Timbuktu increased competition from newly available trans-Atlantic sailing routes caused the city to decline. The first European to reach Timbuktu, Alexander Gordon Laing, did not arrive until 1826, and it was not until the 1890s that Timbuktu was formally incorporated into the French colony of Mali. Today, the city is still inhabited; however, the city is not as geopolitically relevant as it once was. Timbuktu is located on the southern edge of the Sahara north of the main channel of the River Niger. The town is surrounded by sand dunes and the streets are covered in sand. The port of Kabara
The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse Vicky Ireland dramatised the fable for Merseyside Young People's Theatre in 1987. The 80-minute play has since been acted in the USA, South Africa and New Zealand. It features William Boot, a country mouse bored with rural life at his grandmother's house, who is visited by his city cousin and learns that he has inherited Tallyhoe Lodge in London. They leave to run a gauntlet of adventures, from which William returns to settle gratefully in his peaceful country retreat. Among musical interpretations, there have been the following: The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse The Town Mouse and the Country