Tuesday, 7th.—This day I visited the sultan about noon, and, at his request, taught a man, one of his servants, how to wind up the time-piece, which is one of eight days. In the afternoon I was visited by three Fellatas, Hadji Omer from Foota Tora, Malem Mahomed from Timbuctoo, and the third from a neighbouring town to Timbuctoo. Malem Mahomed says the whole of the district called Timbuctoo is at present under the authority of the Tuaricks; that the principal town is called Timbuctoo; and that their gold comes from Ashantee, Gonga, and Bambarra, where they exchange it for salt to the Tuaricks, and cloths to the inhabitants of Fez, Ghadamis, and Tripoli; that Timbuctoo produces no gold, it being only the great market where all the gaffles from the north and east meet those of the south and west; that few Arabs now come from Fez and Morocco, owing, he says, to the Arabs, called Waled Dleim, cutting off the caravans. Hadji Omar, who was an intelligent man, told me that forty men arrived at Sego with the late Mungo Park. That, out of the forty, thirty-five had died of sickness, and that five only embarked in the canoe given to him by the sultan of Sego. That they were repeatedly attacked by the Tuaricks, of whom they killed a great number. Whether any, or how many, of those belonging to the canoe were killed, he could not say. The Hadji had just returned from Mecca, and wished to go there again, if he could get an opportunity; but, as he said the sultan of Baghermi and his subjects had been driven into the mountains to the south of that kingdom by the Sheik el Kanemi, there was no passing through that country, as it was now only inhabited by wandering Arabs, who plunder all that fall into their hands, otherwise it was the best road to the east from Adamowa, by the way of Baghermi.