<P> In the autumn of 1351, Ibn Battuta left Fez and made his way to the town of Sijilmasa on the northern edge of the Sahara in present - day Morocco . There he bought a number of camels and stayed for four months . He set out again with a caravan in February 1352 and after 25 days arrived at the dry salt lake bed of Taghaza with its salt mines . All of the local buildings were made from slabs of salt by the slaves of the Masufa tribe, who cut the salt in thick slabs for transport by camel . Taghaza was a commercial centre and awash with Malian gold, though Ibn Battuta did not form a favourable impression of the place, recording that it was plagued by flies and the water was brackish . </P> <P> After a ten - day stay in Taghaza, the caravan set out for the oasis of Tasarahla (probably Bir al - Ksaib) where it stopped for three days in preparation for the last and most difficult leg of the journey across the vast desert . From Tasarahla, a Masufa scout was sent ahead to the oasis town of Oualata, where he arranged for water to be transported a distance of four days travel where it would meet the thirsty caravan . Oualata was the southern terminus of the trans - Saharan trade route and had recently become part of the Mali Empire . Altogether, the caravan took two months to cross the 1,600 km (990 mi) of desert from Sijilmasa . </P> <P> From there, Ibn Battuta travelled southwest along a river he believed to be the Nile (it was actually the river Niger), until he reached the capital of the Mali Empire . There he met Mansa Suleyman, king since 1341 . Ibn Battuta disapproved of the fact that female slaves, servants and even the daughters of the sultan went about exposing parts of their bodies not befitting a Muslim . He left the capital in February accompanied by a local Malian merchant and journeyed overland by camel to Timbuktu . Though in the next two centuries it would become the most important city in the region, at that time it was a small city and relatively unimportant . It was during this journey that Ibn Battuta first encountered a hippopotamus . The animals were feared by the local boatmen and hunted with lances to which strong cords were attached . After a short stay in Timbuktu, Ibn Battuta journeyed down the Niger to Gao in a canoe carved from a single tree . At the time Gao was an important commercial center . </P> <P> After spending a month in Gao, Ibn Battuta set off with a large caravan for the oasis of Takedda . On his journey across the desert, he received a message from the Sultan of Morocco commanding him to return home . He set off for Sijilmasa in September 1353, accompanying a large caravan transporting 600 female slaves, and arrived back in Morocco early in 1354 . </P>

Names in gold on the great wall of china