an empire two thousand miles long by one thousand wide at its greatest diameters; a territory as large as all Europe.  The territory was divided into four vice royalties, and the system of Melle, with its semi-independent native dynasties, was carried out.  His empire extended from the Atlantic to Lake Chad and from the salt mines of Tegazza and the town of Augila in the north to the 10th degree of north latitude toward the south.

It was a six months’ journey across the empire and, it is said, “he was obeyed with as much docility on the farthest limits of the empire as he was in his own palace, and there reigned everywhere great plenty and absolute peace."[20] The University of Sankore became a center of learning in correspondence with Egypt and North Africa and had a swarm of black Sudanese students.  Law, literature, grammar, geography and surgery were studied.  Askia the Great reigned thirty-six years, and his dynasty continued on the throne until after the Moorish conquest in 1591.

Meanwhile, to the eastward, two powerful states appeared.  They never disputed the military supremacy of Songhay, but their industrial development was marvelous.  The Hausa states were formed by seven original cities, of which Kano was the oldest and Katsena the most famous.  Their greatest leaders, Mohammed Rimpa and Ahmadu Kesoke, arose in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.  The land was subject to the Songhay, but the cities became industrious centers of smelting, weaving, and dyeing.  Katsena especially, in the middle of the sixteenth century, is described as a place thirteen or fourteen miles in circumference, divided into quarters for strangers, for visitors from various other states, and for the different trades and industries, as saddlers, shoemakers, dyers, etc.

Beyond the Hausa states and bordering on Lake Chad was Bornu.  The people of Bornu had a large infiltration of Berber blood, but were predominantly Negro.  Berber mulattoes had been kings in early days, but they were soon replaced by black men.  Under the early kings, who can be traced back to the third century, these people had ruled nearly all the territory between the Nile and Lake Chad.  The country was known as Kanem, and the pagan dynasty of Dugu reigned there from the middle of the ninth to the end of the eleventh century.  Mohammedanism was introduced from Egypt at the end of the eleventh century, and under the Mohammedan kings Kanem became one of the first powers of the Sudan.  By the end of the twelfth century the armies of Kanem were very powerful and its rulers were known as “Kings of Kanem and Lords of Bornu.”  In the thirteenth century the kings even dared to invade the southern country down toward the valley of the Congo.