narrative admits that Timbuctoo has become a mere tributary dependency of a kingdom, which does not appear to have been known to Leo even by name.'

6

The authority of Major Laing would of course be highly satisfactory, had any documents of his touching this point come to our hands. The Quarterly very indefinitely says, that he found it [Timbuctoo] to answer all the expectations he had formed of it, except as to its size, which he states to be four miles in circumference;' 'a space,' adds the Reviewer, 'which, if fully built upon, might very well contain the number that has usually been assigned to Timbuctoo.' Caillié says the circumference may be three miles; so that the truth may be supposed to lie between the two travellers. And this is being accurate enough for an African city. Take a heap of cabins in your hand,' said a Moor who wished to give an idea of the place to M. Lesseps, the French Consul-General at Tunis, cast them into the air, let them fall upon the ground,and you will see Timbuctoo.'*

6

6

As to the Reviewer's method of occupying the ground of Timbuctoo in such a manner as to make it contain the desired number at which he commences his calculation, we must be permitted to say that it appears to us only a handsome way of giving up his point, and it need not therefore be pressed. It is well known, that not the ground of one African city in fifty is any thing like 'fully built upon;' and even if it were built upon, with such one-floored huts, with ample courts, as not only Timbuctoo but most other places of Central Africa are known to consist of,-as perhaps it is, the estimate which makes it, with all its caravan population, equal to Tripoli, must be considered abundantly liberal. Caillie makes the city of Jenné nearly as large as Timbuctoo. Sansanding would seem, from other accounts, to be rather larger. And as to the more southern cities on the Niger, the Journal of the Landers may satisfy any one, that at least half a dozen of them must be places of incomparably more consequence than the central city of Soudan.' Egga, for example, according to their account, is four miles long by two broad, and well built upon,' and yet several more populous towns are mentioned in the Journal, within a few pages of this. Clapperton makes the circumference of Kano, the greatest commercial city of Cen

tral Africa, fifteen miles, and yet estimates the population at only thirty or forty thousand.

Again; Sidi Hamet told Riley that he accompanied a caravan from Timbuctoo down the Niger, first travelling six days east, and then over fifty days in a southerly direction, till they came to a city which he calls Wassanah. Here accounts were given them of expeditions which descended the river, with slaves, three months, first south and then west, where they found pale people with large boats and guns which made a noise like thunder. There are strong marks of authenticity in this narrative. The river was unquestionably the Niger. What particular city Hamet refers to under the name of Wassanah, admits of some doubt. We are inclined to think it was Rabba, which the Landers call an 'immensely large, populous and flourishing town,' an emporium for a vast neighboring territory, and regularly communicating with Timbuctoo to this day. The market is well supplied with slaves; and these are sometimes purchased there by people inhabiting a country situated a good way down the Niger, and from thence they are delivered from hand to hand till they at length reach the sea.'-Here, then, is the head of the slave commerce with the Europeans. Ivory is now a staple in the Rabba market; and Hamet says that, in this region for the first time, he met with the animals which furnish it. The neighboring country, and the villages opposite and below, correspond in the two descriptions. Wassanah is built near the bank of the river, which runs past it nearly south,' and is quite wide, with highlands on both sides, though not very near;'* and Rabba is built on the slope of a gently rising hill, at the foot of which runs the Niger, with a breadth of two miles.' +

The distance of the two places would seem to be about the same from certain remarkable rapids in the river above, which appear from the descriptions, respectively, to be those between Boossa and Yaoorie. Hamet speaks of the Wassanah boats, 'made of great trees, cut off and hollowed out, that will hold ten, fifteen or twenty negroes;' and the Landers say, 'the canoes made here are particular of description, very much resembling an English punt, and generally formed from a single log.' Not to pursue the speculation farther, the differences between the two descriptions are such as are readily accounted + See Landers' Journal.

* Riley.

Now, Hamet

for by the recent usurpation of the Falàtahs. estimates the population of Wassanah at twice that of Timbuctoo; so that, identifying his city with Rabba, and following as well as we can the rather vague description of the latter furnished by the Landers, who consider it the second city in the Falàtah dominions, we should conclude that Caillie's estimate of Timbuctoo would have applied quite accurately even in Hamet's time, when the population was perhaps nearly at its maximum.

3. The French traveller states, that the people of this city are Mahometans; on which the Foreign Review remarks, that the dominant religion having been Paganism a few years back, it seems improbable that so complete a change should have taken place thus suddenly.

