MORABITE CONQUEST OF SOUDAN m to the Abbasside Commander of the Faithful" — that is, the Egyptian CaHph. Then follows a description of the palace already mentioned, and the date of its construction, 1116 A.D. ''The territory and domains of this king," Edrisi continues, " are conterminous with Wangara, or the country of gold." The king's nugget, weighing 30 lbs., is mentioned, and we are told that it was "an entirely natural production, which has been neither melted nor worked by the hand of man, except for the fact that a hole had been made through it in order that it might be fastened to the king's throne." It was regarded as a curio, unique of its kind, and the king was proud of its fame in the Soudan. Other writers give more fabulous weights to this famous nugget, and it appears to have remained among the royal treasures for upwards of two hundred years ; for Ibn Khaldun mentions, at the end of the fourteenth century, a degenerate monarch of the conquering dynasty of Melle who sold the nugget for the value of its gold. Edrisi describes the King of Ghana, who was contemporary to himself, as "one of the most just of men," whose custom it was to ride once daily into the poorest and most wretched quarters of the city, and there to dispense justice to all who had ground for complaint. On all other occasions he rode with great pomp, magnificently dressed in silk and jewels, surrounded by guards preceded by elephants, giraffes, and other wild animals of the Soudan, and no one dared to approach him. The territory of Ghana proper was bounded, Edrisi tells us, by " Mazzawa on the west, by Wangara on the east, by the desert plains of the Soudan and the Berbers on the north, and on the south by the pagan countries of the Lem-lems and others." Mazzawa must be taken to represent the territory which was the seat of the Desert Kingdom, a country over which Melle was soon to extend its authority. Of Wangara Edrisi gives the following description : " From the town of Ghana to the frontier of Wangara is an eight days' journey. This latter country is renowned for the quantity and the quality of the gold