Note 96 — CHAP. LXVI.

It is not to be wondered at that Leo, who visited Negroland just at the time when this prince was aspiring to power, and who must have written the greater part of what he relates of him and his conquests from information which he had received after he had left the country, should treat this usurper, whose identity with his Ischia cannot be doubtful, with very little indulgence; and it even seems as if he purposely intended to give a bad interpretation to everything which the king undertook, a fact which is clearly evident from what he relates with regard to his proceedings in Háusa. That the taxes imposed by him upon his subjects may have been heavy, I concede may be true, as without a considerable revenue he was not able to keep up a strong military force; but at least they evidently must have been much less than they were in the time of Sonni ʿAlí, when almost the whole population was engaged in war. We find a very heavy duty upon salt, from each load 5l.