302 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY Djouder's first intimation of the storm was the arrival of Mohammed ben Zergoun at Timbuctoo, accompanied by a new staff and invested with full powers by the Sultan.

Mohammed immediately deposed Djouder and assumed the supreme command, at the same time indulging his personal enmity by the bitterness of a military crossexamination, in which he taunted Djouder with his inactivity, and asked what had prevented him from pursuing the Askia across the river. Djouder answered that it was the lack of boats, which had all been removed by the enemy. Mohammed ordered boats to be constructed, for which purpose the plantations of trees which had been made within the walls to beautify the town of Timbuctoo were cut down, and the panels of the doors were torn from the houses. It was the beginning of the destruction which was soon to fall upon the country. From this time Songhay was allowed no pause upon the downward path.

The orders of Muley Hamed to his new commanderin-chief were that Askia Ishak was to be driven from the Soudan, and Mohammed lost no time in proceeding to carry his instructions into effect. Djouder Pasha had reached the country in April, at the beginning of the rains, and his period of inactivity corresponded to the season of highest flood, when in many districts the Niger, overflowing its shores, spreads like a lake over wide tracts of country. Mohammed arrived at Timbuctoo on the 17th of August. In the last week of September, when the rains are drawing towards their close, the army, having with it Djouder Pasha and all the revoked generals who had composed Djouder Pasha's staff, marched south-eastward towards Kuka in Borgu, where Askia Ishak was established. In a battle which was fought on October 14th Ishak was completely defeated, and fled within the confines of the Viceroyalty of Dandi to the same spot, Korai Gurma, at which the remains of his army had crossed the river when fleeing