78 TRAVELS IN AFRICA. Chap. XXIV. 
transferred to Katsena, although this latter place 
seems never to have had any considerable trade in 
gold, which formed the staple of the market of Gogo. 
Thus the town went on increasing to that enormous 
size, the vestiges of which still exist at the present 
time, although the quarter actually inhabited com- 
prises but a small part of its extent.* 
The town, if only half of its immense area were 
ever tolerably well inhabited, must certainly have had 
a population of at least a hundred thousand souls ; 
for its circuit is between thirteen and fourteen En- 
glish miles. At present, when the inhabited quarter 
is reduced to the north-western part, and when 
even this is mostly deserted, there are scarcely seven 
or eight thousand people living in it. In former 
times it was the residence of a prince, who, though 
he seems never to have attained to any remark- 
able degree of power, and was indeed almost always 
in some degree dependent on, or a vassal of, the king 
of Bornu, nevertheless was one of the most wealthy 
and conspicuous rulers of Negroland.f Every prince 
* For the names of the quarters of the town, which are not 
destitute of interest, see Appendix I. 
f It was most probably a king of Katsena, whom Makrlzi en- 
titled king of A'funu (Hamaker, Spec. Cat. p. 206.), remarking 
the great jealousy with which he watched his wives, although the 
name Mastud which he gives to him, does not occur in the lists 
of the kings of Katsena which have come to my knowledge, and 
does not even seem to be a true native name. The power of the 
prince of Katsena towards the end of the last century (Lucas, 
Horneman) seems to have been rather transient, being based on 
the then weakness of Bornu. 
