SONGHAY UNDER ASKIA THE GREAT 195 payments, which were called either tribute or subsidy according to the humour of those who received and those who paid, they had sustained the continuity of their history and the individuality of their political life.

Katsena and Zaria, two of the states, would seem to have had some cause of quarrel with their more powerful neighbour Kano, and to have in the first instance solicited the intervention of the Askia. There are hints of some shadowy claim of suzerainty on the part of Songhay, which may have been the survival of previous and unrecorded conquests. Whatever the cause, Askia marched first against Katsena and took it in 15 13.

He also made himself master of Zaria and Zamfara — this last province being mentioned as especially rich in cotton and other crops — and proceeded to march against Kano and Gober. The conquest of Kano cost him a long siege, but both states fell to his arms, nnd were made tributary to Songhay. He then marched against the Sultan of Aghadez, a Berber kingdom lying north of the Haussa States, and stated by some authors to have been tributary to Songhay. Tekadda, in the desert to the west, was at one time, as we have seen, tributary to Melle, and causes of dispute between border provinces were not difficult to find. After a campaign which lasted for two years Aghadez yielded, and an annual tribute of 150,000 ducats was imposed upon it. In Aghadez in the sixteenth century we have the counterpart of Audoghast in the eleventh century, and it furnishes again an example of a rich white town ruled by blacks. Aghadez was, we are told, at the time of the Songhay conquest, a wealthy town inhabited by white people, in which the houses were stately mansions, built after the fashion of Spain and Barbary, and the greater part of the citizens were either foreign merchants, artificers, or government officials.

It was on the return of the Askia's armies from this campaign that Kanta, an important chief of territory, conquered, as has been mentioned, some thirty years