Footnote 69:[ (return) ] The physicians have a very superior and general knowledge of the virtues of herbs and plants.
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.
The nails and palms of the hands are stained red with henna [70], cultivated there: the Arabs tatoo their hands and arms, but not the people of Timbuctoo. These people are real negroes; they have a slight mark on the face, sloping from the eye; the Foulans have a horizontal mark; the Bambarrahees a wide gash from the forehead to the chin. Tombs are raised over the dead; they are buried in a winding-sheet and a coffin: the relations mourn over their graves, and pronounce a panegyric on the dead. The men and women mix in society, and visit together with the same freedom as in Europe. They sleep on mattresses, with cotton sheets and a counterpane; the married, in separate beds in the same room. They frequently bathe the whole body, their smell would otherwise be offensive; they use towels brought from India. At dinner they spread their mats and sit as in Barbary. They smoke a great deal, but tobacco is dear; it is the best article of trade. Poisoning is common; they get the poison from the fangs of snakes, but, he says, most commonly from a part of the body near the tail, by a kind of distillation. Physic, taken immediately after the poison, may cure, but not always; if deferred two or three days, the man must die: the poison is slow, wastes the flesh, and produces a sallow, morbid appearance. It causes great pain in the stomach, destroys the appetite, produces a consumption, and kills in a longer or shorter time, according to the strength of constitution. Some who have taken remedies, soon after the poison, live 8 or 10 years; otherwise the poison kills in 4 or 5 days. Physicians prescribe an emetic, the composition of which he does not know.
Footnote 70:[ (return) ] A decoction of the herb henna produces a deep orange die. It is used generally by the females on their hands and feet: it allays the violence of perspiration in the part to which it is applied, and imparts a coolness.
NEIGHBOURING NATIONS.
There are no Arabs between Timbuctoo and the Nile; they live on the other side [71], and would not with impunity invade the lands of these people, who are very populous, and could easily destroy any army that should attempt to molest them. The lands are chiefly private property. The Foulans are very beautiful. The Bambarrahs have thick lips and wide nostrils. The king of Foulan is much respected at Timbuctoo; his subjects are Muhamedans, but not circumcised. [72] They cannot be made slaves at Timbuctoo; but the Arabs steal their girls and sell them; not for slavery, but for marriage.
Girls are marriageable very young; sometimes they have children at ten years old.
Footnote 71:[ (return) ] North of the town.
Footnote 72:[ (return) ] All true Muhamedans are circumcised, so that they must partake of Paganism if uncircumcised.