nearly the whole day with myriads of wondering spectators, who flock to the house which I inhabit, and stare at me with about as much curiosity as you would at the great lioness in Exeter Change, which whelped three young lions, and condescended to suckle them herself. The natives of this place are of the tribe called Musticarab, and live under no law or control. They do not employ themselves either in trade or cultivation, but, like a set of outlaws, roam about the desert, robbing and plundering kaffilas wherever they can fall in with them. There has been murderous work among them this year, more than half a dozen fights of one kind or another, and between two and three hundred slain. 1 shall quit them, please God, in seven or eight days more, as I accompany a large kaffila, which proceeds on the 15th instant towards Timbuctoo, from which I am now only thirty days' journey. Every thing appears to favour me, and to bid fair for a speedy and successful termination to my arduous enterprise. I am already possessed of much curious and valuable information, and feel confident that I shall realize the most sanguine expectations of my numerous friends. I shall do more than has ever been done before, and shall show myself to be what I have ever considered myself, a man of enterprise and genius. My father used often to accuse me of want of common sense; but he little thought that I gloried in the accusation. 'Tis true, I never possessed any, nor ever shall. At a very early age, I fell in with an observation of Helvetius, which pleased me much, and chimed in with my way of thinking to the tenth part of a second. 'A man of common sense is a man in whose character indolence predominates: he is not endowed with activity of soul, which, in high stations, leads great minds to discover new springs by which they may set the world in motion, or to sow the seeds, from the growth of which they are enabled to produce future events.' I admit that common sense is more necessary for conducting the petty affairs of life than genius or enterprise ; but the man who soars into the regions of speculation should never be hampered by it. Had I been gifted with that quality which the bulk of mankind consider so inestimable, I might now have been a jolly subaltern on half-pay, or perhaps an orthodox preacher in some country kirk, in lieu of dictating this letter to you from the arid regions of central Africa. This is a long rhapsody, but you must just bear with it patiently, as it is not every day that you can hear from me.
'I hope you have written to my dearest Emma, the most amiable girl that God ever created. She is, indeed, such a being as I had formed in my mind's eyes but had never before seen, and has just as much common sense as has fallen to the lot of your most worthy elder brother." * * *
He quitted Ensala on the 10th of January, 1826, and on the 26th of the same month entered on the cheerless, flat, and sandy desert of TenezarofT. Hitherto neither his enthusiasm nor his health had failed him; the people had all been friendly and kind to him, the elements only had been his foes; but in the desert he was to enter on a different course of experience, and bitter assuredly it was. The Tuarics attacked, and plundered, and most cruelly mangled him. The following letter, written by himself, and addressed to his father-in-law, discloses the amount of authentic information concerning this barbarous outrage.
Blad Sidi Mahomed, May 10th, 1826.
My Dear Consul,—
I drop you a line only by an uncertain conveyance, to acquaint you that I am recovering from my severe wounds far beyond any calculation that the most sanguine expectation could have formed; and that to-morrow, please God, I have this place for Timbuctoo, which I hope to reach on the 18th. I have suffered much, but the detail must be reserved till another period, when I shall "a tale unfold" of treachery and woe that will surprise you. Some imputation is attachable to the old sheik (Babani); but as he is now no more, I shall not accuse him; he died very suddenly about a month since.
