Adams Did Not Know If The King Had Any Family.

For a considerable time after the arrival of Adams and his companion, the people used to come in crowds

To stare at them, and he afterwards understood that many persons came several days journey on purpose. The Moors remained closely confined in prison, but Adams and the Portuguese boy had permission to visit them. At the end of about six months, a company of trading Moors arrived with tobacco, who after some weeks ransomed the whole party.

Timbuctoo is situated on a level plain [*], having a river about two hundred yards from the town, on the south-east side, named La Mar Zarah. The town appeared to Adams to cover as much ground as Lisbon. He was unable to give any account of number of its inhabitants, estimated by Caillie to amount to 10,000 or 12,000. The houses are not built in streets, nor with any regularity, its population therefore, compared with that of European towns, is by no means in proportion to its size. It has no wall nor any thing resembling fortification. The houses are square, built of sticks, clay, and grass, with flat roofs of the same materials. The rooms are all on the ground-floor, and are without any of furniture, except earthen jars, wooden bowls, and mats made grass, upon which the people sleep. He did not observe a houses, or any other buildings, constructed of stone. The palace of the king he described as having walls of clay, or clay and sand, rammed into a wooden case or frame, and placed in layers, one above another, until they attained the height required, the roof being composed of poles or rafters laid horizontally, and covered with a cement or plaster, made of clay or sand.

[Footnote: This account of Timbuctoo, as given by Adams, by no means corresponds with that which was subsequently given by Caillie. The latter makes it situated on a very elevated site, in the vicinity of mountains; in fact the whole account of that celebrated city, as given by Caillie, is very defective.]

The river La Mar Zarah is about three quarters of a mile wide at Timbuctoo, and appeared in this place to have but little current, flowing to the south-west. About two miles from the town to the southward, it runs between two high mountains, apparently as high as the mountains which Adams saw in Barbary; here the river is about half a mile wide. The water of La Mar Zarah is rather brackish, but is commonly drunk by the natives, there not being, according to the report of Adams, any wells at Timbuctoo.

It must be remarked in this place, that at the time when Adams related the narrative of his residence in Africa, and particularly in the city of Timbuctoo, a very considerable degree of distrust was attached to it; and in order to put the veracity of Adams to a decisive test, the publication of his adventures was delayed until the arrival of Mr. Dupuis, then the British vice-consul at Mogadore, to whose interference Adams acknowledged himself indebted for his ransom, and who, on account of his long residence in Africa, and his intimate acquaintance with the manners and customs of the natives, was fully competent to the detection of any imposition which it might be the intention of Adams to practise upon those, who undertook the publication of his adventures.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 106 of 587
Words from 55107 to 55685 of 309561