ADMINISTRATION OF THE MELLESTINE 147 was not left to the chance of any hearer. There must have been an organised system of pubHc criers to make the practice effective. Of this, however, no indication appears to exist, and it would be interesting if light could be thrown upon the subject.

Ibn Batuta is equally unsatisfactory on the subject of the trade of Melle. Though he travelled with a caravan of merchants, he tells us nothing that is interesting upon the subject, and we are left to learn from other sources the great importance which it had assumed. All European goods, it would seem, were welcomed in the markets of the Mellestine, and were paid for apparently in gold, cotton, slaves, ivory, skins, and kola-nuts. A good deal of corn would seem to have been exported to the frontier, but presumably this was destined rather for the towns of the desert than for Europe. At a somewhat later period the trade in ''written books" from Barbary was said to be one of the most profitable. Ibn Batuta mentions an interesting copy of a book called "The Marvellous," which was lent to him by one of his many hosts, in a place of which he had forgotten the name, and there must already in his day have existed a very considerable demand to satisfy the needs of the many schools which are mentioned. When the King of Jenn6, somewhat later, at the end of the twelfth century, adopted Islam, and desired that all the Ulemas of his territory should be present at his abjuration of the gods of paganism, they assembled to the number of 4200. If the relatively small territory of Jenne produced so large a number, it is evident persons of some degree of Mohammedan learning must have been numerous in the countries of the Soudan. There can be no doubt that gold abounded with which to pay for all desired luxuries. In the market of Gago it is said that the inhabitants frequently brought in more gold than they could exchange for commodities. All travellers allude to the golden arms and utensils frequently Perhaps " The Choice of Marvels," composed at Mossul by a writer of Granada in 1160, a copy of which Felix Dubois found at Timbuctoo.