BORNU 275 frontier of Haussaland. Askia Mohammed Intervened, as has been already related, in the local disputes of the Haussa States, and conquered them all. From this time the central Haussa States lay between Songhay and Bornu, as between the upper and the nether millstones.

It may be remembered that, on the return of the Askia from his second expedition into the Haussa country, in February of 15 16, an influential chief, of the name of Kanta, revolted, and that he formed an independent principality, of which Kebbi, on the eastern side of the Niger and to the west of Zamfara and Katsena, became the seat. Sultan Bello, who gives us some further account of him, describes Kebbi as being under his rule a very extensive and fruitful province, which was peopled half by Songhays and half by natives of Katsena. The town of Birni-n-KebbI, which is to be found now on the north-western frontier of Northern Nigeria, lies almost directly between Katsena and Gao, and it was natural that the at-that-time important province of which it was the capital should be peopled partly from one and partly from the other source. As will presently be seen, this hybrid province played so important a part in defending Haussaland from the inroads of the Moors that its rise to power in the early part of the sixteenth century is worth mentioning. Probably Kanta's court formed a nucleus of meeting for all the more vigorous of the turbulent spirits of Songhay, who for any reason were discontented with the administration of the Askias. The growth of luxury and the love of ease, which gradually undermined the Songhay Empire, left Kebbi perhaps untouched, and thus, at the end of the sixteenth century, there was yet a refuge in the territory lying between Haussa and Songhay, for all that remained of local energy and courage in the empire of the fallen Askias. It was in Kebbi that the Moors met with their first reverse ; Borgu and Kontagora sustained the opposition to their rule, and the rocks of Almena, in the pro-