Niger

O C Mungo was now definitely in land unremote
^ ^from the coast. Leaving Malacotta, the
caravan threaded the great hills of Konkadoo,
‘ the Country of Mountains in the blinding glare
of heat. These were the great gold-bearing hills of
West Africa ; the natives smashed the white
quartz with stone hammers to bring forth the tiny
grains they showed to Mungo. He looked at them
with a polite disinterest, staring into that waiting
west that was still so far to seek.
For four days they climbed and adventured in
this hill-land. On the road Mungo encountered
his first negro albino, and stared at him in con¬
siderable distaste, a dank cadaverous creature. The
negro stared back an equal disgust. Probably he
was no true albino, but a native afflicted with
leprosy. On May the nth the weary footsore
caravan arrived at the town of Satadoo, where the
inhabitants lived in a state of terror on account of
the raiding depredations of the nearby Foulahs.
These raiders would descend through the forests at
night and carry off men and women into slavery,
blandly abducting them from the verge of the
cornfields, or even when they gossiped around the
village-well. The caravan made haste to be gone.
Next day they came to a ford in the Faleme River.
Long months before, Mungo had encountered and
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