TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 29 were in circulation ; but it is scarcely possible that a being of the most ignorant and unsophisticated nation on earth could believe them.

On the 13th, Sergeant Tuft, who was still at the king's camp, sent Brahima to inform Captain Campbell that as there did not yet appear any probability of obtaining permission to proceed, he recommended that he should himself see Almamy, with as little delay as possible ; and it appearing to Captain Campbell, as well as all the other officers, that some decisive answer should be obtained from the king, he left the camp on the morning of the l6th, accompanied by Mr. Partarrieau, and four men (natives) with a train of carriers, amounting in all to about eighteen persons ; they were soon followed by the prince and his suite. They had not gone long when we received a letter from Lamima, the messenger sent to Sego from Senegal in 1816, apprising us that he, together with some men from the king, were on their way to meet us. It was time that some decisive step should be taken : our animals were dying fast ; provisions were extremely scarce ; and the wet season had that evening set in, by visiting us with a heavy shower of rain, which lasted for an hour, and proved that our huts were not calculated to secure us from a wetting.

Captain Campbell did not return before the