I 
Chap. LXVI. a'HMED BAWs AUTHORITY. 409 
habitat in the waters of the Niger I shall say more 
further on ; while 'AK Killun succeeded in usurping 
the royal power by liberating his country from the 
sovereignty of the kings of Melle, who had conquered 
Sbnghay about the middle of the fourteenth century. 
Nor can there be any doubt of the truth of the state- 
ment that Za-Kasi, the fifteenth king of the dynasty 
of the Za, about the year 400 of the Hejra, or in the 
beginning of the eleventh century of our era, embraced 
Islam, and was the first Mohammedan king of Son- 
ghay. No man who studies impartially those very 
extracts which I have been able to make from the 
manuscript, in great haste and under the most unfa- 
vourable circumstances, and which were translated 
and published in the journal of the Leipsic Oriental 
Society* by Mr. Ralfs, can deny that they contain a 
vast amount of valuable information. But the know- 
ledge which Europeans possessed of those countries, 
before my discoveries, was so limited, as to render 
the greater part of the contents of my extracts, which 
are intimately related to localities formerly entirely 
unknown, or in connection with historical facts not 
better ascertained, difficult of comprehension. But 
with the light now shed by my journey and my re- 
searches over these regions and their inhabitants, I 
have no hesitation in asserting that the work of 
A'hmed Baba will be one of the most important 
additions which the present age has made to the 
* Journal of the Leipsic Oriental Society, vol. ix. p. 518. 
