23d.—To my great joy I entered the gates of Soccatoo in the afternoon, about two o’clock, after a tedious and wearisome journey of nearly a month. Not having seen my master for three months, I hastened to his house; but not finding him at home, I went to the Gadado’s, where, I was told, he had gone. My master was in earnest conversation with the Gadado and an old Arab, and was much surprised when informed of the reason of my leaving Kano: he spoke with warmth of the artful and unhandsome conduct of the sultan; and after this act of duplicity on the part of Bello, to the hour of his death, I never observed him to smile. My master had been ill of dysentery before my arrival, but was then much better. RESIDENCE AT SOCCATOO — MY MASTER’S DEATH — BURIAL. On the 13th December, the day after my arrival, Sultan Bello sent for my master and myself to repair to his residence. As soon as we entered, he began to make inquiries of the nature of the presents I had with me, and was extremely desirous to know if I had left any with Hadji Ben Sallah for the sheik of Bornou. I replied, I had not. “Are you sure you have not?” said he. I again answered with firmness in the negative. The sultan then demanded the king of England’s letters to the sheik of Bornou, which my master reluctantly produced; but refused to accede to the sultan’s request to open and read them, observing that, when his king discovered, on his return to his country, he had so unfaithfully broken his trust, he would immediately be beheaded. The sultan himself took the letters, and waving his hand for us to withdraw, we left the apartment. We had not been in our hut more than a couple of hours when the Gadado, his brother, Hadji Ben Sallah, and several of the principal inhabitants of Soccatoo, entered, and demanded, in the name of Bello, the presents intended for the sheik of Bornou, together with all the arms and ammunition we did not want ourselves. My master became deeply agitated when he had heard their errand, and rising up from his couch, exclaimed with much energy and bitterness—“There is no faith in any of you; you are an unjust people; you are worse than highway robbers.” They cautioned him to be more guarded in his expressions, or it might cost him his head. “If I lose my head,” rejoined my master in the same determined manner, “I lose it for speaking for the just rights of my country only.” Ben Sallah and others entreated him to moderate his anger, or it might indeed be fatal to him. I also implored him to accede to the demands of the sultan, how unjust and tyrannic soever they might be, observing, that two debilitated white men stood no chance in holding out against the united force of so many Fellatas, who only waited the command of their sovereign to assassinate them. After much entreaty, and not without considerable reluctance, my master desired that they should be given to them; and said to the Gadado, on his leaving the hut, “Tell your sovereign