"Timbuctoo is smaller than you might suppose from its age and celebrity. It has a population of about twenty thousand, which is largely increased at the time of the season of trade, between November and January. The city is a collection of huts of wood or stone, and there are few buildings of more than one story in height. There are three great mosques and several smaller ones. The largest of the mosques rises in the shape of a pyramid, with a broad base from the south-western corner of the town. [Illustration: VIEW OF KABARA, THE PORT OF TIMBUCTOO.] "Dr. Barth was not permitted to go inside the mosque; but he probably did not miss much, as the native accounts of it represent the interior to be quite plain and without ornament. The town is about nine miles from the banks of the Niger. Its port is called Kabara, and is on a sandy hill, sloping down to the river. There is a broad basin for boats at Kabara, which Dr. Barth thought might be artificial, but was unable to ascertain whether it was so or not. "The trade of Timbuctoo is chiefly by caravans to Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. Ghadames, about three hundred miles south-west of Tripoli, is the most important outlet for the products of Timbuctoo, and the most southerly point to which travellers may venture without great risk. [Illustration: TIMBUCTOO, FROM THE TERRACE OF THE HOUSE OCCUPIED BY DR. BARTH.] "The population of Timbuctoo comprises several varieties of negroes and Arabs, the latter coming from the desert regions to the north. All are Moslems of the most fanatical kind, and for this reason the life of a Christian is not safe in the city if his religion is known. The few Europeans who have been there went in disguise, and Dr. Barth said his death would have been a certainty if it had been known that he was anything but a Moslem." Here Doctor Bronson was called from the tent by Abdul, who wanted advice about serving out provisions to the porters. Frank and Fred being left to themselves, the conversation took a lighter turn, though it did not leave the strange city they had been hearing about. "It has been said," Frank remarked, "that the word 'Timbuctoo' has no corresponding rhyme in our language." "Haven't you heard," said Fred, "the rhyme that somebody once made for it? Here it is: "'If I were a cassowary, On the sands of Timbuctoo, I'd eat a missionary-- Eat his bones and hymn-book too.'" "I think I can make another rhyme for it," responded Frank. "You remember the Buck brothers, that spent a summer in our town once, don't you?" "Yes," replied Fred, "I remember them well; one was short and stout, and the other tall and slim." "Exactly so. Now, how'll this do? "Just see how soon I write down A rhyme for Timbuctoo: We had at one time in our town Stout Buck and Slim Buck too." "Very good!" exclaimed his cousin. "But I can do as well as that without half trying. Wasn't President Buchanan sometimes called 'Old Buck,' by way of familiarity?"