INTRODUCTION.

iHE person who communicated the following intelligence respecting Timbuctoo and Housa, is a Muselman, and a native of Tetuan, whose father and mother are personally known to Mr. Lucas, the British Consul. His name is Asseed El 'Hage Abd Salam Shabeeny. His account ofhimself is, that at the age of fourteen years he accompanied his father to Timbuctoo, from which town, after a residence of three years, he proceeded to Housa ; and after residing at the latter two years, he returned to Timbuctoo, where he continued seven years, and then came back to Tetuan.

Being now in the twenty-seventh year of his age, he proceeded from Tetuan as a pilgrim and merchant, with the caravan for Egypt to Mecca and Medina, and on his return, estabhshed himself as a merchant at Tetuan, his native place, from whence he embarked on board a vessel bound for Hamburgh, in order to A 3