320 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA^ 
to do, and which took out of his power the pos- 
sibility of remaining with me any longer. The 
Bangassi prince, who was as anxious as myself 
to proceed, in vain applied to Bojar for an escort, 
and at length told me, he was sorry he was so 
situated, and that he could neither aflTord me any 
assistance, nor evencomm and the possibility of 
his own return to that home which he had but 
a short time before left as the ambassador of its 
chief, who was his own brother. 
Here, then, vanished all hopes of being able to 
pass Kaarta, and with them that of being able 
to accomplish my mission, which had for three 
years occupied every thought, and drawn forth 
every exertion, of which either myself, or those 
with me were capable. 
Although this act of treachery on the part 
of Modiba was in itself more than sufficient 
to make us relinquish every attempt to proceed 
further, and the difficulties, dangers, and priva- 
tions incident to such a service in the interior 
of that country of such a nature that I must 
allow them, as they appear on the face of those 
sheets, to speak for themselves, we would never- 
theless have cheerfully gone on had not an ob- 
stacle so decidedly insurmountable presented 
itself in the orders of Modiba to his son, to bring 
us back by force. But before I decided on re- 
* 
