298 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY the claim as indignantly as the Ishak of a previous generation had rejected a similar proposition, and, by way of defiance, accompanied his answer with the significant present of spears and iron shackles.

Muley Hamed accepted the defiance, and in November of 1590 Djouder Pasha, with a staff of ten picked generals and a very carefully selected body of officers, crossed the border at the head of his already well-prepared little force.

Military expeditions had been attempted before against Songhay by Morocco. They had always failed in consequence of the difficulty of moving large bodies of men through the desert, and their record had been records of disaster. Djouder Pasha knew his business better. The march, which Is supposed to be one of from fifty to sixty days for an ordinary caravan, seems to have doubled itself for his army, which, with carriers, hospital corps, &c., amounted to about 10,000 men; but on March 30, 1591, he encamped safely on the Niger. It was a river which had never before been seen by Moorish troops, and the general celebrated the event by a great banquet. The force appears from the account to have passed in the desert to the east of Timbuctoo, and to have then descended upon the river at a point still east of Timbuctoo, leaving the town entirely untouched.

After recruiting his forces with food and drink in the fertile country which they had entered, Djouder marched without delay towards Kagho.

In the meantime Askia Ishak, having information of the approach of the Moors, called his generals and the principal personages of the kingdom together, in order, it is said, to ask for their opinion, and to consult them on the measures to be taken. But nothing can more graphically represent the fallen condition of the country than the description which is given in two lines of the debates of this council: ** Whenever judicious advice was given it was hastily rejected." To the last moment the officials of Songhay refused to believe that the Moorish army would succeed in reaching the river. Finally, how-