425 
CHAR LI. 
HISTORICAL SURVEY OF BAG1RMI. — GENERAL CONDITION OF THE 
COUNTRY AND ITS INHABITANTS. 
With regard to the history of the eastern part of 
Negroland, we are still worse off than with regard to 
the western countries, however scanty the documents 
relating to the latter regions may be, although I may 
hope that, by my labours, a great deal more light 
has been shed upon the history of these quarters 
than was even suspected to exist before. But while 
for the kingdom of Songhay, with its celebrated 
towns Gogo and Timbuktu, we have now obtained 
an almost continuous historical account, by the tarikh 
of A'hmed Baba, and while for B6rnu tolerably rich 
materials have likewise come to our hands, by means 
of the chronicles of that empire, and of the relation 
of Imam A'hmed, for this eastern part of Negroland 
(which comprises the countries of Bagirmi, Wdday, 
or Dar Sulay and Dar-Fiir) no such documents have 
as yet been found, and, besides the information to be 
gathered from the natives, only a few detached and 
obscure statements have been handed down to us by 
the Arab writers of the middle ages. 
Those of the latter which relate in general to 
Kanem, and its capital Njfmi or Njimiye, I have 
