430 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. Chap. LXYI. 
was found among the Songhay when they were con- 
quered by the Moroccains had, I have no doubt, formed 
part of the present which the Portuguese had for- 
warded to A'skia Miisa, as we shall further see in 
detail in the chronological tables ; but the fact of 
the enemy having found this piece of ordnance among 
the spoil of the capital, and not in the thick of the 
battle, sufficiently proves that the Songhay did not 
know how to use it. As for the matchlocks, which 
even at the present day are preserved in Gagho, and 
of which, by some accident, I did not obtain a sight, 
they belonged originally to the very conquerors from 
Morocco, who afterwards, as Rumd, formed a sta- 
tionary garrison, and even a certain aristocratical 
body, in all the chief towns of the kingdom. 
Side by side with a certain degree of civilisation, 
no doubt, many barbarous customs were retained, 
such as the use of the lash, which in other parts of 
Negroland we find rarely employed, except in the 
case of slaves, but which, in Songhay, we see made 
use of constantly, even in the case of persons of the 
highest rank ; and instances occur, as in that of the 
instigator of the revolt of El Hadi, under the king 
El Haj, of persons being flogged to death.* 
It is certainly a memorable fact, of which people 
in Europe had scarcely any idea, that a ruler of Mo- 
rocco, at the time when Spain had attained its highest 
degree of power under Philip II., and was filled with 
precious metals, should open an access to an ex- 
* Journal of the Leipsic Oriental Society, p. 543. 
