In Conversing With These Shereefs, And The Different Strangers That
Resorted To The Camp, I Passed My Time With Rather Less Uneasiness Than
Formerly.
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. With this
demand Ali had not only refused to comply, but had treated the messengers
with great haughtiness and contempt; upon which Mansong gave up all
thoughts of taking the town, and prepared to chastise Ali for his
contumacy.
Things were in this situation when, on the 29th of April, a messenger
arrived at Benowm, with the disagreeable intelligence that the Bambarra
army was approaching the frontiers of Ludamar. This threw the whole
country into confusion; and in the afternoon Ali's son, with about twenty
horsemen, arrived at Benowm. He ordered all the cattle to be driven away
immediately, all the tents to be struck, and the people to hold
themselves in readiness to depart at daylight the next morning.
April 30th. At daybreak the whole camp was in motion. The baggage was
carried upon bullocks, the two tent poles being placed one on each side,
and the different wooden articles of the tent distributed in like manner;
the tent cloth was thrown over all, and upon this was commonly placed one
or two women, for the Moorish women are very bad walkers. The king's
favourite concubines rode upon camels, with a saddle of a particular
construction, and a canopy to shelter them from the sun.
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