SONGHAY UNDER ASKIA THE GREAT 207 quakes and eclipses excite no great surprise. In the sketch which has just been quoted of Mohammed Wankore, the teachers under whom this professor himself learnt Arabic are named, showing that Arabic was by no means considered to be the language of Timbuctoo. That language was Songhay, and If the civilisation of Timbuctoo came from the West, it was wedded within the city walls to the traditions and the forms of expression of the East.

Travellers give us a picture of the town as it existed in the early part of the sixteenth century. . The houses, which would seem to have been fairly spacious, were built, some say of clay, and some of wood covered with plaster — the roofs, like the Dutch buildings of South Africa, being universally thatched. The mosques are described as stately buildings of cut stone and lime, and there was a ** princely palace,*' of which the walls were also of cut stone and lime. There were a great many shops and factories, ** especially," says Leo Africanus, who was there in 1526, "of such as weave linen and cotton cloth." The court maintained by the Asklas Is described by Marmol as being so well ordered that It yielded In nothing spiritual or temporal to the courts of Northern Africa. Under the successors of Askia the Great, the palace was enlarged and greatly embellished, the court being then thronged with courtiers in ever-Increasing numbers. The habits of dress became sumptuous, and it would seem from Incidental allusions that different functionaries had their different uniforms and insignia of office, to the wearing of which great value was attached. The dress and appointments of women became also extravagantly luxurious. They were served on gold.

In full dress their persons were covered with jewels, and the wives of the rich when they went out were attended by well-dressed slaves.

Amongst the possessions of the rich, large libraries and good horses would seem, in Askia the Great's time, to have been the most valued. The libraries of wealthy and learned citizens are frequently mentioned, and horses