Mohammed Galaijo, at the time of my visit, was a man of about seventy years of age, of an extremely pleasant and almost European expression of countenance, and of middle stature. He was dressed very simply, in a light-blue tobe, with a white shawl wound round his face. Galaijo, son of Hambodéjo, son of Páte, son of Hámed Yella, succeeded his father—probably the very chief who treated Mungo Park so hospitably during his stay in Másina—in the year of the Hejra, 1231. He was then the most powerful chief of Másina, or Melle, which, since the overthrow of the Songhay empire by Múlay Hámed el Dhéhebí the emperor of Morocco, had been left to itself, and was consequently split into several petty kingdoms, the three other powerful chiefs of that country being the Árdo Másina, the Árdo Fíttogel, and Gél Hamma Mána. But just at the time when Galaijo became ruler, the great religious movement of the Fúlbe of Góber began, under the Reformer ʿOthmán, and, instigated by their example, and fired with religious zeal, a chief went forth from them, in order to spread Islám among that section of the Fúlbe which was established along the upper course of the Niger. This man was Mohammed or Hámed Lebbo, who, arriving in the country of Másina in the beginning of the year 1233 of the Hejra, at the head of a small band, formed first an alliance with Galaijo, who himself had embraced Islám; and, thus closely allied, they spread their conquests over the neighbouring country. But, after having succeeded in establishing a strong power, Mohammed Lebbo demanded homage and allegiance from his ally Galaijo, under the pretext of his having brought the ensign, or túta, of Islám from Sifáwa, the place mentioned on a former occasion, where the Reformer ʿOthmán dan Fódiye resided at the time, together with his brother ʿAbd Alláhi. Upon this, Galaijo, feeling little inclined to cede the dominion of the country over which his claims had been established from ancient times, entered into a violent struggle with the new comer; but after an unsuccessful resistance, carried on for three years, he was obliged to give up his former residence, Konári, and, with the rest of his partisans, to seek a new home further eastward. Here he was received with open arms by the ruler of Gando, who was not at all pleased with the independent bearing of Lebbo and his son Áhmedu, by whom he was succeeded,—those people, being borne away by a pure reformatory view of their religion, and elated by their victory, going so far as to despatch a message to their kinsmen in Sókoto and Gando, to the effect that, if they would not reduce the number of their wives to two, and renounce their wide effeminate dress, they would pay them a hostile visit; and it is on this account that, even at the present time, there is no amicable relation whatever subsisting between the courts of Sókoto and Gando, on the one hand, and that of Hamda-Alláhi on the other.