THE PRESENT STATE OF BA'gHENA. 501 
Baghena forms part of the district El Hodh, at least that 
portion of it which is most favoured by nature ; and in a po- 
litical point of view it consists of the most heterogeneous 
elements, comprising districts inhabited by Aswanek, Arabs, 
and Fullan. The former, even at the end of the last cen- 
tury, were very powerful, when they became known to Ven- 
ture under the name of Marka*, through the medium of 
those two Moroccain merchants who visited Paris at that 
time. This name is given to them by the Bambara, who call 
their country Marka-kanne or kanda, and are greatly inter- 
mixed with them. The Fullan hereabouts also formerly had 
great power, and have become famous under the name Kowar. 
The Aswanek, Swaninki, Sebe, or Wakore, were the 
original inhabitants of the country, and once formed the 
principal stock in the vast and glorious empire of Ghanata, 
the ruling class not improbably belonging to the Pullo stock, 
the Leukaethiopes, who were settled in this very region since 
the time of Ptolemy, till they were overpowered by the 
nearly related tribe of the Mandingoes or Jull, who, on the 
ruins of the empire of Ghanata, founded a new empire, 
extending its influence over the whole middle course of the 
great river. This new empire was called *^ Melle," from 
melle, a word meaning " free," noble," as the dominating 
tribe of the Mandingoes called themselves, in opposition to 
their oppressed brethren, the Aswanek, just in the same 
manner as the free, roving portion of the Berbers from 
ancient times seem to have called themselves Mazigh, Imo- 
shagh, in opposition to the degraded settlers in the towns. 
The feeble remains of the empire of Melle, which had been 
nearly annihilated by the Songhay, were extinguished, as it 
seems,in the beginning of the reign of Mulay Ismail, when the 
Arabs on the one side, and the Bambara on the other, began 
to take the lead in those quarters, while the Fulbe or Fullan 
appeared in the background. 
* Venture, Vocabulaire Berbere, ed. Jaubert, Appendix, p. 225. 
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