Accordingly, in the autumn of 1821, the travellers left Scotland for London, with the view of then commencing their expedition to the interior of Africa. In a letter to a friend dated London, September 1, 1821, Clapperton says, he had been supplied with arms, and had got instruments of his own choosing, and mentions the sextant as the most complete he had ever seen; he states to his friend that he had had several agreeable interviews with his uncle; and adds, that he was just on the eve of setting off for Falmouth. His next letter to the same gentleman was written at Mourzuk, May 20, 1822, in which he tells his friend that his health had continued vigorous, although the heat was 106 degrees of Fahrenheit, in the shade; and says, that Oudney was much admired by the ladies for the blackness of his beard, and himself for the strength of his mustachoes. Oudney in a postscript on the same sheet, says, “Clapperton is just the old man. He is a strange-looking figure with his long sandy coloured beard and mustachoes. You would smile were you to see him smoking his pipe, and calling to his servant, _Waddy ama simpri_, or fill my pipe.” In a subsequent letter from the same place, to the same correspondent, Clapperton speaks in praise of the Tuaricks, whom by this time, (Sept. 1822) he had visited. He says they are a fine warlike race, who fear nothing but the devil and his agents, that they offered to convey both him and Oudney to Timbuctoo; and adds, “They wished me much to take a wife amongst them, but I said she would have to go to Bournou and England with me, which got me out of the scrape with a good grace, as their women never leave their country, and those who marry them must stay with them.” And the fact is that our hero very soon found himself as much at home among the wild Tauricks, who traverse the sandy deserts of Sahaara, as he had formerly done among the Indians who dwell in the midst of the forests of Canada.