384 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY of the Bend of the Niger joined the banners of his son.

It was as a partly Fulanl kingdom that KebbI became great, and the Fulani may perhaps be said to have first taken a position as rulers on the eastern side of the Niger when they helped Tomo, the son of Kanta, to fight Bornu, and to found the even now celebrated town of Birni-n-Kebbl within the borders of Haussaland In 1544. They had also, In the sixteenth century, spread Into Baghlrmi on the eastern side of Chad. In the west they gradually absorbed the province of Wangara, and greatly aggrandised their ancient territory of Maslna.

It Is clear that, throughout the whole period of the domination of the Songhay, the Fulanl in their different centres of occupation increased In importance and in military strength, and were beginning to assert themselves definitely as a cultivated people with a capacity for rule. The Askias, by the many expeditions which are recorded against Fulani tribes, display a certain uneasiness at the growing independence of this people. In the year 1 59 1, the very year of the coming of the Moors, Fulani chiefs took a leading part In the sack of the territory of Jenne, and more than one punitive expedition was rendered necessary by their turbulence.

Thus, at the end of the sixteenth century, the Fulani had already extended themselves through the Western Soudan as pastoral nomads, independent, though paying a grazing-tax, In all the countries which they occupied from the sources of the Senegal to Lake Chad. At more than one point on this extended line centres of government had been founded, and Fulani troops had established for themselves a reputation as military conquerors.

At the moment of the coming of the Moors they were the rising power of the Soudan, and during the Moorish troubles at the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries, they used their opportunity to assert their independence of Songhay. The resistance offered by the half Fulani state of Kebbi to the eastward advance of the Moors has been mentioned in an earlier