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 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. No stranger is allowed to enter that
millah, without leaving his knife with the gate-keeper; but when he
comes out in the morning, it is restored to him. The people who live
in that part are all Moslem. The negroes, bad Arabs, and Moors are
all mixed together, and intermarry, as if they were all of one
colour; they have no property of consequence, except a few asses;
their gate is shut and fastened every night at dark, and very
strongly guarded both by night and by day. The shegar or king is
always guarded by one hundred men on mules, armed with good guns, and
one hundred men on foot, with guns and long knives. He would not go
into the millah, and we saw him only four or five times in the two
moons we staid at Timbuctoo, waiting for the caravan; but it had
perished in the desert, neither did the yearly caravan arrive from
Tunis and Tripoli, for it also had been destroyed."
"The city of Timbuctoo is very rich, as well as very large; it has
four gates to it; all of them are opened in the day time, but very
strongly guarded and shut at night. The negro women are very fat and
handsome, and wear large round gold rings in their noses, and flat
ones in their ears, and gold chains and amber beads about their
necks, with images and white fish bones, bent round, and the ends
fastened together, hanging down between their breasts; they have
bracelets on their wrists and on their ankles, and go barefooted. I
had bought a small snuff-box, filled with snuff, at Morocco, and
showed it to the women in the principal street of Timbuctoo, which is
very wide. There were a great number about me in a few minutes, and
they insisted on buying my snuff and box; one made me an offer, and
another made me another, until one, who wore richer ornaments than
the rest, told me, in broken Arabic, that she would take off all she
had about her, and give them to me for the box and its contents. I
agreed to accept them, and she pulled off her nose-rings and
ear-rings, all her neck-chains, with their ornaments, and the
bracelets from her wrists and ankles, and gave them to me in exchange
for it. These ornaments would weigh more than a pound, and were made
of solid gold at Timbuctoo. I kept them through the whole of the
journey afterwards, and carried them to my wife, who now wears a part
of them."
"Timbuctoo carries on a great trade with all the caravans that come
from Morocco, and the shores of the Mediterranean sea. From Algiers,
Tunis, Tripoli, &c. are brought all kinds of cloth, iron, salt,
muskets, powder and lead swords or scimitars, tobacco, opium, spices
and perfumes, amber beads, and other trinkets, with a few more
articles. They carry back, in return, elephants' teeth, gold dust and
wrought gold, gum-senegal, ostrich feathers, very curiously worked
turbans, and slaves; a great many of the latter, and many other
articles of less importance. The slaves are brought in from the
south-west, all strongly ironed, and are sold very cheap, so that a
good stout man may be bought for a haick, which costs in the empire
of Morocco about two dollars."
"The caravans stop and encamp about two miles from the city, in a
deep valley, and the negroes do not molest them. They bring their
merchandize near the walls of the city, where the inhabitants
purchase all their goods on exchange for the before-mentioned
articles; not more than fifty men from any one caravan being allowed
to enter the city at a time, and they must go out before others are
permitted to enter. This city carries on a great trade with Wassanah,
a city far to the south-east, in all the articles that are brought to
it by caravans, and gets returns in slaves, elephants' teeth, gold,
&c. The principal male inhabitants are clothed with blue cloth
shirts, that reach from their shoulders down to their knees, and are
very wide, and girt about their loins with a red and brown cotton
sash or girdle. They also hang about their bodies, pieces of
different coloured cloth and silk handkerchiefs. The king is dressed
in a white robe of a similar fashion, but covered with white and
yellow gold and silver plates, that glitter in the sun. He has also
many other shining ornaments of shells and stones hanging about him,
he wears a pair of breeches like the Moors and Barbary Jews, and has
a kind of white turban on his head, pointing up, and strung with
different kinds of ornaments.
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