for after
one experience he never again went slave-raiding.

Except for a patent granted in 1588 to Exeter
merchants, the English trade was left during the reign
of Queen Elizabeth in the hands of individuals. The
first charter to an English company for the purpose of
trading to the coast was granted by King James in
1619. The charter was supposed to convey exclusive
rights, but the private merchants who were already
interested continued, in spite of regulations, to trade on
their own account, and with many complaints of the
" interlopers " who robbed them of their profits, the
Chartered Company acknowledged its failure and with-
drew. The Dutch West India Company, being either
better organised or more vigorous in holding its own
against "interlopers," from whom it also suffered, in the
meantime pursued with success its design of supplement-
ing the Portuguese, and became a very important power
upon the coast. Charles I. granted a fresh charter to
another English company. But England was shortly
afterwards distracted with civil and foreign war, and
this company had no better fortune. The Dutch and
the Danes profited by the opportunity to push their
West African trade. They not only increased the
number of their forts and settlements, but being well
supported by their respective Governments, and pro-
tected by what was then the best navy in the world,
they seized English merchant ships, and inflicted damage
to an extent afterwards estimated at ^300,000.

The Chartered Company being of course ruined, a
petition was presented to Parliament shortly after the
restoration of Charles II., which stated the condition of

330 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

affairs. At the same time it was represented by Ministers
to the King that his American Colonies were languish-
ing for want of labour. The King himself, therefore,
"for the purpose," as a contemporary account informs
us, "of supplying those plantations with blacks," publicly
invited subscriptions for the formation of a joint-stock
company, of which the object was to be the recovery
and carrying on of the trade to Africa. The new
company was formed under the title of " the Royal
Adventurers of England," and received a charter in
1662. But it had no better luck than its predecessors.
War broke out with Holland in 1664. It was during
this war that the Dutch Admiral de Ruyter swept the
African coast, ravaged the English settlements, destroyed
their factories, containing goods valued at ^200,000,
and took their ships. The fort known now as Cape
Coast Castle, taken by the English from the Dutch,
was alone, as has been said, successfully held, and
remained in English hands on the conclusion of the
peace. This was the third Chartered Company ruined
in the West African trade.

On the conclusion of the war. King Charles again
invited subscriptions for the formation of a new company.
His appeal was responded to, and in 1672 a company,
of which the name and fame have lingered in the
history of English trade, was formed under the title
of "the Royal African Company."

Where so many others had been foiled this company
at last succeeded, and the permanent establishment of
English influence on the West African coast was
effected by it in the latter part of the seventeenth
century. The new company opened and developed a
valuable export trade of English goods to the West
Coast of Africa. It also, according to its own statement,
presented at a later date to Parliament, "furnished the
new American Colonies with frequent supplies of con-
siderable numbers of slaves at very moderate rates,
and that in so encouraging a manner that it sometimes

EUROPE IN WEST AFRICA 331

trusted the planters to the value of ^100,000 and
upward till they could conveniently pay the same."
Besides this three-cornered trade of goods to Africa and
slaves to America, the company also brought home
" ivory, red-wood, and gold dust in such quantity that it
frequently coined 40,000 to 50,000 guineas at a time,
with the elephant on them for a mark of distinction."
In fine, its trade not only produced a dividend, but
also "gave many other public and national advantages
to the whole kingdom, and the British plantations in
general."

This flourishing state of things of course attracted
"interlopers," who, without regard for the company's
charter, carried on trade. The usual course followed.
Protests were made on the one side against interfer-
ence, on the other side against privilege. Every oppor-
tunity was taken by outsiders to find fault with the
company, and by the company to prove that, in the
best interests of the public, they should be allowed to
keep their monopoly. Finally, public opinion proved
too strong, and that happened which must always happen
to the best of chartered companies, when the field which
it exploits is widely profitable. The general trading
community insisted upon having its share, and in 1697
permission was granted to the "interlopers" by vote of
Parliament to trade to the West Coast, on payment of
a percentage to the Royal African Company for the
maintenance of its forts and castles for defensive pur-
poses. One of the principal arguments used in support
of the adoption of this policy was that the plantations
would be supplied with slaves in greater numbers and
at cheaper rates than could be expected from the company
alone.

Many traders profited by this permission. The result,
according to a somewhat rueful report of the company,
was that the natives advanced the price of slaves and
beat down the price of English manufactures, while the
American planters, having to pay a higher price for

332 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

their labour, advanced the price of sugar. The Royal
African Company had to raise ^180,000 of fresh capital,
and in 1707 we find the company petitioning Queen
Anne to recommend their case to the consideration of
the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations.
Nevertheless trade flourished, and notwithstanding the
strong presentation of their case by the company, and
the many evils which unquestionably attended the throw-
ing open of the coast, we may be permitted to doubt
whether West African trade would to-day be valued in
the substantial millions which its total has reached, if
the monopoly of the Royal African Company had been
sustained.

CHAPTER XXXVI
THE EUROPEAN SLAVE TRADE

The West African coast history of the eighteenth century
is mainly a history of trade, and as the most profitable
trade was done in slaves, it is hardly an over statement
to say that it is a history of the slave trade. It may be
remembered that one of the most valued privileges con-
ceded to Great Britain at the Peace of Utrecht in 171 2
was the Assiento contract, or the right to supply the
Spanish colonies on the American coast with slaves.
In that treaty, which may be said to have laid the
foundation of the British Colonial Empire, other British
colonies and settlements obtained other advantages. The
concession of a monopoly in the Spanish slave trade
was the special advantage pressed for by the section of
the country which was interested in the West African
trade, and was obtained for them by British diplomacy
in satisfaction of what was felt to be their legitimate
claim. Other European nations were no less active in
the same traffic, and thus it came about that whereas
in the interior the influence of ancient and medieval
civilisation, operating from the north, had been an in-
fluence tending to the development of all that is admir-
able in the history of nations, in the south the modern
relation of Europeans to the natives of the coast was simply
as the relation of beasts of prey to their victims.

The victims were generally of a very low order of
humanity. Europe made its settlements at the extreme
southern edge of what may be called the equatorial slums
of Western Africa. Europeans seldom lost sight of the
sea, and European influence scarcely extended beyond

334 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

the forts which protected it. The nearer to the coast
the worse was the native type. Barbot, who was of
course himself a slave-dealer, tells his readers patheti-
cally that " 'Tis hard to conceive what patience is
required to deal with these brutes." They were all gross
pagans, worshipping snakes, consecrated trees, the sea,
and many lesser objects. This was the fetishism which
had been driven southwards at an early period from Gao,
Daura, Kano, and other towns in the northern territories.
We find here also in the seventeenth century — as at the
present day — traces of the paganism which was expelled
by the Mohammedans from Ghana in the eleventh cen-
tury. *' Almost every town or village has near to it a
small consecrated g-rove to which the orovernors and
people frequently resort to make their offerings." And
here too we find, in the so-called monumental stones
carved to represent half a human figure, which are re-
vered to the present day, a reminiscence of the Teraphim
of ancient Egypt. The people of Benin were in the
seventeenth century "the most genteel and polite of the
coast," Barbot gives a very interesting account of their
capital town. But on festive occasions human sacrifices
were made on a vast scale.

At the back of Cape Verde, between the Senegal
and the Gambia, the Fulani had a "little empire"
inland, and the natives reckoned their king to be the
"most potent prince in all those countries." It was said
that he could put from 40,000 to 50,000 men into the
field. The coast was, however, densely wooded, and
swarmed with wild beasts. The character given by
Barbot of the coast natives at this district has been
already quoted. Sorcerers, idolaters, robbers, and
drunkards, they were indeed "no better than their
country." At the back of the Gambia the natives were
" very savage, cruel, and treacherous;" they were "gross
pagans, said to worship demons more than any other
blacks ; " and a cannibal people, driven southwards about
the year 1505 — which we may remember was the date

THE EUROPEAN SLAVE TRADE 335

of some of the great Askia's conquests — perpetually-
warred upon the older inhabitants. "On the Ivory
Coast the natives," says Barbot, "are very savage canni-
bals who file their teeth. The place might yield a good
trade," he adds, "but for the savagery of the natives,
who have massacred at different times English, Dutch,
and Portuguese." Though for the sake of the ivory all
European nations traded at this coast, no setdements
were made and the ships' crews "dared not land." On
the Gold Coast, where the natives were among the most
civilised with whom the Europeans dealt, few or none
were to be trusted. They were gross pagans, and, like
the people of Benin, made human sacrifices. They were
generally " of a turbulent temper, very deceitful and crafty,
and so continually at war with one another that this was
the best part of all the coast for slaves as well as gold,"
the prisoners being sold immediately on their capture.
After some of their quarrels with their neighbours a
trader might " ship prisoners as fast as they could be
fetched from the shore in a boat." The natives of the
Slave Coast were the greatest and most cunning thieves
that can be imagined, " therein far exceeding our Euro-
pean pick-pockets, and on the least outrage received
would poison the offender." The inhabitants of Biafra
farther east were "very gross pagans of a wild temper,"
and made human sacrifices to the devil. Inland from
New Calabar and the Cross River the natives were
cannibals, and southwards from this district the country
was inhabited by "very low class naked natives" to
Gaboon, where the inhabitants, "very savage and animal
in their habits," were "barbarous, wild, bloody, and
treacherous." These were the most wretchedly poor and
miserable of any in Guinea, They were excessively
fond of brandy, and " married indifferently any female
member of their family, including their mothers."

These wretched beings were worth ^40 apiece in
the market of Jamaica, and with the ideas that then
prevailed it is hardly perhaps surprising that they were

336 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

regarded as fair prey. Synods of the Churches— Pro-
testant as well as Catholic — countenanced the trade.
Two Synods of the Protestant Churches held in France,
at Rouen and Alen9on in 1637, to consider a question
raised by certain "over-scrupulous persons " who "thought
it unlawful that many Protestant merchants who had
lono- traded in slaves from Guinea to America should
continue that traffic, as inconsistent with Christian
charity," decreed after long discussion that slavery, always
acknowledged to be of the right of nations, "is not
condemned in the Word of God." Therefore they con-
tented themselves with exhorting merchants who had
liberty to trade not to abuse that liberty contrary to
Christian charity, and not to dispose of those poor infidels
except to such Christians as will use them with humanity,
and above all will take care to instruct them in the
true religion. The "inestimable advantage which the
slaves may reap by becoming Christians and saving
their souls," was put forward by the righteous of that
day as one of the strongest arguments in favour of con-
tinuing a traffic which was so profitable as to enlist very
powerful support.

How far this reason and the mild advice offered by
the Synods of the Churches was likely to influence the
Europeans of different nationalities who were locally en-
gaged in the coast trade, may be gathered from the
descriptions which are given by Barbot and other con-
temporaries. The conduct of the Portuguese has already
been described. Of the English, Barbot says that the
trade of the Royal African Company "daily decays
through the ill management of their servants in Guinea,
who, to their own vices, add those of the people among
whom they live and converse. . . . The fondness of the
English for their beloved liquor, punch, is so great, even
among the officers and factors, that whatever comes of
it, there must be a bowl upon all occasions, which causes
the death of many of them. Consequently the garrison
(of Cape Coast Castle) becomes very weak, the survivors

THE EUROPEAN SLAVE TRADE 337

looking poor and thin, not only the soldiers, but the officers
and factors, whose countenances are shrivelled and dis-
mal through ill diet and worse government." The con-
duct of all Europeans towards the black women was as
discreditable as it was injurious to themselves. Rum
and spirits were sold in great quantities by the English
and Dutch. The Prussians and Danes were even fonder
of strong liquor than the English, and their conduct
generally was equally bad. The governors of the Danish
stations were often men of the meanest extraction, a
gunner from the fort being sometimes raised to that
position. The unfaithfulness to the Danish Company
of their servants was such that "scarce any one of in-
tegrity " sent out from Denmark was allowed to live.
The Dutch treated the natives with arbitrary cruelty.
In return the blacks were often uncivil to strangers, and
this "put Europeans upon ravaging the country, destroy-
ing their canoes, and carrying off some of their people
into captivity." " If," says Barbot, "the negroes be
generally crafty and treacherous, it may well be said
the Europeans have not dealt with them as becomes
Christians, for it is too well known that many of the
European nations trading amongst these people have
very unjustly and inhumanly, without any provocation,
stolen away from time to time abundance of the people,
not only in this (the Sierra Leone) coast, but all over
Guinea, and when they came on board their ships in a
harmless and confiding manner, carried great numbers
away to the plantations, and there sold them with the
other slaves they had purchased for their goods. ..."
"Certain it is," he says in another place, "that few who
can live well at home will venture to repair to the Guinea
Coast to mend their circumstances, unless encouraged by
large salaries. . . . This must be said, once for all, that
the generality of those who look for such employments
are necessitous persons who cannot live at home, and
are, perhaps, most of them of a temper to improve
all opportunities of mending their worldly circumstances

Y

338 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

without much regard to the principles of Christianity.
For without reflecting on particular persons, it may be
said that what I have here asserted is sufficiently made
out by the irregularity of their lives in those parts, and
particularly as to lewdness and excess of drinking. It
is almost incredible how many shorten their days by
such debauchery."

Ao-ents of this character were not likely to deal over
tenderly with their human merchandise. Ships of 300
and 400 tons burden usually took cargoes of from 500
to 800 slaves. A ship carrying 500 slaves needed to
take in 100,000 yams, the slaves generally sickening and
dying upon any other food. The space which was left
for the slaves when such provision was made for feeding
them, and for storing a proportionate amount of water,
was not great. Here is Bosman's description of the
manner in which slaves were shipped at Whydah. After
explaining that they were usually prisoners of war, he
says : " When these slaves come to Whydah they are
put in prison all together, and when we treat concerning
buying them, they are all brought out together in a large
plain, where, by our surgeons, whose province it is, they
are thoroughly examined, and that naked, too, both men
and women, without the least distinction or modesty.
Those which are approved as good are set on one side.
. . . The invalids and the maimed being thrown out, as
I have told you, the remainder are numbered, and it is
entered who delivered them. In the meanwhile a burning
iron, with the arms or name of the companies, lies in the
fire, with which ours are marked on the breast. This is
done that we may distinguish them from the slaves of
the English, French, or others, which are also marked
with their mark. . . . They come on board stark naked,
as well women as men." Bosman, proud of the superior
organisation of the Dutch ships, which he described as
being "for the most part clean and neat," while the ships
of the English, French, and Portuguese are always "foul
and stinking," explains that on these better-class Dutch

THE EUROPEAN SLAVE TRADE 339

ships the lodging-place of the slaves is divided into two
parts, one for the women and one for the men, and that
"here they lie as close together as it is possible for
them to be crowded." Barbot, who traded for himself,
chiefly in the neighbourhood of New Calabar, says nothing
about cleanliness nor separate compartments. He tells
us that in that neighbourhood the slaves were "a strange
sort of brutish creatures, very weak and slothful, but
cruel and bloody in their temper, always quarrelling,
biting, and fighting, and sometimes choking and murder-
ing one another without any mercy." Both traders were
much disturbed by a widespread belief among the natives
that "we buy them only to fatten and afterwards eat
them as a delicacy." Barbot tells us that "natives
infected with this belief will fall into a deep melancholy
and despair, and refuse all sustenance, though never so
much compelled and even beaten to oblige them to take
some nourishment, notwithstanding all which they will
starve to death. . . . And, though I must say I am
naturally compassionate, yet have I been necessitated
sometimes to cause the teeth of those wretches to be
broken, because they would not open their mouths or
be prevailed upon by any entreaties to feed themselves,
and thus have forced some sustenance into their throats."
Many of the slaves came from the back country, and had
never even seen the sea.

Those of us who have crossed the Bay of Biscay in
bad weather on a return journey from the Tropics, with
all the alleviations that can be given by swift transit,
comfort, and warm clothing, are in a position to imagine
what some of those naked shiploads must have suffered.
The death-rate amounted to two, three, and even four
hundred out of every five hundred shipped in Guinea.
Yet so profitable was the trade that ten ships might often
be seen loading slaves in the same port.

The slaves being commonly prisoners of war, the trade
had of course the indirect effect of putting a premium upon
intertribal fighting. There was indeed scarcely a vice

340 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

which it did not encourage alike in slaves and slavers.
It is interesting to observe, from the records of European
intercourse with the coast, that the evil of trading in arms
and spirits was very early apparent to the intelligent.
Barbot and Bosman both deplore the trade in arms, but
the one speaking for the French and English and the
other for the Dutch agree in regarding it as inevitable,
"since should one nation abstain from the profit of the
trade, other nations would only sell the more." "Abund-
ance of firearms, gunpowder, and ball," says Barbot, "are
sold by all the trading Europeans, and are a very profit-
able commodity when the blacks of the coast are at war,
yet were it to be wished they had never been carried
thither, considering how fatal they have been and will
still be upon occasion in the hands of the blacks to
Europeans who, for a little gain, furnish them with knives
to cut their own throats ; of which each nation is sensible
enough, and yet none will forbear to carry that commodity
which proves so dangerous in the hands of those blacks.
The best excuse we have for this ill-practice is that if one
does not sell the other will sell them, if the French do not
the Dutch will, and if they should forbear it the English
or others would do it." The idea of the delegates of
seventeen European nations assembled for the purpose
of agreeing to limitations to be placed upon the trade of
their respective countries was one which had not presented
itself to the eyes of the seventeenth century. The Inter-
national Conferences of Berlin and Brussels belonged to
another age.

The effect of the slave trade upon the coast was felt
into the far interior, and in the later records of the Haussa
States we hear of slaves being hunted for purposes of sale
to the black traders from the south, who in turn sold them
to Europeans on the coast, Mungo Park's account of his
travels in passing from the Gambia to the Niger at the
end of the eighteenth century gives a sufficiently sorrow-
ful picture of the condition of populations which had then
been ground for two hundred years between the oppression

THE EUROPEAN SLAVE TRADE 341

of the European slave trade on the south and the Moorish
conquest on the north.

It was only very gradually that the conscience of
humanity revolted against a means of making profit so
opposed to every conception of freedom and justice. But
the movements of thought of the eighteenth century,
which emancipated Europe, had also their result upon
the West Coast of Africa. There wanted still a few
years to the centenary of the Treaty of Utrecht, when
the slave trade was abolished, at least in name, in 1807.
Tt was unfortunately far from being abolished in fact,
and the greater part of the nineteenth century saw
unavailing efforts made by European governments to
put an end to the exportation of slaves from Africa
by sea.

The early part of the nineteenth century witnessed
also determined efforts made by European exploration
to penetrate the mystery of Central Africa. England took
a brilliant part in this movement on the West Coast, and,
in the early part of the century, the principal exploring
parties were led by Englishmen. Mungo Park, sent out
by the Royal Geographical Society, made his first jour-
ney, travelling in from the Gambia, in 1 796, and struck
the Niger at Segou. His second journey ended fatally
at Boussa in 1805. Between 1810 and 1825 English
expeditions made many attempts to reach the interior
from the coast. When Rene Caillie, the French explorer,
who eventually reached Timbuctoo in 1828, disembarked
at St. Louis in 18 16, with the intention of penetrating,
if possible, to the Niger, he found that "nothing was
talked of there but the English expeditions into the
interior." It was with the expedition of Major Grey in
1818 that he first started for the interior. I find it stated
in a French account that England spent upwards of
^760,000 at this time upon exploration.

Efforts to reach the interior were made from the north
coast as well as from the south. Hornemann attempted
in 18 10 to cross the continent from Tripoli to Ashantee,

342 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

and reached the Haussa States, travelHng by the Tripoli-
Fezzan route, but died of dysentery in Nupe. A little
later Lyon and Ritchie went in from Tripoli, and in the
years 1818-20 explored the Fezzan as far south as lat. 23°.
Ritchie died at Murzuk, but Lyon brought back a good
deal of information about the Fezzan and the country to
the south, including Bornu and the Haussa States. Their
work was carried further by Major Denham, Captain
Clapperton, and Dr. Oudney, who went in together by the
Tripoli-Fezzan road, and succeeded in the years 1822-23
and 1824 in reaching Bornu and the Haussa States,
travelling as far west as Sokoto, and as far south as the
tenth parallel of latitude. The others returned safely —
Oudney died in Bornu. Captain Clapperton, making a
second journey by way of the West Coast in 1826, died at
Sokoto. Major Laing, going in also from the north,
reached Timbuctoo, and was murdered in the desert a
little way from the town in 1828, The most famous of
the expeditions from the north was that carried out by
Dr. Barth and Mr. Richardson at the instance of Lord
Palmerston between the years 1850-55, in which, though
Mr. Richardson died, Dr. Barth was able to collect a
mass of valuable information, afterwards published in
five bulky volumes, which form the standard work upon
the interior of the West African Soudan.

It was reserved for Clapperton's faithful servant,
Richard Landor, to navigate the Lower Niger from the
Boussa Rapids to its mouth in 1832. From this time
onwards, expeditions were renewed upon the coast. The
French took an active part in exploring the territory in
which they were politically interested, and a certain
amount of information with regard to the interior was
acquired.

The change of civilised opinion with regard to the
slave trade led in the meantime to corresponding changes
in the administration of European settlements on the
West Coast. Already in 1 783 the trading rights of
France in the Gambia had been made the subject of

THE EUROPEAN SLAVE TRADE 343

exchange for the trading rights of England in the
Senegal, thus preparing the way for the modern system
of "spheres of influence." Shortly after the conclusion
of the war with France in 18 15, the British Government
took over from the merchant companies the various forts
and stations established by British enterprise, and created
a colony of " West Africa Settlements" that included the
whole of the coast in which English trade was interested.
This initiated the system, which, however, was not for
some time fully carried into effect, of Crown Colonies upon
the coast.

In 1843 the colonies of Gambia and the Gold Coast
were erected by letters-patent into separate colonies,
having each their executive and judicial establishments.
In 1850 the Danish forts on the Gold Coast were pur-
chased by Great Britain from the King of Denmark, and
with the forts the Danish Protectorate was transferred to
England. In 1861 Lagos became British by cession from
the natives. In 187 1 the Dutch finally abandoned to
Great Britain the whole of their rights upon the coast.
With various changes in the administration of the settle-
ments themselves the existing colonies of Gambia, Sierra
Leone, Gold Coast, and Lagos, came into being, and trade
with the West Coast in more legitimate products than
human flesh was carried on under the local protection of
an Imperial flag.

Unfortunately, the long-indulged taste for spirits, and
the natural desire of the natives to possess firearms, gave
a predominance to these two articles of European export,
which up to the end of the nineteenth century continued
to produce deplorable results, and to lower alike the utility
and the value of European dealings with the coast. It
was not until the conscience of Europe, revolting at last
against this evil as against the slave trade, made itself
heard in the international agreements signed at Berlin
and Brussels in 1885 and 1890, that any determined effort
was made to restrict by legislation the limits of this in-
jurious traffic. The result of this movement of opinion

344 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

may already be very plainly traced in the different char-
acter which trade with West Africa has assumed within
the last twenty or five-and-twenty years. In the earlier
part of the century, when the British Government assumed
the duty of watching over the suppression of the slave
trade, other trade fell to an almost nominal figure. A
return presented to the House of Commons in 1865 shows
the total value of exports from the West African settle-
ments to amount to ;^650,ooo, while the total value of
imports into the settlements amounted to £5:^3,000. The
cost of the very elementary government which was main-
tained in the four settlements for the purpose of promoting
this trade and suppressing the slave trade, inclusive of the
squadron maintained in West African waters, amounted
to a charge on the Treasury of about ^320,000.

The later history of these colonies is sufficiently well
known to render it unnecessary for me to deal with it
here. I must only guard myself from seeming to attach
to modern traders with West Africa the slur which un-
doubtedly did attach to their predecessors of an earlier
period. The trade of the coast of late years has
been placed upon a much wider, and I think it may be
said without fear of contradiction by events, an ever-
widening basis. It is associated with some of the most
respectable names in commerce, and under enlightened
and beneficent direction may not improbably become one
of the most valuable fields of British industrial develop-
ment. Since the period of which I write, a body of
educated coast natives has also been developed which
would have a just right to be profoundly wounded were
they to be confused with the cannibal savage who lives
not far from them in the interior. In this connection,
the names of Bishop Crowther and Dr. Blyden will
occur to every mind, and if among the coloured officials
and professional men of the coast colonies all have not
attained to the same reputation, there are no doubt many
who merit the same distinction. But these are to be
met with only within the limits of the European settle-

THE EUROPEAN SLAVE TRADE 345

ments. What I have said in regard to the earlier trade
is, I think, sufficient to prove the statement with which I
set out, that if the original native of the coast is inferior
to the native of the interior, the influence exercised by
Europe on the coast has been very different from that
exercised by Europe in the interior in days when black
poets were welcomed at the court of Cordova, and the
University of Timbuctoo exchanged knowledge with the
universities of Spain.

There is one other point to which I am anxious to
draw attention. It is that, with the exception of Mr.
Maclean's temporary extension of British influence on the
Gold Coast as Governor for the Merchant Government,
between 1838 and 1842, no colony up to the last decade of
the nineteenth century extended beyond the immediate
seaboard. From the date of the abolition of the slave
trade the constant policy of the British Government was
to withdraw as far as possible from any intermeddling
with native affairs, and from any attempt to establish
British influence, or to incur political responsibilities, upon
the coast. It was as a matter of duty, and mainly for
the purpose of enforcing the abolition of the over-sea
slave trade, that Great Britain in 1808 assumed the
government of Sierra Leone, and in 182 1, after the aboli-
tion of the existing Chartered Company, annexed to it
the settlements of the Gambia and the Gold Coast.
The greatest care was taken to repudiate responsibility
for native affairs outside the limits of the small English
settlements. As late as 1865, it was stated before a
Committee of the House of Commons that British ter-
ritory on the Gambia was so small, that when the native
tribes fought with each other, "all their bullets, without
meaning us any harm, came into the British barracks."
In the Gold Coast Colony, Fantees and Ashantees fought
with each other on the sea coast, and an English victory
obtained over them in 1827 took place, not in the interior,
but at Accra.

The settlement of the country and the policy of the

346 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

Government with regard to the West Coast were fully
expressed in the finding of a strong representative Com-
mittee of the House of Commons which sat for several
months in the early part of 1865, and, after a careful
examination of witnesses and consideration of reports
specially prepared and submitted to it by commissioners
charged with the investigation of the affairs of the West
African colonies on the spot, reported to the House
certain resolutions at which it had arrived.

In reporting these resolutions, the Committee stated
first that the chief object of all undertakings on the
coast, since the passing of the Act for the abolition of
the slave trade, had been the suppression of the trade ;
secondly, that " if the promotion first, and afterwards the
suppression, of the slave trade had not been the ob-
ject of British West African establishments, commercial
enterprise would never have selected the Gold Coast
for its locality, nor would the British probably have
undertaken any settlement whatever in West Africa ;
still less would the Crown have implicated itself in
government there or in treaties of protection." The
Committee found that the slave trade, "the suppression
of which is now the chief object of the British establish-
ments in West Africa, was rapidly diminishing, that the
only demand remaining in 1865 was from Cuba, while
there was a good hope of its speedy and total extinction.
They also found, as regards the encouragement and
protection of other trade, that "in the sole interests of
trade the evidence of merchants is that it is better that
their agents should feel the necessity of keeping on
good terms with native powers than that they should be
backed by English governments, or even by consuls,
more than is necessary for a reference of disputes to
constituted authorities."

For these and for other reasons which are fully set
forward in the report, the Committee submitted as a
resolution to the House: "That all further extension
of territory or assumption of government, or new treaties

THE EUROPEAN SLAVE TRADE 347

offering any protection to native tribes, would be in-
expedient, and that the object of our policy should be to
encourage in the natives the exercise of those qualities
which may render it possible for us more and more to
transfer to them the administration of all the governments,
with a view to our ultimate withdrawal from all, except,
probably, Sierra Leone." This resolution, with six others
arrived at by the Committee, was adopted and reported
to the House on June 26, 1865.

CHAPTER XXXVII
ENGLAND AND FRANCE ON THE LOWER NIGER

The Committee of 1865 may be taken to represent the
lowest ebb of British sentiment with regard to the West
African colonies. The evidence which was given before
it forms a bulky volume, and, in reading through its
pages, there is no escape from the conclusion that the
result of three hundred years of occupation and of trade
with the West Coast was to leave us with no interest
there which could appeal to the British public as justi-
fying the expenditure of British money, and the employ-
ment of British officials to defend. Upwards of two
centuries had been spent in developing the West African
slave trade, the better part of one century had been
spent in suppressing it, and when, in 1865, it became
possible to report that the over-sea slave trade was
practically abolished, the only proposal that appeared
to be warranted by the existing condition of affairs in
West Africa was that, with the exception of a coaling
station to be retained at Sierra Leone, Great Britain
should abandon a position of which the advantages
seemed to be purely nominal upon the coast. The
principal evidence which was given before the Com-
mittee went to show that British settlement had no
extension, that British administration claimed no authority,
and that British trade had no interests which the increase
of political influence could assist. The private trade
which remained outside the slave trade was small, and
was reported in two out of the four settlements to be
rapidly declining.

But though this is the position which is emphatically

348

ENGLAND AND FRANCE 349

presented by the findings of the Committee of 1865, there
is to be traced, even in the evidence which was taken
before the Committee, a faint indication of the coming
change which was soon to reverse the direction of public
opinion. In the examination of an important witness,
Colonel Ord, the Special Commissioner employed by the
Government to visit the four settlements and to prepare
a report from information collected on the spot, a question
was put as to the probable reasons for the maintenance
by France of the large military garrisons which he
reported as existing at Senegal and Goree. In reply,
Colonel Ord said that the only surmise which he had
heard expressed upon the subject was that "they" (the
French) "desire eventually to connect their Algerian and
their African possessions, and to become possessors of
the whole of the north of Africa."

Thus, in 1865, outside the circles of philanthropy and
philosophic Radicalism which still retained a predominat-
ing influence over British colonial policy, the first notes
had been already sounded of that international conflict of
diplomacy which was soon to be known under the name
of the " Scramble for Africa."

The Franco-German war of 1870 intervened, and de-
layed for a few years the development of ideas which were
already germinating in 1865, but, the war once over, its
effect was, perhaps, rather to stimulate than to crush the
ambitions of France and Germany to sustain their position
as colonial powers. Among non-political influences which
also tended to give an impetus to continental exploration,
no single element was perhaps more potent than the
application of steam to land and river transport. The
development of railways, which took place during the
middle of the century, had for the first time in history
rendered possible the commercial exploitation of the
centres of great continents. The discoveries of gold
which had been made in America and Australia, and of
diamonds and gold at a somewhat later period in South
Africa, revolutionised trading operations and raised ex-

350 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

pectancy to the highest point. Capital became available for
every enterprise, and in the last quarter of the nineteenth
century colonial apathy on the part of the western nations
gave place to a keen competition for the acquisition of
fields of commercial operation — which were known by the
political name of "spheres of influence" — in hitherto un-
developed portions of the world.

Africa became the scene of an international race for
territory and power. In the heart of the continent the
Congo Free State was brought into existence by mutual
agreement of the European Powers in 1885, and was
placed, with what were held to be due guarantees for free-
dom of trade, under the direction of the King of the
Belgians. The position of England was unchallenged in
the south. Portugal retained, and Germany made good
claims upon the east and west coasts. England too secured
from the east coast a position, which at a later period was
extended to the interior, and gave her the command of the
great waterways and the Valley of the Nile. France held
an undisputed position of predominant influence in the
north, as well as important centres of trade and of military
influence on the west coast.

That under these circumstances the directors of French
colonial policy should have cherished the ambition ascribed
to them of joining their possessions on the coast of the
Mediterranean to their possessions in the west, and thus
becoming the possessors of the whole of North-West
Africa, was in no sense to be wondered at. The intro-
duction of railways had abolished distance, and there was
no apparent obstacle to obstruct the spread of French
influence from the Mediterranean seaboard to the equator.
A'map showing the limits of the West African colonies of
Great Britain, which was prepared and submitted to the
Committee of 1865, gave practically no dimensions to the
British settlements. They are indicated simply as pink
lines upon the sea coast, with here and there a dot, of which
it appeared in evidence that one mile might be taken as
the greatest extent inland. Only on the Gold Coast there

ENGLAND AND FRANCE 351

was an indication of protected territory lying inland from
the pink line, and there had been a public declaration of
the intention to withdraw from that territory. In the
interior there was therefore no bar whatever to the con-
tinuous extension of French influence.

When, after the conclusion of the Franco-German war,
French policy began to declare itself in West Africa, the
movement, co-ordinated with traditional intelligence, and
supported by brilliant personal initiative on the part of
individuals entrusted with its execution, would appear to
have included a design of steady extension from the north
towards the south, accompanied by supplementary expedi-
tions of penetration to be directed inland from all portions
of the western coast which were not held by any other
foreign power.

The English settlements of the Gambia, Sierra Leone,
the Gold Coast, and Lagos, covered certain strips upon
the seaboard. Between these were found points of pene-
tration in some instances for official military expeditions,
in others for expeditions of trade and exploration. To the
south-east of the English colonies, and lying between them
and the French colony of the Gaboon, there was situated
the very important highway which British exploration of
the early part of the century had shown to exist in the
course of the Lower Niger. It will be remembered that
Mungo Park lost his life at Boussa in the attempt to follow
the course of the river from the interior in the year 1805,
and that Clapperton's servant, Richard Landor, finally
established the connection of the Niger with the Atlantic
in 1832. From that date onward a certain amount of
British trade had existed upon the river, and notwithstand-
ing disastrous experiences of climate, the courses of the
Lower Niger and the Benue had been explored, and a
small trade settlement maintained at the native town of
Lokoja at the confluence of the two rivers.

The Niger, of which the many mouths flowed to the
sea through a politically unprotected coast, and of which
the upper courses in the back country of Sierra Leone

352 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

were already the object of French exploration, was natu-
rally selected as one of the lines to which the French
policy of penetration was to be applied. In this instance
the policy took a commercial form. A French company
was started upon the lower river, and the commercial
attack was met quite simply by British commercial oppo-
sition. English traders had no friendly feelings towards
foreign competition, and in mere self-defence were well
inclined to oppose French intrusion, but in the earlier
years of the movement there was a lack of leadership,
and no very definite intention animated the action which
was taken.

As the struggle for Africa waxed hotter, and all
parties to it became more clearly aware of the objects
at which they were aiming, the value of the Niger as
a commercial highway, and of the territories included
in the watershed of the Niger and the Benu6, became
more apparent. There was still no opposition to French
activity in Western Africa, except that which was privately
sustained by British trade, but the opposition took a more
active form. The British companies trading on the river
began to feel that it was becoming a matter of life and
death to them to overcome the foreign competition, which
threatened them with extinction, and under the pressure
of their struggle for self-preservation they found a leader
and evolved a policy which had for its result to revolu-
tionise the entire position of Great Britain in West Africa.

In 1879, under the inspiration of a young engineer
officer, Mr. Taubman Goldie, whose tastes for travel had
led him to acquire some personal knowledge of the interior
of the Soudan, and whose interests, owing to family cir-
cumstances, had become involved in West African enter-
prise, the British companies trading upon the Niger were
induced to amalgamate, and took the name of the National
African Company. The effect of amalgamation was to
abolish personal rivalries between them, and to enable
them to present a united front to the advances of French
enterprise upon the river. In the sharp round of com-

ENGLAND AND FRANCE 353

mercial war which ensued, Mr. Goldie, afterwards Sir
George, became the acknowledged leader on the British
side of a movement which, under his guidance, rapidly
assumed an overtly political character.

