When the chief of the Tooariks arrives with his suite at Timbuctoo, it is a general calamity, and yet every one overwhelms him with attention, and sends presents to him and his followers. He sometimes remains there two months, being maintained all that time at the expense of the inhabitants and the king, who sometimes give them really valuable presents, and they return home laden with millet, rice, honey, and preserved articles. The Tooariks and Soorgoos are the same people: the former name is given to them by the Moors and the latter by the negroes. They are a wandering race, and inhabit the banks of the Dhioliba from the village of Diré to the environs of Haoussa, which my host informed me was twenty days’ journey E. by S. E. of Timbuctoo, situated in a vast country of the same name, watered by the river. The Tooariks have terrified the negroes of their neighbourhood into subjection, and they inflict upon them the most cruel depredations and exactions. Like the Arabs, they have fine horses which facilitate their marauding expeditions. The people exposed to their attacks stand in such awe of them, that the appearance of three or four Tooariks is sufficient to strike terror into five or six villages. At Timbuctoo the slaves are never allowed to go out of the town after sun-set, lest they should be carried off by the Tooariks, who forcibly seize all who fall in their way. The condition of these unhappy beings is then more deplorable than ever. I saw some in the little canoes almost naked, and their masters were constantly threatening to beat them. The Tooariks possess numerous flocks of sheep and herds of oxen and goats. Milk and meat are their only food. Their slaves gather the seed of the nenuphar, which is very common in all the surrounding marshes; they dry it and thrash it. It is so small that it does not require bruising; they boil it with their fish. The Tooariks cultivate no kind of vegetable. Their slaves are employed in tending their flocks and herds. They have no grain for their own use, except what they obtain from the flotillas passing from Jenné to Timbuctoo. During the swell of the waters, the Tooariks retire a little into the interior of the country, where they find good pasture. They have numerous herds of camels, whose milk is always a certain resource for them. The Foulahs who live in the neighbourhood of the river are not kept in subjection by these savages. The Foulahs are very superior to the pure negro race; they are full of energy, and are too brave to submit to the degrading yoke of the Tooariks. These Foulahs do not speak the Poulh language of the Fouta-Dhialon. I addressed to them some words in that dialect which they did not understand. They speak the language of Timbuctoo; but they have also a particular dialect which they use among themselves. All those whom I saw on the banks of the river were rovers.