TIWEUCTOO. 35 gether with the same freedom as in Europe. They sleep on mattresses, with cotton sheets and a counterpane ; the married, in separate beds in the same room. They frequently bathe the whole body, their smell would otherwise be offensive ; they use towels brought from India. At dinner they spread their mats and sit as in Barbary. They smoke a great deal, but tobacco is dear ; it is the best article of trade. Poisoning is common ; they get the poison from the fangs of snakes, but, he says, most commonly from a part of the body near the tail, by a kind of distillation. Physic, taken immediately after the poison, may cure, but not always ; if deferred two or three days, the man must die : the poison is slow, wastes the flesh, and produces a sallow, morbid appearance. It causes great pain in the stomach, destroys the appetite, produces a consumption, and kills in a longer or shorter time, according to the strength of constitution. Some who have taken remedies, soon after the poison, live 8 or 10 years ; otherwise the poison kills in 4 or 5 days. Physicians prescribe an emetic, the composition of which he does not know.

NEIGHBOURING NATIONS.

There are no Arabs between Timbuctoo and the Nile ; they live on the other side % and would not with impunity invade the lands of ' North of the town.