BERBER AND 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 century, had risen in prosperity 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 following 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, exposing it to every horror of barbaric warfare, and it is especially stated that '' they treated the population of Audoghast with this extreme rigour 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 Kano, upwards of 1200 miles distant in the Haussa States, and as a consequence, in the very unenlightened condition of European knowledge, the traditions of the one town were commonly associated with the other until Cooley, in his ** Negroland 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 uncertain, 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 sometimes spoken of as Biru and Walata, Ghanata and Walata