It is quite impossible to describe the value of his kindness to us on all occasions; and this last proof of his liberality to poor wanderers, whose country he scarcely knew the name of before our arrival, surpassed all we could have expected. Knowing us through the medium of the bashaw of Tripoli only, his disinterested conduct could have been alone the dictation of a generous confidence; and his own penetration and sagacity had long since convinced him of the perfect innocence of our intentions in visiting his country, notwithstanding the injurious reports to the contrary, which had been communicated to his subjects, through the ill will or ignorance of some of the Fezzan merchants: he had sent me apparel from his own house on hearing the news of my forlorn state, after escaping out of the hands of the Felatahs, and had astonished the people about him by his exclamations of sorrow on the first report reaching him of my death. Kaffir as they thought me, he mentioned my escape in his letter to Barca Gana—which met us on our return—as a proof of the protection of God’s providence, in a manner which made a visible alteration in the conduct, not only of the chief, but of the whole army, towards me; and every part of his conduct tended to convince us, that his protection and confidence proceeded more from the opinions he had formed of the grandeur and generosity of the English nation (and, we were willing to flatter ourselves, from his approbation of our conduct), than from any hope of repayment or remuneration from his ally the bashaw. The constant sickness of Doctor Oudney, who, nearly ever since our return from Munga, had been confined to his hut;—Hillman’s frequent attacks of ague and delirium, and the uncertainty as to the manner in which any supplies were to be obtained, to enable us either to proceed or return, tended but little to keep up our spirits;—my eyes had for some months been too weak to allow of my reading in the evening, or, indeed, of bearing the light in the hut for any length of time together; and we separated, from a mutual repugnance to conversation, from the dreariness of our prospects, almost immediately after our evening meal.