Gold comes from the south,
Money comes from the
country of white people,
But the words of God,
Knowledge, Stories and nice folk tales,
Can only be found in Tombouctou"
There is a Tuareg proverb which says: "It is better to see for oneself,
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"Salt comes from the north, Gold comes from the south, Money comes from the country of white people, But the words of God, Knowledge, Stories and nice folk tales, Can only be found in Tombouctou" |
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sending postcards to Holland... means you have to put 5 different, pretty large stamps on each card. |
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Alexander Gordon Laing, 1793-1826In the 1820s, an intense rivalry developed between the French and British over the West African interior, symbolized by the substantial cash prize of 2000 francs offered in 1824 by the French Geographical Society for the first expedition to return from Timbuktu. Perhaps the saddest episode of the subsequent international race was the story of Major Gordon Laing. Laing, yet another Scottish-born explorer, an army officer with the Royal African Corps in Sierra Leone, had actually succeeded in reaching the city, though no one in Europe knew it till much later; setting out in 1825 from Tripoli across the Sahara, he had entered Timbuktu on August 18th, 1826, but had been killed shortly after leaving the city, in late September. Shown here is Laing's first book, recording his earlier explorations inland from Freetown in 1822 into the Mandingo interior, the manuscript of which he had, when setting out for Timbuktu, left behind in London to be prepared for publication by a friend. |
| It was a young Frenchman, Rene Caillie, living in French Senegal, who, disguised as a pilgrim returning from Mecca who had escaped from capture by Europeans, traded and begged his way inland, armed only with an umbrella, till on April 20th 1828 he reached the fabled city, "of whose population, civilization and trade with the Soudan such exaggerated notions have prevailed." He found "nothing but a mass of ill-looking houses, built of earth," situated "in an immense plain of white sand." Ironically, he was able to obtain full details of Gordon Laing's murder two years earlier, before travelling home in caravan across the Sahara to Morocco and a triumphant welcome in Paris. Significantly, this English translation of Caillie's account appeared with the imprint of two publishers better known for issuing fashionable novels. |
| Loaded with blocks of salt and other trade goods huge convoys of camels would spend weeks crossing the unforgiving Sahara to reach Tombouctou. It was here that salt was traded pound for pound with African merchants bringing gold and ivory along the Niger from the heart of Africa. At its height in the 16th century, the city had 100.000 inhabitants and became not only a centre of commerce but also an important seat of learning and religion. The city was fiercely Islamic and the fact that non-Moslems were totally banned from entering the city only added to its mystique. |
