TUIBVCTOO.

SITUATION OF THE CITY OF TIMBUCTOO*

On the east side of the city of Timbuctoa,

there is a large forest, in which are a great many elephants. The timber here is very

large. The trees on the outside of the forest

are remarkable for having two different colours

;

that side which is exposed to the morning sun

is black, and the opposite side is yellow. The body of the tree has neither branches nor leaves,

but the leaves, which are remarkably large, grow upon the top only : so that one of these trees

appears, at a distance, like the mast and round

top of a ship. Shabeeny has seen trees in Eng-

land much taller than these : within the forest

the trees are smaller than on its skirts. There

are no trees resembling these in the Emperor of Marocco's dominions. They are of such a size

that the largest cannot be girded by two men. They bear a kind of berry about the size of a

walnut, in clusters consisting of from ten to twenty berries. Shabeeny cannot say what is the

extent of this forest, but it is very large. Close

to the town of Timbuctoo, on the south, is a

small rivulet in which the inhabitants wash their

clothes, and which ia about two feet deep. It

runs in the great forest on the east, and does

not communicate with the Nile, but is lost in

the sands west of the town. Its water is brackish

;

that of the Nile is good and pleasant. The town

of Timbuctoo is surrounded by a mud-wall : the