Note 526 — APPENDIX V

Dikoa, which in earlier days was once a place of residence of the Bornu kings, lies in the German sphere of influence. With regard to the favourable situation of the town cf. Barth, Travels and Discoveries, iii. 122 ff. German edition. The natives in their superstitious fashion give as a ground for the change of residence that the ghosts of the Sultans murdered there appeared to Rabeh by night in the royal palace at Kukawa. This motive is not new; thus Mohammed Sherif, Sultan of Wadai, removed his residence from Wara to Abesher, because, as popular report had it, ‘bad ghosts had made the old royal town uninhabitable’ (Nachtigal, Sahara und Sudan, iii. 77). Of course this is not to be taken seriously. New ruling families are frequently accustomed to select new places of residence in order to wipe out as far as possible remembrances of the old dynasty, just as Kukawa itself was first founded by the Kanem dynasty at the beginning of the nineteenth century (Nachtigal, i. 586).