EASTERN AND WESTERN INFLUENCE 155 centuries, and Its decadence up to the middle of the seventeenth century. Barth, who obtained some fragments of an Arabic copy when he was on his way to Timbuctoo, goes so far as to say that the book forms **one of the most important additions that the present age has made to the history of mankind." But it is not merely an authentic narrative. It is for the unconscious light which it sheds upon the life, manners, politics, and literature of the country that it is valuable. Above all it possesses the crowning quality, displayed usually in creative poetry alone, of presenting a vivid picture of the character of the men with whom it deals. It has been called the "Epic of the Soudan." It lacks the charm of form, but in all else the description is well merited. Its pages are a treasure-house of information for the careful student, and the volume may be read many times without extracting from them more than a small part of all that they contain.

Its chief author, Abdurrahman Es-sadi, was a black of Timbuctoo, who was born in that town in the year 1596.

He came of learned and distinguished ancestors, and his genealogy is interesting because he united in his own person three of the most important strains of blood in the Soudan. His mother was a Haussa woman. His great-great-grandfather, he tells us, was the first white — that is, Berber — Imaum of Mansa Musa's mosque, and succeeded that Katib Moussa whose remarkable longevity and health were mentioned in a previous chapter. This ancestor married a Fulani woman, and from the combination of Berber and Fulani blood his father was descended on the maternal side. Es-sadi was himself Imaum of the university mosque in Timbuctoo, but he also exercised the functions of a notary at Jenne, where he would seem generally to have lived. In this capacity he was frequently called upon to prepare state papers. He was also entrusted on various occasions with public missions, and seems to have had very special opportunities for acquiring informa-