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Here he remained from November, 1825, to January 1826, and then made his way to the Wâdy Ghât, intending to go from thence at once to Timbuctoo, making a tour of Lake Jenneh or Debbie, visiting the Melli country, and tracing the Niger to its mouth. He would then have retraced his steps as far as Sackatoo, visited Lake Tchad and attempted to reach the hill.

This lamp was fed by a kind of vegetable matter, not thick enough to be made into candles." The almamy soon informed Caillié of an opportunity for him to go to Timeh, whence a caravan was about to start for Jenneh.

He had hurt his foot, and the wound became very much inflamed by walking in wet grass. He therefore decided to let the caravan for Jenneh go on without him, and remain at Timeh until his foot should be completely healed. It would have been too great a risk for him in his state to travel through Bambarra, where the idolatrous inhabitants of the country would be pretty sure to rob him.

At Jenneh the travellers were all attacked with fever, the result of the great heat and the unhealthiness of the climate. Pearce and Morrison both died on the 27th December, the former soon after he left Jenneh with Clapperton, the latter at that town, to which he had returned to rest.

After winding about for some time among the rocks and brush in the dry bed of this wady we finally halt at Ain Jenneh, a good, strong fountain issuing from under a great rock. We are yet in the upper reaches of the wady and near the present village of Ajlun. Here we lunch and rest an hour. Some authorities identify this region as the place where was the "wood of Ephraim."

There are no large caravans constantly arriving in it, as at Jenneh; nor are there so many strangers there as in the latter town; whilst the market, held at three o'clock in the morning on account of the heat, appears deserted. Timbuctoo is inhabited by Kissour negroes, who seem of mild dispositions, and are employed in trade.

To make matters worse, the wound broke out afresh; and he would have been cured neither of it nor of the scurvy had it not been for the energetic treatment of an old negress, who was accustomed to doctor the scorbutic affections, so common in that country. On the 9th January, 1828, Caillié left Timeh, and reached Kimba, a little village where the caravan for Jenneh was assembled.