ASKIA MOHAMMED ABOU BEKR 183 at the hands of the Caliph of Egypt. The Turks had, it will be remembered, long since overthrown the political supremacy of the Caliphs, and had affirmed their own position by the taking of Constantinople in 1453. But the Caliphs of Egypt still kept their position as the religious head of the Mussulman world.

This pilgrimage of Askia Mohammed, which has kept a place in the annals of the country side by side with the pilgrimage undertaken nearly two hundred years before by Mansa Musa, was made the object, like that earlier pilgrimage, of the display of some magnificence. But there is a distinct progress observable in the nature of the display. The pilgrimage of Askia Mohammed does not involve the march of an army of 60,000 persons, accompanied by a baggage train of thousands of camels, to be moved in a slow royal progress round the empire. The king went accompanied by a brilliant group of the principal notables and the most holy and learned men of the Soudan.

It is probable that he moved with some state, for both Marmol and Leo Africanus inform us that he kept a magnificent and well-furnished court. But a military escort of 500 cavalry and 1000 infantry was considered sufficient for the protection of his caravan, and there is no mention that he caused himself to be preceded, like Mansa Musa in procession across the desert, by slaves dressed in silk brocade and carrying golden wands. Neither did he take with him eighty camels laden with gold dust. Three hundred thousand gold pieces are mentioned as his more portable and convenient provision for financial necessities. It was not in barbaric splendour like that of Mansa Musa that the fame of Askia's pilgrimage consisted, but rather in the distinction of the persons who accompanied him, of whom Ahmed Baba gives us some of the biographies, and in the great number of learned doctors and noble friends whom Askia had the opportunity of meeting in Cairo and in the Holy Cities. The friendships which were here formed lasted for the rest of his life, and correspondence with some of the most distinguished men of