CASSELL’S NATIONAL LIBRARY

Travels
in the
Interior of Africa

BY
MUNGO PARK

Vol.
I.

CASSELL & COMPANY Limited
LONDON  PARIS &
MELBOURNE
1893

INTRODUCTION

Mungo Park was born on the 10th of
September, 1771, the son of a farmer at Fowlshiels, near
Selkirk.  After studying medicine in Edinburgh, he went out,
at the age of twenty-one, assistant-surgeon in a ship bound for
the East Indies.  When he came back the African Society was
in want of an explorer, to take the place of Major Houghton, who
had died.  Mungo Park volunteered, was accepted, and in his
twenty-fourth year, on the 22nd of May, 1795, he sailed for the
coasts of Senegal, where he arrived in June.

Thence he proceeded on the travels of which this book is the
record.  He was absent from England for a little more than
two years and a half; returned a few days before Christmas,
1797.  He was then twenty-six years old.  The African
Association published the first edition of his travels as
“Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa, 1795–7,
by Mungo Park, with an Appendix containing Geographical
Illustrations of Africa, by Major Rennell.”

Park married, and settled at Peebles in medical practice, but
was persuaded by the Government to go out again.  He sailed
from Portsmouth on the 30th of January, 1805, resolved to trace
the Niger to its source or perish in the attempt.  He
perished.  The natives attacked him while passing through a
narrow strait of the river at Boussa, and killed him, with all
that remained of his party, except one slave.  The record of
this fatal voyage, partly gathered from his journals, and closed
by evidences of the manner of his death, was first published in
1815, as “The Journal of a Mission to the Interior of
Africa in 1805, by Mungo Park, together with other Documents,
Official and Private, relating to the same Mission.  To
which is prefixed an Account of the Life of Mr. Park.”

H. M.

CHAPTER I.
JOURNEY FROM PORTSMOUTH TO THE
GAMBIA.

Soon after my return from the East
Indies in 1793, having learned that the noblemen and gentlemen
associated for the purpose of prosecuting discoveries in the
interior of Africa were desirous of engaging a person to explore
that continent, by the way of the Gambia river, I took occasion,
through means of the President of the Royal Society, to whom I
had the honour to be known, of offering myself for that
service.  I had been informed that a gentleman of the name
of Houghton, a captain in the army, and formerly fort-major at
Goree, had already sailed to the Gambia, under the direction of
the Association, and that there was reason to apprehend he had
fallen a sacrifice to the climate, or perished in some contest
with the natives.  But this intelligence, instead of
deterring me from my purpose, animated me to persist in the offer
of my services with the greater solicitude.  I had a
passionate desire to examine into the productions of a country so
little known, and to become experimentally acquainted with the
modes of life and character of the natives.  I knew that I
was able to bear fatigue, and I relied on my youth and the
strength of my constitution to preserve me from the effects of
the climate.  The salary which the committee allowed was
sufficiently large, and I made no stipulation for future
reward.  If I should perish in my journey, I was willing
that my hopes and expectations should perish with me; and if I
should succeed in rendering the geography of Africa more familiar
to my countrymen, and in opening to their ambition and industry
new sources of wealth and new channels of commerce, I knew that I
was in the hands of men of honour, who would not fail to bestow
that remuneration which my successful services should appear to
them to merit.  The committee of the Association having made
such inquiries as they thought necessary, declared themselves
satisfied with the qualifications that I possessed, and accepted
me for the service; and, with that liberality which on all
occasions distinguishes their conduct, gave me every
encouragement which it was in their power to grant, or which I
could with propriety ask.

It was at first proposed that I should accompany Mr. James
Willis, who was then recently appointed consul at Senegambia, and
whose countenance in that capacity, it was thought, might have
served and protected me; but Government afterwards rescinded his
appointment, and I lost that advantage.  The kindness of the
committee, however, supplied all that was necessary.  Being
favoured by the secretary of the Association, the late Henry
Beaufoy, Esq., with a recommendation to Dr. John Laidley (a
gentleman who had resided many years at an English factory on the
banks of the Gambia), and furnished with a letter of credit on
him for £200, I took my passage in the brig
Endeavour—a small vessel trading to the Gambia for
beeswax and ivory, commanded by Captain Richard Wyatt—and I
became impatient for my departure.

My instructions were very plain and concise.  I was
directed, on my arrival in Africa, “to pass on to the river
Niger, either by way of Bambouk, or by such other route as should
be found most convenient.  That I should ascertain the
course, and, if possible, the rise and termination of that
river.  That I should use my utmost exertions to visit the
principal towns or cities in its neighbourhood, particularly
Timbuctoo and Houssa; and that I should be afterwards at liberty
to return to Europe, either by the way of the Gambia, or by such
other route as, under all the then existing circumstances of my
situation and prospects, should appear to me to be most
advisable.”

We sailed from Portsmouth on the 22nd day of May, 1795. 
On the 4th of June we saw the mountains over Mogadore, on the
coast of Africa; and on the 21st of the same month, after a
pleasant voyage of thirty days, we anchored at Jillifrey, a town
on the northern bank of the river Gambia, opposite to
James’s Island, where the English had formerly a small
fort.

The kingdom of Barra, in which the town of Jillifrey is
situated, produces great plenty of the necessaries of life; but
the chief trade of the inhabitants is in salt, which commodity
they carry up the river in canoes as high as Barraconda, and
bring down in return Indian corn, cotton cloths, elephants’
teeth, small quantities of gold dust, &c.  The number of
canoes and people constantly employed in this trade makes the
king of Barra more formidable to Europeans than any other
chieftain on the river; and this circumstance probably encouraged
him to establish those exorbitant duties which traders of all
nations are obliged to pay at entry, amounting to nearly
£20 on every vessel, great and small.  These duties or
customs are generally collected in person by the alkaid,
or governor of Jillifrey, and he is attended on these occasions
by a numerous train of dependants, among whom are found many who,
by their frequent intercourse with the English, have acquired a
smattering of our language: but they are commonly very noisy and
very troublesome, begging for everything they fancy with such
earnestness and importunity, that traders, in order to get quit
of them, are frequently obliged to grant their requests.

On the 23rd we departed from Jillifrey, and proceeded to
Vintain, a town situated about two miles up a creek on the
southern side of the river.  This place is much resorted to
by Europeans on account of the great quantities of beeswax which
are brought hither for sale; the wax is collected in the woods by
the Feloops, a wild and unsociable race of people.  Their
country, which is of considerable extent, abounds in rice; and
the natives supply the traders, both on the Gambia and Cassamansa
rivers, with that article, and also with goats and poultry, on
very reasonable terms.  The honey which they collect is
chiefly used by themselves in making a strong intoxicating
liquor, much the same as the mead which is produced from honey in
Great Britain.

In their traffic with Europeans, the Feloops generally employ
a factor or agent of the Mandingo nation, who speaks a little
English, and is acquainted with the trade of the river. 
This broker makes the bargain; and, with the connivance of the
European, receives a certain part only of the payment, which he
gives to his employer as the whole; the remainder (which is very
truly called the cheating money) he receives when the
Feloop is gone, and appropriates to himself as a reward for his
trouble.

The language of the Feloops is appropriate and peculiar; and
as their trade is chiefly conducted, as hath been observed, by
Mandingoes, the Europeans have no inducement to learn it.

On the 26th we left Vintain, and continued our course up the
river, anchoring whenever the tide failed us, and frequently
towing the vessel with the boat.  The river is deep and
muddy; the banks are covered with impenetrable thickets of
mangrove; and the whole of the adjacent country appears to be
flat and swampy.

The Gambia abounds with fish, some species of which are
excellent food; but none of them that I recollect are known in
Europe.  At the entrance from the sea sharks are found in
great abundance, and, higher up, alligators and the hippopotamus
(or river-horse) are very numerous.

In six days after leaving Vintain we reached Jonkakonda, a
place of considerable trade, where our vessel was to take in part
of her lading.  The next morning the several European
traders came from their different factories to receive their
letters, and learn the nature and amount of her cargo; and the
captain despatched a messenger to Dr. Laidley to inform him of my
arrival.  He came to Jonkakonda the morning following, when
I delivered him Mr. Beaufoy’s letter, and he gave me a kind
invitation to spend my time at his house until an opportunity
should offer of prosecuting my journey.  This invitation was
too acceptable to be refused, and being furnished by the Doctor
with a horse and guide, I set out from Jonkakonda at daybreak on
the 5th of July, and at eleven o’clock arrived at Pisania,
where I was accommodated with a room and other conveniences in
the Doctor’s house.

Pisania is a small village in the king of Yany’s
dominions, established by British subjects as a factory for
trade, and inhabited solely by them and their black
servants.  It is situated on the banks of the Gambia,
sixteen miles above Jonkakonda.  The white residents, at the
time of my arrival there, consisted only of Dr. Laidley, and two
gentlemen who were brothers, of the name of Ainsley; but their
domestics were numerous.  They enjoyed perfect security
under the king’s protection, and being highly esteemed and
respected by the natives at large, wanted no accommodation or
comfort which the country could supply, and the greatest part of
the trade in slaves, ivory, and gold was in their hands.

Being now settled for some time at my ease, my first object
was to learn the Mandingo tongue, being the language in almost
general use throughout this part of Africa, and without which I
was fully convinced that I never could acquire an extensive
knowledge of the country or its inhabitants.  In this
pursuit I was greatly assisted by Dr. Laidley.

In researches of this kind, and in observing the manners and
customs of the natives, in a country so little known to the
nations of Europe, and furnished with so many striking and
uncommon objects of nature, my time passed not unpleasantly, and
I began to flatter myself that I had escaped the fever, or
seasoning, to which Europeans, on their first arrival in hot
climates, are generally subject.  But on the 31st of July I
imprudently exposed myself to the night-dew in observing an
eclipse of the moon, with a view to determine the longitude of
the place; the next day I found myself attacked with a smart
fever and delirium, and such an illness followed as confined me
to the house during the greatest part of August.  My
recovery was very slow, but I embraced every short interval of
convalescence to walk out, and make myself acquainted with the
productions of the country.

In one of those excursions, having rambled farther than usual,
on a hot day, I brought on a return of my fever, and on the 10th
of September I was again confined to my bed.  The fever,
however, was not so violent as before; and in the course of three
weeks I was able, when the weather would permit, to renew my
botanical excursions; and when it rained, I amused myself with
drawing plants, &c., in my chamber.  The care and
attention of Dr. Laidley contributed greatly to alleviate my
sufferings; his company and conversation beguiled the tedious
hours during that gloomy season, when the rain falls in torrents;
when suffocating heats oppress by day, and when the night is
spent by the terrified travellers in listening to the croaking of
frogs (of which the numbers are beyond imagination), the shrill
cry of the jackal, and the deep howling of the hyæna, a
dismal concert, interrupted only by the roar of such tremendous
thunder as no person can form a conception of but those who have
heard it.

The country itself being an immense level, and very generally
covered with wood, presents a tiresome and gloomy uniformity to
the eye; but although Nature has denied to the inhabitants the
beauties of romantic landscapes, she has bestowed on them, with a
liberal hand, the more important blessings of fertility and
abundance.  A little attention to cultivation procures a
sufficiency of corn, the fields afford a rich pasturage for
cattle, and the natives are plentifully supplied with excellent
fish, both from the Gambia river and the Walli creek.

The grains which are chiefly cultivated are—Indian corn
(zea mays); two kinds of holcus spicatus, called by
the natives soono and sanio; holcus niger,
and holcus bicolor, the former of which they have named
bassi woolima, and the latter bassiqui. 
These, together with rice, are raised in considerable quantities;
besides which, the inhabitants in the vicinity of the towns and
villages have gardens which produce onions, calavances, yams,
cassavi, ground nuts, pompions, gourds, water-melons, and some
other esculent plants.

I observed likewise, near the towns, small patches of cotton
and indigo.  The former of these articles supplies them with
clothing, and with the latter they dye their cloth of an
excellent blue colour, in a manner that will hereafter be
described.

In preparing their corn for food, the natives use a large
wooden mortar called a paloon, in which they bruise the
seed until it parts with the outer covering, or husk, which is
then separated from the clean corn by exposing it to the wind,
nearly in the same manner as wheat is cleared from the chaff in
England.  The corn thus freed from the husk is returned to
the mortar and beaten into meal, which is dressed variously in
different countries; but the most common preparation of it among
the nations of the Gambia is a sort of pudding which they call
kouskous.  It is made by first moistening the flour
with water, and then stirring and shaking it about in a large
calabash, or gourd, till it adheres together in small granules
resembling sago.  It is then put into an earthen pot, whose
bottom is perforated with a number of small holes; and this pot
being placed upon another, the two vessels are luted together
either with a paste of meal and water, or with cows’ dung,
and placed upon the fire.  In the lower vessel is commonly
some animal food and water, the steam or vapour of which ascends
through the perforations in the bottom of the upper vessel, and
softens and prepares the kouskous, which is very much esteemed throughout
all the countries that I visited.  I am informed that the
same manner of preparing flour is very generally used on the
Barbary coast, and that the dish so prepared is there called by
the same name.  It is therefore probable that the negroes
borrowed the practice from the Moors.

Their domestic animals are nearly the same as in Europe. 
Swine are found in the woods, but their flesh is not
esteemed.  Probably the marked abhorrence in which this
animal is held by the votaries of Mohammed has spread itself
among the pagans.  Poultry of all kinds, the turkey
excepted, is everywhere to be had.  The guinea-fowl and red
partridge abound in the fields, and the woods furnish a small
species of antelope, of which the venison is highly and
deservedly prized.

Of the other wild animals in the Mandingo countries, the most
common are the hyæna, the panther, and the elephant. 
Considering the use that is made of the latter in the East
Indies, it may be thought extraordinary that the natives of
Africa have not, in any part of this immense continent, acquired
the skill of taming this powerful and docile creature, and
applying his strength and faculties to the service of man. 
When I told some of the natives that this was actually done in
the countries of the East, my auditors laughed me to scorn, and
exclaimed, “Tobaubo fonnio!” (“A white
man’s lie!”)  The negroes frequently find means
to destroy the elephant by firearms; they hunt it principally for
the sake of the teeth, which they transfer in barter to those who
sell them again to the Europeans.  The flesh they eat, and
consider it as a great delicacy.

On the 6th of October the waters of the Gambia were at the
greatest height, being fifteen feet above the high-water mark of
the tide, after which they began to subside, at first slowly, but
afterwards very rapidly, sometimes sinking more than a foot in
twenty-four hours.  By the beginning of November the river
had sunk to its former level, and the tide ebbed and flowed as
usual.  When the river had subsided, and the atmosphere grew
dry, I recovered apace, and began to think of my departure, for
this is reckoned the most proper season for travelling.  The
natives had completed their harvest, and provisions were
everywhere cheap and plentiful.

Dr. Laidley was at this time employed in a trading voyage at
Jonkakonda.  I wrote to him to desire that he would use his
interest with the slatees, or slave-merchants, to procure
me the company and protection of the first coffle (or
caravan) that might leave Gambia for the interior country; and,
in the meantime, I requested him to purchase for me a horse and
two asses.  A few days afterwards the Doctor returned to
Pisania, and informed me that a coffle would certainly go for the
interior in the course of the dry season; but that, as many of
the merchants belonging to it had not yet completed their
assortment of goods, he could not say at what time they would set
out.

As the characters and dispositions of the slatees, and people
that composed the caravan, were entirely unknown to me—and
as they seemed rather averse to my purpose, and unwilling to
enter into any positive engagements on my account—and the
time of their departure being withal very uncertain, I resolved,
on further deliberation, to avail myself of the dry season, and
proceed without them.

Dr. Laidley approved my determination, and promised me every
assistance in his power to enable me to prosecute my journey with
comfort and safety.

This resolution having been formed, I made preparations
accordingly.

And now, being about to take leave of my hospitable friend
(whose kindness and solicitude continued to the moment of my
departure), and to quit for many months the countries bordering
on the Gambia, it seems proper, before I proceed with my
narrative, that I should in this place give some account of the
several negro nations which inhabit the banks of this celebrated
river, and the commercial intercourse that subsists between them,
and such of the nations of Europe as find their advantage in
trading to this part of Africa.  The observations which have
occurred to me on both these subjects will be found in the
following chapter.

CHAPTER II.
LANGUAGE AND RELIGION OF THE
NATIVES.

The natives of the countries
bordering on the Gambia, though distributed into a great many
distinct governments, may, I think, be divided into four great
classes—the Feloops, the Jaloffs, the Foulahs, and the
Mandingoes.  Among all these nations, the religion of
Mohammed has made, and continues to make, considerable progress;
but in most of them the body of the people, both free and
enslaved, persevere in maintaining the blind but harmless
superstitions of their ancestors, and are called by the
Mohammedans kafirs, or infidels.

Of the Feloops, I have little to add to what has been observed
concerning them in the former chapter.  They are of a gloomy
disposition, and are supposed never to forgive an injury. 
They are even said to transmit their quarrels as deadly feuds to
their posterity, insomuch that a son considers it as incumbent on
him, from a just sense of filial obligation, to become the
avenger of his deceased father’s wrongs.  If a man
loses his life in one of those sudden quarrels which perpetually
occur at their feasts, when the whole party is intoxicated with
mead, his son, or the eldest of his sons (if he has more than
one), endeavours to procure his father’s sandals, which he
wears once a year, on the anniversary of his
father’s death, until a fit opportunity offers of revenging
his fate, when the object of his resentment seldom escapes his
pursuit.  This fierce and unrelenting disposition is,
however, counterbalanced by many good qualities: they display the
utmost gratitude and affection towards their benefactors, and the
fidelity with which they preserve whatever is entrusted to them
is remarkable.  During the present war, they have more than
once taken up arms to defend our merchant vessels from French
privateers; and English property of considerable value has
frequently been left at Vintain for a long time entirely under
the care of the Feloops, who have uniformly manifested on such
occasions the strictest honesty and punctuality.  How
greatly is it to be wished that the minds of a people so
determined and faithful could be softened and civilised by the
mild and benevolent spirit of Christianity!

The Jaloffs (or Yaloffs) are an active, powerful, and warlike
race, inhabiting great part of that tract which lies between the
river Senegal and the Mandingo states on the Gambia; yet they
differ from the Mandingoes not only in language, but likewise in
complexion and features.  The noses of the Jaloffs are not
so much depressed, nor the lips so protuberant, as among the
generality of Africans; and although their skin is of the deepest
black, they are considered by the white traders as the most
sightly negroes on this part of the continent.

Their language is said to be copious and significant, and is
often learnt by Europeans trading to Senegal.

The Foulahs (or Pholeys), such of them at least as reside near
the Gambia, are chiefly of a tawny complexion, with soft silky
hair, and pleasing features.  They are much attached to a
pastoral life, and have introduced themselves into all the
kingdoms on the windward coast as herdsmen and husbandmen, paying
a tribute to the sovereign of the country for the lands which
they hold.  Not having many opportunities, however, during
my residence at Pisania, of improving my acquaintance with these
people, I defer entering at large into their character until a
fitter occasion occurs, which will present itself when I come to
Bondou.

The Mandingoes, of whom it remains to speak, constitute, in
truth, the bulk of the inhabitants in all those districts of
Africa which I visited; and their language, with a few
exceptions, is universally understood and very generally spoken
in that part of the continent.

They are called Mandingoes, I conceive, as having originally
migrated from the interior state of Manding, of which some
account will hereafter be given.

In every considerable town there is a chief magistrate, called
the alkaid, whose office is hereditary, and whose business
it is to preserve order, to levy duties on travellers, and to
preside at all conferences in the exercise of local jurisdiction
and the administration of justice.  These courts are
composed of the elders of the town (of free condition), and are
termed palavers; and their proceedings are conducted in
the open air with sufficient solemnity.  Both sides of a
question are freely canvassed, witnesses are publicly examined,
and the decisions which follow generally meet with the
approbation of the surrounding audience.

As the negroes have no written language of their own, the
general rule of decision is an appeal to ancient custom;
but since the system of Mohammed has made so great progress among
them, the converts to that faith have gradually introduced, with
the religious tenets, many of the civil institutions of the
prophet; and where the Koran is not found sufficiently explicit,
recourse is had to a commentary called Al Sharra,
containing, as I was told, a complete exposition or digest of the
Mohammedan laws, both civil and criminal, properly arranged and
illustrated.

This frequency of appeal to written laws, with which the pagan
natives are necessarily unacquainted, has given rise in their
palavers to (what I little expected to find in Africa)
professional advocates, or expounders of the law, who are allowed
to appear and to plead for plaintiff or defendant, much in the
same manner as counsel in the law-courts of Great Britain. 
They are Mohammedan negroes, who have made, or affect to have
made, the laws of the prophet their peculiar study; and if I may
judge from their harangues, which I frequently attended, I
believe, that in the forensic qualifications of procrastination
and cavil, and the arts of confounding and perplexing a cause,
they are not always surpassed by the ablest pleaders in
Europe.  While I was at Pisania, a cause was heard which
furnished the Mohammedan lawyers with an admirable opportunity of
displaying their professional dexterity.  The case was
this:—An ass belonging to a Serawoolli negro (a native of
an interior country near the river Senegal) had broke into a
field of corn belonging to one of the Mandingo inhabitants, and
destroyed great part of it.  The Mandingo having caught the
animal in his field, immediately drew his knife and cut his
throat.  The Serawoolli thereupon called a palaver
(or in European terms, brought an action) to recover
damages for the loss of his beast, on which he set a high
value.  The defendant confessed he had killed the ass, but
pleaded a set-off, insisting that the loss he had
sustained by the ravage in his corn was equal to the sum demanded
for the animal.  To ascertain this fact was the point at
issue, and the learned advocates contrived to puzzle the cause in
such a manner that, after a hearing of three days, the court
broke up without coming to any determination upon it; and a
second palaver was, I suppose, thought necessary.

The Mandingoes, generally speaking, are of a mild, sociable,
and obliging disposition.  The men are commonly above the
middle size, well-shaped, strong, and capable of enduring great
labour.  The women are good-natured, sprightly, and
agreeable.  The dress of both sexes is composed of cotton
cloth of their own manufacture: that of the men is a loose frock,
not unlike a surplice, with drawers which reach half-way down the
leg; and they wear sandals on their feet, and white cotton caps
on their heads.  The women’s dress consists of two
pieces of cloth, each of which is about six feet long and three
broad.  One of these they wrap round their waist, which,
hanging down to the ankles, answers the purpose of a petticoat;
the other is thrown negligently over the bosom and shoulders.

This account of their clothing is indeed nearly applicable to
the natives of all the different countries in this part of
Africa; a peculiar national mode is observable only in the
head-dresses of the women.

Thus, in the countries of the Gambia, the females wear a sort
of bandage, which they call jalla.  It is a narrow
strip of cotton cloth wrapped many times round, immediately over
the forehead.  In Bondou, the head is encircled with strings
of white beads, and a small plate of gold is worn in the middle
of the forehead.  In Kasson the ladies decorate their heads
in a very tasteful and elegant manner with white seashells. 
In Kaarta and Ludamar, the women raise their hair to a great
height by the addition of a pad (as the ladies did formerly in
Great Britain), which they decorate with a species of coral
brought from the Red Sea by pilgrims returning from Mecca, and
sold at a great price.

In the construction of their dwelling-houses the Mandingoes
also conform to the general practice of the African nations in
this part of the continent, contenting themselves with small and
incommodious hovels.  A circular mud wall, about four feet
high, upon which is placed a conical roof, composed of the bamboo
cane, and thatched with grass, forms alike the palace of the king
and the hovel of the slave.  Their household furniture is
equally simple.  A hurdle of canes placed upon upright
sticks, about two feet from the ground, upon which is spread a
mat or bullock’s hide, answers the purpose of a bed; a
water jar, some earthen pots for dressing their food; a few
wooden bowls and calabashes, and one or two low stools, compose
the rest.

As every man of free condition has a plurality of wives, it is
found necessary (to prevent, I suppose, matrimonial disputes)
that each of the ladies should be accommodated with a hut to
herself; and all the huts belonging to the same family are
surrounded by a fence constructed of bamboo canes, split and
formed into a sort of wicker-work.  The whole enclosure is
called a sirk, or surk.  A number of these
enclosures, with narrow passages between them, form what is
called a town; but the huts are generally placed without any
regularity, according to the caprice of the owner.  The only
rule that seems to be attended to is placing the door towards the
south-west, in order to admit the sea-breeze.

In each town is a large stage called the bentang, which
answers the purpose of a public hall or town house.  It is
composed of interwoven canes, and is generally sheltered from the
sun by being erected in the shade of some large tree.  It is
here that all public affairs are transacted and trials conducted;
and here the lazy and indolent meet to smoke their pipes, and
hear the news of the day.  In most of the towns the
Mohammedans have also a missura, or mosque, in which they
assemble and offer up their daily prayers, according to the rules
of the Koran.

In the account which I have thus given of the natives, the
reader must bear in mind that my observations apply chiefly to
persons of free condition, who constitute, I suppose, not
more than one-fourth part of the inhabitants at large.  The
other three-fourths are in a state of hopeless and hereditary
slavery, and are employed in cultivating the land, in the care of
cattle, and in servile offices of all kinds, much in the same
manner as the slaves in the West Indies.  I was told,
however, that the Mandingo master can neither deprive his slave
of life, nor sell him to a stranger, without first calling a
palaver on his conduct, or in other words, bringing him to a
public trial.  But this degree of protection is extended
only to the native or domestic slave.  Captives taken in
war, and those unfortunate victims who are condemned to slavery
for crimes or insolvency—and, in short, all those unhappy
people who are brought down from the interior countries for
sale—have no security whatever, but may be treated and
disposed of in all respects as the owner thinks proper.  It
sometimes happens, indeed, when no ships are on the coast, that a
humane and considerate master incorporates his purchased slaves
among his domestics; and their offspring at least, if not the
parents, become entitled to all the privileges of the native
class.

The earliest European establishment on this celebrated river
was a factory of the Portuguese, and to this must be ascribed the
introduction of the numerous words of that language which are
still in use among the negroes.  The Dutch, French, and
English afterwards successively possessed themselves of
settlements on the coast; but the trade of the Gambia became, and
continued for many years, a sort of monopoly in the hands of the
English.  In the travels of Francis Moore is preserved an
account of the Royal African Company’s establishments in
this river in the year 1730; at which time James’s factory
alone consisted of a governor, deputy-governor, and two other
principal officers; eight factors, thirteen writers, twenty
inferior attendants and tradesmen; a company of soldiers, and
thirty-two negro servants; besides sloops, shallops, and boats,
with their crews; and there were no less than eight subordinate
factories in other parts of the river.

