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.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 126 of 587
Words from 65827 to 66361 of 309561