CHAPTER XIll GHANA AND TIMBUCTOO It was indeed a fine movement of historic fate which caused the conqueror of Ghana to become the instrument of the foundation of Timbuctoo. " The prosperity of Timbuctoo," says the author of the Tarikk-es-Soudan, who was himself born in that town in the year 1596, ''was the ruin of Ghana." Before the great days of Timbuctoo, Ghana, he tells us, ''was the centre of the Soudan." After the rise of Timbuctoo all was gradually transferred. Timbuctoo drew to itself not only the wealth but the learning and enlightenment of the civilised world, and became the home of all that was "pure, delightful, and illustrious " in the Soudan. But the days of Timbuctoo's greatness were not yet ; queen of the Soudan, as she was afterwards proudly to become, she was born, if not in a manger, yet under circumstances nearly approaching to the lowest conditions of humility. Abou Bekr was not himself the founder of the town. The Tuaregs of his train, to whom were allotted for their occupation the portion of the desert opposite to the most northerly reaches of the Niger, would seem to have chosen the site some nine years after his death. They were, like all the nomads of the desert, a pastoral people, and used to feed their flocks in the summer season upon the northern or left bank of the Niger. They never crossed the river to the Soudan side, but withdrew in the autumn and winter months to the interior uplands of the desert. The spot on which Timbuctoo now stands was the extreme limit of these summer wanderings. At first they had only an encampment there ; gradually their encampment became 113 H