These Armed Parties Were All On Foot, Except The Officers; They Were Usually Absent From One Week To A Month, And At Times Brought In Considerable Numbers.

The slaves were generally a different race of people from those of Timbuctoo, and differently clothed, their dress being for the most part of coarse white linen or cotton.

He once saw amongst them a woman, who had her teeth filed round, it was supposed, by way of ornament, and as they were very long, they resembled crow quills. The greatest number of slaves that Adams recollects to have seen brought in at one time, were about twenty, and these, he was informed, were from a place called Bambarra, lying to the southward and westward of Timbuctoo, which he understood to be the country, whither the aforesaid parties generally went out in quest of them.

The negro slaves brought to Barbary from Timbuctoo appear to be of various nations, many of them distinguished by the make of their persons and features, as well as by their language. Mr. Dupuis recollects an unusually tall stout negress at Mogadore, whose master assured him that she belonged to a populous nation of cannibals. He does not know whether the fact was sufficiently authenticated, but it is certain that the woman herself declared it, adding some revolting accounts of her own feasts on human flesh.

Adams never saw any individual put to death at Timbuctoo, the punishment for heavy offences being generally slavery; for slighter misdemeanours, the offenders are punished with beating with a stick; but in no case is this punishment very severe, seldom exceeding two dozen blows, with a stick of the thickness of a small walking-cane.

The infrequency of the punishment of death in a community, which counts human life amongst its most valuable objects of trade, is not, however, very surprising; and considerable influence must be conceded to the operation of self-interest, as well as to the feelings of humanity, in accounting for this merciful feature, if it be indeed merciful, in the criminal code of the negroes of Soudan.

During the whole of the residence of Adams at Timbuctoo, he never saw any other Moors than those whom he accompanied thither, and the ten by whom they were ransomed; and he understood from the Moors themselves, that they were not allowed to go in large bodies to Timbuctoo. This statement bears on the face of it a certain degree of improbability; but it loses that character when it is considered that Timbuctoo, although it is become, in consequence of its frontier situation, the port, as it were, of the caravans from the north, which could not return across the desert the same season, if they were to penetrate deeper into Soudan, is yet, with respect to the trade itself, probably only the point whence it diverges to Houssa, Tuarick, &c. on the east, and to Walet, Jinnie, and Sego, on the west and south, and not the mart where the merchandise of the caravans is sold in detail.

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