274 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY and westerly of Bornu. This would seem to place the territory of the Wangarawa between the jurisdiction of Kano and Bornu ; so, at least, the rulers of these two places would appear to have considered. Bornu apparently regarded the Wangarawa as in its dependence. The King of Kano, who, in spite of some discrepancy of dates, I take to have been the contemporary of AH Ghajideni, having a cause of quarrel with them, took their punishment into his own hands. He marched against one of their towns, took it, and, sitting under a bread-fruit tree by the principal gate, ordered that all the roofs should be taken off the houses and burned, but that no prisoners should be made. The King of Bornu, demanding an explanation of the outrage, Kano refused to give it, and war was the result. According to the Kano chronicle the King of Bornu was beaten. According to the Bornu chronicle Bornu had resolved upon the complete conquest of Wangara, when once more the Bulala attacked Bornu upon the east, and diverted its attention from western fields. There is no mention of any conflict with Kano in the Bornu account.

The very brilliant reign of Ali Ghajideni covered the period at which the Portuguese were making settlements upon the Guinea coast, and the intercourse of Bornu with Arab civilisation in the days of its early greatness having caused its territories to be well known, it is not surprising that the fame of Ali Ghajideni should rank with that of his contemporary, Sonni Ali of Timbuctoo. It has already been mentioned that the territories of the Mellestine were shown upon European maps in 15 12. The territorial limits of Bornu were known to Europeans at an even earlier date, and Bornu is shown upon Portuguese maps in 1489.

The attack of his eastern neighbours upon Ali Ghajideni prevented him from carrying any further his intended subjugation of the west, and, in the meantime, Songhay, under the great Askia, achieved from the west what Ali Ghajideni had intended to do from the eastern