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.
Hunger, at
first, is certainly a very painful sensation; but when it has continued
for some time, this pain is succeeded by languor and debility: in which
case, a draught of water, by keeping the stomach distended, will greatly
exhilarate the spirits, and remove for a short time every sort of
uneasiness. Johnson and Demba were very much dejected. They lay stretched
upon the sand, in a sort of torpid slumber: and even when the kouskous
arrived, I found some difficulty in awakening them. I felt no inclination
to sleep, but was affected with a deep convulsive respiration, like
constant sighing: and what alarmed me still more, a dimness of sight, and
a tendency to faint when I attempted to sit up. These symptoms did not go
off until some time after I had received nourishment.
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.
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