1907.] oil Across Widest Africa. 741 



river channel.. In these places we generally fonnd rapids to negotiate, 

 sometimes quite troublesome owing to the number of scattered rocks 

 and the violent current. Punting and paddling were impossible, and 

 I had to land my men — about a dozen — with a long tow-rope, in order 

 to pull the canoe up the steps from the lowest to the highest point of 

 the rapid. 



The rapids at Dirawami gave us a good deal of work, and we had 

 an accident. There was a high step to get over, with a violent rush 

 of water flowing over it. My men had as usual landed, and were 

 pulling their hardest, while I, alone in the boat, did the steering with 

 a long paddle. AVe had got the canoe nearly one-third over, and then 

 she stuck at an angle of about thirty degrees, but with every prospect 

 of describing a still wider arc of a circle in mid-air with the prow of 

 the boat. The canoe was full of heavy baggage, which unfortunately 

 slid in confusion from aft to stern, giving a bad list. The canoe 

 swung violently, and was caught sideways by the chute of water. It 

 was washed away Avith great force, dragging into the stream most of 

 the men who were ptilling the tow-rope. Some of them narrowly 

 escaped getting drowned. The canoe flowed down sideways at a good 

 speed for some distance, when it collided against two rocks and became 

 filled with water. As she was about to sink we just managed to pull 

 her on the shore, and the baggage was saved. 



Numerous stone implements, silex arrow-points and knife-blades, 

 axes and hammers, are to be found in the northern part of the Xiger, 

 and, if one could spare the time, important archaeological discoveries 

 could be expected in that region. Regtilar camps of these former 

 stone-workers are to be fotmd, and ctirious legends are related by the 

 natives regarding the stone implements. 



Let us come to Timbuctu. Timbuctu the mysterious, let me tell 

 you at once, has no mystery left at all. The town is built on tAvo 

 sides of a dune running east to west, and on the side of a second 

 dune parallel to the first and north of this. The population of 

 Tmibuctu consists of about five thousand inhabitants with a fixed 

 residtaice, and a floating population of about four thousand people, 

 mostly traders, from Tripolitania, Morocco, from Ghadanuon, Tenduf, 

 Tadjakant, Ttiat, etc. The two principal elements in the population 

 are the Songoy and the Arma. Another class — but not a separate 

 race— are the Alfa (or learned men). They form an influential 

 class in Timbtictu, the most learned centre of Musstilman science in 

 Western Africa. 



Timbuctu being mainly a city of transit, many tongues are 

 spoken there, such as Songoy, Tamatchek (or the Tuareg language), 

 Malinke, Bambara, Ptilar (the langtiage of the Fulbe), and Arabic. 

 Songoy is, however, the language of the country, and is understood 

 as far as Agades east of Timbuctu ; as far south as Djenne and 

 Say ; or in other words, over the entire extent of the ancient 

 Empire of Askia. 



