406 
CHAP. LXVI. 
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE HISTORY OF SONGHAY AND 
TIMBtJKTU. 
Pkeviously to my journey into the region of the Niger, 
scarcely any data were known with regard to the his- 
tory of this wide and important tract, except a few 
isolated facts, elicited with great intelligence and re- 
search by Mr. Cooley* from El Bekri, the history 
of Ebn Khaldiin, the obscure and confused report 
of Leo about the great Ischia, and the barren state- 
ment of the conquest of Timbuktu and Gagho, or 
Gogo, by Mulay A'hmed el Dhehebi, as mentioned 
by some historians of Morocco and Spain, But 
I myself was so successful as to have an opportunity 
of perusing a complete history of the kingdom of 
Songhay, from the very dawn of historical records 
down to the year 1640 of our era; although, unfor- 
tunately, circumstances prevented my bringing back 
a complete copy of this manuscript, which forms a 
respectable quarto volume, and I was only able, during 
the few days that I had this manuscript in my hands 
during my stay in Gando, to make short extracts of 
those passages from its contents which I thought of 
* Cooley, " Negroland of the Arabs." 
