Africa and its inhabitants . mphs he undertook the pilgrimage escorted by his vassal chiefs and fifteen hundred men-at-arms. Ho wasrenowned throughout the East for his generous deeds, and he attracted to hiscourt the wise and the learned, who made Gogo and Timbuktu centres of light for all the Negro lands. But this great empire lasted not quite a hundred years, iiaving at last 1091 to a small band of ilaroccan triwps commandetl by Jodar. u Spaiiianl fromAlmenia. and including many other Andalusians witli KuroiMati fii-earms. 302 WEST AFRICA. These Maroccan Rumas, a
Africa and its inhabitants . mphs he undertook the pilgrimage escorted by his vassal chiefs and fifteen hundred men-at-arms. Ho wasrenowned throughout the East for his generous deeds, and he attracted to hiscourt the wise and the learned, who made Gogo and Timbuktu centres of light for all the Negro lands. But this great empire lasted not quite a hundred years, iiaving at last 1091 to a small band of ilaroccan triwps commandetl by Jodar. u Spaiiianl fromAlmenia. and including many other Andalusians witli KuroiMati fii-earms. 302 WEST AFRICA. These Maroccan Rumas, as they were called, supplanted the dynastj of Askia,their power exteudiug to Bakhunu, Jeuiie, and the Hombori Mountains. But allrelations soon ceased with ihe mother country, and tlie Rumas, intermarrying- withthe natives, gradually lost their supremacy, although down to the beginning of thepresent century still controlling the navigation of the Niger a long way above and Fig-. 141.—El-Haj Abi)-el-Kadeb, Entoy of I below Timbuktu. Tlien came the conquering Fulahs, founders of the Massiuaempire, and the nomad Tuaregs, who planted themselves on both banks of theriver, so that the Songhais are now almost everywhere subject to peoples morepowerful than themselves. But notwithstanding their political decadence, their speech, the KissuB or Ki- TIMEUKTU. 303 Songhai of Timbuktu, is still widely diffused, although largely affected by Arabic-elements. The Songbais arc of nearly , with !v chiselle<lfeatures enframed in long kinky hair. Souil tribes are distinguished by specialtattoo mark.^ and in the eastern districts the wear a metal passedthrough the cartilage of the nose. In their present degraded state the Songhaisare a dull, sullen, unfriendly people, desci-il) by as tlie least hospitableof all the ISegroes he came in contact with during all his long wanderings. Oi,various ^-ounds this writer argues tliat they a
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