I50 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY to see the whole of the Mellestine, travelled eastward by water to Gago. On the way, amongst other incidents of travel, he made the acquaintance of the black governor, who lent him the book already alluded to, who spoke Arabic fluently, who had made the pilgrimage to Mecca, and who impressed him as "one of the best and most generous of men." In the cordial expression of the respect and sympathy awakened in his mind by friendly intercourse with this and other black dignitaries of the kingdom of Melle, it becomes clear how greatly he had modified his opinion with regard to the inhabitants of the Soudan since he first crossed the frontier at Aiwalatin.

He remained a month at Gago, the capital of Songhay, which he describes as " one of the finest cities of the blacks." It evidently occupied in his estimation a far higher position than Timbuctoo. It was, he said, one of the largest and one of the best-supplied towns in the Soudan. Food was very plentiful, especially rice, milk, fowls, fish, and he mentions a particular kind of cucumber, which he held to be "unequalled." The currency amongst the natives in the market both here and at Melle was still in cowries. He mentions a '' white man's mosque," and gives a list of distinguished persons from whom he received attentions and hospitality.

Gago and Aiwalatin were evidently regarded as the extreme limits east and west of Melle proper. The authority of Melle was respected vaguely to the south in the country of the cannibals and amongst other minor kingdoms of some importance, which are confusingly enumerated under different names by different authors. Amongst these Mossi was one of consequence enough to inflict very heavy blows upon Melle itself at a later date. Borgu was another which had preserved its independence from a period of great antiquity. Nupe, on the opposite bank of the river, was, as we have seen, also an independent native state of importance, though practically unknown to the Mohammedans of the West. Melle, however, never extended beyond the limits of the Niger