INTRODUCTION.

iHE person who communicated the following

intelligence respecting Timbuctoo and Housa,

is a Muselman, and a native of Tetuan, whose

father and mother are personally known to Mr. Lucas, the British Consul. His name is Asseed El 'Hage Abd Salam Shabeeny. His

account ofhimself is, that at the age of fourteen

years he accompanied his father to Timbuctoo, from which town, after a residence of three

years, he proceeded to Housa ; and after residing

at the latter two years, he returned to Tim-

buctoo, where he continued seven years, and then came back to Tetuan.

Being now in the twenty-seventh year of his

age, he proceeded from Tetuan as a pilgrim and merchant, with the caravan for Egypt to Mecca and Medina, and on his return, esta- bhshed himself as a merchant at Tetuan, his

native place, from whence he embarked on board a vessel bound for Hamburgh, in order to

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