i66 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY nearest point of junction between the Soudan and the civilisation of the Western world. It is accordingly to Aiwalatin that hasty migrations of wealth and learning are directed in the yet more troublous days about to fall upon the once flourishing Empire of Melle.

This was the general position of the western portion of the Soudan when Sonni Ali, last of his race, but first of the great Songhay kings of modern times, ascended the throne. He was one of the born soldiers of the world, and the moment was favourable to the gratification of military ambition.

The hereditary enemy of his country, attacked by rude and vigorous foes on all her borders, was paralysed by internal decay, and a great sceptre was falling from a hand too weak to hold it. A lesser mind might perhaps have been content to join the ranks of the enemies of Melle, and revenge old wrongs by helping forward a work of sheer destruction, but Sonni Ali would seem to have had wider views. Whether, as is probably the case with many a constructive genius, his work grew under his hand till he himself was surprised at the dimensions it assumed, or whether he knew from the first at what he aimed, the result is the same. The Empire of the Soudan was the heritage which the petty kings in revolt against Melle purposed to divide. Sonni Ali resolved to keep it intact, and to take it for himself. To this end it was necessary to overthrow, not only Melle, but all her foes.

He early perceived the strategic value to him who would rule the Soudan of that command of the water which on wider fields has brought about the creation of great navies. The Niger was the ocean of the desert, and his first object was to possess himself of its shores.

Fortune favoured his desires. Shortly after his accession an incident occurred at Timbuctoo which gave him the opening that he required. It was the custom, as has already been mentioned, for the Koi to receive one-third of the taxes. The Tuareg Chief Akil, who was growing old and infirm, forbade this third to be paid. "Who is