54 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY Lemtunah king who died in the year 837, the Desert Empire reached its height. Twenty Negro kings paid tribute to him. It is said of his kingdom that the climate was so healthy that men commonly reached in it the age of eighty. The sons and successors of Tiloutan reigned successfully until the year 918, when the dynasty was overthrown by the Senajah. After this there was confusion mixed with conquest for about 1 20 years, until there came to the throne a Senajah ruler of the name of Yahya, under whom there took place a union of the tribes which resulted in the foundation of the Empire of Morocco.

In 1048 Yahya made the pilgrimage to Mecca, and brought back with him for the instruction of his people a religious teacher, Ibn Yasin. The united tribes had never wholly abandoned the nomad habits of their ancestors. They were a hardy, active people, who had kept the abstemious customs of the desert. Their principal wealth consisted in their flocks. They were among those of whom it was said that many of them passed their lives without ever seeing bread. They had long since embraced Islam, but they had apparently strayed from the true path, and the reformation preached by Ibn Yasin was stern. Severe penalties were imposed on wrong-doing. The man who told a lie was beaten with eighty strokes ; the man who drank wine was beaten with eighty strokes ; serious offences were more heavily punished ; and every stranger who joined the sect was required to forfeit one-third of his property by way of redemption for any injustice by which he might have acquired the rest.

The pressure of these doctrines in application produced a revolt. Ibn Yasin with a few of his followers withdrew to an island in the Senegal, the river which formed the southern frontier of the Desert Kingdom. Here he practised in rigid seclusion all he taught. The fame of his doctrine spread through the West, and thousands flocked to him, till at last, seeing the number of his followers daily increase, he declared to them that it was not enough to accept the truth themselves, they must also