90 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. 
6th, and all things being ready, we commenced 
moving from Madina, that nest of thieves ; but 
the front division had scarcely left the ground, 
when an immense mob collected, in order 
to plunder if possible. Messrs. Dochard and 
Partarrieau remained with the camel division, 
which was to bring up the rear, and had much 
difficulty in keeping the natives from actually 
forcing some things out of our men's hands. A 
small medicine-chest was purloined by one of 
them, who had run some distance with it before 
it was missed. Private Terrier overtook and 
knocked the fellow down, and would have shot 
some others who came to his assistance, had not 
Mr. Dochard prevented him by laying hold of 
his firelock. Such a barefaced and determined 
set of thieves we never met. 
We travelled se. and by e. thirteen miles, to 
the village of Bambako. The path this day was 
over a hard yellow clay soil, mixed with small 
quartz pebbles, and much broken into deep ruts 
by the rains j the whole distance, to within a 
quarter of a mile, covered with loose brushwood 
and a few large trees of the acacia species. 
Corporal Pickard, a European, was so ill as 
to be unable to walk, and private Richmond, a 
native soldier, was nearly as bad ; they were 
carried forward on two of the officers' horses. 
Bambako is a very miserable village indeed, not 
