Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/370

 with the greatest purity in Katsena, is affiliated by some authorities to the Kanuri of Bornu, while also presenting some marked affinities with the Berber family.

The "Seven Children" do not all belong to the fold of Islam. At the time of Barth's journey, the Goberawa of the north still continued to reject the Mussulman teachings, while the others seemed to be animated by little zeal for the faith. In this region the work of religious propaganda has been reserved exclusively for the Fulahs, who were long settled here as pastors, and most of whom by the eighteenth century, if not earlier, had already embraced Mohammedanism. Scattered throughout the Haussa lands they had become very numerous, but had nowhere acquired political power before the war of 1802, when the Sheikh Dam-fodié Othman encouraged his brethren to form themselves into jemâa, that is, religious and military communities, for the purpose of propagating

the faith with the sword. After numerous reverses the Fulahs triumphed at last over the Haussawa, founding a vast empire which stretched as far as the sources of the Benue.

Amongst the pretended Fulahs of Sokoto, there are many of different stocks who belong to the conquering race only through social and political alliances of long standing. Such are the Sisilbé or Sillebawa, descendants of the Wakoré or eastern Mandingans, who speak both Pular (Fulah) and Haussa, having long forgotten their mother tongue. Such also, but of inferior caste, are the Lahobe of Senegal, and the Soghorans or Jawambés of Sukoto. The Torodos or Torobés, akin to the Senegalese Toucouleurs, but reckoned amongst the eastern Fulahs, constitute a religious and military aristocracy.

The Toucouleurs of Sokoto are also a mixed race, in which the Wolof element is said to be as strongly represented as in Senegal. It was on this fact of the