458 
TRAVELS m AFRICA. Chap. LXVII. 
torily and most auspiciously, as it seemed. For I had 
not only succeeded in reaching in safety this city, 
but I was also well received on the whole ; and the 
only question seemed to be how I was to return home 
by the earliest opportunity and the safest route. But 
all my prospects changed with the first of the ensuing 
month, when the difficulties of my situation increased, 
and all hopes of a speedy departure appeared to be at 
an end. For in the afternoon of the first of October, a 
considerable troop of armed men, mustering about 
twenty muskets, arrived from Hamda-Allahi, the resi- 
dence of the shekho A'hmedu ben A'hmedu, to whose 
nominal sway the town of Timbuktu and the whole 
province has been subjected since the conquest of the 
town in the beginning of the year 1826. These people 
brought with them an order from the capital to drive 
me out of the town ; and Ham mad i, the nephew and 
rival of the Sheikh El Bakay, feeling himself strength- 
ened by the arrival of such a force, availed himself 
of so excellent an opportunity of enhancing his in- 
fluence, and, in consequence, issued a proclamation 
to the inhabitants of the town, commanding them, 
in stringent terms, to attend to the orders of the 
emir, and in the event of my offering resistance, not 
even to spare my life. 
There can scarcely be any doubt that my protector, 
as far as a man of a rather weak character was capable 
of any firm resolution, had intended to send me off 
by the very first opportunity that should offer ; but 
the order issued by the emir of Hamda-Allahi (to 
