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For some days they travelled on a line with the banks of the river; they then crossed the river Nerico, and on the 20th May, came to Bady, in the territory of Tenda. The chief of that place behaved with great audacity and violence; and some of his people having carried off the guide's horse, and Isaaco demanding it in person, he was seized, flogged, and detained as a prisoner.
However, since they were determined to go without me, they might do so, and whether I should be released or die; they should hear it soon enough at Sego. Park not returning in time to his country, his friends had appointed Isaaco to be the bearer of that present, which is with him now, and is destined for Sego, to the King our master.
The animals as well as their loads were marked and numbered with red paint, and a certain number allotted to the care of each of the six messes into which the soldiers were divided. Mr Scott and Isaaco generally led, Lieutenant Martyn marched in the centre, and Anderson and Park brought up the rear. All their forethought, however, could not guard them against the deadly attacks of the climate.
This proved effectual. The crocodile rose to the surface, dashed about a while as if stupified, and then swam down the middle of the river. Isaaco landed on the other side, bleeding copiously. He was so much lacerated as for a time to be unfit for travelling; and as his guidance was indispensable to the party, they waited four days, to give his wounds time to heal.
These reports proved to be false, for Isaaco himself arrived in a canoe from Sego, bringing back all the articles sent to Mansong, who had directed that they should be taken up to Samee, and that he would send a person to receive them from Park's own hands.
"No event," Park remarks, "which took place during the journey ever threw the smallest gloom over his mind till he laid Mr Anderson in the grave. He then felt himself left a second time lonely and friendless amidst the wilds of Africa." Some days before this, Isaaco had returned with a large canoe, but much decayed and patched.
Park or his effects; the relations of several travellers who had passed the same country, agreeing with Amadou's Journal; being certain of the truth of what he had said, and of the dangers I should have run to no purpose in such a distant part; all these reasons induced me to proceed no farther. After obtaining the belt, I thought it best to return to Senegal. Further Intelligence from Isaaco.
The next day, the 4th of July, the river Wanda, which they reached, was found to be greatly swollen. There was but one canoe. In this the baggage was carried over, and Isaaco endeavoured to make the asses cross by swimming and pushing them before him.
Who does not recollect with warm interest, that Isaaco the guide, in his last journey of the unfortunate Mungo Park, was seized twice near Boulinkombro, and that he escaped from the throat of the monster solely by thrusting his fingers into his two eyes? The African Isaaco and the young American girl owed their safety to the same presence of mind, and the same combination of ideas."
Alarmed by these, and feeling a deep interest in his fate, Governor Maxwell, of Sierra Leone, engaged Isaaco, the guide, who had been sent to the Gambia with despatches from the Niger, to undertake a fresh journey to inquire after him. At Sansanding he was so far fortunate as to meet Amadi Fatouma, who had been engaged to succeed himself as interpreter.
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