No one knows in what darkness this city arose, stretching along the southernmost edge of the great Sahara, long ago became an elusive dream and an eternal grave for generations of travelers. His name is Timbuktu.
Legends say that its streets are lined with gold plates, that 333 Great Magicians live there, possessing treasures, the value of which exceeds the despicable metal. These are manuscripts in which the secrets of being are revealed and there are answers to all the questions that humanity can have.
PRICE OF WISHES
Europeans first heard about this wonderful city in the XII century - from Arab travelers. Hundreds of adventurers flooded in search of the African Eldorado. But neither the black tan mask nor the rags of local rags could hide the greedy glint of their eyes. “Guardians of the road of golden chariots” warrior-magicians Garamant, without ceremony, stuck a knife into the throats of greedy strangers, choked them with a whip, and then immured them into clay walls, using skeletons for formwork. For five hundred years, Timbuktu remained a sweet legend for Europeans!
The first to reach the cherished city was the Englishman Alexander Gordon Lang. From the age of 16 serving in the British army that occupied Sierra Leone, he heard a lot about gold caravans, and longed to find Timbuktu. In 1825, Lang led the expeditionary force. The Briton paid dearly for his dream! For a whole year with his people, he broke through the sands of the Sahara and was the only one who survived the battles with the Garamante tribes. Having received three saber blows on the head, a bullet in the thigh, a knife in the neck and back, he nevertheless achieved his goal. What he did in Timbuktu, where he was hiding, remains a mystery. Having joined a trade caravan, he tried to return home, but was killed on the way back.
A few years later, the French adventurer Rene Kaye entered Timbuktu, disguised as an Arab. But he was immediately exposed and with a knife in his rib he was walled up in the fence of the mosque.
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The most successful turned out to be Heinrich Barth, who prepared for a dangerous expedition with truly German pedantry: he learned to speak Arabic without an accent, mastered the intricacies of not only the art of dressing like the locals, but even eating and making love, as is customary in those parts. Remaining unrecognized, Bart lived in Timbuktu for several years, compiling an account of his journey. In this account, Timbuktu is presented as a dusty, impoverished town, half buried in sand.
How so? Why did Arab travelers over the centuries describe it as the center of fabulous wealth and great intelligence, while Europeans saw only dust and desolation? What is he really, this mysterious Timbuktu?
GHOST TOWN
For a long time already, travelers who have directed their footsteps to Timbuktu, no one kills or pursues. For ten days we rafted down the great African river Niger from the capital of Mali, Bambako, towards Timbuktu Bay. The legendary city really turned out to be gray and uncomfortable. Not gold, but sand covered its deserted streets like a solid carpet. Right in the air, here and there, large conical-shaped earthenware ovens smoke, in which the hostesses, wrapped up to the eyes, bake unleavened cakes. The only decoration of the city was two mosques, which were erected in 1325 by a pilgrim from Morocco, Kanhan Mussa. Time constantly destroys them, but there is a lot of clay here and the restoration of these bizarre stucco structures has been methodically going on for centuries, without stopping for a single day. Are these all Timbuktu values?
IN SEARCH OF TRUTH
Filled with disappointment, we wandered through the narrow dusty streets of this, in fact, a large village, and were incredibly happy when the local Tuaregs offered to go on an excursion to their camp located nearby.
There are very few true Tuaregs in the Sahara. They live separately in the hidden corners of the desert, avoiding meeting with foreigners. There are no Tuaregs in Timbuktu. But there is a demand for them. In busy places, where there are many tourists, there are camp sites of the Bella, Iullemeden tribes, Berbers and others willingly depicting Tuaregs.
We ended up in the Malinke tribe. Once their ancestors were farmers and hunters of the savannah, now captured by the sands of the Sahara. Farmers have moved south, where dhurra, cassava and cotton can still be grown. But the hunters and singer-storytellers, who are called griots, remained on the land of their ancestors. It was the griots who, quite unexpectedly, opened the curtain over the secret of the secret city.
… Do you know how the devil took revenge on a man for following God and not after him? He breathed into the yellow metal a special spell that awakens a pernicious passion for gold. And I was not mistaken: the spell worked. People, as if mad, began to "die for metal." That is why the warriors-magicians of the Garamans have been guarding the gold reserve of mankind, hidden where the city of Timbuktu stands, for thousands of years. (The Arab traveler Abu Bekr Ahmad al-Hamadani (IX century) reported that in the countries of Ghana and Mali, gold “grows” like carrots and is harvested along the river at sunrise). The stolen gold was buried along with the bodies of those who defiled themselves with an excessive passion for its possession. It is no coincidence that 333 Great Teachers, who know all the wisdom of the world, settled in the place where gold is concentrated. And it is no coincidence that the gold that lined the streets of legendary Timbuktutrampled under the feet of the sages.
For how can a despicable metal compare with the power of the enlightened human spirit?
For many centuries, not a single traveler has come to Timbuktu to seek knowledge. In the end, the Masters made the decision to hide the gold from the greedy eyes. It was for those thirsty for material wealth that Timbuktu's twin was created, a city that anyone can visit, driven by the thirst for profit. But instead of gold, there will be sand under his feet.
When I asked the old griot if it was possible to see the real Timbuktu, he took me to the sacred tombs of my ancestors to perform tasawit - a rite of asking for advice. Pushing aside the Shuahed tombstone, dotted with many unknown signs, the narrator ordered me to lie down in the cold darkness, drink the witch's potion Borbur and - surrender myself to the power of Altinen - the spirits of the other world. And then we went up to the dune together with him, and in the distance I saw a magic glow. That shone the gold of the Timbuktu pavements.
Now I know for sure that when the curse subsides, the legendary city will again become the only one, delighting humanity, awakened from the devil's spell. But only when will it be?