Niger

about to invade Ludamar. Benowm was thrown
into confusion. One of Ali’s sons came riding into
the town of tents and ordered them to be struck
immediately and all the cattle driven away to the
north. Mungo looked on at the scramble and
confusion of a Moorish settlement threatened by
invaders. Northwards (but where exactly was not
yet divulged) Ali was gathering the army of the
tribe about him.
Next day Benowm struck camp. Baggage was
piled on bullocks, and the fat females who had been
roused to a tepid curiosity on the subject of Mungo’s
generation and genitals were piled on top of the
baggage. Camels groaned under concubines. Con¬
cubines groaned under canopies and the stress of
fear. Benowm decamped.
Mungo went with it, but whether on foot or
horseback he does not say. The country was sandy
waste. But towards evening they came in the
neighbourhood of a thick low wood and a negro
village. Mungo and a portion of the refugee
exodus halted here, Mungo and his blacks left to
fast, as usual.
Next day, the ist of May, Mungo stole out to the
negro village and begged food from its native
governor, the duti. His wants were readily supplied.
Like themselves, the negroes saw in him the
tormented slave of the Arabs.
142