Note (return) — SPECIMENS

The various sources of information that I have investigated, uniformly declare that sovereign to be a Negro, and that his name in the year 1800, was Woolo. This account, it appears, is confirmed by Adams, who says, 245 Woolo was King of Timbuctoo in 1810, and that he was then old and grey-headed. Some years after the above period, Riley's Narrative, epitomised in Leyden's Discoveries and Travels in Africa, vol. i., speaking of the King of Timbuctoo, says, this sovereign is a very large, old, grey-headed black man, called Shegar, which means Sultan. This, however, I must observe is a misinterpretation of the word Shegar, which is an African-Arabic word, and signifies red or carrotty, and is a word applicable to his physiognomy; but certainly not to his rank:--Abd Shegar, a carrotty or red Negro. If these two testimonies, since 1800, be correct, then the anachronism of which I am accused in the New Supplement to the Encyclopedia Britannica, (title Africa,) is misapplied.