Here They Were Kept Three Or Four Days, For The Purpose, As It Afterwards Appeared, Of Being Sent Forward To Timbuctoo, Which Adams Concluded To Be The Residence Of The King Of The Country.

At Soudenny, the houses have only a ground floor, and are without furniture or utensils, except wooden bowls, and mats made of grass.

They never make fires in their houses. After remaining about four days at Soudenny, the prisoners were sent to Timbuctoo, under an escort of about sixty armed men, having about eighteen camels and dromedaries.

During the first ten days they proceeded eastward, at the rate of about fifteen to twenty miles a day, the prisoners and most of the negroes walking, the officers riding, two upon each camel or dromedary. As the prisoners were all impressed with the belief that they were going to execution, several of the Moors attempted to escape, and in consequence, after a short consultation, fourteen were put to death by being beheaded, at a small village at which they then arrived, and as a terror to the rest, the head of one of them was hung round the neck of a camel for three days, until it became so putrid, that they were obliged to remove it. At this village, the natives wore gold rings in their ears, sometimes two rings in each ear. They had a hole through the cartilage of the nose, wide enough to admit a thick quill, in which Adams saw some of the natives wear a large ring of an oval shape, that hung down to the mouth.

They waited, only one day at this place, and then proceeded towards Timbuctoo. Shaping their course to the northward of east, and quickening their pace to the rate of twenty miles a day, they completed their journey in fifteen days.

Upon their arrival at Timbuctoo, the whole party were immediately taken before the king, who ordered the Moors into prison, but treated Adams and the Portuguese boy as curiosities; taking them to his house, they remained there during their residence at Timbuctoo.

For some time after their arrival, the queen and her female attendants used to sit and look at Adams and his companions for hours together. She treated them with great kindness, and at the first interview offered them some bread baked under ashes.

The king and queen, the former of whom was named Woollo, the latter Fatima, were very old grey-headed people. Fatima was like the majority of African beauties, extremely fat. Her dress was of blue nankeen, edged with gold lace round the bosom and on the shoulder, and having a belt or stripe of the same material, half-way down the dress, which came only a few inches down the knees. The dress of the other females of Timbuctoo, though less ornamented than that of the queen, was in the same sort of fashion, so that as they wore no close under garments, they might, when sitting on the ground, as far as decency was concerned, as well have had no covering at all. The queen's head dress consisted of a blue nankeen turban, but this was worn only upon occasions of ceremony, or when she walked out. Besides the turban, she had her hair stuck full of bone ornaments of a square shape, about the size of dice, extremely white; she had large gold hoop ear-rings, and many necklaces, some of them of gold, the others made of beads of various colours. She wore no shoes, and in consequence, her feet appeared to be as hard and dry "as the hoofs of an ass."

The king's house or palace, which is built of clay and grass, not whitewashed, consists of eight or ten small rooms on the ground floor, and is surrounded by a wall of the same materials, against part of which the house is built. The space within the wall is about half an acre. Whenever a trader arrives, he is required to bring his merchandize into this space, for the inspection of the king, for the purpose of duties being charged upon it. The king's attendants, who are with him during the whole of the day, generally consist of about thirty persons, several of whom are armed with daggers, and bows and arrows. 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.

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