170 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY ing life would have neither pleasure nor savour," and **if he injured some, he did great good to many, and loaded them with favours." Amongst other favours, in keeping with the rude character of the conqueror, was the presentation on one occasion to the more favoured ''notables, saints, and sages" of Timbuctoo of a number of Fulani women whom he had captured in a military expedition against a settlement of this people in the north of Gurma. One of the favoured was the Imaum of the cathedral mosque, the great-great-grandfather of the author. To him was sent a very charming Fulani girl of the name of Aicha, whom, contrary, it would appear, to the usual custom of Sonni Ali and his profligate favourites, he married. From this marriage, as has been already stated, was descended the family of Es-Sadi.

The conqueror's religion was no more orthodox than his morals. He was the son of a pagan woman of the neighbourhood of Sokoto, and was deeply imbued, it is said, with the superstitions of the race. He was nominally Mohammedan, and like Henry IV. of Navarre, knew the value of a mass. But he cared nothing for these things.

In private he habitually left his five daily prayers to be said when it was convenient, either in the evening, or perhaps not till the following day. He would even profanely call the prayers one after another by their names, and without more ceremony dispose of them, saying : " You know my sentiments, you can divide them between you." His temper was violent, and he would order men to be executed for trifling offences ; sometimes this would happen even to those who were his best friends and to whom he was most attached. In such cases he frequently repented, and in his court it became the custom, when the order appeared unreasonable, to hide the victim of his indignation for a time, and when the fit of remorse followed upon anger to produce the culprit.

All this gave occasion for great horror and dismay in those circles of Timbuctoo where it was felt that in exchanging the nominal rule of the Tuaregs — accompanied