It was essential to the existence of British trade that
French competition should be driven from the native
markets on the banks of the river ; but the immediate
French reply to the amalgamation of the British com-
panies was the formation on the river of another and
more powerful French company, which was known to
have the support and encouragement of the French
Foreign Office. For two or three years the National
African Company sustained the brunt of an international
duel, of which the end was clearly seen to be the with-
drawal of one or other of the combatants from the scene.
The French company yielded. They were finally bought
out by the National African Company in 1884, and the
British representative at the conference opened in Berlin
in that year was able to announce that no other Power
but Great Britain owned any trading establishments on
the Lower Niger. The result was that the conference
adjudged to Great Britain the duty of watching over the
application of regulations laid down for the navigation
of the Niger, and in the same year Great Britain notified
to the Powers her assumption of a Protectorate, under the
name of the Oil Rivers, over that portion of the African
coast which lay between the British colony of Lagos and
the territory now known as the German Cameroons.

The first round was won, but the conflict, which had
hitherto been waged upon the coast, was now carried
into the interior. Throughout the period of its existence
the National African Company had found it necessary
to secure its commercial position by the negotiation of
treaties with native chiefs. Upon the lower river, where
the political organisation of the natives was of a primi-
tive character, the number of petty independent chiefs
was very great, and the treaties negotiated by the Com-
pany were counted by hundreds. It was known that

z

354 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

in the interior chiefs of more importance commanded
the submission of wide areas of territory, and the value
of obtaining treaties of amity and trade with these
potentates was obvious. But if obvious to the British
company, it was of course equally obvious to French
and German competitors; and from 1884 onward the
influence of Germany, which in that year established
itself in the Cameroon territory, to the east of the British
Protectorate, became no less active in the back country
than that of France. The position of the British com-
pany, in presence of this double rivalry, is described in
a speech made by the Governor at a much later date.
"We knew," he said, "that the Haussa States were by
far the most valuable region of equatorial Africa. We
were aware that Germany was organising an expedition
to deprive us of them, and we knew that the acquisition
by any other European Power of political influence over
this empire would before long entail our complete retire-
ment from our position on the Middle Niger and the
river Benue to the district south of Lokoja, and probably
even to Asaba, only 150 miles from the sea." It was
constantly pointed out by the Governor of the Company,
in his speeches to his shareholders, that the prosperity
and success of trading operations upon the coast de-
pended on the maintenance of British influence, with its
accompaniments of peace and security, in the interior.
Animated by this view of their own higher interest, the
Company adopted and maintained, in the first instance
at their private cost, the policy of sending missions into
the interior to negotiate treaties with distant Moham-
medan states. But it had early become evident that
British interests could not be maintained unless the com-
mercial position of the British company were strengthened
by some sort of political sanction. So long as their
treaties were made only by a private company, they
were of the nature of private and individual agreements,
which carried no weight as against the official treaties
of foreign Powers.

ENGLAND AND FRANCE 355

In 1886 the political sanction, of which the need had
made itself more urgently felt with every extension of
competing- foreign influence towards the interior, was
accorded by the grant of a Royal Charter, By the charter
the Company acquired, under the new name of the Royal
Niger Company, the international position of a recognised
government, whose treaties with native chiefs were pro-
tected by Great Britain, and from this date the flag
of the Company became for international purposes the
equivalent of the British flag. Where it flew, the authority
of Great Britain was held to be established, and where
the company negotiated a treaty of protection with a
native power, such treaties were held to exclude any
political treaties from being made in the territories of
the same potentate by other European nations. The
charter also conferred upon the Company the power to
levy taxes to a limited extent for the purpose of meet-
ing the expenses entailed upon it by its political expendi-
ture. Chief among the items of this expenditure was the
raising of a small native military force.

CHAPTER XXXVIII
THE ROYAL NIGER COMPANY

Thus from 1886 the Royal Niger Company took the
position, familiar in the annals of British history, of a
commercial body endowed with political powers, extend-
ing over a territory of which the limits were undefined,
and in which the character, the numbers, and the history
of the native populations were unknown. England, in
general, knew as little of Nigeria and its possibilities at
the end of the nineteenth century as it knew of India
in the sixteenth century. The territories over which
these powers were granted were at first known by the
name of the "Territories of the Royal Niger Company."
A little later this title was changed for the more con-
venient name of Nigeria.

Sir George Goldie, acting first as Vice-President and
afterwards as President of the Chartered Company, con-
tinued to direct a policy, in which the legitimate and
commercial interests of the Company in the lower reaches
of the river were safeguarded and developed by a system
of political missions, extending inland for 500 miles, to
the Emirates of Sokoto and Gando in the north, to
Yola and Adamawa in the east, and finally to Borgu,
lying in the back country of Lagos, in the west. As a
result of these political missions, treaties were negotiated,
and in many instances subsidies were given to native
chiefs. The disturbed condition of the territories and
the hostile attitude of native chiefs, combined with
the difficulties of penetrating to the interior, through
unknown tropical country, laid waste in many districts by

centuries of slave-raiding and inter-tribal war, rendered

356

THE ROYAL NIGER COMPANY 357

these missions in most cases expeditions of no little
danger, which had to be conducted at the personal risk
of the leaders whose services were secured to command
them.

It was in 1884 that Mr. Joseph Thomson was com-
missioned to negotiate the first treaty of the Company
with Sokoto. In 1894 my husband, then Captain Lugard,
made his first experience of West Africa by conducting
an expedition into Borgu, and negotiated the last treaties
of the Company upon that frontier.

In the ten years which elapsed between these two
expeditions, the action of the Company in the interior
led to the further declaration of a British Protectorate
over territories lying on the Middle Niger, and to the
definition by successive international agreements of British
frontiers round a territory covering an area of about
500,000 square miles, of which a considerable part was
situated in some of the richest, most healthy, and most
thickly populated regions of Western Africa.

The most important of these agreements were those
with Germany of 1886 and 1893, ^^^ ^^^^ '^^ 1890 with
France, to be followed a few years later by the agreement
of 1898.

By the German agreements the eastern frontier of the
territory was defined from the coast to the borders of
Lake Chad. By the first of the French agreements the
northern frontier, separating British territory from the
southern extension of the French hinterland of Algeria, was
fixed at a line of some 800 miles in length, to be drawn,
with the necessary deviations for local political boundaries,
near to the fourteenth parallel of latitude, and continued
from a point upon the western shore of Chad to another
selected point upon the Niger. The points chosen were
Barrua upon Lake Chad, and Say upon the Niger, but
these were altered by subsequent modifications. This
line, when the details of its delimitation are finally fixed,
will form the northern frontier of Nigeria. It runs now
from Ilo on the Niger, and making a curve northward

358 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

to include the territories of Sokoto, is deflected to the
western shore of Chad, With the frontiers fixed by
the Anglo-German agreement of 1893 it determined in
principle the boundaries of British territories to the
north and east. In addition to the ao-reements refer-
ring to these frontiers, there were some other minor
agreements with France and Germany, by which various
details relating chiefly to the inland development of
other West Coast colonies were determined.

The five years from 1893 to 1898 were marked by a
tension on both sides of the then undetermined frontier
on the west, which threatened at times to break out
into open hostility. National interests, as well as per-
sonal honour, were held by local representatives to be
involved in the maintenance of a forward movement
which was, perhaps, to be excused if it sometimes dis-
regarded lines of latitude and longitude too pedantically
laid down by the distant Foreign Offices of London,
Paris, and Berlin. In 1893 France formally assumed
the Protectorate of Dahomey, a native kingdom bor-
dering upon the English colony of Lagos upon the
coast, and carried her inland frontier to the parallel of
9° N. latitude. Numerous French expeditions were then
pushed into the territory extending towards the Niger,
directly south of the point which had been chosen at
Say for the terminus of the northern frontier line of
British Nigeria.

The contention of the Royal Niger Company was
that the effect of the Anglo-French agreement of 1890,
which drew the Say-Barrua line, was to give to France
everything which lay north of that line, and to give to
Great Britain everything which lay south of it, with the
exception of the French territory of Dahomey, for which
special arrangement had been made. Under this con-
tention the meridian of Say became automatically the
western frontier of British Nigeria, and gave the native
kingdom of Borgu and part of Gurma, lying on the
western bank of the river Niger, to Great Britain. It

THE ROYAL NIGER COMPANY 359

was of great importance to British trade that both banks
of the river should be British, and the Niger Company
had not neglected to affirm the position assigned to it
under the agreement by negotiating treaties of commerce
and protection with the trans-riverine potentates. French
diplomacy denied the British contention, and French
officers on the spot, gallantly acting upon, or exceeding,
their instructions, endeavoured to create an aro-ument of
the fait accompli by the negotiation of treaties with native
chiefs, whose powers they asserted to be greater than
those of the chiefs with whom the British treaties had
been signed.

The Borgu chief, with whom the Niger Company
negotiated the principal treaty on the western side of
the river, had his headquarters at Boussa. French
authorities asserted that he was the vassal of another
and more important chief, who had his residence at
Nikki, a town lying in the back country of Dahomey,
farther west. By the middle of 1894 it came to be
generally understood that the possession of the provinces
lying on the western bank of the river was to be deter-
mined by the negotiation of a treaty with Nikki. On
the 24th of July a strong French expedition under
Captain Decoeur suddenly left France for Dahomey.
Dahomey was favourably situated for penetrating into
the territory in dispute. M. Ballot, the Governor, had
already pushed a friendly reconnaissance to the borders
of Borgu, only fiifty miles from Nikki. The Niger
Company could ' not mistake the intention of Captain
Decoeur's mission. Four days later, on July 28, Captain
Lugard, fresh from a long struggle to assert British
supremacy in East Africa, left London, having accepted
a mission on behalf of the Company to reach Nikki,
if possible, before Captain Decoeur, and to negotiate a
treaty.

Throughout the progress of these discussions, Ger-
many, who held the territory of Togoland, adjoining
the French colony of Dahomey upon the coast, had not

360 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

been indifferent to the extension of its own back country,
and the condition of affairs in Borgu was described at
the time in the French press as a "veritable steeple-
chase, to which France, England, and Germany are
devoting themselves, in order to gain that part of the
'Bend of the Niger' which impinges on the lower river."
In this steeplechase the, till then, unknown town of Nikki
had become the winning-post. The odds were against
Captain Lugard. He had started later than Captain
Decoeur. He had to go round through the Niger
Company's territories, which involved ascending the river
to Jebba, situated in latitude 9.10°, and marching thence
some 200 miles westwards throuofh the unsettled terri-
tory of Borgu, whence it was the boast of the natives
that no white man had ever come out alive. It was
essential also that the expedition should be proceeded
with at once in the season of the rains, when every
natural difficulty was increased. This is not the place
in which to recount the adventures of the expedition.
African experience served its leader in good stead. He
reached Nikki with his little escort of forty men, and
successfully negotiated the required treaty, w^hich was
signed on November loth. Five days later, Captain
Decoeur arrived with a force of 500 Senegalese, only
to hear that Captain Lugard had already left the town,
taking with him the British treaty duly signed. Other
treaties, securing the northern territory behind Lagos,
had been negotiated for Great Britain on the way to
Nikki, and passing southwards, the British expedition
on the return journey concluded treaties with the frontier
chiefs of Northern Yoruba. The British position was thus
secured upon the western bank of the Middle Niger.

Captain Decoeur loyally acknowledged his defeat. It
was not accepted in the same spirit by other represen-
tatives of French interests, and during the two following
years there was a further development of semi-responsible
expeditionary activity, of which the manifest dangers
could not be ignored.

THE ROYAL NIGER COMPANY 361

The hazardous nature of the position thus created
led, in the year 1897, to a decision on the part of
the British Government to raise a local military force,
of which the primary duty should be the defence, under
proper control, of the inland frontiers of the British
settlements. It was decided to raise this regiment, which
was to be known as the West African Frontier F"orce,
from native Haussa material, to be officered by picked
white officers selected from the regular army for the
purpose. In addition to the duty of defending the
frontier, the force was to be available for all local
military service in West Africa,

The duty of raising and organising this frontier force
was entrusted to Captain, or, as he shortly became,
Lieut.-Colonel Lugard, who was recalled from private
work in South Africa for the purpose. Among the
officers selected by Colonel Lugard to help him in the
work, was Major, now Sir James Willcocks, by whom,
as well as by other members of the first English staff,
he was most loyally assisted.

It was thought desirable, chiefly for military reasons,
to fix the headquarters of the force at Jebba, a point
upon the Niger nearly 500 miles inland. The regiment,
of which the formation was successfully accomplished,
under conditions not likely to be forgotten by any of
the officers who were engaged in it, has since then
done conspicuous honour to its founders in the Ashantee
War of 1900, as well as in many local campaigns. Its
strength, first fixed at two battalions of infantry, each 1 200
strong, and three batteries of artillery, has since been
increased by the addition of a battalion of mounted
infantry 700 strong.

The strained situation was fortunately not prolonged.
In June of the following year the Anglo-French agree-
ment of 1898, perhaps the most important of all the
international agreements by which the position taken
for Great Britain by the Niger Company was affirmed,
happily brought to an end the ambiguities of the political

362 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

situation. By this agreement, which gave to France the
back country of the colony of Dahomey, and accepted
a point near Ilo instead of Say as the point of separa-
tion between French and EngHsh spheres upon the
Middle Niger, the western frontier of Nigeria was fixed
at its present limits. These include, on the western
bank of the Niger, the eastern half of Borgu, and carry
the British frontier from the junction between Lagos
and Dahomey to join the northern line at its terminus
upon the Middle Niger.

The formation of a new military force at public
expense, designed chiefly for local service in the interior,
was not only an indication of the very remarkable
change in public opinion, which, contemporaneously with
the movements in Nigeria, operated to bring about a
gradual enlargement and expansion towards the interior
of the territories of the other West Coast colonies ; it
also indicated approaching change in the government
of the territories of the Niger Company.

During the whole of the period which elapsed
between the grant of the charter of the Royal Niger
Company and the formation of the West African
Frontier Force, the Company had carried on the fight
for British extension in the interior on the gallant but
unequal terms of a private corporation contending with
two foreign Governments. In the events which pre-
ceded the agreement of 1898, when officially organised
French expeditions were directed against the territories
secured by treaty to the Company, and a French gun-
boat did not scruple, in the excitement of local rivalry,
to enter the waters of the river which were open by
international agreement to merchant vessels alone, it
became evident that a stage had been reached in which
the adventurous energy of a trading company, however
well directed, could no longer suffice for the efficient
protection and necessary development of the territories
which had been brought under British rule.

Obviously it was undesirable that territories, of which

THE ROYAL NIGER COMPANY 363

the defence was provided at public expense, should be
administered at private discretion. The Company had
not, of course, attained the accomplishment of its ambi-
tions without exciting many jealousies, and giving rise
to widespread criticism at home and abroad. By foreign
Powers its too successful methods were made the object
of vituperative campaigns in the press, and of more dis-
creet but not less urgent diplomatic remonstrance in the
Cabinet. At home complaints were frequent that the
concentration of administrative and commercial powers in
the same hands gave advantages to the Niger Company
over its commercial rivals which amounted to a virtual
monopoly of trade which was nominally free. An internal
campaign against the Mohammedan chiefs of Nupe and
Ilorin, which was forced upon the Company in the
opening months of 1897, successfully executed as it
was, had also served to give some indication in respon-
sible quarters of the probable development of adminis-
trative difficulties on an increasing scale, as soon as
any serious attempt should be made to establish white
authority, for practical purposes, over vast territories
where the thorny questions which mark the difference
between civilised and semi-civilised administration were
as yet untouched.

For these and other reasons it was recognised that
the pioneer work of acquisition had been accomplished,
and that the time had come, more swiftly than in the
case of other great British companies, on whose prece-
dent the Niger Company had been founded, to abolish
a charter which had served its purpose, and to incor-
porate the territories acquired by the Company with the
other colonies and dependencies of the Empire. The
charter of the Company was surrendered to the Crown.
Its territories were divided : the lower reaches of the
river south of Ida being included, under the name of
Southern Nigeria, with the Protectorate of the Oil Rivers,
extending from the colony of Lagos to the German
frontier ; while the interior cut off from the sea was

364 A TROPICAL DEPEXDENXY

erected, under the name of Northern Nigeria, into a
separate Protectorate. The transfer of authority from
the Company to the Imperial Government took place
on Januar}' ist, 1900. on which day Colonel Lugard
assumed office as the first High Commissioner of
Northern Nigeria.

In summing up the service rendered to the Empire
by the Company, it will hardly be disputed that by the
ability, the foresight, and the activity of a single man,
who in the first instance united, and subsequently for
twenty years directed with laborious care, the principal
British interests upon the Niger, a territory- was added
to the British Empire, and a field secured for all time
to British trade, which, without his personal exertions,
would assuredly have passed into the possession of
France and Germany. In the execution of his work
Sir George Goldie was very loyally supported by the
shareholders of the Royal Niger Company ; but it was
by his personal qualities that he won and retained the
confidence of those whose interests he took into his
charge, and it was by his personal perception of the
opportunities inherent to the situation that he was able
to use the force acquired by that confidence for great
purposes of public utility.

The commercial success of the Company is some-
times quoted in disparagement of the merit of its public
service ; but that its Governor was able, without injustice
to private interests, to carry out the important scheme
of policy in which they were involved, gave, in fact, a
substantial value to his work, which no mere reckless-
ness of political annexation, however generous, would
have possessed. When the relative positions of France
and England were finally adjusted in 189S, British in-
terests had been created in the interior, which it was
impossible for either government to ignore. The
enlightened view that the prosperity of coast trade
depended on the extension of civilised relations to the
interior, which led to the expansion of the sphere of

THE ROYAL NIGER COMPANY 365

operations of the Niger Company, has been illustrated,
not only by the commercial success of that Company,
but by the remarkable development in the prosperity
of all the coast colonies which has followed upon the
extension of their protected areas towards the interior,
and the greater security which the establishment of
British administration has carried with it.

In acting as the pioneer of this policy for Great
Britain, Sir George Goldie was in part the originator,
in part the interpreter, of the great change which had
come over modern sentiment. He was not alone in
desiring to reverse the policy of abandonment dictated
by a sentiment of distaste and discouragement, which
amounted almost to public remorse. Other nations, as
we have seen, were quicker than Great Britain to per-
ceive that the true solution of the problem of European
relations with uncivilised Africa lay in accepting, not
in abandoning, the responsibilities of civilised adminis-
tration. Many influences were at work to foster and
to direct the forward movement, which, not in West
Africa alone, but on every frontier of the Empire, took
the place, during the last quarter of the nineteenth
century, of the concentrating and restrictive tendencies
of an earlier period. What Sir George Goldie did
was that which has been done by all original and
successful workers. He gave personality to a great
idea, and by the exercise of qualities which belonged
to himself alone he was able to bring his interpreta-
tion of the idea to a distinguished practical success.
In doing so he added to the Empire a territory of
which the area is no less than half the size of British
India, and for this service his name will deservedly
be ranked among the unforgotten names of English
history.

CHAPTER XXXIX

TRANSFER OF NIGER COMPANY'S TERRITORIES TO
THE CROWN

It was a necessity of commercial success, and there-
fore of existence to the Company, that the greater part
of its practical work should be done upon the lower
reaches of the river. The waterways of this part of
Africa, as they approach the coast, pass through a
forest belt rich in valuable forms of sylvan produce.
Palm oil and palm kernels, which form one of the most
important staples of West African trade, are obtained
in such quantities from the palm trees of this belt that
the strip of coast through which the rivers of the dis-
trict flow to the sea was for a long time known by
the name of the "Oil Rivers" Protectorate. Little
industry or ingenuity is required on the part of the
natives in order to collect the wild products of the
forest, which they are willing to exchange for European
goods, and the mere numbers of the population, in con-
junction with the fertility of the soil, constitute the ele-
ments of a valuable export trade. The primitive nature
of the needs of the natives unfortunately gave to the
return trade from Europe the low character which it
has always borne.

The Niger Company was so situated as to have no
coast area beyond the main mouth of the Niger, and
a small portion of the delta which attached to it. Its
sphere of commercial activity lay in the valley of the
river. Here, for upwards of 150 miles, the banks on
both sides served as frontage to numerous tribes whose

back country extended into the network of lesser water-

366

TRANSFER OF TERRITORIES 367

ways which irrigate the forest area of the coast. It
was with these tribes that the main trade of the Com-
pany was done, and for the protection of this trade
that its treaties were in the first instance negotiated.

Coincidently with the growth of trade it was found
necessary to establish some form of political control,
and as the operations of Mohammedan slave-raiders
from the north, year by year, extended the circle of
their devastation, and destroyed flourishing markets by
the wholesale depopulation of areas in which they
were situated, the further necessity was forced upon the
Company of giving some form of military protection
to threatened districts. For this purpose a constabu-
lary was formed, and military outposts were advanced to
Lokoja, at the confluence of the Niger and the Benue.
Trading stations under the protection of Lokoja were sub-
sequently established upon the Lower Benu6 and upon
the Niger between the Boussa Rapids and Lokoja.

The ninth parallel of latitude may be taken as the
farthest northerly extension reached by the outposts of
the Company, and the Company's stations upon the
rivers east and west from the confluence marked the
meeting ground of the pagan states they desired to
protect, and the militant Mohammedan civilisation of
the north.

The great difference which existed between this
civilisation and the primitive condition of the peoples of
the lower river will have been gathered from what has
been already written in the earlier sections of this book.
The difference from the point of view of European trade
was no less marked than from the more general point of
view of political history. The Governors of the Company
had always expressed the opinion that ultimately their
most valuable trade would be done with the northern
territories. In a speech made by the Governor at the
annual meeting of 1889 he informed the shareholders
that, after long and persistent research, palm oil and
kernels appeared to form the only considerable resources

368 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

of the maritime districts, and that the Directors felt
that the "ultimate and permanent prosperity of the
territories must depend still more on a widely spread
and properly directed culture of indigo, tobacco, cotton,
and other products," which were grown in the interior.
The trade with the south was prosperous ; but, while the
Company did its principal work on the coast, it looked
forward to opening the northern territories.

"We can hardly impress too strongly on our share-
holders," the Governor said in the same speech of 1889,
" the fact that our hopes of future prosperity rest far
less on the lower regions of the Niger . . . than upon the
higher and inner and recently explored regions acquired
at great expense of money and of energy." Throughout
the political life of the Company this view was constantly
impressed upon the shareholders, and at a very early
period the Company marked, in a manner which did
credit alike to its foresight and its enlightenment, its
perception of the difference between the two divisions of
its territories. The consumption of liquor by the pagan
natives of the coast has been, through the whole period
of European intercourse with them, a hardly less prolific
source of demoralisation than the slave trade itself. In
the lower river the Company yielded to circumstances,
and cheap European spirits formed one of the principal
articles of importation for purposes of the barter trade.
But among the Mohammedan peoples of the north
the use of alcoholic liquor is forbidden by their religion,
and in 1887, before prohibition within certain latitudes
became general under the rules agreed to by the Brussels
Conference, the Niger Company, desirous of defending
the markets of the interior from the invasion of this
curse, fixed a line at the back of its coast territories
beyond which it absolutely forbade the importation of
liquor.

But though the trade of the northern territories was
regarded from the beginning as likely to prove beyond
all comparison more valuable than that of the lower

TRANSFER OF TERRITORIES 369

river, it was, from artificial as well as from natural
causes, more difficult to attract into British channels, it
was, of course, of a very different order from that of
the south. Indigo, cotton, and tobacco, as well as other
exports of the northern territories, are products of
organised industry which, unlike the native products of
the palm - oil belt, demand the employment of regular
labour. Conditions of peace and security are as necessary
for their production as for the development of sustained
trade relations. The slave- raiding operations of the
Mohammedan rulers were undertaken for the purpose
of obtaining labour. But, while the industrial system
was based on slavery, the ceaseless disturbance to which
slave-raiding gave rise, coupled with political conditions
of civil war and the exactions of a practically uncurbed
foreign tyranny, of which some account has yet to be
given, operated to prevent the prosperous development
of all industry. In addition to these disturbed conditions,
there was also, in the Mohammedan states, long-estab-
lished tradition to contend with. If the wants of the
people were more elaborate than those of the southern
population, they had better means of satisfying them.
What trade there was was done either locally, between
state and state, or across the desert, by the old routes,
with the north of Africa. Tea and sugar, commonly
sold in the market of Kano, were brought with other
commodities by Arab caravans from the Mediterranean
coast.

This was also the case with many other necessities
of life. Beyond the valley of the Niger and the Benue
no administrative influence had been exercised by the
Company. Its intercourse with the Mohammedan emirs
had been confined to political missions, of which the
direct object was to obtain promises of future trade and
to exclude antagonistic foreign influence from their
territories. By these treaties prospective markets were
secured, but the condition of the country was such that
trade was not open to the north.

2 A

370 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

Under the division which was made of the Company's
territories on the surrender of the charter, the principal
centres of its commercial and administrative activity
passed, with the river valley south of Ida, to Southern
Nigeria. In Northern Nigeria its occupation was repre-
sented only by the outposts which have been named
upon the river, and by an agency established in Ilorin.

In 1897, practically, though not actually, the last
year of the Company's administration, a campaign against
the Mohammedan state of Nupe, which at that time held
both banks of the Niger above Lokoja, was forced upon
the Company by the persistent slave-raiding of the
Mohammedans in trade areas farther south.

The campaign gave occasion for the most careful
organisation of the military forces of the Company. It
was recognised as involving perhaps the existence of
British authority in the country. An additional number
of officers from the regular army were lent specially to
the Company by the War Office, and the campaign was
conducted at very considerable expense upon the lines
of European war. The military operations were directed
against Bida, the capital of Nupe, situated on the
northern side of the river, and were completely successful
in their immediate results. The town was captured,
the emir was deposed, a portion of his territory which
lay upon the southern bank of the river was declared
independent of the suzerainty of Nupe, and a new emir
was placed upon the throne.

But in accentuating, by the precautions which it
rendered necessary, the difference between Mohammedan
civilisation to the north of the confluence and pagan
barbarism to the south, this war gave, as has been
already said, a very serious indication of the enlargement
of the proportions which the problem of British occupation
was likely to assume when any attempt should be made
to establish white authority in the Northern Territories.
The Company did not feel itself to be in a position
to make a permanent occupation of Bida. As soon as

TRANSFER OF TERRFrORIES 371

its troops were withdrawn the deposed emir raUied his
defeated followers, assumed again the supreme authority
of which he had been deprived, and maintained his
province in a state of revolt against British authority
north of the river. It became clear that conquest without
occupation, or the establishment of some form of British
authority in the conquered provinces, would result only
in the creation of a line of impenetrably hostile border
states, with which neither trade nor any peaceful relations
could be maintained.

Troubles on the western border, resulting in the
agreement of 1898, and the consequent surrender of the
charter, gave the Company no opportunity of dealing with
the situation which was thus created. The authority
which had been successfully asserted over the pagan
tribes of the lower river, and which had not shrunk from
the first shock of conflict with the forces of Mohammedanism,
was withdrawn at this critical and interesting moment.

Thus it came about that when British administration
was officially established in the interior, it found itself
limited in fact to territory of which the northern line was
fixed by the Company's stations upon the river, and to
the western province of Borgu, which, subsequently to
the formation of the West African Frontier Force, had
been organised as a military province outside the territories
of the company.

The duty which lay before the first British High
Commissioner was to organise the territorities of Northern
Nigeria for administration. The whole of these terri-
tories had placed themselves nominally under the pro-
tection of Great Britain. They extended roughly, as
will be remembered, from 7° to 14° north latitude, and,
including Borgu, from 3° to 14° east longitude. They
covered an area of 350,000 square miles, or about one-
third of the size of British India, and they lay almost
wholly in the area occupied by those finer races of the
Soudan whose touch with civilisation had from time
immemorial been from the north. Never before in the

372 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

history of this part of the Soudan had any civilising
influence come from the south.

Two new and interesting chapters of history were
therefore initiated on the same day. For the first time
in the history of the Mohammedan states a superior and
civilising influence was established in an administrative
capacity upon their southern borders, and by its mere
presence began the process of drawing as a magnet
towards the south all the thoughts, the activities, the
fears and hopes, which the tradition of intelligence had
directed, through their entire previous existence, towards
the north.

On the other hand, for the first time in British history
colonial government was established in the interior of
West Africa. In determining to extend our influence to
the relatively healthy uplands bordering upon the desert,
to enter into friendly relations with the fine races which
inhabit them, and to open new fields to commercial enter-
prise in regions famous through all antiquity for their
wealth, a wholly new departure was made from the
traditions which had limited us for three hundred years
to a coast occupation of the malarial regions fringing the
Gulf of Guinea, and had confined our relations to the
type of negro who inhabits its shores. The history of
British West Africa entered upon a new phase, and if,
as we may venture to hope, British influence upon the
races of the interior may be of such a nature as to
revive in them the old traditions associated with the
civilisation of Europe in their best days, the influence
of the Mohammedan races upon British West African
policy may be not less important. They offer us a field
for the foundation of a West African Empire, of which
neither they nor we need be ashamed.

CHAPTER XL
ORIGIN OF THE FULANI

Before attempting to give any account of the establish-
ment of British administration in Northern Nigeria, there
is still a chapter of native history to be told.

We left the Mohammedan states of the Soudan in
the seventeenth century, when after the conquest of the
Moors they became isolated in the heart of Africa, and
fell into the decadence in which we know them. The
Tarikh-es-Soudan, of which the chronicle continued to the
middle of the seventeenth century, informs us that after
the Moors of the Soudan had cut themselves off from
Morocco, the government of the Pashas rapidly de-
generated. In 1623 it is stated that "excesses of every
kind are now committed unchecked by the soldiery, and
that the country is profoundly convulsed and oppressed."
About the middle of the eighteenth century the Tuaregs,
pressing down from the desert upon the Moors, deprived
them of the principal towns of Songhay, and established
a kingdom of their own upon the Niger. What the
Moors had become at the end of the eighteenth century,
some thirty years after they had been driven from Gago
and Timbuctoo, may be gathered from Mungo Park, who
had experience of them in his journey from the coast to
the Niger in 1795.

The Moors, he says, are divided into many tribes,
each more entirely barbarous and cruel than the other.
Each tribe is governed by a separate king, who owns no
allegiance to a common sovereign. They pay but little
attention to agriculture, purchasing their corn, cotton
cloth, and other necessaries from the negroes in exchange

374 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

for salt, which they dig from the pits in the great desert.
Describing them as a whole, "They are," he says, "at
once the vainest, the proudest, and perhaps the most
bigoted, ferocious, and intolerant of all the nations of the
earth." They had a very primitive system of justice
and taxation, but they had "neither dignity nor order."
They lived in a condition of constantly plundering the
negroes around them, and, like the nomad Berbers, they
frequently roamed from place to place.

But the Moors did not fall from their high position
in the Soudan without the interposition of another
power. This time the dominating people, although not
black, were, like the conquering races of Melle and of
Songhay, of local origin. As the Moors declined, the

Fulani rose.

This remarkable people, of whom mention is made in
the earliest records which have been preserved of the
history of the Soudan, have given rise to much learned
controversy in the endeavours to determine to what
branch of the human race they properly belong.

In the sixteenth century of our era, they may fairly
be spoken of as being of local origin in the Soudan.
At that time they knew of no other home, and there
was record of their presence in the country for upwards
of looo years. But they were of a race wholly different
from that of the other races of the Soudan. Though
profoundly modified by intermarriage, they counted them-
selves as a white people, and even when the mixed
blood gave to their skin the prevailing colour of black
or red, their features, their hair, their carriage, and their
distinctive characteristics, proclaimed them of other than
negro race.

The variations in their appearance are at the present
day so marked — ranging from the jet black of the Joloffs
of the western coast through "tawny," "white," and
even " Syrian red " skins, to the blue-eyed individuals
mentioned by Baikie as having been met by him upon
the Benue — as to present arguments in support of the

ORIGIN OF THE FULANI 375

most opposite theories regarding the birthplace of their
race.

We have already seen in the Tarikh-es-Soudan a
description of the black Joloffs, which counted this people
among the "best of men," and very superior to "all
other Fulani." Marmol, in describing a chief of this
race M^ho visited Portugal at the end of the fifteenth
century, tells us, it will be remembered, that he had a
fine figure and was generally well made, also that he
had a long and well-trimmed beard, and "did not
appear to be a negro, but a prince to whom all honour
and respect were due." In Mungo Park's day the
distinction of the Tarikh between the Joloffs and "the
other Fulani" had grown into a permanent distinction
of race, and Mungo Park speaks of them as two
peoples. He says, however, of the Joloffs, whom he
praises as an active, powerful, and warlike race, that
"their noses are not so much depressed nor the lips so
protuberant as among the generality of Africans, although
their skin is of the deepest black." In the case of this
people, intermarriage upon the coast with purely negroid
types had no doubt brought them to a near resemblance
with negro peoples, but the Foulah strain was still of
effect enough to make of them a people who were highly
thought of by the white traders of the coast.

The Foulahs proper, whom Mungo Park distinguishes
from the Joloffs, are, he says, "chiefly of a tawny com-
plexion, with soft, silky hair and pleasing features." These
Foulahs, like others scattered through the entire length
of the fertile belt, were " much attached to a pastoral
life," and had, he tells us, by the end of the eighteenth
century " introduced themselves into all the kingdoms
on the windward coast as herdsmen and husbandmen,
paying a tribute to the sovereign of the country for the
lands which they held." The same pastoral Fulani
migrated, as we have seen, in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries to the Haussa States and Bornu, and paid
tribute to the reienine kinofs of Kano and other towns.

376 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

They are known to this day in Northern Nigeria under
the name of Cow Fulani. Mungo Park also says of the
Foulahs, "They are naturally mild and gentle. . . . They
evidently consider all the negro nations as their inferiors,
and when talking of different nations always rank them-
selves among white peoples. . . . They are Mussulmans,
and the authority and laws of the prophet are everywhere
looked upon as sacred and decisive." He tells us that,
in his day, they possessed in the Soudan many kingdoms
at great distances from each other, and he notices the
diversity of their appearance. "Their complexion, how-
ever, is not quite the same in the different districts. In
kingdoms which are situated in the vicinity of the Moorish
territories (meaning to the north), they are of a more
yellow complexion than in the southern states." He
mentions the fact that they have a separate language,
and gives specimens of its vocabulary. Francis Moore,
speaking of the Fulani of the Gambia in 1734, gives them
much the same character as that given them by Mungo
Park. "They have chiefs of their own," he says, "who
rule with so much moderation, that every act of govern-
ment seems rather an act of the people than of one man."
He also speaks of their charitable and humane qualities.
Dr. Blyden, writing of them in the present day, tells us
that every man and woman among them can at least
read Arabic.

Denham, writing a little later than Mungo Park, gives
us a description of another class of Foulah or Fulani
as he met them on the shores of Lake Chad. " They
are," he says, " a very handsome race of people, of a
deep copper colour, who seldom mix their blood with
that of the negroes, have a peculiar language of their
own, and are Moslem." These were the conquerors of
Bornu, aristocrats and military rulers. He says of them
in another place that they resembled the inhabitants of
Tetuan in Morocco. He also finds in them a resemblance
to the gypsies in England. But a Foulah whom he met
in one of the border towns of Bornu told him, he says,

ORIGIN OF THE FULANI 377

that he had been to Mecca, and that there he had met
Wahabis, who " were the same people and spoke the
same language as the Fulani."

