190 CAILLIE. 



left Africa, but returned m the end of 1818. Finding at 

 St. Louis a party setting out with supplies for Major Gray, 

 he joined them, and arrived at Bondou, but only in time to 

 witness and share the failure of that expedition. 



M. Caillie's health having suftered severely from the 

 fatigues of this journey, he returned and spent some years 

 in France ; but in 1824 he repaired again to the Senegal, 

 and resumed his schemes of discovery. With the aid of 

 M. Roger, the governor, he passed nearly a year among 

 the tribe of Moors called Braknas, and conceived himself to 

 have acquired such a knovpledge of the manners and reli- 

 gion of that race as vpould fit him for travelling in the cha- 

 racter of a converted Mohammedan on a pilgrimage to 

 Mecca. Having returned to St. Louis, he solicited from 

 two successive governors the sum of 6000 francs, with 

 which he undertook to reach Timbuctoo ; but a deaf ear 

 was turned to his application. He then repaired to Sierra 

 Leone, and made the same request to General Turner and 

 Sir Neil Campbell ; but these officers could not be expected, 

 without authority from home, to bestow such a sum on a 

 foreigner possessing no very striking qualifications. They 

 received him kindly, however, and gave him appointments 

 out of which he saved about SOL ; when, stimulated by the 

 prize of 1000 francs offered by the French Society of Geo- 

 graphy to any individual who should succeed in reaching 

 Timbuctoo, he formed the spirited resolution to undertake 

 this arduous journey with only the resources which the 

 above slender sum could command. 



On the 19th April, 1827, M. Cailli^ set out from Ka- 

 kundy with a small caravan of Mandingoes. His route lay 

 through the centre of the kingdom of J'oota Jallo, in a line 

 intermediate between its two capitals of Teemboo and Laby. 

 This was a very elevated district, watered by the infant 

 streams of the Senegal and Niger, which descend from a 

 still higher region towards the south. It was a laborious 

 route to travel, being steep, rocky, traversed by numerous 

 ravines and torrents, and often obstructed by dense forests. 

 It presented, however, many highly-picturesque views ; 

 while the copious rivulets diffused a rich verdure over exten- 

 sive tracts, on which the Foulahs fed numerous flocks, 

 which, with a little rice they contrived to raise, sufficed for 

 their subsistence. Fruits of various kinds, yams, and other 



