The morning call., 1894-04-30


would eat missionary,
Cassock and hymnbook, too.
But as the French penetrate the Western
Soudan the Importance of the city which
they lately captured will rise above the
level of the doggerel rhymester. Timbuctoo
is the key to the trade of the Western
Soudan. 1t is in north latitude 16 deg. 40
min. and west longitude deg. u min. 1t
lies due south of the town of Morocco, and
nearly due east of 81. Louis. the capital OF
French Senegambia. A number of cara
van routes across the Sahara intersect
here. From time immemorial trading par
ties starting from the Mediterranean ports
for ports on the Gulf Of Guinea have
passed through Timbuctoo. 1t is said to
be on the Niger; In fact it is ten miles
from that river, and has a port of its own
Kabara. A couple of centuries ago it was
supposed 10 be an immense city with
population of million or so; it is doubt
full whether it ever was anything but
small town. Ii stands On the edge of the
desert. and its suburbs can never have
been fruitful enough to support large
population.
AS far back as our knowledge of the
fanaticism and il has been almost as diff
cult for Christian 10 get into it as into
Mecca. About 250 years ago a French
sailor was captured on the coast. taken to
TimbuctoO and sold as a slave. He died.
but before his death he left memoranda of
the strange things he saw. The we'll
known American sailor Adams said he
visited Timbuctoo in 1910, and Captain
Riley gives an entertaining account of his
imprisonment there in 1915. Thirteen
years afterward a daring Frenchman
named Caillie disguised himself as
Mussulman, sailed down the Niger to
Timbuctoo and remained some months
there; and twenty-five years afterward
the famous German traveller Barth pene-
trated the city in the same disguise and
supplied the world with the only anthem
tic information regarding inbuctoo
which we have had until now. Several
officers OF the French army which occupied
the place last winter have lately described
1t in full, and their accounts have been
published in Paris with Illustrations from
photographs.
1t is place Of some $4,000 people, of
mixed faces. The town is built In the
shape of triangle in the heart of wide
sandy plain which is often under water in
the torrentlal season. The houses are
terraced, with pointed roofs rising from
the terraces. The monuments are five
mosques with no architectural preten-
sions, and pyramidal tower of clay in the
center of the city. There is no industry
and no commerce in the place. but the
storehouses, which are large and numer-
Gus, are often full of merchandise from
various parts of Africa and Europe. 1t is
in fact an exchange where the natives
barter their products for European goods.
A drawback TO the traffic has been the
predatory operations of tribe called
Tuaregs. which from time immemorial
has lived on the plumber of caravans.
The French look forward to time when
Timbuctoo may be the capital of their
West African possessions. The country
lying between that CITY and the coast OF
Senegal is intersected with streams flow
ing over gold bearing gravel. Itwould not
he an enterprise OF great difficulty to con-
struct railroad from st. Louis to the
bend in the Niger. Such line might open
up a productive country. The river is
navigable for craft Of light draft from the
bend to the Gulf of Guinea, and a depot for
French merchandise at Timbuctoo might
be fed by river boats, thus supersedng the
caravan traffic. 1t is not quite clear how
the natives would pay for the French i'm
ports they consumed. At present their
chief exports are gold dust. ostrich
feathers, gum and palm oil, and not much
of these. But markets beget prod uction.
There may be more gold IN the Soudan
than we know of, and though the bulk of
the soil is arid and sandy, the river valleys
are fertile, and may be brought to yield
cotton. coffee and other tropical products.