ur fourth proof
"bitters!"

CHAPTER XIX.

The day was cloudy, but our trotting caravan did not exceed twenty
miles in travel. In Africa things are done leisurely, for neither
life, speculation, nor ambition is so exciting or exacting as to make
any one in a hurry. I do not recollect to have ever seen an individual
_in haste_ while I dwelt in the torrid clime. The shortest existence
is long enough, when it is made up of sleep, slave-trade, and
mastication.

* * * * *

At sunset no town was in sight; so it was resolved to bivouac in the
forest on the margin of a beautiful brook, where rice, tea, and beef,
were speedily boiled and smoking on the mats. When I was about to
stretch my weary limbs for the night on the ground, my boy gave me
another instance of Ibrahim's true and heedful hospitality, by
producing a grass hammock he had secretly ordered to be packed among
my baggage. With a hammock and a horse I was on velvet in the forest!

Delicious sleep curtained my swinging couch between two splendid
cotton-woods until midnight, when the arm of our Fullah chief was
suddenly laid on my shoulder with a whispered call to prepare for
defence or flight. As I leaped to the ground the caravan was already
afoot, though the profoundest silence prevailed throughout the wary
crowd. The watch announced strangers in our neighborhood, and two
guides had been despatched immediately to reconnoitre the forest.
This was all the information they could give me.

The native party was fully prepared and alert with spears, lances,
bows and arrows. I commanded my own men to re-prime their muskets,
pistols, and rifles; so that, when the guides returned with a report
that the intruders were supposed to form a party of fugitive slaves,
we were ready for our customers.

Their capture was promptly determined. Some proposed we should delay
till daylight; but Ali-Ninpha, who was a sagacious old fighter,
thought it best to complete the enterprise by night, especially as the
savages kept up a smouldering fire in the midst of their sleeping
group, which would serve to guide us.

Our little band was immediately divided into two squads, one under the
lead of the Fullah, and the other commanded by Ali-Ninpha. The Fullah
was directed to make a circuit until he got in the rear of the slaves,
while Ali-Ninpha, at a concerted signal, began to advance towards them
from our camp. Half an hour probably elapsed before