The houses are square, built of sticks, clay, and grass, with flat roofs of the same materials.

The rooms are all on the ground-floor, and are without any of furniture, except earthen jars, wooden bowls, and mats made grass, upon which the people sleep.
He did not observe a houses, or any other buildings, constructed of stone.

The palace of the king he described as having walls of clay, or clay and sand, rammed into a wooden case or frame, and placed in layers, one above another, until they attained the height required, the roof being composed of poles or rafters laid horizontally, and covered with a cement or plaster, made of clay or sand.
[Footnote: This account of Timbuctoo, as given by Adams, by no means corresponds with that which was subsequently given by Caillie.

The latter makes it situated on a very elevated site, in the vicinity of mountains; in fact the whole account of that celebrated city, as given by Caillie, is very defective.] The river La Mar Zarah is about three quarters of a mile wide at Timbuctoo, and appeared in this place to have but little current, flowing to the south-west.

About two miles from the town to the southward, it runs between two high mountains, apparently as high as the mountains which Adams saw in Barbary; here the river is about half a mile wide.