The trade with Europe, by being afterwards laid open, was
almost annihilated.  The share which the subjects of England
at this time hold in it supports not more than two or three
annual ships; and I am informed that the gross value of British
exports is under £20,000.  The French and Danes still
maintain a small share, and the Americans have lately sent a few
vessels to the Gambia by way of experiment.

The commodities exported to the Gambia from Europe consist
chiefly of firearms and ammunition, iron-ware, spirituous
liquors, tobacco, cotton caps, a small quantity of broadcloth,
and a few articles of the manufacture of Manchester; a small
assortment of India goods, with some glass beads, amber, and
other trifles, for which are taken in exchange slaves, gold dust,
ivory, beeswax, and hides.  Slaves are the chief article,
but the whole number which at this time are annually exported
from the Gambia by all nations is supposed to be under one
thousand.

Most of these unfortunate victims are brought to the coast in
periodical caravans; many of them from very remote inland
countries, for the language which they speak is not understood by
the inhabitants of the maritime districts.  In a subsequent
part of my work I shall give the best information I have been
able to collect concerning the manner in which they are
obtained.  On their arrival at the coast, if no immediate
opportunity offers of selling them to advantage, they are
distributed among the neighbouring villages, until a slave ship
arrives, or until they can be sold to black traders, who
sometimes purchase on speculation.  In the meanwhile, the
poor wretches are kept constantly fettered, two and two of them
being chained together, and employed in the labours of the field,
and, I am sorry to add, are very scantily fed, as well as harshly
treated.  The price of a slave varies according to the
number of purchasers from Europe, and the arrival of caravans
from the interior; but in general I reckon that a young and
healthy male, from sixteen to twenty-five years of age, may be
estimated on the spot from £18 to £20 sterling.

The negro slave-merchants, as I have observed in the former
chapter, are called slatees, who, besides slaves, and the
merchandise which they bring for sale to the whites, supply the
inhabitants of the maritime districts with native iron,
sweet-smelling gums and frankincense, and a commodity called
shea-toulou, which, literally translated, signifies
tree-butter.

In payment of these articles, the maritime states supply the
interior countries with salt, a scarce and valuable commodity, as
I frequently and painfully experienced in the course of my
journey.  Considerable quantities of this article, however,
are also supplied to the inland natives by the Moors, who obtain
it from the salt pits in the Great Desert, and receive in return
corn, cotton cloth, and slaves.

In their early intercourse with Europeans the article that
attracted most notice was iron.  Its utility, in forming the
instruments of war and husbandry, make it preferable to all
others, and iron soon became the measure by which the value of
all other commodities was ascertained.  Thus, a certain
quantity of goods, of whatever denomination, appearing to be
equal in value to a bar of iron, constituted, in the
traders’ phraseology, a bar of that particular
merchandise.  Twenty leaves of tobacco, for instance, were
considered as a bar of tobacco; and a gallon of spirits (or
rather half spirits and half water) as a bar of rum, a bar of one
commodity being reckoned equal in value to a bar of another
commodity.

As, however, it must unavoidably happen that, according to the
plenty or scarcity of goods at market in proportion to the
demand, the relative value would be subject to continual
fluctuation, greater precision has been found necessary; and at
this time the current value of a single bar of any kind is fixed
by the whites at two shillings sterling.  Thus, a slave
whose price is £15, is said to be worth 150 bars.

In transactions of this nature it is obvious that the white
trader has infinitely the advantage over the African, whom,
therefore, it is difficult to satisfy, for conscious of his own
ignorance, he naturally becomes exceedingly suspicious and
wavering; and, indeed, so very unsettled and jealous are the
negroes in their dealings with the whites, that a bargain is
never considered by the European as concluded until the purchase
money is paid and the party has taken leave.

Having now brought together such general observations on the
country and its inhabitants as occurred to me during my residence
in the vicinity of the Gambia, I shall detain the reader no
longer with introductory matter, but proceed, in the next
chapter, to a regular detail of the incidents which happened, and
the reflections which arose in my mind, in the course of my
painful and perilous journey, from its commencement until my
return to the Gambia.

CHAPTER III.
THE KINGDOM OF WOOLLI—JOURNEY TO
BONDOU.

On the 2nd of December, 1795, I
took my departure from the hospitable mansion of Dr.
Laidley.  I was fortunately provided with a negro servant
who spoke both the English and Mandingo tongues.  His name
was Johnson.  He was a native of this part of Africa, and
having in his youth been conveyed to Jamaica as a slave, he had
been made free, and taken to England by his master, where he had
resided many years, and at length found his way back to his
native country.  As he was known to Dr. Laidley, the Doctor
recommended him to me, and I hired him as my interpreter, at the
rate of ten bars monthly to be paid to himself, and five bars a
month to be paid to his wife during his absence.  Dr.
Laidley furthermore provided me with a negro boy of his own,
named Demba, a sprightly youth, who, besides Mandingo, spoke the
language of the Serawoollies, an inland people (of whom mention
will hereafter be made) residing on the banks of the Senegal; and
to induce him to behave well, the Doctor promised him his freedom
on his return, in case I should report favourably of his fidelity
and services.  I was furnished with a horse for myself (a
small but very hardy and spirited beast, which cost me to the
value of £7 10s), and two asses for my interpreter and
servant.  My baggage was light, consisting chiefly of
provisions for two days; a small assortment of beads, amber, and
tobacco, for the purchase of a fresh supply as I proceeded; a few
changes of linen, and other necessary apparel; an umbrella, a
pocket sextant, a magnetic compass, and a thermometer; together
with two fowling-pieces, two pair of pistols, and some other
small articles.

A free man (a bushreen, or Mohammedan) named Madiboo,
who was travelling to the kingdom of Bambara, and two slatees, or
slave merchants, of the Serawoolli nation, and of the same sect,
who were going to Bondou, offered their services, as far as they
intended respectively to proceed, as did likewise a negro named
Tami (also a Mohammedan), a native of Kasson, who had been
employed some years by Dr. Laidley as a blacksmith, and was
returning to his native country with the savings of his
labours.  All these men travelled on foot, driving their
asses before them.

Thus I had no less than six attendants, all of whom had been
taught to regard me with great respect, and to consider that
their safe return hereafter to the countries on the Gambia would
depend on my preservation.

Dr. Laidley himself, and Messrs. Ainsley, with a number of
their domestics, kindly determined to accompany me the first two
days; and I believe they secretly thought they should never see
me afterwards.

We reached Jindey the same day, having crossed the Walli
creek, a branch of the Gambia, and rested at the house of a black
woman, who had formerly been the paramour of a white trader named
Hewett, and who, in consequence thereof, was called, by way of
distinction, seniora.  In the evening we walked out
to see an adjoining village, belonging to a slatee named Jemaffoo
Momadoo, the richest of all the Gambia traders.  We found
him at home, and he thought so highly of the honour done him by
this visit, that he presented us with a fine bullock, which was
immediately killed, and part of it dressed for our
evening’s repast.

The negroes do not go to supper till late, and, in order to
amuse ourselves while our beef was preparing, a Mandingo was
desired to relate some diverting stories, in listening to which,
and smoking tobacco, we spent three hours.  These stories
bear some resemblance to those in the Arabian Nights’
Entertainments, but, in general, are of a more ludicrous
cast.

About one o’clock in the afternoon of the 3rd of
December, I took my leave of Dr. Laidley and Messrs. Ainsley, and
rode slowly into the woods.  I had now before me a boundless
forest, and a country, the inhabitants of which were strangers to
civilised life, and to most of whom a white man was the object of
curiosity or plunder.  I reflected that I had parted from
the last European I might probably behold, and perhaps quitted
for ever the comforts of Christian society.  Thoughts like
these would necessarily cast a gloom over my mind; and I rode
musing along for about three miles, when I was awakened from my
reverie by a body of people, who came running up, and stopped the
asses, giving me to understand that I must go with them to
Peckaba, to present myself to the king of Walli, or pay customs
to them.  I endeavoured to make them comprehend that the
object of my journey not being traffic, I ought not to be
subjected to a tax like the slatees, and other merchants, who
travel for gain; but I reasoned to no purpose.  They said it
was usual for travellers of all descriptions to make a present to
the king of Walli, and without doing so I could not be permitted
to proceed.  As they were more numerous than my attendants,
and withal very noisy, I thought it prudent to comply with their
demand; and having presented them with four bars of tobacco, for
the king’s use, I was permitted to continue my journey, and
at sunset reached a village near Kootacunda, where we rested for
the night.

In the morning of December 4th I passed Kootacunda, the last
town of Walli, and stopped about an hour at a small adjoining
village to pay customs to an officer of the king of Woolli; we
rested the ensuing night at a village called Tabajang; and at
noon the next day (December 5th) we reached Medina, the capital
of the king of Woolli’s dominions.

The kingdom of Woolli is bounded by Walli on the west, by the
Gambia on the south, by the small river Walli on the north-west,
by Bondou on the north-east, and on the east by the Simbani
wilderness.

The inhabitants are Mandingoes, and, like most of the Mandingo
nations, are divided into two great sects—the Mohammedans,
who are called bushreens, and the pagans, who are called
indiscriminately kafirs (unbelievers) and sonakies
(i.e., men who drink strong liquors).  The pagan
natives are by far the most numerous, and the government of the
country is in their hands; for though the most respectable among
the bushreens are frequently consulted in affairs of importance,
yet they are never permitted to take any share in the executive
government, which rests solely in the hands of the mansa,
or sovereign, and great officers of the state.  Of these,
the first in point of rank is the presumptive heir of the crown,
who is called the farbanna.  Next to him are the
alkaids, or provincial governors, who are more frequently
called keamos.  Then follow the two grand divisions
of free-men and slaves; of the former, the slatees, so frequently
mentioned in the preceding pages, are considered as the
principal; but, in all classes, great respect is paid to the
authority of aged men.

On the death of the reigning monarch, his eldest son (if he
has attained the age of manhood) succeeds to the regal
authority.  If there is no son, or if the son is under the
age of discretion, a meeting of the great men is held, and the
late monarch’s nearest relation (commonly his brother) is
called to the government, not as regent, or guardian to the
infant son, but in full right, and to the exclusion of the
minor.  The charges of the government are defrayed by
occasional tributes from the people, and by duties on goods
transported across the country.  Travellers, on going from
the Gambia towards the interior, pay customs in European
merchandise.  On returning, they pay in iron and
shea-toulou.  These taxes are paid at every town.

Medina, the capital of the kingdom, at which I was now
arrived, is a place of considerable extent, and may contain from
eight hundred to one thousand houses.  It is fortified in
the common African manner, by a surrounding high wall built of
clay, and an outward fence of pointed stakes and prickly bushes;
but the walls are neglected, and the outward fence has suffered
considerably from the active hands of busy housewives, who pluck
up the stakes for firewood.  I obtained a lodging at one of
the king’s near relations, who apprised me that at my
introduction to the king I must not presume to shake hands
with him.  “It was not usual,” he said,
“to allow this liberty to strangers.”  Thus
instructed, I went in the afternoon to pay my respects to the
sovereign, and ask permission to pass through his territories to
Bondou.  The king’s name was Jatta.  He was the
same venerable old man of whom so favourable an account was
transmitted by Major Houghton.  I found him seated upon a
mat before the door of his hut; a number of men and women were
arranged on each side, who were singing and clapping their
hands.  I saluted him respectfully, and informed him of the
purport of my visit.  The king graciously replied, that he
not only gave me leave to pass through his country, but would
offer up his prayers for my safety.  On this, one of my
attendants, seemingly in return for the king’s
condescension, began to sing, or rather to roar an Arabic song,
at every pause of which the king himself, and all the people
present, struck their hands against their foreheads, and
exclaimed, with devout and affecting solemnity,
“Amen, amen!”  The king told me,
furthermore, that I should have a guide the day following, who
would conduct me safely to the frontier of his kingdom—I
then took my leave, and in the evening sent the king an order
upon Dr. Laidley for three gallons of rum, and received in return
great store of provisions.

December 6.—Early in the morning I went to the
king a second time, to learn if the guide was ready.  I
found his Majesty seated upon a bullock’s hide, warming
himself before a large fire, for the Africans are sensible of the
smallest variation in the temperature of the air, and frequently
complain of cold when a European is oppressed with heat.  He
received me with a benevolent countenance, and tenderly entreated
me to desist from my purpose of travelling into the interior,
telling me that Major Houghton had been killed in his route, and
that if I followed his footsteps I should probably meet with his
fate.  He said that I must not judge of the people of the
eastern country by those of Woolli: that the latter were
acquainted with white men, and respected them, whereas the people
of the east had never seen a white man, and would certainly
destroy me.  I thanked the king for his affectionate
solicitude, but told him that I had considered the matter, and
was determined, notwithstanding all dangers, to proceed. 
The king shook his head, but desisted from further persuasion,
and told me the guide should be ready in the afternoon.

About two o’clock, the guide appearing, I went and took
my last farewell of the good old king, and in three hours reached
Konjour, a small village, where we determined to rest for the
night.  Here I purchased a fine sheep for some beads, and my
Serawoolli attendants killed it with all the ceremonies
prescribed by their religion.  Part of it was dressed for
supper, after which a dispute arose between one of the Serawoolli
negroes, and Johnson, my interpreter, about the sheep’s
horns.  The former claimed the horns as his perquisite, for
having acted the part of our butcher, and Johnson contested the
claim.  I settled the matter by giving a horn to each of
them.  This trifling incident is mentioned as introductory
to what follows, for it appeared on inquiry that these horns were
highly valued, as being easily convertible into portable sheaths,
or cases, for containing and keeping secure certain charms or
amulets called saphies, which the negroes constantly wear
about them.  These saphies are prayers, or rather sentences,
from the Koran, which the Mohammedan priests write on scraps of
paper, and sell to the simple natives, who consider them to
possess very extraordinary virtues.  Some of the negroes
wear them to guard themselves against the bite of snakes or
alligators; and on this occasion the saphie is commonly enclosed
in a snake’s or alligator’s skin, and tied round the
ankle.  Others have recourse to them in time of war, to
protect their persons against hostile weapons; but the common use
to which these amulets are applied is to prevent or cure bodily
diseases—to preserve from hunger and thirst—and
generally to conciliate the favour of superior powers, under all
the circumstances and occurrences of life. [41]

In this case it is impossible not to admire the wonderful
contagion of superstition, for, notwithstanding that the majority
of the negroes are pagans, and absolutely reject the doctrines of
Mohammed, I did not meet with a man, whether a bushreen or kafir,
who was not fully persuaded of the powerful efficacy of these
amulets.  The truth is, that all the natives of this part of
Africa consider the art of writing as bordering on magic; and it
is not in the doctrines of the prophet, but in the arts of the
magician, that their confidence is placed.  It will
hereafter be seen that I was myself lucky enough, in
circumstances of distress, to turn the popular credulity in this
respect to good account.

On the 7th I departed from Konjour, and slept at a village
called Malla (or Mallaing), and on the 8th about noon I arrived
at Kolor, a considerable town, near the entrance into which I
observed, hanging upon a tree, a sort of masquerade habit, made
of the bark of trees, which I was told, on inquiry, belonged to
Mumbo Jumbo.  This is a strange bugbear, common to
all the Mandingo towns, and much employed by the pagan natives in
keeping their women in subjection; for as the kafirs are not
restricted in the number of their wives, every one marries as
many as he can conveniently maintain—and as it frequently
happens that the ladies disagree among themselves, family
quarrels sometimes rise to such a height, that the authority of
the husband can no longer preserve peace in his household. 
In such cases, the interposition of Mumbo Jumbo is called in, and
is always decisive.

This strange minister of justice (who is supposed to be either
the husband himself, or some person instructed by him), disguised
in the dress that has been mentioned, and armed with the rod of
public authority, announces his coming (whenever his services are
required) by loud and dismal screams in the woods near the
town.  He begins the pantomime at the approach of night; and
as soon as it is dark he enters the town, and proceeds to the
bentang, at which all the inhabitants immediately assemble.

December 9.—As there was no water to be procured
on the road, we travelled with great expedition until we reached
Tambacunda; and departing from thence early the next morning, the
10th, we reached in the evening Kooniakary, a town of nearly the
same magnitude as Kolor.  About noon on the 11th we arrived
at Koojar, the frontier town of Woolli, towards Bondou, from
which it is separated by an intervening wilderness of two
days’ journey.

The guide appointed by the king of Woolli being now to return,
I presented him with some amber for his trouble; and having been
informed that it was not possible at all times to procure water
in the wilderness, I made inquiry for men who would serve both as
guides and water-bearers during my journey across it.  Three
negroes, elephant-hunters, offered their services for these
purposes, which I accepted, and paid them three bars each in
advance; and the day being far spent, I determined to pass the
night in my present quarters.

The inhabitants of Koojar, though not wholly unaccustomed to
the sight of Europeans (most of them having occasionally visited
the countries on the Gambia), beheld me with a mixture of
curiosity and reverence, and in the evening invited me to see a
neobering, or wrestling-match, at the bentang.  This
is an exhibition very common in all the Mandingo countries. 
The spectators arranged themselves in a circle, leaving the
intermediate space for the wrestlers, who were strong active
young men, full of emulation, and accustomed, I suppose, from
their infancy to this sort of exertion.  Being stripped of
their clothing, except a short pair of drawers, and having their
skin anointed with oil, or shea butter, the combatants
approached each other on all-fours, parrying with, and
occasionally extending a hand for some time, till at length one
of them sprang forward, and caught his rival by the knee. 
Great dexterity and judgment were now displayed, but the contest
was decided by superior strength; and I think that few Europeans
would have been able to cope with the conqueror.  It must
not be unobserved, that the combatants were animated by the music
of a drum, by which their actions were in some measure
regulated.

The wrestling was succeeded by a dance, in which many
performers assisted, all of whom were provided with little bells,
which were fastened to their legs and arms; and here, too, the
drum regulated their motions.  It was beaten with a crooked
stick, which the drummer held in his right hand, occasionally
using his left to deaden the sound, and thus vary the
music.  The drum is likewise applied on these occasions to
keep order among the spectators, by imitating the sound of
certain Mandingo sentences.  For example, when the
wrestling-match is about to begin, the drummer strikes what is
understood to signify ali bæ see (sit all down),
upon which the spectators immediately seat themselves; and when
the combatants are to begin, he strikes amuta!
amuta! (take hold! take hold!)

In the course of the evening I was presented, by way of
refreshment, with a liquor, which tasted so much like the strong
beer of my native country (and very good beer too), as to induce
me to inquire into its composition; and I learnt, with some
degree of surprise, that it was actually made from corn which had
been previously malted, much in the same manner as barley is
malted in Great Britain.  A root yielding a grateful bitter
was used in lieu of hops, the name of which I have forgotten; but
the corn which yields the wort is the holcus spicatus of
botanists.

Early in the morning (the 12th) I found that one of the
elephant-hunters had absconded with the money he had received
from me in part of wages; and in order to prevent the other two
from following his example, I made them instantly fill their
calabashes (or gourds) with water; and as the sun rose, I entered
the wilderness that separates the kingdoms of Woolli and
Bondou.

We continued our journey without stopping any more until noon,
when we came to a large tree, called by the natives neema
taba.  It had a very singular appearance, being
decorated with innumerable rags or scraps of cloth, which persons
travelling across the wilderness had at different times tied to
the branches, probably at first to inform the traveller that
water was to be found near it; but the custom has been so greatly
sanctioned by time, that nobody now presumes to pass without
hanging up something.  I followed the example, and suspended
a handsome piece of cloth on one of the boughs; and being told
that either a well, or pool of water, was at no great distance, I
ordered the negroes to unload the asses, that we might give them
corn, and regale ourselves with the provisions we had
brought.  In the meantime, I sent one of the
elephant-hunters to look for the well, intending, if water was to
be obtained, to rest here for the night.  A pool was found,
but the water was thick and muddy, and the negro discovered near
it the remains of a fire recently extinguished, and the fragments
of provisions, which afforded a proof that it had been lately
visited, either by travellers or banditti.  The fears of my
attendants supposed the latter; and believing that robbers lurked
near us, I was persuaded to change my resolution of resting here
all night, and proceed to another watering-place, which I was
assured we might reach early in the evening.

We departed accordingly, but it was eight o’clock at
night before we came to the watering-place; and being now
sufficiently fatigued with so long a day’s journey, we
kindled a large fire and lay down, surrounded by our cattle, on
the bare ground, more than a gunshot from any bush, the negroes
agreeing to keep watch by turns to prevent surprise.

I know not, indeed, that any danger was justly to be dreaded,
but the negroes were unaccountably apprehensive of banditti
during the whole of the journey.  As soon, therefore, as
daylight appeared, we filled our soofroos (skins) and
calabashes at the pool, and set out for Tallika, the first town
in Bondou, which we reached about eleven o’clock in the
forenoon (the 13th of December).

CHAPTER IV.
FROM TALLIKA TO KAJAAGA.

Tallika, the frontier town of
Bondou towards Woolli, is inhabited chiefly by Foulahs of the
Mohammedan religion, who live in considerable affluence, partly
by furnishing provisions to the coffles, or caravans, that pass
through the town, and partly by the sale of ivory, obtained by
hunting elephants, in which employment the young men are
generally very successful.  Here an officer belonging to the
king of Bondou constantly resides, whose business it is to give
timely information of the arrival of the caravans, which are
taxed according to the number of loaded asses that arrive at
Tallika.

I took up my residence at this officer’s house, and
agreed with him to accompany me to Fatteconda, the residence of
the king, for which he was to receive five bars; and before my
departure I wrote a few lines to Dr. Laidley, and gave my letter
to the master of a caravan bound for the Gambia.  This
caravan consisted of nine or ten people, with five asses loaded
with ivory.  The large teeth are conveyed in nets, two on
each side of the ass; the small ones are wrapped up in skins, and
secured with ropes.

December 14.—We left Tallika, and rode on very
peaceably for about two miles, when a violent quarrel arose
between two of my fellow-travellers, one of whom was the
blacksmith, in the course of which they bestowed some opprobrious
terms upon each other; and it is worthy of remark, that an
African will sooner forgive a blow than a term of reproach
applied to his ancestors.  “Strike me, but do not
curse my mother,” is a common expression even among the
slaves.  This sort of abuse, therefore, so enraged one of
the disputants, that he drew his cutlass upon the blacksmith, and
would certainly have ended the dispute in a very serious manner,
if the others had not laid hold of him and wrested the cutlass
from him.  I was obliged to interfere, and put an end to
this disagreeable business by desiring the blacksmith to be
silent, and telling the other, who I thought was in the wrong,
that if he attempted in future to draw his cutlass, or molest any
of my attendants, I should look upon him as a robber, and shoot
him without further ceremony.  This threat had the desired
effect, and we marched sullenly along till the afternoon, when we
arrived at a number of small villages scattered over an open and
fertile plain.  At one of these, called Ganado, we took up
our residence for the night; here an exchange of presents and a
good supper terminated all animosities among my attendants, and
the night was far advanced before any of us thought of going to
sleep.  We were amused by an itinerant singing man,
who told a number of diverting stories, and played some sweet
airs by blowing his breath upon a bow-string, and striking it at
the same time with a stick.

December 15.—At daybreak my fellow-travellers,
the Serawoollies, took leave of me, with many prayers for my
safety.  About a mile from Ganado we crossed a considerable
branch of the Gambia, called Neriko.  The banks were steep
and covered with mimosas; and I observed in the mud a number of
large mussels, but the natives do not eat them.  About noon,
the sun being exceedingly hot, we rested two hours in the shade
of a tree, and purchased some milk and pounded corn from some
Foulah herdsmen, and at sunset reached a town called Koorkarany,
where the blacksmith had some relations; and here we rested two
days.

Koorkarany is a Mohammedan town surrounded by a high wall, and
is provided with a mosque.  Here I was shown a number of
Arabic manuscripts, particularly a copy of the book before
mentioned, called Al Sharra.  The maraboo, or
priest, in whose possession it was, read and explained to me in
Mandingo many of the most remarkable passages, and, in return, I
showed him Richardson’s Arabic Grammar, which he very much
admired.

On the evening of the second day (December 17) we departed
from Koorkarany.  We were joined by a young man who was
travelling to Fatteconda for salt; and as night set in we reached
Dooggi, a small village about three miles from Koorkarany.

Provisions were here so cheap that I purchased a bullock for
six small stones of amber; for I found my company increase or
diminish according to the good fare they met with.

December 18.—Early in the morning we departed
from Dooggi, and, being joined by a number of Foulahs and other
people, made a formidable appearance, and were under no
apprehension of being plundered in the woods.  About eleven
o’clock, one of the asses proving very refractory, the
negroes took a curious method to make him tractable.  They
cut a forked stick, and putting the forked part into the
ass’s mouth, like the bit of a bridle, tied the two smaller
parts together above his head, leaving the lower part of the
stick of sufficient length to strike against the ground, if the
ass should attempt to put his head down.  After this the ass
walked along quietly and gravely enough, taking care, after some
practice, to hold his head sufficiently high to prevent stones or
roots of trees from striking against the end of the stick, which
experience had taught him would give a severe shock to his
teeth.  This contrivance produced a ludicrous appearance,
but my fellow-travellers told me it was constantly adopted by the
slatees, and always proved effectual.

In the evening we arrived at a few scattered villages,
surrounded with extensive cultivation, at one of which, called
Buggil, we passed the night in a miserable hut, having no other
bed than a bundle of corn-stalks, and no provisions but what we
brought with us.  The wells here are dug with great
ingenuity, and are very deep.  I measured one of the
bucket-ropes, and found the depth of the well to be twenty-eight
fathoms.

