...explorers who managed to reach Timbuktu some centuries later had difficulty hiding their disappointment: 'The sight before me did not answer my expectations....totally different idea of the grandeur and wealth of Timbuktu,' the French adventurer Rene Caillie wrote in 1828. All he could see was 'a mass of ill-looking...

...succession of emotions — suppressing, for fear of detection, his indescribable satisfaction .... How many grateful thanksgivings did I pour forth for...different idea of the grandeur and wealth of Timbuctoo. At first sight Timbuktu seemed no more than a smattering of earth houses surrounded by dreary, barren...

...Engliih translation in two voU. London, 11130. Asfat.Jonr. NSVoL.5. No.lS). 2 A around," lie says, " and found that the sight before me did not answer...had formed a totally different idea of the grandeur ami wealth of Timbuctoo. The city presented, at first view, nothing but a mass of ill-looking houses...