> IN CENTRAL AFRICA. 301 
The bearing of the line from Kakondy to Time, ac- 
cording to the travels of M. Caillie, having been confirmed, 
has given me confidence in the bearings of the rest of 
the route. I have therefore first laid down the line from 
Time to Timbuctoo, and that from Timbuctoo to Fez, 
such as they result from the construction of the map of 
the route. The point of Fez being fixed, it became ne- 
cessary to modify a little the absolute length and the di- 
rection of these lines, to confine myself between the two 
points of Time and Fez, and I have proceeded upon a pro- 
portionate reduction. The difference was nothing extraor- 
dinary for so long a route, amongst so many obstacles and 
difficulties which the indefatigable traveller had to over- 
come. It amounted on the whole, upon near three thou- 
sand English miles,* to about one hundred and fifty, or 
a twentieth part of the space travelled over, and the total 
angular difference is less than six degrees upon the angle 
between the meridian of Kakondy and the direction upon 
Arbate. The latitude of Timbuctoo, obtained by this 
means, is near seventeen degrees fifty minutes north. 
Possessing upon this latitude no geographical data 
properly so called, having only the routes of caravans, and 
not even the hours of march, but merely the reckoning of 
the day's journey, so that to the uncertainty of the length 
of the journeys is added the still greater uncertainty of 
the pace of the caravans, according to whether they were 
more or less numerous, whether composed of camels more 
♦ Two thousand, eight hundred and forty nine miles and a quar- 
ter. 
