timbu'ktu to wa'lata.-tezu'ght. 487 
the Azenye idiom, this being the indigenous lan- 
guage. 
About one mile west from Biru, are the ruins of an 
ancient place called Tezught, formerly inhabited by 
the Berber tribe of the Idavv el Haj, who were the 
chief propagators of Islam over these parts of Negro - 
land, and ruled them for a long time. Among the 
ruins much gold is said to be found occasionally at this 
very day. At that time Biru was only inhabited by 
the native blacks. All circumstances taken into ac- 
count, although the whole district called El Hodh was 
once thickly covered with towns, or " ksur/' it cannot 
be denied, that the double town of Tezught-Biru 
is more fully entitled than any other place to be 
identified with the celebrated capital of the Gha- 
nata empire,^ The distance of Ghanata from Ras el 
ma — the five days being taken at the rate of a courier 
— and that from Amima, or Mime, or, as the name is 
generally pronounced, Maima, a locality still bearing 
this name, although the place is at present deserted, 
a little to the west of Lere, correspond exactly ; the 
distance of three days from that place to the river (at 
Safnaku or Safeku) does not harmonize exactly with 
the present state of the country, the smallest distance 
of Walata from the river being five days ; but it is not 
impossible that the outlying creeks, eight centuries 
ago, approached a little closer the site of Walata. 
As for the distance of twenty days between Ghanata 
and Silia, which is certainly the town on the bank of 
the Niger visited by Mungo Park, it is to be con- 
sidered at the rate of marching with loaded caravans. 
* I here cannot omit to express my admiration of Mr. Cooley's 
critical judgment, who, from the incomplete materials which he at 
the time possessed, arrived at the same conclusion in his researches 
on the Negroland of the Arabs. See especially p. 43. 
I I 4 