Barth speaks of the Fulani as a race distinguished
by its absorbent powers, and now comprising many other
races, of which there are four main divisions. He gives
the names as the "Jel," the "Baa," the "So," and the
" Beri," but these again are subdivided. Both Barth
and Denham speak of the great capacity of the aristocratic
Fulani for ruling other races. Denham says of them
on the western border of Bornu, " They are here much
esteemed by the people whom they rule for their im-
partial administration of justice." In all this, we are
reminded of Bacon's axiom, that " States that are liberal
of naturalisation towards strangers are fit for empire."
Throughout the entire history of the Soudan, members
of the Fulani race are to be found in positions of
importance and responsibility. There were in every
successive civilisation Fulani judges, Fulani imaums of
the mosques, Fulani men of letters, Fulani advisers to
the kings, and frequent mention is made of the Fulani
wives of persons in high position. This influence was
not confined exclusively to the Soudan. It spread even
to Morocco. More than one Moorish sovereign had a
Fulani counsellor, and it is mentioned that Muley Hamed,
the reigning sovereign of Morocco, at the moment of
the Moorish conquest had a favourite Fulani wife, Leila
Aouada by name.

It is not surprising that a race of such varying
activities, lending itself to such different developments,
should give rise to widely-varying scientific theories of
its origin.

The one point upon which all scientific investigation
is agreed is that the language of the Fulani is not
African, and that this people, which has maintained in
the Soudan an individuality no less marked and persistent
than that maintained by the Jews in Europe, was originally
wholly foreign to the environment in which we find it.

378 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

Its first home in Africa would seem to have been the
south-western corner between the Senegal and the
Atlantic, in which, according to Herodotus and Strabo,
the Phoenicians made their early settlements. As this
was the remotest extremity of the western world known
to the ancients, it follows as a matter of course that the
original home of the Fulani is supposed to have been
further east. It is indeed a disputed point whether their
first movements in Africa were from west to east, or
gradually in the first instance from east to west, and
only later, within our own times, from west to east. One
theory of their origin is that they are of the same
Malayan or Polynesian stock as that which is believed to
have colonised Madagascar. Another is that they came
originally from Egypt, and this involves the assumption
that their movement in Africa was a gradual advance from
east to west. This theory would seem to be disproved
by the fact that their language has no affinity to the
languages of the Nile. It has also been sought to asso-
ciate them with the Jews, but it has been shown that their
language is still further removed from languages of
Semitic origin than it is from the idiom of the Soudan. I
do not know whether this objection would apply to the
language of the Phoenicians, nor have I anywhere seen
the theory of Phoenician descent scientifically examined.
The theory which seems to be most generally received
and most logically supported is that the fount of origin
of the Fulani people must be sought in India. This is the
opinion of M. de Lauture, who relates the legend of their
origin, as he learned it in Darfur, to be that they sprang
from the marriage of a Hindu, who entered the Soudan
by way of Egypt, with the female of a chameleon. He
takes the legend to mean that the Fulani were the out-
come of a union of Hindu stock with different tribes of the
Soudan, in this way accounting for the great diversity of
their characteristics.

Dr. Thaly supports the Indian theory. He connects
the F^ulani with the gypsies of Europe, and traces both

ORIGIN OF THE FULANT 379

gypsies and Fulani to an Indian origin. There are
legends quoted by Barth and by M. Berenger Feraud
to the effect that the Fulani entered the Soudan originally
by way of Morocco, and these, though offered in opposition
to the Indian theory, might, with very little straining, be
made to support it, for Strabo, after describing a populous
and flourishing African nation dwelling to the far west
of Africa in the country opposite to Spain, adds the
remark, "Some say that they are Indians who accom-
panied Hercules hither." The legend of Strabo, added
to those quoted by modern writers, might therefore account
for an Indian origin, even in Fulani who had entered the
Soudan by way of Southern Morocco. It has also been
sought to connect the Fulani with the Berbers, but this
theory is rejected by philologists. It will, however, be
remembered that among the nomad tribes of the desert,
mentioned in an earlier chapter, allusion was made to one
tribe not to be confused with those of Berber race. These
were the Zingari or gypsies, who were believed to be of
Indian descent. In assuming a Berber origin for the
Fulani, it is again not improbable that the opponents of
the Indian theory may unconsciously be supporting it by
a confusion between one nomadic race of the desert and
another.

That the Fulani may have owed their origin to the
downfall of the dynasty of the Hyksos, or Shepherd Kings,
who were driven from Egypt about the year 1630 B.C.,
is finally a theory which would seem to reconcile many
conflicting arguments. M. Delafosse, whose studies in
West African languages give special weight to his opinions,
and who is one of the latest writers upon the subject, is
inclined to espouse this view. He thus countenances the
opinion of those who contend that the Fulani entered
the Soudan by way of Egypt, but at the same time he
emphatically rejects the theory of Egyptian origin, and
carries the question of origin one step further back to
that of the origin and race of the Hyksos themselves.
This he would find in India, "probably on the southern

380 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

slopes of the Himalayan Mountains." He puts forward
as a suggestion that the same migrations of Hindu origin
may have given us the Hyksos and the gypsies and the
Fulani. He does not regard the question as having been
yet decisively examined, and he appeals to anthropologists
and philologists to assist in its scientific elucidation by
comparison between the racial characteristics and the
dialects of the Fulani, the gypsies, and certain existing
pastoral tribes in India. As a result of some slight study
of his own of gypsy language he adds, " I think I may
say that of all African, Asiatic, Oceanian, and European
tongues which I have compared with the language of the
Fulani, the language of the gypsies is that which appears
to me to possess the greatest point of resemblance."

In connection with the theory of the descent of the
Fulani from the Hyksos, I would quote the great similarity
observed by my husband to exist between the Wahuma of
Eastern Africa and the Fulani of the Western Soudan.
The Wahuma, like the Fulani, were pastoral nomads
who, in the endeavour to secure fresh grazing ground,
became invaders and conquerors. In Uganda, Unyoro,
Karagwe, and other eastern states the Wahuma founded
the royal dynasties, while their tribesmen, corresponding
in position to the Cow Fulani, tended the cattle of the
negroids. The Wahuma, who have a great physical
likeness to the Fulani, are often strikingly handsome and
extremely intelligent. That the Wahuma should have
descended upon East Africa from the valley of the Nile
is not surprising. Of both races, Fulani and Wahuma
alike, it can at least be said that they so far support the
theory of a common origin in the Hyksos, as to have
maintained through all their history, in the diverse
countries in which they are to be found, the ancient
position of Shepherd Kings.

CHAPTER XLI

RISE OF THE FULANI IN THE SOUDAN

Assuming the Fulani and the gypsy to be of similar
Indian race and to have entered the Soudan by way of
Egypt, perhaps nearly two thousand years before Christ,
we have still the fact that within historic times the move-
ment of the Fulani in the Western Soudan has been from
west to east, not from east to west.

The earliest definite mention which we get of them
is the rumour mentioned by the author of the Tarikh-es-
Soudan, that the first white king of Ghana, who reigned
presumably in the third century of the Christian era,
was reputed to have had a Fulani name — Quaia Magha,
which in Fulani means Ouaia the Great. Whether
Phoenician or Fulani, the first white rulers of Ghana
continued to reign for twenty-two generations, and were
then superseded by a black dynasty.

In the ninth century we hear of Fulani occupying the
town of Masina, situated on the Niger between Jenne
and Timbuctoo, and the following story is told of the
origin of their kings.

Maghan, a fugitive prince from his own country of
Koma, in the territory of Quaiaka, came driving a few
oxen before him to a hill called Masina, in the territory
of Baghena. He and his followers made friends with
the Senajah (Berbers), who occupied the territory, and
after a time, Maghan having been joined by more followers,
the King of Baghena named him king of those who had
followed him. All the Fulani then joined themselves
to Maghan, some being of his own tribe and some of

Sankora. From this time (to which no date is affixed).

381

382 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

Masina drew its kings from four tribes, of which one
inhabited Quaiaka and one Borgu. We are also told
that, by an agreement between themselves, the people
of Masina had for their kings alternately a Berber and
a Fulani. Presumably, therefore, the tribes of Quaiaka
and Borgu were Fulani, and the other two of the four
were Berbers. This arrangement, mentioned at so early
a period, is illustrative of the adaptable nature of Fulani
institutions.

Masina was independent enough at the end of the
ninth century to solicit help from the Berber kings of
the Desert Empire against black neighbours who pressed
upon it inconveniently, and to carry through a victorious
campaign. It held its own against Ghana in the great
days of that pagan empire, and maintained itself as a
centre of P'ulani rule through the administrations alike
of Melle and of Songhay.

It is in the early period of the rise of Melle — that is,
in the thirteenth century — that we have the first record
of Fulani immigration from Melle into the Haussa States
and Bornu. From this we may infer a certain pressure
by the rising power upon the Fulani of the west, but
those who migrated to Haussaland at this period were
apparently purely pastoral nomads, who took their place
humbly in their new home as Cow Fulani, and were
content to pay tax to the local kings. During the mili-
tary campaigns which preceded the rise of the Songhay
dynasty in the fifteenth century, we hear constantly of
expeditions undertaken against the Fulani, who would
seem to have resisted stoutly all encroachments upon
their liberty. Sonni Ali in 1492 conquered the Fulani
of Gurma in the eastern portion of the Bend of the Niger.
Sonni Ali also apparently conquered Masina so far as
to induce it to pay tribute and to accept the investiture
of its rulers from the hands of Timbuctoo, but it jealously
guarded its administrative independence, and throughout
the records of the Songhay dynasty wars with Masina
were of frequent recurrence. Differences of religion

RISE OF THE FULANl 383

were often apparently Involved, and at least one false
prophet who arose amongst the Fulani was driven before
the conquering arms of Songhay to found a new kingdom
for himself in the south-western corner of the Soudan,
close to the kingdom of the Joloffs. Independence of action,
independence of religion, independence of administration,
would seem to have been the sturdy characteristic of
Fulani social life.

Opinion is divided as to the period at which the
Fulani generally accepted Mohammedanism, but the
fact mentioned in the chronicles of Bornu that Fulani
teachers from Melle were among the first to preach the
doctrines of Mohammed in Bornu in the early part of
the thirteenth century, combined with the high position
constantly taken by Fulani individuals throughout the
history of the Soudan as teachers, men of letters, &c.,
would seem to indicate that the conversion of the upper
class of Fulani was of comparatively early date. There
seems to have been always a distinction between the
purely pastoral shepherd, or Cow Fulani, who occupied
the position of a nomad peasant, caring for nothing but
his cattle, and the aristocratic or ruling Fulani, from whose
numbers some of the most distinguished individuals of
Soudanese history were drawn. The Cow Fulani are to
the present day believed to be pagan in many districts.

The connection with the Fulani of Borgu on the
eastern edge of the Bend of the Niger that was mentioned
in relation to the founding of Masina on the western edge,
is indicative of a somewhat wide distribution of Fulani
tribes, and of an alliance, or at least friendship, between
the Fulani of the east and west, which appears to have
existed from very early times, and was often made use
of by them when there was occasion to rise against the
Songhay kings.

Some writers assert that Kanta, the rebellious general
of Songhay who founded the kingdom of Kebbi, was
himself of Fulani origin. This is uncertain, but in the
next generation to Kanta the Fulani of the eastern portion

384 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

of the Bend of the Niger joined the banners of his son.
It was as a partly Fulani kingdom that Kebbi became
great, and the Fulani may perhaps be said to have first
taken a position as rulers on the eastern side of the Niger
when they helped Tomo, the son of Kanta, to fight Bornu,
and to found the even now celebrated town of Birni-n-
Kebbi within the borders of Haussaland in 1544. They
had also, in the sixteenth century, spread into Baghirmi
on the eastern side of Chad. In the west they gradu-
ally absorbed the province of Wangara, and greatly
aggrandised their ancient territory of Masina.

It is clear that, throughout the whole period of the
domination of the Songhay, the Fulani in their different
centres of occupation increased in importance and in
military strength, and were beginning to assert them-
selves definitely as a cultivated people with a capacity for
rule. The Askias, by the many expeditions which are
recorded against Fulani tribes, display a certain uneasiness
at the growing independence of this people. In the year
1 59 1, the very year of the coming of the Moors, Fulani
chiefs took a leading part in the sack of the territory
of Jenne, and more than one punitive expedition was
rendered necessary by their turbulence.

Thus, at the end of the sixteenth century, the Fulani
had already extended themselves through the Western
Soudan as pastoral nomads, independent, though paying
a grazing-tax, in all the countries which they occupied
from the sources of the Senegal to Lake Chad. At more
than one point on this extended line centres of govern-
ment had been founded, and Fulani troops had established
for themselves a reputation as military conquerors.

At the moment of the coming of the Moors they were
the rising power of the Soudan, and during the Moorish
troubles at the end of the sixteenth and the beginning
of the seventeenth centuries, they used their opportunity
to assert their independence of Songhay. The resistance
offered by the half Fulani state of Kebbi to the eastward
advance of the Moors has been mentioned in an earlier

RISE OF THE FULANI 385

chapter. In 1599 Masina opened a campaign against
the Moors, and though defeated in the first instance,
the reverse would only seem to have consolidated Fulani
resistance to the foreign rule. In 1629, the kings of
Masina refused any longer to accept investiture from
the decadent government of Timbuctoo, and during the
seventeenth century the Fulani fought for their in-
dependence in the eastern as well as in the western
districts of the Bend of the Niger. The Moors, harried
upon the north by the Tuaregs of the desert, and on
the south by the Fulani, abandoned the vain attempt
to maintain their supremacy in the Soudan. They were
driven out of Gago, as has been already mentioned, in
1770. They continued to hold the town of Timbuctoo,
but during the eighteenth century, when the Moors
had fallen to the condition described by Mungo Park, the
contest for the sovereignty of the Soudan would seem
to have been between the Fulani and the Tuaregs. It
was the Tuaregs who finally drove the Moors from Tim-
buctoo in the year 1800, and within a generation the
Tuaregs themselves were driven out by the Fulani.

During this whole period of tumult the Soudan was
closed to Europe, and we have no accurate account of
the series of local wars by which it would seem to have
been distracted. At the beginning of the nineteenth
century, when, after an eclipse of two hundred years, its
history once more emerges to our view, the situation is
so far clear that the Fulani had become the dominating
people, alike in the west and in the east.

In the west, where the Tuaregs were their opponents,
they were a little later in attaining to supreme power
than in the eastern states, but in 18 13 Masina became
the seat of a powerful Fulani Empire, ruled by a
Sheikh of the name of Ahmadou. Under the leader-
ship of Ahmadou, Masina conquered Timbuctoo in 1833.
On the death of Ahmadou in 1844, Timbuctoo was once
more taken by the Tuaregs, but it was reconquered by
the Fulani in 1855, and, with the exception of three

2 B

386 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

years, from i860 to 1863, when it was taken and held
by the Toucouleurs, a half-breed Fulani people, the true
Fulani continued to hold it up to the moment of its
conquest by the French in 1893. '^^^^ Toucouleurs, who
remained masters of a portion of the Niger Valley, and
who also submitted to France in 1893, were a people
in whose veins Fulani blood predominated to so great
an extent that their ascendancy on the upper river may
be accepted as representing for that part of the country
the general ascendancy of the Fulani races.

The history of the Fulani conquest of the Haussa
States, where another Sheikh, as famous as Ahmadou,
founded a Fulani Empire, is comparatively well known.
The country was, we have seen, permeated with Fulani
influence. Cow Fulani fed their cattle in every province.
The principal towns had their Fulani quarters ; Fulani
teachers had for six hundred years spread the doctrines
of Mohammed ; distinguished members of the Fulani race
occupied high places as councillors, judges, high priests,
and men of war. Zaria had had, according to one ac-
count, a Fulani king from the year 1780. The western
provinces of Bornu were also full of Fulani. The con-
quest of Haussaland by the Fulani may therefore be
said to have been half achieved in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, at the same time that the Fulani
were rising in power throughout the whole Soudan.

It was not, however, till the opening years of the
nineteenth century that the military and political con-
quest was completed.

It will be remembered that, at the end of the eighteenth
century, the still pagan state of Gober had established
a military ascendancy over the more northerly Moham-
medan states of Haussaland. It had conquered Zanfara
and subdued Kano. Katsena alone had been able suc-
cessfully to resist its power. Throughout this period the
Fulani would seem to have greatly increased in numbers
in Gober, and under their own chiefs and religious
teachers they began to form a community of which

RISE OF THE FULANI 387

the independent doctrines gave offence to the pagan
authorities.

In the year 1802, the King Bawa sent for their
Imaum, Othman dan Fodio, and all the principal Fulani
chiefs, and administered a severe public reprimand on
account of the religious and political pretensions that
they were beginning to put forward. This was but a
spark to the tinder. Indignation spread through the
Fulani community at the insult which had been offered
to their chiefs. Othman dan Fodio inflamed the general
sentiment by his preaching, in which he urged the Fulani
to submit no longer to the yoke of a pagan people. The
Fulani chiefs raised the standard of revolt ; Othman
was elected Sheikh, and under his leadership a Holy
War was declared which was to counterbalance, by the
successes which it gave to the Fulani on the eastern side
of the Niger, any temporary loss which this people had
suffered in the west. The date of the opening of the
Holy War is given differently by different authors, who
vary between 1800 and 1804, but it evidently broke out
immediately after the taking of Timbuctoo by the Tuaregs
in 1800, and Othman dan Fodio gave the lead in Haussa-
land, which was shortly followed by Ahmadou in the west.
Between them these two Fulani Sheikhs conquered the
Western Soudan from Masina to Bornu.

The first efforts of the Fulani in Haussaland were
stoutly resisted by Gober, and, though the province was
subdued, the capital, Alkalawa, was not taken during the
lifetime of Dan Fodio. But through the rest of Haussa-
land, where the towns were already half in Fulani hands,
the conquest of the Fulani spread rapidly. Zanfara was
conquered in the first year of the war ; Zaria was either
conquered, or allied itself with the conquerors, within a
month of the submission of Zanfara. The conquest of
Kano shortly followed ; Katsena was taken in 1807 ; and
in 1808 the victorious arms of the Fulani were carried
into Bornu.

Here, however, after a short period of triumph, they

388 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

were met and successfully resisted by another Sheikh,
Mohammed el Kancmi, who arose in Kanem, and took
the reins of power from the effete sovereigns of Bornu.
This man, who founded the existing dynasty of Bornu,
was visited by Major Denham in 1823, and is described
by him as "a most extraordinary instance in the Eastern
world of fearless bravery, virtue, and simplicity." His
career was remarkable enough to deserve something
more than a passing mention. He was born in Fezzan,
though of Kanem parents, having, it is said, on his
father's side, some Moorish blood. He appears to have
been, at least partly, educated in Egypt, and to have
been already in the position of a Sheikh before he first
visited the home of his parents in Kanem. Here he
lived for some years, greatly beloved and respected for
the extreme uprightness and benevolence of his life.

It was the conquest of Bornu by the Fulani which
brought him into public life. Believing, or causing his
Kanemi followers to believe, that he was inspired by a
vision of the Almighty to undertake the liberation of
the country, he collected a little body of the faithful,
only 400 strong, and with them marched to a first
encounter with the Fulani. He is said to have over-
thrown an army 8000 strong. The result was, of course,
to bring more soldiers to his standard, and in ten months
he was victorious in forty battles. It is said that he
had all the qualifications of a great commander, but so
little of personal ambition that when, after he had driven
the Fulani out of Bornu, the people desired to make
him Sultan, he refused the offer, and placed Mohammed,
the brother of the deposed Sultan Achmet, on the
throne. He refused all titles for himself, except that
of "Servant of God," but he kept the practical powers
of a dictator, and, while he lived without ostentation, he
was the head of the army, and the real ruler of the
kingdom. He completely overthrew the Fulani, and
defended the Empire of Bornu in many desperate cam-
paigns against the attacks of Baghirmi. On the death

RISE OF THE FULANI 389

of Sultan Mohammed he still refused to be made Sultan,
and again put a dummy Sultan on the throne, reserving
for himself the responsibility of power without any of
its outward display. His campaigns were usually suc-
cessful, and it is said of him that he "turned all victories
to the advantage of those whom he overthrew." By
the purity of his administration and the reforms which
he introduced, the kingdom grew in enlightenment as
well as power. Nowhere were the laws of Islam more
strictly observed than in Bornu under his administration.
The wider education of his youth had given him a
knowledge of other countries, which he used for the
benefit of his own. Foreigners were well received, trade
prospered, and the roads, through the Sheikh's govern-
ment, were, according to Major Denham, "as safe as
any, even in happy England itself."

After the overthrow of Baghirmi, which was achieved
with the co-operation of the ruler of the Fezzan about
the year 1824, the ruler of Bornu turned his arms
against South -western Haussaland, where he was at
first successful, and took from the Fulani the province
of Bautchi, which they had conquered shortly after the
taking of Zaria ; but here, in the year 1826, he was
destined to meet with a reverse. His armies were
defeated by the Fulani, and he himself narrowly escaped
with his life. Shortly after this he came to terms of
agreement with the Fulani.

He died in 1835, when his son, who succeeded,
abolished the dummy Sultans, and established the dynasty
of the Kanemi openly on the throne of Bornu.

CHAPTER XLII

SULTAN BELLO

The whole of Haussaland up to the borders of Bornu
had before this become subject to the conquering Fulani.
Othman dan Fodio himself died in 1816, and divided
his newly conquered empire between his son, Mohammed
Bello, and a brother, Abdallai. He gave to Mohammed
Bello, who, during his father's lifetime, had founded for
himself the new town of Sokoto, the sovereignty of the
Eastern Provinces, while to his brother, whose head-
quarters were at Gando, south and slightly west of
Sokoto, he gave the provinces of the West. Sultan
Bello, a man no less remarkable than his great rival,
Mohammed el Kanemi, of Bornu, continued to reign
until 1837, and this period, almost coinciding with the
great period of Bornu under its new ruler, must be re-
garded as forming also the great period of Fulani rule
in Haussaland.

Sultan Bello ascended to the throne at a very diffi-
cult moment. His father's arms, largely under Bello's
direction, had completed the conquest of the principal
states of Kano, Katsena, and Zaria, in the centre of
Haussaland, and had spread to the south-east over the
Bautchi Hills, and into the provinces bordering upon
the Benue. The Fulani had also, as we have seen,
fought successfully with Zanfara and Gando. But the
western group of provinces, including Zanfara, Gober,
and Gando, had been very imperfectly subdued. These
provinces, of which the governments would seem to
have been pagan, were filled with stubborn fighters. It
suited the Fulani to proclaim a holy war, and to inflame

SULTAN BELLO 391

the courage of their armies by treating their enemies
as infidels, but, as a matter of fact, there were many-
Mohammedans amongst their opponents, for Islam had
long been the religion of the upper classes of all the
principal towns of Haussaland. In the central provinces
of Katsena, Kano, and Zaria, the government and the
whole organisation of society was Mohammedan, a fact
admitted by the Fulani when they adopted, as they
subsequently did, the existing Haussa, or, as the con-
querors preferred to call them, " Habe," systems of
law, justice, and taxation. All these were based upon
the Koran. In Zaria the reigning dynasty was actually
Fulani ; in Katsena and Kano the reigning sovereigns
were of Haussa dynasties, but for many generations
they had been Mohammedan. Kebbi, one of the most
stubborn opponents of Fulani domination, was itself, as
we have seen, at one time partly populated by Fulani.
There existed, therefore, in all these provinces large
bodies of Mohammedans, who were driven out before
the conquerors, and in many cases we hear of Moham-
medan Haussas obliged to take refuge, like the pagan
population, in the hills. This is to say, that everywhere
there existed large sections of the cultivated upper
classes profoundly antagonistic to Fulani rule. Shortly
after 1808 the defeats of the Fulani by Mohammed el
Kanemi in Bornu began to inspire new courage into
the disaffected, and about the year 1816, the very year
of the accession of Mohammed Bello, a confederation
was formed of Haussa States determined to fight for
their independence with the Fulani.

According to a Mohammedan account written by a
certain Hadj Said, and translated as a fragment of the
history of Sokoto by M. Houdas, Sultan Bello had hardly
received the oath of allegiance when all the provinces
neighbouring upon Sokoto abjured Islam and rose in
revolt against the Mohammedan rulers, who were appar-
ently supported, perhaps nominated, by Bello. The native
chiefs of Gober, Zanfara, and Nupe, were the first to form

392 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

the confederation. They were shortly joined by Northern
Katsena, Yauri, Kebbi, Kano, Kontagora, Daura, and
Southern Zaria. It would seem that all the lesser states
of Haussaland at one time joined this " Tawias " or revolt
against the Fulani. That it was not a religious but a
political revolt is made fairly clear by the names of Kebbi,
Kano, and Katsena, who were distinctly Mohammedan,
and by the fact that the confederation entered into alliance
with the Moors.

One native chief led the revolt in Zanfara, and estab-
lished himself in a stronghold almost within sight of Sokoto.
Another led the revolt in the province of Gando. The
early years of Bello's reign were occupied by constant
expeditions against the revolted provinces. After fighting
the pagan leaders in Gando, Gober, Zanfara, and Kebbi,
he encountered the Moors and was himself defeated. It is
to be noted that in these campaigns Bello's successes are
always attributed to the exertions of his cavalry.

At a date which is not specified by Hadj Said, but
which must probably have been about the year 1820, the
confederated states made a determined effort to overthrow
their Fulani conqueror. They renewed their alliance with
the Moors, and having assured themselves of the sympathy
of Mohammed el Kanemi of Bornu, their combined forces
marched upon the territory of Sokoto. Bello collected an
immense army at Wurnu, and Omar, the head of the
Fulani Church, a very holy man living in high repute at
Sokoto, addressed the soldiers. The Fulani professed to
regard the war as a struggle for life and death between
Islam and paganism. The soldiers of Bello's army were
enjoined to keep their hearts pure, and to commit no
atrocities. With these injunctions the army marched to
the encounter of the federated forces. The attack appears
to have been made from the north, and in the dry season
of the year. The sufferings of the army from thirst were
terrible. Bello, in person, encouraged the troops by re-
minding them constantly of the sacred cause for which
they fought, but at last the position grew so desperate

SULTAN BELLO 393

that the army was halted, and Bello called upon the
Sheikh Omar, who had, of course, accompanied the troops,
to pray for guidance as to whether it was the will of the
Almighty that they should return without encountering
the enemy.

It is rather interesting to find among the religious
enthusiasts of the Fulani of Sokoto in the early part of
the century the same ideas of spiritualism, higher thought,
and second-sight, which are to-day animating the modern
religious sects of England and America. Omar, it is said,
having spent the night in prayer, at sunrise heard a voice
which cried three times, "Victory has come!" The
Sultan at this moment sent to inquire of the holy
man what was the will of God. Was the army to
advance or to retreat? "To advance!" replied the
Sheikh. The troops accordingly marched and encamped
one station farther in the thirsty land. Here, by the
holiness of the Sheikh, a wonder was achieved. For
Omar, having prostrated himself in prayer and remained
long upon the earth, saw as in second-sight water coming
underground. Only when he saw this did he raise his
head from the ground. The Sultan then took a spear,
and plunging it into the earth, gave the order, " Dig
here!" Hardly had they begun to dig when water rose.
Every man then received orders to dig in the place on
which he stood, and everywhere that the soldiers dug
water was found.

This incident is quite in the spirit of the religious
life of Sokoto. One of the principal generals of the army,
Abd el Kader, who was also famed for the holiness of his
life, used to have visions in which he had intercourse
with the dead, and at the house of one of the noble ladies
of Sokoto spiritualistic stances used to be held, in which
the spirits of the great dead showed themselves, we are
told, to those who were worthy to perceive them.

The army remained on this spot for two days. On
the following Monday they prayed, and on the Tuesday
the " army of the infidels " arrived. With them was Aber,

394 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

King of the Moors. Certain Moors who were with Belle
pointed this out to him, and the unwelcome evidence
that the opposing army was not composed entirely of
infidels made Bello so angry that he ordered the Moors
who were with him to quit the ranks.

The battle began. " God gave the victory to the
Moslems, and 25,000 of the enemy were killed." The
number of confederated states engaged may be partly
estimated by the havoc made among their rulers. Al,
King of Gober, was taken prisoner ; Roud, King of
Katsena, was killed ; Aber, King of the Moors, fled.
Bello kept his soldiers in strict order, and allowed no
slaves to be made. He assembled the notables of Gober,
and bade them choose a king in place of the king whom
he had taken prisoner. They chose Bello's own son, Fodi.
We are not told whether the votes were free. But even
the complaisant chronicler of the Fulani records that
Fodi's conduct in his new kingdom was " scandalous."
He was "tyrannical, dissolute, impious, and occupied
himself solely with games and pleasure." The appoint-
ment is worth noting, as Fodi furnishes in the lifetime of
Sultan Bello an example of the bad Fulani of whom, in the
universal praise of the Fulani race, there is a tendency to
lose sight. If it may be said of Sultan Bello that he was
himself an embodiment of the very best qualities of his
race, this favoured son may no less justly be taken as a
prototype of the cruel and self-indulgent despots, under
whose rule at a later period Haussaland fell into the state
of ruin and decadence in which we found it.

The battle in which this victory of Islam was achieved
was called the battle of Dagh. Disastrous as it was to
the interests of the confederation, the states did not
accept the result as a final and decisive defeat. They
continued their resistance to Fulani rule, and Bello
addressed himself to the task of reducing each singly
to submission. Zanfara was conquered, and he placed
his brother Atiku upon that throne. Gando then raised
a revolt against Abdallai, Bello's uncle. Bello marched

SULTAN BELLO 395

against the revolted province, and the campaign is inte-
resting for the illustration which it gives of liello's respect
for his father's division of the territory of Haussaland, and
also for the growing evidence — which even the Fulani
generals could not ignore — that the opponents of Bello
were not entirely pagans. Throughout the campaign
Bello forbade his troops to enter the town of Gando,
which was under his uncle's rule, and we are allowed to
know that warm discussions arose between the generals
as to whether their enemies were infidels or not. When
at last the battle which put an end to the revolt was
fought, it was found necessary, in observance of Koranic
law, to apply some religious test to the prisoners. They
were called upon to recite the fatiha, and to make their
ablutions. Those who passed the test satisfactorily were
set at liberty. Those who did not were sold as slaves.
The refusal to permit slaves to be made after the battle
of Dagh already indicated some scruple of conscience
on Bello's part.

It was at about this period that Mohammed el Kanemi
of Bornu, having completed the subjection of Baghirmi,
turned his attention to Haussaland. All the vanquished
Sultans of Western Haussaland, says the chronicler,
grouped themselves round him, and he promised to
restore them all to their thrones should he prove vic-
torious in the struggle with the Sultan Bello.

The encounter between the two forces took place, as
we have seen, in the south-eastern provinces, and was
unfavourable to the hopes of the Haussa kings. The
army of Bornu, bearing a letter of defiance to Sultan
Bello, marched in the first instance upon Kano. Bello,
who appears to have fully recognised the magnitude of the
danger which threatened him in now, for the first time,
frankly facing a Mohammedan foe, rallied all his forces
from the south, and called upon the Fulani sovereigns
of Zaria and Bautchi to put their armies in the field.
A general advance was made against El Kanemi, who
appears to have turned and marched southwards. The

396 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

exact spot in which the first battle took place is not
indicated ; but the fight raged long and fiercely, and it
was the troops of Yakoub, the Sultan of Bautchi, who
at last decided the action against Bornu. This battle,
which, as we learn from the history of Bornu, took
place in 1826, appears to have been the last important
battle of Sultan Bello's reign. After it a lasting peace
was concluded between Sokoto and Bornu, and the
principal Haussa dynasties appear to have acquiesced in
their final deposition from the thrones of Haussaland.

The western states of the Haussa confederation,
according to the account given by Clapperton, finally
made peace on the understanding that they were to
continue to be ruled by their hereditary native princes,
and that the Fulani were not to interfere with them. It
is not definitely stated that these were the states subject
to Gando, but the general course of events would lead
to this inference. The ruler of Gando had from the
beginning leaned upon Sokoto, in order to obtain the
submission of his subject provinces. Thus Sokoto ap-
parently gained a vague overlordship of Gando, while the
states of which Gando was suzerain existed on somewhat
different terms from those acknowledging direct allegi-
ance to Sokoto. Sokoto became the universally accepted
suzerain of the entire territory, and Fulani rule was
established more or less completely from the capital of
that province to the farthest limit enclosed between the
Middle Niger and the Benue.

According to the Fulani chronicles, while Bello lived,
Haussaland enjoyed a period of great prosperity. Clap-
perton, who travelled through the country during the
lifetime of Sultan Bello, tells us that under Fulani rule
trade was discouraged by heavy duties, but that agri-
culture flourished. The country round Zaria, when he
first saw it, was "like the finest in England." There
were quantities of rice and corn, and the land every-
where " looked beautiful." He notes fine cattle and
horses, and heavy crops of grain "just high enough to

SULTAN BELLO 397

wave with the wind." Wheat began north of Zaria.
Zaria was then largely populated by Fulani and Arabs,
who had flocked to Dan Fodio's standard, and to whom
he had given the lands of the former inhabitants, who
had fled to the mountains in the southern part of the
province. These Mohammedan inhabitants maintained,
like the pagans, a chronic state of war against the
Fulani. The general form of residence of the Fulani
rulers in Haussaland seems to have been adapted to
this condition of affairs, and was, Clapperton tells us,
"like the old keeps or castles in Scotland, near the
borders."

Throughout the whole of his active life Bello found
time to devote to literature. He was extremely fond
of study, and wrote many books. His numerous works
were, it is said, usually written in the form of dissertations,
or replies to questions which raised doubtful points of
law. But he also wrote some purely literary essays,
amongst them one upon the poems of his father, which
w^ere "composed in the Soudanese language." Some
short notes of his upon the geography and history of
the Soudan, compiled by him from Haussa manuscripts,
have been preserved. He is said to have encouraged
science and learning, and at his court distinguished men
from all countries were well received. It must, however,
be counted as a serious blot upon his literary reputation
that he everywhere permitted Haussa manuscripts to be
destroyed, in order to efface the records of the con-
quered people.

He encouraged the members of his own family to
acquire learning, and protested warmly against the form
of Haussa superstition, which would have accredited
them, by the mere fact of their birth, with inherited
wisdom. "That," he constantly told them, "is pure illu-
sion ; knowledge can be maintained only by instruction."

In his public dealings he was equitable and modest.
He maintained himself in early life entirely by his own
exertions, refusing to live upon the public treasury. He

398 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

had entered into this compact when he and his father
opened their first holy campaign. " For you," he said
to his father, "it is unavoidable that you should use the
public money ; but I am young : I can learn a trade
and support myself." This, according to one of his
historians, he continued to do all his life ; but it is
more probable that after his accession he yielded, like
his father, to the pressure of necessity, and made use
of the public funds.

He was, we are told, very good to the people, full
of indulgence, calm and patient. He was an able ad-
ministrator. When he wrote the treatises upon points
of law, to which he devoted much of his time, the first
thing that he did with them was to make them known
to all his people, in order that the law might be gene-
rally observed. He inspected the Cadis, kept them in
check, and annulled any unjust judgment. When, after
his death, he was succeeded by his brother Atiku, the
judges begged Atiku not to reverse their judgments as
Bello had done ; but Atiku was of the same breed, and
only replied: "Judge with equity, and I will not reverse
your judgments. Be on the side of right wherever you
find it." The system of justice adopted by the Fulani
was that already instituted by the Haussas. In their
system of taxation the Fulani would seem, however, to
have introduced innovations which must have been in
many instances grievous to the Haussa people.

