104 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY quest of Ghana, first by Susu and then by Melle, events which took place, the first in the twelfth, and the second in the thirteenth century.

Many lesser kingdoms, both black and Berber, surrounded Ghana. Amongst the black. El Bekri mentions specially Tekrour and Silla, both of which, though black, already in the middle of the eleventh century professed Mohammedanism. Silla, which was situated on the banks of the Niger, where the river skirted the south-eastern frontier of the Empire of Ghana, was, when El Bekri wrote, a country of some importance, able, he says, to maintain its independence against Ghana, and was a centre of the cotton industry. At Terensa, a town within the limits of this country, he remarks, ''that no house is without its cotton plantation." Among the lesser kingdoms, also, south and east of Ghana, one which deserves special mention is Masina, of which the inhabitants were largely Fulani. This little state is particularly interesting as having in its origin submitted by agreement to draw its rulers equally from Fulani and Berber sources, and as having succeeded in maintaining its integrity if not its independence for many centuries against the invasion of surrounding black peoples.

It has been already mentioned as having solicited with success the assistance of Tin Yeroutan, the Berber king of Audoghast in the tenth century, against its black neighbours of Aougham. After passing through many vicissitudes, including submission to the black dynasty of Melle and the Songhay dynasty of Timbuctoo, it is mentioned again by the author of the Tarikh-es- Soudan, as refusing any longer, in 1629, to accept the investiture of its rulers from the hands of the decadent and Moorish Timbuctoo.

But it does not fall within the scope of this book to attempt to deal with the many nations of the Western Soudan who arose and fell within a period of a thousand years. For the purpose of tracing the course of civilisation through the fertile belt it is enough to mention a few of