THE TOOARIKS. 
65 
court and insist on being supplied with food until the master 
sent them his tribute. They always come on horseback and 
their horses must be provided with forage. 
When the chief of the Tooariks arrives with his suite 
at Timbuctoo, it is a general calamity^ and yet every one 
overwhelms him with attention, and sends presents to him 
and his followers. He sometimes remains there two 
months, being maintained all that time at the expense of 
the inhabitants and the king, who sometimes give them 
really valuable presents, and they return home laden with 
millet, rice, honey, and preserved articles. 
The Tooariks and Soorgoos are the same people : the 
former name is given to them by the Moors and the latter 
by the negroes. They are a wandering race, and inhabit the 
banks of the Dhioliba from the village of Dire to the envi- 
rons of Haoussa, which my host informed me was twenty 
days' journey E. by S. E. of Timbuctoo, situated in a vast 
country of the same name, watered by the river. 
The Tooariks have terrified the negroes of their neigh- 
bourhood into subjection, and they inflict upon them the 
most cruel depredations and exactions. Like the Arabs, 
they have fine horses which facilitate their marauding ex- 
peditions. The people exposed to their attacks stand in 
such awe of them, that the appearance of three or four 
Tooariks is sufficient to strike terror into five or six villages. 
At Timbuctoo the slaves are never allowed to go out of the 
town after sun-set, lest they should be carried off by the 
Tooariks, who forcibly seize all who fall in their way. The 
condition of these unhappy beings is then more deplorable 
than ever. I saw some in the little canoes almost naked, 
and their masters were constantly threatening to beat them. 
The Tooariks possess numerous flocks of sheep and 
herds of oxen and goats. Milk and meat are their only 
food. Their slaves gather the seed of the nenuphar, which 
is very common in all the surrounding marshes ; they dry it 
VOL. II. F 
