The emír of the place, of the name of Kaúri, who was a good-natured man, and whose colleague, Belle, was absent at the time, having advised my protector to take me again out of the town for a few days, till the kádhi Áhmed Weled Fʿaamme, who was going to Hamda-Alláhi, and who was especially hostilely disposed towards me, should have left, we again set out, on the morning of the 17th October; but, having stayed in the encampment that night and the following morning, we returned to the town the same afternoon, but left again on the morning of the 20th, when the kafla of the Tawátíye was ready to set out on their journey to the north, and stayed with them during the heat of the day. They were encamped in about twenty-four small leathern tents, round the well where we had a few days previously watered our horses, and mustered more than fifty muskets, each of them being armed, moreover, with a spear and sword; but notwithstanding their numbers, and the circumstance that a rather respectable man, of the name of Háj Áhmed, the wealthiest person of Insála or ʿAín-Sála, was among them, and was to accompany them as far as Mʿamún, I felt no inclination to go with this caravan, and thus to deprive myself of the opportunity of surveying the river, nor did my protector himself seem to find in this northerly road any sufficient guarantee for my safe return home. I therefore only made use of this opportunity in order to send to Europe, by way of Ghadámes, a short report of my arrival in Timbúktu, and a general outline of the political circumstances connected with my stay in the city. The caravan having started the following morning, we stayed two days longer in the camp, and then once more returned into the town, without any further difficulty, in the company of Sídi Álawáte, who had come out to join us with a body of armed followers, and who behaved now, on the whole, much more amiably towards me. He even gave me some interesting particulars with respect to Ségo[129], which place he had visited some time before, levying upon Dembo, then king of Bámbara, a heavy contribution of gold. This king who was sprung from a Púllo mother, had succeeded his father Farma, the son of the king mentioned by Mungo Park under the name of Mansong, two years previously.[130]