THE MOORISH CONQUEST 301 In the meantime, though Djouder held his troops sternly in leash, Askia Ishak remained in the far eastern provinces, and the Songhay Empire became aware that one form of central authority had been destroyed, and that no other had been substituted. Subversive forces began to work on all its borders. The antagonistic tribes which had been held in peace by the strength of supreme authority broke into war. The first to rise were tribes in the neighbourhood of Timbuctoo itself, who plundered the rich territory on the banks of the river which is known as the Ras-el-ma, or Head of the Waters, and carried off the inhabitants as slaves. Then the people of Zaghawa, a particularly wealthy district to the south-west, which was mentioned, it may be remembered, by Ibn Batuta, did the same thing in territories lying within the Viceroyalty of Kormina. The territory of Jenne was ravaged in the most horrible manner by pagan barbarians from the south who had long been a terror to its inhabitants. Throughout the west there was an outbreak of brigandage, and among the tribes who profited by this period of licence to enrich themselves at their neighbours' expense are to be found more than one under the leadership of Fulani chiefs. In the eastern portion of the empire the disaffected populations tended to gather round the defeated Askia in the territory of Borgu to which he had fled.

Upon all this Djouder's blue eyes appear to have looked with steely indifference while he waited for the orders of the Sultan. They came in a form which was not expected. The receipt of the proposal for peace aroused nothing but fury in Muley Hamed's mind. That such a victory as had been achieved should lead to so small a result appeared to him to be the evidence only of treachery. Advisers were not wanting who whispered that the general had been bribed, and in a transport of rage the Sultan deposed Djouder Pasha from his command. A personal enemy, Mohammed ben Zergoun, was made commander-in-chief in his place.