278 
RESIDENCE AT SOCCATOO. 
with my lonesome and dangerous situation ; a hundred and fifteen 
days' journey from the sea-coast, surrounded by a selfish and cruel 
race of strangers, my only friend and protector mouldering in his 
grave, and myself suffering dreadfully from fever. I felt, indeed, 
as if I stood alone in the world, and earnestly wished I had been 
laid by the side of my dear master : all the trying evils I had en- 
dured never affected me half so much as the bitter reflections of 
that distressing period. After a sleepless night, I went alone to 
the grave, and found that nothing had been done, nor did there 
seem the least inclination on the part of the inhabitants of the 
village to perform their agreement. Knowing it would be useless 
to remonstrate with them, I hired two slaves at Soccatoo the next 
day, who went immediately to work, and the house over the grave 
was finished on the 15th. 
One instance, out of many, of the kindness and affection with 
which my departed master uniformly treated me, occurred at Jenna, 
on our journey into the interior. I was dangerously ill with fever in 
that place, when he generously gave up his own bed to me, and slept 
himself on my mat, watched over me with parental assiduity and 
tenderness, and ministered to all my wants. No one can express 
the joy he felt on my recovery : and who, possessing a spark of 
gratitude, could help returning it but by the most inviolable attach- 
ment and devoted zeal? Jt was his sympathy for me in all my suf- 
ferings that had so powerful a claim on my feelings and affections, 
and taught me to be grateful to him in hours of darkness and dis- 
tress, when pecuniary recompense was entirely out of the question. 
The great sufferings, both mental and bodily, I had undergone 
at the death and burial of my master, and the constant agitation in 
which I was kept, occasioned a rapid increase in my disorder ; and on 
the 16th I could with difficulty crawl round my hut, and was obliged 
to lay myself on my mat, from which I had not strength to arise 
till the 27th; old Pascoe, during that period, being very kind and 
