nds
of their spears, and muttering something by way of a charm. When this
ceremony was ended, all the people belonging to the coffle sprang up
and, without taking a formal farewell of their friends, set forward.

Another ceremony was performed when the party stopped to dine on the
road. Before commencing the meal, when each person was seated with
their quotas arranged before him in small gourd shells, the schoolmaster
offered up a short prayer that God and the holy prophet might preserve
them from robbers and all bad people, that their provisions might never
fail nor their limbs become fatigued.

After stopping at the town of Kenytakooro till the 22nd of April, the
coffle commenced the journey through the Jallonka wilderness. The
country was very beautiful and abounded with birds and deer; but so
anxious were they to push on, that they made fully thirty miles that
day. Fatigued as they were, they were frequently disturbed in the night
by the howling of wild beasts and the bites of ants.

On setting out in the morning Nealee, one of Kafa's female slaves
refused to drink the gruel offered her. The country was extremely wild
and rocky, and Park began to fear that he should be unable to keep up
with the party. Others, however, suffered more than he did. The poor
female slave began to lag behind; and, complaining dreadfully of pains
in her legs, her load was taken from her and given to another, and she
was ordered to keep in front of the coffle.

As the party were resting near a rivulet a hive of bees was discovered
in a hollow tree, and some of the people were proceeding to obtain the
honey, when an enormous swarm flew out, and, attacking every one, made
them fly in every direction. Park being the first to take alarm, was
the only person who escaped with impunity. The slaves had, however,
left their bundles behind them, and to obtain them it was necessary to
set the grass on fire to the east of the hive, when the wind driving the
flames along, the men pushed through the smoke and recovered their
bundles. They also brought with them poor Nealee, whom they found lying
by the rivulet stung in the most dreadful manner. On her refusing to
proceed further, she was cruelly beaten with a whip, when, suddenly
starting up, she walked for four or five hours; she then made an attempt
to run away, but, from weakness, fell to the ground. Though unable to
rise, the whip was a second time applied, when Kafa ordered that she