ost
thou think it wonderful I should wish to rejoin them?" My unfortunate
father, melted to tears with this speech, resolved to send them to the
person from whom he had hired them, for fear he should lose them. If he
had thought like the colonists, he would have put them in irons, and
treated them like rebels; but he was too kind-hearted to resort to such
measures. Some days after, the person to whom the negroes were sent,
brought us two others; but they were so indolent, we found it impossible
to make them work.

CHAPTER XV.

THE COLONY OF SENEGAL AT WAR WITH THE MOORS--THE PICARD FAMILY
OBLIGED TO ABANDON THE ISLAND OF SAFAL--THEY GO TO FIND A HOME AT
ST LOUIS--M. PICARD HIRES AN APARTMENT FOR HIS FAMILY, AND
RETURNS TO SAFAL WITH THE OLDEST OF HIS SONS--THE WHOLE
UNFORTUNATE FAMILY FALL SICK--RETURN OF M. PICARD TO
SENEGAL--DEATH OF YOUNG LAURA--HE WISHES TO RETURN TO HIS
ISLAND--THE CHILDREN OPPOSE IT--HE FALLS DANGEROUSLY ILL--THE
WORTHY PEOPLE OF THE COLONY ARE INDIGNANT AT THE GOVERNOR FOR THE
STATE OF MISERY IN WHICH HE HAS LEFT THE PICARD FAMILY.

We however continued sowing; and more than twenty-four thousand feet of
cotton had already been added to the plantation, when our labours were
stopped by war suddenly breaking out between the colony and the Moors.
We learned that a part of their troops were in the island of Bokos,
situated but a short distance from our own. It was said that the Arab
merchants and the Marabouts, (priests of the Musulmen), who usually
travel to Senegal on affairs of commerce, had been arrested by the
French soldiers. In the fear that the Moors would come to our island and
make us prisoners, we resolved to go to the head-quarters of the
colony, and stay there till the war had ceased. My father caused all his
effects to be transported to the house of the resident at Babaguey,
after which we left our cottage and the island of Safal. Whilst Etienne
slowly rowed the canoe which contained our family, I ran my eye over the
places we were leaving, as if wishing them an eternal adieu. In
contemplating our poor cottage, which we had built with such difficulty,
I could not suppress my tears. All our plantations, thought I, will be
ravaged during our absence; our home will be burned; and we will lose in
an instant that which cost us two years of pain and fatigue. I was
diverted from these reflections by our canoe striking against the shore
of Babaguey. We landed there, and instantly set