but of skin, and had appeared white like dried bones when on the Desert, but they were now (on his arrival at Suerrah) nearly covered again, though we still might with some reason be termed the skeletons of Moorish slaves.' (P. 334.)

It will have occurred to the reader, while perusing this brief abstract of the miseries of the American captain and his crew, that their observations in the Desert could add but little to our knowlege of the continent of Africa. The manners of Moorish traders, and of the poorer wandering Arabs, have been already faithfully represented to us, and the communications of Riley and his men were with such persons exclusively; while during their captivity they never passed the limits of the Desert except on their arrival at Wednoon. The most curious part of the volume therefore remains to be considered, which contains the travels of Sidi Hamet in Soudan. This was the Arab-merchant who purchased the portion of the crew that were ransomed by Mr. Wiltshire; and, remaining some time in the Consul's house, he related at different periods the events that had occurred to him in two journies across the Desert to Tombuctoo, and considerably to the south of that place. Some of these circumstances appeared so curious to his auditors, that they prevailed on him to methodize them in his narration; and, by the help of an interpreter, they committed his story to paper. Of the credibility of Sidi Hamet, others are as competent to decide as ourselves: but we certainly see no reason to impeach his veracity, or indeed that of Moorish travellers generally respecting what they assert that they themselves have seen, unless they manifestly deal in the marvellous. We know not any inducements that they can have to utter deliberate falsehood on such subjects; and we are consequently inclined to be satisfied if their accounts are not at variance with general probabilities, and do not contradict previous statements of which the authenticity has been established, as far as in such cases this is possible. On both these heads the present narration is satisfactory. Some discrepancies, indeed, occur between the Moor and Adams: but we must recollect that an European or an American, from the superior civilization of their own countries, will occasionally see the same thing in a different view from an Arab; and, as neither of them visited Tombuctoo for the purposes of observation, these diversities are not in our eyes injurious to the credibility of either party.

The first journey of Sidi Hamet across the Great Desert to Tombuctoo may be dismissed very shortly. The caravan, consisting of three thousand camels and eight hundred men, pursued a southerly course near the sea until it came to the

borders

borders of Soudan; and thence turning to the eastward until it approached Tombuctoo. The Desert bore a general resemblance to the descriptions of Riley: in some places the surface was baked as hard as a stone-floor for several days' journies; and in others they encountered moving sand-hills. At one time, they travelled for a month without finding so much as one valley with green bushes in it for their camels, which were consequently fed with charcoal, prepared for this purpose, until that supply of aliment was exhausted. They did not eventually enter Tombuctoo, but carried on their trade with it from a station in its vicinity; so that little new information can be derived from this first expedition.

The second journey was far more disastrous in its progress, and incomparably more important to us in its results. Sidi Hamet and his brother proceeded on this occasion across the Great Desert in company with an immense caravan of one thousand men, all well armed, and four thousand camels*; four hundred of which were loaded with provisions and water. When they had travelled nearly five weeks, they were attacked by that dreadful plague called "the wind of the Desert," bringing with it death and destruction. They then took the baggage from their camels, and, piling it in one great mass, made the beasts lie down. The sand was of the fineness of dust on a path, or in a house; and it flew so thick that they could not see each other, nor their camels, and were scarcely able to breathe. This wind continued two days, and they were obliged to move themselves whenever the sand had become so heavy as to exclude all air. Three hundred men and two hundred camels were destroyed by this dreadful visitation: but this was only the first of their sufferings. On arriving at a valley called Haherah, on which they had depended for water, and where they had proposed to remain twenty days to recruit their beasts, every well was found dry; not one drop of rain having fallen there for the last year! At first, they had recourse to digging, but, when this was of no avail, all subordination ceased among them. The Sheick insisted that all but three hundred camels should be killed, in order that the water found in them, together with their blood, might satisfy the cravings of the men: but, when an attempt was made to execute this proposition, a dreadful and bloody battle commenced, no one being willing that his beasts should be sacrificed: two or three hundred men,' including the Sheick, fell in this contest, ' and the blood of the slain was drank to allay the thirst of

* Sidi Hamet states that, of the great caravans on this route, nearly one perished totally in an average of ten or twelve years.

those who shed it.' Sidi Hamet and a party of his friends then withdrew from this dreadful scene; and, pursuing still a southerly direction, they contrived to support themselves by killing their camels, until on the twelfth day they were relieved by a tempest of rain, which gave them abundance of water for their beasts and allowed them to fill a store of thirty skins.

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Only twenty-one persons and twelve camels escaped from the Desert to the cultivated country, which is described as hilly, but very fertile. They first stopped near a small town called Wabilt, on the bank of a river named by the natives Gozen-Zair, and said to be about half as broad as the space from the town of Mogadore to the island. They travelled four days eastward through Soudan; when, finding the hilly country difficult, by reason of the trees,' they turned again to the north, and, regaining the border of the Desert, proceeded to the east for eight days more: they then fell in with the great route of the caravans, and arrived (we presume by an inclination to the south) in two days at Tombuctoo.

