BORNU 271 part of Bornu existed. Nevertheless, as we have seen, the Haussa States were at this period rising into individual importance, and Kano did not receive Mohammedanism till it was brought to her from Melle towards the end of the thirteenth century. This information with regard to the source of Mohammedanism in Kano receives interesting confirmation from the history of Bornu, for in the chronicle of the reigns of the kings of Bornu, it is also mentioned that religious teachers came from Melle between the years 1288 and 1306. In the case of Bornu it is added that these teachers were Fulani, but the Fulani immigration did not take place in any force until a century later.

We are told that before the twelfth century the kings of Kanem were light complexioned, proving beyond all doubt their Berber origin, but from the beginning of the twelfth century it is distinctly mentioned that they were black. Presumably there was intermarriage at an early period between Berber rulers and black inhabitants. The original inhabitants of the greater part of the country which we now call Bornu, were a powerful native tribe of the name of Soy or So. No historian, so far as I am aware, has attempted to identify them with the Songhay, and I have no information which permits me to do so.

Barth mentions the " So " as the name of one of the four divisions of the Fulani, but he does not appear to regard these people as Fulani. They seem to have been a remarkable and very active people, who towards the end of the thirteenth century rose against their conquerors, and in a long struggle, which lasted for nearly a hundred years, had almost succeeded in breaking the power of Kanem. In the year of Ibn Batuta's visit to Melle, 1352-53, King Edris of Bornu appeared, however, to be holding his own against them. Bornu was doing an active trade in slaves, eunuchs, and yellow cotton cloth, with Tekadda on the north-eastern border of the Mellestine, and from this period the Soy appear gradually to lose their importance, though they remain as