The Arabians Were The First Who Introduced The Camel Into Africa, An
Animal Whose Strength And Swiftness Peculiarly Suited It For Traversing
The Immense Expanse Of Burning Sands.
By means of caravans, the Arabians
were enabled to hold intercourse with the interior, whence they procured
supplies of gold and slaves; and many of them migrated to the south of
the Great Desert.
Their number rapidly increased, and being skilled in
the art of war, they soon became the ruling power. They founded several
kingdoms; the principal one, called Gano, soon became the greatest market
for gold, and, under the name of Kano, is still extensive and populous,
being the chief commercial place in the interior of Africa. The Arabian
writers of the twelfth century, give the most gorgeous, and we fear
overrated, accounts of the flourishing state of these kingdoms.
In the fourteenth century, Ibn Batuta, an abridged account of whose
travels has been recently translated by Professor Lee of Cambridge, made
a journey into Central Africa. After having travelled twenty-five days
with a caravan, he came to a place which Major Rennel supposes to be the
modern Tisheet, containing the mine whence Timbuctoo is supplied with
salt. The houses he describes as built of slabs of salt, roofed with
camels' hides. After other twenty days he reached Tashila, three days'
journey from which he entered a dreary desert, where was neither
sustenance nor water, but only plains and hills of sand. Ten days brought
him to Abu Latin, a large commercial town much frequented by merchants.
This place Mr. Murray conjectures to have been Walet, the only large city
in that quarter.
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