Upon their arrival at Timbuctoo, the whole party were immediately
taken before the king, who ordered the Moors into prison, but
treated Adams and the Portuguese boy as curiosities; taking them to
his house, they remained there during their residence at Timbuctoo.
For some time after their arrival, the queen and her female
attendants used to sit and look at Adams and his companions for hours
together. She treated them with great kindness, and at the first
interview offered them some bread baked under ashes.
The king and queen, the former of whom was named Woollo, the latter
Fatima, were very old grey-headed people. Fatima was like the
majority of African beauties, extremely fat. Her dress was of blue
nankeen, edged with gold lace round the bosom and on the shoulder,
and having a belt or stripe of the same material, half-way down the
dress, which came only a few inches down the knees. The dress of the
other females of Timbuctoo, though less ornamented than that of the
queen, was in the same sort of fashion, so that as they wore no close
under garments, they might, when sitting on the ground, as far as
decency was concerned, as well have had no covering at all. The
queen's head dress consisted of a blue nankeen turban, but this was
worn only upon occasions of ceremony, or when she walked out.
