12 TRAVELS IN AFRICA.

any arrangements with that chief which might be thought necessary, but Captain Campbell did

not conceive it requisite to send an officer; and,

therefore, despatched one of our native Ser-

jeants*, who had been before employed by the

governor of Sierra Leone on similar occasions.

He left us on the 10th of February, and was ac- companied by Abou Baccary, one of the princes

in Abdul Hamed's train.

In the evening, the animals and baggage were removed across the Tingalinta, which, at that

place is about 110 feet wide and from two to

three deep, with a bottom of small round peb-

bles. At a little distance below the ford was a

swinging bridge, composed of cane and bark

ropes, by which it was attached, at about twenty-

four feet above the water, to the branches of the

trees which grew on the banks, and afforded

during the rainy season and periodical floods, a

safe, though apparently slight and tottering,

passage for people on foot.

We were in motion at three o'clock on the morning of the 12th, but the Kakundy people, who had been hired as carriers, refused to cross

the Tingalinta, assigning as a reason that they

were afraid of being seized, and retained as

slaves by the Foolas, who had some years be-

* WiUiam Tuft.