It would appear that, after he had made himself completely acquainted with Timbuctoo, he wished to see Cabra and the Dhioliba. But had he left the city in the day time he would have incurred the greatest danger from the Tooariks, who are continually roaming about the environs of Timbuctoo, and whose attack he had too much reason to remember. He determined to set off during the night. This was wise, for though the Tooariks dared not touch him while he staid in the town, they would have wrecked their vengeance on him had they caught him beyond its limits, and murdered as well as robbed him. Taking advantage of a dark night, Major Laing mounted his horse, and, unaccompanied by a single native, reached Cabra, and even, it is said, the banks of the Dhioliba, without accident. On his return to Timbuctoo, he ardently wished, instead of proceeding to Europe by the desert, to travel by Jenné and Sego, ascending the Dhioliba, whence he might have reached the French factories on the Senegal. But, no sooner had he communicated his plan to the Foulahs established on the borders of the Dhioliba; (a great number of whom had resorted to Timbuctoo, on hearing of the arrival of a christian) than they all declared they would never suffer a _nasarah_ to set foot in their territory, and if he made the attempt, they warned him that he would have cause to repent it. The major, perceiving that he could do nothing with these fanatics, chose the rout of el-Arawan, where he hoped to join a caravan of Moorish merchants, conveying salt to Sansanding; but alas! after journeying five days to the north of Timbuctoo, the caravan with which he had come up was stopped by Sheikh Hamet-oul’d-Habib, an old fanatic, chief of the tribe of Zawât, who wander in the desert of that name. Sheikh Hamet seized the major, under pretence of his having entered his territory without permission. He then wished to compel him to acknowledge Mahomet to be prophet of God, and required him even to make the salam. Laing relying too confidently on the protection of the pacha of Tripoli, who had recommended him to all the sheikhs of the desert, refused to obey Hamet, who more and more urgently insisted on his acknowledging himself a Musulman. Laing continued firm, and chose to die rather than yield; a resolution which made one of the most intelligent of travellers a martyr to the cause of science. A Moor, belonging to the train of the chief of the Zawâts, who was directed by his master to kill the christian, refused to execute his order. “What!” said he, “do you wish me to slay the first christian who has come among us, and one who has done us no injury? give the commission to another; I will not be the instrument of his death; kill him yourself.” This address suspended for a moment the fatal sentence, and the question of Laing’s life or death was warmly debated for some time. At length the latter was decided on. Some black slaves were summoned, and they were ordered to perform the