n, Dec. 19. 1817.

In the discussion on Aly Bey's Travels, in the Journal of Science
and the Arts, above mentioned, p. 270. are the following words:--

"Aly Bey has added, in a separate chapter, all the information he
received, respecting a mediterranean sea, from a merchant of
Marocco, of the name of Sidi Matte Buhlal, who had resided many
years at Timbuctoo, and in other countries of Sudan or Nigritia,
the most material of which was, that Tombut is a large town, very
trading, and inhabited by Moors and Negroes, and was at the same
distance from the Nile Abid, (or Nile of the Negroes, or Niger,) as
Fez is from Wed Sebu, that is to say, _about three hundred English
miles_."

As this passage is quoted from Aly Bey, by the first literary
society of Great Britain, and is, therefore, calculated to create a
doubt of the accuracy of what I have said, respecting the distance
of the Nile El Abeed from Timbuctoo, in the enlarged editions of my
account of Marocco, &c. page 297. I consider it a duty which I owe
436 to my country and to myself, not to let this sentence pass through
the press without submitting to the public my observations on the
subject.

Sidi Matte Buhlal is a native of Fas: the name is properly Sidi El
Mattie Bu Hellal. This gentleman is one out of twenty authorities
from whom I derived the information recorded in my account of
Marocco, respecting Timbuctoo and the interior of Africa; his whole
family, which is respectable and numerous, are among the first
Timbuctoo merchants that have their establishments at Fas. I
should, however, add, that among the many authorities from whom I
derived my information relative to Timbuctoo, there were two
muselmen in particular,--merchants of respectability and
intelligence, who came from Timbuctoo to Santa Cruz, soon after _I
opened that port to Dutch commerce, in the capacity of agent of
Holland, by order of the then Emperor of Marocco, Muley Yezzid_,
brother and predecessor of the present Emperor Soliman. These two
gentlemen had resided at Timbuctoo, and in other parts of Sudan,
fifteen years, trading during the whole of that period with
Darbeyta, on the coast of the Red Sea, with Jinnie, Housa, Wangara,
Cashna, and other countries of the interior, from whom, and from
others, equally intellig