Timbuktu and the Upper Niger were the goals of his journey. Like Denham and Clapperton, he took Tripoli as his starting-point. Thence he passed south-west to Ghadamis and the oasis of Twat. Between the latter and Timbuktu lay the wild wastes of the Sahara--never trodden by man without extreme risk of encounter with plunder and bloodshed-loving nomads, and death from thirst or privation. Even these factors of an African journey had their wild attraction for men of Laing’s temperament, adding a _sauce piquante_, as it were, to the otherwise monotonous march and daily routine of worry and privation. To such, too, the frowning immensity of the Sahara--the frightful desolation which marks its every feature--and the flaming sun and lurid heavens that hang above it, have elements which strike them with the profoundest feelings of awe, and leave an indelible impress on their minds. For sixteen days after leaving Twat, Laing underwent all these sensations in their most striking form; and that his experiences of desert travel might be complete, he was attacked at night by a party of Tuareg marauders, and left for dead, with no less than twenty-four wounds. Thanks, however, to the secret elixir of heroic minds and the soundness of his constitution, he miraculously recovered, and undismayed, continued his way to Timbuktu, which was reached on the 18th August 1826. Laing was the first European who had ever entered that historic city, which for four centuries had been the loadstone of kings, merchants, and savants. He arrived in an unhappy hour. Only a short time before the first waves of the approaching tide of Fulah influence had entered the region of the Upper Niger. Already Timbuktu had felt its strange power, though resenting the political position usurped by the ministers of the new revival. For a month Laing was allowed to remain unmolested. Then he was ordered to leave the city of the Faithful. There was no resisting the mandate, and he passed forth on the 22nd September, only to be foully murdered two days later by the people who had undertaken to escort him across the desert. With him unfortunately perished the records of his observations and inquiries.