g us, but these rapacious creatures wanted us to give them every
thing we had. The sailors, who were loaded with what they had pillaged from
us, were more fortunate than we, a handkerchief procured them a glass of
water or milk, or a handful of millet. They had more money than we, and
gave pieces of five or ten francs for things, for which we offered twenty
sous. These Mooresses, however, did not know the value of money, and
delivered more to a person who gave them two or three little pieces of ten
sous, than to him who offered them a crown of six livres. Unhappily we had
no small money, and I drank more than one glass of milk at the rate of six
livres per glass.

We bought, at a dearer price than we could have bought gold, two goats
which we boiled by turns in a little metal kettle belonging to the
Mooresses. We took out the pieces half boiled, and devoured them like
savages. The sailors, for whom we had bought these goats, scarcely left the
officers their share, but seized what they could, and still complained of
having had too little. I could not help speaking to them as they deserved.
They consequently had a spite against me and threatened me more than once.

At four o'clock in the afternoon, after we had passed the greatest heat of
the day in the disgusting tents of the Mooresses, stretched by their side,
we heard a cry of "_To arms, to arms_!" I had none; I took a large knife
which I had preserved, and which was as good as a sword. We advanced
towards some Moors and Negroes, who had already disarmed several of our
people whom they had found reposing on the sea shore. The two parties were
on the point of coming to blows, when we understood that these men came to
offer to conduct us to Senegal.

Some timid persons distrusted their intentions. For myself, as well as the
most prudent among us, I thought that we should trust entirely to men who
came in a small number, and who, in fact, confided their own safety to us;
though it would have been so easy for them, to come in sufficiently large
numbers to overwhelm us. We did so, and experience proved that we did well.

We set off with our Moors who were very well made and fine men of their
race; a Negro, their slave was one of the handsomest men I have ever seen.
His body of a fine black, was clothed in a blue dress which he had received
as a present. This dress became him admirably, his gait was proud and his
air inspired confidence. The distrust of some of our Negroes,