THE SOUDAN UNDER THE MOORS 311 one speaks to him of the Sultan," said one report, "he draws his sword half out of the scabbard, and says, 'Here is the Sultan!'" The indignation of Muley Hamed knew no bounds, and he despatched a new Pasha, Mansour Abdurrahman, to the Soudan with orders to arrest Mahmoud ben Zergoun and put him to an ignominious death.

With this sentence, of which he was of course quickly informed, hanging over his head,. Mahmoud determined to make what he could of his position. By the cruel licence of his rule, the western part of the Soudan had become too hot to hold him. The Fulani ruler of the province of Masina, who had interceded urgently, but vainly, in favour of the noble families of Timbuctoo, had revolted against the Moors. The once prosperous territory of Jenne was also in perpetual disorder. After a short campaign against Masina, of which, though it was accompanied by widespread massacre of the peaceful population and destruction of the crops, the result was practically nil, Mahmoud resolved to rally all his ji forces for a campaign against the still independent Askia of Songhay in the east, and to put the greatest possible distance between himself and the avenging emissary of the Sultan.

Askia Nouh, having in the meantime strengthened his own position in the province of Dandi, and entered into close alliance with Kebbi on his northern frontier, had succeeded in forcing the chain of Moorish fortresses at a place called Kolen on the Niger, and advanced into the Bend of the Niger, where he awaited the coming of Mahmoud. Mahmoud called upon Djouder to join him with all available forces from Kagho.

But Djouder finding a suitable excuse, Mahmoud, who seems in the first instance to have been successful and to have possessed himself again of the territory of Gurma and Borgu, pressed on in an easterly direction, taking with him the dummy Askia Suleiman as far as the rocks of Almena. Unless there exist some other