232 RESIDENCE AT SOCCATOO AND MAGARIA. 
the direction, and if it was really from Lord Bathurst. I told 
him of the strange conversation of Ben Gumso and Sidi Sheik. 
He said, certainly such was not the message of the sultan, but an 
addition of their own ; the sultan never sent to ask if I was really 
a messenger of the king of England. 
At 3 P. M. my servant Bichard arrived with my baggage and 
Pascoe. Bichard had been very ill on the road, but had re- 
ceived every attention from the people in the different towns in 
which he had halted, and also from the messenger which the sultan 
of Kano had sent to accompany him, who had also given him five 
bullocks, and four men to accompany him and carry the baggage, 
and a camel which Hadji Salah had bought for me, for GO, 000 
cowries. The price of the bullocks was 12,000 each, and the 
pay of the men 4,000 cowries each. Bichard’s account of Pascoe 
was as follows: — The second day after Pascoe’s first desertion, he, 
though very ill, secured all my baggage and goods in a secure room 
in the house, and went and gave Hadji Salah the key, declaring 
he must be answerable to me if any thing was lost, as he was going 
to bring Pascoe back. Hadji Salah advised him much not to go ; 
but Richard, with the Arab servant whom I had left sick, and who 
was now recovered, mounting the two horses, took the road to 
Quorra, the capital of Zegzeg. When they arrived at the town of 
Aushur, in Zegzeg, they were informed by a person who had just 
arrived that Pascoe had been firing a pistol in the market-place in 
the town of Roma, a day’s journey ahead. They arrived at Roma, 
where the people informed them that Pascoe had been there, but 
had gone away. Richard stopped there that night, as the horses 
were unable to proceed. A short time after halting, some people 
came and informed him that he (Pascoe) was stopping in a woman’s 
house near the market-place. Richard immediately sent people to 
the gates of the town to stop him, if he attempted to depart. 
