In Afrikan history the people of Timbuktu knew how to amuse themselves. According to Lady Lugard;
“Music held always a high place and under Askiya the Great’s successors, orchestras, provided with singers of both sexes were much frequented. Of Askiya the Great himself, it is said that “his mind was set towards none of those things”.

Chess Playing of a kind that is particularly described as “Soudanese Chess” was carried to the extreme of a passion. We hear of a General in the reign of one of the succeeding Askiya’s, who gave it as an excuse for allowing himself to be surprised by the enemies cavalry, that he was so much absorbed in a game of chess as not to have paid attention to the reports of his scouts”.