An account of Timbuctoo and Housa: territories in the interior of Africa

This book is a reprint of the 1820 edition of the account by El Hage Abd Salam Shabeeny, a Muslim merchant and native of Tetouan, of his visits to Timbuctoo and Housa (Mali) in the late 1780s and 1790s, as it was written down by James G. Jackson, ‘resident upwards of sixteen years in South and West Barbary.’ The book also includes letters containing an account of journies through West and South Barbary (present-day Morocco) undertaken by Jackson himself from 1792 to 1802 in a diplomatic and commercial capacity. Letters also serve as a source for an account of the plague that ravaged West and South Barbary in 1799 and for chapters on a plan for British commercial intercourse with the interior regions of northern Africa. Examples of Muslim correspondence, including letters from various Moroccan sultans, reproduced as literal translations from the Arabic, are also included. Furthermore, fragments, notes and anecdotes have been included which illustrate the nature and character of the country, and information is provided on Arabic as well as African languages.