On the 25th of September, while I was at prayer, I felt myself ill from exhaustion: Moxé asked me if I had a fever, and I told him the cause of my illness, adding, that I had great difficulty to support this way of living; but I hoped, nevertheless, that I should become used to it in time. After prayer the king offered me a sheep, advising me to cook it myself, because, if I trusted to the Moors, they would devour it all. I accepted the offer; but, no doubt, fearful lest I should not take his advice, and with a view to save me from the rapacity of his subjects, he took care not to send me the sheep! It is probable that I owed this good turn to Moxé; for I was told by Fatmé-Anted-Moctar, that Moxé had endeavoured to prejudice the king against me: he insinuated, as I found, that it was not the love of God, but curiosity, which had brought me among them, and that I should not be likely to remain very long. Fortunately, some of the marabouts took my part, and the king said himself, that he could not believe that curiosity alone would have induced me to come amongst them to suffer such privations, and that God must have wrought a miracle in my behalf in operating my conversion. I thought I could perceive a little jealousy in Moxé’s conduct with respect to me, and he probably feared that my presence, when I should have learned Arabic, would render his own needless. No doubt this was what also induced the negro, whom I mentioned as my interpreter in the first conversation I had with the king, to tell him I had not been shipwrecked, but that I had committed some atrocious crime among the whites, who had expelled me for it. Although the king laughed at all this, it did not fail to diminish his confidence, and I could perceive from day to day that I lost something of the esteem with which I had at first inspired him. I was extremely desirous to leave the camp, not only on this account, but because I could learn nothing; it consisted entirely of warriors, who did not trouble their heads about study, and my marabout was too much engaged to give me lessons. I opened my mind to the marabout, who entered entirely into my views, and persuaded me to ask the king for a beast of some sort to convey me to his camp, where his son, he assured me, would undertake to instruct me. Hamet-Dou told me to wait a few days and he would send me thither.