In the fifteenth century, before the arrival of Portuguese caravels on the western shores of Africa, caravans circulated between Timbuktu, the famed city of present-day Mali, and the markets of the northern desert edge. They transported primarily gold, ivory, tanned leather, and enslaved Africans, which were exchanged for copper, cowries, salt, and other goods. One such northern market was the burg of Tamentit, located in the oasis of Tuwāt, considered then the “Gateway to the Bilād al-Sudān.” When the Genoese merchant Antonius Malfante sojourned there in 1447, he explained in a letter to his Italian associate that his host and main informant, who presumably was a Muslim, was a retired trans-Saharan merchant. He had resided in Timbuktu for thirty years before eventually returning home, leaving his brother there to trade in his place.