- My Guides Informed Me That In Order To Avoid The
Moorish Banditti It Was Necessary To Travel In The Night; We
Accordingly Departed From Funingkedy In The Afternoon, Accompanied
By About Thirty People, Carrying Their Effects With Them Into
Ludamar, For Fear Of The War.
We travelled with great silence and
expedition until midnight, when we stopped in a sort of enclosure,
near a small village; but the thermometer being so low as 68
degrees, none of the negroes could sleep on account of the cold.
At daybreak on the 18th we resumed our journey, and at eight o'clock
passed Simbing, the frontier village of Ludamar, situated on a
narrow pass between two rocky hills, and surrounded with a high
wall. From this village Major Houghton (being deserted by his negro
servants, who refused to follow him into the Moorish country) wrote
his last letter with a pencil to Dr. Laidley. This brave but
unfortunate man, heaving surmounted many difficulties, had taken a
northerly direction, had endeavoured to pass through the kingdom of
Ludamar, where I afterwards learned the following particulars
concerning his melancholy fate:- On his arrival at Jarra he got
acquainted with certain Moorish merchants who were travelling to
Tisheet (a place near the salt pits in the Great Desert, ten days'
journey to the northward) to purchase salt; and the Major, at the
expense of a musket and some tobacco, engaged them to convey him
thither. It is impossible to form any other opinion on this
determination than that the Moors intentionally deceived him, either
with regard to the route that he wished to pursue, or the state of
the intermediate country between Jarra and Timbuctoo. Their
intention probably was to rob and leave him in the desert. At the
end of two days he suspected their treachery, and insisted on
returning to Jarra. Finding him persist in this determination, the
Moors robbed him of everything he possessed, and went off with their
camels; the poor Major being thus deserted, returned on foot to a
watering-place in possession of the Moors, called Tarra. He had
been some days without food, and the unfeeling Moors refusing to
give him any, he sank at last under his distresses. Whether he
actually perished of hunger, or was murdered outright by the savage
Mohammedans, is not certainly known; his body was dragged into the
woods, and I was shown at a distance the spot where his remains were
left to perish.
About four miles to the north of Simbing we came to a small stream
of water, where we observed a number of wild horses they were all of
one colour, and galloped away from us at an easy rate, frequently
stopping and looking back. The negroes hunt them for food, and
their flesh is much esteemed.
About noon we arrived at Jarra, a large town situated at the bottom
of some rocky hills.
CHAPTER IX - THE TOWN OF JARRA - DETAINED BY THE MOORS.
The town of Jarra is of considerable extent; the houses are built of
clay and stone intermixed - the clay answering the purpose of mortar.
It is situated in the Moorish kingdom of Ludamar; but the major part
of the inhabitants are negroes, from the borders of the southern
states, who prefer a precarious protection under the Moors, which
they purchase by a tribute, rather than continue exposed to their
predatory hostilities.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 47 of 88
Words from 23950 to 24514
of 45803
