which could not but become apparent to intelligent rulers, notwithstanding the humble character of “berroróji,” under which they used to immigrate and settle in foreign countries; and this is the acknowledged reason why the Gabéro, a tribe whom we shall meet in the course of our proceedings on the river below Gágho, have entirely forgotten their Fulfúlde idiom, not having been allowed, for a certain period, to use it. Whether it be true, as the Féllani-n-Háusa assert, that Kanta, the founder of the homonymous dynasty of Kébbi in the very beginning of the sixteenth century was originally a slave of a party of Fúlbe settled in the country, a fact which, if confirmed, would prove the early settlement of the tribe in this country, I am unable to decide, although it is certainly true that in the course of the sixteenth century the Fúlbe became strong enough, in the regions on the east side of the Ísa or Kwára, to exercise a great influence in the struggles which ensued between the successors of the first Kanta, while it was a chief of their tribe, the ruler of Danka, or Denga, who, according to Áhmed Bábá[49], first began his predatory incursions into the Songhay territory, laying waste the fertile and once extremely populous region along the Rás el má. It is thus explained how, even in the beginning of the seventeenth century, Fúlbe tribes were settled in several places of Bagírmi.[50] But just on account of the vastness of the region over which they were scattered, were these people, while pursuing only their own local interest, powerless even in these loosely-connected and almost crumbling kingdoms, where they had found a new home, with the exception of Bághena, where they appear to have formed a nucleus of greater strength, but destitute of any religious impulse.