In appearance Bello was "red, tall, and bald, with
a tufted beard." He wore the veil. His final illness
lasted for some months. When it became grave, he
sent for his son Ali, and warned him against trying to
become Sultan after him. He refused to name a suc-
cessor ; but desired that his successor should be elected
according to the custom of the people. He died at
fifty-eight years of age, and left many sons and daughters.

CHAPTER XLIII

NORTHERN NIGERIA UNDER FULANI RULE

Bello of Sokoto and Kanemi of Bornu, who died
within two years of each other, were the two great
native sovereigns of the nineteenth century in the
country now known as Northern Nigeria.

They had established their dynasties securely on
their respective thrones, but the impression of their
greatness did not long survive them. It would but
weary the reader if I were to attempt to relate the
little wars and counter wars which filled the second
half of the nineteenth century, and immediately pre-
ceded the introduction of British administration. What
has been told of the establishment of the Bornuese and
Fulani powers is enough to show that in both cases
very strong elements of disruption were waiting only
for the removal of the hand which had welded the state
together to break into active discord. There has re-
mained the difference between the two empires, that in
Bornu the power established was to a great extent a
native power, which had to war against foreign invad-
ing elements, while in the rest of Haussaland the power
established was a foreign power which fastened itself
upon the necks of already existing and well-established
native rulers. The wars, which in the latter half of the
century decimated both empires, kept the different char-
acter imposed by this circumstance.

In the case of Bornu, the attacks of old enemies
and foreign invaders from the east tended to minimise
the native power, while pagan states previously held

400 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

subject in the south profited by every opportunity to
assert their independence.

On the western border of Bornu some Fulani states also
made good an independent position ; desert tribes raided
from the north, and Bornu proper became, in the course
of fifty years, a mere section of the Bornu Empire as
it was ruled by Mohammed el Kanemi. Barth, who
entered Haussaland from Tripoli in 1850, and travelled
through Bornu, gives some account of troubles already
tending to overthrow the power and dignity of Bornu.
By various causes, of which perpetual slave-raiding was
not the least active, the country was gradually deso-
lated. Its trade was almost destroyed, its agriculture
ruined, and towards the end of the century it fell an
easy prey to a native military adventurer known as
Rabbeh Zubeir, who, marching with a large army from
Darfur, subdued for a time the whole Mohammedan belt
to the east of Chad. In 1893 Rabbeh overthrew the
existing dynasty of Bornu, and continued to rule the
country under a military tyranny till in April of 1900
he in turn was overthrown, not by the British, but by
the French. French troops encountered his forces upon
the border of what is now German territory, and having
placed their own nominee on the throne of Bornu,
their commanders were actually levying tribute in British
territory at the moment when British administration
was established in Northern Nigeria. The fortunes of
Bornu had never in all its history been so low ; the
pride of its rulers, represented by an unhappy puppet
held captive in foreign territory, was in the dust.

In the remainder of Haussaland a no less disastrous
condition of affairs had been produced by the convulsive
efforts of some of the Haussa States to cast off the rule
of the Fulani, of others to aggrandise themselves at the
expense of weaker neighbours, and of the pagans to
maintain their cherished independence against all Mo-
hammedan and slave-raiding powers alike ; while above
the seething mass of discontent, rebellion, and civil war.

NIGERIA UNDER FULANI RULE 401

the Fulani power tightened its hold only the more
despotically upon such portions of the country as it
could keep. A domination, which was established in
the name of religion and justice, had fallen into tyranny,
tempered only by the weakness or the moderation of
personal rulers. Under Dan Fodio and Bello the con-
quering armies of the Fulani were enjoined to spread
the true faith and to convert the pagans to Islamism.
At a later period it was found more profitable to leave
the pagans in a condition in which it was lawful to
make slaves and to exact tribute, and Fulani wars de-
generated into little more than slave-raiding expeditions.
The judicial system of the Haussas, already founded
on Mohammedan institutions, and adopted in the first
instance by the conquerors, was allowed to fall into
disuse. Courts continued to exist, but the Alkalis who
should have presided over them and dispensed justice
according to Koranic law, irremovable from their posi-
tions as the judges of Great Britain, were either dis-
regarded, as in some cases by the great chiefs who
held their own courts and gave decisions at their own
will, or over-ruled by the emir, or worse still, subjected
to the authority of the emir's favourite slaves, who
decreed to their enemies inhuman punishments of their
own invention. For the nails to be torn out with red-
hot pincers, for the limbs to be pounded one by one
in a mortar while the victims were still alive, for im-
portant people who had offended to be built up alive
gradually in the town walls, till, after a period of
agony, the head of the dying man was finally walled
up, were among the punishments well attested to have
been inflicted in the decadence of Fulani power. It is
said that a considerable number of the walls of Haussa
towns are known by the people to have been so built up,
and are even now called by the name of the most dis-
tinguished victims whose corpses they contain. Impale-
ment and mutilation were among the penalties of lesser
offences. Some of the Fulani emirs would themselves

2 c

402 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

appear to have been monsters of inhumanity, who re-
joiced, like the depraved emperors of Rome, in witness-
ing the mortal agonies of their victims. The public
prisons became places of public torture, from which few
who were confined in them could escape alive. Here
is the description of the prison of Kano, as it was in
existence up to the moment of the British occupation
of the province. I quote the High Commissioner's
account, given in the Colonial Report for Northern
Nigeria, 1902 : —

" I visited the dungeon myself. A small doorway,
2 feet 6 inches by i foot 6 inches, gives access to it.
The interior is divided, by a thick, mud wall, with a
similar hole through it, into two compartments, each
17 feet by 7, and 11 feet high. This wall was pierced
with holes at its base, through which the legs of those
sentenced to death were thrust up to the thigh, and the
condemned men were left to be trodden on by the mass
of other prisoners till they died of thirst or starvation.
The place is entirely air-tight and unventilated, except
for the one small doorway, or rather hole in the wall,
through which you creep. The total space inside is
2618 cubic feet, and at the time we took Kano, 135
human beings were confined here each night, being let out
during the day to cook their food, &c., in a small adjoining
area. Recently as many as 200 have been interned at
one time. As the superficial area was only 238 square
feet, there was not, of course, even standing room.
Victims were crushed to death every night, and their
corpses were hauled out each morning. The stench,
I am told, inside the place when Colonel Morland visited
it was intolerable, though it was empty, and when I
myself went inside, more than three weeks later, the
effluvia was unbearable for more than a few seconds."

These were the forms and these the instruments to
the use of which Fulani justice had degenerated, and in
the midst of them the only chance of obtaining favourable
consideration of a given case lay in heavy bribery. The

NIGERIA UNDER FULANI RULE 403

powers and constitution of the courts varied in every
Fulani province, but in all the tendency was to inflict
heavy fines for the benefit of the emir and the court.
In all, without exception, such justice as there was, was
bought and sold.

The system of taxation, like the system of justice,
originally based in the Haussa States upon Koranic law,
and in the first instance adopted by the conquerors, was
similarly debased. The legitimate taxation established
under the Haussa dynasties divides itself roughly into
the four classes of taxes on land and crops ; taxes on
cattle ; taxes on handicrafts and trades ; customs, tolls,
and death duties. To these there was added, in the first
instance, a tax payable from all the conquered states to
Sokoto and Gando, which, though payable from Moslem
to Moslem, and called by a different name to distinguish
it from the tribute only lawfully to be taken from pagans,
was, in fact, the equivalent of a tribute, and by its pay-
ment conveyed the recognition of sovereignty. Had this
been all, the conquered states might reasonably have
accepted the inevitable. But if the abuse of justice is
one of the means by which arbitrary authority can assert
its power, the abuse of taxation is an even more fruitful
and more tempting method. Taxes multiplied in the
Fulani states. Under the four leo^itimate headino-s, now
increased by the institution of the Sokoto and Gando
tribute to five, each ruler invented at his will new imposts.
Even in Bello's lifetime, Haussa trade was, according to
the contemporary observation of Clapperton, hampered
under Fulani rule by heavy dues. In the degradation of
Fulani rule in the latter half of the century, trade was
practically destroyed, and agriculture rendered almost
impossible by the ceaseless creation of new taxes. Not
only were new taxes imposed at the will of each new
ruler, but the collection of existing taxes was made the
subject of such abuse as the collection of taxes has been
ever subject to in countries where personal authority has
supported law. A body of alien tax-gatherers fastened

404 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

like parasites upon the country. Fulani tax-collectors
oppressed the native peasantry of every village. To
show any sign of wealth was to invite the rapacity of
those higher in the social scale. The Fulani conquerors
claimed sovereign rights in land. Whole districts were
given as feoffs to favourite retainers, who, living about the
court in the enjoyments of office, collected taxes for
the emir and for themselves from their feoffs through
the agency of certain officials. These officials became
practically their private servants, and of course shared
the spoil. Agriculture groaned under the exactions that
were laid upon it.

In nearly all the country districts the peasantry had
remained pagan. To raid pagan countries for slaves
was lawful according to the Koran. In the earlier years
of their rule the Fulani used this permission to carry out
raids against the pagan centres of the southern districts.
Gradually, however, rebellion had its effect. As their
power weakened, and was confined within narrower
limits in the southern emirates, they were forced to
abandon the process of distant raiding. They began to
raid and sell their own peasantry, and thus completed the
desolation of the country by a process which resembled
the fabulous devouring of its own body by a snake.

It is not to be wondered at that revolt succeeded to
revolt, and that Fulani power was more and more con-
fined in the southern states to the limits of its own walled
towns. Mutually defiant strongholds arose over the
country. In the mountainous districts the wilder tribes
of the pagans, including still some who preserve the
habits of cannibals, found for themselves natural fortresses,
in which they defended as they could the liberty which
was their sole possession.

Yet through all the degradation of earlier Fulani
ideals it is to be understood that in the Fulani emirates
there was still to be found something of the nobler
traditions of ancient thought. Individual rulers were
still merciful and just. Abuse of power had not wholly

NIGERIA UNDER FULANI RULE 405

destroyed its dignity. Though nominally the rulers of
the whole of Haussaland, the principal seats of Fulani
power were to be found in the north. Here Sokoto still
commanded, as the suzerain of Haussaland, a something
more than nominal allegiance ; Kano sustained its ancient
reputation as a trade centre, of which the relations ex-
tended to the Atlantic, to the Red Sea, and to the
Mediterranean ; Katsena and Zaria, notwithstanding many
abuses, maintained themselves as administrative centres
of importance.

The resemblance between the feudal system of the
Fulani and the system established by the conquests of
northern nations in Europe in the early portion of the
Middle Ages, will not have escaped the reader. The
parallel is remarkable with the system established in
England by the Saxons, but in Haussaland it was perhaps
closer to that which was developed in Italy under the
Lombards. There is also this point of difference, that
whereas the Haussas were an agricultural people, the
Fulani were in their origin pastoral, and it is a recognised
law of historic evolution that the rule of pastoral races
has a stronger tendency to despotism than the rule of
agricultural races. Underneath all the abuses which have
established themselves in the Fulani administration of
Haussaland there is said to exist, by those who have
had the opportunity of studying the state systems of the
different emirates, evidence of a deep-rooted desire for
self-government. Presumably the conquered states en-
deavoured to retain as many as possible of the existing
safeguards of their constitutions. The emirs are elected
by a council of elders, and this council is not an empty
name. It has a right to be consulted by the emirs in
relation to all their important acts. The emir who
ignores it is regarded as a tyrant, and runs great risk
of losing his throne.

The constitution of Bida, by which the Fulani
emirate of Nupe is now ruled, is one in which the prin-
ciple of constitutional government was carried under the

406 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

Fulani to its most complete expression. Here, in addition
to the emir and a council of princes composed only of
descendants of the founder of the dynasty, which, though
not entirely hereditary, bore some resemblance to a
House of Lords, there was also a council corresponding
in some degree to our own House of Commons. This
was a council of notables, not of royal blood, but holding
important state offices, and including the waziri or prime
minister, the chief justice, the chief preacher, the
commander-in-chief of the army, and the principal officers
of the emir's household. The head of this council was
the prime minister, and it was the prime minister, not
one of the members of the council of princes, who was
regarded as second in the state to the emir. Neither
council was in a literal sense elective, the appointment
to both being in the hands of the emir. But by native
custom no appointment was made to either council with-
out giving time for an expression of public opinion, and
there were certain recognised methods by which the emir
took the advice of his people in the matter both of appoint-
ments to council and to all the principal offices of state.
Important matters of public policy were referred to the
consideration of the two councils sitting together, but
the ordinary business of the state was carried on by a
privy council composed of two officers taken from each
council, who were in constant consultation with the emir.
This constitution is believed to have been adopted from
the original Nupe state system. The constitutions of
Sokoto and Gando, both of them new states created by
the Fulani, are less elaborate.

By the end of the nineteenth century, that is, at the
moment of the introduction of British authority, the
territory of Haussaland may be said to have divided
itself into three classes of states. There were states
under P"ulani rule such as those just named, where Fulani
institutions were in active existence ; other states conquered
by the Fulani and nominally under Fulani rule, where
taxes and Mohammedan institutions were imposed in

NIGERIA UNDER FULANI RULE 407

different degree according to the amount of real authority
exercised by the conqueror ; and states which, from vary-
ing causes, were wholly independent. These last were
either states which had succeeded in always defending
their independence, and were ruled over by responsible
native rulers of their own race, such as Boussa, Kiania,
Argungu, &c., or Haussa and pagan communities which,
having been once under Fulani rule, had succeeded in
throwing it off, and were generally known by the name
of Tawai, or " Revolted Peoples." Finally, there were
independent pagan tribes, mostly in a low stage of
development — sometimes even cannibals — and owning
allegiance to no single authority. These resembled the
pagans of the coast, among whom the authority of an
individual chief is sometimes limited to the ramifications
of his own family. As the higher development of
Mohammedan institutions was to be found in the northern
states, so this lowest type of pagan was most numerous
in the southern districts lying upon both sides of the
Benue. And, correspondingly, while the low class of
pagan still held occasional fastnesses in the hills of the
Fulani states, Fulani conquerors had imposed themselves
upon the southern districts and held certain walled towns
in the pagan areas.

Through the chaos of these conflicting interests, the
practice of slave-raiding, carried on alike by the highest
and the lowest, ran like the poison of a destructive sore,
destroying every possibility of peaceful and prosperous
development.

CHAPTER XLIV

SLAVE-RAIDING

From time immemorial the slave trade of the ancient
world had its markets of supply in the Soudan. The
earliest Greek historians speak of slaves captured by
the native tribes of North Africa, and the monuments
of Persia and Ethiopia show that the enslavement of
the negro was a custom more ancient than any written
record. In modern times the horrors of the African
slave trade have been fully exposed by the great army
of explorers who have penetrated into the interior of
the continent. Livingstone, Baker, Stanley, Cameron,
and many others, have given the testimony of eye-wit-
nesses to the sufferings of the natives, whom the demand
for slaves caused to be hunted like wild beasts in their
homes. My husband, when he fought against the slave-
raiders of Nyassaland, was himself a witness of the
brutalities of the Mohammedan slave-hunters in East
Africa. The curse of the slave-hunt in the equatorial
regions of the continent has known no limit of time
or place. It has spread broadly from sea to sea. To
abolish it has been one of the aims which has most
strongly enlisted the sympathy of the public in the
modern movement of carrying civilisation into Africa.

During the whole period of which the principal historic
movements of the Western Soudan have been so scantily
outlined in this book, the trade in slaves was one of
the most important elements of local industry and of
foreign commerce, Spain and Portugal, North Africa and
Egypt, drew their supply of slaves through the Middle

Ages from the Soudan. We have seen at a later period

408

SLAVE-RAIDING 409

how the slave trade of Europe was conducted on the
coast.

Slave trade carried on upon an extensive scale in-
volved the practice of slave-raiding as necessarily as
the export of gold involved in West Africa the practice
of alluvial gold-mining. From the earliest times it had
been the custom, as we have seen, not only of Haussa-
land, but of all the countries of the Western Soudan,
to raid the territories of the cannibal pagans to the
south regularly once a year for slaves, and when war
offered occasion for further profitable captures, whole
armies were sometimes enslaved.

To the cannibal, whose practice it was to kill and
eat his prisoners, slavery presented itself in the light of
a merciful fate, and it was so considered by the con-
queror. The view of the Mohammedan or of the higher
class pagan with regard to the practice of raiding for
slaves, would seem to have been almost identical with
that of the Spaniards and Portuguese at the time of the
discovery of the East and West Indies. Inferior races
of a different faith did not count in the ranks of free
human beings. They were little better than cattle, and
as such might be hunted and taken without any deroga-
tion from the laws of humanity. The difference between
the humane man and the cruel man lay not in the practice
of or the abstinence from slaving, but in the manner in
which slaves were treated ; and in general the slaves
of Negroland would seem to have been governed with
tolerant good-humour. Their sufferings were not directly
intentional, but were incidental to the barbarities of the
slave-raid, by which whole villages were destroyed, and to
the horrors of transit on foot across the desert.

Were it not that human remains are destructible,
the caravan route from Tripoli to Haussaland would
be paved deep with human bones. Here is a descrip-
tion, given by Major Denham in 1822, of the condition
of that road less than a hundred years ago. He men-
tions a well within half a mile of Mesbroo. " Round

4IO A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

this spot," he says, " were lying more than a hundred
skeletons, some of them with the skin still remaining
attached to the bone. The Arabs laughed heartily at
my expression of horror, and said they were only blacks,
nam boo (damn their father), and began knocking their
limbs about with the butt end of their firelocks, saying :
' This was a woman ! This was a youngster ! ' " As the
road wound southwards skeletons were passed at the
rate of eighty and ninety a day, and at the wells of
El Hammar, three days farther on, the numbers of
skeletons that lay about were countless. "Those of two
women, whose perfect and regular teeth bespoke them
young, were particularly shocking; their arms still remained
clasped round each other as they had expired, although
the flesh had long since -perished by being exposed to
the burning rays of the sun." On the following day, as
Major Denham dozed on his horse about noon, over-
come by the heat of the sun, he was suddenly awakened
by "a crashing under my feet, which startled me ex-
cessively. I found that my steed had, without any sen-
sation of shame or alarm, stepped upon the perfect
skeletons of two human beings, cracking their brittle
bones under his feet, and by one trip of his foot separat-
inof from the trunk a skull which rolled on before him."
Along the greater part of the way, Major Denham says that
every few miles a skeleton was seen through the whole
day. " Some were partially covered with sand, others
with only a small mound formed by the wind ; one hand
often lay under the head, and frequently both, as if in the
act of compressing the head. The skin and membranous
substance all shrivel up and dry from the state of the air :
the thick muscular and external parts only decay." When
it is remembered that this description applies in the
beginning of the nineteenth century after Christ to a
road which has been used for the same purpose of slave
transit for perhaps as many as nineteen centuries before
Christ, the imagination quails before the total of grief and
suffering which must lie embedded in its dust.

SLAVE-RAIDING 411

The raids by means of which slaves are obtained
in the hunting grounds of the interior to be despatched
upon this journey across the desert, are even more pro-
ductive of human suffering, more desolating to all that
makes up the most primitive conceptions of human hap-
piness. Apart from the enslavement of prisoners of war,
which constitutes a separate branch of the same custom,
and occurs whenever a successful war gives the oppor-
tunity for it, the slave-raid, as a national habit, is still
usually directed against natives of a different religion,
who are assumed to be of a lower order of humanity.
Throughout the West of Africa, at the beginning of the
present century, the custom remained among the races
bordering northwards upon the desert to raid southwards
among the pagans and cannibals for the purpose of filling
their slave-rooms, stocking their farms, and increasing
their revenues by the surplus which could be disposed
of in the market. It was a relatively small surplus
only which experienced the pains of the desert jour-
ney for purposes of exportation, but though relatively
small it was numerically great, and the sum of misery
inflicted by the slave -hunts of countless generations
defies all computation. It is not to be supposed that
it was the Christian nor even the Mohammedan who
first invented the theory that there is no moral obliga-
tion to respect the rights of infidels. Indeed, if modern
experience may be trusted, it would seem rather that
the less is the grade of difference the more is the sense
of distance between the despiser and the despised. The
contempt of the superior pagan for the inferior fetish
worshipper is just as keen as that of the Christian for
the pagan, and from race to race in a descending scale
the theory of inferiority has been acted on as a justifica-
tion of the practice of enslavement.

In West Africa, where the superior race preyed
directly upon the inferior, the practice has probably been
peculiarly demoralising, for there the brutality of the
slave-raider was added to the despotism of the slave-

412 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

owner. The right of slave-raiding, like that of making
war, would seem to have been originally a royal preroga-
tive, and it was apparently maintained as an annual
practice, to which no sense whatever of immorality was
attached. It was simply, like elephant hunting, one of the
means by which the royal coffers were replenished, and
those who took part in the raid received their share of
spoil. Leo Africanus complains, in relation to Bornu,
in the beginning- of the sixteenth century, that merchants
who took horses there for sale were sometimes delayed
a whole year because the horses were paid for in slaves,
and the king raided only once a year.

Dr. Barth, who accompanied a slave-raid, made by
the forces of Bornu against the pagan natives of Musgu
in the winter of 1851-52, has left an account of the opera-
tion, which is interesting as applying to districts with
which the British Government has now to deal, and may
serve to show how such practices must affect the private
and public life of peoples amongst whom they are
tolerated.

His account is too long to quote in full, but some of
the principal points may be briefly given. The ruler
of Bornu, finding his treasury and his slave-rooms empty,
determined upon a slave-raiding expedition. There was
at first some doubt as to the exact direction in which
it should be sent. Finally, it was determined to attack
the pagans of Musgu in a territory south of Bornu, and
not far from the present German frontier in the east.
Towards the end of November a host numbering over
20,000 cavalry and a larger number on foot, including
many women, and a proportionate amount of tents and
baggage, marched southwards. So long as this force
was within the limits of friendly territory they were sup-
posed to be under discipline, and to take nothing from
the villages but corn and rice. As a matter of fact, dis-
cipline was impossible to maintain, and not only were the
crops forcibly reaped, but as the army marched towards
the frontier the friendly villages which lay upon its road

SLAVE-RAIDING 413

were looted. As soon as the frontier of the pagan
country was reached, a general Hcence was, of course,
given, and Dr. Barth describes day by day the progress
of this vast band of robbers, who spread Hke a swarm of
locusts over the fertile country.

The pagans were apparently in this instance of the
higher type. They were no homeless savages. On the
contrary, they were better agriculturists than the Bornu
people themselves. The whole country was rich, and
village after village of neatly built huts, having their
pagan cemeteries and rude monuments to the dead, stood
among fields of corn, tobacco, indigo, cotton, sorghum,
and rice. In one place Dr. Barth says : " The landscape
was exceedingly beautiful, richly irrigated and finely
wooded, while to our great astonishment the ground
was so carefully cultivated that even manure had been
put upon the fields in a regular manner, being spread
over the ground to a great extent, the first example of
such careful tillage that I had as yet observed in Central
Africa, either among Mohammedans or pagans,"

Throughout this district the army marched, murdering,
burning, destroying as they went. The inhabitants, know-
ing the object of their march, usually fied before them
to the forest, abandoning their property that they might
save their persons. This manoeuvre was frequently suc-
cessful, and slaves were not always obtained. The villages
were none the less burnt, and the surrounding crops de-
stroyed. When prisoners were captured, only women and
the young were kept. Full-grown men were massacred.
On one day Dr. Barth reports: "A large number of
slaves had been caught this day. Altogether they were
said to have taken a thousand, and there were certainly
not less than five hundred. To our utmost horror not
less than one hundred and seventy full-grown men were
mercilessly slaughtered in cold blood, the greater part
of them being allowed to bleed to death, a leg having
been severed from the body." On other occasions the
whole day's spoil was limited to a handful of slaves,

414 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

"unfortunate creatures whom sickness or ill-advised
courage prevented from leaving their native villages."
The pagans made occasionally a desperate and some-
times even an heroic defence, but the superior arms, and
still more the numbers of the Bornuese troops, invariably
secured the victory. The country which was the scene
of these operations is described, not only as well culti-
vated, but as densely inhabited. The villages themselves
afforded everywhere the same appearance of comfort and
cheerfulness, and in their wholesale destruction by fire,
the destruction of the granaries which they contained
was of even more importance than the destruction of the
huts themselves, for as the grain was already harvested,
this must have meant, not only starvation during the
winter, but the loss of seed corn for the ensuing season.

Scenes of fire and sword during the active days of
the expedition were succeeded at intervals by the par-
tition of the prisoners. This proceeding was accompanied,
says Dr. Barth, by the " most heartrending scenes caused
by the numbers of young children, and even infants, who
were to be distributed, many of those poor creatures
being mercilessly torn away from their mothers, never
to see them again." This comment indicates also that
the raid was carried on over the country of higher-class
pagans. The lower types part in many instances with
perfect indifference from their young. Cattle was, of
course, carried off, as well as slaves, wherever it was
met with.

The expedition returned on this occasion, after two
months, to Bornu, and when the total gains were reckoned
uo, they were found to amount to something over 3000
slaves and 10,000 head of cattle. The slaves consisted
almost entirely of women and young persons, mostly
children, and the slaughter of full-grown males was said
to have amounted to no more than 300, or one in ten.
The great majority of full-grown males had therefore
escaped, as had the more active of the full-grown young
women. Of the 3000 taken, the commander-in-chief

SLAVE-RAIDING 415

claimed one-third. There remained 2000 slaves and
about 7000 head of cattle to divide between the 20,000
persons who had composed the expedition. That is to say,
that if the spoil was evenly divided, each man would receive
the tenth part of a slave and the third part of a bullock
as his individual share. That such waste of life, destruc-
tion of property, and loss of time could be considered, even
from the purely practical point of view, to be compensated
by such poor results, is indication enough of how little
all these things are valued among races where practices
of this kind are countenanced.

I have quoted the account of this raid at some length,
for, as it happened to be accompanied by two trust-
worthy Europeans, the details may be accepted as correct,
and the incidents, though varying, no doubt, on every
occasion, are typical enough to illustrate vividly the ab-
solute incompatibility of slave-raiding with the mainten-
ance of civilised government in the country raided. The
more cultivated nations of West Africa, though tolerant
of the practice of slave-raiding in the territory of their
pagan neighbours, never, of course, permitted such a
practice in what may be called the home territories. It
was only in the decadence and feebleness of a multi-
plication of petty monarchs that the custom of raiding
within the narrow limits of individual provinces became
general, and it is hardly necessary to say that where it
prevails neither order, security, nor prosperity are in an
even moderate degree attainable.

Between the date of 1851 and the year of the intro-
duction of British authority into Northern Nigeria, the
practice of slave-raiding as described by Dr. Barth
had become general throughout the Protectorate. It has
already been said that the feoff-holders of the Fulani
emirates resorted at times to the expedient of selling
their own peasantry, and there was no province of which
the entire territory could be said to be free from the
curse of the slave-raid.

It will be easily understood that, however broken

4i6 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

might be the spirit of the raided populations, such
aggression did not pass without leading to some form of
retaliation. Roads were closed in every direction, and
the approach of the Mohammedan was resented in arms
by a peasantry who always cultivated their fields with
weapons slung upon their backs. The bow and arrow —
often the poisoned arrow — of the pagan is in dexterous
hands a more effective weapon than the clumsy and
old-fashioned musket of the local Mohammedan, and it
was by force of numbers rather than by superior
weapons or military skill that the Fulani armies over-
powered the pagan populations in their raids. It lay
with the pagans in return to close their roads to the
passage of all individual traders who might prove to be
but spies upon fertile or thickly populated lands. Nor
is it to be understood that the pagans themselves were
wholly free from the vice of slave-raiding. They paid
their tribute usually in slaves. They raided their
enemies for slaves, and, as one of the incidental results
of this preying of man on man, the roads through the
country became generally so unsafe that travelling was
only possible in well-defended caravans.

It is also to be noted, as the result of half a century
of anarchy, that the population of the Haussa States and
Bornu, described by Dr. Barth in 1854 as dense, and
estimated at about fifty millions, had, at the period of
the British occupation, entirely deserted some of the
most naturally fertile areas, and had fallen to a total
which is now believed to equal only one-fifth of the
estimated amount, or about ten to twelve millions.

CHAPTER XLV
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF BRITISH ADMINISTRATION

It will be understood that in attempting, as I am now
about to do, to give some account of the establishment
of British administration in the midst of the conditions
which have been described, I enter upon a difficult portion
of my task. The British High Commissioner is my
husband. Many members of his staff have become my
personal friends. It is impossible for me altogether to
clear my mind of favourable prejudice, and I am forced
to realise that the detachment which gives the propor-
tion of history is no longer at my command. I can only
therefore ask beforehand for indulgence if in this last
section of my book personal sentiment tends to warp my
judgment of the relative importance of events.

The rulers of the Nigerian territories had placed
themselves nominally, for reasons which rendered a
choice of European protectors essential to them, under
the protection of Great Britain. By their treaties with
the Royal Niger Company some of them had nominally
surrendered their territory with all sovereign rights.
Others, and these the most important, including the
emirates of Sokoto and Gando, had agreed to enter
into treaty with no other white nation but the British ;
to give to Great Britain jurisdiction over all foreigners
and non-natives in their dominions, with right to tax
them ; to transfer to Great Britain sovereign rights in
the riverine territories of the Niger and the Benu6 for
a distance of ten hours' journey inland from the banks
of the two rivers ; to confer also rights of mining and
trading ; and generally, while reserving their own powers
of internal rule, to subordinate themselves in external

417 2 D

4i8 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

matters to the protecting power. They had, in fact, by-
treaty, accepted the recognised position of protected
native states. The equivalent which was to be given
by Great Britain was protection against external powers
and respect for internal law and custom. On one side,
as on the other, the maintenance of communication and
friendly relations was provided for.

Bornu had made no treaty with the Company, but
by virtue of international agreement it fell within the
territory allotted to the influence of Great Britain.

The relations of protecting powers to protected
states are always a question of discussion until they
have been placed by the logic of accomplished facts
outside the limits of theory. The exact measure of
responsibility accepted by Great Britain in Northern
Nigeria, at the moment of the establishment of British
administration there, would have been difficult to define.
The vague title of suzerain covered the position, and,
beyond a general desire that slave-raiding should be
suppressed and trade routes thrown open, there was
probably no wish in any quarter in England to see a
rapid advance towards the assumption of more defined
duties, or of responsibilities which would involve expense.
The public generally knew nothing of the country. Poli-
tical necessities had imposed the creation of a military
force for the defence, not only of the Nigerian, but of all
West African frontiers. A small grant in aid to meet
other administrative expenses was reluctantly added by
the Treasury to the sum required for the maintenance
of the West African Frontier Force. These concessions
were made rather by respect for the judgment and the
wishes of Mr. Chamberlain, then occupying the position
of Secretary of State for the Colonies, than by any
strong conviction on the part of the British Govern-
ment that Northern Nigeria was likely to prove a very
valuable acquisition to the Crown ; and in the absence
of a clearly expressed interest on the part of the House
of Commons, in the adoption of a new West African
policy, it seemed improbable that funds would be will-

BRITISH ADMINISTRATION 419

ingly voted for any full development of the Nigerian
Protectorate. In these circumstances the wishes of the
Government and of the country, if they had to be con-
densed into one phrase of instruction to the High Com-
missioner, would perhaps best have been rendered by
the words, "Go slow!"

But events upon the spot refused to wait. From
the moment in which the British flag ran up at Lokoja
on the ist of January 1900, the High Commissioner
and his staff found themselves taxed to the utmost
limits of their capacity in the effort to keep pace with
the developments which hurried them along.

The first desire of the High Commissioner upon
taking up the duties of his position would naturally have
been to give effect to British treaty obligations by estab-
lishing residents at the native courts, and proceeding
to open friendly relations throughout the Protectorate.
He found himself face to face with a chaos of civil and
inter-tribal war, in which his immediate duty was to
endeavour to ascertain the disposition towards the Gov-
ernment which he represented of the dominant powers.
He had also everything to learn about the actual condi-
tion of the northern country.

The civil staff allotted for the purpose of founding
an administration was very small, and its numbers were
liable to be reduced by illness and leave. The Ashantee
War, which had broken out in another portion of West
Africa, shortly claimed all the troops of the West African
Frontier Force that could be spared, and the South
African War drawing to itself all the best military acti-
vity of the nation, rendered it difficult to obtain efficient
officers for the remainder of the regiment. Almost single-
handed in every administrative department, the little group
who formed the government at Lokoja felt that they had
every reason during the first year of the administration
to wish for their own sakes to "go slow."

There was the machinery of administration to estab-
lish, of which the seat was temporarily fixed at Jebba,
where the military headquarters had been formed. There

420 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

was the transfer from the Royal Niger Company, the
taking over of their assets, and the work of assigning
to them their trading stations, to be attended to. There
was the neighbouring country to survey, in the hopes of
finding, within friendly territory, a more suitable and
central position in which the permanent seat of govern-
ment could be established, under healthier conditions
than those offered by either Lokoja or Jebba, in the
malarial valley of the Niger, and there were relations
to establish with such chiefs as might prove friendly in
the neighbourhood. While the High Commissioner and
the civil staff undertook the formation of Administra-
tive Departments, the duty of surveying the country
was committed to military expeditions, which, moving in
strength sufficient to protect themselves against disaster,
were strictly enjoined to avoid all occasion of conflict
with the natives, to endeavour as far as possible to win
the confidence of the people, and to submit reports on
the economic and geographical conditions of the country.
Three such parties were sent out to examine the country
lying to the north of the confluence of the Niger and
the Benue between the river Kaduna and the eastern
highlands of Bautchi.

Though Fulani emirs were at the time slave-raiding
in these districts, it was believed from information received
that the native tribes were friendly and would be willing
to welcome Europeans, and here it was thought likely
that a permanent administrative centre might be formed
in the southern part of the province of Zaria, bordering
upon the Kaduna river. In the absence of railroads,
necessities of transport rendered it impossible for any
position to be taken far from a navigable river. Some
little opposition was met by two of the survey parties,
who were obliged to reduce some intractable pagan tribes,
but no serious fighting occurred ; and from the geographical
and topographical reports of the surveys, it was, after
some discussion, decided that the site for the new seat
of government would be most favourably placed in the
neighbourhood of the native town of Wushishi, on the

BRITISH ADMINISTRATION 421

river Kaduna. This river, often mentioned in the ancient
geography of the country, is one of the important rivers
of the Protectorate, and drains the south-western water-
shed to the Niger. It is navigable for a large portion
of the year by steamers, and during the dry season by
steel canoes. A small garrison was accordingly left at
Wushishi, and relations were in the meantime cultivated
with the southern states. The disturbed condition of
the country was such that, pending the establishment of
the new headquarters, no attempt was made to open
relations with the Fulani emirates of the north, otherwise
than by the despatch of conciliatory letters informing the
Sultans of Gando and Sokoto of the assumption of ad-
ministration by the British Government, and of the desire
of Great Britain to maintain friendly relations.

The southern provinces of Northern Nigeria, as they
spread on the south bank of the rivers from west to east,
are Ilorin, Kabba, Bassa, part of Muri, and part of Yola.
Imrnediately to the north of these, and with the exception
of Borgu, all on the northern side of the rivers, are —
taking them again from west to east — Borgu, Kontagora,
Southern Zaria, Nupe, Nassarawa, Bautchi, and the
northern half of Muri and Yola ; in all, eleven provinces
out of the seventeen of which Northern Nigeria is com-
posed. Of these provinces three only, Borgu, Ilorin, and
Kabba, were, in the first instance, effectively occupied by
the British. Jebba, situated on an island in the Niger
between the mainland of Ilorin and Kontagora, com-
manded the southern province.