December 19.—We departed from Buggil, and
travelled along a dry, stony height, covered with mimosas, till
mid-day, when the land sloped towards the east, and we descended
into a deep valley, in which I observed abundance of whinstone
and white quartz.  Pursuing our course to the eastward,
along this valley in the bed of an exhausted river-course, we
came to a large village, where we intended to lodge.  We
found many of the natives dressed in a thin French gauze, which
they called byqui; this being a light airy dress, and well
calculated to display the shape of their persons, is much
esteemed by the ladies.  The manners of these females,
however, did not correspond with their dress, for they were rude
and troublesome in the highest degree; they surrounded me in
numbers, begging for amber, beads, &c., and were so vehement
in their solicitations, that I found it impossible to resist
them.  They tore my cloak, cut the buttons from my
boy’s clothes, and were proceeding to other outrages, when
I mounted my horse and rode off, followed for half-a-mile by a
body of these harpies.

In the evening we reached Soobrudooka, and as my company was
numerous (being fourteen), I purchased a sheep and abundance of
corn for supper; after which we lay down by the bundles, and
passed an uncomfortable night in a heavy dew.

December 20.—We departed from Soobrudooka, and at
two o’clock reached a large village situated on the banks
of the Falemé river, which is here rapid and rocky. 
The natives were employed in fishing in various ways.  The
large fish were taken in long baskets made of split cane, and
placed in a strong current, which was created by walls of stone
built across the stream, certain open places being left, through
which the water rushed with great force.  Some of these
baskets were more than twenty feet long, and when once the fish
had entered one of them, the force of the stream prevented it
from returning.  The small fish were taken in great numbers
in hand-nets, which the natives weave of cotton, and use with
great dexterity.  The fish last mentioned are about the size
of sprats, and are prepared for sale in different ways; the most
common is by pounding them entire as they come from the stream,
in a wooden mortar, and exposing them to dry in the sun, in large
lumps like sugar loaves.  It may be supposed that the smell
is not very agreeable; but in the Moorish countries to the north
of the Senegal, where fish is scarcely known, this preparation is
esteemed as a luxury, and sold to considerable advantage. 
The manner of using it by the natives is by dissolving a piece of
this black loaf in boiling water, and mixing it with their
kouskous.

On returning to the village, after an excursion to the
river-side to inspect the fishery, an old Moorish shereef came to
bestow his blessing upon me, and beg some paper to write saphies
upon.  This man had seen Major Houghton in the kingdom of
Kaarta, and told me that he died in the country of the Moors.

About three in the afternoon we continued our course along the
bank of the river to the northward, till eight o’clock,
when we reached Nayemow.  Here the hospitable master of the
town received us kindly, and presented us with a bullock. 
In return I gave him some amber and beads.

December 21.—In the morning, having agreed for a
canoe to carry over my bundles, I crossed the river, which came
up to my knees as I sat on my horse; but the water is so clear,
that from the high bank the bottom is visible all the way
over.

About noon we entered Fatteconda, the capital of Bondou, and
in a little time received an invitation to the house of a
respectable slatee: for as there are no public-houses in Africa,
it is customary for strangers to stand at the bentang, or some
other place of public resort, till they are invited to a lodging
by some of the inhabitants.  We accepted the offer; and in
an hour afterwards a person came and told me that he was sent on
purpose to conduct me to the king, who was very desirous of
seeing me immediately, if I was not too much fatigued.

I took my interpreter with me, and followed the messenger till
we got quite out of the town, and crossed some corn-fields; when,
suspecting some trick, I stopped, and asked the guide whither he
was going.  Upon which, he pointed to a man sitting under a
tree at some little distance, and told me that the king
frequently gave audience in that retired manner, in order to
avoid a crowd of people, and that nobody but myself and my
interpreter must approach him.  When I advanced the king
desired me to come and sit by him upon the mat; and, after
hearing my story, on which he made no observation, he asked if I
wished to purchase any slaves or gold.  Being answered in
the negative, he seemed rather surprised, but desired me to come
to him in the evening, and he would give me some provisions.

This monarch was called Almami, a Moorish name, though I was
told that he was not a Mohammedan, but a kafir or pagan.  I
had heard that he had acted towards Major Houghton with great
unkindness, and caused him to be plundered.  His behaviour,
therefore, towards myself at this interview, though much more
civil than I expected, was far from freeing me from
uneasiness.  I still apprehended some double-dealing; and as
I was now entirely in his power, I thought it best to smooth the
way by a present.  Accordingly, I took with me in the
evening one canister of gunpowder, some amber, tobacco, and my
umbrella; and as I considered that my bundles would inevitably be
searched, I concealed some few articles in the roof of the hut
where I lodged, and I put on my new blue coat in order to
preserve it.

All the houses belonging to the king and his family are
surrounded by a lofty mud wall, which converts the whole into a
kind of citadel.  The interior is subdivided into different
courts.  At the first place of entrance I observed a man
standing with a musket on his shoulder; and I found the way to
the presence very intricate, leading through many passages, with
sentinels placed at the different doors.  When we came to
the entrance of the court in which the king resides, both my
guide and interpreter, according to custom, took off their
sandals; and the former pronounced the king’s name aloud,
repeating it till he was answered from within.  We found the
monarch sitting upon a mat, and two attendants with him.  I
repeated what I had before told him concerning the object of my
journey, and my reasons for passing through his country.  He
seemed, however, but half satisfied.  When I offered to show
him the contents of my portmanteau, and everything belonging to
me, he was convinced; and it was evident that his suspicion had
arisen from a belief that every white man must of necessity be a
trader.  When I had delivered my presents, he seemed well
pleased, and was particularly delighted with the umbrella, which
he repeatedly furled and unfurled, to the great admiration of
himself and his two attendants, who could not for some time
comprehend the use of this wonderful machine.  After this I
was about to take my leave, when the king, desiring me to stop a
while, began a long preamble in favour of the whites, extolling
their immense wealth and good dispositions.  He next
proceeded to an eulogium on my blue coat, of which the yellow
buttons seemed particularly to catch his fancy; and he concluded
by entreating me to present him with it, assuring me, for my
consolation under the loss of it, that he would wear it on all
public occasions, and inform every one who saw it of my great
liberality towards him.  The request of an African prince,
in his own dominions, particularly when made to a stranger, comes
little short of a command.  It is only a way of obtaining by
gentle means what he can, if he pleases, take by force; and as it
was against my interest to offend him by a refusal, I very
quietly took off my coat, the only good one in my possession, and
laid it at his feet.

In return for my compliance, he presented me with great plenty
of provisions, and desired to see me again in the morning. 
I accordingly attended, and found him sitting upon his bed. 
He told me he was sick, and wished to have a little blood taken
from him; but I had no sooner, tied up his arm and displayed the
lancet, than his courage failed, and he begged me to postpone the
operation till the afternoon, as he felt himself, he said, much
better than he had been, and thanked me kindly for my readiness
to serve him.  He then observed that his women were very
desirous to see me, and requested that I would favour them with a
visit.  An attendant was ordered to conduct me; and I had no
sooner entered the court appropriated to the ladies, than the
whole seraglio surrounded me—some begging for physic, some
for amber, and all of them desirous of trying that great African
specific, blood-letting.  They were ten or twelve in
number, most of them young and handsome, and wearing on their
heads ornaments of gold, and beads of amber.

They rallied me with a good deal of gaiety on different
subjects, particularly upon the whiteness of my skin and the
prominency of my nose.  They insisted that both were
artificial.  The first, they said, was produced when I was
an infant, by dipping me in milk; and they insisted that my nose
had been pinched every day, till it had acquired its present
unsightly and unnatural conformation.  On my part, without
disputing my own deformity, I paid them many compliments on
African beauty.  I praised the glossy jet of their skins,
and the lovely depression of their noses; but they said that
flattery, or, as they emphatically termed it, honey-mouth,
was not esteemed in Bondou.  In return, however, for my
company or my compliments (to which, by the way, they seemed not
so insensible as they affected to be) they presented me with a
jar of honey and some fish, which were sent to my lodging; and I
was desired to come again to the king a little before sunset.

I carried with me some beads and writing-paper, it being usual
to present some small offering on taking leave, in return for
which the king gave me five drachms of gold, observing that it
was but a trifle, and given out of pure friendship, but would be
of use to me in travelling, for the purchase of provisions. 
He seconded this act of kindness by one still greater, politely
telling me that, though it was customary to examine the baggage
of every traveller passing through his country, yet, in the
present instance, he would dispense without ceremony, adding, I
was at liberty to depart when I pleased.

Accordingly, on the morning of the 23rd, we left Fatteconda,
and about eleven o’clock came to a small village, where we
determined to stop for the rest of the day.

In the afternoon my fellow-travellers informed me that, as
this was the boundary between Bondou and Kajaaga, and dangerous
for travellers, it would be necessary to continue our journey by
night, until we should reach a more hospitable part of the
country.  I agreed to the proposal, and hired two people for
guides through the woods; and as soon as the people of the
village were gone to sleep (the moon shining bright) we set
out.  The stillness of the air, the howling of the wild
beasts, and the deep solitude of the forest, made the scene
solemn and oppressive.  Not a word was uttered by any of us
but in a whisper; all were attentive, and every one anxious to
show his sagacity by pointing out to me the wolves and
hyænas, as they glided like shadows from one thicket to
another.  Towards morning we arrived at a village called
Kimmoo, where our guides awakened one of their acquaintances, and
we stopped to give the asses some corn, and roast a few
ground-nuts for ourselves.  At daylight we resumed our
journey, and in the afternoon arrived at Joag, in the kingdom of
Kajaaga.

Being now in a country and among a people differing in many
respects from those that have as yet fallen under our
observation, I shall, before I proceed further, give some account
of Bondou (the territory we have left) and its inhabitants, the
Foulahs, the description of whom I purposely reserved for this
part of my work.

Bondou is bounded on the east by Bambouk, on the south-east
and south by Tenda and the Simbani wilderness, on the south-west
by Woolli, on the west by Foota Torra, and on the north by
Kajaaga.

The country, like that of Woolli, is very generally covered
with woods, but the land is more elevated, and, towards the
Falemé river, rises into considerable hills.  In
native fertility the soil is not surpassed, I believe, by any
part of Africa.

From the central situation of Bondou, between the Gambia and
Senegal rivers, it is become a place of great resort, both for
the slatees, who generally pass through it on going from the
coast to the interior countries, and for occasional traders, who
frequently come hither from the inland countries to purchase
salt.

These different branches of commerce are conducted principally
by Mandingoes and Serawoollies, who have settled in the
country.  These merchants likewise carry on a considerable
trade with Gedumah and other Moorish countries, bartering corn
and blue cotton cloths for salt, which they again barter in
Dentila and other districts for iron, shea-butter, and small
quantities of gold-dust.  They likewise sell a variety of
sweet-smelling gums, packed up in small bags, containing each
about a pound.  These gums, being thrown on hot embers,
produce a very pleasant odour, and are used by the Mandingoes for
perfuming their huts and clothes.

The customs, or duties on travellers, are very heavy; in
almost every town an ass-load pays a bar of European merchandise,
and at Fatteconda, the residence of the king, one Indian baft, or
a musket, and six bottles of gunpowder, are exacted as the common
tribute.  By means of these duties, the king of Bondou is
well supplied with arms and ammunition—a circumstance which
makes him formidable to the neighbouring states.

The inhabitants differ in their complexions and national
manners from the Mandingoes and Serawoollies, with whom they are
frequently at war.  Some years ago the king of Bondou
crossed the Falemé river with a numerous army; and, after
a short and bloody campaign, totally defeated the forces of
Samboo, king of Bambouk, who was obliged to sue for peace, and
surrender to him all the towns along the eastern bank of the
Falemé.

The Foulahs in general (as has been observed in a former
chapter) are of a tawny complexion, with small features and soft
silky hair; next to the Mandingoes, they are undoubtedly the most
considerable of all the nations in this part of Africa. 
Their original country is said to be Fooladoo (which signifies
the country of the Foulahs); but they possess at present many
other kingdoms at a great distance from each other; their
complexion, however, is not exactly the same in the different
districts; in Bondou, and the other kingdoms which are situated
in the vicinity of the Moorish territories, they are of a more
yellow complexion than in the southern states.

The Foulahs of Bondou are naturally of a mild and gentle
disposition, but the uncharitable maxims of the Koran have made
them less hospitable to strangers, and more reserved in their
behaviour, than the Mandingoes.  They evidently consider all
the negro natives as their inferiors; and, when talking of
different nations, always rank themselves among the white
people.

Their government differs from that of the Mandingoes chiefly
in this, that they are more immediately under the influence of
Mohammedan laws; for all the chief men, the king excepted, and a
large majority of the inhabitants of Bondou, are Mussulmans, and
the authority and laws of the Prophet are everywhere looked upon
as sacred and decisive.  In the exercise of their faith,
however, they are not very intolerant towards such of their
countrymen as still retain their ancient superstitions. 
Religious persecution is not known among them, nor is it
necessary; for the system of Mohammed is made to extend itself by
means abundantly more efficacious.  By establishing small
schools in the different towns, where many of the pagan as well
as Mohammedan children are taught to read the Koran, and
instructed in the tenets of the Prophet, the Mohammedan priests
fix a bias on the minds, and form the character, of their young
disciples, which no accidents of life can ever afterwards remove
or alter.  Many of these little schools I visited in my
progress through the country, and I observed with pleasure the
great docility and submissive deportment of the children, and
heartily wished they had had better instructors and a purer
religion.

With the Mohammedan faith is also introduced the Arabic
language, with which most of the Foulahs have a slight
acquaintance.  Their native tongue abounds very much in
liquids, but there is something unpleasant in the manner of
pronouncing it.  A stranger, on hearing the common
conversation of two Foulahs, would imagine that they were
scolding each other.  Their numerals are these:—

The industry of the Foulahs, in the occupations of pasturage
and agriculture, is everywhere remarkable.  Even on the
banks of the Gambia, the greater part of the corn is raised by
them, and their herds and flocks are more numerous and in better
condition than those of the Mandingoes; but in Bondou they are
opulent in a high degree, and enjoy all the necessaries of life
in the greatest profusion.  They display great skill in the
management of their cattle, making them extremely gentle by
kindness and familiarity.  On the approach of the night,
they are collected from the woods and secured in folds called
korrees, which are constructed in the neighbourhood of the
different villages.  In the middle of each korree is erected
a small hut, wherein one or two of the herdsmen keep watch during
the night, to prevent the cattle from being stolen, and to keep
up the fires which are kindled round the korree to frighten away
the wild beasts.

The cattle are milked in the mornings and evenings: the milk
is excellent; but the quantity obtained from any one cow is by no
means so great as in Europe.  The Foulahs use the milk
chiefly as an article of diet, and that not until it is quite
sour.  The cream which it affords is very thick, and is
converted into butter by stirring it violently in a large
calabash.  This butter, when melted over a gentle fire, and
freed from impurities, is preserved in small earthen pots, and
forms a part in most of their dishes; it serves likewise to
anoint their heads, and is bestowed very liberally on their faces
and arms.

But although milk is plentiful, it is somewhat remarkable that
the Foulahs, and indeed all the inhabitants of this part of
Africa, are totally unacquainted with the art of making
cheese.  A firm attachment to the customs of their ancestors
makes them view with an eye of prejudice everything that looks
like innovation.  The heat of the climate and the great
scarcity of salt are held forth as unanswerable objections; and
the whole process appears to them too long and troublesome to be
attended with any solid advantage.

Besides the cattle, which constitute the chief wealth of the
Foulahs, they possess some excellent horses, the breed of which
seems to be a mixture of the Arabian with the original
African.

CHAPTER V.
FROM KAJAAGA TO KASSON.

The kingdom of Kajaaga, in which I
was now arrived, is called by the French Gallam, but the name
that I have adopted is universally used by the natives. 
This country is bounded on the south-east and south by Bambouk,
on the west by Bondou and Foota-Torra, and on the north by the
river Senegal.

The air and climate are, I believe, more pure and salubrious
than at any of the settlements towards the coast; the face of the
country is everywhere interspersed with a pleasing variety of
hills and valleys; and the windings of the Senegal river, which
descends from the rocky hills of the interior, make the scenery
on its banks very picturesque and beautiful.

The inhabitants are called Serawoollies, or (as the French
write it) Seracolets.  Their complexion is a jet
black: they are not to be distinguished in this respect from the
Jaloffs.

The government is monarchical, and the regal authority, from
what I experienced of it, seems to be sufficiently
formidable.  The people themselves, however, complain of no
oppression, and seemed all very anxious to support the king in a
contest he was going to enter into with the sovereign of
Kasson.  The Serawoollies are habitually a trading people;
they formerly carried on a great commerce with the French in gold
and slaves, and still maintain some traffic in slaves with the
British factories on the Gambia.  They are reckoned
tolerably fair and just in their dealings, but are indefatigable
in their exertions to acquire wealth, and they derive
considerable profits by the sale of salt and cotton cloth in
distant countries.  When a Serawoolli merchant returns home
from a trading expedition the neighbours immediately assemble to
congratulate him upon his arrival.  On these occasions the
traveller displays his wealth and liberality by making a few
presents to his friends; but if he has been unsuccessful his
levee is soon over, and every one looks upon him as a man of no
understanding, who could perform a long journey, and (as they
express it) “bring back nothing but the hair upon his
head.”

Their language abounds much in gutturals, and is not so
harmonious as that spoken by the Foulahs.  It is, however,
well worth acquiring by those who travel through this part of the
African continent, it being very generally understood in the
kingdoms of Kasson, Kaarta, Ludamar, and the northern parts of
Bambarra.  In all these countries the Serawoollies are the
chief traders.  Their numerals are:—

We arrived at Joag, the frontier town of this kingdom, on the
24th of December, and took up our residence at the house of the
chief man, who is here no longer known by the title of alkaid,
but is called the dooty.  He was a rigid Mohammedan,
but distinguished for his hospitality.  This town may be
supposed, on a gross computation, to contain two thousand
inhabitants.  It is surrounded by a high wall, in which are
a number of port-holes, for musketry to fire through, in case of
an attack.  Every man’s possession is likewise
surrounded by a wall, the whole forming so many distinct
citadels; and amongst a people unacquainted with the use of
artillery these walls answer all the purposes of stronger
fortifications.  To the westward of the town is a small
river, on the banks of which the natives raise great plenty of
tobacco and onions.

The same evening Madiboo, the bushreen, who had accompanied me
from Pisania, went to pay a visit to his father and mother, who
dwelt at a neighbouring town called Dramanet.  He was joined
by my other attendant, the blacksmith.  As soon as it was
dark I was invited to see the sports of the inhabitants, it being
their custom, on the arrival of strangers, to welcome them by
diversions of different kinds.  I found a great crowd
surrounding a party who were dancing, by the light of some large
fires, to the music of four drums, which were beat with great
exactness and uniformity.  The dances, however, consisted
more in wanton gestures than in muscular exertion or graceful
attitudes.  The ladies vied with each other in displaying
the most voluptuous movements imaginable.

December 25.—About two o’clock in the
morning a number of horsemen came into the town, and, having
awakened my landlord, talked to him for some time in the
Serawoolli tongue; after which they dismounted and came to the
bentang, on which I had made my bed.  One of them, thinking
that I was asleep, attempted to steal the musket that lay by me
on the mat, but finding that he could not effect his purpose
undiscovered, he desisted, and the strangers sat down by me till
daylight.

I could now easily perceive, by the countenance of my
interpreter, Johnson, that something very unpleasant was in
agitation.  I was likewise surprised to see Madiboo and the
blacksmith so soon returned.  On inquiring the reason,
Madiboo informed me that, as they were dancing at Dramanet, ten
horsemen belonging to Batcheri, king of the country, with his
second son at their head, had arrived there, inquiring if the
white man had passed, and, on being told that I was at Joag, they
rode off without stopping.  Madiboo added that on hearing
this he and the blacksmith hastened back to give me notice of
their coming.  Whilst I was listening to this narrative the
ten horsemen mentioned by Madiboo arrived, and coming to the
bentang, dismounted and seated themselves with those who had come
before—the whole being about twenty in number—forming
a circle round me, and each man holding his musket in his
hand.  I took this opportunity to observe to my landlord
that, as I did not understand the Serawoolli tongue, I hoped
whatever the men had to say they would speak in Mandingo. 
To this they agreed; and a short man, loaded with a remarkable
number of saphies, opened the business in a very long harangue,
informing me that I had entered the king’s town without
having first paid the duties, or giving any present to the king;
and that, according to the laws of the country, my people,
cattle, and baggage were forfeited.  He added that they had
received orders from the king to conduct me to Maana, [70] the place of his residence, and if I
refused to come with them their orders were to bring me by force;
upon his saying which all of them rose up and asked me if I was
ready.  It would have been equally vain and imprudent in me
to have resisted or irritated such a body of men; I therefore
affected to comply with their commands, and begged them only to
stop a little until I had given my horse a feed of corn, and
settled matters with my landlord.  The poor blacksmith, who
was a native of Kasson, mistook this feigned compliance for a
real intention, and taking me away from the company, told me that
he had always behaved towards me as if I had been his father and
master, and he hoped I would not entirely ruin him by going to
Maana, adding that as there was every reason to believe a war
would soon take place between Kasson and Kajaaga, he should not
only lose his little property, the savings of four years’
industry, but should certainly be detained and sold as a slave,
unless his friends had an opportunity of paying two slaves for
his redemption.  I saw this reasoning in its full force, and
determined to do my utmost to preserve the blacksmith from so
dreadful a fate.  I therefore told the king’s son that
I was ready to go with him, upon condition that, the blacksmith,
who was an inhabitant of a distant kingdom, and entirely
unconnected with me, should be allowed to stay at Joag till my
return.  To this they all objected, and insisted that, as we
had all acted contrary to the laws, we were all equally
answerable for our conduct.

I now took my landlord aside, and giving him a small present
of gunpowder, asked his advice in such critical a
situation.  He was decidedly of opinion that I ought not to
go to the king: he was fully convinced, he said, that if the king
should discover anything valuable in my possession, he would not
be over scrupulous about the means of obtaining it.

Towards the evening, as I was sitting upon the bentang chewing
straws, an old female slave, passing by with a basket upon her
head, asked me if had got my dinner.  As I thought
she only laughed at me, I gave her no answer; but my boy, who was
sitting close by, answered for me, and told her that the
king’s people had robbed me of all my money.  On
hearing this, the good old woman, with a look of unaffected
benevolence, immediately took the basket from her head, and
showing me that it contained ground nuts, asked me if I could eat
them.  Being answered in the affirmative, she presented me
with a few handfuls, and walked away before I had time to thank
her for this seasonable supply.

The old woman had scarcely left me when I received information
that a nephew of Demba Sego Jalla, the Mandingo king of Kasson,
was coming to pay me a visit.  He had been sent on an
embassy to Batcheri, King of Kajaaga, to endeavour to settle the
disputes which had arisen between his uncle and the latter; but
after debating the matter four days without success, he was now
on his return, and hearing that a white man was at Joag, on his
way to Kasson, curiosity brought him to see me.  I
represented to him my situation and distresses, when he frankly
offered me his protection, and said he would be my guide to
Kasson (provided I would set out the next morning), and be
answerable for my safety.  I readily and gratefully accepted
his offer, and was ready with my attendants by daylight on the
morning of the 27th of December.

My protector, whose name was Demba Sego, probably after his
uncle, had a numerous retinue.  Our company, at leaving
Joag, consisted of thirty persons and six loaded asses; and we
rode on cheerfully enough for some hours, without any remarkable
occurrence until we came to a species of tree for which my
interpreter Johnson had made frequent inquiry.  On finding
it, he desired us to stop, and producing a white chicken, which
he had purchased at Joag for the purpose, he tied it by the leg
to one of the branches, and then told us we might now safely
proceed, for that our journey would be prosperous.

At noon we had reached Gungadi, a large town where we stopped
about an hour, until some of the asses that had fallen behind
came up.  Here I observed a number of date-trees, and a
mosque built of clay, with six turrets, on the pinnacles of which
were placed six ostrich eggs.  A little before sunset we
arrived at the town of Samee, on the banks of the Senegal, which
is here a beautiful but shallow river, moving slowly over a bed
of sand and gravel.  The banks are high, and covered with
verdure—the country is open and cultivated—and the
rocky hills of Fellow and Bambouk add much to the beauty of the
landscape.

December 28.—We departed from Samee, and arrived
in the afternoon at Kayee, a large village, part of which is
situated on the north and part on the south side of the
river.

The ferryman then taking hold of the most steady of the horses
by a rope, led him into the water, and paddled the canoe a little
from the brink; upon which a general attack commenced upon the
other horses, who, finding themselves pelted and kicked on all
sides, unanimously plunged into the river, and followed their
companion.  A few boys swam in after them; and, by laving
water upon them when they attempted to return, urged them
onwards; and we had the satisfaction in about fifteen minutes to
see them all safe on the other side.  It was a matter of
greater difficulty to manage the asses; their natural
stubbornness of disposition made them endure a great deal of
pelting and shoving before they would venture into the water; and
when they had reached the middle of the stream, four of them
turned back, in spite of every exertion to get them
forwards.  Two hours were spent in getting the whole of them
over; an hour more was employed in transporting the baggage; and
it was near sunset before the canoe returned, when Demba Sego and
myself embarked in this dangerous passage-boat, which the least
motion was like to overset.  The king’s nephew thought
this a proper time to have a peep into a tin box of mine that
stood in the fore part of the canoe; and in stretching out his
hand for it, he unfortunately destroyed the equilibrium, and
overset the canoe.  Luckily we were not far advanced, and
got back to the shore without much difficulty; from whence, after
wringing the water from our clothes, we took a fresh departure,
and were soon afterwards safely landed in Kasson.

CHAPTER VI.
TIGGITY SEGO’S PALAVER.

We no sooner found ourselves safe
in Kasson than Demba Sego told me that we were now in his
uncle’s dominions, and he hoped I would consider, being now
out of danger, the obligation I owed to him, and make him a
suitable return for the trouble he had taken on my account by a
handsome present.  This, as he knew how much had been
pilfered from me at Joag, was rather an unexpected proposition,
and I began to fear that I had not much improved my condition by
crossing the water; but as it would have been folly to complain I
made no observation upon his conduct, and gave him seven bars of
amber and some tobacco, with which he seemed to be content.

After a long day’s journey, in the course of which I
observed a number of large loose nodules of white granite, we
arrived at Teesee on the evening of December 29th, and were
accommodated in Demba Sego’s hut.  The next morning he
introduced me to his father, Tiggity Sego, brother to the king of
Kasson, chief of Teesee.  The old man viewed me with great
earnestness, having never, he said, beheld but one white man
before, whom by his description I immediately knew to be Major
Houghton.

