126 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY This hall of audience communicated by an interior door with the palace. In expression of his satisfaction, the Sultan gave Abou Ishak 12,000 mitkals of gold dust, a sum amounting in our money to about ;8ooo. But to this, which seems to us a relatively moderate reward, must be added, says the historian, the high favour of the prince, an eminent place at court, and splendid presents made from time to time.

Upon his return from this great pilgrimage, Mansa Musa turned his arms against Timbuctoo, and after a severe conflict with the Sultan of Mossi, who sacked the town in or about the year 1330, Musa became master, in 1336, of the future capital of the Soudan. This town offering fresh opportunity to the young architect, it was embellished by a royal palace and mosque. Both buildings were of cut stone, and the remains of the palace exist at the present day, though they are now used only as a slaughter-house. The Great Mosque, which had a remarkable minaret, was afterwards rebuilt about the year 1570 by a pious governor of Timbuctoo in obedience to advice from Mecca, where it was stated that the prosperity of Timbuctoo was closely associated with the prosperity of the minaret, then apparently in a dilapidated condition.

Some portion of the old mosque still remains, and when Barth saw it in 1855 it was perfectly distinguishable from the later construction.

The first Imaums of this mosque were all learned blacks, many of whom made their studies in the University of Fez. One of these, Katib Moussa, who was a jurisconsult and very learned, had also extraordinary health. He lived to a great age and filled the position of Imaum for forty years without a single day's illness. Being asked to what he attributed his good health, he gave three simple hygienic rules, of which the last, at least, if not the other two, is still worthy the consideration of white men in West Africa. He never slept, he said, exposed to the night air ; he never missed anointing himself at night and taking a hot bath in the morning ; and he never went out without breakfast.