CHAPTER VIII THE SOUDANESE STATES We come now to the history of Negroland itself, which began to be known in its relatively modern development from about the period of the Arab conquest of Africa and Spain. The sources of information regarding it are mainly Arab, and the earliest records which have been preserved carry us only vaguely back beyond the seventh century of the Christian era. The records which exist make it clear that the Empire of the Two Shores established by the Arabs in North Africa and Spain was the commercial field of Negroland. This was also the case with the territories included in the dominion of the Eastern Caliphate, and intercourse was frequent between the principal countries of Negroland and the towns of North Africa, Spain, Egypt, Syria, and xArabia. Negroland was therefore in closer touch than many of the countries of Northern Europe with the highest civilisation of the period, and the effect of this closer relation is of course traceable in its history. Throughout the whole period it would seem that the ancient tradition of civilisation, which had come to it from the East, so far prevailed that the kingdoms of Negroland were disposed to acknowledge the political supremacy of the Eastern, rather than of the Western Caliphate. More than once in later times there are instances of their sovereigns accepting investiture from the Sultan of Egypt, even after the overthrow of the Caliphate by the Turks. But their intellectual and commercial intercourse would appear to have been more active with the West than with the East ; and in tracing the course of civilisation in their