In the afternoon one of his slaves eloped; and a general alarm
being given, every person that had a horse rode into the woods,
in the hopes of apprehending him, and Demba Sego begged the use
of my horse for the same purpose.  I readily consented; and
in about an hour they all returned with the slave, who was
severely flogged, and afterwards put in irons.  On the day
following (December 31st) Demba Sego was ordered to go with
twenty horsemen to a town in Gedumah, to adjust some dispute with
the Moors, a party of whom were supposed to have stolen three
horses from Teesee.  Demba begged a second time the use of
my horse, adding that the sight of my bridle and saddle would
give him consequence among the Moors.  This request also I
readily granted, and he promised to return at the end of three
days.  During his absence I amused myself with walking about
the town, and conversing with the natives, who attended me
everywhere with great kindness and curiosity, and supplied me
with milk, eggs, and what other provisions I wanted, on very easy
terms.

Teesee is a large unwalled town, having no security against
the attack of an enemy except a sort of citadel in which Tiggity
and his family constantly reside.  This town, according to
the report of the natives, was formerly inhabited only by a few
Foulah shepherds, who lived in considerable affluence by means of
the excellent meadows in the neighbourhood, in which they reared
great herds of cattle.  But their prosperity attracting the
envy of some Mandingoes, the latter drove out the shepherds, and
took possession of their lands.

The present inhabitants, though they possess both cattle and
corn in abundance, are not over nice in articles of diet; rats,
moles, squirrels, snakes, locusts, are eaten without scruple by
the highest and lowest.  My people were one evening invited
to a feast given by some of the townsmen, where, after making a
hearty meal of what they thought fish and kouskous, one of them
found a piece of hard skin in the dish, and brought it along with
him to show me what sort of fish they had been eating.  On
examining the skin I found they had been feasting on a large
snake.  Another custom still more extraordinary is that no
woman is allowed to eat an egg.  This prohibition, whether
arising from ancient superstition or from the craftiness of some
old bushreen who loved eggs himself, is rigidly adhered to, and
nothing will more affront a woman of Teesee than to offer her an
egg.  The custom is the more singular, as the men eat eggs
without scruple in the presence of their wives, and I never
observed the same prohibition in any other of the Mandingo
countries.

The third day after his son’s departure, Tiggity Sego
held a palaver on a very extraordinary occasion, which I
attended; and the debates on both sides of the question displayed
much ingenuity.  The case was this:—A young man, a
kafir of considerable affluence, who had recently married a young
and handsome wife, applied to a very devout bushreen, or
Mussulman priest, of his acquaintance, to procure him saphies for
his protection during the approaching war.  The bushreen
complied with the request; and in order, as he pretended, to
render the saphies more efficacious, enjoined the young man to
avoid any nuptial intercourse with his bride for the space of six
weeks.  Severe as the injunction was, the kafir strictly
obeyed; and, without telling his wife the real cause, absented
himself from her company.  In the meantime, it began to be
whispered at Teesee that the bushreen, who always performed his
evening devotions at the door of the kafir’s hut, was more
intimate with the young wife than he ought to be.  At first
the good husband was unwilling to suspect the honour of his
sanctified friend, and one whole month elapsed before any
jealousy rose in his mind, but hearing the charge repeated, he at
last interrogated his wife on the subject, who frankly confessed
that the bushreen had seduced her.  Hereupon the kafir put
her into confinement, and called a palaver upon the
bushreen’s conduct.  The fact was clearly proved
against him; and he was sentenced to be sold into slavery, or to
find two slaves for his redemption, according to the pleasure of
the complainant.  The injured husband, however, was
unwilling to proceed against his friend to such extremity, and
desired rather to have him publicly flogged before Tiggity
Sego’s gate.  This was agreed to, and the sentence was
immediately executed.  The culprit was tied by the hands to
a strong stake; and a long black rod being brought forth, the
executioner, after flourishing it round his head for some time,
applied it with such force and dexterity to the bushreen’s
back as to make him roar until the woods resounded with his
screams.  The surrounding multitude, by their hooting and
laughing, manifested how much they enjoyed the punishment of this
old gallant; and it is worthy of remark that the number of
stripes was precisely the same as are enjoined by the Mosaic law,
forty, save one.

As there appeared great probability that Teesee, from its
being a frontier town, would be much exposed during the war to
the predatory incursions of the Moors of Gedumah, Tiggity Sego
had, before my arrival, sent round to the neighbouring villages
to beg or to purchase as much provisions as would afford
subsistence to the inhabitants for one whole year, independently
of the crop on the ground, which the Moors might destroy. 
This project was well received by the country people, and they
fixed a day on which to bring all the provisions they could spare
to Teesee; and as my horse was not yet returned, I went, in the
afternoon of January 4th, 1796, to meet the escort with the
provisions.

It was composed of about 400 men, marching in good order, with
corn and ground nuts in large calabashes upon their heads. 
They were preceded by a strong guard of bowmen, and followed by
eight musicians or singing men.  As soon as they approached
the town the latter began a song, every verse of which was
answered by the company, and succeeded by a few strokes on the
large drums.  In this manner they proceeded, amidst the
acclamations of the populace, till they reached the house of
Tiggity Sego, where the loads were deposited; and in the evening
they all assembled under the bentang tree, and spent the night in
dancing and merriment.

On the 5th of January an embassy of ten people belonging to
Almami Abdulkader, king of Foota-Torra, a country to the west of
Bondou, arrived at Teesee; and desiring Tiggity to call an
assembly of the inhabitants, announced publicly their
king’s determination to this effect:—‘That
unless all the people of Kasson would embrace the Mohammedan
religion, and evince their conversion by saying eleven public
prayers, he, the king of Foota-Torra, could not possibly stand
neuter in the present contest, but would certainly join his arms
to those of Kajaaga.’  A message of this nature from
so powerful a prince could not fail to create great alarm; and
the inhabitants of Teesee, after a long consultation, agreed to
conform to his good pleasure, humiliating as it was to
them.  Accordingly, one and all publicly offered up eleven
prayers, which were considered a sufficient testimony of their
having renounced paganism, and embraced the doctrines of the
prophet.

It was the 8th of January before Demba Sego returned with my
horse; and being quite wearied out with the delay, I went
immediately to inform his father that I should set out for
Kooniakary early the next day.  The old man made many
frivolous objections, and at length gave me to understand that I
must not think of departing without first paying him the same
duties he was entitled to receive from all travellers; besides
which he expected, he said, some acknowledgment for his kindness
towards me.  Accordingly, on the morning of the 9th, my
friend Demba, with a number of people, came to me, and said that
they were sent by Tiggity Sego for my present, and wished to see
what goods I had appropriated for that purpose.  I knew that
resistance was hopeless, and complaint unavailing: and being in
some measure prepared by the intimation I had received the night
before, I quietly offered him seven bars of amber and five of
tobacco.  After surveying these articles for some time very
coolly, Demba laid them down, and told me that this was not a
present for a man of Tiggity Sego’s consequence, who had it
in his power to take whatever he pleased from me.  He added,
that if I did not consent to make him a larger offering he would
carry all my baggage to his father, and let him choose for
himself.  I had no time for reply, for Demba and his
attendants immediately began to open my bundles, and spread the
different articles upon the floor, where they underwent a more
strict examination than they had done at Joag.  Everything
that pleased them they took without scruple: and amongst other
things, Demba seized the tin box that had so much attracted his
attention in crossing the river.  Upon collecting the
scattered remains of my little fortune after these people had
left me, I found that, as at Joag I had been plundered of half,
so here, without even the shadow of accusation, I was deprived of
half the remainder.  The blacksmith himself, though a native
of Kasson, had also been compelled to open his bundles, and take
an oath that the different articles they contained were his own
exclusive property.  There was, however, no remedy, and
having been under some obligation to Demba Sego for his attention
towards me in the journey from Joag, I did not reproach him for
his rapacity, but determined to quit Teesee, at all events, the
next morning.  In the meanwhile, in order to raise the
drooping spirits of my attendants, I purchased a fat sheep, and
had it dressed for our dinner.

Early in the morning of January 10th, therefore, I left
Teesee, and about mid-day ascended a ridge, from whence we had a
distant view of the hills round Kooniakary.  In the evening
we reached a small village, where we slept, and, departing from
thence the next morning, crossed in a few hours a narrow but deep
stream called Krieko, a branch of the Senegal.  About two
miles farther to the eastward we passed a large town called
Madina, and at two o’clock came in sight of Jumbo, the
blacksmith’s native town, from whence he had been absent
more than four years.  Soon after this, his brother, who had
by some means been apprised of his coming, came out to meet him,
accompanied by a singing man.  He brought a horse for the
blacksmith, that he might enter his native town in a dignified
manner; and he desired each of us to put a good charge of powder
into our guns.  The singing man now led the way, followed by
the two brothers, and we were presently joined by a number of
people from the town, all of whom demonstrated great joy at
seeing their old acquaintance the blacksmith by the most
extravagant jumping and singing.  On entering the town the
singing man began an extempore song in praise of the blacksmith,
extolling his courage in having overcome so many difficulties,
and concluding with a strict injunction to his friends to dress
him plenty of victuals.

When we arrived at the blacksmith’s place of residence
we dismounted, and fired our muskets.  The meeting between
him and his relations was very tender; for these rude children of
nature, free from restraint, display their emotions in the
strongest and most expressive manner.  Amidst these
transports the blacksmith’s aged mother was led forth,
leaning upon a staff.  Every one made way for her, and she
stretched out her hand to bid her son welcome.  Being
totally blind, she stroked his hands, arms, and face with great
care, and seemed highly delighted that her latter days were
blessed by his return, and that her ears once more heard the
music of his voice.

During the tumult of these congratulations I had seated myself
apart by the side of one of the huts, being unwilling to
interrupt the flow of filial and parental tenderness; and the
attention of the company was so entirely taken up with the
blacksmith that I believe none of his friends had observed
me.  When all the people present had seated themselves the
blacksmith was desired by his father to give them some account of
his adventures; and silence being commanded, he began, and after
repeatedly thanking God for the success that had attended him,
related every material occurrence that had happened to him from
his leaving Kasson to his arrival at the Gambia, his employment
and success in those parts, and the dangers he had escaped in
returning to his native country.  In the latter part of his
narration he had frequently occasion to mention me; and after
many strong expressions concerning my kindness to him he pointed
to the place where I sat, and exclaimed, “Affille ibi
siring!”—(“See him sitting
there!”)  In a moment all eyes were turned upon me; I
appeared like a being dropped from the clouds; every one was
surprised that they had not observed me before; and a few women
and children expressed great uneasiness at being so near a man of
such an uncommon appearance.

By degrees, however, their apprehensions subsided, and when
the blacksmith assured them that I was perfectly inoffensive, and
would hurt nobody, some of them ventured so far as to examine the
texture of my clothes; but many of them were still very
suspicious; and when by accident I happened to move myself, or
look at the young children, their mothers would scamper off with
them with the greatest precipitations.  In a few hours,
however, they all became reconciled to me.

With these worthy people I spent the remainder of that and the
whole of the ensuing day, in feasting and merriment; and the
blacksmith declared he would not quit me during my stay at
Kooniakary—for which place we set out early on the morning
of the 14th of January, and arrived about the middle of the day
at Soolo, a small village three miles to the south of it.

As this place was somewhat out of the direct road, it is
necessary to observe that I went thither to visit a slatee or
Gambia trader, of great note and reputation, named Salim
Daucari.  He was well known to Dr. Laidley, who had trusted
him with effects to the value of five slaves, and had given me an
order for the whole of the debt.  We luckily found him at
home, and he received me with great kindness and attention.

It is remarkable, however, that the king of Kasson was by some
means immediately apprised of my motions; for I had been at Soolo
but a few hours before Sambo Sego, his second son, came thither
with a party of horse, to inquire what had prevented me from
proceeding to Kooniakary, and waiting immediately upon the king,
who, he said, was impatient to see me.  Salim Daucari made
my apology, and promised to accompany me to Kooniakary the same
evening.  We accordingly departed from Soolo at sunset, and
in about an hour entered Kooniakary.  But as the king had
gone to sleep we deferred the interview till next morning, and
slept at the hut of Sambo Sego.

CHAPTER VII.
INTERVIEW WITH KING DEMBA SEGO
JALLA.

About eight o’clock in the
morning of January 15th, 1796, we went to an audience of the king
(Demba Sego Jalla), but the crowd of people to see me was so
great that I could scarcely get admittance.  A passage being
at length obtained, I made my bow to the monarch, whom we found
sitting upon a mat, in a large hut.  He appeared to be a man
of about sixty years of age.  His success in war, and the
mildness of his behaviour in time of peace, had much endeared him
to all his subjects.  He surveyed me with great attention;
and when Salim Daucari explained to him the object of my journey,
and my reasons for passing through his country, the good old king
appeared not only perfectly satisfied, but promised me every
assistance in his power.  He informed me that he had seen
Major Houghton, and presented him with a white horse; but that,
after crossing the kingdom of Kaarta, he had lost his life among
the Moors, in what manner he could not inform me.  When this
audience was ended we returned to our lodging, and I made up a
small present for the king out of the few effects that were left
me; for I had not yet received anything from Salim Daucari. 
This present, though inconsiderable in itself, was well received
by the king, who sent me in return a large white bullock. 
The sight of this animal quite delighted my attendants; not so
much on account of its bulk, as from its being of a white colour,
which is considered as a particular mark of favour.  But
although the king himself was well disposed towards me, and
readily granted me permission to pass through his territories, I
soon discovered that very great and unexpected obstacles were
likely to impede my progress.  Besides the war which was on
the point of breaking out between Kasson and Kajaaga, I was told
that the next kingdom of Kaarta, through which my route lay, was
involved in the issue, and was furthermore threatened with
hostilities on the part of Bambarra.  The king himself
informed me of these circumstances, and advised me to stay in the
neighbourhood of Kooniakary till such time as he could procure
proper information respecting Bambarra, which he expected to do
in the course of four or five days, as he had already, he said,
sent four messengers into Kaarta for that purpose.  I
readily submitted to this proposal, and went to Soolo, to stay
there till the return of one of those messengers.  This
afforded me a favourable opportunity of receiving what money
Salim Daucari could spare me on Dr. Laidley’s
account.  I succeeded in receiving the value of three
slaves, chiefly in gold dust; and being anxious to proceed as
quickly as possible, I begged Daucari to use his interest with
the king to allow me a guide by the way of Fooladoo, as I was
informed that the war had already commenced between the kings of
Bambarra and Kaarta.  Daucari accordingly set out for
Kooniakary on the morning of the 20th, and the same evening
returned with the king’s answer, which was to this
purpose—that the king had, many years ago, made an
agreement with Daisy, king of Kaarta, to send all merchants and
travellers through his dominions; but that if I wished to take
the route through Fooladoo I had his permission so to do; though
he could not, consistently with his agreement, lend me a
guide.  Having felt the want of regal protection in a former
part of my journey, I was unwilling to hazard a repetition of the
hardships I had then experienced, especially as the money I had
received was probably the last supply that I should obtain. 
I therefore determined to wait for the return of the messengers
from Kaarta.

In the interim it began to be whispered abroad that I had
received plenty of gold from Salim Daucari, and, on the morning
of the 23rd, Sambo Sego paid me a visit, with a party of
horsemen.  He insisted upon knowing the exact amount of the
money I had obtained, declaring that whatever the sum was,
one-half of it must go to the king; besides which he intimated
that he expected a handsome present for himself, as being the
king’s son, and for his attendants, as being the
king’s relations.  I prepared to submit; and if Salim
Daucari had not interposed all my endeavours to mitigate this
oppressive claim would have been of no avail.  Salim at last
prevailed upon Sambo to accept sixteen bars of European
merchandise, and some powder and ball, as a complete payment of
every demand that could be made upon me in the kingdom of
Kasson.

January 26.—In the forenoon I went to the top of
a high hill to the southward of Soolo, where I had a most
enchanting prospect of the country.  The number of towns and
villages, and the extensive cultivation around them, surpassed
everything I had yet seen in Africa.  A gross calculation
may be formed of the number of inhabitants in this delightful
plain by considering that the king of Kasson can raise four
thousand fighting men by the sound of his war-drum.  In
traversing the rocky eminences of this hill, which are almost
destitute of vegetation, I observed a number of large holes in
the crevasses and fissures of the rocks, where the wolves and
hyænas take refuge during the day.

February 1.—The messengers arrived from Kaarta,
and brought intelligence that the war had not yet commenced
between Bambarra and Kaarta, and that I might probably pass
through Kaarta before the Bambarra army invaded that country.

February 3.—Early in the morning two guides on
horseback came from Kooniakary to conduct me to the frontiers of
Kaarta.  I accordingly took leave of Salim Daucari, and
parted for the last time from my fellow-traveller the blacksmith,
whose kind solicitude for my welfare had been so conspicuous, and
about ten o’clock departed from Soolo.  We travelled
this day through a rocky and hilly country, along the banks of
the river Krieko, and at sunset came to the village of Soomo,
where we slept.

February 4.—We departed from Soomo, and continued
our route along the banks of the Krieko, which are everywhere
well cultivated, and swarm with inhabitants.  At this time
they were increased by the number of people that had flown
thither from Kaarta on account of the Bambarra war.  In the
afternoon we reached Kimo, a large village, the residence of Madi
Konko, governor of the hilly country of Kasson, which is called
Sorroma.  From hence the guides appointed by the king of
Kasson returned, to join in the expedition against Kajaaga; and I
waited until the 6th before I could prevail on Madi Konko to
appoint me a guide to Kaarta.

February 7.—Departing from Kimo, with Madi
Konko’s son as a guide, we continued our course along the
banks of the Krieko until the afternoon, when we arrived at
Kangee, a considerable town.  The Krieko is here but a small
rivulet.  This beautiful stream takes its rise a little to
the eastward of this town, and descends with a rapid and noisy
current until it reaches the bottom of the high hill called
Tappa, where it becomes more placid, and winds gently through the
lovely plains of Kooniakary; after which, having received an
additional branch from the north, it is lost in the Senegal,
somewhere near the falls of Felow.

February 8.—This day we travelled over a rough
stony country, and having passed Seimpo and a number of other
villages, arrived in the afternoon at Lackarago, a small village
which stands upon the ridge of hills that separates the kingdoms
of Kasson and Kaarta.  In the course of the day we passed
many hundreds of people flying from Kaarta with their families
and effects.

February 9.—Early in the morning we departed from
Lackarago, and a little to the eastward came to the brow of a
hill from whence we had an extensive view of the country. 
Towards the south-east were perceived some very distant hills,
which our guide told us were the mountains of Fooladoo.  We
travelled with great difficulty down a stony and abrupt
precipice, and continued our way in the bed of a dry river
course, where the trees, meeting overhead, made the place dark
and cool.  In a little time we reached the bottom of this
romantic glen, and about ten o’clock emerged from between
two rocky hills, and found ourselves on the level and sandy
plains of Kaarta.  At noon we arrived at a korree, or
watering place, where for a few strings of beads I purchased as
much milk and corn-meal as we could eat; indeed, provisions are
here so cheap, and the shepherds live in such affluence, that
they seldom ask any return for what refreshments a traveller
receives from them.  From this korree we reached Feesurah at
sunset, where we took up our lodging for the night.

February 10.—We continued at Feesurah all this
day, to have a few clothes washed, and learn more exactly the
situation of affairs before we ventured towards the capital.

February 11—Our landlord, taking advantage of the
unsettled state of the country, demanded so extravagant a sum for
our lodging that, suspecting he wished for an opportunity to
quarrel with us, I refused to submit to his exorbitant demand;
but my attendants were so much frightened at the reports of
approaching war that they refused to proceed any farther unless I
could settle matters with him, and induce him to accompany us to
Kemoo, for our protection on the road.  This I accomplished
with some difficulty; and by a present of a blanket which I had
brought with me to sleep in, and for which our landlord had
conceived a very great liking, matters were at length amicably
adjusted, and he mounted his horse and led the way.  He was
one of those negroes who, together with the ceremonial part of
the Mohammedan religion, retain all their ancient superstitions,
and even drink strong liquors.  They are called Johars, or
Jowars, and in this kingdom form a very numerous and powerful
tribe.  We had no sooner got into a dark and lonely part of
the first wood than he made a sign for us to stop, and, taking
hold of a hollow piece of bamboo that hung as an amulet round his
neck, whistled very loud three times.  I confess I was
somewhat startled, thinking it was a signal for some of his
companions to come and attack us; but he assured me that it was
done merely with a view to ascertain what success we were likely
to meet with on our present journey.  He then dismounted,
laid his spear across the road, and having said a number of short
prayers, concluded with three loud whistles; after which he
listened for some time, as if in expectation of an answer, and
receiving none, told us we might proceed without fear, for there
was no danger.  About noon we passed a number of large
villages quite deserted, the inhabitants having fled into Kasson
to avoid the horrors of war.  We reached Karankalla at
sunset.  This formerly was a large town, but having been
plundered by the Bambarrans about four years ago, nearly one-half
of it is still in ruins.

February 12.—At daylight we departed from
Karankalla, and as it was but a short day’s journey to
Kemmoo, we travelled slower than usual, and amused ourselves by
collecting such eatable fruits as grew near the road-side. 
About noon we saw at a distance the capital of Kaarta, situated
in the middle of an open plain—the country for two miles
round being cleared of wood, by the great consumption of that
article for building and fuel—and we entered the town about
two o’clock in the afternoon.

We proceeded without stopping to the court before the
king’s residence; but I was so completely surrounded by the
gazing multitude that I did not attempt to dismount, but sent in
the landlord and Madi Konki’s son, to acquaint the king of
my arrival.  In a little time they returned, accompanied by
a messenger from the king, signifying that he would see me in the
evening; and in the meantime the messenger had orders to procure
me a lodging and see that the crowd did not molest me.  He
conducted me into a court, at the door of which he stationed a
man with a stick in his hand to keep off the mob, and then showed
me a large hut in which I was to lodge.  I had scarcely
seated myself in this spacious apartment when the mob entered; it
was found impossible to keep them out, and I was surrounded by as
many as the hut could contain.  When the first party,
however, had seen me, and asked a few questions, they retired to
make room for another company; and in this manner the hut was
filled and emptied thirteen different times.

A little before sunset the king sent to inform me that he was
at leisure, and wished to see me.  I followed the messenger
through a number of courts surrounded with high walls, where I
observed plenty of dry grass, bundled up like hay, to fodder the
horses, in case the town should be invested.  On entering
the court in which the king was sitting I was astonished at the
number of his attendants, and at the good order that seemed to
prevail among them; they were all seated—the fighting men
on the king’s right hand and the women and children on the
left, leaving a space between them for my passage.  The
king, whose name was Daisy Koorabarri, was not to be
distinguished from his subjects by any superiority in point of
dress; a bank of earth, about two feet high, upon which was
spread a leopard’s skin, constituted the only mark of royal
dignity.  When I had seated myself upon the ground before
him, and related the various circumstances that had induced me to
pass through his country, and my reasons for soliciting his
protections, he appeared perfectly satisfied; but said it was not
in his power at present to afford me much assistance, for that
all sort of communication between Kaarta and Bambarra had been
interrupted for some time past; and as Mansong, the king of
Bambarra, with his army, had entered Fooladoo in his way to
Kaarta, there was but little hope of my reaching Bambarra by any
of the usual routes, inasmuch as, coming from an enemy’s
country, I should certainly be plundered, or taken for a
spy.  If his country had been at peace, he said, I might
have remained with him until a more favourable opportunity
offered; but, as matters stood at present, he did not wish me to
continue in Kaarta, for fear some accident should befall me, in
which case my countrymen might say that he had murdered a white
man.  He would therefore advise me to return into Kasson,
and remain there until the war should terminate, which would
probably happen in the course of three or four months, after
which, if he was alive, he said, he would be glad to see me, and
if he was dead his sons would take care of me.

This advice was certainly well meant on the part of the king,
and perhaps I was to blame in not following it; but I reflected
that the hot months were approaching, and I dreaded the thoughts
of spending the rainy season in the interior of Africa. 
These considerations, and the aversion I felt at the idea of
returning without having made a greater progress in discovery,
made me determine to go forward; and though the king could not
give me a guide to Bambarra, I begged that he would allow a man
to accompany me as near the frontiers of his kingdom as was
consistent with safety.  Finding that I was determined to
proceed, the king told me that one route still remained, but
that, he said, was by no means free from danger—which was
to go from Kaarta into the Moorish kingdom of Ludamar, from
whence I might pass by a circuitous route into Bambarra.  If
I wished to follow this route he would appoint people to conduct
me to Jarra, the frontier town of Ludamar.  He then inquired
very particularly how I had been treated since I had left the
Gambia, and asked, in a jocular way, how many slaves I expected
to carry home with me on my return.  He was about to proceed
when a man mounted on a fine Moorish horse, which was covered
with sweat and foam, entered the court, and signifying that he
had something of importance to communicate, the king immediately
took up his sandals, which is the signal to strangers to
retire.  I accordingly took leave, but desired my boy to
stay about the place, in order to learn something of the
intelligence that this messenger had brought.  In about an
hour the boy returned, and informed me that the Bambarra army had
left Fooladoo, and was on its march towards Kaarta; that the man
I had seen, who had brought this intelligence, was one of the
scouts, or watchmen, employed by the king, each of whom has his
particular station (commonly on some rising ground) from whence
he has the best view of the country, and watches the motions of
the enemy.

February 13.—At daylight I sent my horse-pistols
and holsters as a present to the king, and being very desirous to
get away from a place which was likely soon to become the seat of
war, I begged the messenger to inform the king that I wished to
depart from Kemmoo as soon as he should find it convenient to
appoint me a guide.  In about an hour the king sent his
messenger to thank me for the present, and eight horsemen to
conduct me to Jarra.  They told me that the king wished me
to proceed to Jarra with all possible expedition, that they might
return before anything decisive should happen between the armies
of Bambarra and Kaarta.  We accordingly departed forthwith
from Kemmoo, accompanied by three of Daisy’s sons, and
about two hundred horsemen, who kindly undertook to see me a
little way on my journey.

CHAPTER VIII.
ADVENTURES BETWEEN KEMMOO AND
JARRA.

