rinciples that regulated their respective conduct. Possessed of all
these sources of information, how could I fail of procuring correct and
authentic intelligence of the interior of Africa; yet my account of the
two Niles has been doubted by our fire-side critics, and the desultory
intelligence of other travellers, who certainly did not possess those
opportunities of procuring information that I did, has been substituted:
but, notwithstanding this unaccountable scepticism, my uncredited
account of the connection of the two Niles of Africa, continues daily to
receive additional confirmation from all the African travellers
themselves. And thus, TIME, (to use the words of a [j]learned and most
intelligent writer), "which is more obscure in its course than the Nile,
and in its termination than the Niger," is disclosing all these things:
so that I now begin to think that the before-mentioned critics will not
be able much longer to maintain their theoretical hypothesis.[k]

[Footnote j: Vide the Rev. C. C. Colton's Lacon, sect. 587. p. 260,
261.]

[Footnote k: See various letters on Africa, in this work, p. 443.]

The talents, the extraordinary prudence and forbearance, the knowledge
of the Arabic language, and other essential qualifications in an African
traveller, which the ever-to-be-lamented Burckhardt so eminently
possessed, gave me the greatest hopes of his success in his arduous
enterprise, until I discovered, when reading his Travels, that he was
_poor and despised, though a Muselman_.

There is too much reason to apprehend that he was suspected, if not
discovered by the Muselmen, or he would not have been _secluded from
their meals_ and society: the Muselmen never (_sherik taam_) eat or
divide food with those they suspect of deception, nor do they ever
_refuse to partake of food with a Muselman_, unless they do suspect him
of treachery or deception; this principle prevails so universally among
them, that artful and designing people have practised as many deceptions
on the Bedouin under the cloak of hospitality, as are practised in
Christian countries under the cloak of religion! I cannot but suspect,
therefore, from the circumstance before recited, that the Muselmism of
Burckhardt was seriously suspected, and that his companions only waited
a convenient opportunity in the Sahara for executing their revenge on
him for the deception.

The very favourable reception that my account of Marocco met with