It is certainly a memorable fact, of which people in Europe had scarcely any idea, that a ruler of Morocco, at the time when Spain had attained its highest degree of power under Philip II., and was filled with precious metals, should open an access to an extensive and rich country, from whence to procure himself an unlimited supply of gold, to the surprise of all the potentates of Europe. It is, moreover, a very remarkable circumstance, that the soldiery by means of which Múláy Hámed subdued that far-distant kingdom, and who were left as a garrison in the conquered towns, intermarrying with the females of the country, in the same way as the Portuguese did in India, managed to rule those extensive regions by themselves, even long after they had ceased to acknowledge the supremacy of the Emperor of Morocco, whose soldiers these Rumá originally had been, Rumá or Ermá being the plural form of Rámi, “shooter” or “sharpshooter;” and although they appear never to have formed a compact body ruled by a single individual, but rather a number of small aristocratic communities, the Rumá in Timbúktu having scarcely any connection with those in Bághena, nay, probably not even with those in Bamba and Gágho, yet superior discipline enabled them to keep their place. The nationality of these Rumá puzzled me a long time, while I was collecting information on these regions in the countries farther eastward; and they have lately attracted the attention of the French traveller Raffenel[119], during his journey to Kaárta, when he learnt so much about a people, whom he calls “Arama,” that he supposed them to be a distinct tribe, although the vocabulary which he collected of their idiom, shows it to be nothing but a slight variety of the Songhay language. However, it is clear, that under such circumstances the dominion exercised by this set of half-castes could not but be of a very precarious character; and after a protracted struggle with the smaller tribes around, they have been entirely crushed by the Tawárek, and in most of the towns of Songhay form at present an integral part of the degraded native population, although they have preserved their name of Rumá, or, as the name is generally pronounced, Rummá, and still claim a sort of moral ascendancy.