144 
GOREE. 
turn from Timbuctoo. — On my return from Timbuctoo ! 
And what if I died on the way? this idea so dreadful to a 
man, who in case of this misfortune would leave a sister 
whom he adored in a state of want^ suggested my answer. 
I refused to make any arrangement ; and I determined that, 
were I destined to die, I would at least leave an incontestable 
legacy to the friend of my childhood — the merit of having 
done all without help. I changed my plan, and asked for 
nothing but the hundred francs that were due to me as over- 
seer. I had disdained to receive them before, but my 
poverty and the way in which I was abandoned rendered 
them indispensable. 
Attired as I was in my Arab costume, I did not care 
to ask for letters of introduction to Albreda,* whither I re- 
solved to go, knowing that I should have been refused because 
1 was not dressed in the French fashion. As if my heart had 
ever ceased to beat for my country ! — as if I had been more 
guilty than Aly-Bey, whom government had so warmly pa- 
tronized ! I set off then without passport and without letters 
of recommendation. 1 crossed over to the main-land in a 
canoe, and then pursued my way alone, and with no re- 
source but my hundred francs, towards Goree. Eight 
years before, I had followed the same route, poor, dejected, 
and ready to renounce the scheme which might then per- 
haps have met with encouragement ; I was no richer the 
second time, but I had all the ardour and energy of riper 
age, and I was resolved, were it only out of pride, to un- 
dertake what I had been supposed incapable of accomplish- 
ing. 
On landing at Goree, I called to see nobody, for I 
was afraid of being subjected, in this insular dependency 
of St. Louis, to the same insults with which I had 
been loaded at the capital of our settlements. I took my 
passage in a French brig, which was about to sail for Albreda; 
* A French factory on the Gambia. 
