Being now arrived within a short distance of Pisania, from whence my
journey originally commenced, and learning that my friend Karfa was not
likely to meet with an immediate opportunity of selling his slaves on the
Gambia, it occurred to me to suggest to him that he would find it for his
interest to leave them at Jindey, until a market should offer. Karfa
agreed with me in this opinion; and hired from the chief man of the town,
huts for their accomodation, and a piece of land on which to employ them,
in raising corn, and other provisions for their maintenance. With regard
to myself, he declared that he would not quit me until my departure from
Africa. We set out accordingly, Karfa, myself, and one of the Foulahs
belonging to the coffle, early on the morning of the 9th; but although I
was now approaching the end of my tedious and toilsome journey, and
expected in another day to meet with countrymen and friends, I could not
part, for the last time, with my unfortunate fellow-travellers - doomed,
as I knew most of them to be, to a life of captivity and slavery in a
foreign land - without great emotion. During a wearisome peregrination of
more than five hundred British miles, exposed to the burning rays of a
tropical sun, these poor slaves, amidst their own infinitely greater
sufferings, would commiserate mine; and frequently of their own accord
bring water to quench my thirst, and at night collect branches and leaves
to prepare me a bed in the Wilderness.
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