74 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY ings, a deputation from the king of the black countries of Bornu and Kanem, who sent amongst other gifts a giraffe, which so interested and delighted the inhabitants of Tunis that it excited the greatest enthusiasm.

At Fez, which now became the capital of the Merinite sovereigns, beautiful palaces and gardens were constructed, and the life of the higher nobility was conducted with much state. Learning also was encouraged, and it is interesting to observe, as the result of a ''Holy War" successfully carried on against the Christians in Spain by one of the greatest of the Merinite sovereigns of Morocco, that among the conditions of peace imposed by the Moslem king was the surrender of all scientific works which had fallen into the hands of the Christians in the capture of Mussulman towns. Unfortunately only about iioo volumes had been saved. These were afterwards conveyed to the University of Fez. Ibn Khaldun says that literature presently declined at the court of Fez, owing to the too great materialism of the Merinite sovereigns. This was not the opinion of the celebrated traveller Ibn Batuta, but Ibn Khaldun was probably the better judge.

Ibn Batuta, who, like Ibn Khaldun, was born in North Africa of Arab parents, though about thirty years earlier (1303), distinguished himself by spending five-and-twenty years in travel, which extended over the greater part of the known world, and included Europe, India, China, and Thibet. He entered the "white town of Fez" on the 8th of November 1349, and decided there to lay aside his pilgrim's staff, because, for reasons which he sets forth at length, his judgment was convinced that the noble country over which its sovereign ruled was the best country and the best administered of all those that he had visited.

Here he found the conditions of life better than in any other country. Food was more plentiful, varied, and cheap ; life and property were more secure, law was milder, justice was more assured, charity more fully organised, religion more truly maintained, and literature, science, and art more