They Could Not Conceive How Human Beings
Could Travel More In One Night Than They Were Able To Perform Themselves
In Three Days; By Which They Were Confirmed In The Notion Of The Ships
Being Spirits.
All this was certified to me by many of the Azanhaji who
were slaves in Portugal, as well as by the Portuguese mariners who had
frequented the coast in their caravels.
About six days journey by land from Hoden, there is a place called
Teggazza[5], which in our language signifies a chest or bag of gold. In
this place large quantities of salt are dug up every year, and carried by
caravans on camels to _Tombucto_ and thence to the empire of _Melli_,
which belongs to the Negroes. Oh arriving there, they dispose of their
salt in the course of eight days, at the rate of between two and three
hundred _mitigals_, or ducats, for each load, according to the quantity,
and then return with their gold.
[1] This is erroneous, as there are several towns on the coast of Morocco
beyond this Cape, as Saffia, Mogadore, Santa Cruz, and others.
Cape Cantin is in lat. 32 deg.30'N. and the river _Sus_ in 30 deg.25', which
is 140 miles to the south. There are no towns on the coast beyond that
river; but the northern limit of the _Sahara_, or great desert, is in
lat. 27 deg.40', 186 miles to the south of the river _Sus_, and is surely
inhabited by wandering Arabs.
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