To advert to another more humble African adventurer,—I have lately seen the Quarterly Review of the Travels of Adams to Tombuctou, (which the Africans call Timbuctou,) but not the work itself. From what I have heard related in Egypt, and the Hedjaz, by several Felata Bedouins coming as Hadjis, from the neighbourhood of Timbuctou, by the way of Tunis, I believe that Adams’s description of that town is correct. One of them told me it was half as large as Cairo, and built of low mud houses, such I believe as are common all over Soudan. As to his river, I likewise heard that the Timbuctou river flows westward. The old story, that it is the same river with the Egyptian Nile was also repeated, which of course is in direct contradiction to the former supposition. The truth seems to be, that the ignorant Africans finding the two rivers to resemble each other, in size, in productions, and in the regularity of their inundation, conclude them to be the same. The name of La Mar Zarah, which he ascribes to the river of Timbuctou, I believe to be misspelt for Bahr El Ahmar El Sahára; (بحر الاحمر الصحرا) or the Red River of the Desert.[10] This epithet is perhaps applied to it in the same manner, as Abiadh, Azrak, Akhdar, “white, blue, green,” are given to the different branches of the Nile. La Mar Zarah is said to be of a muddy colour, and the Egyptians describe the Nile by the word Ahmar, at the time when it first begins to rise and to become muddy. The names of the King and Queen of Timbuctou seem to shew that they are Mohammedans. Woolo seems to be Wouli, which in Arabic, means Governor or Ruler (والي), and is given to all their governors, and Fatima is evidently a Moslim name. That Adams did not see them pray, is no proof to the contrary; he might reside for months at Berber or Shendy without witnessing any sort of public worship. There are however some of his statements which struck me as quite impossible, and convinced me of his want of veracity, at least with regard to them. I can never believe that twenty-three persons travelling on foot, with women and children, can cross a waterless desert of thirty days journey, without any other supply of water than what was loaded upon four camels; nor again, that twenty eight persons could travel in the same manner, for twenty-nine days, with four camels only partly loaded with water. Such powers of abstinence, neither Arabs nor Nubians, nor their camels possess; every person who has travelled in a caravan of camels, will disbelieve such assertions. After eight days the water kept in the best Soudan water skins is partly evaporated, and the remainder, from the continual shaking, is reduced to a thick black mud, which extreme necessity alone can make one swallow. The best camels for transport, known in the countries which I have visited, are the Darfour breed. They are never longer than ten or twelve days on their road to Egypt, without water, and even in that journey many of them perish of thirst.