30^ THE AFRICAN ASSOCIATION. 
obtaining his instructions and letters of recom- 
mendation, Ledyard sailed from London on the 
30th of June I788, and arrived in 36 days at 
Alexandria. Proceeding to Cairo, where he ar- 
rived August the 19th, he visited the slave-mar- 
kets, and conversed with the travelling merchants 
of the caravans. These sources of information, 
generally neglected by travellers, enabled him to 
obtain, at very small expense, a better idea of the 
African nations, and of their trade, of the position 
of places, of the nature of the country, the man- 
ner of travelling, &c. than would have been pos- 
sible by any other method. When he had an- 
nounced to the Association that his next despatch 
would be dated from Sennaar, in consequence of 
repeated vexation from the caravan delaying its 
departure, he was seized with a bilious complaint, 
which, being incautiously treated at first, frustrat- 
ed the skill of the best physicians of Cairo, and 
the attention of M. Rosetti, the Venetian consul. 
Though the Lower Egypt, having been often 
explored, presented no new field of observation, 
yet many of Ledyard's remarks cannot fail to im- 
press us strongly with the original power of his 
genius. Of these remarks the most original and 
striking are subjoined. 
Of the Egyptians, — The villages are wretched 
assemblages of mud huts huddled together, full of 
dust, lice, fleas, bed-bugs, flies, and all the curses 
