observing so many different varieties, but only became aware of three distinctions being made, viz., the tinóro, or Tíno-úro, "úro" being the corresponding Songhay name for gúro, and Tíno, or Tína, the name of a district; then the kind called síga; and thirdly, that called fára-fára.

As regards Selga, the district to which the Hausa traders go for their supply of this article, three points are considered essential to the business of the kóla trade; first, that the people of Mósi bring their asses; secondly, that the Tonáwa, or natives of Asanti, bring the nut in sufficient quantities; and thirdly, that the state of the road is such as not to prevent the Hausa people from arriving. If one of these conditions is wanting, the trade is not flourishing. The price of the asses rises with the cheapness of the gúro. The average price of an ass in the market of Selga is 15,000 shells; while in Hausa the general price does not exceed 5000. But the fatáki, or native traders, take only as many asses with them from Háusa as are necessary for transporting their luggage, as the toll, or fitto, levied upon each ass by the petty chiefs on the road is very considerable. From 5000 to 6000 gúro, or kóla nuts, constitute an ass-load.

Selga, the market-place for this important article, being, it appears, a most miserable town, where even water is very scarce and can only be purchased at an exorbitant price, the merchants always manage to make their stay here as short as possible, awaiting the proper season in Yendi, a town said to be as large as Timbúktu, or in Kulféla, the great market-place of Mósi; and they are especially obliged to wait in case they arrive at the beginning of the rainy season, there being no kóla nuts before the latter part of the kharíf. The price of this nut in Timbúktu varies from 10 to 100 shells each, and it always constitutes a luxury; so that, even on great festivals, alms consisting of this article are distributed by the rich people of the town.

So much for three of the most important articles of trade in Timbúktu-gold, salt, and the kóla nut; the salt trade comprising also the dealings in the native cloth manufactured in Kanó, which forms the general medium of exchange for this article, and about which I have already spoken in detailing the commerce of the great entrepôt of Háusa. I will only add here, that, as Kanó is not a very old place, this want must have been supplied before from some other quarter. It is probable that, as long as Songhay was flourishing, such an import was not needed at all; and we find

PROVISIONS.

365 from several remarks made by El Bekrí, and other ancient geographers, that the art of weaving was very flourishing on the Upper Niger, but especially in the town of Silla, from very ancient times. It is highly interesting to learn from these accounts that even in the eleventh century the cotton cloth was called in this region by the same name which it still bears at the present day, namely, "shigge."

The price of the articles brought to this market from the region of the Upper Niger, especially from Sansándi, varies greatly, depending as it does upon the supply of the moment. Provisions, during my stay, were, generally speaking, very cheap, while Caillié complains of the high prices which prevailed in his time.† But it must also be taken into account that the French traveler proceeded from those very countries on the Upper Niger from which Timbúktu is supplied, and where, in consequence, provisions are infinitely cheaper, while I came from countries which, owing to the state of insecurity and warfare into which they have been plunged for a long series of years, were suffering from dearth and famine.

The chief produce brought to the market of Timbúktu consists of rice and negro corn; but I am quite unable to state the quantities imported. Besides these articles, one of the chief products is vegetable butter, or mai-kadéña, which, besides being employed for lighting the dwellings, is used most extensively in cookery as a substitute for animal butter, at least by the poorer class of the inhabitants. Smaller articles, such as pepper, ginger, which is consumed in very great quantities, and sundry other articles, are imported. A small quantity of cotton is also brought into the market, not from Sansándi, I think, but rather from Jimbálla and some of the neighboring provinces, no cotton being cultivated in the neighborhood of the town: but the natives do not seem to practice much weaving at home, even for their own private use.

At the time of my visit, the caravan trade with Morocco, which is by far the most important, was almost interrupted by the feuds raging among the tribes along that road, especially between the E'rgebát and Tájakánt on the one side and the various sections

* El Bekrí, p. 173:

u will;l,

و تبايع اهل صلى بالذرة و الملح و حلق التماس و ازر لطاف قطن يسمونها الشكيات - الازر المسماة بالتكياتن

† Caillié, Journey to Timbuctoo, ii., p. 33.

of the Tájakánt on the other. This is the reason why in that year there were no large caravans at all, which in general arrive about the beginning of November, and leave in December or Jan

uary.

These caravans from the north are designated, by the Arabs in this region, by the curious name 'akabár (in the plural, 'akwabír); the origin of which I have not been able to make out, but it is evidently to be ranked among that class of hybrid words used by the people hereabouts, which belong neither to the Arabic nor to the Berber language. The same term is even used in Morocco to denote a very large caravan, or an aggregate of many small caravans; but in Timbúktu the term kafla is quite unusual for small parties, the name in use being "réfega."

In former times these caravans, at least those from Morocco by way of Téfilélet, and from the wádí Dar'a by way of the territory of the 'Aríb, seem to have been numerous, although they never amounted to the number mentioned in Mr. Jackson's account of Morocco,* and in various other works.

The small caravans of Tájakánt which arrived during my stay in the town, the largest of which did not number more than seventy or eighty camels, are rather an exception to the rule, and can therefore furnish no data with regard to the average, although I am quite sure that they very rarely exceed 1000 camels. The consequence of this state of things was, that, especially during the first part of my residence, the merchandise from the north fetched a very high price, and sugar was scarcely to be had at all.

