244 REMARKS ON TRAVELS 
tion of Timbuctoo, a striking contradiction occurs. The 
city," he says, is in a very level plain 3" and yet two miles 
beyond the city, runs the river Marzarah, between two 
rather high • mountains. This river flows to the south- 
west, and is three quarters of a mile wide. He repeats 
elsewhere that there are mountains to the south of Tim- 
buctoo, and says that sulphur is found there. None of 
these circumstances have been noticed by M. Caillie, who 
walked from Cabra to Timbuctoo, and who in thirteen days 
had abundant leisure to observe them. The city appeared 
to Adams as extensive, withoutbeing as populous, as Lisbon ; 
but between two hundred and sixty thousand inhabitants 
and ten or twelve thousand there is a great difference. 
There are no mosques, says he, in Timbuctoo ; M. Cail- 
lie saw three large and several smaller ones.* 
Adams asserts that he saw a palace built of clay 
mixed with herbage, and other houses of wood or earth : 
the greater part of the houses, according to M. Caillie 
are of brick, and the king's palacef is nothing more than 
a small and extremely simple house. 
Adams asserts that the men are tattooed ; M. Caillie 
says nothing of the existence of such a custom at Tim- 
buctoo : that there is not a man capable of writing ; the 
new account frequently affirms the contrary : that many 
* Such a change cannot have taken place in eighteen years. 
t See plate 6, in this volume, and the explanation. 
