INTERIOR OF AFRICA. 113 
and treacherous race of people ; and take every opportunity of 
cheating and plundering the credulous and unsuspecting Ne- 
groes. But their manners and general habits of life will be best 
explained, as incidents occur in the course of my narrative. 
On my arrival at Jarra, I obtained a lodging at the house 
of Daman Jumma, a Gambia Slatee. This man had formerly 
borrowed goods from Dr. Laidley, who had given me an order 
for the money, to the amount of six slaves ; and though the 
debt was of five years standing, he readily acknowledged it, 
and promised me what money he could raise. He was afraid, 
he said, in his present situation, he could not pay more than 
two slaves' value. He gave me his assistance however in ex- 
changing my beads and amber for gold, which was a more 
portable article, and more easily concealed from the Moors. 
The difficulties we had already encountered, the unsettled 
state of the country, and, above all, the savage and overbearing 
deportment of the Moors, had so completely frightened my at- 
tendants, that they declared they would rather relinquish every 
claim to reward, than proceed one step farther to the eastward. 
Indeed the danger they incurred of being seized by the Moors, 
and sold into slavery, became every day more apparent ; and 
I could not condemn their apprehensions. In this situation, 
deserted by my attendants, and reflecting that my retreat was 
cut off by the war behind me, and that a Moorish country of 
ten days' journey lay before me, I applied to Daman to obtain 
permission from Ali, the chief or sovereign of Ludamar, that I 
might pass through his country unmolested, into Bambarra ; 
and I hired one of Daman's slaves to accompany me thither, as 
Q 
