g8 TRAVELS IN AFRICA, 
A. D. 877. Ilhak fends a fleet againft Sicily. Sj^racufe is 
befieged for nine months, taken, facked, and all the inhabitants 
put to the fvvord. The booty of that commercial city was 
immenfe. 
'The Egyptians invaded Africa, and befieged Tripoli, but 
were forced to retire on the approach of Ifhak, with his regular 
negro troops. 
878. A dreadful famine in Africa ; corn at eight pieces 
of gold the bufhel. 
Ifliak was a moft cruel prince. It is reported that he put 
to death, in one day, fixteen of his own natural daughters by 
various concubines. His mother prefenting him with two 
beautiful female flaves, he fent her in return a platter covered 
with a napkin ; on lifting it up, inftead of jewels as fhe ex- 
peCted, fhe beheld the heads of the two flaves. He was fuc- 
ceeded by his fon Abu-'l- Abbas- Abd ullah, murdered by his 
brother Ziadet-Ullah, who feized the fceptre of Africa. 
908. A revolt arifmg, the timid Ziadet-Ullah abandoned 
his dominions, and retired to Egypt, then governed by 
Bafi-el-Nuchifi, in the name of Muktadir-b'illah, eighteenth 
Chalif of the dynafty of the Abbafri4es. With Ziadet-Ullah 
expired the dynafty of the Aglabites, which had ruled Africa 
for an hundred and eight years *. 
* Their authority did not extend over the ancient Mauritania. The Edriflite 
dynafty ruled Ceuta, Fez, Tangier, &c. Fez was built by them in 788. 
SECT. 
