82 THE EXPLORATION OF THE NIGER all its mystery since it passed into the hands of the French, and opinions are divided as to its present and future position. My friend Felix Dubois has described it, and it would be alike a waste of time and presumption on my part to attempt to supplement what he has said so well. I shall content myself with noting the reason of the former great commercial importance of Timbuktu ; relatively considered of course. " Timbuktu," says an Arab author, " is the point of meeting of the camel and the canoe." That fact alone would not, however, be enough to account for its prosperity ; many other places on the river fulfil this condition, as well if not better than Timbuktu, for, as we can ourselves testify, the canoe and the camel only meet there a few days in the year, and not always even as often as that.

In my opinion we have to seek the explanation elsewhere, and I think I have found it. Here it is : camels cannot with impunity approach rivers or other water-courses, for this reason. The banks are subject to constant inundations, and, especially in the Niger basin, quantities of succulent grass, containing a great deal of water, everywhere spring up, which, though the camel eats them gluttonously, arc fatal to the *' ship of the desert," used as it is to dry food.

Now by a strange freak of nature, the part of the desert, I will not say exactly the driest part, but certainly the portion containing neither streams nor permanent pools, that vast expanse improperly called the Sahara, stretches up to the very gates of Timbuktu, so that caravans can reach the city without any risk to the animals. In a word, may we not say that Timbuktu is not a port of the Niger in the Sahara, but a port of the Sahara near the Niger ?

As long as the trade of Timbuktu is carried on chiefly by caravans coming from the north, it will, in my opinion, retain its importance, but as soon as the Sudan railway is completed, merchandise will come by way of it and the