On the evening of the day of our
departure from Kemmoo (the king’s eldest son and great part
of the horsemen having returned) we reached a village called
Marina, where we slept.  During the night some thieves broke
into the hut where I had deposited my baggage, and having cut
open one of my bundles, stole a quantity of beads, part of my
clothes, and some amber and gold, which happened to be in one of
the pockets.  I complained to my protectors, but without
effect.  The next day (February 14th) was far advanced
before we departed from Marina, and we travelled slowly, on
account of the excessive heat, until four o’clock in the
afternoon, when two negroes were observed sitting among some
thorny bushes, at a little distance from the road.  The
king’s people, taking it for granted that they were runaway
slaves, cocked their muskets, and rode at full speed in different
directions through the bushes, in order to surround them, and
prevent their escaping.  The negroes, however, waited with
great composure until we came within bowshot of them, when each
of them took from his quiver a handful of arrows, and putting two
between his teeth and one in his bow, waved to us with his hand
to keep at a distance; upon which one of the king’s people
called out to the strangers to give some account of
themselves.  They said that “they were natives of
Toorda, a neighbouring village, and had come to that place to
gather tomberongs.”  These are small
farinaceous berries, of a yellow colour and delicious taste,
which I knew to be the fruit of the rhamnus lotus of
Linnæus.

The lotus is very common in all the kingdoms which I visited;
but is found in the greatest plenty on the sandy soil of Kaarta,
Ludamar, and the northern parts of Bambarra, where it is one of
the most common shrubs of the country.  I had observed the
same species at Gambia.

As this shrub is found in Tunis, and also in the negro
kingdoms, and as it furnishes the natives of the latter with a
food resembling bread, and also with a sweet liquor which is much
relished by them, there can be little doubt of its being the
lotus mentioned by Pliny as the food of the Libyan
Lotophagi.  An army may very well have been fed with the
bread I have tasted, made of the meal of the fruit, as is said by
Pliny to have been done in Libya; and as the taste of the bread
is sweet and agreeable, it is not likely that the soldiers would
complain of it.

We arrived in the evening at the village of Toorda; when all
the rest of the king’s people turned back except two, who
remained with me as guides to Jarra.

February 15.—I departed from Toorda, and about
two o’clock came to a considerable town, called
Funingkedy.  As we approached the town the inhabitants were
much alarmed; for, as one of my guides wore a turban, they
mistook us for some Moorish banditti.  This misapprehension
was soon cleared up, and we were well received by a Gambia
slatee, who resides at this town, and at whose house we
lodged.

February 16.—We were informed that a number of
people would go from this town to Jarra on the day following; and
as the road was much infested by the Moors we resolved to stay
and accompany the travellers.

About two o’clock, as I was lying asleep upon a
bullock’s hide behind the door of the hut, I was awakened
by the screams of women, and a general clamour and confusion
among the inhabitants.  At first I suspected that the
Bambarrans had actually entered the town; but observing my boy
upon the top of one of the huts, I called to him to know what was
the matter.  He informed me that the Moors were come a
second time to steal the cattle, and that they were now close to
the town.  I mounted the roof of the hut, and observed a
large herd of bullocks coming towards the town, followed by five
Moors on horseback, who drove the cattle forward with their
muskets.  When they had reached the wells which are close to
the town, the Moors selected from the herd sixteen of the finest
beasts, and drove them off at full gallop.  During this
transaction the townspeople, to the number of five hundred, stood
collected close to the walls of the town; and when the Moors
drove the cattle away, though they passed within pistol-shot of
them, the inhabitants scarcely made a show of resistance.  I
only saw four muskets fired, which, being loaded with gunpowder
of the negroes’ own manufacture, did no execution. 
Shortly after this I observed a number of people supporting a
young man on horseback, and conducting him slowly towards the
town.  This was one of the herdsmen, who, attempting to
throw his spear, had been wounded by a shot from one of the
Moors.  His mother walked on before, quite frantic with
grief, clapping her hands, and enumerating the good qualities of
her son.  “Ee maffo fonio!” 
(“He never told a lie!”) said the disconsolate mother
as her wounded son was carried in at the gate—“Ee
maffo fonio abada!”  (“He never told a lie;
no, never!”)  When they had conveyed him to his hut,
and laid him upon a mat, all the spectators joined in lamenting
his fate, by screaming and howling in the most piteous
manner.

After their grief had subsided a little, I was desired to
examine the wound.  I found that the ball had passed quite
through his leg, having fractured both bones a little below the
knee: the poor boy was faint from the loss of blood, and his
situation withal so very precarious, that I could not console his
relations with any great hopes of his recovery.  However, to
give him a possible chance, I observed to them that it was
necessary to cut off his leg above the knee.  This proposal
made every one start with horror; they had never heard of such a
method of cure, and would by no means give their consent to it;
indeed, they evidently considered me a sort of cannibal for
proposing so cruel and unheard-of an operation, which, in their
opinion, would be attended with more pain and danger than the
wound itself.  The patient was therefore committed to the
care of some old bushreens, who endeavoured to secure him a
passage into paradise by whispering in his ear some Arabic
sentences, and desiring him to repeat them.  After many
unsuccessful attempts, the poor heathen at last pronounced,
“La illah el Allah, Mahamet rasowl
allahi”  (“There is but one God, and
Mohammed is his Prophet”); and the disciples of the Prophet
assured his mother that her son had given sufficient evidence of
his faith, and would be happy in a future state.  He died
the same evening.

February 17.—My guides informed me that in order
to avoid the Moorish banditti it was necessary to travel in the
night; we accordingly departed from Funingkedy in the afternoon,
accompanied by about thirty people, carrying their effects with
them into Ludamar, for fear of the war.  We travelled with
great silence and expedition until midnight, when we stopped in a
sort of enclosure, near a small village; but the thermometer
being so low as 68 degrees, none of the negroes could sleep on
account of the cold.

At daybreak on the 18th we resumed our journey, and at eight
o’clock passed Simbing, the frontier village of Ludamar,
situated on a narrow pass between two rocky hills, and surrounded
with a high wall.  From this village Major Houghton (being
deserted by his negro servants, who refused to follow him into
the Moorish country) wrote his last letter with a pencil to Dr.
Laidley.  This brave but unfortunate man, having surmounted
many difficulties, had taken a northerly direction, and
endeavoured to pass through the kingdom of Ludamar, where I
afterwards learned the following particulars concerning his
melancholy fate:—On his arrival at Jarra he got acquainted
with certain Moorish merchants who were travelling to Tisheet (a
place near the salt pits in the Great Desert, ten days’
journey to the northward) to purchase salt; and the Major, at the
expense of a musket and some tobacco, engaged them to convey him
thither.  It is impossible to form any other opinion on this
determination than that the Moors intentionally deceived him,
either with regard to the route that he wished to pursue, or the
state of the intermediate country between Jarra and
Timbuctoo.  Their intention probably was to rob and leave
him in the desert.  At the end of two days he suspected
their treachery, and insisted on returning to Jarra. 
Finding him persist in this determination, the Moors robbed him
of everything he possessed, and went off with their camels; the
poor Major being thus deserted, returned on foot to a
watering-place in possession of the Moors, called Tarra.  He
had been some days without food, and the unfeeling Moors refusing
to give him any, he sank at last under his distresses. 
Whether he actually perished of hunger, or was murdered outright
by the savage Mohammedans, is not certainly known; his body was
dragged into the woods, and I was shown at a distance the spot
where his remains were left to perish.

About four miles to the north of Simbing we came to a small
stream of water, where we observed a number of wild horses they
were all of one colour, and galloped away from us at an easy
rate, frequently stopping and looking back.  The negroes
hunt them for food, and their flesh is much esteemed.

About noon we arrived at Jarra, a large town situated at the
bottom of some rocky hills.

CHAPTER IX.
THE TOWN OF JARRA—DETAINED BY THE
MOORS.

The town of Jarra is of
considerable extent; the houses are built of clay and stone
intermixed—the clay answering the purpose of mortar. 
It is situated in the Moorish kingdom of Ludamar; but the major
part of the inhabitants are negroes, from the borders of the
southern states, who prefer a precarious protection under the
Moors, which they purchase by a tribute, rather than continue
exposed to their predatory hostilities.  The tribute they
pay is considerable; and they manifest towards their Moorish
superiors the most unlimited obedience and submission, and are
treated by them with the utmost indignity and contempt.  The
Moors of this and the other states adjoining the country of the
negroes resemble in their persons the mulattoes of the West
Indies to so great a degree as not easily to be distinguished
from them; and, in truth, the present generation seem to be a
mixed race between the Moors (properly so called) of the north
and the negroes of the south, possessing many of the worst
qualities of both nations.

Of the origin of these Moorish tribes, as distinguished from
the inhabitants of Barbary, from whom they are divided by the
Great Desert, nothing further seems to be known than what is
related by John Leo, the African, whose account may be abridged
as follows:—

Before the Arabian conquest, about the middle of the seventh
century, all the inhabitants of Africa, whether they were
descended from Numidians, Phœnicians, Carthaginians,
Romans, Vandals, or Goths, were comprehended under the general
name of Mauri, or Moors.  All these nations were
converted to the religion of Mohammed during the Arabian empire
under the Kaliphs.  About this time many of the Numidian
tribes, who led a wandering life in the desert, and supported
themselves upon the produce of their cattle, retired southward
across the Great Desert to avoid the fury of the Arabians; and by
one of those tribes, says Leo (that of Zanhaga), were discovered,
and conquered, the negro nations on the Niger.  By the Niger
is here undoubtedly meant the river of Senegal, which in the
Mandingo language is Bafing, or the Black River.

To what extent these people are now spread over the African
continent it is difficult to ascertain.  There is reason to
believe that their dominion stretches from west to east, in a
narrow line or belt, from the mouth of the Senegal (on the
northern side of that river) to the confines of Abyssinia. 
They are a subtle and treacherous race of people, and take every
opportunity of cheating and plundering the credulous and
unsuspecting negroes.  But their manners and general habits
of life will be best explained as incidents occur in the course
of my narrative.

The difficulties we had already encountered, the unsettled
state of the country, and, above all, the savage and overbearing
deportment of the Moors, had so completely frightened my
attendants that they declared they would rather relinquish every
claim to reward than proceed one step farther to the
eastward.  Indeed, the danger they incurred of being seized
by the Moors, and sold into slavery, became every day more
apparent; and I could not condemn their apprehensions.  In
this situation, deserted by my attendants, and reflecting that my
retreat was cut off by the war behind me, and that a Moorish
country of ten days’ journey lay before me, I applied to
Daman to obtain permission from Ali, the chief or sovereign of
Ludamar, that I might pass through his country unmolested into
Bambarra; and I hired one of Daman’s slaves to accompany me
thither, as soon as such permission should be obtained.  A
messenger was despatched to Ali, who at this time was encamped
near Benowm; and as a present was necessary in order to insure
success, I sent him five garments of cotton cloth, which I
purchased of Daman for one of my fowling-pieces.  Fourteen
days elapsed in settling this affair; but on the evening of the
26th of February, one of Ali’s slaves arrived with
directions, as he pretended, to conduct me in safety as far as
Goomba, and told me I was to pay him one garment of blue cotton
cloth for his attendance.  My faithful boy, observing that I
was about to proceed without him, resolved to accompany me; and
told me, that though he wished me to turn back, he never
entertained any serious thoughts of deserting me, but had been
advised to it by Johnson, with a view to induce me to turn
immediately for Gambia.

February 27.—I delivered most of my papers to
Johnson, to convey them to Gambia as soon as possible, reserving
a duplicate for myself in case of accidents.  I likewise
left in Daman’s possession a bundle of clothes, and other
things that were not absolutely necessary, for I wished to
diminish my baggage as much as possible, that the Moors might
have fewer inducements to plunder us.

Things being thus adjusted, we departed from Jarra in the
forenoon, and slept at Troomgoomba, a small walled village,
inhabited by a mixture of negroes and Moors.  On the day
following (February 28th) we reached Quira; and on the 29th,
after a toilsome journey over a sandy country, we came to Compe,
a watering-place belonging to the Moors; from whence, on the
morning following, we proceeded to Deena, a large town, and, like
Jarra, built of stone and clay.  The Moors are here in
greater proportion to the negroes than at Jarra.  They
assembled round the hut of the negro where I lodged, and treated
me with the greatest insolence; they hissed, shouted, and abused
me; they even spat in my face, with a view to irritate me, and
afford them a pretext for seizing my baggage.  But finding
such insults had not the desired effect, they had recourse to the
final and decisive argument, that I was a Christian, and of
course that my property was lawful plunder to the followers of
Mohammed.  They accordingly opened my bundles, and robbed me
of everything they fancied.  My attendants, finding that
everybody could rob me with impunity, insisted on returning to
Jarra.

The day following (March 2nd), I endeavoured, by all the means
in my power, to prevail upon my people to go on, but they still
continued obstinate; and having reason to fear some further
insult from the fanatic Moors, I resolved to proceed alone. 
Accordingly, the next morning, about two o’clock, I
departed from Deena.  It was moonlight, but the roaring of
the wild beasts made it necessary to proceed with caution.

When I had reached a piece of rising ground about half a mile
from the town, I heard somebody halloo, and, looking back, saw my
faithful boy running after me.  He informed me that
Ali’s men had gone back to Benowm, and that Daman’s
negro was about to depart for Jarra; but he said he had no doubt,
if I would stop a little, that he could persuade the latter to
accompany us.  I waited accordingly, and in about an hour
the boy returned with the negro; and we continued travelling over
a sandy country, covered chiefly with the Asclepias
gigantea, until mid-day, when we came to a number of deserted
huts; and seeing some appearances of water at a little distance,
I sent the boy to fill a soofroo; but as he was examining the
place for water, the roaring of a lion, that was probably on the
same pursuit, induced the frightened boy to return in haste, and
we submitted patiently to the disappointment.  In the
afternoon we reached a town inhabited chiefly by Foulahs, called
Samaming-koos.

Next morning (March 4th), we set out for Sampaka, which place
we reached about two o’clock.  On the road we observed
immense quantities of locusts; the trees were quite black with
them.

Sampaka is a large town, and when the Moors and Bambarrans
were at war was thrice attacked by the former; but they were
driven off with great loss, though the king of Bambarra was
afterwards obliged to give up this, and all the other towns as
far as Goomba, in order to obtain a peace.  Here I lodged at
the house of a negro who practised the art of making
gunpowder.  He showed me a bag of nitre, very white, but the
crystals were much smaller than common.  They procure it in
considerable quantities from the ponds, which are filled in the
rainy season, and to which the cattle resort for coolness during
the heat of the day.  When the water is evaporated, a white
efflorescence is observed on the mud, which the natives collect
and purify in such a manner as to answer their purpose.  The
Moors supply them with sulphur from the Mediterranean; and the
process is completed by pounding the different articles together
in a wooden mortar.  The grains are very unequal, and the
sound of its explosion is by no means so sharp as that produced
by European gunpowder.

March 5.—We departed from Sampaka at
daylight.  About noon we stopped a little at a village
called Dangali, and in the evening arrived at Dalli.  We saw
upon the road two large herds of camels feeding.  When the
Moors turn their camels to feed they tie up one of their
fore-legs to prevent their straying.  This happened to be a
feast-day at Dalli, and the people were dancing before the
dooty’s house.  But when they were informed that a
white man was come into the town they left off dancing and came
to the place where I lodged, walking in regular order, two and
two, with the music before them.  They play upon a sort of
flute; but instead of blowing into a hole in the side they blow
obliquely over the end, which is half shut by a thin piece of
wood; they govern the holes on the side with their fingers, and
play some simple and very plaintive airs.  They continued to
dance and sing until midnight, during which time I was surrounded
by so great a crowd as made it necessary for me to satisfy their
curiosity by sitting still.

March 6.—We stopped here this morning because
some of the townspeople, who were going for Goomba on the day
following, wished to accompany us; but in order to avoid the
crowd of people which usually assembled in the evening we went to
a negro village to the east of Dalli, called Samee, where we were
kindly received by the hospitable dooty, who on this occasion
killed two fine sheep, and invited his friends to come and feast
with him.

March 7.—Our landlord was so proud of the honour
of entertaining a white man that he insisted on my staying with
him and his friends until the cool of the evening, when he said
he would conduct me to the next village.  As I was now
within two days’ journey of Goomba, I had no apprehensions
from the Moors, and readily accepted the invitation.  I
spent the forenoon very pleasantly with these poor negroes; their
company was the more acceptable, as the gentleness of their
manners presented a striking contrast to the rudeness and
barbarity of the Moors.  They enlivened their conversation
by drinking a fermented liquor made from corn—the same sort
of beer that I have described in a former chapter; and better I
never tasted in Great Britain.

In the midst of this harmless festivity, I flattered myself
that all danger from the Moors was over.  Fancy had already
placed me on the banks of the Niger, and presented to my
imagination a thousand delightful scenes in my future progress,
when a party of Moors unexpectedly entered the hut, and dispelled
the golden dream.  They came, they said, by Ali’s
orders, to convey me to his camp at Benowm.  If I went
peaceably, they told me, I had nothing to fear; but if I refused
they had orders to bring me by force.  I was struck dumb by
surprise and terror, which the Moors observing endeavoured to
calm my apprehensions by repeating the assurance that I had
nothing to fear.  Their visit, they added, was occasioned by
the curiosity of Ali’s wife Fatima, who had heard so much
about Christians that she was very anxious to see one: as soon as
her curiosity should be satisfied, they had no doubt, they said,
that Ali would give me a handsome present, and send a person to
conduct me to Bambarra.  Finding entreaty and resistance
equally fruitless, I prepared to follow the messengers, and took
leave of my landlord and his company with great reluctance. 
Accompanied by my faithful boy (for Daman’s slave made his
escape on seeing the Moors), we reached Dalli in the evening,
where we were strictly watched by the Moors during the night.

March 8.—We were conducted by a circuitous path
through the woods to Dangali, where we slept.

March 9.—We continued our journey, and in the
afternoon arrived at Sampaka.

Next morning (March 10th) we set out for Samaming-koos. 
On the road we overtook a woman and two boys with an ass; she
informed us that she was going for Bambarra, but had been stopped
on the road by a party of Moors, who had taken most of her
clothes and some gold from her; and that she would be under the
necessity of returning to Deena till the fast moon was
over.  The same even the new moon was seen which ushered in
the month Ramadan.  Large fires were made in different parts
of the town, and a greater quantity of victuals than usual
dressed upon the occasion.

March 11.—By daylight the Moors were in
readiness; but as I had suffered much from thirst on the road I
made my boy fill a soofroo of water for my own use, for the Moors
assured me that they should not taste either meat or drink until
sunset.  However, I found that the excessive heat of the
sun, and the dust we raised in travelling, overcame their
scruples, and made my soofroo a very useful part of our
baggage.  On our arrival at Deena, I went to pay my respects
to one of Ali’s sons.  I found him sitting in a low
hut, with five or six more of his companions, washing their hands
and feet, and frequently taking water into their mouths, gargling
and spitting it out again.  I was no sooner seated than he
handed me a double-barrelled gun, and told me to dye the stock of
a blue colour, and repair one of the locks.  I found great
difficulty in persuading him that I knew nothing about the
matter.  “However,” says he, “if you
cannot repair the gun, you shall give me some knives and scissors
immediately;” and when my boy, who acted as interpreter,
assured him that I had no such articles, he hastily snatched up a
musket that stood by him, cocked it, and putting the muzzle close
to the boy’s ear, would certainly have shot him dead upon
the spot had not the Moors wrested the musket from him, and made
signs for us to retreat.

March 12.—We departed from Deena towards Benowm,
and about nine o’clock came to a korree, whence the Moors
were preparing to depart to the southward, on account of the
scarcity of water; here we filled our soofroo, and continued our
journey over a hot sandy country, covered with small stunted
shrubs, until about one o’clock, when the heat of the sun
obliged us to stop.  But our water being expended, we could
not prudently remain longer than a few minutes to collect a
little gum, which is an excellent succedaneum for water, as it
keeps the mouth moist, and allays for a time the pain in the
throat.

About five o’clock we came in sight of Benowm, the
residence of Ali.  It presented to the eye a great number of
dirty-looking tents, scattered without order over a large space
of ground; and among the tents appeared large herds of camels,
cattle, and goats.  We reached the skirts of this camp a
little before sunset, and, with much entreaty, procured a little
water.  My arrival was no sooner observed than the people
who drew water at the wells threw down their buckets; those in
the tents mounted their horses, and men, women, and children,
came running or galloping towards me.  I soon found myself
surrounded by such a crowd that I could scarcely move; one pulled
my clothes, another took off my hat, a third stopped me to
examine my waistcoat-buttons, and a fourth called out,
“La illah el Allah, Mahamet rasowl
allahi”—(“There is but one God, and
Mohammed is his Prophet”)—and signified, in a
threatening manner, that I must repeat those words.  We
reached at length the king’s tent, where we found a great
number of people, men and women, assembled.  Ali was sitting
upon a black leather cushion, clipping a few hairs from his upper
lip, a female attendant holding up a looking-glass before
him.  He appeared to be an old man of the Arab cast, with a
long white beard; and he had a sullen and indignant aspect. 
He surveyed me with attention, and inquired of the Moors if I
could speak Arabic.  Being answered in the negative, he
appeared much surprised, and continued silent.  The
surrounding attendants, and especially the ladies, were
abundantly more inquisitive: they asked a thousand questions,
inspected every part of my apparel, searched my pockets, and
obliged me to unbutton my waistcoat, and display the whiteness of
my skin; they even counted my toes and fingers, as if they
doubted whether I was in truth a human being.  In a little
time the priest announced evening prayers; but before the people
departed, the Moor who had acted as interpreter informed me that
Ali was about to present me with something to eat; and looking
round, I observed some boys bringing a wild hog, which they tied
to one of the tent strings, and Ali made signs to me to kill and
dress it for supper.  Though I was very hungry, I did not
think it prudent to eat any part of an animal so much detested by
the Moors, and therefore told him that I never ate such
food.  They then untied the hog, in hopes that it would run
immediately at me—for they believe that a great enmity
subsists between hogs and Christians—but in this they were
disappointed, for the animal no sooner regained his liberty than
he began to attack indiscriminately every person that came in his
way, and at last took shelter under the couch upon which the king
was sitting.  The assembly being thus dissolved, I was
conducted to the tent of Ali’s chief slave, but was not
permitted to enter, nor allowed to touch anything belonging to
it.  I requested something to eat, and a little boiled corn,
with salt and water, was at length sent me in a wooden bowl; and
a mat was spread upon the sand before the tent, on which I passed
the night, surrounded by the curious multitude.

At sunrise, Ali, with a few attendants, came on horseback to
visit me, and signified that he had provided a hut for me, where
I would be sheltered from the sun.  I was accordingly
conducted thither, and found the hut comparatively cool and
pleasant.

I was no sooner seated in this my new habitation than the
Moors assembled in crowds to behold me; but I found it rather a
troublesome levée, for I was obliged to take off one of my
stockings, and show them my foot, and even to take off my jacket
and waistcoat, to show them how my clothes were put on and off;
they were much delighted with the curious contrivance of
buttons.  All this was to be repeated to every succeeding
visitor; for such as had already seen these wonders insisted on
their friends seeing the same; and in this manner I was employed,
dressing and undressing, buttoning and unbuttoning, from noon
till night.  About eight o’clock, Ali sent me for
supper some kouskous and salt and water, which was very
acceptable, being the only victuals I had tasted since
morning.

I observed that in the night the Moors kept regular watch, and
frequently looked into the hut to see if I was asleep; and if it
was quite dark, they would light a wisp of grass.  About two
o’clock in the morning a Moor entered the hut, probably
with a view to steal something, or perhaps to murder me; and
groping about he laid his hand upon my shoulder.  As night
visitors were at best but suspicious characters, I sprang up the
moment he laid his hand upon me; and the Moor, in his haste to
get off, stumbled over my boy, and fell with his face upon the
wild hog, which returned the attack by biting the Moor’s
arm.  The screams of this man alarmed the people in the
king’s tent, who immediately conjectured that I had made my
escape, and a number of them mounted their horses, and prepared
to pursue me.  I observed upon this occasion that Ali did
not sleep in his own tent, but came galloping upon a white horse
from a small tent at a considerable distance; indeed, the
tyrannical and cruel behaviour of this man made him so jealous of
every person around him that even his own slaves and domestics
knew not where he slept.  When the Moors had explained to
him the cause of this outcry they all went away, and I was
permitted to sleep quietly until morning.

March 13.—With the returning day commenced the
same round of insult and irritation—the boys assembled to
beat the hog, and the men and women to plague the
Christian.  It is impossible for me to describe the
behaviour of a people who study mischief as a science, and exult
in the miseries and misfortunes of their fellow-creatures.

CHAPTER X.
A MOORISH WEDDING.

The Moors, though very indolent
themselves, are rigid task-masters, and keep every person under
them in full employment.  My boy Demba was sent to the woods
to collect withered grass for Ali’s horses; and after a
variety of projects concerning myself, they at last found out an
employment for me: this was no other than the respectable office
of barber.  I was to make my first exhibition in this
capacity in the royal presence, and to be honoured with the task
of shaving the head of the young prince of Ludamar.  I
accordingly seated myself upon the sand, and the boy, with some
hesitation, sat down beside me.  A small razor, about three
inches long, was put into my hand, and I was ordered to
proceed; but whether from my own want of skill, or the improper
shape of the instrument, I unfortunately made a slight incision
in the boy’s head at the very commencement of the
operation; and the king, observing the awkward manner in which I
held the razor, concluded that his son’s head was in very
improper hands, and ordered me to resign the razor and walk out
of the tent.  This I considered as a very fortunate
circumstance; for I had laid it down as a rule to make myself as
useless and insignificant as possible, as the only means of
recovering my liberty.

