Adventures now appeared to crowd upon our traveller. The country through which their road lay being thickly sprinkled with wild fruit-trees, they amused themselves as they rode slowly along with picking and eating the fruit. “In this pursuit,” says Park, “I had wandered a little from my people, and being uncertain whether they were before or behind me, I hastened to a rising ground to look about me. As I was proceeding towards this eminence, two negro horsemen, armed with muskets, came galloping from among the bushes. On seeing them I made a full stop; the horsemen did the same; and all three of us seemed equally surprised and confounded at this interview. As I approached them their fears increased, and one of them, after casting on me a look of horror, rode off at full speed; the other, in a panic of fear, put his hand over his eyes, and continued muttering prayers until his horse, seemingly without his rider’s knowledge, conveyed him slowly after his companion. About a mile to the westward they fell in with my attendants, to whom they related a frightful story; it seems their fears had dressed me in the flowing robes of a tremendous spirit; and one of them affirmed, that when I made my appearance, a cold blast of wind came pouring down upon him from the sky, like so much cold water.” Shortly after this they arrived at the capital of Kaarta, where he was an object of such extraordinary curiosity to the populace, the majority of whom had never before seen a white man, that they burst forcibly into his hut, crowd after crowd. Those who had beheld the monster giving way to those who had not, until, as he observes, the hut was filled and emptied thirteen different times. Here he found that the war with Bambarra had actually commenced; that all communication between the countries had consequently ceased; and that, if it was his determination to persevere, it would be necessary to take a circuitous route through the Moorish kingdom of Ludamar. The people of Kaarta were Mohammedans; but there is a variety in church discipline even among these inflexible fanatics; for, instead of the fine sonorous voice of the muezzin, by which the faithful are elsewhere summoned to their devotions, the hour of prayer was here announced by the beating of drums, and blowing through large elephant’s teeth, hollowed out in such a manner as to resemble buglehorns. The sound of these horns our traveller thought melodious, and approaching nearer to the human voice than any other artificial sound. Being very desirous to depart from the seat of war, Park presented his horse-pistols and holsters to the king; and on pressing to be dismissed, received in return an escort of eight horsemen to conduct him to Jarra. Three of the king’s sons, with two hundred horsemen, kindly undertook to accompany him a little way on his journey.