28o TRAVELS IN AFRICA, 
increafing, which made me imagine his reign would not be 
Ions:. 
Hlfiory. 
Mohammed Teraub, already mentioned, was preceded by a 
king named Abd-el-Cafim ; Abd-el-Cafim by Bokar ; Bokar by 
Omar. Some of the earlier kings are yet fpoken of under the 
names of Solyman, Mohammed, &c. But as the people of the 
country pofTefs no written documents, I found thofe of whom I 
inquired often at variance both with regard to the genealogy and 
the fucceffion of their monarchs. In all countries thefe are 
points of fmall import ; but efpecially in one of which fo few 
particulars are known to us. It may yet be remarked, that 
they commonly mention the reign of Solyman, as the epocha 
when Iflamifm began to prevail in the country. Defcribing this 
Sultan, at the fame time, as of the Dageou race, which fwayed 
the fceptre long before that of Fur became powerful. Circum- 
ftances have inclined me to believe, that the reign of this prince 
muft have been from one hundred and thirty to one hundred 
and fifty years ago. 
On what the natives relate of their early hiftory, little de- 
pendence can be placed : but it feems that the Dageou race came 
originally from the North, having been expelled from that part 
of Africa now, nominally at leaft, under the dominion of 
Tunis*. rr a 
Harvejty 
* I remember to have borrowed, while at Damafcus, a fmall quarto volume, 
written in eafy Arabic, without either title or conclufion, v/hich contained a kind 
of 