On the northern banks the pagan populations welcomed
the advent of the British, but the Fulani emirs of Konta-
gora and Nupe soon removed all doubt as to their hostile
attitude. The British occupation was scarcely effected
before they were openly slave-raiding to the banks of
the river. Their combined armies laid waste their own
country from the Niger banks on the west and south to
the eastern highlands, and to the north as far as the
frontiers of Sokoto and Zaria. The Emir of Zaria, in
whose territory the site chosen for the future seat of

422 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

British government, near Wushishi, was situated, was
nominally friendly to Great Britain, but in the beginning
of July 1900 information reached the High Commissioner
at Jebba that Kontagora and Nupe had planned a com-
bined attack upon the little British garrison at Wushishi,
and he hurried there in person with reinforcements under
Major O'Neill. The situation became so acute that the
population began to desert Wushishi, and in order to
obtain supplies for the British troops and to protect the
villages which had been friendly, it became necessary to
erect some small forts in the neighbourhood, and to order
Major O'Neill to patrol the country. This task being
admirably performed, and the cavalry of Nupe and Konta-
gora defeated in a series of brilliant skirmishes, the country
was occupied by British troops for some twenty miles
south and east of Wushishi. Great loss was inflicted on
the slave-raiders in the encounters by which the occupa-
tion was effected, and the people, siding as always with
the party of success, crowded in thousands to the protected
villages for safety. A situation was created in which the
British Government already represented in the eyes of
the natives a power strong enough to protect them against
the scourge of the slave-raider.

But, as a matter of fact, with the body of the troops
still absent in Ashantee, the local administration did not
feel itself to be in a position to sustain suspended hos-
tilities. A British Resident had been placed at the friendly
court of Ilorin, where, while he worked hard at the intro-
duction of domestic reforms, he was made aware that
emissaries from Nupe and Kontagora were endeavouring
to induce the Emir of Ilorin to join with them in an
attempt to overpower the British and drive the white
anti-slaver out of the country. The position was dan-
gerous as well as delicate, and while the small force of
soldiers at Wushishi held their own, and even on one
occasion, somewhat rashly, drove the enemy before
them to the walls of the Nupe capital at Bida, the desire
of the High Commissioner was to avoid all but strictly
necessary fighting. The Resident at Ilorin, Mr. Carnegie,

BRITISH ADMINISTRATION 423

by whose subsequent death the administniticjii lost a most
valuable officer, exerted all the tact and the pluck at his
command to keep things quiet in Ilorin.

During these months the High Commissioner at head-
quarters was pressing forward the organisation of the
administrative departments, creating a system for dealing
with the freed slaves, especially the slave children who
were liberated in the encounters with the slave-raiders,
endeavouring to get into touch with other provinces who
gave friendly indications along the river banks, and
evolving the first framework of local legislation.

The creation of a judicial system was among the
early necessities of the administration, and in these first
few turbulent months the seeds of future order were
sown. By legislative proclamation, British Supreme and
Provincial Courts were established, and the jurisdiction
of each defined. Two Cantonment or Magistrates' Courts
were also established in Lokoja and Jebba, and by a
Native Courts' proclamation the establishment of Native
Courts by British warrant was provided for in all pro-
vinces under British jurisdiction. This measure, necessary
for the province of Ilorin, was as yet hardly applicable
to pagan provinces, where native institutions had not
attained to the level of a judicial organisation. A slavery
proclamation forbade the enslaving of any person within
the Protectorate, and without directly touching the institu-
tion of domestic slavery, reaffirmed, under the new ad-
ministration, the abolition of the legal status of slavery,
which had been proclaimed by the Niger Company after
their Bida campaign. All children born within the Pro-
tectorate after April i, 1901, were declared free. Laws were
also issued against the importation of liquor and firearms.

The busy days as they passed pressed their own
conclusions upon the minds of the High Commissioner
and his staff, and the theory of a future policy was
formed under the light of daily practice. The High
Commissioner had the advantage of including in his
staff one or two of the servants of the Niger Com-
pany, whose knowledge of local conditions was in-

424 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

valuable. The Accounting Department, which he had
used in connection with the organisation of the West
African Frontier Force, became, with a little reorgani-
sation, the Treasury of the new administration. The
vessels which formed the material of a Marine Depart-
ment were taken over from the Niger Company. The
staff included the necessary doctors and legal officers
for the formation of Medical and Legal Departments.
The Public Works Department, after an unfortunate pre-
liminary delay, during which the European staff was left
almost without houses, was formed, under the direction
of Mr. Eaglesome, an engineer of Indian experience,
into a body of which the efficiency and economy soon
became a subject of considerable local pride. The rest
of the staff, loyally supported by a few white non-
commissioned officers and civil subordinates, was chiefly
composed of that fine type of young Englishmen who,
whether as soldiers or civilians, have it in their minds
to serve their country, to the best of their ability, in
some adventurous capacity which will take them out of
the common round of comfortable life. Their experi-
ence of Africa was mostly nil, but they had the training
of the public school, the army, and the university, which
fits men equally for the assumption of responsibility and
for loyal subordination to authority. They were ready
to go anywhere and to do anything, and with the few
inevitable exceptions, who were rapidly weeded out, repre-
sented, in the eyes of the High Commissioner, the very
best stuff of which the English nation is made.

He had in them the instruments that he wanted, and
he worked them without mercy, as hard as he worked him-
self. The staff was short-handed. There was three men's
work for every man to do, and during the initial stage
of the establishment of British authority in the country,
it is not too much to say that the whole of the staff,
civil as well as military, gave themselves with entire
devotion to their task. There was little of alleviation
or of pleasure in the early conditions. Miserable houses,
bad food, a malarial climate, and ceaseless responsibility.

BRITISH ADMINISTRATION 425

formed the accompaniment of their daily existence. With
the inveterate determination of Englishmen to have
some form of sport, a polo ground was among the ear-
liest of the public institutions established by the soldiers
at headquarters. But it was the work itself which fur-
nished the real attraction of the life, and had the small
body of Europeans who formed the first British staff
been polled for their opinions, there would not probably
have been found one who wished to turn back from the
task which grew day by day under their hands.

In view of the pessimism which appears in some
quarters to be gaining ground with regard to the capacities
of the English race, I may perhaps without indiscretion
quote a passage from one of the latest of my husband's
despatches, which shows at least how in his opinion the
staff working under him have sustained the promise of the
first year's performance. " There are no words of praise,"
he writes under date of August 1905, "that I can find too
strong to describe the indefatigable efforts and the enthu-
siasm for their task which has been shown by the Political
Staff By their ceaseless devotion to duty they have not
only increased the revenue in the way that I have shown,
but have brought order, peace, and security out of chaos,
have established an effective judicial system, and have
substituted progress and development for misrule and
stagnation." This is satisfactory reading for those who
doubt whether the Englishmen of to-day are capable of
the same achievements as their fathers, and it must be
counted as not the least among the advantages of the
colonial development of the Empire that by its very
roughness it gives opportunity for the exercise in indi-
viduals of qualities which under less stimulating circum-
stances might perhaps lie dormant through the whole
course of a too easy life. The names, alas, of more than
one of the first small Nigerian group are engraved now
upon tombstones on that border of the Empire which
they helped to make. They live in the memory of good
service done, and their work accomplished is, as they
would have wished it to be, their monument.

CHAPTER XLVI

MILITARY OCCUPATION OF THE SOUTHERN EMIRATES

AND BORNU

At the end of December 1900 the return of the troops
from Ashantee reheved the position of some of its
acuteness.

The first thing- to be done was evidently to bring
hostiHties with Kontagora and Nupe to an end. An
expedition in force was immediately organised, which
marched against the combined armies of the emirs, and
was entirely successful. The town of Kontagora was
captured, and the emir barely effected his escape, flying
with a few followers to the north. It was observed
that on their march to Kontagora the troops passed
through an absolutely depopulated country. The Emir
of Kontagora was one of the worst examples of Fulani
chiefs who raided the peasantry of their own provinces
for slaves. This emir, at a later period, was captured
by the British, and when remonstrated with by the
High Commissioner, and urged to abjure slave-raiding
and to accept British protection, he replied with graphic
force: "Can you stop a cat from mousing? When I
die I shall be found with a slave in my mouth." His
downfall was received by the population of the province
with great joy, and the event was made the occasion of
a public conciliatory move towards the Emir of Sokoto,
who, as suzerain of Kontagora, was invited by the High
Commissioner to nominate a successor to the deposed
Ibrahim. Sokoto did not respond, and for some time
the throne of Kontagora remained empty.

In Nupe, where the result of British victories was

equally complete, the High Commissioner took his stand

426

MILITARY OCCUPATION 427

upon the condition of affairs created by the prcvi<jus
victory of the Company. The emir driven out by them
had returned, as has been already mentioned, and ousting
the heir placed upon the throne by the Company, had
ever since maintained a condition of hostility to the
British. This emir, Abu Bekri, now fled, like his col-
league of Kontagora, to the north. The Hi_L;h Com-
missioner did not call upon Gando, to whom Nupe was
tributary, to nominate his successor, but himself took
the initiative and reinstated the emir selected by the
Company upon the throne.

But if the High Commissioner was desirous that the
lesson of the previous war should not be lost upon the
native dynasty of Nupe, he drew also his own moral
from the experience. On this occasion there was to
be no more of conquest without permanent assertion of
British influence.

The reinstatement of the ousted Emir of Nupe was
made the opportunity of a preliminary declaration of
British policy. It was pointed out to the people of
Nupe and Kontagora that two of the most powerful
Fulani emirs had been deposed, because, after repeated
warnings, they would not desist from laying waste the
whole country and carrying off the people as slaves. At
the same time no looting and no destruction of the
country had been permitted by British troops. Both the
cities which were the Fulani capitals had been preserved,
and the loss of life had been confined entirely to the
Fulani cavalry employed as slave-raiders. The peaceful
populations had in no case suffered from British arms.
Nevertheless, though individual emirs had been deposed,
it was not the intention of the Government to overthrow
Fulani rule as such, and to substitute rulers of another
race. On the contrary, it was the intention of the British
Government to maintain existing institutions, including
the rule of the Fulani, established now for a hundred
years, but to insist on such reforms as should restore
the administration of the country to its ancient purity.

428 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

and bring its customs into conformity with the principles
of justice and humanity.

The emir-elect of Nupe, upon the suitability of whose
appointment the opinion of the native council was pre-
viously taken, having accepted British conditions, was for-
mally installed at Bida, before a full parade of British troops
and a great assemblage of his own people, in February
of 1 90 1. He has since — under the guidance at first of
Major Burdon, one of the officers transferred from the
service of the Niger Company, and specially selected
for the duties of first Resident of Nupe, because of his
known sympathies with the Fulani people — acted with
the utmost loyalty towards the British Government.
Nupe has prospered exceedingly under the new system,
and the emir's sons are now being educated at a school
established in Bida by the Church Missionary Society,
where they are learning, at their father's keenly expressed
desire, to speak English.

As a result of the subjugation of Kontagora and Bida
their great organised slave-raids were brought to an end,
the friendship of Zaria was confirmed, and there was
a pacification of the neighbouring pagan tribes. Other
provinces along the river bank indicated their readiness
to open trade routes, and to accept British Residents,
with the garrison which the presence of a Resident im-
plied ; and though the limited numbers of the British
staff rendered it impossible immediately to take full
advantage of these favourable dispositions, the High
Commissioner was able to report by the end of the
financial year 1 900-1 901 that the British Government
was in effective possession of the eight provinces of Borgu,
Ilorin, Kabba, Kontagora, Nupe, Zaria, Nassarawa, and
Muri.

Throughout these provinces the Government endeav-
oured as far as possible to bring into operation the policy
which it had declared of utilising and working through
the native chiefs, while it insisted upon their observance
of the fundamental laws of humanity and justice. Resi-

MILITARY OCCUPATION 429

dents were appointed whose primary duty it was to
promote this poHcy by the estabhshment of native courts
administering restored native laws, but in which bribery
and extortion and inhuman punishment were to be
abolished. Provincial courts, in which the British Resi-
dent acted as magistrate, were instituted in each province
to deal with non-natives and to enforce the laws of the
Protectorate, especially those dealing with slave-raiding,
slave-trading, importation of liquor and firearms, and ex-
tortion from the people by terrorism and a false use of
the name of the Government, which was among natives
one of the most frequent and at the same time mis-
chievous offences with which the British administration
had to deal. The authority of the emir was supported
by an insistence on the part of the British administration
that lawful tribute, with the exception of that taken in
slaves, should be paid.

Thus, by the beginning of 1901, the south-western
portion of the Protectorate had frankly accepted British
rule. The turbulent Fulani emirates, which had been
disposed to challenge it in that district, had been con-
quered, and while the sovereign rights of Great Britain
had in this way been placed on a basis which every
native could understand, the occasion had been made to
serve as a great public illustration of the intended policy
of the British Government to disturb as little as possible
the existing institutions of the country. The pacification
of the belt of country between the Niger and the eastern
highlands had been effected, and the only difference which
had become markedly apparent to native eyes from the
change of administration, was that henceforward pagans
as well as Mohammedans were to live in the enjoyment
of human rights. As a sign of this, slave-raiding had
already been brought to an end in the territory under
British rule.

Correspondingly with the cessation of slave-raiding
trade routes had begun to open themselves through
the country. While the operations of the slave-raiding

430 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

Emirs of Kontagora and Nupe remained unrestricted,
trade was of course impossible in the districts over which
their armies ranged, for it was the practice of the pagans
to retahate upon the slave-raiders by attacking all small
caravans. After the emirs had been brought into
obedience and slave-raiding stopped, it became the duty
of the British administration to put down with an equally
firm hand the habits of brigandage of the pagan tribes.
For this purpose it was occasionally necessary to apply
force, but even in the early stages of the administration
it was found that capable officers did more towards effect-
ing the pacification of the country by getting into touch
with the people, than could be effected by many punitive
expeditions, and the High Commissioner looked forward
to superseding military occupation at an early date by
an efficient system of civil police. Not only had the
trade routes to the south from Kano and Zaria been
rendered unsafe by the slave- raiding of Nupe and Kon-
tagora and the retaliation of the pagan tribes ; it was
also found that the caravan tolls extorted by the southern
emirs had been of the most excessive and onerous de-
scription. By stopping the slave-raiding of the Fulani,
keeping the pagans in order, and lessening the tolls, the
roads on the western side of the Protectorate were ren-
dered safer and more attractive, and trade began to im-
prove. New stations for European trade were opened
by the Niger Company on the Kaduna, and from Borgu
to Bautchi the increase in local trade was even in the
first year remarkable.

But while this condition of things in the eight pro-
vinces which had been occupied was satisfactory, the
inadequacy of the numbers of the British staff to deal
with the rising tide of work thrown upon the adminis-
tration became ever more apparent. With the removal in
some districts of Fulani rule each petty village began to
claim its ancient land, and to show disposition to raid its
neighbours in support of its claim. The need of a survey
and land settlement was urgent. More Residents were

MILITARY OCCUPATION 431

wanted to maintain the moral influence acquired in the
provinces. Police and revenue officers were also needed.
The housing of Europeans and the erection of public
offices in the new settlement, of which the site was
selected at a spot called Zungeru, within ten miles of
Wushishi, on open ground rising from the Kaduna, had
become a matter of some importance, and for the opening
year of 1901-1902 the necessity of some increase in the
estimates to provide for these pressing requirements was
apparent.

The continuance of the South African War still gave
no relief to the exchequer at home. The inclination of
the public was still such as could only be interpreted by
the Government as a desire to "go slow" in West Africa,
and still affairs upon the spot continued to urge the
necessity for the assertion of British rule.

Five more provinces were in a condition in which
the danger of abstaining from interference was greater
than the inconvenience of interferincr.

British Residents had been accepted — though not
enthusiastically — by the governing power in Nassarawa,
the province bordering eastward upon Nupe, which was
a sub-emirate of the nominally friendly Zaria, and was
very largely occupied by pagan tribes. In Muri too, a
little farther along the Benue, where pagans were glad to
be protected, British stations had been formed. But the
Fulani Emirs of Bautchi and Yola in the east, believing
themselves strong enough to defy the power of Great
Britain, and rendered only more antagonistic by the fate of
Kontagora and Nupe, and by the effectual British protec-
tion given to the pagans of Muri and Nassarawa, were creat-
ing a situation which became every day more difficult.

The Emir of Yola, a well-educated Fulani and reli-
gious fanatic, ordered the representatives of the Niger
Company, notwithstanding treaty rights to the con-
trary, to haul down their flag and close their trading
station on the river. In Bautchi the important town of
Guarram was destroyed, and the population carried into

432 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

slavery by slave-raiders acting under the instructions of
the emir. Both emirs traded openly in slaves, which
they imported from German territory and sent through
the Haussa States, while trade routes for legitimate
commerce were closed. The pagans of the river looked
from its eastern to its western end, waiting to see
whether the protection of the British Government was
strong enough to be effective in these circumstances. It
was essential, if we were to retain the respect of the
pagan peoples, to check the wholesale depopulation of
their territory. It was also necessary to protect the
legitimate rights of British traders at Yola.

A military expedition was therefore decided upon,
and was sent against Yola in September of 1901, under
the command of Colonel Morland. It was successful,
and though some obstinate resistance was encountered,
the capital was taken. The emir, who preferred exile
to capitulation, took refuge in flight. The province was
brought under British administration, and an emir ap-
pointed on conditions similar to those of Nupe.

In the two provinces of Bornu the situation which
called for British intervention was of a wholly different
order, but the claims for attention which it put forward
were perhaps even more imperative than those of the
southern states, for they involved difficulties with a
European neighbour, which were, of all others, those
which it was desirable to avoid.

It has been mentioned that in Bornu the conqueror
Rabbeh was overthrown and killed by the French in 1900,
and a puppet sovereign of Bornu appointed. Rabbeh's
son and successor, Fad-el-Allah, appealed to the British
for redress and protection, and offered to obey the orders
of the British Government. The question arose whether
he, who was a usurper, should be recognised and supported
in Bornu, or whether the lawful sovereign overthrown by
his father should be restored.

While the question was under consideration in 1901,
the French took the matter into their own hands, and,

MILITARY OCCUPATION 433

marching into British territory, defeated and killed
Fad-el-Allah at Gujba, 150 miles inside the British
border.

Such a violation of territory accentuated the neces-
sity of asserting effective control of the border province,
and a small expedition was accordingly sent into Bornu at
the end of 1901 to make full inquiry into the events which
had taken place, and to ascertain whether there was truth
in the report that the French had carried natives of the
British Protectorate into captivity across the frontier, and
were levying tribute in British protected villages. On further
information received it was decided to occupy Bornu.

The route to Bornu lies through Bautchi, where the
massacre of Guarram by the emir was still unpunished.
Bautchi was at this time the centre of the slave trade,
and slaves were openly sold in the market of its prin-
cipal town. The emir had shown himself antagonistic to
British government, and it was considered probable that
he might oppose the troops of the Protectorate. The ex-
pedition destined ultimately for the occupation of Bornu
was sent in force under the personal command of Colonel
Morland in February of 1902. Preparations which had
been made in Bautchi to oppose its advance were aban-
doned when its strength was known.

The Emir?:of Bautchi proving quite intractable, was,
however, deposed. The council of notables, in whom,
according to native custom, the election of emirs is vested,
was summoned, and elected his heir. The emir took
the usual refuge in flight, and his heir was duly appointed
under the same conditions as the Emirs of Nupe, Yola,
and Kontagora, to which last-named emirate the British
Government had, on the continued refusal of Sokoto to
respond to the invitation to exercise his function as
suzerain, nominated a temporary chief.

Thus Bautchi also was brought under British adminis-
tration, and as, in every letter of appointment, the
sovereignty of the British Crown was asserted, and in
every installation oath was accepted by the appointed

2 E

434 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

emir, British sovereignty was accepted from Borgu to
Yola.

A British Resident and a garrison were placed in the
capital of Bautchi, and it may be said here that the
newly appointed emir proving loyal to his engagements,
the Resident was able by June of 1902 to report that
the slave trade was practically abolished in Bautchi as
a recognised practice. Underhand slave dealing still
continues to some slight extent, and constitutes one of
the principal offences with which the provincial courts
have to deal.

As was usual after the suppression of the slave-raider,
the retaliation of the raided had to be dealt with, and
there was some fighting with turbulent pagan tribes who
rendered the road unsafe. They were successfully sub-
dued, and the expedition continued its march towards
Bornu. A little later the ex-Emir of Bautchi, becoming
a centre of intrigue and trouble, was caught and sent
into honourable exile in Ilorin, where he lived under the
charge of the Emir and Resident.

Between Bautchi and Gujba there lay the territory of
Gombe, which had been for some years in the possession
of a brave fanatic of the name of Jibrella, who declared
himself to be the Mahdi, and who had for some years
maintained himself victoriously against all neighbours.
On the news of the approach of the British expedition
he took the initiative and attacked. His troops charged
the British force most gallantly, but they were defeated
and pursued for two days, when Lieutenant Dyer effected
the capture of the Mahdi himself. Jibrella, who was a
white-haired old man already feeble with age, was sent
as a prisoner to Lokoja, where he was treated with
the consideration due to his distinction as a soldier and
a priest. The Gombe country, which had once formed
a portion of the Bautchi province, was, like Bautchi,
brought under British administration, and the expedition
pressed on to Gujba in Bornu, leaving the road all
British behind it.

MILITARY OCCUPATION 435

No further opposition was encountered in Bornu. A

company was left at Gujba, and Colonel Morland, with the

rest of his force, proceeded to Maidugeri. Here it was

found that the report of a French expedition into British

territory was correct. On the death of Rabbeh in 1900

Fad-el-Allah, his son, had defied the French, who, after

some fighting, had retired across the boundary to their

headquarters at Dikwa, in what is now German territory.

They were again attacked by Fad-el-Allah, and they had

then pursued him as far as Gujba in British territory,

defeated, and killed him. They had raised levies and

caravans for this raid in British territory. A great

number of prisoners and much loot were taken at Gujba,

and the prisoners were made to carry the loot and

baggage. In return for delivering the lawful Sultan of

Bornu from Fad-el-Allah the French imposed upon the

Sultan a war indemnity of $71,000, in addition to $9000

already paid by his elder brother, who had been deported

to the east side of Chad. The sum was to be collected

by tribute from the villages, and till it could be collected

the Sultan was kept prisoner by the French at Dikwa.

The already impoverished country, desolated by war and

counter-war, was ground to the lowest depths by this

imposition.

The Sultan of Bornu was informed in his internment
at Dikwa that the British Government would recognise
him as sovereign if he liked to return, and in the mean-
time the collection of French tribute was stopped. The
Sultan, or Shehu (as the Sultans of Bornu are called),
readily accepted British proposals, and returned to occupy
his throne under British protection, accepting the usual
conditions. A garrison was placed at Maidugeri, and
Residents appointed to Bornu. By this action an area
of some 60,000 square miles was brought under adminis-
trative control.

On the return of the expedition some unruly pagan
tribes of the Yola province were subdued, and prevented
from harassing peaceful traders upon the trade routes.

436 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

In the province of Nassarawa, which lies upon the
north bank of the Benue between Nupe and Bautchi, a
great deal of trouble had been caused by Fulani raiders,
of whom the headquarters were at a town called Abuja.
The trade routes in the western part of the province
were much interrupted by the lawless brigandage of
Abuja, and in the summer of 1902 an expedition was
sent which reduced Abuja to obedience. A new king was
placed upon the throne, who agreed to observe British
laws, and the expedition marched back through the dis-
turbed belt, reducing such lawlessness as it encountered.
But at Keffi, the headquarters of the province, where
a British Resident was already established, slave-raiding
was being openly carried on by the Magaji or native
commander-in-chief, who had been appointed by the
Emir of Zaria. This officer, much stronger than the
local emir, defied authority and refused to submit to the
representations of the British Resident. There came a
day when the Resident, Captain Maloney, called upon the
Magaji to appear and answer for his conduct before the
emir. The Magaji refused to come. The British Resi-
dent, after an unavailing attempt had been made by the
Assistant Resident to bring the Magaji to reason, issued
an order for the troops to be called out, and the Magaji,
rushing from his house, murdered the British Resident
with his own hand before troops could reach the spot.

The Magaji was, of course, the leader of a rebellious
party in Keffi. After the murder of Captain Maloney he
and his followers immediately fled. They were pursued
by British troops to the northern borders of the province,
where, taking refuge in Zaria, they were presently passed
on in safety to Kano, still outside the limit of British
administration. At Kano the Magaji was received with
much honour by the emir, who gave him presents and
assigned him a house, placing him always on his right
hand when he rode.

In March 1902 a Resident had been placed with Zaria,
which was nominally friendly. But the Emir of Zaria was

MILITARY OCCUPATION 437

very unsatisfactory. Not only did he continue slave-
raiding and other lawless proceedings, but he continued
them in the name of the British Government, wishing at
the same time to profit by the strength of that Govern-
ment, and to make it detested. More than once, in his
armed forays, his people came into contact with Britisli
patrols. He was known to be intriguing with Kano.
It had even been debated between them whether he
should surprise and overpower the British garrison. He
was suspected of having attempted to poison the Resi-
dent. Under these circumstances the Resident deter-
mined to arrest him and bring him to Zungeru. It was
done, the council of chiefs willingly surrendering him,
for he was much detested in Zaria. He was kept in
nominal confinement at Wushishi, and one of his prin-
cipal officers administered the Government in his absence.
This man, the Galadima, worked loyally with the British
Government.

CHAPTER XLVII

CONQUEST OF SOKOTO AND KANO

The situation was such that all eyes were now turned
to the north. Sokoto was the recognised religious and
political head of Haussaland. All the Fulani emirates
which were not subject to Gando took their investiture
from him. The British High Commissioner, anxious to
interfere, according to the terms of the British treaties,
as little as possible with Mussulman law and custom,
had done what he could in the circumstances to con-
ciliate Sokoto and Gando. But the British treaties did
not cover a position in which the leading emirates of
the south should initiate an attack upon the British
Administration, as in the case of Kontagora and Nupe,
or should repudiate their agreements, raid British pro-
tected natives for slaves, and drive British traders out
of their dominions, as in the case of Yola and Bautchi.
These acts on the part of the southern emirates had
created a new position. From the Niger to Bornu
British sovereignty had been imposed by right, not of
treaty, but of conquest, and in consequence of the
refusal of Sokoto to exercise the functions of imme-
diate suzerainty, in which Great Britain would willingly
have maintained him, by nominating successors to the
deposed emirs, all the emirs of the southern emirates
now held their investiture from Great Britain. But
the force of tradition dies hard, and so long as Sokoto
existed, and had not signified his assent to the appoint-
ment of the Fulani rulers, there was for them an un-
comfortable sense of irregularity in their position. The

more loyally they worked with the British Government

438

CONQUEST OF SOKOTO AND KANO 439

the less were they Hkely to please Sokoto, and in the
lower ranks the offence of working loyally with a
British-appointed emir was scarcely likely to be less
fatal, in the event of Sokoto ever regaining the upper
hand, than to have worked with the British themselves.

The question of the future turned upon whether
Great Britain or Sokoto were to be the permanent head
of Haussaland. The Haussas have a proverb, "Only by
fighting can the better man be found out " ; and the feel-
ing was universal that a trial of strength would have to
take place between the new power of the white man
and the old power of the Fulani. Until it was decided
which of the two was the stronger, no waverer knew
on which side to cast in his lot. The result of con-
ciliation on the part of the British had been vain. A
letter, couched in friendly terms, which was sent to
Sokoto in 1900 to announce the establishment of the
British Administration on the river, was not answered,
and the messenger who bore it was treated with in-
dignity. The request made in 1901 that Sokoto would
nominate the successor to the deposed Emir of Konta-
gora, was not complied with, and in May of 1902 a
letter was addressed by Sokoto to the British High
Commissioner, couched in the following terms : "I do
not consent that any one from you should ever dwell
with us. I will never agree with you ; I will have
nothing ever to do with you. Between us and you
there are no dealings, except as between Mussulmans
and Unbelievers — war as God Almighty has enjoined
upon us. There is no power or strength save in God
on high."

Kano, which was the strong place of Haussaland,
possessing an organised army and a well-fortified town,
gave evidence of its hearty support of the antagonistic
attitude of Sokoto. While it was known throughout
the Protectorate that the less important emirates of the
south had been wholly unable to stand before British
power, it was very generally believed by the natives

440 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

that Kano would prove impregnable, and that Fulani
rule would be victoriously maintained.

This being the condition of affairs, it became
evident that, the sooner the issue was decided, the
sooner would peace and progress become possible in
the Nigerian territories. It was not without a profound
sense of the responsibility attaching to British action at
a juncture when all eyes, pagan and Mohammedan alike,
through the vast congeries of native states, were turned
upon the little knot of white men, by this time per-
manently established in the British headquarters at
Zungeru, that the High Commissioner determined to
urge upon the authorities at home the necessity for
striking one clear and decided blow before the resist-
ance to British authority had had time to gain weight
and force by preparation and a sustained belief in its
own chances of conquest.

The highest authority of Haussaland had repudiated
the position nominally established by treaty. He had
declared that between him and Great Britain there
could be nothing but war. The alternative for the
British Administration was either to take up the chal-
lenge thrown, or to abandon the work of pacification
and civilisation upon which it had entered in Haussa-
land. The treaty ground of the British position having
been cut from under our feet, it was necessary either to
leave the country, to abandon those who had already
trusted to our protection, and to throw away in the
eyes of Europe all the ground taken by successive in-
ternational agreements, or to face the position frankly,
and base our future supremacy in the Protectorate upon
the indisputable argument of conquest.

In the case of the southern emirates this had
already been done. In Kontagora, Nupe, Bautchi,
Yola, and Nassawara, we had already been welcomed
by the subject populations as the conquerors of their
conqueror. In every emirate the new ruler had been
appointed by the British Government, and had accepted

CONQUEST OF SOKOTO AND KANO 441

office on British conditions. In the Empire of Bornu the
position was even more strongly emphasised. There,
in fulfilHng the obhgations of an international agree-
ment, British arms had restored the ancient dynasty of
the country, and the Sultan had accepted his throne as
a gift from the sovereign of Great Britain. The emirs
of the southern emirates were, in spite of their doubts
as to the future, working loyally with the British
Government. British Residents were established at their
courts, a British garrison in the capital of every emirate
acted as an efficient body of police, not to overawe
the local ruler, but to give effect to edicts issued by
him in the interests of civilisation. Slave-raiding, for-
bidden in the territories of every ruler placed on the
throne under British protection, was becoming a practice
of the past ; taxes were being peaceably and regularly
collected. Trade routes, as has been seen, were daily
opening. But the whole foundation of this progress
was the belief of the native in British strength. The
position remained uncertain till this was placed beyond
a doubt.

So fully was this situation appreciated that symptoms
of unrest and expectancy were making themselves gene-
rally felt when the incident occurred in the middle of 1902
of the murder of the British Resident at Keffi, and the
escape of his murderer to the court of Kano. Kano re-
presented the principal military power of the northern
states, and it was well understood that Kano was the
power with which the British strength would be first
seriously measured. The comment of the Emir of Kano
upon the murder of the British Resident represented a
very general feeling. "If the little town of Keffi could
do so much," he is reported to have said, " what could
not Kano do ? "

Towards the end of November 1902, the Emir of
Kano went so far as to march, without any declaration
of war, against the British garrison of Zaria. His armies
turned back on the news reaching them of the death of

442 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

the Sultan of Sokoto, and also, as was subsequently
ascertained, on the refusal of the Emir of Katsena to
join in the policy of war. It became necessary to
strengthen the garrison of Zaria, of which province the
emir remained a prisoner in British hands. From this
moment it was known that war between Kano and the
white men was inevitable.

In all these circumstances there was one consideration
which was of first importance in the minds of the British
authorities. It was that, in fighting the Fulani, we were
fighting not with the people of Haussaland, but with
rulers whose misconduct, notwithstanding certain splendid
aptitudes for rule, had rendered them hateful to the bulk
of the population. In imposing conditions upon their
administration, and in transferring to ourselves the suzer-
ainty which they had acquired only by right of compara-
tively recent conquest, we believed ourselves to carry with
us the wishes of the numerous Haussa and pagan peoples
who make up the body of the inhabitants of the Pro-
tectorate. The strength of the northern states was not
to be despised, for should their arms obtain a first success,
the surrounding populations would of necessity declare
in favour of those who appeared likely to affirm them-
selves in the position of supremacy. But it was a strength
which, notwithstanding its armed appearance, had none
of that permanent resisting power which is drawn from
the love of a people for its liberty, its territory, and its
institutions. What strength there was in such patriotic
sentiment was upon the British side.

The expeditionary force which was at the disposal
of the High Commissioner consisted of about looo rank
and file and 50 Europeans, including the garrison of
Zaria. It appeared to be sufficient for the purpose, and
after very careful preparation the bulk of it was concen-
trated at Zaria in January of 1903. On January 29th
the order to advance was given, and a force consisting
of 24 officers, 2 medical officers, 12 British non-com-
missioned officers, and 722 rank and file, with 4 guns

CONQUEST OF SOKOTO AND KANO 443

and 4 Maxims, left Zaria under the command of
Colonel Morland. Captain Abadie, the Resident of Zaria,
another of those members of the early staff whom, to
the sorrow of all his comrades, death has since claimed,
accompanied the force as Political Officer.

The first opposition was encountered at a walled
town eight miles within the Kano frontier, where the
inhabitants, after a parley with the Political Officer, said
that they were obliged to resist, under a threat of
death from the Emir of Kano to any one who should
open the gates. A British shell blew in the gate,
and the question of resistance was determined. The
town was not looted or injured, and non-combatants
were unharmed. A series of newly fortified towns, all
instructed by the emir to fight, were expected to hold
the approaches to Kano. After this first experience
the garrisons abandoned them, and fled without fighting to
Kano. The inhabitants remained quietly in the towns,
and brought ample supplies for the British troops, which
were paid for as in time of peace. The troops were
kept within strict discipline. No looting and no disorder
was allowed. The populace, knowing already by report
the practice of the British on similar occasions, showed
no alarm.

The force, therefore, reached Kano unopposed. The
wall of the town, of which the circumference was eleven
miles, was forty feet thick at the base, and from thirty to
fifty feet high. It was loopholed, and strengthened in
front by a double ditch. Its thirteen gates had been
lately rebuilt, and some of them were designed in a
re-entrant angle, so that access to them was enfiladed by
fire from the walls on either side, while the ditch was full
of live thorns, and very deep. The fortifications were
such that, had there been any determined resistance on
the part of the defenders, the town might have stood an
almost interminable siege.

The event justified the British belief that in fighting
the Fulani they had the wishes of the people of Haussa-

444 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

land on their side. The town made practically no
defence. There was some fairly well-directed firing
from behind the walls, but, a small breach having been
effected, an assault was ordered, and the defenders fled
as soon as the heads of the storming party appeared in
the gap. A considerable loss was inflicted upon the
enemy outside the walls when the British force en-
deavoured to cut off their retreat. As they fied they
suffered severely. The town itself, which occupied only
a small part of the great area enclosed by the walls,
was entered unopposed. The inhabitants exhibited no
concern. No disorder on the part of the soldiers was
permitted. Captain Abadie immediately summoned the
fourteen headmen of the principal quarters of the town,
and made them responsible for the maintenance of order
in their districts. A rate of exchange was fixed between
the local cowries and British silver, with which the
troops paid for all they purchased. The slave-market
closed itself Otherwise the life of the town pursued
its usual course. Within three days the great market
showed its usual activity, and fully equipped caravans
started for the south and arrived from the north and
east as though the country were in perfect peace.