-

This is one of those points in which a man like our traveller, -entertained exclusively by Mahometans,-tarrying in the place but a fortnight,—and occupied much of the time in taking his esquisses naïves, as M. Jomard does him the honor to call them, might naturally enough fall into an error. But we cannot regard either the premises or the conclusion of the Reviewer as decisive. He in the first place takes it for granted that Paganism has been the dominant religion.' Now all our accounts of Timbuctoo during the three centuries beginning with Leo Africanus, certainly favor an hypothesis just the reverse of this. Leo himself speaks of a magnificent regal mosque; and Marmol, the Spaniard, found the government of the city in the hands of the Sheriff, Mahomet. A French account of Timbuctoo, of the date of 1764, cited by the Editor of Adams in his Appendix, as having been accurately drawn up by the Governor of Senegal, states without qualification that the inhabitants are Arabs.* Still, it appears probable that the true commercial as well as civil policy of perfect toleration to all sects, excepting perhaps Christians, has been ob served at all times. Park was told by a merchant at Benown, that it would not do for him to visit Timbuctoo,- Christians were looked upon there as the Devil's children, and enemies to the Prophet.' At Silla, where he took great pains to gain authentic information, he tells us that the hopes of acquiring wealth, and zeal for propagating their religion, have filled this extensive city with Moors and Mahometan converts; the

*Park. Phil. Edition, p. 248.

king himself and all the chief officers of state are Moors; and they are said to be more severe and intolerant in their principles, than any other of the Moorish tribes in this part of Africa. I was informed by a venerable old negro, that when he first visited Timbuctoo, he took up his lodging at a sort of public inn, the landlord of which, when he conducted him to his hut, spread a mat on the floor, saying,-"If you are a Mussulman, you are my friend, sit down; if you are a Kafir, you are my slave, and with this rope I will lead you to market." Mr. Jackson says that the government, in his time, was reported to be in the hand of a divan of twelve men learned in the Koran,' and that all Jews visiting the city were obliged to become Mahometans. So, M. Dupuis believed, years since, in the existence of mosques and the prevalence of Mahometanism at Timbuctoo. On the whole, the latter would seem to have been uniformly an established religion from time immemorial; add to which, that the Falátahs have recently invaded the city and assumed the government of it,-as all authorities seem to admit,—and Caillie's statement would appear on the whole to be at least the most plausible he could make. This,' say the Landers, is another of the effects of the Falátahs' spreading their conquests over the country, Wherever they become masters, the Mahometan religion follows.' Again,(even the Quarterly admits that Timbuctoo is governed by one of these people :)-simply, 'in consequence of Ederesa having relinquished his authority in favor of Mallam Dembo, his subjects have become Mahometans, and this faith will no doubt shortly spread through Yarriba.' But enough upon this point.

On the whole, none of the objections made to the personal narrative of Caillié appear to us to possess much weight, while many of them are really too trifling for notice. It is needless to speculate upon the causes of so violent an assault upon his authenticity in any direction; but most of them, we may safely say, have rather more connexion in their origin with the circumstances under which the Journal was 'got up,'

* The same authority describes Genné (Jenné) as situated between the Niger and one of its branches 'like an island.' Park's information on this point was contradictory, and we have no other worthy of mention. Yet Caillié's statement, which agrees mainly with the Governor's, is bluntly discredited by his Reviewer.

† Landers' Journal, Oct. 17th, 1830.

than with the intrinsic character of the materials furnished by Caillié.

In regard to the Geographical Memoir, the map, and other scientific matter, which may be considered appendages to the narrative, we are free to say, with the Quarterly and Foreign Reviews, that we do not receive them as valuable additions to our knowledge of the African continent, come from what source they may. Caillié was not sufficiently qualified to make accurate observations or calculations of a scientific nature, to be implicitly followed in opposition to those of Rennell, Park and others who preceded him. Besides, he had no astronomical instruments, and no watch; and his distances were estimated from experiments previously made at Sierra Leone, where he accustomed himself to traverse a measured space, and observe the time which it occupied. The latitude and longitude of Timbuctoo, in particular, remain to be settled upon data of a different description from these.

But, whatever be said of portions of the work which depend for their value on complete scientific accuracy, we see no reason for the sentence which the Foreign Review pronounces upon Caillié, of being morally disabled from all future authenticity, especially since that respectable authority does not hesitate to receive the whole of his personal narrative' as genuine and authentic. This admission alone,—and we do not see how they could honestly admit less,-apparently furnishes a method, which they nevertheless think is wanting, by which to separate the true statements of M. Caillié from the fabrications of his Editor.' How these are to rob the intrepid traveller of the credit of what he has done, or of the possibility of doing something more hereafter, we do not perceive. It would seem, on the contrary, as the Reviewer would fain hope, that with more ample means and adequate instruction, (in which it were unjust to himself to forget his deficiency) great benefit may yet accrue to science from his exertions, maugre both the esquisses naïves, and the observation of Orion.