Chap. LXI. UNLUCKY FATE OF A LETTER 
297 
become fully aware of his intriguing character ; and 
perhaps it was well that it was so, or I might not have 
trusted myself into his hands. However, by de- 
grees, I became heartily tired of the long delay which 
he, together with 'All el A'geren, forced upon me. 
I had long prepared everything for my outset, and on 
the 20th I finished a letter, which I addressed to Her 
Majesty's consul at Tripoli, and inclosed it under cover 
to my friend 'Abd el Kader dan Taffa, in Sokoto, and 
decided on intrusting it to the care of Dahome, the 
man who had accompanied me from Gando, and who 
was to return home from this place, beyond which 
he enjoyed no authority ; but unfortunately he took 
so little care of the parcel on his journey, when he 
had to cross a great many swollen rivers, that the 
outer envelope was destroyed entirely, so that the 
learned Piillo, not knowing what to make of a letter 
in a writing which he did not understand, left it with 
the bearer, with whom I found it on my return to 
Gando, in the middle of the following year. He had 
worn it as a sort of charm in his cap, while I expected 
that it had long reached Europe and informed my 
friends of my latest proceedings. 