Sidi Hamet amply confirms the statement of Adams, that Tombuctoo is a Negro and not a Moorish capital. This is a very curious point. It will be recollected that Park received contrary accounts, and was led to the contrary presumption; and Mr. Dupuis thought that Adams had been erroneous in this part of his observations. + It is a question, however, on which any mis-representation on the part of Adams must have been intentional; since he could not be mistaken respecting the fact whether the Moors, in whose company he was, were treated as prisoners and some of them put to death, or were received as they would be in a friendly state.

As Sidi Hamet describes Tombuctoo to be about six times more populous than Mogadore, and the latter contains 36,000 inhabitants, this proportion would give to the former a population of 216,000. Adams compared it in size to Lisbon, of which the population is generally estimated at about 270,000: but, as the houses were not continuous in the African city and were very low, and he contrasted only the area of the two places, the two estimates with these allowances coincide very nearly. Sidi Hamet tells us that the Moors were allowed to

That is, fifty yards,' says the text: but elsewhere the distance of this island is stated to be five hundred yards at the nearest point. We imagine that the reader will be most secure in taking the last estimate.

+ See M. R. Vol. lxxxii. N. S. p.31. for a comparison of the account of Tombuctoo by Adams with the present.

enter

enter the town in small numbers only, and unarmed, for the purposes of trade: but that there was a minor town, divided from the principal city, in which some resident Mussulmans were permitted to remain, and which corresponded to the Jews' town at Mogadore. Adams confirms the first part of this statement exactly: but on the latter point we do not recollect that he says any thing. On the cheapness with which slaves are purchased, we find a remarkable agreement. Sidi Hamet speaks of shops at Tombuctoo, while Adams says that he saw none: but on this report of the latter we ventured some remarks in our examination of his narrative, which would probably tend to reconcile the difference. With regard to architecture, we are undoubtedly checked by some want of coincidence, the walls being described by the Moor as formed of stone laid in a cement of clay, and the king's house as large, high, and composed of similar materials with the wall; while Adams, on the contrary, states, on the strength of his reminiscences, that there was no outer wall or fortification, and that the king's palace had only a ground-floor, was not even white-washed, and was built of clay and grass. An European by descent, and a Moor, would undoubtedly have different ideas on the subject of the proper accommodations for royalty, but still it will be a task of some difficulty to reconcile these two descriptions. It is possible that the king might have more than one habitation; and other solutions may present themselves: but the difference in the accounts is palpable. Both parties concur in stating that a river passes near the town, of which Adams considered the width as nearly three quarters of a mile; while Sidi Hamet makes it comparatively insignificant, and reports that it is sometimes dry: on which occasions the inhabitants go for water to the great river, at about the distance of an hour, by the camel's pace, to the south. In this respect we always doubted the correctness of Adams: it was, indeed, a point on which he spoke with more diffidence than on any other, especially with regard to the course of the stream; and we seem to have some reason for conjecturing that the Tombuctoo river, which he mentions under the name of the MarZarah, was in fact the Niger, or Joliba, (of which latter names he had never heard,) and not a subsidiary stream falling into it. Should this be the case, the only variation in the two accounts would arise from the different distances assigned between the town and the river; and this, we conceive, would not be very important. Adams's observations on the course of the river, viz. to the S. W., might puzzle us the more if we did not recollect that Mr. Dupuis had told us that, although

although Adams invariably stated this to be the course, to the best of his belief, he was by no means positive of the fact. We now enter on new ground, with Sidi Hamet, whatever may be the extent of his observation or veracity, as our only guide; — and we have nothing therefore to do but concisely to state the tale as he has told it, without comment or comparison.

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Owing to the calamitous state in which this Moor arrived at Tombuctoo, he was not in very independent circumstances there, and was in consequence obliged by the king to join a caravan then setting out for the city of Wassanah. Two hours on this occasion brought the party to the banks of the Zolibib, (a name bearing a close affinity to the Joliba of Park,) which is described as wider than the distance from Mogadore to the island already noticed.* The party advanced along the right bank for six days to the S. of E., with the river continually in sight, until they came to the small town of Bimbinah, which was walled in with canes and thorn-bushes: here the river turned more to the south; and a high mountain intervened to the east, which appeared the probable cause of the change of course. They here left the bank, journeyed south for fifteen days, and again fell in with the same river; on the opposite side of which were two negro-towns. They now travelled three days along the river-side, passed six days in traversing some woody.. mountains, and on regaining the river found it narrow and full of rocks. They proceeded from this spot in a south-east direction, with a few variations between those points, for twelve days more; generally seeing the river every day, and occasionally crossing subsidiary streams, until they came to a ferry of boats which were formed of trees hollowed out: on the western side of the river were high mountains. At the ferry, they remained seven days, but did not cross the river; and, pursuing the same side of it as before for fifteen days more, they came under the walls of the city of Wassanah, the place of their destination. The whole journey occupied about sixty days, exclusive of those which were set aside for recruiting the men and the camels.

The

* There is certainly some difficulty about these rivers. first which Sidi saw in Soudan, near the town of Wabilt, in his way to Tombuctoo, was of about half the width here assigned to the Joliba, and was called the Gozen Zair, the latter part of the name corresponding with the Mar-Zarah of Adams; and the dif ference of width would not be so great but that it might almost be reconciled by the difference of seasons. This, however, would tend to the belief that Adams mistook Wabilt for Tombuctoo.

The