There's a story that in the early 14th century there was a great west African king named

Mansa Abu Bakar II, aka Abu Bakari.

Tradition has it that Abu Bakari was the ninth Mansa of the Empire of Mali.

The Mansa's were sultans or emperors who ruled an empire that had emerged from the settlements

along the Niger River.

By the time of Mansa Abu Bakar II the empire now extended north into the Sahara Desert

south towards the modern state of Nigeria and west towards the Atlantic Ocean.

By all accounts Abu Bakar was an energetic and restless monarch who pushed the borders

of his expanding empire even further.

Eventually the border was pushed so far that the empire of Mali's only neighbor to the

west was the Atlantic Ocean.

The oral historians of Mali, known as the Griots, say that Abu Bakar's obsession with

an expanding empire would eventually become an obsession with the ocean itself.

No matter how large his empire grew, the ocean would always be there mocking him and

hemming him in.

The Griots say that the Mansa spent hours on his western coast staring out across the

ocean contemplating its size.

We're told by an Arabic source that the ruler who would proceed Abu Bakar II told an

Egyptian prince, quote,

If I have become the master of Mali it is only because my predecessor refused to believe

that the ocean was infinite.

He then told the most incredible tale.

...