At one village the inhabitants turned out en masse, prepared to find the white man’s caravan so reduced by sickness as to fall an easy prize. As a preliminary to further depredations one of the villagers seized the bridle of the sergeant’s horse and tried to lead it and its apparently helpless owner inside the village walls. The presentation of the rider’s pistol made him think better of it. At the same time others made as if they would drive away the donkeys. They had reckoned without their host, however. Galvanised into new life, the soldiers promptly loaded their muskets and fixed their bayonets, at sight of which warlike preparations the natives were not slow to quit their prey and retire to a safer distance.
ROCK SCENERY OF THE UPPER SENEGAL.
Having driven their animals across a torrent, the soldiers left certain of their number to guard them, and returned to the village, ready to give its inhabitants a lesson in courtesy and hospitality. At this moment Park arrived on the scene. Ever anxious to avoid bloodshed, he called a palaver, and speedily convinced the chief how insane it would be for him or his people to molest him. At the same time, desirous of leaving a favourable impression behind, in case any sick men might have to repass this way, Park gave the chief a present, with the remark that it was to show he did not come to make war, though if he were attacked he would fight to the last.
Beyond this point the country became picturesque beyond words, resembling in its physical features all sorts of architectural forms, ruined castles, spires, pyramids. One rocky hill looked so like a ruined Gothic abbey that the whole party had to approach close to it to satisfy themselves that its various features were not really what they seemed. Beyond this lusus naturæ a compact mass of red granite stood up bare and gaunt, absolutely destitute of a relieving blade of grass. Here and there were villages clustering in the curved niches of giant precipices, alike secured from tropic blasts and the devastating attacks of men. Everything was rugged and grand—the sterner features only enhanced by the interchange of beautiful fertile hollows and silvery streams winding through the green fields and darker forest tracts.
Similar scenes characterised the whole journey through Konkadu, and the caravan at length reached the borders of Wuladu at the Bafing. The crossing of this river in small rickety canoes was not accomplished without a sad fatality, one of them capsizing with three soldiers, of whom one was drowned.
The people of Wuladu had a notorious reputation as thieves, the justice of which was speedily illustrated by their various more or less successful attempts to lift from the strangers whatever they saw, thus keeping the latter continually on the alert.
After crossing the Bafing, many of the sick who had struggled on bravely so far began to lose all spirit. An unconquerable lassitude at times seized them, and no matter what the danger of the situation, their only desire was to lie down and be left to die. To escape the cajolery and coercion to which they were subjected, they frequently left the track, and gave their leader no end of worry and trouble hunting them up after camp was reached. In this way several men disappeared altogether, bringing up the total losses on the 29th June to nine.
Besides its human cormorants, Wuladu proved to be infested with various beasts of prey, whereby further anxiety and watchfulness were entailed on the harassed and despondent little band, weak, and growing every day weaker.