I Had The Pleasure, At Length, To Find Myself In A State Of Convalescence:

Towards which the benevolent and simple manners of the Negroes, and the perusal of Karfa's little volume, greatly contributed.

In the meantime, many of the slatees who resided at Kamalia, having spent all their money, and become in a great measure dependent upon Karfa's hospitality, beheld me with an eye of envy, and invented many ridiculous and trifling stories to lessen me in Karfa's esteem; and in the beginning of December, a Sera-Woolli slatee, with five slaves, arrived from Sego. This man, too, spread a number of malicious reports concerning me; but Karfa paid no attention to them, and continued to show me the same kindness as formerly. As I was one day conversing with the slaves which this slatee had brought, one of them begged me to give him some victuals. I told him I was a stranger, and had none to give. He replied, "I gave _you_ victuals when you was hungry. - Have you forgot the man who brought you milk at Karrankalla? But (added he, with a sigh) _the irons were not then upon my legs!_" I immediately recollected him, and begged some ground nuts from Karfa to give him as a return for his former kindness. He told me that he had been taken by the Bambarrans, the day after the battle at Joka, and sent to Sego, where he had been purchased by his present master, who was carrying him down to Kajaaga. Three more of these slaves were from Kaarta, and one from Wassela, all of them prisoners of war. They stopped four days at Kamalia, and were then taken to Bala, where they remained until the river Kokoro was fordable, and the grass burnt.

In the beginning of December Karfa proposed to complete his purchase of slaves; and for this purpose, collected all the debts which were owing to him in his own country; and on the 19th, being accompanied by three slatees, he departed for Kancaba, a large town on the banks of the Niger, and a great slave-market. Most of the slaves, who are sold at Kancaba, come from Bambarra; for Mansong, to avoid the expense and danger of keeping all his prisoners at Sego, commonly sends them in small parties to be sold at the different trading towns; and as Kancaba is much resorted to by merchants, it is always well supplied with slaves, which are sent thither up the Niger in canoes. When Karfa departed from Kamalia, he proposed to return in the course of a month; and during his absence I was left to the care of a good old Bushreen, who acted as schoolmaster to the young people of Kamalia.

Being now left alone, and at leisure to indulge my own reflections, it was an opportunity not to be neglected of augmenting and extending the observations I had already made on the climate and productions of the country; and of acquiring a more perfect knowledge of the natives, than it was possible for me to obtain in the course of a transient and perilous journey through the country.

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