182 
TRAVELS m AFRICA. 
Chap. LXXVI. 
of five days' journey from this point, and six from 
G6g6, which seems to have been a very considerable 
place in former times, but was destroyed in the lat- 
ter half of the fifteenth century, by Sonni 'All, the 
great predecessor of the still greater conqueror Haj 
Mohammed A'skia. The original name of this place I 
did not succeed in making out, but it is no doubt that 
very place which, by El Bekri* and other Arab geo- 
graphers, after the name of the tribe, has been called 
Tademekket, and which, till the middle of the seven- 
teenth century, ruled over this region. 
This large and well-built town appears to have 
been the centre of various tribes, although I can 
scarcely conceive that my informants were right, 
when they asserted that their ancestors had been 
living there, together with the Hogdr and the Kel- 
owi, as from this statement, if it were true, we 
should have in this place a much more remark- 
able example of a community founded by several 
Berber tribes together, than is afforded by the his- 
tory of A'gades. Be this as it may, the name of Siik 
has settled upon this tribe, who still form quite a 
separate body, being distinguished from the neigh- 
bouring tribes for their learning and peaceable pur- 
suits. 
* El Bekri, who is the only reliable authority, in the edition of 
de Slane, p. 181, et seq. The distance of nine days from Gogo, 
according to El Bekri, is to be regarded as the rate for heavily 
laden caravans, corresponding well to six days of light camels or 
mehara. See the itinerary from Tawat to this place, in the Ap- 
pendix. Of the (erroneous) derivation of the name of the town, I 
have spoken on a former occasion. See Vol, IV. p. 498. 
