gry, he pacified
himself by visiting his children. Apparently he visited his wrath on
them. Isaaco groaned and wondered how many there might be, and in what
score of villages they dwelt apart. But he cheered up when they told
him the legitimate children were six. There had been more, but by an
ancient law of Sego, if a male child was born of one of the King's
wives upon a Friday, its throat was cut immediately. This had
accounted for three. After a decent interval, Isaaco made it known to
the King that he also was very angry, and demanded to have his canoe
and go after Mungo Park. The King then sent for him, apologized for
forgetting all about him, and pointed in justification to the pigs,
which, like a good father, he had brought along to please the
children. He himself could hardly keep his eyes off such fat and
unusually happy creatures. The next day Isaaco pressed the bargain,
and, though it was Friday, steered away in the King's canoe for
Sansanding, where he had parted from Mungo Park. And then, with the
prospect of hundreds of miles in hostile country before him, he had a
stroke of good fortune; for in the next village of Medina, whom should
he run against but Amady Fatouma! As one might expect, Isaaco nailed
him to the spot with a hundred questions. Poor Amady began to weep.
"They are all dead," he sobbed. Isaaco demanded to know when and where
and why. "They are all dead," the guide repeated. "They are lost for
ever. It is no use asking. It is no good looking for what is
irrecoverably lost." Like a sensible man, Isaaco checked the ardor of
his curiosity. It certainly was hopeless to ply Amady with questions;
his tears threatened to flood the Niger; it was not safe to stay
there. So Isaaco gave him a day or two to subside, and arranged a
meeting higher up the river.

VIII

Amady's tale has often been printed, and there is no need here to
repeat anything but essentials; his padding is even more woolly than
Isaaco's. In the great canoe,[6] which Isaaco had helped to load
before departing, Mungo Park rowed away on November 17th, 1805, with
the survivors of his company of forty, namely, four white men and five
Negroes, including Amady, for crew. From the very outset the voyage
proved unpropitious. Almost every village they passed on the river
bank came out against them in canoes, armed with bows and arrows,
pikes and assegais. Each member of the crew kept fifteen muskets in
action; to kill and kill was the only