that they cannot live without salt; the negroes of Melli judging of the case of others by their own.  As for the emperor of Melli, he cares not whether these blacks will speak, and be seen or not, so that that he has the profit of their gold[3].  This is all I could learn on this subject, which I think may be credited, as so many persons have vouched for its truth, of which I, who have both seen and heard of many wonderful things in this world, am perfectly satisfied.

The gold brought to Melli is divided into three parts.  One part is sent by the caravan which goes annually from Melli to Kokhia[4], which lies on the road to Syria and Cairo.  The other two parts go first to Tombuctu, whence one of them goes by Toet[5] to Tunis and other ports of the Barbary coast, and the other portion is carried to Hoden, and from thence to Oran and One[6], towns in Barbary, which are within the Straits of Gibraltar, and to Fez, Morocco, Arzila, Azafi, and Messa, towns on the African coast of the Atlantic, where the Italians and other Christians procure it from the Moors, in return for various commodities.  Gold is the best and principal commodity which comes through the country of the Azanhaji, and a part of it is brought every year from Hoden to Arguin, where it is bartered with the Portuguese[7].

No money is coined in the land of the Tawny Moors, or Azenhaji; nor is any money used by them, or in any of the neighbouring countries; but all their trade is carried on by bartering one commodity against another.  In some of their inland towns, the Arabs and Azanbaji use small white porcelain shells, or cowries; which are brought from the Levant to Venice, and sent from thence into Africa.  These are used for small purchases.  The gold is sold by a weight named mitigal, which is nearly equal in value to a ducat.  The inhabitants of the desert have neither religion nor sovereign; but those who are richest, and have the greatest number of retainers and dependents, are considered as chiefs or lords.  The women are tawny, and wear cotton garments, which are manufactured in the country of the Negroes; but some of them wear a kind of cloaks, or upper garments, called Alkhezeli, and they have no smocks.  She who has the largest and longest breasts, is reputed the greatest beauty; on which account, when they have attained to the age of seventeen or eighteen, and their breasts are somewhat grown, they tie a cord very tight around the middle of each breast, which presses very hard and breaks them, so that they hang down; and by pulling at these cords frequently, they grow longer and longer, till at length in some women they reach as low as the navel.  The men of the desert ride on horseback after the fashion of the Moors; and the desert being everywhere very hot, and having very little water, and extremely barren, they can keep very few horses, and those they have are short lived.  It only rains in the months of