Across Widest Africa 



727 



TUAREGS WITH THEIR TYPICAL FACE SCREENS (SEE PAGE 724) 



buctu worth a second look. Even the 

 three mosques were of little interest as 

 far as the architecture went, but were, of 

 course, interesting from the historian's 

 point of view. 



In the southern part of the city stood 

 the Djingery-ber, or Big Mosque, built in 

 the eleventh century by an Alfa marabu 

 called Alkali-Alakeb. This mosque has 

 inside it a series of remarkable arcades 

 and pillars supporting a heavy mud ceil- 

 ing with a flat terrace above, the whole 

 made of white stone and clay mixed with 

 flour of the Baobab fruit. 



Not far from this mosque was the 



yobu-ber, or great market, by which I 

 had entered the town, a vast rectangular 

 square, the two sides of which showed 

 arcades with square pillars. In these 

 buildings merchants and peddlers had 

 their stalls, whereas in the square itself 

 dozens of women squatted on their 

 haunches selling coal, wood, articles of 

 food, cheap ornaments, etc. 



Timbuctu was nothing more than a city 

 of transit and exchange, with a fixed 

 population of about five thousand and a 

 floating population of some four thou- 

 sand people. The floating population 

 consisted of Arabs, Moors, and mer- 



