a--Jerusalem and Mecca, Benares and Lhasa. The very name of each of
these is, as it were, a vital portion of a great religion, and indeed
almost stands for the religion itself. Timbuktu has scarcely any
religion, or, more correctly, too many. And yet this town has borne a
proud name during its eight hundred years of existence--the great, the
learned, the mysterious city. No pilgrims flock thither to fall down in
prayer before a redeemer's grave or be blessed by a high priest. No
pyramids, no marble temples, make Timbuktu one of the world's wonders.
No wealth, no luxuriant vegetation exist to make it an outer court to
Paradise.

[Illustration: NORTH-WEST AFRICA.]

And yet Timbuktu is an object of desire. Millions long to go there, and
when they have been, long to get away again. Caravan men who have
wandered for months through the desert long for the tones of the flute
and the cithern, and the light swayings of the troops of dancers. Palms
and mimosa grow sparsely round Timbuktu, but after the dangers of the
desert the monotonous, dilapidated town with its dusty, dreary streets
seems really like an entrance to Paradise. Travelling merchants who have
risked their wealth in the Sahara among savage robbers, and have been
fortunate to escape all dangers, are glad at the sight of Timbuktu, and
think its grey walls more lovely than anything they can imagine.

The remarkable features of Timbuktu are, then, its situation and its
trade. We have only to take a look at the map to perceive that this town
stands like a spider in its web. The web is composed of all the routes
which start from the coast and converge on Timbuktu. They come from
Tripoli and Tunis, from Algeria and Morocco, from Senegal and Sierra
Leone, from the Pepper Coast, the Ivory Coast, and Slave Coast, the Gold
Coast, and from the countries round the Gulf of Guinea, which have been
annexed by France, England, and Germany. They come also from the heart
of the Sahara, where savage and warlike nomad tribes still to this day
maintain their freedom against foreign interference.

In Timbuktu meet Arabs and negroes, Mohammedans and heathens from the
deserts and fruitful lands of the Sahara and Sudan. Timbuktu stands on
the threshold of the great wastes, and at the same time on the third in
rank of the rivers of Africa. At the town the Niger is two and a half
miles broad, and from its mouth it discharges more water than the Nile,
but much less than the Congo. Like the