The capture of Kano took place on February 3. The
High Commissioner, travelling up from Zungeru to Kano
for the purpose of dealing at once with this new develop-
ment of the political situation, traversed a few days
later the country over which the troops had marched,
and was able to write under date of February 8 :
" It is a striking comment on the situation here that,
although fighting is going on between the British and
the Fulani rulers of a district close by, the road I am
traversing is as safe as Piccadilly. I met to-day
caravans which must have numbered scores of loaded
donkeys, ponies, and oxen, and fiocks of sheep for sale
down south which must have numbered many hundreds
These are being taken from Kano itself, and the traders
I met saluted with smiles and unmistakable goodwill.

CONQUEST OF SOKOTO ANMJ KANO 445

Women travel alone along the road, and men are all
unarmed, except a few nomad herdsmen who carry the
inevitable spear. The headmen of the villages bring
presents of food."

It was soon ascertained that the emir had not him-
self directed the defence and surrender of Kano. He
had removed a month previously to Sokoto, taking with
him a considerable force of soldiery and all members of
the ruling dynasty who could by any possibility be chosen
to supersede him. The defence of the town had been
left to two trusted slaves.

He now returned towards Kano with the whole body
of his army, but there was a fatal division in his councils.
One of his brothers, known as the Wombai, disapproved
of the new policy and refused to fight. The Wombai
influenced a large part of the army, which he separated
from the body of the troops, and drew off upon a different
road. In presence of the difference of opinion between
his chiefs, the emir adopted a course of conduct which
ensured defeat. He placed the loyal portion of the army
under the command of his Vizier or Waziri, and himself
fled northwards in disguise towards the French frontier.
On the following day his army was encountered by
British troops marching out to meet it, about 100 miles
from Kano, and, after a resistance which did honour to
the courage of its leaders in the circumstances in which
they fought, and gave occasion for the display of dis-
tinguished gallantry on the part of three young British
officers — Captains Wright and Wells and Captain Porter ;
the first two in sustaining the shock of attack by an
overwhelming force of the Kano army, and the third in
leading a decisive charge — the native forces were com-
pletely defeated.

The deciding actions took place on February 25th
and 26th. On the 4th of March the Wombai, with that
portion of the army which he commanded, and many
others who had joined themselves to him, signified to the
High Commissioner, who had now taken up his quarters

446 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

in Kano, their desire of surrendering to the British.
Having been told that they would be honourably received,
they accepted the condition of returning to Kano and
delivering all firearms, bows and arrows, into British
hands. They were required to enter by one gate, where
a guard was stationed to take the arms, and it was
estimated that about 2500 horsemen and a total of at
least 10,000 persons entered by the gate on this occasion.
The Wombai, having expressed his desire to work loyally
with the British Government, was provisionally placed in
charge of the town, with a prospect of being appointed
emir after trial, under conditions which he showed him-
self cordially willing to accept.

Immediately on the fall of Kano the surrounding
towns had sent in to submit to the British, and to express
their wish for friendship, and it was significant that this
had been done even while their Fulani chiefs with an
armed Fulani following were absent in the army of the
emir. The defeat of the emir's forces and the submis-
sion of the Wombai confirmed these towns in their
acceptance of British rule, and it was explained to all
that it formed no part of British policy to upset or to
interfere with existing institutions in so far as they con-
formed to laws of justice and humanity. Conciliatory
letters also were sent to the Sultans of Katsena and
Sokoto, explaining that Great Britain had no quarrel
with them, nor any desire to fight, provided they
would receive the British in peace and carry out the
conditions under which Great Britain was prepared to
confirm them in their positions. The letters conveyed
emphatic assurance that their religion would not be
interfered with. Katsena immediately replied that he
had no desire for war, and would willingly accept the
British conditions.

No reply being received to the letter which was sent
to Sokoto, the British force advanced westward. It was
the season of the Harmatan wind ; the heat in the middle
of the day was terrific, rendering the stones so hot that

CONQUEST OF SOKOTO AND KANO 447

the horses could hardly tread upon them, and the dry
wind blew like the breath of a furnace, parching the
throats of the men. The water of the country during
the greater part of the march was impregnated with salts
of soda and potash, and increased, instead of allaying
thirst. At night the temperature suddenly fell, and the
cold became so sharp that the native troops suffered
severely from pneumonia and lung diseases. At a place
called Shagali the force turned southwards to effect a
junction with some British troops which had been
employed on escort duty for French convoys, and for
the Boundary Commission near Argungu. Here a letter
was received from the Emir of Gando, to whom also
conciliatory messages had been sent, making his submis-
sion. Sokoto alone remained obdurate, and the column,
somewhat depleted by the hardships of the march, but
reinforced by the troops from Argungu, marched upon
the town. On the 15th of March a battle took place, in
which the Sokoto troops were defeated and put to flight.

In the meantime the High Commissioner, anxious as
before to be on the spot for the purpose of arranging
political conditions as soon as the military blow should
have been delivered, left Kano on March 7, accom-
panied by Captain Abadie as Political Officer, and an
escort of seventy Yorubas under a white subaltern, with
the intention of making his way by forced marches in
the rear of the troops towards Sokoto. The British
force had about twelve days' start of him ; but, in
consequence of a misunderstanding when it turned
southward on its approach to Sokoto, the road was
left undefended. The High Commissioner's party had
therefore the interesting experience of marching six
Europeans strong, without any mounted men to act as
scouts, through an enemy's country full of populous
walled towns, owning allegiance to the sovereign upon
whose capital the body of the British force was ad-
vancing. The distance from Kano to Sokoto was about
250 miles. The road for the greater part of the way

448 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

lay along the twelfth parallel of latitude, and the party-
moved on at the rate of about twenty-eight miles a
day. As they drew near to Sokoto as many as four
and five walled towns were passed on each day. They
were generally moated, and the walls were sometimes a
mile long on each face. Fortunately the inhabitants
showed themselves quite friendly, and, with no worse
adventure than tolerably severe discomfort, the High
Commissioner arrived at Sokoto on the 19th of March
in time to see, as he came over some rising ground, a
dark crowd streaming towards the British camp, com-
posed, he was informed, of the principal notables of the
town coming to make their formal submission to the
British. He received in person the submission of the
Waziri and principal chiefs of Sokoto. The emir,
like the Emir of Kano, had fled.

The trial of strength had come and gone. The
Fulani emirates were in our hands, and Great Britain
was the acknowledged sovereign of Northern Nigeria.

CHAPTER XLVIII

BRITISH POLICY IN NORTHERN NIGERIA

The first feeling of the territories appeared to be one
of profound relief, and the High Commissioner hastened
to take advantage of the favourable movement by a
speedy declaration of British policy. In Kano, as has
been seen, he had left the Wombai as provisional chief,
with the intention of appointing him to the emirate if
he should prove satisfactory ; in Katsena and Gando the
reigning emirs had made submission ; in Sokoto, as in
Kano, the emir had fled, leaving the throne vacant.

The work of reconstruction began with Sokoto. It
has been seen in the case of the southern emirates
how useful the old Councils of Notables had proved in
enabling the British Administration to appoint in every
case emirs chosen according to the law and custom of
the land. The same principle was adopted at the heart
of the Fulani empire. The Sarikin Muslimin, or Com-
mander of the Faithful, as the Sultan of Sokoto was
called, was the chief who of old gave investiture to the
lesser emirs chosen by their own Council of Notables.
But to the Sarikin Muslimin himself no investiture was
given. He was elected by the Council of Notables
drawn from certain tribes. Immediately on the fall of
Sokoto, and the submission of the headmen, the High
Commissioner, having been informed of the flight of the
emir, called the Council together and asked them to
consider whether the emir, who had very lately suc-
ceeded to the throne, should be recalled and reinstated,
or whether a new emir should be appointed. Time
was taken to consider the matter. The decision of the

449 2 F

450 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

Council was in favour of the appointment of a new
emir, and the favoured candidate — Atahiru — was, after
some hesitation, selected. The High Commissioner
agreed to nominate him, and appointed the following
day for a formal meeting to explain to him, and to the
Council of Notables, the future system upon which the
government of the country would be carried on.

Accordingly, on the 21st of March, the Council,
headed by the Waziri, and having with them the Sultan
elect, assembled in the British camp, and the High
Commissioner read to them a statement which was
very carefully translated phrase by phrase by a com-
petent interpreter, checked by the same Resident, Major
Burdon, whose name has been already mentioned in
connection with Nupe, and whose knowledge of the
Haussa language enabled him to guard against mis-
representation of the meaning of the document. As
the speech laid down the policy to be pursued by the
British Administration, I give the essential passages of
it in the words used by the High Commissioner. After
a preamble alluding to the treaties of alliance made
between Sokoto and Great Britain, and recording the
circumstances which had led to war, much against the
desire of the British Government, the High Commis-
sioner continued : —

" The old treaties are dead — you have killed them.
Now these are the words which I, the High Com-
missioner, have to say for the future. The Fulani
in old times, under Dan Fodio, conquered this country.
They took the right to rule over it, to levy taxes, to
depose kings, and to create kings. They in turn have
by defeat lost their rule, which has come into the hands
of the British. All these things which I have said the
Fulani by conquest took the right to do now pass to
the British. Every sultan and emir, and the principal
officers of State, will be appointed by the High Commis-
sioner throughout all this country. The High Com-

BRITISH POLICY 451

missioner will be guided by the usual laws of succession,
and the wishes of the people and chiefs ; but will set
them aside, if he desires, for good cause, to do so. The
emirs and chiefs who are appointed will rule over the
people as of old time, and take such taxes as are
approved by the High Commissioner; but they will
obey the laws of the Governor, and will act in accordance
with the advice of the Resident. Buying and selling
slaves, and enslaving people, are forbidden. It is for-
bidden to import firearms (except flint-locks), and there
are other minor matters which the Resident will explain.
The alkalis and the emirs will hold the law courts as
of old ; but bribes are forbidden, and mutilation and
confinement of men in inhuman prisons are not lawful.
The powers of each court will be contained in a warrant
appointing it. Sentences of death will not be carried out
without the consent of the Resident.

" The Government will, in future, hold the rights in
land which the Fulani took by conquest from the people,
and if Government requires land, it will take it for any
purpose. The Government hold the right of taxation,
and will tell the emirs and chiefs what taxes they may
levy, and what part of them must be paid to Govern-
ment. The Government will have the right to all
minerals, but the people may dig for iron and work in
it subject to the approval of the High Commissioner,
and may take salt and other minerals subject to any
excise imposed by law. Traders will not be taxed by
chiefs, but only by Government. The coinage of the
British will be accepted as legal tender, and a rate of
exchange for cowries fixed in consultation with chiefs,
and they will enforce it.

"When an emirate, or an office of state, becomes
vacant, it will only be filled with the consent of the High
Commissioner ; and the person chosen by the Council of
Chiefs, and approved by the High Commissioner, will
hold his place only on condition that he obeys the laws
of the Protectorate and the conditions of his appoint-

452 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

ment. Government will in no way interfere with the
Mohammedan religion. All men are free to worship God
as they please. Mosques and prayer-places will be treated
with respect by us. Every person, including slaves, has
the right to appeal to the Resident, who will, however,
endeavour to uphold the power of the native courts to
deal with native cases according to the law and custom
of the country. If slaves are ill-treated, they will be set
free as your Koran orders, otherwise Government does
not desire to interfere with existing domestic relations.
But slaves set free must be willing to work, and not to
remain idle or become thieves. . . .

"It is the earnest desire of the King of England that
this country shall prosper and grow rich in peace and
in contentment ; that the population shall increase, and
the ruined towns which abound everywhere shall be built
up ; and that war and trouble shall cease. Henceforth
no emir or chief shall levy war or fight ; but his case will
be settled by law, and if force is necessary. Government
will employ it. I earnestly hope to give effect in these
matters to the wishes of my king.

" In conclusion, I hope that you will find our rule
sympathetic, and that the country will prosper and be
contented. You need have no fear regarding British rule ;
it is our wish to learn your customs and fashion, just as
you must learn ours. I have little fear but that we shall
agree, for you have always heard that British rule is just
and fair, and people under our King are satisfied. You
must not fear to tell the Resident everything, and he will
help and advise you."

The speech was amplified and fully explained in the
sitting which took place after it was read. The messenger
who had been ill-treated at Sokoto on the reception of
a first letter from the British High Commissioner was
present and gave his evidence, the original letter from
the late Sultan declaring war was shown. The existing
position having been fully discussed and appreciated by

BRITISH POLICY 453

the Council, and the conditions of installation agreed
to by the Sultan elect, the following day, the 22nd of
March, was appointed for the installation.

The details of the ceremony were determined in con-
sultation with the proper Mohammedan authorities, and
it was arranged that, in sign of the acceptance of the
sovereignty of Great Britain by Sokoto, the Sultan, who
had never hitherto received a gift of investiture, should,
like the lesser emirs, receive a gown and turban from
the hands of the representative of the King of England.
These were to represent the insignia of office, which
up to the present day it had been the custom for
Sokoto alone to present on installation to his sub-
ordinate emirs.

The installation ceremony was performed with some
pomp. The troops, with guns and Maxims mounted, were
drawn up on three sides of a hollow square. An immense
crowd of natives was assembled. On the arrival of the
High Commissioner on the spot he was received with
a royal salute. A carpet was spread for the emir and
for his principal officers of state. The High Commissioner
then made a speech in the same sense as that of the
document which has been quoted. When he came to
the statement that the British Government would in no
way interfere with the exercise of the Mohammedan
religion, that all men were free to worship God as they
pleased, a deep and most impressive murmur of satisfac-
tion broke from the crowd. On the conclusion of the
speech the High Commissioner called upon the Sultan
to say if he fully understood and accepted the conditions
of his installation. The Sultan replied that he understood
and that he accepted them. The High Commissioner
then proclaimed him Sarikin Muslimin and Sultan of
Sokoto, and the gown and turban were presented to him
as the insignia of office. The High Commissioner shook
hands publicly with the Sultan, and gave permission for
the royal trumpets, which can only be sounded for a
duly appointed and accepted emir, to be blown. A

454 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

prayer was recited aloud by the criers, and the crowd
dispersed amid discordant sounds of rejoicing and ex-
pressions of mutual goodwill.

The High Commissioner was very favourably im-
pressed with this Sultan, as with the Wombai of Kano,
and with many of the leading men of their councils.
Amongst the upper class Fulani of the northern states
he met men deserving in every way of the name of
cultivated gentlemen. He found them able in argu-
ment, cultivated in discussion, open to the conclusions
of reason. In manner they were dignified, courteous, and
sympathetic. Nor did they seem to him to lack the
essential qualities of frankness and humanity. There
could be no question to his mind, nor to those of the
officers who accompanied him, that among the educated
classes of the northern state they were in the presence
of a wholly different standard of civilisation to that
generally accepted in the southern emirates. A similar
experience was made at a later period in Bornu, and
the recognition of this fact naturally went to strengthen
the conviction of the wisdom of the policy which pro-
posed to rule, as far as possible, through the existing
Fulani and Bornuese machinery of the greater part of
the Protectorate, modified and controlled by the advice
of British Residents.

Leaving a Resident and a small garrison at Sokoto,
the High Commissioner, on the day following the in-
stallation, took the road towards Katsena, escorted by
the new Sultan and throngs of chiefs and horsemen for
a portion of the way. On parting, the Fulani chiefs
thanked him profusely for all that had been done, dis-
played great pleasure at his praise of the plucky stand
which they had made in opposition to the British troops
before the capture of the town, and gave signs of much
relief that the fighting was over, and that events had
taken so favourable a turn. He and his staff gained
the impression, which subsequent events have done much
to confirm, that the majority were genuinely surprised

BRITISH POLICY 455

and pleased at the treatment which had been accorded
to them. The Sultan of Sokoto has up to the present
time continued to work in the utmost cordiality with the
British Resident.

Katsena, which had not yet been visited by troops,
was reached on March 28. On the following day, an
explanation of the British position and policy, similar to
that made at Sokoto, was made to the emir and chiefs,
and the emir was installed under conditions similar to
those of Sokoto. As Katsena had a special reputation
as a centre of learning, assurances were added in the
High Commissioner's speech of the willingness of the
British Government to give such assistance as it could
to education. Here, as in the other towns, the value of
a staple currency was discussed, and a rate of exchange
fixed between British silver and cowries. Other lesser
chiefs of the northern neighbourhood made their sub-
mission, and were interviewed and dealt with.

From Katsena the High Commissioner marched back
to Kano, and on April 2nd, after explanations similar to
those of Sokoto and Katsena, the Wombai was installed
as emir, with observance of some special ceremonies in
historical use at Kano. With Kano, Katagum was
brought under British administration. On April 7 the
High Commissioner reached Zaria ; there he also installed,
after the usual explanations, a new emir, Dan Sidi, who,
in consultation with the Sultan and Waziri of Sokoto,
had been indicated as the best successor to the emir
deposed at Zungeru, and who was willingly accepted by
the Zaria Council.

It may be incidentally mentioned, as an illustration
of the pace at which work was done in a Protectorate
where the loyal desire of every one was to "go slow,"
that, from the date of leaving Kano on the westward
march, to the moment of arrival at Zaria on the return
journey, thirty-eight days had elapsed. In that period
eight hundred miles of enemy's country had been traversed
on foot or horseback, the political situation of Sokoto,

456 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

Katsena, and Kano had been investigated, three emirs
had been installed, many minor chiefs of importance had
been interviewed, and the principles of British policy-
had been personally explained by the High Commissioner
to the leading representatives of all the native states
through which the British troops had marched.

The province of Kontagora had remained without an
emir for two years. The population had been much
dispersed, and no suitable heir to the throne had presented
himself. At Sokoto, when the advice of the emir and
Council was asked, a unanimous desire had been expressed
that the recalcitrant chief Ibrahim, who was first cousin
to the ex-Emir of Sokoto, and a man connected with the
best families of the northern states, might be reinstated.
Ibrahim, after experience of exile and confinement, had
become a profoundly altered man. The vehemence of
his abjuration of all slave dealing, when the question of
his restoration was discussed, was in somewhat comic
contrast to his previous utterances on the same subject,
and though the experiment seemed doubtful, it was de-
cided to replace him, under conditions similar to the other
emirs, upon the throne. The installation of Gando was
provided for to take place at a later period.

Every important emir of the Protectorate now held
his throne under a letter of appointment from Great
Britain, and to many of the lesser pagan chiefs a no
less formal " staff of office " had been o-iven. The
pledges given by emirs and chiefs in return had been
made in their own forms, but with full pomp of un-
mistakable public ceremony. By the end of April 1903
there was no population in the Protectorate that did
not understand the transfer of sovereignty which had
taken place from their ancient Fulani rulers to the British
Government. This was strikingly illustrated by the
action of the Munshis, an extremely ignorant and trucu-
lent native tribe occupying the northern bank of the
Benu^, nearly opposite to Bassa, one of the five provinces
which at the beginning of the year 190 1-2 had been

BRITISH POLICY 457

mentioned by the High Commissioner as calling for
attention. These pagans, who had entirely refused to
have any dealings with the British, on hearing of the
fall of Kano, came at once in a strong deputation to the
Resident, and brought presents, saying that the white man
was now stronger than Sokoto.

At a later period it was thought well to assimilate
the system of appointment, and the emirs and chiefs
of the Protectorate have been divided into chiefs of the
first and second grade, and minor chiefs of the third and
fourth grades. The rank of a chief of the first grade
is reserved for the Shehu of Bornu and the great Fulani
emirs, such as Sokoto, Kano, Gando, &c. ; the rank of
chief of the second grade is for the lesser emirs, such
as Katagum, Hadeija, Lapai, &c., and the chiefs of the
principal pagan communities, such as Argungu, Kiama,
Boussa, &c. The ranks of third and fourth grade are
for district headmen and pagan chiefs of less importance,
but having executive authority. The formal recognition
of all chiefs, whatever their grade, is accompanied by the
presentation of a "staff of office," and the staff varies
according to the importance of the office conferred. Chiefs
of the first grade have a long staff surmounted by a
silver headpiece, chiefs of the second grade have also a
long staff, but it is surmounted by a brass headpiece. In
the case of the third and fourth grades the staves are
short and of plainer design. For the Shehu of Bornu
and the Emir of Sokoto special staves have been designed
as a mark of honour in recognition of their ancient
positions of supreme importance. There are only these
four symbols of executive authority. Below the rank of
fourth grade chief, certificates of office are given, but
without a staff, to certain graded headmen, &c.

The oath of allegiance, which is taken on receiving
the staff of office, has also been brought into regular form,
and for Moslems is as follows : — " I swear, in the name
of Allah and of Mohammed his prophet, to serve well and
truly his Majesty King Edward VII., and his representa-

458 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

tive, the High Commissioner of Northern Nigeria, to
obey the laws of the Protectorate and the lawful commands
of the High Commissioner, and of the Resident, provided
that they are not contrary to my religion. And if they
are so contrary I will at once inform the Resident for
the information of the High Commissioner. I will cherish
in my heart no treachery or disloyalty, and I will rule
my people with justice, and without partiality. And as
I carry out this oath, so may Allah judge me." To
pagans, the substance of the same oath is administered
in whatever form is most binding on their conscience.

To all the chiefs it is explained that it is no part of the
British policy to lessen their influence or authority — that,
on the contrary, it is the desire of the British Government
to rule with them, and through them.

Residents are instructed strictly to observe the
etiquette of proper ceremonial in their dealings with the
chiefs. It is recognised that, the Fulani chiefs being aliens
who have won their position by conquest, it would not
be surprising if the bulk of the people, seeing that the
Fulani power has been broken by the British, were no
longer to accord to the chiefs their accustomed obedience
and respect. The desire of the British Government is
to counteract this tendency in every possible way, and
Residents are instructed that "the privileges and in-
fluence of the chiefs can best be upheld by letting the
peasantry see that Government itself treats them as an
integral part of the machinery of the administration — that
there are not two sets of rulers, one British and one
native, working either separately or in co-operation, but
a single Government, in which the native chiefs have
clearly defined duties, and an acknowledged status equally
with British officials." It is, however, considered neces-
sary at present, and probably for some time to come, to
retain the means of enforcing order — namely, the mili-
tary and police force — solely under the British Govern-
ment. The emir's orders must be enforced by the native
courts. In the last resort it may, of course, become

BRITISH POLICY 459

necessary for the British Government to compel obedi-
ence, but this emergency is as far as possible to be
avoided.

The powers of native chiefs are defined, as are the
powers of the native courts, for which warrants are now
issued in all the Mohammedan emirates, and it is interest-
ing to observe that in the elaboration of the details of
this system the opinions and advice of the emirs and their
leading native counsellors have been sought and willingly
given. In many discussions British officers have been
struck by the acuteness and ability with which the weak or
distasteful point of a proposal is discerned, and arguments
in favour of a preferred alternative sustained. The readi-
ness of the emirs to co-operate in the construction of
a new system of government has been extremely help-
ful, and where it has been possible their wishes have been
gladly deferred to.

CHAPTER XLIX

NIGERIA UNDER BRITISH RULE: SLAVERY

The position of the Fulani chiefs was, however, in the
first instance, profoundly modified by a condition which
was of the very essence of British administration. A
large part of their revenue had consisted of tribute
paid in slaves, and, in some cases, of the tithe levied on
the produce of slave-raids, which they conducted either
in person or by the medium of the commander of their
troops. But under British government, the slave-raid and
the slave-trade were abolished, and all dealing in slaves
became illegal. It was not made illegal for a native to
own slaves, but by the abolition of the legal status of
slavery, every slave who chose to do so could assert his
freedom, while the decree making all children free who
were born in the Protectorate after April i, 1901, was a
decree of general emancipation of the coming generation.

The fact has to be faced by the administrator in
Mohammedan Africa, that the abolition of slavery is not
a straightforward task of beneficence. It carries with it
grave and undeniable disadvantages to the slaves as well
as to their owners, and the objections urged against it
by the local rulers and employers are not by any means
without foundation.

Property in slaves, whatever may be thought of it
by the enlightened conscience of Europe, is as real to the
Mohammedan as any other form of property. Slavery
is an institution sanctioned by the law of Islam, and to
abolish it without compensation to the Mohammedan
slave-owners would be an act of injustice amounting to
nothing less than wholesale confiscation.

It has to be remembered, also, that in countries

460

NIGERIA UNDER BRITISH RULE 461

where all industries are based on slave labour, slave
power takes the place which steam and electric power
take in the West. It cannot be suddenly abolished
without a universal dislocation of industrial life. Slaxcry
is at present the only form of labour contract known
in many districts of Northern Nigeria, and before it can
be done away with, time is needed for other forms of
labour contract to be substituted. My husband, whose
opinions I am quoting in regard to the whole of this
important subject, and who, as his early career has
publicly proclaimed, is among the most convinced op-
ponents of slavery, has pointed out, in memoranda
intended for the instruction of the Residents, that a
substantial return is given by the master for the work of
the slave. The slave is protected, housed, clothed, and
fed. In many cases he is allowed to employ a portion
of his time for his own exclusive benefit, and his rights
are carefully protected by Koranic law. It is not wise to
encourage a reckless rejection of these present advantages
without full consideration of his possible future position.

The slaves of Northern Nigeria may be divided into
two classes, household slaves, and farm slaves.^ The
household slaves are domestic slaves in the sense usually
understood, though they frequently rise to positions of
great responsibility and independence. The status of
farm slaves differs from that of household slaves, and is
rather that of serfs attached to the soil, than of slaves
in the common sense of the term. They are inalienable
from the land. They cannot legally be sold. They
have certain rights as regards produce, the houses they
live in, the land which they are allowed to cultivate for
themselves, and the time which is allotted to them for
their own use. They form, in fact, the body of the agri-
cultural population, and any sudden change which should
lead these people to abandon the land and flock into the
towns would manifestly be disastrous. The slaves of

1 See the description given by Hume of the slaves of England under
the Saxons.

462 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

Northern Nigeria, by the universal testimony of the
British Residents now stationed in every province, are
generally happy and contented.

This condition of affairs is sometimes made the basis
of an argument in favour of the permanent toleration of
domestic slavery, which, under proper supervision, is
thought by some people to be an institution suited to
the present condition of Africa. In opposition to such
a view there is the simple logic of the fact that slavery
cannot be maintained without a supply of slaves acquired
under all the horrors of slave-raids, and transported with
great suffering and loss of life from their original homes.
The evils of this system, whether they are considered
from a humane, or simply from an economic and adminis-
trative point of view, do not need to be insisted on.
For this reason alone slavery must stand condemned in
any society which aspires to civilisation. But there is
also a second aspect in which slavery as an institution is
opposed to the march of progress. It keeps a very large
portion of the population in a state of tutelage, in which
the individual is not held responsible for his acts. This, in
my husband's opinion, is the reason why Mohammedan
Africa, which readily reaches a higher stage of civilisation
than the black pagan territories, does not progress beyond
a certain point. It is too heavily weighted by the irre-
sponsible multitudes who are not concerned with, and do
not directly contribute towards public life. This from
the administrative point of view is very undesirable.

It is the British tradition that slavery is not tolerated
in any country which has been annexed to the Crown,
and has become a colony under the British flag, but that
in countries which are only in that partially dependent
condition which is known by the name of a Protectorate,
and are still governed by their own laws, it is not pos-
sible to forbid the institution of domestic slavery where
it exists. In all British Protectorates the step is now
taken to abolish the legal status of slavery.

In Northern Nigeria the value of the immediate

NIGERIA UNDER HRITISll RULE 463

abolition of slave-raiding and slave-trading need not be
discussed. There is no voice that would be raised in
humane society in favour of the maintenance of these
institutions. The abolition of the legal status of slavery
has an effect in two ways. It is different from the aboli-
tion of slavery. It means only that the law as adminis-
tered in British courts does not recognise the existence
of slaves, and that property in persons as slaves is not
admitted. It is not forbidden to a native to hold slaves
so long as the master and slave are mutually satisfied,
but the slave can at any time assert his freedom if he
wishes to do so. Under this system emancipation is
gradual, and the value of it is that, without dislocating
the whole machinery of labour in the Protectorate, it
gives to the individual slave the power to change his
condition if he pleases. This is the first and obvious
use. The second effect is no less useful. It tends to
lessen the value of property in slaves by the fact that
no one is a slave any longer than he chooses to remain
one, and that property in slaves is not property in the
eyes of British law. This, combined with the increasing
difficulty and expense of obtaining slaves in consequence
of the abolition of the slave-trade and slave-raid, will have
the natural economic effect of preventing the investment
of money in slave property. Thus, by pressure of cir-
cumstance, without abolition, and without compensation,
the slave-owner will gradually cease to exist.

Having set the machinery of freedom in motion
towards an inevitable end, it is not to the interest of
the administration to hasten its operation. On the con-
trary, it is evidently to be desired in the interests of the
country that it should work slowly.

While the stream of investment is being diverted
from its old employment, and a free generation of children
born after the advent of British administration is growing
up, a process of education is going on of both classes,
upper and servile, to the conception of a free labour con-
tract and the respective responsibilities under it of master

464 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

and servant. To this end Residents are instructed to
direct the attention of chiefs and employers of labour
to the inevitable nature of the approaching change, and
in order to encourage a gradual adaptation of the social
system to the new conditions, they are specially to point
out the practical advantages of the employment of free
labour under the British administration. These are, in
fact, very real, since, if an employer's slaves choose
to desert him, the British courts cannot force them to
return, while, if he employs free labour, he has the full
assistance of the administration in enforcing his contract.
It is hoped that the example of Government, in employ-
ing gangs of free labour for public works, may serve
to illustrate the nature of a free contract, and be gra-
dually adopted by the native chiefs. The more intelli-
gent among them have shown a great willingness to
accept the necessary transition, recognising themselves
that, since their raiding grounds are closed, the present
system must come to an end. Already, from different
parts of the Protectorate, interesting accounts have been
received of experiments which have been tried by native
employers in free labour. They have generally taken
the form of piecework — plots of land being divided into
the equivalent of pennyworths of cultivation, which are
paid for in cowries. The experiments reported upon
have been successful, and accentuate the value which will
attach in this connection to the introduction of a cash
currency in which labour can be paid. The develop-
ment of a system of direct individual taxation will also
tend to teach the peasant his responsibilty to the State,
and his personal interest in and obligation to it. The
conception of individual responsibility has to be taught
to the slave, and respect for this individuality has to be
learned by the master, in the transition period through
which both are passing.

The transition period has its own difficulties. One
of these consists in the numbers of runaway and freed
slaves, for whom, though the practice of running away is

NIGERIA UNDER BRITISH RULE 465

as far as possible discouraoed, some provision lias tu be
made. This difficulty is met in part by the establishment
of freed slave homes for the women and children, tiie
larger number of runaways being women whose cases are
more properly cases of divorce. Men are expected to
support themselves. Another difficulty of the transition
period which has to be taken notice of, is the master's
difficulty of obtaining labour for necessary industries as
the bond of the existing labour contract is loosened.
This would certainly become grave were runaway slaves
provided for on any large scale in a condition of idleness.
In tropical Africa the ground is so fertile, and the wants
of the primitive native so few, that a family may be easily
supported for a year on the produce of a few weeks' work.
Dr. Barth says that, in Northern Nigeria, a family could
live comfortably for a year on produce of which the equi-
valent value in English money would be ^5. Beyond
the satisfaction of these simple requirements there is no
need for the native to work. As a free agent he may
therefore prefer to be idle. But he has, in slavery, the
habit of work, the country can only be developed and
made prosperous by labour, and it would be retrogression,
not progress, if a race now fairly laborious were, by a
too sudden alteration of the social system, to be rendered
idle and vagrant.

There is no need that this should happen in Nigeria,
where, as we have seen from Dr. Barth's description, the
pagans whom the Bornuese raided for slaves were in their
free state extremely industrious. Two conditions appear
to be of value in preventing such an unsatisfactory result.
One, which is the first essential of all social progress, is
that each man should feel himself secure in the possession
of the fruits of his labour ; the other, which seems at first
sight like a contradiction in terms, is that he should be
obliged to contribute his share towards the expenses of
the State. The apparent contradiction is accepted by all
civilised societies, and takes the form of security from
confiscation accompanied by regular taxation.

2 G

CHAPTER L

NIGERIA UNDER BRITISH RULE: TAXATION

The necessity to contribute to the maintenance of the
state is no more a new proposition to the African who
has Hved under Mohammedan rule, than is the habit of
labour. He has been accustomed to arbitrary levies for
the purpose. What the British Administration hopes to
effect is the introduction of order and moderation in the
claims which are made upon him in regard both to labour
and to taxes. It is right that, as a free man, he should
work for the maintenance of the State as well as for the
maintenance of his own family, and it becomes essential
that, contemporaneously with the introduction of liberty,
there should be established a regular and equitable system
of direct taxation.

This brings us to the subject from which we started :
of compensation to the emirs and fief-holders of the
Protectorate for the loss of revenue which they were
likely to suffer as a consequence of British intervention
in the slavery question, and also of the abolition of ex-
cessive tolls on trade.

On the assumption of sovereignty in the southern
emirates it became immediately necessary to secure to
the emirs some revenue which would enable them to meet
the expenses of their position, and this was done by allow-
ing them to collect their taxes under the protection of
the British Government. But in the quick succession of
events it was understood that all arrangements were
temporary. It was not until after the fall of Sokoto
that full attention could be given to the subject. When
the submission of the northern emirates had placed the

permanence of British rule beyond a doubt, the natives

466

NIGERIA UNDER BRITISH RULE 467

of the Protectorate, well aware that no govcrnmeiu could
be carried on without a revenue, looked for an early
declaration on a subject which was to them of supreme
importance.

Northern Nigeria, it has been said, has no seaboard.
Internal fiscal frontiers were abolished when its territories
were transferred to the Crown. The fruitful source of
customs is, therefore, under present arrangements, cut off
from its fiscal possibilities. It must look to direct taxa-
tion for its resources. Direct taxation is also that to which
the natives have been accustomed. The broad system on
which the country was taxed under native administration
has been already alluded to, and it has been seen that the
burden was heavy. Under it the revenue of the emirs and
the principal fief-holders from the quite legitimate sources
of land, cattle, duties on crops, trades, &c., should have
been considerable. But in the decadence of Fulani rule,
the disorders which prevailed, the chronic rebellion of
tributary states, and the abuses of tax - gatherers, pre-
vented these revenues from flowing as they should have
done to the public treasury. While the dynasties were
detested for their arbitrary exactions, the emirs were
generally poor.

The advent of the British and the overthrow of Fulani
rule were at first hailed by the peasantry as an excuse
to repudiate all obligations to pay taxes, and even in the
well-organised province of Kano the revenue could not
be collected. It was evident that, if the policy of ruling
through the Fulani was to be maintained, the first duty
of the British Administration was to provide for the
peaceable collection of the taxes ; and since the conquered
emirs had been deprived of the power to raise troops
or police in their territories, it was necessary that British
force should even be applied in case of need to compel
payment.

The recognition of this obligation had the good effect
of enlisting the sympathy and goodwill of the ruling classes,
and of carrying to their minds some conviction of the truth

468 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

of the assurances contained in the British declaration that
the native chiefs were themselves henceforward to form
an integral part of the administration. But it followed
that, unless the British Administration were to allow itself
to be made the instrument of misrule, it had to assure
itself that the taxes were fair, and that the method of
collection did not involve oppression and cruelty.

