- This afternoon a spy from Kaarta brought the alarming
intelligence that Daisy had taken Simbing in the morning, and would
be in Jarra some time in the course of the ensuing day.
Early in
the morning nearly one-half of the townspeople took the road for
Bambarra, by the way of Deena.
Their departure was very affecting, the women and children crying,
the men sullen and dejected, and all of them looking back with
regret on their native town, and on the wells and rocks beyond which
their ambition had never tempted them to stray, and where they had
laid all their plans of future happiness, all of which they were now
forced to abandon, and to seek shelter among strangers.
June 27. - About eleven o'clock in the forenoon we were alarmed by
the sentinels, who brought information that Daisy was on his march
towards Jarra, and that the confederate army had fled before him
without firing a gun. The terror of the townspeople on this
occasion is not easily to be described. Indeed, the screams of the
women and children, and the great hurry and confusion that
everywhere prevailed, made me suspect that the Kaartans had already
entered the town; and although I had every reason to be pleased with
Daisy's behaviour to me when I was at Kemmoo, I had no wish to
expose myself to the mercy of his army, who might in the general
confusion mistake me for a Moor. I therefore mounted my horse, and
taking a large bag of corn before me, rode slowly along with the
townspeople, until we reached the foot of a rocky hill, where I
dismounted and drove my horse up before me.
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