416 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. Chap. LXVI. 
introducing such of the institutions of Mohammedan 
civilisation as he considered might be useful to his 
subjects. It is only to be lamented that, as is gene- 
rally the case in historical records, while we are 
tolerably well informed as to the warlike proceedings 
of this king, it is merely from circumstances which 
occasionally transpire and are slightly touched upon, 
that we can draw conclusions as to the interior con- 
dition of his empire ; and on this point I will make 
a few observations, before I proceed to the causes 
which rendered the foundation of this empire so 
unstable. 
In a former part of my researches I have entered 
into the history and the polity of the empire of 
Bornu, and it is interesting to compare with the 
latter that of the Songhay empire, which attained 
the zenith of its power just at the time when B6rnu 
likewise, having recovered, in consequence of the 
energy and warlike spirit of the king e Ali Gha- 
jideni, from the wounds inflicted upon it by the loss 
of Kanem, the desperate struggle with the tribe 
of the Soy, and a series of civil wars, attained its 
most glorious period during the reign of the two 
Edris, in the course of the sixteenth century of our 
era. 
In instituting such a comparison between these 
two extensive kingdoms of Negroland, we soon dis- 
cover that the Songhay empire, although likewise 
stated to be founded by a Libyan dynasty, was far 
more despotic than its eastern rival ; and it is in 
