486 
APPENDIX I. 
9tli. Bu-Seribe, a well; a long day's march. You pass 
another well called Zegzig. 
10th. Basikunnu. 
15th. Walata^ as the town is called by the Arabs and Ta- 
warek, or Biru, as it is called by the blacks, espe- 
cially the Azer, a section of the Aswanek, who arc 
the original inhabitants of the place. It is a con- 
siderable town, consisting of houses built carefully 
of a good species of clay, with a rough-cast of plaster, 
as it would seem. But the situation of Walata, at 
the eastern border of the district El Hodh, at the 
foot of a range of hdls called " Dhahar Walata," 
which encircle it on this side, and a large valley, 
richly clad with trees, skirts the north and east side, 
is considered as extremely unhealthy, and on this 
account is called khaneg el haye," " the throat 
of the snake," the district El Hodh being considered 
as the snake. Thus, in this respect, Walata entirely 
resembles Ghanata, or the capital of the empire; 
but besides being a hotbed of disease, the town is 
now also the seat of poverty and misery, which Gha- 
nata, at least during its prime, certainly was not. 
For, as we have seen (Vol. lY., Chronolog. Tables, 
p. 594), in the course of the fifteenth century, all 
the commercial importance of that place was trans- 
ferred to Timbuktu, and nothing remained except 
the trade in provisions, especially Negro-corn, or 
" eneli." 
The inhabitants of Walata are a mixed race of blacks 
and whites. The former, at present greatly reduced 
in numbers and their moral standard considerably 
lowered, belong to the widely scattered nation of 
the Swaninki or Azer, the whites are Berbers and 
Arabs, the Arabs belonging to various tribes, but 
especially to the tribe of the Mehajib, who even 
among themselves make use almost exclusively of 
