Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/422

 the sultan has to make a seven days' retreat. It was for rashly penetrating into this hallowed spot that Vogel seems to have been put to death.

Nunro, west of Wara, is the centre of the Jellaba traders, but not their chief depot. Of the other groups of population the largest is Kodogus, 120 miles south of Abeshr, in a district inhabited by Arabs and Abu-Sharibs. Yawa, on Lake Fitri, capital of the Bulalas, is said to be one of the oldest places in Sudan.

The Sultan of Wadai, a member of the Ghemir (Nuba) tribe, is the direct ruler only of the northern part of the kingdom. This territory is divided, like Dar-For, into provinces named from the cardinal points, and governed by kemakels, or lieutenants, with the right of life and death over their subjects on the condition of remitting to the sultan the customary tribute. This tribute varies according to usage and the local conditions, some places furnishing slaves, some horses or cattle, others honey or corn. In the administration of the country the Sultan is assisted by the fasher, or "privy council," while the laws — that is, the Koran and its commentaries — are interpreted by the fakih or ulima, although local usage still largely prevails. The army, of about seven thousand men, is chiefly employed in enforcing the payment of tribute in Baghirmi and the other vassal states.

Kanem.

Taken in its general acceptation, Kanem is the region, some 30,000 or 32,000 square miles in extent, which is bounded on the south-west by Lake Tsad, on the south-east by the Bahr-el-Ghazal depression, on the west by the great caraA^an route from Bornu to Tripoli, and on the north by the line of wells on the verge of the desert. But in a narrower sense Kanem, properly so called, is the triangular space whose base is formed by the shore of the lake, and apex by the two latitudinal and meridional lines running north and south-east from the two corners of the lacustrine basin. Within this region of woods and cultivated tracts are concentrated nearly all the inhabitants of Kanem, who are estimated at scarcely more than one hundred thousand. Northwards stretch the almost level Manga plains, forming an intermediate steppe zone towards the desert.

The kingdom of Kanem was for five hundred years, from the beginning of the tenth century, the hotbed of the Mussulman propaganda, and the most powerful kingdom in Central Africa. Then about 1500 the centre of political influence was displaced towards Bornu under the influence of the Bulala invaders from the east, a people akin to the Kanuri. Since that time Kanem has never recovered its independence, passing successively from the Bulalas and Kanuris to the Dazas and its present Arab rulers, the Aulad-Sliman, who are regarded as the masters of the country, although forming a mere fraction of the population, and in 1871 mustering not more than one thousand armed men. Yet this handful of warlike clansmen, often at feud among themselves ever the distribution of the plunder, contrive to keep in a state of terror all the populations comprised between Bornu, Air, and Wadai. By the Dazas and others bordering on North Sudan they are called Minnemime or "Devourers," a name said to be given to them on account of