The Sultan Apprised Them Of His Intention To Pay Them A Visit, And Offered To Send People To Guide Them Through The Ledges Of Rock, Which Run Quite Across The Channel Of The River A Little Below The Town, Where The Banks Rise Into High Hills On Both Sides.

Instead of waiting for the sultan, they set off at night, and by daybreak next morning, a horseman arrived at Youri, to inform the sultan that the boat had struck upon the rocks.

The people on both sides of the river then began to assail them with arrows, upon which they threw overboard all their effects, and two white men, arm and arm, jumped into the water, two slaves only remaining in the boat, with some books and papers, and several guns. One of the books was covered with wax-cloth, and still remained in the hands of the sultan of Youri. Gomsoo also told Clapperton, and his account was confirmed by others, that the sultan of Youri was a native of Sockna, in the regency of Tripoli, and prided himself extremely on his birth, but that he was such a drunkard, whenever any person of consequence came to visit him, that nothing proved so acceptable a present as a bottle of rum.

On Clapperton's return home from Gomsoo's, he found a message had been left for him to wait upon the sultan, which he complied with immediately after breakfast. He received him in an inner apartment, attended only by a few slaves. After asking Clapperton how he did, and several other chit chat questions, he was not a little surprised, without a single question being put to him on the subject, to hear, that if he wished to go to Nyffee, there were two roads leading to it, the one direct, but beset by enemies; the other safer, but more circuitous; that by either route he would be detained during the rains, in a country at present in a state of rebellion, and therefore that he ought to think seriously of these difficulties. Clapperton assured the sultan that he had already taken the matter into consideration, and that he was neither afraid of the dangers of the roads nor of the rains. "Think of it with prudence," the sultan replied, and they parted.

From the tone and manner in which the sultan pronounced the latter sentence, Clapperton felt a foreboding that his intended visit to Youri and Nyffee was at an end. He could not help suspecting the intrigues of the Arabs to be the cause, as they knew well, if the native Africans were once acquainted with English commerce by the way of the sea, their own lucrative inland trade would from that moment cease. He was much perplexed during the whole of the day, to know how to act, and went after sunset to consult Mahomed Gomsoo. Clapperton met him at the door of his house, on his way to the sultan, and stopped him to mention what had passed, and how unaccountably strange it appeared to him, that the sultan, after having repeatedly assured him of being at liberty to visit every part of his dominions, should now, for the first time, seem inclined to withdraw that permission, adding, that before he came to Sockna, he never heard of a king making a promise one day and breaking it the next.

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