Soon after our arrival at Kayaye, we paid a visit to the chief, or, as he is there called, the king of Katoba. He resides at a town of that name distant from Kayaye about twenty miles north. The road or path to it lies over a flat uncultivated country thinly covered with brush wood and stunted trees. The soil, for the most part, is an ocre-coloured clay intermixed here and there with small fragments of ferruginous stone, which, in several places, makes its appearance above the surface in the form of large rocks. Some small eminences are entirely composed of this rock, which the natives say contains a large proportion of iron, but, from the facility the river affords them of procuring an abundant supply of that metal from the English merchants, they do not now think it worth the trouble of extracting. The blacksmiths of the country say, that it is more malleable than English iron, and better suited to all their wants, were the process of obtaining it not so difficult. The king received us hospitably, and, on being made acquainted with the purport of our visit, promised every protection and assistance he could afford us, adding that whenever we wished to proceed on our journey, he would furnish us with a guide to Woolli. On our way to this town, which is a walled one, of no very great extent or respectable appearance, we passed only two small villages, one of which is about a mile from Kayaye, and is solely inhabited by Mahomedan priests (_bushreens_). From the very great want we were in of a sufficient number of animals, to transport our baggage, in consequence of the death of all our camels and some of our horses, since our arrival at Kayaye, and the difficulty, nay impossibility, of procuring a supply there, we had determined on leaving behind us a large proportion of it, and moving without delay; for which purpose it became necessary to open the greater number of the packages, to select the most valuable articles. This had scarcely been begun, when Mr. Partarrieau, whom I had sent from Bathurst to Senegal to purchase camels, arrived, bringing intelligence that he had despatched a moor, named Bon-ama, from that place before he had left it, with ten camels and five horses, whom I might expect to see in a few days, as he was coming by the shortest land route from Senegal, namely, through Kayor and Salum. All preparations being made, we only waited the arrival of Bon-ama, who not making his appearance on the 15th, I began to apprehend that some accident had happened, either to himself, or the animals. The 17th, however, brought him to Kayaye, having had two of his horses killed by lions, and been obliged to leave two of the camels sick at a village about fifteen miles from us. His arrival at that moment was particularly fortunate, as it enabled us to take forward the whole of our baggage, and a good supply of rice, which we had just received from St. Mary’s.