FROM KAYES TO TIMBUKTU 73 in these planks, through which ropes are passed made of the fibres, which are ver>' strong, of the leaves of a kind of hibiscus. When Sansanding, Jenn, and Timbuktu were prosperous places, when the savage hordes of Toucouleurs had not yet spread death and desolation everywhere in the name of Islam, these heavy craft, sometimes drawing more than six feet, used to halt at Sansanding. For the traffic further up stream smaller boats were used, which plied to and fro nearly all the year round. A central mart was absolutely indispensable to the Sudan merchants, and Sansanding was fitted by nature to become that mart. I believe that in its most prosperous times it numbered from thirty to forty thousand inhabitants, though now these are reduced to some three or four thousand, in spite of the fresh impulse given by the more prosperous times of to-day, and the intelligence of the governor Mademba.

When the railway has been pushed from Kayes to Kolikoro, and when steamboats ply on the Niger, similar causes will of course produce similar results. Steamboats will not, however, be able to go beyond Sansanding all the year round, for no amount of improvement in their build can reduce their draught below one and a half or two feet.

Above this point, however, the river is navigable for a longer or shorter time every year in such barges as are now in use. At the most, the traffic is only interrupted for about four months in the year. Sansanding will again become a central emporium and transhipping station ; all its old importance will be restored to it.

I may add, that it has fortunately many other advantages, including good anchorage and landing places, where boats can be moored in shelter during the violent storms of Central Africa ; the soil too is very dry, so that the place is healthier than many others in the Sudan, and the people are gentle, intelligent, and industrious.