From this situation a result was evolved so important
to the future administration of the country, that I will
ask the reader to take patience if I describe it at what
may seem to be undue length.

The emirs and councillors of the different states placed
their knowledge heartily at the disposal of the British
Administration. In many cases it was found that their
experience was nil, and that abuses which the name of
their government had covered were wholly unknown to
them, having been perpetrated by the often worthless
favourites who had been allowed to over-ride the proper
officials. But they had intelligence and knowledge of
native custom, and by the cordial working together of
the Native and British Administrations, a system of re-
formed taxation was elaborated, of which the Imperial
Government has in principle signified its approval.

Under this system the aim in the Mohammedan states
has been to retain the ancient and legitimate taxes based
upon Koranic law, while relief has been given to the
peasantry by the abolition of those modern impositions
which had been multiplied by the caprice of successive
tyrants.

The principal taxes recognised by the law were, first,
the " Zakka," or tithe in corn, which was limited to the two
staple crops of the country, dhourra and gero. In theory
it was due from Moslems and not from pagans, and should
have been devoted to purposes of charity and religion.
In practice it had lost its special character, and in all
the provinces except Sokoto it was levied on Moslems
and pagans alike. Second, the " Kurdin Kasa," a land
tax, which, in exact opposition to the Zakka, was in theory

NIGERIA UNDER BRITISH RULE 469

levied only upon conquered pagans. In practice it was
arbitrarily levied, and was subject to purely capricious in-
crease. Third, the plantation tax was a tax levied u[)on all
crops other than the two which paid Zakka. Fourth, there
was the " Jangali " or cattle tax : it was originally a tithe,
and was levied only on cattle, and not on Hocks, Fifth,
the Sokoto Gaisua was a varying sum paid by all sub-
ordinate emirates to Sokoto and Gando : in theory it was
a tax upon the rich, and represented an acknowledgment
of suzerainty, having its counterpart in the present usually
made upon appointment by lesser chiefs to their superiors.
In practice it became a levy made by emirs upon all their
subordinate chiefs, and consequently through them upon
the peasantry. The emirs retained a portion of it for
their own benefit, and sent a portion to Sokoto. Before
the British occupation many emirates had ceased to send
their contribution to Sokoto, and when British suzerainty
was substituted for that of Sokoto they took the oppor-
tunity to discontinue it. In Sokoto, which was a Moslem
province, no taxes were levied except the Zakka. Con-
sequently Sokoto was at first deprived of revenue. Sixth,
the " Kurdin Sarauta " was an accession duty paid by
every chief or holder of office on appointment. The
abuse of this tax had led to the sale of offices to the
highest bidder, and put a premium on the dispossession
of holders of office in order that vacancies might be
created. Seventh, there was a tax on handicrafts, under
which head fresh impositions were perpetually devised.
Eiofhth, there was a tax on traders, under which head
merchants, brokers, shop-keepers or common vendors
in the market, all paid their contributions to tiie re-
venue. Caravan tolls were apart from these, and ought
perhaps to constitute a separate heading. Ninth, there
was Gado or death duties, complete enough to satisfy the
most Radical of European reformers, under which, when
there was no direct heir, whole estates lapsed to the
emirs. Tenth, there were fines, court bribes, presents,
arbitrary collections made on special occasions, and forced

470 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

labour, of which slavery was, of course, the base. In
addition to these there were almost countless special taxes,
such as those on date palms, honey, dancing girls, pros-
titutes, gamblers, &c., which can only be classed as
various, and were imposed almost at will. In Bornu the
traditional taxes, of which a careful separate study was
made by the Resident, Mr. Hewby, were found to be
the orthodox Zakka, Jangali, and Gado, with another
called the " Haku Binirum," which was of the nature of
a graduated tax on property, whether represented by
land or other forms of wealth.

Upon the assumption of British rule the Residents of
every province were instructed to study and report upon
the existing system, its uses and abuses. As a result of
their reports, combined with the advice and help given
by the native administrations, the following reformed
system has been compiled.

All agricultural taxes, with the exception of the Sokoto
Gaisua, and its provincial counterpart, the Kurdin Sarauta,
are to be merged in a general assessment which will be
paid as heretofore, but under a reformed system of collec-
tion, to the Native Administration, and of which it is
proposed to allot a definite proportion to the uses of the
Native and the British Governments. It will be a matter
of arrangement what expenses shall be borne by each.

The Sokoto Gaisua and the Kurdin Sarauta will be
retained as a traditional recognition of suzerainty, but
will be much reduced in amount. The reduced Sokoto
tribute will henceforth be paid to the British Government,
from whom investiture is now received, but it will be in
every case deducted from the amount due on other counts
to the British Government, and a portion of it will be
given by the British Government to Sokoto to be used
for charitable and religious purposes, in acknowledgment
of the special position of the Emir of Sokoto as religious
head of the church of the Soudan. The Kurdin Sarauta,
or appointment tax, will be paid as before to the local
chiefs, but it will be nominal in amount, and the chief

NIGERIA UNDER BRITISH RULE 471

who receives it will pay half to the British Government
in acknowledgment of the authority under which he makes
the appointment. As no appointment will be made in
future without the concurrence of the Resident, the old
abuse of perpetual re-appointments for the sake of collect-
ing more tax will be abolished. Gado, or death duties,
will not be interfered with, and will be paid as before to
the Native Administration. Legitimate industrial taxes will
be maintained as before, but their proceeds will be merged
in the general assessment. Caravan tolls, which are being
used as a road tax, at present form a monopoly of the
British Government, but it is proposed to merge them
also before long in the general assessment. All other
forms of taxation — forced labour, fines, bribes, arbitrary
impositions upon industry, &c. — are to be abolished.

Thus we get in the Mohammedan areas a general
assessment covering all the old legitimate taxes upon
agriculture and industry, an accession duty, nominal in
amount, paid in accordance with traditional custom as
a recognition of suzerainty, and the old Gado, or death
duties, left undisturbed. The old system of tax-gatherers
will be abolished, and the general assessment tax will
be collected by the reformed Native Administration under
British supervision. A proper proportion of the proceeds
of this tax will then be paid by the Native Administration
to the British Government, and will constitute the revenue
drawn for Imperial purposes from the country.

In workingf out the details of the reformed scheme it
is felt that a certain safeguard has been secured by the
co-operation of the emirs and native authorities ; but it
is not to be expected that a long-established system of
taxation can be suddenly reformed without friction, or
even entirely without unintentional injustice, which may
be found in practice to press unfairly upon some special
section of the people. The new system must, in its
nature, be regarded as tentative for some time to come.
If the reports of the provincial Residents are to be
trusted, it promises to meet with cordial acceptance

472 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

from the emirs and chiefs, who fully understand and
appreciate the dignity and security of the position which
it proposes to confer upon them, while it is in accordance
with native tradition to pay taxes in the form of tribute
to a superior government. The obvious difficulty of
the scheme lies, first, in a just assessment of the people,
and, secondly, in a regulation of the amount paid to the
British Government.

The assessment has been the principal work carried
out under the supervision of the British political staff of
each province during the past year. To indicate the
manner in which it has been done, and the effect which
it is likely to have upon that amalgamation of the Native
and British Administration which it is the desire of the
Government to effect, I would like to quote from the
report of Dr. Cargill, the Resident of Kano.

It was his duty to make the assessment of the district
of Gaiya, of which the Waziri of Kajio, son of the emir,
had, under the old system, been the fief-holder. He
accordingly went to Gaiya, accompanied by the Waziri.
On arrival at Gaiya, the Seriki, or local chief, was inter-
viewed in the presence of the Waziri, and the business
of assessment and reform of the system of collection
explained. The local chief proved intelligent, and ren-
dered all the assistance in his power. The local tax-
collectors, or Mayungwas, twelve in number, who collect
the taxes from the people in the town, were summoned,
and each brought with him the farmers of his quarter.
Each Mayungwa was asked how much he collected from
his district under each head of taxation. Each individual
farmer was then separately summoned, and was asked
what he had paid, and what was his trade, and the number
of people in his house. "In this way," says Dr. Cargill,
" I completed the assessment and census of Gaiya town
within two days. I then turned the work over to two
of my own clerks and to two mallams (native scribes)
brought by the Waziri, and told the chief of the town
to call in all the tax-collectors from the district outside

NIGERIA UNDER BRITISH RULE 473

the town to inform the clerks of the amounts they collected
from their respective quarters." While this was beinj^
done, the Resident and Waziri travelled throui^h eii^dit
more towns. On their return to Gaiya at the end of
three days the clerks were found to have finished their
work. One of the Waziri's scribes, assisted by one of the
chief of Gaiya's scribes, were then left to go round the
district, making a complete list of the names of the
farmers, the amounts they paid, their trade, and the
numbers of their households, as had been done by the
Resident in Gaiya. The Resident returned with his own
clerks and the Waziri to Kano. " The time actually
occupied by myself and staff," writes the Resident, "was
seven days at Gaiya and four days' travelling. The result
is map, census, and assessment of one district completed,
and one jakada (chief tax-gatherer) abolished. I calculate
that it will take me some months to complete the map
and the assessment of the whole of the Kano district.
In the same time I hope that the junior Residents
may be able to accomplish the same work in the other
emirates of this province. . . . The Waziri took a very
intelligent interest in this tour." He was present at
every interview, and he is soon "to try his own hand at
assessment." It is also the British Resident's opinion
that the more important fief-holders may turn out, after
some instruction and supervision, to be of real use to
the Government. *' As a class," he says, "they are men
of refinement and understanding, and existing abuses can
hardly be laid to their charge, as their offices have hitherto
been merely nominal, and their functions usurped by the
big slaves."

The process thus described is at work over the entire
area of the Mohammedan states, and under it the diffi-
culties attaching to assessment and the reform of the
system of collection, both of which are, of course, being
carried out upon one design throughout the whole of the
states, are rapidly disappearing.

The second difficulty of the new system — the decision

474 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

of the amount of the general assessment tax which is
to be apportioned to the Native Administration and to
the British Government — has, as a matter of fact, given
no trouble. The proportion which it has been proposed
to take for British purposes has so far been willingly-
accepted by the emirs, and it has been found in those
provinces where the system has been put in operation,
that, though the burden upon the peasantry has been
greatly reduced, the reformed system of collection, by
its regularity, and by the abolition which has been
effected of the army of tax-gathering middlemen, pro-
mises to place the emirs in a secure financial position,
which will amply compensate for the loss of slave tribute
and of the excessive tolls on trade which were previously
imposed.

In connection with the payment of a share of the
assessment to the British Administration, the extended
use of cash currency is urgently desirable. The assess-
ment will be subject to periodical revision, and it should,
as the country develops, show a steady increase. Sums
now small may become considerable, and even now the
difficulty of payment in kind is obvious.

The satisfactory promise of the new system has of
course helped substantially towards the amalgamation of
the native with the British rule, and tends happily to
remove a cause of discontent which might have placed
difficulties in the way of the enforcement of the laws
against slave-dealing and slave-raiding. These, under
present circumstances, have been loyally accepted by
the emirs, and are now in practical application in every
province. The slave-trade has been abolished, and the
rulers and fief-holders who profited most by it have a
fair prospect of enjoying, under the system which has
abolished it, more regular incomes than they possessed
under the old system. It is proposed that a portion of
the general assessment retained by the Native Adminis-
tration shall be assigned to the fief-holders, and their
advantage, like that of the emirs, will be intimately

NIGERIA UNDER BRITISH RULE 475

associated with the prosperity of the country. There
will remain, of course, a body of slave-traders who, until
their commercial capital has been diverted to more leorj-
timate trade, will be discontented, and will naturally be
disposed to foment any ill-feeling to which the new dis-
tribution of taxes may unwittingly give rise. There is
always the danger, in writing of a generally popular
reform, of describing it too confidently as a universal
cure for evils which are inherent to society. Reform is
not usually an unmixed benefit, but unfortunately brings
with it its own drawbacks. Experience will discern these
in the new scheme of taxation, and their appearance may
be the cause of troubles which will have to be dealt with
as they arise.

For the moment, however, the reorganisation of native
finance would seem to have been satisfactory, and it has
been so important a factor in promoting the speedy and
peaceable settlement of the Protectorate that, after the
abolition of slavery, it must be held to take the first
place. It is easy to imagine how the relief of the peas-
antry on the one side, and the satisfaction of the rulers
on the other, affect the whole relations of government

CHAPTER LI

NIGERIA UNDER BRITISH RULE: JUSTICE AND
GENERAL REORGANISATION

But if conquest is best when it is speedy, the work of
reorganisation must in its nature be always slow. The
campaign of 1903 placed Northern Nigeria definitely
under the British Crown. It will tax the energies of
many generations of Englishmen to develop the terri-
tories thus acquired, and to bring them, with the widely
varying populations which they carry, to the full realisa-
tion of their own best possibilities. In the meantime
the work of the existing administration is to carry for-
ward to the best of its ability the extraordinarily inte-
resting work of organising the new fabric of government,
of which the elements have been placed in its hands.

I have spoken only of the taxation of Mohammedan
areas. These include, of course, the pagan peasantry
of those areas, and they also include pagan communities
under Mohammedan rule. There remain independent
pagan communities, and these are of two classes. States
which have histories as old and as respectable as those
of the Mohammedan states themselves, though they
have never attained to quite the same high stage of civi-
lisation, and which are governed by one chief. Among
these may be named Argungu and Jegga, within the
geographical limits of the province of Sokoto ; Gorgoram
in Western Bornu, possibly a modern development of
the old province of Gwangara, Wangara, or Ungara,
whose population migrated to this neighbourhood from
Ghana ; Kiama in Borgu ; and some of the Jukum cities
in Muri. These independent states will be treated,

according to their degree, more or less in the same way

476

NIGERIA UNDER BRITISH RULE 477

as the Mohammedan states, their taxes being assessed
on the basis of tradition, and the result shared with the
British Government. The second class of independent
pagans are of very low type, and have hardly yet so
far advanced in civilisation as to have an organised
state, owing allegiance to a recognised chief. Their
chiefs are little more than elders or heads of families.
Upon these communities it is proposed to levy a very
light tax, payable direct to the British Government as
an acknowledgment of its suzerainty. The tax is to be
a communal tax, payable through the village elders,
and it will be the object of the administration gradu-
ally to group these villages together under a central
chief, in the hope of raising them to the higher social
plane of more civilised races. The obligation to pay
tribute to the power whose laws they recognise is well
understood by these tribes. It constitutes an acknow-
ledgment on their part of authority and submission to
a superior power which forbids brigandage on the
roads, &c. As they are often industrious, and rich in
flocks and herds, the burden is nominal, while the
moral to be enforced is of importance.

But though reform of taxation is as the bed-rock of
other reform, it is but a foundation upon which much else
must be raised before the substitution of a reign of law
for a reign of force can become permanently effective.

To give law a proper place in its literal sense, it
was necessary partly to create, and partly to restore and
reform the means of dispensing justice through the
Protectorate. The principle by which the Native Adminis-
tration has been incorporated as an integral part of one
executive with the British has been applied as far as
possible to the judicial system. This has as its machinery
three principal engines. There is first a Supreme Court,
which is the highest judicial tribunal in the country, and
is presided over by the Chief-Justice. To this court
there are affiliated local cantonment courts, presided over
by British cantonment magistrates, who are Commissioners

478 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

of the Supreme Court. There are also British provincial
courts, presided over by the Resident in charge, of which
one is situated in every province. All sentences of death
and punishments for serious offences awarded in these
courts must await confirmation by the High Commis-
sioner, who, of course, acts with the advice of his law
officers. A Resident has no judicial power outside his
own province. All other officers exercising civil judicial
powers in the province are Commissioners of the pro-
vincial court, and may hold courts in any district of the
province. Native courts, of which there may be an un-
limited number in every province, complete the judicial
system. They are constituted by warrant, and the extent
of their powers is laid down in the warrant appointing
them. No native court, except those of Kano and
Sokoto, to which the concession has lately been made,
has had power given to it to pass sentence of death,
and in these two courts the death sentence is subject
to the concurrence of the Resident. The Resident of
the province has access at all times to the native court,
and may transfer any case from it to the provincial
court. He thus exercises supervision over the native
court.

In the native courts justice is administered by a
native judge called the Alkali or El Kadi. Under the
old native system he usually sat alone as judge, and the
emir or head chief also usually held a court dealing chiefly
with political cases. There was also usually a Limam,
who dealt with cases of probate and divorce.

As found at the time when British administration was
introduced, the powers and constitution of native courts
varied with every province, and, as has been mentioned
in a previous chapter, the system of justice had from
different causes greatly deteriorated.

The policy of the British Government is to interfere
as little as possible with these courts, but merely to re-
store them to the original purity of their jurisdiction,
subject to the abolition of punishments which modern

NIGERIA UNDER RRHISH RULE 479

civilisation regards as inhuman, and to nmkc ihcm
effective instruments of justice. They are to be so far
supervised as to put an end to flagrant abuse. The
Alkalis are to be taught the principles of British justice,
and the elementary rules of evidence. The number of
the courts is to be increased so that justice may be
brought within easier reach of complainants.

In order to constitute a native court, a warrant is
issued which defines its powers, and confers legality on
its sentences. In practice, the jurisdiction of the native
courts is usually confined to civil actions. The number
of these courts is now rapidly increasing through all the
provinces. In the pagan districts, where courts consist
only of a council with judicial powers composed of the
chiefs or elders of contiguous villages, their action is still
uncertain and elementary, but in Mohammedan centres
they are in full activity, and the number of cases brought
to them for settlement is steadily increasing.

This peaceful development has not been wholly with-
out disturbance since the fall of Sokoto. Difficulties
have arisen, caused by the efforts of deposed emirs to
make good their pretensions to the thrones from which
they have been deposed, or from the recalcitrancy of
smaller independent chieftains who did not, in the first
instance, accept the submission of the northern states
as universal and complete. In some instances these
difficulties have been settled without fighting ; in others,
there has been occasion for the display of military force ;
but the conquest and death of the ex-Sultan of Sokoto,
and of the rebellious Magaji of Keffi, which took place
in an engagement near Burmi, on the western frontier of
Bornu, in July of 1903, practically put an end to any
further question of opposition to the supremacy of
British rule. This has been the only fighting of import-
ance since the fall of Sokoto.

It is, of course, to be expected that from time to time
disturbances will arise which will have to be repressed by
force. But for ordinary purposes of law and order, a

48o A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

native police force has been organised under white officers,
of which detachments are stationed in every province,
thus Hberating" the troops of the West African Frontier
Force for more purely military duties. The troops are
now stationed in certain capitals, and chiefly at the head-
quarters of Zungeru, Kano, and Lokoja. There are also
garrisons at Maifoni and Dumjeri, the respective British
capitals of Western and Eastern Bornu, and in order to
preserve the northern states from the incursions of desert
tribes, a chain of frontier forts has been established and
garrisoned by mounted infantry, who have 170 miles to
patrol between each fort.

It has been essential that the organisation of the
British Administration, both central and provincial, should
as far as possible keep pace with the rapid development
of the Protectorate. There are now four classes of Resi-
dents, as well as police officers, charged with political
duties in the provinces. The rank of the Residents is
divided into first class, second class, third class, and
assistant, and though the roll is not yet complete, four
Residents have been generally allotted to each pro-
vince. Six out of the seventeen provinces into which
the Protectorate is divided have been formed into double
provinces, and placed under the charge of a first-class
Resident. The six which have been selected for the
first experiment are Sokoto and Gando, Kano and Kata-
gum. Eastern and Western Bornu, and the Residents
placed in charge as first-class Residents have, of course,
been chosen for their special ability and experience. It is
proposed to devolve upon these officers a large measure of
administrative control, and gradually to extend the system
of grouped provinces with a view to relieving the central
administration of the direct supervision of separate pro-
vincial units. Within each province the same system of
devolution will be adopted as a larger body of officers
having experience of the special kind of work is formed.

The duties of Residents are extraordinarily diversified,
ranging from those of political adviser to the native

NIGERIA UNDER BRITISH RULE 481

sovereign, and head of the Provincial Court, to survey-
ing, map-making, and reporting on the economic, com-
mercial, and social conditions of the province. Each
Resident writes for the information of the Hicrh Com-
missioner a report upon his province, which has hitherto
been monthly, but which will, as conditions become more
normal, be submitted at longer intervals. Thus at head-
quarters a body of information respecting the entire
Protectorate is being gradually accumulated, while the
maps and descriptions of routes also sent in regularly by
the Residents form material for filling up the outline of
the Nigerian map. The prototype of the Resident of
Nigeria is probably to be found in the Deputy Com-
missioner of India, but the circumstances, though parallel,
are of course far from similar. Assistant Residents are
placed in charge of specified districts under the Resident,
and in consequence of the cordial co-operation and re-
markable administrative aptitudes of the Fulani, when
they once understand that oppression and tyranny are for-
bidden, the work of the provinces is being carried on
with a smaller number of white men than might have
been imagined possible.

There are now in all, counting non-commissioned
officers and civil subordinates, about 400 white men in the
Northern Nigerian service, which, allowing for one-third
absent on leave, as under the rules of West African
service they have a right to be, leaves about 270 on
duty. With this number the whole service of the Pro-
tectorate— military, legal, medical, and administrative — is
performed over an area which successive boundary con-
cessions have reduced to about 300,000 square miles.

The organisation of the Medical Service, with a system
of hospitals and white nurses at headquarters, doctors at
out-stations, and sanitary regulations, which are now being
carried generally into effect, has greatly reduced the
number of casualties from sickness, which at first sub-
tracted substantially from the list of white men avail-
able for service, and often threw the machinery of

2 II

482 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

work into confusion by the absolute necessity which it
created of providing, from an already short-handed staff, for
the performance of the duties of the invalided. The
climate of the Protectorate, as a whole, is found also to be
much better than that of the valleys of the Niger and the
Benue, in which at first the only centres of British occu-
pation were situated. The climate of Zaria is indeed
so good as to be exhilarating to Europeans, who, during
a portion of the year, can enjoy the pleasure of frosty
nights, and as the territories approach the desert in the
north they become generally more suitable for white
occupation. Native towns are frequently insanitary, but
it is believed that, with the exercise of due care in the
selection of sites for white settlements, these may in the
northern states be rendered perfectly healthy.

The position nevertheless is one which throws into relief
the very great importance of the question of communica-
tions. There are at present telegraph lines between some
of the more important centres, and it is hoped soon to con-
nect them all with the administrative capital at Zungeru.
It is even now possible, by a system of runners to Kano,
to communicate by cable between the shores of Lake Chad
and London in ten days. But there are as yet no rail-
roads in the Protectorate, except about twenty-two miles,
which have been constructed from a port on the Kaduna
to communicate with Zungeru, and the distances to be
traversed are very great. For the Residents of Bornu to
reach their stations from the administrative capital at
Zungeru, takes longer than it takes them to travel from
London to Zungeru, and thus causes a very serious loss of
official time in proceeding to and from their work. Be-
tween station and station, in the event of promotion from
one part of the Protectorate to another, or if the need arises
for two Residents to meet in order to discuss the affairs of
their provinces, the same loss of time has to be reckoned
with. Through the southern states the travelling roads
were originally little more than tracks, and at the moment
of the introduction of British Administration, the navi-

NIGERIA UNDER BRITISH RULE 483

gability of the minor rivers for any craft larger ilian
canoes was untested.

Under British Administration something has been
done to improve the state of the communications.
Tracks have been widened into roads ; districts rendered
unsafe for travelHng by the brigandage of pagan tribes
have been poHced, and waterways have been opened to
navigation. By the opening of the river Gongola, an
important tributary of the Benue, last year, an addition
was made to the navigable course of the Niger and
the Benue, which gives at certain periods of the year
1 100 miles of continuous waterway without a rapid
from the Niger mouth, and the time and expense of
getting stores into Bornu have been greatly diminished.
In the northern states there are broad caravan roads
neatly bordered with hedges as in England, and it has,
of course, become part of the work of the Native Ad-
ministration to maintain and to develop these roads.
Roadmaking is one of the subjects to which the atten-
tion of the chiefs is being directed in every province.

In the present state of the communications the High
Commissioner was able last year, accompanied by his
secretarial staff and a small military escort, to visit
every capital of the Protectorate, with the exception of
Sokoto. The tour, which included Yola, Bautchi, Bornu,
Kano, Katsena, and Katagum, occupied him about
four months, marching at a rate scarcely less rapid
than that of his march to Kano and Sokoto in 1903.
Sites were selected during this tour for all the new
British stations. Oaths of allegiance were taken from
the Emirs of Bautchi and Yola. The Shehu of Bornu,
one of the most cultivated and intelligent of the native
chiefs of the Protectorate, was installed with much
ceremony, and many interesting discussions were held
with him upon the principles and application of British
policy. A somewhat sullen and recalcitrant chief, who
claimed independence in the border town of Hadeija,
was also interviewed, and brought to submission and

484 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

to the acceptance of a British garrison, which will
occupy Hadeija as one of the chain of frontier forts
already mentioned. The Emir of Katsena, whose con-
duct since the occupation of Katsena by the British
had been radically unsatisfactory, was deposed, and
his heir, selected by the Council of Notables, was in-
stalled in his place. This new emir, and the Shehu of
Bornu, both took the oath of allegiance to King Edward
on the Koran in public, with the knowledge of all their
people, as a part of the installation ceremony.

In Kano and Katsena, as at Bornu, much interesting
conversation upon the subject of the new system of
administration was held with the emirs, and the know-
ledge that the High Commissioner in person, the repre-
sentative of the British sovereign, had travelled within
a few months through every capital of the Protectorate,
had its visible effect in helping forward the realisation
of the fact that the Protectorate has been consolidated
into a unity administered in the name of the King of
England.

The capitals of the other provinces — Kontagora,
Ilorin, Nupe, &c. — were visited In a separate short tour.
Thus a personal supervision of the provinces has already,
to a certain extent, become possible, and, notwithstanding
the obstacles of space and time, free communication
between them may be said to have been established.
But for the purposes of that further communication,
which Is essential to the opening of trade and the
development of their commercial resources, the crying
need of the Protectorate Is, of course, for a railway
through the heart of Its most populous districts, which
should connect the commercial centres of Kano and
Zaria with an all-the-year-round navigable port upon
the Niger.

CHAPTER LII

ECONOMIC RESOURCES OF NORTHERN NIGERIA

What are we to do with it? is perhaps the question
which will arise in many minds as they think of the
vastness of the territory which has thus been brought
under British rule. To this question the growing re-
cognition of the value of the tropics, to which allusion
was made in the first chapter of this book, will gradu-
ally bring the full answer. No one can so foretell the
course of history as to know yet all that may be done
with it.

To those to whom the liberation of many millions
from the curse of slavery, and the introduction of the
elements of a finer civilisation into the local life of the
interior of Africa, do not in the meantime give a suffi-
ciently satisfactory reply, it may be briefly said that we
shall presumably do with it as we have done with India.
We shall administer it, trade with it, and help both
directly and indirectly in the development of those
natural resources which form at present, as Sir Robert
Schomberg said more than fifty years ago of British
Guiana, the "buried treasures" of its soil.

When it was decided, towards the middle of the last
century, to withdraw from the West Coast of Africa, the
commercial use of many valuable commodities of the
tropics was unknown, the existence of others was
ignored ; but science and experiment are every day
demonstrating the value of new products. The forest
areas of the tropics are rapidly proving to be reserves

of wealth no less real than that which has for centuries

48s

486 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

lain hidden in the mineral beds of Australia, California,
and the Transvaal. Rubber, shea butter, palm oil,
wood oil, gums, and many other articles of modern
trade, exist in the forests in quantities which represent
an almost limitless addition to the circulating wealth of
the world — if labour can be found to harvest them, and
transport facilities can be given to carry them to the
markets of civilisation. That these sylvan products
require enterprise for their development, and for the
conversion of their potential resources into realised
wealth, is all the better. They offer a fresh field to
the activity of new generations.

In Northern Nigeria an important forest belt spreads
across the southern states and up the valleys of the
principal rivers.

In Ilorin and Kabba, the two most westerly provinces
south of the Niger, the forests contain much valuable
timber, in which mahogany is especially noticeable.
There are also in these provinces extensive plantations
of kola trees, bearing the nut most valued in the markets
of the Protectorate. In Ilorin there is little rubber,
but in Kabba there is a great deal, Funtu7nia elastica
and several Landolphias being common. The forests
are known also to contain many commercial products
which further exploration would bring to light. Bassa,
on the southern side of the Benue, is practically a rubber
reserve. Here there exist stretches of what may be
called " rubber forest," in which thick masses of Landolphia
vines scramble over the trees. Nassarawa, both north
and south of the Benu6, contains great quantities of
rubber. On the banks of the Lower Benue, and also
on the banks of the Gurara River, flowing through the
western part of Nassarawa into the Niger, there are
splendid forest areas, in which mahogany and ebony
predominate. These woods, being situated on the banks
of navigable rivers, could be easily worked. The same
observation applies to the rubber forests of Bassa, a
province which occupies the angle formed by the meeting

ECONOMIC RESOURCES 487

of the Benu6 and the Niger. In the western part of
Nupe, between the Kaduna and the Niger, there are
extensive plantations of the Kola acm/iina/a, esteemed
through the whole of North Africa : these might
become the basis of an important export trade. Shea
butter trees abound in most parts of the Protectorate,
and oil palms in the river valleys. The larger rivers
of the Protectorate possess the usual characteristic of
African rivers, and in time of flood overflow their normal
borders, leaving every year a deposit of rich alluvial
mud, which renders the soil of the valleys not only
extremely rich, but practically inexhaustible. Heavy
crops of rice, tobacco, cotton, &c., are cultivated as in
Egypt on the land thus left exposed. This fertility is
particularly observable in the valleys of the rivers which
drain the highlands of Nassarawa and Bautchi to the
Niger and the Benue.

In the Gongola Valley the soil is described as "ideal
black cotton soil," and existing native cotton crops are
specially good. Fine fields of dhourra, gero, tobacco,
&c., spread round all the villages ; two crops of dhourra
and tobacco being obtained in the year. On the exposed
banks of the Lower Benue after flood, rice enough could,
it is believed, be grown to supply the whole Protectorate,
and to leave a considerable surplus for export.

All these areas are inhabited by naturally industrious
agricultural tribes, who have for centuries been the prey
of slave-raiders. It is evident that a very large popula-
tion has at one time existed here, and now that slave-
raiding has been stopped, the country should once more
provide all the labour that can be required for its exten-
sive development.

Farther east, the territories of Southern Bornu carry
forests of gum-bearing acacias, breaking towards the
north into mahogany tamarinds and dum palms.

In the open northern portions of the Protectorate
the products are more purely agricultural. They are
under present conditions grown mainly — though not

488 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

entirely — for local consumption, and consist commonly
of various kinds of corn and beans, cassava, rice, ground
nuts, yams, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, sorrel, onions,
taniers, ochres, gourds of many kinds, and peppers. In
addition to these, wheat and sugar-cane are grown as a
special form of cultivation in some districts ; wheat rather
extensively in the Wobe Valley, in North Bornu, where
the same conditions of rich soil repeat themselves, as in
the valleys of the south. For industrial purposes the
most widely grown crops are cotton, tobacco, indigo,
and beniseed.

Of these cotton is the crop which will at first most
naturally attract European attention. It has from time
immemorial been a crop native to the soil. It is grown
in large quantities and of good quality all over the
Protectorate.

It has been already seen that the soil of the Gongola
valley, repeating the conditions of the valley of the Nile,
is particularly favourable to the growth of heavy cotton
crops, and, owing to the cheap water-transport available,
its harvest could be easily exported. The greater part
of Southern Bornu consists of cotton soil. On the edee
of Lake Chad a specially fine quality of cotton, locally
known as "Ballum," grows with extraordinary luxuriance.
At the time that the High Commissioner's party passed
in December last, the cotton bushes were in full bearing.
They were growing in clumps, of which measurements
were taken by the botanical expert who accompanied the
party, and the plants were found to be ten feet high,
while each clump measured about fifteen yards in circum-
ference. This is almost phenomenal for cotton. They
carried a very heavy crop. The cotton which they bore
is silky and long in the staple, and even locally fetches a
high price.

The provinces of Kano and Katagum are full of
cotton, which is grown with care in fenced enclosures.
In Zaria, every town and village has its cotton fields.
The people thoroughly understand its cultivation, and

ECONOMIC RESOURCES 489

it is reported that " the capabilities of the country for
the production of cotton are enormous."

The opinion of a cotton expert, who passed through
Nupe and some other districts in 1904, was that Nor-
thern Nigeria held out better prospects for the cotton
industry than any other West African colony.

I have dwelt at some length upon the question of
cotton, as it offers, perhaps, a prospect of the creation
of the first large export industry of the Protectorate,
and there is no need to insist upon the importance of
feeding the looms of Lancashire with home-grown raw
material. There are, of course, many other prospective
industries, which should include all forms of tropical agri-
culture. The leather trade and ostrich farming are also
industries to be developed.

There has been no time for the systematic explora-
tion of the mineral resources of the country. The
highlands to the north of the Benue have an historical
reputation, and silver and tin ores are known to exist
in them in some quantity. Antimony also occurs, and
small quantities of monozite and other valuable thorium-
bearing minerals have been found. Iron ores are common
throughout the Protectorate ; and smelting is one of the
oldest industries of which local records have been pre-
served. A small survey was sent out in 1904, but the
discovery of minerals takes time, and the country must
be more fully open to European enterprise before its
true mineral capacity can be gauged.

Enough has, I think, been said to show that with the
forest-bearing slopes and valleys of the southern pro-
vinces, the mineralised, though as yet unexplored, belt
of highlands, which at the back of these traverses the
country from west to east, and the open agricultural
plains of the northern districts, the Protectorate con-
tains in itself all the primitive elements of a valuable
trade. Add to this that the population, though much
depleted now, is to be counted in millions, who, under
conditions of peace and security, are likely to show a

490 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

rapid increase, and that from the earliest times their
numbers have been made up of agriculturists, herds-
men, and traders ; and it will be understood that there
was a substantial foundation for the North African
proverb which said that, " As tar cures the gall of a
camel, so poverty finds its cure in the Soudan."

CHAPTER LIII

THE DEVELOPMENT OF TRADE

From the point of view of a development which should
bring the country into touch with the outer world, the
trade of Northern Nigeria may at once be divided into
two branches, the internal and the external. In proportion
as the internal trade is active and widespread, local life
will evidently be nourished, and the native populations
will attain to a prosperity in which, if they desire to
do so, they can restore the old position of Negroland,
by attracting, for the gratification of their own wants,
a steady volume of trade from other nations.

We have seen that in the Middle Aees the trade
of the West African Soudan bore no mean proportion
to the relatively limited trade of the civilised world.
It is probable that, as the nations of the Soudan recover
their ancient prosperity under a just and enlightened
rule, they may contribute again in equal proportion to
the now enlarged volume of the world's commercial
movements.

Clearly, if we look to the millions of Nigeria to
become our customers, it is of great importance that
they should be rich and prosperous themselves. From
this point of view the internal trade movements of the
country have a general, as well as a local interest, and it
is satisfactory to find that with every year of British
administration the value and convenience of open roads
is being more widely appreciated by local traders, and
trade is proportionately increasing. It consists largely,
as in other parts of the world, of an exchange of the
manufactures of the towns for the raw material of the

492 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

country, and is carried on by the direct operation of
barter, supplemented by a currency in cowries.

