sants or kings. "The _Tarik_ is to this day,"
remarks Felix DuBois, "the Hozier of the Soudan. In addition to the
attractions to be found in its pages, it contains a charm which
entirely escapes the Sudanese, and which we alone are privileged to
taste, viz., the _naivete_, good nature, and delicious sincerity which
pervade the book." The "book admirably reflects the life and mind of
the Soudan of yesterday. One enjoys from its pages," says this writer,
"the delicate repasts offered by Homer, Herodotus, and Froissard, and
it is for this reason I have called the _Tarik_ the chef-d'oeuvre of
Sudanese literature."[209]

A.O. STAFFORD

FOOTNOTES:

[194] Felix DuBois, "Timbuctoo the Mysterious," 310.

[195] _Ibid._, 315.

[196] This work has been translated into French by M. Octave Houdas,
Professor of the Oriental School of Languages in Paris.

[197] Felix DuBois, "Timbuctoo the Mysterious," 312.

[198] Felix DuBois, "Timbuctoo the Mysterious," 313-314.

[199] Felix DuBois, "Timbuctoo the Mysterious," 90-91.

[200] "Like Homer, Abderrahman sometimes wanders astray," says DuBois,
"pen in hand. Side by side with the gravest events he mentions that 'a
white crow appeared from the 22nd of Rebia to the 28th of Djoumada, on
which day the children caught and killed it.' Elsewhere in the
narratives of his voyage to Massina, one of his hosts gave him his
daughter in marriage. He was fifty years of age at the time, and in
possession of several other wives. Not content with imparting the
event to posterity, he adds, 'My union with Fatima was concluded on
the twelfth day of Moharrem, 1645, but the marriage was not
consummated until Friday the sixteenth.' I believe he would have given
us his washing-bills if the use of body linen had been familiar to the
Sudanese. In referring to this tendency of the annalist, DuBois does
not mean to say anything which might be taken as an undervaluation of
this work. He aims to show how the Tarik reminds the reader of works
of some of the leading writers of the most civilized countries." See
DuBois, "Timbuctoo the Mysterious," p. 316.

[201] It was said "He made a pilgrimage to the house of God,
accompanied by a thousand foot-soldiers and five hundred horse, and
carrying with him three hundred thousand mitkals of gold from the
treasure of Sunni Ali. He scattered this treasure in the holy places,
at the tomb of the Prophet in Medina, and at the sacred mosq