202 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY same footing as in the harems of the East, and obliged to veil themselves when they appeared in public. Nevertheless, Timbuctoo remained ever celebrated for the luxury of its habits and the gaiety and licence of its manners. Music, dress, dancing, and amusement formed, say its indignant chroniclers, the principal objects of life to a large portion of the population. The immense domestic establishments of the East would seem to have excited in the Askia no displeasure. He was himself the father of a hundred sons, of whom the youngest was born when he was ninety years of age. But his influence appears to have been strongly and indignantly excited against forms of licence which exceeded the bounds of this very liberal standard of morality. His adviser, in respect to these reforms, was a learned fanatic of the name of El Mocheili, whose writings remain to attest the workings of the royal mind. The Askia's own sons, less rigid in their principles than their father, did not escape when punishment seemed to him to be due to their offences. El Mocheili, whose advice was at times more enthusiastic than discreet, was among those who are said to have influenced the Askia in the direction of the religious persecution of the Jews.

Another great counsellor of the Askia, whose name has been preserved, was a Marabout of the name of Mohammed Koti, a scholar and writer of great eminence, the author, amongst other things, of a history of the kingdoms of Ghanata, Songhay, and Timbuctoo, called **The Fatassi," which has unfortunately been lost. M. Felix Dubois, who, after diligent search, was able to recover a few fragments of this valuable work, gives an interesting account of the destruction of the only existing copy of the history by the Fulani, as late as the middle of the nineteenth century. The author was born in 1460, and survived Askia the Great by fourteen years, being connected during the whole period of the reign with public affairs. Under the influence of Koti and