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having been restored. As they had no means left of purchasing any other article, the only food they took with them was a little Guinea corn flour. On quitting the town they proceeded in an easterly course, inclining to the north, going along the border of the river, of which they sometimes lost sight for two days together. Except the two mountains before spoken of to the southward, between which the river runs, there are none in the immediate neighbourhood of Timbuctoo, but at a little distance there are some small ones. They had travelled eastward about ten days, at the rate of about fifteen or eighteen miles a day, when they saw the river for the last time; it then appeared rather narrower than at Timbuctoo. They then loaded the camels with water, and striking off in a northerly direction, travelled twelve or thirteen days at about the same pace. At the end of this time they arrived at a place called Tudenny, or Taudenny, a large village inhabited by Moors and negroes, in which there are four wells of very excellent water. In this place there are large ponds or beds of salt, which both the Moors and negroes come in great numbers to purchase; in the neighbourhood the ground is cultivated in the same manner as at Timbuctoo. From the number of Moors, many, if not all of whom, were residents, it appeared that the restriction respecting them, which was in force at Timbuctoo, did not extend to Tudenny. The Moors here are perfectly black, the only personal distinction between them and the negroes being, that the Moors had long black hair, and had no scars on their faces. The negroes are in general marked in the same manner as those of Timbuctoo. Here the party stayed fourteen days to give the ransomed Moors, whose long confinement had made them weak, time to recruit their strength; and having sold one of the camels for two sacks of dates and a small ass, and loaded the four remaining camels with water, the dates and the flour, they set out to cross the desert, taking a north-west direction. They commenced their journey from Tudenny about four o'clock in the morning, and having travelled the first day about twenty miles, they unloaded the camels, and laid down by the side of them to sleep. The next day they entered the desert, over which they continued to travel in the same direction nine and twenty days, without meeting a single human being. The whole way was a sandy plain like the sea, without either tree, sh
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