246 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. Chap. LXXIX. 
While detained here the remainder of the day, I 
had the pleasure of meeting, among the people who 
crossed over to us from the island, an old man who 
had a very lively remembrance of Mungo Park, and 
who gave me an accurate description of his tall com- 
manding figure, and his large boat. He related, be- 
sides, the manner in which the Tawarek of the tribe 
of the rde-Miisa, the name of whose present chief is 
El Getega, attacked that mysterious voyager near 
Ans6ngho, where the river is hemmed in by rapids, 
but without being able to inflict any harm upon him, 
while the intrepid Scotchman shot one of his pur- 
suers, and caused two to be drowned in the river. 
It was altogether a fine camping-ground, the talha 
and siwak being thickly interwoven with creeping 
plants ; but a heavy thunder-storm, accompanied with 
rain, which lasted almost the whole of the night, ren- 
dered us rather uncomfortable. Besides this circum- 
stance, the fact that the people of the Sheikh could 
only with difiiculty be induced to forego the com- 
panionship of our guide, lost us here the best half of 
the day. But I collected a good deal of valuable in- 
formation, especially with regard to the chief settle- 
ments of the independent Songhay, as, the famous 
towns of Dargol, Tera, and Kulman, situated between 
the river and our former route through Yagha and 
Libtako, which I shall give in the Appendix,* 
At length I succeeded, at a rather late hour in 
* See Appendix V. 
