She treated them with great kindness, and at the first interview offered them some bread baked under ashes.
The king and queen, the former of whom was named Woollo, the latter Fatima, were very old grey-headed people.

Fatima was like the majority of African beauties, extremely fat.

Her dress was of blue nankeen, edged with gold lace round the bosom and on the shoulder, and having a belt or stripe of the same material, half-way down the dress, which came only a few inches down the knees.

The dress of the other females of Timbuctoo, though less ornamented than that of the queen, was in the same sort of fashion, so that as they wore no close under garments, they might, when sitting on the ground, as far as decency was concerned, as well have had no covering at all.

The queen's head dress consisted of a blue nankeen turban, but this was worn only upon occasions of ceremony, or when she walked out.