INHABITANTS. 
01 
like the Mandingo females, subject to the punishment of 
beating. The people of Timbuctoo, who are in constant 
communication with the half- civilized inhabitants of the 
Mediterranean^ have some idea of the dignity of human 
nature. I have constantly observed in my travels, that in 
proportion as a people was uncivilized the women were 
always more enslaved. The female sex in Africa have reason 
to pray for the progress of cultivation. The women of Tim- 
buctoo are not veiled like those of Morocco : they are allowed 
to go out when they please, and are at liberty to see any one. 
The people are gentle and complaisant to strangers. In 
trade they are industrious and intelhgent ; and the traders 
are generally wealthy and have many slaves. The men are 
of the ordinary size, well made, upright, and walk with a 
firm step. Their colour is a fine deep black. Their noses 
are a little more aquiline than those of the Mandigoes, and 
like them they have thin lips and large eyes. I saw 
some women who might be considered pretty. They are 
all well fed ; their meals, of which they take two a day, consist 
of rice, and couscous made of small millet, dressed with meat 
or dried fish. Those negroes who are in easy circumstances, 
like the Moors, breakfast on wheaten bread, tea, and butter 
made from cow's milk. Those of inferior condition use 
vegetable butter. Generally speaking, the negroes are not 
so well lodged as the Moors. The latter have great in- 
fluence over them, and indeed, consider themselves far their 
superiors. 
The inhabitants of Timbuctoo are exceedingly neat in 
their dress and in the interior of their dwellings. Their 
domestic articles consist of calabashes and wooden platters. 
They are unacquainted with the use of knives and forks, and 
they believe that, like them, all people in the world eat with 
their fingers. Their furniture merely consists of mats for 
sitting on ; and their beds are made by fixing four stakes in 
the ground at one end of the room, and stretching over them 
