having grass and shrubs growing
about it, and a small brook of water. For a week or thereabouts,
after arriving in the neighbourhood of this place, the party
concealed themselves amongst the hills and bushes, lying in wait for
the inhabitants, when they seized upon a woman with a child in her
arms, and two children (boys), whom they found walking in the evening
near the town.

During the next four or five days, the party remained concealed, when
one evening, as they were all lying on the ground, a large party of
negroes, consisting of forty or fifty made their appearance, armed
with daggers, and bows and arrows, who surrounded and took them all
prisoners, without the least resistance being attempted, and carried
them into the town; tying the hands of some, and driving the whole
party before them. During the night above one hundred negroes kept
watch over them. The next day they were taken before the governor or
chief person, named Muhamoud, a remarkably ugly negro, who ordered
that they should all be imprisoned. The place of confinement was a
mere mud wall, about six feet high, from whence they might readily
have escaped, though strongly guarded, if the Moors had been
enterprising, but they were a cowardly set. Here they were kept three
or four days, for the purpose, as it afterwards appeared, of being
sent forward to Timbuctoo, which Adams concluded to be the residence
of the king of the country. At Soudenny, the houses have only a
ground floor, and are without furniture or utensils, except wooden
bowls, and mats made of grass. They never make fires in their houses.
After remaining about four days at Soudenny, the prisoners were sent
to Timbuctoo, under an escort of about sixty armed men, having about
eighteen camels and dromedaries.

During the first ten days they proceeded eastward, at the rate of
about fifteen to twenty miles a day, the prisoners and most of the
negroes walking, the officers riding, two upon each camel or
dromedary. As the prisoners were all impressed with the belief that
they were going to execution, several of the Moors attempted to
escape, and in consequence, after a short consultation, fourteen were
put to death by being beheaded, at a small village at which they then
arrived, and as a terror to the rest, the head of one of them was
hung round the neck of a camel for three days, until it became so
putrid, that they were obliged to remove it. At this village, the
natives wore gold rings in the