SETTLEMENTS OF THE ARABS. 45 



was informed that a present was> on its way to him, and he 

 feasted his imagination on the idea of some rich dress or 

 golden ornament ; instead of which, the whole consisted of 

 a crust of bread, a dried fish, and sour milk. He had the 

 boldness to remonstrate with the king on this donation, de- 

 claring, that in course of travelling over the whole world, 

 he had never received the like ; and his majesty, insterj of 

 being incensed, began to extend to him some measure of 

 bounty. Ibn Batuta, however, was disgusted by the abject 

 homage paid to this monarch, as it still is to the native 

 princes of Africa ; the courtiers, as they approached, cast- 

 ing dust on their heads, throwing themselves prostrate and 

 grovelling on the earth, — a degradation which he had never 

 witnessed in the most despotic courts of the East. Yet 

 justice is admitted to have been most strictly administered, 

 and property to be perfectly secure ; as a proof of which, 

 merchants from the most distant country, who died at Mali, 

 were as assured of leaving their inheritance to their poste- 

 rity as if it had been deposited at home. The traveller 

 was astonished by the immense bulk of the trees of this re- 

 gion, in the hollow trunk of one of which he observed a 

 weaver plying his trade. 



Ibn Batuta on this part of his journey saw the Niger ; 

 and the view necessarily led to a conclusion opposite to that 

 hitherto entertained by his countrymen, who considered it 

 as flowing westward to the ocean. Destitute of all oppor- 

 tunity of complete observation, he fell into the opposite 

 error, since prevalent in Northern Africa, and identified it 

 with the Nile. He supposed it to flow by Timbuctoo, Ka- 

 kaw (Kuku^), Yuwi (seemingly the Yeou, or river of Bor- 

 nou), and then by Nubia to Egypt. 



From Mali our traveller turned northward to Timbuctoo. 

 This city was then subject to the former, governed by a 

 negro viceroy, and far from possessing the celebrity and 

 importance which it has since attained. The town is de- 

 scribed as being chiefly peopled by merchants from Latham, 

 but what particular country that was it appears now impos- 

 sible to conjecture. He next proceeded eastward by Ka- 

 kaw, Basdama, and Nakda, where he seems to have been 

 near Nubia, but gives no farther details till he again arrived 

 at Fez. 



About two centuries after Ibn Batuta, a very full de« 



