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She has here great liberty, walks about unveiled, and takes an active part in all affairs and transactions of life. Dr. Oudney justly remarks, "The liveliness of the women, their freeness with the men, and the marked attention the latter paid them, formed a striking contrast with other Mohammedan States." Batouta mentions a Berber tribe of Western Sahara, as having similar manners.
If, up to then, this African Mecca had only been visited by the travelers of the ancient world Batouta, Khazan, Imbert, Mungo Park, Adams, Laing, Caille, Barth, Lenz, on that day by a most singular chance the two Americans could boast of having seen, heard, and smelt it, on their return to America if they ever got back there.
Batouta also mentions this singular custom as prevailing amongst the Berber people of Twalaten, ايوالاتن, in Western Sahara, in these words "The people call themselves after the name of their maternal uncles; it is not the sons of the fathers who inherit, but the nephews, sons of the sister of the father."
I have found two ways of spelling Timbuctoo in The Desert, viz., تِن٘بُك٘تُوا, and تِن٘بُك٘تُا, and they both agree with Batouta. We may, therefore, consider Batouta's style of spelling the more correct orthography. Now, تين, Teen, in Touarghee, is "well" or "pit."
Within these very few years, some valuable notices have been received, through M. Burckhardt, and Mr. Kosegarten of Jena, of Ibn Batouta, an Arabian traveller of the fourteenth century. According to M. Burckhardt, he is, perhaps, the greatest land traveller that ever wrote his travels. He was a native of Tangier, and travelled for thirty years, from 1324 to 1354.
It is a very old trick of the poets and retailers of the marvellous to people The Desert with dragons, and serpents, and monsters of every kind. We know that on the banks of the Majerdah an enormous serpent stopped the progress of the army of Regulus. Batouta, also, who flourished in the fourteenth century, pretends that "The Desert is full of serpents."
M. Jomard, Member of the French Institute, gives تِيم٘بُك٘تُ but says he does not think that this word when properly written contains the ي. He thinks, however, we may be satisfied with the orthography of تِم٘بُك٘تُ. And he adds, "I know that Batouta writes Tenboctou, n being used for m."
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