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.
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