e journeyed through the forest, passing occasionally
along the beds of dried-up streams and across lonely tracts of wood
which seemed never to have been penetrated, save by the solitary path
we were treading. As we were anxious to be speedily reunited with our
companions, our steps were not hastened; so that, at the end of the
third day, we had not advanced more than thirty miles from the scene
of capture, when we reached a small _Mandingo_ village, recently built
by an upstart trader, who, with the common envy and pride of his
tribe, gave our _Fullah_ caravan a frigid reception. A single hut was
assigned to the chief and myself for a dwelling, and the rage of the
Mahometan may readily be estimated by an insult that would doom him to
sleep beneath the same roof with a Christian!

I endeavored to avert an outburst by apprising the Mandingo that I was
a bosom friend of Ali-Ninpha, his countryman and superior, and begged
that he would suffer the "head-man" of our caravan to dwell in a
house _alone_. But the impudent _parvenu_ sneered at my advice; "he
knew no such person as Ali-Ninpha, and cared not a snap of his finger
for a Fullah chief, or a beggarly white man!"

My body-servant was standing by when this tart reply fell from the
Mandingo's lips, and, before I could stop the impetuous youth, he
answered the trader with as gross an insult as an African can utter.
To this the Mandingo replied by a blow over the boy's shoulders with
the flat of a cutlass; and, in a twinkling, there was a general shout
for "rescue" from all my party who happened to witness the scene.
Fullahs, Mandingoes, and Soosoos dashed to the spot, with spears,
guns, and arrows. The Fullah chief seized my double-barrelled gun and
followed the crowd; and when he reached the spot, seeing the trader
still waving his cutlass in a menacing manner, he pulled both triggers
at the inhospitable savage. Fortunately, however, it was always my
custom on arriving in _friendly_ towns, to remove the copper caps from
my weapons, so that, when the hammers fell, the gun was silent. Before
the Fullah could club the instrument and prostrate the insulter, I
rushed between them to prevent murder. This I was happy enough to
succeed in; but I could not deter the rival tribe from binding the
brute, hand and foot, to a post in the centre of his town, while the
majority of our caravan cleared the settlement at once of its fifty or
sixty inhabitants.

Of course, we appropriated