flies. He goes on to say, "For all its squalor, qintars of qintars of gold dust are traded in Taghaza." The salt mines became known in Europe not long after Ibn Battuta's visit as Taghaza was shown on the Catalan Atlas of 1375 on the trans-Saharan trade route linking Sijilmasa and Timbuktu. Alvise Cadamosto learned in 1455 that Taghaza salt was taken to Timbuktu and then on to Mali. It was then carried "a great distance" to be bartered for gold. In around 1510 Leo Africanus spent 3 days in Taghaza. In his Descrittione dell’Africa he mentions that the location of the mines, 20 days journey from a source of food, meant that there was a risk of starvation. At the time of Leo's visit, Oualata was no longer an important terminus for the trans-Saharan trade and salt was instead taken south to Timbuktu. Like Ibn Battuta before him, Leo complained about the brackish well water. Sixteenth century At some date Taghaza came under the control of the Songhai Empire which had its capital at the city of Gao on the Niger River across the Sahara. Al-Sadi in his Tarikh al-Sudan chronicles the efforts of the Moroccan rulers of the Saadi dynasty to wrestle control of the mines from the Songhai during the 16th century. In around 1540 the Saadian Sultan Ahmad al-Araj asked the Songhai leader Askia Ishaq I to cede the Taghaza mines. According to al-Sadi, Askia Ishaq I responded by sending men to raid a town in the Dara valley as a demonstration of Songhai power. Then in 1556-7 Sultan Muhammed al-Shaykh occupied Taghaza and killed the Askia's representative. However the Tuareg shifted the production to another mine called Taghaza al-ghizlan (Taghaza of the gazelles). On his succession in 1578 Ahmad al-Mansur asked for the tax revenues from Taghaza but Askiya Dawud responded instead with a generous gift of 47 kg of gold. In 1586 a small Saadian force of 200 musketeers again occupied Taghaza and the Tuareg moved to yet another site – probably Taoudeni. Finally, a new demand by Ahmad al-Mansur in 1589–90 was met with defiance by Askiya Ishak II. This provided the pretext for Ahmad al-Mansur to send an army of 4,000 mercenaries across the Sahara led by the Spaniard Judar Pasha. The defeat of the Songhai in 1591 at the Battle of Tondibi led to the collapse of their empire. After the