All trade at present is caravan-borne, partly by means
of transport animals, partly by human carriage. A man
carries usually about seventy pounds, and in order to deliver
this weight of goods in distant portions of the Protectorate
he may have to walk for several months. When this has
to be done through disturbed countries the risk to life
and property is of course great, and to minimise the risk,
caravans in old days travelled in great strength, sometimes
numbering several thousand persons. The passage of
such bodies of men through a country unprepared for their
reception was in itself likely enough to provoke disturb-
ance, and it was the habit of the rulers through whose
territory they passed to compensate themselves for damage
by the exaction of very heavy tolls.

The main routes of trade ran generally north and
south through the western portion of the Protectorate,
where Ilorin at one end counterbalanced Kano at the
other, and east and west through the northern states,
where the caravans travelling from Tripoli to Kano
usually entered the territories of Haussaland via Lake
Chad and Kuka. Upon these main routes Fulani toll
stations were established, while the by-roads were ren-
dered impracticable by the brigandage of pagan tribes.
The position of a trader was not always enviable under
the circumstances. Nevertheless, the whole of the terri-
tories were traversed by a network of caravan routes.
Besides those which ran from Kano to Ilorin in the
south-west, there were others, more dangerous and less
frequented, which carried goods to Yola in the south-
east. Kano, which was itself a manufacturing centre,
and was also a receiving centre for European goods from
the Mediterranean coast, sent local manufactures and
European products to the country districts, receiving raw
materials in exchange. Ilorin, which was not itself so
much a manufacturing as a receiving centre, distributed
the goods of Kano through the coast districts, and

THE DEVELOPMENT OF TRADE 493

supplied the returning caravans with European goods
in exchange.

These caravans were, however, confined to the in-
terior. They were not allowed to pass through Ilorin
in the south-west, but were obliged to receive from the
Ilorin middlemen any goods which they desired to pur-
chase from the coast. Similarly Lagos traders from the
coast were prevented from passing to the north. Ilorin
held the position of a buffer trade state, in which the
whole of the exchange trade was done by local brokers.
An equally impassable barrier existed on the south-eastern
frontier. The greater part of the southern pagan belt
was entirely impenetrable by peaceful caravans. There
existed only one or two roads by which it was possible
to cross it, and on those the tolls were so extortionate
that the exactions on the road amounted to half the
goods of the caravan. A similar exaction was made on
the return journey, and, in addition, there was all the
risk of murder and pillage. This trade was directed
towards what is now German territory, but the dangers
of the road rendered it practically impossible. On the
northern frontier, trade from Tripoli via Chad to Kano
took some months for the journey, and cost about ^50
per ton of merchandise carried, in addition to heavy risks
of pillage and murder in the desert.

Since the introduction of British grovernment the roads
of the Protectorate have been rendered practically safe,
and traders travel singly or in couples where caravans
used to think it necessary to travel in strength. The
tolls, though still retained in principle, have been reduced
to a relatively small percentage upon the value of goods
carried, and the safety of the roads has now thrown
open the passage to the coast. An experimental down
journey was made by an Arab trader from Tripoli in the
early part of this year. He took a caravan of eighteen
oxen from Kano to Zungeru, and was amazed at the
security and convenience of a road which he had believed
to be impassable. He went on personally to Lagos, and

494 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

thence by sea to Tripoli, his own prediction being that
he would be the "first of many" who would take this
road when he had reported its advantages and security
in Tripoli. His calculation was that goods could be carried-^
between the Lagos coast and Kano in forty days without
risk, whereas, between Tripoli and Kano, the journey ex-
tended sometimes to seven months, with the risks of the
desert in addition. It has since been reported that the
arrival of this Arab in Tripoli, and the account which he
has given of his journey, has created a great sensation
in commercial circles there. It remains still to be seen
how much of the northern trade will in this way be
diverted to the British coast.

The facilities which have been given by the new order
of things to caravans travelling southward towards the
coast have, of course, been reciprocally extended to traders
travellingr northward from the coast to the interior, and
upwards of four thousand trade licences were this year
issued by the British Government in Ilorin to petty
traders, many of whom flocked from the coast provinces
into the town. The British Resident of Ilorin reports
that whereas, in old days, no Yoruba trader was to be
found upon the left bank of the Niger, there is now no
market of importance in Northern Nigeria in which they
are not to be found. This, if correct, is in itself extremely
satisfactory. It prepares the way for an easy flow of
trade from the coast to the interior, and the impetus
which has already been given to the trade of the coast
colonies is clearly marked in their annual returns.

The question of caravan tolls is an interesting one,
upon which the permanent policy of the British Adminis-
tration is still open to consideration. It seems fair
that all trade profiting by the safety of the roads, and
the new markets opened to its activity, should bear a
share of the expense by which this state of things is
brought about. But, on the other hand, the undesira-
bility of placing any restriction upon the movements of
trade is keenly recognised. It is to be desired on all

THE DEVELOPMENT OF TRADE 495

sides, that the cumbrous and extravagant system of
caravan traffic may soon be superseded by a more
convenient form of transport. With the introduction
of railroads, and the extension of a steam service upon
the rivers, the question of caravan tolls will probably
fall into abeyance. Throughout the interior of the
Protectorate the reduction of these tolls has given
universal satisfaction, and the steady increase in the
amount collected — notwithstanding the fact that by-
roads, which have no toll stations, are now so safe as
to be frequently used for the purpose of evading all
tolls — gives unmistakable indication of the increase in
the volume of internal trade.

The question in which European traders are in-
terested is, of course, the development of an export
trade. This rests, I have tried to show, in the first
instance, upon internal prosperity. The direct object
of the administration is to promote prosperity by the
peaceful organisation of the country under just laws,
the maintenance of order, and the opening of com-
munication with the outer world. When these objects
have been attained, the administration may be re-
garded as having done its part. It holds the field in
the interests alike of the native and the European. It
is for European trade itself to do the rest.

The wealth of opportunity cannot be doubted, and
private enterprise is already following close upon the
heels of established government. The returns of Euro-
pean trade with the Protectorate are not at present
published in a form which makes accurate figures at-
tainable, but the two European firms who do the prin-
cipal trade have for the last year given incomplete
figures, which reach a total of about ;^300,ooo. This
is exclusive of European trade done for Government
through the Crown Agents, and also of trade of which
the values in European goods done by native traders
are not known. Some ;^6o,ooo worth of British cottons
are estimated to have been imported last year by petty

496 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

native traders living at Ilorin. The trade is entirely
exclusive of trade spirits, which are not admitted into
Northern Nigeria, and small as its total is at present, it
equals already about half the trade which was done
forty years ago with all the West Coast settlements
together.

This is not a despicable beginning when it is con-
sidered that there are at present but two English firms
who have established operations in the country, and
that they have not yet taken possession of the field
which has been opened by the extension of British
administration to the northern provinces and to Bornu.
It must be understood that in entering the northern
states we enter regions of civilised industry which bear
no comparison with the peoples of the coast, and which
have already markets susceptible of indefinite expansion.

Over the greater part of the territories the native
population are reported as being eager to buy English
agricultural implements. Some dissatisfaction has been
felt with the bad quality of English cloth which has
been introduced, and a consequent impetus has been
given to native dyeing and weaving industries, but for
good cloth there is a ready sale. Hardware, needles,
thread, writing paper, mirrors, and many other articles
of English manufacture, are keenly appreciated, and
since the superiority of the road from Lagos to Kano
has been demonstrated over the desert route to Tripoli,
it is to be hoped that English goods will before long
take the place in the market of Kano which has
hitherto been held by other European goods imported
through the Mediterranean coast. Tea, of which the
stimulating quality is recognised by the Tuaregs of the
desert, under the name of "Water of Zem-Zem," has
now largely taken the place of coffee with the richer
class of Mohammedans ; and European provisions are
readily bought in the northern states.

Here a wide market evidently waits. Two main
obstacles are opposed to the rapid development of trade.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF TRADE 497

One is a radical difficulty which the development of inter-
course and the promotion of native prosperity can alone
remove. Natives are ready to buy, but they do not
possess in sufficient quantity a marketable equivalent
for European goods. Native manufactures have no
value in European markets. Horses and cattle are too
cumbersome for export. Cowries are only locally useful.
Exchange must therefore be based solely on produce
which has value in European markets, and which is suffi-
ciently portable for export under present conditions.
Even this to be profitable must be in bulk, and retail
trade is impracticable while small payments have to be
made in kind. The same difficulty attaches to the col-
lection of Government taxes, which for the present have
to be paid for the greater part in kind. The solution
evidently is to be found in the encouragement of a
surplus production in native industries of which the pro-
duce can be profitably exported, combined with the in-
troduction of a cash currency as a medium of general
exchange. In this way native existing industries of
the kind most valuable to Europe will, by a natural
process, be expanded, and new ones will be sought which
will gradually extend the basis of an export trade. The
stimulus to this movement will be supplied by the desire
to possess articles procurable only with the required forms
of produce, and though the operation of the movement
may require time, it may on the whole be trusted to cor-
respond with the amount of enterprise displayed on the
part of European firms in introducing new commodities
to the native markets. Already, as has been seen, a
good deal has been done by the administration in the
direction of introducing a cash currency, and silver coins
are coming into general use.

It has been seen, in describing the early history of
the Royal Niger Company, that its founders looked
to the northern states of Haussaland for the ultimate
success of its trading operations. Here they expected
to meet with returns which should repay all the adminis-

2 I

498 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

trative expense of opening the northern country to
British influence, and there is no reason to suppose
that they were mistaken. The reaUsation of their ideal
is now attainable. The burden of administrative ex-
pense has been assumed by the British taxpayer. The
country has been opened, not only to one firm, but to
all legitimate British trade, and it is for British trade
to develop the wealth of the markets which at that
time were beyond its reach.

The second obstacle to the development of trade is
easier to remove than the first. It is the obvious diffi-
culty of transport which arises from the very nature of
an extended trade. The existing system of human
carriage, if the most natural to a semi-civilised society,
is absolutely opposed to any large commercial movement.
Were it possible to obtain carriers for the transportation
of goods in bulk, armies of men would be required,
who would destroy, by the mere fact of their passage,
the country over which any large produce trade was
in operation. The time required for such transport
would be prohibitive, and the cost, as calculated in
Northern Nigeria under present circumstances, would be
two shillings per ton per mile, as opposed to the fraction
of a penny for which certain classes of goods would be
carried by rail. Add to this that heavy machinery,
such as may be required for mining, cotton pressing, &c.,
cannot be transported at all by human carriage, and it
is evident that the present system of carrier transport
is hopelessly condemned. Were there no other argument
against it, the mere fact that every man who is employed
as a carrier represents so much labour taken away from
production is itself a sufficient reason for regarding the
system as the most costly and unprofitable that can be
employed. Human carriage is a concomitant of slavery.
With the abolition of slavery it becomes impossible.

One of the first endeavours of the administration
has been so to improve the main trade routes of the
Protectorate as to render them fit for the more general

THE DEVELOPMENT OF IRADE 499

employment of animal transport, and between Ziint;crii
and Kano a fairly good cart road, fit for the employnu-iu
of wheeled vehicles, will soon have been c(inii)U-icci.
The opening of navigable waterways has also already
placed some rich districts within easy reach of European
trade, but the urgent need of the Protectorate from
every point of view, political and commercial, is obviously
for the introduction of railways. These need not in
the first instance be expensive. The country is generallv
open, the gradients of the main routes are easy, and
there are no impassable obstacles which call for costly
engineering works. The development of trade must be
necessarily gradual, and in order to keep pace with it, a
railway so light as to be little more than a tramway,
along which waggons could be drawn by steam, might,
in the first instance, be laid from a navigable port on
the Niger to Zungeru, and thence along the route which
has been cleared for the construction of a cart-road
to Zaria and Kano. This is the caravan route which
traverses some of the richest and most populous districts
of the country. When the markets of this district had
been worked, it would perhaps be time enough to extend
a similar cheap service from Kano to the capital of
Bornu. If the trade which resulted were sufficient to
justify further expense, the construction of more solid
railways would rapidly follow. Transport in a peaceful
country is not in truth a difiiculty. It is little more
than a calculation of profit and loss.

The administration of Northern Nigeria is but five
years old. Its duty has been to bring under control a
congeries of states, of which the internal disorders necessi-
tated, in the first instance, a resort to the plain argument
of military conquest. The administration has not in
the short period of its existence been able to do more
than to affirm the conquest of the country, and to create
a skeleton of the machinery of government which it
will be for time to bring to its full perfection. But a
beginning has been made. The framework of adminis-

500 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY

tration has been established in all the provinces. A
territory which we found in chaos has been brought
to order. The slave trade has been abolished within
its frontiers. Its subject races have been secured in
the possession of their lives and • property. Its rulers
have been converted with their own consent into officials
of the British Crown, and are working sympathetically
to promote an order of things that shall render a return
to old abuse impossible. There has been no great
shock and no convulsion, only into the veins of a deca-
dent civilisation new blood has been introduced, which
has brought with it the promise of a new era of life.

Thus a territory has been opened, in which the genius
for administration, and the adventurousness in trade, which
have always characterised the British people, have once
more the opportunity of working side by side to the ac-
complishment of great national results. It is a union
which in times past brought the British Empire into exist-
ence. It gave us India, it gave us Canada, and though
these are great names, there is a reasonable ground for
hope that the chapter of Imperial history which has been
opened in the interior of West Africa will not prove
unworthy of the rest.

L'i

^

W'

I A US

INDEX

Abdurrahman I., 32, 44
Abdurrahman II., 50, 51
Abou Bekr. See Askia Abou Bekr
Abou Bekr of Wankore, teacher,

204-206
Abou el Hagen of Morocco, 75, 76,

127, 134
Abou Ishak or Toueidjen, 125, 126
Adouatein. See Spain and Africa,

dual empire
Africa —

Cut off from Europe by Turkish pos-
session of N. Coast, 294
Early civilisation, 10-13
European influence on interior and

coast different, 344, 345
First settlements on coast line only,

320, 321
Inferior races always driven south,

316, 317
North Coast of Africa. See that

title
Slave trade. See that title
Soudan. See that title
Two great trade routes to interior,

223-226
West Coast of Africa. See that title
Aghadez, 195, 201
Ahmed Baba, Soudan historian, 156,

204
Aiwalatin, 90, 93, 96, 97, 130, 165, 175
Al Gazzali, 36

Al-Hazen, Arab optician, 36
Al Maimon, Arab astronomer, 35
Al Mansur, 51, 52
Alarcos, Battle of, 64
Alexander the Great, 94
Algebra, product of Arab civilisation,

35
Ali Folen, 191, 196, 211
All Ghajideni, reign of. See Bornu,

273-276

Almohades sect conquers Morocco

and Spain, 58, 59
Almoravides, The —

Desert Kingdom, 107-112

Dual Empire, Spain and Morocco,
55, 56

Origin, 54

Lose Spain and Morocco, 59
Andalusia. See Spain
Arabic numerals, 35
Arabs —

Andalusian immigration, value of,
67-72

Early dealings with Negroland, 84-89

Great scientists, philosophers, his-
torians, 35-40

Learning and achievements in
medieval times, 32-49, 67-72

North Africa conquered by, 24-29

Ommeyades dynasty, 32-49

Spain conquered, 29-32
Armour used in Haussaland, 251
Artesian water, 1 18
Ash-shakandi epistle quoted, 60, 61
Askia Abou Bekr —

Ascends Songhay throne, 181

Conquests, 190-198

Death, 211-212

Minister to Sonni Ali, 1 71-173

Pilgrimage to Mecca, 182-189

Reforms, 199-202
Audoghast, 90-93 ; sacked, 107
Avempace, Arab physician, 39
Averrhoes, Arab scholar, 36, 64, 65
Avicenna, Arab philosopher, 35, 36
Azlecs, practices similar to those of
African blacks, 137-139

Bajazet, Sultan, 286, 287
Barbar)^, learning and splendour at
Tunis, 71
SOI

502

INDEX

Barbot, quoted, 322, 323, 324, 334, 336,

2,17, 340
Earth, Dr., explorer, quoted, 155, 156,
157, 260, 262, 263, 271, 342, 377,
179, 465
Bautchi submits to British administra-
tion, 434
Bello, Sultan —

Quoted, 270, 275, 276
Reign of, 390-398
Ben Musa, Arab geometer, 35
Benins, The, 179
Berber Tribes —

Almohades rule in Spain, 58-65
Almoravides. See that title
Conquered by Arabs : result, amal-
gamation, 26-32
Characteristics similar to primitive

races of N. Europe, 32, 34
Lemtunah nation, 53
Origin of, 13-15

Revolt and conquer Spain, 52-57
Blyden, Dr., quoted, 376
Borgu, kingdom of, 106, 179; con-
quered by Askia, 193
Bornu States —

Condition at time of Moorish in-
vasion, 286
Disruption in, 399, 400
History of, 106, 236, 251, 252, 254,

264, 268-281
Invaded by Fulani, 388
Mohammed el Kanemi, 388, 389
Occupied by British, 433-436
Slave-raid described, 412-415
Bosman, quoted, 338, 340
Brandenburgh, has settlements on

West Coast, 326
British Empire —

Not a white empire, i
Tropical area, extent and richness,
I, 2
Burials, Royal, in Ghana, 67

Caill^, Ren^, 341
Caliphate, The —
Divides into Eastern and Western

Caliphates, 32, 34
Eastern, overthrown by Tartars, 67
Western breaks up into three
Powers, 67
Cannibalism, 124

Caravan routes, 15-17

Cargill, Dr., quoted, 47

Carnegie, Mr., 422

Chartered Company on West Coast

(seventeenth century), 329-332
Chinese coins found on East Coast

of Africa, 222
Chinese labour. See Coloured labour
Christianity —

Spread in Central Africa by re.
fugees, 234

Stronghold in N. Africa in early
days, 14
Clapperton, Captain, explorer, 342
Coloured labour, 3-6
Columbus, 185-187, 188, 292
Congo Free State founded, 350
Cordova. See under Spain
Cotton growing, N. Nigeria, 487-489
Crusades, The, 59, 251
Cyrene, 13

Dahomey, French Protectorate of, 358
Decoeur, Captain, 359, 360
Delafosse, M., quoted, 379, 380
Denham, Major, quoted, 342, 376,

377, 388, 389, 409
Denmark —

Cruelty of agents on West Coast, 337

Settlements, 326, 329
Djolfs, The, 81
Djouder Pasha, commander Moorish

army, 296-305, 31 1-3 13
Dutch settlement on West Coast,

325-327, 329, 330, 337
Dwarfs, near Gao, 157, 158

Ebn Junis, astronomer, invented

pendulum, 35, 38
Egypt-
Conquered by Cambyses, 95

Early civilisation, 9, 10

Ethiopian dynasty, Persian con-
quest, the Ptolemies, 233, 234

Expeditions westward and south-
ward under Pharaoh, 230-234

Hyksos dy nasty, 3

Mamelukes, invaded by Tamerlane,
286

Nimrod the Powerful, legend, 227-
228

INDEX

503

EI Bekri, historian of Negroland —
Life, 85-89

Quoted, 91, 95, 96, 98, 105, 108, 160
El Idrisi, geographer, quoted, 37, 38,

no, 115
England —

Attitude towards slavery, 462
Exploration in Central Africa, 341-

342
International race for territory in

Africa, 350-355
Policy, to withdraw from native

affairs, 345-349
Settlements on West Coast, 326-331
Slave trade. See that title
Equator, curious theory concerning,

176
Es-sadi, Soudan historian, 155
Es Soyouti, 184
Ethiopians. See Meroe
Europe —

Barbarian invasion from north, 33
Exploring expeditions into Central

Africa, 341-342
International race for territory in

Africa, 350-355
Mohammedan civilisation in. See

Spain
Mohammedans expelled from Wes-
tern Europe, 289-295
Settlements on West Coast of Africa.

See West Coast of Africa
Turkish Empire conquers Mediter-
ranean coasts, 288-289
Exploration in Central Africa by
Europeans, 341-342, 350-355

Ferdinand and Isabella. See Spain
Fez. See under Morocco
France —

Ambitions in Africa, 349, 350-354
Settlements on West Coast, 323-

325, 326
Strained relations on Nigerian

boundary, 358-360
Violation of British border in Bornu,

433, 435
Franco - German War stimulates

Colonial ambition, 349
Fulani race, 21, 22, 81, 87, 194, 252,

253
Degeneration and cruelty, 401-404 |

Fulani race {continued)

Empire founded— a Holy War, 385-

Haussaland conquered, 387
History, legends, itc, 374-380
Moorish rule thrown off, 384, 385
Origin of kings, 381-382
Overthrown in Hornu, 388
Spiritualism and second sight, 393
Sultan Bello's reign, 390-398
System of administration, 405, 406

Gago or Kaougha. See Songhay
Gambia, colony founded, 343, 345
Gando accepts British administration,

447
Geber or Djajar, Arab chemist, 36
Genowah, 7
Germany, competition for African

territory, 354, 360
Ghana, Kingdom of —

Aiwalatin. Sec that title

Black dynasty overthrown, 110-112

Conquered by Susu, then by Melle,
104, 119

Decay of, 116, 117

History of, 93-99

Trade, 100-103
Gibbon quoted, 290
Gibraltar, etymology, 30
Gold and gold mines, 98, 105, m, 112,

147, 148
Gold Coast Colony founded, 343, 345
Goldie, Sir George, 352, 356, 364, 365
Great Britain. See England
Gunpowder, Arab invention, 36

Hakluyt quoted, 327
Haussa States —
Bornu State. See that title
British administration introduced.

Sec Nigeria
Condition at time of Moorish in-
vasion, 284-2S5
Condition when British authority is

introduced, 406, 407
Conquered by Askia, 195
Daura, legends concerning, 260
Degeneration of P'ulani rule, 401-

405
Early religion, 242-246

504

INDEX

Haussa States {continued)
Fulani rule —
Conquest, 387

Reign of Sultan Bello, 390-398
States revolt, are defeated, 391,
393-396
Gober, State of, 265-266
Histor}' and legends, 236-242, 246-

257, 258-267
Kano. See that title
Katsena. See that title
Queen Amina of Zaria, 246, 247, 252
Soldiers' generosity to enemies, 213
States. See their various titles
Travelling traders, 285
Haussa Regiment. See West African

Frontier Police
Heeren, quoted, 222
Herodotus, quoted, 10, 12, 19, 221
Homeman, explorer, 341
Hygienic rules of Katib Moussa, 126
Hyksos dynasty, Egypt, 379

Ibn B.^tuta —

Journeyings, 74, 75

Visits to Melle, 129-141, 144, 149-1 5 1
Ibn Haukal, quoted, 84
Ibn Khaldun, quoted, 73, 74
Ibn Said, Arab historian, quoted, 37,

47, 60, 63, 69, 70
Ibn Zohr, Arab physician, 39
Ifrikiah, Province of —

Hafside dynasty, 65

{See also Barbary States)
Isabella, Queen of Spain. See Spain

Japan and native labour, 5
Jenne —

Ancient Egyptian influence in, 161

Riots under Moorish rule, 306

Submits to Sonni AH, 174

Territory of, 146, 147, 165
"Jigger," The, 124
JolofTrace, 375

Kagho or Kaougha. See Songhay
Kanem. See Bornu
Kano —

Bornu attack upon, 280

British expedition and occupation,
439-446

Kano {continued)

Conquest by Songhay and decline,

254-257, 266, 267
History, 249-254

Legend concerning, 242-244, 248
Prison, 402
Kanta. See Kebbi
Katsena —

Accepts British administration, 446
Province and town of, 261-265
Kebbi Principality —
Founded, 196
Importance of, 275
Katsena. See that title
Partly Fulani, 283, 284
Struggle with Bornu, 276, 277, 284
Kontagora, hostile attitude to British,

421, 422, 426
Kororofa, State of, 238
Kuka or Kaougha. See under Songhay

Labour. See Coloured labour, also

Slave trade
Laing, Major, explorer, 342
Landor, Richard, explorer, 342
Lauture, M. de, quoted, 21, 79, 378
Lem-Lems or cannibals, 98
Leo Africanus quoted, 254, 412
Libyans. See Berber tribes
Lugard, Col. Sir Frederick —

Concludes treaty at Nikki, 359, 360
High Commissioner, N. Nigeria, 364
Organises West African Frontier
Police, 361
Lyon, explorer, 342

Maghreb. See Morocco
Magic and talismans, 228, 229
Makkari family, traders, 100-103
Maloney, Captain, murder of, 436, 437
Mansa Musa, King of Melle
Pilgrimage to Mecca, 120-128
Sends embassy to Merinite king,

75^77
Masina, Fulani stronghold, 104, 381

382, 386
Mecca, Askia Abou Bekr visits, 185
Melle, Empire of —

Conquered by Askia, 192
Decay and conquest by Songhay,
121, 152, 166

INDEX

505

Melle, Empire oi {continue<f)
Early history, 82, 105, 115
Ibn Batuta's visit, 134-141
Mansa Musa, reign of, 120-128
Practices similar to those of Aztecs,

137. 138
Practices similar to those of N.

Europe, 145, 149
Sends presents to King of Morocco,

75, 76, 127
Songhay conquered, 120, 161
System of administration, 142-151
Trade and history of kings, 1 17-120

Meroe —

Civilisation of, 219-222
Trade routes, 222-226

Mineral resources of N. Nigeria, 489

Misraim, burial of, 97

Missionaries on W. Coast, 326

Moguls. See Tamerlane

Mohammed Abou Bekr. See Askia

Mohammed ben Zergoun, 301-312

Mohammed el Kanemi, campaign
against Sultan Bello, 388, 395,
396

Mohammed Koti, 202

Mohammedanism —

Melle and Songhay accept, 118-121
Northern belt of Soudan converted,

no
Taxes recognised by, 468-470

Moors, The —
Expulsion from Spain, 291-295
Songhay conquered under Djouder
Pasha, 296-314

Morland, Colonel, 432, 433, 443

Morocco —
Arabs conquer, 27, 28
City founded by Almoravides, 108
Embassy to kingdom of Melle, 76,

127
Gained by Merinites, 65, 66, 67
Learning and splendour at Fez,

74,75
List of presents to Sultan of Turkey,

75, 76
Mossi, State of^

Attacks Melle, 165, 175

Conquered by Askia, 192

Conquest by Sonni Ali, 178
Mungo Park —

Journeys, 341, 351

Quoted, 373, 375, 2,76

Musa Nosseyr, and conquest of N.

Africa and Spain, 25-30
Muskets in use in Hornu, 278, 280

African Co. formed,
; (later see Royal Nij{cr

Nation.\l

352-355
Co.)

Native labour. See Coloured labour,

also Slave trade
Negro, admixture of Arab blood, 83
Negroland. See also Soudan-
Arab dealings with, 84
Early records, 81, 82
El Bekri's account, 85-87
Frontage upon civilisation reversed

after 1500, 188
Genealogies and dynasties traced

through female line, 119, 131
Inferior races driven south, 20-21,

22, 23
No Spanish Arab conquest prior

to seventeenth century, 79
Physical features and boundaries,

79-80
Sidjilmessa, 87

Tide of progress from West east-
ward, also decadence, 78, 82
Western routes from N. Africa,
87-89
Niger, The —

El Bekri's account, 105
Ibn Batuta's description, 133
Richness of lower reaches, 366
Trade of Niger Co. and Royal Niger

Co. See those titles
Watershed, value of, 352
Niger Company, trade expansion to

North, 367-371
Nigeria —

Boundaries of, 356-358, 362
Divided into North and South

Nigeria, 363, 364
Geographical position, 7, 21
North Nigeria. See that title
Race to secure treaty at Nikki,
358-360
Nigretis Tribe, 20
Nikki, Treaty of, 359, 360
North Africa —

Arab conquest, 24-29
Three natural zones, 7-9
Turkish conquest, 286-288,
2 K

^94

5o6

INDEX

Northern Nigeria, British administra-
tion—
Climate, 482

Communication, means of, 482, 484
Early history, 417-425
Expeditions against Yola and Bornu,

432-437

Future of, potential resources,
485-490

Installation of new Emirs, 449-459

Judicial system, 477-480

Kano occupied, 438-446

Native hatred of Fulani rule, 442, 443

Oath of allegiance, 457

Organisation of British administra-
tion, 480-482

Policy of working through native
chiefs, 426-430

Railways urgently needed, 482, 498,

499
Sokoto, expedition and occupation,

447-455
System of Emirs and Chiefs, 456, 459
Taxation —

Mohammedan States, 468-475

Pagan States, 476, 477
Trade —

Caravans and tolls, 492, 495

With outer world, prospects, 491,

495-499
Nupe, Kingdom of —
Great antiquity, 106
Hostile attitude to British, 421, 422
Pacification, 427-429

Oil Rivers Protectorate, 366
Oudney, Dr., 342

Paganism —

Customs and legends, Haussaland,
242-244

Driven ever farther south, 116

Fetishism, 317-319 ; decay of, 260,
261

West Coast Africa, low type, 334
Park. See Mungo Park
Persian influence in Negroland, 94,95
Pharaohs. See Egypt
Pharusii Tribe, 20
Phoenicians, The —

Civilisation of, 10-13

Organisation of States, 240-242

Portugal —

Embassies to Sonni Ali and to
Mossi, 177, 178

Exploration of W. African Coast,
176

Fulani prince visits Lisbon, 176

Pope's Bull dividing unknown terri-
tories, 186, 187

Settlements on W. African Coast,

• 323-325

Vasco da Gama's expedition, 187,
188
Printing, invention of, 290
Punishments, barbarous, 200

Railways, urgent need for, 482,

498-499
Religion follows movement of races,

317-319

Residents' duties in British Pro-
tectorates, 480, 481

Ritchie, explorer, 342

Roman occupation of Northern Africa,
13.24

Royal African Co., history of, 330-332,
336

Royal Niger Co. See also Niger Co.
Campaign against Nupe, 360-371
History of, 355-3^5

Rubber forests, 486

Sa kingdom in Tripoli, 160
Sakora, King of Melle, 119, 120
Salt mines of Tegazza, 297
Saracens, 315

Sardinia spoiled by Musa, 27
Scythians, characteristics similar to

those of Berbers, 33, 34
Second sight practised, 393
Sicily spoiled by Musa Nosseyr, 27
Sidjilmessa. See under Negroland
Sierra Leone, colony founded, 343,

345
Silla, Kingdom of, 104
Slave trade, The —
Abolition —

Compensation for loss of revenue,

466-475
Problems of transition period,
460-465
Attitude of Mohammedan blacks,
148-149

INDEX

507

Slave trade, The {continued)
Coloured labour. See that title
English trade, sixteenth century,

327-331

Haussaland, 259, 407

Proclamation by British Adminis-
trator, 423, 428, 430

Raiding described, 408-416

West Coast of Africa, trade, 333-341,

343, 344
Sokoto —

Occupied by British, 447, 448
Proclamation, Emir installed, 449-

455
Songhay, Kingdom of —

Accepts Mohammedanism, 120
Askia Abou Bekr, reign of, 181-185,

188, 190-198, 211
Askia dynasty, following Abou Bekr,

2 1 1-2 1 5
Capital, Kaougha, or Kaukaw, 18,

105, 120, 157
Conquered by Melle, 120, 161
Conquers Melle, 121, 152, 166
Decadent condition, Moorish in-
vasion, 282
Eastern portion unconquered by

Moors, 304, 305,313
Flourishing condition under Askia,

199-210
History and legends of the race,

154-164
Moors, conquest of, 296-305
Sonni AH, reign of, 166-175, 177-180
Wars with Masinaand Fulanis, 382,

384
Sonni Ali, Songhay king —

Conquests and reign, 166-175, 177-

180
Trade with Portugal, 177
Soudan —

British Government first appears,

372
Cut off from civilised world (by

Turkish conquests), 188-190, 315,

316,320,321
Eastern Soudan possible home of

civilisation, 17
Egyptian expedition under Pharaoh,

230-234
Face towards civilisation south not

north after 1500, 320, 371, 372
Immigration from Arabia, 18

Soudan {continued)

International race forierriiory, 350-

355, 358-362
Longevity of individuals and State,

215-217
Moorish invasion —

Songhay expedition, 296-314, 373
Religion —

Follows movement of races, 317,
318

Three great movements, 319
Royal marriages with conquered

royalties, 193
Spain —

Almoravides and Almohades rule,

58-65
Andalusians, contemporary esti-
mate, 69-72
Arab conquest, 29-32
Brigand and King of Seville, 63
Brilliant civilisation under Om-

meyades, 32-49
Christian families deported to N-

Africa, 64
Cordova, Toledo, Malaga, Seville,

during Arab civilisation, 40-49, 61
Decay of Arab power, conquest by

Yusuf, 52, 55-57
Huddites, Moslem kingdom, 67
Moors expelled, 291-295
Ommeyades dynasty ends, 51
Spain and Africa —

Break up into three Powers, 67
Dual Empire, 56-66
Spiritualism, 393
Statue, colossal, near rocks of Almena.

230, 232, 246
Steam applied to transport, impetus to

exploration, 349
Strabo, quoted, 379

Tamerlane, conquests and death, 287
Tarikh-es-Soudan quoted, 154, 2S2,

283, 373
Taxation in Protectorates, difficulties

of, 465-475
Tegazza, salt city, 130
Tekrour, kingdom of, 115
Telem^an conquered by Morocco, 127
Tenkamenin, King of Ghana, 98
Thaly, Dr., quoted, 378
Thule.Tarshish, Ophir, great maritime

trade, 11-12

5o8

INDEX

Timber in N. Nigeria, 486

Timbuctoo —
Art of ancient Egypt existing in,

161
Canal to Aiwalatin constructed, 178
Conquered by Mansa Musa, 126
Foundation of, 108, 113, 114
Embellished by Askia Daouad, 214
Ibn Batuta's visit, 149
Learning and wealthy 202-209
Sacked and burnt by Sonni Ali,

167-171
Sacked by Moors, 300-302, 306-
310

Tin Yeroutan, Berber king, 92, 93

Trade routes to Central Africa, 223-
226

Tropical administration, 1-6

Tuaregs —

Found Timbuctoo, 113
Repossess Timbuctoo, 164, 165
Struggle with Fulani, 385
Struggle with Moors, 306-307, 385

Tunis —

Centre of learning and splendour,

Musa constructs a fleet at, 27
Turkish Empire —

Conquers coasts of Mediterranean,

288-289
Conquers N. Coast of Africa, 286-

288, 294
Mameluke dynasty in Egypt, 286

Underground city in Central Africa,
225

Vasco da Gama sails round Cape of

Good Hope, 187-188
Veil worn by desert tribes, 92

Wahumas of Eastern Africa resemble

Fulani, 380
Wall of Dalouka, Abyssinia through

Nubia, 233, 234
Wangara Province —
A buffer state, 273, 274
Great gold country, 1 1 1
Persian extraction of the people, 94,

95
Throws off yoke of Ghana, 1 1 5
West African Frontier Police raised,

361
West Coast of Africa —

British policy to withdraw from

native affairs, 345-349
Early colonies on seaboard only, 345
European settlements —
History of, 322-332
Spheres of influence. Crown
Colonies, 343
Low type of native, 333-335
Portuguese explore, 175, 176
Slave trade. See that title
Trade —

Firearms, spirits — evils of, 340,

343> 368
Modern, 344
Willcocks, Sir James, 361
Women, position of —
In Bornu, 279

Under Arab civilisation, 39, 49
Under Ommeyades, 131

Yellow labour. See Coloured labour
Yoruba tribe, traditions of, 227, 228

Zaghari, town of, 133
Zaria, 437, 441, 442
Zaryab, 45, 46
Zingari or gypsy race, 15, 379

Printed by Bali.antvne, Hanso.n fir* Co.
Edinburgh b' London

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