Note (return) — TIMBUCTOO TO HOUSA.

They did not see the town till they came within an hour from it, or an hour and a half; it stands in a plain. Housa is south-east 79 of Timbuctoo, a much larger city and nearly as large as London. He lived there two years, but never saw the whole of it. It has no walls; the houses are like those of Timbuctoo, and form irregular lanes or streets like those of Fas or Marocco, wide enough for camels to pass with their loads. The palace is much larger than that of Timbuctoo; it is seven or eight miles in circumference and surrounded by a wall; he remembers but four gates, but there may be more; he thinks the number of guards at each gate is about 50; it is in that part of the town most distant from the Nile. The houses are dark coloured and flat roofed. He thinks Cairo is about one-third larger than Housa; the streets are much wider than those of Timbuctoo; the houses are covered with a kind of clay of different colours but never white. They have no chalk or lime in the country.