repeatedly, but observing that it always pointed the same way, he took it up with great caution, and returned it to me, manifesting that he thought there was something of magic in it, and that he was afraid of keeping so dangerous an instrument in his possession.” It now began to be debated between Ali and his advisers what should be done with their prisoner. Their decisions were very dissimilar. Some were of opinion that he should be put to death; others that he should merely lose his right hand; while a third party thought that his eyes ought to be put out. Ali himself, however, determined that matters should remain as they were until his queen Fatima, then in the north, had seen him. Meanwhile all these reports were related to our traveller, and tended not a little to distress and agitate his mind. His demand to be permitted to depart was formally refused. The accumulated horrors of his situation, united with the want of food and sleep, at length brought on a fever, by which his life was endangered. But his persecution from the Moors did not therefore cease. They plucked his cloak from him; they overwhelmed him with insults; they tortured him like some ferocious animal, for their amusement; and when, to escape from this detestable thraldom, he crawled away to a short distance from the camp, he was forced back by menaces and violence. At length, after more than a month’s detention at Benowm, he was commanded to follow Ali to the northern encampment of Bubaker, on the skirts of the Great Desert, and on the way endured the extremity of hunger, thirst, and fatigue. Upon arriving at Bubaker, he was shown as a strange animal to Fatima; who, though far from being exempt from the Moorish prejudices against a Christian, or in any remarkable degree disposed to humanity, still treated him with somewhat greater lenity than the rest of the Moors; and, upon the departure of her husband for Jarra, not only obtained him permission to join the party, but prevailed upon the tyrant to restore him his horse, saddle, and bridle, together with a part of his apparel. His faithful black boy Demba, however, was taken from him, notwithstanding his animated remonstrances to Ali, who, upon his pressing the point rather warmly, only replied, that if he did not instantly mount his horse and depart, he should share the fate of his slave. “There is something in the frown of a tyrant,” says Park, “which rouses the most secret emotions of the heart; I could not suppress my feelings; and for once entertained an indignant wish to rid the world of such a monster. Poor Demba was not less affected than myself; he had formed a strong attachment towards me, and had a cheerfulness of disposition which often beguiled the tedious hours of captivity; he was likewise a proficient in the Bambarra tongue, and promised, on that account, to be of great use to me in future. But it was in vain to expect any thing favourable to humanity from a people who are strangers to its dictates.