Timbuctoo is built in the form of a triangle, and measures about three miles in circumference. The houses are large but not lofty, and are built of round bricks. The streets are wide and clean. There are seven mosques, each surmounted by a square tower, from which the muezzin calls the faithful to prayer. Counting the floating population, the capital of the Soudan does not contain more than from ten to twelve thousand inhabitants. Timbuctoo, situated in the midst of a vast plain of shifting white sand, trades in salt only, the soil being quite unsuitable to any sort of cultivation. The town is always full of people, who come to exact what they call presents, but what might with more justice be styled forced contributions. It is a public calamity when a Tuarick chief arrives. He remains in the town a couple of months, living with his numerous followers at the expense of the inhabitants, until he has wrung costly presents from them. Terror has extended the domination of these wandering tribes over all the neighbouring peoples, whom they rob and pillage without mercy. The Tuarick costume is the same as that of the Arabs, with the exception of the head-dress. Day and night they wear a cotton band which covers the eyes and comes down over the nose, so that they are obliged to raise the head in order to see. The same band goes once or twice round the head and hides the mouth, coming down below the chin, so that the tip of the nose is all that is visible. The Tuaricks are perfect riders, and mounted on first-rate horses or on fleet camels; each man is armed with a spear, a shield, and a dagger. They are the pirates of the desert, and innumerable are the caravans they have robbed, or blackmailed. [Illustration: Map of Rene Caillie's Journey.] Four days after Caillie's arrival at Timbuctoo, he heard that a caravan was about to start for Talifet; and as he knew that another would not go for three months, fearing detection, he resolved to join this one. It consisted of a large number of merchants, and 600 camels. Starting on the 4th of May, 1828, he arrived, after terrible sufferings from the heat, and a sand-storm in which he was caught, at El Arawan, a town of no private resources, but important as the emporium for the Toudeyni salt, exported at Sansanding, on the banks of the Niger, and also as the halting-place of caravans from Tafilet, Mogadore, Ghat, Drat, and Tripoli, the merchants here exchanging European wares for ivory, gold, slaves, wax, honey, and Soudan stuffs. On the 19th May, the caravan left El Arawan for Morocco, by way of the Sahara. To the traveller's usual sufferings from heat, thirst, and privations of all kinds, was now added the pain of a wound incurred in a fall from his camel. He was also taunted by the Moors, and even by their slaves, who ridiculed his habits and his awkwardness, and even sometimes threw stones at him when his back was turned towards them.