ON AFRICA. 441 The state in which he has represented Timbuctoo, is, I think, extremely inaccurate ; and being a slave, it is more than probable,, that he was placed in a Fondaque \ or Caravansera, belonging to the King, which he mistook for his palace ; but that his narrative should be deemed inaccurate, because he has described the town of Timbuctoo to be under the sovereignty of a Negro prince, is to me incomprehensible. 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, 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 many 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 carrottyy and is a word applicable to his physiognomy y but certainly not to his rank :— Abd Shegar, a Vide Jackson's enlarged Account of Marocco, &c.

p. 298.

2 Since publishing this letter, Mr. Bowdich, in his Account of Ashantee, pages 194, 195, says, Woolo was King of Timbuctoo in 1807, or ten years before Mr. Bowdich was at Ashantee.