286 THE BAGDHAD OF THE WEST. 



travellers, and murder those who have the reputation 

 of unusual wealth, as they did Miss Tinne', whose iron 

 water tanks they imagined to be filled with gold. 

 When they poured down on the Sahara, they were 

 soon attracted by the rich pastures and alluvial plains 

 of the black country. In course of time their raids 

 were converted into conquests, and they established a 

 line of kingdoms from the Niger to the Nile, in the 

 border laud between the Sahara and the parallel 10° N. 

 Timbuctoo, Haoussa, Bornou, Baghirmi, Waday, Dar- 

 fur, and Kordofan, were the names of these kingdoms ; 

 in all of them Islam is now the religion of the state ; 

 all of them belong to the Asiatic world. 



The Tuaricks of the Soudan were merely the ruling 

 caste, and were much darkened by harem blood : but 

 they communicated freely with their brethren of the 

 desert, who had dealings with the Berbers beyond the 

 Atlas. When the Andalusia of the Arabs became a 

 polite and civilised land crowds of ingenious artisans, 

 descended from the old Roman craftsmen, or from 

 Greek emigrants, or from their Arab apprentices, took 

 architecture over to North Africa. The city of 

 Morocco was filled with magnificent palaces and 

 mosques ; it became the metropolis of an indepen- 

 dent kingdom ; it was called the Bagdhad of the 

 west ; its doctors were as learned as the doctors of 

 Cordova, its musicians as skilful as the musicians of 

 Seville. A wealthy and powerful Morocco could not 

 exist without its influence being felt across the desert : 

 the position of Timbuctoo in reference to Morocco was 

 precisely that of Meroe to Memphis or to Thebes. 

 The Sahara, it is true, is much wider across from 

 Morocco to Timbuctoo than from Egypt to Ethiopia, 

 but the introduction of camels brought the Atlas and 



