316 
FROM ZEGZEG TO BADAGRY. 
I left, and obtained from me a promise to return to him after having 
visited my own country. He showed me various patterns of silk 
for a tohe I was to bring from England for him ; and said, as I 
was going out of the apartment, “ Your countrymen may come 
here, and build a town, and trade up and down the Niger: we 
know now that they are good men, but we did not think so when 
the white men who were drowned at Boussa were in the country.” 
He kept me with him till nine o’clock in the morning, when, on 
going to my hut, I found a party of merchants waiting for me, whom 
the kind old chief had detained on purpose that they might accom- 
pany me to Khiama (which had been concealed from me entirely), 
the roads to that city being infested with bands of robbers. Crossed 
the river Auli at twelve at noon. The current being very rapid, 
we had extreme difficulty in getting over ; but no accident oc- 
curred, and we fixed our tent on the south bank of the river. In 
the evening the mallam, or priest of the merchants, came to my 
tent, and gave me the following account of Mungo Park and his 
unfortunate companions : 
“ You are not, Christian, the first white man I have seen. I 
knew three of your countrymen very well. They arrived at Youri 
at the fast of the Rhamadan (April). I went with two of them three 
times to the sultan. The person that appeared to be the head of 
the party made the sultan a valuable present on one of his visits, 
which consisted of a handsome gun, a cutlass, a large piece of scarlet 
cloth, a great quantity of beads, several knives, and a looking-glass. 
He was a very tall and powerful man, with long arms and large 
hands, on which he wore leather gloves reaching above the elbows. 
W ore a white straw hat, long coat, full white trousers, and red 
leather boots. Had black hair and eyes, with a bushy beard and 
mustachios of the same colour. The sultan of Youri advised your 
countrymen to proceed the remainder of the way on land, as the 
passage by water was rendered dangerous by numerous sunken rocks 
