CONDITION OF THE SOUDAN 283 quilllty. Everywhere the populations began to destroy each other. In all places and in every direction rapine became the law, war spared neither life nor property, nor the position of the people. Disorder was general, it spread everywhere till it reached at last the highest degree of intensity." But while the author of the Tarikh attributes this condition of things directly to the Moors, we find in his own pages, long before the coming of the conquerors, indications which serve to explain not only how the Moors made of this great and wealthy country such an easy prey, but also to show that in the reigns of the later Askias the strenuous spirit of heroism, which had marked the rise of that dynasty, was dead, and the aspiration to live on a higher plane of civilisation than their predecessors had given place to nothing more noble than a love of luxury. The Songhay Empire at the end of the sixteenth century had become fatally content to exist upon the tradition of its former greatness. One generation had borne the labours of preparing the ground for seed. Another, when the harvest stood ripe, thought only of gorging themselves with the fruit.

Thus, when all seemed to be at its best, the empire was in truth nearest to its end. After describing the happiness of the country under the earlier Askias, and the perfect order which prevailed, the Tarikh says, in words which might have applied to decadent Rome : " Things continued thus until towards the moment in which the Songhay dynasty approached its end, and its empire ceased to exist. At this moment faith was exchanged for infidelity ; there was nothing forbidden by God which was not openly done. Men drank wine, they gave themselves up to vice. ... As to adultery, it become so frequent that indulgence in it was almost accepted as permissible. Without it there was no elegance and no glory. . . . Because of these abominations," continues the pious annalist, "the Almighty in His vengeance drew down upon the Songhay the victorious army of