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. From Algiers,
Tunis, Tripoli, &c. are brought all kinds of cloth, iron, salt,
muskets, powder and lead swords or scimitars, tobacco, opium, spices
and perfumes, amber beads, and other trinkets, with a few more
articles. They carry back, in return, elephants' teeth, gold dust and
wrought gold, gum-senegal, ostrich feathers, very curio