Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/361

 collective name of Ireghenaten, or "Mixed." They also appear to be gradually adopting the Fulah and Songhai languages, although some amongst them still preserve the Berber type in all its purity. They live almost exclusively on a flesh and milk diet, and like those of Ahaggar are divided into two castes, that of the nobles, whose business is war, and that of their retainers or slaves, tillers of the land.

The Songhais (Sonrhai, Sourhai) occupy both banks of the Middle Niger between Timbuktu and the Sokoto confluence, penetrating far inland within the great bend, where their speech is current as far as the lacustrine district below Jenné. Although now a degraded people, the Songhais had their epoch of splendour and dominion. After overthrowing the Mandingan emperor, enthroned

in Mali, the Songhai chief, Askia, founded in 1492, with Gogo for its capital, a mighty kingdom stretching far up towards the source and down towards the mouth of the great artery and away to the oases of the desert, so that "travellers journeyed six months across his dominions." Askia became the most powerful of African potentates, and to celebrate his triumphs he undertook the pilgrimage to Mecca escorted by his vassal chiefs and fifteen hundred men-at-arms. He was renowned throughout the East for his generous deeds, and he attracted to his court 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, having at last yielded in 1591 to a small band of Maroccan troops commanded by Jodar, a Spaniard from Almeria, and including many other Andalusians equipped with European firearms.