These Maroccan Rumas, as they were called, supplanted the dynasty of Askia, their power extending to Bakhunu, Jenné, and the Hombori Mountains. But all relations soon ceased with the mother country, and the Rumas, intermarrying with the natives, gradually lost their supremacy, although down to the beginning of the present century still controlling the navigation of the Niger a long way above and

Fig. 141. — El-Haj Abd-el-Kader Envoy of Timbuktu.

below Timbuktu. Then came the conquering Fulahs, founders of the Massina empire, and the nomad Tuaregs, who planted themselves on both banks of the river, so that the Songhais are now almost everywhere subject to peoples more powerful than themselves.

But notwithstanding their political decadence, their speech, the Kissur or Ki-