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piece some, 
but not all, of 
something
salt this is white 
and it comes from 
the ground; we 
put it on things 
before we eat 
them
Chapter 6 - To Mali and back 
When I arrived the next day, my uncle said, ‘Ahmed, 
you wanted to be a traveller before. Do you want to be a 
traveller now?’
‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘It’s not easy, I know. But I truly want 
to travel.’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘So listen carefully – because there’s 
more to learn.’
For my last journey, I travelled south because I wanted 
to visit Mali. You see, years before in Cairo, I heard many 
stories about the famous King of Mali – Mansa Sulayman 
– and all his gold.
So I left Fez and journeyed across the Atlas mountains 
to the town of Sijilmasa. Now, do you remember – I met 
a man called Al-Bushri in China? Well, in Sijilmasa I met 
Al-Bushri’s brother! It was strange. The two brothers were 
in very different places, but I met the older one and the 
younger one!
Then I travelled by camel with a caravan to Taghaza. 
It wasn’t a beautiful village, but it had some interesting 
buildings. The people there take big pieces of salt from the 
desert and make houses with them. There’s a salt mosque 
there too!
I stayed in a little salt house in the village. But the water 
there was very bad to drink, so after ten days we left and 
began our long and dangerous journey south across the 
hot desert. 
At first, a friend and I left our caravan every morning to 
look for things to eat for our camels. But one day we heard 
some bad news. Ibn Ziri, a man from our caravan, walked 
alone into the desert with no water bottle. Later, friends 
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