With regard to European manufactures, the road from Morocco is still the most important for some articles, such as red cloth, coarse coverings, sashes, looking-glasses, cutlery, tobacco; while calico especially, bleached as well as unbleached, is also imported by way of Ghadámes, and in such quantities of late that it has greatly excited the jealousy of the Morocco merchants. The inhabitants of Ghadámes are certainly the chief agents in spreading this manufacture over the whole northwestern part of Africa, and, in consequence, several of the wealthier Ghadámsi merchants employ agents here. The most respectable among the foreign merchants in Timbúktu is Táleb Mohammed, who exercises, at the

* P. 96. Here Jackson states the average size of such a caravan at 10,000 camels; and even the more cautious M. Gråberg de Hemsö repeats these statements in his "Specchio di Morocco," p. 144, seq. "Ciononostante (le caravane) conducono talvolta seco da 16 fino a 20 mila cammelli."

ARTICLES OF EUROPEAN COMMERCE.

367 same time, a very considerable political influence; and the wealthiest merchants from Morocco besides him, during the time of my stay, were El Méhedi, the astronomer, Múl'a 'Abd e' Salám, the nobleman, and my friend the Swéri; while among the Ghadámsi merchants, Mohammed ben Táleb, Snúsi ben Kyári, Mohammed Lebbe-Lebbe, Haj 'Alí ben Sháwa, and Mohammed Weled el Kádhi, were those most worth mentioning.

But to apply even to these first-rate merchants a European standard of wealth would be quite erroneous, the actual property of none of them exceeding probably 10,000 dollars, and even that being rather an exceptional case. Scarcely any of them transact business on a large scale, the greater part of them being merely agents for other merchants residing in Ghadámes, Swéra (Mogador), Merákesh (Morocco), and Fás.

The greater part of the European merchandise comes by way of Swéra, where several European merchants reside, and from this quarter proceeds especially the common red cloth, which, together with calico, forms one of the chief articles of European trade brought into the market. All the calico which I saw bore the name of one and the same Manchester firm, printed upon it in Arabic letters. But I am quite unable, either with respect to this article or any other, to give an account of the quantity brought into market. All the cutlery in Timbúktu is of English workmanship. Tea forms a standard article of consumption with the Arabs settled in and around the town; for the natives it is rather too expensive a luxury.

A feature which greatly distinguishes the market of Timbúktu from that of Kanó, is the almost entire absence of that miserable kind of silk, or rather refuse, "twáni" and "kundra," which forms the staple article in the market of Kanó. Other articles also of the delicate Nüremberg manufacture are entirely wanting in this market; such as the small round looking-glasses, called "lemm'a," which some time ago had almost a general currency in Kanó. The market of Timbúktu, therefore, though not so rich in quantity, surpasses the rival market of Kanó in the quality of the merchandise. Bernúses, or Arab cloaks, furnished with a hood, also seem to be disposed of here to a considerable extent, although they must form too costly a dress for most of the officers at the courts of the petty chiefs, in the reduced state of all the kingdoms hereabouts; and, at all events, they are much more rarely seen here than in the eastern part of Negroland. These bernúses, of course,

are prepared by the Arabs and Moors in the north, but the cloth is of European manufacture. The calico imported constitutes a very important article. It is carried from here up the country as far as Sansándi, although in the latter place it comes into competition with the same article which is brought from the western and southwestern coasts.

Among the Arab merchandise tobacco forms a considerable article of consumption, especially that produced in Wádí Nún, and called, par excellence, "el warga," "the leaf," as it is not only smoked by the Arabs and natives in the country, as far as they are not exposed to the censure of the ruling race of the Fúlbe, but is even exported to Sansándi. I have already observed that tobacco constitutes a contraband article in all the towns where the Fúlbe of Hamda-Alláhi exercise dominion, and in Timbúktu especially, where one can only indulge in this luxury in a clandestine manner.

Tobacco, together with dates, forms also the chief article of import from Tawát, the species from that place being called "el wargat," the leaves indicating its inferior character to the first-rate article from Wádí Nún. Dates and tobacco form articles of trade among the people of Tawát, the poor tradesmen of that country possessing very little of themselves besides. But the quantity of these articles imported has also been greatly overrated by those who have spoken of the commercial relations of these regions from a distance. At least I am sure that the whole of the time I was staying in the town only about twenty camel-loads of these two articles together were imported.

With regard to exports, they consisted, at the time of my stay in the place, of very little besides gold and a moderate quantity of gum and wax, while ivory and slaves, as far as I was able to ascertain, seemed not to be exported to any considerable amount. However, a tolerable proportion of the entire export from these regions proceeds by way of A'rawán, without touching at Timbúktu. At any rate, those gentlemen who estimate the annual export of slaves from Negroland to Morocco at about 4000* are certainly mistaken, although in this, as well as in other respects, the exceptional and anarchical state of the whole country at the

* Gråberg de Hemsỏ, Specchio di Morocco, p. 146. Besides slaves, he enumerates as articles of export from Timbúktu to Morocco, ivory, rhinoceros horns, incense, gold dust, cotton strips (? verghe), jewels, ostrich feathers of the first quality, gum copal, cotton, pepper, cardamom, assafoetida, and indigo.