Chap. LIII. 
PROJECTS. 
7 
for upwards of twenty months I had regarded as my 
head quarters, and as a place upon which, in any 
emergency, I might safely fall back upon ; for al- 
though I even then expected that I should be obliged 
to return to this place once more, and even of my 
own free will made my plans accordingly, yet I was 
convinced that, in the course of my proceedings, I 
should not be able to derive any further aid from the 
friendship and protection of the sheikh of B6rnu, and 
I likewise fully understood that circumstances might 
oblige me to make my return by the western coast. 
For I never formed such a scheme voluntarily, as I 
regarded it of much greater importance for the go- 
vernment in whose service I had the honour to be 
employed, to survey the course of the great river from 
Timbuktu downwards, than to attempt, if I should 
have succeeded in reaching that place, to come out on 
the other side of the continent, while I was fully aware 
that, even under the most favourable circumstances, 
in going, I should be unable to keep along the river, 
on account of its being entirely in the hands of the 
lawless tribes of Tawarek, whom I should not be able 
to pass before I had obtained the protection of a 
powerful chief in those quarters. Meanwhile, well 
aware from my own experience how far man gene- 
rally remains in arrear of his projects, in my letter to 
Government I represented my principal object as only 
to reach the Niger at the town of Say, while all 
beyond that was extremely uncertain. 
My little troop consisted of the following indivi- 
B 4 
