182 CONCLUDING REMARKS.
led to it, may be collected from other sources than Adams.
Even Park, to whom so brilliant a description of the city
was given by some of his informants, was told by others,
that it was surpassed in opulence and size, by Haoussa,
Walet, and probably by Jinnie. Several instances also
occur in both his Missions, which prove that a considerable
trade from Barbary is carried on direct from the
Desert, to Sego and the neighbouring countries, without
ever touching at Tombuctoo ; and this most powerful of
the states of Africa in the sixteenth century, according to
Leo, is now, in the nineteenth, to all appearance, a mere
tributary dependency of a kingdom which does not appear
to have been known to Leo, even by name.
Such a decline of the power and commercial importance
of Tombuctoo, would naturally be accompanied by a
corresponding decay of the city itself : and we cannot
suppose that Adams's description of its external appearance
will be rejected on account of its improbability, by those
who recollect that Leo describes the habitations of the
natives in his time, almost in the very words of the Narrative
now;* and 'that the flourishing cities of Sego and
* One of the numerous discordances between the different translations of Leo
occurs in the passage here alluded to. The meaning of the Italicm version is
simply this,—that u the dwellings of the people of Tombuctoo are cabins or
Sansanding appear, from Park's accounts, to be built of
mud, precisely in the same manner as Adams describes
the houses of Tombuctoo.
But whatever may be the degree of Adams’s coincidence
“ huts constructed with stakes covered with chalk (or clay) and thatched with
ee straw.”'—<e le cui case sono capanne fatte di pali coperte di creta co i cortivi
“ di paglia11 But the expression in the Latin translation, (which is closely
followed by the old English translator, Pory), implies a state of previous splendour
and decay,—“ cujus domus omnes in tuguriola cretacpa, stramineis tectis,
“ sunt mutates.”
As we shall have occasion hereafter to point out another disagreement between
the different versions of Leo, it may be expedient to inform some of our readers
that the Italian translation here quoted, is described to have been made by
Leo himself, from the original Arabic in which he composed his work; and he
appears, by the following extract from'the Preface of his Italian Editor, to
have learnt that language, late in life, for this especial purpose. See the first
volume of Ramusio’s Raccolto delle Navigations e Viaggi. Venetia, 1588.
£c Cosi habito poi in Roma il rimanente della vita sua, dove imparo la .lingua
“ Italiana e leggere e scrivere, e tradusse questo suo libro meglio ch’ egli seppe di
“ Arabo : il qual libro scritto da lui medesimo, dopo mold accidente pervenne
“ nelle nostre mani ; e noi con quella maggior diligenza che habbiamo potuto,
“ ci siamo ingegnad con ogni fedelta di farlo venir in luce nel modo che hora si
“ legge.”—“ Thus he dwelt in Rome the remainder of his life, where he learnt
“ to read and write the Italian language, and translated his Book from the
“ Arabic in the best manner that he was able,” Sec. Sec. Supposing the Latin
version to be a translation direct from the Arabic, that circumstance, and the
preceding explanation, may afford a clue to the discordances to which we have
alluded; but a reference to the Arabic original (which we believe is not to be
found in any of our public libraries) could alone enable us to ascertain,
whether the fault lay solely in the Latin translator’s ignorance of Arabic,
or in Leo’s probable imperfect acquaintance with the Italian. We will only
add, that in the passages which we have compared, the Italian and French, and
the Latin and English translations, respectively agree with each other.