300 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY peace which were offered by Askia Ishak. The account which has reached us of these appears to be very incomplete. All we are told is of one condition — that Songhay should pay an indemnity of 100,000 pieces of gold and 1000 slaves, and that the Moorish army should return to Morocco. To these advances Djouder — who seems to have been very little impressed with the riches of Kagho — was content to reply that he was not a principal : he was the servant of the Sultan, and could only refer the question to Morocco.

After consulting with the Arab merchants of the town, he drew up proposals which he despatched by a sure messenger to Muley Hamed, and leaving Kagho, after having been only seventeen days in the town, he withdrew his troops to Timbuctoo, where he resolved to await the answer of the Sultan. The people of Timbuctoo, in view of the difficulty of transporting themselves and their property with safety into the province of Gurma, had not obeyed the summons of Askia, but preferred the chances of negotiation with the Moors to the certainty of destruction among their own countrymen. They only profited so far by the order to evacuate the town as to hold themselves dispensed from any duty to defend it. They received Djouder coldly, but without opposition, and he, who during the whole of this early period appears to have kept his troops in admirable control, selected the quarter of the town which he preferred, and proceeded to build a fortress in it, while he kept the greater part of his army encamped outside the town. Cold civilities were exchanged on both sides between him and the authorities. People augured, it is said, nothing good from the position of affairs ; but a sort of thunderous truce was maintained until the messenger should have time to return from Morocco with the signification of the Sultan's will. The messenger left Kagho in April. The Moorish troops entered Timbuctoo on the 30th of May. It was not until August that the answer of the Sultan was received.