So interesting a person I had not seen in the country, and on my remaining some moments with my eyes fixed on her, she recommenced the salutation.  How is your health? &c., and smiling, asked with great naivete, whether I had not learned, during the last two months, a little more Arabic?  I assured her that I had.  Looking round to see if any body heard her, and having brought the hood over her face, she said, ’I first heard of your coming last night, and desired the slave to mention it to my brother.  I have always looked for your coming, and at night, because at night I have sometimes seen you. You were the first man whose hand I ever touched, but they all said it did not signify with you, an Insara (a Christian.) God turn your heart!  But my brother says you will never become Moslem—­won’t you, to please Abdi Zeleel’s sister? my mother says, God would never have allowed you to come, but for your conversion.’  By this time again the hood had fallen back, and I had again taken her hand, when the unexpected appearance of Abdi Zeleel, accompanied by the governor of the town, who came to visit me, was a most unwelcome interruption.  Omhal Henna quickly escaped; she had overstepped the line, and I saw her no more.”

On Wednesday the 30th October, they made their entree into Mourzouk, with all the parade and show that they could muster.  By Boo Khaloom’s presents to the bashaw, but chiefly on account of his having undertaken to conduct the travellers to Bornou, he had not only gained the bashaw’s favour, but had left Tripoli with strong proofs of his master’s consideration.  The inhabitants came out to meet them, and they entered the gates amidst the shouts of the people, preceded by singing and dancing women.  And the Arabs who formed their escort, made such repeated charges, upon their jaded and tired animals, that Major Denham expected some of them would “fall to rise no more.”  No living creatures can be treated worse than an Arab’s wife and his horse, and if plurality could be transferred from the marriage bed to the stable, both wives and horses would be much benefited by the change.

Major Denham could not quite resist a sensation of disappointment, that no friends came out to meet him, but as the sun was insufferably powerful, and as he had received a message by Boo Khaloom’s brother, from Dr. Oudney, that he was unwell, and that Lieutenant Clapperton had the ague, he did not much expect to see them.  He was, however, by no means prepared to see either of them so much reduced as they were.  He found that both his companions and Hillman, had been confined to their beds with hemma, (fever and ague,) had been delirious, and the doctor and Hillman only a little recovered.  Clapperton was still on his bed, which for fifteen days he had not quitted.  Doctor Oudney was suffering also from a severe complaint in his chest, arising from a cold caught during his excursion to Ghraat, and nothing could be more disheartening than their appearance.  The opinion of every body, Arabs, Tripolines, and Ritchie, and Lyon, their predecessors, were all unanimous as to the insalubrity of the air.  Every one belonging to the present expedition had been seriously disordered, and amongst the inhabitants themselves, any thing like a healthy-looking person was a rarity.