148 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY used by persons of Importance. This perpetual testimony to the quantity of gold in the country begins, it may be remembered, in the eighth century, when, according to Abd el Hakem, the first military expedition of the Arabs brought back " all the gold it wanted," and continues through the testimony of El Bekri in the eleventh century, El Idrisi in the twelfth, and all subsequent writers of the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, up to the moment of the overthrow of native independence by the Moors in the conquest of 1591. Allusions to the cotton trade are scarcely less constant, though less prominent and less important, and there must have been a considerable local consumption. Ibn Batuta mentions amongst the good qualities which he ascribes to the blacks of Melle, that they never failed to dress in fine white robes on Friday, and the dressing of many millions of persons must have needed a large supply.

The other never-failing supply of wealth which would seem to have persisted throughout the history of the Soudan was the slave labour raided from the pagan belt to the south. The attitude of the Mohammedan black towards those people seems to have been almost identical with that of the Spaniards towards the natives of the New World. They were idolatrous, and had no rights. Probably the occupation of raiding the little known and unhealthy regions of the pagan belt gave occupation in times of peace for the immense armies which were kept on foot. But, beyond the actual cruelty of the raid, the slave does not appear to have been badly treated. He served in the armies of the conquerors and performed the duties of the house and farm. He seems to have received little more consideration than a domestic animal, but he does not appear to have been persecuted. All rich people In Melle were proud of possessing a very large number of slaves. Ibn Batuta mentions that he gave twenty-five ducats for a good woman slave, but the price of the ordinary slave was much less. In the sixteenth century Leo Africanus mentions that the price of a Barbary