22 
RETURN TO ST. LOUIS. 
no one durst insult us. This I soon perceived on meeting again 
with some negroes with whom I had previously quarrelled, 
when one of them said to his companion : " Do not insult 
this white man, for he is the king's friend." 
At the moment of our departure, the minister of the 
Damel whispered to our interpreter, that the king intended, 
as soon as he could, to give me a slave : perhaps this intelli- 
gence was only a pretext of the minister's to extract a present 
from me ; I did not reckon upon it, not believing the truth 
of the promise, and I was right. 
I succeeded without much difficulty in procuring a good 
horse at the rate of three hundred francs. This bargain 
finished, we repaired to the banks of the river, and again 
entered our boat without receiving the least insult from the 
unruly soldiery who filled Gandiolle. 
On my return to St. Louis, I was incessantly engaged 
till the 28th of January, in preparations for my enterprise, 
using, however, the greatest circumspection. 
M. Fleuriau had authorised me to take from the 
government stores every thing necessary for my expedition. 
My applications to the governor were very moderate : I did 
not wish to be encumbered with much baggage, which would 
but have excited the rapacity of the Negroes. It was known 
at Senegal that the failure of the late English attempts to 
penetrate into the interior of Africa, was owing to the notion 
which the Negroes had formed, that these travellers carried 
( 
