d not think it
prudent to eat any part of an animal so much detested by the Moors, and
therefore replied that he never touched such food. The hog was then
untied, in the hopes that it would run at the stranger, the Moors
believing that a great enmity subsists between hogs and Christians. In
this, however, they were disappointed, for the animal no sooner regained
his liberty than he began to attack indiscriminately every person who
came in his way, and at last took shelter under the couch upon which the
king was sitting.

Park was after this conducted to a hut, where he found another wild
hog--tied there to a stick for the purpose of annoying him. It
attracted a number of boys, who amused themselves by beating it with
sticks, till they so irritated the animal that it ran and bit at every
person within reach.

A number of people came in and made him take off his stockings to
exhibit his feet, and then his jacket and waistcoat to show them how his
clothes were put off and on.

Day after day he was treated in the same manner. He was also compelled
to undertake various offices. First, he was told to shave the head of
one of the young princes, but, unaccustomed to use a razor, he soon cut
the boy's skin, on seeing which the king ordered him to desist.

On the 18th his black servant, Johnson, was brought in as as a prisoner
before Ali by some Moors, who had also seized a bundle of his clothes
left at Jarra. Of these Ali took possession, and Park was unable to
obtain even a clean shirt or anything he required. The Moors next
stripped him of his gold, his watch, the amber he had remaining and one
of his pocket compasses. Fortunately he had hidden the other in the
sand near his hut. This, with the clothes on his back, was the only
thing Ali now left him.

Ali, on examining the compass, wished to know why the small needle
always pointed to the Great Desert. Park, unwilling to inform him of
the exact truth, replied that his mother lived far beyond the sands of
the Sahara, and that while she was alive the piece of iron would always
point that way and serve as a guide to conduct him to her. Ali,
suspecting that there was something magical in it, was afraid of keeping
so dangerous an instrument in his possession.

The Moors now held a council to determine what should be done with the
stranger. Some proposed that he should be put to death, others that he
should only lose his right-hand, and one of Ali's sons came to