124 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY his own native country. ''The reason," it is added, " why the cannibals did not eat him is that he was white. They say that the flesh of white men is unwholesome because it is unripe. Black flesh alone, in their opinion, is ripe." The caravan proceeded from Walata by the westerly route northward to Twat, and here suffered a very considerable diminution by an affection of the feet which attacked a large portion of the caravan. This malady, of which no descriptive account is given, was, it is said, called in their language touat. There is no hint that it was caused by ''jiggers," but the event, important enough to have been preserved in subsequent chronicles, of half a caravan incapacitated by an epidemic of the feet, suggests the widespread devastation of the ''jigger," and it would be interesting, were it possible, to ascertain whether any surviving word in the Melle language connects touat with the destructive insect. The author of the Tarikh-es- Soudan says that the name of the oasis of Twat was bestowed upon it in consequence of this catastrophe. Commentators reject, however, this derivation of the name.

From Twat the caravan would seem to have pursued the usual road to Egypt, where it camped for a time outside Cairo, and passed on to Mecca and Medina.

Here Musa made a profound impression on the peoples of the East, who have left in their annals, says one historian, a record of his voyage, and of their astonishment at the magnificence of his empire. But it appears that he gave only 20,000 gold pieces in alms in each town, and in comparison with the immense extent of the territories he governed, this was not considered munificent. The same author, however, mentions incidentally that throughout his journey, wherever he halted on a Friday, he built a mosque. The funds required for such a purpose, even though some of the mosques were but small, must have been considerable.

At Mecca the Sultan of Melle made literary acquaintances, and persuaded the Spanish poet and architect,