Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/364

 804 WEST AFEICA. Niger at this point was reached by a French gunboat from Bamaku for the first time in 1887. Timbuktu lies 9 miles north of the Niger on a terrace or escarpment of the desert about 800 feet above the sea. Formerly a navigable lateral branch reached the foot of this escarpment, and in 1640 a low-lying quarter of the city was even inundated. But the channel has gradually silted up, and even during the floods boats can now reach no farther than the basin of Kabra (Kabara), the port of Timbuktu on the Mger. Both port and city have greatly diminished in size, and travellers arriving from the north and west now traverse extensive spaces covered with refuse. The position of the great mosque, formerly in the centre, now near the outskirts, also shows how greatly the place has been reduced in recent times. This mosque, dominated by a remarkable earthern tower of pyramidal form, is the only noteworthy monument in Timbuktu, which consists mainly of a labyrinth of terraced houses and huts with pointed roofs. Notwithstanding its decayed state, Timbuktu is still the centre of a consider- able transit trade between the desert and Sudan, the salt from Taudeni and other Saharian deposits being here exchanged for millet, kola-nuts, textiles from the southern regions, and even European wares penetrating up the Niger. Cowries, hitherto the general currency, are being gradually replaced by five-franc pieces, a sure indication of the growing influence of the French in the Upper and Middle Niger basin. The local industries are almost confined to the manufacture of those leathern pouches and amulet bags which are distributed throughout the Sudanese markets from Walata or Biru, the northern rival of Timbuktu. Walata, already a famous market in the fifteenth century, is the chief station on the roundabout trade route between Timbuktu and Saint Louis, which has to be followed from oasis to oasis when the natural highways up the Niger and down the Senegal are closed by local wars. The municipal administration of Timbuktu is entrusted to a kahia, or heredi- tary mayor, a descendant of one of those Andalusian " Rumi " captains who contributed to overthrow the Songhai empire. But the authority of this official is controlled by a Tuareg chief or sultan, and by the family of the Bakhai marabouts, who have adherents in every part of the Sahara, and even in Mauri- tania. Timbuktu is also a learned city, with rich libraries and expounders of the law, who dispute on points of dogma with the same subtlety as the mediaeval Christian theologians. Gogo {Gao, Gar/io), capital of the old Songhai empire, 60 miles south of the Burum district, had formerly a circumference of over 6 miles, comprising a pagan quarter on the west, and a Mohammedan on the east bank, besides an insular quarter between the two fluvial branches. At present little remains of all this except three himdred round huts scattered amongst the palm groves on the left side, and a minaret like that at Agades, a kind of massive pyramid 50 feet high disposed in seven compartments, beneath which Askia, founder of the ephemeral Songhai empire, lies buried. Below Gogo, both banks are almost uninhabited for a distance of 180 miles.