ation, will of necessity have a
contrary operation now, since a shorter and securer channel for
European enterprise into the central regions of Africa has been
opened by the intrepidity and perseverance of Park, from the
south-western shores of the Atlantic.

Independently of this consideration, there is great reason to believe
that Timbuctoo has in reality declined of late from the wealth and
consequence which it appears formerly to have enjoyed. The existence
of such a state of things, as we have described, in the preceding
pages, the oppositions of the Moors, the resistance of the negroes,
the frequent change of masters, and the insecurity of property
consequent upon these intestine struggles, would all lead directly
and inevitably to this result. That they have led to it, may be
collected from other sources than Adams. Even Park, to whom so
brilliant a description of the city was given by some of his
informants, was told by others that it was surpassed in opulence and
size by Houssa, Walet, and probably by Jinnie. Several instances also
occur in both his missions, which prove that a considerable trade
from Barbary is carried on direct from the desert to Sego and the
neighbouring countries, without ever touching at Timbuctoo; and this
most powerful of the states of Africa, in the sixteenth century,
according to Leo, is now, in the nineteenth, to all appearance, a
mere tributary dependency of a kingdom, which does not appear to have
been known to Leo even by name.

Such a decline of the power and commercial importance of Timbuctoo
would naturally be accompanied by a corresponding decay of the city
itself; and we cannot suppose that Adams' description of its external
appearance will be rejected, on account of its improbability, by
those, who recollect that Leo describes the habitations of the
natives, _in his time,_ almost in the very words of the narrative
_now_ [*], and that the flourishing cities of Sego and Sansanding
appear, from Park's account, to be built of mud, precisely in the
same manner as Adams describes the houses of Timbuctoo.

[Footnote: One of the numerous discordances between the different
translations of Leo, occurs in the passage here alluded to. The
meaning of the Italian version is simply this, that "the dwellings of
the people of Timbuctoo are cabins or huts, constructed with stakes,
covered with chalk or clay, and thatched with straw, _'le cui case
sono capanne fatte di pali coperte di creta