THE TRADE OF GHANA 105 the most important. Amongst these Melle followed most closely upon the footsteps of Ghana, but at the end of the eleventh century it was a mere town, mentioned by El Bekri, under the name of El Melel, as occupying a position of no great importance on the Bend of the Niger. Its kings were at that date already Mohammedans, but the mass of its people were ** still plunged in idolatry.*' Little would seem to have been known to the Spanish Arabs in El Bekri's days of the countries lying eastwards of the Bend of the Niger. El Bekri gives, however, a very accurate account of the course of the Niger throughout the northern portion of the Bend, describing some of the principal towns, though not all, which were at that time in existence on the part of the river known as the " Rasel-Ma," or *' Head of the Waters," where, near to the present position of Timbuctoo, the river, according to El Bekri's description, "leaves the Land of the Blacks" and runs eastwards for six days to a place which he calls Tirca before turning south by the famous city of Kagho or Kaougho. El Bekri tells us little of the place, of which the author of the Tarikk-es -Soudan says ** that it was a city in the days of the Pharaohs." It has been generally identified as occupying the position of the present town of Gao. El Bekri's knowledge of it went no further than to enable him to say that its king was Mohammedan though the people were still pagan, and that from this point the Niger ran southward into the country of the Dem-Dems or cannibals.

In the immediate neighbourhood of this place there were, he tells us also, ** a great quantity of mines which furnished gold dust." Of all the countries of the blacks it was the richest in gold, and foreign and black merchants, whom he designates by the name of Noughamarta, were constantly occupied in carrying this gold into all countries. All that El Bekri appears to know of the country lying between the Niger and Lake Chad is, that first there came a great kingdom, extending for more than an eight days' march, of which the sovereigns bear the title of ** Du,"