256 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY tration of these distinct provinces was never much more than nominal. Therefore, though we know from outside information the epoch at which the Songhay conquest must have taken place, the chronicle pursues its narrative as though Songhay had not existed. In addition to the disputes with Katsena and Zaria, which, as we know, occasioned the intervention of Askia the Great, we hear from it of civil war in Kano itself.

A King Jacob, who was taken off the throne by a local revolution, refused to be reinstated when his generals had subdued the opposing faction, because he preferred to devote his life to study. The fortunes of Kano are very evidently in eclipse. Yet, through several reigns, we are given no hint of what must have been the predominating cause. The conquest by Songhay must apparently have taken place during the last years of the reign of Ahmadu Kesoke, then a very old man. After Kesoke came Jacob, and then others of no importance. During the war with Katsena the condition of the province became so bad that people could no longer farm in the open country. They were obliged to take refuge in the walled towns. The villages were broken up, and the land was left untilled. The King Abu Bekr, who had succeeded to Jacob and another dethroned king, gave himself up to religion. ** His throne was uncared for, and so were his people. But the town was crowded with priests and learned men, many of whom came, it is said, from Baghlrmi." The next king was more active, but not more fortunate. In his war with Katsena there were two great battles, and being outnumbered, "Kano had to run away, willing or unwilling." The weakness of Kano provoked a revolution of the southern provinces, and in the succeeding reign Kororofa, one of the southern pagan provinces on the right bank of the Benue, invaded the province of Kano, ravaging all the lesser towns and getting actually within the walls of Kano. The Katsena war proceeded at the same time, and the chronicler sorrowfully narrates that the Katsena and Kororofa wars