Travels Of Richard And John Lander Into The Interior Of Africa For The Discovery Of The Course And Termination Of The Niger By Robert Huish
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The City Is Strongly Walled In With Stone Laid
In Clay, Like The Towns And Houses In Suse, Only A Great Deal
Thicker."
The latter account is at total variance with both Adams and Caillie,
who describe Timbuctoo as a city having no walls, nor any thing
resembling fortifications.
"The house of the king is very large and
high, like the largest house in Mogadore, but built of the same
materials as the walls. There are a great many more houses in the
city, built of stone, with shops on one side, where they sell salt,
the staple article, knives, blue cloth, haicks, and an abundance of
other things, with many gold ornaments. The inhabitants are blacks,
and the chief is a very large, grey-headed, old black man, who is
called shegar, which means sultan or king. The principal part of the
houses are made with large reeds, as thick as a man's arm, which
stand upon their ends, and are covered with small reeds first, and
then with the leaves of the date tree; they are round, and the tops
come to a point, like a heap of stones. Neither the shegar nor his
people are Moslem; but there is a town divided off from the principal
one, in one corner by a strong partition wall, with one gate to it,
which leads from the main town, like the Jews' town or millah in
Mogadore. All the Moors or Arabs, who have liberty to come into
Timbuctoo, are obliged to sleep in that part of it every night, or to
go out of the city entirely.
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