e skin becomes rough, greyish, and extremely ugly.
They usually sleep under cover at night, but sometimes, in the
hottest weather, they will lie exposed to the night air, with little
or no covering, notwithstanding that the fog, which rises from the
river, descends like dew, and, in fact, at that season supplies the
want of rain.

All the males of Timbuctoo have an incision on their faces from the
top of the forehead down to the nose, from which proceed other
lateral incisions over the eyebrows, into all of which is inserted a
blue dye, produced from a kind of ore, which is found in the
neighbouring mountains. The women have also incisions on their faces,
but in a different fashion; the lines being from two to five in
number, cut on each cheek bone, from the temple straight down; they
are also stained with blue. These incisions being made on the faces
of both sexes when they are about twelve months old, the dyeing
material, which is inserted in them, becomes scarcely visible as they
grow up.

With the exception of the king and queen, and their immediate
companions, who had a change of dress about once a week, the people
are in general very dirty, sometimes not washing themselves for
twelve or fourteen days together. Besides the queen, who, as has been
already stated, wore a profusion of ivory and bone ornaments in her
hair, some of a square shape, and others about as thick as a
shilling, but rather smaller, strings of which she also wore about
her wrists and ankles; many of the women were decorated in a similar
manner, and they seemed to consider hardly any favour too great to be
conferred on the person who would make them a present of these
precious ornaments. Gold ear-rings were much worn, some of the women
had also rings on their fingers, but these appeared to Adams to be of
brass; and as many of the latter had letters upon them, he concluded,
both from this circumstance and from their workmanship, that they
were not made by the negroes, but obtained from the moorish traders.

The ceremony of marriage amongst the upper ranks at Timbuctoo is, for
the bride to go in the day-time to the king's house, and to remain
there until after sunset, when the man who is to be her husband goes
to fetch her away. This is usually followed by a feast the same
night, and a dance. Adams did not observe what ceremonies were used
in the marriages of the lower classes.

As it is common to have several concubines besides a wife, the wo