The influence of learning and study, even in the royal family, is apparent enough from the example of the pretender Mohammed Bánkorí[115], who, when on his march to Gágho, ready to fight the king El Háj Áskía, was induced by the kádhi of Timbúktu, whom he by chance visited, to give up his ambitious designs for a quiet course of study, to the great astonishment and disappointment of his army, who expected to be led by him, in a bloody contest, to power and wealth. Áhmed Bábá himself, the author of the history of Songhay, who gives a long list of learned natives of Negroland, may serve as a fair specimen of the learning in Timbúktu at that time. He had a library of 1600 books. A great deal of commerce was carried on in Songhay during the dominion of the Áskías, especially in the towns of Gágho and Kúkiya; the latter being, as it appears, the especial market for gold as early as the latter half of the eleventh century. Salt, too, was the staple commodity, while shells already at that time constituted the general currency of the market; not, however, the same kind of shells that are used at present, but a different sort which were introduced from Persia; and there is no doubt that, even at that time, almost all the luxuries of the Arabs found their way into this part of Negroland. That Timbúktu also, since the decline of Bíru or Waláta, in the latter part of the fifteenth century, formed an important place for foreign commerce, is evident from the fact that the merchants of Ghadámes, even at the taking of the town by the Bashá Jódar, inhabited the same quarter as at the present day. We also see, from Leo’s account[116], that the king of Songhay was obliged to spend a great proportion of his revenue in the purchase of horses from Barbary, by means of which he improved the native breed, as we have seen was the case in Bórnu, cavalry constituting the principal military strength of countries in the state of civilisation which prevails in Negroland. We also find coats of mail mentioned, as well as brass helmets, but no allusion is made to even a single musketeer, nor is the use of any firearms intimated by Áhmed Bábá, although he distinctly describes several engagements, and even single combats. It was this circumstance which secured to the small army sent by the Emperor of Morocco, a superiority which could not be contested by any numbers which the last Áskía, ruling over a kingdom of vast extent but undermined by intrigues and civil war, was able to oppose to it; and we must not conclude, from this circumstance, that an army of 4000 men was a great thing at that time in point of numbers, for the kings of Negroland, at least those of Songhay and Bórnu, at that period, were able to raise greater armies than any of the present kings of those regions could bring together, and we hear of an army of 140,000 men.