March 18.—Four Moors arrived from Jarra with
Johnson my interpreter, having seized him before he had received
any intimation of my confinement, and bringing with them a bundle
of clothes that I had left at Daman Jumma’s house, for my
use in case I should return by the way of Jarra.  Johnson
was led into Ali’s tent and examined; the bundle was
opened, and I was sent for to explain the use of the different
articles.  I was happy, however, to find that Johnson had
committed my papers to the charge of one of Daman’s
wives.  When I had satisfied Ali’s curiosity
respecting the different articles of apparel the bundle was again
tied up, and put into a large cow-skin bag that stood in a corner
of the tent.  The same evening Ali sent three of his people
to inform me that there were many thieves in the neighbourhood,
and that to prevent the rest of my things from being stolen it
was necessary to convey them all into his tent.  My clothes,
instruments, and everything that belonged to me, were accordingly
carried away; and though the heat and dust made clean linen very
necessary and refreshing, I could not procure a single shirt out
of the small stock I had brought along with me.  Ali was,
however, disappointed by not finding among my effects the
quantity of gold and amber that he expected; but to make sure of
everything he sent the same people, on the morning following, to
examine whether I had anything concealed about my person. 
They, with their usual rudeness, searched every part of my
apparel, and stripped me of all my gold, amber, my watch, and one
of my pocket-compasses; I had, fortunately, in the night, buried
the other compass in the sand—and this, with the clothes I
had on, was all that the tyranny of Ali had now left me.

The gold and amber were highly gratifying to Moorish avarice,
but the pocket-compass soon became an object of superstitious
curiosity.  Ali was very desirous to be informed why that
small piece of iron, the needle, always pointed to the Great
Desert; and I found myself somewhat puzzled to answer the
question.  To have pleaded my ignorance would have created a
suspicion that I wished to conceal the real truth from him; I
therefore told him that my mother resided far beyond the sands of
Sahara, and that whilst she was alive the piece of iron would
always point that way, and serve as a guide to conduct me to her,
and that if she was dead it would point to her grave.  Ali
now looked at the compass with redoubled amazement; turned it
round and round repeatedly; but observing that it always pointed
the same way, he took it up with great caution and returned it to
me, manifesting that he thought there was something of magic in
it, and that he was afraid of keeping so dangerous an instrument
in his possession.

March 20.—This morning a council of chief men was
held in Ali’s tent respecting me.  Their decisions,
though they were all unfavourable to me, were differently related
by different persons.  Some said that they intended to put
me to death; others that I was only to lose my right hand; but
the most probable account was that which I received from
Ali’s own son, a boy about nine years of age, who came to
me in the evening, and, with much concern, informed me that his
uncle had persuaded his father to put out my eyes, which they
said resembled those of a cat, and that all the bushreens had
approved of this measure.  His father, however, he said,
would not put the sentence into execution until Fatima, the
queen, who was at present in the north, had seen me.

March 21.—Anxious to know my destiny, I went to
the king early in the morning; and as a number of bushreens were
assembled, I thought this a favourable opportunity of discovering
their intentions.  I therefore began by begging his
permission to return to Jarra, which was flatly refused. 
His wife, he said, had not yet seen me, and I must stay until she
came to Benowm, after which I should be at liberty to depart; and
that my horse, which had been taken away from me the day after I
arrived, should be again restored to me.  Unsatisfactory as
this answer was, I was forced to appear pleased; and as there was
little hope of making my escape at this season of the year, on
account of the excessive heat, and the total want of water in the
woods, I resolved to wait patiently until the rains had set in,
or until some more favourable opportunity should present
itself.  But “hope deferred maketh the heart
sick.”  This tedious procrastination from day to day,
and the thoughts of travelling through the negro kingdoms in the
rainy season, which was now fast approaching, made me very
melancholy; and having passed a restless night, I found myself
attacked in the morning by a smart fever.  I had wrapped
myself close up in my cloak with a view to induce perspiration,
and was asleep, when a party of Moors entered the hut, and with
their usual rudeness pulled the cloak from me.  I made signs
to them that I was sick, and wished much to sleep, but I
solicited in vain; my distress was matter of sport to them, and
they endeavoured to heighten it by every means in their
power.  In this perplexity I left my hut, and walked to some
shady trees at a little distance from the camp, where I lay
down.  But even here persecution followed me, and solitude
was thought too great an indulgence for a distressed
Christian.  Ali’s son, with a number of horsemen, came
galloping to the place, and ordered me to rise and follow
them.  I begged they would allow me to remain where I was,
if it was only for a few hours; but they paid little attention to
what I said, and, after a few threatening words, one of them
pulled out a pistol from a leather bag that was fastened to the
pommel of his saddle, and presenting it towards me, snapped it
twice.  He did this with so much indifference, that I really
doubted whether the pistol was loaded.  He cocked it a third
time, and was striking the flint with a piece of steel, when I
begged them to desist, and returned with them to the camp. 
When we entered Ali’s tent we found him much out of
humour.  He called for the Moor’s pistol, and amused
himself for some time with opening and shutting the pan; at
length taking up his powder-horn, he fresh primed it, and,
turning round to me with a menacing look, said something in
Arabic which I did not understand.  I desired my boy, who
was sitting before the tent, to inquire what offence I had
committed; when I was informed, that having gone out of the camp
without Ali’s permission, they suspected that I had some
design of making my escape; and that, in future, if I was seen
without the skirts of the camp, orders had been given that I
should be shot by the first person that observed me.

In the afternoon the horizon to the eastward was thick and
hazy, and the Moors prognosticated a sand wind, which accordingly
commenced on the morning following, and lasted, with slight
intermissions, for two days.  The force of the wind was not
in itself very great; it was what a seaman would have denominated
a stiff breeze; but the quantity of sand and dust carried
before it was such as to darken the whole atmosphere.

About this time all the women of the camp had their feet and
the ends of their fingers stained of a dark saffron colour. 
I could never ascertain whether this was done from motives of
religion, or by way of ornament.

March 28.—This morning a large herd of cattle
arrived from the eastward, and one of the drivers, to whom Ali
had lent my horse, came into my hut with the leg of an antelope
as a present, and told me that my horse was standing before
Ali’s tent.  In a little time Ali sent one of his
slaves to inform me that in the afternoon I must be in readiness
to ride out with him, as he intended to show me to some of his
women.

About four o’clock, Ali, with six of his courtiers, came
riding to my hut, and told me to follow them.  I readily
complied.  But here a new difficulty occurred.  The
Moors, accustomed to a loose and easy dress, could not reconcile
themselves to the appearance of my nankeen breeches, which
they said were not only inelegant, but, on account of their
tightness, very indecent; and as this was a visit to ladies, Ali
ordered my boy to bring out the loose cloak which I had always
worn since my arrival at Benowm, and told me to wrap it close
round me.  We visited the tents of four different ladies, at
every one of which I was presented with a bowl of milk and
water.  All these ladies were remarkably corpulent, which is
considered here as the highest mark of beauty.  They were
very inquisitive, and examined my hair and skin with great
attention, but affected to consider me as a sort of inferior
being to themselves, and would knit their brows, and seem to
shudder when they looked at the whiteness of my skin.

The Moors are certainly very good horsemen.  They ride
without fear—their saddles being high before and behind,
afford them a very secure seat; and if they chance to fall, the
whole country is so soft and sandy that they are very seldom
hurt.  Their greatest pride, and one of their principal
amusements, is to put the horse to its full speed, and then stop
him with a sudden jerk, so as frequently to bring him down upon
his haunches.  Ali always rode upon a milk-white horse, with
its tail dyed red.  He never walked, unless when he went to
say his prayers; and even in the night two or three horses were
always kept ready saddled at a little distance from his own
tent.  The Moors set a very high value upon their horses;
for it is by their superior fleetness that they are enabled to
make so many predatory excursions into the negro countries. 
They feed them three or four times a day, and generally give them
a large quantity of sweet milk in the evening, which the horses
appear to relish very much.

April 3.—This forenoon, a child, which had been
some time sickly, died in the next tent; and the mother and
relations immediately began the death-howl.  They were
joined by a number of female visitors, who came on purpose to
assist at this melancholy concert.  I had no opportunity of
seeing the burial, which is generally performed secretly, in the
dusk of the evening, and frequently at only a few yards’
distance from the tent.  Over the grave they plant one
particular shrub, and no stranger is allowed to pluck a leaf, or
even to touch it—so great a veneration have they for the
dead.

April 7.—About four o’clock in the
afternoon a whirlwind passed through the camp with such violence
that it overturned three tents, and blew down one side of my
hut.  These whirlwinds come from the Great Desert, and at
this season of the year are so common that I have seen five or
six of them at one time.  They carry up quantities of sand
to an amazing height, which resemble, at a distance, so many
moving pillars of smoke.

The scorching heat of the sun, upon a dry and sandy country,
makes the air insufferably hot.  Ali having robbed me of my
thermometer, I had no means of forming a comparative judgment;
but in the middle of the day, when the beams of the vertical sun
are seconded by the scorching wind from the desert, the ground is
frequently heated to such a degree as not to be borne by the
naked foot.  Even the negro slaves will not run from one
tent to another without their sandals.  At this time of the
day the Moors lie stretched at length in their tents, either
asleep, or unwilling to move; and I have often felt the wind so
hot, that I could not hold my hand in the current of air which
came through the crevices of my hut without feeling sensible
pain.

April 8.—This day the wind blew from the
south-west; and in the night there was a heavy shower of rain,
accompanied with thunder and lightning.

April 10.—In the evening the tabala, or
large drum, was beat to announce a wedding, which was held at one
of the neighbouring tents.  A great number of people of both
sexes assembled, but without that mirth and hilarity which take
place at a negro wedding.  Here was neither singing nor
dancing, nor any other amusement that I could perceive.  A
woman was beating the drum, and the other women joining at times
like a chorus, by setting up a shrill scream, and at the same
time moving their tongues from one side of the mouth to the other
with great celerity.  I was soon tired, and had returned
into my hut, where I was sitting almost asleep, when an old woman
entered with a wooden bowl in her hand, and signified that she
had brought me a present from the bride.  Before I could
recover from the surprise which this message created, the woman
discharged the contents of the bowl full in my face. 
Finding that it was the same sort of holy water with which, among
the Hottentots, a priest is said to sprinkle a newly-married
couple, I began to suspect that the old lady was actuated by
mischief or malice; but she gave me seriously to understand that
it was a nuptial benediction from the bride’s own person,
and which, on such occasions, is always received by the young
unmarried Moors as a mark of distinguished favour.  This
being the case, I wiped my face, and sent my acknowledgments to
the lady.  The wedding drum continued to beat, and the women
to sing, or rather whistle, all night.  About nine in the
morning the bride was brought in state from her mother’s
tent, attended by a number of women who carried her tent (a
present from the husband), some bearing up the poles, others
holding by the strings; and in this manner they marched,
whistling as formerly, until they came to the place appointed for
her residence, where they pitched the tent.  The husband
followed, with a number of men, leading four bullocks, which they
tied to the tent strings; and having killed another, and
distributed the beef among the people, the ceremony was
concluded.

CHAPTER XI.
SUFFERINGS IN CAPTIVITY.

One whole month had now elapsed
since I was led into captivity, during which time each returning
day brought me fresh distresses.  I watched the lingering
course of the sun with anxiety, and blessed his evening beams as
they shed a yellow lustre along the sandy floor of my hut; for
it was then that my oppressors left me, and allowed me to pass
the sultry night in solitude and reflection.

About midnight a bowl of kouskous, with some salt and water,
were brought for me and my two attendants.  This was our
common fare, and it was all that was allowed us to allay the
cravings of hunger and support nature for the whole of the
following day; for it is to be observed that this was the
Mohammedan Lent, and as the Moors keep the fast with a religious
strictness, they thought it proper to compel me, though a
Christian, to similar observance.  Time, however, somewhat
reconciled me to my situation.  I found that I could bear
hunger and thirst better than I expected; and at length I
endeavoured to beguile the tedious hours by learning to write
Arabic.

April 14.—As Queen Fatima had not yet arrived,
Ali proposed to go to the north and bring her back with him; but
as the place was two days’ journey from Benowm it was
necessary to have some refreshment on the road; and Ali,
suspicious of those about him, was so afraid of being poisoned,
that he never ate anything but what was dressed under his own
immediate inspection.  A fine bullock was therefore killed,
and the flesh being cut up into thin slices, was dried in the
sun; and this, with two bags of dry kouskous, formed his
travelling provisions.

Previous to his departure, the black people of the town of
Benowm came, according to their annual custom, to show their
arms, and bring their stipulated tribute of corn and cloth. 
They were but badly armed—twenty-two with muskets, forty or
fifty with bows and arrows, and nearly the same number of men and
boys with spears only.  They arranged themselves before the
tent, where they waited until their arms were examined, and some
little disputes settled.

About midnight on the 16th, Ali departed quietly from Benowm,
accompanied by a few attendants.  He was expected to return
in the course of nine or ten days.

April 18.—Two days after the departure of Ali a
shereef arrived with salt and some other articles from Walet, the
capital of the kingdom of Biroo.  As there was no tent
appropriated for him, he took up his abode in the same hut with
me.  He seemed to be a well-informed man, and his
acquaintance both with the Arabic and Bambarra tongues enabled
him to travel with ease and safety through a number of kingdoms;
for though his place of residence was Walet, he had visited
Houssa, and had lived some years at Timbuctoo.  Upon my
inquiring so particularly about the distance from Walet to
Timbuctoo, he asked me if I intended to travel that way; and
being answered in the affirmative, he shook his head, and said it
would not do; for that Christians were looked upon there as the
devil’s children, and enemies to the Prophet.  From
him I learned the following particulars:—That Houssa was
the largest town he had ever seen: that Walet was larger than
Timbuctoo, but being remote from the Niger, and its trade
consisting chiefly of salt, it was not so much resorted to by
strangers: that between Benowm and Walet was ten days’
journey; but the road did not lead through any remarkable towns,
and travellers supported themselves by purchasing milk from the
Arabs, who keep their herds by the watering-places: two of the
days’ journeys was over a sandy country, without
water.  From Walet to Timbuctoo was eleven days more; but
water was more plentiful, and the journey was usually performed
upon bullocks.  He said there were many Jews at Timbuctoo,
but they all spoke Arabic, and used the same prayers as the
Moors.  He frequently pointed his hand to the south-east
quarter, or rather the east by south, observing that Timbuctoo
was situated in that direction; and though I made him repeat this
information again and again, I never found him to vary more than
half a point, which was to the southward.

April 24.—This morning Shereef Sidi Mahomed Moora
Abdalla, a native of Morocco, arrived with five bullocks loaded
with salt.  He had formerly resided some months at
Gibraltar, where he had picked up as much English as enabled him
to make himself understood.  He informed me that he had been
five months in coming from Santa Cruz; but that great part of the
time had been spent in trading.  When I requested him to
enumerate the days employed in travelling from Morocco to Benowm,
he gave them as follows: To Swera, three days; to Agadier, three;
to Jinikin, ten; to Wadenoon, four; to Lakeneig, five; to
Zeeriwin-zerimani, five; to Tisheet, ten; to Benowm, ten—in
all, fifty days: but travellers usually rest a long while at
Jinikin and Tisheet—at the latter of which places they dig
the rock salt, which is so great an article of commerce with the
negroes.

In conversing with these shereefs, and the different strangers
that resorted to the camp, I passed my time with rather less
uneasiness than formerly.  On the other hand, as the
dressing of my victuals was now left entirely to the care of
Ali’s slaves, over whom I had not the smallest control, I
found myself but ill supplied, worse even than in the fast month:
for two successive nights they neglected to send us our
accustomed meal; and though my boy went to a small negro town
near the camp, and begged with great diligence from hut to hut,
he could only procure a few handfuls of ground nuts, which he
readily shared with me.

We had been for some days in daily expectation of Ali’s
return from Saheel (or the north country) with his wife
Fatima.  In the meanwhile, Mansong, king of Bambarra, as I
have related in Chapter VIII., had sent to Ali for a party of
horse to assist in storming Gedingooma.  With this demand
Ali had not only refused to comply, but had treated the
messengers with great haughtiness and contempt; upon which
Mansong gave up all thoughts of taking the town, and prepared to
chastise Ali for his contumacy.

Things were in this situation when, on the 29th of April, a
messenger arrived at Benowm with the disagreeable intelligence
that the Bambarra army was approaching the frontiers of
Ludamar.  This threw the whole country into confusion, and
in the afternoon Ali’s son, with about twenty horsemen,
arrived at Benowm.  He ordered all the cattle to be driven
away immediately, all the tents to be struck, and the people to
hold themselves in readiness to depart at daylight the next
morning.

April 30.—At daybreak the whole camp was in
motion.  The baggage was carried upon bullocks—the two
tent poles being placed one on each side, and the different
wooden articles of the tent distributed in like manner; the tent
cloth was thrown over all, and upon this was commonly placed one
or two women; for the Moorish women are very bad walkers. 
The king’s favourite concubines rode upon camels, with a
saddle of a particular construction, and a canopy to shelter them
from the sun.  We proceeded to the northward until noon,
when the king’s son ordered the whole company, except two
tents, to enter a thick low wood which was upon our right. 
I was sent along with the two tents, and arrived in the evening
at a negro town called Farani: here we pitched the tents in an
open place at no great distance from the town.

May 1.—As I had some reason to suspect that this
day was also to be considered as a fast, I went in the morning to
the negro town of Farani, and begged some provisions from the
dooty, who readily supplied my wants, and desired me to come to
his house every day during my stay in the
neighbourhood.—These hospitable people are looked upon by
the Moors as an abject race of slaves, and are treated
accordingly.

May 3.—We departed from the vicinity of Farani,
and after a circuitous route through the woods, arrived at
Ali’s camp in the afternoon.  This encampment was
larger than that of Benowm, and was situated in the middle of a
thick wood, about two miles distant from a negro town called
Bubaker.  I immediately waited upon Ali, in order to pay my
respects to Queen Fatima, who had come with him from
Saheel.  He seemed much pleased with my coming, shook hands
with me, and informed his wife that I was the Christian. 
She was a woman of the Arab caste, with long black hair, and
remarkably corpulent.  She appeared at first rather shocked
at the thought of having a Christian so near her; but when I had,
by means of a negro boy who spoke the Mandingo and Arabic
tongues, answered a great many questions which her curiosity
suggested respecting the country of the Christians, she seemed
more at ease, and presented me with a bowl of milk, which I
considered as a very favourable omen.

The heat was now almost insufferable—all nature seemed
sinking under it.  The distant country presented to the eye
a dreary expanse of sand, with a few stunted trees and prickly
bushes, in the shade of which the hungry cattle licked up the
withered grass, while the camels and goats picked off the scanty
foliage.  The scarcity of water was greater here than at
Benowm.  Day and night the wells were crowded with cattle,
lowing and fighting with each other to come at the troughs. 
Excessive thirst made many of them furious; others, being too
weak to contend for the water, endeavoured to quench their thirst
by devouring the black mud from the gutters near the wells, which
they did with great avidity, though it was commonly fatal to
them.

One night, having solicited in vain for water at the camp, and
been quite feverish, I resolved to try my fortune at the wells,
which were about half a mile distant from the camp. 
Accordingly I set out about midnight, and being guided by the
lowing of the cattle, soon arrived at the place, where I found
the Moors very busy drawing water.  I requested permission
to drink, but was driven away with outrageous abuse. 
Passing, however, from one well to another, I came at last to one
where there was only an old man and two boys.  I made the
same request to this man, and he immediately drew me up a bucket
of water; but, as I was about to take hold of it, he recollected
that I was a Christian, and fearing that his bucket might be
polluted by my lips, he dashed the water into the trough, and
told me to drink from thence.  Though this trough was none
of the largest, and three cows were already drinking from it, I
resolved to come in for my share; and kneeling down thrust my
head between two of the cows, and drank with great pleasure until
the water was nearly exhausted, and the cows began to contend
with each other for the last mouthful.

In adventures of this nature I passed the sultry month of May,
during which no material change took place in my situation. 
Ali still considered me as a lawful prisoner; and Fatima, though
she allowed me a larger quantity of victuals than I had been
accustomed to receive at Benowm, had as yet said nothing on the
subject of my release.  In the meantime, the frequent
changes of the wind, the gathering clouds, and distant lightning,
with other appearances of approaching rain, indicated that the
wet season was at hand, when the Moors annually evacuate the
country of the negroes, and return to the skirts of the Great
Desert.  This made me consider that my fate was drawing
towards a crisis, and I resolved to wait for the event without
any seeming uneasiness; but circumstances occurred which produced
a change in my favour more suddenly than I had foreseen, or had
reason to expect.  The case was this:—The fugitive
Kaartans, who had taken refuge in Ludamar, as I have related in
Chapter VIII., finding that the Moors were about to leave them,
and dreading the resentment of their own sovereign, whom they had
so basely deserted, offered to treat with Ali for two hundred
Moorish horsemen, to co-operate with them in an effort to expel
Daisy from Gedingooma; for until Daisy should be vanquished or
humbled they considered that they could neither return to their
native towns nor live in security in any of the neighbouring
kingdoms.  With a view to extort money from these people by
means of this treaty, Ali despatched his son to Jarra, and
prepared to follow him in the course of a few days.  This
was an opportunity of too great consequence to me to be
neglected.  I immediately applied to Fatima, who, I found,
had the chief direction in all affairs of state, and begged her
interest with Ali to give me permission to accompany him to
Jarra.  This request, after some hesitation, was favourably
received.  Fatima looked kindly on me, and, I believe, was
at length moved with compassion towards me.  My bundles were
brought from the large cow-skin bag that stood in the corner of
Ali’s tent, and I was ordered to explain the use of the
different articles, and show the method of putting on the boots,
stockings, &c.—with all which I cheerfully complied,
and was told that in the course of a few days I should be at
liberty to depart.

Believing, therefore, that I should certainly find the means
of escaping from Jarra, if I should once get thither, I now
freely indulged the pleasing hope that my captivity would soon
terminate; and happily not having been disappointed in this idea,
I shall pause in this place to collect and bring into one point
of view such observations on the Moorish character and country as
I had no fair opportunity of introducing into the preceding
narrative.

CHAPTER XII.
OBSERVATIONS ON THE CHARACTER AND COUNTRY
OF THE MOORS.

The Moors of this part of Africa
are divided into many separate tribes, of which the most
formidable, according to what was reported to me, are those of
Trasart and Il Braken, which inhabit the northern bank of the
Senegal river.  The tribes of Gedumah, Jaffnoo, and Ludamar,
though not so numerous as the former, are nevertheless very
powerful and warlike, and are each governed by a chief, or king,
who exercises absolute jurisdiction over his own horde, without
acknowledging allegiance to a common sovereign.  In time of
peace the employment of the people is pasturage.  The Moors,
indeed, subsist chiefly on the flesh of their cattle, and are
always in the extreme of either gluttony or abstinence.  In
consequence of the frequent and severe fasts which their religion
enjoins, and the toilsome journeys which they sometimes undertake
across the desert, they are enabled to bear both hunger and
thirst with surprising fortitude; but whenever opportunities
occur of satisfying their appetite they generally devour more at
one meal than would serve a European for three.  They pay
but little attention to agriculture, purchasing their corn,
cotton, cloth, and other necessaries from the negroes, in
exchange for salt, which they dig from the pits in the Great
Desert.

The natural barrenness of the country is such that it
furnishes but few materials for manufacture.  The Moors,
however, contrive to weave a strong cloth, with which they cover
their tents; the thread is spun by their women from the hair of
goats, and they prepare the hides of their cattle so as to
furnish saddles, bridles, pouches, and other articles of
leather.  They are likewise sufficiently skilful to convert
the native iron, which they procure from the negroes, into spears
and knives, and also into pots for boiling their food; but their
sabres, and other weapons, as well as their firearms and
ammunition, they purchase from the Europeans, in exchange for the
negro slaves which they obtain in their predatory
excursions.  Their chief commerce of this kind is with the
French traders on the Senegal river.

The Moors are rigid Mohammedans, and possess, with the bigotry
and superstition, all the intolerance of their sect.  They
have no mosques at Benowm, but perform their devotions in a sort
of open shed, or enclosure, made of mats.  The priest is, at
the same time, schoolmaster to the juniors.  His pupils
assemble every evening before his tent; where, by the light of a
large fire, made of brushwood and cow’s dung, they are
taught a few sentences from the Koran, and are initiated into the
principles of their creed.  Their alphabet differs but
little from that in Richardson’s Arabic Grammar.  They
always write with the vowel points.  Their priests even
affect to know something of foreign literature.  The priest
of Benowm assured me that he could read the writings of the
Christians: he showed me a number of barbarous characters, which
he asserted were the Roman alphabet; and he produced another
specimen, equally unintelligible, which he declared to be the
Kallam il Indi, or Persian.  His library consisted of
nine volumes in quarto; most of them, I believe, were books of
religion—for the name of Mohammed appeared in red letters
in almost every page of each.  His scholars wrote their
lessons upon thin boards, paper being too expensive for general
use.  The boys were diligent enough, and appeared to possess
a considerable share of emulation—carrying their boards
slung over their shoulders when about their common
employments.  When a boy has committed to memory a few of
their prayers, and can read and write certain parts of the Koran,
he is reckoned sufficiently instructed; and with this slender
stock of learning commences his career of life.  Proud of
his acquirements, he surveys with contempt the unlettered negro;
and embraces every opportunity of displaying his superiority over
such of his countrymen as are not distinguished by the same
accomplishments.

The education of the girls is neglected altogether: mental
accomplishments are but little attended to by the women; nor is
the want of them considered by the men as a defect in the female
character.  They are regarded, I believe, as an inferior
species of animals; and seem to be brought up for no other
purpose than that of administering to the sensual pleasures of
their imperious masters.  Voluptuousness is therefore
considered as their chief accomplishment, and slavish submission
as their indispensable duty.

The Moors have singular ideas of feminine perfection. 
The gracefulness of figure and motion, and a countenance
enlivened by expression, are by no means essential points in
their standard.  With them corpulence and beauty appear to
be terms nearly synonymous.  A woman of even moderate
pretensions must be one who cannot walk without a slave under
each arm to support her; and a perfect beauty is a load for a
camel.  In consequence of this prevalent taste for
unwieldiness of bulk, the Moorish ladies take great pains to
acquire it early in life; and for this purpose many of the young
girls are compelled by their mothers to devour a great quantity
of kouskous, and drink a large bowl of camel’s milk every
morning.  It is of no importance whether the girl has an
appetite or not; the kouskous and milk must be swallowed, and
obedience is frequently enforced by blows.  I have seen a
poor girl sit crying, with the bowl at her lips, for more than an
hour, and her mother, with a stick in her hand, watching her all
the while, and using the stick without mercy whenever she
observed that her daughter was not swallowing.  This
singular practice, instead of producing indigestion and disease,
soon covers the young lady with that degree of plumpness which,
in the eye of a Moor, is perfection itself.

