From a New Book TIMBUCTOO AS IT IS

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 108, 31 January 1935, Page 7

From a New Book TIMBUCTOO AS IT IS

Timbuctoo has no machinery, no machines, no mills, factories, electricity, or steam. All the handicrafts flourish, and the artisan, pressed neither for time nor money, can make his money calmly. There are rich and poor people, but there are no millionaires or hungry people. What perhaps strikes the stranger more personally is that there are no cafes, hotels, bars, restaurants, garages, churches, cinemas; not one commercial advertising sign or hoarding; no residence or even a bungalow of European style, no pane of glass, no telephone, no newspaper; no public conveyance or vehicle of any sort-; only one car, privately owned —and publicly frowned on—brought rattling God knows how from Gao in 1931. ... He drives it when he can beg. buy or steal petrol from a military aerodrome. . Thus Timbuctoo —despite tjie aerodrome —is the one world-famed legendary city of the past which has not been mechanised by the white man. Bagdad, Kabul, Bokhara, Cairo, • Samarkand, have electric signs, .taxis, ice factories, hotel orchestras, loudspeakers, Diesel engines and Greta Garbo.— " The White Monk of Timbuctoo,” by William Seabrook.