382 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY Masina drew its kings from four tribes, of which one inhabited Quaiaka and one Borgu. We are also told that, by an agreement between themselves, the people of Masina had for their kings alternately a Berber and a Fulani. Presumably, therefore, the tribes of Quaiaka and Borgu were Fulani, and the other two of the four were Berbers. This arrangement, mentioned at so early a period, is illustrative of the adaptable nature of Fulani institutions.

Masina was independent enough at the end of the ninth century to solicit help from the Berber kings of the Desert Empire against black neighbours who pressed upon it inconveniently, and to carry through a victorious campaign. It held its own against Ghana in the great days of that pagan empire, and maintained itself as a centre of Fulani rule through the administrations alike of Melle and of Songhay.

It is in the early period of the rise of Melle — that is, in the thirteenth century — that we have the first record of Fulani immigration from Melle into the Haussa States and Bornu. From this we may infer a certain pressure by the rising power upon the Fulani of the west, but those who migrated to Haussaland at this period were apparently purely pastoral nomads, who took their place humbly in their new home as Cow Fulani, and were content to pay tax to the local kings. During the military campaigns which preceded the rise of the Songhay dynasty in the fifteenth century, we hear constantly of expeditions undertaken against the Fulani, who would seem to have resisted stoutly all encroachments upon their liberty. Sonni Ali in 1492 conquered the Fulani of Gurma in the eastern portion of the Bend of the Niger. Sonni Ali also apparently conquered Masina so far as to induce it to pay tribute and to accept the investiture of its rulers from the hands of Timbuctoo, but it jealously guarded its administrative independence, and throughout the records of the Songhay dynasty wars with Masina were of frequent recurrence. Differences of religion