Three weeks go by, but no Lefebure! So I naturally avail myself of the delay, for pushing on a bit into Darfour; when, lo and behold! just like my luck, on the ninth day, as I am entering the outskirts of El-Obeid in Kordofan, I am met by a predatory tribe of Changallas! They surround me; I try to defend myself, and a great burly rascal jumps at my throat, and trips me up. I feel that I am being strangled by him; I deal him a blow in the stomach with my fist, and he tumbles backwards; only, as his hand still grips my throat, he drags me down with him; the others attack me at the same time, and I am captured! My blow appears to have been the death of the negro--which did not mend matters for me. They thrust me, bound fast like a bundle of wood, into a sort of shed, after robbing me of all my gold. I was carefully guarded. At the end of eight days I said to myself, 'Barbassou, your ship lies in the harbour of Aden; you have business to attend to, and you won't get out of your present scrape without conciliatory negotiations. You must resign yourself to a sacrifice!' I send for the chief, and offer him as my ransom a cask containing fifty bottles of rum, ten muzzle-loading guns, and two complete uniforms of an English general. This offer tempts him; but as I ask him first of all to have me safe conducted to the King of Nubia, he answers that if once I got there I should send him about his business. They confined me in a pit, where I had only rice and bananas to eat, to which I am not at all partial. As to the women, they are monkeys. However, after four months of negotiations we came to an agreement that I should be conveyed back to Sennaar, where I engaged upon my word of honour to give guarantees. I set off, still bound fast, with ten men to guard me. After a fortnight we arrive in the town. I enquire for Lefebure.--No Lefebure. I then go to the king's palace--but he had just started off on a week's hunting expedition. However, I find the sheik who was in command of the town, and relate my difficulty to him. He informs me that the treasury is closed. I tell my guards that they can return, and that I will have my ransom sent from Aden, but that does not content them; one of them seizes hold of me by the arm, but I gave him a good hiding. Finally the sheik furnishes me with an escort, and I return to Gondar. The English had gone back, and I started on my voyage across to Aden. When I reached Adoua, where I had left my friend Lefebure, I asked for him. Again no Lefebure! However, I had the luck to find his Arabian sweetheart, whom I questioned about him. Her reply is, that the very day I left him, the stupid fellow went and caught a sunstroke, of which he died the same day. I inquire after my baggage and my camels.--No baggage, no camels! They had all been forwarded to the Governor of Aden.