As the Moors purchase all their clothing from the negroes, the
women are forced to be very economical in the article of
dress.  In general they content themselves with a broad
piece of cotton cloth, which is wrapped round the middle, and
hangs down like a petticoat almost to the ground.  To the
upper part of this are sewed two square pieces, one before, and
the other behind, which are fastened together over the
shoulders.  The head-dress is commonly a bandage of cotton
cloth, with some parts of it broader than others, which serve to
conceal the face when they walk in the sun.  Frequently,
however, when they go abroad, they veil themselves from head to
foot.

The employment of the women varies according to their degrees
of opulence.  Queen Fatima, and a few others of high rank,
like the great ladies in some parts of Europe, pass their time
chiefly in conversing with their visitors, performing their
devotions, or admiring their charms in a looking-glass.  The
women of inferior class employ themselves in different domestic
duties.  They are very vain and talkative; and when anything
puts them out of humour they commonly vent their anger upon their
female slaves, over whom they rule with severe and despotic
authority, which leads me to observe that the condition of these
poor captives is deplorably wretched.  At daybreak they are
compelled to fetch water from the wells in large skins, called
girbas; and as soon as they have brought water enough to
serve the family for the day, as well as the horses (for the
Moors seldom give their horses the trouble of going to the
wells), they are then employed in pounding the corn and dressing
the victuals.  This being always done in the open air, the
slaves are exposed to the combined heat of the sun, the sand, and
the fire.  In the intervals it is their business to sweep
the tent, churn the milk, and perform other domestic
offices.  With all this they are badly fed, and oftentimes
cruelly punished.

The men’s dress, among the Moors of Ludamar, differs but
little from that of the negroes, which has been already
described, except that they have all adopted that characteristic
of the Mohammedan sect, the turban, which is here universally
made of white cotton cloth.  Such of the Moors as have long
beards display them with a mixture of pride and satisfaction, as
denoting an Arab ancestry.  Of this number was Ali himself;
but among the generality of the people the hair is short and
bushy, and universally black.  And here I may be permitted to
observe, that if any one circumstance excited among them
favourable thoughts towards my own person, it was my beard, which
was now grown to an enormous length, and was always beheld with
approbation or envy.  I believe, in my conscience, they
thought it too good a beard for a Christian.

The only diseases which I observed to prevail among the Moors
were the intermittent fever and dysentery—for the cure of
which nostrums are sometimes administered by their old women, but
in general nature is left to her own operations.  Mention
was made to me of the small-pox as being sometimes very
destructive; but it had not, to my knowledge, made its appearance
in Ludamar while I was in captivity.  That it prevails,
however, among some tribes of the Moors, and that it is
frequently conveyed by them to the negroes in the southern
states, I was assured on the authority of Dr. Laidley, who also
informed me that the negroes on the Gambia practise
inoculation.

The administration of criminal justice, as far as I had
opportunities of observing, was prompt and decisive: for although
civil rights were but little regarded in Ludamar, it was
necessary when crimes were committed that examples should
sometimes be made.  On such occasions the offender was
brought before Ali, who pronounced, of his sole authority, what
judgment he thought proper.  But I understood that capital
punishment was seldom or never inflicted, except on the
negroes.

Although the wealth of the Moors consists chiefly in their
numerous herds of cattle, yet, as the pastoral life does not
afford full employment, the majority of the people are perfectly
idle, and spend the day in trifling conversation about their
horses, or in laying schemes of depredation on the negro
villages.

Of the number of Ali’s Moorish subjects I had no means
of forming a correct estimate.  The military strength of
Ludamar consists in cavalry.  They are well mounted, and
appear to be very expert in skirmishing and attacking by
surprise.  Every soldier furnishes his own horse, and finds
his accoutrements, consisting of a large sabre, a
double-barrelled gun, a small red leather bag for holding his
balls, and a powder bag slung over the shoulder.  He has no
pay, nor any remuneration but what arises from plunder. 
This body is not very numerous; for when Ali made war upon
Bambarra I was informed that his whole force did not exceed two
thousand cavalry.  They constitute, however, by what I could
learn, but a very small proportion of his Moorish subjects. 
The horses are very beautiful, and so highly esteemed that the
negro princes will sometimes give from twelve to fourteen slaves
for one horse.

Ludamar has for its northern boundary the great desert of
Sahara.  From the best inquiries I could make, this vast
ocean of sand, which occupies so large a space in northern
Africa, may be pronounced almost destitute of inhabitants, except
where the scanty vegetation which appears in certain spots
affords pasturage for the flocks of a few miserable Arabs, who
wander from one well to another.  In other places, where the
supply of water and pasturage is more abundant, small parties of
the Moors have taken up their residence.  Here they live, in
independent poverty, secure from the tyrannical government of
Barbary.  But the greater part of the desert, being totally
destitute of water, is seldom visited by any human being, unless
where the trading caravans trace out their toilsome and dangerous
route across it.  In some parts of this extensive waste the
ground is covered with low stunted shrubs, which serve as
landmarks for the caravans, and furnish the camels with a scanty
forage.  In other parts the disconsolate wanderer, wherever
he turns, sees nothing around him but a vast interminable expanse
of sand and sky—a gloomy and barren void, where the eye
finds no particular object to rest upon, and the mind is filled
with painful apprehensions of perishing with thirst.

The few wild animals which inhabit these melancholy regions
are the antelope and the ostrich; their swiftness of foot
enabling them to reach the distant watering-places.  On the
skirts of the desert, where water is more plentiful, are found
lions, panthers, elephants, and wild boars.

Of domestic animals, the only one that can endure the fatigue
of crossing the desert is the camel.  By the particular
conformation of the stomach he is enabled to carry a supply of
water sufficient for ten or twelve days; his broad and yielding
foot is well adapted for a sandy country; and, by a singular
motion of his upper lip, he picks the smallest leaves from the
thorny shrubs of the desert as he passes along.  The camel
is therefore the only beast of burden employed by the trading
caravans which traverse the desert in different directions, from
Barbary to Nigritia.  As this useful and docile creature has
been sufficiently described by systematical writers it is
unnecessary for me to enlarge upon his properties.  I shall
only add that his flesh, though to my own taste dry and
unsavoury, is preferred by the Moors to any other; and that the
milk of the female is in universal esteem, and is indeed sweet,
pleasant, and nutritive.

I have observed that the Moors, in their complexion, resemble
the mulattoes of the West Indies; but they have something
unpleasant in their aspect which the mulattoes have not.  I
fancied that I discovered in the features of most of them a
disposition towards cruelty and low cunning; and I could never
contemplate their physiognomy without feeling sensible
uneasiness.  From the staring wildness of their eyes a
stranger would immediately set them down as a nation of
lunatics.  The treachery and malevolence of their character
are manifest in their plundering excursions against the negro
villages.  Oftentimes without the smallest provocation, and
sometimes under the fairest professions of friendship, they will
suddenly seize upon the negroes’ cattle, and even on the
inhabitants themselves.  The negroes very seldom
retaliate.

Like the roving Arabs, the Moors frequently remove from one
place to another, according to the season of the year or the
convenience of pasturage.  In the month of February, when
the heat of the sun scorches up every sort of vegetation in the
desert, they strike their tents and approach the negro country to
the south, where they reside until the rains commence, in the
month of July.  At this time, having purchased corn and
other necessaries from the negroes, in exchange for salt, they
again depart to the northward, and continue in the desert until
the rains are over, and that part of the country becomes burnt up
and barren.

This wandering and restless way of life, while it inures them
to hardships, strengthens at the same time the bonds of their
little society, and creates in them an aversion towards strangers
which is almost insurmountable.  Cut off from all
intercourse with civilised nations, and boasting an advantage
over the negroes, by possessing, though in a very limited degree,
the knowledge of letters, they are at once the vainest and
proudest, and perhaps the most bigoted, ferocious, and intolerant
of all the nations on the earth—combining in their
character the blind superstition of the negro with the savage
cruelty and treachery of the Arab.

CHAPTER XIII.
ESCAPE FROM CAPTIVITY.

Having, as hath been related,
obtained permission to accompany Ali to Jarra, I took leave of
Queen Fatima, who, with much grace and civility, returned me part
of my apparel; and the evening before my departure, my horse,
with the saddle and bridle, were sent me by Ali’s
order.

Early on the morning of the 26th of May I departed from the
camp of Bubaker, accompanied by my two attendants, Johnson and
Demba, and a number of Moors on horseback, Ali, with about fifty
horsemen, having gone privately from the camp during the
night.  We stopped about noon at Farani, and were there
joined by twelve Moors riding upon camels, and with them we
proceeded to a watering-place in the woods, where we overtook Ali
and his fifty horsemen.  They were lodged in some low
shepherd’s tents near the wells.

May 28.—Early in the morning the Moors saddled
their horses, and Ali’s chief slave ordered me to get in
readiness.  In a little time the same messenger returned,
and, taking my boy by the shoulder, told him in the Mandingo
language, that “Ali was to be his master in future;”
and then turning to me, “The business is settled at
last,” said he; “the boy, and everything but your
horse, goes back to Bubaker, but you may take the old fool”
(meaning Johnson the interpreter) “with you to
Jarra.”   I made him no answer; but being shocked
beyond description at the idea of losing the poor boy, I hastened
to Ali, who was at breakfast before his tent, surrounded by many
of his courtiers.  I told him (perhaps in rather too
passionate a strain), that whatever imprudence I had been guilty
of in coming into his country, I thought I had already been
sufficiently punished for it by being so long detained, and then
plundered of all my little property; which, however, gave me no
uneasiness when compared with what he had just now done to
me.  I observed that the boy whom he had now seized upon was
not a slave, and had been accused of no offence; he was, indeed,
one of my attendants, and his faithful services in that station
had procured him his freedom.  His fidelity and attachment
had made him follow me into my present situation, and, as he
looked up to me for protection I could not see him deprived of
his liberty without remonstrating against such an act as the
height of cruelty and injustice.  Ali made no reply, but,
with a haughty air and malignant smile, told his interpreter that
if I did not mount my horse immediately he would send me back
likewise.  There is something in the frown of a tyrant which
rouses the most secret emotions of the heart: I could not
suppress my feelings, and for once entertained an indignant wish
to rid the world of such a monster.

Poor Demba was not less affected than myself.  He had
formed a strong attachment towards me, and had a cheerfulness of
disposition which often beguiled the tedious hours of
captivity.  He was likewise a proficient in the Bambarra
tongue, and promised on that account to be of great utility to me
in future.  But it was in vain to expect anything favourable
to humanity from people who are strangers to its dictates. 
So, having shaken hands with this unfortunate boy, and blended my
tears with his, assuring him, however, that I would do my utmost
to redeem him, I saw him led off by three of Ali’s slaves
towards the camp at Bubaker.

When the Moors had mounted their horses I was ordered to
follow them, and, after a toilsome journey through the woods in a
very sultry day, we arrived in the afternoon at a walled village
called Doombani, where we remained two days, waiting for the
arrival of some horsemen from the northward.

On the 1st of June we departed from Doombani towards
Jarra.  Our company now amounted to two hundred men, all on
horseback, for the Moors never use infantry in their wars. 
They appeared capable of enduring great fatigue; but from their
total want of discipline our journey to Jarra was more like a
fox-chase than the march of an army.

At Jarra I took up my lodging at the house of my old
acquaintance, Daman Jumma, and informed him of everything that
had befallen me.  I particularly requested him to use his
interest with Ali to redeem my boy, and promised him a bill upon
Dr. Laidley for the value of two slaves the moment he brought him
to Jarra.  Daman very readily undertook to negotiate the
business, but found that Ali considered the boy as my principal
interpreter, and was unwilling to part with him, lest he should
fall a second time into my hands, and be instrumental in
conducting me to Bambarra.  Ali, therefore, put off the
matter from day to day, but withal told Daman that if he wished
to purchase the boy for himself he should have him thereafter at
the common price of a slave, which Daman agreed to pay for him
whenever Ali should send him to Jarra.

The chief object of Ali, in this journey to Jarra, as I have
already related, was to procure money from such of the Kaartans
as had taken refuge in his country.  Some of these had
solicited his protection to avoid the horrors of war, but by far
the greatest number of them were dissatisfied men, who wished the
ruin of their own sovereign.  These people no sooner heard
that the Bambarra army had returned to Sego without subduing
Daisy, as was generally expected, than they resolved to make a
sudden attack themselves upon him before he could recruit his
forces, which were now known to be much diminished by a bloody
campaign, and in great want of provisions.  With this view
they solicited the Moors to join them, and offered to hire of Ali
two hundred horsemen, which Ali, with the warmest professions of
friendship, agreed to furnish, upon condition that they should
previously supply him with four hundred head of cattle, two
hundred garments of blue cloth, and a considerable quantity of
beads and ornaments.

June 8.—In the afternoon Ali sent his chief slave
to inform me that he was about to return to Bubaker: but as he
would only stay there a few days to keep the approaching festival
(Banna salee), and then return to Jarra, I had permission
to remain with Daman until his return.  This was joyful news
to me; but I had experienced so many disappointments that I was
unwilling to indulge the hope of its being true, until Johnson
came and told me that Ali, with part of the horsemen, were
actually gone from the town, and that the rest were to follow him
in the morning.

June 9.—Early in the morning the remainder of the
Moors departed from the town.  They had, during their stay,
committed many acts of robbery; and this morning with the most
unparalleled audacity, they seized upon three girls who were
bringing water from the wells, and carried them away into
slavery.

June 12.—Two people, dreadfully wounded, were
discovered at a watering-place in the woods; one of them had just
breathed his last, but the other was brought alive to
Jarra.  On recovering a little he informed the people that
he had fled through the woods from Kasson; that Daisy had made
war upon Sambo, the king of that country; had surprised three of
his towns, and put all the inhabitants to the sword.  He
enumerated by name many of the friends of the Jarra people who
had been murdered in Kasson.  This intelligence made the
death-howl universal in Jarra for the space of two days.

This piece of bad news was followed by another not less
distressing.  A number of runaway slaves arrived from Kaarta
on the 14th, and reported that Daisy, having received information
concerning the intended attack upon him, was about to visit
Jarra.  This made the negroes call upon Ali for the two
hundred horsemen which he was to furnish them according to
engagement.  But Ali paid very little attention to their
remonstrances, and at last plainly told them that his cavalry
were otherwise employed.  The negroes, thus deserted by the
Moors, and fully apprised that the king of Kaarta would show them
as little clemency as he had shown the inhabitants of Kasson,
resolved to collect all their forces, and hazard a battle before
the king, who was now in great distress for want of provisions,
should become too powerful for them.  They therefore
assembled about eight hundred effective men in the whole, and
with these they entered Kaarta on the evening of the 18th of
June.

June 19.—This morning the wind shifted to the
south-west; and about two o’clock in the afternoon we had a
heavy tornado, or thunder-squall, accompanied with rain, which
greatly revived the face of nature, and gave a pleasant coolness
to the air.  This was the first rain that had fallen for
many months.

As every attempt to redeem my boy had hitherto been
unsuccessful, and in all probability would continue to prove so
whilst I remained in the country, I found that it was necessary
for me to come to some determination concerning my own safety
before the rains should be fully set in; for my landlord, seeing
no likelihood of being paid for his trouble, began to wish me
away—and Johnson, my interpreter, refusing to proceed, my
situation became very perplexing.  I determined to avail
myself of the first opportunity of escaping, and to proceed
directly for Bambarra, as soon as the rains had set in for a few
days, so as to afford me the certainty of finding water in the
woods.

Such was my situation when, on the evening of the 24th of
June, I was startled by the report of some muskets close to the
town, and inquiring the reason, was informed that the Jarra army
had returned from fighting Daisy, and that this firing was by way
of rejoicing.  However, when the chief men of the town had
assembled, and heard a full detail of the expedition, they were
by no means relieved from their uneasiness on Daisy’s
account.  The deceitful Moors having drawn back from the
confederacy, after being hired by the negroes, greatly dispirited
the insurgents, who, instead of finding Daisy with a few friends
concealed in the strong fortress of Gedingooma, had found him at
a town near Joka, in the open country, surrounded by so numerous
an army that every attempt to attack him was at once given up;
and the confederates only thought of enriching themselves by the
plunder of the small towns in the neighbourhood.  They
accordingly fell upon one of Daisy’s towns, and carried off
the whole of the inhabitants; but lest intelligence of this might
reach Daisy, and induce him to cut off their retreat, they
returned through the woods by night bringing with them the slaves
and cattle which they had captured.

June 26.—This afternoon a spy from Kaarta brought
the alarming intelligence that Daisy had taken Simbing in the
morning, and would be in Jarra some time in the course of the
ensuing day.  Early in the morning nearly one-half of the
townspeople took the road for Bambarra, by the way of Deena.

Their departure was very affecting, the women and children
crying, the men sullen and dejected, and all of them looking back
with regret on their native town, and on the wells and rocks
beyond which their ambition had never tempted them to stray, and
where they had laid all their plans of future happiness, all of
which they were now forced to abandon, and to seek shelter among
strangers.

June 27.—About eleven o’clock in the
forenoon we were alarmed by the sentinels, who brought
information that Daisy was on his march towards Jarra, and that
the confederate army had fled before him without firing a
gun.  The terror of the townspeople on this occasion is not
easily to be described.  Indeed, the screams of the women
and children, and the great hurry and confusion that everywhere
prevailed, made me suspect that the Kaartans had already entered
the town; and although I had every reason to be pleased with
Daisy’s behaviour to me when I was at Kemmoo, I had no wish
to expose myself to the mercy of his army, who might in the
general confusion mistake me for a Moor.  I therefore
mounted my horse, and taking a large bag of corn before me, rode
slowly along with the townspeople, until we reached the foot of a
rocky hill, where I dismounted and drove my horse up before
me.  When I had reached the summit I sat down, and having a
full view of the town and the neighbouring country, could not
help lamenting the situation of the poor inhabitants, who were
thronging after me, driving their sheep, cows, goats, &c.,
and carrying a scanty portion of provisions and a few
clothes.  There was a great noise and crying everywhere upon
the road, for many aged people and children were unable to walk,
and these, with the sick, were obliged to be carried, otherwise
they must have been left to certain destruction.

About five o’clock we arrived at a small farm belonging
to the Jarra people, called Kadeeja; and here I found Daman and
Johnson employed in filling large bags of corn, to be carried
upon bullocks, to serve as provisions for Daman’s family on
the road.

June 28.—At daybreak we departed from Kadeeja,
and having passed Troongoomba without stopping, arrived in the
afternoon at Queira.  I remained here two days, in order to
recruit my horse, which the Moors had reduced to a perfect
Rosinante, and to wait for the arrival of some Mandingo negroes,
who were going for Bambarra in the course of a few days.

On the afternoon of the 1st of July, as I was tending my horse
in the fields, Ali’s chief slave and four Moors arrived at
Queira, and took up their lodging at the dooty’s
house.  My interpreter, Johnson, who suspected the nature of
this visit, sent two boys to overhear their conversation, from
which he learnt that they were sent to convey me back to
Bubaker.  The same evening two of the Moors came privately
to look at my horse, and one of them proposed taking it to the
dooty’s hut, but the other observed that such a precaution
was unnecessary, as I could never escape upon such an
animal.  They then inquired where I slept, and returned to
their companions.

All this was like a stroke of thunder to me, for I dreaded
nothing so much as confinement again among the Moors, from whose
barbarity I had nothing but death to expect.  I therefore
determined to set off immediately for Bambarra, a measure which I
thought offered almost the only chance of saving my life and
gaining the object of my mission.  I communicated the design
to Johnson, who, although he applauded my resolution, was so far
from showing any inclination to accompany me, that he solemnly
protested he would rather forfeit his wages than go any
farther.  He told me that Daman had agreed to give him half
the price of a slave for his service to assist in conducting a
coffle of slaves to Gambia, and that he was determined to embrace
the opportunity of returning to his wife and family.

Having no hopes, therefore, of persuading him to accompany me,
I resolved to proceed by myself.  About midnight I got my
clothes in readiness, which consisted of two shirts, two pairs of
trousers, two pocket-handkerchiefs, an upper and under waistcoat,
a hat, and a pair of half-boots; these, with a cloak, constituted
my whole wardrobe.  And I had not one single bead, nor any
other article of value in my possession, to purchase victuals for
myself or corn for my horse.

About daybreak, Johnson, who had been listening to the Moors
all night, came and whispered to me that they were asleep. 
The awful crisis was now arrived when I was again either to taste
the blessing of freedom or languish out my days in
captivity.  A cold sweat moistened my forehead as I thought
on the dreadful alternative, and reflected that, one way or
another, my fate must be decided in the course of the ensuing
day.  But to deliberate was to lose the only chance of
escaping.  So, taking up my bundle, I stepped gently over
the negroes, who were sleeping in the open air, and having
mounted my horse, I bade Johnson farewell, desiring him to take
particular care of the papers I had entrusted him with, and
inform my friends in Gambia that he had left me in good health,
on my way to Bambarra.

I proceeded with great caution, surveying each bush, and
frequently listening and looking behind me for the Moorish
horsemen, until I was about a mile from the town, when I was
surprised to find myself in the neighbourhood of a korree
belonging to the Moors.  The shepherds followed me for about
a mile, hooting and throwing stones after me; and when I was out
of their reach, and had begun to indulge the pleasing hopes of
escaping, I was again greatly alarmed to hear somebody holloa
behind me, and looking back, I saw three Moors on horseback,
coming after me at full speed, whooping and brandishing their
double-barrelled guns.  I knew it was in vain to think of
escaping, and therefore turned back and met them, when two of
them caught hold of my bridle, one on each side, and the third,
presenting his musket, told me I must go back to Ali.  When
the human mind has for some time been fluctuating between hope
and despair, tortured with anxiety, and hurried from one extreme
to another, it affords a sort of gloomy relief to know the worst
that can possibly happen.  Such was my situation.  An
indifference about life and all its enjoyments had completely
benumbed my faculties, and I rode back with the Moors with
apparent unconcern.  But a change took place much sooner
than I had any reason to expect.  In passing through some
thick bushes one of the Moors ordered me to untie my bundle and
show them the contents.  Having examined the different
articles, they found nothing worth taking except my cloak, which
they considered as a very valuable acquisition, and one of them
pulling it from me, wrapped it about himself, and, with one of
his companions, rode off with their prize.  When I attempted
to follow them, the third, who had remained with me, struck my
horse over the head, and presenting his musket, told me I should
proceed no farther.  I now perceived that these men had not
been sent by any authority to apprehend me, but had pursued me
solely with a view to rob and plunder me.  Turning my
horse’s head, therefore, once more towards the east, and
observing the Moor follow the track of his confederates, I
congratulated myself on having escaped with my life, though in
great distress, from such a horde of barbarians.

I was no sooner out of sight of the Moor than I struck into
the woods to prevent being pursued, and kept pushing on with all
possible speed, until I found myself near some high rocks, which
I remembered to have seen in my former route from Queira to Deena
and, directing my course a little to the northward, I fortunately
fell in with the path.

CHAPTER XIV.
JOURNEY CONTINUED; ARRIVAL AT
WAWRA.

It is impossible to describe the
joy that arose in my mind when I looked around and concluded that
I was out of danger.  I felt like one recovered from
sickness; I breathed freer; I found unusual lightness in my
limbs; even the desert looked pleasant; and I dreaded nothing so
much as falling in with some wandering parties of Moors, who
might convey me back to the land of thieves and murderers from
which I had just escaped.

I soon became sensible, however, that my situation was very
deplorable, for I had no means of procuring food nor prospect of
finding water.  About ten o’clock, perceiving a herd
of goats feeding close to the road, I took a circuitous route to
avoid being seen, and continued travelling through the
wilderness, directing my course by compass nearly
east-south-east, in order to reach as soon as possible some town
or village of the kingdom of Bambarra.

A little after noon, when the burning heat of the sun was
reflected with double violence from the hot sand, and the distant
ridges of the hills, seen through the ascending vapour, seemed to
wave and fluctuate like the unsettled sea, I became faint with
thirst, and climbed a tree in hopes of seeing distant smoke, or
some other appearance of a human habitation—but in vain:
nothing appeared all around but thick underwood and hillocks of
white sand.

About four o’clock I came suddenly upon a large herd of
goats, and pulling my horse into a bush, I watched to observe if
the keepers were Moors or negroes.  In a little time I
perceived two Moorish boys, and with some difficulty persuaded
them to approach me.  They informed me that the herd
belonged to Ali, and that they were going to Deena, where the
water was more plentiful, and where they intended to stay until
the rain had filled the pools in the desert.  They showed me
their empty water-skins, and told me that they had seen no water
in the woods.  This account afforded me but little
consolation; however, it was in vain to repine, and I pushed on
as fast as possible, in hopes of reaching some watering-place in
the course of the night.  My thirst was by this time become
insufferable; my mouth was parched and inflamed; a sudden dimness
would frequently come over my eyes, with other symptoms of
fainting; and my horse being very much fatigued, I began
seriously to apprehend that I should perish of thirst.  To
relieve the burning pain in my mouth and throat I chewed the
leaves of different shrubs, but found them all bitter, and of no
service to me.

A little before sunset, having reached the top of a gentle
rising, I climbed a high tree, from the topmost branches of which
I cast a melancholy look over the barren wilderness, but without
discovering the most distant trace of a human dwelling.  The
same dismal uniformity of shrubs and sand everywhere presented
itself, and the horizon was as level and uninterrupted as that of
the sea.

