229 
was to affect me most deeply, as the fate and welfare of 
my people interested me as much as my own. 
I went into the boat with a broken heart, hearing the 
cries of some of my people, and got down the river. My 
rage and despair was only interrupted by the passage 
over the bar of the river, where the motion of the water 
caused me a severe sea-sickness. Exhausted by this vio- 
lent moral and physical exhaustion, I arrived, almost in 
a senseless state, at the corvette, which was lying at an- 
chor, at some distance from the bar. I was taken into 
the cabin, and went to-bed. 
In this manner I left the empire of Morocco. I sup- 
press now the reflections which they excited; perhaps 
one day I may have an occasion to express them. 
CHAPTER XIX. 
On the ancient Atlantis. — On the existence of a mediterranean sea in the cen- 
tre of Africa. 
Before I went to visit the western part of Africa, 
a diligent study of the physical geography of this part 
of the world, compared with the ideas which tradition 
and history have left us on the great revolutions of the 
globe, together with the informations given by some 
geographers and travellers of latter times, on the in- 
terior part of this continent, suggested me almost at the 
same time two ideas, which, emanating from the same 
principle, and affording to each other a mutual support, 
seem both to concur in establishing our belief of two 
great facts; 
