460 
APPENDIX I. 
tending from the distance of one day's march from Tim- 
buktu, to about three days northward, is more properly 
called Tagdnet. I will only add, that Caillie mistook the 
name A^zawad, which he writes Zawat, for that of a tribe. 
(Vol. II. p. 97, and elsewhere.) 
The tract of A'zawad, although appearing to us a most 
sterile tract of country, and thus characterized already by 
Arab travellers from the JS"., as E^bn Batuta and Leo Afri- 
canus, is a sort of paradise to the wandering Moorish Arab 
born in these climes. For in the more favoured localities of 
this district he finds plenty of food for his camels, and even 
for a few heads of cattle, while the transport of the salt of 
Taodenni to A'rawan and Timbuktu affords him the means 
of obtaining corn, and anything else he may be in want of. 
There are four small towns or villages in A'zawad, the 
most considerable of which is A'rawan, a town small in 
extent, such as described by Caillie*, the number of its 
inhabitants scarcely exceeding 1500, but a very important 
place for this part of the world, and where a great deal 
of business is transacted, principally in gold, as I have de- 
scribed on a former occasion (p. 22 et seq.). On account of this 
trade, several Ghadamsiye merchants are established here. It 
is a fact which was unknown before, but which is indisputable, 
that the original inhabitants of this place, as well as of the 
whole of A^zawad, belong to the Songhay nation, the Son- 
ghay-kini, even at the present day, being the favoured idiom 
of which all the inhabitants, including the Arab residents, 
make use. The present chief or headman of the town is Sidi 
Mohammed, a younger son of the notorious chief El Habib 
Weled Sidi A'hmed Agade, who died the year previous to 
my arrival in Timbtiktu. The younger son gained the pre- 
cedence over his elder brother O'ba, who has performed a 
* Caillie's Travels toTimbuctoo, vol. ii. p. 99, et seq. According 
to my information, A'rawan seems to lie from Timbuktu about 
15° W. from N. 
