Upper Senegal and Niger, Vol. 2

perfect alignment of the walls. These walls, generally made of laterite, appear as a rectangular enclosure, within which is sometimes inscribed a second enclosure parallel to the first, as is the case for the ruins of Gaoua and those of Karankasso (near Lorhosso). At Tioboulouma (west of Gagouli), one even sees the ruins of an actual stone house that possessed a second floor and still shows traces of door and window embrasures made of apparently cut stone.

What could be the origin of these ruins? Are they the vestiges of establishments that might have been installed by Portuguese gold seekers of the 15th or 16th centuries? It seems unlikely that the Portuguese would have advanced so far into the interior: Gagouli is, in fact, more than five hundred kilometers from the closest point on the coast (in this case, Grand-Bassam) and more than 1,500 kilometers from the mouth of the Rio Grande. Were these constructions the work of an indigenous population that has since disappeared? Aside from the fact that they are built of masonry—which is unusual in the Sudan—the perfect alignment of their walls and the straightness of the angles seem difficult to reconcile with the architectural genius of the Black race. Could they be the remains of a southward push by some Mediterranean people? This last hypothesis seems to me as improbable as the others; in any case, it would require additional elements of information to be sustained.

The indigenous people currently inhabiting the regions where these ruins are found—Lorho, Gan, Lobi, Birifo—all affirm that they are not native to the land. They also all affirm that, upon the arrival of their ancestors, these ruins already existed in their current state, without the indigenous people of that time—where there were any—knowing their origin. These declarations would allow the construction of these buildings to be traced back to before the 11th century of our era (1), but that is all

(1) We have seen that the probable dates of their arrival in the country are the end of the 11th century for the Lorho, the end of the 13th for the Gan, the 14th for the Lobi, and the end of the 17th for the Birifo.