the west, such incoherence, I presume, requires no confutation. I
consider that it originates from Moorish inaccuracy.
440
The _La Mar Zarak_ of Adams, if any such river exists, may be a
corruption of _Sagea el Humra_, i.e. the Red Stream, a river in the
southern confines of Sahara, nearly in the same longitude with
Timbuctoo. This river the late Emperor of Marocco, Muley Yezzid,
announced as the southern boundary of his dominions; but from the
accounts which I have had of it, it was not of that magnitude which
Adams ascribes to the Mar Zarak, nor was it precisely in the
neighbourhood of Timbuctoo, when I was a resident in South Barbary:
rivers, however, _which pass through sandy or desert districts_,
often change their courses in the space of twenty-four hours, by
the drifting of the moving sands impelled by the wind; instances of
which I have myself often witnessed.

If this river proceeded from the Desert, it might have had the name
of _El Bahar Sahara_, i.e. the River of Sahara; the word _La Mar_
is a lingua franca, or corrupt Spanish word, signifying the sea,
and might have been used to this poor sailor by a native to make it
the more intelligible to him. Many Spanish words having crept into
the Arabic vocabulary, and are occasionally used by those Africans
who have had intercourse with Europeans.

441 The next passage for animadversion is as follows:--

"The state in which he represented Timbuctoo, and its being the
residence of a Negro sovereign, instead of a muselman."

The state in which he has represented Timbuctoo, is, I think,
extremely inaccurate; and being a slave, it is more than probable,
that he was placed in a Fondaque[244], or Caravansera, belonging to
the King, which he _mistook_ for his palace; but that his narrative
should be deemed inaccurate, because he has described the town of
Timbuctoo to be under the sovereignty of a Negro prince, is to me
incomprehensible.

[Footnote 244: Vide Jackson's enlarged Account of Marocoo, &c.
p. 298.]

The various sources of information that I have investigated,
uniformly declare that sovereign to be a Negro, and that his name
in the year 1800, was Woolo. This account, it appears, is confirmed
by Adams, who says,[245] Woolo was King of Timbuctoo in 1810, and
that he w