CHAPTER XXXI CONDITION OF THE SOUDAN AT THE END OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY The slight outline which has been given of the course of history In the eastern portion of the West African Soudan, renders it possible to construct some picture of the general condition of the country from the shores of the Atlantic to those of Lake Chad at the moment of the coming of the Moors in 1591.

In the west the Empire of Songhay having risen to the zenith of its prosperity and fame, still enjoyed, according to Its own historians, the blessings of peace and order throughout Its vast extent. We are expressly told that when the Moorish army arrived in the Soudan, it found the country to be one of the most favoured of the Almighty for wealth and for fertility. Peace reigned in all its provinces, and, thanks to the admirable organisation established by the great Askia in the beginning of the century, the orders of the monarch were obeyed implicitly from the frontiers of the Eastern VIceroyalty of Dandi to the borders of the Atlantic, and from the southern mountains to Touat and Tegazza in the northern desert — as well as In all the dependencies of these Berber towns. The awful misery which followed when the supreme power was suddenly destroyed is laid, without hesitation, to the count of the conquerors, who are held responsible by the local annalists, not only for what they did, but, very properly, for the ravages of the powers of disorder which they let loose. *' All was changed in a moment," says the Tarikh-es-Soudan, *' Danger took the place of security, destitution of opulence, trouble, calamities, and violence succeeded to tran-282