also invaluable for historians of Africa, providing the first written detailed accounts of the Senegambia region, beyond the fringes touched one century earlier by Arab historian Ibn Battuta. Cadamosto gives a summary of contemporary European knowledge about West Africa. He describes the Mali Empire (Melli) and the Trans-Saharan trade, e.g. how Berber caravans carry the Saharan salt from desert pans like Teghaza (Tegazza) to frontier cities like Timbuctu (Tombutto). He goes to explain how gold coming out of the heart of Mali goes out in three parts, one to Cochia (Kukiya) and then eastwards onto Egypt, the second via Timbuctu to Toet (Tuat) and then north towards Tunisia, and a third part, also via Timbuctu, goes west to Hoden (Ouadane), destined for Morocco, part of which is deviated to the Portuguese factory at Arguin. Cadamosto is the first known person to refer to the Senegal River by its recognizably modern name (Rio di Senega) rather than the "western Nile". Curiously, Cadamosto notes that the Senegal was probably the Niger of ancient geographers (e.g. Ptolomey). He repeats the old error of assuming that the Senegal river and the (actual) Niger river are connected to each other, forming one great east–west river, and relates the legend that it was believed to be a tributary of the great Biblical river of Gihon (Gion) that flowed from the Garden of Eden across the lands of Aethiopia. Cadamosto describes the Wolof (Gilofi) empire, which he notes was bound on the east by the Fula Tekrur/Toucouleur (Tuchusor) and to the south by the Mandinka states of the Gambia River (Gambra) Cadamosto goes into quite some detail on the politics, society and culture of the Wolof states. He supplies a meticulously detailed eyewitness description of the Cayor village he stayed in 1455, the Damel's court, the people, customs, economy, local fauna and flora, etc. The details demonstrate Cadamosto's sheer curiosity – he describes the courtly customs, the houses, the use of cowrie shells as currency, the food and drink, the operation of local markets, livestock and cultivation, the production of palm wine, weapons, the dances and music, the reaction to European novelties (clothes, ships, cannon, bag-pipes). In all this, Cadamosto's narrative evinces a degree of honest curiosity and absence of prejudice perhaps surprising for a European of that era. Cadamosto attempts a similarly detailed account of the Mandinka people of the Gambia River, making particular note of