Direct from the desert to Sego and the
neighbouring countries, without ever touching at Timbuctoo; and this
most powerful of the states of Africa, in the sixteenth century,
according to Leo, is now, in the nineteenth, to all appearance, a
mere tributary dependency of a kingdom, which does not appear to have
been known to Leo even by name.
Such a decline of the power and commercial importance of Timbuctoo
would naturally be accompanied by a corresponding decay of the city
itself; and we cannot suppose that Adams' description of its external
appearance will be rejected, on account of its improbability, by
those, who recollect that Leo describes the habitations of the
natives, in his time, almost in the very words of the narrative
now [*], and that the flourishing cities of Sego and Sansanding
appear, from Park's account, to be built of mud, precisely in the
same manner as Adams describes the houses of Timbuctoo.
[Footnote: One of the numerous discordances between the different
translations of Leo, occurs in the passage here alluded to. The
meaning of the Italian version is simply this, that "the dwellings of
the people of Timbuctoo are cabins or huts, constructed with stakes,
covered with chalk or clay, and thatched with straw, 'le cui case
sono capanne fatte di pali coperte di creta co i cortivi di paglia.'
But the expression in the Latin translation, which is closely
followed by the old English translator, Pery, implies a state of
previous splendour and decay, 'cojus domus omnes in tuguriola,
stramineis tectis, sunt mutatae.'"]
But whatever may be the degree of Adams' coincidence with other
authorities, in his descriptions of the population and local
circumstances of Timbuctoo, there is at least one asserted fact in
this part of his narrative, which appears to be exclusively his own;
the existence, we mean, of a considerable navigable river close to
the city.
