XIV 
PREFACE. 
"It was on the 25tli of March/^ he says^ "that I 
heard accidentally from a Shereef, whom I met on the 
road, the sad news that my companion had died, about 
twenty days before, in a place called Ungurutua, six days' 
jom'ney before reaching Kuka, when I hurried on as 
fast as my horse would allow in order to secure his 
papers and effects from being lost or destroyed. 
"I now shall send you a short account of Mr. 
Richardson's death, as far as I was able to make out 
the circumstances from his servant. Mr. Richardson 
is said to have left Zinder in the best health, though it 
is probable that he felt already very weak while he was 
there : for, according to the man whom he hired in 
Zinder as his dragoman, he had, while there, a dream 
that a bird came down from the sky, and when sitting 
on the branch of a tree, the branch broke off and the 
bird fell down to the earth. Mr. Richardson being very 
much affected by this dream, went to a man who from a 
huge book explains to the people their dreams. On 
the man's telling him that his dream meant death, he 
seems really to have anticipated that he would not reach 
the principal object of his journey. But, nevertheless, he 
seemed to be quite well, mounting even the horse 
which the Governor of Zinder had made him a present 
of, as far as Minyo, when he begged the Governor to 
give him a camel, which he mounted thenceforward. 
He felt notoriously ill in Kadalebria, eleven or twelve 
days' journey from here (Kuka) ; and he is said by his 
servant to have taken different kinds of medicines, one 
after the other : from which you may conclude that he 