Descending from the tree, I found my horse devouring the
stubble and brushwood with great avidity; and as I was now too
faint to attempt walking, and my horse too much fatigued to carry
me I thought it but an act of humanity, and perhaps the last I
should ever have it in my power to perform, to take off his
bridle and let him shift for himself, in doing which I was
suddenly affected with sickness and giddiness, and falling upon
the sand, felt as if the hour of death was fast
approaching.  Here, then, thought I, after a short but
ineffectual struggle, terminate all my hopes of being useful in
my day and generation; here must the short span of my life come
to an end.  I cast, as I believed, a last look on the
surrounding scene, and whilst I reflected on the awful change
that was about to take place, this world with its enjoyment
seemed to vanish from my recollection.  Nature, however, at
length resumed its functions, and on recovering my senses, I
found myself stretched upon the sand, with the bridle still in my
hand, and the sun just sinking behind the trees.  I now
summoned all my resolution, and determined to make another effort
to prolong my existence; and as the evening was somewhat cool, I
resolved to travel as far as my limbs would carry me, in hopes of
reaching—my only resource—a watering-place. 
With this view I put the bridle on my horse, and driving him
before me, went slowly along for about an hour, when I perceived
some lightning from the north-east—a most delightful sight,
for it promised rain.  The darkness and lightning increased
very rapidly, and in less than an hour I heard the wind roaring
among the bushes.  I had already opened my mouth to receive
the refreshing drops which I expected, but I was instantly
covered with a cloud of sand, driven with such force by the wind
as to give a very disagreeable sensation to my face and arms, and
I was obliged to mount my horse and stop under a bush to prevent
being suffocated.  The sand continued to fly in amazing
quantities for nearly an hour, after which I again set forward,
and travelled with difficulty until ten o’clock. 
About this time I was agreeably surprised by some very vivid
flashes of lightning, followed by a few heavy drops of
rain.  In a little time the sand ceased to fly, and I
alighted and spread out all my clean clothes to collect the rain,
which at length I saw would certainly fall.  For more than
an hour it rained plentifully, and I quenched my thirst by
wringing and sucking my clothes.

There being no moon, it was remarkably dark, so that I was
obliged to lead my horse, and direct my way by the compass, which
the lightning enabled me to observe.  In this manner I
travelled with tolerable expedition until past midnight, when the
lightning becoming more distant, I was under the necessity of
groping along, to the no small danger of my hands and eyes. 
About two o’clock my horse started at something, and
looking round, I was not a little surprised to see a light at a
short distance among the trees; and supposing it to be a town, I
groped along the sand in hopes of finding corn-stalks, cotton, or
other appearances of cultivation, but found none.  As I
approached I perceived a number of other lights in different
places, and began to suspect that I had fallen upon a party of
Moors.  However, in my present situation, I was resolved to
see who they were, if I could do it with safety.  I
accordingly led my horse cautiously towards the light, and heard
by the lowing of the cattle and the clamorous tongues of the
herdsmen, that it was a watering-place, and most likely belonged
to the Moors.  Delightful as the sound of the human voice
was to me, I resolved once more to strike into the woods, and
rather run the risk of perishing of hunger than trust myself
again in their hands; but being still thirsty, and dreading the
approach of the burning day, I thought it prudent to search for
the wells, which I expected to find at no great distance.

In this purpose I inadvertently approached so near to one of
the tents as to be perceived by a woman, who immediately screamed
out.  Two people came running to her assistance from some of
the neighbouring tents, and passed so very near to me that I
thought I was discovered, and hastened again into the woods.

About a mile from this place I heard a loud and confused noise
somewhere to the right of my course, and in a short time was
happy to find it was the croaking of frogs, which was heavenly
music to my ears.  I followed the sound, and at daybreak
arrived at some shallow muddy pools, so full of frogs, that it
was difficult to discern the water.  The noise they made
frightened my horse, and I was obliged to keep them quiet, by
beating the water with a branch, until he had drunk.  Having
here quenched my thirst, I ascended a tree, and the morning being
calm, I soon perceived the smoke of the watering-place which I
had passed in the night, and observed another pillar of smoke
east-south-east, distant twelve or fourteen miles.  Towards
this I directed my route, and reached the cultivated ground a
little before eleven o’clock, where, seeing a number of
negroes at work planting corn, I inquired the name of the town,
and was informed that it was a Foulah village belonging to Ali,
called Shrilla.  I had now some doubts about entering it;
but my horse being very much fatigued, and the day growing
hot—not to mention the pangs of hunger, which began to
assail me—I resolved to venture; and accordingly rode up to
the dooty’s house, where I was unfortunately denied
admittance, and could not obtain even a handful of corn either
for myself or horse.  Turning from this inhospitable door, I
rode slowly out of the town, and, perceiving some low, scattered
huts without the walls, I directed my route towards them, knowing
that in Africa, as well as in Europe, hospitality does not always
prefer the highest dwellings.  At the door of one of these
huts an old motherly-looking woman sat, spinning cotton.  I
made signs to her that I was hungry, and inquired if she had any
victuals with her in the hut.  She immediately laid down her
distaff, and desired me, in Arabic, to come in.  When I had
seated myself upon the floor, she set before me a dish of
kouskous that had been left the preceding night, of which I made
a tolerable meal; and in return for this kindness I gave her one
of my pocket-handkerchiefs, begging at the same time a little
corn for my horse, which she readily brought me.

Whilst my horse was feeding the people began to assemble, and
one of them whispered something to my hostess which very much
excited her surprise.  Though I was not well acquainted with
the Foulah language, I soon discovered that some of the men
wished to apprehend and carry me back to Ali, in hopes, I
suppose, of receiving a reward.  I therefore tied up the
corn; and lest any one should suspect I had run away from the
Moors, I took a northerly direction, and went cheerfully along,
driving my horse before me, followed by all the boys and girls of
the town.  When I had travelled about two miles, and got
quit of all my troublesome attendants, I struck again into the
woods, and took shelter under a large tree, where I found it
necessary to rest myself, a bundle of twigs serving me for a bed,
and my saddle for a pillow.

July 4.—At daybreak I pursued my course through
the woods as formerly; saw numbers of antelopes, wild hogs, and
ostriches, but the soil was more hilly, and not so fertile as I
had found it the preceding day.  About eleven o’clock
I ascended an eminence, where I climbed a tree, and discovered,
at about eight miles’ distance, an open part of the
country, with several red spots, which I concluded were
cultivated land, and, directing my course that way, came to the
precincts of a watering-place about one o’clock.  From
the appearance of the place, I judged it to belong to the
Foulahs, and was hopeful that I should meet a better reception
than I had experienced at Shrilla.  In this I was not
deceived, for one of the shepherds invited me to come into his
tent and partake of some dates.  This was one of those low
Foulah tents in which there is room just sufficient to sit
upright, and in which the family, the furniture, &c., seem
huddled together like so many articles in a chest.  When I
had crept upon my hands and knees into this humble habitation, I
found that it contained a woman and three children, who, together
with the shepherd and myself, completely occupied the
floor.  A dish of boiled corn and dates was produced, and
the master of the family, as is customary in this part of the
country, first tasted it himself, and then desired me to follow
his example.  Whilst I was eating, the children kept their
eyes fixed upon me, and no sooner did the shepherd pronounce the
word Nazarani, than they began to cry, and their mother
crept slowly towards the door, out of which she sprang like a
greyhound, and was instantly followed by her children.  So
frightened were they at the very name of a Christian, that no
entreaties could induce them to approach the tent.  Here I
purchased some corn for my horse, in exchange for some brass
buttons, and having thanked the shepherd for his hospitality,
struck again into the woods.  At sunset I came to a road
that took the direction for Bambarra, and resolved to follow it
for the night; but about eight o’clock, hearing some people
coming from the southward, I thought it prudent to hide myself
among some thick bushes near the road.  As these thickets
are generally full of wild beasts, I found my situation rather
unpleasant, sitting in the dark, holding my horse by the nose
with both hands, to prevent him from neighing, and equally afraid
of the natives without and the wild beasts within.  My
fears, however, were soon dissipated; for the people, after
looking round the thicket, and perceiving nothing, went away, and
I hastened to the more open parts of the wood, where I pursued my
journey east-south-east, until past midnight, when the joyful cry
of frogs induced me once more to deviate a little from my route,
in order to quench my thirst.  Having accomplished this from
a large pool of rain-water, I sought for an open place, with a
single tree in the midst, under which I made my bed for the
night.  I was disturbed by some wolves towards morning,
which induced me to set forward a little before day; and having
passed a small village called Wassalita, I came about ten
o’clock (July 5th), to a negro town called Wawra, which
properly belongs to Kaarta, but was at this time tributary to
Mansong, King of Bambarra.

CHAPTER XV.
NEGRO CURIOSITY; A MESSAGE FROM THE
KING.

Wawra is a small town surrounded
with high walls, and inhabited by a mixture of Mandingoes and
Foulahs.  The inhabitants employ themselves chiefly in
cultivating corn, which they exchange with the Moors for
salt.  Here, being in security from the Moors, and very much
fatigued, I resolved to rest myself; and meeting with a hearty
welcome from the dooty, whose name was Flancharee, I laid myself
down upon a bullock’s hide, and slept soundly for about two
hours.  The curiosity of the people would not allow me to
sleep any longer.  They had seen my saddle and bridle, and
were assembled in great numbers to learn who I was and whence I
came.  Some were of opinion that I was an Arab; others
insisted that I was some Moorish Sultan, and they continued to
debate the matter with such warmth that the noise awoke me. 
The dooty (who had formerly been at Gambia) at last interposed in
my behalf, and assured them that I was certainly a white man; but
he was convinced from my appearance that I was a poor one.

July 6.—It rained very much in the night, and at
daylight I departed in company with a negro who was going to a
town called Dingyee for corn; but we had not proceeded above a
mile before the ass upon which he rode threw him off, and he
returned, leaving me to prosecute the journey by myself.

I reached Dingyee about noon, but the dooty and most of the
inhabitants had gone into the fields to cultivate corn.  An
old Foulah, observing me wandering about the town, desired me to
come to his hut, where I was well entertained; and the dooty,
when he returned, sent me some victuals for myself and corn for
my horse.

July 7.—In the morning, when I was about to
depart, my landlord, with a great deal of diffidence, begged me
to give him a lock of my hair.  He had been told, he said,
that white men’s hair made a saphie that would give to the
possessor all the knowledge of white men.  I had never
before heard of so simple a mode of education, but instantly
complied with the request.

I reached a small town called Wassiboo, about twelve
o’clock, where I was obliged to stop until an opportunity
should offer of procuring a guide to Satilé, which is
distant a very long day’s journey, through woods without
any beaten path.  I accordingly took up my residence at the
dooty’s house, where I stayed four days, during which time
I amused myself by going to the fields with the family to plant
corn.  Cultivation is carried on here on a very extensive
scale; and, as the natives themselves express it, “Hunger
is never known.”  In cultivating the soil the men and
women work together.  They use a large sharp hoe, much
superior to that used in Gambia, but they are obliged, for fear
of the Moors, to carry their arms with them to the field. 
The master, with the handle of his spear, marks the field into
regular plats, one of which is assigned to every three
slaves.

On the evening of the 11th eight of the fugitive Kaartans
arrived at Wassiboo.  They had found it impossible to live
under the tyrannical government of the Moors, and were now going
to transfer their allegiance to the King of Bambarra.  They
offered to take me along with them as far as Satilé, and I
accepted the offer.

July 12.—At daybreak we set out, and travelled
with uncommon expedition until sunset.  We stopped only
twice in the course of the day, once at a watering-place in the
woods, and at another time at the ruins of a town formerly
belonging to Daisy, called Illa-compe (the
corn-town).  When we arrived in the neighbourhood of
Satilé, the people who were employed in the corn-fields,
seeing so many horsemen, took us for a party of Moors, and ran
screaming away from us.  The whole town was instantly
alarmed, and the slaves were seen in every direction driving the
cattle and horses towards the town.  It was in vain that one
of our company galloped up to undeceive them; it only frightened
them the more; and when we arrived at the town we found the gates
shut, and the people all under arms.  After a long parley we
were permitted to enter, and, as there was every appearance of a
tornado, the dooty allowed us to sleep in his baloon, and
gave us each a bullock’s hide for a bed.

July 13.—Early in the morning we again set
forward.  The roads were wet and slippery, but the country
was very beautiful, abounding with rivulets, which were increased
by the rain into rapid streams.  About ten o’clock we
came to-the ruins of a village which had been destroyed by war
about six months before.

About noon my horse was so much fatigued that I could not keep
up with my companions; I therefore dismounted, and desired them
to ride on, telling them that I would follow as soon as my horse
had rested a little.  But I found them unwilling to leave
me; the lions, they said, were very numerous in those parts, and
though they might not so readily attack a body of people, they
would soon find out an individual; it was therefore agreed that
one of the company should stay with me to assist in driving my
horse, while the others passed on to Galloo to procure lodgings,
and collect grass for the horses before night.  Accompanied
by this worthy negro, I drove my horse before me until about four
o’clock, when we came in sight of Galloo, a considerable
town, standing in a fertile and beautiful valley surrounded with
high rocks.

Early next morning (July 14th), having first returned many
thanks to our landlord for his hospitality, while my
fellow-travellers offered up their prayers that he might never
want, we set forward, and about three o’clock arrived at
Moorja, a large town, famous for its trade in salt, which the
Moors bring here in great quantities, to exchange for corn and
cotton cloth.  As most of the people here are Mohammedans,
it is not allowed to the kafirs to drink beer, which they call
neodollo (corn spirit), except in certain houses.  In
one of these I saw about twenty people sitting round large
vessels of this beer with the greatest conviviality, many of them
in a state of intoxication.

On the morning of the 16th we again set forward, accompanied
by a coffle of fourteen asses, loaded with salt, bound for
Sansanding.  The road was particularly romantic, between two
rocky hills; but the Moors sometimes lie in wait here to plunder
strangers.  As soon as we had reached the open country the
master of the salt coffle thanked us for having stayed with him
so long, and now desired us to ride on.  The sun was almost
set before we reached Datliboo.  In the evening we had a
most tremendous tornado.  The house in which we lodged being
flat-roofed, admitted the rain in streams; the floor was soon
ankle-deep, the fire extinguished, and we were left to pass the
night upon some bundles of firewood that happened to lie in a
corner.

July 17.—We departed from Datliboo, and about ten
o’clock passed a large coffle returning from Sego with
corn-hoes, mats, and other household utensils.  At five
o’clock we came to a large village where we intended to
pass the night, but the dooty would not receive us.  When we
departed from this place my horse was so much fatigued that I was
under the necessity of driving him, and it was dark before we
reached Fanimboo, a small village, the dooty of which no sooner
heard that I was a white man than he brought out three old
muskets, and was much disappointed when he was told that I could
not repair them.

July 18.—We continued our journey, but, owing to
a light supper the preceding night we felt ourselves rather
hungry this morning, and endeavoured to procure some corn at a
village, but without success.

My horse becoming weaker and weaker every day, was now of very
little service to me; I was obliged to drive him before me for
the greater part of the day, and did not reach Geosorro until
eight o’clock in the evening.  I found my companions
wrangling with the dooty, who had absolutely refused to give or
sell them any provisions; and as none of us had tasted victuals
for the last twenty-four hours, we were by no means disposed to
fast another day if we could help it.  But finding our
entreaties without effect, and being very much fatigued, I fell
asleep, from which I was awakened about midnight with the joyful
information Kinne nata! (“The victuals are
come”)  This made the remainder of the night pass away
pleasantly, and at daybreak, July 19th, we resumed our journey,
proposing to stop at a village called Doolinkeaboo for the night
following.  My fellow-travellers, having better horses than
myself, soon left me, and I was walking barefoot, driving my
horse, when I was met by a coffle of slaves, about seventy in
number, coming from Sego.  They were tied together by their
necks with thongs of a bullock’s hide, twisted like a
rope—seven slaves upon a thong, and a man with a musket
between every seven.  Many of the slaves were
ill-conditioned, and a great number of them women.  In the
rear came Sidi Mahomed’s servant, whom I remembered to have
seen at the camp of Benowm.  He presently knew me, and told
me that these slaves were going to Morocco by the way of Ludamar
and the Great Desert.

In the afternoon, as I approached Doolinkeaboo, I met about
twenty Moors on horseback, the owners of the slaves I had seen in
the morning.  They were well armed with muskets, and were
very inquisitive concerning me, but not so rude as their
countrymen generally are.  From them I learned that Sidi
Mahomed was not at Sego, but had gone to Kancaba for
gold-dust.

When I arrived at Doolinkeaboo I was informed that my
fellow-travellers had gone on, but my horse was so much fatigued
that I could not possibly proceed after them.  The dooty of
the town at my request gave me a draught of water, which is
generally looked upon as an earnest of greater hospitality, and I
had no doubt of making up for the toils of the day by a good
supper and a sound sleep; unfortunately, I had neither the one
nor the other.  The night was rainy and tempestuous, and the
dooty limited his hospitality to the draught of water.

July 20.—In the morning I endeavoured, both by
entreaties and threats, to procure some victuals from the dooty,
but in vain.  I even begged some corn from one of his female
slaves, as she was washing it at the well, and had the
mortification to be refused.  However, when the dooty was
gone to the fields, his wife sent me a handful of meal, which I
mixed with water and drank for breakfast.  About eight
o’clock I departed from Doolinkeaboo, and at noon stopped a
few minutes at a large korree, where I had some milk given me by
the Foulahs, and hearing that two negroes were going from thence
to Sega, I was happy to have their company, and we set out
immediately.  About four o’clock we stopped at a small
village, where one of the negroes met with an acquaintance, who
invited us to a sort of public entertainment, which was conducted
with more than common propriety.  A dish, made of sour milk
and meal, called sinkatoo, and beer made from their corn,
was distributed with great liberality, and the women were
admitted into the society, a circumstance I had never before
observed in Africa.  There was no compulsion—every one
was at liberty to drink as he pleased—they nodded to each
other when about to drink, and on setting down the calabash
commonly said Berka (“Thank you”).  Both
men and women appeared to be somewhat intoxicated, but they were
far from being quarrelsome.

Departing from thence, we passed several large villages, where
I was constantly taken for a Moor and became the subject of much
merriment to the Bambarrans, who, seeing me drive my horse before
me, laughed heartily at my appearance.  “He has been
at Mecca,” says one, “you may see that by his
clothes;” another asked me if my horse was sick; a third
wished to purchase it, &c., so that, I believe, the very
slaves were ashamed to be seen in my company.  Just before
it was dark we took up our lodging for the night at a small
village, where I procured some victuals for myself and some corn
for my horse, at the moderate price of a button; and was told
that I should see the Niger (which the negroes call Joliba, or
the Great Water) early the next day.  The lions are here
very numerous; the gates are shut a little after sunset, and
nobody allowed to go out.  The thoughts of seeing the Niger
in the morning, and the troublesome buzzing of mosquitoes,
prevented me from shutting my eyes during the night; and I had
saddled my horse, and was in readiness before daylight, but, on
account of the wild beasts, we were obliged to wait until the
people were stirring and the gates opened.  This happened to
be a market day at Sego, and the roads were everywhere filled
with people carrying different articles to sell.  We passed
four large villages, and at eight o’clock saw the smoke
over Sego.

As we approached the town I was fortunate enough to overtake
the fugitive Kaartans, to whose kindness I had been so much
indebted in my journey through Bambarra.  They readily
agreed to introduce me to the king; and we rode together through
some marshy ground, where, as I was anxiously looking around for
the river, one of them called out, Geo affili! (“See
the water!”) and, looking forwards, I saw with infinite
pleasure the great object of my mission—the long-sought-for
majestic Niger, glittering in the morning sun, as broad as the
Thames at Westminster, and flowing slowly to the
eastward.  I hastened to the brink, and having drunk of
the water, lifted up my fervent thanks in prayer to the Great
Ruler of all things for having thus far crowned my endeavours
with success.

The circumstance of the Niger’s flowing towards the
east, and its collateral points, did not, however, excite my
surprise, for, although I had left Europe in great hesitation on
this subject, and rather believed that it ran in the contrary
direction, I had made such frequent inquiries during my progress
concerning this river, and received from the negroes of different
nations such clear and decisive assurances that its general
course was towards the rising sun, as scarce left any
doubt on my mind, and more especially as I knew that Major
Houghton had collected similar information in the same
manner.

Sego, the capital of Bambarra, at which I had now arrived,
consists, properly speaking, of four distinct towns—two on
the northern bank of the Niger, called Sego Korro and Sego Boo;
and two on the southern bank, called Sego Soo Korro and Sego See
Korro.  They are all surrounded with high mud walls. 
The houses are built of clay, of a square form with flat
roofs—some of them have two storeys, and many of them are
whitewashed.  Besides these buildings, Moorish mosques are
seen in every quarter; and the streets, though narrow, are broad
enough for every useful purpose, in a country where wheel
carriages are entirely unknown.  From the best inquiries I
could make, I have reason to believe that Sego contains
altogether about thirty thousand inhabitants.  The King of
Bambarra constantly resides at Sego See Korro.  He employs a
great many slaves in conveying people over the river, and the
money they receive (though the fare is only ten kowrie shells for
each individual) furnishes a considerable revenue to the king in
the course of a year.  The canoes are of a singular
construction, each of them being formed of the trunks of two
large trees rendered concave, and joined together, not side by
side, but endways—the junction being exactly across the
middle of the canoe: they are therefore very long, and
disproportionably narrow, and have neither decks nor masts: they
are, however, very roomy, for I observed in one of them four
horses and several people crossing over the river.  When we
arrived at this ferry, with a view to pass over to that part of
the town in which the king resides, we found a great number
waiting for a passage: they looked at me with silent wonder, and
I distinguished with concern many Moors among them.  There
were three different places of embarkation, and the ferrymen were
very diligent and expeditious; but from the crowd of people I
could not immediately obtain a passage, and sat down upon the
bank of the river to wait for a more favourable
opportunity.  The view of this extensive city—the
numerous canoes upon the river—the crowded population, and
the cultivated state of the surrounding country—formed
altogether a prospect of civilisation and magnificence which I
little expected to find in the bosom of Africa.

I waited more than two hours without having an opportunity of
crossing the river, during which time the people who had crossed
carried information to Mansong, the king, that a white man was
waiting for a passage, and was coming to see him.  He
immediately sent over one of his chief men, who informed me that
the king could not possibly see me until he knew what had brought
me into his country; and that I must not presume to cross the
river without the king’s permission.  He therefore
advised me to lodge at a distant village, to which he pointed,
for the night, and said that in the morning he would give me
further instructions how to conduct myself.  This was very
discouraging.  However, as there was no remedy, I set off
for the village, where I found, to my great mortification, that
no person would admit me into his house.  I was regarded
with astonishment and fear, and was obliged to sit all day
without victuals in the shade of a tree; and the night threatened
to be very uncomfortable—for the wind rose, and there was
great appearance of a heavy rain—and the wild beasts are so
very numerous in the neighbourhood that I should have been under
the necessity of climbing up a tree and resting amongst the
branches.  About sunset, however, as I was preparing to pass
the night in this manner, and had turned my horse loose that he
might graze at liberty, a woman, returning from the labours of
the field, stopped to observe me, and perceiving that I was weary
and dejected, inquired into my situation, which I briefly
explained to her; whereupon, with looks of great compassion, she
took up my saddle and bridle, and told me to follow her. 
Having conducted me into her hut, she lighted up a lamp, spread a
mat on the floor, and told me I might remain there for the
night.  Finding that I was very hungry, she said she would
procure me something to eat.  She accordingly went out, and
returned in a short time with a very fine fish, which, having
caused to be half broiled upon some embers, she gave me for
supper.  The rites of hospitality being thus performed
towards a stranger in distress, my worthy benefactress (pointing
to the mat, and telling me I might sleep there without
apprehension) called to the female part of her family, who had
stood gazing on me all the while in fixed astonishment, to resume
their task of spinning cotton, in which they continued to employ
themselves great part of the night.  They lightened their
labour by songs, one of which was composed extempore, for I was
myself the subject of it.  It was sung by one of the young
women, the rest joining in a sort of chorus.  The air was
sweet and plaintive, and the words, literally translated, were
these:—“The winds roared, and the rains fell. 
The poor white man, faint and weary, came and sat under our
tree.  He has no mother to bring him milk, no wife to grind
his corn.  Chorus.—Let us pity the white man,
no mother has he,” &c. &c.  Trifling as this
recital may appear to the reader, to a person in my situation the
circumstance was affecting in the highest degree.  I was
oppressed by such unexpected kindness, and sleep fled from my
eyes.  In the morning I presented my compassionate landlady
with two of the four brass buttons which remained on my
waistcoat—the only recompense I could make her.

July 21.—I continued in the village all this day
in conversation with the natives, who came in crowds to see me,
but was rather uneasy towards evening to find that no message had
arrived from the king, the more so as the people began to whisper
that Mansong had received some very unfavourable accounts of me
from the Moors and slatees residing at Sego, who, it seems, were
exceedingly suspicious concerning the motives of my
journey.  I learned that many consultations had been held
with the king concerning my reception and disposal; and some of
the villagers frankly told me that I had many enemies, and must
expect no favour.

July 22.—About eleven o’clock a messenger
arrived from the king, but he gave me very little
satisfaction.  He inquired particularly if I had brought any
present, and seemed much disappointed when he was told that I had
been robbed of everything by the Moors.  When I proposed to
go along with him, he told me to stop until the afternoon, when
the king would send for me.

July 23.—In the afternoon another messenger
arrived from Mansong, with a bag in his hands.  He told me
it was the king’s pleasure that I should depart forthwith
from the vicinage of Sego; but that Mansong, wishing to relieve a
white man in distress, had sent me five thousand kowries, to
enable me to purchase provisions in the course of my journey: the
messenger added, that if my intentions were really to proceed to
Jenné, he had orders to accompany me as a guide to
Sansanding.  I was at first puzzled to account for this
behaviour of the king; but from the conversation I had with the
guide, I had afterwards reason to believe that Mansong would
willingly have admitted me into his presence at Sego, but was
apprehensive he might not be able to protect me against the blind
and inveterate malice of the Moorish inhabitants.  His
conduct, therefore, was at once prudent and liberal.  The
circumstances under which I made my appearance at Sego were
undoubtedly such as might create in the mind of the king a
well-warranted suspicion that I wished to conceal the true object
of my journey.  He argued, probably, as my guide argued,
who, when he was told that I had come from a great distance, and
through many dangers, to behold the Joliba river, naturally
inquired if there were no rivers in my own country, and whether
one river was not like another.  Notwithstanding this, and
in spite of the jealous machinations of the Moors, this
benevolent prince thought it sufficient that a white man was
found in his dominions, in a condition of extreme wretchedness,
and that no other plea was necessary to entitle the sufferer to
his bounty.

FOOTNOTES

[41]  I believe that similar charms or
amulets, under the names of domini, grigri,
fetich, &c., are common in all parts of Africa.

[70]  Maana is within a short distance
of the ruins of Fort St. Joseph, on the Senegal river, formerly a
French factory.