NEGRO ACCOUNTS OF MUNGO PARK. 
303 
countries inhabited by the Pagans, for their long hair betrays 
them, and from the antipathy which the worshippers of 
fetishes bear towards the Mahometans, they are hable to be 
made prisoners : it is therefore very difficult to collect positive 
information concerning the Pagans. The inhabitants of 
Fouta Diallon have a much more regular intercourse with 
the people of Kankan, and especially with those of Sego or 
Tombuctou. Two Poulas who had been to this last city, gave 
me an account of the route they had followed. On quitting 
Fouta Diallon, they first entered Balia, where they embarked 
on the Niger to proceed to Bourré, the gold of which is of a 
very red colour, and more valued than that of Ouasselon, 
which is paler ; they then crossed the Mandingo country 
to Sego ; the journey occupied from three to four months. 
These traders furnished me with some details respecting 
Mungo Park, of whom they had heard, but their contradic- 
tory reports were far from satisfying me ; for one of them 
assured me that this celebrated traveller quitted Tombuctoo 
with a caravan ; and the other declared, on the contrary, 
that two of the five persons whom he took with him to Sego, 
had perished there, and that he, with his three companions, 
had constructed a canoe, of which no tidinsfs had since been 
heard. This last statement coincides the more closely of the 
two, with that of the Negro sent by the English to ascertain 
the fate of their unfortunate countryinan. J\ly two travellers 
agreed better on the course of the Niger, for they both 
