III.] THE AFRICAN NEGRO: I. SUDANESE. 47 



river, the Jatinke of Futa-Jallon, and the Bamana of Bambara, 

 these being the more important historical and cultured groups. 



According to native tradition and the annals of Ahmad Baba, 

 rescued from oblivion by Barth \ the first Man- 

 dingan state of Guine (Ghana, Ghanata), a name 

 still surviving in the vague geographical term "Guinea," goes 

 back to pre-Muhammadan times. Wakayamangha, The Guin6 

 its legendary founder, is supposed to have flourished and Mali 

 300 years before the Hejira, at which date twenty- 

 two kings had already reigned. Sixty years after that time the 

 Moslem Arabs or Berbers are said to have already reached West 

 Sudan, where they had twelve mosques in Ghana, first capital 

 of the empire, and their chief stronghold till the foundation of 

 Jinni on the Upper Niger (1043 A.D.). 



Two centuries later (1235 60) the centre of the Mandingan 

 rule was transferred to Mali, which under the great king Mansa- 

 Musa (1311 1331) became the most powerful Sudanese state 

 of which there is any authentic record. For a time it included 

 nearly the whole of West Sudan, and a great part of the western 

 Sahara, besides the Sonrhay State with its capital Gogo, and 

 Timbuktu. Mansa-Musa, who, in the language of the chronicler, 

 "wielded a power without measure or limits," entered into friendly 

 relations with the emperor of Morocco, and made a famous 

 pilgrimage to Mecca, the splendours of which still linger in the 

 memory of the Mussulman populations through whose lands the 

 interminable procession wound its way. He headed 60,000 men 

 of arms, says Ahmad Baba, and wherever he passed he was pre- 

 ceded by 500 slaves, each bearing a gold stick weighing 500 

 mitkals (14 Ibs.), the whole representing a money value of about 

 ,4,000,000 (?). The people of Cairo and Mecca were dazzled 

 by his wealth and munificence; but during the journey a great 

 part of his followers were seized by a painful malady called in 

 their language tuat^ and this word still lives in the Oasis of Tuat, 

 where most of them perished. 



Even after the capture of Timbuktu by the Tuaregs (1433), 

 Mali long continued to be the chief state in West Nigritia, and 



1 Travels, Vol. IV. p. 579 sqq. 



